V Hit What Heroes Missed

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'V' my saving grace.  

Thank the writer gods for 'V'. In all honesty, when I heard that the tv folks were planning another hackery of a classic because they couldn't come up with compelling new ideas, I threw up a little in my mouth. But after half a season of the silent self torture that is 'Heroes' and an abysmal start to 'Legend of the Seeker,' I find my self singing the praises of 'V.'

Actually, 'Seeker' wasn't that bad until they pulled that totally in fashion trick where just about anyone can be brought back to life. I looked past it when the sexy chicks in leather did it because really, how many people are those haters of all mankind going to revive? But now ANYONE can be brought back to life. Are you kidding me? I mean really.

Even for all of that night of the living dead crap, I still give them more props than I do 'Heroes.' The writers at 'Heroes' simply have no balls. They can't kill anyone, save for speedster girl. And that's probably because I thought she was insanely cute and the writers at 'Heroes' hate me. Of course I think Charlie is cute too, but then she's hidden in limbo someplace so she might as well be dead.

Now, I say all of this even after 'V' pulled the same “you never know who's really dead” bull by bringing back to life that FBI agent's V partner. And really, he's such a well known actor I can see them doing one of those, “Oooo, alien technology is so advanced that they can even revive people that they themselves have killed.” (Hence why Ryan had to leave ashes in place of the guy that he didn't really kill).

What I was so exited about in this last episode of 'V' was hope. Not Obamanized hope that is tossed into discussions when you don't want to talk about things like Bushified terrorism. No, I'm talking about real hope. The writers set us up for the oh so common never ending setback after setback, “How miserable can we make everyone involved, including the viewer, before we spring our witty and triumphant ending?” gag that absolutely everyone does these days.

Rather than totally knocking us to our knees, the writers reveal that the double agent is not only alive, but that he knows who has seen his true face and then they kill that S.O.B. (again). But they don't just kill him, they give us hope, because now we've got a man on the inside on the mother ship. “The fifth column says hello.”

The episode was a tit for tat one where every advance that the bad guy made, the good guys made one as well. We still have the sense that our good guys are in way over their heads, but they have a chance. It's not hopeless.

I think that writers often forget that these days. 'Heroes' is a prime example of that. There are never any real moments of hope. There's episode after episode of being pulled further into the pit in hopes building up the payoff at the end. If things look dire enough, then it makes what the good guys do all that more amazing, right? But I for one think that it makes for a miserable journey along the way.  

Sure, there's still room for that in writing. The trouble is, it seems like we're saturated in it right now.

Anyway, I'm just thankful that 'V' has outdone my low expectations and is saving me from from more “Silar's dead, but he's alive, but he's dead, no wait he's alive, ah you thought he was dead but he moved his 'dead' spot, no he's dead but his body is alive in one place and his consciousness in another, no wait he's vanished, no wait he's just shot David in the head and put him out of his misery.”  

Don't worry, I come back to life again in the final thirty seconds of the show.

Our lesson? Keep real hope alive in your story amidst all of the pitfalls you set up for your characters.

Heroes How NOT to Character Motivate

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The writers for the Heroes television series have had long enough to straighten up their act after the union strike. Last season was lack luster, and if the premiere I watched this week tells us anything, season four is going to be comical.

Never mind the opening with the casket where my first thought was, “This guy is totally going to be an earth mover and he's going to cover the casket with his power.” (Actually, he's probably an empath or whatever the Sith lord called Peter, because after all, he's playing the role of father Patrelli in this rehash of every other season so far.)

My biggest problem with Heroes has always been character motivation. There is none. People just do things for the sake of moving the ill conceived plot along. This premiere was proof enough of that.

Claire moves into college and a dorm room with a power hungry, straight A student (save for that B+ in Poly Sci or whatever it was) who knows just where she's going in life, has it mapped out, and happens to be gorgeous as well (because aren't they all, did you see the hotties at the other lunch table?). And like all roommates do upon first meeting someone new, she berates Claire about her life plan and teddy bears no more than two minutes into their stay together. In fact, those few moments that they spent together were more than enough for her to then fill in Claire's father about how good of a student Claire could be if she just applied herself. People do that sort of stuff all the time in real life. Don't they?

If Annie, the roommate isn't unbelievable enough, Claire's fatal flaw, tell the truth even if it kills you and the ones you love, is almost as unbelievable as Noah's fatal flaw of lie about everything even if it costs you your family, but even more unbelievable than both of those is the reset button hit during every season with these two. It always goes back to “Oh I love my father with puppy dog eyes, I heart him, I really really do” after every season in which Noah turns out to be a scum bag and Claire proves how much of an idiot she can be.

