[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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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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In my 10/29 blog post, “Theme v. Plot,” I explained the difference between theme and plot and gave some examples.  The bottom line: themes are woven into plots; while some plots have no major theme worth mentioning (fluffy romances and cozy mysteries for example), mine usually do.  (Some people don’t like that.  That’s fine.  Don’t read my novels then!)  So, at the risk of being accused of blatant self-promotion, let me list some of the themes you’ll find in my novels.  Mind you, I don’t use these themes to proselytize–I often present both sides of an issue with one character espousing one view, another the other.  The themes are sometimes indicated in the blurbs, but those mainly deal with the plot, not the themes.  Here we go:

Environmental issues.  Climate control, global warming, green energy, carbon emissions, toxic wastes—these all fit into this theme.  It’s always been a big concern of mine.  I’m a long-standing member of The Nature Conservancy and sympathizer of the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, and the various PIRGs that push environmental issues (I have to limit my financial support to just one unfortunately).  What we’ve done to our planet and continue doing is unconscionable.  Because I’ve neglected this theme far too long, it will be a main theme in Chen and Castilblanco #7, Gaia and the Goliaths (coming next year!).

Arms smuggling and gun control.  This topic is probably on everyone’s mind as the discussion sparked by the slaughter of twenty-six people in Connecticut continues (see Tuesday’s post, “Who are the Criminals?”).  I explore both the national and international problems in Angels Need Not Apply and Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder.  Do I have a solution?  Nope.  As long as the NRA is around, I can only point out the problems.

WMDs. These include dirty bombs, biologicals, and chemical and atomic weapons.  Whether you can call an IED like a pipe bomb or explosive pressure cooker a WMD is a matter of debate.  We haven’t faced the big stuff yet in this country, but is it only a matter of time?  While small groups of insane individuals or a solitary gunman can make the use of the small stuff more frequent (you can find directions on the internet), we should always be on the watch for groups who want a bigger bang for their effort.  My novels The Midas Bomb and Aristocrats and Assassins have this as a theme.  A form of biological warfare is considered in No Amber Waves of Grain.

Organ harvesting and cloning.  There have been rumors.  Whether unfounded or not, it’s only a matter of time because the financial rewards and desire for a longer life are strong motivators.  It’s the law of supply and demand at the criminal level.  There are never enough donors, so there’s a black market for this.  It can be highly organized, but probably not as much as in Full Medical—just fiction…for now.

Futuristic weapons and soldiers.  Soldiers with augmented skill sets through armor or breeding are associated with this common theme in sci-fi, but the technology is close at hand.  The situations in Muddlin’ Through and Evil Agenda could happen sooner than I imagined, though.
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This post isn’t about the NSA or a peeping Tom (both are creepy and spooky, but something akin to the first is necessary considering terrorist threats to this country and the world).  I’m talking about a NY Times article two weeks ago (11/22/15) about a Times columnist looking over Lee Child’s shoulder as he wrote yet another Jack Reacher book.  We’ll forget about Child’s possible business motivations for allowing this.  We’ll even forget the following question: OMG, another Jack Reacher book?  (The article discusses #20!)  I want to consider the psychological reasons why any writer would even allow this.

I probably write thousands of words on any given day, Saturdays, Sundays, and U.S. holidays being exceptions.  I hammer out these blog posts, maybe do some social media (others might be tired of my verbose comments there—I’m an opinionated SOB—your saving grace is that I’m mostly a lurker), and work on my stories (generally procrastinating with the copy editing in preference to actual writing and content editing).  I really don’t want anyone looking over my shoulder.  I want the possibility of writing in my skivvies if it strikes my fancy.  I want the possibility of snacking on a forbidden tidbit or leftover (cold pizza can be a breakfast food) or having an extra cup of java, maybe laced with Jameson whiskey, without anyone being an eye witness.

