BRANDON: So, hey! Five Favorites here. I have a
very special guest, flying all the way from New Zealand. We have Tim from Hello Future Me.
TIM: Hello. Hello. I am here, and not entirely sleep deprived. BRANDON: Not entirely.
TIM: Not entirely. BRANDON: You’ve had a day to get used to it.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. I am, you know, a little bit delirious.
BRANDON: Hmm. TIM: But mostly fine.
BRANDON: If there is, by any chance, someone who doesn’t know Tim already, who is
watching this for some reason, you’re on YouTube— TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: You watch fantasy content, but you don’t know Tim’s fantasy content, well,
Tim does all sorts of really awesome narrative, film, fantasy, science fiction, just
kind of discussions of story in general. TIM: I basically just talk about kind of writing
and worldbuilding from the perspective of these are some amazing stories. I’ve always just been
fascinated with the question of why they work. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Let’s talk about that. And you can find me at Hello Future Me.
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: If you haven’t found me on YouTube.
BRANDON: Yep. I should say—I should have said the channel, Hello Future Me. Hello, current Tim.
TIM: Yeah. No, no, that’s all right. You know, it’s a little awkward to say,
“Hello, Hello Future Me.” BRANDON: It works. It’s fine. So, we
actually—Tim had pitched doing Best Writing Advice. And that seemed a little
broad, and maybe a little, you know, you’ve heard it all. You can go watch Tim’s
channel. He does talk about what makes good writing, and things like that. I pitched Worst
Writing Advice that we have ever actually heard. TIM: Much more fun.
BRANDON: Yes. TIM: Much more fun.
BRANDON: Yeah. So we’re going to tell you the worst writing advice we’ve
ever heard, and why it’s bad writing advice. TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: And I’m going to start off with my number five. My number five
is cheating. I’m a big, big cheater pants because there’s two of them, and they basically have the
same sort of discussion point, which is show, don’t tell/write what you know.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, does—like, when you talk about bad writing advice,
there’s kind of bad writing advice for you. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Specifically. And then there’s a lot of, like, things which are so broad
that they’re inapplicable. Or there’s things which come with so many asterisks—
BRANDON: Yes. TIM: That you kind of like—it’s a bit unhelpful to
give them to people without so much clarification. BRANDON: Yeah. Like, I think both of these--.
Show don’t tell is good advice for writing 101. TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: Right? And if you’re not familiar with what show versus
tell means, show versus tell means in a story you generally want to construct a scene that indicates
an idea, rather than having characters sit down and just talk out the idea.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Or even worse, just say it in narrative.
The classic example people give is, like, if you read really good writing, instead of saying, you
know, “He was a nervous person,” they’ll show him tapping his foot in the writing, you know. And
the reason this is good advice is it sticks in your brain better if it’s part of a scene. The
thing about it is, showing takes so many more words than telling.
TIM: Yes. BRANDON: Just an amazingly large amount of words.
TIM: I spoke about this in a video where I used an example from Neil Gaiman’s work.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: And basically—this was in
The Ocean at the End of the Lane. BRANDON: OK. Great book.
TIM: And he has, like, a line where he just says that his character felt proud.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: All right? Which is—and it
was a passing, simple emotion. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Which didn’t need to be super deeply explored.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: But sometimes you ruin the pacing
of, like, your sentences or scenes by, like, having these long, elaborate, like, it
was physicalizing how it’s pride and stuff. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: And it sort of blows it out of proportion sometimes.
BRANDON: Yeah. No. Absolutely. And the thing about hearing this advice is you’ll hear
show don’t tell. And then people will be like, “All right.” And then you go read any author
in the world. You’ll be like, “Shakespeare’s telling right here.”
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: “Neil Gaiman is telling right
here. Agatha Christie’s telling.” TIM: Why are they making these mistakes?
BRANDON: Yeah. Why are they making these mistakes? Well, the truth is, showing is a tool that is
generally more powerful than telling, but telling is a tool that is generally faster than showing.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: And most books it’s like,
learn where your balance of show versus tell is, and try to use them effectively.
TIM: And there’s always this level where you are, on a fundamental level, you’re always telling.
BRANDON: Yes. Yeah. TIM: And it’s just about—it’s much more about
are you delivering in the most immersive way? BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: And I’ve found, as I’ve sort of grown, as I’ve done a lot more reading, you know, the
first level of show versus tell is kind of that, was he tapping his foot, or was he nervous?
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: But I’ve grown to kind of move away
from physicalization. And for example, I love when characters, if they’re feeling sad,
like in my book I’ve got a grieving mother who walks into the room and she’s feeling sad. You
never say that. Don’t give much physicalization. What instead you get is she looks around and she
sees the bed of her child, which is still open. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: And she remembers the pillow with the imprint of her head. And you’re describing these things.
BRANDON: right. TIM: Which have emotions embedded in them.
BRANDON: Exactly. Which is a powerful show, but it reads like a tell.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. BRANDON: Exactly. Yeah. Like, you’re exactly
right. In fact, the whole tapping his foot thing is, like, an easy example.
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: But it gets real overdone. Like, I get my
students’ works. And suddenly you have three-word sentence of dialogue, followed by, like, this
giant two sentences of describing their emotions without saying it because you learned you want
to show versus tell. And then the page, every piece of dialogue is hugely introspective. And
that can work with some style. But a lot of this dialogue would be so much sharper just cutting
all that, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: And instead, you get all the stuff in there because people have been taught to show.
TIM: And there are times when people are just straight-up honest.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know, you’ve got to have those things.
BRANDON: Yep. And once in a while it’s OK to just be like, “He said angrily.”
