Tag: writing (page 24 of 33)

Stuff About Writing

May 31, 2011 / 104 Comments

How To Tell If You’re A Writer

Are you a writer? You’ve no good way to tell.

I mean, this isn’t THE THING. You can’t just cook up the end of a coat hanger and dip it into a petri dish full of your blood. This shit’s not in your DNA. It’s in your soul.

Where it lurks like a worm at the heart of an apple.

Even still, you might be saying, “Dear Charles Q. Penmonkey, please tell me — what are the signs that I’m actually a writer? What crass, profane augury will present my ink-spattered destiny like a horny alpaca revealing its blood-engorged alpaca cloaca?”

I can help. Even though my name isn’t “Charles Q. Penmonkey.” Oh, also, alpacas don’t have cloacas. Only birds have cloacas. And Lindsay Lohan.

But then again I’m pretty sure she’s some kind of coke-brained sea bird anyway.

What I’m trying to say is, you’re just not sure if you happen to be a really truly honestly pinky-swear cross-your-heart motherfucking bonafide writer? That’s okay. I can help.

Look for these signs. They should stand out like turgid, necrotic erections.

You Proofread Everything

I proofread anything that crosses in front of my eyes. Diner placemats. Menus. Cereal boxes. The letter your Mom wrote me after I banged her sideways outside the closed-down Jamesway just past town. I remember reading a Chinese food menu some years ago and I was like, “Ha ha ha! Bef! Crap cakes! Sting beans! Ohh, haha, stupid language barriers, your comedy knows no bounds.”

But it goes beyond that, too. I’ll judge anything on its merit as a written story.

I’ll read a fucking classified ad and be like, “They could’ve trimmed the language there.” “Awk-ward!” *rolls eyes* “Oooh, poor word choice.” “Where’s the conflict? I mean, seriously. What is this? Amateur karaoke?”

Your First Friend Was Imaginary

Writers and storytellers live inside their heads. Our mindscapes are equal parts “desert oasis,” “distant moon prison,” and “comfy recliner.” But where it begins is with imaginary friends. I didn’t have just one. I had a whole unruly cabinet of the babbling invisible bastards. My cousin and I would act out these stories where we were constantly in contact with non-corporeal made-up motherfuckers — mermaids and morbidly obese people and crazy farmers and the list goes on and on.

Sometimes I think writing isn’t so much the need to tell stories as it is the need to lance our brain-blisters over and over again so that the multiple personalities have a place to go.

Of course, it doesn’t end when you grow up…

You Hold Conversations Between People That Don’t Exist

I literally do this when I’m in the shower (no, calm down, it does not involve soapy Onanism): I talk to myself. But not in one voice. In two. Or three. Some folks sing. Me, I host entire stage productions of dialogue sessions there in the shower. And these are characters who are currently in — or who will one day find their way into — my work. This isn’t healthy. If I did this in public, I’d be stoned. And not the good kind of stoned where I’m like, “Dude, that cloud looks like Jimi Hendrix giving birth to a rabbit,” but rather, pelted with unpleasant pebbles by suspicious townsfolk.

Writers don’t just talk to themselves. They talk to a cast of characters invented out of straight-up nothing.

You Are An Ink-Stained Notebook Whore

Me, I was always leaving pens in my pockets. Pens that got washed. Pens that, when washed, would explode and splurch ink all over my pants, as if I urinated the stuff. Oh, I also chewed the unholy shit out of all my pens like a rabid terrier. (Ahem, still do.) And it’s not just pens. Notebooks! So many notebooks. Some blank. Many filled. Heaps and piles and pyramids of notebooks. Some day they will excavate my home and find me — and seven dead cats — beneath them.

And I don’t even have any cats.

Writers are collectors. It’s not just about the pens or notebooks. We collect other books. Or iPad apps. Or technology in general. Or ancient Balinese facial dildos.

What, just me?

Whatever.

You Suspect Non-Readers Of Treachery Against The Human Race

John Waters — director, writer, weirdo, and all-around human kitschmaschine — famously said, “If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em.”

