Listen to the archived episodes on the right side.

Check out the wallpapers at the top.

Listen to the soundtrack.

Come and say hello, Friday night at 9:00pm at Max Lagers!

I’m hoping to have a podcaster meetup at Max Lager’s Woodfired Grille in Atlanta! There’s a giant gear on the side of the building! What could be better? If you’re going to Dragon*Con (or even if you’re not), let’s hang out! Comment if you’re going to be there, or heck, just show up!

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Agent Darren Freeman prepares to defend himself from an assailant with deadly magic! William Avon Young’s sharp features were so perfect for this role. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results! Thanks also to Brooke Fox for her great skills as producer! We couldn’t have done it without you. The photo was shot in the Princess Theatre in Decatur, AL, and we’d also like to thank their incredible staff for letting us work in there.

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This photo introduces Zach Ford as the Hangman, alongside Kelsey Prater reprising her role as Astrid Blauvelt. Zach’s unearthly good looks and Kelsey’s perfect understanding of Astrid really stitched this picture together in a way that no one else could. Thank you so much to our producer, Brooke Fox, for coordinating this shoot!

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This photo features Ashton Hill playing Agent Isabelle Carriker. Ashton brought her striking looks and charming smile to our little project and absolutely demolished it! The rest of our crew, especially Renée White and producer Brooke Fox deserve a big thumbs up for this as well. I couldn’t do it without you!

Stay tuned, folks. We’ve got a lot more on the way.

The Gearheart is our first podcast. It’s a little rough around the edges, and we’ve learned a lot that we look forward to applying going forward. I don’t mean to say that I don’t want to win a Parsec. I absolutely do. I’m just trying to say that you, the listeners, have made this project a success. When things got rough, you were there for us. Every time one of you tells us that you recommended our story to a friend, you helped build a better environment for me as an author and Renée as an actress. You rewarded our efforts to create a soundtrack and wallpapers with lovely compliments, and made us want to work that much harder.

In other words, this finalist nomination is just as much for you as it is for us. Pat yourselves on the back and keep your fingers crossed. No matter what, though, this is already so much more than we’ve asked for, and we’re very proud.

(Also, throw a little love to Starla Hutchton of The Dreamer’s Thread! We contributed to each other’s podcasts, and it’s hard to want to compete with her after all the favors she did for me!)

Sometimes, being the parent of a special needs child is like floating through space. It can be cold and lonely, you feel like you can’t breathe, and there’s nothing out there but the blackness. Normal parents have trouble understanding you. They hear about things– like when you have to take the schools to court to get a decent education– and they say, “Really? That all seems like a lot. Your son is so sweet. He seems very smart.”

That’s right. You have to take the school system to court to get them to provide even the most basic of services for children with autism. Just ask any parent of a special needs child. The experience is almost ubiquitous.

Sweetness, intelligence and a good heart don’t get you everything you need. Family can only go so far, as they will also feel the strain of care. Leaning on them day in and day out feels wrong, and it’s easy to find yourself caught up in despair. There is no time to rest– there is never a day when you can look at your child and think, “Yeah. I’m totally doing enough for this child. I’m not a failure.”

Last night, I decided on a whim to ask the community for help. At 9:00pm Central Standard Time, my post appeared. Within six hours, the goal was met. Six hours. I didn’t even have time to crack open a book before it had been filled halfway. It’s full now; I’m going to leave it open for tax and apps, but I want to make my gratitude clear.

I don’t know what to say. I may be stuck in space, but the stars have come out with blinding effulgence.

Thank you. I love you all.

My son is 3 now, and he has a lot of work ahead of him. His communication impairments are severe, and it takes constant vigilance on our part to help him learn to speak. As of this moment, he mostly echoes what is said to him in the hopes that we will give him whatever he wants. If we are lax in our teaching methods at all, it starts a cycle of immediate regression. You can imagine how it feels to see him just locked in his own world, unable to respond to most external stimuli, and how I would do anything to help him adapt to our world.

A lot of you have asked how my son is doing ever since my post shortly before episode 27. I just want you all to know he’s improving, and we’re starting to get a handle on the scope of his disability. There isn’t a lot of hard data on autism, even though it’s one of the fastest-growing diagnoses in the world. That means that there are a lot of quacks out there who are more than willing to make a buck at the expense of your child’s health. Originally, I just dismissed this iPad thing as a fad.

Then I gave my kid a DS to play with.

It was incredible. He held the pen like a pro! You can see the gears turning, and I hope the possibilities are present in your mind. To you, he may just look like a normal three-year-old… but I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Just like a normal boy. I wanted to cry.

There aren’t a lot of accessibility apps for the DS, as you can imagine. With its giant hinge, it’s not exactly made for toddlers. To make matters worse, his therapy, the only therapy that has worked so far… comes out to $24k per year, with no insurance coverage.

I never meant to ask you all for help. I wanted to make a product I could sell you instead. But here I am, asking if you will ChipIn to help us get an iPad for my beautiful son. I promise to post videos of his brilliance.

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Jonathan stands before a field of enemies, prepared to strike a bargain with the devil inside. Lane Fox captured this brilliantly. I couldn’t have asked for a better model!

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It is my pleasure to offer up another wallpaper starring Brooke Fox as Cog. I like the motes of dust in this one. It also features the incredible work of propmaker Ben Hummel, who I cannot thank enough for making that sword.

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This excellent gentleman posing as Augustus is Chandler Hayes, globetrotter, graffiti artist and Renaissance man. Chandler and I have been great friends for a long time, and we were both so excited for the opportunity to collaborate on a piece. We shot this at the “GIANT!” warehouse and concert venue in Decatur, AL with permission from Aaron McDaniel. Thanks a ton, Chandler and Aaron!

