(Disclaimer: NAPLO YONOMO is the protagonist of STAR WARS AFTERMATH TWO: EWOK SNUGGLEBOO. He’s a fancy gentleman Gonk Droid with a debilitating spice addiction!)

Next month is National Novel Writing Month, aka, NaNoWriMo.

This month, I am declaring to be NaPloYoNoMo, or National Plot Your Novel Month. Or, if you prefer the more profane edition, NaPloYoMoFuGoDaNoMo month.

I want you to think about the planning, plotting and scheming of your novel.

I want you to think about outlining that novel.

Now, some of you are resistant to the idea of outlining. I know. I get it. Some of you upon hearing the word “outline” clenched up so hard, your buttholes permanently sealed shut. Now it’s just a smooth patch of flesh like bubble gum stretched across a puckered mouth.

BUT NOW HOLD ON.

Calm down. Unseal thine buttocks.

Outlining fucking sucks. I fucking hate it. Every time I do it I have to grit my teeth and swig whiskey and engage in a movie montage where I ragefully punch frozen beef and run through snow. And it takes me like, a day or two — three, tops — and then it’s done and suddenly I don’t fucking hate it anymore. It’s probably like building a house and starting with the basement. Building the basement has to be super shit-ass boring. It’s a basement. It’s just a cinderblock prison. It’s a horizontal dirt cave. The house itself above it — oh, that’s fancy. You get to think about where doorways are and which room will be the living room and the dining room and the SEX TARP room. You get to place windows and floors. But the basement: Ugh, fuck the basement. And yet, you need the basement. You need the foundation.

I need outlines. I am a pantser by heart, a plotter by necessity. I engage in the misery of extricating an outline from the hot pile of skull-meat I call a brain, and then I slap it onto the page and suddenly — boom-bam, there’s the book. Not in its entirety, but in its sheer potential. It makes a book feel possible. It makes a story feel a bit more manageable.

Plus, sometimes a publisher will ask for an outline. Work-for-hire will demand it. And often, pitching an unwritten novel (which becomes hypothetically doable once you’ve sold your first novel) may require an outline, too. So, it becomes a skill worth learning. I’m asking you take this month — October! — and try however much it chafes your particular genital configuration to outline your upcoming book. (Or, if you’ve already written a book, practice by outlining the one you already wrote. You’d be amazed at how clarifying this can be.)

Time, then, to talk about outlining.

But first, we need a few items of shared understanding regarding outlining. These are not so much golden rules as they are things I want you to grok regarding the plotting of one’s novel.

They are:

1. Outlining is a non-essential process. By which I mean, some writers like it, some don’t. Everybody has their own way forward. I’m encouraging learning the skill, not adopting it permanently. Writing and storytelling offer few absolutes.

2. Outlining will not “destroy the magic” or any of that wifty supernatural pegasus shit. I believe very much that writing and storytelling feels like magic while at the same time being a wholly and gloriously mundane activity. Further, if something like outlining is capable of stealing the lightning from your story, then what you had wasn’t so much “lightning” but a “static electric spark” like when you rub your footy pajamas on the carpet. Call me back when you have contained actual lightning — at which point you will learn that no amount of outlining is capable of diminishing its ELECTRIC FURY.

2.2. If outlining destroys your writing magic, editing/rewriting is going to fucking obliterate it.

3. One of the values of outlining is that it gives you a map forward — a fraying rope to reach for and cling to in the long darkness of the writing process. Another value is that it lets you muddle through the mistakes of your story early on — it’s a lot easier to fix a 2-3 page outline than it is to fix a 300 page novel, I promise.

4. When plotting any novel, remember: let the characters lead. You have heard me (er, read me) say this 100 times, so here’s #101: PLOT IS SOYLENT GREEN. IT IS MADE OF PEOPLE.

5. No battlefield strategy survives contact with the enemy, and no outlines survive contact with the story. Every journey across the country will require detours and unexpected stopovers — you should expect this, too, when you jump from the outline to the actual novel at hand.

So, with that being said, let’s talk about the various styles of outlining. Each have different benefits and disadvantages. Every book I’ve written has demanded a different kind of outline. Sometimes they’re ten pages long, sometimes they’re hastily scrawled on the drywall in my own body’s leavings. Note that these outlining modes are not necessarily exclusive to each other — they can be used together, if need be. Also, various pieces of software can be used across these outlining methods — Word, Scrivener, Excel (yes, you can do some of these in spreadsheets), Index Card apps for your phone, Mind Mapping apps, etc.

If you want some general tips and tricks first:

• Practice these by outlining movies and books you’ve already seen and read.

• You can Google up some examples (I’ve provided some, but I am confident that you know how to use the MAGIC GOOGLEMACHINE to make information appear.)

• These don’t necessarily need to be for public consumption. Write them as cuckoo bananapants as you want. Mine are not fit for public eyes and probably read like the Unabomber’s manifesto. That said, maybe I’ll ask you to share…

• If one style doesn’t work, flip to another. You can remix them together if you prefer.

• You’re not married to anything. It’s not like the Outline Police are watching from the trees, sniper rifles ready to peel your scalp in case you deviate from the well-lit path of the outline. The outline is you making shit up. Don’t stress. This is Play-Doh and Crayola time, not CARVING TRUTH INTO DIVINE TABLETS time.

The Book Jacket

Method: Emulate the text you’d find on a book jacket. Meaning, give 3-4 paragraphs detailing who the story is about and what the problem is. Not an outline, really, but a shallow synopsis.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ You can use it later on as your query letter.

+ The story feels unburdened by heavy plotting.

+ You have this to return to as a throughline to keep the story on target.

+ Small time investment.

