[Many readers of this blog are familiar with my unconventional and acerbic opinions about the writing business—see the posts archived in the “Writing” category of this blog.  I recently saw something about SkillShare, so I thought maybe it was time to distill some of those ideas into a short course on fiction writing for would-be authors.  You’re in luck.  A perusal of that site’s offerings about writing didn’t impress me at all.  So, here’s my short and unconventional course—and it’s free!

Actually, like any Irish whiskey, this little course is thrice distilled—a development over the years of my own ideas about writing, the afore-mentioned blog posts, and now this mini-course.  You might not like some of the things I say because I don’t sugarcoat my opinions.  That’s too bad.  They’re my honest opinions at this stage in my writing career.  BTW, while readers might enjoy my points of view, this is mostly for indie writers, but traditionally published authors who aren’t Patterson’s workers on his book-writing assembly line, or other Big Five old stallions, i.e. midlist authors, can benefit too. Without further comment, here’s lesson two.]

An Iconoclast Examines Fiction Writing

Lesson Two:  The Path to a Polished Manuscript

OK, so you have a first draft.  If you’ve been content editing all along, your story is complete.  (You have to know when to stop.  Stopping is essential!  You need to write the next story.)  Now you have to polish that manuscript (MS) so other people can deal with it (while you write the next story), because it’s probably a bit ragged for wear already.  You might have used too many dialogue tags, for example.  Or made multiple grammar and spelling errors.  You’ve already done your content editing, so the next step is copy editing.  You can do much of that yourself—maybe all of it, because you’ve been writing long enough to know your own quirks, probably better than any copy editor you can hire.  In any case, you need to make a few passes before you send the MS off to anyone else.

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[Many readers of this blog are familiar with my unconventional and acerbic opinions about the writing business—see the posts archived in the “Writing” category of this blog.  I recently saw something about SkillShare, so I thought maybe it was time to distill some of those ideas into a short course on fiction writing for would-be authors.  You’re in luck.  A perusal of that site’s offerings about writing didn’t impress me at all.  So, here’s my short and unconventional course—and it’s free!

Actually, like any Irish whiskey, this little course is thrice distilled—a development over the years of my own ideas about writing, the afore-mentioned blog posts, and now this mini-course.  You might not like some of the things I say because I don’t sugarcoat my opinions.  That’s too bad.  They’re my honest opinions at this stage in my writing career.  BTW, while readers might enjoy my points of view, this is mostly for indie writers, but traditionally published authors who aren’t Patterson’s slaves on his book-writing assembly line, or other Big Five old stallions, i.e. midlist authors, can benefit too. Without further comment, here’s lesson one.]

An Iconoclast Examines Fiction Writing

Lesson One: Writing Your Story

Introduction.  The competition for readers is ferocious.  The number of authors is increasing; the number of readers is decreasing.  That’s a fact of life.  It’s probably only going to get worse.  Many good books by good authors are appearing every week, and, if you’re a reader ignoring the indies, you’re really missing out on some good stories.  Something that’s occurring that helps a wee bit to diminish numbers in that class of “good authors” is that the age-old art of storytelling is getting mauled by young creators of bad screenplays oriented to bad TV shows and streaming video, crappy movies, and video games, all emphasizing the visual and passive in comparison to fiction that involves the reader at a more cerebral and active level.

Emphasis is on “young.”  Even the younger baby boomers have grown up with TV and are addicted to passive visual stimulation.  Stephen King makes this point in his best book, On Writing, although he doesn’t come out and say it directly, so I will: passive visual stimulation destroys the imagination.  Many young authors nowadays often don’t have enough experience to have original story ideas either.  King: “Life isn’t a support system for art.  It’s the other way around.”  I disagree.  (To be fair, this King quote has more to do with the placement of his writing desk!)  Instead of waiting to become formulaic like Grafton, King, and Patterson have become, they now start off being formulaic, writing bad screenplays and uninteresting novels (current MFA programs too often teach formulaic—a journalism degree is probably the better prep for a wannabe writer if s/he thinks some sort of formal degree is required).

Life experiences are essential for story ideas.  That doesn’t mean you slavishly follow the adage, “Write what you know.”  That’s malarkey.  (Consider sci-fi.)  Experience leads to story ideas; imagination polishes them into great stories.  The visual but passively viewed pyrotechnics described above kill imagination.  Period.  Most MFA profs kill imagination too.  That’s fine if you’re writing non-fiction.  If you want to write good fiction, you better have a lively imagination.  Fortunately, many creative people do, no matter what they do for their day-job.  Writing courses, while perhaps useful for polishing prose, aren’t really necessary.  If you don’t have any imagination, though, don’t write fiction.  If you insist on writing, write something else (maybe greeting cards?).

