Benjamin Sobieck's Blog, page 55
June 5, 2011
#2 on Amazon: "4 Killer Crime Stories in 4 Minutes"
This is big news. I knocked the price of my collection of experimental flash fiction, "4 Killer Crime Stories in 4 Minutes," down to free.
As of this writing, it's the #2 best-selling free (that's an oxymoron) collection of short stories in all of Amazon. Holy. Fucking. Shit. (pardon the profanity, but it's pretty cool)
You can see the list here: http://tinyurl.com/3wldvkm (Note that ranking is only as of this writing, I don't know if it will still be there when you see it.)
The thing is, the folks reading it don't necessarily like the stories. And that's OK, these are on the more experimental side. They weren't written following a traditional arc for flash fiction. The one and only Jimmy Callaway named one of the stories the best in flash fiction for 2010. I hang my hat on that. Besides, not everyone will like everything I write. I just appreciate that they took the time to read my work in the first place.
I'm just blown away by this. Wow. Thank you, Amazon readers.
June 4, 2011
Six Tips for a Police Ride-Along
When it came to researching for "Cleansing Eden," I drew upon my experiences as a newspaper crime reporter. At least, when I still was a newspaper crime reporter.
For much of the first half of the novel, I was employed as a reporter. I took notes on some of the interactions I had with law enforcement. It wasn't anything too groundbreaking, but it helped me create June's interactions with the police force (although, my relationship wasn't nearly as rocky).
When I stopped being a crime reporter, my wife started. Her experiences helped me round out some of June's scenarios. June's character is a mash-up of me, my wife, some other grizzled reporters and newsroom war stories.
But not everyone can be a crime reporter. (With how much it pays, you won't be running off with any delusions of grandeur.) To gain experience for a crime novel, some choose to ask the police for help.
Crime author and criminologist Jennifer Chase recently wrote about one option to take: the police ride-along. She says it's a great way to get a feel for a the daily work officers perform. She offers six tips if you do decide to go:
1. Be professional and reserved.
2. Wear appropriate clothing.
3. Be respectful of your host police officer and your surrounding situations.
4. Take plenty of notes.
5. Bring a bottle of water and some type of energy bar just in case.
6. Be observant, relax, and have a great time!
June 3, 2011
Review: "Godchild" by Vincent Zandri
The noir genre and I have an uneasy relationship. On the one hand, pitch black noir can entertain like no other. The characters are always in varying degrees of damnation, the violence is brutal, the alcohol/drug abuse is ubiquitous and nothing about the plot is as it seems.
On the other hand, there are certain noir stereotypes that never go away. If you've read one, you've read them all. There's the PI with the tortured past who drinks too much. There's the female in need of saving from something. There's the corrupt cops, politicians, lawyers and whatnot. There's the grim, forboding tone to the writing.
Vincent Zandri's "Godchild," the second in the Keeper Marconi series, has all of these things. Keeper is a PI with a tortured past who drinks too much. He gets hired to break a woman out of a Mexican prison. Because of the involvement of corrupt officials, things go haywire pretty quick.
If this was any other writer, I probably wouldn't've made it through all of "Godchild." The noir cliches were piled on thick. But this is Vincent Zandri. There's something about his writing style that I admire. It's the brisk pace of the action. It's knowing when to slow down and evaluate what's going on in the characters' heads. It's the way a backstory critical to the plot is slowly revealed throughout the novel.
Simply put, "Godchild" is full of noir cliches. But there's a big difference between well-done noir cliches and using a stereotype in place of the creative process. Zandri (who I made me a fan with "The Remains") is definitely the former. His writing has a voice, which is the most difficult and hardest to define thing for a writer to create.
I mentioned this is the second in the Keeper Marconi series. I hadn't read the first, "The Innocent," but that didn't matter. Readers will have no problem catching up. In all honesty, I bought "Godchild" first because the price dropped to 99 cents in May. Just my luck, "The Innocent" came down to 99 cents for June. I'll be reading that one next.
Click here to get "Godchild" for the Kindle.
New Book Pages and Free Samples Coming
With the sudden influx of material that's actually published, I need to do a bit of housekeeping around here. Each work will receive it's own page on the site, and everything will have free samples to read.
That's it for this post. Really short, huh? I guess I could fill the time by singing and doing a jig. But that doesn't translate well into the written word.
