How to Be a Writer - Part V (Making Routines and Setting Goals)

One of the most common things I hear from people who glamorize the writing lifestyle (oh, yes... It's sooooooooooo glamorous) is "I just don't have time to write" followed by "Where do you come up with all those ideas?" The second one is a whole barrel of monkeys that I'll dive into on another day. But the first one, I have lots of advice for. And, should you find yourself pondering the jet-setting lifestyle of a writer (smell the sarcasm), you might find this blog entry useful.

Pictured: The glamorous writing life...

The best way I've found to manage the whole writer-with-a-day-job thing, as well as just the "writer" thing, is to set routines and goals. Routines are important for many things like muscle memory and mindset. Ever notice how there's a particular room in your house that, whenever you go in there, you feel relaxed? Or there's a particular place at your work that, when you go there, you feel anything but relaxed? How about this... Think about your morning routine.

If you're like me, your morning routine is a thing crafted over years of hard work and efficiency. Actually, it's more like "this is what I do" and I fall into a habit. The habit goes something like this: Wake up. Take care of bathroom necessities (no details here), pour myself a cup of coffee, let my dogs out, and sit on the back porch and drink coffee. I'll do a word puzzle while my dogs do their dog-stuff, then we go in. I fix the dogs their breakfast, then cook my breakfast, wash up, kiss my wife good bye, then go to work. I've been following that same routine every day for more time than I care to recount. It makes it efficient, makes it to where I don't have to think too hard about it, and it just gets done.

So why should your writing be any different?

On weekends, my routine is similar... I get up, drink coffee, let the dogs out, etc, but then I go sit at my computer for a couple of hours and work. That's my routine. It's why I look forward to weekends. So look at your schedule and see where you usually have time. That's your writing time. And don't just make it a "I'm not busy, so I guess I'll write" thing. Make this a "6pm to 8pm MTWThF is Writing Time, dammit!" Like I said, a routine helps put you in the right mindspace. If butt is in chair, fingers are on the keyboard and mind is in writer-land. Obviously, times don't matter. Just when you have a reasonable reliability that this time is your time. Trust me on this one.

Okay, so you've got your routine. So now what?

Goals.

Pictured: My goals...

Setting goals is one of the easiest and best ways to make sure you, as a writer, are productive. The key is to set realistic goals, and then to stick with them, of course. What do I mean by realistic? Well, one goal I have is to write the great American novel, have it made into a movie, make forty-seven billion dollars off it, and retire to some place where the temperature never gets above 80 degrees. Is that particularly realistic? Not really. I mean, I'm sure stranger things have happened, and I suppose it's technically possible, but it's also highly unlikely. So what you need to do is set realistic, reachable goals. Consider the following:

• Daily Word Count - When I'm working on a project, I set a word-count goal of 1000 words a day. That's roughly between four and five pages. Some writers (Stephen King) set a word-count goal much higher, but then, he's got all day to fill it. Since a lot of us (me) only have the time after work and weekends, 1000 words seems about right. 
• Writing Time Goal - If the word-count thing doesn't work for you, maybe try setting a goal of total time spent with butt in chair before the keyboard. 
• Milestone Goals - Give yourself a week to get a chapter done. Give yourself a specific amount of time to get plotting done, get characters fleshed out, etc. 
• Deadlines - Get yourself a calendar and mark specific dates at which point you need to have specific things "turned in." 

Now, goals only work if you take them seriously, so make sure you inform those who live with you about what has to be done, and by when. And work your hardest to hit those goals. But then, if you occasionally miss one, go easy on yourself. Also, remember that they are goals, which, by definition, are things that you have to work up to. If you can't hit 1000 words in a day, don't sweat it too hard. Just reset the goal to 500. Once you hit that one, move it up to 750. In no time, you'll be at that 1000 word goal and wonder why you ever thought it was hard. 

That's it for this edition. Next time, we'll talk about something we all have to deal with: Rejection.

Until then, write on!

SAJ

Shy Grove and Self Publishing - Part I

Last year, I enrolled in an MFA program in Publishing and Writing Popular Fiction through Emerson University in Boston. My first two semesters (summer) went exactly as I thought they would. Literature courses, things of interest, and processes that would turn me into a more well-rounded writer. I went into the program without illusions and without thinking I'd be the most published person they'd seen (hear me roar). Rather, I went into it trying to find out where I was weak, where I could improve, and where I could grow.

