Making Use of Bad Times

There are times when it’s hard to write. For me, for instance, those are times when I’m either on my period or when it’s hot where I live. I have a very strong period and I don’t deal well with heat. So during those times, I need to figure out how to be productive without getting frustrated by my inability to put words on the screen of my word processor.

 

The trick is to find other things to do which have to do with your usual work. I write, but I can’t write as well when it’s hot or I have cramps, so during a recent week where both came together, I knew from Monday onwards that I wasn’t going to get much writing done. Instead, I opted for doing a few things other than my regular work. I plotted out stories I wanted to write at some point. I made new covers for books already done or plotted, so I wouldn’t have to do them during their release month, and I did some maintenance on my website to bring everything up to par.

 

There will always be times when writing is hard. You may have a lot of other stuff to do. You may feel sick or be tired or just not be your usual self. You may have to deal with a lot of things happening around you, may have to devote a lot of time to friends and family. You simply can’t find the energy or the time to sit down and write.

The first thing to do in such a situation is to ask yourself whether it’s really the situation which makes writing hard or whether you’re avoiding to write for other reasons. If it’s the situation, deal with it by either changing your writing schedule (if it’s possible), suspend your current project until things get better (if you know when they’ll get better), or do other stuff around that project instead (like my plotting and covers).

If your situation has changed long-term, you will have to renegotiate the time you can devote to your writing. You will have to make time for it somehow, even if it’s less than before, even if it means writing during different times of the day. You can do it - humans are great at adapting in general and at adapting to changes in their own life in particular.

If it’s just a short-time change, you can very well get something out of postponing your project for a few days or weeks. Take some time off, consume some more media, look up writing advice, perhaps have a look at your plotting and see if it needs changing or tightening. All of those things are a lot easier to arrange time for than to arrange time for sitting down and focusing on writing your story.

 

What if you realize it’s a ‘you problem’ and not a problem you have no control over? What if you do everything in your powers not to make time for your writing? Then it’s time to ask yourself why you do that. Is it lack of determination? Lack of discipline? Have you grown tired of the project? Is there something within the project which makes it hard for you to go on? All of those things can happen and there are ways to deal with them all.

Are you lacking determination? Ask yourself why. Is it your own laziness or is it your life? Do you need to reorganize your day to make more time to write and keep your energy up for it? Or do you expect too much, set your goals too high? Once you know why you’re no longer determined to work on your project, deal with the reason and continue to write.

Are you lacking discipline? Find a tool to make yourself stay with your work. I found that the Pomodoro method worked well for me, because it gave me well-sized bits of work time with a guaranteed break afterwards. Quite often, the discipline isn’t missing as a such, but you’re not ready to spend too much time at once with your project.

Have you grown tired of the project? Then it might be time to take a step back for a moment and do something else. Charge up your internal batteries again, do some stuff you love. Give yourself the permission not to work on the project for a while. If, like me, you always have several projects ready for work, switch to another for a while. It can help tremendously with that sort of problem.

Is there something in your project which keeps you from working on it? That is often due to some subconscious knowledge that there’s something going wrong. Check your project, look at the plot, at the characters, at what you’ve written already and what you want to write next. Quite often, you’ll come to realize that there is something you need to change. Change it and go on writing.

 

Quite often when there are thing stopping you from working on your project, there’s goals involved. You’re setting yourself a goal that is too high. You’re setting the wrong goals for yourself. You’re not giving your project the importance it deserves.

Of course it would be cool if you could get up at five in the morning, write for two hours, then make breakfast for the family, take the kids to school, do your eight hours of work, keep the house spotless, spend a lot of time with your kids and your partner every evening, and then go to bed in time so you can get up at five the next morning. Reality is different, though. We’re not machines, we can run ourselves to the ground.

Adjust your goals. If your life is so full of other things, then, instead of wanting to write every day, set time aside during the weekends. Bram Stoker mainly wrote “Dracula” during his vacation trips with his family, yet he still got it written (within ten years). Your life will, most likely, not revolve only around your project, there’s other projects as well, like your family, your job, or other hobbies which keep you grounded. Negotiate time for each of those projects, see how much time you need, want, and can give to each of them.

