Category: The Ramble (page 331 of 462)

The best compliment I can pay to Paul Kemp’s first Egil & Nix book is, for me, that it gave me the sudden urge to go out and play a shitload of D&D. It’s a deeply awesome, super-fun book and I’m comfortable assuming the next in the series in just as rad. Speakawhich — here’s Paul now to talk about that very book:

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

Well, I’m a proud geek, proud dad, whisky drinker, beer drinker, wine drinker (an alarming theme is beginning to emerge here), dude-who-quit-smoking-cigars-but-sometimes-still-longs-for-one (it’s only a cigar, people! Jeebus!).  I’m a RPG player, ASL fan, FPS fan, and such other nerdy acronyms as may give me credibility with the reading audience.

On the writing front, I’m somehow a multiple New York Times bestseller. You believe that shit? I write Star Wars novels, Forgotten Realms novels featuring my signature character, Erevis Cale, and I write sword and sorcery novels in my own fictional world for Angry Robot Books.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH.

A pair of rogues take a run at the Thieves’ Guild. Wit and action comes at you in a blizzard. It’s sword and sorcery, but now with 25% more sorcery! 25% more! But you must call now!

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

This book, and the Egil and Nix books generally, comes from my sweet, sweet sticky love of classic sword and sorcery and adventure fiction.  It comes from a desire to write something that might, for some reader somewhere, make them feel the same wonder and joy that I did the first time I read about Fafhrd and the Mouser, about Doc Savage, about Conan or Elric.  It comes from a desire to write something that feels like a throwback, that reads in most respects like the throwback, but that nevertheless has ‘modern’ sensibilities.  When I first read those books (and I re-read most of them once every year or so), I felt like the story was just grabbing me by the shirt, giving me a shake, and saying, “Come the fuck on, man!  There’s adventure afoot!”  Love that.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

Er, uh, because it’s the product my particular brand of whiskey-soaked, unholy manlove of Fritz Leiber’s work (give me a call from beyond, Fritzy!)? No? Then, uh, I guess I’m not sure it is, you know? Well, maybe this:

I’ve been writing a long time, sold a fair amount of books, and I’m basically at the point in my career that I truly do not care what anyone thinks of what I write.  So I can tell what I think is a gloriously fun, unabashed adventure story, and tell it without a hint of hipster irony, without so much as a knowing nod.  And I can do that because i don’t care if Locus likes it (maybe they won’t because adventure fiction, I think, is not their cup of tea), or if it gets Hugo or Nebula nominated (it probably won’t for the same reason!).  I just care about telling a story that recalls for me the sensawunda I felt when reading Leiber/Burroughs/Howard/Brackett/Younameit for the first time. There’s something pure about the storytelling in those books, something unselfconscious.  There’s a verve to it.  It elicits the same kind of feeling I had when I first saw an Imperial Star Destroyer start to fill the screen from the bottom up, chasing a tiny Tantive IV, the same kind of feeling Spielberg recaptured in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s fun storytelling, really fun. And it’s not fun with a knowing wink, or an arched eyebrow.  It’s just fucking fun.  Still has something to say, sure, but it is, first and foremost and always, a ripping tale. I’m not the only one who could do it, but I can damn sure do it and do it pretty well.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING a discourse in steel?

Oddly, none of it was hard and I don’t say that lightly. Essentially every other book i’ve written has had that bit (or bits) where it felt like getting words on the page was less fun than getting my teeth drilled, where frustration caused me to bob for apples in a vat of scotch, but not the Egil and Nix stories. Writing about these two and their adventures is nothing but an unadulterated blast and it comes easy (and now, by saying that, i’m sure the writing gods have just looked down, realized that I’m writing the third Egil and Nix book, and have decreed, “AFFLICT THAT FUCKER WITH DIFFICULTIES!”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING a discourse in steel?

Man, that’s a good question.  How about this: If you build darkness into a character, it will come out even if you didn’t intend for it to come out when conceptualizing the story.

Also, swearing begets more swearing, until pretty much the entire book is one big expletive (albeit made-up fantasy expletives, in this case).

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT a discourse in steel?

I love Nix’s voice, of course. I like to think he’s witty and insightful and a lot of fun to read, and he and Egil play off one another very, very well.

