Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 217
March 17, 2013
Do Not Misunderstand Kickstarter
Repeat after me:
Kickstarter is not a charity.
Kickstarter is not ruined now that Veronica Mars came along.
Kickstarter does not force anyone to contribute.
Kickstarter projects are not sharks — the big projects don’t eat the little projects.
Kickstarter is not your platform with your rules.
Kickstarter is our platform with its own rules.
Kickstarter is a level playing field.
Kickstarter did not eat your baby.
Ahem.
To clarify:
Veronica Mars came along and did big bank out of nowhere and there was of course the initial surge of fan-born squee-citement which was then in turn met with the inevitable tsunami-level countersurge of poo-poo-pissy-moany-boo-hoo sounds. HOLY CRAP BIG HOLLYWOOD IS HERE, people cried, their hair on fire, their underpants in a twist, certain that smaller projects would be crushed beneath Kristen Bell’s giant money-stuffed bootheels. (As if Veronica Mars were some kind of huge Hollywood bunker-buster bomb instead of a tiny niche WB/UPN/CW television show that got canceled after three seasons and has been been existing in a nether-realm of “want a film but can’t get a film made” for eight years.)
It came. It happened. It was a success.
It’s still going. On its way to four million.
Now some folks are fretting.
It’ll kill smaller projects!
Indie everything is dead!
Soon Kickstarter will have a baseball stadium and open a bank and have an army of drones that will be legally allowed to kill us in our beds if we don’t back the next Tom Cruise project!
Hell, I’ve seen posts zeroing a laser-like focus on OMG THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO FULFILL T-SHIRTS. T-SHIRTS! WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? CAN THEY HANDLE IT? EEEEEE.
Relax.
Calm down.
Have a Twizzler.
I have good news and bad news for you.
The good news is: smaller projects are going to be just fine. This is the Internet. This isn’t a movie theater with 12 theater bays or a bookstore with only 1000 square feet to fill with shelves and books. It’s all horizon, baby. Big blogs don’t eat little blogs. Big Twitter accounts don’t eat little Twitter accounts. Midlist authors are not stabbed in their beds by bestselling authors (though there was that one time – shame on you, Christopher Moore). A smaller Kickstarter project has as much reach as its project creator and its allies can give it. That’s how it was a year ago. That’s how it is now. Veronica Mars did not come and flip it all on its ear.
The bad news is: you don’t get to say what Kickstarter is. You don’t get to say how big or how small a creator has to be to use it. I know that you want to. I understand your inclination is not to let the popular kids come and swim in your pool. But see, the nature of the crowdfunding thing is that it’s funded by… the crowd. The crowd is big. Huge. Practically infinite and undefinable. If Kickstarter is going to work like it needs to, it cannot be limited by size or scope of creator influence (which is already a thing with wibbly-wibbly parameters). I’m sorry. I know you want Kickstarter to be yours. But it’s not. It’s not mine, either. But it is ours.
One final note before I propose a little something:
To those of you who said with faux-sincerity: “Well, it would’ve been nice if people donated that money to charity instead of giving it to the Veronica Mars project,” I might suggest that you look up the notion of a “false dichotomy.” In other words, those two ideas — giving to charity, giving to Kickstarter campaigns — are not mutually exclusive. It’s not like we’re all given a limited pool of ten bucks and we can either use it to feed starving orphans or we can use it to fund art. And, by the way, making that assertion — “Bleah, that could’ve gone to charity” — is a really poisonous idea. Are you suggesting that it’s a bad idea for artists to be paid for their efforts? Further, are you suggesting that all disposable income should go toward charity? If you made the assertion, please let me know. I’d like to follow you shopping some day. “Oh. Buying the good bread, I see. I bet that bread could go toward hungry ducks at the park. Are those new shoes? Don’t you… have shoes? You could’ve spent that money rescuing puppies from the clutches of Sarah McLachlan. GUESS SOMEBODY HATES PUPPIES AND DUCKS AND ORPHANS.”
Anyway.
Point being:
We can still support smaller Kickstarters even as bigger Kickstarters enter the arena and help draw people toward the idea of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing.
One of the ways we can do that is by looking for them and talking about them.
And I’ll attempt to do that here at terribleminds.
