Michael Hiebert's Blog, page 13

How Do You Write?

Everyone seems to have a different approach when it comes to that first blank page. I wanted to take a survey and find out who does what to overcome that initial barrier to getting your story idea kick-started.

Me? I’m a three-act structure guy, which means I can’t write a story until I know a few things about it first (which can be really annoying at times). Take a look at the following picture I butchered up in photoshop:

The diamonds indicate anchor points for Act I/Act II and Act II/Act III. I’m almost sure I stole this title for them from Syd Field, the author of Screenplay.

Other than the diamonds, the rest of it should look fairly familiar. Act I has a setup (which I’ve labelled A), followed by an inciting event (which is the big spike on the graph). Then there’s that time between the inciting event and crossing the the threshold into Act II, which is generally the “bargaining phase”. This is where reluctant heroes try to back out, or threshold guardians do their thing and try to keep the protagonist from getting anywhere.

But sooner or later, the main character makes it to Act II where he hits the first anchor point. This is an important point, because it’s the first real place in the story where there’s a definite change in the character. It might not be obvious to the other characters in the story (or even the protagonist himself), but something clicked inside him that set him off on adventure. And once he crosses the gateway into Act II, there’s no turning back.

The same thing happens at the next anchor point, only it’s way more extreme. By the time the character has made it through Act II (which is the longest act in the book and completely full of challenges and struggles), he’s basically had the $%#t knocked out of him. In fact, there’s a point, right before entering Act III where the protagonist experiences a death of sorts; not necessarily a physical death (although it can be), but more a metaphorical one. He’s done. He can’t go on.

This leads him to the second pivot point where he’s no longer even recognizable as the same person who started the story way back on page one. No, three hundred odd pages have had their toll on him. It’s not until he passes the boundary into Act III (marked C in my picture) and the subplots combine that he discovers a potential way out of this whole mess. That discovery leads to a single ray of hope that builds to a mustering of strength that takes him into the climax where he either saves the day or loses everything.

Of course, the climax is the resolution of the story. It can either be positive (yaay, he won), negative (boo, sniff, he lost), or ironic (he lost, but in losing he actually gained something he hadn’t considered until finding it).

Then there’s the denouement (which I’ve labelled D), but that’s really just a wrapping up of any loose threads, so, for this discussion it’s not important.

There are definite advantages and disadvantages in my using this structure to write my books. The disadvantage is that I really can’t start the story until I know, at the very least, the inciting event and the resolution of the story. Preferably, I’d like to know the entire climax.

In a perfect world, I would like to know all that and where the character will be at both pivot points. If I know all four of those things, writing with a structure like this is a dream, because you can literally just forget about story construction and write.

I like to outline as I go, so I will (once I know the above items) begin writing my book and just outline ahead of wherever I happen to be. Sometimes I even jump around. The beauty of following a structure like this is that you aren’t tied down to writing linearly at all.

That, in a nutshell, is how I do it. I actually have a much more complicated version of this that I use for a seminar that I give on writing, but I figured nobody on here needed to sit through anything longer than this

So, tell me, how do YOU do it? I’m really interested in learning other author’s techniques.

Until then,

Michael Out.

 

Scrivener

Has anyone out there ever used Scrivener? It looks interesting as far as a first-drafting tool goes. I wouldn’t want to use it for final drafts or anything like that, but it seems to have a lot of pretty cool back end utilities, especially for outlining and keeping track of characters and resources. I’m considering picking up a copy, especially given the reasonable price tag (it’s only $40).

I just went through the interactive tutorial and while there are some things about it that bother me, for the most part, it seems pretty tight. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has had any experience with it?

Thanks,

Michael

New Book Cover

I got some concept artwork yesterday for the cover of my next YA book I have scheduled for a late 2012 / early 2013 release and it completely blew me away. It’s going to look unbelievably good. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

I’ll probably post something once I get the next revision.

As far as the book goes, it’s complete, just waiting to be edited. I have someone going through it right now checking for accuracy, as it deals with a subject matter that I could easily have made mistakes with.

Now if I could only figure out how to market it properly.

Free Book Giveaway Promotion!

For the next two weeks, starting immediately, my book The Hyperbole Engine is available as a free download from Smashwords! This is probably the best (or one of the best) of my short story anthologies that is available.

All you need to do to get yourself a copy is go to https://www.smashwords.com/179479 and enter promotional code VZ56A when you go to purchase the book. The code isn’t supposed to be case sensitive, but I haven’t tried it.

The promotion ends on Sunday, October 7.

In return for this, I’d like to see a few reviews posted, either on Smashwords, Amazon, Goodreads–wherever Or, if you don’t want to do that, at least, let me know what you think of the stories by leaving me a note on my website.

Michael out.

Dolls Proofs Back, Awaiting Final Proofread/Edit

I received the proofs for the trade paperback version of Dolls yesterday. The cover looks spectacular (even if there is a typo in it… doh!). I have since found a myriad of other mistakes in the actual text of the book (even before I got the proofs back I’d found most of them, because CreateSpace does take its sweet time delivering to Canada… must be our snow dogs–they aren’t fast dogs).







As I already said in a previous Facebook post, the cover turned out awesomely. The colors really pop off the white, and I’m super happy I went with 6×9 instead of 5×8 like I originally considered.

I think I have cleaned up most of the real glaring problems in the text. I have a friend named Thaniel Arseneau doing a final proofread/edit on the book, because I’ve looked at it too many times… everything I’m going to find, I’ve already found. Hopefully, with fresh eyes, he’ll catch everything I missed. The toughest part was getting the page numbers and the headers to work properly. Honestly? Does Word HAVE to make it THAT difficult? How hard can making a blank page BLANK actually BE? The whole “sections” thing needs to be drastically rethought, if you ask me.

