Post #174 July 1 2019

“How Much Research is Enough?”

To address the question in the title above, I refer you below to some conditions that may occur in your writing adventures, conditions which, if they do occur, will indicate you have enough research to complete your story.

All writers do research.  Some call it other things: background, inspiration, listening to your muse.  Most writers I know enjoy this aspect of their craft, for in doing research to support a story, they learn all kinds of new things.  But remember that a story is more than just some research notes slammed together with a weak plot and weaker characters.  You’re telling a story, not developing an encyclopedia.  The story has to be paramount.  The story guides everything.

With these thoughts in mind, below are some indicators that show you’ve probably done enough research.  You know you’ve got enough research….

1. When you’re living in the story world.  When you dream of being in the story.  When the story consumes your daily thoughts and you view everything around you through the lens of your story.  To be ‘in the story’ is a very special place.  It doesn’t happen all the time.  It means you can tell the story from the perspective of someone who is right there, which means you’ll put the reader right there too.  That can make for some very powerful story telling.  Research and details don’t tell the story but they can make a good story even better, adding realism and power to your narrative.  Most readers of fiction I know want to be transported to other places and other times, live vicariously through the story and its characters.  Research helps that notion of verisimilitude…resemblance to the truth.
2. When the story wants you to start writing it.  You feel anxious to get going.  You have energy, motivation, and once you’ve started writing, a certain rhythm comes over you.  Researching and learning are all fine and good but when you feel this way, research time is over and it’s best to get on with the story. At this point, you’re ‘in the story.’ It’s part of your being.  I think every writer feels this way once in a while. 
3. When there’s no more room in your research and notes box.  I often use boxes to contain physical articles, books, maps, etc for my background and research.  Even today, I can look around my office at several boxes stashed away in corners, filled to overflowing with materials for novels I wrote years ago.  When you can’t physically cram anything else into the box and your computer files are starting to flow off the screen, you’ve done enough research.
4. When the background and setting details become more interesting than the story itself.  Writers have to watch out for this one.  It’s an occupational hazard.  Writers of fiction (really all writers) are naturally curious beings.  We want to know everything about our areas of interest.  I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a child and to this day, I’m still a bit of a space cadet, indulging my interest with astronautical things that may or may not show up in later stories.  When you find yourself pursuing research avenues to the exclusion of the story, or putting off the story to get that one more piece of information (which may or may not be relevant or important to the story), you’ve done enough research. 
5. When you ‘info-dump’ details into the story to justify all the research work.  Jeez, I spent days tracking down that description of the mansion on the hill…I’d better put it in the story so all that work wasn’t wasted.  This is especially an issue for science fiction and fantasy writers, who glory in world-building and developing whole-hog alien cultures.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m like so many sf readers, who love to immerse themselves in a truly alien world and culture and try to figure things out.  SF and fantasy writers even add appendixes to their stories to unload all the details they couldn’t work into the story; I’ve done this myself.  But a little background goes a long way.  Give the reader some credit.  Put in a few details and let the reader use his imagination to fill in the rest.  They like that. 
    
   These are some of many indicators that I use to alert myself that I need to get on with the story and stop burying myself in the background and research.  Being highly organized too, I always use what I call my Next Steps checklist to make sure all my research bases have been covered.  When everything is checked off on this list, I’m pretty sure I’m ready to begin actually telling the story.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on July 8.  In this post, I’ll look back at the early history of writing and reveal how storytelling, which began as an oral tradition, figured out how to glom on to the new technology of linguistic symbols to expand the reach of storytellers through time and space, to reach audiences far removed from the local clan and campfire.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.
    
    

 

Post #173 June 24, 2019

“You Can and Should Judge a Book by its Cover.”

Two years ago, I upgraded my series Tales of the Quantum Corps with all new covers.  Smashwords (my ebook distributor) recommends doing this on a regular basis as a way to pump up your downloads.  To date, I’ve seen some spikes, not huge, but there has been some increased activity in downloads since I started uploading new covers.

