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 |  This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| Paragraphing In Fiction Another request from a WdCer. When do we use paragraphs? This is a very good question. I have seen a deal of poor paragraph usage in not only the writing on WdC, but also in other places, and even some books. A hundred-plus years ago, paragraphs were seen as optional, especially in the “new literature” school – Joseph Conrad eschewed them often – but readers quickly came to realise that it made work difficult to read. As such, there is a simple acronym to remember when looking at a new paragraph: TiP ToP. Time Place Topic Person Which means whenever there is a change in time, place, topic or person, then there is a new paragraph. Why use paragraphs is probably a good question to start with. Three reasons – to prevent confusion in the reader, to give the reader a mini-break, and to organise the information given. When writing an essay, I have already covered paragraphing here: "20240222 How To Write An Essay (In General)" . If I do say so myself, it is a nice and succinct overview of how to write a non-fiction essay (or fiction essay that you want to look formal and professional; you do you).So, when writing fiction, TiP ToP comes into play. Let’s look at these. A Time jump requires a new paragraph. Even if only a few seconds, it cannot stay in the same paragraph. Again, this is to prevent confusion in the reader. A change of Place into a new paragraph also prevents confusion, and allows for that natural mini-break to occur when telling a story. When taking into consideration Topic, this seems to be more for non-fiction, but in fiction can mean when the action changes. In simple terms, here's an example: driving in a car is one paragraph, getting out of the car is a different paragraph. These subtle little changes in what is happening, in the action, is a change in topic of what is happening in the story. The final one, a change in Person, is where a lot of paragraphing falls down. Every time a new person speaks, new paragraph. Every time a different person does something, new paragraph. Even if written in first person PoV (explained here: "20240121 Point Of View" ), when describing what one person is doing, then another, new paragraph.This then beggars the question:How long should a paragraph be? How long is a piece of string? A paragraph is as long as it needs to be, but making a paragraph too long is pushing the envelope. There will undoubtedly be a place where a longer paragraph can be split. The most common long paragraphs involve description; in this case when a new aspect is being described, change paragraphs. Having said that, capital-L Literature works can have paragraphs as long as two pages (or more). This is because of the dictates of the genre, and the expectations and understanding of the readers. Long paragraphs slow everything down and involve a lot more concentration. The same does not work, for example, in an action-adventure piece, where you want everything to be happening at a faster pace. Most genre works, in fact, need shorter paragraphs. How short? One word is fine. One sentence is perfectly acceptable. These really short paragraphs can highlight tension, add a sense of foreboding, that sort of thing. They can also be an effective way of introducing a narrative turning point. Long or short, it is what the work needs or warrants… so long as TiP ToP is followed. tl;dr: A new paragraph happens when there is a different time in the story, there is a different location, there is a new character, there is a new action, a different character speaks, and a new idea is introduced. Hope that helps someone! |
| Alternate History This is going to be a weird one, but I recently had an alternate history novel taken into third round of reading at a publisher. My story is set in 1770 when Captain Cook discovered Australia in British eyes… but another civilization had already taken Australia thousands of years earlier. With this on my mind, I thought I’d write about an oft-overlooked genre. 1. What is it? Alternate history is a form of either science fiction or fantasy (it does depend on how it is written) where something happens in the past different to the way we know it. One of the best-known examples is The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, which is a tale set in 1962 (which was when it was written) after the Axis Powers had won World War II. I know it has been made into a movie and TV series, and there is sort of travel to our world involved (my memory of the book is it involves a novel), but the main world is the focus of the story. The Axis winning WW2, or Germany winning WW1, or the Russian Revolution not happening, or the Confederacy winning the US Civil War are the most common themes in alternate history stories. They have become clichés… and have resulted in some interesting works. 