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In Good Company

26 Thursday Sep 2019

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I like villains.

Everyone who knows me just let out a collective, and sarcastic, ‘nooooo’.

Let me explain. I like complex characters. I like characters with layers. Characters who, if you get to know them, would be nice/interesting/kind people, if it weren’t for that homicidal streak/drug problem/superiority complex/emotional distance.

You hear it all the time, so-and-so is a one-dimensional character; or, so-and-so is a Mary Sue/Gary Stue.

To clarify: one-dimensional characters are exactly what they look like and nothing more. Horror movies (mainly from the 1970’s through mid-1990’s) are loaded with one-dimensional characters: the jock, the nerd, the cool kid/popular one/rich one, the criminal, the emo/goth/psycho one, the airhead, the innocent one/virgin. A Mary Sue (for a female character)/Gary Stue (for a male character) is someone who’s just great. They’re smart, good looking, kind, athletic, in short, they’re good at everything including being a human being.

Here are the problems with one-dimensional characters. One, they’re unrelatable. I’m sure there are those of you out there who know a jock. You might be thinking: Why wouldn’t the jock I know relate to the jock character? Well, and here’s the second reason one-dimensional characters are bad, because people, real people, are more than one thing. That jock you know could also be a father, a loving husband, a klutz, have a great sense of humor, they could write poetry. That air-head could be a great and selfless friend, a good cook, have a wonderful singing voice. The third problem with one-dimensional characters is that by boiling characters/people down to one thing you make your audience care about them less. Why should I care if the jock dies in a horror movie? But if Billy, the boy dedicated to his girlfriend, who lives with his grandmother, who happens to be on the football team dies I would care more. For instance, who’s going to tell his grandmother, and who’s going to take care of her now?

Mary Sues and Gary Stues have the same problems, but for the opposite reason. Mary and Gary are just too much of everything. They’re unrelatable because no one can be that many things. When was the last time you met someone who was good at everything? And a great person? They’re unrelatable because your readers can’t see themselves rising to the occasion and stepping into their shoes. It’s also hard to care about these characters because it’s hard to put them in danger. That locked door? I’ll pick the lock. That file we need from the computer? I hacked it. The killer is almost on us. Them? I doubled back and tricked/trapped them, we’re good now. There’s no rising action and climax, for the audience, because they know that Mary/Gary will definitely get out of it. This also renders the other characters in the story obsolete, giving them the role baggage or witnesses, just there to slow down Mary/Gary or to see how great they are.

The thing to do then is give your characters depth. Sometimes this means giving them a flaw or two. Sometimes this means letting your audience get to know them. Sprinkle in information about them and their lives outside of the story in the story. Mostly this means giving them more personality.

A couple movies you could watch that take the ideas of stereotypical roles (the jock, the criminal, the nerd, the emo/goth/psycho chick, the airhead, the innocent) and turn them on their heads are The Breakfast Club and The Faculty. In one the stereotypes are thrown together in a detention scenario and throughout the day we learn more about them, giving them depth. In the other the horrific crisis that the group goes through forces them to change and adapt. Plus, both are fun movies.

Another thing you can do is people watch. When you see someone assign them the one-dimension (jock, nerd, airhead, etc.), and try to identify what about them made you pick that. Then give them a backstory. Give them depth. Why do they look sad? Did their favorite team just lose, or did they just go through a breakup? Of all the sports, why are they into water polo? Were they the star of their high school water polo team, or was their father/mother a famous water polo player and that’s how they feel close to them? Of all the teams, why are they into that one? Is it the hometown team, or is that the team their grandfather worked for as a groundskeeper for their entire life?

Put simply, the way to stop writing one-dimensional characters is, instead of asking ‘What are they?’ you ask ‘Who are they?’.

Remember: write yourself, write well; be yourself, be well.

A Brief History of Literature

20 Friday Jul 2018

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Let’s talk about your literary history. What books make up the foundation of your writing?

This is one of my favorite exercises from my studies in writing. It makes us look back so we can move forward. (Philosophical, huh?)

Here’s mine:

My literary history starts with Dr. Seuss and Stephen King. These are the stories I remember from my childhood.

I have the fondest memories of Dr. Seuss books. The art is simple enough that, as a kid, I thought I could draw like that. The stories were short, holding my young attention span. The words are like an amusement park for my mouth. They are the first stories that I remember having fun listening to and reading. I’ve taken them with me my entire life, even into my education and writing. It was my education, learning to look at stories critically, that opened my eyes on just how deep Dr. Seuss stories are. Despite the easy art style and the ridiculous rhyming, the Seuss stories are mainly theme based, and quite hefty themes at that. Who can forget his story based on discrimination and racial equality? The Sneetches. What about the one about personal responsibility? The Cat in the Hat. And the one about fear of the unknown? There’s a Wocket in my Pocket (my favorite). Dr. Seuss taught me that it’s fun to read, and that stories are a powerful medium for communicating.