Thanks also to Brooke Fox, who continues to produce these wonderful shoots for us.

Click here for the show link!

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I want to thank the husband of our Cog model, Lane Fox, for posing for this photo of Jonathan. The man clearly has a ton of talent for capturing the character, and I look forward to working with him more!

EDIT: I updated the wallpaper to fix the colors, increase the contrast and alter a few minor things!  Check it out!

EDIT: Please note that I have fixed the color issues on most common monitors and enhanced the image significantly.  Please re-download the wallpaper if you have not!

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Click for Full Size, Used with Permission of the Artist

Hey, all!  Here’s another pic from our fanartist extraordinaire, Ben Hummel!  I love the way he has worked in a Runky’s into the piece!  Fantastic job, Ben!  A pleasure, as always!

IMPORTANT!  Ben Hummel, King of Fanart, created that sword Brooke is holding.  That’s right.  I sent him a drawing and he MADE that amazing thing.  What a guy!

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The Clockwork Cotillion, featuring The Extraordinary Contraptions!

So join us, 7/10/10 at the Flying Monkey Arts Center in Huntsville, AL! Details on the flyer below.

BE THERE! …or don’t be there…

I think a lot of The Gearheart’s success is a function of the way it taps into old pulp formulas.  Heroic characters rise to the challenge against a great menace.  Gun battles, airplane chases and explosions ensue.  The first chapters were created to be simplistic, easy to read snippets of fun.  I hoped to draw the reader into a two-dimensional, comic book universe where they thought the decisions would be easy.  People tell me they get that when they hear the story, and that makes me intensely happy.

However, as the reader progressed, I wanted decisions to become more difficult, the characters to be more developed and, most of all, I wanted to subvert your sense of ease.  I had hoped to lull you into a happy place, only to shake you from your hammock when the time was right.  Whether or not I succeeded is not for me to say.  That’s your job.

This is a really long way of saying, “I don’t believe in the old pulp formulas.”

In the old pulps, you have a hero and a villain.  The hero is heroic.  The villain is villainous.  The lady character is confused and easily manipulated.  Done.  It’s a pretty straightforward thing.  Unless there is some great exception, you can expect a pulp to follow the standard arc with little to no deviation.  That’s why they were considered to be cheap, disposable fiction.

However, I don’t believe this is the answer- especially not for antagonists.  I believe there are no villains, only people.  Every single person in the world, no matter how evil, has a reason for what they do.  Each tiny interaction is the product of previous stimuli and years of built-up motivation.  Granted, their choices may not always be the most noble, well thought-out or understandable.  However, an antagonist should truly believe in their cause, whether it is love, the betterment of mankind, or simply themselves. Even Old Man Withers from Scooby Doo just wanted everyone to leave so he could sell the amusement park.

When you write that mustache-twisting, railroad-dynamiting nemesis, I believe you’re doing your story a grave disservice. Likewise, if you write someone who is merely a victim of mental of sexual dysfunction (I’m looking at you, mid-90s thrillers!), then you have chosen a shortcut. People are more than a label or a list of psychobabble buzzwords.

All I’m saying is this: When you write your villain, you should do everything in your power to capture the essence of a person. Write an antagonist, not a villain. As a small corollary I would like to add that, just because a character or person is three-dimensional, that doesn’t mean we have to like them.

You have our relationship all wrong. I should be thanking you.

Like most writers who don’t have wealthy significant others, I have a day job. I have always had a day job. It’s how you pay the bills. I have the incredible fortune of loving my day job. Most people don’t. However, there are still two people living inside my body- Alex White the graphic designer and Alex White the writer. I spend eight solid hours a day burying the writer, only to bring him out for fleeting moments like contraband. I’m in love with what I do, but it’s not the same as who I am.

The world does not smile upon those who write. I think it has judged them fairly, since most people prefer to talk about writing as opposed to actually doing it. Of those who do it, few are willing to (really and truly) take criticism, and even fewer are willing to apply it to their work. That’s why people think writers are losers. That’s why everyone knows a “writer”: a man or woman who has a terrible novel in a desk that took a decade to complete, who has read all of the how-to books, who quotes Stephen King’s seminal treatise like scripture… who will never, ever make it. He or she is really great at talking about what he or she does and at talking down to everyone else. Maybe the “writer” met a famous editor/agent/author once, and that person told the “writer” that he or she had “the stuff.”

To me, a writer is someone who creates works that people want to consume. No amount of talking, posturing or research makes a person a writer in my mind. I’m a very skeptical person, too, so I need proof of success. I don’t like to talk about myself as a writer, because I’m afraid of becoming a “writer.” I often spend my days feeling like I know what I’m doing, only to wonder if I’m crazy, and everyone secretly thinks I’m a failure. However, the craft of writing lives in a vacuum, and so I press on like I always have- scared and without reinforcement.

When I looked down at my e-mail and saw all of the beautiful things you said to me, I felt like a writer. These moments in life are so tiny and so unexpected, like the first time you hear your sleeping child sigh. You have given me something to cherish, and I can go forward with my head held high. This world contains such a grand cacophony of distractions, each one a shearing force on the person you see in the mirror, tearing you away from what you were meant to be.

And so, for these quiet minutes, you have made me feel like myself, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Secret enough that I’m totally in the dark! I have no idea what’s going on! (but that’s normal)

I’m not sure what they’re up to, but they have asked that I have people contact them. They’re great folks, so I’m sure it isn’t a scheme to get followers. If you’re on Twitter, follow @kyledockery and @toasterb0t, and if you’re thinking of taking the Twitter plunge, now is your chance!

