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This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. It follows on from the old one, which is now full. An index of topics from old and new can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. And to suggest topics! |
| How Did NaNoWriMo Help Writers For those unaware, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has ended. It was an online challenge to write a complete work of 50,000+ words in the month of November. While the organisation itself had issues, the concept was a good one. And you can really challenge yourself – in 2025 I managed to churn out around 162,800 words in the month. So it is good to see that WdC is carrying on the idea; where I live, we left NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago because of the way we felt we were treated and yet we are also doing it again on our own this year. So why is it so good? Here’s a list of reasons: It is a good excuse to actually start writing So many people say they “want to write a book” but always manage to find excuses not to. Doing that first book as a challenge is a way to get started writing without pressure. What you get from winning is a feeling of satisfaction, and if you don’t succeed, at least you’ve started something, so it is not a waste of time. To get that kick-start, it is a non-confrontational way of going about it. There is a sense of accountability This leads directly onto the idea of accountability. If you have a goal pre-set for you, then you are accountable for achieving that goal. It becomes even more accountable when you tell everyone you know this is what you are doing in November, and if you are a member of a group doing it (like NaNoWriMo), then there are a bunch of other writers keeping you accountable. It is harder to give it up when others are there encouraging you. Further, there is personal accountability. This is a personal challenge. If you cheat by plagiarising or using AI to write your work, then you are only cheating yourself. Sure, you might feel good about “completing” the work, but if you had to cheat to do it, have you really completed the challenge? No, of course not. But, in the end, you are only cheating yourself and if you can live with that, then, well, good on ya. Congratulations. I guess your next task is going to be stealing candy from a baby. It develops a personal writing community Again, this leads to the next point – community. Writing is a very lonely pursuit. Very few writers are collaborative, and most don’t have people they can talk to about the problems that arise. The idea of NaNoWriMo put that sense of community into writing, so writers could ask one another questions, bounce ideas from each other, and that encouragement mentioned previously was there. Yes, it is also something about a site like WdC, but this was for a wider writing community. It is a good start to develop positive writing habits Many professional writers will say that it is a good habit to get into writing every day, or to treat writing as a job and write five or six days a week. For me, it’s every day, at least 250 words of personal (non-job-related) writing. But for those who are not used to writing longer works or writing something to completion, NaNoWriMo gets you into the every day writing habit, which you need to do in order to complete it. It makes you feel like you are an actual writer This all leads to this next point: if you manage to complete the 50k word work – even if it takes you until the middle of December, say – then you have done something very, very few people have done. So many say they are going to write a book and never do; well, you now have. There is something about this that says, “I am an actual writer!” There is no pressure And the final point is that there is no real pressure. The only pressure, such as it is, comes internally. You put the pressure on yourself to complete the novel. But there is no publisher, editor or agent waiting for the work; there is no real audience clamouring for the work; it has not cost you money, just time. If you don’t complete the book, shame, but no pressure. If you don’t complete the book for 2 years, does it matter? You still completed the book! All pressure is internal. That’s the benefits I see of writing to the NaNoWriMo dictates. While the organisation may have fallen – and the reasons are many, involving child writers and forum mods, treatment of international groups and writers, supporting AI use, etc – the concept that started it is still as strong today as it ever was. I see it as beneficial, especially for beginner writers of the long form, or for more experienced writers who want a challenge or to break out of a writing doldrums. And we encourage it here at WdC. So why not give it a go! |
| Square-Cube Law This is a little thing for people writing about oversized creatures, in a horror, fantasy or even science-fiction setting, especially on Earth. The square-cube law is how things change as they grow larger. To be really nerd-tastic: When a thing is increased by a certain degree or magnitude (call it x), the surface area and cross-section area are the square of this multiplier (x2) and the mass is the cube (x3) of the multiplier. So, let’s say we have a thing that triples in size. The surface area and cross-section area are 32 or 9 times the original, and the weight is 33, or 27 times original. So… let’s take a practical example. We have a 6’ tall man who weights 200lb. Through magic, he grows to three times his size – 18’ tall. But that means his surface area would be 9 times what it was, the cross sectional area of his musculature would have to be 9 times what it was in order to carry the new mass… and this new weight would be 200*27 or 5400lbs. So