This next part is not a joke. My mother read Stephen King to me and my sister as bedtime stories. I was ten or twelve, my sister seven or nine. We would snuggle up close to mom in bed, dad would be out plowing the roads on midnight-turn, and she would read Thinner and The Tommyknockers to us. My sister would be asleep within a page or two, but I would listen to mom’s voice until she would inevitably drift off with the book in her hands. These are some of the best memories I have of my mother. When I started reading novels myself I started with Stephen King; I think to have something to talk about with her. However, Stephen King has stuck with me, and I still read his work today. One of the take-aways, the biggest I think, I got from Stephen King is that protagonists don’t have to be “good guys.” In Thinner the protagonist is a victim of a gypsy curse, and through the book we sympathize with him, but he’s hardly a good guy. He was driving the car that killed the gypsy’s wife, and when he gets the cure for the curse he feeds it to his wife. This is all without mentioning he’s a lawyer. In Tommyknockers the protagonist is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He doesn’t even really care about the town, he just cares that his best friend has been taken over by aliens. In The Dark Tower Series Roland the gunslinger is the protagonist, but he’s hardly a moral compass. True, he’s better than the Man in Black, or the Red King, but he lets a kid fall to his death rather than save him, and his backstory shows numerous times he’s sacrificed friends for his quest (which even he doesn’t know what it truly is). I know this doesn’t come off as shocking or revelatory in the age of the anti-hero, but when I came across this in my teens it had an impact.

The last thing that makes up the foundation of my literary history is a quote from an interview. (And yes, I can’t remember who said it. I even spent an hour Googling derivations of the quote and several authors, but I couldn’t find it.) The gist of the quote is this: no one wants to read a story where everything goes right; it’s not interesting. The quote is a response to a question about why the author puts his characters through so much trouble and pain. For anyone who has read the work I have out there you’ll know that I beat the crap out of my characters both physically and emotionally. When I sit down with a story, one of the first things I do is figure out if a character is going to live at the end. If the answer is yes then I figure out how much damage I can inflict on them and still have it believable that they’re alive on the last page. Again, for those of you who have read my work, you’ll know that making it to the last page alive takes its own toll on the characters.

So, that’s my foundation. This is my foundation, because despite what else may change about my writing, or my views on story, I can’t seem to shake these three things. 1) Above all stories should be fun to read, with a deeper meaning if you’re so inclined to look. 2) Protagonist doesn’t mean good guy. 3) Things are not going to be easy.

The point of the exercise is to look at your writing and figure out what’s consistently there and why it is. Once you’ve identified the consistencies and where they come from, once you’re aware of you, you can start actively using these things in your stories. The things shift from happenstance to tools.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

Nature vs. Nurture

22 Tuesday May 2018

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Let’s talk about writing.

Let’s talk about writing via math.

I’ve substitute taught to support myself. There have been more than several times that I’ve been shoved into a math classroom. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard a student say: “I’m no good at math.” This statement usually a prelude to them giving up completely on the assignment I’ve just handed them. As if them not automatically knowing how to add fractions means they’ll never be able to do it.

Not surprisingly, I’ve heard people say: “I’m no good at writing.” Again, as a preamble to not writing. There are also people out there, perhaps some of you that visit this blog, that have tried their hand at writing, saw that it wasn’t good and stopped writing. To this I have to say…

What the hell are you doing? Don’t stop writing.

None of us come out of the womb as a Beethoven or a Shakespeare. Why would we want to be them anyway? Beethoven was deaf and died a pauper, and Shakespeare is only well known because his is the only writing we have available from the time period.

Obviously, I’m being sarcastic.

My point is this: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? PRACTICE.

Writing, like everything in the world, is a skill. It takes time and effort to get good at it. Yes, there are people out there that are naturally talented when it comes to writing, or anything, but even they are required to practice and edit. Frankly, I’m glad I wasn’t naturally talented at writing. I like seeing my writing improve with the effort I put into it. There are many ways to practice. While I was in an MFA program one of the professors actually said, “You could lock yourself in a room and write for three years and be better at writing at the end of the three years.” I liked the MFA program because it exposed me to dozens of points of view and writing styles that helped me refine my writing, but it isn’t the only way to get those perspectives. The internet is a great resource, with many writing groups, both digital and face to face, to be found.

