Category: Brainstorming & Inspiration

Big ideas and how to get them.

Goose Wrench Revisited

Our writing armory is fully stocked.

Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to…

Nah. During brainstorming we mainly use the Monkey Wrench and the Goose Wrench. The Monkey Wrench is the tool we reach for when things are going a little to smoothly for our characters. It helps us find ways of causing them trouble. The Goose Wrench is a little more nebulous.

The very nature of brainstorming is for things to be loose. There are no bad ideas (except when there are). Use the Monkey Wrench to your heart’s content and throw everything you can think of into the mix. But eventually you have to start making decisions. Each decision narrows the field of options that can follow, which is what you want. You’re only going to be writing a single narrative (unless you’re doing something experimental), so you need a single plot. At each decision point you make a choice, then you get out your Goose Wrench and tighten it down. But not too far. Until you’re very close to done with your outline, you want to leave a little wiggle room. You want to leave things loosey goosey, which is where the Goose Wrench gets its name. As you continue working, things will start to take their final shape, but until then you want to have some slack so you can take some unexpected turns. And sometimes you’ll discover that you’ve written yourself into a corner (except that since this is all during prewriting, you’ve saved yourself a ton of time and work). You might need to go back and rethink some of your earlier choices, like flipping back in a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, and choosing a different path.

As we talk about the Ghost Novels, we’re making liberal use of the Goose Wrench. How many squid attacks will there be? We originally thought there would be three, but maybe it would be better to change things up and make the middle one an ambush by sharks with frickin’ laser beams. Keep it fresh.

A writing partner is someone who helps you choose your adventure.

Belly of the Beast

The finale of Son of Science Novel has a lot going on. There’s physical peril, and emotional stakes, and a lot of difficult moments for all of the characters. The reader gets to witness the action through the eyes of both the good guys and the bad guys. It’s quite spectacular, if we do say so ourselves.

As part of our quest to streamline things where we can, and make the novel the best it can be, we started to wonder if maybe a certain side-thread through the ending was maybe superfluous (well, Kent did anyway). We spread the scene out on the exam table and took a close look, and we found many items in favor of keeping it.

Its setting — we’ll call it the Elephant Graveyard — is threaded throughout the novel, and comes up again in Book 3, so giving it a job in the climax feels right. The characters that go off to the elephant graveyard need to have jobs to do, and this fits well with their skillset. If we remove their side quest we need to find a different way for them to contribute to the action, and that would mean replotting the whole ending. And we’re really, really happy with the other parts of the ending. Like, seriously thrilled. But must important is that the elephant graveyard gives the characters a really nice moment, and puts a nice bow on the arc that one of them has traveled through the novel. Plus it sets them both up nicely for the third book. So the thread is definitely staying.

But the fact that we, as the authors, had doubts, means it’s not as strong as it should be. We need to do a better job of sketching that character’s arc so that when the reader gets to this part they can’t look away.

That Frisson of Excitement

There are many reasons it’s great to write with a partner. We talk a lot on this blog about the practical benefits, but what’s really best about writing with the right partner? It’s fun!

The Ghost Story is in a very preliminary stage right now, so it’s pretty much all brainstorming. It’s fun to make stuff up even when you do it alone, but having someone to respond to your ideas and raise suggestions that you’d never have thunk up makes it a lot more exciting.

On a recent canine-mandated forced march around the village, we were developing Ghost Story ideas and Jen suggested something really cool involving minerals. Kent put a bit of a spin on it, which prompted a further modification back from Jen, and we went back and forth like that until we finished the lap.

And it felt so freakin’ awesome. Yeah, yeah — stronger ideas, teamwork, synergy — but the point of this installment isn’t that collaboration leads to better work. The point is that it makes work a lot more enjoyable.

The right writing partner is someone who makes you want to write more.

Getting Some Culture

A few days ago we gave ourselves the night off from the Writing Cave and decamped to the Auxilliary Cavern to watch Hamilton. Yes, it’s as good as everyone says. You should watch it.