But I really love some of the small, evocative bits that aren’t hugely important to the plot but which suggest so much about the wonder of the world – the talking, sassy magical key, the sexless flesh automaton that wanders the Low Bazaar hawking magical gewgaws for Kerfallen the Grey Mage, the magical tattoos on members of the Thieves’ Guild.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

WHAT!  THIS NOVEL IS PERFECT, SIR!  DO YOU GAINSAY THIS?

Seriously, man, that’s a tough question, since we’re our own harshest critics. How about this: I would definitely make the sucky parts less sucky!  Yeah, yeah, that’s it.  And I’d make the mediocre parts great instead!

More seriously, I’d slow down. The Egil and Nix books come at me faster than any of my other novels. I’m sure I could make small improvements throughout if I slowed the pace some.

That’s all I got, bro.  And that’s a shitty answer.  But the book’s brand new and I can’t quite bring myself to crucify it just yet.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

This bit occurs while Egil and Nix are in the midst of an assault on the fortified guild house of Dur Follin’s Thieves’ Guild. They’re there to grab a man named Channis, the Upright Man (the guildmaster). I think this captures their dynamic pretty well.

Nix shrugged. “Of course if he’s not in there, we’re fakked. We may be fakked anyway. Bit off a big piece of meat here, my friend. Makes for a hard chew. But it’s now or not. We have minutes at best, before those slubbers from the rooms below get word up here. We move fast enough, we may yet take them by surprise.

“They feel safe here,” Egil said.

“They should,” Nix said, thinking of the reinforced doors and locks.

Egil nodded. “Take the two stupidest slubbers in Dur Follin to attack the guild house.”

“Ballsiest is what you mean,” Nix said. “I can barely walk I’m swinging so low.”

Egil grinned and they hustled through empty rooms and corridors, making their way to the grand room. Presently Egil put up a hand to stop them.

“Right around this corner,” he said softly.

Nix peeked around the corner and saw two guards. They looked more bored than alert. Word of the attack hadn’t yet reached them. Nix pulled back.

“Two men, as you said,” he said to Egil.

Egil pointed. “This hallway goes around to the other side, to the doors near Channis.”

“Channis?”

“The Upright Man’s name. The boy said it.”

“Right. Aye,” Nix said, then, “I’ll take these two then get inside the room and draw eyes. You go around to the other doors, kill the guards there quick, and stand ready. When you hear the commotion inside, you get in and grab this Channis. I’ll meet you over there.”

“Good,” Egil said. “Then what?”

“What do you mean, ‘then what?’”

“We get him,” Egil said. “We tell him why he’s dying and do it. Then, how do we get clear?”

“Why’re you asking me?”

“I thought you’d have a plan.”

“Why would you think that? I’m making this up as we go. You’re the one with the map of the place in your head.”

Egil shrugged. “Hmm. I guess we’ll figure something out.”

Nix looked at him a long moment. “Shite, man. I guess we will. Here I go.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

Oh, I plan to stress over sales and my career while sitting on the couch in my underwear with a whiskey.

Oh, maybe you mean something less depressing?  In October, my next Forgotten Realms novel, THE GODBORN, book II of the Sundering, will be released. Meanwhile, I’ll be working on A CONVERSATION IN BLOOD, which is the next Egil and Nix novel (scheduled for a June 2014 release, I believe). After that, I’ll be working on another two Forgotten Realms novels and a fourth Egil and Nix book, so – busy!  And that’s a good thing.

Chuck, thanks for having me, man.  I really appreciate it.

Paul S. Kemp: Website / Facebook / @paulskemp

A Discourse In Steel: Purchase

I think writing and storytelling is a kind of magic.

Maybe literally, if you believe in that sort of thing. Like, okay, when I sit down to craft a story I’m suddenly stringing together letters based on utterances which form words which form sentences which form ideas and then I mash a lot of those ideas together and they begin to create a narrative — a narrative that didn’t exist before, a lightning struck the gassy heavens and lit the skies aflame and now it’s raining Frankensteins and unicorns moment.

It’s profound, powerful, weird-ass stuff.

But I used to also feel that this magic was inviolable. Or worse, fragile. Like, this sense that it’s a nervous horse quick to spook. Or that it’s a little bridge made of glass and if you put too much weight on it you’ll hear the crinkly crackle-snap and tumble into an abyss of dead magic.

It’s sometimes used as one of the reasons that people don’t outline — or worse, the reason they don’t like to edit their work. In fact, it’s used as a reason for a lot of things, this magic: the magic of the muse, the curse of writer’s block, the fickle fates of a day’s writing (sorry, just can’t make the words today, for the magic breath of the gods has not been breathed up my nethers and so my pallid flesh will not be animated to action).

