Most alien races scorned humanity for their lack of psychic ability and reliance on perceiving the world through light and vibrations… until they participated in their first war. Turns out lining up straight light beams through sights lets you aim weapons at devastatingly long ranges.
Some people make a living out of living on the edge. Between the sea and inland; between the estuary and the river; between the desert and the last green grazing land. Living on the edge takes specific skills and attention to detail. But if you have those skills, you can make a living those dwelling well away from the edge can’t.
This can make for interesting lives, and even more interesting stories.
One of the most intriguing edges, of course, is the boundary between two or more cultures. This may or may not be two or more countries. Nomads tend to have mobile nations, and ships from anywhere might show up in a seaport that still belongs solidly to one country….
Maybe.
Some places are a bit edgier than others. Especially seaports, or other major trading centers. Trade happens because people want things they don’t have. When that level of “want” gets to Country A eyeing specific things Country B has, people living on the edge between can get a bit… squeezed.
All kinds of things can happen on a boundary. Crime, espionage, cultural adaptation and adoption. Those last are intriguing, because they can go multiple different directions at once. Cultures may blend into each other, as people from both sides work together, gripe together, and maybe marry and raise families. Or there may be staunch little OurTowns, where people are far more fiercely Culture A than anyone “back home” - in part so they’re not suspected of being a spy for Culture B. Or possibly both in different social settings; acting like A when you’re around A-natives, B with B-natives, and some odd mix when safe at home. Assuming home is safe. Floods, droughts, and other natural disasters can be somewhat prepared for, but you can never be quite sure when another human will start wondering, whose side are you really on?
An example I’ve looked at lately is Tsushima Island; usually claimed as part of Japan, but about midway between Kyushu and the Korean peninsula. The island’s mostly mountains without good farmland, making trade critically important. And trade they did, through centuries of wars, pirates, shogunal politics, Ming and Qing upheaval, and invasions from either China or Japan.
Part of how they made it work was forgery.
No, really. For example, after Hideyoshi invaded Korea, things were understandably tense. Everyone wanted trade restarted; silver from Japan, silk from China, and ginseng from Korea being three of the big items. Yet nobody was going to make the diplomatic first move of sending a letter apologizing for the war. Because that would mean losing face.
So Lord Sō Yoshitoshi of Tsushima forged one, from the Tokugawa shogun to the king of Korea.
Aaaand it snowballed from there. Opening letters. Closing letters. Seals. Side notes. Tsushima and Korea’s Japanese interpreters forged them all, going both ways. Nobody officially noticed, trade restarted, Tsushima and Korean traders prospered.
It worked (as it apparently had in the past under the Ashitaga shoguns, huh), but if it’d been made public, all kinds of trouble could have landed on Tsushima’s doorstep. Apparently that did happen at least once in the 1630s, with a Sō lord going on trial and suffering penalties from the Tokugawa. (Though not fatal ones.) But one of the reasons it worked is that forging the shogun’s and Korean king’s own seals and diplomatic messages was such a blatant abuse of What You Don’t Do that most people couldn’t believe someone would actually doit.
Take this into account. People of border areas may be seen as shifty and untrustworthy by more conventional members of their culture. With good reason.
If you have nations in your world, or even city-states, you’re going to have borders and boundaries. Read up on how they work. Truth can be even stranger than fiction!
Note: Some info gleaned from Japanese-Korean Relations during the Tokugawa Period, a paper by Kazui Tashiro.
I recently finished writing a novel and, as promised, here are the 5 realest tipsI picked up from this experience.
Make sure to reblog / share with your writing friends!
First off, let’s demystify what writing a book is actually like by showing you what my writing calendar actually looked like for this novel:
What do the colors mean?
Yellow= Brainstorming and outlining. That’s right, I only spent 3 days planning before jumping in. More on that later.
Red= Writing. One chapter a day, shooting for 2.5K words (though it often was more or less, and that’s okay!)
Gray= Other work, days life got in the way or I couldn’t write.
Pink= Days off / resting days.
⭐ TIP #1 - It’s Okay to Miss a Day (or Many)
We writing-types tend to have unrealistic expectations. Daily writing is one of them. You don’t have to write every day, and it’s okay if something gets in the way and you miss days or even weeks.
It doesn’t matter how many days you miss, as long as you always get back to writing.
⭐ TIP #2 - You Don’t Have to Outline Your Whole Book
I understand that first-time writers combat their fear of the blank page by outlining / planning well in advance, and that’s okay, but here are some real-ass truths:
If you’re like me, you think about your book several times every day. Trust me, books take a while to write and you are going to have plenty of chances to find ideas.