May 31, 2011
Get to Know Ian Ayris
Ian Ayris is not new to the crime fiction scene, but he is on the cusp of being a debut novelist. Caffeine Nights Publishing will release his crime novel, "Abide With Me," very soon.
I'm always curious what it's like to be a novelist in another part of the world (Ian is from the UK). So I asked Ian if he'd be willing to have me interview him. Lucky for us, he said "yes." I found his responses interesting. Here's a guy who cut his teeth on short fiction in a pile of respectable crime 'zines, but couldn't find a home for his novel. But he kept his chin up, and luck landed on his doorstep.
Damn, you've got to admire a guy for sticking with it. And now the crime fiction world will be rewarded with "Abide With Me."
Enjoy!
1) Tell me a bit on what "Abide with Me" is about.
"Abide With Me" is primarily about two boys growing up in the East End of London in the nineteen seventies and eighties. The whole book is told in the first person vernacular of East London, by one of the boys, John. John is a streetwise lad, and comes from a fanatical West Ham supporting family - the local football (soccer) team.
The other boy, Kenny, lives across the street and is timid and withdrawn, spending his days in a violent household. As John and Kenny grow up, each struggles to understand their place in a world that is crumbling around them by the day.
Things come to a head, and the two boys go their separate ways through circumstances beyond their control. Years later, after mental institutions, petty crime, searing loss and prison have taken their toll, the two boys are re-united, facing up to local gangster Ronnie Swordfish in a single moment that will define their lives forever.
"Abide With Me" is a story of hope and endurance, how to boys walk into the darkness and emerge as men.
2) You're on the cusp of having a debut novel published. What are you most excited about?
I think the thing I am most looking forward to, Ben, is simply seeing what were once a million sheets of type-written paper covered in red ink, collected together and made into a book. Holding the finished article in my hands, blimey, can't even imagine what that's going to feel like.
3) Follow up to that question, what are you most worried about?
Worried. Mmm . . . To be honest, Ben, I'm not really one to worry. The book is written, it will now take off on a journey all its own. My main aim in writing this book was to make it real.
There is no shying away from the reality of the violence and the language inherent in the boys' experience. No shying away at all. People that have read my short stories know I am not one for shying away.
I know the manner in which the book is written will have its detractors. It is not what you might call, coffee table reading butI am hoping the reader will see beyond what is presented and be able to feel what is stirring beneath the words, for that is where the real story is.
4) I've read/heard that a debut novel is often the most personal. Not so much that it has a personal meaning, but that the author puts a lot of their person into the story. Characters, settings or plots might be based on the author's experiences. Is this true about "Abide with Me?"
Good question, Ben. To say there is a lot of me in this book would be an understatement. Because of the organic nature in which I write, there was always going to be a huge amount of my own experience, my own feelings, my own fears and hopes in the book.
Yes, they are played out in the scenes and the dialogue of fictional characters, but they are there. I only realised how personal this book is when I recorded the whole thing onto my phone a page at a time in my final edit. I could barely get through a paragraph without my voice breaking and tears rolling down my face.
Actually, I've just stumbled upon a real fear I should have mentioned in the previous answer - book readings. Breaking down in tears whilst reading my own book. Now wouldn't that be something . . .
5) Totally understandable. You write with passion. Before you finished "Abide with Me," what kept you motivated to continue writing? You were treading in unfamiliar territory, having not published a novel before.
I wrote the first half of "Abide With Me" in about three months, literally just making it up as I was going along. I never write to a plan. I just listen and watch what is going on inside my head, and write it down. It's a mad process.
But the second half of the book, about thirty thousand words, I wrote in an absolute blur of two weeks. I just sat, and wrote, all through the night. There were no thought processes, just a need to tell the story of these two boys that had become so much a part of me, that had always been so much a part of me.
It's difficult to describe those two weeks, except, at the end, I felt the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.
6) It won't be your first published work, though. How has writing for "Radgepacket," "Out of the Gutter" and other crime fiction 'zine/websites played into writing this novel? Did you expand on a theme you explored only in short form before?
I've only been writing for a couple of years. One of the first stories I had published was in the fantastic "Radgepacket" series from Byker Books. The story was called "The Rise and Demise of Fat Kenny."
Buried within that short story, although I didn't know it at the time, were the seeds of what was eventually to become 'Abide With Me." When I finished writing the book, and it was doing the rounds with various agents and publishers, I went back to writing short stories to fill the time. I was fortunate enough to have about twenty-five short stories published in too many places to name.