And what's the most inconspicuous thing a super powered idiot can do? Apparently jump out of their own dorm room window, because no one would notice on a college campus. Everyone knows that college students go to bed early, save for the stalker/murderer/super powered Gretchen. (Yes, I'm calling Gretchen out as the invisible woman, “So I heard that you didn't see a suicide note.” Uh huh, riiiiight. In another show that would be a slight of hand, in Heroes it's the writers thinking they're witty.)

Then we jump to Hiro and Ando who have decided to go public and advertise their services as heroes. Really? Richest guy in all of Japan, he's saved the world more than once, watched his mother and father die, and he's still pretending to be a twelve year old trapped in a man's body? Really? Oh, but it's because he's dying. I gotcha. I mean what better time to act like a child than in your last days.

Oh, and let us not forget Peter. If you don't remember, Peter's fatal flaw is that he is fatally optimistic. Why be subtle about saving people's lives after you've been hunted to near extinction for an entire season? Just jump around New York like Spiderman, (or PETER Parker) and rip the doors off of wrecked cars in front of onlookers. I'm sure no one will notice. And if they do, hey, they'll appreciate that you're helping someone and applaud like they should. Besides, if saving lives is your new form of crack, who really gives a damn.

Even when a Heroes character starts to make sense, like with Tracy Strouse and her quest for vengeance, the writers do their damndest to frack it all to hell and back. Sure, sure, Tracy has always been cold and calculating, so much so that she became the ice queen, but why not turn her into the ray of sunshine in Noah's life because she saw a dirtbag that absolutely no one cared for, die. That's perfectly believable to me. I'm always meeting people who are willing to drown to death four men in a row and then suddenly turn into Rainbow Fracking Brite.

To sum up the rest of my feelings, I hope Sylar kills that pantywaist Parkman (no relation to Peter PARKer) and takes over his body. And then I hope he finds Suresh before he can make an appearance in this season and kills him too. Then he needs to make his way to Nathan and kill him before he has another bizarre coming to Jesus moment that totally changes the fate of the world. After all of those messes are cleaned up, we wait and watch Hiro die so we don't have anymore time slippage idiocy.

Unfortunately, where Heroes lacks in developing characters who portray believable motivations, they excel at killing off those characters who do have believable motivation. Case in point: Speedster girl who thought Parkman was an idiot for falling in love with her based on a dream. That's believable, and of course, that's why she had to die.

Images: NBC/ Chris Haston

Valuing Your Freelance Work

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So many of us talk about valuing life, but I don't think that we really do. As a matter of fact, I think that most people, at least in the states, see the life of another person as rather worthless in practice. Sure, when we stop and think about it we would say the opposite, but our actions speak otherwise. 

This post had been on the back burner until I read something by a successful author who was trying the self-publishing route. Said author (who shall remain nameless to protect MY safety) talked about his own venture into self publishing. He gave a long and interesting list of expenses and headaches suffered along the way. Freelancer after freelancer bailed on him at the last minute for flaky reasons. But two stood out.

The first was an artist who was approached to do the cover. While not all of the details were given, concepts were produced, a specific design chosen, revisions were made; but in the end the author felt like it was going to take too long and be too expensive. So the author made his own cover and paid for some touch ups to be done to it. As for the original artist, no money is said to have gone his way.

Our second freelancer, “turned out to be a bargain. I [sic] friend at a publishing company recommended a freelancer who was nine months pregnant. She did not go on vacation and did the job for $20 per hour—about $160 total. Earlier bids for typesetting had been between $1000 and $2000.”

Now, if you're waiting for the part where the author says that he gave her a bonus because he felt both bad about taking advantage of a pregnant woman, and grateful for the services she provided . . . don't hold your breath.

We All Do It

Kind of makes you cringe, doesn't it? But this author is actually a really good guy. He seems to do his best at helping out other authors, in fact the whole point of him sharing his ordeal was to steer others away from the same mistakes. He shares information freely, and in the end only hopes that you'll pick up one of his books. He's an artisan just like you and I, but he's also got bills to pay, a family to take care of, probably even a mortgage or two. If he can get a break, he'll take it even if he does have enough money tucked away on the side to experiment with self-publishing.

This is an unfortunate fact of life, folks. If you don't value your time, no one else will do it for you. In fact, they will knowingly take advantage of you if they think they can get a “bargain.” These same people may very well be members of the artistic community just like you and I. They want their work and time valued and paid for appropriately, but when it comes time to doing the same in kind there's a good chance that it's not going to happen.

