Thirty-Fifth (Snippet)

The dark silence of the exam room was punctured only by a thin line of blue light from underneath the door and the sound of Jason's slow and measured breathing.  He sat on the exam table with his hands in his lap, his head bent with the wear of a thirty-four-hour shift at Greyson Memorial.  The clock hanging high on the wall pointed at six o'clock, but Jason couldn't for the life of him tell whether the time were coming or going.

The long hand swung round to twelve, cuing the buzz in his pocket like a captain signaling a cavalry charge.  Without the strength left to sigh, Jason pulled the pager free of his scrubs and eyed the message scrolling across the display.  I.A. victim, severe bleeding, ETA 2 min.  Another industrial accident.  Third one today.  Or was it yesterday?  Hardly mattered now.  With effort, he slid from the cold table to the tile floor and exited the room, letting the light and sound of the bustling emergency ward rush in upon him like a tidal wave.

The haze of his sequestered state left him immune to the urgency dashing by in the chaos of the open hallway.  Walking with cool precision to the double-doors to the ambulance lot, he stopped just long enough to grab a gurney and a few extra pieces of equipment to help replenish what the EMTs were likely to have exhausted in transit.  No sooner did he reach the doors but he saw the flashing lights round the turn and come rushing up to the doors.

He felt his legs spring into action beneath him, his arms signaling to another orderly without even looking at the man as he pushed open the doors and drove the gurney outside to meet the ambulance crew.  The back doors to the vehicle swung open at once and he could see the body lying on the stretcher, writhing about in pain.  The face and throat were marred beyond recognition.  It looked more like a slab of overcooked meat than a person.  Wide leather straps held the victim's wrists in place so as to minimize the damage he could do to himself.  Given the violence of the man's thrashing, Jason found himself disinclined to remove them before it became absolutely necessary.

The EMTs, covered in the evidence of arterial spray, hauled out the gurney and helped with the hand-off as Jason and his fellow orderlies rushed the body inside.  As the double-doors swung shut behind him, Jason could swear he heard the two EMTs discussing the man's injuries.  There was a surprise in their voices that seemed amiss.  Few EMTs were surprised by anything anymore.  Those that were were still new enough that they'd likely be found puking on the sidewalk, not sharing a calm discourse about the chewed up body still thrashing in its bindings.

They rushed the body into the trauma ward and began the business of hooking up the fluids and monitors they hoped might bring the man back from the brink of nothingness.  Jason, the largest of the orderlies, held the patient at the shoulders to pin him firmly to the gurney while the others worked to get a needle in his bloodied arm.  His skin felt especially soft in Jason's grip, sliding about all too easily with any shift in pressure.  He dulled his senses against the implications, listening intently for the signal from his colleagues for him to let go.

"B.P. eighty-five and falling," one orderly called.  "Get me another IV!"

The measured tone reminded Jason that he wasn't the only orderly working a triple shift tonight.  They had all let go the effort of being affected in order to better serve the hospital in crisis.  To care meant to stop caring.  There was no energy left in them for it.  As the second IV began to drip, Jason felt the man in his grip slow his efforts to get free.  The sedative, he knew, would not work that fast.  The man had lost too much blood to keep fighting.  From the way his neck was torn, it was no surprise.

As he settled, Jason could at last get a look at the man in the light of his new surroundings.  Despite the stains across the patient's shirt and pants, the only injury seemed to be at his neck and upper chest.  Whatever machine had malfunctioned, its errant flailing had been surprisingly precise.  As his eyes returned to the man's face still contorted in pain, Jason found himself preferring the previous incident, wherein so little had been recovered there had hardly been a person there at all.

The monitor's steady beep continued to wane, stretching its cadence out into a worrisome dirge.  The orderlies all watched it closely, still jointly looming over the body and holding the IV bags aloft, fixed like figures in a diorama as the beat continued to fall.  Each prayed in his own way that the descent would slow, perhaps even cease, in validation of their efforts.  They prayed too that, if it did not, it would instead hurry onward to hopelessness with all speed and not leave them in this fearful in-between.

The pace of the monitor began to level, diminishing at a much reduced rate.  Too familiar with the dangers of hope to chance becoming optimistic too early, the orderlies remained in their frozen state, unwilling to breath for fear of tipping the proverbial scales.  They hung in time with the monitor as it hesitated, but their relief was short-lived.

The body on the table began to convulse violently.  All attention left the monitor at once and became focused in the duty of helping Jason hold the man still so he didn't further injure himself.  When the body stopped its thrashing, the ensuing adrenaline drowned out at first the pervasive noise filling the room.  The monitor's rhythm had become a single, long note, stretched on into endlessness.  The orderlies exchanged glances and then returned their eyes to the body.  Lacking the strength to sigh, one of the orderlies reached up and switched off the monitor.  They left Jason to the duty of ferrying the body to the morgue.

There was little need to hurry now.  Jason took his time removing the needles and sensors from the unmoving corpse.  He undid the leather straps on the man's wrists, seeing little need for them now.  With one last glance at the twisted face staring in horror at the lights buzzing quietly overhead, Jason pulled the gurney down the hall to the elevator and pressed the button for the bottom floor.  As the doors shut, the light and sound of the busy emergency ward vanished once more, leaving him in the peaceful solace of the elevator, accompanied only by the silent corpse at his side.

The floor seemed to sink away as the elevator started its slow journey down to the morgue.  Its first lurching motion left Jason resting gently against the mirrored pane halfway up the wall.  He didn't resist the welcome shift in momentum, instead reaching into his pocket to pull out a small paper carton, wrinkled from overuse.  With two fingers, he reached inside and pulled out the same cigarette he had held the day before.  Resting it in his lips, he closed his eyes and rolled his head back, breathing in through the filter and imagining the taste of the rich tobacco smoke filling his senses.

The elevator dinged the next floor on their way down.  Jason leaned a hand on the gurney to take the weight off his legs, breathing deep the quiet stillness of his new sanctuary.  Another six hours and he could go home.  Another three years and he would graduate, and then it was on to residency.  His whole life had begun to feel like a 40-hour shift, where time stretches on the closer you get to the end.  There was little point in stopping now:  it was too late to regain the hours lost waiting for the pager to sound.  All the remained was to keep moving forward until, at last, his efforts would be rewarded.

