Always Practice Your Writing

Every author, published or not, will agree that practice is essential to writing good fiction. Recently Fantasy Faction posted an article about improving descriptions in writing. It seems to be a practice where many writers need improvement.

I believe I am in that group as well. When I went through my rough draft of Awakening to War, I found many new scenes opened with little or no description of the surroundings. In some cases, that is fine, such as when I am opening in a location already described earlier, in which case I may just write that they are there, and move on into the scene. Others, though, needed work. I’ve edited the book 3 times, and it is currently being read by some beta readers, but for now, my assumption is I will need to revisit it again in the future.

I have heard many tips provided about how to improve, one among them being to describe the room you are in, as you writing. You could practice a brief 1 paragraph description, or a longer “hero” description of the room. I have posted mine below, and I warn you, it is a mess of a room, filled wall to wall with stuff. I hope that you can get a real sense of the room from the description, to feel as if you are there. Feel free to post your own practice description in the comments of this thread. Additionally, if you have any other practice exercises, you may post those as well.

The whir of a large fan filled the small rectangular room; movie and game posters, along with a few framed autographed photos wrapped around its walls. A desk at one wall held a computer, inkjet printer and speakers, littered with bottles of paint, paper sheets, and small hand tools. Next to it, tucked into the corner, a tall organizer held more model building tools and supplies, along with a box sitting on its top overflowing with still more supplies. Next to the desk was a second printer, a large Xerox laser printer, resting on a cart full of copy paper, toner supplies, glossy paper and card stock.

On either side of the room were two shelving units, one made of thick black wire and containing cardboard pads, plastic bags and other production supplies. The second, next to the office door, was cast in a gray plastic, containing two more printers, more paint and supplies, scale model vehicle kits, and even a stack of comics on its shelves.

Under the window, opposite the door, a square black folding table stood bearing the weight of a mid-sized paint booth, which was switched on and filling the room with the white noise of the motor and rushing air. Next to the table was a second folding table, also black, but narrow and long, its surface empty. Nearby, a closet spilled its contents out in an alluvial fan model kits, supplies, boxes of electronic and junk the owner couldn’t bear to throw away, topped with a very large plastic bag full of packing peanuts.

It was a room that was used both for hobby and for business. It was the home office.

Change of Plans

I was going to start a new trilogy, a fantasy with a SF twist. I’ve changed my mind. I have Book 1 of that trilogy in a rough outline and vague ideas for Book 2 and 3, but I decided to go with Book 2 of my recently completed SF novel AWAKENING TO WAR. The reasons are as follows:

1) I’m familiar with the characters. This has been a 6 year journey for me so far, even though most of that time has been in school full time and working, I have spent a lot of time with the characters and know their backgrounds pretty well. I feel that I could possibly lose some of that familiarity if I take a 5 year break working on an unrelated trilogy.

2) The world is familiar to me. I’ve gotten used to the world and the technology in it. This would not be as big of a loss from a 5 year break as the characters, but if its all fresh in your mind, you might as well stick with it.

3) Many authors have done the same, and advise the same. Brent Weeks went on with Book 2 of his Night Angel Trilogy, Bob Mayer recommended it in a recent blog post about choosing to epublish or traditionally publish, and many other series authors have followed this path.

There are other minor reasons, but those are the main three. I look forward to working on the outline further and really delving into the stories.

Consistantly Inconsistant Literary Agents

If you’ve read my blog, which is not long yet, you know I’m seeing an agent for my novel. In this search I have located agents representing science fiction, bookmarked them, found their blogs, found their twitter, and tried to learn what I could. What I’ve found is that all agents agree that a good query is essential. I’ve also found that “a good query” is entirely subjective. Not only that, but agents tend to change their style preference over time.

Query Shark, run by Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management, recommends immediately getting to the goods. That is, start telling them what your story is, and keep the housekeeping (your technical information and writing credits) at the end. Her notes often begin with, “Start with the good stuff.”

Jon Sternfeld, an agent for the Irene Goodman Agency, recently wrote a commentary for Writer’s Digest about query letters saying, “I also don’t want to hear the plot of your book before I even know if I care about it.” How are you supposed to judge a book without knowing the plot? Does he look at the cover?

