Heroes for CF

            It is once again May, and you know what that means? It’s Cystic Fibrosis awareness month! So here I am, doing my part to raise the awareness of Cystic Fibrosis.

            Now, the easiest way for me to do this is to just send you over here, to last year’spost, but that seems a bit repetitive. So, instead, I’ll give you an even briefer rundown on what Cystic Fibrosis is, and tell you what I’m doing to help fight it.

            CF is a genetic disease that causes a whole bunch of problems for the person who has it – primarily digestive and respiratory – that will almost always lead to death through persistent damage. Since research started, the life expectancy of someone with CF has grown from 6 months to up to 50 years – although the average is still in the upper 30s.

            Last year I helped out with running an event called D&D for CF – a 12 hour Dungeons & Dragons marathon to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis research. It was amazing! We raised over $4000 and everyone had a lot of fun. However, there was one part of out plan that fell through. Jeremy, the primary organizer of this event, has a daughter with CF who was supposed to attend the event, as she is the reason the event was being run in the first place. Unfortunately, her symptoms were acting up and she had to be rushed to the hospital the morning of the event. It was terribly sad – though oddly appropriate, as there was a room full of people fighting for her the whole day.

            This year, the marathon is back! We’ve renamed it to Heroes for CF, and on May 19^th we’re going to have another full day of D&D, raising money to find a cure for this disease. I can’t tell you much about it, but I’m already confident it’ll be even more fun than last year – hopefully we’ll raise as much, too.

            If you want to join the fight against CF, but couldn’t sign up for the event or find someone who did that you could donate to, I suggest stopping by over here to donate through Avril’s Angels. Finding a cure for this disease is a great cause, and every little bit helps.

            Also tell your friends, or blog about it, because the more people who know about Cystic Fibrosis, the easier it’ll be to find a cure.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Make it Your Own

            One of the ways I survived the school system was by taking assignments and making the suit myself. I was always an incredibly odd person, and I tended to find projects boring and stifling. Most of them were along the lines of “Read these books and then tell us what they say in your own words”, which is stupid. It’s intended to prove that the student has learned from the material, but it’s really reaching how to find creative ways to reword things so you don’t plagiarize.

            So, whenever possible, I found loopholes that would allow me to make projects truly my own. In tech class, when instructed to make a boring mousetrap car, I made a mousetrap car that was conveniently a sword once I took the wheels off. In drama, when told to write a play about a situation that could actually happen, I time-traveled it back to a medieval setting so I could actually write something interesting. However, my crowning achievement in this was when I was 16 and I was instructed to make “visual essay”.

            This was in my Introduction to Sociology, Psychology, and Anthropology class (try saying that ten times fast). We were to research a nation of our choice and prepare a visual display that presented the information – the example we were given was a mobile with snippets of information balanced and hanging from threads. We were then to make a presentation on our research, and there were bonus marks for bringing in a snack from the researched culture.

            I started off annoyed at this project, but then an image for a project started to form in my mind – and I became delighted by it. I was pushing the boundaries a little, but that’s when I did my best work. Instead of choosing a country I was particularly interested in, I chose one that fit my vision: Fiji.

            Then I started to construct a paper mache palm tree. A 6 foot tall paper mache palm tree. It took a very long time, even with the help of my parents. From the tree hung several paper mashe coconuts. It was completed the night before the presentation.

            The next day, I stood before my class, with them and the teacher gaping at this monstrosity beside me (and munching on the Fiji-related coconut-based snack I’d brought in). I pulled out a knife, and cut open the paper mache coconuts, revealing inside the points of information and pictures on the required research topics. It was one of my strangest projects, and will always be one of my favorites.

            The favorite part of the story, though, came when the marks were being handed out. The teacher handed me my grading paper, saying that it was a really neat project, but there was no visual presentation of the information like there was supposed to be. I just looked confused and said, “The information’s all there in the coconuts.” She paused for a moment, a look of dawning realization on her face, then calmly changed the mark to 100%.

            And that’s how it came to be that I created a 6 foot tall paper mache palm tree. It sat around the house for years after that, until someone finally had the heart to get rid of it. But, in the intervening years, that tree did have one more glorious moment in the sun (so to speak). It was the middle of the winter, with some snow freshly fallen, and I looked at the tree in the house beside me and said to my friend, “You know what I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I made that thing...?” And he said, “Let’s do it!” And that’s how one of my favorite pictures of me came to be.

