Blog Move

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Do Your Scenes Pop?

I’ve read a lot of novels. Only a few stick out in my mind like memories — like I witnessed the story happen. For a long time I’ve wondered why that is. Why some and not others?

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper is one such book. While Mark Twain didn’t think much of Cooper’s writing abilities, even going so far as to call him dull, I remember the opening scene of Pioneers, which introduces us to Natty Bumppo, the judge, and the judge’s daughter Bess, perhaps above all others I’ve read. As for Twain, I never cared for his writing, but that’s not the point of this article.

In a perfect world I read in bed two hours before switching off the lamp and going to sleep. My world is rarely perfect. Crafting my own scenes often cuts into the time I spend reading those of others. In a perfect world the hours are limitless, but, again, there’s that perfection thing. Sometimes I go days without reading. My library (and now my Kindle) is cluttered with novels I’ve never finished. Some were just bad purchases, well-meant gifts, or good starters that petered out somewhere around the fourth chapter. Looking at this from a writer’s perspective, I’ve tried to nail down what, exactly, causes me to pick a novel back up after it has gathered dust for days. That something, I keep telling myself, is what I want to learn to do with my own work.

For years it has eluded me.

A couple weeks ago I began reading The Road to Grafenwohr, By Edward C. Patterson. Besides being a very good novel, it gave me that ah-ha! moment I’ve been so needing. These past few weeks have been very busy for me, what with pulling overtime at my day job, trying to get my own WIP polished and ready for e-pub, and multiple birthday parties within the family. I’ve had to read Grafenwohr in snatches. Fifteen minutes here, an hour there. It’s been a slow go, but it has finally revealed to me what it is about a novel that holds my interest during those long idle reading gaps.

The scenes pop.

I find myself thinking about the exploits of PFC Quincy Summerson (Grafenwohr’s lead character) spontaneously throughout the day, the way I think of actual events. The way I sometimes (still) think about the judge and Bess up on that mountainside road where I first met Natty Bumppo. Part of the riddle was revealed — something held my interest during the idle times.

I’ve read some great novels that I simply couldn’t put down. Novels that interferred with my writing and television watching simply because I had to know what happened next. I couldn’t wait. Yet I rarely remember those characters and scenes afterwards. Two weeks and it’s as if I never read them. Why? The plots were great, the writing powerful, and the pace lively.

The scenes didn’t pop.

The Road To Grafenwohr stands out in my mind scene-by-scene. Each scene is almost self-contained, meaning they could be rearranged and sorted and still be powerful enough to move the story forward. When I think of The Pioneers, I think scenes.

For over a decade my day job has been writing computer programs. I’ve learned to break programs into modules. Each module has a specific task to accomplish. I need to train myself to think that way when I write fiction. I need to learn to create scenes that have a specific task. That task will ultimately be to move the plot forward. Breaking a novel into scenes will allow me to plan scenes, write scenes, and tweak scenes without breaking the plot. If a scene isn’t doing it’s job, cut it and replace it with one which does. I think it will work and I wonder if this is how other writers, the good ones, do it?

A few years ago I wrote a novel called The Night Train about two young boys who flee abusive homes by hopping a freight train. They meet up with a controlling hobo who offeres them security in return for obedience. They find themselves caught in a trap not unlike the one they were running away from. I shopped the novel around a little then set it aside and started a new project. I dismissed The Night Train as just another step in my path toward learning the craft. My new WIP went through several drafts (eight, I think) and was going to be the one I really pushed. Or so I thought. Something about it failed to hold my interest. I had invested so much time and effort into it that I decided to push forward anyway — make myself polish it into something marketable. One afternoon, needing a break, I opened The Night Train and started reading. Immediately I remembered my main characters and what they did. It was as if I knew them in a way I had never known any characters I had ever created.

The Night Train is now my focus and I am having a wonderful time with it. I’ve given myself a fall deadline and a very specific task. Make the scenes pop.

In my day job — that programming gig — I am constantly learning new things. Each new thing makes my programs better. Each time I kick myself for not realizing it sooner, thinking every programmer in the world must’ve known that secret except me. Writing is that way, too. Long gone are the days when I thought I had talent and that was that. Writing good fiction, like anything else, takes something more than talent. It takes experience. It takes writing a lot of bad, horrible, drivel before writing something that is ready for readers. The talent, the art, is knowing the difference. I don’t claim to possess that talent yet, not when it comes to judging my own writing, but I am definitely getting better with every sentence. When, if, it pops, I hope I’m smart enough to realize it.