Today, if you have a Kickstarter out there you think looks cool or that you are running, drop a note in the comments. (By the way, “Kickstarter” is kind of a Band-Aid / Q-Tip term — any crowdfunding effort counts, whether it’s via IndieGogo or some other means.)
Further, after today, if you see a cool Kickstarter or are running one, send me an email at:
terribleminds [at] gmail [dot] com.
I will, when I have time and see something that catches my eye, post something on the blog shouting out to the Kickstarter project.
Contact me only about projects that are story-based in some way. I don’t give a shit about a wrist-watch that is also a Wi-Fi hotspot that is also a hologram that is also a Karaoke machine. I want narrative based projects. Books. Comics. Films. Shows. Games. Transmedia. Etc.
Also, don’t hit me up over Twitter or Facebook. I mean, you can, but social media is inconsistent and moves pretty quickly, so I might miss it.
This does not mean that every project you send will get time and space on the blog. I may not see it. I may quietly just not care that much. I may not like your project. I may take a nap and forget.
Further, I won’t post more than one of these a week. Probably not even that often.
But, they will come.
Because Kickstarter is cool.
To sum up, if you’re still worked up over Kickstarter and want to talk the details of the Veronica Mars deal, I’d suggest peeking over at John Rogers’ post on the subject, where he says lots of smart things, including but not limited to: ”The internet is big, mean and smart. Sack up.”
March 15, 2013
Flash Fiction Challenge: They Fight Crime
Last week’s challenge: “Choose Your Random Sentence.”
So, the mighty Stephen Blackmoore (whose book Dead Things is so good it’ll make you poop rainbows) suggested a challenge last week, and I’m inclined to try it out.
Have you ever been to THEY FIGHT CRIME?
Well, go there now.
You can refresh it all you’d like.
It’ll keep giving you new partnerships of the absurd and amazing.
And it always ends with, “they fight crime.”
Click until you find one you like.
That will be the basis of your story this week.
As always, 1000 words to you.
Post at your space, link back here.
Due by next Friday (3/22) at noon EST.
March 14, 2013
Unclean Spirits: Gods & Monsters #1
Coming soon: 5/7 from Abaddon.
Writing Books And Fighting Cancer, By T.J. Brown
Teri wrote me asking for an interview for her book, Summerset Abbey, which has a lovely Downton Abbey vibe to it — and in asking me about said interview she said, almost as a throwaway, that oh, she totally had cancer in the middle of this whole writing-and-publishing adventure and ha ha, oh, didn’t that suck. And I thought, “Well, my normal 10 Q’s don’t really cover this territory,” and I was afraid it would miss the boat on what she really had to say, so I thought, okay, maybe it’d be better to have her come by and pen a guest post not about the book but about being a writer who had cancer and what that meant for her. What follows is a funny, fascinating post — check it out, won’t you?
When Chuck first suggested I write a guest blog, my mind was blown. Well, not completely blown because I had basically guilted him into it, though I find guilt to be such a severe word and much prefer the softer sound of, say, moral cajolery. By the time I was done with Chuck, he’d have questioned his humanity had he turned me down. Like those clips on American Idol where they tell a story that make you feel so sorry for the contestant you’d not only vote for them, you’d give them your kidney, your liver and your gall bladder, all in one fell swoop.
It was sorta like that.
I had a hell of a story and it wasn’t just your average story of the girl from Alfalfa making good. She was making it good in the PUBLISHING INDUSTRY, which as Chuck told you here is pretty damn hard. She got not one but TWO great contracts from two major publishing houses and she was just about as happy as a woman can be who has four back to back, mind-numbing, gut-wrenching deadlines. But deadlines schmeadlines! PUBLISHING CONTRACTS! UNICORNS! FAIRY DUST! KITTENS! CANCER!
Wait, what?
So it didn’t turn out to be your average story and it sure as hell wasn’t supposed to happen to me. One day I was signing the contract, the next I was turning in my resignation to the day job and the day after that, my doctor was telling me that the lump in my neck, which had tested NEGATIVE for cancer, mind you, was indeed, actually, CANCER. Oops. Sorry.
No, no, no, nonononono. I had CONTRACTS. I had DEADLINES. I had LOTS and LOTS of DEADLINES.
I had cancer.
After two surgeries it was determined that my cancer was highly treatable.
