Category Archives: Writing

Musings on Naming Conventions

Writing, ,

Look, I’m not saying I am three beers in and struggling with this, but I am right now trying to decide if the names of my central characters should or shouldn’t be a direct reference to their central nature. For anyone familiar with history or generally with mythology would get any reference fairly easily and oh my, isn’t it fantastic that I hinted to the central nature of my character.

But is that really useful? Is it realistic? Is realism something I want to aim for?

This is what I’m musing over at the moment. Hinting at someones true nature is fun, but is it good writing? And its genuinely question I’m struggling with.

When I was young, I loved it when a character had a name that aligned with their destiny or their powers, it was very fun to discover, but as I got older its started to feel more and more like an obvious spoilers at best or, god forbid, pretentious at worst.

An example; in a story where we are searching for “The One”. We have three characters, Jim, Natasha, and Adam. Gee, I wonder if it could be Adam, the first man. And sure, its fun if its not the case, a red herring is another great narrative tool , but choosing one or the other does give certain narrative expectations.

Another thing to consider would be what associations we have with a certain name. Often if we need a mundane simple character, we name them Steve, or if we need someone to be a bitch, we name them Karen, or should we need a terrorist, we name him Muhammad. Its a sort of cultural shorthand, that name A equals attributes B, C, D.

But this cultural shorthand is far from universal and in most cases will have very limited longevity. Karen as an example is hardly more than 5 years old at this point and will become stale eventually.

So the more I delve into it, the harder it becomes to select a name that does and does not have meaning attached that is acceptable. And honestly, I’m curious what you think.

Anyway, one my characters right now is Arthur Cane. I’ll leave it up to your imagination what his deal is. You can add your thoughts below, both on the topic and on Arthur Canes true nature.

Thanks for reading. Inconsistent post to come eventually.

(c) Torben Jensen

NaNoWriMo 2016 is here – Time for Another Bout

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2016-11-01-18-25-29Yes, I may have neglected the blog for months, but I did move countries, change my career path, injure my back and encounter the wonders of Belgian bureaucracy. All excellent distractions and apparently kept me too busy to remember that I had a blog (or several as it turns out) to write for. But now NaNoWriMo is back for 2016, so why not revive the blog in the flurry of activities we call the “Write 50.000 words and don’t have a heart attack” party that is NaNoWriMo in a nutshell.

This year is going to be a bit of an experiment. I will be writing my own work, the progress of which you can follow here and add me as a writing buddy, while simultaneously starting a collaboration with my partner, the very talented Andrea, to write our own contemporary fantasy murder mystery.

And I haven’t been entirely inactive since my last post. I started a sister blog that pokes fun at corporate vernacular, that I have thoroughly enjoyed compiling and creating content for. You can find here should such shenanigans tickle your fancy.

Anyway, I am off to frantically type out the opening scene for my NaNoWriMo 2016 project. Best of luck to everyone out there. And if you need a reason to participate, you can find 5 reasons right here!

But what do you think? Is NaNoWriMo worth the time and effort and stress and pain and fun and excitement and other feelings both good and bad? Let me know.

And now… The NaNoWriMo song.

A Scourge of Clickbait on Thee

Writing, ,

16ooj0Why do people still engage with clickbait? Wait wait wait, hang on, let me rephrase that. Why do people persist in engaging with headlines that are obviously designed to appeal to our most basic level of curiosity, to our emotions, our greed and our sense of schadenfreude, instead of relying on our intellect and not giving it traction and traffic? Clickbait is a terrible thing. It’s objectively terrible. It promises a reader something life changing but instead gives you a hamster eating miniature burritos. Which is great in and of itself, but it’s hardly worth a line like “Chef cooks meal for his favorite hamster. What he cooks will blow your mind”.

A good headline is essential for attracting readership and clearly my own needs work, but for me a clickbait header is a de facto statement that you have nothing of value to offer me. It means you’re a scam, a fraud and you have nothing to say. A good headline is simple, informative and direct, leaving plenty of room to be creative and entertaining, and generally refrains from being too inane, deceptive and/or unnecessarily hyperbolic.

