Index to Learn Writing with Uncle Jim

Dawno

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I like using the multi quote function! Remember, you can click on the blue arrow beside Uncle Jim's name to read the post in the context of the thread (recommended).

1116.
In The Lord of the Rings we don't get a whole lot of backstory until the Council of Elrond, by which time we've been chased from the Shire to Bree to Rivendell by Black Riders, gotten trapped by a barrow wight (and a willow), and much else besides ... and the reader cares about the characters and is asking "What the foo is going on?"

We also have the hobbits, who don't have a clue themselves, and so need to have everything explained them.

Giving the reader the impression that they're studying for a test is bad. Few people read geography books for fun.

1117.
Originally Posted by anodyne
What in the world does that look like? I keep trying to visualize it in my head. I'm not the type of girl who giggles often, but that worked.
From The Gates of Time (work in progress):
"I don't have a plan," Satan said. "And this miracle isn't my doing. Angelo ... he's won. We're outside time and I can't touch him. Not only that, we're stuck here."

"Liar."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." He went over to the open doorway and pressed against the air. His hands stopped at the threshold.

"Then I have some things to do," I said. I pulled the elfstone out of my pocket and screwed it into my eye. Johnny was standing in the corner, having performed some vital function that the author will think of later. Perhaps he was the one who brought in the relic of St. Eloy and the pistol and gave them to me after I'd been searched. That would be a good thing for an invisible servant to do.

Anyway, I turned to Johnny. "I'm ready to hear your confession," I said.

"This might take a while," he said, coming toward me.

"No worries; we've got all the time in the world."

1118.
A database of which agents sold which books to which publishers (in the SF & F genres) over the past two years:

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~mgoodin19/locus.htm

1119.
What we're up to these days:

Publicity for our most recent book.

Yeah, I know, I keep saying that authors aren't in charge of doing publicity, yet here I am, doing publicity. So, what have I done?

Answer: I've put stuff about the book on my web page. This is wonderful, and free (I already have a web page because, face it, who doesn't?). Whether it will lead to any sales, who knows?

I've talked about the book here, and in my news group at SFF Net.

I have it in my sig line here at AW (I rotate various things through there) -- the sig changes, and by the time y'all read this perhaps something different will be in the sig. (Look at the bottom of this post.)

I posted the book in the AW library. (More content for AW! Woo!)

I've been doing readings from works-in-progress at SF conventions for years. Since this book has been in progress for years....

When the publisher sent us a bunch of ARCs, I dropped them on various places (including my two local weekly newspapers). I live in a town of 2,000 people; those guys are personal friends of mine (the writers' community), and we got a couple of very nice newspaper articles out of 'em. Hurrah, go us!

Now the signings and such. Where did these come from?

Answer: from the publisher. They found the bookstores, and worked out the dates and times. (We talked to the publisher's publicity guy, he talked with the bookstores.)

And this leads us to the next bit, when we got an e-mail from New Hampshire Public Radio, asking if we'd like to be on one of their programs, about our upcoming book. The answer was, you betcha.

So yesterday we had a telephone pre-interview (to find out, perhaps, if we're the sort of authors who can actually talk, and have anything to say that might fill a half-hour). Upshot of that: We'll be on The Front Porch on Monday, 27 November, 6:30PM EST.

This is New Hampshire Public Radio, and the show is available on the air, as streaming audio, and archived afterwards.
  • 88.3, Nashua, WEVS
  • 89.1, Concord, WEVO
  • 90.3, Nashua, WEVO
  • 90.7, Keene, WEVN
  • 91.3, Littleton, WEVO
  • 91.3, Hanover, WEVH
  • 97.3, Plymouth
  • 99.5, Jackson, WEVJ
  • 103.9, Portsmouth
  • 104.3, Dover, WEVO
  • 107.1, Gorham, WEVC
  • MP3 Player Stream
  • Windows Media

1120.
Rules for Writing: http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2006/11/rules-for-writing.html

As far as mechanical text-to-voice solutions: they can be fun. But reading it aloud has its own advantages. Machines won't get out of breath during over-long sentences. You will.

1121.
Here's Woman's Day's essay guidelines: $2,000 for 650 words.

Here's their article guidelines.

Woman's Day isn't a fiction or poetry market in the USA.

Woman's Day in Australia is.

============

Brenda, if your story is good fit at Not One of Us, then sell it there. But really, do let the top markets reject it first. Don't reject it for them.

1122.
If it was me, I'd leave the first and cut the second (put in the actual number, maybe).

Making the reader pause to figure out what you meant probably isn't a good idea.

Rewriting now, before you've reached "The End," probably isn't a good idea either. Unless you really gotta.

1123.
Abnormal? Not at all. If there are 25,000 words that aren't the right words, cut 'em and replace 'em with the right words.

Our novel, Groogleman (in French: la nuit des hommogres): at one point we cut everything after Chapter One and rewrote fresh from there. (I may still have the other book that it could-have-been around here somewhere.)

1124.
I hope you like it.

Meanwhile:

Y'all know the three-point-plot outline:

1.) Get the hero up a tree.
2.) Throw rocks at him.
3.) Get him out of the tree.

And the seven-point plot outline:

1). Introduce the main/viewpoint character
2). Present him with a problem.
3). In a particular setting.
4). The character tries to solve the problem...
5). And fails.
6). The character tries to solve the problem again...
7). And receives validation.

Well, here's a very detailed working-out of those general plot outlines:

http://www.miskatonic.org/dent.html

Y'all can try writing a story based on that plot outline as your Christmas Challenge. As always, the challenge is to actually submit the story you wrote to an appropriate paying market.

The Post Office is closed on Christmas, and the mail is nuts in the days before ... shall we say the deadline for mailing your completed story (in accordance with the market's guidelines) is 26 December?

(If you finish your story early, lay it aside and give it a final read-through-and-polish on Christmas Day.)

1125.
I intended the third, last, longest and most detailed plot outline; the one at miskatonic.org. Not because I think that paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter storytelling is a good thing to aspire to, but rather for the same reason that one might do scales if one intends to become a concert pianist.

Consider it a wordgame.

Consider also doing the crossword in your daily newspaper every day. If your daily newspaper doesn't run a crossword, get a book of crossword puzzles.

1126.
If you look around you can also find an 8-Point Plot Structure (Stasis, Trigger, Quest, Surprise, Critical Choice,Climax, Reversal, Resolution), a Nine-point Plot Structure, (apparently from Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee) and probably any number of other numbered plot structures.

1127.

To what should be no one's surprise:


1061494906_CWINDOWSDesktopplot.jpg

You're a Plot writer!

Take this quiz!


Quizilla | Join | Make a Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

1128.
The radio interview went pretty well; the host mentioned the title of the book several times. It's archived in streaming form here: http://www.nhpr.org/node/11869

The first signing went well; the bookstore had 24 copies and sold 12 of them. (We also got 40% off on anything in the store. Hoo hah, Christmas shopping!) Folks were coming by and chatting all evening.

The second signing didn't go so well. Of course it was also bucketing down rain, there was thunder and lightning, and 50-60 MPH wind gusts. If we didn't have to be there we wouldn't have gone either. The bookstore had 14 copies and two sold. On the plus side, we each got a $25 gift certificate to that bookstore. (Hoo hah! More Christmas shopping!)

We signed remaining stock at both places, where they're now out with Autographed stickers.

A benchmark for success is Anyone At All Shows Up.

1129.
The nice lady from the radio station had one of the advanced reading copies of Mist and Snow. That had come from the publisher.

At the Book'em event, back in September, we sold a bunch of books (I didn't count), from the freebie author copies that publishers have sent us over the years. Eventually the revenue sharing brought back about thirty bucks.

It was interesting. At Book'em, even though there wasn't any assigned seating at the place (a school gym with tables arranged in a large horseshoe around the walls), the folks separated out naturally into the published authors, the publishers and bookstores, and the self-and-vanity-published authors.

I was amazed at how slick the self-published guys were in their presentations. Balloons with their titles imprinted on 'em, pens, bookmarks, stands, custom printed tablecloths.... I was impressed. Over on our side of the room we were just putting piles of books on the tables and sitting there with the little "Hi, My Name Is" stickers that the event organizers handed out on our shirts.

One of the self-published folks (who had driven there from Virginia -- that was something else: a lot of the self-published folks had come a long way) was handing out full-color flyers for her book, Take the Mystery Out of Promoting Your Book. The flyer tells us that her book is available in bookstores everywhere, and has a tear-off order form at the bottom to buy a copy from the author.

Anyway, that flyer also includes an inventory list for "A Booksigning In A Bag." Here's the list:

Tablecloth
Candies and dish
Flowers
Props
Scissors and tape
Pens -- booksigning and other
Mailing list
Book cover stickers
Business cards
Water/water bottle with screw-on cap
Change for parking meters
Emergency personal supplies/first aid kit
Book marks
Posters/flyers/advertisements
Loudspeaker announcements
Book stands
Blank card stock and marker
Presentation materials (projector, flip chart, etc.)
Lightweight table
Lightweight folding chair
Camera
Thank-you gift for store employee(s)

------------

I feel like such a slacker. Doyle and I had one pen between us at the first signing (until one of the visitors gave us another). We had to borrow new batteries for our camera (Doyle usually carries a camera in her purse). In the past we'd done the dish of candy thing, but forgot this time. I'd intended to build a nice model of a Civil War ship (perhaps USS Kearsarge) as a prop, but never got around to it. We did have change for parking meters (that usually rides in the car) but we didn't need it. My big EMT jump kit was in the car (but we didn't need it either, thankfully).

The bookstores provided the tables, chairs, water, book stands, and books. They had posters and signs (and flyers, too).

I'd taken it on myself to send press releases to the local newspapers a month before the signings, with a cover flat from the book included in each. Might help, couldn't hurt. I don't know if anything was ever printed.

Maybe next time I'll try to do better.

1130.
I'm doing the Christmas Challenge myself. First page: http://mist-and-snow.livejournal.com/18656.html

1131.
I've also been having way too much fun with the Official Seal Generator:

1132.
My pseud for tie-ins.

1133.
Woo! An interview with Doyle and me, including Doyle on "Constructing Villains":

http://www.andwerve.com/october06_featured_artist

1134.
How about telepathically creating the impression of a human body?

If you can answer the question "why must this character be a feline?" you might find the answer to "how can it communicate?"

1135.
My latest Eos/blog post is up, and it has more of a discussion on the secret origins of Land of Mist and Snow. A bit of How I Dun It. It's about Civil War songs.

