Rachel Starr Thomson

Cross-posted from Speculative Faith.

(Someone once told me that “history” is called “history” because it’s HIS story, meaning God’s. Dunno if that’s true. But if it is, then my own personal story can be called “mystory.” In this case, I’m writing about the story of my stories, so that’s … “mystories”? But I digress. Ridiculously.)

I am a writer; in fact, I am a novelist. I get to call myself that, even though I do not have a single book published by a trade publisher, because I have been writing novels since I was 13ish. I’ve self-published five in various forms, and people read them, review them, and otherwise interact with them, so I figure that I’m doing what novelists do, and that’s good enough to claim the title.

In fact, this past week I finally finished a trilogy I have been working on for nearly ten years. In 2001 or thereabouts, I wrote a book called Worlds Unseen, which told the story of a handful of people who were curious enough — and gripped by longing enough — to explore beyond the boundaries of the world-as-they-knew-it and discover the truth about their history and future. As in our world, the truth is obscured by the machinations of evil. If discovered, it will set people free — but only if they’re willing to side with the ancient King and cast off the “safe” life they’ve always known.

Worlds Unseen helped me break through a few personal blocks as a writer, and I followed it right away with a sequel, Burning Light. I knew the story was supposed to be a trilogy. But back then I didn’t do outlines, and the third story wasn’t readily to hand like the first two had been. I was out of steam and content to let it rest.

So I did. Someday I would write a book called The Advent and finish the trilogy. Maybe.

In the meantime, I wrote a bunch of other books and became published as a freelance writer for various online and print magazines. In 2006 I entered the exciting waters of POD-enabled self-publishing, and in 2007 I looked fondly at Worlds Unseen and Burning Light and thought, why not? I have moved on to pursuing publication for other books. I could get these out into the world and start building readership. To the printing press!

This will have applicability to you shortly; keep reading . . .

Well, I did publish Worlds Unseen and Burning Light, and they began to accrue fans. They opened doors for me to get into all sorts of discussions with people about books and writing and my faith. They collected some good reviews. Worlds Unseen in its Smashwords-ebook form has been downloaded over 13,000 times.

But there was trouble. You cannot publish the first two books in a trilogy without eventually, someday, somehow, finishing the series. Readers made that clear. The third book needed to come out. And it didn’t want to.

The Advent turned into my life’s worst case of writer’s block. Dogged and determined, I wrote it. Hated and scrapped it. Wrote a different story with the same title. Scrapped most of it. Changed its name to Coming Day and kept going. Seven or so almost-complete rewrites later, I finally, finally wrote the book that finished the trilogy appropriately and in a way I could be proud of. It was like pulling teeth the entire way.

But now it’s done. I’ll be making it available to the world just as soon as the cover art is finished. And I can move on to new adventures, new worlds, new stories, and of course, marketing.

I share this bit of mystory with you because it highlighted two lessons for me.

1. Even when you think you know the cost ahead of time, anything you do will require commitment. Writing stories, like pulling a tooth or doing ministry or navigating a tricky relationship, requires a commitment that transcends how we feel at the moment. The upside of this is that commitment eventually yields fruit, and the fruit likewise transcends how we may have felt during the process.

2. Publishing, in any form, creates relationship and responsibility to readers. Don’t take that lightly. Like any relationship, it will cost something. It will require work and follow-through. And it will also create its own rewards. We are all, writers and readers both, engaged in one great conversation that truly impacts lives. And that is the best reason to pursue publishing in the first place.

I’d love to hear more about yourstories. Anybody?

P.S. If you’d like to read more about my trilogy, the website is www.worldsunseen.com.

I had originally intended to post “Light Isn’t Boring” today, but I messed up on scheduling and accidentally posted it two days prior to when I actually wrote it. I was not alerted to its active presence on my blog until a friend posted it on Facebook for all the world to see. Jolly :). So instead, I’m resurrecting a related article, one of my favourites from my first year writing for Boundless:

In these dark days, we desperately need Christian artists who will love God with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and who will pour that love into unique creative expressions of truth that have the power to bridge into the souls of others.

