Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

Category: The Ramble (page 427 of 447)

Yammerings and Babblings

Confessions Of A Freelance Penmonkey: Now Available

“No seriously, he’s not fucking around, you really don’t want to be a writer. But if you’re mad enough to decide that you do, Wendig will be your gonzo-esque guide, from the technical advice about structure, query letters and submissions, to dealing with agents and editors and how to make your characters do as they’re damn well told, he’s full of good advice. Like a cursing, booze-soaked Virgil to your Dante, let him show you around. Buy this book, your editor will thank you.”

— Jenni Hill, Editor, Solaris Books

Dear Word-Herders and Ink-Slingers: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY is now available for your eyeholes and e-readers across multiple platforms.

Let’s get this part out of the way, right now. Here, then, are your options for procurement:

Kindle (US): Buy Here

Kindle (UK): Buy Here

Nook: Buy Here

Or, buy the PDF ($4.99) by clicking the BUY NOW button:


Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

If you’re on the fence, I give you five reasons to nab this book.

1. “I’m Here, Aren’t I?”

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY is the distillation of writing advice found here at terribleminds — so, I’m going to ahead and safely assume that you dig this site which should also mean you’re doing to dig this book. CONFESSIONS features 50+ essays taken from the pages of this blog. Each essay is polished up and revamped, given a new coat of paint and in some cases, additional content. Further, each essay is also accompanied by “commentary” from yours truly, in which I add additional thoughts, change my mind about things, argue with myself, or ruminate on the value of statements like “rage-fuck a pumpkin.” Finally, the book offers other snidbits, including a “20 Questions” session with yours truly, in which I answer questions put forth by you most excellent readers.

2. “By The Power Of Grayskull That’s A Lot Of Bang For My Buck!”

The book features over 100,000 words of content. The PDF is over 300 pages. You get a mega-ultra-shit-ton of content that covers topics like: writing query letters, editing, rewriting, outlining, applying structure, waking up pantsless and ink-stained in Tijuana, utilizing theme, writing sex scenes, handling rejections, penning a good ending for your story, and so on. Further, it goes beyond advice on writing and publishing and offers issues that pop up like incontinent gophers during the writer’s life (should you write for free, should you self-publish, how to manage the hornet’s nest of crazy inside your crazy writer brain).

All for just shy of five bucks.

Now, you might be saying: “Chuck, I would like that book to be cheaper.” To which I respond, “I am very sorry, but it is not cheaper. I would also like a clockwork llama, but times are tough.”

My hope is that you do not consider five bucks a too-expensive price. Many things of ephemeral value cost more than this: a Starbucks drink, a fast food meal, a bag of candy, a “handie” from one of the callus-handed hobos down at the park. All things that are over and done in a matter of minutes. This book should last you…

*does some quick math using a pile of M&Ms*

…at least 17 years. Give or take 16 years.

That’s a pretty sweet deal.

3. “I Trust What These Other Awesome Humans Have To Say.”

Check it out. Some really cool people have said some really cool things. Don’t you like these cool people? You do want to be cool, don’t you? I’m just saying — they’re all ‘doing it.’

“Chuck Wendig has done what so many authors desperately need and will never admit: offered a phenomenal book about the real world of writing, and made it reachable and readable by anyone. His terribleminds blog guided me through good days and bad, provided advice and much-appreciated laughter throughout the whole, often painful, process. I’m thrilled to have his brain trapped in Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey, and I’ll be referring to the squishy gray-matter of his brilliance often.

If it weren’t for Chuck Wendig’s advice, I’d have fallen off the writing map long ago. This is the book you want stapled to your chest when you march into the battle of authorship! An absolute must-read for anyone even thinking of dabbling with words for a living.”

— Karina Cooper, Author of Blood of the Wicked

“Chuck Wendig’s Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey is full of the kind of writing advice I wish I’d gotten in school. Practical, brutally honest, and done with the kind of humor that will make it stick in your brain. Whether you’re a veteran writer or new to the craft, you’ll find something useful in here.

Plus he says ‘fuck’ a lot, so, you know, there’s that.”

— Stephen Blackmoore, author of City of the Lost

“In Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey, Chuck Wendig hammers out writing and career advice that’s always brave, profane, creative, clever, and honest. And don’t forget hilarious. You’ll never laugh so hard learning so much.”

— Matt Forbeck, game designer and author of Vegas Knights

“These days, a kind word is regarded with suspicion. A supportive gesture is mistrusted. An altruistic move never is. We live in a time where cynics ignore the saccharine of Chicken Soup books and accept hugs only from Mother, and only when we’re drunk and crying. When a writer hits cynical, drunken, mother-hugging rock bottom, that’s when they need Chuck Wendig’s raw, no-holds barred advice. This is not for the faint of heart. But then again, neither is writing.”

