There’s never a bad time to stop and reflect on life, but the end of a calendar year lends itself to both a sense of conclusion and new beginnings. And even though March feels like it happened about three weeks ago, we’ve arrived at the end of another December. If, like me, you are time challenged, I apologize for breaking this news so abruptly. It caught me offguard too.

So let’s talk about goals. I like goals. They remind me of what’s important, keep me on track, provide evidence of progress, and break down big picture projects into manageable segments. Despite what NaNoWriMo taught two generations of writers, novels are not written in 30 days.

I usually set too many goals – writing and personal – but I’m good about prioritizing, so whatever time I have in a given week goes to the project on top. Importantly, I’m also not bound to the calendar, for a goal is only as good as the service it provides you. Historically, my roadmaps last at least 7-8 months, and sometimes I get through an entire year without tossing one out, but I will start fresh when it suits me. If my needs or circumstances change, my plans evolve with them, whether that happens in January, April, or August. This is realistic and satisfies the committee.

As part of my end of year reflection, I give myself a performance appraisal, reviewing what I accomplished, which goals I missed, and how and why. Did something sound like fun but wasn’t? Did it take more time than I anticipated? When and how did life get in the way? Was a project worth the effort and should I keep going or cut my losses? Where did I win? When was I most productive? What habits, plans, and productivity tools did the best job keeping me on track? Should I perhaps stop overthinking and lighten up a bit?

Obviously this last question is rhetorical.

I don’t beat myself up for not hitting every mark. I tend to set a few meaningful and achievable goals, along with one or two stretch goals, ie: projects that would be fun to do, but may not be realistic with my time and other resources. Every year, in a fit of ridiculous optimism, I write down “podcast” and every year I reluctantly scratch it off, usually sometime in the second quarter. Podcasts are fun but time-consuming, and likely would be no better at building my community than my blog. A podcast would also be a great way to procrastinate on my novel while still allowing me to look busy. I know how I am.

So what goals did I set last year and how did I do? In the interest of full disclosure:

Finish my novel in progress. This was my top goal for the year: to have a complete, ready for someone to read, draft of my work in progress. By the time July rolled around, I was somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way done, and had a clear outline of the rest of the book. A final manuscript was achievable. And then I started writing the middle of the book and the air went out of the tires. The main character floundered. Events pushed him hither and yon. Exciting things happened to and around him but the plot was being driven by circumstance, not desire. Important characters were about to disappear until the end of the story and I knew that wasn’t going to work. Rather than waste time writing more chapters that wouldn’t go anywhere, I went back to basics. I picked apart scenes, deleted and added, cut and consolidated characters, created a new inciting incident, and strengthened the cause and effect chain. I feel good about this new outline, but I won’t have a complete novel by the end of December. Fortunately, much of what I’ve already written is reusable or editable, so I will have a Frankendraft to work with come January.

Grade: B, because you should never feel bad about correcting course when you need to.

Outline my next novel-to-be. I lean into goal-setting and productivity tools because my mind tends to wander. I also have a hard time letting go of ideas when I get them, so I usually have a backup project going alongside my main work. The novel following this one is set in the same world, but with different characters, so plot ideas and storyworld elements will pop up as I’m working the main project, and this is a good place for some of them. Having a brainstorm document also gives me a break from the more intense WIP work when I need it (2000 words/hour is more satisfying than 200 words/per hour). The happy accident is that I’m applying the lessons learned from the above work while outlining this one. It was easier to spot developments that needed a bigger setup or better payoff, and places where the antagonism needed to hit harder. It’s not a pretty outline, but it’s a solid starting point.

Grade: A

Post regularly on my blog. I started the year with a goal of posting twice per week – Monday and Thursday – and I maintained that pace for as long as I could. After a few months, however, it was clear that while I loved blogging and connecting with my handful of readers, it was preventing me from working on my novel (see above re: procrastinating while looking busy). Part of my problem is that I can’t write short, so most of my posts run 800 – 2000 words. I also obsessively self-edit and proofread. So, I cut back to once per week. I did miss a few weeks, but I’m not a robot and this isn’t a full-time job. Or any kind of job. I don’t know about you, but my jobs pay money. Overall, though, I will end the year with 70+ blog articles, which ain’t hay.

Grade: B, because I don’t like missing deadlines, but eh – that’s life.

Expand my reach. WordPress and Substack auto-mail blog posts, but I also decided to start a newsletter, because for most people it’s easier to give me an email address than it is to remember to visit a site, sign up for yet another social account, and subscribe to a publication. I wisely decided to keep it simple, with an opening first-person message, a brief recap of what I posted on the blog, an occasional short book review, and a parting song. I set a reasonable goal of sending a new email on the first Sunday of each month and so far have published every month.

In June, based on advice from Jane Friedman, I moved my website blog to Substack as a way to increase my visibility. I don’t have a large readership, but it’s larger than what I had in January, so I’ll take that as a win. Substack also made it easier to post to social media, which I find tedious, and my follows are inching up. Go me!

Grade: A; extra credit for joining Substack

Find my tribe. Throughout my life, I’ve had intermittent success making friends with other writers. I had exactly one writer friend in college. I had a wonderful collective in California, which I stupidly traded for a start-up theater group, the less said about the better. I spent a number of years in the wilderness before finding some writer friends in western Maryland, but life eventually took us to different locales. More recently, I have tested out various critique groups, but never found one I fully vibed with. COVID ended a bunch of them. I embrace the DIY aesthetic, so when I failed to find what I needed, I knew in my heart I’d have to create it myself.

First, earlier this year I invited a bunch of my writer and wannabe writer friends to join me online for a weekly silent writing session. Show up, shut up, write. While many expressed initial enthusiasm, only a few actually managed to complete step one. We intrepid few continue to meet every Wednesday to keep each other company while we work. I’m not always in the mood, but I show up anyway, because I know the others are waiting.

In May, I attended Jane Friedman’s one-day intensive The Business of Being a Writer workshop. I don’t have grand designs on becoming a bestselling novelist or making a significant income from my writing, but it’s also important to me to have writing peers with whom I can share ideas, information, feedback, and encouragement. As I wrote to Jane before the event: I’m so excited to meet 12 other writers with the oomph to take this workshop!

My expectations were far exceeded. Jane gave each of us detailed, personalized feedback on our websites, blogs, and social media profiles, as well as tons of advice on how to align our writing, public personas, and online tools to create a brand. I went into the day planning to ask the other writers if they’d like to keep in touch but I chickened out.

Fortunately, the next week Jane gave a follow-on talk on how generative AI is affecting the creative community. After the presentation, while everyone was happily munching sandwiches and cookies, I set a yellow pad and pen on the table and asked if anyone would like to keep in touch.