A strange sensation at his wrist pulled Jason out of his dream-like state.  He opened his eyes and looked down, expecting to see his hand slipped from its grip and leaning against the side of the gurney.  What greeted his eyes instead was the hand of the dead man lying beside him, gripped firmly around his wrist and pulling itself up from the stretcher.  Jason stared without words, unable to tell if what he was seeing could be real.  He could only watch, dumbstruck, as the corpse pulled its mangled head from its resting place and opened its twisted mouth.  The sound the followed came not from the dead man's lips, but from the hollow space where his throat used to be.  It came as a fragile whisper, but Jason heard the words as clearly as if they'd been written on the walls.

"They are coming..."

The bell of the elevator rang again, and the doors opened on the empty morgue.

Author's note:  I apologize to anyone in the medical profession, I ran short on time for proper research tonight.  Suggestions and corrections welcome :)  Also, I really hope I don't give any of you nightmares on long shifts...

The Ember Woods (Snippet)

"I don't get it," said the duck, kicking a pebble as he walked.  "There's no reason for them to treat us this way."

"I guess not," said the bear, shuffling along beside him.  Lake Wanaloupe wasn't much further down the path.  Not wanting to leave his friend in dour spirits, the bear spoke up again.  "Maybe they don't understand why it is we're upset," he offered, hoping to salve the wound his friend was still nursing.  The duck had always been a particularly sensitive sort.  It didn't take much to ruffle his feathers.

"Then they're not paying attention," the duck muttered, pulling one wing forward and preening his underfeathers without breaking stride.  "We've done all we can to show them, and has it stopped them?  Not in the slightest!"  Both wings went up to emphasize his objection.  "I just don't get it, friend.  How could anybody be so stupid?"

"It's not so bad..." the bear mused, trumping along at as slow a pace as he could manage and still be moving forward.  "It's probably all just a big misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding?!"  The duck stopped cold, both feet planted firmly on the spot.  The bear took another half-step, pausing with one paw still raised and sighing to himself.  "Misunderstanding?" the duck repeated with special emphasis.  "There's no misunderstanding!  They act like we don't matter, like what we say isn't real!  What's to understand?"

"I think," said the bear, bringing his head around slow to peer at the fuming waterfoul, "that they don't understand what we're trying to say."

The ducks wings went skyward again.  "Of course they don't!" he shouted, ignoring the pained look on his friend's face.  "They don't listen to us!"  The wings swung round to point up the path behind them.  "You saw how they looked at me!  Like I was nuts or something.  And they barely even looked at you at all!"

The bear returned his eyes to the path, starting to shuffle onward again.  The duck fell silent, still standing in the path with his wings outstretched.  Letting his plumage settle, he hurried to waddle up alongside the bear once more.  "I'm sorry," he said, his tone at once calmer than it had been.  He placed one wing on his friend's flank.  "I didn't mean--"

"I know, friend," said the bear, not bothering to turn his head. 

The duck muttered under his breath, tossing a glance back along the path the way they'd come.  The faintest sound of the revelers could still be heard from deep within the thicket far behind them.  The sound of it started to stoke the mallard's distaste, but the sensation swiftly settled on sadness instead.  Hanging his head, he consented to trudge in silence beside the bear as they rounded the last bend and the lake came into view.

The bear stopped, rolling onto his haunches and sitting with a 'thump' as he gazed out across the water.  The duck patted him gently at the shoulder, walking forward to the edge of the lake.  The light ripple of the water splashed quietly against the lip of the shore under his feet.  The dark, murky water was a welcome relief from what it reflected:  the sky still burned, smoldering with orange fire like some great writhing snake high above them. 

The duck sighed, slipping from the shore and coasting out onto the surface of the water, kicking once to turn himself about.  Back on the path, the bear sat staring at the sky.  His large shoulders drooped, and the duck could see the last grains of hope leaving his friend for good.  "Come on," he called, waving a wing to signal his friend, but the bear did not move.  "Don't be like that," the duck chided.  "It'll be fine.  We'll be safer out on the water.  Come on."

The bear only sat and stared.  Muttering to himself, the duck paddled back to the shore and began drawing himself out of the water.  Just as his first food was clawing out of the lake, the bear spoke up, his eyes still fixed on the rolling clouds of embers.  "I think..." he started to say, his voice trailing off as quickly as it had emerged.  The duck froze, unsure what made him pause.  Something in the bear's voice was amiss.  "I think," his friend began again, lowering his muzzle to see eye-to-eye with the duck, "I like it here."

The duck could only stare at his friend, whose eyes now glinted with the same rolling orange pattern as the skies above.  Still stuck in the act of pulling himself free of the lake, the duck sighed and lowered himself back into the water, kicking off from the shore.  He coasted in reverse, his eyes lingering on his friend sitting near the shoreline, so close to freedom. 

As the first hint of a current picked up underneath him, the duck kicked once to better line himself up with the parting stream.  He cast one last glance over his shoulder at the bear, gave a long, sad sigh in parting and consented to the current to carry him away from these tormented lands forever.

* * *

Author's Note:  This is something I wrote ad hoc.  It started nice and peaceful and then went suddenly dark.  I have no idea what the burning sky is about or how it captivates the denizens of the Ember Woods, but the whole thing felt very natural as it was being written.  I plan to do a few more on a similar vein (similar tone, different settings, different styles) and see if any of them take root.  If any of them pique your interest, make your comments known :)

Positive Reinforcement

The subject of a reward system has come up before, and it's such a tailored subject, unique to each writer (or general craftsman), that a simple list of suggestions would do little more than establish a base for personal extrapolation at the risk of boxing in the imaginations of others.

That said, it is my birthday, and so I am rewarding myself by being lazy :)

For those already a week into NaNoWriMo, I wish you the best.  As of this minute, you should be about 7295 words in.  Now stop wasting time reading blog posts and get back to it.

