Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Writing (TCWT)

I always had a thing for reading and writing. At four years old I was wolfing down Dr. Seuss books like it was nobody’s business, and by first grade I could finish any one of those Captain Underpants novels in less than a day. No big deal. Inspired by George Beard and Harold Hutchins, I started writing my own mostly plagiarized comic books, which kick-started my ongoing writing career.

I’ve since retired from the comic book business, but I have yet to stop writing stories. Most of them have been science fiction, and centered around a main character (always around my age) with similar characteristics. Basically me, except perfect in every way, and everyone who opposed me was just evil, an idiot, or both. Which brings me to this month’s TCWT blog chain:

What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started writing?

There are so many things to choose from, so I’m going to cheat and mention several of them. First off, I would’ve loved it if someone had let me in on this particular nugget: characters with flaws are infinitely more interesting than those without them.. Also, books where the main character is almost exactly like the author will never sell well, unless you’re John Green. For years I was writing characters who were idealized versions of myself, and surrounded them with characters who were just shallow versions of my real friends. And the villains were always real people I didn’t like, like my annoying older brother, who was always one-dimensionally evil and/or stupid.

(In my defense, my brother did (and still does) often act in a cartoonishly evil/stupid way. But that doesn’t mean he’d make a great character.)

Another helpful tidbit would’ve been: Your parents’ opinions are almost always useless. This may not apply for those of you who have parents with writing experience, or genuinely criticize your work instead of just “This is amazing! I’m going to put this on the fridge so I can read it every day,” but in my case (and most others) your parents probably laughed at your writing as a little kid; they just complemented it because they didn’t want to discourage you.

Of course, I don’t blame my parents for doing that. If I had shown my dad one of my stories as a little kid, and he replied with, “Don’t quit your day job, kiddo. This story sucks,” there’s a good chance I would’ve been discouraged from writing altogether, and this blog wouldn’t even exist.

Of course, the downside to this is that it gave me unrealistic expectations. I actually thought my work from five years ago actually had a chance of being published. (Heh heh.) And worst of all, I didn’t improve as much as I could have because I wasn’t aware of all the huge flaws in my writing, mostly because no one pointed them out. Which brings me to my next point.

Get people who aren’t your friends or family to read your writing. I wish I had known about beta readers. If you have a blog, you should post a few short stories or something, where people can criticize it for free. People on the internet are not exactly known for being too polite, after all, and they can be extremely helpful when it comes to critiquing your work, especially on WordPress. For my More Than I Can Chew interactive blog story, I have the delightful Plotwhisperer who isn’t afraid to say what she does and doesn’t like about each chapter, and it helps. A lot.

But the main thing I wish I knew from the very beginning is: Don’t censor yourself. Don’t stray from certain topics or themes just because you’re afraid you’ll offend someone. Write about what’s important to you and don’t hold back.* You don’t see this advice being used often on this blog, (it’s a humor/book blog. Topics like gun control and abortion would just be off-topic), but when I do write about potentially controversial subjects, they work out much better than I could possibly anticipate. I was Freshly Pressed from a post titled, “How to be a Young Writer Without Making Me Want to Punch You in the Face,” and I almost didn’t publish it because I was afraid it would upset some people. And it did upset some people. A few people politely disagreed with it, others impolitely disagreed with it, and one guy wrote an angry rant calling me an “arrogant fuck who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and continued to insult my blog and teen writers in general.

I can still remember large portions of that comment (he was a mean one, that guy), but I also remember the hundreds of other amazing comments from adults and teens alike. A bunch of teenagers were inspired by it, many adults were impressed and a high school English teacher even said she was going to show this article to all her students. For every angry commenter, they were fifty other nice and supportive ones. So I laughed to myself as I deleted that asshole’s comment and moved on with my life.

When you reach a wider audience, you’re bound to get a few mean critics, but if you’re afraid to speak your mind, you’ll never reach that audience to begin with.

Someone should quote me on that last sentence. That was deep.

*Of course, there’s a difference between speaking your mind and being a jerk. If you’re being racist/sexist/homophobic/prejudiced towards any group, don’t be surprised when you are either ignored or receive angry feedback. And I won’t feel bad for you.

(Sorry there’s no photo. I had to resort to using my phone to write the post, and I’m not sure how to add pictures.)

Check out the other participants here:

5th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

6th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

7th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

9th – http://lillianmwoodall.wordpress.com/

10th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

11th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

12th – http://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

13th – http://theweirdystation.blogspot.com/

14th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

15th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

16th – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

17th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

18th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

19th – http://thelonglifeofalifelongfangirl.wordpress.com/

20th – https://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

21st – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://roomble.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://thependanttrilogy.wordpress.com/

24th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – The topic for August’s blog chain will be announced.

The Worst Fictional Worlds to Live in

The blog chain is back! And Miriam Joy couldn’t have picked a better prompt:

Which fictional world would you most like to be a part of, and what role do you think you would fulfill within it?

Excuse me while I think back to all my favorite fantasy/sci-fi novels and think of the ones with the best settings. There’s Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire (only just finished the first book), and The Dark Tower series.

If I could be in the completely real fictional world of Harry Potter, I’d probably be unemployed and living on the streets. It’s a sad truth: the wizard economy would never work in real life. Why would anyone hire a fellow witch/wizard when they could get a house elf to do the work for free? Or they could just flick their wand around and whatever they need doing will be done. Magic has unfortunately made 90% of the wizarding population useless.

