Why Versus Why Not

Lots of authors have self-doubts.  Although they love writing, so many wonder internally why anyone would ever buy their books.  They secretly think that maybe they aren’t that good and that a shrewd and discerning public will see right through them and figure them out for the hacks they are.

I really don’t understand this mindset.  I get working to improve/perfect your work, but instead of asking “why,” ask “why not?”  Why wouldn’t the public like your book?  Do you not like it?  I always say that I write stories I want to read, so if I like it, why wouldn’t others.

Of course you shouldn’t be cocky or arrogant about it.  We should always strive to get better.  That doesn’t mean wallowing in self-doubt helps at all.  Shouldn’t you be your own biggest fan?

Politicizing Non-Political Things

I’ve been known from time to time to scold the woke-scolds…and it’s that time again.

If someone wants to start a story with political preaching, I get it.  It may not sell well, but it can probably find a niche audience, and at least that audience knows what it is in for.

My issue come when the woke-scolds want to retrofit stuff that was never about politics and try to shove their version of the world down our throats.  Usually it’s one screeching harpy getting into a position of influence, and then shrieking about it loud enough that everyone else just goes along because they a) are afraid to say something, or b) just want the harpy to shut up.

Three stories recently have come under scrutiny for straying from good storytelling and going into uber-woke territory.  The first is the new Alien TV show on FX.  Now call me crazy, but the original Alien, and its sequel, Aliens, is about scary space monsters that are near unstoppable and can burst out of your chest.  The humans have to use their intelligence to beat these primal creatures of horror.  However, Noah Hawley has announced his series will be about…wait for it…inequality.  *BARF*

Then there are Captain America and Loki, both Marvel franchises produced by a studio who seems to have forgotten that it was this kind of preaching in the 1990s that so hollowed out the Marvel fanbase that they had to sell off key parts of the franchise(X-Men, Spiderman, etc), leading to the current legal issues getting Spidey an others back into the MCU.  Captain America, for example, tells folks that the American Dream isn’t available to everyone, ragging on every imagined slight under the sun.  Loki, on Disney+, has decided to let us all know about Loki’s sexuality, as if any of us cared.

Think what you want about the role of Captain America and the sexuality of Loki, but none of that has a place in our already-established stories.  I know this will be shocking, but the average person goes to fantastical stories to escape the political bullshit they already get shoved down their throats.  And yes, I’d say the exact same thing if Captain America came out as a MAGA-flag waving redneck or Loki decided he needed to wax episodic about the benefits of finding a good church.  No one wants this shit.

Again, start your own fucking stories.  Is it really asking so much that we get some level of escape from this crap?  Does everything have to be political or preachy?  A backlash is coming from all those who only want to be left alone to enjoy their favorite stories without being preached at in ways that are not in accordance with the characters or story, and the first part of that backlash will be these franchises going broke.  Again.

Relatable Imaginations

The possibilities within the universe are vast, whether looking at life or phenomenon.  There are worlds made from diamond, a possible temperature “bruise” that might indicate bumping as parallel universe, and white holes that spit out matter and light rather than sucking it in.  Given the diversity of phenomenon, the diversity of life itself should be equally vast, even if we haven’t discovered it yet.

Life on our own planet is wild.  We’ve found crustaceans that feed on nothing but sulfur around gas vents on the ocean floor.  Until about 350 years ago, no one had heard of germs, and telling folks that tiny organisms they couldn’t see might make them sick would’ve gotten you committed to an insane asylum.  And this level of diversity exists on one world with relatively homogenous conditions.  Imagine what might exist on other worlds – there could be layers of intelligent mold that changes properties based on the lines it spawns, intricate layers of plants that join together at the root level beneath the surface to form a collective mindset, or being that exist simply as matrices of electrical energy floating within the accretion disks of black holes.

