Apple-Obsessed Author Fella
One of my 2014 wishes has come true —
I will be on Sword and Laser, season two.
(You can find Adam Christopher’s appearance here, for an example of the show.)
They are soliciting questions to ask YOURS TRULY for the show.
You can go here and tell them questions to ask me.
DO IT DO IT NOW
*stares*
*stares harder*
*eyes dry out*
Smell that?
*takes long sniff*
It is the first flash fiction challenge of the year.
I’VE THAT SCENT OF SHEER STORY POTENTIAL CLINGING TO THE INSIDE OF MY NOSE.
And it is wonderfully sweet.
I’d actually like to take a little moment to say I’m so happy that these challenges seem to get people writing and I’ve seen more than a few folks sell-through stories based on these challenges, which makes the brittle broken snow-globe that I call my heart twitch and shine for one second.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
All you need to do this week is to use a d20 or a random number generator to consult the table at the bottom of the document to roll for a story’s title. It’s a two-part title (meaning, two random numbers 1-20) and whatever title you get must fit the story you write for it.
You’ll have 1000 words, par usual. Post at your blog, link back here. Due in one week — January 17th, Friday — by noon EST. Easy-peasy story-squeezy.
(Example of an earlier, similar challenge here.)
The title tables are (and you’re free to put the word “The” in front of your title):
Paul S. Kemp wrote a thing the other day — “Why I Write Masculine Stories” — and it’s been kind of a fingernail clipping stuck in the bottom of my foot.
For the record, I think Paul is a fine writer and the best compliment I can pay to Hammer and the Blade is that it made me want to play D&D like, right then and there. And Paul is a progressive guy, so I don’t mean this as some sort of takedown or effigy-burning.
He says he writes masculine stories which to him means for his character:
“As a rule they’re men. They drink a lot. They sometimes womanize. They answer violence with violence. They’re courageous in the face of danger. They’re stoic in the face of challenges/pain. They have their emotions mostly in check. And they act in accordance with a code of honor of some kind. Thematic elements in a lot of my work that square with this involve the obligations of fatherhood, the depths of friendship between men who’ve faced death together, the bonds of brotherhood (figuratively). Hell, there are even damsels in distress sometimes (though I like to play with that notion and things aren’t always what they seem; see, e.g., The Hammer and the Blade). The price of faith and the difficulties of redemption appear in a lot of my work, too, but that’s neither here nor there…”
(For a variant on this: Neil Gaiman’s “All Books Have Genders.”)
I’m a guy who writes a lot of female characters (sometimes called “strong” female characters though I’d rather they just be characters who are both strong and weak who are also women because once you say “strong female character” if you find you have a frail or flawed one it becomes a point of contention instead of a point of character). Two of my favorite characters of all time are Miriam Black (everybody’s favorite “psychotic psychic,” to quote Jenn Northington of WORD Bookstore) and Atlanta Burns, my Veronica-Mars-on-Adderall character.
Miriam: drinks, sexualizes men and women, answers violence with violence, is courageous, faces issues of motherhood, and faces issues of bonding with other people. She is also bound up with issues of redemption (what her power has made her versus who she really is).
Atlanta: drinks (and takes pharmaceuticals), answers violence with violence, is courageous, is stoic, has her emotions in check (unlike Miriam, whose emotional state is described in her books as being a “garage full of cats, on fire”), deals with issues around her own mother, etc.
It’s interesting, because with Miriam in particular I’ve heard charges that she’s just a girl with a dick — meaning, she’s a man with the serial numbers filed off, written by a man, not at all resembling a woman. (Aka, “masculine,” I guess you’d say?) Those reviews always worried me because first that loose assertion that men cannot write women but moreover the fact I’ve known women like Miriam. Hell, they come to my book signings. Women who respond to Miriam, who sound like her, who curse like her.
Now, on the other hand, I’ve written Mookie Pearl, a thug enforcer who’s been a bad dude, a bad dad, and is again wrestling with that notion of redemption — and for him all those presumed “masculine” traits have been more than a little bit negative in his life. They’ve led him to the starting point of The Blue Blazes where he’s a guy whose own daughter wants to kill him, who set family aside for work, who has gone so far down the anti-hero hole he’s a pube’s width from being a straight-up antagonist. Masculinity has gotten him to this place, to some degree, and part of the third act of the book — okay, in addition to all that fighty violent apocalyptic supernatural-throwdown underneath the streets of Manhattan — is about him coming to terms with the wreckage of his life and actually acknowledging all of it. It’s about opening up and seeing his daughter and realizing what he’s made of her life and his. Is that thereby “feminine?”
If the traits that Paul lists are “masculine,” do we list their opposite as “feminine?”
Femininity: doesn’t drink, no sexualizations, no violence, cowardly in the face of danger, soft versus challenges and pain, emotions out of check, no code of honor, etc. –?
Again, I don’t think Paul is actually saying these things. But, this is why I get weird about trying to define masculinity, particularly as it relates to characters in a narrative.
Once you say: “THIS is masculine,” it’s hard not to say, “THAT is feminine.”
That can get toxic pretty quick. Particularly for those folks — a lot of us, really — who don’t fit really nicely into one slot or the other. Fiction can teach us things and if it teaches us that masculinity is XYZ and we’re a man who fits X but maybe not Y and Z, where does that leave us?
How should we feel?
No surprise then to learn that masculinity is a loaded word in my own life. My father very strongly subscribed to ideas about masculinity — which was troublesome when he had a son who didn’t fit that mode quite as cleanly as everyone maybe would’ve liked. (“Be a man!”) I still liked guns and I liked girls and all that but I also liked poetry and writing stories and tinkering with computers and I had male friends who sometimes showed up wearing skirts because, you know, that’s just how they rolled. I still got sad when sad things happened (and sometimes when sad things didn’t happen because yay teenagers), but my father came from a time and a place where men didn’t get sad. Men got angry! Men were stoic. They gritted their teeth and dealt with it.
Which also made my Dad kind of a stoppered-up bottle sometimes.