2. What does it involve? Alternate history involves a lot of research. You have to not only understand the era where the timeline diverges in your story, but the effects that were put into place by those events happening. That last is really important, because the writer has to understand that things were going to be very different if any of the events happened. And the further back the events, the greater the effect on the present. A lot of steampunk can be considered alternate history, but good steampunk does take at least a passing knowledge of the way steam and clockwork machines operated at the end of the Victorian era, and how dirigibles and trains worked. For what it’s worth, future prognostication – as seen in much science fiction – is not a part of alternate history, despite some of the writers pushing for it. So, in my case, I had to research the different nations of Indigenous Australians, the technology available to the ancient invading race that takes over the country around 2000BCE, some 4000 years before the story, the geology of Australia, where the invaders would have landed based on water and ocean movements and the vegetation and water supplies pre-colonisation. I had more research material written out than I did book (which ended up at 90k+ words). But you do need to do your research well. People will know otherwise! The next step is the alternate histories that sell well are based around people in these worlds, not over-arching stories that read like a history book of events. Pick some characters and centre the action around them is always the best way to go. In comics, the What If…? series from Marvel and Elseworlds series from DC take their own stories and histories and do alternates for them. A female Captain America, Peter Parker saving Uncle Ben, the young Kal-El found by the Waynes in Gotham as an infant, Kal-El landing on Earth in the Middle Ages of Britain – all of these are amazing stories that use the fictional worlds to make other, alternate fictional worlds. 3. Works That Don’t Work So, this section could be contentious, but here are some alternate history stories that do not work, and why they do not work: * Yesterday (film, 2019): This film sees the lead character sent to an alternate world where there were no Beatles, as in the band. This means there is no Oasis as well. However, there is still rock and pop music like we have it today, including Ed Sheeran. But… the Beatles were not just a band that influenced Oasis. They enabled pop-rock to become mainstream. They affected Bob Dylan, who went electric, who invented folk-rock, and who led directly to Sheeran. They really made the stadium show a “thing”. They enabled experimental music to become mainstream, even harder rock. The story treats them just as a band of people who wrote some nifty songs; their impact on Western popular culture is so diminished, it might as well have been “what if The Honeycombs hadn’t existed?” (I don’t mind this film, FWIW, but the idea behind it always takes me out of the story.) * Bright (TV movie, 2017): This film is very much fantasy-minded, with elves, orcs and magic in a modern setting. But, in a world with orcs, who are looked down on, there are still Africans in America who were once slaves when orcs are portrayed as the repressed group, the Alamo happened, and the world is exactly as it is now, just with fantasy creatures that have been there with humans for thousands of years. That makes no sense; the change to history had no impact on our world at all. Ridiculous. ("MOVIE #2 – BRIGHT" )* December 7th, 1941: A Different Path by David L. Alley (1995): This book takes one basic conceit – that Japan decided to attack the USSR instead of the USA in World War 2 – and makes assumptions that do not make any sense. They defeat the USSR (yes), causing it to fall apart, then take over SE Asia before conquering and killing everyone in Australia with no resistance. This somehow makes the UK give up, the Germans get the atomic bomb and nuke NYC… it makes even less sense now. (Terrible book, but the writing was not horrible; I only read it after finishing my negative reviews, or else it might have made the list.) So, why highlight the negative? Because I think we can learn more from the mistakes of others than trying to pastiche copy the great works of the good examples. Speaking of which: 4. Works That Work The best alternate history stories stay in their timeline and do not look at how the world would change. One Upon A Time… In Hollywood (film, 2019) is a great example of this in film; my favourite trilogy – Harrison Harrison’s Eden trilogy – is another good one in this vein. Anyway, here are some of my favourites that do work, and why they work: * 11/22/63 by Stephen King (2011): A man gets a chance to go back in time and stop the assassination of JFK, and does so, but the world falls apart because of that decision. While the consequences of the outcome are not harped on, they are still there because it presents JFK surviving as not necessarily a great thing. Yes, the story is mainly focused on the man organizing himself to stop the assassination, but it is still a great tale. * Watchmen by Alan Moore (writer) (graphic novel, 1986-7): I am focusing on the graphic novel because it is more interesting. Superheroes are real, and their existence changes the world, especially Dr Manhattan, including having Nixon serve four terms as president and technology not advancing as much because the world doesn’t need to after Dr Manhattan basically wins the Vietnam War for the US. The consequences are logical, and the police state scenario, the way heroes are treated and all the rest makes sense. *1945 by Robert Conroy (2007): In this book, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not stop the war; some Japanese generals, in desperation, kidnap Hirohito to stop him from signing the surrender, and basically continue the battles. A third atomic bomb is dropped, but the US people are getting upset because the US soldiers who were in Europe are not going home but are being sent to Japan, so more and more of them die. McArthur is killed. The USSR and China do not sign an agreement, so they are tense, and this means Korea is not split, and so there is no Korean War. Yes, consequences beyond just more US soldiers dying and the war continuing. Some well-done and well-thought-out scenarios in entertaining media forms. 5. Conclusion This is one of those genres that fluctuates in popularity, but it is in the process of going through a resurgence, so there are some markets opening up. Short stories more than novels at the moment, but they are there. One argument I have read is that any fictional story is an alternate history, and there is an element of that, I agree. But to take an event and change it to change the world is something that is an interesting generic diversion. Could be a fun thing for a writer to try. Hope I have piqued your interest! |