I think when magic fuels you: that’s awesome.

But I think when magic hampers you: that’s really sad.

Because the magic isn’t supposed to hamstring you.

It’s supposed to fuel the work, not fuel your excuses.

If you don’t like to outline or do any kind of plotting or planning — more power to you*. But let that be because that’s how your process works, not because the magic spell is so frangible, so untenable, that to merely gaze upon it will cause it to shatter. If your story is so delicate, you’re probably in deep fucking trouble, friend. It’s not a baby rabbit. You can’t scare it to death.

But I think I have a solution for what feels to me like troublesome thinking, and it involves looking at your story as a different kind of magic altogether:

Look at it like a magic trick.

A magic trick isn’t an impromptu thing: you don’t merely get on stage and let the Muse barf inspiration for the trick into your brain-bucket. You conceive of it in a fit of inspiration, like with anything — but then you practice. You know the trick intimately before it’s ever performed on stage: you’re the magician, goddamnit. Of course you know how the trick is performed.

But that doesn’t remove the fun of the trick.

Because the fun of the trick is seeing the audience react.

The fun is in the awe they feel. Their “wow” is more important than your “wow.”

Just because you know the trick doesn’t mean the magic is dead.

(* More seriously, I again want to make it clear that none of this is a condemnation of your process. Some folks outline. Some don’t. Some scry stories in pigeon guts. Whatever makes your grapefruit squirt. The point is wesometimes  rely on this kind of supernatural thinking as an excuse rather than as an empowerment. Which is no good.)

I get a lot of emails. And questions at conferences. And psychic missives sent through the galactic nebula from various superior alien species. And they ask me questions about writing and so I thought I’d drop a big ol’ compilation of writing advice — answers to many of the questions I get — here in this whopper of a post. A list of fifty. My first. (Likely my last, though I’ll also note: this list of 50 is as long as many of my lists of 25, word-wise.)

Go forth. Read. Absorb. Yell at me. Share if you like.

Oh, and —

I want you to read all of this in the sexy voice of Benedict Cumberbatch. AKA, Benderspink Umberhulk. AKA, Benneton Umbrellahat. AKA, Kennebunkport Slumberparty. AKA, Bob Benson.

Or, just read it like it’s being screamed by Animal from The Muppets.

Your call.

Let us begin.

1. Snap Your Trap And Write Some Shit

Stop talking about writing. Stop reading about writing. Stop dreaming about writing. Stop doing things that don’t qualify as writing. The thing that defines a writer is that the writer writes.

2. No, Seriously, Quit What You’re Doing Right Now And Go Write

I wasn’t fucking joking. Stop reading this post. Get out now. Go! Go. I will Taser you in the face, nipples, butthole and genitals if I see you hanging around here when you could be banging out perfectly good word count. Go right now and write. Come back here when you’re done. This entire blog will be waiting for you. Like a stalker in your shrubbery.

3. Nobody Has Any Goddamn Answers

I don’t have answers. Neil Gaiman doesn’t have answers. Jane Austen didn’t have them. Nobody has answers. We have ideas. Suggestions. Possibilities. The only writer who has answers about your writing is you. Advice is just advice. It is not an equation. It is not the instruction manual for Ikea furniture (which are admittedly super-fucking-vague anyway). You are your own Muse.

4. Think About Writing More Than You Think About Publishing

Writing and storytelling is not a means to an end. The story is the end. Publishing is just a delivery system. It isn’t that fucking exciting. It’s not a carousel. You should ask more questions about wordsmithy and story architecture than you do about query letters or e-book formatting.

5. Learn How To Put Together A Proper Fucking Sentence

If you can’t put together a cogent sentence, you’re fucked.

6. You’ve Gotta Wade Through Your Own Waste

You want to be Hercules, Boudicca, Annie Oakley, and Einstein right out of the gate. You want a perfect novel to pop out of your head fully formed like an adult-grown chicken right from the egg. Won’t happen. You’re gonna suck first. You’re gonna suck for a while. Even when you’re awesome you’re still gonna suck a little bit. This is how you get better. Wade through your own word-waste. I wrote a bunch of assy novels before I wrote one that wasn’t assy. The less you write, the more you suck. You write a lot so you can suck only a little.

