Write It Down

If you have an idea, a great quote, or a specific piece of action you want to happen in your work, write it down.  Carry a notepad with you or go immediately to wherever you keep your notepad and write down that great idea.

I have a small piece of scratch paper on my desk.  On it, I keep all of my blog ideas.  However, I sometimes have a great idea while in line at the grocery store or on a walk with my dog.  I always think, “I’ll be able to remember that.”  Know what?  I almost never do? 

Maybe you have an eidetic memory.  I don’t.  I have a very good memory, better than most(although usually applying to stuff from a long time ago), but I forget in the short term.  And then I flail for what to write.

So don’t do that.  You don’t have to be very specific unless there’s a very specific thing you want, but you need enough that it’ll job your memory.  Otherwise, you’ll lose a lot, and that’s not the way good writers become great writers. 

Money Misperceptions

I came across a thread on The Passive Voice where some folks were lamenting that, in their perception, some writers weren’t getting the same advances that others were getting.  I understand that, but the underlying supposition throughout the article was that an advance is just money in pocket, and once you get that, you’ll then earn from the sales of the book.

Folks, advances are just that – advances.  They are money the publisher thinks your book may make.  If you get an advance, then you won’t get paid again until that advance earns out, meaning that revenue from sales have to out-earn the advance.  Then, and only then, will you make more money.

Then there is the great misperception about advances and who gets them.  No matter what I think of traditional publishers, they exist to make money, and they don’t just hand out advances out of the goodness of their hearts.  If you are a proven author with a history of making them money, they’re more likely to give an advance as an incentive to keep you around.  On the other hand, if you’re a newbie with no record of sales, any advance is going to be commiserate with their feelings on the book.

Basically, don’t get bent out of shape over the size of an advance.  Most books fail to earn out their advance, so publishers don’t give big ones most of the time.  If you have something great, count on your sales.  Until then, please figure out how advances work so you don’t look a) stupid, and b) whiny.

2nd Readings

I read books several times if I enjoy them.  In fairness, I rarely finish a book I dislike, but I’ll read one that’s good over and over again.  What I’ve found, especially if that second or third reading doesn’t happen for a while, is that I gain a greater level of comprehension than I did the first time.

A first reading is a rollercoaster ride of jumbled emotions and unpredictable twists.  Since I don’t know what’s going to happen, I find myself a little more on edge, and that means I miss stuff.  However, when I already know the basic outline of a story, I feel able to relax a little more and appreciate what I missed the first time.

I rediscovered this with Heir To The Empire.  I love Tim Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy, but I hadn’t read any of it in more than a decade.  I picked it up again on a whim while waiting for something to arrive at my house, and I found myself enthralled again.  Yet this time I picked up on nuances I failed to notice previously.  I could better imagine the crypt on Wayland and the guards who shot at Thrawn.  And better seeing the meeting between Talon Karrde and Mara Jade came off easier in my mind(I’d overlooked completely it was a dinner meeting).  Seeing those things was a reminder that stories shouldn’t die once they’re over the first time.

Twisted Endings

It’s no secret that I usually prefer happy endings.  Yes, I may write dark stories, but that’s in order to justify a happier ending.  Happy endings give us closer and validate why we picked up the book in the first place – to feel better.  I know that’s at least why I pick up a story.

However, there are some stories that are not practical for a happy ending, especially when the way it ends is the entire point of the story.  That usually applies to horror novels, and it seems I have a story in mind where it will apply as well…

So what creates the need for a less than happy ending?  It really depends on what the purpose of the story is.  Is the story’s purpose to give chills and create foreboding.  Books in a series sometimes need this in order to draw in the audience for the next story.  Sometimes, however, a writer just wants to have a story not end well.

As I said, I usually don’t like this.  But it is useful on rare occasion when an author wants to throw off the audience.  If your stories always end happily, then throwing the reader for a loop so that they can’t predict your work has value.  If it becomes a habit, it will turn off readers who expect a certain standard from you since those looking for less-than-happy endings are a completely different audience, but an occasional swerve can shore up an audience before it grows bored.  The ending still needs to fit the story, but it can make sense, even if only rarely.