| 20240909 #2 Book Available? My son surprised me by sending me a link. I thought my first book was no longer available, but it seems Creative print - Amazon's old publishing arm - have taken it over and it is actually still available. If you are religious... then this humour book will offend you in all manner of different ways. There used to be a 1-star rating and review about the way it offended some American Christian, but all ratings/reviews have been removed. Still... my first book is still out there! |
| Monster Dictionary Update I have not been posting much in my blog lately because it seems I might finally - finally! - have finished the monster dictionary I have been working on for the past 15+ years. Yes, this started as something for me to collate the information I wanted for writing in one place, became a labour of love, and then devolved into a complete obsession. What it was was simple - I wanted to have the creatures and names of creatures from all folklores, legends and mythologies from around the world, nothing created for literature, and nothing from pop culture, with the original stories and myths and maybe some developments. Then I decided to separate a section at the end for cryptids, those creatures that could possibly exist, based on biological science, and that people do think exist. Then... then it grew. What I thought would be maybe a thousand animals and humanoids and gods which were not depicted as humans sort of grew. Almost 7 thousand names have now been collated for over 5 thousand beings. So, in February, this was where I stood, thinking I was close to the end:  Well, it is now September 9 as I type this, and after going through 2 books that added around 150 new creatures (!) to the list (mainly from Lapland, Finland, Australia and south-east Asia) and more words, we are now at:  You can see the pages, the word count, and it also shows I used 10-point Times New Roman font in two columns per page. Also, this is from near the end, showing I have included references, though there are no in-text citations. It's not an academic piece; it is something that should never have blown up quite like this... My list of names is at:  ,showing all names. 1360 of these names are alternate names or spellings of the various creatures, meaning we have 5617 individual creatures. AT THE MOMENT! Is it over? I hope so. But there will surely be a creature somewhere from sometime that I've missed. I have asked many people to give me ideas for monster I might have missed. This year, I have received a number of suggestions. Sorry, but no-one has found one I haven't got. Three quarters were beings I already had, and the rest were creatures from literature/pop culture, creatures from RPGs, or scarypasta/ SCP creations from online sources. The last books I have read (around 7 of them) were all written before the Internet corrupted and distorted what people think is the "reality" of these myths. Anyway, I am strange... and does anyone know a publisher who wants a 460-plus page book (before I even add the Index, which I will do once I am sure I have finished!) with over quarter of a million words? |
| External Writerings VIII It is again that time of the month when i ask my blog readers to please click on some of these columns in order to help me pay my bills! Music and one film column; some interesting musical choices here. Hope you enjoy. Older songs about telling lies. More recent songs about telling lies. To mix it up, songs about the truth. And this leads to songs about trust. Now songs about being perfect.. Early songs about stopping this time. Middle years songs about stopping. And, finally, modern songs about stopping. And to finish, my favourite films of 1974...50 years ago! Thanks everyone! |
| Update! I have not blog-posted for a few days. And there is a reason! I posted this "Note: Sorry to intrude... but had to let it out. A 12k w..." in the Newsfeed. Well, the demon story is now finished, the YA fantasy is now finished and the cryptid story died. I picked the wrong setting, so I will redo it (keeping only one character) with a new setting and a new PoV... and let it fester in my head until November, and I'll use it for my NaNo story this year! I have also got into the habit of writing something for "Merit Badge Magic" , specifically the special badge. Well, I am (as of now, 2:30pm in the afternoon) 3500 words into a story for it... I just got on a roll!And my monster dictionary will not stop! I found 2 new books (well, really old books) and have added hundreds of words to that as well. So, sorry, but blogging has been the last thing on my mind. I have been asked a couple more questions, so I do have some topics to write about, but personal writing has taken precedence. Sorry. |
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