As I'm writing this, today would be the start of day 10. Day 8 was another long day with too much to do, and I couldn't even get to the writing of the novel. Our phones came in, so after waking up at 10, and spending from 12:30 pm to 7:30 pm helping wife clean houses, eating, I then spent the rest of the time until 5:30 am activating the three phones, setting up email and the like, getting data and contacts transferred, installing needed apps, etc. Needless to say I didn't have the energy to make a blog post about it.
So today I started thinking. Originally, I'd planned to keep going on the novel and finish it even though it would take longer than 10 days. However, reality set in. I have an edit that came in on a novel that needs to get done within a month. I also planned on doing final edits and publishing Virtual Game, the third novel in the Virtual Chronicles series, during October. I can't afford to take another 10-20 days to finish this novel, which is the pace I'm currently working at. Fine for a NaNo pace, but this isn't even going to be close to 10 days. So finishing this, doing the edits, and being ready for NaNo in November just isn't going to happen. Something's got to give. Since the edit is for my publisher, that comes before finishing this novel.
Bottom line: I took the 10 day challenge and lost. Primarily due to slower typing than I used to have, but even at my old typing speed, I still would have only reached 20 something thousand by this point. This past week turned out to be the worst week of the year to attempt this because I've had much less time than normal to devote to such a project. No way I could have known that going in, but it is what it is.
So my plan now is to put this story on the shelf and schedule another 10 day writing challenge to finish it when I can devote more time to it. For now, I'm done with this challenge. I'll get back to a regular blog posting schedule (I've an interesting short story I'll be posting here once I can get it edited), get my novel edit done in the next few days, edit and publish the third novel of the Virtual Chronicles series, plan my novel for NaNo and get that done in Nov. I've got so many projects in the oven right now, its crazy. On top of that, this week, I came up with another novel idea I want to explore in the near future.
I should adjust the above statement a little. I say I "lost," but not really. True, I did lose the challenge itself. Didn't even come close to reaching the goal. But the truth is I mainly won. First, I've got a 10K start to this novel I didn't have before. It is shaping up to be a fun adventure story, and is exciting to see the world and characters develop. I'm liking the story. My main challenge is going to be to make time for it in the near future to finish it, and not forget about it with everything else going on. But the challenge was fun, logging it was educational, and I had fun even if it was mixed with some disappointments and setbacks. I hope those of you following my logs enjoyed reading about my experiences. Some day, however, I will write a novel in 10 days. Now it is a challenge I intend to conquer. Just not at this time. I will live to fight another day.
So the final ending tally on my 10 day challenge is 10164 words in 17.8 hours of writing. Thanks for taking the journey with me.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 7
Rose up from my slumber at noon. Received shortly the news from my son that he made a 92 on his final and a B for this latest block at Le Cordon Bleu. Very proud of him as he was struggling with it. Went through my morning routine and checked emails/blogs as I ate breakfast. Did the dishes, and found out wife would be coming early to pick me up. I proceeded to get ready.
She arrived about 2:40. We head off to clean a house. 3:40, I head out to pick son up from Austin. But we meet on the furthest reach of the bus route, so it is a one hour round trip, not a 2.5 hour round trip. Arrive back in town, stop by the AT&T store to get a sim card for switching phones between wife and son. I drop him off at home, and head off to meet wife at second job. Arrive there at 5 pm. We work and return home a little before 8.
Son studying to be a chef prepares us a lovely chicken and green bean dinner with some type of wine sauce. Delicious. I watch an episode of DS9 while I eat and catch up on emails.
By now, I'm thinking I should be going after the novel, but I'm feeling drowsy and having a hard time motivating myself. I also think wife may be going to bed soon. Instead, I get interested in the Michael J. Fox show. I would have liked to have watched it, but we don't get much in the way of TV. So I settle for watching a 40 minute interview with Michael done about a month ago. Being that the has Parkinson's and I likely do too, I'm very interested in what he is doing. He's had it for 20 years.
As a matter of fact, I have an idea that I will at some point, write a story where the protag has Parkinson's, and donate all proceeds to Micheal's foundation. A future project out there somewhere.
Anyway, I finally start to write at 12:30. Go till 1 am to add 287 words to it. Put wife to bed and get my cashews and prunes. Hot tea I made earlier while doing the dishes from dinner. I'm back at the computer at 2 am and type solid until 3:30, another 886 words. Decided to call it a night since wife expects me to be ready at 12:30 to go clean two more houses. Figures the week I pick to do a 10 day novel challenge ends up being one of the heaviest work load in the last year for me, leaving me limited energy and time for writing. And at my speed, that's a killer on the challenge. I usually have two to three days a week with no work. No days this week.
So my totals for today is 1173 words in 2 hours, averaging 587 words per hour.
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)
Day 7: 1173 words in 2 hours (587 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 10164 words in 17.8 hours
Words per Hour: 571
Words per Day: 1452
She arrived about 2:40. We head off to clean a house. 3:40, I head out to pick son up from Austin. But we meet on the furthest reach of the bus route, so it is a one hour round trip, not a 2.5 hour round trip. Arrive back in town, stop by the AT&T store to get a sim card for switching phones between wife and son. I drop him off at home, and head off to meet wife at second job. Arrive there at 5 pm. We work and return home a little before 8.
Son studying to be a chef prepares us a lovely chicken and green bean dinner with some type of wine sauce. Delicious. I watch an episode of DS9 while I eat and catch up on emails.
By now, I'm thinking I should be going after the novel, but I'm feeling drowsy and having a hard time motivating myself. I also think wife may be going to bed soon. Instead, I get interested in the Michael J. Fox show. I would have liked to have watched it, but we don't get much in the way of TV. So I settle for watching a 40 minute interview with Michael done about a month ago. Being that the has Parkinson's and I likely do too, I'm very interested in what he is doing. He's had it for 20 years.
As a matter of fact, I have an idea that I will at some point, write a story where the protag has Parkinson's, and donate all proceeds to Micheal's foundation. A future project out there somewhere.
Anyway, I finally start to write at 12:30. Go till 1 am to add 287 words to it. Put wife to bed and get my cashews and prunes. Hot tea I made earlier while doing the dishes from dinner. I'm back at the computer at 2 am and type solid until 3:30, another 886 words. Decided to call it a night since wife expects me to be ready at 12:30 to go clean two more houses. Figures the week I pick to do a 10 day novel challenge ends up being one of the heaviest work load in the last year for me, leaving me limited energy and time for writing. And at my speed, that's a killer on the challenge. I usually have two to three days a week with no work. No days this week.
So my totals for today is 1173 words in 2 hours, averaging 587 words per hour.
10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)
Day 7: 1173 words in 2 hours (587 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 10164 words in 17.8 hours
Words per Hour: 571
Words per Day: 1452
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 6
Thought about titling today as day 5b. But decided to keep going with regular numbering.
Drug myself out of bed at noon. Good almost 9 hours sleep. Started pot of beans going in crock pot, fixed breakfast, and read emails/scanned blogs while eating. Discovered my package had arrived, but not time to check it out. Had to be ready to go at 1:30, so not much time. Wife showed up a bit late, so we rushed off about 1:40 pm to clean a big house and an office. Returned home a little after 8 pm. By 8:30, we're eating beans with mushrooms. I catch up on emails while eating.
About 9 pm, I open the Dragon Speak Naturally box up, and proceed to install it. That takes a while, then I go through setting up a profile, registering with support, activating it, and training it to my voice. Start doing some test runs in Libre Office Writer. First problem I had was it kept putting in multiple "well" and "him" mixed in with my words. Tried the help file, but it was no help. Googled it, and came across an article about it. Said it was related to nose and mouth breaths on the mic, and to reposition it.
About the time I tried that, it started giving me a hookerr_nonotifywindow error and stopped working. Another Google search turned up an incompatibility with Adobe Acrobat 10. Followed its instructions and got it working again. Another try, this time with the mic positioned well to the side, I had less insertions of those words, but still there. I'm beginning to think this mic is picking up too much background noise.
By this point, it is 11:30 pm. Wife is getting ready for bed and she needs some attention as she's depressed about the car situation. Not just the hassle of figuring out what we will do, but she really liked that car, so she's in some form of grieving over it being gone. So I spend some time with her until she heads off to dream land.
I move operations into the living room, since I can't talk while she's sleeping. I decide the headset I have is better than the one that came with the program, so I give that a try. No more stray words are inserted randomly, so I decide to attempt some novel writing with it.
I get started at 12:39 am. It is a little slow, because it keeps plugging in the wrong words, failing to put in spaces, capitalize sentences, and such. Plus, I've got to teach it my character's names, like Roth and Selene. It works, but obviously I've got to get used to it. But I seem to be making a lot of corrections in the text. I stop after 40 minutes of reading. I entered 190 words using that method. An average words per hour of 317. Nowhere near blazing. I can see it can be fast, but make take a little further training to get up to speed.
Meanwhile, I feel I've spent enough time tonight on the thing, and decide to go back to regular typing so I can hopefully get over 1000 words tonight. I move all my stuff back into my room, and start working on the novel at 2:20 am. I go at it solidly for a couple hours, stopping at 4:24 am. I put in an additional 1048 words.
That makes a total for the day of 1238 typed in 2.6 hours. Tomorrow I should have more time, but do have to help wife clean a house and pick up son from Austin to spend the weekend with us. But hope to have more time overall to work on the novel. I may spend some time with Dragon Speak, but unless it starts speeding me up, may not keep using it for this novel. Maybe in time it will work for me.
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 8991 words in 15.8 hours
Words per Hour: 569
Words per Day: 1499
Drug myself out of bed at noon. Good almost 9 hours sleep. Started pot of beans going in crock pot, fixed breakfast, and read emails/scanned blogs while eating. Discovered my package had arrived, but not time to check it out. Had to be ready to go at 1:30, so not much time. Wife showed up a bit late, so we rushed off about 1:40 pm to clean a big house and an office. Returned home a little after 8 pm. By 8:30, we're eating beans with mushrooms. I catch up on emails while eating.
About 9 pm, I open the Dragon Speak Naturally box up, and proceed to install it. That takes a while, then I go through setting up a profile, registering with support, activating it, and training it to my voice. Start doing some test runs in Libre Office Writer. First problem I had was it kept putting in multiple "well" and "him" mixed in with my words. Tried the help file, but it was no help. Googled it, and came across an article about it. Said it was related to nose and mouth breaths on the mic, and to reposition it.
About the time I tried that, it started giving me a hookerr_nonotifywindow error and stopped working. Another Google search turned up an incompatibility with Adobe Acrobat 10. Followed its instructions and got it working again. Another try, this time with the mic positioned well to the side, I had less insertions of those words, but still there. I'm beginning to think this mic is picking up too much background noise.
By this point, it is 11:30 pm. Wife is getting ready for bed and she needs some attention as she's depressed about the car situation. Not just the hassle of figuring out what we will do, but she really liked that car, so she's in some form of grieving over it being gone. So I spend some time with her until she heads off to dream land.
I move operations into the living room, since I can't talk while she's sleeping. I decide the headset I have is better than the one that came with the program, so I give that a try. No more stray words are inserted randomly, so I decide to attempt some novel writing with it.
I get started at 12:39 am. It is a little slow, because it keeps plugging in the wrong words, failing to put in spaces, capitalize sentences, and such. Plus, I've got to teach it my character's names, like Roth and Selene. It works, but obviously I've got to get used to it. But I seem to be making a lot of corrections in the text. I stop after 40 minutes of reading. I entered 190 words using that method. An average words per hour of 317. Nowhere near blazing. I can see it can be fast, but make take a little further training to get up to speed.
Meanwhile, I feel I've spent enough time tonight on the thing, and decide to go back to regular typing so I can hopefully get over 1000 words tonight. I move all my stuff back into my room, and start working on the novel at 2:20 am. I go at it solidly for a couple hours, stopping at 4:24 am. I put in an additional 1048 words.
That makes a total for the day of 1238 typed in 2.6 hours. Tomorrow I should have more time, but do have to help wife clean a house and pick up son from Austin to spend the weekend with us. But hope to have more time overall to work on the novel. I may spend some time with Dragon Speak, but unless it starts speeding me up, may not keep using it for this novel. Maybe in time it will work for me.
10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
Day 6: 1238 words in 2.6 hours (476 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 8991 words in 15.8 hours
Words per Hour: 569
Words per Day: 1499
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 5
I've decided I'm going to take a mulligan today. I feared this might happen. But subsisting on 3 hours of sleep and awake since 7 am this morning, my brain says to me, "What? You want to create something! Hahahahahahahaha!!"
Up at 7, despite the protest of my body, wife and I head out to clean two houses. One of them a small one-hour job. We're done by 11:30 am. We rush to make the 1:15 drive into Austin in 1:10, pick up son from Le Cordon Bleu, and zip down Lamar to arrive at the MHMR building 2 minutes after 1 pm. (Mental Health and Mental Retardation Dept.) Due to him exhibiting some signs of high-functioning autism, we wanted to have him tested, so if he was, he could get additional help. After 3.5 hours of discussions and testing, the psychiatrist determined that he fell in the "unlikely" category, which means essentially, yes, he does exhibit some signs, but not enough to diagnose him as autistic or having aspergers. So that done, we grabbed a bite, took him grocery shopping, dropped him off at his apartment, and took the 1:15 drive back home.
Needless to say, we were tired. But we did discuss the options with our car situation. The mechanic called on our way to Austin to tell us the engine is toast, as I feared. Won't go into all the details here, but it puts us in a pickle. We'll be one-carring it until we come up with a solution. Not likely the "ideal" will work, but maybe God will make a way. Sad thing is in the last three months we sunk a good bit of money into repairs and maintenance. My wife wants to go siphon out the gas as we'd just filled it up.
The other task was to call our cell phone company to ask a question, then go online to order phone upgrades. Doing this for son in Le Cordon Bleu. He will like this phone or else. There won't be any way to get another for a while.
That took me to around 11 pm. Wife went to bed early. I wanted to go to bed, but I take a pill at 4 am, and I don't want to take it too early. So I piddled around until 2. I thought maybe I'd jump in and get at least a few words in today, but as I said at the beginning, my brain says, "No writing for you!" So at 2 am I start writing this post, so I can hit the sack early and get in some serious sleep before I wake up to tackle cleaning another couple of buildings with wife tomorrow. Who knows, if I wake up early enough, I might get in some writing in the morning and make it a big number day.
Also to look forward too, Dragon Speak Naturally is coming in tomorrow. I'll probably get to try out that tomorrow and see if it improves my word count or not. So with that I'll sign off.
