Wikipedian Protester

SPECIAL NOTE FOR THIS ARTICLE: I had no idea the sheer controversy that posting an article on Wikipedia would cause when I did so on Examiner.com. I recieved from some very impassioned comments and emails about the service’s upper management from those who have chosen to boycott it. To clarify, the goal of this article is to explore the merits of Wikipedia as a writer’s resource despite the issues of the Wikimedia’s upper management.

When it comes to your writer’s toolbox, what item do you find yourself using the most? The synonym endowing thesaurus? A specialized software package like Movie Magic Screenwriter or Dramatica? Maybe you prefer to do things old school; all you need is a pen, a hardbound journal, and no damn traffic noise in the air…

While many of these have become important tools in my personal toolbox, there is one particularly nifty little helper that has become invaluable to me over the past six years. This versatile Swiss Army Knife in the writer’s arsenal is easy to access, likely contains more knowledge than any encyclopedia collecting dust on your bookshelf, and is, best of all, completely free… What is this Holy Grail of literary awesomeness?

I speak of Wikipedia. Yes, yes, I know it’s a bit of an anticlimax after all the hype I gave to it, especially when this online knowledge oasis’ name is painfully ingrained into all our minds. For those unfamiliar with this unusual website, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia (of sorts) that is written, built, edited, and managed almost entirely by its users (a wiki of any sorts refers to this sort of free-for-all setup of adding and editing content).

I know there are a great many skeptics of this system because of its rather helter-skelter environment for article publishing. Let’s be upfront: yes, there have been reports of incorrect or sketchy information appearing on Wikipedia. Two of the most famous examples I can recall are when news of the murder/suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit appeared on Wikipedia a day before that information was confirmed by police, and when an article about the comedian, Sinbad, indicated rather prematurely that he had died (don’t panic, the House Guest star is alive and well). Citations on Wikipedia are encouraged, but not required, so this is not necessarily a safeguard against false information. In cases of extreme article abuse and libel, Wikipedia’s upper management can lock articles, but does not do this often. The best advice that can be offered to counter these issues is to go in informed: realize the system is not foolproof, check citations on an article if they are used, and if something sounds particularly iffy, double check it in another source (pop culture figures and political leaders in particular often get the most attention from those looking to plant libel or false info, so be especially cautious with these).

This does give Wikipedia some drawbacks for those looking to do thorough scientific or historical research, subjects where you need a very solid foundation of research and fact. I know many college professors who scoff at the idea of students using Wikipedia in bibliographies since it is a source of secondary, rather than primary, research. With all these issues, why would a writer still consider Wikipedia a valuable tool?

Here are five solid reasons:

• “On the Fly” Research: Wikipedia is great when you need a bit of knowledge in a hurry. Which Crusades took place in the 13th Century? Need a general history of make-up use or a breakdown on how bourbon is made? What exactly does it mean to be “drawn and quartered”? All easy questions for Wikipedia. Often just having a little more knowledge about a subject in your story can enrich the quality of your work. If you write on a computer with a net connection, it’s very easy to keep Wikipedia open in a second window in the event you need to look up something quickly.
• What/Who is that?: Whether you need to identify what a “Harajuku Girl” is or find out the name of the current political leader in Lithuania, Wikipedia is quite up to date on both historical and pop culture definitions that can be elusive to identify if you aren’t a diplomat or a junior high student. Wikipedia also tends to be more thorough about these than its entirely slang-oriented cousin, Urban Dictionary, another good research tool if you need information specifically on what kids are calling things these days.
• A Place to Begin: For non-scholars needing to do scholarly research, finding a starting point is a daunting task. Wikipedia is valuable on this front because it gives you a place to begin on your topic. From there, you can look up necessary keywords at the library with greater ease, or can even go through the citations at the bottom of many Wikipedia articles for more thorough sources.
• Lighter than a Dictionary: While I personally haven’t converted to an online thesaurus yet, I did stop carrying a dictionary after I discovered Wikipedia. While you’ll find more thorough definitions at a site like Dictionary.com , Wikipedia has more than its share of accurate word and topic definitions. A dictionary or heavy encyclopedia is one less thing you have to haul on your back if you tend to write on the go.
• Improving your Knowledge: A good vocabulary and base of knowledge on the world is key to a writer. Even when you’re not working on a project, Wikipedia is a handy tool for expanding these two key attributes. I can’t list all the times I’ve had an odd question pop into my mind and, on a whim, answered it by looking the subject up on Wikipedia. If “Word a Day” emails aren’t enough to feed your brain-sponge, this handy practice will make you dangerously more knowledgeable in a hurry.

To take a step down from the soapbox, while Wikipedia has its drawbacks, it has far too many advantages for we writers to brush aside entirely. Consider making use of this free net resource to improve your writing and your mind…

Hey everyone out there in the blogosphere and on the RSS feed. First off, huge apologies for the recent vacation I had to take from regular updates to the blog. Life’s been good, but it’s also been busy, and I had to put some extra efforts towards other projects that pulled me away from here.

