Sebastiano Merlino

Tips on writing and storytelling

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2019/03/25/advertising-101-for-writers-introduction/

Advertising 101 for Writers: Introduction

Hey everybody! It’s been a while since last time I wrote on the blog.

Brief off-topic: I have to admit that I’ve neglected this platform for a while. I have some excuses I can use to deflect anyone’s accusation of having left y’all to your own devices. In quick sequence:

I changed job and I had to make sure everyone would survive my departure while also getting used to new responsibilities.

I moved from the UK to the US, bought a house and survived the second mortgage process of my life.

All is good under the sun though, because we are back together now once again, and I have a new project for you.

What’s with this advertising thing?

As writers, one day or another we all realise that whatever we write doesn’t exist unless someone reads it. As sad as it sounds, this is very much true given the huge offer the readers have these days.

So, how do you get your first readers when nobody knows you?

Simple enough, you buy them through ads.

How can I help?

Luckily, during my day-work, for the past six years I’ve built automated systems for advertising. In a certain way, I know more about this world than I do about writing. (sigh!)

In the next few weeks, I am going to write a series of articles (Advertising 101 for Writers) to initiate you to the world of online advertising. Nothing too complex, we are a writing blog after all!

How is this going to work?

Every article is going to be about one fundamental aspect of online advertising, from basic metrics to return of investment to the most common tools.

I will also add some in-depth articles on specific topics to make sure that the most curious can be satisfied too.

Not to confuse anyone, I will mark basic articles with [B] and advanced articles with [A]. This makes it easy for you to skip the ones you don’t care about.

Hopefully, this can be useful in your journey to become a successful writer.

Stay tuned for more content from “Advertising 101 for Writers”!

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/12/25/the-books-i-am-reading-to-improve-my-writing/

The books I am reading to improve my writing

Well… I guess I am late. The Christmas period made it hard for me to concentrate on this while I was too busy watching funny videos about raccoons stealing cat food. A promise is a promise though, so I wouldn’t miss one (raccoons or not!)

This week we talk about writing. Over the last few months, I’ve built quite a collection of books about writing. I have yet to read them all but I think it might be useful to others.

The elements of style

If you have to pick anything from this list, pick this one. If are going to read everything on this list instead, start from this one. It is short, cheap and definitely effective.

This little book is a manual (and the best manual) on English language. The technical guidelines in the book are practical and clear ones because explained through examples.

This is a must-read for anyone who wants to write in clear and direct english, whether they are or not already deep into a writing project.

  On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I had this book for quite a while now and it is next on my reading list. I mean, if Stephen King, who has written his deal of books,  publishes one on writing, who am I not to buy it?

Known as being one of the best books about the craft of writing. It promises to be fun to read while delivering insights both technical and about the life of a writer. I believed the promise and this ended-up on my shelf.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success

I’ve been following Karen Weiland’s blog for long time.

Many of the posts on her blog have helped me growing as a writer and taught me how to be more methodical when I structure my stories.

This book goes even deeper on how you should build the outline of your stories to make sure everything is ready for success even before you start typing.

Aspects of the Novel

An essay known for being as practical as it is insightful on the craft of writing.

I have yet to read it but I love the idea that the author included examples from famous writers to help understand the concepts he is expressing through the text.

    Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print

It is far from me to recommend anyone just to self-edit their novel without having an actual editor. Before publishing, definitely go through the screening of a professional editor.

Having already self-edited, can still make a difference though. It gives you insights on what works and what doesn’t. In general also, reading a good self-editing book will trim down the fat from your writing.

Out of the many I’ve found, this one is the best by far. The various sections are dedicated to specific aspects of the writing technique, with good and bad examples telling you how something should (or shouldn’t) be written.

The Language Construction Kit

If you, like me, write also fantasy or sci-fi, you must have had the idea of adding your own language to our of your stories. Developing a language is not an easy task – entire populations around the world have been doing it for thousands of years, often with poor results.

