Ariele University: Writing Monsters

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Today I finished up the next book in my fake university program TBR list, called Writing Monsters by Philip Athans. It had some super useful info in it, particularly if you’ve never written monsters before. He also provides significant detail in regards to ideating monsters, world-building, and the actual writing process. In addition, he provides a lot of examples from pop culture and classic literature, so it’s easy to understand exactly what he’s talking about. I would definitely say the book is geared toward beginner writers, or at least, writers who haven’t done much of their own monster ideation before.

For this essay, however, I want to talk about my own thoughts on crafting monsters. I have an entire series on it, after all: Land of Szornyek.

When I first envisioned the Land of Szornyek world, it was from the perspective of a sort of “monster of the week” episodic story structure. I wanted each chapter to feature a new, different, yet equally terrifying monster, and force my character to face off with them over and over and over again.

But the thing is, coming up with monster after monster after monster is hard. I kept a list of “monster features” which included things like: tentacles, too many eyeballs, claws, lizard skin, slime, fluids, aggression, poison, spines, etc. I drew pictures to help keep my imagery straight. I googled artist renditions of their own made-up monsters, and sifted through old-school monster behaviors like zombies (eating brains), vampires (sucking blood), or werewolves (shapeshifting).

I used elements of plot and characterization to invent monsters, asking questions like:

• Where is my character and where does she need to go, and what can prevent her from getting there?

• What is my character most afraid of and what kind of monster could manifest that fear?

• What are my character’s weaknesses and how could a monster exploit those?

• What is my character trying to achieve, and what is the most difficult possible route she could take towards that goal?

• What does my character believe is true, and what type of monster could prove that is false?

• What does my character want to believe, and what kind of monster could disrupt that?

And, when it came right down to it, I used the good, old fashioned delete button a lot. Too boring? Delete. Too cliché? Delete. Too easy? Delete. Too impossible? Delete.

I think monsters offer an interesting tool for writers to expose their readers’ sense of fear, excitement, dread, despair, and disgust. There are a lot of reasons why we don’t want to do certain things in life, or why we might refuse to go near something or someone.

Fear is the most obvious—arachnophobia, claustrophobia, hemophobia, and of course my favorite, hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words lol).

But monsters don’t always have to be about fear. Monsters can be about adrenaline rushes and excitement, too. We know our character is going to win, but how will they do it, and what will they have to lose in order to survive?

Monsters can be about dread—it’s less about the monster itself, but the reluctance to face our own fears.

Monsters can be about despair—that feeling that all is lost, that there is no hope. And depending on the story, sometimes hope will prevail, but sometimes despair will win out. Even if the character survives the encounter, if they lose too much, if the cost is too great, then we can feel true despair.

Monsters can also be about disgust. We live our lives feeling disgusted—dirt, mold, dirty diapers, excrement, rotten food, people we don’t like, politics, alternative morality and ethics. Even our internal biases are often based around disgust toward people who we don’t understand, who are different than us. Monsters can harness this feeling of disgust as well. Just imagine this word: pustules. There you go—disgust lol.

Experiencing emotions through fiction is one of the easiest ways to practice feeling feelings.

Practice feeling feelings? you ask. Yes. If you practice feeling feelings, you can interrogate them in a safe space, better learn why you have those feelings, and teach yourself to respond to them.

Practice feeling feelings.

While romance can help us practice feel fun feelings like love and desire and arousal, monsters can help us practice difficult feelings, like fear, anger, dread, and disgust.

And that is why they’re so fricking great.

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Ariele University: On Universal Fantasy

The talk of the indie writing world is a book titled 7 Figure Fiction: How To Use Universal Fantasy To Sell Your Book To Anyone by T. Taylor. After seeing several discussions about the concept of “universal fantasies” show up in various writing communities, I decided to read the book to find out what all the fuss was about.

