Waiving Desperately

I think most folks here know of my antipathy for the traditional publishing world.  That said, I get the excitement that comes with someone in some official position saying your work is good enough to publish at their company.  I once shared that goal, and I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that some movie producer coming to me wouldn't get me all hot-and-bothered.

Unfortunately, some first-time authors are so desperate to get that first contract that they'll waive their rights without reading through the contract offered.  They'll grant the publishing company rights and carve-outs they're not entitled to.  After all, with the consolidation of the traditional publishing world into fewer and fewer companies, many feel that if they demand fairness, they'll never get a contract offered again.

First of all, you need to have enough pride to accept that it's true you may never get offered another contract.  And you should be okay with that.  If someone wants to take advantage of you, you come off like that fat friend who never got a date and is willing to be treated like shit just to say you have a date.  No one respects a kiss-ass, and you'll get treated like dirt your entire career.

Second, publishing is still a business, and if your work is good enough, another publisher will offer you a chance.  You may not get JK Rowling money until you prove yourself, but money and sales have a way of softening hard hearts in the publishing world.

If you sell yourself out just to get published, you'll be a doormat forever, for even when you realize your worth, no one will grant you that respect because you licked their boots prior.  You need to know when to insist on either inserting or removing some contract items, and when to walk away because they won't remove your red lines.  You'll be better off as a person, rather than a sellout, in the end.  After all, it's you who has to look yourself in the mirror each morning.

Publishing Short Stories

Writing short stories is different than writing novels, because you have to be much more succinct.  You don't have the time to leisurely build a world, so you have to jump right in.  This is not to say short stories can't be gripping - The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell are among the most gripping stories that exist.  But how does one publish them.

I've won or placed in several short story contests, but those were individual submissions.  Were I to write multiple short stories, how would I go about getting them into the public sphere.  It feels like I would need to write a bunch more in order to justify a hefty collection that will make the monetary investment worth it for the reader.  Is this something the public clamors for?  Do people really buy short story collections?  Do you?

Dropping Books

Time is valuable.  That's the premise with which I approach books - if they hold no interest for me, then I don't need to waste time reading them.  However, what happens when a book originally held your interest but no longer does?  Has anyone here ever abandoned a book partway through, or have you trudged on through to the end?

I've had a few books that create that conundrum for me, such as Ready Player Two.  I absolutely loved Ready Player One and consider it a masterpiece of nostalgia and fantasy-fulfillment.  So I approached Ready Player Two with enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, the novel has left me...underwhelmed.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through, but I haven't touched it iun months.  It still sits, bookmark in trhe middle, on my reading table upstairs.  Part of me wants to just finish because I've spent so much time on it, but another part of me knows this is the sunk-cost fallacy.  That is that I've already spent time and money, so I should spend more to finish.  Logically, however, all you're doing is just giving even more than you should based on some tired investment trope.

I've read a few novels under this premise, and I need to stop.  If a book isn't enjoyable, then it makes future reading more of a chore, and my time is too valuable for that.  Any of you run into this?

Ignoring The Haters

Be out in public long enough, and you’ll attract haters.  It doesn’t matter who you are – they’ll find you.  The only way to not attract haters is to be so milquetoast that you stand for nothing.

My most recent hater is someone I sparred with online who then took the time and trouble to find my author’s page and books.  They then proceeded to hate on my work without even reading it.  How do I know this?  Because it took them 15 minutes from the time of our interaction to their engagement with my stuff(ie, not enough time to read anything).

I take the same approach to haters I do to bad reviews – mostly ignore them.  I only bring up this one, which I’m not identifying by name or any recognizable characteristics, to talk about how authors should deal with them(notice I didn’t say famous people, because not everyone who puts their stuff out in public is “famous”).  Oxygen is what your haters want, and if you deprive them of that, then they can’t spread their hate.

Maybe these are folks who enjoy chaos.  Maybe they’re upset that some hold views not in line with their own(ie, insecurity).  Whatever the reason, they’re looking for validation, and they feel that any interaction from a pseudo-public figure gives them that validation.

You cannot win in such a situation by engaging.  Unless their behavior is so egregious that backlash to them would be swift and near-universal, there is no benefit to engaging because you usually come across as thin-skinned.  Some folks can use engagement as a marketing ploy to attract readers because they know their readers will back them, but that usually only works for an established author; the rest of us are rolling the dice, and you have to ask if the temporary satisfaction of engaging is worth the potential for further chaos.

Not Appeasing Partisans

I still don't fully understand why Schism is my bestselling book, but it is.  By far.  However, one of the most popular critiques is that I don't take sides in the book.  I don't celebrate red states or talk about how awesome blue states are.  I seem to build a "they're both bad" storyline that a few readers find off-putting.

Fine by me.

