I know a few people who don’t agree with Confused Matthew’s opinions on movies, even if he has good points to make. But one thing that took me aback was how much I appreciated him pointing out that 2001: A Space Odyssey didn’t really do much in a narrative sense. Oh, it was masterfully shot and the attention to detail is peerless. This is Kubrick we’re talking about, after all. But the first ten minutes of the film have been described by Matthew as the following:

“…Landscape.”

He shows a shot from the film and says that no less than a dozen times. Kubrick is describing the Dawn of Man, but he goes to laborious lengths doing so. It’s a good way to illustrate how not to over-illustrate, especially when it comes to words. But can you get away with telling a story that has no description whatsoever?

Let’s find out.

Don’t Describe

J.R.R. Tolkien is a legendary author for a good reason. He practically defined the high fantasy genre as we know it. And he did so with rather large novels. Most of his books are spent describing the people, places and events of Middle-Earth, and a lot of that description is drier than a Jacob’s Creme cracker in the middle of Death Valley. He got away with it because he was pretty much the first in his field.

Your story needs to move. Your characters need to speak, act, shoot bullets from their guns and knock boots. Events need to change history, shape nations and alter landscapes. How are these things going to happen if you stop to describe something? That’s right, they won’t.

It’s like one of those big, nasty sharks that prowl the deep waters. If the story stops moving, it’ll suffocate. It won’t happen quickly, either. It’ll creep up on you. Stop to describe someone or something, even for a moment, and the next thing you know the story’s belly-up. Dead in the water.

Don’t Not Describe

Let’s talk about another relatively well-known author: Orson Scott Card. He doesn’t describe shit. His writing moves right along from one point to the next without stopping to even flesh out his characters in words other than the occasional mention of an ethnicity.

Can you get away with this? Maybe, if you’re dealing with a mainstream or even slightly known genre. If you’re trying to pioneer a concept, get something new off of the ground, chances are you’re going to be inventing something. And your readers won’t know what this invention is unless you describe it.

If you must describe something, be sparing in your description. Get the basics down and move on. Like everything else you write, the less you linger on something the better. You don’t want conversations or chase scenes or lovemaking to bang on and on for page after page. The same goes for your descriptions. Remember that whole “story belly-up in the water” image I conjured a couple paragraphs ago? Keep that in mind.

Description or Lack Thereof is Irrelevant

Remember that a good story is about something. You probably have a theme or purpose in mind for it. If you don’t, you probably should. Once you do there needs to be one cardinal question asked, not just about descriptions but also about dialog, action, even jokes. How does it serve the story as a whole?

Sure, your house made out of bread might be awesome. But what does it matter in the grand scheme of your tale? Why should the reader care? If they shouldn’t, leave it out. But if you want to try something new, and a reader may not have a frame of reference, use a sparing description. Illustrate the basics with a few choice words and then get the hell on with the good stuff.

The more focused you are on the important things in your narrative, the more focused your reader will be. And everybody will be happier as a result.

Well, everybody’s doing it, it seems. No, not that, that’s dirty. I’m talking about this whole “Ten Rules For Writing Fiction” thing. This article got writers thinking about it, and some others – most notably the Magic Talking Beardhead – have taken it upon themselves to write up their own. Which leaves me feeling compelled to put up my own.

See this bandwagon? I’m jumping on.

Well, why the hell not? I pretend to know what I’m doing half of the time, might as well go all the way. There’s no point in putting your hand up a girl’s shirt if you’re not going to try & unfasten her bra too. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, writing rules. Like all rules, they’re made to be broken, or even ignored. But, by and large, especially when it comes to The Project, here’s the few semi-strict guidelines I find myself following.

1. The only way to write is to start, and once you start you need to finish.
2. If something feels boring or dry for you to write, it’ll be boring or dry to read.
3. Don’t be afraid to hurt your characters. It creates drama and helps them grow. They’ll thank you when they’re done cursing you out.
4. Kill your characters only when absolutely necessary. Much more conflict is generated by mercy than by murder.
5. Keep descriptions to a minimum. Painting with words is fine in poetry, not so much in prose. Set the scene and move on.
6. Time is precious for both you and your reader. Don’t waste it.
7. Your theme might grow from your characters or your characters from the theme, but either way, your story needs to be about something other than itself.
8. A little subtlety goes a long way. Let conversations and narratives build towards greater things later in the tale.
9. Have resources on which to fall back if you get stuck. Story & Character Bibles, friends, beloved novels, a bottle of whiskey, whatever.
10. Don’t stop writing ’til the writing’s done. Or you pass out. Even then, when you come to, start writing again.

