Mark Canter's Blog: Selling Storytelling, page 4

Tell us the rest of the story!

The gospel account skips 30 years in the 33-year life of, arguably, the world’s most influential celebrity. Imagine the biography of any contemporary superstar—in music, sports, film, or politics—that omitted more than 90 percent of its subject’s life. Readers would demand, “Where’s the rest? What have you kept from us—and why have you not revealed it?” They would not rave that it is “the greatest story ever told;” on the contrary, they would demand a refund.
My new historical epic, The Bastard, does not wrestle with the gospel account of the three-year ministry of Jesus. Instead of rehashing what has been proclaimed, it offers a vivid take on all that was left out. 
The Bastard will be available on Amazon and all e-book outlets on Monday, October 15.

Who is the most famous illegitimate son in history? My la...

Who is the most famous illegitimate son in history? My latest novel, The Bastard, reveals his secret story.

I just finished my 140,000-word historical novel, The Bas...

I just finished my 140,000-word historical novel, The Bastard, and it's epic! Stay tuned for more news. 

Book trailer for "The Bastard."

I won the contest at Visual Quill! Here is the trailer they made for my novel, "The Bastard."

I won the contest at Visual Quill! The art team is going ...

I won the contest at Visual Quill! The art team is going to create a book trailer for the novel I'm now writing.

Help me out!

I'm one of 9 finalists in a contest to win a free video book trailer created by Visual Quill, a company that makes terrific trailers. Please go tohttp://visualquill.com/?p=287 and scroll down to the COMMENTS section to leave a comment---it can be as short and simple as writing "I vote for Mark Canter" or "I vote for Killer Dreams". You can say anything as long as you mention my name ("Mark Canter, when's the blockbuster come out?") The finalist with the most comments wins. You have from today until March 30th to post your comment. Thanks. 