Here’s the takeaway: Just because you write one bad story doesn’t mean you should stop writing. The next story you write will be a little bit better, and the next a little better, and the one after that better still. Until, one day, you’re a good writer.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

Editing is 20/20

30 Monday Jan 2017

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Hey, all! So, today I want to talk about focus. Focus in your writing, of a scene or of a chapter.

For example, say your main character is a hard worker. In the first chapter or two you show a couple, three or four even, scenes where they work hard. Now, chapter three is here, we’ll say chapter three is twenty pages, ten pages are filled with the character working hard, and ten pages are filled with an interaction with a family member. This interaction is supposed to be meaningful, a bonding point.

Based on this info, what should the focus on chapter three be?

That’s a bit of a trick question. Sorry.

See the way chapter three is set up now equal focus is given to the scenes of the character working hard as the family interaction.

Roughly speaking, equal space, equal attention/importance.

Let’s add to the example. Let’s say when asked about the story, you say it’s about this person’s life, their family bonds and becoming an adult.

Okay. Got it?

So, what should the focus of chapter three be?

If you said on the family interaction and bonding, you’d be correct.

If you want the focus of the story to be on this character’s life, family, and maturation, then that should the focus. Giving equal space to scenes of mundane labor that the character does, then leaves behind with no problem, only takes focus (the readers’) and time (yours) from the family interaction.

This isn’t to say the character being a hard worker isn’t important, but it becomes characterization. Once you’ve shown us they’re a hard worker then it can be dropped to the background. Unless their work begins to slip later on, or something interesting happens with/during their work, then, please, show the readers that.

Another example for keeping focus (from my writing group), was a story that’s a quilt of several people’s lives. Each character got their own section. So, we got to (let’s say) “Claire’s” section. The author introduced “Claire”, then promptly introduced “Roger”, who we learned a lot about. Then the author introduced “Stan”, who we got a lot of information about. Then we met “Stephanie”, who was this nice girl with mean ambition. Then “Claire” came back, and the section ended.

When I read this section of the pages the author gave the group, I found it difficult to see why “Claire” was there. We got very little of her in her own section. I think what the author was going for was a sense of “Claire” feeling out of control in her life, feeling like a bit player. This can work, the author had a solid idea for it, but the execution of the section made “Claire” a bit player. It took the readers’ focus away from “Claire”. The other characters can come into “Claire’s” life/section and be larger than her, but the readers must always have a firm gaze on “Claire”; what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, while these larger characters are horning in on her. However, at least in the draft I read, “Claire” seemed to fade to the background completely when these characters were on the page. Then when it came back fully to her, we didn’t get that much reflection from her, almost none, before the section was over.

My point: you have to keep the focus where you want the focus.

This may sound simple, but everyone, EVERYONE, struggles with this. It demands an awareness of your writing. An awareness that takes time to build up, to hone, and to keep. The thing that makes this awareness a slippery thing to hold on to, is that you’re you, writing your story. You have all the information in your head, something that’s obvious to you about the story/in the scene might not be obvious to someone else who’s reading the story.

An interesting exercise to try, is finding an older story of yours. Just read the title, maybe the first page, to remind yourself what the story was about. Then write down the point to the story, the focus, what you wanted to accomplish with the story. Now go put that off to the side, and go read the story. Does your story conform to what you wrote down? Where was it lacking? Were there any bits of information that weren’t in the story that needed to be there/or you thought were there?

There have been several stories of mine, where people have read them and been confused by something; and I’m like: “How can they be confused? It’s obvious why this is important!” Only to re-read the story and realize I never actually explain the important thing. It was all in my head why the important thing was important, but I never actually put it in the story. My bad.

Whenever I think about focus, I think about an old black-and-white Humphrey Bogart movie, The Maltese Falcon. In the movie the Maltese Falcon has been stolen, it’s all over the news, which they show you. Bogart’s character is a private eye who is hired to find the Maltese Falcon. At some point, he’s attacked by people who want him to stop looking for the Maltese Falcon. He starts to have feelings for the woman who hired him to find the Maltese Falcon, and is ultimately betrayed by her because she wants the Maltese Falcon.

Can you guess what the focus of the movie is? Yes, there’s violence, there’s love and betrayal, there’s the underlying issues of trust and relationships, but these all happen, the characters all meet to participate in said acts, because the Maltese Falcon has been stolen.

So, that’s what I think about when I think about focus.

