Ask Steve Perry

[War Wager]

After you've answered the above question I'd like to ask you another Q too. When I write I've got trouble with pacing. When it's all in my head and I write it out there and then it seems fine, but when I finally read it through it seems too rushed. It's like a want to rush past everything else to get to the good stuff. Any tips?

[Cetanu]

Oh, that happens to me sometimes...

What I find is that if I write off the top of my head that doesn't happen, also, try not to think ahead because when I do it it seems horrible. Just me, maybe.
But the question was directed at Steve so....

[steveperry]

I've some questions for Mr. Perry.

They don't have anything to do with the novels that he wrote....well, directly anyway.

1) When I write, I have a problem transitioning.
i.e. Bob is walking to the store. Something happens while he is walking, but I can string it all together. It's really annoying because I can write single scenes with action or speaking, just...I can't write static scenes.

2) When naming your characters....how do you choose a name that sounds right?!

Thanks

It's a skill, like basketball or swimming. Only way to learn it is to practice it. Sometimes you need action, sometimes you need people to sit still, and you just have to write it. If it doesn't work, you rewrite it until it does. Yes, you don't want two people sitting at table telling each other stuff they both already know just so a reader can hear it, but there are times when dialog or exposition needs to be there, and you just have to do it.

Names, same thing. (You can cheat a little with these. I used to get a foreign language dictionary that showed English and a bunch of translations into other languages, and pick one that was fairly esoteric, like Swahili, and use a bunch of words from that, so the tone would be the same. Esperanto is a good language to use. Then when you make up a new name, try to make it sound like whatever language you are using.)

Here's a tip: If you can't read the name out loud without mis-pronouncing it? Lose it. If it's written "X'qrl qzzb" readers will stop when they read it and try to figure it out. You don't want that. They don't have to agree with how you'd say it, but it needs to look like something that they think they can.

Doesn't matter if they see yautja as "yoot-jah" or "yah-oot-jah" or "Yat-cha." As long as it flows.

[steveperry]

After you've answered the above question I'd like to ask you another Q too. When I write I've got trouble with pacing. When it's all in my head and I write it out there and then it seems fine, but when I finally read it through it seems too rushed. It's like a want to rush past everything else to get to the good stuff. Any tips?

Pacing is tough to get. Again, practice is the key. You want a roller coaster effect -- drops, fast rushes, then climbs, slow spots, and drops again.

Here's a tip: Say you are writing a novel that runs about 75,000-85,000 words long, which is about what most of the Aliens/Preds/AvP tend to run. Any scene that runs more than four or five pages? It's too long. Cut it, or cut away from it and do something else, then come back if you must. Sit too long in any one spot, no matter how interesting you thing it is? Readers will get antsy. Move along.

Want an exercise? Sit down with a stopwatch and one of your favorite action movies and time each shot and scene. (Shots are different angles in the same place. When you move elsewhere, in space or time, that's a new scene.) You might be surprised to see how quick things jump around.

Now, do the same in a book -- don't need a watch. Just count the pages until the action moves. Doesn't jump as much, because you can get inside characters' heads and you have to tell the story with words.
In a movie, pictures tell the story more than the words. In a good action movie (or a really bad one), you can turn the sound off and still keep up with what is going on. Can do that in a comic. Can't in a novel, because the words are equivalent to the sound ...

[Cetanu]

It's so great to be able to ask an author about advice for writing.

Thank You for the advice.

[SM]

Here's a tip: If you can't read the name out loud without mis-pronouncing it? Lose it. If it's written "X'qrl qzzb" readers will stop when they read it and try to figure it out. You don't want that.

I once asked Mike Stackpole about one of the characters in his X-Wing books and how his name was pronounced and his answer was 'However it was pronounced on the audio books', and then offered how he thought it was pronounced.  I was little disppointed as I thought he should know since he created the character.  Not that he isn't an unfailiingly nice guy who wrote some good books or anything.

[Cetanu]

That's funny...and disappointing.

[War Wager]

After you've answered the above question I'd like to ask you another Q too. When I write I've got trouble with pacing. When it's all in my head and I write it out there and then it seems fine, but when I finally read it through it seems too rushed. It's like a want to rush past everything else to get to the good stuff. Any tips?

Pacing is tough to get. Again, practice is the key. You want a roller coaster effect -- drops, fast rushes, then climbs, slow spots, and drops again.

