Battling Perceptions

I touched on this a little bit before when talking about folks I didn’t think really “got” the point of some of my work, but it spawned a deeper thought session my mind – author perceptions of their work versus audience perceptions of it.

When writers write, we have certain ways we want our work to come across.  We have certain themes we see as essential to what we’re trying to write.  But what if the audience sees our work in a different light?

This can be frustrating as a writer.  Can’t you just get what we’re trying to say?  Are you too stupid to see it?  These are the inner(and sometimes, stupidly, outer) voices we use in our annoyance.  However, I’ve often said that reading is subjective, so should we accept it on the part of our own stories too?

For example, I see Salvation Day as a deeply emotional book about a struggle with grief and faith, but a few have seen it as an adventure story with no deeper meaning.  Wrongful Death, to me, may be the weakest book of mine, but I’ve spoken to some who have found grand meaning to their own lives within its pages.  So how do we control the perception readers have?

Bottom line is that we can’t.  We can try our best to drive a story in a certain direction, but in the end, it’s the audience that will decide for itself what they find.  We can try to better explain, if asked, but it’s not our mind.

That all said, it’s kind of humorous when sequels stay on the lines of perception we wanted them to but upset the perceptions of the audience.  😉

Happy Versus Realistic

I’m sure the answer this question depends on who the reader is, but I recently wondered whether audiences want more happy stories or more realistic stories.

If you haven’t seen the Epic Rap Battles of History on YouTube, you’re missing out on funny and sometimes insightful stuff.  One of my favorites is the battle between George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien.  During this  awesome battle of literary giants, the guy playing Tolkien makes the point that “We all know the world is full of chance and anarchy, so yes it’s true to life for characters to die randomly.  But news flash – the genre’s called fantasy!  It’s meant to be unrealistic, you myopic manatee!”  I’d say it’s safe to say that there aren’t all that many redeeming characters in Martin’s writing, while Tolkien has a whole host of them.  So should writing in this genre be “happy” or “realistic.”  I also think such a commentary can be extended to all of our writing in general.

Do readers prefer stories that will turn out well, or do they want stories more true to life.  Let’s face it – life can be pretty shitty.  When I want shitty, I’ll go to the news.  However, when I watch for entertainment, I look to be uplifted.  That is probably just a personal preference, but how many share that preference?  Even if the story gets dark, do folks besides myself want a lighter ending?

Outlining Through Fantasy

I’ve said previously that although I recognize how necessary outlining is to me in order to create a coherent piece of writing, I’ve also talked about not liking outlining since it can be tedious(and I far prefer actually writing).  However, there is a form of outlining that I enjoy, even if it’s unconventional, and that’s outlining through fantasy.

This type of outlining does not involve me sitting in a chair with a notebook and a pen.  Instead, it involves me walking my dog, mowing my lawn, or trying to fall asleep.  In short, it’s done through me doing a tedious task that let’s my mind play things out as an intellectual exercise.

I’ve done this with several of my novels.  I think I spoke before about how the long walks with my dog in Kansas and Hawaii produced Salvation Day.  I had to eventually write it down so I could remember both the substance and its structure, but the thinking itself was free flow and fun.  It let’s me become part of a different world and acts as an escape from the normal routine of life.  I often go to bed thinking about some small tidbit that I think will be fun, never intending it to be a story, and it just evolves.  Homecoming started out that way(actually, it was the backstory of Homecoming that started that way, and it got me wondering about what happened down the road).  It helps me fall asleep and I don’t get frustrated my lying there awake for an hour.

Someday, I hope someone will come up with a way to transfer my thoughts directly to an outline or page of writing, but until that happens, I’m stuck with this two-phase approach to outlining(fantasy, then writing it down).  The first is fun; the other is a grind sometimes.  But both are necessary to producing a coherent story.

Astroturfing

Has anyone heard the term “Astroturf?”  No, I don’t mean that fake green stuff on football fields – I’m talking about using others you know in a way to give an artificial picture of support.  Political activists do this all the time to bring in paid protestors and give the illusion that more people support their cause than actually do.

