Guest post: “Getting More Out of Your Writing” by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

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Getting More Out of Your Writing

by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

 

Writing is both a craft and an art. There are aspects that cannot be taught; you either have it or you don’t. But plenty of the skills that go into making a good writer can be learned. The general rule of thumb: Writing more leads to writing better.

But what’s the best way to get more writing done? I’ve never been a fan of writing exercises for their own sake. They always strike me as too artificial. Writing is about telling stories. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t practice your craft. But make your practice work for you. You may even get paid for it.

Here are a few ways I’ve turned what could have been a writing exercise into something more:

 

1) Flash Fiction

Do you need to work on dialogue? Do you want to practice your action scenes? Unsure whether first person or third person POV is right for your story? Flash fiction can be the perfect way to improve your writing through experimentation.

I define flash fiction as any story under 1000 words, though there are markets under 500 words, or even 100-word stories.

There are many advantages to working in such a small scale. In flash fiction, every word counts. Practicing flash fiction can teach you to choose the right word in the right situation. Flash fiction is also great for experimentation. I’ve written flash that are only dialogue or that just paint an impressionistic portrait of a single character. In a rough spot on your novel? Write the worst day your main character ever had, and do it in 500 words.

Flash is all about instant gratification. I’ve written five or more drafts of a 100-word story and still finished in a single day. In the midst of a long project, it can be nice to remember that you can finish a story.

 

2) Short Stories

Longer fiction (say, 2,000 to 7,000 words) has many of the advantages of writing flash fiction while providing additional opportunities in practicing your craft. If flash fiction allows you to experiment and to focus on individual narrative elements, short stories are the place to work on structural features of stories such as pacing and combining scenes into successful sequences.

In the 1930s and 40s, writer in the US often got their start writing for the pulp fiction magazines. Today, print-on-demand anthologies and e-anthologies can serve the same function. You can’t get rich writing for them, but you may be able to buy that Rabbit Valley book you have your eye on.

 

3) Blogs, Forums, and Social Media

One of the goals of the Furry Writers’ Guild is to foster professionalism among furry writers. Professionalism is a broad concept, but one of the things it means is this: You should write at a level that people pay you for what you write.

Money and art are not enemies. The days of noble patronage of the arts are long gone. Even if you are never able to support yourself by your writing, being paid for your writing frees you that little bit more to create more. People show what they think is important by what they will pay for. Take your writing seriously enough to expect to be paid for it.

That said, there are times when it’s perfectly fine to write and not be paid. Or at any rate, not in money. In addition to trying to sell your stories, look for opportunities where your writing can create what might be called social capital.

The age in which we live puts the writer in control of their own destiny in a way like never before. Readers want to connect not just with your stories, but with you and your personal story. Blogs, forums, Twitter and other forms of social media enable you as a writer to connect with people around the world.

But it’s not about shoving your work down their throats. It’s all about building friendships. Take the time to write something people can connect with. Write professionally (e.g. without texting abbreviations), because people will judge you based on how you present yourself online. Put yourself out there, even for free, but do it strategically.

Today’s internet is like a bizarre cocktail party taken to several orders of magnitude. Don’t whore yourself out to anyone who comes along. Find a community where you think you can add to the conversation and focus there. Give more than you take, and at worst you may make some friends. At best, you may find a community of people interested in your work.

And yes, this blog is an effort in practicing what I preach.

 

Links I Find Helpful

I want to conclude by giving a few links I’ve personally found helpful in trying to act on the thoughts I’ve outlined here. My own interest is in speculative fiction (fantasy, horror, science fiction), so there is a definite bias in that direction. Not that these are not strictly furry markets, but in my experience, most people in speculative fiction are very open-minded, so long as the story is told well.

 

Flash Fiction

http://www.microbookends.com/ MicroBookends is a weekly micro fiction contest based on a photo prompt. A very cool community surrounds this group.

http://thecultofme.blogspot.com/ This blog sponsors a monthly flash fiction contest with a significant giftcard prize.

http://specklit.com/ One of the highest paying sites for 100 word stories.

http://www.drabblecast.org/ Home for many weird and wonderful things, including drabbles and great short stories.