The excellent news I have is that you can expect more regular content updates here at Fishing with Crossbows from here on out, thanks to my new role as Denver Writer’s Community Examiner over at Examiner.com. I’m required to post articles three times a week over there, and I’ll be copying any non-local specific articles onto Fishing with Crossbows as well since their user agreement allows for this. In turn, a lot of the fairly quirky stuff that may not be appropriate for Examiner.com will be posted exclusively here. As I get rolling, you can check out updated versions of articles already on the blog over at the Examiner page (Writing as Sculpting has been expanded to a two part piece and Dream, Dream, Dream was pumped up a bit as well). For those wishing to support both sites, do note that I get paid for hits at Examiner.com whereas here I do not (unless you just love that Amazon search box hehe)… though here we have more pretty colors bwahaha.

I hope you all enjoy the new content to come and it feels good to be back! Cheers!

This particular writing tip is a bit of an object lesson… No, I am not eating eel, wearing a miniskirt, or documenting the habits of the raccoons outside my apartment (three things which are most definitely out of my comfort zone). Rather, I am writing from an armchair in the mall during a brief half-hour gap while I wait for Dave to get off work (I had yummy sushi!).

In my ongoing attempt to keep this blog regularly updated, the inspiration came to me that I should use this time to write. Granted it wasn’t the blinding light/glorious joy of writing inspiration that we always hope for… Rather, it was the rather fatalistic realization that during this particular time in my life, scheduling a good romp through Fishing with Crossbows can be a difficult task, and that this pocket of writing time would have to suit as good as any.

So I decided to write about this very fact: for the busy writer, it is an extremely valuable skill to learn how to write on the go during seemingly ‘inoppurtune’ windows of time, and outside of your comfort zone as far as locations.

For me, my writing comfort zone is sitting on a blanket next to a lake in a nice park, surrounded by geese and enjoying a bit of hot tea (no matter how loud or aggressive such said geese may be; Oddly I find the honking of 1000 geese to be soothing while the unholy, unfeeling sound of a clown horn weilded by my neighbor’s kids is anathema to my ears). By the ocean is a great spot as well, as is the dining area of a comfortable trailer on one of our relatives’ property in Oregon. Even the uber-modern leather chair my dad insisting on getting for my apartment is an ideal spot for me to write in comfort (think Yoda’s chair from the Star Wars prequels, only black leather. Makes me feel like a Jedi Master.)

However, with my busy schedule I’m not able to make it to the park very often (especially since my favorite park is now three states away), I’m very rarely by a beach or in Oregon, and with my days continuously clouding up with tasks, it’s a mite hard even to get time in my trusty uber-chair.

Rather, the places I find myself having the opportunity to write are not paradises for my art by any means. The light rail is a fine example… It jostles, there are no electric outlets, it can make you mad-nauseated, and I’d much rather use the time to read another Tolkein or Stephen Lawhead book. However, I’ve been able to jot down a good paper or do some serious proofreading on a daily commute on that train. The lounge area of the film school is another example. It’s loud, there are always weird indie movies on, the chairs are semi-comfortable, and the vending machines tend to spit my change back at me like something from, “Maximum Overdrive”. That and too many kids these days smoke. STOP POISONING YOUR LUNGS, YOU!. Still, I have been able to knock out some writing there.

My all time favorite example is the gym… I’m completely serious. Yes, I will digress that it’s pretty hard to do any actual ‘writing’ while you’re pumping iron (or… pumping aluminum if you’re like me), but I have been able to knock out both brainstorming and editing while running on the elliptical machine. A well chosen binder with a section of the manuscript or screenplay I’m working on makes an ideal flat surface, and with a little balance I’ve been able to do full proofreads and even shot-lists for directing while getting my daily cardio. It also keeps me from staring at the workout timer, thus entertaining the thought that thirty minutes is a very long time to be running and getting nowhere. Cardio equipment and my sense of logic are not good bedmates.

I could go on and on about the unpleasant places I have found where the opportunity to write strikes but the location attempts to suck all inspiration dry. I cannot stress the value of learning to overcome this. Make a list of your favorite writing spots, by all means, but also learn how to take advantage of the valuable ‘dead time’ that often occurs during lunchbreaks, while waiting for the train, in between classes, during a flight layover, etc. You’ll be surprised how much progress you can make by taking advantage of this ‘dead time’ every day. If you’re planning on tackling National Novel Writing Month this year, this skill is for many the difference between success and failure.

