Writing a trilogy is tricky business. I just finished writing my first official one (the Heartland series, with The Harvest being the final book coming out in July), and I’m still not sure how to codify it, yet. So when Gareth said he’d like to take the bullet, hey, who am I to stop him? So, here he is to talk about what it takes to write a trilogy:

* * *

January 2015 saw the UK and US release of Macaque Attack from Solaris Books, the third novel in a trilogy that began with the BSFA Award-winning Ack-Ack Macaque in 2013, and continued with last year’s Hive Monkey. While I had previously written a couple of standalone space operas, these three ‘monkey books’ represented my first complete series, and I learned three main things while writing them.

1. CHARACTER ARCS

If you’re embarking on a multi-book epic, you need to make sure you’re writing about some compelling characters. Writing a trilogy is a huge commitment. Each of the books in the ‘Macaque’ trilogy took six months to write, which meant spending a year and a half of writing time immersed in the same fictional universe, in the company of the same fictional individuals.

And what I learned was this: if you’re going to be spending a lot of time – potentially years – in their heads, you have to give them the potential to develop and grow in interesting ways. Otherwise, you’re going to get bored of them, and if you do, you can be sure your readers will as well.

In the Macaque books, each of the characters has an arc that runs through the trilogy. For Ack-Ack Macaque, the titular simian at the centre of much of the action, that arc is a journey that takes him from loner to family man. He starts off as a traumatized escapee from a laboratory, angry and liable to lash out at the slightest provocation; and ends up (having gradually lowered his defences and allowed friends into his life) older, calmer and wiser. He goes from being indestructible and reckless to mortal and all-too-human, but gains so much along the way. He comes to understand the world, the true cost of his actions, and gathers around him a strange, barely functional ‘family’ of damaged individuals. In this sense, his story is the same one we all go through – of growing up, accumulating responsibilities and scars, and building meaningful relationships.

The other major character, Victoria Valois, is on the opposite journey. At the start of book one, she has lost her husband to a particularly brutal murderer. Through the course of the trilogy, she has to come to terms with this loss – a process made complicated by the presence of his electronic ‘ghost’, a self-aware download of his personality, taken shortly before his death. Her journey is one of shock, denial, grief and vengeance; but at the same time, it is one of empowerment. Through her pain and the situations in which she finds herself, she grows in confidence, ability and self-reliance.

These dual character arcs reflected and illustrated the main themes of the books, and allowed me to significantly change and develop the characters in each volume, creating an ongoing story over and above the main ‘plot’ of each novel. And the response I’ve had from readers has been fantastic, especially in Victoria’s case. A lot of people have been able to identify with her journey from lost and damaged accident victim to self-confident and resourceful badass.

2. CONTINUITY VS STANDALONE

With a series, it’s sometimes hard to know how much knowledge of previous installments you should assume on the part of the audience. Will everybody who picks up book three have read books one and two? How much should you recap and explain in order for them to enjoy reading it? And how much can you afford to explain before you start to bore those readers who’ve stuck with you from the beginning?

While the three books in the Macaque trilogy tell one continuous story, I also wanted to make each of them as accessible as possible to the casual reader. Therefore, each book opens with a short paragraph outlining the origin of the story’s world – a timeline where Great Britain and France merges in 1959. Beyond that, each book has its own self-contained adventure, with a beginning, middle and end, and it is the characters that provide the continuity and back story, via dialogue and moments of reflection.

I hope each book can be read and enjoyed on its own terms, but knowledge of the preceding books definitely adds to the understanding and enjoyment of the later volumes.

This is particularly true in Macaque Attack, in which characters from one of my earlier space operas [The Recollection, Solaris Books, 2011] make a surprise appearance. You don’t need to have read the space opera in order to enjoy the action, but you’ll get a lot more out of the story if you have.

3. EACH INSTALLMENT NEEDS TO CHANGE THE GAME

One of the things I was determined not to do was write the same book three times. If this was to be a trilogy, each book needed to add something significant. It had to justify its existence.

After book one introduced the world and brought the characters together, book two needed to turn everything on its head, introducing us to the darker side of our hairy protagonist, and the paths he might otherwise have taken. Then, with book three, I had to take everything up another notch, while simultaneously harking back to the beginning of book one, and the themes that had kicked everything off in the first place.

I had to provide a fitting conclusion while simultaneously tying up all the loose ends from books one and two, and bringing each character’s emotional and developmental journeys to a satisfying close.

TO RECAP:

1. Characters need to be strong enough to carry the weight of the story and hold the attention of the reader. They have to be characters we want to follow and find out more about.

2. Decide how accessible you want each volume to be for readers new to the series.

3. Each volume of the trilogy has to justify its position. It has to bring something new to the party – a new piece of the puzzle, more trouble for our protagonists, something we haven’t seen before. Think about the Empire Strikes Back and how it deepened and darkened the Star Wars universe after the bright optimism of A New Hope – every installment of your trilogy has to similarly turn the tables on the characters and the reader, taking the plot, the tension, the stakes, and the development of the characters themselves, up to a whole other level.

