Rob Osterman's Blog, page 2

It's been a good week for Link-age

As I wrap up my post-surgical convalescence, I've been fortunate to find my name out there in a few places recently.

First my dear friend and fellow author Janine Spendlove posted my guest post on the levels of accuracy over at her blog.  Hop over there to give it a read, then come back here and leave a comment.  Or leave one both places.

By the way, she's also part of Silence in the Library Publishing and it's not too late to get in on their Kickstarter for a lovely collection of time travel based short stories.

Second, the wonderful blog The Kill Zone has a critique of the first page of Bastion: The Last Hope posted.  It's a great read with many excellent points raised.  I'm happy with the response and plan to take it all into consideration moving forward.  Of course if you'd like to read the entire first chapter, just hop over to Bastion itself and have a look.

And lastly, I had my interview for the Local Author's program for our area cable channel.  It will be airing in July so stay tuned for more!

Oh, by the by, I came through surgery quite well, and have all four of my wisdom teeth safely removed.  Of course I scheduled an appointment only to remove two so there is still some story to be had here.  I get the stitches out tomorrow and I'll be probably telling the full tale sometime next week.

A little poll....

Things have quieted down a bit so hop over to Mind the Thorns for a little poll about vampires:

http://www.mindthethorns.com/2013/06/poll-vampires-are-real.html

If vampires ~are~ real, what kind would they be?

The Hiatus

The following is Cross Posted across all of my blogs:  Fictional Omens, Mind the Thorns, and Bastion: The Last Hope.

So much to talk about and so much to write and to do and honestly no time for it all.

This is the end I want to make a public explanation of what's going on.  As many of you know, my day job is teaching.  This time of year is always incredibly challenging as the school year comes to a close, students seek extra last minute help, papers need to be graded, and life just has to wrap up.  To this end I've just been unable to keep up with much of my writing.

Mind the Thorns has suffered a great deal from neglect of late, partly from timing, partly because of the nature of writing something reader-directed.  Bastion has completely eaten up its buffer and while I love my blog, and I have plenty to comment on, there isn't time.

Officially, all web novels will return to regular posting on or around July 1.

Now, why the wait?

For Mind the Thorns, posting will resume much sooner than later.  I just need time to sit down and write.  Thankfully there's a plan in place I just need to keep pushing on.

For Bastion, I really need time to rebuild that buffer, collect videos from my cast, plan the next dozen chapters, and then be ready to write so that if I am forced to fall a little behind your regular updates aren't disrupted.

I appreciate the patience of all my readers as I push through this period and hope you all return at the beginning of July to engage in these projects.

Weekly Update 6/1/13

You all know how this goes.

You're sitting in the cafeteria when you see that one of the popular girls of the school is looking at you.  She gets up and starts to walk towards you.  She knows you exist.  She is coming to say something to you.  You are someone she has something to say to.  Finally, the moment has come and you have a chance to tell her how beautiful she is, how much you love her laugh, and her smile and her hair and how she smells, and how she writes her sevens on the board in Algebra and how she crosses her T's in her poetry in English.  Finally, you get to tell her everything because she's coming.

To.  Talk.  To.  YOU.

Then she's there and she leans in close.  She's going to whisper to you.  OhGodsofKobal.  She has a secret. You tense.  You close your eyes.

"Your fly is open."

Yep.  That was how my Saturday started when I got a lovely comment from the ever amazing Mary Janice Davidson pointing out that I'd mistyped the title of her novel Undead and Unwed.  I saw that I had gotten a comment on the blog post a few weeks back about Charlaine Harris and Vampires and I had referenced a lovely blog entry that Davidson had posted on that topic.

And blown the title.

Which still upsets me because the Queen Betsy stories are such inspirations for my own writing, that bend of quirky characters, fish out of water themes, vampires, etc.  Of course Regan didn't become obsessed with shoes until after she was a vampire but let's not quibble, shall we?