Totals for today: Nada
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 7753 words in 13.2 hours
Words per Hour: 587
Words per Day: 1551
Up at 7, despite the protest of my body, wife and I head out to clean two houses. One of them a small one-hour job. We're done by 11:30 am. We rush to make the 1:15 drive into Austin in 1:10, pick up son from Le Cordon Bleu, and zip down Lamar to arrive at the MHMR building 2 minutes after 1 pm. (Mental Health and Mental Retardation Dept.) Due to him exhibiting some signs of high-functioning autism, we wanted to have him tested, so if he was, he could get additional help. After 3.5 hours of discussions and testing, the psychiatrist determined that he fell in the "unlikely" category, which means essentially, yes, he does exhibit some signs, but not enough to diagnose him as autistic or having aspergers. So that done, we grabbed a bite, took him grocery shopping, dropped him off at his apartment, and took the 1:15 drive back home.
Needless to say, we were tired. But we did discuss the options with our car situation. The mechanic called on our way to Austin to tell us the engine is toast, as I feared. Won't go into all the details here, but it puts us in a pickle. We'll be one-carring it until we come up with a solution. Not likely the "ideal" will work, but maybe God will make a way. Sad thing is in the last three months we sunk a good bit of money into repairs and maintenance. My wife wants to go siphon out the gas as we'd just filled it up.
The other task was to call our cell phone company to ask a question, then go online to order phone upgrades. Doing this for son in Le Cordon Bleu. He will like this phone or else. There won't be any way to get another for a while.
That took me to around 11 pm. Wife went to bed early. I wanted to go to bed, but I take a pill at 4 am, and I don't want to take it too early. So I piddled around until 2. I thought maybe I'd jump in and get at least a few words in today, but as I said at the beginning, my brain says, "No writing for you!" So at 2 am I start writing this post, so I can hit the sack early and get in some serious sleep before I wake up to tackle cleaning another couple of buildings with wife tomorrow. Who knows, if I wake up early enough, I might get in some writing in the morning and make it a big number day.
Also to look forward too, Dragon Speak Naturally is coming in tomorrow. I'll probably get to try out that tomorrow and see if it improves my word count or not. So with that I'll sign off.
Totals for today: Nada
10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
Day 4: 2071 words in 3.45 hours (600 w/h avg.)
Day 5: 0 words in 0 hours (0 w/h avg)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 7753 words in 13.2 hours
Words per Hour: 587
Words per Day: 1551
Sunday, September 22, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 3
Woke up today at 7 am with a little less than 3 hours of sleep under my belt. Hard to convince your body that, yes, you really do need to get up. But I did. I try to get closer to four hours on Sunday morning, but creating yesterday's blog post took longer than expected.
Went to church, coffee hour afterwards, then arrived home around 2:30 pm. Hit the sack until 6 pm. Talked with wife, went out to eat, then went grocery shopping. By a little after 12:30 am, had the groceries put away, the garbage taken out, and some hot gunpowder green tea brewed. Finally checked email and blogs for the first time today, responded to one email. While wife had her computer time and got ready for bed, I clocked in 45 minutes on the novel, from 1:15 to 2 am, putting in 429 words. Part of that time I spent getting an idea of where I was going next and rough idea of how it would happen. I'm now past the point I'd written to those many years ago. So it is all new, and though I have an idea of what will happen, it can often take turns into ideas or plots/subplots I'd not expected.
Took a break to send the wife off to sleepy land, get myself some cashews and prunes, and return to my writing. Began typing anew at 2:45 and went until 5 with only some bathroom breaks. Added another 1065 words in 2.25 hours.
Total for the day: 1494 words in 3 hours, for an average speed of 498 w/h. Not great, worst average yet. But my fingers don't seem to be very lose tonight. Plus the words were, for a while, coming in spurts instead of flowing. I actually was rolling better toward the end, but I need to get some sleep in. Though my wife only needs me for 2-2.5 hours of work tomorrow, I have several errands to take care of. I'm hoping I'll get an earlier start on the novel tomorrow evening.
So the novel now stands at 5682 words, about where I'd hoped to be close to the first day to be on track. We'll see if we can't at least put in more time tomorrow and make better progress.
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 5682 words in 9.75 hours (583 w/h avg.)
Went to church, coffee hour afterwards, then arrived home around 2:30 pm. Hit the sack until 6 pm. Talked with wife, went out to eat, then went grocery shopping. By a little after 12:30 am, had the groceries put away, the garbage taken out, and some hot gunpowder green tea brewed. Finally checked email and blogs for the first time today, responded to one email. While wife had her computer time and got ready for bed, I clocked in 45 minutes on the novel, from 1:15 to 2 am, putting in 429 words. Part of that time I spent getting an idea of where I was going next and rough idea of how it would happen. I'm now past the point I'd written to those many years ago. So it is all new, and though I have an idea of what will happen, it can often take turns into ideas or plots/subplots I'd not expected.
Took a break to send the wife off to sleepy land, get myself some cashews and prunes, and return to my writing. Began typing anew at 2:45 and went until 5 with only some bathroom breaks. Added another 1065 words in 2.25 hours.
Total for the day: 1494 words in 3 hours, for an average speed of 498 w/h. Not great, worst average yet. But my fingers don't seem to be very lose tonight. Plus the words were, for a while, coming in spurts instead of flowing. I actually was rolling better toward the end, but I need to get some sleep in. Though my wife only needs me for 2-2.5 hours of work tomorrow, I have several errands to take care of. I'm hoping I'll get an earlier start on the novel tomorrow evening.
So the novel now stands at 5682 words, about where I'd hoped to be close to the first day to be on track. We'll see if we can't at least put in more time tomorrow and make better progress.
10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
Day 3: 1494 words in 3 hours (498 w/h avg.)
---------------------------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 5682 words in 9.75 hours (583 w/h avg.)
Saturday, September 21, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 2
Today the alarm went off at noon so I could take my meds. Saturday mornings tend to be time for wife and I to eat breakfast together and talk, among other things. She'd already eaten, but we spent time together until around 2:30 pm when she ran off to take care of errands. I checked and responded to emails and scanned blogs.
However, I had to get ready for church. I'm Orthodox Christian, for those not aware. I do a bulk of the Byzantine chanting for Vespers on Saturday evenings and Matins Sunday morning. So I worked on getting that ready, which left me an hour and a half for a shower and preparing to leave by 5 pm. Made it there, had the service, we drove back to our city (45 minutes each way), and stopped at a local restaurant for dinner. Returned home around 8:30 pm.
After checking some more emails and responding to an entry on my blog, I finally started working back on the novel right at 10 pm. I made progress, but was broken up by several breaks due to wife and food distractions. One 45 minute block netted me 286 words. After a 10 minute break, I put in another whopping 10 minutes to add 184 words. We took an ice cream break of 30 minutes while talking. Then I typed for another 10 minutes to include 97 words. By this point, I feel like I'm going no where fast.
I took another break to see wife to bed, which took almost 30 minutes. Do we see an inverse pattern here? The breaks are getting bigger than the writing times. But by 12:15 am, with wife fast asleep, I could focus more fully on writing. I typed until 1:45 to increase the story by 900 words. That's better. About this time I realize I had a problem with topography. Mark for later correction. I wanted mountains. But not in the center of Oklahoma will I get them. lol.
Responded to another up-late writer's comment to my blog. Her comment got me to thinking. At this pace, I'm not going to come anywhere close to finishing this in 10 days. I'll be lucky to do it in 20. So I took my break time to research and purchase with money from my writing account, Dragon Speak Naturally. Should arrive Wednesday since I have Amazon Prime. Might take a little getting used to, but if it works as billed, could get my word count up to speed and stand a better chance of getting close to my target. Meanwhile, I'll have to muddle along with my fingers.
Returned to writing at 2:55, put in another 240 words by 3:31 before calling it a night. Since I've got church in the morning, I have to wake up at 7 am. Normal Sunday routine is to crash for a good 3 hour nap upon returning home, get up to check email, eat dinner and go grocery shopping with wife (a required activity). By then it will be around 10 to midnight before I get back to this.
For today, however, I spent 3.25 hours of writing time to crank out an additional 1907 words. That clocks in at 587 words an hour.
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
-------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 4188 words in 6.75 hours (620 w/h avg.)
However, I had to get ready for church. I'm Orthodox Christian, for those not aware. I do a bulk of the Byzantine chanting for Vespers on Saturday evenings and Matins Sunday morning. So I worked on getting that ready, which left me an hour and a half for a shower and preparing to leave by 5 pm. Made it there, had the service, we drove back to our city (45 minutes each way), and stopped at a local restaurant for dinner. Returned home around 8:30 pm.
After checking some more emails and responding to an entry on my blog, I finally started working back on the novel right at 10 pm. I made progress, but was broken up by several breaks due to wife and food distractions. One 45 minute block netted me 286 words. After a 10 minute break, I put in another whopping 10 minutes to add 184 words. We took an ice cream break of 30 minutes while talking. Then I typed for another 10 minutes to include 97 words. By this point, I feel like I'm going no where fast.
I took another break to see wife to bed, which took almost 30 minutes. Do we see an inverse pattern here? The breaks are getting bigger than the writing times. But by 12:15 am, with wife fast asleep, I could focus more fully on writing. I typed until 1:45 to increase the story by 900 words. That's better. About this time I realize I had a problem with topography. Mark for later correction. I wanted mountains. But not in the center of Oklahoma will I get them. lol.
Responded to another up-late writer's comment to my blog. Her comment got me to thinking. At this pace, I'm not going to come anywhere close to finishing this in 10 days. I'll be lucky to do it in 20. So I took my break time to research and purchase with money from my writing account, Dragon Speak Naturally. Should arrive Wednesday since I have Amazon Prime. Might take a little getting used to, but if it works as billed, could get my word count up to speed and stand a better chance of getting close to my target. Meanwhile, I'll have to muddle along with my fingers.
Returned to writing at 2:55, put in another 240 words by 3:31 before calling it a night. Since I've got church in the morning, I have to wake up at 7 am. Normal Sunday routine is to crash for a good 3 hour nap upon returning home, get up to check email, eat dinner and go grocery shopping with wife (a required activity). By then it will be around 10 to midnight before I get back to this.
For today, however, I spent 3.25 hours of writing time to crank out an additional 1907 words. That clocks in at 587 words an hour.
10 Day Novel Challenge totals for Dragon City:
Day 1: 2281 words in 3.5 hours (652 w/h avg.)
Day 2: 1907 words in 3.25 hours (587 w/h avg.)
-------------------------------------
Novel Progress: 4188 words in 6.75 hours (620 w/h avg.)
Thursday, September 19, 2013
10 Day Novel Challenge: Day 0
Thought I'd go ahead and get into the logging groove. I had a short story I'd been working on I wanted to finish before starting the novel.
Before I dig into my daily routine, allow me to warn those familiar with Dean's hours, that I'm not intentionally mimicking him. It just so happens we both keep similar hours. I suspected as much because I caught him up late a few times, but it wasn't until he started logging his day that I realized I'm not so strange after all...at least to him. But wanted to make it clear I'm not trying to copy-cat Dean. I've had this schedule for many years. Just when I worked a full time job, I didn't get much sleep. Now I have more like a part-time job helping my wife clean houses. Fun! But it does give me more time for writing, so I can't complain. As fate would have it, this next week while I'm doing this novel challenge is going to be busier than usual. Won't help me put in the 6 hours a day I'll need to get close, but we'll give it my best shot.
Today got out of bed around 12:30. Did my morning gig of eating and catching up on emails and blogs. I have to be careful on blogs. It is too easy for me to spend hours going down comment trails. But I also had a few comments to respond to on Facebook about my announcement, and emails. Combine that with some personal stuff, and it wasn't until 5:40 I sat down to write.
I'd started a short story for my blog earlier this week that I needed to finish. For the first time I tried Dean's trick. But I don't have a stash of half-titles like he does. So I went to Fox News website and looked at titles there. I landed on one title that was about some balloons, and another about an evacuation. I smashed them together into the title "Balloon Evacuation." I'd written about 1262 words on it before today. I do tend to write my short stories more "seat of the pants," so had developed a good idea where it was going, but still free wheeling it.
I didn't get very far before wife comes home from work, at about 5:55. In those 15 minutes, I logged another 264 words. Still far from done. So I stop to fix dinner, watch some DS9 while eating, then follow that up with some "Honest Trailers" on YouTube. Spent time with wife in there as well. She goes to bed around 11:45 pm. I go make my hot tea, do the dishes, get my cashews and prunes and head back to my computer to write around 12:30 am.
I take off writing the most exciting part of this story. A few stretch breaks but I write pretty solidly from 12:30 to 5:00 and get in an additional 2464 words before the story's done. Decide I'll save the editing and posting for later. Sleep is calling.
Today I wrote 2731 words of fiction (no, I'm not counting my emails and FB posts). Took me a total of about 4.75 hours. That comes out to an average words per hour of 575. Not too great, thanks to my bad left hand. At that rate, I'll need more than 6 hours a day to clock in around 6K a day. Maybe I can pick it up, but not looking real promising.
So I'm writing this blog, another 575 words in 30 minutes...better. Tomorrow starts the novel. Look for day 1 by Saturday.
Before I dig into my daily routine, allow me to warn those familiar with Dean's hours, that I'm not intentionally mimicking him. It just so happens we both keep similar hours. I suspected as much because I caught him up late a few times, but it wasn't until he started logging his day that I realized I'm not so strange after all...at least to him. But wanted to make it clear I'm not trying to copy-cat Dean. I've had this schedule for many years. Just when I worked a full time job, I didn't get much sleep. Now I have more like a part-time job helping my wife clean houses. Fun! But it does give me more time for writing, so I can't complain. As fate would have it, this next week while I'm doing this novel challenge is going to be busier than usual. Won't help me put in the 6 hours a day I'll need to get close, but we'll give it my best shot.
Today got out of bed around 12:30. Did my morning gig of eating and catching up on emails and blogs. I have to be careful on blogs. It is too easy for me to spend hours going down comment trails. But I also had a few comments to respond to on Facebook about my announcement, and emails. Combine that with some personal stuff, and it wasn't until 5:40 I sat down to write.
I'd started a short story for my blog earlier this week that I needed to finish. For the first time I tried Dean's trick. But I don't have a stash of half-titles like he does. So I went to Fox News website and looked at titles there. I landed on one title that was about some balloons, and another about an evacuation. I smashed them together into the title "Balloon Evacuation." I'd written about 1262 words on it before today. I do tend to write my short stories more "seat of the pants," so had developed a good idea where it was going, but still free wheeling it.
