Motivations and a ‘verse
Posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but my wrist has been in a lot of pain, and I still have to type at work, no matter how bad my wrist gets. To try make up for it (and get more skilled using the program), I’m trying to write this on Dragon NaturallySpeaking. While it is slow, I’m hoping this will help me in trying to get out more writing for you while my wrist is hurting. Now on to more interesting topics… I’ll talk more about the Dragon NaturallySpeaking later.
Today turned out pretty well, I thought, although definitely filled with frustration. For example, my success in (finally) finding out who wrote a quote that I found a few years ago and loved. I found it during my first Nanowrimo as someone’s signature on the site. The quote was “Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they’re God, and an excellent argument for polytheism.” Today I was reading the “acknowledgements” section in “The Sunrise Lands”, a brilliant novel by S.M. Stirling, when I see this quote. Finding out who said it after all this time is good, but would have been better had I noticed it when I bought the book THREE YEARS BEFORE! **Sigh**
On the other hand, I actually chat with S.M. Stirling on Facebook, so he and I had a great time chatting about it and that really reminds me of just how lucky I am that a great author like him is willing to give me the time of day. Many of the big authors find they either don’t have the time, or perhaps the inclination, to respond to their fans personally… and I can understand why. They have deadlines like everyone else, and theirs may be worse than ours since the work they do is much more difficult… or at least, more difficult compared to most jobs where you know exactly what you’re doing and how to best do it.
Still, it adds a dimension of humanity to authors when you know that you can send them a message and they’ll respond back. It shows us little readers that we are not just dollar signs to our authors but are actually people. Okay, most authors probably don’t look at their readers as dollar signs, but I know that sometimes it can feel that way.
As a definite “ding” I would suggest that if you haven’t checked out S.M. Stirling’s books that you should do so immediately. He allows you to read up to ten chapters online for free. And let me say, very few books match the perfection of his Emberverse series. (It starts with Dies the Fire, check it out, and I guarantee, you’ll be hooked!)
In other thoughts, I’ve been thinking a lot about characters, and in particular, Character Motivations. Most character problems can be solved by thinking about what those persons motivations are. In particular, I remember a few months back when a friend of mine on a chat site I frequent said that she was going to be running a game that afternoon, but she didn’t know where the game was going. I asked her what her storyline was and she said that the party had to defeat an evil wizard who had been locked in a tower for being an evil wizard. There were very few specifics beyond that. Working together, we brainstormed an entire storyline together to take her players to 16th level or higher starting just from the question, “Well, what did the evil wizard do to get him locked up in the tower?”
I think that a lot of new authors (even me, occasionally) forget exactly how important character motivations are in writing as well. With the proper motivation for all of your characters, you’ll know who/what/where/why and how for everyone. For me, this is the keystone behind properly designed fully-fleshed people, rather than simple archetypes in your writing. In general, although out of character stuff can still happen, it’s much more likely you’ll figure out what wrong with a scene early and have ideas on how you can change it for the better!
Now for that quick bit about Dragon NaturallySpeaking… it’s a good program, but so far, training is obviously the key. I need to figure out how to make it note my commands (when I say things like “Question Mark” or “Open Quotation Mark”, it actually writes out said commands) and I’m still teaching it to understand my voice. Apparently the program was smart enough to favour speed over accuracy for me. Not that I talk extremely fast by any stretch, but I’d rather spend the time correcting it and training it in the beginning instead of… talking… like… this… for… the… rest… of… my… writing… career. 
Have any of you used Dragon NaturallySpeaking or a similar program before? Any tips or tricks for a newbie like me on it? What do you think about Character Motivations? Are they the most important or do you scoff at me placing such importance on them? As always, I’d love for you to leave a comment. Also, watch for my writing later tonight. This piece is a short story I did, based off of the anime Spice & Wolf and a single character that eventually became worthy of a full novel (okay… I lied, I have the first novel almost finished and the second one in mind).
P.S. – One final comment… My total for Julno as of yesterday evening was 681 words. It sucks, I know, but I’m hoping to get a bit more writing done this weekend. If I could count my blog posts I’d be higher… probably up around 2-3K. Anyway, let me know what your total is for the month, and I’ll keep you updated with mine!
Tags: Blog, character motivations, Dies the Fire, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Emberverse, julno, Julnowrimo, July Novel Writing Month, motivation, Nanowrimo, Novels, Polytheism, S.M. Stirling, SM Stirling, Spice & Wolf, The Sunrise Lands, wrist pain, Writing
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