7. What Other Writers Do Doesn’t Fucking Matter

It’s like kids in a classroom. Stop paying attention to Billy flicking boogers on Betty. Stop looking at Cindy’s grades. So what if Earl, Jr. keeps fondling himself and smells like weird cheese? What other writers do don’t matter. What matters is what you do. You have to write your story. They aren’t sitting at your desk, with your computer, with your coffee, with your chimpanzee manservant. You are. Own it. Fuck you. Be your own writer. Tell your own tales.

8. Any Rule Can Be Broken If You Break It Like A Fucking Boss

For every writer, a billion writing rules. Snidbits of wisdom. Chestnuts of truth. You can break all the rules. You can roast all the chestnuts. But first, you have to learn the rules. First, you gotta get good. Otherwise you’re a toddler driving a car, shooting a pistol out the window.

9. For Some Reason The Blank Page Is Scary As Hell

The first empty page always makes you want to shit your pants. It’s normal. We’re all scared.

10. Write Brave And Bold And Bloody

Fuck it. Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Stop dicking around. Be brave! Be powerful! Take risks. Base-jump off Godzilla’s nut-sack. Hang-glide into the fire-vagina of Mordor. Bleed on the page. You don’t get up on stage and do a mumbly little rendition of I’m A Little Teapot. You get up there in a glittered sarong with dragon-wings on your back, with bottle-rockets taped to your inner-thighs, with the loudest, meanest, baddest-assest version of the song that fills your fucking heart. Write big. Write without fear. Write with blood, guts, madness and majesty!

11. People Will Always Be There To Tell You You Can’t Do Something

You will run a gauntlet of naysayers. Everyone has a reason why you shouldn’t even try to be a writer. You gotta run this gauntlet. Fly as a writer. Or die as something else.

12. Learn To Say “Yes” More Than You Say “No”

Early on, say yes. Take chances. Try things. All doors are open. All windows. All eyes. Take it all in. Embrace potential. You don’t know if you don’t like a food, a TV show, a bizarre sexual position, until you try it. Try it all. Learn the power of fuck yes, motherfucker.

13. But Eventually Transition To Saying “No” More Than You Say “Yes”

Eventually, though, you learn the power of “no.” As soon as you can start confidently saying “no” — and knowing why you have to say no to a job, to a book, to a style, to a POV or a genre or a format — you see your confidence as a creator begin to manifest.

14. You’re Your Own Worst Enemy

If you’re not writing, that’s your fault. It’s not anybody else’s. It’s not your wife’s fault. Not your Mom’s fault. Not your kid’s fault. It isn’t because of a job, or Big Six publishing, or Amazon, or a Muse, or Writer’s Block. You might as well blame a Yeti (who acted in collusion with a cabal of randy leprechauns). It’s all on you. Accept responsibility. Stop complaining. Fix your shit.

15. Figure Out What You Love About Stories

Realize what you love about stories, and bring that love to bear on the page. Let the audience in on that love. Your love should be viral, like cat videos or the norovirus.

16. Quit Chasing Your Voice

You will never find your voice. It isn’t a car and you aren’t a dog chasing it. It’s not a pearl in an oyster or an elk in the forest. Your voice is who you are. The way you think. The way you speak when you’re not thinking about how you speak. You are your voice. If anything it’s like a lost key. It’ll turn up just when you stop hunting for it.

17. Imagine That You’re On A First Date

I’m dating your story. It’s the first date. You have, five, ten pages to make me want that second date. Don’t waste time. After those ten pages, it’s fuck or walk. Then you’ve got the rest of the book to make me want to put a ring on it. I wanna fall in lust, then love, with your story. I want to be heartbroken when its over. I want to need it like I need a drug.

18. Get To The Fucking Point

More to the point: get to the fucking point. Your story should move like a wolf chasing a cheetah chasing a vicious line of gossip. Don’t sink us in narrative mud. Exposition murders mystery. Backstory is a boggy mire. Don’t write to waste time or fill space. Run, fuck, leap and fly.

19. Less Is Nearly Always More

Use as few words as you can. Use as little plot as you are able.

20. Stop Fucking Describing Everything

Pages of description make me want to go back in time and punch you as a baby. Except I can’t because you’ve bored me so much I fell asleep. Description is key. You need it. But you only need so much of it. Let the audience do some work. I know what a chair, a tree, a dude, a dildo all look like. I’ve got memory and imagination. The noun is enough. Describe those things that break the status quo. Describe only those things the audience can’t already know.