Oh, and I've finished the Christmas Assignment (first draft), over on our LiveJournal. It's friendlocked, but I make friends easily. Doyle will do her magic on it next.

If it ever gets published, y'all can compare the first draft to the finished piece.

1136.
Welcome, lfraser -- I'm glad you're finding it informative. Please let us know how it all goes.

1137.
For folks interested in an agent's perspective on what to do if a manuscript has been making the rounds for a while with no nibbles, check out "Giving up on it" in Rachel Vater's LJ.

(Rachel is an agent at Lowenstein-Yost Associates.)

My advice is this: By the time you know that a particular book isn't getting any nibbles, you should have a new book ready to make the rounds. So start sending the new book around and begin work on your next.

1138.
Beats the heck out of me. I haven't read your book.

This may well be in the put-it-in-the-desk-drawer-for-six-months-then-reread area. Or it may be in the "What do the betas say?" area.

Is there some reason that you can't just leave your antagonist drifting in a lifeboat/working at Burger King under an assumed name/returning to his Fortress of Silence to work on his plans?

1139.
Y'know, if he's the last of his species, he's going to have a very hard time finding a date for Friday night....

1140.
Some seriously brilliant writing advice.

Unfortunately it's a PDF, but it's worth it.

http://homepage.mac.com/noteon/Sites/Snyder_on_writing.pdf

1141.
Whatever works for you, Writerdog.

Me, I'll turn off the monitor sometimes and type blind. That way I don't get distracted by the words on the screen.

1142.

1143.
It's well-over novel length. Just my own contributions come to over a thousand pages in standard manucript format.

1144.
Yes: See Uncle Jim, undiluted.

Be advised, though, that there's an awful lot of meat in the other posts, and some of my comments are pretty meaningless out of context.

1145.
For reasons that seemed good to me, I just added the rest of the Mageworlds books and the Crossman short stories to the AW Library: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40178

1146.
Happy/Jolly/Season's/Merry
Christmas/Holidays/Greetings
 
Last edited:

Dawno

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1147.
Today's the day to send your Christmas Challenge Story out to a paying market. On your mark, get set, SASE!

1148.
And today's surprise news: got royalties on the reprint of "Stealing God" that appeared in My Favorite Fantasy Story. (Also available as an ebook.) That means the silly thing's earned out. (This story is another of the Gift That Keeps On Giving stories. Reprinted several times, inspiration for two other stories and a novel, and earning royalties right the way along.)

Only $15.82, but when you consider it's a pro-rata share of 1/2 of the royalties from the period when it earned out ... well, it's $15.82 that I didn't have yesterday.

1149.
Please notice that it took six years for that anthology to earn out. Between 2000 and 2006 all the money we saw on that sale was the advance. (That was the second of three times we'd sold that story though, so it's okay, and no one expects to make a lot of money on short stories.)

1150.
So far all of our short-fiction sales have been to anthologies, so I guess yeah, we like doing 'em.

The criteria? A well-known editor, and a publishing deal with a known decent publisher. Plus the advance, of course. Look for $0.05/word and up, paid on acceptance.

Stories in anthologies don't get the award recommendations that stories in the magazines get, but ... they can stay in print for years (decades, really), and keep on earning. A reprint from an anthology and a reprint from a magazine are still both reprints.

Think of anthologies as single-issue magazines that stay in print for more than a month.

1151.
Originally Posted by Monty
...could I use a puppy love type romance to involve the reader deeper with the characters emotions in my book?
Yes, you could.
Originally Posted by Monty
If so please explain how in some examples please.
No, I can't.

This isn't something that I can do in a sentence, or a paragraph, or even a chapter. It's organic to the whole.

Here's what you can do ... take some of your favorite books that have the sort of romance you're looking for, and re-read them specifically to see how and where the author included the romance in the whole narrative.

Then write your book. If romance develops between the characters, you can strenthen it and refine it in the second draft.

1152.
I've been spending the day updating and correcting my list of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Bookstores. Still not done, but at least the dead links have been cleaned up.

My next convention will be Arisia, in Boston, January 10-12. Here's my schedule:

Friday, 7:00 PM Reshaping Grimm & Goose
Saturday, 11:00 AM Playing in Someone Else's Sandbox
Saturday, 12:00 noon Magic and Christianity
Saturday, 3:00 PM Reading
Sunday, 12:00 noon Pen Names: When and Why?

1153.
That's my attitude. If the topic has worth, it'll stay on the first page. If it doesn't -- people who are interested can still search while other, more interesting, topics move to the head of the line.

1154.
Speaking of which... I posted this in another thread today, and lest it sink and be lost I repost it here:

Write the best first draft you can, but if, while you're writing it, you look at it and say "This is crap," keep writing anyway.

If it helps: print out and frame this certificate. Hang it above your desk.

1155.
You can't make a vase if you don't have the clay on your wheel.

1156.
Nicole -- read your printout, out loud, marking in the margin the places that you'll have to come back and fix.

And/or:

Write a flowchart from your cruddy draft. See the overall shape.

You will need to get the entire work into your mind.

Also -- have you aged 'em in your desk drawer yet?

1157.
The goal isn't to write badly -- the goal is to ignore the saboteur in the back of your head that's trying to stop you by saying "This is lousy! Give up!"

1158.
It all boils down to "To carve a statue of an elephant, get a block of marble and remove everything that doesn't look like an elephant."

Yes,
eliminate greetings, unless they reveal character, advance the plot, or suport the theme.

1159..
I went to a science fiction convention this last weekend. I brought along a half-dozen copies of our latest (from the case of books our publisher sent us, free) to put on the Freebies Table on Friday evening. They vanished within minutes.

By noon on Saturday, the book dealers in the Dealers' room had sold out of our books.

The reading of the new story went well on Saturday afternoon. That's "Philologos," which was the Christmas Challenge story.

1160.
The stuff on the bookstore shelves may also reflect what didn't sell. The stuff that sold hasn't been restocked yet.

Write what you want to, what you're passionate about. If you write to the market, editors may be saying "Why is it that suddenly everyone's sending me Southern Cats Duct Taped to the Fender books?"

1161.
Looks like everyone's getting into the "contest" thing. First Simon & Schuster, now Crown Publishing Group.

What the hey -- if you're unpublished and unrepresented, why not? There isn't an entry fee.

http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/blindsubmission/

1162.
Why not try? Either treat it as a first draft, or treat it as an outline.

There isn't any one way to play this game. And if you've been growing in skill, problems that may have stopped you the first time may be surmountable now.

If the book is fatally flawed -- you'll find out.

1163.
Due to routing problems in the northeast USA, Making Light appears to be down at this hour.

Details here: http://sideshow.me.uk/

Pass the word to those who need to know.

1164.
In the case of Land of Mist and Snow, the publisher asked for cover suggestions, we sent several, they went with something else. We saw the finished art (which, BTW, is totally gorgeous, even better than the final printed version).

In other cases, we've been asked for cover suggestions and have had them used. Or asked for scenes from books that the artist might find useful. For interior art we've had more of a chance to comment, and have worked with the artist. But mostly -- the first we've known of the cover art was when the cover flats came in.

Complaining about the cover art is the author's traditional right. (See Mr. Earbrass for an example.)

1165.
I'm probably the wrong guy to ask, because we published a short story that was 100% dialog (not even any 'said' tags).

Okay, here's what you can do. Print out your chapters and tape the pages to the wall on the far side of your living room. Look at the grey areas. Too many big blocks? Break them up with dialog. Too thin and jaggety? Add a few paragraphs of narrative.

Be certain that you aren't writing a "head story" (the one where the story is in your head, not on the paper).

Okay, now go to your favorite book, with a couple of highlighters in hand. Highlight dialog in yellow and description in green. See how that author handled the mix.

I can't give you a formula, or an easy trick. This is where you'll be making your own art.

1166.
"Yog" is a character from Lovecraft, and a name from India before that. I expect that it's a horror 'zine of some kind?

1167.
At half-a-cent per word, I hope you've tried some of the higher-paying 'zines first.

1168.
Change in POV entails ... changing the Point of View. If the POV character calls this person "Smith," then that's what he calls him. I don't see a problem.

How else will we know that POV has changed than that there are differences between the voices?

1169.
I'm going to port in some posts I made in another thread, because I think they can be of general interest. Folks who want to see 'em in context are invited to do so.

=============
I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess what was going on from the OP's post.

Wizardry was a series of computer role-playing games from Sirtech. These date back to Apple II days. Their last game, Wizardry 8, came out for the PC in 2001. (Their website http://www.sir-tech.com/ hasn't been updated in some years.)

The OP apparently wrote a trilogy using characters and situations from this game series (essentially, fan fiction), then contacted the copyright holder in an attempt to sell it to them. Discussion with Sirtech, however, did not prove fruitful.

Some time later, Sirtech sold the rights to Wizardry to another company. This second company is interested in publishing the novels (even though they may never have published anything in their lives). One possible point of difficulty might be that while this second company bought the rights to the Wizardry games themselves, it's unclear if they bought the right to make derivative works (which a series of novels would be).

It strikes me that that's a problem for the second company and their lawyers to hash out with Sirtech and their lawyers, and of little concern to the author. If they get the right to make derivative works, well and good. If not, no sale, everyone moves on to other projects.

Other points of contention might revolve around characters and situations. The characters and situations that come directly from the game are clearly the property of the copyright holder. The original characters and situations that the OP created, however ... the author would want to keep the rights to them, while the game company would want to acquire those rights (this would simplify their lives in case they ever wanted to make more games in the series and might want to use those characters and situations (or ones similar enough to arguably be them). It would also simplify their lives if someone wanted to make a movie out of the games, and use the books as a source.

I can see where a lawyer might get involved in all this (though an agent working on commission rather than a lawyer might be a better choice for the author).

I could be entirely out to lunch on all this -- it's pure speculation based on the clues in the OP's message.

Now some personal notes. I've done a bunch of tie-in work. The usual thing is for the copyright holder to approach the author with the idea for the novel, and negotiate from that point. The work is usually work-for-hire (though if you have a decent agent you can get profit participation in the book sales). The contract will spell out in nauseating detail exactly what rights are in play (and if you can get away without the copyright holder getting all rights, you're doing very well indeed).

Another personal note: Going with a game company as a publisher is a path strewn with landmines. Going with a first-time publisher is a path entangled with barbed wire. Going with a first-time publisher that's also a game company is a path that's mined, entangled with barbed wire, and under sporadic artillery fire. It's way easy to get hurt.