Then the third semester hit. This was the semester I both most anticipated and most feared. See, it was the first one where work of my own would be thrown into a ring for open critique, a thing I've not had the luxury of in years. So what if there was another course on... lemme see... Book design? What the hell is that?

Turns out, it's exactly what you think it is. We were to take a manuscript (ours or someone else's) and build the publishable book for it from conception to completion. I've done similar work before, but never like this. About a month in, it occurred to me that, at semester's end, I'd be about a gnat's whisker away from having a publishable manuscript on my hands. Should I self-pub it? Or not?  Those of you who know me know that I've always been a vocal proponent of taking the traditional route (except on Droplets, which was extreme circumstances which I'm not getting into here). But the stigma of self-publishing has largely gone away in recent years, so I decided why not? I have two completed manuscripts that my agent (through no fault of her own) couldn't place, and they're doing no one any good just taking up space on my hard drive. What do I have to lose?

So here, then, is the process I went through with this new journey into self-publishing. There'll be several parts to this, so stick around for a while.

Step One - The Manuscript

Right. The first step to self-pubbing anything is to actually have something to self-pub. For me, I had two possibilities:  Shy Grove: A Ghost Story or Ungeheur. The first one is, as the title implies, a ghost story. It involves supernatural elements, possession, religious cults, dead babies, and a holy gang-bang. I can't imagine why any publisher would pass on that. The second is monsters that eat a small town. It features gore, depression, sorrow, sexual frustration, strong women, and monsters. Which one to pick...

Monsters or holy gang-bang... Hmmm

As you can guess, I chose the first one. Shy Grove: A Ghost Story clocked in at 81,000 words (novel length by any measuring stick) and had lots of positive feedback from publishers, with one telling me that they'd have taken it in a heartbeat, but they were squicked out by dead babies. Fair enough.

Once you get the manuscript chosen, it's a good idea to have your beta readers (you have those, right?) give it the old once-over to try to catch any and all of the nastiness that your mind didn't catch on your last read-through. Things like missing words (ahem), misspellings, punctuation errors, etc. Then it's time for your first big decision.

Step Two - Trim Size

The big question at this step is: what size do you want your book to be?

"What do you mean? Book sized!"

Right. But that's not how that works. Go to any bookstore and have a look around. Books come in all shapes, sizes, covers, etc. So how big do you want it to be? Didn't think about that, did you? Createspace, Amazon's self-publishing service, offers fifteen different sizes of books, all of which are available for you to use. You could have a book that's the size of a sheet of standard copying paper, or you could go all the way down to 5" x 8." It just depends on how you want your book to look. How much shelf-space do you want it to take up? Do you want it to fit in a back pocket? Do you want it to dominate whatever coffee table upon which it sits? Think hard about this step, because it only gets harder from here.

For me, I chose the 5"x8" option. Why? It doesn't matter. What matters is that's what I wanted to do, and you can make your own decisions on how big of a book you want.

Next blog, we'll discuss the fascinating, frustrating, and fun job of designing the cover!

See you next time!

SAJ

Growing as a Writer

At each Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction MFA residency I attend, opening night is punctuated with a question that is designed to foster discussion throughout the week. We're supposed to use these questions if we finish our critique sessions and discover that we have time left over. It happens. The question at this residency was especially poignant, so I figured I'd discuss it here too. Quite simply:

How do you continue to grow as a writer?

The question, while directed at the students, is appropriate for every writer. The question actually was "How do you continue to grow as a writer once you no longer have grad school breathing down your neck," but it is appropriate for anyone who fancies themselves a writer. And there were lots of good suggestions. Form a writing group. Attend conferences. Write every day. Everything that was stated was geared toward the writing life and the output for which we all strive. But there was something that I felt wasn't mentioned. Something so simple, most people don't think of it.

Live.

"I'm going on an adventure!" -Bilbo Baggins

Let me explain.

If you've read this blog before, you know I'm a big proponent of primary research, which is a fancy term which means "experiencing the things you write about." It's different from the old chestnut of "write what you know" in that you go and research things. "Know what you write," if you will. It's well-documented that I've done some interesting (silly, weird) things in the name of primary research.  How does this relate to my advice? Simple.

Every experience you have makes you grow as a person.

Think about that phrase for a moment. Every. Experience. Things you love, things you hate, pain, pleasure, fear, exhilaration... They all do one thing: They add to the tapestry that is your life. They give you experiences upon which to draw. They change your perspective, micron by micron. They make your life experience richer, and allow you to know things that others might not know. In short, they help you develop into a more well-rounded person.