Of course, they also have e-mail addresses. Catch Nansi Brown (toasterb0t) or Kyle Dockery (kyledockery) that way.

Lastly, I’ll be there, presenting a lecture/discussion called “Characters, Plot and Backstory: The Mechanics of Fiction” at 7:00 p.m.. You can find it at Shelby Hall, this Saturday, on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

There are dozens of items to bid on and the live video feed and chat is a BLAST to watch. There are a few podcasting stars making appearances, as well! For those of you that missed this morning, I got to see Phillipa Ballentine’s cleavage! You totally missed out. In case you’re interested in Alex’s items that he put up for bid, he has a Theme Song Package up for bid, in which he will compose a theme song just for you and your podcast up to seven minutes long. Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be just for your podcast. If you just want a song all about you and how awesome you are, I’m sure he could pull that off, as well. He also has a Graphic Design Logo Package up for bid as well in case you’re interested in a professional logo for your book, website, or what-have-you. You can make a proxy bid on either items at the links I just posted, or come to the live auction and join in on the fun. His items are in the “Bespoke Category” (which, for my fellow Americans that have never heard that word before, it just means “fancy custom made stuff”) which is scheduled to start bidding at 3 pm EST. You can see the full schedule here. Hope to see you there!

FYI: This post is certified SPOILER-FREE!

So I must admit, real life is kicking my butt right now. Work related issues and child rearing always take priority over the podcast, which is unfortunate for those of you nice enough to listen to me. Here’s the skinny, though: we’re on the last two episodes.  There will be two fifty-minute episodes complete with new music, and the series will be over! I want you to know that I’m not rushing these out the door, because I want them to sound really nice.  This project has been so huge for me over the past year, and I just want to make sure it ends right.

CALL FOR QUESTIONS:

Here’s what I’ll do in the meantime: I’m going to open up the floor to questions and comments. Please post to this thread by 5:00 Wednesday, and I’ll try to answer all of them, if possible.  If you want me to plug your site, be sure and mention your project in your response.

ALSO, A GEARHEART CHALLENGE!

That’s right! I also want to have a challenge this week to go on the Q&A episode!  Post your responses here and I’ll read them on the air!  Here’s the question:

“If you had a steampunk organization, what would you be called?  What would you do?  Most importantly, what would you name your flagship zeppelin?”

I look forward to hearing the responses!

Promo this week: OSMCast!

01 – The Curtain Rises
02 – Steel Convictions
03 – Things Never Said
04 – Secrets of the Antonellos
05 – The Spider’s Web
06 – Clockwork Confessions
07 – Rage of the Seekers
08 – City of Wings
09 – Things Never Said Reprise feat. Starla Hutchton
10 – The King’s Angel
11 – The Oak Tree feat. Starla Hutchton
12 – Threads of Time
13 – Sweet Sorrow
14 – The Zephyr and the Shadow(NEW!)

The beautiful singing in this episode is courtesy of Starla Hutchton, of The Dreamer’s Thread. You can find her podcast novel at TheDreamersThreadNovel.com.

Promo: Get Published

Promo: Metamor City

Click the pic to see the gargantuan version!

Fumoston Chapter, by Ben Hummel

This picture used with permission of the artist.

by Toasterb0t

This picture used with permission of the artist.

Promo: Serving Worlds

Please visit The Dreamer’s Thread Novel.  Starla shows off her lovely voice in this episode.

Your comments, condolences and understanding have been integral to me during these troubling times.  The Gearheart is a lifelong dream for me (because I have been failing at it for awhile), and it was painful to think that I might lose so much ground on it because of personal things that must take priority.  I was really and truly touched, and a few times, I even got misty when I checked my e-mails… in a very manly way, of course.  No one out there has better fans than I do.  Sorry, other podcasters, but it’s true.  You guys are the cream of the crop, and I am continually humbled by you all.

So where to now? Well, with my son, it appears to be the uphill battle of our lives with insurance companies that would just as soon spit on us as look at us.  The boy will get the care he deserves, but we may have to bleed for it before all is said and done.  When I get more information, I’ll be sure and post it here.  A decent book sale could pay for a year of his therapy.  Perhaps I should get on that.

With The Gearheart, I promise that there will be no more service interruptions until this is all complete.  The manuscript is set to end this weekend, and it’s going to end big.  The podcast will be about ten or so weeks behind that.  Hang on to your hats, dear listeners, because it’s going to be a heck of a ride.

You’d be amazed how many of them cannot tell me.

Let me start out by saying that writing plot synopses for brevity is difficult and people try. They really do. I have the utmost respect for writers, so please do not think I am poking fun, but I need to provide an example of what I usually hear. This is something I just made up, not related to anyone’s story in particular.

Well, there’s this guy who can manipulate matter, and it’s the future. And in the future, there are these other races, the elves, the aliens and the cat people. And anyway, this guy who can manipulate matter was made in a genetics lab by fusing all of the other races’ DNA together. So now he has the power of transmutation- to convert any item to another item of the same molecular weight. Because he has this power, the government wants him for experimentation, but the cat people think he is a religious incarnation of their god, Felina, so they want to protect him. And all along the way, he goes about collecting allies until he is ready to lead the elves, aliens and cat people in a rebellion against the human empires. Fun ensues.

Great. By this time, I have forgotten what we started talking about in the first place. This problem extends into podcast promos, as well. Folks will go well into the 2-3 minute mark just telling me their backstory or introducing all of their characters. That’s very informative and all, but I don’t think it’s what an audience wants. What I think an audience wants is an easily-digested nugget of cool. I hold fast to my belief that a podcast promo should be no longer than 30 seconds to 1 minute.

