Neale Sourna's Blog, page 21

10 Query Letter Tips for Writers by Chuck Sambuchino from WRITER'S DIGEST (Writer Better, Get Published)

Today's guest newsletter is from Guide to Literary Agents editor (and our Instructor of the Month) Chuck Sambuchino, who is one of the leading experts on how to land a literary agent. 
 
You can find hundreds of pieces of advice on querying an agent, but when push comes to shove there are really 10 main tips that you need to know before testing the waters of the literary agent pool. Here they are.

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Querying Agents:
10 Tips For Writers
1. If you write across categories (let's say you write both picture books and adult fantasy), look for an agent who handles everything you write. She might just be your perfect fit.

2. Mass mailing (or e-mailing) agents without considering each one's specialties is a waste of time and postage. Not every agent listed here will be a good fit for you. In fact, the fewer true matches you find, the more you've done your research. Agents love when you query them individually and provide a reason, such as, "Because you represented such-and-such book, I think you'd be a great agent for my work."


3. Make sure your work is edited, revised and polished. Rewriting is a crucial step to bettering your work, so be sure to have trusted peers give you an honest critique, or consider seeking a professional freelance editor to evaluate it. And never query an agent for a novel until the work is complete.  
4. Single-space your query letter, and keep it to one page. Double-space your manuscript and synopsis.


5. If you lack a good opening for your query letter, just give the facts. A simple yet effective opening line would be, "I am seeking literary representation for my 75,000-word completed thriller, titled Dead Cat Bounce." In one sentence, you can tell the agent the length, genre, whether it's complete and the title. After that, follow with the pitch and a little biographical information.

6. Follow submission directions to a T. If an agent requests "no attachments," your query will likely be deleted should it arrive with an attachment. If they say "query first," do just that. If they reply to your query and ask for an exclusive read of your manuscript for four weeks, make sure you give them that exclusive look.

7. If you have an automatic spam filter, turn it off. If you're lucky enough to garner a reply from an agent interested in your work, the last thing they want to deal with is a spam filter requiring them to prove their existence.

8. Remember that publishing is a business and there's much to learn. If you've finished a novel, make sure you know how to construct a good synopsis. If you're pitching nonfiction, you'll likely be asked to submit a full proposal detailing the book and how you intend to sell it. If you don't know everything that goes into a book proposal, now's the time to learn.

9. Realize that listings are an excellent start, but there's still work to be done. Research the agent's website to confirm that he is indeed still seeking "electronic queries for romance novels," etc. Also, remember the frustratingly sad reality that the publishing industry is constantly in flux. Agents quit; they switch agencies; they suddenly stop representing fiction and move completely to nonfiction. The best way to deal with this is to cast a wide net.

10. Be persistent. Every famous author has a story about how many agents rejected their work before they made a connection. Work hard, work smart and don't give up.

5 Ways To Stay Motivated in Your Writing Career by Molly King

As humans, we all struggle at times to stay excited about certain tasks at hand. We get bored; we get frustrated; we get distracted (ooh, cat gifs!) and our art suffers for it — we stop writing our novel, we stop writing our next song.

Sometimes you just have to stop and remember why you are doing it in the first place.

But seriously… we recently dug up an old article on Lifehack that reminded us of some simple ways to stay motivated. The article is mostly focused on general life motivation, but it can easily be applied to your creative career as well.

You can read the article in its’ entirety here, or check out our summary below.

How to keep your writing life fresh and active
1) Remember the reason(s) you’re doing it in the first place: A feeling of accomplishment?  Personal gain? Cold hard cash? One little step closer to your bigger goal?

2) Have fun: Ask yourself, “what can I do to make whatever it is I am doing more enjoyable for myself (and maybe others)?”

3) Take a different direction: there is likely more than one way to do whatever you are doing, so try approaching your task from a different angle. Ask yourself how other people do this same thing. Try it that way.

4) Baby steps: In order to not become overwhelmed by the larger task at hand, split tasks into smaller goals and celebrate each goal once you reach it. For example, if your goal is to write an entire novel, set a goal of writing one chapter at a time, or just writing for one hour at a time, and celebrate when you’ve done it. You’ll be stoked that you reached your goal and be motivated to move onto chapter two (or hour two).

5) Reward yourself: once you’ve reached a goal, make sure you take time to reward yourself. Whether it’s something as simple as taking a break or buying yourself a lil’ sumpthin’ sumpthin’, it’s important to recognize progress to stay motivated.

So, there are 5 ways to stay motivated. Does one resonate with you more than the other? Do you think you’ll mix and match a few to keep inspired? Or maybe you have another idea for staying motivated – let us know in the comments below.

["Possible" image from Shutterstock.]

