Month: June 2020

A Writer’s Secret Weapon: The Series Bible

Posted on by Jonathan Fesmire

 

What Is a Series Bible?

 

For years, writers and agents pitching television shows have had to share a book filled with information about their prospective show. These have included the premise, the characters, the setting, and proposed story arcs, all to convince networks to give their show a chance.

While a series bible may include a story synopsis and perhaps even a script, it’s so much more. It’s a sourcebook for everything in that program.

Here’s the thing. Series bibles (or book bibles, if you’re not writing a series) are a fantastic resource for novelists, too. Imagine being able to look up critical information about a character or a place without having to flip back through your book, or a previous book, to find where you wrote down that one detail.

“What was the name of that priestess I introduced at the beginning of the book? Who lost that amulet again? Wait, where’s my map of that fort?” Keep up on your series bible and you go and you can look up information easily.

 

A Great Example

 

If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” like I am, you may have a copy of the Dark Tower Concordance, put together by author Robin Furth. This is a fun book to browse through. You can jump from one entry to another, reliving parts of the story and discovering just how rich the worlds of Stephen King are.

That’s my favorite example of what a series bible can be like. If you’re interested in checking out some TV series bibles, some are available on the Screencraft site.

 

Online Series Bibles

 

The thing is, these days it’s easy to create an online series bible. Think of it like a personal wiki where you can gather all the information about your book, series, or milieu in one place.

One way to do this is by literally finding a personal wiki site, signing up, and getting to work. However, if you’ve read very many of my blog posts or newsletters, you know that I like to share what I think is the best way to do something.

When I was writing Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western, I started my series bible on one of those personal wiki sites, and it worked Okay. But I later learned about WorldAnvil. The owners, power-couple Dimitris R Havlidis and Janet Forbes, run this site designed specifically for worldbuilding. For writers and anyone running an RPG, this site is fantastic.

I moved my series bible there. I’m able to look up details about all my creations in the Creedverse, the world of Bodacious Creed, including characters, locations, technologies, history, maps, and more. Feel free to check out my series bible if you like. Only a limited amount of information is available to the public. Most of it is private, for my own reference. Then, you can browse around the WorldAnvil site and see what others have created.

 

Your Series Bible

 

To sum up, if you’re a novelist, graphic novelist, gamemaster, videographer, or otherwise need a way to keep track of your story information and you don’t have a book, film, or series bible, it’s time to create one. I recommend WorldAnvil, but a personal wiki also works, and you may have your own ideas.

If you’re a fan of books, games, or television, then you’ll likely have a lot of fun checking out what’s available in existing series bibles.

Now, back to writing my current novel, Bodacious Creed and the Jade Lake! Have fun with whatever project you’re working on.

“Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.” ― J. R. R. Tolkien

 

How To Visualize Characters with TPDNI and FaceApp

Posted on by Jonathan Fesmire

 

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

 

Now, on to the topic of this post.

 

A Simple Way to Create Character Portraits

 

I’ve been working hard on my latest novel, Bodacious Creed and the Jade Lake, the sequel to my popular book, Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western.

One thing I have fun with is generating random faces on the website This Person Does Not Exist, which uses an adversarial learning network to create photorealistic images of people who, you guessed it, do not exist.

I’ve written about this site before and how it helps me come up with portraits of my characters, which I then use on my series bible site. (Check it out if you’re curious! Only some of the information is available to the public, but it’s enough to learn a bit about my fictional world.)

The other day, I decided to use FaceApp on some of those fictional faces. This is a lot of fun. It’s especially entertaining to use the gender-swap feature. It gives me more faces to choose from when casting my characters.

 

Examples

 

Here are a few examples. On some of these, I also changed the background, and on one, I made the gender-swapped version younger. FaceApp has a ton of interesting options.

 

Writers can have fun visualizing characters with this, and artists can practice drawing or painting portraits of unique faces. Of course, you can also just spend a few hours having fun using these apps together.

I hope you enjoy this simple way to create character portraits that I devised. Have fun with it!

Now, back to writing my novel!

