Categoría: How to write fiction

  • Three ways exercise improves your writing

    Ejercicio invisible

    So writing means not to move from your desk/bed/table/working surface in your opinion?…yeah, maybe. Isaac Asimov loved his apartment studio in New York and he would have wished it to be the spatial environment of many of his stories: artificial lights, a self sufficient and closed environment, a steel cave. In addition to that, he had a working schedule to kill anybody: from 5 a.m. to the fungi knows when and EVERYDAY; he hated travel but he exercised walking briskly the streets. He exercised.

    Chuck Wending of whom I haven’t read anything else but advices about writing and none of his fiction; says that the writer is condemned to be “chubby”. And being chubby speaking about micro motives is a reason to change careers. So, if you despise being unfit, you can’t be a goof writer.

    Writers are like any other office worker. They have check in times and gotta work the eight…or even more hours of a working day. Sometimes they eat unhealthily… they have to write hundreds of bad stories to get out something half decent…there’s the cheating. We need to remember words, we need a tool that can react using a part of the body that swallows tons of energy and for such a feat, we need to keep the machine called “body” keeping up. What’s the use of having a body which only brings trouble?

    Yeah, there are writers who have created magnificent stories despite their physical limitations. None was a vegetal (mindset stated). All of them have had an awesome brain that allowed them to create.

    Did you know that the worst thing that can happen to you after a stroke ain’t to die but to end your days unable to bate a lash? Isn’t it scary to start doing something you truly love for a simple body malfunction that could be avoided to blow out the train’s derail?

    Exercise a bit to get the rolls under control:

    1. Gives your brain a break. A break doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means to change activities and with it, you would be sending oxygen to your brain. More oxygen brings out better results.
    2. Resting, you have your brain working subconsciously. And if you’re literally stuck with an idea; it is possible that exercising brings inspiration to see that invisible even in front of your eyes.
    3. It’s kinda obvious: it generates experiences! Experiences are like the items you go around picking up in role morphing- They’re the writer’s ammo. Example: yoga is good to get rid of anxiety…tough I am as well balanced as a drunk elephant[1] (sober they are able to do a lot of stuff); thus I get anxious every single time I have to stand on one leg in fear of meeting Mr. Floor. So this becomes something like: Whilst everybody else in yoga class breathed calmly; Minerva couldn’t stop gasoing like a fish. The posture was giving her a headache and she saw the tiles even closer. Till the next thing she saw was the instructor’s face above her with a lemon wrinkled face.
    4. Outdoors exercise allows you to see what, otherwise; you might not be present at. Birds, squirrels, cats…flower receptionist who are pretty and drool with your smile, a sunset…
    5. And you don’t even need to be an Adonis, Hemsworth or Venus for your body to be better.  Just with being in the green zone of your average weight will improve your life by being lighter instead of carrying around your body as a dead weight. Climbing the chair up will be less of a bothersome struggle and you will feel better long term.

    Exercising is cool, ain´t it?

    [1] Rosy is my family. Gerald Durrell.

  • How to write fiction making a main character’s life hell

    Do I let you touch my belly or not?

    Once upon a time… Truth be told, there were many ones and many times… but this happened some years ago. When I didn’t know a dip of the craft but scribbling down in any paper or messing around in the computer—creating files to be finished later… When I shyly looked up in alleys to try and figure out the extraterrestrial nature of writing, without courses to rely on. That is when I found this blog entry.

    I can’t even boast of being a professional but at least now I know a bitty bit more compared to then. And how I learnt teaching English: there is no better way to learn something than trying to teach it, even if you have no idea. You need to become an expert to do so. Or fail trying.

    To summarise, I don’t remember the name of the blog, the name or the author or anything about but an idea…and so for an elephant’s (pigmey) memory is quite offensive. I start to bad mouth myself so I’ll cut to the example given by this author[1] : any character is like a ball of dough you throw against a wall. You write about its reaction when touching the wall.

    A…ha? I didn’t understand then. I was missing something. SUPER IMPORTANT.