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: Once in a while that’s just what you
want to do. Now, generally, an exclamation point will cover that, and the context should,
and you should be able to cut the “angrily.” But—write what you know. I don’t want to go too
much on this, which was my other half of this, is the same sort of thing. People say, “Write
what you know.” What does that even mean? TIM: I—
BRANDON: Like, how would you ever write about, you know, how would you ever
write fantasy novels? Like, and beyond that, like, it's good to force yourself to write things
you don't know because that's where you grow, and you explore the world. And so, I don't even know.
Write what you know has, like, one little, good piece of advice piece of advice to it, which is,
“Hey, do you have a special skill set or passion?” TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: That is unique to you, that you can bring to your work that will give it this real
powerful sense of character, and you know, like, it’s the old John Grisham thing. “Let’s write some
legal thrillers because I know law really well.” TIM: Yeah. You know, no, that’s definitely the
case. It’s also kind of that warning of if you’re dealing with delicate stuff.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: Make sure you’re doing it right. You know?
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Make sure you’re—
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know, I see that a lot, because I read
a lot of, like, mental health focused works. And so seeing what people bring to that and how
they interpret and how they represent it is really important. But, I mean, books, in so many
ways, are about going outside of your experience. BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: And trying to bring those to life. So yeah, no, I totally agree though. Yeah.
BRANDON: And your number five is kind of the same sort of thing.
TIM: Yeah. It’s kind of—it’s one of those—it’s one of those rules which you give when you're sort of
starting out but then you need to expand the use of, and that is just never use “said.” Right?
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: Which I is not the case, in the sense
that said is one of the most important kind of dialogue tags we have.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: And I've actually got some interesting stats
on your books, which I'll tell you in a second. BRANDON: OK.
TIM: But there are absolutely spaces for using “exclaimed” and
“shouted” and “groaned” and stuff like that. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: But a lot of the time, you know, those emotions are going to be built
into the dialogue itself. And we interpret said in so many ways. Said is kind of one of those—
BRANDON: It’s—yeah. So I think this one, there's bad advice on both ends.
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: I think “never use said” is the worse
of the two. But some of them—there's also the “only use said” realm.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: And I don't think that one is good
either. I think that you want to find what your style is and be comfortable with it and own it.
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: And some fantastic writers ignore the
“don't use adverbs” line, ignore the, you know, “don't use other words instead of said.” I
think for general lean writing, said, asked, shouted, whispered, a few of these are going
to be what you should need most of the time. TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: And you shouldn't need anything else. In fact, sometimes you don't
even need shouted, you don't even need whispered, if the context of the writing, like--I always say
to my students, I’m like, “Let the writing--let the dialogue do the talking.”
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Which is, of course, you know,
a joke, but also true. Let the dialogue, not the tag, inform how the emotions are.
TIM: It's interesting you said whispered there. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Because dialogue tags that are beyond said.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know, there's a couple of ways that
I've noticed that they're really useful is— BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: One of them is when you're clarifying something and how the thing is being said that
is not easy to convey the dialogue itself. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Like, it's hard to convey something being whispered.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know, in the actual words.
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: But—
BRANDON: In comics they’ll just shrink the text, which is—
TIM: I wish we could do that. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: I wish we could. BRANDON: It’s really awesome.
TIM: You know? Another one is when you're, like, marking an increase, a ramp up in
the scene or a ramp down in the scene. BRANDON: Yeah. Mm hmm.
TIM: I've noticed that there's a lot of that, you know, like, when you're shifting from an argument
to like a full-on shout out, that sort of thing. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: So there are absolutely spaces to use those sort of words.
BRANDON: What are your statistics? TIM: That's right.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: So I went through the first 100 pages.
BRANDON: OK. TIM: Of Mistborn.
BRANDON: OK. TIM: Of The Way of Kings, and
a few of Stephen King's books. BRANDON: OK.
TIM: As well as a few others. And I figured out the exact percentage that you used
said. Now, I want to ask you, what's your bid? What's your—if you had to take a guess?
BRANDON: Well, here's the issue. I lump said and asked together.
TIM: Oh, yeah. I lumped them together. BRANDON: OK.
TIM: Because I read you—I saw that you lump them together as both—
BRANDON: OK. TIM: The invisible words.
BRANDON: So I'm going to guess that I use said or asked 70% of the time, and I use
shouted or whispered or hissed 30% of the time. TIM: You are almost bang on.
BRANDON: Yeah? TIM: You use 85% said.
BRANDON: OK. TIM: And then 10-15%, the
majority of which, you're damn right, whispered and shouted and stuff.
BRANDON: And shouted. An occasional hiss. My editor hates hiss because he doesn't think—this
is Moshe—you can hiss any words that don't have an S in them. And I think you can.
TIM: OK, how do you hiss, like, hmm? I suppose it's more metaphorical.
BRANDON: Yeah. It's the rasping sort of— TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: You know. “What are you doing?” The Batman speak. He’s kind
of—well, no. He’s forcefully whispering. He’s not hissing. Hissing is, like, derogatory.
TIM: But you, by the way, match up almost perfectly along other writers like Stephen King.
BRANDON: Do I? TIM: Yeah. Stephen King has almost
the exact same split. And it varied. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: It varied. I think there were some authors who got up to—
BRANDON: You should have done Jo. I think Jo uses— TIM: Abercrombie?
BRANDON: No, Jo Rowling. I think she uses just like a billion different things.