Here's a tip: Say you are writing a novel that runs about 75,000-85,000 words long, which is about what most of the Aliens/Preds/AvP tend to run. Any scene that runs more than four or five pages? It's too long. Cut it, or cut away from it and do something else, then come back if you must. Sit too long in any one spot, no matter how interesting you thing it is? Readers will get antsy. Move along.

Want an exercise? Sit down with a stopwatch and one of your favorite action movies and time each shot and scene. (Shots are different angles in the same place. When you move elsewhere, in space or time, that's a new scene.) You might be surprised to see how quick things jump around.

Now, do the same in a book -- don't need a watch. Just count the pages until the action moves. Doesn't jump as much, because you can get inside characters' heads and you have to tell the story with words.
In a movie, pictures tell the story more than the words. In a good action movie (or a really bad one), you can turn the sound off and still keep up with what is going on. Can do that in a comic. Can't in a novel, because the words are equivalent to the sound ...

Thanks very much.

[steveperry]

Here's a tip: If you can't read the name out loud without mis-pronouncing it? Lose it. If it's written "X'qrl qzzb" readers will stop when they read it and try to figure it out. You don't want that.

I once asked Mike Stackpole about one of the characters in his X-Wing books and how his name was pronounced and his answer was 'However it was pronounced on the audio books', and then offered how he thought it was pronounced.  I was little disppointed as I thought he should know since he created the character.  Not that he isn't an unfailiingly nice guy who wrote some good books or anything.

I think maybe Mike was pulling your leg a little ...

Sometimes on the audiobooks, they'll call and ask how to pronounce a name, sometimes not. When you write for animation, there are some actors who get it and some who don't, and if you want the word pronounced a certain way, you sound it out in the script: Dirisha ("Duh-rish-uh") You can get away with that in a book if you work on it. In SW's: SOTE, one of the villain's names was "Xizor." I had a malfuntioning computer-operated form-chair address him out loud and slur the name, "Lord Sheeezorr ..." so people would know that the "Xi" was pronounced as "Sh." (Not my name, by the way -- somebody else came up with it, it's from, I think, Portuguese, that Xi combo.)

Another writing tip: Get a copy of The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. Best how-to book on writing out there. It's concise, to the point, and a great guide to muscular writing. Every couple years, I pull my copy off the shelf and re-read it, and usually learn something new -- or remember something I've forgotten.

[steveperry]

One more writing tip: Now and then, take what you've written and read it aloud. Doesn't hurt to record it and play it back, but since some readers mentally real stuff aloud as they read, you can get a sense of how well it flows. If you have trouble reading it out loud, many of your readers are gonna have trouble reading it silently -- especially if the names don't parse.

Most writers have their own tricks, and most of those I know do this one. Don't have to do a whole chapter, just a page or two. When you do this, you will sometimes rewrite it because it doesn't sound right, and that's good.

[Xenomrph]

In SW's: SOTE, one of the villain's names was "Xizor." I had a malfuntioning computer-operated form-chair address him out loud and slur the name, "Lord Sheeezorr ..." so people would know that the "Xi" was pronounced as "Sh." (Not my name, by the way -- somebody else came up with it, it's from, I think, Portuguese, that Xi combo.)

That reminds me, with the Shadows of the Empire project, I know it was sort of a large multimedia project that spanned a comic series, novel, and video game - how did that process work? Like, did everyone sit down and say "okay, let's work together to make the storyline, and then sort of divide up how it gets handled across the different media"? Or were you handed a pre-written plot outline with the characters already established, and then you fleshed it out and wrote the novel, something like that?

[steveperry]

Bunch of us got together at Skywalker Ranch, sat down in a room, and decided what the story was going to be -- book folks, comic book people, artists, game guys, toy makers, all like that. We all pitched ideas, came up with a story line. I took notes, went home, wrote the outline, which was fairly extensive, and that was the basis for things.

If you want to know the details, Marc Cotta Vaz wrote a book about it. The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Pretty interesting stuff, on how it all came to be, and why.

[Cetanu]

Here's a random one...what's silat?

[Xenomrph]

Here's a random one...what's silat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silat

[Nobody]

I got an interesting Question for you.
If you've ever thought,don't you think the USCM would have more than just standard APC and Dropships on the Sulaco?There had to more armour and vehicles on that ship than that!Did you ever think of incorporating it into your stories originally?