There is an old saying: don’t judge a book by its cover.  Baloney.  We all judge books by their covers.  We have to and we should.  A good book cover captures not only the reader’s attention and interest, but when done well, captures the essence of the story itself.  A really good cover pops and can’t be ignored.  How readers respond to covers varies with each reader but there are some good practices that should be followed in designing a book cover.

Before I get into these practices, I’ll show you how the cover of one of my books has evolved.  The book is Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor, book one in my series Tales of the Quantum Corps.  Here’s the original cover…

   

It’s got the basics: the title and my name.  The image is some kind of virus particle…on a black background.  Looks ominous, befitting the story in many ways.  I liked it because it’s simple, it was easy to create, and it sort of implies something we don’t see all the time…a virus particle magnified a few hundred thousand times.  The story involves a nanoscale robot called ANAD, which is able to function at the same size scale as a virus…in fact, in the book I imply that ANAD is derived from and functions as a programmable virus.  So the image fits the story.

I upgraded the cover to the following…

The new cover is richer visually, more stimulating.  We’re still at the level of atoms and molecules (remember the story hasn’t changed) but now it looks like some kind of vortex or whirlpool has trapped all the atoms.  There’s still the title and author’s name, but now I’ve added the fact that it’s part of the Tales of the Quantum Corps, implying the existence of other stories. 

Only time will tell if the new cover stimulates even more downloads.  Or whether it’s really an improvement at all.  With that, let’s look at some good practices in book (especially ebook) cover design.

Digital Publishing 101 has a web site that offers some well-thought out tips and techniques for cover design.  In particular, the authors speak of 3 critical elements of book covers:

Background

Image

Type

 

Background:

Your cover should have a background color, texture or image rather than being plain white. Plain colors can be a bit dull so consider using a graduated color background or a background image. A good quality image will add a professional look provided it doesn’t conflict with other elements and provides strong contrast for the typographical elements.

 

Image:

Some book covers can work well without an image if the other elements work together. But a strong image can lift your cover design, give it a focus and convey something important about the book’s subject or style. As with background images, make sure this image is of high quality and consider using a stock photo library if you don’t have anything suitable. The image must work with both the background and, importantly, the type. If you need to use an amateur image, you can often improve it with smart cropping or special effects such as fading but don’t overdo these: Like the use of too many fancy fonts, it can end up looking, well, amateurish.

 

Type:

Typography is a real art and sets the best book designers apart from the rest. On covers, effective typography is perhaps the single biggest success factor. It must suit the book’s genre and, most importantly, be clear and readable at the smallest scale.

The top half of the cover is prime real estate so, as a general rule, use it for your main type area. You’re unlikely to be able to fit in much more than the title and author, with perhaps a short subtitle or series cover line visible in the larger images. Non-fiction titles might be better to drop the author to free up space for a subtitle unless the author is well-known.

Covers are the one place you can forget about working with the narrow range of e-reader- and web-friendly type styles because the cover type will only appear in an image. The sorts of fonts that work for covers are quite different from the fonts that work best for body type. For instance, readable body type is fairly open while strong headline types are tighter with less white space and, often, more height. You should only use one or two fonts on a cover and they need good size and contrast against the background and images.

There are lots of great sites for fonts on the internet. One which specializes in good quality free fonts is Font Squirrel (www.fontsquirrel.com).

 

Spend some time on your book covers.  Or engage the services of a professional.  Smashwords highly recommends using the services of a pro.  I’ve elected to do my own covers for the main reason that I know the story better than anyone.  But probably, I’d benefit from a professional approach as well.

 

The next post to The Word Shed comes on July 1.  We’ll be looking at how much research is enough for you tell your story believably.

 

See you then.

Phil B.

Post #172  June 3, 2019

“Book Titles: What’s in a Name?”

Every book has a title.  Some are good and some aren’t.  What makes an effective book title?  Let’s explore the art of giving a title to your book.

First, let’s ask a question.  What purpose does a book title serve?  I can think of several.