In other cases, you want to write a perfect book and compare your rough first draft to the finished, edited, and polished work of a professional author. Of course your project isn’t looking like that. The first draft of that other work didn’t look like that, either. The first step is always to get the story into bits and bytes (‘on paper’ isn’t quite correct any longer). Don’t worry about your wording, about your grammar, about the mistakes you’re making. Get the story down and out of your system. Then you give it some time to settle and yourself some time to gain a distance from it, after which you look at it again and start removing all those problems. That’s how people do it. Don’t try to do it perfectly on the first try, nobody does.

The other extreme is to treat your project as something casual, setting the goals very low and never really paying attention to it. In this case, you need to find out whether you really want to continue with the project. If it’s not important, there surely are a lot of things you’d rather do. Keep the project somewhere until you’re more motivated to work on it.

Readjusting your goals is always a good first step in such a case. Make sure to treat your project correctly, give it the importance it deserves, yet also be realistic about what you can accomplish. That’s the secret to meeting your goals. And meeting your goals is the secret of how not to be frustrated with your writing.

 

If there are bad times in your life, you need to readjust your goals accordingly. That may mean taking a break from your project or giving it less time each day. It may mean you’re going to readjust your goals and admit that you can’t be the perfect prolific writer you wish to be. Once you have realistic goals in mind, it’s usually easy to work on something again. It’s not the project in most cases, it’s the goals. If it’s not the goals, there’s usually something within the project which needs changing. Change is always the key, though, no matter whether to the goals or to the project.

It Gets Better in the Next One

This is a sentence which reliably drives me up the wall. The scenario it belongs to is as following: I’m reading the first book or watching the first movie in a series and I find something which I absolutely don’t like about it. It may be the creator playing something like the ‘White Saviour’ or the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope straight. It may be some glaring plot hole. It may be something else which really sours the story to me. When someone asks for my opinion, I tell them so, but they, being big fans of the series, counter this with ‘Oh, I know it’s not so great in this book, but it gets better/gets explained/makes sense in the next one.’ To them, that’s the only excuse necessary. To me, it definitely is not.

You see, even in a series, every movie or every book needs to have a complete, self-contained story. Yes, there can be a plot arc which will bind the whole series together. That alone is no excuse not to properly finish a story and keep the logic within the narrative working. Yes, there will be a next instalment, but it might not be written, let alone published yet. It means I should read an additional book or watch an additional movie in order to understand and appreciate the story of this one.

 

Now, I don’t really want to use “Harry Potter” as a good example here, what with J.K. Rowling’s opinion on trans people which I definitely don’t share, but it is a very well-known series and thus easy to use. In this series, there is a plot arc spanning from the first to the last book: the enmity between Harry and Voldemort. It’s pretty clear from the first chapter of the first book that the big confrontation at the end of the series will be between those two. The stories of the six first books are adding to that, showing us parts of the whole, introducing characters and skills and history we need to understand the big confrontation, to understand the powers of Voldemort and the threat he can pose, once back in the flesh. Yet, the story about the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone, if you’re American) is completed at the end of book one. The story of the Chamber of Secrets is finished at the end of book two. I do not have to read the following book to get closure, I could, theoretically, end the series somewhere in the middle and all stories I’ve read so far would be finished. There would be some plot threads which haven’t been tied up - plot threads left for the final novel to tie together -, but each of the books has a finished, self-contained story to tell. None relies on the book afterwards to make sense.