I didn't get very far before wife comes home from work, at about 5:55. In those 15 minutes, I logged another 264 words. Still far from done. So I stop to fix dinner, watch some DS9 while eating, then follow that up with some "Honest Trailers" on YouTube. Spent time with wife in there as well. She goes to bed around 11:45 pm. I go make my hot tea, do the dishes, get my cashews and prunes and head back to my computer to write around 12:30 am.
I take off writing the most exciting part of this story. A few stretch breaks but I write pretty solidly from 12:30 to 5:00 and get in an additional 2464 words before the story's done. Decide I'll save the editing and posting for later. Sleep is calling.
Today I wrote 2731 words of fiction (no, I'm not counting my emails and FB posts). Took me a total of about 4.75 hours. That comes out to an average words per hour of 575. Not too great, thanks to my bad left hand. At that rate, I'll need more than 6 hours a day to clock in around 6K a day. Maybe I can pick it up, but not looking real promising.
So I'm writing this blog, another 575 words in 30 minutes...better. Tomorrow starts the novel. Look for day 1 by Saturday.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
10 Days of Excitement
Some of you are going to think I'm crazy, but I'm going to write a novel in 10 days. Yes, that's right. A full novel in 10 days. Not only that, I'm going to put a daily log up each day of how I'm spending my day and progress on the novel.
This idea comes from writer Dean Wesley Smith, who for his yearly challenge decided starting August, among other things, to write a novel every month this year, taking 10 days to write each one. He ended up writing the last one in 15 days instead, but the goal is 10.
For some reason, I decided to join him in at least one run at this, so I told him on his blog when he started his next novel, I would join him in writing a novel in 10 days. I know, I know. He's a long-time professional who has written over 100 published novels. My high point was writing 110K one National Novel Writing month back in 2008 or 2009, I forget. Close to one novel in 15 days. Now my left fingers don't work so good, so my typing speed is slower. I'll be doing good to put in 1K words an hour. If I can do that, it will be about 6 hours of writing a day. We'll see how it goes.
What's my novel about? Unlike Dean, who is very much a "seat of the pants" writer, I do know what my novel is about. Dean tends to combine half-titles together as a sort of writing prompt, and then start writing a story. He is often not sure where it is going until almost halfway into writing the thing. I'm more of a hybrid writer in that regard. I like to have an outline of the major plot points and character list, then wing the details for each chapter. Often the outline gets significantly changed by the end, but if I have no idea where the story's going, I'll tend to just stare at the screen.
The story I'm going to do is an outline I created back in 2007. I had planned to write this story for National Novel Writing Month that November. My publisher at the time suggested writing a sequel to my one published novella at the time, Infinite Realities. That novella was later expanded to a full novel and published by Splashdown Books as Reality's Dawn. Still available for sale. So on day one of NaNo, I changed my mind, shelved this outline, and whipped up a quick outline for what eventually was published as Transforming Realities, and later republished by Splashdown Books as Reality's Ascent.
So this outline has been sitting on my computer for six years, waiting for me to tell its story. I figured this challenge would be the perfect opportunity to bring it to life. The idea comes as a sequel to arguably my most popular short story, "Dragon Stew." As a matter of fact, I plan on using the short story as an opening prologue. But I won't be counting those words for the novel, just new words. The tentative title for the book is Dragon City. It will be a middle-grade/YA novel.
That's all I'm saying about it for now. But one other challenge I'm adding to this. This is part of the experiment. Once written, I'm going to have it edited for typos and the like and put it up for sale by sometime in November. At which point, I'll be writing my next NaNo novel. I don't plan on it being a series, just a one-shot novel story. But I've learned to never say never!
I'll be creating a new category to put these post in called "10 Day Novel Challenge." So if you want to follow the daily log of my progress and writing day, be sure to subscribe via RSS feed or email. Links to do so are under my picture, top-right side of this page. By early Saturday morning, you should see my first report on how my writing day went.
Should be fun!
This idea comes from writer Dean Wesley Smith, who for his yearly challenge decided starting August, among other things, to write a novel every month this year, taking 10 days to write each one. He ended up writing the last one in 15 days instead, but the goal is 10.
For some reason, I decided to join him in at least one run at this, so I told him on his blog when he started his next novel, I would join him in writing a novel in 10 days. I know, I know. He's a long-time professional who has written over 100 published novels. My high point was writing 110K one National Novel Writing month back in 2008 or 2009, I forget. Close to one novel in 15 days. Now my left fingers don't work so good, so my typing speed is slower. I'll be doing good to put in 1K words an hour. If I can do that, it will be about 6 hours of writing a day. We'll see how it goes.
What's my novel about? Unlike Dean, who is very much a "seat of the pants" writer, I do know what my novel is about. Dean tends to combine half-titles together as a sort of writing prompt, and then start writing a story. He is often not sure where it is going until almost halfway into writing the thing. I'm more of a hybrid writer in that regard. I like to have an outline of the major plot points and character list, then wing the details for each chapter. Often the outline gets significantly changed by the end, but if I have no idea where the story's going, I'll tend to just stare at the screen.
The story I'm going to do is an outline I created back in 2007. I had planned to write this story for National Novel Writing Month that November. My publisher at the time suggested writing a sequel to my one published novella at the time, Infinite Realities. That novella was later expanded to a full novel and published by Splashdown Books as Reality's Dawn. Still available for sale. So on day one of NaNo, I changed my mind, shelved this outline, and whipped up a quick outline for what eventually was published as Transforming Realities, and later republished by Splashdown Books as Reality's Ascent.
So this outline has been sitting on my computer for six years, waiting for me to tell its story. I figured this challenge would be the perfect opportunity to bring it to life. The idea comes as a sequel to arguably my most popular short story, "Dragon Stew." As a matter of fact, I plan on using the short story as an opening prologue. But I won't be counting those words for the novel, just new words. The tentative title for the book is Dragon City. It will be a middle-grade/YA novel.
That's all I'm saying about it for now. But one other challenge I'm adding to this. This is part of the experiment. Once written, I'm going to have it edited for typos and the like and put it up for sale by sometime in November. At which point, I'll be writing my next NaNo novel. I don't plan on it being a series, just a one-shot novel story. But I've learned to never say never!
I'll be creating a new category to put these post in called "10 Day Novel Challenge." So if you want to follow the daily log of my progress and writing day, be sure to subscribe via RSS feed or email. Links to do so are under my picture, top-right side of this page. By early Saturday morning, you should see my first report on how my writing day went.
Should be fun!
Sunday, July 28, 2013
How to Write for the Glory of God
If you are a writer who is a Christian and have been involved in discussions with like-minded writers, I'm sure you've heard this statement before: "My goal in writing is to glorify God."
I'm not saying this isn't a valid goal, but that it gets misused. In short, my response might be, "That doesn't means what you think it means." Here are three of the messages sent by that statement that I see as misusing it.
If you're writing for any other reason, you're on the wrong track.
In confusing overall vision with purpose-goals (more on that in a bit), people tend to dismiss any other reason—like entertainment—as an inferior goal that denies the goal of glorifying God.
Quality doesn't matter since I'm doing it for God.
Most people probably don't literally mean this or wouldn't come out and say this, but it is the message sent if the statement is in response to someone's goal to improve their writing or set a high bar for quality work. Some do use the phrase to mask laziness.
Any story that fails to present the Gospel and refer, allude, or represent Jesus is failing to write for the glory of God, and is inferior.
The phrase tends to be code words for "true Christian writing" that directly promotes God and the gospel in the proper way. I'm not saying this type of writing should be avoided (I've written some of it), but that can be a worse witness to God than a story that never mentions Him. Being overtly Christian in content does not qualify as glorifying God.
In my experience, people who use that phrase often don't fully understand what they are saying or they wouldn't use it when they do.
The key point often missed is the route to glorifying God in our writing is by successfully fulfilling the purpose of the work.
It should be obvious and clear that not just our writing, but our whole life should be done for the glory of God. Therefore, that isn't a goal for a specific part of our life, but a purpose for all our lives. But how does any one part fulfill that life-vision?
Let's use the example of our driving. Yes, our driving should glorify God. How does it do that? By successfully navigating one's passengers to their destination as safely as possible. By obeying traffic laws out of consideration for others' safety. By acting as if everyone else on the road is more important than yourself. To let your light shine through your actions. By effectively and successfully fulfilling the purpose of driving a vehicle: to get people and cargo safely and efficiently to their destinations, including others on the road, in a Christ-like manner.
We glorify God when we effectively fulfill the purpose of a task in a manner that provides a good witness to what God has done in our lives. To look at it from another angle, what we do, we do unto God. So whether one is witnessing, singing, cooking, reading, or writing, we give our best offering unto God in each task.
For fiction, what is its purpose? For some writers, they admit to only writing to please themselves. They don't care if anyone else is ever interested in reading it or have any message they wish to communicate to the masses. For them, if the story pleases them, it has fulfilled its purpose. But still, what is that purpose?
It is the same as anyone who picks up a work of fiction to read: to be entertained. Whether your audience is yourself or a group of readers, the main purpose of a fiction story is to entertain that audience. If it fails to do that much, if fails to fulfill its purpose.
"But I'm a reader, and I like fiction with a message." All well and good. I'm not saying other goals cannot exist alongside entertaining your audience. Rather, if your story is boring, doesn't engage the reader, few are those who will ever read that message. It is unlikely you'll continue reading a message oriented story if you find it boring and bland, no matter how much you prefer message-oriented fiction.
If fiction fails to entertain, it fails at everything else, including glorifying God. Because that is the main point of reading fiction. In some cases, not entertaining can be a bad witness for God, especially if it includes a gospel presentation or uses Jesus as a character.
It is the equivalent of putting a Christian bumper sticker on your vehicle and driving rudely. You'll do more damage to God's glory than help it.
In effect, not to have entertainment as the primary goal of writing fiction is to fail to glorify God. Being entertaining doesn't mean it replaces the purpose of glorifying God in your writing. It means it supports it.
That is why as a fiction author, my goal is to first entertain. Doesn't mean there aren't other issues of content that could effect how well a story glorifies God. Only that if I fail to be entertaining, I've already lost that battle no matter how well I execute the rest.
Instead, I allow God to use a story for whatever message He might have for people, even if it is to plant a seed, make someone realize being a Christian doesn't equate with boring, inferior stories, or whatever. Because if my work doesn't get read, whatever messages I have will not be heard.
For me, that does not glorify God. To fulfill that goal, I have to write engaging and entertaining fiction stories.
How do your goals in writing support glorifying God in your stories?
I'm not saying this isn't a valid goal, but that it gets misused. In short, my response might be, "That doesn't means what you think it means." Here are three of the messages sent by that statement that I see as misusing it.
If you're writing for any other reason, you're on the wrong track.
In confusing overall vision with purpose-goals (more on that in a bit), people tend to dismiss any other reason—like entertainment—as an inferior goal that denies the goal of glorifying God.
Quality doesn't matter since I'm doing it for God.
Most people probably don't literally mean this or wouldn't come out and say this, but it is the message sent if the statement is in response to someone's goal to improve their writing or set a high bar for quality work. Some do use the phrase to mask laziness.
Any story that fails to present the Gospel and refer, allude, or represent Jesus is failing to write for the glory of God, and is inferior.
The phrase tends to be code words for "true Christian writing" that directly promotes God and the gospel in the proper way. I'm not saying this type of writing should be avoided (I've written some of it), but that can be a worse witness to God than a story that never mentions Him. Being overtly Christian in content does not qualify as glorifying God.
In my experience, people who use that phrase often don't fully understand what they are saying or they wouldn't use it when they do.
The key point often missed is the route to glorifying God in our writing is by successfully fulfilling the purpose of the work.
It should be obvious and clear that not just our writing, but our whole life should be done for the glory of God. Therefore, that isn't a goal for a specific part of our life, but a purpose for all our lives. But how does any one part fulfill that life-vision?
Let's use the example of our driving. Yes, our driving should glorify God. How does it do that? By successfully navigating one's passengers to their destination as safely as possible. By obeying traffic laws out of consideration for others' safety. By acting as if everyone else on the road is more important than yourself. To let your light shine through your actions. By effectively and successfully fulfilling the purpose of driving a vehicle: to get people and cargo safely and efficiently to their destinations, including others on the road, in a Christ-like manner.
We glorify God when we effectively fulfill the purpose of a task in a manner that provides a good witness to what God has done in our lives. To look at it from another angle, what we do, we do unto God. So whether one is witnessing, singing, cooking, reading, or writing, we give our best offering unto God in each task.
For fiction, what is its purpose? For some writers, they admit to only writing to please themselves. They don't care if anyone else is ever interested in reading it or have any message they wish to communicate to the masses. For them, if the story pleases them, it has fulfilled its purpose. But still, what is that purpose?
It is the same as anyone who picks up a work of fiction to read: to be entertained. Whether your audience is yourself or a group of readers, the main purpose of a fiction story is to entertain that audience. If it fails to do that much, if fails to fulfill its purpose.
"But I'm a reader, and I like fiction with a message." All well and good. I'm not saying other goals cannot exist alongside entertaining your audience. Rather, if your story is boring, doesn't engage the reader, few are those who will ever read that message. It is unlikely you'll continue reading a message oriented story if you find it boring and bland, no matter how much you prefer message-oriented fiction.
If fiction fails to entertain, it fails at everything else, including glorifying God. Because that is the main point of reading fiction. In some cases, not entertaining can be a bad witness for God, especially if it includes a gospel presentation or uses Jesus as a character.
It is the equivalent of putting a Christian bumper sticker on your vehicle and driving rudely. You'll do more damage to God's glory than help it.
In effect, not to have entertainment as the primary goal of writing fiction is to fail to glorify God. Being entertaining doesn't mean it replaces the purpose of glorifying God in your writing. It means it supports it.
That is why as a fiction author, my goal is to first entertain. Doesn't mean there aren't other issues of content that could effect how well a story glorifies God. Only that if I fail to be entertaining, I've already lost that battle no matter how well I execute the rest.
Instead, I allow God to use a story for whatever message He might have for people, even if it is to plant a seed, make someone realize being a Christian doesn't equate with boring, inferior stories, or whatever. Because if my work doesn't get read, whatever messages I have will not be heard.
For me, that does not glorify God. To fulfill that goal, I have to write engaging and entertaining fiction stories.
How do your goals in writing support glorifying God in your stories?
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Show, Don't Tell?
The common writing "rule," show, don't tell, has taken a beating in recent times. When I started writing fiction in 2006, it wasn't long before I heard about the suggested mode of writing. Usually from a critiquer who pointed out I was in telling mode here or there.
But I've noticed there has been a growing backlash to this mode of writing. Why is it being rejected as a valid guideline for new writers to write fiction? I think for the following reasons:
If you've fallen into one of these reactions to the show, don't tell rule, maybe it is time to take a step back and gain a balanced perspective. The last group may find this the hardest to do, so let's look first at why one needs to show in fiction, instead of tell.