Instead of outlining the whole book, scene by scene, I just get myself enough of a framework to get started, and then I use a bit of my secret sauce:
Each night, as I’m winding down before bed, I take a journal and write down what I think will happen in tomorrow’s chapter. It takes a few minutes, and those notes are pretty much all I need to get me through a writing session.
⭐ TIP #3 - Writing Is Not ThatImportant
Writing a book is more than just the writing part, it’s also about the living part too. You’re a human being with responsibilities and sometimes things get in the way. And this is okay!
So what if life got in the way of writing?
Roll with the punches and try tomorrow. That’s all we can do~
Now, let’s build on the last point by adding even more context to the calendar, because writing a book is more than just the writing part—it is also about navigating through the chaos that is life.
What do the icons mean?
(Spoons) = Days I was tired, sick, or out of spoons / Action Points
(PCs) = Computer issues! Thank you, Microsoft!!
(Distressed Face) = Stressful or unexpected life events! Can you believe I got surprise visits by my inlaws twice while writing this book? I wish I was kidding!
(Pill) = After a life-long struggle with anxiety and depression, I finally started taking medication. Good news: I feel better. Bad news: the transitory period is rough.
⭐ TIP #4 - Every Day is Different
It’s easy to think that every day is the same and that you should be able to do the same things consistently—but that’s a fantasy! If you’re like me, some days you have more energy than others, and some days the writing is easier than others! It’s a crapshoot, but there’s little we can do about it.
It’s best to be kind to yourself, and take the L, than push yourself when you’re already running out of steam and end up burning out. Take it from me.
⭐ TIP #5 - Life is a Sitcom (No, Really)
Looking at the experience of writing this book, there is so much more I couldn’t just fit into two images—but there’s a point I want to drive home.
I have the tamest, most peaceful life, and I still get on average 2.5 plots going on every week (like it’s a sitcom up on here). Every week something breaks, something bad happens, something unexpected (good or bad) gets in the way.
And I’m basically a hermit! I can only imagine what it’s like to be a person with an interestinglife.
All of this to say that, you gotta lower your expectations a little. You’re not going to write that book in one weekend. You’re going to go over estimate. Something is going to get in the way. Between the prologue and the epilogue you’re probably going to have to survive through a whole season of sitcom disasters.
In theory, writing a book is simple:
You sit down and write.
In reality, every day feels like a miracle.
This book took me ~6 weeks to write and in that span the best streak I ever got was 5 days in a row. Out of all those weeks, I spent a total of 15 whole days doing stuff other than writing.
The key isn’t in being a perfect human being who never makes mistakes… but in being willing to get up, no matter how many times life knocks you down.
The old adage of “show, don’t tell” is most applicable to third person narration, because it is here that writers most often make the mistake of reporting events in an especially monotonous fashion rather than illustrating them. Utilizing a variety of sentence structure, intentional vocabulary, and engaging pace/tone is the key to pulling your reader into the story rather than simply dictating a series of events. Third person point of view can make it difficult for a reader to connect intimately with the story, as the more objective voice or subtlety of the narrator’s bias can translate in a less personal manner than first person. It’s imperative to receive feedback on how well your use of alternative methods is drawing the reader into the story throughout.
Including Backstory & Context
Backstory is more convenient with third person POV, because you’re not limited to the knowledge of a single character. (Of course, this is assuming that you’re writing in third person omniscient, rather than limited. There will be a follow-up article all about limited POV in the near future, but for the purpose of this article, this focuses on omniscience.) You can utilize information, memories, and backstory of your entire cast or world, and furthermore give your reader insights into the characters’ actions or world building that they would not have in first person. Take advantage of this allowance to create a rich narrative with clear connections between characters, plot points, and information.
Developing Secondary Characters
The ability to further develop secondary characters is a major advantage of utilizing third person narration, because you are not so limited in the scope of information being revealed to the reader. You can shift the focus of the narrative to situations that solely involve characters other than your protagonist, and this offers the unique perspectives of characters outside or on the periphery of the main conflict. You can develop subplots more efficiently, offer the reader information your protagonist isn’t aware of to create suspense, and enrich your world outside of their limited perspective. This makes third person an optimal point of view to utilize when telling a particularly complex story or one that is set in a quite complicated world.