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[Authors, please don’t query.  These are generally reviews for books that I buy for R&R—if I like them, I’ll review them here…maybe.  If you want your book reviewed, query Bookpleasures.com—that site has many reviewers, including me.]

Magic Mirror (Georgia Lee Maxwell #1).  Michaela Thompson, author (booksBnimble, 2013).  This ebook proves a point that’s often made: when you discover an old book it can be a refreshing new read for the discoverer.  Ms. Thompson originally published the paper version of this book in 1988.  I don’t know anything about booksBnimble, but apparently they reissue old pbooks in ebook format.  I count myself lucky to have come across it.

The easiest way to write a mystery is to write it in the first person.  The reader can then discover all the clues right along with the “detective,” in this case Southern transplant to Paris Georgia Lee Maxwell, and no one is tempted to go into some other character’s point of view where spoilers can lurk.  I consider this mystery a precursor of cozies, but it has the average book length.  There are no serious themes entwined with the plot beyond the usual human ones of greed and obsession.  Misdirects abound, Georgia Lee is something like a bumbling Miss Marple, and the reader is taken on rides around Paris that show the charm of the city on the Seine and a few of the snotty Parisians who inhabit it.

You never find out whether the mirror, a circular and polished piece of obsidian once belonging to Nostradamus, is for real, but you won’t care.  This is a fine mystery by a fine writer.  For those readers wanting something in the Mary Higgins Clark tradition, download a copy.  For those writers who want to learn how to write things in that tradition, download a copy.  And, for those who want to do neither one, you’ll still find it an entertaining read.  (Perfectly edited, this book is appropriate for everyone.)

Misunderstood: Six People, Three Incidents, One Courtroom.  Gail Matelson, author.  A judge is about to retire.  Does blind justice become blinder in his courtroom?  As we age, we begin to worry about retirement.  Some go kicking and screaming into that Golden Age; others can’t wait to walk out of that day-job.  This is partly a study of that quandary with a psychological flavor.

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[We’ve been so busy during the holidays that we haven’t seen many movies.  Not many have interested me anyway.  Here are two that might float your boat.]

Concussion.  Peter Landesman, director and screenplay; Jeanne Marie Laskas, author of the medical mystery.  This is also a conspiracy story involving the NFL and the federal government attempts to protect America’s favorite gladiator sport.  It’s about how the problem of concussions became public thanks to a Nigerian doctor played by Will Smith (he probably deserves an Oscar, by the way).  It’s interesting that the cover-up still continues—there are no ads for this movie in the NY Times!  As indicated in the movie, the NFL thinks they’re better than God, and Goodell is its prophet and protector.  Rabid fans might not like this movie; logical and reasonable ones will.  Parallels with Big Tobacco are obvious—at least the players now know what awaits them in the future.  (A+; PG-13, I suppose, but there’s strong language even if you discount the football violence.)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  J. J. Abrams, dir.  I waited for the hype to die down a wee bit to review this one.  Curiosity moved me—I was more curious to see if it lived up to the hype, of course.  It doesn’t.  None of the stories in episodes I through VI were great; in VII there is NO story, unless you count Han and Leia’s kid idolizing his grandfather a story.  There are some new faces in addition to the old ones.  The new female protagonist is a clone of the Hunger Games heroine, and the new male protagonist is more just a bow to diversity—they’re both OK although not believable.  Harrison Ford still steals the show, what there is of it.  Frankly, I couldn’t understand what all the cheering was about, but, then again, I never liked Star Wars.  Even the “surprises” were predictable.  (C+; some little kids might get scared at times, so parents should be with their little ones, but this is G.)

In libris libertas….

Item. The New Year.  This will be my last newsletter until the New Year.  To all readers, reviewers, and writers—I hope 2015 brought you joy and success, and may you all have a safe, healthy, and prosperous 2016.

Item.  Goodreads.  I love this site!  It’s where the readers are—people who are avid readers and intensely interested in books and their authors.  I’ve met some great people there, both readers and authors.  It’s now my social media site of choice.  Facebook has been relegated to my author page for the most part (too many narcissists and people mounting soapboxes anyway).  While I still have trouble with Goodreads’ unwieldy user interface (it’s like a multitude of patches on an old inner tube), I’m learning (I have to keep a notebook on my groups and choices for them, things about my author’s page, and how to set up things).  I still haven’t figured out how to say I finished the bio of Winston Churchill, for example—it still shows me on the last page…of the index!

