Boarders Writing a Novel: Take 8

[Francis Buck]

Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for my protagonist) most of the military leaders in my novel would fit very well into into the First World War. But if you're wanting to portray competence, one possible solution is having the person give orders without providing wider context, then show good results (e.g. have the character order digging in in a good defensive position, then note that things are going well).

Reading Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz might be handy resources too.

Good stuff, Roose. I've of course known of Sun Tzu and the Book of Five Rings for years, and I've read (very) tiny snippets in the library from time to time, but it would absolutely be a great source of both basic practical and philosophical knowledge and/or discourse for a POV character's internal monologue. Also, what you said about, "having the person give orders without providing wider context, then show good results," is really spot on. I'm already thinking of switching the character from an actual general of the army (which he currently is), into what I'm tentatively calling the Prime Councilor of the Emperor (who is vaguely Napoleon-esque). It both fits the character I'm trying to create (his name is Cithrich Treveigh), and also solves the issue of writing at least a semi-convincing military tactician and strategist without having to do a shitload of research for what is ultimately only one of five central POV characters (among at least four or more supporting characters, each likely to have their own one-off POV chapter).

Haven't heard of Carl von Calusewitz, but I'll definitely check him out. Thanks for the tips!

[TheDanish]

If I let this happen it tends to run away with me - character introduced for one chapter basically to give protagonist directions ---> wouldn't it be cool if she was a witch? ---> Who is also in the resistance? ---> but they don't know she's a witch ---> so she runs away and becomes a pirate ---> and finds her missing sister ---> who can be crucial to the big final battle --- wait, how do I make the whole actual plot fit back here?

I do this all the time. I keep a notebook at my bedside and usually spend at least an hour jotting down notes by the light of my phone before I go to bed. Most of it is very minor stuff (they should trade horses in this scene!) but some can lead to big character or plot changes. I try to stick with only the stuff that complements the plot, but occasionally a single-scene character or concept will grow out of my control.

Regarding military commanders, I definitely back up Roose and recommend a read-through of Art of War. It's pretty short but so absolutely spot-on when it comes to effective warfare across most cultures and time periods.

[Selysin]

Hello, new here.

My writing today went from creepy to vaguely disturbing and has now moved onto downright depressing. Which has in turn led to me eating chocolate and venting on the internets. Here's hoping that tomorrow will be more cheerful, sadly I suspect that it will only count as cheerful when compared today. The moral of the story appears to be don't spend the night in a creepy castle that the locals have tried to burn down, especially when all of the (living) inhabitants of said castle are clearly terrified of doing so.

Maybe if I'm really lucky the main plot line will actually move although since it has refused to do so for the last 125k I can't say I'm holding my breath.

OK finished now, happy noveling everyone.

[Datepalm]

Is the story depressing or is the writing depressing? The worse things are going for my characters, the more gleeful I tend to get. It's when they're sitting in a cosy tavern trying to untangle eachother's backstories and I can't make the scene flow naturally if my life depended on it that I turn to chocolate and hours staring at pictures of funny cats and creative bookshelves.

[Selysin]

The story is depressing. My character is now blind, trapped in a castle and her girlfriend is dead and I'm some what uncertain as to how she is getting out of this. I usually enjoy tormenting my characters, I've done worse things to them before, but last night got really creepy. Now to get the blind girl out of the vampire controlled castle/town that she has no familiarity with, should be easy right?

[Myrddin]

If you write yourself into a dark castle corner, don't forget you can edit your way out of it. If you can't come up with a credible way for a blind girl to escape or if it hinders her character from accomplishing he goals, go back and change it. Make the blindness temporary or just have her lose one eye.

I have no idea of your story needs, but that was my thought after reading your short description, Selysin. Let the story drive your writing, by all means, but don't forget your Edit tool. It's pretty powerful.

[Francis Buck]

After writing myself into a corner, I once considered having a meteorite fall from the sky and hit a bad guy in the head, killing him instantly.

I never could quite let go of the idea.