Writers hate non-readers. You are our enemies in this world. We refuse to believe that information can be conveyed in any other way besides books (or movies, or comics). We see you, we think: “Is he a Reptilian? If I were to go over there and rake his face with this salad fork, would I see greasy scales waiting underneath?” It’s like in ingrained distrust. A deep, soul-born hatred.

“You don’t have books? Then you are dead to me.”

It’s nonsense, of course. But whoever said we had to be right about the crazy shit we believe?

Your Brain Is Tuned To Some Mad, Intrusive Frequency

Earlier today, I saw this tweet from Will Hindmarch, fellow penmonkey:

“Back from the doctor’s again, where inspiration struck in the waiting room, as it sometimes does.”

It does! It does. He’s totally right. You know how sometimes you end up getting accidentally subscribed to e-mails or snail mail that jacked you onto some invasive list? “Jesus, why am I getting e-mails from the Fainting Goat Association Of Slovenia? And I keep getting shoeboxes of anthrax from some unnamed source.” Writers have been accidentally subscribed to this constant stream of ideas. We are bombarded by them, like protons fired at our mind-cores. (Pyoo! Pyoo!) We can’t shut them out. No way to tune out the inspiration except to clobber ourselves over the head with a skull-crushing boat anchor.

I think it might be why writers secretly drink so much. To dim the frequency.

You Know How You Would Do It Differently

Watch a movie. Read a book. Page through a comic. If you do this regularly and say to yourself, “I would do this differently,” and then proceed to tell whoever is nearest — wife, child, dog, stranger on a train, Darkseid — exactly how you would do it “your way” (translation: the right way), then hey, guess what? You. Writer.

You Are Attracted To Mates With Health Care

Everybody has their own metric of attraction. “Nice eyes. Firm lips. Legs from here to heaven’s door. A set of breeding hips like the shoulders of a Brahmin bull. A vagina that looks like a majestic pink peony.” One’s own axis of attraction can go to more abstract lengths, too. “I like a guy who’s nice to puppies.” “I like a gal with a little rough-and-tumble in her.” “I LIKE TO BANG DRAGONS IN THEIR DRAGON BUTTHOLES.”

Writers, though, we can smell health insurance on a potential mate the way that other animals can smell pheromones. It’s like Drakkar Noir or bacon grease: in its presence, we cannot control ourselves. “Hot dang, Dave, this chick I’m dating? I think she’s the one. She’s got such a low, sexy… deductible.”

So, if you’re out wandering in a mall and you suddenly find yourself tumescent whenever you pass someone who is clearly fortunate enough to have health care, then you better check thyself forst you wreck thyself. Because you might have a long and unfortunate penmonkey career ahead of you.

Your Desk Drawer Contains The Following:

Flask full of alcohol. Altoids tin full of some kind of illicit-but-not-illegal pills. Fountain pen. Other pens. Mechanical pencil. Random notebook pages full of useless dream transcriptions. Highlighters. Permanent markers. A mix tape from 1996. Beer caps. Wine corks. iPhone charging cord to an iPhone you may or may not own. Lint that smells of flopsweat. Lip balm. A favorite paperback with a hundred dog-eared pages and a thousand underlined sentences. A Hemingway buttplug (the beard tickles!). Post-It notes containing terrible ideas. A handgun. A noose. A little satchel containing all your hopes and dreams as a writer.

You’re Drinking Right Now, Aren’t You?

It’s okay. I won’t tell anybody. As long as you pour me a glass.

You Fucking Jolly Well Write, That’s How

You know how you can tell if you’re a writer? You write. Maybe not every day, but often enough where it’s a dominant activity, a thing-you-do rather than a thing-you-really-want-to-do. You write not because you have to but rather because you want to so bad you feel like an asshole not doing it. You know you’re a writer because whenever you’re doing anything else, you’re thinking about writing the same way a guy thinks about sex or an addict thinks about whatever drug or monkey gland he’s hooked on. You’re a writer because, even now, the first thought going through your head is, “Holy shit, I should really be writing.”