Until next time: Be aware of yourself, focus on yourself. Be aware of your writing, focus on your writing.

The Potential of Potential Explained…Potentially

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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Oooo, first post of the new year. Lots of pressure for something good. It was so much pressure that I kept put it off. Then I got to thinking about things, things writer-ly and whatnot. I came to the decision to talk to you about something deep and meaningful to me as a writer.

The blank page.

There is something beautiful to me about a blank sheet of paper, or a blank Word document. Winter is my favorite season because of the snow, and I guess that’s what it reminds me of, snow. The type of landscape after a good long and hard snow, that makes the world a white, pristine thing.

It’s calming for me to look at a blank page. It’s a space of nothing, of empty. A few times, right before I’ve started a story, I’ve sat back and stared at the blank page, soaking up the anticipation. There’s a silence to blank page that allows me to order my thoughts, the calm before the storm you might say.

Just think about it, the blank page. It’s a simple thing, flat, empty, featureless. Yet, it’s so much more. It’s whatever you put on it. If you use it for notes, then it’s a source of knowledge, a mini-library for science, or history, math, your own thoughts. As a receptacle for fiction it’s an even grander. What will it become today, for you? Will it be a pirate ship (a lot of my wonderings start with pirate ships). Will it be a space pirate ship, or a Spanish galleon? Will the focus of the page be on the hero or the villain? Will its views be as simple as black and white, or will it be covered in gray? Will the page be magical or hard bitten?

The potential (bringing us back to the title) is endless. Not only for the page, but for your words.

If there’s any resolution the new year brought to you as a writer let it be this one: take time to study a blank page, give it a good, long look. Then, by all means, fill the damn thing up!

It’s great to still be here with you.

Until next time: Be you, be well. Write you, write

It’s Not So Much the Girth as the Length

11 Monday Jul 2016

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Does size matter? It’s a question I ask about writing all the time. Looking at the book shelves in your local store it’s hard not to ask yourself this question if you’re a writer. It seems like every book printed today is part of a series—3 books, 4 books, 5 books, more. And each book in the series is four hundred plus pages. Even books that aren’t part of a series would take up much of the needed space in a budding writer’s apartment for, say, a couch.

So I ask myself if my stories are too short, or if they’re long enough. I’m sure you’ve asked yourself the same questions about your stories. It might even be on your mind while you’re writing. I know I have to shake myself sometimes when I’m writing to get those types of thoughts to settle down.

Let’s talk about your writing. Specifically the question of if a scene is long enough. Because when you boil those six billion page epics down, they’re put together just like any other story, one scene after the other. So how can you tell if a scene is long enough?

First, I want to apologize for leading you into a false premise. Whether or not a scene is long enough or not is the wrong question—all together it is so the wrong question.

The question you should be asking yourself is if a scene is working.

There are many ways that a scene doesn’t work. First, you could look at a scene, and it gets across all the information you need it to, but it’s not interesting—more like a shopping list than a scene. Another way a scene might not work is if it doesn’t accomplish anything. For example, a scene does not have to move the plot/story forward as long as it reveals something about the characters involved. So a scene could not move the plot along or reveal anything about the characters, in which case the scene isn’t working. Let’s not forget about world building and atmosphere building. If you’re going to describe the setting for a page and a half it better be doing one or the other—or the scene isn’t working.

Here’s a tip/technique, something I do, to make sure a scene is working. I don’t edit myself when I’m writing that first draft of a story. I write and write, and I don’t stop to change a word (unless I notice it’s misspelled); I don’t stop to re-read what I just wrote. Basically I don’t self-edit during that first, initial writing. Editing is for the editing process, and trust me there’s going to be a lot of that later on so don’t worry about it the first time around. Believe it or not, this is harder than it sounds. It takes some getting used to, but it helps get everything out before it swishes away. Then it’s just a matter of writing until the scene feels finished. Nine times out of ten it’s a good scene that works.

This is just one way to do it. Some people write a sentence and don’t move on until that sentence is perfect. The same rule of: write until the scene feels finished applies though.

To sum up: don’t worry about length during that first blush of writing. Write a scene until it feels finished.

I think that’s your lot. Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

I’ve Got a Krampus in My Writing Hand

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

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Merry Happy and a Happy Merry to all!

I hope the new year has started off well for everyone. I’m sure there are many a resolution about writing more (or taking more chances with your writing) out there.

In that vein, and in light of this Christmas’s horror movie release Krampus, I want to talk to you about taking chances with your writing and not holding back on your ideas.