— Mur Lafferty, host of ISBW (I Should Be Writing) podcast, editor of Escape Pod, author of Playing For Keeps

“Despite being irreverent, vulgar, and funny, Chuck Wendig is also surprisingly profound. From one wordslinger about another, Chuck is the real deal and every prospective or working writer should read Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey. Hell, the ‘Writer’s Prayer’ alone is worth the price of admission.”

— Jennifer Brozek, Author of The Little Finance Book That Could

“About the only thing harder than being a writer is trying to capture the utter insanity that truly is the writer’s life. In Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey, Chuck Wendig does just that. You’ll be laughing, crying, shouting and grimacing, but most of all, you’ll feel the deep resonance of hearing the truth in all of its sarcastic, profane and comedic glory. If you want to be a better writer, or just want to be inspired by one of the best takes on writing I’ve ever read, do yourself a favor and buy Confessions.”

— Daniel Ames, author of Feasting at the Table of the Damned

4. “I Love Terribleminds So Much, I Want To Make It Rain With One-Dollar Bills!”

You may be saying, “Well, fuckadang, Wendig, I come here every day and have been for the last two years, and every one of those days you have some fresh content that costs me naught but me checking my shame at the door — oh, and occasionally wrestling with the corporate cyber-Dobermans that prevent NSFW content from getting through to my goddamn computer — and here I am with the chance to get a sexy e-book version of your most popular writing advice posts here and so I do believe I must take you up on that offer. Besides, since I’m a writer-type, this is a tax deductible purchase for me, isn’t it? So, here you go, boy. Shake that booty can. Let me crumble up these five one-dollar bills into little origami boulders and pitch them at your gyrating banana hammock. Yeah. Nngh. Shake that fountain pen, bitch.”

5. “Because Wendig’s An Asshole And He Wants Me To Feel Guilty.”

In a few weeks my wife is — fingers crossed — going to, ahem, “accept a baby delivery from a jaunty stork wearing a postman’s uniform” (that’s how it works, right? I feel asleep during the videos I was supposed to watch), which means before too long I’m going to be responsible for feeding and clothing a whole other human besides myself. I can barely change my own diapers. If you don’t buy CONFESSIONS, then that baby will starve. That’s just how it is. You’re not going to say no to a cute little baby, are you? The cute little baby needs nom-noms. You can help put nom-noms on the baby’s plate. (And also, only you can stop forest fires, but that’s a different “guilt axis”). So, I’m left to believe that if you’re here reading all this delicious content but don’t want to pay anything toward it, then your only goal in life is to passively harm infants. That’s not cool, man. Not cool. (Okay, I’m just kidding. No guilt. I’ll just feed the kid leaves and squirrel meat.)

Will It Ever Be In Print?

Ennnh? I dunno. Right now, it’s e-book only. I might noodle around with Lulu or Createspace, or I’m alternately considering doing a real intense version that also features some of my writing-related photography. If anybody has opinions on this or information geared toward this subject, note that my ears are tilted toward you. I am eager to accept your frequency. Which is not a euphemism: please stop fiddling with the zipper on your pants.

What If I Don’t Want To Give Money To The Man?

Just to clarify, I am a man, but not the man.

And by “the” man, I assume you mean Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.

You can procure the PDF directly from me, as noted above.

Hell, if you want, I’ll even digitally autograph it. Just be sure to let me know when ordering!

If you buy PDF, note the process is: PayPal sends me an email usually within an hour (often much more quickly), and when I get it, I bounce you the PDF directly via email. No DRM or anything nutty.

I choose no DRM on all my e-books. Thus, if you’re so inclined to pirate, well, I can’t stop you.

What Else Can I Do?

Let’s see.

a) I’ll give out review copies where appropriate. Hit me up using the Contact Form.

b) A review somewhere — Amazon, B&N, GoodReads — would be lovely. I would of course love a positive review, but hey, I’m not the little man that pilots you. That’s on him.

c) I am of course available for interviews. Or guest-embloggenation. Or whatever you need. I will be your dancing monkey. I say “ook-ook.” I clap my cymbals together. For you. For you. Also, if you want to use the book in any kind of contest, bounce me a message, we can make that happen.

d) Above all else, just spread the word. Get on the Brainbook, the Twizzers, the Goblin Signal, whatever social media you frequent, and please tell them about this book. You would have my ultimate gratitude. I will send you imaginary cupcakes. Psychically. To your mind oven.

What Comes After This?