I have a formula for writing log lines, and it works like a charm. I don’t know if this is the formula that the pros use, but it’s certainly the way I tackle a difficult plot. I’d like to share it with you, and have you put it to the test on your own work. Try it at your next party when you describe your book, and just see if people’s eyes light up with recognition. My formula is simple, it’s easy, and it will sell your story to the uninitiated.

There are 3 sentences in a log line. That’s it. They are as follows: The Carry, The Crossover and The Complication. Fairly simple stuff. You’ll see them defined below.

1) The Carry

The Carry is what carries (go figure) us into the world of your story. This is where you describe to us the everyday world of your hero and the things he/she does with her time. That isn’t to say that you say, “John Hero woke up and peed before brushing his teeth and going to work.” That is, unless you’re being ironic. Then you might say that. I don’t know.

The “normal world” of your hero is still fraught with some kind of conflict. Try to capture that. Maybe he or she is a secret agent. Maybe your hero just wants to be liked by the pretty girl behind the counter at the local bakery. Maybe your hero suffers from leukemia and starts out with only months to live. Let’s take the example from the top and formulate our Carry.

“John Hero’s life changed forever the day he learned he could convert anything into marshmallows.”

Short, sweet, and to the point. It captures that John has a power, and that power is marshmallic transmutation. It’s a real thing, I swear.

2) The Crossover

The Crossover literally refers to the events that precipitate your crossing into the second act of the story. In the Star Wars (Joseph Campbell) formula, this would be the moment that Luke discovers the burned bodies of Beru and Owen. This is when the hero learns that he/she can’t go back to his/her mild-mannered life of secret-agenting or bakery-lusting. I need to come up with better verbs.

You want to capture the core conflict of the story in this line, and at the same time, reveal the nemesis for bonus points. Of course, you can disregard the nemesis reveal if you’re writing some kind of murder mystery. In that instance, you tell us who died, as that is your first act turning point. Here’s the John Hero Crossover:

“However, when mysterious agents show up to kidnap John, he uncovers a mysterious past of genetic manipulation and government treachery.”

A murder mystery line might read more like, “But when a body turns up at the International Butler Convention, the police find themselves too baffled to solve the mystery!”

3) The Complication

The complication is the way that your Crossover causes the story to unfold. It’s the extra oomph that a reader/listener/viewer might not have expected, and it’s the paramount selling point. There are a lot of stories out there, but this is the third element that makes yours unique.

In Star Wars, this would be Luke’s Jedi powers and religion. In Hamlet, this might be represented by the prince’s slow descent into insanity. Without the Complication, your story is just a basic tale of cause and effect. This is the randomizing element that makes it both unpredictable and interesting.

Let’s write a Complication for the story above.

“With the aid of the mysterious Nya-meow Cat Folk, Smith must now embark upon the greatest journey of his life- one that will take him from the sinister labs, to the churches of the Cat Pope, and to the stars beyond!”

You can also finish this with sentence with another: a call to action like, “Find out on The Gearheart!” (But only an idiot would have a title like that.)

So that’s it! That was a lot of explaining, but overall, I think you’ll find the basic ideas to be fairly simple. I hope you’ve enjoyed this healthy dose of The Gearbox, and I look forward to joining you next time with an interview from the illustrious J.C. Hutchins!

Loyal listener Nansi Brown brings us this oh-so-fabulous vision of Cog! I love it! It kind of reminds me of something you’d see at the end of a Pixar movie. You can see the rest of Nansi’s rockin DeviantArt gallery by clicking here.

Thanks so much, Nansi!

The reason I’m writing this is that we should support him. We need to support him because he’s one of us, someone who loves serialized podcast fiction, and a pioneer in his field. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning of “7th Son” has me intrigued as all get out, but I would buy it anyway. I would buy it to prove that Hutchins should be taken seriously.

I would buy it to prove to major publishing houses that we should all be taken seriously.

We podcast authors are not like other authors. We are tested in the marketplace of ideas, against thousands of dedicated competitors, and our success or failure does not depend on some agent or publisher, but on the quality of our work. There is no nepotism in podcasting. If you can succeed here, it’s because you have a real product. I care about J.C. Hutchins’s book for that exact reason. He is showing the writing world what’s up. He has survived the frontier, and now he deserves our respect, if not our patronage.

So please, if you plan on buying a book sometime soon, head over to Amazon.com and pick up “The 7th Son: Descent.” It won’t disappoint.

Promo: The Extraordinary Contraptions

Music Promo this week: “Fine” by The Extraordinary Contraptions from the album, “Inappropriate on Purpose”

Ben wants to hear more about the Queensmen… Don’t worry, Ben. I won’t disappoint you.

Promo: The Extraordinary Contraptions

More importantly, though, I’ll be at MAX, finding newer and better ways to improve the user experience around here. I’ll be heavily utilizing this knowledge when I launch my next podcast, “Festival of the Bizarre!”

Fanart by Ben Hummel

Thanks to Ben Hummel for that! (Reproduced, of course, with his permission!)

Special thanks to: Starla Huchton of The Dreamer’s Thread

Promo: PGHolyfield.com

• Discussions on cover art and creativity
• The state of the publishing industry
• What is The Gearheart?
• My feelings on Blade Runner
• Fonts and genres
• Glenfiddich
• Oil rigs
• Tears for Fears

So yeah.  It’s a lot of rambling.  Check it out at http://www.pgholyfield.com and listen to HIS book “Murder at Avedon Hill” while you’re there!

Promos: The Extraordinary Contraptions and 12-Volt Theater

For this reason, I tag my episodes with the character names featured therein for your convenience! You can click on any character’s name at the bottom of the episode post to keep handy track of any episode in which they appeared.