All of us are guilty of falling into thinking sink holes. You know what I mean. We’ve read, and grew, up with horror/fantasy/sci-fi stories being a certain way so we think that’s the way they’re supposed to be. As a base for writing that’s not a bad place to start. Just like with anything else, you have to know the rules for something before you can start breaking them.

And that’s exactly what a story like Krampus does: it takes a subject/genre and turns it on its head. Let me ask you a question: Is Krampus a Christmas movie you can show at Halloween, or is it a Halloween movie you can show at Christmas? The answer is: yes. This is exactly the same question I have fun answering when it comes to one of my favorite movies: The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a question I pondered when I read Al Sarrantonio’s stories Wish and Snow both take place during Christmas but both are clearly horror stories.

One of the questions you might be asking yourself right now is: Why a Christmas horror story? And I shall counter this question with a question of my own: Why not? At the core of horror is the desire to frighten, to shake a person’s view of the world, to take the ordinary and make it feel out of place, or make a person feel out of place in the ordinary. What makes movies like Krampus and The Nightmare Before Christmas scary/creepy is that Christmas is supposed to be a safe time. It’s a time for kids to learn faith, a time when your fellow people are encouraged to be caring and selfless. This makes the introduction of monsters into the mix even more frightening, it’s the juxtaposition of beauty and peace next to death and destruction that makes the destruction so much more meaningful. Look at the toys in The Nightmare Before Christmas: they are creepy as all get out! I mean, I love them, but they are creepy as hell. Their black and white design (with touches of red blood) don’t really stand out in Halloween Town, but when put next to the Christmas decorations a few scenes later, suddenly they are hideous. On the other side of the coin, everything in Christmas Town looks so bright in comparison to Jack.

The point of me bringing all this up? Don’t put limitations on your stories. If you’ve got an idea for a horror story that takes place at Christmas, do it. If you’ve got an idea for a steampunk fairytale, do it. (There’s actually a popular teen series that does just that.) There are no limits to stories. That’s why I love them. And I’m sure that’s why you love them too.

Go forth! Write without limits!

And as always: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

I’d Like to Buy a Vowell, Please

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

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I recently read an interview with Sarah Vowell in the magazine Mental Floss. In the interview she says: “…there is no one rule. Every story deserves to be told differently.” In the interview she’s talking about nonfiction writing, but the same sentiment can be applied to fiction writing as well.

I want to start off by saying, this statement was made from a perspective of confidence and experience in one’s own writing. Indeed it could be said, correctly, that as a writer you have to know what your voice is before you try finding the story’s voice, and intertwining your voice with it.

However, if you’re struggling to find your voice, listening to how the story wants to be told can be liberating and even fun. As a way to try this out, look at a story you’ve written. Pick one at random, pick one you might be having a hard time editing-you can try one of the stories that you love, but it might be harder to see it as something else. Read the story. Once you’ve re-familiarized yourself with the story, try to see it as something else. If it’s in third person, what would it look like in first person? What would change about the story? Try writing a few pages that way. If it’s already in first person, what would it look like as a series of letters/journal entries/blog posts. Again, what would change about the story? Would you lose important scenes? How could you re-incorporate them into the story? If the story follows one character, look at the other characters-supporting characters-of the story. What would the story be like from their perspective? Take a look at a short story, what would it look like as a play? Given the limitations of space in a theatre, on a stage, could the story be played out in one setting? Do you need the same amount of characters? Look at the characters in one of your stories, what would happen if you took out one of those characters and all the information/actions they do in the story? Do you still have a story? Probably, but is it the same story? If you have the same story even though you took out an entire character, then did you really need that character in the first place?

The point of doing this is to look at writing in general, and your writing specifically, in a different way. In a way that you wouldn’t normally, but may surprise you by being a way you like.

This is also a way to take chances with your writing. I’ve been in several writing groups over the past couple years, and I’ve found that many people don’t take chances with their writing; are resistant to feedback that veers the story off the path they’ve chosen for it (I’d like to sidebar the comment: this is entirely their right to do as the author, but they may be missing opportunities for the story to grow). It’s not just stubbornness that keep a writer from changing the way a story is told. It can be fear that keeps a writer from changing a story they’ve spent so much time finding in the first place. Our profession is highly subjective, and entails a lot of rejection and questioning of motives (mainly of characters). So I can understand the anxiety ensues when it’s suggested that a story you thought was done-it just needs some tweaks-could be re-written a different way.

Oh, my God! What if I fail writing it like that?!?!