 

Short Stories

http://www.ralan.com/ In my humble opinion, your best one-stop site for finding markets to sell speculative fiction.

http://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ When Duotrope became a pay site, The Submissions Grinder became the best free search engine for calls for submission.

http://horrortree.com/ The best on-stop site for horror calls. The calendar view is extremely helpful.

http://thewritersarena.com/ Full disclosure — I’m regularly a judge at this weekly one-on-one writing contest. But if you’re up to the challenge of writing a story under 4000 words in one week on an assigned topic, the Arena can be a lot of fun.

 

Blogs, Et Cetera

https://furrywritersguild.com/

http://www.anthroaquatic.com/forum/index.php

https://twitter.com/FurWritersGuild

You probably know all these links already, but the Furry Writers’ Guild is a perfect example of social media done right. Writers helping other writers not because they’re getting paid but because they want to fill the world with more good stories. Learn from what the guild members do well!

 

Member Spotlight: Eduardo Soliz

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1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

​I recently compiled the first three of my Con Fluff collections into a single volume titled Fuzzy Words. The digital version is currently on sale or can be borrowed on Amazon, and I am in the process of having print copies done, which is very exciting!
fuzzy words cover
2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I am a bit of both; nearly every story begins with an outline, but I don’t force myself to stick to it once the words start to flow. I like to say that “stories write themselves” and it has proven to be true on many occasions. I’ve had funny stories turn serious and drabbles that grew into a few thousand words.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

My favorite stories to write are the ones in which I lead the reader down a certain path only to throw them a curve at the end. It’s a tricky thing to do right, though, you don’t want to just pull a ‘deus ex.’

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

My Christmas story for 2013, “Christmas Wishes,” featured a character that was spending Christmas away from his family for the first time. I certainly sympathized to his plight, having spent my first Christmas away from family fairly recently.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

My biggest influence is easily Isaac Asimov. In addition to enjoying his science fiction novels and short stories, I loved the way he would write his own thoughts about how a story or book came to be, the “story behind the story” as it was. I have even gone as far to incorporate that device into my own short story collections.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

As of late, I have been reading books by furry authors to get an idea of what is out there. I found Argo by Rick Griffin to be quite thought-provoking, with some interesting ideas about robots.

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?
eduardo soliz
I enjoy your typical nerd hobbies like video games and comic books, but also like to go out camping and experience the great outdoors every so often. I also record two podcasts, a short slice-of-life podcast called 300 Seconds and a convention discussion one I record with friends named Con Talk.

8. Advice for other writers?

Don’t give up no matter how badly you initially fail. I sold exactly two copies of my first e-book the first year that I put my work up for sale, and sold exactly zero paper books at Furry Fiesta a few years ago. Was I discouraged? Hell yes, I was. Did I stop? Hell, no.

9. Where can readers find your work?

A selection of short stories can be found on my website, eduardosoliz.com. I’m currently trying to upload a new one every month. In addition, the site also contains links to my e-books, blog and podcasts.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The amount of creativity to be found in the fandom is nothing short of incredible. Even if a fur isn’t an artist or a musician or a craftsmaker, or a writer, nearly every furry is a creator, even if all they create is a fursona.

Check out Eduardo Soliz’s member bio here!

Guest post: “Seeing the Road Ahead” by Kyell Gold

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Seeing the Road Ahead

by Kyell Gold

 

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

If you’re only a short way into your writing career and you’re discouraged by how far you have to go, there’s a silver lining: you’re on the right path. Being a writer, or indeed any creative professional, takes people through many stages. Ira Glass has talked about “the gap” that happens when you’ve progressed a little way into your field, far enough to recognize the work of the really good people but not there yourself yet. He talks about the importance of pushing through that gap, and I think anyone starting out in a creative field should watch that video.
 
The above Conan Doyle quotation is one I ran across recently and it struck me as not only another way to look at Ira Glass’s “gap,” but also a way to encourage people who feel stuck there. I think a lot of people starting out in art don’t realize that it takes a certain amount of skill just to be able to evaluate the work of others in your field. When you get to this stage where you’re thinking, “my work will never be as good as these works I admire,” what you may not realize is that you’re already on the way there.