Sorry things move so slow! Hopefully, this feature will make it easier for you!

I know that I’m not a podcasting superstar, but you guys really make me feel like I’m living out my dreams. I can’t thank you all enough.

People I plan (or hope) to meet:
Tony Ruggiero
P.G. Holyfield
Scott Siegler
Mur Lafferty
…and maybe you!

Promo this week: V & A Shipping

Worldbuilding can be an attractive facet of writing. To a certain extent, all sci-fi and fantasy stories contain a world that almost takes on a main character role, but don’t be fooled. There is such a thing as too much worldbuilding. This trap was the purpose of today’s question.

Alex: How much worldbuilding is too much worldbuilding? Where does the exposition end and the story begin?

Jess: There are two dangers involved in extensive world building. The first is that the act of worldbuilding inherently takes time and creative energy. If you spend too little time and energy in creating a realistic world for your story to take place, you risk running into challenges as the stories you tell in that world play out into areas and topics that you hadn’t yet contemplated. For the most part, these issues can be dealt with through either improvisation or continued world-building (depending on whether the problem crops up during an interactive situation, like in the middle of a game session, or at a time when you can give it more thought and time, like while writing a story or adventure, or between game sessions.) There is, of course the risk of running into seemingly insurmountable contradictions, but most situations can be made to fit with enough effort and creativity.

If, on the other hand, you spend too much time and energy on the world building, you may never actually get to the story you wanted to tell. Compare this, for example, to an artist who spends so long preparing his canvas that he no longer has time or energy to paint the picture. The worlds we build, whether it is for gaming or fiction, are not the stories themselves. They are merely the settings in which the stories happen, and if we become too focused on world building, it can get in the way of actually creating the stories.

The other potential risk of extensive world building is that it tends to spawn exposition. Once our grand and comprehensive world is created, we (quite naturally) want to show it off. Both in fiction and in game-creating, this leads to exposition, as we find ourselves going into long written (or spoken) descriptions so that we can be sure our readers (or players) are appropriately impressed with the extensive work we’ve put into building our world. While understandable, this kind of exposition can be deadly to a story, as it pulls the all progress to a complete halt while viewers are forced to stop and examine your landscape.

Remember: Exposition is showing. Story is telling. Worldbuilding really isn’t either of them, but it can spawn exposition rather than story, if you’re not careful.

Thanks again to Jess Hartley (of www.jesshartley.com) for her incredible insight into this difficult but fun aspect of creative writing! For more advice, including professional ethics, game etiquette and more, check out her website! And, of course, tune in regularly for more episodes of The Gearheart!

I’ve called Jess in as a special expert on one of the trickiest parts of story development- worldbuilding. A lot of sci-fi and fantasy authors obsess over it, and why not? Worlds flavor the book in ways that cannot be replicated by any other story element. So if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like when an expert sits down to write a world, read on!

(Jess is so prolific that we only got through two questions. I’ll post one today and one tomorrow.)

Alex: Where do you start when you sit down with a world? What part tends to garner your attention first? Do you like to go for an overall hook like “mystical power is possible,” or are you more into more focused flavor, such as a specific race or item?

Jess: Each project is different, and how I go about world building depends a lot on what pulled me towards that project in the first place. While items, races, or locations can act as an inspiration, I think the real creative force in world building comes from asking “What if?” Sometimes you just get struck with a thought like… “What if the “real world” is just a computer game that we’ve all become so immersed in that we don’t remember it’s a game any more?” or “What if Little Red Riding Hood lived in the current era?” That thought, and how go about exploring it, begins setting the initial perimeters of the world, be it something wholly fantastic, familiar-yet-different, or just a touch away from the real world.

At a recent GameMaster Conference in Tucson, Berin Kinsman gave a panel which really summed up World Building for me. He presented it as a series of questions, each which leads you into more questions, and at each stage, the answers to those questions show you more about the world you’re creating. I agree with what he detailed, and find that I do the same sort of thing when building my worlds. I may start with an idea – a retelling of a classic tale, a character inspired by someone I pass on the street, a conflict situation that I want to see played out in words… But the world building really expands out from there, to whatever degree it needs to for the purposes of that project.

If I have a particular tale I want to tell, and the story (be that short story, novel-length fiction, or interactive adventure ala a roleplaying game) is specifically focused on the characters involved, then the world-building may be very secondary to the characters themselves. That is, the world may exist only so far as it needs to for the characters to have a screen on which to play out their drama, and I may not need to illuminate more than what will be shown in that particular tale. For example, in “Santa Claws,” a short story that I wrote a few years ago, I really wanted to do a “holiday + paranormal” story. It wasn’t necessary, for the purposes of that tale, for me to know or detail out how the supernatural creature involved came to be what he was, or develop the history of paranomals in that story’s world, or even touch on whether there were any but the focus character at all. It just didn’t matter to the story. So I “world built” what was going to show on-screen – the two main characters’ views of the world, the supernatural creature’s involvement with his family, his views on being who and what he was, and left it at that. The world, essentially, was only as deep and broad as it needed to be for the character to be three-dimensional, because the story wasn’t about the world, it was about a single interaction between characters.

If, however, I’m looking more to create a place in which multiple stories will be told (be they various plot threads in the same work as you find in a novel, or a variety of stories all taking place in the same world, such as you might find with an anthology or a game-setting) a narrow canvas may not be sufficient. In that sort of a case, I usually start with a few “givens” – I want there to be magic, for example, but I want it to be natural (or religious, or academic) in nature. I want everyone (or only a certain caste, or almost no one) to have access to it. I want the technology level to be medieval (or modern, or beyond our current conceptions). Those few givens act as the framework between which I can begin weaving the rest of the world. And sometimes I’ll find that, as the tapestry begins to unfold, I need to change one of those “givens”. But for the most part, they stay in place, and they’re the skeleton around which the world is built.