It was always weird to see my father get emotional. Our one dog died and he was sad about it. It was like watching the weather do something you’ve never seen before (“That tornado just went from vertical to horizontal CALL THE NEWS”). He would get sad at Christmas when we visited the grave of his own father. (Not that we talked about it much because he’d kinda stand there and try not to cry.) And it’s easy to be kinda mad about that until you wind that empathic thread from your heart to his and see that his ideas about masculinity weren’t something he just invented. His own father passed them down. Society gave them over to him. And it made him a harder man because of it. (His later years, before his death, this softened somewhat considerably, thankfully. Though he might not approve of that word — “softened.” Maybe let’s say he “eased off the throttle a little bit.” Or in his own parlance, “took his finger off the trigger.”)
So, obviously, I’ve got thoughts and feelings on this subject. Which is why for me masculinity may exist as a thing a character believes about himself but it isn’t a thing I believe about a character, if that makes sense (and that’s probably where Paul and I differ on that point). I don’t consider those traits — in fiction or out of it — particularly masculine. I’m more interested in getting to know a character from beyond gender-based assertions — not to say it’s not interesting to have a character dealing with those assertions inside the storyworld…
…but it just doesn’t have to be something I believe about them.
(For another look, see Sam Syke’s post — “What Is A Man?“)
Do I even need to introduce Delilah at this point? Just go look at her newest Blud novella, will you? The Damsel and the Daggerman. And actually, doesn’t Wicked After Midnight release soon… OH YES IT DOES. Anyway, here’s Lady DSD to talk more about publishing:
“But publishing would never lie to me,” you say. “Publishing takes care of me. Says I’m special. Says I’ll make enough money to retire rich without doing much work.”
Um, sorry. Are you talking about publishing? OR A PIMP?
Because publishing does indeed lie. Okay, so it’s not a six-headed beast curled around the Chrysler building in New York and vomiting forth new Nora Roberts books every time the clock at Grand Central Station chimes, and I’m definitely a disciple of going the traditional publishing route. But there are certain inaccuracies floating around that you need to know the truth about before seriously committing yourself to being a published author.
Also, don’t share needles with publishing or leave it next to your drink at a bar. Just in case.
Ha ha ha YEAH NO. Even when you’ve done it several times, even when it’s your job, even when the contract monkey is breathing down your neck and tapping its Opposable Thumb of Doom, there are still times when writing is really hard. Sometimes the first draft slogs forever or you consider yourself the newest victim of writer’s block, aka. IDONWANNA DISEASE. Sometimes you get bogged down in revisions like Atreyu tethered to Artax the Typewriter. Some days, you’ll wake up and want to quit. But easy things are worth nothing. Keep writing anyway.
Writing a book feels impossible until you’ve done it. But once you’ve finished the first one, Stephen King will appear in your bedroom with wings made of ink quills and tap you on the head with his Sceptor of Writingdom and don’t ask if that’s a euphemism. From then on, you’ll be part of the secret cabal of people who know the real truth: if you keep putting words one after the other, you’ll eventually have a book. It doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad, at first. It will need lots of work. But you need to squeeze out at least one, just so you know you can do it.
::sticks red pen into overflowing toilet:: Well, that didn’t work.
I don’t care how awesome you are, you need other eyes on your work. It can be a critique partner, a beta reader, a paid editor, an agent, or a Big Six editor, but someone who isn’t you needs to look at your finished book and help you take it to the next level. Just like in real life, most people are oblivious to their own faults. ::picks nose:: Find someone you trust, even if you have to pay them, and make sure your grammar and spelling are tip-top and that your book baby is ready to be punted out into the world.
Unless you’re one of those hermaphroditic frogs, you need people. Especially if you want to be a writer. Making relationships with other writers is a lifesaver, not only because they’re fantastic company and understand what you’re going through, but also because they are a wealth of information. Most of the tips that have leveled up my writing have come from the blogs of other authors. I find all my favorite books by what authors recommend as good reading. When you have a question about your story or career path, there are grizzled vets in the typewriter trenches who are happy to yank you down among them for a drink and chat. Never be afraid to ask questions or ask for help.
Unless the question is “Will you read my unpublished manuscript?”, in which case BE SO AFRAID THAT YOU NEVER ASK A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. Trust me on this one.
Let’s get something straight: paying a freelance editor: GOOD. Paying a freelance query company: BAD. Querying sucks, but it’s one of those things you just have to do for yourself. Paying someone to query for you is like paying a hobo to go to your job interview. Each query is an introduction, one that agents might remember for years to come. Be genuine, be smart, be flexible, but above all, be yourself. A good agent will represent you and your entire career, not just one book, and the roboqueriers are likely to make you look like a lazy idiot.
My agent doesn’t have a mustache, but she’s gotten me four book deals for a total of six books and three e-books, sold my foreign rights, and steered me away from questionable contracts. If you want to be traditionally published, an agent is almost a must, especially if you’re not a lawyer or really good with 32-page contracts in Klingon lawspeak. A good agent will help navigate your career, including helping you brainstorm new book ideas and level up our writing. On the other hand, in my opinion, a bad agent is a thousand times worse than no agent. To avoid mustachioed swindlers, do your homework before accepting representation. And if your agent relationship is fraught with arguments, unpleasantness, unresponsiveness, or outright laziness, you can always terminate your agreement and find a better one.
Some people want complete control of their career and books and would rather just self-publish or have their lawyer look at contracts, and that’s their business. If you’re happy with where you are without an agent and are selling books exactly the way you want to, don’t feel like you’ll be struck by lightning if you continue in that vein. It’s all about what helps you reach your goals. But still, watch out for lightning. ::steps away, gingerly puts down umbrella::
True story: the book that hooked my agent didn’t sell. It was on sub forever, went two rounds with an editor, and still didn’t garner a contract. Did I descend into a whirlpool of amaretto and chocolate and uglychocolatetears? Nope. I wrote the next book. Sometimes, an agent sees promise in the book you queried but wants to shelve it and work on the next book with you. Sometimes that first book won’t sell. Sometimes it will sell, but months later, after back-and-forth revisions with editors. Sometimes an editor will reject your book, notice a new trend, and call you up two years later to see if you’re game. There is no normal on how and when books sell, and there’s no guarantee that even the best agent can sell the best book.
