Sometimes a story or a character simply won’t leave me alone. It intrudes in every idle moment and even in dreams. It refuses to go away until I do something about it.
I guess that’s my way of saying that I’ve been working on a new book. Yes, I know there are other projects… but this one just won’t stop pestering me.
I’ve only told two people who are close to me about it, but in the last month (one of the reasons for my lack of posting anything) I’ve written 47,000 words in this book. I am hesitant to make any promises for when it will be finished (or any of my other projects) but it seems to me, if I keep writing this pace, it will be finished by the end of the fall season and perhaps sooner.
A Girl, A Skateboard, And Four Decades of Darkness…
When nine year old Clarissa chased a thief through the woods and stumbled upon a strange meadow, she had no idea that the creature living within would begin following her and feeding on her for the next four decades. Now, she must reflect on her life, and all the ways in which the creature she has named Demon has tormented her. For somewhere in her long experience there must be an answer to defeat it once and for all, or she will face a fate worse than death.
Shades and Shapes in the Dark
By Michael Kilman
Part 1
A Game of Shapes and Shadows
Those shades and shapes in the dark,
From which we draw our desires,
Shape our way of knowing,
Of where best to put our ire.
We cannot see the murky mists,
With our eyes shut ever so tight
Where we leave behind only corpses,
And journey into endless night.
Oh how we take and take some more
For thieving is our business.
We are a shadow of what we once were
When we know only stiffness
Where ever you go is where you are
No matter how fast you’re running,
No magic, nor wisdom, can set you free,
From your mind’s endless cunning.
Come,
Let us wonder through trains of thought
And let the forms take their shape
For having read this far already
Know now, Reader,
There is no escape…
Chapter 1
Tonight, she would stand before Demon for the last time. It was the last time because, now, tonight, as the cold crept in under her skin on the darkest night of the year, and as the snow pelted her face with it’s cold harsh kisses, she would end it. She was tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of the manipulations and the games the creature had visited up on her these long years. Her torment would end before the sun rose over the snowy meadow.
She had not come here for suicide, far from it. She was no conciliatory party accepting defeat and sewing for peace. There could be no peace between them. It was time to surrender to her fate, here, tonight, no matter her fortune. She would fight with all her being until one lay dead. At least, she hoped Demon could die. Perhaps it could not. But as they say, fortune favors the bold. And her boldness was the sharpest of edges.
It had taken everything from her. Through the years it had stripped away all pretense of happiness, so that only unease remained. Only a species of longing stretched out through her loneliness as if a single gossamer thread, balancing all of her life, were holding her up. And she was dangling, oh, she was dangling now. So what use was anything but surrender?
She had come here because this is where it all began. It was the origin story of her suffering, and her brushes with madness. She had looked for Demon’s lair, for the telltale sign of bones or bodies, but she found nothing in the forest. Clarissa had wandered for through the forest for endless hours in the last month. She had learned the nature of every tree and fern she could find. Still, there was no hint of the permanence of the creature, no domicile for which it sought shelter between feedings. As the year drew closed, both on the calendar and her journey around the sun for the forty-ninth time, she had decided to return where it all began.
After she and the creature had met at this crossroad of life and fortune, she had come back one other time to confront it. She had thought it defeated then, but it returned just as fall inevitably follows summer. Clarissa wasn’t ready to die during her last confrontation. She was now. Perhaps that would make all the difference. Certainly something would change after tonight.
It would speak tonight. She had no reason to be certain of a such a thing, but it felt right being here. It didn’t matter that the fear nipped at any exposed skin. Nor, did it matter that if she was wrong it would kill her. It was right to be here, as if she stood at the crossroads of sanity and madness.
It was only because of the snow catching the light of the full moon peaking through the clouds that she could see something emerge into the meadow. There was no sound, save for the soft flutter of snowflakes as they gathered on the tall grass, sliding down to touch the earth and gather together. She wished she could gather like that with others. What a grand thing it would be to build something, some life with other people, but Demon had made certain of her isolation.
The trees bent outward, away from the meadow, and no animal ever dared tread here. There were no tell-tale signs of tracks crossing the open space. Any animal who did come near never made it much further than the edge of the meadow before falling into first death, and then decay and ruin. There was a circle of small bones and corpses ringing the meadow, marking it off as a place of sacrifice. When she had seen those skeletons and the strange growth of trees for the first time all those years ago, it had given her pause. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. She had already stepped inside what she now thought of as, the ritual grounds.
She had spilled blood here. It didn’t matter if it was an accident. She was certain now that, by spilling blood in the meadow, she had woken Demon and begun the unending torment that was her life.
Something was moving on the edge of the wood. It rarely let her see it in all its form and being. Mostly it lurked in the shadows, satisfied to feed on her from a distance, to terrorize with uncertainty. Mostly she only saw shapes and shades of the dark, from which it sipped on her. Even now after four decades Clarissa could close her eyes and hear the soft slurping sounds it made as it sipped from the shadows in the corners of spaces. Perhaps, she thought, it cost a lot for it to take full shape. She couldn’t be sure if it was more terrifying in full form, or as a shadow, but both were the just shades of the same color of fear.
