Ben Parris's Blog
December 22, 2020
Winners' Books in the Mail
In this most-difficult month in the most-difficult year in modern history to mail something out, I'm told that the round trip for my three autographed first edition copies of Amynta of Anatolia will make it to the winners by end of the one month deadline.Amynta of Anatolia
Amidst what we've all come to call "covid problems," including the happy problem of working around the vaccine shipments (leave Fedex and UPS to do their thing), it took an unusually long time to print the copies and mail them to me for signature, then machine breakdowns at the local USPS where we were also told "USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19, we appreciate your patience and remain committed to delivering the holidays to you," our book company spared no expense to make sure everything went priority mail, tracked and insured.
Therefore, winners please sound off when you get your copies and let us know if you don't get your copies by December 29. Thank you!
Amidst what we've all come to call "covid problems," including the happy problem of working around the vaccine shipments (leave Fedex and UPS to do their thing), it took an unusually long time to print the copies and mail them to me for signature, then machine breakdowns at the local USPS where we were also told "USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19, we appreciate your patience and remain committed to delivering the holidays to you," our book company spared no expense to make sure everything went priority mail, tracked and insured.
Therefore, winners please sound off when you get your copies and let us know if you don't get your copies by December 29. Thank you!
November 23, 2020
How Novel Manuscripts are Vetted
To me, a manuscript is to be respected as a pristine document, so it must be constrained with the utmost precision. If you’re a writer, you’ll know what I mean.
I’m okay now, but my original procedure for going over my manuscript drafts was to have no one see the first draft for nine months while it soaked in olive oil. If that came out all right, I had a really trusted friend submit her comments over tea, followed by two people from a writer’s group who would have a violent disagreement over what direction it should take.
This could only be resolved by a group of 6 beta readers who read it while they hung upside down like bats. Then I would use a device called a sawzall to cut the first 75,000 words, and feed the remainder to a grammar software program called Usuck.
From there it went to a modest twelve member church choir who would add spiritual gusto. They would pass it off to team of 25 self-styled “Oompa Loompahs” who would test it for sweetness and then package it in an unnatural positon. Thus primed, it would go to a team of 535 people to be brow beaten in a procedure we called “a Congressional hearing.”
Lastly, a firefighter would hit the smoking wreck with a hose, and a circus performer would fire it out of a cannon as it was tracked by satellite.
Then I found out that you actually have to publish it.
Right now I am following the process I employ when I’m between books, which is to go to a writing seminar on H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau where I sit with other frustrated half-men and learn such rules as “Do not go on all-fours,” and “Do not claw the bark of trees.”
I’m okay now, but my original procedure for going over my manuscript drafts was to have no one see the first draft for nine months while it soaked in olive oil. If that came out all right, I had a really trusted friend submit her comments over tea, followed by two people from a writer’s group who would have a violent disagreement over what direction it should take.
This could only be resolved by a group of 6 beta readers who read it while they hung upside down like bats. Then I would use a device called a sawzall to cut the first 75,000 words, and feed the remainder to a grammar software program called Usuck.
From there it went to a modest twelve member church choir who would add spiritual gusto. They would pass it off to team of 25 self-styled “Oompa Loompahs” who would test it for sweetness and then package it in an unnatural positon. Thus primed, it would go to a team of 535 people to be brow beaten in a procedure we called “a Congressional hearing.”
Lastly, a firefighter would hit the smoking wreck with a hose, and a circus performer would fire it out of a cannon as it was tracked by satellite.
Then I found out that you actually have to publish it.
Right now I am following the process I employ when I’m between books, which is to go to a writing seminar on H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau where I sit with other frustrated half-men and learn such rules as “Do not go on all-fours,” and “Do not claw the bark of trees.”
November 17, 2020
The First Synesthete Hero
Wade of Aquitaine NaNoWriMo 2005. That's National November Writing Month in the year I was most prolific. Like my friends, I was sharing my work live as I wrote it in the world's largest writing community. As far as I could tell (then and now) my synesthesia and my disabilities had sparked a completely fresh idea in the realm of fiction--the first synesthete hero. Not a character who incidentally HAPPENED TO BE a synesthete. There had long been several of those, but a protagonist (actually two of them) with exceedingly rare forms of synesthesia combined with a set of disabilities and a calling that made them superheroes because of it.
Thus was born my Wade of Aquitaine series.
And a lot of my friends said, "Must you do this? Must you share it and risk people stealing your work?"
I explained that in the modern era that's hard to do. The minute writing hits the page anywhere it's copyrighted, especially if it is published to a website. It's too traceable to steal.
"But what about your ideas?" they asked. Those are not copyrightable."
That's correct, and very quickly there were a couple of people who popped up and said they loved the idea wanted to use the same concept. But I knew two things:
1. Eventually someone was going to have the same idea anyway; and
2. If others started doing this, that would make it a category. That would make it a *thing.*
Besides, I wanted FEEDBACK! As it happened, I put out 30,000 words and had a tremendous, wildly enthusiastic response. Then I retreated to my lair and slowed down, taking two years to perfect the first book. Unusual as my protagonists were, the first edition became a Kindle bestseller. It's now in a beautiful second edition. But that's not at all the point of this blog post.
After many hospitalizations and and years gone by, I finally finished the trilogy and I came across something called Listopia. It turned out that there was not only a category but a rather big category of synesthete heroes today. And my novel that seems to have started it all, was not on the lists! Now that the third book is coming out to a lot of fanfare and people are rediscovering Wade of Aquitaine, that irony did not last long.
Thus was born my Wade of Aquitaine series.
And a lot of my friends said, "Must you do this? Must you share it and risk people stealing your work?"