* * *

Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author from the UK. His third novel, Ack-Ack Macaque, co-won the 2013 BSFA Award for Best Novel (tying with Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice). He has also had shorter work featured in Interzone and 2000 AD. You can find more of his writing advice at www.garethlpowell.com, or follow him on Twitter at @garethlpowell.

The Guardian asks the riveting, entirely original, never-before asked question:

“Why are so many adults reading YA and teen fiction?”

And I, alone, have the answer.

Me. The brave one. Who plumbs the depths none would dare.

I have done rigorous scientific testing with beakers.

I have traveled the earth and gone in many caves.

I have fought three bears.

I have consumed exotic poisons.

I have even been a teenager once, maybe, probably, I dunno.

And the answer is —

*reveals envelope*

*opens envelope*

*a smaller version of me climbs out*

*the smaller version of me hands the larger version of me a microphone*

*clears throat into mic*

*taps mic*

The answer is:

Because a lot of YA and teen fiction is really, really good.

*flings microphone in a lake*

Adam Christopher is a deviant and a murderer and must be — *checks notes* — wait, that can’t be right. Oh! Ah. Yes. Adam Christopher writes some of the most delightfully fun books I’ve read, and in addition, I’m pleased to call him a friend as well as my fellow co-writer of the upcoming reboot of Dark Circle’s THE SHIELD comic. So, anytime Adam wants to stop by here, he’s welcome — this time, he’s swinging by to talk about the intersection between fan-fiction and tie-in-fiction, just in time for the release of his new tie-in: Elementary: The Ghost Line.

* * *

Storytime.

In 1985, I turned seven. That same year, Television New Zealand began a repeat season of a show my parents — who had seen it back in the UK — thought I would like.

That show was Doctor Who, and from the first night of that repeat run (a double-bill of The Mind Robber parts one and two), I was most certainly hooked.

No, more than hooked. Doctor Who was an interest that turned to obsession when I discovered my school library had a huge collection of Doctor Who Target novelizations. For several years—quite possibly to the dismay of parents and teachers alike—I would read nothing else.

I also began to write.

My favorite Doctor Who author was—still is—Terrance Dicks. He wrote most of the Target books, and by coincidence, had been script editor on the exact period of the show I was then watching on TV. His books were journeys of pure wonder, and the weekly adventures of the Third Doctor on the small screen sent my imagination into a spin.

Back then, writing was actually part of every school day. We wrote whatever the hell we wanted. No rules, no restrictions. This class of seven-year-olds was told to let rip.

I still have a couple of journals from that year and, with rare exception, everything within is Doctor Who. If you step back and hold them up and squint a bit you might be generous enough to call them “original”, but really they’re a bizarre mash-up of whatever episode was on TV that week and my own wild tales of space adventure.

But it was a start.

Flashforward (cue the montage). Interests and ambitions waxed and waned. Exciting adventures with Daleks, Cybermen, and the last xerophyte survivors of Zolfa-Thura were hardly suitable for creative writing in high school English, but my love of the show endured even if my fiction output (thankfully) broadened in scope.

Then one day I discovered there was a New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club. The fan club had a fanzine. The fanzine published fan fiction.

So I sat down and wrote a short Doctor Who story. I wrote another, and then some more. I submitted. I was rejected. A lot. I kept writing. I kept submitting. I kept getting rejections but those rejections started coming with editorial notes.

Then I was accepted. I kept working on my craft, and soon the acceptances began to outnumber the rejections.

My first published fiction was Doctor Who fan fiction. Writing that fiction taught me… well, it taught me everything. It taught me about storytelling, about plot, about characters, themes, voice. The whole shebang.

Thirty years after those first steps into creative writing, I’m a professional writer. I’ve had five novels published, another five or six under contract, a couple of comics on the boil, and I’m doing what I love to do.

I think my seven-year-old self would be pretty pleased with how things turned out.

TIE-IN FICTION IS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FAN FICTION…

According to Wikipedia, a tie-in is:

“… a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original property, and are a form of cross-promotion used primarily to generate additional income from that property and to promote its visibility.”

Those Target Doctor Who novelizations I devoured as a kid are one of the best examples of the tie-in — they even say they are TV tie-ins, boldly and, I think to like, rather proudly, on the back cover. I read them because I was a fan of the TV show, but the TV show wasn’t enough.

I wanted more.

Perhaps that’s a defining feature of fans: we want more. Whether it’s Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Fringe, Supernatural, South Park, World of Warcraft, Pacific Rim or Beverly Hills: 90210, there is a chunk of the audience—a sizeable chunk—who want to go beyond the source material. Tie-ins are an important part of collective fan experience.

But there’s something which tie-ins are not.