I really don't know enough about the OP's present situation to give any useful advice. A bit of clarification would be very handy. (Particularly what's meant by "option" in this case.)
================
I'd say, find an agent.

If the agent can get a $12,000 advance (which isn't out of the ballpark for three books), it'll still cost the same $1,800, but it'll be painless (and after the sale).

All the money that comes in from the book goes from the publisher to the agent, the agent subtracts 15% (or whatever the agreed-upon commission is) and passes on the rest.

There's a list of Science Fiction/Fantasy agents here:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42019

There's another list here:
http://www.sfwriter.com/agent.htm

As always, research, research, research any agent on any list you find.

If you already have an agreement in principle with the owners of the Wizardry copyrights that they will buy these books, you shouldn't have any trouble interesting an agent in representing you.
================
The way I see it, the big problem is that there's exactly one company on the face of the earth that can legally publish this trilogy.

(That's one of the reasons why writing fan fiction is a bad idea.)

The first company wasn't interested.

Now the second company potentially is.

Let's say that the second company has the right to make derivative works.

Let's say that they are interested in publishing these books. Let's say that they've never published anything, aren't clear on how to go about it, and have never seen a publishing contract.

One of the things that they can do is call up a regular publisher on the phone and say, "Hi, this is Game Company X. We want to publish some books based on our games! How about you edit, print, and distribute them?" The publisher will say "Sure!" and their lawyers will work something out. (To my direct knowledge, Roc, Warner, and Tor have all published books on exactly this basis for various game companies. I'm sure they have boilerplate contracts on file to cover the situation.)

Now the usual thing is for the publisher to come up with the contract, offer it, and the author either accept or not accept that contract. (Having the author coming up with the contract is ... bizarre. I think that derives from this being a first-time author dealing with a first-time publisher.)

Generally the first contract that the publisher offers has some clauses in it that aren't too favorable to the author, so the agent works things out. Generally, the agent's major weapon ("Well, if we can't come to an agreement, I can take this manuscript elsewhere") has vanished, since there is only one company that can possibly publish the book, and the company is well aware of that fact.

Three options right now:

a) Get an agent who will work on commission to hammer out the deal with the company that now owns the rights.

b) File off the serial numbers and attempt to sell the re-written work to another publisher.

c) Forget this trilogy. Move on and write another novel.

No matter what else you do, you'll want to move on and write another novel in any case ... so start doing that while searching for an agent.

(Or: Look, I can write you a contract for free. Here goes:

[Author] grants all rights in [Name of Work] to [Name of Company] for the full term of copyright in return for $20,000 paid on signing. [Company] agrees that [Author] will be identified as the author of [Work] on the cover, title page, and in any promotional materials when/if the Work is published.

Signed: [Author]
Signed: [Company]
[Date]

There, that wasn't so tough, was it? They'll come back with "$20,000! Are you smoking something?" and offer $10,000. You'll say, "Do you wish my children to be beggars? $15,000!" They agree to it, you both sign. It's a lousy contract from the author's point of view, but it does bring closure to the whole affair. And you do get a professional publishing credit.)

Seriously, get an agent. And write a new, different, better book while you're looking.
========================
Wow. Crossposted again.

Please be aware that if you don't come to an agreement with Company B, that publishing the works on your website is still publishing, and is a copyright and/or trademark violation. If Company B wants to be complete dicks about it, they can shut you and your website down and make your life exceedingly unpleasant. Since they know about you and this work ... the odds of their finding out about web self-publication are pretty good. That may require them to Do Something about it.

Since you know Ms. Duane, why not take her out, buy her a beer, and ask her what she advises at this juncture?
==================
Reading more about Sir-Tech (the original company that created Wizardry) -- they're apparently bankrupt. Which means that their various rights (including the right to make derivative works) are assets controlled by a bankruptcy court until they can be sold to pay off the company's debts, adding yet another layer of mess to an already messy situation. Resolving something like that can take years even with all the good-will in the world. (Horrible things have happened to authors whose books were bought by publishers who've gone bankrupt.)

This discussion has rambled a long way from Paul S. Levine's lousy phone manners. Perhaps it should be moved to the Ask The Agent forum?
================
Oh -- one more thing. One of the reasons I caution about publishing books with a game company is that "doesn't know what it's doing" is pretty much Standard Operating Procedure.

Bottom line: no matter what happens, The Author Writes a Check is not an option. If you reach that point, you're at a dead end. Back up and try another path.
===================

1170.
Alas, that clause, while it is a standard part of every publishing contract, is worthless.

A publisher's publishing rights to works make up the bulk of their assets, and a company in bankruptcy simply can't give away its assets. The publishing rights might wind up in the hands of a third party which is not bound by the original contract with the author, with very bad results (from the author's point of view).

Consider a non-book example: Company A rents its office furniture from Company B. Company A goes bankrupt. That office furniture might get sold at auction to satisfy Company A's debts -- and the only chance Company B might have to get its furniture back would be to bid on it.

Also: as far as any money the publisher might owe to the author, the author is an unsecured creditor. All of the secured creditors stand in line ahead of the unsecured, and the money that is left in the till or that comes from the sale of assets usually runs out long before the unsecured creditors see any.

If a company goes bankrupt while holding your publishing rights, in the best case you won't get any income from that work, and won't be able to resell it, for a period that can be measured in years. In the worst case, while you still hold the copyright, you've lost the income from that work and lost the ability to resell the work at all.

As always, if you have a legal question, ask a real lawyer. For a real-world case the answer to your particular situation is "It varies."

1171.
You will need the rights to the English translation. The question is, does the translator have the right to make that translation?

1172.
Does he possibly already have rights to the English translation of that poem?

The danger is, a second cousin twice removed may pop up from nowhere claiming to own the rights to that poem if lightning strikes and your book goes all DaVinci Code. Best to straighten out the rights-and-permissions questions now, and have 'em all in writing.

1173.
The exact legalities of permissions require the services of a real lawyer to untangle.

However, it is my impression that a hard-copy letter with a real signature on it is required to grant rights.

1174.
Ah, Hillgate -- you're in the UK. Things may well work as you've stated in the UK. I wouldn't know.

Over here, the standard "in the event of bankruptcy all rights revert to the author" clause is just flat worthless. In the event of bankruptcy the rights are assets, and the assets become the property of the court, to dispose of as they please. This happens at the instant of bankruptcy and, depending on state laws, retroactively for a period of time before the bankruptcy. That is, if the company returns your rights today, and declares bankruptcy tomorrow, those rights become the property of the court anyway.

Nor does the court transfer the contract -- the court tranfers the publication rights (the asset) without any of those details like royalties and such attached. The creditor is trying to get his money back from the publisher and cares not a fig for the writer. It really is messy, and it really is bad for the writer. I can give real-world examples of this happening.

In the example I gave of the furniture -- the managers of the company aren't disposing of the property. As you point out, they can't. The court has taken that property, and the court is disposing of it. The court can, and may well do just that.
 

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1175.
I can boil it all down to three words:

Write, submit, repeat.

Everything else is commentary.

1176.
A lot of the books in the Best SF thread are quite old.

For What's Happening Now:

Anything by Ken MacLeod. Anything by Robert Charles Wilson. Last year's Nebula winners. This year's Hugo nominees. Three books chosen at random from the SF shelf of your local bookstore, provided you've never heard of the authors.

After that ... write your book.

1177.
I don't know how most writers do it. I know that I personally write new stuff and revise older stuff on the same day, just at different times of the day.

This is another case of whatever works for you.

You will eventually have to revise the material you've written (unless you're capable of doing publishable first drafts (and there are some people who can do that)). How your writers' group decides to count that is up to them.

Please let us know what they decide.

1178.
Originally Posted by Raphee
Just as an aside to above: East of Eden by Stienbeck was published from the original MS without any changes made by the publisher. Well at least the copy that I have.
Hunh?

Do you have any information that it was the first draft? How many drafts did Steinbeck write before the version he submitted?

(Oh -- publishers don't usually make any changes to a manuscript (other than correcting typoes and applying house style). They may request revisions, but it's the authors job to either make them or not, as the author pleases.)

(Example of house style: Numbers below 99 are expressed in numerals, numbers one hundred and above are expressed in words. (Other publishers may have another style for numbers.) Another example of house style: Extracts such as poetry or letters are set off by linebreaks, indented, and set in italics. (Other publishers may have other styles.) Yet another example of house style: The serial comma is used. (Other publishers may not use the serial comma.))

1179.
Yes, write the darned book anyway.

Now Wilson -- top talent, top of his game. But you can be certain of one thing: there exists a writer of whom Wilson says, "I can never be that good. I'll never be in his league."

You might try re-typing the first chapter of Spin to see exactly what he did and how he did it. Observe his technique.

It's the chess metaphor again: we may say of a Grand Master "I'll never be that good," but on a move-by-move basis we can understand each move.

1180.

1181.
Originally Posted by allenparker
In other words, how accurate does the history have to be?
As accurate as possible provided you're still able to tell your story.

1182.
No novel is ever perfect. It's just the best you can make it at the time. Let other people tell you if they enjoyed it.

The other day I watched Hoodwinked on DVD. That's an animated re-telling of the Little Red Riding Hood story. Pretty good film.

What I did afterward was watch the special features, with the director's commentary. Particularly the deleted scenes and the extended scenes. What struck me was how many times the director said words to the effect of, "I loved this bit, but the point had already been made," or "I cut this for pace."

1183.
You're learning, growing, and getting set to wrestle with stronger angels.


Also: I just posted this in another thread, but thought I'd put it here, too:

A scene is a unit that has a recognizable beginning, middle, and end.

The scene ends with a mini-climax that leaves the reader wanting to continue. The next scene usually has moved in time, space, or viewpoint.
__________________

1184.
Not so much.

The only real rule is: If It Works, It's Right.

The thing you should never forget is that you are writing for your readers.

Beyond that, it's all art. There are nine and sixty ways of construction tribal lays....

1185.
Here's what I might suggest: Take a writer you admire and attempt to "channel" him or her. Pretend to be that person and have him or her write your book for you.

(Don't worry that it won't be your book -- no matter how talented a parodist you might be, the work is original.)

Now other stuff: Found in another thread here at AW, a piece of submission-tracker software. http://www.download.com/3000-20-10027591.html

It looks like it would mostly be useful for short stories, but still....

Now, how to do it by hand.

Get yourself a file folder for each of your stories.