– Actually, fuck that, it can be a huge time investment. I find writing three paragraphs of summary as time consuming as writing ten pages of outline. Because rendering your 500 lb. pig into a 5 lb. bucket is hard and frustrating and will make you want to print out your word garbage just so you can crumple it up into an origami boulder, cram it into your mouth, choke on it, and die.

– Too shallow to be highly functional.

The Proper Synopsis

Method: A synopsis will run about 2-3 pages, and detail the overall narrative thrust of the book. (Please be advised: “The Narrative Thrust” is the name of my patented sex move. It is illegal in six states. It is popular in Poland.) A synopsis is less about the sequence of events and more about the scope of the book. Detail the main characters, their arcs, the POV, the conflicts, the time and setting, maybe touch a little on theme. Broad strokes are necessary. You’re gonna have to skimp on plot details, but the synopsis isn’t entirely about plot. Give a sense of the beginning, middle and ending.  Bring all your writing talents to bear in case you want to one day use this with an agent or editor. Write it in 3rd person, and yes, most synopses are written in present tense. Rankle all you want about that. Go on, squirm. I’ll wait.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Can be used with agents or editors.

+ Broad, encompassing strokes are valuable to know even if you don’t want the nitty-gritty of the plot laid out in front of you — writing one of these before you write the book can really help keep you on track.

– The synopsis is almost always a giant fucking lie, meaning, you write it knowing full well you’re plotting a journey to another country half-drunk and blindfolded.

– Because it lacks a proper sequence of events, fails to function as a testing ground for whether or not the fiddly bits of the book actually work or suck moist open ass.

The Beat Sheet

Method: You literally outline every plot point. You list them with minimal detail. BOB EATS CAKE. MARY BETRAYS HIM. DON PUNCHES A MONKEY. They can cover major plot points only, or drill down and encompass every little beat of action that occurs. You can find a fairly minimal one here at John August’s site. Or, here’s Another good example at John’s site, this time of Charlie’s Angels (film). And here’s a list of Save the Cat! style beat sheets, too.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Lets you drill down into plot points and see where shit works and where shit fails.

+ Actually helps highlight potentially boring parts — when your beatsheet suddenly becomes BOB SITS and MARY CALLS FOR PIZZA, and it’s a whole lot of that, you can gain a sense that there’s too long a lull where not much is happening — you need to get back to the part where DON IS PUNCHING MONKEYS. Because monkey-punching is exciting. That is gospel truth. Take that to the bank and smoke it. /mixedmetaphor

+ Forces you to think about plot mechanics.

– Doesn’t really force you to think as much about character mechanics.

– Stripping down a story to these beats can be useful as hell, but also a little rote. Reducing the narrative to THIS HAPPENS WHICH RESULTS IN THIS BUT THEN THIS HAPPENS again has value — but if you’re one of those people who worries about the glittery unicorn magic of writing, this will definitely dull some of that sparkle.

– Works very well with film, TV and comics. With novels, the beat sheet tends to be longer.

– Further, novels tend to operate more strongly on an internal dimension — and beat sheets really aren’t meant to map the mental, emotional or intellectual dimension as well.

The One With The Roman Numerals

Method: This is the one you learned in school. The one with the Roman numerals (I, II, III) and then beneath that, in indented order: regular old numbers (1, 2, 3) cap letters (A, B, C), lowercase letters (a, b, c). This isn’t a hard-and-fast design — you decide exactly what fills these spaces. Each Roman numeral might identify a chapter and then you drill down into the events of that chapter. You might outline acts, sequences and scenes or some other aspect of story structure. You might just outline a series of emoji and dick doodles, I dunno. You do you.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Simple, easy-to-understand format.

+ Clean, versatile format that lets you do basically whatever you want.

– Ugly as shit, let’s be honest. Roman numerals are utilitarian. Can’t we use something cooler? Occult symbols? Nordic runes? The aforementioned emoji and dick doodles?

– Will remind you of high school which for me is like, a surefire way to get me to hate doing anything. Suddenly I’m getting cardboard cafeteria pizza and hours-of-homework flashbacks.

Scenes And Sequences

Method: Scenes and sequences are narrative measurements. Yes, you can measure narrative. It isn’t as clean as a math problem or using a a measuring tape to determine the length of something (elephant trunk, desk, dresser, snake, height, wang-length, your parents’ disappointment). A scene generally is set in a single location in an uninterrupted span of time — it is contained. A sequence is a gathering of scenes that fit together. c3p0 running into R2D2 on Jabba’s sailbarge is a scene. Luke walking the plank on the skiff above the Sandy Fanged Butthole just before R2D2 ejaculates a lightsaber into the air is a scene. Hutt-Slayer Leia is a scene. All those scenes add up to the LUKE MAKES GOOD ON HIS PROMISE TO STRAIGHT-UP MURDER JABBA THE HUTT sequence. A film tends to have eight sequences, roughly 40-60 scenes, and those add up into three total acts. You’re not writing film and the rules for film are pretty godsdamn flimsy anyway. The goal here is to write out every sequence and then build into that what scenes comprise each.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Gives you a feeling of how all the pieces large and small fit together.

+ A bit more nuanced than a beat sheet.

+ Plays well with the One With The Roman Numerals (above).

– Fits well with film, TV, comic book — can get a little leggy or sprawly with big novels.

Tent Poles

Method: Easy. Your novel requires a certain number of MAJOR PLOT THINGIES to be the story you envision. It’s like, VAMPIRE DAVE HAS TO USURP THE WEREWOLF PRINCE OF UTICA, and then THE WEREWOLF PRINCE HAS TO KILL VAMPIRE DAVE’S MOM and then ROBOT INVASION and man, I dunno, it’s your fucking book. Point is, the book is like a tent and it only remains aloft and functional when a certain series of tentpole plot points hold it up. Right? Right. So, you just need to write down the four or five big holy shit things that are utterly absoflogginglutely required for this thing to function. That’s it.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Gets you thinking in big, broad strokes — is the whole thing sensible? Here is your test.