Buuuuuuuullsheet. I’ve picked up dozens of Big Six books and been appalled at the production values, the writing, the cliches, the hollow characters, the lackluster plots, the lack of tension. Sometimes, editors buy books because they’ve been told to hit a trend while the iron was hot, even if the book isn’t perfect. Sometimes a first book bombs and the publisher decides that since no one’s going to read the sequels they’ve already paid for, they’ll just cut their losses and spend as little money and time on them as possible. And it’s often a matter of taste and that book just isn’t your thang, chicken wang. But you don’t want to be one of those writers who rants against publishers and calls out “bad books” and gets drunk at parties and yells about how the latest Dan Brown could’ve been called The Da Vinci Centipede Twenty-Two: Sucktastic Bugaloo. Just use that rage to learn from the mistakes you find in books and up your own writing so that no one ever says such horrid things about you.
Yeah, no. This ain’t the 80s, so take off that big-shouldered asymmetrical jacket and put down that keytar. The average book advance is NOBODY KNOWS BECAUSE THE FIRST RULE OF SELLING A BOOK IS NEVER TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU GOT PAID. My best guess, judging by drunken midnight conversations at con bars, is anything from $500 to $20,000 for a first book. Most of them skew $5000 or less, in my highly unofficial guesstimation. In short, you can finally paint your house, but don’t quit your day job. One of the great things about having an agent is that they can let you know if it’s a good deal or you’re being taken advantage of and can then negotiate on your behalf.
Some people are saying that three-book series are dead. Considering my latest YA sold in a two-book series, I concur. SAMPLE SIZE OF 1, BIOTCHES. As mentioned before, there is no real normal in book deals. If you have a seven-book series planned out and your agent dangles a three-book deal to editors and it sells as a standalone, don’t freak out. Publishing is super weird. You can always write more and sell them later. A book sale is a book sale. That’s also the reason most advice urges you to only write the first book in a series, even if you’ve planned fifty books and crafted your own language for the mer-orcs. Write the first one, write down your timeline, outline, or synopses, and then write a new book that has nothing to do with that first one. Why? See #7 above.
Again, HA HA HA HA NOPES MCSNOPES. Once you sign that contract, that baby is no longer yours. It belongs to your publisher. Every contract I’ve seen or signed has a clause that basically states that if you don’t revise according to your editor’s requests, they can demand you pay back your advance and shut down that deal. Which isn’t to say that they’re out to get you, because they’re not shelling out the Buzz-enjamins for poop. Together, you and your publisher will work to craft the very best book you can. They want you to succeed. But they are also legally allowed to demand changes that you didn’t foresee and that you might not like. Your job is to look at what they want and consider how best to deliver it with a book that you can be proud of. If that means you have to fight for something you really believe in, than do that. But know that there will be consequences, as editors talk amongst themselves. Bad attitudes will be remembered.
Again, your mutual goal is to produce the most beautiful, well-written, engrossing, and above all SELLABLE book that you can. That’s what publishers do as a business, and if they didn’t know (mostly!) what they’re doing, they wouldn’t exist. Your editor is not a mean jerk who wants you to be the laughingstock of the book world. In my case, a fantasy adventure became a paranormal romance with naked manchest on the cover, and although it took me a while to digest that, I eventually concluded that I had to trust my editor. If they eat babies on the weekend, that’s their own business.
Bad news, precious snowflake: if you sign with a Big Six publisher, you might get ZERO say in your covers. That’s one of the reasons some writers choose to self-publish. Depending on your publisher, your relationship with your editor, and what your agent can sneak into your contract, you might have no input, you might be asked very rudimentary questions, or you might be an integral part of the cover process. Almost every author I know has a different story. One friend got to select his cover model from three choices; they’re now Facebook pals. Two friends are graphic designers who do their own cover design—with their publishers’ final touches. As for me, no one asks my input until they have a mock-up, and then we discuss. S&S has been very generous in granting my wishes, and for my third Blud book, I whispered directly to my cover artist, as we’ve gotten to know each other over social media. Not coincidentally, it’s my favorite Blud cover. If having a say in your cover is of utmost importance to you, make sure it’s in your contract. And don’t ask for Alfred’s knickers; I’m pretty sure that’s a sex act in some countries.
Also, don’t expect to be flown anywhere, ever, until you hit the NYT list. Travel budgets are way down, and no one wants you vogueing at the cover shoot.
The slowest thing on Earth is publishing. It is slower than a quadriplegic sloth riding a dead tortoise. That’s why authors drink so much. After I sold my first book, I didn’t hear a single peep from my publisher for six months. SIX. MONTHS. And the first email was “Hey, we’re changing the title”, and the second email was “Hey, I’m leaving. Here’s your new editor.” And I freaked out x2. And everything worked out fine for me, but you simply can’t expect that the giant steampunk engine of publishing will start up at 60 MPH and morph into a bullet train. Every stage of publishing will take longer than you think. Your agent will keep your draft longer. Your editor will be late with your edit letter. You will meet your deadlines like a good little Do-Bee, but everyone else will take their sweet time. Get used to it.
Of note: the best way to stay busy? ALWAYS BE WRITING SOMETHING NEW.
Alas, your editor is human. Your entire publishing team is human. They will make mistakes. They will drop the ball. There will be disagreements. Just remember that any time you want to write an angry Unibomber manifesto email, you’re better off asking your agent to be the bad guy. If you disagree with your editor on something small about which you can remain pleasant, emailing is fine. If you are outraged, let your agent do it. For me, the important skill has been looking at what my editor wants, being as accommodating as possible, and when choosing to disagree, offering up solutions.
What you want to say: I’M NOT KILLING OFF JUSTIN BEAVER. HE’S THE BEST CHARACTER THAT WAS EVER WRITTEN AND YOU’RE A BLIND DUNGBEETLE.
What you say instead: I made the changes you requested about having everyone ride rhinos; good catch about how the horn would castrate anyone who got thrown! But I think we need to keep Justin around, as he’s a good foil to Prince the Prince. Maybe we could make him in a coma for the first half of the book so that he only awakens when the curse is lifted? And let’s change his name to Maude.