It did not want her dead, at least she didn’t think so. It’s purpose was like a plague that left scarred survivors. Perhaps it was a parasite. She suspected it was her fear, anger, and sorrow on which it fed. For it always appeared when she was deep in possession by strong emotions or it sought to create them. When it appeared, her joy would turn sour in her mouth. Love would wilt away under the drought of goodness so that all that was left was her fixation on fear, then anger, then hatred, and finally despair.
She called it Demon. But she didn’t believe in Deities. Some might argue that the existence of such an evil would demand a deity, but why should it? No, for Clarissa, gods and devils were just lazy stories that people told themselves to feel better about their life. She spat at their simplicity. It would be so easy to hope that some god or goddess would come aid her, to defend her, to send some sign to press forward. But in forty years of torment, she had seen nothing to suggest divine intervention. No, she was on her own. Here she was now, standing in the frozen meadow, forced into a confrontation with some supernatural being. She couldn’t deny magic, but magic didn’t mean there were gods or devils or heavens, or hells.
She called it demon only because she didn’t know what else to call it. It was an animal of some kind, perhaps not one bound by the same rules and principles of our her own existence, but it seemed to follow at least some rules. At first, she had called it shadow, but that wasn’t right. Shadows couldn’t kill. Light disrupted shadows. Demon disliked the light, but… once, it had shown itself in the height of the noonday sun. That moment was forever fixed it in her memory as the moment when her passion was stolen from her, when her one refuge was taken.
There was a soft crunching noise in the snow, now several inches deep. The wind picked up. It did not howl, but it shook the snow from the tops the surrounding trees and cast it into the air like confetti. Somehow she knew that the wind was Demon’s doing and on the back of the wind, she could feel its laughter.
Footfalls emerged before her. She could see impressions forming in the snow. Silence fell. Demon had arrived.
She lifted her flashlight and shone it at the spot. Demon raised its arm to shield it’s eyes, taking a few steps backward. But there was no hiss of burning, or wince of pain, though she had bought the brightest flashlight money could buy. After a moment it let its long jagged arms, relax by it’s side. Spikes protruded every few inches, starting small at its wrists and then growing in size until they stood six inches tall on its shoulders. They reminded her rotting teeth made of something like solidified tar. It’s eyes were like giant black orbs, deep as the darkness it inhabited. To stare into them was to feel a sucking sensation on your soul. Clarissa knew from long experience, that to stare into them, was to risk everything. She stared at them now, fixing her will on Demon.
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Like music, good writing often has a rhythm and a flow. There are always exceptions of course, but if you want your readers to connect with your content, it can be helpful to consider the four elements below.
This essay will focus mainly on fiction. Non-fiction has a different set of elements, and maybe I will write about that soon (comment below if you’re interested in that).
Before I dive in, It’s important to note, that style is really important here too. Different writers use these elements in different ways, but, finding your way to balance them, can help your writing immensely. Often, thinking about how to balance these elements is better done in your second draft. Why? Well, often the first draft is more about discovery. What’s happening? Why is it happening? Once you have the core basics of what you want the scene to accomplish, then you can go back through and apply these elements. Of course, as you practice, you’ll get better at doing it the first time around too.
As I cover each element, I’m going to write a sample scene using the elements. Each element will build on the previous scene. The first iteration of the scene will only include dialogue. With each element, we will add another layer to the same scene.
Let’s dive in.
Element 1: Dialogue
What makes dialogue compelling? Have you ever stopped and read your favorite scenes of dialogue?
There are a few key ingredients to dialogue. But before we get into that, it’s good to note that dialogue in real life, is not the same as fiction. You can’t listen to real-world conversations to help with fictional dialogue.
When I was in graduate school a huge part of my job was transcribing interviews and roundtable discussions. I spent hundreds of hours typing up conversations. It wasn’t long before I discovered that most people don’t follow the same grammatical rules that we do when we are writing. Good dialogue has to simulate conversation but is cleaner and more to the point. No one wants to read all the ums and pauses and false starts. So a first tip is to consider studying how your favorite novels or films set up quality dialogue.
Beyond the flow of dialogue, it’s vital to consider your characters’ interests. What does your character want out of this conversation? What’s their agenda? Do they just want a cup of coffee or are they trying to persuade someone else to take action?
Every person in the dialogue should have some kind of agenda, even if the agenda is to try and remain neutral or understand what the other character is trying to say. How does that agenda tie into their larger goals? Or does it? Maybe their goal is to relax and their neighbor is pestering them. Maybe the conversation is with a powerful person whose goal is to take over the world.
Dialogues are often games of power, persuasion, and coercion. We use our words to enforce norms in society. We use them to get what we want or prevent something from happening. We use words to connect with people or share our feelings just as often as we use them to compete. Always consider how these conversations drive the plot and character development.
Each of your characters will use different kinds of words and phrases. A ten-year-old, unless they are a prodigy, is unlikely to use big words and scientific jargon. They are also less likely to be self-reflective. However, if the 10-year-old is trying to sound smart (because their agenda is to sound more grown up in a group of grown-ups) it can be fun to have the child use the words incorrectly.