How to Star in Your Own Buddy Movie

NOTE: This is a decades-old interview I recently found in my computer archives. I conducted the interview in 1990 for Men's Health magazine, but the article never ran. Upon re-reading the advice, it seemed a shame it never got published, so (for lack of a more appropriate venue), I decided to post it here.
Howto Star in Your Own Buddy MovieA men'spsychologist talks about making, keeping and reconnecting with friends
Onenight, ten years ago, I suddenly figured out that I didn't have any close malefriends. I had broken up with my longtime girlfriend—a semi-divorce, you couldsay—and I was longing for company more dimensional than Arsenio Hall.            Trouble was, all my intimate friendswere couples that I had met through my ex-girlfriend, the Social Director. So Ifelt like the odd man out.            Okay, I'll phone some of thenews-desk gang from the paper where I work, I thought.  Maybe get together somewhere for dinner.  But then I considered how those guys and Iribbed each other or bantered endlessly about news and sports. I'm not up forthat, I decided. None of that crew really knows me.            My next thought was to call myracquetball partner. Except that I'd never spent time with him off the court.We'd never talked about anything more personal than his Cessna 172. "Naaa," Ithought. I felt in the mood to really connect with someone.            A few hours and Buds later, as I wasconsidered calling up some dudes from my karate class, I recognized thatloneliness had driven me mad. The guys in that class possessed all the sensitivityof a Van Damme movie.            That left—nobody. "I have no closebuddies at all." What a terrific feeling. Good thing Arsenio and I were sotight.            Nowadays I'm married to a greatwoman and our two sons are the orchards of our eyes. But…I still don't have any sidekicks. Not like when I was 20 andfour of us dudes threw a tent into a station wagon and set out on a summer-longsurfing safari. Man, those days were filled with buddy scenes meant for the jeanscommercials. Question is, now that I'm 40, why is it harder to connect withother guys?            A lot of men want closerfriendships, says men's psychologist Robert Pasick, Ph.D., but we don't knowhow to make them click. I asked the author of Awakening From the Deep Sleep: APractical Guide for Men in Transition for hisadvice on the art of making friends.
First, a realitycheck. Is it tough for most guys to make friends? Or is it just moi?
Mostof the men I talk with would agree that it gets harder to make friends as youget older. I meet a lot of guys who feel nostalgic for the type of buddies theyhad in college or the service, and can't understand why they haven't made anynew male friends as close as the old ones.            In my experience, the typical mandepends on women for emotional ties. His male friendships focus oncompanionship and fun. When some kind of crisis comes up, men often find theirbuddies too uneasy with matters of the heart to be there for them. So guys savetheir most personal sharing for wives and girlfriends. Trouble is, if the womanis the source of the problem, the guyfinds himself really alone.
What's getting inthe way of men making friends with other men?Theobstacles start with the way we're socialized. We learn throughout our boyhoodsthat we're supposed to stick to a set of unwritten rules about how to handleourselves as men. One of those rules says we're not supposed to let others seehow we're feeling, especially if we're feeling sad, or weak or afraid. Keepyour cards close to your chest, keep a poker face, or others will takeadvantage of you. Our role models are heroes who seem strong because they don'tlet emotions get in the way. But friendships never become deep if you can't bereal about how you're feeling.
I'm thinking thatif you took the various characters played by Clint Eastwood, Yul Brynner andSteve McQueen and put them together in a room, you wouldn't get a lot of personalsharing among them.
Thoseguys would never let down their guard. But a key to getting close to someone isto show your vulnerability. If you're worried about something and your buddy asksyou, "How's it goin'?" and you answer "Just fine," you'rehiding yourself from him. And that relationship will stay superficial.            Another part of the male code that'sa hindrance to friendship is total self-reliance. A real man doesn't needemotional support. We're scared to get too close to anyone, because intimacymight make us feel dependent on them.Malecompetitiveness, I think, is the biggest obstacle of all. The feeling that weshould always keep score and know where we stand relative to other guys.
Like, "Bobmakes more money than I do, but my wife is a lot cuter than his." Thatkind of thing?
Right.That whole game of one-upmanship. It kills trust. It can even ruin oldfriendships. I had a client, Ray, who asked his friend, Jim, why he hadn't returnedhis calls or letters. Jim told him, "My life hasn't been going greatlately. A few months ago, I lost my job." Ray was shocked. See, whenthey'd been on equal grounds, their friendship had lasted for years, but whentheir fortunes went in different directions, Jim felt ashamed, so he withdrew.            When you think about it, our maleconditioning is hardly a formula for making happy friendships. It contains somevalues that can be very useful in life, but it seems more like a formula forraising warriors or corporate chiefs. I mean, I don't want to sound like aMarxist or something, but male society is too competitive and materialistic,where a man's worth is measured by his wealth of toys, not his wealth offriends.            The irony is, the more you succeedat conforming to the masculine model, the more you'll fail at making closefriends. Some of my clients are real power-brokers who have achieved theultimate in the American Dream, but they're very lonely at the top. Often theydidn't realize they were totally alone until they got a divorce or had a heartattack or some other crisis.
I've noticed inbuddies-drinking-beer-together commercials, we're always shown a crowd ofbuddies, never only two guys together.
