A.C. Flory's Blog, page 49

Bushfire funding rort?

Australia’s Black Summer of 2019/20 shocked the world. Scott Morrison’s Hawaiian holiday in the middle of the fires shocked Australians. But then Covid happened, and we just assumed that all the money promised to bushfire victims would be distributed.

Now, it appears that even this emergency relief has been rorted.

First we learned that the Blue Mountains area of NSW received next to no community funding at all. Then we learned that a sky diving complex [not in the Blue Mountains area] was not only approved, it was given roughly four million dollars more than requested.

The shock value of these funding inequalities lasted for about a day before it faded into obscurity, at least in the main stream media. Not so on Twitter. There, independent journalists, such as Matt Lloyd-Cape have been trying to get to the bottom of the bushfire funding. What they found was that matching promised funding to actual funding was not so easy because of the lack of transparency in the process.

‘Not easy’ and ‘impossible’ are not the same though. This is some of what they found:

‘Of the $566 million promised in emergency support to people whose homes and /or businesses were burned by the fires, only 43% had been spent by the end of October 2020.’

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/bushfire-money-mystery-recovery-funds-withheld-to-fight-the-election/

This is the funding allocated for immediate emergency relief, for people who lost their homes or businesses in the fires. Let me repeat that. The funding was supposed to be for the most destitute of victims.

Or how about this:

‘Of the $228 million released by the Morrison Government under this program so far, more than 77% went to NSW, 8.75% to South Australia, 7.5% to Queensland and just 6.4% to Victoria. While this split seems to disproportionately favour Coalition controlled states, there still may be good reasons – it could be a matter of different reporting schedules among states, or that the states have agreed to such a division for federal resources – but without better publicly available information there is no way of knowing.

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/bushfire-money-mystery-recovery-funds-withheld-to-fight-the-election/

There’s more, of course, and I strongly recommend that all Australians read the entire article: https://www.michaelwest.com.au/bushfire-money-mystery-recovery-funds-withheld-to-fight-the-election/

I think you’ll be shocked to learn how much news you have not been getting. I know I was.

The disruptions caused by the internet are still rumbling through the news media, and traditional news suppliers have either been forced out, or forced to toe the funding line just to stay in business. As for the journalists employed by those suppliers, their jobs have never been more precarious.

Hmm…. I wonder what that sort of financial pressure does to a journalist’s ability to report the news, without fear or favour?

I recently read about a media company that supplied a list of politicians that new, young, female journalists should stay away from. Yet not a word leaked to the general public because those journalists live or die by their ‘access’ to sources within the Canberra bubble.

On Twitter, these news suppliers are known as the MSM – main stream media. They include #Newscorpse [Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps], the Fairfax press, what’s left of it, commercial TV news, and…the Australia Broadcasting Corporation.

‘…the ABC was originally financed by consumer licence fees on broadcast receivers. Licence fees were abolished in 1973 and replaced principally by direct government grants,…’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation

I stopped watching commercial TV when I realised how biased ‘Sixty Minutes’ was in its presentation of genetically modified organisms [GMOs] and genetic engineering in general. I switched to the ABC because I grew up thinking the ABC was stodgy but accurate. I’ve recently had to revise even that article of faith. The ABC may not lie, but all the funding cuts have forced it to be very…selective…in the news it presents.

In my world, you’re judged not just by what you do say but by what you don’t say, and the ABC has been not-saying a lot lately.

I stopped watching the 7:30 Report a couple of years after Kerry O’Brien left. I stopped watching The Drum about a week ago when it became obvious that the discussion about Victoria’s recent 5 day lockdown would become a Daniel Andrews bash-fest. What else can you expect when the only Victorian on the panel was an ex Liberal politician?

Why was he an ex Liberal? Because we voted him out at the last election. Did he agree with our elected State Government’s strategy on Covid? Of course not. Yet the 5 day lockdown worked, just as our months long, hard lockdown worked.

It’s possible that someone else on The Drum disagreed with the bash-fest, but I didn’t see it because I stopped watching and haven’t watched since.

So why the heck am I writing all this now? I’m writing because I know that most people of my generation:

still believe that the news media ‘can’t’ lie. still have faith in the ABC, and don’t use Twitter, or watch podcasts by The Friendly Jordies, or seek out independent news sources etc etc.