Critiquing is one of the most important skills in writing (and, I think, any art). You have to be able to critique your own work, and the easiest way to develop that skill is to critique the work of others. If you can’t look at a piece and judge its quality, even in a very rough sense, you’re not going to be able to refine your work and make it better; you’re not going to learn from your mistakes and make your next effort even better.

This is hard to do. When you haven’t tried to look at any work objectively, to see what the artist was trying to do and where the flaws are, you see in your own work only the beautiful story that was in your head. When other people look at your work and tell you that your characters are flat or that your dialogue is stiff and unrealistic (or any other critiques), it’s discouraging not (only) because they don’t like it, but because you can’t see those flaws to correct them. It’s like being in that dream where you’re being given a test in a class you can’t remember having taken. In a way, it doesn’t feel fair.

When I read slushpiles for magazines, one of the things that consistently amazed me was how people would send in these terrible submissions, poorly punctuated with grammar and spelling that even most Internet forum posters would cringe at, and they would claim to have read our magazine. I would think, “Seriously? You read our stories and you think this belongs alongside it?” But those people just hadn’t developed the critical faculty yet.

How do you go about this? Discuss writing with other people or read reviews of books from many different sources—friends, professional reviewers, anywhere you can find them. Listen to other people explain critically what’s good and bad about many different pieces of writing and try to understand their views. This is something I still do, because like most things, learning to critique is not something you’re ever done with. Eventually you will develop your own thoughts about what works and doesn’t work, and you will have other beginning writers listening to you.

So if you’re discouraged about the state of your writing (or other art) compared to the people you admire, take heart and keep going. Because you’re on the right path. It’s a long one, but you’re a step closer than you were when you started.

Book of the Month: A Shard of Sun by Jess E. Owen

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April’s Book of the Month, A Shard of Sun, is the latest in the Summer King Chronicles from member Jess E. Owen.

shard cover“Shard is a gryfon entrusted with a great responsibility. A dragon of the Sunland has left her newborn kit to his care, and now Shard has difficult decisions to make about how best to keep the swiftly growing dragonet safe, while remaining true to his own destiny and the prophecy of the Summer King. He sets out to return the dragonet to his kin in the Sunland and find help for his own quest, but his hope for making wise and benevolent allies is quickly replaced with the reality of cold, mistrustful dragons who want nothing to do with gryfons, Shard, or his wars in warmer lands.

In the Silver Isles, the warrior gryfon Caj sets out on a dangerous hunt for his mad wingbrother, Sverin, once the mighty Red King. The safety of the pride, and in the end, Caj’s life, may depend on his success or failure.

Meanwhile, Shard’s wingbrother Kjorn seeks to find him and reconcile, and his quest will take him across the land that was once his birthright and into the heart of tricky alliances, enmities, and the ever-looming threat of the Voiceless, fear-mongering wyrms.

The Song of the Summer King promises that one will rise higher, one will see farther, and his wing beats will part the storm . . . but as Shard learns more of the world and the tangled threads of fate, he begins to fear that no one can part the storm of growing hatred and fear–not even a Summer King.”

 

Suitable for ages 11 to 18 (and up!). Available now for Kindle, print version coming soon.

2014 Cóyotl Awards open for nominations

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It’s that time again — the 2014 Cóyotl Awards are now open for nominations! All FWG members are eligible to make nominations, and they should be submitted through this page:

http://coyotlawards.org/nominate/

(If you have trouble with the website, you can also email your nominations to coyotlawards [at] gmail.com.)

Remember, the nominated works don’t have to be written by FWG members, and self-published works are also eligible (including those self-posted to sites like FurAffinity and SoFurry), as long as they were published in 2014.

Nominations will run through June 1.

If you need a reminder of the furry fiction that was published last year, check out the 2014 Recommended Works thread on the forums:

http://www.anthroaquatic.com/forum/index.php?topic=326.0

And whether you’re a member or not, feel free to add your suggestions to that thread to let our members know what’s worth checking out!

