To catch you up, earlier this week Adamant Entertainment (shepherded forth by the mighty Gareth-Michael Skarka) made an announcement: all their digital RPG products will now be subject to an “app-pricing model,” which is to say that they will cost you, the consumer, $1.99 a pop.

Then I caught sight of DriveThruRPG’s take on app-pricing, which you can find on Fred Hicks’ Tumblr (in short, it becomes a race to the bottom).

Obviously, given the name of the Adamant pricing initiative it highlights the current disparity between games you’d buy for your iPad ($1 to $10) and games you’d buy for your Xbox 360 ($40 -60).

I’m not knocking Gareth or his approach here: I hope it works for him. He’s done the math, he’s the publisher, and he sees this as the right move. And it may very well be. I am not a publisher — I’m just a wee little writer, belly so low I’m like a snake in a wheel rut. I just write stories. (This is a lie, of course. The writer is always more than just the writer. Or, he damn well better be. The ecosystem is changing, peeps.)

Except, of course, next week — provided that Kindle formatting does not destroy my brain and Space Jesus and Doom Buddha don’t decide to add “humans” to the list of mass animal deaths going on — I’m going to be releasing my short story collection, IRREGULAR CREATURES, to the Kindle store for $2.99. What we’re looking at right now is that while we have to make some bold moves and set competitive prices it remains unseen what the true cost of that price-setting may be. I don’t have any huge feelings on game pricing particularly, but I damn sure have feelings about fiction pricing.

So, this is just a random coagulation of thoughts about price (and cost).

These thoughts are not from an expert. They are from my addlepated monkey’s brain.

They make no conclusions. I’m just as confused as the next chimp down the line.

Here goes.

How I Pay For My Yacht Made Of Human Infants

I’m a freelancer, and I do so full-time, which means I have to make enough annual money to put food in my mouth (and soon, a baby’s mouth) and keep a roof over our head. And to support my “tentacle porn” habit.

If I were to release a product myself — like, I write it, I release it, I sell it — I’d need to make something close to my freelance rate to survive. So, if I released a product that were, say, 70,000 words, at the end of the day I need to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $3500-4000 just to not feel ashamed of myself. (And, really, let’s be honest, I should make more. Because in my mind, I’m worth it. In my mind, I’m also a ninja. Just so you have that as a point of reference.)

Selling at a buck a pop, I need to sell 3500 copies. That’s me selling it directly. Selling it through another venue, I’d need to sell somewhere around twice that, right? Seven thousand copies or so.

Doubling the rate changes things. Obviously it halves what we’re looking at for sales. And forgive me if this is dull as paint: I’m just babbling out loud, like that guy from A Beautiful Mind. Except, uhhh, I’m not a math genius. Tentacle porn-addicted ninja, yes. Math genius, not so much.

Going to three bucks gives me a little more breathing room. I’d get 60-70% most places out of that that three buck price, which means I’m getting roughly two bucks for each e-book sold. Means that I only have to sell like, 1750 copies to not feel like an asshole.

That’s about what I’d be worth to a smaller client. (Bigger clients pay more — uhh, or rather, they do in a perfect world.) The question is, is it fair to equate what a client pays me with what an aggregate audience pays? A client pays work-for-hire and it’s one and done. An audience pays me, and I have the potential to make fifteen bucks or fifteen-thousand bucks.

Is three bucks the sweet spot for something like that?

Or is that just a price too low?

None of this figures in the reality of paying a cover artist or an editor or what it costs me in time (and time is money) to market it. Freelancing doesn’t require me to do any of that. Publishing does. Nothing in a freelance contract says it’s my job to get artwork or find reviewers. (Novelists have it a little differently — technically they’re not responsible, but they earn out per sale so it behooves them to put time, effort, and maybe even a little money into pimping the book.)

The concern comes into play when a publisher — not the writer-as-publisher — begins to lower those costs. Because that means they’re not going to be able to pay someone like me, Mister Freelance Ninja Motherfucker, what I need to make to survive. Uh-oh.

Price Perceptions Of The Devil We Know

Three bucks doesn’t seem like an awful price for a digital novel, but is it too low? You’d pay more than twice that in the store for a hardcopy — and, for established authors, you’ll pay a lot more ($10-15 for an e-book).

For an established author I love, I’m totally on board with that price. That’s the tricky part about determining the value of intellectual property — this isn’t a widget that has clear supply and demand. This is a limitless ebook written with the candyfloss and unicorn dreams of one’s imagination (and yes, time). For an author I’d love, I’ll pay the full price on the book. Hell, you could tell me that prices are going up, and I’ll pay it. You hand me a new Joe Lansdale or Robert McCammon novel and tell me it’s $40, fuck it, here’s my money. And you want me to stick my dick in this mysterious hole? I’ll do that, too.

For things we love, we’ll pay a lot.

I don’t know what that means, but it’s worth noting.

Once You Go Low, You Can’t Go High

It’s like doing the limbo — you go too low, you might wrench your back in that position. Forever.

The pricing of apps — hell, the pricing of everything digital — has started to erode my sense of value, and I don’t really like it. I will no longer take easy risks on (bare with this next phrase) high-priced low-priced items. What is a “high-priced low-priced” item? A CD ten years ago in a store cost $16.99, which was bullshit. Digital costs have dropped those CDs down to $7.99 – 9.99.

Which is, by the way, a very nice price. Generally comes out at less than a buck a song.

And I’m now reticent to pay that price. Why? Because a company like Amazon offers a lot of sales. Because I used to get MP3s for free. Because I can buy Angry Birds for two bucks and get a billion (estimated) hours of play. No, I know that app isn’t a CD, but when it comes down to time spent on the entertainment I procure for myself, it still matters how much mileage I get out of a product. I will no longer take a risk on an artist for like, less than five bucks.

That’s insane. I feel like a total asshole. I have to consciously push past that inclination.

Price erosion in the marketplace has eroded my concept of value for — well, most types of entertainment. I think prices used to be too high, no doubt. But now I’m worrying that prices are going too low. The combination of the “culture of free” and plummeting prices has rewired my brain chemistry to make “pssh!” or “pfeh!” noises when a product goes above $4.99.

But again, that’s only for unknown quantities. For known quantities — a band I love, an author I dig, a game sequel I know is going to be rock solid — that’s not at all a problem.

It does make me less likely to take risks and buy unknown (to me) material.

That is not a good thing.

Word Of (Foot In) Mouth

Word of mouth helps that though, doesn’t it? A book, film, band, whatever feels like it becomes “known” to me when someone I trust tells me that it’s awesome. And then it moves from that nebulous “Ehh, if it’s not five bucks I’m not buying it” zone to the more robust, “Well, I’ll pay what I need because I want this thing.”

