Ask the Author: John L. Clemmer
Answered Questions (5)
John L. Clemmer
I've got some non-fiction on my list, that I've been saving till I completed writing The Power of the Dhin. In the evenings before bed I'm reading a bit of Evan Currie and Neal Asher. (Big surprise there, no?)
John L. Clemmer
I haven't had to deal much at all with it. The one time I felt it might be happening, I used the following technique: Open a blank document (wait, what?) and just start writing free association bordering-on-nonsense-sentences. Just keep going for a few minutes. That warms things up nicely. Soon enough I found I was more than ready to open the draft I was supposed to be working on, and dive in.
It's like a game I played when younger, where you would write a sentence, then hand it off to a friend, and they'd write one sentence.
It's like a game I played when younger, where you would write a sentence, then hand it off to a friend, and they'd write one sentence.
John L. Clemmer
I'm in the process of editing The Power of the Dhin, the sequel to my first novel. Beta readers will have a go at it next.
John L. Clemmer
I found that my clearest thinking was early in the morning while having my coffee. The initial story line came out via a series of conversations between characters. I didn't have the entire plot worked out at the beginning, I let the conversations suggest the next plot development. At least at first!
When a new character role came up as a participant in the conversations, I'd take some time to imagine what that person was like--what their motivations were, their attitude toward the other characters, a bit of their life story that made them the way they were.
From there, I'd find a "direction" came to mind for that sub-plot and how it guided the overarching story line. So, I'd stop, and think about what that meant for the tale. The next step I'd take notes and ask myself questions--and based on my reaction to the questions I would shape how the story went. So the first series of those had tons of possible outcomes, which narrowed as I answered more and more of my own questions based on how I liked or disliked what those choices meant for the work as a whole.
Next came the refinements to make the conversations and narrative descriptions match my decisions, and that guided the next plot development, and so on.
The key take-away for my process is that I didn't know the middle or the ending from the very beginning!
When a new character role came up as a participant in the conversations, I'd take some time to imagine what that person was like--what their motivations were, their attitude toward the other characters, a bit of their life story that made them the way they were.
From there, I'd find a "direction" came to mind for that sub-plot and how it guided the overarching story line. So, I'd stop, and think about what that meant for the tale. The next step I'd take notes and ask myself questions--and based on my reaction to the questions I would shape how the story went. So the first series of those had tons of possible outcomes, which narrowed as I answered more and more of my own questions based on how I liked or disliked what those choices meant for the work as a whole.
Next came the refinements to make the conversations and narrative descriptions match my decisions, and that guided the next plot development, and so on.
The key take-away for my process is that I didn't know the middle or the ending from the very beginning!
John L. Clemmer
In 2014 I was talking with a friend, discussing some short "science fiction stories" I'd thought up ideas for. I was also watching quite a few cosmology videos on YouTube. Iain M. Banks had died, and I noted that since there weren't going to be any more works by him, that the genre was going to need new blood. So then I mused, "why not write a book myself"?
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