Non-fiction conveys information; fiction conveys an experience. Few pick up a work of fiction hoping to learn how to grow a garden or how to change the starter in a car. Not that one can't learn how to do those things from a work of fiction, but that's not the reason most buy a fictional story. They buy a fictional story to be entertained. To be immersed into another person's world and experiences. To see the world from a different set of eyes.
The showing mode of writing is not an efficient means to convey information. This is why non-fiction doesn't use much, if any, showing. Even the stories told in a non-fiction book are told in telling mode, because the point is to illustrate a truth, not have the reader experience another person's life. For instance, you'll note the stories in the Bible are primarily told not shown.
However, to have a reader sink into another person's world, to see from their eyes, showing becomes critical. Telling can't effectively do that. To accomplish its goal, fiction has to be primarily showing, using telling when needed. In short, to experience another person's world, you have to convey to the reader what they are experiencing, not simply what happens to them.
A quick example. This would be telling: "Paul saw the dagger as it sank into him." It conveys the information of what happened to Paul efficiently. It does not convey what Paul experienced.
Showing would be more like this: "Paul saw the sun glint off a blade flashing his direction. He jerked back, but a pain echoed through his nerves, his skin numbed, and warmth flowed down his side, soaking his clothing. His knees buckled as darkness swept over him."
The showing doesn't efficiently convey what happened, but it does efficiently tell you what Paul experienced, thus providing emotional impact. Emotional impact is the key to entertaining fiction. Without showing, there would be little emotion conveyed, and would not be as entertaining as it could be. If a person ditches showing for one of the above reasons, then you need to be honest with yourself. You are writing fiction as if it were non-fiction.
Some will tell me, "But this writer did it effectively." Usually they are pointing to a "classic" written years ago. An omniscient narrator used to be the standard story telling mode, which involved more telling. In that day, an author didn't have to compete with more emotionally engaging stories, so writing in telling mode could still stand out, not to mention the number of published books back then per year was smaller, so easier for a well-told story to stand out.
This is not true today. You are competing with story-tellers who know how to engage their reader's emotions through effective showing. This is why you'll hear if Tolkien were submitting his Lord of the Rings book today, it is unlikely he'd gain a following. By today's standards it has a lot of problems. But you'll notice even in that work, Tolkien does show, even if it is not as much as most authors do today.
So, how does one know when to tell and when to show in fiction? I have the following general guidelines I use once I've finished my first draft and am ready to edit.
How critical is the phrase, sentence, paragraph in the movement of the story and/or character arc? The more important to these goals, the more important it is to show instead of tell.
For instance, let's say we need to get Jane to answer the telephone. The call itself moves the story forward. The ensuing conversation provides a clue to the mystery, but the fact she answers the phone isn't important other than the fact she does it. It isn't something the reader needs to experience for the story to move forward.
Indeed, to show that would likely bore the reader if they read, "A ringing echoed through Jane's head. The phone! It must be him. Her shoes snapped against the wooden floor, creaking the planks under her weight so much she wondered if she would fall through them. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth, black dial phone. A cold plastic greeted her hands. The ringing ceased as she lifted the receiver, lighter than she expected. 'Hello'?"
Unless you are building tension for a big moment/reveal, you're building emotional investment for nothing. People don't notice that level of detail unless it is new or they sense a moment of importance. You're convincing the reader something important is about to happen, and when it doesn't, they'll tend to wonder why the emotional investment was made. If you simply need to tell the reader that she answered the phone, it would be more efficient to say, "The phone rang. 'Hello'?"
To maintain the pacing of your story. Related to the last point, sometimes you need to move your characters from point A to B, but nothing happens during that time which moves the story forward. So to show all the detail of that trip would bore the reader. Reducing the trip down to a handful of descriptive words and a telling summary will keep the pacing of the novel from bogging down into drudgery.
Transitional paragraphs. Often you have a transitional paragraph between scenes that requires moving through a period of time to the next scene were story-moving dialog/action will take place. Like the last reason, it would be pretty boring to show someone on watch all night when nothing happens of significance. A simple, "George struggled to fight off sleep until the first rays of dawn arrived and Henry arrived to relieve him," gets the reader quickly through an otherwise uneventful time frame with little loss of interest.
Dialog. It is rare that you hear someone talking in showing mode. When is the last time you heard someone describe their reaction to a joke like this: "My gut tightened. I squeezed my lips tight in hopes of blocking the impending spray of coffee from my mouth. But the pressure grew to the point of shoving my lips apart. Hot liquid careened into his face." No, instead you're more likely to hear, "I laughed so hard I spewed coffee all over him."
Dialog is predominately telling. Leave the showing for the narration if you don't want unnatural dialog littering your story. Included in this is a character telling a story to another. Unless the story goes into a full flashback, in-story mode, a story told by a character in the story would tend to be more telling than showing, unless they were attempting to dramatize it.
Non-fiction. If you are writing non-fiction, one naturally uses telling mode to communicate information effectively. But there are times in fiction where a writer may want to convey some information. Back story is often given in more telling mode, often by a character. Dishing out back story needs to be in short bursts, on a need-to-know basis. You don't want long paragraphs of back story, so you don't want to show it unless there is a good reason to do so. When you need to convey information, a telling mode gets the job done much quicker.
Creating emotional distance. There are times a writer may need to create emotional distance. Especially if it is something that the point of view character is not that emotionally invested in or you want to minimize the impact on the reader. For instance, if you have a rape scene, to minimize any emotional reactions from readers who have gone through it, it could be told instead of shown.
One could come up with other instances of using telling instead of showing, but if you want your scenes to have emotional impact, in-the-story feel, you need to ensure important story-moving segments are shown instead of merely told. The uniqueness of reading a story is the immersion into another's experience, another's thoughts, another's worldview. Movies can't easily accomplish this. If you fail to take advantage of this strength in your stories for one of the reasons listed at the beginning, you'll shortchange the reader, and not give them a reason to read the next book, much less finish the one in their hands.
Do you think some of the negative attitudes toward show, don't tell are a valid reaction or an over-reaction?
But I've noticed there has been a growing backlash to this mode of writing. Why is it being rejected as a valid guideline for new writers to write fiction? I think for the following reasons:
- Extreme usage in critique groups. One such person attempted to tell me that one should have no telling in fiction, everything had to be shown. So he would point out any telling, and appeared to refuse to offer any other constructive feedback until I "fixed" this one issue. If a person encounters too many like that, it is easy to overreact to the opposite extreme and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- Show, don't tell is the answer to every issue. Related to the above, some critiquers go overboard to using show, don't tell for the solution to any number of unrelated writing problems. Writers hearing "You're not showing here, just telling," when addressing a character's dialog only shows they don't know what they are talking about, using the rule as a crutch because they don't know what else to say. Enough of those, and a writer is tempted to ditch the rule as lame simply because they encounter people who are using it lamely.
- Hate any perceived rules. Some folk are just anti-rule. Any perceived guideline that says one should do X, Y, or Z in writing automatically gets push back. "I'll show them" attitude prevails. Especially true if the person gets someone saying you always have to do it this way if you want to keep a reader's attention.
- Lazy writers not looking to improve. Some writers don't care. They just want to write a story and have everyone praise them. They aren't looking for critiques. They don't want to know how to improve their writing. They feel what comes natural to them is correct for them, and any effort to write differently is artificial. So they don't gain the writing skills through practice, including knowing when and how to show instead of tell.
If you've fallen into one of these reactions to the show, don't tell rule, maybe it is time to take a step back and gain a balanced perspective. The last group may find this the hardest to do, so let's look first at why one needs to show in fiction, instead of tell.
Non-fiction conveys information; fiction conveys an experience. Few pick up a work of fiction hoping to learn how to grow a garden or how to change the starter in a car. Not that one can't learn how to do those things from a work of fiction, but that's not the reason most buy a fictional story. They buy a fictional story to be entertained. To be immersed into another person's world and experiences. To see the world from a different set of eyes.
The showing mode of writing is not an efficient means to convey information. This is why non-fiction doesn't use much, if any, showing. Even the stories told in a non-fiction book are told in telling mode, because the point is to illustrate a truth, not have the reader experience another person's life. For instance, you'll note the stories in the Bible are primarily told not shown.
However, to have a reader sink into another person's world, to see from their eyes, showing becomes critical. Telling can't effectively do that. To accomplish its goal, fiction has to be primarily showing, using telling when needed. In short, to experience another person's world, you have to convey to the reader what they are experiencing, not simply what happens to them.
A quick example. This would be telling: "Paul saw the dagger as it sank into him." It conveys the information of what happened to Paul efficiently. It does not convey what Paul experienced.
Showing would be more like this: "Paul saw the sun glint off a blade flashing his direction. He jerked back, but a pain echoed through his nerves, his skin numbed, and warmth flowed down his side, soaking his clothing. His knees buckled as darkness swept over him."
The showing doesn't efficiently convey what happened, but it does efficiently tell you what Paul experienced, thus providing emotional impact. Emotional impact is the key to entertaining fiction. Without showing, there would be little emotion conveyed, and would not be as entertaining as it could be. If a person ditches showing for one of the above reasons, then you need to be honest with yourself. You are writing fiction as if it were non-fiction.
Some will tell me, "But this writer did it effectively." Usually they are pointing to a "classic" written years ago. An omniscient narrator used to be the standard story telling mode, which involved more telling. In that day, an author didn't have to compete with more emotionally engaging stories, so writing in telling mode could still stand out, not to mention the number of published books back then per year was smaller, so easier for a well-told story to stand out.
This is not true today. You are competing with story-tellers who know how to engage their reader's emotions through effective showing. This is why you'll hear if Tolkien were submitting his Lord of the Rings book today, it is unlikely he'd gain a following. By today's standards it has a lot of problems. But you'll notice even in that work, Tolkien does show, even if it is not as much as most authors do today.
So, how does one know when to tell and when to show in fiction? I have the following general guidelines I use once I've finished my first draft and am ready to edit.
How critical is the phrase, sentence, paragraph in the movement of the story and/or character arc? The more important to these goals, the more important it is to show instead of tell.
For instance, let's say we need to get Jane to answer the telephone. The call itself moves the story forward. The ensuing conversation provides a clue to the mystery, but the fact she answers the phone isn't important other than the fact she does it. It isn't something the reader needs to experience for the story to move forward.
Indeed, to show that would likely bore the reader if they read, "A ringing echoed through Jane's head. The phone! It must be him. Her shoes snapped against the wooden floor, creaking the planks under her weight so much she wondered if she would fall through them. She wrapped her fingers around the smooth, black dial phone. A cold plastic greeted her hands. The ringing ceased as she lifted the receiver, lighter than she expected. 'Hello'?"
Unless you are building tension for a big moment/reveal, you're building emotional investment for nothing. People don't notice that level of detail unless it is new or they sense a moment of importance. You're convincing the reader something important is about to happen, and when it doesn't, they'll tend to wonder why the emotional investment was made. If you simply need to tell the reader that she answered the phone, it would be more efficient to say, "The phone rang. 'Hello'?"
To maintain the pacing of your story. Related to the last point, sometimes you need to move your characters from point A to B, but nothing happens during that time which moves the story forward. So to show all the detail of that trip would bore the reader. Reducing the trip down to a handful of descriptive words and a telling summary will keep the pacing of the novel from bogging down into drudgery.
Transitional paragraphs. Often you have a transitional paragraph between scenes that requires moving through a period of time to the next scene were story-moving dialog/action will take place. Like the last reason, it would be pretty boring to show someone on watch all night when nothing happens of significance. A simple, "George struggled to fight off sleep until the first rays of dawn arrived and Henry arrived to relieve him," gets the reader quickly through an otherwise uneventful time frame with little loss of interest.
Dialog. It is rare that you hear someone talking in showing mode. When is the last time you heard someone describe their reaction to a joke like this: "My gut tightened. I squeezed my lips tight in hopes of blocking the impending spray of coffee from my mouth. But the pressure grew to the point of shoving my lips apart. Hot liquid careened into his face." No, instead you're more likely to hear, "I laughed so hard I spewed coffee all over him."
Dialog is predominately telling. Leave the showing for the narration if you don't want unnatural dialog littering your story. Included in this is a character telling a story to another. Unless the story goes into a full flashback, in-story mode, a story told by a character in the story would tend to be more telling than showing, unless they were attempting to dramatize it.
Non-fiction. If you are writing non-fiction, one naturally uses telling mode to communicate information effectively. But there are times in fiction where a writer may want to convey some information. Back story is often given in more telling mode, often by a character. Dishing out back story needs to be in short bursts, on a need-to-know basis. You don't want long paragraphs of back story, so you don't want to show it unless there is a good reason to do so. When you need to convey information, a telling mode gets the job done much quicker.
Creating emotional distance. There are times a writer may need to create emotional distance. Especially if it is something that the point of view character is not that emotionally invested in or you want to minimize the impact on the reader. For instance, if you have a rape scene, to minimize any emotional reactions from readers who have gone through it, it could be told instead of shown.
One could come up with other instances of using telling instead of showing, but if you want your scenes to have emotional impact, in-the-story feel, you need to ensure important story-moving segments are shown instead of merely told. The uniqueness of reading a story is the immersion into another's experience, another's thoughts, another's worldview. Movies can't easily accomplish this. If you fail to take advantage of this strength in your stories for one of the reasons listed at the beginning, you'll shortchange the reader, and not give them a reason to read the next book, much less finish the one in their hands.
Do you think some of the negative attitudes toward show, don't tell are a valid reaction or an over-reaction?
Monday, February 4, 2013
Sex Sells
We all know it. That title alone probably brought you here. It has become common place in many movies to have a sex scene or two. Many books, especially in the general market, have them. Some more descriptive than others.
The Christian market's response appears to be "don't indicate it happens at all." Even in the romance novels, hints that a couple have had sex, even when married, are absent. The buyers of those books read them primarily because they don't have to worry about running into a sex scene, among other "naughty" things.
Somewhere in the middle is a group of writers who want to offer a more "realistic" but not "erotic" set of stories. Show that it happens, but not end up writing erotic porn into their stories. I've seen various views presented, including those in the past on Mike Duran's blog to most recently in a series of articles on the Speculative Faith blog about Vox Day's new book, Throne of Bones, published by an imprint of Marcher Lord Press.
I'd sum them up like this:
No show. Among those willing to go further than nothing, one group doesn't mind indicating it happened or is about to happen, but don't show anything about it. Perhaps the most you're likely to get is kissing and holding hands. Then a statement, if any, that he took her to his bed. The rest you fill in for yourself. Scene break, and you are on the other side of the event. Note: this is what one might refer to as the Biblical model, since this is how the Bible tends to speak of a couple who has had sex.