I myself am exactly 4284 words behind, a deficit I plan to make up during my errand-free day tomorrow.  I'm not aiming for a true NaNo, as I started my 50,000 word aim in September.  Having crested 50,000 by the seat of my proverbial pants in 2008, I made a pact not to attempt the feat again until I had fully recovered.

In truth, NaNo is not nearly so difficult as it sounds.  Much like losing twenty pounds, the difficult lies purely in the doing:  the simple sacrifice of that which you love (or would rather do) for the self-made promise to complete what you began.  It may seem easy at the start (or shortly after you start).  Too easy, really:  you will find yourself lazing, confident in your ability to "make up the difference" at an undisclosed time hence.  And then somewhere towards the ides, you realize that the turtle is winning.

The trick to NaNo is honestly the same trick that a select few learned early enough to excel in school at a young age:  if you just do the homework, first, early, before launching into the things you love, it will be done and out of the way and leave you in peace.

If you have to write 1,667 words in a day and you work a nine-to-five, make a point to sit down right after dinner and start writing.  Before CSI, before the House marathon, before football or the Food network, before you lose an hour playing with the cats or reading Twitter or reorganizing your photo collection, WRITE.

You don't have to pen all 1700 words in one go.  Knock out a page and give yourself a break (15-30 minutes only, not long enough to get caught up in a show that may leave you wondering if Tony really is a spy for the Russians but-wait-there's-another-episode-coming...).

Jogging is an overused metaphor, but it honestly fits, if not in the way some of its users might have intended.  For the average non-athletic person, jogging goes about like this:  big run, walk and pant, little jog, more panting, speed walk, hands-on-hips lazy walk, collapse, pant some more.  Writing often follows the same pattern:  if you get that first sentence out, things start to flow.  The stored energy of an unimaginative day explodes onto the page, and before you know it, 400-600 words appear as though sprung from the head of Zeus.

Then the panting starts.  You hit a word you don't know, you stick on a piece of dialog, you go to research something about your setting and lose half an hour chaining Wikipedia references, etc.  You will slow down.  Now writing becomes arduous.  It would be very easy to just sit down on the sidewalk and catch your breath.  There's nothing wrong with that, right?

But what applies to running applies to writing:  if you take a break to catch your breath, if you don't keep your feet or your fingers moving, if you stop, it becomes damn difficult to start up again.  Those 400+ words you're so proud of will look like a shameful sample by the end of the night.  So keep your feet moving.

It doesn't matter if it takes you half an hour to pen the next sentence.  Get the sentence out there.  Slug through.  Use placeholders if absolutely necessary (just make them easily searchable later).  To wit:

{WORDS GO HERE}

will sometimes be enough to launch you to the next scene, where you can keep writing.  Something in that scene may well jar the parts of your brain dedicated to filling in the missing piece into action.  This can be especially true for turning points, mystery clues or tricky moments of dialog.  If what has your brain stuck is the crux of the scene, mark it, set it aside, and let the pieces around it point back at where they came from.

So long as you keep momentum, it doesn't matter if you've slowed to a crawl.  Keep crawling.  As embarrassing and disheartening as crawling is, it moves you forward.  Crawling can surprise you:  sometimes the 200 words you slug out in an hour can be the toughest part of the entire night's work.  After that, everything else feels like a breeze.

Speaking of breezes:  you will get your second wind.  Until you're sincerely exhausted (and believe me, you'll know), keep moving forward until you find that next slick patch of earth that zips you ahead.  Those sudden shifts, where gravity takes hold and you go for a ride without even realizing it's begun, will often add another 200-300 words a lot faster than you might expect.  Add that to your first big push and the short stretch you slugged your way through, and you'll be most of the way done with the night's writing.

Often times, the first second wind is all you need to wrap up a NaNoWriMo night.  It can take on a life of its own, pulling you forward without your noticing as you work desperately to commit to paper (or pixels) the thoughts now screaming across your brain.

Other times, the second wind is more like the little half-hearted jog in the middle of a run:  you're still exhausted, still panting, but too embarrassed, stubborn or impatient to crawl all the way home.  You force yourself to bounce a little, hoping the mere motion of it will somehow translate to forward speed.  It feels like work.  It feels like torture.  It is also necessary.

At times the best emotion you can foster when trying to slug through your remaining wordcount for the night is anger.  Imagine it's the last mean little hill standing between you and home, where epsom salts and a footrub await.  Get pissed at this hill.  Promise it new heights of pain.  Swear an oath against its children.  Assert your dominance with each heavy footfall.  Let the hate flow through you.  Attack the hill with singleminded resolve.

Now, this practice may seem contrary to some scenes:  if you're writing a sweet, romantic balcony scene, the raw passion that comes with anger could lead to a rushed and tumultuous night for your main characters (not that they'd mind, I'm sure).  You can tone it down in the editing.

Or don't.  If you're passion comes through into your work, why fight it?  The recklessness that comes with genuine you-will-not-stop-me-you-stupid-hill emotions can lead to some remarkably unscripted, notable human entanglements in your narrative.  Clean up the in-between bits later, but let the sparks shine through.

Lastly, understand that this technique means being a little angry and a little worn down every night for a month.  If you haven't already alerted your friends, family, cats and significant other that you are writing a novel in 30 days or less, now is a good time to stop and write up an email to forewarn them that you will be unavailable or unpleasant to be around for a month.  If you're dating a coder, relax, he or she already understands exactly how you feel.

You're going to lose about two hours a night.   Accept this as truth.  You lose as much watching a movie.  The difference is you're writing this one.  You're creating it.  And when it's all said and done, you'll be most of the way to a publishable piece of print that most people spend decades promising themselves to "get around to."  So fish out the sweat bands, get to running, and show that hill who's boss.

(Fun fact:  This post?  1355 words.  312 short.  Took about an hour.  Now get back to writing!)

Art and Entertainment - On Purpose in Literature

There's been a debate in the writing community (and every other artistic medium) for decades about the purpose of the craft, with stalwart vanguards on either side.  The thickest line seems to form between those who right for the sake of entertainment, and those who stand on the notion that to write is to add something beautiful to the world.  On the surface, nothing says the two can't coexist, but drop the question on any grad-level English class and watch the pencils start to fly.  So why is this such a huge issue? 