    Let’s..talk about two characters. Your favourite characters from your favourite love story[2]… they’re getting married at last! You’re super happy. Now you feel like seeing all the details of their everyday life: the weight of the baby, how many bibs is they[3] drinking, the times the couple holds hands and watch TV together…the kisses.

    I regret to ruin your fantasy…no, I don’t really regret ruining it. THIS IS NOT A STORY. It is a boring retelling. It is to brush your teeth before going to Spanish class first period, shave to wear a tie and go to the office on Monday eight in the morning traffic stuck, depilate your legs like every Sunday, marinate the chicken in ketchup the day before cooking it in the oven, to study five hours algebra the previous day to the exam. It is…routine. Who wants to watch something that they live every single day of their life as such?

    Nope, nope, nope. I don’t mean that we can’t write about our character’s habits and “uses to”; no. It is something simple… but equally complicated. And for that I might use Ronald B. Tobías’ wise in 20 master plots with something of myself pepper-minting it.

    Following the example of romance and routine…let’s have the boy meet __________ (fill in with the sex of your preference[4]). So they meet. He likes her or she likes him. So far we don’t have anything.

    Wait a minute…she turns him down because he is an alcoholic. He moves to the International Space Station leaving him behind…She is Jewish and he…a neo-nazi. Worst, she is Jewish and she is…well, she.

    HOUSTON, WE ARE IN TROUBLE! Voilá, now we have a story. We have a problem, then we have a story. Is he going to join AA to try his luck? Is he going to lose himself in booze? Will he train to become an astronaut or air-space engineer to pursue his beloved beyond the ozone layer? Will he leave Mein Kampf aside to plunge himself in the cultural shock? Will she abandon religion and culture to love freely?

    The answer to these questions is the story itself. This is the mystery I was missing. The writer’s job is to stop the character from getting what he wishes for…. At least not that soon. AN STORY IS A CHAINED REACTION to the main character’s wish versus every single thing we put in their way to stop it from happening. In a few words, we’re the crazy bitches making hell out of the character’s life —that sometimes they make ours a pain in the neck…

    This is what the author meant when he said the character’s dough thrown against a wall. The wall symbolizes the conflict or problem whilst the character reacts as dough either getting stuck to the problem or bouncing onto the floor. Now I get the metaphor. Do you?

    What are your favourite conflicts? If it isn’t that much of a problem, use your power to like this or do something.

    [1] If anyone sees it and recognizes the advice and knows who the idea belongs to, I’d really appreciate being told. This person deserves the acknowledgement as any author does.

    [2] I know you have one under the bed.

    [3] If Emily Dickinson used the “singular they”, why can’t  I to express it in neutral gender?

    [4] Nowadays stories are not limited to boy meets girl. Today we can juggle boy meets boy, girl meets girl, girl meets alien? As a typically asexual hetero…

  • What is and how to differentiate a forda plot from a forza plot?

    Brain or brawn?

    All the genres and plots out there have something in common: the conflict. The conflict is what makes us to keep turning pages, move our fingers down up over the touch screen to pass as fast the webtoon scenes, bite our nails when the hero is about to die (but doesn’t) or the f…ver zombie gets caught in the speared fence about to tear off a piece of us.

    It is in the nature of conflict that we can find the big difference about how to carry on with a plot; creating the two only possible plots parenting all the rest of them. As Ronald B. Tobías mentions in 20 master plots (chapter 3, after the conflict) the importance of going to the very origin of everything…

    He places the origin of everything in “The divine comedy” by Dante…reason why I must trust in his word since no matter how many times I’ve attempted to read it. The number is the number of my failures. In spite of this habit of mine of reading whatever that came upon my hands, unlike my favourite police deputy (Salvo Montalbano) who will continue doing so; there are things my reading system[1] can’t admit. I can try again and again to get stuck exactly in the same page or some pages ahead to just convince myself the book no me piace and of the need to give it away. That I don’t like something doesn’t mean others won’t. I mean, a lot of Spanish speaking writers love The Quixote and I…don’t.

    —Merriam, go back to topic—this is my consciousness’ voice reminding me I was writing aboyt plots… and conflict.

