Notes From Kelly Sue DeConnick's Writing Workshop

This past weekend I attended a writing workshop at Third Eye Comics, my local badass comic shop. Kelly Sue DeConnick, current writer for Marvel's Captain Marvel series among other things and creator of the new Pretty Deadly Image book, ran a two hour lecture-with-participation on how to write for comics. For the record, she's aces at it. All of her advice was on point and helpful to anyone looking to break into comics, so if you get a chance to catch her doing this sort of thing again I heartily recommend you attend.

What follows are the notes I took that are applicable to any sort of writing, not just comic books. I'm not going to reproduce my entire note pool because A. it would get unwieldy for one blog post, B. I don't write comic books for a living, C. a good chunk of it is exercises that won't translate well, and D. Kelly Sue does write comics and if anyone's going to dispense her specialized wisdom in that area, it's her. But I'll gladly steal (well, post with permission - thanks Kelly Sue!) the more general tidbits, because they're fucking worth knowing.

Disclaimer: Anything in quotes is a direct quote. Anything outside of the quotes is subject to the stupidity of the stenographer. Now, in no particular order:

1. Ideas in your head are always going to seem more perfect than words on the page. Deal with it. You need to put the words on the page. The shitty first draft is better than perfect words in your head.*

2. Variant: "Ideas are shit. I have six a day!" Sitting down and getting the story done is the hard part. Nobody's going to pay you for your ideas. You are welcome to make people pay you to write their ideas down.

3. A good part of your job is sitting like this, listening to the voices in your head. Kelly Sue's method involves writing down conversations she hears in her imagination, but you might see freeze-framed scenes. Whatever works.

4. An exercise for the crazy: Get a favorite comic book's script (or a favorite book) and copy it out in longhand. This will help you focus and read critically. (I have tried this and it works, though it is a time commitment.)

5. Warren Ellis's advice for fight scenes is to call your shots, meaning if somebody is going to be hit with a club in one panel, the club should be visible in the previous panel. In a book, this means foreshadowing: if an object or plot device is going to be crucial to a scene or the whole book, try to make sure you've at least mentioned it before you use it.

6. “What is the Get?” Once you have a first draft, go through and ask yourself with every scene: Does it tell us something about characters, or push the plot forward? If not, cut it. Kill the darlings, basically. But create a Morgue file on your desktop to set your darlings aside, and one day, when you're at loose ends, go through it and look for new story ideas.

7. If you're having a rough time of it, just think "I need to get through today, tomorrow I'm quitting." Remind yourself of that until you're done for the day. Then, tomorrow, think: "Okay, just one more day, but then TOMORROW..."

8. Kelly Sue recommends the South Park writing method, which is making sure your scenes are connected by "but" or "so", not "and" or "meanwhile". (She also admits to a bit too much "meanwhile".) You can watch Trey Parker and Matt Stone describe their method here.

9. Some "don't"s: Don't fall in love with your words. Don't add captions that tell us something we can already see (in prose, consider this to refer to adverbs). Don't be a petty child (or at least try). And finally don't give your stuff (manuscript, self-published work) to editors at conventions. 75% of the things editors get at conventions will go in the trash before they get on a plane. Instead, get the editor's contact information and their permission to send them your stuff.

10. Feminism 101: First, when writing someone of the opposite gender, pretend they're people! Kelly Sue also recommends the Bechdel Test, and introduced the Sexy Lamp Test, to wit: Can you replace a female character with a sexy lamp and not change anything else in your plot? If so, fuck you. This means you've written a female character who is nothing more than something to rescue or avenge, or a reward or decoration. To fix this problem, simply ask yourself what the sexy lamp wants; then, give it agency, meaning the ability to go out and try to get what it wants. Note the "try": a character doesn't need to be successful to have agency.

11. In the same vein, let's have a 5 year moratorium on rape in comics. It's a lazy choice. So is killing children or dogs. Kelly Sue still feels bad about killing a dog in one issue just to get to an ending she wanted. And I'll note that my wife will stop reading or watching anything that kills a dog immediately. Which is why I still haven't seen House of Cards. Thank you Kevin Spacey.