I remember thinking, “If I can only get an agent, I’ll be happy forever.” Then I got an agent and thought, “If only we can sell a book, I’ll be happy forever.” And then I thought, “If I can only hit the NYT bestseller list and be a billionaire playboy philanthropist, I’ll be happy forever.” Jury’s still out on the third one, but suffice it to say that the satisfaction doesn’t last. Once you sell that book, you’ve got a new career, and writing books is only one small part of it. You also have to edit your books, edit them again, deal with a ton of correspondence, maintain a social media presence, get out and do events, grow your public speaking skills, do interviews and guest blogs, and, oh yeah, WRITE MORE BOOKS. This is one job in which you can’t just maintain the status quo. If you’re not constantly outdoing yourself, you’re falling behind. Invest in great coffee brewing equipment.
Since becoming a full-time writer in 2012, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bistronomics in Douglas Adams’s books was based on Writernomics, because dealing with money as an author is insane. The taxes are high, around 30% or more, and although you can write off tons of stuff, it doesn’t add up as big as you might think. Let’s say you get a 3 book deal at $10k each. That’s $30,000. Woohoo! BUT STOP, COLLABORATE, AND WEEP. You often get half the total up front, then smaller amounts as each book is turned in or published. Which means $15,000 the first year and $15,000 spread out over the next three years. Agent takes 15%, Uncle Sam takes 30%. Definitely not enough to live on. Oh, and you’ll also have to pay for cons, launch party, possibly advertising, a new laptop. The smart thing to do, IMHO, is to put away the part for taxes ASAP in an untouchable safe in my basement. Otherwise, April will be your new worst enemy.
Can we be honest? Past Delilah is kind of an idiot. I went through a stage where I didn’t read. I was worried that other books would leak into my own writing or otherwise mess me up. DELILAH, YOU IDIOT. You have to keep reading if you want to be a writer. Read in your genre to see what’s selling, what works, what turns you off. Read outside of your genre to tickle your noodle and keep your synapses snapping. Read non-fiction to up your writing game or inform your descriptions. Read internet articles and writer blogs and those chalkboard typeography signs that encourage you to be a better person and WHATEVER. But always be reading, or your brain will stagnate and rot and soon people will be urging a young man named Carl to shoot you.
Want to become a crazy person? Try meth. Or just focus on one book and put all your eggs in one basket and obsess and never move forward. At least with the book thing, you keep your teeth. The only way to stay sane as a writer is to always look to the future and be working on something new. The energetic spark of a new idea, the delicious beauty of a first page, a foray into a new genre or that wacky character that just won’t leave you alone… pursue it. And finish it. Writing is like chasing butterflies, because if you trap one butterfly and put it in a jar, it will wither and die and taste horrible when you try to eat it.
I don’t care what anyone promises you: you are your own best publicist. No one can buy a book they’ve never heard of. Build word of mouth in any way possible that doesn’t hurt anyone or make your mother cry. Pick your social media poison and twerk it. Be kind to everyone that you meet, online or off. Find the right balance in tweeting links to your book so that people don’t unfollow you for being spammy. Your publicist represents dozens of books, and unless your last name is King or Rowling, you’re not their number one concern. Do not expect your publisher to do the work for you. Always be looking for an opportunity to get your book noticed. Also, don’t ask your publicist to help bury bodies, because I hear no one in publishing gets paid very much and they’ll probably just turn you in for money.
Many great books never find the readership or accolades they deserve. With 1350+ new books out every week and a system geared toward keeping the top dogs on top, how could they? The best thing you can do is start the next book and make it the best book you can write. Nothing sells a book like the next book and a backlist. If you compare yourself to other writers, you’ll sink into a shame spiral and get a nasty chip on your shoulder and four bags of Frito chips in your belly as you eat your feelings. Yes, winning awards and making Top Ten lists and getting invited to cons is fantastic, and yes, the more you get, the more you want and expect. But in the end, being a writer is about writing, about telling stories and connecting with readers and scratching that itch deep in the nethers of your soul. It’s perfectly fine to unfollow/mute anyone who can’t shut up about how awesome they are. People who post their Amazon rankings more than 5x a day, I’m talking about you. ::stares::
Pfft. Genres are like subway trains. Hop on whichever one you want, but know you won’t reach your destination unless you’re checking the map and you stay in your seat long enough. Popular wisdom states that the best way to build a fan base is to continue writing what your current fans want. But if, like me, you think that sounds kind of boring, there’s nothing wrong with trying something new. It’s a little like throwing darts: the more you throw, the better your chance of hitting the bullseye. You might want to make sure that there’s something about you and your writing that will compel your current fans to try the next thing you want to write. For me, going from paranormal romance to paranormal YA, I can assure my readers that they’ll find the same dark whimsy, deep world building, and a freaky twist on a trope. Besides, Snufflepoofs are just honey badgers in drag, right?
Laurels are poky little leaves, and no one wants a thong full of leafburn. The only way to stay on top of the game is to keep writing, find new fans, go to new cons, and generally be constantly leveling up your writing and your career. Yes, you will have brief periods of rest. But publishing is slow, and most writers hope to have at least one book out every year so that they stay in front of the public and on the bookshelf. You can also explore other outlets for writing, like short stories, flash faction, magazines, blogging, comics, scriptwriting, video games, poetry, public speaking, teaching workshops, and farming laurel plants. And don’t forget to pay it forward and help the next generation of goopy newborn writers. They all want to be where you are, and they *really* want to know how you got there. A kind word, retweet, blurb, or recommendation goes a long way for someone who’s just starting out.
It’s kind of funny. Catch a writer when they’re in the right stage of their creative cycle, and they’re happy, full of energy, positive, outgoing, and full of hope. Catch the same person at the wrong stage of their cycle, and they’re depressed, enervated, hopeless, introverted, and insecure. Much like the seasons, writers have their ups and downs in a natural circle of life. Yes, we’re businesspeople with careers, but we’re also artists, and artists have a long and honored history of being crazier than a bag of bees. The thing is? This cycle is TOTALLY NORMAL. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a writer who doesn’t have a valley in their writing process in which they feel like complete shit as an artist and a human being. The good news is that the very act of writing helps push the cycle along to a more favorable place. And there are also tons of little dopamine pings built into the cycle. Going to a great con? PING. Getting a good review? PING. Getting a nice pull quote or mention? PING. Fan sends you a Starbucks card? PING and thanks, Sheldon. Writing is not guaranteed to make you happy and healthy all the time, but for most writers, it’s the only alternative to going into full-on bee-bag insanity mode.