Thefear of being perceived as homosexual keeps guys from showing too much caring,and creates a lot of awkwardness and uncertainty. For example, a lot of menwould feel it's okay for two guys to travel together on a business or fishingtrip, but would feel uncomfortable going out with the same guy to dinner or amovie on a Saturday night. Men are fearful of saying to another man, "I'dlike to see you," so they say, "I've got tickets to the game, wannago?"            That's why after making a newfriend, men are anxious to bring their girlfriends or wives into therelationship. But when the four of them meet, it might take away from theoriginal rapport.
Are there traitsthat you can expect from a real friend? A way to know your friendship is on theright track?
Areal friend shares with you how they actually feel, including the parts thataren't positive or totally predictable. They can ask for your advice or help,and they would gladly return the support. A real friend is your equal, whetherhe makes more or less money than you, and so forth.            An essential trait of strongfriendships is the ability to deal openly with conflict instead of taking yourfootball and going home. Disagreements and disappointments are inevitablebetween people. The trick is to talk about the things that bother you, such asperceived slights, whatever. To just button your lip and tough it out drives awedge between you.
What does it taketo make close friends?
Getinvolved in activities where you're likely to meet men you'd want to be friendswith. If you enjoy biking, join a bike club. The guys you meet there will haveat least that much in common with you. I've made several good friends throughcoaching my older son's baseball team.            Most friendships between men buildindirectly, when you're involved in something external to the relationship. Butafter getting to know someone a bit, you can suggest getting together in someother setting: "Why don't we continue this conversation over lunchsometime?" Of course, that's the scary step, where homophobia and the fearof rejection flare up.                     And, in fact, you might experiencesome rejection or indifference along the way. It helps to remember this issomething you are doing for yourself, not a test of your popularity. It isn'teasy to reverse the pattern of keeping friendships superficial and secondary.It takes time.            Because of everybody's time crunch,it helps to have a regular schedule to get together. Actually, the number onereason men give for not being able to make friends is that they don't haveenough time. But that's largely an excuse. If you make the time to exercise anddo other things for your health, you can make the time to have friends. Make ita health priority: Studies have shown that close friendships are linked withlong life and survival of heart attack. You eat lunch most workdays, right?Meet your friend for lunch once a week. Or buy season tickets.            When your friend asks how you'redoing, try a new response, instead of the glib answer. Tell him what worriesyou, or what you dream of doing someday. At first, you might have to do most ofthe opening up.            You'll probably find it useful, atleast until the friendship is well-established, to keep your wives orgirlfriends out of it. And I think men continue to need time, now and again, inthe company of other men, away from women.
Do you recommendjoining a men's group?
It'snot a bad idea, since evaluating your own blocks to closeness is a logicalfirst step to going beyond them in your friendships.             You get the idea through the mediathat all men's groups are wildman-type tribal gatherings where you go into thewoods and pound homemade drums and chant and scream and go naked intosweatlodges. But there is a full range of men's groups out there, that everyguy could be comfortable with. It's not all some kind of intense emotionalwork. There are talk groups and simpler stuff. All it takes is four or fiveguys who are willing to get together to talk about things other than sports.Over the last couple years the group I belong to has talked about fathers,money, mentors, mid-life career choices, health, religion, aging, sexuality andother things. It's enlightening to hear how other men think and feel.
What about cohortsof yesteryear? Any hope in trying to reconnect?
Yes.I think it's equally important. It's sometimes easier, too. We carry a lot ofgrief from these losses, but some of our old friends may still be available.             I suggest writing a letter. Not justa note on a Christmas card. Talk about yourself and what's been going on inyour life in an honest way. Don't take on that "everything's beenfine" posture. It's good to say, "I'd like to renew ourfriendship." Tell him you miss him.            If there are unresolved hurtsbetween you, mention them and say you want to get past them. If you're theculprit, apologize.            End the letter by suggestingspecific times and activities you might do together. Suggest a place to meetagain, halfway between cities, perhaps, for a weekend of golfing, or whatever.If you're not a letter writer, give him a call.             If you have a longtime friend withwhom you'd like to get tighter, plan ways to open up the relationship. Plan atrip together, or ask him to join you on a project or a new class. Talkdirectly about your friendship. Tell him how you see him. Ask him how he seesyou. Here's a big risk: Try calling him at times when you tend to withdraw,because you're down or whatever. Try to accept help from your friend. He willlikely be flattered that you seek his loyal support, and maybe some day he'llreciprocate.            A friend is attentive. So call yourfriend occasionally just to talk. Send him clips of articles that are right uphis alley. If you know he's been sick, check up on him to see how he's doing.             When you travel, look up oldfriends. When I was in New York recently on business, I looked up a friend Ihadn't seen in 15 years and he invited me to stay with him, and we've becomeclose friends again. Don't worry about imposing. Make the call. Chances are,your old buddies are stuck in the same rut you are, finding it hard to make newfriends, and they'll be delighted to hear from you.