Sequeling Happy Endings

Sometimes stories should stand alone.  They are complete and satisfying.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t always mean they’ll be left alone…especially if there’s money involved.

Some stories are meant for multiple parts – Harry Potter, the original Star Wars trilogy, The Avengers, etc.  Some stories are not, and these are usually stories that wrapped everything up but made more money than expected, so someone broke out a new story within that universe, and it ruined our happy ending.

Take Taken, for example.  The first movie was never meant to be a franchise.  It was a fun romp that Liam Neeson took part in because he figured it would be his only chance to play an action hero.  By the end of the movie, Brian had his daughter back, the bad guys were dead, and the human trafficking ring had been smashed.  All was well, right?

Wrong.

Since Taken made a boatload more money than ever expected, it spawned two sequels that undid the happy ending of the first.  By the third, Brian’s wife was dead, and the step-dad from the first was the new villain.  Even winning didn’t piece together Brian’s life again.

And that’s the problem with sequeling things out into oblivion.  We get invested in the characters, and we want to see them happy, whether they’re real or not.  Yet by continuing stories, we have to introduce new conflict, and that new conflict almost invariably washes away the happiness the characters found in the original.  There is little more frustrating than feeling closure over a story, only to have it ripped apart because someone wanted a quick buck.

I promise that I won’t ever write a new story just to make more money(as if I make much now).  The story will either be natural or it won’t happen.  That said, some of you might not be happy with the sequel to Akeldama, even if I planned it out long ago…

Character Versus Story

The age-old writing question is whether plot or characters are more important.  Does the plot create the characters, or do the characters drive the plot?

Think about two stories within the same universe.  In Star Wars: A New Hope, there is an evil galactic empire blowing up planets, and stopping that is the main thrust of the story.  As a result, characters have to evolve.  Luke Skywalker goes from whiny teenager to noble hero.  Han Solo goes from self-serving egotist to a self-sacrificing swashbuckler.  Even Grand Moff Tarkin goes from evil bureaucrat to cunning genius who fails due to his arrogance.  The plot created those characters.

In Heir To The Empire, on the other hand, Grand Admiral Thrawn is the character.  It’s his machinations that drive forward the plot of using clones and stolen ships to re-conquer the Empire.  Joruus C’Baoth was a mad Jedi Master who became a focal point of Luke’s journey.  In this case, the characters created the story.

So which is the best?  The answer, as usual, is that it depends.  What are you trying to say as a writer?  In Salvation Day, the main character created the story.  You couldn’t just put anyone into that tale; Mike Faulkner and his situation is what pushed him to confront God.  However, in Schism, the Second American Civil War is the plot, and it makes the characters react to it, such as how Dean Turlman decides to end his journey.  Without the Second Civil War, Turlman is just a bot.

My advice would be to figure out at the beginning what you want to do.  In my latest novel, a sci-fi/fantasy mashup I’m working on, the story will drive the characters, and I knew that from the outset.  Yes, each of the characters is fine, but the story would go on without them, so their development will be story-based.  As long as you pick one track over the other, your story should be fine.

Bad Guys Gone Good

What is with this desire in later stories to see our bad guys go good?  I’ve noticed this trend in recent years, and it kind of drives me bananas.  It’s one thing for a simple character redemption when that’s part of the overall arc, but it seems to me that many want to upend story-society by turning bad guys good.  Sorry, but aren’t bad guys bad for a reason?

It hit me the other day while reading the Thrawn Trilogy again.  I think I’ve stated previously that I believe giving Thrawn his own books took away some of the mystery, but even so, his arc, along with that of several Imperial characters, changed with the Yuuzhon Vong’s arrival.  Suddenly, the Emperor and the Empire weren’t just being power-mad baddies, but were seizing control to prepare the galaxy for the arrival of its greatest threat.

What?!?!

This changes the dynamic of the entire Star Wars Universe and makes the Emperor a visionary.  Must admit that I really dislike this since it entirely changes emotional appeals and reasons for being.  And this dynamic is present in other works too – demons in Tad Williams’ DirtyStreets of Heaven trilogy are trying to re-create a new Heaven in conjunction with rogue angels so that mankind can retain some free will, Wicked sees the Wicked Witch of the West as a misunderstood woman, and Magneto becomes a sympathetic anti-hero in X-Men.  Why?