            I call it “Tropical Canadian Vacation”.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

We Need Diversity

            Something I see talked about a lot in the online writing community is getting accurate diverse characters written into books (people of different ethnicities, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, etc). Why? To ensure that everyone from every background and belief has characters they can relate to and, more importantly (in my opinion), to show people how much variety there is in the world and make them more accepting of people different than themselves.

            This is actually something that is very challenging to, for several reasons. The biggest challenge is fighting the social conditioning we have that leads to us simply using stereotypes – we’re exposed to them through all the media that’s out there already. Many of the books that inspire current authors are written either with an absence of diverse characters, or with them represented in stereotypical ways. It’s far too easy to follow the well-trodden paths.

            Then there is fighting the comfort zone. We are brought up with many taboos, and some can be very uncomfortable to push past. How do we write about people with different colours of skin when we’ve been told all our lives that pointing out someone’s skin colour is racist? How do we write about a disability or a gender identity we haven’t experienced ourselves?

            That leads into the third challenge: research. Research takes a lot of time and energy. It’s so much easier to run with the stereotypes, or just avoid unfamiliar topics altogether.

            Yet, we live in a diverse world, and therefore we must push past all out boundaries to include everyone in our writing. Once we do that, we need to choose how to present this diversity: do we highlight it, by making the story about modern issues related to it, or do we blend them in and treat them like we would any other character?

            While there is a need for the first, I feel that the latter option is the most important for the future. There are many parts of society that have been characterized in certain ways, marginalized or outright abused throughout history. This had been built into our media – movies, shows, games, books – and many of them will last for generations to come. We’ve become aware of the problem, and it’s getting talked about more and more – but it won’t be solved until we stop talking about it and make it normal.

            What really needs to happen is for diverse characters to be added into the media, but without them being treated any differently than anyone else. By doing so, we normalize them, and by extension show future generations that not only is it normal for people to be different – but it’s perfectly okay.

            Gone are the days when everyone needed to be made with the same cookie cutter. As a society, we are moving closer and closer to accepting people for who they are. By allowing people to be true to themselves the world becomes a happier place. But we can never achieve complete acceptance until our sources of entertainment – which shape us and our ideas in more ways than we realize – represent diversity as normal. Diversity in media starts here and now, by making the extra effort to put it in and make sure it’s accurately represented.

            The world is a diverse place. We need to celebrate it, not stifle it, and make it perfectly normal to be whoever we are.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Knowledge Pools

            I’ve said before that writers need to be experts on everything. It’s true. That’s how books are convincing enough to hold people’s attention. Make one mistake and... well, you’ve seen how the internet responds.

            There are two directions that knowledge for a book can come from, though. The first, and more obvious one, is to look something up when you need it. Do you need to know how silk is made? Look it up. You want to know how far a horse can travel in a day? Look it up. Maybe make a chart, because you’ll need that again. If you want to know a creative way to kill someone, look it up – and hope the police believe that you’re an author.

            However, that doesn’t solve the question of what to write in the first place. If you don’t know what a volcano is, you’re hero isn’t going to make a heroic escape from an impossible situation involving being suspended over bubbling lava. Even if you don’t know the particulars of volcanoes, as long as you know they exist you can look them up when you need to.

            That means writers need to know as much as they can about the world so they can incorporate their knowledge into their books. To a certain extent, that can be done simply by observing the world around you. It isn’t a joke when you see those (usually threatening) posts about authors putting random people they meet into their books. That’s what writers do – absorb the world around them, mix it up, rearrange the pieces they like and create art.

            There’s only so far personal experience can go, though. If you limit yourself to that, you’re missing out on a whole world of inspiration (even if you have the ability to travel the world, there’s still only so much you can learn). So, we turn to other sources.

            Books are great. That’s why we write in the first place – we love books, so we want to make more books. However, reading takes time (especially for slow readers like me) and most people only read for either enjoyment or specific research. You can pick up on some unfamiliar topics there, but it still has its limits.

            So, over the last year, I’ve taken to watching a number of the documentaries available on Netflix – and they are a veritable fountain of knowledge. Watching through the Planet Earth series made me far more aware of natural phenomena in the world that I never would have considered building into my world before, but are now a big part of bringing amazing settings to my books. Characteristics of animals help me develop more believable fantastical creatures. The Ancient Balck-Ops series (which I watched on Saturday – yes, all of it in one day) gave me great insight into historical tactics, weapons, and cultures that immediately had by mind swimming with ideas for how to improve my world.

