Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 224

Ten Questions About Three Graves Full, By Jamie Mason

Today, author Jamie Mason joins us to talk about her new novel, Three Graves Full (which has a helluva title and an, erm, more helluva-er premise). Here, then, are her ten answers:

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

Now there’s a loaded question if ever I’ve heard one. Instant existential crisis. As it happens, I’m a collection of likes, dislikes, and memories inside a fairly government-issue female container. I have examples, see?

Likes: Bedsheets fresh out of the laundry.

Dislikes: Ticking clocks.

Remembers: When I was six years old, I heard on the radio that our area was under a Tornado Advisory. My mother was not listening to the broadcast and, not wishing to alarm her with my blooming heroism, I snuck out. I quietly rounded up my five-year-old sister and the kid from the apartment downstairs. Armed all with tablespoons, I marched out my platoon under roiling skies, all the way to the neighborhood entrance.

There, at the base of the sign pillar for King’s Garden Apartments, three intrepid children, under my command, dug a hole. It was a pretty good hole, too. Good enough so that, by design, if that tornado dared turn our way, it would trip in our tablespoon trench, fall over, and dissipate across the main drive.

King’s Garden Apartments still stands today. You’re welcome, citizens. You’re welcome.

As for the standard, government-issue female container, well, I guess my picture is on the back flap of the book.

Other than that I grew up in the Washington DC area and now live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my husband and two daughters.

Give Us The 140-Character Story Pitch:

When hired gardeners discover a body buried in the yard, the homeowner is horrified. But mostly because it’s not the body he’d buried out back a long time ago.

Where Does This Story Come From?

THREE GRAVES FULL came from throwing a tantrum over another story I was writing. It just wasn’t working. A writer friend, Graeme Cameron (you don’t know him, but you will,) suggested that I set it aside rather than gnash my teeth to nubs. He offered an exercise in its place: I was to seek out a list of interesting headlines compiled from various newspapers.

I was under strict instructions not to read the articles. I had to pick one, then write a story that would result that headline.

The one I chose read: Landscapers Find Skull In Mulch Bed.

I still don’t know what real news story (and presumably tragedy) sparked the article, but what I was left with was Chapter One.

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

Given the Rule of Infinite Monkeys, I’m not sure how to answer that. I don’t think I’m more special than Shakespeare. Certainly the process that results in a story is different for every writer, every time – parts of the story seem to float into your ear from the schizophrenic nowhere, some things feel like they get chiseled out of stubborn granite, and some stuff is pulled like taffy from the goo pits in the darker places of your mind. Those bits usually have to be rinsed off.

In the case of THREE GRAVES FULL, I rotated through the nuthouse, the quarries, and the quicksand in a particular sequence, doubling back and do-si-do, lather, rinse, repeat. If those steps were to be exactly duplicated I would rather suspect a glitch in the Matrix.

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing THREE GRAVES FULL?

The not knowing if it would go anywhere, if anyone would buy it. With fiction, you have to write the entire book up front (and rewrite it, and polish it, and write it some more, and change it, and change it back, etc.…) You have to go over and over it before even attempting to get an agent, which is still miles away from getting a publishing contract. And it’s hard work; consuming − but it’s voluntary. And that’s a problem. There is no keyboard mandate and the Muse certainly doesn’t put a gun to your head. It’s the hardest part. No one was making me do it. I could stop any time I liked. So I kept having to hurdle my inertia and work – work really hard. And the whole time there’s the Devil on my shoulder whispering, “Why do you bother? No one’s going want this. You’re going to do all this work and nothing will ever come of it…”

That shoulder devil is an asshole.

What Did You Learn Writing THREE GRAVES FULL?

That I’m not as good a typist as I ought to be. Seriously, I’ve written how many words and I still have to watch the keyboard? Pitiful.

I also learned about research. People will tell you anything if you tell them you’re writing a book. It’s awesome.

What Do You Love About THREE GRAVES FULL?

I love that it’s horrible-funny in the same way you sometimes laugh when you bang your knee. Pain is not funny, and certainly neither is murder, but life can be funny in how wrong things can go.

What Would You Do Differently Next Time?

I would (and will) try to get that shoulder devil to piss off. I’d try to work more diligently with less resistance, because a bad day writing is still a hell of a lot better than even a good day at a whole lot of other things.

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

I don’t know that I have a favorite, but I’m fond of this one and it stands alone better than some others. I think. I dunno. Maybe?

“Strangely though, it wasn’t recalling the muffled crunch of bone that plagued him, nor the memory of the cleaning afterward, hours of it, all the while marveling that his heart could pound that hard for that long. No. It was that first shovelful of dark dirt spraying across the white sheet at the bottom of the grave that came to him every time he closed his eyes to sleep. Was it deep enough? He didn’t know—he wasn’t a gravedigger. Then again, in his mind he wasn’t a murderer either, but facts are facts.”

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

Right now I’m working on another novel, one that I hope would sit comfortably on the same shelf with THREE GRVAES FULL. It’s another crime/suspense type thing, but this time with a thread of the spy novel through it.

Three Graves Full: Amazon / B&N / Powells / Indiebound

Jamie Mason: Website / Blog

@JamieMason_

Ten Questions About Ravine, By Ron Marz

Ron Marz is a comics creator I’ve been following for quite a while on Twitter (and so should you — his @ link is at the bottom of this page). So when it came time for him to be the first “10 Questions” about a graphic novel, well, all I have to say to that is “fuck yeah.” Here’s Ron to talk about his newest, Ravine, at Top Cow. 