Once again, thanks to Jess Hartley (www.jesshartley.com) for her awesome advice! Look for more tomorrow!

Promo this week: Some Other Scotland

Let me start out by saying, I believe in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. I love the idea of the Monomyth, and I try to sell it to almost anyone who will listen. It’s an observable, anti-modernist formula, and it works fairly well for catering to the expectations of your audience. Don’t know who Joseph Campbell is or what the Monomyth might be? Click here for a quick education. If you’ve never looked into it before, you owe it to yourself as a writer. If you’re not a writer, plot dissection is a fun party trick to whip out on movie night. Okay, so maybe it’s just annoying to your friends. Don’t dissect movies on movie night.

Anyway, in some classes, the third act of the Monomyth is is referred to as the “Resurrection” after the “Atonement with the Father” segment (That’s sometimes called “The Ordeal”). Campbell makes no attempt to judge the quality of fiction that incorporates resurrection, but rather to catalog it. Resurrection could be physical or metaphorical, and I’m not sure that Campbell would say that one is better than the other.

So since he won’t say it, I’ll say it: Physical resurrection is garbage. I despise it.

“Atonement with the Father” is a major scene. It’s the part of the story where the hero and his or her friends pull out all the stops and confront their evil head on. It’s the moment in Star Wars Episode IV when Darth Vader kills Obi Wan. It is the moment when things were going so well, and yet Agent Smith just shot Neo in the chest. It’s a dim moment of horror when, instead of finding himself or herself at the end of his or her quest, the hero loses everything. Sometimes, that includes his or her life.

Now in the stories I like, the hero loses something extremely valuable, like an ally or a magic bullet, and the so-called “Resurrection” is a metaphorical one. The hero learns to triumph over adversity based upon his or her sheer grit, and though he or she mourns the loss, the hero understands that all victory comes at a price. It maintains the cost of a sacrifice while proving to us that the hero really and truly is a triumph of humankind. The very meaning of the “Atonement” is sacrifice, and it’s a potent plot point that serves to give meaning to the rest of the book.

Physical resurrection, however, feels like a cop-out. It is the ultimate Deus Ex Machina, where God reaches out and puts a character back on his or her feet after the villain rightfully slew them. It’s easy to write, too, as it requires no real cleverness to say, “Well, they weren’t really dead. Well, they were, but now they’re not.” There was no daring escape, no cunning plan to fool the villain and, most importantly, there was no sacrifice.

What is the meaning of sacrifice when we, the readers, are not allowed to grieve? How are we supposed to feel gratitude toward a character who has literally given up nothing? Indeed, in most instances of physical resurrection, the character returns wielding some ridiculous spiritual power that is also just a poor excuse for Deus Ex Machina. I don’t feel moved by physical resurrection… I feel tricked for caring about the fact that a character died.

It does not take a clever writer to resurrect a character. It takes a desperate one.

Promo this week: The Domestic Scientist

Krystal special edition: I’m uploading this from a Krystal’s off Route 20 in Huntsville at midnight, and it’s taking FOREVER. I should have sent it from work tomorrow… er today, but I didn’t want to admit defeat! I really enjoyed making this episode, and I wanted to make sure that everyone who wanted it for the drive would have it. I have to thank all of my favorite listeners for keeping me devoted!

Promo this week: Studio SIXGUNS

Last Friday, I was admitted to the E.R. with the worst headache that I have ever had. I don’t think I’ve ever quite felt that way before. The did CAT scans, chest x-rays and a spinal tap. For the next two days, I was only happy when the pain meds kicked me into unconsciousness.

In the end, they told me it was a tick-borne illness.

Now I’m not a dramatic person… or at least, I’m not someone who gets sick a lot, but ever since Bonnaroo, things have been hairy for my family and me. Constant ups and down, fevers and chills, pain and suffering. Needless to say, I never want to go to Bonnaroo ever again.

This morning, my wife presented the exact same symptoms that precipitated my visit to the E.R.. So much for the tick-borne illness theory. If what happened to me happens to her, she is in for a lot of pain.

So everyone hope for the best for Cog, and we’ll get that episode to you soon.

Promo this week: Dragon Moon Press

Once upon a time, there was this awesome dude, who was a great swordsman, really good looking and super-funny. He always knew what to say, and he was a total hit with the ladies. Then one day, an evil villain came along and took the great swordsman’s girlfriend! The villain took her high into the mountains, where no man had ever climbed before. When the great swordsman heard about the kidnapping, he climbed up there, punched the villain in the face, made a couple of cracks at the villain’s expense and took the girl home. The girlfriend also said some pretty funny stuff. The end.

Unless you’re being ironic, that’s a terrible story.

There are a couple of reasons why that story might have sucked, so let’s narrow them down to get a root-cause analysis. What could I have added to make the story better?

1) Better combat and special effects. Some visual flair! Okay, Michael Bay- calm down now. If I added a lot of style, even if I altered the plot to be not so ridiculous, I think folks would still identify with the villain.

2) A more believable villain? Well, now we’re getting a little closer. I never will understand why villains are so into kidnapping girlfriends. In the world of fiction, I bet there are actual legal codes pertaining specifically to the abduction of a significant other. However, even a believable antagonist taking believable actions won’t work. In fact, I would wager that it would cause you to like the villain a LOT more than the hero.