I really have only two negative feelings about the book, which I will share first, so that we can move on and get into the really interesting stuff. The first is the tone of the writing—it’s very salesy, and that approach isn’t my favorite. The second is that I think the idea could have been fleshed out a bit more, and I think a few more concrete definitions would have been useful, though there are a lot of examples, which helps.

That said, I think the concept is really solid, and other versions of it have been talked about in other capacities elsewhere in the writing world. But there is something unique about this particular approach, that I think offers a really valuable way of thinking about storytelling, and that’s what I want to discuss.

First off, let me explain Taylor’s concept of universal fantasy. It’s pretty simple overall, but sometimes difficult to talk about, as it’s closely related to concepts like tropes, human givens, or value propositions.

Essentially, universal fantasies are the specific emotional payouts a reader is looking for in a story. This can be large, like the feeling triggered by the romantic payoff at the end of a romance novel, or small, like a feeling triggered by a sweet moment between two friends forgiving each other somewhere within the narrative. I think the biggest challenge when talking about it is differentiating the concept from a trope, because often the two things seem inseparable. But the way I think of it is that a trope is a narrative tool used to deliver the universal fantasy (or the emotional experience) to the reader.

A universal fantasy can exist outside of a trope, but a trope must deliver the emotional payout or it will fall flat or be perceived as tropey or cliched. One trap a writer can fall into is the assumption that by using a trope, they have automatically delivered the emotional payout, but this is not the case. Alternatively, while tropes are commonly used techniques, a story can still deliver the emotional payout without the use of a trope at all (and that’s how new tropes are invented).

I think the most valuable part of thinking about universal fantasy is that it forces you to consider your reader’s needs in the development of the story. What emotional, experiential value do they get from the story?

And not just in the broad sense, like a happily ever after, or a hero defeating the villain. But in those little moments—what sorts of emotional payouts can you weave into the narrative, that make the reader keep turning the page and feeling the feelings?

One of my favorite universal fantasies that I saw recently was at the end of the new Hawkeye Christmas series. At the very, very end, after the two main characters fight all the bad guys, Kate goes home with Clint, and celebrates Christmas with his family. This universal fantasy—the warmth of accepting strays—is one I love. It’s not the climactic moment of the story. It’s not a budding romance. It’s a very specific sweet, warm, cozy feeling I get anytime I see this type of scene. It’s a universal fantasy.

Real scene at my house, when Kate and Clint are sitting by the ambulance talking after the big fight:

Spouse: I hope she goes home with Hawkeye for Christmas after this.
Me: Me too.

Hawkeye gets out of van. “Are you coming?”
Kate appears.

Spouse: Yes!
We high five.

Universal fantasies can be found everywhere. Take Taylor Swift, for example, the Queen of Universal Fantasies. Every single song she writes is based around at least one major universal fantasy and then has a dozen others woven in. “Shake It Off” has like twenty universal fantasies in it: the annoyance of parents/others expecting you to live up to a particular standard, frustration at the expectations other people have regarding your love life, the ability to keep moving forward and breaking away from other people’s expectations, the freedom of dancing—practically every other line has a universal fantasy in it.

I will say that different people will respond differently to different universal fantasies (yes, I just used the word “different” three… now four times). Not every universal fantasy will resonate with everyone—they’re not literally universal. And some tropes or stories will deliver different emotional experiences from one reader to the next. From the perspective of the writer, there’s no guarantee that your work will create the emotional experience you’re going for. It’s still worth trying, though.

A universal fantasy allows the reader to either say, “Yes! This is what this feeling feels like!” or “Oh, so this is what this feeling feels like!” It allows them to feel the feeling. And it doesn’t always have to be good feelings—it only has to be relatable.

When I think about art, I think of it as a re-creation of … stuff.

A landscape painting is like filtering a landscape through our own minds, and trying to re-create it in paint. A photograph is a re-creation of the subject matter through film or digital technology. Music is a re-creation of sound. Writing is a re-creation of the stuff going on in our heads, or the things we say out loud.

But that’s only at a very surface level. Really, all art is an attempt at re-creating an emotion: the feeling of gazing at a beautiful landscape, or capturing the feeling of the moment with a photo, or trying to describe a specific emotional experience.