This is my charge to them, to you, to myself more than anyone.

Go and meet with God. Seek Him in your relationships, your circumstances, the creation around you. Immerse yourself in scripture. Pray with your whole heart. Let His Spirit fill you with light. And then do what God has asked you to do — be a candle, a burning light, a city on a hill blazing with truth and shelter for those who are lost in the darkness. Use your art to do it.

It is such a dark, dark world. Is there light in you? Then hear my call to you, and to all in whom truth is burning.

Oh Christian, please paint the light!

Read the whole article here.

PW’s Genreville recently posted “In the Dark of the Shadowy Dark Shadows,” an entertaining piece on the prevalence of “Darkness” in fantasy titles (I note, with satisfaction, that of my three fantasy books, two involve light). But they went into the thematic importance of darkness in recent titles, too:

Particularly in paranormal romance, darkness is both evil and enticing, the source of both fear and power. Light tends to get a bad rap by comparison, of the “Evil will always triumph because good is dumb” sort. No one actually wants to be on the side of right and good. It’s boring. So dark ends up being cast as antagonist and protagonist and plot device all at once, and that gets boring too.

No surprise here–one look at a bookstore’s YA shelf clearly displays this troubling attitude toward moral and spiritual darkness. But comments like the above inspire me all the more to write books that display light–in all its dazzling glory. As Christian writers, we should never be guilty of presenting the True Light in such a way that it’s seen as “dumb” or “boring.” (E. Stephen Burnett wrote of one famous end-times novel that it “presented such a boring world, it may have even turned me to an opposite end-times view. I hope it didn’t also turn some readers away from the real hope of the New Earth!”)

Light (and the things it represents–goodness, faithfulness, glory) is not naturally boring, and we can’t afford to paint it that way in our story worlds. Light isn’t boring in the elves of Tolkien’s world; it isn’t boring in Narnia; it isn’t boring in Susan Cooper or Madeleine L’Engle or L.M. Montgomery or George MacDonald or Lloyd Alexander or our real human history.

So what does it take to represent it well? Imagination, unbridled. Passionate belief–a conviction in our own spirits that goodness is to be vaunted, admired, celebrated, rejoiced in. Knowledge of the real ways goodness and truth play out in our world. This is what we’re here for–to shine the light, on and off the page.

Underneath your story lies structure, pacing, principles of storytelling that make a story work. Or not work. Writer’s Digest recently published a couple of articles that look at some of these things underneath. Both are perceptive and well worth reading.

Four Novel Story Structures examines four basic structures that are used in novels: the Milieu Story, the Character Story, the Idea Story, and the Event Story. This article was written by Big-Deal sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card. Read it.

4 Ways to Improve Narrative Drive is a little more nuts and bolts — but again, really worth reading. Sara Sheridan offers hugely practical advice like this:

3. The easiest way to improve narrative drive is to simplify your verbs as much as possible. In English we have a huge amount of tense formations and a high proportion of irregular verbs. It’s astoundingly easy to use three or four words where one will do. Keep it simple—make every word count. Stick to the simple present, past, and future where possible. If you can write in the present tense your prose will have especial immediacy.

Thoughts?

The scheduled release date for Coming Day (sometime in mid-November — I have a date but for several reasons am not making it public yet) is fast approaching, which means that ’tis the season for revisions. Yes, more of them. This book has gone through more revisions than any other book I’ve ever written with the possible exception of something called The Babel Chip (which in my opinion still needs work. But I digress — this post is not about The Babel Chip.)

When I sat down with Josh Gilman, my good buddy and esteemed beta reader, one of the things he told me was that Coming Day needs more quiet parts. I knew that, I think, but confirmation was good. I actually taught on this in a three-session workshop I did in my hometown earlier this month. Rises and falls are an essential part of a good plot.