So don’t let the doldrums of ‘dead time’ go to waste. Use it to write! You’ll thank me later… : )

First off, it is somewhat key for this particular article that the reader has actually seen the film, The Dark Knight. If you haven’t, go see it. If you’ve already seen it, go see it again… I know I sound like some sort of deranged comic-movie-junkie (which I am, but that’s beside the point), but I’m absolutely serious. With the amount of flatly-written blockbusters that are released every year, when one of these crosses the mark into historical excellence, it’s worth going to see on a big screen. For Batman and superhero movie skeptics, this is the film to make an exception for. I would venture to say that Batman: The Dark Knight is not only one of the best superhero films ever made, but has set its place amongst great films of our generation.

Oh, and yes… “I believe in Harvey Dent.” Just thought I’d chime that in…

As a writer, the number of valuble morsels I walk away with everytime I see this film increases. For fans and skeptics alike, I thought it would be worthwhile to trampoline off some of the high points of the writing of the film to point out five things every writer can take away from Dark Knight (besides a how-to novel on how to fight crime… not a strong suit of most writers).

1) Life is Complicated : Slightly more complicated if you live in Gotham city… Often in screenwriting and storytelling, we are encouraged to keep plot as simple as possible, run with a single narrative thread, and stick to formula. Dark Knight is a brilliant example of how these rules can be broken. Consider the number of things going on in this film: the Joker has surfaced and is slowly manipulating the Gotham mafia to release anarchy in the city. Meanwhile, such-said mafia is looking for a way to reclaim their town and kill Batman. At the same time as that, Gotham’s new district attorney Harvey Dent makes a decision to clean up the streets of the town, despite the fact it may cost him his life. This catches the attention of Batman/Bruce Wayne who is possibly looking to get out of the ’skull-pounding-vigilante’ business and settle down with his long-time friend and love interest, Rachel Dawes… Who ironically is in love with Harvey.  Oh, and all this time Bruce still must keep up his ‘millionaire playboy’ persona by wisking away Russian ballerinas and supermodels on various expensive transportation craft. Tough break, Bruce…

There is much much more than this, but how does Dark Knight pull such a bizarrely complicated plot off and still remain understandable? The structure, for one thing, is handled brilliantly. Also, despite the unending complexities of its plot, the story is ultimately character-driven which is often the key between an engaging story and one we forget once we answer the dramatic question. Will the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen conquer the forces of evil? Probably… Who cares. In Dark Knight we are made to care because the characters are engaging, and the conflicts within the story stem from those characters. We are given a wide array of human beings who cannot be easily stereotyped. Batman struggles with whether or not to give in to the demands of the Joker… Harvey Dent struggles with just how far he must go to bring about justice. Both men are faced with terrible loss, and the cost of their actions is collosal… and both handle it differently.

2) Killing off Characters: This has always been a weak point for me. I get very close to my characters and it is quite difficult for me to bear the idea of killing one off. Dave, on the other hand, is a character serial killer… Avatars run in terror when he begins writing a new tale because you never know when he’ll cut the threads of life to any of his characters. Literally, in the middle of acting improv exercises he has killed off characters that he’s developed for years before my eyes. One time it was such a shock, I actually burst into tears both in and out of character. Needless to say that character had to be brought back in a few flashbacks to soothe my tender psyche.

Consider, though, the brilliance of how the tool of killing off a character is used. In Dark Knight this does not just happen to subsidiary characters, but to leads that we are familiar with from the series… Some truly die, some we can’t be sure about. It’s very difficult to kill off a character that audiences have grown to love or have been drawn to and still leave them satisfied. Dark Knight pulls this off excellently, and it was not something we expected in the least.

3) Villains Don’t See Themselves As Such… Except…: It is a quintessential rule of writing any story with a villain that bad guys do not see themselves as megalomaniacal terrorists. The taste of evil is not a refreshing chocolate mousse to them. They truly feel they are right in their actions, and 99% of the time will not refer to themselves as a villain.

Dark Knight is truly one of the only films I have seen that both utilizes and breaks this rule, and still the story is completely believable (in Gotham at least). Bruce makes the same assumption any writer would: “Criminals are simple, Alfred. All you have to do is find out what they want…” is the general jist of it. Alfred, however, is not willing to underestimate the Joker and points out that, “Some individuals aren’t after anything logical… Some people just want to watch the world burn.”

Does the Joker see himself as a villain? Probably moreso than the average villain. Does he think what he wants is right? Absolutely… He’s a bizarrely confusing character. A man who can’t even get his own backstory straight. “A dog chasing cars… if I caught one I wouldn’t know what to do with it!”. Despite breaking the rule of ‘humanizing’ villains in many ways, The Joker is an excellent example of how this rule can be bent.

4) How to Inspire but not Preach: I reference this alot when I’m teaching Christian filmmaking or theatre, but its an honest fact that art never preached very well, drama doubly so. What drama does is it raises the right questions within the audience member, and if there’s an ethic, moral, or point you want the audience to walk away with at the end of your story, often the way to do it is by raising questions within them rather than telling them, “I’m right, you’re wrong, and if you don’t agree with that you’re EVIL!”

