NaNoWriMo in site, er, sight!

Friday was October 1st, which is the day that NaNoWriMo unleashes the reigns for this each year's event. While I do exist on the grown up NaNoWriMo.org site, I mostly operate on the Young Writers' Program site, because I lead middle school participants in the program.

Well, this year, the staff at the Office of Letters and Light really outdid themselves on the YWP this year! They've created a Virtual Classroom area to help Educators stay organized and in touch with their students. It's wonderful! I'm so very excited. Tomorrow is when most of my WriMos will see it for the first time, when we meet after school.

The afterschool WriMos aren't the only ones that will be writing this year, though. My three Creative Writing classes will also be participating, making class anthologies of themed stories, about 2,000 words per student. I told my afterschool wrimos that I wouldn't be writing a full story this year, but would be writing as part of the class anthologies. I'm rethinking that idea, though, and considering setting a low target, like 12k, and writing one of the concepts that is swimming around my bowl of ideas, waiting to be written.

Regardless of what ends up happening, I am excited about this year's event. In fact, I'm in the beginning of organizing a NaNoWriMo Night at our school. Student writers writing right alongside the adults, and other students (for extra credit) serving drinks and maybe a bake sale. How inspiring! (I hope.)

Teaching

Well, now that school is back in, maybe I should pull my posts back a bit. I'd love to hear my readers' thoughts on that. Supposedly, there are recommendations out there that say that to have a successful blog, you need to post 3-4 times a day! I don't have the time to read that many posts a day on a single blog, nevermind writing them! I am, however, open to your thoughts on this.

As I mentioned, school is back in. I am lucky enough this year to be teaching a handful of Creative Writing courses. Sadly, not all of the unlucky children who were stuck with my class actually wanted it. Many of my students are interested in writing, or at least entertained enough by my antics that they don't mind. Several others are merely biding their time, hoping to be rescued. With that in mind, and characterization on my lesson plans, I developed a "polyhedral character generator." Wow, doesn't that sound nice and science-fictiony? The average 13 year old should be able to take over a planet with one of my "polyhedral character generators." Fortunately, they can't take over a planet, they can only create people.

Borrowing polyhedral dice from the math department, I sketched out a set of charts that would allow the students to roll character traits. Polyhedral dice are dice with more or less than 6 sides.

From Adventures in Elvenfire

Technically, six-sided dice are also polyhedral, but the rest of them are more interesting! Once the kids rolled out about 20 traits (I didn't make them roll every chart.), they had to flip their paper over and flesh out their character, making all those random facts make sense.

No surprise, the kids loved it. Every one of them. They rolled traits the entire period and begged to do it again. My fast-rollers asked if they could make a second character that same day, if they had the time. In short, it was a success. Much of the fun was in the odd combinations that developed. One student ended up with a werewolf who had been bitten by a vampire (that would explain why he was scared of the dark). To make things even more interesting, this same werewolf's favorite food was roast chicken, and he was a vegetarian! Quite the story behind that one. Another students rolled a character who was claustrophobic and afraid of open spaces. With a little more luck, he could have been afraid of milk and we'd have an award winning detective show on our hands!

It was loads of fun and I decided to share it with all of you, in case you too, want a vegetarian werewolf, or a man that's afraid of both large and small spaces. Currently, it's hosted here in Google Docs.

Special Thanks to H. G. Wells

This weekend I finished reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Loved it. Great story. Well told. I don't want to spoil the ending for any who haven't read it, but it ends with a bit of a question, though I think Wells left it clear enough for an observant reader to figure out the general idea.

As I closed the cover, the idea struck me to write a sequel. The narrator of the story dated it three years after the close of the action. I could quite reasonably open a new story, from the same narrator's perspective, five or ten years after the close of the initial action. It is, after all, about a time machine.

While the idea appeals to me, I currently have far too many open projects to try to pick up such a challenge. I say a challenge, because I would not want to write a sequel if I could not write it the way that Wells did. When a writer tries to write a continuation of another writer's work, and completely fails to copy the style of writing, or the mode of speech, or the format of the entries, or other such subtleties, then they fail at writing the sequel, and instead, partly ruin the world the writer has so carefully crafted.

This happened with one of my own favorite series, Phule's Company by Robert Asprin. Asprin, sadly, passed away not long ago, and in his last years, he had begun sharing his writings with other authors. Eventually, the other authors took over. Some, like Jody Lyn Nye who took over the excellent Myth series, have done a wonderful job. Unfortunately, the Phule series did not meet as sweet a fate. The author who took the series has not kept Asprin's voice, nor even, apparently, read the previous novels! If he did, he did not pay much attention to the characterizations or even the format the books were written in. He has trashed all of it, warped the characters, and ruined the series (for me).

If I choose to write a sequel to the classic story by H.G. Wells, I would make every possible effort not to make that mistake. Like the friend of the time traveler, you'll just have to wait to see if I succeed.

The Next Nanite Episode: Under the River!

It's that time again. Time for Derek Daniels to save the day! Once again, the newest episode will be listed on the front page of DavidJace.com under Short Stories. The previous episodes, in case you missed one, will be in the drop down box.

