Category Archives: Blogs

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Let’s have a chat about spoilers

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Everyone is getting very angry about spoilers right now, aren’t they? If you’ve been near a social media website, I’m sure you’ve seen some people complaining about others spoiling the latest episode of Game of Thrones for them. If not, you will have seen the people complaining about the people complaining about having been spoiled. So much anger.

Look, people are going to want to talk about something they’ve enjoyed watching. Sharing enjoyment is a thing we can’t help but do, we want to talk with people we like about things, it happens. Now, the easiest way to avoid such spoilers would be to say “well, just don’t go on social media then” which, while accurate, is a little bit smug. Let’s try and use twitter to explain what I mean. Granted, this is how I see twitter, but I don’t think it’s far off. Essentially, if you don’t direct a tweet at a particular person, you are talking to everyone. Think of it as shouting in the street. Would you shout Game of Thrones spoilers aloud while in the queue in Sainsburys? Maybe you would, I don’t know, but if you wouldn’t, why does that make it different to do on twitter?

And even if it does, what does it cost to preface your spoilery tweet with another that says something like “by the way, I’m about to tweet about the latest episode of Game of Thrones publicly”? It costs nothing. Yes, you don’t have to think about the people who haven’t seen it yet. Sure, they run the risk of spoilers by being online at all, but it’s not like its hard to give a warning.

But don’t think I’m getting all grumpy at you for wanting to talk about something you loved. There’s plenty of chiding to go around. Even if my methodology were to be followed universally, you have to go into the internet expecting to run into spoilers about something so popular. You may not have to like that this is a thing, but you should prepare nonetheless. If you can avoid twitter, then do. Certainly don’t go anywhere near imgur. Protect yourself.

Both sides of this argument are being a bit daft really. Just relax. Be excellent to each other. Just take tiny precautions so as to give each other a chance to not offend yourselves. It’s not hard.

Although, that said, this doesn’t include people who talk directly to you and WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT SPOILERY THINGS, or people who use the argument “The book came out fourteen years ago” when talking about the TV adaptation. The latter is particularly arrogant. Would you spoil that same book if you knew someone was reading it for the first time? That is exactly what you are doing when you spoil Game of Thrones for someone. So don’t use that argument.

Just be nice. Both of you. Now kiss and make up.

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Beta Readers, I need you (very soon)

Beta Testing

So things have been a bit quiet around here, and that’s because I’ve been working on SNIDE. It’s been a bit of a pain in the arse, and some of it has been like pulling teeth just trying to get words onto the page. Books are never as straightforward as you would imagine, and SNIDE has very much been proving that to be true.

BUT now I’m definitely, definitely, reaching the end of the book and I need fresh eyes to tell me what needs fixing. Not typos or grammar or any of that business — I should be fixing them anyway — but important things such as pacing and characters and plot.

Were you confused? Was something too heavy handed? Did I get a character’s name wrong for three quarters of the book before I noticed? Continuity errors! That sort of thing.

Basically, I want you to read the book and tell me if it’s good and what needs fixing to make it better.

If you are interested, hit me up on twitter or any other means of contacting me that you have. I’m more likely to let you do it if you’re someone I know, or someone who did the beta reading for Lore and Order, and if I don’t send you the book it’s nothing personal, I’m just completely arbitrary and fickle.

Also, a couple of provisos: It sounds daft to give deadlines for something that is a favour, but ideally I would like the notes back by the end of the month. I want to get to work on the next draft as soon as possible, you know how it is.

It would also be helpful if you were good at constructive criticism. Chances are, I’ll already have an idea as to whether you are or not, but still. Be nice 🙂

So yeah, do you want to read my book and stuff?

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Basic writing tips: heroes

John-Constantine

Yeah, okay, let’s do this one today.

You get a lot more leeway when it comes to the motivation of a hero. It’s a lot more justifiable to have heroes out doing good for the sake of good because, at its core, humanity is basically good. Most individual humans, despite their flaws, would probably step up to proper evil if they had a chance to do so. At least, this is what I choose to believe when I’m writing because I tend to go for worlds that haven’t been totally mashed by jackbooted authoritarians or corporate shitheels or the like.

But what if you are building one of these worlds? In a world where oppression and misery are the norm — think 1984 — then a hero for the sake of being heroic won’t work. They need a reason to fight against the bastards that are grinding them down, something more than just them being subjected to a horrible way of life. This horrible way of life is all they know, so there needs to be something else to push them to fight. Again, in 1984 this is Winston’s love for Julia, but it can be anything, so long as it gives the hero a look behind the curtain.

Of course, just because they don’t live in a hellscape, doesn’t mean your hero doesn’t need these reasons. The way to make a hero interesting is to give him flaws, cracks in the veneer. The reason I can’t get on board with Superman as a hero, for instance, is because he’s so bloody perfect. The big blue boy scout. Truth, justice and the American way. That’s flat, dull, and for me not very compelling. Contrast that with the dude at the top of this post, John Constantine.