There is no one secret to success as a published writer. The best equation I can figure is 10% TALENT + 50% HARD WORK/TENACITY + 20% SMART DECISION-MAKING + 20% LUCK. And of course we all know that you can’t control for talent or luck. Anyone who promises you guaranteed results by selling a service or a workshop just wants your money. The best you can do is to write the best books you can, read a ton, always be developing your skills, make smart decisions, gather a team of colleagues you like and trust, and take every chance you can to move toward your goals. Even if you take this list and my 25 Steps to Being a Traditionally Published Author list to heart, there are still a kabillion people who disagree with me or who might follow every step and never find the victory they want so badly. Do what feels right to you. And if that doesn’t work, try something else. The point is that you keep trying.
Wait.
No.
Come back!
I said it was a lie!
I’ve never been happier. Or crazier. But there’s no feeling like seeing your book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble for the first time, and that’s definitely no lie.
Max Gladstone is a member of Tiara Club, in that he was one of the nominees for the John W. Campbell Best New Writer last year, along with me, Mur Lafferty, Zen Cho, and Stina Leicht. He’s also the author of the Craft Sequence novels and now? Also the creator of a whompingly enjoyable interactive fiction app based on his storytelling universe. This seemed like a good place for Max to come and talk about the lessons learned while writing this epic interactive endeavor. Now hold still, and let him fill you with MAD CRAZY WISDOM.
I don’t outline as a rule. Or, I didn’t. But recently I had to learn.
About a year ago, Interactive Fiction moguls Choice of Games asked if I’d like to write a game set in the weird world of my legal thriller fantasy novels Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise. I said yes, because yes is what you say in these situations. Cool opportunity? Paid for writing? Lich-king lawyers? Sign me up. And I wrote a game, which was awesome: Choice of the Deathless hit app stores just before Christmas (that link’ll take you to the appropriate store for your device). It’s out there now, and while I’m biased reviews indicate it’s excellent and I think you should play it. (Okay, plugging done.)
I put that bit at the beginning so you know this story ends happily. Because what follows is a tale of a writer struggling with the practical magic of plots and outlines, and it’s not always pretty.
ALSO HERE IS AN IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER. This is a personal narrative about how I grew through this one writing project. Please don’t mistake this for a “How You Must Write” story—everyone who writes comes from a different place, and each writer has her own goals. But if your history is anything like mine, the journey I’m describing here might be helpful to you. Then again, it might just be funny.
Long as I can remember, I’ve been a pantser: with character, goal, and milieu in hand, I venture forth into Story Jungle and hack a way through to the El Dorado of a finished draft. (Though since this is a first draft we’re talking about, El Dorado often looks more like El Pyrite and needs an awful lot of basic plumbing before I can invite friends over. How much? I’ve written 160,000 word drafts, added 20,000 words in revision, and ended up with a 100,000 word final manuscript after I cut all the bad stuff. Not pretty, but it works. Sort of.)
I’d outlined in the past out of curiosity and necessity, but each time I found the story’s rhythm only when the outline shattered and new characters snuck out from behind the arras. Fine, I thought, that’s how I’ll use outlines from now on: like bamboo scaffolding, strong, flexible, and easy to destroy when necessary.
Those were the days before I sat down to write a game. And when I say “write,” I don’t mean “write dialogue for”—Choice of Games are choose-your-path novels with a stat screen, taking some gaming DNA from Bioware RPGs and some from the Lone Wolf books of yore and legend. Choice of Games provides the scripting language; I provided the code.
On the one hand, awesome. My first computer was an Apple II+; I spent days coding adventure games for that box, using the simplest BASIC anyone has ever used. “Upgrading” from the II+ to something with a modern GUI felt wonderful, but also as if someone had cut off my legs—I couldn’t program this weird new device, and when I tried to learn, the coding books I found spent a lot more time trying to teach me how to alphabetize a CD collection (Me: “I’m fucking ten! I don’t have any CDs and if I did why would I want to alphabetize them?”) than how to write a game. (And yes, eventually I learned how to code simple stuff, though I never recaptured that initial “I can do anything with just what came in the box” feeling.) So, ChoiceScript in hand, I felt that old joy: I can tell your machine what to do, and I’m going to tell it to tell you a story.
On the other hand—terror. As it says on the tin, ChoiceScript games are all about Choices. Fun! At first. Until I started work and realized that in practice, each story beat needed around eight possible outcomes, and a success and failure path for each potential answer. A beat that took 250 words in a traditional short story might need 2,000 words to offer a semblance of true interactivity.
And so the cost / benefit of pantserhood tipped sharply toward ‘cost.’ It’s trivial to cut and rewrite 2,000 words of story because that scene needs to do something else. Cutting 16,000 words at one stroke gives writers strokes in turn.
So I had to think through the story before I started. The usual “write what comes and fix it later” approach wouldn’t work. But I couldn’t outline. Oh no! That’s for plotters. I, on the other hand, like any kid who learned how to program from antique books on BASIC at his local public library, would draw a flow chart.
I started out with a flowchart of choice-diamonds. What choices did the player face? What paths could she walk? Would success here bypass an entire branch of the story later on? How would other characters respond to her decisions?
I then converted that flowchart into skeletal code, logic and command without dialogue or description. After a few scenes I felt comfortable enough to write in skeleton-code first, sans flowchart: your Determination needs to be this high for you to win your fistfight with the demon. Staying awake all night reviewing these wards will impose the following penalty to your Sleep stat, which will in turn make everything a little harder. In what ways might your law-wizard attempt to depose a goddess, or betray her firm, or romance a fellow junior associate?
After another couple chapters, I’d written enough skeleton code that I could content myself with a short list of notes before I started coding: a line for each choice, a few bullet points for potential consequences, clear scene breaks, and on to the next chapter.
I couldn’t deny it any longer: I was outlining. And it felt awesome.
What had changed? Necessity, for one thing, but on reflection the outlines I wrote for Choice of the Deathless (and the outlines I’m using for my next book) differed in one huge way from my earlier attempts. Before, my outlines were bullet lists of scenes:
Joey and Sarah meet Dragon Lord Vorthax.