Those experiences also make you grow as a writer. They allow you to draw upon the emotions you felt, the revulsion, the joy, the fear... All of it. And they allow you to write with more authenticity. They allow you to reach into your own personal history of experience and distill it down for the world to experience.

So that's my advice to you. Live. Live fully. Live out loud. Live boldly. Have those experiences. Try these on for size:

• See something on a menu you've never had?  Try it. If you hate it, use the experience. 
• Make a point to visit a new restaurant every month. One with cuisine you've not tried. 
• Go camping. 
• Walk around the city about which you're writing. 
• Go to a concert for a band you've never heard of. 
• Take up a sport.
• Learn to shoot.
• Learn to ride.
• Find out what it's really like to walk around in armor.
• Find out how long you can actually swing a sword. 

Take the back road to your next destination. Stop along the way. Love with all your heart and let it get broken. Talk to people who know about your novel's subject. Here's an example:  Two students this past term (whose names I won't divulge here because I've already bragged on them in public enough) followed this path long before I suggested it. One of them went camping, alone, in the UP of Michigan. Did I mention she went BY HERSELF? Because she did. She said it was the most scared she'd ever been, and now she has an amazing point of view to write about. The other one wanted to know about suspension piercing. While she didn't go to that extreme, she did contact a local BDSM group and had them tie her up and suspend her from the ceiling. She now knows what that's like. How many of you out there know? I'm betting the number is small (though probably larger than I expect). 

So that's it. Live. Live boldly. Explore your tastes, your passions, your emotions. Build your tapestry of experiences, and live without boundaries. And then use those experiences in your fiction. Go out and dare yourself to be amazing. 

I AM AMAAAAZING!!!!

SAJ

Side Missions

Okay, hotshot, here's the situation: You've finished your manuscript. You've done the mandatory edit, revise, edit, cry, rage, edit, revise and revise again dance, and now it is finished. Finally. Truly. Finished. All that's left now for your newly birthed child is for your agent (or you) to sell it for a suitcase full of cash and promises of questionable moral behavior. So what do you do now?

Conventional wisdom says to do exactly what I'm pretty sure you're thinking right now: Start the next novel. But then you sit down at your keyboard and nothing comes. The pressure mounts as the damned cursor blinks at you from the screen, and every idea you have seems trite, seems stupid, seems worse than the book you just finished. It's frustrating. It's maddening. And you start to have those same negative creeping thoughts that burrow into your skull.

"What if I'm out of ideas?" "What if this is it?" "What if I'll never have another novel to write?" "The world is meaningless!" "I'm a hack!" "I may as well just gorge myself on Oreos and pizza and turn into a swollen toad and die!"

"Fuckoff... I'm stuffed...."

First off, calm down.

Second, there's something you can do. Instead of screaming and crying and throwing yourself on the couch in a fit of self-loathing, go on a side mission.

But Scott, I hear you say, what the hell are you talking about? So glad you asked.

Your imagination, according to the late, great, Ray Bradbury, is like any other muscle. You either use it or it atrophies and dies. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. The less, the weaker. So you, as a writer, need that particular muscle to ply your trade. Think of it in terms of a professional athlete. A pro fighter goes into a training camp for each fight. It's an intensive workout designed to make him the best he can be. But what does he do after that fight's over? Does he stop working out? Does he quit fighting completely?  Not bloody likely. No, they do light workouts. They do maintenance workouts. They keep the muscle memory fresh, keep the joints moving, keep the timing up. Why? Because they want to be ready when the next contract comes in.

Massive power poop in 3...2...1...

Just like you.

Once the big fight (your novel) is over, you want to keep that momentum going, but you don't necessarily want to climb back into he ring for the next fight (you're new novel). So you go on side missions.

A side mission is a short project. Maybe it's a short story. Maybe it's just a few paragraphs a day to keep the creative juices flowing. Maybe it's fodder for your idea folder. Side missions can be things you never see again, or things that unexpectedly blossom into full-fledged novels. The point is, they're things that keep you sharp, but don't necessarily have the emotional attachment of a full-fledged novel. They're things that are fun, because, let's face it, if you're not having fun, you're doing this thing called writing wrong. And if you never pick them up again, so what? You had fun writing them. And if they develop into something more, cool, but no pressure, right?

