When the Tracks Don't Meet (or Travelling At the Speed of Plot) (an IWM post)

Have you seen that cartoon of the train tracks being laid? They're coming from two different directions, but there's a problem: The tracks don't meet up in the middle the way they are supposed to. I think there are a bunch of guys standing there scratching their heads. Or something.
Yeah, I would have liked to have posted the image here, but I couldn't find it. You'll just have to pretend.

Usually, where books are concerned, those kinds of things are called "plot holes," but, really, they're not the kinds of things I would call "holes." They're just pieces of... let's call them "discontinuity." I hate them more than the plot holes, I think. Oh, you need me to differentiate?

Okay, let's say your protagonist loses the keys to his car in chapter two but, in chapter five when he's running from the bad guys, he fumbles them out of his pocket: That's a plot hole. And that's not what I'm talking about in this post.

* * *

If you want to find out what I am talking about, you'll have to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. Oh, you want a hint? Fine, I'll give you a hint. It looks something like this:

Did that get your attention? Good. Now, go read the rest.

How To Win at Magic: Part 2a: Building the Deck

As I mentioned last time, the first thing you need to be able to win at Magic is Magic, but I guess that's really kind of obvious. Still, I felt like the point needed to be made. Basically, in a lot of ways, anything has the potential to be "the next big thing." Richard Garfield only developed Magic because he was trying to sell some other game. Rowling was just trying to make ends meet when she wrote Harry Potter. George Lucas thought Star Wars was going to be a flop because sci-fi had been out of fashion for over a decade and no one cared. Still, they all had a vision for what they wanted to achieve with their separate projects and worked to make those visions as close to reality as possible.

But, now that we have Magic, what do we do with it? [I suppose, really, some explanation as to what Magic is and how it works is probably in order, but that would be a whole other blog post and I still couldn't get all of it in, so I'm not doing that. Let's just say it's a card game (a CCG (collectible card game), as they used to be called; the first CCG, in fact) and leave it at that. If you want to know more about how it works, you can look it up.]

Building a Magic deck is a lot like writing. No, really, it is. Sure, it's nothing like writing in that there is no actual writing involved, but there is that level of construction that is very similar. You could say that the cards are like words and the colors like genres. So let's get some basics down. There are five colors of magic in Magic that each use a specific (basic) land type:

• white/plains -- life magic
• blue/islands -- mind magic
• black/swamps -- death magic
• red/mountains -- chaos magic
• green/forests -- nature magic

There are also some forms of colorless magic such as artifacts (machines) and some other stuff that was introduced after I mostly quit playing. At any rate, before you can build a deck (write a story), you have to decide what kind of deck (genre) you're going to build. Yes, you can mix colors (blend genres).

The basic building block of any deck is your land. You have to have land; it's where the power for your spells comes from, and you have to have the right mix of it to not get stuck not drawing any or drawing too much. This is rather like word balance in your story. There are some words that you just have to use, but you don't want to use the same words so much that your readers get tired of seeing it. For instance, don't start every paragraph with your characters name; that's like having too much land. The balance of your land mix is one of the most vital parts of making a deck.

Actually, this whole land mix, achieving the proper balance, could be analogous to any number of things in writing, so we'll just look at it as having your writing balanced properly for whatever it is you're doing.

I used to do a lot of helping people build decks, and the most prevalent issue was not enough land. There was this one kid that couldn't ever win a game, and I mean never, so he brought his deck to me for help (a black deck). For one thing, he played with about 80 cards (sometimes more), which was too many (but more on that in a moment), but he only had about 15 lands(swamps) in his deck. Land concentration is dependent upon the type of deck you're building, but, as an easy way of dealing with it, let's just say 1/3 of your deck needs to be land. He was playing with less that 20% land, so it was not surprising that he couldn't get any land into play and always lost. I upped his land count to about 22 and dropped his deck size to about 62, and, guess what, he won some games. However, the next time he came in, he brought his deck to me again and told me that it had "quit working" and wondered what had happened. Had he done anything to it? Only added in a few cards. So I took a look at it, and it was close to 100 cards, and he hadn't added any more land to it, so he was, basically, back down to that 20% land mix he'd had before. He was so stuck on using particular cards (devices) in his deck (writing) that he couldn't make it work. (I think this is not an uncommon problem for writers.)