I know this sounds a bit pessimistic, but it is Friday, and this is snark. Along with that, this is true in many cases. If you don't stand up for yourself, you will be taken advantage of. I was going to use examples from my own life, from being a freelance graphic designer and doing construction. People that know me are always asking me to bid jobs for them hoping I'll do it on the cheap, and frankly, I usually do. The most recent one I bid in at nearly half the going rate which was still too high for this person. Rather than cutting my price, I wished them luck on getting the job done right.

What You’re Paying For

You see, we have to remember, you're not just paying for the person's time, you are paying for the years and years worth of study and practice that went into them being able to do what they can do. A person might look at a job quote and choke at the price compared to the number of hours spent doing it. Well you're not paying for the hours; you're paying for the experience.

Take a person that knows nothing of the craft and ask them to do the job for you. See how long it takes them and what kind of quality you get out of it. Unfortunately, people don't think in those terms. They think in terms of a Walmart bargain culture where cheap prices come at undervaluing the work used to create said product. They want the best, (or what looks like the best) but they don't want to pay for it.

So as you head out in your freelance ventures, keep that in mind. Do the appropriate market research. Know what price your quality of work is going for, and bid appropriately. Then stick to your guns. It's rather tough to ask for more money after the job is done.

If you really need the money, then you have to do what you have to do. But consider this, in the above typesetting example, if we take the going rate for the job as being $1500, that poor woman would have to do nearly ten jobs before she made what she was worth. On the contrary, had she held out for one person to pay her the appropriate wage, she’d have the same amount of money and would have done one tenth the work.

Please keep this in mind when you become rich and famous and can afford to pay people what they are worth. I know I can’t, that’s why I do everything myself.

 

Just as a side note, if that driveway looks like a good job to you, please don’t ever touch concrete. EVER. Don’t even look at it. In fact, I’d suggest not walking on it either.

 

 

Speak Truth

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I wanted to do a brief follow up post to yesterday's post about censoring your online existence. After a long debate with my wife about where we would be if folks like Emerson and Thoreau had heeded my advice and kept their yaps shut, I decided that I need to make a point clear: Understand what you want to get out of this.

If your driving passion in life is to speak truth to a cause, then by all means, do so. Just understand that you will have to navigate your ship accordingly. If you are extremely conservative, believe that homosexuals should not have the right to be married, and so on, and not only convey that in your writing but also in your public persona, fine. Understand that you won't get your foot in the door with a very liberal agent from San Francisco whose best friend is a lesbian whose marriage was just disallowed by a state law that you backed (hypothetical, I have no idea if this person exists).

You'll also have a hard time reaching those in the middle of the road because they're not going to want to rock the boat. And depending on how you've portrayed yourself, you may have made it easier or more difficult to sell your work. They might perceive you as being difficult to work with because you come across as being so headstrong.

I guess I just look at it differently than most. I'll admit, I was getting very riled up and outspoken with the last election cycle. I spent hours researching my points, seeking the truth. Trouble was, no one else paid any attention to that truth. In the end I was left with a lot of anger and resentment.

That's when I turned back to fiction. I realized that I was so much happier dumping myself into the cause of good writing. I could tell my stories, show people the possibility of a better world through my words without trying to hammer it into their heads. At the end of the day I came away from it satisfied. I wasn't angry or fed up or left feeling helpless. I felt content.

For me, my biggest drive is to have my words read. I'm not going to change my message or beliefs in order to make that happen, but I will accept that I am trying to take on the role of an entertainer, not a politician or activist. Until I can make my own rules like Card and others, I'll keep quiet and let my stories do the talking.

So please, speak truth in your words. Just be sure that your words get heard. Otherwise, you end up speaking the truth of silence and those who knew how to play the game get to inundate the rest of us with their views.

Whitewashing the Writer's Identity

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Have you Googled yourself lately? You should. 

There used to be a time when the search terms 'David' and 'Noceti' would bring up a long list of links leading back to a spat between the one time Miss Universe, Andrea Noceti, and David Letterman. During those days I never put my real name on the net, and always went by handles so I had nothing to worry about. Eventually, I wanted to be taken seriously, and so I started using my name. Big mistake.

Well, not really. A search for my name now brings up pretty much everything that I want it to bring up, although not in the order that I would like. Damihjva's link in the comments last week to this livejournal post regarding agents doing searches on writers, and allowing those results to weigh in on their decision of representation got me to thinking, “Just what is out there under my name?”

About three pages in I found a link to my old MySpace blog, my very political MySpace blog. Don't bother searching for it, they're all gone save for a short writing piece and a poem by someone else. But I didn't stop there, I kept going and going. Some 20 pages in I was still finding links to my name. I found comments on a forum that I have not been to in years (DELETED), and even some comments on an agent blog that were not made in sound judgment (DELETED). I dug until I could dig no more and erased my footprints as best I could.