Stop short. That is, more showing is done to indicate where this is headed. Some heavy petting, maybe touching in more suggestive ways, but the scene cuts away before anything too erotic-like happens. Maybe a telling statement tacked onto the end, but usually not. It is real obvious what happens after that. This is more natural for fiction in that if one is going to show it, then it comes across as more realistic. The "no show" method can appear like someone is purposefully avoiding it and coming across unrealistic. After all, the Bible isn't fiction, and mostly tells rather than shows.
Crack open the door. In this version, the reader follows the characters into the sexual act, but very scant detail is given or more allegorical terms are used. It might be as brief as "he pulled her under the sheets and enjoyed his wife's love." This would use language more like that found in The Song of Solomon. One must keep in mind, however, that the Song of Solomon isn't describing a specific encounter, but is more a teaching on faithfulness to one's spouse, and therefore to God. It isn't going there to tell a story, but to instruct readers.
The primary issues with both the "stop short" and "crack the door open" models is where is the cut off point? At what action in the "stop short" method have we crossed over into a lead up to sex and are getting into the act itself? Once you crack the door open, how far is too far before it becomes erotica?
Some of these can be "gray" areas. For instance, in my novel Reality's Fire, I used the "stop short" method for showing that a married couple who have been apart for a long time were about to have sex. I had them involved in some semi-heavy petting right before cutting away. One of the last actions I had written was him running his hand along her thigh. My editor felt that crossed a line. I was okay cutting it, even though for me, it seemed minor. But that represents that gray area. Some draw the line slightly differently.
That said, it is easier to draw a line with that method than the latter. Certain actions will obviously be crossing that line. If I'd had him groping intimate parts of her body rather than sliding a hand along her thigh, there is no doubt we would have cracked the door open and followed them into a sex act. There is some gray area, but not a lot. Only on the boarder between heavy petting and sexual acts. Most people will know the difference.
But the "cracking the door open" method has its problems in there is no well defined boundary when one has gone too far. Some will find any description of a sex act, no matter how medical, allegorical, or brief, to be too much. Such an intimate act is reserved only for the couple, and to crack open the door on the bedroom is invading their privacy and causing the reader to be voyeuristic.
Some might accept my brief example above as fine, but balk at referring to any body parts, or touching any of them. Others are fine with the body parts or touching, but any descriptive words that convey emotions or feelings would put them into erotica-land. Each person would have different boundaries as to what is too much. So, it is much harder to write with that method and not cross lines.
One also has to consider the unique nature of this act. Unlike a lot of other things: violence, greed, gossiping, eating ice cream, etc., a couple in bed together is an intimate act. Few of us would (or should) feel comfortable sitting in a chair watching their married friends have sex.
Most of us, sitting with the family watching a movie, will feel real uncomfortable when a hot sex scene comes up. "Don't look kids!" But if we are in the room alone, a different feeling arises. Suddenly it is okay, because we're adults and can handle these things. But is it any different, really? When reading about it in a book, are the mental images it creates any less voyeuristic?
The key for me is based upon the following guidelines in my own writing:
Is it gratuitous? That is, does the scene further the plot and/or characters or is it tacked on adding little to the plot? This can be a fuzzy line. What may not be to me could be to an editor or reader.
For instance, the above mentioned sex scene, to me it would have come across as unrealistic to not have that there (more on that in a moment). Removing it and the consequences of that act would have drastically changed what happens. So some case could be made that it furthered the plot. But I could have left that out, even though it would have created a gaping hole. As a sub-plot, it wasn't essential to the main plot. But the initial reason I put it in there is it would have felt extremely unnatural to ignore it based on the circumstances in the scene. Some, however, may conclude the scene was gratuitous. For me, it had a distinct purpose in furthering the story, so it wasn't gratuitous.
Does it promote a sinful lifestyle? When take as a whole story, does a sinful encounter, and this goes for showing all sinful actions, not just immoral sex, give the appearance of endorsing that sin? I've said before: It isn't where a story starts that makes it Christian, but where it ends. I have no problem showing sin, but its negative consequences and moral failure should be shown as well. Otherwise, I'm not being realistic within a Christian world view.
Does it end up drawing the reader into reading pornography? For me, whether an affection can be done in public or not is the key. What happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom. Even for fictional characters. Strictly speaking, when the actions and descriptions move into experiencing a sexual act, it becomes pornographic. Once you've gone there, you've drawn the reader into sin, not just observing it. If it would be sinful to watch in real life, so should it be in fictional life.
Is it realistic? Hold on before you jump on that and let me explain. I'm not one to suggest because people do it, we need to show our characters doing it all the time. That would be violating the gratuitous rule. For the same reason we don't show our characters going to the bathroom very often, or taking a bath, or think all the random and meaningless thoughts that go through our heads everyday. Why? Because we'd have one ultra boring book on our hands, and it would take a mega-volume to write it that way.
No, fictional stories are very unrealistic. Few people are put through what most fictional characters endure. How many times in your life have you saved Earth from annihilation? You would have multiple times if you were the Doctor (Doctor Who). If everything that happened to Sisko, my protag in Reality's Dawn, had happened to me, I'd be in a mental ward. Not riding off into the sunset to my next adventure.
But despite that, we give stories the appearance of realism. What destroys that isn't failing to include every bit of realistic activities possible, but to include any that would destroy the illusion of realism. Big difference there. That's why I said to have a husband and wife who have been apart for months, suddenly be together again for a short time and avoid thinking about sex would have broken that sense of realism. It would be expected in that situation. To not go there would have felt artificial.
So I wouldn't include those things to be realistic, but I would to maintain realism in the story.
The issue for me in moving from "stop short" to "crack the door open" is in necessity. Rare would be the plot, short of writing an erotica book, that would require us to follow a couple into the sex act. It is enough to know that it happened whether through telling or cutting away. Much beyond that is venturing into pornography.
Where are the lines you draw as a reader? As a writer? If you are both, do they differ?
The Christian market's response appears to be "don't indicate it happens at all." Even in the romance novels, hints that a couple have had sex, even when married, are absent. The buyers of those books read them primarily because they don't have to worry about running into a sex scene, among other "naughty" things.
Somewhere in the middle is a group of writers who want to offer a more "realistic" but not "erotic" set of stories. Show that it happens, but not end up writing erotic porn into their stories. I've seen various views presented, including those in the past on Mike Duran's blog to most recently in a series of articles on the Speculative Faith blog about Vox Day's new book, Throne of Bones, published by an imprint of Marcher Lord Press.
I'd sum them up like this:
No show. Among those willing to go further than nothing, one group doesn't mind indicating it happened or is about to happen, but don't show anything about it. Perhaps the most you're likely to get is kissing and holding hands. Then a statement, if any, that he took her to his bed. The rest you fill in for yourself. Scene break, and you are on the other side of the event. Note: this is what one might refer to as the Biblical model, since this is how the Bible tends to speak of a couple who has had sex.
Stop short. That is, more showing is done to indicate where this is headed. Some heavy petting, maybe touching in more suggestive ways, but the scene cuts away before anything too erotic-like happens. Maybe a telling statement tacked onto the end, but usually not. It is real obvious what happens after that. This is more natural for fiction in that if one is going to show it, then it comes across as more realistic. The "no show" method can appear like someone is purposefully avoiding it and coming across unrealistic. After all, the Bible isn't fiction, and mostly tells rather than shows.
Crack open the door. In this version, the reader follows the characters into the sexual act, but very scant detail is given or more allegorical terms are used. It might be as brief as "he pulled her under the sheets and enjoyed his wife's love." This would use language more like that found in The Song of Solomon. One must keep in mind, however, that the Song of Solomon isn't describing a specific encounter, but is more a teaching on faithfulness to one's spouse, and therefore to God. It isn't going there to tell a story, but to instruct readers.
The primary issues with both the "stop short" and "crack the door open" models is where is the cut off point? At what action in the "stop short" method have we crossed over into a lead up to sex and are getting into the act itself? Once you crack the door open, how far is too far before it becomes erotica?
Some of these can be "gray" areas. For instance, in my novel Reality's Fire, I used the "stop short" method for showing that a married couple who have been apart for a long time were about to have sex. I had them involved in some semi-heavy petting right before cutting away. One of the last actions I had written was him running his hand along her thigh. My editor felt that crossed a line. I was okay cutting it, even though for me, it seemed minor. But that represents that gray area. Some draw the line slightly differently.
That said, it is easier to draw a line with that method than the latter. Certain actions will obviously be crossing that line. If I'd had him groping intimate parts of her body rather than sliding a hand along her thigh, there is no doubt we would have cracked the door open and followed them into a sex act. There is some gray area, but not a lot. Only on the boarder between heavy petting and sexual acts. Most people will know the difference.
But the "cracking the door open" method has its problems in there is no well defined boundary when one has gone too far. Some will find any description of a sex act, no matter how medical, allegorical, or brief, to be too much. Such an intimate act is reserved only for the couple, and to crack open the door on the bedroom is invading their privacy and causing the reader to be voyeuristic.
Some might accept my brief example above as fine, but balk at referring to any body parts, or touching any of them. Others are fine with the body parts or touching, but any descriptive words that convey emotions or feelings would put them into erotica-land. Each person would have different boundaries as to what is too much. So, it is much harder to write with that method and not cross lines.
One also has to consider the unique nature of this act. Unlike a lot of other things: violence, greed, gossiping, eating ice cream, etc., a couple in bed together is an intimate act. Few of us would (or should) feel comfortable sitting in a chair watching their married friends have sex.
Most of us, sitting with the family watching a movie, will feel real uncomfortable when a hot sex scene comes up. "Don't look kids!" But if we are in the room alone, a different feeling arises. Suddenly it is okay, because we're adults and can handle these things. But is it any different, really? When reading about it in a book, are the mental images it creates any less voyeuristic?
The key for me is based upon the following guidelines in my own writing:
Is it gratuitous? That is, does the scene further the plot and/or characters or is it tacked on adding little to the plot? This can be a fuzzy line. What may not be to me could be to an editor or reader.
For instance, the above mentioned sex scene, to me it would have come across as unrealistic to not have that there (more on that in a moment). Removing it and the consequences of that act would have drastically changed what happens. So some case could be made that it furthered the plot. But I could have left that out, even though it would have created a gaping hole. As a sub-plot, it wasn't essential to the main plot. But the initial reason I put it in there is it would have felt extremely unnatural to ignore it based on the circumstances in the scene. Some, however, may conclude the scene was gratuitous. For me, it had a distinct purpose in furthering the story, so it wasn't gratuitous.
Does it promote a sinful lifestyle? When take as a whole story, does a sinful encounter, and this goes for showing all sinful actions, not just immoral sex, give the appearance of endorsing that sin? I've said before: It isn't where a story starts that makes it Christian, but where it ends. I have no problem showing sin, but its negative consequences and moral failure should be shown as well. Otherwise, I'm not being realistic within a Christian world view.
Does it end up drawing the reader into reading pornography? For me, whether an affection can be done in public or not is the key. What happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom. Even for fictional characters. Strictly speaking, when the actions and descriptions move into experiencing a sexual act, it becomes pornographic. Once you've gone there, you've drawn the reader into sin, not just observing it. If it would be sinful to watch in real life, so should it be in fictional life.
Is it realistic? Hold on before you jump on that and let me explain. I'm not one to suggest because people do it, we need to show our characters doing it all the time. That would be violating the gratuitous rule. For the same reason we don't show our characters going to the bathroom very often, or taking a bath, or think all the random and meaningless thoughts that go through our heads everyday. Why? Because we'd have one ultra boring book on our hands, and it would take a mega-volume to write it that way.
No, fictional stories are very unrealistic. Few people are put through what most fictional characters endure. How many times in your life have you saved Earth from annihilation? You would have multiple times if you were the Doctor (Doctor Who). If everything that happened to Sisko, my protag in Reality's Dawn, had happened to me, I'd be in a mental ward. Not riding off into the sunset to my next adventure.
But despite that, we give stories the appearance of realism. What destroys that isn't failing to include every bit of realistic activities possible, but to include any that would destroy the illusion of realism. Big difference there. That's why I said to have a husband and wife who have been apart for months, suddenly be together again for a short time and avoid thinking about sex would have broken that sense of realism. It would be expected in that situation. To not go there would have felt artificial.
So I wouldn't include those things to be realistic, but I would to maintain realism in the story.
The issue for me in moving from "stop short" to "crack the door open" is in necessity. Rare would be the plot, short of writing an erotica book, that would require us to follow a couple into the sex act. It is enough to know that it happened whether through telling or cutting away. Much beyond that is venturing into pornography.
Where are the lines you draw as a reader? As a writer? If you are both, do they differ?
Friday, June 29, 2012
What Do Readers Want?
If you've read my blog post on the "7 Common Pitfalls of Critiquers," you know one of them is when people assume they can speak for what readers want. You might hear a comment like, "If you don't fix that info dump on the first page, readers will never get to page two before closing the book and putting it back on the shelf." But such a comment is a ploy to add more authority to someone's opinion than telling the truth. Because the only thing a critiquer can really give you is what they would do, not what most readers are going to do, or even a minor subset of them.
No one can speak for the readers. If anyone knew what the readers would like, they'd be rich. Because they could start a publishing company and only pick bestselling books to publish. Doesn't happen. If editors at big publishing houses can't predict that, who do it for a living, no critiquer will be able to predict what a reader is going to like.
So am I saying there are no standards in writing? That anything goes? Yes and no. Mike Duran, a writer friend I respect a lot, has made the case that there should be standards of excellence in writing. And there is a certain level of professionalism and quality that is to be expected. While most people can handle a typo here or there, for instance, if a book is littered with them, it makes the story hard to read. There probably aren't going to be a lot of readers that do like that. If such a story succeeds, it will be in spite of the typos, not because of them, and if they are that prevalent, they do throw a hurdle to a writer succeeding.
There are writing skills that tend to work more often than not. Elements of writing that will hinder more than help. Yet, Mike has also backed off a hard line on that as well. Quality, while there is some "objective" standards, isn't a hard line in the sand either. Some will disagree on certain standards, and you'll find popular writers who have violated them and been successful anyway.
In the end, what is success? Getting published? Having an agent? A literary award? Acclaim by the literary community? Or readers buying, talking about, and loving your novel? Your answer to that will determine your standards. Because each of those groups wants and looks for different things. An agent wants to know what they can sell to an editor. An editor wants to know what they can sell to the readers. An award looks at the perfection of craft. The literary critic will look for the literary merit. But readers, what do they want? They simply want to be entertained.