A clickbait headline includes a cliffhanger to bait the reader and an emotional trigger to push the reader to click. It deliberately excludes information you need in the decision process and nudges your curiosity bone Clickbait headlines are so lacking in content that you can make a headline clickbait generator. This one thrilled me with results like “19 Unusual Psychological Experiments That Can Be Explained By Duran Duran B-Sides” and “55 Life Hacks Only German Men Should Never Be Ashamed Of” which sound fascinating without giving me anything of substance. Clickbait reminds me of pop-up ads from the nineties or the phishing e-mails which occasionally grace my inbox. Bait the reader with A, then push to click B, get screwed by a conman C. Rinse repeat, appeal to simpler natures, make a profit. Unwanted and unneeded.

And that’s probably also the problem, it has become a numbers game. Get shares, likes, clicks, sneezes, whatever and hope your content (regardless of quality) goes viral so you make a profit on ad revenue or distributing swag or whatever floats your boat. The monetary incentive is strong and the market remains open to clickbaity content, to the extent that some major news outlets have used clickbaity headlines as a way of boosting traffic, apparently not understanding that it drives away more discerning audiences (like me).

And it’s interesting because on the other hand we do live in a (more) golden age of writing. And I mean that literally. More people than ever before have the ability to read and write, and the opportunity to publish their words of wisdom in whatever form, be it social media, print or laser print on cutting boards. The sheer volume of content is both forcing writers to be more creative and experimental in their work, and creating a need to sell. And what sells clicks are headlines and images. A strong, well crafted headline, usually paired with an image can make or break a piece of work. Timing, interest and some luck also plays a part in its virulence.

In short, please don’t propagate clickbait. It feeds a system where content takes second (or third or fourth or…) place in favor of clicks.

What do you think? Does clickbait have a role is modern writing, be it in blogging or journalism or something completely different? Or is it just utterly terrible pathos-based garbage? It is. It really is. But let me know if I’m wrong.

Let me know and do like, share and subscribe. Stay tuned!

Raison d’être

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This is a response to The Daily Post’s weekly Discover challenge Raison d’être. And my partner asked me; why I choose to spend my time creating/writing and, since she’s doing a post on it here, I decided to write one myself. So why do I write, in my diary, on my book projects, on the blog series? What is my raison d’être? I don’t make a living out of it (yet), so it’s not about that. It took me a while to pin it down, as there isn’t a singular reason to my writing, but a multitude of interconnected and complicated reasons, many of which have only emerged over time, and through much deliberation. So let’s boil it down to five themes.

Building worlds and telling stories – I write stories. I like telling them. Whether it’s epic action sequences in aliens worlds, or three people chatting about the latest in-world politics, I love the creativity involved. Planning out the text, choosing what to embellish and what to cast aside, picking a viewpoint, tweaking it so it’s just perfect, etc. Whether it’s a short story challenge, a piece of nano fiction, working on my blog series, or my continual attempts at long-form writing, it’s all part of the course.

Dealing with life – Life can be grim. Disease, death, sexual abuse, etc. all exist and whether you like it or not, you will probably have to deal with it. I started using writing for dealing trauma initially when my parents divorced, then dealing with the loss of a family member, and later when I was a victim of abuse and violence. By writing it down I externalise it, then analyse the motivations to try and find out what went right or wrong (which is very much a stream of consciousness kind of thing), which has helped me cope with these experiences.

Thinking through a problem – Taking notes started as an attempt to distil the essence of an argument or a problem and then source verifiable data to prove or disprove it. I spent hours at university doing deep dives on various topics mostly for classes, but essentially for anything that tickled my fancy. This allowed me to form a defensible position on any subject. Too often people pick and choose their opinions without giving it sufficient thought. Part of my writing is figuring out what my position is and whether I can/want/choose to defend it.

Playing with words – This is often a matter of personal pride and satisfaction. Wordplay, puns, obscure references allows me to take delight in seeing a reader having ‘aha’ moments, a quiet snicker at something I created with my brain. That’s something powerful, something great, and should be appreciated.