My wife thinks that this is sad. I just think that it is part of the price we pay. To throw the fluffy bunny artist card or pitch a fit about how “I'm a person too and I'm entitled to my opinions,” is to be willingly ignorant of how our society acts.

Backlash

Then I got into a rather rousing debate with another writer about the importance of speaking out for truth. My opinion at the end of it all: Keep your mouth shut. Until such time as you reach the heights of Orson Scott Card and have people read you in spite of your belief that “Most Americans report mostly conservative viewpoints on most issues,” (actual studies disagree with Card) I suggest you keep quiet. I know people who have stopped reading Card altogether after discovering his political views, and he's a respected writer. As nobodies, we don't have such luxuries.

I know, I know, that's not what “Democracy” is about. What will it lead to if we all silence ourselves? When I was searching for images related to the search term “shut up,” I found a number of fabricated U.S. Military posters telling citizens to keep their mouths shut. I also found that Dixie Chicks poster up at the top of the article.

Honestly, that scares me. The Dixie Chicks were huge. They were respected. And almost overnight they were torn down. I've watched Shut Up and Sing, and it wasn't pretty.

Now, someone somewhere said that the best thing to do for book sales is get your book banned. Don't ask me where I heard it, I just remember hearing it. Maybe for some books it works. It might have worked for Slaughterhouse Five (maybe that's where I heard it, an NPR interview with the author) but it sure as hell didn't work for the Dixie Chicks. Sure, they're still making music, but they've been cut down at the knee. They'll never rise higher than where they are or even get that big again.

Colored Lenses

Never mind the possibility of backlash, what about simply manipulating the reader's perception of the material? Let's face it folks, our opinions about politics and religion will color the lenses of our readers. And I don't know about you, but when I'm reading I really don't wan to know these things about the authors. I was perfectly happy with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was younger. Then I found out that it was Christian allegory and all of a sudden a lion wasn't a lion anymore. I'm sorry, but if I want to read that story I'll pick up my Bible, I don't need C.S. Lewis to whack me over the head with it. People try to cram their ideologies down our throats every day. When I'm reading escapism, I'm in part trying to get away from that.

I want a reader to come into my story with their own thoughts and experiences. I want them to look at it with no preconceived notions of what I'm trying to tell them. I'm sorry, but after finding out the religious leanings of some authors that I've read, I've forever looked at their work differently. Somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking, “Are they trying to make a religious statement here? Is this scene an allegory?”

Soap Box

There's one last piece to this puzzle. It's when you as the writer set out with an agenda. One of the writing books that I read very early on talked about this point and it stuck with me. At the time I was doing exactly that, writing with an agenda.

 The author warned his readers to stay away from such preaching. I wish I could remember the book's name but the advice went something like this, “Write the story in your heart, make the characters real, and your message will come through the writing.” Forcing it hits your reader over the head with the mallet of obvious.

When I stopped and thought about it, the advice rang true. Back then I was fresh off of a Dune kick. It's one of my all time favorites. When I talk to people about it, about what I took away from it, what resonated with me the most, they often scratch their heads.

You see, when I got done reading Dune I wasn't worried about social structures, how we are the mere pawns of those in power, I wasn't even worried about predestination and our possible impact on it, what I was wrapped up in was this notion of conservation. Every time I ran a faucet I had this nagging in the back of my head about how precious a resource water was. Show of hands, does anyone think that Herbert set out to write a manifesto about water conservation? Hell no. But could that have been something he was concerned about that just so happened to seep into his writing? Yeah.

So get off of your soap box, stop preaching, and start telling a true story. Breathe life into your characters. Honestly represent their views, and your ideologies will show through even when you try to tell the story without your bias.

Or start an online political column where you preach your own world view. I'm sure that not too many agents will be all that worried about how it will impact sales.

So, did you find anything interesting in your Google search? 

Update: Forgot that I wanted to link to this as well. Literary Agent, Janet Reid's take on keeping your mouth shut, or thinking you're wearing a invisibility cloak as she put it. 

Critique Group Rules

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Part Four of the Critique Series

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Remember critique circles? When you'd go out and drop a wad of cash on a huge stack of copies all collated and stapled, text double spaced leaving just enough room for inline comments. Remember that feel of the warm ink and smooth copy paper in your hands? The slightly metallic smell of the freshly burned carbon. The lugging of all of those copies into a class and wishing them luck on their journey as they were passed around the room. “Fly little birdies, fly.”

Remember getting them back? By and large the feedback you get on most wasn't worth the fifty cents a copy that you blew on getting them printed in the first place. You got a lot back with “Wow, great story!” scribbled on them with silly little smiley faces, a bunch with meandering comments that didn't make any sense, some came back a gory mess, and maybe one or two that were actually worth a damn. Oh, and let us not forget that one jerk who returns your story with nothing written on it at all. Thanks Jasper; appreciate it.