Schism is about how bad things can get if we don't get off the course we're currently on.  It's not meant to be a tale of advocacy, but rather one of caution.  As such, I intentionally didn't play into the hands of partisans because they're the ones the book is meant to warn us about.  We all seem so angry nowadays, and those "on the other side" are the focus of our anger.  It allows us to dehumanize them and thus lead directly into the nightmare I depicted.

As an author, you cannot allow public pressure to weigh into your story, for all it will do is compromise what you're trying to say.  The readers will decide if it works enough for them to buy.  If not, that's the gable we all take as writers.  However, if we play into the fantasies of the most hyper-partisan among us, we further polarize society and give power to those who want this to turn into a hellscape(because they, of course, would obviously win and rule it all, right?).

In other words, if you want your partisan fantasy book, then write it yourself, but don't expect me to bend because you're oh-so-certain it would never go that way.

Translation

One of the banes of the writer’s existence is figuring out how best to take what is in his or her head and put it on paper into something coherent.  There are a few writers who can write whole novels by the set of their pants, although those are rare(or at least rare in terms of producing anything good).  Many more are meticulous planners who painstakingly map out every plot point, character, and piece of dialogue they plan to include before they write anything

Most of us, however, are a combination of these school.  I prefer to outline a little bit in advance so the writing becomes a little more spontaneous.  If I outline too far, then the writing may drive right past the outline, to the point where the outline is no longer relevant, and all I really did was waste a great deal of time.  If I eschew an outline altogether, then I hit a wall and don’t know where I’m going.

The challenge is taking my limited outline and translating it into prose.  That means I usually need to get to my outline in short order so that I remember what I was looking at in the movie-in-my-head.  There have been times when I look at my outline and wonder what the hell it even meant.  More often, though, is figuring out how to make the outline-to-page translation palatable to the reader.  Trust me – any idiot can write a bunch of words, but that doesn’t mean they engage the reader.  Folks who’ve read office memos know this well.

I think the key is to pause every so often and ask yourself if the writing works.  Are you taking too much for granted, or are you handholding too much?  Does the prose match the outline?  This is one of the reasons writing takes so long, because we’re trying to make the page match the outline, despite the disparate styles(prose versus brainstorming).  This is something that can make outlines challenging as well since the outline can’t be totally abstract if it’s to be of use.

What I need is a cable of some kind that runs from my brain to the page…

What If SkyNet Engages?

The recent interest in and explosion of AI chatbots poses an interesting question – can an AI write a novel?  And what happens if it can?

The first question is whether or not it can write a novel.  By that, I don’t mean that it puts together a few phrases it learned from a writer’s preferences, but can it generate something unique and thought-provoking?  I believe that’s doubtful in the current climate since these AIs aren’t truly intelligent on their own.  To begin with, they’re mostly algorithms designed to elicit a predictable response based on tendencies.  Second, and most important in my opinion, is that all the algorithms in question are programmed by people, and people have biases and tendencies.  This isn’t some child who will initially mimic his or her parents but come o form independent thoughts, but simply a computer program that will perform according to the biases of the person who wrote it(the true danger of AI is when someone you disagree with programs an AI to enforce rules you think are horrible).

The second question is much more intriguing.  We can probably prod an AI to come up with a story, but who owns that story?  What are the copyright implications of such a thing?  Current law doesn’t recognize AI as having any rights of its own, so would the writer of the algorithm own the story?  Or would it simply be part of the public sphere immediately, and thus subject to people borrowing from it(or outright stealing everything the AI “wrote”)?  I don’t believe machines or programs can own copyrights.

We’ve had innumerable sci-fi stories about AI rising up to take control, but we have very few that describe what AI would do in society beyond “kill all the humans.”  Now that they can (kinda) compose things and hold pseudo-conversations, maybe it’s time to begin thinking about where this is going.

Interval Periods

I’ve written a couple of novels that are set up for a sequel – Akeldama, Salvation Day…even Homecoming and Wrongful Death could have further stories set in their universes, even though they’re not primed for direct sequels.  Yet there have, to date, been no such sequels published.  In fact, I’ve written only one sequel, and it needs a complete rewrite before it’ll be ready.  So why so long between sequels?

Before I go into that, just know that long lag time between related stories is not an uncommon thing.  Any Game of Thrones fan will be familiar with the long time since the last GoT novel came out and know that The Winds of Winter has been delayed so long that it may never be here.  Arthur C. Clarke wrote Rendezvous With Rama in 1973, and then waited 16 years before bringing out Rama II.  Harper Lee went over 50 years between To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set A Watchman.  Interval periods exist, frustrating though they may be.

There are numerous reasons why periods between novels may be lengthy.  The biggest is likely that the writer got into other things and hadn’t yet a chance to return to the universe in question.  They could be writing other stories, raising their families, or working at other jobs to put food on the table.  As much as readers may wish that writers cater to them and their desires for more of their favorite stories, life happens.