TIM: Yeah. No. She uses a lot in her works. Part of it is that some of those earlier
books were aimed more children. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: I think. I think that's a factor. You know, I'm not sure necessarily why, but—
BRANDON: Well, I think also you're going to look at people like me and Stephen King who—like,
me in particular, I've been part of the academic writing community. Right? And so I read theory
on writing and on prose, and I try the things out and see what I like. And I think a lot,
like, if you get to someone like Rowling, who just is like, sat and wrote her book and
didn't have some of the academic training, you can totally do that. It's great. Lots of great
books come out that way. And that lets you buck trends. But some of—if you do like I did and you
spend, you know, 10 years writing books and part of academia and studying what does Robert Jordan
do? What does Stephen King do? You end up with a style more influenced by some of these writers
who also have, like, an—I won't say academic, but a more part of the establishment.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you'll find that literary authors tend to use a lot of those words but less intentionally.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. They hate adverbs. TIM: I’m sure.
BRANDON: They just hate them. Yeah. TIM: There’s that, you know. And this is a trend.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: In some ways. I'm sure in the future it
will switch. But yeah, I think when talking about dialogue, understanding how said can be used
and where it's useful to use other words it's just such a really great tool.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Your number four though.
BRANDON: Yeah, let's go to number four. So I was just thinking. I glanced at these and I'm
like, mine get increasingly more ridiculous. Like, five was kind of like, you know, this is good
advice, but it has huge asterisks to it. Right? TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: Four, I think is just kind of bad advice if you want to be a professional writer. Then
they get silly. These are all things I've legit heard. But four for me is still in the realm of
just kind of bad advice, which is “Write when the muse strikes.” I did, speaking of academia, I did
spend, you know, I went and got a master’s degree in creative writing. Not an MFA. I don't get
to have the F. They didn't have an MFA program. TIM: Oh!
BRANDON: All the MFA programs turn me down. TIM: Oh!
BRANDON: I applied to them. TIM: You’ve got an honorary doctorate now.
BRANDON: I now have an honorary doctorate. TIM: Even so.
BRANDON: In letters. TIM: So you’re a doctor.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know?
BRANDON: Yes. But yes, they all turned me down. But you get into some of these classes, and you
will take classes from writers who have never had to make a living on their writing, which doesn't
mean that their advice will all be bad. In fact, they'll have lots of wonderful things to say about
writing. But they also don't really know what it's like to be like, “I have a deadline. I'm going
to turn in a book.” And so they will give this writing advice of write when the muse strikes you,
you know. Well, if you're a professional writer, you need to learn how to make the muse strike
you. And in fact, a lot of my best writing, and this is very consistent across professional
writers right now, happens when you don't feel like writing. You do the things you need to do to
get into the mood. You sit down and you have some of the best writing days you've had because you
get over that bump of “I'm not writing today.” And then your brains like, “Oh, I guess we are writing
today. Well, here's all the cool stuff that I've been waiting.” And it's like—
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: I mean people—sometimes people get paralyzed waiting for lightning to strike.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know? So I will, when I'm writing
short stories, you know, I will go and sit in a deliberate place.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: Shut myself off from the
Internet as best I can. And, like, I won't necessarily feel like writing today, but
I'm like, “I need to get this short story done.” BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: And you just sort of—you can always come back to it. You know?
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: But it's also a lot of people
aren't going to have necessarily the time to wait for the muse to strike them.
BRANDON: Yeah. I mean, Dan, my podcasting co-host, he had to write during his lunch hour.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: That’s the time he had
every day because he had a day job. TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: And it's like, “I've got a half hour after eating my food
to write. I need to do that every day. That's when the muse has to strike me. Otherwise, I'm
never going to finish this book.” And he did it. TIM: And it's a very romantic
way of looking at writing. BRANDON: Yeah. Mm hmm.
TIM: And don't get me wrong, it can be very romantic.
BRANDON: It can be. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: But I feel like you need to train. Like, if you train yourself to be a writer.
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: A lot of the romanticness will come after
the book is done and you're looking at it and you’ll be like, “How did I do this?” Right?
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: In the moment you're banging your
head against the wall, or you're like, you're working through some hard character
thing where you’re like, “I have to indicate this.” And you're just wrestling with this story.
TIM: Yeah. And also, like, being in the story. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Like, actually forcing yourself to write it, you are grappling with it, and that's where
you, I mean, it’s where I often find the answer. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: You know? You're actually fighting to make the story happen. You know? Yeah.
BRANDON: All right. Well, what's your number four? TIM: My number four would be that you
need to make your characters likeable. BRANDON: Which is bad advice.
TIM: It's bad advice. Sorry, yeah, this is bad advice.
BRANDON: Hmm. TIM: This is kind of a mutation of a
very famous screenwriting book you might have heard of called Save the Cat.
BRANDON: I do know Save the Cat. TIM: Yeah. So Blake Snyder basically said at the
start of your story or near the beginning of the story, give your character a moment where he—
BRANDON: Saves a cat. TIM: Or she saves a cat.
BRANDON: And kills a puppy. Or kicks a puppy. Kicks a puppy if they're the villain.
TIM: Yeah. Exactly. BRANDON: I say kills because I actually read
a book where someone kills the puppy to be— TIM: That's almost, like, cartoonish.
BRANDON: Yeah. Have you read Memory of Sorry and Thorn?
TIM: No. No. BRANDON: OK.
TIM: That's quite old. BRANDON: It is.
TIM: That’s like— BRANDON: Back in the old, old days.
TIM: George R. R. Martin’s inspiration stuff. Right?
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: This is Tad Williams. There's actually a guy who--it's
not just a puppy. It's a disabled puppy. TIM: (laughing)
BRANDON: The bad guy, at dinner, like, the main protagonist is, like, a scullery
boy and he's, like, this, like, puppy. He’s like, “Oh, look at this cute puppy.” And then the
bad guy’s like, steps on it and, like, breaks its neck.” And like, oh, there's the bad guy.