 

Information Overload

Trying to process the do’s and don’t's of e-publishing is like trying to breathe with your head out the window of a speeding car.

There is so much information out there and it is so easy to find. Twitter, Facebook, blogrolls — just type your favorite term into Google and hit the enter key. Bam! More information than you can shake a stick at. Much of it is just a rehash of something that has been blogged and tweeted a thousand times over. How do you sort through it and find the meat?

My wife often asks me, “how do you know what to believe on the internet?” Typically, this question is in response to a search I’ve done on some non-writing related thing … like medical symptoms (I’m a chronic self-diagnoser and doctor-avoider). I tell her you just have to toss out the stuff that defies common sense, then see what else is being repeated in different, disconnected, corners of the web. You also have to consider the source. What are the potential conflicts of interest?

You wouldn’t ask a traditional publishing house for advice on e-publishing, would you? You wouldn’t search WebMD for advice on herbal healing, would you?

If you came here looking for some magical answer to the problem of information overload you came to the wrong place. I don’t have one. We are in the same boat. All I know is that every now and then you simply have to pull your head back inside the car and take a breath. In other words, close the web browser and write. Just write.

Top Five Reasons I Chose To ePub

The debate over traditional versus self-publishing has been going on for years. About three years ago, when I first started seriously researching publishing avenues for my fiction, the advantage seemed to heavily favor traditional publishing houses. Self-publishing was widely deemed vanity publishing. Vanity publishing meant paying someone to print your novel so you could hand it out to a few friends and, if you were lucky, maybe sell a few in your hometown. Bookstores, of course, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.

I never really considered any route other than traditional because it was the only way to be validated as a writer. Technology, in the form of the Kindle and Nook, changed all that.

About a month ago I pulled a short story from that secret folder on my laptop and published it on Smashwords. The process was incredibly easy (though I’m still not very good at covers) because I took the time to read the Smashwords Style Guide before attempting it. Smashwords formats your e-book for the Kindle and Nook for you (as well as other formats) and distributes it to a host of e-book retailers. I was thrilled the first time I saw my short stories on Barnes and Noble. Vanity? Perhaps, but people are actually downloading my writing.

So what tipped the balance for me? Here are my top five reasons (in no particular order) for choosing the ePub route:

Writing For Me

The eighth draft of the my novel-in-progress was starting to feel like a yoke upon my neck, a ball and chain around my ankle, a … well, you get the picture. Ninety thousand words shuffled and prodded so many times was becoming more chore than pleasure. I was finding every excuse in the world to work on something else. It’s easy to get distracted, what with Facebook and Twitter and formatting some of my short stories for my Smashwords page. Build a platform, they say, and they might come. A trickle at first, then more if you’re lucky. But inside I knew I was avoiding the elephant in the room — my unfinished novel.

Nobody Writes Letters

I was a kid long before Al Gore invented the internet. Back then, if you wanted to tell someone something, and they were too far down the road, you wrote them a letter. Our telephone was black, had a rotary dial, and sat on the table by the couch. My aunt next door had one that hung on the wall with a long cord between the base and the handset and I thought being able to walk around the kitchen and talk on the phone was the coolest thing ever. Calling outside your county meant there would be long distance charges and, in our house, a whipping unless you had permission. Asking for permission carried its own risks.

My mother had a friend (a sweet older lady) who lived a county or two over.  They wrote letters. I can still remember how exciting it was to go to the mailbox and find a letter from her. Mom would usually read it to us and she always answered back. Writing letters is how you kept up with folks.

When I was a kid about the only thing more exciting than being the first one to the mailbox was being the first to spot the peddler on Thursday afternoons. The peddler, you see, drove a store on wheels. It was a big truck with a canvas-covered back. He’d pull up every Thursday and show you what he had for sale. Sometimes us kids would get a sugardaddy or nutty-buddy or maybe a pack of nabs. If you don’t know what those things are you probably needn’t bother googling them.

My childhood was not a happy time. Far from it. But I miss when people wrote letters and I wonder how much history will be lost because of it. Will email and tweets and Facebook  posts survive long enough to give our great-great grandkids a glimpse at how we lived? So much of what we know about the Civil War comes from letters written by men to their sweethearts, or by sweethearts to their men. Will historians find our hard drives someday and suck the data from them to learn about us?

