Networking and Writers
Posted on | December 7, 2011 | No Comments
This is another one of those things that I’ve spoken about before but it seems to need to be said again. You don’t need to read huge marketing guides nor sell your soul in order to make networking work for you. In fact there’s just one easy step to networking better than 90% of the authors out there.
Here it is (I should charge for this):
Don’t network. At least not in the traditional sense.
Networking, traditionally speaking, is where groups of people in the same or related industries swap contacts and favours. It sounds great in theory, but it leads to all kinds of problems, especially online.
For one thing the people you want help from are probably very busy, and what they can do for you is totally out of proportion to what you can do for them (assuming you’re a new writer).
Normal networking theory says that should make friends with as many people in the industry as possible so they can get ahead. This would work fine if it wasn’t a system so ripe for abuse. A lot of networking comes down to wheedling favours out of people who are in a position to help you out.
Yeah, don’t do that.
Now, before you release the hounds, let me say that this is far from easy. Avoiding networking while still making contacts, promoting your work and generally having an online presence is more work than merely networking.
It’s worth it though.
The reason I tell people not to network is that it always comes across as false, and usually the people you want to know in the writing industry are a bunch of smart, savvy people who have been around the block a few times and will usually spot someone who is only talking to them for what they can get out of the writer/editor/blogger etc. You might still get what you want from them, but that shouldn’t be the point.
So what should you be doing?
What I recommend is doing nice things for other people in the industry; write a review of a book, help promote a book launch, conduct interviews etc. and then (and this is the key) expect nothing in return.
People remember those who’ve been nice to them without demanding favours in return. You’ll build up far more good will by being nice, professional and helpful than you ever will trying to trade directly for favours.
But there’s something else too.
I don’t pretend to know how the universe works, and I don’t follow any particular religion (unless you count my reverential relationship with food), however there does seem to be a kind of internet karma that affects writers.
Far from being a kind of universal payback system, it’s a kind of system wide memory that knows whether you’ve been bad or good* and treats you accordingly. People who do nothing but promote themselves and their books almost always end up pushed to the side and generally ignored. People who make a name for themselves as generally helpful more often than not find doors opened for them.
If it sounds nebulous, it is. There’s no concrete system for this sort of thing, just my advice that the old adage “it’s better to give than receive” holds as true in the internet age as it did when it was first said.
So tell me, with Christmas on the way, what do you do to help out other authors? What would you like to do?
Ten Things You Need To Know About Writing Conflict
Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 1 Comment
Conflict is one of those nebulous terms that’s applied to writing but isn’t often well explained. Since it’s such a huge part of any story I wanted to put together list of things I wish I’d known about writing conflict when I’d started writing.
First off:
1. You have to have it.
Writing is mostly about choices, it’s very rare that a situation comes up in the creation of your novel (or script, or short story) where you don’t get any choice, but this is one of them. You have to have conflict of some kind in your story. No ifs or buts, no conflict, no story, no reason for anyone to read what you’ve written.
This holds true no matter what kind of story you’ve written. The need for conflict is obvious in an action orientated story, no one wants to read a story about an elite team of warriors that stay at home, get on fine and basically do nothing. It’s less obvious in more literary work, but the need for some kind of conflict, whether its actual conflict between people or a conflict of another kind is still there.
Which leads me to my next point…
2. Not all conflict has to be life or death
When I say conflict it’s easy to think of epic struggles between heroes and villains fighting for the fate of the world. While I love stories like that, the huge life and death struggles aren’t always appropriate for your story and you need to look elsewhere to find conflict to energise your plot.
There is just as much conflict to be wrung from a romantic affair as there is from a terrorist plot or a suppurating* monster. As long as someone has something to lose, whether it’s their life, their pension or their chance at a kinky weekend away with their secretary there’s conflict to be had.
3. Hell Is Other People
Not all conflict comes from people fighting with other people, but for most of us, that’s the kind of conflict that creates the most interest for us. I think the reason is that we’ve all been there at some time or another, and when the protagonist of a story is in conflict with another person it’s easier for us to put ourselves in the protagonists place.
Unless you’ve been incredibly unfortunate (or possibly incredibly lucky depending on your point of view) it’s a lot harder to put yourself in the position of the sole survivor of a plane crash in conflict with the environment. Not impossible of course, that’s still a great conflict to base a story around, however the vast majority of conflict we have in our lives is with other people.