They are not fan fiction.

And I don’t mean they’re not fan fiction because they are officially approved and legally published, and the writer gets paid professional rates to write them. Tie-ins are not fan fiction because it unreasonable—even impossible—to expect the writers to be fans of the property in question.

Sure, the writer needs to know the property. If they don’t, it’ll show, with disastrous results. And if a writer doesn’t like the property, then it’ll be a miserable experience for everyone—writer and reader alike.

But writers are professionals and tie-in fiction is one of the different kinds of jobs available to us. The writer must therefore fulfill the brief to the satisfaction of the license owner, and they have to craft a story that people want to read.

But hey, we’re professionals. That’s all part of the job.

All of which means: the writer doesn’t need to be fan. A property can be learned. Help is available too—script, story bibles, development notes, concordances. And there’s the source material, of course—the film that is going to be novelized, eighty-nine episodes of the TV series, the console game and the art book. All of this material is available to the writer, and part of the job of writing a tie-in is to study it, and study it well.

Let’s go back to Terrance Dicks. I’m lucky enough to have met him—my seven-year-old self can’t stop grinning from ear to ear—and when I did, I learned one important thing.

Terrance Dicks is not a Doctor Who fan.

This is a man who has written more Doctor Who than anyone else, who has shaped the childhoods of millions of people like me. When I really boil it down, I’m a writer because of Terrance. I owe him everything.

But… he’s not a fan. He’s a professional who was doing his job, and doing it well. He has an in-depth knowledge of the show. He knows what makes Doctor Who tick. He has an untold wealth of experience from working on the program itself.

His books are the best Doctor Who books. They were my favorites when I was growing up, and they are my favorites now.

But Terrance Dicks is a professional, not a fan, and that’s the primary qualification requires to write tie-in fiction, because tie-in fiction is not fan fiction.

…BUT IT DOESN’T HURT IF IT IS

This year, my first official tie-in novel comes out. It’s not a Doctor Who book—that particular ambition is still high on the bucket list—but an original novel based on the CBS TV show Elementary, which stars Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Joan Watson in a modern interpretation of the Holmes mythos, swapping 19^th century London for 21^st century New York City.

I’m a professional writer, and this was another book contract. It also just happened that, Doctor Who aside, Elementary is my favorite TV show. The program sunk its claws deep into that particular part of my brain from the very start.

In fact, you could call me a fan.

Being a fan has some advantages. Elementary is a show I know inside-out and back-to-front. I know the universe, I know the characters, I know the stories. More importantly, I know how these three factors come together to create something unique to the show.

Knowing what makes Elementary tick gave me a hell of a head-start on the novel. Sure, I had all the help I needed—all the episodes at my fingertips, scripts, the top-secret story bible. These were valuable assets, but they weren’t a crutch. They were there when I needed them—and I did need them—but I was able to get to work straight away, with confidence and excitement.

Being a fan of a property will show in the finished work, and while this is a good thing, it can also be bad.

The good thing is that the tie-in should feel like the real deal. This is the most important thing about tie-ins. There are tie-ins where the book bears little resemblance to the show or movie the reader loves love, despite using all the right characters and all the right locations and all the right plots. If a fan knows the property, they’ll know how the property should feel. If the reader isn’t a fan, they’ll still be able to pick it up, even subconsciously.

The tie-in will feel right.

But being a fan can be dangerous. Fans can get carried away, the resulting work being indulgent and conceited, packed with every reference and obscurity imaginable. That’s when a tie-in truly becomes fan fiction—fiction that only a fan can read, or even understand.

I’ve read a few of these. They aren’t pretty.

TIE-IN FICTION IS EASY

The characters are ready-made. The universe is provided, fully-furnished with en suite bathroom and sea views. The story fits a formula, a template carefully constructed by the creators.

All you have to do is write. You know how it all works. You know what makes Stargate: SG1 Stargate SG:1 and Murder, She Wrote Murder, She Wrote. Get it right, understand the property, and it writes itself. All you are doing is transcribing the wild adventures that you can see in crystal clear 4K UHD in your mind’s eye.

Writing tie-in fiction is a piece of cake.

TIE-IN FICTION IS HARD

…but if you get it wrong, you’re in trouble. Star Trek fans want to read about the continuing voyages of the Enterprise or, erm, Voyager, and they want to see what their favorite characters will do and how they will tackle whatever diabolical obstacle course the writer has carefully laid out for them.

Listen, very carefully. This is important.

We’re in some very treacherous waters here, because what we’re talking about here are favorite characters. Fictional creations, brought to life on the screen by talented professionals in performances that people not only love and have loved for decades, but feel they own themselves. It could be Harrison Ford as Han Solo, William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.

Which means one thing: the writer has to get it right.

Plot and story is largely incidental, so long as you’re within the boundaries of the property. Story may be King, but with tie-ins, character is God-Emperor.