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I’m not sure if I should be proud of it, but I just realized I don’t have one serial killer in my novels.  About half my books are in the mystery/suspense/thriller genre, and many of the sci-fi books have nods to that genre–for example, are Soldiers of God and No Amber Waves of Grain mystery, thriller, or sci-fi?  Readers can worry about the genre labels; I just write the story.  But it’s interesting in a self-analytic sort of way that I write a lot of crime fiction yet have no serial killers.

The first chapter of Soldiers of God reads like there’s a serial killer on the loose.  That’s intentional and about as close as I came to having one.  You might argue that Mary Jo’s John Hinckley-like pursuer in Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By is a serial killer, but he’s not; he’s just out for revenge because she jilted him (remember that Hinckley had a thing for Jodie Foster?).  Continuing my self-analysis—I don’t think I could go to any psychologist or psychiatrist to ask why I don’t have characters who are serial killers—let me ruminate here about some potential reasons I have for avoiding them as characters.

Serial killers are ubiquitous in fiction.  From Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper to Hannibal Lecter and beyond, mysteries, suspense and horror stories, thrillers, and police procedurals have featured these mad villains.  I’d wager that the number of serial killers in fiction far outnumber the real ones, at least those of the latter who have been brought to justice.  I’ve read a few Father Brown mysteries, for example, and some involve serial killers—so this is really old stuff.  Freud should have written a treatise on our preoccupation with them.  The fictional universe contains too many serial killers, so I don’t need to add mine.

Are stories about serial killers just avoiding other issues?  A typical story about a serial killer is about a psycho who murders in some particularly gross and gruesome manner, maybe taunts the authorities, and matches wits with somebody from law enforcement.  Yawn.  The only Tess Gerritsen novel I’ve read was about a serial killer—it turned me off from the rest of her catalog.  I don’t know how many of Sue Grafton’s alphabet novels involve a serial killer, but I’ll pass, thank you.  Somehow, this is a “safe topic,” though.  Everyone agrees that a serial killer is bad and some hero should match wits with him (or her) and bring the perp to justice.  Yawn.  But is this attraction because many readers don’t want to be bothered with or confront the other ills of society: the illegal gun trade, child porn and sexual exploitation, spousal abuse, hidden government agendas, the abuses of capitalism, pollution and global warming, the drug trade, and so forth?  I prefer stories that make me think; I often write stories with complex themes intertwined in the plots for that reason.
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[Note from Steve: I’m not superstitious, but, for those who are, have a safe day today.  Did you hear about the guy who went looking for the 13th floor in a hotel and fell into an open elevator shaft, all on Friday the 13th?  There: who said I can’t write a horror story!]

Item. Celebrity books.  Or, should I say, public confessions of the rich and (in)famous?  Do you read them?  The bookstores are full of them, if that’s any gauge of popularity.  There’s Trump’s new propaganda piece containing no more meat than his campaign speeches, just another spiel saying, “I’m great, I’m handsome, I’m rich, I’m smart, and I can save America!”  Some are informative: George H. W. Bush’s (the father of Dubya and Jeb), says a few things about Trump, but mostly looks back, verifying what I always knew: Cheney and Rumsfeld had their own hawkish and nefarious agendas and tried to impose their will and further their on agenda in Dubya’s administration.  And others are just ploys to make some money: Leah Remini’s exposé of Scientological shenanigans has become a book tour through talk shows—she needs the money, I guess, but I wonder why people care about her making more money.  Or, worry about a cult.

When people ask me if I’ve read celebrity so-and-so’s book, I usually look at them like they were idiots.  I’m very selective in my reading, and I generally find the practice of a celebrity cashing in on their ready-made brand name a despicable practice.  One of Obama’s books was the last celebrity book I finished (one written even before he became president).  I started one of O’Reilly’s Killing X books (I guess he’s not very inventive about titles), didn’t like it, and stopped (I guess that’s a mini-mini-review—I started because I read some history now and then).  But O’Reilly is just another celebrity author cashing in on his brand name.