4. Everyone Has Conflict
I can’t think of anyone over the age of six weeks that’s never had some kind of conflict in their lives. Most of our interaction with the world is a struggle, and even the nicest, kindest gentlest person can still get cut off in traffic by some idiot.
Sometimes in fact it’s the people who go out of their way to avoid conflict that end up in the worst confrontations. A bully will go out of their way to take advantage of someone who won’t fight back because of a fear of confrontation, and that kind of conflict can be great story fuel.
If you’re struggling to come up with an idea for conflict in your story, just have someone around the protagonist do something selfish or unreasonable (at least from the protagonist’s point of view) and start taking it from there.
5. Enemy Inside
Of course, sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. Some of the best conflicts in fiction have come from protagonists at war with themselves. It also works for villains who are fighting against their own natures.
Character’s that are just good, or just awful aren’t very interesting… but a villain that’s desperately trying to do the right thing, or a hero who has to fight the urge to cut loose and murder everyone is a much more interesting read.
It’s the conflict between what they know is right and their baser instincts that make it interesting for the reader. This kind of internal conflict can make for great subplots in longer works of fiction.
6. Lesser Of Two Evils
Sometimes the conflict for a particular character isn’t between right and wrong, but between wrong and perhaps slightly less wrong. The trick to this kind of conflict is the make the lesser of the two evils the far less appealing option.
If it is a simple case of the hero choosing between saving a single evil person or a six year old child, then the choice is easy and the conflict is minimal. If however the hero has to chose between saving an evil person who might just be able to help him save the world and a small child? That’s not so easy.
7. Consequences
All conflict has consequences. If you get into an argument with your boss and call them, for instance, a vile, unprincipled waste of oxygen then no matter how righteous your cause you will quickly find out what unemployment feels like.
A hero getting into a fist fight not only has to deal with the potential for injury and death, he will have to deal with the aftermath. What happens if the person he just walloped calls the Police and claims our hero threw the first punch? If your protagonist has super powers of some kind, how does that fit into excessive force laws?
Alternatively the protagonist who can beat/maim/kill others and it has no effect on them at all starts to look an awful lot like a villain with a psychiatric condition and a shiny cape.
The more consequences you can provide for the conflicts in your story the more meaningful those conflicts become and the more the readers will be paying attention.
8. Mix Your Conflicts
In a short story you can get away with there being only one conflict. Will the hero overcome the bully? Will the lovers overcome their differences? Will I ever find my pants?**
In a longer story you’ll need there to be more than one conflict going on in order to sustain the pace of your story. It’s for this reason romantic subplots appear in almost every major action movie.
It doesn’t have to be romance of course, the secondary conflict can be between father and son, or best friends.
9. Can’t Be Ignored
When you’re doing it right, the conflict in your story isn’t something your main character can ignore, even if they try to get away from it at first, the conflict should be the kind of thing that follows your protagonist home.
A very literal example would be having your protagonist cut someone else off in traffic. The other driver yells at them and the drives off. They can ignore that even if it causes them temporary discomfort.
Much harder to ignore would be the other driver following them home and stalking them, intimidating their friends and interfering in your protagonist’s life.
Perhaps a better example would be if your main character was being bothered by a bully at work. The bully hassles them every day, but it’s just words and your main character gives as good as they get. It could be a fun scene but it’s not enough to drive an entire story.
But what if the bully gets frustrated with the fact that your character isn’t scared of them and decides to up the ante? The bully starts false rumours about them, maybe tries to get them fired. Perhaps they start making physical threats or using blackmail.
Now your protagonist can’t ignore them, they have to get involved in the conflict and find a way to fight back.
10. When In Doubt
I’ve mention Chandler’s law before. It goes like this: “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”
Raymond Chandler was an American author specialising in detective fiction. It’s great advice, whether you take it literally or if your story demands a slightly looser interpretation of “man with a gun”.
All it could take to inject more tension into your romance subplot could be the arrival of an ex partner of the love interest, or perhaps a furious set of in laws.
If your story is wallowing, or you just don’t know where it’s going next, then try Chandler’s law. It might not work, but the times I’ve tried it by the time I’d finished writing the scene I either knew why the gunmen were there or I knew what I wanted to do instead.
How do you inject conflict into your stories/ Do you plan it out or do you just let it happen?
* Suppurating. Great word. Means to undergo the formation of pus.
** Nope.
What I Learned About Writing From A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Master
Posted on | November 29, 2011 | No Comments
Sometimes the best advice comes from unexpected places.