Batman handles this very well in both films. Consider the lesson Bruce has to learn about the difference between being the hero Gotham deserves and the one it needs? Of course life would be better for Bruce if he were in positive light with the police and locals, but the truly heroic act is that of allowing himself to be seen as a villain so the Joker will not win. Another excellent example is when Bruce is trapped in the moral conundrum of either throwing in the towel as Batman or watching the Joker butcher more citizens… The answer Alfred gives him is not a popular one in American culture: “Endure. They’ll hate you for it, but that is the purpose of Batman. He can be the outcast.” Or even consider the value Batman puts on life, where he will not even kill the Joker out of a misguided sense of self-righteousness. This is not something commonly seen in action films where people are normal slain like moths around a bug light.

Some may disagree with me on this, but The Dark Knight does an excellent job of giving the audience alot to walk away with without preaching it.

5) What did you walk away with?: I could go on all day, but for #5, I would like to know what you all walked away from this film with, specifically as a writer but otherwise is fine too. Chime in via comments!

In the meantime, watch as I make this pencil disappear…

First off, my apologies for the long gap in between posts. With a full-time schedule of film school classes kicking into high gear, I had to take some time to rest and form a battle-plan so as not to get wiped by the plethora of beastly assignments up ahead. I foresee some “Writing-on-a-manically-full-time-schedule” posts in the near future… 

The other cause of delay has been writing this particular piece. It’s been a doozy because it concerns one of my most quintessential philosophies on writing in any form: that good writing is a process of sculpting.

Yes, it is true writing could be compared to many other art forms. Writing could be described as painting a mosaic of images and emotions using words. It could be likened to weaving a tapestry of interlaying tales and characters. Heck, it could be compared to macramé if you took it far enough, but there’s a reason I specifically reference sculpting…

Sculpting is one of the only art forms where you take a chunk of material, mold it into a general form of what you’ve envisioned, then chip and slice bits off until you have a masterpiece… Whether you’re using a chainsaw or a chisel, it always works the same way. In my experience, this is the same way good writing works.

To explain this curious abstract, let’s start the idea stage where you know the story you want to tell (or the characters you want to bring to life), but don’t have anything written down yet, similar to the block of material used by a sculptor: clay, wood, ice, or if you’re like me… Playdough.

The next step in the process is molding your material into a general likeness of the thing you want to make. If I were sculpting, this would probably be a tiny Playdough version of Boba Fett, though at the molding stage he would probably look more like Cousin It after a tragic shaving accident. For the writer, this is your first draft. Some writers are more meticulous about their first drafts than others but speaking for myself and Dave, our first drafts can be likened to a newly bloomed garden riddled with animal crap. There are some nice patches, but in general, it stinks and needs some landscaping (not to mention driving off those accursed raccoons!). For those familiar with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and “No Plot, No Problem”, writers using that system are encouraged to force their way through their first draft with the purpose of completing the story arc. Rewriting is a completely separate process and that is where the real beauty beneath the beast starts to take form.

Back to my sculpting analogy, in order to turn my grotesque pile of green mush into the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy, I would need to add and remove small pieces as necessary. I’d need more specialized tools and more precision to get the details to show, like adding bits of other colored dough to make Boba’s helmet trimming, weapon belt, and braided Wookie scalps (ain’t he a great role model?). It would be a long, arduous process that would require patience, creativity, and far more attention to detail than I had in kindergarten. I’d also need to slice off a lot of excess dough. Such it is with rewriting.

Neil Gershenfeld once said, “Good books are never finished, just abandoned.” In the vast majority of cases, good writing does not necessarily happen in the first draft: good plot, good characters, and happy accidents can happen in this phase… but not necessarily good writing and good ‘story’. The definition of story I’m using is not the academic one, but rather one I picked up from playwright/television writer Craig Volk… Most people would say story is the series of events in a narrative. According to Volk’s definition this is plot, and from a writer’s perspective I agree heartily with this. Story on the other hand, is the thing that lives beyond walking away from the page or the screen. It’s the thing that engages you, the thing that stays within after the tale is over: as he puts it, it’s a commentary on the human condition.

Good story and the type of writing that keeps readers glued to the page or the screen happens beyond the first draft. It happens during the often painful and tedious rewriting process where criticism abounds, clichés must be smote like Balrogs, and writers must slay their ‘little darlings’ in the text. The writer who can push past draft after draft until they reach the stage where the original vision starts become clear before their eyes is a very dangerous person in the realm of storytelling.

To close, here are some tips I often use when rewriting a project. When writer’s block hits or I’ve taken a long break from a text, I most often jump back into it by rewriting and editing. It helps refamiliarize myself with the story and characters, and improves the overall writing in the process. The first few rewrites on a project I’ll generally do on the computer (this is a much easier process with a screenplay than it is with a novel for me). Once I run out of things to edit on the screen, I’ll print out a copy of the manuscript (if you can score a FedEx/Kinko’s discount card, this becomes a lot more cost friendly) and do a series of extremely thorough re-reads wherever I can… At work, in the gym (the elliptical is one of the more editor friend machines I found), on the light rail, on vacation, etc. Form a proofreading and editing system that works for you while being honest about issues in the text. For big projects, I get creative and even do graphic design for the binder I keep the manuscript in. On a normal project, I do at least ten times more rereading and editing than I do actual writing of text. It’s both an extremely painful and extremely rewarding process (like learning how to do the splits).