So... what's been up the last two weeks?

On Mind the Thorns

As I slide into my Summer hiatus, there has not been an update.  See below for comments.

On Bastion:  The Last Hope

Owing to the Memorial Day holiday there was no update but we did all contribute to a special thank you to our veterans, those lost in military service and their families.

On Fictional Omens

I weigh in on the new project Kindle Worlds, an licensed fanfic program by Amazon.  I really do think that it could be the end of Fan Fic as we know it.

At Home:

Well, it's that time of year.  As I mentioned above, all of my writing properties are going on a short Summer Hiatus.  Why is this, you ask, dear reader?  Because final exams are the toughest time of the year for me.  I'm absolutely swamped with papers, grading, finals, students asking for late work, extra credit, and a million other things.  I just don't have the time to sit and write in the way I write best.  So rather than kick out something half assed, I'm officially declaring all properties on hiatus until the first week of July.  Then they'll return with their usual weekly or bi-weekly updates.

Also at home, Xander has completed his first year of Kindergarten (or nearly has).  And that brings us to ...

The Weekly Video

This is a compilation of images and videos for my son over the last year as he finishes up his first year of school.  It's amazing how fast the time goes.

Who Owns the World? A reaction to Kindle Worlds

[image error] As you probably know by now, Amazon has announced that they will be launching a new Kindle Direct program called Kindle Worlds.  Fan-fic authors can submit their work in one of the official licensed worlds and if accepted will find their work for sale on Amazon.com.  Along the way, Amazon gets all kinds of benefits and perks and young fledgling authors who have been writing fan-fic for fun or for practice can now add "for profit" to their reasons for doing so.

John Scalzi, who himself is brilliant in all things writer-advocacy, has a great post up where he dissects the actual agreement.  I'm going to spring board off of that myself here.

Spring boarding off of this there is one fundamental underlying question:  Who owns a world?


Plus, who wants to alienate fans by saying "No no no!  Mineminemine!"?  Nothing can kill a fandom like acting like a jerk to the fans themselves.  For more on that just look at the reaction to an ending the fans did not like to the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.

And she wasn't even mean to people; she was just writing the ending she felt best fit.

But in the agreement that Amazon has put out there, the full ownership of the work, including the Fan Fiction reverts to the original right holder, including the legal right to use anything in submitted work in later works.  So if you write a great big of Fan Fiction for Vampire Diaries, and they like it enough to make it into an episode, you get the honor of saying "I wrote that" but without the honor of seeing your name on the credits as "story by."

As I understand it now, if I publish that same story on my own site, and then I see an episode that is clearly based on it, I can make the case that it was ~my~ story and thus I'm entitled to some compensation.  In the grand scheme of things there's a line between "Just put his name in the credits  and "spend the money to out-lawyer him into oblivion".

The thing is that if the world is not a property that someone can "own", then really the original holders and authors, say Rowlings and the Harry Potter, have no control over what is done with it, up to and including the production of entire works of fiction, for profit, using that world.  Fan Fiction no longer remains only for free sharing.

On the other hand, if someone can own a world, then there is nothing to stop them from legally shutting down every Fan Fic site that references it.  You want to write a story about a Quidditch match?  Make up your own game.

Now in the past I've suggested that Fan Fiction has a good purpose.  It's like being a cover band and learning the ropes of pacing, character, and plot by using a world that is already established and one that comes with a group of fans willing to suffer through your story while you massage it.  It also allows you to enjoy the fandom and contribute to it in your own way.

I fear for the end of Fan Fiction which I believe that this Kindle Worlds program could usher in.  Once there is a mechanism for establishing and codifying official Fan Fiction, then the un-licensed represents competition (why pay for it on Amazon when you can get it for free on Wattpad?)  And it's only logical to shut that down.