I was attending a Brazilian Jiu jitsu seminar on Friday* with BJJ maestro John Will. The seminar was mostly about breaking people’s shoulders with your legs using a move called an omopolata, but it was actually an unexpected bit of writing advice that stuck with me over and above the moves.
John talked about the process of writing his first book, and that he made a modest profit, but nothing to write home about. If that modest profit was all he’d gotten out of writing the book, then going and getting a job at the local Mc Donald’s would have been a more time efficient way to make the money.
However, John went on to talk about the side benefits that writing his first book provided him and that’s what I wanted to talk about today.**
Because John was self publishing back in the days before Amazon and the Kindle had revolutionised the process, so producing the book forced him to learn book design, publishing and page layout. Writing the book taught him all of these things…
Not to mention it taught John that he could write a book.
The reason I mention all of this is that for most of us, our first book sucks. I know the first one I finished was an absolute mess. It had potential, and I loved the idea, but I just wasn’t up to the execution.
If I had taken only the financial benefits of writing my first book at face value (i.e nothing) then I would have quit writing forever and would have spent the next ten years weeping into my cornflakes.
However, writing that first book actually taught me far more about writing than anything else I’ve read or done. Every book I’ve written (or, being honest, restarted) has taught me more about what it takes to write something really good.
If you have an interest in martial arts I can highly recommend John’s books, which you can get from his website www.bjj.com.au
Success is great, and we all pine for it, but if your first book sucks, don’t despair. It could be that doing that first, terrible, novel teaches you the things you need to know in order to write something that not only doesn’t suck, but that other people love.
*Because I like choking people almost as much as I like making things up. I blame society.
** Any errors in this story are mine, not John’s.
Let’s Stop Punching One Another In The Face*
Posted on | November 10, 2011 | No Comments
Comic by Randal Munroe of XKCD.com
Every month or so it seems like the self publishing vs traditional publishing debate flares up in some new and interesting way. Then four million writers jump on the band wagon and start calling each other dicks for having one opinion or another.
I’m guilty too, of sticking my oar in where it wasn’t needed.
I haven’t posted much of late because of my insane current schedule, but I wanted to put this up because I see so many people needlessly doing themselves and others harm because they’ve gotten invested in one side of this debate. I can’t guarantee you any facts because all I have is opinions, and you should all take them with a pinch of salt.
However before you jump on anyone and call them a house slave, an idiot or an amateur I’d like to consider these questions before you do:
Question 1: What Do You Think You’re Doing?
I think a big part of the problem with the traditional vs self publishing debate is that we’re all trying to help, but some of us (me included at least some of time) get it wrong in the way we go about it.
Do you really want to help other writers out? Keep an eye out for scams and tell Preditors and Editors about it. Or collate some data and present it for writers to make up their own mind. Hell make a blog and present, in a non sensational way, the facts as you see them.
Guess what doesn’t help, in any way shape or form? Calling them names. Not just because it’s rude, but because the chances of you converting someone to your side of an argument by calling them a (for example) “plague bearing immoral husk” is pretty close to zero. If you are really looking to help other writers out, whether you’re on the side of self, legacy or hybrid publishing, your best weapon is facts, closely followed by charm.
Calling someone a twat is not charming.
I intend to self publish, hell I have self published…but I also want to pursue a legacy publishing deal. I’d like a literary agent, because I think they’re a worthwhile thing for an author to have if they want a publishing deal. However I will be able to cope without a publishing deal or an agent. None of these things make me a fanatic, a chump or a slave to anyone. Nor am I total amateur with delusions of granduer (actually maybe I am that, but not because I’m prepared to self publish).
Question 2: When Do You Think This Is?
We’re closing in on the end of 2011, possibly the biggest year of upheaval in publishing ever. 2012 is going to be even bigger. We are literally in the middle of a seismic shift in how publishing works.
Saying either: Self Publishing Is The Only Way! or Self Publishing Is For Idiots! shows a lack of appreciation for when we are in the proceedings. There will always be people on the fringes of any society who like proclaiming doom, and they get very annoyed when you contradict them. The rhetoric in the self publishing vs traditional publishing argument is getting ridiculous and again ignores the fact that the argument is far from settled.
For my money I think legacy publishing will always be around, and I think print books will be too, at least for some time. However I can’t tell you what form they’ll be in. I think (and I’m guessing) that most people will self publish first and publishers will pick up proven titles/writers to promote. I think (again, guessing) the vast majority of books will be sold as ebooks, but that paperback and hardbacks will stay around as souvenirs of the experience of reading a particular book.