            Now, to be fair, documentaries play well to my lifestyle. I have plenty of time to watch them, since I’m usually watching something while working for my chainmaille business. Still, I’ve yet to find another source that delivers so much information in a short amount of time – teaching about so many new things that can be drawn on at your leisure, and researched if more information is required for your uses. Documentaries are a gold mine of knowledge and inspiration.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

World Building is Fun

            I think one of the most important traits in an author is a love of knowledge. Why? Because we have to know the oddest things so we can make our books realistic. Some of the most obscure things come up.

            Recently I’ve been doing a lot of world building, getting a very detailed portion of my world developed for a series I’m planning. My research taught me all kinds of things, like you can raise 100 pigs on the same amount of land you need for one cow (free grazing – about 5 acres, in case you’re curious), that dinosaurs only lived about 30 years, and that there are vast stretches of underground, water-filled caves that are the only sources of fresh water in some parts of the world.

            I saw a quote once (and can’t find who said it) that an author must be an expert on everything. When Terry Pratchett wrote The Amazing Morris and his Educated Rodents, he said that by the time he was done, he knew more about rats than anyone would ever want to know.

You might wonder why what seem like minor details matter so much, especially in fiction. Couldn’t we just make it up? Well, yes, we could. But then, along comes an expert in horses to tell us that horses treated the way they are in the book would die from being ridden too hard. This is a bad thing on two fronts – first, it conveys inaccurate information to people and it’s amazing how easily people believe what they read. The second is that it ruins the realism of the book for anyone with that knowledge of horses – which is terrible. Fiction is meant for people to enjoy, after all.

            So, an important part of the writing process becomes research into the oddest things. I can only imagine how often mystery writers worry what people would think if they could see all their Google searches related to how to kill people. It takes less than a pound of pressure to cut skin.

            With all the bitty details needed, enjoying learning becomes mandatory. Otherwise, writing becomes tedious work – and, really, why bother writing if you don’t enjoy it? I’m lucky in that I’ve always loved learning. On the flip side, my research skills are lacking, so it takes me a while to find what I’m looking for, but I tend to pick up a few extra tidbits along the way. I gain lots of new information, then add it to my arsenal for developing believable worlds, stories and characters.

            World building is fun!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Know Your Audience

            During my quest to get published, I've learned a lot about the publishing industry. However, one lesson I've learned stands out as the most important is Know Your Audience.

            When I first came across this rule, I half disregarded it for two reasons. The first was that I did know my audience. I was writing my books for everyone – adults can enjoy them, but they’d also be able to read them to their kids and the kids would enjoy them, too. The style of writing and content fit snugly into the Young Adult category, thus I was covered (or so I thought).

            The second reason was that I was supposed to Know My Audience before I started writing my book, but I didn't even look into publishing until I’d finished my first book – it was a little late to be learning that rule.

            So, while doing research to better understand the categories that books fit into, I discovered a major flaw in my first book – one that was most likely (and feedback from at least one agent confirms this) preventing the book from getting into the publishing industry. Believe it or not, the most important factor when selecting a target age group for a book isn't the content, but the main character’s age.

            For example, the age range for main characters in Young Adult books is 12-18. In my first book, the main character was 9 for the first half and 16 for the second half. After learning this information, I upped her age to 12 for the first half (not a major issue, as the character acted old for her age anyway). I thought that might solve the problem, but there was another factor that – while I knew about it – I couldn't really do much about it: apparently, young adult readers will read about characters older than themselves, but not younger making the true ideal age range for Young Adult book characters 16-18, placing my split-aged book in no-man’s-land.

            All is not lost, as I just need to re-write the book entirely in the upper age range, using flashbacks and such to bring in the important bits from the younger age – a big task, but not impossible. In the mean time, my fourth book, which was written with knowledge of my audience, will soon be ready for querying agents.

            However, I felt I should pass my experience on to all the other aspiring writers out there who might not have completed their first book in the hopes that you may be saved some trials and tribulations. Do a lot of research on target audiences before starting your book (or in the early stages of writing) and make sure you fit perfectly into a category. It isn't impossible to get published if you don’t, but it’s a whole lot harder.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Editing Process

            I haven’t had a blog about my writing recently, so I thought I ought to change that. Since I finished writing my latest book last week (throw confetti!), I thought it would be appropriate to share what happens next.

