Darren Endymion's Blog, page 2

7 Writing Rules: #5 Avoid Reviews

Some people say that reading reviews can help to give you a pick me up (the good ones) or can serve as an indication of things you can improve on (both good and bad) or that you can take the criticism and toughen yourself up (the bad). There is truth in this, but I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, if you absolutely have to read reviews of your book, start with Amazon, or see which official critics in your genre might have reviewed it and read them. Are they always right? Nope. Are they often unfair? They sure are. Is there anything you can do about it? Nope.

Let’s get this out of the way here and now. If you are an author or you are thinking of being one, prepare to let go of Goodreads, if you happen to have an attachment to it. The vitriol on that site is not only unbecoming, it’s overwhelming. There are some amazing people who put their hearts and souls into their honest, mature reviews, and to those people I apologize for saying this. However, the entire basket has been spoiled almost beyond redemption by those who imagine that authors are not people, that real analysis or reviews are secondary to their attempts to be hostile and hateful, and that the whole point of a review is to be as sarcastic and degrading as possible.

Example: Joan D. Vinge’s novel The Snow Queen won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel the year it came out. One man reviewed it on Goodreads saying, “Women can’t write science fiction, and I’ll fuck anyone who says differently.” The rest of his review went on to dissolve any notions that this was meant to be some sort of joke.

Example: Some remedial hag reviewed Bram Stoker’s Dracula, giving it one star because she “hates epistolary novels.” She went on to claim that this classic was overrated and stupid because of this one thing…then admitted to not finishing it.

Have you ever read the comments section of the average Yahoo article? Do it. There comes a point when some people cross the line into being a contrarian, where they must always be against something. You could have an article about a man rescuing an abandoned puppy from drowning in a storm drain, and you will get a variety of reactions: most would laud the man for his compassion and/or curse the original owners for not taking proper are of the puppy. However, there will be some who turn it into a political debate. There are others who say that writing that article was a waste of time because there are more important things out there. There are then the obvious sociopaths who talk about how the man should have let the puppy die because of overpopulation, because of evolutionary law, or because they hate dogs. Others will criticize the man for not minding his business.

Goodreads is disproportionately full of these last types of people. Essentially, these people are trolling. Reviews can be good. They can teach you things, but they can also tear you apart. It’s not about being weak or having a thick skin, it’s about not letting that interfere with you. More than anything, it’s about trusting yourself, your muse, your publisher, your well-chosen and honest beta readers, and your loved ones. If there’s something wrong with the novel, it is your job and the job of those people I just mentioned to tell you and help you through it.

Avoid the reviews. Trust yourself and your support system, not some stranger who simply wants to seem clever or to release aggression or to be a contrarian troll. You are better than that and don’t need that validation.

7 Writing Rules: #4 Take Out All the Adverbs

Many writers see adverbs as little pests, not unlike greedy ants on your countertop, begging only to be squashed and murdered. They are viewed as mutant dandelions whose mere presence means that your story is heavy with monstrosities, thereby making you a lesser writer and your work next to trash. Not true.

A good example of an adverb and the most frequent offender is a modifier ending in -ly telling us how someone is feeling or saying something. An example is something like the following: “I can’t be sure who murdered her,” the butler said evasively, his eyes shifting to the side.

Something better would be to cut out the “evasively” and just letting it be this: “I can’t be sure who murdered her,” the butler said, his eyes shifting to the side.

You know he’s being shifty — it’s in the sentence itself — but you aren’t sure what’s happening. It’s more subtle and your readers will get that the butler isn’t telling us everything. He may not be sure, but he knows something, the secretive bastard.

These aren’t the best examples — far from it. I pretty much pulled them out of my buttocks as I was writing this, but you get the idea.

What is true is that an over reliance on adverbs suggests weak characters whose actions, words, and motivations are ambiguous enough that readers won’t know how they are feeling. This touches another issue: that an abundance of adverbs points to a lack of confidence in your writing. Others think that it’s just lazy.

