Learning From Everything

By now you've all heard about Divesity and Comics.  He watches the train wrecks so you don't have to, but he does it in a way that really helps readers understand WHY current Marvel sucks worse than [insert Razoerfist analogy here].  Now, the man talks about individual comics for the most part, and the teachable moments are spread all over his channel, but after a few videos you start to notice a few trends about Marvel's bad writing, specifically when it comes to writing women.  Those trends are worth looking for, because his laments about what was lost when the Pigs took over the Marvel Farm provide solid advice for ways to make your female characters more well-rounded, more diverse (in the classical and not SJW sense), and more believable.

Basically, don't make them all mannish women, and don't make them all walk, talk, think, and act like immature Manhattan millennial women who think the world is out to get them.

For a more concise commentary on writing female characters, look no further than this video by Mr. Plinkett.  For all his faults, the creepy serial killer knows his story structure, comedic timing, and characterization.



That video right there is a clinic on how to write better characters, how to write better pacing, and how to deliver a punch line  Take his commentary to heart, don't be Paul Feig, allow your characters a little vulnerability - especially your female characters - and you'll be writing at a level well above that of your average milkshake drinking millennial.

The Mollison Method

Dorrinal interviewed the Mark Kern on yesterday's edition of Game Night, part of the Geek Gab Multimedia Entertainment Conglomerate.  The chat for all of their shows is worth the price of admission alone; the regular crew features faces familiar to those of you following the PulpRev social media circles, and in addition to the running commentary, you can always find fascinating side conversations.  BAR-1 Studios surprised me when he mentioned that he had recently had discussions with others about "The Mollison Method".

Apparently, you could hear the needle scratch in my brain from Daddy Warpig's house.  BAR-1 explained what he meant, and in retrospect it makes sense.  It's how I kicked off my writing, and how I recommend any budding writer get over their cold feet and uncertainty about the process.  Writing a 1,000 page mega-novel featuring multiple view-point characters can be daunting, and many writers crash and burn before completing even the writing process.  Or they complete the first draft and then suffer jitters over things like formatting the document, finding beta-readers or proofers, producing a cover, uploading to Amazon, and you're talking about one tall mountain to climb.

The Mollison Method dispenses with all of that and provides a relatively easy way to "fail faster".  In mindset terms, this is the slogan for the process by which one embraces the early parts of a learning a new skill and puts their head down to grind straight ahead through the process.  Know and accept that your early steps are going to be rough so that you can put them in the rear view mirror and get to the smooth stretches of the road faster.

Here is the process in a nutshell:

1. Don't write a thousand page novel.  Just set yourself the goal of writing a 10,000 word novelette.  That's longer than a short story, and enough to justify a Kindle purchase.   This may seem short, but see Step 3, below.
2. Look at the first few pages of any book on your shelf - not the narrative, the book itself.  These pages have copyright and credits.  Copy those into your story.  Poke around and get your document formatted for whatever online sales outfit you want to work with.  (I recommend Amazon, but others have had success with Lulu.com.)
3. Upload that first story and charge a dollar for it.  It may seem cheap, but if you are just starting out, cheap is good.  You just want to get that first sale, and a price point cheaper than a candy bar makes it easy for readers to hit that  big, yellow "Buy With 1-Click" button.
4. Once you see people are willing to give you money for your words, you'll be motivated to write a second story, this time maybe a 20,000 word novella.  You already have the template.  You've already figured out the uploading process.  You already have a few people that have demonstrated a willingness to give you money for entertainment, and they'll probably do it again.
5. Repeat steps 1. through 4. until you have 80,000 - 100,000 words available.  Stuff all of those stories into a Word file and upload that to Amazon.com with a new cover.  Charge a couple of dollars less for the collection than you did for the rest of your works, total.  This way, new fans can choose between betting just a dollar on your brilliance or go for the big bulk discount. 
6. As an added bonus, you now have enough pages to justify selling a hard copy of your book.  I recommend writing another 10,000 word novelette exclusive to your collection, for those fans you have that are completists, too.  It's a nice little incentive for your fans to pay you twice for the same work.

Consider a theme to your first book, too.  At a minimum, you should probably stick to one genre.  That will help guarantee future sales to previous buyers, and it will keep you motivated.

As proof of concept, I offer my first book, series of short stories featuring a modern day action hero, Karl Barber.  Each of the short stories was available individually, so I added a fourth tale about the titular street fight as an incentive to buy the more expensive book over the three shorts.  In this case, you could buy each of the three shorts for a dollar, or buy all three and get the bonus for three bucks.

Click to see the proof.

My second collection consisted of four novellas, each featuring a different dragon slaying hero.  I added a story from the dragon's perspective to round out the collection.  In this case, I've removed all but one of the novellas down from my author page.  Too many titles makes it hard for readers to figure out which one to buy, and we want to make it as easy for them as possible.  So I have one cheap intro, and then a more expensive collection of all five stories.

Using this process, I was able to get two books onto Amazon in about six months.  After that, sitting down to write a 50,000 to 60,000 word novel doesn't seem so bad.  You're already standing on the top of one hill, and while the next one is taller, you already know you can climb it.

It's Research, Not Gravedancing

My morning commute has slowly evolved into the Diversity and Comics Roadshow.  For those not in the know, the nameless creator of this YouTube series talks comics.  Usually, he reviews a single issue of a comic book, but he also produces episodes on various subjects, many of which revolve around Marvel's self-inflicted gunshot wounds.  Not only does he provide interesting historical background information, he spots trends, and calls out the good and bad of every issue.  From his analysis of the artwork itself, it's obvious the man knows what he is talking about.  He is also a funny host with a dry wit and often a barely restrained rage that entertains even as it informs.