It's casual.

So how does one go on a side mission? First, place butt in chair. Second, place fingers on keyboard. Third, start typing. Pretty much, it's that simple. I mean, sure you want to give yourself a writing prompt. I have shelves in my writing room that are full of curios and oddities that are all story fodder. I pick one (or two or whatever) and think about a past or a future I could give that item, and just start going. That jump drive? What could be on it that would save the world? That weird brick with all the signatures? Who are they and where did it come from? The suspicious bag hanging from a braid of hair in the bell jar? Where'd it come from and what's it for? Then I start writing and just let it jump out of my fingers and brain like electronic vomit. And when I've reached my daily word-count, I get up and go enjoy the rest of my day. Just like when I write a novel.

Lookit this friggin' guy... enjoying his day...

So lets try a quick experiment, shall we? Quick... Look immediately to your right. What's the first thing you lay your eyes on? In my case, it's big metal coffee thermos (I have a problem... I know... Don't judge me). Now, take into account the two basic plot lines that any fiction follows (A person goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town) and see how you can place your object into that arena. Got the idea in your head?  Now GO!  Type for your minimum word count! And when you're done, get up, kiss your loved ones, and flex your taut imagination muscles at them like the author you are.

BOOM! BOOM!  FIREPOWER!!!

And the great thing about side missions are this: Y'know that genre thing that you stubbornly adhere to? Yeah, you don't have to cling to it. It's an experiment. You're trying it out. You're just giving yourself some breathing room. You tried weights instead of cardio. No big deal. You wrote sci-fi instead of horror. It's okay. You can diversify.

So yeah. Side missions. Get on it.

Until next time --

-=SAJ=-

Getting Down the Basics

Here we are, the first week back from residency at Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction Masters in Fine Arts program. And while we're all simmering in the creative juices (alcohol) from a week of hanging around with other crazy people (writers), I figured now would be a good time to remind everyone of a simple truth:  If you're going to be a writer, or be in a MFA program (and keep in mind, technically, this is an MFA in English) you really should know the basics. I mean, if you want people to take you seriously, you want to come across as someone who knows what he's doing, right? I mean, if a mechanic opens the hood of your car and doesn't know what he or she's looking at, you wouldn't take him seriously, would you? If a doctor asked you to remind him where the lungs were in the body, you'd leave pretty quickly, wouldn't you? The same holds true if you are a writer. If you send your manuscript in to an agent, editor, or publisher, and you appear to not know the basics, your manuscript will find its way quickly to the circular filing cabinet.

Pictured: Rejected Manuscripts

So what are these "basics" of which I speak?  If you've ever been a student of mine, you already know the answer. It can be broken down in four simple terms:  Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, and Sentence Structure (GSPS). And, let's face it, if you find yourself in an MFA program and you don't have at least a basic understanding of this, you've got a lot of work to do. By which I mean outside work.

Buffalo Custardbath tells it like it is...

So, in case you don't really know what these things are, here's a helpful guide. 

• Grammar - is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language.  The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics.  Put simply, what are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, tenses, clauses, and the like? If you don't know, you should really figure it out. Things such as subject-verb agreement, irregular verbs, who vs. whom, prepositions, etc. are all part of grammar, and they're all tools in your writers' toolbox. 
• Spelling - Right... Who needs it, write? I mean, owl are computers have spell-checker on them, right? Nobody kneads to no how to spell anymore, right? Read that sentence again. Realize every word in it is spelled correctly, and realize that spelling actually goes beyond just what letters make up a particular word.  It's also figuring out which word is the one you actually mean. 
• Punctuation - Commas. They are the bane of my existence. Whoever started the whole "put a comma every time you take a breath" should be taken out back and beaten with a well-worn copy of Strunk & White. Punctuation deals with spacing, periods, semicolons and colons (never use them in popular fiction), quotation marks, hyphens, ellipses... As well as a thousand other little rules that you need to use to make yourself look like you know what you're talking about. And don't ever believe that's what the editor is for. Your work won't even get to the editor if you don't have a firm grasp on this. 
• Sentence Structure - Quick!  How many sentence structures are there?  One? Ninety?  How about four?  Yep, four.  Can you name them? If you can't, you might have a problem. How about fragments? Run-ons? Comma splices? Any idea what I'm talking about? 

Didn't think so.