You might want to watch it twice, to catch all the fantastic wordplay. There are a lot of words, and it’s all sung through. It’s an impressive feat to have so many great lines, and to sustain it throughout the show.

What’s also very impressive is its macro-level storytelling. Alexander Hamilton covered a lot of ground, and he did it at a very lively point in history. That such an epic plot is constructed entirely in song — there is no spoken dialog to cheat the plot forward — is a little mind-blowing.

Naturally, what we geek out about is the writing. But we wouldn’t want to give the impression that it was “like watching a good book.” Yes, the wordsmithing is stellar, but so was everything else. The costumes, the choreography, the music, the singing, the acting, the entire show is marvelous. You should watch it.

A writing partner is someone you can enjoy a great show with on your night off.

Walk the Talk

We used to be really good about taking daily walks. As we stretched our legs we would discuss whatever writing project we were in the middle of. Brainstorming, plotting, troubleshooting, we did it all. And then for some reason — possibly weather-related, possibly laziness — we stopped. Our collaboration talks took place in the car or one of the Writing Caves. Kent got his exercise playing soccer. Jen went to the pool.

But now there’s a pandemic, and unless we wanted our asses to fuse to our office chairs, we had to get ourselves moving. Luckily we have two furry overlords to provide our motivation. The daily walks are back. Have been for a couple of months now. And, just recently, the writing talks are back.

When we’re not talking to our neighbors from opposite sides of the street, we’re talking about our Ghost Novels. So far we haven’t read through the notes we already have. We find it helpful sometimes to see what we remember without prompting, as those are usually the most important elements. We’re happy to announce that we remembered pretty much everyone’s names, as well as the majority of the plot and a lot of cool little details. We’ve been talking about the setting, fleshing out some ideas. Kent is getting itchy to draw up some maps. We even came up with a really nifty bit of world-building.

Soon, possibly even this weekend, we need to read through the existing notes. It’ll be good to make sure our new ideas aren’t veering wildly off the path, and if they are, we’ll need to decide which direction to pursue.

A good coauthor is someone you never get tired of talking to, even during quarantine.

Gizmos And The Writers Who Design Them

Something we’ve known would be part of our story ever since the pre-outlining stage with our color-coded paper squares is a high-tech device (we like those) built by one of our main characters. Suddenly, now that the word count is over 120k, we discover that we never discussed what this gadget looks like.

So, the other night we did just that.

Such conversations are among the greatest joys of writing together. We can spend hours brainstorming, and frequently do, especially on long drives. But most of the time it’s about the broader shape of the plot. This was a lot of fun particularly because we were more or less engineering this trans-dimensional machine on the fly. Focusing on the details rather than the high-altitude view.

Kent can now proceed with the scenes featuring this apparatus, because we know what it looks like (more or less). There’s still somewhat of a range of options, but we have a shared image of what those possibilities encompass, now that we’ve agreed on how the thing goes about bending reality.

Sometimes “writing partner” is just a synonym for “fellow mad scientist.”

Sometimes It’s Better Not To Do Too Much Research

There was a recent interview with Thom Yorke in the New York Times, in which he talked a lot about fame and how he’s adapted to it. Much of what he said would really resonate with the main character of our Music Novel. It felt neat to read something that validated so many aspects of our depiction of rock stardom. And, considering that we wrote that book well before Yorke’s interview even happened, it was especially nice not to have something come along and tip over our whole applecart.

Sometimes, it’s better that you didn’t do a huge amount of research. It forces you to use your imagination. And even if you get it “wrong” it’s still yours. If you say that’s how it works in your world, then so be it.

Had this interview been something we read back when our Music Novel story was still coalescing, it might have been hard not to end up cribbing from it. Here is an articulate and intelligent person describing all the same things we need to describe. It might even have influenced the whole makeup of our main character, skewing him to be more similar to Thom Yorke. It might have made him a bit less original.

