Did I mention that I’m writing a full-on science fiction novella that may even grow into a novel? It’s a noir kinda thing, set in a dystopian future Los Angeles. (It’s not Blade Runner. That’s the first thing people think when I say it, but I’m keenly aware of that, and I’ve taken the appropriate world-building steps to make sure it doesn’t go there.) It’s been ridiculously fun to write, which is good, because the joy I’m experiencing while I discover new and entertaining things about my world and my characters is (barely) holding the voices of Self Doubt and all of its friend Performance Anxiety at bay.
A lot of what I’m going to write in this post is probably obvious to more experienced writers, and will feel like real duh stuff to a lot of you, but I hadn’t really thought about any of this stuff until a couple weeks ago, and I thought that I’d write it anyway, because it may be useful to someone else out there. I’m going to talk about the differences I’ve discovered between non-fiction and fiction, and one of the key differences between short and long form writing. Hopefully, sharing my own experiences will help dispel fear for some other newbie writers.
In narrative non-fiction, I know the entire story, and when I find a lull, I just look around in my memory for something that can keep the story interesting until the next thing happens. I know how it’s going to end, so I have a certain amount of security while I’m writing, because I know where I’m going.
In fiction, I have no idea what’s going to happen until it’s actually happening. I mean, I have a basic outline, and I know that I have to get the guy from point A to point B, but everything that happens along the way is a mystery to me until I write it. This is really scary at first, but eventually it becomes pretty cool.
I remember asking Roger Avary how he ended up with the Gimp in Pulp Fiction. He told me that he crashed the cars together, had Marcellus chase Butch until Butch found a store to duck into, and . . . well, there was a Gimp in the basement. I was inspired by that, and I’ve never been afraid to let my imagination go nuts and lead me to unexpected places when I’m creating stories. (Note: so far, I haven’t found a Gimp in any of my stories, but I suspect that he’s sleeping, somewhere, waiting to be woken up.)
In some regards, fiction is more fun than narrative non-fiction, because I can do whatever I want; I’m not constrained by what really happened, so when I think, “That was cool, but wouldn’t it be better if this happened?” I can go ahead and write that. For example, in this story I’m working on now, I had my main character, Charlie, walking up the street on his way to someplace important, and when he stopped at a red light, he was suddenly surrounded by a group of teenagers who tried to mug him. How he dealt with that revealed a lot to me (and the reader, eventually) about who Charlie is. I didn’t know what he was going to find between his office and his destination when he left, but I trusted my brain to kick something interesting or entertaining (or both, if I was really lucky). It took a few fitful stops and starts, but I eventually ended up with something cool, because I was willing to find the Gimp, if that’s where the scene wanted to go.
Not having a clear memory to draw from can be super intimidating, though. Yesterday, I knew that Charlie was going to this building, but I wasn’t sure what he’d find when he got there. It’s not the most important scene in the story, but it’s something I need to have so I can logically move the plot forward. I had a couple of different ideas, so I chose one of them and wrote it down to see how it worked. It was a decent scene, with some nice dialog and a few turns of phrase (noir, it seems, is all about the turns of phrase, like, “The only place you could find an honest cop in this town was in a history book at the central library.”) but it didn’t feel right to me. In fact, Charlie actually said to me, “This isn’t what I expected to find. . .” and I knew it was wrong; I’d have to throw it out, and start over.
I went for a run, and after a couple of miles, I figured out why it was wrong. By the time I got back to the house, I’d figured out what to write in its place.
Want to see how different the two bits were? Here’s part of what I wrote first:
His work address lead me to a two story tan colored building with an empty loading dock down the right wall. It was in an industrial park that didn’t have too many tenants. The parking lot was empty, short weeds growing up through cracks in the asphalt. As I crossed it, I saw there were several flyers jammed between the smoked glass doors in front.
Where this guy Charlie is looking for works isn’t that important, because [spoiler]. But having Charlie find an empty building just wasn’t right, and when he told me that, I rewrote it:
A few minutes later, I walked down a well-landscaped path toward a five story mirrored glass building. A few workers with badges affixed to their shirts stood in the shade of a tree, their eyes staring into infinity while they talked to each other through cochlear IM devices. They ignored me as I passed.
Glass doors opened automatically, and I entered a spacious lobby in a two-story open atrium.
Neither one of those excerpts is final draft material, but I’m willing to share them to make my point. Those are two completely different settings, aren’t they? I mean, they couldn’t be more different, unless I put on my robe and wizard hat in one of them. Maybe when I’m more experienced, I know that the first way was wrong, and not invest half a day writing a scene that I can’t use, but I learned a lot from the effort, and I think I can rework the first try into a different part of the story later on, so it wasn’t a total waste.