Vorthax eats Jimmy; Sarah escapes on rocket sled.
Joey wakes up inside Vorthax’s stomach.
Cloud-dwellers save Sarah, nurse her back to health.
Joey talks with Vorthax.
Cloud-dwellers attack Vorthax.
Etc.
That’s okay as it goes—I have a list of setpieces, and I can think of cool stuff to write for each. What’s missing?
Choice. Or, to put it another way: drama. That list elides any moment when Jimmy, Sarah, or Vorthax consider their options, stand torn between gut-desire and heart-need, sacrifice one possibility for the sake of another. In fact, I’ve written the negative space of drama: all of the cool and/or heartbreaking stuff that happens because of choices. But I haven’t written the choices themselves. They’re an afterthought to the action.
As a result, the scenes in my outline have a sort of loose cause-and-effect relationship but nowhere to go. The outlines I learned to write for Choice of the Deathless were that negative space. The cool results, those weren’t nearly as important as the dynamics of the choice. Let’s add some of that stuff to the outline above:
(Sarah and Joey need to save their Mom, who’s been taken captive by bandits. Sarah decides they’ll go to Dragon Lord Vorthax, even though they know he has a nasty and carnivorous reputation.)
Joey and Sarah meet Dragon Lord Vorthax.
(Vorthax asks both of them why they’ve come. Joey speaks up first: he wants power to save Mom. Vorthax asks what he’s willing to trade for it. He says, everything.)
Vorthax eats Jimmy. (Sarah runs first, then stops, almost goes back to save her brother; decides she can’t.) Sarah escapes on rocket sled.
Joey wakes up inside Vorthax’s stomach. (What does he do next? Jump around inside Vorthax’s stomach & start pulling out wires until the Dragon talks to him.)
Cloud-dwellers save Sarah, nurse her back to health. (Should Sarah ask the cloud-dwellers to try and save her mother, or Joey?)
Joey talks with Vorthax. (Vorthax has swallowed the boy to teach him dragon-magic, but this will involve Joey transforming into something not quite human.)
Cloud-dwellers attack Vorthax. (Does Joey kill the Cloud-dwellers with his new power? Does Sarah kill Joey to save her new friends?)
Silly, sure, over-the-top, limited in a lot of ways, but also propulsive; each scene has a dramatic purpose. Thinking in terms of choices rather than setpieces felt like turning my brain inside-out at first, but over time I grew comfortable with the process. As a result, I wrote better, and faster. The game’s web of decisions seemed less a danger and more an opportunity—I could hide neat worldbuilding down little-traveled pathways, sneak humor into secret moments, build consistent characters who seemed villains when set up one way and beleaguered heroes in another context, all because I knew basically where I was going and how I wanted to get there.
I’m working on my next book now, taking the outline road with this new approach—building around choices, conflicts, and costs rather than action set-pieces. Once the dramatic framework’s in place, I think—I hope—everything else will grow in between. The cool stuff will come, because it will have a reason to be there.
Of course, writing this next book I’ll probably learn a whole bunch that will make all I’ve written here seem quaint. But that’s the process, isn’t it? We’re always learning. Or we should be. Sometimes, we learn from people; most of the time, we learn by doing, thoughtfully and with conviction. There’s no hope in waiting to write until we’re already perfect writers.
Heck, when I started writing Choice of the Deathless I couldn’t outline my way out of a paper bag.
Despite the title, this post on happiness isn’t meant to be the end-of-days gospel on the matter but rather, a meditative rumination listicle by someone who is wildly unprepared and unqualified to discuss the matter in a meaningful way. And yet the notion of happiness — what is it? who can have it? can I buy it on Amazon with Prime shipping? — has been sitting on my metaphorical shoulder for weeks, now, pecking at my brain meats with an insistent beak.
It’s a very unruly topic, of course. Hard to wrangle. Like trying to wrestle King Kong’s scrotum into a gym bag. “I CAN’T DO IT, MIKE, I’M JUST NOT — I’M NOT MANAGING OVER HERE. THE APE BALLS ARE WINNING, MIKE. REPEAT: THE SCROTUM IS WINNING.”
So, here I am. A clueless, inexpert, inelegant dude. Trying to figure shit out. Like, even now, I don’t know that I agree with half of what I’ve written here. And tomorrow I won’t agree with the other half. But it feels like it’s worth talking about anyway. And so goes the list.
Everybody will try to tell you how to get happy, how to stay happy, how to entice happiness into your lair where you may mate with it, but the truth is, nobody knows what happiness even is. Sure, there’s a scientific notion. And yeah, there exists a dictionary definition. But like I said above: it’s really very unruly. It’s not a thing with clear margins or a fixed center. Is it the ejaculation of dopamine to the center of the brain? Is it a feeling of warm fuzzy bliss? Is it a long con or a short game? Defining happiness is like trying to grab that little piece of eggshell inside the egg goop — it always seems to escape one’s pinching fingers.
The purpose of happiness is, honestly, a mystery. Does it make us more efficient? More functional? Better in bed? Longer-lasting erections? Will it make me better at video games? (As I get older, I get worse and worse at video games and it’s starting to bum me out, man. If I get digitally-abused by another racist, homophobic 12-year-old, I’m going to smash my Xbox with a mallet.) Evolutionary science through an orangutan lens suggests happiness helps us live longer and breed more. Whether that applies to us hairless apes known as “humans” depends on how you define — and achieve — happiness. Sidenote: I want an orangutan. For happiness.
As I grow older it become clearer to me that happiness is a thing you choose — or, rather, you choose to be open to it. In much the same way you choose to be open to meeting new people, having new experiences, buying new breakfast cereals, or attempting new acrobatic sex positions (I’m fond of “The Backwards Charlie,” but found that the “Schenectady Oil Burner” resulted in a short and very unpleasant hospital stay). On the daily we are subject to countless extrasolar objects pelting our mental and emotional exoskeletons and we choose what to let in and what to deflect. Often, though, it seems we let in a lot of bad voodoo while for some strangely self-destructive reason rejecting good mojo. You take a walk and you can either be diminished by the cold wind and shortened days or find enjoyment in how it braces you, in how the sun shines through autumn leaves, in the satisfying crunch of boot heels on acorns (like little mouse skulls I mean what ew I didn’t say that shut up). You have to say: “I’m willing to be happy.”