+ Leaves you a lot of room between the tentpoles to roam, play, babble, wander.

+ A good outline for people who don’t want to outline much.

– Doesn’t deal much with character or the more finicky plot bits.

– Leaves a lot of uncharted territory where heinous fuckery can take root.

Chaos Reigns

Method: JUST GO BUCKWILD ON THAT SHIT. Like, free-write your way through the outline. No form. No meaning. Just you cranked up on the batshit adrenalin formed when you’ve got your teeth around a good tale, running like a hog on fire through the jungle of your story.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Fun, no rules, chaos is bright and alive and weird.

+ An amazing way to really cook your brain in the fires of this particular story.

– Not so useful as a reference document. It will end up reading like the fecal handprint wall of a conspiracy theorist — it’s all red yarn connectors and nutball phrases and also poop.

Zero Draft

Method: Kinda like CHAOS REIGNS v2.0. This is you writing the whole novel. Except not. You are going to write the book with little sense of what’s happening or any outline — in fact, your shit-ass half-ass draft will become your outline. It’s like a proving ground. It’ll either be too long or too short, and it’ll probably be too terrible to be functional.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ The purest way to just charge forward and embrace the power of sucking.

+ Will definitely show you the parts of the book that are fucked up.

+ If you invest your emotion properly — meaning, low — you don’t feel so bad about writing a bunch of hot sticky medical waste and then jettisoning it out the airlock to start anew.

– Not really an outline, and more a TRIAL BY FIRE TORNADO.

– Takes a long time and is messy as hell.

Characters In Control

Method: This is a character-focused outline. It says, “fuck the plot, let’s talk about these wandering hobos that fill my novel.” List out each character. Then write about them. Chart their wants, their fears, their needs. Chart their problems and their way to overcome their problems. Chart their arcs — who are they when the tale begins and what do they become in the crucible of the narrative? This is less about what happens next and more about creating a group of characters and setting them on their path together (or in opposition to one another) and watching the story unfold. (For your reading: the Zero Fuckery Guide to Creating Kick-Ass Characters, and my guide to creating great supporting characters.)

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Allows characters to take the driver’s seat; characters are why we read stories.

+ I find this is a little more fun and a little less proscriptive.

+ Less attention on sheer plotty event sequencing.

– Less attention on sheer plotty event sequencing. If what you need is to strengthen your plot, then this may not be the best way forward?

The Screenplay

Method: Write your novel as a screenplay. No, really, that’s it. A screenplay is, at its core, PEOPLE SAY SHIT and PEOPLE DO SHIT. It is dialogue and action with the sparest, barest description. A screenplay is an outline. It doesn’t seem like it, but consider: a screenplay is not the final product. A novel is, but a screenplay goes through various hands and phases before it actually ends up on screen. The script is just a series of suggestions as to what appear in front of audiences.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ An easy-breezy way to write a “zero draft” of your novel.

+ You’ll be amazed at how fast it is to write a book this way.

+ Flexes some different storytelling and format muscles.

– Um, it’s a screenplay? Which means you have to know how to write a screenplay. Format, etc.

– Screenplays are, A-DOYYY, not novels. So, you’re practicing with one format when ideally you should be learning to practice another. It’s like learning roller skating by training with a skateboard or with ice skates. It’s similar, and useful, but may not be a good fit for everyone.

As You Go

Method: Outline as you go. Finish a chapter and outline the next two or three.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Keeps your story loose and flexible, like the elastic in a comfortable pair of beloved underwear.

+ Never feels like you’re forcing yourself down one path (though again it is vital to remember that outlines are not sacred gnostic documents but just a list of made-up suggestions).

– It’s basically an act of drawing the map after you’ve started driving the car. It’s hard to see the deadman curves and blown-up bridges if you don’t plot the map ahead of time.

The Story Bible

Method: A giant-ass worldbuilding bible. No specific format, but assume it should read like the encyclopedia for a world that doesn’t necessarily exist. Focuses not at all on the plot of the single book and more about the overall world — including history, food costumes, design notes, religions, myths, traditions, holy dildos, mating parades, monkey-punching rituals, etc.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ It’s like, a big geeky bag of worldbuilding fun.

+ Lets you worry less about plot and more about creating a rich, fascinating setting that will spur the plot forward and give the characters an awesome setting in which to ROMP and GIBBER.

– Not actually plot-based, so — kinda separate from an outline. Also means you’re likely to build in tons of things that have nothing to do with the plot or the characters. A lot of excess.

– A very good way to waste time productively. Most things like this have a horizon line of functionality, and it’s very easy to traipse past that horizon line and continue writing your worldbuilding story bible for 16 years while never committing word one to the actual book you’re writing. It feels productive. But after a point, it damn sure isn’t.

Draw Its Shape

Method: Story has shape. It has architecture. The narrative skeleton is pressed into the flesh of the story. So, design that. You might design lots of shapes — the classic Freytag’s Pyramid, or a more nuanced and jagged version of that. (Might I recommend this terribleminds post? Story Shapes: Four Ways To Think About Narrative Architecture.) You might also graph pacing — it’s valuable to think about slowing down and speeding up the narrative at key points.

Pluses/Minuses:

+ A nice, abstract way to think about your story.

– Aaaaand maybe too abstract? This might be better when paired with one of the other outline forms, just to give you something less theoretical and more comprehensive.

