Writing

For someone who likes both writing and programming, it took me a long time to try out interactive fiction. See, I love prose fiction, and I enjoy narrative-heavy video games (such as Gone Home or Heavy Rain), but in-between was a no-man’s land. I never cared for text-based adventure games, and visual novels (not to be confused with graphic novels) didn’t have much appeal.

So it was with some reluctance that I tried out Twine. It’s designed to mimic the “choose your own adventure” books of yesteryear, using HTML as a compile target. Creating something like this had tickled my brain occasionally, but I didn’t want to take the time to build an entire engine from scratch. Luckily, someone had already done that.

George R. R. Martin once divided writers into two camps: architects, those who obsessively plan everything in detail, and gardeners, those who plant seeds in nourishing soil and hope for the best.

Since I began using computers in the early nineties, I’ve gone through five different word processors: DeskMate, AppleWorks, NeoOffice, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice. I’ve shuffled through as many computers and operating systems, from DOS to Mac OS X. I know – very well – the pain of incompatible file formats, starting in college when my professors sent me commented Word documents that AppleWorks couldn’t read.

I write this from a large, one-bedroom apartment in Tampa. After weeks of packing boxes, reserving moving equipment, enlisting friends, and worrying a path in my floor, I finished my move.

Periods of transition are ripe for flights of fancy, from my experience. I think that’s what attracts me to writing: I love pretending to be something else. This time, it was a fantasy of moving abroad to teach English, something many of my friends have done.

One of my worst tendencies as a writer is to rely too much on simple and weak vocabulary. Often I’ll address this in later drafts, when the emphasis is on improving the language moreso than the plot. One of the best ways to see your own usage patterns is to use a word cloud service to visualize often-repeated words.

I have a conundrum. First, some backstory, which I shall infodump below, and then the crux of the matter.

I’ve described writing IT stories for The Daily WTF, on more than one occasion, as akin to writing hard science fiction. Hard, in this case, means scientifically accurate, with some flexibility for storytelling (otherwise, it’s just realistic fiction!). You’re bound to the way that computers work – just as there’s no faster-than-light travel in hard SF, you can’t make a computer catch a human virus (unless you try really hard.) However, you can create fictional companies, even make up a computer application or two, so long as it could happen in real life.

Or: don’t name the car until you’ve bought it.

I won’t be working on that Otherkin project this year. In my post on the subject a few months back, I said that I wanted to write about it in some fictionalized form, and that’s still true. But I don’t yet know how I should. Should there be genre elements? Should it be a semi-fictional memoir? Short form? Long form? Until I can answer those questions to my satisfaction, I can’t make any progress on it. It’s just not ready.

No, seriously, don’t.

On Sunday I completed the first draft for The Coral Gate. I really enjoyed writing it, despite the time it took to finish (81 days!). There were genuine moments of wonder, fear, and humor as I was writing.

There were also the occasional flubs.

It was bad enough that I decided to name one character Simon. After writing “…Simon said” for the twelfth time, I was about ready to murder Simon with that giant wasp I added to the story. (It makes sense in context.) His name makes sense, though – he’s not enough of a rock to be Peter, so he’s still Simon until he gets some character growth. And I can add “Simon said” as an in-joke in-story to make it work, if it comes to that.

Brandon Sanderson, epic fantasy writer, taught a writing class last year. His lectures are available online in video form; I’ve watched about half of them so far. If you’re familiar with Writing Excuses, he covers a lot of the basics that you might find helpful, including both craft and business topics.