Writing Process Blog Tour

And sometimes somebody asks you to do something that makes you think about the way you do your thing.


I have to thank Yelena Casale for inviting me to participate in the Writing Process Blog Tour. You can find her at Yelena Casale's Writing Blog and on Twitter at @Yelena_Casale.

The point of all this is to reveal a little bit about the process each of us has when we sit down to write.  Each is unique in its own way. This is mine.  On to the questions!

1) What am I working on? 

The thing that's taking up the bulk of my writing time is an untitled science fiction piece of "undetermined" length.  The current target is 50,000 words, but it might shrink or grow as things progress.  At the moment it's working out to be a science fiction take on James Bond with a female protagonist.  Like most of the stuff I've written it's mutated from what it started out being.

The other thing I'm spending head-time on is a project that I started, got through a first draft and then had to put down due to to other concerns.  It's a sort of urban fantasy novel concerning good, evil and fate.  Considering how long it took to write the first draft, the second and succeeding drafts could take a while.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

While I tend to write what can nominally be called "science fiction" and fantasy, my science fiction stuff tends toward space opera rather than hard sf.  While there are explanations of the science in the stories, those explanations aren't very deep and some things simply aren't explained at all because I don't feel the need to do so.  Also, my work tends to have more than a tinge of romance to it.  My fantasy work tends to be more character driven than plot driven.  My characters don't tend to go on epic quests.  Things happen and they learn things about themselves that they didn't previously know.

3) Why do I write what I do?

 I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since I was very young.  It's the thing I'm most familiar with.  As such, when I began writing stuff in my teens I started writing science fiction-y stuff.  Over the years I've been slowly expanding my repertoire to include bits and pieces of other genres, but I've always gravitated toward those genres because they feel right.

4) How does my writing process work?

 Honestly, I think my process is weird.  I'm sort of a hybrid pantser/plotter.  Usually when I start a first draft I'm pantsing it until I'm either at a point where I know the piece has legs or isn't going to work.  If it does have legs then I'll tend to sit down and write an outline with the major plot points I'll need to hit.  The outline then acts as a guide to get me from point A to point B.  If the story takes detours that's fine. The map is there to bring me back on track when necessary.

I also try to write the ending first.  A piece of advice I got from a professional writer friend years ago.  I will actually sit down and write out a paragraph or more that defines the ending scene.  Having done that I have a direction to go toward.  That ending might change based on the story, but it gives me a direction to head in.

I don't do a whole lot of research.  Most of my stuff is either in a fantastical world of my own creation or uses ideas that are sort of standard in the sf genre.  I have done research in the past when I've needed to understand a concept, but it's not usual for me. 

Keeping the tour rolling, these three authors will be posting about their process on Monday, July 21st. Read them. See what makes them tick.

Lisa T. Cresswell

Lisa T. Cresswell is the author of a middle grade, fantasy trilogy and a YA Contemporary novel. Her next book, a YA dystopian novel is due from Month9Books in 2015. By day, she roams the deserts of southern Idaho, where she works as an archaeologist. By night, she writes fanciful stories for young people. Find out more at www.lisatcresswell.com .














Allison Duke

Allison describes herself like this:

I am a person who loves. I love God, my husband, my kids, my church, books, life, horses, art, music, theatre, movies, the Bible, people, sarcasm, good food, good friends, family, butterflies, mountains, sunshine, snow, and chocolate. I occasionally blog my thoughts and write novels. I live in Colorado and I love it here.

You can find her blog at allieduke.blogspot.com













J. B. Mills

Julia used to want to write 100 novels and lock them in an old trunk, so a century later someone could find them and publish them postmortem. Then she decided getting published in her lifetime might be ok too. At least that’s the current plan! She writes YA novels and lives with her husband and son in Denver, CO. She’s expecting her second child in September.

http://writerwandererwonderer.blogspot.com/

 

What Makes The Anti-Hero Tick?

@Lexcade on Twitter was wondering about the line between villain and anti-hero.  Where it was and how it was defined.  So, with my vast experience as a reader (yeah, right) I thought I'd take a shot at it.

A villain is someone who is doing whatever he is doing for personal gain no matter the cost to anyone around him.  A villain can be a bank robber or a megalomaniac bent on ruling the world. The defining point is that the character doesn't care about anyone beside himself and his goals. He'll torture, maim and kill anyone who gets in his way as he reaches for his goal.  He may or may not be sane but he is always focused on his goal.

Examples are the various Bond villains (especially the ones from the Sean Connery era), The Batman villain Joker, Superman villain Lex Luthor and Harry Potter bad guy Voldemort.  They're all focused on their goals and they're all willing to kill to get what they want.

A hero is a selfless individual who looks out for the safety and well-being of others.  He'll put his own life on the line to save a total stranger, not because he stands to gain from it, but because it's the right thing to do. The hero attempts at every turn to do no harm to bystanders and to limit damage to personal property.  He is a "boy scout" to varying degrees.

Examples of the true hero include just about every superhero from the 1940s on (there are some exceptions and we'll get to those), Joe Friday in Dragnet and just about any character played by John Wayne (again, there are exceptions).

So there's the range from bad guy to good guy.  In between we have the anti-heroes.  Their reasons for doing what he does, for saving damsels (or dudes) in distress vary greatly.  They are almost always characters who go against the grain, who have their own methods for getting things done and who tend to not stand for bureaucratic b.s.  They are often loners, usually because they feel the world doesn't understand them and that it's better to be alone than with people that they feel uncomfortable around.

Anti-heroes, unlike the villains, usually has a code to live by.  Most often this code involves what they won't do to get the job done. For example Batman has a hard and fast code against killing no matter who the person might be. Wolverine of the X-Men has a general code against harming children, going as far as telling the young Katie Power (of the Power Pack) to keep her eyes closed so she won't see him effectively disembowel the villain trying to hurt them both.

Examples of the anti-hero include Batman and Wolverine as mentioned above, Marvel Comics' Punisher, certain incarnations of James Bond, the Sylvester Stallone character John Rambo, John McClain from the Die Hard movies, and pretty much every other action hero who doesn't fit in to the true hero camp.

So, where's the line?  Essentially this: an anti-hero is a hero but without the need to uphold the law or be beholden to anyone.  The anti-hero gets the job done. It may require a high body count, it may require a great deal of visceral violence and it will probably require a few well-placed quips, but the job will get done.  An anti-hero is not a villain because, unlike the villain, the anti-hero cares if someone innocent gets hurt in the crossfire.  The anti-hero can seem to be a villain (the Punisher started out as a Spider-Man villain) but never crosses the line into being purely evil.

Sean Connery's James Bond may throw an electric heater in to a bathtub full of water, killing the henchman through electrocution, but he won't put a bystander danger of his own accord and will, in fact, go out of his way to avoid hurting people who aren't involved in his fight.

John McClain may kill hundreds of the villain's henchmen, but he won't fire in to a crowd because he might injure or kill a civilian.

Anti-heroes will work outside of the establishment if the establishment gets in their way but they'll always come back to the fold in the end because the establishment represents what's right even if it is a pain in the ass.

Boiling it down to its core the thing that sets an anti-hero apart from a villain is the anti-hero's desire to do the right thing. Save the hostages, capture the bad guy, uncover the corruption, whatever it is. The anti-hero is heroic without having to be the boy scout.