Mind Maps

Method: A mind map is when you drill into your own head in an act of narrative trepanation, and you stuck a bendy straw in there and let the sweet STORY NECTAR dribble onto the page. It’s like maple syrup, kinda, and the idea is — *receives note* — okay, that’s not what a mind map is so clearly I have been doing this very wrong. *plugs up forehead hole with cork* A mind map is a central bubble (YOUR NOVEL) with a lot of other bubbles branching off of it. You can track plot, theme, characters, really anything you want — and you can do so in an explicitly visual way. Here is a good example at Iain Broome’s site: “How I Use A Mind Map To Build Stories.”

Pluses/Minuses:

+ Fun, easy, lots of software and apps to help you do it.

+ Abstract, but not so abstract it becomes a thought exercise — still concretizes ideas.

– Not really helpful in sequencing.

– Can get kind of noisy — may need to break out several smaller mind maps to make it work.

 And That’s That

There you go. A big-ass skull-crusher of a post about outlining. Use it. Abuse it. Ignore it.

And, if you like it, share it.

We’ll talk more about outlines and plotting as the month goes on — in the meantime, remember that I do want you to try at least one of these methods, just for fucks and chuckles. We will in fact be tracking some of this stuff and — if you’re brave — posting them online. (We’ll check back in a couple weeks on that front.)

I will never not give blog space to Kameron Hurley, because Kameron Hurley is a whip-crack crotch-kick of a writer. She is amazing, and she is welcome here forever. (I mean, it doesn’t help that she stole the keys to the blog and made herself a copy.) Read her books. But read this first.

* * *

I’ve given up on a lot of things in my life: Relationships. Carbs. Being an astronaut. Adjunct teaching. Running for “fun.” Most things concocted at Taco Bell.

What I never gave up on is pursuing a career as a writer.

And when I look at all the other things in life I gave up on, I wonder why it is that I’ve been willing to stick with something that has been, at times, more brutal than the worst relationship, more punishing to my body than carbs, and certainly not nearly as tasty as some of the scariest shit at Taco Bell.

Why do some writers persist, and some writers – many of them the most talented and promising writers I’ve ever known– quit?

It’s a question I ask myself the longer I work in the business. And it’s a question I get from a lot of colleagues and fans the longer I persist.

This is a post for writers who want to make their career as writers of fiction. If you’d just like to “put something out there” or write a great book every ten years for a few thousand dollars, those are perfectly valid approaches to writing. But heads’ up that this isn’t going to be the post for you.

It took me sixteen years between my first short story sale and first novel sale, and twenty years and six published novels before I had a single year’s income that looked anything like a living wage. I still don’t write full time. The day job pays all.

Don’t I get discouraged? Don’t I look at the six and seven figure deals that some debut novelists get and cry into my cornflakes?

Sure.

But I know something many new writers, and debut novelists, don’t know: you are probably going to quit. You probably aren’t going to have a publishing contract in ten years. Those are the cold equations. Do some people get lucky right out the gate? Sure. Million dollar contracts for books that actually earn out. Six figure contracts for books that go on to be hits and give you royalties enough every year to live on. It happens. It’s not impossible.

But for the 99.9%, it’s not realistic. It’s a dream. For the 99%, like me, you are working book check to book check, hoping that the next project is the one that takes off.

If these are the sort of truths that discourage you, yes, you should probably give up now. Because you are going to hit far more roadblocks and hurdles once you have that first novel published, and more again with the second. It does not, in truth, get any easier. Signing a three-book deal in no way guarantees you will sell another. In fact, once your shine wears off, it gets much tougher, because now you’re a known quantity. Publishers can no longer pitch you like you have infinite possibilities. You often have to reinvent yourself to keep swimming. And you need to learn to run your career like a business, not a hobby, because all the people you’re working with now are certainly running their own businesses like businesses.

The truth is, there will always be times you want to give up, no matter what stage you are in the process. My fifth book is out this week, and I’m sitting here working on edits for my essay collection out next year, and I want to give up. I want to send back the advance check and just pack it all in. I don’t want to fix another broken transition. I don’t want to dig up some other reference. I don’t want to dance again in the court of public opinion with a big collection of bloody personal work that will get me eviscerated all over again. I don’t want to read another review. I don’t want to see another sales spreadsheet. I want to get a little house in the deep woods with no internet connection and never speak to another human being ever again.

And as I’m sitting here I’m thinking about how easy that would be to just give up. To say, “Nope, not doing it,” and sweep all the projects off my to-do list. I’d be poorer for it, financially, but my day job certainly pays enough to live on. I wouldn’t starve. I have that going for me.

So why not give up?

Because what would I be doing in that little house? What would I be doing if I wasn’t out here on the internet? If I wasn’t stacked up four years deep with projects? And the answer is always the same. The answer is: I’d be writing. I’d be writing anyway.

I may as well be writing here.

It’s the same thing I asked myself before I’d sold a story, and again before I sold a pro story, and again before I sold a book, and again before I sold a second series (by the skin of my teeth). At every step, I asked myself if this was worth it, or if I could better spend my time elsewhere. Because however glamorous being a writer looks from the outside, the reality is that to get here, and stay here, I have to give some things up. I have to make some sacrifices.

The answer is, and has always been, that this is worth it, because I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. It’s a singular purpose. And just for good measure, fuck all those people who said I’d never make it. Fuck all those people who said I’d give up. Fuck all those people waiting for me to fail.

A colleague of mine calls the stubbornness that keep authors in the game “grit,” and notes that those with a strong aversion to authority tend to hang in a lot longer than those who don’t. It’s the sort of person who hears, “You can’t do that,” and thinks, “You just watch me.”

This was the attitude that spurred me on through twenty years of rejections – rejections that continue to this day. It’s the attitude that gets me up at 5:00 a.m. to work on essays like this before heading off to my day job. It’s the attitude that keeps me marching toward a deadline even when I feel like I’m the worst writer in the world, and none of it’s worth it after all.