The same goes for one of my favourite series: “Johannes Cabal”. Each of the five novels and each of the short stories is self-contained to a degree. There is a closer connection between “The Fear Institute” and “The Brothers Cabal”, since the latter picks up where the former ends, but even so, “The Fear Institute” would be a complete story which ends, presumably, with Johannes’ death, if no other book existed afterwards. That doesn’t mean that the stories don’t share a theme or that there is no understanding of what the end goal is from the end of “Johannes Cabal - The Necromancer” onwards. There are quite some characters who are in several stories, such as Horst Cabal, Leonie Barrow, Alisha Bartos, or Madame Zarenyia, yet all stories are self-sufficient. It helps to have read both “Exeunt Demon King” and the follow-up “The Erishkigal Working” before reading “Johannes Cabal - The Necromancer” and to read that one before “The Brothers Cabal”, but the identity of Rufus Maleficarus is suitably explained in every story which contains him. It would help to read “Johannes Cabal - The Necromancer” and “Johannes Cabal - The Detective” before “The Fall of the House of Cabal”, but it’s always wise not to start with the last book in a series. Nevertheless, there’s always some explanation of where Johannes and other characters have first met, there’s always a chance to enjoy the current story without having read all of the others. I’ve never had to tell someone that the story of “Johannes Cabal - The Necromancer” is not that good, but it gets better in the next book. The story stands on its own and it’s good on its own. The same goes for the other four books and all of the shorts. It may sometimes make the story more enjoyable to have entered the ‘Cabal Universe’ before, but the stories are also enjoyable on their own.

 

A book or movie has to win me over on its own, by the strength of its own story. If the book contains something I don’t like at all, a KO-criterion for me, I will not read the next one in the series, just on the off-chance that it gets better later. Therefore, it doesn’t change my opinion nor does it make me like a story more if a fan tells me ‘it gets better in the next one.’ Quite the opposite: if a creator can’t get things right or finish a story or at least heavily foreshadow a twist in a trope later, then I don’t have enough faith in them to consume other media by them at all.

I’m also not alone in this. Every instalment of a series has to keep the fan base, has to earn their trust again. As a writer, you should be aware of that. If a series goes too much ‘off course’, the fans will abandon it (although the new course might get you new fans). This means you should never trust to ‘the next instalment’ to explain something in your current story or to make up for weaknesses you have produced in this one. Every story has to stand on its own, no matter whether there is a plot arc over several instalments or not.

 

As an author, you should never rely on the next instalment in a series making up for weaknesses in your current story. While it is great to have a plot running through various books, each of those has to stand on its own, each of it needs to have a complete story. Keep that in mind while you’re plotting and writing. ‘It gets better in the next one’ is never an excuse for a story, no matter what kind of story it is. It has to get better in this one.

Review: Carry On

“Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell is a story written after writing about a character who wrote fan fiction of that story, which might sound a little complicated. In “Fangirl”, also by Rainbow Rowell, the main character wrote fan fiction of their universe’s version of “Harry Potter”, the “Simon Snow” novels. Of course, those novels didn’t exist in our reality until the author decided to write at least one of them (by now, there’s a sequel) and end the story of Simon Snow and his destiny.

 

At first glance, the story seems to be a rip-off or at least a more or less faithful retelling of Harry Potter with different names and slight changes, but that changes rather quickly. It seems that Penny is a stand-in for Hermione, Baz is a stand-in for Draco, the Mage is a stand-in for Dumbledore, and Ebb is a stand-in for Hagrid. On the second glance, though, all of that is wrong. Penny is an interesting combination of Ron and Hermione who isn’t much like Hermione in any aspect but learning a lot. She gets into trouble together with Simon because she wants to, not because she tries to stop him from doing that stupid thing. Baz seems to be evil - he certainly comes from an evil family -, but he has his own troubles to work through and doesn’t actually hate Simon. The Mage is a big topic, but his behaviour from the beginning clearly differs from Dumbledore’s - he’s much more active, much less of the mentor type. And Ebb - well, she might be a goat herder, but she’s also an extremely powerful mage and thus not like Hagrid, whose magic is well below average. She has chosen not to make much use of her powers, she’s not forced to rely on other things.

There is, of course, also a Voldemort equivalent with the Humdrum, a being which seems to suck magic out of the world and which has the same face as Simon when he was eleven and started magic school. Yet, the Humdrum is not the actual problem, he’s just a symptom.