[Selysin]

As tempting as a meteorite would be (it's actually kinda plausible given who she is working for) I think I have worked out how to get her out of the castle, it will leave her lost in a forest in the middle of nowhere but baby steps. At least in the forest she only has to worry about animals and not people, unless there are bandits... err this might require some more work on my part or possibly a small localised meteorite shower. Thanks for that Francis now I can't get the meteorites out of my head.

[Alex.]

Haven't heard of Carl von Calusewitz, but I'll definitely check him out. Thanks for the tips!

Clausewitz is the king. The Michael Howard/Peter Paret translation is the most useful. Chapter One, Book One is the only part he ever properly revised and it's pretty rock and roll if you're interested in the nature of warfare.

[Starkess]

Not sure what it says about my writing that my alpha reader gave up. Okay, I know exactly what it says. :( Trying to just focus on getting through this first draft before worrying about how to make it less crappy and boring. But instead I just feel crappy and boring, which isn't conducive to further writing. No sleep tonight until I get at least something down!! :whip:

ETA: Ha, speak of the devil, only a couple hours after this I got word back from my alpha and they didn't quite give up yet. Feeling a little better, although still completely daunted by the scene I have set myself to write. (Trying to steal something very important and I have No Idea how! I am terrible at heists. I hate that my characters' smarts are limited by my own, and I am so clearly not a criminal mastermind.)

[Jaime's Wench]

ETA: Ha, speak of the devil, only a couple hours after this I got word back from my alpha and they didn't quite give up yet. Feeling a little better, although still completely daunted by the scene I have set myself to write. (Trying to steal something very important and I have No Idea how! I am terrible at heists. I hate that my characters' smarts are limited by my own, and I am so clearly not a criminal mastermind.)

I couldn't agree more with this feeling. I have a mercenary as a main character and her ability to fight is greatly impaired by my lack of understanding of sword fights. One of my friends laughed at me the first time she read one of my sword fights, since she had done fencing so knew how off my oh-so-brilliant mercenary was! It also frustrates me how my character's humour is limited by my own. I have a dry wit but I'm no Tyrion... I keep asking my beta readers what they found funny (if anything) by the characters that are supposed to have a good sense of humour.

I've just finished a major draft of my novel and found a new beta to look it through. I also rewrote my first chapter and had my best friend read it - he's the most discerning reader possible, and I was pleased he only found two clear flaws in my military strategy and one 'stupid remark' to take the mick out of.

[TheDanish]

Currently breezing through Camp Nano. I've gotten some 18,000 words done since April 1, and I also shared excerpts of my more polished work to positive comments. We shall see, when the dust settles, how it all turns out.

With little else on my mind and a lot of free time on my hands, I've been tearing through my novel. The story has hit the point where I know exactly what will happen in the next chapter once I finish the previous one. The only downside is that those few non-writing tasks I still have to do are continually pushed back >_>

[Starkess]

Yay! Congrats, sounds like things are going good for you. 18k, I'm so jealous. I just hit 25k for the year and thought I was doing well!

[Jaime's Wench]

Currently breezing through Camp Nano. I've gotten some 18,000 words done since April 1, and I also shared excerpts of my more polished work to positive comments. We shall see, when the dust settles, how it all turns out.

With little else on my mind and a lot of free time on my hands, I've been tearing through my novel. The story has hit the point where I know exactly what will happen in the next chapter once I finish the previous one. The only downside is that those few non-writing tasks I still have to do are continually pushed back >_>

Really great to hear you making headway. It's always a fantastic feeling to know where you're headed and feel that pull to want to get there.

Yay! Congrats, sounds like things are going good for you. 18k, I'm so jealous. I just hit 25k for the year and thought I was doing well!

25K is still a decent amount. I write my first drafts far too quickly, which is why I end up spending 4 x as long correcting it! I've just read your latest blog entry, by the way, and couldn't agree more. Sometimes I hate prioritising writing at the weekend when I have books to mark for school or things planned with friends, but it is so important to keep it going even though the low points.

[Arthmail]

I couldn't agree more with this feeling. I have a mercenary as a main character and her ability to fight is greatly impaired by my lack of understanding of sword fights. One of my friends laughed at me the first time she read one of my sword fights, since she had done fencing so knew how off my oh-so-brilliant mercenary was! It also frustrates me how my character's humour is limited by my own. I have a dry wit but I'm no Tyrion... I keep asking my beta readers what they found funny (if anything) by the characters that are supposed to have a good sense of humour.

