WRITING – Four Things to Think About When Writing a Novel Part 3 of 4.

Simpsons Quote:

Lisa: ”Can you tell me what happens at the end of the series?”

JK Rowling (kind of ticked): “Yes, he grows up and marries you… Is that what you want to hear?”

Lisa (sighs, happily): ”Yes…”

Hi. Welcome to video three of “Things to Think About When You’re Writing a Novel”. Again, I’m joined by my wife, Alesha Escobar, and today we’re going to be talking about decompression.

You can either watch the video or read the transcription below:

Some of the links below are affiliate links. Thanks for your support.

About Decompression

Luis: I’ve  been editing my wife’s books for quite a long time and I’ve been reading her books even before she was getting published – publishing her books. And currently she’s writing the Gray Tower.

Alesha: The Gray Tower Trilogy.

Luis: Trilogy and…

Alesha: This is the first book: Tower’s Alchemist.

Luis: And this is the second one: Dark Rift. And I’m currently working on reading through the manuscript, Circadian Circle – she’s already finished the first draft. And I’m a little bit over halfway through. So I’m kind of in editor mode right now. But again, one of the things that we wanted to bring up his decompression. Now decompression. What do I mean by decompression?

Alesha: By decompression you mean taking a scene that is merely just a summary or maybe crunched up a little bit too short and developing it so that you add some more detail, maybe some more dialogue and kind of make it a bit more flavorful.

Luis: Right. I’ve noticed that when you’re starting – when most beginning writers start writing they just tend to just sum up moments just to get to either their favorite moments or the good parts or I don’t know what, or just to get through the story. And a lot of the times that’s okay. Sometimes you just kind of want to sum up things because they’re not really all that important. But most of the time you would kind of want to err on the side of decompression, only because what it does is it opens up the characters more. You get into the character’s heads more, you live through the moments more, you empathize with the characters a lot more. So that’s kind of the benefits of decompression.

Very early on Alesha used to compress way too much and it was a very fast read. But it also didn’t have any emotional impact because it was much too compressed. She doesn’t necessarily have that problem anymore. Occasionally, I would say this paragraph might need to be decompressed a little bit more. But generally it’s working really well. So let’s talk about Tower’s Alchemist and let’s talk about a moment in the book where we had to decompress something, where I thought it would be a good idea.

Alesha: Yes. I believe its close to the middle of the book where Isabella has to make it into a weapons factory, infiltrate it basically under a false identity with a couple of allies and basically uses her alchemy to neutralize these chemicals that have been kind of mixed in with a dark alchemical spell.

Luis: Yeah. So it’s kind of like the, “defuse the bomb moment” right where like the character has to defuse the bomb before it blows up. I’m only saying that so that you don’t put too much detail about what’s actually happening. But it’s kind of that, that kind of a moment.

Alesha: And I think originally I had her go in, you know, she does her job; she’s efficient at it, right. She’s trained. But then it first didn’t have the impact that it should have because it wasn’t as decompressed. For example…

Luis: Yeah, it didn’t – it lacked a little bit of the tension. It lacked tension because it was just too summed up. It was just a little bit too summed up.

Alesha: Right. So what I added was kind of what’s going through her head at this moment. What process is she going through while doing this? Especially for readers who may not be as familiar with alchemy and, you know, working with just in general chemicals. Like how does one thing effect the other and why’s this so important? Why is she nervous, you know? Why is she scared? So to have a vested interest in whether or not she will succeed, you have to kind of understand the scene and get those details and get those emotions. So by decompressing it and giving it that detail and that flavor it works a lot better in that respect. So that’s what I ended up with.

Luis: Yeah, yeah. And now the scene really works and it has a lot of tension in it and it’s a very exciting moment. So stuff like that. So just generally look for moments that you may have summed up a little bit too much. Like I said, it’s better to err in the side of decompression than to compress too much. That said, you can over decompress and end up with – I don’t even know if you guys are familiar with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series but I personally think that that is just way too decompressed. There are moments in that book, in that series that could really use a little bit of compression in just summing up characters, getting up and doing whatever it is that they’re supposed to be doing. It just drives me crazy.

Alesha: What are you talking about? I like 20-page descriptions of what someone is wearing.

Luis: It doesn’t further the plot and then you’re like, “What was that for? Why?” I mean, you care about the characters but really it’s like nothing happens for like half a book just because all you’re doing is describing somebody getting up and getting dressed, and that really doesn’t do anything for…

Alesha: But luckily you just love the characters so much that you’re…

Luis: Well, again, and part of the benefits of decompression is the character building aspect of decompression and empathizing with the characters. So yes, I guess that’s…

Alesha: Where did I leave off in that series, by the way?

Luis: I don’t remember. I think you were like in book ten or 11. I don’t remember.

Alesha: Yeah, I think so. The only person I care about now is Egwene.

Luis: Yeah, okay. We’re gonna start talking about Robert Jordan?

Alesha: Okay.

Luis: Anyway, if you want to pick up a copy of Tower’s Alchemist, you can pick it up right now. As the time of this video it’s free for the Kindle.

Alesha: And at Smashwords as well.

Luis: And at Smashwords?

Alesha: Yes. Amazon and Smashwords and at the iBookstore.

Luis: All right. It’s free on the iBookstore?

Alesha: Yes.

Luis: Oh. I didn’t know. Hey, I didn’t know.

Alesha: We go to the iBookstore.

Luis: There’s an iBookstore? i…Books? And if you want to pick up another free book you can subscribe to my newsletter and you could pick up my Art of Book. And you should get a free digital download as soon as you sign up. So until next time, there’s an iBookstore. We’ll see you in the next video when we’ll be talking about something else. All right. Bye.

BOOKS – The Memory Book

I’ve been reading a lot.  I’ve been education myself quite a bit lately on just about anything that strikes me as useful.  I’ve become obsessed with something new lately, namely, my mind, my brain, my memory.  I want to learn faster, and retain more.  To this end I picked up the book The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory at Work, at School, and at Play.

This book rocks.

I wrote a post a few months back about learning to teach yourself.  Well, one of the skills you need to master when teaching yourself is “encoding.” Being able to retain the information you obtain, at will. I knew about a few mnemonic devices but this book really breaks them down into ONE, namely “association.”

The info in here works great. I can retain any information I choose to retain at will now. It’s amazing. It just takes a little imagination.

That said, I will add a disclaimer.  mnemonic devices do NOT improve your “natural memory”. By which I mean, the memory you were born with.  What they do is give you tools that will improve your “active memory.” By which I mean, the memory you use when you consciously want to remember something.

Still, it’s a fantastic book and I highly recommend it.

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.