Author: jakepowell2017gmailcom

Pace Yourself! What Can Make or Break a Story

You start reading a book, or watching a movie, and the beginning is a banger. You’re hooked. The characters are great, the story is enthralling, and the action is incredible. The first act is a masterclass in storytelling.

As you continue, though, you feel a nagging sensation that something has gone wrong. You aren’t gripped like you were in the first twenty minutes. Why all this pointless dialogue? Why spend five minutes on a scene that has no impact on the rest of the story? Did someone put the plot on a lifeboat and set it adrift? It’s just … wandering aimlessly.

But wait! You get to the end, and the last ten minutes suddenly pick up. Boom. Bam. Bang. The plot is resolved, the heroes win the day, end of story. It’s satisfying enough, but you’re left wondering why 70% of the story just dragged on and on.

Or maybe you run into a story with the exact opposite problem. You feel out of breath after finishing it, like you were never given a chance to rest. Who’s this person and why are they – never mind! Moving on! More action! More spectacle! Can’t contemplate our navels now!

You’re rushing from set piece to set piece at breakneck speed. Movies especially love to do this. The story is just an excuse to show off the cinematography. Maybe there IS a good story there, but it’s been broken up by a frenetic pace that prevents it from properly unfolding.

Pacing. That’s the keyword. A good story has good pacing. It’s the invisible, unappreciated ingredient that is key to cooking a good meal. Folks know when they dislike the protagonist. They understand bad writing. A poorly constructed setting betrays its flaws just by being experienced. Audiences know these things. But pacing is more subtle. When the pacing’s poor, you don’t always know what’s wrong, but you can sense that something is off.

Pacing is the speed at which the story is told, in which everything, everything, you’ve written is unveiled at the times that best serve its progression, its development, the audience’s entertainment, and the impact of key scenes and events. Pacing is to storytelling like a metronome is to music. Go off-beat, and everything goes out of whack.

As the metronome helps the musician keep the proper rhythm, so does a writer keep their story at the proper pace
“Metronome” by jronaldlee is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

To continue the earlier food analogy, a story is like a meal. Pacing is the speed at which you eat the meal. Eat too fast, and you barely get to taste the food. Eat too slowly, and the food is so cold and stale by the time you finish that it can hardly be considered tasty anymore. A writer needs to be like Goldilocks and find the pace that is juuuust right.

Naturally, stories being organic things with a knack for growing beyond the writer’s original intention – things that you could swear have minds of their own – there is no magic formula to apply to a story. Each tale is unique. There are so many factors to consider: the genre, the story’s message (if any), the amount of dialogue versus action, the length of the story, et cetera.

Moby Dick is a classic of American literature. It’s also all over the place with its pacing, stopping suddenly to discuss the physiology of whales and the philosophical repercussions of pursuing vengeance against the natural world. But it is as much a philosophical and encyclopedic work as it is a fable of the cost of revenge, and its opening chapter tells you to strap in for a long, introspective ride. There are certain expectations one automatically forms when seeing how much space that monster takes up on the shelf.

On the other hand, a short story is quite the opposite. It’s a short story, and a reader doesn’t go in expecting long, drawn-out retrospectives on life, the universe, and everything. The plot is much more straightforward, and the pacing moves swiftly. If you expect to finish a story in one sitting, you aren’t going to be pleased if nothing worthwhile happens in that time.

I could go on and on about this topic. Its poor execution is one of my biggest pet peeves in writing. But then, a blog post is a short piece of literature, too, isn’t it? Yes, even blogs need good pacing, and though I may complain about it, I’m no master myself. Live and learn, and occasionally complain about things you yourself aren’t very good at. But not too much, that’s just bad form.

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The Importance of Silence

I’ve been thinking lately on how important silence is.

We need to embrace quietness every once in a while. I don’t mean locking ourselves in a noise-proofed room. I mean just taking time to not do anything for a few minutes. A few minutes of getting away from the hustle and the bustle and the honking traffic and the bombastic concerts and the blockbuster movies. A brief stretch of time containing nothing but the thoughts inside our own heads.

Why do I think that’s important? Well, as a creative type whose mind spins with new story ideas like a hamster running its wheel, being still for a couple minutes helps me recharge my mind. It revitalizes and refreshes me. Silence is rest. When I sleep at night, my body recharges its batteries. Silence helps me recharge my creative batteries, so to speak.

Silence can also be healthy simply for allowing us to exercise non-physical attributes, like patience and thoughtfulness. When we strip away all the noise of daily living, we’re left with our own thoughts. No outside influence or stimuli going into our brain. Just us. That can be a little scary, facing our own thoughts. But it’s good for us, too, to consider ourselves and rest our minds from the constant influx of media messages and the general racket of everyday busyness.

