Up to now, I have had two basic tools at my disposal.  One is the old fashioned notebook and writing stick which, for sure, is not something to sneeze at since it requires no special resources to operate. Note paper and writing sticks are plentiful at local shops everywhere. In fact, given sufficient supplies, they are ideal for operating off the grid since they work in any conditions, though, of course, light is necessary if you want to see what you are writing.

The other tool is the basic word processor or text editor. I lump the two of them together because they have the same characteristics related to writing long fiction. Again, the word processor is nothing to sneeze at for as long as sufficient electricity and computing resources are available, it is a tool to bar none in efficiency, especially since I type quite effectively, even considering my error rate.

What both tools lack is the ability to keep track of the various facets of a story and allow rearranging things easily. Copy and paste only goes so far since it requires finding the location in the long stream of text on the computer screen. It’s marginally easier with written scenes if each scene is on independent pages, which it should be. However, it is easy to lose pages or mangle them beyond legibility (assuming they were legible in the first place), or spill coffee on them, or whatever.

By an extreme twist of luck, a buddy of mine remembered that I was writing a novel. Well, more specifically, he remembered me complaining about the inadequacy of the tools I was using to write the novel. He sent me a note the other day with a tool he stumbled on purely by accident and included links to several others. While the tool he originally thought would be useful doesn’t quite pan out, one of the others appears to be useful.

The tool is called Storybook and is open source. I’ve just started playing around in it and, so far, it seems to have the basic features that I really need. There are some that would be nice but that’s hardly critical. It also makes certain assumptions about the setting (assuming countries and so on) which do not necessarily hold in science fiction type things. Still, that is not a substantial handicap.

I have imported the bits that I have written so far for my novel project. Over the next while, I will see how well it actually works for a nontrivial project. At a first glance, however, I can honestly say that for anyone who is putting off actually writing for lack of a decent tool for doing so, go ahead and give Storybook a whirl.

First, I am doing this as a hobby. As I am writing this series of posts on the process of writing the novel, I am actually writing the novel. I have no actual illusions that I will make any substantial profit from this work though if I do manage to, I will be thrilled. However, I am doing it mostly for the fun and to pass time. Thus, I am deriving a benefit from the process even though it is not a financial one.

By sharing the details of the various bits I write as background information, I also am forced to think about what I am doing. It forces me to take a second look at everything and sometimes that reveals contradictions and other problems. It also means that I have to organize my thoughts when I analyze any particular aspect of the process and that is invaluable to a person attempting to write anything.

Most of all, however, I know myself. Odds are pretty high that I will not finish this project for various reasons. In that case, I do not wish the entire creative effort to exist solely in a few files on my hard drive and in a sheaf of nearly illegible and indecipherable notes. By including all the details here, I am ensuring a more permanent, and, more importantly, legible record of it.

I also hope that by sharing the details of my work, others will be inspired to write or to share their own work. Perhaps it will start a new trend in literature but I have no illusions that I am the first to do this. Still, by sharing my initial work and the various stages along the way to the final work, including the missteps, I hope to illuminate the fact that writing is not a simple process nor always a pleasant one. But I also hope to eliminate some of the mystery and possibly mystique surrounding the process.

Most of all, I hope that by sharing the non-polished initial stages of the process, others will be inspired to share their work. The world cannot help but be enriched if the literary works that currently lie fallow are shared, even if only a fraction of a percent of them are any good. Most importantly, however, is that it is the readers that determine what is good, not the writers or publishers, so why not allow the readers the option to decide that your work is good? So, there is also an element of practicing what I preach in putting all this online.

Finally, I should note that anyone who does not want the actual story spoiled can simply ignore these posts and go about their day in the hope that I will someday finish the project. I am most certainly not forcing any of you to read anything I write!

I should probably note that I am more than happy to see comments criticizing any element in this process. I have no doubt the final product will be improved by any feedback I do receive, constructive or otherwise.

Flames away!

The most important question that needs answering is why is there a prison planet in the first place. After all, it is expensive to transport mass of any kind through space. It would be far cheaper to build a penal colony in a local system or on the planet where the criminals exist. Instead, our universe has a prison planet. Why?

As I was thinking about this, I remembered a novel by Stephen King where there was a game show that follows real people who are attempting to avoid capture for whatever reason. It’s been too long since I read the novel and the movie is quite different. The point is that it occurred to me that perhaps this prison planet exists for a similar reason: entertainment.

Having decided that there is an entertainment purpose behind the prison planet, some things begin to make sense. Obviously, the company producing the entertainment will be offsetting or outright paying the costs of transport to get their “characters” to the set for their show. It then becomes apparent that there is a benefit to the various nations to send prisoners to Mal, especially those serving life sentences. It also gives them a cost effective way to get rid of particularly violent or dangerous offenders without executing them. There is no execution and the prison planet is better than a cell.