And make no mistake, capturing the essence of a character that has been long-established by someone else—whether it’s another writer or showrunner or actor—is hard work. It requires study. It requires the writer to be at the top of their game.

Writing a good tie-in novel is damn hard work. Immensely rewarding, fantastically satisfying, and the best fun ever.

But, boy, it ain’t easy.

SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEW AUDIENCE

Some writers make their break in tie-in fiction, but often they’ll come in with their own steadily climbing back catalogue of “original” fiction. That back catalogue—and that writer—will have their own readership, their own fans.

Tie-in fiction comes with its own audience—the audience of the show or the film, the readership of the last two hundred novels in the series. While an author will bring their own readership to the property, they also be introducing themselves to a whole new audience.

That audience might be huge. Tie-in novels frequently appear on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s possible for the writer to reach many new readers; if the tie-in is in a genre they haven’t previously written for, that potential pool is even bigger.

New writers, new readers. Tie-in fiction is an opportunity for both sides to discover something new and wonderful.

It doesn’t get more exciting than that.

TIE-IN FICTION EXISTS IN A WEIRD TWILIGHT ZONE 

Tie-ins have been around forever, and in the past they’ve been overlooked, even sneered at. They’re not real books, some would argue. They’re not original novels, they are a lesser form of fiction and they are easy and lazy because most of the work has been done for the writer. The writer doesn’t hold the copyright, doesn’t get paid that much, the royalties are terrible—if there are royalties at all.

There are exceptions, but tie-ins don’t usually appear on This Year’s Most Anticipated Books That Will Save Civilization As We Know It! lists. They tend to be skipped over for Last Year’s Books That Blew My Mind And Changed My Life Forever! lists. They don’t win awards. They aren’t even considered for them, unless there is a specific tie-in category.

For the writer, there is a strange period of quiet prior to release. There are no Advance Reader Copies and there are no advance readers. There are no early reviews. The day the book is on the shelf in the store is the day that anyone will be able to get hold of it.

In a way, this means that tie-ins are genuinely books for readers. They come with no preconceptions, no baggage. Only a sense of excitement and anticipation.

…BUT TIE-IN FICTION IS STILL ORIGINAL FICTION AND, Y’KNOW, JUST AS WORTHY

Look, let’s quit with the literary snobbery. Tie-ins are not some “lesser” form of fiction. That’s ridiculous. Tie-ins are “original”. There is no flow-chart or algorithm to follow, no random number generator that will fill in the plot while the author merely pilots the pre-existing characters through it with one eye on the clock.

A tie-in novel is exactly that: a novel. It’s the blood, sweat and tears of the author. It’s the work of the writer trying very hard to write the best thing they ever have. It’s long hours and late nights and office walls covered with post-it notes.

Just like any other novel. And just like any other novel, a tie-in is something a writer should be proud of. This is creation out of nothing, art out of thin air. Yes, with a tie-in the writer is supplied with a toolkit and a few blueprints, but the novel is theirs, the story is theirs. 

BUT ABOVE ALL, TIE-IN FICTION IS HELLA GOOD TIMES

Tie-in fiction is a celebration. Tie-in fiction is the opportunity for a writer to work—and play—in an amazing world that is beloved by millions. It’s a privilege and an honor to be given the keys.

Tie-in fiction is the chance for fans to explore new horizons, new stories, to see their favorite characters face new challenges and defeat new enemies.

Tie-in fiction is hands-down, pedal-to-the-metal fun. It’s a real joy, for the writer and the reader both. Tie-in fiction is for readers who want more, and there is no way on Earth that can be a bad thing.

I love tie-in fiction. I grew up with it. My home is filled with shelves of it. And now I’m writing it.

Seven-year-old me would be very, very happy.

ELEMENTARY: THE GHOST LINE

A summons to a bullet-riddled body in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment marks the start of a new case for consulting detectives Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson. The victim is a subway train driver with a hidden stash of money and a strange Colombian connection, but why would someone kill him and leave a fortune behind? 

The search for the truth will lead the sleuths deep into the hidden underground tunnels beneath New York City, where answers — and more bodies — may well await them…

Adam Christopher: Website | Twitter

Elementary: The Ghost Line: Excerpt | Amazon | B&N | iBooks 

Over the weekend I saw someone on Facebook opining about how someone unfriended them and they wouldn’t dare unfriend people that quickly and what’s wrong with that other person and, I dunno, at some point there I faded out, took a nap, and woke up seven hours later in a snowy field covered in a space blanket and somebody else’s blood?

That last part isn’t really relevant, so we’ll just pretend I didn’t say it.

*wipes two Jedi proctologist fingers across the air, hoping you’ll forget*

What’s relevant is that I’ll unfollow/unfriend people like that.