Sadly I also believe that given the work required to create a solid, consistent world, I'm loathe to say that it becomes public domain when the first novel hits the shelf.  Just to write the first Chapter of the Queen's Fury novel, I had to dedicate triple the time to world building before I even got to start on the second sentence of the novel itself.

Is the truth in the middle somewhere?  Is there a place that allows for Fan Fiction for free and for profit?

I hope so but my experience with all things Amazon and "Big Corporate" says otherwise....

Where have all the game stores gone?

So here I was all ready to blog about the latest in snarky reviews on Good Reads followed by a possibly unprofessional response on an author's blog leading to the latest internet Tea Pot Tempest when I got news of a store closing.
Let me put some context here.
When I started teaching, my room was a common place for nerds, geeks and dorks to hang out after school and have a shared space where it was okay to talk about DND characters, video games, and RPG's. 
A few years ago I got a note from one of the guys who would hang out saying he had purchased a game shop and was selling the games we had talked about after school.  
Sadly, the game shop is closing.  Amazon, Walmart, and all the other "get more for less" stores took their toll, and the profit margin wasn't enough to keep it going.
So in lieu of a post tonight, we're heading up to East Lansing for a guy's night of comics, and games and good memories.  I want my son to see a game shop, what gaming used to be, before the age of Overnight Delivery and On Demand Comics.
It's a bittersweet journey.

Weekly Update 5/11/13

The week opened with two days of inservices, followed by a day off due to a sick out by our bus drivers (long story and I'm not even sure what happened really), and then two days of work.  It was a very short week for me at the day job yet oddly tiring all the same.

On Mind the Thorns:

Sadly, no update this time out, but I can assure everyone that the next chapter is in the works.  However, as you will see below, it might be delayed just a pinch.

On Bastion: The Last Hope

Bastion came back with an update following the KC130 crew, this time from the point of view of one of the copilots.  We get a chance to see the group from a different angle, meet a different character, and find out a little bit about what exactly is happening.

On Fictional Omens

Owing to a wacky week I went back to the archives and found a great post about writing in 1st person and why its so hard.  Which is ironic because this week saw another dust up of "Authors Behaving Badly" as one tried to defend his rather casual writing style and his informal treatment of the audience.  I may write more on it, if I feel I want to take the risk, as his response to the review got him pretty slammed.

At home:

As a heads up, the next few weeks are going to be crazy at work as we end out the school year.  Final grades are due, and for the first time in a long time it looks like I'll need to clean out my classroom in case I teach somewhere else in the fall.  Finding time (and energy) to compose is going to be tough.  So everyone knows Mind the Thorns will get another chapter before Memorial Day weekend, and Bastion has three more posts before the buffer is exhausted.  After that it may go on hiatus for a few weeks to rebuild the buffer as we move into summer.  The one perk of teaching is that I will have time this summer to muse and write in and around spending time with the kids and the family.

Plus my parent's cottage now has high speed internet and Wifi so I can go work up there as well.


And.... your weekly video:

A few weeks ago Wil Weaton was asked what he might say to a woman's newborn daughter about why it was awesome to be a nerd.

Here goes:

Repost: Narrators- The Challenge of 1st Person

This is from the archives given that this week has been kinda bat-crap crazy for me.  It also reminds me that I need to get some serious work done on my next few chapters too....




The 2011 Smurf movie introduced us to a variety of unique smurfs, among them Gutsy (a kilted smurf) and Narrator (shown above).  At one point in the movie, while Narrator is describing the ongoing battle scene another smurf looks at him and shouts "Really?  Now?"  At this Narrator shrugs and says "It's what I do."

When it comes to 1st Person Past Tense writing I find that the idea of the narrator is profoundly problematic and one of the least understood or acknowledged challenges in writing, especially among young or new writers.  There is a distinctive appeal to having someone relate their accounts of events in their own words.  We, as readers, are treated to their thoughts, their statements of their feelings, and their interpretations of the story.



