Wednesday, April 30, 2014

My Writing Process Blog Tour: Take 2


Well, I’ve been so out of the blogosphere I’d never even heard of this blog tour until Ella Facebooked me yesterday saying “tag, you’re it.” I’ve been taking an unintended break from… well everything that isn’t work. Kid’s are exhausting, especially the first year in a new school. New kids, new curriculum, new coworkers who want to see what I’ve got and be sure I don’t have too much of it.

It’s been so long since I’ve written I barely remember this “writing process” Ella is speaking of.


1. What am I working on?

Well, I’m working on the same story I was working on three years ago. It’s a tale of the survivors of a futuristic war. They were orphaned children repurposed as highly trained, genetically enhanced, technologically upgraded soldiers, but when the war ended they were a mess no one wanted to deal with. So they were sent off to die discretely off stage. But one of their “war heroes” didn’t appreciate the sentiment and decided to change the game.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not a happy endings person. The good guys aren’t that good. The girl never ends up with the nice guy. When I write SciFi or Fantasy the villain is usually human and the “hero” isn’t. I also like creating atypical environments. Warships that mimic gardens, entire planets engineered overnight to deceive, and cities built inside abandoned schools.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I find it interesting. It’s story that isn’t usually told. The story of the monster or the killer who doesn’t want to be saved. The story of the bad girl who likes it that way. The one who knows it’s what’s puts them in power and sets them apart from the victims and losers. It isn’t the pathetic formula of the characters who do what it takes to succeed, loose something they love because of it, and mend the error of their ways. It’s the character does what it takes to succeed, loses something they love, but keeps on fighting until they carve out the life they want even if it isn’t the life of a good person.

4. How does your writing process work?

Picture the exact opposite of Ella’s writing process and that’s mine in a nutshell.

The story line comes on its own, but since the worlds I write in are entirely fictional my writing process starts with building the background and then the characters. The story itself is always there, sitting in my head, and since I see the world of the story before I see the people I start by building the culture and the physical parameters of the people. I usually do a lot of sketching and computer generation at this point. By the time I’m done building the setting the story has evolved in my mind to a point where I can build the characters. It helps me to focus on their emotions and character traits when I’m building them as that helps me shape the story by telling me what needed to happen to make them that way, which helps me fill in their backstory and determine what needs to happen in the story to help them evolve. From there I take the story off the shelf and start adding in the character and world specific details.


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So, that’s my brain, twisted confusing thing that it is.

- Aaron

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