Introducing "Goblin's Humiliator"

Click here to get the Humiliator!
Okay! I have been dying to tell you guys about this for the past three weeks, but, um, I'm not a very talented programmer and I couldn't get it to work. Ahem.

But now it works! What works, you ask? Well, if you're reading this post via an RSS feed, then before I can tell you, I need you to first click through to my blog.

Everybody here, now? Excellent! Now look over to the right at my sidebar. See that new icon labelled "Goblin's Humiliator"?

This is my brand-new, fully-automated HUMILIATION MOTIVATOR. Mwoo-hahaha!

(Um; if you don't see anything, you probably need to enable Javascript on your web browser. Heh.)

It was, of course, inspired by McKoala's original Public Humiliation Challenge, but while The Koala lovingly delivers a more personal (and painful) incentive to write, my automated Humiliator will tirelessly goad you into meeting a daily writing quota.

The way it works is you have to write at least 100 words a day (and update your word-count online) or that icon changes to a slightly more embarrassing image. How embarrassing will it get? See for yourselves:

If you've been writing consistently:	If you've missed one day of writing:	If you've missed two days of writing:
If you've missed three days of writing:	If you've missed four days of writing:	If you've missed five days of writing:
If you've missed six days of writing:	If you've missed seven days of writing:	If you're on Vacation:

Eek! Just imagine how awful it would be to have Day 7's image showing on your blog or website. And what writer couldn't use incentive like that? Ah, the clammy hand of fear on the back of your neck--you need it!

And fortunately, THE HUMILIATOR CAN BE YOURS! To sign up (it's free!), please go to the home page of Goblin's Humiliator and click the right-hand button to create an account and generate the code you'll need. Please sign up! (And, if anything behaves oddly, please let me know, because this is a beta version; herp-derp.)

Click here to get Goblin's Humiliator
for your website or blog!

Rise of the (Novel-Writing) Machines

I was reading this article, by Alain Miles on Writers Without Borders, which enthuses about where novels may be headed now that eReaders are becoming more and more common.

The article is great, although I disagree with the idea that more interactivity will make books better. I can see illustrations you can "play" with being a great addition to children's books, but to me, having to interact with the book itself, in any significant way, is just a distraction from the story.

To me, a book should slurp you into its world, not yank your attention away from it. I find flipping the page an invisible-enough activity, but if there are moving pictures on the screen? If I am prompted to pause my reading in order to play a video? Good Google, I find typos annoying--interactive content would drive me mental.

What I want from a novel is to get sucked in so powerfully that I miss my bus stop, that I don't hear the phone ring, that I find myself unable to put the book down even though I have to be up for work in 4 hours and my eyeballs feel like matzo ball vindaloo.

That said, if a story is gripping enough, I'm sure the interactive content would become as invisible as my bus stop does. Regardless, to me, it's not a desirable feature to add things that I plan to ignore anyway.

However, one thing the article mentions did zap by brain with thrill-juice. It notes Stefano Boscutti has a project to try to create "stories that can change in reaction to a reader’s physiological responses".

Now that could be awesome. Imagine an all-purpose book that turns into a romance novel, a horror novel, or an adventure novel, all based on which sentences make your palms sweat. The whole concept may be science fiction at this point, but it's the right idea: a device that measures my unconscious responses could potentially add value to my novel-reading experience without distracting me.

However, an infinitely-changeable, all-purpose book would also ensure people couldn't discuss their books with each other. The novel's plot would become personalized and irreproducible--non-portable, to put it in computer terms. It would exist only in your head, and the novel you read and adore wouldn't be the same novel your friend reads and adores.

And that brings up the issue of copyright. Who really wrote the book, if your body's responses helped dictate its text?

Also, as a writer, I recognize creating an all-purpose book would be daunting. You would either have to write a multitude of books, each branching in separate directions like a choose-your-own-plot novel, or the book would have to be written by a cloud of writers, each handling their own separate sub-plots.

Or--even more frighteningly--you would have to devise a computer program that seamlessly branches the story into uncountable directions. Sure, human writers would be needed to set up such a program, but once it's completed, would the computer then make human writers obsolete?

My brain is buzzing with the possibilities. None of this will happen soon, based on our current level of technology, but what if it does someday? Do you think an all-purpose book would be a fantastic creation, or the end of artists? (Or the beginning of machine-artists? Which is also a cool/alarming idea.)

Wow! This would make awesome science fiction. I may have just given myself a plot bunny.

Or a death sentence.

Cross-posted from The Query Goblin: Query-Craft, Part 2

I'm dealing with some real life hustle and bustle right now, so I'm cross-posting this query-writing tutorial from The Query Goblin. I hope you enjoy it!

Last week, I suggested that when you sit down to draft a query, you want to start by answering the following questions:

- Who is the protagonist?
- What is her situation?
- What kind of world is the novel set in?

The Inciting Incident:

- What is the story's inciting incident? I.e. What sudden change convinces the protagonist she must act?
------- What does the protagonist want?
------- What are the stakes if she fails?
------- What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?
------- What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Escalation:

- What goes wrong with that plan?
- How does that increase the stakes?

- What is her next plan?

- What goes wrong with her next plan?
- How does that increase the stakes again?

- What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?

This week, I'll discuss how to craft your query from the answers to the above questions. But first, let me rant and rave and froth about brevity.

You only have about 250 words to spend in your query, so it's critical that you streamline the plot ruthlessly. Yes, your book is full of complex subtleties and lively minor characters, but you must leave all that sparkling awesomeness as a pleasant surprise for the agent/editor who requests pages. It must NOT go in the query.

Why? Because too much detail confuses the reader (badly) and it takes up too much space on the page, regardless.

Here are some tips for keeping your query simple:

- Only discuss the main plot of the novel. All subplots must be omitted.
------- Also, you may need to gloss over the subtleties of your plot, or even mildly misrepresent it, in order to make it sound logical in the query. This is painful, but it's more important for your query to be easy-to-understand than accurate.

- The only descriptions you should include are those the reader needs to know in order to understand the plot. Thus, don't mention that your protagonist is a sexy, thirty-year-old redhead, but if she's going to be forced at gunpoint to perform surgery on the villain, go ahead and describe her as a doctor.

- Keep proper nouns to a minimum. That means names and placenames.
------- Your protagonist should be referred to by name. The love interest and the villain can be named also. Everyone else should be referred to by their function within the story, not their name. For example, say "the priest" rather than "Father Ramchandra".
------- Likewise, omit placenames. However, in fantasy, science fiction, and historical novels, including a placename can help establish what type of novel you've written and what sort of world the protagonist lives in. It's a judgment call; do whatever you think makes the query easiest to understand.

Alright; now, let's get to the business of writing the query!

I've heard it suggested that the query letter should focus on the inciting incident only. This has merit, because the inciting incident is the hook that leads the reader into the story, so it may also be the hook that most efficiently grabs the agent/editor's interest.

That said, I prefer to include more detail about the book than just the inciting incident, and I do so by the method outlined below.

First Paragraph:

I start by isolating what the essential conflict in the book's inciting incident is. Then, I try to cram that conflict into the first paragraph. In a sense, I'm using the book's inciting incident as a logline to hook the reader's interest right away.

Remember that the promise of conflict is fiction's most effective lure. It's what keeps people compulsively turning the pages, and so it will also hook an agent/editor into a query.

Now, look back over your answers to these questions:

1) Who is the protagonist?
2) What is her situation?
3) What kind of world is the novel set in?
4) What is the story's inciting incident?
-------4(a) What does the protagonist want?
-------4(b) What are the stakes if she fails?
-------4(c) What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?
-------4(d) What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Answering all of this is our target for the first paragraph, and we only have a few sentences to do it in. The first sentence should answer questions (1) and (4) immediately, and should hopefully establish the conflict between 4(a) and 4(c). If it doesn't, then the second sentence should. Yes, we have to move that fast.

The next sentence should then address 4(b).

So what about (2) and (3)? If possible, they should be implied as we go along, rather than stated outright.

For example, if your first sentence starts with, "When a wizard flattens Zenestral's pub and threatens to kill her unicorn foal...", that makes it obvious what kind of world the novel is set in and what kind of person Zenestral is. (2) and (3) are now answered (in addition to (1) and (4)) and we were able to focus on the yummy conflict, not the boring background details.