But here’s my advice after several years of climbing the learning curve, for both readers and writers: stick with it!  For readers, you’ll learn about great books and great authors—some of them will be obscure and never mentioned by the NY Times or found in B&N book barns, but great reading can be had for those who are looking for new reading entertainment.  For authors, be a reader first—stick to the various author and promo sections in the different reading groups you belong to.  When the moderator says no promo in a certain section, follow that rule.  (Sometimes one of my own books is a good example of something in a discussion, but I try to warn readers in that case.)  I recommend that authors stay away from the authors’ groups too.  You’ll meet enough authors in the reading groups, and chances are they’re more interested in reading your books than those in the author groups just wanting to discuss writing and marketing techniques.

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[Sometimes your enemies can turn into allies.  This one might make the Pentagon nervous.  Enjoy.  And happy holidays!]

Silo

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2015

                Mike Preston knew his old car well and didn’t like the sound it was making.  He pulled off the interstate and made his way into a small prairie town.  He’d been driving all night on his way to Chicago to research another article, but getting stranded on a lonely interstate hadn’t appealed to him.  Doesn’t this backwater place have a service station?

He spotted a diner with a parking lot full of old pickups—that was a good sign because he needed some breakfast, a good one because he planned to skip lunch.  He saw the usual hardware and drug stores, the first outnumbering the second because this was the great American prairie.  Most of those pickups probably belonged to farmers.  Or were they called ranchers here?

Finally, after passing almost the length of the main street (he realized there might be only one), he found a service station across the street from an auto body shop.  Both names started with Abe’s.  He pulled into the station.

***

                “I know the sound, sir,” said Abe, the mechanic and CEO of both establishments—that name was on the sewn-on tag, the overalls’ only adornment.  “You have a frayed belt.  Give me thirty minutes and you can be on your way.  Pull right into the bay.  You’re my first customer today.”

Good lord, did the guy write jingles on the side?  Way, bay, today—Preston’s ears were sensitive to language nuances.  The fellow had a nice Midwestern twang and seemed nice enough.  Is he honest?

It took him only twenty minutes and sixty-five bucks that Preston put on his Visa after calculating he’d still be just under the credit limit.  He topped the tank off with cash, leaving only a few bucks in his wallet.  There goes breakfast, unless it’s really cheap.

“Diner back there any good?” he said after thanking the mechanic and shaking his hand.

“Julie’s is the only game in town.  Just don’t get any fish unless it’s local.  They serve breakfast all day.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how do you folks keep going with just the farm folk as customers?”

“Missile silos,” said the mechanic.  “Guys come into town for R&R.  I fix the official vehicles too.  Julie feeds them.  The pub serves them drinks.  It’s an important component in the local economy.”

Maybe the only steady one?  “Aren’t all those missiles old?”
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Item.  Holiday hiatus.  In the spirit of all the end-of-the-year holiday celebrations, my blog posts will be more sporadic for the next three weeks.  My first priority is friends and family.  Yours should be too.  Be safe, be warm, be well, and enjoy whatever festivities you have planned for the holidays.  And, by all means, read a few books.

Item.  New Year’s Resolutions.  Have you made yours?  I’ve made mine.  Some are contained below as I continue to navigate my book business through the reefs and shark-infested waters of modern publishing.  My willing, eager, and able crew hasn’t decided to abandon Captain Moore’s ship yet, so we’ll keep going.  They’re all smart ladies—Donna Carrick, Sara Carrick, Carol Shetler, and Debby Kelly.  The first three are Canadians while Debby migrated from New England to the U.S. West Coast.  I couldn’t have the number of books I currently have without this crew.  And Amanda Kerr, from BookBuzz.net, lets the whole world know about new releases with her excellent and affordable PR and marketing packages.  Join me: let’s give them all a special holiday hoorah for a job well done!  I resolve to do that more next year and continue to bring readers exciting entertainment at reasonable prices.

Here’s another more personal resolution: I plan to read more books.  While I enjoy writing and have many more stories to tell, it’s always a joy to read a well-written book.  I need to do it more often, although I read more than I write even now.  There are so many good books and authors available these days.  That’s good for readers, not so much for authors.  Adding all the different formats—print, ebooks, and audiobooks—the opportunities are endless.  Find time to read—the alternative, as considered in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, is unthinkable.  Most books are better than the drivel you can find on TV these days.  How many car chases, exploding helicopters, brain-eating zombies, fangy vampires, mushy romances, mind-numbing sitcoms, space aliens, and so forth do you have to see anyway?  You can read about many more if that’s your shtick, you know.

