Michael’s Comments (group member since Jan 06, 2012)

Michael’s comments from the Q&A with Michael Lando group.

Thank you

Raven wrote: "I have not read the book but interested so I will add it to my TBR list. Why should I move it from my TBR list to my Read list?"

First off, I appreciate your interest. As for why you should check it out, I think there's three reasons: 1) It's takes readers someplace unfamiliar and forces them to rethink their assumptions about sex, religion and politics.

2) Addictive and unforgettable characters that'll have you rooting for some of them, hating others, but you'll always want to know what they're up to next.

And 3) Broken Dignity's plot has something for everyone: action, romance, drama, and suspense. I like to think of it as a cinematic reading experience.

Raven wrote: "Oh ok, that's interesting.
Michael wrote: "I tried to write three pages a day, mainly a night while my family was asleep. It didn't always work out as smoothly as I hoped. Some weeks, I would go wi..."


Welcome Raven,

My family didn't think so at times. I think I was starting to get on their nerves with my moodiness whenever I fell behind on my writing.

Thanks:)

Cristal's story was based loosely on interviews from ex porn stars past experiences in the industry. There was no specific star, but I remembering visiting a site dedicated to rehabilitating ex porn stars and I heard some unbelievable stories. Her best friend Solae was mostly experimental. I didn't have a clear vision of who Solae was. All I knew was, she had blind loyalty to Cristal, so I built off that. Again, I had to figure out, why was she loyal, and give readers an answer.

So do I, but thank you.

I guess that depends on how you define the subplot. I saw Bianca's story and Reese's story as two parallel plot lines that would eventually intersect. So for me, the subplots were the story of Marie and girls like Sasha who were victims of human trafficking and then there's Lynette's vendetta story-line.

My subplots are usually story-lines for secondary characters that I don't have time to expand on. The initial idea was for Marie to be the main character but I didn't see a way to tie her relationship to Reese given what happened to her as a child, so I moved Marie to the background and allowed her to play an invisible role in Bianca's life (via the FBI). Lynette represented the witch hunt mentality, so her role set up a story in itself. I see stories as causality...every action triggers an effect. So when I set an event in motion, say a character falls. Well, in my mind, I have to revisit that fall and explain whether or not it impacted that character's future in some way. I have a hard time leaving things open-ended so that caused separate story-lines to form as a subplots.

I did, I put a few samples of it on my website under the Character Biographies section. I created an almost application style profile for the major characters that included D.O.B, parents, hometown and some summary information about them.

The Publishing Process:
This part was eye-opening. After the manuscript was done, it was sent off to an editor that sent back an almost line by line evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of my manuscript. Despite the positive summary he gave at the end, to have your project picked apart the way it was, was disheartening. I went through a developmental edit, where the editor mentored me through a rewrite, which led to my book winning an Editor's Choice designation when it was over. Next the book went through a content review, to check for continuity errors in the plot and then finally a quality review for any other errors.

Even after all of that, there were errors that had to be corrected in a final proofing a week before release. So it was exhausting. Afterwards, the market team walked me through everything else, set up various vendor accounts for me, so that took some of the pressure off.

THE PLOT:
Thank you. I've always tried to pay attention to details, whether its in conversations, whatever I watch, etc.; its probably a side-effect of drawing so much as a kid. I had to capture every detail in my artwork. So I retain a lot of what I thought was useless information at the time that later translated into details for the plot. The adult industry portion was difficult because it required me to locate insider information that wasn't widely available. You imagine when you research that topic, what kind of search results you get. None of that is very useful for a story that's anti-pornography. I lucked up on documentary about Boca Chica (the South American country in the book) that helped me paint a picture around human trafficking industry.

As for a screen production, its already received Hollywood coverage by a studio (a production house reader essentially evaluated its potential for book to screen conversion). The story received strong reviews with some concerns about how to tame the story for the screen without disabling the plot. So to answer your question, yes. It's in the works. But having it developed is a hope and dream for now, but you never know what may happen.

I tried to write three pages a day, mainly a night while my family was asleep. It didn't always work out as smoothly as I hoped. Some weeks, I would go without writing for days and it would start to frustrate me to the point that I had to cut off all outside distractions and write until I got caught up.

THE PLOT

I've always been a political junkie. Even in high school. Like a lot of people, I was caught up in President Obama's election campaign at the time. I had been bouncing several ideas for a book in my head for quite some time, one of which involved the life of a woman caught in human trafficking. Some of the stories I had seen on television specials really got me thinking about the way women are treated. In March of 2008, the former NY Governor, Elliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal hit and almost immediately, I knew how to merge the two stories.

I knew I would need someone to represent the dirty side of politics (Tamara), someone to represent the sex industry (Bianca), a redemptive character (Robyn) and I wanted a charismatic politician like Obama and Clinton(Adrian). From there, I just allowed those personas to drive the story.


I knew I didn't want to tell a story from within the sex industry--I didn't want to glamorize it, so I decided the story would start after my lead character had left. From there, I could allow her past to become the interruption towards her future goals of redemption through the political scandal.

First, I start with a character biography. I designed a full backstory and their personality all in my head before finally putting it on paper. From there, I allowed the characters backstory to guide the direction of the story. From there I wrote a synopsis to cover the basic plot points(nothing too detailed but enough to provide a blueprint). Then the messy part begins. I put on headphones, listen to music for about a half-hour and start designing a scene in my head while pacing around (It annoys the hell out of my family). Once I feel like I've got a clear picture of the scene, the headphones come off, I race to my computer and start writing.

I began three years ago, around September of 2008 after a friend convinced me to consider writing novels after having read some of screenplays. I completed the first draft I wanted to submit around December of 2009 and subsequent drafts took longer because of the editing process (waiting for review from the publisher).

This topic is for any writers who have questions about my writing process, my publishing experience or maybe you just want to share your advice and experiences with writing.

Good morning everyone! Thanks for joining in. Here is where you can post your Q and A questions for me. I will respond to everyone's post in the mornings and evenings (I still have a day job:D). If you are going to post questions that have big spoilers in them just put "Spoiler for [book]" at the top of your post.