4(d) we can leave for the next paragraph. If you've covered (1)-4(c), you should have a solid and intriguing first paragraph.

After the First Paragraph:

In the next paragraphs--and you can have one or several, as you see fit--you're going to focus on the escalation of the story. Recall these questions:

4(d) What's her plan?

5) What goes wrong with/complicates the first plan?
6) How does that increase the stakes?

7) What is the protagonist's next plan?

8) What goes wrong with/complicates it?
9) How does that increase the stakes again?

10) What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?

At this stage you should be thinking about the big picture, not the incremental small steps that lead the protagonist onward from the inciting incident. You should get the antagonist (human or otherwise) introduced and explain how his plans are the obstacles/complications for the protagonist.

You also want to be focusing on escalation and the promise that a huge confrontation is coming. The reader should clearly see that life is getting riskier and more difficult for the protagonist.

I find it's a good tactic, in this part of the query letter, to state what the protagonist needs (goal), then immediately mention what gets in her way (obstacle/complication), and then mention the stakes.

So, for example:

"Zenestral knows it's time to flee to yet another new town,[PLAN] but this time she has a son,[COMPLICATION] and if they leave now, the local earth spirit will curse him and doom the boy to the same unlucky life Zenestral has suffered.[STAKES]"

I keep repeating this triplet of goal/obstacle/stakes to flesh out the rest of the plot's escalation, always making sure the stakes continue to rise. As soon as the reader understands the full danger and difficulty of the book's main conflict, then the query ends without giving them any resolution or release of tension. I wrap it up in a final paragraph with the genre and word count, any credentials, and I thank the agent/editor for their consideration.

In other word, the conflict of question (10) is your cliffhanger. You end with the reader wondering what happens next, forcing them to request pages to satisfy their curiosity.

Cross-posted from The Query Goblin: Query-Craft, Part 1

I'm dealing with some real life hustle and bustle right now, so I'm cross-posting this query-writing tutorial from The Query Goblin. I hope you enjoy it!

This week, I'll concentrate on how to begin writing a query--what information you need and what story elements you should focus on.

The first thing to understand is that your job in a query letter is not to summarize a 300-word novel in 250 words--your job is to make whoever reads that query desperate to get their hands on the book itself.

So how do you do that? The same way you compel someone who is reading the first chapter of your book to compulsively plough through to The End--with the promise of conflict.

People become desperately curious to learn what happens next when they can smell a major confrontation on the horizon. This is why an escalating argument is so hard to ignore--you feel you need to find out how bad the fight is going to get and who will win.

Thus, in your query letter, you want to make the reader believe that all hell is about to break loose--and then leave them dangling, with no idea of how it ends. This should effectively make them frantic to read the book itself.

(Note that when I say "all hell is about to break loose", that can also mean a quiet, internalized hell. Introspective novels also focus on escalating conflicts, but the conflict can take place inside the protagonist's head or heart.)

So how do you convince the reader of the query that your book has a juicy, riveting confrontation lurking at the end of it?

I'm actually going to save that discussion until the Feb. 27th, 2011, blog post, but today I will explain how to identify which the story elements you'll use as building blocks to assemble that enticing query with.

One thing to note is if you've written a good book, then you have all the raw material you need to write a good query letter too. You might not know how to yet, but the content you need already exists in the form of Building Blocks 1 and 2, listed below.


Building Block 1; The Inciting Incident

The story's inciting incident is the moment when the protagonist's world changes--usually unpleasantly--and forces them to take action to improve the situation.

The inciting incident usually sets up a dilemma for the protagonist, too. If they don't act, there will be a penalty (the "stakes"), and if they do act, there will be hardships to overcome (the obstacles).

Note the inciting incident does not have to turn out to be an important part of the story. For example, the inciting incident of the Harry Potter books is when Harry gets a letter inviting him to attend wizard school. However, Harry's destiny turns out to be destroying the evil wizard Voldemort, so in hindsight, that exciting letter he got wasn't such a big deal.


Building Block 2; The Escalation: Goal, Obstacle/Complication, Stakes

Once your protagonist has been forced to act, he has to choose a plan. As soon as he tries to implement that plan, things go awry in the form of obstacles and complications. The obstacles/complications force the protagonist to come up with a new plan, and they also increase the stakes (i.e. the penalties for failure.)

For example:

Inciting incident: Luke Skywalker discovers a hologram of Princess Leia in his droid. He is so entranced by her image that he cannot ignore her plea.

Stakes: A stranger will be hurt if he does nothing, and Luke's too good-hearted to allow that.

Goal: Visit Ben Kenobi and ask if he knows who this "Obi-wan Kenobi" Leia is trying to contact is.

Obstacle/Complication: The droid goes missing.

New Stakes: Not only can Luke not help the pretty lady, but his uncle is gonna kill him for losing the new droid.

New Goal: Go find that droid.

New Obstacle/Complication: Luke finds both Ben and the droid, but learns he's more personally connected to Leia's fight than he knew. Ben says Luke's father was killed by Darth Vader, the same person Leia is fighting, and Ben wants Luke to leave the planet to help fight Vader.

New Stakes: Luke is asked to sacrifice his entire way of life for Leia and Ben's fight.

New Goal: Say no and go home. This is too big.

New Obstacle/Complication: Storm Troopers, looking for the droid, have killed Luke's family.

New Stakes: Luke's life is in danger, and he now has a potent personal desire to fight Vader.

New Goal: Go with Ben Kenobi and stop Darth Vader.

Et cetera. The thing to note here is that every time Luke tries to do something to get to his immediate goal, the situation changes to both increase the stakes and force him to form a new plan to reach a new goal.

Now, how to turn this into a query letter? That discussion I'll defer to Feb. 27th, 2011, but here is a list of things you want to think about before you begin to assemble your query:

Questions to Answer Before Drafting Your Query:

- Who is the protagonist? What is her situation, and what kind of world is the novel set in?

The Inciting Incident:

- What is the story's inciting incident? I.e. What sudden change convinces the protagonist she must act?

- For the story's inciting incident, answer the following questions:

------- What does the protagonist want?

------- What are the stakes if she fails?

------- What gets in the way of her getting what she wants?

------- What does she choose to do to obtain what she wants? What's her plan?

Escalation:

- What goes wrong with that plan?
- How does that increase the stakes?

- What is her next plan?
------- At this point, you want to start thinking big. The inciting incident is small; the main plot of the book is big. Think BIG.

- What goes wrong with the next plan?
- How does that increase the stakes again?

- What (very hard thing) must the protagonist do to prevent (a very bad) disaster?
------- Note this should outline the book's major conflict, i.e. the event that constitutes your big climax.

On Feb. 27th, 2011, I'll explain how to begin crafting the answers to these questions into a query letter.

Reading, 'Riting and Ripping 'Em Off

I read a discussion of online piracy a while back that noted that merely saying to someone that DRM (digital rights management) doesn't stop piracy isn't actually a persuasive argument.

Why? Because the people trying to stop online piracy would like to know what will work. Until you've got a better suggestion than DRM, they're not going to dismantle what little protection they've got.

Then, while I was still thinking about what can be done to stop piracy, I read the following eye-popping article by Tobias Buckell:

Writing on the High Seas

His take on fighting piracy is definitely the approach most likely to maintain your sanity. He essentially says just don't worry about it.

The article is really worth reading, but here's a summary of Mr. Buckell's main points:

1. It isn't fair to say a pirated book is a lost sale because the people who pirate your book never intended to buy it. They were never going to be your customer, therefore you haven't lost any money.
   
   If you made it impossible for them to steal your book, they would not choose to purchase it instead. For whatever reason, they don't believe your book is worth the money.
   


2. Yes, you're angry that someone read your book and refused to pay for it. However, when it comes to business decisions, it's better to get your emotions out of the equation and consider whether you are actually being done financial harm.


3. The best data on whether piracy harms authors currently implies that piracy neither hurts nor helps sales.
   
   Thus, the people claiming their sale numbers are being gutted by piracy are wrong, and the people claiming that giving away work for free is the key to boosting one's sales are also wrong.
   
   Book piracy plays a role similar to second-hand book sales. The author gets another reader, but no extra money. If you can stomach the existence of second-hand book stores, you should be able to stomach piracy.

The central point here is that the vast majority of people who want your book are willing buy it legally. Thus, wisdom dictates you worry about the things you can actually control.

You cannot control piracy.