TIM: You get some moments of that in, like, old musicals.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Where, like, the villain’s
just cartoonishly evil. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: But yeah. So like, making your characters like that, it's sort of
this shorthand way of going, “You're meant to root for this or not root for this.”
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: And I think that, increasingly, I think most
people care about characters being interesting more than likeable.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know. They want to find someone who it's
interesting to watch. And that doesn't always have to come from either loving them or hating them.
You know? Like I said, I watch a lot of—I’ve read a lot of mental health focused books. And you
get these people who are really struggling but can also be very uncomfortable to be around. You
know. And it's a very complex place to be in. But because it's psychologically complex.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: Because it's a person who feels
real, you want to explore those emotions. BRANDON: Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely
right. Like, this is, again, one of those 101 level writing advice things is make your
characters likeable, sympathetic. It is good advice, particularly starting out, because
what you're talking about is a lot harder. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: But I've kind of, when I my class these days, I talk about this idea of, I
have these, like, sliding scales that a character should be high on at least one of them, and they
are—likability is one of them, relatability, which are not the same but kind of similar things,
how proactive they are, and how skilled they are. TIM: That’s a really good way of visualizing it.
BRANDON: But having, like, it really encapsulates what we call the villain problem. Right? Where
people read stories and are more interested in the villain because the villain’s doing stuff. The
villain’s interesting. The villain is, you know, is broken in fascinating ways that they're
struggling with. Where then you've got the hero just kind of reacting.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: And you end up with The Joker being way
more interesting than Batman until they decide to make Batman basically a villain who had decided
not to be one. He's one step from villainy. TIM: Yeah. I mean, I think of many series where—
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: You know, it's a joke that like
nobody's favorite character is the main one. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: It's always some side character who's around. Right? And making
characters likable or helping you root for them. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: It can be a really compelling story. BRANDON: Yeah. I mean, people’s favorite character
in the Lord of the Rings tends to be Sam, and he gets—that’s pure likeability.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: It’s absolutely a valid way to write.
But, you know what? Nobody’s favorite character generally in Harry Potter is Harry Potter.
TIM: No. BRANDON: Generally Snape. Right?
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Like, he tends to win the
favorite character polls. And Snape is the least likeable person.
TIM: But he’s interesting. BRANDON: Yes.
TIM: He’s got that conflict. You know? BRANDON: Mm hmm. And he’s
sympathetic without being likeable. TIM: That’s true. Yeah.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: So there’s that nuance there. But again,
it’s kind of one of those things which you give to start with but comes with asterixis that
make it unhelpful in the long run if you’re trying to go beyond that first level of writing.
BRANDON: So my number three—you can see the board. You have no idea what this means.
TIM: No. BRANDON: It’s a very odd phrase. It’s an
inside joke among myself and my friends. TIM: Mm hmm.
BRANDON: Because some of my friends and I took some college courses during our kind of graduate
work. This story actually comes via Janci, one of my co-authors, who’s working on the Skyward books
with me. She was in my writing group at the time, and we were taking a lot of the same classes and
had the same professors and things like that. And she was taking a class from a very literary
professor, kind of a western literary, which in our terms means liked to write about people out on
the farm or on the ranch, you know, experiencing inner turmoil while they have external stoicism.
TIM: Oh, yeah. I’ve got a literature degree, so I did a lot of that stuff.
BRANDON: Yep. Lots of internal conflict and outward stoicism. And a writer
who, you know, actually I really am fond of him, was reading her piece and he was like, “Why don’t
you add some rats with swords to this scene?” TIM: What?
BRANDON: And Janci’s like, “What?” He’s like, “That’s the sort of thing that shows up in these
fantasy books you guys write. Put some rats with swords in. I want to see some rats with swords.”
TIM: That’s the reaper cheap. It’s just reaper cheap.
BRANDON: Yeah. And the thing about the—like, this is legit bad advice. The lesson to be learned from
this is you will get bad advice on your stories even from professionals who will try to take your
story and make it into what they would do instead. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: Or what they--. Right? and taking advice is really hard because you do
want to learn to get feedback and to improve with that feedback. But oftentimes you will get
terrible advice. And you need to be secure enough in what you’re trying to do with your own
story that you don’t go completely off target by just doing whatever someone says you should.
TIM: And the other half of this is that when you’re getting feedback from other people, so
often when people give feedback they’re not understanding what you were trying to do.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: They then take it and they--. They need to
understand what you were trying to do so that they can say, “Did you achieve that?”
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: You know.
BRANDON: So learn you are the expert in your own story. You get to override any piece
of feedback. And also, don’t try to take it all. I once had someone in my writing group come submit
a piece to us. And the first chapter read one way, and the second chapter read like it was from
a different book entirely. It went from, like, a comedy YA romance to, like, a thriller/horror
thing. And then the third chapter was just something completely different. And we started
talking to this writer like, “What’s going on?” They’re like, “Well, I gave it to this writing
group, and they suggested it would be better if there were more tension and stuff.”
TIM: More rats with swords. BRANDON: “And they wanted more rats with swords.
So I put that in the next chapter. And then I gave it to this writing group.” They over-workshopped
this piece and were trying to appease everyone. TIM: OK. So connected to this.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: Is kind of more of a broad, like,
adding in tension to a story. This is something that irritates me with—I mean, you
see it in, like, action movies all the time. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Where clearly they just got to a point in the story where they were like, “We
need a conflict here.” And so they’ll just bring in some random bad guys.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: And put it between, like, them and an
objective, getting to wherever they need to be. BRANDON: It’s the “wife gets amnesia”
moment. Did you ever watch 24? TIM: I was growing up when that was coming out.