Inexperienced writers tend to get stuck on the visual sen...

Inexperienced writers tend to get stuck on the visual sense—as if the story’s narrator is a roving eyeball. Our actual experience involves seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting; therefore, including all five senses creates verisimilitude (realism). The following 1,700-word story is fiction.



Don’t Mean Nuthin’

In 1968, at age 19, I was a grunt in Vietnam, Army corporal, stationed in a province called Duc Pho, at the outset of the Tet Offensive. That’s when the Viet Cong nearly overwhelmed our forward bases and killed enough Americans to fill hundreds of cargo jets with coffins—plus about ten times as many South Vietnamese soldiers.

Duc Pho has landmarks with poetic names like Monkey Mountain and Rice Goddess Valley. It’s also got lots of place names in French. Near our base ran a river the Vietnamese called the Cad De Song, and the French called the Riviere Vaseuse—both mean Muddy River—but we called it Turd River. Villagers dumped their wastes into the river and you could watch garbage and human turds float by. Once I saw the puffed-up balloon of a dead dog drift past. But mostly, the locals ate the dogs. Rats, too.

My best friend in ‘Nam was another 19-year-old corporal, Rodgers Hammerstein. Odd name. And yes, his parents did name him after Rodgers & Hammerstein, the 1940s song-writing duo that created the great Broadway musicals: Oscar Hammerstein was his dad’s uncle or something. Rodgers’ mom was from Harlem and he was of mixed race before that was considered hip.

On the Army base at Duc Pho, the races hung together: Hispanic with Hispanic, whites with whites, blacks with blacks—and Rodgers didn’t fit in. He didn’t belong with the whites because he was dark-skinned, and he didn’t belong with the blacks because he didn’t have that streetwise, inner city mojo going like most of the brothers back in the ‘60s. Those from Motown or L.A. had it for real, and those who came from some suburb in Ohio or Indiana, faked it for real.

But Rodgers didn’t know the first thing about how not to be himself. Growing up, he’d spent most of his free time in the library at Columbia University, where his dad taught history, and Rodgers’s intellect had come to shine at about a million candlepower. He listened to Bach and Brahms, and he played—get this—the guy played the bassoon. I played drums and I dug soul and funk, James Brown and Smokey Robinson and all that good shit and, hell, I could have hung out with the brothers more easily than Rodgers.

But I didn’t fit in with anyone either, because I never have. I carry the genes of the outsider. It makes you allergic to whatever is conventional, and drawn to the exotic, and to other outsiders. Naturally, Rodgers and I ended up as buddies. Brothers, really. It’s hard to explain the bonds forged in combat: descending to hell while depending on your brother to help you survive.

In the second week of the Tet Offensive, on a night without a trace of moonlight, a couple Hueys dumped our platoon a hundred klicks out from base, in a rice paddy near the edge of the Deng Ne rainforest, to conduct a LORRP—long range reconnaissance patrol. An hour later, following a muddy trail through the jungle, we walked straight into an ambush. In the first five seconds, I saw half my squad eat it. Rodgers got nailed a dozen feet in front of me. He pitched backward and slammed to the ground so hard he bounced.

I threw myself down flat. Sharp, popping sounds snapped an inch above my head—bullets making sonic booms. Which meant somebody on the enemy side was firing a sniper rifle in addition to the AK-47s, because AK-47s fire subsonic rounds. I tried to squeeze my body flatter, press deep into the mud; I wished I was two-dimensional, like a photo.

Our rifles, M-16s, make a sound like ka-blang-ka-blang-ka-blang-ka-blang. I heard only one firing, and then it stopped. AK-47s, the Chinese-built models, make a racket like someone hammering on a steel garbage can. Klack-klack-klang. Klang-klang-klang-klack-klack-klang. Jesus, they wouldn’t shut up. Both weapons shoot bullets that tumble, which makes them inaccurate at long range: you aim here and the bullet hits over there. But at short-range, it’s like they’ve got whirling teeth—to get nailed by one is like shoving that body part into a blender.

