The importance of message in story

AuthorAppleton on February 8, 2016

While it is important that a fiction piece not “preach” a message to its readers, it is of even greater importance that the story does communicate a message. A lot of stories written today seem to focus on action and romance, or something similar. But the real power in storytelling is to reinforce cultural values, or even to destroy them. We learn best by observing others in what they do and should not have done. We learn by those things… and stories have the ability to mold our thinking.

My first novel, Swords of the Six, delivered a few messages. The heroine in the story fell in love but her life blood was not human and thus in order to give birth to a living child she had to give up her own life. The heroine was left with an internal battle as she realized that giving birth would separate her from her new husband. The story was a message, a way of demonstrating the immorality of abortion and reinforcing the Biblical value for human life.

Without message the story has no real impact on the reader. It becomes generic. Action and romance are necessary elements in story, but in and of themselves they are not sufficient. Story needs soul. Story needs conviction.

Have you ever read The Pilgrim’s Progress or Hinds Feet on High Places? They are allegories of the Christian life and their value to the reader is powerful because it challenges your thinking. It causes you to evaluate who you are, what you want to be, who you want to be, and helps you recognize the flaws and pitfalls in modern thinking. Nowadays many writers are afraid of hurting the reader’s feelings or alienating people by writing messages that the reader disagrees with and that society may frown upon. But that is exactly the strength of literature.

You need to be challenged, motivated, and encouraged. I once used the line that my books were written to “enlighten, enliven, and enthrall people of all ages.” That is still where I stand. Stories have the ability to reach into hearts and change minds. As a Christian I recognize the power of message in story. We need to embrace it and share it with people around us. It will strengthen folks to stand for things wholesome, right, and good. And to live without fear because we know the message is greater than our comfort.

Q: What messages do you appreciate in stories you’ve read?

How nameless characters enhance story

AuthorAppleton on January 18, 2016

Nameless characters. They may seem useless to the writer and to the reader but in many respects they are key to enhancing a great fiction story. Consider how many nameless characters populate the books you read and the movies you watch. Nameless characters play well into plot development and world building.

When I am writing a story I take into consideration the environment I am throwing my main characters into. What are the sights, the sounds, the smells. I want to engage the senses so that the reader experiences the story in a profound way. But a great part of creating the environment is the establishment of nameless characters.

Let’s use the example of John, a character who is feeling lost. If you want to convey that John is starting to feel panicky you could throw in a nameless character. Crowds are milling about, heading down the busy sidewalks. Someone bumps into John. He reaches down and finds his wallet is now missing. He franticly searches the sea of faces for the pickpocket but instead his gaze is arrested by a pretty face. She stands a short distance off, smiles, then disappears in the throng moving around him. Someone steps on his foot, mutters an apology, and several other people jostle him. A pistol presses against his back.

In this short example the only characters able to affect John are nameless ones. The advantage of this is that the reader now does not feel the need to know these other characters. Instead they want to know how John is going to react to these nameless characters and the situation in general. The nameless characters have revealed a deeper level to the story and left the mind imagining what could be the motives and purposes of these nameless characters. All the while, John remains the focus.

Nameless characters add mystery and, when written well, they will enhance the traits of the main characters by causing them to react to different circumstances. While it is true that you can effect much of the same with named characters, nameless characters provide less distraction to the reader, thus allowing more focus on moments of suspense and interior dilemma.

A story is incomplete without nameless characters. In my novels I greatly enjoy creating background characters who are not assigned names. Why? Because later I can return to those characters, perhaps fleshing out their own unique stories for later projects. For example, when writing a series of fantasy novels a nameless character might be the bartender or the stable hand. Later in the series I can revisit the character, assign them a name, give them a more significant part in the series’ plot, and reference back to that moment in the story when they were nameless. To the reader it seems as if the author knew all of these facts about the nameless character all along. But truly it is often not the case.

The author might make reference to how the story’s hero/heroine glimpsed something happening to a common soldier during a battle. Then at a later point you reference back to that and make a new and insignificant background character come to life by relationally tying them to the original nameless character. Their deed then matters to the reader on an emotional level.

