Tightening our Prose: Redundancy

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

Stay tuned! And now for today’s post: Greetings, Storytellers. Diana here with more tips on tightening our prose, which in turn improves our pace and…

Tightening our Prose: Redundancy
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The Crafting of Phi Beta Continues

Posted on November 12, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

Road Warrior

There is absolutely no connection between the picture and what I’m about to write about, but whatever.

So, I’m almost done writing Darwin & the Beast Collector, which means I should go back to my notebook.  It’s been in limbo for a while.  I even stopped halfway through designing the last of the squad mentors.  Why?  Well, I’ll explain a bit.

The series in question is being called ‘The Phi Beta Files’ for now.  Not sure if I want to keep that last word, but I can’t think of a better one that starts with an ‘f’ or ‘b’ sound to fit the pattern.  The story is about a group of miscreants who are cadets at a mercenary academy, which specializes in 6-man squads.  The four main characters are put into a squad on their own with the hope that they flunk out or get expelled.  Think of ‘Animal House’, but it’s at a fantasy warrior academy.  Much inspiration was taken from things that happened in my own college days.  At least the freshman year, which is where the ‘Phi Beta’ crew happened.  This is definitely an action-comedy series.

It took me a long time to figure out that I wanted to go with 6 books (Each school year, spring break, and summer session) with a short story collection style.  The stories are connected like chapters, but it doesn’t make me feel like I’m going too far.  I can give the proper attention to each event with the overarching story being carried along by other incidents.  Do I have the stories planned out?  No because I’ve been dragging my feet on this project for the following reasons:

  1. Kept going for my books when I was home.
  2. Tried only doing this at work, but I was always feeling tired and worn down.
  3. Health issues at home made it difficult to work on anything.
  4. Doubt in myself since everything after ‘Legends of Windemere’ have fallen flat.
  5. Misplacing my notes.
  6. Rivendell Lego Set over the summer.

Anyway, I think I’m going to really try to make progress before the end of the year.  I have some half days coming up where I can’t leave work, which I can use to my advantage once I figure out my newest issue.

So, there are the 4 main characters of ‘Phi Beta’ that make up the 6-man squad.  I designed the recurring enemies and the other 5 squads they interact with.  The last of the squad mentors will be done soon.  After that, I have only one thing left before tackling the actual books/stories.  That would be the core supporting cast, which would consist of characters based on the rest of the people I hung out with during the ‘Phi Beta’ period.  This adds another 10 characters to the mix whose roles are to support the main team.  For example, there is an explosion expert, a healer, a bard, a horse trainer, supplier, etc.  It’s going to be a wild and busy house after they’re recruited in the second book.

This also gives me about 17 characters to juggle in some scenes.  I don’t think I want to go that far, but I gave each character a purpose and would feel bad leaving anyone out.  There are incidents in the books after they’re recruited where I would only need a few either specific or random ones.  There’s a point where only 1 of the 4 mains are at the academy and has to pretend to be the others to make sure they don’t get expelled for leaving in the middle of a semester.  The support team would be very important for this to work and it’s going to span an entire book.  Looking forward to that mayhem.

As you can tell, I’m not willing to cut any characters because of the memories that are connected to what’s going on.  I tried, but then I realized the fictional, magical exaggeration of real events required those that I sidelined.  Just wouldn’t feel right to put anyone else in these positions, which I guess sounds stupid to anyone who wasn’t with us during these days.  I think my options for how to fit them in would be:

  • Rotate the characters throughout the stories to give everyone a chance.
  • Stick with whoever was actually there, which means a few will not get much page time.
  • Keep whoever is there and choose another random or two due to exaggerating the events.
  • Just take names out of a hat to see who gets to be in a scene.  This sounds oddly fun because it means the solutions for the problem will be determined by whoever I get for the scene.  The bard will bring a different set of skills than the poison expert.

Has anybody else had to juggle such a big supporting cast and make sure everyone got something more than an introduction?  I’m really curious about this, especially since I don’t want to introduce a character and then they stay in the background.  That feels oddly insulting to them and their origins.

