David Anaxagoras asks, “Do writers have any obligation to the truth?”

I caught the first part of ABC’s new drama Eli Stone tonight. I turned it off when it became clear that the episode would revolve around the titular lawyer nobly taking on a woman’s case against a vaccine manufacturer for causing her son’s autism. The problem? Vaccines — and more specifically, the mercury-based preservative formerly used in most of them — don’t cause autism… But do writers have an obligation to the truth? They might as well base an episode on the “fact” that frogs cause warts, knowing full well that they will be stirring up an awful lot of anti-frog sentiment.

A writer of fiction is a professional liar. That’s really what it boils down to. In that regard, a writer not only lacks any obligation to the truth, but their job is to actively undermine it. It’s only a question of how far to take the lies in order to tell the best possible story.

CSI is an incredibly popular television show that uses science to solve crimes. Excuse me, let me rephrase that … CSI is an incredibly popular television show that perverts science to solve crimes. I don’t exaggerate when I say that I’ve watched episodes of this show slackjawed at the fathomless pit of crazy bullshit masquerading as DNA science and mass spectrometry. I mean, what the fuck?! Seriously, you’re going to figure out what perfume the killer wore using mass spec? Balls.

Ok, but here’s the thing, the writers of CSI have to pervert science in horrible, Godless ways to make an entertaining story, because, quite frankly, science is boring as shit. Anyone who’s worked in a lab for any length of time can back me up on this one: it is sometimes literally like watching water drip from a faucet. Often, it pays about as well as that, too. As much as we would like a writer to stay true to the reality they’re depicting, truth can get in the way of a good story.

Accepting that writers are liars and that the lies they tell are needed to make interesting and compelling stories, we arrive at the real meat behind David’s question: is it wrong for writers to make up a story that can have a negative impact on the way people think about the world around them?

Was it wrong for Jaws to propagate wild anti-shark propaganda, to the point of literally making people afraid to go into the water? I don’t know, but it’s a damn fine film. Is it wrong that Eli Stone propagates the theory that vaccination correlates to autism? I don’t know, but I think some dubious story about vaccines and autism is a hell of a lot less scary than a giant people-eating shark.

The problem with Eli Stone — which is available for free, though heavily ad-supported, viewing at abc.com — isn’t that it peddles a load of crap about vaccines and autism, but rather that it does so in an incredibly uninteresting way. That is the sin it commits. The show acknowledges that it’s basically making stuff up about vaccines and autism, and the main character’s triumphant closing arguments amount to “please ignore facts and evidence, and have faith in what I’m saying.” I’m a huge fan of Hackers, but not even I was buying the shit Johnny Lee Miller was shoveling. It’s not malicious or diabolical or dishonest — it’s stupid. If anything, you could argue that the show didn’t lie enough to make the story interesting, which, for a show having to do with lawyers, is pretty frickin’ weak.

Jane Espenson, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica screenwriting fame, has probably the best blog out there for tips on writing. She starts the new year off with this amazing gem:

Here’s a neat bit of writing vocabulary for you. I recently heard a new one. How cool is this? I am told by a writer in a certain sitcom room that in his room, a “fly chamber” is when there’s a tiny element from a past draft completely ruining your present script, a la Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY.

First, how friggin’ awesome is that The Fly reference?! You gotta love a blog post that gives a shout-out to Jeff Goldblum.

Second, I’d double check whether or not that should be a “fly in the chamber,” but Jane’s blog doesn’t allow comments, and the only way to reach her is by writing her a letter and mailing it (yeah, with a stamp and shit). I’ll pass, and just go with “in the” as it makes more logical and grammatical sense.

Nevertheless, this is one of those ideas that is both simple and revelatory to anyone who’s ever tried to write a second draft of anything. The first draft can be a burden. Stupid ideas from the first draft have an incredible ability to find their way into all subsequent rewrites, and, really, a single stupid idea can ruin an entire piece of writing, fictional or otherwise.

But that’s all foreplay. Let’s get to real point of this post:

What struck me about this idea is that I don’t think it only applies to writing; I think this is also very true of web design.

Truth be told, the redesign I launched here was not what I had originally had in mind when I decided to redesign. The original plan was to have the new design be a radical departure from the previous, but, there was a fly in the chamber. I’d take a step back, look at the screen, and think, “I really should have a giant red band across the top.”

Really, Nima? Another giant red frickin’ band? ‘Cause it worked so great last time? Moron.

I couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t get that stupid red band out of my head. Ultimately, all the design decisions I made were built upon that foundation, and every design of this blog I’ve ever done has had that damn red band in it. The red band is the fly in the chamber.