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

My name is Ron Marz. I write comic books, from company-owned stuff like “Green Lantern” and “Silver Surfer” and “Star Wars,” to creator-owned work that I love like my own children. I dabble in videogames and other kinds of storytelling too.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

It only seems like there’s 140 characters in “Ravine,” but in reality it’s only about two dozen characters in the first volume. Uh … wait, that’s probably not what you meant, right? “Ravine” is a series of epic fantasy graphic novels, the kind of thing that would be racked with Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. The first volume is out this month.

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

Croatia. The artist and co-writer  on “Ravine” is Stjepan Sejic, my Croatian buddy with whom been collaborating on monthly comics like “Witchblade” and “Artifacts” for seven years or so. “Ravine” is a story that Stjepan’s been putting together for the last decade, crafting an entire world. A few years ago, he asked me to join him on the story and dialogue, so now we’re co-owners and co-conspirators.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

Well, I think in this case, it’s a story that only Stjepan and I could have done together. It’s very much a collaboration, which is one of the core strengths of doing comics. Comics are a blend of words and pictures that create something you can’t get from either of those alone. So a writer and artist come together and create something unique to them, to their collaboration. “Ravine” would be a different project with anybody else working on it.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING RAVINE?

I think the sheer size of the graphic novel was something I wasn’t used to. Generally in comics, you’re writing single issues of about 20 pages of story and art, that are then put together in collections. So you’re generally working in smaller chunks, writing an issue of one title, jumping to an issue of a different title, then back again. The variety keeps you interested and motivated. If you’re stuck on one issue, you can jump to another and make progress on that. In this situation, I was working on all 160 pages of “Ravine” at once, and having to set other things aside in order to make the print deadline.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING RAVINE?

This was a bit different from the way Stjepan and I usually work together, in that the typical process is me writing a script with art direction and first-draft dialogue. Then Stjepan paints the pages digitall, after which I go back in and write the final dialogue for the letterer to put on the page. With “Ravine,” Stjepan painted the pages, gave me a sense of the dialogue, and then I did a complete rewrite of it. I had to immerse myself in this new world, but it actually proved to be a boon creatively, because I could come to it with a fresh eye, and make sure we were properly introducing all the characters and concepts. It was a bit different way of working, but in comics, the important part is the finished product, not how you get there.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT IT?

I grew up on this kind of story, on Tolkien and Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. So I’m really pleased that we’re bringing this kind of epic fantasy to comics, in a package of this size. It’s slowly changing, but comics are still dominated, to large extent, by the same superheroes we all grew up with. The kind of story we’re doing in “Ravine” is large scale and extremely visual, so I feel like comics is a perfect vehicle to tell it.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

Well, Volume 2, which is another 160 pages, will be out in the summer, so we’re already well into. Though I think I’ll plan the schedule a bit more loosely, so I can work on a palette cleanser here and there when I need to.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

How about a favorite page instead? (click for bigger)

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

More “Ravine,” more comics in general. I’m writing the monthly “Artifacts” title for Top Cow/Image, with more coming up from them as well. My creator-owned “Shinku” title is still coming out for Image, and later this year, I’ll be launching a comic called “The Protectors” for Athleta Comics, which is a publishing company started by Israel Idonije of the Chicago Bears, who is a huge comics fan, literally and figuratively.I also want to carve out time this year to do some more prose work. I’ve got a children’s book and a YA novel I want to get off the ground. Too many ideas, too little time.

Ravine: Top Cow / Amazon

Ron Marz: Website

@ronmarz

The Hardest Writerly Truth Of Them All

You are the sun at the center of your own narrative universe. You are its god. You are its savior.

I am not its god. I am not its savior.

Let’s rewind a little.

I get emails.

These emails ask me things like, How do I get motivated? or How do I get inspired?

Or, worse, they want to know how I “do it” every day. Not a reference to my sexual prowess (were you to ask the intimate partners of my life, they may speak of a lack of prowess reminiscent of the fumblings of an inept-yet-eager lube-soaked chimpanzee), but rather it’s a reference to my ability to hunker down and just… write.

I do it every day. And people want to know how.

They want hard answers. They want a button to push, a lever to yank. More troubling, they seem to want a menu of options. Discard this one, pick that one, the perfect meal suited to the eater.

I have one answer for you.

It is not a nice, nor easy, answer.

That answer is: “You just do.”

How do you get motivated?

You just do.

How do you get inspired?

You just do.

How do you write every day? How do you finish a book? How do you learn to spin a great narrative, to create memorable characters, to put pen to paper and fingers to keys and explode your heart and your mind with the power of motherfucking stories?

You.

Just.

Do.

This may seem like an admonishment against writing advice, that all the shit that I sling here is worthless because the reality is, the very act of writing is the answer. Do not misunderstand: writing advice has value, but it only has value to those who are willing to execute and implement. All the writing-talk and story-speak in the world won’t do more than tickle your theoretical story’s imaginary testicles if you’re unwilling to commit the time and effort it takes to grab the words from inside your ribcage and smash them like overripe fruit on the page.

Only when you choose to open that door by embracing action does this stuff matter.

Until then, it’s all just candy-floss and elf-dreams, man. It’s ether. It’s nothing.

Action. Execution. Implementation.

Do. Write. Finish.

I know, you’re saying, “That’s easier said than done.” I know it is! So fucking what? A big-ass boulder tumbles down from the mountaintop and falls on your hand and pins the limb, you either gnaw through your arm like a goddamn coyote or you die under the rock. Door won’t open? Kick it down. Wall blocking your path? Bash it with your skull until it falls or you do.