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Goal Post: A Whirlwind of a Week

Posted on November 11, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

On the plus side, I did manage to finish preparing all of the posts for December.  The rest of the week was a lot of bouncing around due to holidays, work, and it being the last week of the quarter.  Not to mention a lot of meetings and stuff.  I’m genuinely surprised I accomplished anything creative like a few blog posts.  Looking back, Wednesday was the only normal day.  I’m surprised I’m even functional, but those last 3 chapters of Darwin & the Beast Collector won’t write themselves.  They would have done so by now instead of the outline collecting dust.

Work was where most of the busy stuff happened.  We go through Crisis Prevention training every Election Day, so I didn’t get the time off.  It’s not the most exciting thing after you’ve done it before.  This year was slightly better since there were some changes on no more awkward videos from the 80’s.  Still, it was a long day with a lot of reading, quizzing, sitting, and listening.  Left me fairly tired for the rest of the day, which wasn’t much since I didn’t get to spend time with my son until 5:30.  Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, that didn’t give us much of a chance to do anything fun.  Going to be like this every year going forward too.

The other big work event was an unexpected field trip.  Our school had a Unified Basketball team, which is a combination of general education and life skills students.  A nearby high school was having a Special Olympics Summit, so we were invited to do a presentation.  I ended up going with two of my class’s students and we managed to make it through all of the speeches and presentations.  Not an easy feat for these kids.  Maybe it was the promise of free pizza.  Nice final work day of the week since we had Friday off for Veterans Day.  That was just a day of Pokémon Go with my son and a break to watch ‘Diamonds are Forever’.

Monday was parent/teacher conference night at my son’s school.  Not as much time as I would have liked, but it was in-person for the first time since 2018.  The ex-wife and I had to work together on this one instead of it being every parent for themselves.  That was such a bad appointment system for anyone in a co-parenting situation.  My son got glowing reports all around.  His grades aren’t as high as they were last year, but high school is more difficult.  I’m not surprised they drooped, especially since he was never the strongest test taker.  He makes up for it by never being afraid to participate and doing all of his homework, which is good.  His teachers love him too, so I think he’s going to end on a very high note.

Can’t say anything else exciting happened.  I’m still chugging along with the CPAP machine, which has had a wrinkle.  Seems Daylight Savings Time really messes with a person when they’re in the middle of developing healthier sleeping habits.  The CPAP has allowed me to get really deep, quality sleep.  I was feeling more energetic and healthier until the clocks went backwards.  Now, I’ve gradually started to get more exhausted earlier in the day and not feeling great when I wake up.  My hope is that I can reset things this weekend by sleeping a bit longer and not push myself too hard.

So, what is the weekend plan?  I’m aiming to get 1.5 or even 2 chapters of Darwin & the Beast Collector completed.  This is going to be tough.  The next chapter is a big chase with the plan to solve part of the problem.  After that, it’s the big revelation chapter with a complicated fight scene.  Doesn’t help that I’m not really sure how to pull some of that second chapter off.  Been jumping around with clues and ideas throughout the writing, which could mean things don’t really work.  I think I may have made a mistake at one point, which makes part of my notes useless . . . Okay, I think I just fixed it by changing a small detail that appears a few times.

The rest of the week is going to be a busy work week.  With Thanksgiving so close, we need to start preparing for the usual Life Skills feast.  So, we have to work extra hard at our work sites as well.  Not that we don’t, but this week always feels busier.  If I have any writing left to do on the two chapters, I might have to attempt some broken nighttime writing.  Not something I enjoy, but I don’t want to leave it hanging for 2 weeks.  I think I can pull most of it off though.  Didn’t get any writing done last night due to being so sleepy, but we’ll see.