Or maybe I’m just biased. I’m an introvert, I like peace and quiet. Maybe more extroverted people are able to endure the busyness and noise better than I can. Never stopping to collect one’s thoughts sounds exhausting to me. I could sit in a chair and just think all day long.

Even so, if you’ve never tried it before, just take a couple minutes out of your day and do nothing. Turn down the TV or the computer, sit back, and enjoy quietness. See what it does for you. See for yourself if you agree that silence is important.

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Tragic Writing Mistakes I Learned Firsthand

They say failure is the best teacher. If that’s true, then I am a very, very good student. I’ve already made some doozies in my nascent writing career. I’m glad I did.

A God Walks Up to the Bar isn’t the first book I’ve ever written. Way back when I was a wee college lad, I wrote another book. I put a lot of effort into it, and I was proud of it at the time. Looking back …

It’s absolute garbage. I’ll never let it see the light of day. So, what went wrong?

Mistake the first: I starting writing without any sort of pre-planning or outline. OOF.

Now, I know that there are some writers who are able to wing it and don’t rely on outlines and plotting out story beats ahead of time. I’m not one of those people. I need something more than nebulous ideas. Good preparation not only organizes my ideas, but I develop new ones and discover the real plot of my story as I outline.

Having done none of that for my first-ever project, the plot, such as it was, was confused and schizophrenic, and the pacing was a jaw-dropping mess. As a naïve beginner, I just figured all writers knew what they were going to write, as if by some magical gift granted to all authors. That belief has since been thoroughly exorcised from my brain.

Mistake the second: Overambition.

Have you ever started a novel thinking it’s going to be a grand six-hundred page epic that will sell thousands of copies, change the literary landscape, and maybe even get audited for a film adaptation? That was what I believed when I first started writing. Again, this was in regards to a book I had not even bothered preparing for. I wrote and expected, oh, it would just be good. Magically.

I crammed about three novels’ worth of material into one book, I was tracking multiple characters across multiple locations at once, I ended with a big epic battle … and I thought all this was setting up more sequels. Again, I had never written a novel before and I didn’t really know what I was doing. Oh, such hubris! Oh, such an education!

Speaking of sequels …

Mistake the third: I wrote for the sequel, not the current story.

When I wrote my horrific-yet-highly-instructive first novel, I wasn’t writing it as a standalone. I was writing for the sequel, and the installments after that. I didn’t give my current project the attention and respect it deserved.

It’s a presumptive way to write a story, treating it merely as the setup for a larger franchise. It isn’t given time to develop its own identity, because you’re too busy teasing at future events and building up to payoffs that may never happen. Thus, the current story is robbed of its own identity.

So, I learned that every story I write, even if part of a bigger universe, should be able to stand on its own merits regardless.

Mistakes aren’t something to fear. They will happen, so I might as well get used to making them. Ah, well, I got some of the worst of my inexperience out of my system, and I like to think I’ve gotten better. I suppose I’ll find out for sure after I get published, eh?

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Why Even Bother? Thoughts About Motivation

What motivates me? I want to be a published author, but why even bother in the first place? And why stick to it after I’ve started?

Well, going after big questions today, aren’t I? Before I dive headlong into existentialism, I think I better draw the boundary right here: Why am I motivated to write and publish a book?

For me, the impulse to start a task comes in waves. I’ll begin a writing project and when I first start, I’m just thrilled. Think of all the things I’ll get done! Come two days later, I can’t muster up the effort to finish it. The document languishes in the depths of my computer’s files, neglected and lonely. But then, six months later, I’ll come back to it, because suddenly the urge has hit me again.

Truth be told, coming this far with my current novel is a milestone in my life. I started a project and stuck with it, whether I felt like it or not.

What’s the deal? What does it take to stay motivated?

Motivation. How is that word used in conversation? “Be motivated.” “Got to stay motivated.” “Keep yourself motivated.” We make it sound like a state of mind. Remain in that state and only then will you get things done.

You can accomplish a lot when you’re motivated enough …
“Climb Ev’ry Mountain“//jermudgeon//CC BY-SA 2.0.

I don’t know about you, but I flip through about three dozen states of mind every day. Maybe it’s just me, but my emotions tend to jump around constantly. It’s kind of annoying, really. But it doesn’t matter. Seriously motivated people aren’t focused on their emotions, they’re looking at the goal. The climber ascending the mountain and the runner approaching the finish line aren’t driven by their feelings, they’re driven by what’s at the end of the struggle.