3) Character flaws for the hero and his posse! There! That’s it! It’s so obvious (especially given the title of the post)!

Here’s the truth of the matter: It’s not obvious. It’s not even close to obvious to both aspiring and published writers alike, and the blandness of perfection seems to sweep over the world of fiction like a blight. Beautiful people of inviolate perfection seem to pop up left and right, leaving me with a feelings of both boredom and insecurity. If you haven’t seen what I’m talking about, let me give you two major examples.

1) Hyper-power: This category of perfection is reserved for characters with absolute physical prowess that seems to climb to an even higher state whenever they are threatened. These are your Superman characters. These are your Gokus. One might think that awe-inspiring displays of power make for an interesting story, but deep down, I don’t think that’s what people want to read about. I don’t think people are into shock-and-awe at all, in fact. I think they want clever characters, and brute force characters who simply “evolve” every time there is a problem are the opposite of clever. They never use their brains, so the audience is never impressed.

2) Monofilament Tongue: This category of perfection is so insidiously subtle, so oft overlooked, that some of the best writers in the world fall prey to its clutches. Have you ever seen a character who always knows what to say, no matter what the situation may be? Have you ever seen a character that never stops joking, even in the heat of a battle? That character may be beaten to a pulp, that character may lose his friends, but at least that character always has a joke. Yeah. That’s a type of perfection too, and it’s as bland as bland can be.

The reason why characters with the sharpest of tongues and wits are such a problem is that dialogue is a battle, too. It is often times this repartee that drives a story to the more interesting reaches of plot, and yet so many writers seem to overlook what creates that drama. When a character is in a heated conversation, and they no longer know what to say, that character is flapped! It’s like the other guy reached out in a fight and stabbed the character. Would you have a boxer who is never punched? No. Would you have an action hero who is never shot? No! Why do writers settle for the mediocrity of having a character who always gets in a dignified, witty response before a scene is over? Those characters should occasionally be dumbfounded, dang it!

So remember, friends, flaws make the world go round. Does a character with invulnerable wit get on your nerves? Can you name some examples?

Promo this week: Communicause.com

Promo: Not Your Father’s Horsemen

For all of you who want to know what’s coming from Wallaby, Buskerton & Crust…

For all of you who want to know who the Seeress is…

Tune in on June 8th for episode 12 of The Gearheart!

We’re closing on a house tomorrow! I’m so excited! However, that means I won’t be able to post a new episode for a full two weeks. Think you can handle it? I hope that all of you will continue to visit and interact in the off time, and I look forward to seeing more of you when The Gearheart returns!

Before I get down into the nuts and bolts of this week’s Gearbox, let’s talk for a moment about Phineas T. Barnum. For those of you who don’t know who he is, P.T. Barnum is the founder of Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus, also called “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The man was a brilliant amateur psychologist and a consummate showman, and he knew a thing or two about what audiences wanted to see. And from this glorious man, we receive two of the greatest quotes ever to grace the ears of mankind. The first is, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” The second quote is the rule of writing romance:

“Always leave them wanting more.”

When people read a romance, what do they want to see? On the surface, they think that they want to see a relationship where everything goes well, and things are consummated with little to-do. However, what makes people turn a page is that feeling of tension. When it comes to writing a romance, if you really want to capture that feeling of first love, you can’t just have your characters meet, then jump into bed. That’s too easy. It vents the pressure on your story, and while temporarily satisfying, it really doesn’t help your narrative in the long run. Your characters have to long for each other, yet be oblivious to each others’ needs. There must be moments when characters are precariously close to a kiss, only to be interrupted awkwardly with something that cannot be ignored. Model your two characters like you would magnets- get them close together but never let them touch, and you will be rewarded with the energy you need to power your story.

However, this post is not about romance. Who knew?

The post is really about danger and mortal conflict. It’s about turning a scene on it’s head and scaring the bejeezus out of your reader. It’s about convincing your audience that there is no way that your main character can survive the situation that the main character is in, even though that character should be nigh-unkillable. It’s about convincing your reader that you are heartless, that no one is sacred and that anything in your story can be destroyed.

Now I appreciate Barnum’s old adage more than a lot of people. I believe that the guy was a genius, and that his paradigm had its applications, but to create a lasting memory of your great epic combat, we’re going to have to throw that idea out the window. Let me tell you a successful recipe for an addictive, action-packed, third-act denoument downhill slide that’ll knock a reader’s socks off:

STEP 1: Start with an organically-generated plot. If you’re not sure what I mean, you can check out my post on the matter. You’ll need a high degree of character-based predictability. You want your reader to feel like, based upon the character’s previous actions, they know exactly what the character will do next. The reader should feel like the character has a clear line of sight to his or her goal, and that things will probably work out just fine. So to recap- understandable character, predictable actions, predictable outcome.

STEP 2: Turn it on its head by making the situation go from slightly unpleasant to hellish. Give your characters little time to react. Have the airship armada arrive over the open field where the characters are sleeping. Maybe the power goes out on the anti-zombie protection grid. Maybe the character’s best friend is actually a traitor. Whatever. Just come up with the cruelest thing you can do and DO IT.

STEP 3: And this one is the kicker- Repeat steps 1 and 2. Let your characters get adjusted to their crappy new reality, then ram something even worse down their throats. Show them the meaning of suffering. Teach them fear that your audience could never have even imagined. Do these things, and your audience won’t be able to put the book down. Once you’re out of the second act, your characters should never be safe, never be comfortable.

So there you have it. If I could have a rule for love, it would be, “Always leave them wanting more,” but if I could have a rule for conflict, it would be, “BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!”

How about you? Have you seen this formula successfully employed?