12. On creating characters: Use the old improv trick of "yes, and" when you're coming up with a character. Ask yourself what your character wants. Another old actor's trick: keep a journal for a character you're trying to develop. Take notes as you see themes cropping up.

13. Characters again: Ask yourself, "What is their [your character's] wound?" Try to tie that in with your character's gift. (For example Superman has all his powers, but he's the last of his kind.)

14. Once more on characters: Ask yourself, what part of the body does your character lead with? As an example Kelly Sue noted that Captain Marvel leads with her heart and her chin: she sees a problem and her response is to march in and hit it. Her best friend Spider-Woman on the other hand leads with her hips: her first response to a problem is to get up and walk away, she has to try very hard to be a hero. (Yes this last question will make you sound like a crazy person.)

15. Put your characters through hell. You are allowed to feel bad about this afterward.

16. Further reading recommendations: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Shawn Coyne, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels by Peter David. Also Chris Claremont's run on X-Men, and pay attention to the way he throws out random details that end up paying off into great stories down the line.

* Originally this ended with "And the second draft is going to be a hell of a lot harder than the first." Then I got a note from Kelly Sue: "I probably did say this, but it’s not quite true. The hardest part - the actual hardest part - is getting the first draft down. After that, it’s grunt work. You get stuck, you get upset when you see things that don’t work, sure - but having a manuscript to work with is infinitely better than NOT having a manuscript to work with." I believe I lumped two statements made over the evening together, and somewhat mangled the context.

I do disagree with her, though. I find getting the first draft down painful, but doable. The second draft, where I have to fill in roughly a thousand plot holes, flesh out my cardboard cutout characters, and get the hideous goddamn creature that is my novel breathing, is infinitely harder for me.

That might be because I'm working on a NaNoNovel and huffed raw nitrous oxide during the first draft; it might be that I failed at Proper Preparation and Planning the first time through; or it might be that novels are a different beast than comics and short stories, because with short stories I've found the first draft absolutely is harder than the second. And Kelly Sue has vastly more experience, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

The Situation Is Dire

As of tonight, the following things are true:

- There is no bill that has passed either chamber of Congress that will lift America's debt ceiling.

- If we do not lift the debt ceiling by the 17th of October, Thursday, we are at risk of defaulting on Treasury bills (America's debt). Because Treasury bills are the global standard for a safe investment, this would mean global financial chaos.

- The Senate is scrambling to put together a compromise bill that would raise the debt ceiling, but any lone Senator (read: Ted Cruz) could blow up the deal just by jamming procedure through Friday.

- Speaker John Boehner has failed to even pass a Republican-friendly bill to raise the debt ceiling in the House, and that wouldn't have passed the Senate in any case.

That's the truth. But my reality is that right now, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have their shirts off and are engaged in a bare-knuckle boxing match in the middle of the Senate floor. John McCain is wearing a knit cap and screaming at McConnell to get Reid against the rope. In a corner of the chamber, Ted Cruz is puffing up as the essence of Yog Sothoth fills him with unspeakable vigor. Al Franken's reading Bible verses while dressed up as Stuart Smalley, trying to suppress the incursion, but the tentacles are already forming. Rand Paul is not there: he's gone to seize Fort Knox, in anticipation of going back on the gold standard.

In the House, Boehner is kneeling in front of Eric Cantor with a Tantō sword clenched in his trembling fist. Tears run down his cheeks as he begs forgiveness, over the phone, from Rush Limbaugh - but Limbaugh demands that honor be satisfied. Nancy Pelosi has snapped and is holding vote after vote to empty air. She's winning, but the margins are surprisingly tight. Michelle Bachmann is leading the rest of the GOP caucus in prayer, hoping that maybe this will be enough to trigger the Rapture.