Once I’ve exhausted all the brain cells I can spare editing a piece, I take my little duckling and have to send it into the big frightening world of other readers. Finding reliable and willing proofreaders is hard, and distinguishing courteous praise from reliable criticism is sometimes difficult, so try to find readers who will tear your manuscript apart like a Doberman on a pork roast. You always have the option to chew up the meat and spit out the bones of what criticism you receive, but the more trustworthy outside input you have to listen to, often the better. I happen to be lucky enough to have the toughest proofreader on the planet as my mother… If you don’t have one in your family, seek them wherever you can.

The writer who can treat their projects like a sculptor treats the statue takes an extra step beyond just tolerating the process of editing to facing the issues, often self-made, within a text. The storyteller who can master pride and fear to chip off and add what’s necessary to the text takes a step beyond a casual scribbler of words to the realm of an artist of story.

No, this is not a motivational essay on following your dream to write a novel so uber, Random House shows up at your door salivating at your Nike’s begging to give you a publishing contract… There’s enough of that fluff in the blogosphere already.

This first tip of the week is about the value of learning to track and remember your dreams… and getting enough sleep to have them! In order to retain everything a writer has learned the day before, eight hours of sleep is the magic number. This is also the amount necessary to fully milk the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) cycle of sleep for all its worth, for it’s in that curious Xanadu that dreams occur. Because writers usually have to be champions of that old adage, “Burning the candle at both ends”, we’re often notoriously bad at accomplishing this.

Throughout my life, I’ve had a particularly active dreamscape to keep track of. During the course of my nighttime excursions I have been chased by a Velociraptor, escaped from the Andersonville prison camp, dueled with Boba Fett, jumped out of an airplane (and hit the ground!), breathed underwater, fallen in love, gotten married to the wrong man, solved murders, been mauled by a tiger, seen my car drive off a cliff by itself, dueled an army of ninjas, and have outwitted a ravenous giant spider named “Krinklebumm”… and that’s the short, short, short list (I didn’t even include my swim in the waters of Gondor!). It cannot be described how much my imagination and my storytelling would have suffered had I not valued these otherworldly experiences. 

While I’m not as thorough as some who journal every single dream they can recall, I can safely say that some of my best story ideas have come about as a result of dreams. One entire epic project of mine started because of a very elaborate dream in which I was arrested and broke out of prison. A Hero Story absolutely has scenes that are dream inspired, and for the short-story challenged, dreams are great candy to feed smaller works. If you’re very heavily invested in a project, it’s also likely it will start seeping into your dreamlife.

The best way I have found to recall dreams is to wake up slowly enough to be able to contemplate them. I can remember plenty of times I’ve been at the tail end of an amazing dream only to have Dave show up ready to start the day, whack me with a pillow, and unceremoniously shove me back into real life. Almost every time I’m awakened like that, I forget what I dreamed no matter how vivid it might have been. This is usually followed by me putting him in the crippler crossface for ruining my fudge sundae of inspiration (or a tombstone piledriver if I have really bad PMS).

Once you recall a dream, write it down. Whether you keep a journal next to the bed or just hurry to your laptop to rapid fire it into a Word document, if a noteworthy dream comes along, put it on a page somewhere. I consider anything that had a plot, a particular image that struck a chord, or that I can remember in entirety to be noteworthy. Yes, I have looked back on these and in some cases, I have no idea what was going on, but other times they have lead to stories I could have never concieved of otherwise.

The long and short of it?:

1) Get enough sleep to not only refresh your mind, but also to dream in the first place.

2) Train yourself to remember and recall dreams, and wake up slowly if possible.

3) Using whichever medium you prefer, keep track of noteworthy dreams. 

In a world where imagination is too often shunned as a childhood indulgence, cultivate your dreamlife. It’s a key part of the writer’s toolbox.

Cheers!

As I said… Titles rejected one day make great section headers later! “A Fish for your Ear” is a new section of the blog designed to share great articles and advice that I’ve tripped across elsewhere on the web!

The first of these juicy morsels is a new post at FreelanceWritingGigs.com for writers still working on getting their first paying gig. It can be a difficult and foreboding task, and Deb from FWJ shares some excellent advice in her article, “Landing your First Freelance Job- Where to Begin?”. She covers everything from what to do about a blank resume to where to search for that golden nugget of a first gig. Do enjoy and thanks to the folks at FWJ for their contributions to the writing community!