I don’t know how you can really make that work for you outside of writing the best damn book you can write and just hoping that it gets people crazy gonzo geeked about it.

It comes back to this: what we really want, I think we’ll pay for.

But are we pricing low to sell to people who don’t necessarily want what we’re selling?

Are We Undervaluing The Creative Sauce?

Are there dangerous, long-term costs to such price-slashing? Maybe.

We live in a world where art and creative craft is already suffering in terms of value: can’t get funding for arts, libraries are closing, more and more you see pleas for free writing, free artwork, free this, free that. By pricing low, are we just keeping up with the realities (maybe), or are we contributing to the long-term erosion of what creative stuff is worth? Again, you price low, you have to stay low. Do we set a new low watermark for What The Written Word Is Worth?

Hell, maybe we’re just over-entertained. Maybe we have too easy access to entertainment — so much is available to us now that the competition is at an all-time-high for our (increasingly unstable) attention spans. Low price combats that and keeps smaller authors competitive, which is a good thing (in theory). And it makes it likelier that someone will take a risk on you — also not a bad thing.

In the short term, the low prices seem like a good thing. I just don’t know if we’re playing the short game without thinking of the long con. I genuinely don’t know — I’m pondering. Asking, but not answering.

Curious to get your thoughts. I recognize that this post is a muddy, mumbly “me talking out loud” post, but hopefully it spurs a little thought in that direction.

What is creative material worth to you?

What is it worth if you know and love the author (or band, or filmmaker, or game designer)?

What is it worth if it’s an unknown quantity?

It’s also good for a day where I have to rearrange all the physical objects in my life. Seriously. If it is a physical object that I happen to own, then it is an object that must find a new place.

This is madness, but it isn’t Sparta. It’s just Pennsylvania.

Anyway!

Now that I’m in a new place and we have no intention of moving anywhere any time soon, I can start buying books again. (Don’t tell my wife.) Further awesome: the “sitting room” downstairs will officially be a “reading room.” So, books! I am no longer bound to reading in bed, where sleep pulls at me after ten pages.

I’m once again taking recommendations.

This time, run the genre gauntlet with me.

Make one recommendation per genre:

Fantasy.

Science-Fiction.

Crime.

Horror.

I’m looking not necessarily for works that are seminal to the genre, but rather seminal to your understanding of and pleasure with the genre.

Diggit?

Don’t feel like you need to actually answer all four. If you have a sweet answer for one of ‘em but not the others? I’m still accepting recommendations.

My quick recs?

Fantasy: The Farseer trilogy (starting with Assassin’s Apprentice) by Robin Hobb.

Science-Fiction: This one’s tough — I don’t read a lot of sci-fi. But for me, I gotta go Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Crime: I know it’s going to be a Joe Lansdale novel, but which one? Tempted to just go Mucho Mojo and be done with it.

Horror: You know my answer: Swan Song, Robert McCammon.

Join in, won’t you?

Then, out of nowhere, some clown runs up, hikes his pants down, slaps his bepimpled cheeks, and screams: “NUH-UH!”

And then he runs away.

That is not a productive way of joining the conversation. You, my clowning friend, are only interrupting. You are disrupting. Your zit-speckled moon is little more than a brick wall, and this conversation just slammed right into it. Killing all passengers.

What the hell am I talking about?

It’s like this: remember the Ten Rules For Writing Fiction meme that went around? (I did my own list here at the site, in case you missed it.)  Being on the Twitters and the web in general, I have before and since this occasionally run upon a post or a comment that is, in essence, “Fuck you, this is dumb, everybody writes differently, you can’t apply rules to it.” It’s not the first time I’ve seen that. There exists real resistance to people offering writing advice. While I blessedly don’t see it here (because you people are awesome and are not from the standard primate house of grumpy sperm-flinging bonobos) I still encounter it “out in the wild.” It’s this defiant, iconoclastic middle finger to anybody who would dare to posit new ways of doing things or new ways of thinking about things. So, the response is more or less: “That’s bullshit, man.”

Or, put differently, it’s a dude smacking his ass at you and yelling, “Nuh-uh.”

(I won’t link out to any of these blogs. I don’t want to give them traffic, and they have a right to mouth off in their spaces as much as they’d like, just as I have the right to mouth off here to all of you poor bastards!)

Listen, I get it. Nobody can force you to do things. And nobody should tell you that from his mouth comes the One True Way, sang on a beam of light shot from an angel’s mighty pucker. I certainly hope I don’t come across that way. I know I’m a belligerent blowhard. But I always try to temper with that with the idea that I’m only just figuring these things out for myself and vocalizing them. You’re merely along for the ride as I stumble through my own pits and traps and drag my own sorry ass through the weeds.

“Fiction doesn’t abide by rules, man!”

Mm-hmm.

Here’s the thing.

Fiction has rules, actually. Writing has rules. They might be different for different people. Or different for different genres. Or for different languages. Or editors. Or media.

Further, in those gray, hoary margins where no sure rules exist, we can still talk about the potentials, can’t we? We can have a conversation about it? Surely?

I don’t know that I’ve helped anybody. I do know that I have been helped by not just you guys, but by many of the blogs and interviews and articles out there on the subject of writing. Heck, that Tim O’Brien interview from yesterday’s PWS had that great quote (paraphrased: when on the plateaus, head for the mountains). I don’t agree with everything he said, but that one thing was right for me, and I took it, and I absorbed it into my amoebic caul and uploaded it to my chittering hive-mind, and now that shit is a deep-ass part of me. Same with all those Ten Rules. I don’t agree with every rule every other writer put forth. But I found the things I liked, and I made them a part of me.

If I had been a closed door, if I had been grumpy-gussed and vinegar-pissed about all that, I wouldn’t have been open to absorbing any of that. I wouldn’t have been open to learning. No, instead I would’ve just shown my lily white shitcan and screamed “Nuh-uh!” at the top of my ever-loving lungs.

You have to be open.

This is a conversation. A dynamic back and forth. That’s why the Internet is awesome.

And jerkholes like the ass-slapping clown is why the Internet blows.

So, to you jerkholes?

You have three options.

One: Join the conversation.

Two: Listen to, or even ignore, the conversation.

Three: Eat a dick and die.

(Or, put more politely, be a fountain, not a drain.)

(And just to be clear: I’m not talking to anyone here. I’m yelling out into the mighty digital void, y’dig?)

