This year for NaNo, I’m going to attempt a novel-in-stories. I’ve devised 10 possible plots and I’ll write as many as it takes to finish my 50k, targeting each short at 5k words.

Take a look and let me know if any of them sound exciting; feel free to add your own creativity too; please note these are all working titles…

Shilo

A cold blooded assassin, a legend at his trade, is hired to kill a girl he’s been protecting. When he finds out they are the same person, he’ll have to make a choice: his life or hers.

Joansen

A man bent on revenge devotes his life to finding a killer, only to learn that the man runs an orphanage.

Meeting Solnarra Vons

Tisho Ukaneo takes no prisoners while warring the savages who damaged his sister, Misane. The lines of justice get hazy when he is faced with executing a young girl who reminds him of Misane.

Under the White

Two refugees search for sanctuary. They are led by an Elle, who doesn’t sink in the snow while they travel, and each tries to contrive a more convincing story about why.

House of the Lost

A boy arrives on a bus full of kids, all runaways. They are delivered to a nightmarish mansion where they are forbidden to ask questions and curiosity can be deadly. The walls whisper and children disappear without warning, and the only way to survive seems to be by avoiding attention.

Nightwulf

A man has vivid nightmares where he is chased by a wolf. Occasionally he sees visions in the dreams. In one, he is bitten and he wakes with a fever and suffers what he thinks at first are hallucinations of a spirit world. He’s not so sure when he sees a man pushed off of a building by an angry ghost.

Halo Soldier’s Journal

Two video game characters, modeled on halo soldiers, pass the time by exploiting game mechanics to perform pranks on one another. One has a compulsion to stick grenades to things for fun, loves the way his partner forcefield glows when he shoots him in the back, and tells bad knock knock jokes. The other is obsessed with saving ammunition, complains about his cod piece being too tight, and inists on driving all the warthogs.

The (Un)Martyr

A man, overwhelmed by the carnage of war, is determined to die in battle, but plans keep going awry.

Starlight (rewrite)

A woman seeks her memory and finds out she didn’t really want it, but she’s a little too late.

Vodik Von Varediss (rewrite)

A librarian of no particular bravery outwits a fearesome interrogator to save the last heir of the kingdom from death.

I’ve had an itch lately as I’ve read guides on publishing, advice on story telling, and how-tos on writing effectively, and so on… there’s something missing from the stock of advice available to authors these days, and it took me a long time to name it.

See, the great authors of history certainly wrote with clear and original voice, snapped with witty discourse, used active verbs, plot, and character development. Yes yes, these are critical things. But the message delivered by all these experts is clear: write to entertain.

The greats did something more than that. Every story I’ve loved, every great masterpiece of history that stands the test of time, moved me spiritually and mentally. They challenged my beliefs, ran rampant through my ideas, and made me want to go do something, build something, or become someone.

Consider some of these famous lines:

All men die; not all men really live –Randall Wallace, Braveheart

So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide…All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us –Tolkien, LOTR

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once. –Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form from off my door! –Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

Did these authors write to entertain? Would these stories have captured the spirit without the powerful movements behind the text? Without ideology and depth? If everyone in the story was nothing more than a base and selfish turd seeking to get something?

Which brings me to the point: If you’re writing just to shock or entertain, what the hell are you doing?

You have in your hands a weapon, an ancient artifact of magnificent power, which can be used for great good, and great evil.

Don’t just tell stories, transform people. Don’t just aspire, inspire. Use the pen in your hand to change the world. The world is full of filth and normalcy and stories that sell shockingly droll and apathetic anti-heroes.

That’s not to say that they don’t have a place in your stories. But don’t write for the sake of those things. Use them to build something wonderful.

Move. Your. World.

If there’s anything I’ve been told I write well it’s battles. Which begs the question of why I put so few in my books. But I think that’s one powerful part of battles: less is more. The story needs a great deal of buildup and tension to set off a powerful battle, whether it’s one on one or mass melee.

The actual technique of writing believable battles is difficult. With twenty years of martial arts under my belt, and a good study of famous battles, I can conjure them up fairly easily. But as a writer you probably don’t want to spend twenty years perfecting that understanding, so here are some good ways to fake it.

1. Battles are simple.

Battles aren’t won with elaborate strategies or confusing, abstract methods. They are won by simple, well executed plans, which consider all the opponents contingencies.

It’s the little details that make the difference and create favorable odds. The enemy who is led into a soft patch of mud lacks mobility and becomes the victim of his opponent with the spear.

Enraging an opponent so they loose control and make a silly mistake, like slipping off a catwalk or twisting an ankle can end a fight. Often patience and keeping one’s head is enough to see it through.

Stumbling or tripping can spell disaster.

I watched a documentary about Agincourt, a famous battle during which the English were exhausted and outnumbered, but managed to defeat a superior french force using mud and wedge shaped groups of archers (the wikipedia page fails to capture the brilliance of their strategy and hardly mentions the unique shape of their three “battles”, or battalions). 

It’s amazing how a little terrain and angle of attack created such a mess for the french cavalry (striking their horses from the side defeated the calvary’s thick armor) and the french were mired in mud, allowing unarmored bowmen to outfight armored warriors. They were literally defeated by mud and their own armor.

2. Size matters

Bigger, stronger opponents are not easily beaten by fast, lithe warriors, no matter how expert they are. An opponent with a longer and larger weapon has a serious advantage in combat, unless the weapon is cumbersome and hard for him to wield.