What was my point here? Oh, when I recall something that really happened, I try to capture the feeling and as many details as I feel are necessary to bring it to life, so I pull those out of my memory. It’s totally different when I’m making something up, because I’m pulling them out of my imagination, and though the uncertainty is a little scary from time to time, it’s also tremendously liberating. (I just realized that this is a lot like Neil Gaiman’s Trudging Through Fog thing. See? This is all real duh territory, isn’t it?)
Okay, this is way too long and rambling already, so I’m going to wrap up with the key distinction I’ve discovered between short form and long form writing.
The hardest thing to get used to is working all day and not having a completely finished work that I can publish. Some days, I get 500 words and others I’ll get up to 3000, but my target is between 30000 and 40000 words for this story, so it’s impossible to finish it in one go. I’ve had to retrain myself to be happy with different milestones than I’m used to, and — hardest of all — I have to trust myself to keep on going without any outside feedback until the thing is done, when I’ll find out if it’s worth a rewrite, or just a good learning experience that gets filed away in Time Machine.
I’m excited about this story, though, and that’s carrying me through every day, especially the frustrating ones. I want to know what happens, and I want to see how Charlie handles all the obstacles I know I have in store for him. The world I’ve built is fun to explore, too, though I have to be very careful not to get seduced by high concept, big idea stuff that distracts from the story.
Anyway, Charlie has a meeting to attend, where he’s going to learn something pretty important, so I guess I should stop writing here and get back to the future.
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One of the greatest challenges of being a fiction writer (really, any kind of writer) is that there are no rules. And yet, there are tons of rules. It’s just that some of those rules are the wrong rules for you as an individual. The problem is, sometimes it’s hard to know at first glance whether they’re going to be the right rules for you or not. You just have to try and see, and let experience build the path to your own set of rules. You can’t just read “On Writing” and follow everything King said — you have to explore your own boundaries and decide what works or doesn’t.
(I just said “rules” lots and lots there. If comments could be rewritten, I’d have my marker pen all over that paragraph.)
One of the fundamental contentious “rules” is whether or not you should sit down and plot out everything in great detail first, or just have a loose idea and run with it. Or something in between. If you over-plot will that kill the chance for the Gimp, as you put it? If you don’t plot enough will you become hopelessly lost and never develop that initial germ of an idea into what you want? So-called experts and professionals have vehemently advised me to pursue about three trillion different absolute rock-hard “rules” about plotting/non-plotting, and the truth is, I had to work through different approaches till I could find my own balance.
Writing is a fascinatingly inexact science, but a profession populated by thousands of scientists who might try to tell you there’s a wrong way or a right way to go about it. In fiction, it can be even trickier to establish a “right way” for your own work, because who’s to tell you what’s the best way to articulate your own imagination?
Regardless of my own process, it’s always fascinating and ultimately elucidating to hear others take the journey into developing their own fiction-writing process.
It turns out that Self Doubt has a lower drinking tolerance than I do.
Also, I’ve never let a little thing like “what really happened” get in the way of telling a good story.
Actually, that isn’t quite true, but I liked the way it sounded.
It’s strange but comforting to read that you are going through these things, just like the rest of us who want to be a writer with a capital W.
See this is where you go on and write another part of the story…you can come back to it later.
And sometimes you write another scene and that last one comes together, or you write out that last scene.
You don’t have to be cronological about this. Most wordprocessors have a way to include notes use that.
This is the fun part 🙂 There are no rules…use what works…but you can always sweat the details later.
Whenever Self Doubt and Performance Anxiety try to visit, they get bounced out the door by my muse. My muse is a three-hundred-pound guy named Murray. He’s a total bastard.
I write a little bit, and non-fiction is way to boring to me. It is the idea, as you seem to touch on, of creating a world. I am in no way any good, but I do love to write. Writing fiction to me is a lot like this: do you remember the typed-narrative computer games like “Leather Goddesses of Phobos”? It’s a lot like that to me. My character gets off the bus then ???? Sometimes it comes immediately and sometimes I have to think about it, but, going where no one has gone before (sheesh, sorry) is where the fun is.
I’m currently reading On Writing (the Stephen King, not the Willa Cather – though I have that one too and should unearth it and give it a look), and I have to tell you that this is Just As Good, and maybe even more enjoyable because it shows your discovery whereas King is coming from a position of experience. I know you said you are procrastinating by writing this but I thank you for taking the time.