Life’s getting in the way? I’m sorry, that’s how life works. Life is a series of obstructions — it’s speedbumps all the way down. You’re depressed? Get in line. You’re depressed. So’s that woman over there and she wrote 1000 words today, and yesterday, and the day before. You think I don’t deal with depression? Of course I do. We writers are tailor-made for that. I know, I sound unsympathetic — trust me, it’s the opposite. I’m completely sympathetic. I’ve been there. I’m sometimes there still. It doesn’t change the cold, hard fact that all the power lies with you. In your brain. In your hands. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. Did you want it to be easy? What fun is easy? Easy is a value of zero. And surely you want more than nothing? Writing makes you pay. In blood and tears and frustration. You do it because you love it. Not because it’s a warm bed at your back but because it’s sharp stones under your feet spurring you forward.

It’s the wolf at your heels. It’s the fire in your heart. Wolves bite. Fire burns.

Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes it’s hard and makes no sense and sometimes the frustration gets so bad you just want to dunk your head in a bucket of whiskey and hide your tears inside the liquid burn but, but, but –

Fuck it. Shut up! Write. You get your years and you get no more. These are your days. No Muse is going to breathe a hot sigh of inspiration up your hiney-hole. I’m not going to come to your house and crawl inside your skin and bind my bones to yours with the purpose of forcing you to crap out all your big bad story-words. Oh, you have writer’s block? Boo-hoo! Writer’s Block has as much power as you give it — it’s a Weeping Angel, so bind it to the earth with your gaze.

This is creation!

This is the act of forging something out of nothing. It demands sacrifice. It’s you carving off parts of yourself to a future without promises, you spilling power and grief and embracing chaos and uncertainty all in the hopes of trying to make sense of this thing you do in the sheer bloody-minded chance that something you write will finally matter but the trick is, it all matters, because writing is how we connect with ourselves and the world beyond our margins. Writing is how we tether ourselves to god, a god in a narrative world that is, of course, us.

You’re the Muse that inspires you. You’re the god to which you sacrifice. You’re the battering ram made of unholy fire that tears down Writer’s Block. You’re the knife that cuts the arm off, you’re the boulder that must be pulverized, you’re the devil in the details.

You’re the one-armed coyote or you’re the dead sonofabitch under the rock.

I can try to tell you how to write.

But first you have to be willing to write.

You only get the map when you step through the door.

It only gets done by doing it.

Will yourself to create.

Accept no excuses.

Brook no fear.

Shut up.

Fuck it.

Write.

25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Point-Of-View

1. Know Thy Narrator

One of the first questions you have to ask is, who the fuck is telling this story? Is intrepid space reporter Annie McMeteor telling it in her own voice? Is a narrator telling Annie’s story for her? Is the story told from a panoply of characters — or from a narrator attempting to tell the story by stitching together a quilt of multiple minds and voices? Is the story told by a gruff and emotionless objective character who sits fat like a fly on the wall? You can try writing your story without knowing who the narrator is, but you’d better figure it out by the end of the first paragraph or you’re going to be writing one big, barfy, confusing mess. Your uncertainty in this regard will punish the reader, so it’s time, in Glengarry Glen Ross parlance, “to fuck or walk.”

2. Who’s On First, I Don’t Know’s On Third

You already know this but it bears repeating: first-person POV is when the story is told with the pronoun “I” (I went to the store, I like cheese, I killed a man in Reno not so much to watch him die but more because I wanted his calculator wristwatch). Third-person POV is when the story is told with the pronouns “she,” “he,” “it,” “they” (She opened the window, he peed out the window, they all got peed on by the guy peeing out the window).

3. Ha Ha Ha, Second-Person, That’s A Good One

The second-person mode uses the pronoun “you.” As in, it’s telling the story from the perspective of you the reader. In theory, this is awesome. In practice it often comes off totally fucking goofy. Sure, a gifted storyteller can pull it off — and hey, sometimes fiction is about risks. It probably works better in short fiction than long (as sustaining that narrative mode will be tricky and tiresome). To be honest, whenever I read a second-person narrative, I keep thinking in my head, “You are eaten by a grue.” Then I quit reading it because, y’know, grue.

4. Witnessing Versus Experiencing: Where To Place The Camera?

A novel has no camera because a novel is just a big brick of words, but for the sake of delicious metaphor, let’s assume that “camera” is representative of the reader’s perspective. We often think of point-of-view as being the character’s perspective (and it is), but it’s also about the reader’s perspective. A third-person narrative has the camera outside the action — maybe hovering over one character, maybe pulling back all the way to the corner. A first-person narrative gives one character the camera — or even goes so far as to cram the camera up their nether-cavern and into their brain and against their eyeball. The question then becomes: is the reader here to witness what’s going on? Or experience it? Third-person asks we witness, first-person allows us to experience (and second-person really utilizes the experiential mode but, again, probably don’t do that).

5. The Intimacy Of The Reader

Put different, it becomes a question of intimacy. How intimate is the reader with the story, the setting, the characters? Once we begin to explode out the multiple modes of POV (objective, subjective, omniscient, etc.) it relates to how intimate the reader gets to be — is she kept close but privy to the confidence of only one character? Is the reader allowed to be all up in the satiny guts of every character in the room? Is the reader locked out? How much access does the reader have to the intellectual and emotional realm? Is she granted psychic narrative powers?

