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Writing
Today is the Day
Traveling the River of Time
We are often implored to remember the lessons of history, and on a more frequent basis, ignore that suggestion. Yet fiction has long been fascinated with time travel. Particularly science-fiction, but it seems we have this unconscious desire to return to better times, sight-see or change what came before.
The time travel story isn’t always an easy one in a world where science is so dominant. There are those armchair physicists who pride themselves in red flagging every potential or actual flaw in a story that moves against the river of time. For those of us who rather enjoy or be immersed in a good story, we look for the tale to be largely plausible. Though if writers cannot be creative time to time, who needs fiction?
Movies have some of the best examples of jumping through history. Frequency had a father and son, years apart, talking to each other via solar phenomenon. Deja Vu had the FBI remote view into the recent past and sending an agent into time to solve a crime. In hard sci-fi, some of the most successful adventures in the Star Trek world involved warping through time. Witness the films The Voyage Home, First Contact and Star Trek. Or whole series such as the Back to the Future or Terminator predicated on opening rifts in time and avoiding (or creating) paradoxes. In a few weeks, X-Men Days of Future Past will add to the long list, and become the most expensive and, perhaps, most successful jump through the veil.
I never thought to write any time travel stories, as much as I have enjoyed those of others. Especially not weaving it into a fantasy epic, but then it just happened. More on this to come.
In the meantime, with time being part of the universe’s structure as it is, what if someone could transcend that dimension? Will this remain fiction?
Or has it already happened?
Categories: Books, Fiction, Writing
Tags: Back to the Future, Deja Vu, Frequency, movies, sci-fi, science fiction, Star Tek, Terminator, time travel, X-Men
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Indie Publishing vs. Vanity Publishers
There is a difference. As Robert Bindinotto explains, vanity presses are:
…companies that make their money, not by selling an author’s books to paying customers (readers), but by selling expensive publishing services to authors themselves. They couldn’t care less how many books are sold; they care only how many authors they can enlist to buy over-priced “packages” of services.
It used to be that these companies (“… including AuthorHouse, Trafford, iUniverse, Xlibris, Palibrio, BookTango, WordClay, FuseFrame, PitchFest, Author Learning Center, and AuthorHive” among many others) were on the forefront of internet-based self-publishing. That all changed when e-books meant anyone could finally get their books in front of anyone else. As Robert writes:
“You do not have to buy ‘self-publishing packages’ costing $2,500 to $10,000 or even more, from companies that promise you the moon in promotion, marketing, and advertising . . . but never deliver. To cite my own example: I self-published HUNTER…all for under $1,000.
So there are changes all through publishing, even in the sector that changed it all. What path have you taken or will take with your book? What have you experienced and what will you do different next time?
Categories: Books, Writing
Tags: indie publishing, Robert Bidinotto, self-publishing, vainty press
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Why “Fantasy” Fiction?
Fantasy author R.A. Salvatore answers this in The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction:
Perhaps more than any other genre, fantasy is about the hero’s journey. In a world of seven billion people, with wars I can’t stop and legislation I can’t even read, the idea of one person being able to make a difference, the idea of one man or woman grabbing a sword and defeating the dragon and saving the village is quite appealing.
And perhaps it will inspire a hero or two in our own world to rise up.
Storytelling Vs. Writing
Phillip Athans writes in his book, The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction:
Storytelling is at the heart of any genre of fiction…Teaching writing is relatively easy, but teaching storytelling is close to impossible.
Think about that. In all the writing classes you’ve sat in, or writing books you’ve read, are all the grammar tips and sentence structure mandates what makes or breaks your story? Yes, if your mastery of English is horrible, then your book isn’t going to find many readers. On the other hand, if you follow every “rule” to the letter, ignoring the flexibility of the language, will your great story be buried under perfect 8th-grade English? Perfect schoolroom grammar and perfect writing are not necessarily the same thing. And perfect writing is not gripping, immersive or compelling.
That is where the story comes in. Stay away from those things that will ruin it. Be a storyteller first, and if you really care about that, the rest will come.
Writers: “Differentiate between drama and non-drama”
David Mamet wrote a “Master [writing] Class Memo” to his writers on the show The Unit a few years back. Much of what he presents applies to novelists just as easily as screen writers:
EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.
THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO FAILURE – THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE.
ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.
ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.
And most importantly:
I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.
IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT.
Does every scene of your story propel it forward or will readers feel like they are bogged down in a swamp?
Disruptive Honesty
How honest are you with other people? Or do you find yourself doing what John Eldredge writes in Beautiful Outlaw:
We chitchat. We spend our days at a level of conversation as substantive as smoke. We dance around one another like birds in a ritual, bobbing, ducking, puffing out our chests, flapping our wings, circling one another, no advancing, now retreating…Let’s be honest – why aren’t we more honest with each other? Because it will cost us.
It will offend people. People don’t like being challenged. We don’t want to be seen as rocking the boat. Maybe that’s what draws so many to writing. Explore truth through storytelling. Some may think that this is a flaw in us, not being able to talk directly to each other. To an extent this is true, but our minds our wired for imagination. It is the source for innovation, thought and revolution. Storytelling reaches back into the depths of history in every culture. Homer. Chaucer. Milton. Dante. Twain. Poe. Dickens. Even Christ used stories to reach people.
Stories can be the gateway to Truth. They will never go away.
50% of Book Sales from Indie and Small Press Authors
Says this report. Robert Bidinotto gives the break down here.
Publishing has changed in a very short time and there’s no turning back. Technology has seen to that. Companies like Amazon publish and sell from all sources (and Amazon has its own imprints and indie services). But what is to become of the traditional publishing houses? Take a clue from retail and restaurants: Many are beginning to abandon the giant-warehouse model or overbuilt-shopping areas for indie-ish stores and smaller markets. Perhaps big publishers will be looking to similarly reinvent?
Categories: Books, Writing
Tags: Amazon.com, indie authors, indie publishing, publishing, Robert Bidinotto, self-publishing, small press
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Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest
Time is running out. More info here.
Categories: Books, Fiction, Writing
Tags: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, Amazon.com, Kindle
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Why Stories?
Why do people love fictional stories and adventures so much? Because they mirror what is inside us. A desire to do to great things and go beyond the horizon. Do what we were meant to be. There is destiny written on our souls for us to choose or ignore. Jason Clark writes in his book Surrendered and Untamed on this discovery:
I no longer desire to be on the fringe, yet neither will I try to fit the mold. I’ve come to see there’s swimming against the stream just to swim against the stream. And then there’s swimming against the stream like the salmon do — to give others life so others might live — and to get back home. You face predators along the way and the trip is exhausting and you die a thousand deaths, but you do it for the glory and the story.
Categories: Books, Fiction, Writing
Tags: Adventure, fiction, Jason Clark, novels, Story, Surrendered and Untamed
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Darrick Dean 