November 2019 Update

It has sure been a while since my last blog post. It has also been a long time since I did writing. Taking care of family combined with my computer breaking down a month ago, there was no time to write. Alas, I finally see some opportunities to write. So hopefully we can expect a "new" short story by the end of the year.

Letter on Loneliness

For suicide prevention day, I decided I should share this letter that was written for the first story in Neostriker SABRE. I hope that this helps anyone struggling with depression, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts

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My dear child,

There are some evils I wish I could protect you from, among them is depression from loneliness. I pray that when you encounter this that you have the strength to continue on and live. Remember your mother's words: there will always be someone who loves you.

Loneliness is a strange phenomenon in that you can feel lonely even while surrounded by people. The reason for this is because loneliness truly describes the state when we don't feel loved at all. When we feel loved, we can endure the hardships of life still smiling. However, when we feel lonely, we can lose all motivation, losing even our will to live.

I ask you to continue to fight, my child. Fight the feelings and know that they are simply feelings. Remember that there will always be someone who loves you. If you can persist past these feelings, that would give me pride.

It is certainly a task easier said than done. To help you overcome this trial, it might help to understand the nature of loneliness. Here are my thoughts on the topic.

Loneliness is caused by not feeling loved. Therefore we must remember what can make people feel loved. People want to be cared for, admired, liked, and wanted. These in turn are filled by the love languages. If you can figure out which tank is empty and your primary love languages, that can help a great deal in recovering.

Now if you were to encounter someone who is suffering this fate, I would entreat you to help them. I can easily believe that this kind of depression is cause of most suicides. If you can help these people, then you will be a great hero.

With love,

Your father

On the Cast of SABRE

A major reason why it took me so long to start writing SABRE even when Shining was first written over 10 years ago was due to characters. I had attempted to write multiple times, but I was having trouble with the characters in that I could not make then feel distinct. Not only were they clones of the cast of Shining, but I even had clones of the clones. As a result, I knew I could not do a good job at the time.

This changed when I started work on the proof of concept and figured how to make the rival interesting. From there, the individual characteristics, motivations, and ideologies started to form for my main cast. They have become distinguishable and also, in my opinion, relatable to various degrees.

Shining was focused primarily on David with a small focus on Jenny. This was intentional as I was writing David's story. However, one thing I liked about Digimon, one of the major influences for Neostriker, was how each member of the team developed in their own character arc. And so for SABRE, I wanted to try that as well.

With the release of The Vixen, my initial main cast is complete. While I do not intend that every story would focus on only these five characters, they do form the primary cast I wish to develop in the series.


The five main characters are as follows (descriptions are based off what is shown in the currently published stories):

George (Ryon): the primary protagonist. Orphaned at a young age, he tries to live up to the philosophy of his father conveyed through the many letters written before his death.

Sera: George's younger sister. She works in SABRE as an operator, often partnering with either her brother or Danny.

Danny: George's best friend and fellow Neostriker for SABRE. Can be impulsive and likes to joke around. He has a crush on Sera.

Sophia: She is a fellow student that George once rescued from a suicide attempt. The big sister of the group who cares deeply for everyone, she has recently joined SABRE.

Helene: Beautiful and tactically-minded. She started dating George after being betrayed by her ex-boyfriend. Initially having a negative bias towards SABRE, she has started to realize that she might have been mistaken after a personal encounter.

Concerning Clichés and Tropes in Storytelling

Here's perhaps a controversial opinion: people don't really hate cliches.


Ready to hear me out? The definition of cliche is "a very predictable or unoriginal thing or person." Now when we read a story once, we can predict everything during the second read, but good stories hold up after many readings. Similarly, people like to be able to predict something, and writers like to use foreshadowing. Lastly, people are more upset if things don't go as they should or hyped for. Therefore predictability is not really an issue.

How about originality? Surely we value original stories, right? "There is nothing new under the sun" is the common phrase. Writers often base off experiences, thoughts, or even other works. Sure, the stigma of being a clone hurt the original Digimon anime, but I never see anyone claim and successfully defend that the first season was inferior to the first season of Pokemon, even though half of the each of the later episodes are recycled animation. And recently, people more often claim that Pokemon copies from Digimon. Unoriginality is actually mostly just an obstacle for starting to consume a work if not a copyright infringement. Therefore unoriginality is not an issue either.