Me: (Hopefully) Oh, so it’s not like real cancer? I mean, yeah, it’s cancer but not like cancer, cancer, right?
Doctor: Oh, no, its cancer, cancer, but luckily, you don’t have to have chemo. Instead, the treatment is seven weeks of daily throat radiation.
Me: (Baffled) I have lucky cancer?
Doctor: (Shuffling papers) In a matter of speaking. But throat radiation is, uh, one of the most painful types of radiation you can have. We’ll put you on a high dosage of morphine to help combat the pain.
Me: (Perking up.) I get morphine?
Doctor: Yes. And I won’t put in a feeding tube if you promise to eat and not lose too much weight.
Me: (Positively giddy) I’ll lose weight?
So cancer was like summer camp minus the hot councilors, and adding on the agony, nausea, and constant fear of a protracted and painful death.
I won’t go into the level of pure suckage here, because I don’t generally focus on suckage. I’m incredibly blessed and very lucky. My latest test shows that the cancer is completely gone and my doctors are apparently impressed with my supernatural healing powers. So instead of focusing on that which sucks unto the stars, I am focusing on what I gained. Taking a page from Chuck’s book, I’m making a list of things I learned writing the Summerset Abbey series while being treated for and recovering from cancer, and taking copious amounts of morphine.
1. About Pain: Pain is more bearable if you can transport your mind somewhere else. For me, this meant opening the little door in my brain and letting the people of Edwardian England talk NONSTOP in their funny, stilted voices. I listened carefully, wrote down their stories and books formed. The experience was so intense and the voices so real, it quite took me out of what I was experiencing physically. While I’ve had characters talk to me before, I’ve never heard them with such pitch perfect clarity… which may have been due to the number of morphine drops I was swallowing. Just a thought.
2. Cancer is the ULTIMATE excuse: Whenever asked to do something I didn’t want to do, I’d just say in a loud, faux whisper. “I’m sorry, I can’t. You know, CANCER.” For instance, “So you want to drive five hours to the family reunion to make nice with people you don’t know and who will ask you how that writing thing is going anyway?” You can just say, “Sorry, I would LOVE to go, but you know, the CANCER.” Cancer even gets you out of shit you have already committed to, like heading up the auction at your children’s school, teaching Sunday school, or running that writing workshop for orphans. Not that I ever did anything of those things, but I’m just saying. Seriously, it’s the ULTIMATE EXCUSE.
3. The Strangest People Work in Oncology: Now don’t get me wrong. I love my oncologist and her team. I even dedicated book two of the Summerset Abbey series, A Bloom in Winter to them.
But damn.
The first time I walked into the oncology waiting room, I noticed a nurse sitting near the window. The nurse didn’t move. The nurse was a MANNEQUIN. I glanced at the other cancer victims and their relatives, but no one seemed to think it odd that a mannequin dressed as a nurse sat in a chair in the corner. Before I went in for my consultation, I asked the receptionist about it. “Oh, that’s Nurse Ann.” Okay. Like everyone else, I got used to Nurse Ann, until I realized that Nurse Ann frequently changed her clothes and dressed up for the holidays. Now when I go in for my follow up appointments, I look at the seemingly normal medical assistants and think to myself, which one of you sick freaks dresses the mannequin?
4. A Brave Person is Just Someone Who Didn’t Know What Else To Do: People have called me brave, but I’m not really. I didn’t choose to have cancer like a person chooses to run into a burning building to save someone’s life. But then again, maybe the person who ran into the burning building didn’t choose their actions either, they just automatically did it. Maybe they felt as if they didn’t have a choice. I wrote four books in a year and fought cancer because I didn’t have a choice. Cancer was not going to define the career I had worked my ass off to get. WOULD NOT.
See, no choice. I’m not sure if that’s bravery or just doing what you gotta do. Or the morphine. It could have been the morphine.
But honestly, if I knew what propelled me out of bed each day to write those books, while feeling like a warmed over piece of death toast, I would so share with you. (Actually, I would probably bottle it and sell it like a snake oil salesmen, but that’s beside the point.)
5. I do NOT want to get cancer again: This comes with a long list of wilt nots and shalt nots. I wilt not smoketh again. I shalt not forget to drink my daily water. I wilt not forget to take my vitamins nor the gazillion other supplements that Dr. Oz says I should take for optimal health. (This is harder than it seems because the minute he mentions a product, me and fifty million other people run to the local GNC to pick it up. I once had to wrestle an old woman for the last bottle of gingko gingered cranberry extract of Himalayan Snake’s Ass.)
