Meet the Committee: Chris Yee (Treasurer)

Posted on July 30, 2015 Updated on August 26, 2015

Chris Yee is our Treasurer. He has studied animation and worked as a game developer. Currently he tutors at the Yoobee School of Design, and for the Imagination Station (Lego!). He also, of course, writes!

Chris, can you please tell us a little more about yourself (and your creative endeavours)?
As mentioned, I teach Film, Video and Animation at ACG Yoobee School of Design, though to say my creative endeavours are restricted to motion graphics is a bit of a misnomer. Storytelling for me has always been an ongoing endeavour. I would probably go so far to say that it is something humans have had since the dawn of time, but I digress. While perhaps being something I’ve been doing for a long time, it was by no means a successful one as yet. I am quite bad at coming to conclusions, finishing off the story in a satisfactory way. I’ve read various literature in my youth, ranging from Sci-Fi notables such as Carl Sagan and Michael Crichton, to really cheesy titled books such as ‘Only You Can Save Mankind’, which ironically may have been my first introduction to Terry Pratchett. When the only storytelling ended up being in the form of mostly schoolwork, which at the time to me felt greatly restrictive, it took a back seat from the remainder of my studies. Then, sometime in 1999, I was approached by someone on ICQ (yes, this was THE chat messenger in those days), offering what was best described as text based role playing in the vein of a Star Trek theme. Intrigued at this I signed up, going through the processes and protocols of IRC (Internet Relay Chat, effectively real time forum chat rooms) and just fell in love with it. It was essentially being an actor, a screenplay-writer and a director all at the same time. Improvisation was key in being able to work with the stories created by the person in charge of running the Sim (short for Simulation). For a number of years I forged lifelong friendships and somewhat improved my ability to tell stories in a dynamic atmosphere. This real time, present tense scriptwriting eventually moved on to a past tense prose as it moved to a non real time format which has pushed my motivation to write in this way. A few years on I had become intrigued at the growing market of digital film-making, applying and studying at Natcoll Design Technology (now Yoobee School of Design) in 2006. Studies into the practical application of storytelling in a audiovisual medium helped me gain an understanding of how these aspects enhance written media in general, pushing me further to create fun and engaging stories. My road to writing has been a rocky and tumultuous one, but I still keep going with the help of friends and family who support my endeavour, and while I still regard this as a casual activity, I know it will lead to something greater.

Game development was an amazing experience. While I was brought on solely as an Artist, I moved up to the role of Technical Artist, in that I had to deal with technical and programming issues to ensure that the art side of things were consistent in the vision of the game producer. If not, then I’d find ways to get it working. Problem solving and analytical processes were something I was known for, and typically aren’t traits a creative artist possesses initially. It was sad to move on from this, but it has lead to other opportunities and can be something I can always return to.

Recently, at least this year of 2015 I had been approached to teach Stop Motion movies using Lego for the Imagination Station based in Christchurch. This was quite an engaging endeavour as it put two of my favourite things together (Film and Lego) to help kids of all ages explore storytelling aspects in a visual format as well as teaching them to understand some technical aspects of film-making. While teaching at Yoobee has now taken up the time I typically had for teaching at the Imagination Station, this has expanded significantly in teaching material with others taking up the mantle and I fully expect it to continue amazingly in the future.

How does telling a story via visual media (such as animation) differ from telling a story via written media?
In what ways are they similar?
The way that visual media communicates ideas and concepts lies in its delivery. While written media communicates various ideas over time, movies for instance provide additional depth to it in the form of an audiovisual sensory experience. In a lot of ways this can condense a lot of the material given; a lengthy descriptive exploration in a book can be represented by a brief scene of imagery in a movie. A conversation between characters is now enhanced by their body language, their tone of voice, and the cinematography. In short, this application of storytelling opens up a whole new realm of artistic expression. Structurally, they are no different; they more often than not have a three act structure, with inciting incidents, rising tension, a climax, falling tension, and denouement. These are the core aspects that make up a good story in any form and will most likely never change.

When writing for the visual, how do you portray a character’s personality?
Personality aspects in a visual medium can, at base level show up in their expressions, their body language and typically how they compose themselves in any given situation, as from a film-makers perspective, actors have to be able to portray any personality the writing and direction call for. Their appearance, clothing etc can be great visual indicators of their base personality, but that’s all surface and in most cases can only communicate where they’ve been. Who they really are, their past, their experience goes so much deeper.

Good thing though, when indicating in a script you can actually say ‘Bob is sad’. It’s up to the actor or animator to interpret this based on the context and scene and express these emotions accordingly via body language and facial expression. Scriptwriters have to be as concise as possible as they cannot fill the script up with endless description. The only section you can go to town on is Dialogue.