You can also use a conversation between an adult and a child to reveal something about your world. The adult can explain elements of your world or story to your child that might be difficult to do in other ways. Children and newcomers to a world are often useful tool for helping your reader to understand your story more organically through dialogue than a long info dump.
Personally, I am not a huge fan of incorporating a lot of dialects into writing. In the Harry Potter series, for example, I loathe reading the Hagrid Dialogue out loud to my kids. That’s because sometimes it’s hard to understand what the character is saying. You have to read the sentence several times and that kind of dialogue can pull you out of the story and leave you feeling frustrated. Your use of accents or dialects should never pull the reader out of the story. You want to draw people in, not frustrate them and force them to read the same line several times to understand what’s happening. There are always exceptions of course, but generally, I suggest avoiding distracting dialects.
On the other hand, if there are certain words or phrases that a character always uses, it can be a good way to build personality or remind your reader of their quirks. Just don’t overuse this. We have all encountered the annoying person who uses the same phrases over and over. Though, this too can be a tool in writing. Perhaps your main character is exhausted by their neighbor who says the same phrase six times in a single conversation. But remember, a little bit goes a long way.
Avoid adverbs. I’m not one of those writers who says never use them, adverbs have their place. But if you always have to write something like, ‘She spoke softly’ or ‘He said with certainty’ then you aren’t really balancing out the other elements. There are lots of other tools in our writing kits that help us understand tone and emotion. Dialogue can be good for showing the reader things, but avoid telling your reader about the tone or feelings of the character. Let the character share their own thoughts and feelings as much as possible.
There are definitely more things to think about with dialogue but considering these key points can significantly improve your dialogue. If you want to dive deeper into dialogue specifically, I highly recommend the book ‘How to Write Dazzling Dialogue’. It’s a pretty quick read and covers some additional key points about how to improve that particular part of your writing.
Scene Example Part 1: Just Dialogue
Stephanie said, “I’m leaving for a reason.”
Grandma said, “But we need you here on the farm.”
“Bert isn’t going to college. He’ll stay here forever.”
“One person isn’t enough to take care of all the animals.”
“So hire someone.”
“You don’t care about your family?”
“It’s not that grandma. I do care. But this place. It’s just not me. I don’t feel like I fit in here. I want to find where I belong.”
“Stephanie, of course you fit in here. I couldn’t do any of this without you. And besides, Bert isn’t going to marry anyone. He’s not going to have kids. This farm has been in the family for generations and you’re just going to abandon us?”
“It’s not abandoning you. I have to find myself. I’m an artist Grandma. I need inspiration.”
“You can paint here!”
“Paint what? Barns? Trees? Farmers? No. I want to travel the world and paint all the amazing things I see.”
Element 2: Action
Action isn’t necessarily violence. Action is also motion. It’s everyday tasks. It’s moving around in the space and inhabiting it. Action is important because you don’t want your character floating around in a void, you want them to be living breathing beings inhabiting an interesting space.
Is your character cooking dinner while talking to their grandmother?
Are they brewing a magical potion to curse their enemies while discussing their evil master plan with their assistant?
Action and Dialogue work together in beats. The dialogue in the example above is an okay start but when we only have the words, were missing so much more of the lived experience of these two characters. Dialogue and action have beats and melodies just like music.
If you have only dialogue and no action, there’s no room for the reader to pause and consider. Action can give dialogue some breathing room. It can add quirks to each character and deepen the emotions of the dialogue.
Maybe it’s just me, but I struggle to stay interested when there is too much action. A big battle scene, a one-on-one fight, a massive explosion, or a scene where someone is fleeing a monster can be a lot of fun to read and write. But if your characters never stop to catch their breath, if every chapter has a scene where someone is fleeing a monster, if your entire book is a battle… you’re going to bore the hell out of most readers. There are certainly people who will read nonstop action. Hollywood counts on some of those people to consume their endless sequels of Fast and Furious, but even those movies, have downtime.
Action should serve a purpose in the story. Yes, you can absolutely write cool action scenes and they’re definitely fun to write, but why? What does this do to drive the story?
Frank Herbert was notorious for cutting out the vast majority of the big battles in his Dune books, and Dune is hands down the best-selling sci-fi novel of all time. There’s lots of action in the books, but you don’t hear very much about the big interstellar battles as Paul Atredies conquers the galaxy. And while not everyone loves Dune, it’s one of the most important science fiction novels in history. There are lots of ways to approach action.
Why does that bomb need to go off? Why do two rivals have to fight that battle? Or rather, why do you need to show the battle? Is your main character a warrior so the audience needs to see their skills or use of magic? Is important to show them fighting for their life against an evil shapeshifting clown? If your story contains a lot of battles, it’s not necessary to show every element of every battle. Choose important moments in longer moments to highlight important actions. Don’t make the mistake of the Transformers movies and have ninety minutes of a two-hour film dedicated to fight scenes. Those movies make my eyes glaze over because it’s just action, action, action.
Be strategic with your action. Too much and you might have readers putting down your book, too little and they won’t understand the scene the way you want them to.
Scene Example Part 2: Dialogue and Action
Stephanie stirred the marinara and said, “I’m leaving for a reason.”
Grandma kneaded the dough on the adjacent countertop. She pressed her hands much harder in the dough than needed, “But we need you here on the farm.”
