Tag Archives: Novel

Why I (Literally) Went Medieval on My Writing

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There’s a restaurant in Toronto called Medieval Times.

When I was a kid, I would see commercials for it on TV. The gimmick of this restaurant is that it’s set up like a large medieval hall in which patrons are entertained by knights sword fighting and jousting on real horses, all while eating medieval-esque fare without cutlery and drinking out of giant goblets.

To my child self, it looked like the most awesome thing ever. Whenever the commercial (which was more like a movie trailer) came on, I’d stop whatever I was doing and imagine myself going to the restaurant.

Unfortunately, because I was living in Nova Scotia, I never got to go.  I still haven’t been to this day.

Now, I’m writing a novel set in medieval England.

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They Say It’s Your (Writing) Birthday

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Grumpy Cat's birthday greeting

I’ve now missed my writing birthday for two years in a row.

I don’t even know if a writing birthday is something other writers commonly observe, or if it’s my own unique brand of writerly madness.

Even the exact date of my writing birthday is uncertain.  I mark it from the day I commenced my first (incomplete, shelved) novel, which was sometime in early February, 2002.

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Two Writers Debate: Pantsing vs. Plotting

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Eric John Baker (R) and me, clearly hoping to win this thing by sheer force of smugness.

Eric John Baker (R) and me, clearly hoping to win this thing by sheer force of smugness.

Only two approaches to writing exist: Good and Bad. Write good. Debate over!

Hold on a sec. That’s not what this post is about. This post is a point-counterpoint between two WordPress bloggers arguing the merits of two distinct writing methods, pantsing (freeform writing) and plotting (writing from an outline).

Read on as right-brained, right-coast writer Eric John Baker argues in favor of pantsing (at least we hope that’s what happens… he is making it up as he goes, after all), followed by left-brained, left-coast writer Janna G. Noelle making a case for plotting, probably with all kinds of charts and graphs and stuff.

No matter how ugly and violent it gets, they promise to return you home in time for tea and biscuits!

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Writing a Novel is Scarier Than a Bull Moose in Rut

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Bull moose

Writing a novel is one of the scariest things I’ve ever attempted.

And I’ve done some scary things in my life:

  • I’ve moved to two different provinces on my own, both times having no prior friends or family present when I arrived.
  • I’ve come face-to-face with a bull moose during rutting season.
  • I’ve spend 24 straight hours in the woods on a fasting solo sit. (The fear in this isn’t possible animal encounters at night, but rather the act of sitting silently for hours with nothing to distract you but your own thoughts.)
  • I’ve risked – and received – rejection asking guys way out of my league out on dates.

Just to name a few.  As my father is fond of paraphrasing from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The brave will only die once.”

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On the Anniversary of the Day of My Birth

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Today is my birthday.

At around 2:00am this morning, I turned officially 35 years old, thus entering, as someone at work (helpfully!) pointed out, whole new age demographic on surveys.

In my mind, though, it actually happened about six months ago, back in June.

I always make the point of pre-aging myself.  This is both to smooth the transition from one year to the next and to prevent subsequently mis-aging my myself, similar to how people often continue to write the old year for months after New Year’s.

Today is also the day I’m supposed to have the draft of my novel-in-progress completed.

That, on the other hand, didn’t happen.

I’ve already decided to forgive myself for that.  It was a self-imposed deadline in any case, so the only person I’m really letting down is myself.  But I refuse to feel let down.

In writing, as in all aspects of life, one only gets out of it what s/he’s put in.  I can honestly say I’ve put a lot of effort and heart into my WIP, and have worked away on it, if not speedily, than with dogged consistency. I’ve been no slouch, so if it’s going to take me longer than I thought to get ‘er done, well, such is life.

The only truly downside is that I’d originally planned to share my novel’s opening on my birthday.

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The First Syllable in “November” is “No”

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I kind of hate November.

First of all, Movember?  A very worthwhile cause, but moustaches are creepy.

And the end of Daylight Savings Time?  I despise Daylight Savings Time, both the start of it and the end of it, for I find mucking with the time twice a year very jarring to my circadian rhythm.

My birthday is in November, on the Scorpio-Sagittarius cusp.  I quite like my birthday  but resent having my birthday month tainted by icky ‘staches and disruptions to my sleep.