BRANDON: OK. TIM: I know the concept, but—
BRANDON: In 24, they needed to fill all this time, and eventually they’re
like, “What do we do? Uh, she has amnesia, so she can go wander around and get confused.”
And it really stands out. They’re like, “We need to fill some—we need conflict here. So
we’re just going to have a random thing happen.” TIM: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s that random conflict.
Whereas, like, I always want to feel like— BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: The conflict is an integral part of the scene. You know?
BRANDON: Good friend of mine, Bryce Moore, a writer—you guys should all read Bryce’s
books—he was in the writing group with me and Janci. He coined a term that he’s going to
be embarrassed that I’m telling you, because it doesn’t make any linguistic sense.
TIM: That’s even better. BRANDON: But he thought it was
funny. He calls it deus ex wrench. TIM: So deus ex wrench means—
BRANDON: Right. TIM: The god of the wrench.
BRANDON: Yes. Yes. But it’s obviously deus ex machina where you would—
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Deus ex machina is
when you save the characters. TIM: Oh, this is throwing—
BRANDON: This is throwing a wrench in. TIM: Into the machine.
BRANDON: Right? A wrench. It should be machina ex— TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: But he called it deus ex wrench because it’s when the hand of the author creating
conflict appears in the story, and that kicks you out because you’re like, “This obviously—”
TIM: Manufactured. BRANDON: Manufactured conflict.
TIM: It’s manufactured conflict. BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: Yeah. And it’s visible. It’s visible.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. Yeah. TIM: Yeah. No. No. Totally agree.
BRANDON: We’re completely off target though. We should go to your number three, which
is one I really love. This is really great. TIM: Yes. So number three would be
cut anything from the plot that isn’t immediately dragging the reader forward.
Again, this is quite a screenwriting thing. BRANDON: Yes. I was going to say.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: The screenwriters who are
forced to work in 90 to 120 pages. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: Have to just be so lean that—but this is—I don’t do this. I’ve never done this.
TIM: No. No, I mean, I love—I live for the slower scenes.
BRANDON: Hmm. TIM: That are just psychologically
complex and feeling. Like, feeling is so important for your characters. And that
intensity is not always necessary. You know? BRANDON: Yeah. It isn’t. And particularly if
you’re writing novels where you do the--. The reader—it depends on your genre—but the reader
is going to give you time for some of these things. That’s why they’re reading a novel.
That doesn’t mean you have license to just— TIM: No.
BRANDON: Be boring, and stuff like this. But I remember early in, I believe it’s Oathbringer, one
of the Stormlight books, I have an entire section that’s just viewpoint from one member of Bridge
Four, viewpoint from another member of Bridge Four, viewpoint from another member of Bridge
Four. And in the writing group some people are like, “This isn’t really dealing with the plot.
Should you cut all this?” And I’m like, “This is going to be some readers favorite sections.”
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: Because we get a character study
on each character, and in an epic fantasy, I have the time to do a character study. And it
is moving the plot forward, just not dragging it forward. And then the other aspect is, like, I had
just done a big plot arc with a big climax in Part 1. I’m like, we can calm down and spend some time
with characters in Part 2 before we ramp back up. That’s what the novel form allows us to do.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. There’s this, like—novels, like, just—they give you so much more room
to breathe with individual scenes. You know? BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Especially if you’re working with a series where you’ve got people
invested to the point that they’re, you know, they’re coming along with you on a really long
journey in that sort of sense. And connected to this is people have, I think, over-emphasized the
importance of, like, the opening line being like— BRANDON: Yep. They do.
TIM: Being, like, the most bombastic hook you can imagine. You know.
BRANDON: Have you heard my story about this? TIM: No.
BRANDON: So when I was in high school our teacher
taught us about how important opening lines were. Right? And so we were giving
reports, group reports, and a group got up together and had learned this lesson the
wrong way. They said, “Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. Now that we have your attention, here’s
our essay on race relations in 1970s.” Right? TIM: (laughing)
BRANDON: And, you know, click baiting before the click baiting.
TIM: It’s click bait. Yeah. Click baiting. It’s, I mean, what it often ends up doing is it kind
of connects to that, like, start your novel in medias res thing.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Where you end up in the middle of
this chaotic action scene that eventually you reveal is not actually that important.
Like, you get in—yeah. My favorite line, one of my favorite opening lines, is
from Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. BRANDON: OK. Yep. Good book.
TIM: Fantastic book. “The tower, which was not supposed to be there, plunges into
the earth in a place just before the black pine forest begins to give way to swamp.” And then
reads, “And wind gnarled trees of the marsh flats.” Which, for me.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Immediately gives you a question.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: But you know this is
just—it’s a mostly slow book. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Like, it’s very introspective. There’s flashbacks. It’s not a fast book. It’s
not bombastic. But you introduce questions. And the questions are what are really interesting.
BRANDON: It’s like the clock striking 13:00. TIM: In 1984?
BRANDON: 1984. Yeah. TIM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
also, like, “The sky was the color of a television screen turned to static.”
BRANDON: Turned to—yeah, turned to static. That’s Snow Crash, huh?
TIM: That’s—no, that’s— BRANDON: No, is that Neuromancer?
TIM: That’s Neuromancer. BRANDON: Neuromancer.
TIM: Sorry. Yeah. BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re right, because
Snow Crash starts with the pizza delivery episode. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: Right? Yeah. Snow Crash is a wild trip, if you ever read Snow Crash.
TIM: One of the weirdest books. BRANDON: But Neuromancer is amazing also. So yeah.
TIM: But that desire to constantly be bombastic and stuff, I think, is a bit overstated. And
like, there’s not enough dragging us forward in the scene, is sometimes legitimate. But especially
in the novel format, where you can take a bit more time to breathe, is--. Because people do take
screenwriting advice and apply them to novels, not really realizing it’s screenwriting advice.
