They go from the prestigious Nobel, Pulitzer, and Man Booker prizes to less prestigious and banal ones some local book clubs or author groups hand out (often associated with some event). By and large, they all are recognitions of some author’s hard work in writing a book considered meritorious by some committee of judges—popular voting often wouldn’t provide the same recognition, because it’s often fickle, as Dancing with the Stars and American Idol have shown. (Recall Adam Lambert losing the latter because homophobic evangelicals biased the vote, giving a winner who has done nothing since? Yes, evangelicals damage the country and the world that way too.). The most extreme popular vote is sales numbers, and that really is fickle! But who are those judges?

They can be biased too, of course. They’re often just the good ole guys and gals who award prizes to someone within their same in-group. I can imagine them sagely nodding and saying, “Now it’s so-and-so’s turn to win.” Or one group tries to exclude another. In 2018, a group pressured Man Booker to exclude American authors, for example (they fortunately didn’t succeed). I’ve seen prizes awarded to books that are terrible; I know this because I read them (although sometimes they were so bad, I couldn’t finish).

Those top prizes—Nobel, Pulitzer, and Man Booker, to name a few—are coveted by authors and publishers alike, so you know literary politics plays a role as big publishers campaign for certain books and authors (the adjective “literary” is needed because most politics is controlled by illiterate idiots—DC is infested with them). That’s human nature, and, because of this, for me, they’re always suspect. It’s also hard to prove any shenanigans, because the public knows little about the inner workings of the judging processes. The Nobel committee created a scandal a few years ago, so much so that no prize was given.

But do avid readers actually read prize-winning books, or are the prizes, no matter the level, largely ignored by readership and reduce to ego-trips for the authors? The last Nobel prize novel I read was Garcia Marquez’s Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude); I read it in the original Spanish long before Gabo received the Nobel for it and greatly admired his use of magical realism. (The latter influenced part of my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” although Gabo used it in neither a fantasy nor sci-fi setting—yes, those can also seem very realistic!)

These top prizes are often given to what’s been called “literary fiction” books (as if genre fiction wasn’t literature!), a catch-all category often not found in bookstores that are smart enough to realize that the label is meaningless. (Although it might seem unusual to call To Kill a Mockingbird a legal thriller, that’s what it is, and it’s undoubtedly the best one ever written! Sorry, John Grisham—your books can’t compare.)

My suspicions about how meritorious prizes are covers all levels. Why did Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem receive a Hugo? It’s a terrible sci-fi story and terribly written. It’s something like a political thriller, and I suppose that any story knocking modern China is worthy of some consideration, but the Hugo? Really? (See my 7/28/2017 review in the “Book Reviews” archive of this blog.)

Many low-level prizes are nothing more than money-makers for the organizations “sponsoring” them. These disguise that practice by using the questionable tactic of calling entry fees “reading fees.” When many of these use volunteer judges, their pay being promised prestige, you have to wonder who’s getting those fees. Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Authors should think more than twice about entering such contests.

All that said, I’ve seen fellow authors, whose books I greatly admire, win prizes. Many of these are good friends, and I applaud them. An old professor of mine, N. Scott Momaday, won a Pulitzer and truly deserved it—he’s a great writer. I never met Gabo when I lived in Colombia, but he and Pablo Neruda are my favorite Latino writers (poet in the case of Neruda)—both Pablo and Gabo won the Nobel. I don’t need formal judges, volunteers or otherwise, to tell me what books are worth reading. I really don’t care if a book wins a prize or not when I’m selecting books to read. Book prizes are like Emmys and Academy Awards: useless for determining my entertainment choices. In fact, many determine what I do NOT want to read.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Death on the Danube. At the end of Son of Thunder, #2 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, ex-MI6 agent and ex-Scotland Yard inspector Esther Brookstone and Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden finally say their I-do’s. At the beginning of this new novel, #3 in the series, they embark on their honeymoon cruise down the romantic Danube. When a strange passenger who is traveling alone is murdered, Bastiann takes over the investigation because the river was declared international waters in the Treaty of Paris. Who really is this gaunt victim? And who on the list of passengers and crewmembers is the assassin? Mystery, thrills, suspense, and romance await readers who join them in their journey. You can’t take this trip now because of COVID, but you can join them in spirit. Available in ebook and print format at Amazon, and all ebook formats at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo and Walmart, etc.) and affiliated library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Gardner, etc.). See the Readers’ Favorite 5-star review here.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Self-published authors want to know how to price their books. Traditionally published authors usually don’t determine their book’s price, to their consternation, because those publishers often shaft them in that process. So let’s take a step back and just analyze what an ebook or print book should cost a reader, irrespective of how it’s published.

