Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 56

New Look

Regular visitors might notice a slightly changed look to the site. I recently updated the Menu bar so that it’s easier to get around.

For instance, all of my most useful essays on writing techniques are now grouped under the Writing Techniques header, with a drop-down list that leads to ALL the articles that discuss writing (technique or otherwise).

I also finalized all the information about my Appearance at GenCon on my Appearances page, so you can now see what the topics of the panels I’m going to be on are really about, as well as the names of my fellow panelists. In another week or so I should be able to provide information about when I’ll be at the Paizo booth during GenCon.

Three Cool Things

Here’s a trio of nifty things.

First, I just learned that the audio sample from Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is from my Dabir and Asim story collected in that anthology (“The Serpent’s Heart”), so if you want to hear a sample of what my favorite characters have been up to lately follow the link and listen to the snippet. And if you haven’t purchased the book yet, now’s your chance! There’s scads more stories in the anthology, some of them by friends whose work I know and love. (Here’s the part where I shamefacedly admit I haven’t yet read the other stories, for I don’t own a Kindle or Nook and am waiting for my hardcopy.)

Second, I’ve posted my tentative schedule for GenCon. Currently it only features the name, time, and location of the panels I’ll be on for the Writer’s Symposium and doesn’t detail when I’ll be at the Paizo booth in the Great Hall. I’ll let you know more as the date comes closer, and add information about the panels as well as my fellow panelists.

Third, I’ll be giving the keynote address at the Big Read at DeKalb Library’s Big Read on October 7th at 7:00 in the evening. I’ll have more information on that as the date comes closer. For you not in the know (like me) DeKalb is a little west of Chicago.

Did I say THREE cool things? Well, here’s a fourth that should be of interest to gamers. The wonderful rules light Barbarians of Lemuria game system is getting a brand new edition with all sorts of great extras. Just as soon as I sell a few more things on eBay I’ll be throwing some cash at the Kickstarter myself. Barbarians of Lemuria is one of my very favorite rules systems — anyone who wants to run a sword-and-sorcery game without using the usual systems should try this. Fast, easy, extremely evocative. Follow this link for more details.

 

New Interview

Puny Banner poses beside Hulk’s Car.

The talented Suzanne Church asked me some insightful questions about writing the other day, and I did my best to provide insightful answers. You can find the interview, along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff (including links to other writing tips) right here.

I finally remembered to set up a new Welcome page, available on my main menu, or by clicking here.

Lastly, I’ll be updating my convention appearances soon. GenCon is just around the corner, and I’ll be on many panels again this year. PLUS I’ll be in Chicago this fall as part of a  reading festival.

Other than that, I’ll be writing, or fixing horse fencing.

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A Few Outlining Thoughts

Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Summer sure has been busy here at Jones central, but it’s been pleasant. My second Paizo Pathfinder novel (second of the summer, I mean, because it’s fourth overall) is rolling along very smoothly (knock on wood), and I’m getting lots of time to spend with my kids.

In the evening when I often draft my blog updates we’ve been re-watching the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series, which is part of the reason there haven’t been as many posts. I’ll share some thoughts on the series soon. I remembered it was good, but I should have remembered it is downright excellent most of the time. (Azula, pictured here, is one of the finest villains in animated history. Honestly, she’s one of the finest villains in ANY adventure story, in any medium.)

The other reason is that I’ve just been plain busy. I’m either writing or doing house stuff. But I’m not going to give you a summer update today. I’m going to share some thoughts I’ve been mulling over about outlining.

A few of you frequenting Black Gate might have noticed that I interviewed the talented Mark Lawrence the other day. He writes the way Leigh Brackett and Harold Lamb used to write, with very little revision and little to no outlining. It’s an impressive feat but one I myself have given up on trying to emulate. Heck, I still sometimes go off track or get stuck for a few weeks even with a careful outline. I’m not what they call a “seat-of-the-pantser” because it ends up taking me two or three times as long to write a book when I do it that way, which leads to Hulk smash kind of rage.

The method I’ve been using seems to be getting me good results these days. As I close in on the 1/3 mark of this second Paizo novel that means I’m likely to have finished 2 1/2 books in a single year, which is a far cry from what I could do as recently as two years ago. Practice, as they say, makes perfect, although I’d never claim to be perfect. ( I should clarify that in that previous post I mention 4k or more a day, which is impossible while writing with kids at home in the summer and while trying to accomplish a bunch of house tasks. I’m basically writing half or one-third time, which translates into about 2-3k a day.)

