World Building!

For my Critical Thesis for the MFA Program, I'm focusing on world building in Dystopian fiction.  I've read some great craft essays and books that deal with the subject of bringing the reader into the world of the story and I wanted to share a few of my personal discoveries with our contributors and readers.  First of all, these books are a must have for anyone who writes, especially if they branch out in genres such as science fiction and fantasy: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Crawford Killian, Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter, and Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway.

The first one on the list has been instrumental in giving me ideas and source quotes for my paper as well as informational in my own endeavors to create bigger, better, more concise worlds.  The novels that I'm going to use as primary sources in my Critical Thesis include Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Feed by M.T. Anderson, and either The Windup Girl by Paola Bacigalupi or Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.  I might use all four but that depends on length and on what new ideas and examples each book brings the table when it comes to world building.  Just to give you all a taste of what I'm working on right now, please enjoy a snippet from my four page intro:

What does it take to make a world? It takes time, lots of it, and a certain amount of chemistry. And what does it take to destroy one? According to Star Wars, it takes a Death Star. But the real answer is much more complicated and raises more questions than it answers. Is it too much power? Not enough? Too many cooks in the kitchen? Or perhaps no one in the driver’s seat? Historical precedent indicates that a man-made or natural disaster is often the cause, but even something as seemingly localized and specific as a political rising or falling can destroy the fragile balance of what we consider to be civilized and humane existence. Dystopian fiction deals with these unmade worlds.

Merriam-Webster defines dystopia as “an imaginary place where people are unhappy and usually afraid because they are not treated fairly,” or “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.” Utopia, on the other hand, is “an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect,” or “an imaginary and indefinitely remote place.” In a nutshell, dystopia is the anti-utopia. Both extremes are defined as imaginary, but of the two, only one is make-believe; there is no such thing as a real utopia. Ideals are impossible to achieve, but dehumanized and fearful societies happen all the time. One of the reasons that dystopian literature has become so popular and even controversial over the past century is because it holds up a mirror. The reflection back depends greatly upon the novel. Sometimes we see the horrors of our past, sometimes the injustice and terror of the present, and, quite often, the mirror gives us a glimpse into a plausible future. ~ Amanda LaFantasie

Amanda LaFantasie © February 2014

NaNoWriMo Time!

It's that time again!  National Novel's Writer Month, or NaNoWriMo, is here.  It starts midnight tonight.  I know that several members of this blog are going to be taking part this year and I thought we could do a mid month check up to see how everyone is doing and how far along they are to their 50 thousand word goals.  To kick it off, I'm going to stay up and start writing in the wee first hours of November and see if I can get a good five hundred in before I crash for the night.  My goal is to work on new material for my Death Man novel as well as get a start on a new novel that can work as my workshop pieces for the upcoming winter residency where I will be starting my third semester with Pine Manor College's Solstice MFA in Creative Writing.

A word of advise from me for all those out there attempting this wonderful and exciting task: make time.  Steal minutes wherever you can.  Even if you just have fifteen minutes between things and you think you have enough quiet or concentration to pump out a few paragraphs, then do it.  Every little word counts.  A book is nothing but chapters and chapters are made of pages and pages are made of paragraphs and those paragraphs are made of sentences and that's where words come in.  They are the foundation of everything in literature.  Keep the words coming and don't stop to edit (or at least don't stop for too long).  Best of luck to my fellow NaNoWriMo participants.  Ready, set, write!

Reading is the Thing

I have read three books this month and will read one or two more before the calendar ticks over into August.  Reading is part of my homework for the MFA program and as a result it has helped me build up my repertoire of devoured fiction.  Each and every day I am reminded via absolutely priceless lines of verse and tear-jerking emotional dialogue and action that reading truly is the most essential building block of a writer and also the most useful tool in a writer's work box.  

What are some books that you (contributors and readers alike) have read recently?  Take some time to think about what parts of the book inspire, appall, upset, or confuse you.  Think about why and also think about how the author has accomplished these this - or not accomplished it as well as you would like.  Reading and thinking about what you've read are the two cornerstones in writing.  

Here are some books I recommend if you are in need of good reading material.  Please, please, please feel free to add to this list.  I would like to make a large posting with a composite 'must read' list as recommended by the contributor's of Detangled Writers!