    —OK

    Thus, according Tobías, Dante splits sins in 2. The strength sins or forza and the fraud sins or forda. Translation: there are the sins of the mind and the sins of the body…Which are the sins of the mind? Which the sins of the body? How does that affect to the plot? PATIENCE.

    A forda requires change. Personal change, internal revolutions, spiritual revelations. It requires…a brain able to solve puzzles or hyper tongue twisting moral/intellectual challenges. Of irony and jokes that take a bit more than gas being expelled by the guts. Human nature against or interacting with other human natures to create conflicts that happen INSIDE the head of the main characters.

    On the other side, forza plots try to run after the event. Murder followed by terrorist attack plus the profiling, the hero catching the guy. Diamond robbery, treason within the thieves’ band, collateral dead…Fordas are easy to see miles away. And kinda hard to create since there are more of these since they’re more popular.  It is a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE to get Ethan out from jail with the same resources our grandparents have seen due to the fact of both plot types not being mutually exclusive. Plots in which the mind is important can’t help the once in a lifetime Line Agent being pursued in a Mercedes…just so they remain virgin. Neither the need to catch the beautiful assassin girl stop the detective to reflect with something different to the book’s weapon of choice….Nonetheless such is the border line. Is the main character a different person to the one at the beginning of the story[2]? This is a mind plot. A forda. Are they the same running after happenings on the rooves?  This is a forza.

    Which do you like better? Do you prefer to mix? Don’t like it or subscribe if it wasn’t good enough. Do whatever you need to do.

    [1] The digestive system in charge of fiction in my brain.

    [2] Mentally speaking…transgender or aesthetic surgical procedures alone don’t count.

  • How to write fiction plagiarizing….lay outs

    They look alike but they’re not

    Are you sure you’re of a sound mind today? Are drugs finally legal in Mexico? Did you drink to your brim of margaritas and lost consciousness? Don’t you know plagiarizing is a criminal entreaty?

    Before we go on…let’s chat about originality since…blank starts practically do not exist. The possibility to be able to create something out of nowhere is close to null. Why? Cause someone else beat us to invent Utnapishtim, Adam, Eve or Balam-Quitzé. I mean the myth of humanity, humanity as a concept, is more ancient than you or myself. And…we can’t re-invent it all, can we? Even if we were to think biblical characters did really exist…How can we know that Adam was Adam and not Esteban just so he donned the “first man” tag only because those jotting down god’s teachings didn’t like the name? It’s a humongous if….

    So…why is that related to originality? All stories, even the ones in which the characters are talking little bunnies, deal with human concepts. That’s how and why it’s kinda harsh to be original. Love, revenge, rivalry, transformation and growing are human ideas. All stories are about what happens to human beings: sudden dead of the parents[1], dead of a beloved one, a wanted pregnancy with lots of risks[2], unwanted pregnancy without them but that places things upside down[3], adultery for justifiable reasons, adultery just because, jealousy, shotgun murder, political betrayal, unrelentless capitalism race…

    And you still believe that no one, absolutely no one, copies from anybody else? At least a fraction of the idea?

    “If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the <<Ode to a Grecian Urn>> is worth any number of old ladies.”

    —William Faulkner

    “Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him[4].”

    —Mark Twain

     “Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.”

    —Lionel Trilling

     “The immature poet steals; the mature poet plagiarizes.

    —T.S. Eliot[5].

    Every single one of us, who writes, designs, teaches or engineer; has a favourite thinker, engineer, designer or…a full apartment complex of them (mea culpa). Among those living in my apartment complex, there is a guy who wrote robots’ science fiction and his “Memories[6]”

    In them (the last ones), Asimov more or less tells u show he startes copying the STRUCTURE of the stories from his favourite authors since, in his opinión, we all want to be like the best. Just saying, most of the living authors I have at least read the interview, mention a certain someone who used to live in La Mancha as their ideal…in Spanish. In English, they mention one of three: Stratford-upon-Avon, la Rue Morgue or Cthulhu.

    It is from there that we plagiarize. The plagiarizing T. S. Eliot mentions is not the vulgar let’s see whom to steal ideas from. It is the study and imitation of the literary hero who wrote the bloody thing which inspired us to write until we learn how to create something on our own. That, or the will to see our nemesis down. What with Balenciaga buying Channel to undo them and better his own patterning? This is the plagiarize I talk about in the headliner.

