Tag Archives: writing advice

Blog, Writing

How Branding Can Help and Hinder Your Writing

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Branding Defined with Artists in Mind

When you hear the word “branding” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

I see a portfolio pounding professional power-walking around a boardroom table. Over their shoulder is a screen with a venn diagram. It features an infographic, a polar chart, and a pie chart overlapping each other. The speaker jabbers in jargon, traces hieroglyphic stats with a laser pen, and high fives their colleges right across the cheeks.

“It is mission-critical for our business to leverage strategic bleeding edge synergizing techniques to push the envelope outside the box if we hope to achieve vertical growth.”

At least that’s what I imagine when I hear the word branding. As a fiction writer, I figured branding was a word marketers used to inflate the importance of advertising, but it turns out it’s relevant to what I’m doing.

Put simply, branding is the thing that lets customers know what to expect from businesses, products, and even entertainment.

Put even simpler: branding = expectations

Just like in the corporate world, fiction brands let audiences know what to expect, and just like in the corporate world, a handful of brands have a monopoly.

This is why iconic characters enjoy so many reinventions, fiction franchises outlive their originators, and big name authors can pass work to ghost writers. People don’t want to waste hard earned money on bad entertainment. Brands appear to eliminate that risk.

If you want a steamy romance about an untamable Harley driver with borderline disorder just look for the lathered abs on the cover. If you like psychological thrillers about scandalous women, find a book with the word “girl” in the title. If you want a mystery about women who went missing while running, find a book with a foggy forest on the front.  Continue reading How Branding Can Help and Hinder Your Writing →

Blog

Blog In Case of Emergencies

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I’ve blogged at least once a week for three years running. I’ve written enough essays on the craft of writing fiction to fill a book and enough short stories to fill another one (gee, that gives me an idea).

This week I started an article on how novelists should write with film adaptations in mind. Not to say that every hardcover is destined for the big screen, but that fiction writers could learn a lot from another medium. My angle was that narrative writers should use screenwriting tricks to keep their manuscripts from getting too long.

I got about 500 words in before I realized this was ground I’ve covered before. I was coasting on sayings I use all the time. The last thing I wanted to do was recycle a bunch old of content. I’ve followed too many blogs where each entry gets bogged down by lazy self-plagiarism (yes, that’s a thing).

So I decided to get back on the short fiction train.

I got about 1,800 words into a short story (tentatively titled Newsreelmancer) and I realized I was at the halfway point. Newsreelmancer is my first foray into science fiction in some time and it’s taking a lot longer for the story to resinate with me.

Writing can feel as empty as corporate jargon or as engaging as telepathy. The difference is that feeling of authenticity. In the spirit of finishing what I start I want to keep chipping away at this story for another week, until I find that certain something that makes it feel genuine.

That said, I don’t have any writing advice or short fiction for you this week.

This placeholder post is an I-owe-you slip for one blog entry or short story to be redeemed later. I promise it will be something that comes from a real place, resonates with deeper meaning, and is longer than the length of a comment.

P.S. One piece of advice I have for any aspiring blogger is to have a backlog of evergreen content piled up just in case something like this happens.

P.S.S. Admittedly this is not my finest work, but it does technically count as a blog entry, meaning my three year streak continues unbroken.

Blog, Writing

How to Swap the Light Bulbs of Inspiration

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Robert A. Heinlein’s second rule of is writing: You must finish what you start.

Neil Gaiman would add: Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

This article is about doing whatever you have to do, even when the spark from your first light bulb moment has gone dim.

What I do When My Inspiration is Incomplete

Ding. A light bulb appears over my head. It’s faint and it’s flickering, but I get the sense it’s one of many lamps leading down a larger path.

Most of my stories come to me like this.

Ding.

“What if depression acted like a movie producer invading the set of a man’s life and it gave him all these ‘notes’ that ruined his day?”

Ding.

“What if the corporation that runs reality starts putting features, like gravity, behind a paywall?”

Ding.

“What if a guy has a different personality disorder for every day of the week?”

These blinking bulbs line the entrance of a conceivable composition. These lamps rarely cast enough light to show a story’s structure. I can’t see the exit from the entrance, but I have a vague sense where the front door is leading. I see movement in the windows, but only catch silhouettes of the characters.

A lot of writers need to see the floor plan before venturing into the building. I’ve found if I keep pacing the block looking for the brightest concept I never go inside. I’m the kind that goes in blind and screws the bulbs in along the way in.