21. The Truth About Those Motherfucking Adverbs

Adverbs are not your enemy. Examples of adverbs include: “Quickly,” “There,” “Upstairs,” “Too,” “Yesterday,” “Only,” “Abruptly.” That list goes on and on: adverbs of time, place, manner, extent. The goal, as with all words, is to use them correctly and to not bludgeon your reader about the head and neck with them. An adverb, like an adjective, is a spice. It can highlight a meal. Or it can kill it with too much flavor.

22. Note The Shape Of Question Marks

It’s not a coincidence that question marks are shaped like fish-hooks. We are pulled through fiction by mystery. We want to solve for X. We want to fill in the variables. (Weirdest come-on line ever: “Hey, baby, I wanna fill in your variables. Let’s solve for X, sexypants.”)

23. Your First Job Is To Entertain But It Is Not Your Last Job

Entertainment is job number one. The enemy of entertainment is boredom and the moment your story bores me I’m off like a toddler looking for a loaded revolver and the keys to Daddy’s minivan. But entertainment is just the start. A guy who can fart the alphabet is ‘entertaining.’ You should aspire to do more. Like, say, for instance…

24. Make Me Feel, Make Me Think

The best two things your story can do is to stir my emotions and to challenge my assumptions. Make me feel something (rage! lust! love! grief!). Make me think something (what is the nature of evil? what is the enemy of empathy? what happens if I sneeze while I’m ejaculating?).

25. Assume Your Reader Is Smart

The audience knows when you’re talking down to them. Even kids are smarter than you think.

26. Play Harder

The story is your sandbox. Play. Build. Have fun. If you’re not having any fun, we won’t either. Just don’t eat the cat turds. Every sandbox has cat turds. It’s science fact.

27. Work Harder

Not to say every day is going to be a fucking fun-a-palooza filled where it rains cookies and you construct your own magical dance-ponies. Some days it’s just about working your fingers to bony, bloody nubs — about chewing words, spitting them out, smashing them together. When play fails, you gotta pull the magic from the story like pulling nails from boards with your teeth.

28. Art Harder

Think about your story. Think about your art. Go elbow deep. Get into the guts like you’re trying to birth a humpback whale. Art is a kind of madness. Story is messy, weird, gory, greasy, hard to grasp. But always try. We’re all flying blind. We’re all feeling around in the wet-slick dark for the baby whale. Reach further. Think more. Art harder, motherfuckers.

29. Slow Your Roll, Speedy McGee

Embody patience. The worst thing you can do for your story is pull it out of the oven before it’s done cooking. Don’t quit early. Don’t publish thirty seconds after you typed the last word. Don’t query a stinker. Stories — like wine, brisket, romance and bondage games — need time.

30. Edit Till It’s Right

People ask how many edits or rewrites you need to do, as if there’s a magical number requirement — you edit three times and ding! The E-Z Bake oven pops open and a hot fresh story pops out. You edit and rewrite and edit and rewrite until it’s done. Until it’s right.

31. But Quit Before It’s Perfect

Fuck perfect. You’re a terrible judge of your own work. You’re all wrapped up in it like a sausage in a pancake. Perfect isn’t just the enemy of the good; it’s an impossible predictor, a meaningless pinnacle desired by the divinely-obsessed. Aiming for perfection is just another way to make sure you never finish what you begin. Choose a time and a place to stop. Then stop.

32. Write What You Know

Your life is a tally of experiences. Traumas. True loves. Hallucinations. Opinions. You once ate a spider. You once broke your femur. You once had sex with a dude and/or lady dressed up like a panda bear. You’d be a fucking dipshit not to mine your own life for the authenticity it provides.

33. But Don’t Write Only What You Know

Your life is a tally of your experiences but your fiction needn’t be. ‘Write what you know’ is not a proclamation to write only what you know. You are capable of writing beyond the walls of your own Plexiglas enclosure. Writing and storytelling is a good excuse to try to know more.

34. The Three C’s (creativity, clarity, confidence)

Creativity: Watch me pull a Pegasus out of thin air. Clarity: I will convey the Pegasus clearly and completely so that I am understood. Confidence: I am the god of this place and the Pegasus does whatever the fuck I want it to do. These are your Three C’s. Write with these in mind and nothing will stop you. Except maybe a bear. Because bears are dicks.

