Update on Fifth World 3, and other Projects
Happy Fourth of July!
It has been a busy few months. I launched the Thoughtcrime Podcast for my publisher Prescient Sci-Fi, contributed a ton of blog posts, and finished The Fifth World 3! On top of that, I finished two short stories and am preparing to submit them to several sci-fi magazines.
On Thoughtcrime, we talk about science fiction movies, books, TV, and all other mediums, but also try to add in a few other topics. Since I am a huge nerd about science, culture, music, and other random subjects, we will mix some of those in as well. For some of the shows, I will have a co-host but others it will just be me. We’ve got the first one available on iTunes and at the website. Check it out.
The blog is also starting to get a bit more active although we haven’t been able to find a third contributor. If you’re interested in being a sci-fi blogger contact me at jwfox@prescientscifi.com.
After a final round of revisions, the final novel in the Oraibi Trilogy is complete. It will be sent off to an editor in the next week! Publication date is still unknown. There is still some discussion going back and forth on how to package the trilogy and whether it is a good idea to hold off for a couple months to better line things up.
First, I want to go back and revise my first novel, The Fifth World. In the past three years I’ve learned a lot about writing, and want to go back and improve some of the mistakes I made early on. When I reread the book, I noticed glaring problems from a stylistic point of view and want to make improvements. It was my first work of fiction, so it is pretty clunky at times and a little long winded. One round of revisions and I will re-release it along with the third novel.
Second, I want to submit my two short stories for publication. If I can get a magazine to buy it, I might try and time the release dates for the novels to be close to the short stories.
Finally, the Mech Series is almost ready to be released. It needs a round of editing and some artwork. The first episode will be free and each additional one will be $1.99. Each episode will be about 80-100 pages, or roughly the length of a 1 hour TV episode.
All of this will keep me busy for the next couple months. Once all this is lined up and complete, I will take a small break then begin on my next novel, as well as write new episodes for the Mech Series.
Why keep so busy?
Whenever you commit yourself to a craft, it takes a lot of time to master it. If it is an easy craft, you will find yourself in a crowded field of competitors, all of whom didn’t have to do much to gain those skills. Buyers also tend to pay a lot less for these kinds of works. It is basic free market principles. If you want to make more money, you need to offer something few others can.
Writing fiction is extremely difficult and can take a long time to master. The experts say that it takes roughly 10,000 hours to master any craft; translated into literature, editors and publishers say it takes about 1 million words (not that it takes 1 hour to write 100 words, but that all the time it takes to think up the idea, draft it, revise it, edit it, and complete everything can average out to about 1 hour per 100 words).
I’ve written a grand total of 650,000 words so far. Course, I could’ve told you I’m far from mastering writing without the 1 million word goal. The past three years has been an incredible learning experience and very rewarding. Every time I look back at what I’ve learned it is deeply satisfying. With each year, I want to get better, learn more, and reach the ultimate goal of being a professional full time writer.
It is also time to share what I’ve learned so far with other aspiring authors. There really aren’t a lot of quality college programs, textbooks, or online courses to help novelists or fiction writers. A select few are very helpful but most are marginal. Many professors and teachers want to teach you to write what they would enjoy reading, nothing more. For example, in my college it was modernist and postmodernist literature. One of my English professors skipped over Shakespeare, Cervantes, and others in favor of Vonnegut, Joyce, and Hunter S. Thompson. The assignments were all within a tiny sub-section of literature, despite being a 100 level course. For those of us not interested in reading or writing modernist or postmodernist literature, it was not helpful.
Unfortunately, this is what happens when college faculties have full control of the curriculum with limited or no accountability. Some are completely arbitrary and do nothing to benefit students. There are plenty of exceptions. I remember several professors that taught great courses and were very influential in my academic and professional development. Sadly, they are the exceptions not the rule.
Professors are by nature elitist and gravitate toward works that are critically-acclaimed but may have meager sales. When you challenge them on it, they wave their hand at the cheap “sell outs” that cater to the masses. The problem is, if you want to be a professional writer, you must know a little about the peasantry and what they like to read.
Obviously Vonnegut, Joyce and others have written some great books but I highly doubt they are widely read (unless assigned by professors). Many readers do not enjoy modernist or postmodernist literature at all and wonder why the intelligentsia enjoy these strange books so much. To develop your writing skills and learn about the craft, you need to do your own studying. You also need to take control of your own development with an objective approach with plenty of self-reflection and criticism.
Don’t write what others want or tell you to write. Chart your own course. Here are a couple things I’ve learned from charting my own course.
First, before anything else, know what you want to write. You need to figure this out first before you give even a single thought to marketing, target audience, etc. You can be successful writing in just about any genre. There’s no need to awkwardly pound a square peg into a round hole.
When your done figuring out number one and you finish your manuscript, THEN analyze your target market. That is when publishers come in and make changes to your manuscript, shaving off the rough edges of the peg so it will fit perfectly. If you think this is a mistake, either try to find a publisher who doesn’t want to alter your work, or better yet, self-publish. This path is difficult and expensive but gives you maximum freedom.
One of the biggest criticisms I have for some novels is their cookie-cutter feel. Many writers seem to think they need to write “me too!” novels that take advantage of a trend or follow in the wake of a bestseller. There are countless dystopian novels about teen love stories or triangles thanks to The Hunger Games and Divergent. After The Da Vinci Code, there were tons of novels that included knights templar, the Holy Grail, and secret societies. Some were okay but most were clearly bad copies of an original. The success of Anne Rice’s vampire novels and the Sookie Stackhouse series have results in a tidal wave of vampire fiction.
Part of the reasons these trend-setting novels were successful is because they were new in some sense, at least for their time. Most of the novels mentioned above aren’t groundbreaking or 100 percent unique, but they came on market at just the right time when readers were looking for something a little new. If you write a novel to ride the tidal wave of someone else’s work, you’re already lacking one of the key ingredients to your exemplar’s success: freshness.
A novel doesn’t have to be fully original, groundbreaking, or create a whole new genre to be a great book. Indeed, many of my favorites are not terribly original, they’re just good books. At the same time, I won’t read a “me too” book. Write want you want to write, but don’t model your story to try and match up to a trend-setting bestseller.
These are the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far. There is still a long way to go but I figured I’d share a little.
J
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