For ebooks, prices are changing. There’s plenty of supply, but there’s also more demand because, in this time of pandemic, ebooks are the safest ones to buy. For fiction, I’d put a new 60-kword ebook at $3.99; $2.99 or less for older. 80 kwords and above? Anybody’s guess, but $4.99 at least, but certainly less than $7. After all, $1 bets on five NFL games costs $5. Guess which entertainment has more lasting value. By the way, those $0.99 and $1.99 prices are bad choices. Unless you’re doing a sale, readers are likely to think the book has poor quality. And authors always strive to make quality books, right?

Print books are oranges compared two ebook apples, i.e. they’re a different species. I’m tempted not to do them anymore. I didn’t for A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. I did for Death on the Danube. Why the difference? Because the first two books in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series had print versions, while Time Traveler’s Guide was a stand-alone.

Yes, I know, those marketing gurus I railed against yesterday say that ebooks have plateaued and print remains strong. More BS, and wishful thinking from the Big Five publishing conglomerates. COVID has made many experts eat their words! Yes, the Big Five artificially elevate their ebook prices to make their print versions seem the better buy, but a print version should cost more than an ebook because it takes more money to produce a print version! And readers should pay more for the print version, considering global warming (if you can’t figure that one out, you’re part of the problem).

Enough readers still live in the 19^th century and like print better, but they shouldn’t have to pay the exorbitant prices traditional publishers charge either. I suppose some authors get some kind of ego boost seeing their books in print. From the author’s point of view, though, they’re only useful for those ego boosts and book events (the latter might come back, after all, if we ever get through this pandemic). Still, self-published authors shouldn’t follow traditional publishers’ lead in pricing their print versions. I recommend pricing them at the minimum price allowed by Create Space, or whatever printing service you use. Amazon has an easy formula to use, but you need the number of pages. You’ll know that, of course, once the print book is formatted. Set your print book at that minimum allowable price and everyone will be happy. You might actually make a bit more money too (the old numbers game). Just be aware that you’ll usually sell more ebooks!

If you’re traditionally published, your publisher can screw you with a high price for print and an ebook price almost as high. Those prices can lead to poor sales numbers. And then the publisher is liable to blame it all on you, especially when bookstores start returning the unsold books. (That’s why Big Five publishers are endangered species, except for their non-fiction tell-alls and celeb books. I don’t read many Big Five books now, and a lot of authors avoid them.)

Will correct, reasonable pricing help sell books? Nope, it’s just one necessary condition. There are no sufficient conditions authors or publishers can control. Everyone’s playing the lottery, and readers are rolling the dice.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Death on the Danube. Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden are on their honeymoon cruise floating down the Danube when a mysterious passenger is murdered. Because the Danube is international waters, Interpol agent Bastiann takes over the murder investigation. This third book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series lets the reader follow more unique adventures of this crime-fighting duo full of mystery, suspense, and thrills. Come take a romantic cruise with the two sleuths. Available in all ebook formats and print (the print version is coming).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Molly Malone was a fish monger who marketed her cockles and mussels through streets wide and narrow, but should authors become book mongers? Molly was probably a lot better at selling her wares than authors are at selling their books. We’re good at writing. Most of us hate the rest and aren’t that motivated to do it. That leads to marketing gurus taking advantage of us.

Various gurus make a lot of money doing just that. (I could name names so authors could avoid them, but that wouldn’t be nice, would it? Write me if you need a list.). They’d answer, “Yes, you have to market your books, and we’re the ones who alone have the secrets about how to do it successfully.” BS. They all want your money upfront, and most of their secret methods are outdated and fail. They weasel out of those failures by blaming the authors, of course.

I market intensely when I launch a new book. I contract that out, and the lady who helps me is efficient and delivers, all business and making no promises. I appreciate her honesty. Her packages are also reasonably priced. I’ve worked with her for years, and she’s helped with both my traditionally and self-published books. In the wild seas of book marketing, she’s my rock that keeps me above the threatening waves.