    Who inspired you? Have you tried to repeat what made their work a success? Are their literary resources ancient of minty breeze? Anyone who hasn’t taken anything from anywhere else for their own stuff…can throw the first stone of an absolutely pristine and devoid of inspiration from other art works’ very own fiction.

    Oh…and about the other plagiarizing. I’m against it. About the one stealing other’s ideas.

    [1] The most remarkable fetish of a certain animation house

    [2] Steel magnolias,  American movie of 1989 I haven’t watched it yet.

    [3] Jenny-Juno, South Korean movie of 2005 and quite, quite similar to Juno, American film of 2007.

    [4] Maybe not as sure his wife had already said it…and the other way around.

    [5] 20 Master plots. Ronald B. Tobìas.

    [6] Twice in fact.

  • How to write fiction trying not to go blind or at least try in 7 basic advices

    If you read What’s a writer’s lifestyle?, you must have already thought that from now on as a writer you have a lifestyle that includes: screens, blank paper, researching books —some in san serif typographies that overkill legibility in condensed light gray; staring into muskrats’ lives until the muse whispers or staring into all the undone laundry.

    So, even if you design, draw or write only for yourself for as while the lunch runs and the rest of the day you work in an office; I believe your sight’s in danger. It’s been a time since PC’s[1] and laptops have left way to tablets or smartphones, bringing smaller and smaller typographies or just a non smartphone amicable page in reduced view. Which instead of making us buy special spectacles or a filter[2], endangers us by the constant and uninterrupted use of the thingy (I never let go of my purple baby…oopsie).

    So lucky there are a few actions one can do to avoid further trouble:

    1. Buy  eye drops: dry eyes are prone to itch and…you’ll end rubbing them. After touching the surface of your smartphone. Dirtier than the toilet’s lid. You better use the drops and keep your mesmerising eyes well lubricated. And if you’re to wear contacts —as me, since the magnifiying glasses are too heavy to carry around; you should ask the ophthalmologist. Just in case the commercial ones would ruin your contacts’ investment.
    2. Do your eye gymnastics: yep, that does exist. From taking the pen/pencil you’re working with and get it closer and further to your face as you change the focal point of your sight to go and peep on the neighbours[3]…No. Not that one. Erm…to look at the horizon.  YourTelly doesn’t have it all but there are videos you can watch and follow three times a week. There’s a book called  “Aprende mejor con gimnasia cerebral” by Luz María Ibarra[4]  where you can find the exercise of zigzagging your pupils about four times to relax. This video is all about how to look after your eyes and it includes some exercises to relax constrain. If you don’t like this one, there are others using yoga.  
    3. If you haven’t slept the last few nights (and I know you shouldn’t be but are doing equally as I do…we do from time to time), chamomile tea bags. Or any other kind on your eye lids. Tepid, warm or cold, your choice. Cucumber slices will give you a spa look if you feel like mentally traveling…
    4. Fix the height of your chair and screen. Upper or downer, if the screen is not on your sight line, you’ll crane your neck and that is going to give you a massive neck-shoulder soreness you’re going to wish to get a massage. The massage is not a bad idea…help yourself to have one that you want and not one that you need. Plus if the floor is about a few centimetres out toe’s reach…your feet will numb. And I know since most of the chairs remind me of my proud Chanel number 5 small bottle size. I guess tall people have the opposite problem of hunching when the chair is uncomfortable. Thankfully, cushions and books, specially dictionaries are handy. At least that way you will get up to reach the dictionary from under your behind.  
    5. Adjust the size page or zoom in your text editor. To force yourself to see what you really don’t, makes your eyesight worse. If you write in an analog way, make your calligraphy bigger. To study Korean I’ve had to adjust the size of my handwriting since the alphabet is prone to be merged as blocks and I need to guess what side the vowel stroke is. Even worse, the “lovable” ones, tend to make things in the smallest fount size possible. 아이고!
    6. Stop staring at your screen. Look somewhere else from time to time…like right now.
    7. Are you facing eye troubles? Run to the Ophtalmologist. Glaucoma and macular degeneration are irreversible tough they can be stopped a bit. The drops are…expensive to say so. Infections or any other eye trouble related to diabetes must be under periodical control to minimize and keep on bay damages. Nonetheless, any problems as blurry double vision can be a symptom of something bigger. Going to the ophthalmologist will eliminate astigmatism or tired sight before the general physician.