Now as to whether an outline stifles your creativity or not, I have some thoughts on that. Mark makes no such claims — we’re in the same camp there in that he seems to feel that whatever works for whatever writer is the method he or she should use. Amen, brother. But I’ve known some creative types who resist the outline, saying it will lead to stagnation. If that’s true for you, then more power to you. Use the method that gets it done.

I have to outline, but if I get to a moment where things aren’t working out, I stop and reconfigure. I don’t like writing about automatons moving at the convenience of the plot, which is one of the things those critical of outlining believe will happen. In the Pathfinder novel I just turned over to Editorial (Beyond the Pool of Stars) the entire outline seemed like it was completely worked out, but somewhere around the two-thirds mark it just didn’t make sense as planned. I actually stalled out for a week or two as I tried to figure out why.

Harold Lamb in the midst of research.

Turns out the problem was my old nemesis, not being in the heads of my characters. Once I went back and thought about what all of the characters were really after, I got through the problem. Something similar happened as early as chapter two in the newest book, but when I described the trouble to my wife she simply asked: “why don’t you have the scene happen at night?” whereupon the outline made sense once more and I could resume work. Sometimes you just need a changed perspective. Or a muse.

Another thing that sometimes happens for me when going from outline to real draft is that characters up and change. A minor character might take on a life of their own, or I’ll figure out how to take some b-player and give her personality so that it infuses the story with more vitality and creates extra scenes that weren’t originally there.

And sometimes I notice other things. For instance, while going over the outline for the newest, I suddenly realized that it was a LOOONG time before one of my POV characters actually got a chapter of his own, so I altered the outline on the fly to give him a chapter sooner. It seems like maybe I should have seen that earlier but, nope, I didn’t catch it until I was in the middle of the process. I think that means I need to scan my outlines a little more carefully still before starting work.

What it comes down to is that I use my outline as a roadmap for getting to my destination, but I’m not afraid to take short cuts, make unplanned roadside stops for local color, or skip one of my planned destinations.

The important thing is that  I get to where I plan to go. I’m aware of others who outline who get it so right the first time they just write their book/story completely as planned. I think I’m more likely to try to be that guy than the pantser guy, given my track record and personal foibles, but my guess is that I’ll always be a little bit of an explorer even if I do get better at outlining. Sometimes my characters just want to stop and do things I hadn’t planned, and if I let them, the story comes more strongly to life.

Link Man Returns Again

Picture by Darian Jones.

Over the last few weeks I’ve turned up a score of interesting links, and I thought it high time to share. So, Link Man returns to provide safe, interesting and unbroken links.

Exhausted by boring links and in need of a savior? Have no fear– Link Man is here!

First, I’m not usually amused by these, but I thought the photoshopping this time was pretty good, especially up near the top of the document. Enjoy.

Copyright Darian Jones

Second, a lot of these odd products are just plain cool. I think I might want some of them. I’m not sure I need them, but I want them.

Third, I must have this. A bit pricey for a tee-shirt, but it IS my birthday month.

A New Day Dawns…

…or at least a new book. Today I start work on my new Paizo Pathfinder novel. Assuming the editorial team likes the title for the one I turned in last week (Beyond the Pool of Stars) I want to sort of do a related theme and title this one Through the Gate in the Sea.

I’ve got a detailed outline in hand and am really looking forward to starting work. Unlike every other sequel book I’ve written, I’m starting this one just a few days after I finished its predecessor. The characters are still fresh in my head, and the events pick up only a month or two after the conclusion of the last.

I’ve written enough books now to recognize the honeymoon phase, but I don’t care. I’m full of hope that the outline will keep me on course and that it will have all the vibrancy I imagine AND that there won’t be weird problems that leave me scratching my head for weeks at  a time (did I REALLY need them to go here OR now that I look at it more closely, that character’s motivation doesn’t make sense…).

Wayne with the complete run of D&D Gazeteers

The basement organizing went very well, thanks to a whole bunch of plastic storage bins I inherited from Mom when my oldest sister and her husband cleared out Mom’s garage. I’ve gotten the lion’s share of the place organized now, and slapped a few things up on eBay for auction. No gaming stuff, I’m afraid. Those I always send to Wayne of Wayne’s Books. I’d love to actually visit his hall of treasures in person at some time, but it’s a long way from my digs to his store in Arizona. He’s a cool guy who knows and loves games and always offers a fair price.

I’d planned to do some reading for fun, but I didn’t have time for that until Sunday night, and I was afraid to start a good book right before I started my next new one for fear of being unable to stop reading when it came time to start writing this morning. That’s one of the perils of working at home (and a reason I don’t buy any number of cool computer games). Because I know I don’t have any willpower when it comes to stopping a good book or a good game, I try to completely avoid having good computer games to play and I try not to start a good book when I’m in the midst of a project. Especially a project with a tight deadline.