            While I budget myself a year to write each of my books, that clock stops ticking when I write the last word of the book (usually with a couple months to spare). The process, however, does not stop there. That is when the editing starts.

            First, naturally, I read through the book myself, fixing all the typos I can find, smoothing out awkward sentences and such. Sometimes I need to rewrite sections that aren't good enough and occasionally there’s a minor plot hole to fix (for a while, in my second book, there was an object in two places at once). Once that’s done, I hand the book off to my wife, Colleen.

            Now, Colleen has a very special job while editing. Not only does she have to watch for the same flaws I did, but she also needs to fill in a few... blanks that I left for her. Blanks that tend to look like [INSERT DESCRIPTION], [DESCRIBE PRETTY SUNRISE] or [DESCRIBE DAY AT FAIR]. Plus she has to report back to me on her thoughts on the book (incidentally, two chapters into the latest one she has emphatically declared that this is my best book yet. Be excited).

            Then the book comes back to me to go through once again. I read the whole book again, making the same edits as before and making Colleen’s suggested changes, as well as editing her new parts (sometimes – although rarely – I send some back to her to be rewritten with, usually with specific requests). Oh, and I get to read her delightful comments, particularly on some of the references I made.

            Once I'm done that edit, the book goes off to my parents. I know this might seem cheesy to some people, but my parents (along with being awesome) are very talented and, while most parents will shower their children’s work with praise, mine have always been fantastic at providing wonderful feedback.

            My dad has done a fair amount of writing himself, and – back when he had more free time – he used to tell his great stories at schools and events. He is also a library technician and he reads a lot. Like me, he is the type of person who analyses a book while he’s reading it, picking up on the foreshadowing and guessing what’s going to happen next. He’s my best source of feedback on the book’s overall content. He’s stopped bothering with doing technical edits because my mom will catch all of those.

            My mom is one of those (despicable) people who are amazing at everything they do. She knows her grammar exceptionally well and, if she’s not sure on something, she takes the time to look it up. She also reads at a snail’s pace, making her an ideal line editor. By the time she’s done reading my book, I'm confident that there are next to no technical errors remaining. It’s definitely worth waiting the six (or more) months it takes her to read the whole book.

            With my feedback from my parents, I go through the book again, making even more changes. Then, it’s time to get down to business. I sit down with Colleen and we go through the book together, making it as perfect as we can. This is where the greatest conflicts in our marriage come from – we once spent over an hour arguing over the wording of a sentence. It was great.

            At long last, the book gets declared done and I get to work on getting it published, which will involve even more editing.

            Blogs, on the other hand, are much simpler. I usually skim through them once after writing them, then don’t bother with any editing until someone sends me a text of Facebook message to let me know I've got a bunch of typos. Thanks, editing types! All literature would be a lot messier without an outside eye to whip thins into shape.

            (P.S. I'm taking the liberty of not reading a single word I wrote in this blog. How did I do?)

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Cursed Game Conquered!

            While this is a story about my misadventures surrounding a videogame, you really don’t need to be even remotely interested in videogames to enjoy it. The following is an amusing account of how, after 14 years, I finally managed to beat Final Fantasy VIII, the game I was cursed to never know the ending of.

            It all started when my brother bought a Sony PlayStation from one of his friends in est. 1999. The two of us went out to buy ourselves some new games to play on this exciting new system (yes, I know that the PS2 came out the next year, but it was new for us, okay?). Being that we were the age we were, we were buying our games from whatever allowance we had managed to save up, so, naturally, we were getting used games because they’re so much cheaper.

            I don’t recall for certain what game or games my brother bought (probably racing games), but I bought two games: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. I’d heard that it was a well known series, and even played Final Fantasy III on my Super Nintendo, so I was excited to try them out. Unfortunately, as the gaming console belonged to my brother, my play time was limited.

            When I did play the games, I found I was not disappointed – the Final Fantasy series is well known for a reason. They’re good. And their graphics are always cutting edge for their times – particularly their videos and cut-scenes (short videos that interrupt the game to tell part of the story, for you non-gamer types). The other thing about them is that they’re long. This specific game had four discs, while your average game of the times had one.

