Tag: organization

Writing Wiki: Not Wiki Writing

So if you’ve been following along with the madness that comes with my obsession with writing, you’ll know that I took the jump from excel spreadsheets to a writing wiki to organize my writing. If you haven’t been, well, today is a fantastic progress update so I’ll explain the methods behind the latest stint at the wheel of a ship called creative madness!

As you can see in the title, I am talking about creating a writing wiki. You may wonder why that is any different than writing for a wiki. There are indeed many parallels, and I have enjoyed learning the wiki syntaxes alongside my writing. It gave me the perfect reason to take a break and think about something other than the world I am creating. Also writing an article for a wiki is fun, but using it for a story to organize your thoughts is an incredibly powerful tool.

The wiki page is simply that of a text editor, but through valid and important linking you create actual notes and links from one section to another. Planning foreshadowing and adding layers of depth to the story has been easier than just writing. Normally I do what I would call “free writing” where I have an idea where I want the story to go and start off almost on the adventure myself. As I write, new ideas present themselves and I begin to get distracted. This is the first time I have ever managed to plan an entire novel (just completed the chapter summaries). The fun thing is making the beginning of the story have significant relevance to the end of the story while both tie into the title of my story: Fabled.

As the hero, Brennet Vanniston, stuggles to understand why his brother left him before his eighth birthday, his mother reads him the story of the three monsters of creation (A lore I adapted to my story from stories from history). Within a few years, he quickly finds his life spiralling upwards and beyond his control. Finding himself travelling the lands of Ethos and uniting the kingdoms against Death himself, Brennet quickly finds himself the protagonist of his own story.

The story at the moment has a few possible endings (One definitive for a one off novel, one to set up a single sequel and one to set up a trilogy), I have been focusing on the trilogy ending in hopes of writing another story in the same world. After all, I’ve done lots of planning in this world, why wouldn’t I want to make more stories in it? Also the Vanniston lineage is a history rich blood line with a rags to riches story. The evolution of the name from as far back as the little known Nistons to the destiny changing Vlad Van Niston shows how one moment can completely change a family’s course forever.

To give you a bit of insight into the great ancestor of Brennet Vanniston, Vlad Van Niston was actually originally a blacksmith by trade. A man who saw forging weapons and wielding them as one and the same, he quickly became known through tournaments in the King’s name. He practised often with the weapons he crafted, and this lead to his advantage with many different types of arms. Also he was secretly ambidextrous, but he was afraid to use his left hand as it was considered a sign of evil lurking within. Vlad found himself recruited into the Kingsguard for his skill as a blacksmith, but eventually found himself fighting on the front lines after single-handedly fending off attackers at their camp.

Vlad’s defining moment was in the great battle for the kingdom of Anglia. He had just turned twenty and before they could celebrate, shadows fell over the camp, slaughtering half the men in mere minutes. Alarmed by the ambush, Vlad with sword and shield, leapt haphazardly into the fray. He met a man who met his every swing perfectly, and matched his speed and accuracy. As the two men danced in the flickering light of the camp fire, all eyes turned to them. The blades sung out as they sliced the air perfectly, almost in eagerness for the taste of blood. Suddenly Vlad felt his sword turning unnaturally in his hand, it seemed the other man was about to disarm him. In his panic, Vlad dropped his shield and caught the falling sword in his left hand; his sword sang as it cleaved easily through his opponent’s wrist. The other sword’s slight blue glow landed in Vlad’s right hand, and with both blades, he ended the war.

Vlad’s story continues as he learns from his captive enemies that the sword is ancient, its old master called it Revenant. Adopting the sword as his own, he continued fighting with the King’s armies until he passed the sword down to his son upon his retirement. The sword then was passed down through the ages, usually to the first born son, but only when the father retired from battle. As Vlad’s skill dramatically improved his family’s wealth and reputation, the tradition of naming your son or daughter with the middle name “Van” became a popular practice. This eventually lead to the surname of Vanniston, which brings us to our hero, Brennet.