This is the paragraph where I’m supposed to conclude with something brilliant and funny but I got nothing. Oh, wait, yes I do. Go buy my book, Summerset Abbey and Summerset Abbey: A Bloom in Winter. That would be nice. They’re good books, even if they were written faster than lightning by a woman fighting cancer and high on morphine. Or maybe they are good books because of that? Who knows. Thanks for playing!
Find her books at Amazon, B&N, and Indiebound.
March 13, 2013
Holy Crap, A Veronica Mars Movie Via Kickstarter
Yes, sure, I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And Firefly.
And Arrested Development.
But Veronica Mars for me was a show that just fucking clicked, man, it totally tweaked my narrative nipples in a way I can’t describe even now, years later. Its crimetastic and detective-flavored snark-witted drama just tickled all my parts. The first season of that show was for me a nearly impeccable season of television, showcasing the power of really finely wrought storytelling in and out of the medium. Bonus points: Kristen Bell!
They’ve been trying to make a movie for years.
And folks have kept hope alive.
Which is silly, really.
OR WAS IT?
*crash of thunder*
Because now, holy crap, they’re going right to Kickstarter to see if they can crowdfund a Veronica Mars movie. I know someone is probably going to say that a film like this made by people of this caliber doesn’t need Kickstarter and isn’t crowdfunding for little projects and blah blah blah, but for my mileage, this is one of the many uses for the Kickstarter platform. It’s a small-budget movie-sized continuation of a television show on a small network that has been off the air for years and has continually failed to find the funding it needed within the rigors of the system. So, why not escape the system? Why not let fans be the generative driver?
To my mind, projects like this — particularly when they’re successful — don’t exploit the crowdsourcing paradigm but rather reveal the value of it.
Anyway, fuck it, whatever. Point is:
VERONICA MARS MOVIE.
That sound you hear from where you’re sitting is my giddy, violent squeeing.
And I don’t squee easily, peeps.
Here’s a link to the Kickstarter. (Don’t tell anyone, but I was totally the first pledge. No, really. I don’t know how the hell that happened, nor does it matter but SHUT UP LET ME HAVE THIS.) At the very least, watch the amusing video. Did I mention Kristen Bell?
March 12, 2013
Search Term Bingo: The Awakening
Once again it is that time to collect the search terms people used to (erm, erroneously) get to this website. Once again it’s time for: Search Term Bingo, baby.
when a satyr fucks an elf
This feels like something that fairy tale creatures have to tell their children.
“Well, son, when a satyr and an elf love each other very much, the satyr parts his rugged goat curtains and the elf warbles a lusty tune on his ocarina and they lay together on a downy unicorn pelt and the elf rubs his shillelagh against the goat-man’s musky haunches and that’s how you were born. Now go tell your lazy good-for-nothing elf-father that it’s time to stop watching the leprechauns wrestle because it’s dinner-time.”
i need interesting things to write about
I am eager to help you with this topic.
Here are a list of ten things that are interesting that you could write about. Ready?
MONSTER TRUCKS FROM OUTER SPACE
THE SEX TECHNIQUES OF MUMMIES
CAT DANCES
THE DANGERS OF HIGH FRUCTOSE FUCK SYRUP
COCAINE SUBMARINES
HOW TO PIMP YOUR MYSPACE PAGE WITH SWEET GLITTER JAMS
TOP TEN BABOONS WHO ARE ALSO INTERNATIONAL SPIES
METEOR ADDICTS
WOMBATS, JUST WOMBATS
FUCKING AWESOME SHIT
There you go. See? Super-easy.
Also, any of those double as: band names, album names, memoir titles, or nicknames.
daddy’s little naughty secret
I know, I know, you want Daddy’s Little Naughty secret to be like, “Ooh, he’s sticking it to the babysitter!” but really, it’s more like, “Uh-oh, Daddy sometimes lets the dogs babysit the toddler while he drinks beer and plays ten minutes of Call of Duty please don’t tell Mom.”
full powder purple scissor
This is the variant of LSD that killed Jimi Hendrix. True story.
devil beard
“Devil beard.” Definition: smooth cheeks that contain no beard. For no beard is truly of the devil and thus the devil thrives on a face shorn of its potent godly locks. Usage: “Be wary, my friend, for I don’t trust that baby-cheeked lad. He’s got the devil beard, that one. The angels are not with him or his hollow, wan-fleshed countenance.”
how do I gain sex sense?