Adding in some more garlic, Stephanie stopped and turned facing her grandmother. “Bert isn’t going to college. He’ll stay here forever.”
Grandma sighed shook her head. “One person isn’t enough to take care of all the animals.”
“So hire someone.”
Grandma stopped kneading the dough and put her hands on her hips, scattering flower on the floor. “You don’t care about your family?”
Stephanie turned back to the pot, adding seasoning to the sauce. “It’s not that grandma. I do care. But this place? It’s just not me. I don’t feel like I fit in here. I want to find where I belong.”
Her grandmother leaned into the rolling pin and flattened the dough. “Of course you fit in here! I couldn’t do any of this without you. And besides, Bert isn’t going to marry anyone. He’s not going to have kids. This farm has been in the family for generations and you’re just going to abandon us?”
“It’s not abandoning you. I have to find myself. I’m an artist Grandma. I need inspiration.”
“You can paint here!”
“Paint what? Barns? Trees? Farmers? No. I want to travel the world and paint all the amazing things I see.” She waved her arms around spattering droplets of marinara on the countertops.
Element 3: Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the cultural and environmental setting your characters are in. It’s the kinds of cultural elements you’ll see in the seen giving your story more context.
– What time in history does your story take place?
-What is the level of technology?
-Are the characters indoors? Outdoors?
-What kinds of things decorate their walls?
-What kind of furniture or objects fill the room?
-What does the landscape look like? Can people walk in it or do they need a space suit?
We cultivate our spaces based on cultural knowledge and personal experiences. But personal experience is also bound by culture. If you live in a different culture you will naturally have different experiences. Think about the culture and the setting of your scene. In our example, we have a family farm and a young girl dreaming of traveling the world and painting. What kind of cultural details are important to make the world feel real?
Worldbuilding should be realistic. No, I don’t mean you can’t use magic, or spaceships, or supernatural forces, I mean your world must be internally consistent and holistic. What does that mean? It means that there are manyl ways that sentient creatures (like humans) interact and adapt to the world they live in both socially and physically.
-Every culture has limitations and gaps in knowledge. What are your characters?
-What are the power dynamics between the characters? Who tries to assert power? Who tries to resist it? The rebellious teenager who wants to travel the world and paint is trying to both resist the power of the older generation and assert her own.
-Do they fit within the status quo of the culture or is one character challenging the status quo?
-How does their identity fit, or not fit, into the culture?
A few sentences here or there can add a little more context to the world in which the characters inhabit. Everyone always says to avoid info dumping. But what if you have to introduce the reader to a giant walking city, telepathy, and what it’s like to be homeless in this environment in a single scene? How can you avoid info dumping? The balance between these elements (including the next and final one) can help you to draw your readers in and make a scene more compelling, while at the same time introducing interesting concepts or ideas to your story.
If you want a full book chapter that includes worldbuilding through, dialogue, action, and the environment, you might consider listening to audio narration of the first chapter of my novel “Mimi of the Nowhere” for free over on YouTube.
Scene Example 3: Dialogue, Action, and Worldbuilding
Under the warm light of the kitchen, Stephanie stirred the marinara and said, “I’m leaving for a reason.”
Grandma kneaded the dough on the adjacent countertop. She pressed her hands much harder in the dough than needed. “But we need you here on the farm.”
First, adding in some more garlic she had bought that morning from the farmers market, Stephanie stopped and turned facing her grandmother. “Bert isn’t going to college. He’ll stay here forever.”
Grandma sighed shook her head. “One person isn’t enough to take care of all the animals.”
Cornelius the Rooster picked that moment to jump up and peck at the kitchen window.
“So hire someone.”
Grandma stopped kneading the dough and put her hands on her hips, scattering flower on the peeling linoleum floor. “You don’t care about your family?” She grabbed the ancient rolling pin, that had probably been around as long as she was alive. Two white handprints lingered on her apron as she worked the dough.
Stephanie turned back to the pot, adding seasoning to the sauce. “It’s not that grandma. I do care. But this place? It’s just not me. I don’t feel like I fit in here. I want to find where I belong.”
Rain replaced the rooster, drumming on the window.
Her grandmother leaned into the rolling pin and flattened the dough. “Of course you fit in here! I couldn’t do any of this without you. And besides, Bert isn’t going to marry anyone. He’s not going to have kids. This farm has been in the family for generations and you’re just going to abandon us?”
“It’s not abandoning you. I have to find myself. I’m an artist Grandma. I need inspiration.”
“You can paint here. Your family loves you. We’ll miss you.” She nodded toward the family portraits on the wall, taken semi-often over the last hundred years. The older photos were black and white and gradually changed to a printed copy Grandma had reluctantly taken with her cell phone.
“Paint what? Barns? Trees? Farmers? No. I want to travel the world and paint all the amazing things I see.” She waved her arms around spattering droplets of marinara on the countertops. Similar stains speckled the walls from past disagreements, a map of misunderstandings.
Element 4: Internal Life
Internal life is what’s happening in the character’s mind. Not every scene needs a great deal of internal life, and in some situations, it might make sense to cut it entirely. But I think that internal life can be a powerful ally in writing a scene that connects the reader to the character’s emotions. It can also show how a character has changed in a longer story.