And I think the concept of universal fantasy pinpoints that. A universal fantasy is a re-creation of an emotional experience that a lot of people share. And I think writing offers a really special way of sharing those emotions—because we get to implant them directly into the reader’s brain.

At any rate, I think the concept of universal fantasy is really interesting. I find myself looking for them in everything I read, watch, or listen to now that I’ve thought about it a bit, and I’m also noticing the ways in which I incorporate them into my own storytelling.

It’s definitely worth checking out the book, if that’s something you’re interested in. Even if you’re a reader, not a writer, it might help you pinpoint exactly what tastes you have in stories, and help you find more books you know you’re going to love.

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Look! A universal fantasy in a photo!

Ariele University: On Writing by Stephen King

If you’ve been following along for any period of time, you’re familiar with my Fake Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Indie Publishing from Ariele University.

Well, good news! I think I’m going to graduate this year! As such, you’ll probably see a surge of posts about writing as I complete my remaining assignments. You’ll also hear about my thesis project, which is rapidly nearing completion.

Today, I bring you a few, very short thoughts on the book On Writing, by Stephen King.

A Few Thoughts About ON WRITING by Stephen King

For as long as I’ve been involved in the writing community, people have been recommending the book On Writing by Stephen King. It is held up as the ultimate book on writing, due in no small part to the fact that its title is literally On Writing, it is LITERALLY a book on writing. To this end, I resisted reading it for a long time. I was worried that since everyone loved it so much, I would be disappointed.

Eventually, after I started doing a lot of workshops and presentations, I decided I should suck it up and read the stupid book. After the hundredth time someone told me, “You really should read it! It changed my life!” After the thousandth workshop attendee questioned whether I had anything valuable to say because I hadn’t read On Writing by Stephen King. Besides, Stephen King is a legendary writer. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

So I read the book.

I was less disappointed than I thought I would be. The truth be told, I thought the first half of the book was by and large uninteresting, unless you wanted to read a biography (or an auto-biography) of Stephen King’s life. Which, of course, may be quite interesting to some people. But I was looking for useful, practical stuff, and ultimately, King’s rise to fame can likely never be repeated.

(To be fair, he does use the word “memoir” in the title, so that mis-alignment of expectations is on me.)

The second half of the book, however, proved to be a lot more interesting. I liked the switch from the first half, with the break where he talks about how he got hit by a car in the middle of writing the book and it made him reconsider where he had been going with the book to begin with. From that point forward, I found the book educational. I found myself agreeing with him on most issues, though I tend to take a slightly softer stance. For example, when he says that adverbs pave to the road to hell, well, that’s a bit over the top, really. It does explain why everyone in the writing world is so anti-adverbs though.

The thing I disliked the most was the prescriptive attitude, that “THIS is the way to write a book.” I think this is a problem in the writing industry as a whole, however, and I don’t really think that his version of it is worse than anyone else’s. But one day, I’d like to see someone famous write a book called, “You can write however you want: the only rule is that there are no rules.”

Ultimately, I would say that if you are looking for a book that goes in depth into King’s life, and has some helpful writing tidbits in the second half, then this book is for you. If you just want the writing tidbits, skip the first half; if you just want to know more about King, skip the second half.

And if you’re tired of people telling you what to do, skip it entirely.

The Art of Wandering

When I was a kid, my parents owned sixty acres of land in rural, upstate New York. We had a house, a barn, a shop, a chicken coop, myriad gardens, a pond, a forest, and a field. This setting offered much in the way of fuel for creative imaginations.

In the late spring, there was a patch of grass in the woods that was greener and lusher than all the other grasses around it, surrounded by a grove of beech trees. I used to wander up, lie down in the grass with my arms crossed over my chest, and imagine I was asleep, waiting for a prince to come and rescue me—very Anne of Green Gables-esque.