If this books sells well (by which it meets some vague uncertain metric of “earning out” — let’s say it earns me about five grand when all is said and done), then I’ll do another book of writing advice. Well, two, actually — another gathering of terribleminds posts, yes, but also, an original book about writing. Something a little more specific — like, say, the life-cycle of the novel.

Buy Today, Save A Kitten From Orbital Lasers

In a perfect world, a whole meth-addled flock of terribleminds readers will hurry out and snap up digital copies of CONFESSIONS at an unprecedented rate, thus giving my first-day sales a lightning bolt right up the colonic passage. Amazon and B&N’s servers will shit themselves and take out a couple city blocks. My book will be catapulted to the top of the charts, where it will be tongue-bathed by temple whores.

If you help to make that happen, then my many thanks.

Alternately, if you do any of the above things, including spreading the word, then also: big thanks.

This book wouldn’t be possible without the many daily readers of this website, and the fact you come back here day in and day out and help to bloat my already egregious ego is honestly very cool.

You’re all nice folks.

Thanks again, and if you buy the book, please to enjoy.

Search Term Bingo, Starring Johnny Depp As “Pony Boy”

Ahhh, there we go. The totally absurd search terms are coming in hot and heavy once again.

And so it is that I emerge out of shadow and slap you in the face with a wet sack of Search Term Bingo. If you don’t know the drill, here it is: I comb through the search terms people use to find this blog, and I cherry-pick the weirdest of those search terms and… well, madness ensues. Please to enjoy.

what happens if i accidentally breathe water

You might suffer a funny little side effect called “death by drowning,” dipshit. What do you think this is, THE ABYSS? You cannot breathe water. You cannot aspirate a cheeseburger. It’s oxygen or nothing, buddy.

you jizz hamsters pony boy

The lack of punctuation here is killing me.

“You! Jizz Hamsters! Pony boy!”

“You jizz hamsters, pony boy.”

“You. Jizz. Hamsters. Pony. Boy.”

“You jizz hamster’s pony, boy.”

OMG SO MANY OPTIONS.

I’m going to go with the second option, because it feels like an insult strung up in future slang. Some cyber-hacker anti-corporate teen robo-courier from the future flips the middle finger to some jackhole in a jet-car that just cut him off in traffic and he’s all like, “You jizz hamsters, pony boy!” And passersby gasp. So, remember, anybody gets in your way, call them a pony boy and tell them they jizz hamsters.

Which, come to think of it, sounds really painful.

x-ray of gun in mans anus

Such a shame. I misread this the first time, instead reading it as, “X-Ray Gun In Man’s Anus.” And I was like, whooooa, an X-Ray gun? I want one! Even if it’s been up some dude’s keister, I want it.

“I’ve got an X-Ray gun!”

“Why does it smell like that?”

“Uhhh. Nothing. Stop smelling my X-Ray gun, dick.”

sniggering mtv teen

I now know what I will yell at people when I am an old man and they come onto my lawn. “Get off my grass, you sniggering MTV teens! With your hair! And your clothes! And all that sniggering! Go back to MTV! Go diddle yourself to the Lady Goo-Gas of the world you little prevert!”

But my eyes will be so bad, I’ll probably just be yelling at a whitetail deer. The doe will blink at me, flick her tail, then go back to eating some clover. “QUIT YOUR DAMN SNIGGERING!”

still waiting on tribulations

Aren’t we all?

Won’t have to wait much longer, what with Saturday being the end of the world and all that. Or, at least, the Rapture. Like I said on Twitter last week, I hope when the Rapture comes it takes away all those assholes who believe in the Rapture. Then we can totally have a big orgy. Melzer’s bringing the Chex Mix. We still need someone to bring the ginger ale, the blow-up donkey, and the industrial lubricant.

Sign up by the door. Let me know what you’re bringing.

carla gugino’s thighs

This is one of the search terms that gets people here with some frequency. It’s this, search terms about Pauley Perrette, “beard maintenance,” “turtle penis,” and “albinos of ghost mountain.”

Seriously, together those search terms account for dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of views per day.

Also: Carla Gugino’s Thighs. Band, or album?

Biography, or autobiography?

CIA Codename, or Native American Ritual Dance?

giant rotating nipple ships from outer space

Sold. Here’s a bucket of money. Go make this into a movie.

websites for people who like use meth

I was pleased to learn that terribleminds was named one of the Top 101 Websites For Writers by Writer’s Digest, but I am now truly geeked to learn that we have been named one of the Top 101 Websites For Folks Who Tweak The Fuck Out On Tubloads Of Crystal Meth. That has always been my goal here: to entertain those most jovial citizens, those with meth-scabs and tweaker-teeth, those who live in moldy trailers and smell like cat pee, those who vacuum for days just because they can, those who will stab you in the face with a rusty garden trowel just to get a box of Sudafed so they can cook up more of that sweet-ass crank.