You first must be bitten by a radioactive sex monkey. And that will grant you the superheroic “sex sense” ability. You’ll run around and be all like, “YO MY SEX SENSE IS TINGLING” and everyone is all like, “Ew, put your boner away, weirdo, you’re getting pecker tracks on my doilies.” And then you use your magic super-boner to fling yourself into the night to fight heinous fuckery. I just saw this last night on Law & Order: SVU.
what do you call people who constantly stab you in the back?
I’m sure there’s gotta be a word for that. Hmm. Let’s see. Let’s noodle it. Stabberbackers? No. Knifeybacks? Hmm. Kidneypokers? That can’t be it. Gimme a few minutes.
scary short sentences
“Look, vampires!”
“We’re crashing.”
“IRS calling.”
“I’m pregnant.”
how much percent can get the pigeon?
This is some kind of code phrase, isn’t it? You’re using my blog like some kind of numbers station, aren’t you? What’s this mean? Who are you people? Russians? Ukranians? MOONSYLVANIANS? What happens if I don’t post this? Will the nukes launch? Will an ambassador to Grogflogistan be executed in the public square of St. Vicarspetersville? What happens if I do post this? Is the Cold War over? Restarting? Will you attack us with birds? Pigeons? Or is pigeon a metaphor? Are you trying to control my mind with the bird flu?
*begins swaddling self with aluminum foil*
*also Saran Wrap because why the fuck not*
fuck your life story show me your tits book
What is a “tits book?”
Is that a book that has tits on it? Just a drawing? Or maybe actual attached tits?
Jeez. That feels egregious. Are they lady tits? Man tits? And why is my life story not worth telling? Though, I suppose you’re right, if given the choice between publishing my life story and publishing a book that has a pair of boobs hanging off of it, I’m sure the publisher would just go with the boobie-book because, y’know, it’d sell. In fact, I’m sure in here somewhere is a metaphor for the entire publishing industry laid bare. Let’s not look too long.
beer shaped like boobs book
BACKSTABBER!
Nailed it!
Wait, sorry, what were we talking about?
Something about boobs and books again?
Man, Internet, you have a singular mind.
WHATEVS.
do women poop on the toilet?
They do not. That’s why ladies go to the bathroom together. They poop into each others’ hands, then they all have a good healthy cry before depositing the poop in specially-marked poop urns. This all sounds very disgusting, but I assure you, lady-poops are the lightest, most delicate little things. They’re like little pink-frosted meringue cups. Lady-poops smell like roasted strawberries and Ugandan vanilla. When a lady poops, you thank her. You thank her.
peeing through bread
This is actually how you clean your pee. It’s also how you dirty your bread.
i’ve got scary dragon eyes
And I’ve got freaky goblin balls. TOGETHER WE WILL FIGHT CRIME.
when my mind is fucking my creativity
To get real for a second, that’s kind of the rub, isn’t it? Our minds are the places where our creativity is forged and where our stories grow and struggle to be born but it’s also in our mind that self-doubt lurks and skulks and darts out of the darkness to smother our creativity under its own sweaty monster flesh — in fact, we can be downright creative in the ways we try to defeat our own creativity, turning our narrative instincts inward to the darkened corridors where nightmare stories of rejection and fear and worthlessness hunt.
Creativity is weird that way. A snake with mouths at both ends.
protagonist and analingus
Holy crap, I hope you just misspelled “antagonist.”
If not, I hope your protagonist practices safe licking habits.
my novel is shit
Well, of course it is. All novels are shit at some point or another. But see, that’s the joy of the novel — it can always be unshitted. You have as much time as you need to deshittify your novel. You get as many attempts to unspackle the poop from your storytelling efforts. How many other careers offer just such a benefit? Except maybe, y’know, janitor? Sorry, sorry, “custodial engineer.” Which is also a synonym for “writer,” so. Uh. There’s that.
my wife is shit
Your wife is probably very lovely, now stop.
my life is shit
Now you’re just being dramatic. Go have some ice cream and cool down.
wendig sex porn
I’m assuming this is the last thing anybody wants. Some gallumphing bearded, bespectacled weirdo with inky mutts flailing while his pale cave cricket body is thrusting and shuddering and his tongue is licking sweat from his mustache while he attempts to also type another 1000 words at the same time he commits the heinous act that in no world could be called “lovemaking?” You’d destroy the whole internet. MAYBE THE WHOLE WORLD. Nobody wants to see me naked.