Photograph by Evan Sieling, (c) 2008

On the hill behind the house, my brother built a castle, complete with rock walls, two towers, and a half dozen garden beds. He even built a non-electric pump and a series of plastic piping to run water from the spring at the bottom of the hill into the garden, so he could water the plants and even have a couple fountains.

If this sounds magical to you, it was, except for the part where he used his younger siblings as free labor to carry rocks, rake away old leaves and pine needles, and weed the gardens. When I wasn’t participating in sibling-induced chores, I instead would lean against a rock wall, imagining a fog settling down around me as a wizard appeared from within the evergreens to tell me I had powers never-before-seen by anyone in this world. Or that I was trapped in the tower and had to save myself or die trying.

A babbling brook cut the property in half, and in the spring when the snow melted, all the water from the neighboring farmers’ fields rushed down, creating a tumultuous, roaring river that overflowed its banks in a swirling rush of foamy white. And on hot summer days, it trickled clean and clear, and we would dip our feet in to wash off the mud and help cool ourselves down.

A forest surrounded the rest of the property, with trails that meandered past the vegetable gardens, through the overgrown apple orchard, down by the only butternut tree, around the edges of the apiary, and back up to the top of the embankment that overlooked the deep, rocky gorge, which was on the neighbor’s property. In the spring, the swamp just past the birch tree and the lilacs would be alive with the bright yellows of marsh marigolds—the perfect hiding place for gnomes and hobgoblins. And the giants who lived just past the butternuts would often leave massive footprints in the mud.

Everything you could imagine existed in my sixty-acre world. Wizards and ghosts, princesses and talking owls, fantasy and romance and robots. I had imaginary friends galore, and named every fallen log and shallow hollow dug into a heap of last year’s dead leaves. I knew the trees by name, ate the wild berries and plants at my leisure, and noted every new mushroom or patch of moss that grew.

Sometimes we would sneak onto the neighbor’s property to listen to the frogs sing or wade in their larger creek. We would stage battles, shooting water guns at each other from the top of the embankment overlooking the spring. Or challenge each other to see who could wade out into the deepest mud of the swamp. We’d go swimming in the pond or stomping through the creek, and pull leeches off our legs after. We never wore shoes.

But the field was where I spent most of my time. In late summer, tall verdant grasses waved in the breeze, with red, yellow, and white flowers flashing their bright colors amid the green. In the early spring, before the snow had fully melted, steam would rise up from patches of ice, creating a low-level mist across the short, brown grass, and any figure seen in the distance looked like nothing more than a hazy, mystical silhouette. In the winter, the snowy landscape stretched out in a blinding white sheet as far as the eye could see, the sharp edges of distant tree branches grasping at the gray, overcast sky. And in fall, great round bales of hay lay scattered across the now short, brown grass, and the vibrant rusty reds and yellows of autumn created a vibrant border along the edges of the field.

Here, I could be anything. An abandoned farmer’s maid lost on the prairie. A world-weary traveler seeking rest. A mysterious figure in the fog, searching for the source of all magic. A lonely widow, longing for her lost love. An escaped damsel desperate for a way back home.

The field was the canvas and my imagination the paintbrush. All I had to do was fill it with stories.

###

I always jumped the three steps leading down from the back porch of the house. Then I would cross the driveway, which bridged the babbling brook. I would ramble past the herb gardens and across the road bisecting the property. Then stroll past the lower vegetable on the north side of the barn, and duck under the low-hanging branches of the walnut tree. Beyond the hedge, the field would stretch out for miles, and by the time I arrived, my parents and brothers and real life would be far behind me.

With every step, my mind wandered too. Of course I thought about normal kid and teenage stuff—school and boys and band and how mad I was at my little brother for constantly being noisy—but eventually, my mind would move onto stories. Any story was fair game, but often I focused on the stories from the books I’d taken from the library, or a scene from something I had to read for school.

But when those stories faded, then came the feelings. Scenes and moments and fables built based on me.