What genres do you prefer to work in? Who/what are your inspirations?
Science fiction has always been my staple, but I have been toying with other genres to see if I could do them. Two Science Fiction authors that I’ve been a fan of for a long time are Peter David and Dan Abnett. They write in a way that feels real, as in they’re not all super human types, just normal people thrust into a particular situation and deal with it accordingly, be it war, politics or the pawns of gods. For Fantasy, I still have my sizeable collection of Terry Pratchett. The dry humour is what caught me, and following along with the vein of ‘ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations’, I’ve been more interested in the Nightwatch story arcs, as well as other stories based in the City of Ankh Morpork.

Can you tell us a little about your writing processes/habits?
If you ask any writer, they will typically say they work in complete isolation, absolute quiet and zero distractions. I can work just fine with two of those, and ignore the distractions, unless something really interesting is being discussed. By that point however, the writing time has been sunk but it is often not without knowledge gained. I much prefer writing in the company of others, preferably other writers so as not to leave others in a non communicative state. Noise of all sorts, whether random music, cafe banter, or even a bustling airport terminal, I can easily zone all these sounds out to a indecipherable hum. However, I require these random noises, possibly to occupy my auditory senses so that the rest of my brain can focus, akin to distracting the attention starved child so that some amount of work can be done within an allotted time.

I will say that Scrivener has helped with my organising of my story materials immensely. For those that don’t know, Scrivener is a piece of writing software that aids in providing structure to various projects. I don’t spend too long on this process at the start, but it does help keep story, research and other bits & pieces separate, whilst at the same time having them easily accessible for reference.

And of course, nothing starts the process better than a steaming cup of fresh coffee.

How do you go about creating the worlds that your stories are set in?
Worlds, strangely enough, are one of the first things I start creating as it helps me understand what sort of events and characters will exist. In most cases, at least to date anyway, I create worlds that work for humans as well as any other races and/or alien life forms. With this in mind, a traditional Earth type, terrestrial world works. If this is early on in the story arc, then visualising set pieces to fit the story works for me as a lot of the world isn’t fully formed at this point, so I can be as flexible as I need to be if they help move the story forward. But as I expand the story, I develop town names, cities, nations, politics and so on. These things which I set in place, I make note of in my research files so that my world can remain consistent the more I reveal about it. Whether I describe an entire mountain range for the sake of blowing it up (and seeding plot points for later stories), developing an industrial society, or simply describing the onset of a magical infection that can transform life into something more terrifying, I take great care in cataloguing and integrating these moments and changes as the stories progress.

What advice do you have for anyone who might wish to create their own short animation, game or book trailer?
Have a plan. A good story, while having at minimum an outline, can be as flexible and random as anything. However the technical aspects that go behind the construction process of telling said story has to follow a good, solid plan if there is a deadline to meet. From concept to storyboarding, visual cues and even interactive prompts help guide and give direction to the material, so that all aspects are cohesive. With games, you take on board the story elements and integrate them smoothly with the gameplay elements. While some of the most popular games out there alternate between these two, it is in my mind not the best way to tell stories within a game environment. To use it effectively, the player not only has to be a part of the story, but also help drive the narrative and be invested in the actions they choose to take. This is a long and arduous task for a developer, which leads me back to how you must have an effective plan and solid research into the application of sensory experiences for animations and trailers, and interactivity for games. All this aids in seamless integration into the art of storytelling. Oh and one other thing; have fun while doing it. If you’re not having fun creating it, then you probably won’t enjoy reading, watching or playing it either.

Meet the Committee: Judy Mohr (Secretary)

Posted on May 27, 2015 Updated on August 26, 2015

Judy Mohr is the newly-elected Secretary for the Christchurch Writers’ Guild – having translated and transcribed screeds of legalese for us – and has also conceptualised and began plotting her dark fantasy opus. This begins with Beacon of Hope for which she has elected to take the traditional publishing path.

So, Judy, can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always made up stories. As a child, I would spend hours with a tape recorder making up plays for my Barbies to act out. (Yes, I’m really that old.) I have always expressed my thoughts into written form. I kept a diary in my teen years. I wrote poems and lyrics to songs in my late teens, early twenties, and spent far too many hours hiding from the real world in the bowels of a dark theatre somewhere, often on-stage singing and dancing. But while studying for my PhD, I needed to find another way to escape the pressures of being a part-time research student and a full-time mother of two.