6. Objective: The Reader At The Window, Peering In

The objective mode of storytelling says, “Hey, reader, go stand outside and watch the story from the window, you funky little perv-weasel.” The reader isn’t privy to any of the psychic realm: it’s like watching a closed-circuit television feed. This happened, that happened, blah blah blah. It’s almost informationally pornographic: close-ups and thrusting but no emotional tangle.

7. Subjective: The Reader As A Psychic Monkey Riding A Specific Character

The subjective narrative mode filters the story through the lens of a single character. The reader is allowed inside (as long as he pulls up his pants and wipes his hands) and gets to play the role of a psychic Yoda-monkey clinging to one character’s back. The intimacy increases: the reader is now allowed access to one character’s internal realm. That character filters everything through an intellectual, emotional, and experiential lens for the reader.

8. Omniscient: Reader Drops Acid Gets To Live In Everybody’s Heads

YOU ARE NOW A GOLDEN GOD. Or, you just quaffed a cup of ayahuasca and now you’re hallucinating. Either way, omniscient POV allows us to become not a dude at the window or a telepathic lemur but rather, a hyper-aware psychic cloud floating above and within all the character action. We are granted a backstage pass to every character’s internal world.

9. The Limited Lens Of Third Person Subjective

Third-person subjective is often called “third-person limited” because you are, duh, limited to the lens of just one character. This allows us some of the intimacy of first-person while still remaining a witness to the action rather than the closest thing to a participant. It’s like having your cake and being able to eat it too, which is a phrase I’ve always considered a bit silly: of course I want to eat the cake I have because then what the fuck is the point of cake? If you’re trying to make some comment on the corporeality of cake (“once you’ve eaten it you no longer have it”), it still falls apart because relocating it to my belly still counts as me having it. Further, I might have eaten a single slice of cake and retain the other seven slices for later cake consumption. (And by “later” I mean, “in two-and-a-half minutes.”) So, whatever. What was I talking about? Who are you people and how’d you get in my Secret Cake Room?

10. Episodic Third: The Monkey Hops From Shoulder To Shoulder

This has lots of names — Third-Term Episodic, Third-Term Multiple, Third-Person Limited Shifting, Menage-A-Character, Third-Person Monkey-Head-Hopper, and so on. The point is that in a given narrative unit (most commonly, a chapter) the storyteller limits the filtering of the narrative through a single character — in the next chapter, the storyteller switches that filter to a whole different character. (I tend to like this approach in my own work. If third-person limited is ‘having your cake and eating it too,’ this is like ‘having cake with ice cream on top and then also pie and maybe cookies and eating it all but still having more.’)

11. The Deeper Plunge Of First Person Subjective

First-person subjective is the most common version of the first-person POV, and it allows for a deep dive into one character’s psyche. It is the most intimate in a 1:1 sense — the strength is that we get to know one character very, very well. We are more than just the monkey on the shoulder; we are a thought-eating brain parasite. We are given a vicarious thrill as both storyteller and reader in this mode. Sometimes, this mode can be overpowering; further, there exists the danger that the storyteller’s “voice” and the protagonist’s “voice” are a little too close. In a sense, first-person subjective is a bit like acting: the writer embodies the role of a character, attempting to wear the costume completely while on the page.

12. The News Report Had Sex With A Screenplay And Birthed The Objective POV

Journalism is all about details. Screenplays are blueprints for action and dialogue. The objective point-of-view — in both first- and third-person — offers us that sense of utter detachment. It is an exercise in, as noted, detail and action and dialogue. The internal world is closed off completely; any intellectual or emotional details are left to reader interpretation only. Much of this is actually about how much interpretation we want the reader to do — how much burden do we grant to the audience? The more objective the narrative becomes, the more must sit on the reader’s shoulder. The more subjective we become, the less interpretation the reader must do.

13. First Person Omniscient Is Like Hanging In The Headspace Of A God

Here’s how this works: the narrative is first-person (“I pooped…”) and yet offers total awareness and exploration of the internal world of every other character (“I pooped and Tom wonders why I did it on the salad bar, but Betty doesn’t care because she’s thinking about how she thinks salad is for assholes, anyway”). This is not a narrative mode you can get away with easily — it has to have a hook. A reason for existing. Like, in the Lovely Bones, the character is a ghost so that pretty much makes sense. But a character shouldn’t be able to offer an omniscient viewpoint without being psychic, or a ghost, or a god, or… well, a warbling moony-loon. Could be cool. Could also be a garish gimmick. Tread wisely.

14. Multiple First Person Narrators

You can, if you want, tell the story from alternating first-person narrators. One chapter tells it from Tom, the second from Betty, the third from Bim-Bim the Saturnian Baboon Lord, whatever. Like I said: you do what you want. You can take a shit on the grocery store salad bar as long as you don’t mind Tom giving you the stink-eye afterward. (Oh, one note about alternating first-person narrators: the voice of each needs to be strong and distinct so that readers aren’t left scratching their poor little reader noggins over who the fuck is talking to them.)

15. The Cool Kids Of POV High

The two most popular points-of-view are, I believe, first-person subjective and third-person limited (often third-person episodic limited — aka the monkey-hopper POV). First-person is particularly common in young adult fiction the reasons for which are either that “it’s the trend so shut up” or “because younger readers want that level of emotional intimacy with younger characters.” Not to say you must cleave to trends, but it’s good to be aware of them.