Maybe because we all want to see good in everyone, but I like villains that are…well…villains.  It provides a constant in a world of chaos.  You don’t see Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes being turned into someone who was doing his evil deeds to protect orphans or some such.  Having an evil person remain evil is, oddly enough, a comfort to us since it means we know who to root against.  Given the vagaries and shifting alliances of our own real world, shouldn’t that be something to be celebrated?

Slow Typing

I can be impatient at times.  Like most people – more than will admit – I want to get to the end and have something I can be proud of.  This is especially frustrating when I’m writing.

Great stories take time to develop, but once I know what I want to say, I want to get it on paper as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, I can only write so fast.  Yes, I write pretty quickly(between 50-60 words a minute), but there is so much story to get out that it feels as if I’m typing with molasses on my fingers.  This leads to me being incredibly frustrated when I want to put a new story on paper.

It can also hold me back, because it feels like there is so much to write, and I can only type so fast.  The story takes forever to develop.  However, maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe it’s teaching me patience that I need.

(a side note – no, I won’t do talk to text…that eliminates the visceral feel of writing for me)

In the end, it’s about focus and patience, and that’s hard.  It’s hard for all of us.  Someday some smart computer will be able to directly download my thoughts into paper, but until then, I’ll simply have to deal with a great story being in my head and waiting to get out, but being unable to due to the physical limitations of the universe.  Maybe we should look into a way to fix that…

Books and Bookshelves

I’ve written in the past about my love more for physical books than ebooks.  However, physical books take up physical space, and physical space is limited.

Yet I’ve recently been able to more than double my bookshelf space.  I moved with my family to Tennessee last year, and I’ve needed to update my office furniture.  Unfortunately, what I wanted was expensive, so I’ve only recently been able to afford it.  Yet now that I’ve got it, it is wonderous.

I was able to organize my collection by author and subject matter – a great thing for an OCD freak like myself – and I discovered I had TONS of extra space.  It helped that I had to throw out some books from when I lived in Kansas in order to meet the weight requirements for the moving company, but I still suspected my shelves would be more full than they ended up being.

This means I can get some more physical books, which will provide me with a more visceral reading experience.  I still plan to be discerning with what I buy in physical form, both for expense and to not fill up too quickly, but I’m excited that while my library looks formidable, it’s not complete.  I can put more on my shelves, possibly a lot more than I once did because the shelves are larger and deeper, and there are more of them.

The big worry will come once these shelves get full…

Bookstore Survival

One of my greatest fears in this pandemic is kind of selfish.  I’ve previously written about how I love to just spend an afternoon browsing a bookstore, but with everything going on, I wonder how bookstores survive.

Regardless of what you think of all of these governmental restrictions – and I definitely have my own thoughts – they are in place, and many small businesses are not going to survive.  Bookstores in particular rely on casual traffic to make most of their sales.  After all, with Amazon and other sites online nowadays, people who have a specific book in mind usually just go online to buy it since it’s more convenient.  However, walking through a bookstore gets people interested in stuff they never considered, or reminds them, “Oh yeah, I forgot that was coming out; I’ll go ahead and grab it now.”  But if people can’t walk through a bookstore, they can’t buy from that store.

Now, there is a bit of irony in places like Barnes & Noble being the “small businesses” after once being the behemoths that ran small mom and pop stores out of business.  The entire plot of You’ve Got Mail revolved about a giant book retailer putting Meg Ryan’s tiny little shop out of business.  Now, unfortunately, the virus and online retailers are doing that to brick and mortar stores.

However, if that happened., I think we book lovers would lose a vital part of our lives.  Books are about more than picking a specific one and sitting down to read it.  They’re about finding the right tome in the midst of other tomes.  They’re about breathing in the environment, as one book may inspire you to find another.  Or maybe to find something you didn’t even know you were interested in.