Writing Visually by Character: 'Game of Thrones:' The Reality of Production on HBO’s Fantasy Series By David Heuring

http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/dv/feature/game-thrones-reality-production-hbo%E2s-fantasy-series/62434
'Game of Thrones:' The Reality of Production on HBO’s Fantasy Series

Published On: 04/19/13 01:04:26 PM By:  David Heuring  
The television phenomenon that is HBO’s Game of Thrones premiered in April 2011 and enjoyed immediate critical and fan praise. Filmed in exotic locales in Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco and elsewhere, Game of Thrones features compelling characters, bravura production design and the feature-quality cinematography viewers have come to expect from HBO productions. Medieval fantasy never looked so good on television.


Robb Stark (Richard Madden). Photo by Helen SloanAmong the series’ many accolades are two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, among more than two dozen nods from the Television Academy in its first two seasons. 

The show looms large in the vibrant fantasy subculture, but has crossed over into mainstream success—through season two, it is considered the third most-watched show in HBO’s illustrious, awards-strewn history.

With the launch of season three in March 2013, the contributions of three new cinematographers will hit TV screens: Anette Haellmigk, Robert McLachlan, ASC/CSC, and Chris Seager, BSC. 

They paid fealty to the cinematic look in earlier episodes created by cinematographers Jonathan Freeman, ASC, and Kramer Morgenthau, ASC (Morgenthau earned an ASC Award for his work), but inevitably added their own personal touches through their visual strategies and decisions, made in light of the new scripts and situations. Other cinematographers who have contributed in previous seasons include Alik Sakharov, ASC, Marco Pontecorvo, AIC, Sam McCurdy, BSC, P.J. Dillon and the late Martin Kenzie, BSC.

The production is scheduled in an unusual way. At the start of prep, at least ten scripts were ready to shoot. Actors are apt to stay with certain locations, while cinematographer-director teams work concurrently and fly between the various far-flung locales. At any given time, as many as five teams are prepping, shooting or rehearsing. 

A “decent” amount of prep time helps, as does two weeks, roughly, of shoot time per episode. Occasionally a shot made by one team will show up in an episode credited to a different cinematographer, but the resulting efficiency is “miraculous,” according to McLachlan and Haellmigk.


Melisandre (Carice van Houten). Photo by Helen Sloan “Christopher Newman came up with this remarkable schedule,” says McLachlan. 

“It’s absolutely genius. You’ve got five episodes shooting concurrently. You bounce around a lot, and your 16 days per episode are spread over four months. It’s very impressive.”

To maintain a degree of consistency, producer Greg Spence distributed Apple iPads loaded with frame grabs from seasons one and two. 

As the season progressed, images from season three were added. The basic style of the show had been established, with naturalistic lighting, a sometimes-palpable atmosphere with shafts of daylight, and lots of firelight as a primary source.

Anette Haellmigk (Bunheads, State of Mind, The West Wing, The Nine) says that she was working on Big Love when she first saw Game of Thrones. She responded to the material and immediately wanted to work on it. “It touched me,” she says. 

“In a weird way, I know what to do with this. I was very familiar with mythical sagas. I thought that the look established over the first two seasons was very befitting of the show, and rather than change things, I wanted to enhance. Kramer’s episodes were the most inspirational to me.”

Haellmigk describes the look as naturalistic, but with a bit more romance or harshness, depending on the needs of the scene. For the former, she emulates the warmth of Caravaggio, and for the northern, colder world, she tries to shoot in overcast conditions or block the sun out.

Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer, center). Photo by Keith Bernstein Both cinematographers praise the production design and art direction. 

“When I first walked on, what impressed me were the sets,” she says.

 “The way they were built, and the way the textures and colors worked. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on big feature films. It was just so tasteful, and the detail was amazing.”

Haellmigk came onto Game of Thrones with director Alex Graves, with whom she has a long professional history. She also had a working relationship with producer Bernadette Caulfield dating to Big Love.
 
“The camera style of the show, especially in interiors, includes more tableau shots,” she says. 

“It’s not like The West Wing, where you do it with long walk-and-talks. The tableau approach is good because, while you give up some movement, you gain a lot of ability to make beautiful compositions and create beautiful lighting. For some action scenes we went more handheld, and exteriors in general gave us opportunities for more camera movement.”
 
Haellmigk says her episodes played more with shards of light angled through scenes and sometimes bounced onto actors. These shards worked well with the established smoky atmosphere justified by the many flame and fire sources. The show often mixes cooler daylight and warmer tungsten or firelight.

 “I love to do that anyway, and I think that gives it a realistic look,” she says. “Even though we might not be aware of it in our world, that is the reality. I don’t like it when all the lights are the same color.”


Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) in Dragonstone map room. Photo by Helen Sloan The cameras were ARRI Alexas. In season one, Game of Thrones became the first hour-long HBO series to be shot digitally. 