But while the  universe provides for a wild variety of life, both which we can imagine and which we yet cannot, our stories can’t do that, or at least not if we want folks to read them.  Although readers are willing to accept the bizarre, especially in certain genres, they still have to be able to relate in some way with what is in the story.  Familiarity forms the basis of story enjoyment to an extent.  If there are characters or lifeforms that are so alien we can’t understand them at all, then there is no way for a story the reader can follow.  Sure, sometimes that can add an element of mystery, but that mystery has to be solved at some level during the story.  We want to know that others have motivations, desires, and act in accordance with ways we can get.  If we can’t, then there’s nothing for the mind to latch onto, at least not outside of a scientific journal.  Sure, those are great reads, but they’re not for story purposes since most stories need conflict people comprehend.

So be imaginative…just not too imaginative.  Sometimes realism coupled with imagination can lead to estrangement rather than enjoyment.

Future Development

Blockbusters will always have an audience and someone who wants to promote them(who doesn’t like having a part of the action?).  New writers can get in, if ever so slightly, if they accept losing all control over their stuff until they “make it”(and even some thereafter).  But unless a new writer shows himself or herself to be a proven seller quickly, traditional publishing houses tend to move on, much like an NFL team will move off of a quarterback that doesn’t demonstrate franchise skills in the first year or two.

That got me wondering what the reading world would be like if traditional publishers took time to nurture writers with potential and grow them into stars.  The NFL used to nurture quarterbacks – Terry Bradshaw was horrible his first few years, and Joe Montana took three or so years to break out.  That wouldn’t be allowed today, and we’d have lost all-time great QBs.  The same could be true of authors, whereby the inclination to move on so quickly leaves writers of potential in the dirt.  What writers need is promotion and a chance to get better, but will traditional publishing ever regain patience for that?

Some of the reticence may be a simple matter of supply and demand – there are more folks trying to become authors than publishers have spots for.  When someone doesn’t work out fast enough, it’s all too easy to just move on to the next one.  Sure, a middling writer can muddle on and have some success, but growth seems limited.  What would the landscape be in traditional publishing took some of these newbies under their wing?

Of course, that risks taking in and promoting talent that never pans out.  I doubt Ryan Leaf would’ve ever panned out I the NFL, no matter how much mentoring he got.  He just wasn’t cut out for the life.  The same risk exists for taking on unproven writers, and as much as I loathe traditional publishers, even I recognize that  they too have limited resources and are somewhat risk-averse.

As much as this is reality, I think it hampers the book market and prevents us from finding true talent.  JK Rowling comes out of nowhere at times, much like Patrick Mahomes, but we might also be losing Greg Baers and William Fortschens who don’t get room to grow today, much like we might’ve lost Phil Simms or Ken Stabler.  Would it be worth it for publishers to find the next big thing, even as a diamond in the rough, or are quick flashes our forever future?

Book Ideas Taking Hold

For all my writer friends, how firmly does an idea for a story grab you?  And how do you decide whether or not to proceed with telling that story?

I’ve had dozens and dozens(or more) ideas for stories.  Some are great, and some suck out loud, but generating ideas is part and parcel of being a writer.  But it’s the great ideas that grab hold and won’t let go.  I’ve been known to obsess over some of the ideas that took hold(like for Salvation Day).  Others have built slowly, but everything that has turned into a novel has planted a stake in me in some way.

So how obsessive do story ideas grab you?  Am I unique, with most of you just churning out ideas that never mean more than a footnote, or do you get as obsessed as I do?

Bad To The Bone

There’s a movement within our society, mostly seen in storytelling, that I’ve come to despise.  This movement is fine in real life, when warranted, but takes my enjoyment away from the books I like to read.  That movement is about finding redeeming qualities in villains.

I’ve said in the past that villains should be complex, and almost no realistic villain sees himself or herself as a villain…but that villain should remain a villain.  It saps my enjoyment, especially if the story is told in a series, for a bad guy to suddenly be a good guy.