Most of the information that he provides in his autopsies of what doesn't work does me no good.  The constant litany of SJW and barely past their teens writing mistakes are not the sorts of things that I need to guard against.  But it's darn fun to be able to vicariously experience the dreadful writing and erratic plotting and clumsy left-wing preaching through D&C.  The guy tries to bridge a middle ground, but the egregious own-goals of Marvel are clearly pushing him hard into the welcoming arms of the alt-right.  His SJW takedowns and thorough and professional and hilarious.

The field of comics serves as a useful case study in the cancerous effects of SJW culture in general and feminism in specific.  Comic books themselves did about $1 billion in sales in 2016, compared to a global film market of $38 billion and video games market of $91 billion.  As a content creator in the literary world (the biggest of the four mediums at $127 billion), this serves as a powerful incentive to rein in any impulses you might have to sip from the SJW kool-aid.

With a smaller environment, we can more easily see the market effects of a little thing like erasing the biggest names in the industry (Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Spidey, etc.) and brown-washing them with brand new demographic placeholders.  Spoiler alert!  It's not pretty on either the creative or the financial side.


Or take this classic example of what happens to the sales of a comic book as it's main writer and intellectual shepherd continues to drink from the SJW kool-aid spigot:

 

That's a drop off in readership of 75%, and you can make chin music about dying industries and the death of print media all you want, and you'll still be left with a minimum 25% dropoff in readership due to the quality of the work produced.

 

While comic books are only directly analogous to literature, they are a powerful analogy.  All of the rules of plot, pacing, characters, personality, writer's voice, underlying messages, and so on apply equally to my chosen medium as they do to comic books. 

 

The dearth of quality writer's podcasts has long been a complaint of mine.  Oh, sure, it's easy to find podcasts full of NPR's "Writer's Almanac" style wankery.  It's easy to find writers talking about their own work.  Finding nuts and bolts analysis of what works and what doesn't when it comes to stringing sentences together is a lot harder.  Luckily, D&C doesn't just produce that style of critique, he floods the digital airwaves with it.

 

And my commute is all the better for having him along for the ride.

 





Two Paths Converged

Two paths will lead you to the heights of literary success, and neither of them are free of rocks, wrong turns, and pitfalls.

 

 

One path is paved with hard work and dedication.  Years of long hours, careful study, and constant effort are necessary to climb this path.  Some say a million words must be written before producing a writer worth reading.  If you take this path, the world around you will constantly roll rocks your way.  They will tempt you to turn back, or to stop and rest.  This path is a long and lonely path that no one can walk for you.  Along the way you might meet a few fellow travelers who will point out the rocks, warn you away from dead ends, and offer encouraging words now and then.  But the actual process of climbing is up to you.  Call this path, “What You Know”.

The sign at the base of the other path reads, “Who You Know”.  Instead of dedicating long hours to tradecraft, the hikers on this path opt to spend time ingratiating themselves to those at the top of the path.  They rely on the hard won successes of others, grasping at coat-tails in the hopes that they may be able to ride them upwards.  Lined with fan conventions, cocktail parties, and rigged award ceremonies, it appears to be a life of relative ease, but it is not without cost.  To ascend this path, one must actively discourage fellow hikers lest they usurp your position as the chosen one.  One must carefully guard his speech lest he offend their patrons and be cast back down the hill.  Part of the price of this path is the loss of freedom the author suffers – the author who chooses this path will forever be subject to the whims of his patrons, unlike those who take the former path.  Call this path “Who You Know”.

Naturally, the two paths intersect and intertwine.  Even the most brilliant author must rely on the generosity of publishers, critics, and readers to spread the word of their latest masterpiece.  Even the most unctuous author must at some point put words to the page, and every patron has his limits.  The market will only bear so much incompetence, and every patron’s patience with authors who lose money has its limit.  As a result, every author spends some time on the first path and some on the second.

As for me – that first path looks like so much more fun.  The people I've met along that path sure are fun, I can tell you that!

High Quality Writing Advice

Most writing advice strikes me as the coloring on a tropical frog - it's bright and obvious and tells you to stay away from the poison.  You would think that those who write for a living would be better at writing advice, but typically I make note of the advice-giver's name to add to my list of authors to avoid.  If the best you can offer is nothing more concrete and actionable than, "write what you love" and "seek inspiration everywhere," then it's a safe bet you won't offer anything more interesting in your fiction writing. 

Enter Russell Newquist.  The man has been tearing up the scene lately.  His spirited defense of his publishing house's writers are epic, but it's his writing advice you should really study.  His latest, a two-parter on how to write page-turners is particularly illuminating.

In part one he provides actual mathematical numbers:

Be the page turner. Keep your chapters short. My average chapter length for Post Traumatic Stress is 1450 words. That’s only two manuscript pages, and only about a half dozen book pages.

Part two provides more structural advice:

One easy way to end your chapter on a hook is to take the first sentence of your next chapter and move it to the end of your current chapter.

 If you want people to say they couldn't put your book down, go thou and do likewise.

A Newcomer's View of the PulpRev

Dominika Lein, author of, I, The One, posted an in-depth look at her experience with the #PulpRev.  It's gratifying to read about her experiences, as this is exactly the spirit that I've been pushing within the community.  I've lifted a few choice quotes, but you should really go read the whole thing:

It's been a little over a month since I emerged from lurking to larval wiggling about in the PulpRev trenches. Time flew fast.

In my time as an independent writer for the past four years, I've never seen support like I've already experienced in the PulpRev community. 

I would have never gotten that kind of support from a regular writing group or a place like NaNoWriMo...An aside: the only kind of support NaNoWriMo knows how to give is of two kinds; Rabidly cheerleadering "approved elements" to include in stories (you know) along with word counts regardless of quality and yet parroting the "proper ways to write" which ranges from mangled quotes of Strunk & White to Wendig blatherings to generic marketing/myths (which always includes "GIVE AWAY FREE COPIES ...(so I can get it for free)").

