Let me just preface this post by saying that when my friends and I booked our trip to California we were hoping that we’d planned everything far enough in advance that things would be normalized a bit more than they are, but they weren’t. Still it was an over all positive experience as we made sure to follow California regulations while we were there.

It was good to go to a place that wasn’t my house and I was excited to spend some time exploring San Diego and seeing some of the sights in Palm Desert where a few friends of mine and I stayed during our week long trip and using this opportunity to do some writing research.

The first part of the trip was starting later than we’d planned but we made it to our first stop of the night at a cheap but kinda shady motel in Saint George. The next day was another travel day that was mostly miles desert.

Some of the highlights of the trip included the beach which was oddly the place that felt the most normal since not very many people wear masks on the beach.

My favorite part of the trip was seeing the ships at the maritime museum even though they were closed to tours and we could only see the ships from the harbor.

Joshua Tree National Forest was pretty cool too.

All in all it was a fun trip and I’m excited to take what I learned to make the next draft of Mark of the Thief better.

Let’s talk about storytelling. After attending the 2020 Life the Universe and Everything conference held in Provo, UT, I really appreciate the vast experience that writers in this area have in a myriad of professional fields and what they contribute to the subjects they tackle in this conference’s panels. I really enjoyed a particular panel on bards, gleemen and storytellers which has had my mind turning over the subject for the last few days so instead of just giving you guys a tiny blurb about my general experiences at LTUE I want to delve a little deeper into this one subject. Depending on how much some of the other panel subjects itch at my brain I might come back and do more posts on some of the other panels, but for now let’s talk about storytelling.

I was really excited to go to this panel because I really like storytelling characters in books and it was even better when I saw that I knew some of the people who were going to be on the panel including M. Todd Gallowglas who has been a gleeman since he was seventeen and is intimately familiar with Irish-Gaelic storytelling tradition, Peter Orullian who studied at Julliard and is a musician, and Brandon Sanderson who does fantastic world building that includes storytellers and story telling characters. I was always happy to find out that one of the other panelists, Kristy S. Gilbert studied folklore extensively in college (I should mention that Brandon has also taken a lot of folklore classes).

The discussion focused mainly on the character of the storyteller and reasons why we as writers might want to include them in our stories, but as I was sitting there soaking up interesting facts about storyteller hierarchy in Irish-Gaelic storytelling tradition and the role that they play in specific societies I also thought about the mode of storytelling itself and ran through a bunch of questions that might or might not be helpful when you are trying to add an element of storytelling into your own work.

First of all, I ask the question of why – actually I ask it a couple of times.

Why am I telling this story in the first place?

To be fair the panel did cover this question. In world stories, songs and poems can work as a shorthand way to create the illusion of depth in your worldbuilding. If someone’s reciting a tale we can make some assumptions about the culture that produced the story. If it’s a tale from a long, long time ago we know that this is a group that has been around long enough to develop these stories and just the number of stories that a culture has can be telling too. For example the United States of America is a really new country and American folktales are not as prolific as more established peoples such as the French, Japanese, Egyptian, or Navajo. I’m not sure if I can name more than a few American folk heroes and most of them hail from 19^th century ideals of cowboys, frontiers men and a huge lumberjack with a blue ox. This doesn’t mean Americans don’t tell stories because we definitely do but we don’t have a long history of telling them so the tales are more modern and are more likely to contain teens getting attacked in the woods on a camp out, or murderous hitchhikers in a more urban or at least suburban setting. Worlds we create, however, can be as old or young as we want them.

Stories also serve as a convenient way to info dump without, you know, being really boring… if you do it right. A story can tell a reader why the main character should avoid the woods without somebody just saying we don’t go into the woods because… Yeah that’s boring compared to a narrative tale of the same information.

There are more reasons to tell stories such as using a story to touch on the theme of your book, using it to purposely mislead characters, set-up an expectation that the hero will either have to uphold or forsake, etc. The main point is stories are used for many reasons and when using stories they should be serving multiple functions to help create a richer reading experience that pulls the reader through the plot. Brandon Sanderson does this very well in his Mistborn books using piece of text to start each chapter which is a slightly different way to approach storytelling and coincidentally the next questions I want to tackle.

Who’s telling the story?