There would also be a deterrent effect since people would be familiar with the conditions on Mal and know that they could end up there if they commit crimes. On the other hand, people get to indulge their voyeuristic impulses by watching the antics of the prisoners attempting to survive on another planet.

So now that we know that Mal is really a giant set for an entertainment scheme, we now know some of the features that must be present on the planet. Obviously, there must be a communication endpoint that can transmit information to other planets.  There must also be an infrastructure to observe and record the antics of the prisoners. This assumes at least a minimal infrastructure. Additionally, the producers must be able to find and replace or fix their equipment which suggests some sort of global positioning system and also a planetary communication network.

It can be assumed that this entertainment gimmick is profitable. After all, the producers would not be able to bring in additional prisoners unless they had the financial wherewithal to do so.

Using current real life as a guide, I also assume that there will be protests against the treatment of prisoners, some of which will be violent and some of which will involve attempts to break in and rescue prisoners. This means that the producers will have to have some level of defence around the planet. It also means that, from time to time, people will end up on the planet without being convicted of any sort of crime as space ships crash or are shot down by the planetary defences.

Because Mal is a prison populated by convicts, it is inevitable that the occasional innocent person will end up there. The question becomes what do the producers do about such situations. In cases where sufficient authorization is provided by the authorities that convicted a prisoner, the producers will attempt to locate and rescue the wrongly convicted person. It also occurs to me that some people will prefer the life on what is essentially a frontier world to their previous lives and that some would rather stay on Mal rather than return in this situation.

This brings up the possibility of people who volunteer to be imprisoned on Mal. The producers would be fools to turn down such people, especially later on as the deterrent effect means that fewer and fewer people are convicted of crimes that would land them on Mal and those that are will tend to be more likely to be psychotic or sociopathic. After all, the tension between sane and insane makes for great entertainment.

So now we know why and how Mal exists as a prison planet and also how prisoners end up on the planet. We do not know anything about the producers, however, and that will be critical information that informs the development of conditions on the planet.

The producers are a reclusive group known only as “Dave”. Dave arranged for Mal to be terraformed, at great expense, and installed all the technical infrastructure necessary to produce Inmate Survivors, the entertainment empire built around Mal. Dave operates Mal completely above board and does not interfere in the lives of the inmates. Anything that would make for good entertainment is permitted to play out, including the occasional attempt at outside interference from protesters that end up on the planet or people attempting to influence the show.

Dave also builds in an incentive for prisoners to work hard at survival. Should a prisoner manage to escape from the planet’s surface or find his way to one of the hidden sanctuaries (from which the show is produced), he has the option of joining Dave or returning to civilization anonymously with a new identity. Well, as anonymously as can be expected given the fact that he will have been filmed in the attempt to escape.

This raises the question of exactly why supporters of a particular prisoner do not simply show up and rescue him. This is, of course, controlled by the cost of actually doing so. Interstellar travel to remote locations is expensive and the further the expedition must travel, the more expensive it is. Also, the sheer number of prisoners makes it impractical to rescue more than a handful at any given time. This rescue cost is further increased by the fact that Dave does not install a beanstalk and without advanced transport infrastructure, rocketry is the only viable means of lifting payload from the surface of Mal. A very expensive proposition indeed.

Dave has a policy of not rescuing anyone who arrives on the surface except those who were convicted wrongly. This is simply a cost equation. The wrongly convicted usually do not arrive at Mal in the first place for Dave vets the cases very carefully before agreeing to pay for transit. Also, truly innocent people crashing or otherwise arriving at Mal by accident is unheard of; most “crashes” are orchestrated to get past the planetary defences. This explains how Eben will end up on Mal but not be rescued by Dave.

We can assume that Dave has recovered the cost of setting up Inmate Survivors by the time this story takes place. In fact, I have decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that Mal has been in operation for 226 years at the point the story takes place. This means that Mal is well know by the entire human population of the galaxy.

Dave also has hidden motives for operating Mal but these will remain hidden for the entire story. They may become relevant should a sequel occur but this particular story will not require them. Their presence, however, may serve to further increase the believability of such an expensive undertaking. Also, the exact members of the reclusive Dave are currently not known but should it become relevant, this information can be created in conjunction with the hidden motives.

I did write a similar story piece about Mal’s history as I did for Eben and Ogden. I have decided to include it below though it is somewhat long. So, for your reading pleasure, the story behind Mal.

Any society or civilization ultimately faces two problems: entertaining the masses and maintaining order. The latter is expensive and the former often difficult. The League of Worlds (any many non-aligned worlds) faced the problem of escalating costs to house criminals.