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[Note from Steve: You’ve seen these on other product websites—my ebooks are my products—so here’s some candid ones for prospective readers.]

I will entertain you.  The stories I love to read—mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi (or combos of these genres)—are similar to the ones I write. Mine are unique, of course, original entertainment you won’t find anywhere else.  Sometimes I think my characters are really doing the writing, but I’ll take the credit.

I won’t coddle you.  You might not find enough sex and violence for your tastes, but I often have some raw and non-trivial themes woven into my plots (see my post two weeks ago on the subject).  I write mysteries, but I don’t write cozy mysteries.  I often include romance in my novels, but I won’t write fluffy romances where X finds Y and everyone is left happy, happy, happy.  I might include some weird ETs, humanoids or not, but no vampires, werewolves, zombies, or boy magicians.  There is the good, the bad, and the ugly—fifty shades of gray because most things in life aren’t black or white.

I let you, the reader, become an active participant.  I endorse both minimalist writing and the Goldilocks Principle.  The first says that I’ll provide a minimal character description, for example, and allow you to complete and create your own mental image of that character.  The second means, for example, that the minimal character description is just enough for you to do that, and not too much nor too little.  You can participate in the creative process while reading my stories.  Don’t like that?  I’ll agree it’s not the usual passive experience you might be accustomed to in other books, movies, and TV shows.  Tough!  It’s more like an interactive computer game where you have fun experiencing the adventure.

I’ve minimized the expensive and commercial bureaucracy between you, the reader, and me, the author.  Indie writers can do this, and most, like me, pass the savings obtained in this low-fat business model onto customers, like you.  With the publication of the second edition of The Midas Bomb (coming soon!), ALL my ebooks save one will cost $3.99 or less (I hope to remedy the one exception in 2016).  I offer quality entertainment at reasonable prices.

And I do mean quality!  I’m my own worse taskmaster; I demand quality from Steve Moore, the writer.  Even during my years of stressful day jobs and frustration as a wannabe writer, I had a masochistic work ethic that drove me, and continues to drive me, toward perfection—it’s never obtainable, of course, but it’s always my goal.  That’s always been true, from when I washed highway construction equipment to save money for college, to my most recent cottage industry as a full-time writer (I have a lot of good hired help, skilled people and cherished friends).  And you’re the beneficiary for the latter.

The story is all important.  I’m a storyteller.  I’m only half-Irish in spite of advertising an Irish hat factory (see Hanna Hats on my webpage “Join the Conversation”), but my blarney is intact and healthy.  As part of that minimalist writing philosophy just described, I won’t burden you with pages and pages of verbosity, though—I shoot the starter’s gun on your adventurous marathon run through one of my stories, and you can set the pace you want to arrive at the finish line, without major distractions and a lot of excitement.  I expect this in the books I read, and I cringe when someone tells me a book is a great character study, full of arcane details, or a fantastic travelogue.  Ugh!

I’m not in this for the money.  I’m lucky: I don’t have to make a living at this, but I’d like to break even sometimes.  Now I pump all my royalties back into the next book.  My writing business still runs in the red!  I’m not proud of that because it means I’m not entertaining as many readers as I’d like to do, but I accept it.  I always say that if each ebook can entertain just one reader, it’s a success.  (FYI, among the few reviews my books have, most are positive, if that makes any difference—check some out excerpts on my Home page and “Books and short stories” webpage.)

So there you have them—seven FAQs about my writing.  (Actually, not many have asked for them, so they’re just facts.  But don’t be shy if you do have questions.  Drop me an email or message on Goodreads.)  The above are facts about my writing life you might not have realized before, in any case.  Pick up one of my ebooks and start reading it in order to see if I’m just blowing smoke.  (Caveat: I haven’t smoked anything since 1982 when I went cold turkey.)  You might like what I write.  (And, if that $3.99 price is too much for you, you can read an ebook for free in return for an honest review.  Again, drop me an email.)