Oh yes! If you’d like to keep up with this blog, please subscribe to my newsletter. I send out approximately one email a week. The sign-up form is at the top of the right sidebar. You’ll also get a free steampunk western story and more!

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.”— Peter Handke

My Writing Process

Posted on by Jonathan Fesmire

 

My Writing Process Can Help You

 

I don’t intend for this title to seem egotistical, so let me clarify. I’ve been writing for a long time and I’ve learned a lot of helpful techniques that can help others. I also love learning how other writers work because someone else’s process can help me, too.

Every writer works differently. If you’ve been writing long, and studying your craft, you already know that, but I wanted to preface this post with that fact. The correct way to write is what works for you.

Over time, you’ll refine your methods. You’ll try different techniques, find new tools, and if you do it well, you’ll keep getting better.

It can help to know how other writers work. My own method has been evolving, and I figured I’d outline it here. If this helps you, great!

 

Idea and Research

 

It starts with an idea and a basic concept of how the story will go. I’m not going to go into coming up with ideas. That’s always been a mystery to me.

Then, I do a bunch of research. I may look up information online or purchase a book. For my latest novel, Bodacious Creed and the Jade Lake, I read two books about early San Francisco: The Barbary Coast and Rogues of San Francisco. Both gave me excellent ideas, tons of information, and shaped the course of the novel.

 

Outlining

 

Next, and this is new for me, I use a beat sheet to plan the most important events in a book. A beat sheet allows me to plan the most significant events in a book, the turning points.

When coming up with a story, there are always a few scenes that enter my mind. These are major events in a story, big emotional moments that I know will be amazing to write and read. These are some of your beats.

 

Writing

 

When writing, I then plan how to get from one beat scene to the next. Let’s use Star Wars as an example. A couple of the beats would be Luke discovering Leia’s message to him deciding to go with Obi-Wan to Aleraan. George Lucas’s job was to figure out what happens between those events. This method blends outlining—planning out the story ahead of time—with pantsing—figuring the story out as you go. I can write a book quickly this way and I rarely get stuck.

 

Moments of Research

 

Sometimes, I have to do some extra research and planning. For example, I’ll get to the end of an important section of the book, and my main character is about to go on a new leg of his or her adventure.  No problem! I note what I plan to have happen next. I create the characters and settings for that part of the journey and perhaps read an article or two for research, and I get to writing again.

Where do I keep all this information? I have a series bible at World Anvil. I’ve made some of it public, so if you’d like to learn a bit about the Creedverse, you can see that here.

This is great because I can easily look up characters, places, events, technology, and more about my world and keep everything straight within a series.

 

Beyond the First Draft

 

That’s how it goes, then, until I finish the first draft! I’ve actually taken to calling mine a “garbage draft,” a term I learned from Russell Nohelty, and that gives me permission to write badly. That initial draft is supposed to be rough.

Then, I give myself time to cool off, as it were, to get some distance from the story. During this period, I create the beat sheet for the sequel.

When I come back to the garbage draft, I can read it and take tons of notes. The next step is to get the story right. Here’s where I fix plot holes and inconsistencies, where I make my characters’ motivations clearer, and so on. This will involve rewriting entire scenes, but at this point, that’s not difficult, since I know the story well.

After a draft or two of fixing those things, I polish the prose a bit. Then, I get a few friends to be alpha readers. Do they see any plot holes? Does everything make sense to them? Do they see scenes that aren’t clear enough, or that don’t belong?

I take their comments, decide if I agree, and make changes accordingly.

 

Finishing Up

 

Here’s where I really polish up the prose, which will take a draft or two. I want the writing to sizzle. I want people to feel like the events are real. I want them to empathize with my characters and to keep turning the pages, and I do all I can to make that likely.

Then, it’s off to my copy editor! Yes, I pay for professional editing. I also pay for a professional cover.

 

Book Launch

 

I could say a lot about this, but I want to refer you to two books, Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl, and How to Become a Successful Writer by Russell Nohelty. They cover this topic well.

Basically, I start by getting it to reviewers who will be able to post their reviews the moment the book goes live. I get the word out about the book and that it’s coming out soon. I put the digital version on sale for a week or so. I share it on social media and with my mailing list.