But wait, you say!  I'm a creative writer!  The rules of grammar (etc.) don't apply to me! It's art! Listen to me very carefully.  The rules. Still. Apply. You have to know the rules to know when and why to break them. Also, that's the difference between amateurs and professionals. Pros learn their craft. Pros take the time to improve their skill level. Pros never stop learning. Amateurs?  Not so much. So choose. Which one do you want to be? 

Two paths converged in the woods...

But where, you ask, can I learn such things? Glad you asked. There are so many books out there. Here are a few that I often recommend:

• Strunk & White's Elements of Style
• The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
• On Writing Well
• Grammar Simplified
• Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

There are also a lot of FREE online resources that you can use to hone your sword of knowledge.  Here are a few:

• Grammer Revolution
• Edufind.com
• Enchanted Learning (warning... UGLY site)
• Oxford Dictionaries

And, of course, if all else fails, always trust in your good buddy "Weird Al" Yankovic to break it down for you.

Also, while we're at it, learn the proper expressions and idioms, unless the character is supposed to be a blithering idiot.  For example:

• It's "For all intents and purposes," not "For all intensive purposes/porposes."
• It's "I couldn't care less." "I could care less" means you do, in fact, care.
• It's "Specifically," not "pacifically" unless you're referring to the ocean.
• "Literally" means it actually happened. You've not been waiting "literally" a million years for this blog post. "Figuratively" is the word you want. 
• It's not the "Statue of Limitations," it's the STATUTE of limitations. 
• What the hell is a "mute point" anyway?  It's MOOT.  

So that's it.  Education is your weapon.  Use it. 

Until next time...

SAJ

But that really happened!

When my novel City of Demons came out, there was a scene in particular that pulled people out of the story because it was just too unbelievable.  The scene in question was one in which one of the lead characters discussed learning martial arts from a legit grandmaster who happened to teach at the college she attended. Magic murder, they can deal with.  But learning a devastating fighting style in a college?  Too much. Yes, in a book where a killer can crush a person without touching him and a cop can feel the last few seconds of a dead person's life by touching his corpse, the moment that was too big of a stretch was one that actually happened to me.

See, when I went to college, I signed up for a karate course. I thought "it's a college karate course...how hard could it be?" Then I met this guy.

...

That's Dann Baker, legit Grandmaster in Kajukenbo. And one of the best martial arts instructors on the planet.

We've all been there.  Writers are told every day to use real life experiences as fodder for their stories.   Write what you know, and know what you write! And yet, there are certain experiences that, if we use them, we're told they're too unbelievable. Your story may contain magic, demons, monsters, and superheroes, but coincidental things that really happened to you are considered too unbelievable to go in a book of fiction. It's enough to drive you mad.

Don't call me crazy...

It's happened in other situations too.  Students of mine have replied with passionate anger when I tell them that a scene in their thesis is unbelievable. "But it really happened that way!" they scream. "You just don't know what you're talking about!" Fair enough. You're right, I've not had that particular experience that seems to defy logic or physics. The coincidental continuum seems to have collapsed on a convergence conveniently. And it's still unbelievable. "But here's proof!" they shout. They wave photos, articles, protestations and proclamations all day long. And, in the end, I concede, yes, it happened the way you said it did. 

But here's the problem:  If I thought it was unbelievable, it's likely that everyone else who reads it will find it equally hard to believe. And what are you going to do? Run around and wave proof at everyone who has purchased your book?  Accompany your manuscript to the acquisition editor and prove your story to him? Take out a full 60-second ad during Superbowl halftime to explain that this scene in your book really happened that way and that's how you know it could happen? No... Probably not. What's more likely to happen is this:  You send your manuscript out, your agent or editor reads the scene, snorts derisively, and tosses your legit memory into the trashcan. Why? Because it came off as too unbelievable. 

Pictured:  You.

The following are a list of unbelievable things that I've actually done or have witnessed:

• Honked a live squirrel's tail.
• Tailed a 9' Texas Black rat snake
• Skidded on a wet road and done two complete 180-degree turns, banging my car on the rail both times, and gotten away with no discernible damage
• A person backflipped off a second-story balcony to impress a girl - Survived
• A person survived having a full-sized telephone pole hit him in the head
• Had an 800lb roll of plastic fall on me. Didn't die
• Shot a near perfect round my first time shooting a pistol
• Studied with a real grandmaster that I met at college
• Rescued a 1-week old deer and let it sleep overnight in my bathroom
• Rescued an equally young possum

"How dare you, sir?!?"