The real problem with a fly in the chamber is that you don’t realize it’s there until your hair has fallen out and you’re sprouting unattractive, though surprisingly practical, wings. At that point you’re mostly committed, and well, you’ve sort of come to terms with the fact that you’re probably not going to get laid for a while, on account of the weird drosophilatic sex organs you’ve sprouted. In that case, you really probably are better off stowing what you’ve done and starting over.

I think the lesson in design is the same as in writing: start fresh. A clean piece of paper, terrifying though it may be, might very well be your only salvation, because, really, an 8.5×11 piece of paper makes an excellent fly squasher. Though, as Jeff Goldblum showed, a shotgun works too.

Gary Hustwit’s documentary Helvetica explores the details of what is easily the most popular typeface in the world. It is a fascinating look at not only the prevalence of the Helvetica, but also how it’s use informs about our culture. The film is gorgeously shot, is well edited, has a great soundtrack, and features a lot of amazing interviews with interesting, and informative, subjects. Hustwit really did a magnificent job with this film¹, and I think everyone — even people who couldn’t care less about Helvetica, typography in general, or design — should see it. It’s easily one of the five best films I saw this year.²

There were two things in the film that really struck me. First, Helvetica might possibly be the greatest typeface ever designed. It’s ubiquitousness is a function of it’s near universal applicability. The film goes to great lengths to give a fair voice to a dissenting view on that, but it all rolls back to the truth that every time they show Helvetica on screen it feels so nature and perfect that you forget that there might be other typefaces that could have been used instead. After acknowledging that the myth of Helvetica as the ultimate font isn’t true, typographer Jonathan Hoefler says the following:

There’s something about it that has a feeling of finality to it. This is the conclusion of one line of reasoning, was this typeface, and perhaps everything after it was secondary in some way.

I find evolutionary dead ends to be fascinating from the standpoint of: how does one continue forward when one understands that they will never exceed what has come before? In this regard, how does a type designer approach the task of creating a new sans-serif typeface when Helvetica is staring them in the face?

Matthew Carter, designer of the famous Verdana and Georgia typefaces, says, quite elegantly, in the film:

It’s very hard for a designer to look at [Helvetica's] characters and say ‘How would I improve them? How would make them any different?’ They just seem exactly right. I’m glad no one ever asked me to second guess Helvetica, because I wouldn’t know what to do.

I think there is such a thing as a perfect piece of art. That’s what typography is — a work of art. I think the question of how you move forward from a perfect work of art as what defines you as an artist. That Carter went on to produce Verdana and Georgia speaks to the quality and strength of his artistry.

Of course, this sort true in all areas of art. In film, I immediately think of the Chinese movie Infernal Affairs, and Scorsese’s remake of it, The Departed.³ Infernal Affairs is a marvelous movie. The tone is perfect. The character arcs are perfect. The plot is perfect. It is a perfect film, and every single change that Scorsese made in The Departed was, I believe, to the detriment of the story. The only thing that really worked in The Departed’s favor was the spectacular view of Boston, which is to say that the film just looked different, but not necessarily better. I don’t understand what Scorsese was thinking. What was it he was trying to get out of remaking Infernal Affairs? I guess the answer is, “an Oscar,” but what does that say if your crowning achievement is a copy of someone else’s far superior work? I guess Scorsese can start a club with the guy who copied Helvetica to make Arial.

I think this is true in writing as well. Having studied molecular biology, whenever I mentioned an interest in writing someone (like my mom) would inevitably suggest that I write a story about science. “It would make a great story,” they would say. Yes, it would. In fact, it did. It was called Jurassic Park. The story is about molecular biology, and dinosaurs. Seriously, how could I possibly compete with that? There is nothing you could clone that is more interesting than a freaking velociraptor. As a result, I have zero interest in even considering to write a scientific — let alone molecular biology based — story, because I know nothing I write will ever be better than Jurassic Park. For me, I see it as a futile endeavor, and I wonder if typographers don’t feel the same about sans-serif fonts.

This brings me to the second point of interest in Helvetica — the film takes time to examine the use of type in posters, flyers, brochures, corporate logos, street signs, government documents, album covers, MySpace, magazine covers, and soda advertisements, but there’s no mention of books. In fact, there’s only one mention by David Carson of anything even remotely related to the use of type in an article of text (granted, it’s a spectacularly awesome use of type). What does this mean for writers?

Now, I understand that in a film about Helvetica there’s not going to be much, if any, mention of literary works, where Times and it’s siblings rule. That’s not really the problem. What worries me is that the type designers themselves tended to speak about type — in general, and not specifically Helvetica — strictly in terms of its value to graphic design. This is consistent with what I’ve observed outside the film, where typography is correlated to graphic designers, and not really to writers.

