Hello, dreamers. So last week, I significantly expanded Fantoms. Then, I was inspired by reading Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. That inspiration led me to reopen the book (or books) on Turn of the Century. And that’s what I’m working on this week.

Turn of the Century

There’s a lot of writing advice out there these days. And not all of it’s good. But, for better or worse, I always end up assuming that everyone else knows more than I do. And a lot of that advice tends toward slimming things down. Avoid exposition at all costs. Don’t get into internal monologues. Don’t get into your characters’ heads. Don’t describe too much.

Put it all together, and you get a pretty bare-bones story; one that feels empty, shallow, in which pretty much everything is either bland action scenes or characters sitting around talking. If many of the self-described “experts” online are to be believed, that’s all anyone in the publishing world wants. But, really, who wants to read that?

Amid this advice, for the past year I’d spent a lot of time stripping down my stories. I removed all traces of individual input from my characters. I trimmed down description. I didn’t like it. It went against every instinct I had as a writer. But, I told myself, it’s what the people want.

Then, I started reading Leviathan Wakes.

It was an eye-opening, and ultimately self-reaffirming experience. These guys (James S.A. Corey is a pseudonym for two writers) spent a lot of time showing how their characters felt. What they were thinking. How they felt about others. And their book was a damn bestseller.

So, if these guys did it and are hailed (rightly) as visionaries, why exactly should I not be doing the same thing?

My reading helped me better understand a concept I’ve heard of frequently in the podcast “The Shit Nobody Tells You About Writing”: internality. Essentially, it’s the process of describing a setting or characters through your main character’s eyes. You’re describing something, yes, but doing so in a way that helps the reader learn more about a character, as well. It’s sneaky, and it makes for great prose.

So I went back to work, starting with Fantoms. Finally, I allowed myself to really live in the story. I put myself inside of it. The first result was an expanded exchange between the MC and his pilots, and a jarringly casual comment on cannibalism. Suddenly, these weren’t just a bunch of hollow characters flying to an asteroid. They were people. The kind of people readers would probably like.

Then I went back to Endurance. I ended up adding a total of just under 1,500 words of new text. But those words changed everything. I allowed readers to know more about Dauna Adkins, not just about her surroundings on the Endurance, but how she felt. About her crew, her love interest, her life, everything. And boy did that feel good.

I’m already at work giving MERIT 19 the full treatment. Then it’ll be on to Ganymede and Fantoms. I’m really enjoying this. I feel like I’m getting to know the characters better. And that’s great. Because they’re interesting people. I should know. I created them. – MK