I crawled though sucking mud over to Rodgers and reached for his hand, but saw bone stumps jutting from his wrist. I tugged on his arm and his shoulder sagged and I had the sickening feeling I was going to pull his arm off.

I dragged him off the trail to hide under a drooping canopy of elephant ears. Held him in my arms, cradling his head in my lap; watching his life blood pump out with each pulse. My teeth chattered. I tasted a mouthful of muck and grit.

In that moment the sky collapsed. Monsoon rainy season. When it rains in ‘Nam it’s as if massive cranes have hauled a swimming pool up into the air and then tilted the deep end over your head. The elephant ears made lousy umbrellas, and I leaned over Rodgers and shielded his face with my hand so the fat raindrops wouldn’t splash into his open eyes and mouth.

And then I said the goofiest words ever spoken to a dying man. I said, “Don’t worry. Where you’re going, they’ve got a great library.”

See, Rodgers was always griping that the library on base sucked. For one thing, he and I were both science fiction nuts. And they had maybe three science fiction novels—and all three were by Andre Norton—kid’s stuff. We were into the concept of the Encyclopedia Galactica—that there might be a central repository of information—science and art from countless cultures—and that whenever a sentient race reaches maturity, the Ancient Wise Ones or whatever contact them and grant them a library card to tap into this ultimate Book of Knowledge.
So I heard myself saying, “Don’t worry. Great library.” And Rodgers looked at me and half-smiled, and his lips moved, and he said—I think he said, because no words came out, just a gush of blood—but I want to believe he said, “Galactica.” Then his eyes rolled back and he was just 165 pounds of death in my arms, heavier than this whole planet.

I didn’t cry. I closed my eyes and the sideways rain stung my eyelids like flying pebbles. It washed the blood that slickened my hands and arms.

The rain bought me time, because you can’t see diddle in a monsoon cloudburst. Everything melts into liquid shadows. One minute you’re having a great time killing people, or getting killed, and the next minute you can’t see past the tip of your rifle barrel. But I could feel Charlie, squatting out there in the inky jungle in soaking black pajamas and plastic flip-flops, waiting for the rain to stop so he could finish us off.

Then a figure loomed over me in the downpour, yelling something at me and I couldn’t make out a word—I heard the shouting, but I didn’t recognize the language. I expected to open my eyes and see a Viet Cong soldier with his rifle leveled at my chest. I was about to be dead.

So what? is exactly how I felt.

But the soldier standing over me slapped me in the face, hard. And I saw it was my lieutenant. “Chopper’s coming.” He dragged Rodgers off my lap. “Leave him. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Chopper? In this rain?”

“It’s Mad Dog. They’re letting him fly again.”

“Far out.”

Mad Dog was insane. Clinically. But somehow his mania helped him fly in hairy shit that pilots in their right minds couldn’t handle.

I staggered to my feet. Now that I thought I might actually make it, I felt terrified. My heart started thumping like a boom box. Getting to a clearing for evac, waiting for the chopper, hearing it approach, watching it touch down through curtains of rain—to this day, I can’t remember any of that. The adrenaline pumping through my body wiped out my memory like electroshock.

Anyway, half a dozen of us got out—out of a squad of twenty. All but one survivor was wounded. Wasn’t me. Turns out, I’d been hit and didn’t even know it until we were aboard the chopper. I had a silver-dollar sized hole that entered through my right butt cheek and exited the left.
I laid on my belly on cold, corrugated aluminum. Jesus, I felt every vibration. The rotors churning, thub-thub-thub-thub-thub-thub-thub-thub…man, I mean, PAIN in the ass.

Guys bleeding and moaning all around. The smells of blood and vomit and guts and the kerosene reek of burnt jet fuel exhaust. Over the noise of the rotors and turbines, my lieutenant leaned toward me and shouted something in my face. I didn’t understand a word and I put up my hand to keep him from slapping me again.