Why do I know this? Because that was me just a short while ago.

The Fourth Estate has changed, and the old guard are dying out. A new generation of fearless journalists are rising up to fill the void, but thus far it’s mostly the young who know about them. Those young people will be our movers and shakers very soon, but they’re not there yet. That’s why it’s up to us, the over 50s to start asking questions too. And if we don’t like the answers, we have to make ourselves heard.

I do not like learning that emergency funding for the most desperate of bushfire victims has been withheld, for any reason whatsoever. This is not only morally wrong, it’s obscene.

The rort we ignore is the rort we condone.

Meeks

And then there were two…

This has never happened to me before: two reviews in the one day, the first in the US, the second in the UK. I’m a little stunned, but also incredibly happy.

Nabatea 5/5

This last book in the series has more unexpected plot twists, turns and surprises than an aristocrat’s hedge maze / labyrinth.
Whatever you thought you knew from the first two books, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…

I think the thing that has given me the greatest joy is that both reviews ‘got it’ in different ways.

As a Resident of Innerscape, Miira is like a digital ghost; she can communicate with the real world, but she can no longer touch it. Yet in Nabatea she has to step up and become the hero, despite her fears and lack of power. So I gave her the courage and persistence to use what she did have. I guess I wanted to show that we don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzneger in order to be heroic.

And the series as a whole? I didn’t decide to make each book different. It just happened that way, possibly because I need to explore new challenges with each new book. But boy am I thrilled that the reviewer noticed!

This truly has been a red letter day, and I haven’t even had breakfast yet!

To all those who downloaded my books. Thank you.
To all those who read my books. I love you.
To those who made the time to leave a review, you are my heroes.

much love,
Meeks

And one for Nabatea!

I didn’t intend to post again so soon. I’m always a little wary of boring you guys to tears but…I just found this review for Nabatea:

Imagine living on in a virtual world when you can no longer exist in the real one. Innerscape is such a world, and I thoroughly enjoyed escaping into it. Miira is a compelling and resourceful protagonist, not to mention relatable and likable. In this final book of the series, she must use what resources she has within the realm of Innerscape to uncover the mystery behind her love interest’s downfall. Crisp, evocative prose and impressive world-building make for a thoroughly engaging read.

Given how slack I’ve been on the marketing side, I really didn’t expect to generate much interest for Nabatea so this 5-star review was a very welcome surprise. I am now set for the day, maybe the whole week. lol

cheers
Meeks

A snippet from Kahti

Apologies. I know I’m meant to be doing marketing for Nabatea, but I just finished a scene from Kahti [book 2 of The Suns of Vokhtah] that I rather like. -dance-

“Too old,” Death thought as it held a glowworm near the Escapee’s face. The iVokh on the flight ledge had been young, probably no older than a third year acolyte. This one looked to be in early middle age.

Hissing in frustration, Death placed the glowworm back on the table and began to pace. The trap it had set for the Escapees had worked, but not as well as it had hoped. Five of the seven had been caught, but the Trader was not amongst them, nor was its Accomplice. So where were they?

None of the Acolytes had reported any stolen food, and neither had the Master of Stores. If anything, the old iVokh’s scrupulous reporting had simply added to Death’s frustrations; it now spent half of every day chasing up suspicious activity that turned out to be nothing more than a figment of the old iVokh’s guilty imagination.

And the Escapees had been equally unhelpful. Four had taken the long drop already, and Death did not hold out much hope for the fifth. Nevertheless, the questions had to be asked.

“What can telling about Stranger?”
“Only knowing that smelling bad…and killing Guard.”
“Knowing why killing Guard?”
“Ki. Only supposed to be escaping.”
“Knowing of plan to escape?”

There was a long silence as the Escapee stared at the sand on which it knelt. “S’so.”

Death felt hope stir; the other four all swore they had simply followed everyone else.

“What being plan?”
“Distraction,” the Escapee said in a whisper. “Not even thinking to escape.”

That too gelled with what some of the other Escapees had said. The original plan had been to distract the Guard so the Trader and its Accomplice could escape. The general exodus had only been in response to the Guard’s death.

“Who thinking of plan? Stranger?”
“Ki! Scars organizing.”
“Scars?”

The Escapee held its hands out to the front, palms down. “Being oldest Refugee…and having scars on hands. Thick scars.”

