#WritersCoffeeClub day 5: How do you make sure you don’t leave plot holes?
All kinds of ways. Outlining in advance, for my first five chapters (and the roughly six months preceding them), so that I knew who was doing what when. Keeping a calendar of dates as things progress. Occasionally¹ going back and rereading prior material to make sure of who knows what. A big spreadsheet that tracks details about each character, including what spells they have and so on. 1/2
And with all that, I'm pretty sure that there will be things that I don't catch until the first editing pass that produces the second draft! I've got a lot of balls in the air, with a lot of moving parts.
1. Lately, the time spent on that seems to be increasing, as I have more and more established stuff to make sure that I maintain consistency with. It's becoming a slight cause for concern. 2/2
#WritersCoffeeClub day 6: Is there a local writing community near you? Do you participate in it?
There is a place called the Center for Fiction literally on the same block as my building; I don't even have to step off the sidewalk onto asphalt to get there. (Here's their site: https://centerforfiction.org) That said, while I've stopped by on occasion to write, I have *not* partaken in any of the events or things, so I think I'd have to say my participation is minimal. Just barely above zero.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 7: What have you given up in order to write?
Mostly just a bunch of time and mental energy that I might have otherwise used on other creative projects... or on watching TV and playing games, or similarly inconsequential things.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 8: Do the seasons influence your writing? (content? topic? volume?)
Not really. Wintertime gives me more hours of darkness, which I find a bit more conducive to writing, but I also tend to have less energy, so it evens out. (I just checked my graphs of nearly 2 years of daily time- and output-tracking, and if anything, there might be a _slight_ increase in time spent during summers, but there's also a confounding factor there based on when I was and wasn't employed.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 9: Do you prefer to write complex, intricate plots, or more straightforward ones?
Definitely going with a complicated one this time around. And seeing how it's my first and therefore only time around (so far), I guess that qualifies as a tendency?
I may try to simplify the plotting on my next project, or I might just keep it as a standard thing.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 10: How informal is your prose? Is there a limit to informality?
I try to keep it at a medium level; I want my narration to be unobtrusive.
That's distinct from my characters' internal thoughts; I'm doing close 3rd specifically so I can move back and forth between narratorial voice and my characters' internal states. Those, of course, are every bit as informal as most people's ongoing thoughts are. Yes, up to and definitely including swear words.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 11: Does your work reflect your morals? How so?
For just one of many examples, one of my villains is a cop. A corrupt one, at that. Two more are billionaires.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 12: How do you "stress test" your work?
I have no idea how in the world I'd do that. Luckily, I'm not even close to the point where it'd make sense to do that yet.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 13: Talk about an experience when you consulted an expert for a piece of writing.
I was wondering if my cop character's career advancement was realistic, so I asked in the Reddit community r/policewriting, where law enforcement officers are willing to answer questions for writers. Got back some stuff that helped me tune my character's history a little. 1/2
But there's a different type of expertise and expert knowledge, that isn't often regarded as such in our society: I was wondering if Margot Chu and her husband Al can walk their 5-year-old daughter to a nearby school, or if it would be too far. So I asked in r/AskParents, and got back some lovely answers. Much thanks to those people, who shared their hard-won knowledge! https://www.reddit.com/r/AskParents/comments/12oo7u9/can_a_5yearold_walk_25_of_a_mile_how_long/ 2/2
Addendum: to be clear, I'm calling "parenting and child-rearing in general" a field of expertise, not just knowing how far a child of a given age can walk!
And yes, I am *damned well* calling parenting and child-rearing "expertise" or "expert knowledge". At least for some people. I know there are those who do it very badly, but there are also those who do this incredibly hard thing very well, and to them: 🫡 3/2
#WritersCoffeeClub day 14: Do you think readers want new experiences in structure or narrative, or do they prefer what's familiar?
"Readers" aren't a monolithic group. Some want one thing, others want a different thing. Heck, even individuals sometimes want different things at different times!
#WritersCoffeeClub day 15: Talk about an experience you had sharing your writing with a group.
I haven't done that yet.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 16: What's the largest cast you've ever written? What made it challenging?
I'm currently writing a piece with 5 MCs, 5 villains, and at least a dozen more people with major roles. That's leaving out bit parts.
I don't know yet if it's "challenging", though; I think it's just part and parcel of writing the kind of story I'm writing. It's a city; there are *supposed* to be lots of people. (Also, I like ensemble casts.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 17: What's an experience or sensation you've struggled to convey to a reader?
What it's like to have a magical awakening that completely destroys and remakes who you are and the way you see the world.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 18: What's a writerly gift you've received?
The greatest, niftiest writerly gift I ever received was decades before I became a writer.
Back in the early '90s, I was working as a compositor/typesetter at a company that did newsletters focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. The reporters there would type up their stories in WordPerfect 5.1 (for DOS!), send them to me over some network that was a variety that I don't even recall anymore, and I'd run this... 1/7
...over-engineered set of chained WordPerfect macros on them that would format and massage them and insert them into some very carefully-designed templates that would (if all went well) produce print-ready documents that we could slap onto the printing presses in the back room.