Frankly, the dice are loaded against me and most authors, and no marketing guru can change that. The fundamental problem is that there are now too many books and too many authors that readers are overwhelmed by the offerings. They have no effective way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and there’s a lot of the latter. I know from experience. I’m an avid reader, and I’m constantly bombarded with offers of reading material, so much so that I’m overwhelmed and start looking for ways to tune out all the noise. I suspect every avid reader faces this dilemma.

As an author, I wave the white flag. What’s helped me conclude all those marketing gurus are basically worthless is they don’t believe in their own methods. If they did, they’d offer some kind of royalties-sharing plan—let’s sell books together and make money as we do. Consider a self-published book where I get 60 to 70% royalties. I’d give them 20% for a year. That should be time enough for them to prove the efficacy of their methods. Like the old snake-oil salesmen, they’re not interested in that—they want their money upfront!

Traditional publishers could make the same offer. Oh, yes, they usually take 80% or more of the royalties already, saying their investment in upfront costs (editing, formatting, and cover art) makes that reasonable. But I shouldn’t have to give them any more then to get marketing help, right? After all, if a book doesn’t sell, they lose more than I do! They could go to those same marketing gurus and make the offer of royalties sharing using their 80%. They don’t. They expect the author to do it. In fact, they send out recommendations for authors to try…using the authors’ money, of course.

So what’s an author to do? I’ve adopted a new policy. I don’t like to be bombarded as a reader, so I refuse to bombard other readers with “Read my book!” messages. I’m using a more novel tactic (pardon the pun); I’ll focus on all my books, but without bombarding readers. (The exception is that book-launch marketing, of course.) This is mostly done with blurbs at the end of these blog posts and showing cover art here and there. This limited effort comes from the belief that my writing books in different genres—mystery, thriller, and sci-fi novels—and all these are “evergreen,” will appeal to a wide demographic of readers. (“Evergreen” means the book is as current and fresh as the day I wrote it.)

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While you don’t need a writer to be a fan, crosswords seem a natural pastime for authors. Give me a spare half-hour, and I’ll try to breeze through one. I often get through Monday’s NY Times’s crosswords in less than that, using a pen, and take slightly more time with Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s, using a pencil. If I don’t finish one, I just toss it. There’s always another one.

I often receive books of crosswords as gifts. The intention is good—people who know me know I’m a fan. One of these contained crosswords labeled “easy.” They weren’t so easy, though. I checked the author indicated on the cover. Will Smith? Now, both Will and Smith are common first and last names, respectively, but an unsuspecting buyer probably will think of Will Smith, the actor. He could be a fan and a creator of crosswords, as far as I know. Inside the author was not Will Smith. Maybe the author is some fellow from Hong Kong, who speaks and writes English better than I do and really thinks these crosswords are easy? It was hard to tell.

So here’s the punch line: those “easy” crosswords books were published via Amazon’s Create Space, now part of KDP. Amazon is well known for selling just about anything, and its KDP offerings are no exception. I’m always fighting that stigma because my books are often listed among a lot of trash books that are published. Some of these are undoubtedly pirated. Amazon can’t control that, of course. Anyone can publish anything these days.

This is related to the problems with Amazon affiliates in general. Company X can make a terrible, even dangerous product and sell it on Amazon. In the gig economy, the huge retailer offers a way to reach a national, even international audience, for someone who makes boutique soaps in their garage, for example. I don’t have problems with that per se, especially in these days of COVID, but there’s very little quality control. Just consider all the face mask and hand sanitizer offerings there.

And, like it or not, every self-published author participates in that gig economy. Authors can write, publish, and market their books right from their homes. Many sell directly from their website, or process book orders right at home. Again, nothing wrong with that. The days of book signings and book events are gone, or on their last legs with the pandemic. Amazon and every other internet retailer is the better answer. In fact, one of my internet retailers is Smashwords, and they distribute to many other retailers and lending and library services as well.

You can understand why I sometimes feel like that Will Smith who’s not a Will Smith. In fact, dear readers, I could just be a computer program that writes, publishes, and markets books, all automatically, some sort of AI that’s pretending to be human. Or maybe an ET doing everything from my cloaked spaceship in orbit.

Now those are new versions of “nerdy author,” right?

***

Comments are always welcome.

