Writing
In my line of work I'm a proficient programmer. One
problem of writing a large program is making it readable even when the
code is very long. It's a problem called scalability.
I find some similarities between writing a novel and
writing a program. Especially when it comes to internal consistence. If
you write something big, you WILL forget things that you have written
before. You can't keep everything in mind all of the times. And nothing
take the reader out of the immersion like when they notice that the
rules of the universe have changed halfway through the story.
At least that's how it is for me. I can watch even the
wackiest movie and like it, as long as the movie is consistent. But a
plot hole totally break the immersion for me and make me hate the movie.
The way programming get around it is to use conventions
and rules. Good programmers learn to write the same thing always the
same way, including things like indentations and constructs.
An example would be for and while in C/C++. They both
are used to make loops, and all loops can be written using either one of
them. But C programmers are thought to use for if the end of the loop
is known prior entering it, and use while if you don't know when the
loop will end prior entering it. This way if you see at a glance the
type of loop without reading all of the code.
Another things are colors. A good IDE (An editor for
code) will give different colors to different keywords, so that a
programmer can tell at a glance what is happening.
As I said, I find similarities between large programs
and novels, so I decided to use rules and colors in writing my novel. It
help the reader keep up with the story, and help me in always keeping
the story consistent with the rules of the universe.
By no mean I consider this to be the only, or even the
right way to write. It's MY way to write. Writing is a creative task,
and like with coding there might be optimal and suboptimal ways to do
things, but as long as it works, there are no wrong ways.
This is my
personal opinion on the subject, and is how I do things right now. This
is my first novel, and I learn as I go. Feedbacks are always
appreciated.
Colors and Dialogues
When I read works from other authors,
sometime I come across conversations between multiple characters. The
problem is that in those conversations is really hard to understand who
is saying what. My solution is to put the source of the dialogue at the
end of the phrase. I consistently use the same special characters to
identify the various type of dialogues and I use colors to identify the
gender of the source.
Types of dialogues:
"Simple Dialogue" (Source)
[Thought] (Source)
*Sound or Action* (Source)
"Scream" (Source)
[Important thought] (Source)
*Great noise or important action* (Source)
""Many people talking"" (Source)
[[Many people thinking]] (Source)
**Large noise or action from many people** (Source)
Gender of the source:
Neutral
Male
Female
Baby, Old, Mixed or Undefined
POV Switch:
POV1
--------------------------------
POV2
Spreadsheets
I have spreadsheet with info about characters, their
personalities, age, etc... Spreadsheets with the timeline of the world
at different scales, description of the world, rules of the world,
etc... This way when I go forward in the story, I don't have to remember
the details, I just have to look it up. This helps me ensure internal
consistency.
Plot, Snippets, Chapters and Sections
There are several steps when I write a chapter.
First is the plot. I have a large scale plot that describes what's going on and what's going to happen.
Then each chapter has a bullet point plot
that describe what story thread are advanced and how. This is the bullet
point plot for chapter 10.
Liara's Growth
>First day of school
Church Storyline
>Council report
Cataclysm Storyline
>Describe Forbidden City
>Describe Dragon Plaza
>Call upon the dragon
After this I write many small pieces of the story that I
call snippets, a term I borrowed from programming. I write many of
them, usually out of order. Right now I have dozens of snippets. Like
describing a lesson at school, magic battles, magic lessons, stories
from ancient times, court life in kingdoms I have yet to introduce,
etc...
Then I pick snippets that I like that push the storyline
forward the right way, and put them inside the chapter. Usually I
decide for an overall theme for a chapter and stick with that.
The result is the chapters you see. A large title with
several smaller chapters in it I call sections. Each section advance a
particular storyline.
The POV of chapter/sections is a tricky thing to handle.
The story need to be told from the right POV to flow well. Most section
are told from a single POV, sometimes I switch POV inside a section.
Where and When
Since I have spreadsheets, it comes easy for me to write
where and when each snippet take place. If I as author knows this, it's
much harder to mess up consistency. A common consistency error is
having a character in multiple places at the same time. Another is
messing up the time needed to travel, like a carriage arriving after an
old men travelling by foot alone in the woods.
Feedbacks
A problem novels have in common with programs happens
when a developer is closed in his own little world, and develop features
that he thinks important. But aren't. Meanwhile the developer might
ignore a feature that the user actually want. This happens all the time,
and in programming is solved by alpha ad beta testing.
Example:
A developer make a game thinking that users want big
gun models. Too bad users don't care about that, and instead want a
customizable crosshair. Too bad the developer had no idea that was the
case. The users are unhappy and the developer 'wasted' his time.
If you like this story, and think I am doing things
wrong, let me know with reviews or comments. I read them. I write the
way I think is right. Sometimes there may be things I do wrong, and I
have no idea are actually wrong without feedback from you, the readers.