Pro tip: Plan your networking around snacks.

I was not sure how or if anyone would respond, but everyone at the table added their name and email address to the list. Thanks to my RBF it probably didn’t show, but that was my first What the Fuck moment. I was prepared for disappointment, but now I was going to have to actually do this thing I’d proposed. The second WTF moment occurred during our first online meeting when 8 out of the 9 writers joined the Zoom session. As I wrote at the time in my monthly newsletter, I could invite 9 people to my funeral and not have 8 show up. This was actually happening.

Six months later, we have shared advice on book cover design, manuscripts, queries, networking, and blogging, and developed new friendships and community around our creative work. My presentations at the Manor Mill Writers Workshop were a direct result of the networking group, as the event founder Katie Ritter is also one of us. I have been so accustomed to going it alone that I wasn’t quite sure where we’d go together, but I’m deeply grateful, if slightly terrified, every time we meet. I named the group email list Masterminds, but don’t tell them. I’d hate for it to go to their heads.

Grade: A (Gold stars for everyone!)

Set aside time for drawing and painting. I like to draw and paint. I’m not good at either of these things. This is actually part of the attraction. I’m not a good artist, I have no designs on becoming a good artist, and I have no ego attached to the results. Unlike writing, I can enjoy the process of creating a crappy drawing while not caring too much about the outcome. I will proudly show off my off-kilter still life but I would rather die than show someone a piece of writing in early draft form. Also, drawing exercises an entirely different portion of my brain, the part that takes in shape, texture, and color without necessarily needing to name them. It’s quite relaxing.

I didn’t do any drawing last year.

Grade: 0, but it doesn’t matter.

So, three As, two Bs, and one zero that doesn’t matter. Not bad. As ever, there is room for improvement, but overall, this was a pretty great year, especially for finding my people. Everything else is gravy.

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In addition to my (usually) weekly blog, I have a monthly newsletter where I recap my writing month, discuss books I’ve read, and sometimes share news of a more personal nature. It’s my version of DVD bonus features: a bit of behind-the-scenes flavoring for the blog’s main courses. I conclude every newsletter with a parting song, generally something that reflects my mood in the moment I’m writing. I often have a song in mind during the month but pick something different before I hit send. Now that we’ve reached December, here are the songs that captured my interest over the last year.

JANUARY
I don’t know what January is like in your part of the world, but in Appalachia, it sucks. Maryland is cold enough, but life in the mountains rolls at a whole different level. Last year, we had a stretch of 2+ weeks where the temps stayed in the teens and low 20s and dipped into the single digits overnight, including a few nights below zero. My pipes froze and eventually burst, so I didn’t have running water for almost a month. I had never known cold like before, but fortunately, there was a song available to explain how I felt.

Cold Like This – The Rumjacks featuring Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys

FEBRUARY
Winters harsh my head for reasons other than cold. The short days do me in. In a fair world, I could sleep 14 hours a day from Thanksgiving til Easter, but sadly that is not realistic for a man with a day job. Winter is a time for retrospection and perhaps a bit of melancholy, but with luck there’s also the opportunity to prepare for the renewal of spring.

Counting the Days – The Hanseroth Twins

MARCH
Deceptively upbeat, this lament on a type of unrequited love may or may not be related to how I’ve felt about our country’s political and social environment for the past 45 years or so. Frankly, the entire album was great.

I Love America and She Hates Me – The Wombats

APRIL
By the end of April, the days were longer, the nights were warmer, and I was feeling more optimistic. I like this song because it expresses what we might hope to find in life, while acknowledging that our days won’t always unfold in the way we’d wish. If you can hold both thoughts in your hand simultaneously, you won’t be disappointed.

These Are the Moments – Jay Putty

MAY
Another dose of introspective melancholy, with lyrical questions about purpose, meaning, and feeling hollow. Little did I know how the coming weeks would fill that emptiness with grace and companionship.

Damocles – Sleep Token

JUNE
At the time, I described the temperature as comparable to the atmosphere in Do the Right Thing, and if someone had looked at me funny I might have put a garbage can through a pizza parlor window. Hot weather needed a hot tune, and this song from a twentysomething Brit channeling Elvis and Roy Orbison is perfect for peak hour dancing in a sweltering honky tonk with bad lighting and worse ventilation. Put on your best jeans and tightest tank top and dance like your mamas warned you not to.

Who Knew Dancing Was A Sin – Elliot James Reay

JULY
At a writers’ retreat last summer, I was politely informed that “Damaged Protagonists” is not a genre, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. My heroes aren’t all good people. In fact, most of them are downright ornery and a few stubbornly adhere to their code of living long past the days it works for them. And yet, I still find myself rooting for them, even when I know how their stories end.

Good People Do Bad Things – The Ting Tings

AUGUST
August passed quickly and left me little time for writing. My day job, family get-togethers, a house that needed attention, friends who’d like to see me from time to time, and the needs of daily living all took their toll. When demands intersect, there’s only so much a body can do. No matter how hard I try, I can’t be everywhere all the time…

Everywhere All the Time – Devin Kennedy

SEPTEMBER
September was supposed to be better for my writing, and it was until my car got totaled in a hit and run. Ironically, my previous newsletter expressed gratitude that – while my life is not perfect – I am luckier than many. Unexpectedly losing a car from which I needed to coax another year or two of life left me with the yips. Some days you just want to quit.

The Yips – Petey USA

OCTOBER
October brought a pretty shiny new car but also a not-so-pretty car payment. This timely advice eased the sting a bit.

Girl, Have Money When You’re Old – Alison Brown and Steve Martin, featuring the Indigo Girls

NOVEMBER
A solid R&B bop straight from the 70s, reminiscent of Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do for Love.” At 21, Sekou’s sound is older than he is. Is this merely a song I like or is there a thematic connection to fall shenanigans? You decide!

Catching Bodies – Sekou

DECEMBER
It’s early to pick a song to sum up my whole month, but it’s always a good time to go with a classic. After listening to dozens of renditions, I still haven’t found what I would consider a favorite version. What singer has the voice to do justice to the song’s majesty, the humility to avoid unnecessary vocal acrobatics, and the faith necessary to sell this reassuring message of peace and hope? The jury is out, but you can’t go too wrong with Nat King Cole.

Oh Holy Night – Nat King Cole

_______

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A bit quiet on the blog front this month as I needed to prep two presentations for the Manor Mill Writers Retreat. I meant to blog a bit after the event, but I needed a bit of downtime. I also ended the day feeling energized to work on my creative writing, which I did, and I set aside some time to beta read and provide feedback on a novel from one of the writers in my network. So that was my November.