Writers can do this as well.  How many of the Amazon reviews you see are from parents, friends, or just people the author knows, and who told them what to say?  Worse yet, how many writers go in and Astroturf themselves, providing fake reviews for their own work?  Here’s some advice on this – DON’T DO IT!

First off, fake reviews are pretty easy to sniff out.  They’re universally five stars, and they rarely, if ever, talk about the book beyond general platitudes.  Now I see nothing wrong with asking folks you know to read your book and provide an honest review, but shilling for others or yourself to boost your stock is both unethical and potentially disastrous.  Once it gets out that a writer is reviewing his or her own work, that writer’s credibility has been destroyed, and not just for that particular novel – forever.

Think about it – how would you trust any decent review for that writer’s work ever again?  To me, it also strikes me as the height of insecurity that you’d have to review your own work, because it tells me that a) you couldn’t get enough people to read your stuff to give an independent review, and b) you didn’t think your work was good enough to get an honestly good review.

Look, I get it – I’ve gotten good reviews and I’ve gotten bad reviews.  The bad ones can sting.  But so what?  Unless they’re uniformly bad, in which case you need to figure out why and improve, why do you care what some rando on the internet says about your work?  You’re not going to take long showers with them into the wee hours of the morning, so shake it off.

I bring all of this up because a writer buddy of mine recently asked me about this.  It had never occurred to me before to do this, and it immediately struck me as a bad idea.  The more I thought about it, the worse the idea got.  Just…just no.

Proofing Blogposts

I knead to proof my blot posts a little better.  I went back to sea how my most recent posts played, and I say that on of the posts had several errors in it.  All of the words were spelled if one only used spell check, but is reads very clumsily win you reed through it since many of the words are not the proper usage of them.  It maid me cringe when I looked at the post a gain, four a professional writer is supposed to catch these things before they go life.  If nothing else, it was a heck of a lesson on not using spell cheque as the soul tool to validate you’re work.  I thought I read through all of my posts for just that level of accuracy, but it seams I didn’t do it very well for that pots.  I’ll dew better in the future.

(if you made it through that morass, congratulations on both being able to wade through such an abominable bit of nonsense, and for maintaining your sense of humor as you did so; that’s not always easy)

Taste and Critique Subjectivity

It’s always interesting to see the varying ways reviewers see a story.  No, I’m not advocating, and never would, engaging with reviewers online.  Doing that makes you look petty and can become a time-suck.  All I’m talking about is seeing how people look at the same story in different ways(proving, yet again, that reading tastes are subjective).

This came back to me again as I read a pair of reviews for Homecoming.  The first one, from someone who didn’t care for it, said, “The novel is written as a set of journal entries from a not engaging narrator chronicling humanity's return to Earth after thousands of years of exile among the stars. As sci fi, I found it unbelievable as the author appears not to have a full grasp of the sheer distances involved (I will always give a pass to what version of FTL travel is use because of its necessity for story purposes) and frankly how to run a naval style battle. Never fear though because Future Humans have technology out the wazoo as the narrator tells you from page one. To call any of the characters cardboard is an insult to hard working packaging materials, and conflict is never built up so the stakes are not higher at the end of the book compared to the beginning. Frankly, the part that was the sample from Amazon was the highpoint of the book and quality wise only goes downhill from there. Too bad because I think the germ of the idea could have been interesting if better developed but as it stands now, I was mad to have spent the time finishing the book.”

Obviously that wasn’t the warmest of reviews.  However, the next one said, “Great book! I didn't expect the journal format, but I enjoyed it. I really liked the premise, and I liked the fact that the main character was a historian trying to come to grips with the idea that the history he knows might not be the history that happened. The human race in the book seems incredibly arrogant and unfeeling toward other life to the point where it seems unrealistic, but then you sit back and consider their history and how their booming population, now in the trillions, makes a few million dead people seem like a rounding error to them. The author doesn't spoon feed you the information, which I like.”