Death on the Danube. Esther Brookstone, ex-MI6 agent in East Berlin in the Cold War and ex-Scotland Yard Inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, is on her honeymoon with Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden. Their idyllic cruise down the Danube is interrupted when a reclusive and mysterious passenger is murdered. Why was the victim alone on that riverboat filled with couples, in a stateroom by himself? And who killed him? Esther and Bastiann were often called Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by wags at the Yard, and this addition to the series might remind readers of Christie’s Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express, but this mystery/thriller is very much a story set in the twenty-first century. So tour the Danube with Esther and Bastiann…and enjoy the ride! Coming soon.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

My character Esther Brookstone becomes obsessed with finding things: a missing painting in Rembrandt’s Angel and St. John the Divine’s tomb in Son of Thunder. In the third book of the series, Death on the Danube (coming soon!), she does more traditional sleuthing, helping new hubby, Bastiann van Coevorden, find an assassin. This Miss Marple-like woman and her Hercule Poirot-like husband are on their honeymoon! I’ve become obsessed with telling readers about her adventures (although George Langston, her ex-boss, gets the credit for that, as he takes on the role of Dr. Watson to chronicle the sleuthing pair’s escapades contained in the books). That obsession, storytelling, has gripped me since my first novel, Full Medical (2006).

Although I’m an ex-scientist (you might still see some of my ancient publications if you google me—yes, that’s the same Steven M. Moore!), and those skills allow me to create complex stories without too many errors in logic, I’ve always been more verbal and visual. Any successes I had as a scientist are due to those same skills of organization and visualization of lots of experimental data. I remember my surprise long ago when my SAT verbal score was a bit higher than my mathematical one. Now I realize I shouldn’t have been—I’ve always been obsessed with words, both in reading and writing.

My reading led to writing. I was always reading “ahead of grade,” as elementary teachers call it (I bless them all for putting up with my idiosyncrasies). I soon had acquired enough hubris to believe that I could create stories as interesting and entertaining as the ones I read (mysteries, adventures now known as thrillers, and sci-fi, all at an adult level). I wrote my first novel the summer I turned thirteen—it went into the trash can when I left for college. My current writing style has mostly remained the same, though—minimalist writing. In my reading, I admired and still admire how good storytellers allow readers to participate in the creative process by providing just enough narrative and character description so readers can exercise their own visualization powers. How could I write like that and still maintain my own voice? Practice, practice, practice. I believe I can do it now (there’s always room for improvement), but it’s always been my main goal…or obsession, if you will.

Writing is my obsession now. Part of that is because I didn’t start publishing my stories until 2006. (It would have been earlier, but some agents and acquisition editors spammed me with loads of rejections for a while.) From the very beginning, I wrote stories that would always be “evergreen,” stories as current and entertaining as the day I wrote them. That same late start means that I’ll continue to write them to catch up. I have many stories in me still, and I feel this need to write them. That’s my obsession.

Are other authors obsessed in this way? I sense that some aren’t; they’re just writing stories that satisfy market demands. As sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein said, “…maybe I should study the market and try like hell to tailor something which fits current styles. But…if I am to turn out work of fairly permanent value, my own taste…is what I must follow.” That’s my motto too, which means I should continue to write “evergreen” books that will provide readers with more stories with permanent entertainment value.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Death on the Danube. Esther Brookstone, ex-MI6 agent in East Berlin in the Cold War and ex-Scotland Yard Inspector in the Art and Antiques Division, is on her honeymoon with Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden. Their idyllic cruise down the Danube is interrupted when a reclusive and mysterious passenger is murdered. Why was the victim alone on that riverboat filled with couples, in a stateroom by himself? And who killed him? Esther and Bastiann were often called Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by wags at the Yard, and this addition to the series might remind readers of Christie’s Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express, but this mystery/thriller is very much a story set in the twenty-first century. So tour the Danube with Esther and Bastiann…and enjoy the ride! Coming soon.

Around the world and to the starts! In libris libertas!

Bookend commercials and a day’s bookend storms…bad; Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bookends”…good. Bookends for books are on the endangered species list. The reason? Ebooks.

Many older readers and others prefer print. Like me, they like to browse in bookstores, libraries, and online; the first two are usually for print books. But, unlike me, they don’t take advantage of the convenience of ebooks: they’ve saved my sagging bookshelves. Bookends are needed to put some order into bookshelves, but they’re not needed for ebooks. Avid readers can load up their e-readers, not their shelves, so there’s no need for bookends.