You can, however, write such great books that you turn a few pirates into fans and thereby convince them they should maybe shell out for your next novel.

In other words: don't worry, be happy.

~~~~~~~

What do you think of both Mr. Buckell's article and this mindset? Of course theft is wrong--but is it worth worrying about when you're not being financially harmed?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Linky-Love!

Yes, I'm a geek and anything with hard, cold data involved makes me squee with delight, so it'll come as no surprise I thought the following post by Deanna Knippling was brilliant:

From How to Fail, Part 3: Talent vrs. Work
by Deanna Knippling

"They told half the kids that they were really intelligent; they told the other half of the kids that they had really worked hard on the test.

...

The psychologists came to the conclusion that you should praise children for the things they can control–like hard work.

[A]s writers, can we take from that? A few things:

• If you think (or have been told) you’re talented, you’re more likely to fail after your first setback.


• If you think you’re talented, you’re less likely to try something challenging or new.


• If you think you’re a hard worker, you’re more likely to succeed after your first setback than you are when you first start out.


• If you think you’re a hard worker, you’re more likely to try something challenging or new.

People who think of themselves as hard workers succeed more, doing harder things. People who think they have some kind of magical inherent talent fail more, doing easier things."

My Aversion is Your Boon

I once heard a literary agent say that if your book doesn't offend anyone, it probably isn't moving anyone either. Today's post explores that idea.


The dating website OkCupid has a blog, OkTrends, where they analyse their data and often pull out surprising insights into human relations and human beings.

In their post The Mathematics of Beauty, they note an interesting phenomenon. When they graphed how many (heterosexual) men contacted a (heterosexual) woman as a function of that woman's perceived attractiveness, there was a big spread in the data.

That is to say, one pleasant-seeming woman who was rated as "cute" might get twice as much mail as another pleasant-seeming woman who also rated as "cute"--and why was that, if they were equally attractive?

What the data-crunchers found is that it wasn't a woman's average rating that mattered, but rather the amount by which she polarized opinion.

A classically pretty woman would have a bell-shaped attractiveness rating, with most people considering her "cute" and smaller numbers of people rating her either prettier or less-pretty than that.

However, a pretty woman with unconventional features, or atypical makeup, or facial piercings and visible tattoos, would often have an inverted bell in her attractiveness rating, with the majority of people considering her one of the extremes--either "hot" or "ugly". Her overall rating might average out to "cute", but she really evoked much stronger reactions from people than that.

The data-crunchers found that the latter sort of woman--the polarizing figures--were the ones who overwhelmingly got more interest from would-be mates. It was far better to have a few people consider you ugly than to have the majority of people consider you (merely) cute.

So how does this relate to writing? You can probably guess. Think of all the times you've read about/heard a literary agent saying, "I have to fall in love with the book to offer representation." They don't get excited if they think your novel is merely "cute"; they have to think it's "omg-hawt".

Have you ever heard of the book Lolita? How about American Psycho? Or Fight Club? I don't even read the genres these books fall into and yet I've heard of every one of them because they were polarizing novels. They horrified some people and electrified others. In dating terms, they were the woman with the dreadlocks and the tongue stud.

This implies that when it comes to writing (and maybe life) you should put your quirkiness very firmly on display. Courage is attractive, and playing it safe might not get you anywhere at all.

There is a nice corollary to this principle, too. If you ever have the misfortune to have someone blow up at you because of your writing--to get emotional and tell you the work stinks, that it's offensive, that it will nevereverEVER be published--that may be a very good sign indeed.

Because what one person hates is often what another person adores. If you're provoking emotion, then potentially you're doing something very, very right.

~~~~~~~

What do you think? When is it prudent to be safe, and when should you wave your freak flag high? Do you think books that are good-yet-weird really do better than books that are good-like-the-other-good-stuff? Can being different help you break into publishing, or will it get in the way?

Or is it, like so many things, a matter of degree? Where's the line between "fresh" and "inaccessible"? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

What Works: Furs and Ice by Josh R. Vogt

Today's excerpt for the "What Works" blog series is not an excerpt at all, but an entire story--specifically a piece of flash fiction written by blog-buddy Josh R. Vogt for the Clarity of Night competition.

Furs and Ice
By Josh R. Vogt

All futures hide in the clouds, Father told him. Trap the sky beneath your feet, and walk what must come.

As Omen trudges onto the frozen lake, he scratches at the wolf pelts cloaking him. Oracles always wear stinking furs.

Such is our way, Father said.

Omen hates stinking furs. He smells the rancid unguent Father drank each morning, trying to ward off the bleeding cough. Its stench tainted the old oracle's breath, his bowels, the hide walls of their hut. Now it follows like Father's ghost, come to see the son's first foretelling.

He reaches the middle of the lake and stands amidst the gray reflections of cloud and twig and crag. Omen stomps. Ice shrieks. Its polish shatters into a maze of cracks. The reflections within no longer move, trapped for his scrutiny. Trapped, just as he is. Forever an oracle, wearing the stinking furs of a babbler.

Omen's feet are numbing. Skin sticks to the ice as he steps towards shore. He hunches, looking for signs to convey.

There, branches knot in a telling of early summer. Beside this, a rounded cliff predicts many births within the tribe. A step further--

Omen stops. Stares at the next frozen vision. A bird's spread wings reveal a chance for freedom, offered to those with the strength to grasp it.

The future within the ice groans for release.

He raises his foot for another stomp. It will be a bitter swim to shore, but faster once he sheds the furs.

I love this piece as an example of what to aim for in your writing because it's so short, and yet it demonstrates so perfectly how to structure a story.

As I've mentioned before, stories are about change. They start when the protagonist's life is knocked out of balance and they end when that life is brought back into a new, different form of balance.

Also, every scene in a story should revolve around a turning point--a moment of irrevocable change, one where the characters involved cannot step back from or undo what has happened. In a flash fiction piece, you only have time for a single turning point. In fact, the turning point is the entirety of the story; everything else in the work is there to support the turning point.

The first sentence of Furs and Ice begins to establish the world that the protagonist, Omen, lives in; foretelling is a real profession, and the protagonist's father taught Omen to give himself over to his fate.

The second sentence immediately establishes a tension between this lesson and the protagonist's own beliefs. Omen trudges, which implies a lack of enthusiasm, and he thinks the furs he has to wear smell terrible. This is not a portrait of person who is happy to accept his fate.

The third sentence underscores the internal tension by fleshing out what Omen's father taught his son, while the next paragraph firmly establishes Omen's distaste for the role he is supposed to step into. The line "... [the stench] follows like Father's ghost, come to see the son's first foretelling" makes it clear Omen feels trapped by tradition and familial obligation.

In just a few sentences, the author has set up a strong and relatable tension between what Omen wants and what his father wanted for him. This tension whets our curiosity; Omen's life is out of balance, and we know something is going to break. We keep reading to find out what.

The next three paragraphs show Omen seemingly acquiescing to his fate; he does the job he's supposed to do. He reads the fortunes of the tribe, and although his internal situation is unstable, externally, he gives the impression of accepting the status quo.

But then, the foretelling shows Omen a way out, and he doesn't even hesitate. The story ends right at its lone turning point--Omen's moment of irrevocable change. He chooses to stomp on and break the ice, abandon his tribe and his fate, fling off the hated furs, and swim to a new life.

A story, to feel complete, needs to take an unbalanced situation and restore it to balance, but in such a way that the protagonist's final state is different than his initial state.

At the end of this story, Omen has restored his internal balance and is mentally in a new place. His external life is very much in chaos, but given the author highlighted the internal conflict, not any external ones, this feels like a satisfying resolution to the story.

Now let's look at the work in another way.

A story's turning points are often called reversals. The protagonist's life is either in a good or a bad state, and the turning point changes it to the opposite status.

Right before the final, largest reversal, it's common for the storyteller to try to make the audience think this is the protagonist's final state. It's often called the "black moment" because this is usually a state worthy of despair--one seemingly without hope.

And, usually, the hero makes one last, valiant effort immediately after the black moment and saves the day after all.

In Furs and Ice, when Omen is foretelling for his tribe, this is effectively his black moment. He has apparently chosen to accept his fate even though that fate makes him very unhappy. But then the reversal occurs: Omen makes one last, valiant effort and gets what he wants after all.