Goals of the week:

  1. Finish two chapters of Darwin & the Beast Collector
  2. Help son with homework and studying.
  3. Play a little Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
  4. Start getting the January posts ready.
  5. Continue improving sleep.
  6. Use the exercise bike more.
  7. Cut back on eating leftover Halloween candy.
  8. Tinker with ‘Phi Beta Files’.
  9. Continue reading ‘Fairy Tail’.
  10. Make a more interesting goals list next weekend.
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How To Defeat Siege Weapons

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

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I was thinking about listing ways to take out various siege weapons.  Then I thought that would be too specific and boring.  Not to mention many of my ideas involved fire.  Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about why you should figure out a way to destroy a siege weapon even if it won’t happen in the book.

First, this requires that you either do some research or at least take time to consider the working parts and processes of the siege weapons.  Yes, you can make it easy with magic spells, dragons, or anything large enough to wipe them out in one go.  That’s not what we’re talking about here.  This is how a character can take down a siege weapon using smarts and tools for dramatic effect.  So, you really need to have at least a general idea of how these things work.

For example, you should know how a trebuchet is loaded, aimed, and fired.  This can give you an idea of rate of fire and how much time between shots the heroes have.  Another possibility is figuring out the perfect time to attack and make the siege weapon break in a more glorious fashion  Maybe cutting the sling rope (whatever it’s called) as it flies up, but do it in a way that sends the fiery shot backwards.  Causing these things to backfire makes for great chaos, action, and drama.

I already touched on the other aspect, which is to make it feel dramatic.  These weapons tend to be terrifying juggernauts on the battlefield and pose a direct threat to whatever the characters are protecting.  Taking even one of them out is a great victory and a shift in morale for both sides.  This is why it should be difficult as well.  Fighting through the work team and any other soldiers should be shown to increase the tension.  Make it as they are preparing and beginning to fire in order to create a sense of dwindling time.  Of course, this doesn’t work with non-shooting siege weapons like towers and rams.  Still, do what you can to increase the impact of the scene.

As for how to destroy these things, everyone can figure out their own methods.  That’s why the research side is important.  Even if you made a new version for your world, you need to know how it works.  That way, your characters can make it stop working.  The method depends on a lot of factors here:

  • Type of siege weapon
  • Setting as in battlefield, defending, trap, etc.
  • Characters’ intention to either destroy or escape
  • Character skills
  • Character equipment
  • Character knowledge of siege weapons or ability to figure out on the fly
  • Magic
  • Type and amount of defenders

That’s a lot to juggle for destroying one siege weapon.  You don’t have to consider all of them for very long either.  I’d say the skills, equipment, and knowledge are the largest pieces of the puzzle.  This is what the characters will be using to accomplish their goal no matter what they are up against.  Makes this no different than any other challenge they can encounter, but authors might overlook this as simple.  After all, siege weapons tend to be viewed as scene decorations, so a person might not give much thought to eliminating them beyond ‘break it with violence’.

Well, that’s the overview of destroying siege weapons.  It really is a complicated, but personal touch to a story.  So, you can’t really say things are definite facts and should be followed.  Although, that goes for writing in general, right?

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WHAT DRAWS READER INTO A STORY

Posted on November 10, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

Hi SEers! Denise here to talk about what hooks a reader, reels them into a story, and keeps them turning the pages. When a reader loses interest, …

WHAT DRAWS READER INTO A STORY
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Poetry Day: Futility

Posted on November 9, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

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(The joy of the daily grin?  Probably closer to trying to solve a problem without changing my tactics.  Another option is that I wrote it when I felt like I was in a rut and not gaining anything for my struggles.  That was happening a lot in the earlier days of the writing/publishing period.)

Going around again
Following these steps
As if the result will change
I have lost count
Of my attempts

 

I make the motions
And say the words
That I have said before
Crudely etched upon my mind
Never to be changed

 

Paltry results
Are my work’s rewards
Undone by other failings
That I could not stop
Yet I still take the blame

 

I return home
A vast hollow growing
Underneath my skin
Swallowing all my yens
Until I zombie through my day

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7 Tips to Using Siege Weapons in Fiction

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

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Siege weapons are rather restricted in its use, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t think about using them.  If you just toss them in, you might find that they don’t make sense or fail to get a decent impact.  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong about just mentioning them being there, but readers tend to expect such things to serve a purpose.  So, what are some things to consider when using siege weapons?