During the COVID pandemic, I’ve been binge-reading, even entire series (many of them British-style mysteries). Imagine if I had print versions for all of them. Every room in my house would be needed to house them. And that’s not just a recent phenomenon. Even at my old day-job, I’d average a book every two weeks. Now it’s four or five per week, but the principle is still the same: print is impractical.

Besides, I can’t afford print. Many excellent ebooks are reasonably priced at $2.99 or $3.99; print versions are at least $10 in general. So I can buy a five-book series in ebook format for $20; the same series in print format would be $50 at least. (Big Five ebooks are a lot more expensive, but I rarely buy Big Five fiction anymore.) I’m no longer going to Burger King or McDonald’s; in the days of COVID. I prefer food for the mind, and an ebook costs about the same as a fast food meal.

Preference for ebooks had flattened before COVID, but I suspect, when all the dust settles, we will see that the pandemic has not only increased readership in general, but it has led to a surge in ebook sales numbers (why risk going to a bookstore or library when you can order an ebook online?). But preferences change slowly, and they will continue even after COVID. It’s hard to predict how things will shake out. Older readers tend not to be into e-anything, so they prefer print more than ebook versions; younger people tend not to be readers at all, and are more into streaming video and computer games. Any COVID-boost to readership might be ephemeral, but if books have any staying power, it’s more likely it will occur because of ebooks.

So I will continue to read and write ebooks, preferring them over print. Now if I could just protect them from being pirated, I would be a happy camper.

***

Comments are always welcome.

“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” This series, at times very much in the style of British mysteries, might be binge-worthy too. Esther begins her adventures as a Scotland Yard inspector with an MI6 background as an ex-spy during the Cold War. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden enters as her paramour. The wags at the Yard have nicknamed them Miss Marple and Hecule Poirot, but those adventures are very 21^st century, with mystery, suspense, and thriller elements. In the first two novels, Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder, poor Bastiann has to deal with Esther’s obsessions. In the first, she’s obsessed with recovering a painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II. In the second, she’s obsessed with finding St. John’s tomb using written directions left by the Renaissance painter Botticelli. In the third, Death on the Danube (soon to be published), Esther and Bastiann’s honeymoon is interrupted by a murder on their riverboat. Available wherever quality books are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I know I’ve probably made some readers of this blog furious with me after reading some of my recent op-eds. Maybe some are even boycotting my books. Others, though, might like that the author who wrote them has enough courage to discuss social issues, both in his books and in those op-eds? I’ll never refrain from speaking my mind just because gurus tell me that I must do so if I want to sell more books. To hell with that!

Authors are often scared of taking a stand on social issues. If they’re traditionally published, their publishers will tell them to shut up too. (And yet they still publish Ayn Rand and Michael Crichton?) If they’re self-published, other authors and marketing people might also advise, “Don’t offend anyone.”

I’ve already offended a lot of people, I suspect, since I started publishing my stories in 2006—climate-change deniers; NRA members; extremists in both parties, especially faux conservatives who are Trump supporters (do they even read? Il Duce doesn’t); and so forth. Do I care? No! If those people don’t want to read what I write, so be it. They might be missing out on some good stories, but it’s a free country, right? (Trump might change that, especially if he does the Putin- or Xi-trick and takes twelve more years, but by then I’ll be in a place where I can convince St. Peter to send him straight to you-know-where when he tries to get in through the pearly gates.)

Given my offenses, I’m not surprised I receive some negative book reviews. In today’s toxic publishing environment, that’s par for the course in general. I was surprised by a recent review of my new novel A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, though. While I thank the reviewer for the time spent reading and reviewing the book, the snarky little aside insinuating feminists will boycott the book left me shaking my head. I just don’t understand this comment. I champion strong, smart women in many of my stories. One reason I wrote the main character the way I did was because I think the “women can’t do math” and “women aren’t good at science” crowd make countries lose a lot of good mathematicians and scientists, even medical personnel. STEM in the US if for both girls and boys! That my main character also has learned some self-defense tricks is intended to be an indictment against a society that often does too little to control abuse of and violence on women. Lamentably the reviewer missed these two nuances!