A lot of it comes back to Joyce.  More on that in a moment...

The artistic outlook on writing espouses the belief that a written work must contain a given level of beauty to be genuinely considered "writing."  Any idiot can put words on a page and make people laugh or cry with the right cues.  The need for subtle presentation has long since vanished from our society (see: Jackass the Movie).

A true artist strives for a higher plane of understanding, a beauty that is both subtle and mysterious; one that reflects back on us the truth of our condition through a galvanized everyman.  Who cares if every man can't actually get what it is we're trying to say?  Artists are meant to be misunderstood.  That's the only way we can get anybody to listen. 

The entertainment perspective believes instead in romance and explosions.  People love to cheer for a rising star and a tenacious underdog.  They want accessible, page-turning action and witty dialogue that drives the reader forward like an addict fumbling for their fix.

So, give the people what they want.  Who cares if the plot is thinner than the paper it's printed on?  People laugh, they cry, they experience a vicarious world much more interesting than their own and get a minute reprieve from the dull or depressing world around them.  If you can elevate someone to be a hero in their mind, what greater purpose is there?

It all comes down to why we write.  If you want to change the world, do you start from the bottom, or the top?  The artistic approach starts from the top:  hit the thinkers where they live.  Light under them a fire of new ideas that will drive them to leave their ivory towers and spread the wealth of understanding unto a world divided.

The entertainment approach starts from the bottom up:  instead of writing about the everyman, write for the everyman.  If you can wrap the ideas of freedom, love and courage in a familiar, attainable package, it emboldens the reader to strive for the same feelings long after they put the book down.  Riots start on the ground level, not high in the sky.  If you want to see change, light a fire in the hearts of the working man.

But not everything boils down to class.  Artists aren't all elitists and entertainers aren't all so nobly minded.  At times, it's a simple matter of skill.  Entertainment, from a writing perspective, is an attainable goal.   It's easier to write something fun and interesting, with enough action and dialogue to stretch the page count, than to pack a single new and original idea into something that people still want to pick up and read.

A true entertainer, however, finds a way to pack more than pure emotion into a work.  Stringing those trigger reactions together grants you the power to generate and direct momentum.  You just have to have in mind where exactly it is you want your reader to go.

Unfortunately, artists and their ilk suffer a similar pitfall:  it is easy to seem artistic.  This is where Joyce comes in.  Art for art's sake makes you a narcissist.  Art for the sake of inspiring emotion or inciting change is where it begins to earn its lofty perch.  If you abandon a genuine story about human struggle because you don't feel it's "artistic" enough, chances are you're on the wrong side of that divide.

We've all heard the critiques about modern art in the areas of painting and graphic design.  Just because you feel you put truth and meaning into your work doesn't mean it couldn't have been as easily crafted by a three-year-old.  The idea is important, but you have to know how to present it before it can really take hold.  That is the true tradecraft of an artistic writer:  making the truth subtle enough to be shocking while still vivid enough to be found.

The two notions are by no means exclusive of each other.  Art can be entertaining and still enriching (see District 9, V for Vendetta, anything Jodi Piccoult has ever touched).  Yes, it is difficult:  when you work to make people think, they begin to deviate from being mindlessly entertained.  You have to find a way to make them think while the explosions are going off around them.  That said, what is not easy should never be labeled impossible.  You just have to bear in mind the balance between the two.

If you're worried your work is all fluff and no punch, run it through the action movie test:

1. Is your hero's only likable characteristic his pithy, pun-laden taglines?  Are his flaws actually detrimental to them in any way other than a single contrite scene at the climax?  James Bond and Superman sell books, movies and comics by the truckload, but we're talking about a carefree, lecherous assassin and the Übermensch.  Are you prepared to defend a hero like that?
2. Is your romantic lead's only meaning in life dependent entirely on the hero finding and/or rescuing him? (Yes, the pronouns are on purpose.  Deal with it)  If so, I have some reading I might suggest...
3. Do you spend more time describing the physical features (and outfits) of your characters than their actual thoughts and motivations?  Not only are descriptions laborious, they distract from the valued characteristics.  You're not going to get a Megan Fox in text format.  What's interesting is that you can, you just have to focus your attention on qualities other than her curves. 
4. Is there more than one explosion, chase scene or fight per 10 pages of content?  Is there more than one sex scene, awkward encounter or epic kiss per 10 pages of content?  Now combine the criteria and check again.  ...Still good?
5. Get to the end, then look back over the work.  Evaluate the messages you may be sending accidentally:  violence solves problems, women are best when silent, dreams do come true if you just sit on your ass and wait long enough, etc.  Now consider if there's a message you'd rather be sending. 
   
   Most of the time, you only have to change one thing to turn a bad message into a good one.  Flip one scene around and sudden the hero (however briefly) is the bad guy.  Have the characters in the work itself draw attention to the flawed logic being displayed. 
   
   Any of a number of little things can turn flat action and Mary-Sue'd romance into a realistic and worthwhile read.  It also helps to lend some originality to the work.  And we know how important that is.

If you're worried the work is too artistic for its own good:

1. Keep it simple.  Write your message down in one simple sentence (not a creeping clause-monster).  Is there any word with more than four syllables in that sentence?  Is there any word you yourself had to look up?  Hand the sentence to a friend.  Ask them if there's any word they had to look up.  If it's more than one, consider simplifying your message.
2. Is there a story beyond your meta-narrative?  The difference between a novel and an ethics lecture is that a novel is supposed to contain a story.  Arguably, so is a lecture, but fewer people understand the principles of effective oratory practices.  Who cares?  We're talking about writing.
   