I’d like to thank my parents. My wife. And God.

*kisses award, points to the heavens, grabs crotch*

when will my beard come in?

I dunno. When did you order it?

sucks his own clit

Nudge, nudge.

Might want to take an anatomy class. Or just Google, “Do dudes have clitorises?”

You know, on second thought, don’t Google that. Just take my answer — “no they do not” — and walk away.

omg baby comming out through vagina

This search term makes it sound like it’s some kind of holy-shit biological surprise. Well, where the hell did you think it was going to come out? Her nose? Did you think she was having some kind of butt baby? They don’t deliver them via UPS, for Chrissakes. Newsflash: babies come out of a woman’s hoo-hah. Any Obi-Gyn Kenobi will tell you that shit. Just call around. “OMG!” Shut up.

the whiskey dragon

Dibs. Dibs! DIBS. I called it. This is the name of my next novel. “The Whiskey Dragon.”

Come to think of it, I want this name for so many things. I want to buy a pub and call it that. “Come on down, have a pint and a shot at the Whiskey Dragon!” Would make a good name for my computer, too. And my car. And my penis. And my first-born son. “This is my spawn, Whiskey-Dragon Wendig.” Nobody will fuck with that kid. What bully’s going to be like, “Let’s go beat up Whiskey-Dragon!” You know that’s a bad idea. Because, c’mon. Whiskey-Dragon.

I also envision a dragon that, instead of breathing fire or ice, it breathes whiskey.

Thank you, Search Term Bingo. Thank you.

some stupid monkey for miranda

Yeah! Fucking Miranda. She’s always like, “Rah rah rah, whine whine whine, I want a monkey!” Well, fine. Fine, Miranda, fine. Here’s a stupid monkey for you. I found him in a dumpster humping a a cardboard box filled with old lettuce. You can have him! He’s just some stupid monkey. He’s probably going to end up biting half your face off because that’s all these stupid monkeys do. People get them and they dress them up in pink dresses or powder blue tuxedos and they’re all like, “This is my son! I love him so much!” and then the monkey bites out their eye and poops in the hole. But whatever. Whatever, Miranda.

You wanted a stupid monkey. You got a stupid monkey.

I hate you so bad, Miranda.

my wife has a sweet ass

I’m happy for you, but why did you need to Google that?

will beanie babies make a comeback

For the love of Jim Nabors, I hope so. I have a metric poop-load of these goddamn things.  I got the little fucking bears, I got the dogs and the cats and a pink lizard and a dumb little dolphin and a goddamn… I dunno what he is, some kind of fucking crustacean or some shit? Whole room full of these sonofabitches. It’s like — this, this is why the economy shit the bed. Forget real estate. Forget the tech boom. The Beanie Baby Bubble is real. It affected millions when that zit popped. These babies were going for a mint. A mint. You could walk onto a car lot, throw down a gym-bag full of these fuzzy little fuckers and walk out of there with a previously owned Lamborghini Diablo. But now you can’t give these things away. They’re worth negative money. If you even show a Beanie Baby to someone, you have to them pay them two dollars. Seriously. I’m not messing around. There was some nonsense about AIG insuring Beanie Babies, and then I think the Ty Warner company like, bet against the Beanie Baby market, which meant they were betting against the Beanie Baby collectors at the same time they were making money off the Beanie Baby sales?

It’s sick. It’s a sickness. This is what caused the Recession. Beanie Baby whores. All of them.

bingo boobs

This blog is no longer called terribleminds.

It shall hereby be known as Bingo Boobs.

And it’s the name of my first-born daughter. My son, Whiskey-Dragon. My daughter, Bingo Boobs.

what food can you put on your breasts?

If you’re laying down, probably most foods, right? Not that I’d recommend slopping a whole Christmas ham on there or whatever, but I’m just saying — you could. You totally could.

Standing up, well, it depends not so much on the size of the breasts as how much weight they can support? Like, do they function as shelves? Try experimenting with various foods. Okay, cotton candy, easy. Some lunchmeat slices, not too much trouble. Go bigger. Loaf of bread. Canned peas. Beef tenderloin. Jug of milk. Dead goat. My advice to you is: dream big. Don’t stop believing.

is it bad to suck back in snot

That’s what killed Elvis.

frothy eye cockerel

New cocktail name? Or a rad new sex move? You tell me.

which face beard can shoot

It depends which beard can do laser. Often, the left face beard is the face beard with the laser installed, and usually — usually, but not always — the right face beard has a force field built in. But that’s not a guarantee. It depends on which company makes the face beard. Microsoft? Google? Weyland-Yutani? Leave me your serial number, your registration code, your birthdate, your social security number, and your favorite color, and we’ll get this whole thing figured out nice and quick. Thanks for calling! Have a great day.

unicorn nipples

I demand that this be a new cookie.

