How to Write a Story that Rocks, part 2
Aside from the stuff I mentioned in my previous post, there are several more things that had an impact on me from the workshop on How to Write a Story that Rocks at LTUE.
But first I want to continue for a bit on the idea of writing what you love from my previous post. The presenters recommended an activity that I mentioned briefly, and I want to talk a bit more about it.
They recommend that you write down 10 stories that you love. Compare them, think about them, and figure out what it is that you love the most about those stories. That’s what you should be writing.
As an example, here is my list. These are stories that I’m constantly returning to and thinking about lately. They’re roughly in order of how cool I feel they are to me at this particular moment in time. I had a hard time narrowing it down to 10, and some of them are actually series. But of course the exact number doesn’t matter. Here we go.
The Top 10 (Well, 12) Stories I Love at This Particular Moment
- The Blade Itself
- The Name of the Wind
- The Prince of Nothing
- Latro in the Mist
- A Game of Thrones
- Assassin’s Apprentice
- Doomsday Book
- Mistborn
- The Lord of the Rings
- Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
- The Golden Compass
- A Wizard of Earthsea
Now for the things I loved about these stories. I broke it down into general characteristics, character concepts, and magical elements.
General Characteristics I Love About Fantasy
- Complex characters that surprise me and make me feel strong emotions
- True danger to the characters and true cost to their actions
- Dangerous and adrenalin pumping fights
- Snappy and believable dialogue that reveals character motivations
- A sense of mystery, history, and vastness
- Honor, friendship, duty, and betrayal
- Hope and courage in the face of extreme despair
- Realistic details tastefully interwoven with narrative
- Narrative style that reflects the time and culture
- Amazing description
- Mysterious and dangerous magic
- Awesome magic systems
- Incredible settings
One of the interesting things to me was that most of these things are not exclusive to fantasy. In fact, only two of them are. The rest of them you can get in any good book in just about any genre. So I focused my next lists on two things—the part that’s intrinsic to fantasy (magic), and the part that’s most universal to all stories (character).
Character Concepts I Love
- A royal bastard training to be a secret assassin, torn between worlds
- A hunted, psychotic barbarian trying to be a good man
- A wild and violent young girl cast into the world to care for herself
- A dangerous warrior who loses his memory and sees the gods
- A slight young thief girl who discovers she has magical abilities
- A spunky, time-traveling historian stuck in a deadly time
- A sarcastic and ruthless torturer with a ruined body and a death wish
- A traveling performer who’s orphaned and wants to learn the name of the wind
- A silver-tongued young girl whose best talent is lying
How many of those characters do you know? They all come from the books I listed earlier. I noticed that with many of these characters, I focused more on their personalities than their situations, and secondarily on what they can do.
Finally, my list about magic. A few of these won’t mean much to you unless you’ve read the book they’re from, but I tried to add a bit of an explanation to some. This list was a little strange because some items were specific magical occurrences, while some were about the overall system. I sorted them out into two sub-lists.
Magic I Love
1. Magic that’s as much curse as blessing
- Giving birth to a shadow assassin
- Giving life with a kiss, but the body remains ruined
- The ability to see the creepy, invisible gods, who then manipulate and torture you, and occasionally reward you
2. Magic that’s deeply logical and symmetrical
- Pushing and pulling metals—where speed, distance, and trajectory depend on your mass and position relative to the object you’re pushing/pulling
- Sympathetic magic—you draw some connection between two objects, will yourself to believe the impossible, and then transfer energy from one to the other (or something like that)
- Gnostic magic—spells that result in mathematically symmetrical destruction, and rely on your command of language and ability to hold multiple meanings in your mind simultaneously
- Runes—exotic symbols that bestow power
So there you go. That might give you a little bit of insight into the type of story I’m going to tell.
Aside from the stuff I mentioned in my previous post, there are several more things that had an impact on me from the workshop on How to Write a Story that Rocks at LTUE.
But first I want to continue for a bit on the idea of writing what you love from my previous post. The presenters recommended an activity that I mentioned briefly, and I want to talk a bit more about it.
They recommend that you write down 10 stories that you love. Compare them, think about them, and figure out what it is that you love the most about those stories. That’s what you should be writing.
As an example, here is my list. These are stories that I’m constantly returning to and thinking about lately. They’re roughly in order of how cool I feel they are to me at this particular moment in time. I had a hard time narrowing it down to 10, and some of them are actually series. But of course the exact number doesn’t matter. Here we go.
The Top 10 (Well, 12) Stories I Love at This Particular Moment
- The Blade Itself
- The Name of the Wind
- The Prince of Nothing
- Latro in the Mist
- A Game of Thrones
- Assassin’s Apprentice
- Doomsday Book
- Mistborn
- The Lord of the Rings
- Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
- The Golden Compass
- A Wizard of Earthsea
Now for the things I loved about these stories. I broke it down into general characteristics, character concepts, and magical elements.
General Characteristics I Love About Fantasy
- Complex characters that surprise me and make me feel strong emotions
- True danger to the characters and true cost to their actions
- Dangerous and adrenalin pumping fights
- Snappy and believable dialogue that reveals character motivations
- A sense of mystery, history, and vastness
- Honor, friendship, duty, and betrayal
- Hope and courage in the face of extreme despair
- Realistic details tastefully interwoven with narrative
- Narrative style that reflects the time and culture
- Amazing description
- Mysterious and dangerous magic
- Awesome magic systems
- Incredible settings
One of the interesting things to me was that most of these things are not exclusive to fantasy. In fact, only two of them are. The rest of them you can get in any good book in just about any genre. So I focused my next lists on two things—the part that’s intrinsic to fantasy (magic), and the part that’s most universal to all stories (character).