I’ve tried to make myself keep a journal so my kids will have something to pull out and bore the grandkids with long after I’m gone. I even put it on my headboard with a pen, beside the lamp, on top of my Kindle and the hardback I’m reading, but it’s no use. My handwriting is so bad I can’t read it myself after a few days. Even if it stayed readable I doubt I’d keep scribbling in it. What would I write? Got up this morning, went to work, came home, watched TV and went to bed? Try writing that every night for a month. Try reading it. I even tried jotting down my thoughts on current events but I’d get so mad I couldn’t sleep. My journal was a flop.

For all of you who are old enough to remember when cell phones came in bags the size of your mother’s purse, think back and see if you can remember the last letter you received through the mail. I can’t.

 

Indie: Define Your Path

As I continue on my journey down this writing path I find there is one thing in abundance — advice. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Advice can be good. Advice can save you a lot of headache, heartache, and frustration. Advice can also discourage you, even when that was not the intention, or send you headlong down a path that simply is not the right path for you.

We are all different. Advice that is good for one person, or ninety percent of fledgling writers, might not be good for you. The hard part is learning how to tell the difference.

The internet is full of places for writers to gather. You can post a sample of your work in writing communities and get reviews from scores of people who, I believe, are honestly trying to help. The problem is that we are all different. We have different strengths and weaknesses and, yes, goals. We also have different likes and dislikes when it comes to reading. What I like to read is probably not what you like to read. It’s good to get reviews on your work but don’t let someone steer you away from your inner voice.

We all have an inner voice. It’s that nagging something inside us that tells us what we are doing is right or wrong. In most cases the reviews I’ve gotten on my writing fit what my inner voice had been trying to tell me all along. Did I mention that we often ignore our inner voice? I know I tend to at times. Sometimes it takes someone else agreeing with that voice to make us sit up and take notice. Sometimes, though, you will get advice that you just kind of know is wrong for you.

For a long time I listened to people telling me to steer clear of indie publishing because it was almost impossible for an unknown writer to reach an audience. When I thought of going the traditional route (which I was resigned to do) I would almost become sick to my stomach. Querying agents and publishers was something I put off to the point that I began to fear I would never make a serious stab at getting my writing off my PC and onto the market. A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the indie plunge.

It may not go anywere. I may fail. But I’ve gotta tell you, since I uploaded my first short story to Smashwords it feels like the world has been lifted off my shoulders. I suddenly feel free to write now. Write what I want, come what may.

Listen to advice, pay attention to it, be thankful for it, but define your own path. We are not all the same.

Getting Serious

Okay, I get it. I really do. If you want to sell your writing you can’t give it away. And if you can’t give it away, perhaps you can sell it.

I’ve spent the morning cleansing my website of my short stories. I’m not so sure anyone will notice, though. Did you notice? No,  I didn’t think so. Next move? Smashwords.

Smashwords is a place people like me can go to electronically publish (ePub) their short stories and novels. It’s a place where anyone can go and download short stories and novels (you can download almost any kind of writing there but I don’t want you straying) for your Kindle or Nook, or whatever ebook reader you have. No ebook reader? No problem. You can also read online through your web browser (HTML) or download a PDF version to read on your computer. But this is not a commercial for Smashwords. Not yet. Not until I get my stuff formatted, uploaded, and for sale.

You’re eagerly awaiting. Good. Anticipation. Excellent. Be patient, I’ll get there. Nag me to hurry up. Really, I won’t mind. Just don’t ignore me. I’m writing, not releasing silent farts into a crowded room.

It takes a lot of work to format this stuff into ebook format, and then there’s the cover page. Writing is the easy part.

 

Freedom

It’s hard sometimes to imagine people willing to die for an ideal, especially one that has never been tried. That’s what our ancestors did 235 years ago.

They had this unheard of notion that the average everyday man and woman had a God-given right to be free. It must’ve sounded silly back then. It had never been tried. It went against the grain.

Swimming With Sharks

The dream of every writer is to be published. To be published is to arrive. Look at me, I’m a real writer … not just some wannabe with a keyboard and nutty ideas. No one realizes this more than those in the business to snooker those of us still mired in wannabe.

Snookering isn’t just something the no-names do. I learned that a couple of months ago.