This is one of the many pieces of history and lore I’ve added into my stories to enrich the experience and through the use of a wiki, added more than I probably should have. You see, whenever you are writing a note, lore, description or anything really; You simply make a link of anything that sounds interesting or important to you. Eventually you create this web of links which build the story and the events for the most part. The history of my story shaped the direction and conclusion of its main plot, while the sub plots describe things I want to tell you about through the eyes of my characters. Some animals are fantastic, and I can’t wait to discuss them!

If anyone is considering using a wiki to start structuring their writing, please feel free to email more or comment here and I will help you as best I can. Not only that, but on my back burner there I can see that I would like to create a tutorial for using one as a writer. I believe this tool has been incredibly useful for making me seem more organized than I am and most likely saving a forest of trees with the amount of notes I usually scribble haphazardly only to require rewriting(read: translating) them. I hope you enjoyed today’s post and feel free to drop me a line! I’d be more than excited to hear from anyone out there!

As Promised: Progress!

So I hope many of you enjoyed the last post of my wonderful trip to Melbourne, now that it is mostly behind me (I am still considering seeing what my other options are for this stupid ticket) I push forward back into focusing on my creative writing. I am always writing, but sometimes I focus less on the story progression and more on the idea generation process of writing. Luckily for me, a friend of mine happens to be a writer as well and offered up a blog post for me to dissect and enjoy. As I headed over to her page and read up, I can tell she has gone through something definitely very similar.

So today I told myself, to hell with writing. I decided not to write a single word. Now you’re wondering how I made any progress at all, and I can tell you it probably won’t seem like it to the common blog reader. I have been fighting this large demon called “Organization” and he has been quite the contender. We have been evenly matched, and he frequently pulls out ahead. Damn demons… fighting dirty… Ahem! Anyway, so today was my first victory in the ongoing battle! I took a look at how I write and it is sporadic at best. I write all the time, but I imagine aliens finding my notes long after we are all dead and gone and considering the fact that I may be what ended the world. I swear I’m not crazy! Just a bit… nutty.

Today I armed myself with a new tool before work, I found myself figuring out exactly how I could write as much as I want, never stop and just associate what I wanted. Also, if I die, the USB drive that all this information is on should go immediately onto the internet. You see, I’ve spoken of Excel before and that had its time. But I was still having the issue of other ideas flying in no matter how in the zone I was. Then while I was reading the billions of pages of information on the Wiki of Ice and Fire it all just came together. These fans have created a Wiki about the books, characters, events, and the list goes on. I have no fans to make my wiki for me, however I found out how to create a private one from a USB stick. This may be a temporary fix, but I will be damned if it didn’t feel great! Let me explain why the wiki format has been helpful in my writing thus far.

I started off with Media Wiki and found myself staring at the basis of a writer’s creation… and the bane of our existence. A blank page. I realized (like most men) that instructions probably would be helpful, but who needs those? I searched for something I knew didn’t exist and created my first page. Then I linked that from my main page. And then… I giggled. Not a manly giggle (if one does indeed exist), but a giggle like a school girl who just found out the guy she likes feels the same. Yeah, I think that’s close enough. So after my “Tee-hee!” moment, I began converting some partial ideas into wiki pages. The moment I realized I was potentially wielding the Excalibur of writing tools was when I introduced a new character, then I made a link to a new page in the wiki based off the character’s name. Then I created their back story. And then I kept going, and gave details to the cities that character had visited and the people I mentioned in his biography. And then… I giggled some more. You may have heard me comment that I believe my Muse had “inceptioned” her Muse? Well, now I was following her down the rabbit hole.

Rabbit hole? What the hell am I talking about?! Imagine this for a second. You drop into a completely blank space. A clean canvas completely surrounds you and then you think up, I don’t know, Westell Potts. For me, I imagine him probably different than you do. But now it is you and Mr. Potts. Where does he fit in? For me, Westell sounds like a fat, lazy guard, so we put him in a castle. As the details of who Westell actually is come to fruition, the castle builds itself. Who does he serve? A king? A queen? A… Unicorn? After you make your decision the other details fall into place until finally you have a Kingdom. But is the kingdom on a hill? Near some water? Now you begin filling out the wiki page for the kingdom. Then the king (in my case). Then his devious brother. Then his sullen kingdom of “unworth”. Then why did he get the crappy kingdom? Events unfold. Stories bloom from within the story itself. Finally, I have some manner of organization that works for me. Also because I hate clutter and the such, the clean chaos contained within the wiki allows me a great deal of power at the cost of formatting. Will this be an efficient use of my time? Perhaps not, however if I complete a story because of it… then the investment is worth it indeed!