Okay, Internets, here’s your task: drop into the comments below and describe for me what a cookie called a “unicorn nipple” should look like. Bonus points if you include a recipe, real or imagined.

Shake Them Pom-Poms, Cheerleaders

As you may know, once in a while I like to open up the Circus of Pimpage — I undo the ropes, open the tent-flaps, and let the drunken elephants in velvet robes and grill-mouthed clowns with ruby-encrusted pimp cups come tumbling out. (That sounds like a creepy sexual metaphor. I assure you, it is not.)

What it is, then, is this:

Some of you have projects out in the world: books, e-books, games, movies, comics, webcomics, blogs, etc.

Others among you have fallen in love with projects that are not your own — books by other authors, films few have seen, comics that remain undiscovered, blogs that demand eyeballs. Etc.

So, drop down into the comments. Pop us a quick cheer and a link. Got something you’ve done or something you love? Let us know about it. Sometimes Twitter moves so fast I miss stuff. Or I think, “I should click that,” but then I forget to and next thing I know I wake up in an open grave just outside of Albuquerque and Lord knows I won’t remember then.

Plus, it’s neat to have the pimping contained. Like a self-promotional tempest in a tea-cup.

Some of you may be saying: “Chuck, this is you being lazy. It’s like you don’t have a real post for today.” To which I respond, “Duh.” That said, I still like the idea, so fuck it, I’m running with it.

What the hell are you waiting for? You got the invite. RSVP already.

You. Comments. Now.

Word-Karate: On Writing Action Scenes

Jaw, shattered. Femur, snapped. Skull, cracked. Perineum, ripped off and thrown into a river.

It’s time to talk about action scenes. Explosions, high-kicks, roundhouse punches, car chases, train crashes, wizard battles, robot attacks, machine guns chattering, nipples spewing liquid fire.

Initially, I thought: “Why bother writing about action scenes? Seems easy enough.”

Except, I’ve read some truly asstacular action scenes. Not that I’m some kind of expert on writing action, mind you: by this point in our relationship, I hope we’re clear that I’m an expert on nothing, and merely a very loud, possibly drunken journeyman who has no problem yelling his profanity-lacquered opinion into the echo chamber that is the Internet.

But not being an expert clearly doesn’t prevent me from having thoughts on the subject, and so I figured this was high time to share my inexpert thoughts on the subject here at terribleminds.

Writing Fighting Is Like Scripting Sexing

Sex and violence stare at one another in a warped carnival mirror. Both are intimate. Both reflect physicality. Heartbeat pulses. Fluids spurt — spit, blood, sweat. You push the camera in too close or pull it far, far back and someone is bound to ask, “Are those two fighting? Or are those two fucking?”

The funny thing is, we tend to be a lot more comfortable with violence in this country than we do with sex. We’re a flock of Puritanical gas-bags who beg and scream and wheedle to see the bullet-scalped bodies of Al Qaeda terrorists but if we see two dudes smooch on Glee half of America takes a collective panic-poop and pulls out clumps of hair like they were clods of grass.

Still, there’s value in seeing the relationship between fighting and fucking, at least in terms of writing. Bring one into the other. Bring the intimacy and discomfort of sex into the fight scenes, and bring our culture’s comfort with violence into writing the bedroom scenes. An interesting exercise: write a sex scene like you’re writing a fight scene. Then, vice versa. Do it pantsless. Just because.

Form Matches Function

Imagine it’s like that knife fight in Michael Jackson’s Beat It video — form and function are given knives, and their wrists are bound together so that they may not escape one another until one is stabbified.

(“Stabbified” is a word, right? It’s totally a word. Don’t mess with me, Internet.)

Form and function do well together across all types of writing, but this is particularly true in terms of writing action. I find that when I write action, the form of my writing moves to match the pacing of the action. I tend to like my action sequences presented as a short, sharp shock, and so the writing tends to mirror that. Shorter sentences. Sentence fragments. Blunt, brutal language. Words like rabbit punches. Like the stitching of prison shivs.

Is this necessary? No, probably not. But there’s value in setting the pace of your scene with the clip at which you write. You don’t want to write long, languid patches of prose in writing action. We want action to be fast, exciting, engaging, and most of all, easy-to-read. Writing action is in this way like writing dialogue: you want it to come across to the readers without them halting, without them pausing to take a breath.