BRANDON: Very different art. TIM: Yeah. Very different arts.
BRANDON: There are some things that you can learn from them.
TIM: Totally. Totally. BRANDON: But yeah. All right, my number two.
TIM: Yes. BRANDON: This is my actual—because number one’s
mostly a joke. So number two’s my actual worst writing advice. Number one’s worse, but it’s
more a joke. OK, so number two is don’t revise. TIM: (sighs)
BRANDON: There is a shockingly large movement of people on the internet who do
not think you should ever revise, and this goes back to Heinlein. Do you know Heinlein?
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. BRANDON: Do you know his rules? He said don’t
revise. Never revise. Write your book, send it out. Unless an editor demands it, don’t revise.
TIM: This is like Oscar Wilde, like, talking about writing and stuff. Look, we’re not all
as talented as you writing The Importance of Being Earnest in the space of 48 hours.
BRANDON: See, here’s the thing. Wilde did it with tongue in cheek. I
don’t think that these people are. TIM: OK.
BRANDON: Right? And this is, you know, they--. Now, there might be people out there.
TIM: Hmm. BRANDON: For whom this is how they have to write,
and it works for them. Great. But a lot of these people evangelize the idea of you shouldn’t ever
revise. And I think this is ludicrous advice. I have some friends who’ve made this advice.
And I think it’s ridiculous because I don’t care how great a writer you are, you cannot hold
it all in your head. There’s too much to do in writing a book to do it all. In my first drafts,
I’m really looking to lay down character arcs, and I’m not looking at foreshadowing.
Right? Like, foreshadowing comes later on. Stormlight Archive books, I don’t put any
of the spren in. Like, that’s like—it’s like, if you haven’t read the books, they’re like, when
people have emotions, they track these, like, these sort of feyish, sort of sprite creatures
that respond. Like, and it’s all through the books. I add that in as a special effect after
the book is finished. I have actually an editor read through and say, “You could put one here.
You could put one here. You could put one here.” TIM: Seriously?
BRANDON: And then I go through, and I add them in. TIM: That’s awesome.
BRANDON: It’s like post-production special effects. Because I can’t be putting
that in because I’ve got to get the character’s emotions down.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: And I overwrite in the
first draft and then cut back. TIM: I’m exactly the same.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Yeah. I mean, one thing that I’ve
found massively helpful in revising. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Is, I know some people, when they go from the first to the second
draft, the whole, like, don’t revise thing. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: They will only read through what they wrote, and then just if something happens
to pop out at them, like, re-edit. I’ve found that if I actually rewrite the sentence, even if
I keep it the same, because I’ll keep a lot, I’ll keep some parts of it the same. But if I actually
rewrite the sentence physically, I am processing it slower. And you process the information
differently and you actually see things that you didn’t before. So, yeah, no, totally.
BRANDON: And a lot of people in this school will be like, “All right, you can revise after
your first draft, but then never touch it again.” TIM: Hmm.
BRANDON: “Don’t revise to any advice from anyone else.” And I think this is bunk too.
I think a secret to my success is learning how to read what a beta reader—get beta reader feedback.
TIM: Mm hmm. BRANDON: And be able to target my book
better at my target audience, I think is, like I said, one of the secrets to my success.
And yes, it is hard to learn how to take beta reader feedback. If you take it wrong,
you end up with rats with swords. Right? TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: You end up just doing what everyone says. And so it’s a really
difficult skill to learn. “All right, everybody is thinking this. I think I want them to think
that, even though they think it’s a bad thing.” Or to say, “Everyone’s thinking this and they’re
suggesting this. But the solution is actually this other thing. Let me try it out and see.”
TIM: They’re very, very good at identifying where there’s a problem.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: But not necessarily what the solution is.
BRANDON: Yeah. And I think the don’t revise crowd, if you read what they’re saying, it’s like they’ve
had experience with beta readers giving feedback, and they do what the beta readers say, and then
the book turns out worse. And they’re like, “Well, obviously, you know, writing groups
and beta readers are awful.” Well— TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: It is a difficult skill to learn. But I think that it
is—if you learn it, your writing will be better. TIM: No. No. I totally agree. Should we go on?
BRANDON: Yeah. Number two for you. TIM: So this is actually a direct
quote from another screenwriting book. BRANDON: Uh huh.
TIM: By John Truby, called The Anatomy of Story. BRANDON: OK.
TIM: So again, it’s kind of one of those--. But this is something
I’ve also seen in writing circles as well. Very much so. And it is the idea that your
character’s flaws must be ruining their life. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: And I’m just not sold on this, you know, whatsoever. Because, like, look at
like—have you read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: A beautiful book. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Right. And the story is—the character has flaws, you know. They’re naïve.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: And they’re too trusting and stuff like
that. But the conflict that surrounds them, it doesn’t necessarily entirely resolve around them,
like, fixing their life by overcoming this deep— BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: Irrevocable flaw. It’s an exploration of memory and who we are, and like,
what it means to internalize a part of yourself from the past, the present, the future. You know?
BRANDON: No. I hear writing advice like this. There’s also the advice of, you know, never
let your characters cry, because that’s like a release of emotion. They must keep it all
inside until it’s crushing and destroying them. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: You know, never let them have a release. Never let them--. And again,
these are things that, OK, as a rule of thumb it’s probably best to think, “Hey, can I make my
character’s conflict more present in their life?” That generally improves the story.
TIM: Mm hmm. BRANDON: But not every story, and there
are a lot that it would make worse. TIM: I mean, cozy fantasy
has become immensely popular. BRANDON: It has.
TIM: You know? And I haven’t been able to read Tress yet.