As I continued pondering these disparate reviews, both made me laugh, but only in conjunction.  Each one individually has things to take away, but when looked at together, they show very different takes on the exact same story.  What it tells me is, once again, write a story you would like, for some will enjoy it(if you have a smidge of talent), and some won’t.  But when you try to write to please others in ways that aren’t organic, your story will feel artificial.  If the reviews were uniformly negative, it would be a trend to examine, but when some enjoy and others don’t, it tells me that reading tastes vary, and tailoring a story to what you think the audience wants rather than the way you want is a futile exercise.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t listen and try to improve your craft, but it does say that you have to evaluate criticism on your own to see if it makes sense, and that applies to both critical and laudatory critiques.

Impossibilities

I was getting a critique of one of my books, and the person told me something along the lines of, “You can’t go faster than light.  The Law of Relativity prohibits it.”

No shit?

I don’t mean to be crass, but aren’t some of the technologies we use in our work not possible in real life?  Isn’t that part of the point of fiction in the first place, to bridge the gap between reality and make-believe so that our story can take place?

Of course the kind of story we’re telling has an impact on what we should include.  There’s no reason for a romance novel to talk about teleportation pods or for a detective novel to go into how magic wands affect the world.  Anything included, either technological or fantastical, should be necessary for the story to progress.  However, it’s difficult to tell a story set in an interstellar empire without finding a way for faster-than-light travel to exist, or to weave a tale about a world of magic if there’s no magic allowed.

That doesn’t mean that such inventions can be off the wall.  Things such as faster-than-light travel must make sense to most folks(some of the sticklers will never see it, and they probably shouldn’t be reading books that offend their sensibilities anyway), whether that be through a form of alternate space, the use of exotic particles, or traversing wormholes.  Magic should have rules and have either always been a part of the world or have some reason for its discovery.  While impossible technologies and other plot devices are required for certain stories, you can’t go too out there(like FTL accomplished through solid rocket boosters), or you’ll lose the reader.  Remember, these things are to enhance your story – they’re not the story itself.

Not Everyone Has To Be Related

Darth Vader is Luke’s father.

Voldemort is a distant relative of Harry Potter’s through the Peverell family.

The Joker’s mom told him he was Thomas Wayne’s bastard son(making him a half brother of Batman).

Jon Snow is a cousin of Danerys Targeryon.

I trust you get my point – far too many people in stories are related.  Some closely, some distantly, some alluded to, but they all seem to have familial ties.  Honestly, it gets old.

Not everyone has to be related.  That’s not the way the real world works.  The only way that worked in the past was when mass mobility wasn’t a thing and most folks lived their whole lives within two miles of home.  Even then, major world shattering events rarely happened within families, excepting, of course, the major houses of Europe being on the various royal thrones…and even then any twists were more akin to incestuous genetic defects rather than surprise intrigue.

However, we no longer live in the mid-1500s.  With our stories taking place in far flung fantasy worlds and across the realms of space, the chances of folks involved in such intricate plots being long lost relatives is exceedingly small.

I view using a relational plot point as lazy.  It had its place long ago when it was new.  The Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker twist worked precisely because it was unexpected.  Now, however, we all see the long lost father/son/brother/sister/mother coming from a mile away.  It lacks any impact and mostly makes us roll our eyes.  It removes the randomness, and reality, of a story and makes me think, oh geez, not this nonsense again.  I think authors fall back on this when they want to introduce something big but have no idea how to accomplish it on their own.

Let’s try to get away from the family-is-everywhere trope.  It no longer works, and it shows a simple mind that can’t figure out how to be creative.

Reading For Enjoyment Vice Reading For Duty

I think we do a great disservice to our children with the way we teach them to read, at least after their initial introduction to it.  Once we get them through their basics of literacy, and they finish reading about sassy cats that chase mice and cowboys who have yelling contests against outlaws, we start forcing garbage down their throats that not only do they not enjoy, but which makes them actively hate reading.

In school, there were “classics” I was forced to read, and which I have never gone back to.  From Moby Dick to Jane Eyre to The Old Man and the Sea, none of these books did anything for me.  They were a slog to get through, and I doubt I could tell you a single plot point today beyond there being a big white whale in Moby Dick.  I did not enjoy these books, and they made me dread reading.  This dread is usually what turns children(and, later, adults) off from reading.