Sure, some of the readers enjoy learning new things, seeing new perspectives, discovering new words, marveling at the lyrical quality of the prose, or any other number of items. But what it boils down to is they want to be entertained. "I don't care about plot, but love reading lyrical prose." Great, then that is what entertains you. "I enjoy witty dialog. As long as the plot is decent, I'm fine." There you go, such a book would entertain you. "I want action and adventure and suspense." So such a book would entertain you, where the previous two types would not. "If I see a plot hole, I can't suspend disbelief any longer and it ruins the story." Fine, that ruins the story for you. Why, because you can no longer be entertained when that happens.
Getting the idea here? Every reader has their definition of what is or isn't entertaining to them. And no one reader is the same. Success comes when you write something that a good number of people find entertaining. And no one formula, no "standard" is going to accomplish that. If you are one of those people for whom two or three typos in a novel ruin your enjoyment of it, all you can tell a writer is that it ruined it for you, but not the readers. If a plot hole messes with your enjoyment, you can only speak for yourself, not all the readers out there.
**SPOILER ALERT** Take, for example, the Star Trek prequel reboot movie that came out not long ago. That movie was littered with plot holes big enough to drive the Enterprise through. I mean, a ship that has to drop a drilling laser on a chain from orbit into into the atmosphere of Vulcan (which in itself would be a physical impossibility unless the ship could "orbit" at the same speed as the planet's rotation through some anti-gravity drive, which was never proposed), take the time to drill a hole to the core of the planet, and drop a substance that will destroy the planet—come on! How impractical is that? Meanwhile, the Vulcans, who were warping around the galaxy way before humans in Star Trek lore, run screaming and hiding as if they have no space ship or even atmospheric vehicle in which to put up a defense of their world. All they would have had to do is what Spock did toward the end. Fly a ship to that drill and shoot it off it's chain. Game over. The movie would have ended in thirty minutes.
And the idea of people "jumping" from an orbiting space ship and falling straight down into the atmosphere (without being fried by reentry) would never happen. You don't fall straight down, rather they would have orbited the planet themselves for several weeks before they lost enough orbiting speed to descend to the planet. They would have had to have had some kind of thrusters to halt their orbiting and fall straight down. And then they would have not been able to stay with the ship which would have continued to orbit the planet. What they showed on the screen was simply an impossible scenario, and the whole premise was one giant, huge, plot hole. ** SPOILER ALERT OVER **
But guess what? People loved it. They went to see it in droves. I loved it. It did well enough at the box office that they are making a new one, probably just as plot-hole laden as the first. Why? Because it was entertaining to most people. They loved the characters. That the story was full of plot holes didn't matter to them. It didn't cause them to not enjoy it. I'm sure some people may have even walked out of the theater in disgust upon seeing it. Those plot holes totally ruined it for them. Or they saw it as fluff, shallow, not worth the money. But they were in the minority, apparently.
Did that mean they were wrong? Should the writers of that movie have fixed the plot holes? They probably should have. If they had the time, maybe they would have. They had deadlines. A lot of the issues I pointed out could be fixed by adding some technology (force fields for reentry, thrusters to maintain fall direction and speed, etc.). But they did get what they had to get right. And that was telling an entertaining story. Apparently plot holes are not at the top of that list for most people. If they like the story and characters, they will ignore the other stuff.
Which goes to the issue of how we approach writing as entertainers of the word. Do we correct that info dump on page 2? Do we worry about that plot hole our critique partner discovered? Do we have standards? Or do we ignore that stuff and only focus on what we think will be entertaining?
How about both? The real issue is we sometimes want to tinker and tinker with a story. You never get it perfect. Every time I read through my story, I find new typos, issues I failed to see before that need fixing, word choices that could be better, confusing structures that need clarifying. I don't think I've ever had the experience of reading through a novel I'd written without finding something that needed fixing. And usually, when I read the published novel, I'll see new things that should have been caught and corrected. You never can get it perfect, and you'll spend years of your life on one story if you try. And in the end, you may have sacrificed entertainment value for perfection.
So I liked the way Kristine Kathryn Rusch put it in a recent blog post titled "Perfection." The question isn't whether I can meet a certain standard or perfection set by critics, an editor, or whoever, but:
Check out her post (after you've finished here and left a comment, of course!) It is highly recommended reading.
So, what do readers want? To be entertained. And due to the varied taste and expectations out there, there is no one formula for achieving that. What entertains me may not be entertaining to a lot of other people. Likewise, what doesn't entertain me may be a hot seller if made available to the general public. What trips the story up where I can't enjoy it, most others couldn't give a rat's behind about. So don't let anyone tell you they know if you don't do X, Y, or Z, then readers will not buy your book. It only means that person wouldn't buy your book. Whether they represent a majority of readers is a totally different story. And one other hint, writers tend to get tripped up on craft issues when reading stories much more than most readers do.
What story have you been keeping in the drawer because you are afraid to send it out, warts and all?
No one can speak for the readers. If anyone knew what the readers would like, they'd be rich. Because they could start a publishing company and only pick bestselling books to publish. Doesn't happen. If editors at big publishing houses can't predict that, who do it for a living, no critiquer will be able to predict what a reader is going to like.
So am I saying there are no standards in writing? That anything goes? Yes and no. Mike Duran, a writer friend I respect a lot, has made the case that there should be standards of excellence in writing. And there is a certain level of professionalism and quality that is to be expected. While most people can handle a typo here or there, for instance, if a book is littered with them, it makes the story hard to read. There probably aren't going to be a lot of readers that do like that. If such a story succeeds, it will be in spite of the typos, not because of them, and if they are that prevalent, they do throw a hurdle to a writer succeeding.
There are writing skills that tend to work more often than not. Elements of writing that will hinder more than help. Yet, Mike has also backed off a hard line on that as well. Quality, while there is some "objective" standards, isn't a hard line in the sand either. Some will disagree on certain standards, and you'll find popular writers who have violated them and been successful anyway.
In the end, what is success? Getting published? Having an agent? A literary award? Acclaim by the literary community? Or readers buying, talking about, and loving your novel? Your answer to that will determine your standards. Because each of those groups wants and looks for different things. An agent wants to know what they can sell to an editor. An editor wants to know what they can sell to the readers. An award looks at the perfection of craft. The literary critic will look for the literary merit. But readers, what do they want? They simply want to be entertained.
Sure, some of the readers enjoy learning new things, seeing new perspectives, discovering new words, marveling at the lyrical quality of the prose, or any other number of items. But what it boils down to is they want to be entertained. "I don't care about plot, but love reading lyrical prose." Great, then that is what entertains you. "I enjoy witty dialog. As long as the plot is decent, I'm fine." There you go, such a book would entertain you. "I want action and adventure and suspense." So such a book would entertain you, where the previous two types would not. "If I see a plot hole, I can't suspend disbelief any longer and it ruins the story." Fine, that ruins the story for you. Why, because you can no longer be entertained when that happens.
Getting the idea here? Every reader has their definition of what is or isn't entertaining to them. And no one reader is the same. Success comes when you write something that a good number of people find entertaining. And no one formula, no "standard" is going to accomplish that. If you are one of those people for whom two or three typos in a novel ruin your enjoyment of it, all you can tell a writer is that it ruined it for you, but not the readers. If a plot hole messes with your enjoyment, you can only speak for yourself, not all the readers out there.
**SPOILER ALERT** Take, for example, the Star Trek prequel reboot movie that came out not long ago. That movie was littered with plot holes big enough to drive the Enterprise through. I mean, a ship that has to drop a drilling laser on a chain from orbit into into the atmosphere of Vulcan (which in itself would be a physical impossibility unless the ship could "orbit" at the same speed as the planet's rotation through some anti-gravity drive, which was never proposed), take the time to drill a hole to the core of the planet, and drop a substance that will destroy the planet—come on! How impractical is that? Meanwhile, the Vulcans, who were warping around the galaxy way before humans in Star Trek lore, run screaming and hiding as if they have no space ship or even atmospheric vehicle in which to put up a defense of their world. All they would have had to do is what Spock did toward the end. Fly a ship to that drill and shoot it off it's chain. Game over. The movie would have ended in thirty minutes.
And the idea of people "jumping" from an orbiting space ship and falling straight down into the atmosphere (without being fried by reentry) would never happen. You don't fall straight down, rather they would have orbited the planet themselves for several weeks before they lost enough orbiting speed to descend to the planet. They would have had to have had some kind of thrusters to halt their orbiting and fall straight down. And then they would have not been able to stay with the ship which would have continued to orbit the planet. What they showed on the screen was simply an impossible scenario, and the whole premise was one giant, huge, plot hole. ** SPOILER ALERT OVER **
But guess what? People loved it. They went to see it in droves. I loved it. It did well enough at the box office that they are making a new one, probably just as plot-hole laden as the first. Why? Because it was entertaining to most people. They loved the characters. That the story was full of plot holes didn't matter to them. It didn't cause them to not enjoy it. I'm sure some people may have even walked out of the theater in disgust upon seeing it. Those plot holes totally ruined it for them. Or they saw it as fluff, shallow, not worth the money. But they were in the minority, apparently.
Did that mean they were wrong? Should the writers of that movie have fixed the plot holes? They probably should have. If they had the time, maybe they would have. They had deadlines. A lot of the issues I pointed out could be fixed by adding some technology (force fields for reentry, thrusters to maintain fall direction and speed, etc.). But they did get what they had to get right. And that was telling an entertaining story. Apparently plot holes are not at the top of that list for most people. If they like the story and characters, they will ignore the other stuff.
Which goes to the issue of how we approach writing as entertainers of the word. Do we correct that info dump on page 2? Do we worry about that plot hole our critique partner discovered? Do we have standards? Or do we ignore that stuff and only focus on what we think will be entertaining?
How about both? The real issue is we sometimes want to tinker and tinker with a story. You never get it perfect. Every time I read through my story, I find new typos, issues I failed to see before that need fixing, word choices that could be better, confusing structures that need clarifying. I don't think I've ever had the experience of reading through a novel I'd written without finding something that needed fixing. And usually, when I read the published novel, I'll see new things that should have been caught and corrected. You never can get it perfect, and you'll spend years of your life on one story if you try. And in the end, you may have sacrificed entertainment value for perfection.
So I liked the way Kristine Kathryn Rusch put it in a recent blog post titled "Perfection." The question isn't whether I can meet a certain standard or perfection set by critics, an editor, or whoever, but:
A better question is, “How do I make the book the best it can be?” That you have to answer for yourself....Writers who are always improving, always learning, move forward. They are secure in the knowledge that the book they wrote ten years ago is the best book it could have been given their level of craft and their understanding of the art of writing at the time they finished the book. They’re better now, so they write new things, explore new pathways.
Check out her post (after you've finished here and left a comment, of course!) It is highly recommended reading.
So, what do readers want? To be entertained. And due to the varied taste and expectations out there, there is no one formula for achieving that. What entertains me may not be entertaining to a lot of other people. Likewise, what doesn't entertain me may be a hot seller if made available to the general public. What trips the story up where I can't enjoy it, most others couldn't give a rat's behind about. So don't let anyone tell you they know if you don't do X, Y, or Z, then readers will not buy your book. It only means that person wouldn't buy your book. Whether they represent a majority of readers is a totally different story. And one other hint, writers tend to get tripped up on craft issues when reading stories much more than most readers do.
What story have you been keeping in the drawer because you are afraid to send it out, warts and all?
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
So You Want to be a Writer?
There are not too many careers that most everyone thinks they can do just as well as the "professionals." Theology is one. How many self-proclaimed theologians are out there who have never studied theologians of the past to know what mistakes to avoid, what downsides there are to any one position, etc.? And yet, someone who has read their Bible a couple of times will decide they know as much as someone who has studied it all their life.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when the professionals get it dead wrong. They can end up relying upon their creative thinking ability more than the facts, and come up with some really harebrained ideas. But I can guarantee you that the number of harebrained ideas among amateur theologians is much, much bigger.
Being an author tends to be one of those career choices. We see someone rise to stardom among authors and what is the general consensus? They got lucky. Fate smiled upon them. And it seems even more that way when you look at some bestsellers who are generally lambasted for their poor writing skills. People read it and think, "I could do better."
Lester Del Ray also said that, many times. And his girlfriend at the time grew tired of him saying that, and challenged him to write a story and send it in. If it got published, he could keep saying that, if it didn't, then he had to shut up. So he took the challenge and wrote his first short story, and sent it to a magazine. Even he didn't really expect it to get published, but one day a check arrived in the mail for $40.00 (my first sale was for $10.00 over 50 years later...where's that inflation everyone talks about?) Thus launched his career. But it wasn't a straight shot upwards. He struggled to get another one published for some time, and at one point quit writing, coming back to it after a period of time. But at some point, he began selling his work and it grew from there.
While you may get lucky and sell the first time out, or you may have a voice that is compelling on the first novel, the odds of that happening to any one writer is worse than most state lotteries. People tend to think they can one day say to themselves, "Hey, I know enough grammar that I can sit down and write out a story people will be begging me to read, and I'll be rich." Why they think this about writing and not about playing the piano is beyond me. Even after a year of learning to play that instrument, or any instrument, unless there is an artistic prodigy hidden in you, you don't expect to go out on a concert stage and expect people to pay their hard earned money to hear you play. It is the same for being a writer.
So, if you are thinking of being a writer, here are some reality checks for you to consider as you dream of your name on the best seller's list.
1. Expect it to take around a million words of writing before you are writing to a professional level and getting regularly published. And no, rewriting/editing a novel doesn't count. A total rewrite from scratch would. The idea is that for the creative side of your brain to be trained for good story-telling, it has to practice the art of telling a good story. Some get the hang of it earlier, some later. But there are many elements to a good story that a new writer has to master. Elements of a plot, story pacing, characterization, scene setting, weaving in sub-plots, poetic language vs. cliches, and more could be added into the finer points. And we're not even looking at the business end of things, which way too often writers will neglect, thinking their agent will handle everything.
What this means is your first novel is not likely to be good. My first novel is still sitting on my hard drive. I started a total rewrite from scratch because I think the concept is good, but the execution on that first novel, despite the praise from my wife and kids, was very lacking. So it is a waste? No, not at all. It started me on my career path and put in my first 94,000 words of practice. I discovered I could tell a story decently well, but my dialog sucked, and my character motivations and reactions weren't realistic. And I had a lot to learn about point of view. But at the time, my wife had me becoming rich the next year. I was a little more realistic. I figured it would take an additional year at the earliest. But the truth was I had put in the first practice session toward learning how to be a professional writer.