No. Really. Avert your gaze. Seriously. Because –
*whips off clothes, runs screaming through the 1s and 0s*
HA HA HA HA HA I WILL DESTROY IT ALL
IA IA WENDIG NUDE FTHAGN
CARRIER LOST
N*h86g&^R55wqia
March 11, 2013
How Storytelling Is Like Tantric Sex
Man, that title is a gratuitous grab for eyeballs, isn’t it?
I HAVE NO SHAME.
Further, I have very little understanding of Tantric Sex — I mean, I understand that something-something “enlightenment-through orgasm,” and something-something “erotic-ecstatic-consciousness,” and I’m pretty sure the penis becomes a magic wand and the vagina becomes a wizard’s hat and then Harry Potter yells “ejaculus patronus!” and a baby appears.
What am I, some kind of Kundalini Master? Whatever.
What I do know about Tantric Sex is the same thing probably the rest of you know, which is that one of the touted erotic techniques is the withholding of orgasm to intensify the power of the sex and its climax. Through this technique an average sexual encounter goes from the right old rumpy-pumpy to the coupling of two divine beings on a bed of writhing ghosts, and the standard orgasm goes from the popping of a tube of cookie dough to a mystical shower of embers from an iron-struck blade on the sexual force of that godly hornball, Hephaestus. Or something.
I’m probably losing the thread.
Point is, orgasm must be withheld.
And this is the lesson I want you to take away as a storyteller.
The power of withholding is key to telling a good story.
When describing something, withholding description allows for the audience to do work, to fill in the gaps, to bring something to the table and be a collaborator (at least in spirit) to the work. Further, by withholding description, you do not overwhelm with needless illustrative information. (Do we need to know what every lamp and sidetable and fingernail and skin tag look like? No we do not.) Pull back. Leave room. Do not overwhelm.
When creating characters, withholding aspects of that character (but teasing the existence of those aspects) gives us a sense of wanting to know more, more, more. A character with unrevealed secrets or stories interests us: we’re the kids at Christmas morning tearing through a pile of presents hoping to get to the big reveal at the end (a new bike! a BB gun! a Barbie dream home! a Turkish scimitar with which to behead thine enemies!).
When orchestrating plot, withholding information is the act of creating mystery, of removing points of data and replacing them with throbbing, pulsing question marks. Every question mark is a door that the reader wants desperately to walk through — and will do so almost to the point of compulsion, and compulsion is what we want, the compulsion to pick up the book again and again, the audience hungering to get back to the pages of the tale or to read the next issue or see the next episode. Litter your tale with unexplained mysteries big and small. The question will drive them: what does that strange tattoo on the woman’s back mean? Why did the wife kill the husband? Who is the one-eyed man? Who put the bomp in the bop-she-bop?
When instituting a relationship, withholding the culmination of that relationship has value. The will-they-won’t-they of romances. The denial of vengeance between one character and another. The mending of a broken friendship. The audience will continue to tear through pages, hoping to see the hero and the villain have their climactic showdown, hoping to see if the two star-crossed lovers will ever uncross the stars and come together, hoping to see if the sea-king and the mer-girl finally realize that they are father-and-daughter.
When complicating the goals of the protagonist, withholding victory and denying her success or an escape or an answering to her own questions is key — the audience is bound up with the protagonist and they want to see her safe and happy and vanquish darkness and find love and learn the truth. But by continuing to dangle the carrot, we see the protagonist urge forward through the story and we see the audience trailing along with her.
When determining the relationship between the protagonist and the audience, consider also withholding knowledge from one half but not the other. Things the characters know but the audience does not goes a long way toward establishing that gravitational mystery noted earlier. Withholding information from the characters but then revealing that information to the audience is dramatic irony, and makes the audience feel like they’re “in on the secret,” and further, become eager to know when the damning information they possess will finally catch up to the characters on the page.