Mark Rosenfelder gives you the instruments to build a credible language that is structurally fit to your world. It covers everything from basics of the language to writing systems and grammar.

Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers

If a book has forever changed the way people write it must be this one (in company with only “The hero with a thousand faces”).

In this essay, Vogler studies the influence of mythology on the stories we tell.

In a way, this is a bible for aspiring writers. It explained to the world the archetypes of characters and the stages of the journey (your story) in a way that still drives the structure of most novels.

Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

I love this one. Zita bought it for me and I was stunned. A summary of most of the things you’ll need to lean to be an effective writer.

The fact is, it probably won’t tell you much more than what you’ll learn by reading the classics but everything you read here will stay with you somehow.

I am not sure if it is due to the stunning artwork or the simple way everything is expressed here but, for some reason, where I pick this book and read a random chapter, whatever it is I read never goes away.

      I hope you enjoyed this article. Let me know what are your favorite books on writing and the ones you think I should add to my library. If you want to receive updates from this blog, feel free to subscribe below.

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/12/04/the-sentry-a-godlike-character-the-right-way/

Sentry: a godlike character the right way

This time I want to talk about Sentry.

Before we do that, let’s take a look at a screenshot of my personal Facebook profile.

From this photo we can understand two things:

I am probably an idiot.

The blond shining guy with an “S” on his belt straight on my profile photo.

That guy is Sentry. So, as you may guess, I might be a bit biased.

Now, before the experts come along moaning how crap this character is: I am talking about the Sentry from his own special issues. I tend to agree with the folks saying the character was destroyed in other comics. I still believe though that the Sentry we see in the dedicated comics is a different story.

Let’s take a look at the story of the specials while keeping the focus on its protagonist.

The Sentry: premise and plot

At the beginning of the story, Sentry is the most popular superhero on hearth. The man with the power of “a million exploding suns”. Everybody considers him a sort of godly figure (the golden guardian) – even other superheroes rely on him when going through a crisis.

The Sentry seems perfect and invincible.

He is still human though. The Golden Guardian has way too many responsibilities from being a god and Robert Reynolds (the man behind the mask) cannot cope with it.

Incapable of saving everybody on the whole planet all the time, he reveals he is also incapable of choosing who should be saved. To manage his activity as an hero, Robert relies on an artificial intelligence (CLOC). The system chooses who should be saved and who should be left to their destiny.

Even the relationship between the hero and his wife is damaged. Lindy doesn’t show any interest in his husband anymore. They fight over the time he spends away from home, arguing at parties in front of their friends and don’t have a sexual life anymore: Linda being not interested in Robert and turning to the Sentry to search for any excitement.

To deal with the stress of his existence, Robert turns to a psychiatrist: Dr. Cornelius Worth.

Everything gets even worse when an incident happens. The only one who could be responsible is “The Void”, Sentry’s archenemy. This is impossible though. The Void has been defeated and he is now confined within CLOC’s tower. Robert starts visiting him as the Sentry to make sure he really is still safely imprisoned.

The story flips completely on its head when CLOC calls out for Cornelius help behind Roberts’ back. The machine apparently wants him to visit the Void.

A godlike character

Dealing with a character like Sentry is really hard. There were thousands of ways I can think of it going completely south, especially in a genre targeting younger audiences. I won’t list here all the superpowers that Marvel decided to give to this guy because I could fill another post with that.

Despite this, the story doesn’t spend all of its time showing him off and getting him to kill the bad guys. Sure, it shows us Sentry single-handedly defeating Terrax – a villain established by the canon as being immensely powerful. It stops there though. It establishes how strong Sentry really is and then it spends the rest of the time showing how all this is completely useless to him.

Will all these powers help him keep his wife? Can he save everybody on the planet? Will he ever be able to take responsibility?

These are the problems the story focuses on. This helps us get the god in front of us and see him as weak as we are. It is interesting to see someone so powerful having to deal with something his powers are useless against.