It’s true. You could fail. You could fail spectacularly. There is an old saying, that people learn more from their mistakes than their successes. It may be clichéd, but it’s true. You can learn a lot from everything you do wrong, as long as you learn from it.

Let me share with you a recent writing group experience. I read someone’s story (as you do in a writing group). I’ve read this person’s work before. They are heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. (I may have mentioned this person before.) So, they give the group their story. It’s a story about a society oppressed and a resistance. It’s set in an alternate, sub-reality, of magic. Here’s where I want to say that this person knows this genre. I know they know this genre, because this story hit all the beats this type of resistance-uprising story should. In the end that’s why, I felt, the story doesn’t work. It hits ALL the beats for this type of story. There were no surprises. There was nothing that jumped off the page as unique or special.

I want to put this simply: I’m NOT saying this was written poorly. It was written with thought and knowledge. What I’m saying is that it’s a bad story. A fan of this genre of story could pick up this story and enjoy it, but they won’t remember it. When asked about good stories in the genre they probably won’t mention this story by name.

I know it’s odd to say that someone who didn’t do anything wrong wrote a bad story. (If you’re totally confused about how this happens; you clearly haven’t read the last post.) But they did do something wrong: They didn’t take any chances. They stayed exactly inside the lines for this genre of story. They didn’t think about this story in a new way, and because of that it is destined to fall into the background noise of the genre.

This is sad to me, because I like this person. They are very passionate about writing, and about what they write. They’ve reached the point where they’ve modeled/molded themselves into a writer of the horror genre. Now all they need to do (What all of us need to do as writers), is break the mold.

That’s the thing to take away today: think about your stories in more than one way. Just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Remember, at the end of the day it’s your writing. If you don’t like the way your risk turned out, trash it and go back to the original.

Well, I think that’s it for me. Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

The Expectations of Failure

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Oh yes! We are still on this topic. I could mine this topic for the lifespan of this blog and probably never run out of things to say about it. I probably will too, but this is the last one in the series for a while. I just figured we’re on a roll here.

So today I want to talk to you about my failed novel.

Oh no, not you! You don’t have a failed novel. I don’t believe it! You’re awesome!

Stop. You’re embarrassing me. I’m blushing.

Ahem! Yes, it’s true. I have a failed novel. Most writers will have a failed story, possibly more than one during the course of their careers. I’d like to talk to you about my first failed novel, because I learned a few interesting things during the whole process of writing it.

First, I’d like to introduce you to my novel: Endgame. Those super fans of mine might recall me mentioning this book a few years ago. I’m sure I posted about it on here; so if go back into the archives you’ll find the post about it coming soon (I’m a bad blogger because this is the first time I’m ever mentioning it’s not).

For those of you who don’t know it, let me give a synopsis of the novel. Endgame was supposed to be my third novel set in the Superior Universe (for those of you drawing a blank on that: go right not to the works page and read the synopsis for Superiority Complex and The Man with the Invincible Gun. Go ahead. The rest of us will wait. All caught up? Good.). So Endgame was about a superpowered game show like Survivor. The main character, one of the main characters, was a guy who started out as a scientist who studied superpowers as a possible next step in evolution for humans. He invented a laser that gave people temporary superpowers so he could study the physiological and genetic changes. When his funding got cut, a friend of his who worked in entertainment thought it would be a good idea to have a TV show about giving people superpowers. That turned into a show like Jeopardy only if you lost the question round you had to fight your way to the next question round with crappy superpowers. This became a hit and was on the air for a couple decades. Then a new company came in and fired the main character. He then sunk his money into building a more powerful laser that could grant people permanent superpowers and took his Survivor-like show to the TV company. Basically they give normal people superpowers, put them on a deserted island, and have them compete in superpowered challenges to gain points until one comes out the winner. The prize being they get to keep their powers. What could go wrong, right? Well, lots. The book deals with the people coming to grips with controlling said powers and what it truly means to be superhuman. There’s also a thing where one of the contestants goes crazy and kidnaps another contestant to torture (and eventually kill, but the other contestants band together to save her). Then there’s the religious group that thinks the show is an abomination, hacks the feed, and sends armored zealots to kill the contestants. Then there’s the gang that kidnaps the creator of the show/laser and forces him to build them a superpower bestowing laser, which doesn’t work because the guy isn’t crazy, but really the only way he can escape is by giving himself superpowers. Then the show airs and does so well that the company renews it for a second season.
Whew! Still with me?

Okay, so some of you may be saying: Wow! How could that be a failure? That sounds awesome!

I want to assure everyone that the novel was, indeed, epic. I mean this in every way, even the sarcastic sense.