So when it came to editing the book, I found I'd become a much better writer, the voice I used honed to a much tighter degree. Hopefully, this has made the book even better than it might have been. Short stories are fantastic for honing your craft as a writer. Beginning, middle, end. Bang, bang, bang. It's like doing weights or jogging or Yoga. Keeps you finely tuned, you know.
7) I never gave short work much consideration until I realized how much of a benefit it can be. That surprised me as both a writer and a reader. What surprised you the most about the road to getting published?
What surprised me the most about the road to publication was the ease with which I took rejection. I had interest from an agent in New York and another in London, both to end in eventual rejection, plus about rejections from almost every publisher and agent in the Writer's Handbook.
Then, as sometimes happens, luck intervened. A writing friend of mine - Nick Quanrtill, author of the fantastic "Broken Dreams" - mentioned "Abide With Me" to his publisher - Darren Laws at Caffeine Nights Publishing.
Although closed to submissions at the time, Darren was sufficiently interested to request the first three chapters. Three months later, having all but forgotten about it, I got a request for the whole manuscript. It got my attention, but by then I'd sort of resolved myself to starting another submission round in six months. I disassociated myself from the outcome, as it were.
Three months later, I got the offer of a contract. And it blew me away. After all those rejections I got an acceptance from a publishing house I'd never even heard of. Serendipity. That's what has surprised me about the road to publication. Luck, fate, whatever you want to call it. It has a huge impact.
8 ) You're from one side of the Atlantic, I'm from the other. We're both involved in crime fiction. How is the genre different on either side of the pond? Or is it at all?
I really thing there is a difference between crime fiction on the different sides of the Pond. I want to stress I think neither one is better than the other. I enjoy them both. But there is a difference.
For me, the stories Stateside tend to be more direct, visceral, lots of guns and drugs and bullets. Here in Old Blighty, the stories tend to be, I think, more character driven, slow burners. I also think there is more humour in the stories from this side of the Pond. The old English defence, eh?
9) Any advice for authors wanting to become a debut novelist like yourself?
My advice to authors seeking publication is to write with your heart. Write something you believe in. Write something that makes you tremble to the core, something that matters. In a sense, do not have publication as your aim, have truth as your aim.
And when you've finished writing your short story or novel, send it off and let it go. Release yourself from the outcome, and begin something else.
10) I'll shut up now. The floor is yours. Anything you'd like to add?
I just want to thank you, Ben, for giving me the opportunity to appear on your site. It's a salient reminder of how this crime-fiction community I seem to have fallen into the last eighteen months or so comes together to help its own. And stuff like that, you can't ever put a price on.
Like I always say, I'm a fan of crime fiction first and an author second. Ian, I look forward to reading "Abide With Me" and the many novels to come. Cheers!
Find more from Ian Ayris at his blog, The Voices in My Head.
Listen to Podcast of Appearance on "The G-Zone"
Giovanni Gelati and I kicked off Memorial Day weekend instyle on the live podcast show, "The G-Zone." I had a fun time going into the stories behind my stories. The first half is about my recent works. The second half is more about the authors, websites and foodie stuff I like. Enjoy!
May 27, 2011
Listen to This Morning's Live Podcast Appearance
I had a fun time going into the stories behind my stories. The first half is about my recent works. The second half is more about the authors, websites and foodie stuff I like.
I tried embedding the podcast here on Goodreads, but it didn't stick. So head to my website to listen to it, CrimeFictionBook.com.
May 26, 2011
Guest Post: Should Authors Stick to One Genre?
Today's guest post is from Chantal Boudreau, who is a double threat as both an artist AND author. I've always admired people who can create visual art, because I sure as hell can't. She contributed to the First Time Dead anthology, and has published several standalone horror titles. That's outside of my chosen genre, crime fiction, but it's all the more appropriate for this post. Chantal answers the question, "Should authors stick to one genre?"
-Ben
***
Search around the Internet and you'll find the popular opinion in the publishing industry that a writer should choose a genre and stick with it. If they want to dabble in other genres, they may want to consider a pseudonym. This is sometimes referred to as "branding" yourself and is particularly championed by agents and large publishing house as a means of establishing a loyal fan base who will avidly follow your work.
Well, I for one have a problem with this. Not with the loyal fan base – but with the prescribed means of achieving it.