One of my favorite fantasy writers, Brent Weeks, does a fantastic job of using the internal life of his characters to show how they reflect on what’s happening to them and how they’ve changed over time. When you read either one of his famous book series, The Lightbringer, or the Night Angel series, that inner life helps you to feel that you’re growing with the character and you feel a deeper connection.
Things to consider about the element of inner life:
-What are the character’s thoughts and feelings?
-How do they think about what the other person just said?
-How do they feel about the place? The weather? The political situation?
-What do they think about themselves?
-What emotions are most potent in the scene?
-What things do they ruminate on? What can’t they stop thinking or worrying about?
-Do they have trauma? What things force them to relive that trauma?
-What motivates them?
-What are they afraid of?
-How does the internal life reflect the outer conditions?
Be careful, too much internal life can slow the scene down to the point where it’s hard for the reader to focus. If you’re always in the character’s head, the scene can feel bloated. Some books focus so much on inner life that nothing happens for most of a chapter. That may or may not be good for your story. Consider carefully.
Scene Example 4: All Four Elements
Under the warm light of the kitchen, Stephanie stirred the marinara and said, “I’m leaving for a reason.”
Grandma kneaded the dough on the adjacent countertop. She pressed her hands much harder in the dough than needed. “But we need you here on the farm.”
What did they need her for? She barely tended the animals anymore. She couldn’t understand why her grandmother was pushing so hard to keep her around.
First adding in some more garlic she had bought that morning from the farmers market, Stephanie stopped and turned facing her grandmother. “Bert isn’t going to college. He’ll stay here forever.”
Her baby brother loved this place. He was up early every single day with the animals, spent hours on the tractor, and loved the work. But Bert was a loner. He only left the farm to go on supply runs.
Grandma sighed shook her head. “One person isn’t enough to take care of all the animals.”
Cornelius the Rooster picked that moment to jump up and peck at the kitchen window. She hated that damn bird. It woke her every morning and pecked at the window all the time. She definitely wouldn’t miss him.
“So hire someone.”
Grandma stopped kneading the dough and put her hands on her hips, scattering flower on the peeling linoleum floor. “You don’t care about your family?” She grabbed the ancient rolling pin, that had probably been around as long as she was alive. Two white handprints lingered on her apron as she worked the dough.
Stephanie turned back to the pot, adding seasoning to the sauce. “It’s not that grandma. I do care. But this place? It’s just not me. I don’t feel like I fit in here. I want to find where I belong.”
The rain replaced the rooster, drumming on the window. She’d almost rather the rooster. Stephanie was so tired of the rain, of the endless months of overcast. She wanted to be somewhere warm and sunny.
Her grandmother leaned into the rolling pin and flattened the dough. “Of course you fit in here! I couldn’t do any of this without you. And besides, Bert isn’t going to marry anyone. He’s not going to have kids. This farm has been in the family for generations and you’re just going to abandon us?”
And there it was. She wanted Stephanie to become the typical barefoot and pregnant farmer’s wife. And who the hell would she stick around for? There weren’t exactly a lot of good options around here. After high school, all the fun people had gone off to college. After her parents had died, she had stayed for three years until Bert graduated. But she dreamed of New York and Paris and London. And she wanted to see those places before she even considered kids.
“It’s not abandoning you. I have to find myself. I’m an artist Grandma. I need inspiration.”
“You can paint here. Your family loves you. We’ll miss you.” She nodded toward the family portraits on the wall, taken semi-often over the last hundred years. The older photos were black and white and gradually changed to a printed copy Grandma had reluctantly taken with her cell phone.
“Paint what? Barns? Trees? Farmers? No. I want to travel the world and paint all the amazing things I see.” She waved her arms around spattering droplets of marinara on the countertops. Similar stains speckled the walls from past disagreements, a map of misunderstandings.
Concluding Thoughts
Take a look at how much more we know about the character’s motivations and the world in which they inhabit in the last example compared to the first one where we only use dialogue. How I use these elements will certainly be different than how you use them, but I hope the scene examples will help illuminate how you might approach and improve your own scenes.
Even if you choose to skip one of these elements, or if you use one far less than the others, it’s important to consider how each of these approaches is used and integrated into the scene to breathe life into your characters. These aren’t rules, these are suggestions. At the end of the day, you decide how to approach your style of writing.
I write essays like this to help readers like you understand the core foundations so that they can truly understand the nature of the art and craft of writing. After all, the world is a better place with better stories. And I believe that stories can save the world.
I hope this was helpful! Best of luck with all of your writing! Feel free to add questions or comments below.
There are so many books to read and so little time. It’s a mantra every bookworm knows well. I currently have almost 300 books on my Goodreads, want-to-read list, and that’s just what’s on Goodreads. I probably own at least 200 more ebooks, audiobooks, paperbacks, and hardcovers. I often feel frustrated that I can only get through so many books in a year, despite constant reading. I want to explore new ideas and new worlds and new characters and grow my knowledge of fictional universes to improve my craft and gain exposure to new styles. Yet, the more I read and the more I write, the more I have come to believe that rereading some of those books I live is vital to improving my craft.