This is where my thoughts and the panel started to split since the panel mostly talked about one category of storyteller, professionals which is fair since the name of the panel was Bards, Gleemen and Storytellers (not necessarily in that order), but the fact is we are all storytellers and the person relating a story doesn’t always have to be professional, they can be and if you want to do that that’s fine but they don’t have to be, nor do they necessarily have to be a grandmother or older village member who is wise and all knowing. In Roald Dahl’s book Matilda the Crunchem Hall Primary School students are the ones who tell new arrival Matilda stories of all of the horrible things The Trunchbull does to the kids under her care, but it’s not just kids in books that tell these kind of stories. I’m sure many of you can relate to the gossip that spreads around college departments about certain professors that one should avoid or the best class to get an easy passing grade (there’s an episode of the TV show Community that plays on this trope where one of the main characters takes a class to get an easy A and ends up having to work harder in it than any of his other classes).

Where is the story being told?

The next big element to setting up a storytelling is the setting. Who your storyteller is will help inform this, i.e. if the main character’s co-worker is telling the story there’s a good chance that they’re at work, a professional will probably be somehow separated from their audience either by standing on a stage, in the middle of a circle, standing in front of a seated crowd, etc. where they will most likely not be is knitting with the ladies in their craft circle, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never be there.

Setting is also informed by circumstances. Like I said before you’re probably not going to have a professional bard sitting in on the knitting circle, but you can bet stories are being told by the women as they knit. Kids talk as they play in the school yard, all kinds of work invites conversation and sometimes the work itself can be a way to naturally lead to relating a story (most of the stories my mom told be about her family happened when we were in the kitchen preparing meals together) and can be a good way to break up the storytelling as work is done.

How is the story being told?

Another consideration for storytelling in books is that stories take different forms that can be informed by setting and storyteller but again can be a reflection of a bigger element of the world building. In our world storytelling can be in the form of song, poems, and even dance and many groups of people have their own establish ways of telling stories. Here are few examples: in western retellings of fairytales it’s common to begin with the phrase “once upon a time”, many traditional dances are also a story from that culture’s folk tradition and the people from that culture can recognize what story is being told and what they’re supposed to take away from it, and in Greek and Latin epic poetry the lines follow a specific rhythmic pattern which is what makes it poetic. Does your character alone tell the story? Is it expected that the audience is going to call back like a chorus in a Greek tragedy? Are there multiple storytellers who take turns asking and answering questions? Is there music and who is playing it?

For me this is the fun part of in world story building because you get to set up the rules and then watch how your characters follow them or break them.

 

Last thoughts

I don’t know how many of you will make it this far into the article but if you do I hope that you find these musing helpful as you try to create your own storytelling cultures in your books and I just want to remind you that the most important thing to consider while you’re writing in world stories is that these stories should be doing more than one thing. I can’t wait to read more stories with great story tellers. I hope that you want that as well and to help you on your way here are a few books that have great in world storytelling.

 

Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn the Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

Matilda by Roahl Dahl   

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hales

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

It’s a new year and a new decade with all sorts of possibilities. 2019 was kind of a rough year with a lot of changes for me, but I’m taking the opportunity to try to start fresh in 2020 and like so many people in the United States (I don’t know if this is a quirk uniquely US or if more people world wide get into the craze of new years resolutions) I’ve been setting goals I want to accomplish this year and hopefully at least a few of those goals will help me as I continue to work towards finishing book two of the Traveler’s Guide series and point me towards having a life that is filled with meaningful experiences and growth opportunities.

As I said last time I posted way too long ago I have my sights set on going back to school. It’s exciting but it’s also an intimidating prospect as the career I want to pursue is one that has multiple ways to get there, some better than others, and is a harder field to get work in, but like they say, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” If nothing else further education will make me a better writer (and if you’re wondering if I’m going to get a degree in English or Creative Writing the answer is no, though conferences and workshops has helped me refine my craft), or at least a font of trivia that only specialists and writers find fascinating.

Although this will be taking up more of my time, I am determined to continue working on Mark of the Thief and I do want to make a more valiant effort to post something in the blog more often for you guys to let you know that I’m still alive and sometimes I even do or find interesting stuff.