And I know what you’re thinking: “Matt, why can’t you just wave your wand around and make food and money appear out of thin air?” Well first off, I can’t magically make those items, according to the Five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law. And besides, I’m a forgetful person. I would have lost my wand within a week of buying it.

So it looks like I’ll have to pass on Harry Potter’s world.

Then there’s middle earth, which I’ll also have to pass on. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m secretly afraid of elves. (Although luckily they all seem to be leaving soon.) The same could be said of Alagaësia.

I’d be okay with living in Westeros (I’d be a stable boy, because stable boys are cool), if it weren’t for the fact that everyone in this world seems to be some sort of scheming psychopath. Anyone with a conscience ends up dead.

There’s also the problem of the uneven seasons. Not only is this annoying, but it causes a bunch of problems the books have (so far) failed to address. First of all, how exactly do plants grow without a proper seasonal cycle? Where is all this food coming from? And how do they even measure the years?

And don’t even get me started on Panem.

I guess if I had to choose a fictional world to live in, it would be Narnia. Sure, it’s not perfect, what with its lack of antibiotics and all, but at least there’s talking animals. And there’s always the chance of me escaping into my own world (which I prefer). Hopefully, I’d end up as either a farmer, or a professional high-fiver. Either one’s fine.

Writing this post made me realize how horrible most fictional worlds are. Out of all the worlds mentioned above, I think Harry Potter’s is the safest, and I haven’t even mentioned the whole “Dark Lord Trying to Kill Everyone” thing. Even though everyone wants to live in a nice, safe, Utopian society, writers have accepted the fact that Utopias are boring. Dark, gritty worlds with high mortality rates are much more interesting.

Other Participants:

December 4th: Against the Shadows.

December 5th: Deborah Rocheleau.

December 6th: The Little Engine That Couldn’t.

December 7th: Relatively Curious.

December 8th: The Magic Violinist.

December 9th: Laughing at Live Dragons.

December 10th: This Page Intentionally Left Blank. 

December 11th: Kira Budge: Author.

December 12th: Brooke Reviews.

December 13th: Next Page Reviews.

December 14th: Susannah Ailene Martin.

December 15th: Musings From Neville’s Navel.

December 16th: Mirror Made of Words

December 17th: Woah!

December 18th: Lily’s Notes in the Margins.

December 19th: Wheat and Wine.

December 20th: Please Forget My Story.

December 21st: An MK’s Meandering Mind.

December 22nd: Miss Alexandrina 

December 23rd: Unikke Lyfe.

December 24th: Miriam Joy.

Guest Post: Judging Books by Their Covers (The Pros and Cons)

This is a guest post by the awesome Meredith Waugh. She was the author of the 500th comment on this blog and so she won that guest post contest I always talk about it. (The next guest post will be awarded to the 1,000th commenter!) If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, you should. The blog contains great drawings, great posts, and lots of balloons. Now enjoy her post:

As a general rule, I hate book covers. They are chosen by publishers to sell books, not by artists to enrich society culturally. They are made to be judged… Literally. Publishers choose book covers to be pleasing to the eye and attract the right audience (or anyone, really, as long as they buy the book). There isn’t anything wrong with trying to be successful. I’m not saying that book covers are wrong, just that I dislike them. I dislike book covers because I hate being catered to- I don’t like the idea that someone is designing a cover for a book (that may or may not change my life) just for me. They are depending on the fact that an artistic cover with an offset title in newsprint will draw me in to read the back of the book. They know that I’m unlikely to pick up a cover with an explosion on the front and a title in a clashing color. I don’t like the fact that, no matter how great the content of the book is, the cover is meant to be amazing.

And those dramatic blurbs: (insert extremely modern name here) must sacrifice everything to save the one he loves. But who is he willing to sacrifice everything for? … Hate them. I’m almost even less likely to buy (or, lets be honest, borrow) a book with an over-dramatic blurb on it. The same goes with fifteen starred reviews crammed on the back cover, and the author’s name larger than the title.

Trying too hard.

Anyway, (and are you surprised that I took it this way?) the same goes with people. I’m reminded of a familiar old proverb, but won’t put it here for the sake of redundancy. No matter how hard we try to be open (or vice versa) a cover will formulate around each of us. For example, if I saw myself for the first time, I wouldnt think, “Watches Doctor Who and Adventure Time on Netflix. Doesn’t care that her room is cluttered with unfinished paintings and dirty clothes.” I’d probably think, “She’s kinda interesting, I guess… But really long winded.”

Maybe I am “kinda interesting” and long winded, but that’s only the beginning.

You can never know even the most simple of people, just from their cover. No cover- not even an accurate one- can fully show who a person really is.

In conclusion, here are the pros and cons to judging book covers:

Pros.

1.  It is the only way to learn anything about the content, without actually reading it.
2. The cover is a form of art itself.
3. You support cover artists everywhere.
4. You could pick up a book that, ordinarily, you wouldn’t read. And you may like it, for a change.

Cons:

• The information gained could be (and almost always is) unreliable.
• The experience of reading the book will probably be tainted by your first impression.
• You may leave a book on a shelf that you would have loved, because of a distasteful (and inaccurate) cover.