The story plays even more on these notes to the point that it decomposes the role of the hero and the villain in front of our eyes. It asks us questions on what a hero (in this case a god) should be, what are the limits of their actions and responsibilities, how should they manage their own life.

This a writer should use an all powerful character: to ask the hardest questions. We shouldn’t be using such characters carelessly because otherwise all we would obtain are boring, flat stories.

Revelations [contains spoilers]

Such deconstruction continues to the point of blending together hero and villain. When Dr. Cornelius finally visits Void’s cell inside CLOC’s tower he finds just a chair and a mirror. Void and Sentry have been the same person the whole time.

Let’s stop here. We might need some background before we keep going.

Sentry has already been the most important hero on earth once before. He appeared because the young Robert, a meth addict, searched for new emotions in what he believed to be a meth lab. He ended-up ingesting an experimental super-soldier serum that gave him the power of a million exploding suns by enabling him to absorb the power of a galactic entity.

The meth addict cleaned himself. He became a hero, the most powerful one and a model to all the other heroes to come.

One day though, the Void appeared.

For every person Sentry could save, Void will kill somebody else. This led to the massacre of a million people with Sentry finally deciding something drastic. Till Sentry existed, Void would exist too. Because of this, Sentry decided to make everyone in the world, included himself, believe that he never existed, thus deleting Sentry and with it the Void.

Back to the present, Robert has remembered about Sentry and so also the Void is back. Imagine how devastating can be for a hero, and especially one who is practically a God, to discover that he and his nemesis are one and the same. The story goes even further by stating that Void is the real product of the serum. Sentry is merely a byproduct of Robert’s guilt.

Again, this is pretty strong from a storytelling point of view. The writer builds an invincible character. They then give him weaknesses he cannot really fight against by using all their powers. The author then renders useless everything the hero does (for every person saved one is killed). They then descend to the point where he turns into the villain.

This is the lowest point for the character’s arc. At this point, Robert has to climb back up again. Discover what’s real and what is not. Battle its ghosts and his own evil plan. From this point of view, we have again the usual “Hero Journey” but it is all made more interesting by the premise.

Conclusion

I definitely recommend to read Marvel’s Sentry special issues. They are pretty good examples of how to handle a character who is incredibly powerful and how to do so while also deconstructing and reconstructing the figure of a hero.

All in all, I think I am going to keep this guy as my profile photo on Facebook – well deserved.

I hope you enjoyed this article – if so, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Also, if you want to be notified whenever I post new content on this blog, subscribe and I’ll keep you posted.

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/11/27/4_marketing_tools_to_schedule_and_boost_your_content/

4 marketing tools to schedule and boost your content

In my last post on writing, I talked about the tools I use to improve my art. I guess this time it will be good to go through the marketing tools I use to support my writing. Consider this as a preview before we go deep into each one of these tools.

Feedly

I’ve been using Feedly for a while now. At first, I thought of it as not more than a news aggregator. Don’t get me wrong, it fixed my morning routine after the demise of Google Reader, but I didn’t think of it as a marketing tool.

These days instead I have a fixed schedule that I respect on all my Social Media. To be able to post compelling articles every day I need to be on top of things. I follow multiple blogs and writing-dedicated websites. What Feedly does for me is to aggregate the content of all those websites and present it to me in a single place. It does this while showing only the new content I’ve yet to read.

Feedly also stores the articles that interest you on the side so that you can read them later or classify them using boards.

It’s even possible to add filters to remove the posts you already know you wouldn’t be interested in.

Buffer

Ok, now we have a system to collect all the interesting stuff we want to read and potentially share. All we need is a system to shares such articles on our Social Media.

Most definitely we don’t want to just blast out all we have and then stop posting again for a while. That wouldn’t work.

If we want to get all the material we collected (and our own one) and post it on Social Networks using an efficient schedule, Buffer comes in handy.