            It turned out that my brother and I both liked Final Fantasy VIII, and we played through the story at about the same pace. It was when I had reached a cut-scene on disc 2 that the curse struck for the first time. The game froze. Right in the middle of the video. No matter how many times we tried to get past, or how many tricks for repairing scratched discs we tried, neither of us could get past that cut-scene.

            Well, our pockets being rather shallow, we figured that we had gotten what we deserved for buying a used game and gave up on it. We were disappointed, but there was nothing we could do.

            A couple years later, when my brother and I now co-owned a PlayStation2, I decided I was going to take another shot at playing Final Fantasy VIII. I knew disc 2 was damaged, but I hoped that the newer system could possibly get past the scratched part in the video. It was worth a try, and the video did get further this time, but still it froze.

            Luckily, I now had a paper route, so I went out and bought myself a new copy of the game! I then played past the video, and continued along my game. All was well – until one day...

            Our PlayStation was still in use, even though we had a PlayStation2 – after all, that way my brother and I could play games at the same time without annoying each other. With the new disc available, he’d started playing Final Fantasy VIII as well. But something went wrong. Somehow – we don’t know how – a small patch of the disc he was playing managed to melt itself onto the system. Frustrated, and really wanting to play his racing game, my brother forced the game out of the system and broke the disc. Would you care to guess which disc it was? That’s right. Disc 2.

            It shouldn't have been all that bad – after all, I could still continue playing on my other, rather scratched disc 2; it just meant that I wouldn't be able to play the game a second time and get past that video. Except that there was a slight problem with the old PlayStation memory cards (this was before the systems had their own memories) that would sometimes cause them to wipe themselves of their save files. Can you guess what I discovered the next time I went to play...? The curse had struck again.

            That was it, for me. I gave up on the game again and eventually forgave my brother for breaking the disc. Then, another two years later, I decided to try again...

            I went out to a pawn shop and bought another used copy of Final Fantasy VIII. It was worth a try, wasn’t it? When I got it home, I opened the case to take out disc 2 (I’d already played the game up to where it got stuck) and stared in disbelief. The case was for Final Fantasy VIII. Discs 1, 3 and 4 were all for Final Fantasy VIII. But disc 2, the only disc that I needed, the cursed disc, was from Final Fantasy VII.

            What was with this game!?!?

            I went straight back to the pawn shop and told them my story and they were kind enough to let me take a different copy of the game (we checked to make sure it had the right disc first). I took that disc home, put it into the system, and...! It froze in the middle of the video again. Seriously.

            But I wasn't giving up! I switched it for my other scratched and used disc and the video went a little further before freezing again, so I switched discs again! The video went a bit further, then froze again. One last switch and I was past the video of the cursed game! It was a wonderful feeling.

            So, I played through the game, quite enjoying it up until I reached the final battle. Now... the last battle in any Final Fantasy game is pretty intense, but the game designers outdid themselves this time. I’ll spare you the details and simply say that I was fighting this battle for over two hours before I died and got the dreaded Game Over. Needless to say, I was not happy. Still, to my credit, I tried the battle several more times before giving up this time round.

            I learned in later years that there were two major things that led to my downfall. The first was that the monsters in the game level up when your characters level up, which means that the more powerful you get, the harder the game is to play. The other was that, in Final Fantasy VIII, unless you really understand all the spells and various systems in the game – which for most people means having a walkthrough beside them – it’s next to impossible to actually beat the final boss.

            However, over the last couple weeks, I finally managed it! I’ll admit that I was looking up some of the more finicky parts of the game as I went along, and I definitely had a walkthrough open telling me roughly how to win the final battle – it should say something that the guide went along the lines of “Use these spells to boost the effectiveness of these attacks and hope for the best”. It was a long and grueling battle, but I won! And you know what? It was worth it.

            It was worth the time spent on the game. It was worth all the aggravation and frustration. It was worth buying three copies of the game. And, more than anything else, it was worth the wait. The ending video of the game brought a phenomenal and touching conclusion to the game’s story, which I never would have appreciated when I was younger. I also caught all kinds of amazing plot twists that I’d never noticed the previous times I played through the game.

