Jeff Deck, Author at Jeff Deck - Novel Writing Coach

And speaking of Witching hours . . .

I’ve got a recommendation for a game with a real social conscience—but it may sound odd at first.

In my novel Player Choice, the game designer Glen wants to create a game that will make a difference in the real world. One that empowers its players with a feeling of agency, and inspires them to see the world around them in a new way. If Glen actually existed, I think he’d be pleased with the content of the PC game The Witcher 3.

If you’ve heard of the Witcher game series at all, you probably know it as the one where the white-haired guy goes around killing monsters and sleeping with sorceresses. But let’s put those aspects aside for now. What I find fascinating about The Witcher 3 is the setting: a dark-fantasy world torn apart by wars among different human kingdoms and empires. You’re the guy who sees the effect of these destructive wars on regular people.

In fact, besides the aforementioned monster-killing and sorceress-shagging, your character spends much of the game helping ordinary townsfolk and villagers with their problems. There’s a humanity to the people in this game that is still incredibly rare in video-game storytelling. And players can’t help but come away from the game thinking about the terrible effects of war on regular people, no matter how “glorious” the causes of those wars might be.

This is surely no accident, as the Witcher development team is Polish. Poland’s entire history is a history of suffering from war. From the devastation by the Mongols in the 1200s to the ruination caused by both Nazis and Soviets during World War II, the country of Poland has been at the crossroads of war for a long time. So we can learn a lot from their perspective.

Anyhow. Here’s a heads up about my serialized horror novel, The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley! Part 3 (of 4 total) is now available for pre-order, and it’ll release next Tuesday, November 3. Just in time for your local elections, if you’re in the U.S. You’ll find the political undercurrent of Mark Huntley to be . . . relevant, this time of year. 😉 (Start with Part 1 if you’re new to the book.)

I’ll be appearing at an author event in Rochester, N.H., this Sunday, November 1, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. You might also see me if you attend any of the “Writer’s Journey” flagship events during New Hampshire Writers’ Week next month (Nov. 8 – 14), since I organized them and will be attending most of them.

Have a great Halloween, and talk to you in November!

Controlling your inner control freak

Are you able to seek out help on a project when you need it?

This has historically been . . . a problem area for me. And I suspect for many other writers as well.

I first gravitated toward writing because it was something I could accomplish myself. Unlike a movie director, I wouldn’t have to rustle up a massive team to build the world in my head. I would play not just the scriptwriter, but also the set designer, the cameraman, the costume designer, etc. My “actors” would never flub their lines or show up high.

Basically I could do it all without having to worry about managing others, or about potential compromise. Then I could put my own name in big letters on the cover of the finished product.

But you know what, any creative enterprise ends up being, to some extent, a team effort. And writing is no exception. Once I finished those novel drafts, I needed an editor to identify my weak spots and offer improvements. I needed beta readers to catch more little stuff and provide valuable gut reactions. I needed a cover designer to make something to catch people’s eyes in the first place.

I couldn’t go it alone. Because I couldn’t get everything right on my own. None of us can.

I still have trouble with the lesson sinking in. I couldn’t just let cover designers do their thing with Player Choice and The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley; I had to provide the exact images I wanted, and in the case of the latter, I felt I had to actually lay out the cover myself, and only ceded control on the question of what fonts to use.

And lately, I’m spending far too much time creating entire fucking posters for the upcoming flagship events of New Hampshire Writers’ Week—after conceptualizing, creating, and booking the events myself, creating, collecting, and assessing entries for the contest to determine the events’ speakers myself, and I could go on but it wears me out just writing about it.

Doing all this extra stuff myself scratches the control-freak itch, but it also drives me just a little bit insane. And my wife a lot bit insane. Less insanity would be a laudable goal. So, too, would superior results. Since I’m not actually a real designer, or marketer, or whatever, I ought to be turning to the people who are good and real in those essential fields.

I’m hoping to get better at letting go. Knowing when to entrust pieces of a project in other people’s hands. It’s going to take a little more faith in others, and a little more practice at “project management,” the fine art of making sure other people get their shit done. But these are valuable life skills anyway, no?

How about you—have you had trouble relinquishing control over absolutely every detail on something like this?

Been busy proofreading The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley: Part 3. I expect to have it for sale on Amazon on November 3. In the meantime, don’t forget to catch up on Mark Huntley with Parts 1 and 2. Readers are calling this serialized horror novel “awesome,” “thrilling,” and “compelling.” Not bad, right?

Group dynamics in zombie survival

What role do you usually play in a group?

Are you the peacemaker? The leader? The navigator? The brains of the operation? The nurturer? Or does your role change, depending on the group?

One of my favorite types of stories, I’ve realized, is what I call the small-group story. A little band of people is thrown together by circumstance and forced to survive in dangerous situations.