Character Concepts I Love
- A royal bastard training to be a secret assassin, torn between worlds
- A hunted, psychotic barbarian trying to be a good man
- A wild and violent young girl cast into the world to care for herself
- A dangerous warrior who loses his memory and sees the gods
- A slight young thief girl who discovers she has magical abilities
- A spunky, time-traveling historian stuck in a deadly time
- A sarcastic and ruthless torturer with a ruined body and a death wish
- A traveling performer who’s orphaned and wants to learn the name of the wind
- A silver-tongued young girl whose best talent is lying
How many of those characters do you know? They all come from the books I listed earlier. I noticed that with many of these characters, I focused more on their personalities than their situations, and secondarily on what they can do.
Finally, my list about magic. A few of these won’t mean much to you unless you’ve read the book they’re from, but I tried to add a bit of an explanation to some. This list was a little strange because some items were specific magical occurrences, while some were about the overall system. I sorted them out into two sub-lists.
Magic I Love
1. Magic that’s as much curse as blessing
- Giving birth to a shadow assassin
- Giving life with a kiss, but the body remains ruined
- The ability to see the creepy, invisible gods, who then manipulate and torture you, and occasionally reward you
2. Magic that’s deeply logical and symmetrical
- Pushing and pulling metals—where speed, distance, and trajectory depend on your mass and position relative to the object you’re pushing/pulling
- Sympathetic magic—you draw some connection between two objects, will yourself to believe the impossible, and then transfer energy from one to the other (or something like that)
- Gnostic magic—spells that result in mathematically symmetrical destruction, and rely on your command of language and ability to hold multiple meanings in your mind simultaneously
- Runes—exotic symbols that bestow power
So there you go. That might give you a little bit of insight into the type of story I’m going to tell.
I just think it’s awesome seeing somebody use the term “gnostic magic” (Patrick Rothfuss would be proud).
Heh.
Ben-
First of all, hi again, haven’t been here in a while. Second, you were at LTUE?! I was there everyday all day. I wonder if I saw you and didn’t even know…
Third, I went to this presentation as well, but didn’t get quite as much out of it as you did. What sticks in my mind is the idea of combining two story elements. Or maybe that came from How to be an Idea Factory…anyway, the idea is that one cool idea + another cool idea = a really original SUPER IDEA!!!
I see you’ve read Mistborn, and liked it (good man!), but I was wondering if you’ve read any other Sanderson. Warbreaker is a novel that has a really unique and complex magic system, and uses an idea similar to what you listed above as gnostic. And his Elantris uses Runes.
Did you attend Dan Wells’s 7 point story structure? I’m working on a post about it. It was my favorite presentation.
Miranda,
Hey, that’s what you get for not checking out my blog daily! Haha, just kidding. That would result in ultimate boredom. Anyway, LTUE was pretty packed, so we could easily have seen one another and not known it, or not seen each other at all. I heard from one attendee that a year or two ago LTUE was almost canceled due to lack of interest, then it suddenly exploded. I’m sure Sanderson’s presence contributed to the big turnout.
They talked about combining two story elements in both workshops. How To Write a Story That Rocks approached it more from the idea of combining ideas from two genres, while How to be an Idea Factory approached it more from just combining two cool but unrelated ideas. It sounds like the latter is the one you’re remembering.
I still have not read any other Sanderson, although I’ve tried. I read the first two chapters of Elantris, and the first four or five chapters of Warbreaker, and couldn’t get into either one. I have heard other people say that if you stick with it, you get a big payoff. I’m just waiting for someone to loan me their copy so I can see for myself without having to shell out the money.
I missed Dan Wells’s panel. There was some other panel I wanted to attend during that hour, but my sister went to it and said it was really great. It made me wish I had gone to it after all. I’ll be checking your blog for that post!
I have Elantris signed I could lend you, assuming you’re in the area. We live in Draper now…. Or you could do what I usually do, and just get it from the library. I’d say book signings or when what I want isn’t at a library are the only times I spend money on books. If my reading were dependent on extra income, I’d be illiterate!
Although you’re near enough to me (we’re in the Kearns area), I wouldn’t feel right borrowing a signed copy. What if it got dropped or spilled on? I’m actually very kind and protective of my books, but you never know what can happen. A few weeks ago, I placed a borrowed book on top of my car while getting my three young kids into their car seats, and forgot about it. (I know, I know, never ever ever ever ever put stuff on top of the car.) It was a brand new hardback release. I forgot about it and drove off, and it vanished forever. I had to buy my father-in-law another copy. The only other time I’ve let anything befall a book was, oddly enough, another case of leaving a borrowed book on top of a car. This time it was a brand new library book, a new release which had not even been put into the library’s system yet. The librarian knew me and trusted me, and so she let me borrow it anyway. Well, I took it on a family campout and left it on top of the car during a rainstorm. Totally ruined. I was so mortified. Those are the only two lapses in my entire life, but they were both bad ones.
I, too, don’t have much disposable income, but I love owning my books, especially if I like them. Most of my books are gifted to me for birthdays or Christmas. I don’t like reading a great book from the library, because then I want to own it but have a harder time justifying the purchase, since I have already read it. I only buy maybe a couple of books a year myself, when I just can’t stand waiting for a gift, or if they’re just too good not to own.