16. First And Third Living Together And Making Sweet Love

You can, if you’re really bad-ass, alternate from first to third. It’s tricky and can become just a stunt if you’re not careful. “BECAUSE I WANT TO SO SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH” is not always the best reason to try something inside your fiction: it helps to have some logic behind it. Is there some reason to perform the switch? Is there an epistolary component sandwiched like taco meat inside the narrative? Seek reason for the choices within your writing.

17. Be Consistent, Be Clear

Seek consistency and clarity in point-of-view, lest you confound and bewilder, lest you seem like the king of amateur-hour karaoke. Hell, seek consistency and clarity in all of your writing. Also, in your take-out orders. Because you think you ordered a “ham and cheese sandwich” but then you open the bag and suddenly your face is on fire from a thousand stingers and you’re like OMG THEY MUST’VE THOUGHT I SAID HAM AND BEES.

18. The Reader Is Your Puppet And POV Is One Of The Strings

The storyteller’s job isn’t to be the reader’s buddy. The storyteller is an untrustworthy fucker, a manipulator on par with the love child of Verbal Kint and Hannibal Lecter. Point-of-view is one of the most critical weapons in the storyteller’s arsenal: you can use to reveal information or to restrict it. You can use it to regulate the distance between reader and character, or between one character and another. You can use it to display false testimony or misleading detail. You can use it to open stuck jars or drown noisome chipmunks. Okay, maybe not that last part.

19. Perspective Creates Tension

Perspective — both its revelation and restriction — creates tension. The third-person POV allows different characters to notice individual details and experience separate events and we as the reader are privy to all their conflicting plots and schemes. Third-person omniscient is a blown-open diaper of perspective: the characters on the page don’t know what one another are thinking but we often do, and so we know that Tom is planning on killing Betty and that Bim-Bim the Space Baboon is really Tom and Betty’s long lost son. First-person pulls all that back and restricts the experiences to a single character, so instead the sense of external mystery is heightened even as internal mystery is reduced — the reverse can be true when you go back to third-person, where internal mystery is increased at the expense of external intrigue.

20. Wuzza Wooza Who Now?

Beware confusion with any exercise of point-of-view. Omniscience can overwhelm and bewilder. Subjectivity can leave out critical external details. Mystery is not useful when it seeds utter befuddlement. Or, put differently, “mystery” is not a synonym for “I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore in this goddamn story I’m so lost I think I need a nap.”

21. The Danger Of Illuminating Assholes

That sounds like someone’s shining a flashlight on an anus, but that’s not what I mean — what I mean is, the first-person perspective lends intimacy and sometimes that intimacy is exactly what fiction needs. However, characters who are in some sense “unlikable” often gain extra unwanted dimension with the first-person perspective. One danger is that the character’s moral complexities are watered-down because now we’re forced to march through the justifications for the character’s rampant assholery. The follow-up danger is that the deep psychic dive only magnifies the assholery to the point where the character is now a prolapsed anus the size of a Christmas stocking heavy with driveway gravel. An unlikable-but-interesting character can fast become a hated motherfucker when we live too long inside their heads. I want to watch Don Draper and Tony Soprano. I don’t want to lurk inside their heads.

22. What Objectivity Misses

Objective narrative view can offer a strong, clinical approach to storytelling. Though, one could also suggest that the power of the novel above other storytelling forms is how it allows us to plunge — however deep or shallow — into the internal world of the characters rather than just exploring the physical realm. The novel is a complicated beast and as much happens inside the action as around it, within it, and through it. If I wanted to watch Bim-Bim the Space Baboon run around and shoot laser pistols, I’d write a cartoon script. If I’m writing a novel, it’s because I want to behold the pathos of Bim-Bim. Which is also the name of my next novel: “THE PATHOS OF BIM-BIM,” with the follow-up, “DESOLATION OF THE MOON GIBBON.”

23. Is The Narrator A Poo-Poo-Faced Lying Liar Who Lies?

The more intimate the readers are allowed to be with the narrator, the more able the storyteller is to create conditions for an unreliable narrator, which is to say, a narrator whose experience and/or telling of the story is questionable. An unreliable narrator creates a sub rosa layer of the story where we the readers are left to wonder what is true and what is false. The more layers a story has, the more we have to discuss over all that cake and pie when we’re done reading it, and the more we have to discuss, the more cake and pie we eat, so, y’know, FUCK YEAH CAKEPIE.

24. This Is All Wrapped Up With Narrative Tense

It’s common for narrative tense to be wrapped up with narrative point-of-view, lumped together in something called “narrative mode.” (Which is also the mode that Teddy Ruxpin exists in at all times, I believe. Since Teddy Ruxpin is a bear, does he tell you a story as he’s eating you?) It’s too much to talk about here, just realize that adding tense to point-of-view adds further variable to your storytelling offerings — first-person present tense feels very internal and in-the-moment, whereas third-person present carries the urgent-yet-distant action of a screenplay. Third-person past tense feels very traditional, whereas second-person omniscient future tense feels like you’re just fucking with everybody, you crazy avant garde sonofabitch.

25. When In Doubt, Rewrite To A New POV

If you’re hip-deep in the book and you’re just not feeling it, try switching to a new point-of-view before giving up. You may find that a different way into the story — a different lens, camera, and filter — will enliven your investment and reveal the story you really want to tell. Think of it like an Instagram filter: you’re like, “Man, this foodie photo of foie gras Buffalo wings just doesn’t do anything for me,” but then you start clicking Instagram retro filters and suddenly you’re all HOLY FUCKSHOES NOW IT’S ART. Try new things until the story clicks. Which is a good tip, I think, for all aspects of writing and storytelling, so tattoo it somewhere on your body. Maybe your forehead, backwards, so you can read it in a mirror!