When I try to think about healthcare or jobs or any of that, I feel like I’m reaching out into a fog, and instead of pulling back reasonable answers, I pull back a rabid dingo. And the dingo just keeps biting me and biting me until I’m so angry, bees explode out of my head. You’re all like, “Where’d those bees come from? Weren’t we just talking about a dingo?” And I’m all like, “I do not know. I can’t stop and think about it, because apparently my brain is made of bees.” Buzz, buzz.

Soon as I start peeling back the skin on America’s problems, I find nothing but maggots and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups wrappers. And a Justin Bieber CD. Who the hell is Justin Bieber, by the way? (Oh, it’s just Ellen Page! That silly girl, pretending to be a little boy.)

I cannot form coherent thoughts.

Only the red haze, sponsored by the brain bees and the bitey dingo.

I mean, let’s take a peek.

Utah wants to criminalize miscarriages while simultaneously removing 12th grade as a necessity.

Members of the Grand Old Party are saying all manner of funny business, like how abortions are worse for the African-American community than a little tiny thing called “slavery,” or how recent snowfall is obviously evidence that climate change is a big effluent bucket of gopher diarrhea.

The Birthers. Remember those monkeyfuckers? Yeah, they’re still around, and somehow are gaining support. (Newest theory: Obama is a CIA mole!)

The craziest — or stupidest — people have the loudest voice: Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, the brain-diseased Tea Party members. So much so that suddenly Bill O’Reilly emerges as a voice of sanity, which proves we’re all double-stuffed with fucking doom.

Meanwhile, the Democrats can’t seem to affect much change at all. We get a sane president up in this neighborhood and it’s like all the lunatics and morons come pouring out of the boltholes and sockets and broken pipes, a tide of rats and roaches ready to nibble us all to death. And the Democrats — who have a majority — just climb up on chairs and make eeee! noises like little girls. (Holding up their skirts, skirts whose pockets are stuffed with money from special interests. Do skirts have pockets? I mean, some do, right? Ladies in the crowd, make some noise: skirt pockets? If not, man, you should get some. Pockets are great. You can keep anything in there. Gum. Lip balm. Voodoo dolls. A cube with a button on it that, when pressed, implodes all known galactic space. So on, so forth.)

The GOP keep saying, “No we won’t,” and Obama keeps saying “Yes we can!” when really he should be saying, “Yes we will.” And then he should hit nay-sayers with nunchuks. Whap! Whap! Fwaaa! Karate kick! Flamethrower!

Every week is another week of, “Man, I just can’t think about this.” The red haze, the angry dingo, the flock of bees. It won’t let me get my head around it. I feel like I’m slipping and sliding toward cynicism again; not a helpful place, and a place I’ve long-cautioned against.

Then it occurred to me what we’re all missing:

We’re missing the proper pop culture commentary. We don’t have the likes of a Bill Hicks anymore. Carlin up and died on us. I feel like comedy has clipped its own nuts off. I feel like nobody is out there really calling out the absurdity — well, okay, we have The Daily Show, but they’re a lone voice, and further, it’s easy to wave them off as a parody of news (even though you’ll probably hear more truth out of Jon Stewart than any pundit or talking head on CNN). We need more people to stand up. We need more incisive, biting commentary. Don’t look to SNL. They play it like the news plays it: even-handed and ultimately tepid. It’s like they feel they have to abide by some “equal time comedy rule.” And what happened to politically-charged, pissed-off music? Music that says something? Anybody? Crickets chirping? Tumbleweeds tumbling?

Le sigh.

So, yeah. There you go. A rambling Saturday post explaining why I haven’t been offering up much political commentary: I just don’t have much to say. I can’t seem to crystallize my feelings (translation: my yawping rage and confusion) in a way that will inform and entertain. Every time I turn on the news or read a headline, I just think, “Dang, America. You so crazy, you make me want to kick a baby.”

And I, dear readers, am not a baby-kicker.

That should tell you how far I’ve been pushed.

I have full confidence I don’t need to tell you who he is, but in case you don’t know, I already told you way back when.

Yesterday, The Hutch took to the Interwebs and wrote what was a genuinely stirring, moving piece about how his publisher, St. Martins, has declined to publish the continuation of Hutchins’ 7th Son trilogy.

You can read that post right here. I recommend it. If only because it’s homework for the things I’m about to discuss.

[EDIT: You can also read Eloquent Eddy Webb's response to that over yonder. Do that.]

I don’t claim to be an expert on publishing. I don’t claim to be an expert on marketing. I certainly don’t know J.C. Hutchins’ heart, though I’ve heard he’s a truly nice and geniuine dude, so I can’t speak to his mindset outside what you find in the post he wrote.

I do think his post presents some… lessons? Talking points? Question marks? Exclamation points? Fuck. I dunno.

Let’s get into it.

Well, Fuck Me In The Ass With A Dildo Named “Disappointment”

My initial response to the Hutch’s post — outside of a groundswell of sympathy for the dude — was, “Uh-oh.” Here’s a guy with what appears to be a ready-to-roll army of supporters, right? He’s got a deeply engaged audience. They are his street team. His efforts at mobilizing that audience appeared to be going quite well. He ran contests. He tweeted like a man on fire. He — and I didn’t realize this explicitly — put a ton of his own money into getting word about his book out there. Early looks at the book sales seemed good.

And yet, here we are, months later, and the publisher isn’t picking up the series.

Hard not to feel disheartened, right? Hard not to feel like… man, no matter how much I push, this baby just ain’t coming out of the uterus. That baby’s entrenched. He’s putting up Ikea shelves. You might as well just get used to carrying the weight around, maybe.

I mean, let’s look at it. Reality check, writers. You get a book published. It goes into a bookstore, where All The Other Books live. People have as much chance of finding your book on the shelves as they do, say, the Arc of the Covenant in that evil warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (We won’t go into Crystal Skull. It’s just not worth it.) Okay, sure, the book also goes to Amazon. There, I’d say the chances might be even less — you browse a bookstore, fingers drifting along book spines, seeing titles, authors, colors, covers. Amazon? You don’t browse Amazon. Not the same way. Sure, your book is there. It’s a bit or a byte on a whole beach of bits and bytes.

Publishers don’t spend marketing dollars like they did in the past on books.

So, it’s on you.

Hutch knew that. He marketed his ass off. You damn sure can’t say, “Well, he could’ve done more.” More what? You can only throw so much of yourself at something.

So, Maybe It’s Not About “More”

Please believe me: I am not knocking the Hutch’s efforts. Again, I’m no expert. I’m just yammering. I’m just spitballing. It goes like this, though: he put his everything into it, and his everything wasn’t enough. That means the answer isn’t necessarily “everything.” It’s “something.” More specifically, the right something.

