William Amerman's Blog - Posts Tagged "sky-series"
Hugh Howey's Beacon
To the reviewer who once wrote, "I would read anything Hugh Howey writes, including his grocery list," I applaud and agree with you.
Well, Sand never really did it for me. But for a lesson in building likable characters, rip-tight pacing with fun, frivolity, artful wording and other aspects of fine writing, his other works hit the mark close to that tiny little red center one.
Just picked up Beacon 23, the complete series. And (I love to start my sentences with conjunctions when my editor can't slap me) whereas Sand felt rushed, flat and reminded me of my own travails in "getting character A to point C by way of point B, and we'll go back and spruce it up in editing," Beacon hearkens back to Wool. The writing--meaning word choice, and pacing--is better than Wool, too.
Beacon also provides a fine example of monetizing writing in the e-book era. With no fixed costs and minimal variable costs, authors can publish more frequently and charge less. The benefit to readers is they don't have to wait for 12-18 months for each new book to come out. The downside to the readers is it can feel incomplete and frustrating to finish each installment in what feels like the middle of the overall story. That's why I abandoned the Pennsylvania series--well, also for the reason it pissed me off how glowing reviews and praise from established authors contrasted harshly with what I considered poor writing.
For all its benefits, though, it seems hard as hell to write that way. 1) how long is long enough for each section? Ignore the 3 act structure and perish. But each chapter should basically be a miniature 3 act as well, I can hear you say? True. But what's the construct between a chapter (comprised of 3 acts) and a novel (comprised of 3 acts)? Come on . . . you've almost got it . . . it's right on the tip of your tongue . . . yes, the short story. Which seems to be what Beacon is trying to do. In a short story there's a beginning, middle and end. Conflict is raised. Conflict is resolved, at least enough to feel complete. But is stringing together 5 related short stories going to feel like a novel? Howey's been writing this way for a long time and been hugely successful, but I've always waited until the full compilations were complete (except Sand) before reading.
2) I better be damned sure I don't need to change anything at the beginning of the story to fit the end of the story.
3) how do I get my editor still to love me when I'm pumping 15-20k snippets at her?
4) is it worth turning off readers like me who will buy an installment because they loved the previous books, then feel empty when the installment ends and
5) most importantly, what if an installment sucks? If it's just the middle 100-150 page section of a 300 page book, there's plenty of chance a reader will stick with it and get to the good, fast sledding part after slogging up that steep, boring hill. If installment 1 or 2 is that boring hill, though, then installments 3-5 aren't going to move at all.
However, especially to authors just trying to build a following (and thank you again to the over 3,000 new readers who have picked up Sky1), it keeps his/her name out there with something fresh to read every three months or so. Looking at my own reader habits, though, I left off Turkot's Rain series right about the time they hit the snow and while I still have foggy intentions of finishing the story some day, I haven't been back to see if he's got enough published to pick up the next volume.
Ok. I had no intention of inspecting serialized novel as art form this morning. But it's a relief not to agonize over word choices and more importantly, delays by ever so few seconds the drudge task of descending into the pits to hack out the ending of the in-process novel.
Well, Sand never really did it for me. But for a lesson in building likable characters, rip-tight pacing with fun, frivolity, artful wording and other aspects of fine writing, his other works hit the mark close to that tiny little red center one.
Just picked up Beacon 23, the complete series. And (I love to start my sentences with conjunctions when my editor can't slap me) whereas Sand felt rushed, flat and reminded me of my own travails in "getting character A to point C by way of point B, and we'll go back and spruce it up in editing," Beacon hearkens back to Wool. The writing--meaning word choice, and pacing--is better than Wool, too.
Beacon also provides a fine example of monetizing writing in the e-book era. With no fixed costs and minimal variable costs, authors can publish more frequently and charge less. The benefit to readers is they don't have to wait for 12-18 months for each new book to come out. The downside to the readers is it can feel incomplete and frustrating to finish each installment in what feels like the middle of the overall story. That's why I abandoned the Pennsylvania series--well, also for the reason it pissed me off how glowing reviews and praise from established authors contrasted harshly with what I considered poor writing.
For all its benefits, though, it seems hard as hell to write that way. 1) how long is long enough for each section? Ignore the 3 act structure and perish. But each chapter should basically be a miniature 3 act as well, I can hear you say? True. But what's the construct between a chapter (comprised of 3 acts) and a novel (comprised of 3 acts)? Come on . . . you've almost got it . . . it's right on the tip of your tongue . . . yes, the short story. Which seems to be what Beacon is trying to do. In a short story there's a beginning, middle and end. Conflict is raised. Conflict is resolved, at least enough to feel complete. But is stringing together 5 related short stories going to feel like a novel? Howey's been writing this way for a long time and been hugely successful, but I've always waited until the full compilations were complete (except Sand) before reading.
2) I better be damned sure I don't need to change anything at the beginning of the story to fit the end of the story.
3) how do I get my editor still to love me when I'm pumping 15-20k snippets at her?
4) is it worth turning off readers like me who will buy an installment because they loved the previous books, then feel empty when the installment ends and
5) most importantly, what if an installment sucks? If it's just the middle 100-150 page section of a 300 page book, there's plenty of chance a reader will stick with it and get to the good, fast sledding part after slogging up that steep, boring hill. If installment 1 or 2 is that boring hill, though, then installments 3-5 aren't going to move at all.
However, especially to authors just trying to build a following (and thank you again to the over 3,000 new readers who have picked up Sky1), it keeps his/her name out there with something fresh to read every three months or so. Looking at my own reader habits, though, I left off Turkot's Rain series right about the time they hit the snow and while I still have foggy intentions of finishing the story some day, I haven't been back to see if he's got enough published to pick up the next volume.
Ok. I had no intention of inspecting serialized novel as art form this morning. But it's a relief not to agonize over word choices and more importantly, delays by ever so few seconds the drudge task of descending into the pits to hack out the ending of the in-process novel.
Tyranny of subjectivity
The flip side of selling a "ton" (a nice subjective term there) of books is receiving more ratings. Some of these are high. A couple of these are low. Well, a few high and one low. What the heck causes one person to love something and another to hate it? What different combination of life experiences, body chemistry, or neural pattern variety cause such wide variance in opinion?
To be academic about it, I'm sure I could do some research and uncover lots of little nuggets explaining why people rate as they do.
However, the Indian buffet closes in an hour and the boys are hungry so let's just short-cut to intuition, gut feel on top of some subjective prejudice?
As a wise man once said/sang, people are strange.
I suppose there's no use fretting about human nature. Just do your best and don't try to please everyone. However, that doesn't mean ignoring critics. For example, having several people call out word choice issues--"he always says his characters' heads bob, not nod"--is a useful detail.
Okay. The butter chicken is calling too loudly, derailing all my thoughts. Happy day after Xmas.
To be academic about it, I'm sure I could do some research and uncover lots of little nuggets explaining why people rate as they do.
However, the Indian buffet closes in an hour and the boys are hungry so let's just short-cut to intuition, gut feel on top of some subjective prejudice?
As a wise man once said/sang, people are strange.
I suppose there's no use fretting about human nature. Just do your best and don't try to please everyone. However, that doesn't mean ignoring critics. For example, having several people call out word choice issues--"he always says his characters' heads bob, not nod"--is a useful detail.
Okay. The butter chicken is calling too loudly, derailing all my thoughts. Happy day after Xmas.