Readers who bury their heads in the sand at the very least miss the whole point of books. (If Trump has read 1984, he certainly didn’t understand it…or learned nothing from it, because what he and his minions spew is doublespeak.) Have the anti-cultural appropriation people read To Kill a Mockingbird? How could Harper Lee, a white woman and Southern to boot, dare write about black America? I bet no CEO of a polluting corporation has read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring either. How dare she criticize Corporate America without being a member of that community!

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Parents only have to come up with names a few times, and they often fail miserably. Writers have to do it a lot more; they subsequently have many more times to fail and they often do. Characters’ names are important; they can make a story seem more or less real.

I was lucky my parents didn’t name me Leonard. It invariably would be shortened to Lonnie or Lon, and I was bullied with “Lawn Mower” enough as a kid—why encourage it? I have a rather common last name as it is that maybe indicates I’m at least part Irish (the O’ being dropped somewhere along the line), but my Dad’s favorite boxer, Archie Moore, was a strong and handsome black champion long before Ali, who wasn’t Arab.

The above maybe belies my belief that characters’ names are important, and real names can even be hilarious. In one of CNN’s news segments on COVID-19 a few months ago (eons for this pandemic—I never watch Fox’s fake news, by the way), they interviewed a Dr. Bright, a nice enough and smart fellow. I have to confess the name was a distraction as I asked myself, did become a doctor because of his surname? Of course, he didn’t choose it, but that was my knee-jerk reaction. And it’s anecdotal proof that characters’ names can influence readers’ perceptions.

Authors, however, choose their characters’ names. It’s not an easy task, especially for US authors whose characters belong to our wonderfully diverse melting pot. A wrong choice can trouble readers; it could also bring down the wrath of the anti-cultural appropriation crowd upon the writer. I worry more about the first than the second, of course. But no one wants to use names tantamount to Dick, Jane, and Spot—i.e. stereotypes like Jones and Smith…or Moore!

Here’s what I do: I start a story and pick names for characters as I go. Often I get to the point where the name for a character just doesn’t seem and think of a better name. I do a find-and-change the first name to the second throughout the file…and presto. I’ve renamed that character. (Sorry, you have to do first names separately from surnames because often only one of them is used. And often, with nicknames, you even need another pass: You might want to change Vladimir to Volodya. I’m thinking of my arch-villain Vladimir Kalinin AKA Volodya plus many aliases. Names for villains are very critical.)

In a sense, authors have thousands of children, their characters. They must take as much care in naming them as the proud parents of a newborn. But they have to take into account a character’s era, culture, and circumstances. Naomi Wong might be used for a Chinese-American, for example, but it won’t work in Taiwan. Horace might work for a man from the 1800s (I apologize for the obscure literary pun), but the last Horace I knew was a hamster. And so forth.

Choose your characters’ names carefully. You readers will thank you.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Rogue Planet. Considering how too many want to see the US become a fascist theocracy like Iran, only evangelical (the pope’s the anti-Christ, don’t you know), I thought some readers might be bold enough to see what a sci-fi world like that might look like. Along with Soldiers of God, some of you might have concluded even before now that I don’t like evil theocracies of any flavor. Well, you’re right. Here one man leads the charge against one to save his planet. Will he succeed? Or will he lose his head like the other so-called heretics? Set in the same sci-fi universe as the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” this is hard sci-fi with a Game-of-Thrones flair (there are no dragons). Available wherever quality books are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Writers should always strive to strike a balance in their prose. That’s another way of saying they should follow the Goldilocks Principle: Not too much, not too little, but just enough of narrative, background, characterization, and dialogue. The last seems to be a problem for some, though.

A reader of my very first novel Full Medical (2006) said she loved the dialogue. I have to confess that I don’t pay much attention to it; I just tell my story, and dialogue is part of that telling. After all, I’m more an avid reader than a writer, so I’ve experienced a lot of good storytelling techniques in my reading over the years. What’s more, that experience allows me to analyze the differences objectively—what works and doesn’t work.

First, dialogue must help tell the story. An author must move the story forward, above all (that “flow” I discussed last week), and dialogue should help the writer do that effectively if done right. Readers might see something like the following in my prose: After the usual greetings, Sam said, “I heard that….” In other words, focus should be on meaningful conversation, not banal greetings. The latter occurs in ordinary life when two people meet after a while, but something like: “How are you, Sam?” “I’m fine, Jerry. What about you?” “I guess okay. What’s new with you?” The reader is probably already bored, and if the author writes pages and pages of that, the reader will find another book.