Hopefully this ends soon.  When it does, go to a bookstore and find something you love.  Then buy it from that bookstore.  Otherwise you’ll lose something you love, and you’ll be at fault.

Wokester Storytime

I think all of you know how I feel about the woke-scolds that have invaded our entertainment culture.  Perpetually aggrieved and unable to find joy in anything but moral preening, these hipsters seem determined to take the joy out of any story.  The latest example comes from CNN.

Full disclosure – I have not yet seen The Mandalorian.  I would like to, but I haven’t signed up for Disney+ because I’m cheap, and my time is at a premium right now.  So until some stuff clears up, it’ll have to wait.

Still, as a huge Star Wars nerd, I’ve got the basic gist, and I look forward to watching it.  I also know that when petty little assholes get hold of their latest cause, they can’t let it go.  In this case, the writer for CNN treats The Mandalorian not as an entertainment show, but as something we need to be lectured about.  Because they aren’t PETA friendly.  They kill…Krayt Dragons!

Maybe the writer doesn’t know this, but Krayt Dragons AREN'T REAL.  It’s a TV show, and it’s designed to entertain.  The Mandalorian isn’t herding kids into pits and lighting them on fire before proclaiming allegiance to Der Fuhrer.  It’s not spouting racist screeds or advocating to put women into…say…red outfits and slave them for the purposes of procreation.  It’s telling a story about a sci-fi culture that it completely made up.

If something in The Mandalorian upsets you, maybe you shouldn’t watch it rather than bitch about how it doesn’t conform to your woke version of the world and isn’t enlightened enough.  Find a preachy show for that.  Oh, wait…hard to do that since most folks don’t want their entertainment to preach to them.  It’s an escape from the bullshit we have to listen to in every other facet of our lives.  Why is that so hard to understand?

Projecting Greatness

I think most folks want to be heroes.  Who hasn’t envisioned themselves saving the princess, hitting the winning homerun, or rescuing the orphans?  A streak or heroism runs through our veins, even if we may be cowards in real life.

Writers are no different, but we tend to put those fantasies on paper.  Moreover, we tend to project our desire for greatness onto our characters.  We’d like to be smarter, stronger, or more daring.  As I said previously, that doesn’t mean we’ll write perfect characters – who relates to a perfect character? – but we will project our desires to be noble onto those we write about.

Read any book, and you’re likely to see who the writer wants to be from how the main character acts.  Stephen King writes people who are self-sacrificing and introspective.  Tad Williams writes characters who are snarky but have a heart of gold.  It’s because we know these folks will be admired by the reader, and, secretly, we feel that admiration through those characters.  That’s how we’d like to be seen by the world at large.

Is that self-serving?  Sure…but who cares?  Few people bare their souls as much as writers.  What we write channels our innermost desires, but that doesn’t mean we’re the only ones with such desires, for our readers glom onto our characters because they secretly wish they had those traits too.

Writing With Glasses

I always prided myself on my vision.  I was 20/10 and 20/15 when I was in my 20s and 30s.  I liked being able to tell people my vision was better than perfect.  I could read all day long and write all night long, and my eyes kept pace.

Then I started getting old.

Around about 2013, I noticed that I couldn’t read close up anymore.  However, being the stubborn bastard I am, I resisted going in and getting seen until it was no longer possible to read unless I pushed the book as far out in front of me as I could.  That’s when they told me I needed reading glasses.  Yup, thanks God – love the design that breaks down with age, along with all of Your other physical gifts(I mean seriously, do we really need to pee several times a day?).

Over time, my eyesight has only gotten worse.  I’ve had to start writing with these damn things on.  As anyone who wears glasses intermittently will tell you, wearing them for long periods – pretty much required to read or write anything substantive – makes your eyes tired.  Beyond that, once you take the glasses off, your vision is screwed up for a couple of hours afterwards too.

This has made writing a bit more of a chore than it once was.  I still enjoy it, but I can’t go for the marathon sessions I used to.  I wish this could be corrected, but I’ve bene assured that this is just the way things are as we age.  I still have excellent vision when not reading something up close, but I love to read, and I love to write.  That makes this fatigue a necessity.  And that just sucks.

Okay, gripe-fest over for now.