User blog:ShonenChicoBoy/Shonen’s Regimen and Tonic: September 2015

As the doctor prescribes: WHAT ARE THOSE!?!?!



Shonen’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Improving Your Writing

(Now in three easy steps!)

Well, this month’s blog is a little late. Partly because I’ve been busy with school, but also because I’ve been caught up in FMA and RP projects and such. And if you don’t know what FMA is... find out immediately and then join the fanon wiki. Or else a certain colonel may end up turning you into a pile of ash...

But back on topic, I decided it was finally time to do a guide on “how to write stuff.” I’ve sort of been putting this off for a while though since, first of all I thought people might find it boring, and secondly people might say: “who is this smart-ass idiot and who does he think he is, telling us how to write?” and so forth. No tar and feathers for me, thank you very much.

However, after several weeks of collaborating on an extended RP with Kay, and after helping out a fellow fanon writer over on NF with some basic advice, I sort of figured it might be helpful to put some of the stuff I’ve been saying together in one, cohesive, (hopefully) condensed package.

Basically I want to help answer this question:

“How do I become a better writer?”

The subject may seem daunting at first. I mean, it’s hard enough just to put together a quality character article... and that’s “Wikipedia” or school-paper style. What happens when you get to an RP and want to do something really cool and unique and eye-catching, but just end up sitting there staring at a blank page with your eyelids blinking along with the cursor?

Actually most of this stuff is pretty connected. Writing is writing, and it’s not as disparate as you might think. In other words: if you can write a character article, you can write a story. So despair not true readers!!!

One last thing is to remember that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Don’t try and do everything suggested here all at once: you would quickly drive yourself insane. But maybe pick out one or two things that you know are problem-spots for you, and try and work on those over the next few weeks, maybe even months or whatever.

Part 1: English, My Dear Watson
I’m anyone who’s passed the sixth grade has probably seen this by now:

Let’s eat Grandma!
 * vs.

Let’s eat, Grandma!

Grammar. It saves lives. But besides that: why is grammar important? Well, we all (hopefully) know how painful it is to try and read through a well-meaning but painfully convoluted and unclear article. It’s a syntactical nightmare. Let me give you an example:

"Ichigo wasn’t the brightest soul reaper but, that is to say, he is the coolest I said to my friend, Rukia, who was staring out the window at me that was next to the bridge by the school."

It should be:

"Ichigo wasn’t the brightest Soul Reaper, but he was the coolest. I told my friend Rukia, who was staring out the window. She was looking at the bridge that was next to the school, but then she looked at me instead."

You’re prose shouldn’t be monotonous, but it should be able to be easily absorbed. This is one of the most important things that I have personally learned as a writer: and that is that you, the author, should be invisible to the reader. Why is that? Because using weird sentence structure or overly-flashy and out-of-context verbiage draws attention the way something is written: not the stuff that you are writing about. Like how a movie can create the illusion or “third wall,” that is; a viewer’s immersion and investment in the story at-hand, it is much easier to pull someone into the plot if there aren’t say, conspicuous camera men or bad CG in the background that screams: “remember, this is a movie!!!” One of the best ways to do that is through good grammar. Good grammar suggests to us, your readers, that you have a certain professionalism in the way that you write, that you know what you’re doing, and that we can trust you to get us somewhere meaningful over the course of the story. What else can good grammar do for you? Well, it gives you a stronger “voice,” meaning you won’t come across as wishy-washy or vague about the way, say, that you describe something. Of course it’s sort of difficult to just “pick up” good grammar (unless you want to undergo intensive torture sessions with your nose in the formidable Chicago Manual of Style, that is). Really the best way to learn how to use grammar correctly and naturally is to read... a lot. But I know how much time that takes, so here’s my secondary suggestion: write at your level. Don’t use complex semicolon structures if you don’t really know how to use them. It’s okay to use basic sentences. Just be yourself, try not to be repetitive, and you will slowly start to see yourself improve the more you write. Trust me on this one.

And here’s the best part: once you understand the rules of grammar and how to use them, then you can proceed to break those rules. (All in the name of freedom and creativity and all that rot, of course.) It's okay to use fragments or start sentences with "and" and so forth. As long as you still make sense, it can be cool to try and add poetry and stylistic metaphors and stuff too. Here’s an example paragraph I pulled from one of my stories where I’ve decided to ignore grammatical conventions and sort of experiment with the just the “way things sound.”