Page numbers run along the center of the footer and my name is on the recto in full caps and the title of the book is on the verso in full caps both centered in the header, except on chapter title pages, front matter pages, and back matter pages. I have it perfect, I think. Then, every once and a while, I will go back through it and find that Word has added a header somewhere where one hadn’t been before. It seems to just do it to piss me off.

Again, the whole “sections” and “link from previous” just seems so hacky. Not to mention the way page numbers automatically start randomly unless you specifically TELL them not to once you restart after a blank page.

Can you tell I’m frustrated? Does anyone out there NOT have problems with page numbering? If you do, can you tell me your secret?

Michael out.

New YA Title Cleaned up and Being Read

I finished the second past on the first draft of my new YA book last night, and sent it off to my trusted reader to see what she thinks about it. I’m a little worried, because it’s an extremely sensitive book in some ways. It deals with some issues that may be considered controversial (well, they will DEFINITELY be considered controversial by some people), and if I get the details wrong I could annoy people which is not what I want to do.

Luckily, she is well-versed in the subject matter. Hopefully, she’ll like it and tell me all is well. Or like it and suggest changes where all is not well. Hopefully, she won’t outright hate it.

The book has a lot of heart, I think. At least I hope so. I was going for that. It’s dedicated to my son, Legend. With the dedication: May you always fight for the truth. Which might tell you a little bit about what the book’s actually about.

Once I get her comments back, I will second draft it and start the process of putting together the actual “book”. The guy doing my cover art is currently in Europe until the end of September, so there’s no hurry. Besides, I think I’m going to take my time with this one. It’s also the first in a series, and I’d like to have the second book in the series at least outlined before the first one is released. It would be awesome to have cover art for the second book before the release of the first so that I can have an ad for it in the back, but that my be a pipe dream.

Michael out.

Finished First Draft of New YA Book

I finished the first draft of my new YA book tonight.

This one’s going to take a while to get through the second draft. There’s a lot of work still to be done, but I’m super happy with it. Looking forward to getting it to the point where I can let a few trusted readers take a look at it.

I have a feeling I will be holding back the release of this one until April of next year due to an opportune timing with something else. Don’t want to say too much until I have more of the book finalized. Once I have the cover done (or at least some good concept sketches) I will probably post more about it.

Now it’s back to working on proposals for me. Yippee.

Michael out.

Proposals Back

I got the two proposals I had sent off to my agent back with comments.

One she really liked, the other she claimed to really have liked also, but the way she claimed it makes me think not so much. It’s funny because, in my mind, there’s no comparison between the two stories. The second one is much more powerful and tighter than the first. But then, being the author might just put me too close to things to see the forest for the trees.

At any rate, she told me to do a bit of fixing up on both of them and send them back to her before she tries to sell them. The one she likes is going to take a bit of thought because I have these places in the story where I basically said, “Things will get more involved here,” and left it at that, thinking I would just work it out as I wrote it.

Apparently, that’s not good enough I suppose I should’ve realized that when I wrote the thing. Oh well, I am an author. I guess this is all part of the job.

The changes to the second one are a little more obscure. She didn’t really give me a lot of direction to go on, but I will do what I can. In the meantime, I have a few other things in the fire I am working on: another kid’s book (Which is about 10,000 words out of being first drafted), a non-fiction book (that’s going to take me a long time to finish if I ever do, and a workshop on mythic structure that I’d like to present at conventions and other places one day if I can get my confidence up. The workshop is actually almost done. My confidence just isn’t so high.

Michael out.

New Facebook Fan Page

After much consideration, I have put up a second (or, new) Facebook fan page. More and more, I am utilizing my second Facebook account for my writing and it was becoming very unwieldy trying to support a fan page based around my old account from the new one.

This one will actually post status messages based on blog entries, so that’s cool. I can do most of the work from my web site and have it updated automatically on Facebook. I’ve got the same thing going on with Goodreads and my Amazon author page.

The only thing I wish Facebook supported was the ability to have static images or widgets somewhere on the page. Maybe it does and I just don’t know about it? I would love to have links to my work that are clickable and take users to places they can purchase them or back to my site for more information.

If anyone knows about that, please let me know.

On an entirely different note, I received some concept drawings for the cover of my the new children’s book I am working on. Here is a very early one that really tells you nothing at all about the book, so I don’t mind sharing it

It’s going to be great, though.  I really think this whole concept, as whacky as it is, has a chance to be really big.

I hope so. I’m putting a ton of work into it.

Michael out.

eBook of Golden Apples No Longer Available

Well, on the advice of a good writing friend who knows what she’s talking about, my eBook version of There are No Golden Apples Anymore is no longer available.

I never did proof the trade paperback, so that’s one step I don’t have to worry about anymore and, quite frankly, I was never really happy with the cover either. So that’s two things less to worry about.

The book suffered from a lot of problems other than a bad cover, I think, and I was too close to see them. Once they were pointed out to me, they became obvious, and I really don’t want inferior work of mine floating around. It’s hard enough making sales when you’re self-publishing good work, but when you’re tainting the field with mediocre work you’re only hurting yourself.

So I swallowed a lot of pride and took it down from Smashwords and Amazon.

On an up note, DOLLS is still available and I still love it! It will be available as a trade paperback very soon. I also have a new children’s book I am working on that’s 3/4 of the way complete. I think it’s a very strong novel that will be the first in a series that will hopefully do really well.

Michael out.