For season three, the images were recorded using Codex Digital recorders via fiber optic cable. The ARRIRAW file format was deemed too data-intensive given the large number of units working. 

Simultaneously, the images are recorded to the camera’s onboard SxS cards as a backup. Standard LUTs are used for basic situations, but the cinematographers are free to adapt them to the particular needs of a given scene. 

The images are finalized at Modern VideoFilm in Santa Monica with colorist Joe Finley.
 
“The ALEXA is an absolute workhorse,” says Haellmigk. “We took that camera from Morocco to Iceland and shot in rain and sun and all types of conditions. The cameras we had never failed us, ever. In terms of the dynamic range, I was able to do everything that I wanted to. You still have more dynamic range on film, but it’s getting really close now. You see a very good image. 

“You can judge your exposure on a monitor and that allows you to paint a little more. Because of this format, I think I have become more daring, because I know how far I can push it and still get an acceptable image. You have to make sure that you make the post department happy, and find a happy medium in terms of exposure. But I was very happy with the camera.”
 
McLachlan (Human Target, Harper’s Island, The One, Final Destination 3) had worked with director David Nutter in the late 1990s on the visually innovative series Millennium. They reteamed for episodes nine and ten, the final installments of season three.

“The wonderful episodes that Jonathan and Kramer had done lingered on elegantly composed and lit frames,” says McLachlan. “After looking at the episodes David had done in season two, I realized quickly that his style of shooting was much less static and much less ‘proscenium’ than Game of Thrones generally.”
 
That’s not to say that they weren’t careful about composition. 

 “David is much more about getting lots of pieces and telling the story that way,” says McLachlan. 

“Because we were doing the final episodes of the season, we had comparatively massive scenes, including a wedding that has oodles of extras, a lot of dialogue, and not much time to shoot it. 

“We had three cameras, and I had to light in way that worked from any angle. Stylistically, it will look different.”

Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), Bronn (Jerome Flynn) and Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman). Photo by Keith Bernstein  
McLachlan recalled a dungeon scene shot amid the ruins of an old castle. “David’s feeling was that if it’s going to be completely dark, why are we in this location?” says the cinematographer. 

“You could do it on stage with black duvetyn. So I pushed a little bit of extra light in from a window at the end of a tunnel. It felt as if maybe it was bouncing off the ocean in front, so we got a bit of texture in the bricks, and added a couple of torches. 

“We certainly didn’t bring in any more electric lights. The wonder of the Alexa is that you can actually do that. I just love that camera. You take it out of the box, turn it on and it works perfectly—just like a film camera, and unlike some other video cameras. We tried to shoot at 800 ASA as much as possible, but it would depend on the situation.”
 
For most scenes, McLachlan took the edge off a bit with Schneider Optics Hollywood Black Magic filters, which combine diffusion and softening effects. “I think they’re terrific,” he says. 

“They’re my favorite for shooting digital. I had very, very light ones on most of the time, and occasionally I went a tiny bit heavier if there were cosmetic issues.”
 
Each shooting unit is equipped with a full set of Cooke S4 prime lenses and Optimo short, medium and long zooms. “Basically that’s what I carry myself when given a choice,” says McLachlan. 

“I’ve got some of those same lenses in my own package, so I was very happy to work with familiar tools. David wants the flexibility to adjust the focal length between takes very quickly, so the Angenieux zooms were on a fair bit.”


Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Photo by Keith Bernstein One troublesome set was a council room carved into the rocks overlooking the ocean far below. 

The cave ceiling offers no opportunity to hang lights. Torch and candlelight work for night scenes, but daytime was another story. A sky/sea horizon backing didn’t work. 

“When I had a scene that took place at sunrise, I decided to make it look like a J.M.W. Turner painting,” says McLachlan, who is the son of an artist. “So I threw a bit of blue light on the backing and then stuck a 5K ARRI Fresnel right smack in the shot, where it could light the whole cavernous set. 

We put a couple of Lee CTO gels on it and then added enough smoke to hide the stand. The Alexa was able to give a clean image without any more flaring than the filters and smoke created, and even held detail in the area around the ‘sun.’ It was a last-ditch effort to not repeat what we had all done and been vaguely unhappy with. It worked perfectly for the scene, where a critical piece of information was handed over and the situation was seen in a new light.”

In another scene that can’t be described in detail due to the tight secrecy HBO maintains, McLachlan came up with a simple yet brilliant lighting strategy to foreshadow a dramatic turn of events. The scene begins with a relatively high-key interior, with twice as many candelabras and torches as was customary. McLachlan says the extra light coaxes the audience subconsciously to let their guard down. 

At a natural turning point, the cast picks up most of the light sources and walks out, dropping the light level significantly, just in time for the darker, dramatic story point.
 