Adverbs serve a purpose. It’s the overuse of them that gets you in trouble. Stephen King, who preaches against them vehemently, admits that he will use occasional adverbs. He does. I’ve noticed. In a review of Order of the Phoenix, he calls out J.K. Rowling in an otherwise glowing review for using them, citing that her writing is wonderful, her characters are clear, their intentions are well-stated, and that she doesn’t need to use so many adverbs. I have noticed it, but they don’t really bother me.

I can give you an example of where they DID bother me and I did notice and it was grating: the first Twilight book. I will be the first to admit that I listened to all four audio books and rarely enjoyed them. I wanted to be able to talk trash with authority and to see what the fuss was about; my attitude does not change the fact that the subject matter and writing were pedestrian at best. However, her adverbs were out of control. In something like 10 minutes of listening, I counted 17 adverbs. My favorite and the most reaching, terrible example was the someone “chivalrously” diving in front of a volleyball to save Bella in PE, but nothing compares to Meyer’s heavy reliance on the word “swiftly”. As I progressed through the books, Meyer’s writing got considerably better or her editor was competent, because the adverbs were bad, but nothing like they were int hat first book.

As with anything, the key is moderation. Use adverbs as needed, but trust yourself and trust your readers. They will get it, and you probably don’t need to bedazzle your story with unnecessary literary rhinestones.

7 Writing Rules: #3 Show, Don’t Tell

This is pretty much the Golden Rule of writing. If someone is reading for pleasure, they don’t want to read an instruction manual of how to import data into an Excel spreadsheet. That’s what telling rather than showing comes off as.

Consider this as an alternate version of the Hobbit’s climactic battle scene:

When the goblins and wargs came over the hill toward the dwarves, the humans, elves, and eagles joined in. A giant, tumultuous battle ensued. So hated were the goblins that all the creatures of Middle Earth took up arms against them. The battle lasted for days and a great many creatures died.

It’s quite a bit different from the actual text of the battle in Tolkien’s novel, isn’t it? I even tried to spruce it up a little (admittedly not much).

Think of a romance novel where the main character is a geek who dreams of nothing more than falling in love and someone falling in love with him. When he finally meets the woman (or man) of his dreams, if we don’t experience things with him, if we don’t know his past, if we are just told something like, “As a young nerd, he was often very lonely and wished for some companionship” it just doesn’t have the same impact. We feel nothing. We process it as a fact and we react to it in the same way we would react to Ikea furniture instructions telling up to put peg A into slot Q.

The details, the showing, they bring us into the story, make us part of the reality. They help us feel.

Personally, I think there are exceptions. Sometimes you can just say a few sentences so you don’t beat the reader over the head with something you’ve mentioned before. Sometimes you need to scale back the detail. Another big place where you have to tell and not necessarily show is backstory. Some can be told through dreams, dialogue, and so forth, but sometimes you have to just tell it — but you have to do it well.

I’m rereading the Harry Potter novels and J.K. Rowling is a master of this. Over the span of a few pages, she sprinkles all the details you need in a very clever way. She will put some action and witty dialogue, then follow it with a paragraph or two of an aside where she explains the magical world of Harry Potter. She proceeds with the action, gives some backstory with some mixed amusing observations, then continues. She does this until you have the full story while still taking part in the current story. Rowling tells, and she does it the way it needs to be done. You could do worse than to study the first chapters of her Harry Potter books to see how she does this and does it so well.

Other than this, you want to draw the reader in, so show them the wonders of your imagination; don’t just tell them it’s beautiful.

7 Writing Rules: #2 Kill Your Darlings

The idea that we have to kill our darlings — or edit things into chum — is mostly sound. Cut the fluff. Stephen King said “Take out the bad parts.” It’s removing the things that don’t serve any real purpose in the furthering of the novel, and this last part is important.