I’ve worked on my book when I was angry, when I was discouraged, when I was happy, and when I was convinced I was the hottest new thing in the industry. But it didn’t matter how I felt. The book had to get done. No amount of psyching myself up or putting it aside until I was “in the right mood” was going to produce tangible results. I just had to sit down, shut up, and do the work.

Motivation isn’t a state of mind. It’s actively striving. I didn’t just keep myself motivated; my motivation kept me in action.

I’m almost finished with my book. I’ll be releasing in within the next two months. I want people to read it and enjoy it. That’s my goal. That’s the thing that motivates me to finish it. And I believe that’s worth working towards.

Why bother? Because I choose to. And on that last, suitably dramatic note, I wish you a good day and your own goals to motivate you to do something great.

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How to Slay a Dragon, Part 2

Daddy?

What is it, kiddo?

I’m afraid to go to sleep. There’s a dragon outside my window.

Don’t be afraid. Be brave.

But dragons are scary! They’re so big and mean!

Then settle down here with me. Let me read you a story …

Do you remember being a kid? Do you remember the joys and the wonders? And the fears?

Kids quickly learn what fear is. Bravery takes a little longer to catch on. Sometimes, we need a helping hand.

Good thing we have fairy tales to teach us. They tell us that no dragon – no monster, obstacle, or problem – is invincible. They inspire us to surmount the impossible.

First, you have the setup: A dragon appears. The people tremble. It gobbles up their herds and destroys their homes. It sets up shop, and who’s going to ask a razor-toothed lizard the size of a semi to move? It may demand tribute – your daughters and sons will do, nicely, for starters. Oh, terrible day! What can they do to free themselves from this beast?

The dragon may have a name – Fafnir, Cetus, Smaug, Yamata no Orochi, Apophis – but just as often it does not. It varies in appearance, but its function is always the same.

Enter the dragon slayer. He, too, has many names, and he, too, is always the same person. He is the courageous one, the honorable one, the compassionate one. He takes pity on the poor villagers and vows to help them. He may be an underdog or he may already be renowned. Whatever the case, he fights the dragon. He slays the dragon. He wins.

Evil is beaten. Good triumphs. The nightmare ends.

These are the stories children read in fairy tales. These are the messages passed down by folklore from generation to generation. Evil doesn’t always have to win. There is a spark of hope in the darkness. The dragon slayer inspires us to realize that we aren’t stuck in the mud for the rest of our lives. Dragons aren’t unbeatable.

We grow up, and the dragons no longer look like giant lizards. They take many shapes and forms. They may be different for each of us depending on our circumstances, but we learn to recognize them. And we know that they can be beaten. Not with sword and spear, mind you. But with courage, perseverance, knowledge, and hope.

Because fairy tales taught us so.

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How to Slay a Dragon, Part 1

Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon

G. K. Chesterton

Fairy tales are just for kids. That’s what they say, at any rate. Stories of adolescent fluff, beneath the notice of adults. When you grow up, you leave behind the silliness of youth, after all. Bogeymen and monsters and dragons are the stuff of kids’ nightmares, nothing more. Aren’t they?

Ponder this: Parents don’t teach their children that there is a monster under the bed. Where does the idea come from? Do kids instinctually understand that there are bad things in the world? The monster under the bed, the one hiding in the closet, the ghouls and dragons out to get you … Children fear these things. Indeed, children learn very quickly what it means to be afraid.

Every child knows in their heart that monsters are real.

Oh, dragons and bogeymen aren’t real. Those are just trappings. But evil is very much a real thing in this world. The monsters of youth never go away. Adults just learn to recognize them for what they really are.

What does all this grim talk have to do with fairy tales? Think of fairy tales as road maps. Entertainment combined with important facts about life. Stories are tricky things, wrapping up lessons in playful guises.

They teach us that yes, evil things do exist, and yes, they are scary. They give a shape to that indefinable dread all children feel. And then the child is able to give evil its first names: the Big Bad Wolf, the Bogeyman, and of course, the Dragon.

Children’s stories are a primer’s guide to evil. How’s that for a fractured fairy tale? And no, I’m not trying to ruin your childhood. We shouldn’t rip a fairy tale out of a child’s hand because it’s scary. Children already know what scary is. I certainly did growing up. But fairy tales teach children why monsters are scary.

The Big Bad Wolf will trick you and gobble you up! The Dragon is a greedy beast that breathes fire and burns down villages! Be afraid! Fear isn’t weakness, it’s smart to be afraid of things that are dangerous.

But what else is there to do? Are we to spend our whole lives shivering in terror of what lurks outside?