Turning away so the Escapee would not see the surge of excitement that lit up its eyes, Death walked to the table and poured itself a cup of water. Its hand trembled slightly as it brought the cup to its mouth. None of the other Escapees had mentioned any scars. Was the Escapee making something up in the hope of earning a gentle death, or was it telling the truth? The possibility was too important to ignore.

“Where being Yellow?” Death asked as it turned towards the two Messengers flanking the Escapee.
“In meeting with Council,” the Senior Messenger replied, an upward inflection to its voice.

Death declined to answer its unspoken question. “Taking Escapee to alcove and making sure being fed.”

“Thanking! Thanking!” the Escapee cried as it was yanked to its feet and led away.

Death watched it go with a strange, hollow feeling in the pit of its stomach. Hope was a luxury none of them could afford. But at least the Escapee would get one last meal before the Yellow began its interrogation.

To provide a little bit of context, the Escapees know Kahti as the Stranger. Only Death and its master, the Yellow, know that Kahti is a Trader. They think it has infiltrated the Settlement in order to spy on the Healers.

And finally, the long drop is what happens to Escapees who do not provide the Yellow with any useful information. They’re thrown onto the midden heap, a drop of over forty wingspans. Not all die immediately.

Okay, that’s it. Thank you for allowing me to crow a little.

cheers
Meeks

Timing in fiction…

There are actually two types of timing in fiction – the pace of the story and the passage of time in the story. They are not the same.

Pace has to do with how quickly one event follows the other. For example, in an action story, events tend to follow each other like a ten car pile up, with very little ‘slow’ time in between. On the other hand, in character driven stories, the action is always precipitated by some kind of internal motivation. For example, the serial killer had a rotten childhood and maybe has a flashback prior to choosing their next victim, who may bear some resemblance to their childhood tormentor. Or you could have a more literary style story where the motivation is the story and the action, what there is of it, simply illustrates the character of the protagonist. In these kind of stories, the pace is generally slow, but the immersion is deep.

By contrast, the passage of time in a story has nothing to do with the characters. It’s all about how the Reader perceives the passing of time.

One oft used technique is to provide the Reader with actual dates. For example, in the short prologue to Miira, I used the date and title of the news article – ‘September 22, 2101 – Three dead in Stradwick‘ – to place the Reader squarely in the future. I did something similar at the start of Nabatea – ‘…the voice of the AI seemed unnecessarily loud as it confirmed brain death at 1:46 pm, Sunday the 25th of December, 2101.’ but I was a little sneakier about it.

And that provides me with a neat segue into why writers shouldn’t use dates too often – they don’t always work. I’m pretty sure the date of Alex Tang’s death would have registered with Readers, but I suspect most people would have skimmed over the date at the very beginning of book 1.

A far more effective way to show the passage of time in a story is to make the Reader feel it. Yes, I know, easier said than done. Before the evolution of the current fast paced, smack ’em first and smack ’em hard style of writing, authors used to be able to get away with things like:

And two weeks later, Joe Bloggs did XXXXTwo years before, when Mary Bloggs did XXXXX etc

There is a place for this kind of technique, but it is [excuse the pun] dated. A more cogent reason not to use it is physiological; the human brain builds memories by creating multiple connections to them. Teachers know this by the name of ‘repetition’. The word strikes terror into the hearts of all students, but repetition does not have to be dull and boring.

Want the reader to see your Main Character as blond and blue eyed? Then show them, every now and then, by some oblique reference that may not register at a conscious level but will register at the level of the subconscious. I sometimes think of this kind of gentle, subtle repetition as painting a portrait in layers of colour and shape and edges. As writers, we have to apply those layers using words instead of paint, but the building of layers remains the same.

Making the Reader feel the passage of time is a bit more complicated than building the image of a face, but changing the chapter and the POV [Point of View] acts as a circuit breaker. The steady, sequential flow of events stops, and the Reader is suddenly elsewhere, looking out through someone else’s eyes. When the story eventually returns to the first character, there is a sense of distance, of time having passed…as in fact it has.

But be warned, constantly jumping from one character to another can be incredibly disorientating. Yes, there may well be a sense of time having passed, but the technique could also cause a nasty case of confusion. Changing the POV just to simulate the passage of time is not such a great idea. Simulating time should be one of many different techniques used to tell a story with the Reader in mind. What does the Reader need to know and what is the best way of presenting that information?