We all have a different point at which we hit absolute zero, that point at which we can’t endure another moment of knocking our heads against a publishing industry that so many treat like a slot machine, hoping that this hit, this time, will pay off. If you’re here hoping to hit it big, you will probably give up much sooner, because the reality that publishing works like a casino and not a meritocracy will be devastating.

You will come to this crossroads many times. There will never be a point in your career where you are done choosing to be here. No one wants you to be a writer more than you do. So you better care about it. You better care about it more than anything.

Who gives up? The ones who decide they want something else more. The ones who are done with the gamble. The ones who cannot bear to fix another transition, or deal with another bad advance or mean-spirited review. The ones who give up are good writers and bad writers. Introverts and extroverts. Young and old. The ones who give up are just like me, and just like you.

But if you are going to give up, give up when it’s still easy to give up. When you haven’t invested everything, when it’s still not too late to start over somewhere else, doing something more much sane.

So go on. Give up. I dare you.

But I’m going to get back to work.

About the Author

Kameron Hurley is the author of The Worldbreaker Saga and the God’s War Trilogy. Hurley has won the Hugo Award, Kitschy Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer; she has also been a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Nebula Award, the Locus Award, BFS Award, the Gemmell Morningstar Award and the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Popular Science Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Year’s Best SF, The Lowest Heaven, and Meeting Infinity. Her nonfiction has been featured in The Atlantic, Locus Magazine, and the upcoming collection The Geek Feminist Revolution. Her newest is Empire Ascendant —

Every two thousand years, the dark star Oma appears in the sky, bringing with it a tide of death and destruction. And those who survive must contend with friends and enemies newly imbued with violent powers. The kingdom of Saiduan already lies in ruin, decimated by invaders from another world who share the faces of those they seek to destroy.

Now the nation of Dhai is under siege by the same force. Their only hope for survival lies in the hands of an illegitimate ruler and a scullery maid with a powerful – but unpredictable –magic. As the foreign Empire spreads across the world like a disease, one of their former allies takes up her Empress’s sword again to unseat them, and two enslaved scholars begin a treacherous journey home with a long-lost secret that they hope is the key to the Empire’s undoing.

But when the enemy shares your own face, who can be trusted?

In this devastating sequel to The Mirror Empire, Kameron Hurley transports us back to a land of blood mages and sentient plants, dark magic, and warfare on a scale that spans worlds.

Empire Ascendant: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

 

It is October. It is the time of skeletons, Jack-o-Lanterns, and animated scarecrows. It is the time of haunted DMVs, and jars full of teeth, and vampire driving slowly in the left lane. It is the time of zombie preschoolers with snot-slick hands running toward you at top speed, and the ghost of your disappointed father, and Miley Cyrus hosting Saturday Night Live.

IT IS THE SCARIEST MONTH, OOOOOOOOOOO.

Ahem.

Whatever.

Your job:

Recommend a scary book. Just one. And not your own.

Tell us why it scared you.

Here, let me recommend one: LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR. Scott Hawkins. I don’t even know what the fuck this book is. It’s like if Hogwarts was in America, and instead of it being a school it was actually a weirdo spirit cult, so basically it’s nothing like Harry Potter (though maybe it’s Harry Potter by way of Clive Barker?) but whatever. It has some of the trappings of urban fantasy, but it tells the story as if it’s horror — so, while it still sometimes feels like urban fantasy, it rejects some of the silliness of that subgenre and goes right for the jugular. It’s a terrifying, weird, funny, disgusting book. It features a fascinating cast of inhumans. I adored it.

YOUR TURN, GHOULFRIENDS

The complete Heartland trilogy is the Kindle Daily Deal.

All three books — meaning, yes, the latest — are $1.99 apiece.

(Actually, they’re only $0.99 if you have bought the print editions from Amazon.)

Under the Empyrean Sky

Blightborn

The Harvest

The books take place in the Heartland, a world taken over by bloodthirsty corn and ruled by a wealthy class who hover above the poor, hardscrabble Heartlanders in their floating cities.

John Hornor Jacobs described it as Star Wars meets John Steinbeck, which I think works.

I just call ’em “cornpunk.”

As I have noted in the past, the series features: people turning into plants, hobos, robot bartenders, teens with way too much responsibility, flying horses, non-flying horses, corn pirates, conspiracy, class warfare, diversity, drunken mayors, questionable fathers, blood-drinking genetically-modified corn named Hiram’s Golden Prolific, a woman called the Maize Witch, talking birds, arranged teenage marriages, pollen storms called “piss-blizzards,” sonic weapons, flying rich people, dustbowl poor people, rebellion, anarchy, love rhombuses and more.

If you like ’em, I hope you’ll check them out. And as with all my books, if you feel so inclined to leave a kind review somewhere, then you will find me squirmy with gratitude.

Oh, and TELL EVERYONE. Even your cat. Your cat who can read.

NYCC Sked

Hey, going to New York ComicCon?

ME TOO.

My schedule:

Fri. Oct. 9
1:45 – 2:45 pm Making the Impossible Possible – Authors of Science Fiction & Fantasy
Location: Room 1A05 Panels & Screenings

Fri. Oct. 9
4:30 – 5:00 pm Chuck Wendig Autographing
Location: Booth # 860 Autographing

Sat. Oct. 10
12:15 – 1:15 pm Disney-Lucasfilm Publishing Presents: Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens
Location: Room 1A21 Panels & Screenings

Sat. Oct. 10
2:00 – 2:45 pm Chuck Wendig Autographing
Location: Booth # 2104 Autographing

Sat. Oct. 10
4:00 – 5:00 pm Books to Movies Wishlist
Location: Room 1A01 Panels & Screenings

Sat. Oct. 10
5:15 – 6:15 pm Books to Movies Wishlist Autographing
Location: WORD Bookstore 1-B Autographing

Sun. Oct. 11
12:00 – 1:00 pm Lucasfilm Presents: Star Wars: A Galactic Reader’s Theatre
Location: Room 1A21 Panels & Screenings

So! Come say hi. Come get books signed. Yay.