No, that’s not what fairy tales teach us. The Big Bad Wolf is slain by the brave woodsman. A hundred dragon slayers have slain a hundred dragons.

Evil can be defeated. That is the greatest lesson of fairy tales. That is why they endure. They give us hope. Like Mr. Chesterton said, they provide children with the knowledge that monsters can be beaten.

Fairy tales are primers on the dragons of life. They are also primers on how to slay those dragons.

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Being Patient in Today’s World

We live in the world of “now.” Want a cup of coffee? Stop by Starbucks and get it now. Want to watch a movie? Stream it online now. Want to talk face-to-face with your third cousin twice-removed who lives on the other side of the planet? Schedule a Zoom meeting on your computer right now. This is the age of the instantaneous. Everything can be gotten at the moment you decide you want it.

I’m not knocking on modern conveniences. Technology has improved life across the board. Medicine and communications and transportation have all benefited from technological progress. But progress has its price. We don’t value patience that much, anymore. And I can only really say that because being a writer has made me much more aware of the importance of patience.

Writing a book isn’t a quick and easy task. I have to invest a great deal of time in crafting my story, outlining it, going through multiple drafts, editing and formatting the final product. It’s easy to feel antsy at times and just want to push it to the side because I’ve been working on it for over a year and still don’t have a published product. Will it ever get done? Is it worth it? Should I just move on to something else that yields immediate results?

Patience isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone. Maybe there are people out there who don’t struggle with staying level-headed and calm in all situations. I’m not one of them. I tend to rush through life and need to remind myself to slow down. It isn’t a virtue I’m inclined towards because, quite frankly, being patient is scary.

“Hourglass” by John-Morgan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

After all, to wait for something implies trust in that thing’s value and worthwhileness. Grabbing an egg sandwich from McDonald’s is different from cooking an omelet. One is quick and easy, the other takes time and effort to prepare. And time is precious, isn’t it? It’s the ultimate currency. We only have a fixed amount in the bank. So, what we are willing to wait for determines what we value the most. And when you spend time on something, that’s time you can’t get back.

Writing has taught me patience, bit by bit. The value of taking time to prepare the story and to make sure that I’ve chosen the right words. The time to submit my work to others for evaluation and feedback. Patience leads to quality, too. A rushed product is often a shoddy product. The best things in life take time to make. And patience takes courage. I invest time in writing because I trust it is worthwhile in the end.

One last thought: Patience entails an assurance and certainty that waiting will bear results. It is a form of faith, if you will, because it requires one to trust that a future we cannot yet grasp will yield something positive for us. Otherwise, why wait for it at all?

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Urban Fantasy is … Where, Exactly?

So, my last couple posts have discussed what urban fantasy is and what it isn’t. Now that your curiosity is piqued, some among you may be wondering: Where can I find works of urban fantasy?

Everywhere, really.

Just to encompass how versatile urban fantasy is as a framework for storytelling, here’s a brief list of films, books, video games and comics that can be defined as urban fantasy.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians

The Tenth Kingdom (the first episode, at least)

Ghostbusters

Gremlins

Kingdom of Landover series (sort of)

Evil Dead

Any Marvel or DC product with magic in it

Any Scooby-Doo movie where the monsters are real

It’s a Wonderful Life

Dog Soldiers

The Secret World

Dracula

Grimm

The Dresden Files

Night at the Museum

The Shaggy Dog

The Shadow Over Innsmouth (most of H.P. Lovecraft’s works, actually)

Alan Wake

The Picture of Dorian Gray

And so many, many more.

Urban fantasy is vast, so expansive in scope that it can serve more as a thematic foundation for different types of stories than a specific genre in and of itself. After all, Dracula and Night at the Museum are very different, but both meet the criteria for urban fantasy. One is horror, and the other is comedy.

Urban fantasy is a genre, but it is also a theme. It is flexible enough to encompass virtually any story you can imagine.

I’ll leave you with a visual representation that I think captures the spirit of urban fantasy very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX6vSOAPAF4

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Urban Fantasy is … When, Exactly?

Last week , I shared my definition of urban fantasy. To reiterate: Urban Fantasy is any work of fiction that features supernatural and magical elements juxtaposed with real life in the modern day.

Now, I have a confession to make: This definition isn’t quite right, either.

But wait, you may ask. Your previous post discussed the issue at length. What else is missing?

Well, this definition is ignoring a very important question:

When exactly is modern day?

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol features a fantastical story of ghosts set in Victorian London. A historical piece, right? From our point of view, maybe, but not from Mr. Dickens’ perspective. He wrote in what HE would recognize as modern day. So, technically, by the definition we’ve arrived at, A Christmas Carol is urban fantasy.