The retreat was fantastic – excellent planning and attention to detail, lovely hosts, a great lineup of interesting and informative speakers, and most importantly, high quality snacks.

I took exactly two photos.

Susan Reslewic Keatley spoke on The Art of the Interview: How to Use a Conversation to Connect, Learn, and Shape a Story.

Rafael Alvarez spoke about his experience writing for the television shows HOMICIDE and THE WIRE, and how his passion for Baltimore shapes his work.

In fairness, I did speak on two panels in the afternoon. I have a healthy ego, but taking selfies during a presentation would have been a bit much even for me.

I was not expecting great attendance at either panel, and was a bit taken aback at the turnout for the Substack for Writers presentation. The room (seen in part above) was nearly full and attendees were engaged, asking questions straight out of the gate. I hope to see some of them online building their communities. Attendance for the discussion on how writers are using AI was a bit smaller, but still healthy. We had a good conversation about how we use AI – intentionally or unknowingly – and the ethical and creative quandaries that should be considered when engaging in generative AI.

I dread public speaking, but left the retreat feeling energized, connected, and deeply appreciative of the opportunity to share information. It’s gratifying to feel I have something to contribute. I’m looking forward to both participating and volunteering next year.

I’ll conclude here with a funny story that can now be told.

I have mentioned previously that I do not enjoy sitting for photographs. Even in elementary school photos, I smiled through clenched lips, flinching as though the click of the camera shutter would be accompanied by a hard knucklepunch on my upper arm. I have also noticed this tendency in photos of my siblings and the younger generation of my family. We’re happily ignorant until about 2nd grade and then photographs capture the moment reality starts to sink in. I haven’t gotten any more comfortable as an adult. When someone pulls out a camera, I tense up. My posture stiffens. I get a pinched look on my face. I do have a few photos of myself that I don’t hate and in every one of them, I’d been drinking. If you want me to act naturally, you need to provide alcohol.

This is why I commissioned artist friends to create portraits for my website and Substack. I don’t have to look at my actual face, but the images look enough like me that you’d probably recognize me if you see me in person. When the retreat organizers asked for a photo for the event website, I pointed them to my favorite of the drawings.

They weren’t thrilled with the idea – presumably because the drawing wouldn’t match the other writers’ headshots (If you’ve ever seen photos of Serious Authors, you know the type of glamour shot I mean. I would rather die.) They asked instead if I could provide a photo. Now, I’m an agreeable sort, so I dutifully sent a professional photo, taken at work a few years ago. I’m not a fan of the photos that came from that shoot, but I had cleaned up real nice and wore a tie and everything. These weren’t simple employee badge photos but actual studio-quality professional headshots for our website, and they were recent enough that I looked basically how I look. I had even smiled. Mission accomplished.

And they used the illustration instead.

I tried to warn them.

Over the summer, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered whether we were shifting into a cultural phase wherein audiences would crave the concept of heroism – actual heart-on-the-sleeve, morally upright, sacrificing for the greater good heroism – rather than the cynical, manipulative, trust no one, ends-justify-the-means type of protagonist that has been much more prevalent these past years.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed an uptick in craft bloggers addressing anti-heroism. Topics tend to cycle – and occasionally bunch up together so tightly one might assume the writers are following each other and swiping ideas – so we were probably due for another round of articles on the antihero.

If only so many bloggers didn’t get it completely wrong.

Over and over, I see craft writers conflate anti-heroism with character flaws and likeability, which are irrelevant to the question. Yes, an antihero may, in fact, be quite unlikeable, but he may also be charming, and neither is germane to the role. Rather, other elements govern the antihero. Let’s explore.

What is likeable anyway?

The first problem with using likeability as your threshold for anti-heroism is that everyone has their own definition. The traits you admire may grate on someone else’s nerves, and vice versa. I love Gwenyth Paltrow and Hilary Clinton. I think Prince Harry and Meghan are the only two sane, relatable members of the Royal Family. I am probably very lonely in these assessments. The list of people I find insufferable is lengthy, but I won’t name names. Two in particular would get me run out of Substack on a rail.

Likeability also changes with the times. Katherine Hepburn was box office poison for years, and Bette Davis a demanding bitch. Now you will more commonly hear them described as self-assured, iconoclastic, and feminist icons. Was Jay Gatsby a romantic dreamer or a deluded social climber with a toxic obsession for Daisy? Was Don Draper stylishly cool or an emotionally repressed misogynist? Is Scarlett O’Hara a strong-willed survivor or a spoiled shrew complicit with slave culture? It depends on who you ask, but also when.

Flawed protagonists are not antiheroes

I have also read articles aligning the flawed protagonist into the antihero camp. If having flaws is the sign of an antihero, then no one is heroic. In more censorious times, a flawed character would be considered less than ideal, because heroes were not allowed to have weaknesses, other than the “cares too much, works too hard” variety of non-flaws. However, these days we are more enlightened and understand the value of well-rounded characters. Nobody likes a Pollyanna.

A character can be cowardly and still make sacrifices for others. Another might be crude but always willing to stand up for what’s right. A character can be pompous or self-centered, but have a strict code of honesty. We might not like these characters, but we cannot call them antiheroes.

Confusing this characterization can also lead to some amusing declarations, such as one by a recent blogger who described Holden Caulfield as both unlikeable and an antihero, because…he smokes cigarettes. And uses bad language.

No, seriously. That actually happened, in a magazine I assume pays good money for articles. In fact, that writer used “flawed protagonists” and “antihero” nearly synonymously, which should have warned me off, but it gave me a great example of “what not to do” so no harm done. Unless swearing does make a person unlikeable, in which case I’m in serious danger.

Likeability is not a sign of heroism or anti-heroism, and even if it were, your audience’s opinion of your protagonist is out of your control (see above re: Hilary Clinton). You can make an educated guess, but in the end, you have no idea what anyone considers positive.

A hero may be someone you’d want to know or not. A character may be well-liked but not a hero. Personality has little to do with behavior. Remember, people described Ted Bundy as charming and former co-worker Ann Rule found him “kind, solicitous, and empathetic.” Yet, his victims would not consider him the hero of the story.

Protagonists aren’t necessarily heroes

This is a good point to note the difference between protagonist and hero. While we can generally use these terms interchangeably, there are important distinctions. Your protagonist is simply the character who drives your story. Most often, we consider the protagonist a hero, but you may write from the POV of a villain, or your character might not be any kind of hero or villain at all.

