After a cancerous death, I appeared on Writing Excuses this week to groan and hold forth with the guys on writing second novels and second books in a series.

During the podcast I talked about my practice of debriefing after every writing project. A reader just asked what that was, and so I thought I’d explain it here.

The debrief is a simple thing. I learned it back when I worked as a business consultant. It always provides great insights. Sometimes  it provides massive insights. The principle is to pull back and look at the big picture every once in a while. So here’s what I do. When I finish a project, I sit down and simply list out what I struggled with, what went well, and anything I learned. I list out things I’d do again that worked particularly well and things I’d do differently. This might be about craft or process. Sometimes I might take some time to reflect on the nature of story and read a favorite book about the craft or perform a story analysis on another movie or book. Then I write up my insights in a form that I can read later and know what the heck I’m talking about. This can take a few hours or a few days. This last debrief after draft 3 of CURSE coincided with my preparation for a day-long workshop I had agreed to give on story, and so the insights came thick and fast. I recommend the practice highly.

Here’s the third episode I recorded with the Writing Excuses guys.

In the first podcast we talked about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. In the second, we talked about how to not repeat yourself as an author. In this one, I shared some basics about generating emotion in readers and dealing with negative emotions writers face when they encounter rejection, compare their career with others, hit writer’s block, or hear someone didn’t like their story.

As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: Emotion in Fiction.

Here’s the second episode I recorded with the Writing Excuses guys.

In the first podcast we talked about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. In this one, we talked about how to not repeat ourselves in ways that make the reader feel like they’re getting the same old same old.

As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: How to Not Repeat Yourself.

A while ago the Writing Excuses team asked me to record with them, and last Friday I got to do it and had a blast.

We recorded three episodes. In the first podcast we talk about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: The Anti-Mary Sue Episode.

The Writing Excuses guys have posted another good podcast: this one on world-building a history.

I wanted to add a few comments. You’ll notice that a lot of the blurbs for my novel mention my world-building, so I guess it’s a strength in my writing. However, I don’t write huge world building documents in the pre-draft stage. I do write some history, of course. But I don’t think it would take up more than a few pages. A lot of world-building happens in draft.

It seems to me there are two levels of “history” and a lot of it can be done on-the-fly.

1. There are small hints of CHANGE in places and people.

Dave Wolverton taught me this one. You come upon an orchard in the woods that’s gone wild and is overgrown. It takes two lines to describe it and it gives a strong feel of past. The reader wonders who was there, what happened. Maybe you tell them. Maybe you don’t. You mention that the village Knight used to be fat but is wasting or vice versa. I find I can do these types of things usually on-the-fly as I’m writing. And I don’t need to know much about them. I just ask myself if anything has changed with the location or characters in the current scene.

A few touches of CHANGE throughout the novel give a strong sense of history.

2. There are events, groups, and individuals who impact or impacted your characters and their community in large ways.

There was a war with a neighboring country not five years ago. Your characters have to travel through that land, or maybe half the male population went to war and never came back. Or perhaps your character lost his sister in a drowning he could have prevented. Or he lost her to slavers. Or perhaps there is a secret police (like the Roman couriers) who arrived two years ago.

Again, many of these things can be thought up on the fly as you look for conflict and the stories of a place and community. However, I’ve found that it helps to ask a few key questions in the pre-draft stage to lay some (NEVER ALL) the groundwork.

– What kind of conflicts do these nations and groups have?
– What events have had a large impact on my character and his community? They can be terrible or wonderful events.
– Who in the community are my characters friends and enemies? What’s the history?
– What are the local and regional stories of events (or people) that were eccentric, odd, mysterious, dangerous, or revolutionary?

I never get all my answers up front. But I will get some. And then as I write I just keep in mind that it’s neat to indicate change every once in a while and to briefly bring up stories from the past that relate to the current matter at hand in the present story.

Finally, I really like the idea the Writing Excuses guys brought up of sharing multiple explanations for an event (multiple histories) when it fits and to include more than one cause, although I’m pretty sure the 80/20 rule applies to causation.

Part of my model of the creative process is that it’s driven by questions. We come up with creative solutions in response to a problem. The problem triggers the process.

Let me give an example. Let’s say I have a character named Bill who lives out in space salvaging parts of space ships and other things. Or maybe he’s on some planet.

I don’t have a story yet. I’ve just got a dude in a general situation. I lack all the necessary parts. That lack is a problem to me as a writer. To develop the story, I state the problem as a question and begin generating options.

So I might ask, what are the threats Bill faces on a physical and social level? Are there mysteries he encounters? Who else is there? In order to answer those questions I might need to ask what’s the planet like?

At some point in time, I’ll feel I have generated enough answers for the key questions that it’s time to draft. When I begin to draft, I have other tasks or problems to solve. I might ask things like what’s the goal of this scene? What’s an interesting way to start and end it? What’s something surprising and bad that might happen as a result of the character’s action?

It’s all question and answer.

Towards the end of this week’s Writing Excuses on World Building Governments the guys share some great questions you might find fruitful when thinking about your world’s government.