I explained that in the modern era that's hard to do. The minute writing hits the page anywhere it's copyrighted, especially if it is published to a website. It's too traceable to steal.
"But what about your ideas?" they asked. Those are not copyrightable."
That's correct, and very quickly there were a couple of people who popped up and said they loved the idea wanted to use the same concept. But I knew two things:
1. Eventually someone was going to have the same idea anyway; and
2. If others started doing this, that would make it a category. That would make it a *thing.*
Besides, I wanted FEEDBACK! As it happened, I put out 30,000 words and had a tremendous, wildly enthusiastic response. Then I retreated to my lair and slowed down, taking two years to perfect the first book. Unusual as my protagonists were, the first edition became a Kindle bestseller. It's now in a beautiful second edition. But that's not at all the point of this blog post.
After many hospitalizations and and years gone by, I finally finished the trilogy and I came across something called Listopia. It turned out that there was not only a category but a rather big category of synesthete heroes today. And my novel that seems to have started it all, was not on the lists! Now that the third book is coming out to a lot of fanfare and people are rediscovering Wade of Aquitaine, that irony did not last long.
November 11, 2020
Conflict in Historical Fiction
You might think I love conflict considering that it's the writer's and writing teacher's stock in trade. I actually hate it in real life, but that's the whole point. In fiction I have some control over it. In historical fiction there's less control but enormous consequences. The more extreme the conflict the better. In that case, even a minor character can change everything.
Here's where it gets ever so slightly spoilerish: In Amynta of Anatolia, Wade of Aquitaine #3 (releasing December 1, 2020), I include a little-known historical "minor" character who, as a child, was caught in the center of the world's greatest power struggle. How can a princess overcome being kidnapped and locked in a remote island labor camp because she isn't a boy? What kind of person will she turn out to be?
Inside fact: This arc alone has been a very popular read among (precocious) pre-teen, teen, and YA beta readers.
Amynta of Anatolia
Here's where it gets ever so slightly spoilerish: In Amynta of Anatolia, Wade of Aquitaine #3 (releasing December 1, 2020), I include a little-known historical "minor" character who, as a child, was caught in the center of the world's greatest power struggle. How can a princess overcome being kidnapped and locked in a remote island labor camp because she isn't a boy? What kind of person will she turn out to be?
Inside fact: This arc alone has been a very popular read among (precocious) pre-teen, teen, and YA beta readers.
Amynta of Anatolia
November 9, 2020
Why Must I Write Historical Fiction?
When people that I meet find out that I am a writer they always ask, "What kind of books do you write?"I never know what to tell them because we've just met and I have no idea what level of detail they are looking for or would understand. As I start to explain, some will say, "Wait. Which type of book is fiction and what is non-fiction?"
If I'm really on the ball that day, I might say, "Well, it's urban fantasy and historical fantasy time travel with a large number of characters and multiple arcs on the cusp of YA level but with an SAT vocabulary."
And increasingly, I'll find myself speaking to a scholar who knows much more than I do, and she'll reply, "Ah, I know that mix. It's just like so and so." (It's always someone I never heard of because my TBR pile reaches the sky). Then she'll read my work and ferret out similarities for every passage. "Ah, that's Bradbury, that's Gaiman, that's Whedon, it's like Dresden, and Scalzi..." And so on.
But the most curious response of all is when someone reads my Wade of Aquitaine series, and before they know it, find themselves immersed in historical fiction and then go either one way or another. Some completely ignore it and just enjoy the emotional experience while others grab hold of history books to learn even more.
These latter types make it all worthwhile for me. I will spend years reading every dry history book I can get my hands on, and I find these amazing people under amazing circumstances, but with huge gaps in the record and sometimes a vast amount of confusion in the mind of the historian. As a result, I'm forced to become a "better" historian, which to me is one who reconciles the differences based on human nature and everything that's known about the technology, economics, and culture of those or similar peoples. So the writing is an adventure in sociology and psychology, exploring how prejudices, jealousies and financial gain are the real drivers of history. No one has yet realized that my most deeply rooted influences are scholars such as financial historians Charles and Mary Beard.
This is how I end up devoting so much of Amynta of Anatolia to Princess Euphrosyne who was exiled to an island prison as a little child and spent her life restoring her dignity. She is one of the most astonishing, least known people who ever lived and she belongs to the time period I'm writing about. In the past year I've taught entire courses to all ages of students based on my writing about her. Her story arc is, and probably will always be, my favorite part of the whole book.
October 29, 2020
Book Debut/ Cover Reveal
Amynta of Anatolia, the wrap-up to my Wade of Aquitaine trilogy, is 100% written and in the proof copy stage. The cover just went up on Goodreads even before it's up on the publisher's website! How's that for exclusive?
This book was over three years in the making, and I know that's a long wait, but here's the part that most readers don't think about: It's only the second time I've written a novel sequel and the first time I've written the conclusion to a trilogy. I wanted to get it right. And not just right, but accurate, foolproof, and satisfying.
Each of the earlier volumes were about 110,000 words but telling this last story took almost 150,000 words as it included some irresistible diversions for new characters and old such as origin stories. At this point, I didn't want to write a separate "Hobbit"-type book to fill it in. I've been stunned by the passion of the fans of this series and I only hope I've done it justice.
This book was over three years in the making, and I know that's a long wait, but here's the part that most readers don't think about: It's only the second time I've written a novel sequel and the first time I've written the conclusion to a trilogy. I wanted to get it right. And not just right, but accurate, foolproof, and satisfying.
Each of the earlier volumes were about 110,000 words but telling this last story took almost 150,000 words as it included some irresistible diversions for new characters and old such as origin stories. At this point, I didn't want to write a separate "Hobbit"-type book to fill it in. I've been stunned by the passion of the fans of this series and I only hope I've done it justice.