Are there bad deals in publishing? Of course.
But as time goes on and self publishing becomes a more and more viable option, those deals are going to get fewer and fewer because writers won’t have only one way of making a career. That’s the biggest boon that the ebook revolution has given us; the ability to choose how we build our careers.
Question 3: Why Are You Doing This?
You know what you could be doing while you’re calling your adversaries on the internet fools?
Writing.
I know abusing people on forums can be more fun, but no one will pay you for that.
Why are you so invested in forcing people around to your way of thinking? Why do you care if someone else thinks they have a better way? They can’t force you take their path, so instead of trying to change their journey to having a career why don’t we focus on forging our own paths through the wilderness?
Question 4: Who do you think you are doing this to?
The people you present yourself to online matter. Make an utter ass out of yourself by abusing others online and sooner or later one of the people watching you is going to be someone you wished you hadn’t narked off. Be it a reader, a reviewer, a blogger, a publisher or an agent.
I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion, or even that you can’t argue, but there is a huge difference between calling a spade a spade and calling someone a jerk because they’re a spade or they support a spade of some kind.
I hope you know what I mean, I feel like I lost control of that metaphor somewhere.
For example…
This is good: I believe in self publishing, I think it’s the way of the future for authors everywhere.
Less good: Traditional publishing sucks, you’d have to be crazy not to self publish.
Not so much: If you have a publishing contract you’re a _____ (fill in your favorite expletive or insult here).
Question 5: How is this helping?
Is this helping your career?
Honestly speaking if you get your rhetoric right, it might win you some fans. But even if you get it right and you get a bunch of people following you, singing your tune, if your rhetoric induces abusing others you’re going to end up with just as many other people hating you. That might not matter now when your sales are good, but sooner or later it’s going to cost you something.
Maybe you’ll never know what it cost you.
To sum up; we’re all going through something. Every person even tangentially associated with publishing is going through the turmoil that’s rippled through the reading world since Amazon brought in the Kindle.
Now more than ever writers need to be supporting one another, because who else is going to?
If someone wants to self publish, good for them! If they make that’s one more tick in the box that says you can make it.
If someone else scores a publishing deal that works for them (even if it wouldn’t work for you) then again, woohoo! It’s another person who has made it as a writer when the odds were against them.
So why are we punching one another in the face? If the internet was a series of pubs and bars then the one for writers and publishers would be the one with sawdust on the floor and chalk outlines outside. The one that no one else wants to go near because there are always fights.
I think we can do better.
* Confession: I had to go and look up whether I meant each other (apparently you use this when you mean two people) or one another (which means more than two). I may still be wrong.
Crunch Time
Posted on | October 30, 2011 | No Comments
So life has taken something of an insane turn here, but things are still moving which is something to be grateful for. I’m yet to say anything about the rats in the walls, but it’s only a matter of time…
I’m so busy in fact I have no new post for you yet…but I thought I would take a page from Chuck Wendig’s (blood stained, written on human skin) book and send you a few links to places of interest on the net:
First and foremost if you’re even thinking of self publishing you need to go and check out Robin Sullivan’s series of posts (click to go to part one) about Goodreads and how to best use Goodreads to get your work out into the world.
Speaking of the Sullivan’s, Michael J. Sullivan has a series of posts anyone thinking of writing should check out. It’s his writing advice, learned through doing the hard yards in front of a keyboard for years, distilled into easy to absorb bites. He’s up to post eighteen now, so I suggest starting there and working backwards.*
Despite some site issues, Mur Lafferty keeps pumping out excellent interviews and podcasts over at ISBW. It should go without saying that you should be listening.
I mentioned the bearded man above, did you know that Chuck Wendig has a novella out called Shotgun Gravy? You can read a excerpt right here.
Dina James has a new book on its way that has a new take on the Urban Fantasy genre (or at least one I haven’t hit before). Her book is called All Wounds and I’ll get you guys a review as soon as I can. In the mean time Dina’s site is here and you can get All Wounds from Amazon here.
* I know I pimp the two Sullivan’s a lot, but between the two of them the’ve given out an incredible amount of free advice, detailed plans and just generally been pretty cool about everything.
Five Ways To Get Back Into Writing After A Break
Posted on | October 17, 2011 | 2 Comments
Things have been rough here. I discovered that I could no longer go to World Fantasy Con in San Diego this year (Toronto next year, I hope!), the ground continues to shake my city and in general things have been super, super busy.