2. It will take for most of us, anywhere from 3 to 7 years to start making any significant money from writing. If you do it right. And that is no guarantee. Many don't ever make much at all. There are many reasons for this. For most, you aren't going to get a lot published until you've practiced enough to write well enough to be published. And once you get published, the amount of money isn't likely to be anything you can live off of, at least at first. It may take a while to build a following, to stand out from the crowd enough to reach the point you can pay some bills from the money that comes in.
3. Be prepared to endure a lot of rejection, criticism, and failure. The only way to learn is to have someone more experienced tell you what you did right and what needs improvement. If you've convinced yourself, like many of the contestants on American Idol, that just because you can put down words on a page they must be genius, and everyone will surely recognize that, you'll feel hurt and defeated or angry that they criticize the pure literary brilliance displayed right before their eyes. They must be jealous of you! Yeah...that's it!
The truth is, for every acceptance you work for, you're likely to have many more rejections. For every novel you self-publish, be prepared for lackluster sales and reviews, if you get any, to lay out your flaws (real or perceived) for the world to see. If you're in this gig for praise, pats on the back, and glory, be aware to get that requires running the gauntlet of scorn and snarkiness first whether from publishers, agents, or readers.
4. On a positive note, you can make a living at this job. Too often, people pain a picture that makes it sound like only a handful of lucky authors can live on writing fiction. By far, the majority of people will not. That's true for anything when it comes to entertainment. The majority of football players don't earn the big dollars or become famous. The majority of actors never make it to the big time. For everyone who has made it, there are multiple people who have tried and given up, often for many of the reasons listed above. They didn't realize what they'd have to do to make a living at this job. It's a competitive field, vying for the attention of readers that your book is worth their time and money.
But, that doesn't mean only a handful of people are able to make a living at this. There are many midlist writers who only write speculative fiction and do quite nicely, up in the realm of 100K a year or more. And I can tell you, they don't do it by putting out one book a year unless they are on the level of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King.
The idea that very few could make a living at this had a little more truth to it in the older days. Days when publishers and agents said you should only put out one book a year, and offered you two to three thousand advance on it. Then you get that sent to you over a three year period, which means you get one thousand a year. If you get another book published the next year, you'll get two thousand. The next, three, and from there, assuming everything stayed the same, you'd be getting a whopping three thousand dollars a year salary! Divide that by the number of hours it took to write and edit three books and you're likely to go get a job at McDonalds, because at least you'll be making minimum wage.
But what if each book wasn't taken out of print but stayed up online forever? What if that book earned around one thousand in royalties a year, and what if you had thirty such books built up over time, by putting out four books a year instead of one? In six year's you'd be earning $24,000. Another six years and you'd have 48,000. And it grows from there. I know not all books are going to sell the same, and all books are not going to earn the same over the life of the book, but you get the point. Traditional publishing sells a book for three to four months, then it goes out of print after several months, means a book doesn't stay on the list making money year after year. Without that buildup of backlist selling regularly, it is very hard to make a living unless you hit it big.
Persistence and producing good stories people will want to read can eventually create a good income one can live on. But it takes a few years of publishing novels. But with persistence, it can be done, and if readers really like what you read and a book catches on, it will speed up the process. But don't expect to be rich overnight. It takes years of hard work, persistence, and love of the craft to reach that point. But it can be reached. Don't let anyone let you think it is pure luck for a select few.
But you may be happy doing it as a side job, earning a little spending cash here and there. That's great. You'll still need to go through the hard work if you want to rise to professional standards, even if you don't expect to live on the money.
But again, the love of telling a story is what carries professional writers onward, despite the obstacles, rejections, delayed gratifications, and hardships. If you jump into the profession aware of these things, there will be less chance for discouragement and giving up down the road.
So, still want to be a writer? Good! May the muse be with you!
Don't get me wrong, there are times when the professionals get it dead wrong. They can end up relying upon their creative thinking ability more than the facts, and come up with some really harebrained ideas. But I can guarantee you that the number of harebrained ideas among amateur theologians is much, much bigger.
Being an author tends to be one of those career choices. We see someone rise to stardom among authors and what is the general consensus? They got lucky. Fate smiled upon them. And it seems even more that way when you look at some bestsellers who are generally lambasted for their poor writing skills. People read it and think, "I could do better."
Lester Del Ray also said that, many times. And his girlfriend at the time grew tired of him saying that, and challenged him to write a story and send it in. If it got published, he could keep saying that, if it didn't, then he had to shut up. So he took the challenge and wrote his first short story, and sent it to a magazine. Even he didn't really expect it to get published, but one day a check arrived in the mail for $40.00 (my first sale was for $10.00 over 50 years later...where's that inflation everyone talks about?) Thus launched his career. But it wasn't a straight shot upwards. He struggled to get another one published for some time, and at one point quit writing, coming back to it after a period of time. But at some point, he began selling his work and it grew from there.
While you may get lucky and sell the first time out, or you may have a voice that is compelling on the first novel, the odds of that happening to any one writer is worse than most state lotteries. People tend to think they can one day say to themselves, "Hey, I know enough grammar that I can sit down and write out a story people will be begging me to read, and I'll be rich." Why they think this about writing and not about playing the piano is beyond me. Even after a year of learning to play that instrument, or any instrument, unless there is an artistic prodigy hidden in you, you don't expect to go out on a concert stage and expect people to pay their hard earned money to hear you play. It is the same for being a writer.
So, if you are thinking of being a writer, here are some reality checks for you to consider as you dream of your name on the best seller's list.
1. Expect it to take around a million words of writing before you are writing to a professional level and getting regularly published. And no, rewriting/editing a novel doesn't count. A total rewrite from scratch would. The idea is that for the creative side of your brain to be trained for good story-telling, it has to practice the art of telling a good story. Some get the hang of it earlier, some later. But there are many elements to a good story that a new writer has to master. Elements of a plot, story pacing, characterization, scene setting, weaving in sub-plots, poetic language vs. cliches, and more could be added into the finer points. And we're not even looking at the business end of things, which way too often writers will neglect, thinking their agent will handle everything.
What this means is your first novel is not likely to be good. My first novel is still sitting on my hard drive. I started a total rewrite from scratch because I think the concept is good, but the execution on that first novel, despite the praise from my wife and kids, was very lacking. So it is a waste? No, not at all. It started me on my career path and put in my first 94,000 words of practice. I discovered I could tell a story decently well, but my dialog sucked, and my character motivations and reactions weren't realistic. And I had a lot to learn about point of view. But at the time, my wife had me becoming rich the next year. I was a little more realistic. I figured it would take an additional year at the earliest. But the truth was I had put in the first practice session toward learning how to be a professional writer.
2. It will take for most of us, anywhere from 3 to 7 years to start making any significant money from writing. If you do it right. And that is no guarantee. Many don't ever make much at all. There are many reasons for this. For most, you aren't going to get a lot published until you've practiced enough to write well enough to be published. And once you get published, the amount of money isn't likely to be anything you can live off of, at least at first. It may take a while to build a following, to stand out from the crowd enough to reach the point you can pay some bills from the money that comes in.
3. Be prepared to endure a lot of rejection, criticism, and failure. The only way to learn is to have someone more experienced tell you what you did right and what needs improvement. If you've convinced yourself, like many of the contestants on American Idol, that just because you can put down words on a page they must be genius, and everyone will surely recognize that, you'll feel hurt and defeated or angry that they criticize the pure literary brilliance displayed right before their eyes. They must be jealous of you! Yeah...that's it!
The truth is, for every acceptance you work for, you're likely to have many more rejections. For every novel you self-publish, be prepared for lackluster sales and reviews, if you get any, to lay out your flaws (real or perceived) for the world to see. If you're in this gig for praise, pats on the back, and glory, be aware to get that requires running the gauntlet of scorn and snarkiness first whether from publishers, agents, or readers.
4. On a positive note, you can make a living at this job. Too often, people pain a picture that makes it sound like only a handful of lucky authors can live on writing fiction. By far, the majority of people will not. That's true for anything when it comes to entertainment. The majority of football players don't earn the big dollars or become famous. The majority of actors never make it to the big time. For everyone who has made it, there are multiple people who have tried and given up, often for many of the reasons listed above. They didn't realize what they'd have to do to make a living at this job. It's a competitive field, vying for the attention of readers that your book is worth their time and money.
But, that doesn't mean only a handful of people are able to make a living at this. There are many midlist writers who only write speculative fiction and do quite nicely, up in the realm of 100K a year or more. And I can tell you, they don't do it by putting out one book a year unless they are on the level of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King.
The idea that very few could make a living at this had a little more truth to it in the older days. Days when publishers and agents said you should only put out one book a year, and offered you two to three thousand advance on it. Then you get that sent to you over a three year period, which means you get one thousand a year. If you get another book published the next year, you'll get two thousand. The next, three, and from there, assuming everything stayed the same, you'd be getting a whopping three thousand dollars a year salary! Divide that by the number of hours it took to write and edit three books and you're likely to go get a job at McDonalds, because at least you'll be making minimum wage.
But what if each book wasn't taken out of print but stayed up online forever? What if that book earned around one thousand in royalties a year, and what if you had thirty such books built up over time, by putting out four books a year instead of one? In six year's you'd be earning $24,000. Another six years and you'd have 48,000. And it grows from there. I know not all books are going to sell the same, and all books are not going to earn the same over the life of the book, but you get the point. Traditional publishing sells a book for three to four months, then it goes out of print after several months, means a book doesn't stay on the list making money year after year. Without that buildup of backlist selling regularly, it is very hard to make a living unless you hit it big.
Persistence and producing good stories people will want to read can eventually create a good income one can live on. But it takes a few years of publishing novels. But with persistence, it can be done, and if readers really like what you read and a book catches on, it will speed up the process. But don't expect to be rich overnight. It takes years of hard work, persistence, and love of the craft to reach that point. But it can be reached. Don't let anyone let you think it is pure luck for a select few.
But you may be happy doing it as a side job, earning a little spending cash here and there. That's great. You'll still need to go through the hard work if you want to rise to professional standards, even if you don't expect to live on the money.
But again, the love of telling a story is what carries professional writers onward, despite the obstacles, rejections, delayed gratifications, and hardships. If you jump into the profession aware of these things, there will be less chance for discouragement and giving up down the road.
So, still want to be a writer? Good! May the muse be with you!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Fishing for God
Back in the early 90s, I was the pastor for a small, country church in Noel, MO. On the same district, I happened to have a good friend who shepherded a congregation not too many miles away, named Tom. Occasionally, we'd get together and go trout fishing at a trout farm in Cassville.
The first thing you need to know is I'm not much of a fisherman. I did it a few times as a kid and teen, and even caught an occasional fish. First one was a small perch when I was in Jr. High School. And after filleting it, making batter and deep-frying it, it was a one-bite meal. More like one popcorn fish. By the time of Tom's and my first outing together, I had caught a total of five fish in my life. Aside from that one small perch, some nine inch bass at a local lake in Austin, TX.
And because I had caught so few fish in my life, despite having spent hours tossing a lure into the water and reeling it in, I had decided I didn't like fishing. To much work, very little reward, and long boring hours of doing nothing. I figured I had things I really wanted to do rather than spend hours sitting by a lake or river accomplishing nothing in most cases other than wasting time.
Before I get responses about how great fishing is for others, I recognize for many it isn't a waste of time. We all have our priorities, what we enjoy doing. But for me, fishing isn't one of them. Because of that, I've probably deprived my children. I've never taken one of them fishing. But that's another story and post.
So the first time I head out with Tom, because I figure at least it will give us a chance to spend time together even if I didn't catch anything, we arrive at the trout farm. I'd never been to one of these before. We walk in and this small stream runs through the place, and the fish! Yes, lots and lots of fish filling up that small stream. I couldn't believe it. It appeared there was at least one trout for every cubic foot of water.
Well, my hopes shot high. I figured, "If I can't catch a fish here, I can't catch one anywhere." I knew I would grab me several before the day was over. How could I miss when there were so many fish?
I plunked my lure in and reeled. Nothing. Did it again. Still nothing. I did it over and over again. I began to wonder if the fish had just been fed or something. So I tried other spots. Meanwhile, Tom's catching some. I don't recall how many he had that day, but by the end of the fishing trip, he had several. I had zero. I couldn't catch a fish if it jumped into my hands and surrendered.
At a later date, I agreed to submit myself to the same torture. We went back to the farm, and after an hour or two of Tom catching some fish, and I still couldn't get even one measly fish to pay attention to my lure, Tom checked it out and determined that my line was too thick. It was scaring them off. So he pulled out some of his line, cut off a piece, and tied it to the end of my line, then attached the lure to that.
I started tossing and reeling again, and after a few minutes, I had a bite! Yes! Reeled in my first catch in who knows how many years. By the time we left, I had two or three. Not great, but much, much better than zero. And I at least felt maybe I could catch a fish, if I had to, I guess. All I needed to do was use the right line.
Most Christians know the the phrase Jesus used to Peter when he called him to be a disciple, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." And then He proceeded to show them how it was done on numerous occasions. And the approach Jesus had was to speak to people where they were at. He used their language. In other words, He used the right line to fish with so as not to scare them away, but instead draw them to Him.
As a Christian writer, I have stories that have Christian themes to them. Sometimes it is obvious as in my Reality Chronicles series, or other times not so obvious, but there nonetheless, at least a basic worldview where God exist, even if He doesn't enter into the story or religion is never mentioned. Concerning my more subtle Christian themed work, one could make the claim that I'm trying to hide my Christianity so as to slide the Gospel in undetected into impressionable minds.
Two thoughts to that. One, I'm not hiding it, I'm simply presenting it in a manner that a non-Christian can digest and understand. It's not like I'm intentionally trying to be evangelistic in my subtle writing, but simply present good stories that are based upon a Christian worldview, even if no character ever prays, worships, or talks about God or religion. I don't call that hiding, I call it using the right line, by presenting my worldview in a way that my target audience will comprehend and understand. It has nothing to do with hiding, but how it is presented. Exactly what Jesus did. He spoke to the person, not according to a man-created formula of "how to save a soul." If I'm writing a story for the general market, the last thing I want to do is have a bunch of preachers saving a horde of people, or using a bunch of Christian jargon. It will scare them away. It sends up too many red flags and won't fly in the general market, by and large.
This is not to disparage folks who are writing primarily to a more Christian audience, and use such jargon, and have people regularly finding God and getting saved. If you're writing to that group, more power to you. But don't assume because another author writing to a different audience who would be put off by that same kind of story, writing a story where Christ isn't mentioned, not having anyone pray or get saved, is by default "hiding" their Christianity. Or not doing God's work, what He's called them to do.
Likewise, secular readers shouldn't assume because of that, that such a writer is trying to slip Christianity in unnoticed so that we can ultimately save someone from hell. Sure, we'd love for that to happen. But it also may simply be we want to tell a good story on our hearts, and do it from a Christian worldview so that we are represented along with everyone else. You can't claim tolerance and deny Christian artist their place as equally as anyone else. Otherwise, you are being bigoted and discrimiatory.