I’m not making a case for his book, but I am making a case for yours. What this means is, when you have a book — or some other creative storytelling product — the answer may not be, “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.” The answer may not be, “Cut out your own heart onto the altar of progress and possibility.”

The answer may instead be, “Find one right thing to do.” Or, “Find the five best things.” Things appropriate to your story. Things appropriate to your audience.

I know. I’m speaking in abstracts. I can’t speak to specifics. Not yet. This isn’t fully formed. Again: I’m just talking over here. What it means is that we as creators don’t have a Proven Plan. Right? You can’t just march in there and knock ‘em all down in a hail of bullets. You need one bullet. You need the right bullet for the right gun. You need the right strategy for the right story.

Quality over quantity. Right? Maybe? Is that the way?

Ye Of Little Faith

Upon reading his post, my gestalt trembled a little. It bucked like my guts do anytime I eat a pile of really hot hot-wings. Anytime a good writer doesn’t make it up the ladder, you feel sick inside. World’s gone topsy-turvy.

But you have to find your moorings.

It’s very easy to lose faith. You read his post, you see that his own faith has potentially been shaken (again, I don’t know his heart, I’m just reading into his post). But it’ll come back. He’s just been dealt a mighty punch to the throat. He’s trying to catch a breath.

I suspect he will. If you follow him on Twitter, you can tell he’s got enough energy for ten men (and one crack-addicted minotaur). He’s a nice dude, a smart guy, and a talent to watch. He’ll find his feet. The post he writes a couple days after that kind of news is going to look a lot different than the post he writes six months from now.

But this isn’t about him.

It’s about you and me.

It’s going to be tempting to feel disillusioned. That’s okay. A little disillusionment is good. Reality isn’t nice, but it’s necessary.

We all need to feel its sting so we can adjust our expectations.

It’s easy, though, to go too far. To pass the zero mile marker labeled “Reality” and come out the other side, as far from “Illusion” as posible.

All the way to straight-up “Cynicism.”

Don’t go into the light, but don’t go into the darkness, either. You might hear a lot of voices that say, “so-and-so model is broken,” or, “transmedia is not the future,” or “free doesn’t work.” Worse, you might suspect darker notions are creeping around your margins: “If he can’t do it, neither can you. You don’t have his audience.”

Well, fuck all that.

These strategies didn’t work for him on this one project. That’s it. No, that doesn’t mean you go back to the well and try the same thing again and again, banging your head against the wall, right? Hell, maybe it does. It does if you believe in that particular strategy for this particular book. Just because This Thing doesn’t work over there doesn’t mean This Thing can’t work over here. Make sense? Further, one “failure” does not constitute a pattern of failure. Others appear to have had some success. It might mean mixing up the methods a little bit. It might mean a modification to the approach. It might mean getting help from someone. I dunno. I’m simply suggesting that there are uncertain processes at work, and you can’t base your hopes on those uncertain processes, but you also can’t base your fears on them, either.

You can’t be afraid of failure.

Shit, if you were, you wouldn’t be a writer, out there trying to thread that needle.

You can’t say free doesn’t work. Because free can work. It just doesn’t work all the time. Nothing works every time. That’s my point. No magic strategy. You have to find what’s right for you. Something like this, they’ll suddenly balk at “free” like it’s poison in the water. Ask the Penny Arcade guys how free failed them. Or how free failed Homestar Runner. Answer: it didn’t. Free succeeded. Because that’s what worked for them.

You can’t say new media doesn’t work. This isn’t an attack on new media. Heck, 7th Son is an old media approach. Sure, it came about because of new media, but where it ended up was a print book on bookshelves utilizing the old model. (To be fair, it’s also not an example of the old way doesn’t work, because — well. Just ask Dan Brown, Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling. The old way can work just fine, thanks.)

You can’t say he didn’t do it, so neither can I. Even at its most fundamental level, if 100 people jump off a building, we’re all going to land differently. Ninety of us might splat. Ten percent might land in that dumpster filled with pillows and cake.

Consider, too, that we don’t have all the facts.

With the 7th Son situation, we don’t have a metric for success or lack-of-success. Hutch hasn’t shared the numbers. (Maybe he will, though?) Did he get a small advance and the book just didn’t sell? Did he get a large advance and it sold well but not well enough cover expenses? Was the book technically a success but not enough for the publisher to feel that this series was the horse it wanted to back? I don’t know. He obviously retains a good relationship with the publisher (and the upswing is that they will surely look at any new work he sends their way).

If anything, what this should tell you is that you need to find The Way to do That Thing You Want To Do. You may say, “Man, this is a book like housewives and teen girls across America are going to eat up, because it involves sparkly vampires battling Vatican assassins who are trying to take over a School of Wizards,” and so you hit the trail walked so many times before. You may say, “This book doesn’t have a mainstream audience, but I think I can build up my own micro-audience with this book — and if I do it right, and I do it myself, I might be able to carve out a living.”

That’s on you. Figure it out. And keep plugging away.

*pant, pant, pant*

I’ve gone on long, and this post is rambly and winded. What I’m saying to you is, keep on keeping on. Hutch will. You should, too. Find the strategy that works for you. Don’t throw everything at the wall. Don’t go broke. But don’t be afraid of risk, as Eddy Webb states in his post. Yes, it’s going to be a challenge. Of course it’s going to be hard, and the odds are way the fuck against you. You don’t like it? Don’t be a writer. Or a filmmaker. Or a creative type of any stripe.

One failure is not the end.

Hey, the first airplane didn’t fly, did it?

I’ve written… six novels before I got an agent for the last. I didn’t stop after the first. I learned lessons and I moved on, and I kept doing what I do. It’s not like the book sold yet. If it doesn’t, I won’t quit. Will you?

You always fall on your face first. That’s how it is.

Don’t let the voices within, or the voices without, tell you any differently.

Then I probably fell asleep. Likely with a beard of vomit atop my actual beard and a squalling baby — not my own — in the other room. You’d be amazed at how often that happens to me. Damn babies. Sneaking in here at night. Drinking all my liquor. Pooping on the ceiling fan so when I turn it on — well. You see where I’m going with this. Turns the room into a shit salad. That’s truth.

Right. What was I saying? Ah. Yes. Transmedia.

Our film is considered a “transmedia” project. What does that mean? It means the film is not the sum total of the experience. It one story in our storyworld. Still not getting it?

First, feel free to hit a more “official” definition over at Ye Olde Wikipedia.