Hey Wil, I am an experienced nonfiction and recently a fiction writer as well so I completely understand were you are coming from. You saw my nonfiction book when I met you in San Jose, but I am working on my third techno-thriller as I write this. What’s interesting is that I have been working on the long form for a while now and so while I know what you are saying about motivation, it wasn’t something that was obvious to me. It was just the way I wrote. I have only recently discovered the short form in the guise of Twitter and a blog I have on MySpace(yukk). I am still loving writing the long form, but I find it very rewarding sometimes to write a short Twitter note, or an interesting blog post. In some ways it is almost instant gratification that doesn’t really exist in the long form, unless you set realistic daily goals. What will be very interesting for you is the day that you finally decide that your novel is done. There is nothing like the feeling that you have completed it. Let me give you a hint. When you have it done, put it on the shelf for a few weeks. Don’t look at it, don’t think about it. Then when you finally do read it all the way through, the joy you will feel when you rediscover it again, is simply amazing. Have fun.
A nickel’s worth of noir for free: “The only place you can find an honest cop in this town is in the canals, bobbing for concrete.”
I write non-fiction for a living, though fiction has always been my dream. (As I write this comment I SHOULD be working on the novel I’m pitching next month – shhhh!) I totally understand where you’re coming from. I think the important thing to do is remember that fiction isn’t about what “really” happened as much as what “should have” or “could have” happened, and just as in improv, if it comes from a place of truth, no matter how improbable or implausible, the reader will take the journey with you.
(I’m now printing out this comment to remind myself.)
It was in an industrial park that didn’t have too many tenants.
I have a rewrite of this sentence, but I’ll wait until I see if it makes the final version.
Also, the real reason there’s a Gimp in Pulp Fiction was that they couldn’t afford to use a Photoshop. ::rimshot::
Question: You wrote, briefly, about an outline. Is this something you have down on paper or is it just in your head?
If it’s on paper, where did you get your example? Is it possible to be pointed to this example?
I don’t know how to pre-write and I’ve found it to be a stumbling block. Up through JC, it was always cluster this and cluster that and I can picture those in my head. At university the teachers just said write and focused on refining the prose, which I could handle for stories no longer than a few thousand words. But actually putting my ideas for character and plot into a (fairly) stable and large structure has been hard. It seems to me that a decent outline would help to create a good foundation to build the story’s structure on.
Anyone out there have an example that can be perused?
@ticnart: I carry a little notebook with me everywhere. When I get an idea, I write it down in that book.
Sometimes, it’s really basic and takes up a couple of lines, and other times it spans a couple of pages.
I take that idea, and copy in into a text editor on my computer. Once that’s done, I start working out the plot; I know really fast if it’s worth developing, or if I should just file it away for some other time. (Note to writers: don’t ever throw anything away, because you never know when some character or scene or dialog will be useful for something in the future.)
I guess that’s the extent of my pre-writing: “This happens, then this happens, then this other thing happens, and I know that I want to write a scene about this other thing.” I also figure out who my main characters are, though I don’t really flesh them out and explicitly define them until I’ve spent a few thousand words with them.
When I’m plotting, I write until I know, more or less, what will happen in each act. I have a basic idea of who the main characters are, but I don’t really *know* them until I spend some time with them. I learned a lot about Charlie when he dealt with his teenage muggers, for example. I’m sure I’ll have to go back and rewrite stuff based on what I’ve learned about him when I get to the end.
I don’t really use any one outlining method, though I keep hearing great things about the Scrivener software, and I may give that a shot on the next story.
I found the Sparknotes guide to writing a short story to be pretty useful, also.
The metaphor I like is “The Mule”. You can plot out your novel like Hari Seldon mapped out his psychohistory, but you can’t predict The Mule that will appear and disrupt everything you had planned.
The metaphor I like is “The Mule”. You can plot out your novel like Hari Seldon mapped out his psychohistory, but you can’t predict The Mule that will appear and disrupt everything you had planned.
Sharing experiences with other newbie writers is the only thing that’s kept me writing. 🙂
And that last sentence was just an excuse to pun on “back to the future,” wasn’t it?
That stretch of work without feedback is what’s been hobbling my long-form fiction this year. I want feedback, but once I get it, a piece tends to feel “done” and I get eager to move on to the next one. Write, get a cookie, write some more. Without those cookies, it’s only a matter of time before I convince myself that what I’m writing is shit and I bail on it. This is my monkey, and he won’t get off my back.
