A question that I’ve seen asked of those in my profession is, “How do you know if you’re a writer?”
To answer, let me give you a real-life example of what it feels like.
The last few days have been, for me, alternating exercises in fatigue and frustration. Difficulties I’ve been dealing with for weeks are so tantalizingly close to resolving themselves, and I find myself both wanting to push harder to get the results I’m after and holding back for fear of being a selfish prick. Add the dayjob workload and maintaining things around the apartment, and you get a recipe for wanting to do exactly zero when you finally have a little time to yourself.
This is incredibly frustrating to me because I know that should be my time to write.
Disapproving voices would tell me to write anyway, regardless of how tired or worn out or seethingly furious I might feel. I know. I’m one of those voices. I need to bite that bullet, make more coffee or chai, put on good tunes that shut out the world, and plunge into the word mines. There’s no other way they’re going to get written. It’s down to me, no compromises, no excuses. If I write, I write; if I don’t, I fail.
The gnawing, growling, nigh-constant feeling of irritation at my own inability to maintain high energy levels is how I know I’m a writer. If I cared less about it, if I didn’t have faith in my abilities, I’d cut the stressor from my life and stop worrying about it. But I can’t. I won’t. The need to tell stories and give people the gift of escape to another world, other lives, a new experience or even just some distraction from what’s in front of them is too great to be ignored, set aside, or discarded. The spirit is willing, and angry, and full of notions and dreams. The flesh is weak, and flabbier than I’d like, and smells funny if I don’t bathe often enough.
I’m going to try and turn this around. I can’t be on the bad end of bullshit forever. I’m sharpening my knives and inking my pens.
Our stories are rife with mythological creatures. The minotaur, the phoenix, the hydra, ogres and fairies and vampires and wizards – the list is exhaustive. While I’m a fan of all of them, writing about some and playing others, there’s yet to be a creature that, in my mind, truly outshines the dragon.
It’s not just that these are giant lizards that can not only fly but also breathe fire (or ice or lightning or toxic gas or acid). The thing that tips dragons over into my mental tray of ‘best things ever’ is the fact that they’re highly intelligent. While the Minotaur rages through the corridors of a labyrinth, and hydras try to feed all of their various heads, dragons often have agendas. Even if that agenda begins and ends with “roll around in enough gold to make Scrooge McDuck jealous.”
This isn’t always the case, of course. At times, dragons are simply smart animals. But intelligence is intelligence. For a case in point, I highly recommend How To Train Your Dragon. Specifically, play close attention to the character of Toothless. Without speaking a word of dialog, Toothless communicates exactly what he’s thinking and how he feels. He moves naturally, like a large lizard would, but he also has the body language and expressions of a very intelligent being. In addition to being a compelling character, and the adorable and unique mascot of an excellent storytelling series, he’s an exemplary dragon.
When it comes to articulate dragons, there are other examples. Draco from Dragonheart is a noble creature, while Smaug from The Hobbit is completely malevolent. Both are ancient and noble, in their own way, both are the last of their kind and both are massive in size with speed that belies their bulk. But while they’re similar in form and function, their characters are very different. Draco is interested in survival, and when presented with an opportunity to make something of himself, he tries to bring out the best in those around him. Smaug, on the other hand, is a creature of pure pride and avarice, reveling in his bountiful lair, and when a certain barrel-rider stumbles in, Smaug toys with it the way a cat toys with a mouse. Draco sees humanoids as both potentially dangerous and capable of better natures; Smaug can only perceive vermin to be exterminated.
Dragons, like our heroes and our villains, come in all shapes and sizes. But they are always fascinating, often beautiful, and terrifying in their core natures. Even exemplars like Toothless and Draco are still powerful, mythical creatures; dragons are true apex predators no matter how they express themselves. That’s part of what make them so interesting. Dragons that feature in the stories that stick with us either defy or indulge in their natures, and in both, they become reflections of ourselves. Like any good characters, they’re people, even if they have scales on. The lens that takes the shape of a dragon is an interesting one, and always will be.
Technically, this is a From the Vault entry. But it’s Thursday! So let’s call it Throwback Thursday instead, just to mix things up. I’ve been running this blog for over five years now. This is an entry from the very early days. Enjoy!