Guild News: April 2015

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New Members

We’ll have new members to report next month, as I’m still waiting on information to be able to add some new members to our directory. In the meantime, if you’re interested in joining (or know someone who is), find out how here!

Member News

Donald Jacob Uitvlugt’s story “From Hell’s Heart” has appeared at NewMyths.com, and  Mary E. Lowd’s story “Songs of Fish and Flowers” is online at Lakeside Circus. Jess E. Owen’s latest novel in the Summer King Chronicles, A Shard of Sun, is now available for Kindle. The stories of Vixyy Fox are being featured on the website of Dog Is My Co-Pilot, Inc, a nonprofit organization that helps find homes for shelter dogs at risk of euthanasia. And Eduardo Soliz has been busy — his Fuzzy Words: The Con Fluff Collection is now available on Amazon, his microfiction “Special Patient” appears on BigWorldNetwork.com, and his story “Epiphany” appeared in the Furry Fiesta 2015 conbook.

Our associate members have been busy, too. Jay was a guest on the Furballd podcast, and Weasel has a short story in the latest edition of Earth is Huge and We’re All On It, as well as three poems in Crazy Concrete.

(Members: Want your news here? Start a thread in our Member News forum!)

Market News

Upcoming deadlines:  Claw the Way to Victory has an extended deadline now of May 1, and submissions to Weasel Press’ Typewriter Emergencies close on May 1. See our Paying Markets page for more info, and get your stories in!

In conbook news, Anthrocon’s conbook closes to submissions on May 1, and Megaplex’s closes on May 22. (See our conbook page for info and links.)

Openings: The furry anthology Fragments of Life’s Heart is now open for submissions (deadline August 15).

Remember to keep an eye on our Calls for Submissions thread and our Publishing and Marketing forum for the latest news and openings!

Guild News

FWG election season has begun, and any members wishing to run for the office of president must announce their intent by the end of April.  Emails will be sent to members as crucial election deadlines approach, but please also keep an eye on the Guild Election subforum for election announcements, debate, and news!

Cóyotl Award nominations will also be opening soon! Watch their website and Twitter feed for updates.

In other award news, thank you to all those who nominated the FWG site in the Best Website category of the Ursa Major Awards. Some of our members’ works also received nominations; you can see the full list of the 2014 nominees on the front page of their website.

Check out Weasel‘s review of our first anthology, Tales From the Guild: Music to Your Ears.

We’re always open for guest blog post submissions! Good exposure and a great way to help out your fellow writers. See our guidelines for full details.

Need a beta reader? Check out our critique board (you’ll need to be registered with the forum in order to view it).

Want to hang out and talk shop with other furry writers? Come join us for the Coffeehouse Chats, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Eastern, Thursdays at 12 p.m. Eastern, and Saturdays at 5 p.m. Eastern (new time!) — all held right in the forum shoutbox. More info here.

Remember, our forums are open to everyone, not just FWG members. Come register and join the conversation!

That’s all for this month! As always, send an email to furwritersguild (at) gmail.com with news, suggestions, and other feedback, or just comment here.

Member Spotlight: Vixyy Fox

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vixyy

(Editor’s Note: When I sent the member spotlight questions to Vixyy, I should have known I’d get an unconventional reply! I’ve published these responses just as I received them; warnings for adult language in the poem.)

Good morning everyone,

I have been asked by the Furry Writers’ Guild if I could put something together concerning my writing and authorship. I am delighted by this request; though I am wont to speak about myself. This, I suppose, has a lot to do with my upbringing which held such a thing as bragging; and no one likes a braggart. Neither did my father like tattoos but that’s neither here nor there, is it? All the same, and fighting back the bad taste in my mouth for doing so, I will attempt to answer some questions about the writer who is Vixyy Fox.

Now that sounded strange to my mind. You should know that I don’t actually think of myself in those terms. When I write I simply exist. Consider it this way; when you look through your eyes you do not perceive your body but only the things around your body and perhaps the parts of your body you might have in the peripheral of what you are viewing. For instance, as I type this I can see my hands. In a more personal revelation; the real life me hardly even glances in the mirror when passing one by. It only reflects an aging person getting on in life and that’s not who I am.

