Kagan MacTane (he/him)#WritersCoffeeClub day 1: What’s the greatest benefit you’ve taken from the writing community online?
Just a sense of community. Of knowing that there are loads of other people out there who are writing, who care about reading and the written word.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 3: How do you come up with the titles for your works?
Very badly. I need to get better at titles.
This is made particularly acute by the fact that I'd like to title my chapters, not just my overall novel. I may very well drop that idea, if I can't manage it.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 4: Share a tool of your trade.
I'm being slightly unusual (for a writer) by repurposing a couple of the tools of my professional trade (software development) and using them for writing. Namely, VS Code and Git. VS Code is a code editor, and it doesn't bother with things like fonts, margins, and so on. I'm writing my WIP in Markdown, so I can italicize things, and other than that? I firmly believe that other formatting... 1/3
...is something that writers shouldn't concern themselves with at all, but should leave them to the layout people.
Git is what's called "source control" software, which allows one to "check in" files and data, and then save updates as they're made. And roll back updates. And even make "branches" in the data, so one can try out multiple different changes at once. (Then one can merge them back together, if desired.) 2/3
I think a lot of writers could benefit from being able to branch their WIPs and try out different ideas... unfortunately, the learning curve on Git is notoriously steep and I doubt it would be worth the hassle for most folks. 3/3
#WritersCoffeeClub day 5: How do you choose the point of view for a new story?
So far, I only have the one story, and it's multiple POVs. I chose that because it's the story of a City, and a very diverse one at that; there's no way any single POV could possibly do it justice. Also, the diversity of viewpoints, of experiences, in a City is why I wanted to write stories about Cities in the first place. 1/3
That said, each scene requires that I choose a single POV for it.¹ In that way, each scene is its own little story. And I've been working off the advice that I read somewhere online recently (I'll have to see if I can remember where), that said to tell it from the POV of the person who's got the most at stake emotionally. 2/3
1. Okay, technically, I *could* opt for omniscient 3rd and bounce around, but I want to avoid confusing my readers, so I've deliberately chosen to stick to close 3rd, only 1 POV per scene. 3/3
#WritersCoffeeClub day 6: Process-wise, what’s improved for you over the years?
My process hasn't really changed that much since I started (partly because that was only a couple of years ago).
#WritersCoffeeClub day 7: Continuing from yesterday’s question, what’s gone downhill?
Again, things really haven't changed much.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 8: While editing, what most clearly signals a pacing issue?
Heck if I know. I'll try to be on the lookout and see if I can learn that when I get into my first round of editing.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 9: What’s your top tip for writing authentic dialogue?
Hear it in your head. Read it out loud.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 10: How do you steer a reader’s emotional journey?
This feels like the kind of thing one could write entire books about (and I think various people have).
#WritersCoffeeClub day 11: Name a poem (or poet!) which has influenced you.
William Butler Yeats and Edgar Allan Poe were both major influences in my youth.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 12: How do you get to know your characters before you start writing?
I work out things like when they were born, where they grew up, any formative events that happened in their past. I get to know what they want out of life, what they struggle with, what they worry about and long for.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 13: Are you actively building your working vocabulary? How?
My working vocabulary has been very large since I was in high school (the product of a whole lot of voracious reading at an adult level by the time I was, say, ten or so). I feel little or no need to work on increasing it at this point.
That doesn't mean I won't take note of a new word if it presents itself. But the question said "actively".
#WritersCoffeeClub day 14: What’s a service or skill you’d like to offer your fellow writers?
I wish I could get everyone¹ set up with a good backup regime. My heart aches when I hear people's horror stories about losing all their writing. And modern tech platforms can make it hard for people to even know where the hell their files are stored, so they don't even know *what* to back up or how!
1. who writes electronically, anyway; people who write by hand are all set
#WritersCoffeeClub day 15: How human are your protagonists? What about your antagonists?
All of them are every bit as human as I can make them. Even the antagonists who are supposed to be kind of monstrous (in a metaphorical sense, not literal!); I am making them nasty and monstrous in ways that I think are (sadly, even painfully or disgustingly) very human.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 16: Name a non-anglophone writer who has really lit you up.
Charles Baudelaire.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 17: What’s frustrating you, writing-wise?
How much I still have to do before this draft is done, and how slowly I'm going.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 18: Are you comfortable making a reader uncomfortable? How far will you go?
I love the general idea of making readers uncomfortable; I think that can be a spur to reflection, and then maybe to change. But in actuality, I think it needs to be applied very sparingly. Especially in genres like mine (urban fantasy), where people aren't really signing up for discomfort, it can be a bit much to take. I won't get anywhere if I make readers so uncomfortable they DNF the book.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 19: Talk about something (even if very small!) from your own life which made it onto the page.
Practically every restaurant, bar, or club that my characters visit is someplace I've known from my own life.
Orion (he/him)@kagan Good answer.
Ratsnake Games 🔞@kagan git also only really works for plain-text formats with frequent line breaks in semantically meaningful places - without those, any merge is practically useless.
@kagan git also only really works for plain-text formats with frequent line breaks in semantically meaningful places - without those, any merge is practically useless.
@ratsnakegames True, but like I said, I'm working in Markdown. And I did say that I don't think writers should be using complicated formatting in their manuscripts.
@kagan Yeah, I write in something Markdown-adjacent myself. The longer your paragraphs are, the more likely it is git merge will spazz out, but it generally works decent-ish.
OTOH: Twine's data format is XML based and plain text so you'd THINK git handles it fine, but Twine packs everything into three lines or so, and worse, reshuffles content on every save.
It's just a caveat I wanted to point out.
@ratsnakegames Thanks for the info. As an XML hater, I probably won't be using Twine anytime soon, but thanks.
clewI remember svn working quite nicely for markdown — with simultaneous reviewers! but I might have done 3 way diffs myself — but that was a while ago.
Probably a) people would laugh at svn now and also b) it’s free and working on most Linux machines.
Pete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫@kagan
I've done changes on a branch once, and it worked well, but I did already know how to use git.
I've done changes on a branch once, and it worked well, but I did already know how to use git.