The #PulpRev has experienced phenomenal growth over the last six months, with no sign of let up.  We've attracted newcomers like Dominika and old hands as well.  In addition to serving as a ready-made fan base, the #PulpRev features some of the most supportive fans around.  We don't just buy each other's works, we do beta-reading, marketing, and encouragement, too.  At least for now.

One thing that I don't have a firm grasp of yet is how well this atmosphere will scale.  As the crowd continues to grow, will we ossify into the NaNoWriMo self-absorption, or will we continue to show the same level of support for each other?  My guess is that it will scale perfectly.  As more writers of good will enter the lists, they'll bring their own talents and time into the fold.  That will increase the amount of support even as the number of people who need support increases.  The overall level of support that any given writer receives won't increase - you'll still have two or three people beta-reading and reviewing and recommending your work - but the volunteerism will grow as the culture does.

The one thing to watch out for is the moochers.  The guys who always beg for help, but never offer anything up in return.  They will come, have no doubt about that.  It's surprising that we haven't seen any of them yet, or if we have, I haven't seen them*.  Perhaps they fade away when they realize that the #PulpRev crowd isn't stupid.  We notice the little things, and without question, those who don't give shall not receive. 

My advice, for what it's worth, is to continue welcoming new writers with open arms.  Be wary, but welcoming.  And start looking for ways to build up a stronger reader base rather than a writer base.  Our weak link right now is that the people most drawn to the #PulpRev are those who have thought about what modern literature is missing and set out to correct its shortcomings.  But there are throngs of readers out there looking for us who just don't know we exist.  Once we crack that nut, you're going to see a quantum leap in our profile.  Jon Del Arroz has been doing yeoman's work to that end, but the movement as a whole has a long way to go.

Which shouldn't be discouraging, but inspiring.  We're going to be around for a fair few decades, even if it dwindles back to a few gaming bloggers writing stories for their own amusement.




Also, if you want to support one of the authors of this growing movement, you can do so by purchasing a copy of my latest #PulpRev novel, A Moon Full of Stars.  It's post-apocalypse the way it was meant to be!

Don't Take My Advice

Russell Newquist, author of the much enjoyed Make Death Proud to Take Us, offers up some solid writerly advice when he recommends:

The secret (It’s not really a secret – you can find this all over the internet) to making money off of this in the book world is to have lots of books – preferably in the same series. Then, some portion (but not all) of the customers who pick up one book will buy all of your books, or at least all of the series.

This is echoed by Nick Cole, author of Ctrl-Alt-Revolt! and The Wyrd Chronicles:

Write a three book series and don't release until Book 3 is done. Rinse and repeat.

These are both working authors, so you should definitely listen to them if you want to be a working author.  Do as they say, not as I do.  I'm working on my fifth book and my fourth novel length story, and every single one of them is different from the other.  I just can't help it.  Once I get a story out in one universe, I'm already looking around for the next universe to explore.

The dirty little secret is that I don't world-build.  I story-build.  The background of every one of my books contains just enough information to paint a broad picture of the situation, and enough background to drive the plot or motivate the characters, but for the most part my settings are designed to fit the story and not the other way around.  I've actually gone back and changed entire universes in a few instances in order to bend them to the needs of the story.

It might make good financial sense, but I prefer the wide-open spaces of tight and compact story telling over sprawling epics.

For now.

Donut Shaped Planets

 

It's so very tempting to give a post like this the subheading along the lines of "Homer's Haven".

There's been some chatter in the science field lately about synestias - short term stages in the development of an earth-like planet where the dust and rock of accretion takes on a donut shape.

Note that all three objects have the same density.
You couldn't walk on the surface of the synestia shown here.

By itself, this isn't particularly groundbreaking, but it does shed some light on the possibility of donut shaped planets.  We science fiction writers are always on the lookout for fun new planets on which to place our space princesses, four armed green aliens, and fighting men of earth, and a toroid shaped planet seems tailor made for adventure.  By its very nature, it is an alien setting.  Gravity varies over its surface.  The day-night cycle varies depending on where you stand.  The seasons are affected by how great it's tilt is off of the solar ecliptic.  The paths a moon (or moons!) might take get way-out wild.

The donut moon is worth a paragraph.  While the moon could dive through the donut hole in huge figure-eights, or even just bob up and down inside of it, both orbits are very unstable.  Far more likely is a moon rotating around the rim, parallel to the tilt of the planet.  On the other hand, these orbits are stable enough to allow for artificial satellites for spying, communication, and GPS systems.  They'd need more nudging than their Terran counterparts.

So why haven't we seen more of these?

Here's a video with a few explanations:

If you can't watch the video or just can't wait, here's a few interesting bullet points to consider:

• In order to maintain its stability as a hoop, a planet with earth approximate gravity would have to rotate once every few hours.  A 24 hour day might have four to six sunrises and sunsets.  That sort of bright-dark cycle would play havoc with normal life.
• Gravity would vary by 200% as you travel from the equator (the line of smallest diameter through the hole or largest diameter around the outside of the hoop).
• To drop this planet in the habitable zone of the star, you need a big, fat blue star.
• The seasons on a planet with an axial tile similar to earth would run very hot and very cold.
• Continental drift would 'smoosh' the tectonic plates up as they approached the inner ring, and stretch them out as they drifted back around to the outside of the ring.  That would result in massive mountain ranges inside the donut hole.

All in all, not a very friendly place, but a decent writer should be able to work with it.  Continental drift is not a requirement for a colonizable planet, nor are moons.  They real problem as I see it is the lack of a liquid-solid core.  Without that, you've got no magnetic field, and no protection from solar radiation.  Which means life on a donut planet just isn't feasible.