Aftermath

Hey, did you know that Star Wars: Aftermath was again on the NYT bestseller list? Fourth week in a row, again appearing at #16 (the fours are really with this book, I gotta tell you).

Also, if you wanted to know if Aftermath was good for your kids to read, behold this review over at Read4Tweens and then you’ll have a better idea.

The Qwillery gives it a great review:

“Aftermath is everything the Star Wars universe deserves: an exhilarating, epic adventure that introduces new characters and reintroduces some old friends. It sets the stage for the highly anticipated movie, The Force Awakens, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to lovers of the Star Wars saga of any age.”

October 10th is Star Wars Reads day, and I’ll be at NYCC (see above) in support.

This one is going to be a bit different than the usual.

I want you to do the standard — write a story, keep it around 1000 words, post it at your blog, and link back here in the comments so we can all see it.

However, I want it to be a true story. Preferably, one that happened to you. Meaning, I’d like you to engage in a little creative non-fiction and write a story from your own life instead of something made up. The value of looking to our own experiences are myriad — while we should never ever feel trapped by the needless rigors of WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, we should consider that advice as an occasional opportunity.

So, you have the rules.

Find a story from your life and write it. Keep it trim. Keep it vital. Make it awesome.

Go.

[edit: due in one week, as usual — by friday, oct 9th, noon est]

Usually, folks who want to do guest posts here are writers — but I wanted a perspective from an editor, so when I recently caught up with John (who is a friend and who is someone who has edited my work in the past), I thought, hey, maybe we can hear from a freelance editor, see what he has to say to all us ink-fingered word-fumblers. Here, then, is John Adamus —

* * *

One of my favorite things to do is talk about editing, and talk about how editing makes writing better, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between writer and editor that extends far beyond deadlines or paychecks. I’ve collected some thoughts below. In no way are these set in stone for all of time and space, and in no way am I the sole authority (I’m wearing a bathrobe and slippers as I write this parenthetical), but I am hopeful these paragraphs will be helpful to someone out there.

Like writing, editing is a job that comes with assumptions that seem to bubble up in conversation:

– That an editor just presses F7 and runs spellcheck on manuscripts

–  That other people could do what an editor does, because it’s just dealing with words like in school

– That editing is an unnecessary part of writing a book, because when an author gets an agent, they edit the manuscript, or the publisher has an editor, and they edit the work

– That whatever word processor being used highlights spelling and grammar as writing happens, so an editor is redundant

– That the editor is the writer’s enemy, or some kind of obstacle to proving their quality or validity as a writer, making interaction with the editor an unnecessary combative exercise

Many of these assumptions bubble up in conversations started with the dreaded, “So what do you do?” question. They seem to appear on the horizon right after a tight smile or some kind of look and a variation of “Oh, you’re an editor, really?”

Writers can claim membership in a tribe of storytellers, a lineage with roots as far back as cave walls and shamans. But there isn’t a record of some guy looking at the cave wall saying, “No Brandon, I think the mammoth had two tusks not three, and I think the pelt was more Pantone 167 not Pantone 166.”

Editorial lineage seems to stall out for people somewhere around English teachers they hated or crusty librarians and journalists, these great caricatures of hardasses, doryphores, and know-it-alls who cavil while they dispense lethal swaths of red ink to kill creativity, hopes and dreams. It’s seldom a flattering image.

Those previously mentioned assumptions are flummery and twaddle. They are as disparaging as they are unhelpful, and they’re the fuel for engines of unchallenged lack of growth or change.

Editors do more than press F7

Editors hear this a lot, often from people who have no interest in having their work edited, or have an overall sense that editing will somehow change their work irrevocably for the worse. It’s important to remember that writers don’t just cut and paste other people’s stories, and painters don’t just color within the lines, so it’s dismissive to sum up editing as some baleful ruiner of ideas. Change is part of evolution and an editor is critical in pushing that evolution forward.

There is more to editing than pressing a single key. There’s checking grammar and spelling, yes, but also there are checks on a manuscript’s plot, dialogue, word choice, pacing, character arcs, character names, expositive flow, and consistency in consequences. There isn’t one keystroke that checks, questions, and certifies all those elements.

Clear the static from your broadcast

When I summarize what I do, I use the phrase: I “clear the static from your broadcast”, because I can liken the relationship between writer and editor to tuning in a radio station. Your book, your story, your manuscript (whatever you want to call it) exists in some state where other people won’t always easily “get” it. Ideas may be poorly expressed, words may be incorrect, concepts may be redundant … any manner of structural or expressive problems can exist. What an editor does is help refine the message, and make sure the broadcast of your manuscript to whatever destination gets received the way you want.

Gain a cheerleader

Writing is a lonely task. It happens most often in a limited exchange: fingers on keyboards, supported by cups of coffee and stacks of notes and heaps of doubt. Days and nights can be consumed by the creative process, and just as easily, the doubts and worries that what you’re doing just won’t work can swallow you whole. It’s dangerous to go alone, so take this: gain an advocate for your work. Join up with someone who will accompany you to Mount Doom that you might deliver your one ring to the fiery volcano of production. Add a bard to your retinue, someone who will tout your efforts and do their best to help show you that all those mornings when you were up before the sun, and all those nights where you shut the door on your kids and spouse (or the barking dog, ringing phone, and text messages from your significant other), were worth it. Your goal is to have a book that gets published, right? So why not do all you can to make that happen?