*snaps Jedi fingers, accidentally breaks someone’s neck with The Force, oops*

I thought it might be interesting to codify my social media “rules” — which are as ironclad as a jar of marshmallow fluff, which are as eternal as a fruit fly’s sexual maturity, which I fail at as often as I succeed — here on the BLOGGEREL CAROUSEL known as ye olde terryblemynds.

1. The Unfollow Button Is On A Hair Trigger With Me

I don’t think twice about unfriending or unfollowing people on This Here Internet. I have an almost sociopathic bridge-burner mindset when it comes to social media, and sometimes it makes me feel cruel — like an emperor who whimsically thrusts his thumb up or down in order to decide whether or not you’ll plunge into the pit of syphilitic tigers I have raised from cubs (and apparently, given syphilis to?). But truth is, me following you is not that exciting, so I’m pretty fast on the trigger when it comes to ejecting people from my feed.

Let me unpack this a little, because I think it suggests I’m a total asshole (which may be accurate!). But the logic for it goes a little bit like this:

I view my social media landscape as equal parts “my backyard” and “the radio stations I listen to in the car.” It is curated. It is me attempting to filter signal out of noise. It’s me attempting to make sure I have the right ratio of voices on my radio and guests at my backyard BBQ bondage orgy bacchanalia. In other words…

It’s all about me.

I recognize that social media runs the risk of granting us all our own little echo chambers. We cultivate little gardens of foods we’ve already tried and won’t take a bite of a funny looking vegetable despite the wisdom of expanding our palates. But social media for me doesn’t work well as an ideological melting pot. I think you have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to not really want to hear it. That’s not to say I dislike you, or don’t believe you possess the right — but there comes a point where if your feed feels like I’m rubbing my hand the wrong way on a shark, where it feels like hot sandpaper-on-sandpaper action, I’m gonna to cut you loose. (This is doubly true if your only function online seems to be: “Show up wherever I’m at, and disagree noisily.”)

(I should also note that my social media feed goes well beyond family — it contains a wealth of people who I have literally never met. If I’ve actually met you or know you in some capacity, I’m a lot slower on the EJECT button. But if you’re Just Some Person, then I’m quick with the tiger pit.)

I will at times aggressively prune my follow/friend list like a meth addict tending to his bonsai tree. I go online to delve into social media to have fun and be funny and, yes, at times try to engage in deeper conversation. Largely, though? I use it for enjoyment. Mirth. It’s like, I don’t hate-watch television shows just to watch them. I read books that try to expand my mind and my experience, but I still have to dig the book. My social media feed is very much like that.

And if I feel like for some reason it’s just not a good fit, I will silently bid you a fond farewell.

NOW PLEASE TO MEET MY TIGERS: MISTER STRIPEY AND LASERFANG THE MIGHTY.

2. I Follow For A Lot Of Reasons But Mostly It’s Because You’re Funny

If you’re funny, I’ll probably follow you.

This is not a cue for you to try to tweet funny things at me.

It’s not that you’re not funny. It’s that I have a particular sense of humor. I don’t even know how to describe it. Some shit makes me laugh. Some shit doesn’t. Yes, yes, I’ll follow you too if I think you’re a good writer or a nice person or blah blah blah. But if a RT comes into my feed and it makes me BFLOL (bona fide laugh out loud), I’m in. I’m your Huckleberry.

3. Be A Fountain, Not A Drain

I try to be positive about things online because being online is frequently a big drain. It’s very easy to get swept into the sewer online and suddenly everything is GLOBAL WARMING and LOOK DEAD CHILDREN and HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT GAMERGATE DID THIS WEEK, THEY GLOBAL WARMED A BUNCH OF DEAD KIDS and too much of that makes my sphincter clench up hard enough to bend a drainpipe. Let’s be honest: the Internet can be kinda fucking depressing.

So, I try to introduce into it a positive voice. Not universally, but even when I’m waggling my toes in septic waters I try to at least be a little funny about it.

This is true too in how I talk about pop culture. I try to remember that even if I don’t like something, someone else probably did like it — hell, someone else probably loved it. I might think your shoes are ugly, but I’m not going to pop a squat over them — you like them, so what’s the problem? I will make my own shoe statement by wearing the shoes I like to wear, and when I discuss shoes, I will discuss them as if these are my feelings and not my expert opinion because really, what the fuck do I know about shoes?

4. I Keep Self-Promo Original And Minimal

Self-promotion is part of being Author Human Who Authors Things.

(Read: Brian McClellan on the tricky relationship an author has with self-promotion.)

As such, I have to do it. I have to do the Booky-Book Dance.

And I assume if you’re following me, an Author Person, you will gladly submit to and even sometimes expect a little self-promotion. Ah, but here’s what I also assume:

I assume you don’t want to be bludgeoned about the head and neck with it.

Further, I remember that I am ultimately a storyteller and an entertainer and it is my job to WORD THINGS GOOD, so if I cannot bring a little style and panache to my self-promotional efforts, then what good am I? So, if I’m going to pollute your feeds with my own Narcissistic emissions, the hope is that I will do it in a way that is both painless and perhaps even amusing or informative.