As with Holden Caulfield or Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses, your protagonist – literally “the one who plays the first part” – may simply embark on a journey with no special moral conflict. Like Gregor Samsa, your central character may be a passive victim of misfortune, embodying no virtue or moral ideal. With such characters, there is no context against which to frame them as heroes or antiheroes, even if one is a filthy smoker.

Morality has entered the chat.

In order for there to be an antihero, we must first define the hero. As noted, a hero is more than simply the protagonist. The hero as archetype embodies an ideal, and so, rather than personality, the heart of any heroic character or journey is a deep moral belief, question, or dilemma. Naturally then, the role of the antihero also centers on morality, but in a different orbit.

As always, your mileage may vary, but my definition of an antihero is someone who:

• Does good things for a morally bad reason
• Does morally repellant things for a good reason

Good acts, bad reasons

In the first category, we might start with Han Solo, who begins Star Wars as simply a hired pilot but later agrees to continue the journey to the rebel base – something good – but only because there may be a reward attached. He becomes a hero only later, when he risks personal sacrifice to join the attack on the Deathstar. In later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike fights vampires and demons not because he’s made a moral choice, but because a science experiment has rendered him unable to harm humans, and he likes fighting too much to quit. Later, his motivation evolves – he wants to help Buffy because he’s fallen in love with her – but his cause remains selfish. If the Slayer quit her mission, so would he.

In the real world, Jordan Belfort (the title character in The Wolf of Wall Street) began giving motivational speeches on corporate ethics after a stint in jail for financial fraud schemes. Similarly, Frank Abagnale (the central figure of Catch Me If You Can) became a security consultant, also after doing time for forgery and theft. Were their post-pokey efforts meant to compensate society for years of wrong-doing, or were they motivated by financial and reputational gain? I know what I’d guess.

Bad acts, good reasons

An easy example is Dexter Morgan, the killer of serial killers, meting out justice via morally repugnant deeds. Like Dexter, the protagonists of the Dirty Harry and Death Wish film series pursue a harsh form of justice, but use vigilante tactics and brutality.

In How to Get Away With Murder, Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating lies, covers up murder, frames innocent people, and twists the justice system, mostly in service of the moral goal of protecting her students and loved ones from harm (Let’s set aside the fact that the potential harm is due to their own actions and that the truth would have served them far better). Though Annalise is one of the few cast members who doesn’t kill anyone, she remains the most morally conflicted character, engaging in antiheroic behavior to serve her personal moral code.

Ambiguous choices

Sometimes, a clever writer can play the greyest of morality cards and leave the audience guessing as to motivation. In Game of Thrones, Jamie Lannister breaks his vow (a bad thing) and slays King Aeris II (also bad) but does so in order to prevent the Mad King from burning King’s Landing to the ground at the end of Robert’s Rebellion (positive motivation). Or…maybe he slayed the Mad King (a positive act long overdue) in order to save his own skin (enlightened self-interest) and further his family’s trek to the throne (cold ambition). Margaery Tyrell manipulates Joffrey’s emotions, taming his violent and capricious moods (a good thing) but does she act on behalf of the people, who need a kind, attentive king after Robert and Aerys II (positive motivation) or to seal their marriage and bring her family into the royal line (selfish motivation). Possibly both were in play, along with some please-don’t-shoot-me-with-the-crossbow self-preservation.

The show allows the audience to speculate, and perhaps even the characters themselves aren’t sure of what drives them from one moment to the next.

Likeability is irrelevant

Whether you strive to portray a character as likeable or not is a matter of personal preference, dependent on the story at hand and the mood you wish to evoke. However, personal charm is irrelevant to the creation of an antihero, who operates under his own code of moral conduct, outside the bounds of conventional behavior. Mix a few immoral acts, dedicated self-interest, and a hefty dose of one or several of the Seven Deadly Sins, and you’ll be well on your way to creating one of your own.

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I’ve been posting a bit less than usual the past few weeks. August was intentionally a skimp period, given my brief mid-month vacation, but I full anticipated getting back into a steady writing and posting rhythm in September.

That…didn’t happen.

There are several factors, but importantly, I was visited by the brilliant idea of painting my craft room over Labor Day weekend, which in my youthful days would have been an achievable task. In this era, priming and painting a 14×20 room, including trim, and patching, sanding, and painting the ceiling, and priming and painting the door because it look ratched in a newly-painted room, and rearranging furniture, and putting away art supplies and hanging artwork…was not a one-weekend project.

It was not a two- or three-weekend project. Four got me pretty close and I think five will do the trick.

I did learn an important lesson, however. My muscles don’t move as quickly or for as long as they did 20 years ago, and they need longer to recover. Working on the room during the week was totally out of the question. My next project will be painting and patching the ceiling in an upstairs bedroom and I’ve penciled in three times the work hours I originally planned, spread out over a significantly longer period.

These lessons are also applicable to writing, providing me a bridge back to my usually good writing and posting habits.

Writing lessons I learned painting my craft room

Pace yourself.

Three 8-hour days in a row is a lot of manual labor for someone not accustomed to that kind of work, and this applies to your creative brain, even if you are accustomed to regular writing sprints.

As tempted as I am to have a few marathon writing days to “catch up” on what I’ve neglected the past few weeks, that wouldn’t necessarily be a great idea. I’ve done that in the past, and creative hangovers are a real thing. If I go too deep into my writing for too long a period, it’s hard to pull back. Even when I try to shut down, my head feels overheated, like a car that’s been driven too far without stopping. It interferes with my sleep too, because my brain keeps working on the next scene or sentence or story problem.

Don’t wreck your most important muscle with overwork.

Break down your project into component pieces

I actually did break down the painting project into smaller projects; my mistake was trying to complete all the smaller parts over a few days. If I’d spread them out like any sensible person, I wouldn’t have spent the past few weeks hunched over like Bob Cratchet trying to absorb the heat from a single lump of coal in a potbelly stove.

This is a handy trick for creative work, too, especially if you feel stuck, overwhelmed, burned out, or simply too busy to write. Break your chapter or story down into scenes, your scenes into beats. If you can’t manage a full writing session, pick one component. Describe a setting or character, flesh out some dialogue, or work on scene transitions. Sentences become paragraphs and paragraphs become pages. No one needs to know how you got there.

Leave room for embellishment

I hadn’t planned on painting the trim or the door but they both looked like crap next to the freshly painted walls, so the project took a slight detour to completion.

Your writing might present similar challenges and opportunities. Even if you outline thoroughly, stay open to adding some color or flavor you didn’t anticipate. Let the work surprise you. If you have a better idea as you’re writing, follow your muse.

Stick to it.

Finish. Even if it takes you four times as long to get the job done, do it. The sense of satisfaction is fantastic, and you’ll have something to show for your effort.