So you’ve written the next great American novel, or at least a Twilight-killer. It sits pristinely on your desk or hard drive and you can’t wait to get it into the hands of the public who are hungry for something new and interesting to take them away from the dark soul-draining mire of everyday life, spinning your words into gold. But there’s something you need to do first.
You need to sell yourself.
Now I don’t mean that it’s time to pull on the fishnet stockings and hit the streets of the nearest slum. No, I mean you need to send the right queries to the right people.
Would You Buy This?
I might go into more detail and give examples on what not to do in a query letter in another Thursday post, but suffice it to say that the old adage of KISS applies – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Open with a hook. Introduce a character or situation that you think will drive the work.
Give a synopsis of the plot. Let the reader of your query know what they’re in for in general, but don’t give away all of your twists & secrets.
Thank them for the time they’ve taken to read the query.
Offer them an outline and sample chapters if you’re pitching a book.
Let them know you’re looking forward to a prompt reply.
Again, I’ll elaborate on these points at another time. Let’s talk about where these queries are going.
The Knife Guy
I have an old edition of the Complete Guide to Novel Writing, and one of the authors describes agents as “knife guys.” Basically, the agent’s job is to cut through the slush piles and red tape of publishing houses, going right to the heart to someone they know on the inside who can help your work see print.
Finding an agent is the most expedient way to get your work published. And by most expedient, I mean that if you get your work accepted, an agent will be more prompt in responding to you than a publisher will be, in most cases. This is because an agent is part writing partner and part mercenary. They understand your need to express yourself and tell your story, and they’re willing to do your dirty work if you pay them enough, usually on commission from your advance & sales. If you win, they win. I’d advise going this route, even though I myself have had zero success in hooking one. Though it has occurred to me I might be fishing in the wrong pond.
Go to the Source
You can, if you prefer, send queries directly to the editors at publishing houses. While this means you don’t have to share your spoils with an agent, it also means it’s much harder for your work to stand out. An agent tends to work face-to-face with publishers, whereas your query letter is one of quite a few that flood into publishing houses on a regular basis.
However, a work that is unique enough or fills a void a publishing house is hungry for might survive the bucket of swamp run-off that is your typical slush pile. Your mileage will vary depending on your genre and the nature of your work. While nobody else on the planet can write exactly in your style on the subject you’ve decided to work with, there might be enough similarities between you and another author that the recipient might decide neither are worth an investment.
Don’t Give Up
Sending queries is a long, thankless, and depressing process. You’re facing entry into a field of entertainment that is crammed with both existing authors looking to continue their careers and new talent frothing at the mouth to get noticed. Know this: you are going to get rejected.
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a letter of interest within the first wave of your queries. But it’s more likely that you’ll get a bunch of form letters saying that your work isn’t quite what they’re looking for and thanking you for your effort. Try not to think of it as a reflection on your work, but rather an increase in your chances of getting a positive response.
Another book I own, I believe it’s What Color Is Your Parachute? says something about the interview process that applies to sending queries. Your responses are going to look something like this:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES
That “Yes” will make the mountain of rejections disappear so fast it will make your head spin.
Do It Yourself
You could always try to publish your book yourself, but this is an expensive and time-consuming process and you’re better off writing instead of going through it. Even if it’s just writing & sending more query letters.
Still recovering from my recent travels – in a way, it feels like I’m shaking off the vestiges of sleep and wondering if it was a dream. Anyway, here’s a dip into the past while I work on catching up.
Nothing lasts forever.
It’s a narrative thread woven through many, many stories we tell. Ozymandias talks of great constructs of man all but obliterated by time. A lot of tales are set in times long after the collapse of expansive civilizations. We preserve what we can, but it is impossible to escape what comes for each and every one of us in time.
Death has been personified in many ways. We want to put a face to the inevitability of our end. We struggle to comprehend the finality of it. That there is nothing more in this world for us. No matter what may come after, if there’s more to existence than these mere dimensions we perceive or if there is nothing but silence and oblivion, our hands do no more work, our mouths never make audible sounds again, our eyes fail to see another wonder or another tragedy.