5. The Imperfect Ratio

Very, very roughly, here is the ratio I try to live by online:

10% self promotion

30% signal boosting

20% me talking about writing stuff

40% who the fuck knows just gimme the mic

It’s that 40% that I particularly enjoy, where I’m going to talk about… mmmyeah whatever I want to. I’ll talk about B-Dub or my dog or that TV show or the coffee I’m drinking or I’ll just shout incoherent things at the screen in PURE ADRENALIN-LACED HOT CAPSLOCK ACTION or instead i won’t use capitol letters at all or even punctuation.

Or maybe I’ll just tweet a strange photo at you.

Or engage in hashtag memes or:

*places funny action inside asterisks*

I don’t know. It’s the Wild West out there. AND I’M “TWO PISTOLS” WENDIG FLINGING BULLETS OF PURE WEIRDNESS IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION oh god those weren’t weird bullets those were real bullets weren’t they.

*quietly flings both pistols into a shrub*

*kicks dirt on corpse*

*casually backs out of the scene*

6. It’s Okay That I Offend You (Long As I Don’t Hurt You)

My social media feed, which includes this blog, is NSFW.

It may even be NSFL.

I offend people.

I get messages about how I offend people, often because I like to use naughty language.

And honestly, I don’t care.

Offense is easy. It’s shallow as a spit puddle, offense. Offense is cheap-as-free: you can be offended at how somebody’s dog is looking at you, you can take offense at somebody’s shitbutt sweater. I have been offended at the way a tree just sits there. Judging me. Stupid tree. With its stupid leaves and its condescending bark. PUTTING ON AIRS. I see you, tree. I am offended by you.

That tree doesn’t give a root that I am offended.

Nor should it.

Where I worry is when I veer into hurtful territory. We like to make hay about how words are just words, but when writers say this, I want to poke them in the eye and remind them that words have power and that’s pretty much the entire core of what it means to be a writer in the first place. If you don’t think words matter, you should stop committing so many of them to paper.

The line between offensive and hurtful is broad, but blurry, and it’s easy to traipse over it and go too far — I’ve done it, others have done it, and when called on it, I like to think I’m responsive and responsible, where appropriate.

7. Social Media Easily Weaponizes Shame

Social media affords us a fascinating ability — the power of the mob. The power of the mob is not a thing I say lightly, and it’s not a thing I say dismissively. The mob is a force of nature, and must be respected. It is neither good nor evil. It can be used for good, and can be used for ill. The mob throughout history has moved the needle toward acquiring freedoms for people, and it’s also gone the other direction and taken freedoms away.

Online, ideas move fast. You can say some dumb shit online, get on a plane, and hours later your career is over and your life is set spinning like a top (and there’s even a hashtag devoted to your now-eternal oopsie). I’m the first to admit that sometimes, bad ideas and toxic people need to get burned, but I also realize that I’m not very comfortable being the one constantly flinging gasoline and lit matches. Because everything moves fast here, the mob mentality moves fast with it. Let he who is without sin HA HA WHAT I CANNOT HEAR YOU OVER ALL THESE STONES I’M THROWING MAN THESE STONES ARE JUST EVERYWHERE AND SO EASY TO PICK UP AND FLING

Ahem. That’s not to say every opinion is worth listening to. Or even respecting. It’s not. That’s bullshit. There genuinely exists a lot of straight-up poison out there, and you are under no obligation to share it, respond to it, or drink it up and let it sicken you.

But I just try to remember at times that shame is very easy to weaponize on These Here Internets. It’s very easy to want people to feel bad about what they’ve done — and calling them out is probably also not a very good way to make them feel bad about it. I have to be doubly cautious of this because, as someone with a larger social media footprint than some, it’s easy for me to mobilize the troops even without meaning to. (“Hey, look at this bad review.” “WE HAVE BROUGHT YOU THE REVIEW’S CORPSE. COOKIE NOW?”)

8. The Three Pillars

So, with that said, I try to remember three traits I try possess while socially mediaing:

Empathy.

Logic.

Nuance.

Empathy is important as it helps you imagine where people might be coming from. It’s that idea of, hey, someone ahead of you on the road is driving slow — before you bite through your steering wheel and road rage them into oblivion, try to imagine what they’re going through. Maybe they have a dog in the car. Maybe they have a stack of teacups in the backseat and if any of those teacups break, some supervillain will kill their family. You just don’t know.

Logic is important to try to suss out what things are real and not real. (This is particularly important as bad information travels just as fast as good information here. These days I see a news article going around about a girl whose cat got stuck in a tree, I’m practically paranoid about it. “WHO WROTE THIS. IS THERE A STUDY? ARE THERE INDEPENDENT WITNESSES? IS THIS PROPAGANDA FROM THE ANTI-TREE COMMISSION, OR THE CAT COALITION. WHO BENEFITS? FOLLOW THE MONEY, WENDIG. FOLLOW. THE. MONEY.”

