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Writing Thoughts: The Story Is Just Part Of The Story

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

When you make a story of any kind, the beginning isn’t the beginning and the end isn’t the end. Any truly living story is just a slice of something much larger. I learned this lesson lately.

As I’ve begun the final edits of my novel, A Bridge To The Quiet Planet, I had decided to try writing short fiction on the side. I had many ideas, from using random stories to doing more in the setting of my novel. The idea seemed fun, interesting, different, and relaxing – and maybe profitable.

With my first attempt in draft form, I handed it off to some friends to edit, confident that if I could get such good reactions to my novel draft, this was sure to be of equal quality. However, one of my editors was extremely critical – he noted how it was constrained, limited, and it didn’t seem to be like my other work. How could I have gone so wrong?

At first annoyed, I sat down and analyzed his voluminous comments (this person is someone I’m trying to push towards pro writing and editing). Soon I realized that he had a point.

There wasn’t the sense of setting I usually created – I write on Worldbuilding but this world didn’t seem alive. There was little sense of extra details or of things going on around the characters. It was like a studio backlot.

I didn’t do much with character senses or feelings. The tale was limited and scriptlike, minimal on sensations. Even with the rather intellectual cast of my experiment, the focus was too literal.

Characters themselves seemed constrained – only when they really interacted were they characters. They also didn’t interact well with the setting. It was like actors wandering through a soundstage.

My story, in short, wasn’t alive. So I asked myself how did I get here – and the answer became very apparent.

I had taken a break from fiction for awhile, and returned to it with my novel. To do the novel I had used various plotting and outlining techniques, and I tried to do the same for the short story. I had produced a very detailed outlining system for short stories, ensuring I got to the point and didn’t overdo it.

I had built a skeleton for a story. However I’d put very little meat on the bones – the minimal at best. I had created a system, but not created much of a story, at least to my standards and that of my friend.

With this idea in mind, I examined some of my other short story ideas that had been incubating – and they felt much more alive. These were ideas that had been sitting around for some time, that were played with and thought over. Because of this imagining and re-imagining, they were more connected, more alive, more nuanced.

This story I had just attempted was the least thought-over and least nuanced. Too much of it was alienated from itself.

That’s when the lesson of all of this hit me like a thunderbolt – you don’t write a story, you write part of one.

A story should be a slice of your setting, a piece of the history of that setting, a small and interesting part of a much larger potential. It should have characters who are not sprung into being at the start, but are created and written so they feel like they have pasts and futures outside of your story. Everything should feel large, no matter how short the story is.

Now these things may not be immediately apparent – you may have a story idea and need to better realize the world and characters. You may only need so much detail. But you need enough for the story to be alive because it’s part of something larger, at least conceptually and imaginatively.

Based on this idea, I’m back at it. I can’t say what you may or may not see, but if you do see any short fiction from me, I think it’ll be much better.
– Steve

A Bridge To The Quiet Planet – The Reformation

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Let’s get to know more about the setting of my upcoming novel, A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.  It’s out late this fall but you can find out about the world now . . .

The Reformation

If the War that scarred Telvaren is remembered as a hideous occurrence, enshrined in history and dramas, The Reformation is viewed proudly – and at times with whimsy. Comedies set during the Reformation are not uncommon.

The Reformation is the name given to the period of time where humanity reassembled itself and civilization on Telvaren and outreach was made to the other worlds. All dates are now reckoned from the start, and thus time is often done as AR (After Reformation) and BR (before reformation).

The Reformation was a seemingly near-endless series of meetings, councils, and committees that solidified the new laws and social policies that would govern the recovering world. Humankind and the gods both took part in the proceedings over the decades.

This was an era of comparative peace, but military conflicts between the remaining smaller nations, regions fallen into chaos, and even Great Cities was not unknown. The Reformation is officially reckoned to have lasted some fifty years, though the major work was accomplished in the first decade – but smaller conflicts over land and military bases and territioes occured for over a century.

War had been shrunk down to a managable, intermittent thing, mostly when City Guard units faced off over some piece of land that people assumed were important, but couldn’t prove why.

The major achievements of the Reformation were, in very rough chronological order.

  • Establishment of a planetary government (well most of the planet – the Unaffiliated Territories weren’t invited) run by an elected Parliament, represented by population for the most part, and a Prime Minister and a set of specialist Ministers elected within the Parliament.
  • Establishing the divisions among the armed forces and peacekeepers. Constables operated within cities and were armed only if needed. City Guard operated within the City Provinces and were armed as well as working on civic works. The Military operated outside the Provinces and on any cross-Province activities – in time this also came to claim most of the Ocean and airspace.
  • Recognition of the importance of the Network and making the technical organization known as the Technmoni the keepers of The Network. Led to the establishment of the Third Network.
  • Recognition of the Bridgers and their role in establishing and maintaining the Bridges.
  • Codification of universal laws shared by all Great Cities (though agreement took decades longer)
  • Moving the Parliament of the Great Cities to Allanax, a former capital of the most powerful nation of the West. Arguably Parliament moved to a city just outside of Allanax, but that didn’t work out considering the living conditions. There was also an attempt to establish it on the Moon, but no one wanted the commute.
  • Adsorption of assorted Knightly groups, warrior cults, and monster-hunting organizations into the Military.
  • Recognition of major Guilds, unions, and other professional organizations (which also helped lend the new Government credibility).
  • Establishing a more organized set of laws and policies for interaction between humans and gods – this also resulted in the recognition of Triad True as the major center of theological activity. Encouraging Warrior cults and groups not interested in becoming part of the Military to form organized Warrior Lodges and to engage in public service. It is apparent, if ignored by many, that the goal was to make them more into sports teams than military groups – and it seems to have succeeded, especially with the product endorsements rolled in.  However it took about fifty or more years.