Congratulations! I think you’ll have a market — I’m sure lots of us have been eager to see you venture into fiction.
In the event the noir aspects involve firearms (current or future), might I suggest you take a little time to familiarize yourself with firearms handling and use? There are few things more jarring than seeing a fine writer blow it over small details. (A Trek example would be when James Blish had Spock put something in a pocket of his TOS uniform pants. No pockets in TOS.)
And yes, science fiction writers can still get guns wrong.
An inquiry on the Calguns.net board should get you plenty of local, articulate and friendly firearms experts willing to answer questions, share expertise or even take you to the range should you desire.
“Write what you know,” etc.
john – very nice foundation reference. warms my heart.
wil – looking forward to reading this, should you ever publish it. although at the rate you are going it wont be long before i have an entire wheaton shelf.
Thanks for posting this, Wil. Your blog covers a lot of topics that I enjoy, but it’s most fascinating to me when you write about writing. I’m just getting back into writing after an embarrassingly long hiatus (I majored in screenwriting before I dropped out – a result of being a moron when I was younger), and it’s just incredibly helpful when you post stuff like this.
BTW, if you ever have the urge to write about, oh, say, “shutting off the critic in your brain long enough to actually get an idea written out” – you know, without constantly stopping to edit and re-edit before you go on to the next paragraph – PLEASE do. 🙂
Wil,
I know you’re busy as hell, but did it ever dawn on you to start a writers club? Some place where people could get some peer review as well as write in other capacities or activities, and maybe even have a contest or two. Like you, or some of your colleagues or other contemporaries could host workshops etc., or whatever. Think about dude. Imagine how much traffic something like that could bring to WWdN: In Exile?
Awesome, I look forward to reading it. Fess up Charlie’s really a replicant, isn’t he? 🙂
Not sure why you keep doubting yourself. The key is not how well you write but how well you are read. That you are well read is quite evident as you keep having to go back to the printer for more books. As they say in London, the proof is in the pudding. However save the blog entries so that when you start your next career as a professor at UCLA teaching creative writing, (yes you are good enough for that and then some) you will have a course outline.
Now quit the b/s and get MY book finished so I have something to read besides the damn politicing I am going to have to endure until November. Bill M.
Okay this is probably gonna sound a little bit weird but: Why don’t you use this site as your sandbox for fiction? Over the past few months I’ve gotten the impression that you’ve taken on a lot of fiction writing projects for yourself and I, being a selfish person would like to see ideas on those works as they come to fruition. My rationale for this thought is that WWDN was your sandbox for non-fiction long before you realized you were a (non-fiction) writer, so why not use it more often these days for your fiction writing. I understand that you probably have agreements about some of the fiction that you’re writing and can’t reveal anything until the work is released in it’s entirety. However, I’m talking about things like the 2 short excerpts you revealed today…but more voluminous, I want more more more, more more more! You’re a fucking good writer and I feel like half of that awesomeness is missed out on by your friendly fandom. If you’re self-conscious about it, not wanting to show your baby to the public, turn off the comments, but I’m willing to bet that the positive:negative comment ratio is going to be rather large. Yeah, I know I can go find some short story prequels/sequels out there, but I like all my Wil writing in one easily accessible place (not only am I selfish, I’m also lazy!). Ummm…yeah, that’s pretty much all I have to say, apologies for this being longer than I wanted.
Okay 2 more things: 1)“Wil, this is your computer speaking, post more fiction” (I have to abuse that fact that somehow I was able to get the username “root” on your comment section…of every website I’ve ever been to I was most amazed here of all places it was untaken)
2) And just so that I don’t seem like an anonymous dick: hello, my name is Brent Markus and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your books (Happiest Days seriously shook my core, making me remember great memories that I had long forgotten such as bike rides, transformers, legos, and the like…well more detailed than just topic names, but there’s specifics there that aren’t worth mentioning here)
@ticnart: there are several forms of outlining a story, but you got to use what works for you. Wil says he carries a notebook, that works for him, doesn’t work for me when I’m outlining the story itself.
Here are some ideas for pre-writing. Do them in whatever order works for you, and don’t be surprised if the same order doesn’t work for your next story. Stories aren’t created in a clean, obvious way. Just go with how your brain works and how the story comes.