I have proof of every one of those items, yet I know that if I put them in a novel, someone would cry bullshit on it because, while people can suspend disbelief in the fantastic, their belief in the mundane needs to stay constant. In turning the world inside out and molding it to our peculiar vision, we need to make sure that we give the reader a foothold. A talking squirrel, sure. Sneaking up behind a normal squirrel and honking his tail?  Bullshit. 

The point I'm trying to make here is simple:  If it comes across as too much of a coincidence to one reader, it might do so to the rest of them. I'm not saying you can't include unbelievable life stories in your fiction.  What I'm saying is to be careful. "But it really happened" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's a tantrum. It's a child's argument. You will never get the chance to explain that it really happened or how to an agent, editor, or to your audience. Once you've lost their interest, you've lost them. So make the best of it. 

Until next time, write on!

SAJ

Chairs

While mentoring young writers, I often come across similar issues.  One of my favorites is when the writer in question has a brilliant imagination, but clearly hasn't thought things through enough.  I teach a module called "Evolution of the Species" in which we discuss this type of issue, but here' i'd like to focus on a small problem that turned huge pretty quick as an illustration. 

For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume you're a writer.  

Your genre is fantasy (or "high fantasy").  You've created a race of people who have wings.  You have a gift of description that leaves your readers breathless with the beautiful images of purple feathers and soft collars of down.  In fact, this race is so ancient that you have no real reason to create a complete backstory for them because they "have always been."

Submitted without comment...

Then one sits in a chair. 

Now, for a moment, lets ignore all the other issues this world has, such as your winged people living in houses.  Let's just focus on that one detail for a moment. 

In your home, you have chairs.  No, really.  Don't believe me?  Go look.  I'll wait.  See?  Told you.  Now, in your description of these chairs, you go on and on about highly decorated ornate backs of wood and employ your gift of descriptive imagery to its full extent.  The chairs in your world are beautiful and realistic to all the readers.  

Pictured:  Your character's chair.

They're also wrong.  Here's why. 

Follow my thought process here.  Intelligent species first begin designing object to use out of utilitarian need.  We design things that fit our bodies, and if it doesn't, then why on any world would we create them?  Do you see the problem yet?  Okay... Here it is:  If your character, which you describe as the size of a roughly good sized human, has wings large enough to bear him aloft in accordance with the laws of physics, he could not physically sit in a chair because he would break his wings.

"Dammit!  This is why we can't have nice things!"

The same thing applies to every aspect of this new world in which the dominant species has a twelve-foot wing span.  So now it becomes your job as a writer to build your world backward, so you can see what would've been built how, and why.  A species with a twelve-foot wing span would not, for example ever build anything that would necessitate the crushing of one's own wings.  In fact, if you take into account physical limitations, this particular species would, likely, have invented the bar stool long before it ever invented something as obviously meant for torture as a "chair."

See?  No backs, no wing crushings.

Now apply this to other areas.  For example, a "bedroom."  What's the first thing you like to do when you wake up in the morning?  Stretch, right?  Now take a good look at your bedroom.  Hard walls, low ceilings, etc.  If you had a twelve-foot wingspan, would you ever be caught inside something like that?  Chances are, no.  Chances are, it would be torturous for you.  Small windows, roads, vehicles... None of it would even exist in a world where the dominant species had wings.  Hell, roads might not even exist. 

The point is this:  You need to think it through.  Build your world from the bottom up with the dominant species in mind.  There's a brilliant joke that the late great Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy which involves a multi-limbed creature that was unique in the universe in that it invented underarm deodorant before it discovered the wheel.  Necessity.  It's why we create things.  Your species would do the same. 

When you build a world, start with your species.  Then ask yourself a series of questions:

• What are its needs?
• What are its limitations?
• How are they like me?
• How are they dissimilar?

Make good choices for your characters and make your world more believable.  I don't mean make your readers think the world is real, but at least make them wonder at the possibility.  Otherwise, you have creatures who are doing incredibly uncomfortable things for their anatomy.  Like sitting in chairs. 

Development

One of the most difficult things writers have to contend with is the subject of plot development.  I mean, sure, we all have a story or two to tell, but it's not the process of getting from point A to point B that's important.  We're trying to get our characters from point A to point Z, and our plot points are points B through Y.  We are trying to develop our characters and plots so they will be more interesting because, honestly, we want the reader to care about them.  Love 'em, hate 'em, feel something goddamn it.  The worst possible thing that a reader can do is not care whatsoever.  Without some kind of emotional involvement, the reader has no reason to turn the page.