        During the course of my time in film school, I’ve taken a number of writing classes and workshops, and one universal truth has become apparent to me during that time: students suck at titles. 

        I cannot count how many classes and script workshops I’ve sat in where a person has a great story, great dialogue, interesting characters, and the brilliant title of, “Untitled”, “Document1″, “Working Title”, or “Screenwriting Project”. Is it just laziness or is it a backdoor the great and terrible writer’s block has crept its filthy tentacles surreptitiously through?

        There are certain titles that just fall into your lap. Character names are sometimes like this, and when a character’s name ends up in the title you kill two wasps with one spray (Wasps are Satan’s confetti). Persephone worked out like that: I actually came up with the title and the character before I’d fully smoothed out what the story was. The Hobbit is a more famous example. It all started because J.R.R. Tolkien wrote down on a page, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

        Other titles are happy accidents. A Hero Story (my current adventure-satire project) is a title that came about due to the normal laziness that usually couch-potatoes hand in hand with title creation… I knew my characters and the story I wanted to tell, but I couldn’t think of a good title so I named the file “HeroStory.doc”. It wasn’t until a year later when I realized I needed to pick out a proper title that I found my filename actually satisfied what I was looking for: the story is a simple tale of a hero, your standard knight in shining armor and damsel in distress affair (only my knight has no armor and is a filth-a-phobe and my damsel is a narcoleptic who speaks a dead language). Simplicity is what I wanted, and after considering my other options, I stuck with it.

        However, most titles are not happy accidents or falling flowerpots of inspiration. More often than not, the amount of work that an author has to put into finding the right title for their project can be mind-numbing. Fishing with Crossbows was such a case, and I’ll be using the example of how I found the right title for this writer’s blog to walk through my process for finding a title. If you finish this and are hungry for more, I’d suggest picking up this month’s edition of Writer’s Journal Magazine, there’s an excellent article on picking the right title. You can also subscribe to that publication using the Amazon.com link at the bottom of the post.

        When I first decided to do a writer’s blog, I thought my woes over that subject of titling would be sparse when I came up with the witty name, “The Writer’s Blogk”… Unfortunately, about fifty other writers on Google had thought the same thing. Overused titles, or previously-claimed titles are usually not so good, so I had to delve into the long painful process of name-fishing. It goes something like this:

1) Begin with the end in mind: If you don’t know what the soul/purpose/’story’ of your piece is, don’t bother with the title yet. “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” is how the Bible puts it and that definitely applies to writing. Toni Morrison once said, “I always know the ending; that’s where I start.” While this applies to the actual craft of writing, it definitely speaks to choosing a title because your title should capture the heart of your entire piece.

For Fishing with Crossbows, I knew I wanted to do a blog for writers, and I needed a title that said something about writing that could relate to my perspective on the form.

In short? Identify the cojones of your project first, then work on a title.

2) Start B.S.ing: That’s right… Brainstorming! Like the noble chimpanzee, start flinging crap onto the page. Look wherever you have to for inspiration and when an idea hits, write it down no matter how silly or cheesetastic it sounds. You may find that many rejected titles now will make titles or metaphors elsewhere!

When I had to pick a title for what-would-become-Fishing with Crossbows, my bookshelf was a major source of brainstorming. Being the blog would have a literary element to it, I considered referencing one of the well-known books that had inspired me. From this category of the brainstorm came:

-”All that is Gold does not Glitter” (a quote from The Lord of the Rings)

-”Taming the Dragon” (a reference to Les Miserables)

-”Silver Candlesticks” (another Les Mis reference)

-”The Raven is Hoarse” (a famous Lady Macbeth quote)

-”Little but Fierce” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

-”Shards of *something rhyming with Narcil*” (an obscure Lord of the Rings reference)

-”Fahrenheit 1984″ (A duel reference to Fahrenheit 451 and 1984)

-”See it, Smell it, Touch it, Kiss it” (A film reference to The Producers)

-”Nowhere and Back Again (Another Lord of the Rings one)

-”Where and Back Again?” (The runt cousin of the previous entry)

        When I prodded Dave (who was trying to level up his new and ruggedly-hot hunter in Lord of the Rings Online), he challenged me to consider whether or not serious or satire was what I was going for. When I concluded silliness would be carrying a lot of weight, I turned to my favorite satire of all time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. From that chunk of B.S. came:

-”Towels and Peanuts”

-”Don’t Panic”

-”Mostly Harmless”

-”May I Stick this Fish in your Ear?”

        While these were all great (though ‘all’ is a rather strong word), I needed to look deeper. I searched through old stories, extra hard drives, famous quotes, video games, and abandoned journals, coming up with these specimens for my title pitre-dish:

-”Heroes and ______” (the blank was filled with everything from “Visigoths” to “meatbags”)

-”Unlikely Heroes”

-”Musing of an Evil Hand Puppet”

-”Trudgery”

-”Circus of Personality”

-”I’m Revan” (one must have played Knights of the Old Republic to understand this one)

-”Geese and Hand-Puppets”

And my personal favorite:

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to being Miserables’ while defeating The Lord of the Rings at Fahrenheit 1984 with the Phantom of Monte Cristo.”