Your turn, cunning linguists. What is it that makes the writer a writer?

* * *

Chuck Wendig’s book about writing and the writer’s life — CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY is available now! Buy for Kindle (US), Kindle (UK), Nook, or PDF.

May 26, 2011 / 49 Comments

Your Own Shelf Of Writing Advice

By now, you know the story: blah blah blah, CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY is out, it’s now available in Kindle and Nook and PDF and, should you choose not to procure it, it will be available as a manuscript duct-taped through a brick and thrown through your front window.

I kid, I kid.

Seriously, though, it gets me thinking about other books of writing advice. I never understood writers who shirk writing advice because I’ve always found it so useful. I also don’t really grok those who absorb so much advice but then never actually… ohh, I dunno, put pen to paper because whenever I read great writing advice, all it makes me want to do is take what I learned and put it into play. Like reading the Kama Sutra for the first time. “Sun-Burned Donkey On Ravenna’s Porch? Upward Tilting Samsara With A Side Of Bhel Puri? Monkey Steal The Plums? I want to do all of these right now!”

Here’s the writing advice that lives on my shelf:

Ray Bradbury, ZEN AND THE ART OF WRITING.

Lawrence Block, both WRITING THE NOVEL and TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT.

Stephen King’s ON WRITING.

Robert McKee, STORY.

Elements of Fiction Writing: CONFLICT, ACTION & SUSPENSE.

Alex Epstein, CRAFTY SCREENWRITING.

Alex Epstein, CRAFTY TV WRITING.

Blake Snyder, SAVE THE CAT!

Syd Field, SCREENPLAY.

I’ve got other stuff, too — some stuff about writing horror (DARK THOUGHTS: ON WRITING), lots of grammar books (GRAMMAR GIRL, EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES).

Bradbury’s book is cool — lots of personal tales, very bite-sized stuff, a book of wildly-roving advice. I like the way he wrote many of his original stories: he penned a list of cool titles, then one by one wrote stories to go with ’em. King’s book is pretty standard, and a truly great book — it was one of those books though that got me on some good habits and some bad ones. McKee’s story is nice enough, and there’s some valuable information, but the book is way too long for what it’s trying to tell you, and at times feels soulless. Epstein and Snyder show you the formulas that persist in film and television, and add new twists to those formulas.

I love what other authors have to say about the writing process. I lean toward advice that’s equal parts philosophical and practical and that lists into “hard-ass” territory, but then again, you already knew that: it’s ideally what you read here at terribleminds. I find it motivating. Thought-provoking. Never enervating.

How about you? What books of advice do you have on your shelves? Why are they there? Any books you didn’t like? Feel free to extend this out to blogs, too. I’m curious: where do you get your advice, and why?

May 25, 2011 / 33 Comments

Confessions Of A Self-Published Penmonkey

Hi, my name is Chuck Wendig. And I am a self-published penmonkey.

(“Hi, Chuck.”)

As you may know, my e-book of profanity-laden writing advice, CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY, is now available:

Kindle (US): Buy Here

Kindle (UK): Buy Here

Nook: Buy Here

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

And, this being my second foray into the weird wild wide world of self-publishing, I thought, it is once more a good time to comment on the state of self-publishing as I see it.

What About The Readers?

Yesterday, agent Rachelle Gardner laid down some thoughts at her blog that (in a loose paraphrase) suggested that legacy publishers work more directly for readers than self-publishers. The self-published, she asserts, directly serves only the authors, and creates a more perilous environment for readers.

I get her point. I think you could make an argument that while choice is a good thing, such a glut of choice is not always a win. Too much noise and not enough signal is a loss for the readership.

I once worried to a similar point, but I’m no longer of that belief. I’m not comfortable putting a positive or negative value on it, because once you do, you start wandering down the path of false dichotomies (do this, but not this, this is awful, this is awesome, no gray area, nothing in the middle but a giant abyss filled with hungry spiders). What it means is that the environment — the publishing and authoring ecosystem — is shifting.

Which means that the role of gatekeeper is changing, too.

