Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 333

SOUL OF SKULLS and Thanksgiving

I am about 1/3 of the way through the rough draft of SOUL OF SKULLS – 51,000 words and 13 chapters down, with about 100,000 words and 25 chapters to go. It’s been a productive two weeks, seeing as how I’ve written 51,000 words and all.

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Avoid the stores this weekend. They’ll be exactly like this…

…except with more uruk-hai. And they all want iPad Minis.

Finally, it is good to remember these words:

Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God…You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…

-JM

further thoughts on the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut ending

On Monday I got a bit more work done on SOUL OF SKULLS than I had planned, so I decided to reward myself by watching the various endings for MASS EFFECT 3 on YouTube, since while I have all the games, Lord knows I’ll never have the time to finish them all.

So, my thoughts. Note that this discussion WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.

First, the original endings were definitely too short. In fiction, I’m a big fan of the law of conservation of detail – of telling as much story using as little detail and as few words as possible. (Think of the famous six-word short story: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”) The reader’s imagination, if properly fired, can create images far more vivid and emotionally resonant than 10,000 spilled words of description.

But.

The ending of a story, whether a novel or an interactive RPG like MASS EFFECT, is absolutely critical, since it must provide emotional resolution to the story. It doesn’t matter if the ending is sad or happy or ambivalent or whatever, so long as it provides emotional resolution to the story. (I think Aristotle in his POETICS called this the “catharsis” for the story – for better thoughts on Aristotle’s POETICS than I have, go read Tom Simon’s excellent essays on the topic.) The original endings, prior to the Extended Cut, were simply too abbreviated to provide the necessary emotional closure. Commander Shephard sacrifices himself/herself, a weird light shoots out of the Citadel, the Normandy crash-lands on an alien planet – and that’s all. So the Extended Cut DLC definitely improved upon the endings.

Now, as to the possible endings.

If you’re familiar with the MASS EFFECT series, you know that the premise of the games involves the Reapers, a race of intelligent machines. The Reapers wait outside the galaxy, monitoring any civilizations advanced enough to develop spaceflight. When the civilizations develop artificial intelligence, the Reapers move in and destroy them. Eventually, new civilizations grow, and then discover artificial intelligence…and then the Reapers destroy them, a cycle that has been going on for billions of years.

At the end of MASS EFFECT 3, Commander Shephard fights his/her way to the Catalyst, the control program behind the Reapers. The Catalyst explains that the purpose of the Reapers is to protect organic life from artificial intelligence, since AI inevitably turns on its creators and tries to destroy them. The Catalyst then presents Shephard with three choices:

-Destroy the Reapers, which will end the cycle, but render faster-than-light travel impossible, thereby ending galactic civilization.

-Control the Reapers, killing Shephard, but reincarnating him/her as the control program behind the Reapers, free to do as he/she wishes.

-Synthesis – the Reapers merge with organic life, with Shephard’s death acting as the template, creating a new order of organic/machine hybrids.

Of the three endings, I think my favorite is the Synthesis one. In it, I think the developers (purely unintentionally, I suspect) turned Shephard into a Christ figure. Just as the death of Christ reconciled God and man, so does the death of Shephard in the Synthesis ending reconcile the Reapers and organic life, ending the endless cycle of futile destruction and creating something new. The conflict between artificial intelligence and organic life is at last ended, and a new civilization of organic/artificial hybrids arises to colonize the stars.

Though the ending where Shepard becomes the immortal, invincible Space Tyrant of the galaxy is pretty creepily cool, too.

-JM

seven thousand books

Good news, everyone! I’m pleased to report that SOUL OF TYRANTS sold its 7000th copy this month.

That is literally enough people to populate a small town. The sort of small town with smiling, pleasant people, friendly shopkeepers, quaint cafes named “Frank’s” on Main Street…and a serpent-worshiping cult in the basement of town hall that sacrifices travelers to a massive bronze statue of a snake.

I don’t think you’d want to visit. At least not overnight.

But thank you, everyone, who has read SOUL OF TYRANTS. 7,000 copies beats out the print runs of many traditionally published books.

-JM

no Reader Question Day this week…

…as I had unexpected Real Life business that filled up all of Saturday. I am getting far too old to sleep on a futon, a fact that my back is, shall we say, quite loudly sharing with me.