All of my different experiences with crit groups led me to come up with my own "rules" with regards as to what should happen during crit group.   

Thoughts On Rules:

I think that there have to be parameters set up for crit groups. Get too many artsy people collected in one place and drama is sure to ensue. Remember, the key to a critique is open, and honest feedback.

Don't Talk Back: When you're being critiqued you sit there with your notepad and copy of the story, keep your mouth shut, and you listen. Period. As soon as the back and forth banter starts, even if it's all positive and Rainbow Brighty, you're affecting the critique and won't get honest feedback. We read body language, intonation, all those subtle hints and cues that others give off. And since humans have a strange desire to please those that we are around so that we appear favorably in their eyes, we'll adjust our feedback accordingly.

Don't Explain Yourself: When you send your story off to an agent or editor, you're not going to get to explain things. “Obviously you didn't get it, you see, so and so has to do such and such in order for this to happen so . . . .” Uh, no. You're story has to stand on its own two feet, so let it. If the reader didn't understand something, that's your fault, not there's. Now you just have to decide if you need to clear that part of the story up with your writing or that you like the ambiguity. 

Constructive Feedback Only: It's fine if you feel like there is a problem in a story but you can't put your finger on what it is. Just make sure you note that. “At this point in the story I found myself drifting away but I'm not sure why.” Also, try to give them something to go on. It's your job as the critic to provide more than just a read through.

The Critic is ALWAYS Right: If someone is telling you how something in your story made them feel, that's how it made them feel. They can't be wrong about that. Opinions are never wrong, just different. Now, whether you act on that opinion is up to you, but don't discredit it.

Don't Disagree: At least don't 'openly' disagree. To do so tells your critic that you don't value their opinion. In the future, said critic is not going to give you their open and honest thoughts. They'll filter their feedback so as to spare you're fragile ego. A tell tale sign of this is when your writing suddenly goes from being filled with feedback to receiving nothing but praise. It's not that you got into a car accident and turned into Stephen flipping King overnight, it's because no one wants to argue with you about how they feel about your story.

Take Notes: All of these rules don't mean that you don't get to interact with anyone. Once the critique is done, then you get to ask questions. If you didn't fully understand something that someone said, ask them about it. If you get an idea and think it might solve their problem with a story element, run it by them.

Wait Till The End: Related to the above, I think that questions should come at the very end. In this regard I like the crit circle setup. You go around in a circle, starting next to the author, everyone goes through their feedback, highlighting points that they think might need clarification or that really stood out to them as either good or bad, and then only at the very end does the author get to ask questions. This is a huge time saver.

Time Limits!!!!: I've been subject to no time limits before and it is an agonizingly miserable experience. You've done your crit, you're ready to move on, but said author wants to pick pick pick at your brain until nothing's left. Again, this is yet another way to earn yourself 'glowing' reviews.

Write Your Own Damn Story: Feedback should be general, and not specific. Rewrites should not occur during crit group. Two reasons: 1) it's your story, write it, 2) it will kill your voice. Take the suggestions home, sleep on them, then fix things.

Deadlines: Part of being in a crit group is coming through for others, both in your crits and in providing your work.

Rules Can Be Bent: Not broken. Everyone has stuff come up in their lives, though I'm finding more and more in life that those who achieve success do so because they don't come up with excuses. There are those of us who allow circumstances to get us out of things, and those of us who decide that we will get things done regardless of circumstances. Success seems to follow the latter group.

Today is supposed to be the end of the crit series buuuuut . . . tomorrow will be the end. Promise. The rules sound kind of like a rant anyway, so I'll post the above as a Friday Rant of sorts. Either tomorrow or later tonight I'll post the last article on critiquing. It will outline different forms of crit groups, my thoughts on both, the crit group I'm starting, and then a second crit group that I'm considering putting together in the near future.

Sorry about carrying this over an extra post. I hope you can all hang in there. I've noticed the comments slip off for the crit series, so I'm assuming that series aren't everyone's cup of tea. But I've got lots of fun stuff in the cue for next week.

First-Time-Unpublished-Series-Authors

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The first-time-unpublished-series-author. When I first started writing I too only thought in terms of series. My first book was a part of a series, my second book was the first in another series, in-between those were two other stutter start novels that were also a part of series and the current book … is a stand alone. 