“It worked really, really well,” he says. “I get goose bumps thinking about it because it’s been a long time since I had a forum with drama as good as this show, along with the terrific art direction, not to mention adequate time to think about it and plan it.”
 
“The whole experience of working on Game of Thrones reminded me of why I wanted to be a filmmaker,” says McLachlan. 

“When we got to Morocco, we were standing on locations where they shot Lawrence of Arabia and The Man Who Would Be King. When I saw that film as a kid, it just swept me away. We were absolutely transported. Just the thought of working on a project like this was beyond my wildest dreams.”

Military sex assault reports up, changes ordered By LOLITA C. BALDOR and DONNA CASSATA | Associated Press

View Photo Associated Press/J. Scott Applewhite - Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., questions top officials of the Air Force, Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, …more 
Related Content View Photo The Senate Armed Services Committee … View Photo The Senate Armed Services Committee …
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sexual assaults in the military are a growing epidemic across the services and thousands of victims are still unwilling to come forward despite a slew of new oversight and assistance programs, according to a new Pentagon report.
Troubling new numbers estimate that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, according to survey results released against a backdrops of scandals including an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at a Texas base
The report was released Tuesday and comes just days after the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention was arrested on charges of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot. And it follows a heated debate over whether commanders should be stripped of the authority to overturn military jury verdicts, such as one officer did in a recent sexual assault conviction.

In a sharp rebuke Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he has no tolerance for the problem and that he had talked to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about it. He said any military member found guilty of sexual assault should be held accountable, prosecuted and fired.
"I don't want just more speeches or awareness programs or training, or ultimately folks look the other way," the president said. "We're going to have to not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game to go after this hard."

Hagel later gave a grim assessment, saying the military "may be nearing a stage where the frequency of this crime and the perception that there is tolerance of it could very well undermine our ability to effectively carry out the mission and to recruit and retain the good people we need."

The documents show that the number of sexual assaults actually reported by members of the military rose 6 percent to 3,374 in 2012. But a survey of personnel who were not required to reveal their identities showed the number of service members actually assaulted could be as many as 26,000, but they never reported the incidents, officials said Tuesday.

That number is an increase over the 19,000 estimated assaults in 2011.

The statistics highlight the dismal results that military leaders have achieved in their drive to change the culture within the ranks, even as the services redoubled efforts to launch new programs to assist the victims, encourage reporting and increase commanders' vigilance.

Hagel ordered a series of steps and reviews to increase officers' accountability for what happens under their commands, and to inspect workstations for objectionable materials, according to memos and documents obtained by the AP.

Hagel also told military leaders to develop a method to assess commanders and hold them accountable on their ability to create a climate "of dignity and respect." He has given commanders until July 1 to visually inspect workspaces to make sure they are free of degrading materials, and military leaders have until Nov. 1 to recommend ways to assess officers and hold them accountable for their command climates.
"Sexual assault is a crime that is incompatible with military service and has no place in this department," Hagel said in a new response plan the department will release Tuesday. 

"It is an affront to the American values we defend, and it is a stain on our honor. DoD needs to be a national leader in combating sexual assault and we will establish an environment of dignity and respect, where sexual assault is not tolerated, condoned, or ignored."

While the latest cases involve Air Force members, the problem extends across all the military services.
Across Capitol Hill, lawmakers demanded the Pentagon take more aggressive steps to address the growing problem and they announced renewed efforts to pass legislation to battle the problem.

"When our best and our brightest put on a uniform and join the United States Armed Forces, they do so with the understanding that they will sacrifice much in the name of defending our country and its people. However, it's unconscionable to think that entertaining unwanted sexual contact from within the ranks is now part of that equation," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. 

"Not only are we subjecting our men and women to this disgusting epidemic, but we're also failing to provide the victims with any meaningful support system once they have fallen victim to these attacks."

This week's sexual battery arrest of Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, who headed the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response unit, provided a rallying point for lawmakers, who held it up Tuesday as an example of the Pentagon's failure to make progress despite the increased effort.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told Air Force officials at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that "while under our legal system everyone is innocent until proven guilty, this arrest speaks volumes about the status and effectiveness of (the Defense) department's efforts to address the plague of sexual assaults in the military."

Members of Congress are putting together legislation to essentially strip military officers of the authority to overturn convictions for serious offenses such as sexual assault. The measure stem from congressional outrage over an Air Force officer's decision to reverse a jury verdict in a sexual assault case.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and others are drawing up legislation that likely will be included in the annual defense policy bill that will essentially strip military officers of the authority to overturn convictions for serious offenses such as sexual assault.

Separately, Murray and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced legislation on Tuesday to provide victims with a special military lawyer who would assist them throughout the process, prohibit sexual contact between instructors and trainees during and within 30 days of completion of basic training or its equivalent and ensure that sexual assault response coordinators are available to help members of the National Guard and reserve.