(All usually went well, but hiccups occurred often enough to keep me on my toes, and to justify my salary when I resolved them.) 2/7
After the first pass, we'd print a low-res version (on a mere 600dpi laser printer) and send it back to the writers and editors to double-check, and they'd invariably send it back all marked up with edits and whatnot. It was a fun cycle, everyone working as fast as we all could to hone and polish everything. I *loved* the way you could blast commands into WordPerfect's input buffer even while it was trying to re-render stuff, and know without a doubt that it'd... 3/7
…pick them up whenever it could. One of the cool things you could do with the kind of text- and keyboard-only, pre-mouse interfaces they just don't make anymore. Good times.
Anyway, each publication had its own team of writers and editors. We typesetters got to know them. Most of them were just solidly professional, but there was one… I forget the publication title, and the name of the editor in charge, but she was friendly, personable, and just very kind and wonderful. 4/7
(I'm sorry, it was literally over 30 years ago, and more than half my life ago. My memory's not great.)
Anyway, I also forget what the occasion was when this editor gave little presents to everyone on her team. I assume it must have been Christmas, but I'm not positive.
It wasn't unusual for editors to do things like that to help morale on their writing staffs. But it *was* unusual — or at least, I sure didn't expect it — for her to... 5/7
...include me, as their usual typesetter, in the gift circle. I was touched just by that alone.
But the gift itself! What she gave to everyone on her team (and included me in that team)!
It was a little enamel pin, with an absolutely fabulous design: https://wmspear.com/item.php?item=476
I treasured it for years. It eventually got lost or broken, and I went to a lot of effort to track down a replacement. 6/7
I wasn't even a writer then. I just knew that thing was _cool AF._
But now I *am* at least trying to be a writer. And I still have one of those pins on the lapel of my leather jacket. I got a compliment on it maybe a month ago. Maybe only three weeks.
Absolutely the coolest, most awesome writerly gift I ever received. And it took me decades afterward to even become a writer. 7/7
#WritersCoffeeClub day 19: Do you need to finish a work before starting another? Why (or why not)?
Right now, I am gritting my teeth and keeping myself from starting up at least 2 different things. For one of them, it'd honestly mean I was dodging the current WIP. The other project would just be super-interesting, and I really want to do it as soon as I can, but if I did it _now?_ I'm not sure when I'd come back to the current WIP.
Anyway. I'm trying to be a good boy.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 20: Who is your ideal reader?
Someone who would just straight-up, no-holds-barred love what I'm writing. Someone who loves San Francisco, and magic, and either is queer or a good, progressive ally.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 21: Do you celebrate any writerly anniversaries or special occasions?
No, and I'm not sure what I would celebrate or commemorate. The anniversary of when I started on my first draft? Ugh, that'd just remind me that I haven't got the thing finished yet.
Maybe if I ever get published, I can start celebrating the anniversary of that. But that's in the future.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 22: How do you organise your notes? (No notes?)
I have a few different types of notes:
* Character bios (and related material)
* World-building/setting notes
* Plot notes, which includes an outline and also a document that's just dates when scenes take place
* Also a file of "unresolved questions" that I need to answer... many of which eventually got moved into a "resolved" file!
1/2
I also have a script that allows me to quickly and easily search through this stuff, or even certain subsets of it, for those times when I go, "I know I made some notes about that, but _which damn file_ did I make them in‽" 2/2
#WritersCoffeeClub day 23: What's the most you've worked on a WIP before deciding to scrap it? What happened?
I haven't scrapped any yet; I'm still working on my first project.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 24: Do you have a writerly "third place"?
Depends on your definition. A lot of people take "third place" to include for-profit businesses, but I believe those aren't actually legit according to the original definition.
That said, I do a fair bit of writing at Oldies izakaya in Japan Village, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It's kind of a "third place" for me to write in. Also North Pole Pub in Park Slope, Hollow Nickel in Boerum Hill, and sometimes Mo's in Fort Greene.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 25: The vulnerability of sharing: what do you feel when a loved one reads your work? (pride? embarrassment? anxiety?)
Definitely anxiety, until I start getting feedback from them. Then what I feel depends on what that feedback is. (So far, I've only had one loved one read any of my stuff, and they were *very* positive, so what I felt was relief and happiness.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 26: How much of a break or hiatus do you take between works?
I'm still on my first work, so I don't know yet.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 27: If you had to pick one, would you say writing is a more exciting or cathartic process for you?
More exciting. I'm not particularly exorcising any internal demons or working out my stuff. (Note that "not particularly" doesn't mean "not at all". There's a _bit_ of that going on... but my *main* activity is telling a story that I hope will be fun and cool.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 28: Do you ever sacrifice blunt clarity for prose that flows well?
