Brain Science For Writers Roundup 7/4/16

By Anonymous - http://kykolnik.dreamwidth.org/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15731071

Featured: Fountain of Youth: The Secret Power of Friends and Family. Beyond the interesting biology, also underscores the importance of social networks.

Featured: Our collective memory, like individual memory, is shockingly fallible

Can you trust your gut when public speaking?

Maths helps ‘locked-in’ pair show awareness for first time

Here's a really simple trick that could help you enjoy more lucid dreams

We are most vulnerable to temptation when it feels like we're in the middle of something

You Don't Know as Much as You Think: False Expertise

People who have experienced more adversity show more compassion

Flashing Lights and Sounds Turn Rats Into Gamblers

These 50 overweight women kept a week-long "fat stigma" diary

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Short Powerful Vignettes (Analyzing The Winner's Crime)

I recently read The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski.  So good!

One thing I really liked about Rutkoski's writing is how she layers together small scenes that offer bits of insight into the characters.

For example, this passage from Winner's Crime.  A short 3 paragraph scene.

Kestrel’s father inspected the puppy. He gripped the scruff of its neck and held it stock-still. He lifted the surprisingly big paws. He held the muzzle and peeled back the pink-and-black lips to see the teeth.
“That’s a good dog,” he said finally. “You’ll have to train her.”
No, Kestrel decided. She didn’t.

The scene doesn't really advance the plot, but it's a really telling moment that reveals something about Kestrel's relationship with her father.  I like how Rutkoski didn't feel any need to pad the scene with anything extra.  There's nothing about the father coming into the room, seeing the puppy, leaving the room afterwards. It's just got the key conversation. It enough conveys what it needs to, and it trusts the reader to fill in the blanks.


There are many of scenes like this in the series.  They're not all as short as the one I quoted, but they're short, powerful vignettes, that when taken together create a really layered feel for the characters and relationships.  It's a neat way to structure a story.  There are certainly long scenes that move the plot along, but there are also many short scenes with the extraneous details removed, leaving just the meat and emotion of the moment.

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Brain Science For Writers Roundup 6/20/16

By Wayne Short - Edited version of File:Boxing080905.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=617997

Featured: The Limits of Fight-or-Flight Training

Featured: Why We Snap: From Road Rage to Barroom Brawls

Students who believe they have more "free will" do better academically

The Strain of Always Being on Call

By age 8, children already recognise the greater moral seriousness and consequences of criminal acts compared with mere mischief

Is It Your Turn to Speak? Watch My Eyes

What's it like to be an autistic person at work?

Why Preteen Friendships Are Fleeting

Making a Memory of Murder

Why Boredom Is Anything but Boring

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Setting up Surprises (Analyzing The Wrath and the Dawn)

I read The Wrath and the Dawn, a retelling of a thousand and one nights by Renee Ahdieh, and loved the lush, romantic story.  I also admired how Ahdieh set up expectations several times and then surprised the reader by going the the opposite direction.

(Major spoilers to follow.)


Example One:  

Background: The Caliph of Khorasan takes a bride every night and kills her the next morning.  The main character Shazi volunteers to be his bride, with the ulterior motive of exacting revenge on the Caliph for murdering her best friend.  She stays alive by her wits, and the two start to fall in love.  However, the Caliph's cousin Jalal eventually learns of Shazi's deception.

Setup:  The cousin comes into the Caliph's room and hands him the incriminating evidence, begging the Caliph to give Shazi a chance to defend herself, since Jalal has also grown fond of her.  However, the Caliph doesn't respond.  He simply stares at the evidence and storms out of the room.  He takes out a dagger and confronts Shazi.

The surprise:  The Caliph kneels down at Shazi's feet, hands her the knife, and gives her permission to kill him for what he did to her friend.

I love this.  The Caliph's actions would have been dramatic to begin with, but the setup scene with  beforehand, with Jalal begging for mercy on Shazi's behalf, makes us expect a fight. This makes the Caliph's actions even more powerful.

Example Two: 

Setup:  Shazi's friend and first love Tariq finally attacks the Caliph's Palace in an attempt to rescue her.  He doesn't know know that she's fallen in love with the Caliph and befriended his cousin Jalal. Shazi takes herfriend to the stables to help him escape, though she secretly plans to stay.  As they're in the stables readying the horses, they're discovered by the Jalal.  Tensions flare, and it looks like a fight will break out. 