Those first few dings of inspiration might lead me to believe I’m walking into a plot driven mystery, but with a little more light I realize it’s an intimate character study. My skill for lighting depends on my ability to adjust my expectations of the building I’m working on.  Continue reading How to Swap the Light Bulbs of Inspiration →

Blog, Featured

How to Save Your Twitter Profile from the Algorithm

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On February 5, Buzzfeed reported that Twitter was doing away with their chronological timeline in favor of an algorithmic one. Users would no longer see tweets as they were posted in real time, but rather in an order the algorithm thought users wanted to see them. Buzzfeed theorized that this would help manage spam links and adjust Twitter’s signal to noise ratio, but users remained skeptical.

Many users feared, myself included, that Twitter was downgrading everyone in order to sell priority placement tweets to power users, just as Facebook had done with status updates on its Fan Pages. Social media services were shifting stanchions onto their free dance floors, relabeling the spaces as their VIP sections. Twitter appeared to be doing the same; gutting the democracy of the service to benefit a monopoly held by power users, celebrities, and advertisers.

We feared that the algorithm would put an end to Hashtag Revolutions like the Arab Spring or Ferguson Protests, and that breaking news would get buried by Kardashian selfies. Twitter has been championed as the voice of the people. An algorithm would elevate posts based on predictions. It wouldn’t know the value of movements without a point a reference. Continue reading How to Save Your Twitter Profile from the Algorithm →

Blog, Featured, Writing

How to Keep Your Writing from Reading like a Bogus Essay Answer

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In his book On Bullshit Harry G. Frankfurt wrote, “It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”

Something magical happens when people are called upon to give information they don’t have: rather than admit the limits of their knowledge they give it the old college try. We all know what decisive conclusions sound like. We need not know what we’re talking about to draw them. So we riff to buy ourselves time until we stumble upon a point.

This article is going to explore this phenomenon, identify how it shows up in fiction writing, and what can be done to fix it so that would-be authors can seem like they actually know what they’re doing. Continue reading How to Keep Your Writing from Reading like a Bogus Essay Answer →

Blog, Featured, Writing

When Symbolism Goes Wrong

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There’s a scene in 2013’s Man of Steel where Clark Kent goes to church seeking guidance from a priest. Aliens combatants, from Kent’s home planet Krypton, are broadcasting a message to draw him out of hiding. He’s torn between stepping forward or remaining in the shadows. The priest stands over Kent, from the aisle, as the Kyrptonian confesses from the pew.

Normally in a scene with two characters speaking the cameras are positioned over the shoulders of the characters to show their point of view. First we see a camera tilted upward to show Kent’s view of the priest (who eventually sits on a railing, but is still looking downward). We should then see a reverse shot from the priest’s perspective looking down on Kent. Instead we see a shot that’s tilted upward, as if the priest was looking at Kent from the floor.

Screen Shot 2016-04-03 at 12.01.35 PM

Super Jesus
Okay, that’s a little on the nose

Why did director Zack Snyder choose to frame the shot this way? My theory is that he meant to emphasize the stained glass depiction of Christ over Kent’s shoulder, kneeling in prayer, just as Kent is. As far as symbolic references go this one isn’t that subtle.

This weeks article is all about when it’s a good idea to link your story to icons with  deeper meanings, and when they can hurt your story by feeling unearned. I’m going to focus on Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice because they’re filled with examples of heavy handed symbolism.

(Spoilers for Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice follow).

Full Disclosure: I don’t hate either film. There’s a lot to like in both, but this isn’t a review of either movie. It’s an examination of visual shorthand.  Continue reading When Symbolism Goes Wrong →

Blog, Featured, Writing

How Writers can Manage Lower Back Pain

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Every coffee shop has one: the guy standing at the bar with his laptop. He’s parked his stool right next to the neighboring one ensuring neither seat can be used. The baristas try to wash their dishes without staring at him, but how can they not when he’s leering at eye level? Anyone stuck sitting on one side of him mistakes him for someone approaching with a question, because he’s looming over them like a boss with new instructions. Every so often he pushes away from the bar to grab his foot and stretch his hamstring. He’s that guy.

If he could he’d put his heel right up on the bar, grip the neighboring chairs, and do squats. It’s not his fault you don’t respect his extreme posture culture.

If there’s no room at the bar he just moseys over to a two seater and puts a chair right on the table. This makeshift MacGuyver isn’t too proud to make himself at home. He’s in the middle of a screenwriting sprint, he’s composing his master’s thesis, and marathon coding for 8 hours straight.

I’ve scoffed at this guy, with his ergonomic keyboard, his arthritis glove, and magic wristband that tells him when to move around. What a spinally mindful millennial. What a abdominal oblique elite. What a nerve savvy yuppie.

