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The Other Side of the Writing Coin

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
3 Min read
T

Don’t let me be like this all the time, self.

The first thing a writer must do is write. That is what a writer is. So, if we’re in this together and you haven’t gone and done that, go write. The second thing, though, we should have already been doing.

Read.

Read a lot.

Read as much as we can stand to read, plus a little bit more than that.

What should we read? Everyone’s got an opinion. Some say read the best of the best, and learn only from the classics that everyone has all read. Some say read everything, especially the occasional bad shit to learn what not to do. Really, though, just read. Read lit. Read pulp. Read comic books, magazines, and newspapers. Me, I read mostly what I want to write like, and read a whole bunch of other stuff besides.

Also, at least a book a week. I felt crazy when I thought about doing that, but then I started churning through two or three books a week that I liked, and easily knocking out a book a week with things I didn’t. I say aim for that, at least.

If you don’t have time, that’s not okay. If you didn’t have time to write, that would be okay: then you simply wouldn’t be a writer. But what kind of writer doesn’t read? Didn’t reading really well written things get us to this point? I never met a movie director who hated movies, or a painter who said looking at images was a waste of time. Besides, a writer has to reread what they’ve written over and over again; we need to get used to reading.

We should love reading, or at least enjoy it. Make the time. Borrow books if you can’t afford them. Get through a book a week, especially a novel a week. If it’s Moby Dick, fine, take two weeks. Three if you must.

I know I read a lot of cheap, pulpy junk. It’s fun and reads fast, and I can see the whole story arc through. I want to write like that, and some of it is on par, narratively, with things I had to read in college. When I hit something harder to read, from Yukikaze to The Decameron, it’s just as much fun. It makes me stop, think, savor the ideas washing in my brain. Even legit bad writing is invigorating. A reminder that maybe failure isn’t the only option for me.

That’s part of it too. Don’t simply read to get it done. Read to enjoy it. But also, we have to always be on the look out for when something grabs us, good or bad — something exciting, something so boring you can’t ignore it, something painful, something wonderous, something that makes you put the book down in fear — in order to think about it. Try to understand it. We need to wrap our brains around what just happened and learn from it.

Write and read. These are the only two unbreakable rules of being a writer, no matter what. Get used to it.

Read on

Serial: A Definition

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
4 Min read
S

Let’s start by defining a serial.

Vocabulary.com has a couple definitions, but here’s the one that most matters to us right now: (n)a periodical that appears at scheduled times. It will be our baseline. However, consider also what a serial isn’t.

A serial is a kind of series, but it’s different from a series.

A series is a number of works coming out one after the other. A serial is, as stated above, a work that appears at a scheduled time. So, understand that a serial is a series, but the reverse isn’t always the case.

Some examples: HBO’s Game of Thrones is a serial TV series, which appears at regular intervals (weekly) for set times also at regular-ish intervals (yearly or so). The book series it is based on does not qualify, as each release arrives when it’s done. Many podcasts can be considered serials, as they have a fixed release date, along with most comic books, manga, and tv shows, all having very strict release schedules. They fit our basic definition.

We can be a little flexible here. Japanese light novels, webcomics, Youtube series, and a number of independent works come out regularly, but not always on a perfect schedule. My sense is, as long as it’s releasing as often or more often than what is traditional, it could be considered a serial.

If it doesn’t, it’s just a series. That not a value judgement, but what we will explore here is pulling off that special something called a serial, in written form. As such, fairly regular is vital, but exactly timed perfection is not.

Yet, there’s a little bit more. Maybe more opinion than definition, but I find them important points too.

First, we’re talking about a narrative. News programs, monthly community newsletters, or variety shows are not serials. They can teach us, they may use the same techniques we employ, and they may be fanatically reliable in their release schedule, but it lacks a narrative. A serial does not need to be fictional, but it must be a story.

Second, it’s a single story from the beginning to the end. It may change over time — perhaps drastically — but there is some unbroken thread that carries it through from beginning to end. The Simpsons is a great series, but there’s no throughline story. Almost every episode resets to the status quo. Not a serial, by our definition, here on this blog.

Third, many of the major conflicts start in one part and are resolved in another. Let’s look at Star Wars. It fits the second rule but not the third. In A New Hope, the conflict is the first Death Star, which is neutralized at the end of the movie. All three movies track Luke, Leia, Han, Darth Vader, and the Empire, yet each movie’s central conflict is almost entirely contained within it. Some points carry over, like Han being frozen in carbonite, but remember. He was hunted, and then captured, in one movie. It was decided to rescue, and then they did rescue, him in the next.