One particularly enterprising individual known only as “Dave” had a novel solution. Why not make money from inmates instead of paying for their keep? Most powers that be scoffed at the idea but he was able to obtain sufficient investment to claim an unoccupied planet and terraform it. He then placed automated recorders around the more habitable areas and socked the planet with mobile drones and a solid communication network, closed of course. Then he started broadcasting over the interstellar network, first the empty planet and a suggestion of his idea. Then, some worlds realized that there was no moral objection to shipping death row and life sentence inmates to such a place. Dave paid the transport costs which were very quickly offset by the revenue from Inmate Survivors.

Unlike most reality shows, there was no need to rig the show to derive entertainment value. That was its gimmick – no contrived plots; boring reality at its most raw.

For generations, this planetary boradcast continued. Even the occasional attempt to interfere was allowed to play out. As time passed, viewers watched a culture and civilization  begin to form, but it was constantly shattered by the influx of new malcontents and criminals. Some were innocent but even this made for good viewing. Some innocents were rescued when appeals succeeded but a surprising number had no wish to leave after they had stayed fora time.

Eventually, the morality of sending people into exile on a barren planet with no infrastructure gave rise to groups opposed to the practice. Most of these groups folded before they gained any real momentum. Occasionally, they changed the policies of their local governments but there was never a shortage of fresh inmates from other worlds. There was even a movement of people who “volunteered” for Mal for various reasons.

Of course, as with any successful business venture, rivals attempted to control, duplicate, or destroy the successful venture. Many attempts to sabotage Mal over the years simply resulted in better ratings as the attempts were filmed and broadcast. Some attempts were to organize the inmates to overthrow their jailers but most saw little point as they were freer on Mal than when they had been free. Some were attempts to provoke war and destruction or to destroy the camera gear which met with greater success but Dave always replaced cameras quickly from a seemingly endless supply.

The ultimately successful intervention was a truly covert one, consisting as it did of two unwitting instigators. Even Dave did not realize the implications until too late but the struggle for independence and order made for a brilliant broadcast. In the end, Dave had the rights to a fully complete record of the rise of a nation from initial settlement (and even the terraforming before) all the way through establishment of a sovereign nation. Even with royalties paid to Mal for the use of said library, it was very lucrative.

In fact, Dave had foreseen that nationhood or similar was a likely outcome and had set aside a portion of the proceeds from the beginning. Against these profits, he had charged the actual cost terraforming (duly recorded and documented), the cost of producing the show – cameras, transportation, distribution costs, etc., and set aside the rest in an interest bearing deposit. By the time Mal gained independence, its government inherited a bank account large enough to clear the national debts of half of the League of Worlds.

With the ultimate success of Dave’s Mal venture, it became a popular thing to finance colonies through vid exploitation but none garnered the level of success of Mal for they were no longer novel and they faced competition. Still, many colonies succeeded where they would have otherwise failed without such a venture.

There is, of course, additional information in the above passage that has not yet been discussed, including revelation of some of the broad strokes plot details of the story. More on those details in another post.

First, I settled on a name: Eben Trys. Given the spelling of Trys, I decided that she would continually receive incorrect pronunciations of her name (“trees”, “tries”, “triss”) but the correct pronunciation is “treece”.

Her physical characteristics are somewhat uninspiring. She is slightly taller than average at just over six feet in height. She has the standard blended brown skin tone combined with reddish brown hair and brown eyes. She is not particularly curvy and has an athletic build. Her breasts are large enough to be obvious but not large enough to be distracting unless she chooses to make them so. The same goes for her hips and butt. With special care, she can pass as a man so long as close scrutiny is avoided.

Like for Ogden Ecter, I created an initial biography for Eben which illuminates her character.

Eben is an independent interstellar trader. She is mostly honest though she will take less than legal jobs on occasion. She has no qualms about killing if it is necessary to protect her life or her cargo. She is scrupulous about adhering to contracts although she will break a contract if there is sufficient profit or other motivation to do so.

Eben comes from a long line of wealthy merchants based on Lebtor Seven. It was a minor scandal for her parents when she went independent but she could no longer abide the strong lack of morality showed by the Trys Traders. As an independent, she ends up poaching much of the Trys Traders’ more honest trade, thus revealing their true nature. There is much bad blood between Eben and her family.

Eben has managed to avoid trouble with authorities in most systems. Because laws vary widely between systems, most do not recognize each other’s warrants, especially when the subject of said warrants happens to be providing a valuable service.

The specific job that lands Eben in trouble is a simple enough cargo transport between Old Earth and Pleddor Two which happens to be time sensitive. The shortest route between the two passes within jump distance of Mal but no other currently habitable worlds. The cargo turns out to be a computer jammer amid other associated gear that comes on as Eben makes her closest approach to Mal and seizes control driving her at full power directly perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy. By the time she regains control (possibly by design), she has only enough fuel to make Mal and does so. The landing is rough but the ship survives intact.