The reason I got interested in type was because, as a teenager, whenever I would get writer’s block sitting at the computer I’d start fiddling with fonts. If I couldn’t imagine the next part of the story in Times I’d try it in New York. If that was a bust I’d move on to Palatino. As an adult, I’m interesting in how the typeface can affect the way in which my writing is communicated.

The way type communicates in short flashes — as in a poster or logo — seems clear to me, and Helvetica does talk about this. For a novel, which can communicate a variety of different emotions and ideas between its pages, I think this becomes more complex, and beyond what my limited understanding of typography allows me to see. Do typographers think about this when they design a type? And, I wonder, what can I learn about typography that can help me as a writer? Can it help me at all?

Ultimately, my problem is that I don’t know any typographers. Ideally, sometime in the next, oh, ten years I’d like to get a chance to sit down with a typographer with some beers and nachos and talk about how it is they approach their work. I find it difficult to even conceptualize the thought process of a type designer, and that strikes me like if a builder didn’t understand the thought process behind the guy who makes hammers. Type is the tool I use, and the people who make it are a bit of a mystery to me. In the case of Helvetica, it’s creators Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann might as well have been sorcerers. Helvetica really is a thing of wonder.

1. I don’t care what your political views may be, but there’s no way you can see a film like this and think that Michael Moore is anything more than a hack. This is quality documentary filmmaking here, folks.↩
2. It’s available from Netflix, and if you have a Windows PC you can even watch it streamed through the “Watch Instantly” feature. Honestly, I installed Windows on my Mac Pro just to use this feature, and I’m glad I did, as the original Battlestar Galactica is also available via “Watch Instantly.” Woot!↩
3. You do know The Departed is a remake, right?↩

Writing is neither noble nor great. You struggle to create something out of nothing, which most people will then judge superficially and with total disregard for the blood, sweat, and tears you lost in creating your work. Worse, they’ll judge you based on their perception of the subjective quality of the work you produced (as they did, or did not, understand it). To write is to ask for an emotional, intellectual, and sometimes spiritual ass-whooping.

But everyone should do it.

Wait, let’s back up…

I was rummaging across the Internet over the weekend and found myself briefly on Shawn Blanc’s Christian-oriented blog, The Fight Spot. It has a very nice looking graphic design, so I took a look around to see what I could steal, and I came across his post “Ink”, in which he reveals his thoughts on writing, and shares his desire to write a book.

He writes,

For years I entertained the idea of writing a book called “The 2911 Factor”. It would be based on Jeremiah 29:11, that God has thoughts and plans to prosper us. It would be a book about discovering and walking in our destiny. I was talking to Anna about this last night and she said I ought to wait until I can’t not write a book. That seems like a good idea.

No, it’s not.

Many of you know that I’m prone to wild fits of unjustifiable rage, but there are a few things that I feel legitimately compelled to actually fight against: scientific misinformation, cruelty to our fellow man, gingivitis, and people who want to write not writing.

The reality is you can always not write. The willingness to commit to writing is not strengthened by the mere passage of time. Writing is a brutal, unyielding, and perpetually difficult thing to do. I’ve written three novels and, believe me, it doesn’t get easier with time.

Shawn hits upon why writing is so hard,

Many great men and women have helped shape history through their written words. Theologians, poets, novelists, etcetera, have impacted thoughts and lives of countless individuals. There is something noble about writing.

You and I aren’t great men. Sometimes great men aren’t really even great men. Yet, great works do exist, and that is the standard by which every writer’s work is set… in their own mind.

That’s the wall that I believe keeps people from writing. It is the fear that the work that they produce isn’t going to impact the thoughts and lives of any, let alone countless, individuals. It’s the fear that what they write just isn’t good enough. The perceived nobility of the art presents a threshold people get scared to cross.

Shawn basically gets at that,

Do I really want to wait another 5 or 10 years until I have something to say enough to break it up by chapters instead of h3 tags? That seems like an awful long time. But on the other hand, who am I to try and crank something out simply because I feel an itch to write? That surely seems like a waste of perfectly good trees.

This concern — that their writing will amount merely to wasted paper — is what I see frequently holding back people who should be writing. It is a crippling fear that has to be overcome. How do writers do it? I believe successful writers — not to be confused with people who write successfully — overcome this impediment by two different methods: egomania, and gross egomania.

An egomaniac is a person who believes that their writing is important to the world because they wrote it. That their thoughts and feelings matter so much to the world that immortalizing them on paper for others to behold automatically, and unquestionably, makes the world a better place in which to live. These people are most certainly delusional.