In Summary:

What works about this piece is that it is about change, as all stories must be. Omen wants a different life and finds a way to get it. Despite the story being very short, it nevertheless bases itself around a compelling and satisfying turning point in the protagonist's life.

The work also establishes tension, a promise that in this situation things must change, which is what keeps readers engaged in the story.

This piece has a satisfying ending because it gives the protagonist what he needed, albeit at a price. The author builds up tension, then releases it via a solution to the protagonist's problem, and this release is what creates a feeling of satisfaction in the reader.


Of Interest:

Josh is a newly-agented writer with a book out on submission to publishers--wish him luck! He also just launched a new blog called Write Strong, which features technical discussions on the subject of becoming a better writer. I encourage you all to check it out!

What Works: The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan

This edition of What Works focuses on one of the most rip-snorting, unrestrained and wonderful fantasy novels I've read, The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan.

This book doesn't hold anything back, and for that reason I'd only recommend it to people who know they can handle foul language, graphic violence and graphic sex. That said, hoo boy do I recommend it! The novel is brilliant and shocking, with wonderful characters, great writing, and a hugely imaginative, quasi-science fiction take on the idea of elves.

Ahem. Enough fan-girling. Here's an excerpt, and please note there is some very rude language here.

The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan

And from within the closed iron cylinder, more precisely from the mouth of one downthrown open hatch in a row of five that were set into the underside of the hull, came the furious, repeated clang of metal pounding on metal. The sound, it seemed, of something trying to escape.

Glances went back and forth, hands dropped to the hilts of well-worn weapons. The Emperor's messengers drew closer at a pace that declined with every step they took into the shadow of the fireship's propped bulk. Finally, they piled to a halt just inside the circumference of the dry-dock framework that supported the vessel, and a good dozen paces back from the hatch, all of them careful not to step on any of the drooping feelers that trailed from the hull and lay flopped in the shipyard dust like so many discarded carriage whips. No telling when something like that, no matter the intervening years of disuse, might twist and snap to sudden murderous life, coil about an unwary limb and jerk its owner off his feet and screaming into the air, to be lashed back and forth or slammed to a pulp against the grimy iron flank of the ship.

"Syphilitic son of an uncleased, camel fucking CUNT!"

A massive metallic crash fringed the final word, but could not drown it out. The messengers flinched. In places, blades came a few inches clear of their sheaths. Hard on the echoes of the impact, before anyone could move, the voice started up again, no cleaner of expression, no less rabidly furious, no less punctuated by the clangour of whatever arcane conflict was raging in the confines of the hull. The messengers stood frozen, faces sweat-beaded from the fierce heat of a near-noon sun, while recollected witch rumours crept coldly up and down their bones.

"Is it an exorcism?"

"It's krinzanz," reckoned a more pragmatic member of the party. "She's off her fucking head."

Another of the messengers cleared his throat.

"Ah, Mistress Archeth..."

"...motherfucking close-mouth me, will you, you fucking..."

"Mistress Archeth!" The Reachman went up to a full-scale shout. "The Emperor wills your presence!"

The cursing stopped abruptly. The metallic cacophony died. For a long moment, the open hatch yawned and oozed a silence no less unnerving than the noise that had gone before. Then, Archeth's voice emerged, a little hoarse.

"Who's that?"

"From the palace. The Emperor summons you."

Indistinct muttering. A clank, as the engineer's hammer was apparently dropped, and then an impatient scrambling sound. Moments later, Archeth's ebony head emerged upside down from the hatch, thickly braided hair in stiff disarray around her features. She grinned down at the messengers, a little too widely.

"All right," she said. "I've done enough reading for one day."

There are a bunch of things that work really well in this excerpt, so I'll outline the ones that stick out to me.

001) The group of messengers are treated as a composite entity, not individuals. Their emotions and actions are described homogeneously.

This is useful because one of the things novels don't do well is deal with complex scenes featuring lots of characters. When there are too many elements in a scene, the reader can't keep the positions, names and conversations straight in their head.

If you must portray a scene with many people in it, either you need to focus in on one small piece of the scene at a time, or work very hard to keep the reader clear on what is going on, or you need to do what Mr. Morgan does and simplify things.

Describing a group of people as if they're a single entity accomplishes this. None of the messengers are given names and they're either described as a homogeneous group or treated as interchangeable. Anything else would be confusing to the reader.

010) Almost every action and emotion is shown, not told.

The messengers bunch together and slow their pace; they touch their weapons; they sweat. Fantasies about murderous ship-tentacles and witch powers pass through their (collective) mind.

But the author doesn't say these men are frightened. That's implied.

Likewise, Archeth's rage, and then her silence and subsequent movement to the fireship's hatch, are only described. The author keeps us firmly inside the head of the group entity that is the messengers. The scene's action is something the reader has to work out from pure description.

The reader can also work out that Archeth is black (in a book that has thus far only featured white characters) without the author needing to say so explicitly. Archeth will prove to be a starkly unique person in The Steel Remains--literally half-alien--and this is a natural way to introduce one of her most obvious differences.

011) The character of Archeth is set up in a memorable way, and in a way that will likely make at least some readers empathize with and like her.

She's an engineer, but when we meet her, she's beating a machine with a hammer and swearing viciously at it. This is a moment most of us can empathize with.

When she then gets surprised by the Emperor's representatives, she is probably embarrassed, but she recovers quickly, offers zero apologies and even makes a joke of it. In other words, she's a confident and bold person, although possibly a little gonzo. This makes her quite likable.

In Summary: What works best about this excerpt is the author makes some very smart choices and shows a firm grasp of his craft. He simplifies the thing that would be most confusing (the individual identities of the group of messengers), skillfully shows (rather than tells) the reader what the characters are doing and feeling, and establishes his major character in an engaging and memorable manner.

A Post For a Day When Your Backpack is Heavy

Okay, this isn't merely an "Oh my stars, how cool!" post, but the discussion starts below the video because the clip is relevant to what I want to say.



So. That looked incredibly thrilling, right?

So. How did those (gender-neutral) guys get to the top of the mountain?

I saw fences up there. It may be they lucked out and there's a gondola or a road that takes them to the top.

Usually however, with these kinds of sports, each of those amazing flights down the mountain involves a lengthy slog up with a backpack full of equipment. And maybe the skiers had to wake before dawn to do this. Maybe they had to camp in the snow to be ready for their moment.

So the connection with writing becomes apparent--it takes a writer one or more years to write a book, but it only takes a reader a few hours to sail through that thrilling ride and alight upon "The End" wanting more.

And this is true of all kinds of endeavours; it takes days to paint a portrait but only an instant to look at one. It takes months to develop a mathematical proof and only a few minutes for your colleagues to read through it.

Which brings me to the idea of motivation. It can be dispiriting to anyone to know their work can be consumed (and forgotten) so quickly by its intended audience.

So why are we writers doing this?

Here's a potential reason: I read an article recently (and am having trouble finding it now, unfortunately) that studied what motivated a group of children to draw with crayons. It found the children were most motivated when they decided for themselves that they were going to draw, and they were least motivated when offered a reward as incentive to prompt them to draw.

This isn't a surprise to me, because I've noticed this tendency in myself regarding a wide range of pursuits. If I decide it would be cool to paint a picture/write a book/create a computer program, then I can work very hard for quite prolonged periods on that project.

I don't find it a huge incentive to consider that I might ever make money doing whatever it is--and an offer of payment beforehand sometimes even sours my enthusiasm. The "ooh, wouldn't that be cool?" factor far outweighs "hmm, could I sell this?" as a reason for me to start working.

The tricky bit is when I don't feel the "ooh, wouldn't that be cool?" incentive. Then I have to substitute in a solid "this would be worthwhile" belief and make myself plug away at the project. It isn't that I've lost the love of the activity; it's just that at a certain point, inspiration gives way and I have to adopt a work ethic.

I've read about many writers who say they don't exactly like writing; they like having written. They're immensely proud of what they create, but they don't find the process itself all that fun.