We did some research, of course. Our experience leads us to encourage that you do sufficient research as well. But maintain that power to dream. Rely on your imagination, and avoid becoming hung up on someone else’s reality.

Roadtrip Season

It’s roadtrip season, and faithful readers know what that means: brainstorming! Hours spent traveling hither and yon cut into our writing time, but we don’t let that kill our productivity. We find that extended car trips make a great time to have in-depth discussions about our works-in-progress.

Our current WIP (Sibling of Music Novel) is puttering along smoothly, and while we do need the occasional chat about the details of a scene, there’s nothing knotty enough to fill a couple of hours of straight discussion. That’s a great place to be as a writer. Or as a pair of writers.

So when we need a topic that can fill a few hours, we switch gears to a project that’s in an earlier state of development. And right now, that means the Ghost Story. It’s still fairly embryonic, with many of the kinds of Big Decisions left to be made that are ideally suited to lengthy conversations.

We recently dug out Ghost Story’s dedicated Steno o’ Notes and read through it, and we reviewed the folders of inspiration images we’ve been collecting. With our pumps primed, discussion came easily. Our conversations have already been quite fruitful, and roadtrip season isn’t over yet. We expect to make some real progress on this whole new story world so that it will be waiting for us to dive in once the Music Series is complete.

A writing partner is someone to help you tell ghost stories around the steering wheel.

Lightly Carbonated Research

Oh, the things we will do for our art.

The main character in the Music Novel has numerous quirks and foibles, but part of his pre-show ritual ended up putting us in a bit of a spot.

He drinks Red Bull.

Spoiler alert: he doesn’t drink it for the taste.

Neither of us had ever had the stuff, but that never felt like a problem. The person we show consuming it is used to it, and, as mentioned, the taste isn’t the point for him. This makes it effortless to just not say anything about the qualities of Red Bull as a beverage.

Until.

The rest of the band consumes some of this iconic energy drink, for the first time. This event pushed us over the line, into a world where our ignorance of Red Bull’s particularities would become conspicuous. The cure for said ignorance? Why, Red Bull, of course.

We bought one can and split it. Everything about it was unexpected. Jen anticipated cola flavor, while Kent for some reason thought it would be like a frappuccino (it most certainly isn’t). Neither of us would have predicted the aroma. We toasted our protagonist, whose fault all this was after all, then stood in the kitchen sipping Red Bull and trading tasting notes like it was an expensive wine or an ancient cognac. (It most certainly isn’t.)

We don’t want to provide details here, because we apparently believe we can force you to read our books to find out what the stuff tastes like. As if millions of you don’t already know, and as if it’s not sold at every gas station in North America and beyond.

We will tell you this: it has a kick. Kent scoffed about that, being a champion coffee drinker of long standing, but half a can of Red Bull made him talk really really fast for the rest of the evening.

A writing partner is someone who’ll drink the rest of the Red Bull.

Fill In the ______

We’ve discovered a fun way to gain useful insights into your own prose. Want to know how many modifiers you use? Curious about how obsessed you might be with anatomical references? This one simple trick can help!

Make a mad lib from a page of your book.

We’re sort of kidding about this serving any real purpose. Sure, if you still have adjectives left over after setting up twenty blanks for them, you’ll want to trim a few. But don’t let anything like that get in the way of the hilarity.

Jen invented this and didn’t tell Kent. We do “real” mad libs all the time, so he didn’t suspect a thing. When she asked for a liquid Kent said “coffee” (which will become important in a moment).

The reveal was pretty priceless, and of course Jen made him read it out loud. It was based on a pivotal, though lighthearted, passage in Miss Brandymoon’s Device, which made it perfect fodder for such irreverent treatment. Remember about “coffee”? Take one guess what type of liquid was in the original text.

A co-author is the ideal playmate for this game, but it could also work among members of a critique group, or with a beta reader. Or a stranger on the bus, if you’re looking for novel ways to make friends.

Give me a verb ending in -ing…