Nuance because, hey, we really, really like things to be black and white, which is usually a pretty good reason to remember that things are not that black and white. It’s easy for us when things are simple, two-sided problems. And they rarely are. So, just try to see if there are shades of gray. I don’t mean to suggest that you should look for nuance in people who are straight up hateful trolls, but just try to get the measure of a person. Sometimes we judge folks for one slip-up and fail to look at the overall picture, at the larger pattern — it’s not all white hats and black hats out there. People usually aren’t heroes or villains. They’re just people. Except when they’re trolls.

9. I Try To Remember That It’s Okay If You Unfollow Me

Just as I am fast to unfollow folks, I have to remember to be okay with you unfollowing me.

I’ll admit that when I see someone I admire has unfollowed me, it causes a twinge in my gut — but at the same time, I have to remember: this is the point of social media. If for some reason I was too noisy or too weird or too mouthy, then more power to them for cutting my ugly square ass out of their quilt. Damn, yeah. Don’t keep giving me the microphone if you don’t want to hear what I have to say. The last thing I want is to be sand in your social media undies.

10. Yes, I Vanity Search My Own Name

Sometimes people are surprised that I do this.

Some view this as particularly sad or pathetic.

And that’s fine. I understand the inclination.

But as noted, I am Author Person. My life and my profession is very connected to social media. So, I like to know what people are saying. Not just shit-talk (though I do see some of that weekly) — but vanity searching my name has shown me news stories, blog posts, reviews, sales.

This also means that if you’re talking about me, at least on Twitter, I’m probably seeing it. At least if you use my last name, correctly-spelled. (Pro-Tip: basically nobody else in the universe has the last name of “Wendig,” and if they do, they’re related to me.)

11. I Reply When I Can But Man, That’s Getting Hard

I once had the ethos that I would thank people for retweets.

Then I had the ethos that I would reply to all tweets sent to me.

Ha ha ha ha *sob* no.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t do it for a few reasons:

a) Because my Twitter feed is a swiftly-moving river. It is no longer a lazy stream. Drop a paper boat into it, and that fucker is crushed between Scylla and Charybdis fast as you can say “first edition Iliad.” (Yes, yes, I know, Scylla and Charybdis are from The Odyssey but then the joke wouldn’t have worked and YOU KNOW WHAT JUST SHUT UP.) This means I don’t see every tweet and even when I do see it, I don’t have time to reply to everyone. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to write books. And writing books is how I pay for my mortgage. And my sex furniture.

b) Not every tweet requires a response. I try to respond to genuine questions, but a lot of times it’s just statements and… I don’t wanna just tweet “OKAY” at you. “I ACKNOWLEDGE YOU.”

c) Twitter is a jerk in that it won’t show me everything anymore. Different apps show me different sets of mentions, but ultimately — I’m just not getting them all.

12. All Roads Lead To Here

One tenet of my social media tentpole rules that remains true:

All roads take you here, to this blog.

And, ideally, to my books.

I don’t use social media and this blog just to sell books — I do this and that because I like this and that. But I also need to sell books (if only to pay for the no-kidding very-high fees associated with hosting and operating this blog). As I have said in the past:

I CAN’T EAT TWEETS.

And I have tried. The Apple logo on my iMac has a literal bite taken out of it.

Right now, this blog remains a viable location. And it’s nice because I control it, I own it, I operate it, and I can opine at needless length. So, I try to drive traffic to this place.

A central hub.

A supervillain HQ.

THE MOTHERSHIP UFO.

Anyway.

That’s it.

Them’s the rules.

Now, after that very long and probably unnecessary post, I ask:

What are your social media habits, rules, guidelines?

What ideas and behaviors govern your online existence?

Back to it, peeps.

Go, visit the page for Part Two of this challenge.

Once again we return to the four-part story you’re all choatically cumulatively writing. Your task is to go to the comments, find the second part of a continued story, and then continue it by writing the third part of that story. Three out of four parts. Not the last bit — but the penultimate one.

You have another 1000 words to do this.

Make sure to identify which story you are continuing and who the writer was.

Do not continue your own story.

Do not end this story — you’re writing the second of four total parts.

You can partake in round two even if you didn’t participate in round one.

You must finish your second entry by noon, EST, next Friday (the 27th).

If you can and the original author approves — please compile all the stories into the single page, and credit the original author. (That may save folks from having to track back through multiple links to get the whole story so far.)

Jump in, get writing. Part three awaits.

Alex Caine, a fighter by trade, is drawn into a world he never knew existed — a world he wishes he’d never found.

Alex Caine is a martial artist fighting in illegal cage matches. His powerful secret weapon is an unnatural vision that allows him to see his opponents’ moves before they know their intentions themselves. 