Item. Childhood’s End.  This novel probably was the tipping point in Arthur C. Clarke’s sci-fi writing career.  It’s now a classic, classic sci-fi at its best, cerebral stuff that makes the fantasy fluff of Star Wars, a story which seems like a bad fairy tale in comparison, Hunger Wars, and yes, even The Martian, poor competition that’s left in the dust.  That’s the book, of course.  Hollywood often manages to ruin things when basing a book on a movie.  That’s the case with the SyFy Channel’s movie based on Clarke’s novel.  I watched the first part.  Ugh!  Maybe current TV viewers will know no better, but I give it a thumb’s down.  Some of the acting was OK, and you often have to go in with an open mind when Hollywood steps in, but I wasn’t happy.

Item.  Smashwords stats.  Coker finally got around to publishing these on his blog (he’d given a summary at some book event last summer).  One stat relates to the genre question I mentioned in a previous newsletter: the most popular fiction genres in descending order are romance, erotica, YA and teen fiction, fantasy, mystery and detective, gay and lesbian fiction, science fiction, historical, thriller and suspense, and adventure.  No percentages were given, and it’s not clear if overlaps were removed (romantic mysteries, for example).

Another reaffirms the sweet spot for ebook prices, $2.99 to $3.99 ($1.99 is a no-no and $0.99 and free are seen as promos). Will traditional publishers pay attention to this?  Probably not.  Finally, although Smashwords just expanded to some retailers and ebook library services overseas, iBooks and B&N are still its most important affiliated retailers.  I’ve noticed sales picking up with them, which is why I’m moving ebooks away from Amazon exclusivity where sales are flat.  I’m more interested in increasing readership than sales per se, but I won’t give my ebooks away.  $2.99 to $3.99 seems a fair price for me and might one day allow me to break even.  Of course, I could just stop publishing books instead of pumping royalties back into producing the next book, but that’s no fun!

Item. The Midas Bomb, Second Edition.  This is the FIRST book in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  The original edition was professionally done by Infinity Publishing, so why publish a second edition?  The original was published in 2009.  Six years might not seem like a long time, but you have to consider that five other books in the series have followed.  #1 was written in a style different from #2-6.  I wanted to completely rewrite and reedit the book in order to match its style to the other books—hard-boiled, minimalist writing for mystery, suspense, and thriller novels.

Infinity’s prices were no longer competitive either.  You will still be able to buy the ebook in all the standard formats at $2.99 (non-exclusivity on Amazon means that there will be no Kindle countdown deals for this book, but at this price, why would you need them?).  The pbook (trade paperback from Create Space) will have a new edition too, at $9.99, essentially the price of the original Infinity ebook!  I plan to make the other ebooks in the series available in all ebook formats too at least, and, budget allowing, continue to add pbooks for the remaining books.  This is an experiment, so please help me make it a success.  (For those who already have the first edition, you can have fun comparing the two.)

For reviewers, the Kindle version is available on Net Galley.  Other ebook formats are a bit more complicated, but I can manage them too.  The paper version is very complicated because I have to deal with snail mail, a real hassle anytime and especially over the holidays, but my arm could be twisted.

Item.  Christmas presents for your favorite readers.  Yeah, I get it, people like to give paper books as gifts because they’re tangible.  But you might want to check with your friends and relatives.  If they have a Kindle or some other e-reading device (most smart phones can function as e-readers nowadays, and there’s always that Amazon app that allows you to read Kindle-fomatted ebooks on most any device), they might prefer an electronic file they can download.  Use Amazon’s and other retail sites’ gift-giving feature to send some e-stocking stuffers their way.  And, if you insist on pbooks, see The Midas Bomb above or Full Medical, Soldiers of God, and Survivors of the Chaos, all available in paper.  Your least expensive way to do the latter is right from the source—Create Space (Amazon), Xlibris, or Infinity.

Item.  New books for next year.  Hopefully, next year I can publish Rogue Planet and #7 in the C&C series, Gaia and the Goliaths.  The first book will be something like a sequel to the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and the Dr. Carlos stories, but it’s more epic like Dune in the sense that the downtrodden are trying to win back their planet.  There’s a preview of the second novel at the end of #6 in the series; #7 has an environmental theme.  Both books are now in the editing process and will be sent to my beta-readers at the beginning of 2016.