And I guess that's why we haven't seen many stories set on planets like this.  The kind of authors prone to think about the geometry and gravity and tides on a place like this are hard enough science guys to throw up their hands and walk away.  To drop a planet like this in your story, you'd have to be one of those guys capable of juggling just enough math and science in your head to make it plausible while being loose enough with science to ignore how all of the data screams, "This is not SCIENCE!"  You'd have to be crazy to use one of these in a story.

Which reminds me, it's a planet called Antioch, and it's one of the last lines of defense for those tasked with protecting the Sacred Planet against the ravages of the Demented.

Accidental Diversity

My current work in progress, tentatively titled Adventure Constant, features a hero of undefined race (character insert vagueness for the win!) fighting the Nordic villain and his middle-eastern henchmen through sea caves.  He is hard pressed and facing Certain Doom, when his adventure team buddies show up.  They consist of a Hawaiian warrior complete with leiomano (pictured below), a British spy, and a rifle wielding samurai.

My hero wields one of these made of steel

I didn't set out to make an international team of heroes, it just sort of worked out that way.  The hero's spaceship crashed into the Pacific Ocean and he washed ashore on Waikiki Beach in the middle of a kidnapping attempt.  There's really only one kind of princess you'd expect to find on Waikiki Beach, and that's the Hawaiian kind, and it's only natural that her chief guard would also be Hawaiian.  When the duo hare off to Shanghai to rescue her, it only made sense for them to find an ally in a samurai serving the Shogunate as a sort of knight errant.  When they fight off the French-Algerian pirate serving the Haitian Pirate Prince, it only made sense for the prisoner they inadvertently rescue to be a captured British secret agent.

To be fair, because this is an alternate-earth tale, the whole point is showcasing how different nations developed.  The two best ways to do that are to write a globe hopping adventure and to include people from lots of different countries.  My novel hits three tropic islands in two different oceans and the hero touches down in Asia, Central America, and New York City.  That's a whole lot of mileage.  The climax of the adventure also occurs in the alt-earth's version of the United Nations, which provides an excuse to mention every nation in a way that is completely natural and unobtrusive.

These things don't need to feel forced.  It actually makes for a better story when they happen organically.

THIS is Pulp

After slogging through a few less than stellar attempts at pulp and a pair of Hugo worthy novelettes, it feels fantastic to soak up some Schuyler Hernstrom.  It isn’t just palette cleansing, it’s soul cleansing.  It’s writing so rich that I find myself stopping just to prolong the pleasure. 

I had completely forgotten that Cirsova 5 included The Last American, a story by Herstrom.  Here’s the heroism.  Here’s the hope.  Here’s the nature red in tooth and claw and one man struggling to save his woman from powerful enemies against all odds.  When it comes to moments of transcendence, there are few better than Hernstrom.  Take the moment of the barbarian’s departure from The Last American:

He took a knife from his belt and cut away the flag with a length of cloth from the sleeve and turned to Tyur.  He tied the thing to the hunter’s thick arm.  Tyur looked down in awe.

“But I am not of your blood…”

“All who fight tyranny are of my tribe.”

That gave me chills.  It’s powerful writing that reminds you of what America can be, of what you can be.  It makes you feel better about the world and desire to do better in it.

This is the sort of thing that I look for in my fiction.  This is why I’m a proud flag waver in the Pulp Revolution.

The preceeding story, The Queen of Shadows was pretty darn good too, but it’s the story of a hive mind alien slaughtering humans, from the hive mind’s point of view.  Although a fine story, “hive mind hurting humanity” also describes all of the Hugo worthy works approved by the puppy-kickers, too (Zing!).  In all seriousness, it might have been better to have read The Queen of Shadows after reading The Last American.  Hernstrom brings the heat on the threat of the hive mind just fine without the savagery of The Queen of Shadows.

Writers of Romance Required Reading

John C. Wright is a giant among current writers.  Even as the most nominated author in Hugo history, his talents are sorely under-appreciated.  His recent essay, Ugly and the Beast is a clinic on how not to write stories. 

If you want to understand story structure, characterization, and the subtle art of a slow burn romance, this essay presents a specific case-study in how to do it well (animated version) versus how to do it poorly (live action version).  It's a fascinating side-by-side comparison, and I'd rank it right up there alongside Plinkett's original review of A Phantom Menace as a masterpiece of cinematic analysis.

An excerpt:

Everything that in the original was of due proportion, here was dialed up to eleven, but at the same time made simplistic and stupid. It was not enough that Belle be bookish in a town that did not understand her, as in the original; here she is hated for daring to teach a little girl to read, she is a fighting visionary, but accused of witchcraft by the yokels. It was not enough that Gaston be selfish and vain. Moderns like the vices of selfishness and vanity. Here he is a murderer. And so on.

How bad was it? Let me count the ways...

Belle was an angry and independent modern woman, and never shown to be someone capable of falling in love based on something below surface appearances.

Maurice, the father, here is dignified and sober, hence never shown to be the lovable fool who needed Belle to care for him, and not someone anyone would believe was crazy.

This portrayal means he is not lovable, hence Belle’s offer to stay in his place and take his punishment had no motive.

But then again she does not make that offer. Instead, being a modern woman, she merely pushes him out of the jail cell with her brute strength. Why the Beast who was master of the house would allow this was unclear.

And then Maurice is dragged off, but no reason is given why he does not turn around and come back in. Since he is not foolish  in this version, but competent, his going for help is an unmotivated act, perhaps even cowardly.

Gaston here is not an alpha-male, handsome and strong and adored by the villagers, hence not someone they would follow into the enchanted castle of a beast. When they do, it is unmotivated. 

Geek Gab: The Enmollisoning

In case you missed it, the Geek Gab trio invited me to share a few thoughts on reading and writing this past weekend.  It’s not too late to drink from the well of my wisdom, or feast at the table of my obnoxiousness – either way, this is one hour of required listening for anyone interested in self-publishing.  Agree or disagree, I guarantee you’ll be thinking about at least one of the topics we cover over the next few days.