Over the last five years or so, I’ve begun to put books on a reread list. The books that make this list are ones that I couldn’t put down, books that I often sacrifice sleep to read chapters or finish. I want to reread them because I enjoyed them, but there’s another reason. I want to understand the why of what caught my interest. Was it something in their style? The descriptions? The characters? What made it so I couldn’t put that book down and how can I build on those skills in my own writing?
Recently I reread Kim Stanley Robinson’s book Red Mars. Robinson is one of my favorite sci-fi authors because he’s an extraordinary worldbuilder and his characters are so wonderfully complex. Of course, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea as some of his passages and descriptions are quite lengthy, but I love his work. In reading Red Mars for a second time I was able to see exactly how he used his themes through his characters’ lives and how some characters were even a kind of avatar of a theme or philosophy that could be pitted against each other. So much of Robinson’s arguments surround the arguments, to terraform or not to terraform (each represented by a major character and their followers) and to continue with the Terran status quo or to create something politically and economically new (again represented by particular characters). In this you have a kind of four-pointed nexus that makes for very interesting and contrasting characters, all of whom want to call Mars home, but in their own way.
Rereading the book reminded me a bit of some of the suggestions from John Truby’s wonderful book The Anatomy of Story. The most interesting stories often have characters with similar goals, but different approaches. This makes for lots of really interesting conflict and opportunities for characters who do change as a result of their experiences in a way that feels organic and natural. Of course, if you’ve read the whole Mars trilogy, you know that the conversation continues for many of the characters and the depth grows. But while I wasn’t ignorant of these themes the first time I read the book, I didn’t notice the same level of depth the first time around. It’s not that I don’t think you can do this the first time around, it’s that I think you can do it better the second time around because you’re less distracted by the story itself and thus can tinker with the materials that went into the story’s construction. Once you observe the whole picture, you’re ready to understand the fine details of its construction.
Consider, after you’ve finished the first draft of your own story, you can do the same thing. I know it takes me about seven to ten drafts before I feel a chapter or a short story is ready to go to an editor. So why not use the first few drafts to get the story out of the way, and then in the later drafts apply that critical eye you get from rereading books you love?
Here are a few questions I ask myself during a reread:
How does the dialogue in this passage contribute to the character’s place in the story and the general themes that they embody?
What kind of description speaks to you? When are your eyes glazing over from too much description?
How does the author use the show vs tell dichotomy and how well does it work? What did you want to see more of? Less of?
How does the pacing between action, dialogue, worldbuilding, and the inner life of the character work? When does it shine? When is it weak?
What kinds of things make you turn the next page? What piques your curiosity?
If the book is bad, why did you put it down or struggle to finish it?
How does the author use themes or their central thesis to move the characters or build connections?
Ultimately a lot of this is your own opinion, and it’s important to keep that in mind. But even if you don’t like a book but it has fantastic reviews and critical acclaim, it’s worth doing this process to expand your craft. The goal here is to get you thinking critically about your own writing and thus improve your work. For me, I’ve found that rereading has been useful in that endeavor. What do you think?
This last weekend I had a great time at Cosine Comic-con. I was on several panels as both participant and moderator and sat in on a number of great discussions. As always, I try to record some of the panels that I think might be helpful for writing or a good resource for people. You can find the recording of, Adding Diversity to your Writing, below. This panel included myself and the following panelists:
Betsy Dornbusch writes epic fantasy, and has dabbled in science fiction, thrillers, and erotica. Her short fiction has appeared in over twenty magazines and anthologies, and she’s the author of three novellas. Her first fantasy novel came out in 2012 and her latest trilogy, Books of the Seven Eyes, wrapped up with Enemy in 2017. The Silver Scar, a standalone future fantasy novel, was called “a spellbinding saga” by Publisher’s Weekly.
Thea Hutcheson explores far away lands full of magic and science with one hand holding hope and the other full of wonder while she burns up pages with lust, leather, and latex, brimming over with juicy bits. She lives in an economically depressed, unscenic, nearly historic small city in Colorado. She is a factotum when she is filling the time between bouts at the computer.
Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries series, media tie-in fiction for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and non-fiction. She has won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, and Locus Awards, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the BSFA Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and her books have been published in twenty-two languages.
Recently, the editor of Anthropology News reached out to me and asked me if I would contribute an article for their fall magazine. The result was How to Build A Complex Character With Anthropology. I was really honored to be a part of AAA news since I’ve been reading and engaging with their content for a number of years.
A few weeks ago, my co-author Kyra Wellstrom and I recorded an episode with Indie Book Talk. The podcast episode was a lot of fun. We talked about worldbuilding, anthropology, and writing more generally. The episode is on the shorter side (only 24 minutes) so it’s a great discussion of the lot of the things we do in a quick and interesting episode. The episode came out this morning!
It’s been a bit since I published something but my new horror short story Eye of the Wood goes live Wednesday August 17th, 2022 on all major bookselling services. It’s a short story (about 5000 words) so it will permanently stay .99 cents. If you want a quick dark read, this story is for you!
Blurb: All must seek the eye of the wood, the clearing at the center of the forest. For within lay the only hope to keep the living, hungry darkness at bay.