As you see, there are many uses for nameless characters in fiction.

Q: What sorts of nameless characters to you find interesting in fiction?

 

 

How you can fail as a writer

AuthorAppleton on January 11, 2016

It’s a straightforward dilemma. If you dream of writing the kind of stories you love then one day you hope to share those stories with the world. You will focus on the things that matter, like good grammar and stronger sentence structure. You will face the demons of self-doubt, and you believe you will emerge victorious because you have prepared for this battle. But equally important for you to understand is how not to succeed as a writer.

If you want to succeed at something you must also recognize what things you need to avoid in order to succeed. We learn best by example, so let me tell you about Tommy Hopeful, a (fictional) writer who followed the path to writing failure.

Tommy was born to be a writer! He told stories to his siblings out of the crib. He read extensively, studied hard, and hoped one day to emulate his favorite authors. Yes, Tommy always wanted to be a writer. He jotted down story ideas that interested and excited him. His notebooks burst at the seams and he found he had to buy boxes of rubber bands to secure the well-used notebooks. Ah! Tommy had a veritable library of ideas, some partially constructed on paper, others fully written out.

At last, Tommy submitted his work to a literary agent. This was the moment he had waited for, he felt sure. Now a professional would see and believe in him. He didn’t dream of big money, lavish vacations, or any such frivolity. Tommy dreamed of seeing his book on Grandma’s shelf. It didn’t have to be fancy. It was his. He waited for ten months before the letter came, and with eager anticipation he cut open the envelope to read the letter within. Surely it would be handwritten, or personally notated.

Tommy’s first rejection letter was as generic as they come. He felt disappointed, yet not disillusioned. Well, that is, not until three years later when he added another generic rejection letter to the pile. He stopped writing as the discouragement settled in. He was a young man now and everyone around who cared about him told him it was time for him to put his energies into something that would pay his bills. It was time for him to stop disillusioning himself. The world awaited.

Tommy turned his passion into his hobby. He shared his stories with a handful of polite friends, he settled into that steady job, bought a house and began raising a family. Before he knew it the years had gone by, leaving him with gray hair. His children had moved on, much of his family had deceased. Tommy looked around him and realized that he had left nothing of import to the world, that is with the exception of his children. But he realized that the rest of the world would never know him. They would not remember his existence, except for the gravestone. But what epitaph would there be on his stone? What had he done so that a few hundred years from now he was still blessing the world.

Tommy let the demon of discouragement destroy his immortality. If he had wanted, he could have taken the bull by the horns. He could have picked himself up out of the dirt. Instead he allowed discouragement to govern his responses to the world around him.

Acknowledge discouragement but do not let it govern your choices.

Q: How do you react to discouragement?

Balancing fatherhood and writing

AuthorAppleton on January 4, 2016

It is not always easy for me to admit the areas of the writing life that I find difficult. But one such area is a direct result of being the father of four wonderful yet energetic kids. These little ones are precious to me and they are a heavy responsibility. God has entrusted them to my care, leaving me without excuse to be with them through the good times and the bad. But though juggling fatherhood and writing is not easy, its blessings outweigh its challenges.

My dad worked two to three jobs throughout my growing up years. He worked hard and even though I could tell that he was often worn out, he still kept his arms open and the spirit of a child in his heart. He loved his children (he still does). Nothing seemed to be more important to him than our dreams, our education and our Christian upbringing. In the midst of all his work I always saw that struggle between his love for his family and his hearty work ethic.

Today, I attribute much of my balance of family and work to my father’s legacy. There is no greater gift that a father can give than to set an example for his children to follow of a hard-working attitude.

Before I was married I filled my “free” time with writing. Soon my wife and I had our first child. He has been a great blessing, but I must admit that being a writer in conjunction with children, especially when they are restless or sick, limits my creative time a lot more than I realized it would. One of my youngest has been restless the last few nights, so my routine has been practically non-existent. I work my day job, get home some time in the evening, then tuck the kids in bed after watching an old show with them. Normally I like to work on writing after everyone is in bed, but sick kids and restless kids change that.