On launch day, I hold a launch party on Facebook. This is a lot of fun. I’ve written about this in the blog previously and encourage you to check it out. I’ll give out certain prizes, including the opportunity to work with me on a character for the next book.

Then, I start working on the sequel!

 

Resources

 

There are a couple of resources I didn’t include above that I encourage writers to check out. Both are on Russell Nohelty’s site, The Complete Creative. Russell is a guy who did what I had been trying to do for years: figure out the business of writing in the modern age. I’m grateful that I got to meet him at Pasadena Comic-Con this past year. What I’ve learned from him has already transformed the way I work.

Here are two courses on his site. I’ve taken both and recommend them highly.

The first is free. It’s called Write a Great Novel. You’ll recognize some of my current novel-writing methods in there because I adopted them after taking the course. If it takes you a long time to write a novel, or you just don’t know where to start, this class is a must.

The second costs a chunk but is worth it. Build a Rabid Fanbase teaches you how to find new fans and to scale your fan base from brand new to huge. I loved this course. It’s packed with information and techniques and has already helped me grow my mailing list and make more sales.

And hey, if you want to chat about writing or other creative work, drop a message below!

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” –Annie Proulx

Time for You to Journal

Posted on by Jonathan Fesmire

The Year of the Suck

 

Here we are almost in the middle of 2020. My friend Michelle Lowe (brilliant author, by the way) calls this The Year of the Suck. We have a deadly and highly contagious virus spreading throughout our communities, misguided people protesting to reopen everything (and spreading the virus while doing so), and then three police offers were caught on multiple videos murdering a black man in public. That, then, leads to the current unrest with people protesting (and some opportunists looting) in major cities across the country.

Yep, 2020 sucks.

Maybe you’ve seen some of this unrest reflected in your life. I know I have, and though I don’t think it’s connected to what’s happening in the world, I can’t say for sure.

It’s important for all of us to be conscious of our own mental health, and one way to do that is to keep a journal.

 

Keeping a Journal in the Age of COVID-19

 

I’m a professional writer, so for me, keeping a journal is a no-brainer. That’s especially true when life gets crazy.

So, I’m going to give you all a few suggestions for starting your own journal if you haven’t, plus a great resource to check out whether you have or not.

First, decide how you’re going to record your journal based on what works for you. If you prefer writing longhand, get a decent journal book. Moleskine notebooks are excellent, though expensive. I recommend them if you know you’ll keep writing every day, or nearly every day. You can always get a simple notebook from your local drug store. I recommend college ruled. You’ll feel more grown-up writing in one of those.

You may prefer to type your journal. I keep mine on a site called 750 Words. The idea behind this site is to get you to write something every day. You can use it to get down your creative ideas, to deal with whatever stressors are affecting you, to collect your thoughts in the morning, or whatever works for you. It’s $5 per month and keeps a permanent record of whatever you write. If you write daily, you’ll soon find yourself collecting progress badges. If you don’t, it’s still a convenient place to keep your personal journal.

 

Journalistic Inspiration

 

We’re living at a crazy time in history. Right now, all of us have a chance to record our experiences during this pandemic and period of social unrest.

There’s one site in particular created to help us do that. Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals website provides new prompts every day to help people write about their experiences during the quarantine. The creator calls it “a daily creativity project to help make sense of challenging times.” It strikes me this is exactly what many of us need.

If you need additional inspiration, there are many websites full of more generic prompts. These include “Journal Prompts: You, Your Live, Your Dreams” on the Creative Writing Now website, “119 Journal Prompts for Your Journal Jar” on Daring to Live Fully, and “180 Journal Writing Prompts” on Daily Teaching Tools. That last one is geared toward kids, but adults may also find some good ideas there.

I sincerely hope this helps you to better handle the crazy environment we find ourselves in.

FYI: I write a new blog post nearly every week and send out a helpful newsletter every week, usually on Monday or Tuesday. I cover all sorts of topics, though they mostly pertain to writing, science fiction, novels, and art. Feel free to subscribe below. If you like steampunk and/or westerns, you’ll probably like my books as well.

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” –Isaac Asimov