While I was initially appalled at his apparent unconcern for our efforts, I can still understand his point of view. Literary agents receive hundreds of queries a week, sometimes even in a single day. How are they to sort through them all? If you consider most queries should average 250 words, according to Janet Reid’s Query Shark, then an agent who receives 250 queries a week have read the equivalent of a 250 page book. That’s a lot of reading for what may yield at best two or three requests for manuscripts.

Janet Reid has admitted that the formatting, or the writing of the first paragraph, or its content can quickly get your query rejected without fully reading it. Jennifer Jackson, an agent with Donald Maass Literary Agency, has claimed that she reads each query completely, and tries to read each synopsis and five pages included with the query if possible. Does she really accomplish that? I would be skeptical, but I would say if your query looks well enough, it saves her the time of requesting more material. Most agents I have found blogs all admit that it is easy to find your way to a form rejection in your query letter.

So you found that ideal format listed on X website for a sure-fire winning query. That’s great, but it turns out that sure thing is only good on one particular agent. What are the odds you just sent it to that agent?

I wish I had a solution, but the problem is one of individuality. Each person has different tastes in voice, style, subject, sub-category, and more. An agent who loves a good Urban Fantasy may be unenthusiastic about a good High Fantasy. There is no way to work against  this. Researching agents will help, but there is still so much riding on your query letter. Perhaps more than is fair, but that is how things work right now, leaving us authors-to-be kicking our query letter wastebaskets over in frustration.

A Storm on the Horizon

In the last two or three weeks there has been a lot of buzz about the changing publishing environment. Kristine Rusch has been blogging about the changing conditions of Publishers contracts, e-Book royalties being under reported by big name publishers, and the scramble to try and save themselves. I highly recommend reading back through her posts, as she provides a lot of interesting information that I feel I am better for having read.

Bob Mayer posted this past May that its time Writers change strategies from the traditional route to publishing (Find Agent, Agent finds Publisher, Publisher gets book out there). Many other authors, even those with national bestsellers in their catalogs have seen the coming storm. E-Books are clearly the future of publishing, unlike the print-on-demand trend, e-Books seem to be here to stay, and allow a writer to reach a large market.

I think a model similar to DeviantArt.com Prints in function would work well for the publishing industry. Imagine being an author with a finished manuscript. You’ve edited and polished and you are ready to submit. You log into the website, say B&N or Amazon, go to the author submission page and add your book. You input the title, the description (think back cover copy) and any relevant data such as genre, length, audience (Childrens, YA, Adult), upload your manuscript as a .doc, and the websites secure script processes the manuscript and formats it into an epub for downloads. You can set your own price, and B&N/Amazon get either a low % of sales, or a fixed cost. Consider DA Prints, which allows me to upload an art piece, and I want to sell it as an 8 x 10 print. Lets say their base print cost is $2.00 for an 8 x 10 print, and you decide to set the sale price at $10. They send you a quarterly check for the $8 profit you earned. Additionally, buyers can also select framing options to have a finished ready to hang image delivered to them. With this format for publishing, a buyer could buy the e-Book, and then choose the option to have a print-on-demand paperback version printed, or for more, a customized hardback edition. This type of format puts the power into the hands of the author.

Will this be the route the industry takes? Not unless Publishers have a radical paradigm shift, but wouldn’t it be great if after uploading your new e-Book and getting sale after sale, Publisher’s queried you, the author for printing rights. Kristen Rusch suggested a radical shift in the standard practices of the industry in 2-5 years, so whatever Publisher’s do, it will probably happen soon.

Thoughts on the e-Reader war

I keep seeing a lot of buzz about the recently announced Kindle Fire. It seems really nice, but its basically a Nook Color. The problem with e-Readers is that they force you to choose stores. I live in a small town now, but I used to live in a moderate sized city, with a Barnes & Noble, Borders, and a couple small independent sellers. I bought books from BN, Borders, and from Amazon; my loyalty was to the books, not to the store.

Now I have a Nook Color from BN. Why not the Kindle? I purchased primarily from BN and Amazon. The Borders and independents were okay, but both lacked a solid catalog of sci-fi which is my preferred genre, though I read many other genres too. BN had a brick and mortar store in town, while Amazon did not, so of course I had a BN Membership. Because of that, when I moved to a town that had no big book retailers, I used my BN Membership for fast free shipping and good prices.