"As he continued to forge his way through darkness, time blurred into irrelevance. He found himself stumbling as he tried to fix his feet beneath him. His senses were dulled, and could not perceive his surroundings very clearly at all. Again, he could blame the unique atmosphere of the Dangai for the phenomenon, but still that acidic doubt permeated his subconscious. He swore when he nearly lost his footing for the hundredth time, and he tried to form a basic Kidō spell to illuminate the path in front of him. But he found that it was impossible for him to focus his Reiryoku at all, and met with no result even when he called out the full incantation. Again he blamed the area of the Dangai he was passing through for stifling his Reiatsu and ability to use Kidō. But again there was a visceral twinge of unease. He knew something was terribly, terribly wrong, and yet he purposefully decided to ignore it. It was then that he realized his Zanpakutō was missing."

Actually, most of this IS grammatically correct. But there are a few things I used here that you would not normally be allowed to do in formal writing. Such as the repeat of “terribly” or using indirect/general “doubt” as the direct “that acidic doubt.” Hey, this is creative fiction, not a college paper. But remember that, when you do decide to break the rules, that you are doing it with a purpose, and that the effect remains subtle enough so that you, the author, are still “invisible” in the story world you create.

Part 2: “I had an idea but the dog ate it”
Alright alright. Enough about grammar. Being able to write strong, grammatically sentences is one thing but… where do you get ideas from to begin with? That is actually probably the number one question that creative people, from writers to filmmakers to videogame designers, get from the people who WANT to be writers and filmmakers and videogame designers.

The answer, unfortunately, isn’t a simple one.

As a writer you pull ideas from anything and everything that surrounds you. An old gnarled tree with an unusual twist in its trunk? Heck, there could be an entire story behind why it got that way. There are ideas to be found in music, in movies, in the natural world around you. Personally, I draw a ton of my ideas from school, because to me the refraction of light at a critical angle and the history of the Boer war are extremely interesting and treasure troves of ideas. Anything and everything can be used as a piece of inspiration: as a stroke of paint on the endless canvas of your mind. Cheesy analogies aside, the best way to hone your ability to hound out ideas is to be observant. There are so many people who go through life with their heads buried in their smart phones, never looking up to see the beauty around them. I’m not saying that to seem bitter but… when you recognize a friend by their Facebook profile picture and would not even know the sound of their laugh: then maybe there is a problem. So to find ideas? Look up. Look for those things around you that interest you. Be consciously aware of what you are looking at: and try to gain a meaningful perspective. This means, don’t just say: “That’s a cool rock,” but rather ask questions, such as “Where did it come from?”, “How long was it there?”, and, most importantly (in my mind anyway), “Who has seen this rock before? What human story does it tell?”



Because, in the end, even if we’re writing about Shinigami or Hollows or demons or even cheese curds, we ourselves are still human: and what we write about is chiefly affected by our human-ness. I’ve known authors who have tried to go against that, who have tried to create aliens or other types of monsters who are completely inhuman due to being aliens or whatever but… well, in the end these concepts were still put together by humans. Heh. What I’m saying is that the human story that surrounds you is an infinite supply of ideas. Look no further than that weird guy at a bus stop. Who knows? He could be your next major villain that you create.

Part 3: My Writing is Boring
Well, while there are many ways to make a work of prose more interesting and exciting to read, and by many I mean hundreds, in my own experience I’ve come to see only three as being crucial in creating fresh, unique, interesting writing. Those are description, characterization, and pacing. These areas are incredibly broad, of course, and cover a huge range of techniques that you can use in your stories. But as long as you’re consciously aware of what you are doing when you sit down and add these things to your stories, I think you will move ahead by leaps and bounds. So without further ado:

Description
Probably the easiest thing you can do to make your posts more interesting is to try and "show" rather than tell. You’ve probably hear that a million times before already, but what it basically entails is trying to find a unique way to describe things. Mainly in a very visual way, but also in a distinct way that is particular to your perspective. In other words, you look at a box and describe it in a way that is "you" and only you. This is called finding a specific voice or style. Personally, I have a lot of action-heavy sentences, but I like to intersperse poetic terms and such into the prose, if I can. Style is largely subconscious, in the end. Best thing for style is to write a ton until you've carved out something that you call your own.

Verbs are also extremely important. I didn’t learn that for myself until after four years of writing had passed. You can say more with one, single verb than you can with an entire paragraph of adjectives. Why? Because verbs are active, and they create strong diction.