Today is the 4th anniversary of my first novel, Mimi of the Nowhere going live on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble. In the last 4 years, there have been four books published in the series since that date, with more on the way. I am approaching the end of the first draft of book 5, The Children of AEIS and expect it to be out late summer.
For those who of you who have been following the series, you may have noticed it’s been two years between book 4 and book 5. Why is this? Well, as I am sure so many of you have experienced, the Covid-19 pandemic made life a bit more complicated for a while. But in addition to that, in June of 2020 I suffered a major head injury during a cycling accident. I struggled to read or write anything for almost 6 months. I would have occasional little bursts of creativity during that time, but I wrote and read very little. I was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome and I can say now, that after almost 2 years, I finally have a great deal of normality with only occasional concussion related issues.
This spring and summer I am back in the full swing of writing. And so there is another announcement. The Children of AEIS became rather lengthy, well over 1000 pages. If you’ve been following the series, you might no why… the world went from one walking city, to multiple, and then in book 4… the whole solar system began to open up. Because of it’s length, I have decided to split it into two books. Which will release within six months of each other. The new entry to the series, means the series will now be seven books in length. Book six is titled, “A War For The Heavens.” While book 5 focuses on the survivors of the aftermath of the Battle for Langeles, book 6 will return back to Manhatsten with their new allies the Lunites, and a conflict that is growing with ROAM. Book 7, A Hand to the Stars, will focus on the final battles for the fate of all remaining walking cities and the solar system itself.
You know, another thing I have been thinking about… my series never really fit quite right into the dystopian literature. Things are hard yes, but not hopeless. There is a lot of oppression, a lot of social control, but there are good things as well. It’s much more complex than the label of dystopian. My project here isn’t to talk about how awful society can be and the fear around the slide downhill… instead, this series is something different. I recently discovered an article on polytopias, about stories where the fundamental driving force of the story is that of change and diversity itself. I realized that the heart of everything happening my fictional universe fits this approach so much better. Definitely give that article a read if you want more info about polytopias. The author correctly points out Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy and the Expanse as important examples of polytopias, and stories about change and diversity are definitely my approach.
Thank you to all of you who continue to follow my work. I appreciate every single one of you. I don’t have many fans, but the ones I do are the absolute best.
I’m an avid gamer and science fiction author in addition to being an anthropologist. So for me, worldbuilding is everything. A bad worldbuild immediately turns me off to games, and I know that as gamers become more sophisticated, many people are feeling the same. First of all, some of you may be asking, Just what is Anthropology? Well, for a quick answer, it’s the study of humans and cultures. Anthropologists like myself spend years studying culture, identity, and cultural systems. We also have a unique approach that not only helps with building a fictional world but is vital for creating a realistic and immersive world system. (For more on what Anthropology is, check out my YouTube series Anthropology in 10 minutes or Less)
Below are a few reasons an Anthropologist (or at least some anthropology) could augment the quality of your game and the experience of your gamers.
1. Holism.
The concept of Holism is a vital component in anthropology and is one of the three elements of Anthropology that make it unique from all other social sciences. Holism is the very real and applicable concept, that culture and identity are an integrated system, and that when you change one thing, it’s going to change everything. Think of the famous chaos theory concept, the Butterfly Effect, that the smallest changes can have a massive and unpredictable ripple effect outward.
What does this mean? Well, your fictional economic system, your family life, your political system, your religion, your ethnic system, your culture’s attitudes towards death, their biology, their environment, the kinds of things that they make, and more, are all deeply interrelated and connected. So when you’re building a fictional world, it’s important to consider these relationships and how they all relate to systems of power, identity, freedom, oppression, and so on. It sounds like a lot doesn’t it? It is. But it’s also why Anthropologists are essentially jacks of all trades. Our job is to understand how these systems operate and change. We look at the big picture of how societies operate as well as how biology and the environment impact us. Ultimately, culture is an adaptation to biological, environmental, and social forces. A holistic approach helps us understand those relationships.
2. More Immersive and Realistic Interactions and Game Changes
Creating a fictional world in game, film, or written form is a massive undertaking, and for gaming and other interactive mediums, considering culture can absolutely make or break a game. It doesn’t mean you have to get worldbuilding perfect, (very few games around have really truly holistic worlds but there are more with each passing year) but, it will also help you to think about the causes, and consequences of the actions of not only the NPC’s but the characters as well. Think about how much more interesting the choices in your games can be for characters if, their actions and choices early game create ongoing cultural changes. Imagine if allying with an NPC early in a game could have real, culture-wide consequences that ripple outward in interesting and meaningful ways (Not just who you get to be friends with later) What would look like? Well, that’s where an anthropologist could come in. We have more then a century of research on what culture changes looks like and how it manifests. For example, when I recently consulted for a major tech company, we talked about how the 1918 pandemic shifted our standards of beauty and made things like tanning popular, and altered our architecture to include more sunlight and open spaces in our buildings in the United States.