Look, I get the shock value of it, along with the desire to see good in everyone.  However, I also value consistency in my stories, and wondering who I should be rooting for shouldn’t be shaky.  Finding out later that a villain is someone who can be good changes the way I read earlier stories.  Should that conflict really have been handled in that way?  Could the bad guy have been useful earlier?  It messes with my mind to have to try and figure out such circumstances and jostle my reading loyalties, and I get enough of that in real life.

Aspirational Versus Gritty

An author friend of mine recently brought up the difference in styles/stories between George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien.  Martin is much darker, with a far more dim view of human nature than Tolkien.  While Tolkien has some grittiness, he mostly presents his stories as aspirational, while Martin’s stories are far more depressing.
(BTW, for a great take on this, check out the Epic Rap Battles of History onYouTube)

It got me wondering again what readers are looking for.  My stories can be dark, but that’s only to justify the ending being so special.  However, Martin’s stories haven’t ended special, but rather have stayed dark.  Maybe The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring will be uplifting, but if Martin’s input to the GOT HBO series is any indication, they won’t end with folks getting a warm and fuzzy feeling.

I like some realism, but don’t readers use our work to escape the shittiness of real life?  I want readers feeling uplifted and proud of what the human spirit can accomplish if put to the test.  Even in horror, I think most folks want a “happy” ending, but maybe I’m wrong.  What do you think?

More On Titles

I was listening to a podcast recently, and they started talking about book titles.  One book title was The Great Good Thing.  The other was Werewolf Cop.  I’d say one of these is far more descriptive of what’s going on in the book than the other.  So it got me wondering just how descriptive a title should be, and what is the effect on how many folks buy it.

It’s no secret that authors agonize over the creation of titles.  We get wedded to them, as we put a great deal of emotive effort into finding just the right one.  I’ve personally brainstormed through so many that made me say ew that when I find something that strikes a chord with me, I latch on tight.

I tend to like titles that intrigue the reader and make them wonder what the novel is about.  Every title is appropriate, but that’s because the meaning is embedded within the story.  It’s meant to be much more broad than just a rote description, but lots of titles out there take a different viewpoint.

I can see this dichotomy on my own bookshelves.  I’m looking at dozens of books, and their titles vary from The Third World War(easily figured out) to Executive Orders(story meaning) to Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets(about Harry Potter finding…well…the Chamber of Secrets) to Way of the Pilgrim(What pilgrim?  What’s the way?).

There’s a fair amount of sneering between authors who fall into these two title camps.  The fully descriptive ones tend to view those of more broad meaning as conceited snobs who can’t just say what they mean while the more broad ones tend to view the fully descriptive ones as simple-minded idiots who can’t think deeper.

What do you want from your title?  Should it give you insight into the story, or should it be something that makes sense as you read?

Email Lists

A question for author friends – do email lists still work?  When you send out something about an upcoming novel, does it payoff in sales, or is it a waste of time and seen as spam?  I once had an email list(I still do…somewhere), but I haven’t used it for my last few novels.  What I’ve found is that my last two have done better than my first three(all of which had the benefit of an email list).  I didn’t not send emails out out of some sense of experiment, but mostly because I was lazy and forgot.  I’m not sure it mattered.  Most on my list were friends and family, and I think the novelty of my being published wore off.

Maybe it’s that the initial F&F list(friends and family) is too worn, but a new list driven by fans could work.  I wonder if that’s the way to go…

Independent Barriers

Even publishing independently, there are barriers to publishing.  Although any idiot with access to a computer and the internet can put out a book nowadays, making it somewhat professional still requires jumping through at least two hoops:  time and money.

Time is a resource we could all use more of, or figure out how to better utilize.  Although some folks can maintain a living writing full time, most are best sellers(or at least have a fairly steady income stream).  Most of us still need to do something else.  Yes, I could probably light a fire under my ass and write more if it was a matter of survival, but in all honesty, I’m a creature of security.  I don’t do well not feeling secure in being able to buy food and shelter, especially with a family to support, so I have a “real life” job.  Of course, that job makes me spend time I’d otherwise use writing so I can make money.  I have to be deliberate with my time, and I have to find it where I can(before work begins, after the kids go to bed, at lunch, etc).  Writing takes time, and that obstacle has to be worked around.