But with any word it can be tricky. You don't want to over-use a thesaurus to find something completely obscure or unheard of, but at the same time, the same old cliché phrases get old. You’ve heard the phrase that “God is in the details,” and well... with writing it is sort of true. Detail can be incredibly useful for RP’s: the person who sets the setting or location to a very large degree determines what natural elements are present for use during the course of the fight. That's a dirty secret, and also why I prefer to do the opening posts. (heh heh heh). Also it's okay to be short... but if you do write short stuff then it's even more important to be as visual as possible.

Back to the “show, don’t tell” thing. I said that you want to try and be visual, and mostly that’s because writing is a visual medium (cause you read it), just like a movie. BUT, at the same time, we writers can go several layers deeper than a movie can (and no I don’t mean those layers...) We can describe things like: the way things sound, feel, smell, or the emotions such things might evoke. Even stuff like the texture of the rock or the temperature of the atmosphere: all that stuff is good when you want to create the "mood" of the scene. (Is it... ominous? calming? etc. etc.) Don’t limit yourself to just one sense, in other words. We have five of them (six in Bleach): use it to your full advantage.

Characterization
Characterization is harder than description... because characterization has to be subtle. You can dump a whole paragraph of exposition on a guy's personality: but that's boring and obvious. Much better to infuse details and hints about a character over the course of an entire story. Although this is hard to do.

What is characterization then? The simplest way to describe is that it is how you build a character over the course of a story. Strong characters are the absolute BEST way to interest a reader: if the character isn’t dynamic and is boring, we don’t really care to spend 20 chapters with them, basically. It is one thing to create a strong interesting character though, and quite another to effectively use that strong, interesting character in a story or RP.

Thing about describing characters when they're introduced is: what features are the MOST unique about them? Everybody and his brother's mother gives the standard hair and/or eye color, but if your character manages to leap off of the page without any of those perfunctory descriptors, then you have taken it to the next level as far as making that character come alive. What I mean is: showing, not telling. Not a police description of the guy, but rather something that makes him unique and sticks in our brain. How does he portray who he is physically, if at all? Sometimes you can’t really put this kind of stuff into good, visual detail. Dialogue is a whole other subject in and of itself. Basically what I try to do is just give the character a distinct voice: one that is unique enough to where you could pick him out of an RP without reading "Hein said" and still know exactly who was speaking. That's just a tip I read somewhere though... If you go overboard on slang/ the misspelled word stuff, "AYE THERE YA RRRR LADDIEE" it can be ridiculous and hard to read. But if they have a pattern or a rythmn or way of phrasing things, that could be a more subtle way and effective way to add characterization. Another especially thing about characterization is a particular character’s own thoughts or way of thinking. What is their perspective on their setting? How do they view their opponents? Etc. etc. Not only does this interest the reader (or fellow RP writer when your character thinks about theirs), it is great for deepening personality and stuff.

Pacing
Now, in writing pacing can refer to two things: the first is the flow of the story, how fast or slow it moves, and the second is the flow of your sentences and if they are cohesive and neither too dense nor too simple.

This isn’t something I can easily say how to do: I’ve always struggled with pacing myself. It is hard to determine what scenes or details need more time to develop, and which parts of a story can be easily smoothed over without hurting the rest of the plot’s flow. It is a fine art, and in the end, really the only way to figure out how to do it is to practice it.

One thing you can do to really spice things up is to vary sentence length. Long, long, short, long, short, medium... whatever. But if "all" the sentences are approximately the same length, things can get monotonous very quickly. Something to pay attention to are sentence openers. Basically the easiest thing to do is to try and avoid "He" or "The" to start sentences. They are called Subject Openers and they are the easiest to use, the first thing we learn when writing English sentences, and you can easily include copious amounts of these openers without even realizing it. Try verb openers, propositions, adjectives, whatever. As long as you avoid adding a subject opener followed by another and another and another, the pattern and pacing of your writing should be more interesting to read.

’Cause This Section Never Fits Into the Other Ones...
That’s basically all I have folks. While this blog is by no means comprehensive, meaning there are a bazillion other things I could have talked about, hopefully it can serve as a sort of starting point or maybe just one piece of advice that can help you in your own writing. Writing is a journey, and while there are books upon books written on writing, really the best way is to practice it for yourself. The more you write, the easier it will become. And even if you never intend to become a “great author” or write a book or whatever… it’s still important to be able to clearly express yourself and your own ideas to others. That being said, and to cut things short: good luck!