Books should be fun.  I know there are a few folks who dislike reading no matter what they book is, but most people can be pulled in if they enjoy what they’re reading.  While schools should try to challenge their students, they should also find ways to encourage reading, and enjoying the story is a major factor in that.  Some of the books kids would choose might be seen as low-brow, but couldn’t that be guided by grownups without being forced?

When anyone is forced to read out of duty rather than enjoyment, they develop an aversion to it where they won’t seek it out unless there is some kind of forcing mechanism.  This may work for certain subjects in school, but it saps their interest in the long term.  Think about it – what was the last book you felt a duty to read that you liked?

The reason this is such a slog is because not only do people enjoy differing stories, they also take to different styles of writing.  I’ve spoken at length about my lack of enthusiasm for Earthclan – it’s wonky and weird, and it’s hard to follow.  Rally Cry, on the other hand, is written in a style that grabs me much more firmly.  I could enjoy Earthclan better if I could make it through the style, for the story sounds great, but I had to put it down, and despite my love for sci-fi, any class that made me read it would’ve been cursed by me the moment I started.

When you want to nurture reading in others, find out what they enjoy, both subject and style.  Promote that.  Find out what isn’t high in the enthusiasm-meter, and wait on that for later.  I’m not talking about not challenging folks, but find out what will disincentivize reading, for someone not wanting to read leads to the same result as them not being challenged in the first place.

Contests and Visibility

I’ve entered a few writing contests, and I just recentlyentered another.  What I started wondering, though, is why.  What’s the point to them?

The first point is ego-assuagement.  I’ve won two contests and gotten positive feedback from several others.  It always makes me feel good to get independent validation that I’m not a total hack.  We writers can be an insecure bunch at times, so others saying nice things about our stories makes sustains us through dark ties of doubt.

However, at our level, many of these contests are designed to get us noticed.  I’m not talking about the Hugos or Nebulas.  The authors that win those awards are usually already well established, and these awards help push them to the next level.  Rarely, if ever, does a newbie author win one of these prestigious awards.  That leaves the “lower level” awards for the rest of us.

This is not to knock these awards.  I’m extremely proud to have won the IndieReader Award for Paranormal Fiction.  It’s simply a recognition of the fact that they don’t hold the clout of the Bram Stoker Award.

It’s about getting your name out there to achieve one of those viral moments that will get you noticed, and, hopefully, lead to more book sales.  Some desire the fame and fortune that comes with being a bestseller, but most of us are just looking to pay some bills.  Anything beyond that is a bonus.

So how much time should you spend.  This is where discretion comes in since these contests usually tend to cost money to enter.  Not much, but most of us aren’t raking in the cash, so we have to use some discernment in where to place our chips.  What contests might give the most bang for the buck, and which ones do we stand the best chance in.  To me, a contest that gives feedback, regardless of placement, are the go-to contests, because even if I don’t win, I gain some independent feedback that I might be able to use to improve my craft.

The last point is deciding what to enter.  Many writers have only one book to their credit, but lots of us have multiple books, and these contests often limit the number of entries we can make.  That makes novel selection important.  How confident are you in what you’re submitting?  Yes, we love all our books, but being objective and knowing what will do best and get us more notice is key.

So contests can help…in the right venue.  Choose yours well.

Avenues of Notice

Getting noticed as an author is the key to sustained success.  In the olden days, it required a traditional publisher unless you were personally loaded.  That publisher had resources you didn’t, so you needed them to increase your visibility.

Since the dawn of the internet, and the explosion of outlets, it has become something of a smorgasbord.  In a way, this is a great thing – it has opened up avenues previously closed, especially to indie writers.  Any writer that spends a modicum of time searching and engaging can find outlets for his or her work.  Much like how cable news and the internet broke the hold of the Big Three networks, these new avenues broke a lot of the hold traditional publishers had on outlets and notoriety.

On the other hand, such an explosion of outlets and avenues has also made it harder to get noticed if you’re great because there’s a lot of noise.  Everyone is trying to get a glimpse from others, so it’s hard to know what’s worth the time, and what’s more garbage that wastes time(in fairness, great could stand out more when it was restricted…that’s not to say publishing produced nothing but greatness(I’ve talked at length about that), but when outlets were fewer, people gave them more credibility).