In that file folder, put a hard-copy of your finished story. Put in an archive electronic copy of the finished story. Come up with a list of all the possible markets for the story, arranged in some order that pleases you (highest-to-lowest paying, most prestigious-to-not-so-prestigious, or something else). Print that out and put it in the folder.

Make a photocopy of that story. Send it to the top market on your list. Note the date on the hardcopy list. When/if you get a rejection, write in the date, cross out that address, and send out fresh photocopy that same day to the next market on your list.

Continue until either the story sells, or you reach the bottom of the list. If the story sells, put a copy of the contract in the file folder. Note on the top of the folder when the reprint rights will come back to you. If you see any reviews of the story, clip them and put them in the folder.

If you reach the bottom of the list, after you've crossed out the last address, put a date one year in the future on the top of the file folder, and put it your file drawer. One year on, re-read the story and see if you want to revise it and start sending it around again. See if new markets have opened.

1186.
You, only better than before, is everyone's goal.

1187. a question was asked about the "and then" discussion in the thread.
You could go to one of the digest pages (Undiluted) and use your browser's "Find On This Page" function.

For more general stuff, use Google.

Go to Google and in the search string type site:absolutewrite.com "Learn Writing With Uncle" (yes, use the quote marks) then your search terms. That seems to work pretty well.

1188. more on finding the "and then" discussion
The "Search Within This Thread" feature apparently ignores "common words."

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...rn+writing+with+uncle"+"and+then"&btnG=Search

1189.
The idea is to use a different part of your brain when seeing your work. Getting a fresh view. Revision = re-vision. Looking again.

If this trick doesn't work for you ... there are others.

1190.
How about ... copying the book out by hand? Retyping it from hard-copy. Turning the pages upside down and reading it.

All of these are mechanical ways of making the work different. Of using other parts of your brain.

The classic is putting the book in your desk drawer for three months.

If you've read your book on-screen up to now, read it in hardcopy. If you've read it in hardcopy, read it on-screen.

Oh -- here's a cheapie: Reprint your book in two-column justified ten-point Times New Roman, and read it in that form (presuming that you've been reading it in standard manuscript format). (On the other hand, if you've been setting your reading copy in TNR two-column -- set it in standard manuscript format and re-read it like that.)

I do like reading aloud, though. You don't have an audience other than yourself, so your public speaking skills don't matter.

1191.
Something else I recommend is that you start writing something else while you're letting your work marinate in your desk drawer. That too will help cleanse your mind.

1192.
What should you do?

Write 250 words of original fiction before you post on this board again.

They don't have to be perfect -- they don't even have to be good. They just have to be there.

Cut the crap and write.

1193.
A working outline and the outline you send to a publisher are two different things.

The first is Whatever Works For You. The second is a sales document.

1194.
As William Faulkner said, "I only write when I'm inspired. Fortunately I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning."

Were I in your place, I'd put in the daily BIC on the new work, and plan out a time period every day to edit/rewrite/revise one of the old works (flip a coin to figure out which one). By the time you've done editing that one, the new project should be about done, so put it into the editing queue. Start writing a new story. At the same time edit the second story you have in inventory. When you're done with that ... you'll have the story that you just completed about finishing up its three months in your desk drawer.

So, you might consider arranging your time like that.

Remember that what works for you is what's right.

1195.
Sure. Write the ending. You can do that right now.

Also, see the idea of flow-charting the story by way of an outline.

1196.
Find another couple of beta readers, keep this one, and wait three months before revising.

1197.
Oh, and what you say to a beta? "Thank you very much!" And mean it.

1198.
That's another "How long is a piece of rope?" questions. Write as many words as you need to.

1199.
As you know, Bob, Doyle and I are regular instructors at the Viable Paradise workshop.

On one occassion, Doyle had a particular author's story to comment. Her comment was "This story presses too many of my buttons. Have Maureen McHugh look at it."

For us, Sherwood Smith has been our beta reader since we were all unpublished together. We also found beta readers for each of our Mageworlds books who hadn't read any of the previous books, to see if they made sense to readers just coming to the series.

So it's an ongoing thing -- reliable beta readers who you've known for years, a rotating cast of new readers. Be aware that sometimes a story will hit a reader in a non-typical way. In that case get a second opinion.

1200.
A perennial thread-topic on the Novel board is "What's Wrong with [1st/2nd/3rd] Person [Omniscient/Limited/Closed/Open/Grayscale] [Past/Present/Future] POV?"

Usually we start with some vague reference to unnamed "experts" who allegedly say that a writer should [always/never] use the named POV. This is followed by a bunch of posts claiming that those [still unnamed] "experts" [do/do not] know what they're talking about.

Listen, people: Here's the actual answer. There is nothing wrong at all with any POV. It only has to be done well.

1201.
The difference between a query letter and a cover letter:

Query letter: "Would you like to see my book?"

Cover letter: "Here's my book. Hope you like it!"

1202.
I don't say that anything is absolutely true, except that the Reader is King.

1203.

1204.
I usually find theme by re-reading the text, then using that knowledge to help make decis
ions in the revision stage.

1205.
"Clarified" and "simplified" are generally good.
 
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Goodness, it's been ages since I updated this!

Because I'm using the multi-quote function, if Jim embedded a quote in his post it, unfortunately, doesn't show up - click the blue "arrow" button in the quote to see the entire context and read the posts around it. (ETA: I think I've edited in most of the quotes now - if I missed one that's important, please let me know.)

In the earlier parts of the index I tried to come up with a helpful phrase for each link, thinking it would make searching easier. I'd be interested in hearing if readers preferred that or just having the entire post quoted.


What? You've never heard of George I, George II, and George III?

As to the use of 'they' ...?
I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

Are you referring to this line?

You have to ocassionally remind the reader who they are reading about...

If so, that's the singular 'they,' the word used in English to mean an individual of unknown sex. (This is the correct singular. "He or she" is a barbarism; "he" (or "she") alone is silly.)

See for example:

"Singular they": God said it, I believe it, that settles it

Everybody loves their Jane Austen

It's all looking for clarification. The names for the different POVs are mutable things; use them if they make the concept clearer for you. If not, not.

And the master rule is that if it works, it's right.

Let's take a look:
"Do you spook easily, Starling?"

"Not yet."

"See, we've tried to interview and examine all thirty-two known serial murderers we have in custody, to build up a database for psychological profiling in unsolved cases. Most of them went along with it--I think they're driven to show off, a lot of them. Twenty-seven were willing to cooperate. Four on death row with appeals pending clammed up, understandably. But the one we want most, we haven't been able to get. I want you to go after him tomorrow in the asylum."

Clarice Starling felt a glad knocking in her chest and some apprehension too.

"Who's the subject?"

"The psychiatrist--Dr. Hannibal Lecter," Crawford said.

A brief silence follows the name, always, in any civilized gathering.

Starling looked at Crawford steadily, but she was too still. "Hannibal the Cannibal," she said.​
That's the narrator, the person who is telling the story, interjecting himself into the narrative. It's a bit of a distancing mechanism. It's "I'm telling a story." And it's the exposition. The narrator is telling us something that the two characters can't mention to each other because they both know it perfectly well.

Other places, the drop into present tense is POV. When seeing the characters' thoughts, they're present tense because the characters aren't thinking about what's going on in front of them in past tense.

Character thoughts aren't always set in italics.

I'm going to annotate some of these.


“What follows is a list of the most common shoulds, musts, and have-to’s that many of us have been taught about writing. Each of these is either useless, irrelevant, or just plain incorrect:

*A writer must be unhappy, or lonely, or cynical, or 100% serious, or neurotic, or a little crazy, or downright nuts.

You don't have to be crazy, but it helps.

*If you wish to be published, you must do whatever editors ask.

Depends on what degree of granularity you're looking for. At its most basic what the editors ask is "Send us something we can use!" and this is completely correct. If you wish to be published you must send something that suits their current needs.
*You must dress and act in a certain way, and/or associate with certain people, in order to be a successful writer.

The propeller beanie is absolutely necessary. By great good luck I have a number of them here. May I sell you a couple? Oh, yes, and you must associate with me.


*You must keep each of your manuscripts circulating among editors until it is accepted for publication.

Or until you've hit every reasonable market. Then retire it for a year, re-read it, see if any new markets have opened, and consider either rewriting it or permanently retiring it.

*If manuscript is rejected, you must get it back out to another editor within 24 hours.

That's a darned good idea. Six hours is better. Three better still.


The only sane response to any of these pronouncements is a loud and emphatic, “NOT SO!” None of them is universally true. Some may be useful or true for some writers, or under certain circumstances. Some may be helpful as generalities, but are not absolutes. Many-the last seven, for example-are pure baloney through an through.

If it works for you, do it. If it doesn't work, don't.

In addition to the shoulds, writers also face a barrage of equally worthless shouldn’ts. Here are the most common examples:
*Never write about yourself.
*Never write in the first person, or use the words “I,” “me,” or ”my.”
*Never use curse words, slang, or colloquialisms.
*Never use italics.
*Never use exclamation points.
*Never use foreign words.
*Never start a sentence with “and,” “but,” “anyway,” “however,” “nevertheless,” “therefore,” or “I.”
*Never use incomplete sentences.
*Never stray from correct grammar and usage for any reason.
*Never write in dialect; always use standard English.

Has anyone ever actually heard anyone say any of those things?

*Never send something you’ve written to more than one editor at once.

This one is true. Just plain don't do it, unless all of the editors involved clearly state that they take simultaneous submissions.

*Never submit photocopied manuscripts to editors.

This one dates back to the days when photocopies a) came out as negatives (white print on a black background), b) were on an odd slick paper that tended to stick to other sheets of odd slick paper, and c) smelled rather odd. It was true at that time. I don't know if that's been true any time in the last thirty years, though, and I don't recall anyone saying not to send photocopies any time in the last thirty years either.
*Never rewrite, except to editorial order.

Edelstein has completely misunderstood this one, but that's okay: many people misunderstand it. This rule doesn't instruct you to send out only first drafts. Once you've written, rewritten, revised, and made your work the best you can ... send it out. After that it's a trap to rewrite it every time it comes back. A waste of time. You've already made the story the best you could or you wouldn't be sending it out, would you? So send it out, and send it out again, until you've hit every reasonable market. Then retire it, as above. The exceptions are: if someone says "I will buy this if you make the following changes," by all means do so. Or, if the story's sat around in your Retired file for a year and you see a way to make it better, you can rewrite it and send it back on its travels. (Or, suddenly an inspiration strikes and the Muse won't let go of your throat until you rewrite the sucker.)
I repeat: all of these are worthless at best, harmful at worst. Ignore them all.