1.  Identifies the work.
2. Captures the story in a few words. 
3. Grabs the reader’s attention.  Brings the reader in.
4. Sells the book.
5. Genre compatibility 

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

1. Identifies the work. This should go without saying.  You want to select a title that positively and uniquely identifies your book.  Name authors don’t have this problem as what is really being sold is the brand name of the author.  Your title should identify the book along several dimensions (see #5 below).  Is it science fiction?  Mystery?  Romance?
2. Captures the story in a few words, maybe even one.  My best-selling book (in Smashwords downloads) is called Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor.  Not a few words but it does identify the main character and a key location or element of the story.  One of my latest sf novels was entitled The Farpool.  Probably a better title.  Punchier and with a word that you don’t see or hear very often.  Which leads me to….
3. Grabbing the reader’s attention.  Here’s one title I like because it immediately grabbed my attention: Freakonomics.  It’s a juxtaposition of two words that aren’t normally put together.  It seems just wacky enough to make you want to look a little closer.  By the way, one-word titles are all the rage now:  Twilight, Endurance and so forth.  Be careful with this, though.  Your word choice should reflect the story in some way, and ideally, it should offer an unusual perspective or angle or alternative use of that word, maybe in a way you never thought of before…something to get the reader thinking: “Hmmm, maybe I should look at this more closely.”
4. Sells the book.  The whole purpose of a book title (and it should be amplified and work well with the cover too, by the way) is to sell the book.   Readers want to know what to expect when they see your title.  You probably wouldn’t name your science fiction masterpiece Galactic Love.  Love is a word associated with romance, not sf.  Frank Herbert named his best-known book Dune, which is a great title.  It neatly captures images of lots of sand, deserts, brings to mind the kind of cultures that develop and live in deserts, the importance of water, etc.  This one simple word carries quite a punch and performs multiple duties in identifying and selling the book.  It doesn’t hurt that it’s a great read as well. 
5. Genre Compatibility.  This idea is alluded to above, when I mentioned how you wouldn’t normally put “Love” in the title of a science fiction story.  Readers want to be reassured that what they’re potentially buying is what they expected.  Titles help provide that assurance.  One way to do this is to, as an example, go through the science fiction section of your local bookstore or your favorite web site and list common words in the titles.  That’ll give you some idea of what words to use in your titles. 
    
   As an example, here’s a list of Arthur C. Clarke titles from my bookshelf, right beside me:
   2001: A Space Odyssey
   The Songs of Distant Earth
   The Fountains of Paradise
   Rendezvous with Rama
   A Fall of Moondust
    
   What do you see in common with these titles?  References to space, earth, cosmic things.  And if you look at the covers of these books, you’ll see images of Earth and astronomical settings. 
    
   Think of Carl Sagan’s wonderful novel Contact.  It’s one word.  It implies extraterrestrials and aliens and a whole syndrome of thought that surrounds these subjects.  And it works with the cover too: some editions show huge radio telescopes and stars in the background.  There’s no doubt what you’re getting when you look at this book or buy it.
    
   Titling books, fiction or nonfiction, is both art and science.  It isn’t hard to generate titles.  Lots of writer web sites will do that.  The art comes in when you choose your title to meet the 5 conditions I’ve listed above.  
    
   One web site I consulted as research for this post even adds discoverability as a key concern.  The site talks in great detail about keyword search and search optimization as other factors to consider, in this age of digital content and ebooks.  But that’s a topic for another time. 
    
   The Word Shed will take a three-week hiatus from June 3 to June 15.  It’s vacation time. The next post comes on June 24.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.
    
    

 

 

 

 

Post #171 May 27, 2019

“Downloads and Short Stories”

I just updated my download statistics for the last week.  The numbers look like this:

Tales of the Quantum Corps = 7330

The Farpool Stories = 4129

Quantum Troopers = 13,091

Time Jumpers = 489

Total downloads since I went online in 2014 = 28,036.  Last week’s downloads = 833.  In 2019, my downloads are 9446, averaging about 68 per day.  So the numbers are looking pretty good.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I’ve set everything to free but I am trying to build a readership base.