I wouldn’t say I feel necessarily obligated to compose a ‘What I Took Away From LTUE’ post but I find sharing what I learned with others helps me to focus on what I did learn.

Unlike last year I mostly avoided the panels that were more about the business end of writing – I was experiencing some anxiety over things like ‘jobs’ and ‘business’ over the weekend and figured those panels would probably make those anxieties worse – and instead focused on craft. I got some good advice about where to find not-your-run-of-the-mill folktales from around the world (excuse me as I wipe the drool from my chin), the role of the narrator in your story (you really should think about that guy more), how to show not tell (yeah this is definitely one of my weaknesses – I blame my childhood of reading fairytales that are mostly all tell, but how could I resist a good fairytale?), how to write engaging and dynamic dialogue (I actually went to two panels on dialogue), and how to write the final twist in your novel (I folded myself into a pretzel and now I can’t get out), and grammar (am; I, really, good, at; grammar- now?!) just to name a few. (And the rule for all these panels was; there are no rules that can’t be broken just be super sure you know what the heck you’re doing when you break them, or they might just break you… or your story… yeah it was probably that it will break your story.)

Finally, I loved the keynote address given by Kelly Barnhill, Newberry Award winning author of, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. She talked about having a really strange imagination – all authors do, get used to it – and some of the experiences in her past that have influenced her work including an old neighbor who saw the beauty in natures mistakes and gave them wings. It made me think about my own ugly story babies. They don’t always come out the way I was expecting, and many of them should probably never see the light of day, but they are my stories, a part of my journey, they are beautiful to me and sometimes I’m able to give them wings and let them fly.

Life is insane and so am I, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk at least a little bit about my experience at this year’s Fyrecon.

Though the venue was a little bit more disorganized than last year it was over all a great experience. There were several interesting classes and panels and I wished I had a time turner so I could go to multiple classes at the same time, but I think I chose fairly well.

Last year when I went to Fyrecon I was mainly focusing on learning more of the business end of writing so this year I thought I’d concentrate on the writing side of writing and learning more about subject materials that might come handy in my writing.

Probably my favorite classes this go round were Bob Defendi’s class on plotting a story, where we as a class came up with an outline for a story; How do I wreck this? where a longtime mechanic and truck driver taught us how to sabotage vehicles, the plausibility of cars maintaining drive-ability after receiving damage to various parts and what you can and can’t do to big rigs, airplanes and other aircraft; and finally the class about blood which deserves its own paragraph.

Ah, yes, you heard right, I went to a class about blood. Our instructor writes vampire books and currently works as the supervisor of a blood bank. We discussed blood types, the history of blood transfusions and blood letting (did you know they used to use animal blood for transfusions? Horrifying but true, also a source of belief in human animal hybrid creatures), the RH factor (whether your blood is negative or positive) and basic mechanics like: how long does it take an average sized human to bleed out? How much blood is in the human body? (The average adult has somewhere between a gallon and a gallon and a half of blood) What’s the difference between a splatter, a smear and spatter of blood (actually the spatter/splatter thing is still a bit hazy). She also brought samples of blood that had been harvested at different times so of course I took a picture. (You’re Welcome).

As you can see in the photo, the top sample is fresh blood that was harvested very recently, the second sample is blood that is dying looks like Koolaide or ketchup this happens when blood has been sitting around for a few months, the final sample is blood that is no longer viable, all the cells are dead and the blood turns black. I thought that was interesting since I’ve always known that technically blood is a living thing but I never really considered it as being able to die. Dry out sure, but die and turn black? Interesting and disgusting.

I had many other adventures at the conference, including the joy of finding a fascinating little Asian market/ Korean restaurant that serves El Salvadorian papusas, (strange combination but they were actually pretty good papusas, though I was sad I didn’t find any Tunkatsu sauce in the market side), but those stories will have to wait for another day.

Happy writing!

I took the opportunity to attend LTUE down in Provo this last weekend and it was awesome and slightly overwhelming as these kind of conference often are.

I feel like I learned a lot about a lot of things but here are some of my favorite things.

The panel on feeding an army was awesome. The panelists were all ex military some of whom actually ran logistics.

Jo Walton gave me some good advice about world building. Basically it’s about asking the right questions about the world.