Think of the impact The Shining would have had if Stephen King thought that descriptions of the Overlook were extraneous, or that describing the isolation once was enough, or mentioning only in passing that Jack Torrance was an alcoholic. Imagine Jaws if Peter Benchley told us that the shark was larger than a canoe and left it at that, or just described it as a sea creature of some sort. If the recently departed William Peter Blatty hadn’t mentioned the slew of tests they put Regan through in The Exorcist, if he had just jumped right to everyone believing the mother, so much of the creeping impact, so much of the build that makes that such a successful novel, would have dissipated. Those are examples of things that moved the plot along, necessary descriptions without which the novel would lose coherence.

“Kill your darlings” is another way of saying that you have to edit your writing to within an inch of its life and remove the stuff that doesn’t need to be there. The cautionary tale is to not take the heart out of your story at the same time.

Perhaps we can imagine Harry Potter without mentioning the names of the spells or the ingredients of the potions or the shops on Diagon Alley or the lessons or the materials the various wands contain. Would the plot be there? Largely, yes. However, all puns intended, would the magic be there? No. Not in the immersive form it is now.

I think it’s something that comes with time, objectivity, a good editor, and a careful moderating of sentimentality. It’s hard. I’ve turned this on myself several times, but there’s a happy medium. Writing a long novel shouldn’t make you feel ashamed, shouldn’t make you feel like you haven’t done a good job, or that if you were a really good writer you could have squished 400 pages into in a three page pamphlet with a small glossary. That’s not a novel; there is no journey; it’s a series of bald statements. However, cutting it down, getting rid of the fluff with those aforementioned tools in your belt, and keeping the magic…that’s the tightrope every writer walks, and it’s never easy.

7 Writing Rules: #1 Write Every Day

I’m starting to write again and concentrate on the things I need to do to really get back out there and become published again now that my rights have returned to me. So, I have been trolling writing sites for some tips and tricks, and thought I would share them along with my own thoughts.

Here is the original article I will be ripping off: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/7-writing-rules-ignore

The first rule is that you must write every day.

This is true and false. You have to put in the time and write or you’ll never get anywhere. Consistency is also one of the keys to success, because if you spend too much time away from the story’s landscape, you tend to forget where the road is, you can’t remember that restaurant you liked so well, and you don’t remember your neighbors’ names. However, if you spend every Saturday writing all day and you do so consistently, you’re still putting in the hours and the time you need to, though the writing may be cold and stale when you return to it.

Stephen King recommends writing up to six days a week at first, and I can’t really argue with a man so prolific, but I think being a little easier on yourself at first would serve you better. Start with four days, then move up to five. If you think you can handle six and seven, then go for it. It’s also important that you try to write at the same time on those days you do write, because your muse will have to find you, and if you’re in the same place at the same time, it will be all that much easier. To avoid using a metaphor, you will be training your mind and setting up a positive habit, and inspiration will follow.

You should be writing because you want to, and there will be times you aren’t feeling it, but you sit down because the work needs to get done and because there’s no other way to finish it. However, there is no hard and fast rule on how to get that done. You have to do it, but everyone suggests treating it like a job, a routine, something you want to do. If you see it as a chore all the time, you’re either not feeling the project or the process itself. Vary your schedule and work, work, work.

It should be fun, but you shouldn’t treat it lightly. It’s entertaining, but not a game. Above all else, enjoy the work, and don’t fool yourself that it isn’t just that. Only the good time.

Reversion of Rights

Today I received the reversion of rights to my one remaining short story and my novel, Winter’s Trial, from my failed publisher, Torquere.

It’s bittersweet, honestly. The people there were always really good to me, despite my lack of production, and it’s sad to see them go. It’s also terrifying, in that I feel as though all that time I spent being published through them was like time wasted. I’m berating myself for not working harder and making more of a name for myself. But to what end? Realistically speaking, if I had made a huge name for myself, I might have moved on anyway…but I would be in the same place.

I am free floating, and that scares me a bit. Of course, my ego says that my book was better than the distribution it got, but it was my first, so what the hell was I really expecting? Not much, honestly.

I’m not an optimist. I try to be, but sometimes it’s like the proverbial square peg into a round hole. So, here’s the forcing part.