One night, in 2008, I had one of those vivid dreams where you can remember every detail. I thought it would make a fantastic story, so I wrote it down. The next night, I revisited the dream, so I wrote down more of the details. Eventually, it became a way of allowing my mind to shift away from the complex engineering calculations that I had to do daily as part of my PhD. I wrote while on the bus. I wrote while waiting for the school bell to ring and the chaotic life of a mother to begin. I wrote while on my lunch break. I wrote before falling asleep at night. By the time I had finished my PhD, I had four volumes of hand-written notes. I typed it into the computer and there was well over 2000 single-spaced pages, and I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the world I was creating.

Today, many of those original ideas still exist, but they have grown as I’ve managed to find more time to devote to my fictional writing.

Your series spans multiple volumes; how do you organise and plot out the storylines?
You are, of course, assuming that I’m organised enough to actually plot in the first place. I very rarely plot. When writing, I write out of sequence. Inspiration strikes and I trace a character’s story, hashing out where it might fit within the timeline as I go. More often than not, I’ll write something referring to a past event, then have to go back and actually write that past event. I have a starting point and a finish point, the road between them is open to interpretation.

But how do I keep track of what will go into which book? Well, that I can answer. It comes down to finding a start point and end point for each part of the story. It’s a similar concept to separating a single book into chapters. They all need to connect, but they need to be self-contained bits of action. The other deciding factor is what becomes the controlling premise or inciting character for a given storyline. I have a large character set to draw from, and many are main characters for their portion of the overall story.

What is your favourite part of the writing process?
That would be letting my imagination run wild. It’s liberating to occasionally dream up gruesome ways for people to die, or the sensual touch of a lover’s hand. Frequently, I find myself examining my own thoughts and values as my characters go through the intricacies of life, ranging from childbirth to funerals, and battles with a sword or in the intimate confines of the bedroom. All characters are an extension of the writer, and sometimes we just have to let those aspects of ourselves run free. Saying that, it’s always interesting when a character takes on a life of their own and drives their own story. Recently, one of my characters managed to escape the massacre I had planned for her and she started a rebellion of her own. I have no idea how she did that, but she made sure that I couldn’t kill her, not right away. While I growl at the harlot for taking control of her own story, I find myself grinning. It’s so much fun.

And your least favourite?
My least favourite part about writing would be, without a doubt, the editing process. You spend countless hours building this amazing story, only to hack it to bits. Whole scenes disappear because they have no relevance, or passages vanish, never to be seen again, just because they didn’t work the way you had originally planned. In my mind, writing a story is the easy part; editing it into something worth reading—now that’s where a true writing talent shows through.

Do you have any tricks or techniques for keeping your stories focused in the right direction?
What exactly is the right direction? Because I write scenes out of sequence, I don’t normally see the right direction until the editing process begins and I start splicing the different aspects for a given section of the timeline together. It is frustrating when you know certain inciting events need to happen, having the story fully written from that point forward, but it’s that process of making point A match up with point B that is actually the fun part. I guess you can say that I’m a “Discovery” writer through and through.

Your world is complex and intriguing; can you please tell us a little about your world building process?
I have a process?

Joking aside, everything about the world in my stories is fashioned after what I observe in the real world. Okay, the magic side of things might be pure imagination, but there are still ties to the real world. Anger flashing into flames that cover the body… My mother often referred to anger like the blood was boiling and heat was rushing through you. If you think about it, it’s not far from the truth.

Any fictional world needs to be believable. You need to be able to identify the characters as real people, the settings as real places. By taking real world observations and shifting it into a fictional environment, you know that a reader could imagine whatever you throw at them and accept it as normal.

Editing is an important part of your writing process; can you tell us about the resources (ie: websites etc) you have used?
How ironic that you ask this. Editing for me is literally red ink on paper. I’ll print out what I have written, and hack at it with a red pen. When I’m happy with what I have written, I then get other writers to read it.

I’m a big user of the Scribophile.com website. This site is a critiquing site with writers from all around the world and in every genre imaginable. The idea behind the site is that for you to post your own work for critiquing, you must first critique the work of others. You may feel that you have nothing of value to add to someone’s piece, but every time you read another’s work, you start to see the faults in your own. You discover ways to express ideas that you never thought about, and the comments you get back on your own work might shift you in directions that you never considered, but make your story stronger.

Once I have something that I believe is ready to go out the door, I shove the manuscript into that metaphorical drawer and leave it while I go work on something else. I then come back to it, sometimes months later, and reread what I had. That’s when you discover those glaring faults that you would be embarrassed if anyone actually saw.

At the moment, I feel like the editing process will never end, and until my manuscript is actually published, it probably won’t.