The real issue that readers and critics hate is lazy writing. When people encounter lazy writing, this is when they lament cliches and tropes. The reason for this is because as time goes on, we recognize issues with them and we become tired of seeing these imperfections, which in turn make us think the writer is lazy. This is even worse if the reader can think of a better way of accomplishing the same thing, as can be the case when very familiar with the stereotypes.

I was beta reading one story and it started off really well. The first half of the first chapter was utterly fantastic, but the second half was written in a manner to advance the plot and used cliche after cliche to do so. Not every one annoyed me, but some did. In addition, I was able to think of ways that, in my opinion, would be more interesting and character-driven. As a result, I greatly disliked the second half of that chapter.

So how should we write cliches? In part, it depends upon our story. Tales of Symphonia is a game filled with them, but I still enjoyed the story when I played it years ago, perhaps because it was a mixture of satire and for comedic effect in my opinion. If we think about that, then we can realize the key is to be intelligent with them.

When I started writing Neostriker: Shining, I was well aware of cliches in anime at the time and one of my goals was to make sure they all made sense. The prologue starts with stereotypical world building only to provide the first twist that also explains everything; the world is the character's fantasy. The first scene has the character self-aware of the it and expresses trying to do better. It is a common theme throughout the book to either question a cliche, use it as a platform for a joke, or actually discuss it.

All that being said, I will admit that there is a danger. When something is predictable for a long period of time, it's easy for the reader to gloss over and potentially never return. If we have important facts in the middle of these, they risk being missed and the reader will be frustrated later on.

What do you think? Any points that I miss on either side? Sound off in the comments below or engage with the tweet this will be shared with.

Writing as a full-time working parent

It's fairly common for people to ask, “how do you find time to write while parenting/working full-time?” My answer: most often, you don't, but that's okay.

Despite a very supportive wife and a fairly good work environment, it's hard to find time to write. I often utilize my train commute to write, but that means everything is written using my phone, which also means lots of cases of “auto-wrong” messing things up. To be fair, it's still better than not writing at all, but even after getting great technical feedback from @WilmariClaasan, finding the time to go back for solid editing is a difficult task thanks to life in general.

I love my children and would never wish to go back to a time before them, but between parenting and working, there is maybe 1 hour and a half of free time for me, assuming commute counts as free time. For writing, that might be enough time if completely dedicated, but we are human and have many needs, chief among is rest and leisure.

After working 9 hours on a computer and holding babies, the hands and eyes need to rest. I learned this the painful way so be sure to stretch and rest. The warning that came with the game boy saying not to play when tired is valid. Doing so tires the eyes and do it repeatedly enough and I ended up with one of the worst headaches ever.

Beyond the need for rest, we also need to partake in the social world. Spouses need to date. People need to meet with friends. We need to enjoy the arts. We need to exercise and have fun. All of these are needed to maintain a healthy and happy mind. Yes, I sometimes want to write, but if we ignore everything else for too long, everything comes crashing down sooner or later.

Ok. Now that I made that case, here are tips to help with actual writing despite limited time.

1. Use Swype, Gboard, or something similar for writing on mobile.
1. It can be annoying to correct the mistakes, but it's way faster than tapping every key. Write too slowly and you may lose the flow or find it too difficult to write at all.
2. Consider writing serialized short stories instead of full novels
3. Take public transportation to enable extra writing time.
4. Have a notebook to write down thoughts before bed. Organize by date and create an index in the back for easy reference
1. This also helps with falling asleep when you have an active imagination
5. Get a used Kindle or e-reader 
1. so you can read on the go
2. You can load PDFs and docs for reading
6. Chat with other writers and readers for feedback and inspiration
7. Enjoy life to keep your mind fresh

Dream on,

J. D. Nyle

Observations to include in Writing

I can't remember where I read it, but a sound advice given for writing characters is to pay attention to real people. It's not only good for personal growth, but also for writing compelling stories and realistic dialogue. Here are a few things I have noticed that I think are good to incorporate into writing.