Time, however, can eventually be used.  The next biggest obstacle is money.  Yes, that’s right – money.  True, you could write something in Microsoft Word, upload it to Amazon, and *POOF* you’d have a book, but you’d also come off as the amateur hack you are.  Money is needed for decent covers, editing, setting up the imprint, buying a proof copy, getting ISBNs, and so forth.  Thee things help sell yourself as a professional, and money ain’t free.  Unfortunately, we sometimes need to risk money to possibly make some down the road.  It may not be fun, but it’s the way life and business(remember, writing is a business) are.

Bottom line is that we’ve got to allocate time and save money(at least a little for book #1 to get started…maybe it can become self-sustaining afterwards) to grow as professional writers.  Welcome to the grownup world.

Trend Reversal

The narrative back in the late 80s and early 90s was that big bookstore chains were putting small family-owned bookstores out of business.  That was the entire theme of that sappy You’ve Got Mail movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  I remember when I first saw Books-A-Million, and I still like going into Barnes & Noble.  Books, books, books everywhere!  It was awesome.

However, with the rise of Amazon, are big book chains in trouble?  Moreover, it feels like smaller bookstores are making a comeback.  People seem to have reverted to wanting a more intimate feel when they browse since they can just buy books, if they only are looking to buy rather than engage, on places like Amazon.  Why drive to a large store for an experience you can get online?  If you want to drive, more and more seem like they want to find smaller shops where they can engage with the employees on recommendations and trends.

Maybe this is all wrong.  Maybe large chains are here to stay, but I notice even Barnes & Noble is giving local owners more leeway over layout and promotion.  Maybe the pandemic affected all of this and it’ll revert, but it sure feels like a trend.  What do you think?

Developing Meaning

I was reading through a critique recently, and the reader was talking about how much she liked the development of one of my characters.  It got me thinking – what exactly is character development?

There was a time when I thought that character development was making an immature character into a more mature one, one who thought more deeply about his or her actions than they did at the beginning of the book.  But I rejected that notion because it occurred to me that most people aren’t that way.  They don’t go from immature to mature – they just exist.

As my thinking on this expanded, I grabbed what I think is the first part of character development, which is simply getting to know a character.  When the audience first meets someone in one of your books, they know next to nothing about them.  The author, at thus point, can either let the reader’s mind fill in the gaps – a somewhat dangerous proposition – or the author can begin to bring out certain parts of the character.  This goes from physical descriptions, which can come out quickly, to slowly showing parts of the character’s personality, especially through that character’s actions.  As the audience gets to know the character more intimately, the character develops beyond a blank slate, and the reader can determine how closely they associate with the person.

But as my train of thought continued, it occurred to me that it has to go beyond simply getting to know the character.  It has to extend to the character evolving over the course of a story.  You can help the audience get closer to the character all you like, but if that character’s personality is static, then people will rapidly grow bored with them.  Take Mike Faulkner from my novel Salvation Day – he starts out as a grief-stricken man who questions God’s existence.  He evolves along the line of his grief turning into anger, and then that anger turning into regret.  He learns that his perceptions were narrow, and his concerns go beyond the immediate(his wife) to the larger picture(Creation as a whole, and his actions impact on it).

Some characters don’t grow or develop any further.  Those characters are usually throwaways that are meant for specific scenes but who are not meant for long term use.  And that’s the way it has to be – any character that sticks around but who the audience doesn’t know and who doesn’t evolve, is a waste of ink that the reader will roll his or her eyes at whenever they appear.