I like using multiple POVs, but I know that some of you prefer to tell stories from the perspective of just one character, so I’d love to know how you tackle the problem of time.

cheers
Meeks

p.s. the free period for Nabatea ends tomorrow at midnight, February 20 for Northern Hemisphere people, or about 6 or 7pm February 21 for Southern hemisphere bods.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Oz

Amazon Canada

Apologies if I missed your local Amazon website.

Some new music via Soundcloud

To hear any of these tracks, just click the bright orange button.

First up is a piano piece that I’ve fallen in love with, not just because it’s great writing music, but because the piano is ‘my’ instrument. It’s the instrument I studied for ten years, and it’s the one I wish I could play as well as this.

Composer: Lucas King Song title: Zero

The second track, also by the same composer, is called ‘Vampire’. I know vampires are supposed to be scary, but this tracks seems more like an exploration of contrasts, inner and outer. Or perhaps the conflict between appearance and reality. It works perfectly for the character of Death in the second Vokhtah book. Death is a Healer on the outside, but inside it still has the loyalties and instincts of a Trader, traits it must never, ever reveal. A bit like Kenneth Wu, actually. It seems as if I really do like tortured characters:

Composer: Lucas King Song title: Vampire

The third track is a more typical, ‘epic’ piece for orchestra and choir. It’s wild and aggressive with hints of an ‘Arabian’ theme coming through. Again, perfect writing music for high octane moments:

Composer: Samuel Kim Song title: Beast

And to finish up a youtube video you may like. It shows how composer Samuel Kim – who appears ridiculously young! – brings in and controls the tracks or ‘threads’ of his compositions. Each new ‘line’ represents a new instrument or voice. I assume he must have created each track separately, but how did he hear them all as a complete orchestration? The nerd in me is jumping up and down with excitement.

I hope you enjoy these tracks as much as I do!

cheers,
Meeks

Nabatea, book 3 of Innerscape…it’s free!

Just checked the amazon.com website and the ebook of Nabatea is now officially free:

Nabatea will remain free until February 20, 2021. Please grab a copy with my compliments.

cheers
Meeks

My Favourite Bits…Nabatea

Due to the difficulty of finding excerpts that don’t give too much away, I’m only going to post one favourite bit from Nabatea, and this is it:

The control room of the Innerscape facility was hushed as all eyes watched the numbers counting down on the wrap-around wall monitors.

“Any second now,” the duty tech said softly.

Standing right behind the tech, Phil Jacobs could see for himself that Alex Tang, murdered two days before by Kenneth Wu, was finally breathing his last.

The AI and specialist medical teams had done their best, but the outcome had never really been in doubt. It had simply been a matter of time. Now, all the monitors focused on Alex Tang’s vital statistics told the same story – he had put up a heroic fight, but the battle was almost over.

Relief and sadness jostled for position in Phil’s mind as he stared at the heart monitor.

“Flatline,” the duty tech said, his voice almost drowned out by the bleep of the alarm.

The heart monitor was joined a moment later by the Brain Interface Monitor.

Patting the tech on the shoulder, Phil signalled for the alarms to be turned off. In the sudden silence, the voice of the AI seemed unnecessarily loud as it confirmed brain death at 1:46 pm, Sunday the 25th of December, 2101.

Merry Christmas, Phil thought as he affixed his biometric signature to the death certificate.

“Inform the police forensic team that death is confirmed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Glancing up at the wraparound screen, Phil watched as the yellow-clad technicians waiting in the Catacombs sprang into action. They, too, had been waiting for Alex Tang to die, and now that he was gone, they were free to take possession of his containment unit…with him still in it.

Once the unit was disconnected, the forensic team would put it inside one of their huge Hospice trucks and take it away for examination.

“I don’t get it,” the duty tech said as he watched the frenzied activity on the central monitor. “Why all the portable batteries? It’s not as if they need to keep him alive during transit. And why take his AI as well?”

“They probably don’t want to miss anything,” Phil replied, his tone bleak.

“But we already know how he died.”

“No one’s ever been murdered by the common cold before,” Phil replied, his eyes never leaving the monitor. “So this is all new territory. And they don’t trust our systems.”