In contrast, a gross egomaniac is a person who’s read the great works of others, knows that their work will be judged against those standards, and couldn’t care less. It doesn’t matter if everyone else hates their work, because the opinion of everyone else is irrelevant, if not stupid. These people will write because they feel the need to do so, the world be damned. Obviously, these people are also quite delusional.¹

But let’s hold on for a moment. Egomania is such a such a harsh word, and it carries around a lot of negative baggage. Instead of egomania let talk about confidence.

That’s what this is really about. The first type of writer I described is confident in the value of their thoughts and ideas, and the second is confident in their abilities. Confidence in those two regards (though not necessary to the extremes I described) allows us to overcome our fears and our doubts. It lets us create.

The question then becomes, “How does one become more confident in their writing?”

By writing.

Ah, so now you realize just how frightfully delusional we writers can be. But I am, unfortunately, quite serious. The only way to become confident in your ability to write is to sit down and start.

But where to start?

In high school I took an amazing creative writing class taught by the sweetest little-old Greek-lady in the world. The first day of class she promptly announced a contest for the week: we would all go home and write a short story three-to-five pages in length, we’d bring them to class and share amongst our classmates, and we’d take a vote to rank the stories in terms of their quality. The winner of this contest, she explained, would be the story that the class decided was the worst in the class.

Let me be clear, our assignment was to write the worst story we possibly could. Spelling mistakes and poor grammar weren’t allowed; the story had to be bad.²

This exercise accomplished two goals: it allowed us to think about what makes writing bad (and, therefore, what makes writing good), and, more importantly, it got us writing. All our fears went out the window. It really didn’t matter we wrote a bad story, because that was the whole point.

I believe this is the mental hurdle people have to get over in order to really start writing: you have to accept that your writing can be bad. You measure success by completion, not construction. This is the stated goal of NaNoWriMo (Nation Novel Writing Month), which is why I so highly recommend to people that are interested in writing that they participate in NaNoWriMo when they can. Not being hung up on whether your work is great or not allows you the creative freedom to create something great.

Several months ago Khoi Vinh wrote in the incredibly honest “On Blogging Well and Writing Poorly”:

One thing I worry about though, is if by becoming a better blogger over the years I haven’t also stunted my progress towards becoming a better writer. I often describe my persistence in this medium as predicated on my generally unflagging compulsion to write. I’ve certainly grown some as a writer while authoring Subtraction.com, but how much closer am I to writing the book that I want to write, to penning the articles that I want to publish, to developing a more insightful critical voice? Had I not preoccupied myself so many evenings and weekends hammering out hastily composed, poorly self-edited and only glancingly critiqued passages, would I have come any further along as a good writer than I have? To answer that honestly, I’d say I suspect that the answer is yes, I would have come much further. Which is to say that becoming a better blogger hasn’t made me a better writer.

I can’t speak to Khoi Vinh’s lack of development as a writer (though I think he’s a pretty good writer, in any case), but he’s probably right, and he’s definitely hitting the nail on the head. I think the only way to develop the skills to write a book is to actually sit down and write a book. You have to do it. I did, and in the process, I learned a lot about how to structure a story, set pacing, develop characters, and, ideally, how not to end the story at the half-way point. You simply cannot swap in one type of writing (blogging) for another (long-form fiction).

For these reasons, I implore you, Shawn, to just sit down and write. Don’t wait. Write your heart out. And try not to think about the great work of others, or the rising cost of paper. As Stephan King would put it, write with the door closed.

I guarantee you, and anyone who’s got the desire to write, if you do, you will be better for it, even if what you write is a pile of crap. I’ll stake a beer and some chicken wings on it. That’s a powerful statement right there, because I love my beer and chicken wings. But my love of beer and chicken wings — and cheapness — is not as strong as my belief that everyone should write… and so should you.

1. Yes, all writers are delusional. That’s why they come up with such imaginative stories. Duh!↩
2. Though I definitely tried, I didn’t win, as my story was deemed “so bad, it was good.” The story that did win was about a teenaged boy that had brutally over-dramatized problems with his parents. The only detail I recall was at one point he yells to his folks, “But I want to be a fireman!” in response to their question about the marijuana they found under his bed. It was awesome.↩

Around 1995, when I first got on the Internet, I found a hilarious story about an encounter between the Transformers and their cheap K-mart knock-offs, the Gobots. Every now and then I check the web to see if it’s still floating around, and it doesn’t seem to be, which is a shame.