My writing partner, Lance, compares it to a bullet hole in glass. The bullet hole is the center of your storyworld, and is likely represented by a single project — in this case, our film. But all the cracks radiating outward like a spiderweb represent new paths into the storyworld, which are themselves new stories. Yes, we have the film, but it is not the end of the experience. I won’t speak specifically as to what else is coming, but we have a handful of other elements in play that are being grown organically at the same time as we grow the script — episodic content, perhaps. Software. Technology. Live experiences. Doesn’t need to end there, and it doesn’t need to be married to the convention of film. The story continues. The story wriggles free from the confines and takes a life all its own.

For the record, I do not purport to be an expert on the subject. I’m just a big fan, a fan who’s taken tentative steps into understanding how it can best serve storytelling (which means, best serving the audience, as the audience is the recipient of the story).

I will now take questions, and answer them clumsily.

Is this the future of storytelling, or is it just a gimmick?

It’s just a gimmick. Like a guy who can chew bubblegum with his butthole. Sorry to waste your time. Go home. Go home to your children and tell them it was all a dream.

No, it’s not just a gimmick. I mean, it can be. Anything can be. A whole TV show can be a gimmick if, say, you were to make a television show about a bunch of cavemen created explicitly for a series of car insurance commercials.

That said, I don’t know that it’s the future of storytelling. I distrust anything that claims to be the future of anything. Unless it drops a flying car into my driveway, I’m dubious. What it does, however, is offer us new tools for our toolbox. Once upon a time, we had a number of expected avenues for our stories to travel: film, television, games, print, and so on. Those things are merging. It is a syncretism, if you will, of the ways and philosophies of storytelling. It comes together and forms a giant blob that will eat us all.

Wait, that can’t be right. What I mean is, the combination of these elements and avenues forms and forges whole new paths. It’s all about the story, then. It’s not all about the means; it’s all about the message.

Why now? Haven’t we seen this before?

Short answer: Because technology allows it.

Long answer: Yes, we’ve seen this before, but in a limited fashion. Star Wars might be the best and earliest example of transmedia, at least in my mind. This sounds silly, but the toys and action figures are a good example of transmedia storytelling — it takes the story we know from the trilogy and places it in the hands of the audience in the form of “playtime.” (And then people shoot those stories in the back of the head by collecting action figures still in their clamshell packaging and locking them away in pressure-sealed vaults to keep The Precious ever-perfect, freeze-framing childhood in a disturbing bout of ennui-addled, banality-driven adulthood. But that is perhaps a talk for another time.)

Star Wars really didn’t have the technology to pull off the “singularity” of transmedia storytelling, though, and while we may not be quite there yet, we’re damn close. Right now, almost anything you can imagine regarding a story is possible. If you conceive of it, it can probably be done. Time and money matter, of course, but things are getting cheaper. People can develop apps with only a handful of people. You can “print” materials with greater ease (check out this MakerBot video from Radar).

We’ve no limitation that demands we bind a story to a single medium. A story can now move from screen to screen, it can leap to the page, it can be an action figure in your hands, it can be given to the audience (individual or crowd-sourced) and left to mutate and grow. That excites the hell out of me.

Ah, but.

At present, transmedia is limited by corporate interests. Transmedia is best-served (in my mind) when it grows organically together — think how a forest of trees grow together, forming an ecosystem, rather than how you might build one house, then another, then another. You conceive of the whole package, or at least a good part of it, right from the beginning. Most examples of transmedia aren’t really effective, though — sure, you see a video game and a comic book and a novelization, all orbiting the main property, a film. But most of those things are a rehash, a retelling. Further, they tend to be grown separately, by separate “teams” in the company or, more likely, by entirely separate corporate entities. The properties don’t “talk.” They don’t speak to one another. It’s like the Lost ARG that happened a few years back — it was non-canonical, because it was handled by ABC without input from the creators or writers of the actual TV show. Hence, people thought they were getting an authentic experience, but they weren’t. They might as well have been engaging in a fan-created experience. Or they might as well have all been masturbating on crackers (last one on the cracker has to eat it!). (What?) (Shut up.)

Is an ARG, an alternate-reality-game, considered transmedia?

It can be, if it crosses multiple platforms. Otherwise, it’s basically just a live-action game, or a piece of software. For me, an ARG is usually one part of the transmedia storytelling experience — either the bullet hole, or one of the cracks in the glass. It needn’t be the sum total of the experience.

Isn’t this good only for genre material?

Nope. You’d think that. But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Dead in the harbor wrong. Floating there, face down. Scummy shrimp nesting in your open maw. Barnacles on your inner thighs. Eels using your guts as sweaters. We’ve all been there. Am I right?

Look at Mad Men. Look at the “Mad Men Yourself” avatar creation. Look at Betty Draper on Twitter. Think about what else you could do — webisode content for lesser-tier characters, a “create-your-own-advertising-agency” game, a “create-your-own-ad-campaign” game, an ARG sponsored by a liquor company. The list goes on and on.

Need I note that Mad Men is not a genre show?

Aren’t you just watering down your story by fracturing it?

Not if it’s done well. Our film is the focus. It’s the bullet hole. We are making a film and we want to get it right. We’re not relying on the transmedia elements to carry it. We are, however, letting transmedia be a vent — if we have good ideas that don’t belong in this story, they may belong elsewhere, and now we have a place for them to live.

But the film is the film. A game is a game. Even when they talk to one another and reflect upon each other, they each still need to be good on their own terms. You’ll offer no value if each is weak; the entire storyworld is only as good as its flimsiest component.

Why? Why does this matter? Sell me on it.

Listen. Truth-telling time. People aren’t consuming media like they used to. Habits are changing. No, it’s not universal, and yes, you still have people who listen to 8-Track cassettes with religious zeal. But fact is, the Internet really did change everything. Technology has blown open the doors. People want more, and they want more now. That’s because people are dicks.

But whaddya gonna do? You’re people, I’m people, the audience is people. No robots, yet. Hence, it’s time to adapt or die, friends.

Meteor’s a coming. Are you a mammal? Or are you a dinosaur?

Okay, doomsaying aside, here’s the deal. Me, personally, when I encounter a story I like, I want to really get up in it. You give me Bioshock, and I say, “I want more, and I really want it now.” Seriously. When that game hit and I played it and it was awesome, I would’ve consumed any other materials that were of similar quality and were easy for me to get my hands on. A novel? A comic book series? Some novelty app? I wanted more. I wanted to be in that world as much as I could be — it felt deeply realized, and had they grown up a serious transmedia effort around that game from the get-go, I think people would’ve gotten on board. (Mind you, my earlier rules apply: no rehashes, no retellings — new content, new stories only.)