• Grendel by John Gardner
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami 
• Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Guided Prompts

So I have a fun idea to get away from the blank page syndrome (a.k.a. writer's block, a.k.a. I-dunno-how-to-start-this-really-cool-idea).  Looking back at my writing history I realize that I write better (or at least more profusely) when working off a prompt.  This is why Role Play story writing is so successful.  Each time you interchange with a partner, it is essentially them giving you a prompt.  For any of you out there that might not know what Role Play (RP) writing is, it is just as the name suggests.  You write (in third person) the experiences and thoughts of a single character performing an act or a series of acts and then you have a writing partner have their character react to what you wrote.  It's a fun back and forth that is not only great writing practice but wonderful at helping you build and develop characters.  One of the reason's it's so fun and so successful is because you are kept wondering what your partner will write because that is your next prompt.

Back when Yahoo!360 was an active site (may it rest in peace), I used to write a few short segments based on prompts I found on sites like Writer's Digest.  One such story was about a person receiving a text from an unknown number.  I pumped out a generous amount for such a tiny prompt and had thoughts to even take it further.  Now, when I say 'prompt' it doesn't necessarily have to be 'It was a dark and stormy night when Mrs. Winters went outside to look for Pooky and found...' like that.  I mean even a self prompt like 'what would I do if I won the lottery.'  Things like that to get the juices going.  And this brings me to the point of this blog post: guided prompts.  If you have an idea and you want to write about it but aren't sure how to get started, try prompting yourself into scenes.

I have an android piece that I am itching to work on and so far I have about five different beginnings, all of which I despise and I know that it's because I'm putting too much pressure on myself to make it 'perfect' and I'm not letting myself just relax and write (which is kind of the point of writing, right?).  So what I'm going to do is give myself specific prompts.

Idea: Dystopian Android Tribe

Prompt: Leader of Android Tribe comes across a dead human.  What does he do?

Prompt: Androids find a baby and attempt to raise it.

Prompt: Androids think of themselves as 'living,' how do they react when someone tells them they have no value and are just pieces of machinery?

Prompt: Show the androids breaking or following the three laws of Robotics.

Prompt: Do androids really dream of electric sheep?

Prompt: It was a dark and stormy night... wait... no, I meant: one of the androids falls into disrepair, how do the androids react to the 'death' of one of their own?

These are all scenes that could potentially work themselves into the book, but the real purpose of these prompts is to get me somewhere in character and plot development and, ultimately, to get words on the page.  I will most likely be answering some of these tomorrow and posting them on my Gurgle Burp blog.   I know that the idea as I've written it is very vague (trust me I do have a bit more of a plan in mind than just that), but if you have any prompts for that idea, please post them and I will attempt to answer them as well!  Prompts are fun, dang it.  They shouldn't just be used to generate ideas, they can also be employed to fuel ideas that are already hatched and eager for development.

Amanda LaFantasie (Skoora) © April 2013

Back on the writing wagon and with drive!

"I LOVE DOGS!"

About a month ago my father called me up and wanted to know if I would be interested in flying home for a visit while Amanda Lafantasie (a.k.a Skoora), was in Boston for her MFA Residency. I was more than interested, I was down right giddy and more than ready to brave flying alone. So we decided on three weeks in which I would relax and visit a few friends and some family and two days later I was home bound.

That trip seems to have been just what I needed. I didn't do too much, just had a few mostly quiet visits with friends and family, and played with my parent's dog, Kali. But somehow whether it was the comfort of being home and truly relaxing, the quiet of my parent's house, or both, my brain settled down, stopped running a million miles a minute and complete thoughts of stories and ideas started happening.

One night I got up to let the dog out to do her bathroom business and for some reason when I laid back down, I just couldn't sleep. I started thinking about a movie I'd seen that evening and, like with most movies, anime, TV shows, or books, I started plotting a fan fic. I'm not sure how I got from Narnia to a dragon story I only have notes for or even how I got from that to a vampire story, but an hour later I had some little notes written and I could finally sleep.

I can say that I didn't get to writing the next day, I was still in the middle of my trip and wanted to wait until I got home. When I arrived home, I was excited and really wanted to write but I was kind of scared. It took getting settled in, some venting time, and a serious brainstorming session along with some helpful plotting notes from Amanda's MFA homework to get me on the right track. Not only am I as excited as Roy Mustang is about dogs, but I actually have some confidence and the first chapter arc plotted out and ready to be worked on today!

Also, while I was away I got a letter from the Long Ridge Writer's Group. A couple of years ago I was doing their short stories for magazines program, almost finished it but moved and life happened. Their letter was basically stating that I only had one assignment left and I could still do it, for a fee of course. I would like to finish it and get the diploma. But I have to wait until I have the money and contact them to find out if I can get the material sent to me for the last assignment simply because half my things are still in Kansas and what I did bring up here, well, I haven't seen it in the garage.