And again, that's not really a surprise. All they're saying is that the mind-searing, glorious flight down the mountain is often the sole reason for slogging up it in the first place.

~~~~~~~

Do you like writing, or do you like having written?

What motivates you to write? What spurs you to start, and what spurs you to finish? Are they different things?

And, tangentially, would you climb a mountain if you could fly down it?

Literary Agents: Finding a Good Fit

Livia Blackburne pointed out, via Twitter, this great article about how five writers got, kept and fired agents. It covers a great range of experience, from "We tried hard but couldn't get the sale and lost the love because of it" to "This agent cared more about keeping the publisher happy."

Livia's link was a nice bit of serendipity because I'd been thinking about a related topic for today's blog post: What questions to ask an agent when you get "the call".

I've got some not-often-suggested questions to ask an agent who offers you representation, but I'll get to those later in this post. First, I consider it a public duty for anyone who talks about this topic to discuss how writers can protect themselves against scam and incompetent agents. Hence:


THE BASICS:

There exist con artists who use a writer's dreams against them in order to scam money from the writer. These include vanity publishers and predatory editing services, as well as scam literary agents.

However, there also exist literary agents who have no real experience or expertise, i.e. who are incompetent at their job, who can do as much harm to a writer's career as a scammer does.

Always remember Yog's Law: Money flows toward the writer.

In other words, people are supposed to pay you to publish your writing; never the reverse.

How this relates to agents is that an agent should never charge you up-front fees. They should work on commission only, with fees (for things like photocopying and the mailing costs associated with sending your book out on submission) deducted only after--and if--they make the sale.

Anything else is a conflict of interest. The agent is parasite if they're making money when you are not. However, if they only make money when you do too, then they are in a symbiotic relationship with you, and that's what you want.

Thus, to protect yourself against scam- or incompetent-agents, you ask the questions:

• "What have you sold?" or
• "Since you're a new agent, where have you worked (in the industry) before this?"

The answers to these questions help you determine whether the agent is a legitimate one and how much relevant experience they have. Note! You may need to check out their answers; scammers do lie about these things.

I have to say, however, that here in the internet age, I really think you should have a good idea about whether the agent is legitimate before you talk to them--even before you query them.

AgentQuery screens its listings, and for the most part those agents are legitimate, but don't assume so. Cross-check the agents you want to query at Preditors and Editors, which keeps track of publishing industry scammers of all stripes.

You can also go to the Absolute Write Water Cooler, a writer's forum, and search for the agent's name. You'll often find a thread where someone has asked the questions you want answered, i.e. "Is this agent legitimate? Is this agent okay to work with?"

The important thing is to be aware and educated about the dangers that exist. Reading Writer Beware, created by the SFWA, is a good way to teach yourself what things to watch out for.


BEYOND THE BASICS:

All good? Okay. Now I'll talk about a few questions I think are useful to ask when you're certain the agent on the other end of the line is a professional and your only real question is whether they're the right agent for you.

How involved in the writing process will the agent be?

Some agents really like to workshop with their clients during the writing process, and some only want to hear from you when the book is done and polished to (your standard) of perfection.

So what would you, the writer, prefer? Lots of people would sacrifice their teeth to have a publishing expert act as their critique partner, but personally, I get neurotic if I'm soliciting opinions about my writing while I'm still working on it. It's different for everyone.

So what do you want? Once you've decided that, it becomes a useful question to ask the agent where they fall on the spectrum. Do they want to workshop and help you create a fantastic book, or do they want the delight of receiving your polished, final product like an unexpected present in the mail? Their answer will help you determine whether you and that agent are going to be a good fit.

And what if it sounds like you won't be a good fit, at least with regard to this one point?

Thankfully, people are flexible; this doesn't have to be a deal-breaker. Just admit to the agent that you prefer to work a different way, and mention in what ways you'd be willing to be flexible. Then, ask if they'd be willing to be flexible on this point too.

Agents are used to negotiation; most of them will be completely reasonable provided you're not too timid to bring up the matter in the first place. And if they're not, that's a red flag. You might want to re-consider working with them.

How aware of the selling process will the writer be?

One of the most common complaints you hear from writers who have fired their agent is that there was a lack of communication. The agent wouldn't answer emails or phone calls, or did so in a perfunctory, unhelpful manner.

The thing is, a lack of communication might have birthed that problem. Did the writer ever tell the agent what level of interaction they expected?

Stop and consider how often you want to hear from your agent when your book is on submission. Of course if something big happens you want to know immediately, but what about when nothing much is happening? When it's just out there with editors, awaiting their responses?

When I had an agent, I asked her to email me a status report about once a month, and that worked out beautifully. Of course she occasionally got busy and I had to prompt her, but she was always speedy about getting back to me when I did so. I think outlining right from the beginning what I wanted (and my request being a reasonable one) helped keep our relationship smooth and angst-free.

If you suggest the agent touch base with you once every [X] weeks with a brief status report, and then ask the agent whether they consider that request reasonable, the two of you can thereby negotiate a communication schedule both of you consider fair.

This functions as insurance, too. Often, the writer who has complaints about their agent's level of communication spends many months fretting about whether they have a legitimate peeve or not. If you tell your agent from the outset what you expect, then those months of uncertainty can be avoided; if a lack of communication occurs, you have grounds to open a discussion with your agent immediately.

~~~~~~~

What other questions do you think would useful to ask an agent if you're trying to determine whether the two of you will be a good fit?

Alternately, if there are agented or previously-agented writers who read this blog, what headaches have you encountered with your agent? (Anonymous commenting is on.) Maybe we can brainstorm ways to help prevent those issues from occurring in the first place.

Do you have any other comments on this issue? I'd love to hear them!

Nine and a Half Thoughts

I've been serious about writing for a few years now, and I've come to a few conclusions. Here's a list of some of the things I've learned on this journey:

1) Complacently allowing yourself to not write may be more dangerous to your dreams than all the publishing industry's pitfalls.

2) Keep your hero worship on a leash. No one has all the answers. An expert, at best, only has the correct answers for themselves. You follow their teachings not to find out what works, but to to discover whether it will work for you. There's no guarantee it will.

3) Despite that, you always benefit from trying to learn something new; no exceptions.

4) The things you think are truisms about your writing style usually aren't. Often, you haven't tested yourself to see whether that 'truism' is true--you're just mentally defending your status quo.

5) All kinds of things work. The writing 'rules' exist to train us out of bad habits. Once you've learned to write according to the rules, you'll have the wisdom to know when it's alright to break them.

6) You always feel least talented and least happy right after taking a step forward in your craft. You only see what's wrong when you're capable of seeing what's wrong. Therefore, never give up: the pain only means you've graduated to the next level of understanding.

7) No amount of hype will turn a mediocre book into a bestseller. Don't go crazy over the wrong things; focus on your writing.

8) Your mental space is your work space. When your mental space is cluttered with anger and angst, you often can't function as a writer. Keep your desk clear. Walk away from those juicy internet fights.

9) You're only competing with yourself. Everyone else is running in a completely separate race.

9b) So don't trip anyone. Just cheer.

Letting Go--Of the Old Ways?

I announced last week I had ePublished a book. Today I'll talk about why I did that, but it's really part of a larger discussion: mentally and emotionally letting go of a book you've written.

I'll start by not talking about that book. I'll discuss the one I wrote before it.

I invested a lot of effort in my first novel, and as a consequence, I had a lot of emotion sunk into it. It took me a while (about twenty-five rejections) to find an agent, and in the meantime, I was still getting feedback on the manuscript from online critiquers.

One suggestion I got from a person (who hadn't read it) was that maybe I should stick that manuscript under the bed and write a new one.

To which my (private) reaction was, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo...!!"

I couldn't imagine just...letting that book die. Giving up. I had sunk so much time and emotion into it, had twined it so tightly to my dreams, that my mind balked at the possibility.

After I began writing my second book, it became...possible to let the first book go. I still wanted (and continue to want) to get it published, but once I was busy with the next book, I no longer had fits of apoplexy over the thought of setting the first one aside. My eggs weren't all in the same basket anymore.

The book I ePublished last week was my second book, not my first.

And that might seem a bit weird. The truth is I've still mentally got the first one set aside for traditional publishing.

Why not the second book? Because the second book was problematic to write, and I'm not sure I like it--in the sense that it isn't the sort of thing I read, and I thus don't feel comfortable recommending it to others because I don't know how many people are into that sort of thing.

Also, my agent and I parted ways (amicably) over this second book. It wasn't her cup of tea either, and that means the second book carries some emotional baggage for me; trudging back to the start of the road to publication did make me pretty sad.