And ignore that, as well.

There is yet another type of nonsense that we writers often face: strange beliefs about what makes a writer.

What makes a writer is this: the act of writing. If you write, you are a writer. If you dont -- you aren't.

It really is that simple.

The actual rules:

What works is right.

The reader is king.

A compelling story compellingly told trumps everything.

A story that's submitted may be accepted. A story that's never submitted won't be accepted.

I believe that there is a difference between the POV in this:

Never have I felt quite so worldly as I did on my very first real date, when, after considered perusal of the wine list, I masterfully commanded the waiter at the Log Cabin restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, to fetch me a bottle of Mateus Rosé. In its distinctive Buddah-shaped bottle, with its slight spritz, it represented a step up from the pink Almaden that my friends and I sucked down in order to get into the proper Dionysian frame of mind for the summer rock concerts at Tanglewood. (And that seemed a classic accompaniment--rather like Chablis and oysters--to the cheap Mexican pot we were smoking at the time.) Later, of course, as I discovered the joys of dry reds and whites, I learned to sneer at pink wine; it seemed--as Winston Churchill once remarked regarding the moniker of an acquaintance named Bossom--that it was neither one thing nor the other. A few summers ago a bottle of Domaines Ott rosé in conjunction with a leg of marinated grilled lamb cured me of this particular prejudice; I thought I'd died and gone to Provence, though in fact I was at my friend Steve's birthday party in the Hamptons.
and this:

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder. Then again, it might not. A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is a result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need Bolivian Marching Powder.
and this:

When Christopher Ransom opened his eyes he was on his back, looking up into a huddle of Japanese faces shimmering in a pool of artificial light. Who were these people? Then he placed them. These were his fellow karate-ka, members of his dojo. And there stood the sensei, broad nose skewed to the left side of his face, broken in the finals at the Junior All-Japan Karate Tournament fifteen years ago. Ransom was pleased that he could recall this detail. Collect enough of the details and the larger picture might take care of itself.

The sensei asked if he was okay. Ransom lifted his head. Turquoise and magenta disks played at the edge of his vision. He was hoisted to his feet; suddenly the landscape looked as if it was flipped on its side, the surface of the parking lot standing vertical like a wall and the façade of the gym lying flat where the ground should be. Then the scene righted itself, as if on hinges.
We might as well call the difference first person, second person, and third person. If the terminology doesn't work for you, try something else that eases composition. They are, essentially, I'm talking about me, I'm talking about you, and I'm talking about that guy over there.

In the end, while you can flip between POVs between scenes, you'll probably want to stick with one or another inside of the individual scenes to avoid confusing your readers.

Oh yes -- and for the excerpts above, the question is: would you turn the page?

Most of us are pretty laid-back here.

Well, golly. Look what the mail brought today!

Tekno Books sent me a contract today. They want the rights to reprint one of my stories for Sony's new e-book reader (non-exclusive electronic, World English, five years).

Well, shucks. No advance, but this is for a reprint. 25% of purchase price as royalty.

I can do that. It's found money.

A small brag here: This story is by Dave Thompson, one of our students at Viable Paradise last year, and this story was one that he wrote at the workshop:

http://pseudopod.org/2007/03/30/pseudopod-031-last-respects/

This is, BTW, a paying market.

Story Idea, Free!

Take The Bourne Identity. Imagine that Jason Bourne, escaping from the Swiss bank, rather than hooking up with dodgy Eurotrash femme Marie instead got a ride from Maria from The Sound of Music.

How does the story go from that point?

Work on one, then work on another -- if that's what's natural for you, that's fine with me.

Don't send them out until they're finished, but when they're finished, send them out. You have permission to do anything except not-write.

Congratulations, you are a Writer!

(Everyone, give Jennifer a round of applause. And thank her in the best way: Read her book. Then Will Come Night and Darkness. Buy one; better still, buy a dozen. They make excellent gifts.)

a) Good writers are more fun to read than bad writers. One of these days I'm going to do another line-by-line, and these will do.

b) He's written at novel length in the three basic POVs, so a comparison, same writer to same writer, is more interesting.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'd say something like, "All rights reserved. For reprint permission, write to" and an email address.

When you do grant permission, spell out exactly what rights, where, and for how long, and what language you want as far as identifying it as your work (linkbacks, and so on).

I posted this before in another thread. I'm going to put it here, too:

==========
What type of "promotion" should one expect from a publisher once a book deal has been struck?

I'm going to talk about novels here, because that's what I know about.

Things vary, of course, but the minimum you should expect:

1) Review copies/advance reading copies well in advance of publication to major venues (Booklist, Library Journal, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly) plus major newspapers, and any specialized magazines that deal with your subject matter (you'll work with your publisher on this -- you know your subject).

2) Ads in trade publications.

3) Listed in the catalog.

4) Talked up by the sales force.

5) Press releases to state and local newspapers (you'll work with your publisher on this, too -- they'll already have a list, you can add to it.) Press releases should have copies of the book attached. (A press release without a copy of the book is wasted paper.)

Attractive cover, carefully written back cover blurb ... those should go without saying.

TV/Radio/Newspaper ads, book signings, book tours ... they're a waste of time and money for a first novel. There are other resources a publisher can use, depending ... they vary from foiled-and-embossed covers, up through endcaps, shelf talkers, front-of-the-store placement ... depends on whether they think that the book will get enough extra sales that way to pay for the extra expense.

The single biggest reason someone buys a novel is because they read and enjoyed a previous book by the same author. The next biggest reason anyone buys a novel is because a trusted friend recommended it. All the other reasons fade into single-digit percentages.

A first novelist doesn't have that earlier novel that someone read (that's one reason selling short stories is important, even though there isn't a lot of money in them). So you have to rely on the early adopters, the adventurous folks who pull books off the shelf even if they've never heard of the author, to tell everyone in their carpool or in their bridge club, "You have to read Nameofbook!"

This is tough. But the single most important thing to do is write your second book. Make it better than the first. Then you will have all the people who read and enjoyed your first book buying it, and talking to their friends.


Action is movement.

That movement may be physical, it may be mental, it may be emotional, it may be moral ... but ... it's moving.

Kurt Vonnegut offers advice on writing:

http://puppetmaker40.livejournal.com/326453.html
Some writing advice by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on the subject of short stories from Bagombo Snuff Box

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.​

Monday, April 23rd, is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.

That's the day to post a complete story or novel, your best work, on your webpage for anyone to read absolutely free.

Details here: http://papersky.livejournal.com/318273.html

One of the dead yesterday at Virgina Tech was Christopher J. "Jamie" Bishop, son of science fiction writer Michael Bishop.

It is given to no man to know the day or hour.

I've just learned of a new time-and-energy waster for writers: http://charteo.us/

These nice folks will make automatic graphs of your book's Amazon sales rank.

Naturally my first move was to add Mist and Snow's ISBN. Please help move the graph-line upward. You can make little Jimmy smile, or you can turn the page....

Why -- yes! Yes, you can!

In the meantime, buy my books....

You can indeed still get a copy of Atlanta Nights. The perfect book if one leg of your dining room table is too short!

Yet another POD-cast: http://podibleparadise.com/?p=24

(Who says I don't like POD?)

In honor of International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day, I've put up one of our short stories, The Queen's Mirror.

Y'all enjoy.

pixelstained.jpeg

That was so much fun I did it again: On Suivi Point

It's been a while (since March, 2004, if you must know) since I've done a wrapup of the books and movies and articles we've discussed and linked to from here. So that can be this morning's project.

The Best of HapiSofi:

Lee Shore Literary Agency

Need Advice

Agents Charging Fees


Sex Scenes, version II

Typesetting

1st Books was OK

Prologues

Midbooks

Tone

PA Authors

ST Comments I Love It!

All PublishAmerica Titles are in the Library of Congress

Decent Typesetting

================

Font:

Dark Courier

====================

Books:

Cut and Assemble Victorian Shingle-Style House
Cut and Assemble Victorian Cottage
Modern English Usage
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
New Skies
Between the Darkness and the Fire
The Apocalypse Door
Werewolves: A collection of original stories
Otherwere: Stories of Transformation
Murder by Magic
Writers Digest
The Killer Angels
The Price of the Stars
The Stars Asunder
A Working of Stars
Hunters' Moon
Marvelous Max: the Mansion Mouse
Tournament and Tower
Aquatech Warriors
Tiger Cruise
Camelot
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Vampires
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Conjure Wife
Starpilot's Grave
The Summons
The Street Lawyer
Bruce Coville's Book of Spine Tinglers
Understanding Comics
Psycho
The Silence of the Lambs
The Foxfire Book
Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Far Futures
====================

Links:

Advice from Bookslut
Parody of Jane Austen Doe
Harry Potter and the Horrid Pain of the Artiste
Why 98% of the slushpile is unpublishable
International Slushpile Bonfire Day
Amazon.com without the BS
H. W. Fowler
Yetanother Variant
Warnings and Cautions for Writers
How Gramatically Correct Are You?
Medieval Numerology
The Last Real New Yorker in the World
Bestseller Lists 1900-1995
Windhaven Press
Viable Paradise Student Sales
The Certainities of Life
The Literary Life
You're Published. Now the Fun Begins? Think Again.
Scrivener's Error
CafePress
Print On Demand
Five Deadly Sins
What Kind of Writer are You?
The Fight Crime!
Celtic Knotwork
Harry of Five Points
Pericles, Prince of Tired Plots
Skinhead Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet, as performed by Peeps
The Cask of Amontillado
Viable Paradise
ISBN Checksum Calculator
Fold a paper pressman's hat
Speed Writing
On the Getting of Agents
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Panel Looks At Financing of Book by Rowland's Wife
The F-word Song
Hang on the Bell, Nellie
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Sovay
Lime Pie
Slushkiller
Susanna Clarke's Magic Book
Jump-starting a Stalled (or Dead) Career
Stalled Careers, Writer's Block, and Monsters Under the Bed
Bookslut
Writers are Terrorists
Bakeless Literary Prizes
Holly Black's Writing Resources
Storytelling
Report to the Authors Guild Midlist Books Study Committee
Le Bar aux Folies Bergere
L'Empire des Lumieres
Origami Crane

====================

Movies:

Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"

Jose Chung's "Doomsday Defense"
A Fistful of Dollars
Shakespeare in Love
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
28 Days Later




Looks like that thread has been removed. (Occasionally inactive threads -- ones that haven't gotten post in year or two -- get trimmed.)