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

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500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

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250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING:

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CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY:

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REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY:

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

The Annual Refueling Of The Blog Tanks

As you well know, I tend to hang out here at Ye Olde Bloggeryville five out of seven days, which means I write somewhere around 250 posts in a given year, which further means that I am in near-constant danger of burning myself out of compelling topics.

That brings me to you once again where I shake you by your collar and say, “GIVE ME STUFF TO TALK ABOUT OR I’LL SHRIVEL UP AND DIE LIKE A BUG IN THE SUN.”

Meaning, what do you want from me here at the site? What topics — writing-related or otherwise — do you want to see me cover? Do you have questions you’d like answered? Fling anything and everything at my head. No guarantees I’ll end up talking about it (sometimes people suggest topics and, honestly, I got nuthin’), but I’d still like you to help me out.

Or, y’know, don’t help me out, at which point you’ll start getting posts that are ASCII drawings of penises. Or I may just type up the menus to the local take-out joints we use.

(For those who want me to talk about point-of-view in fiction, that one’s coming tomorrow.)

Thanks in advance for your suggestions, kind readers of this blog, whatever you’re called.

#highfive

Flash Fiction Challenge: Inspiration From Inexplicable Photos

Last week’s challenge: “A Story In Three Haiku“

Gaze upon these Russian photos.

Some of them are pretty bizarre; some of them less so.

But there’s a lot of story in these images.

Today’s challenge is simple:

Choose one and use it as inspiration for your story.

You don’t need to set your stories in Russia, obviously. If one story somehow leads you to writing about a space station powered by two dogs “doin’ it” (seriously, look at the photos and you’ll see what I mean), hey, whatever. More power to you. These photos are jumping off points.

Make sure to tell us what photo you’re using. Write the story at your blog or other online space. Link back here in the comments.

You’ve got 1000 words. Any genre will do.

Due by Friday, 2/15, noon EST.

An Atlanta Burns Announcement

Atlanta Burns is a character near and dear to my heart. As a troubled teen trying to make things right in a world gone wrong, she deals with issues that still sit uncomfortably in my gut: bullying and high school and abuse and all the other bruises and brands of youth.

I was fortunate enough to write her in a novella, Shotgun Gravy, that I was happy with — and I was doubly fortunate to be able to continue her adventures in the follow-up novel, Bait Dog. That second fortune thanks to the fine Kickstarter backers who helped make it happen.

Well, turns out, I may be triply fortunate when it comes to Atlanta Burns.

Amazon Children’s Publishing has offered to help bring Atlanta Burns to a wider audience.

They will be printing both Shotgun Gravy and Bait Dog in a single volume, and then will follow-up by publishing a second novel (once titled Harum Scarum, but now called Frack You). Kickstarter backers will still be named in the print volume, and will also receive an autographed print copy of the second book (rather than a digital copy).

Obviously, I’m hella excited — this is for me a new lease on life for the character, and I think it bodes well for her future that the publisher was just in love with her as I was. Amazon Children’s Publishing is also the publisher of my upcoming YA series (the Heartland trilogy, beginning with Under the Empyrean Sky), and they’ve been kick-ass so far. They’ve given great edits and have a  strong grasp of the characters and the worldbuilding, not to mention their support — they’ve been very author-friendly. Needless to say I’m thrilled to have Atlanta Burns come to them as a YA heroine (or anti-heroine!) as it is a very comfortable fit.

Plus, it shows you that they’re pretty progressive — after all, they’re picking up a book that was both crowdsourced and self-published. That sort of thing could be considered anathema to some, so it’s nice to see that the diversified approach that I like to take did the trick.

Thanks to ACP for publishing it. Thanks to my agent for helping make it happen.

And thanks to all of you, really, for loving the character enough and believing in the book.

And This Is Where It All Gets Totally Fucking Bonkers: “Used E-Books”

“This e-book smells like a jockstrap and now my Kindle is sticky.”

So, I just read an article: “Amazon Poised To Sell Used E-Books.”

Let us, for a moment, set aside the super giant city-stomping questions this offers (like, “Will authors ever get paid again?” or “Can you really guarantee that the book will be deleted from the first user when transferred to the second?” or “Doesn’t this prove we’re all just renting content instead of buying it?” or “Isn’t this the next-door neighbor to the type of file-sharing that’s already supposed to be illegal?”) and instead, let’s focus on the ultimate philosophical question:

How the frosty fuck can non-corporeal content ever really be used?

Like, I buy a used CD? It’s the container that’s been used. The songs themselves — by which I mean the Platonic ideals of those songs — are in no way “used” and do not degrade with me listening to them. It’s only the physical compact disc that gets scratched up by your guinea pig or gets splashed with bongwater or ends up mangled by some early-generation Xbox player. Digital content remains the closest thing to that Platonic ideal of its original form.

In a book, pages get torn. In an e-book, unless we’re talking data degradation, the story never suffers. In fact, given the fact all this digital Internet stuff now lives in a magical glittery cloud of puckish 1s and 0s, we can already reclaim the perfect version of the content we procured. Hell, that’s why “e-book” is actually a completely wrong-ass name for what it is: a book is a physical device. The story is no longer truly contained, trapped not by a device or by a medium of transference but only by a file. So, again I ask, huh? How the hell do you “use” content that’s not-contained and unconstrained? (And this is why unauthorized file-sharing is so easy.)

Is this blog post “used” after the first person reads it?

Will it start to smell like Cheetos and beer?