Another Round

A Teaser for my next release

Things are really starting to cook here at Chateau Seagull.  The first draft of my next novel is complete.  It's going to simmer for a while before the second pass through, but it should be available before the end of the month - mid May at the latest.

In addition to that big announcement, I've also written two more Karl Barber short stories.  Those have been submitted to editors for consideration to be included in collections of one sort or another.

I've upped my game for the Hugo Nominated Castalia House Blog (run by Hugo Nominee Jeffro Johnson) to posted a short review every week.

As if that wasn't enough, the audio files for the audiobook presentation of Forbidden Thoughts, by Superversive press are in the can.  They need to go through editing and polish, but you can expect that to hit the market in the next month or so as well.

Which leaves me with a little free time at just the right time.  The Puppy of the Month Book Club is reading and discussing Souldancer this month and at 500+ pages, it's one of the longest we've ever read.  It's such a great book, I have a hard time stopping to write, as I'd rather just keep reading it.

It's a good time to be a fan of sci-fi.

What Hugo Discussions Reveal

Take it away Eleanor!

Reading through coverage of this year's Hugo nominated works, both in mainstream media and in the on-line circles thrilled by the results of E. Pluribus Unum, it's striking how little conversation there is about...you know...the works themselves.

From Wired:

Another is that Best Novelette has lately emerged as a microcosm of the Hugos’ move toward gender and racial inclusion. Women have won the category four of the last five years, and all of this year’s nominees are women—except for Hiscock.

Nowhere in that article do they actually discuss the novelettes nominated by the women.  They mention that they are women, but don't really care to talk about the works themselves. 

Not surprising, given that these people don't read.

Consider Fuzion's coverage:

It’s because of interest from communities of fans (like the body that makes up the Hugo Awards voting committee) who make the effort to critically analyze the titles despite the fact that Marvel doesn’t do the best of jobs when it comes to promoting them effectively.

Yeah, except they don't critically analyzes the titles beyond a simple gender and race count.  That's not critical analysis, that's simple social justice scorekeeping.

These people don't read.

Let's check io9:

The Hugo Awards nominations were released this week, featuring some of the best and brightest works in science fiction and fantasy— most of which are relatively well known. Then, there’s one nominee for Best Novelette, a short story hardly anyone had even heard of... until now. It’s called Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By the T-Rex, by Stix Hiscock. 

All they want to talk about is Stix Hiscock.  They haven't read any of the other nominee's works, and have no intention of doing so.  Reading and talking about the best novelette stories is so passé.

These people don't read.

Check out the File770 thread where people talk about the nominees.  It's all pricing and tangential issues.  Nobody talks about the works themselves.  Scan the front page and look for any analysis of the works themselves at all.  There's no there there.  They've got Camestros Felaptron doing some analysis but he works in the sad, old Damon Knight style wherein he focuses on who people hang out with far more than what they actually write.

They don't want to talk about ideas.  They don't want to talk about ideas.  They only really want to talk about people.

Small minds.

Now, take a look at the front page of the Castalia House Blog.  On any given day, they've got six or seven reviews of works that talk primarily about what is in the work itself.  They read and analyze the things they've read, not who said what about whom, and oh my god did you see the dress John Scalzi wore on Tuesday it made him look so fat!  It's this dedication to reading and discussion of the works that first drew me to the Castalia House Blog, and it's the reason I'm proud to be a regular contributor.  It's a blog about ideas - a strange thing for a sci-fi blog in these strange days, to be sure.

But you know who talks about ideas?

Great minds.

The Brighter Side of Indy Sci-Fi

Now is the best time to get into independently published science fiction.  Ignore what the marketing people have to say about it.  They deal only in raw, current numbers.  They look for today's hotness and promise immediate returns, but you're not interested in tomorrow, you're looking at the long haul.  It's easy to say that about you, even not knowing your name, because you're into science-fiction, which by its nature is a long-view genre.

So let's get our heads on straight here and think about the long view.  For starters, let's get the starting point right.  It's not here:

Segregating fantasy and sci-fi is loser thinking.

It's here:

Winners ignore the distinction.

It's the second most popular genre out there after romance. 

Looking into our psychohistory equations or our crystal-ball (they're the same thing, really), the near future might look bleak.  Nathan "Chicken Little" Housley has a full post where he does his Hari Seldon thing:

A survey of modern science fiction shows a repeated pattern of extinction events. In the 1950s, the pulps died. At the end of the Crazy Years of the 1970s, magazines died as the primary medium of science fiction and backlists died. The 1990s and early 2000s killed off the midlist writer. And, as the same old song plays of magazine sales drying up, rumors of publisher woes, and publisher wisdom telling authors that science fiction cannot sell, we stand on the verge of the next great crash for the genre. That this crash is happening in the 2020s and not in the 2010s is due to the 1990s' publish woes lasting into the 2000s, pushing back the date of the upcoming crash.

But he misses one critical factor in his analysis.  These extinction level events kill off the old dinosaurs, but open the way for new critters to rise up.  The big publishers, hide-bound, slow, and perfectly adapted to 20th century tech are going to suffer, but the mammalian independents, quick, nimble, and adapted to 21st century tech are going to thrive.  That's why you should get in now, while the getting is good.  Every year you wait to start, you're ceding readers to the competition.  You're letting other mammals fill in those ecological niches.

And one of the best niches in the future will be science-fiction.  The marketers tell you to play the numbers.  Romance, mystery, thriller - that's where the big numbers are.   That's true, but that's also where the swarms of writers are.  You've got to fight your way through a bigger crowd to get traction.