Why is that? Well, in any good story, there is conflict. There is tension. This is good; it keeps readers turning pages. But if you never let readers come down and rest a while, they will become exhausted. They’ll also be prevented from getting to know your characters in an intimate way; we don’t get to know people when all we ever see them doing is running or yelling or bashing heads with big swords.

Frodo needs to be chased by Black Riders and battle wraiths and orcs and barrow-wights; but he also needs to get to Rivendell and Lothlorien, eat, sleep, behold beauty. He needs it, and readers need it.

So this week, as I revise Coming Day, I am attempting to add more fall to the rhythm of rise and fall. And I’m looking forward to getting to know my own characters better as I do.

Someone once asked me why I write fantasy instead of (pardon me) real literature. This person wondered from a particularly Christian standpoint — shouldn’t Christians be more concerned about the real world?

I’ve given the question a lot of thought over the years and summed up some of my answers in my “Apologetic” essay on WorldsUnseen.com.

Some people are confused by [speculative fiction]. Others think it’s downright wrong-headed (or worse, downright evil). Others get it. They just get it. They know why authors would choose to write Middle-Earth instead of downtown Manhattan. They know why we care about dragons and elves, or about stars and alien civilizations, or about warriors and far-away, dangerous, beautiful things. They know why writing about those things isn’t just “escapism,” but can be a powerful act of creation that helps us grapple with our day-to-day existences in better ways.

They get it. That’s why they read it. Randy Alcorn said it really well: “When we get excited reading [fantasies by Tolkien or Lewis], it’s not our sinfulness that arouses that excitement. It’s our God-given hunger for adventure, for new realms and new beings . . . God has given us a longing for new worlds.”

The rest of the essay looks at three elements of what I write: “fiction,” “speculative,” and “Christian.” It comes back to the real world after all:

I wrote earlier that fiction allows us to experience a story in a subjective way. You can call this escapism if you like. But at the same time, that subjective experience allows us to come back and look at our own lives with greater objectivity.

So there is a chance that when readers escape into a speculative world designed by someone who is immersed in truth and relationship with God, they might just experience truth or encounter God in a way they have not done before — in a way they can bring back out into the “real world” to make an objective difference. Aslan has truly deepened readers’ worship of Jesus. Middle-Earth has really made us long for heaven.

Writer’s Digest has provided me with yet more great blog fodder: read Sage Cohen’s “Top 10 Productivity Pitfalls for Writers to Avoid” here. Sage has done a fantastic job of identifying real problems on a deeper scale than just “Don’t check Facebook 20 times a day” — including fear, transition turbulence, and shabby systems.

I could add a few of my own to the list:

1. Checking Facebook 20 times a day (otherwise known as “bad Internet habits”)

2. Working while dog-tired (I’m usually better off taking a nap or doing something else until my brain wakes up)

3.  Excessive multitasking (you only think you’re getting more done)

4. Lack of planning. I usually write my daily goals out the night before, and I pencil in a week or so at a time. If I don’t, I waste a lot of time trying to figure out what I should be doing.

How about you? What are some productivity pitfalls that try to get you — and/or strategies you’ve developed to avoid them?

If you live a daily walk of faith, as I do, you probably read the Bible often. You may even study it. (If you don’t, why not?) Since this blog centers on reading and writing and faith, I figure it’s fair game to give some Bible reading advice.

Remember Tuesday’s post on entering the moment in your writing?

Have you ever tried that with a Bible story?

I challenge you to try it. Pick a character in a story (any character except God — this won’t work as well from His POV, although I suppose you can try it if you must). Now, put yourself as thoroughly in that character’s shoes as you possibly can. Draw on everything you know (or can learn) about the biblical and cultural setting, the character’s past life experiences or personality, and other factors in the story’s context. Try to get inside that character’s brain. Get as comfortable there as you can. Do your best to forget things you know that this character doesn’t.

(For example, when Peter first goes to meet Jesus, he doesn’t know that he’ll become one of the chief disciples, witness miracles, see Jesus transfigured, betray his lord, be filled with the Holy Spirit, convert 2,000 people at once with his preaching, and lead the Jerusalem church. At the moment you’re entering, he’s just a fisherman who’s heard some rumours about a local carpenter’s son.)