Distinctive Voice
When one is writing in the third person, it can be easy to fall into the habit of filling the pages with paragraphs of unnecessary description in order to achieve goals of length or in emulation of a particular writing style. This is often also the result of maintaining a needlessly objective narration. It is reasonable to write in the third person with a particular slant or bias. It gives the narrator their own voice, and makes the writing more engaging. Not just in the way of an unreliable narrator, where the bias in narration distorts or exaggerates the essence of the plot. You as the writer or narrator should have a voice that is just as distinctive as any character would have, although it’s generally agreed that a third person narration should be more subtle than a first person narration.
Practice & Adjustment
Third person point of view can be difficult to get accustomed to. It is a more impersonal style of writing. When writing about intimate or meaningful messages/events/characters, it can feel more natural to adhere to a first person perspective, even if third person better serves the story overall. It’s important that you actively practice if you’re unfamiliar with writing an entire story in third person. Getting used to approaching certain events or depicting certain emotions from a third person perspective is immeasurably helpful to the process of creating an engaging story. It can also help to practice thinking about events from that perspective if you’re prone to switching perspectives reflexively when you’re trying to articulate emotion or tone, which is a struggle I see often with new attempts at this POV.
Common Struggles
~ When dealing with multiple characters that have they/them pronouns, what’s a good way to keep the reader from getting mixed up? I assume that you would want to try and rely on a different sentence structure that allows you to clarify whom you’re referring to with context clues, rather than pronouns. It may seem less clear or accessible, but it’s very possible to write in a way where each sentence doesn’t start with “he said, she said, they said”. It’s also important that you master the way in which you write about each individual character. This will help your reader to correctly anticipate who you’re writing about and when.
~ When writing third person POV, how do you write multiple people’s emotions and perspectives at the same time? Focus on how they express their emotions rather than communicating exactly what they’re feeling and why. If the reader needs to comprehend the ins and outs of their thought process, perhaps third person isn’t suitable for the story.
~ And if lots of people with the same pronouns are in the same scene, what are useful ways to distinguish between the characters without using their names all the time? Clarify who you are referring to whenever “the camera moves”. When the focus shifts in space rather than subject, you must signal to the reader that this has happened. The use of dialogue tags is not an efficient way to do this, and many writers will often make the mistake of leaning too heavily on them. Instead, give your characters “stage business”, or an activity that they’re engaging with while dialogue is happening, and when they become the center of attention, refer back to the activity in a subtle way. Move the camera. Although, it is important to note that you rarely need so much dialogue in a scene to communicate information to the reader that you would get lost in the crowd of involved characters. Consider what you could better share through description and action, rather than dialogue.
~ How do you make sure you don’t use too many pronouns in a paragraph to refer to a certain character? Consider whether your descriptive style is too procedural. Natural writing flows without an abundance of clarifying pronouns, and if you start every sentence in a paragraph with “she did this, she saw that, she noticed, she heard, she felt” your writing will fall flat. Experiment with sentence structure, descriptive style, and perspective in your writing. At a certain point, your reader should be in a groove where they can keep up with who you’re referring to, even through context clues having to do with a large cast in the same scene.
~ How do I maintain momentum and clarity when writing in third person limited POV? For those who may not know, third person limitation is the narration of a single character’s perspective (at a time, if the story focuses on multiple characters). This point of view can be tricky because the limitation requires you to differentiate what each character knows and when they become aware of things that may already be known by other point of view characters.
The best advice I can give when attempting this is to be very diligent in keeping your characters’ stories and inner monologues straight. Keep track of who knows what, when they found (or will find) out, and refer to this timeline regularly as your story progresses. It’s also worth your time to strategize with your key pieces of information. If your reader has already learned this information through another character’s perspective, then reviewing this through the eyes of another must be illuminating in a different way, or the process of the other characters’ discoveries of what we already know must add to the suspense/emotional build/payoff. Pieces of information are the fireworks of your story, and you need to release or repeat them with great care for the greater show.
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I get a lot of asks from individuals inquiring about their personal projects with specific details or questions, and I’m happy to help, but I don’t post that kind of content here because it’s not interesting to my wider readers, and it’s an extension of my services on my paid platform.
Person A: “I can see when and how a person will die.”
Person B: “So you know when I’m going to die?”
A: “Yes.”
B: “Are you going to tell me?”
A: “If you knew how you were going to die, then it would changehow you were going to die. It would cause you to change the actions that would lead up to the original death, thus causing a different death. It could change your entire destiny, or even the fate of the world.”
B: “…”
A: “Plus, all that space-time continuum rearranging would give me a massive headache. So no.”