Jumping back to deck size... the minimum deck size is 60 cards (except in some variations), and, generally speaking, you want to stick to something around that size. Your deck should be designed with a purpose, a selection of a few cards or card types that the deck works around with other cards to support that theme (you can think of those as your cast of characters, if you want). When you get too many cards in the deck, you can't depend upon getting to the cards you need quickly enough for the deck to do its job. There are, of course, exceptions in increasing deck size as long as what you're adding is still working toward your purpose and you continue to keep the deck balanced as you do it.

But let's say you want to break some rules. You're a writer, right? Who needs to follow rules? Oh, wait, no, we're playing Magic, so let's break some rules. One of the guys I worked with and I were discussing unique deck constructions one day, and I suggested making a landless deck. I bet even those of you that have never played Magic are thinking, "What?!?" at this point. Let me clarify: non-basic lands were okay, but many of those only give colorless power (mana), so it was going to be a stretch. So we talked it out, what specific cards would be needed, non-land sources of mana, cards that didn't require mana, that sort of thing. I helped him get a few of the cards that he needed, and he built the deck, and we tested it. He played it in the next tournament, and it was worth it for the shock value alone. People couldn't believe he had a landless deck. It was great even if he didn't win with it. Admittedly, it was a difficult deck to play, but it was a lot of fun because it was something different. So, yeah, sometimes, it's good to break with the conventions.

To recap, here are the steps to building a winning Magic deck:
1. Decide on your colors. (Choose a genre.)
2. Choose your theme. (This is like a plot.)
3. Balance!
4. Don't put in too many cards. (It clutters your plot and throws the balance off.) Likewise, put in enough to support your theme (or your plot).

And, now, we'll talk about the deck I became known for. Now, pay attention, this has all kinds of good lessons.

When we first started getting our cards, I was drawn to blue. Blue is about controlling what your opponent does, rather than simply pounding him until he's dead, and manipulating your own deck so that you can get cards faster. To put it simply. It was my first intention to focus on blue... BUT!

It was early '94 before we were really starting to get our cards, and, by that time, the first expansion, Arabian Nights, had come out. This card was in the set:

One of the guys in  the group looked at the card and said something like, "well, it's okay, but you couldn't build a deck around it," and everyone seemed to agree with him. He tossed the card on the table, and everyone dismissed it. Except me. I knew exactly how to build a deck around it, and, so, I abandoned blue as my color of choice right then and there and picked up red and green instead.

Red/green is still my color combo of choice (Not that I really ever play anymore. I probably haven't built a deck in ten years or more.). It's what I became known for playing, and it was the red/green deck I built around the Kird Ape (or variations of it) that took me to being the top ranked player in north Louisiana throughout 1994. Not that I didn't play other things, too, but red/green was my standard. And I never quit playing with the Kird Ape despite the monkey boy, ape boy, and worse nicknames.

The point here is that you shouldn't listen to what other people say can't be done. Everything is worth trying. Even building a deck with no basic lands was worth trying. Some things just take a little bit of imagination and effort. If you believe in something, don't let people tell you it won't work. Figure out how to do it. You might also just discover something you didn't know you'd like.

For fun, here are a few of the other cards from the deck:

The Taiga helped make the Kird Ape even more powerful. With an ape and this land in the initial draw, you could drop a 2/3 creature on turn one.

Once Legends came out, Blood Lust went into the deck. Potentially, you could hit your opponent for 6 damage on the second turn with this.

The Elven Riders was just for fun. It was one of my signature cards that I included in pretty much every green deck I played.

Palladia is one of my favorite cards ever. He's expensive, and, mostly, he'd just sit in my hand if I drew him; however, I never lost a single game when I got him into play.

On the, comma (or Don't Tell Me When To Breathe)

Oh, the comma, that bane of punctuation. But, first, a story:

A woman, a blond, if you must know, needed to have her hair done. She called around to find out if there was anywhere that would do her hair while she was wearing headphones. Finally, after calling a dozen or so places, she found one, and she went in. However, the hair stylist was surprised to find the woman wearing  actual headphones rather than earbuds, which is what she had expected. Who still wore actual headphones?