There’s also been a very sick cat. We found Connie in a bin full of rags and adopted her when she was a little over two weeks old, so when she got sick it was absolutely heart wrenching. She’s on the mend now, but it’s been rough.
So, did I bravely keep writing through all of this?
No.
I have done some writing, but very, very little. I’m getting back into the swing of writing every day, but that’s only lasted for two days so far, so we’ll see how that goes.
When I sat down to resume writing, I automatically went through a few ideas to help me get back into the swing of things. It can be hard to get yourself started, especially after a long time away from the keyboard.
- Realize there is never going to be a perfect time
Something always goes wrong. Life will get in the way of you writing your book. Trust me I understand, but at some point you’ll see a moment that is clearer than the rest of the chaos that you manage. Seize it and write then.
Waiting for everything to be perfect will guarantee you’ll never write another word. Things are never perfect, and you’ll always have something clamouring for your attention. You’ll never have the perfect amount of energy and your muse will always be more recalcitrant gnome than eager fae.
The time is there, you just have to look for it.
2. If you can’t write, don’t fret.
If I’d used half the time I’ve fretted about writing to actually write I’d be two novels ahead. Long novels. Brandon Sanderson length novels.
A big part of restarting is actually letting go of the angst that goes along with writing. If you worry about how much you haven’t done it can be totally overwhelming to try and restart because you always feel behind.
Worrying won’t help.
3. Plan
Yeah, planning sucks, but if you’re busy there’s no way around it. Much like waiting for the perfect moment, waiting for your schedule to be clear will make sure you never write again.
Use a diary; mark out time for writing, even if you’re just doing practice exercises. Make sure your loved ones know that the time you carve out for your writing should only be interrupted if something’s caught fire.
4. Re read, but not too much
Skim read your old work, but don’t get stuck into editing it. If you have something unfinished and you want to get back into it rather than start something new this will get into the right ‘voice’ for your work.
If you get into editing what you already have there (and if you read it at anything less than a skim you will be tempted) you’ll get bogged down and restarting properly will be harder than ever.
5. Pay attention to your life
For me, a lot of my lack of time had to do with taking on too many projects and then attacking them with the reckless enthusiasm of a professional bear shaver.
For years people around me were (gently) chastising me for chasing too many things at once, and logically speaking I knew they were right.
But I wasn’t really paying attention.
That’s come to a head now, because so many things have gone wrong this year I’ve found I’ve had no breathing room. Everything around me was telling me this would happen, but I wasn’t paying attention.
If your life is trying to tell you something and you ignore it, you can bet that the time it’ll come back to bite you is when you’re settling in to write. If there’s something you have to take care of. Take care of it.
Another example:
I have depression. Most writers I know have some form of it.
For years, I knew I was depressed but I resisted seeing anyone about it because I was scared of getting labelled a nutcase and finding myself in a straight jacket*. I knew I had to take care of my condition and I knew I needed help…
But I didn’t do anything.
Finally, after some serious prodding from loved ones, I went and saw a professional to see what I could do. I’ve been treated and now the crippling condition that damn near killed me is simply background noise; I know it’s there but it doesn’t stop me doing the things I want to do.
If there’s something major you have to take care of before you begin writing again most of the time you know what you need to do to fix it. Don’t berate yourself for not sorting it earlier, you had your reasons, but if you’re reading this and nodding along then now’s the time.
Then there’s nothing stopping you.
* This is still a possibility, but not because of the depression. Maybe for the bear shaving.
Book Review: Marco and The Red Granny by Mur Lafferty
Posted on | September 28, 2011 | No Comments
I’m surprised Marco and The Red Granny hasn’t been optioned for a film. Mur Lafferty has created an intriguing and unique setting for the tale of graphic novel artist and writer Marco that feels both very possible and cinematic at the same time.
Plus, low g gladiatorial combat on the moon and an octogenarian killing machine named Heather. Who wouldn’t want to see that?
Until someone in the film industry wakes up though you’ll just have to be happy with Lafferty’s excellent novella. Set in the near (but not to near, this is sci-fi, not cyberpunk) future where humanity has an uneasy truce with a betentacled alien race called the Li-Jun (a play on the word ‘legion’ maybe? I’m not sure) who have seven senses and a love and appreciation of human art that borders on the obsessive.
The Li-Jun operate from Mollywood, a moon base where all the best artists, designers and other creatives are given big money commissions to create art for the aliens, who in turn add extra senses to the art to be sold on. Imagine being able to drink your favourite novel, or be able to wear the feeling of nostalgia and you’re on the right track.