 

You see, quite a while ago I realized something when I was looking up books from some of my favorite authors. If you go back far enough and find the first thing they published it’s often a standalone. While some agents and publishers will take on a first time series, many do not. Series are the exception, not the rule. So when I spin through my various online writing forums and find so many writers talking about working on book two of their unpublished series, I can only grown to myself and offer up a little prayer to the writing goddess in hopes that they will soon see the light.

 

As I understand it, the publishing industry wants to make money. And while, yes, series make more money than standalones, they only do so when the author is known. Not many readers want to invest time into reading the first book in a series that they’ll never get to the end of.

 

The other issue you’re dealing with is contracts. Who wants to sign a contract for three or more books when they’re not sure that they can sell the first one? That’s just bad business sense.

 

Now, for those of you getting ready to start book two of your series, I’d like to offer up some advice: Don’t.

 

I’m not saying don’t write a series, go ahead and write the first installment of your three part epic. What I’m saying is that while you’re out shopping for someone to buy it, spend your writing time working on a new project. The book industry is a fickle friend, one day they can be all about your urban YA and the next day they’ve jumped over to paranormal (I know, not much of a jump, is it).

 

Pay attention to the agent blogs. Take note of how they will specifically ask for a certain niche, or exclude others outright. “Sorry, not accepting Urban Fantasy at this time.” Now, I know that we are all writing genre redefining stuff, I mean who isn’t, but if the people you’re hoping to sell it to just aren’t reading it, then you’re out of luck. Sure, you could wait around until the market swings back in your favor, but why? You can continue to try and sell your story while trying to sell others. Look at it like an investment portfolio, you have to diversify. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Don’t sink your company’s fortunes into SUVs and then cry for help when gas prices rise (because it defies reason that a finite resource should ever rise in price as it becomes more difficult to find) resulting in no one wanting your gas guzzling clunkers anymore. Sorry, tangent within a tangent.

 

Also, understand where part of your apprehension about starting a new project comes from: fear. You’ve invested all of this time into a world, you’ve peopled it, lived within it, you said “let there be light,” and there was. The idea of starting that all over again can be overwhelming. What if you don’t have it in you? How can you possibly create anything to rival it?

 

I have news for you, you can. Your best stuff hasn’t been written yet. And when you come back to that first novel in your series, after you’ve written all the books that come after it, you’ll realize that you are a much better writer and that the first book doesn’t stack up to those that came after. But it doesn’t matter if that last book in the series is out of this world because no one is going to read it. The reading of that last book hinges on the first book. Therein lies the pitfall of the series. It’s not that your series isn’t any good. It’s that the first book pales in comparison to the last.

 

I wonder where this drive to produce three, four, or even five and six part epics comes from. Is it because we’ve all been raised on movie franchises and Tolkienesque tomes? Or is it just the spiritual connection to the numbers three and seven that seem to live within the collective unconscious? Whatever it is, keep in mind that something came before LoTR, a little hobbit by the name of Bilbo. And remember that Tolkien started his great epic in 1937 and that it was not published until 1955. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have twenty years to gamble on one story. What I do know is this, I have yet to see an agent post that they are looking for “first-time-unpublished-series-authors” in any genre.

Edit 090826: 

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner recently blogged about the Five Myths about agents. Myth number five? “Most agents won't consider any manuscript over 120k words in length.” How depressing for me, wrong again.

Oh, but wait! She was pulling a fast one on us. She goes on to say that this is “NOT a myth - this one is true! Until you've proven yourself with a couple of books that sold well, you're not likely to sell an epic or saga much over 100k. There are always exceptions, of course. But if you're trying to break in, your 180k-opus is probably not the ticket.” (It should be noted that Rachelle does not represent Sci-Fi and Fantasy).

 

Demotivational Poetry

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So I was sitting at the café tonight, head plugged into my Zune, electronic music putting me into a writing groove. A track came on with spoken words. My knee jerk reaction was to flip the song but the words were so pleasant. I continued listening, falling into a trance, letting the words wash over me. 

Then I broke out into laughter. Talk about your bait and net. 

The Blue Light of the Underwater Sun

by Richard Melville Hall (Moby)

Now close your eyes and relax

Feel the warmth of the sun

And imagine yourself as a beautiful dolphin

You are swimming and playing in the vast ocean

You sail up and over the waves, glistening in the warm sun

And snapping your strong tail

Now you're going deep, swimming and exploring

The wonders of the mighty sea

Schools of brightly colored fish and banks of coral

All illuminated by the blue light of the underwater sun

There in the distance you see a vast school of fast Tuna

And you start to chase them

And suddenly you're caught in a drift net

Laid by commercial fisherman and you start to panic

Beware the Writing Prompt

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Ah, the writer’s favorite time wasting technique. The perfect way to dodge progress: writing prompts. We own books filled with them, join message boards where we chomp at the bit waiting for the next one to be posted, some of us even take the Writing Excuses guys seriously when they prompt us to “write a story in which you kill Sauron in every chapter.”