Another reason may be that the writer hasn’t yet flushed out a story, or maybe even seen the need for another one.  Perhaps he or she felt the story had concluded(To Kill A Mockingbird) and felt pressured into another one through demand.  I know readers like to have this idea that writers of their favorite books have everything mapped out and planned, but that’s rarely the case.  Very often, even within a book I’m currently writing, I’ll remember a throwaway line or character I used a few chapters back, and that’ll become a new plot point.  Sequels are often the same way – the writer has a general idea of what to do, but the route to get there may be based on something in the first book tat was never meant to be much.

Of course, the danger in sequels taking too long is that readers may lose interest in the story.  The best time for publication is always when the public’s interest is at its peak.  Usually that is shortly after the original is published, but not always.  Maybe a book took a while before catching fire, so that’s when a sequel would be most appropriate.  Either way, public interest can be a key component of publication.

So don’t just assume the writer is stringing you along.  Maybe he or she is, but more than likely other stuff just got in the way.

Stories Versus Series

How do you know if you have an idea for a book versus having an idea for a series?  And if you have an idea for a series, how do you determine where each story ends and the next one picks up?  Such is the dilemma of many writers.

Series where the author has a clear idea of each book and has planned it in advance are easy enough,  However, sometimes we writers get big ideas in our heads, and it’s only after we begin writing that we realize that our idea is too big for one book(unless we want it wo have the heft of Ulysses or War & Peace).  So the issue then becomes how we break it down into more logical pieces.

One of the first things we have to do is what we should’ve done in the first place – plan out the books in the series.  There are usually logical stopping points, and sometimes those have to be expanded or modified to accommodate a series.  Star Wars, for example(the original trilogy…not the abominations that followed – started out as a single story that George Lucas figured out was way too big to do in a single telling, so he changed parts of deliver the series.  As we figure out we’re writing a series, it behooves us to similarly step back and determine how that moves ahead.

Of course, that’s hard because what we really want to be doing is writing.  Delivering a series after starting on a single book requires that we stop writing for a little bit and retool our outline to accommodate a single book, which means we have to break the mindset we were in for our story and reorient, which creates an abrupt shift we have to deal with.  It can be done, but it takes a moment or three.

I view it as breaking up a larger idea into smaller ones that can stand alone while contributing to a greater whole.  Once you’re about 25,000 or so words into a book, you’ll know if you can wrap it up in a single novel, or if you require a series.  Listen to that voice, because it’s easier to do when you’ve written 25,000 words than to reconfigure it after 180,000.

It's Cloudy...

As writers, we know our stuff is brilliant.  After all, we wouldn’t have written it down unless we were certain of said brilliance, right.  The problem comes when we want to show the world that brilliance and put it all into a single story, for it makes our stories, at times, unnecessarily complex.  As such, the level of complexity can either bore or confuse the reader, and bored or confused readers don’t buy your books.

One of my still-needs-to-be-rewritten novels fell into this trap – the sequel to Akeldama.  The novel centers around an ancient enemy returning and being granted power by the serpent at the end of the previous novel in exchange for a few favors.  The biggest ask revolves around opening several portals to Hell.  Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong.

You see, I’ve come across tales of nearly a dozen different portals to Hell across the world, and I wanted to include them all in the book.  I wanted to do this to show how excited I was about the level of knowledge I’d obtained, which is almost always the wrong reason to include certain storypoints.  I also wanted a depth of story that was unwarranted, because, excited though I was, even I knew I couldn’t go through all 11 gates – some had to have been done “off screen” so as to build the tension and add mystery.  Still, I wanted to go through enough of the gates, and it ended up being a contrived mess rather than anything useful for the plot.  Hence the need for a pretty big rewrite.

Although it will pain me to do, I will dramatically prune the story from 11 gates to seven, and at least two will be done away from the gaze of the reader.  That should up the stakes much more for what the reader does see.  And hopefully it’ll get away from what I call “Christmas Present Syndrome,” whereby there are so many presents that kids just move from one to the next without appreciating what they just unwrapped.

The lesson in all of this is that we authors need to restrain ourselves sometimes in throwing our story out there.  We may enjoy the byzantine maze of subtle plot points, but we have to bear in mind the audience and whether or not they’re up for it.  Maybe they are, but we should be objective about it rather than just believe they want to wade through the clouds with us. 

Erasing The Past

By now, most folks have, I'm sure, heard of the censoring of Roald Dahl's books in the name of Sensitivity.  Apparently a bunch of Under-30 woke hipsters got their panties in a bunch because Dahl used words like "fat" or "ugly" to describe people in his books.  Dahl wrote such classics as James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Matilda, and now some amongst us are super saddy waddy that Dahl wrote meanie weenie things.