The surprise:  Just as we expect Jalal to take Shazi back into the Palace, he instead asks Tariq to take Shazi away to safety.
 

Now your turn, readers.  Read any books where the author set up some nice surprises?


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Brain Science for Writers 3/3/16

© User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons

The articles in this week's edition are from early last year, actually. But still interesting!

Top Pick: How Typing Is Destroying Your Memory

Simple Jury Persuasion: “I will give you this car for $9,000.” Framing offers in terms of what the other party is gaining increases their chance of acceptance.

Motivated to Fail: When Flunking Becomes an Ambition

Unsupervised Habits Reign in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Hit the Gym after Studying to Boost Recall

How to Combat Distrust of Science

Breaking the Silence: How I Conquered Selective Mutism

There Are Only Six Basic Book Plots, According to Computers (via Passive Guy)

Momnesia: Does Pregnancy Really Change The Brain?

Winning SCRABBLE and the Nature of Expertise

Brainstorming Does Not Work

How to Be a Better Spouse

Radicalisation: A mental health issue, not a religious one

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Redesigned Lesson Plan Covers

Self publishing is a continual learning curve.  I recently decided I wasn't happy with the cover for my Creative Writing Workshop for middle and high school students.  It wasn't really standing out in thumbnail view.

So I tweaked it to give it bolder colors and more contrast.  What do you think?

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Brain Science For Writers 2/18/16

© Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons

Top Pick: People low in agreeableness ("jerks") are particularly adept at selling their creative ideas

Top Pick: The Creativity Bias against Women

Cynicism May Cost You. Having a distrustful attitude might limit your earning power

What kinds of actions do people think of as most stupid?

Giving Up Is the Enemy of Creativity. HT Passive Guy

What stops people raising the alarm when a friend heads down the dark path to violent extremism?

Are religious people really more prejudiced than non-believers?

Woman who has never felt pain experiences it for the first time

Men Are Attracted to Nonconformist Women

NeuroTribes: How autism has been badly misunderstood

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Thoughts on Plans

In Marissa Meyer's Winter, the cyborg heroine Cinder and her allies make  a a daring plan to sneak onto the moon and overthrow the evil Queen Levana.  Unsurprisingly, their plan goes awry very early on.

This got me thinking about plans.  When characters make them,  how should you reveal to your readers, and how well should things turn out?  So you have several possibilities.

1.  The reader knows what the characters are planning, but the plan goes wrong and things go in an unexpected direction.

This happens quite often, and provides a good amount of tension.

2.  The characters make a plan, but the reader doesn't know it.  Then, the reader finds out the plan as they watch its successful implementation.

This is a fun option as well, and usually involves some kind of clever plan.

3.  The characters make a plan.  The reader knows what it is, and everything goes off without a hitch.

Is this approach ever a good idea?  Does this just take away any element of surprise?  What do you think?

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Brain Science for Writers Roundup 2/4/2016

By Jty33 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Top Pick: Why resurgence of therapy that unearths ‘lost’ memories is risky

Top Pick: The Unfair Truth About How Creative People Really Succeed (via Passive Guy)

Ten minutes of uninterrupted eye contact causes hallucinations and other important things . This is actually another roundup of articles.

What do people think God is actually like?

Who Are You Wearing?: Does Competition Affect How Women View Luxury?

Social Class Differences in Mental Health: Do Parenting Style and Friendship Play a Role?

Hardwired for Stories (via Passive Guy)

Q&A: Why we Need to Forget

Your Favorite Candidate Speaks Simplistically. That's OK. For Now.

Did sexual equality fuel the evolution of human cooperation?


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Quick thoughts on nonlinear structure and punctuation comedy. (Analyzing WOOL by Hugh Howey)

I'm really enjoying WOOL by Hugh Howey right now, and wanted to jot down two quick notes.

First, some sections of make use of nonlinear structure.  The second section, for example, starts out with the main character in a jail cell, and then goes back several days to explain how she got there.

It made me start thinking about the types of stories that benefit from this type of backwards structure.  My best thought is:  this works well when it's not obvious how the character got to the later scene from the earlier scene.  The bigger the disconnect, the more intriguing the hook.  What do you think?  Are there any other factors that determine whether to use this structure?