35. So Fucking Awkward

A lack of clarity in your writing leads to you not being understood. It can lead to your phrasing sounding awkward — meaning, your prose is clumsy and confusing, stumbling about like a wine-sodden orangutan dressed like Queen Elizabeth. (You may choose which version of Elizabeth inhabits the canvas resting upon your mental easel.)

36. All Things Serve The Character

Character is everything. Character choices create the plot. Characters build the architecture of the story. Characters have and transmit ideas. Characters shape and reflect the thematic argument. The characters form the bloody beating heart of your work.

37. What The Fuck Does Your Character Want?

If I don’t know what the character wants — love! revenge! liquor! cats! — within the first ten pages, then my investment in them is going to be as strong as piss-soaked toilet paper.

38. Whip Me Beat Me Love Me Hate Me

You must punish and reward the characters in your story — which by proxy punishes and rewards the audience reading or watching your story. Err toward more punishment than reward. Which, let’s be honest, is more fun for you anyway. (Looking at you, George R. R. Martin.)

39. The Audience Is Always Wrong

The audience thinks it knows what it wants but it’s wrong. The audience thinks it wants the protagonist to lead a charmed life. To get the girl, the money, the boat, the goat. But such ceaseless pleasure and la-dee-da-dee bullshit is boring as tacos made from cardboard and styrofoam. The audience thinks it wants a jelly donut but it really wants a smack in the mouth. The audience wants pleasure but what they really need is the struggle to find pleasure.

40. Conflict Diamonds

Conflict is the engine of your fiction. Without conflict, a story is just a flatline. And a flatline means your story is fucking DOA. Cold on the slab, toe tag, time of death.

41. Formless Fucking Blob

Another danger is a story has no shape at all: more a formless paramecium blob rather than a flat-line. The story doesn’t hang together. It’s mushy. Gushy. Poopy. If you can’t conceive of how story has shape, has architecture, has bones that connect at joints that pull with muscles and tendons while sealed in a tight swaddling of skin, then what the fuck? Think about it. Find the shape. Sculpt the story to it.

42. Brake And Accelerate

Know what speeds your story up and what slows it down. Dialogue is lubricant: frictionless. Description is grit: friction-filled. Action is a coked-up jackrabbit; exposition is a tired sloth. Short chapters are a bottle rocket; long chapters are a big boat. A story is the slowness of alcohol with the swiftness of meth; sometimes a story needs oxygen to breathe. Sometimes a story needs oxygen to light things on fire. Tension/recoil. Momentum/restriction. Green light. Red light.

43. Goddamnit, Pick A POV And Stick With It

First person, fine. Third person, whatever. Second person — well, you’ve got big balls and/or meaty labia to be trying that one, but whatever. Pick a POV and stick to it.

44. See Also: Pick Your Fucking Tense Already

Stop drifting in and out of narrative tense. It makes Story Jesus shoot puppies with lightning.

45. The Secret

The secret to writing is so simple it tickles: Write as much as you can. As fast as you can. Finish your shit. Hit your deadlines. Try very hard not to suck. That’s it.  That’s my secret. Don’t tell anyone or I’ll charge you with espionage and shit in your fish tank.

46. Read Your Work Aloud

We read with our eyes but words are for the ears. We sound them out in our heads. Reading your work aloud lets you catch the bumps and divots and puffy bits of scar tissue. It lets you hear awkwardness, the uncertainty, the fractured confidence, the fuzzy confusion.

47. You Are Not Alone

Writing seems solitary. It isn’t. Hire editors. Gather readers. Bring audience. Learn from other writers. We all go through the same shit: so commiserate. Gather around the social media water cooler. You’re not a spider starving in its web. You’re part of an ecosystem.

48. Your Laziness Angers Me

Lazy cliches. Lazy constructions. Cheap stereotypes. Tawdry narrative crutches. You don’t edit. You find excuses not to write. Fuck that. Fuck you! You have no excuses. You can always do better. Why be satisfied with easy? Why answer your own indolence with reward? Grit those teeth. Get mad. Fuck passive. Be active. Kick your own ass up and down the block like an empty soup can. Didn’t I tell you to finish your shit? FINISH YOUR SHIT.