Speaking of reading, over the last week I was contacted by Picadilly Publishing. You know how I’ve gone on about the greatness of the westerns of Ben Haas (writing under the pseudonym of John Benteen)? If you don’t know, or don’t remember, check here and here. And now you should check here if it has sounded of interest, because Picadilly is slowly expanding their line of Haas books. It doesn’t look like they’ll be hard to track down any longer. Thanks, Picadilly!

 

 

Catching Up

Howard celebrates the completion of another book by kissing his wife.

It felt very, very nice to turn over the draft of my new Paizo novel Sunday afternoon. I’ve titled it Beyond the Pool of Stars, but I don’t know if that title will survive or not. For all I know, there’s another book in the Pathfinder pipeline with Stars or Pool in it already, which will mean I’ll have to go searching for another.

I CAN tell you that the entire novel’s set in and around the tropical nation of Sargava. It has a completely different feel and completely different characters… and I’m quite pleased with it. I think it far and away my best Pathfinder novel yet.

This week I’ve been catching up on some house husbandly duties. Namely clearing out the basement. After my father’s death and my mom’s move into a retirement home I ended up with stacks of stuff. When that was added to stacks of other stuff I already had down there, it became quite a mess. So, I’m getting rid of most of it.

Next week I start work on the sequel to Beyond the Pool of Stars. I’m also tinkering around with a secret project with an artist friend, but I don’t want to say anything about that until it’s further along.

My address book up and died the other day, which has left me scratching my head about one important event I had scheduled later in the year. I’m supposed to speak in Illinois at a book celebration, but without Outlook I can’t recall the date, or, unfortunately, the place I’m supposed to speak! Internet searches for Chicago related events turn up nothing mentioning me, or the book thats being read for the festival, by Ursula K. LeGuin. I’ll probably have to bug some librarian friends I know and see if they can help me figure this out…

I should just have written the event down in my real-world calendar like I do everything else.

 

 

Kane and Trek

The thing I’m MOST looking forward to this evening is a viewing of the new Star Trek: Continues episode titled “Fairest of Them All,” set as a direct sequel to the original Star Trek fan favorite episode, “Mirror, Mirror.” The only reason I’m holding off watching it is because I want to see it with the wife and family. If you don’t have to wait, go check it out now! The last two have been wonderful, as I’ve gushed about elsewhere.

Second, for Father’s Day what I most wanted to do was some gaming with the family, so we kicked back and I ran three solo episodes of monster hunters in the 1600s (sort of like Supernatural, but with characters wearing pilgrim era garb) and then ran an episode that got everyone together.

We had a blast. We’re really enjoying the system. Some of the simpler episodes I was decrying for, well, simplicity in my review last week, worked great as solo starter scenarios. I’m loosely following the Plot Point campaign from the book but creating master villains in various areas who are manipulating matters behind the scenes, thereby providing a little more connectivity.

If you’re not a dice gamer, the easiest way to explain the joy of a game is to say that it’s like guided group storytelling, with one person, sort of like the master storyteller, helping set the scene and knowing what the villain’s secret plans are and what his tomb looks like, etc. (assuming a horror campaign). The other players are free to move through the story as they want, tracking down clues, talking to people, and making choices. Sometimes, as with the episode I ran late last evening, they can jump straight through to the conclusion rather than going through all the challenges you intended because they found the clues in a different order.

It’s improvisational theatre (though we sit at a table), with governing rules and limitations, and requires a lot of off the cuff ad libbing. And, as I said, a good story can be a great deal of fun. It’s looking like Savage Worlds Solomon Kane is going to be entertaining us for a good long while.

As an aside, I’m not sure why I never noticed that Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane and Harold Lamb’s Khlit the Cossack are wandering the earth at the same time. That two such great adventurers are stalking the wilds just about begs for a crossover, and it makes me wonder if REH was influenced at all to write of that century because he was loving Lamb’s Cossack stories set at the same time. Possibly. He IS on record as naming Lamb as one of his favorite writers. But then Kane spends most of his time in Africa, which is one place Lamb almost never wrote about, apart from Egypt.

I’m not sure I have the chutzpah to actually write a story that features creations of two of my very favorite writers, but as two of the characters in my game campaign have already met Solomon Kane, I can definitely see that an encounter with Lamb’s Khlit the Cossack will take place at some point in the table top game.

Getting Near the End

So I finally wrote The End on the bottom of my rough draft of my next book last night. I’ll spend the next week putting a polish on it. Since about two-thirds to three-quarters of it is already polished (some of it highly so) I’m not anticipating any more trouble… except with a good title, which so far eludes me. I’m hoping a good phrase will stick out for me as I’m working through the text.