That’s not to say there’s no value in slowing things down — pacing is a tricky thing. The escalation of any story has its peaks and valleys and you can give an action sequence those same valleys, too — you can collapse moments just as easily as you can drag them out. The value in that is the value of crafting tension. By pausing before the money shot, the cookie-pop, the underwear-shellacking, you’re forcing the audience to hold their breath a little bit.

They know the shoe is going to drop, so you can slow things down a bit right in the middle.

Tricky to do, but cool if done right.

Point being: action scenes aren’t just about the action that’s happening, but also the form and framing of that action. I always like to print out my work and look at the shape of the words on the page. It’s telling.

Clarity Versus Sensation

I’ve read action scenes that clarify every tiny detail — the prose telegraphs every thrown punch, every grenade tossed, every inch of every rippling explosion as the fire belches forth.

This is nice in a lot of ways. If only because it helps you maintain an image in your head of what’s going on.

On the other hand, that can get a little dull. A giant meaty paragraph dictating the cold and clinical step by step of a fight scene is a paragraph I am going to ice skate over with my eyes. This is doubly true of those writers who know martial arts and write about it in a very granular way. No, I don’t know what a Wily Cheung Dragon Five-Toed Pylon Garrote-Kick does, and I don’t really care.

In opposition you have those fight scenes that eschew details and go right for the feel of the thing. It’s all sensation: the feel of fists landing, of fire on the back of your neck, of one’s butthole being ripped off by a rifle round. This is cool because it’s poetic. Because it puts you in the hot seat. Action is chaotic. It’s not clear and clinical. It’s mud and blood on the camera lens.

The downside is, you can overdo it. Purple prose bogs just as easily as a ten-page karate menu.

So, where’s the line? What approach is the right approach?

Rough guess: it depends on how close to the action you wish the reader to be.

If they’re with the protagonist — and it may be necessary to put with in italics — then a more sensation-based approach has value. You want to feel what he feels. But if it’s a high-concept gain-some-distance third-person-not-all-that-omniscient action scene, then you might gain more ground by approaching the writing in a more clinical fashion.

Reality Versus Authenticity

How “real” does your action scene have to be?

Once more we find ourselves in that old battle between reality and authenticity. Those two scamps, always sissy-slap-fighting it out. My feeling is that reality has no place in any piece of fiction ever. Not because it’s a bad idea but because it is a meaningless idea. Let me explain.

You must in all things remain authentic to your story. You’re setting a tone, a mood, a pace, a theme, and all these things should play well together. When one piece feels off, it’s like a painting hanging on the wall with a troubling tilt: everybody’s going to know, and they’re going to obsess about it. Your job is to keep all ducks in a row. Your job is to attend to authenticity.

How things happen in real life has zero bearing how things happen in fiction. This is true of books, film, games, and so forth. And so it is that your fight scene should match the tone you’re putting forth in the rest of the work. The fight scenes in a cartoonish mecha-battle is going to feel a lot different than the fight scenes in a boxing melodrama. Forget reality as a meaningful metric. Remain authentic to the story you’re telling.

How Action Reflects More Than Just Action

As always, I love ensuring that my writing does not fall into the behavior of a unitasker, by which I mean, that it does one thing and one thing only. Action scenes needn’t only be action scenes.

An action scene is awesome when it’s doing more than just expressing physical threat and a sequence of objective events. How can you reveal character in an action scene? How can you express theme and mood? You should be doing a lot with your action scene. A character reacts a certain way that reflects who he is on the inside (doubly so during times of action — which is to say, in scenes of duress). A theme is revealed in how brutal or insane or dangerous your action becomes.

Just as dialogue and description are given over to sub-text, action can be given over to subtler threads, too. An action scene should never be there just because it’s obligatory: it should always have deeper purpose.

Your Turn, Class

Action scenes.

Name some good ones. In books. In film. In comics. Wherever they exist. What makes them good? What makes them great? What are some examples of ehh, mehhh, pbbbt action scenes?

Why would an action scene fail to connect?

What rules do you abide by when writing action? I think what’s true in prose is true, too, in screenwriting. I’ve seen some screenplays that let the action scenes be essentially a meaningless tag: “FIGHT SCENE ENSUES,” but that’s nonsense. While I don’t think you’ll find much value in bloating an action scene so that it fills ten pages of script, I do think action should be both enticing and enriching. I’ve long said that screenwriters could easily bring a few prose tricks into their scripts to keep it fresh and readable as opposed to detached and dull. Story is story, after all.

Talk this out. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Ten More Ways To Support Authors You Love

This past week, I caught an article that ping-ponged around the Intersphere where author Jody Hedlund explains — nicely and wisely — ten ways to support authors you love.