Marco is down and out when he gets the call to pack his bags for the moon to join the dream life. Along the way Marco meets up with Heather, the titular Red Granny. She’s an eighty-something undefeated gladiator who competes, and kills, in a televised gladiatorial contest called The Most Dangerous Game. Marco and Heather become friends of a sort on the way to the Moon, and she acts as his guide to all things Li-Jun.
Marco needs all the friends he can get, and the Li-Jun are not quite what they first appear to be, but how can a friendly, art loving race be anything but the perfect cosmic neighbours for earth?
Lafferty handles the pitfalls of this kind of story masterfully. Heather herself dances in and out of the story like a knife. Never overstaying her welcome but making her presence felt every time you see her. The Li-Jun are appropriately ambiguous and very subtly threatening and the world is full of tiny flourishes that flesh out the universe the story takes place in.
The combat sequences are excellent, and Lafferty’s martial arts training shows through in the gladiator scenes which are brief, bloody and exciting.
As good as everything else in the book is, one thing that stands out for me is that some of Lafferty’s ideas seem truly original, and while I could be wrong, I’ve never seen anything quite like Marco and The Red Granny. My only real complaint is that I wish there was more of it.
As a writer this is the kind of thing I wish I’d written; fresh, original, fun and easy to read. You can get a copy from Amazon here. If you’d prefer Devo Spice’s dulcet tones to read it to you, you can get the audio book here.
Book Review: Avempartha by Michael J Sullivan
Posted on | September 20, 2011 | No Comments
Disclaimer: This is not going to be an unbiased review. It’s the truth, but I can’t say it’s unbiased because Michael’s wife Robin (of Ridan Publishing) has been amazingly helpful in doing interviews with me and laying out their self publishing plan.
Avempartha is part two of Michael J Sullivan’s Ririya Revelations series that follows Hadrian and Royce in their adventures. I can’t quite call them reluctant heroes because Hadrian is champing at the bit every time a chance for a little heroing* comes up. With that said Royce is reluctant enough for the both of them looking for ways to avoid trouble and make money, preferably both at the same time.
I love the previous book in the series, The Crown Conspiracy because it captured the sense of fun that I’d found lacking in a lot of modern fantasy. Avempartha keeps the sense of fun but adds layers of depth that fill out the characters and give the book more bite than its predecessor. Part of the reason I’m so excited by Avempartha and The Crown Conspiracy being released together as Theft Of Swords is that these two books read exceptionally well together and I think the idea of combining the series of six into a series of three for the print release is a great idea. Orbit is releasing Theft Of Swords this November and they’re open for pre-orders.
Avempartha follows Royce and Hadrian to a small village being plagued by the scariest rendition of a dragon I’ve seen for some time (winged toothy demon might be a better description). The creature seems to be unkillable, and the answers to the rapidly approaching and very hungry monstrosity are locked inside and ancient Elven tower near the village that just happens to border the old Elven lands.
Part of what makes The Ririya Revelations so good is that Sullivan twists your expectations of fantasy tropes just enough that they’re new and interesting without forcing the issue. The elves feel like the sword of Damocles, hanging over the entire world whether they know it or not. Sullivan also manages to sneak in a lot of world building under the radar so by the end of the book you are far surer of what the world entails than you were at the start.
There is a lot of fighting, but most of the gore is subtly implied rather than stated outright. This makes for some serious delayed horror scenes where your brain works out exactly what’s been implied to have happened and paints in the blood and bone for you.
Despite all this, the series hinges on the bromance between Royce and Hadrian, and the banter between the characters carries the book through quieter scenes without a hitch. Even if the dialogue hadn’t been so good I think Avempartha would still have been a good read, but the dialogue and character interaction lifts it into a permanent place on my top ten.
Highly recommended. Buy two and give one to someone who’s given up on reading Fantasy.
* heroing, if it’s not a word it should be
A Different Way Of Outlining
Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 1 Comment
Recently I’ve been writing a full length movie script, and I came across a way of outlining for films that translates well into outlining for a novel. It won’t work for everyone, but if you’re having trouble crafting your outline ahead of time then this is a different way to prod your brain with a big stick.
The Movie Outline…For Your Novel
When writing an outline for a film, one way scriptwriters approach the task is to write out ten pages or so as if they were describing the movie to a friend, as they are watching the film. While this probably sounds exactly like the way you normally approach an outline there’s an important difference.