Buffer is a social media management platform used by many companies and agencies. I love it because compared to the competition it’s quite intuitive and simple to use. It also has a free tier that allows you to get started without having to pay anything.

In Buffer, you can easily create a schedule for each social media channel you want to post on and add all the content you want to produce into a queue. The platform will push out the content automatically following the schedule you specified.

The most practical way to schedule posts is to use Buffer’s browser extension that will sit close to the URL bar staying always ready for you to plan your content.

Facebook Ads (and insights)

Once our content is on social media, it’s our job to make it reach our target audience. To this day, I still didn’t find anything as effective as Facebook Ads to do so.

The platform is quite simple to use. You just need to define an audience that you believe would be interested in your content. Having this, just write a message to accompany your ad and pick a budget. It can be as low as $5 a day. Facebook will do all the remaining work for you.

Your work at this point will be to monitor your results and make sure they make sense. We will go through how in the next marketing post.

Twitter Analytics

Twitter has a similar tool to monitor the effects of your marketing strategy.

It is definitely a less evolved tool than its Facebook counterpart, but it can give you an indication of how effective you are being with your content on Twitter.

I hope this gives you enough of an overview of these tools to make you curious and use them. In the next few posts on marketing your writing, we will go deep into each of them and see how to use them in the specifics.

Feel free to leave me a comment and to subscribe to have updates on everything I post here.

[sebastiano-merlino]

Nice to read this just before Christmas. - via The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Staying Sane During the Holidays

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've yet to pick a set of rules for myself, but this is very useful as a guide on how to choose them. - via Rules of Writing: How to Create Your Own Rules

[sebastiano-merlino]

I better start preparing mine! - via How to Build a Rocking Author Media Kit: a 7-Step Template •

[sebastiano-merlino]

Having a supportive community is what helps me through the periods when I struggle and find excuses not to write. - (via Writers Group: How to Build a Fantastic Writing Community)

[sebastiano-merlino]

The first couple of pages. The hardest pages. - (via 5 Inspiring Tips for How to Start a Story - The Write Practice)

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/11/20/dark-souls-and-interactive-storytelling/

Dark Souls and interactive storytelling

It is about time to talk about interactive storytelling, and Dark Souls is probably the best example of it.

I’ve always been interested in games as a way to tell stories because it is the only medium able to be interactive. Whereas books and movies have to be consumed in a passive way, we can compose our own story while we play a game.

Well, that is true just in theory though… so sad!

As a matter of fact, most video games rely on some basic tricks to make you think they are interactive:

Multiple choices: in this case, the game essentially uses branching paths. Rather than having a single static story, the narrative progresses in multiple ways branching at certain points. The tree of possible outcomes can be as complex as the storytellers want. This is quite an exciting way of writing a story but its interactivity is only apparent. The players will have an active role in the development of the story just by picking the braches at junction points. They cannot choose how they are going to consume the story but it will just be fed to them once a direction is picked.

Lore books: this happens quite a lot in RPGs. They deliver the side stories and, at times, even the main plot using books within the game. The character is then overloaded by walls of text they can read while playing. I find this way of conveying narrative quite poor and, to be honest, the quality of the writing within the games is often quite low.

Beyond this, games often end-up having quite linear development and, whenever a challenge is surpassed, the story just unfolds in the usual way: dialogue, plain narrative or cutscenes.

Dark Souls does it differently.

Dark Souls

Most people will know this games mostly for its iconic “YOU DIED” moments.

For those who don’t know it, Dark Souls is a dark fantasy RPG set in the land of Lordran. The Gods have moulded the world using the Lord Souls to defeat the dragons and kindle the First Flame thus starting the Age of Fire. Once the flame begins to fade, Lord Gwyn, the most powerful god, sacrifices his soul to the Flame to prolong the Age of Fire. The player has the curse of the Undead – if they die, they will return to life, slowly descending into insanity. They have the mission to take the place of Gwyn and rekindle the Flame once again to avoid the Age of Darkness.