I've just finished a major draft of my novel and found a new beta to look it through. I also rewrote my first chapter and had my best friend read it - he's the most discerning reader possible, and I was pleased he only found two clear flaws in my military strategy and one 'stupid remark' to take the mick out of.

Fencing is not sword fighting in the sense that your friend probably thinks it is. For my 30th birthday i bought myself an afternoon of lessons in western sword fighting. It is difficult fucking work, and nothing like fencing at all. Your friend probably has no idea what they are talking about, to be honest, as a foil is barely a sword, and is a completely different style of fighting. For a very rough idea of what it is actually like, Kingdom of Heaven - surprisingly - has a scene where Liam Neeson's character teaches Orlando Bloom's character some sword fighting skills in the forest that was fairly close to what i experienced. I am no expert, to be sure.

One thing about it that is work. It is long, and tiring. The entire purpose is to kill the other guy as quickly as possible because it is tiring. I always think of it, for my own writing, like digging a ditch. Hard work.

[TheDanish]

I've heard that recently there's been a revival of medieval swordfighting techniques in Europe, mostly in Germany. To echo Arthmail's comments, it's all about finishing your opponent in as few moves as possible, so most of the exchanges seem to be one or two blows: often a single parry and then a strike to the head or back of the leg. There should be some videos on youtube.

I do know that in the unlikely event two heavily armored knights fought each other on foot, they used their swords more like bludgeons or crowbars, and tried to wrestle one another to the ground. Then they would pull a knife and stab their opponent in their armor's weak point (so the neck, under the chestplate, etc.).

Swordfighting in China was a bit different, since the art of using the double-edged straight sword (jian) was largely lost after the Three Kingdoms period and replaced by the easy-to-use, heavy, curved, single-edge sword (dao). Jian were only revived as weapons of war in the 16th century, and only then because the Chinese started to copy Japanese sword techniques. For all the myth and romanticism that distorts modern perceptions of the samurai, they were probably the best swordsmen in East Asia between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries (and for a brief period of time, the best arquebusiers)

EDIT: Another thing to consider is that no matter what part of the world a soldier lived in, the metal used to craft his weapon was the same metal used to craft his enemy's armor (if they had chain or plate armor at all). Metal swords don't just pierce metal; you need a lot more power and a finer point to do that (which is why arrows do). Hence the European knight scenario I described above. You didn't see a sword going through plate every day. You probably never saw it at all, unless the quality of the sword was so incredibly superior to the quality of the armor. And while Japanese swordfighting techniques were potent, their swords were not the best ever, like many seem to claim. Native Japanese iron ore was actually very poor quality compared to deposits in Europe.

EDIT 2: I like watching this guy's youtube videos. He gives some interesting information on how weapons actually functions and/or were used.

[The Marquis de Leech]

There's an old joke from 1500s Italy: "what do you call the guy who dies half an hour after a knife fight? The winner." Rapier fighting (in contrast to heavy sword fighting) wasn't about trying to kill the other guy - it was about trying to save yourself until the other guy gave up.

Anyway, here's a useful article on writing sword fights:

http://martinturner.org.uk/martins-notes/art-and-society/for-writers-how-to-write-sword-fight-scenes/

[Zoë Sumra]

See icon. Modern fencing is a particularly bizarre high-speed sport with knitting needles that look like swords (except epee, arguably, which is the one I don't fence (don't have the patience)). I do believe all the fencing helps me write better one-on-one duels, though, but not because of the bladework: because of the rhythm of parry and counter-parry, and the necessary awareness of one's own body and the dimensions of one's weapon. A mediaeval bludgeoning match between knights: no. A knife or rapier fight: yes. Claymore, probably, in that claymore users (I believe) would typically have one stroke with the sword and then drop it and grab a dirk. Hell, I've written knife versus bullwhip and it worked pretty well.

