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.

Post #167 April 29 2019

“Handling Rejections”

You get a letter in the mail or an email: “Thanks for letting us review your story.  Unfortunately, we feel it is not quite right for us.  Good luck in the future.”  Or words to this effect.  Congratulations.  You’ve just been rejected.  It’s an occupational hazard for every writer who puts his or her work out for consideration.

Nowadays, much of my work is published online so I don’t have to deal with rejections, just the ever-shifting daily download numbers.  But I still write short stories and novelettes that I try to place with print publications.  And from them: lots and lots of rejections.

How should a writer deal with this?

Emma Bowd, on the website writersandartists.co.uk has this to say about rejection letters:

(My editor) used to tell me that being a writer is like being a farmer – you work for many years on a product (without income) and then, when it’s time to go to market, you literally do not know if there is going to be a glut of your product or no demand at all.

She also wisely said that the book would “end up where it’s meant to be” – and painful as it was, I completely agree with this. It is so wonderful to be with a publisher that completely ‘gets’ my work and is so very supportive of me. 

So the message is, keep going and believe in your work. Always revisit your manuscript after a rejection letter and take what positive feedback you can from it and tweak accordingly. A manuscript is an evolving entity. And you are the only person in charge of its destiny.

All good advice, especially the part about learning from each rejection whatever you can and tweaking accordingly.

Many years ago, I submitted a story to the old OMNI magazine.  The science fiction editor sent me an interesting rejection.  He liked my writing and suggested that I had the makings of a decent novel but needed to change the focus from one of character relationships to the hard science at the core of the story.  I didn’t (and still don’t) fully agree with this assessment but he was honestly trying to put me in a position of future commercial success.  By the way, this basic story has become the nucleus of a new science fiction novel that will appear in 2020, entitled Monument.  Look for it.

Writers can’t take rejection letters personally…of course, that’s easier said than done, if you put any real effort into your work.  It can’t be personal.  The editor doesn’t know you.  They know only the work.  Some editors have informed that my work or my story was a very good story, polished, engaging, well-written, just not quite what the publication was looking for at that time.  Editors always say study the publication first.  Read copies.  That way you’ll know what they’re looking for.  And that makes sense.

I have recently finished a science fiction short story entitled “The Rain Queen of K-World.”  It hasn’t been sent around yet; I’m collecting feedback from fellow writers and friends whose opinions I value.  I have made changes based on this feedback, so hopefully the story is better for it.  Soon, I’ll send this story out and see what happens.

I’ll leave you with some Do’s and Don’ts about handling rejection.  This from author J.T. Ellison and her website jtellison.com:

Do – Give yourself permission to be upset when a rejection comes. If a piece of chocolate or an ice cream cone will make you feel better, then have it. Enjoy a drink with friends. Be social.

Don’t – Comfort yourself with destructive behaviors, like going out on the town and ending up blowing in a tube. It’s just a rejection letter, not the end of the world.

Do – Go for a walk.

Don’t – Burn your manuscript, shred your notes, and delete all the files on your computer. Seriously.

Do – Take a day off from writing and read a book.

Don’t – Call all your friends and tell them you’ve decided not to be a writer anymore.

Do – Step away from the computer for a few hours, allow yourself a break from the cycle.

Don’t – Call the originator of your rejection to ask why they didn’t like your project. Really, that’s just not a good idea.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on May 6, 2019.  In this post, I’ll go back to the question all writers get all the time: “Where do you get all those crazy ideas?”

See you then.

Phil B.

 

 

 

 

Post #166 April 22 2019

“Downloads and Agents”

I just uploaded Episode 3 of my new Time Jumpers series.  Since I started uploading on February 1, this series has garnered 285 downloads, so it seems to be off to a decent start.  Every week, I update my download statistics.  Here’s the latest:

Downloads since I first went online (2014) = 25,351

Downloads this year (1-1-19 to 4-15-19) = 6761

Downloads last week (4-8-19 to 4-15-19) = 792

Average downloads per day (1-1-19 to 4-15-19) = 64 per day

The numbers seem pretty good.  The lady who leads the writers critique group I’m in has suggested, as have others, that with these numbers, it’s time for me to look for an agent.

Which leads me to today’s topic: Why agents?  What are the pros and cons of having an agent?

The web site Literary-agents.com has a nice list which helps answer this question.

Pros:

1. Agents know who to send your book to
2. More publishers will review your book
3. Publishers will take your work more seriously
4. You’ll get better contract terms
5. Your agent will troubleshoot any problems
6. Your agent might bring in extra book ideas or deals
    
   Cons:

1. You have to share control
2. Agents get commissions
3. You have to wait…be patient
    
   Another website, Nathanielfree.com adds these:
    
   Pros:
    

1. Agents have industry contacts
2. Agents have industry experience
3. They protect your rights

Cons:

1. There’s no guarantee an agent can get you published
2. It’s an extra step in the process
3. The wrong agent can actually hurt your career
    
   For five years, I have been publishing online through Smashwords.com.  While it’s true that I have set all my online work to free, my downloads numbers are now over 25,000.  Also, since I’m putting everything online these days, I don’t actually have a manuscript I can shop around to agents at the moment.
    