An enigmatic Englishman, Patrick Welby, approaches Alex after a fight and reveals, “I know your secret.” Welby shows Alex how to unleash a breathtaking realm of magic and power, drawing him into a mind-bending adventure beyond his control. And control is something Alex values above all else.

A cursed grimoire binds Alex to Uthentia, a chaotic Fey godling, who leads him towards destruction and murder, an urge Alex finds harder and harder to resist. Befriended by Silhouette, a monstrous Kin beauty, Alex sets out to recover the only things that will free him – the shards of the Darak. But that powerful stone also has the potential to unleash a catastrophe which could mean the end of the world as we know it.

***

Genres are bullshit

Thankfully, when Voyager made an offer on this series, they didn’t ask me to be too specific about what genre it is. Genre is for bookstores more than real people anyway, but I subsequently realised that it was a question I was going to get asked a lot. About the best genre description we’ve managed so far is dark urban fantasy thriller.

The books definitely delve into the arena of horror here and there; there’s magic and monsters and a modern setting, so it’s urban fantasy; and it’s fast-paced like a thriller. I’m a big fan of all those genres and more, and I like nothing better than to mash them up. But genres are bullshit and far too restricting, so I’ve learned more than ever after writing these books to take any genre description with about a heaped ladle full of salt. But I’ve also learned that people need their categories, and a good genre description is necessary.

So, dark urban fantasy thrillers.

More than 30 years of my life made a character who’s not a character

These books follow Alex Caine into a world of darkness. At the beginning, he’s a successful underground cage fighter, and he’s happy with that life. But then various events lead him into a realm of magic, monsters and complete mayhem. He navigates this nightmare largely thanks to his martial training.

Having grown up with a wise and experienced mentor, Alex learns to apply the rules and philosophies of the martial arts to these new and unusual challenges. Throughout the books, he hears the voice of his now-dead Sifu (the kung fu equivalent of a Sensei). I’m a Sifu myself, having spent more than thirty years training and teaching in the martial arts. This is why Alex Caine was such a fun character for me to write – he’s a very different person to me, but he’s grown up with a very similar set of guiding philosophies.

It turned out that through the course of these books, one of the characters I enjoyed writing the most isn’t even there – he’s just a voice in Alex’s head. So my lifetime of martial study created a character who’s not a character, but who is nonetheless absolutely essential to the series, and to Alex Caine.

Bad guys think they’re good guys

Antagonists who are two-dimensional cut-outs are boring and insulting to readers. It’s always important to me to make sure the bad guys in my books (hell, all characters in my books) are as well-developed as the heroes. This can be hard, but I’ve learned that the best way to deal with it is to always think from the bad guy’s point of view; and they never think they’re wrong.

Everyone is the hero of their own story. Bad guys may well have enough self-reflection to know they’re selfish and lack empathy, but simply because of that, they also don’t care about it. They think they’re the good guy, the justified one, entitled to what they take, because anyone else is simply not strong enough, or brave enough, or honest enough to do what they do. When I write bad guys with that in mind, they come out as interesting and compelling characters. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun to put them up against someone who can kick serious ass and has just discovered magic.

It takes a lot of reading and study to ignore everything

One of the things I wanted to do with the Alex Caine series was subvert common notions of various mythologies – fairy tales, werewolves, vampires, and so on. I wanted to reinterpret and reform those tropes and put the dark back into them. So that meant I needed to read a lot, then ignore everything I’d read. Of course, I’ve grown up reading all that stuff, but I studied more for these books. If you’re going to break rules, you need to know the rules, or you’ll just come off like a hack. It’s the same with tropes – know them to smash them.

Trust your gut, sanitize for no one!

These books, in places, are very dark. There’s a lot of strong language, by which I mean swearing. After all, a badass cage fighter isn’t likely to talk like a British blueblood. And if there are creatures who prey on humankind and eat their flesh, kinda glossing over that in the story would be disingenuous. So no matter how dark it got going down the various rabbitholes into which this story led me, I didn’t turn around. I followed them all the way down. This led to some confronting scenes and situations. All very much in context of the story and never gratuitous, but I wondered if Voyager might want me to sanitize where I had chosen not to. To their credit, they didn’t. And one reviewer said, “I am so thankful that HarperVoyager allowed the swearing and the dark fantasy/horror elements to come though…  Baxter and HarperVoyager are treating us as adults with this one and that’s refreshing…”

Fuck, yeah!

***

Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author who writes dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He lives among dairy paddocks on the beautiful south coast of NSW, Australia, with his wife, son, dog and cat. He has been a finalist in the Ditmar Awards four times, with BOUND: Alex Caine #1 currently shortlisted for the 2015 Ditmar Award for Best Novel. He also wrote the popular writer’s resource, Write The Fight Right, a short ebook about writing convincing fight scenes. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Alan Baxter: Website | Twitter | Facebook

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