So, now that I have a little corner of the Internet to myself, here is a reprinting of that story, written by person’s unknown, many years ago. Fan’s of 80s cartoons — and Gobot haters — rejoice and enjoy.

Transformers Vs. Gobots

Long ago, before Transformers came to earth…

A group of Quintessons named Lari, Moh and Ker-le decided to take an expedition to a far off galaxy. Unfortunately, their ship malfunctioned and they were thrown off-course. They crash-landed somewhere in the constellation we know as Triangulum. Desiring to reproduce their lifestyle on Cybertron, they tried their hand at creating robots to serve as gladiator slaves. They failed. Their pathetic creations, whom they termed Gobots, were pale imitations of the Autobots and Decepticons.

Despite their pathetic nature, the Gaurdian Gobots and the Renegade Gobots managed to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. They named their planet Gobotron, after themselves, and in the year 1988 ad they came to Earth. It took them a long time to develop space travel. Here is their story:

One day Bumblebee was strolling in town. No one noticed or complained that there was a giant foolish robot walking around town, because Transformers live in fantasy land. He was shocked to see a new Decepticon robbing a Burger King! Bumblebee may not have seen this particular Decepticon before, but he knew how to treat their kind!

“Stop!” he shouted, drawing his blaster. “Return that Whopper Junior at once!”

The Decepticon turned “Who are you to stop me! I am Cy-Kill, leader of the Renegade Gobots!”

“Cy-kill?” thought Bumble. “That’s a stupid name!” he screamed back at Cy-kill.

Just then a second Decepticon, or Renegade Gobot, stepped out of the Burger King.

“Quick” barked Cy-kill. “Cop-tur, turn into a copter!”

Bumblebee perplexed, watched Cop-tur “transform.”

“He didn’t change at all,” thought Bumblebee. “He just layed down!”

“Drat,” mumbled Cop-tur. “I forgot my rotor blade!”

“Damn you — How can you forgot that?” responded his leader.

“Hey — it’s a separate part. I always lose stuff — I didn’t get mad at you when you lost your wheels!”

“We’ll have to fight it out” resovled Cy-kill.

“Too bad you don’t have any guns,” pointed out Ironhide, pulling up from the drive-through window.

“Foiled again!” screamed Cy-kill! “Why couldn’t we come with guns like you guys?”

In response, Leader-One walked in. “Because Gobots are meant to be good!”

Bumblebee was confused again, “I can see that you transform into a plane, sir, so why didn’t you fly here?”

Leader-one was embarrased, “Due to my poor design, I lack the structural integrity to actually fly. I only turn into a model plane. And I have no gun either.”

Ironhide, never one for words, promptly killed Cy-kill and Cop-tur, and for good measure, Leader-One as well.

The rest of the Gobots were destroyed shortly thereafter, many by small children armed with rocks and sticks. As the Transformers related the tale to an amused Optimus Prime, he said “I’m glad they’re not on our side! Go-bots, huh?”

Bumblebee, for the last time, was confused, “Why is your name in Latin?”

The court says I need to do something worthwhile for the community, and with NaNoWriMo quickly approaching I thought this would be a good time to share some of my hard earned writing know-how with the public. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about writing, I figured I’d show you how to make a novel template that you can use when you decide to learn how to write from someone else.

Apple Pages ‘08, part of the iWork ‘08 software package, is a wonderful word-processor that, while not quite as robust as Microsoft Word, is faster, learner, more intuitive, and nicer looking than Microsoft’s flagship productivity app. I’ve been a bit critical of iWork ‘08 in the past, but Pages is really great, and, I believe, is put together well enough to replace Microsoft Word for day-to-day writing.

Pages comes with a cornucopia of great templates for letters, resumes, brochures, posters, the works. It even comes with a template for writing a screenplay. Unfortunately, Pages doesn’t come with a novel template¹. If you’re going to use Pages to write a novel you’re going to have to set up your own template.

If you’ve never set up a book template in a word processor before then I’ll walk you through the process using Apple Pages. If you know how to set up a template in Microsoft Word and are interested in giving Pages a try then you can probably skim through this article.² If you just want the finished template file you can get it here.

Step 1: Make a New Document

Open up Apple Pages, and if the template chooser opens up then select the default Blank document.

We want to see the layout of the document we’re building, so select View->Show Layout, and View->Show Invisibles so that we can see where the paragraph marks are.

Step 2: Document Settings

The Document Inspector, with “Facing Pages” set.