More to the point, fighting for what's big now, is thinking like a dinosaur.  Look at the trends.  Readers of mystery and thrillers are still well served by Bigfiveasaurus, and so aren't leaving the big five in droves the way they are sci-fi.  Look again at those bar graphs - the sci-fi field, though smaller than mystery and thrillers, has a bigger independent section.  That tells us Bigfiveasaurus isn't meeting the needs of the reader, and so they are going elsewhere.  For years, many of them went nowhere.  They just left.

With the advent of self-publishing, they are coming back into the fold.  They are finding the sorts of stories they want to read.  They are finding that self-publishers are doing the jobs the Big Five won't.  Again, we look to Nate for the future of the market:

Embrace the fantastic and the exotic. Embrace adventure. These are the key to sales in science fiction, and the shelter from the upcoming storm, just as they brought science fiction out of its previous crashes. Don't make the same mistake that drove hundreds of writers out of the field. Avoid realism.

So don't be afraid to ignore the experts.  You're not interested in today, you're interested in tomorrow and a thousand more after that.  Embrace your sci-fi mindset and look to the future.

You won't regret it.

You also won't regret reading Sudden Rescue.  It's what the future of science fiction is going to look like.

Modern Pulp Adventure

Not the official mock-up cover,
but a man can dream...

It's been done before, but never quite like this. A G-plus discussion on the suitability of the pulp ethos for tales set in the modern world got completely out of hand over the weekend. Somebody threw down a gauntlet and Misha Burnett scooped it up with a call to keyboard arms:

We are looking for 21st Century Pulp Revival stories. Who’s we? Well, there’s me, Rawle Nyanzi, Kevyn Winkless, and Sky Hernstrom. There is also a good chance that, once complete, the anthology will be published by Superversive Press.

Take a read through the submission guidelines, and if you think you've got what it takes to show the word there's more to pulp than fast action and empty adventure, throw your hat in the ring.  I've already written a 4,500 word Karl Barber adventure, so you might just wind up having your work beta-read and amateur edited by me.  And the chance of that alone is worth taking a stab at Misha's project.

In all seriousness, this is an important project for the #PulpRevolution.  We talk a big game, stirring up hard v. soft pots, shouting "you're doing it wrong" at other pulp practicitoners, running serious analysis of why the old pulps worked, and so on.  What we don't have much of right now is proof that the concepts work.  We've got Rawle Nyanzi's under-priced Sword and Flower, my own Sudden Rescue, and the works of Brian Niemeier and Misha himself*, but churning out the works is a glacial process. 

Misha's elegant solution is to share the load.  If everybody throws in 2K to 10K words, we can pump out a collection much faster than anyone could an 80K book alone.  Not only does this give a unified title to point to show that the Pulp Revolution works, it also gives a single point of contact where readers can read a sampler of the different writers.  Not all will appeal to everyone, but everyone can find a few writers that they'll enjoy.  Even more, it's a way to showcase the depth and scope possible within the pulp revolution, even when it is constrained to a near-real modern world.

Misha's a treasure, and I have no shame in riding his coattails, because I know they are going more places than I could ever go on my own.  I'd like to ride your coat-tails, too, so be a pal and throw a work into the pile, won't you?

* The latter two really pre-date the birth of the revolution, but we're claiming them anyway and there's nothing you can do to stop us.

Devious Brains, Honest Brawn

The Castalia House blog is on fire these days.  The new writers line-up, of which my Wargame Wednesday offerings are the least, is brilliant, and the comments section has been blowing up, too.  Not just in terms of quantity, but quality as well. My own contribution to a recent conversation requires a little more space than a comment section or 140 character tweet.  The conversation in question exists below Morgan's most recent offering, a brief digression into the mind of that old fraud, Isaac Asimov, which includes the following ill-conceived bon-mot:

This double standard is very evident in sword-and-sorcery, in which the sword-hero (brawn) is pitted against the sorcery-villain (brain), with brawn winning every time. The convention is, furthermore, that brawn is always on the side of goodness and niceness (a proposition which, in real life, is very dubious…

Asimov was the sort of guy who never let slip an opportunity to remind the world how much smarter he was than everyone on it.  He was also the sort of guy who mistook his own low cunning for actual analytical ability.

First of all, Asimov wrote that line in 1985, decades after the appearance of such wildly popular characters as Vance's Cugel the Clever, Lieber's Grey Mouser, and Moorcock's Elric.  The list of cunning fantasy heroes is endless.  Then look at how many villains or monsters are composed of nothing but brawn.  Massive and stupid trolls and ogres and thugs are a staple of sword and sorcery.  To suggest that brawn is always on the side of goodness and niceness betrays a degree of ignorance about the subject matter that would send less intelligent men running away from broad, sweeping generalizations.  Not Asimov, though - he was too smart to let his ignorance get in the way of his opining.

That beef is low hanging fruit, though.  Exposing Asimov's ignorance and pretentiousness is no real accomplishment.  Instead, let's take a few moments to actually analyze how and why the  sword-hero (brawn) is pitted against the sorcery-villain (brain), with brawn winning every time survived for so long as a staple of sword and sorcery.  Instead of playing the role of Secret King who knows what's good for everyone, and why what they like is bad for them, let's stop think about why that idea resonates with readers.

We'll start with an easy exercise:

You know who likes to get stabbed in the back by a friend?

No one.

You know who likes to know where they stand with people?

Every one.

Now take two heroes, one selfish and dishonest, the other loyal and trustworthy.  Guess which one most readers would rather spend time with?  If you guessed the loyal and trustworthy one, congratulations on being a decent human being.

(Don't sperg out on me here.  Yes, sometimes a venal hero who engages in trickery can make for a find change of pace...if done well, and if he pits his talents against foes even more vile than he.  We're talking rules, not exceptions.)

The bigger point here is that normal people like good guys.  They like to see the good guys win.  They like to see themselves in the place of the good guy.  They like to be reminded that good guys don't finish last.  That good guys do come out ahead in the end.