There you have it. Now you can have at it, if you so desire. That’s what the comments section is for, after all. Well, that, and helping me pretend people are interested in what I write.

The old saying “the proof is in the pudding” is actually a shortened version of the original axiom, telling us that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” As this isn’t a blog about food but rather about storytelling in various forms – the creation of something from nothing as all storytelling is, and thus a form of alchemy when applying my broad interpretation – the parallel of that old saying is that the proof of the story is in the reception. There’s a reason that the ‘acid test’ for storytelling in a written form is called ‘proofreading’ after all.

You may be wondering, if you’re some sort of author, how much proofreading you should do or have done, and how often it should happen. Let’s take a look at two extremes just to see where they have merit.

Proofreading During Writing: The Abby Method

Abby Scuito’s a consummate multi-tasker. At any given time in her lab, any number of tests are running simultaneously to help Gibbs and the rest of the NCIS team track down the criminal of the week. All of her work, from bitching out her spectrometer to teasing Gibbs about the time it takes to run fingerprint analysis, contributes towards the overall solution of the case.

Proofreading is an integral part of the writing process, and an author should have no problems getting bits and pieces of their work out to proofreaders as they write. The author can do a little proofreading themselves, making editorial and content changes in previously completed sections of their work, but the best way to ensure that the writing’s on the right track is to have other people read it. Authors are artists and it’s entirely possible for one to be too close to a work to see a glaring flaw. Better to polish out the rough spots early on as the work is progressing than going back later to try and fix things up, right?

Proofreading After Writing: The Drill Sgt.Method

Wrong, that fine gentleman would say. He’s all about focus. Gunny Hartmann will teach you by the numbers, one after another, to make sure you put on your warwriting face when you sit down to write.

Going back to proofread while writing is detrimental to writing your draft. How can you continue to move forward if you’re constantly looking back? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? The best way to write a complete draft of your work is actually to complete it, then worry about getting the proofreading done. Hopefully you’ll have done yourself a favor and put down your plot points and other notes on paper to help guide your writing so you can spare yourself precious time and brainpower that should be spent writing new material instead of going back and rewriting old stuff. Write the draft first, start to finish, and then go back over it to smooth out the rough patches.

Something Completely Different

In actuality, most writers will end up doing a bit of both of the above. The temptation can be very great to have someone look over your work and tell you if it stinks or not. However, most of these opinions will be colored by individual taste, and a lot of the impetus for you distributing your work to other people can be chalked up to self-confidence. There are two things to keep in mind when making the decision to forge ahead or go back in the name of proofreading, neither of which deal directly with either extreme of the process.

Firstly, if you managed to get started at all, that’s a huge step. There are a lot of creative people in the world who never find the courage, time or true inspiration to embark upon a project. Keep that in mind, and remember that whether you decide to keep writing or to stop and get some feedback, it’s part of a process you’ve had the chutzpah to begin.

Secondly, you need to do your proofreading sooner or later. You don’t want to go to an agent or editor with a manuscript that’s a mess. It isn’t their job to clean up the little bits and rough patches in your story – it’s yours. You can do it on your own or you can call in reinforcements, but either way, do it before you even think of approaching a professional “knife-person.”

So ends my general thoughts on proofreading. As far as The Project is concerned, I have some minor doubts about what I’ve written so far, but I know how I can be and I feel that if I go back now to proof or edit what has already been put down, I might not stop, to the point of going back into the Plot Bible to rewrite things there. Since I don’t want that to happen, as it’d be nice to finish another novel manuscript in my lifetime, for now my choice will be to forge ahead.

I hate Dragon Age: Origins right now.

There’s apparently a memory leak in the PC version of the game that causes load times to last longer and longer the more you play it. If you play for, say, an hour, you might not notice. But in my fervor to finish my first play-through I spent the bulk of my time this past weekend playing it, and the bulk of that time was spent looking at the spinning “loading…” graphic at the bottom of a parchment-colored screen stained with blood. I finally stopped and turned to other games in the middle of the evening yesterday, occupying myself instead with a little BioShock 2 and starting a game of Mass Effect 2.