Again, we can learn much about this universe from this short biography. First, we know there are two other planets or colonies of some sort: Lebtor Seven and Pleddor Two. The specific significance of the numbers is not obvious but it can be defined later should any action take place at either location.

We also know that Pleddor Two is located somewhere without significant development, perhaps on the rim of human space. We also know now that the interstellar travel conceit involves jumping in some manner and that travelling perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy is not a good thing, especially at full power.

We also learn that Mal happens to be off the beaten track for it is “on the way” to Pleddor Two from the perspective of Earth but no other inhabited world is. The specific wording implies that other worlds may become habitable in the neighbourhood but they are not currently.

About Eben, we learn that her parents are rich but somewhat amoral. Much can be inferred from this but none of it is relevant to the particular story at hand. We know that she is well versed in such things that a trader would need, such has handling various cultures and negotiating a fair price. She is also likely not on speaking terms with her family since her choice to go independent.

Despite the lack of safety net from her family, she is clearly able to handle herself. This is obvious given that random worlds are willing to ignore warrants from others. While this is perfectly acceptable in a climate with largely independent sovereign states, it is often a source of tension. That these states are willing to risk the tension suggests that Eben has strong backers somewhere or that she is a strong player herself.

We also learn that she will usually follow a contract. However, we also know that she will break a contract if there is “sufficient profit” to do so. Like Ogden’s biography, this also implies there is something other than money that is valuable, so valuable that it is worth compromising a reputation by taking bribes (in Ogden’s case) or by breaking contracts (in Eben’s case). At this point it is important to note that both biographies were written within minutes of each other with no particular thought about how they mesh. This coincidence between them is actually unintended but such things are often useful when developing a story. In this case, I will work it into the universe I am creating for the story.

Finally, we know that Eben’s presence on Mal is not intentional on her part but neither is it voluntary. She is not a prisoner and does not arrive through the usual channels. She also has resources beyond those of the inmates upon her arrival. Also, the nature of her arrival must be somewhat noticeable if she is landing a space ship somewhere on the surface.

Next time, we will set up the basics of the setting.

Of course, no amount of planning will prevent actual errors. The more ambitious your work, the more likely you will make an error. After all, there is only so much information you can keep in your mind at one time. For instance, the character of Aviendha in the Wheel of Time originally had a conflict in her backstory which was later corrected using some semi-clever sleight of words. Still, when you have well defined characters, it shows, even when you make relatively minor errors. Thus, time spent developing characters before writing anything about them is well spent. Of course, too much time spent developing characters and no time spent writing is not helpful but the balance depends on the specific story and the character’s importance to the story.

Normally, characters are developed to fit into a specific niche in the plot. However, at this early stage, there is no plot to fill in. And, without characters, there is no plot. This may seem like an impossible situation but it is really quite simple. Pick one and start working on it. The other will follow. In this case, I decided I needed two characters to drive the plot. I have no reason for this other than I wanted two characters. So I set about creating them.

First, I started with broad strokes. Let me describe the process with one character. I wanted a male character with a somewhat shady past, but also a character that had been wronged in some way. Once I settled on that, I got busy creating the character.

The most obvious thing a character needs is a name. This is not just for realism, either. It is bloody difficult to write about a character with no name for more than a few paragraphs. Inevitably, it degenerates into annoying circumlocutions like “the man with the hair” or what have you. Exactly how to choose a name depends on context. For human characters, it is usually best to pick a name that your readers will have some hope of pronouncing, even if they pronounce it differently than you do. It is perfectly fine to simply make up a name but do not be too outlandish. It is difficult to explain wacky names later if needed in the story. In this case, I simply made up the name “Ogden Ecter”. Because this story is set in the very distant future, it is reasonable that common names today will still be in use then but also that new names will have arisen.

Now that Ogden has a name, he needs some personal details. I decided that he is from Old Earth, which is really just Earth in the distant future with the “Old” business a colloquialism that just happens to be accurate. If needed later, I can make up a story about how it came to be called “Old”. I assume that humans on Old Earth will look very much like humans do today and assume that roughly six feet tall is a fairly average height for a man. So I make Ogden six feet tall with brilliant green eyes. I also give him pure white hair though he is no more than thirty. I further note that the white is not the white of great age but rather a deeper, more vibrant white, and that it is an unusual but not unheard of colour. It assume at this point that it is due to some genetic anomaly but the cause is unimportant at this stage so I pursue the matter no further. I also give him a brownish skin tone such as would be expected from many centuries of interracial breeding. I make him physically fit and healthy for he would hardly be a good candidate for his background if he were not.