As an anthropologist I found the bardic circle fascinating. This is a group that gets together to sing filk music which basically fan folk music. It was awesome to see how these some are performed, passed around and created. One of the guys wrote a couple of verses of a song during the filk session.

Over all the conference was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to next year.

And here’s some pictures. I really need to get better at taking those.

The first pic is me at the hotel. The middle one is just a shot of one of the areas and the last is of the panel on historic communications. My friend M.K. Hutchins was on this panel.

Have you ever thought about why we associate red, white and green with Christmas? Why not blue or orange or grey (cause let’s face it there is a LOT if grey in winter). I honestly had never given it much thought but it makes sense that those colors stand for something just as the red, white and blue on a barber’s pole stand for blood, bandages and veins. Don’t worry veins and bandages have nothing to do with Christmas blood in the other hand…

Red represents the blood of Christ and reminds us of His great atoning sacrifice.

White is the color of freshly fallen snow White is purity. We are purified through Jesus Christ so we can become pure like He is.

Green represents eternal life. The greatest gift of all.

There are probably other interpretations of these colors but this is what a few Google searches led me to (sorry I can’t remember the exact sites I went to) and it was one of those duh moments. Of course it makes sense that we should remember these attributes of Christ as we celebrate his day. Now as I look at the colors of Christmas I see that they are colors of Christ.

Have you ever read the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens? If you have then you are familiar with the anticipation with which a young Pip dreams about the day when he will come into a good fortune. He abandons his training as a blacksmith and embarks on a journey to establish himself as a proper gentleman, but through the course of the story the fortune that he has set his heart on is removed from his grasp before he has the chance to enjoy it and he must pick up the pieces of his shattered expectations.

You and I are a lot like Pip. We see the cover of a book or a trailer for a film and we are intrigued by the possibilities of the story that lies inside, but sadly there are times when what started out to be so promising ends up being sorely disappointing. Why is that?

There are a lot of reasons why a book or film could fall flat: Bad casting in a movie, weak prose, information overload, but one of the main reasons we come away unsatisfied is because promises that were made at the beginning were not kept or our expectations were set to lead us to believe that the piece was something other than what it is.

Here is an example.

I remember watching trailers for Disney Pixar’s movie Brave. I was excited for a film that took place in old Scotland and the prospect of following this spunky redheaded fireball, but what I came to expect out of the movie based on the trailers wasn’t what I got; granted it is possible that I missed the point the trailers were trying to make but based on the lower popularity of this particular film — which really is pretty good — I don’t think I was the only one who was confused.

If you remember the trailers were kind of vague with talk about changing your fate, wanting freedom from responsibility and magic. My thoughts were along the lines of ‘Cool this is going to be a story about a girl who goes on an epic journey to discover herself, she’ll face dangerous obstacles, will learn a valuable lesson that will either make her want to return home or become the woman she was meant to be out in the world oh and there will be magic involved.’ I didn’t expect that the actual story would be more of a family drama focusing on a mother and daughter learning how to respect and appreciate one another and mending the bonds of friendship.  Like  I said great story but not one I was expecting.

This is why it is important to make sure that you establish very quickly what kind of story you are writing. If I read the first scene  Marissa Meyers book Cinder I will see a young woman in a crowded Chinese market fixing her cybernetic foot. From this I know the setting, and I also know that this is going to be a futuristic story with technology that we do not currently have. The first line of Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians paints a picture of Alcatraz being tied to an alter made of encyclopedias about to be sacrificed by a bunch of Evil Librarians which tells me from the tone and the circumstances that these books are going to be a bit absurd and funny than some of his more serious works.

So when you are writing your story be sure to check and see what promises you are making. If you say there are magical creatures swarming all over the forest and then your heroes trek through the wilderness for days without a single encounter with a monster you might want to rethink either or description of the forest or you need to throw some creatures at your little band which lets face it is a lot more fun.

Hopefully this post is what you expected it would be and more importantly hopefully it was at least a little bit helpful. If you want to learn more about keeping promises to your readers I’d suggest looking up some of the writing excuses podcasts with Brandon Sanders, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor and Mary-Robinette Kowal.  They are a lot better at explaining this stuff than I am and their website is amazing!

www.writingexcuses.com