Lately, I have been using some spare time between Time Jumpers episodes to work on my short story craft.  I have one sf short story out being circulated around now (it has several rejections already) and I started another sf short story this week.  I’m always struck by how hard it is for me to do short stories.  My abilities seem better suited to longer forms.

I’m learning a lot though.  I’ve learned that a good short story is really focused on one incident and just a few characters.  You have to make every word count.  There’s no room or time to go off on different plot lines.  Short stories are about focus and concentrating on a small slice of life. 

Wikipedia has this to say about short stories:

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a "single effect" or mood, however there are many exceptions to this.
A dictionary definition is "an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot."^[1]
The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella (a shorter novel), authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques.

I have found that I often prepare and outline short stories pretty much the way I do for novels, and therein may be the problem.  I’m a diligent outliner because I like to know where I’m going in a story (or supposed to be going) before I sit down to type.  Maybe I should just start writing and craft the story in the editing and re-writing process.  But that’s not really me.

Every word has to count in a short story so I feel it’s actually good discipline to keep at this.  Plus it would be nice to see my name in a print publication. 

Another factor is that you don’t normally invest nearly as much time and effort in a short story as a novel.  If it just doesn’t work out, then you have lost that much.  That’s happened to me as well.

I’ll let you in on what I learn as I go about this new tack.  I’m still predominantly a novel writer and the Time Jumpers episodes are actually in between, novella-length stories.  The nice thing about science fiction is that there are markets and readers for all lengths.

Next week’s post will come on June 3, 2019. 

Hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend. 

See you then.

Phil B.

Post #170 May 20, 2019

“Editing and Flossing: We Do It Because We Should”

Every day, I floss my teeth, like all real Americans.  Twice a day.  I don’t particularly like it but I do it.  The dentist says I should.  That’s how think about editing too.

Wikipedia says this about editing: Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete work.

When I finished Episode 8 of my Quantum Troopers serial, it was 68 pages long.  Right after finishing the first draft, I do a thorough read-through.  Does it flow?  Does the story make sense?  Is it believable and consistent?  I take this read-through as a chance to correct awkward grammar, fix typos and misspellings (later I ran spellcheck) and generally find out if I have a decent story, with all the proper elements of a story…plot, characters, a problem for the characters, some complications, some kind of resolution in the end, etc. 

Let’s take what Wikipedia says and expand on correction, condensation and organization as major points in the editing process.

Correction

Everybody makes mistakes.  I know that’s hard to believe but it’s true.  Editing gives you the chance to find them and fix them before your readers do.  Nothing destroys the power of a story, the verisimilitude of a story, faster than an obvious factual error.  Typos and awkward grammar can be fixed easily enough.  But when you say Mars is a billion miles from Earth and it’s really only a hundred million miles away, plenty of readers will pounce on that and toss your book, assuming you haven’t taken the time to be a pro and find and fix obvious glitches.  It does not reflect well on your craftsmanship when your story reeks of mistakes.  We don’t build houses that way and we shouldn’t build stories that way either.

Condensation

To condense a story means a lot of things, mostly taking things out.  One of the practices that made Quantum Troopers possible as a serialized story of 20,000-word episodes, uploaded to Smashwords every 3 weeks, is the fact that I freely copied and pasted from other stories.  After the chop job, though, I have to smooth things out, condense down the paste job so it will fit my story size and smooth things out so the story flows, the plot makes sense, the story is adequately carried forward, the characters are consistent and believable, in other words, condensation and correction work together, like ham and eggs.  It’s a rare story that can’t stand some enlightened pruning.  For the last thirty years, I have spent much of my life as a professional technical writer.  This turns out to be good discipline for story-telling.  Tech writing is done mainly to instruct.  Story writing is done to tell a story.  But these two things are related.  Moreover, in tech writing, as in any good writing, use only the words needed and no more.  Be spare.  You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway.  But try to tell the story with the minimum number of effective words.  I interpret condensation as a form of literary distillation, paring down my words to the most essential ones, pruning away all but the essence.  That’s what makes for effective writing, in any genre.