It’s a great post. Hedlund lists a lot of strong ways that speak toward what I was saying a few weeks back (“The Care And Feeding Of Your Favorite Authors“). Even still, I thought, “Surely that can’t be it, right? Readers and fans don’t need to stop there. Writers are needy little sumbitches. Yes, good, leave a review. Sure, okay, get the local library to stock the book. All great ideas. But the author is a fragile orchid under glass. The author needs special attention.”

And so, I thought, let’s add some options to that list.

Thus I give unto you:

Ten more ways to support the authors you love.

Beginning now.

1. Backrubs And Sponge Baths

Writers have all the posture of Gollum after a tequila bender. We’re basically cave crickets. Blind. Pale. Bent over. Covered in the excrement of the bats that dangle above us. This is not conducive to producing good writing. Science Fact: ideas start in the brain, then travel down the spine (via Monorail, like at Disney World) and are then carried out to our dominant arm and hand where we take the idea and write it down. This is science. This is medical truth. If we’re all hunched over like some kind of Scoliosis Monster (one of Jim Henson’s less-popular Muppets), then the Monorail crashes. The idea is left bleating like a lost llama, unable to reach our hand.

We need backrubs, people. Shoulders. Neck. Deep-tissue. Hot rocks. Happy endings. And a sponge bath wouldn’t hurt, either. Someone needs to wash the Dorito powder out of our hair. It’s not a good look.

If you don’t want to be the giver of the massage, no worries. Hook us up with a gift certificate to the nearest shady Asian Massage Parlor. I’m sure Groupon has a deal going.

2. Lay Gifts At Our Feet

Have you ever met a writer? Sure you have. They’re the guys sitting in subways ranting at you about “reptile overlords” and trying to get you to drop some change in their quivering palms. We’re not wealthy people. The latest average advance on a novel is $17 and a pack of Virginia Slims cigarettes.

We need your support. So buy us stuff, for Chrissakes. Shower us with presents.

A nice casserole, maybe? (We’re surely hungry.) Some warm socks so our toes don’t freeze (and get eaten by rats)? Printer ink? (We like to huff it.) New MacBook? (Cult of Apple!) A pony? (Like I said: hungry.)

3. Build A Fan Page

Authors like to know they have fans out there — not just readers, but full-on fanatics who tilt their ears so that they may hear our every brilliant whisper. Build us a fan page to show your love and, more importantly, ceaseless devotion. I’m not just talking about, say, a page on Facebook. That’s nice and all, but c’mon, really? That’s amateur karaoke right there. No, we’d like something… bigger. Buy a web address. Get a host. Put up a whole sycophantic Tiger Beat spread of us online. Pay the hosting fees. Hire a web designer. And for Sid and Marty Krofft’s sake, get some Flash animation up in that bizzotch.

Flash animation is all the rage. It’s like, boom, intro cartoon. Violins. A phat breakbeat. A chorus of angel MCs slinging a rap about how awesome we are. The sun rises. Becomes our head. Our mouth opens. Rays of word power shine out. Destroy the world. Then we eat the stars. Finally, the whole thing morphs into an advertisement announcing our latest book, movie, blog post, pamphlet, or tweet.

4. Take Over Bookstore Displays

You go into… well, I was going to say Borders, but you go into a Borders you’ll be attacked by troglodytes and killed for your meat. Those are dead zones, now. Let’s go with Barnes & Noble. You go into a B&N and there, all around you, are book displays offering the hottest new releases of the world’s most mediocre authors. Dan Brown’s The Giuseppe Conundrum. Nicholas Sparks’ Song In A Bottle To Remember. Snooki’s Hot Homunculus Nights. The book displays are like idols built for blind, idiot gods.

Those authors don’t need book displays, though. When Mitch Albom releases The Five People You Pee On In Hell, people know it’s out. They’re coming there to buy it. They don’t need a special display.

You know who needs those displays? Your favorite mid-list authors, that’s who. Go to the store. When nobody’s looking, clear out the latest “someone-who’s-not-Tom-Clancy-wrote-a-book-with-Tom-Clancy’s-name-on-it” book. Hide them in the self-help section. Then take your favorite author’s books and re-fill the display. With some markers, duct tape and construction paper you can complete the advertisement.

Your favored author will thank you.

5. Become An Enabler

Writers need writer juice. If it’s before 9am, we need coffee. If it’s after 9am, we need liquor. If it’s after 9pm, we need pulverized Ambien stirred around a glass of lemonade (aka “Daddy’s Special Tonic”).

So for the sake of bibliophiles everywhere, buy us a cup of coffee. Get us a drink. Slide us a kilo of snow-white Columbian nose candy. Procure for us a phial of rare dodo’s blood.

Enable us. Only then can we write the words you want us to write.