Not to worry -- most of the same material was reposted in this thread and this thread isn't going away.

I'll delete the dead link.

If there's a magazine that still serializes novels ... work it out with the editor. Generally they'll go with chapter breaks. Your chapter breaks should all end on a strong note, at a natural breaking place, with the urge for the reader to start the next chapter built in.

Royalties are trickling in. Just got the money from Harcourt, with the three "Dozens" anthologies: A Wizard's Dozen, A Starfarer's Dozen, and A Nightmare's Dozen. Total around forty bucks, but then these have been going, twice a year, since 1993. A tank of gas....

Royalties from novels come via my agent. Short stories they send me directly.

Write the book.

Later, in the rewrite, you can figure what goes into chapter one and what goes into chapter two.

For all we know the second draft will start with a chapter you haven't written yet and both your current chapter one and chapter two will be in the discard pile.

Get the words on paper. When you reach The End the contents of chapter one will be clearer to you.

One way to tell who your protagonist is is to look at your last chapter and see who's in it.

If the protagonist isn't in the last chapter, or isn't the main topic of conversation in the last chapter, perhaps you should rethink who the protagonist is.

I should mention that it's entirely possible for someone who died before Chapter One to be the protagonist.

============

Meanwhile, Good News! This year's Christmas Challenge story sold, to Fantasy & Science Fiction. They have up to three years to publish it, but they pay on acceptance. Go team us!

Gosh 'n golly you betcha!

Our first novel we had eight.

Main character, protagonist, antagonist, all these fiddly definitions are more of interest to academics, I think.

As long as you have characters that your readers can identify with, and you reveal those characters to those readers, you will not have gone far wrong.

Where Margaret Mitchell got the title for her novel:

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae


Last night ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! Thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
-- Ernest Dowson

Department of Oh, the Humanity!

When we married, it was with the well-intended but overly optimistic understanding that she would support my writing until my writing could support us both. And so I have written short stories and poems and novels and essays and newspaper articles and much more. I have spent thousands of dollars attending writing conferences and hiring professional editors to help me perfect my manuscripts. And I have never made more than a pittance in return for these literary labors.

Make sure you read the comments.
 
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Many years ago, Doyle (my co-author) was teaching college freshmen.

She was approached by a student who wanted to know why it was that, even though nothing had been marked wrong in her essay, she nevertheless got a B.

Doyle said "For an A paper I expect something more than technical correctness. 'No errors' is not good enough."

The student said, "You mean I have to be interesting too?"

And in this moment the student achieved enlightenment.

You may learn what you really believe in.

Or you may not.

Right now I believe I'll have a cup of coffee....

My Favorite Font: Anne Fadiman, Jonathan Lethem, Richard Posner, and others reveal what font they compose in and why.


========

On the subject of openings, I recall the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the author whose short story had been rejected from a magazine that specialized in "spicy stories."

"There isn't enough sex in it," said the edtior.

"Whaddaya mean?" said the author. "There's sex on the very first page!"

"Yeah, but it's near the bottom."

(This would have been in the days of the pulps, when authors dropped by the editors' offices in New York City to hand in their stories and pick up their checks. Ah, the golden days! We'll never see their likes again....)

=======

Do y'all remember when, back on page 246, I posted this and asked, "Would you turn the page?"
Never have I felt quite so worldly as I did on my very first real date, when, after considered perusal of the wine list, I masterfully commanded the waiter at the Log Cabin restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, to fetch me a bottle of Mateus Rosé. In its distinctive Buddah-shaped bottle, with its slight spritz, it represented a step up from the pink Almaden that my friends and I sucked down in order to get into the proper Dionysian frame of mind for the summer rock concerts at Tanglewood. (And that seemed a classic accompaniment--rather like Chablis and oysters--to the cheap Mexican pot we were smoking at the time.) Later, of course, as I discovered the joys of dry reds and whites, I learned to sneer at pink wine; it seemed--as Winston Churchill once remarked regarding the moniker of an acquaintance named Bossom--that it was neither one thing nor the other. A few summers ago a bottle of Domaines Ott rosé in conjunction with a leg of marinated grilled lamb cured me of this particular prejudice; I thought I'd died and gone to Provence, though in fact I was at my friend Steve's birthday party in the Hamptons.​
Well, ask yourself, punk: Would you?

That's the first page of a published novel. In a bit, a line-by-line to see what the author was doing.

Should I write this new character in third limited as well?

Alas, I don't know that answer. In general, only if it works best that way.

At the moment I have written it in third omni but it just doesn't seem to hold as well as previous chapters.
Ah, then it isn't working.

Try another POV. See if it works better. That's the re-writing stage, though. For now I'd bull through to THE END. But that's me -- something else may work best for you.


Following this, if I write both charcters in third limited how do I write it when they come together?
Try third limited. If it doesn't work ... try something else. No one but you will read your first drafts.

Ken, I can't answer that. The length of the new opening should be as long as it needs to be, but no longer.

I would advise that you wait until you reach "The End" before you add it, though if it's screaming to be written by all means write it.

Next:

Yesterday I watched Pan's Labyrinth on DVD, then immediately afterward watched it again with the director's commentary. What a lovely example of storytelling! May I suggest to y'all that you do the same?

Do y'all know what the one unforgivable sin is? It's being boring. You can get away with almost anything -- as long as you aren't boring.

Pseudonym.

Really.

One of the Things That Happen is the major chain bookstores order to net -- their preorders equal the sales of your last book. But changing your name (as little as using or not using your middle initial) makes you a new author from their point of view.

Write the novel, make it non-boring, and be prepared to have this discussion with your editor.

(As to the question of the sales affecting the sale of your book to another publisher, they'll be looking at sell-through: the ratio of books printed to books that went home in a customer's hand.)

You know what 100% sell-through means? It means the publisher didn't print enough copies.

Optimum sell thorugh? Probably 60-70%. Long before you hit 80% the publisher should be going back to press.

Remember: printing the books is one of the cheapest parts of the entire operation.

It is with great joy that we report that Karen Joy Fowler's novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, is written in the first-person plural.

Now that's a point of view we don't see every day.

Should I just put it aside and work on something else... book five in the other series (my agent's taking a look at those after this one sells), another stand-alone (I have two started)?
Yes, put it aside. If the one on submission doesn't sell it won't have a sequel.

No, don't work on something in another series.

First, write a short story to clear your palate. (See above, this year's Christmas Challenge for one possible way to do this. Hey, mine sold.)

Next, write a totally stand-alone book. Do it this way: Three pages a day, without fail, for three straight months. At the end of that time you will have a book -- and you'll probably have a call-back from your agent.

And watch a couple of movies along the way. And read a few novels just for fun. You have to top off your fun tank. It may be getting low.

(I noticed that there was talk about making a compilation of the more salient bits. Did that come to any fruition? It might be a bit crazy to ask now, considering how long ago that was, but it can't hurt to check.)
Well, yes.

There's the Uncle Jim Undiluted thread, but more than that, there's a book that's in progress based on this thread. My beloved wife and co-author is whipping this raw material into shape. We'll see what comes of that.

Just my posts alone come to over a thousand pages in manuscript format so you see there's some room for trimming and condensation.

You have my official permission to Write Crap.


So there I was, reading the Writer Beware blog, when I read this:



And I was instantly inspired.
Bunstable. Willard Bunstable. The name alone was enough to bring a strong man to his knees. Now Edwin sat in his rented room -- rented by the week, semi-furnished -- and awaited the coming of Willard Bunstable.

A footstep on the stair. A floorboard creaked in the hall. A knock sounded on the cracked door. Edwin opened it timorously. The words came out in a rush:

"Mr. Bunstable! I have it. I mean I'll have it. Thursday. All of the money. I swear!"

Then he noticed that the person standing in the door wasn't wearing a greasy yellow-plaid suit. Wasn't wearing a sneer. Wasn't, in fact, a man. It was flame-haired Jasmine, the smiling minx from the corner donut shop.

"Bunstable problems?" she asked. "Lots of folks have them 'round here. How'd you like to get out of his debt ... permanently?"

For the first time in a month hope suffused Edwin's features. He waved his hand in a gesture of welcome, sweeping her into the room. She walked to the sofa by the window and sat, crossing her legs high up, and leaned back. Edwin shut the door and turned to face her.

"You mean it? Permanently?"

She nodded her head in assent. "Depends on how bad you want it."

"Anything!"

"We'll see." Her smile turned predatory. "We'll see...."

She opened her handbag and pulled out a Colt .45 automatic. She laid the pistol on the couch beside her.

"You aren't asking me to kill Bunstable, are you?"

"No. Nothing that easy." She stared into Edwin's eyes. "But Bunstable will be out of your life. Forever."​
My friends, inspiration is all around us. And you don't even have to hear a scam agent speak at a writers' conference to get it.

Crap? Of course it is! It's first draft. But it's over a page in manuscript format, which means I'm well on the way to a nice, satisfying 6,000 word (24 pages in manuscript format) short story.

Race ya to the end!

Ported from Another Thread:
Should I register my novel's copyright before sending it out to an agent?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: The book probably won't sell anyway, so that's $45 you'll never see again.

Even longer answer: Copyright exists automatically from the moment the work is first fixed in tangible form. The records you make in the course of doing your everyday business, your printouts, your rough drafts, provide more than adequate proof of your original composition.

Longer answer still: Publishers routinely copyright works in their authors' names. Breaking that routine slows them down and costs them. When a new book comes out with a copyright date that's some years earlier (and face it, if you sold your work tomorrow it probably wouldn't hit the shelves for a couple of years) readers in bookstores looking at that date would figure that the book was old, or a reprint. Many would put it back in search of something new.

Go ahead, copyright your book if you have money to burn and can't get to sleep otherwise, but understand that you're wasting your time and money. There is no market for pirated slush. None at all.

Among agents there are two basic kinds: Honest and dishonest. Honest agents aren't going to pirate your work because they don't just want this book, they want your next, and your next, and your next.... Someone who can write a publishable manuscript is rare enough that they aren't going to throw him or her away for a one-shot advantage, and if a book is successful the odds that you wouldn't learn of it approach zero.

A dishonest agent isn't going to pirate the book either, because they couldn't sell a book, even a publishable one, if you held a gun to their head. How are they going to sell a pirated work? Their source of income lies in the fees they collect from writers. Plus, again, if the book has any kind of success, you're certain to find out, and their cheese will be in the slicer for sure then.

An honest publisher isn't going to buy a pirated manuscript because, not only they are honest, but they're going to want to work with the writer to improve the work. No one but the original author could possibly do that.