The result of all that was, after racking up about twenty-five rejections for this second novel also, I decided I wanted to let it go. I was already writing a third book (and enjoying the process again), but the second one nagged like a hangnail. I felt frustrated and impatient with traditional publishing, but at the same time, I didn't think this book would be the one to let me break into traditional publishing. I just wanted to mentally wave goodbye to it and not care so much anymore.

Five years ago, I would have stuffed the manuscript under the bed, dusted my hands, and said, "Mischief managed." However, the publishing landscape has changed rapidly in the past few years, and J. A. Konrath's success with self-publishing has really intrigued me.

For a start, self-publishing an eBook is something you can do for free. This makes it a very different beast from vanity publishing in that you might be a fool to do it, but at least you're not being fleeced by some predator while you do it.

I decided my second book was the perfect one to experiment with. It's unlike the stuff I normally write, so why not release it under a pseudonym and satisfy my curiosity about self-publishing at the same time?

I'll pause here to note that one thing I find off-putting about some people who self-publish is they're zealots. They see themselves as voices crying in the wilderness, or trailblazers struggling against a conspiracy of monolithic traditional publishers, and that insecurity seems to make them desperate to convince everyone (including themselves?) that self-publishing is the way of the future.

I am not a zealot. It's not at all clear to me that self-publishing a book isn't an idiotic thing for me to do.

What I am is a dork and an experimentalist. I want to see what happens; I want to know if this would work for me instead of continuing to wonder about it. (Plus, I can do it on a shoe-string.)

If any of you are curious about my experience with this, feel free to ask at any time. I'll always be honest, I'll try to be objective, and I don't mind telling you the embarrassing stuff.

So here's my as-objective-as-possible opinion of self-publishing thus far:

Trying to do it right, i.e. putting effort into creating a (hopefully) professional-looking cover, copy-editing the text, making a promo, etc., took up about two months of my time and I got very little writing (or reading) done in the meanwhile. I consider that a big negative. Writers must write!

I sold six copies, all in the first two days. Okay, so six is a really teensy quantity, but during those first two days? It was so exciting!

I now believe at least half of those sales were to family members (thanks guys!), which feels a bit like cheating to be honest, although I very much appreciate it.

And I haven't sold any books since, so the emotional roller coaster is officially back in the ground-level station again.

One thing that has hit home to me is just how gruesome and monumental a task self-promotion is--how very invisible you feel, and how very unwelcome you could make yourself by trying too hard. For example, I think it's a completely valid choice for book review websites to exclude self-published books, but it's disheartening for me to finally notice that--my goodness--they all seem to.

The one thing I like is I don't have to stress out over a slow start. This book isn't coming off the market until I decide to take it off, and that means if I hit upon some fabulous marketing plan six months from now, I still get to reap the benefits. If I were traditionally published and my book had a slow start, it would likely be taken off shelves long before it could build any momentum and my career would essentially be finished.