Second, break it up. While the author shouldn’t be mimicking ordinary speech, people don’t usually give a long oration without interruption either. There’s body language, internal dialogue (what the speaker is really thinking), even tech and other breaks (cellphones ringing, a person consulting their laptop, hugs and kisses…whatever.) While droning on and on might be a character’s habit, long stretches of one character speaking can be as deadly as long stretches of narrative. (If you like that sort of thing, read Atlas Shrugged, probably the most boring book in the English language, and not only for dialogue.)

Third, be careful with dialogue tags. Consider: …he answered angrily and …she whispered sneakily. These are verboten. The –ly adverbs are questionable to begin with—clenched fists and lowered voices will better clue the reader in. As a minimalist writer, I’d minimize the use of words like answered and whispered too, preferring a simple said. That makes for lean prose and helps speed readers too (I’m one). Dialogue tags should only be used to ID the speaker. That’s not even necessary if you’re tick-tocking between male and female (or ET and human!).

If you have difficulty with dialogue, it’s useful to go back over the dialogue in your prose for these items. Don’t believe writing gurus if they tell you that you check it out by reading it aloud. It shouldn’t sound like everyday speech; it should distil ordinary speech (see above). Above all, make sure it doesn’t dam up the flow of your story. Think of the following question: Is my dialogue here an essential part of the story? Does it move it forward? Dialogue is an essential part of modern storytelling, but some writers have to work at it. If that’s you, do so…for the benefit of your readers.

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Comments are always welcome!

“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” While you’re sitting on the edge of your recliner eagerly waiting for me to announce Death on the Danube, #3 in this series, don’t forget there’s a lot of entertaining reading to be found in the first two books, Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder, very different stories tied together by Esther’s obsession with finding the truth. In the first book, the Scotland Yard inspector obsesses with recovering a painting stolen by the Nazis; in the second, she obsesses with finding the tomb of St. John the Divine. Her paramour, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, struggles to keep her on an even keel. Available wherever quality books are sold, including at the publisher Penmore Press.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

It might be hard to believe, but I’m more of a reader than a writer; and, as I read, I often admire other authors’ prose, especially when it flows like a current in the ocean or in a river that can’t be denied. Sometimes I imagine that some great voice is reading it to me—a James Earl Jones, say—with inflections and pauses interlaced with those words from a great story. I suppose that’s a justification for audio books, but my imagination is sufficient.

“Flow” is the key word here. Some authors have trouble with dialogue, for example, because it interrupts the flow of the narrative. Yet dialogue must flow too, weaving in and out of the narrative, or vice versa, creating storytelling that carries the reader forward.

I know it when I read it. Writing it doesn’t require a Nobel prize winner, although Garcia Marquez was a master at it; or a Pulitzer prize winner like N. Scott Momaday. I’ve seen it in works by writers you’ve never heard of, and in genres where you’d maybe not expect it—comedy, crime, fantasy, science fiction…you name it.

I strive to maintain an inevitable flow in my own prose. Sometimes modern prose style gets in the way. Novels today tend to have short sections and short chapters, especially in thrillers, and the breaks between them are sometimes like reefs in the literary ocean, or a boulder in the river, where waves and rapids crash. But that sometimes is effective too. My father, the painter of landscapes, knew that waves crashing are just part of the flow.

Part of maintaining the flow is choosing the right words. As I get older, this becomes more difficult. As I write a novel, I know there’s a mot juste—it’s on the tip of my tongue, because storytelling is a vocal tradition—but I often have to leave an X and move on. But that same flow will often tell me what X is, or it provides something even better.

Most writers probably struggle this way to maintain the desired flow. It’s an important part of content editing, and we shouldn’t minimize its importance. And readers will be happier when a writer doesn’t. Every reader wants to be carried away in their reading. If they’re not, they might just look for another book!

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Comments are always welcome.

A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. “You flashed a lunar citizen’s eyes with a powerful laser beam. It made him fall.” He tossed exhibit A and caught it. “Looks like an old-fashioned laser pointer to me. My great-grandfather told me about them. No reputable scientist or politician was without one….”

This sci-fi rom-com is available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!