All told the novel (after a couple rounds of editing) came out to be four hundred and twenty-five pages. Yes, I finished it. And I will tell you, it was not a hot mess of a novel (which is bad-good phrase which implies bad execution but good potential in the concepts or vice versa). What the novel was/is was/is a nuclear meltdown.

Oh, don’t worry. I’ll tell you why.

First off, it’s over four hundred pages long. It’s not a book of short stories that compiled gets to four hundred pages; it’s a novel whose themes (humanity, being superhuman vs. superheroic, dealing with that level of power, addiction in this case the feeling of being powerful) never let up. For four hundred pages. While there is action-we’ll get to that in a moment-there’s a lot of discussion about the ethics of superpowers, and reality TV, and what they could be doing with the power instead of beating each other up on a deserted island. I really wanted to talk about those issues. At some point in the writing, the novel became my dissertation to all those writers who write “superhero” stories that are from a normal human’s perspective living in a world with superpowers and the implications of that. I’m sorry but those stories are supremely boring to me. If you’re going to the trouble of writing in world with people with superpowers why would you write about a normal human? We know how they feel: weak, irrelevant, impotent. Not to be too conceited, but I think my version (giving said normal humans powers to deal with) is much better. So there’s a lot of that type of philosophical talk in the novel. I think it comes off well, but if the contestants weren’t beating each other up over the challenges that’s really all they were doing. It’s more than a bit much for four hundred pages.

Now let’s get to that action I mention earlier. Here’s where my wife (my first, sometimes only, editor) came close to giving me a compliment about Endgame. She described the action as being almost hyper-realistic. This too was by design. I did my best to make the action of the book less action-y and more like violence. What’s the difference you may ask? A Summer blockbuster starring Will Smith, Bruce Willis, or Jeremy Renner-more likely than not-is an action movie. A Lifetime movie of the week about an abusive relationship depicts violence. So even though people were getting hit with fireballs conjured out of thin air, a laser eyes, or shadow knives, I describe it happening in such a way that took all the comic-y awesome stuff out of it and left the festering, gruesome aftermath of the wound in. I did this to show the absolute destructive power of superpowers. I wanted the reader to dread the next challenge for the contestants because they got so hurt during them. I succeeded, but I have to be honest with you even I have to admit after doing the third read through of the novel it was getting to be a bit much for me.

Then there’s the superpowers. I wanted to show that there is more to having superpowers than just being powerful. I wanted to show that just because you have powers doesn’t mean you’re automatically great and happy. Don’t get me wrong every one of the characters started off feeling great, but by the end of the book that was a different story. Let me give you an example from the book. I gave one of the contestants super speed. One of the coolest powers in my opinion. Except the power was killing her. She had to consume massive amounts of calories to keep her body functioning. Which was near impossible on an island with limited food sources. She scavenged as much she could of the fruit and nuts, and the network did weekly supply drops, but it was enough to keep her going. Throughout the book she wastes away, even going so far as to stop using her speed to keep herself going a little longer. She ends the book in a coma as her body shuts down completely. That’s one of the extreme cases, but all the contestants had to deal with unforeseen side effects of having their powers. Mission accomplished, I made having superpowers a depressing responsibility.

Here’s the last thing I did with the book that I’m going to bring up. One of the things I hate about some books and movies is missing out on the action. The biggest perpetrator of this, for me, is the last book of Harry Potter. Where-SPOILERS-at the end several of our favorite characters are dead, and we don’t get to see how or why. You just read along, you turn the page and-BAM-eight people are dead. Another book series to do this is The Hunger Games (don’t get me wrong I love The Hunger Games), but we miss so much of the war and the world it’s set in because it’s just from Catness’s point-of-view. So what I did was have the novel with fifteen characters have fifteen viewpoints. That’s right. 15 VEIWPOINTS! Every contestant got at least one scene from their point-of-view. I made a deal with myself that I would go backwards, all the scenes would move forwards, but that means the reader got at least two perspectives for each scene. I think during one action scene I change viewpoints five times. It actually made a really good patchwork of an entire scene. I liked it.

There still may be some of you out there thinking: Yeah! That sounds great! Where’s this novel?

It’s sitting in my file box, dead. All the things I described above, while not bad in and of themselves, just don’t work as a good novel when I put them all together. I wish it weren’t so, but it’s the truth. You could read it, but I doubt you would enjoy it. Many would walk away very confused. And some (the biggest sin of all) would think they don’t like superhero literature, or reading in general. It just does not work as a novel. It doesn’t make a good story.