BRANDON: Hmm. TIM: But you put it in the cozy fantasy genre.
BRANDON: I did. TIM: And, like, cozy fantasy often
features people who are, yeah, flawed. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Don’t get me wrong. But it’s not this, like, deep character drama.
BRANDON: Right. TIM: Where it’s like you’re filled with
distraught and it’s ruining your life, and you must overcome it.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: It’s this slice of life. And what people like
to read. People like to read. You know. It’s this obsession with the deepest drama we can imagine.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: That isn’t always applicable. You know?
BRANDON: Agreed. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: All right. My number one. Like I said, it’s kind of
a joke. It’s not. It’s real advice that I heard. TIM: I’m excited.
BRANDON: But I’ve only heard it from one person, and they recanted several years later.
TIM: (laughing) BRANDON: So their writing advice—I actually had
a couple of students coming to me and saying, “I just went to this lecture, and this is the
writing advice that the person gave,” which was they had heard that if an author is
attractive they’re more likely to sell more books and go on tour.
TIM: So get fit? BRANDON: So they said send a head shot with
your submissions that’s a glamour shot of you looking as attractive as possible,
with, like, your writing submission. TIM: (laughing)
BRANDON: And then it’s gets even better. They said don’t—this was back in the days before electronic
submissions. Do not send a return envelope. If they want it badly enough they will hunt you
down. And that hunting you down will cement in their mind how badly they want to buy your book.
TIM: I mean, this is—that’s hilarious. I can just imagine you writing in your, like, submission
email to an agent, you know, “I work out six times a week.”
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: You know, I’m this buff and stuff like that.
BRANDON: And my book is so awesome that I didn’t include any contact information. You
need to find me if you want to buy this. TIM: Here’s your first clue.
BRANDON: Yeah. That’s basically—like, it is just such astoundingly bad advice. And
like I said, this person has recanted this advice since. It was the sort of thing, they came from
the business world, and were looking for, like, you know, basically click baity ways to, you know,
to do something different. And they—anyway. Do not send a head shot with your submission. Do include,
if you’re submitting to traditional editors and agents, do include your contact info so that
they can easily get back to you if they want to. The joke is, though, this actually happened to me.
So, I submitted Elantris and then moved. And then— TIM: They hunted you down?
BRANDON: Lost my email because I was at AOL. This is back in the ancient
old days, Tim. Back in the long, long ago. TIM: So this was like—was this like before--?
BRANDON: This is in the ‘90s, and there was no Gmail. There was no Hotmail.
TIM: What? BRANDON: You got your email through your
ISP. And if you stopped paying the ISP, you lost your email.
TIM: That’s incredible. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: So like, no Instagram? BRANDON: No. Nothing.
TIM: That’s insane. BRANDON: And so, I eventually, like, Hotmail
started up and stuff, and I’m like, “I’m going to get one of these.”
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: I’m going to stop paying AOL
because they’re, you know, they’re not my ISP anymore. But it lost me my email address.
Which meant I’d moved, my email address was wrong, and I—back then you didn’t have cell
phones, Tim. I am old. You had landlines. TIM: Oh, wow.
BRANDON: So my— TIM: Not like lights which you would,
like, signal from across the country. BRANDON: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The
Gondor calls for aid. And so, Moshe read my book, and granted, I had sent
update information, as you’re supposed to, to most of my submissions. But he had had my book
for 18 months, and I figured he’d lost it. Right? TIM: Eighteen months.
BRANDON: Eighteen months. He reads the book. He says, “Wow, I love
Elantris.” And so he calls me and it’s the wrong number. And then he sends a snail mail,
and it comes back undeliverable. And he cannot get ahold of me because my email is no longer valid.
TIM: (laughing) BRANDON: And so he had to Google me, and he
found my faculty page during my MFA—or my MA, no F for me—that I was teaching a class that
I’d put up there so my students could call me. And he called me and said, “Hey, is this the
same Brandon Sanderson who sent me a book 18 months ago? Because if it is I want to buy
it.” So, the joke is that he had to hunt me down and I did sell that book.
TIM: With a head shot. BRANDON: Yeah. Mm hmm.
TIM: I mean, just obviously too attractive to let go.
BRANDON: That’s obvious. TIM: That was what sold it. That’s incredible.
BRANDON: All right. What’s your number one? TIM: OK, so this is number one for me.
Not necessarily because it’s, like, the worst writing advice.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Again, it’s one of those things which—
BRANDON: I think I know what this—you only have a clue there. I think I know what this is
going to be, and I think I’m going to agree. TIM: OK. But this happened to me
and comes with an unusual story. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: So, the piece of advice is follow the hero’s journey. Now, the Hero’s Journey
is a—it comes from a book by Joseph Campbell. BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: And it’s been misconstrued a lot. BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: As prescriptive advice, rather than descriptive.
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: Joseph Campbell was describing
common themes in stories. BRANDON: Mm hmm.
TIM: Not saying how we should write stories. BRANDON: Joseph Campbell also
is a little controversial. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: I don’t know if you know, in the folklore circles, because he did not cite
a lot of sources. And he also made some stretches. TIM: This is new to me.
BRANDON: That when people went and looked up what he had said, he had not
been entirely accurate with what he was doing in quoting other cultures works.
TIM: Really? BRANDON: And things like this. So Hero with a
Thousand Faces is much more controversial nowadays than it may have been back in Lucas’ day when he—
TIM: I did not know. I did not know. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: But the hero’s journey. So I was in my second year of a creative writing degree.
BRANDON: Yep. TIM: I’ve a degree in English.
BRANDON: Ooh, did you get an F? TIM: No! No, no.