    In addition, if you’re a magna myope (more than 6 diopters) you are a strong candidate for: retinal tearing, cataracts, glaucoma and/or macular degeneration starting from 35 years old (depending on the diopters you need to correct). Thus, it is better to get yourself checked. The substitution of the eye lens to correct shortsightness with an IOL (Intra Ocular Lense) to reduce it, is not a good option before you become 50 since it will reduce your eye muscles’ use, causing sight tiredness before you come to know of it.

    Your body, dear writer/engineer/designer colleague, is the only tool you can’t replace…yet. And if it is already possible there’s no way to afford it. Take care of your eyes.

    [1] Does anybody out reading this nonsense know what a PC is?

    [2] Now the trend is to sells us a blue light filter over the plastics of the spectacles, I wonder if in a future we will buy filters anti smartphone.

    [3] My neighbours, the ones living around, happen to be lizards and birds living in the apartment complexes of the Evergreen oak and Cypress ones.

    [4] Is there an English version? Not of this book and there’s a page about Brain gym…but I haven’t read any of the books recommended there thus, I can’t recommend any other.

  • How to write fiction living a writer’s life or what’s a writer’s lifestyle?

    Escribir como estilo de vida

    So you’ve decided to do it tough you have no idea how, where or when to start. Perhaps you have already started a manuscript or a first sketch (comic wise) and yet…it has never come around that writing is a lifestyle.

    Eh? What the heck do lifestyles have to do with writing? Mr. Chuck Wendig says writing isn’t a lifestyle .. Aren’t there writers who used to think it’s all right to drink booze to inspire oneselves and those resigned to be a little…chubby cause you’ll be cooped up behind a desk all day?

    Yep…but even that decision to torture yourself by staying immobile moving your hands only is a lifestyle. Why? Cause you’ll be deciding to do this or that and will be getting used to it. It means your rear on a chair. You see, there’s this author (Cathy Birch) who starts her book  “The Creative Writer’s Workbook” with chapter one dealing on how important it is to have a lifestyle that helps to the act of writing.

    Personally speaking I agree it is uberly important to keep fit the main tool we use for writing: our bodies. Whatever the problem you have, either wearing spectacles as thick as a telescope (mine can be used to peek at future), walk on wheels, not to move at all; a body is a very much needed container and weapon. Even if all you do is an indoor desk job not writing related.

    Then, as to illustrate the argument, I’m to quote a little (in the original to Spanish translation blog entry I quote but here I’m going to ad lib). Writing is a physical deal…Yep, it is. Unless we live in the matrix, it is your body which sustains the damage of not being kind to yourself.

    So what’s a lifestyle to begin with? According to the Oxford online dictionary it is: someone’s way of living; the things that a person or particular group of people usually do.

    • He doesn’t have a very healthy lifestyle.
    • She needs a pretty high income to support her lifestyle.
    • An alternative lifestyle.

    Thus…deciding to write is a lifestyle after all. No matter how much your life is different to this or that routine, whatever you do to live is a lifestyle… Then here is the advices:

    1. Keep your brain on edge. I mean, keep it active by changing activities and from time to time do something to challenge it. AND SLEEP for your brain sake.
    2. Eat as well and as regularly as possible. I know writing can take away space time sensitivity but…. listen to your stomach grumbling!
    3. Your eyes should be looked after as much as possible. Even if you’re blind, eyes can become infection gates if you don’t take care of yourself. Have them checked, use your refreshing tears and have them rest.
    4. Exercise. It’s proven that exercising can boost your attention and productivity. Get up from the chair from time to time! Do your pre writing warm up, do your in between get up and stroll.
    5. Find the time. Use the potty breaks if you have to but find the time to write. Start. Just write. Draw a schedule for yourself and stick to it as if you’re drowning. Nothing hurts more your writing than stop writing.