Now that I have a basic appearance for Ogden, I must decide on his background. Personally, I find that the easiest way to set a background is to actually write a short biography. So, to that end, I did just that. The initial biography follows, but it is, by no means, set in stone at this point for I have not written a single word of the story yet. You will note that as I write the biography, facets of the story’s setting also become clearer.

Nobody knows exactly how old Ogden Ecter is. He is the most sought after assassin on Old Earth. He is known to have at least 75 successful kills to his name.

He was caught due to bad luck related to timing, location, and a non-functional car, none of which were entirely coincidental. He was set up by his ex-wife, also a skilled assassin, to cover one of her hits and eliminate competition at the same time. The frame was well executed and sufficient officials were bought off to ensure it fit. The entire affair required a very very rich patron with very very good connections.

Eventually, Ogden was convicted and sentenced to death. On the day of his execution, he is snuck out of the prison on Earth and loaded onto the next prison transport to Mal. It is clear that additional resources changed hands to ensure this.

Ogden is an accomplished backwoods survivalist and hs nearly encyclopedic knowledge of many topics ranging from League law to medicine to physics and history. Such knowledge was invaluable when getting close to his marks.

Contrary to the expected character of an assassin, Ogden has a strong moral code and is choosy about the jobs he takes. He must convince himself that the mark deserves death before he pulls the trigger. He has backed out of contracts when he became convinced of his mark’s innocence.

There are several notable things that come from this biography. Most notably, Ogden Ecter is an assassin. That means he is certainly guilty of murder at the least. We also know that he remained free for a very long time to accumulate such an impressive number of kills so we can be certain that he is very good at passing undetected despite his striking appearance.

We know from the opening sentence that Ogden is an orphan. Neither he nor anyone else has any idea exactly when he was born, but we do not know why that is the case. As the author, I should work out at least broad strokes but they are not critically important unless his parents are going to figure into the story later and the details can be created when it becomes apparent that they are required. For now, the fact that he is an orphan is the important bit for it may help explain why he is an assassin in the first place, and may give a hint about his unusual hair colour.

We also know that the justice system on Old Earth is prone to manipulation given sufficient “resources”. The term “resources” crept in while I was writing the biography and, instead of replacing it with money, I decided the implication that something other than money is usable as bribes is potentially interesting.

The biography raises questions about Ogden’s marriage to another assassin but these are unimportant for the story at hand. Should it ever become important, the details of that marriage can be expanded upon. For now, the fact that he was previously married does not affect the story except for the fact that it was his ex-wife that arranged for him to be caught by the authorities.

Another interesting point that arises from the particular word choice that happened unconsciously is that it is not at all clear that his ex-wife is responsible for his transfer to the prison planet even though she was clearly responsible for the frame that put him in jail.

Finally, Ogden has a moral code, thought it might not be one that we, as readers, agree with. This will go a long way to explaining his motivations for actions required to move the story along later. It also serves to make him less of an evil bastard and more of a potentially lovable rogue.

One final point to note is that the prison planet now has a name: Mal. The choice of the name was not a conscious one; it just seemed right after a few seconds thought. The specific nature of the name does raise some interesting questions about who named the planet and why.

This particular biography is likely not the final version of Ogden Ecter’s history. In fact, some details may change as necessary for the story. A rule of thumb is that any detail that has not yet been included in an actual story is malleable so long as modifying it does not eliminate an important motivator or otherwise make the character’s character implausible.

It is also interesting to note that this first biography was the easiest to write because I did not have to take care to ensure that the biographical background information does not conflict with another biography or other bit of backstory.

This particular biography also serves to illustrate the feedback loop between character development, setting or world building, and plot construction. As more pieces of the overall picture are created, the story itself will become clearer.

Next time, the other main character.

Writing a novel (or short story or poem or novella or any other kind of creative writing) needs an idea. Without an idea, there is nothing to hang the story on. The idea is what determines who your characters are and what your setting is. It may even determine what themes you lace into your masterful storytelling.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the initial idea for a story is that it needs to be original. Sure, an original idea is wonderful and if you manage to come up with one that you like, run with it. However, there are plenty of good stories that started with a plain old bog normal idea that has been done many thousands of times before. Do not let the fact that your idea is not original cause you to fall into the trap of thinking that an unoriginal idea must necessarily lead to an unoriginal story. And even if it does, that does not mean it will be a clone of every other story using that idea or that it will not be a worthwhile undertaking.

Also, it is important to note that an idea does not usually appear fully formed any more than the story itself does. In fact, defining the idea behind the story is a major function of the planning stage. As we will see in upcoming installments of this chronicle, there is a certain amount of feedback between the rest of the writing process and the refinement of the initial idea.

Let us consider the initial process leading to the idea behind my novel project. I started with the premise that there would be a prison planet where violent or otherwise inconvenient prisoners are sent. That, of course, is not a story idea; it’s a setting idea. It is also not complete. To turn it into a story idea, a number of questions must be asked. Some of these questions are as follows.