When you describe a film, you only describe what the viewer can see on the screen. Of course when you’re scriptwriting this is important because a film’s audience can’t see the thoughts a character is thinking. No one knows about the hero’s celery* based childhood trauma unless it’s shown on screen or mentioned in dialogue.
You can show it in a novel though. The hero just has to remember the celery incident on the page and it’s all laid bare. The problem with this is that it takes a lot of work to generate an outline that has the same flavour as the story you want to write, with the back story and the motivations all worked out in one go.
If you simply want the hero to run howling from the green grocers gibbering with fear but you don’t yet know why, then this style of outline is an easier one to write.
So why write an outline like this?
Writing an outline without involving any backstory, motivations or anything at all that couldn’t be seen by anyone watching a movie makes outline writing a far faster, far easier process. Because you don’t have to explain why someone does something, it takes the pressure off you to write extensive back story and can allow you to get your outline out of your brain and onto the page without having to resort to a claw hammer.
Once you’ve got this bare bones version of the story out you can write the background detail around it.
One caveat:
You will never, ever show this outline to anyone. If you give to an agent they will hate you forever. This isn’t a synopsis, which by its definition has some of the style and flavour of the story in it. This flavour is vital to agents trying to judge your work, and sending them this kind of outline will drive them to drinking drain fluid.
* Celery is the Devil’s vegetable. **
** I may have a certain amount of personal bias when it comes to celery.
An Interview With Zoe Winters
Posted on | August 18, 2011 | 7 Comments
Andrew: How did you get started in self publishing?
ZW: I looked around me and saw so many authors who weren’t getting their contracts renewed. It felt like I needed a platform first in order to have a solid chance at a career. I didn’t want to “get published”. I wanted to have a career. A lot of unpublished writers don’t seem to think that far in advance. They are thinking to “getting a publisher”, as if everything will magically fall into place and getting dropped by their publisher won’t happen to them. I knew it was a significant risk, so I released my first novella: Kept, as a freebie. (Originally it had been for a contest, but I missed the deadline.)
Then I wanted to have a presence on Amazon, and they wouldn’t let indies do freebies, so I sold it for 99 cents at first. I started making a little money and then the light clicked on that maybe I could just self publish and make just as much money if I approached it right. (I’d thought about self-publishing as a business choice for several years anyway and had never been super excited about the prospect of traditional publishing. It sounded like a bunch of crap I didn’t want to mess with.) So I just kept releasing books, and raised my prices, and within a little over 2 years, I was making more than most NY pubbed authors. By that point I was too in love with the creative and business control to give it up. I’ve had a few offers, but nothing good enough to tempt me away.
Andrew: You’ve released Smart Self Publishing: Becoming An Indie Author in November of last year. What prompted you to put out a ‘how to’ book?
ZW: I was getting a lot of questions and personal emails from people asking me how I did this or that. I also felt like there were too many self-publishing books out there that either had no real information in them or had way TOO MUCH information. You can read a 700 page self-publishing tome and easily end up unable to move forward simply because you can’t realistically take EVERY suggestion. And the way these books are written it’s like “more is better”. No, sometimes more is just more; because unless you’ve already DONE whatever it is, you don’t really know what is most effective and what is just filler to make the reader feel like they got their money’s worth.
When it comes to how-to books I appreciate shorter books that just get to the freaking point. I thought maybe I could demystify the whole process by sharing my experience and at the same time lessen the flow of personal emails I was getting. If something is in one of my books, normally I’ll just say: “Have you read my book: Smart Self-publishing: Becoming an Indie Author? It answers all your questions.”
Sometimes I’ll answer more personally, even if it’s a question answered in my book, but normally I refer people to the book. And I’m not just trying to get their money, either. I make FAR more from fiction than I do my indie guide. I really have no particular financial ambitions with the indie guide. I just didn’t want to have to repeat myself 5,000 times when I could be writing fiction. Also, the fan base I’m most interested in growing is the fiction base. I really don’t want to spend all my time marketing to other writers or creating books/products/advice for other writers. It’s part of why my blog has started focusing on totally non-writer/non-publishing related things.
Andrew: I’ve definitely trawled through some more is better advice books that ended up saying very little. Can you tell me what the worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given was?
Worst piece of writing advice I’ve ever been given:
Actually the worst piece of advice comes in two parts. They are sort of interrelated. The first part: writing is rewriting (no it isn’t). And the second part: How long a book takes you determines its quality (also untrue).