Give it a read, and remember that you can let me know what you think about it by clicking on the Comment link at the bottom of the story.

Story Train

Every Boy Scout troop has done it. Most summer camps have done it. Countless English classrooms have done it. "Let's all tell a story together, one line at a time!" Well, a discussion between myself and another writer recently yielded an expansion idea, based on that, which I would like to share.

First let me tell you the 'train' part of it. My wife does some couponing. I don't mean she clips a couple of coupons out of the Sunday paper to use at the store. I mean she plans deals and exploits sales with multiple types of coupons, stacking one on top of another until the store ends up paying her to take home a basket of goodies! Anyways, enough bragging. She is a member of a couponing site where other members, from all over the country, all do these deals and trade coupons with each other. "I don't need dog food, but I'll give you this dog food coupon for that pizza coupon." Once in awhile, she joins what is called a "train." Listen up, this is the important part. On a coupon train, several people sign up and the coupons go from one person to another, switching and adding coupons and everyone benefits. They have gotten really creative with the way the trains run and what gets on and off them, so to speak.

So, now that you understand "trains" and "stories," let's put them together and talk about this idea. What if several authors signed up (maybe even on a website made for this... hmm... more ideas!) to write a collaborative story. Say, just for the sake of explaining it, that we get 7 authors on this particular train. Perhaps we have not laid down a plot framework, but have limited it to a genre, perhaps Western? (Yee-haw!) and the going rule is that you have to work with whatever text you get. (You can't trash the main character halfway into the book and start telling the story of the cashier that got a cameo in Chapter 3.) At midnight on Sunday, the first author gets to start. He has 24 hours to write as much of the beginning of this novel as he can before handing it off to the next author. She, at midnight, takes what he wrote and moves forward with it. She has 24 hours to write all that she can before handing it off to the next author, and so on. The last author in the train is the caboose. This author has to get his caboose in gear and finish the novel! He, like the others, has 24 hours to do his work, but his job is to wind up the details, tie up the loose ends, and provide a satisfactory conclusion to the work. Voila, we've ridden a wild Story Train and written a novel in only a week! NaNoWriMo would be impressed!

Naturally, this probably wouldn't result in the next Great American Novel, but it could result in a lot of fun, and an interesting challenge for some writers. Naturally, like my wife's coupon trains, there could be all kinds of interesting rules and setups and designs of trains like this. There might need to be some artistic license questions to answer, but I'm sure we could find a reasonable method.

What do you think? Writers, would this be a fun challenge for you? Readers, do you think you'd enjoy reading something written by several authors all at once? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I'm jealous.

Actually, I'm envious. Despite popular use, jealous doesn't accurately describe what I'm feeling. Last week, the movie Kick-Ass was released on DVD, and I got it and watched it and enjoyed it. (I wasn't thrilled with the particular treatment, but I loved the concept and story behind it.) I'm envious of Kick-Ass because it's such an obviously wonderful plot. As the main character says in the opening scenes: "I always wondered why nobody did it before me...at some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero." It then goes on to follow the story of a guy who did it. He dressed up, he jumped around, he went out looking for trouble, and found it.


Two years ago, I was even more envious of the movie Hancock with Will Smith. I won't spoil that one if you haven't seen it, but what an incredible, brilliant, creative plot/characterization. It starts with a superhero that has amnesia and doesn't know who he is or where he comes from, and just gets better from there on in.

Since I'm currently working on a project that involves full immersion virtual reality, I'm also a little nervous of stealing from someone I can't help but be envious of: Piers Anthony. His novel Killobyte is one of my favorites.

I do occasionally feel a little down when thinking of, discovering, or watching what I consider creative brilliance, but mostly I am nervous of stealing the ideas. Shakespeare said there is nothing new under the sun. Considering the recent technological developments of the last century and a half, I'm not convinced he was in a good position to make this judgement. Nevertheless, even something as "recent" as superheros may not necessarily be "new."

"Gods. Angels. Different cultures call us by different names. Now all of a sudden it's 'superhero.'" -Hancock

There is even a book called Our Gods Wear Spandex by Christopher Knowles that discusses this concept of superheroes being a new incarnation of an ancient human concept.

I don't mind running along side creative brilliance in a similar, imaginative footrace, but I don't want to steal someone else's shoes trying to leave my own footprints. In the end, I guess it comes down to this:

Yes, I'm envious, but instead of standing in awe, or matching their footsteps, I'm trying to run my own race and, just maybe, I'll meet them at the finish line.

Excellent Post on Breaking the Rules!

Recently (July 24th), over on magicalwords.net (a website I have recently discovered and been loving, by the way), Edmund Schubert posted an article about the value of stylistic rules and advice. More importantly, the value of using those guidelines weighed against the value of breaking them!

This is excellent advice to any writer, whether a beginning novelist, or an 8th-grade, class-ditching, English-is-for-nerds essayist! Rules can be broken, but only if you know the rule to begin with, and then know when to break it!

Also (bonus!), imbedded within the article are some excellent clarifying ideas regarding grammar and punctuation. Among that part of the discussion, a few examples were dropped that invited widespread, rousing rioting in the comments section! Yes, I was part of it, but it was Edmund wielding the "very large dictionary!"