It’s scary to write a thing then send it off in an email, armed only with a query letter for a shield or blanket. The unknowns of rejection loom large and far too many predators exist out there who live and breathe fear and persiflage, saying that you will likely try and fail at this, so don’t bother trying after rejection. They think that by keeping you out of the clubhouse, they’ll have a better shot at the “goodies” they perceive to be exclusive.

But they’re wrong.

The clubhouse isn’t exclusive. The “goodies” aren’t finite. You’re not racing to get them before they’re all gone, this isn’t slices of pizza when you’re late for dinner. Your quest, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to produce the best book you can. No matter how long that takes. No matter what software, what pen, what paper or what chair you use. No matter where or when you write. No matter how many people think your time would be better served by not writing. You may feel motivated to write just to spite them, just to prove them wrong, but that is temporary and leads to burnout.

Motivation must come from within. This is your work, it’s not getting out of your head without you doing something proactive about it. But that’s not to say it isn’t a comfort to have someone come along and recognize your hard work. The editor can be the roadside paper cup of Gatorade during your marathon. Let us be that for you.

The word plumber

In talking to a lot of people, I hear some version of this: “Well I’m a pretty good editor, so I do that myself.” It reminds me of a night when I was a kid, and the dishwasher stopped working. My dad has never been handy, but he has been epic levels of stubborn and cheap. He walked into the kitchen and started banging the pipes with wrenches of all sizes. After a few minutes, he emerged from beneath the sink and I asked “So, do you want me to tell Mom to get the plumber on the phone?” He said, “No, I can do this myself. It’s my dishwasher, I can handle it.”

Within the hour, there was an inch of two of brackish water in the kitchen. The plumber was called just after the puddle reached the back door of the house.

So yes, you can edit your own work to a degree. Plenty of books and resources exist for you to learn to do it yourself, and yes, you are perfectly capable of cleaning up your manuscript’s spelling or punctuation. But we’re all too close to our work and even while we’re our harshest critics, we can be surprisingly blind to errors we make time and again (I, for instance, often leave words out while typing because my inner monologue narrates them, and my fingers assume I’ve already typed them.)

Calling in a professional costs you money, but you’re exchanging that money for peace of mind that the job is done correctly and that when the job is done the problem(s) have been removed. If you’re willing to call in a plumber to fix your dishwasher, because you want the best dishwasher you can have so you can do dishes, why would you think twice about hiring a professional to help your words be the best words they can be?

Now, yes, the later stages of publishing will include editors after you’ve signed your contract (this is assuming you’re going with the traditional route of publishing), so yes, you may just leave all this for later, and then slog your way through it when you get there.

But if you’re not going traditional, and you have the ability to post a manuscript to a website with a click and upload of a file, isn’t in your best interest as someone who wants sales and good reviews (which breed more sales), that the file be in its best shape possible? Are you motivated by the idea that if someone can pay money for your book, then you must be a “legit” author? Don’t chase the validation, it will erode over time and you’ll need more and more of it to feel as good. Create the best work you can, avail yourself of all the possible resources to make that happen.

It’s your book, have it your way

Because one of our first experiences with editing comes from a school class where we’re told what’s right and what’s wrong with our work, editing becomes this combat or trial by fire, where writers have to test themselves in mortal combat against story ninjas shooting ice blasts or grappling hooks before someone loses a spine. There are, sadly, whole schools of thought and training where people are taught to turn the creative process into a steep uphill climb, where scarcity is the watchword and the only shibboleth comes by navigating the caprice of gatekeepers long out of touch. I was trained in that method, and it nearly cost me a career when I went toe-to-toe with a writer (who later went on to be a New York Times best-selling author) because I had to prove how smart I was. But the writer-editor relationship isn’t about how much smarter one person is than the other. The relationship is mutually supportive, collaborative and productive.

An editor’s mission is to educe the best story from within the writer. It’s the writer’s work. I don’t get hired so that someone brings me a manuscript and I shape it into what I want to see, I help the author see what they’ve always wanted to see (or something better that they couldn’t imagine). An editor who says “you write it, and I’ll cut out what I don’t like” is not an editor you need to stay within twenty feet of. I will ask you what the writer what they want to do, I will ask to see their blueprints and road map, and while I might disagree and even counsel them to walk a different route to their goal, all my work is a suggestion on some level, my experience guided by intelligence. I don’t have to agree with their choices, my job is to support the choice being made. Changes need not automatically be accepted (oh please no, don’t do that blindly), the alteration of a single word or punctuation doesn’t need to happen, but there is a courtesy in at least reading what commentary or changes I’ve given, and talking about it. It can be as simple as “I don’t like any of it, go soak your head” or “This is awesome, thanks” or a back-and-forth where one of us explains to the other their thinking, and compromise as necessary.

Make the best book you can

No one sets out to write the worst book ever. No one wakes up and commits to writing a book without having it read by someone else, often in exchange for currency or cupcakes or some kind of services. The process of writing is an exercise in decision-making and discipline. Growing the idea from something that rattles around in your head to something that exists somewhere concrete to something that exists in a state that someone else wants to read is a challenge to self-doubt and our habits. And it’s scary.

Part of making the best book you can is arming yourself with the best knowledge you can. The internet is packed with resources: books, blogs, classes and whatever else (eventually holograms, right? We need holograms) and they’re available to you, so use them.