Wait until the major work is done to make it pretty.

Always do your best work as you go, but don’t spend too time on set decoration until you’re finished with the foundational work. Hang artwork, shelve books, and put up knickknacks after you’ve done the heavy lifting.

I’m bad about this creatively – I tend to edit as I go and backtrack when I get a better idea. Sometimes it works to my benefit, but not always. I make an effort to avoid re-writing, ie: word choice, description, etc. But I can’t move forward if I know that an earlier chapter needs a structural fix.

Appreciate the flaws.

The ceiling could have used another sanding and I’m sure I missed a few dots of paint on the floor, but I’m satisfied with my efforts.

Your story will be the same. We should never be lazy about our flaws, but sometimes, they hide from us until the work is done. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’ll get it next time.

PS – If 14×20 sounds luxuriously large for a craft room, that’s because it is. This used to be the dining room, but I live alone in a six room house, not including kitchen, pantry, and baths, so I get to purpose my rooms as I see fit. In 10 years, I neither ate dinner nor entertained in the dining room, so craft room it is. Until I change my mind.

PPS – You may have noticed an inordinate amount of ceiling patching. This house was built in 1885. When you are 140 years old, you will leak. You will leak everywhere.

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I’ve been beating myself up about the blog the last few weeks. I missed a deadline two weeks ago – my first this year – and have been dreading writing the next few posts.

By coincidence, I came across a post I wrote in 2023, which contained a timely message: It’s ok to take a break.

Take five. Take ten if you need it. Treat yourself well, whatever that means for you. Sit in meditation, take a hot shower, watch the sunset, or whatever feels good for you. Take a break from chores, goals, and expectations, and let yourself simply be. Maybe that’s a few minutes or a half hour in your day or maybe it’s a whole weekend. Perhaps you need to let one thing slide so that you can get put order to something else that’s also important.

Don’t forget to be kind to yourself. You won’t realize the full benefits of taking a break if you spend the spare time beating yourself up over it. If you feel a negative urge coming on, take a moment and turn it around. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished and remind yourself you’ve earned a break. Be good to yourself.

I wasn’t completely slothful this weekend. I finished two books: True Crime Story by Joseph Knox, a twisty murder mystery presented as true-crime interviews with the family members and friends of a missing college student; and Black Kiss, Howard Chaykin’s profane vampire porn meets heist film meets spree killer graphic novel.

I also started drafting out my writing and community goals for next year. They are ambitious, as usual, and I will certainly pare them back over the next few weeks as I reflect on what’s really important to me and what I can realistically accomplish. If I were retired, I could easily spend 40-45 hours a week writing, blogging, networking, and engaging in other creative fun, but alas, I must eat and for now that requires a day job. My creative writing comes first, blogging second, and then the chips must fall where they will.

And that’s ok. I don’t need to do everything, every day, all the time.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them.

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On Saturday, November 15, I’ll be joining a dozen other expert authors at the Manor Mill Writers Retreat, where we’ll discuss questions about craft, publishing, and platform. Local writers can expect a welcoming, casual environment and lively discussion with peers.

Where and When

Manor Mill is a newly restored historic grist mill and miller’s house in Monkton, Maryland, located in northern Baltimore County. This scenic setting has been repurposed into a creative hub for writers and artists, featuring classes, workshops, writers’ gatherings, theater and music performances, and a fine art gallery.

The Mill’s events for writers include a monthly write-in, poetry workshops, poetry and prose readings and open mic nights, songwriter meetups, and opportunities for playwrights to connect to the local theater community.

The 2^nd Annual Writers Retreat will be held on November 15, 2025, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

What

I will be speaking on two panels.

DEMYSTIFYING AI: FRIEND, FOE…OR A FORCE YOU CAN USE?

AI: one can barely blink without hearing the term! Love it or fear it, artificial intelligence is here to stay—and whether or not you use AI tools directly, they’re likely influencing your daily life in surprising ways. Chances are you’re already interacting with it more than you realize.

From brainstorming and drafting to editing and publishing, artificial intelligence is quietly becoming part of the writing toolkit. In this conversation, editor and publisher Will Remains and novelist Katie Aiken Ritter will discuss things AI can do for you, including some practical examples and important ethical considerations.

BUILDING YOUR PLATFORM: SUBSTACK 101

Substack: you keep hearing about it, but what is it, really? This fast-growing platform blends blogging, newsletters, and podcasts, giving writers a simple, powerful way to share their work and connect with readers.

But is it right for you? Building an audience can feel daunting, especially with so many platforms competing for attention. Editor and publisher Will Remains and fantasy author Emily Parks will introduce you to Substack and walk you through the basics: creating a Substack account and profile, doing first posts, setting up an email newsletter, using graphics, and social connections. Grow your community!

Hope to see you there!

PS – I dropped a deadline last week. Did you miss me?

According to MSN, GenAI developer Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit alleging the firm pirated thousands of copyrighted works to train its large language model Claude.

In June, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic was within its “fair use” rights to use legally acquired works to train its LLM, because the platform transformed the material into “something new.” However, Alsup also found Anthropic liable for its improper use of millions of pirated ebooks.

According to attorneys for both sides, a preliminary settlement has been reached. Details have not been disclosed but reports suggest a $1.5 billion settlement covering about 500,000 pirated works is on the line. Anthropic would also be required to destroy any pirated materials that had been used to train its LLM, essentially closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen and eaten.

Anthropic’s latest round of fundraising brought in $13 billion. The company is valued at $183 billion, three times its reported value as recently as last March, suggesting investors were not scared off by the lawsuit, but rather consider it a cost of doing business.

How the settlement will influence other pending litigation remains to be seen.

I’ve always been a writer, but I didn’t get the DIY publisher itch until the mid-1990s, when anyone with a Sharpie and access to an office photocopier could produce their own magazine. In California, a few friends and I created four issues of a 5×8 fiction and poetry zine and after I moved to Portland, I put together two issues of a fiction/poetry zine called Salome, which I will have to dig out of storage one day. I studied Factsheet Five like a sinner hunting loopholes in the Bible.

So when publishing moved online a few years later, it wasn’t entirely random that I would eventually start publishing digitally. I started blogging at portmanteau.org (and I’m still mad I let that URL lapse) and later had another site under my actual name, but none of them stuck. I wasn’t a true blogger, yet. But I still liked publishing.

I very clearly remember when the idea was planted. I was browsing books at Barnes & Noble, looking for a new SF or fantasy novel to read, and as anyone who has shopped big box bookstores can attest, the selection was fairly limited. Classics like the LOTR and Dune series had their spaces, along with long shelves of media tie-in books: Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer, etc. Into the rest of the section was crammed a selection of recently published original fiction, almost all of which were appended with some variation of: Book 2 in the X Series, Book 3 in the ABC Tetralogy, the Prequel to…

Naturally, not a single Book 1 of any of these series was in stock.