• Who runs the prison planet and why?
• Who pays the costs of transporting the prisoners to the planet?
• Why are local jails not used for prisoners? Or, for that matter, why not execution instead of life imprisonment?
• Are the prisoners guarded?
• Is the planet itself guarded?
• What if a prisoner manages to escape the planet?
• Is the planet Earth-like enough for human survival? If so, how did it get that way? If not, what are the conditions like?
• How are prisoners deposited on the planet? Do they arrive with supplies? Are they all dropped in the same place or spread out over the surface?

There are, of course, many more questions that can be asked and answered, including questions that arise from the answers to other questions. The more of these questions you can answer, the better your idea will end up being. However, it is also important to avoid getting lost in the details for down that path be dragons ready to eat you.

The astute among you will realize that so far I have been concerned with setting more than what will actually happen in the story. While there are great stories that are nothing more than elaborate tours of steam grommet factories, most successful stories have a deeper structure.

Depending on the setting, the plot line may be obvious. It may provide many options or just a few. In this case, there are many stories that could be told. The question is which one do I want to tell? Some options are as follows.

• A chronicle of the early prisoners and the conditions they face attempting to survive a passively hostile planet.
• An ambitious tale of the eventual emergence of a nation against the odds and against the desires of the rest of the galaxy.
• The tale of an innocent man sent to the prison planet and the terrible or wonderful things he must do to survive and eventually obtain (or not) revenge.
• The rise of a hero who rattles around the planet slaying random beasts and otherwise helping the helpless.
• A multi-generational tale of the emergence of a unique culture and economy despite the constant influx of murderers, thieves, and other unsavory types.

There are, of course, a great many other possible tales. Some are small in scope while others are sweeping tales of complex history. The question I had to ask myself was whether I wanted to tell an ambitious tale or a simpler one. When I settled on a simpler one, it became obvious that I should pick an important event in the evolution of this prison planet and tell that tale. So I eventually settled on the events that led to the planet attaining independence in the eyes of the greater galaxy.

I should note that while I started with a setting and picked the overall plot from that, it can also be done the other way. I could have picked a story and designed a setting around it. I could even have picked a character and then asked what would happen if that character was dropped into a particular circumstance. There is no correct approach and in the end, any approach may lead to a good story and, in fact, multiple approaches could ultimately lead to the same story in the end.

Tune in next time for a riveting discussion of character development.

If I have learned anything from my various aborted attempts to write a novel, it is that failure to plan your story will almost certainly lead to failure in completing your story. It is a very rare story that presents itself to the writer fully formed and ready to be committed to paper. The longer the story, the less likely this event will be. There are far too many pitfalls that can open up beneath the intrepid would-be novelist for the approach of simply writing and seeing what happens to be generally productive of anything other than reams of words that are semi-coherent.

I have decided that it is time to actually plan a story and then try to write it. This is, however, not the most exciting process in the world for it involves a great deal of thought about details far beyond those that will ever appear in the finished work. Of course, if you truly desire to write a good story, this planning stage is critical

To alleviate the boredom of this process and also to contribute an additional motivation, I have decided to chronicle my adventures in writing a novel on my blog. By doing so, I ensure that I have, at least, written something that will permit me to experience that feeling of satisfaction, even if the novel itself is never completed. Indeed, many aspiring writers may find my chronicle interesting, if only as a case study in what not to do. Perhaps even experienced writers will find a chronicle of me flailing around trying to write amusing.

Interested parties should watch this space, and the “Novel Project” category in particular for each new entry in this saga. It is also important to note that these entries do not reflect the process realtime but are spread out in easier to digest chunks. Here’s hoping that it proves interesting.

I suppose I’ll eventually find an offline blogging tool that works for me but for the moment, it’s just frustrating. Why does software have to be so damned fragile? I mean, is it too much to ask for some decent checks to say “You <bleeped> up, you <bleeping> moron” rather than just crashing silently? (No, don’t answer that. I know the answer.)

Well, enough grousing. Off to find something more constructive to do.

In general, I enjoy writing these entries. Sometimes I write them because something has a bug up my butt but mostly I’m writing about things that are interesting to me. Anyone who has read through my posts will know that the things that interest me are somewhat eclectic. I mean, 地球少女アルジュナ, Battlestar Galactica, English grammar, and TRS-80 Color Computers? (No, I don’t read or speak Japanese; I just copied that text from a much cooler source.)

One thing I’ve never really thought about, though, is why do I really do it? I mean, my comments in that first post mentioned above are great but that doesn’t really provide any insight into why I keep doing it. After all, my blog is fairly obscure. I’m pretty certain almost nobody reads it. My web host doesn’t even notice the traffic I get. So I’m clearly not making any money from this thing and I certainly am not getting famous. Still, I must be deriving some benefit from doing this or I would hardly still be at it all these years later, would I?