        The absolute last name added to the list was “Fishing with Crossbows”, and it had only come about because as I was searching my brain’s personal Tivo, I recalled a hilarious episode of Man vs. Wild where Bear Grylls was in the Amazon rainforest. He had been having a rather miserable time due to having been, for the first time ever, unable to start a fire, and having built an elaborate bamboo ladder to cross the river that was shattered before use. He was getting hungry and had found a small pool that had become home to a few piranhas. He fashioned himself a bow and some arrows, climbed into the pool (apparently piranhas are chickens when they aren’t in massive schools) and just started firing away into the pond. Supposedly the natives fished that way, but it just seemed rather silly to me and Dave who were watching with keen interest. Much to our surprise, he caught a piranha! What made it even more hilarious is how instinctively vicious the little guy was even impaled on the tip of an arrow. Bear actually fed an entire reed to the sharp-toothed little terd…

        The image stuck and the metaphor made sense: when you’re fishing, you can use a pole and catch fish the same ol’ dull indirect way by fooling them with bait or shiny things… or you can enter the happy land of overkill, cut straight to the point, and shoot your fish right out of the pond (and what cooler way is there to shoot something than with a crossbow?). Is the latter harder? Absolutely, since it requires more skill… but how much more unique is it? And how many more fish can you catch when you’ve mastered it? In writing, you can write the same standard way you’ve always been taught… or you can master the difficult skill of cutting straight to the chase and writing something unique that could only come from you: something that is quality and sticks with the reader after they walk away. It’s harder, but in the end it pays off.

        However, despite how much I liked the title, I still wasn’t in love yet. With my B.S. pile down on the page, I moved onto the next step…

        3) Cut the Fat: While the fruits of brainstorming can be a glorious (or horrifying) site to gaze upon once they’re on the page, the prize is not yet reached. The next step for me was cutting all the excess and narrowing the list down to the juicy bits of tenderloin I could actually chew. The first run of this was done by “grading” each of the names. For most people this would probably be a 1-5 type system. For me it was done with W, M, J, B, Um, and X: Woot, Maybe, Joke, Blech, Um-weird, and NO. The lackluster names and overly-used literary references had to go (Mostly Harmless has been done to death), as did the ones that had nothing to do with writing (”I’m Darth Revan! Me!”). Through repeated runs of the MUmBJXW system (I should trademark that…), the list was narrowed down to these succulent morsels:

-”Heroes and Hijackings” (a reference to the many times obscure characters have hijacked my stories… unfortunately, with my small amount of Middle-Eastern heritage this could get me on the FBI watch list)

-”May I stick this Fish in your Ear?” (recognizable to satire fans, off-beat… but too darn long for a blog title)

-”Nowhere and Back Again” (I’m a Tolkien junkie and I play too much LotRO)

-”A Fish for your Ear” (my rather sad attempt to salvage the previous Hitchhiker’s reference)

-”Fahrenheit 1984″ (catchy, but a bit macabre…)

-”Fishing with Crossbows”

        Then came the hardest part… picking the winner!

        4) Choose your Weapon! : Actually, it wasn’t that hard. If you use process of elimination, often the title will choose itself. Fishing with Crossbows did exactly that: it made the most sense, was unique, tied into the theme of the blog, and was short enough not to knock itself off potential blogrolls.

        Is there more that goes into choosing a title? Yes. Are there other methods? Absolutely, this is just an example of a method that has worked for me on multiple occasions. Some final title-choosing advice:

-Don’t be too ‘cute’. It’s a title, not a Pomeranian.

-Don’t use clichés or be cliché, except with extreme caution… There, dar be dragons.

-Make sure your title ties in with the genre of what you’re doing. Don’t have an absurdist title if you’re writing a serious non-fiction piece.

-Don’t pull a “Temple of Doom”… What I mean is don’t cut the heart of your piece out and put it on fiery display. My screenwriting teacher has nailed me multiple times for this… an example was a short script I did about a prostitute who is given a rose to remind her of her worth. I thought I’d done well by calling it, “Battered Roses” but I got busted for my title… I had torn out the heart of my piece and put it on display, giving away too much and actually taking away from the film itself. Another example is using your key line as a title… If “Gladiator” had been called, “What we do in Life Echoes in Eternity”, it would have lost something. This is shaky ground, so if you suspect this might be going on with your title, ask around and get some outside opinions. This is a hard error to identify sometimes.

-Make it interesting… Something that makes me want to click your link or pick up your book. A great example is a fellow-funny writer’s blog “Screw you!“. It definitely catches the eye.

-Watch Bowfinger. If you ever give your film a title like “Chubby Rain” and it’s not a parody, I will hunt you down and beat you with a flyswatter.