49. No, Really, You Have No Excuses

Other people have done what you’re claiming you can’t do. People who have it worse. Or who have more kids. Or another job. You want to ask me how you do it: you just do. You extract words like teeth. You spill them on the table like dice from a Yahtzee cup. You carve a path through the words, through the story, through the industry with a machete made from your own desire and doubt, carved from your femur and scented with your blood. You write even a little bit a day, you’ll get there. You can’t manage that, then don’t even talk to me. Whaddya want me to do? Shove my hand up your ass, work you like a puppet? You wanna write, write. Otherwise: shoo.

50. The Only Way Out Is Through, Motherfuckers

Write or die. Run or fall. Swim or drown. The best thing you can do for all the problems and all the questions is to write your way through it. And when you’re not writing your way through it, read other books, find out how they did it. Then go back to the page and write some more. I know, I know: I said this already. But it bears repeating — hell, it bears you tattooing backwards on your forehead so you can read it in the mirror: SHUT UP AND WRITE. That is the prime motherfucking directive. Do you accept the mission? Then embark. Explore. Attempt. Create.

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY:

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500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

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500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER:

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250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING:

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CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY:

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REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY:

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Here’s today’s question:

In storytelling, you get certain tropes — earmarks of genre, of format, of style, of author — that either happen naturally or are evoked forcibly to be a part of the story.

(You can find a major warehouse of these tropes at TVtropes.org.)

So, let me ask you:

What tropes are you tired of seeing?

What tropes in storytelling are too toxic? Too predictable? Or too damn boring?

Last week’s challenge: “Bad Dads.”

Once again, get out your d20s and d10s (or just click on over to the random number generator) because it’s time to randomly choose the aspects of your flash fiction. The instructions are as follows:

On the subgenre table below, pick two subgenres. Mash them sonsa-bitches up into one story. Then, roll once from the subsequent two lists (Must Feature and Must Also Feature). Then, write 1000 words or so of your flash fiction story. Post at your space. Link back here.

Due by next Friday, June 28th, noon EST.

Subgenre

1. Grimdark Fantasy
2. Post-Apocalyptic
3. Techno-Thriller
4. Paranormal Romance
5. Alternate History
6. Superhero
7. Comedy
8. Southern Gothic
9. Nanopunk
10. Haunted House
11. Dying Earth
12. Conspiracy Thriller
13. Sword & Sorcery
14. Noir
15. Grindhouse
16. Magical Realism
17. Picaresque
18. Erotica
19. Dieselpunk
20. Occult Detective

Must Feature

1. A dead enemy’s revenge
2. A hidden compartment
3. A bottle of rare liquid
4. A powerful weapon
5. A mythological bird
6. A locked door
7. A disturbing diary
8. An ancient book
9. A dying wish
10. A forbidden love

Must Also Feature

1. A mysterious stranger
2. A perilous journey
3. A key made of bone
4. A troublesome dog
5. A dual personality
6. A pool of blood
7. A secret room
8. A broken heart
9. A tremendous reward
10. A massive feast

Huzzah, yay, and hooray — Mike Martinez was one of the authors caught in the recent Night Shade to Skyhorse transition, and it’s nice to see his eagerly-awaited book start to reach those eagerly awaiting hands. Here’s Mike to talk about The Daedalus Incident:

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

Nobody of consequence, really. But since that won’t really bring the readers to the yard, I’ll give it a shot. I’m a husband, father, homebrewer and, most germane to this question, a professional writer for the past two decades. The first 15 years were spent in journalism, and the last five or so have been in the corporate world. The nice thing about the latter is that it finally gave me the time to see whether writing a novel was something I could actually do, or if the notion was pure hubris. The Daedalus Incident is the result.

Give Us The 140-Character Story Pitch:

Future Mars mining colony is invaded by another dimension in which the historic Age of Sail takes place in space. Evil looms. Adventure ensues.

Where Does This Story Come From?

Ten years ago, in the depths of the dot-com messiness, I was involuntarily between jobs. I would trek to the local Starbucks each day to have a cup of coffee, get online, look for work and stay out of my wife’s hair. The Starbucks was next to a Blockbuster video store, and one day I walked past to see a poster for Treasure Planet. I was immediately enraptured by the notion of ships sailing between stars and planets. I rented the movie – and was wholly disappointed. Then I thought: I can do this better. I can make a fully realized universe that can include the romance and action of the Age of Sail, combined with the zing-pow of space opera. It was downhill from there.