Which leads into point number two. For those secular folk who do decry, as one reviewer who sent back my book with a note that said, "I don't review Christian propaganda," that the Christian worldview is being hidden and slid in unaware by such books, look no further than your own backyard.
How many secular science fiction promotes a purely secular worldview, often a very anti-Christian worldview, where God is derided and humanism promoted? How many fantasy books are mere propaganda pieces for pagan religions? Why do they get a pass on this litmus test applied to writings from a Christian worldview?
It boils down to simply because you think you're right and we're wrong. It is cultural arrogance. It is tolerance to everyone except those you can't tolerate. But if it is okay for shows like "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to promote a secular worldview without God, and even that man will eventually become like God, and be accepted as not trying to influence people to a particular belief system, then neither should stories from a Christian worldview be singled out and labeled as trying to trick people into Christianity. No more than secularist are trying to trick people into secularism.
So I'll keep fishing, attempting to use the right line, the right lure for the right fish. Naturally I hope that by presenting Christians fairly, both the good and the bad, I hope to break down some walls of preconceived, caricatured ideas of what Christianity is about, and hopefully allow some to give themselves permission to move beyond those and see what we're really about. Just as the secularist wants to promote their worldview in their writings. And it isn't hiding it, it is presenting it differently for a different audience, in a way they can receive it and understand.
How would you go about presenting Christianity to a secular audience?
The first thing you need to know is I'm not much of a fisherman. I did it a few times as a kid and teen, and even caught an occasional fish. First one was a small perch when I was in Jr. High School. And after filleting it, making batter and deep-frying it, it was a one-bite meal. More like one popcorn fish. By the time of Tom's and my first outing together, I had caught a total of five fish in my life. Aside from that one small perch, some nine inch bass at a local lake in Austin, TX.
And because I had caught so few fish in my life, despite having spent hours tossing a lure into the water and reeling it in, I had decided I didn't like fishing. To much work, very little reward, and long boring hours of doing nothing. I figured I had things I really wanted to do rather than spend hours sitting by a lake or river accomplishing nothing in most cases other than wasting time.
Before I get responses about how great fishing is for others, I recognize for many it isn't a waste of time. We all have our priorities, what we enjoy doing. But for me, fishing isn't one of them. Because of that, I've probably deprived my children. I've never taken one of them fishing. But that's another story and post.
So the first time I head out with Tom, because I figure at least it will give us a chance to spend time together even if I didn't catch anything, we arrive at the trout farm. I'd never been to one of these before. We walk in and this small stream runs through the place, and the fish! Yes, lots and lots of fish filling up that small stream. I couldn't believe it. It appeared there was at least one trout for every cubic foot of water.
Well, my hopes shot high. I figured, "If I can't catch a fish here, I can't catch one anywhere." I knew I would grab me several before the day was over. How could I miss when there were so many fish?
I plunked my lure in and reeled. Nothing. Did it again. Still nothing. I did it over and over again. I began to wonder if the fish had just been fed or something. So I tried other spots. Meanwhile, Tom's catching some. I don't recall how many he had that day, but by the end of the fishing trip, he had several. I had zero. I couldn't catch a fish if it jumped into my hands and surrendered.
At a later date, I agreed to submit myself to the same torture. We went back to the farm, and after an hour or two of Tom catching some fish, and I still couldn't get even one measly fish to pay attention to my lure, Tom checked it out and determined that my line was too thick. It was scaring them off. So he pulled out some of his line, cut off a piece, and tied it to the end of my line, then attached the lure to that.
I started tossing and reeling again, and after a few minutes, I had a bite! Yes! Reeled in my first catch in who knows how many years. By the time we left, I had two or three. Not great, but much, much better than zero. And I at least felt maybe I could catch a fish, if I had to, I guess. All I needed to do was use the right line.
Most Christians know the the phrase Jesus used to Peter when he called him to be a disciple, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." And then He proceeded to show them how it was done on numerous occasions. And the approach Jesus had was to speak to people where they were at. He used their language. In other words, He used the right line to fish with so as not to scare them away, but instead draw them to Him.
As a Christian writer, I have stories that have Christian themes to them. Sometimes it is obvious as in my Reality Chronicles series, or other times not so obvious, but there nonetheless, at least a basic worldview where God exist, even if He doesn't enter into the story or religion is never mentioned. Concerning my more subtle Christian themed work, one could make the claim that I'm trying to hide my Christianity so as to slide the Gospel in undetected into impressionable minds.
Two thoughts to that. One, I'm not hiding it, I'm simply presenting it in a manner that a non-Christian can digest and understand. It's not like I'm intentionally trying to be evangelistic in my subtle writing, but simply present good stories that are based upon a Christian worldview, even if no character ever prays, worships, or talks about God or religion. I don't call that hiding, I call it using the right line, by presenting my worldview in a way that my target audience will comprehend and understand. It has nothing to do with hiding, but how it is presented. Exactly what Jesus did. He spoke to the person, not according to a man-created formula of "how to save a soul." If I'm writing a story for the general market, the last thing I want to do is have a bunch of preachers saving a horde of people, or using a bunch of Christian jargon. It will scare them away. It sends up too many red flags and won't fly in the general market, by and large.
This is not to disparage folks who are writing primarily to a more Christian audience, and use such jargon, and have people regularly finding God and getting saved. If you're writing to that group, more power to you. But don't assume because another author writing to a different audience who would be put off by that same kind of story, writing a story where Christ isn't mentioned, not having anyone pray or get saved, is by default "hiding" their Christianity. Or not doing God's work, what He's called them to do.
Likewise, secular readers shouldn't assume because of that, that such a writer is trying to slip Christianity in unnoticed so that we can ultimately save someone from hell. Sure, we'd love for that to happen. But it also may simply be we want to tell a good story on our hearts, and do it from a Christian worldview so that we are represented along with everyone else. You can't claim tolerance and deny Christian artist their place as equally as anyone else. Otherwise, you are being bigoted and discrimiatory.
Which leads into point number two. For those secular folk who do decry, as one reviewer who sent back my book with a note that said, "I don't review Christian propaganda," that the Christian worldview is being hidden and slid in unaware by such books, look no further than your own backyard.
How many secular science fiction promotes a purely secular worldview, often a very anti-Christian worldview, where God is derided and humanism promoted? How many fantasy books are mere propaganda pieces for pagan religions? Why do they get a pass on this litmus test applied to writings from a Christian worldview?
It boils down to simply because you think you're right and we're wrong. It is cultural arrogance. It is tolerance to everyone except those you can't tolerate. But if it is okay for shows like "Star Trek: The Next Generation" to promote a secular worldview without God, and even that man will eventually become like God, and be accepted as not trying to influence people to a particular belief system, then neither should stories from a Christian worldview be singled out and labeled as trying to trick people into Christianity. No more than secularist are trying to trick people into secularism.
So I'll keep fishing, attempting to use the right line, the right lure for the right fish. Naturally I hope that by presenting Christians fairly, both the good and the bad, I hope to break down some walls of preconceived, caricatured ideas of what Christianity is about, and hopefully allow some to give themselves permission to move beyond those and see what we're really about. Just as the secularist wants to promote their worldview in their writings. And it isn't hiding it, it is presenting it differently for a different audience, in a way they can receive it and understand.
How would you go about presenting Christianity to a secular audience?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Look Ma, No Practice!
In the creative arts, practice is the norm. It's expected that a pianist will spend hours and years perfecting their playing ability. Rock bands spend days and months practicing a song before releasing it. Actors attend numerous rehearsals for plays, or do a movie scene numerous times before the director is satisfied. And before that goes years of practice in most every profession before an artist ever gets on stage or in front of a camera.
So why do people who want to become published authors expect their first novel to sell? Why do people think authors don't need to practice before snagging a publishing contract?
I was no exception. In October of 2005, I'd written my first speculative novel. Sort of just happened, really. An idea had crept into my head early that month, and I wrote the first chapter to it. My wife and daughter read it and wanted the next chapter. So the next evening I sat down and wrote it. They read it and wanted the third chapter. And so it went all month until by the end of October I had a 94K novel finished. And when I reached that point, I realized this was what I wanted to do.
My wife was so excited, she was sure I would be a best selling author in the following year. I was a little more conservative. "It will probably take a couple of years for that to happen." I figured I would get it edited and ship it off to a publisher. They'd accept it within three months or so, and within a year it would come out in print. So in November of 2005, I figured the book would appear in print sometime in 2007, and the next J. K. Rowling would be born!
Well, that manuscript is still sitting on my hard drive. A couple years ago, I decided to rewrite it by starting over. Too many things wrong with the original to just fix. I needed to write it fresh. I got halfway done with that project. And since then, I have had two books published, a novella and a novel, and so far the world hasn't rushed to my feet begging for the next installment.
But really, what did I expect? That I would be writing at professional levels on my first book, knowing nothing about how to write good dialog, story pacing, believability, and a host of other issues that require--yes you guessed it--practice.
Yes, there are exceptions. There is always a J. K. Rowlings or Palolini who hit it big with their first book. But the exceptions don't make the rule. Doing what they did is higher odds than hitting the lottery. But generally for a book to make it, it has to first and foremost be entertaining and done by someone who knows what it takes to write a good book, and has the words behind him or her to do it.
I've heard the number of words an author will need to reach the professional levels of writing to be around one million. That is, for most writers, it will take one million practice words before you'll start writing well enough to capture people's attention.
The problem is, few potential authors go into writing a novel thinking its a practice session. They don't see it as something they are going to simply write, edit for typos and grammar, then send out to a publisher (you never know when one will love it and take it), and then start practicing on another story. Keep going that way until you learn enough, have written enough words to get not only a good feel for the writing process that works best for you, but your voice develops enough that it shines.
Rather, what most authors do is write a story, then spend years rewriting it. Unfortunately, rewriting is very limited practice. It tends to not use the creative side of your brain, but focus on the editor side. So words reworked there don't contribute in most cases to practice with your creative brain. Instead of putting in more creative words with a new story, the old story gets more and more passes until years have passed, and it still sits on the hard drive.
This is due to not seeing that book as a practice session. We've invested too much work and emotional sweat. We love the book. It has to be perfect, and it has to work!
"But I do have my life invested in this particular story. It is a story that needs to be told."
There are those stories that are special to you. If you think the story is worth something, after some time has passed, you can always do a full and complete rewrite. That is, start off writing from scratch is if you were writing it for the first time. What you've picked up by practicing your writing will make it a better story, and you'll be writing more, and so practicing more. But to go back over it and edit it, picking at it here and there, is lost practice time. Naturally some of that may need to happen to a degree. But cut it off. Do only the essential things. And if there is too much wrong with it, and you really want that story told, redo the whole thing rather than try to fix what isn't working. You'll learn and get in practice at the same time.
But for new authors, don't think you're going to sit down, crank out a novel, sell it right away, and be a best seller in a couple of years. Plan on putting in a few years of writing, learning, perfecting, practicing, just like any other creative profession you can think of. Don't be fooled by the exceptions. This will take some work before you can make it.
How about it? Are you willing to put in the practice needed to write well?
So why do people who want to become published authors expect their first novel to sell? Why do people think authors don't need to practice before snagging a publishing contract?
I was no exception. In October of 2005, I'd written my first speculative novel. Sort of just happened, really. An idea had crept into my head early that month, and I wrote the first chapter to it. My wife and daughter read it and wanted the next chapter. So the next evening I sat down and wrote it. They read it and wanted the third chapter. And so it went all month until by the end of October I had a 94K novel finished. And when I reached that point, I realized this was what I wanted to do.
My wife was so excited, she was sure I would be a best selling author in the following year. I was a little more conservative. "It will probably take a couple of years for that to happen." I figured I would get it edited and ship it off to a publisher. They'd accept it within three months or so, and within a year it would come out in print. So in November of 2005, I figured the book would appear in print sometime in 2007, and the next J. K. Rowling would be born!
Well, that manuscript is still sitting on my hard drive. A couple years ago, I decided to rewrite it by starting over. Too many things wrong with the original to just fix. I needed to write it fresh. I got halfway done with that project. And since then, I have had two books published, a novella and a novel, and so far the world hasn't rushed to my feet begging for the next installment.
But really, what did I expect? That I would be writing at professional levels on my first book, knowing nothing about how to write good dialog, story pacing, believability, and a host of other issues that require--yes you guessed it--practice.
Yes, there are exceptions. There is always a J. K. Rowlings or Palolini who hit it big with their first book. But the exceptions don't make the rule. Doing what they did is higher odds than hitting the lottery. But generally for a book to make it, it has to first and foremost be entertaining and done by someone who knows what it takes to write a good book, and has the words behind him or her to do it.
I've heard the number of words an author will need to reach the professional levels of writing to be around one million. That is, for most writers, it will take one million practice words before you'll start writing well enough to capture people's attention.
The problem is, few potential authors go into writing a novel thinking its a practice session. They don't see it as something they are going to simply write, edit for typos and grammar, then send out to a publisher (you never know when one will love it and take it), and then start practicing on another story. Keep going that way until you learn enough, have written enough words to get not only a good feel for the writing process that works best for you, but your voice develops enough that it shines.
Rather, what most authors do is write a story, then spend years rewriting it. Unfortunately, rewriting is very limited practice. It tends to not use the creative side of your brain, but focus on the editor side. So words reworked there don't contribute in most cases to practice with your creative brain. Instead of putting in more creative words with a new story, the old story gets more and more passes until years have passed, and it still sits on the hard drive.
This is due to not seeing that book as a practice session. We've invested too much work and emotional sweat. We love the book. It has to be perfect, and it has to work!
"But I do have my life invested in this particular story. It is a story that needs to be told."
There are those stories that are special to you. If you think the story is worth something, after some time has passed, you can always do a full and complete rewrite. That is, start off writing from scratch is if you were writing it for the first time. What you've picked up by practicing your writing will make it a better story, and you'll be writing more, and so practicing more. But to go back over it and edit it, picking at it here and there, is lost practice time. Naturally some of that may need to happen to a degree. But cut it off. Do only the essential things. And if there is too much wrong with it, and you really want that story told, redo the whole thing rather than try to fix what isn't working. You'll learn and get in practice at the same time.
But for new authors, don't think you're going to sit down, crank out a novel, sell it right away, and be a best seller in a couple of years. Plan on putting in a few years of writing, learning, perfecting, practicing, just like any other creative profession you can think of. Don't be fooled by the exceptions. This will take some work before you can make it.
How about it? Are you willing to put in the practice needed to write well?
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