Grim stuff, but it's almost better to think that way than to remember that a small gang of cretins has hijacked our legislature and is holding a metaphorical gun to my country's head over nothing. And we can't do anything about it.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to work, do my work, and write a bit on breaks. I will leave at my usual time, purchase a few comic books and Chipotle dinner for myself and my wife (without regard for my diet, under the circumstances). Then I'll come home, spend time with my family, and see them to bed. And then I'll turn on the news, and when the end comes I'll say a prayer for my country and go to sleep. And in the morning I'll get Ben up and prepare him for our new lives in Barter Town.

I think we can make it work.

But I'm going to look like crap in that outfit, so please, take a minute today to call your representatives and ask them to get us out of this.

Furloughed

Last week I was furloughed from my day job because lunatics are holding the government hostage. I can't write about this without devolving into incoherence and rage, but Andrew Sullivan has some thoughts I agree with, and Chuck Wendig took a dip into scatology on the subject.

Anyway.

I got four days of "unemployment" before I was called back into work, and it was pretty damn sobering. See, my reaction to this a few months ago would have been "Well... great!" Because I'd be confident the furlough was temporary, and I would have no demands on my time to prevent me from writing my little heart out. I could give being a full-time writer a shot without the hassle of actually quitting my job. I might even get back pay for it.

The reality was "nope". Leaving aside the need to care for the young lad (and spending time with him was a little blessing, don't get me wrong), I managed to burn most of my remaining time on television, video games, and an ill-fated attempt to kill the bees in my roof. (I think they're dead. I think they're dead because the wasps got them. That's not better.)

I wrote, yes, I got one short-short story done and posted and one half-finished. I took some notes and did a bit of research for the novel. And that was about it.

Being home all day didn't give me some magical energy boost. I wasn't suddenly churning out 2,000 words a day. Not being distracted by work just meant I got distracted by other things.

Which carries a valuable lesson. If you want to write, you have to make time to write, no matter what your circumstances are. I don't care if you're alone on a desert island with a crate of pens and Moleskines. If you don't commit to writing every day, come hell or high water, you won't write.

It's a basic lesson, and I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to have it drilled into me before it takes. But there's no getting around it.

So what are your favorite tips on building up good writing habits? Don't be shy.

Do Me A Favor (Strange New Words)

See that image over on the left? It's a proposed cover for Ari Marmell's Strange New Words, a collection of short stories he's written over the years. You might know Ari as the author of the amusingly grim Conqueror's Shadow series, or the grimly amusing Goblin Corps. Or you might have read some of his work for the Magic: The Gathering or Iron Kingdoms games.

My point being: Ari's a very good fantasy author with a proven track record, and I've got no doubt he's written some strong material for this book. So I'd like you to take a minute to click on this link, go read over the Kickstarter, and contribute a few dollars to help him get it off the ground.

My reasons for this are not... entirely altruistic.

See the Yeti Rock-Thrower tier reward? It's the one where Ari has offered to critique a short story or a novel chapter for the low low price (I'm not kidding here) of $100, minus the cost of a hardback copy of the book and a USS San Jacinto patch. That is a frigging bargain, which you can discover for yourself if you go looking for critique rates at any reputable agency.

As of last week I've pledged $100 to become a Yeti Rock-Thrower. See, I love writing and I intend to keep writing, but I am downright horrible at kicking my own ass hard enough to finish any project larger than a short story. (That's finish as in "oh God I can finally submit this", not finish as in "I 'won' NaNoWriMo again".) And that sucks. I'm writing because I ultimately want people to read this shit, er brilliance, and that's not going to happen if I keep leaving the corpses of unfinished novels behind me like so many chicken bones.*

I need privacy, I need quiet, I need regularly scheduled blocks of time to write.** And I'm not going to get any of that because I have a day job and an infant son, so I'm settling for threatening to tear a strip of flesh out of my own arm. Because if I don't finish polishing this book, I'm going to be letting $100 go to waste and I'll never hear the end of it.

You may say, "Dave, real authors don't need to do this sort of thing." And to that I say, "Professional authors don't do this sort of thing because it's not profitable, but real authors will try any Goddamn thing they can to finish the book. Now hand me my Viking helmet."