And then there’s NaNoWriMo….

Unlike my fully realized feelings on Movember, DST, and my birthday, I’ve yet to work out how I feel about National Novel Writing Month.

For one thing, I’ve never done it.  Nor am I doing it this year.  Nor am I even sure I want to someday.

Let me re-phrase that last thought: I feel like I do want to do it someday, but I’m not sure if that’s because I relish the challenge it offers or because I feel like I should want to since it’s such a renowned event in the writing community.

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Always Say Yes: What writers can learn from our actor friends and improv

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(L-R): Nyima Funk, Colin Mochrie, and Wayne Brady from the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway?

(L-R): Nyima Funk, Colin Mochrie, and Wayne Brady from the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway?

Out of all the different types of artistic expression, the artists I seem to befriend most often are actors.

I’m not really sure why this is, for I’m sure as hell no actor.  I have no poker face whatsoever, let alone the ability to re-create a given emotion at will, and body movements range from woodenly awkward to determinedly abrupt.

As well, the mechanics and semiotics of acting are largely lost upon me. I can’t really distinguish a “good” performance from a “spectacular” one, and when I watch movies or plays, so long as the story obeys its own internal logic and follows a satisfying story arc, that’s good enough for me.

I’m a writer; I’m far less interested in the performance of a story than I am in the creation of that’s story’s script.

And yet, as different as my actor friends and their art seems to be from me and mine, I’ve come to discover the usefulness one particular actor’s tool can have for writers.

That tool is improvisation.

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Do You Like Stories With Changing Viewpoint Characters?

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Yes or no?

Me: I actually kind of hate it.

And unlike stories told in present tense, which I also don’t like but am willing to tolerate, I’ve definitely been known to pass over books written from multiple points of view, particularly those with the proverbial “cast of thousands” in which every character has their say

Case in point: everything after A Game of Thrones in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series.

(Changing viewpoint characters isn’t the only reason I bailed on the series: Martin also has the unfortunate habit of killing off main characters with homicidal regularity.  Which, it could be argued, is a further manifestation of the books’ revolving door of POVs.)

It may well be that the reason I’m not reading so many books with multiple viewpoint characters anymore is because I’ve largely given up on the genre where it’s a near-ubiquitous storytelling element: epic fantasy.

Multiple viewpoints are found in other genres as well: pretty much every genre I’ve ever read in my life (which is to say, every genre) has its contenders.  Indeed, multiple POVs is probably the more common way the tell a story as compared to a single viewpoint character.

But that single, narrating character is my preference both in reading and in writing, for two main reasons:

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Do You Like Stories Told in Present Tense?

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Yes or no?

Personally: no.

Not even a little, really.

This isn’t to say I won’t read a book if it’s narrated in present tense.  Indeed, I’ve never purposely avoided reading one for that reason, and two of my favourite YA series – Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy and Beth Revis’s Across the Universe trilogy – are written in present tense.

But it’s definitely not my favourite style or writing.  I definitely need to brace myself before diving into a story told in this way.  I certainly have no plans to write my own present tense story anytime soon.

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Do You Like First-Person Narration?

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Yes or no?

Personally: yes.

And no.

Well, which is it?

This isn’t an attempt to be non-committal in my answer.  Rather, I find there are certain circumstances where I love it and all the intimacy and insight it offers into the narrator’s character, and other times where it leaves me cold.

It goes without saying that stories in first-person are told by I – from the point of view of the narrator (who is typically also the protagonist), and likewise told in the narrator’s voice.  As a style of telling a story, it can be found in any genre, but is particularly common in YA, chick lit, memoir, and occasionally historical and romance.

It’s popularity among those who like it seems to be due to the extreme closeness it allows to develop between narrator and reader.

Such ready access to the narrator’s thoughts and observations can be incredibly instructive to the reader in understanding what this person is all about.  So instructive, in fact, that the reader may come to feel like s/he is the narrator, vicariously living every joy and pain that befalls the narrator as his/her their own.  The constant appearance of the word “I” – of the reader hearing it echo over and over within his/her thoughts – can further contribute to this.

What I described above is not the case for me, though.

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