If I felt sad, I was lost and alone in the wilderness, the great emptiness of the field feeding the narrative I wove. If I was in love, I imagined him running toward me across the lush landscape, to wrap me in his arms and tell me he loved me. If I was angry, I cried furious tears and imagined that soil beneath my feet roiled and burned with my power. If I felt curiosity, I wondered about what grew around me, or if aliens would ever pick our field to land their ships, or if ghosts were really real.

All around me stories rose and fell, but none lasted much longer than the time I spent wandering.

When I returned home and walked up the three steps, life returned—my family, dinner, homework, chores, school, the stories left far behind me, now only faint traces in my memory.

###

It’s been many years since I wandered that field. I’ve wandered in other ways, of course. I’ve lived in five different states. I’ve climbed mountains and hiked trails. Visited to other countries.

I’ve explored many ideas, perspectives, philosophies.

I’ve started keeping track of the stories. Writing them down.

Wandering like that though, now happens rarely. Life is too heavy, and the world too crowded and full.

But wandering is still at the core of who I am. Even when I’m stuck in the middle of a busy city sidewalk, or in a meeting surrounded by people, or too tired to stroll down to the public trail that winds through farmer fields and along train tracks and through forests, I can close my eyes and imagine that I stand in the middle of my field surrounded by mist, or with the hot sun burning in the blue sky overhead, or amid tiny white flowers pushing their faces through the dense summer grasses; I can smell the crisp scent of honeysuckle on the air, hear the mourning doves cooing in the early morning light, feel the chill of the brisk breeze blowing a thunderstorm in from the south—and all around me, I can grow whatever stories I want.

The Great Unblocking: On Dealing With Creative Blocks

I haven’t experienced a significant creative block in a long time. I think because I have so many dang strategies for moving through and past it. I might feel “blocked” in the moment, or even for a few days. But nine times out of ten, all I need to do is put my butt in the chair and write, and the water starts flowing again.

But the last two years have been hard for a lot of people. I’ve read about writers who stayed blocked for all of 2020 and into 2021, and didn’t write for nearly two years. I know writers who were blocked for a month or two months or three. I know writers who got blocked when covid started, and are still there.

Abraham Piper recently released a tiktok video about how creativity comes in waves, and how that metaphor makes it easier to think of a block as being the low point before a new wave of creativity comes crashing down. Or something like that.

Which got me thinking about my strategies, and I realized that I don’t apply strategies willy-nilly. I have specific processes for determining which unblocking strategy to use and when. Which then led me to trying to outline my system so that perhaps I can use it more effectively next time I feel blocked.

And I’m putting it here because it might also help someone else.

I have a four-step process, that looks something like this:

1. Determine the type of block.

2. Select strategy for dealing specifically with that type of block.

3. Do the thing.

4. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

The rinse and repeat is really necessary, because I can often be plagued by than more than one thing at a time, so sometimes it requires multiple steps to clear out the blockage. And some of these strategies I now engage in on a regular basis, whether or not I’m feeling blocked, because on-going maintenance is good for avoiding coming to a complete standstill.

Types of Writer’s Block

In my experience, there are three types of writer’s block: Emotional, Intellectual, and External.

(As an aside, I experience the same blocks in all of my creative life, whether I’m drawing or playing music or whatever.)

Emotional writer’s block is when you can’t write because of internal forces—mainly, the way you feel. It might include being anxious or stressed, feeling overwhelmed, being sad, being distracted by good things, feeling like you just can't, imposter syndrome, feeling worthless or as though your art is worthless, ADHD, depression, physical pain, lack of sleep, period moodiness, certain medications which affect your mood, and any condition that has an impact on how you feel.

Intellectual writer’s block is when you have a problem you can’t solve, usually relating to your work or story. It might include things like not knowing where the plot goes next, feeling like your character is behaving inconsistently, feeling like something is wrong with your book but you don't know what, knowing you need to do more research but you don't want to or don't know where to find the information you need, wondering if this project really fits into your business plan or not—any problem that requires using your mind to overcome.