What are the most important things you have learned through these?
Don’t give my manuscript to my husband to read. I say that jokingly, but there is actual truth to those words. Many family members don’t want to spoil any dreams that someone might have and hence will say your manuscript is great when it really isn’t. Now, my husband never once said that my manuscript was great. In fact, the first time I had him read through it (many years ago now), his only comment was, and I quote, “Your fight scenes suck.” Geez, could anyone be more blunt?

Over the years, my husband has read through my manuscript many times at different draft stages. It was him who pointed out glaring plot holes, leading to my first book becoming two. However, every time he did provide feedback, it would end in a shouting match. Now, I only get him to read through something that I want to be torn to shreds. It’s typically only a passage where I’m struggling to get the descriptive right; he can normally come up with the one word that makes all the difference.

What made you decide to take the traditional publishing route?
The biggest allure of traditional publishing is the marketing aspect. I have no idea what to do, and I really want to see my book on the shelves alongside Terry Goodkind and Brandon Sanderson, however, because of where my name falls in the alphabet, I’ll likely be next to George Martin, but I’d be good with that too. While the query process has made me question my writing more times than I care to count, I believe that my story is stronger for it. I have recently rewritten parts of Beacon of Hope, all in the hopes of tantalising an agent or publisher, and I actually like the revised manuscript much better. It’s a long road to becoming a traditionally published author, but I’m determined to get there.

Any advice for authors who might be thinking of taking similar steps?
Never give up. The worst that anyone can do is say “No”, but they will definitely say nothing if you don’t try. So you get a bad critique; rewrite the story and move on. So you get nothing but silence from agents/publishers; examine what you’re sending out, rework it and send it to the next lot of agents/publishers. If you believe in your story, it will happen. It only takes one “Yes”.

Meet the Committee: Beaulah Pragg (President)

Posted on May 19, 2015 Updated on July 17, 2015

Over the next few weeks, I will be conducting “interviews” with various members of the Christchurch Writers Guild – both members of the committee and others.

We will begin with Beaulah Pragg, the newly-elected President of the Guild; she is also one of the co-founders. I first met Beaulah when I came upon her book, The Silver Hawk, on the shelf of PaperPlus Hornby, noted down her details, acquired the book, and emailed her. Soon after that we organised a meeting, got discussing writing in Christchurch, and from there the Christchurch Writers Guild was born. Beaulah also works for the Christchurch City Libraries, teaches writing courses and is overall an inspiration to us all.

To begin, Beaulah, can you please tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
I’m twenty-six (for about another month). I work at the library and teach creative writing to children. I started writing back in 2005, with my very first National Novel Writing Month (Nano) and pretty much went from there. Have to admit, I wasn’t very good at Nano. I’d get bored with my story too easily, or get stuck, but I was too stubborn to give up, so I invented the world-building Nano, which I’ve done ever since. I just fill up the 50,000 words with character interviews, descriptions of stuff, random scenes from all kinds of POVs. At some point, all that information clumped together in my brain and I wrote the Silver Hawk. Now I’m trying all kinds of techniques to prod the sequel into shape.

What do you enjoy the most about the creative process?
I love the characters & social world-building. I’ve never been much good with magic systems or street maps, but I can tell you the history of a family back five generations. I have this cool timeline software that helps me keep track of all the backstory, and a family-tree program to manage all the inter-marrying. The trick is to let all of that go when it comes time to write the actual story. Just because you know the names of his three brothers, and their wives, and their second cousins, doesn’t mean you need to include them!

What do you find the most frustrating?
Honestly, the excessive world-building can be a bit of a curse, because you get stuck in things having to be a certain way because of other stuff you’ve already decided about his cousin’s ex-wife. Then, when I bravely tell myself to let it go and do the right thing for the story, I now have to go back and deleted said cousin’s ex-wife, or re-write her story to fit. I feel like there are so many threads and sometimes it’s hard to get them to come together in any pleasing kind of tapestry.

You have independently published your novel, can you please tell us a little about the process, the positives and the pitfalls?
That was back in 2013, so I expect some things have changed since then. I went through the query process and even got some bites from various agents, but they all said no in the end. I just wanted people to read my story, so I googled self-publishing and jumped on CreateSpace, Kindle (KDP) and Smashwords. I worked through their various formatting guides, threw together a cover and pushed ‘go’. I was really lucky. People have been so supportive and I’ve learned so much since then. The original book was full of mistakes, but my readers were also my friends, so they pointed them out in a nice ‘we still think you’re awesome’ kind of way.
I set up a book launch with South Library and got a whole heap of books printed for it. When they arrived, it turned out there were still a bunch of errors. Mum said I couldn’t sell them and paid for a last minute emergency reprint locally. Cost a heap and she wouldn’t let me pay her back. I felt really bad. It did change my blasé attitude toward spelling and grammar though. I highly recommend getting a professional editor, even if you do everything else yourself.