In fact, the police had found a great deal not to trust, from Innerscape’s reliance on the AI to Phil’s own handling of security.

“Dr Jacobs, can you explain why you didn’t revoke Dr Wu’s permissions when he left Innerscape?”

Just thinking of that interview made Phil’s ears burn hot. He had been forced to explain that, as Kenneth had not, technically, been fired, he could not, technically, have his permissions revoked. It had even, technically, been true as the AI did assign security permissions automatically, based on the employee’s position in the company.

What Phil had left unsaid was that those permissions could have been changed manually, using the CEO’s executive override, had anyone foreseen the need to do so. But no one had.

Least of all me, he thought as he forced his eyes away from the monitors. If he had, Alex Tang might still be alive. But then again, who could have guessed that Kenneth Wu would turn rogue?

For those who have never read any of Innerscape, each patient’s body is kept in a containment unit, about the size of a large coffin. Each containment unit has its own AI whose job it is to keep the body alive and functioning. Once the patient is in the containment unit, nothing is allowed to enter the sealed internal environment because even a breath of outside air could introduce a virus or bacteria. Nothing deadly. Just the common cold. Opening the door to the containment unit is a death sentence.

Why did I choose this short excerpt from the very start of book 3? Because every time I read it, I’m surprised that I wrote it.

Since publishing Vokhtah in 2013, I’ve become a lot more comfortable calling myself a writer, but there are times when I still feel like a bit of a fraud. Me? A writer? Yeah, right. But when I read this bit I feel as if yes, maybe I do deserve that title after all.

I really like the epilogue as well, but I can’t tell you about that, or about Kenneth’s grandmother, or the scent of lemon, or sensory deprivation, or a host of other things. All I can do is hope that you take a chance and read Nabatea for yourselves on February 16th when it begins its five days of free on Amazon.

cheers
Meeks

5 stars for The Godsend!

This day really couldn’t get any better. Just found this new review for The Godsend:

‘WOW the action certainly ramps up in this second book of the series. Miira and Jamie are trapped outside Innerscape and in mortal danger, there’s an assassin determined to kill The Burned Man, the falsely accused Kenneth Wu reappears, and much, much more.

Excuse me, Book 3 is calling my name – loudly…’

Click here to see the review on Amazon UK. Click the link to see The Godsend on Amazon US or Amazon Australia.

I am so happy I could pop! My thanks to the wonderful Chris Graham, otherwise known as the Story Reading Ape. Not only is this an awesome review, it would make a brilliant blurb. -dance-

Have a wonderful weekend my friends!

love,
Meeks

Ten writing rules I hate…or do I?

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules for writing inspired this post, but not quite the way I planned. I thought I’d hate them all. Now that I’ve actually read them, I’m in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that I agree with some of them. Embarrassing.

Before I hold forth on what I do and do not like, it might help if we all knew what those 10 rules say:

Courtesy of https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/elmore-leonard-10-rules-for-good-writing

The site is a good resource so check it out : https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/elmore-leonard-10-rules-for-good-writing.

So, no. 1 ‘Never open with the weather’. As soon as I read this one, I immediately thought of a 19th century novel that begins with:

‘It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.[3]‘

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night

Now apparently this opening is considered to be a prime example of ‘purple prose’ and to be avoided at all costs because…to modern readers it is boring. As someone who grew up with the classics, I love the first phrase – ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. The rest I could do without because it’s kind of pretentious to my ears. Back in the day though, it would have been considered quite normal.

The following is the opening sentence from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, published in 1866:

‘At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented and….’

The young man in question is a student who talks himself into killing a moneylender and her sister. The story is possibly the first psychological novel ever written. So much that we now take for granted was pioneered by Dostoyevsky, and yet, gosh…he starts with the weather. Why? Because he’s actually ‘showing’ the reader the world in which the story will unfold. The problem with weather is not about quality but quantity. Too much of anything is boring.

On that basis, I give rule no. 1 a big thumbs down.

Rule no. 2 says to avoid prologues. Why? I assume because they’re considered boring by modern readers. Fair enough, boring prologues should probably be avoided, but prologues don’t have to be either boring or long, and in some stories they are almost a necessity. Which stories? Fantasy and science fiction stories because both are set in worlds that are unfamiliar to the reader.