In a way, it’s still like traditional publishing, in that you have to usually start at the bottom and work your way up.  You aren’t going to get into a major outlet on your first attempt.  You need to find success with lower rungs before you’ll be considered, and that starts with grassroots outfits.  Go to blogs and contests that will gin up some publicity for you.  That will allow you, if you find some success, to move to a higher set of blogs and sites.  It sucks “paying dues,” but all it takes is one viral moment to push you to the success you imagine.  Well, that and some talent.  😉

Getting Noticed

During my recent interview with Alan Dean Foster, he brought up a point that is the key sticking point, in my opinion, for writers looking to break out into the open – getting noticed.

Let’s acknowledge that unless your name is LeBron James or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, you need some modicum of talent for people to care enough to read your work.  Let’s further acknowledge that being a best seller makes more best sellers easier.

What I’ve spoken of in the past about getting noticed is the need to have a viral moment of some kind.  Justin Halpern got it when Rob Corddry found his Twitter account and his views exploded.  JK Rowling got it(sort of) when a publisher’s 12-year old daughter read the first chapter of HarryPotter and immediately demanded more.  Neither was an active bit of marketing on their part.

That’s not to say actively promoting your work is worthless.  It can be necessary, and it takes hard work, but I’ve discovered that the harder I work, the luckier I tend to get.  But there’s just so much volume that everything blends into noise unless there’s some kind of distinguishing factor.  What causes one work to stand out versus another?

Unless you have enough money to really market yourself – I’m talking Bill Gates type of money – you almost have to rely on getting someone of prominence to notice you.  It becomes a game of standing on the shoulders of others, whether they’re writers or not, but you have to find someone with lots of people paying attention to them so you can hopefully get a few of those people to notice you too.

Maybe a targeted approach would work – carefully target a few folks with high numbers of followers that might be open to your forays.  But that can usually only be done in the context of a relationship.  Those with stature are, quite rightly, wary of those looking to glom onto them for their fame.  Most want folks to be with them for them, not for what they can do.  So tread lightly.

At the same time, do not eschew all contacts just because you want to “make it on your own.”  That sounds great in a movie, but it rarely works out I real life(just being honest here based on nearly five decades on Earth).  If you have a relationship with someone that might be able to boost your visibility, see if they’re open t that.  That’s part of what networking is about.  After all, maybe they have you around for a reason.

Author Interview - Alan Dean Foster

Undoubtedly the biggest coup scored by this site - I interviewed one of my big writing influences, Alan Dean Foster.  Foster has been around for decades, and his work is legend.  Aside from his own award winning work(Cyber Way, Our Lady of the Machine, Splinter of the Mind's Eye), he has also written a number of movie novelizations from films you will find familiar(The Last Starfighter, Aliens, Star Wars:  The Force Awakens).  He came across my site and I pestered him into giving me an interview.  He graciously agreed, so here it is.

1.  Everyone always asks their interview subject to tell us about themselves.  However, your bio is on your website, so I see no need to rehash that here.  Instead, I’d like to know how you got into writing for a living and what your path was towards being able to sustain it as a career.

Adf: I was supposed to go to law school.  USC, to be exact.  Suffering from a bad attack of whatthehell, I also applied to the graduate film school at UCLA.  Greatly to my surprise, I was admitted to the MFA program there.  While doing assignments for film and tv writing, I decided to try some short fiction.  I took thirteen tries before I sold a short story (so much for thirteen being an unlucky number).  I then thought to try my hand at a novel.  It sold on my third submission, to Ballantine Books.

I promptly quit my “real” job, writing for a small PR firm.  I was teaching two night courses, film history and writing, at Los Angeles City College.  I owned a car and had saved enough money for a year’s rent.  Figuring I could live cheap for a year, I decided to give full-time writing (plus the teaching work) a go to see what would happen.  What happened was a career, quite unplanned.

2.  What is your process?  Do you plot out your work in detail, or are you more of a “by the seat of your pants” kind of guy?