I put some thought into just that question. Like everything else in life, the answer is not exactly simple. It turns out I have multiple reasons for having continued this long.

The first, and probably least important, reason is that I enjoy writing. I dabble with writing novels (none finished or published), short stories (some on my site), poetry (available in dead tree form from the publisher) and even non-fiction rambles about current events. But pleasure is not sufficient to continue something long term for it eventually gets boring if that is the whole purpose.

There is also a certain ego trip that results from seeing ones work published in any form. With the advent of the WWW, it is trivial for anyone to publish anything they want. And I have done just that. In fact, I had a personal web site with actual content on it long before the blogging craze took over the web. Indeed, I registered my first domain name on October 7, 1998 and that domain still directs traffic to the one I use today (which I couldn’t get until late 2000 when the .ca domain was deregulated). Since my site has been online as long as it has, when it actually has content relevant to a particular search, it seems to rank fairly well. Being able to say I’ve had a web site since 1998 is also an ego boost. But the ego boost is even bigger if I can say the site has been active since then. And it has.

But ego trips aside, I think real reason continue is for the occasional comment out of the blue from people I do not know and who wouldn’t know me if we passed on the street. Every once in a while, I’ll write a piece that gets somebody’s attention and they will care enough to leave a comment. It happened occasionally before I started this blog and, thus, posting more regularly. It has continued to happen since then. Some of these comments are available for all to see when viewing the blog archives. I think it is for these small moments of awesome that I do this. I think it is wonderful that I can write about some random topic and find that another person actually reads it and feels strongly enough to comment on what I wrote. I think this modern world with its Internet and WWW counts as one of humankind’s crowning moments of awesome and I am simply honoured to be able to participate.

So what it comes down to is I like hearing myself talk (figuratively), I like seeing my name and my work appear where others can see it, and I like being part of something cool. In other words, I’m human. And it’s fun. So I keep doing it. So sue me.

Before I go too far in this commentary on the subject, allow me to mention the wonderful article at Zompist.com that discusses the subject of English spelling. I highly recommend that anyone interested in spelling or other topics linguistic to check out that site.

Now, on to English spelling.

I’ll assume that since you are reading this that you have at least a passing familiarity with written English. If you don’t, how are you reading this? (Yes, I know there are translation gimmicks out there but they will no doubt have made a hash of this.)

In any event, it is a common complaint that spelling in English is difficult. Of course, there are basic rules which are helpful to some extent but there are exceptions to many of them and then there are exceptions to the exceptions and so on. This leads to what many have described as a complete mess.

Let’s take an example of some of the commentary that has occurred. It has been suggested at least once that under the current spelling system in English, one could write “ghoti”. Apparently that is a common word. I have to admit, however, that no matter how I squinted at it, I only managed to come up with a pronunciation that sounds like “goatee”. However, “ghoti” is alleged to be a valid spelling of “fish”. This example, however, assumes there is far more chaos to English spelling than there is. For instance, no native English speaker would even begin to think that “gh” at the beginning of a word is anything but a hard “g” sound like in “ghost”. In fact, most will not even associate the “gh” in “cough” with the “f” sound since most will have learned most of the words ending in “ough” by rote since the pronunciation varies. The “ti” runs into the same problem because it only has the “sh” type sound when it appears in specific contexts such as “action”. And even then, depending on your dialect, it may sound like “ch” rather than “sh”. The “o” may have more justification except for the fact that it is allegedly from the “o” in “women” which is something of an aberration rather than something any English speaker will recognize as a rule. Go ahead, find other words where “o” sounds like a short “i”. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. No, when I see an “o” in the middle of a stressed syllable (which it must be if there is only one in the word), it takes one of the various sounds like in “cot” or “caught” or “coat” or what have you. It does not even degenerate into a schwa, stressed or not.

Let’s leave aside the fact that English spelling is considerably more regular than the spelling reform advocates wish it to be. English has a far bigger problem for spelling than the complexity of the current system. This particular problem must be solved by any replacement system. The fact that no replacement system has gained any real traction is suggestive that this particular problem has not been solved. The problem I am referring to is, of course, the insane number of regional dialects that exist.

While these dialects are all clearly English, their pronunciation varies wildly, particularly with respect to vowels and the letter “r”. The “r” business is easily handwaved away as the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic dialects is quite regular and need not cause any substantial trouble for a writing system. Vowel sounds, on the other hand, are critical. Have you ever wondered why “cot” and “caught” are spelled differently? If you haven’t, then your dialect distinguishes between the two vowels. If you have, then your dialect doesn’t. A trivial amount of research and thought reveals many dozens of such examples between varying dialects, and that only counts the major ones. It turns out that the vowel variance between dialects, even within a single country, simply cannot be represented uniformly by any spelling system. There are too many variations. The Zompist link above talks about that problem.