That's the first thought, I also wanted to highlight this amusing passage. It's from an underwater diving scene where the POV character is diving and her eccentric friend Solo is communicating with her via intercom.  There's a running joke that Solo's voice is too loud over the intercom.

“YOU OKAY?” Solo asked, his voice startling her again.

“I’m fine,” she said. She held her chin down against her chest, leaving the contact open. “I’ll check in if I need you. The volume is a little high down here. Scares the hell out of me.”

She released the contact and turned to see how her lifeline was doing. All along the ceiling, her overflow bubbles danced in the glow of her flashlight like tiny jewels—

“OKAY. GOTCHA.”

“Goddammit,” she muttered, wishing she could reach inside her helmet to adjust the thing or to dig a finger in her ear. It felt like his voice was still lodged in there, tickling her.

I really like the exchange I bolded up above.  The juxtaposition of the poetic underwater description interrupted by the ALL CAPS response.  It's a great use of punctuation (the em-dash) and capitalization for comedic effect.  And also a good example of how the main character's internal dialogue interacts with external happenings.

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My Income Distribution for 2015

I'm getting my finances together from last year, and thought I'd post some stats on my writing income for 2015, as I did for 2014.  No specific numbers, but some trends.

Here is my writing income distribution for 2015:

 

91% of my income last year was from my traditionally published YA.  This included the second half of my advance from Daughter of Dusk and also my first royalties from Midnight Thief (yay!). The next highest income source was speaking and teaching fees (5%). That was a new category for me this year and something that I'd like to investigate more in the future. After suffering from some book event burnout at the end of last summer, I think I'm going have to be more discerning about appearances, especially if they don't pay an honorarium. Self pub income was about 3.5% of my income.  I didn't put out anything new this year, so these are all sales of books I had up before.

And here's how 2015 compares to 2014.

Self pub income was slightly lower, which makes sense since I didn't release anything new. The increase in traditional publisher income is mostly due to Midnight Thief starting to earn royalties. It's nice to see the total slightly higher than before, though as for the actual number, let's just say I'm glad Mr. Blackburne has a steady job. We like to say that he married me for my potential millions, and I married him for his guaranteed thousands ;-)

2016 should be an interesting year.  I'm drafting two books right now on spec -- one in the Midnight Thief universe and one unrelated YA fantasy.  So depending on how I end up publishing them, next year's chart might look quite different.

So writers, any financial thoughts/goals for 2016?



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Save 28% on My Creative Writing Lesson Plans!

I'm having a sale from January 20-21 at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Use the coupon code START16 to save 28% across the board!

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Game Changing, Action Packed Inciting Incidents

I recently finished the very enjoyable Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, and wanted to jot down a quick note about the inciting incidents .

Almost every novel has an inciting incident -- the event that gets the story started.  I found the ones in this series particularly engaging, and I think it's because they have several things going for them.

1.  They're game changers. Well, this is kind of the definition of an inciting incident, but the incidents in these three books really shake things up.  Actually, all three involve moving the character to a new physical location, which contributes to the sense of change, I think.  In addition, all of these incidents involve changes in character relationships as well as character goals.

2.  They're action packed scenes. Not that every story needs this, but it sure is exciting.

3.  They  have a large cast of characters.  Again creates the sense of excitement.

So readers, what do you think? Any good inciting incidents come to mind?



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Story Writing Workshop

This past July, I ran a week long creative writing camp for middle and high school students. We had a ton of fun, and the students wrote some great stories! After the camp, I revised my materials and expanded on them for other teachers to use.  They are now available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

GET THE ENTIRE BUNDLE AND SAVE OVER 20%! Or check out individual lessons below. (Lesson one is free)

Lesson One: Introduction to Storytelling (Free download)
Lesson Two: Freewriting and Idea Generation
Lesson Three: Building Strong Characters
Lesson Four: Plot
Lesson Five: Setting and Description
Lesson Six: Revision
Lesson Seven: Book Cover Design

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My Favorite Reads from 2015

Okay, it's a bit late this year, but better late than never!  I've been reading a lot more nonfiction as well, so I'm doing two lists this year:  my top 3 nonfiction, and my top 5 fiction. These aren't necessarily books that were published in 2015.  I just happened to read them in 2015. They are in no particular order except for my favorites from each category.