    Is this incompatible with your actual lifestyle? Do you want to torture yourself?! I mean, stop moving at this moment anything but your fingers for about two hours……..be welcomed to maso land. It’s torture to do so. No matter what you decide, you’re about to get yourself a writer’s lifestyle since you’re to write.

    Be kind to yourself.

  • Bob esponja mola

    ¿Estás pensando en abandonar esta entrada? Antes de hacerlo déjame poner dos de mis cartas sobre la mesa:
    Bob esponja no me gusta
    La explicación de las causas que llevan a un resultado no significa que estamos de acuerdo con el resultado. Ni que el resultado tenga por fuerza que ser así.

    Digamos que un día cualquiera compras una película del botadero en el super. Llegas a casa y empiezas a verla. La trama…se trata de mujeres en atuendos ajustados* luchando contra un archi-villano que pretende convertir a un bebé en el emperador inmortal que actuará como su marioneta y reinará sobre los seres humanos. Como no sabe que bebé es el bueno, secuestra a un montón de niños; al fin y al cabo puede convertir a los bebés sobrantes en sus secuaces. Hay además un científico trabajando en una capa invisible y un detective eficaz contra los malos del montón pero inefectivo contra los super villanos.
    No suena muy diferente de un film americano de super héroes ¿O si?
    ¿Y qué tienen que ver los super héroes con Bob Esponja? Un mucho y nada como verás  a continuación.
    La película realmente no era muy atractiva en realidad. Es una película de culto, es china una parte de los diálogos estaba sin traducir y el presupuesto la hizo parecer un episodio de Batman y Robin con ropa y lugares a lo futurista sólo faltaban los pow y los pam en sendas viñetas para serlo de verdad.
    Ante las caras un tanto insatisfechas de mi familia, se me ocurrió la pregunta:
    ¿Qué hace de esta película distinta (en cuanto a la trama)  de Superman o Batman? Que hace que Batman o Superman no nos parezca tan ridículo**. A lo que recibí una respuesta inesperada. Mi mamá me contestó:
    ¿Te acuerdas del día que nos subimos al camión y había dos jóvenes hablando de Bob Esponja? ¿Cómo hablaban?
    Recordé. Los dos estudiantes de CBTyS (bachillerato tecnológico), eran verdaderos forofos de Bob Esponja; se habían aprendido los capítulos como si de oro líquido se tratara. Comentaban con una fruición los capítulos, que casi se antojaba ver la caricatura. Apuesto a que se sabían mejor sus escenas favoritas que la tabla periódica, la cronología de las  conquista española o la carta de los derechos del niño. O las tres cosas juntas.
    Es decir, hay a quién le gusta Bob Esponja. Y a quién le gusta el Quijote. Y a quienes les gusta el béisbol. Y…el fútbol. Y…muchas otras cosas que no nos gustan***.
    Lo extraordinario no es que a otros les guste algo que no nos gusta a nosotros. Lo extraordinario es encontrar cuando compartimos algo que nos gusta y disfrutar aquello que compartimos; sin menospreciar lo que no como ridículo, estúpido o inútil.
    Por lo tanto, Bob Esponja mola. Siempre y cuando no me obligues a verlo.

    *Heroínas. Por si se les antoja ver a Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui y Michelle Yeoh.
    **Claro que la manufactura la pone a años luz de estos filmes y no parecía del todo bien contada. Aunque no hay modo de saberlo porque según mi profesor de cine en la universidad, los japoneses tienen películas con veinte minutos de inmovilidad total (¿quién puede ver eso?). A saber que consideran los chinos como bien contado porque no conozco a ningún chino que me diga y dudo poder leer algún tratado sobre escritura de ficción que esté escrito en chino.
    ***A mi no es que no me guste el fútbol, lo que no me gusta es que sea pretexto para comportarse como multitud. Del mismo modo que los conciertos de rock, o cualquier evento masivo. De hecho, no me gusta ver deportes, ni en la tele ni en vivo. Me gusta más participar, a pesar de mis grandes habilidades atléticas que consisten en tropezar con el balón o temer todo objeto que caiga del cielo.