   Make sure that the characters can be cared about.  They're not just pawns on the playing field of your pulpit narrative.  The story is what carries your message to the reader.  If it's too weak and crumples, the message isn't going anywhere.
3. Know your audience.  If you're writing to the intellectual elite, high-brow word choice is not only allowed but practically required.  There are people with the intelligence to grasp the words and stylistic acrobatics you wish to employ, and most of them still like reading books.  Just understand that they are few in number, and may already be open-minded enough to understand the message you're hoping to convey.
4. Check your attitude.  If you're looking to change things, you need to reach the audience you want to change.  That means writing as them, at least at first.  Lure them in close with familiar topics and seemingly agreeable opinions before throwing back the curtains and letting the truth rush in.  If you're standoffish or superior, you're writing for yourself.  If you honestly believe in the message, let it stand on its own.
5. Application leads to action.  Thought is wonderful, and we keep reminding ourselves how dangerous a tool it is in the right (or wrong) hands.  But thought only leads to change if the message can be applied to the situation at hand.  Reminding people of a logical inequity is all well and good, but if you expect it to garner more than a "...Huh" from your reader, don't forget to show them how it can be realized.

In either case, the most important step is to stop and ask yourself why you're writing in the first place.  It's not an either/or scenario here, but if you don't define early on just what balance you're aiming for, you run the risk of falling too far into either camp.  Extremes can be good when they're chosen extremes.  Don't find yourself looking back over a work after the fact and wondering "what the hell was I trying to do here, anyway?"

Write by Numbers: Romance

Tropes.  We all know them.  Some love them, some hate them, but whether you mean to or not, you use them.  Tropes are like symbolism:  most of the time, the people who actually put it in a work are the readers.  Here's the kicker:  they aren't a bad thing.  Originality is important, but if everyone had to reinvent the wheel, car makers would go insane inside of a month.

Bad analogies aside, having a few archetypes to start from isn't a bad idea.  There's a reason the same backbone exists underneath all manner of stories in a genre.  When a formula works, people mass produce it, each with their own slight spin on the original.  If you want to branch out and be unique, you first need to know where to start.  If you're intention is to get a book sold, find a fun new perspective on a proven model and you have a guaranteed fanbase.

With that in mind, I want to kick off what will be the first in a non-sequential series called "Write by numbers," which I'm sure has itself been done before.  The idea is to provide a base template, the raw stock of a good genre fiction for new writers looking for a starting point.  Today's topic?  Romance.

First, a clarification:  what you generally see in the "Romance" section of any bookstore is only one type of romance fiction.  It's typically melodramatic overly poetic thinly veiled smut, and it sells like crazy.  If you're interested in that type of romance writing, you should know two things:  1) your plot matters less than the air-brushed abs of the male model on the cover, 2) you will need an entire thesaurus, Grey's Anatomy and two other languages to avoid repeating the same three words for genitalia.  Make peace with that truth and you have a lucrative career ahead of you.

But today I'm talking about the other type of romance:  the classic love story.  It exists at every age, in every setting, between every kind of people you can imagine.  Comedy, tragedy, tracheotomy, you name it.  Romance is so common a theme it gets thrown into any other story sideways like a spare carry-on bag in an overhead bin.  But when the romance is your story, a different set of rules apply.

Romantic comedy and romantic drama are not as distinctive as you might think:  a good love story has plenty of both to give it legitimacy.  All that changes is how it ends.  But we'll get to that in a bit.  First, the elements of any good love story:

•   A lead (one half of the fated pair)
•   A target (pejorative flavor aside, call a spade a spade)
•   A series of nearly insurmountable obstructions
•   A fortunate collision
•   The consequences and aftershock of said collision
•   The final triumph

In the next 1000 words or less, here is how to use the following model to write your own romantic love story, for good or ill.


The Lead

The main character in a romance is nearly always an unfortunate everyman.  Whether by personal flaw, misunderstood genius or sad circumstance, the hero or heroine is alone, with no clear path toward recompense.  In a comedy, the personal flaw or misunderstood genius is the most common avenue:  your character is clumsy or reckless, which serves to stir up a great deal of noise and fuss to shroud the otherwise heroic qualities underneath.

In a drama, the sadness tends to come from outside.  Death is a great starting point for a romance, and I don't say that just because I love killing beloved characters.  If you begin a story with loss, it sets up both a greater rise to the heights of romantic bliss to come and a memory to harken back to when things take a sudden turn for the worst near the story's end.  But more on that later.

The misunderstood genius is obvious at once to the audience, but the surrounding characters have no respect out of some bizarre or archaic set of social mores.  If your target is to be a stand-out and unique member of this same society, it may be important to make the genius also a clutz, or simply reckless enough to struggle early in the story, so that even the one enlightened member of the backwards village doesn't see their shining qualities too quickly.

Bear in mind, when we laugh at a hapless hopeless romantic, we're laughing at ourselves.  That means your main character has to be both flawed enough to connect with an audience that knows what it means to strike out while also being likable enough not to drive the reader off before they begin to turn the corner.  You may have to kick a character you love in the dirt a few times to maintain the balance.  Be prepared to give them room to grow.  That doesn't mean just becoming accepted:  if these characters are going to work, they have to make sacrifices, too.  Just remember what they can't give up.

There is one other type of hero in a romance:  the jerk-in-a-bind.  The jerk is someone socially or even morally reprehensible (or at least questionable) who winds up by some quirk of fate bound to a close, personal relationship with the target.  The Dare is one classic example, although Trapped Together comes into play quite often as well.  For details on both, see the "Worlds Collide" section below.


The Target

Okay, so I could have picked a better word, but neither "love interest" nor "conquest" feel any truer or less offensive.  For one reason or another, either the character is aimed at another soul in the story or the audience has a clear favorite for when the romance element kicks in.  Either way, there is a point at the end of that road, and this is it.

I have one rule for the target:  give them all three dimensions.  Three shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting will be three.  Plastic, one-dimensional tower-maidens are insulting to your audience and society at large.  If you're going to aim your hero at another character, make certain there's a reason not only for the character to love them, but your audience as well.  That goes beyond gimmicks or sad circumstances.  Your target has to have hopes and dreams, and this is important:  those hopes and dreams must be ignorant of the hero's own existence.