“Modern” is a relative term, isn’t it? The current year as of this writing is 2023. But a hundred years ago, if you asked someone when modern day is, they would reply that it is 1923. And a thousand years from now, the time we currently experience will be ancient history.

It’s all quite relative, isn’t it? But, before you start dreading some sort of lecture on Einsteinian physics, let me reassure you that all I am saying is that phrasing more specific than “modern day” is needed to explain urban fantasy.

Any piece of urban fantasy I or any other author publishes this year won’t be “modern day” in fifty or a hundred years. But while it is not modern, it is contemporary.

Surprise! Urban fantasy isn’t just a genre, it’s a subgenre. It falls under a much larger and broader heading: contemporary fantasy, also known as modern fantasy. It’s exactly what is sounds like. Any fantasy story that takes place in the author’s modern day is contemporary fantasy.

Remember when I said Harry Potter isn’t urban fantasy, but it is fantasy that takes place in modern times? I still hold that urban fantasy as a genre is dependent on the juxtaposition between real life and fantasy, which carries in certain parts of that franchise, but not at all times. But Harry Potter undoubtedly always falls under contemporary fantasy because its story takes place within the time in which it was written (give or take a couple years). Sometimes urban fantasy, but always contemporary fantasy. It’s a mix. Stories do that, because nothing ever falls into simple, cleanly defined categories, do they?

Anyway, let’s revise that definition one last time.

Urban Fantasy: Any contemporary work of fiction that features supernatural and magical elements juxtaposed with real life.

In other words, urban fantasy is fantasy meets real life at the time the author wrote it. Therefore, A Christmas Carol is urban fantasy. So is It’s a Wonderful Life, for that matter.

Genres sure are surprising things, aren’t they?

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Urban Fantasy is … What, Exactly?

Urban fantasy is a hot genre right now. You see works labeled as such in stores, sold on Amazon, talked about in online forums. But what IS it, anyway? Well, as someone who is writing a book that falls under the urban fantasy genre, I thought maybe I should dedicate some time to explaining my take on things. After all, words are just words until they’re explained, and genre names get bandied about too casually as it is.

You got two words, urban and fantasy. Okay, let’s break that down. “Fantasy” is magic and the supernatural and things that can’t be explained by science. Dragons and wizards and monsters and such. “Urban” is cities and industrialization and modern technology. So, urban fantasy is … fantasy in a city?

Merriam-Webster.com defines urban fantasy as follows: A genre of imaginative fiction featuring supernatural characters or elements in an urban setting.

So, fantasy in a city.

That seems a wee bit limiting, don’t you think?

In my humble opinion, the name is a misnomer. “Urban” is misleading. This is a genre that encompasses far more than just metropolises and towns. What about fantasy stories in a tiny hamlet in midwestern America or rural England? What about a story that takes place on a ship at sea, or in a forest cottage? I propose my own revised definition, because as an aspiring writer who hasn’t even been published yet, I’m TOTALLY qualified to do that, heh, heh.

Urban Fantasy: Any work of imaginative fiction featuring supernatural characters or elements in the modern day.

That’s a good start. It’s broader, but still succinct. But it’s missing something. It’s still not quite right.

There are plenty of fantasy works that take place in modern day that aren’t technically urban fantasy. Take Harry Potter, for example. Sure, the series takes place in the modern era, but its primary setting is so far removed from our mundane existence that it could be mistaken for a straight fantasy. Rarely do the supernatural elements interact with the “real” world. Sometimes, sure, but it’s not the core of the setting. Compare this to, say, The Dresden Files, which features the supernatural interacting with real life on a more consistent basis. In a pure urban fantasy, the magical and mundane collide regularly.

That’s the fun of the genre. Two disparate worlds clashing and coexisting. Goblins and fairies living alongside soccer moms and salarymen. The contrast is the striking and memorable part of urban fantasy. It’s like driving down a busy street and seeing uniformed men on horseback trotting past you.

“Queen’s Guard | Changing of the guard on horseback” by jikatu is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

So, here’s a revised definition. Urban Fantasy: Any work of fiction that features supernatural and magical elements juxtaposed with real life in the modern day.

That sounds a bit better, doesn’t it? We’re getting at the themes of the genre. How does magic exist alongside the real world? Does the fantastical hide itself, or does it live alongside what the readers recognize as normal? How do the two sides interact?

“Urban” fantasy covers a far broader range than its name suggests. My hope is that anyone who decides to pursue this genre, either for consumption or to create their own stories, won’t feel constrained by the label.

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