Further, the audience wants to be invested. They want a part of it. So, you cede a little control to them. Why do you think roleplaying games are popular? Or video games? Or fan fiction? These are all ways — sanctioned or not — that the audience grabs a hold of beloved properties and hugs them and squeezes them and calls them George. A lot of companies resist that. Some creators do, too. They don’t want to cede power to the audience. They want to be the authority. The auteur. The top dog.

Noble intention, and I’m with you — in theory.

But it’s like with piracy. Sure, it’s not fair. No, you may not like it. But conditions on the ground are changing. People are doing things differently. You can cross your arms. You can stomp your feet in a huff. It won’t help. It’s like being mad at the tides. They still come in, come out, no matter how you feel about it.

Plus, coming from a background in pen-and-paper roleplaying games, I like the option of giving the audience some measure of control. And the secret is, when you give them the tools, you’ve provided parameters for that control. You aren’t holding a leash, but you are pointing to the doors through which they may walk.

What does this mean for writers? Will this kill traditional storytelling?

No, of course it won’t kill traditional storytelling, silly. I was just being dramatic with all the doomsaying. Instead, transmedia will kill your families. It’s also the cause of global warming. Also: global awesomeing.

Ahem. No.

Seriously, think about it.

Movies didn’t kill paintings.

TV didn’t kill movies.

The Internet didn’t kill TV.

But it did change them. It did open up new avenues.

As a writer, you can only benefit by understanding these avenues. You’re writing a book? Take some time to think about what else you can do with that. This is especially true if you’re going full-on-indie and will self-publish. Think about what other materials you can use to tell deeper, different stories in your storyworld. Is it worth doing a RPG? An interactive website or comic? An app detailing the map of your fantasy realm? Do you have a third-tier character who you think could use his own series of short stories, or choose-your-own-adventure tales? Is there value in launching the book at a live event?

Point is, you have options. Every story will demand different options — and, as a storyteller, you’ll intuit which options are best.

You can only gain and offer value if you understand these things. Is it necessary? No. Will it be useful to you? Will it help you build audience? Will it give you more tools to tell the stories you want to tell?

Yes, yes, and yes.

When my grandmother, the legendary “Mom-Mom,” was diagnosed with mesothelioma, they gave her six months to live. (She literally counted down to those six months on the calendar, and when she did not die, she gained a new lease on life with a terminal disease. She then went on to live another five-and-a-half years, which according to her doctor might’ve been some kind of record for people with that swiftly murderous disease. She chose no treatment options except the occasional “draining-of-the-lung.” Which sounds like some kind of weird Irish ritual. “Old Noah Kelly went down to the pub today, underwent the ol’ draining-o-the-lung, he did.” She also never ate cheese in her life. Perhaps that is the secret to long living. But I digress.)

Mom-Mom was a Catholic. As was my other grandmother, Gram, who claimed distant lineage to the last John Paul, and who served as an apostolic minister for Mother Church, and who would scrape mold off of cheese, meat, and bread, and feed it to me, a five-year-old boy. Along with a cup of coffee for me to dunk my buttered bread in. When confronted about the mold, she said, “It’s all penicillin.” Which isn’t strictly true, but hey, she lived to the grand old age of 91. (And she did eat cheese. The dilemma continues!)

Anyway.

To me, “Catholic” was always equal to “Christian.”

Cue the Baptists.

The Baptist contingent would occasionally send missionaries to the distant wilds and hooting jungles that was… er, my mother’s house to recruit the stubborn pagan known as “Mom-Mom.” Seriously. They’d show up and try to get her to convert away from Catholicism because they wanted her to go to Heaven.

Mom-Mom took it in stride and answered in the vein of how anyone could and perhaps should answer when confronted with troubling spiritual recruitment. She laughed and said:

(paraphrased) “I’m not worried, I’m just going to go right up to Heaven’s door and knock on it, and say, ‘Jesus, it’s me, Alice!’ And then Jesus will say, ‘Oh, hello, Alice!’ and let me in.”

That was that. End of story. Game over. That was her spiritual view of how it would all shake out in the end. Further, that was how she waved off religious detractors. Took the steam right out of the conversion attempt.

Cut to last night.

Wife and I were leaving the house. Under my windshield wiper I see a tiny slip of paper:

Now, in case you’re having a hard time reading that, let me go ahead and write it up:

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantante Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.” — www[dot]vaticancatholic[dot]com.

Again, this was under my windshield wiper. Which means someone in my neighborhood (or someone coming to my neighborhood) walked down our alley and onto our gravel driveway to leave this for us.

Fine. Okay. Whatever.

My first question is:

Isn’t this a little out-of-tune for the Catholics? Heavy recruitment doesn’t seem their gig, unless it’s during missionary trips abroad. I’ve seen Chick tracts (classic archive of the crazy right here), and Chick believed that Roman Catholicism was explicitly not a part of Christianity. This little slip of paper doesn’t seem in line with Catholic conversion efforts.

My second — and ultimately more important — question is:

Has this shit ever worked? Ever!?

Has anyone ever undergone a total spiritual conversion from garbage left under a windshield wiper?

Holy Hell, I won’t even buy discounted furniture from a flyer left on my goddamn car. Do they think I’m going to accept the sudden yoke of papal instruction? A life in the Church? Really?

Has anybody plucked such a slip from their windshield and fell to their knees as the Holy Ghost gets all up in those guts? Am I supposed to have a miraculous conversion from Saul to Paul (from Chuck to Buck, perhaps?), a religious revelation with my Hyundai serving as the Road to Damascus where Jesus is all like, “Chuck, why do you persecute me, dude? That sucks and you’re kind of a jerk. Here, let me blind you with paper cuts from this tiny slip of religious propaganda, and then in three days of time, the scales — er, scabs — will fall from your eyes, and Ye Shall Become Catholic As A Motherfucker!”

(Then Jesus yells, “Boom!” and drops the mic and walks off-stage.)

Maybe it could be more low-key? Like, I pick up the slip, I get in the car, I read it. And then I hand it to my wife and say, “Hey, honey. I found this under the wiper. I’m Catholic now. Let’s hit the Church, see if they have any of those delicious-ass crackers left. Daddy’s got himself a growly belly!”

Has anyone ever picked up one of those Chick tracts that look like a half-a-dollar bill at a payphone and suddenly been like, “Oh, snap! I’m a greedy douche, I thought that was a dollar, and now it’s not, and what a dick I am! And I totally like to party and drink and listen to the hottest bands and use low-grade condoms! I’m just like Jill the Party Girl, in secret service to Satan! Jesus, whisk me away from this dirty, AIDS-besotted payphone!”