Normal people live in a very complicated world where that doesn't always happen.  It seems that the good guys, honest and forthright, constantly get shafted by the lying duplicitous bastards of the world.  They see that punk in the low-slung ratrod zipping in and out of traffic and almost causing six wrecks two minutes before they get dinged by a speeding ticket for going 37 in a 30MPH zone.  They watch that conniving bitch in Marketing get promoted over the diligent gal who stays late and pulls her own weight.  They stand by helpless as petty bureaucrats sell their nation out for a few "feel good" photo-ops with third world invaders and preach tolerance and love even as their daughters are assaulted in the street on the regular by said immigrants.

They chafe at such indignities.  They yearn for truth in a world of lies.  They burn for justice delivered immediately and without prejudice.

When people like that crack open a book, they don't want to read about that cunning wizard who finally gave that big bully with the sword what for.  They don't want to vicariously experience a bureaucrat saving the day by "forgetting" to file important paperwork.  While they might appreciate the brainy programmer stopping the alien invasion with a virus, but they love the redneck pilot who kamikazes his jet straight up the exhaust port of the city-sized mothership.

Liked and respected versus loved and admired.
Guess which one sells more books?

And that, my friends, is the critical point that Asimov misses.  He can't see past his own ego.  He thinks that readers burn for vengeance on the grade school bully, and that what readers really want is a smart hero who uses complicated plans built on layers of deceit and obfuscation to thwart the plans of simpler and more forthright villains.

Normal people don't think that way.  Normal people just want to grab the lady behind the counter at the DMV who smugly announces that they don't have the right safety check form and that they'll have to take the Form 88A-Pre-Owned back to the car dealership and get the Form 88A-Used and shake that helmet haired old prune until their registration falls out.  They want to grab their kid's vice-principal and explain to him WITH THEIR FISTS that biting a Pop-Tart into a pistol shape in no way violates a Zero Tolerance policy.  They want simple and honest solutions to the complex and inscrutable rules and regulations of modern life.

They want the simple virtue of a steel blade well wielded to triumph over decades of deceit and cunning.  They want a lifetime of hard training and sweat to vanquish decades of conniving chicanery.  They want simple solutions presented by the good guys - guys like them - to win out over petty and vainglorious plots.

They want justice.  They want honesty.  They want loyalty.  They want all the things that they don't get in the real world.

Most of what I've laid out here is obvious.  Normal people can go their whole lives without thinking about these things, because they don't have to - they feel them deep within their bones.  A longing for honesty and justice is part and parcel of the western civilization psyche.  It's so natural as to go without saying.

But a guy like Asimov - so desperate to be the smartest man in the room - has to announce that the vague longing people have for simplicity and virtue is actually a very bad thing, and if you'll just hear him out, he can explain why honesty is stupid.  That Asimov sees himself as allied with the schemers and deceivers tells you everything you need to know about him.  How much trust to put into the words of a man who sympathizes with the liars and connivers is up to you.

My Current Writing Project

The Pulp Revolution loves itself some pulpy fantasy and science fiction.  It's currently undergoing a long and protracted conversation about where exactly the genre took a left turn for the worse.  There are a lot of theories and finger pointing, with some rather elegant defenses of particular styles.  Loud mouth zealots make grand, sweeping gestures, then retract a bit when others point out exceptions.  Writers and editors of yesteryear get smeared and then have their reputations rehabilitated.  For example, Karl Gallagher's erudite analysis of Campbellian sci-fi softened my stance on Campbell.

With the exception of the New Wave authors.  Aside from a few gems in the cesspool, nobody likes those guys.

Of course, as readers and open minded sorts, the Pulp Revolution looks outward and analyzes information from other sources.  Whether it's showing respect to somebody like Rick Stump for his excellent analysis of why Hollywood can't get Conan right, or mocking the mockable mockeries of analysis like this prize pig, everything is fair game and nothing is off limits.

A number of commenters have pointed fingers at Damon Knight, the man who founded the SFWA and who is most famous for writing a story that ends with a man shouting that "To Serve Man" is a cookbook.  I hesitate to name names, because I'll forget to mention one or get those mentioned in trouble, but "Cirsova" Alexander and Nathan Housely are the primary culprits here.

Intrigued, I started doing some legwork, and everything fits together nicely nicely, thank you very much.  Damon Knight was a mid-tier author who bullied his way to the top through hubris and vindictiveness.  He did everything he could to assume command of the genre from writing amateur and biased reviews (Really, Damon?  Blish is a great writer and Robert E. Howard a hack?  Yagottabekiddingme,) to starting workshops to teach gullible writers "How it's really done", to founding the SFWA and conveniently serving as its first president, the better to determine who really counts as a 'the right kind of author'.  Of all of the gatekeepers who have made science fiction worse over the years, he was the original and so far as I can tell, the worst of the lot.

I started compiling notes and putting the pieces together, and have been forced to change directions a few times during this process.  While my overall thesis has not changed, certain pieces needed to be shuffled around, and looked at in new contexts.  As new information comes in, and as the conversations continue, I expect other changes to occur as well.  I will probably even post a few chapters here for open criticism and stress testing before declaring it ready for prime-time.

Right now the analysis clocks in at about 8,000 words, and it looks like I'm about half-way done.  So expect a quick read sometime in April/May.  Right now, I'm not sure where it will wind up.  Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

Self-Publishing: The Cover Art

The first draft of my next (and first full length) novel sits on my hard drive, waiting for the revision process to begin. The self-imposed break between writing and revising - the better to approach the words with a fresh perspective - makes the perfect time to secure cover art.  As a self-publisher steadily growing the brand and reinvesting the profits of this little adventure back into it, this marks my first foray into finding an artist.