BRANDON: No. No. TIM: I’ve got two degrees. I’ve got a law degree,
and I’ve got an arts degree with a double major. BRANDON: OK. But they didn’t give you the BFA?
TIM: Uh. BRANDON: They do that over in kiwi land.
TIM: Is a BFA like a masters? BRANDON: So a BFA is a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
It’s an undergraduate degree that is slightly more prestigious than a regular undergraduate degree.
TIM: Oh. BRANDON: They put an F in it for some reason.
TIM: I have a bachelor—yeah, I have a Bachelor of Arts.
BRANDON: Do you have a Bachelor of Fine Arts? TIM: I’d have to check. I’d have to say no.
BRANDON: I have a Bachelor of Arts, but I don’t have a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
TIM: I don’t know if it’s a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the—I
don’t think I would have noticed the difference. BRANDON: They might not do that.
TIM: They might. BRANDON: Your system may be more sane. Because
it’s like, what’s the difference between a BA and a BFA? Eh, one’s more prestigious.
TIM: But I was in my second year of doing a creative writing degree. And I’ll be up
front. It was a very poor experience. There’s an issue with funding. They weren’t—the school
wasn’t getting enough funding, which means that fewer—they kind of lowered the standard so that
more students sign up. But that had a negative impact on the quality of it. And one unfortunate
impact of that is that I had a lecturer who, one of the assignments, one of the first assignments
were asked in second year of university, was to write a story based on the hero’s journey. Which
I kind of was a bit baffled by. And so I kind of wrote a story, which I thought was cartoonishly
bad. I was like, “There’s no way this is going to even pass, because I find this whole assignment
just baffling. I don’t know why this is where we would be starting.” And the lecturer ended up
coming to me with this piece that I had written, which I thought was intentionally bad, and said,
“This is fantastic. I want to use this as, like, an example in future years.” And at
that, I kind of stopped attending. BRANDON: I probably—yeah, I can see that.
TIM: Yeah. It was an unfortunate sort of storm of events all at once. I had other papers,
which were my English literature majors, which were fantastic. But this was specifically
creative writing. And so it was advised, you know, follow the hero’s journey because
it creates a satisfying story. And I’ve since, after seeing it at university, seen it echoed a
thousand times on websites and blogs and YouTube. And it’s just--. What, of course, it does, is it
limits your storytelling. You know? And it ends up locking you into a structure that is not
necessarily applicable to every kind of work. BRANDON: And I think that, as you mentioned, one
of the things about the hero’s journey is, Joseph Campbell, who did do some good work, don’t get me
wrong, was identifying some similar themes across many different cultures and saying, “Look. These
are shared human experience.” And it seems like— TIM: They resonate.
BRANDON: They resonate. TIM: You know.
BRANDON: And these similar things happen in a lot of the stories. And a
part of the problem we have with Campbell is, they happened in some, but not every
one. He tried to make them in every one. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: And I think that insistence that they happened in every one of them, and over-belaboring
his point, led to some of this slavish attention to--. The example I always use is George Lucas
loved, and loves, Hero with a Thousand Faces. TIM: Yes.
BRANDON: Putting the virgin birth into Star Wars because it’s an aspect of
the hero’s journey that he had not managed to get into the previous ones. And he’d always wanted
to. And it’s a hallmark of the hero’s journey. And it’s just like—born of the Force? What? Why is
this here? It doesn’t make sense to any of us. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: And it just is shoehorned right in there. TIM: Yeah. No. Like, understanding that
there are certain things which resonate. BRANDON: Yeah. Mm hmm.
TIM: So, for example, something like letting your characters fail
makes allowing them to succeed feel satisfying. BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: That is something that is really important to understand. You know?
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: That failure makes success meaningful.
BRANDON: Yeah. Returning to where you were at the beginning at some point and looking at
how you’ve grown and what you’ve brought back. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: And that’s, I mean--. The hero’s journey can actually be a legitimate still.
It’s a good tool. But it’s just one of many tools. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: And you should not be too slavish to any one tool.
TIM: Absolutely. And I found this was especially the case when I was reading short stories.
BRANDON: Yeah. TIM: Which, you know, like, work very
differently to a lot of long form novels. BRANDON: Yep.
TIM: But like I was reading a series called Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung.
BRANDON: Mm hmm. TIM: It’s a Korean short story collection.
And, like, the stories are just completely different to what—
BRANDON: Right. TIM: I would normally be familiar with, and
certainly don’t follow that kind of structure, because there’s so much more about kind
of the ideas that they’re discussing, and the narrative structure is built around kind
of the exploration of the idea more than the— BRANDON: Yeah.
TIM: And so, like, I think, again, once you’re getting past that sort of first learning
step, it’s that you’ve got to know the rules to learn how to break them. That sort of thing. So
one thing I try to do on my channel, like, part of the reason I started, was that I wanted to move
beyond kind of those first initial things that we’re taught and go a bit deeper and learn where
to experiment and how to go beyond kind of that show versus tell, that hero’s journey type thing.
BRANDON: Awesome. I think that’s well deserving of the number one spot.
TIM: Yeah. Yeah. BRANDON: So this has been our worst writing
advice. So now you should probably stamp on this the no rule is firm in writing.
TIM: Yeah. BRANDON: And maybe this advice will help all of
you. Maybe you’ll do this, and you’ll be like, “No. No. This all works for
me.” But this, at least for me, worst pieces of advice. Tim, thank you.
TIM: Thank you very much having me. It’s been an absolute honor.
BRANDON: Everyone go hang out and watch Hello Future Me. And
I’m going to be on Tim’s channel. TIM: Yeah.
BRANDON: You can go see me there if you want to see more of me for some reason.
TIM: I know these people can’t get enough. You know?
BRANDON: Mm hmm.