        For more info, I’d definitely suggest looking through the article in this month’s, “Writer’s Journal”. As for chime-ins, what methods do you go through to pick a title when it at first eludes you? Got any stories about title mishaps or successes? Share ‘em in the comments section… Cheers!

No, seriously, I’m not kidding. I believe it was January of 2005 that I got a most interesting email from my mother. A woman of many talents, she completed a B.A. in history when I was growing up, owns almost every book on the Civil War printed in the late 90’s, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in a very specific and complicated branch of neuropsychology that I cannot pronounce… or spell. She’s also a fellow online-gaming aficionado. Seriously, can anyone else here say their mother uses the word “ganked”?

Anyways, one of her more interesting hobbies throughout the years has been the study of our family’s genealogies (no we’re not Mormons and I don’t know anything about Utah except there’s skiing and a lot of salt). Over the course of her studies, she had found a number of curious individuals in our ancestry: James Marion Jordan, a famous officer of the Civil War… The Montegues, who from my understanding of Shakespeare were rather like the Hatfields and McCoys of Elizabethan times… and Simon De Montfort, the man who some consider the father of democracy and was slain at the manipulations of Edward the Longshanks (a very nasty fellow who did, in fact, have quite long shanks and shank many people).

This pursuit of hers was, in truth, only of cursory interest to me until I got this particular email…

To fully understand the impact of the knowledge I was about to receive, it must be known my dad’s side of the family has always been proud of its Irish descent. After all, we share a surname with the most brash Irishman in Hollywood! Despite this, I’d always had a soft spot for Scotland. When we visited that fine and favorite country of mine, I mastered the accent, climbed the Wallace monument, and got intrusively pulled out of line and searched with my mother at the Edinburgh tattoo (we apparently looked like terrorists compared to the ginger-haired, pasty hoard…).

Thus it was to my everlasting glee that my mother informed me a mistake had been made in Grandma’s genealogy. Apparently, the proud Irish Donnell family were not descendants of any O’Donnells… They were descendants of McDonnells.

With this newfound information, mom traced this line back as far as she could, through McDonnells, McDonalds, Stewarts and…

Bruces.

She discovered my dad and I are direct descendants of the first king of Scotland: Robert the Bruce.

I stared at the screen… Not only had my dream of being transformed into a semi-Scot been realized, but… Queen? Duchess? Estates in Stirling? I could finally make Dave wear a kilt?!

Unfortunately, as is the bane of all Scots, the Bloody English struck again… Thanks to wars, betrayals, overturnings, and the occasional prince being chucked out a castle window, the only crown I would inherit was the ability to point out in the middle of Braveheart, “I’m that guy’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-etc.-etc.-etc. granddaughter!”… At which point popcorn is usually flicked at me and I’m told to shut it and watch the film.

So, I’m not Scottish royalty… I’m a struggling writer and full-time student who has been in college too long and, like many of my storytelling kin, often finds life to be a cruel mistress who dishes out stern slaps to the skull whenever I try to refuse her insistencies for my craft… Not that I would have a mistress because that would affirm the rude commentary of many of my long-forgotten high school classmates who thought my love of Star Wars and desire to emulate Jackie Chan indicated confusion about my sexual orientation…

What’s my point? There are a great many disappointments, pitfalls, and “woulda/coulda’s” that can dishearten and demoralize even the most passionate writers. These hurdles are the puppy-kibble that writer’s block thrives upon, and many times have I been that nasty behemoth’s helpless chew toy.

I did not make this blog just as a means of publishing something on my own, or as a means of entertaining my friends and colleagues with musings from my friend, “The Evil Hand Puppet” (a spawn of writer’s block, boredom, and a very dull lunch break my senior year of high school).

I decided to make “Fishing with Crossbows” because writing is hard. There are writers who are blessed with the talents to launch into the freelancing or fiction industry, and there are some who have struggled across the years just trying to build up the stamina to finish the works we’ve poured our souls into– to give writer’s block a stout punch to the schnozz. This blog helps me as a writer by helping other writers: sharing the knowledge I’ve learned along my career (never let anyone tell you it’s otherwise, even if the only thing you’ve ever published is a book report that got you a sticker of a turtle saying, “You’re a Trooper!”) and by giving my fellow struggling storytellers something to laugh and smile about by sharing my own discoveries and disasters. It’s a means to give some inspiration, fun, and hope to my comrades in this amazing field. As J.R.R. Tolkein believed, I see storytellers as created in the image of a Creator, a group that adds beauty, introspection, and depth to this often unpleasant world.

So do enjoy this blog as it grows, progresses, and turns into a tale of its own. Expect a fair deal of silliness but not so much fluff as to cause cottonmouth… There be no chicken soup for the soul here, no watery broth to sooth the sickened belly of your muse. Expect meat and Tabasco sauce for your inner writer from this blog, a Texas BBQ buffet’s worth… Cheers.