Turner said the increase in assaults and the failure of so many victims to come forward shows that "much more needs to be done both legislatively and structurally, to root out this problem."

According to Pentagon documents, the key conclusion of the report is that "sexual assault is a persistent problem in the military and remains vastly underreported."

The report says that of the 1.4 million active duty personnel, 6.1 percent of active duty women — or 12,100 — say they experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, a sharp increase over the 8,600 who said that in 2010. For men, the number increased from 10,700 to 13,900. A majority of the offenders were military members or Defense Department civilians or contractors, the report said.

Within the specific services, the Army showed a 16 percent decrease in the number of reported sexual assault cases, from 1,695 in 2011 to 1,423 in 2012.

The Navy said it saw a 32 percent increase, jumping from 550 in 2011 to 726 in 2012. The report said the Marines had more than a 30 percent increase in reported sexual assaults, from 333 in 2011 to 435 in 2012. And the Air Force had a 33 percent increase in reports, from 594 in 2011 to 790 in 2012.
Military and defense officials said to a degree they view an increase in reporting as a somewhat positive move since it indicates that victims are becoming more willing to come forward and have faith in the military justice system.

Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force's chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley were "appalled" by the charges against Krusinski.

"As we have both said over and over and over again, sexual assault prevention and response efforts are critically important to us," Welsh said. "It is unacceptable that this occurs anywhere, at any time, in our Air Force."

Welsh said that while the Krusinski case is being adjudicated by the Arlington County, Va., prosecutor, the Air Force has requested jurisdiction. He said Krusinski will be arraigned Thursday on one count of sexual battery and that an Arlington County prosecutor will decide the jurisdiction question.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., one of the most vocal critics of the military's efforts to stop sexual assaults, pressed Welsh on what qualifications Krusinski had for the job and whether Welsh reviewed his personnel file since his arrest to see if there were any red flags.

Welsh said he found nothing irregular in Krusinski's file.
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Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.
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Follow Lolita C. Baldor at https://twitter.com/lbaldor
Follow Donna Cassata at http://twitter.com/DonnaCassataAP

5 Things You Shouldn’t Do When Writing a Book by Brian A. Klems at Dana Sitar's blog

by Brian Klems (@BrianKlems)

When writing my book, Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters, I ran into a lot of roadblocks. I’d like to place the blame elsewhere, but the truth is, they were my fault (Okay, I’ll place part of the blame on TBS for airing all those reruns of “Scrubs” — seriously, I just can’t get enough of that show).

Most of the roadblocks, though, were from avoidable mistakes I made during the writing process. Thankfully, now I know better.

To help you out, I’ve pulled together the five things you shouldn’t do when writing a book. These are tips that I wish someone else would have told me before I started writing Oh Boy. To save you a lot of time, do not:
1. Tell Anyone The Plot of Your BookWhen you’re writing a book, occasionally someone — like a family member, friend or that loaded guy sitting next to you at the bar — will con you into talking about your book while you’re writing it. Wrong move. They will offer unsolicited pieces of advice like, “You should
While most are honestly trying to be helpful, the majority of them — who have never written a book — will likely be offering bad advice. Best to stay hush-hush about it until it’s finished and you can have it edited or work-shopped by other writers.
2. Get Attached to Any Part of Your Book As writers, we often fall in love with our own writing and plot points. This happens to me all the time. I write an awesome first paragraph and continue writing a chapter. As I go along, it’s clear that the chapter has taken a decidedly different turn and that first paragraph doesn’t quite fit. But I love that first paragraph. So I spend countless hours rewriting the rest of the chapter, even though deep down I know the only real solution is to cut that first graph.

It’s brutally painful, but not cutting it is a mistake rookie writers make. And if you want to publish your book, you’ll cut anything that doesn’t quite fit — even if it’s a part you love. [Like this idea? Tweet it!]
3. Set Unreasonable GoalsI believe in goals, so no matter what you are writing — a novel, nonfiction book, memoir, poetry chapbook, an article on how to write a blog (which I did) — you need to set some. That being said, don’t set goals that are nearly impossible to reach. Unreasonable goals will only cause you to get mad at yourself and will, in fact, slow your process down rather than speed it up — after all, if you feel like you’re letting yourself down, you’ll be less motivated to write.

I like to set time goals as opposed to word-count goals. For example, if you only have 30 minutes a day to write, just sit down and write as many words as you can in that 30 minutes. Some days you may only walk away with a couple hundred. Others you may knock out a thousand or two. But if you walk away with any words, you’ll feel more confident knowing you worked as hard as you could that day to get that many words out.

And eventually, they will add up.
4. Only Save Your Book in One PlaceLike every writer, I have a very love-hate relationship with computers — as in, I love them when they are helping me work more efficiently and I hate them when … well … nearly all the rest of the time. It’s not intuitive to me to continually hit “save” when writing, especially when I’m in the zone. So when I forget to save (which happens all the time) and my computer crashes (which seems to happen every time I’m finally satisfied with my work), I lose everything.