I recounted STAS the other night and it came out at 68K "finished". I'm now writing its insert chapters. Insert A is just plain fun, and insert B is what I should have written in the first place but chickened out, so, should get a better book in the end for the work.

[Starkess]

25K is still a decent amount. I write my first drafts far too quickly, which is why I end up spending 4 x as long correcting it! I've just read your latest blog entry, by the way, and couldn't agree more. Sometimes I hate prioritising writing at the weekend when I have books to mark for school or things planned with friends, but it is so important to keep it going even though the low points.

I usually end up keeping a large portion of my first draft intact, so I tell myself that it makes up for it on the back end. And yeah, gotta keep going, even when it isn't all chainsmoking cigarettes in Paris cafes...

[Jaime's Wench]

Thank you for the sword fight advice, guys, you've given me a lot to chew over. I've been thinking about isolating the chapters of my novel that involve sword fighting and sending some of them to a beta reader who knows what they're talking about. But first I'll do a little more groundwork.

Fencing is not sword fighting in the sense that your friend probably thinks it is. For my 30th birthday i bought myself an afternoon of lessons in western sword fighting. It is difficult fucking work, and nothing like fencing at all. Your friend probably has no idea what they are talking about, to be honest, as a foil is barely a sword, and is a completely different style of fighting. For a very rough idea of what it is actually like, Kingdom of Heaven - surprisingly - has a scene where Liam Neeson's character teaches Orlando Bloom's character some sword fighting skills in the forest that was fairly close to what i experienced. I am no expert, to be sure.

One thing about it that is work. It is long, and tiring. The entire purpose is to kill the other guy as quickly as possible because it is tiring. I always think of it, for my own writing, like digging a ditch. Hard work.

Lol - so we were both quite clueless? That makes sense. I've heard before that it is tiring - perhaps I should make more of that in my novel, especially with my female fighting character. She's very good at knowing where to place her sword to unbalance or disable her opponent before their superior strength wins out ... unfortunately, I am not the best at showing that! I will check out Kingdom of Heaven because Liam Neeson is hawwwtt to see what advice there is on there- thanks for the tips!

I've heard that recently there's been a revival of medieval swordfighting techniques in Europe, mostly in Germany. To echo Arthmail's comments, it's all about finishing your opponent in as few moves as possible, so most of the exchanges seem to be one or two blows: often a single parry and then a strike to the head or back of the leg. There should be some videos on youtube.

I do know that in the unlikely event two heavily armored knights fought each other on foot, they used their swords more like bludgeons or crowbars, and tried to wrestle one another to the ground. Then they would pull a knife and stab their opponent in their armor's weak point (so the neck, under the chestplate, etc.).

Swordfighting in China was a bit different, since the art of using the double-edged straight sword (jian) was largely lost after the Three Kingdoms period and replaced by the easy-to-use, heavy, curved, single-edge sword (dao). Jian were only revived as weapons of war in the 16th century, and only then because the Chinese started to copy Japanese sword techniques. For all the myth and romanticism that distorts modern perceptions of the samurai, they were probably the best swordsmen in East Asia between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries (and for a brief period of time, the best arquebusiers)

EDIT: Another thing to consider is that no matter what part of the world a soldier lived in, the metal used to craft his weapon was the same metal used to craft his enemy's armor (if they had chain or plate armor at all). Metal swords don't just pierce metal; you need a lot more power and a finer point to do that (which is why arrows do). Hence the European knight scenario I described above. You didn't see a sword going through plate every day. You probably never saw it at all, unless the quality of the sword was so incredibly superior to the quality of the armor. And while Japanese swordfighting techniques were potent, their swords were not the best ever, like many seem to claim. Native Japanese iron ore was actually very poor quality compared to deposits in Europe.

EDIT 2: I like watching this guy's youtube videos. He gives some interesting information on how weapons actually functions and/or were used.

Thank you - this has given me a lot to stew over. I will check out the youtube clip now. I've tried to show scenes where my mercenary character has found a 'chink in armour' - in one battle, she cuts someone at the back of the knee, in another at the back of the neck. I've avoided having my characters in heavy armour unless in a battle so prepared for combat - it's again, something I need to look up more.