The fact is that writing is writing and rewriting is rewriting. When you first start learning how to write you will write a lot of crap that you can’t fix by rewriting because it’s like polishing a turd. Once you learn narrative structure, know what you’re doing, understand how to maintain story consistency and logic, etc, you aren’t going to be rewriting NEARLY as much. Most issues outside of grammar and such have to do with skills like pacing, consistency, story logic: i.e. things you learn and then know. You don’t keep making the same amateur mistakes once you know.
Some authors, once they get to that stage do almost no rewriting at all. Some basically polish their rough draft and send it to their editor. I think what gives rise to this myth is authors, especially authors with series whose books start really sucking by book five. People start assuming they “rushed the book” and didn’t rewrite it properly or something. When really maybe the book was just crap. Maybe the author had lost their passion and was writing under contract. etc. I’ve written 20 books. half of them published (under more than one name), and I can tell you that it gets easier. And a lot of the rewriting you do in the beginning is learning.
Also, how fast you write a book has nothing to do with its quality. Some people have more time to commit to writing than others. The only activity that is writing is WRITING. And the more someone actually sits down and does it, the faster they will produce work that won’t require endless rewriting.
These myths and bad advice exist because of the myth of the suffering artiste. And that’s all fine and good if someone wishes to be poor and create “art”. But anyone who writes with commercial intent (i.e. building a strong audience and making money), would do well to ignore this type of advice that keeps them in the “poor suffering artiste” mode of thinking.
Andrew: What’s the fastest you’ve ever turned out a novel?
ZW: Four Months
Andrew: What drew you to paranormal romance as a genre?
ZW: That’s sort of a funny story. I used to turn my nose up at romance. I thought they weren’t “real books”. I was always trying to write something that had more “substance” (read: boring crap I didn’t even like.) I was also really snobby about Buffy the Vampire Slayer because of the stupid name, but it was on TV one day and I couldn’t find the remote. I fell in love with it and became completely obsessed. Then I started reading a LOT of Buffy fanfic. Basically what I figured out was… all I really cared about was seeing Buffy and Spike get together “for real”. That was when it clicked that I was a closet romance fan. When I got tired off the Buffy fanfic, I wanted to read something “the same but different” which is how I found paranormal romance. I also enjoy reading historical romances, but don’t think I could/would ever write one of those.
Andrew: That’s a great answer…I blame Joss Whedon for my writing addiction too…
ZW: He he. I learned a lot about how to do character arc from him. It was really a revelation to see a true character arc like Spike going from Slayer Killer to Slayer Lover and world saver. And Wesley going from weak, geeky watcher, to hot scary man I would definitely sleep with!
Andrew: Do you have a favorite supernatural creature?
ZW: Incubus or vampire. In a lot of ways they are very similar. Incubus feeds on sex. Vampire feeds on blood. But it’s still pretty sexual.
Andrew: What’s coming up for you that you’re excited about?
Well… I’m writing more books. It’s sort of business as usual at this point. 
Andrew: How would you suggest someone new to writing sex scenes approaches them?
Write what you find hot. If you can’t go there then it’s best not to torture us by putting it on the page. Writing is naked by it’s very nature. If you can’t express emotions and feelings then don’t go there. Sex is so often conveyed in a cheesy/boring way mainly because writers aren’t brave enough to write things that they find hot the way they find them hot. Instead they copy other people’s turns of phrase or ways of writing sex scenes. There are so many sex scene cliches for a reason. No one ever thinks about sex in this bizarre way until they start trying to write it, then it’s like their entire mental and physical system for understanding sexuality has short-circuited. If you can’t go there (and often with this pen name I don’t. It’s not as if my sex scenes are particularly racy or long), then less is more. Too many people write pages and pages of sex scenes that just interrupt the flow of the story. A lot of readers, including me, skim those scenes. If it doesn’t reveal some inner part of the character, we don’t need to see it. The only exception being porn or erotica. But if you’re writing erotica, then you really need to have a handle on the psychological aspects of sex. Otherwise it’s all just tab A in slot B.
I’d like to thank Zoe for doing this interview with me. If you’d like to know more about Zoe and her writing you can check out her blog here and her website here. If you’d like to know more about her writing advice book Smart Self Publishing: Becoming An Indie Author you can read my review here.
I’m going to give away two copies of Zoe’s book Smart Self Publishing: Becoming An Indie Author to commenters picked at random. Tell me your answer to the question I posed Zoe:
“What’s the worst bit of writing advice you’ve ever been given?”
I’ll draw this in 72 hours and let you know via email if you’ve won.
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