At the end, this is about withholding what the audience wants. It’s about not showing the money shot right up front. It is about denying them narrative orgasm. It’s about build-up. And tension. And hesitation. And uncertainty. And fear. And lust. It’s about a trail of moist little morsels pulling them deeper and deeper into the tangled wood. It’s equal parts baited trap and Stockholm Syndrome. It’s about not giving up what the audience desires most and at the same time making them thank you for the privilege of being denied.
Further, it is the act of withholding that helps ensure that your climax is not a soft, limp rag plopping down on a cold linoleum floor. Save things to reveal until the end. Reserve those key sought-after moments until the final act.
Release them upon reaching the final thrust of your story and few will leave unsatisfied.
Do this poorly and withhold too much and you’ll have them leave the story frustrated. Or confused. Or feeling needlessly punished and left out in the cold. But do it right — dangle the carrot, drop the crumbs, give them a taste of what they can have if they keep on reading and watching and consuming the tale — and you’ll have them scurrying after you on their hands and knees, eyes bugging, tongues wagging. Hungry for their narrative fix.
GREAT NOW I NEED A COLD SHOWER. And a tissue.
Don’t Let Fifty Shades Of Grey Pee In Your Wheaties, Writer Types
At the news Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James was publishing a writing guide, I tweeted the following because I am at at least a little bit of a dick:
A writing guide by the 50 SHADES OF GREY author is like a cookbook written by Ronald McDonald. bostonherald.com/entertainment/…
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) March 11, 2013
And it was a ha-ha-funny tweet admittedly tasting of the vinegar tang of sour grapes because E.L. James has sold an eye-bursting number of copies of her book. I think by now everyone on the planet has at least three copies even if they don’t realize it. In truth I laud James for her success — I mean, shit, it’s out there, it’s selling, who am I to say she doesn’t deserve it? The joke for me is that just because the book sold well doesn’t make it the watermark for good writing, and so — well, blah blah blah, I’m explaining the joke, which of course kills it.
Regardless! A few folks tweeted or commented that it’s horrible she sells so well and what chance do they have of getting published and life sucks and the publishing industry is a cabal of vampires and we’re all fucking doomed so fuck it and let’s all just cry into our pillows.
Stop that.
Stop that right now.
You’re looking at the wrong thing.
You’re saying, “This crap over here is popular and that’s bad.”
Who cares? Who gives a jiggling jar of koala cock about that? Crap is frequently popular. (See earlier joke: Ronald McDonald.) It takes nothing away from your work or your chance of producing that work either on your own or when working with a strong and friendly publisher.
That one series of books is a lone floater in a very big pool of water.
Lift your gaze.
Look at your bookshelves.
I look at my shelves, I see books from years past and from this year and I see books that haven’t even been published yet (’cause I’m lucky like that) and you know what? They’re incredible! Great authors are producing great content and publishers are fucking publishing it. Who cares about some other book series? Books don’t really compete against one another. The 70 jizzillion people who bought the Fifty Shades books weren’t likely to buy your books anyway and if they do, great, yay, confetti, applause, puppies, ponies and popsicles for all.
Nothing in those books takes anything away from you.
Keep writing. Eyes forward. The popular kids are always gonna do what the popular kids are always gonna do. It’s a big world. Lot of readers. An infinite Internet. Keep writing.
To conclude? A point made by a very wise man who would’ve been 61-years-old today:
DON’T PANIC.
March 10, 2013
Sans Comics
I’ve been enjoying the unholy hell out of some comics recently — just finished up the last trade of Locke & Key, still loving every weird and wonderful page of Saga, still hot for Cullen Bunn’s The Sixth Gun, and this week Marvel released an iOS app for their subscription service, described somewhat as a Spotify for their comics. (Basically: pay a monthly fee, get access to a giant archive of Marvel Comics, but nothing newer than six months old.)
Plus, I’m entertaining my own delusions of storytelling grandeur — I’m hoping that this might be the year I slide my parasitic tendrils into the gills of the unconquered industry and get to write a comic book or two or three OR THREE THOUSAND ahem I mean, what?
As such, I ask again for some recommendations.
What comics are you reading? Digging?
Not just Marvel and DC (though those count if you like ‘em).
What else? Whatchoo got?