Use those wants and desires to flesh out an otherwise trophy character into something more believable.  Aspirations and perspectives don't have to be unique for your target character (that's the hero's job here), go with something simple:  getting out of their small rural town and seeing the world, becoming a successful artist, performing on stage at Carnegie Hall.  Make it a dream the hero can push them towards in their own unique way, even if they never quite get what they were expecting.

Alternatively, you can turn the trope on its head and turn the target into a surprise counter-suitor.  I like to think of it as the ninja reversal:  the unattainable love the hero has pursued makes the first move, typically just as they were about to give up the chase.  It's a wonderful twist that has yet to be overdone and will be a pleasant surprise to long-term romance enthusiasts eager for something fresh.  It's also a wonderful pivot point for humor, or a way to restore a great deal of humanity to a target that's in danger of losing it.  See "social boundaries" below for more details.

This post is becoming so self-referencing I'm considering turning it into a choose-your-own-adventure book.  If you wish to learn about boundaries to the otherwise obvious romance, turn to page 93.  If you wish to follow the black knight...


What Lies Between

Internal or external, something is getting in the way of these two characters shagging like rabbits.  It may be more than one something, so feel free to mix and match as you see fit.  The most common elements are:

• Societal boundaries (Class, race, religion, chosen profession, species, etc)
• Social boundaries (a "4" dating a "10" is a common example, as is a rival suitor)
• Physical boundaries (distance, warring nations, one part of the couple being dead, etc)
• Personal boundaries (clumsiness, inflated sense of self-worth, previous/existing relationship, etc)
• Bad luck

Yes, bad luck gets its own category.  You can string together an entire story where the only thing keeping a fated pair from being together is wretched timing and a completely coincidental set of circumstances.   And people get away with this all the time.

That said, there are cautions to be taken with the various types of boundaries:  bringing in society and its taboos risks the book becoming trite or preachy.  If you try to avoid this by inventing new mores to fit a fictitious society, chances are your readers will readily draw lines to real-world parallels.  Be sure to use these elements as a backdrop and an influencing factor.  If they are all that keeps two lovers apart, congratulations:  you just wrote Romeo and Juliet.  Again.

Social boundaries are a good fit for most youthful romances, especially in the high school age range.  That said, if your target is aware of his or her social worth, don't let it define them too richly:  your audience needs to like the target as much as they like the hero in the end.  They'll stomach an uppity target a little longer than a loathsome hero, but they won't tolerate it forever.  Be sure to drop hints that there's more to the target than their social status, or the reader may start to wonder why the hero is bothering at all.

Physical boundaries can be great.  They lend towards questing, travel and adventure.  As a further bonus, your pair can be in love from the start, torn apart by factors beyond their control until one of them decides to tell reality where to shove it and try to close the gap between.  This can be a delightful direction for sci-fi and fantasy especially, where a magical curse, a bodiless A.I. or the chance to return from the dead are all believable elements.

Personal boundaries help to round out any of the others.  If your target is a stand-out member of an otherwise simple or blinded social mainstream, you can't always count on social or societal factors to keep them apart.  Having a good-natured protagonist suffer under her own awkwardness early in the story can buy you time (as well as a host of comedic fuel) as you work to suck the readers into the tension you're building.


Worlds Collide

Sooner or later, despite all obstacles, your lead and its target are going to come together.  This is the moment most fans of romance come to see.  There's a hopeful insinuation in the often random happenstance of the two characters seeing at once in each other what your reader has seen all along.  Milk that moment for all it's worth.

There are a number of different collision types, pivotal moments where the last boundary is overcome and the two fall into an unplanned romantic encounter, no longer able to fight their instincts.  Perhaps my personal favorite is a literal collision.  Have the two characters wind up in each others arms through a sudden shift in gravity:  a carefully placed crack in the sidewalk, a boat that rocks unexpectedly, an assistive nudge from a fellow character or other.

Some deux ex machina punts the two characters into a surprise embrace, one that can quickly lead to anger or violence on the part of the target depending on how the calamity is misunderstood.  If you want it to stick, turn the tables on your target and let them be the one to trip.  If nothing else, it may set up a more intimate moment later, when the main character gets to apologize for being clumsy and thus showcase his or her own maturity and worth.

"Trapped together" is another common theme.  Whether hiding from an external threat or another dose of bad luck and clumsiness, trapping the two characters in close proximity causes frustrations to soar.  The sudden rage and awkward restricted movement set up a calmer heart-to-heart talk later on when the futility of their situation settles in.  It allows both characters to vent directly without anywhere to storm off to.  The residual passion of their respective verbal explosions segues nicely into the eventual embrace (typically only seconds before they are rescued).

The "spectacular surprise" is another good one, although it will take some thought and creativity on your part.  A best fit for the misunderstood genius type, this can also be used with heroes capable of taking the target on some form of breathtaking journey at the drop of a hat.  Riding through the clouds, swimming deep in the sea, traversing a dreamscape, something so out of this world that it leaves the target speechless.

For the genius, it's all about the target coming to see what the audience has known all along:  the hidden or discarded talent of the hero is actually something amazing.  Walking through the silent workshop of half-finished inventions or happening upon the cast-aside canvas with its hidden masterpiece depicting the target are just a couple of the thousand options to choose from.  It's best if the target makes this discovery in relative private, with the hero busying about with some menial task, seemingly oblivious to their own genius.  When they return from whatever meaningless errand, the target has had time to see them in a whole new light...

...which leads, in turn, to the rabbit-like shagging, which will not be covered in this tutorial.


The Leftovers

Any such collision brings with it an aftershock:  a ripple that extends well beyond the two lovers, destined to return with a vengeance.  Sooner or later, the fantasy is over and the world comes rushing back in.  This is the eventual dip before the final triumph.  Now that both characters (and your reader) have something to lose, it's time to dangle it over the fire.

The most common method is an outside element.  This is the rival's time to shine, if you have one.  The war takes a disastrous turn.  Drawn back from the brink of oblivion, the target is pulled away again by some darker abject force.  In short, something goes wrong.