3. Anthropologists Are Intercultural Communicators
Our job as anthropologists is not only to study and understand cultural systems but to also act as intercultural communicators. We help different kinds of cultures and subcultures communicate and work together. It’s also why so many tech companies these days hire UX and Design Anthropologists because we understand elements of human behavior that a lot of other people miss. Anthropologists study human behavior and cultural trends and how people experience the world across cultures. So if you want to release an app in India, or China, or Germany, they will necessarily require different cultural considerations. Within a game with diverse populations, towns, and political factions, this becomes vital.
Remember that potential change I was just talking about early game as a potentially major change agent in this hypothetical game world? Your choice of who you align with or interact within the real world can have some hefty political ramifications. Early on in my field research experiences, I learned that not every group, even within a single culture is going to react the same way to change and some may or may not be able to communicate the impact of those changes effectively. One thing you learn really quickly when you go out in the field and work with people and do research is that even the most positive and useful changes you help a culture make will have all kinds of strange and unexpected consequences. Further, no matter what the change, someone is always going to be disenfranchised and will push back against the changes, even if they are beneficial for everyone but themselves. An anthropologist who has been in the field and studied culture for years of their life is going to help you think critically about what those changes will do and how different groups will interact with them.
4. Diversity Is A Strength, Especially if You Want An Immersive Fictional World
There’s a lot of discussions these days about representation and diversity, and rightfully so. The gaming community has been grappling with being more inclusive, not only in the makeup of companies but also in gaming content itself. The reality is, the lack of diversity in your game or film, or writing project is actually just simply, bad writing. The world is diverse and complex, your game should be too. But what do you do if you want to write a game about groups or cultures that are unfamiliar to you? Well first, do some background research at the very least. But ideally, you should reach out and work with different cultures and groups that you are portraying (yes even if they are an analogue… actually, especially if they are an analog). An anthropologist can help mediate these conversations and help all interested parties get around some of the communication traps and internal biases that we all have. Without doing the research, might inadvertently create a stereotypical culture that disenfranchises a real culture and create a headache for your gaming company. Remember, bias is not a comment on your character, it’s just the blind spots in your knowledge and it’s an anthropologist’s job to figure out, how these biases get in the way of communication across cultures.
The more complex and diverse your world is, the more immersive it will feel. You want your gamers to feel like they just stepped into an actual world with diverse characters with different skills, hopes, dreams, and inclinations don’t you? If you understand diversity, this becomes so much easier.
5. Imagination Isn’t Always the Same Across Cultures
There’s a problem with a lot of the fantasy novels. They are all the same. So many just take lifted D&D mechanics or they take place in the same European-based cultures that surround 15th– 17th-century technologies. There are some notable exceptions, but you see in the fantasy fiction world, time and time again, the same recycled tropes and storylines. A lot of gaming RPGs suffer the same fate. They don’t offer anything unique or interesting. Personally, interesting game mechanics just aren’t enough to really capture my attention for the long haul. I need an interesting story and world and characters that I care about. The reason things have become stagnant in a lot of media is that we have limited ourselves to the imagination of just a few cultures and traditions. The world is full of amazing, diverse, and unique perspectives to consider in creating fictional worlds, whether based on something real, or something totally new.
Until relatively recently, creating digital games was really only available in a few cultures around the world. But in the past decade or so, that’s changed. Consider the game Never Alone, also known as Kisima Inŋitchuŋa in the indigenous language. It’s a unique game that tells a story about the Iñupiaq culture. In fact, the whole game is in the traditional language with English subtitles. My favorite part as an anthropologist? Not only was the game created by indigenous people for indigenous people thus offering a unique experience, but the game offers interviews with Iñupiaq elders that unlock as you complete each level. This gives your gamers a richer experience and helps expand our imaginations and the possibilities of our future as a species. This is important, because as I said in my recent Ted Talk on this topic, what we imagine matters.
6. Anthropology is a Toolkit
All this above by the way is why me and my colleague Kyra Wellstrom decided to sit down and work on a book, just for gamers, fiction writers, and filmmakers that teaches core concepts in Anthropology. The book is called, Build Better Worlds: An Introduction to Anthropology for Game Designers, Fiction Writers, and Filmmakers. We wanted to create a quick and easy guide for those who may not be able to hire an anthropologist for consulting on their projects and something that wouldn’t require you to dig through a bunch of textbooks to find answers. The book covers so many of the crucial elements of cultural systems because well, viewing the world from an anthropological viewpoint is a toolkit to better understand the how and why of culture and identity. With well over a century of anthropological research, we have a lot of answers and unique approaches to questions about culture. A little anthropology goes a long way.
Over the years I’ve been creating free resources for creatives to help them think about important questions in their fictional worlds, like cognitive mapping, notions of purity, the purpose of mythology, and more on my website. These resources include podcast episodes, recorded panels at cons, and a host of other tips and things to consider in your projects. I hope all of this helps you to build a better world.
Want to hire an anthropologist to consult on your game? Visit our webpage for more info.
Recently I have decided to take some of my unpublished short stories in my sci-fi series, The Chronicles of the Great Migration and begin recording them and uploading them to YouTube. This will be an ongoing series with occasional releases that add to the world in which my story takes place.
The first entry in this series is titled Terminal Decay. In it:
A sentient satellite falls to earth and reflects on it’s life and the state of humanity, who is now relegated to living inside giant walking cities.
Loridian's Laboratory 