What started as a seemingly simple quest for a recently-published, stand-alone, not to-be-continued, not-licensed-media science fiction or fantasy novel quickly evolved into a frustrating dig through literally dozens of books requiring a multi-novel commitment or immersion into a wider story world I could watch on television, if I wanted to at all.

And completely unbidden, a thought arrived: “If I want to read something decent, I’ll have to publish it myself.”

If necessity is the mother of invention, spite is its milk.

Big Pulp

And thus a small press was born. It didn’t happen right away – I first had to shed 160 pounds of alcoholic partner – but the seed continued to gestate. I toyed around with two dozen names and various formats while I investigated print publishing, but in those pre-POD days, print was cost-prohibitive. With a grudging bow to reality, I bought Adobe Dreamweaver and a Dummies book, learned some *very* basic HTML, registered a website, and started soliciting work. I couldn’t pay a lot, but it was important that I paid the writers and artists something, so I shut off my cable and put that money towards the press.

And on Monday, March 3, 2008, I posted “Dragonsick” by Simon Petrie, the first of 785 stories and poems published in print and online over the next 8+ years.

Big Pulp published fantasy, mystery, adventure, horror, science fiction, and romance stories and poems. Yes, that’s a lot. But I like SF&F. And mystery stories. And horror stories. And Man v. X adventure stores. And the occasional romance, as well as literary fiction and poetry. I couldn’t decide which genre to focus on, so instead, I leaned into the vibe, creating a virtual version of the classic magazine newsstand, where Weird Tales and The Shadow could sit next to Flying Aces and Redbook.

I could have narrowed it down to SF&F, mystery, and horror, but once I went that far, why not invite romance and adventure fiction? My tastes in genre are both expansive and idiosyncratic, so I knew that if I framed the call for submissions the right way, I wouldn’t be disappointed. And I wouldn’t have to publish anything I didn’t like, right?

I received a lot of genre mashups in the slush pile: SF/Romance, Romance/Horror, Fantasy/Mystery. Perfect for the magazine I envisioned. A good portion of submissions lived in the border between genre and literary, which thrilled me. And who knew there were so many people writing horror, crime, and SF poetry? I understand neither the snob who looks down on genre nor the neanderthal who thinks literary fiction and poetry are pretentious. A pox on all of them. Good writing is good writing.

For almost three years, Big Pulp was entirely online. Less expensive to produce, much less work, but a bit unsatisfying. I knew that if I ever allowed the site to lapse or if it crashed, all the work I published would be lost in the ether. I wanted something tangible and I wanted the writers to have something to keep, so in mid-2010, I made the move.

Big Pulp Magazine

In late 2010, I published the first print edition of Big Pulp, with Jarrid Deaton’s “Ted Bundy’s Beetle” as the cover feature. Coincidentally, around the time I was putting that first issue together, Ted Bundy’s actual Beetle was on tour, with a stop at the now-defunct Crime Museum in Washington, D.C. I don’t know what the museum workers thought of me crouching and crawling around on the ground trying to get a dramatic photo of the car, but whatever it was, they probably weren’t wrong. I’m sure I wasn’t the strangest person they encountered.

Sidebar: Possibly the second most infamous criminal car – behind Bonnie and Clyde’s bullet-riddled Ford – the car was simply a car, a typical Volkswagen Beetle with a bit of rust around the edges…and a missing front passenger seat where Bundy stuffed unconscious women so they wouldn’t be spotted. Grotesque in its mundanity. I wouldn’t want to spot it in a dark parking lot, but under fluorescent light and cordoned by velvet, it was easy to see how Bundy blended into the background, even as he perpetrated one of the nation’s most notorious killing sprees.

The story it inspired was bad-ass, a bit of psychological tickling with all kinds of ugliness lurking beneath the surface of character. Still one of my favorites.

By Fall of 2011, I found my publishing groove and Big Pulp came out on time every quarter for the next 2 years, with 9 issues total. Most of my copies were sold in-person, at book fairs and comic cons, and I did alright. By that point, though, I started to get itchy.

The Anthologies

In 2013, I published my first three anthologies. The first – Clones, Fairies, and Monsters in the Closet – came about because I had coincidentally received a ton of gay/lesbian themed stories and poems in the submission process. With Big Pulp magazine, I strove to achieve balance in every issue. In addition to publishing multiple genres, and stories and poems, I also made sure every issue had a mix of shorter and longer stories, and heavy and humorous work. As a reader of anthologies, I often feel like I’ve read the same story twice in one book, and I tried very hard to avoid that. I never wanted any issue to be too much of anything, but rather a solid, satisfying, surprising, and hopefully memorable read.

So when the gay content started piling up, I vacillated between publishing a special issue of the magazine or an anthology, and eventually went with a stand-alone book. Of course I couldn’t do just one, so I also solicited for stories and poems on two grossly self-indulgent themes – monkeys and the Kennedy family, two of my obsessions. The second trio of anthologies came about in a similar way. The Walking Dead television adaptation debuted around the same time as the first issue of Big Pulp, and after a predictable lag, my inbox started filling up with zombie stories, enough to fill two volumes. Not long after, a slate of weird westerns crossed my desk, and since I was hard-pressed to include more than one in any issue of Big Pulp, we have Way Out West. Great minds, yes?

The Expansion Pack

The anthologies sold respectably but not that much better than Big Pulp magazine. I was holding my own as a one-person DIY publisher. But by then, I was about six years into my publishing venture and the grind was started to…well, grind. I loved the creative side – reading submissions, working with the cover artists, designing the books – but the admin side – website maintenance, distribution, book fairs, taxes – was taking more and more of my time and my finances.

The publishing was never intended to be replace my day job but some years it simply didn’t pay. So I went back to my original dream for the publishing: a series of genre magazines with a lower price point that would – fingers crossed – be more broadly appealing to readers with slightly less catholic tastes. Hence came Child of Words (SF&F), M (horror and mystery), and Thirst (romance). M was an unconventional mashup, but it worked – I prefer psychological horror to monster-of-the-week, and the mystery stories I published tended towards true crime/horror more than whodunnits, so the work fit together, regardless of genre.