And yet, our stories do not end when we do.
Time will have her way with what we build and the lines we draw between one another. Our imaginations, however, are much more difficult to destroy. In those imaginations, we remember those who’ve left us behind, we tell their stories, we wonder and question and laugh and cry. And when we latch onto something, like the arguments made by the likes of Plato or Aristotle, the teachings of pilgrims from Nazareth or visionaries from Mecca, a tale about fairies or the faux history of the epic struggle of noble houses, the creator of the work lasts even longer in our imaginations. In rare cases, we’re given more than just entertainment and escapism. We are given hope.
I don’t necessarily mean hope for an afterlife or immortality or anything like that. In a general sense, we find hope for a better tomorrow. We know the world will keep turning even if someone we admire or love dies. And if the sun does indeed rise on a new day, maybe we can find, in ourselves and in what we and our loved ones leave behind, whatever it takes to make this day better than the one before.
I have many, many good things to say about Transistor.
I’m processing my thoughts for a review that will go up tomorrow, but my immediate takeaway was that Supergiant Games have done it again. They’ve shown how coherently and completely a story can be told in the medium of video games, with a bare minimum of exposition and dialog. In Transistor, they also demonstrate how effectively one can characterize a silent protagonist through action.
More often than not, silent protagonists are conveyed to us through the reactions of others than anything else. They tend to be blank canvases for the player to project themselves upon. Other characters, mostly in first-person games – Garret in the Thief series, Master Chief from Halo, etc – gain more of their own character from the occasional line of dialog, opting for the taciturn badass mold of protagonist. Not so with Red. Her voice stolen by the Camerata, she cannot speak for herself. But despite being silent, and our protagonist, Red is very much her own character.
Throughout Transistor, Red pulls the titular sword-like device around her as if it’s quite heavy. Yet, she pulls of flourishes with it, tossing it up in the air to catch it as she runs. Her initial pose not only allows her a good range of motion with the weapon, but it can be off-putting to foes: they may think she is too weak to use it effectively, only to be surprised when she enters Turn() to bust some heads. She hums, either along to the music when in Turn() or holding the Transistor, as well as short vocalizations when she sees something in Cloudbank the Transistor wants to tell her (and us) about. Despite the loss of her voice, Red refuses to be completely silent. This is also evident in the terminals scattered throughout the game – the roles of which I will not spoil here. Finally, in the Backdoor hub for the ‘bonus’ portions of the game, there is a hammock, and after using it, Red yawns and dabs at her eyes, a gesture that speaks to someone used to a refined and maybe even posh lifestyle. Her life might have been thrown into upheaval, but Red refuses to let go of herself, allowing time to breathe in the midst of the chaos.
All storytellers, not just video game designers, could benefit from Red’s example. She informs us of who she is through her actions. Nobody tells us that she’s this smart or this stubborn. It comes across in what we are shown. The guys at Supergiant are not in the habit of explaining much of anything in their games at first; players discover more about the world and the characters through play rather than through cutscene. Brevity, it is said, is the soul of wit, and it’s also helpful in conveying a story in the most effective way possible.
If your characters have agency, and you’re allowing them to change and grow as your story progresses, you’re well on your way to this effectiveness. Building on the foundation of agency, you’ll want your characters to come across to your audience through actions, possibly more than words. The more speech you cram into your character’s mouths, the less story you’ll actually be telling. While it is occasionally okay for a character to be long-winded as part of who they are, or needing to explain something to someone else, for the most part, our conversations are relatively short. We do far more than we say. Your characters should be no different.
There are a lot of things to take away from the experience of Transistor, many aspects that other game designers, even for big publishers, would do well to emulate. One of the strongest is this method of conveying character through action. I may reiterate this point in my review, but Red feels like a person, with her own life and thoughts and emotions, and this pulled me even deeper into the experience. It’s powerful storytelling, and in an interactive medium like this, it’s always wonderful to see. Like characters in Journey communicating almost entirely through action, forcing the player to pay attention and forge connections through their own agency, Red takes on a life of her own not just because we have a mouse or thumbsticks to guide her. Her actions show us who she is.
Can you say the same for the characters you’ve created?