            I've said before that playing a videogame is like controlling the main character of a book and this one is no exception. Incredible as the story in this game is (and as much as I want to “borrow” some of the plot twists), this is one case where I don’t think it could have been more effective as a book. Or a movie, for that matter. It’s small wonder that this game series is so popular. They just need to make the end battles a little less grueling.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

 

Character Developments

            In my opinion, the most important part of a book is its characters. It doesn't matter how good the story is; if the characters are too flat, too perfect or too unbelievable, no one will want to read it. Consequently, a lot of work needs to go into creating a character.

            Every time I introduce a new character (at least, one I feel is important enough to name), I pause in my writing to come up with some background information for them. Sometimes it’s just a few sentences describing what they look like and how they act, often I add in a bit of history to explain their personality and where they came from and, every so often, I go into great detail about their history – sometimes tying their ancestry into the history I've written or even panning a book surrounding them. Then I go back to my book and continue writing.

            This is where it gets complicated and even a little weird. You see, that first little bit of writing was just the start of the character. They are then born in my mind and developed further and further as they are written. In fact, it gets to a point where they take on a life of their own. They seem to gain the ability to think for themselves and, as their writer, I feel like I become a tool for telling their stories. I can’t count the times that my characters have surprised me with things they've said or done! Or the times they've done things I specifically wanted them not to (probably just to spite me).

            Needless to say, because of how lifelike characters can become, authors can get very attached to them. It’s a bit like raising children, really. You want what’s best for them and want to teach them not to make all the mistakes you know they’re going to, but you know you need to let them go ahead with it so they’ll learn. It becomes hard, sometimes, to put them through all the trials and torments that make a good story, but it has to be done because otherwise there’s no story to be told.

            The worst thing is when you have to kill off a character. It is extremely difficult to do, but often a necessity. Even a minor character has to have enough effort put into them that their death will have meaning to the readers, which means the author has to have a deep connection with them. The result is feeling like you've just killed a good friend.

            Personally, I find it fascinating that a fictional character – a figment of my imagination! – can become so incredibly real. It’s almost as if sections of my brain take on the role of these characters, telling me how they’d act and why. That’s the only explanation I can find for how this phenomenon occurs. Either that or I'm just crazy. Then again, I've heard so many other authors say the same thing that I can’t be that crazy.

            If nothing else, learning about this has made me rethink how mad I used to get at authors for killing off characters I liked. I realize now that those characters were just living out their own lives and their deaths probably were harder for their authors than for me. Unless, of course, those authors were sadistic psychopaths....

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

 

A Writer's Research

            Following what I was talking about a couple weeks ago regarding all the research a writer needs to do, I thought I’d go into a little more detail. I think a lot of people take what they’re reading for granted – I know I did before I started seriously writing.

            As a fantasy writer, I often have the luxury of just making things up as I go along, but even when I do that I have to write it all down in the encyclopedia of my world so I can reference them at a later date. Still, there are many little things – mostly minor details – that require research to bring a level of believability to the story, like how fast people can travel on foot or horseback over what terrain, the size of the world... I’ve even put quite a lot of research into the mythological elves, dwarves and trolls to see how I could tie them in to the common modern fantasy images of them.

The best example I can give, however, is a bit of research that occupied me for a full week in September of 2012. Looking back on it, I’m amazed it didn’t take longer! For the first two weeks of October, Harper Voyager (a branch of Harper Collins) was opening their doors to the public for manuscript submissions – the first time this had happened in over ten years. Needless to say, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. There was just one problem... my first book was about 1500 words short of the minimum length. I needed to write a whole new chapter.

            I wracked my brain for weeks, trying to figure out if there was any part of the story I had missed, or anything significant I could add. At last it came to me: I’d been toying with ideas for designing games unique to my fantasy world and somehow my brain combined this with fortune telling as a method of foreshadowing. Overnight, my brain began insisting on designing a unique deck of cards that could be used both for games and reading fortunes. It sounds easy enough – I could just make it up as I go... but then, what if I needed it for something else? I wouldn’t have all the knowledge I needed. Not to mention there are enough fans of Tarot cards out there that I could easily tread on some toes if I didn’t do the fortune telling bit right.

            That was the place to start. Tarot cards. I‘d had a little exposure to them in the past, but what I really needed was to understand the science behind them. Most people who have had their fortunes read are amazed at the accuracy. How did this work? So, I found this wonderful website that taught me everything I needed to know about using Tarot cards and gave me many insights into the art – it inspired me so much that I went out and bought a Tarot deck so I could gain an even better understanding. Using the information I found on the site and in the instruction book that came with the deck, I began dissecting the meanings of the 78 cards and rearranging them into my new 52 card deck. This was very challenging because I wanted my new deck to be fully functional as a Tarot deck should anyone decide to use it that way. I did manage it and, if I do say so myself, I feel I did an excellent job.