As mentioned previously, I've used Fiverr.com* for my proof-reading in the past, and so using it for my art needs made sense.  There are a host of designers offering their services to design your book cover, but a quick review of that category reveals that most of the offerings are for clip-art combined with font selection and placement.  Those are important considerations, and your typical books would do well to take advantage of them.  They are perfect for non-fiction or for impressionistic lit-fic or for think pieces.  For my work?  They are uniformly terrible.

My work is not static, monochrome, or typical.  I will admit to them being cut-and-paste, but I'm cutting from the best and pasting things in a way that requires a much more creative touch.  That means going to the "Illustrators" section and finding actual artists rather than typesetters and designers.

Here things get a little more complicated.  It turns out portraits are easy.  Hundreds of quality artists will prepare a portrait for you on the fast and on the cheap.  Every additional figure you add to the artwork adds to the complexity and therefore the cost.  When you're working on a tight budget, and telling the story of a single character, the temptation is to go with what's cheap and just throw a character portrait up on the cover of your book.  Unfortunately, this leads to what Jeffro Johnson calls, "cool people standing around".  To whit:

GIS Results for "urban magic book cover"

Look at all those cool kids standing around.  I used to think that was a conscious decision made by publishers to appeal to those for whom the important thing is being seen to be looking good.  The old theory characterized this as entirely the result of an assumption that fiction for women involves people "being", in contrast to fiction for men which involves people "doing".   Even when a cover for men's fiction shows a portrait, he's usually engaged in a verb other than "standing".

 

GIS results for "pulp adventure cover"

The latter are far more intriguing and therefore far more likely to separate this fool from his money.  Unfortunately, the rules of the game state that the latter are also far more complex and therefore more costly.  So now my theory about "magic girl book covers" also includes the cheapness of the artwork as an additional factor. 

Which brings us to the conundrum facing self-publishers who want to evoke the latter covers, but who cant' justify the cost.  There may be a solution!

It turns out a number of graphic artists of the sequential art variety populate Fiverr.com as well.  These fine folks offer to draft a full page of your comic book, and if you ask nicely and explain what you want of them, would be more than happy to prepare a single panel page of a comic book at a significant cost savings.  As these are artists, many of them offer a range of styles from watercolors to digital art to line drawing or whatever, and the best part is that these guys are used to creating art that tells a story in a single panel.  They can do portraits of people standing around, but they don't balk at multiple characters, action shots, or even odd angles and composition.  It's what they do.

And if you have a hook like, "space trucker saving a princess from a robot that looks like a knight," then you are operating right inside their bailiwick.  That's how I found Rapha Pinhiero (on Facebook and Instagram.)  He even included a thumbnail sketch before starting on the final piece.

Now there's a cover that shows some action, some stakes, and the all important pretty girl in peril!

* Full disclosure: If you click that link and wind up using one of their services, I get a five dollar credit.  Thanks for the help!

Keillor Ruined Poetry

My latest audiobook is in the can. The files and fate of the audio version of John C. Wright’s “Somewhither” have been placed in the hands of Castalia House’s audio editor.  The last part of the book that I read was a series of poems included in the introduction that, honestly, make a lot more sense if you go back and read or listen to them after you complete the book. 

While reading these poems allowed, I made a conscious effort to avoid the currently popular style which features a strained voice best exemplified by the old Doctor on “Lost in Space” crying out, “Oh, the pain, the pain.”  You cannot hear a poem read on NPR without it being read in that pained, aching style.  It doesn’t matter what show you hear it on, everybody reads poetry as though they have a knife in the belly and are gasping to speak those precious last few stanzas.

I listen to this stuff in part because I’m a fairly erudite man of letters who is constantly on the make for the hidden gems within the NPR talus pile.  I’m also a glutton for punishment.  Most importantly, I’m the kind of guy who consumes bad things out of a desire to analyze and dissect them.  That’s out of a desire to understand what makes them bad, and a further desire not to make the same mistakes.
Generally speaking, the poetry you hear on NPR interviews or those literary dumping ground shows they have features half-bright women desperate to appear deep and meaningful.  They don’t trust their words, so they feel a need to give the poem a little more drama by clenching their vocal chords and reading it as though Chewbacca was choking them for their sudden but inevitable betrayal.
While reading Chesterton and Saint Augustine of Hippo, I used a clear, strong voice.  (Seriously, how can you feel anything but happiness when you read the beautiful, deep, and clever word choice of a man with such a wry sense of presentation as Chesterton?)  When done, my thoughts drifted to the man most responsible for this painful style of reading – Garrison Keillor.
His show, “Writer’s Almanac” confused me for the longest time.  For those not in the know, it’s a hodge-podge show where the host takes a bunch of items of literary interest and strings them together to produce a sort of variety show for writers.  Of course, this being NPR, the writing they feature is always the turgid prose and dreary second-rate philosophizing of fans of lit-ra-chure, rather than the solid wordcraft, joy of writing, and rip-snorting fun of adventure fiction.  So it’s a really, really boring show. 
Now, I’m a bit of a fan of Keillor.  I grew up listening to “Prairie Home Companion”, and he always struck me as a man who loved flyover country, and the people who inhabit it, even as he desperately sought acceptance by the ‘coastal in-crowd’.  He is a midwesterner at heart, and the PHC, while never exciting or hilarious, was always amusing and comforting.  Like eating at the Cracker Barrel restaurant or wrapping up in a warm blanket in front of a fire on a snowstormy night.  In fact, I appreciate that his voice is made for a show like that.  It’s honest, and sincere – that of a grandfather spinning yarns and dispensing advice.  It works…for that show.
But somehow, thanks (I believe) in part to “The Writer’s Almanac”, everybody and their cousin that goes on NPR to read poetry thinks they have to read it using the same style as Keillor.
It’s maddening.

And I promise, you’ll never hear me read a poem in that style.  I’ll always read them like a man on a mission – a mission to bring each and every poem with the drive, feel, and emotion that the poet intended.