News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #19…

#117:  Shah Wharton’s interview of me is now followed by my guest post titled “How British Sci-Fi Influenced My Writing.”  This provides some insight into what influences my writing and why I feel writers should also be avid readers.  It might have special resonance with my UK fans.  See: http://wordsinsync.blogspot.com/2012/02/british-influence-on-sci-fi-by-steven-m.html

Shah runs three sites that include Words In Sync (see above), her own author page, and a site from which she can “beautify your blog” (see the excellent job she did with subheadings and images in my guest blog post).  Words In Sync also contains interviews, reviews, and hints for writers, and can be used as a launch platform to her other two sites.

#118:  If you missed it last Friday, check out the interview of my character Brent Mueller.  It will provide some insight into Survivors of the Chaos and the soon-to-be-released Sing a Samba Galactica.  Both books are more sci-fi than thriller, so it is appropriate that at the end of the interview you can use Shah Wharton’s comment to go to her Words In Sync website and read my guest post “How British Sci-Fi Influenced My Writing” (see #117).

#119:  I don’t know how she does it, but Elizabeth Sims continues to organize and expand upon what I’ve learned about the writing trade.  Check out “7 Simple Ways to Make a Good Story Great” in March/April’s Writer’s Digest.  Here are her points: 1) Go beyond the five senses; 2) embrace idiosyncrasies; 3) forget about being pretty; 4) be true to your IQ; 5) use only your best material only when it has a purpose; 6) make them laugh; 7) make them cry.

Elizabeth greatly expands on these points, of course, and I don’t wish to steal her thunder (and my apologies if she means something completely different), but here are my own comments:  1) For me, the main point is body language.  Human beings, like their great ape cousins, depend on body language for much of their communication, more so than we realize.  Shows like The Mentalist and Psych illustrate how important this can be and good actors like Jack Nicholson, Judi Dench, or Denzel Washington masterfully employ it.  Nothing beyond “he said” or “she said” need ever be used in your written dialog, especially if you employ body language for your characters’ communication.

2) Characters, especially main characters, should not be 2D.  One way to add that extra dimension is to give them idiosyncrasies, because almost every human being has them—in fact, not having any is itself an idiosyncrasy.  3) By pretty, Elizabeth means using a fancy word or phrase to show off your mastery of the Queen’s English when you should focus on the average fellow’s English, especially dialog (average defined by the character’s natural milieu, of course).  4) Elizabeth means here that you should know something about your intended audience and what they expect in a book.  This can work against 3), in the sense that you shouldn’t dumb your prose down too much.  For sci-fi or techno-thriller authors, a certain amount of specialized information and vocabulary is expected.  The plot complexity also must be a function of your intended audience.

5) Elizabeth means here that you should include only what’s necessary.  In my soon-to-be-released Angels Need Not Apply, I needed a Mossad agent as an incidental plot device.  The “incidental part” became a hang-up, but I soon realized that by making her a woman working undercover as a U.S. citizen made her not so incidental.  I still dedicate fewer words to her (she continues to nag me about that) but her role became more important.  On the other hand, I eliminated five characters that I really liked, but they’re saved on my hard disk for future writing.

6) and 7) are obvious.  Your characters are human.  Even in tough times, they can be in funny situations and/or do funny things.  Same comment about being sad.  However, Elizabeth is referring to the requirement that these emotions carry over to the reader who absolutely must become involved with the emotion and excitement that you are trying to convey.  Of course, this is subjective—some readers will react and others won’t, but your audience of readers will if you have taken care of 1) through 5).

So, again, kudos to Elizabeth.  These are all points I have learned the hard way (and still often fail to employ when crazed by the writing fever)—it’s nice to have them all contained in a concise list.  (There are a few items I would add—see my December 22 blog post “The Eightfold Way.”  Between Elizabeth’s seven and my eight suggestions, you can’t go wrong!)