If the Inspector is not already visible activate it by selecting View->Show Inspector. Under the Document icon (the first icon in the top row), select the “Document” tab. Click the “Facing Pages” option, which sets up the book margins for double sided printing. With this enabled the margins are mirrored, so the left margin on the left hand side of the book will be the same as the right margin on the right hand side of the book. You might want to change the inside margin to be larger than the outside (thereby giving you more room for binding), but I’ve chosen not to do that because I also want to use this template for PDF output, where different margins will look odd. Note that selecting “Facing Pages” changes how the document is displayed to match that the way the open book pages will be. Great!

While you’re there you should also select the “Hyphenate.”³

Step 3: Title Page Setup

Add a single carriage return (empty paragraph), then enter the title of your novel (don’t hit return at the end of the line yet).

Great, now we have a title, but it’s not formatted in any special way. We’re going to format the document up the right way: with Styles⁴. Open up the Styles Drawer by selecting View->Show Styles Drawer (or by clicking the first icon, the paragraph in the circle, in the toolbar).

Partial view of the Text Inspector, with settings for the Title style.

Choose “Title” from the Styles Drawer. It looks OK now, but we want it to be center justified and half-way down the page. You can do the former from the toolbar, but we can (and will) do both from the Inspector. Select the Text icon (forth) in the Inspector, and the “Text” tab. In the Colors and Alignment section setting the alignment to center. To move the title vertically adjust the “Before Paragraph” slider to about half-way (or where ever you want the title to show up). We started with an empty paragraph in order to use the “Before Paragraph” setting.

Also, set the “After Paragraph” to about the font size of the “Title” font style. This will be the space between the title and the byline.

Notice that the triangle next to “Title” in the Styles Drawer has turned red. This signifies that the style has been altered (because that’s what we just did). To make this change part of the style (which you want to do if this is a proper template) click on the red triangle and choose “Redefine Style From Selection.”

Now hit return and enter the byline (“A super-great novel by…”). Center the text, make it bold, and size 14pt. In the Style Drawer note this is in the “Body” style, and that the triangle is red denoting the change. Click the triangle, but this time select “Create New Paragraph Style From Selection…” A dialog opens, and name this style “Byline.”

The reason why you’re creating a new style is two fold:

1. It makes it really easy to change the way everything is formated, in a consistent way, later on.
2. We’re going to be screwing around with the “Body” style, which would affect this text if we don’t assign a new style to it.

Step 4: “Business”

Typically the back page of the title page is the book’s business: copyright information, publisher information, etc. Let’s put one of those in.

Create a new page by selecting Insert->Page Break. Carriage return down near the bottom of the page, align the text to the left, format it how you’d like, and insert the copyright information (and any other business you want). In the Styles Drawer create a new style (like you did above) and name it “Business.”

Hit return, but make sure you don’t go over the page into a new one.

Step 5: Sections and Chapters

Finally, this is where the magic happens. The trick to word processor templates is sections. Sections are parts of the document that have their own header and footer information. If you understand how sections work then you can build incredibly complex documents in any word processor. Luckily our novel will have a simple structure, making it easier to learn how to set up sections.

Start by creating a new section: select Insert->Section Break from the menu bar.

Note that it looks like a new page has been created, except the page break and the section break graphics are different.

Page break (top), Section break (bottom)

In the Inspector choose the second icon (Layout) and then “Section” tab. Under “Configuration” select the “First page is different” and “Left and right pages are different” checkboxes, and deselect the “Use previous headers & footers” checkbox.

Wait, what did we just do?

The Layout Inspector, with the section settings for the chapters.

The first page of this section will have it’s own unique header and footer setup, and after that the headers and footers on alternating pages will be different as well. Also, this section will not follow the header and footer setup of any previous sections (this is important).

So let’s set these babies up!

First, at the top insert an empty paragraph, and then “Chapter #” (yes, put the number sign in). We could create a new style for the chapter heading, but I think it’s easier to just use what’s already there: “Heading.” Center it, adjust the vertical alignment, play with the font, size, and color however you wish, and then redefine the style (like we did before). When you’ve done that hit return to go to a new line.

Then insert two (2) page breaks. You should end up with both a new right and left side page. Now to set up our headers and footers.

If you haven’t figured it out, the header is the box at outlined at the top of the page, and the footer is the box at the bottom. Go to the first new page you made, the one on the left hand side, and click on the header box. Enter “Chapter #”, then hit Tab, and enter the title of your book.

Notice that when you hit Tab it moved the caret all the way to the other side of the box, and wrote the text right aligned. You’re probably interested in where these settings are coming from. In the Inspector choose the Text icon, then the “Tabs” tab. The box that says “Tab Stops” is what is controlling the tabbing. For the purposes of education, let’s screw with these settings…

The Text Inspector, with settings for tab stops.