Clearing my mind – Some people use yoga, others use mind-altering substances or use music to soothe their inner turmoil. I write. I write about my thoughts and ideas, I write stories and shorts, I write silly jokes and I write and I write and I write, and at some point my head goes quiet enough that my metaphorical demons can’t find me. And then I feel ok and can deal with the rest of my existence.

Or, if I have to put it succinctly: I write because I cannot not write.

Why do you choose write or paint or sculpt or whatever is your thing? Why do you choose to create rather than not create? Let me know.

NaNoWriMo was here – 2015 After Action Report

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Screenshot 2015-12-01 20.45.35

“You fail only if you stop writing.”

– Ray Bradbury

To me, this is the key to have a successful NaNoWriMo. Finishing the 50.000 words in one month, like I mentioned in my previous post, is less important than not to give up on your writing and to keep building the skill.. NaNoWriMo 2015 is over, so thank you for playing if you did. If you didn’t, then join us next year. It’ll be fun. I super promise.

In any case, this year has been quite a learning experience. For one, the world has been annoyingly distracting with work drama, life drama and terrorist drama around the world. But it has also been a productive November. Although I didn’t make it to 50.000 words on my story this year, but I did get a lot further than I thought. 28.000+ somewhat intelligible words have been added to my novel, not counting character bios, world notes, questions, outline and miscellaneous research, which is far beyond what I expected. I also learned that statistics are useless, if you’re not consistent with you counting and writing. I write in Word, Google Docs + Google Keep, in Scrivener and in a notebook. If I can give you one piece of tangible advice, DON’T DO THAT. Pick a tool and use it. That way you won’t get surprised on word count.

I also came up with a new creative project for the blog: a weekly series that I’ll start the first week of January, and also have fun titles for several books in potentia. And jokes, I wrote a lot of bad jokes. So all in all, I’m very positive and looking forward to write more.

And should you need another famous quote on writing, then:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

– Ernest Hemingway

So back to bleeding daily. But what do you think? Was my November wasted or worth it?
Did you do NaNoWriMo and finish? (if so, well done!). Let me know!

And for the last time is 2015… The NaNoWriMo song.

NaNoWriMo is here – I got distracted

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That’s life isn’t it. You set a goal, make a plan to get there, get your hopes up, then NaNoWriMo kicks off, and you immediately get distracted, the plan gets shot down, you adapt, you improvise, get distracted again, make small concessions to your goal, adapt some more, realize that it’s harder than you remembered, make bigger concessions, sob in misery and despair, wipe away your tears, and then suddenly it’s day two. Or five. Or ten. Or as it turns out; day twenty-two.

Screenshot 2015-11-22 12.36.32
Current word count

And I’m in fact behind on my word count. And that’s okay. And if you’re behind, that’s okay too. It would be nice to be able to say that I wrote a novel in a month and be looked at with awe, get showered with compliments, beer and sandwiches, but in reality that’s not the case. And that’s okay. This is the main point of this post: it’s okay to fail at NaNoWriMo.

Because what we’re building is a writing skill, with writing habits and a trust in our ability to put pretty words on a page and/or screen. We can worry about deadlines when we have actual paying jobs as writers.

2015-11-22 12.29.40
Not representative of actual cast. Clearly.

So if you’re like me, take stock and make a sensible plan for the rest of November, and then focus on solidifying that skill past November. Currently I have 17.000(ish) words down, a solid outline for act one and two with notes on act three, a list of named characters with their internal relationships mapped out, and nine writing days to go. My goal for this last period is to exceed 25.000 words, which means I need to put out 600 words a day. It’s manageable and will give me that nifty badge on my profile.

And then the work goes on. You keep working on your habit, your skill, and soon you’ll have a novel done. Or you’ll kill it and start something else. Or stop because you hate it. And all of those are OK.

But what do you think? Did I waste my November? Let me know.

And now… The NaNoWriMo song.