1. People often do not know when they have offended
2. A common flaw is actually a person's strength applied in the wrong situation
3. People can have more than one emotion at a time and they may not know how to cope
4. People carry emotions from other things longer than we give them credit for. This is why we think they are overreacting and maybe even bi-polar
5. We often don't fully develop or understand or philosophy until we see a challenge
6. Some focus more on logic while others focus more on the emotion
7. It’s normal to fall in love based off physical attraction
8. Some people are more interested in loving than being loved. And others are more focused on being loved than giving love.
1. Quick Theory: Those who have been in many relationships might be more interested in being loved because they have been broken multiple times. Those who have not been in a relationship on the other hand may be more inclined towards loving

What observations have you noticed that should be on this list? Share in the comments and if I notice something, I'll update the list.

J. D. Nyle

My approach toward writing

I like telling stories. My guess is you like telling stories too or at least like consuming them. Will any of our stories be perfect? That's a relative question in which the answer is always no or potentially yes. If you mean everyone loves it and it's a textbook example of what to do, no. If it's something that can be enjoyed, then that's very much possible. For this essay, I'm going to focus on the latter and how I think is a good way to go about writing.

Step 1: What do you want to tell?
If we don't have a story to tell, then we will undoubtedly encounter writer's block. At the same time, it will be hard to convince people to consume our story of we cannot give a reason for telling it.

Step 2: flexibly plot
Some people write going with the flow and others plot everything. I think the best approach is down the middle. Related to step one, we need to have a reason to tell your story and having a plot helps us identify it. If we just go with the flow of sounds good at the moment, we may end up like The Last Jedi where it's emotionally good and had some great scenes, but also is very incoherent and messes up the Star Wars universe.

However, if we plot everything, then we can fall into the trap where we write around the plot and not what should happen naturally. The Last Jedi also failed here with some scenes, but perhaps not as bad as the Star Wars prequel trilogy. For example, we knew Anakin had to convert to the dark side, but it was not convincing why he did what he did. Why kill children without hesitation instead of having the join him? At the same time, perhaps what critics really attack is the dialogue does not feel real.

Step 3: feel the right emotion
A good storyteller makes the story feel alive. A good writer best enables the storyteller in the mind of the reader.

We need to remember that for characters to feel alive, we need to focus on the emotions and the moment. This is perhaps the core of “show more, tell less.” If people simply wanted to know what happened, they would be satisfied with SparkNotes or Wikipedia. People want stories for the emotions. Therefore it's important that the reader feels part of the story. In some cases, it's fine to summarize a series of events, but in general, engagement is key.

An important way to engage the reader is through our word choice. Words have emotional pull and that is what poetry hinges on. Certain words can trigger certain emotions. At the same time, words can also reflect our current emotions. If you are bored while writing, you might write boringly and then the reader will likely be bored when reading. However, if you are excited while writing an action scene, the reader will likely feel the same.

Step 4: repeat steps 2 and 3 until completion
We are likely to encounter situations where we cannot naturally progress to our plot points. In these cases, we may want to try a few tactics. Rearrange the plot points; remove some scenes; tell the story from a different perspective. Just make sure we continue this all the way through the ending because that’s the sentiment that the audience leaves with.

Also feel free to work on a different story. The creative process we work there can help us progress in our current story. Sometimes we just need to change our focus to find inspiration.

Step 5: read the story on a different device
A read on a Kindle can help us catch many typos or other weird things. I bought my Kindle used for $20 and it had worked out nicely. We can email docs and PDFs directly to the Kindle device, and if we use Kindle Direct Publishing, we can even send a Kindle formatted version.

Step 6: find proofreaders
These people can help us catch more typos and mistakes. At the same time, they can provide feedback about how it reads. An issue with editing is we sometimes remove critical information. This is a chance to catch those absences. Also pay attention if they received the correct impression we were aiming for. If you provided important information inside a large paragraph, it was probably missed.

I have found some beta readers using the #betareaders and #writingcommunity on Twitter.  Friends and family members can also give good feedback.

If we have a publisher willing to pay for a professional editor, that would be good to utilize as well. If we are self-publishing, then I have yet to justify the price I paid createspace for their services. It was helpful, but not more than my friends and father.

Step 7: edit and repeat until ready to stop.
At some point, we need to stop for our own sanity. Our creative will always think of ways to “improve” but at some point, we'll start making things worse and hate our creation. I think it's fair to accept a good state and save the new ideas for adaptations or new stories.

Step Anytime: ask others how to grow your audience
Considering my Twitter follower count only just reached 100, I am not the person to ask for growing audience.

Happy writing,
J. D. Nyle