On the plus side, I have 9 chapters of the SOUL OF SKULLS rough draft finished, with 29 left to go.

-JM

James Bond is actually a Time Lord of Gallifrey

I saw SKYFALL recently, and it was excellent.

However, it occurred to me that James Bond has been on the air for fifty years (much like DOCTOR WHO) and he has taken an incredible amount of physical abuse in that time. I began to suspect that he was in fact a Time Lord who regenerates between movies, which, of course, is the only logical explanation.

And then I found this article that proves it.

It’s nice to be right.

-JM

ebook sales for October 2012

4,923! The Lord has been kind to me, for that is a new record. Thank you, everyone.

A couple different factors added into this. GHOST IN THE STONE had a very strong first 19 days, with 424 copies. Additionally, a new version of Ubuntu came out in October, which helped move 446 copies of THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE, and I suspect also helped THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE to sell 207 copies (the first time it ever sold over 200 in a single month, putting it over the 1,000 mark).

Interestingly enough, for the first time ever THE GHOSTS outsold DEMONSOULED – 1776 copies vs 1513. Caina Amalas is, for the moment, riding high – but SOUL OF SKULLS is coming.

For the historically minded, here is the complete record since I embarked on this self-publishing experiment 1 2/3 years ago.

April 2011: 22

May 2011: 105

June 2011: 236

July 2011: 366

August 2011: 489

September 2011: 1335

October 2011: 1607

November 2011: 2142

December 2011: 2340

January 2012: 3261

February 2012: 3750

March 2012: 3644

April 2012: 3521

May 2012: 3886

June 2012: 3580

July 2012: 4153

August 2012: 4608

September 2012: 4785

October 2012: 4923

-JM

SOUL OF SKULLS – progress report

5 chapters and 20,000 words down, 33 chapters and about 130,000 words (I think) to go.

An excerpt from recent writing:

“So I am staying near you,” said Malaric, “in case the Guardian comes after me. If he does, you can kill him for me. And perhaps rid me of Molly Cravenlock as well.” He tilted his head to the side. “Though one thing does puzzle me. I might have power now…but you have even more. Why not go kill Mazael Cravenlock and his court? I doubt they could stop you.”

Again Lucan saw Tymaen, dying with the black crystal shard in her heart, and rage burned through him.

“The Guardian,” said Lucan, “is a formidable opponent. But even if he were not, this is not about revenge. This is about creating a world free of Demonsouled.”

Malaric snorted. “Revenge is sweet, my lord Lucan. And I intend to gorge myself upon it.”

-JM

ebook pricing – $0.99 versus $2.99

A while back I raised the price of my book THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE from $0.99 to $2.99. A few people have emailed to ask how that turned out, so I thought I’d share the results here.

First, some mechanics. The book is on all ebook platforms, so raising the price is a bit of work, since some sites update faster than others, and if you raise a price to $2.99 on one site and it’s still at $0.99 on another, the first site might automatically price-match back down to $0.99. Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), in particular, gets very annoyed if you have a book set to a higher price on Amazon than on other platform, and starts sending you warning emails. I wound up having to raise the price on Smashwords first, wait until the change propagated to all the affiliates, raise the price on Barnes & Noble, and only then would Amazon KDP let me get away with raising the price.

Second, I’ll only list the Amazon numbers here, since generally about 70% to 80% of the Ubuntu book’s sales are on Amazon (the rest tend to be on the iBookstore). Why that is, I’m not sure, but I’ve found it’s much easier to sell nonfiction on Amazon than on anywhere else.

Third, a caveat. By the time I raised the price, the Ubuntu book had been on Amazon for over sixteen months, had accumulated 20 positive (ish) reviews, and had become the #1 search result on Amazon for “ubuntu”. In other words, it had built up some momentum. So I felt comfortable taking a risk and raising the price. Additionally, a new version of Ubuntu came out in October, which always tends to result in a sales bump.

So, to the actual numbers.

In July of 2012, the last month the book was at $0.99, I sold 494 copies on Amazon.com

Start on September 12th of 2012, I successfully raised the price to $2.99 on all platforms.

In October of 2012, the first full month at $2.99, the book sold 310 copies on Amazon.com.