The story swiftly moves away from what you’d expect from a Harry Potter lookalike series. Simon is drawn into a mystery that is very, very personal for Baz (what happened the day on which Baz’s mother died and he was infected with vampirism at the age of five). This forces the ‘enemies’ to work together and this is where the story takes up speed. In the end, the mystery will lead to them resolving the Humdrum problem and unmasking the villain. On the way, relationships change, especially that of Simon and Baz, but also that of Simon and Agatha (who, he thought, would simply be his girlfriend and later his wife and who is sick of always being the damsel and wants less danger in her life - even if that means less Simon as well). All which seems destined in this story is not destined at all, which makes it a lot of fun to read.

 

On the technical side of things, the book is very well-written, the story is fluid - which is a bit of a surprise, given that there are many, many changes to the point of view, some only a few sentences long. In general, I’m not a big fan of stories with a lot of viewpoint changes and prefer those with one or two viewpoint characters only. With the clear marking - putting the name in big letters above the paragraph where the viewpoint changes - it’s not exactly hard to know at any time at which person’s head the reader is currently taking a peek. Story-wise, the viewpoint changes mean that the reader knows what people are thinking about each other long before those people know what the other one thinks of them.

It’s easy to dive into the story and just get lost there - I read it in less than a day, always curious about what might happen next. As soon as the story shows that it’s not a Harry Potter rip-off, all bets are off as well and the author manages to juggle the plots very well, keeping the reader (certainly me) interested and unsure of what might happen next.

The story is also good at giving out all the important information early; even though it’s in an information dump, it’s a well-done one. On the trip back to his magic school (a must-have for the modern magical school setting, I’m sure), Simon thinks about what he loves most about school, not having allowed himself to think about it during his summer break. Like this, he lists his friends, the magic, the general things happening around him. This gives the reader the chance to absorb all the facts and means that once the story is really starting - once Simon is attacked by a goblin -, it doesn’t have to stop for more information. What still is necessary - like the veil between the living world and the afterlife being thin for a short while - can easily be introduced through regular dialogue and action without feeling much like a dump.

 

The story has LGBT+ representation - which shouldn’t surprise fans of the author - and, thus, also a few same-sex relationships (I’m not going into details for plot reasons). Personally, I found that representation always lacking with Harry Potter (and, no, saying ‘that guy is gay’ after the facts and not recognizing it when you put ‘that guy’ into another story later, is not LGBT+ representation) and welcome it in this story. If you have some form of homophobia, be warned, therefore, that you can’t avoid ‘the gay’ in this book. I’m not claiming to understand people who feel threatened by other people loving someone of the same sex, but I feel it might be necessary to mention it. It’s not full-fledged male-male erotica, though, there are no detailed sex scenes in the book.

I have also read the sequel “Wayward Son”, but decided not to review it, because I can’t talk about the story of the sequel without giving away the big reveal at the end of the first book and that would spoil the reading pleasure for everyone who hasn’t read the first book already.

 

“Carry On” is a surprisingly good book even for someone who is far past the intended age bracket, which would be the YA crowd. It’s well written and has interesting plots playing out, characters who are not just 2D cardboard cut-outs, and a fun way of twisting the tropes people expect from the magical school setting nowadays. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it if that setting is to your liking, I surely have.

Motivation and Agency

The story’s engine is the plot (or, most likely, the plots), but the characters can’t do things just because of the plot. They need a better reason. They need both motivation and agency.

 

If your character is acting like everyone with common sense would and it serves the plot, motivation and agency might not seem that important. Running from an exploding bomb doesn’t need any motivation above ‘I’d like to live another day’ - which is pretty common in people. ‘Let’s go into this spooky, old house and split up to search for clues’ is only everyday behaviour when you’re driving around in a blue-and-green van with three other kids and a dog. That is when motivation and agency come in. Going into that spooky house to look for clues can seem like a great idea when you’re trying to find out who has been keeping everyone in town awake at night for days, especially if you’ve seen lights come from there and know that it’s uninhabited. That gives you agency - a reason for going to that house. The overall motivation is to find out who’s behind that supposed haunting.

 

One big problem for stories is when a main character, perhaps even the protagonist, has no motivation and/or agency. When they’re only reacting and not doing anything because they’ve decided to - or are even doing everything because someone else told them to.