Let's take a look at the great theatrical spectacle that was 1980's-era pro wrestling.  Yes, I'm going to reference pro wrestling.  You got a problem with that?

Pictured:  My "You got a problem with that" face.

The two most popular characters in pro wrestling in the 80's were Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.  Hogan was a largely static character with over-the-top cartoonish proclamations to eat your vitamins, say your prayers, and exercise.  Piper was a kilt-wearing maniac with a fast mouth and a talent for causing trouble, and was one of the toughest sons-of-bitches on the planet.  His words, not mine.  For the record, here they are:

Guess which one was my hero...

Hogan was most often billed as unstoppable.  His routine went something like this:  Get to the ring, get beat down, "hulk up" (which involved shaking and quaking like he was trying to force a large piece of cheese out of his butt), then he'd point as his opponent and yell "YOU!"  Then came his own beat down.  Clothesline, big boot, leg drop, 1-2-3, and everyone celebrates.  It got old.  Really old, really fast.

Piper, on the other hand, was quite different.  You really weren't sure which "Roddy Piper" was coming to the ring.  The mouth?  The fighter?  The lunatic?  Piper kept the audience guessing.  Sure, his favorite finisher was the sleeper hold (which, for MMA fans, is a rear-naked choke), but he didn't always use it.  It was always a guess whether he'd finish his opponent off with that, stomp him into the matt, get himself purposefully disqualified, or any other of a thousand little things that my main man RRP thought of.  And before long a question arose.  Who was the biggest star?  It could be argued that people came to see Hogan win.  But I'm of the opinion that people were actually there to watch Piper lose. Piper did such a good job of making people hate him, he was actually stabbed by audience members.  Three times.  Think about that for a moment.  It's pro-freaking-wrestling for crying out loud!  And yet, RRP really got the people going.

Pictured:  Raleigh, North Carolina, pro wrestling crowd...

Then, an interesting thing happened.  Piper's character developed and Hogan's character didn't, and people started booing Hogan.  The great, the immortal Hulk Hogan, was getting boos from the crowd.  And who got cheered?  Rowdy Roddy Piper.  The difference?  Character development.  Plot development.  Let me explain.  Hogan's character never grew.  He was Superman without kryptonite: Boring.  But Piper took up causes.  His character developed from a crazy person to a person who let us see what was driving him crazy.  He became the original anti-hero (sorry, Stone Cold Steve Austin, but my man Piper beat you to it).  And in doing so, showed the importance of plot and character development.

As a kid, I watched so much pro wrestling that I wanted to be one of them.  But when I was growing up, it was the age of the "big men," and there was no place for a 5'6" guy in the world of pro wrestling.  So I kept watching.  One of my most beloved moments came when Roddy Piper came out before a crowd who screamed his name.  He took the microphone and said, obviously taken aback, "I'm not used to so many people cheering for me.  And I want to make it clear, I ain't running for president, and I'm still the same no-good sonovabitch I always been."  The crowd went insane with love.

So you see, Timmy...

At his core, Rowdy Roddy Piper was the same guy.  But his journey to get from point A to point Z had many twists and turns and made the audience care about him.  They cared enough to stab him.  They cared enough to scream when he came back.  They cared enough that they can't get enough of him.  And that's what you want for your characters.

Every character should be a different person at the end of the story.  Think about it.  You woke up this morning and had things happen.  At least, I hope you did.  And those events of the day made you react.  Even if it was a small thing, you've changed just a little today.  It's easier to see if you look at development over long periods of time.  Think about what you were like as a freshman in high school and try not to cringe.  Your characters need to have similar developments.  What affects your characters?  Pretty much everything. People they interact with, situations that call for decision making, death, birth, car trouble, rain... Everything.  The little changes are what make the character interesting.  The way he makes decisions, and what decisions he makes, bring the reader closer to him.

Pictured:  Stasis Chambers...

Stasis is boring.  There's no room for growth.  Your characters cannot stay in stasis if you expect for people to care about them.  Read any series of books and you'll watch the lead character grow through loss, love, gain, injury, personal epiphany, etc.  Your characters need to do the same.  If your lead character is exactly the same at the end of the novel as he was at the beginning, you're doing something wrong.

Just my $.02...