This would seem like a net loss. But recall that Amazon pays the author 35% for a $0.99 book, and 70% for a $2.99 book. So in July I made about $172.90 from the Ubuntu book sales, but in October I made about $640 from the same book by selling fewer copies of it. So the book is selling fewer copies, and generally has a lower sales rank now at $2.99 than it did at $0.99 – but I am making more money off it.

I’m not going to draw any big, grand conclusions from this. There are people, lots and lots of people, who argue that all ebooks should be $4.99, or that all ebooks should be $0.99, or that $0.99 books are destroying literature and devaluing writers, or that $0.99 books are democratizing reading. However, none of these answers are correct, and if you are a writer,  price your books in a way that matches with your personal objectives and business plan. (I suspect a lot of the vitriol in arguments over ebook pricing comes from the fact that many writers seem to have this deep-seated psychological need for a teacher to give them a gold star and tell them that they’re doing A+ work.)

However, I will conclude that in certain circumstances, raising the price and selling fewer copies of a book can make the writer more money.

-JM

Reader Question Day #45 – was Caina inspired by Frank Miller’s “300″?

Lollipop asks:

 I need some help. I want to write a book but I’m stuck. I need some advice. Please help.

Sure!

Bear in mind that all stories must have an opening, a climax, and a resolution. Every story has essentially three parts. 1.) Protagonist has problem. 2.) Protagonist attempts to deal with problem, while suffering setbacks, complications, and new side problems. 3.) Protagonist overcomes or resolves the problem in some way, with or without grave personal cost and sacrifice.

I also find that it’s a good idea to outline a story thoroughly before attempting to write it. That way I’m not flailing around halfway through the story trying to figure out what happens next.

The key to writing believable characters is to remember that real people frequently want contradictory things. Like, a man could want to spend Christmas with his parents or his wife’s family, but he can’t actually do both and has to choose. (This can help set up the conflict in the story.) In a fantasy story, for example, the protagonist might have a spell to save the life of his brother or sister…but he can only pick one. His efforts to deal with this can form the backbone of the story.

Your protagonist must take action (even if it backfires) – he or she cannot wait around for things to happen to him. Passive protagonists are boring. Additionally, a villain should not be evil just for the sake of being evil – the villain should have a goal that (immoral or not) puts him in conflict with the protagonist.

If you’ve never written a novel before, it might help to try a few short stories or novellas first. They’re good practice for things like plot structure and characterization.

Hope that helps!

N asks:

In GHOST IN THE STORM, Caina fights the Immortals, elite warriors with skull helmets and glowing blue eyes. This reminds me of the Immortals from Frank Miller’s comic book “300″. Were they your source of inspiration?

Good catch, but I’m afraid not.

Frank Miller’s 300, both the comic and the film, is a highly stylized retelling of the historical Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartans (aided by their allies) held off a much larger Persian army for three days. During the film, the Spartans repulse an attack by King Xerxes’s elite Immortals.

Historically, the kings of the Persian Empire* actually had an elite force called the “Immortals”, a standing army of ten thousand men who acted as the king’s personal guard and an elite military formation. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, when one of the Immortals died or was killed in battle, he was immediately replaced, thereby keeping the Immortals always at ten thousand men, hence the origins of the name. However, of all the ancient writers, Herodotus was the only one who actually called the Immortals “the Immortals”, so it’s most likely that the Persians actually called them the “King’s Companions” or something similar.

The Immortals in GHOST IN THE STORM are a bit different. They’re elite soldiers and bodyguards of the Padishah of Istarinmul and his favorites, but Istarinmul’s College of Alchemists pumps them full of sorcerous elixirs. The elixirs give them superhuman strength and speed, but also increase aggression and general sociopathy, and also induce that blue glow in the eyes. The skull helmets are an intimidation tactic – that way the enemies of the Padishah will see their fate whenever they look at an Immortal.

When I created THE GHOSTS setting, I wanted Istarinmul (and Anshan) to be based a bit off the ancient Persian and Sassanid empires, so I added the Immortals for the Padishah.

So I think Frank Miller and I both drew on the same historical source material. Since history is in the public domain, writers like to do that.

-JM

*Also called the Achaemenid Empire, named after the semi-legendary Achaemenes, an ancestor of Cyrus the Great, who founded the empire.

SOUL OF SKULLS – 10k words.

The rough draft of SOUL OF SKULLS passed 10,000 words today. So I only have to repeat that feat fourteen more times, and then the rough draft will be done.

-JM