Organization

The editing process also involves organization.  In any story, things should happen and flow logically, for a reason.  Dick did this and then Jane did that.  For me, organization starts with a strong outline.  Outlines are the heart of my writing.  If I don’t have a good outline, I can’t tell a story.  But other authors are different.  Good editing involves understanding what makes a story tick.  Characters are motivated by certain things.  A problem hits them and their motivations drive them to react and deal with it a certain way, hopefully consistent with their nature.  The hard part is making this look natural and keeping the character’s responses both believable and consistent.  The really good storytellers have a way of using plot complications to cause a character to grow in their response, thereby revealing something we can all learn from.  Hey, maybe if that happened to me, I could do what he did.  It makes sense, it’s satisfying at some fundamental level.  Stories that do this are the memorable ones and organization (tightening the story up) is one key part of that. 

Obviously, there’s a lot more to editing than this but I like to keep my posts short and to the point…as we’ve just been discussing.   Corrected, condensed, organized…any writing will benefit from these.  Behind every successful writer is an effective editor and in this day of indie, self-publishing and e-books, those two are often the same person.

Next week’s post will come on May 27, 2019. 

Hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend.

See you then.

Phil B.

Post #169  May 13, 2019

“Researching a Story”

Every writer of stories, however long or short, does research.  Why research?  To make for more believable background.  To be consistent across the length of the story (especially important in a novel).  To provide detail for characters so you don’t give the main character blond hair on page 1 and a dark pony-tail on page 100. 

Here are some of my insights about researching a story and how much of your hard-won research should be included.

1. Less is more.  If in doubt, leave it out.  Many writers spend so much time researching and developing background that they feel compelled to put it all end, to justify the effort.  If it doesn’t advance the story, don’t do it.
2. Don’t expect to include everything.  A little goes a long way.  Suggest and imply a lot.  Pick memorable details, unique details.  If it’s something the reader should know, be accurate.
3. Thoroughness. One of my latter Tales of the Quantum Corps story, “Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary”, had files covering maps of Boise, Idaho, Hoover Dam, Inuit culture, Interpol, Mombasa details and background on Wyatt Earp.  Talk about eclectic.  Is all of included in the story?  Not all…just what is needed.
4. My character sketches have physical descriptions, brief (chronological) biographies, and personality and character analysis.  I don’t hesitate to deviate.  Some writers prefer to wing it but I like to know my characters in great detail, indeed, I try to put myself into their shoes and become them.  This makes for a schizophrenic home life, but I have an understanding wife.
5. If you can’t find a detail, make it up.  Imagine something similar.  I had to develop some details about growing or regenerating my nanoscale robotic devices in Tales of the Quantum Corps.  I’ve got a list that spans 3 pages.  And I’ve used it many times in these stories.   Verisimilitude is the operative word…resemblance to the truth.
6. A few words about naming characters.  Every author has his or her own technique for giving names to characters.  I like to use maps and atlases. Many cities and towns in countries all over the world are named for people.  Scan maps and pick one.  Tweak it if you have to.  You’ll come up with some memorable names. 
7. There are a plethora of books in the world of SF on world-building.  Alien worlds in your SF stories should be scientifically accurate and internally consistent.  It’s okay to develop your imaginary world in detail.  It’s not really okay to include every detail in the story.  I did, however, include an Appendix to my novel The Farpool , which has an oceanic world called Seome.  It has notes on the biology of this world, their language, cities, history, cultural concepts, etc.  I worked some of this in as the story progressed, but I tried to stay on plot as far as the story goes. 
8. Remember: setting should serve the needs of the story and never get in the way of advancing the story.  Details for the sake of details…a no-no. 
9. Atmosphere is more than details of setting.  It’s how characters react to the setting.  It’s what they do in the setting.  Setting is a tool.  Good research makes setting a useable tool, useful for many things. 
10. Best sources for research: Wikipedia, Google and your own experience and imagination. To put the reader there, you have to be there…what do you see, hear and smell?  Research details that engage all senses.  Use senses other than visual. 
     