There are two reasons why I can't easily adhere to this idea. The first reason is that I'm a perpetual dabbler. If its speculative fiction of some type, I've tried writing it – just look at what I have published, from Ghost in The Mirror to Shear Terror, I span a broad range. Horror, dark fantasy, weird fiction, paranormal tales, dystopian fiction, urban fantasy, science fiction, standard fantasy, erotica and various forms of humour, like It's All about the Tourists – I've tried it all. I've even tried my hand at literary fiction. I'm a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none in almost every aspect of my life, so asking me to focus my efforts in my writing is asking me to go against my nature. I would rather throw myself into a new and different challenge than write something similar to the last thing I wrote, even if this means I lack a writer "brand."
The second reason this doesn't work for me is that I've never manage to squish myself into the standard mould for anything. I've run the gambit of trying to conquer a physical disability since I was five, grown up in a French Acadian village with a mother who was British, been a gamer-geek girl in a rustic location where the favourite local past time was drinking beer on the back patio, and I happened to be the only female in my high school honours physics class – and these are only a very few examples of how I've never fit in. This means I'm just not capable of boxing myself into any prim and proper package that others insist upon.
Branding might be effective in many ways but it also has its problems. For one thing, I don't want ten different pseudonyms because I've ventured into multiple genres. I already have trouble enough keeping my current life and the one name straight, how do I manage adding in nine more? It also has the disadvantage of what to do with crossover pieces. Do I lump something like my novel Fervor, which I consider dystopian science fantasy under my dystopian pseudonym, science fiction pseudonym, or fantasy pseudonym? This also brings up the idea of how the "experts" suggest crossovers are a faulty concept – but I'll get to that later.
Also, part of brand power is name recognition, and you lose that every time you write something in another genre under a new pseudonym. Why would you want to throw that away and start from scratch because you're trying something new? Isaac Asimov didn't resort to using different names for his mystery stories or fantasy work versus his popular science fiction. In fact, I'm not a big fan of straight mystery, so the only reason I read his Black Widowers stories was because the cover wore his name. He did write under the pseudonym, Paul French. I had never heard of the books he wrote under that name until working on this blog posting.
Stephen King faced a similar situation; he published non-horror under his proper name and who hasn't heard of Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile, but the horror he wrote under his pseudonym never really fared all that well until it became common knowledge that the pseudonym belonged to him.
Okay, so I'm no Isaac Asimov, or Stephen King (in my dreams, maybe) but I'm struggling to market myself and establish some name recognition. Why would I throw that away because I want to play a different game? I've already made up my mind that that's not going to happen – alright, it will with the erotica, but that's for other reasons.
Branding aside, when it comes to genres, there's the second issue of the crossover. This is a little more controversial, but the majority seems to support the idea that you should keep a particular story within the confines of a single genre, once again for the sake of that fan base. That and I've also seen the critique that crossovers sometimes don't work. True – but sometimes they do, very well (one of my favourites from Piers Anthony, the Apprentice Adept series, comes to mind), and some of the genres that exist now are the result of successful crossovers, the result of daring, creative authors who decided to buck the norm of existing genres and do their own thing, even if it was frowned upon. We can attribute the very popular steampunk and paranormal romance genres to these kinds of writers. What would the publishing industry be like without those genres, genres that originated as variants of others?
So those who are supposed to know best can continue to push the notion of branding and sticking with a single genre, and I will continue to ignore what people tell me I ought to do and write anything and everything I feel like writing. And who knows, maybe someday I'll be known as the creator of a new genre.
May 24, 2011
May 23, 2011
Review: The Remains by Vincent Zandri
I don't throw around the word "Hitchcockian" a lot, because I think it's overused and cliche. But if any book I've read deserves it, it's this one. The atmosphere Zandri creates from the get-go is pitch perfect. The characters are believable and the mystery is gripping to say the least. I lost sleep staying up to finish it.
What struck me the most was the originality of the plot. An autistic savant starts painting pictures of a crime committed 30 years ago. It turns out his art teacher was the victim. What's going on here? I'm not revealing anything. You need to read this book.
Zandri has said his works are based on real people, even so much that the real names are used until the final round of editing. It makes me wonder what his creepy evil twin looks like. I wonder if his name is...Harry Balls? (see Zandri's "Down Low Dead" collaboration for that little inside joke)
Click here to get "The Remains" on Amazon for the Kindle.