NaNoWriMo is Here – Time to Get Started

Writing, ,

Screenshot 2015-10-07 21.24.59And here we go! Its NaNoWriMo time and I just wanted to share my plan for this year. I will have chosen to work on two projects, both in Scrivener, my main project being a near future Scifi novel with a fictional diary as my backup project, just in case I lose momentum on the novel. I often get distracted from my main project, simply because writing stimulates my creative centre and makes all the good ideas come out at the same time. Or at least, I think they are all good ideas. 🙂

I will get my 50.000 words in this time, even if I have to share it between to two projects. I will be updating my word count daily on my NaNoWriMo page, which you can fine here. If you wanna add me as a writing buddy, feel free to do so. I will be doing an after action post, detailing what progress I made and how this year was the best NaNoWriMo year (I hope)

And most importantly, good luck and happy wrting.

But what do you think? Am I wasting my November chasing a fickle fantasy? Let me know.

And now… The NaNoWriMo song.

 

 

NaNoWriMo is Closer – Considerations Before Showtime

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nanowrimoiscomingSo… Two weeks or so to go before NaNoWriMo officially takes off and I’m doing research. Snicker… Not really, just a much needed holiday and I leave tomorrow. But I am mentally chewing my options when it comes to NaNoWriMO. Should I pick up an existing project and just get stuck in it, should I explore something different, like a factual piece, or maybe just make something up on November 1st? These are questions you should be asking yourself, and start getting ready for the groundwork. Below are a few tips for preparing for the coming month.

What to write?

This depends on your personal disposition; whether you prefer fiction or fact, whether you’re into superheroes, Chinese myths or salad dressing, you need to pick something that will keep your attention for at least 30 days, AND has enough meat to fill a 50.000 words book. If you lack ideas, here are a few suggestions pulled out of the ever more thinning air:

  • A bloodied baseball bat with a nail through it is found at a school. What happened?
  • A disembodied spirit decides to explore the universe. What does it find?
  • A niche bookstore hires new staff to deal with the holiday season. What happens?
  • A pyromaniac is dealing with having his hands burned off. How does he cope?
  • A romantic date in a castle goes poorly and the girl runs off. What does she find?

If you picked the wrong subject, don’t be afraid to pick something else. The core of NaNoWriMo is to get you writing so you’ll learn more about the craft, not to finish a novel. Would be nice if you could. Hell, I hope I will. 🙂

Preparing your work

People work in different ways, some can make with little to no outlining at all; others need all ideas prepped and organised with a full mapping of everything they want to cover. There is no ‘right’ way, so you’ll have to figure out which type you are. Personally I like the Snowflake method because of its more exploratory approach to writing and allows you to openly err without locking you to a specific idea. And you can stop outlining and start writing whenever you feel like it.

Keeping your chin up

We’re off and you’ve been writing for days (I assume), so how do you keep it up? How do you avoid turning a fun experience into a slog, something that just has to be done. Much like going to the gym or running, writing needs consistency to keep it going, yet if you push too hard, you risk burning out. Writing 50.000 words in 30 days averages out to 1.670(ish) words a day, so I personally aim at 2.000 words per sitting. It allows for a few off days (though I still intend to write every day), and mentally puts me in a place, where I know there is a buffer in case I want to maintain my social life.

Other ways of keep your motivation up include:

  • Using a physical reminder to track your progress, like a poster with your word count or achievement stickers in your calendar. I like shiny unicorns for that.
  • Using a writing app for tracking and reminding. Some apps even have rpg elements to keep you going by giving you a character to level. Just be honest.
  • Using a writing ritual to get the setting right. Some just need a cup of coffee and they’re good to go. Others have a uniform, or a writing hat, or a special chair that gets them going. Find your strong, but be careful that it doesn’t become a crutch.
  • Using a friend. I know it’s a strange idea, but telling other interested parties of your work can help motivate you. Forums can also function as an outlet, just take care to get more writing than commenting done.

And a final word

This is supposed to be a fun learning experience. Something that gives you insight into writing, builds your skill and lets you express yourself. Keep it up, but don’t let it consume you.

But what do you think? Is NaNoWriMo still an interesting project for you? Let me know.

And now… The NaNoWriMo song.