Conversely, look at . . . Look at Dragonball. Or Z. Or Super. Or whatever it is now. Fights begin in one episode, and end several episodes later. Things find a stopping point, but the actual conflict in the moment, and the ones at higher levels, both carry between steps.

Okay, one final caveat: a serial is usually many parts. It could be two parts; however, with such a short length, the whole thing gets muddy. We’ll say, it’s possible, but in general it should be many dozens of parts. Look at the series One Piece. At the time of writing, there’s 891 chapters, and 87 collected books of it… And it’s still going… And it’s still Luffy wanting to becoming the King of the Pirates. We may not be aiming for something as long as that, but it’s a much clearer picture here. It’s also more emblamatic as to what we, as writers, will end up producing.

Sure, sure, fancy definition. Super.

Why does this matter?

This is a way to carve out the space we’re working in.Next time, we’l be looking at what we can do with this to keep on track. We don’t want to be lost at sea, not knowing what we’re doing, but we can’t just drive the ship on shore. The definition is our lighthouse. That, plus a map (our techniques) and a compass (our criteria), will let us move freely.

Read on

The First Step

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
3 Min read
T

Look, there’s plenty of other parts for this blog that need to get done. There’s a dozen pages to make, a hundred things to do, a million things to say, and a billion things to learn.

Still, I want to remember, and remind others, what the point of this all is. To learn to be a better writer and to become a better writer, with a focus towards serializing. Yet, there is one important thing to teach first.

Before we get into what makes a serial story, before we start discussing the interesting points of fiction and publishing speeds and word counts and understanding cross-cultural themes and expectations, before we delve into character design and plot planning, before I even really explain what the hell this whole thing is for . . . we’re going to start with the fundamentals, because some cannot be forgotten.

Do you want to be a writer?

If you don’t, you can safely skip over the rest of this post. I would guess if “you want to be a _____” it might be worth reading, but for writer’s, it’s paramount.

So, do you want to be a writer? Okay then, write.

Write.

Write.

Write write write.

A writer is a person who writes. Therefore, if you are not writing, you are not a writer.

I know, there are an innumerable number of other things to deal with. It is the most trite, stupid, and boring answer to the question you can ever get. But it doesn’t matter. That’s what the answer is.

If you spend most of your time reading about writing, you are a reader. If you spend most of your time researching the skills needed to write, you are a researcher. If all you do is think about writing, you’re a thinker.

I’m no saint. I just spent three months learning how to write and build a blog. I started the actual blog, today (editor note: that was a week ago, by the way {editor 2 note: that was yesterday}).

Now, after three months, what did I do when I got to this point? I threw out my whole idea, started over, and began drifting again. Worse, for the six months before it, I was thinking about maybe possibly considering saving money up to eventually do research on this blogging course to possibly try getting back into writing.

Shut up.

Just, shut up.

Sit down and write.

Or stand and write. Or strap your feet to a pair of boots bolted to the ceiling, and dictate into your phone. I don’t care, and neither should you or anyone else as long as it’s ethical and legal where you reside. I’m not here to judge, but I am here to be honest. . . . Try to be healthy. Try to not be creepy or destroy your future writing just to get words on the page now. But write.

Everything else comes after that.

Read on

Try: A Reminder

By 第一人称
In Blog Post
2 Min read
T

You shouldn’t need this. After all the time you’ve spent alive, you shouldn’t need to be reminded of things like this. But, here we are. You need to be reminded.

Failure is bad. Being a failure, no matter what the rest of the world says, is unacceptable. You must not fail. You must do right by things. You must push yourself to the point that you succeed, and you must not give up once resistance or weakness stand in your way. You are weak, you are saddled by resistance, and therefore, you push past that.

However, failure is not something to be scared of. Because you will fail. Things will go wrong. Attempts at doing the right thing will go wrong. You will make mistakes. Sometimes, fortune, the world, reality, or whatever you wish to name it this week will simply decide that, no, you cannot succeed. Even throwing your very best, with every ounce of energy, will still land you at failure from time to time.

Both of these are correct. Burn that into your head: failure is abhorrently bad and also not scary at all. How do you handle that contradiction? Simple; never fail once. Fail as often as you have to until you succeed.

Are you still breathing? Then get up. Try again.  You are human; of course you look foolish making mistakes like that. Ignore the shame and study to get better. Learn and move on.

More often than not, you’ll find more success on the other side of trying than failure. And if you refuse to accept failing, to stop at having failed this time, that drive will lead you to whatever success you will ever achieve.

Have you really tried yet? Really tried?

Then why are you waiting?

The worst outcome of trying is that you succeed at failing. The worst outcome is that you fail at succeeding.

Read on
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