In elibris libertas….

I’ve been putting stuff I write in the public eye for more than ten years now.  I’m unabashedly indie; the main reason is that I wouldn’t have been able to write so many books otherwise.  I started out running the traditional publishing gauntlet, reaping over one thousand rejections from many agents, feeling elated when some asked to read a MS, feeling down after they sat on it for months only to say something like, “sorry, it’s just not for me,” and wondering what it took to get past these gatekeepers.  In their defense, they’re just doing the bidding of traditional publishing houses, giving their editors what they think is marketable, and currently restricted by the fact that those same publishers only want to bet on sure horses (authors often ready for the glue factory because they’re so formulaic—what’s Grafton going to do when she runs out of the alphabet?).

POD (that’s print-on-demand) saved me from throwing in the towel at the start of my publishing journey, but that soon became too costly for my meager budget, so my indie adventure turned to ebooks.  Amazon made it possible for almost anyone to go indie and DIY their way to publishing an ebook.  Yep, you can DIY the whole thing, but readers might not like what you offer.  The fact that you can offer a poor product to the reading public doesn’t mean you should.  Your readers won’t like it, and other indie writers won’t like it either, because your poor product makes them look bad too.  You should always make your ebook the best it can be, but, if you DIY, that best still might not cut it.

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In essay-land (that includes op-ed, of course), theme rules: you have to have at least one theme to opine.  For writing fiction, not so much.  And, perhaps because I do both, I make a semantical distinction between theme and plot when I write fiction.  A good story doesn’t need themes per se, but it does need a plot.  But one or two themes make for a better story—they enhance the plot.  The theme or themes in a story are motivating issues: spousal infidelity or abuse, mental illness, the horrors of war, how spies make it through the night, sexual aberrations, child pornography, and so forth.  The plot weaves these themes together to create a good story, so a plot is a wee bit weak if there’s nothing to weave!

As an avid reader (even if you’re a writer, you should be an avid reader), you probably have many examples of what I’m talking about if you just stop and think about stories you’ve read.  If you’re like me, you enjoy the added complexity of having some themes woven in the tapestry of the novel.  Often themes and how they’re woven into a plot make a reader stop and remark, “Geez, that’s a twist—I never thought about those issues in that way.”  A good story is more than entertainment; it should be the genesis for those type of internal dialogues.  Of course, some readers don’t appreciate that complexity—that’s fine, because there are many novels, even enjoyable ones, that don’t make you think.  But you probably can’t avoid that type of mental introspection when reading my novels.

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Authors often speak about doing “research” for a book.  From the science and technology point of view, that’s a misuse of the word “research,” but I’m seeing that incorrect use increasing with the years.  Kids writing a report for school “research” it; they mean they’ll google a bunch of stuff and write about it (or just copy).  People wanting to find what to do about insect bites will “research” that.  You used to go the library and use the reference books for all this; the internet and search engines changed everything.  It still isn’t research.

There’s no creative invention when you’re finding information for use in your book.  There’s no R in the sense of R&D; there’s not even any D!  You might say, “Eureka,” when you find a tidbit of arcane information you can use in your story, but it’s just background material.  Let’s call this process “fact gathering.”  While you might be a botanical expert on killer plants, anyone can just google that—I wouldn’t recommend that you do true and original research by trying potions made from those plants on yourself!  So, the first writing question of the day is: how much fact gathering should you do?

I generally do some before I even start writing a story.  As it proceeds, I might find I need to do some more.  In mystery/suspense/thriller novels, I usually focus on two or more important themes that have social implications.  That requires fact gathering.  Settings can require it to.  One can write stories in these genres without any fact gathering, but I can’t.  I’m sure there are readers who would just prefer to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to society’s problems, or not care where the characters are—they shouldn’t read my stories!

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