A dishonest publisher isn't going to "buy" a pirated work because their business depends on the author himself buying multiple copies of his own book to peddle at flea markets. Who's going to have so much ego invested in a manuscript they stole to pay thousands of dollars to pretend to be its author and go from bookstore to bookstore begging the managers to carry a copy?
and
I don't know why you feel you have to say that. I'm not sure what your publishing success is, but the fact that I'm not sure what it is may in fact say something about it. Be that as it may, I don't know if my book will sell. What I do know, is that you certainly don't know whether or not my book will sell. Even if it never sells, you only guessed lucky, 50/50, not because you are aware of my potential in some greater measure than I am.

If one hundred people that I never saw before in my life leapt to their feet in front of me, each one waving a manuscript and saying, "It's my first novel! Will it sell?" I would say to each, "Probably not," without reading a word because for ninety-nine out of those hundred it's true: The book won't sell.

Yes, you have to write the book the best you can.

Yes, you have to polish it until it shines.

Yes, you have to send it out 'til Hell won't have it.

But yes, you have to start writing your next novel (and not a sequel to this one!) the next day, because this one probably won't sell.

Simplifying and moving over out of novels for a minute for the sake of example:

Let's say that you're a short-story writer. Let's say that you write ten stories, and copyright them all. Let's say that one of them sells for $450 (and both of those numbers are completely believable for professional-level short story writers -- selling one out of ten is typical, and $450 for a 9,000 word story is reasonable). At that point, had you copyrighted every one of them your profit would be zero.

Why would you bet $45 on very long odds that have no payoff at all even if you win?

No, you can't copyright plot twists either. Just the actual words on actual paper.

There was one fellow who tried patenting a plot, I think, but I don't know if that was ever challenged in court, and I think it's more a symptom of how the patent system is broken than a real solution to a real problem.

Any plot twist has probably been done before, hundreds or thousands of times, all the way back to Gilgamesh. Plot is only one element of your novel in any case. And ideas -- everyone has ideas. That's why "I have a great idea for a book! You write it and we'll split the money!" is so funny.

By the time you have a unique enough description of your plot twist to copyright it -- you have your novel.

Information like that comes from the literary equivalent of learning about sex by hanging around on streetcorners talking with the other kids who have never done it either.

Say the first word that comes to mind when I say:

Reclusive.


"Author," right?

Authors are frequently solitary, introverted, and not terribly socially ept. The only reason to do a signing is if you think it's fun. Signings are so notoriously ill-attended that there are cartoons: An author sitting behind a table with a pile of his books. The bookstore manager and no one else is present. The manager is talking: "Since it's only the two of us could you read my manuscript?"

The stories about how all authors are expected to go on tours, and how only Beautiful People who will Look Good on Morning Talk Shows can get book deals are just that: stories. Forget them. Go write a good book, then write another.

A book signing, or a launch party, is a bit of a celebration for the author. Think of them as parties and you won't be disappointed. Think of them as Selling and you will be.

Spammer.

Stupid fool thought it would be a good idea to spam one of the threads one of the mods takes a personal interest in?

Bad idea.

(I edited your post to remove the links he was touting.)

Hi, J. A.

Your advice is good as far as it goes, but consider this: America is about 3,000 miles across. My driving range is about 200 miles. If I hit every single bookstore in my driving range it would be a fraction of a percent of all the bookstores in America.

Los Angeles alone has ten times more people than my entire state, and I'm not going to fly out to Los Angeles, rent a car, drive around to bookstores just to introduce myself, and so forth and so on.

And what do I do about my books for sale in Poland? I don't speak Polish and I sure can't afford to fly there just to drop by the bookstores.

Do it if it's fun, but don't go nuts if you can't -- or don't want to.

(BTW, it isn't true that only one in five books make a profit. It may be true that one in five earns royalties beyond the advance, but that's the way the system is designed to work. Publishers start making a profit long before the book earns out.)

I think you're just being paranoid. Your writing credits are to show that someone else thinks that you're writing at a professional level and is willing to bet money that total strangers will agree.

This is all assuming that the book sells to a decent market, of course. The credits that you're listing are your most recent and most prestigious. A string of 1/4 cent-a-word crudzines means that you're writing at that level and have been sucking bottom for a long time. That's more likely to fill an editor's heart with dread than someone with no credits at all, so I'd just leave them out. (I don't list my credits with "little and literary" magazines anywhere.)

There's no percentage in trying to game the system, though. Just tell the truth and go forward.

I don't recommend newspaper ads or printing up bookmarks, either.

True: Obscurity is a far greater problem for authors than piracy will ever be.

Meanwhile:

The reasons people buy books:

#1: Read and enjoyed another book by the same author.
#2: Recommended by a trusted friend.

All the other reasons fade into single-digit percentages.

That's why I say that the best way to promote your book is to write and publish another book.

That's true only you get a chance to publish another book. If your first book doesn't do well enough, book #2 won't sell.

The real gap is with book #3. Book #1 goes out, and it sells what it sells. Book #2 goes out, and you hope it sells better than #1. If it doesn't ... that's when there isn't a book #3 and you have to go to a pseudonym.



Book #1 will only benefit from book #2 if book #1 is still in print.
Write a book a year and this isn't a problem. The other nice thing about putting out books on a regular basis is that when the new book comes out the publisher will often reprint and resolicit your backlist.

Good, free advertising is selling short stories and articles. You reach new audiences, and people who like your writing will seek you out. I've bought many books by new authors after reading shorts by them.
Sure, if you're the multi-talented guy who can write shorts as well as novels. It's as much work to sell a short as a novel, though, and there aren't as many markets. But yes, people who like your short stories will seek out your novels. A short story is less of an investment in a reader's time, so readers are more willing to give a new author a try.

(And if you subscribe to Fantasy and Science Fiction now, you'll be certain to get my next short story ... coming soon!)

(Or, go to my webpage and read some of my stories absolutely free.)

I really have to disagree. As authors we need to write the best books we can.

If you want to understand "giving the reader something on page one that makes him want to turn to page two" as marketing, well, yes, that's an author's job. If you want to understand "give the reader a last chapter that's so strong he wants to run out and get your next book," as marketing, that's a good way to look at it.

Any other marketing we do is invisible if the publisher isn't already doing its job. As far as running around to bookstores takes time and energy away from writing, it's counterproductive.

Do I do signings? Heck yeah. Most recent one was this last Sunday (and my book sold out, thank you very much). But selling eight, ten, twenty, forty books here and there ... I also saw a couple of movies while I was down there and ate some Indian food (the town where I live is so rural and remote that it's an hour's hard drive to the nearest stoplight), and that was the real purpose and the highlight of the weekend. Getting out of the house.

==========

Everyone: Go here: http://www.lulu.com/content/219003 Buy a copy of my book.

Let's just agree to disagree about this.

Selling an extra 500 books is a 1% difference when you're moving 50,000.

Visiting bookstores in New York makes no difference to my sales in California, nor to my sales in Oregon. But I'd better have sales in California and Oregon, too, or I'm out of business.

If it's fun for you, if you enjoy gladhanding, more power to you. It isn't a requirement.

Look at all those self-published guys with double-digit sales. That's what author-promotion without publisher-promotion gets.

Getting more interviews and getting invited to speak at more places don't strike me as major inducements. I did a four-state seven-city tour once. Never again. I'll schedule elective oral surgery instead.

Well, I'm just a mid-list SF/fantasy author, and you know my attitude toward self-promotion. I'd rather drive a spike through my hand than do most of that stuff you've listed as Good Things ... and you know what? My results are about the same as yours, as far as selling and earning out.

So no, I don't see self-promotion as having all that much to do with it.

Self-promotion: People who do it well and enjoy it should do it. People who don't do it well but enjoy it shouldn't do it. People who do it well but don't enjoy it shouldn't do it. People who don't do it well and don't enjoy it definitely shouldn't do it.

There are also agents who are in cahoots with " professional editors." They recommend that you get your book "professionally edited," and supply their chum's name. The "professional editor" sends a kickback.

See, for example, the Edit Ink affair.

Here are some notes on Point of View: link removed via request from other site's Webmaster.
This is, dare I say it, from the point of view of a filmmaker, but all the arts are related, and the story-telling arts more closely so.

Anodyne, have you been a good little girl? Did you eat all your vegetables? Did you write at least two pages of original prose fiction today? Very well!

Your assignment is to pick up a magazine that you've never previously read, preferably in a genre you don't like, find a short story, and read it from beginning to end.

Then go to your public library, find a novel in that same genre, and read it from beginning to end.

The reason for the short story is to give you an idea of the reading protocols for the novel.

Now: what worked, and what didn't, in that novel, and why?

Or:

If this is too onerous (or if you really, really want that creepy crawlers gross-out treats factory), go to a video-rental store. Get a movie you've never seen before (or read any reviews of). Watch it with the sound off. (Films with subtitles don't count.)

Now write a short story based on the story you think you just saw. You have a week for 6,000 words.

If you're a natural novelist, write a novel instead. You have three months.

Let me know when you've done it....

For Celtic Knotwork, I'm not necessarily talking about characters. I'm talking about themes, I'm talking about moving foreground to background and back.

It's partly mechanical, it's partly as a reminder that things have to change, partly because readers have constantly moving focus of attention.

Mostly, though, it's (one of the many) ways I Do Things. If it's useful to you, if it helps you get a grasp on your plot -- then that's good. If it isn't useful, move on to another mode of construction.

I'm working my way backwards through this wonderful thread.

Thank you, and you're quite welcome.

And I ran across something I'd forgotten, which is the power of the complete rewrite; pick up your first draft and then type it all back in again, adapting as you go....


I burned---oh how I burned---through text as quickly as I could.

...

How I do love writing. I'd forgotten. How could I forget. I feel possessed.

You have to love it. Make it burn, light your world. That's the joy. That's what this art is all about. Publishing? Pfah! Nice, but not the biggest reward.

(Oh -- and I recall my AP History exam back in High School, where the essay question was on the outcome of WWII, and I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the sole unique outcome of WWII was the composition of the song "Dirty Gertie from Bizerte." During the course of the essay I quoted most of the lyrics. (Dirty Gertie, among her other adventures, hid a mousetrap 'neath her skirtie, baited it with fleur-de-flirtie, made her boyfriends' fingers hurtie, and made her boyfriends most alertie. (She was voted, in Bizerte, 'Miss Latrine' for 1930.) I got an 800.....)