Let's get out of the way that Dahl was apparently a horrible person.  He made some pretty anti-Semitic statements at times.  Being as it may, that doesn't justify an ex post facto adjustment to his work just so some people can feel better about themselves.  This goes to the core of both free speech and integrity of our work.  It's one of the reasons I've been telling people to get more of their books in hard copy because the wokesters among us will try to change them after the fact and hope we either don't notice, or go along because we don't want to make waves.

Buuuuuuullllllshit.

This will not stand.  It's this kind of taking over of language and censoring of our past that will lead to tyranny.  I'm not being hyperbolic - tyranny.  A George Orwell quote from 1984, which was supposed to be a cautionary tale rather than a how-to book, seems apt here - "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

Totally missing that Dahl's books were about how shitty the world can be and that kids can find comfort in ways to overcome it through works of fiction that impart wisdom, if the words therein upset you so much, don't read the fucking book.  Books previously written are not there to validate you, and it's not your place to rewrite them because you can't get the fencepost out of your ass.  Moreover, think how this extends into the future - what you find banal today may be found offensive 50 years from now, so is any work safe?

In fairness, Puffin Books, a subsidiary of Penguin, has partially backed down, saying it will now also offer the unedited versions, but I view this as a delaying tactic meant to allow the storm to blow over, at which point I have little doubt they'll try to keep thi stuff up.  That's why vigilance and pressure are key, exhausting though it may be.  When we alter the past to suit the present, we doom humanity to a fictionalized version of itself.

The saddest part is all the people defending this nonsense.  Some have tried saying that those words hurt feelings(and we all know that books are never ever supposed to hurt your feelings), or that it's just a few words, so it's not a big deal.  Don't let them get away with that shit.  It is absolutely a big deal, and it we allow this, they'll continue to reduce everything to only the versions they think are appropriate.  Remember, they aren't reading them and skipping over the parts they dislike - they're demanding you don't even get the chance to decide that for yourself.  It's morally abhorrent, and civilization itself is at stake if we refuse to stand up to the would-be tyrants.

TRIGGERED!

On the heels of a previous post about not hiding from stupid people, I wanted to take on a very dumb statement by a freelance journalist named Emmie Harrison-West.  She decided to delve into the realm of the absurd when she said, "Readers as a whole need to be given the choice to consent to delving into books with triggering themes."

Okay, here's a way to do that - figure out which book to pick up before actually reading it.

You see, what Emmie wants is for books to have "trigger warnings" when they deal with sensitive themes.  When I first heard about trigger warnings, I thought they were a bad joke, but it turns out that they're very real, and some folks are so super duper uber sensitive that they need someone to tell them that some of what is out there may make the want a binkie winkie or nappy wappy.

I'm sorry, but I will not be nice about this.  If that offends you, you are free to kindly fuck off, because this is a BIG step on the road to censorship(wait till you see my next post).  I don't care what the themes are that upset you - you are free to not read them rather than pretend everybody else should accept or care about it as much as you do.  If you're truly that concerned about being triggered by something, then I suggest you don't read.  Ever.

Hey, I get that we all have things in our past that upset us, but that does not give us the right to impose our sensitivity onto others.  We deal with it and strive to get past it, but we don't tell others they should have to deal with our traumas too.  Trigger warnings shout to the world how we can't handle something, and, by extension, the person reading may also not be equipped to handle it.  Grow the hell up.

The world is triggering.  If that makes you mad, then I suggest you hide under your bed and never come out, because the world can be a scary place.  But stop trying to impose your madness on the rest of us, for it will draw as ferocious a response as anything I've ever engaged with.

Four Months In A Row!

Yep, I’m bragging again – this marks four straight months that I’ve managed to post on a consistent basis.  Sure, I’m bragging about meeting the bare minimum standard, but given that I went well over a year without consistently posting, including many moons where I posted nothing at all, doing four straight months of consistent posts is exciting for me.

Of course, I need to get back to marketing, but that’s a whole different ballgame.  Baby steps, Russ…baby steps…

Along the way, I’ve managed another 10,000(+) words on my sci-fi/fantasy mashup.  It’s exciting, and by the time you read this, I will have done another outline session to figure out where the story is going.  I have an idea, but it hasn’t completely coalesced yet.  Beyond that, this one truly has bult slowly.  I’m more than 30,000 words in and all I’ve really done so far is world-build.  A few of the characters have been developed, but there are a bevy of folks that I haven’t yet decided if they’re tangential characters, or if their role will be more substantive.  And I haven’t even gotten to the main plot yet.  I fear that the main story may not really come into play until the second book(unless I want this one to be the size of the Bible).

Let’s see what the next month brings!