Another part of that is surrounding yourself with people who can help make you better: editors, agents, copyeditors, proofreaders, beta readers, writing groups, writing partners, accountability buddies, sponsors, mentors, co-conspirators are all available to you, if you’re willing to be brave enough to step away from the fear and doubt and make the declaration that you’re going to make a thing. If you’re about to say you don’t have anyone you can think of, please count me. I got your back, and I’m one guy writing this guest blog post. Also, I wear bathrobes and comfy clothes and I play video games, and if you want, I’ll cook awesome food and we can hang out. I won’t even ask you for a ride to a doctor’s appointment or to borrow stuff from your garage without returning it.

The tricky part here is that you can surround yourself with people who say good things, but no growth happens. People can love what you do, but that’s not going to help make the book happen. That’s not going to get you to stop calling yourself an “aspiring” writer. Are you writing? Then you’re a writer.

Avoid the echo chamber

The internet is a huge place full of furious roads and dystopic wastelands. In order to cope with its expanse, we return to our roots as tribal primates and build communities. Over time, and given limited influx of new viewpoints, those communities can become echo chambers, whirlpools of masturbatory praise and flatulence sniffing where the status quo goes unchallenged and growth stalls.

And that growth is critical. It’s what pushes into new efforts, it’s how we get better and level up our skills (so presumably we get good enough to turn undead or have a honey badger for an animal companion. I would name mine Clyde.)

An editor, as a new entrant into your community of creativity, brings two assets with them: an ability to say “No”, and an ability to motivate. Nobody likes hearing “No”, but it’s the negative that can lead us to change, the same way rejection can prompt a new attempt. If a community is built out of people who only say “Yes” it’s much harder to develop. This is not to say your mom, your spouse, that nice coworker, and that friend you’ve made every morning when you wait for a latte can’t read your book and cheer you on, but they’re not going to be critical. I mean, these people love you on some level that will prevent them from saying that your plot is hollow and your character is as well-crafted as a sweatshop knockoff brand sneaker. They might just call the whole thing “interesting” and tell you they liked it, but they’re not going to get their hands dirty. That’s where an objective outside opinion can come in. Yes, that’s also a great way for you to insulate yourself (“The editor just didn’t get it.”), but that’s just cowardice, that’s fear talking. And you, creative person, are greater than your fears. You challenge them every time you put a word on a page.

You expected editing tips? Here you go

I’ve tried to write the preceding two thousand or so words without talking about myself, which has proven difficult, since I like talking about myself, and it gives me a chance to help people. If you follow me on Twitter (@awesome_john), I do a lot of “writing tweets”, which are digestible pieces of information about writing or publishing. Often they’re motivation, reminders not to give up or encouragement to write even when you would rather clean toilets after a Mexican lunch at an IBS symposium. So here, have some writing tips that run a little longer than 140 characters:

Mind your pronouns. When you have two characters of the same gender in a scene, and they’re interacting, it’s critical for the reader to keep them separate and distinct in their mind. Suppose you have two women, maybe they’re sisters, and they’re talking. Your exposition has this sentence: “When she came across her photo album, she froze.” Which “she” is which? Who did what action? Whose album is it?

Stop building “And” centipedes. How many and+verbs are you going to use in a single thought, let alone a single sentence? “I went to the store and I got eggs and they were out of milk and then I bought a candy bar and then I stared at that ugly baby and then I thought about why we call radishes radishes and I got lost in the frozen food aisle and then I ran into my friend Patrice.” Chaining all those actions together creates the idea that all those ideas are equal in weight and importance. Also it’s a slow read. When a person (who isn’t a cute child) speaks to us this way, we’re bored. And boredom makes readers leave books behind. Challenge yourself any time you want to trail a lot of and+verbs in a single sentence or idea.

Purge these words from your writing and watch your writing sharpen: that | really | just | very | kind of | a little | sort of | Like all those adverbs you’re already burning with fire, these words add qualifiers and description that could be better accomplished with stronger verbs or different sentences. Anyone can describe using clichés and tired expressions, but you’re you, and through your word choices (which are framed in your experiences as a reader and a liver of life), you can ditch the common expression for one unique to you.

I am ever so grateful, lucky, and privileged for the chance to write this guest blog post. I do my best to put material like this on my own blog (http://writernextdoor.com), in between all the life-stuff I talk about. Let me leave you with one last thought.

It is through words that we find ourselves. We use language as a tool of discovery, a tool of experience and as a tool of forging ourselves a path in life. We too often mark our lives by our hardships and failures, and sometimes we are hesitant to call attention to our successes out of fear we will be thought of as arrogant or selfish. But it is neither arrogant nor selfish to take a moment for positivity. It may feel foreign or hokey, I know it does for me, but it is okay to give yourself a gold star when something goes right. Consider this sentence your permission slip. Our ability to share stories and transcend boundaries through creativity elevate us from bipeds wearing pants to true wizards, Istari with adjectives and a burning passion engage other people with story paintings we can draw in their minds.

You may not always feel good enough to do be a writer. You may feel discouraged. You may look at your friends’ successes and wonder if you will ever come close to that. You may look at your life outside and beyond your creative projects and wonder if you have enough time. You may spend nights and days and afternoons angry or scared that precious time is wasting because you’re not writing that paragraph or that chapter or even that word. You may wish for a TARDIS, and mastery over chronology. You may wish for superpowers to write faster, or greater intelligence to conceive of better ideas. You’d not be able to even have those wishes without people creating TARDISes and superpowers so you could be aware of lacking them. The story you’re telling, the thing you’re making, it will be what inspires someone else down the road. You need only keep writing it and then make sure people know it exists.

Let’s all keep doing our best for as long as we can. Let’s believe in each other. Let’s support one another. Let’s tell the best stories we can.

I’M JOHN ADAMUS, I’m the Writer Next Door, and I help people make ideas turn into projects. Whether that’s a novel, novella, script, role-playing game, radio drama, ad copy, teleplay, anthology … I usually say, “If it has words, I can help you make something with them.”