I did not actually decide on a Nook myself. I got mine as a gift from my dad for my birthday this past April. It’s extremely addictive. It’s so easy to grab a new book or 3 when lying in bed, relaxing and winding down for sleep. In fact my bad habit is trilogies and sagas, starting with a book and half way through, if its good, buying the remaining books for uninterrupted adventure. The Kindle offers the same capabilities.

In fact, looking at the features of the Nook Color and the “Full Color Kindle Fire” you can see that they are practically identical. The main difference I can see is Kindle Fire has a built in email app (why?) and streaming movies and television shows from Amazon Prime. If I wanted to watch TV, I’d sit downstairs and watch it on my nice HDTV! -gasp-

So here’s where the problem lies. If you have a Nook, you are limited to BN’s catalog. If you have a Kindle, you’re limited to Amazon’s catalog. They both have different pricing depending on the book, but with publishers recognizing the interest in e-Publishing, many releases now include e-Books on all major platforms. So why fight over them? If you currently have a Nook Color, are you really going to switch to Amazon’s Kindle Fire because it has video capability from Amazon Prime? Would you switch back after BN releases the next generation of Nook Color with features not on the Fire?  The next hurdle for e-Readers will be to separate the catalog from the reader. Until then, there really isn’t any reason to switch. If you already have an e-Reader, then you are not the target audience for their advertising. They are only trying to entice those holdouts who have not picked one yet.

If Amazon and BN’s readers became market neutral, where I could buy a reader from BN and use books from Amazon’s catalog, then I would seriously consider and weigh each reader when it came time to upgrade. For now, I eagerly await BN’s next reader announcement, and could care less what Amazon is doing with the Kindle.

The To-Do List

I was working on some character sheets for my next book, and its really starting to hit home how much research I need to do for the details of this book. I decided to put together a list for myself so I can hit the library and google.

Personal Combat techniques – Fencing (terms, strategies), Hand to hand combat (specifically unarmed defense against armed opponent)

Military Tactics – Roman Army battlefield tactics, Persian Army battlefield tactics, both including formations, weaponry and its use, etc. The book ends with a massive battle between the Ceres Army and its ally, and the Banished Army.

Disease progression of Tuberculosis

Various future-tech things

Finish map of continent – This is mostly done, but I’d like to finish naming some things, really fleshing out the local geography of some of the more important areas where the story takes place for this book. While the storyline in this book is self contained, I’d like to leave myself an opening to return in the future if I choose to. I’m hesitant to embark on a multi-book story arc at this point. Perhaps I will when I am published and know I wont be wasting my time on it.

The first two, the combat tactics, will be the most lengthy bits of research. When dueling, I’d like the description to be as accurate as possible to a real duel with swords. In one battle the protagonist will be disarmed, and I’d like accurate description of unarmed defense against armed opponent fighting techniques, the same research will be used in a teaching portion of the book when Adias, a former General of the Banished Army teaches Cassius (the protagonist) about fighting. Same for Persian Army battlefield tactics. In this world, the Ceres Kingdom is at the level of technology and strategy of the Roman Army shortly before its peak, while the Banished are around the level of the Persians. I might pull in some tactics from other ancient armies as well, just because they wouldn’t all be limited to Persian strategy. It’s not like one society got a book of Roman strategy, and the other Persian. Thats just the way they evolved. Ceres had a better standing with greater technological resources from the start, while the Banished were banished and forced to start from scratch.

So I have a lot to do. I  think it’s rather funny how you have to do so much reading in order to do some writing. I could probably fake it, but I think the quality will show in the research, especially if someone is reading it and actually knows something about those cultures, or fencing, or martial arts. I’d like it to stand up to their scrutiny. Especially the meeting of the armies at the end. For such a crucial story event things should be accurate, in my opinion. I’ve read books where the author glosses over the details, and follows only the protagonist and his allies into the midst of the battle, which is fine, if the character supports it, but I find it unlikely that the King would wade into the clamor and chaos of battle. In this story, for most of it he will direct the tactics like a general would direct the troops, and because of that I’d better know what the hell I’m writing about. Faking that kind of detail oriented battle would be transparent to readers, even if they have no knowledge of those tactics.

What did I get myself into?