There’s nothing wrong with being sent on a mission per se, but at some point, the protagonist should decide to continue or abandon it because of their own reasons, because they have the motivation to do it or not to do it any longer. Perhaps they now really want to save the world, even though it was their mentor who sent them out to do it at first. Perhaps they now really don’t want to save the kingdom as it is, because it’s corrupted and what comes after might be better. At some point, their actions must be motivated by their own decision, by their own agency.

 

It’s not always easy to reconcile plot and motivation/agency. Sometimes, your plot might demand of your protagonist to do something outright stupid. Then it might be necessary to change the plot, smooth it out a little, make it more believable that the protagonist would do something. Or to change the protagonist, give them a derring-do streak or a tendency for lapses in judgement. Such a change can’t be too abrupt, the best thing would be to ease it in, bit by bit, long before that decision is necessary.

Humans do make stupid decisions, but there’s a limit to how stupid for most people. Someone who always runs into danger head first won’t last too long, no matter how good a fighter they are. There must be some caution and a good reason to ignore it and go into that old, spooky house. Agency and motivation often provide that reason if they go with what we’ve seen about the character in question before.

Of course we know the Scooby-Doo gang will go into that house and investigate it - that’s their thing, basically their job. For everyone else, there must be a good reason to go in there. Perhaps their friend or a family member is suspected of the haunt and they need to prove that it was someone else. Perhaps someone or something important was taken. If they have the right kind of character, even a dare will do. A reason that seems believable in-story.

 

And that, of course, is where we come back to motivation and agency. Agency means that the characters do something out of their own volition, because they want to do it. They follow a goal of a sort, no matter whether short-term or long-term. Agency means a character isn’t just passively going along with what others are doing (to or with them) like a classic damsel. They get into trouble because of something they are doing because they want to, because they walk into that old, spooky house or into that front for the supervillain’s operations, not because the supervillain decided to kidnap them.

There may be situations in which the character doesn’t have another choice than to do what they are told to do, but they can still be working on changing that situation, they can still be motivated to get out of that.

Motivation can be everything from ‘I want to get out of that alive’ to ‘I want to know what all of this is about.’ It should be clear, though, what your protagonist and your other characters are motivated by. What their plans are. Their wants and needs. Not necessarily right from the beginning - it’s usually a little unclear what it all is about at the beginning. It needs to become clear early, however.

One example for ‘showing the motivation way too late’ is Severus Snape in the Harry Potter novels. From the first book onwards, the reader sees Snape going after Harry, clearly hating him. Yet, there’s also always those suggestions of him helping or saving Harry at certain points. That doesn’t go together well. Snape very much comes across as that one teacher we were all afraid of as children, because they would pick a student or two and torment them in class - they were bullies, when all was said and done. And, to a degree, he even might be that kind of teacher - he’s certainly not the kind of person who should have become a teacher -, but that doesn’t account for his saving Harry as well. He hates Harry and it’s said soon that this has something to do with Harry’s father James. Not soon enough and not clear enough (the first time we see what was going on between them is in book five), but it is said. The connection between Severus Snape and Lily Potter, however, is not uncovered until Snape’s death. That should have come in much earlier, too, because it changes the perception of Snape and makes it clear why he’s so torn between hatred and protection. On one hand, Harry is James Potter’s son (and looks a lot like him, as we hear over and over again). On the other hand, he’s Lily Potter’s son (and has inherited her eyes). Snape still is a guy who should never have become a teacher and he should have been reigned in early, either by Dumbledore as the headmaster or by McGonagall as Harry’s head of house, but in the light of these facts, his actions are much more believable and his motivations become clear.

Learn from this and don’t hold out on a character’s motivations for too long. Give the reader an understanding of why the important characters are doing what they are doing.

 

Look into the motivation and agency of all important characters, from protagonist to antagonist, early on. Show it early as well, so the readers can understand why the characters do what they do, can fathom how far they might go to reach their goal. Your plot drives the story and your characters drive the plot. It’s their motivation and agency which drives the characters - without it, nothing really moves.