We convince ourselves that we are bettering our craft. Practice makes perfect, right? Although practice does indeed lead to something like perfection there comes a point when you have to pull off your warm-up gear and step out onto the pitch (sorry, soccer reference, for the many Americans in the group, that’s what the Brits call a soccer field).

Now, let me point out that I do indeed realize that different people write for different reasons. Some write just to be heard, others write for the joy of it, fanfic folk frequently flock to their forums (I sooooo could not miss out on that alliteration) because they want to continue journeys, whereas I, and I’m guessing most of you have this same motivation, want to see my name in print, to share my thoughts and words with as many people as possible. I want to bring about some form of change in the reader, in the world. Many of these snarky rants are directed at those who think as I do, so if that’s not you I suggest you stop reading this because I’m probably going to offend you.

Consider yourself warned.

Of course, there are different kinds of prompts. For instance, when they come from me, they are obviously of great literary value . . . . Anyone buying that? Alright, seriously, when I propose a writing prompt I am more or less offering up a different way of looking at something. I’m usually trying to understand my characters better, often in a piece that I may have stalled out on. I don’t necessarily intend for them to be done, I just want you to look at something of your own in a different way. The trouble with many writing prompts is that they have nothing to do with your current work in progress (WIP).

Let’s look at some from “A Writer’s Book of Days” by Judy Reeves. (I tend to read these in an airy voice that floats on wisps of marijuana smoke, incents and the romantic memories of flower covered hills in springtime)

• January 1: Write about Sunday afternoon.
• February 15: Write about a brief encounter.
• April 9: You’re asleep. You’re not at home.
• May 24: Write about something you see every day.

I’ll stop there. What in the world do those prompts have to do with our goal of getting published? They’re just an excuse to write. But those are just the prompts, right? The rest of the book must be filled with great information on “how” to write, riiiiight? Not so far as I can tell. The entire book seems dedicated to this fluffy bunny crap.

“What’s the big deal, David? Like you said, it’s just practice.”

No, it’s a distraction. In fact, it is an entire year of your life dedicated to distraction if you follow this book. Add it up, the time spent checking the forum or reading Judy’s musings before you start your prompt, add the writing of the prompt itself, and then, more than likely, if you submit it somewhere for others to read, you’ll go back and edit it before you post. How much of your WIP could you have finished in that time? How much could have been edited? How many markets could have been researched?

It’s an excuse to avoid your WIP. It’s “I’ll get started on my story just as soon as I finish this writing prompt.” And then the next day, it’s the same thing. We only have so much time in a day. If we spend our best hours cranking out pieces on what we did on Sunday, or how we felt when we slept someplace that wasn’t home, our real writing, that world changing stuff that we want to get done, doesn’t get done. Or worst, it’s weakened because we’ve already used so many good words on describing something we see everyday.

I mean, seriously, how many collections of writing prompts do your favorite authors put out? Have you ever heard of any of them actually using them? The Writing Excuses guys offer them every week, and they’re often nonsensical. I’d venture to guess that they don’t take them seriously because they don’t expect us to take them seriously. Real writers put out collections of short stories, not collections of “What I did on Sunday” (unless it’s a collection of Tuesdays with a guy named Morrie but of course not even that is a collection of Tuesdays).

The point here is, real writers write. If you went into work every day and told your boss that before you could actually start working you had to practice working first, he’d fire your ass. More than likely, when you got that job, you didn’t know what you were doing. Most of us go through “on the job training” because we learn best by doing. So spend your practice time actually doing as opposed to practicing it. Or as one of my professors once put it, “Those who talk about doing, often don’t. Those who do, simply do.”

Now then, your writing prompt for today is: Write a story in which a character finds the meaning of life through a series of writing prompts.  

All Writing is a Soap Opera

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Back before Battle Star Galactica started in on its downward decent towards mediocrity, I can recall an evening in which I watched an episode that my wife commented on. “It’s like watching a soap opera,” she said. To which I responded, “Whatever.”

But on reflection, I realized that she was right. It was pretty much a soap opera, just one set in the future/distant past, and in space. Lee loved Kara, who used to love his brother, but she got stranded and fell in love with a jock, but a cylon fell in love with her, and maybe she does love Lee, but Lee is with Dee and then Kara and Lee get a bit too close for comfort so Dee leaves and Lee’s alone and Kara’s crazy but she does love her jock who turns out to be a cylon but not the cylon that loved her but that’s okay because she’s an angel and . . . . yeah, total soap opera.