    These are just some thoughts on how much research to do in developing your story idea and how much to include in the story.
     
    The next post to The Word Shed will be on Monday, May 20.
     
    See you then.
     
    Phil B.

Post #146 November 26, 2018

“Where Do You Get Those Crazy Ideas?”

In answer to the question above, I have a one-word answer: everywhere.  Ideas are the lifeblood of any storyteller and memorable ideas are particularly valuable.  Even a cursory look at the mechanics of storytelling should convince you that the basics haven’t changed since Og and Grog grunted at each other across a campfire in 1 million BC.  Have a memorable hero, give him a problem or put him in danger, twist the screws so that the danger gets worse, then our hero either overcomes the problem with heroic efforts or fails magnificently.  That hasn’t changed since humans became humans and started talking to each other.

What has changed are the ideas, the subject matter and some tweaks to technique.  Oh, and the media have changed as well, what with printing, radio, movies, TV, Facebook, Twitter, the coming of the ebook, etc.  But the basics of good storytelling really haven’t changed.  Why?  ‘Cause people haven’t changed that much.  Culture and technology change.  People…not so much.

I gave the title question some thought recently and came up with these answers to where do I get my crazy ideas.

1. Ideas come from life.  By this, I mean life as it is experienced or lived.  Say, you develop a close relationship with the bag guy at the grocery store.  You know he wants to get into the Army and you both have a great interest in military history.  Pretty soon, some of his life becomes material for a story.  Or he becomes a character in a story.  It’s happened to me.  All you need to gather ideas and material for a story from life is something that anyone has: curiosity and the ability to ask questions.  More specifically, you need the ability to look at a situation or a person and see the story possibilities in it.  Not every incident has story potential but many do and some can be expanded into a story.  I know someone in my Sunday school class who was born in Prague at the start of WWII and whose first memory as a child was being snatched off the cobblestone streets of Prague right in front of a Nazi tank.  Tell me there’s no story possibilities in that.  Be alert, be curious, and ask questions. 
2. Ideas come from other writers and their stories.   How many stories have the Star Trek and Star Wars universes spawned? Probably beyond count.  It’s okay to read another writer’s story, and see additional story possibilities in it.  Most writers don’t mind that, though some may be a little protective of their fictional universes.   Last year, I had a game designer in California contact me about collaborating on a gamified version of my series Quantum Troopers.  I don’t believe anything will actually come of this but it is interesting. Often, you read a story you like and it gives you inspiration to take an off-ramp from that story to a world the writer left unexplored.  Other stories can often spark your imagination into flights of fancy, asking what if this happened?  What if so and so did this instead of that?  What if Roosevelt and Churchill had been kidnapped by aliens collaborating with Nazis…I actually considered that as a story once…fortunately, not for long.  Which leads me to…
3. Ideas can come from systematic imagination…extrapolation.  This is a further case of asking what if?  A good example is my series The Farpool Stories.  Way back in the early 1980s. I wrote a story called The Shores of Seome.  It had an oceanic world with a marine civilization of intelligent fish-like beings.  I was never able to place it so it was shelved for several decades.  But I was always intrigued with the setting and the question: how would intelligent fish live and what would their culture and technology be like?  Then I asked what if: what if far-flung descendants of humanity operating a military weapon on this ocean world created a whirlpool deep enough to be a sort of wormhole?  What if the fish people could use it to travel back and forth to Earth?  What if two teenagers saw this whirlpool off the coast of Florida and wound up being sucked into it and catapulted across six thousand light years to this ocean world?  What would happen? How would they react?  Thus: The Farpool.  And it ultimately evolved into five novels set in the same universe.
    
   That little two-word question what if? can be a powerful motivator for your imagination, if you pursue it far enough. 
    
   The next post to The Word Shed comes on May 13, 2019.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.