So now I've got some financial skin on the line without taking the ultimate step of quitting my day job. Or I will once Ari's Kickstarter gets fully funded. And at the moment it's only halfway there, with fifteen days to go, and if it doesn't get fully funded I keep my $100 and I'll have to start thinking about how to remove literal strips of flesh in a motivational manner.

So please click this link and go help Ari out. We'll both be grateful, and you'll have done your good deed for the day.

*To my neighbors: Stop doing that. My dog doesn't understand stomach perforation.

**These are of course not "needs", as any experienced writer will tell you repeatedly. But they wouldn't hurt.

Zero Count, Worldbuilder's Disease and Flagging Morale

Dear God in Heaven this ain't good.

It also ain't accurate - my last blog post went up on the 14th, and I've jotted down some bad attempts since - but in terms of "words of like, fiction I've put down on paper" it's pretty much spot on.

Now, in my (pitiful, shameful, insufficient) defense, my wife and I did have a baby at the end of July and our schedules have been a teensy bit thrown off by, um, getting up at all hours of the night to feed the boy. And I've recently gone back to work, which means when I get home I get to take the baby for most of the evening to give my wife a break and then go to bed for not enough sleep before I get up to do it all over again.

So it's not all me being lazy. But I don't get to use that as an excuse to not write anything.

Let me introduce you to A Boy and His Demon. (Working title. I don't use nifty code names like Sarah Cawkwell.)

I started this book last year for NaNoWriMo and finished the first draft in... February? That sounds right. The idea is an epic fantasy series, ultimately, but starting with a fairly self-contained first book where an adventurous young boy tries to overthrow the undead king of his island home. The basic plot is in place

(just got stopped by a dog walk and a crying baby, feeding and diaper change)

and I've got a killer ending and I think the story's interesting, the villains are cool and the heroes have potential.

But nothing fucking works.

The island's geography is a mess, and that's screwing up all my timelines because Boy Hero has to go from one end to the other at least once. The villages operate under a system of law and government that amounts to "don't piss off the Lich". I'm not sure if the population is sustainable, especially with people getting killed and raised as zombie slave labor all the time. There are sentient animals that probably should have been hunted to extinction by now. Trade and travel are highly limited but every village has boats capable of reaching the mainland and I'm not sure how that works.

(now my wife's going to bed, so I'm on baby duty until his next feeding. at midnight)

(and now I'm back, after about four, maybe four and a half hours of sleep)

It gets even worse when I consider that I mean for this book to set up a trilogy. What's the back story on the Lord High Butcher and his horrific master, the Burning King? How much of the southern continent does the Empire of the Dead rule? Are there still independent kingdoms? Were there ever independent kingdoms? Either way, how did they interact with my island before and after all the shit hit the fan? What happened on the island during the worldwide demonic invasion? The War of the Three Sorceresses? The Godwar? Where are the gods and the demigods anyway?

There's a term for all this worrying and nitpicking, and it's Worldbuilder's Disease.

(transcribing notes jotted down at my day job while waiting for a meeting to start)

My real problem is that I'm not writing, but also that I started reading epic fantasies when I was beginning my second draft. J.R.R. Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks. These are guys who have mastered the epic form and demonstrated just how much work I have to do. But how do I know when it's too much? And how do I start revising when I have so many gaping holes - honking big plot-relevant holes - in my world?

(and back home after work, haircut, dinner, changing a poopy diaper)

The answer, of course, is that I don't, I have to fill in the damn holes or there's not much point to revising. But the sad truth is that worldbuilding feels like treading water to me. I know it's necessary, but it doesn't improve my word count and it doesn't help me fix my bland main character, and the longer I do it the more I think that I'm losing my ability to actually finish the draft.

Where was I? What is this?

(God help me Miley Cyrus)

And I am going to finish the draft no matter what, because I do not need another set of lunatic ghosts dancing around in my head. (Hi Constance, hi Shosanna, I'll get to you, shut up.)

(two loads of laundry hung and folded)

I am going to finish the draft. I am going to fill in that chart with words every day. I am going to build the world I need to build.

But, ah, if anyone has any tips on the worldbuilding thing? Post them in the comments. Thanks.