It’s also very easy to say that, though, isn’t it? Happiness is a choice. When you say that, it suggests that a lack of happiness is the fault of the unhappy. Which can be true, certainly (some folks refuse to pry their boots from the mud of misery), but it’s also important to remind ourselves that happiness is also a privilege. If you’re depressed — not sad, not griefstruck, but honestly and undeniably depressed — then “choosing” happiness is a synonym for courting deeper depression because depression feels like a lightless no-nothing-nowhere pit with smooth walls where your choice to escape feels only more fruitless and frustrating. The sick, the impoverished, the downtrodden, the abused — you can’t cluck your tongue and wag a finger and say, “You should choose to be happy.” The choice of happiness, available to many but not all, is a privilege.
Like all privileges, we can use them for good, or we can use them for evil (and by evil, I really mean, abject selfishness). Using your happiness for good means trying to make other people happy. Not by forcing it. Not by assuming they have the privilege, too. But by doing nice things for people. And leaving room for their unhappiness, too. Maybe it really is that simple. Our happiness can sometimes come from making other people happy, too — it’s multiplicative, like gremlins thrown in a hot tub. Charity to others can be charity to ourselves. Someone out there is going to cynically note that this is ultimately selfish, and maybe it is, but so fucking what?
If we’re to believe in a nutritional pyramid (mine contains COFFEE in bold jittery letters at the bottom), we should also make time to accept an emotional pyramid, too. Happiness is given an importance and made a priority in a way that suggests that other emotions are somehow inferior, that they are errors that must be fixed. As if sadness is a sickness, as if anger is a broken window. As if other emotions are the zero to happiness’ one. But that’ll fuck you up, I think. Expecting that other emotions don’t belong or aren’t healthy is itself pretty goddamn unhealthy. Happiness is just one color in our rainbow. Other emotions are okay. Hell, more than that, they’re necessary. And we deserve our time with them in order to understand them and negotiate them.
There exists a “chasing the dragon component” to happiness, right? It’s like a hit of heroin or your first taste of great coffee or the first time you orgasm on the back of a raccoon while a burly woodsman — well, I don’t need to finish that sentence, because we’ve all been there. Point is, you get that laser lance of dopamine bliss burning through you and you want that again, so you do all kinds of things to get it. And a lot of what we do is short-term shit. A cupcake. Money. A drink. A video game. A romantic night with a burly woodsman. Fight club. Some of these things give you glimpses of the dragon, but rarely do you manage to grab that sonofabitch by the tail.
Don Draper, of Mad Men, says: “Happiness is the moment before you need more happiness.”
I’ve buried the lede a little, but I think what gets to the heart of the problem is that what we really need is satisfaction, but we seek happiness instead. The two are different, in my mind, with happiness being a short-term fix and satisfaction being a long-term solution. The short game versus the long con. We often ask ourselves or are asked by others if we’re happy. Which, day-to-day, can be a kind of toxic question, right? That’s erosive, corrosive, because if at the moment they ask we don’t feel happy — if we’re whittled away by the day’s many stresses — then we say or think oh, shit, no, I’m not fucking happy at all and then that drop-kicks us into a pit of disappointment. That’s how we invite sadness into our house like a mopey, mumbly vampire.
The more important question is, are you satisfied? I might not be happy with a day of writing, but I can be satisfied by the book in total, or by the overall work that I’m doing — but focusing on that microscopic aspect of happiness will send me in a tail-spin. I can have a rough day with the toddler, but if I concentrate on just that — instead of the larger satisfaction with the little wolverine tornado — I end up feeling resentful, or angry, or some other uninvited and presently unnecessary emotion. Crazily focusing on happiness is like constantly checking the temperature of your Thanksgiving turkey: all you’re doing is just letting the heat out of it. Satisfaction, then, seems the smarter measure, doesn’t it? Anything else feels a bit myopic.
Satisfaction is a fond feeling over the entire meal, not just a single bite. Satisfaction is a bigger, broader thing — a general sustained sense of okay, yeah, this doesn’t suck that pervades a given portion of your life. You can be unhappy in the moment but satisfied overall. Satisfaction is bound up with comfort and safety and choice; it’s a longer pull of pleasure, stretched out like taffy.
Sometimes, you sacrifice happiness to satisfaction — or vice versa. Another bowl of ice cream would make you happy; resisting that bowl and hewing to health would earn you satisfaction. It’d make me happy to go play video games, but I got work to do and that work is to write books and blog posts and Sherlock slash-fic — and my work gives me great satisfaction. Happiness and satisfaction do not always shake hands. You have to choose one over the other sometimes, and further, that choice often necessitates balance — satisfaction may seem like the more important one (I’d argue it is), but you still have to find moments of happiness. You still seize moments of wonder and weirdness and dopamine delight. Each played off the other.
That’s a Joseph Campbell thing — “follow your bliss.” He gleaned this mantra from the Upanishads. This notion serves as a combo-pack of that happiness and satisfaction dichotomy (which I’ve discussed as being separate) — suggestion being you gain a kind of rapture from meeting the universe halfway and doing the things you want to do for yourself. You gain happiness by pursuing satisfaction. Or you find satisfaction by pursuing happiness. Or you stumble around in the dark and are eaten by a grue, shit, I dunno, like I said: THIS STUFF IS HARD.
Here’s what I do know: becoming happy or satisfied or being a good little blissmonkey is not a function of shame or guilt. You think, oh, I’m going to feel bad for not finishing my work or for eating that candy bar or using the urinal like a sit-down toilet last night when I was all fucking bonkers on Goldschlager and peyote. Shame is a half-a-ladder — it’ll get you part of the way there, and then you’ll still be reaching for the prize like the fox who couldn’t get the grapes. Coming at your goals and trying to find happiness through shame and guilt is a good way to poison what satisfaction you can muster. Success out of shame is like succeeding in spite of yourself. Better instead to do things because of how they make you feel instead of doing things because of how bad failure feels. Let your failures be instructive and illuminating instead of one more reason to feel bad about yourself. Don’t climb that rickety-ass ladder. It’ll break under your feet.