No. I want my prose to flow well, but if it's not clear? Look, that'd just mean my reader would have to backtrack and try to figure out WTF was going on. Then it wouldn't "flow well"; they'd perceive it as clunky because they couldn't get through it in one pass.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 29: Share one of your writing milestones.
I've got one coming up next month: on April 18th, it will have been one year since I started on the first draft.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 30: What got in the way of your writing this month?
At the beginning of the month: setting up my new laptop. That just plain took me away from writing entirely for about four days.
And then in the latter half of the month, once I decided to go to San Francisco, preparations for that took up a bunch more of my mental bandwidth, with a corresponding drop in writing productivity. (I'm posting this just before leaving for the airport.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 31: What are we celebrating regarding your writing this month?
That I got as much done as I did, what with all this other stuff going on. (See yesterday.)
#WritersCoffeeClub day 1: What arrangement of plots do you have? No plot? Only one? A main plot and a side plot? Something else?
A main plot, a side plot, and a side romantic plot.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 2: Visual presentation: how do white space and typography become meaningful elements of literary form?
There are some amazing answers to this question in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_ and at the climax of _The Stars My Destination_. Describing them here wouldn't do them justice, and would simply diminish their impact in their respective stories, but please believe me when I say the typographical format-busting really does enhance them.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 3: Have you studied writing? Did it prepare you, or did you learn more by doing?
I am sure I took at least one or two creative writing courses in college, and maybe even in high school, but I can no longer remember anything of them. I've learned some by doing it, but I think I learned even more by reading a lot.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 4: Do you switch between past and present tense? How do you make it work?
Definitely not. I'm writing in past tense (close 3rd person), with the exception that chapter 5 starts with a flashback that's in past perfect tense, shifting back into standard past tense as it catches up to "the present day"/non-flashback time.
[Edit: As others have pointed out, yes, of course I write dialogue and thoughts in present tense. People say, "I'm going to the store," not... 1/2
..."I was going to the store" or suchlike, and think, "This is a weird situation," not "This was a weird situation." But I'm not sure if that *truly* counts, because the dialogue tags are still said and thought, not says and thinks.
"I'm going to the store," she _said_. That's past tense, right? I accurately report the words she said in the past, even if she phrased them in present tense.
Anyway, that's the situation. 2/2]
#WritersCoffeeClub day 5: How can the physical form of the writing become part of the storytelling?
One of my favorite books as a child was _The Monster at the End of This Book_, in which Grover, the blue muppet from _Sesame Street_, does everything he can to keep the reader from turning each page and eventually finishing the book. It was delightfully meta, and completely based on the physical form of a bound book.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 6: Do the plots or characters in your work converge towards a single point?
No, they pretty much all start in the same place and thread, and stay there.
I do love plots that converge (season 1 of _The Expanse_, one of my favorite shows, is a great example of this — even more so than _Leviathan Wakes_, the book it's based on, because the show has 3 main threads compared to the book's 2). But the plot in my WIP isn't like that.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 7: Do you combine poetic fragments and prose paragraphs in your work?
Not so far. I might someday. But for now, I'm just doing prose paragraphs, and a couple of occasional bits where someone sings a few lines of a song, but those are set off from the other dialogue.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 8: Do you do warm-ups before or cool-downs after a writing session?
No.
I sometimes take a while to get started, but a slow start isn't the same as a warm-up.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 9: What is your favourite way to introduce a character's appearance?
Doing it from the point of view of a, well, viewpoint character who's meeting them for the first time. Ideally, for best effect, have two or more people meet this character, and then the differences in their impressions not only give depth to the one character, they also... 1/2
...help illustrate differences between the ones whose viewpoints the descriptions are coming from. Of course, that's rarely possible without it feeling repetitive; I did say it was ideal, and ideals can rarely be achieved. 2/2
#WritersCoffeeClub day 10: What's something other writers swear by that you just don't get?
I can't think of anything. There are things other writers swear by that don't work *for me* (like pantsing, mostly), but it's not that I "don't get it", it's just that I haven't learned to do it well yet (but I'm trying!). Or there are things other people say writers are supposed to do, like never split an infinitive or whatever, but no _actual writers_ that I know subscribe to that kind of crud.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 11: What's your most effective method for connecting with readers?
I don't have any readers yet.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 12: How does being a writer influence your life outside of the work?
Practically everywhere I go, I look at it closely and think of what I'd need to track in case I ever set a scene there, and how I'd describe it as a setting.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 13: What do you borrow from other fiction (or nonfiction!) genres?
I'm putting a romance subplot into my urban fantasy story.
#WritersCoffeeClub day 14: Do you consciously work with syllabic stress to create rhythm?
Only when I'm deliberately trying to write poetry.
Granted, there are a few occasions when I want my "prose" to "feel poetic" to readers (like when something really mystical's going on), and then I'll "try to make it feel like poetry". But in those cases, I think what I do is more just trying to _subconsciously_ heighten the rhythm and flow.
Kagan MacTane (he/him)