As strange as this explanation feels; when I talk about Vixyy I also understand that we are different people and yet we are the same person. No… I do not have a split personality disorder. Something of this nature is too simple an explanation. Vixyy is my totem (animal spirit guide / guardian angel) and we live together.

In this endeavor I have been given some questions to answer. I will do this but more in an order that seems to have a natural flow to it. This is one of the secrets of writing; everything should flow in a natural progression. You do not start at the end and work your way back only to jump to the middle, then to the beginning and then to the end again like a perverted form of Hop Scotch.

Five writing facts about Vixyy Fox.

  1. I do not touch type.
  2. I would be lost without my spell checker.
  3. I do not pre-plan anything.
  4. The stories flow from my fingers.
  5. I am male writing as a female.

*sighs… (upon viewing the questions posed) The reply for each of these could be a one word answer or pages long in length. I suppose the only way to truly tackle it is head on.

What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I had to look ‘pantser’ up just to be sure of its meaning. I am a Fox after all and Foxes do pant; which was the wrong meaning of course. I love Google and use it constantly for finding such things. I am not a font of knowledge but I do research heavily when I’m on to something. Along these lines I would like to suggest a book to all writers. It’s called ‘Maybe You Should Write A Book’. Ignore the title as it it’s silly but to the point. Also ignore the first half of the tome as it was written by a publisher and summed up as ‘moneymoneymoneymoney’. The second half is absolutely wonderful because he had all these really BIG named authors write a piece on ‘how they write’. You will find that each and every one of them pursues their art form in a different way.

I would be considered a ‘pantster’ – meaning you write by the seat of your pants. This is an aviation expression by the way, something I am very familiar with having worked in the industry for forty years. Flying by the seat of your pants can be considered good or bad depending upon who is using the expression and the results it incurs. ‘Instruments be damned’ you’re flying (writing) strictly on visual and gut instinct with any preconceived outline/flight plan thrown out the window.

I plan nothing. This is not an ego ‘thing’. I have tried outlining (at least in my mind) and it just does not work for me. This is one of the reasons I so love the Thursday Prompt. The prompt gives me a direction in which to fly and off I go. What I will tell you now I do not expect everyone to believe, nor do I expect you to attempt emulation. You will not be able to do this unless it is inside of you already. Sometimes I go so far into the story I connect with something and find I know things of a time and era that I have no business knowing.

First an explanation, and then an example. (Just so you know; the word ‘I’ bothers me.)

When I write I go into the story and watch it like a movie and then simply record what I see. I have always been a chronic daydreamer (something that got me into a lot of trouble in school) and I see my writing as an extension of this. The few times I went into a story with a preconceived notion of how things would go, the characters just chuckled and did as they wished leaving me to stay behind or tag along.

My characters come to life within the words.

They are real to me and become dear friends. I have cried real tears when some have died during the course of a story. I have also laughed with them over some small thing, been concerned when things were not going well and, indeed, felt more than a bit naughty watching their sexual play.

This, I feel, is reflective of life and the fact that the words are living. The thought rather gives new light to the idea written in the Bible that God spoke things into existence, doesn’t it?

Continue reading “Member Spotlight: Vixyy Fox” →

Guest post: “On Tropes and Training Wheels” by Kandrel

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On Tropes and Training Wheels

by Kandrel

 