But we are also treated to their selective memory, their bias, and their agenda, hidden or otherwise.

Reading something in 1st Person, I need to know what the context of this dialogue with the narrator is.  Is this, as is the case in Catcher in the Rye, a single therapy session?  In the case of World War Z, it is the first hand stories of multiple survivors, talking to a historian and journalist.    Or is it a diary, as Twilight is implied to be?

Once I have context I then move to asking how much I should believe the narrator.  In the case of World War Z, I believe that most of what we read is honest.  Without spoilers, the characters admit to some pretty horrible things that they were forced to do as part of surviving the zombie apocalypse.  They are not stories that someone would make up to look good.

In contrast, consider Bella's self descriptions in Twilight and compare them to the actions of those around her.  She insists that she is unattractive, plain, and clumsy.  Yet she is so much an object of affection of the boys around her that they ask her to go to the girl's choice dance.  She insists that she has no redeeming qualities, yet the most attractive boys in the school demand to be with her.  Simply put, someone is not telling the whole truth.

When I first started writing short stories I mostly focused on 1st person.  I wanted to tell stories as I imagined myself living them.  I wanted to be the main character and I think that makes that narrative style a popular one, especially among young writers.  Now, I don't mean to imply that everyone who writes in this format is an immature narcissist.  Many great books (the aforementioned Catcher in the Rye for example) use this style to great effect.

I do believe, however, that it is one of the more challenging styles to use well.  A writer has to either make the character believable and reliable, or to account for that unreliability and thus be certain that it is not just the narrative but the character's view of the narrative that we, as readers, are given.

Weekly Update 4/4/13

Up and down and up down went the emotions of the week.  One drama led to another and then another.  Most of them were work related (not writing work the kind that pays the bills)  but all in all it was not a bad week.  Just one that kept the hits coming.

Like a jack hammer.

On Mind the Thorns:

It does seem that polls are borked so I'm going to be looking for something other than the Blogger resident poll system to keep tally week by week.  The winning vote ~appeared~ to be to rescue Emma so that's what Regan's going to do.  Of course, technically the vote was to ~try~ to save her.  I never said if she was already too far gone or not.

We'll just have to wait a week and see.

On Bastion: The Last Hope

This week was a hiatus week with no update.  I should be hearing back from my friend in the Marine Corps tonight or tomorrow so that will give me a little bit to get the chapter edited and posted and from there it looks like we're on track for a good 4 week run without break.

On Fictional Omens

Last weekend a major dust up took place for author Charlaine Harris, the woman behind the wildly popular True Blood novels also known as the Southern Vampire stories.  Long story short, spoilers to her final book in the series leaked and many "fans" were none too happy.  I took on the issue of Reader Entitlement in this week's Fictional Omen.

At home:

Okay so Amazon Prime has this thing going where you can watch pilots for original shows that they will put on the "air" next season.  We watched a few and here are our votes:

Zombieland The Series - Green LightAlpha House - YellowThe Onion News Network - RedWe'll watch more and get back to you.

And.... your weekly video:

How am I just now finding out about this amazingly talented young woman?

Charlaine Harris, Southern Vampires, and Entitlement

This is the second take of my title.  The first was "Charlaine Harris is not your B***H".  It seems very posh to quote Mr. Gaiman these days and well, it seems to fit.  Specifically it comes, so the legend goes, from a time that Neil Gaiman was asked how a fan could ask GRR Martin to write faster because they were so anxious to see where the Game of Thrones story line went.  His answer?

You don't.

And that quote started to make the rounds again as authors weighed in on the recent debacle related to the much anticipated end to the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampires True Blood series.

But, given that ChibiNeko did that for her blog, I thought I'd write up my take on the whole thing under my own title.

The best write up of the event is here at the Blog of one Mary Janice Davidson, author of Dead and Unwed and other stories of Vampire Queen Betsy.