what? you might ask? The problem is that in living creatures, strength is pretty close to being related to area of support, likewise the power that can be exerted; that means the strength of a muscle or bone is proportional to the area of the cross-section of the muscle or bone, not the volume. This means, simply, if you triple the size of a creature but it maintains its same shape or dimensions, you end up with a being that does not have the 9 times the muscle cross-section, and hence strength, it needs in order to move 27 times the mass or weight! In fact, the legs probably couldn’t carry it if they maintained the same proportions, and the creature would collapse in agony on broken limbs. By the way, this also applies to mechanical machinery. It is worse for flying creatures. Triple the size again and we get an increase in the power of the wings of 9 times based on the same crass-sectional area increase, but now it is carrying 27 times the mass. In fact, at this sort of level, the creature would probably no longer be able to fly. Now, look, of course stories can have larger creatures, but they would have to change shape. A giant human would need a body that was much stockier and thicker, looking very out of proportion when compared to a normal human. A flyer would need very hollow bones to reduce the amount of excess mass suddenly thrown onto the being, and that would make the body’s structure weaker. That would also mean it could not carry x times the amount of weight. Or maybe not carry a person, for example. However, there is a bonus. If something is shrunk in size, say to a third of their original size, then they will have proportionally 9 times the strength. Now, this is all well and good when looking purely at biomechanics. But biochemistry is an issue as well. The change in size means metabolism also changes, how much heat is given off in relation to body changes, the amount of food needed to maintain heat or energy changes, the amount of oxygen needed to supply energy changes. These are deeply scientific concepts and make giant animals just seem insane. Hang on! you cry, interrupting me. What about whales? Well, see buoyancy is related to density not mass, and so animals that live in the water can grow much larger because there is not the stress on supporting limbs. But they still need to eat a lot. This is why skyscrapers could not be built without mass-produced steel. Double the size of a building and you have 8 times the mass, and wood and brick cannot hold that sort of stress. There needed to be a stronger material. Not only that, but the ground supporting them has to be able to handle something 8 times the weight! This would also apply to kaiju (like Godzilla) or even giant robots fighting them (like in Pacific Rim). So, yeah, this is something ignored all too often but draws people with some knowledge occasionally out of the story. Physics be damned, I guess, when a story is there to be told. |
| Author Voice Ever notice how some stories you read and you think, “Hey, that sounds like John Smith wrote it,” and a couple of years later you discover that, yes, John Smith was using a pseudonym. This is what happened to Stephen King when he tried to be Richard Bachman to stop swamping the book-stores with new releases under his own name. It did not take long for people to realise that, although darker, they were Stephen King works. Likewise, a book was released a year after Patrick White died, under his name. This was 1990 and he was a beloved Australian author and Nobel Laureate. But it did not take long before long-term readers thought something was amiss. It did not read like a White book. It seemed to be a pastiche and while the real author was never identified publicly, the book was withdrawn. This is what is called a “writer’s voice.” Now, many writers start with an author they admire, and their writing mimics that voice. It is so common that many editors can pick who a beginner writer’s favourite author might be. But, over time, you develop your own voice, and write like you, not a second-rate famous author. Of course, not everyone grows out of that and this is often because they deliberately stay in the pastiche lane. That is their choice. However, it should be said that not every author develops a voice that is recognisable. And that is perfectly fine. But it is always good to develop your own voice, especially if you want to take your writing to the next level. How do you do that? There are two things you need to do: 1) Read in multiple genres and read multiple authors so you are not influenced by just one; & 2) Write as much as you can and finish it, no matter how “good” you think it is. But – and this is important – you still might not develop your own distinct “writer’s voice.” A lot of online people tell would-be writers that everyone develops their own voice, and that is true to a certain extent. But having an own voice might not be obvious to readers. It does not mean you are a “bad writer”, or that you don’t have a voice, it just means it might not be as distinctive as some others. And don’t worry – Tom Clancy is recognised as a writer who does not have a distinctive voice, so much so that it is difficult to tell which books he wrote and which were written under his name, even before his 2013 death. It clearly does not affect sales or popularity! As for me? Well, that’s why I am writing this. I received an email from a former friend who asked about my pen-name. I asked why he would think that. Cut/paste: Mate it reads like you. Everything you write sounds the same and I can even hear it in your voice like your telling a story at a bonfire. So, apparently, I have a voice. I hope you all find yours, too. |
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