SCIENCE FACT I JUST MADE UP: everybody is awesome and everybody is shitty all at the same time. Happiness is trying to focus on your qualities above your deficits — and, moreover, trying to turn your deficits into qualities. Look at life like an RPG: you’ve got a series of stats and special abilities and you, as Lord Thromnagon Drumdragon, aren’t going around moping about your “low Charisma score.” You can either embrace your high Strength stats (and thus cleave to your strength of PUNCH MONSTERS UNTIL PUDDING) or choose to focus on increasing your Charisma score so that every shopkeeper and stable boy doesn’t try to poison your feedbag THAT’S RIGHT I SAID FEEDBAG you didn’t know Lord Drumdragon is actually a unicorn well he is shut up.
A little perspective goes a long way. Like I said above: other emotions are necessary to possess. Anger can have value. Sadness can be necessary. They don’t always need to be shoved in a bag and set on fire but sometimes the way we feel isn’t helping us. It’s honest! It’s real! But is it valuable? Happiness can at times be a function of just having a little perspective. Being upset because someone got your coffee order wrong or because you missed your train — well, just remember, someone out there has it worse. Probably a whole lot worse. Not to say your happiness should come at the expense of another’s misery, but it’s worth looking at this singular moment and trying to see if your emotional response has teeth or is otherwise fangless and just gumming you into a state of unnecessary joylessness.
Looking up the chain and saying “someone is happier than me” is true, but who cares? Someone always has something more than you. That’s how life is. We’re not in balance. Looking to other people’s bliss as comparison is just a good way to stomp on your own. Be happy they’re happy, but don’t fall prey to comparison shopping for your own pleasure. Their happiness doesn’t diminish yours. At worst, it has no effect. At best, their happiness is happiness for you, too.
The act of settling is weird, right? Because on the one hand, if you’re just settling into life like dust on a shelf, bleah, yuck, why? We only get one ride on the bull, folks. Hold on as long as you can — until that motherfucker falls down in a froth. And yet, sometimes you gotta know when to cash in your chips and say, “This is me being comfortable with what I have.” Because you can’t control everything. Life gives what life sometimes gives you: sexy eyes, a goiter, an inheritance, an STD, two kids who love you, one who doesn’t, I dunno. Is it about settling for the things you can’t control, and aspiring to change the things you can? Is it about aspiring in spite of comfort? Is happiness diminished if you seek it in greater quantity or with deeper meaning?
Money might make you happy, but I don’t know that it gives you satisfaction. If it affords you security and comfort, that might do the trick. Just the same, plenty of people are rich and miserable. “I HATE MY INGROUND POOL AND ALL THIS COCAINE AND MY EXPENSIVE WEIMERDOODLE DESIGNER DOG.” Everybody’s different, I guess? You just gotta find what tickles your monkey. Maybe that’s money. But maybe — hopefully? — it’s something bigger.
You can do a lot of things to be happy, and many of those things are pretty fucking terrible. Again that battle of happy versus satisfied yawns its duplicitous maw — it’s like, you might be happy tearing someone else down, or sticking a needle in your arm, or sleeping around on your spouse. Happiness in the moment — that short, sharp shock of guhhh so good — is cheap and easy. But it doesn’t last. As I’m wont to say: is the juice really worth the squeeze?
Some folks are the living embodiment of schadenfreude, which is a German word that I think means, directly translated, “To adore when the Sausage of Agony is shoved in the mouth of your enemy.” Or something. Point is, like I said above, some people are only happy tearing other people down. These people are called “assholes” at best, “vampires” at worst, and you shouldn’t be one or invite them into your life. Because they’ll cling to you like a thirsty tick.
It’s made of people. Relationships. Friendships. Love. You can pass that shit along, too, tethering yourself psychically to other people by asking them how their day was, by offering them a bit of sympathy or congratulations or charity when it’s called for. We all have these invisible tentacles we can use to reach out and — okay, this is starting to sound a little hentai. Point is, we’re all connected, and you can feed into the positive energy of others or you can steal it from them. (And this isn’t just an IRL thing, either. Anybody who tells you our social connections online don’t have the same weight or value are probably friendless robots from a Distant Century here to rob us of our joy. CLANKING CRAPTRONS.)
You can do physical things to open yourself to happiness, right? Like focusing on your breathing. Or taking a walk and getting the blood flowing. Or getting a little sunshine because our bodies leech happiness from the sun’s rays until one day the sun is just an empty, lifeless calcified dustball in the sky and then everything grows cold and lightless and — *is handed a note* — okay that’s apparently scientifically inaccurate. Whatever. Sunshine is good for you is what I’m saying.
The pursuit of happiness. That’s the saying, because we’re always pursuing it. It’s a perpetual chase — a dog spinning around and around, a failed ouroboros who will never clamp down on his own tail (and if he did catch it, what the fuck would he do with it?). Does this mean we’ve overstated happiness as a thing that has value? Should we instead accept that all of life is suffering and move on from there? (That Buddhist principle is a cosmic version of the “underpromise, overdeliver” school of thought, I think.) Is the chase the same thing as the journey? The end is the end but it’s how we get there that matters. Is that the deal with happiness? Is our search for happiness more meaningful than the actual happiness itself?
Happiness is some cryptic shit. It’s a chimera. A faceshifting freak in a room of mirrors. It’s wonderful and horrible. It helps us and it hurts us. It hamstrings us and elevates us. It’s a pit and it’s a ladder. It — and its many forms, be they satisfaction or pleasure or bliss — is a thing so intensely personal it’s impossible to let anyone else tell us how to get it, keep it, or use it. I think it’s worth asking yourself, how will I be happy? It’s worth trying to find the path to satisfaction. And I don’t think that path is drawn through careful study or through mathematical findings. You don’t get happy through a pro/con list. (Unless you do? See? So personal.) It’s in your gut. It’s a feeling, an instinct, and maybe at the end of the day the shortest path to unhappiness is to ignore yourself and all the inner voices that are screaming for you to go left, go left, for fuck’s sakes go left and all you do is go right. Go with your gut. Follow your bliss. Give to others without taking. Be you. Be the best version of you. And share it with the world.
Then again, what the fuck do I know?