Once you’ve done that, read on — because most often, in Bible stories, characters get their boats upset. God comes in and does something to turn that character’s world upside down. And the great thing is that the more you’ve identified with that character, the more your world can be turned upside down, too.

This method of Bible study is somewhat subjective, and of course it has its limits. But it works surprisingly well for me. It gives me new insights into what was happening in many biblical stories, and into the surprising ways God enters people’s lives and bends their expectations. So today I challenge you to try it.

(If you need a starting place, I recommend trying this with Matthew or Acts. I’ve read both books doing my best to be characters in the story, and I can tell you, it’s an enriching experience!)

For today’s post I’m going to plagiarize my own e-mail again. I received an e-mail from a writer friend who’s trying to start a new novel and facing a few blocks before he even gets going: he’s wondering about whether to kick the story off first or begin by informing readers of a few important facts, and also whether to write in first or third-person. Since you may be facing some of the same questions, I thought I’d share my thoughts with you too!

Don’t start by introducing the important facts. Sneak them in once you’ve already kicked off the story. Otherwise you’ll be writing one of those prologues that publishers dislike and many readers skip. The important principle is “show, don’t tell.” Make us like these people, make us care about them, and draw us into their tale before informing us of any back story. I’d advise writing a first chapter that centers around a situation, around action and relationship, more than it does around explanation or discussion of the past. Once you’ve hooked readers you’ll have plenty of time to explain things.

As to POV, that really depends on where the story will go and how you want to tell it. Would it benefit from the perspective of a single character–an old man’s perspective or a young boy’s? At any point will you want to write scenes you can’t write in first-person (for example, one of those “meanwhile, in the villain’s camp” scenes that are so popular in movies)? Maybe most importantly, does either of your main characters have such a strong voice that it wants to tell the story?

You could try writing an opening (or some other arbitrary scene) in both and see which feels more natural before you keep going.

My friend’s e-mail was timely; in revising The Advent I’m finding that the first chapter does too much explaining and not enough drawing in. So I’m going back to look at the first chapters in Worlds Unseen and Burning Light and why they worked, and I’ll have a look at a few other novels and writers today (probably while I’m hanging out at Starbucks and Chapters, where I hope to get a lot of writing done this afternoon)!

Which brings me to another piece of advice:  if you’re having a hard time starting your own story, you might try reading someone else’s. Inspiration and insight crop up in strange places, or you may just find that reading another person’s words is all the motivation you need to start writing your own.

There’s an old piece of writing advice that goes like this:

If your story is getting boring, bring in a man with a gun.

In other words, make something shocking happen. Mix things up. Send everything in a wild new direction. Shoot someone.

It’s not bad advice — sometimes. But (as per my recent post on making every scene count) you’d better make really sure that man with a gun ends up serving an important purpose in the overall plot. If someone gets shot, getting shot needs to affect that person for the rest of the story, and that person’s changed situation or perspective needs to influence the entire storyline and probably play into the way it ends.

Excitement that leads nowhere and has no lasting purpose other than to stir things up will ultimately frustrate and annoy readers. It feels like getting pumped full of adrenaline and never being allowed to release it properly.

Last year I wrote a series of lessons on writing. The first lesson on Plot says:

A good plot, like good dialogue, is tight. There are no throwaway moments in a tight plot. Renato Rizzoli wrote, “The plot must be ‘complete’ and ‘whole’ in that it must have a clearly recognizable beginning, middle, and end. That is why good plots should ‘neither begin nor end haphazardly,’ but be linked by causal necessity or probability; one criterion for the ‘completeness’ of a plot is ‘that the whole plot will be disjointed and disturbed if any one of its parts is displaced or removed’” (Wikipedia, “Mythos”).

So in some cases, you may want to put the gun away and give the plot some extra thought instead. Where is this story going? How will the gun help it get there? Will something else serve it better?

Have fun finding answers. And happy writing.