In other news, I watched the final episode of the new Cosmos series last night. It was glorious, it was gorgeous…

…and then I was reminded of how much I still loved the original better when there was a lengthy excerpt from the original, narrated by the late Carl Sagan near the conclusion of the episode. He was so eloquent, so thoughtful, a very poet of science. Neal deGrasse Tyson is a fabulous communicator, a brilliant man, and is one of my favorite celebrities (scientists? Celebrity scientists? Is that even a thing?). Anyway, I love what he did with the show, but the new Cosmos will never replace the old in my heart. And it comes down to the writing: Sagan’s stunning power with prose and yes, his delivery.

I had a bout of insomnia last night (you’d think I’d sleep easier with the rough draft finally complete, but my brain had other ideas). I woke up and read more of the Solomon Kane material from Savage Worlds. I think my initial evaluation may have been a little harsh. Yes, many of the scenarios are “track the monster to its lair” but these are interesting encounters, and from the material included it’s easy to beef them up. I already see how to use two of them as solo adventures to get some of my three players up to speed with the system and the feel before introducing them to the campaign.

As I said earlier, it’s not possible to run the plot point campaign “out of the box” as easily as it is with 50 Fathoms, and I’m not that keen on the conclusion to the plot point campaign or its connecting threads, if truth be told, but there’s so much other great material that’s really evocative of the source fiction that in the end I’m quite pleased. I’ll come up with my own links and my own “master villains.”

So in short, two thumbs up. It’s not EXACTLY what I wanted, but it’s inspiring and well done, and with the supplemental material from the other Kane books I think I’m in good shape.

On Solomon Kane and Savage Worlds

Anyone who’s read The Desert of Souls and knows their way around Robert E. Howard’s stories probably could tell I was a fan of Solomon Kane, owing to the brief appearance of a certain cat-headed staff near the novel’s conclusion

Given that I’m a huge REH fan and a gamer, it seemed only natural that I finally lay hands on the Savage Worlds game line dedicated to Solomon Kane himself.

In my rare moments of down time over the last weeks I’ve been learning the Savage Worlds system in preparation for running some “investigating the unknown in the time of the 1600s” adventures for the family.

The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane books are gorgeous, well presented with lavish illustrations, and crammed with information about the time period, the setting, and adventures — lots and lots of adventures.

My only critique is that I’m not finding a lot of the adventures quite right for my players, who love a good mystery. In the main book, many of the Savage Tales are little vignettes that end in a monster fight, which I believe will get tiresome. If I’m to run these I’ll need to do some doctoring to a lot of them as well as create more links to ongoing villains. One of the expansion books, The Path of Kane, offers a villain in Europe who’s tangentially connected to a number of other cases of re-animation. Him I can use, so I was hoping, as I read into the Africa portions of the same book last night, to find a similar “linked villain” in the dark continent. Alas, no. Perhaps the New Worlds section will have one, or the chapter on Cathay and the Orient.

Overall, I’m enjoying the adventures in The Path of Kane more than many in the basic book, though there’s inspiring material in both.

I’m a little disappointed that the plot point campaign in the central book (plot points are a way to interlink adventures)  is to seek out magical weapons so that they can be used in the final adventure to womp on a big ‘ol monster. It’s kind of cool, but I wanted more, and I suspect I wasn’t alone, for three more Solomon Kane books, each stuffed with supplemental adventures/monsters, have followed. The adventures within are evocative and all but they’re just not tied together as well as might be nice. The Savage Tales book 50 Fathoms is a great read up of interlinked necessary adventures and other stuff to do: I wish these Kane books were more like that.

In their defense, the Solomon Kane Savage Tales line was probably set up to emulate the Solomon Kane stories, which really aren’t interlinked at all. The Savage Tales books even acknowledge that the player characters are supposed to wander, as Kane did. In the original series there’s no real “season” or story arc, so I’m probably faulting a design decision that was made to deliberately emulate the feel of the Kane stories. What’s here is good; I’m just wishing I could use it as easily as I can 50 Fathoms, which I can run unchanged “out of the box.” This stuff will require some gimmicking to do what I want with it.

There are scores of ideas and monsters in these books, not to mention statistics I won’t have to generate on my own, so I think I can invent separate villains for regions that are tied to many lesser events in the wider world. “Level bosses,” if you will. I might even base those villains on the ancient immortals who are running around in The Bones of the Old Ones. Having written about those guys and gals, I know them pretty well, and they’d make pretty scary bad guys.