Zombie stories are a good example of this. Take The Walking Dead. Whether you’re talking about the graphic novel, TV show, or PC game, the basic story is the same. We follow a small group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse and watch their struggles not just against the undead, but with each other. It’s compelling storytelling because of the group dynamics, not the mindless flesh-eaters. Who’s going to come through under pressure? Who’s going to crack? And who’s going to commit the next wrenching betrayal?

Here are a few of my other favorite small-group stories, in various media: Alien/Aliens, The Goonies, The Stand, ‘Salem’s Lot, LotR, Baldur’s Gate (1 & 2), Planescape: Torment, and basically every Japanese RPG ever (the Final Fantasy games, etc.). It’s also why Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop games can be so fun with a good group of players.

An interesting juxtaposition got me thinking about this: the book I’m currently reading (Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling), and a vacation that I’m just wrapping up with family. Both have basically been the story of a small group: the former a group trying to survive after all electricity stops working and guns stop firing, and the latter a group trying to enjoy a vacation without strangling each other. It got me thinking about my own group role.

In a traveling group, it turns out my role is, surprisingly or not, the asshole.

By which I mean the guy with the map in hand, spurring everybody else along before the group misses the next train or visiting hours of the cathedral/museum/whatever. And concealing impatience with only varying degrees of success when people fall behind. My feet somehow push forward faster than I want them to.

Maybe this role would serve me well in the hypothetical zombie-survival group (that is, if my fellow survivors didn’t murder me early on). You know, navigating us to the next safe zone or abandoned grocery store or pharmacy. But it’s not always appreciated when the group’s mission is vacation—i.e., to have fun.

So how long do you think you’d last in one of these small-group survival situations? Sometimes your companions are more dangerous than the zombies . . .

Would love to hear about your favorite small-group stories, too.

Quick news. As I mentioned last week, my horror novel The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley: Part 2 is now available on Amazon for you continue Mark’s adventures. Check it out and please drop an Amazon review for that bad boy! Also, you can find my new sci-fi workplace short story “The Stress of Excellence” in the 2015 aois21 annual literary magazine. And I’m appearing in Rochester, N.H. on Sunday, November 1, at the Authors at the Cannon event to peddle my wares. I’ll give an appropriately Halloweeny reading from Mark Huntley!

Finding a place to think

What’s your go-to place for untangling mental puzzles?

Our pool closed last week for the season. Although a pool is, as my cousin-in-law memorably termed it, literally “a hole in the ground you throw money into,” I’m going to miss it during the long months ahead. I’m a big fan of swimming and drinking beer by the poolside (or in the pool), but actually my favorite thing to do in the pool is to think.

Last summer, as I was preparing to dredge my story The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley out of the virtual bottom drawer of my writing files and give it another go, I realized I had a lot of plot and character questions left unanswered. Why was a certain knife left in the woods, why was this character being pursued by the bad guys, what was the deal with that graffiti, and so on and so on. I struggled to answer many of these questions. I kept getting tangled up in my own story.

And then, as I floated around on an inner tube in the pool one day, the solutions and new ideas just started to flow. It wasn’t a battle anymore to think. It was easy. And all this untangling led to a pretty damn good finished product.

I used the same trick this summer when thinking of plot points and ideas, and solving potential dilemmas, for my upcoming project City of Ports / The Shadow Over Portsmouth (coming next year . . . sometime). This time I was drifting around on a giant float made to look like an ice cream sandwich, but the principle was the same. Get out in the middle of the water, a safe distance away from computers, smartphones, and even notebooks, and just . . . think.

Of course, you don’t need a pool to get some good thinking done! Pardon my first-worldliness here. The shower did the trick for me for years, and still does. I mean, that’s the cliche, and for good reason. Basically, I think you just need a space where you physically cannot turn to objects that will distract you. Your body must be isolated and/or occupied with a task. In that moment of deprivation, we can be free to explore our own neural networks and see what we can find.

The Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh talks about washing dishes as a form of meditation. He recommends that instead of focusing on the fact that washing dishes is a chore, you focus on the sensations of the act. As a means of bringing yourself into an awareness of the present moment. In a way, that’s the opposite of the creative thinking I’ve been talking about—it’s forcing your mind not to wander.

But I think we can draw a parallel here. Try to look at each episode in your life that involves non-connectivity—i.e., each task or situation that takes you away from the InterWebs—as an opportunity for mastering your own mind. Whether you’d like it to solve some creative problems, or to just become more in tune with the world around it.

I’ll continue to work on that myself. God knows I could use the practice! I’d love to hear about your favorite places to just think.

Event update: Part 1 of The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley has been getting great reviews. But I’ve still got a ways to go to raise awareness of the book. This week I made an appearance at the Portsmouth library Author Fair (NH). On Saturday, I will be at the Authors Booth at Hooksett Old Home Day (also NH). Maybe I’ll see you there!

Let me know your ideas for what else I should do to toot the proverbial horn about Mark Huntley. And Player Choice too, for that matter!

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