Inside the “Tab Stops” box click on the “6.5 in” entry, then hit the minus sign at the bottom of the box to delete it. You’ll notice in the header you set the Title just jumped to where you would normally expect a tab stop to be. That’s OK. Click the plus sign in the Inspector to create a new tab stop, which should be “0.5 in.” Double click on this new entry to edit it, and type in “3.25,” then hit return or enter. Notice that the title text jumps to the middle of the header, but it’s not quite centered. With the “3.25 in” entry selected, choose the “Center” radio button in the Inspector. Great, now it’s centered, but we’re not done: click the plus button again to enter another tab stop. Edit the new one to be “6.5 in” with “Right” alignment. Now go back, to the header and right before your book’s title hit the Tab key. It should now look like it did before all this mucking around, but with an additional tab stop (if the title got pushed to a new line double check that you set the alignment to “Right”). Why did we bother? Click in the middle of the header box and now you can enter your name.

Now you have a header that’s setup to be the chapter number on the outside of the page, the author’s name in the middle, and the title of the book on the inside. Nice.

The footer will be much simpler than that. Click on the footer box, then set the text alignment to center. From the menu bar select Insert->Page Number, and the page number will magically appear. Hurray!

Recall that we set up this section with different left and right pages, so now we have to set up the right side page. The easiest thing to do is click the header/footer of the left side page, select all, copy, and paste into the right side header/footer (do not “Paste and Match Style”).

Wait, but if we’re just copying and pasting why did we have the sides set to be different? Excellent question. Recall how I said we set up the left side header: chapter number on the outside, title on the inside. On the right hand side, because the pages are mirrored, the chapter number in now on the inside, and the title is on the outside. We don’t want that. So just switch the text (either cut and paste, or just rewrite it). Now the pages should be mirrored.

One final footer: go to the first page of the chapter — the one that should say “Chapter #” on it, and set up the footer with the page number, but leave the header empty. Since its the first page of the chapter it should be clean.

Step 6: Section Starts

There’s one more trick to sections you need to know: you can set section to always start on a specific side of the book, regardless of what side the previous page was on. We’re going to do this…

Go to the Inspector and choose the Layout icon. At the very bottom of the “Section” tab is the drop down box, “Section starts on:” The default value is “Any page,” which means Pages doesn’t do anything special. Change it to “Right Page.”

Now this section will always start on the right side, which is how it looks now.

Step 7: The Body Style

Under the chapter heading you made should be a paragraph of text in the style “Body.” If not, add a paragraph. In the Inspector choose the Text icon, and then the “Tabs” tab. At the top set the “First Line” to 0.5 in, which will make your first lines auto-indent (this is better than indenting yourself, especially if you decide to change your mind later on). Now change the formating to a nice serif font like Times (or whatever you want you novel to be written in), and redefine the “Body” style to save the changes. Great, now you’ll have consistently formatted paragraphs, which you can reformat easily in the future.

Step 8: Capturing Pages For the Template

Apple Pages has an excellent template building feature called “Capture Pages.” With the caret in our newly created chapter section go to Format->Advanced->Capture Pages… in the menu bar. A dialog pops up. In the “Name” box enter “Chapter,” and in the “Include” drop down make sure “First page only” is selected, then hit OK.

Now delete the chapter you made so that you’re left with only the Title and Business pages (trust me).

Step 9: Play time!

What was that last step all about? I’ll show you…

Go to Insert->Sections in the menu bar. A submenu opens, at the bottom of which is the “Chapter” section you just captured. Select it, and it will insert the first page of your chapter into the book. For fun, insert two page breaks, and see that your headers and footers are formatted just the way you set them up. You have a stock chapter setup ready for you for each chapter of the book.

Now make sure the caret is on the last page you made, and insert a new chapter section there. Notice the completely blank page on the left hand side? That’s the “Section starts on: Right” at work. When printed, all your chapter’s will begin on the right side, for pleasurable consistency.

A Word About Problems

OK, remember how I said Microsoft Word is more robust? Well, it is. Notice that while the newest chapter you created properly iterates the page count, it doesn’t do anything about the chapter number. This is why I had you put an “#” instead of a number. With each new chapter you’re going to have to set the chapter number on the first page, and in the first right and left header you have. After that the headers will keep the modified text, until the next chapter you add (because we set the section to not use the previous headers). This isn’t a major issue, but it’s something to be aware of.

This isn’t, btw, a problem with Microsoft Word, because MS Word has more auto-text options (how you do this chapter business in Word is extremely elegant). Still, that doesn’t make up for how bloated it is, or how friggin’ late the new version of Mac Office is. Seriously, Photoshop beat you guys to the Intel native. Photoshop!