  1. As I said, it isn’t a bad thing to mention them while describing a large scale battle.  It can become an issue if you are writing scenes during the ensuing battle and they aren’t operating.  These things are something that allies need to get around, protect, and be careful of.  If they are close enough to attack the wall then you will have trouble describing the fortifications as being unscathed.  So, you need to think about how they will affect a scene if you identify their presence.
  2. Research how siege weapons work.  This is very useful if you want your heroes to find a way to destroy them.  It also means that you can have characters talk about the mechanisms and make repairs without making stuff up.  People seem to be able to pick up on when a mechanical device is being incorrectly described.  Another benefit of research is figuring out ways to make unique versions for your world.
  3. Even though siege weapons are typically only found in large battles, you don’t have to always restrict them to these scenes.  There can be a small group who have one of these devices and are going to use it for something other than war.  For example, a bandit group might have stolen a mobile ram to use on a treasury or a sealed cave.  Heroes might even need to get one for special circumstances.
  4. Getting launched by a catapult can be funny, but people can’t realistically survive it.  Still, you can tweak reality with magic or just hoping readers don’t care.
  5. Siege weapons do not operate themselves.  Remember that even modern day versions have teams making sure they are loaded, aimed, and fired correctly.  So, a hero trying to defeat a siege weapon can’t run up to it and bash away since there will be enemies to fight through.  Even non-warriors assigned to use them will pose an obstacle.  Again, you might have to research how many people are needed to effectively use them.
  6. Some siege weapons can be used in traps.  This requires some creativity, but I’ve seen it done in various D&D games.  For example, we had one game where thieves set up a ballista on the opposite of a door.  Open it up without disarming the switch and you get hit by a giant bolt from point blank range.
  7. In large battles, having a siege weapon malfunction or get destroyed can create a massive mess.  Consider what will happen to the people around these things if they are defeated.  A siege tower can fall on people, a catapult can misfire into friends, or anything shooting fiery objects has the possibility of an explosion.
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Revising an older Novel – What I learned

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

Hello, SE’ers. I am veering away from my series on how to insert metaphysical elements into fiction writing to talk about a recent experience with …

Revising an older Novel – What I learned
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Revisiting Origins: Nimby

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

By Kayla Matt

It’s interesting that this charming, friendly halfling thief became such an integral part to my series.  I hate to say this about the little guy, but he is rather cliche.  Yet, there is something mysterious and dangerous about him that comes to the surface as the series goes on.  Nimby kind of snuck up the ranks of favored characters when I thought he was just becoming obnoxious.  It was probably the third editing session of Beginning of a Hero where I realized how often Nimby appeared and that he was more responsible for pushing the plot than Luke.  So, Nimby soon became the unsung hero and agent of destiny in the book.  Most people who have read the first book don’t give him a second thought, which I guess says a lot about his talent as a thief in hiding.  I have to say that as time moves on, I really want to see how he deals with the challenges that I put in his way.

The true Nimby was played by my second college roommate whose name will be withheld to protect the innocent.  Unless Dave demands attention and I’m forced . . . oops.  I have to say that out of the original crew of the game, Nimby was the character who was obviously there for comedy and fun.  It didn’t matter what was going on because Nimby would always find a way to be positive and funny.  This set the mindset of most of my halflings who all possess Nimby’s optimism and an odd sense of innocence.  Unfortunately, the group splintered after the first adventure and Nimby became one of the lost characters in the game.  One session he was there stealing apples and the next Luke found a good-bye message in his bag.  It was an odd parting that Luke accepted by rationalizing that Nimby might have been killed in the adventure, so it was better for his friend to be safe.  It also left me with a halfling thief who was integral to the first book and the beginning of the second book, so I had to rewrite Nimby to allow him to continue on in the book.  With him, I took an interesting approach because he was a thief.  He retained the original persona, but I started having incidents where a darker, more cunning Nimby would rear his head.  It was like he had a switch in his head that he would flick if he needed to turn off his moral compass.  It was a surprising change in character that Nimby seemed to take to with an unsettling amount of ease.