Does the Church really want someone willing to undergo total religious revelation from a photocopied swatch of propaganda?

It cracks me up. I thought maybe it might crack you up, too.

Hey, listen, let me be clear: while I’m not a religious peep, I have no great issue with religion or religious people. I think it can be a good thing. I don’t like fundamentalists, but I don’t like fundamentalist anything — anybody so married to religion, capitalism, socialism, atheism (really, any -ism) is someone you should watch. People like to claim religion is responsible for all kinds of bad things — ehh, yes and no. People are responsible for all kinds of bad shit. Religion is just a thing. It can be the thing that elevates you, or the thing that excuses you. “But people have killed in the name of religion! If we didn’t have religion, the Crusades never would’ve happened!” Mm-hmm. You keep telling yourself that. Philosophy? Politics? Food? Fire? That guy’s hair? That girl’s dress? Beer? People will fight over anything because people are stupid. And they’ll kill the shit out of each other.

Religion can be great. My aunt who recently passed had written a beautiful poem when she knew the end was coming. The poem was a kind of… entreaty to Christ coupled with a coming-of-terms with her terminal illness. It was really nice, and obviously gave her strength, and further gives those who are left behind a measure of strength, too. Religion’s detractors will be unmerciful in the sweep of their rational scythe, but they so rarely take into account that on a personal level, religion can be a very powerful and profound thing.

Which is why it is perhaps best left off the windshield of my car.

I’m just putting that out there.

]]> http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/02/21/time-for-a-nice-light-topic/feed/ 23 http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/02/14/on-charitable-giving/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2010/02/14/on-charitable-giving/#comments Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:33:59 +0000 terribleminds http://terribleminds.com/ramble/?p=2843 Cancer’s a real motherfucker.

As you may know, my aunt passed away from cancer the other day. Colon cancer in particular. I wasn’t particularly close with this aunt, though my mother was, and that’s the hardest, seeing my mother deal with it. Further, notions of mortality once more trouble us all. I had a favorite aunt die of cancer (lung). My grandmother died from mesothelioma (she was supposed to live six months and lived six years instead). My father died from prostate cancer. And others in my family have had cancer, but have thankfully had it go into remission.

So, as noted, cancer’s a real motherfucker.

I mentioned this whole thing on Twitter the other day, and received a surprising outpouring of condolences and well-wishing, which was awesome in the truest sense of that word. (Worth reading: Wil Wheaton’s love letter to Twitter, pointed to me by the most-excellent Will.i.am Hindmarch.) That was great. Really overwhelming response, and all who did respond, a big giant bag of thanks.

And I thought, “Well, if anybody’s so inclined, you could mention a cancer charity to which they could donate money.”

Except, here’s the thing about charities.

Everybody’s got one.

I don’t mean that as, “Everyone is running a charity,” I mean that as, “Everyone has a charity that speaks to them or their sympathies in a particular way.” Sometimes, guilt gets bandied about regarding charities. Someone dies and you don’t give to that charity, people are upset with you. The disaster-du-jour happens, and you don’t give to those suffering under that disaster, you’re an asshole.

My thought is, you’re only an asshole if you don’t give to a charity when you can. Not a specific charity, but an unspecified charitable aid group.

If everybody gave to the charity that spoke to their hearts, we’d all be in better shape. You didn’t give anything to Haiti? Maybe you gave something for literacy, or cancer, or overall international relief. Don’t want to give for cancer, maybe you want to give to the homeless, or to the humane society, or MADD, or whomever. With Haiti, I heard another response: why are we giving to Haitians when we have so many Americans with problems? On that issue: fine, give to a charity regarding homeless Americans, then. (Of course, the people who say things like that, “Blah blah blah, we should be giving to Americans,” probably don’t give to Americans, either.) I’m saying, I won’t tell you what charity deserves your money. They all do. We all have our crosses to bear.

Obviously, cancer charities are high on my list. So are animal charities. I’m also a fan of Heifer International. (Hey, I can help people-in-need, and give a goat-by-proxy as a gift? High-five.)

You probably have your own list.

So, that’s what I’m asking. You want to give to a cancer charity, that’s your bag. But I would say, when you’re able to, give a little to The Charity That Speaks Most To You. Here’s a list of top-rated charities across different categories, should you find it helpful. Pick one, if you’re in a position where you can spare a little cash, and send something to somebody that needs it. That would be nice.

Oh, and one last time:

Cancer’s a real motherfucker.

As it stands, the only thing I know right now about The Olympics is that the mascots are pretty goddamn adorable.

I mean, c’mon. The lumbering sasquatch, Quatchi? The “sea bear” (which I assume translates to “seal”), Miga? The ambiguous animal mash-up that is the “animal spirit,” Sumi? Then you have the poor little bastard, Mukmuk the marmot, who apparently isn’t good enough to be a full-on mascot, and yet they still wanted to include him anyway, so he hangs off on the side with his lame-ass foam finger, dreaming one day that he can hang with the big kids? Why you gotta be mean to Mukmuk? Just because he’s some kind of… I dunno, briny gopher or whatever the hell a marmot is? Go ahead. You put Mukmuk in the mascot ghetto. See where that gets you. One day, Mukmuk ain’t gonna take it no more. He’ll come for the other mascots. He’ll come for them with incisors whetted to a Guillotine sharpness and with blood rage in his tiny eyes. Mukmuk ain’t no bitch.

Point is, that ends my knowledge of not only the 2010 Winter Olympics, but the Olympics in general.

I have been on this earth for… mmm, coming up on 34 years, and I have not once sat down to watch the Olympics. Never. Nada. Nichts. Nuh-uh.

I’ve little idea what sports are even included in the proceedings. It’s winter, so I assume you get peeps on skis, peeps on skates, peeps shoving themselves into greased-up death bullets (“luge”). Surely the sport goes deeper than that? Do we get Ice Soccer? Tundra Wrestling? Snowmobile Jousting done across the Mighty Hoarfroast Planes of Distant Canadia? They’ve gone and admitted up front that mythical creatures exist. Do men hunt the Sasquatch? Do they beseech the aid of the animal spirits before they strap on their snowboards? Is there a secret supernatural component that I’m missing?