But if I’m honest, I’m apprehensive. I want to finish Dragon Age for a variety of reasons, including posting a review here and over at the Escapist. The biggest one is something Chuck talked about this morning. Like writing projects, it’s probably best to focus on one game at a time. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m also trying to keep up with folks in Star Trek Online but that is somewhat beside my point.

I didn’t post a continuation of my Farraday fiction project because in comparison to The Project, it isn’t that important. I should probably make time to write some articles to pitch to the Escapist, but I feel that as much as I might get paid for them, it’s still taking writing time away from the aforementioned Big P. And if you look up at the little column-spanning block towards the top of this webspace, the first thing listed there is ‘aspiring novelist.’ I feel that, when I’m not distracting myself with games, carving out a little time to post here so you all don’t lose interest in me, or doing real-life things like taking my wife places or doing laundry or herding cats, I should be focused on that first and foremost.

Granted, things are still in progress with Polymancer Studios, there are a couple other things I’m waiting to hear about and I do adore everybody at the Escapist and working with them. But the fact remains that my dream has been to get a novel out to someone who can put it into print, and wandering past a bookstore to see something with my name on the cover displayed at the front of the store for people to purchase, take home and enjoy.

I’ve also dreamed of travelling to space and driving an Aston Martin, but like writing projects and games, I should take my dreams one at a time.

As the process of putting together the Character Bible for The Project winds down, I find myself sorting characters into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ categories. One of the characters that’s been shuffled into the latter area is one that I thought would be considered more important than he really is. He’s one of the antagonists, and the story isn’t so much about him as what’s partially motivating him, so he’s more minor than major. I would like, if I can, to avoid making him or any of my other characters too one-dimensional, but at the same time I want to try and keep my villians’ motivations relatively simple.

Not every evil plot needs to be a Xanatos Gambit. Yes, they’re interesting and awesome when you can pull them off, but sometimes you can tangle yourself up in your own web so much that you drive your plot forward without taking any time to explain exactly who the bag guys are and what they really want. I hate to beat a dead bloated horse that used to run well, but take a look at Star Wars.

In the first three films, there’s something of an overarching scheme to bring down the Republic and raise up the Empire in its place. This could have been handled any number of ways, but Lucas goes about it in the most convoluted canon-destroying way possible. Nowhere in the original films did he mention Force-balancing prophecies, the Jedi being in control of the clone army or the Sith. Now, expanded universe material that exists between the time of the first films and the prequels talks about some of this stuff, but not everybody in the film audience took the time to read all of that stuff. In the course of the films themselves, the motivations of the bad guys go from malevolently straightforward to frustratingly complex.

Consider this scene from the original Star Wars. Remember when we first met Darth Vader?

“Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans. And bring me the passengers. I want them ALIVE!“

In one line, we learn so much about the imposing armored dark warrior. He’s driven to find the plans, he doesn’t care what collateral damage is involved in the search, but he also wants the passengers alive, probably for interrogation. It’s equal parts exposition and character establishment, a lesson well-learned and being taught by the manly magic talking beardface. Hey, he was at Sundance, he knows good stories, dammit.

Anyway, in contrast, so much time in the prequels is devoted to empty, dry, dull expository conversation that tells us nothing of value about the speakers. Palpatine is the only villain approaching something resembling true malevolence, while Darth Maul (or as Confused Matthew calls him, Darth Timefiller) and Count Dracula Dooku are little more than soulless dance partners for the Jedi lightsaber throwho-down.

The point I’m trying to reach is that you don’t have to make every villain or antagonist a brilliant chess-playing mastermind. Sure, a Magnificent Bastard character is going to draw in readers and add color to the story, but there’s only so much of it a single story can take. Most of the time, it’s probably best for your villains to have straightforward motivations so you don’t end up getting hoisted by your own evil petard when a reader calls you out for something that’s poorly explained.

And for the love of Vader, don’t try any of that “Our motivations are far too inscrutable for puny mortal minds to comprehend” bullshit. It didn’t work in the Matrix, it didn’t work in Mass Effect. I don’t think it’ll ever work, and I for one am never going to try. Good isn’t as dumb as you might think, no matter how much I love that Spaceballs quote.