#119:  Steven James article “5 Story Mistakes even Good Writers Make,” also in the March/April Writer’s Digest, is less useful only because his points are more obvious.  However, every author should review them and pay heed.  Here they are in a short list: 1) Overdoing symbolism/themes; 2) trying too hard (this relates to Elizabeth’s point 3); 3) failing to anticipate the readers’ response (see author Mike Nettleton’s Nov. 21, 2011 guest post “Sleazy Is as Sleazy Does”); 4) using a hook as a gimmick; 5) leaving readers hanging (but see my posts “Tell Me It Isn’t So, Jeffery Deaver,” from June 23, 2011, and “Writing a Series—Pros and Cons,” from February 9, 2011).

The problem with articles on writing like those of Ms. Sims, Mr. James, and the ones I wrote, is that it is hard for an author to keep all these points in mind as he or she is writing.  Your best bet is to write, write, write…and then review these points in your editing process.  After two or three books, you can almost do it on cruise control.

#120:  Speaking of Writer’s Digest, when are they going to come out with an eZine version?  The times are a-changin’ and WD is not keeping up with them.  I and many others would like to just cancel our forest-killing pZine subscriptions and download our eZine every month.  If a new publication like eFiction can do it, why not the venerable WD?  Numbers 118 and 119 above show that I still find that some WD articles are useful—I would just prefer to read them on my Kindle.  Maybe the key word here is “venerable”?  Have they become so old and conservative that they just wish the eBook revolution would go away?

WD certainly pushes the legacy publishing paradigm of the Big Six, the one that is associated with pBooks more than eBooks, while eBooks are often associated with indie authors.  But maybe I have it wrong?  Maybe WD has made some kind of super marketing study and has determined that most of their readers are writers who still sit around waiting for that special agent who will lead them to a huge book contract with one of the Big Six—“legacy nirvana,” if you will.  Your comments will be appreciated.  I don’t have the funds to finance market studies but I can get some idea from comments.  Write me with yours.  Better still, write WD—you can mention me, Steven M. Moore, WD pZine subscriber!

#121:  Amazon has just deleted over 4000 IPG titles from its eBook lists.  The Independent Publishers Group represents some 500 academic and charitable organizations (e.g. American Cancer Society).  This action is another war in the battle over eBook pricing.  Amazon lost the last one with Macmillan.

Here’s my take:  I don’t know how many of the eBooks affected can be considered non-fiction and academic titles, but these books traditionally have been over-priced and inaccessible to students, for example, except as used pBooks.  Generally speaking, big publishing houses want you to pay almost as much for an eBook edition as a pBook, which is absurd, especially since the eBook edition is often hastily put together.  IPG is not one of the Big Six, but by being a “group,” they are big enough.  Is Amazon at least partly in the right here?

On the other hand, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  indie authors tend to under-price their books.  Months or years of work are represented in a price of $0.99.  IPG’s argument is generalizable:  Is there a point where an eBook’s price is so low that people think it’s crap?  In particular, should indie authors give their eBooks away, even as a promotional gimmick?  My answers to these questions are yes and no.  I don’t know where the “knee in the curve” is (engineering speak for when the public generally stops associating a low price with schlock), but I know there is one, probably dependent on genre.  For promotional gimmicks, I can understand a sale price but never giving your work away!

I’ve had enough people say they enjoy my eBook X or Y lately that I began to wonder.  Material handed out in local libraries clears this up.  Indie authors don’t need to give their books away.  Their readers can borrow them from a public library.  I suspect that Amazon even provides the model for the instruction sheets on how to download to your Kindle and libraries then personalize it.  This makes it terribly difficult for an indie author to develop any kind of marketing strategy, especially for niche non-fiction books.  There are no metrics available on how well your strategy is working!

While I’m not interested in making a living selling my books—I’m more interested in increasing the number of readers—I do want to cover my expenses.  Moreover, other fellow authors do want to either make a living or at least augment their incomes.  None of this is easy to do if we give away our work or the reading public only borrows from public libraries.  Have a heart, readers!  If you kill the geese that lay the golden eggs, there aren’t any more eggs to read.

In libris libertas!

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 4:00 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.