On Storytelling

Category

September 19, 2018

An Author’s Review of: Freelance Heroics

As promised, here’s my author’s review of my second book, Freelance Heroics. Without unnecessary delay, let’s get to it! As I mentioned in my previous post, Freelance Heroics is the better written of my two books from a technical perspective. It would be worrying if this were not the case! An author ought to get notably better at the nuts and bolts of writing between his first and second books. This is especially noticeable in Adv5, where the combat writing is a lot stronger than in...

September 11, 2018

An Author’s Review of: Wage Slave Rebellion

Recently I embarked upon a novel project. Not a strenuous one, but certainly novel, and of concern to my novels. You see, once my disastrous two-year return to the world of full-time sales came to an end, and I began working on Book 3 again in earnest, I had an uncomfortable realization: it had been so long since I’d spent real time working on my books that I’d forgotten some of what happened. Embarrassing, to say the least. Not big things! Just...

January 18, 2017

Starting a story with a bang—and when not to

The conventional wisdom is that fictional stories need to appeal to their audience right after they begin, lest the audience get bored and wander off. That’s why so many action stories start off with an action scene, romance stories with a lovey-dovey scene, mysteries with something that hints toward the mystery. Grab ’em quick before they lose interest, that’s the ticket! Youjo Senki started with an episode of action, and it sucked. The second episode, which had less action, would have been a much better...

January 7, 2017

Why I never give characters temporary names

If I give a character any kind of temporary name, it might stick. That’s why I never do it. I give them the name they will keep, or I identify them in strictly descriptive terms—the Prince, the Enemy Leader, the Chief. The less descriptive, the better. (Though sometimes, even those stick. I’m looking at you, True Head Cultist.) It’s a lot easier to give a name to the Swordsman than it is to rename a character with an ill-considered temporary name. Temporary...

December 1, 2016

Daily 11: The risk of naming early

I’ve learned a lot about naming over my time as a storyteller. Here’s the biggest tip: don’t name anything until you absolutely need to, use placeholders instead, and when you give characters/chapters/books their placeholders, make sure they’re flexible. It causes trouble down the line otherwise. I’ll give you some examples. The biggest one is that my upcoming book is not Book 3 as far as my notes are concerned. It’s Book 2. That’s because I reasoned that full-length, continuous novels should be...

November 30, 2016

Daily 10: Rewatching Frozen

I’ve been down the last couple of days. Work has been kicking my ass, chores and errands keep piling up, and I haven’t had much time to relax. I’d love to be writing my next book, I even had some time to work on it today—but I don’t do well with half measures. I long for a day when I can wake up leisurely, go through my morning routine without hurry, and then get lost in the worlds I write for hours...

September 19, 2016

Re Zero: The hero who strives

There’s a reason most people prefer Asuka rather than Shinji in Neon Genesis Evangelion*, even though they’re both about as functional as human beings (i.e. not very). Asuka isn’t even as effective at her job as Shinji is, much to her intense frustration. Yet it’s Shinji that’s universally reviled, whereas she’s just reviled in certain circles. (No one comes out of that series looking good.) Why? Because she strives. Ineffectively and often recklessly, but at least she tries. Asuka is a fighter, the type who will...

May 20, 2016

I love sales jobs

It might surprise you to know that I, the author of Wage Slave Rebellion, a book where one of the main characters is so disgusted with his crappy sales job that he’d rather become a glorified mercenary, do not in fact hate sales jobs. In fact, sales and marketing fascinates me, and I may soon have a sales job once again for my full-time side job (i.e. the one that pays well enough so I can keep writing books). Does this surprise you?...

May 10, 2016

Good realism is character realism

I’m a long-time critic of realism. You can have your gritty police procedurals and gunmetal gray military shooters—give me brightly colored explosions, friendly banter, and a fantastic world any day of the week. We get enough realism in reality. I don’t need it in my fiction. But that only applies to realism in worldbuilding. There’s another realism that I’m very much in favor of. When it comes to characters, realism is the key. Not in the things they do, or the way the...

April 5, 2016

Even if you see it coming, it can still work

I’m pretty good at anticipating where a story is going. Once I’ve gotten into it, I can often tell what the next beat or two will be. When watching a film it’s not uncommon for me to anticipate an event minutes, or even tens of minutes, before other viewers do. That doesn’t mean that emotionally resonant or tragic moments don’t work on me. Anticipation doesn’t necessarily ruin the experience, because of one very powerful tool: self-delusion. I’ll give you a couple of examples. Since these involve some of the...