Adf:  Starting out, I would do a 12-20 page outline for a novel.  Publishers required it.  After awhile they realized, as did I, that this was not necessary, as I had proved I could get from page 1 to page 400 without one.  I always put together a few pages of general outline, revised and expand it as the story percolates, and eventually move forward with that as my basis.  Short fiction I simply write.

3.  Many authors say they don’t have a favorite book they’ve written, much like parents say they don’t have a favorite child, but as a writer myself, I know that’s usually just a smoke screen.  Do you have a favorite work of yours, and if so, what is it and why?

Adf: cough, cough…smoky in here.  Seriously though, I could not pick one.  Several, yes.  Midworld, Primal Shadows, Spellsinger…they all represented departures for me at the time I wrote them.  Also, my short story collections, because they give me the ability to explore numerous topics and themes in a short period of time.

4.  When your novels first started coming out, the publishing world had dozens of different publishers.  Now, there are five main publishers(with a few smaller subsidiaries).  How do you think the contraction of the publishing world has affected writers, both those already established and those looking to break in?

Adf: Top-of-the-line writers have no trouble getting published.  Nor do those looking to break in, so long as they’re willing to accept minimal and often onerous terms.  It’s the working writers in the vast middle who have difficulty continuing to make a living, since the big publishers are really just looking for potential bestsellers.

5.  What is your take on the number of writers choosing to go the indie route?  Is there a path for success there, or is publishing success still a function of mostly being part of the traditional publishing world?

Adf: Going indie is possible but a difficult place to get noticed.  It can be done, and it’s certainly more of a viable alternative than it was in the days before internet and on-demand publishing existed.  Still, good work falls by the wayside simply from lack of notice.

6.  You’ve written a number of movie novelizations.  How did you get into that, and what’s that process like?  Obviously you have to go along with the script and what we see onscreen, but your novelizations give a fair amount of backstory and context.  How much freedom do you have in determining that kind of stuff, and where do the ideas come from?

Adf: I’ve set it all down, finally, in my forthcoming (in a couple of weeks) book The Director Should’ve Shot You (Centipede Press).  Those who are interested will find everything I can remember therein.

7.  To what do you attribute your success?  Was there a moment you knew you’d “made it,” or was it more of a gradual understanding?

Adf: My third novel, Icerigger, sold over 100,000 copies and went through three printings in rapid succession.  I had no idea why, nor did my editor/publisher.  But it was clear from its success that there were more than a handful of readers out there who liked what I was doing. 

As to my success, a large part of it, as with any endeavor, is due to hard work.  You have to be willing to write a little every day.  Waiting for inspiration will not make you a working writer.

8.  You’re famous for being pretty well traveled.  What is the allure of traveling to you, and where has been your favorite place?  Is there any place you haven’t been that you’d like to go?

Adf: As long as I’m stuck on one planet I hope to see as much of it as possible.  Travel opens me to new experiences, cultures, and people, many of which have provided the source for individual stories, novels (Primal Shadows, Sagramanda, Into the Out Of are some examples).  As to a favorite place, it depends what you’re looking for.  For culture, Prague and Rome.  For history, London, St. Petersburg, and Peru.  For Nature, African parks and parts of South America.  For adventure, Papua New Guinea.

9.  You’re also known in some circles as a powerlifter.  How the heck did you get into that kind of hobby?

Adf: I’m a firm believer in the old saw, a healthy mind in a healthy body.  I used to play (not very well) a lot of basketball.  When I turned 55, I got tired of chasing high school kids (I also suffered a serious injury).  I always found fighting gravity interesting.  Once lifters pass 55, most have either done everything they wanted to do or are too busted up to lift seriously anymore.  I was neither and was talked into entering a competition.  I did well and have continued, off and on, ever since.  Excellent exercise.

Most folks who know me as a writer have no idea I hold records in powerlifting, and most who know me as a powerlifter have no idea I write.

10.  Finally, is there anything you’re working on currently?  Do you think you’ll be writing until the end?

Adf: I’m about to embark on a couple of new novelizations; one involving a major gaming franchise and another an adaptation of an unfilmed screenplay.  Last year I started composing orchestral music and just finished a Prelude for Organ and Orchestra.  It’s been very rewarding.