Will it get fingerprints on it?

Will someone start drawing little penises shooting jizz bullets in the margins?

How the?! What the?! Wuzza? Wooza?

(For the record, I’m willing to admit that this may be something other than it sounds, as it’s not like this is some formally-announced thing. But my mind is a-boggled with the very notion of used digital content. The thing about the Internet is that it’s now, here, always on and forever new, and this feels like a kind of philosophical rebranding that is, at the best, befuddling, and at the worst, a scary prediction of how content gets treated.)

(And all this after this week’s piracy chatter.)

Ten Questions About Pantomime, by Laura Lam

I met Laura at Chicon this past year, and at the time I met her I didn’t realize she had a book coming out — but once she started talking about it I was like, “Okay, you buried the lede on that one because uhh, holy crap, AWESOME.” I am now in possession of her novel and it’s a lovely creature whose covers I cannot wait to crack.

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

I’m Laura Lam, naturally. I grew up as the child of two hippies outside San Francisco and for some insane reason (well, my husband), I left behind the sunshine to move to cloudy North-east Scotland. I’m your pretty typical bookish girl who spends far too much time in front of a computer screen.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

Girl stifled by society. Boy joins a circus. Their stories combine in an unanticipated way in a magical circus where everyone has secrets.

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

This story emerged from a lot of my pet interests—the circus, Victorian society, a decaying empire, industrialization and colonization, and gender studies. It’s a mashup of genres, but somehow it all came together and worked, or at least I hope so.

The main character sparked to life in a phone conversation with my other half, Craig, when he was in Scotland and I was in California. But I was afraid to write about that character for about a year, until I realized that his was a story I needed to tell. I started writing the character as a 27-year-old, but I kept running into walls on that story, so I decided to write about Micah’s backstory joining the circus as a teenager. I absolutely loved the setting and Micah’s younger voice and everything clicked.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

Every book is the culmination of experiences and interests. Though I have not experienced what Micah and Gene have, Pantomime explores topics that I am passionate about. The voice and tone and everything about it is a result of the life I’ve lived, the books I’ve read, the films I’ve watched, and the places I’ve visited. If you asked someone with zero interest in gender studies to write a book set in the circus, for instance, it’d be a very different book to Pantomime.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING PANTOMIME?

Writing characters that both are both similar and dissimilar to myself. All characters have aspects of the writer or someone the writer knows, though they may be exaggerated. In Gene especially, we react to things in similar ways, and some of Micah’s thoughts mirror my own, but at the end of the day they have gone through travails and experiences that I never will. Putting myself in their shoes was sometimes easy and sometimes very difficult. I also focus more on characters, at least at first, and I had some issues with plotting. As the first book of a series it was hard to know how much to reveal and how much to keep close to my chest for future books.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING PANTOMIME?

Most of what I know about writing. Pantomime is the first book I completed. I wrote it all chronologically, and then writing buddy and fantasy author Anne Lyle pointed out that it meant the pacing was way off, and the problems set up at the beginning didn’t match the problems at the end. In my edit I alternated between Summer and Spring viewpoints so that they were two intertwined plots, and that worked much better as they each had their own problem to solve.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT PANTOMIME?

I love that it dares to be different. Gene and Micah are not your typical YA protagonists in many ways, and I love them both. I think they’re strong yet flawed and are trying to make sense of the world they’re in and who they want to be.

I also really love the world. There’s so much for me as a writer to explore, and that I hope a reader will enjoy exploring. The first book focuses on the small corner of the circus, a little microcosm that prides itself on staying apart from society. Everyone there is a freak, and so being freakish is normal. That world around the circus blossomed as I wrote this book and the 75% of the other book I wrote with the elder Micah Grey (which I’ll revisit one day), and so I look forward to exploring it more.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

Probably have a better game plan going in. I wrote Pantomime in very slow dribs and drabs and the first draft took 15 months, though I was working on different projects. I also wrote without a cohesive outline.

That meant that during the revision request from Strange Chemistry I received I had to basically gut it, rearrange it, rewrite half of what I had and add 25,000 words. Now I outline and edit as I go (the vomit draft method doesn’t work for me), and I write faster and hopefully stronger as well.

I also would have researched the publishing process more than I did so I didn’t accidentally make an ass of myself, which happened once or twice. I shake my head at my past self.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

Technically it’s two, but I’ll cheat a little as one is so short:

“The aerialist stepped onto the tightrope. The rope bent slightly under her weight and I held my breath, frightened she would fall.

But her feet were steady as she made her slow, steady crossing in midair. She looked so dainty and delicate as she walked, pointing her toes when she lifted a foot, holding the parasol aloft, as though she could bend her legs, propel herself upwards, and fly away. The light filtered through the lace, shadows dappling her skin. When she finally made it across, I let out the breath I had been holding and clapped as loudly as I could.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

I’m currently hard at work on the sequel. Agent edits have dropped so I’m taking my rough-around-the-edges draft and making it shine. Pantomime 2 (title to be determined) takes a different focus to its predecessor, while it still focuses on the theatrics and magic that Pantomime contains.

Pantomime: Amazon / Amazon UK / B&N / Indiebound

Laura Lam

@lr_lam

Why I Hope You Don’t Pirate My Book

Yesterday I wrote a thing about my thoughts on book piracy (or whatever you want to call it, including “thievery” or “unauthorized file-sharing” or “warez” or “Dave”), and there I suggested that we make today — February 6th — International Please Don’t Pirate My Book Day, where authors and writers and creatives of all types hop online to share their thoughts about piracy. This, then, is my entry serving that goal. If you join in, let us know.