            I now had the outlined meanings of my cards. I then arranged them into 7 suits (with 7 cards each) and 3 wild cards. Each suit had its own general significance and the progression of the card values (1 through 7) were made symbolic of a journey. I named the cards, then went on to the hardest part – describing them. I needed a description for each of the cards so I could know what they looked like, and each description had to reflect the meaning of the card. Luckily I could lean on the Tarot deck I’d bought for inspiration, but, man, was that ever tricky!

            Finally I had my deck of cards planned out! Ecstatic about this, I made up a mock deck on the backs of some old business cards (my clever mother never throws away anything that could come day be used for arts or crafts) and started designing the card game. I wanted something similar to poker, yet with a distinctiveness born of being developed on a different world. This was a challenge for me because I don’t play poker and have only a limited knowledge of its workings (mostly gained from watching Maverick). But I managed it and gathered my family to test it. They loved it!

Here are some of the cards in the mock deck.

What? I'm a writer, not an artist!

            So, over the course of the week I had developed a unique deck of cards and a game to go along with it. It was now time to write my new chapter. Ha! You’d forgotten that’s what this was all about, hadn’t you? All this work, just for a few details in one chapter of one book. Well, you’ll be happy to know that I wrote that chapter and loved every moment of it. I was then able to submit my book to Harper Voyager.

            It just goes to show how much work goes into some of the smallest things. Most people will never know about that work, but it is essential to making the story as believable as possible. Also, if I ever need to use those cards in another book, all the work is already done; sitting around and waiting to be useful. And, hey! Maybe someday I’ll have the art drawn for the cards so other people can enjoy them! Who wouldn’t want to play with a deck of cards that has 7 suits? Just imagine all the possibilities!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Let's Start Off With a Bang

            Colleen was given the first two seasons of The Big Bang Theory for Christmas, so lately we've been watching quite a bit of it. Especially since we went and bought the next three seasons as well.

            Now, I've had a number of friends who've been recommending this show to me for years. Invariably, they've all said the same thing: “ You've gotta watch this show, it’s great! This one character, Sheldon, is exactly like you.” I've decided to take this as a compliment.

            For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Sheldon Cooper is a young genius (I make no claim of similarity here) who has a lot of peculiarities – he has a specific spot on the couch that he has to sit in, he is extremely sensitive about germs (don’t you dare touch his food!) and every day of the week has a specific theme that he needs to follow. In other words, I can relate to him a lot.

This has given me an immense admiration for Jim Parsons (the actor), Chuck Lorre (the writer) and Bill Prady (the other writer) for the amount of research they've put into creating this extremely idiosyncratic character. I'm sure a lot of people watch this show and think, “Haha, this guy’s funny, but no one is actually this weird!” while I'm watching it and saying (yes, saying, you can ask my wife), “He understands me!” I may be alone in thinking this, but I find it extremely impressive when writers and actors can create a character so odd that is still real enough that someone with some of the same quirks as the character can relate. That being said, while I understand where Sheldon is coming from, I've never been quite as bad as him – something for which I'm sure my entire family is extremely thankful.

            I'm sure you’re wondering where I'm going with all of this and, quite frankly, so am I. Probably the best thing I can do now is point out the phenomenal amount of research that needs to go into any writing project. When I started off writing, I simply made everything up as I went along. I write fantasy, that’s what I'm supposed to do, right? It’s not quite that simple though. What if I were to write about how fast someone was travelling on a horse and a horse enthusiast came along and read my book? The whole believability could be compromised by a single inaccurate detail. As a result, I've found myself researching the oddest things – from marching speeds to mythological and modern fantasy versions of creatures to what plants grow in what environments in what seasons. It’s amazing how many details there are that can make or break a good story.

            In conclusion, if you have access to it, I advise watching The Big Bang Theory; it is an excellent show. While you’re watching, you should also imagine what it’s like to live with Sheldon so you can feel sorry for my wife. Also, if you are watching the show on DVD, I suggest pausing on the white screen filled with words that appears for a moment after the credits. These are “vanity cards” written by Chuck Lorre and, in my opinion, are well worth the time to read.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.