She said to the woman, "I can't do your hair while you're wearing those."

"You said on the phone that you could."

"Yes, but I thought you meant earbuds."

"What's an earbud?"

The hair stylist just blinked at the blond woman with the headphones on. They stared at each other for several awkward moments until the stylist said, "Look, can't you just take those off long enough for me to do your hair?"

The blond woman became instantly irate, "No! I can never take them off! Never!"

They stared at each other some more.

Finally, the blond said, "Can't you just work around them?"

Shrugging, the stylist said, "I can try."

The blond took her seat in the chair, and the hair stylist went to work. But it was more difficult than she thought it would be, and the piece of metal going across the woman's head was in the way, and the large pads on the woman's ears were in the way, and the stylist kept wondering what could be so important that the woman needed to leave the headphones on for. When she'd had about as much "working around them" as she could take, and the blond woman looked rather like she'd dozed off, the stylist thought, "Surely, I can move them just for a moment to get this last bit and put them back on before the woman even knows I've moved them." So she pulled the headphones back from the woman's ears.

Immediately, the woman began gasping and clawing at her throat and she fell to the floor and resembled nothing more than a fish that had been spilled from a fish bowl.

In a panic, the stylist called 9-1-1, and the ambulance came, but it was too late, and the blond woman was dead. The ambulance took the woman away after asking many questions about what had happened. The police came and asked more questions about what had happened, then they went away, too. After everyone was gone and just the poor hair stylist was left alone, she saw the headphones lying on the floor up under the chair where they had been forgotten by everyone. She picked them up, finding that they were still attached to the old fashioned walkman with an actual cassette tape in it.

Overcome by curiosity, she put the headphones on and pressed the "play" button. This is what she heard:

"Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in..."

At this point, you might be wondering what that has to do with commas, and you'd probably be correct to wonder that, but it does relate, so just give me a moment. (Mostly, though, I just think it's funny.)

Commas! Why are commas so difficult? Really, why are they? There's one fundamental reason that they've become such a difficult piece of punctuation to figure out. People are confused by what they do and what they're for. Those are two completely separate things, but, because they do this one thing, people have come to think that's also what they're for when it's not at all what they're for. What they do is merely a byproduct of what they're for.

Have I confused everyone yet?

Before I go on, let's talk about what a comma does, because this is what causes all the problems, especially the problem that I hate so much, the comma after the conjunction. See, what a comma does is to tell people where to pause in their reading. Or, as everyone likes to call it, where to take a breath (as if people mostly read out loud, when, in truth, people hardly ever read out loud). What happens, then, is that writers start throwing in commas where they would pause if they were saying their sentences out loud. This leads to commas in places where they don't belong as in the sentence, "But, he went home." That sentence shouldn't have any comma, but, for some reason, people want there to be a pause there, so they throw that comma in to indicate the pause.

So here's the thing: don't tell me when to breathe! No, really, don't do it. For one thing, the vast, VAST majority of my reading happens in my head, so I don't need any help with breathing when I'm doing that. For another thing, I, um, know how to breathe. Really, I don't need your help, and, if I did, I'd probably have a larger problem than what a comma could fix.

Also, don't try to tell me how to read. If your writing is good enough, you don't need to tell me how to read your sentences, the sentences will lead me in the reading. So don't try to tell me how I should go about reading the sentences you write. If I can't figure it out, there's either something wrong with my reading ability (and there's not) or you need to work on your writing some more. Or you're just being totally anal about the whole thing and want people to only read the same way you do, and that's just not okay.

And that takes us to what a comma is for. A comma is meant to convey meaning. As it is with adverbs, the comma is to provide clarity, or, in the words of wikipedia: "...the comma is used where ambiguity might otherwise arise..." See, this has nothing to do with telling the reader where s/he should take a breath. That kind of advice is just for music and swimming as far as I know (because, well, it's not good when you take a breath when your face is in the water).