Within a lifetime, the world saw peace, or if not peace, at least a place where conflict was highly localized so you could call it peace if you squinted. As of moder times, in the era of roughly 250 AR, war is unknown and conflict among Cities is mostly sniping, economic, and competitive.

The reformation’s exact end is not unknown, but is assumed to be between 48 AR and 53 AR. Most people round off at 50 AR and are done with it. History records that it didn’t even get a name for a good fifteen years, and was only named after someone realized there was an ongoing process and filed a petition to name it. Even then the term didn’t on for for another three years.

Because it is so well regarded – and because there were incredible amounts of debate, arguing, negotiation, and strange goings-on – The Reformation is oftern portrayed in a humorous light in popular culture. Several notable comedies are set during the time, and almost always focus on jokes about elaborate argumentation, characters wittily putting each other down civilly, comedies of manners, and bureaucracy. “Reformation-style” comedy refers is sometimes used to refer to humor of this nature generally.

The end of the Reformation is celebrated with the Unity Festival, though for over 200 years the festival’s exact activities and date keep changing because no one quite agreed on what it should be. Fortunately, people still argue about it peaceably – which may be the best way to celebrate the rebuilding of the world.

 

– Steve

The Brainstorm Book Method: Creative Challenges

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new column series. It’s a followup to an old series I did on how to use a brainstorm book. I’ve decided I need to rewrite to include my later insights, improve the writing, and explore it further.  If all goes well I might turn it into a book.

But let’s get to what’s important – the Challenges of Creativity.  These are why you need some method anyway.

Creative Challenges That Plague Us

Creativity is something we all rely on. For some of us, such as writers and graphic artists, it may be the core part of our careers. For others, it may be part of what we do, like creating presentations or infographics. Even if creative work isn’t part of our career it may well be part of our hobbies, recreations, and goals.

To be creative, as so many of us need to be, we need inspirations. We need those lighting-bolt ideas that come out of the blue, or slowly—incubated dreams that suddenly come to life. Inspiration is where the connections come together so we can make new things.

The problem is that creativity brings in a lot of challenges – a lot to fear.

We fear a lack of inspiration. We are terrified that our new ideas and innovations will just dry up. Without those creative sparks, we can’t do what we want to do – and the fear of losing them makes it worst.

We might fear too much innovation. Ideas come thick and fast, new possibilities intrude on our thoughts as we’re dealing with past inspirations. We get overloaded trying to keep up with what we might do – it almost makes a lack of inspiration welcome.

We fear losing ideas. No matter how many we have, too many or too few, we need to keep track of them to cultivate them and develop them. How we track them and evaluate them becomes critical to our creative work.

We fear not knowing how to focus. We have our dreams and ideas, we want to develop them – but which do we focus on? What creative work comes next?

We fear not knowing how to plan long term. It’s a problem to focus short term, but how do we arrange all these ideas for long-term? Will some never come to fruition? Should others be moved up in priority?

We fear being blocked. What do we do next? Why did this great idea suddenly stop energizing us? Perhaps the greatest fear creative people have is when things just stop in our heads.

If you sit back and think about it, creative work can be very stressful. Thinking over what can go wrong can paralyze us and make our creative efforts even harder to do. There’s an irony in that.

. . . maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

However, even if I’ve suddenly destroyed your confidence, I do have a solution I’ll be discussing in the upcoming blog posts – what I call a Brainstorm Book method.

The Brainstorm Book – A Quick Overview

The Brainstorm Book Method is actually three things.

  • First, it’s a physical thing – a book you record ideas in. You use this book to capture ideas.
  • Second, it’s a system – a way to use those ideas to maximize your creativity and prioritize them. You review the book at certain intervals, capturing and prioritizing ideas regularly.
  • Third, it’s a philosophy – a way to think about creativity. This helps you innovate and make your own methods or tweak my methods to fit you.

I’ll be exploring this method over the weeks to come – to help you out with your creative work and maybe put some of those fears to rest.

Remember, this is not just for artists or writers. This is for anyone that needs to imagine, dream, and creative – which is really anyone. From home cooks innovating new recipies to someone trying to figure out better memo systems on the job, we all create.

So, next column, let’s talk about your Brainstorm Book.  Er, the physical one.

– Steve