It's a tough road, either way.

~~~~~~~

Do you have any thoughts to share? Any uncomfortable observations you'd like to point out? There's a lot of talk these days about self-publishing, about the allegedly-oh-so-imminent death of traditional publishing, and about what a serious writer should be trying to do with their career in these digital days. I think there's merit in having an open discussion about it and in being critical of some of the claims made by both sides.

Would you consider self-publishing? Have you already self-published?

Do you think it's dangerous to your writing career to self-publish? Do you consider it a cop-out made by people who aren't talented enough to make it in traditional publishing?

Do you think traditional publishing is dying? What do you think will rise from its ashes?

Do you think all the predictions of doom are just a new spin on the publishing industry's decades-old pessimism and everything will settle out just fine?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Cult of Conspicous Consumption - now on sale

Okay. Big scary thing is now done.


I've ePublished my novel,The Cult of Conspicuous Consumption, on Smashwords, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk under the pseudonym "Jen Deben".

And ooh, look! I figured out how to embed my promo (still no sound, sorry):



By the way, if you want to share this Flash game with others (and naturally I would love it if you did), just copy-and-paste the text below into your website or blog:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0" id="CofCC_Promo" align="middle" height="500" width="600"><param name="movie" value="http://www.jjdebenedictis.com/CofCC/CofCC_Promo.swf"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="base" value="."><embed src="http://www.jjdebenedictis.com/CofCC/CofCC_Promo.swf" quality="high" name="CofCC_Promo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" base="." align="middle" height="500" width="600"></embed></object>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, just so nobody feels awkward, I firmly believe you should only buy a book if it appeals to you and never out of guilt because that book happens to be written by your internet buddy.

In other words, it's totally fine with me if this sort of novel isn't your cup of tea. You don't have to pretend otherwise; I promise I still like you!

I mean, heck, this is a novel I would emphatically tell my mother not to buy because my mom doesn't appreciate bloodthirsty, cynical books, and oooooh my, yes--this is one such a novel. So it would hardly be sporting for me to strong-arm anyone else into it, would it?

I do hope, however, that you'll all at least take a look at the novel's blurb and free sample and consider it.

Oh, and play the Flash game lots while making "Rawr! Rawr!" noises. :-)

Pickup Lines

Writers often obsess over the perfect opening line. This is probably a side-effect of the query system, where the first five pages are of crucial importance to snagging the interest of an agent or editor. Other elements of the book, including the pacing, the tension level, the closing line of each chapter and the emotional power of the ending are probably more important.


That said, it's worth trying to sort out what makes a strong opening line. In a sense, it's a pick-up line, and you want it to be suave and genuinely intriguing, not cheesy or a turn-off.

1) One of my favourite opening lines, written by Stuart Neville:

"His hands just looked dirty to casual eyes, a slight darkening on the knuckles, a shadow on his palm."

2) Here's (my best stab at remembering) a tweet from Livia Blackburne that I thought would make a good first line for a book:

"That is the LAST time I go to a conference without my wedding ring."

3) From EIGHT BLACK HORSES by Ed McBain:

"The lady was extraordinarily naked."

To me, the one thing that ties all these together is that the line implies a greater story, and an apparently intriguing one.

Mr. Neville's line implies a tension between apparent civility and uncivil violence. His character has obviously been fist-fighting, but the language implies you could be sitting right next to this fellow and not realize he's capable of brutality. It's a creepy thought, and it implies this character has secrets and a dramatic life, and thus might be interesting to know more about.

Ms. Blackburne's line makes you think you might know what sort of occurrences led to her statement, and you sense they might sound pretty funny to someone who didn't have to live through them. That promise of amusement works as a lure to make you want to hear more. The reader senses the emotion the speaker is feeling (exasperation) and assumes dramatic events must have given rise to it. We become hungry to hear about the drama.

Mr. McBain's line implies this character who is seeing the naked woman is pretty shocked by it. After all, she's not just naked; she's a "lady" and "extraordinarily naked". Given nudity is a binary state, and you can't get more naked than naked, the reader ends up curious as to why this observer is reacting so strongly. Again, we sense his emotion and we become curious to know what drama is provoking it.

Moments of struggle, moments of conflict, and moments that provoke high emotion constitute "stories". Nobody wants to hear about how the photocopier worked normally today--they want to hear about your epic battle of wills with a hostile and diabolically cunning photocopier.

First lines have to firmly imply a story. This means they need to imply a conflict on some level. It can be a subtle conflict created mostly in the reader's mind, such as the one formed when Mr. Neville hints at the difference between what you see and what is actually true about this character. It can be an external conflict such as the one we suspect lies behind Ms. Blackburne's statement--we assume she was in an epic battle of wills with someone (or several someones) at the conference. It can also be a internal conflict such as the one between what the character was expecting and what they actually got, as seen in Mr. McBain's line.

A second thing to note, however, is that a reader isn't going to necessarily care just because a conflict clearly exists. You need something more to rope them in, to make them decide to invest their time in the story.

What does the job? Any number of things, and here are a few: Empathy, curiosity, humour.

Mr. Neville's line provokes your curiosity. The author sets the scene in such a way you might be sitting next to this character on a bus. You glance over at his hands and abruptly realize something doesn't add up. You had assumed this person was harmless and boring (like most of us are), but he's been brawling. Suddenly, you're curious. Who exactly am I sitting beside? What mischief has he been up to?

Ms. Blackburne's line implies humour. She might not think what's happened to her was funny, but you know you probably will and she sounds ready to vent and thereby let you have your amusement. Thus, you decide to stick around and hear more of her story. The humour you anticipate is what lures you in.

Mr. McBain's line provokes empathy. You don't know a thing about this situation beyond the fact the observer is seeing a naked lady and feeling very shocked. All that's drawing you in is an emotion, a reaction you can relate to. You are curious about the situation too, but what provoked your curiosity was the fact someone else (a fictional someone) cared about it. In effect, the character's emotion acted as a testimonial saying, "This is worth caring about."

In summary, a first line needs to promise some kind of conflict. You don't need a murder victim or an explosion in that first line (although you can have either), just some tension between two things in opposition. If your sentence implies something interesting or rewarding is about to be presented, the reader will stick around to see what that is.

What Works: Small Favor by Jim Butcher

This week I return to my "What Works" blog feature where I discuss what's done well in an excerpt from a book. Today we'll look at a passage from Jim Butcher's Small Favor.



First a bit of set-up: in this scene, the protagonist Harry Dresden is trying to escape from an enormous creature called a gruff. A gruff is a huge, sentient, occasionally-magic-wielding billy goat--as in the three billy goats Gruff.

And hence you know the Harry Dresden series features a lot of humour.

Small Favor by Jim Butcher

Anybody with an ounce of sense knows that fighting someone with a significant advantage in size, weight, and reach is difficult. If your opponent has you by fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is a dubious proposition, at best.

If your opponent has you by eight thousand and fifty pounds, you've left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in Roadkill 101. Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

(snip)

My body, meanwhile, had flung itself to one side forcing Tiny to turn as he pursued me, limiting his speed and buying me a precious second or three--time enough for me to sprint toward a section of floor marked off by a pair of yellow caution signs, where Joe the janitor had been waxing the floor. I crossed the wet, slick floor at a sprint and prayed that I wouldn't trip. If I went down it would take only one stomp of one of those enormous hooves to slice me in half.

Footgear like that isn't so hot for slippery terrain, though. As soon as I crossed to the other side of the waxed floor I juked left as sharply as I could, changing direction. Tiny tried to compensate and his legs went out from under him.

That isn't a big deal, by itself. Sometimes when you run something happens and you trip and you fall down. You get a skinned knee or two, maybe scuff up your hands, and very rarely you'll do something worse, like sprain your ankle.

But that's at human mass. Increase the mass to Tiny's size, and a fall becomes another animal entirely, especially if there's a lot of velocity involved. That's one reason why elephants don't ever actually run--they aren't capable of it, of lifting their weight from the ground in a full running stride. If they fell at their size, the damage would be extreme, and evidently nature had selected out all those elephant wind sprinters. That much weight moving at that much speed carries a tremendous amount of energy--enough to easily snap bones, to drive objects into flesh, to scrape the ground hard enough to strip a body to the bone.

Tiny must have weighed twice what an elephant does. Five tons of flesh and bone came down all along one side of his body and landed hard--then slid, carrying so much momentum that Tiny more resembled a freight train than any kind of living being. He slid across the floor and slammed into the wall of a rental car kiosk, shattering it to splinters--and went right on through it, hardly even slowing down.

Tiny dug at the floor with the yellow nails of one huge hand, but they didn't do anything but peel up curls of wax as he went sliding past me.

In this excerpt, Jim Butcher demonstrates how to handle explaining something that is not necessarily intuitive or believable to your reader.

My field of study was physics, so E=½mv² makes perfect sense to me. However, this is a book where magic is real--and where the author doesn't want to count on the reader remembering their high school physics.

If Mr. Butcher had merely shown Tiny being vanquished by falling down, it would have seemed a bit too convenient and thus unbelievable. After all, people and animals fall down all the time, and as Mr. Butcher points out, in our experience that's not a big deal. Furthermore, this book is set in a world where magic exists. Why would a magical creature necessarily be damaged by stumbling?

And so, Mr. Butcher eases you through a dubious plot point that would normally threaten your suspension of disbelief. He starts by acknowledging what your logical reservations to this moment would be--you've fallen down, and you know it's not so bad. Then he explains those reservations away--yeah, it's not bad for you, but for a larger animal, it could be devastating.

Then he gives you a vivid idea of what would happen to a large animal if it fell down while travelling at speed--broken bones, stripped flesh, impaled by foreign objects, oh my.

Then, and only then, he shows the gruff crashing down and sliding past the protagonist like a freight train, helpless to stop itself. And at that point, it's believable to you that this would happen.

If the tumble had occurred without all this explanation, your mind would have slipped out of the story for a moment while it puzzled over whether to actually believe this could happen. By convincing you before showing you, Mr. Butcher keeps your mind firmly planted inside the narrative.

Note Mr. Butcher hasn't actually explained away every reservation you might have. The gruff is a magical creature; why wouldn't it have natural defences against this sort of thing? If the world of the novel is already so divorced from our mundane reality that the gruff exists, why not divorce it a bit further so the gruff can exist? Without needing a LifeCall pendant?

The fact is, as long as your brain believes this event could happen, you'll keep ploughing through the exciting narrative without pausing long enough to realize it doesn't necessarily make sense even now. The author has convinced you this moment is plausible, and that is enough sleight-of-hand to keep your willing suspension of disbelief intact.

It's worth looking back at this excerpt and analyzing how it breaks down in terms of "show" versus "tell". There's a lot of "telling" in this passage, but all of it is necessary so Mr. Butcher can explain away your reservations. He does intersperse the "telling" with "showing" to keep you grounded in the story, but he also holds your interest with a few additional tricks.

Or possibly in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

...evidently nature had selected out all those elephant wind sprinters.

Humour will keep people reading things that don't necessarily have a strong narrative, and the lines above are pretty funny. They act as a reward that keeps you reading through paragraphs that are otherwise striving to tell you something fairly boring about mass, velocity and energy.

Mr. Butcher also keeps his physics lesson vivid and visceral with plenty of real world examples you can picture in your head.

You get a skinned knee or two, maybe scuff up your hands...

That's one reason why elephants don't ever actually run--they aren't capable of it...

By doing these things, and by returning to the action via "showing" quite often, Mr. Butcher eases you through a problematic moment in the story--a point when you might have gone "hmm..." if he hadn't been using a variety of skills to keep you reading onward.

At a seminar I attended given by Donald Maass, he noted that writers of high-concept thrillers have to be able to do this on a larger scale. They can convince us that Jesus has been cloned, OMG, or some other insane thing--but they have to do it carefully in order to keep the reader's suspension of disbelief intact. He noted these authors start small, and convince us one tiny part of the whole picture is plausible. Then, they convince us that some other part of the mystery is also a possibility.

And so on, and so on, until they have built up the whole picture and have us, the reader, completely buying into a concept that would have made us laugh if we'd heard it cold, i.e. without all the careful build-up.

Mr. Butcher is doing exactly this--and skillfully too--but on a very small scale.

IN SUMMARY: What works about this excerpt is the author eases us through a moment when our suspension of disbelief might have been threatened. He does this by acknowledging our reservations and explaining them away, all the while keeping us engaged with the narrative via humour, vivid examples, and by returning to the action often during an extended period of "telling".

~~~~~~~

Can you remember a book where the author made you firmly believe something outrageous? How did they do it? What tricks did they use? What pulled you in? And did you enjoy the ride? I'd love to hear about your experiences.

The Ground is Shifting

This is the post of the parentheses (i.e. I just noticed I have a lot of them today.)

Livia Blackburne wrote on Twitter that:

I wonder if there will ever be a day when aspiring writers are advised to self-publish, get a readership, and then approach traditional publishers?

This is so plausible it's scary. As she notes in a later tweet, authors are already encouraged to start a blog and develop a readership before applying to traditional publishers (although many publishing people say this is unnecessary and possibly a waste of your time.)

In fact, writers are asked to do quite a few things publishers used to do more of--editing and promotion, for example (not that I don't think you have no responsibility to edit! It's just editors used to have more time to develop a writer's skill at crafting a marketable book. Now, you pretty much have to do it yourself, at least for your debut, or you won't get picked up in the first place.)

Publishers have already farmed out their slush piles to literary agents. Would it really be such a leap for the chronically-struggling industry to now farm out the slush pile to the public? To the ones who ultimately determine which books will become bestsellers? To say, "You prove to us this book can sell; then we'll print it"?

It would be a weight off publishers' shoulders to know every book they invest money in is already established as viable. But it would also, as J. A. Konrath points out, relegate print to being a subsidiary right, and I can't imagine publishers wanting to slip in prestige from being trend-setters to trend-chasers. It would also require them to get a good deal less territorial about electronic rights.