Please tell us a little about the inspiration behind the CWG.
Going through the process of self-publishing The Silver Hawk, I felt like I was the only person doing this kind of stuff in Christchurch. There didn’t seem to be a group for me. Everything was still all about being ‘good enough’ to get accepted by agents or publishers. When I met Angela and we realized we had both gone down the same self-publishing path independently, it seemed natural to want to create a group. The CWG is about having a place to go where you’re accepted and can talk about writing—whether you do it for fun, want to publish yourself or win a publishing contract. I just wanted to show people that we’re not alone. We’re here for you, whatever you want to do.

How have social groups such as the CWG and SpecFic influenced your writing endeavours?
It’s been great to watch that sense of community grow—to share our stories and learn from each others’ successes and failure. I’ve loved workshops like ‘Show, not Tell” because they’ve given me a chance to play and extend my writing. I’ve enjoyed going to conferences in Auckland and Wellington, meeting fellow SpecFic people and realizing there are a whole lot of people trying to do exactly the same things as me, and they’re awesome. I really believe that we have power as a community that we don’t have on our own. When be believe, as a group, that something is possible, we find a way to make it happen.
So yeah, being part of these social groups has helped me grow, not just as a writer, but as a person.

How can the CWG help and support our authors?
For me, it always comes back to those social connections. You are responsible for your own words and what you choose to do with them. We’ll help you out if you need advice, whether it’s about semi-colons or formatting a manuscript, or even handling a bad critique. We’ll run workshops where everyone can get together and practice their craft. But the main thing is that CWG is a place where you can find other people travelling paths very similar to yours. The support comes not so much from the organization, but from the people who populate its meetings, workshops and forums. We’re committed to that support being unconditional and unprejudiced. As long as you treat others with respect, we’d love to have you.

What do you predict for the future of publishing and writing in general?
We’re rapidly transitioning into a digital age. Barring catastrophic digital collapse, zombie apocalypse or other excuses to return to a primitive post-apocalyptic survival scenario, I expect most people will be reading digitally in the not-too-distant future. Certainly the traditional publishing model is collapsing. We can see that right now. The thing is, just because books aren’t being made and sold the way they used to be, doesn’t mean people aren’t reading. Story is a fundamental part of life. We all need stories to make sense of the world, and we love authors who make us think or make us feel.
So writers will still be needed and stories will still be read. Our job, as a group, is to look for new opportunities and pounce on them, feeding back what we’ve learned to enrich the whole. There’s no point bemoaning what is gone or trying to halt the wheels of change. I can’t tell you what the future will bring, but I can tell you I’ll be watching with baited breath. There are all kinds of exciting new ways to connect with our readers, if we’re brave enough to give them a go.

As you have insider knowledge, what role, do you feel, will the libraries play in this future?
Libraries are about so much more than books. People come to us for the community, for a place to work or study, or even just for help navigating the overwhelming mass of information out there. I get questions that range from “What should I read next?” to “How do I install Overdrive on my iPad?” and all kinds of unusual things in-between. The libraries are committed to staying relevant, which means keeping up with technology and being that support for people’s informational needs.

As a teacher of creative writing, what are some of the pitfalls you have seen?
I teach creative writing to children, so some of the issues I’ve seen are really just part of the learning process – things like “Use your quotation marks!” and “Please paragraph, sweetheart. It’s really hard to read a whole page without any gaps in it.”
Having said that, the children I teach are incredibly imaginative and have so much fun with their writing. I think one of the pitfalls for us as adults is to forget that this stuff is meant to be fun!

Any advice for aspiring writers out there?
Write. That’s a really good place to start. Keep your notes organized so you don’t expend precious mental energy trying to remember whether he had green eyes or blue. I use Super Notecard, which is just amazing for this (and also free up to the first 100 cards, so try it out).
Develop a safe, supportive community where you can share you writing and critique other people’s work. You can only improve as a writer if you let people give you feedback, and if you practice looking for ways others can improve. I’ve tried all sorts of groups and forums for this purpose, and my favourite so far is definitely Scribophile (which I just joined a week ago after our new Guild secretary, Judy, recommended it). Scribophile is also free for low-level users and has an excellent karma system which means you get back what you put in. I highly recommend giving it a go.
Finally, when you think you’re done and want to get your story out there, please make sure to find a professional editor. Even if you’re going for a traditional contract, you’ll stand a much better chance if your text is clean.

Oh, and join the Guild, so then you have people celebrate and commiserate with along the way.