The last novel is due to be released on May 7th.  It was leaked early (probably due to a mistake at a book store) and a fan decided that they did not like the ending.  They did not like the ending so much that they set out specifically to spoil it for as many people as they could.  This included posting directly on Harris's Facebook wall.

She responded, in my opinion, with class:

By now some of you know that a reader in Germany obtained a copy of DEAD EVER AFTER and decided to post the ending online. While this is unfortunate, I wanted to say this to all of you: Even if you *personally* are unhappy with the ending, please don’t spoil it for other readers. DEAD EVER AFTER goes on sale on May 7th; after that date, you are more that welcome to come here and tell me how much you like - or don’t like - the choices I’ve made for Sookie. But from one Sookie fan to another, I’m asking you all to please not spoil the book for other readers. Thank you so much for your continued support.
Charlaine Harris

As near as I can tell she really did not have any other choice.  If she had left the posts on her page, her fans, like it or not, would likely be spoiled and the fun of finding out the ending ruined.  Likewise just deleting them quietly would have caused even more of an uproar.  Her only choice it seemed was to respond, professionally, and ask that people try to be polite and respectful.

So that's been played out pretty but well but it opens up the flood gates of posts for writers to think about.

As I have written before about fan fic, I'm going to save that for later and instead focus on what readers should expect when they buy into a book and when they buy into a series.  Specifically the vicious cycle that is itself the formula for frustration.

To talk about this, let's assume that Bastion: The Last Hope goes on to become the "next" Twilight, the "next" Harry Potter, the "next" Game of Thrones.  I know, you dear reader, believe in your heart that this must be so, but I, the humble author, still have my doubts.

So people come to the website week after week.  They donate to the continuation of the story.  They buy print copies of the book as it comes out.  They buy swag and go to cons and talk about how much they love the work.

Fan fiction begins to appear.  You know you've arrived when you see people start to write fan fiction based on your stuff.

What can people expect?  What is fair now?  Should they have a right to be upset when I start killing off characters?  Should I start to tailor my writing to match the fact that people like certain characters?

Do my characters acquire plot immunity because I know that killing them will cost me readers?

At what point does my audience take over the manner in which my story is told?

And that, right there dear reader, is the crux of what has happened.

Harris was telling a long story spanning several books.  But along the way, her readership became invested in it to the point where they felt that their personal plans for the book trumped the story Harris wanted to tell.  I won't even go so far as to say what kind of story, good or bad.  I will only offer up that good or bad, it was her story to tell.

Gunny is my character to write, and Genevieve's part to act.  That's it.  No one else "owns" her.

But that's not easily communicated.  Part of why I got to be the famous "Author of that Innovative Web Novel" was because my fans told other fans.  They shared their fan fic.  They talked about what they hoped would happen to the characters.  They helped build me up.

An option, of course, is to tell the story I think they want.  To keep droning out book after book (or update after update) specially to keep people reading more than I'm worried about telling a story.

I believe, truly, that such is not good writing.  At the end of it, my name is attached to the work and my only responsiblity is to tell the best story I can within my vision for the story.  It's good if people like the story, but I can't start to second guess my arches based on what I think people will like.

And that's what I think went wrong here.  Too many fans decided that they were owed story arcs, plot threads and a specific kind of resolution.  And because what they expected, what they felt they were "owed" for their investment was not what they got.

It's never a good thing to disappoint an audience.  But it happens.  You can't please all the people all the time.

Harry Potter absolutely could have ended with it all being a dream.  The Hunger Games could, quite honestly, ended with a double suicide.  These endings might not have been wildly popular, but they would have been perfectly valid.

And at the end of it, all a reader is truly entitled to is to read the work, and decide if they want to consume more of that author's product.  That's it.

You can be upset, you can be disappointed, you can be furious, you can even feel cheated.  But that's a risk you take when you consume literature in any form.  Usually the risk is worth it.  And if it's not, then there are millions of other authors to try out.