He stuck his lips against my ear and screamed, “Did you get his dog tags?”
Fuck. You’re supposed to yank them off and take them with you when you leave a comrade behind. I’d been too freaked out to grab Rodgers’s tags. Now his parents weren’t going to get anything back from ‘Nam. Not their son. Not his body. Not even his damn dog tags.

The lieutenant read the look on my face. “It’s okay, man.” He squeezed my shoulder, and I winced, because I felt it down in my butt. “Don’t mean nuthin’,” he yelled. “You did good. You’re alive.”

But it’s not okay.

Here it is, forty years later, and it’s still not okay.

It means something.

Doesn’t it?

Navigating the e-book swamp

According to Wikipedia, Amazon.com reported sales of e-books (for Kindle) outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010 (it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books--even including hardcovers for which there was no digital edition). By January 2011, e-book sales at Amazon surpassed its paperback sales.


In the overall U.S. market, paperback book sales are still much larger than either hardcover or e-book; the American Publishing Association estimated e-books represented only 8.5% of sales as of mid-2010. On the other hand, that's a leap upward from 3% the previous year---and the percentage will certainly keep growing.


So self-publishing your novel as an e-book sounds like a great option, right?


It is.But ONLY if you are a well-established writer with many loyal fans who willfaithfully follow you from print to digital format. However, if you are a new, unknown author, youre-book will take its place as a tiny minnow within the deep sea of 400,000 digital titlesoffered by Amazon, and 1 million e-books available from Barnes & Noble. Howwill you get your unsung story to stand out?
It would be much, much better for your writing career if you could land yourself an agent who could sell your manuscript to a print publisher. That way, you'd get to use the editing, packaging and marketing services of the publisher. Probably, the most valuable of these services for you would be the help of a skilled editor. 


You see, compounding the problem of the sheer numbers of e-books is the fact is that most e-books SUCK!  (Okay, that's my opinion, but it's the educated opinion of a former Senior Editor of Men's Health magazine). Perhaps 95 percent of self-published novels are badly written: disorganized, misspelled, ungrammatical, illogical, factually incorrect, cliche-ridden, poorly plotted---the whole stinky mess. There is no gatekeeper to say, "This novel is soooo not ready to publish."
Just as in the days of print-only books, when savvy readers knew to shun "vanity press" authors, today's smart readers EXPECT self-published e-books to suck---and they're right most of the time. (Do the math: 95 percent of 1 million crappy novels is 950,000 crappy novels available for you to buy for your e-book reader.)
I don't write crappy novels. I've paid my dues, I've learned my craft. But I'm nearly unknown. How can I get shoppers for e-books to discover my stories? That's my challenge. And if I learn any useful solutions, I'll share them with you.
Meanwhile, the most strategic move I can make is to write the biggest novel of my life. The blockbuster. 
That's the novel I'm working on now. Between classes. 
Got to get back to grading freshman papers. 
Ciao,
Mark

A quartet of extremely helpful how-to books

Decades ago, as I was first learning the craft of writing fiction (and, hopefully, you and I will always grow as writers) I read about three dozen how-to books on the subject. Here are the four I found most helpful (two of them are by one of my favorite novelists, Orson Scott Card).

Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern, a well-loved writing teacher from the MFA Writing Program at Florida State University.

Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card, the highly skilled author of fantasy and science-fiction (who won both the Hugo AND the Nebula two years in a row, for Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead ). This is one of the most practical, helpful writing books ever penned. If you can only afford one of these books, buy this one.

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, also by Card, should NOT be considered a book that would only be of use to writers of speculative fiction. It also contains terrific general advice on craft that will be useful to a writer in any genre.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King. Read this and painstakingly follow its excellent advice for polishing your manuscript BEFORE you submit it to an agent or editor. (Of course this book is a MUST for self-published authors who are skipping the services of editors altogether.)