This isn’t what makes it a failed novel. Remember, a “failed novel” is one that you’ve stopped working on. As it is now Endgame is just a bad novel. Anyone can fix a bad novel if they have the will and the drive to keep working on it. I’m not working on Endgame, and I doubt I ever will.

Some of you might be asking yourself: why?

That’s a very good question. The answer: I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to fix it because (and here’s the rub) it’s not broken. Oh you heard me. It’s not broken. There’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, it’s all wrong, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I accomplished everything I wanted to with it. I, as a writer, succeeded. So because I succeeded I can’t begin to fathom how to fix the novel. It isn’t broken; it just isn’t good. How’s that for irony?

That’s the weird thing I wanted to share with you about the experience all the way at the beginning of this post. Even though I succeeded I came to recognize that what I succeeded at wasn’t very good. I fought with my wife several times about the novel. I fiddled with scene placement. I sent it out to agents and got rejected (nothing new there, really). After several months not looking at it I had to clear my mind, get as objective as possible, and re-re-re-read the manuscript. As an experienced writer, as someone who knows my own writing, I had to admit that the novel didn’t work.

I must stress that you have to be your own worst critic. After all, no one knows your work like you do. You have to have the maturity and the awareness to look at your work and acknowledge when it’s bad. I was convinced for months that I had succeeded with Endgame. And I had, but I was confusing succeeding in what I set out to do with making something good. I hadn’t, and it took a while to realize it wasn’t working.

Now that being said I like the concept I had and some of the themes in the story. So I’ll be putting them in other stories, but Endgame is dead. I hope this helps you through whatever you’re doing.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

The Rejection Reflection Injection

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Okay, so, since I took us out of the beautiful ephemeralness of the writing process and thrust us into the concrete really-realness of putting yourself out there I thought this time I’d put out a life jacket.

I mentioned that my preferred way of putting yourself out there for the public was getting published. This was a tad full hardy, and easier said than done. Putting yourself out there through publishing is hard. You’re going to get rejected a lot.

Let me say that again: YOU’RE GOING TO GET REJECTED A LOT.

Alright. Deep breath. Now everyone say it with me…

I’m going to get rejected a lot.

This does not make you a failure. … … Trust me, I know how that sounds. Even I have trouble believing that every now and again. Because, and this is just the truth, you’re going to feel like a failure after your umpteenth rejection.

One of the things you should keep in mind during this whole process is: our work is subjective. As much as publishers and agents may look at Harry Potter and say that it was successful because of x, x, and x. Or the Twilight series. Or the works of Michael Chabon. (and I’m showing my age here.) It is really up to the taste of the public what becomes popular, and with small publishing—short stories in a maga/e-zine—it’s up to the editor what goes into the publication. For instance: I have a zombie-ish story—Issues of Revanantcy—which I sent to the publication Brave Blue Mice. It was accepted to the webpage portion of the publication, but in the acceptance letter, and I’ll never forget this, the person who read it said they almost rejected it without reading it. And why, you may ask, would they do that? Because it was about zombies—well revenants, which are slightly different, but I digress. And they just get so many zombie story the person didn’t want to read yet another story about them. In the end they did, and found out that zombie stories can be more than: “high school kids running around screaming and getting eaten in the goriest ways possible.” (Or something to that effect.)

So yeah, subjectivity plays a big part in what we do. The above story also illustrates another thing to keep in mind about writing and rejection: you’re not alone. There are so many people out there writing, and the Interweb has made it much easier to put your/their/everyone’s writing in the hands of the people. So if you’ve written a zombie story someone else has too. If you’ve written a lesbian vampire story someone else has too. If you’ve written a Suesian jaunt through the mind of psychopathic killer haunted by the ghosts of victims who finds love with one of the ghosts and attempts to resurrect said ghost in a new body well…you should really get that published because I kinda want to read that. The point I’m going for isn’t you should shelve your zombie story because everyone is doing zombie stories (or anything really zombies just seems to be the theme today), but you should highlight what makes yours different, and you have to fight that much harder for it.

By the way, this also means there are hundreds, at least, of writing blogs out there. So if you’re reading this one: THANKS FOR READING THIS ONE!

I’m going to finish with the point I made all the way at the beginning of this: rejection doesn’t make you a failure. Stopping writing makes you a failure. Rejection can’t make you stop writing, only you can stop you from writing. The worst rejection can do is tell you that this editor of this mag/e-zine doesn’t think this story is right for them. Take that as a challenge to find one your stories, or write a new one, that the editor will think is a good fit for the publication.

Don’t stop writing.

And: Be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.