As happens fairly regularly on Twitter (and other social media outlets) I was asked for an opinion. I’m not sure why people are interested in my rambling, but whatever. I like talking, and apparently there are people who like listening. Who am I to complain? In this particular instance, I was asked to provide a list of ‘tropes’ I was aware of in furry literature. ‘Sure!’ I thought. ‘No trouble! Let’s see there’s… Well, and there’s… Um…’The perceptive reader might notice that of course I didn’t have trouble thinking of tropes. No, that was easy. The tough part was thinking of tropes that I haven’t used—or that I even continue to use on a regular basis. Obviously, I couldn’t give them as examples, because then some troll would post examples of me using them and call me a hypocrite. Talk about embarrassing! But I was asked for my opinion, so my opinion I would—by damn—give! So there must be tropes that I don’t use, but that are pretty prominent in furry fiction. It might be a shorter list, but I could definitely provide that.But thinking on it, even those ones that I didn’t use, I could recognize them out of my favorite works as well. The only reason I hadn’t used them is that the opportunity hadn’t arisen yet. It would. If I continued to tell stories (and I can’t see any particular reason why I would stop) I would eventually use them. So what, exactly, are we mocking here?

So I had a sit and a think. Had a hot chocolate. Listened to some music. I let myself cogitate. What exactly was it we were condemning here? Let me make it clear—this was a condemnation. People don’t collect tropes because they think they’re awesome. This isn’t a reader’s group talking about their favorite author’s techniques and tricks. When you hear the word ‘trope’, I’ll bet you that it’s meant derogatively.

Should it be? I mean, I know that I’ve called authors out on it while editing. Multiple times. Hell, I’ve had people rewrite entire sections of story to avoid tropes. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what a proper beta reader and editor would do, right? Right?

Well…

First, I want to have you think about the life-cycle of a storyteller. In the beginning, we’re all imitating the stories we like. Thinking about it now, this is where ‘tropes’ are most important—not because of what we should avoid, but because of what we should use. I mean it. An inexperienced storyteller can use the tropes to hone their art while making passable pieces of fiction. Think of them as training wheels. So here’s one I’m sure you’re all familiar with: “Story opens with furry looking at themselves in a mirror.” You’ll hear experienced authors moan about this. Ugh. Overused. Overplayed. Cheap excuse for an infodump-y description. Well, want to know why it’s a trope? It’s because it works. It’s hard to find a reason for the character to be giving a description of themselves, and even if it’s a trope, at least it’s giving those newbie storytellers a reason to actually do a description.

But just as we’re starting to get more comfortable with the process of writing, we age and we learn and we progress. During the next phase of a storyteller’s life, we’ll slowly recognize those training wheels for what they are. Over the next while, we start to remove them. We become aware of the tropes, and once aware, avoid them. We hunt for ways to fit things into our stories in new and novel ways. Using the example above, instead of a mirror, we look for ways to fit in small titbits of the description into the narrative so the person experiencing the story slowly gets a whole image of the character in their mind. This is more elegant. But remember that trope we’re now avoiding? It trained us. It had us writing descriptions even before we were ‘ready’ to. We’ve described a hundred characters. Sure, we had a bad excuse for doing it, but at least we can write a description. We know what’s important to describe, and we know how to do it with style. And now that we’re learning to do it in an elegant fashion, we’re well prepared. Would we be if it hadn’t been for the training wheels?

This is the phase of a storyteller’s life where you see the most complaints about the tropes. Authors like me who’ve recognized the training wheels for what they are look back at their own stories that used them and shudder. They read other people’s stories, and those tropes immediately pull them out of the story. They edit with a scalpel to excise those tropes from everything they see and read. It’s as if we’re over sensitized to them, because we see how we used to rely on them.

And we look down on the people who still use them, even though we shouldn’t. We’re the too-cool-for-school kids with their eighteen-speed bikes, looking back at the young kids with their training wheels. We’re pointing and laughing from our comfortable older age and greater experience. And the younger or more inexperienced storytellers feel ashamed, because every time they try to remove a trope, they end up falling. Their story gets away from them, or they never find a way to describe the main character, or they end up falling onto a different trope they didn’t even know was a trope until another one of us upperclassmen laugh and point again.

There is a last phase of this life cycle, though. At the end, those of us who’ve spent enough time picking on the little kids finally grow up enough to look back at those training wheels we used to use. We pick them up and roll them over in our hands. They weren’t really bad. They were perfectly functional, we just used them badly. We take a second look and realize there’s actually something beautiful and elegant about them, if we use them just right. We go back to those tropes, and we play with them. We use them to set expectations, then break them. We hide them in our work as jokes, waiting for someone to realize they were just “trope’d” and never knew it. We brazenly base our stories off a well-known trope, but write them in such a way that it feels novel and fresh.