I like throwing readers in at the deep end, but that’s a preference only. If a story needs a prologue I’ll give it one. I give rule no 2. another thumbs down.

Rule no. 3 ‘Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue’. Dialogue tags were discussed in Audrey Driscoll’s recent blog post so I’ll just say…”Bah humbug. Thumbs down.”

Rule no. 4 ‘Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’. Mmm…this is a kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t one. I have no problem with a few adverbs but I probably wouldn’t use one to modify ‘said’, but I reserve the right to use one if it’s really necessary.

I think I’d better give this one half a thumbs up. Or half a thumbs down, depending on your preference.

Rule. 5 ‘Keep your exclamation points under control…’ I confess, my first draft is likely to be full of these. They’re a kind of shorthand from my subconscious to the keyboard: ‘this is meant to be exciting, make it so’. After that first pass though, I try really hard to make the sentence do the work instead of the exclamation mark. As with adverbs and internal monologues, too many exclamation marks are annoying [to the reader].

Sadly, no. 5 gets a thumbs up.

Rule no. 6 ‘Never use the word ‘suddenly…’ I object to the word ‘never’. Adverbs are a legitimate part of the English language. ‘Suddenly’ is an adverb therefore banning it completely is ridiculous. It is a perfectly okay word. What’s not okay is to use it ten times before breakfast. Anything repetitive becomes boring.

I give no. 6 a thumbs down on principle.

Rule no. 7 ‘Use regional dialogue, patois, sparingly’. This is one of those common sense things: if your reader has to dig out a dictionary to understand the dialogue, you’re in trouble. Why? Because said reader is going to become bored with the whole thing, and then they’ll stop reading entirely. Notice how ‘boring’ is cropping up rather a lot?

But…I truly loathe books that avoid all patois because they think their readers are too stupid to cope with anything but standard English. That’s dumbing storytelling down to a ridiculous level.

I’m giving rule no. 7 a thumbs up because ‘sparingly’ does not mean ‘never’.

Rule no. 8 ‘Avoid detailed descriptions of characters’. -sigh- Thumbs UP. When I first meet someone in the real world, I might notice general things – tall vs short, fat vs thin, attractive vs ugly, but I cannot remember a single time I’ve noticed that her eyes were a ‘cornflower blue’ or that his ‘manly chest rippled with muscles beneath the tight fitting t-shirt’. Okay, I might notice, but it would probably be accompanied by a mental eye-roll and a ‘really?’

My point here is the same whether I’m reading about a new world or a new character – info. dumps are incredibly boring, and they don’t work because most readers either skip them or don’t retain them. So there is no point hitting the reader over the head with one. Please…just no.

Rule no. 9 ‘Don’t go into great detail describing places and things’. Thumbs UP for the same reason as rule no. 8.

Rule no. 10 ‘Try to leave out the part that the readers tend to skip’. Yes. Thumbs UP.

Of course, the real trick is to recognize those parts in the first place, especially when they involve the darlings that Stephen King tells us to kill.

As a science fiction writer, you may have noticed that I love tech. Without fail, my first attempt at writing techie stuff is way over the top. I write it for me. The next day I re-read it and ask, ‘is this really needed?’ Sometimes it is. Yay! Sometimes only some of it is needed. Sigh. And sometimes none of it is needed, or it’s not needed at that spot. Bugger. Just because we love something doesn’t mean the reader will.

And finally the last rule that rules them all: ‘If it sounds like writing…rewrite it’. Yes.

Many years ago, I began reading a story that should have been strong, powerful, persuasive. Instead, the author inserted himself and his soapbox into every line. I hate it, and the fact that I actually agreed with his worldview only made it worse. As writers, all of our material comes from within, one way or another, but that does not mean we’re allowed to hit the reader over the head with it.

The power of ‘show’ is that readers get to see and feel things for themselves. They also get to come to their own conclusions. If we try to take that away from them, they’ll stop reading. Writing is easy. Telling stories that other people want to read is hard. It’s work. We may not get it right every time, but that’s no excuse not to try.

Well, I had fun with this. What do the rest of you feel about Leonard’s 10 rules, and yes, I’m asking readers as well as writers. What makes you stop reading?

cheers
Meeks

P.S. you’re allowed to disagree with me. -looks angelic-