Constantine is best described as an arsehole. At his core he’s a good guy, but he’s selfish, often cowardly, a chain-smoker, rude and downright abrasive. He has a habit of sacrificing his friends if it will give him an advantage in a fight — which happens a lot — and never speaks plainly when a lie will do. This is a man that recently vowed to let the world burn and let billions of people die if it would let him save his own life and that of his ex-girlfriend.

But he is, ultimately a good guy.

That is the sort of hero I can get behind. Conflicted. Everyone has doubts about what they are doing, if your hero doesn’t then he’s not a person.

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Basic writing tips: villains

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I was playing Titanfall last night, that heady bastion of drama that it is, and was talking with someone about how poor the attempt at a storyline is. It’s your basic evil moustache twirling corporation of English and South Africans against the valiant rebellion of Americans. Not offensive, just utterly pointless. It does nothing that hasn’t been done before.

Then, naturally, we started talking about Brink, and the topic shifted to what made that a compelling world if not a compelling game. The answer was relatively simple: the baddies worked.

This *is* basic writing theory, so if you already know this, don’t take offence. You’ll already know a great deal of writers can’t do this properly. For those that don’t know what I mean, here we go.

As a rule, your bad guy should not think he’s the bad guy. He can act like a total dick, but his motivation must be because he thinks what he’s doing is the right thing to do, otherwise it feels remarkably fake. They can still be monstrously evil, to the point of moustache twirling if you like, but because they think it’s necessary.

Taken to its logical extreme, you get this article from a website that will devour your day, but it doesn’t need to go quite that far. But really, all you need is a reason for them to be evil. Whether heroes need a reason to be good is probably something I’ll write about later if I remember — it’s got a whole article of its own there — but villains always need a reason to be evil. They are the source of your drama, your conflict, so they must be fully realised by you, even if a lot of it isn’t used directly in the story. You need that knowledge on hand for writing how they act, knowing how they think.

Just, you know, give your characters some character.

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Being your own boss is awful/amazing and I hate/love it.

boss

I worked in an office once. For three weeks. It didn’t last.

The guy I worked for directly was cool and all, and even if the job itself wasn’t really that fun it wasn’t awful. It was the two hour commute that made it untenable. That and the way offices work.

If you read my books, you might notice there’s a general disdain amongst my characters for the dynamics of “office people”. Having remembered that this is a thing that I do, I thought I’d take a moment to differentiate between “office people” and “people who work in an office”, because they are not in fact the same thing. Most notably, they are distinguished by one being able to use the phrase “by the close of play” unironically.

Anyway, this is neither here nor there. The important thing is that, being essentially self-employed, I get to set the pace for how and when I work. Which is awesome. I can get up at midday, slob around until 3, then smash out my daily quota of words and have a sandwich. LIVING THE DREAM.

Except for the fact that no-one ever wants to work, even if it is something they love doing, which sounds like nonsense. When you are beholden to doing something as a career, there’s always going to be that little bit of resentment, and part of the reason good writers manage to exist is because we have become a dab hand at using that resentment to fuel anything other than what we’re supposed to be doing. So we sit there and we write novels instead of doing essays, because “you’ll never make money doing that, go and get a real job”.

When that becomes your real job, this doesn’t go away.

I expect most people who are their own boss actually have some external power figure they really answer to — like a wife or dog or something — but I haven’t managed to procure one of those yet. So mostly I have to threaten myself with crushing guilt to actually get myself to start working.

Writers are weird, okay?

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Steer City

Shamelessly stolen from J-Brony on deviant art.

Shamelessly stolen from J-Brony on deviant art.

I found this kickstarter on the internet last night. It is amazing. Just watch that video and then come back. I’ll wait.

Now, I’m not going to make fun of people for being so invested in cartoon ponies. Why would I? I’m super invested in urban fantasy, which is equally as alien and daft if you think about it. That these people like something so much that they can be this passionate and committed to it does not warrant derision. Perhaps a little good natured ribbing, but that’s neither here nor there.

No, what I want to talk about is the presence of a trans pony.

It’s one of those things you don’t really notice until something points it out to you, but why are we reliant on indie developers to represent the under-represented so? If you pick your way through the hundreds of indie games that lurk on the internet, you won’t have to go far before you stumble across one that contains a transgender or gay character, and — here’s a shocker — doesn’t even make a big deal about it. They’re just characters that happen to be in the game, and they happen to be gay or trans. You know, like actual people or something.

I’ve been trying to think of a AAA game that even comes close, and the best I can manage is Final Fight and its portrayal of Poison, and even that is a stretch. Not that I’m saying we should just stuff our games full of trans and gay characters just for the hell of it, but you’d think there would be some. Somewhere.

Good on you, bronies and pegasisters.