It’s hard.  Developing a character beyond the initial appearance requires effort.  You have to make a concerted effort, and it’s easy to leave characters behind(I may have done that myself from time to time).  This is one of the things that distinguishes hack writers from good ones.  Remember, anyone can name someone in his or her story, but only a real writer can make the audience care, and that requires development past the first page they appear.

World Building

Building worlds can be frustrating.  In order to build mood and get people to care why the characters are doing what they’re doing, building a world is almost always necessary, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating.

Some of my author friends have tried telling me that I just need to jump into the action, but why would I care about the action if I was not invested in the characters and didn’t understand the world?  And no, not all stories just jump right into the main part of the plot.  George RR Martin spends oodles of time building the world within Game of Thrones in order to set up the real action.  JRR Tolkien spent books building the world around the Shire and Mordor before giving people the main thrust of the story.

No, I’m not Tolkien or Martin, but the world I’m creating within my newest novel requires that kind of buildup.  No one will care about the demons from Malum or why the kingdoms of Progenitos put aside the differences they have on the rest of their world to team up and keep those demons in check if the world-building is shallow.  It has to build slowly until the reader suddenly finds himself or herself in the middle of the boiling water.

All that said, it doesn’t make it less frustrating.  It takes time, and, dammit, I just want to finish the book.  :-P

Writing Classes

I’ve been wondering about whether or not to take a creative writing class.  I love to write, after all, and I know there are some things I can work on.  However, I’ve really wondered at the utility of such a class, especially at my age and proficiency.

Some of this will sound conceited.  It’s not meant that way.  It’s just the observations of someone who has been doing this for a couple of decades.  For starters, I fully recognize that those just beginning this writing journey can definitely benefit from a creative writing class.  I’m certain I could have at the very beginning.  Although I enjoyed writing, and was a little better at it than most of my classmates, I was nowhere near proficient, and every so often a classmate would write something that would show me just how much I had to learn.  Still, I did learn.  It was slow and stumbling in places, but I learned.

The biggest way I learned was through critique and self-awareness.  First off, critiques of my work, hard as they are to hear, are immeasurably helpful.  Getting an outside perspective on what works and doesn’t work can really provide insight into your writing.  The biggest problem with critiques is finding those who are balanced enough to point out what works and what sucks.  Admittedly, those who will tell you what sucks are harder to find than those who will point out the positive.  Most people dislike being mean, especially in person, and since they tend to like you, they don’t want to hurt your feelings.  That doesn’t mean the relentlessly mean aren’t out there, only that they’re more plentiful.  Still, I’ve found enough people who are well balanced, especially after assuring them they weren’t going to hurt my feelings.

My second well of improvement has been through self-awareness.  I consider self-awareness to be a strength of mine.  I know I grate on people at times, but that I can also engender loyalty in some.  I know I’m not patient, but I can be aware enough to force patience when required(like when world building).  It has been this self-awareness that has allowed me to understand just how bad some of my previous writing has been.  My first full length novel was horrific, even though I thought it was great at the time.  Being able to be somewhat objective has shown me just how bad and narrow that book was.

So, to sound conceited, I’ve wondered where a writing class, as opposed to a critique group, would help.  Reading is subjective, so unless you’re putrid, any instructor’s critique will be similarly subjective.  There’s also just differences in writing styles.  I prefer a more familiar style, and my readers tell me they like that, but not every writer agrees.  So would that influence an instructor’s critique?  And would any class clash with my own writing style?

Some will ask, Why not do both?  As much as I’d like that, my time is limited.  I can’t just write full time, no matter how much I want to.  I have a family to take care of, and that requires a full time job where I can write in what little spare time I have.  It also means I have to be discerning about my time, viewing time as a resource, and would a class or critique groups be more productive?  It’s not that I don’t think I can get better, but rather which avenues are best suited to help me realize that.

Perhaps I’ll seek out a class at some point to see how it goes.  It might work out well, in a limited time setting.  It might also be a waste of time.  I’m still thinking through that resource allocation.  Anyone out there been to a creative writing class that may have some insight?