That’s really the only problem I think is worth noting.

Optional: Placeholders

One thing we can do to diminish this problem is to modify the template to include placeholder text. You can define placeholder text by selecting some text, then going to Format->Advanced->Define as Placeholder Text. Do this to the title and chapter headings where they are, and when you save the template and use it’ll be a bit easier to edit (not by much, though).

Note that if you’re going to do this you need to re-capture the chapter section.

Honestly if you’re just going to step up the document to run with it then don’t worry about it.

Step 10: Saving the Template

Easy: File->Save as Template….

From there you can create a new document from your template from the template chooser.

Advanced Page Numbering?

I really don’t feel comfortable not mentioning one final bit about sections: sections allow you to do advanced page numbering. By advanced I mean, where the numbering changes. In the Layout Inspector under the “Section” tab is where you can set the where the numbering for that section starts. If you right click on the page number you’ve added you can change the number type (roman, arabic, etc). Have fun.

Congratulations! If you were able to understand anything I just wrote you should have a novel template on hand and ready to go. More importantly, you should have the know-how to design your own template. Teach a man to fish, so to speak. With an understanding of sectioning you should be able to effortlessly add a page for dedications, an author biography, a table of contents, or a forward by your cat.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to use this information to write a spectacular novel of your own. In 30 days. Good luck with that.

* Please let me know if you find any mistakes with this tutorial. I mean, I put those there on purpose, I just want to see if you’re sharp enough to find them. Because I’m sneaky.

1. I have my theory about that, but I’ll keep it to myself for now.↩
2. The process is really the same, it’s just a matter of knowing where to find the settings, which in the case of Pages is pretty easy to find on your own.↩
3. If you’re going to right justify the text, which is standard protocol for a novel, you need to enable auto-hyphenation so you don’t end up with ridiculous whitespace in the middle of your sentences.↩
4. Doing formatting properly with Styles is as good as writing this in LaTeX. Well, almost as good.↩

Heads up, suckas! It’s October 1st, which means that in 31 days NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) kicks off. For those that don’t know, NaNoWriMo is when people from all over the world agree to the participate in the psychological and emotion flagellation that results from attempting to write a 50,000 word novel entirely in the month of November. Yes, that’s right — 50,000 words, 30 days, with Thanksgiving showing up in near the crunch point.

I’ve done it three times — which I suppose is a sad comment on the general emptiness of my social schedule — and it’s thoroughly invigorating. Also, horrendously tortuous. It’s sort of like what I would imagine sex with Angelina Jolie to be like. A fair amount of, “Oooh, baby,” mixed in with an unnecessary amount of, “Ouch! Stopping sticking that in there.”

Wow, my analogies are awesome.

In any event, I’m going to do it this year, because I hate myself. Also, it gives me an excuse to consume an ungodly amount of caffeine (MMmmmmm… Jolt cola mixed with No-Doze…). It is extremely painful — as all creative writing is — but I think it’s well worth it. At the end of November you can say you’ve written a novel, which is something a great number of people talk about doing but never do. More over, it’s something a great number of people should be doing, because I think a lot of people have interesting stories to tell. Also, why the hell not?! Come December 1st what else are you going to have to show for November? Five extra pounds of turkey and mashed potatoes? OR five extra pounds of turkey and mashed potatoes and a 50,000 word novel? Exactly.

I don’t want to publicly reveal what my awesome book will be about, but I will say with absolute certainty that it does not involve pirates. Or necrophilia. I’m leaving those two free in case Jackie decides to join in this year. But I will say that it will indubitably be absolutely god-awfully ass-smashingly not too shabby.

Jane Espenson, former staff writer for the spectacular Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has been forced to comment on the media coverage of the MTV Video Music Awards.

All right. I wasn’t going to do this, but I have to weigh in on the Britney Spears thing. Namely, I’m very upset about the way the media has covered what happened at the Video Music Awards. I think you know what I’m referring to. Consistently, almost every source I’ve seen has flagrantly mispunctuated Sarah Silverman’s joke. Mispunctuation!

Love it. Her analysis of how the media has distorted Silverman’s joke by not accurately punctuating what she said is nothing short of brilliant (which is absolutely typical of her blog). I think we sometimes forget how important the pauses in language truly are. Well, when I say “we” I mean you people, because I’ve got the whole dramatic pausing thing down to a freakin’ science.

Oh, and if you want to independently verify Silverman’s statement you can watch the clip in question here. If you don’t want to waste your time, Jane is dead on about how Silverman delivered the joke.