I am currently typing this from a slapdash desk made from an ironing board, a stack of books, and my laptop. I’m doing this because that standing room dick was right.

My back has gone out in a way where changing the cat litter involves tapping the scooper to a broom handle, in a way where I’m seriously considering the logistics of sleeping standing, in a way where things at the bottom of the refrigerator are lost to me.

Last night limping through the grocery store to pick up some Bayer was a Herculean challenge. Today I crawled out of bed, literally.

I’d like to say this condition came from a feat of strength gone wrong like pushing two separate cars out of the snow, helping someone carry their prize anvil collection into a fifth floor apartment, or bench pressing a picnic table filled with attractive people, but I’m pretty sure bad posture is my major trigger. Sure I’ve had a few spills this winter and I’ve lifted a few weights without taking the time to stretch, but of all the things attacking my lower back I think my couch was the biggest culprit.

You know you’re a writer when chronic lower back pain is a hazard of your line of work.

I’m in such chronic pain that I didn’t believe I could deliver a blog entry this week. When your nerves keep sending you the same pain signal it’s hard to get inspiration to flow. Then I thought: what if I wrote a quick blurb on lower back pain? I’ve spent the last few days learning how to manage it and how to prevent it in the future, and since we writers spend so much time hunched over in 45 degree angels, it’s something we should talk about.  Continue reading How Writers can Manage Lower Back Pain →

Blog, Featured, Writing

When Perfectionism Goes Wrong

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Visualize that perfect novel you’ve always wanted to write. See the simple yet elegant design. It’s covered in medals like a four star general’s chest: the Newbery Medal, the Noble Prize for Literature, and the coveted Oprah’s book club sticker. Feel your name bulging from the dust jacket, feel the perfect stitching in the binding, and the deckled edges of pages.

Flip the book over and see your flawless portrait filling out the back. You look so well read, charming, and confidant, nothing like a fraud at all. Crack the book open, see the inside flaps littered with endorsements from authors you’d wet yourself upon meeting.

Within this book’s pages are the most profound prose you could pry from your soul. It’s your personal philosophy laundered into a story. Your life experience is spread throughout its contents. Every least comma represents a broken shard of your heart. Your every skeleton is laid out between its lines.

Readers will think of their lives in terms of who they were before reading this novel and who they became afterward. They will carry it with them like a bible. They’ll quote it in arguments. They’ll page through it in moments of quiet desperation.

Hold this novel out in front of you like an offering to the Heavens. Now drop it and kick it like a football. Watch it go over the horizon. Accept that this false ideal will never happen. Continue reading When Perfectionism Goes Wrong →

Blog, Featured, Writing

How to Tighten Up Your Dialogue

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When I’m writing a novel my train of thought needs to stay on track. If I loop around to edit I run out of steam. So I keep shoveling coal into the engine and words onto the page. Sometimes there’s nothing but rails all the way up the horizon. Sometimes curves in the mountains keep me from seeing where I’m going. Some routes are ideal while others are just serviceable.

The process forces me to wear many hats. I’m both the conductor and the stoker, tasked with staying on schedule and fueling the creative process. If I overthink the path the crankshaft screeches to a halt. So I keep chugging along until the first draft is done. No sense in letting writer’s block derail me.

When I write dialogue I get a sense of where the scene needs to go and let my cast say the first things that come to mind. I let their upbringings, attitudes, and professions dictate their speech patterns. For the characters I pick up along the way I try to find their voices while writing. I’m not too worried if I can’t on my first try because all writing is rewriting and I know I’ll be back this way again.

These are the most important lessons I’ve learned while tightening up dialogue for the second draft. Continue reading How to Tighten Up Your Dialogue →

Blog, Writing

How to Make Your Book As Bingeable as a TV Show

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Confessions of a Serial Binge Watcher

I keep a disciplined writing regiment, but every so often I hear the siren call of television. I’m not the type of person to watch any show that happens to be available. The shows that satisfy my fiction addiction need all the right elements. When I find one that does I fall into a Netflix vortex until the season is done.

I plowed through Marvel’s Jessica Jones in one weekend. Binge watching became part of my routine. I woke up with my tablet on my pillow, opened Netflix, and brought it into the bathroom while I brushed my teeth. I set it on the table as I ate my cereal. When I got on the bus to work I resumed watching on my phone. When I came home I put Jessica back up on the big screen.

It wasn’t that I was a chronic couch potato so much as Jessica Jones was just that good of a show. Let’s talk about the psychology of what makes a good story so binge worthy and how novelists can use the techniques of found on TV to write something readers will have trouble putting down. Continue reading How to Make Your Book As Bingeable as a TV Show →