Hey Uncle Jim and all,

I finished my novel. First book, third draft.

Woo hoo! Go, you!

Go, have a pizza! See a movie! Have a long chat with a friend! ... And write the first chapter for your next book.




Congratulations!

Mitch, I see you've been a member here for two years, and I see your first post has been in this thread. I am honored.

Sounds good, but I used to do the same, and found that 3.5 floppies are very prone to damage, even when carefully placed in a protective case.

and

Saving to Amazon S3 does. So far I have been paying maybe 5 cents a month for storage and transfer, access from anywhere, all encrypted, and things don't get lost.

Save, save, save. Every day. And save some more.

The thing that I find is the absolute best, though, is Save to Paper. Hardcopy has some real advantages....


Oh--and how I spent my morning. Sitting in my favorite coffee shop (Le Rendezvous, in downtown Colebrook) going over the galleys for "Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita" coming soon (probably December) in Fantasy and Science Fiction (Subscribe now! Don't miss a single thrilling issue!)

First paragraph (I'm really happy with it):

William Sharps (Ph.D., Harvard, 1844) sat in the dining room of the Coroana de Aur hotel in Bistrita and listened to two men plotting to kill him.

I'm going to go along with Allen and Stew21 -- get it written, out to The End, then reread, revise, rewrite.

And 250 pages per day is a novel a year. Which is Perfectly Respectable.

There are still plenty of markets for short stories. Check out Duotrope.

Arrrrgh! Words per day! Not Pages!

On my very best day I've only managed a bit over a hundred pages.

(250 pages a day is three novels a week.)

http://www.sff.net/people/yog/permission.pdf

Permission To Write Badly. Suitable for framing.



Give it three months in your desk drawer while you write something else.

This isn't even the longest thread at Absolute Write.

Meanwhile, here's an Index to Miss Snark.

Beginning tomorrow I'll be away at Viable Paradise.

Here's how that ended up last year.
 
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Dawno

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Duotrope needs help to stay free. If you can donate, please do so.

http://www.duotrope.com/

(Note: I am not affiliated with Duotrope in any way. I just think it's a heck of a neat service and would serve all writers better by staying open and available to all writers.)

Adsense is a blot on the face of the 'net.

But don't ask me. Ask the Duotrope people -- I don't know any of them.

I mean the Adsense ads. Google ads.

Anything you see advertised that's writing-related is usually an ad for a scammer. Perhaps that extends to areas I don't know as well, perhaps not, but for writers, it's scams all the way down.

Much of the time the ads that are served are hilariously mis-aimed.

If someone wants to be supported by advertising, well and good, but they ought to pick their ads, not accept whatever random stuff shows up.

===========

Having said that, here's a place that supports itself with Adsense ads, but is nevertheless useful.

http://nine.frenchboys.net/index.php

Go, and pick up Random Stuff to use in your stories (for those days when the inspiration just doesn't arrive on time).

My secret shame revealed.

In the Boston Globe.

Where I'll be tomorrow: Book 'Em.

This is your chance (O ye New Hampshire/Vermont/Massachusetts/Maine fans) to visit.

A very clever thing indeed:
Stephanie Zvan's Very Smart Writer's Spreadsheet


It's a tool for looking at a story scene-by-scene, and making each scene explain why it's in your story. You use the spreadsheet software that you probably already have to make this work.

Heck, the first draft you're still groping around trying to figure out what the book is about. Second draft is where it starts coming together.

Speaking of which, we're starting to run some bits of deleted draft from one of my old novels in our LiveJournal over at http://mist-and-snow.livejournal.com/

These are scenes that were cut early on from The Apocalypse Door.

Do you remember way back here when I posted...

Never have I felt quite so worldly as I did on my very first real date, when, after considered perusal of the wine list, I masterfully commanded the waiter at the Log Cabin restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, to fetch me a bottle of Mateus Rosé. In its distinctive Buddah-shaped bottle, with its slight spritz, it represented a step up from the pink Almaden that my friends and I sucked down in order to get into the proper Dionysian frame of mind for the summer rock concerts at Tanglewood. (And that seemed a classic accompaniment--rather like Chablis and oysters--to the cheap Mexican pot we were smoking at the time.) Later, of course, as I discovered the joys of dry reds and whites, I learned to sneer at pink wine; it seemed--as Winston Churchill once remarked regarding the moniker of an acquaintance named Bossom--that it was neither one thing nor the other. A few summers ago a bottle of Domaines Ott rosé in conjunction with a leg of marinated grilled lamb cured me of this particular prejudice; I thought I'd died and gone to Provence, though in fact I was at my friend Steve's birthday party in the Hamptons.
... and asked "would you turn the page?"

The time has come for a line-by-line, to discover what this author was doing and how he was doing it.

That's the first page from Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar by Jay McInerney. Five sentences; 201 words.


Never have I felt quite so worldly as I did on my very first real date, when, after considered perusal of the wine list, I masterfully commanded the waiter at the Log Cabin restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, to fetch me a bottle of Mateus Rosé.
Never have I felt ... is an unusual word order. Primacy of place in the sentence, and the whole book, to "Never." The author introduces his main character, who happens to be himself. The book is in First Person. "So worldly," combined with the never, tells us that the author feels less worldly now. "Very first real date" tells us that we're looking at a young adult (probably a teenager, from the days when the drinking age was 18). Certainly someone who's callow, and mistaken about being worldly at all. The "wine list" contrasts with the "Log Cabin Restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts" to produce an irony--the waiter there would hardly have been a wine sophisticate--which leads us to the punchline "Mateus Rosé." This is a lovely description; we can see a young man trying to impress his date, (the "lengthy perusal"). What kind of a wine list would a place called the Log Cabin have? Nothing there would be anything other than common, and probably cheap.


In its distinctive Buddah-shaped bottle, with its slight spritz, it represented a step up from the pink Almaden that my friends and I sucked down in order to get into the proper Dionysian frame of mind for the summer rock concerts at Tanglewood.
Pure description at the head of this sentence, leads into a memory within a memory, from that first real date, to earlier, and even more callow teenager invoking the Roman god of wine. Dionysus (another name for Bacchus), suggests wild, larger-than-life, heroic drinking and merrymaking. We're tending to the orgy side of the scale. This, by someone who has never been on a date. He's trying, oh yes. The author is looking back on his younger self with amusment and fondness. The horrors of pink Almaden are explained by example: the use it's put to by young men heading to second-rate rock concerts.


(And that seemed a classic accompaniment--rather like Chablis and oysters--to the cheap Mexican pot we were smoking at the time.)
Comparison--Chablis and oysters--pink Almaden and cheap Mexican pot. We're putting rose wine in a category, one that only the young, inexperienced, unsophisticated, would enjoy. This parenthetical is the shortest, simplest one on this page. The other sentences are grammatically complicated, revealing the speaker's character as a someone who is infinitely worldly.

Later, of course, as I discovered the joys of dry reds and whites, I learned to sneer at pink wine; it seemed--as Winston Churchill once remarked regarding the moniker of an acquaintance named Bossom--that it was neither one thing nor the other.
"Of course." With a historical allusion, a slightly risque joke that slows us down to get the flavor. This sophisticated person speaks of the "joys of dry reds and whites." He sneers at pink wines. Three sentences in and we have a very good idea of this character. We also have the first inkling of the plot: the classic "The Man Who Learned Better."

A few summers ago a bottle of Domaines Ott rosé in conjunction with a leg of marinated grilled lamb cured me of this particular prejudice; I thought I'd died and gone to Provence, though in fact I was at my friend Steve's birthday party in the Hamptons.
Our speaker is a true gormand; "died and gone to Provence." No longer are we in Tanglewood, we're in the Hamptons (well known for being an expensive neighborhood just chock-a-block with urban sophisticates. Marinated grilled lamb is a world away from the Whoppers that we can imagine the author's younger self eating when the cheap pot gave him the munchies. We've also met a second named character: his friend Steve. The date he took to the Log Cabin and the nameless friends who went to rock concerts aren't important and the reader won't think about them. Now we have someone to keep in mind. The author is also breaking out of the total self-absorption of the young and into a wider head-space, developing his own character.

And who is Steve? Someone who lives in the Hamptons, serves grilled lamb, and is able to teach someone who thinks he knows about wine, and who apparently is a world traveler, something new about the drink.

So. Character revealed in every sentence. Complex compound sentences. Using the Flesch-Kincaid scale, this piece of writing is at the 16th grade level (senior in college).

We've seen several tricks used to slow the reader down, to make the reader sip the prose the way our narrator would sip his wine.

And so... would you turn the page?

In the big divide between Character-Based and Plot-Based writing, this book seems to me to be very firmly on the Character-Based side.

But let's look at the genre a bit: there's a sub-genre called "Bob and Me," in which two people learn something together. It's a novelistic approach to non-fiction. You can find it anywhere -- from the columns in Byte magazine through Popular Mechanics and on. The reader will be aware of the book's title: Bacchus and Me. We're being promised a Bacchanal: an orgy characterized by heavy drinking. The subtitle promises "adventures." The wine cellar is a low place. That tension, the urban sophisticate we're meeting now and the reveler that the title promises, can drive us a bit.

McInerney's works ought to have a little disclaimer on the cover: Warning, professional stunt writer on a closed course. Do not attempt this at home.

But there is nothing that a writer should not attempt at home.

A perennial question on the boards here is, "Can I write about an unlikeable main character?" The answer is, "Yes."

Even if this main character is utterly loathsome (and I don't really see him that way right now), casting him in first-person means that the character will attempt to justify himself. Since every man is the hero of his own story ....

If you do find yourself trying to write an unlikeable character as your protagonist, consider going the first-person route.

The secret to getting your readers to follow any character (likeable, unlikeable, sympathetic, unsympathetic) is to make that character move. You can't follow someone who's standing still. (The best you can do is mill about in that person's general location.)

The eye always follow the object that's in motion.

Readers don't consciously drag this stuff out. They find the meaning they need. Writers don't necessarily put the material in cold-bloodedly, either. It could (should?) be just what feels right.

Please notice that the act of building the character started in the first sentence of the first paragraph on the first page. There isn't a line that isn't devoted to defining the character.

...and we're all caught up!
 

ArcticFox

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Just wanted to say I had a lovely time meeting "Uncle Jim" and Debra last Saturday! They were both awesome and had candy!!!! If you get a chance to go to one of their signings go, go!
 

jack lee

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good inspiration. I will try later to do my own index for myself when I posted too many to trace. so people can always read my writing.