Remarkably I think I am getting better at juggling the two. After all, the challenge is making the time and continually reminding yourself that you are doing this to provide for your family.

So for now I accept this stage of life as a means of maturing as a man, learning more about humanity, developing greater patience, and in all of these things I find that I continue to improve as a writer. The key is to write in the moments, being willing to sacrifice sleep where needed in order to get the writing done. And that is certainly the greatest challenge: getting the writing done. It is easy to put it off instead of sitting down and pouring out the writer’s soul.

Through this more challenging period of life we writers can grow into better storytellers. The children only add to our growth and our imagination. I find that my children are growing quickly their imaginations. And their creativity is feeding me with fresh writing material every day.

Q: Do you know writers who are young parents, or are you one yourself?

Why passion drives better stories (as Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

AuthorAppleton on December 28, 2015

There is a vast difference between a storyteller who is passionate for the story they are telling, and a writer who is simply creating something of interest to them. The case seems to be aptly demonstrated with J.J. Abrams who is famous for rebooting film franchises. Not long ago he recreated Star Trek and recently his Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters with a thunderous response from critics and viewers. After watching the film myself I realized that the love of the story made a huge difference here.

Long-time Star Trek fans, almost as a whole, did not care for and some even despised Abrams’ remake. Vulcans lost their emotional control to a level not hereto seen, big bad villains ruled the screen, and action packed the screen time instead of relationships and good ol’ theoretical science. Transformers had met Star Trek. Many people speculated that the cause of this failure to catch the loyalty of long-time Trek fans was due to Abrams’ personal admittance that he was never a Trek fan himself. In addition to that it turned out that much of the cast had not even watched Star Trek, with the exception being Karl Urban who beautifully embodied the beloved Leonard McCoy also affectionately called “Bones.” Urban was himself a Trek fan and it showed in his part. The consequence was a movie that did not leave die hard Trek fans thrilled, instead it left them asking for a return to the old style of storytelling. The fans’ passion for the Star Trek universe has now successfully launched a rather impressive series called Renegades and other fan-funded projects are well on their way to success as well.

The point in all of this is that good storytelling requires a passion for the material.

As a long-time Star Wars fan Abrams’ approach to The Force Awakens has paid off. Rather than changing everything that we know and love about the Star Wars universe he has taken the look, feel, and the light and the dark again into familiar territory. While there was much good action throughout The Force Awakens, it never feels forced but rather melds with the drama each character is experiencing. Old characters are treated like old friends, with numerous hat-tipping to the original Star Wars trilogy. Quite unexpectedly (even though Disney officially declared the Expanded Universe of novels and video games irrelevant to this movie) there were several blatant steals from the EU… and they were good ones. They pulled a few choice elements that I was hoping to see carried into the new movies, though they did change it up a bit.

Writers need to be passionate for the stories they are creating, otherwise the effort leaves no lasting impact. Abrams demonstrated with this film that he truly is passionate for the Star Wars universe. What a difference it makes when a creative individual works at something because they love it!

Q: How do you see passion driving better storytelling?

How writing changes our world

AuthorAppleton on December 21, 2015

I once wrote a short story titled Trapped In Imagination and it was an exploration of how a writer creates a story. I have always been fascinated by the creative process. It is a gift and it has the power to effect change at the behest of the writer that crafts the words. A writer can quite literally change the world.

Recently I watched a fun Twilight Zone episode where a writer literally brings people into existence through his writing. The concept was fascinating to me and entirely entertaining to watch. In my own mind I have often thought what it would be like to actually bring to life the characters I write on paper or type into my computer.

This fascination is brought on by the deep impact that the writing process has on my mind. As the writer, I sink my mind deep in the stories I create. The characters become real to me, in my mind. The imagination of them is powerful. I can relate to their fears, their hopes, and aspirations. There are moments when I almost cry over the story I am writing. Other moments I feel almost giddy with happiness.

It is that utter abandoning of one’s self to the power of story that makes one realize its power. Through writing we can effect change. Not superficial change only, but real change. Consider the impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or the negative impact of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. What of the rise of western civilization through The King James Bible. The list goes on almost indefinitely.