I’m trying to think of this as a new beginning, and not a scary one, but rather one full of opportunities. Not only that, but after trying agents (with one personal message), I went to the first publisher on my list and was snatched right up, and those things have to mean something. I chose Torquere because they would put books into print books over a certain word limit. Most of the publishers I was looking at had a word limit after which they wouldn’t put the book into print, but would only have an eBook version. My novel is rather large for the genre. This was very important to me, because the idea of my book having an actual physical copy made me feel legitimate in a way that “just” being published did not.

When I find another publisher, I would like for my book to be in print again, but it’s not as important as it once was. My first choice for a publisher before, if we were to take out the printing part of it, is still open, and I might have a possible in with them, as I know one of their authors. We shall see.

So, it’s a new step. A scary one. I will be published again, that I don’t doubt. It’s just finding a new home and kicking my own ass into gear to actually, you know, write.

Wish me luck.

Good Riddance 2016

Can we just agree that 2016 has been a freakin’ mess?

Let’s start with the good, shall we? I finally got fed up with where I was and found the strength to get up and out of two terrible situations I was in. I fled California and finally moved to Oregon, where I have wanted to live, in one way or another, since I was a kid. I’m happier here than I have been in a very long time and the future is ready to unfurl into a gorgeous flower.

Then there’s the bad. Trump was inexplicably elected president, despite most of the country not wanting him. The Electoral College makes people in Toothless Podunk have votes that count for more than other people. The College itself was designed because the founding fathers didn’t trust the masses to elect the right person, fearing that they would be swayed by snake oil salesmen and elect a dangerous lunatic. However, that system has given us George W Bush and now the angry orange lunatic, Trump. The whole system was designed to have prevented this latter and the members of the College failed miserably.

Then the deaths. We should have known when 2016 was only 13 days old and brought us the death of Alan Rickman, the one and only Professor Severus Snape. We should have buckled in and vetoed all the shit 2016 had to throw at us. Instead, we lost Prince, David Bowie, Donald Henderson (the man who directed the effort that eventually eradicated smallpox), Harper Lee, Garry Shandling, Patty Duke, Doris Roberts, Muhammad Ali, Elie Wiesel (which still hurts my heart to its core), Garry Marshall, Gene Wilder, Florence Henderson, George Michael, and, most recently Carrie Fisher (who will always be known as Princess Leia, though I hope she is known for more), and her mother, the legendary Debbie Reynolds. The list goes on and on, and I feel like I should be singing “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miserables instead of fondly thinking of those who have left us.

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,

There’s a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs at empty tables,

Now my friends are dead and gone.”

We didn’t actually know them, but they enhanced our lives and gave us a light of happiness in an otherwise dark place.

Personally, 2016 has seen an amazing transition (despite my growing disillusionment with my job, being utterly broke from the move, leaving my friends, and my publisher shutting down), but external circumstances have pulled me down. You can’t live live in a bubble, and so those things will intrude unless you are a selfish hermit. So, it has been a terrible year, and one that we will be glad to put behind us. January 1st isn’t a magical date that will make it all better, but with is comes a certain amount of hope, as though we just picked out the good things, wrapped up a particularly foul package, and are ready to cart it out to the garbage.

May 2017 find us all happier, kinder, full of love, and reaching for our goals in new and exciting ways…and actually achieving them.

And preserve Betty White. Neither 2016 nor 2017 can have her.

Honeymoon’s Over

January is the busiest month at my work. Usually my team gets busy, but not soul-crushingly busy, yet there is plenty of OT to be had if we want it. Everything is changing, and the month leading up to now has been worse than most Januarys.

When I first moved here and started working from home, it was like the gods shat a rainbow into my lap. I was away from the workplace drama, I was able to work with very few interruptions, I was far ahead in my work, and for the first time in years, I could listen to headphones or an audio book or even *gasp* some simple Netflix stuff on my Kindle Fire (cartoons mostly).

If this last month has been any indication of what is to come, it’s time to look for a new job. All of the perks I so desperately wanted are falling away and are being replaced by the odious burdens I so vehemently loathe.