The best part of this story is that it’s a circle. When I write a story that uses one of those tropes in an elegant fashion, new storytellers read my story. ‘Hey, that worked’ they tell themselves. ‘It’s an easy trick! I could do that!’ Then they’ll try to emulate it. They’ll see the training wheels I’ve artfully used, and bolt them inexpertly onto their own story. It’ll work—if only just. It’ll give them an excuse to keep writing. It’ll give them a safe opportunity to learn. It keeps them from falling down.

We know the training wheels are stupid-looking and juvenile. But we’re authors. We’re thinkers and storytellers. We’re the imagineers. Remember that with just the right amount of imagination, a bicycle with two extra wheels could just as easily be called a car.

 

This post first appeared on Kandrel’s blog. You can view the original post here.

Member Spotlight: Franklin Leo

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1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

​My most recent project is an unpublished short-story about a hare and a weasel fighting against time to survive a utopian society. It’s a dark touch on science fiction involving time travel and manipulation, which I have never gotten the chance to write about before, so I was very excited to get a shot at it and finish up the rough draft. It started off with a line that I couldn’t get out of my head, and when I got the chance between work and classes, I had to write it down. I don’t know what I would have ended up with had I not written that sentence down and returned to it during the drafting phase.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I believe that I am a “pantser,” for I enjoy letting the characters I come up with take me along, show me interesting things, and eventually tell me how they corrupt, save, or destroy themselves without me controlling them. If I’m lucky, I’ll have an idea to go into, as my most recent piece has shown. If I’m unlucky, I start with a character in a situation and ask myself, “What is it that this character wants?” A lot of my fiction drives me with this, and I don’t feel accomplished if I don’t find myself ending with an answer for that character’s request. It takes a good character to do what it takes to get what they want, and I’m simply there to write about how they do it.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

My favorite kind of story is one that tests a character’s morality and what he or she believes is necessary to live.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

I identify most with Dillon from one of my first stories, “Best of the Best,” published in Heat #10. He’s a guy who carries a lot on his shoulders and understands how important everything can ultimately be. His anxiety of the unknown is something that really sits with me, and I often find myself working through the same concerns he may have within his own life.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Stephen King, Robert Aspirin, and Tui T. Sutherland all in some way influence my interest in horror, fantasy, the paranormal, and characters not typically seen in protagonist roles, such as dragons or shape shifters. They have shown me that everyone—however odd, weird or different—has some sort of story to tell.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

The latest book that I read and couldn’t put down was Sutherland’s Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night. As part of a series made primarily for children, the book is simple in its structure, but the conflicts, questions, and dragon characters within all have as much validity as any other novel out there in the market, and I found myself rooting for these characters by the second chapter. Also, who doesn’t love dragons?

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I spend most of my free time tutoring undergraduate students in writing or instructing part time alongside professors in the classroom. When not working, I’m usually replaying Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us or researching and reading.

8. Advice for other writers?

Start off at your level—admit where you’re at—and just write what you love until you can’t write anymore. Then, read what you love until you can’t read anymore, and when you’re finished, do the process over until you are ready to revise and love what you do. This is how we ultimately grow, yet so many young writers get stuck in that “I’m not good enough” phase. We need to get over our skill levels in order to simply write.

9. Where can readers find your work?

My work can be found in Heat #10 or in various convention guidebooks across North America. I’m also found chatting and discussing my progress on my twitter, @Fictionfelid, where I share upcoming projects and announce any publications available. I hope to have two stories out in a couple of anthologies by the end of this year.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The furry fandom is a place where artists and fans can grow together. No matter what one is into, there’s a place for that in the fandom, and fans continually push artists to do the next big thing while artists do much the same with each other. Without the fandom, I would not be writing what I love today and speaking about it with my students, tutees, and friends.

Check out Franklin Leo’s member bio here!