It’s not about the money.

I mean, maybe it is. In the long run. About the money.

I need money, being a human being who lives in a capitalist society and all. I have bills to pay. A roof to keep over my family’s head. I have to keep my Internet turned on. I have to buy whiskey. I need to afford all those unusual sexual devices in the shapes of various mythological figures (though I find “Hephaestus’ Forge” more than a little uncomfortable).

So, to clarify, it’s not just about the money.

I have this notion. I believe that art has value. I believe that this value is not purely or even necessarily monetary — art and stories make the world go around. They change the creators and they change the audience. They make us think and feel. They teach us things. They challenge us. And, at the base level of it all, they can entertain us when we’ve just plain had a dogshit day.

The value of art being separate from money does not unfortunately remove the artist from this world of ours, a world that is at times comfortably and other times crassly capitalist. Because the artist lives in this world and not some other perfect world (WHERE WE ALL HAVE PET UNICORNS WHOSE HORNS ALSO SPRAY DELICIOUS WHISKEY INTO OUR MOUTHS wow that got phallic really fast), we must then suggest that for the artist to create the art that moves us and challenges us and entertains us, the artist must be given a means by which to survive.

“Starving artist” is a cliche that, like most cliches, comes from a real place.

It’s hard to make money with art. Not impossible. And maybe “hard” isn’t even the word.

But it is, at times, a challenge.

Which is where this whole issue of “unauthorized file-sharing” comes in. Meaning, you or someone else downloads my book without paying for it. I don’t consider this stealing. And without effective data on the subject, I don’t even know if it’s really hurting me at all.

Hell, maybe it’s even helping. (More on that in a moment.)

This isn’t about that.

This is about what people see as the relative value of art. File-sharing expresses the value of that art at baseline of almost zero. It takes ridiculously little effort to click a button and tickle the Internet and make it poop out my book onto your respective e-reader. I’d be impressed if you had to… I dunno, throw a trash can through a window and grab my book off the shelf before the ED-209 police-bot tromps over and fires a photon torpedo up your slurry-chute — at least then I know you really wanted that goddamn book. But file-sharing is so… simple, so effortless, even careless it feels like it dismisses the entire thing we do.

So, let me be clear about it: it’s hurt feelings I’m talking about. I get a twinge in my gut when you pirate my stuff. A tiny little prison shiv of sadness.

And maybe you don’t give a lemur’s left nut about that. I don’t see why you would. Certainly if you’ve nabbed my book by some illicit Internet means you probably have your reasons for doing so. Some of those reasons might not even be terrible. Many of my books are DRM free and are not exactly expensive, but just the same, maybe you’ve got your knickers in a twist about blah blah blah whatever. Maybe you want to stick it to me. Or to my publishers. Or to Amazon. And this is your way of voting with your not-dollar, a splinter in the eye of commercial publishing. Maybe you don’t have access and I don’t realize it — certainly the International Internet Laws are both byzantine and bizarre. I don’t know if you can buy my book in Papua New Guinea.

If you pirate my work, I don’t hate you. I don’t think you’re scum. I mean, unless you’re taking my work and slapping your name on it. Or you’re somehow making money off the pirating of my work. Then you officially get squished sloppily into the “scumfuck” category, thanksmuch.

Here’s all that I’m asking:

I’m asking you to try to support art. Which means, when you can pay for it, please do pay for it. The more content drifts toward free and open access, the  harder it will be for the content-creators to continue creating content, at least until some major paradigm shift in crowdfunding or patronage models offers up a revised revenue stream that won’t cause me to starve and die.

If you find that some component of the books doesn’t work for you — some kind of DRM or issues of access, I might suggest pirating the book but then paying for a physical copy. And then taking that copy and either using it to shore up a crooked table or, even better, donating it or passing it along to a friend. Don’t donate directly to me; my publisher helped make my books exist. Publishers catch a lot of shit for a lot of shit. Some of it is deserved. But the truth is, my books — and most of the books you’ve loved in your life — are due to the publishers getting to do what they do. They’re an easy target but they deserve some back-scratchings once in a while.

If you find the pricing practices of an author or publisher problematic, you should at least let that author or publisher know. Voting with your dollar (or with your unauthorized file-sharing) only has value when the author/publisher knows why.

At the very least, if you nab a copy of my book from some shady smut-shellacked Spam-Bot peddling them in some dimly-lit corner of the Cyber-Webs and you happen to like it, I’d love for you to tell other people about it. And maybe, one day, consider buying some other book of mine.

That’s what this guy did. He grabbed Blackbirds without paying for it.

And then bought all my other books.

Which is, you might say, a way to ethically share files, unauthorized or no.

Mostly, I just want you to think about the artists and authors and even the people in publishing once in a while. We like what we do and we want to continue to have the means to do it. If that means you buy the book through normal means, great. If that means you ethically support the ecosystem through other, less authorized means, hey, I can’t stop you.

Just be aware of what’s happening. Be aware that you’re not the only person involved in this exchange. This story didn’t fall from the heavens, dropped out of some heavenly sphincter. It took work. And love. And pain. And time. Think beyond the button-click it takes to snatch it from the etheric 1s and 0s. Take time to realize that art and stories have value.

To you, to me, to that guy over there.

Art is rad.

Stories are awesome.

Try to pay for them once in awhile.

Especially if they’re mine, ’cause I’m saving up for that fucking whiskey-jizzing unicorn.