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

In a lot of ways, The Daedalus Incident is the distillation of pretty much everything I love about genre fiction and pop culture. There’s hard science-fiction and a great deal of swashbuckling adventure, with a little bit of magic in the form of alchemy. It’s cerebral and emotional at the same time. Also, I simply like stories that hearken back to a time when heroes weren’t horribly flawed criminals bent on vengeance, or lost souls haunted by death and demons. I wanted a story where everyday people could rise to the occasion when the chips are down, and do so out of a simple sense of right and wrong and duty. In the quest to create ever-more complex scenarios and wild settings, I think genre fiction can occasionally forget about those ordinary people. I wanted to bring that back. And having told other people’s real-life stories for 20 years, I figured I was somewhat qualified to tell this one. Again with the hubris.

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing The Daedalus Incident?

A lot of my writing was informed by my journalism work. Throughout my career, I’ve spent a long time trying to understand people and their motivations, and seeing how folks react to problems and crises. That’s great for journalism, but frankly, doesn’t work as well for fiction. Getting the right amount of action and derring-do into the book was most certainly a hurdle. Real people sit down and hash it out, whereas heroes – ordinary or not – have the gumption to get up and do something. It was definitely a mindset adjustment. “More mayhem” became a mantra. I may work that into a coat of arms some day.

What Did You Learn Writing The Daedalus Incident?

The biggest thing for me was getting over the wall of self-doubt. Journalism is one thing, but a novel is a completely different beast. I don’t get all precious about writing as some sort of spiritual journey of artistic discovery, but I take a lot of pride in my work. In fact, I hate not being good at something. So it was a very personal challenge to even attempt to write a novel, let alone go through the process of getting a literary agent and getting a publisher, all without knowing if I was good enough. In the end, I learned I could indeed do it. Honestly, everything else is gravy after that.

What Do You Love About The Daedalus Incident?

I love that it’s unapologetically old-school space opera-slash-fantasy adventure. Yes, there are themes in there you can talk about, from corporatism to colonialism to personal responsibility and duty. But I’d like to think that nobody’s being beaten over the head with it. Maybe you think about those things later, or they simply stay in your subconscious. But really, I love that I wrote the kind of big adventure I grew up reading as a kid. Plus, I crashed a freakin’ frigate into the planet Mars. Who’s done that?

What Would You Do Differently Next Time?

While I was writing it, I sometimes wondered what kind of work I would produce if I had any kind of training or coursework in fiction writing. I don’t know if the end result would be better or worse, but it would be different. I imagine I may have left a few things on the table, but I also would like to think my unconventional approach may have allowed for some other benefits. Either way, I figure if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I do wish I wrote a better first draft and didn’t need so many revisions, but for a rookie, I think I did all right. No regrets here.

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

I was pretty much going to punt on this question until I remembered this florid, over-the-top paragraph, where the protagonist, young Lt. Thomas Weatherby, steps up into the role he’s destined for. It’s also a little homage to all those great, rousing speeches in naval literature. It’s not quite indicative of the entire book, but I like it. Cue the rousing music:

James looked down at the deck, nodding but unwilling to meet Weatherby’s eyes. The other men looked on, seemingly wanting more. Weatherby took a deep breath, turning to address them. “I know you have fought hard, and fought well. But there is a fight left to us still,” he said. “What’s more, there’s likely little glory, and no rich prize.” Weatherby raised his voice as he continued. “But it is still a fight, nonetheless, perhaps the most important of our lives. There is a madman loose, one who would see an ancient terror awakened upon us all. And so it falls to us, to we simple men, to step forward as one, to stand tall against whatever darkness this sorcerer may conjure. So we must try, and if Daedalus must fall from the skies at last…we shall try to land her squarely upon whatever evil we find!”

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

What, you think I’ve planned this? I’m tickled I got this far. Thankfully, my agent Sara Megibow (fantastic advocate and a good human besides) has been on this from day one, and as I’ve had hare-brained ideas, she’s been channeling them appropriately. Currently, I’m serializing a novella, The Gravity of the Affair, on my site at www.michaeljmartinez.net. It’s the same setting as Daedalus, and gives a nice little intro to that world while telling the story of a young man who would ultimately become Britain’s greatest naval hero. And I’m hopeful that my new publishing overlords at Skyhorse think I’m worth a few more books in the Daedalus setting. I’m nowhere near done playing in this particular sandbox.

—

Michael J. Martinez: Website / @mikemartinez72

The Daedalus Incident (digital now, print July): Amazon / Kobo / Complete List