But don't count out your hero yet:  they could well be the agent of their own demise.  Remember that flaw, the one that was meant to humanize your hero?  Now's the time to tweak it.  Cause it to flare up at some small feature of the days or hours that follow and spoil the moment, driving the newly enchanted target off in a huff.  At times the mere suggestion that the flaw has returned (a misunderstood word from an old friend or ex-lover should do nicely) is enough to spurn the new lover.  Whatever it is, something breaks up the happy moment, because nothing is ever that easy.

Nevermind that your hero fought through seventeen layers of hell to get their love back.  I'm still calling that "easy."


The Final Triumph

This is where the story stops being a love story and starts being a heroic journey.  Whatever happened to force the two lovers apart, it's time for the hero to risk everything to get the target back.  It's going to sting something fierce, but nothing could rival the pain of being separated from the one they love.  And yes, you'll find yourself writing narratives like that as your hero turns the final corner.  Don't worry, the truly sappy lines are yet to come...

Now the real test of love begins.  No matter what the hero had to fight past before, this is ten times worse.  What sucks is that you only have about 50 pages left to cram it into, so get going!  One last epic challenge, an obstacle that only your hero can overcome.  Let them shine.  Take the thing you love most about this character and crank it up to eleven.  Only by being themselves (and more themselves than ever before) can the hero win out in the end.

Remember that even a bumbling, snot-nosed, 90-lb weakling can be brave when he has to.  The most intelligent engineer who ever lived still has to stand in the line of fire to use the world-saving machine strapped to their shoulders.  If you threw all the cute qualities of your lead into the collision, this is the scene to house all the bad-ass she's been secretly stowing away.

Whether you're in a comedy or tragedy, the hero is going to win.  The force that kept them apart (even if it was their own screw up) is going to lose one way or another, usually only after the hero has a few broken ribs to show for it.

In a comedy, they're reunited.  The hero deflates from his moment of bad-ass and reverts to the adorable, lovable twerp he started as (minus the more obnoxious personal flaws) and basks in the glow of his reforged romance.  If you're the type who likes to play the joke on your audience, look no further than the Mushroom Kingdom:  a brief forestalling of the final reunion can be a great way to break up an otherwise dramatic scene with one last good guffaw before revealing the real princess and galloping on to the epilogue.

In a tragedy, winning sucks.  The hero or the target survives, but without the other.  A last and lasting moment passes where they say their final promises to each other before one or the other departs the mortal plane and begins pining for the fjords.  The most important element is not to let the story end there.  The half that remains has to carry on, forever changed, with a new determination to seek out their dreams with passion and purpose.

In the end, there's nothing all too complicated to writing a romance.  The pieces are largely interchangeable, and all manner of seemingly ridiculous elements can be brought in as character flaws or external obstacles.  Consider the wisdom of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World:  ridiculous brings a new spin to romance.  Don't be afraid to branch out and try something crazy.  New flavor is always appreciated by someone when it comes to romance.

The same is true for the other type of "romance" novel, but it's probably best we not dwell on that thought.

In short, don't fear the tropes, remember to make both halves the pair lovable, and just when everything's going great, make 'em really earn it in the end.  After all, Shakespeare did, and people have been using his tropes for centuries...

Are we there yet? - Deadline Management

Deadlines.  Yes, I know.  I hate them, too.

Regardless of what you think of them, deadlines are a necessary element to any writer hoping to keep afloat.  Throw out any talk of a muse.  Quit complaining about writer's block.  If you want to keep your head above water, it means writing when you least want to write until you're back on task.  Get yourself a pair of mental pliers and be ready to start pulling teeth.

If you're publishing for an editor, respect the deadlines.  Anyone working a 9-to-5 has to drag themselves out of bed each morning to get to work on time.  Your 9am is just several months out, and getting out of bed involves something like 80,000 words, but the idea is the same:  be on time.  Yes, extensions are common (if not par for the course), and you may need one no matter how well you plan.  Prep like you don't have one.  You can reward yourself with downtime once you're ahead of schedule.

If you're self-published (or working on your first novel in hopes of getting it published), deadlines are going to be difficult.  Setting them?  No.  Keeping them?  Yes.  When you're the only one you're responsible to, it's very easy to be a nice boss and give yourself the night off.  Again.  Case in point:  this blog post comes on a night when I vowed to write 3,450 words, a full third of which are instead going to use here.  It's either going to be a very late night, or I'm about to be in some serious debt to myself.

Writing a novel is a lot like paying a loan:  if you do the minimum required to get by, you're going to wind up wasting a lot more time in the end.  If you instead pay it forward whenever you have the time and energy (or just the sheer willpower), you'll be a lot better off in the long run.

Word count makes for an easy milestone if you're a numbers person.  Promising yourself thousands of words at a time makes it easy to ensure that you don't spend all your nights penning up the short, easy scenes of a novel and leave all the long, rambling narratives for the week before it's due to be sent off to the printers.  It also lets you predict the time commitment ahead so that you know how realistic your deadlines are.

If you prefer to measure forward progress by the chapter or scene, remember to slice up larger scenes and chapters into measurable (and manageable) pieces so that you don't wind up choking on one particular piece and wasting more time staring blankly than writing.  Instead of planning on word count by the week, you'll have to set mile markers at given scenes throughout the span of the novel and hope that you're estimates are at least vaguely accurate.  Slipping one deadline with this model isn't disastrous.  If you find yourself slipping more than two in a row, it's time to reevaluate your estimates.

Enough on setting deadlines, more on how to keep them.  If you're a professional writer (and not a professional anything else), then you don't need much motivation to keep deadlines.  The faster the work is out, the sooner the next offer (and its advance) can come your way.  For the rest of us, if you don't want a one-year novella from becoming a 10-year ordeal, you need some motivation in the short term.

Reward systems are one way, but much like with exercise, the reward system shouldn't detract from what you're doing.  Find a reward that is entertaining but not too distant from what you're doing initially.  Just about every novel you can think of will share common elements with a variety of entertainment media.  Find a game, a show or a movie that matches the themes or tone of your work and use it to relax with when you hit your word count.