Just the other night I was sitting and watching Netflix with my wife. She was watching a Master Piece Theatre collection. Midway through the first episode I said, “So it’s basically a soap opera set in the 1800’s?” “Yeah, basically,” she said. (She’s much more mature about these sorts of things than I am).

So there’s my thought. All storytelling is a soap opera in some form or another. Life is a soap opera. That’s why romance novel’s sell like hotcakes, and teenage angsty stories like Twilight capture the hearts of the young. What’s Pride and Prejudice if not a soap opera from a different era? Greek tragedies? Soap operas. All stories are some form of emotional conflict wrapped up in the messiness that is the human condition.

Here’s your license to go out and write a soap opera. It’s just the degree of how obvious you make it that sets it apart from other works of art. Use too many clichés and you wander down the path of teenage melodrama, be inventive and you’ve got the next The Kite Runner. The choice is yours in so far as the degree, but not in the act placing drama in the story, for without it there is no story.

The Ubber Weapon

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So this is not what was supposed to be up next, (my attempt at backwards plotting) but it came up on a forum and is pretty much ready to go as a post, so here it is. One of the forum members asked a question about “a-typical weapons.” He wanted to know if anyone had ever read about one like his. Along with it being a tonfa that could light up like a lightsaber, it also had the ability to produce a narrow blast, wide angle blast, and temporary defense shield.

I started thinking of his weapon in context of what I’ve learned about writing. I suggested that he be wary of using an a-typical weapon and then making it even more complicated. The guys over at Writing Excuses talked about this when they did a show on fight scenes recently. They spoke to the point that many authors, especially those with martial arts experience, fall into a blow by blow description of their fight scenes. It sounds like this weapon would lend itself to that due to the need for explaining exactly what the weapon is doing at any given time, i.e. is it a blaster, shield, lightsaber, and so on.

Besides that, all the extra things that the weapon can do take away from your character. Jedi's are amazing because their lightsabers can only be used as swords, LASER swords, but swords all the same. When they deflect blaster shots it comes via the prowess of the character, not how amazing his weapon is.

I'd also caution against esoteric information. I for one tend to gloss over detailed explanations of things, especially weapons, when I read. I think it's why many authors keep things simple for the reader, Jedi's basically use swords, and that's easy enough to understand. Drizzt, while he used an odd weapon for his culture, used scimitars, something easily understood by the reader. Don't let interesting weapons compete with how interesting your character is.

But this is just one writer/reader interpretation. Maybe I’m wrong. What do you think about the a-typical 007 style weapon and its place in storytelling? Am I on to something with this analysis or just ruining a good time? 

Fluffy Bunny Writers

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Alright, so I need a little something to get me into the mood for Monday night writing, and what better way to do that than to ramble in a blog? Today’s topic is Fluffy Bunny Writers. I borrow the term from new age Paganism. A fluffy bunny witch is usually someone who is new to the practice of witchcraft and is more or less in love with the idea of it rather than the actual practice of it. Real witches take a great deal of pride in what they do, they study, practice, meet with others, for them it’s not a stylistic choice or a form of self expression, it is indeed a craft.

 

As of late, it seems like I’ve been coming across a lot of fluffy bunny writers on message boards. These are the sorts of people who continue to push the notion that we are artists and therefore free of any form of constraints on our writing. Industry standards, critiques, and studying the craft of writing are nothing but are nothing more than other people trying to stifle their creativity.

The great master, Christopher Paolini,

For some reason, when I typed "fluffy bunny" 

into google image finder, this came up.

But I also place another group into this category, and that is those who study too much, and who become far to high minded about their writing. There are publications that are beneath them, and those who write for them are “selling out.” These folks have thrown in extra Downey with their load of ---- and come up with the elitist fluffy bunny.

 What both warrens of bunnies fail to realize is that we all work for someone. If you don’t have a direct boss making you do things that you don’t want to do, you have customers demanding things that you don’t want to do, and if, by chance you have cut all ties from either of those worlds, walking the “true” path of the artist and only produce what you want, then you have to understand that the people buying what you create are indeed your bosses. If you don’t create what they want to consume, you don’t eat. Sure, you can sit around all day expressing your inner child by hurling monkey poo at a blank canvas, unfortunately few people are going to buy it. 

So please, in life, don’t be a fluffy bunny with your writing. The way I see it, there is no selling out, there is putting food on the table, making a living, paying bills, surviving. In order to live long enough to write that great masterpiece that no one will appreciate until long after your death, you have to do something to fund it. Maybe you work a day job not associated with writing because you see working in a field that does not produce what you are passionate about as a form of selling out. Guess what, you’re still selling out.

 

So knock off all of this feel good nonsense and get down to the business of writing.