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Girl with the Dragon Tatoo leads to many Girl Somethings, Gone Girl leads to a plethora of Gone Somethings, Harry leads to Percy, Twilight leads to more sparkling vampires, King and Koontz try to outdo each other in Horrorsville, Lord of the Rings leads to more fantasies, Jack Reacher leads to John Puller, Lincoln Rhyme leads to many CSI stories, Grisham creates a new subgenre filled with copycat legal thrillers, and so forth.  These are all examples of jumping on the bandwagon.  It’s not just in the titles.  Take John Puller.  Change his name to Jack Reacher everywhere in the David Baldacci book Zero Hour and you have a Lee Child novel.  It’s not just a phenomenon of indie writers trying to copy the novels produced by the old horses in the Big Five’s large formulaic stables either.  It’s more general than that.  It’s jumping on a bandwagon by an author hoping for publishing success.

I smile at this phenomenon and try to be tolerant.  I often tell people that I write the kind of novel I like to read.  But that doesn’t mean I jump on somebody else’s bandwagon—I tell original stories.  I have four series, but each novel in a series is a stand-alone story.  Maybe that’s why I had 1000+ rejections when I started out in this business!  In my query letters, I don’t remember ever saying that a novel was like someone else’s.  How could I?  It wasn’t.  I do remember telling some agents that my YA sci-fi mystery The Secret Lab was NOT Harry Potter in space.  That’s legit.  An author can tell an agent s/he’s not jumping on a bandwagon!  But all those rejections I had could mean that most agents, generally the gatekeepers for the traditional publishers, are afraid of betting on the new horse—they want authors to say their books are like something else so they can make the connection and pitch it to the editors that way.

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[I had fun with this one.  It’s in the spirit of Men in Black and Heinlein’s Glory Road, but with a few twists.  It’s also a product of one night’s insomnia.  Enjoy.]

Chauffeur

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2015

                “Miss Fogg will see you now.”  The butler opened the door to the library and walked away, returning to the labyrinth.

He hoped the old man would return.  He wasn’t sure he could find his way out of the old mansion.  He adjusted his Yankees cap and entered.  There were so many books, he felt he was in the New York Public Library.  Ladders on rails could run along the shelves that reached to the high ceiling.  At the other end, in front of an ornate desk, was an exercise mat.  A woman was balancing on her head.  He moved forward.  She waved, flipped onto her feet, and offered her hand.

“Misty Fogg,” she said, “and you’re Sam Richardson.  I have your resume.”  She went behind the desk and plopped into an antique leather chair.  “Thank you for applying.  Besides the Army, why are you qualified?  A lot of New Yorkers can’t drive worth shit.”

“I’m from New Jersey.”

She checked the sheets.  “So you are.  New Brunswick.  I have no idea where that is.  That’s why I need a chauffeur.  Dobbs is a New Yorker, and he can’t drive worth shit.”

“The butler?”

“Butler, majordomo, chief steward, call him what you want.  With Dobbs and Dora, my house staff is complete.  Dora’s the cook, and I hire a cleaning service that comes in every Friday.  Can you drive a Mercedes?”

“Stick?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Does it have a clutch?”

“No, it’s an automatic.  A diesel.  It used to be considered a green vehicle until the electrics came out.  It’s a rich woman’s car.  I’m rich, in case you’re wondering.”

And also in excellent shape, he thought.  “I can drive you anywhere you want in your Mercedes.”

“That remains to be seen.  I don’t want to be involved in any accidents.  There are a lot of crazy drivers on the road.  They make me nervous.  I don’t like to be nervous.  My life is hectic enough as it is.”
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Given that the Donald and the other GOP candidates have made the rest of the world and many in the U.S. wonder what’s happening in America, the Land of the Free, it seems appropriate to list the things that we’re doing or might do to let ISIS win and return this world to the Dark Ages.  The GOP candidates own a lot of the hateful rhetoric described below—I refuse to believe all GOP voters do.  Here’s the list:

***

Discriminate and persecute Muslims.  Trump and his supporters seem to forget that there’s freedom of religion in this country.  The Founding Fathers thought that this right was so important, it’s the first sentence in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  Trump, of course, is using hate and paranoia to pander to his base, which seems to represent about a third of GOP voters—that in itself is frightening—but he’s also proposing something he could never deliver without amending the U.S. Constitution.

While Islam faces the same problems as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and their offshoots and alternatives—how to maintain an ancient faith in a world that’s increasing secular and expecting spirituality and beliefs to be more of a private choice, not a public demonstration that infringes on others’ rights—its members, as do all religious members, need to eschew discrimination and violence and convince its members to control and ostracize those members who turn to them.  Every religion has a bloody past.  The world must move on.  Religious strife does NOT belong in the 21^st century.

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