   My personal opinion is that I should take a different tack before I go agent-shopping.  My writer friends are also telling me I should start putting prices on my uploaded titles.  I originally did that with Smashwords several years ago and it worked okay for awhile, but my downloads started to plateau off.  Smashwords makes many recommendations for their authors and one of them is to lower your prices or set all titles to free, if downloads are flat, and see what happens.  I did that two years ago and my downloads took off.  They’ve stayed high ever since and my writer friends tell me it’s probably because I am developing a small readership base, which was always a key goal of mine.  This course of action seems to be the best choice for me.
    
   So, I won’t put prices on any title that is currently free or anything else I upload this year…mainly the rest of the Time Jumpers series.  However, next year, I have resolved to put a small price (maybe $1.99 or so) on anything new that I upload.
    
   Then I’ll see how dedicated my readers really are.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed (April 29) will deal with something all writers deal with…handling rejections.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.
    
    

Post #165 April 15, 2019

“Making Up New Words: Why, When and How?”

One of the joys (and responsibilities) of every writer, especially storytellers in fiction, is making up new words.  This is especially prevalent in science fiction and fantasy…think of Harry Potter and muggles as an example.  In order to bring this off effectively, writers should adhere to some commonsense practices, so as not to drive their readers away or leave them scratching their heads.

1.  Why make up a new word?
    
   Writers make up new words for several reasons.  One is to drive home a point or to emphasize something.  One of my favorite examples comes again from the world of Harry Potter.  In London, when young Harry has to shop for brooms and wands, Hagrid takes him to a place called Diagon Alley…see the play on the word ‘diagonally’?  What’s being emphasized here is that this is a different kind of place, but somehow related to normal human places.  It’s a place of witches and warlocks and magic.  Diagonal means an at angle to, or slightly out of whack or off-kilter.  In one of my Time Jumpers stories, I’ve got a moon called Outtawhack.  The name emphasizes that it’s a place that’s just a little out of the ordinary.
    
   Another reason to make up a new word is to display or reveal character.  In my Farpool stories, I use a plot device called an echopod.  Among other things, it’s a sort of translation device.  Often, when something said by a Seomish person can’t be translated, or they’re very emotional about something, the echopod translates it as “Kkkqquuuqq—”  Seems like a nonsense syllable.  But in context, I’m trying to have all these consonants illustrate something like annoyance, or disgust, or confusion.  Not really a word, but you get the idea.
    
   A third reason to make up a word is to show details of setting, perhaps in the local language of its inhabitants.  In my Farpool stories, I often refer to tribal (kel) homes by their city names: Ponk’t, Omt’or, Sk’ort, where these habitat names are intended to be read and sound like something a marine creature would utter.  If I did my job right, such names would add to their reader’s sense that this is truly an alien (and marine) world.
    
2. When to make up a new word?
    
   Writers should not make up a new word when a normal word will do, unless some local color is needed.  See above.  Or maybe you want to inject a little realism into the story.  In a short story I recently wrote (not yet published), entitled ‘The Rain Queen of K-World,” I give the time frame of the story as 2 ½ C-79 (month of Half-Crescent, Midtober, 2779CE). In doing this, I wanted to convey that the people of K-World keep time a little differently from us.  They’re humans, like us, but they live on a world orbiting another sun.  The normal conventions of human timekeeping don’t apply there.  I used the word ‘Midtober’ to give a sense of alien-ness but not too much to put off a reader.  It gives the reader a sense of being grounded but also a sense that things are little different here. 
    
   Obviously, you can get carried away with this.  A little goes a long way, when making up new words.  I once read (or tried to read) Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, which is filled with futuristic English criminal and gang slang.  It was difficult to get through…too many new words.
    
3. How to make up new words?
    
   Any new word you concoct has to sound right.  It needs to be pronounceable, at some level.  This was an issue I faced in The Farpool Stories, where I had actually made up the rudiments of a full language.  The tribal leader of a given clan was called the Metah, short for Metahshooklet.  I implied that this was translated as ‘The One Who Gives Love,’ indicating that the Seomish were sort of promiscuous sexually.  Say what you want about the pronounceability of the word, but I was consistent in how I used it.
    
   One way to make up new words and have them be understood is to ensure that the meaning is clear in context.  J.K. Rowling does this well in the Harry Potter stories.  Here, she is mostly dealing with slight variations in the English language, like Diagon Alley. 
    
   Or in my Farpool Stories, the name of the oceanic planet is Seome, which I derived from the words ‘sea’ and ‘home’.  The word sounds like what it is.  Another example from the same stories is ‘seamother.’  What’s a seamother?  It’s dragon-like beast, a fearsome carnivorous creature, but the very words ‘sea and ‘mother’ convey something opposite.  The context is negative here.  That tells you a little about the Seomish people, that they both fear and venerate this creature at the same time.
    
   Any time you make up a new word, pay attention to etymology…how words came to be.  Another example from Harry Potter: Harry’s nemesis at the Hogwarts school is a fellow Draco Malfoy.  I love that last name…trying saying it: mal…foy.  See the etymology?  It’s derived from many English words that have bad connotations: mal-function, mal-ware, malign, mal-feasance.  The name alone tells you, in a sort of subconscious way, that Draco is bad news.
    
   Making up new words is at the same time a right, a privilege and a responsibility for any writer.  But you shouldn’t do it without some care for how it will be perceived, how it will be read by your readers.  Done right, making up new words can add a powerful new dimension to your story, resonating with readers below their level of consciousness.  And that always makes a great story.

   
   

   The next post to The Word Shed comes on April 22.
   
4.  
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.