Guest post: “5 Tips for Writing Animals” by Jess E. Owen

~ furrywritersguild ~ 1 Comment

5 Tips for Writing Animals

by Jess E. Owen

 

I’ll expand that and say, 5 Tips for Writing Animals that Also Help With Writing Fantasy.

After reading some fiction by younger, (or) just newer, fresh and exciting authors, I see some trends. I read around on DeviantArt, Fur Affinity, blogs, new novels, unpublished work and more, and these are some things to keep in mind when writing that may stop a prospective publisher, editor or agent in their tracks. (That was a cliche, see what I did there?)

Keep in mind these are second draft changes. Don’t make your head explode (or worse, stop writing) while you get out a first draft, but once you have a first draft, comb through for things like this.

 

1. Don’t use Human words to describe Animal things.

(In writing fantasy, this translates to: don’t use modern words to describe fantastic things). Example: She ran/flew/leaped as fast as a bullet.  First: Are there bullets in your world? If not, cut it. When writing first drafts, we reach for the easiest metaphors, but they might not fit. If there are bullets in your world, is an animal likely to think of herself in those terms? Probably not. Think of other fast things. What do other animals consider fast? Don’t reach immediately for “cheetah” or “falcon” unless your character is familiar with them. Keep descriptions relative to your character’s experience and things that actually exist in that world. In their world.

“…swifter than the east wind, she soared along the crest of the mountain.”

 
2. Be consistent with names.

Study Erin Hunter and Kathryn Lasky and Clare Bell, the original (and PUBLISHED) animal authors. Their names make sense within the world of the animal. You don’t have to name your animal characters after characteristics (Redfur, Shorttail, Broadwing) although this is fun and you can. If you have a culture (and you should), make sure there is a cultural theme. This is true for fantasy as well. If you’ve taken time to create a culture (and you should), stick to names that are in the same culture too. Don’t have an “Krystalis Moonwater” in the same world as “Chris Jones,” unless one of them is from another dimension. Name inconsistencies like that will stop me from reading. We all have names we love (a personal favorite is “Ian”), but alas, if they don’t fit in the world, they don’t get a place in that story.

 

3. Think about what’s important to the animal.

…and have them notice those things. Little tics that we have as humans aren’t important to animals. They don’t think, “What time is it?” They think, in their own way, “I can’t see after dark. I should hunt now while it’s light.” The gryfons and wolves in my stories are very “human” in their needs and wants, but at the end of the day they’re animals with instincts and urges and limitations set by nature. Do they eat meat, or fruit? Are they more likely to listen for predators, or listen for prey? What do they care for in colors, scents, movement?

 

4. Body language.

Figure out (or research) what different movements mean to your animals. Are you writing a bird culture? A feline culture, or wolf culture? Horses? Something new? I took from both feline and raptor body movements to create gryfon body language that makes sense, and in some cases I made things up. “Mantling” is something eagles and hawks to do protect a kill. It’s also a beautiful gesture and wing display, and so when gryfons bow to a superior in my world, they mantle their wings to show respect. Think about body language and work it in. It’s even more important to feral animals than humans, although 85% of our communication is also non-verbal.

 

5. Animals are people too.

By that I mean of course, if you’re writing animals, you’re really writing people — they must have wants, needs, goals, challenges and setbacks just like any other story. Let us enjoy the animal super powers that we don’t have as humans — flight, super sight, smell and hearing — but when that’s stripped away, make sure you give us an engaging story and a sympathetic hero to root for.

 

Secret tip number 6…. don’t be a slave to reality. There are things that wolves do in my book that real wolves would not do. (Pack size, for instance). Gryfons don’t exist in our world and so there are no rules for them, but they fall somewhere between a lion pride (living in groups), and an eagle culture (a pair mating for life).

Always be respectful of the animals and if you can slip in a fun factual tidbit á la Kathryn Lasky, go for it!  Just remember that we aren’t writing behavioral manuals: we’re writing stories.

Want to see how I handled animal writing + fantasy? Get Song of the Summer King today! ;)

 

 

This post originally appeared on Jess E. Owen’s blog. You can view the original post here. For more about Jess E. Owen and her work, check out her website!