1. The three bullets: short & sweet, that explain what happens in the beginning, middle and end of your story. If you don’t have an answer to one, it’s okay, but put something down, you can always fix it later. Best reading for this: Aristotle’s Poetics (sounds hooky, but true). Sparknote it if you must. Your explanation for each bullet doesn’t need to be a treatise, just a few sentences will do. As you progress through your story, expand your bullets, create sub-bullets. Soon, you’ll have an outline that is detailed enough to work with.
2. Character sheets: make a list of basic information about your main character (e.g., appearance, religion, sense of humor). Follow the same format for all characters; you’d be surprised how many tangles get unknotted with this step. Best reading: Mark Evan Schwartz’s How to Write: a Screenplay is a great source for that.
3. Got conflict? You MUST have conflict. Go back to your Sophomore English class files: man v. man; man v. nature (God, fate); man v. world. What is your character really fighting? Then, this is the best part, throw your character into those situations. See what happens.
Regardless of how you pre-write, you MUST plan something out. I’m working through a tangle right now: I want a character to do something, but she has no reason to do it. I have to be willing to let it go. I went back and did the character sheets, and viola! I can see a potential motivation for her to do something else, something greater, something much better than I had wanted her to do.
No writer likes to admit how much work writing is. Although talent is what will light that fire under your arse, it’s the craft that will make your writing good.
Finally, the best advice I ever got as a new writer was to purposefully write crap the first time. I know it sounds odd, but trust me, it’s the best thing for your talent and your craft. You get the growing pains over with, you learn the structure of everything you need without being caught up in the “brilliance” of your own ideas, and you end up with something that you can use as a touchstone later.
Hope this helps!
Viva la pen!
Root: The problem with posting works in progress is the “too many cooks” phenomenon; if Wil posts something that’s not done yet, many people will feel inspired to comment on it “to help him along.” The result is dozens of pieces of often contradictory advice, most of which Wil should just ignore so he can finish the story the way he intended in the first place — in which case, why post it?
It’s like offering someone a taste of your spaghetti sauce before the meat, veggies, and spices have been added. It’s just tomato paste at that point, and their idea of a perfect sauce might not match what you had planned to do. Better to kick everyone else out of the kitchen, IMO.
I’m glad to see that you’re writing something in the scifi genre. Looking forward to reading it when it comes out.
A slightly off topic comment…
I am not a writer, what draws me to Wil’s blog has always been the more techie side of things. As a linux developer it is what I am drawn to.
That being said, I think the comments in response to this post are among the most awesome of any I have read on any blog…almost inspires me to write something down…
I think this may be my favorite Wil Wheaton blog of all time.I’m trying to bust through a case of writers block so severe that at times I have felt like I might really, truly, never write again. Hearing you talk about(reading what you wrote) about Charlie taking over and telling you what happens….jeebus…it reminded me of the magic…reminded me that I’m not out here alone battli9ng this blockage…my characters-those already created, and those yet to gain fictional life-are trying to get me through this as well, because they have lives to live as well. Thanks Wil
Remind me to buy one of your books at PAX. 🙂 I wanted to get Just A Geek at ECCC until my plans were foiled. Dystopian Future LA – that grabs my attention. I look forward to seeing where you take that.
Wil, one thing jusmped out at me – “cochlear IM devices”. Would it be (a) less detached and clinical, and (b) more immersive and ‘real’ from the narrator’s point of view to give it an actual name…?
Exposition of what the device is may of course be required elsewhere, but for me personally the current reference doesn’t sound like the ‘inner monologue’ of someone who is of that dystopian future and would be as familiar with the device as we are with, for example, iPods.
So, for example:
“A few minutes later, I walked down a well-landscaped path toward a five story mirrored glass building. A few workers with badges affixed to their shirts stood in the shade of a tree, their eyes staring into infinity while they talked to each other through the inevitable IM-Bugs in their ears. They ignored me as I passed.”
Glass doors opened automatically, and I entered a spacious lobby in a two-story open atrium.
Otherwise – coolio! Good writing, and I definitely prefer the seconmd version.
Writing can be a right SoB sometimes – I guess its all about patience, padding everything out in an interesting manner.
Is Wil Wheaton going to be the new Iain Banks? Lets hope so 🙂 I’ll certainly be in the queue for a copy.
Admit it, Wil, you set that whole post up so you could use those last four words.
Lately, my favourite posts of yours have been about this novella. I am trying to be a writer with a lowercase w, and I find it very helpful when I “hear” people like yourself talk about their writing. I have so many stories and weird experiences in my head (just not the talent to do it with a capital W)
Keep up the good work, Wil. If this piece is up to your standards when you finish it, I would ABSOLUTELY buy it on the first day it is available!