I finally started writing using Google Docs, where it not only automatically saves your work but it saves it online, so you can access it from any computer you want. After writing the first few chapters of Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl  in Word and losing nearly 50% of my writing, I fell in love with Google Docs because they took away the unnecessary stress of worrying about my computer crashing. Now my computer could reboot all it wanted and I’d still have all those wonderful words I worked so hard to write.
5. Take the Fun Out of WritingToo often writing a book turns into a chore. That can happen for many reasons — stressed over a self-imposed deadline, trouble defining a character, dealing with writer’s block, afraid that the book just isn’t good enough so far, etc.

I once got stuck on one sentence — one sentence – because I didn’t think it was “funny enough” and used it as an excuse to stop writing for days. That’s a true story.

And now, looking back, I see how absurd that is.

The important thing to do is forget all of that — all the worries and stresses and self-induced headaches. Just focus on the reason you wanted to write a book in the first place: Because you’re a storyteller and you have a story to tell. Remind yourself of that every day and you’ll have fewer roadblocks to finishing your book.

What mistakes have you made — and learned from — when writing a book?
Brian A. Klems is the online editor for Writer’s Digest magazine and author of Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters (Adams 2013).

He’s also the editor of The Writer’s Dig and hosts the popular parenting blog, TheLifeOfDad.com.

You can follow him on Twitter @BrianKlems.

Doing a rewrite for Orchid Games' Heartwild Solitaire Game Series on my original texts....

Doing a rewrite for Orchid Games' Heartwild Solitaire Game Series on my original texts and I've been given the "rewrites" down by Sandlot. AMAZING. The romantic game is for adult women first but the E for Everyone had them editing out "nude" (although the male leads sculpts nudes), "naked," "touch," "kiss," "stroking," "caressing," "heat," "wet," "thigh," a fully deleted sex scene, and my favorite "prude."

So, I'm rewriting from the original for E my way. Amazing. They even added a violence that was more subtle before. Amazing.

http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire [http://www.heartwild.com/?ref=2] and http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire_book_two

WSJ: The Return of The Serial Novel

WSJ: The Return of The Serial Novel  By ALEXANDRA ALTER
Bite-Size Entertainment The Age of Bite-Size Entertainment The EP as Music's Launchpad Short Films, Big Ambitions St. Martin's Press has published five serial novels in the past year, ranging from historical fiction to erotic romance, and has three more in the works. Penguin's digital romance imprint, InterMix, is testing serialized romance and erotica, and has released three titles so far, with several others on the way. 

The science-fiction and fantasy publisher Tor recently published a science-fiction epic by John Scalzi in 13 weekly episodes.

Amazon, which is leading the way with the format, has released 30 serialized novels through its new Kindle Serials program and is adding a new series every week. Readers pay $1.99 for an entire series, and new installments update automatically. Like a TV show, the episodes are designed to be devoured in a single sitting and end with a cliffhanger.
"The Charles Dickens model actually fits better now than ever because people want bite-sized content," says writer Sean Platt, who has co-authored six digital serial novels.
The serial model could be a boon for publishers and booksellers. Breaking up a longer work enables them to charge readers slightly more for it. Authors and publishers can also use a gradual digital release to test new series and characters in a relatively low-risk way, and build buzz for upcoming print titles. But digital serials could also be bad for business if they eat away at future print profits—still the biggest revenue source for most publishers.

Publishers and writers are now wrestling with the format, trying to figure out the best price, length, and intervals between installments.

Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, AMZN +0.35% says the company is still trying to "fine-tune" its serial-publishing program based on reader responses. Amazon launched its serials last fall with 10 novels. The company has since added 20 more series, which range from romance to crime to supernatural thrillers. The best-selling title so far, Andrew Peterson's thriller "Option to Kill," has sold some 80,000 copies.

"Early data indicate that shorter is probably better, and a one-week cadence works best," Mr. Belle said.

Others worry that if readers are forced to wait, they might not return. In an era when people binge on streaming TV shows and can instantly download all 20 books in their favorite crime series, the weekly-appointment model might not hold up, says Dan Weiss, publisher at large at St. Martin's, who has overseen the development of several serials.
"We originally thought it would be fun to publish brief books with cliffhangers, and publish them like a TV show on a weekly schedule," Mr. Weiss said. "But since then, with 'House of Cards,' binge viewing has come into vogue," referring to the original TV series that Netflix released all at once. St. Martin's may try publishing several episodes at once, he said, because their brevity makes them "easily digestible and phone-friendly."
Romance novelist Beth Kery wasn't prepared for the vicious backlash to her novel, "Because You Are Mine," which InterMix published last summer in eight weekly installments. The book was a hit, selling more than 500,000 copies. But some of Ms. Kery's longtime fans detested the format. Some readers were outraged over the $1.99 price tag for each installment, which added up to $16, far more than many e-books cost. Others resented being teased with cliffhangers.