Promos this week: Mananation.com

When you get your answer, go to Old Man Wither’s house, and sleep there for the night. If you survive, log onto his free wi-fi network and post your answer to this thread. I’ll read my favorites on the air next week.

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Today’s episode? Yeah. It’s crap. I got about halfway into it and I couldn’t stand it. Exposition city.

So look, I could do one of two things: I could sit here and pretend that it’s a good first draft, pawning it off onto people who would probably graciously forgive me because they are awesome… or I could rewrite it.

I want you to know that I take no pleasure in rewriting this, but it really, really sucks. Please understand that there won’t be any episode this week as I plug away at creating a new scene for everyone. Trust me, if you’d read the manuscript, you’d be right here with me.

Promo for this episode: Octopus Pie

Everyone listening right now probably reads some fantasy and sci-fi, but is that your favorite genre of lit? When you’re feeling like you need a pick-me-up, what’s your dusty tome of choice? Mack Bolan? Jane Eyre? The Necronomicon?

When you get your answer, give it to a Trojan, and make sure that he knows that the future of Greece depends upon it. Then have him run twenty-six miles and, with his dying breath, tell me what has become of the troops at Thermopylae. Then have him tell me your challenge answer by posting it here. I’ll read my favorites on the air next week.

Promos this week: “Weather Child”

I’m going to shift gears a little bit here and ask everyone what their favorite music for creative work might be. I’m a big fan of folk, but that’s because I’m a wuss! When you write, paint, decorate, photograph or anything else, what do you listen to?

When you get your answer, write it on the back of a solid-gold Double Eagle, and send that to me. Try to use washable marker. Then remember your answer and post it to this thread. I’ll read my favorites on the air next week.

So please be patient, and please… check back tomorrow at 10:00 pm Central.

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This week: Overstatement!

Overstatement is probably the biggest killer amongst young and aspiring writers. At least, when I edit other people’s stories, overstatement is the thing that I gripe about the most. Writers should realize that you only have a few words to capture a reader’s attention, and overstating everything is like shoving a stick in the spokes of the reader. As readers, we want to get into a nice flow, where the information trickles off the page, straight into our brains. We don’t want some overblown double-explanation of every idea in the story. Words must be chosen like the cuts on a bonsai tree- too few and you have chaos; too many, and you have stripped your ideas bare.

There are many kinds of overstatement:

1) Adverbial/Adjective Overstatement

Adverbs and adjectives are nothing short of fallbacks. They’re modifiers for when a noun, verb or preposition doesn’t exist to cover the thing you’re writing about- and they’re important. As writers, they’re one of the greatest weapons we have in our arsenals, but frankly, they can be overkill. They’re powerful, and too many writers employ their use when a well-chosen word would have served better. Consider the following sentence:

“The angry man walked quickly from the room.”

Every single time you pull out an adverb or adjective, you should ask yourself, “Is there a word that I can use that connotes the meaning that I am about to apply with this adjective or adverb?” This is where thesauruses come in handy. I believe that there are no synonyms in the English language- only subtle and hidden shades of meaning. Pull out a thesaurus and find the right word. A much better sentence would have read:

“The man stormed from the room.”

There. It reads a little better now, right? I would wager that all of the meaning of the first sentence was captured in the second sentence, and it added a nice visual. Adverbs can be useful, but most of the time they’re just crap. Adjectives are a little better, but you have to start from the right noun before you begin modifying it.

2) Character Description Overstatement

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine. It’s a special kind of overstatement, of which I am particularly guilty. Character description overstatement (or “CDO” to save me some typing) happens when you describe a character in specific terms of his or her appearance, even if those attributes are not plot relevant. CDO is typically worked in at the most awkward times, and it serves to destroy the pace of a book during the first few critical pages when the book is supposed to hook the reader. Here’s an example:

“Andy bent down to wash his face, and when he looked up, he found himself looking into his own hazel eyes in the bathroom mirror. He casually examined his wavy, neck-length, straw-blond hair and strong, Roman nose. Looking down, he could see the muscles on his torso. He didn’t think he was much to look at, but the ladies disagreed.”

That is terrible! This should only happen in a novelization of a Quantum Leap episode! So much of that doesn’t really need to be said, and if someone doesn’t like the way that character looks based upon your description, you might have lost a reader. Consider, instead, this substitute:

“Andy was graceful, with the form of a gymnast, and his smile made him irresistible to women.”

By speaking in abstractions, you allow the reader to unconsciously create the character that they would prefer to see in their version of the story. That heightens the reader’s involvement quite a bit.

It’s not too bad, though, if you use the character description as a chance to either lampoon or illuminate your character’s personality, for example: “His clothes were perfectly ironed,” or “her teeth, blackening from years of addiction to sweets.”

3) Dialogue Attribution Overstatement

The last type of overstatement that I want to talk about is dialog attribution overstatement. DAO happens when you place some sort of indicator in the dialog attribution about how a line is read, even though there is really only one way to read the line. For example- suppose that you have a tense scene in a psychological thriller wherein the killer has just been discovered and becomes hostile. Our heroine tosses dirt in his eyes and bolts into the woods. The next line of dialogue is:

“‘I’ll kill you for that, you little witch!’ he shouted, his voice full of rage.”

Don’t waste page by adding an adverb, or “his voice full of rage.” We know his voice is full of rage. He’s trying to kill someone, and they may have seriously injured him. He’s not going to be jovial.

Now Stephen King and I diverge on this next point. He says that you should only use “he said/she said” dialogue attribution, but I think it’s okay to get spicier with your verbs. What is most important is that you disambiguate without becoming tedious.

Surely, though, I’ve belabored the problems of overstatement enough. What do you all think?

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