So as I have told the many who have read my posts before, I will keep you posted. This is meant to be a journal of my works as well as documenting my path to an eventual (and dreamed about) publication. Are any other writers out there using the wiki format? Has it helped? Has the trade off been worth it? I would like to thank the lovely Natalie over at her blog for her continued help and guidance as well as another friend who offered me an email, Ms. Stares, for her helpful hints as well. If anyone would like to leave a comment, or email me feel free! I try and reply to any who take the time to send me a message and it doesn’t even have to be writing related! Thanks for tuning back in to my blog and hope to hear from you readers out there beyond the text box!

The Craft: Writing Is Hard

So you’ll notice that my blog updates sporadically, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Bad thing because there is zero consistency, but a good thing because this means I am mostly focusing on my writing outside the world of blogs. That being said, today I have decided not necessarily to come here and vent, but to try and reach out to some other struggling writers to see if we’re having the same issues. I haven’t found my own personal Writer’s Circle yet, but I hope to. For now, you readers out there are my only hope!

As you can see by the title, I find writing hard. I’m sure lots of you have already judged me accordingly to say: “Well if you find it hard now, get out while you’re still sane.” Let me clarify. I never have the traditional writer’s block. My muse is plentiful and knows no bounds. However, my muse tends to work overtime and I end up with a universe of ideas and no idea on how to organize them. I have written stories from simply thinking while doing dishes. My latest idea has already spanned thousands of words, and spawned more than five other ideas itself. But what the hell? How can I just buckle down and focus on one idea? People say just do it. Maybe I’m greedy, but I will liken my situation to… hmm… oh! An episode of How I Met Your Mother.

For this I will go back to Season Five, Episode Fifteen entitled “Rabbit or Duck”. You see in this episode Barney holds up his phone number on national television and his phone turns into a magical phone. It never stops ringing, and there is always a hot chick on the other end. The only downside is there is always a hotter chick out there. He never manages to actually get any, because the phone keeps giving him a hotter chick. Because of this, the entire episode he fails to actually capitalize on the magical phone because he cannot focus on one girl long enough.

So, I will in turn liken my muse to the magical phone. My muse keeps cranking the ideas out, but as I fight to get them all down on paper, napkins, emails, text boxes, hands, or whatever else I can write on; I find myself unable to capitalize on any one idea. I know exactly how Barney felt in that episode because I am afraid to not focus on the next idea. I keep thinking, but what if this next idea is my Harry Potter? What if my next idea after that is my Lord of the Rings? What if my idea after that is my Game of Thrones?! What if the idea after that beats all of them!?! *Insert mental breakdown here*

But seriously, I am unsure if I lack the discipline to advance past a few chapters now, or lack the planning ability. I mean I’ve heard many authors say they worked on their worlds for years before working on the story itself. The more I read about the world of a Game of Thrones the more I realize that he doesn’t write so much about characters as he does about the world itself. Hell, there is a cook book based off Game of Thrones!

People say just writing is the start, but seriously I never stop. Sure I may passover a day or so here and there for things like household duties or extra work, but I am always thinking about writing. I’m always getting inspired by a new event, a new song, a new experience or even meeting a new person. I really feel like all the “how to plan your novel” and “how to write your novel” articles out there focus on the mechanics of the writing, but none have focused on the discipline of writing. I can make a million folders, and fill them with notes, scans, text documents and crazy planning. But it feels as though the moment I’ve fully prepared a story, I’ve got a new idea to plan.

I guess what I am looking for is some crazy method to “monk-ing” it up writing style. I do not want to move to a cabin in the woods to write, but even if I did, it wouldn’t help me focus on one story idea. In fact, it would probably inspire many more ideas. How does one focus on one simple idea? Should I simply convert any new ideas into the current world I am working on? How does one “shelf” an idea without planning more into it? These are the questions I pose to the universe… now the question is, will any respond to the call?!