I’m glad to here about your writing Wil. You’ve been really quiet about it, and now I can’t wait to get my hands on it! Please keep us posted on how it’s coming. Trust me, we want to know!
It’s funny the parallels that exist between fiction writing and photography. I do abstract macro photography, so lots of intense, meticulous work. All morning I have been pursuing one photograph, trying to perfect it. I liked it, but something wasn’t right, and I worked it hard to try to discover the fix.
Then, as can happen so easily in macro photography, my hand oh-so-slightly knocked the piece of bark I was photographing. Everything I had been laboriously working on fell out of focus, all the work lost. But suddenly, I was seeing something new. A new perspective I hadn’t considered comes into view, and now the photograph works.
I guess sometimes you just gotta trudge through the mud for a while before you find the dry land.
This is a fascinating post with real insight into the thought process of a writer!
I was just wondering if at some point you could share your method of drafting / editing. I would be interested to know how you make changes and how many versions of your writing you keep (I thought of this because you mentioned that you might use some of your discarded scene at a later date meaning, I presume, that you would have kept the older version just in case).
Thanks Wil and msgoonie, I’ll do my best to put your advice to work.
I love this post. I’ve been wanting to improve my own writing and I appreciate this “duh” stuff. Thanks 🙂
HI Wil! Congrats on ANOTHER book – how cool!!! I am wondering if you are going to do a live chat now and then – particularly for those of us authoring books – I am writing one on a topic that is kind of unexpected. As a music business consultant, everyone expects I will write a book for that! Maybe someday but there are a lot of music business info books so I don’t feel so pressed 🙂 I am writing a book called WHERE THE HUSKIES GO and it’s about my life with my Sibes- kind of a hybrid memoir/helpful guide through storytelling for new or prospective Husky adopters.
I would be super interested in talking to you (or anyone else here) about independent routes (or more mainstream) publishing outlets and other helpful hints. I know your time is super precious but thought I’d ask anyhow!
Thanks for sharing! I’m a relatively new writer, for only a year or two. I have a one-shot that’s publishable, but have been working on fiction pieces that are a series. I finished the first story and you’re so right about having it be character driven! I have a basic outline in my head, but I’ve let the characters write it and it makes it so much more authentic in a way. Good luck!
Wil,
A scalable way to get decent feedback is through several online communities that writers can post to. If you wanted to, you could even set up a pen name or a handle that would allow you to get anonymous feedback.
As a writer who often ventures into the con circuits, if you ever have the chance to listen to (or speak with) George RR Martin (http://www.georgerrmartin.com/ ) I highly recommend it. His attitude and kindness toward up-and-coming authors is really great, and he often has great tips to share. The one that I liked the best was his idea that there are two kinds of writers: architects who need to work off of an outline and gardeners who tend to let things flow organically.
Good luck with your writing. I really enjoy reading your blog because of your transparency, and I will be happy to recommend your blog to my readers.
This makes me feel a lot better about my own characters “talking” to me. When I write, I also have no idea what’s going to happen until I’ve written it down. To me, it makes things more exciting.
Wil, I know you have an editor, but I’m a grammar geek (English major with a concentration in Rhetoric), so this sort of thing makes me a little crazed. Please bear with: “A few minutes later, I walked down a well-landscaped path toward a five story mirrored glass building.” “Five story” should be hyphenated (because it’s a compound noun acting as an adjective), and “mirrored glass” should be hyphenated for the same reason. There. I feel better now; the voices in my head are once again quiescent. Thanks. 🙂
Good on ya Wil. Even though I kow I’ll ever write anything that will be worth publishing, the craft of writing and how people engage it still interests me. I often visit the website of one of my favourite authors – Dan Simmons – because he is good enough to keep an ongoing dialogue with his fans and would-be writers in his forum. And he also has an ongoing installment called “Writing Well” which gives invaluable insight into the ART of writing. Anyone who aspires to write should do themselves a favour and check it out. http://www.dansimmons.com
Cheers!
I’m late to the party on this one and as I’m not a writer I don’t have much in the way of words of wisdom to give you but I do want to say I’m excited about this new book you’re writing and will mentally send you some mojo.
Cheers!
Less words:
Minutes later, I walked down a landscaped path toward a mirrored building. Workers with badges stood under a tree, staring at infinity while they talked to each other through machines. They ignored me. I passed.
Through automatic doors I entered a spacious atrium.
I really appreciated reading about your writing process, Wil, thanks!
Is it critical that the badges are attached to the guards’ shirts?