If you need more bite-sized motivation, set up a tiered system:  every 1000 words equals one episode of your favorite show, one more level in the game you love or one more chapter in the book you're seriously hoping to emulate.  That way you can easily sink back into the work once your reward is over.  One important rule:  try not to spend more time on your reward than on your writing.  Don't drop 500 words and then take the entire afternoon off for a Lord of the Rings marathon.  On the other hand, a few hours of writing on a weeknight should be rewarded with an evening out another night that same week, if you can manage it.

If music is your thing, force yourself to wait till you can "afford" new songs with new scenes. Each chapter you complete, you can buy a song, plus a bonus album if you finish the book on time.  If you're a drinker, go dry:  every 500 words is a glass of wine, a beer or a shot.  Pick your poison.  Just be cautious of writing beyond your tolerance.  When you wake up to dialog like "No, you're a butt," you know you've gone too far.

Whatever it takes, force yourself to slug on through and make your deadlines.  A deadline a month is typically the best approach.  Daily deadlines for a part-time writer are all but out of the question, and weekly deadlines are likely to wiggle too much with the stretch and pull of your day-to-day life.  Inside of a month, you have enough flex room to make things even out.  Plus, you should have plenty of words or scenes by then to constitute a sizable reward.

Still having trouble keeping yourself honest?  Start publishing snippets.  Each week or each month, take a slice of what you're writing and post it online.  Tell your friends, tell your family, tell that guy on the bus who spends all morning staring at his iPad.  If you start missing deadlines, they're bound to notice.  In addition, you get piecemeal critique on your style as you go without having to give away the root story behind it all.

When it comes to keeping track of it all (especially if you choose the monthly-deadline route), make a drop-box for yourself.  Instead of one giant Word document, break each scene or snippet into its own file.  Create a folder for each month of your project, and store each scene in the appropriate spot.  At the end of the month, gather up all the scenes you've put together and you'll have an easy time tallying what you've got.  That way you don't risk giving yourself credit for last month's big dialogue twice.

Treat your writing deadlines as a chore, like taking out the trash or changing your oil.  Well, maybe not changing your oil.  Writing should not be the sort of thing you can ignore for six months and then pay someone in a jumpsuit to do for you.  Instead, think of it like watering plants.  You have to water plants regularly or they'll die.  It's a bad idea to ignore them for months and then drown them in a day.  A little at a time is all you need to watch them slowly grow into something beautiful.

...which I suppose makes copy-editing a little like bonsai maintenance, but that's a topic for another time.

Set your goals, then mark them off your to-dos like anything else.  Put them in a rotation with your other chores.  Reward yourself if you're looking for motivation, but never give yourself more pay-off than pay-in.  Make yourself responsible to others and drink in the added benefits.

But most of all, get to work on time.

Consistency

Anyone who publishes in the entertainment medium will tell you that consistency is your most valuable asset.  Reliability is the gold standard of the periodical market.  That, and the ability to draw cats being cute.

Most novel writers can avoid the crunch, given the wide span of time most authors take to pin together a completed work.  A lot more weight is given to readability (and re-readability), since the novel is a singular entity, isolated unto itself.  That said, any author who doesn't think of herself as a periodical is missing the bigger picture.

There aren't a lot of style monkeys left.  Most authors pick a genre and stick with it (many never leave the same setting).  This model has worked for years and will continue to work well beyond the flying cars era.  As human beings, we like being able to predict the future in some small way, so a writer with a consistent form or one who follows the same characters book in and book out feeds the need and becomes beloved.  That makes a wholly different form of consistency valuable to the novel writer.

Personally, as much as I love reading them myself, I don't advocate becoming a slave to the thirteen-book series.  There are advantages in sequels:  greater depth to a setting, a wider arc for your main character or the blending of the two when the environment changes dramatically and it evokes a shift in the characters themselves.  That said, if you're going to keep writing the same character, make certain you leave plenty of room for growth.  Otherwise, you're really just playing dress-up.

If you do plan go in for the long haul, use the same rules for your setting as for the character.  Let it grow and change.  Don't fall into the trap of just filling in the pieces you haven't covered before or you may risk winding up with something clumsy and unwieldy.  You don't always have to expand:  placing familiar characters in a new, linked environment can open up entirely new opportunities in their development. 

Alternatively, removing a stable feature of the world can be as earth-shaking as a dozen new discoveries.  That said, be careful what you set ablaze:  fans have a funny way of falling for the things you might otherwise want to discard.  If you have someone who can give your work a once-over before it leaps into the public eye (and you should), ask them how they'd feel if suddenly the spunky comic relief got speared through the chest in book three.  You may be surprised at what you hear.

Back to the subject of consistency:  any time you plan on building an ongoing character arc across several books in a series, it's important to make sure the character stays true to some original standard.  There has to be some common vein, even in the darkest moments of the character's shift, that harkens back to where they started. 

It doesn't matter if the ace-pilot-slash-swordfighting-wizard looks nothing like the humble farm boy he once was so long as you establish that somewhere deep inside him is a piece that has somehow remained resilient in the face of all this upheaval.  The Simple Savior trope is all too common in any medium, and we will always love it, but the only thing that makes it work is the thin strand connecting the unlikely bumpkin (that is to say, us) to the galaxy-crossing mega-hero. 

The same applies to a character in a series.  No matter how many twists and turns the character takes, never let that strand break.  Find something generic enough and core to the character's being and write it on a little card.  Keep that card with you throughout the series.  Laminate it if you have to.  It will be the thing you audience comes to adore. 

After a few books, any attempt to break that strand will lead to confusion and anger in your audience.  If the writers for MacGuyver had run short on ideas and just said "Okay, fine, he picks up the gun and shoots somebody," the series would have ended long before mullets went out of style.  ...Were mullets ever in style? Nevermind, back to the point...

Your character is more than just a name.  They're an idea.  You can twist and bend that idea, you can run it through the ringer, bombard it with all manner of obstacles and it will come out all the more polished for the effort.  But set aside that idea, sacrifice it, drop it on the floor and suddenly your character is just a name and a quirky pallet of idiosyncrasies. 

In the end, it's all about consistency.