External writer’s block is anything happening to disrupt you over which you have no or limited control. It might include things like loud kids, a jackhammer outside, the dog barking, your house needing to be cleaned, your full time job or spouse needing attention, your printer not working so you can't print your manuscript, phone calls—pretty much anything not writing-related that is vying for your attention.

Understanding potential causes of your writer’s block is helpful because not all strategies work equally and their effectiveness depends on the problem. Locking yourself in a quiet, peaceful room won’t help if the problem is that you’re feeling lonely. Drinking a cup of tea to relax won’t help if the real problem is that you have no idea how to fix a plot hole. Going to a coffee shop to work won’t help if you’re upset because a close friend just died.

In addition, some of these problems may overlap. Lack of sleep might be making it hard to solve a plot problem. Physical pain might mean you have more doctor’s appointments. Feeling sad about a family death may also lead to more phone calls, therapy, and more chaos in your house and life.

But at least trying to pinpoint and identify what is causing your block will give you a starting place from which you can begin to find a solution.

Selecting & Engaging A Strategy

If you absolutely know what type of blocking you’re experiencing, then pick a strategy and go for it. If it doesn’t work, try something else. At this point in my career, my strategies tend to be the same most of the time: mute discord, go to a different room, or pick a different project to work on.

Unfortunately, the problem with selecting a strategy can have some complications.

For example, let’s say your problem is loud kids. Here’s the thing: you can’t get rid of your kids. So finding space and quiet to write is more of an ongoing, long-term project. It might mean renting office space, or setting up a quiet corner in your basement, or setting up “writing time” where the kids have to read quietly while you work. It might mean scheduling the babysitter once a week so you can go to a coffee shop.

And what solution you choose will depend on your life, needs, resources, and specific situation. Not everyone has the money to rent an office, for example, or the space to set up an office in their home. Not everyone has the means to hire a babysitter for the purposes of peace and quiet.

So some of these challenges might take a while to figure out, and sometimes, the answer is simply waiting—putting a project on the backburner until you have the mental, physical, and emotional space to engage with your creative self.

In addition, sometimes the blocking is multi-layered. You may find quiet space to write even with your kids around, but what if you run into a plot problem? Or what if you sit down and discover that you’re sad or lonely? Getting rid of one type of block may simply reveal another.

This is where maintenance comes in. You can engage in unblocking activities even when you’re not feeling blocked. Think of it like running draino down the sink once a week (or once a month) even if you don’t have a clog. It’ll clear up some of the build-up in the pipes, decreasing the chance of you getting a clog at all.

Maintenance strategies will vary from person to person, of course, and will depend on the types of blocking you experience most often. For me, I mostly experience emotional blocks and occasionally intellectual ones. I live a quiet, introverted life with no kids, so external blocks are kept to a minimum.

A few maintenance strategies I engage in: going to therapy, reading books on writing, reading books on self-help, exercising as much as I can, trying to eat food that feels good, taking time to relax, going for regular walks, engaging with the writing community on a regular basis, doing art and playing piano, leaving myself space to think about things that are upsetting me. Consistently and regularly working on strategies to improve myself, my mind, and my emotions. Exploring philosophy. Giving workshops on writing, attending conferences, and supporting other writers.

All of these things help keep potential blocks from creeping in. And while sometimes blocks do still occur, they’re usually smaller, easier to clear out, and less frequent.

Rinse and Repeat

I think it can often seem like “If I just get past this creative block, I’ll be fixed!” but that’s not really the way it works. Like Abraham Piper said, it comes in waves—bursts of creativity and low lows both come in waves. So, in my opinion, it’s better to be prepared when the next bout of writer’s block comes knocking than to be knocked over and unable to get back on your feet.

Becoming and staying unblocked is an ongoing process, one that you will likely deal with over the course of your life to varying degrees.

The thing I like to remind myself when I’m in the middle of one, no matter how long it’s going on, is that when I look back at previous blocked periods, I came through every one. Every one ended. And so I choose to believe that this one will end too.

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