New Addition– This was really lacking since I wrote the original a month before Beginning of a Hero came out.  At the time, I didn’t have much else to say because I knew Nimby was going to leave the main cast fairly quickly.  Having him return throughout the series helped give him a path that stayed in the shadows.  I liked that he was the one character that I was never sure if he’d show up as a friend or foe.  Really happy that I got to draw him into the finale as well.  Due to the game drama, I was always worried that Nimby would get cast aside and disappear.  Thankfully, he taught me how to separate a character from his role in one medium (game) and change it for another (book) without altering the whole plot.

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How Easy Is It To Use Siege Weapons in Fiction?

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Charles Yallowitz

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I’m had this topic on my list for a long time, but I never really found the time to think about it.  Still haven’t, which I realized could be part of the reason why I never took it off the bench.  I mean, these aren’t the easiest things to put in your story.  That problem stems entirely from what they are.

Siege weapons (A.K.A. Siege Engines) are what you think they are.  Giant devices used when one is laying siege to a castle or town.  Trebuchets and catapults help get projectiles over walls.  Ballista could be used to take out distant, large targets or multiple soldiers.  Probably even take out gates and doors.  You have siege towers to help get your people over walls too.  You have battering rams used in a variety of ways that range from many soldiers carrying it to elephants.  Modern versions include cannons and howitzers.  The list keeps going with a wide variety of devices.

In Beginning of a Hero, I introduced Fritz Warrenberg who was a gnomish inventor and the siege weapon teacher.  This wasn’t done with any plan, which is a shame because I could have flushed out my own knowledge here.  Not that I could go anywhere with them since there’s the inherent problem.  These are MASSIVE weapons that an adventurer wouldn’t be carrying around.  Siege weapons are designed entirely for large scale battles involving a heavily defended target.  A wandering swordsman isn’t going to drag around a catapult in case they need one.  This means you’re focal characters aren’t likely to interact with these things very often.  At best, they will help an army using them or, at worst, have to face them in battle.

This doesn’t mean that siege weapons should be ignored either. They have an important place in military history and strategy.  Even in a world of magic, armies will create large weapons to overcome and overpower enemies.  After all, walls being used as defensive barriers is universal.  With those existing, you’re inevitably going to have someone create ways to circumvent or destroy them.  Looking at some of the more basic ones, you can see how a fictional world would have the same as us too.  Catapults and trebuchets are like giant, mechanical slings.  Ballistae are enormous crossbows.  You don’t have to be a genius to think about making a few basic weapons larger.  Might need help doing it, but the desire is easy to spark.

Now, where can a fantasy author use them?  One thing our genre loves to do is sieges on fortified areas and large scale battles.  I’m looking at you Helm’s Deep and Battle of Five Armies.  These two tropes have been infused into the genre since the modern inception, which is where siege weapons can shine.  Whether it be the heroes having to find ways to stop them or making sure they aren’t victims of friendly fire, these enormous action scenes can be accentuated by this addition.  You don’t have to go into detail with them either, but having them used in the background and established as a presence can help.  If done right, it’s the fantasy equivalent of the opening scene from ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Another positive to introducing the existence of siege weapons is showing the level of technology.  While not as advanced as modern devices, they are still complicated and use some levels of mechanical knowledge.  Gears, pulleys, levers, and the like are all implemented in many of these weapons.  This allows you to introduce non-military uses of these creations such as dumbwaiters and clocks.  In the grand scheme of the plot, these might not mean much.  Yet, they can really make an impact for world building and open the door for future advancements.  For example, a mechanical golem can be introduced without question.

So, what do you think about using siege weapons in fantasy?

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