Sidebar: If you’ve been following the blog for any length of time, you might think that romance stories are a bit outside my regular wheelhouse, until you read a few titles from Thirst #2, like “Honey, Is That A Dead Hooker Under the Bed?” by J.A. Kazimer, and “When Molly the Necrophiliac Went on a Date with Suicide Stanley” by Match Ryan. Going back to the third print issue of Big Pulp (Winter 2011), we had a story from Iranian college student Elaheh Steinke titled “Interrogate My Heart Instead”, in which a political prisoner is waterboarded by his former lover.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to spend Valentine’s Day with me, now you know.

Pros: I liked having a ‘line’ of publications. I love the comic-size magazine format. They were a bit less expensive and time-consuming to produce (approximately 48 pgs. x 5 per  year vs. 180-200 pgs. x 4 per year).

Cons: Sales numbers were about the same, but at $4.99 per issue instead of $12, you can see how the math didn’t math. I felt like I was going backwards instead of forwards. There’s no easy way to distribute small circulation magazines that aren’t comics, as opposed to POD book-sized publications, which get an ISBN and go directly to Amazon and elsewhere, so sales were almost entirely by hand. I had fun at the book fairs but lugging boxes from venue to venue as a solo act gets old fast.

I still love them and get a good feeling when I pull them out of storage. If I hit the lottery, you could expect to see a whole line of fiction magazines, profits be damned. But, as 2016 rolled around – eight years into running a tiny small press publisher and 2-ish years into the expansion experiment – I hit the wall.

I started a new job mid-year – EIC of a niche news publisher, a title I’d been working towards and in a market I knew like the back of my hand – and while my finances held up, my time simply did not. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to be the guy in charge of publishing at work and the guy in charge of publishing at home.

The Pause Becomes an Ending

I had always intended to come back to Big Pulp when time allowed and had several schemes of how I could make it work with the resources I could give it, but the cards never quite played out in the right order to make it work.

And that’s ok. If I’d known 8+ years would go by with no new books, I would have made some kind of formal announcement, maybe had a farewell toast with my contributors. But I didn’t know that, so the magazine kinda drifted off into the sunset.

It’s possible I could go back – or forward – to publish another magazine or some anthologies in the future, but if I don’t, I can still look back proudly on 8 years of publishing a solid run of books and magazines with strong writing and gorgeous covers. If you’d like to check them out, you can find them all here, with links to buy the print and ebooks.

These days, I’m working on my own books, and I hope that the writing lives up to the work I published all those years.

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“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”   ― Carl Gustav Jung

As promised, after a couple of weeks of mental vacation, I’m back with some lengthy blather on a writing topic. I’m going to talk about character relationships, plot, and conflict, so you can bail out now if that’s not your thing.

If you’re still here…deep breath and –

I follow a good number of bloggers who offer advice on writing craft and I love sharing advice I find interesting or helpful, especially when it feels like a gamechanger. A lot of craft talk focuses on nuts-and-bolts level tools, the kind of shoulder to the wheel advice that will help you get from Point A to Point B without embarrassing yourself. But occasionally, I come across someone that takes it to the next level.

September Fawkes

One such blogger is September Fawkes. Fawkes is a freelance editor, writing instructor, and blogger. Her blog, SeptemberCFawkes.com, has been recognized as a Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers. Fawkes takes an holistic, almost meta approach to story, identifying and discussing what she notices from the subconscious experience of reading and writing, so that writers can examine it consciously, learn how it works, and gain mastery of it (freely yoinked from her bio). As a vibe, imagine learning about story from Yung and Campbell, rather than the English teacher who taught you about the inverted triangle and Freitag’s pyramid.

Fawkes’ posts aren’t a breezy read with a few key takeaways, but deep dives into hidden, foundational layers of story that most craft writers either don’t discuss or don’t recognize as distinct tools we can use to strengthen our work.

Recently, she has written a few posts about the various layers of plot. But – again – while other writers discuss plot as the mechanics of getting a character from Point A to Point B, Fawkes goes deeper to find the elements that most of the audience – and most writers – will never see, even if they grasp the concepts subconsciously.

I don’t know if she originated the particular concept I want to share, but she’s the first writing blogger I’ve come across who has analyzed it, and she has returned to it a few times, so I give her credit for putting it out there. Her approach was eye-opening and I’ve already applied it to both the novel I’m writing and the next one I’m outlining. Doing so has helped me add emotional layers to various characters, rely on subtext and nuance in their interactions, and strengthen both my vision and grasp on the story that I’m trying to tell.

The Relationship Plot

The concept is the relationship plot, a third layer of story that resides in between the traditional strata of plot and character arc.

Let’s define terms:

• The external plot is what happens. Ideally, you have a strong cause-and-effect chain so that events feel organic and character-driven, but essentially the external plot is physical, the actions that could be observed by other characters in your story world.
• The character arc is internal. This arc provides the reasons your character takes the actions that drive the external, physical plot. It drives your hero’s goal and determines what he needs. As the term implies, arc involves movement. At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist has a baseline emotional state, and arrives at the end in a different state, changed for the better, but sometimes for worse.

Most writing advice involves layering those two plots – internal and external – to create a cohesive whole. Generally, the internal character arc is why the character engages in the external plot. In turn, the events of the external plot require the character to move along the emotional arc, to learn and grow so that the goal can be obtained.

Now let’s go back to the relationship plot.

Despite what it sounds like, the relationship plot is not limited to the romance story. It can involve romance, but this layer encompasses any relationship your character engages in: parent/child, sibling, friend, mentor/mentee, co-worker or peer, or even hero/villain. Depending on the nature of your story, the this level plot might involve your character’s relationship with their vocation or a hobby, their social environment, with themselves, or the story world itself.

Simply put, this level of story focuses on how your character moves in relation to the other people, the environment, and societal forces in your story. It exists between the internal character arc and the external plot, as it involves both the physical interaction of the protagonist with others, and emotional growth and conflict. It is not as cleanly visible as the external plot, but not as opaque to an outside observer as the character arc. We can view these relationships in action, but we must intuit feeling and thoughts.

I’m going to emphasize this again, because I think it’s important. Fawkes posits the relationship plot as a third layer, not simply an element that is tangential to or affected by the others. While the protagonist’s relationships will be affected by the external and character plots, the relationship plot pushes back and should affect how the protagonist moves through the story physically and emotionally. Like the external plot and the character arc, the relationship plot can have its own normal world, inciting incident, journey, obstacles, and resolution that align (or should align) with the other layers.

Depending on your story, any of these layers can be the primary focus. A spy thriller will be heavy on external plot, and may have character and relationship plots of varying depths. Fantasy novels tend to feature strong character arcs – the quintessential hero’s journey – though external plot is usually primary and relationships are important. In romance fiction, the relationship plot is at the forefront, supported by external action and characterization.