Often, a good strong attack can foil any plan; despite the romance we have with the underdog and with how speed and wit can outsmart brute force. It can sometimes level the field, but odds always favor the larger, stronger opponent in melee, whether hand to hand or with weapons.

That’s not to say that mobility and speed aren’t important and effective attributes. But unless you can stay out of an opponents reach and beat them from range, you must come within their guard at some point. And one careless movement or well placed blow ends the fight for the smaller, weaker fighter.

3. Read Sun Tzu

Brilliant generals follow his advice to the letter. Poor generals are the ones who make the mistakes he mentions, or do the opposite of his advice. There’s no greater book about war strategy than Sun Tzu’s.

4. Battles, like dialog, need to progress the story, not just happen.

Good battles in stories are concise, centered on a POV, and each description, each slash, each movement serves the plot. Just like good dialog, there is no fluff, and no extra description for the sake of being thorough. The battle stays focused on what the author wants the reader to feel and experience, on building tension, and on progressing the plot forward.

You don’t have to describe the whole battle, just enough of it to get the grit and feel. You only need enough of the moment to immerse the reader, and the final outcome. Leave the rest out, and you’ll have great battles.

(I originally posted this on CC, but decided I’d like to keep a more permanent copy here)

Wwwwwwowwww… who would have thought that origami could build telescopes?

It’s a rhetorical question, really. After studying martial arts for so many years, I can see how pursuit of mastery and perfection in any art transforms a person into something greater. And, amazingly, in doing so it also transforms the culture and society around that person. It’s an amazing cycle of growth and enlightenment.

In addition to having a great story to tell about how art for the sake of art can change the world, this guy is funny, too.

It also illuminates a beautiful principle that applies equally to writers, programmers, martial artists, and anyone in this world seeking mastery of a craft: When you combine artistic expression with a fundamental understanding of the rules that govern a system, you come out with amazing, beautiful, functional art.

And, from mastery of a beautiful, functional art, you can build a telescope. Or change the world. Take your pick.

Listen to me. Tomorrow, you’re going to wake up and be 85 years old. You’ll be dying of cancer, heart failure, or alzheimers. It’s not going to be pretty.

I want you to know this because you can’t wait until next week to do what matters. Today isn’t lost until you give it up; never give it up. It’s all you have and you don’t get many more.

Now, let’s pause a moment and get something straight.  There’s a big difference between idle time and renewal. Your family and your moments alone and your meditations and hikes in the mountains are every bit as important as your achievements and grimy gritty day work.

So get to it. Put the big things in your day first, then fit the clutter around them. Get your spouse, your writing, your martial arts training (or exercise regimen) at the top of the list. Get your self renewal and your restful time on there next.

Then add your friends and extended family. And, with what’s left, plan the day-to-day tasks, the television, and the catching up with acquaintances.

You can’t wait for tomorrow, so don’t.

With November Looming, I’m conflicted about the value of lighting myself on fire writing another book right now.

The thing is, I see so many flaws in my writing, so many qualities that need to be improved, I’m not sure that writing another novel is the way to go. I’m half convinced that spending some time honing those skills first would be much more useful than the time I’ll spend editing the novel later.

Worse, I’m worried that I’ll set all my current works aside as hopelessly flawed. Some of them are already feeling that way.

And maybe worse yet, I’m not sure on the best approach to hone some of the qualities I need. See, the ironical part here, is that workshops and seminars and cons all want you to bring current work to show. I already know what’s wrong with all my current works.

How many of you have encountered similar stages in your writing? How did you work through them?

Has there been better advice given to anyone trying to accomplish anything?

Over at flexbandit, donkeybandit was discussing how his blog helped advance his career, which is an interesting enough topic in itself.

But he linked over to an article titled Quantity Always Trumps Quality. While I’d argue that always is a dangerous word and balance is probably in order, there was a great excerpt about making it happen.

Check out this excerpt from the book…

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality…

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

I love XKCD. This is only one of many reasons I think it’s an ingenious comic.

The elders, or Fra’as, guarded the farmlings (children) with their krytoses, which are like swords but awesomer.

Jonathan Harris, while a bit of a slow speaker, has some great insight into capturing stories and also in telling them in innovative ways. Check out some of these alternatives to the traditional page.

I wondered at the wit and cleverness some authors have in voice and dialog today. I’ve said before that I can articulate scintillating colloquy while talking or IM’ing with friends, but never in my writing voice.

And then I realized that’s not entirely true. Occasionally I’m surprised by shorts or some of my alternate writings. It’s mostly just RHUNE that lacks punch and wit. And then it struck me. 

I’m limited by my grasp of their culture and language; nothing I would say in real life fits nicely into RHUNE’s world, or I struggle to interpret wit into the language of their people.

Doesn’t it seem odd that we can become trapped by our own imagination? And yet, all over the world people end their own lives because they can see “no way out”; they become limited by their perceptions and fail to see the broader spectrum; they loose sight of the infinite possibilities in this world and of their own ability to walk away from a bad situation.

It’s actually a natural process of living. We create mental maps of the world; we look at a collection of atoms and call it a person; we look at a collection of cars and call it traffic; it’s as natural and necessary to cognition as breathing.

Yet, when these meta models of reality start to limit our creative thoughts or our choices in life, this is where they fail us. This is where we need to break out of our own skin and see the world from a new lens.

So I will be doing a little remapping with RHUNE—revisiting the culture and people and giving them some new freedom to express and exude their own thoughts and creative expressions outside the bounds of Wulf’s mind set of how people of RHUNE must behave.

Wish me luck.