"I am really sick of sitting down to read this book and just when you are enjoying it, it ends," one Amazon reviewer seethed. "Release the whole book, I would enjoy it more," another wrote.
This month, Ms. Kery's publisher finally released the complete story as a $16 paperback. It's also available now as a single digital volume, for $9.99. Ms. Kery is currently releasing another eight-part serial romance, "When I'm With You."
Publishing a novel in increments poses additional challenges for writers, who have to worry about readers dropping off mid-series, as well as new readers coming to the novel in the middle or toward the end.

Mr. Scalzi, a best-selling science-fiction novelist who released his new book serially with the imprint Tor, says he struggled at first with the unfamiliar format. 

He wanted to make sure the 13 individual episodes could stand alone but also added up to a single, seamless story for readers who chose to wait and consume it in a single serving. (Tor will release a print edition of "The Human Division" next month.)
The novel has been landing on Amazon's science-fiction best-seller list every week, and sales have grown with each episode. When the final episode came out this week, Mr. Scalzi announced that the saga would continue, telling fans on his website that the serial "has been renewed for a second season."

A version of this article appeared April 12, 2013, on page D2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Return of The Serial Novel.

Sci Fi Circuit: The Magic of World Building, April 12, 2013

What does it take to make a sci fi world real?

 

As a science fiction fan, I love to be transported into new and fantastical worlds. As a sci fi screenwriter, I’m fascinated by understanding what it takes to make that happen, and happen well?
It’s not just a pretty gadgetPart of the appeal as fans, I think, is that just like in James Bond movies, we sci-fi geeks love to see new and clever ideas and how they work. It seems to be something of a thing, to have at least one super cool new piece of technology per sci fi film, like the hand-embedded phones in the re-release of Total Recall (2012).

But clearly a little fancy new technology isn’t the only thing it takes to make a futuristic world seem real.
What else is it?The kind of world-building I deeply admire is what I’ve seen Joss Whedon doing with his sci fi masterpiece series Firefly and even with The Avengers. The world-building is all part of the background. It makes sense. We get it. When it comes to our attention, it’s part of the story but doesn’t overwhelm it. Everything serves a purpose. He does a masterful job of showing and not telling.

And that IS an issue with sci fi.

As Carson Reeves puts it in his excellent book Scriptshadow Secrets, “Science fiction is a memory hog.” 

He goes on to say, “You know that WHIRRRRR noise your laptop makes when Firefox starts sucking up your memory? That’s the exact same effect sci-fi has on a screenplay. 20-25% of your screenplay will be dedicated to exposition when you write sci-fi. This is due to all the rules and backstory and futuristic shit that needs to be explained… 

So make sure if you’re tackling this genre, you’re willing to put in the extra effort to minimize and hide all that exposition…”

So how do we build convincing and beautiful worlds while reining in the exposition?

First let’s start with the science, context, and backstory. To answer this question, I dragged out my early version of  The Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card for a look at the ingredients that go into building a world.
Setting the rulesCard lists first coming up with the “rules” for space travel, time travel, and magic.

For instance, pretty much at the outset of Star Wars and Star Trek we see that lightspeed and warp speed work in these universes. Even though the technology for traveling faster than the speed of light is currently seen as highly unlikely if not impossible in the scientific world (classified by Michio Kaku in Physics of the Impossible as a “class II impossibility”, meaning that it “sits on the very edge of our current understanding of the physical world”), we take it as a given that we can whip across the universe at enormous speeds without any time dilation effect.

In other universes, however, like those depicted in Aliens and Prometheus, cryo travel is required to traverse any kind of long distance, the impact of which is clearly seen when Ripley in Aliens asks, “How long was I out there?” and the answer, “Fifty-seven years,” produces a real shock for her character.

Similarly we must convey the rules of time travel — and as the writers of these tales, we get to decide on the rules.

For instance, think of the various ways time travel plays out in movies like The Butterfly Effect, the Back To The Future trilogy, and Déjà Vu. In each of these, we quickly learn the time travel rules for the particular story, such as, do people travel back through time into their own minds? Can they observe their earlier selves from the outside? Affect the past and alter the future? Or does time remain elastic and resilient, regardless of the changes we might try to make?

And even though we usually think of “magic” relative to fantasy stories, many of the sci fi worlds we see encompass some kind of magic, whether with technology or something like the Force in Star Wars.