Ever since J. A. Konrath announced he was making a very good living self-publishing on the Kindle (albeit with a natural edge; he already had an established print career and thus a lot of exposure to what a professional novel must have going for it), I've been feeling a bit gobsmacked. Electronic self-publishing can be done for free and Mr. Konrath's proving it can be lucrative (although I agree with him you won't get anywhere if you don't have a quality product in the first place.) Those two points weaken a lot of my knee-jerks against self-publishing.

Readers still prefer paper books (but not by much), and ebooks sales are still only a fraction of print books' sales--but ebooks sales are also growing at a ferocious rate. As a writer, I'm feeling a paradigm shift. Should we still be thinking traditional publishers are the first step in a serious writing career?

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What do you think?

Brainbolt

The geek in me gets a hold of my brain sometimes, and when it does, that can be as fun as writing.

Here's what I've been thinking about recently: Publishing is a stochastic process.

Okay, I'll back up.

In physics, when you've got a large system comprised of small bodies, and you can predict what the system as a whole will do but not what one individual body will do, that's a stochastic process.

An example of this is a gas comprised of molecules. Imagine you compress the gas into a smaller volume. What will one individual molecule do? You can't say. It might collide with another molecule. It might move up or down or to the left or it might stay still. It might rotate, for heaven's sake.

But the gas--you can say things about the gas as a whole. You can say that its temperature and pressure will increase.

Publishing is a stochastic process. You can't say with any accuracy what one random person wandering through a bookstore will or won't buy. You might, however, be able to predict roughly how many copies of one particular book will sell to the whole population of random people wandering through bookstores.

What makes publishing such a dangerous occupation is they have to make these kinds of predictions all the time, and if they screw up--even on just one book a year--they stand to lose a lot of money. Too large a print run can devastate the company's bottom line; too small a run can let a potential bestseller slip into oblivion.

Now here's the thing: Physicists get hired by financial companies to mathematically model the stock market. These physicists occasionally can come up with better predictions for what's going to happen than the guesswork of savvy and experienced professionals is able to provide. And even a tiny edge can turn into massive profits when it comes to something as variable as the stock market.

So this makes me wonder if anyone's ever tried to mathematically model book sales, i.e. tried to predict the rate at which something will sell initially and how word-of-mouth will affect its sales. Anything that keeps those few, disastrous screw-ups from happening could make a huge difference to the publishing industry.

I've thought about the problem a bit. It could be done, but you'd need some input parameters that you could only get by quizzing readers (about 30 to get a statistically valid sample) who are the sort of person who'd potentially buy that kind of book.

You'd need to ask them how well the cover, blurb, and sample page draws them in (i.e. convinces them to buy the book), then quiz them again after they've read the book regarding whether they liked/hated it enough to mention that fact to a friend or two.

And that's the tricky part, because while publishers would be the most benefited by having access to the modelled data, an internet-based book seller (particularly one with a mighty database like Amazon has) would be better equipped to do the initial study. They could offer incentives to readers in order to get feedback on a new book.

Me and my rusty memory of statistical physics are still working on the model, but just think how freeing it would be to the publishing industry if they could get a system in place that helped them avoid those few, but appallingly costly, mis-steps that plague their profit margin.

Also consider how it might help quirky authors find their market; if the publisher could predict how many copies of a particularly oddball novel it can sell (via booksellers), then they could adjust their print runs to make a profit on even on less commercial books.

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What do you think? Have you heard of this being done already? (If there's money at stake, surely someone's taken a stab at it...) Do you think it's possible to pin down something as variable and unpredictable as individual taste and the zeitgeist of the public?

What input parameters do you think such a model would need? I've thought about author brand, enticement of title, pretty covers, prominence of bookstore placement, word-of-mouth, etc. etc...

What Works: HOGFATHER by Terry Pratchett

Excerpt of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

There was no doubt that whoever had shut it wanted it to stay shut. Dozens of nails secured it to the door frame. Planks had been nailed right across. And finally it had, up until this morning, been hidden by a bookcase that had been put in front of it.

"And there's the sign, Ridcully," said the Dean. "You have read it, I assume. You know? The sign which says 'Do not, under any circumstances, open this door'?"

"Of course I've read it, " said Ridcully. "Why d'yer think I want it opened?"

"Er...why?" said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

"To see why they wanted it shut, of course."†


†This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off or still smoking.

The problem with trying to analyze humour is as soon as you try to determine what makes something funny, it stops seeming funny.

This is because surprise is an important part of humour. Humour consists of saying something that is recognizably true, but completely unexpected.

A joke's setup creates a scenario in the listener's mind.

An inebriated guest walks up to his host. "Mr. Hilcrombe, these lemons you've provided to flavour our drinks with are terrible!"

"What? I haven't provided any lemons."

The punchline twists the listener's assumptions in order to deliver an unexpected truth--an interpretation of that scenario that is valid, but a surprise.

"Oh, good heavens! Then I must apologize, sir; I've just squeezed your canary into my martini."

A simple knock-knock joke delivers a surprise interpretation of the answer to "Who's there?"

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Esther.
Esther who?
The Esther bunny.

The final answer is unexpected, but it's a valid interpretation of the setup.

Satire--which is what Mr. Pratchett specializes in--consists of saying deeply critical things about our world and ourselves. What makes satire funny is most people won't say these things--either out of politeness or because they haven't thought about the matter that deeply. Thus, to hear the sentiments expressed aloud is unexpected.

When someone laughs at a crude and nasty joke, it's often because they didn't expect the other person to say something so socially discouraged. When they laugh at fine satire, it's because they didn't expect to hear such a deep truth expressed so incisively and, perhaps, so mercilessly. Cruelty isn't what ties these two different kinds of humour together, however; surprise is.

In the above excerpt, the punchline is in the footnote, the setup is in the text. Mr. Pratchett shows the reader a depressingly familiar scenario, and after reading it, the reader likely feels--in a vague sort of way--exactly the sentiment Mr. Pratchett is about to express coldly and incisively: Forget the cat; curiosity kills humans with regularity.

When Mr. Pratchett actually expresses this criticism of humanity, it's funny because we instantly recognize the truth in his words, but they're still a surprise. People don't usually say things so bluntly.

Most humour consists of this duality of recognition and surprise, although visual jokes don't always fit neatly into the definition. For example, in a skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus, John Cleese and Eric Idle are standing on some grass beside a body of water. Eric Idle slaps John Cleese across the face with a fish. The audience giggles because this is a surprising thing to see. But what truth is being recognized?

There isn't one, but the humour also isn't enormously funny--yet. As the skit progresses, Mr. Idle continues to slap Mr. Cleese in the face with the fish, and his body language gradually shifts from frightened to confident to arrogant as he does so.

Mr. Cleese simply stands there, staring in outrage at Mr. Idle. Then, just as the skit is becoming tiresome and Mr. Idle is mincing up to yet again slap Mr. Cleese, Mr. Cleese whips out a HUGE fish he had hidden behind his leg and wallops Mr. Idle across the side of the head, knocking him into the water. And the skit ends.

Now, the joke's setup and punchline are obvious. The setup was a series of minor outrages perpetrated against a blameless person. The punchline was straight-up vengeance. Who can't relate to wanting to give someone a taste of their own medicine, with accrued interest?

We recognize instantly why Mr. Cleese whacked Mr. Idle with the massive halibut, and our surprise comes from the fact we didn't expect him to do it; the skit hadn't primed us for anything except passivity from him.

IN SUMMARY: What works in the above excerpt of Hogfather is the humour. The reader is shown a scenario under which lurks a deep truth about human nature. The punchline is provided when the author surprises the reader with that truth.

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I'd like to do something different this week. Your thoughts (and dissent) in the comments section are always welcome, but for today's post, I'm assigning you homework:

1. Choose a piece of humour from any source (a book, a comedian's routine, a movie scene) and analyse why it's funny. What was the unexpected truth? Where did the surprise come from? Bonus points if you can do it for a piece of physical comedy; visual humour is often the hardest to decipher. Please post your analysis in the comments.

2. Using the concepts of truth-recognition and surprise, make up a brand new joke. Please post it in the comments section. (And if you require a straight man to pull off your joke, I'd be happy to act as your patsy!)

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!




And speaking of funny...