The Relationship Plot in action

In this recent post, Fawkes examines some examples of relationship-focused stories, including most Hallmark movies (duh), Wicked, and, interestingly, The Prestige. I found that intriguing and she’s absolutely correct. Her analysis opened up an entirely different angle on viewing and appreciating the novel and film version, both of which I loved.

In a follow-on post, Fawkes continued her examination of the relationship plot in a way that got me thinking more seriously about the nature of relationships in my work in progress. In this later post, Fawkes examines how the relationship plot can create conflict, particularly in quieter scenes that are focused on aspects of the relationship.

If you’re writing a scene that involves quieter moments – family dinner, a work meeting – you might find it difficult to add tension or conflict, even if the scene is necessary for the external or internal plots. While these scenes can be useful for giving the protagonist a point to rest and reorient – and the reader time to digest pivotal plot moments – they can feel lifeless or inconsequential. Even if the scene ends with an important turning point, the lead-in might feel dull.

This is where viewing the protagonist’s relationships as a distinct level of plot can help.

Closeness and distance

Fawkes notes that the various layers of plot come with their own objectives. The external, physical plot can be described in terms of success v. failure. In each scene, does the hero succeed or fail? We can consider the character arc in terms of growth v. stagnation. Does the hero learn from mistakes or repeat them? Is the hero open to new ideas or stubbornly resisting them?

For scenes in the relationship plot, the equation is emotional closeness v. emotional distance. How does this create conflict? In each scene, your protagonist may desire more emotional closeness with the other element of the relationship – another person, an ideal, or society. Or he may desire distance. Or the hero may be satisfied with the status quo and seek to maintain things as they are. But how does the other side feel? In this case, the force of antagonism – and source of conflict – is the other person in the equation, who wants the opposite of the protagonist’s goal.

What does this look like? A teenage child wants to establish boundaries and independence from a parent, i.e.: distance. The parent, sensing this and perhaps feeling threatened, looks for opportunities to connect, to create emotional closeness. One spouse in a troubled marriage may want to reignite a spark, while the other may be satisfied with the status quo or even looking for a way out. An employee hoping for a promotion may seek an intellectual connection with the boss, but the boss may prefer some distance, because she’s trying to remain objective or has already selected someone else for the job. Character influences the interactions, but the relationship is driving.

Need higher stakes? Consider how Game of Thrones handled a pivotal scene that greatly impacted the plot, but was essentially relationship driven, and packed with tension and high stakes.

You think your family is difficult

Prior to what would become the Red Wedding, the romantic relationship between Robb Stark and Talisa had caused tension between Robb and his mother, who fears the repercussions of Robb’s decision to back out of his promise to marry a daughter of Walder Frey. Robb is frustrated by Catelyn’s warnings – as well as her other actions – and desires emotional distance. Catelyn seeks closeness, so that she can convince Robb of the danger he’s created.

The Starks’ nominal allies, the Freys, welcome them to their castle for a wedding feast, but the tension between the families is palpable, with subtle and not-so-subtle references to the diplomatic offense Robb has caused. Will the Freys accept that the far more powerful Starks broke their promise? Or will the alliance dissolve to the advantage of the Lannisters? The Starks are seeking closeness, to repair the damage done to their relationship with the Freys. The Freys pretend they want the same, but they actually want distance. The permanent kind.

Even before the violent plot twist, the scene is steaming with high stakes. The audience cares about the relationship between Robb and Cat, and about the outcome of the war. We want the Starks to be united and to win the war. If they quarrel, everything is at risk. The war – the external plot – is driving the characters’ arcs and the characters’ choices are affecting the war. And both influence and are affected by the relationship plots.

As we know, the external plot intrudes violently on the scene, as the war comes for the Starks, but Walder Frey’s relationships drove the action. He resented the powerful Starks and felt used. He desired a connection with the Lannisters. He craved the respect of the Seven Kingdoms – a form of emotional closeness – and the place his family name would have. The families were brought to this scene by Robb’s character arc – heir to warrior to arrogant young king. But the relationship plot – characters seeking closeness and distance – provides an electrifying layer of tension and conflict.

How did this help me?

Most scenes in your story will fall somewhere in the middle – higher stakes than everyday relationship conflict, but lower than the possibility of wholesale slaughter – and this is where I found Fawkes’ analysis and advice most helpful.

As I began experimenting with the idea of a relationship plot, I saw how my two current novels in progress relied on the protagonists’ relationships for both plot movement and emotional change. Though I was fairly deep into Novel 1, I went back to the outlining stage, and added a tower for the relationship plot. For each chapter, I identified the protagonist’s relationships with various story elements – other characters, himself, and the story world. Then I examined how each person or element approached the scene with the relationship in mind, and whether they desired more closeness, distance, or the status quo.

That simple exercise revealed multiple opportunities for subtext in the character dynamics, as well as ways each relationship could reinforce the theme of the protagonist’s search for his rightful place in the world.

WIP

In my novel in progress, my protagonist faces multiple opponents, but his chief antagonist is his story world, as he struggles to adapt to his proper place in society. While there are physical manifestations of his struggle – the external plot – a number of scenes find him engaged in varying levels of conflict with his friends, colleagues, romantic interest, and societal betters.

At first glance, the relationship plot isn’t the focal point of the novel, but the protagonist’s failure to find his place is what aligns the forces of antagonism against him, though they come from different angles, depending on whether his opponent is trying to help, use, or squash him. Without realizing it, I’d created a story where everything pivots on the protagonist’s relationships.

While the characters joust over personal matters, beneath the surface each is trying to tug the protagonist towards or away from societal roles he may or may not wish to play.

WIP 2

In the novel I’m outlining, relationships in fact are the central point. The protagonist’s relationships – good, bad, and too-soon-to-tell – and his desire to improve or sever them are what drive his choices, which moves the external plot forward. The relationships also drive his character arc, as he moves from emotional Point A to Point Z through the story.

As I added the relationship dynamics and conflict, it became clear that scene after scene was driven by the protagonist’s desire for closeness or distance, and his subsequent choices were heavily dependent on whether he succeeded or failed. Consciously recognizing and understanding that layer of plot helped me define the protagonist’s motivation and goals for each scene, and set up the forces of antagonism for some juicy interactions that intrude upon both the character arc and the external plot.

When I started each of these stories, the concept of a relationship plot wasn’t on my radar, though the elements were there. Properly assessing, applying, and strengthening this element of story has enriched both novels in progress, adding layers of meaning and increasing the depth of the work.

In theory. The proof will be in the telling. But I do feel good about them. Plot is not my strong suit, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting structural or character tips that contribute to organic plotting.

As always, I hope you find this helpful.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!