Now, I'm not going to go through all the specific uses of the comma, because, frankly, there are just too many, and most of you are probably loosely acquainted with them, anyway. And some of them are optional and use the word "may" (as in "you may use a comma with a long prepositional phrase"), and that can lead to all sorts of confusion, because how do you know when you should or not? What I will say is this: if your comma doesn't add to the meaning of the sentence, you probably don't need it. By that I mean, if there could be confusion without the comma, you should have one. Unless you need a semicolon instead, but that's another issue, and I'm not going into that, right now (just know that almost all of you (and I don't mean you you, I mean people you, because people hardly even know what that little guy is called anymore) out there need to learn how to use the semicolon. He is your friend and should not be so overlooked).

However, I will mention one comma usage rule that everyone should go learn, because this is the most common error I see. Yes, even more than that stinking comma after a conjunction, and I think this is the one that causes that particular confusion anyway. Adverbial phrases should always be set apart by commas. Um, did I say always? Because I mean always. If you've written your sentence, which contains an adverbial phrase, correctly, you can pull that phrase (or dependent clause) right out of the sentence and still have a sentence remaining. It shouldn't mean the same thing without the phrase (because, if it does, you don't need that phrase to begin with), but you should have an intact sentence (you know, with a subject and a predicate (a verb)) remaining. This is the important thing, so pay attention:
Adverbial phrases, without the commas to set them apart from the rest of your sentence, can easily become entangled in your sentences and cause confusion. That's why adverbial phrases need a comma on both sides.
[One other note: there are some adverbs that always require commas, but it's really because they act as adverbial phrases all by themselves. You should learn these words. There really aren't that many of them.]

Here are some examples of correct ways of punctuating adverbial phrases:

• <adverbial phrase>,<independent clause>, <conjunction> <independent clause>. OR <adverbial phrase>, <independent clause> <conjunction> <dependent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <adverbial phrase>, <conjunction> <dependent or independent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <conjunction>, <adverbial phrase>, <independent clause>. OR <independent clause> <conjunction>, <adverbial phrase>, <dependent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <conjunction> <independent clause>, <adverbial phrase> OR <independent clause> <conjunction> <dependent clause>, <adverbial phrase>.

As you can see, I could go on with those for... well, quite a while. But that should give you an idea of the basics. Of course, you have to know the difference between an independent and a dependent clause, which I'll have to talk about at some point, but, really, that's a basic thing, and, if you don't know, you should go back and chastise every English teacher you ever had for not drilling that into your head. Or flog yourself for not paying enough attention in class.

It all looks and seems so much more complicated than it actually is; that's all I can really say about it. But, if you look at the above sentence structures, you may be able to see what causes these common mistakes:
<independent clause>, <conjunction> <adverbial phrase>, <some clause or other> -- The conjunction is NOT part of the adverbial phrase, so there NEEDS to be a comma between the conjunction and the phrase so that the phrase can be "lifted out."
<independent clause> <conjunction>, <some clause or other> -- This one is just wrong. That comma ALWAYS comes after the independent clause and you shouldn't have one after the conjunction unless there is an adverbial phrase (or a long prepositional phrase). [If you have a word like "however," there should be a semicolon involved, but we're not getting into that, right now.]

But let's make it even easier, because easier is better, right? Do this:
Write without any commas. After you've finished your section or whatever or waited a few days, gotten some distance from what you've written, or, even better, get someone else, go back and read through it and look for places where the writing is confusing. If it's confusing, there's a good chance you need a comma. Or commas. Look for places where the comma dispels ambiguity, not places where you want your reader to breathe.

As one final note, I will say this:
The Internet and texting are in the process of changing comma rules once again. We use them less, mostly, because we write shorter, less complex sentences. Personally, I use more commas than I specifically need to when I write, because I tend to put them in everywhere they're "supposed" to go. You know, by following all of the comma rules. However, I would say that the only real rule you need to know is "Commas are for meaning not for breathing." If you get that down, you should be okay. If the comma doesn't add to the clarity of the sentence, take it out. If not having one causes confusion, put one in. And watch your adverbial phrases, because they run into your clauses and cause confusion. You might know what you mean, but there's a good chance your reader will get confused.
In the end, too many commas are better than not enough as far as meaning goes, so, if you're not sure, put that comma in there. As long as you're not telling me to breathe!