Drama? Plenty. I went off on an overstepping, hateful, assuming carp (who is technically my subordinate) who was questioning why she wasn’t told something about my job, and who was taking it upon herself to assign me work. I’ve heard nothing more (except congratulations from other team members who aren’t terribly fond of her).

Busy? I cant remember being this busy myself in a very long time. So busy, in fact, that Netflix is almost totally out of the question. Audio books are stopped and started so often that I lose the thread. Music is an option, but barely.

All the things I like about my job are pretty much gone. When it looks like the business is over, it’s about to start up again in a mean, evil way. I’ve been at my job a very long time and I’ve been thinking about all the things I can do making this salary in a place where that’s still considered a lot. Things I never thought I could have are possible…but only if I keep this job or one similar to it.

The bloom is off the rose, and the honeymoon of godly-shat rainbows is over…for now. It might get better. Likely will. I should know by the end of January what I need to do. Hopefully, things will calm down, I can like my job again, and I will allow it to be part of my life, not an overwhelming tidal wave I see and dread every night.

I’m in a tough place, having just moved here, but it has been so liberating that I don’t question that I can. If work threatens to become my life outside of this one busiest month of the year, I will look elsewhere.

I’ll be out.

 

The Imp of Deadlines

I had originally started to write an entry on the importance of having deadlines and sticking to them. When I wrote out a list of my tasks to do today, I abbreviated it “Imp. of Deadlines” and when I went to see what I had decided to write, I cackled at the implication.

Can you imagine?

What if there was a breed of an imp — I picture them to be a cross of Stripe from Gremlins and a hook-nosed goblin from The Hobbit mushed with Gollum — bred for the sole purpose of keeping us on task? Can you imagine the swag-bellied, scaled beast I’ve just described skittering out of the closet to stick a cattle prod into your thigh and hiss, “Get to work, lassssssssy!” It would then roll out a scroll of dates written in what I assume is blood or ranch dressing (why the latter, I don’t know. This image popped in my head unbidden and I have neither control over nor explanation for it). Your personal taskmaster would then climb up to your shoulder and bite, not nibble, at your ear until you started to do what it was you really should be doing.

Nap time? *chomp* Watching a movie rather than writing that synopsis? *bite, stab* Playing a video game instead of editing? *scuttle, hiss, incisor mark*

Ok course, the Imp of Deadlines could easily become overzealous. Decide to have a little impromptu snuggle+ with your significant other when you should be writing? Imagine getting frisky, then rolling over to find a scaly green gremlin-thing pie-face you with your manuscript. I think it would kill the libido…and the nerves. Or sleeping in on a weekend, only to wake up to an imp-brand to the forehead with the word “slacker” stamped onto your forehead with permanent marker. Snack time? Not today, loser. The Imp of Deadlines would be waiting inside the fridge, making you wish the only thing you had to deal with in there was bean salad that has gone over and possibly Zuul.

Deadlines are important, but maybe we need to put the Imps to better use and sick them against bigots and actually work on that thing…what’s it called?

Oh. “Willpower”.

Hateful word, hobbitses.

Picking Up the Pieces

With my publisher shutting down, it’s far too easy to return to my lax method of sitting on my ass and saying, “Well, I can start tomorrow,” or, “I can start really dissecting that part of the story NEXT week,” and that simply won’t fly.

As sad as it might be, I think that part of me wanted so badly to be published, had been leaning toward it for so long, that once I did, combined with the negative experience I had, I allowed myself to relax. I relaxed rather than bothering to build better writing schedules and practices.

Whatever. There are a thousand excuses. I can justify just about anything, and though there is plenty of truth to what I just wrote, it’s all a shield to hide behind. It’s not about how many excuses I can come up with (the answer is: infinity), but about how much I actually write.

So, now that my publisher is essentially defunct, I need to work all the harder to get out there again, to be reborn as a writer…and to stop with the excuses. I need to pick up the pieces of a sad, deflated, excuse-riddled writing life (I wouldn’t deign to call it a “career” at this point), and form it into something I am utterly capable of.

Oh, and terrified of, too. But that’s a story for another day.