So any reformed spelling system for English must have the following characteristics to be useful:

• It must be regular and straight forward to learn.
• It must be applicable to all dialects of English to be useful. After all, if only one region can read the particular spelling, what’s the point of it?

Let us return to the current spelling system. It certainly has irregularities but the vast majority of words do follow known patterns which can be identified by readers with little effort, to the point that even most unfamiliar words can be pronounced with a bit of thought and practice. It does, however, have its warts, particularly with respect to the vowels, but there are also some issues related to consonant sounds.

As discussed above, the vowel problem is not truly solvable. However, since English has such a complex vowel system, it was never really going to be solvable anyway without the addition of letters to the alphabet or the introduction of diacriticals. (Try enumerating all the different vowel sounds you use in common words; ignore how the vowel is written but rather listen to how the word sounds compared to others. You may be surprised how many distinct vowel sounds you find in your own dialect.) I contend that it is not the vowels that cause the trouble anyway, but the irregularities with consonants.

Consonant sounds do tend to be more consistent across dialects and where they vary, they tend vary due to vowel variance and they tend to do so in predictable, and natural ways. The consonants in English are relatively simple and, for the most part, have perfectly simple means of expression. For instance, the “k” sound or the “s” sound or the “z” sound or the “t” sound. However, there are extra ways of writing such sounds which tend to confuse the issue. As a common example, why is “ph” needed as another way to spell “f”? Why does it matter that the “ph” words come from Greek? We are not speaking Greek nor are we using the actual Greek alphabet so why keep an archaic spelling? After all, “fotograf” is as clear as “photograph”. But that one is not a particular problem for reading English, only writing it. Let’s take the letter “c” as a real example. It sounds like “s” sometimes and “k” other times. Why is that needed at all? Simply replace it with “s” or “k” as appropriate! There are many other examples of such irregularities which have crept into the language for various reasons ranging from aesthetics to laziness to spelling standardization going one way in one part of the world and another in another part.

My contention is that if we were to clean up the mess with consonants some, English spelling would become quite a lot easier. It seems to me that a great deal of the variation in spelling for various sounds exists in the consonants rather than the vowels. If there was only one way to write “f” and only one way to write “sh”, then even with vowel confusion, one might be able to at least guess what a “fosh” is. At the very least, “fosh” looks like it could be English where “ghoti” looks foreign.

There is one important further note that I feel I should add. I have to this point completely ignored the issue of foreign words coming into English. Aside from the consonant confusion we inherited from various sources, there is a much bigger issue with loan words. Almost all of the confusion with spelling in English could be eliminated if load words were respelled to follow standard English phonetic rules! Why should I need to know that “gila” is actually pronunced “heela”? It should not matter where “gila” comes from; it should be spelled according to standard English rules when it is being written as an English word. If one must represent it as its original language source, it would be more properly written gila (note that italics to denote a foreign word).  The same thing should apply regardless of which language the word or phrase came from. For instance, “maître d’”. I usually hear it pronounced in English as “maiter dee” so why do we not write it that way?

Since I have, as is usual, blathered on at great length, allow me to summarize what I believe we should do for spelling reform.

• Keep the current alphabet and basic spelling rules for basic English words
• Do not mess about with the vowel representations at all because any such effort is doomed fail; there is simply too much vowel variance between dialects
• Clean up some of the more obvious extra spellings of various consonants. We can replace such things as “ph” with “f” and “c” with “k” or “s”. “x” is another candidate for complete replacement. Also, we can make all hard “g” sounds “g” and all soft “g” sounds “j”. There are other things that could be done to improve consistency among the consonants.
• Naturalize the spelling of all foreign loan words to follow the standard rules of English spelling and phonetics where possible. The rules of English spelling are sufficiently flexible that a great many foreign sounds can be spelled without overloading existing spellings. Particular attention should be paid to consonent sounds but vowel sounds should be adjusted as well to reflect the fact that English underwent the Great Vowel Shift while other languages did not.
• Finally, recognize that it is not possible to have a grand unified spelling system that represents all English dialects accurately. Simply accept that each dialect is going to have exceptions that speakers of that dialect will have to learn.

I hope you enjoyed my rant on spelling. As you can see, I am in favour of some reforms but not a wholesale replacement of everything. Even if none of my suggestions are taken except this one, I would be happy. When we mean the “j” sound, let us write “j”; we have the letter so why do we insist on overloading “g”? And no, “historically ‘j’ did not exist as a distinct letter” does not cut it. We have it now. Let’s use it. And no, “j” does NOT sound like “y” in English!

Okay, enough griping. I now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever it is you do.