Pretty cool isn’t it?

Interactive Storytelling – the right way

Dark Soul’s main plot is quite simple. What is it then that Dark Souls does differently in delivering interactive narration?

Lucca, October 2011 – an oblivious Sebastiano takes a photo with Solaire. Only a few years later he will discover who that is and how woven into his destiny that encounter was.

You might not notice it at first, but there is a substantial difference.

Whereas other games will rely on long narrations or cutscenes, Dark Souls uses just items and environment.

Items’ descriptions will contain small details about their origin or previous possessors. Every element in the environment gives hints of why the place is the way it is. Short lines of dialogue with secondary characters complete the set of details the player needs to understand the story.

This also means that if the player doesn’t want to learn anything beyond the main plot they can just do so.

If they want though, they will learn about the huge lore of the game just by sorting items in their inventory. Or even by just walking across the world and fighting an enemy.

A wolf might become aggressive when you get close to a tomb. The armour and weapons of an enemy might be incredibly effective against another one. Someone might call you “sister” for reasons you still don’t understand.

Can we use it in books too?

Now, I know what you are thinking: “Isn’t such a technique just limited to games?”

Well, it might look like so at first. But, have you ever heard anyone saying “Show don’t tell”. I bet you did.

I consider this technique an amazing demonstration of how showing without telling can be incredibly effective. It is possible to do the same in books. Most of the times, as writers, we end up over-delivering details about the lore of our worlds. This is often not useful to further develop our plots.

What we can do instead, it’s hinting at our lore through characters and environment descriptions. We can use the way they talk to each other or the way they behave.

Readers will have to take the hints independently. If they don’t do it, they will just enjoy your main plot, otherwise, they will have an entire world to explore.

Anything you’d fix in Dark Souls?

Well, as usual, I guess!

The main downside of Dark Souls is the same as its best characteristic. So much of the information stays hidden that the player has to dig even to unfold the main plot.

Most people will not only never discover the beauty and depth of the world, but they will never even understand there is an actual story. In that sense, I think that some more telling would have been good for the plot delivery.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Dark Souls and this analysis of its interactive narrative style. Let me know in the comments below and feel free to subscribe to get updates.

[sebastiano-merlino]

I've just published a new post on https://mylittleblackbird.com/2017/11/13/the-best-tools-for-writers/

The best tools for writers

This time around, I want to talk about the best tools for writers. I guess it was about time that I gave you some details on what I use for writing and in general to manage my writing life.

I have to say. There is no game changer and nothing in this list can replace some good old-time sitting on the chair. Said so, efficient tools will save time and effort, and in general, make our lives way easier.

Writing: Scrivener

Scrivener is hands down the best writing software I have ever used. For many years I have been a Microsoft Word’s user. Don’t get me wrong, it does its job really well but it is not focused on writers and, because of this, it cannot give you the same features as Scrivener.

One of the main downsides that I found while working with Word was the fact that it couldn’t centralize all of my documents. When writing a book, I produce a lot of additional documents (outlines, character profiles, etc…); in addition to this, I also have a lot of links and documents coming from my research. What I had to do at the time was to organize my documents in a set of directories and somehow find a way to reconcile what I had stored on my PC and the links I saved on my browser’s bookmarks. It was a mess.

In Scrivener, I can store everything in one place without having to switch tab all the time or having to deal with my inability to tidy up my stuff. A practical outline allows me to reach everything I need from within the program without too much hassle.

When I moved to Scrivener I also gained a bunch of incredibly useful features:

Export in multiple formats: epub, mobi and platforms like Kobo, ibooks

A distraction-free mode to concentrate only on what I am writing

Templates

Chapter outlining

On the negative side. Scriverer helps when writing a single book but it is not as nearly as effective when working on a series – documents will have to be copied across different projects causing some duplication.

It also has quite a steep learning curve, but once you learned it, you’ll have back all of your time back with interests.

Scrivener is compatible with both Windows and MacOS.