At It Again

I’ve started putting down the first words to the next book I’ve outlined. It’s a fantasy-style science fiction story. In other words, it reads like a fantasy, but the “magic” is based on technology the civilizations don’t understand. I really haven’t figured out a title, but that’s not an important thing right now. With many of the stories I’ve come up with the title eventually just comes to me, delivered by the title stork wrapped in a bundling cloth and a perfect fit for the story. I’ve got the story outlined, I like it, it sounds interesting and fun. I’m going to try and really power through the rough draft on this one. Goal to rough draft completion: March 1, 2012.

I’ve decided to completely rewrite my query letters for Awakening to War. I’ve seen some new examples following agent blogs and twitter and I think I can write something more engaging. My copy of The Writer’s Market (Deluxe Edition) will be delivered today so I can spend the weekend planning a query campaign armed with a new query letter and some research. Of course I’ll be targeting each individual query to the agent but some of it will remain copy/paste material. If you write a great two or three paragraphs describing the book, why change it for each letter?

EDIT: Here’s a brief “back cover copy” styled synopsis of the new book. I intended to include it in the post originally, but the words were not coming to me at the time. It is still a little rough, I’m sure, but its not intended to sell the book right now.

The Banished are attacking, the King is dying, and Cassius’ family is heir to the throne. Cassius is sent to call on the aid of a neighboring kingdom, relying on an old treaty. A former general of the Banished finds him there, and takes Cassius as his pupil, training him for the war to come. When they return, they find that the King has died, his father has been murdered, his love has been promised to wed Oliver, his childhood nemesis, and Cassius is to be crowned King.

Conspiracies have been set in motion to steal his crown from him, leading to a duel between Cassius and Oliver, with the fate of the kingdom of Ceres in balance. Worse, the armies of the Banished approach, leaving little time to prepare for war as Cassius fights for his life and for his kingdom and his only remaining advantage being a mysterious haunting presence found in the Mountains of the Dead; a ghost who seems to know everything that has happened, and is coming to be, and who provides Cassius with the tools to defeat the powerful Prince of the Banished.

The Book and the Shorts

So approximately 2 weeks ago, in mid-September, I began my quest to publish. My book, Awakening To War, was finished(ish, since until it goes to print it’s never really finished), and I’d written what I thought was a reasonable query letter. My frustration is that many recommend a paragraph of your publishing achievements, of which I have around, give or take, 0. No, I do not think I am a bad writer or blame my lack of accomplishment on biased or closed-mind Editors. I just put all my focus into the book, not writing a number of shorts and novellettes for publishing in periodicals to build a base. My first query letter was rejected yesterday. I’ve got 1 more out right now so I’ll wait and see how that goes. I’ve also got a new shiny copy of Writer’s Market 2012 (Deluxe Edition for the website), on its way from Barnes & Noble. Note: On the BN website the book costs $30, with free shipping. In stores it is $50, or $45 if you are a BN Member.

I suppose that is not entirely true. I did write a novella that was 24,000 words in 2009. It was turned down and my focus was back on the book. Having finished the book and being on a high from that, I reexamined that novella, entitled The Redemption of the Widow’s Watch. It needed some work. I can definitely see why it was declined. I think it had an entertaining story, it was just full of awkward sentences, a thorough lack of dialog, and lots of fatty sentences (those ones you really don’t need to tell the story). Following advice I had read since writing it, anything which did not directly contribute to the story and put it forward, whether character development, necessary background, or plot points, it was cut. The story is about a crew of privateers in a future in which mankind has colonized space. They take on contracts for private security or investigations. They stumble across the remnants of a brutal Pirate attack, in which a couple hundred people were murdered by venting compartments to space. They are then contracted by the government military to investigate using their underworld contacts to identify who is behind the attacks, and where they are located. This novella is currently submitted to Asimov’s.

I also have since written a short story, about 2,000 words, as a mock transcript to a future archeology symposium’s panel forum. I was watching History Channel’s Ancient Aliens, and while I don’t subscribe to the theory, it is entertaining. During that time I started thinking that what if there had been a previous civilization before ours. What if 15,000 years ago there was a real Atlantis, what evidence would there be? And that got me to thinking, if something wiped out our civilization, a meteorite for example, what would remain of us in 15,000 years. I then worked together a question-answer session on that idea. This is currently submitted to Analog.