Writing changes the world. It impacts hearts and minds for good or ill. It is our responsibility as writers to impact the world for good.

Q: How do you see writers impacting real change in the world?

Dealing with creative slumps

AuthorAppleton on December 14, 2015

We creatives are strange creatures. We are writers and artists who live off of the ideas that populate in our brains. Let me stop beating around the bush. Tonight I am admitting I am having one of those moments… one of those days… one of those weeks.

My creative well has run dry. I smile as I think about it because I have been here before. It feels frustrating. I want to write some fantastic blog posts that will give you some great information and, hopefully, entertain you. Yet I stare at the screen and foolishly smile at myself.

I think we all hit these times. If we are writers, artists, or some other type of creative. Our brain works overtime when other people seem to relax. When I am thinking hard on a story idea, world-building, or publishing and writing in general, my hands literally get cold. I am not sure if this is the reason, but it seems to me my forehead always feels warm even when my hands are cold, as if my brain is firing too fast and all the blood runs to my head instead.

So what am I to do, and what should you do when you reach these moments? I have been in a creative slump for the past few weeks. This year I ran on burnout for too long and I think it simply caught up with me.

So what will I do?

I will relax. I will watch TV shows and a good science fiction movie, pick up a good book, listen to music. In short, I will refill my creative reservoir.

As far as keeping up with my blogging, I cannot let that fall behind… so I have written a blog post about my lack of creativity. 🙂 And you know what? It was fun! Sometimes the path to victory in these slumps is to admit you don’t have it so that you can fill your mind afresh.

Don’t think of these moments as defeat. Think of them as a time to reset, and recognize that you will come out stronger. Great art is not forced. It must be allowed to slowly grow.

Q: What do you do in creative slumps?

A new writer’s biggest mistake

AuthorAppleton on November 30, 2015

First-time writers are fun. They are full of energy because they are crazy enthusiastic about the stories they are creating. I have found this particularly true of those who write fantasy. It is interesting what holds many of these writers back, and it is a problem they can overcome.

Some people think that the biggest problem with new writers is that they don’t edit their writing well, or that they don’t spend the time revising and changing things in the manuscript to craft a stronger story. But both of these things are symptoms of the bigger problem and the most common issue with writers who aspire to be published authors.

There are so many times that I have been approached by aspiring authors. They have many questions related to publishing, selling their work, and editing. I have been told that I am an approachable person and I do try to be. When someone has questions and enthusiasm for writing I want to help them. Writing and publishing are long, challenging processes filled with mystery to the outside observer. When possible I like to pull back the veil, revealing the ins and outs of the process so that others can more speedily learn what I struggled with.

Often, but not always, I run into an issue when this happens. The writer will ask for my advice and I will give it. But they are quick to dismiss what they don’t want to hear and zero in on what they want to hear. They have trouble accepting professional criticism.

A writer’s first work is going to lay the groundwork for their career. If you have taken professional criticism and polished your work it will make a good first impression on readers. But if you have not then you will lose readers’ trust, your work will barely sell, and your future writing career will prove even more difficult to build.

Professional criticism is the single biggest boon to an aspiring writer. If a writer is unwilling to humble themselves to accept criticism they will not grow, they will not improve their craft, and they will have little to no respect among their writing peers. Certainly they will hold no respect with publishing industry professionals.

I liken these writers to a vacationer making a mountain trek through the snow. Instead of following the footprints of their guide they choose to strike out on their own, seeking a better path.

It is foolish to neglect criticism and to listen only to what we want to hear. We only grow and improve when we are uncomfortable. It forces us to change things, it forces us to conform to a better way.

Certainly there is the challenge of retaining our own unique creativity, but ultimately writers are born not made and if we seek counsel from mentors accomplished in what we are endeavoring to do, we can succeed.

Find a guide who has gone before you and listen humble to their advice. If you want to be like them someday and succeed as they have you will need to listen to their advice.

Q: Do you look for mentors to help you grow in your life?