Regardless of whether it’s magic or science, from the outset, we have to know the rules.
Detailing the pastWe also need to understanding the past, including for example how a particular alien race has evolved to appear the way it has, and how it communicates — at least as the writers of the script. I love how Card describes understanding the backstory for a particular town with a mob led by a demogogic preacher and deeply understanding the kind of people that follow him. 

He says, “Now, maybe you won’t even use an incident like that in the story. But you know it, and because it’s in there in the history of that town, the people in that mob are no longer strangers to you, no longer puppets to make go through the actions you want them to perform. They’ve come alive, they have souls — and your story will be richer and more truthful because of it.” (Emphasis added.)

In my own work and reading on this subject, even while I am at times tempted to throw up my hands and say, “It doesn’t matter, I don’t care about that!” I find that my work deepens the more care I put into thinking about the world and story behind what we’re seeing.
Understanding languageJoss Whedon’s brilliance shines when it comes to language, which is the next of Card’s world building items. Ever the erudite communicator, not only has Whedon thought through a likely political and cultural evolution for the future of the human race in Firefly, he has extrapolated slang words like “ruttin’” and “gorram” along with the notion that characters will swear in Chinese. Along with subtle Asian cues in clothing, lettering, and set design, we quickly grok that China’s culture has become an integral part of these new worlds.

There’s nothing like a good delivery of language, whether we’re talking Aliens or Much Ado About Nothing to get us well-immersed in the tone and spirit of a particular world.
Designing sceneryAccording to Card, designing the scenery “… is the part that most people think of when they talk about world creation: coming up with a star system and a planet and an alien landscape.”

Carolyn See writes convincingly about the importance of “geography, time, and space” in her Making A Literary Life. Although I’ve been tempted to ignore such specifics along these lines at times since I’m writing “in the future,” I can see the validity of her point that we can become boring when we try for “universal” by neglecting the details.

I’m again reminded of the beauty of the ship “Serenity” in Firefly, and the careful thought that went into creating it, down to the flowers painted on the dining area walls. If we’re paying attention, we surmise they were added by one of the characters on the ship.

But here’s a question I wonder about: How much of this happens on the set, and how much happens in the writing stage?

As I contemplated that question, I remembered hearing Jane Espenson talk about writing the episode “Shindig” for Firefly. She described coming up with the idea for transportable door knobs that function as futuristic hotel room keys. And guess what? It’s in the script. So the writer does and can play a role at this level too.
And what about exposition?Carson Reeves suggests that most sci fi projects need some kind of backstory introduction to help avoid overly expository dialogue. He points out the well-known use of the title card in the Star Wars franchise, but also references voice-overs in Avatar (and the video journaling did an admirable job there too, in my opinion), and the documentary-style footage in District 9.

I love this point from Michael A. Banks from his chapter, “Science Fiction: Hard Science and Hard Conflict” from How To Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction (from Writer’s Digest) about the degree of attention one must give to the science behind the fiction: 

“More detail is necessary, because you are frequently showing the reader things that don’t exist. 

You’ll have to depend on intuition to tell you just how far you can go without being a bore. … If the science is to be part of the conflict, you’ll have to take it quite a bit further. Because conflict is so closely tied to characterization, motivation, and the overall success of plot, you will have to give the science behind a conflict as much attention as you would any of the other basic story elements.”

He also says, “The ground rules are simple: Don’t tell the reader everything you know, and don’t dump the information you do use on the reader all at once. … Use only detail that adds necessary color, moves the plot, or helps the reader understand events, characters, or background.

I know that as I’m writing, I’m constantly asking myself, how can I convey this more concisely? How can I show it? How can we feel it? Can I make it tighter or clearer? If it means my reader “gets” my story more clearly, it’ll be worth the effort.
Lest we forgetLast, here’s a point I think is worth remembering, again from Orson Scott Card, about the value and importance of sci fi in our own world today: “Indeed, one of the greatest values of speculative fiction is that creating a strange imaginary world is often the best way to help readers see the real world through fresh eyes and notice things that would otherwise remain unnoticed.”
Related Articles:
What Makes It Sci Fi? by Jenna Avery Alt Script: Tell the Story, Tell the Story, TELL THE STORY Structure and Breaking In: An Interview with Syd Field Tools to Help:
The Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott CardThe Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction & Fantasy eBook by Orson Scott CardThe Writers Store resourcesBe Sociable, Share!

Arabian Nights Tale of Princess Perizhade or Parizade [The story of Princess Parizade and the Magic Tree]

All who are stuck as to what courage and destiny can look like in a woman [for game writing or any writing] should read the Arabian Nights Tale of Princess Perizhade or Parizade [The story of Princess Parizade and the Magic Tree] compiled with the other tales in the 1700s!

Not all tales need be violent, guy porn, nor about a girl stone object.

http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=ATkQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA543&dq=princess+parizade&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Kg9aT-aBPYa-0QXxqejSDQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=princess%20parizade&f=false

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games