Hell, I don’t even know what teams are playing. Is it like, the Toronto Maple Leafs versus Rutgers University? The Jets versus Yao Ming? Danica Patrick battling Mrs. Floorsheim’s 2nd Grade Class? Am I in the Olympics? Is that what this jury summons is all about? Who am I fighting? Someone give me a stick. Tell me I don’t have to take down a Sasquatch? I haven’t hunted the ‘Quatch in, what, 15 years? I made peace with their people. We are friends now. I’m going to protect them. I’m going to go native. I’ll dress up in a Sasquatch suit and find me a Sasquatch bride and then we’ll protect our icy cave system by destroying the American Military-Industrial complex and –

Well. We know how that ends.

(At least it’ll be in 3D.)

I’ve never had much interest in the Olympics, really — but maybe I’m missing out? Maybe I secretly hunger for the competition of nations for global athletic supremacy. Who knows? Plainly I am isolated in my dismissal of the Olympics if you use Twitter as a guide. Just as the hills were alive with the sound of music, the Twitters were alive with the sound of people squeeing about the Olympics opening ceremonies. I saw more of my tweeps jabbering about the Olympics than I did the Super Bowl. And trust me, I’m not knocking anybody who’s into it. Everybody’s got their thang. You like the Olympics, I like the Oscars. You like vanilla, I like chocolate. You like fisting videos, I like robot porn. Tomaytoh, tomahhhtoh. Let’s call the whole thing off.

Except, let’s not. Sell me on the Olympics. You know me well enough by now. You know the kind of dude I happen to be. (If you don’t, feel free to peruse this site for two hours. Then you can get back to me.) Am I missing out? Any sports I should be into? Anything with a “high death ratio?” Anything where people battle each other? Anything with a lot of ludicrous pomp and circumstance? Anything with a Yeti?

C’mon. Gimme some meat to chew.

The Olympics.

What am I missing, Internuts?

*shakes it off*

At present, this is the definition to which I’m cleaving:

Your manuscript is a corpse.

It may seem dead, but the reality is, it’s a crazy ecology for all kinds of things going on. Bacteria breaking down the flesh, a rise and fall of gases, the inevitable conclusion of it all falling apart. (Frankly, though, that part of the metaphor isn’t important; it’s just the anchor that ties my piss-poor vision together.)

Two things are left behind when you let time and space work on that corpse.

The first: the bones, which are analogous to the plot. The bones are the bones. The skeleton is the skeleton. They are hard, firm, tangible. They connect together in a specific way when all is said and done. The hand bone connected to the wrist bone, the wrist bone connected to the arm bone, the arm bone connected to the toaster bone OH MY GOD WHY IS THERE A TOASTER INSIDE MY BODY — ahem, yeah. You get the point.

The second: the ghost, that lingering and uncertain spirit which serves as an analog to the story. The ghost is intangible. It’s hard to define. It has unclear margins and shape, but even still, it encapsulates all that the body and soul once were (and, to a degree, still are).

(See? It’s a skeletal ghost! The perfect specimen.)

The plot is defined, like the bones of a skeleton. Yes, as creator, you have the chance to fit this bone there, and that bone here — maybe this creature walks on its hands, or has two heads, or has removed one of its ribs so it can put its mouth upon its own genitals without discomfort. But really, the skeleton is what it is. And so’s the plot. Once the plot’s locked, that’s it. Things happen in a certain order. Codpiece Johnson executes the Pelican Pope. Codpiece Johnson must escape the Crucifixers, the Pelican Pope’s shock army. Codpiece Johnson befriends a young girl named Betty Yellowtail. He is captured by the Crucifixers and is slowly lowered toward the Vatican Vat, where the bubbling God-froth will turn him into a papal slurry. And so on, and so forth. The pieces fit because they fit. The skeleton is the frame on which everything else rests.

I’ve heard people say that the plot doesn’t matter, but that’s both wrong, and the wrong way to put it. The plot matters if only because without it, the work is no longer has a narrative throughline; it becomes a jumble of non-narrative “stuff.” What doesn’t matter as much is the time you spend on the plot. The plot, I think, can work itself out — the bones will fall in place and you’ll eventually pack the meat around them. (Though in some genres, plot is more significant. A mystery only works with consideration to the plot, otherwise… it ain’t much of a mystery, is it?)

The tricky part is the ghost. The story is the rub.

When someone says, “Tell me a story,” they don’t mean, “Describe to me a sequence of events.”

They want to know about the ghost, not the bones.

Just as you could say the “ghost” is what that person was about, the “story” has that same fundamental quality. When someone says, “Yes, but what’s the story?” they’re asking for you to unearth a deeper layer, a truer examination. They’re asking you to free the ghost.

Instead of saying, “Codpiece Johnson blah blah Point A, Point B, Point Z,” it’s more a case of, “See, Codpiece Johnson’s this beleathered dude, and he fancies himself a hero. He sees a world oppressed by the mad religion of the Pelican Pope, and so he starts on this journey to kill that dude — I should add here that the Pelican Pope is very much like Codpiece’s own father, who used to beat Young Codpiece about the head and neck with an illuminated Mockingbird Bible. So, at the beginning of the story, Codpiece finds the Pelican Pope and uses his mighty Murderhammer to…”

See, story is this heady broth of plot and character and history and motivation and so on and so forth. Again, like the ghost, it has uncertain margins. We don’t really know what a ghost is, and so we don’t really know what a story is, either, or what it does, or what it incorporates.

In an effort to water down my original metaphor and clumsily harness a food analogy, the plot is the recipe, but the story is the meal. A recipe doesn’t tell you anything about the food beyond its constituent parts and how those parts come together. But the meal itself is an almost undefinable thing. It’s taste and heat and smell. It has context, too, context of your surroundings, of the people you’re with, of the time in your life.

Of course, after all’s said and done, how much does it matter if you know the difference between plot and story? Is it a purely theoretical difference? Does it have meaning? I’d argue that it does. I’d suggest that it’s important to ask yourself the two separate questions of, “What is the plot?” and “What is the story?” If only to get a greater handle on those two throughlines braided ineluctably together.

Then again, maybe those questions answer themselves. Maybe your understanding of those ideas is best left to a “gut check.”

Hell, maybe my definition (ghost versus bones, recipe versus meal) sucks eggs. Rotten eggs. Rotten frog eggs, already mucusy, rolling around in your mouth like a fetid ball of pig’s feet jelly. Mmm. So good. Scrumdiddlyicious. With emphasis on “scrum.”

So, I’m looking for a discussion. Hop into the comments. Pontificate, my pensive pupils. Pontificate loudly, so that others may gaze upon thine ancient wisdom (or, alternately, mock you and throw cabbage and other unpleasant vegetables at your face). What is the difference? How does that difference matter in terms of writing and rewriting?