And when that goes awry…

6. Now You’re An Addiction Counselor

When you find us slumbering in a sleeping bag filled with our own vomit, it might be time to get us off the “stuff.” We might need someone to sit with us as we detox. We’re definitely going to need someone to empty the bucket. It won’t empty itself. (Well, it might, like if our leg spasms and we kick it over.) Who else is going to help us navigate the ever-trembling line between hallucination and reality? Who will scrape the milky remnants of our dodo’s blood high as it exudes from our pores?

Oh, and when we get back on our feet, all cleaned up and loving Jesus, you’re going to need to buy our lame duck never-as-good-as-it-used-to-be-when-we-were-tripping-balls-on-dodo-blood books.

7. Be Like Annie Wilkes

We should be writing.

We’re probably not writing.

Whatever we’re doing, it’s the wrong thing. You know how George R.R. Martin’s not our bitch? Well, maybe he could use to be somebody’s bitch is all I’m saying. Authors need motivation.

And that’s where you come in. Ever read Stephen King’s Misery? Then you’ve got the right idea. Call us a dirty birdy. Cut off our thumb, pop it on a cake. Chop off a foot and hobble us like an escaped miner.

8. Get Your Wallets Out

I heard an apocryphal bit of data that suggests authors rarely sell a thousand copies of each book. You sell a thousand, that’s a good sign. So, help an author out, and buy a thousand copies. Be a pal.

If our book is, mm, say, ten bucks, then it’s no thing for you to buy a thousand copies, right? What, you don’t have a spare ten thousand clams hanging around? Were you gonna buy a boat or something? Ohh, must be nice. Mister Boat-Buyer over here doesn’t want to support literacy. You’re out there on the frothy churn-capped tides, guzzling Pernod Fils and getting sexual favors from mermaids. Meanwhile, we’re eating Chef Boyaredee out of a can.

A can that will soon become our only toilet.

Way to go. Way to destroy an author’s dreams just because you won’t shell out ten grand. WHATEVS.

9. The Cult Of Personality

It’s one thing to toss us a kind word. Maybe say something nice about our books. Our hair. Our creamy, majestic thighs. It’s another thing entirely to recruit cult members to live in a compound in the woods, a “church” where you worship the center of your religion: us. That’s right. Time to get serious. You want to do something really special for your favorite author? Two words: Jones. Town. That ended well, right? I’ll admit I kind of faded out by the end of that story, but I’m sure it involved them all sipping Kool-Aid in the jungle and singing campfire songs. So nice!

Point is, we need your love. We need your adoration. We need you to build hollow wooden effigies of us, trap our enemies inside, and burn the whole thing on a sacrificial pyre.

Don’t be afraid to get inventive. Pyramid schemes. Mind-control drugs. Book clubs.

10. Pre-Order The Book

Okay, fine, fine, here’s a real one that Hedlund didn’t cover: pre-order the author’s books (says the author with a book on pre-order). I’ll just be lazy and repeat what I wrote last month:

“Why pre-order, you might be asking? Pre-ordering is good for the publisher and great for the writer. The publisher gets an idea of preliminary demand and can produce accordingly. The writer also gets a boost — your pre-orders send a signal to the publisher that, hey, this writer is worth holding on to. So, we author-types appreciate your commitment.”

And there you have it.

Ten more ways to rain adoration and adulation upon your favorite authors.

If you have more ideas, toss ’em into the comments.

Flash Fiction Challenge: “From Mab To The Mysterious Three”

Last week’s flash fiction challenge — “Profanity Is A Circle Of Language” — awaits your eyes with many foul-mouthed entries. Check the comments, click the links.

And now we begin this week’s challenge.

As noted, I am a huge fan of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It is one of the essential reference books in my collection — I use the Wordsworth version in print, and Brewer’s online. It’s wonderful for weird turns-of-phrase, for finding neat genre concepts, for plumbing the depths of odd history, and best of all, for coming up with concepts and titles.

Thus is your mission.

This week: Please turn (click) to the ‘M’ section of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

Click around. Find an awesome term that you like that starts with “M.”

That is your title and your concept.

Write some flash fiction around it.

This week, should you choose to claim it, you may have 1500 words instead of the normal 1000. Just to give you a little extra sauce if your tale requires it. Drop a link in the comments here, and if you’re so kind, link to this post so that others may find it and, ideally, jump in with both feet.

Once again you’ve a week. Friday to Friday. Ends on May 21st.

So, what will you choose? The Marrow Controversy? Melancholy Jacques? The Mirror of Human Salvation? Your options are endless. Well, okay, not literally endless, but c’mon. Sheesh.

Go forth. Scare up a phrase or fable, and let’s see what you got.

I’d quite like to see some lurkers de-lurk for this challenge, by the way. The gauntlet is thrown.