Organization: xMind

Mind Maps are useful diagrams that help to understand the connections between different objects. This is quite useful as a fast description mechanism.

Mind-mapping has been one of the most useful techniques I applied to my writing. I find it especially useful when building my characters but it is great every time I want to describe something in a way my brain can quickly process.

I used much software for mind mapping but finally landed on XMind. The main reason is that it already has everything I need and it does its job in a simple way. A bonus is that the free version of XMind already has all the main features.

It also integrates very well with Scrivener – if you link an XMind project from within Scrivener this will be able to display the content of the mind map without you having to switch between the two.

Inspiration: Pinterest

Everybody knows Pinterest these days, right? Right?

If you don’t, and you do any creative work, this platform will be good for you. Aside from being a marketing tool, Pinterest is also a good instrument to find and store information, especially for images or video.

I use it as a platform to search for inspiration and to pin all the stuff I want to come back to.

Much of the stuff I looked for “Seven Kinds of Darkness” is there on a dedicated board. Even ignoring the marketing implications of this, I find it invaluable.

Productivity: Habitica

Habitica changed my life. I am a nerd and I know it but bear with me.

Habitica allows you to gamify your life. It allows you to create an avatar offering a set of health points and mana – just like in an RPG. All you have to do is to set habits and to-do. For everything you do, you’ll earn experience points that will increase your level.

Now I know this might sound ridiculous for some people but I am a weirdly driven person and I bet there are many like me out there. Having a levelling system gives me the idea of progression I need in order to cling to my habits. This pushes me to improve all the time.

I also find the tool extremely simple to use and it is one of the few that allows managing both habits, to-do and recurrent tasks all in one place. I highly recommend it.

Self-editing: ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is a software that analyzes your text and gives you suggestions about what could be wrong with it. The software tells if you are introducing too many repetitions, if there is something imperfect about your writing style or if you have an overly wordy prose (just like me).

I love it because all the features I need are already included in the free edition. I mostly use it to have an idea of what to edit in my writing during the first loop of correction once my first draft is ready.

Copyediting: Hemingway

Hemingway was famous for how fluid his writing was. He could express powerful ideas without the need for complex prose. The Hemingway app has the goal to make your writing similar to that of the famous author.

The app gives you suggestions to improve your prose by reducing the complexity of sentences and removing passive voice. It is especially nice because it doesn’t just blindly say that something is wrong but allows for a certain level of complexity without forcing the rules on you.

Proofreading: Grammarly

Grammarly is yet again another tool to improve your what you write. It is probably the simpler tool in this list of editing systems. It works very well in identifying morphological errors and its error checking system is better than that of Word or Scrivener.  The free version helps a lot already. If you are not a native English speaker, the paid version can be a good investment.

I use it as a final proofread for what I write and it often uncovers stuff I missed.

[sebastiano-merlino]

And which quote from an established author gives you the strength to keep going? - via 8 Novel Writing Tips & Insights from Successful Authors

[sebastiano-merlino]

How to Define Your Character's Story Goal

Are you ready to get your plot rolling? The first step to creating epic conflict for your story is to define your characters’ goals. When you know what your characters want, you know what action they’ll take. And if you craft your protagonist’s and antagonist’s goals with purpose in mind, the action

What's the best way to define your character's story goal? Can it help define the plot?

[sebastiano-merlino]

It is not something I've experienced since I started outlining my novels (so maybe that is my solution) - via Writer's Block: What to Do When You Run Out of Gas

[sebastiano-merlino]

Yeah... I know I've been guilty of this one! - via Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 63: Purple Prose - Helping Writers Become Authors

[sebastiano-merlino]

What can we learn from James Lee Burke’s character descriptions? - via A Look at Masterful Character Description | Live Write Thrive

[sebastiano-merlino]

Joanna Penn's interview with Jim Kukral on how to build a business around a book. - via How to Build a Business Around a Book with Jim Kukral | The Creative Penn