For legacy publishers, or traditional publishers, or “old-school pub-monkeys,” depending on whatever terminology tickles your pink parts, the gatekeeper role remains largely the same.

But both in and outside that model, driven in part by self-publishing but also in part because the world is home to a nigh-infinite selection of books, it means that the reader is becoming a gatekeeper, too. The Internet has widened the “word of mouth” in social groups considerably. Sites like Goodreads count toward this. So too does social media. Or Amazon comments. The readers are a “pure” gatekeeper in that they’re the first and last line of defense in terms of self-publishing. They give the Roman “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” in terms of whether the gladiator will be spared or made to fight another day.

In legacy publishing, other gatekeepers exist, and that’s okay, too. We must allow for and expect an ecosystem that has room for both self-published and trad-published books. We must allow for it because it’s fucking happening, no matter how much people think either one is doom, doom, DOOM. (By the way, don’t trust anybody who tells you it’s either/or. They’re zealots, plain and simple. Nobody has answers, the only truth we know is that this is going on; trying to predict the future or lay objective certainty upon all this is the same as trusting a homeless guy who will read your fortune in a pile of pigeon shit.)

For the record, the glut of choice is present already, even without self-publishing. Go into a bookstore and gaze upon the racks, then recognize that Amazon multiplies that by a factor with many zeroes.

Further, I have a pretty cynical mindset in terms of what serves who.

Writers serve writers.

Publishers serve publishers.

Readers serve readers.

Why should it be any other way? I’m not suggesting that this is a function of vanity or greed but rather, the reality of the marketplace. Because this is, after all, a marketplace.

Writers and publishers aren’t magnanimous. The only one pure of heart and innocent of motive (in general) is the reader, and it is forever the reader who is king.

Speaking Of Selfishness: More Rumblings On Price

Pricing PENMONKEY was tough. There’s such a downward trend in price that — for me, at least — I get a little shaky. I see some authors — not readers, authors — say that they won’t buy e-books now above a certain price, and sometimes that price is surprisingly bargain basement. So, here I am with a book that in part recycles material from this blog, material written over the course of two years. That’s a ding against it, right? But it’s also a huge book. 100,000+ words. And it has new content. And I paid for an extra-sexy cover, so that’s a cost that needs covering.

IRREGULAR CREATURES I priced at $2.99, and was only 45k, and is niche because it’s a collection of short stories. I felt PENMONKEY was less niche, and had twice the content, and so I noodled with twice the price. In the end, though, it seemed that five bucks was a pretty clean price. I know I’ll drop five bucks very easily. On media, on food, on anything. So, that seemed like a good place.

You likely won’t see $0.99 as a price from me. I may do sales, but I think I’m done with that as a price point. No harm, no foul to anybody else who wants to go that way (I know a number of smart, excellent writers who are rocking that price point), but it’s just not tenable for me. Not only morally (I’m stubborn), but financially. I can’t live on that price. I can’t feed my son on that price (well, technically he’s chowing down on hot tasty boob, but eventually I’ll need to buy him food). Listen, to make a barebones $35,000/year, I would need to sell 116,000 e-books over the course of a year at $0.99.

That’s a lot of goddamn books.

That number drops significantly at $2.99 — there, I only need to sell 17,500.

Still a lot, but way less epic a number.

At $4.99: ~9600 books/year.

At $6.99: ~7100 books/year.

At $9.99: ~5000 books/year.

I don’t put those numbers there as indicators of anything except, at the right prices, authors can actually earn out and become genuinely self-sufficient at higher price points.

I know this issue has greater levels of complexity than I’m stating here, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with authors who price low. Go for it. I’m just not betting on that being the right course for me and my books.

Books Breeding Like Lusty Rabbits

This isn’t new information, but having more than one book for sale is a good thing. When PENMONKEY hit, IRREGULAR CREATURES sales went up. They’re still up, actually.

This is tricky for the self-pubbed author because it means you’re under greater pressure to produce, produce, produce. Which is where you might find issues of quality lagging.

Self-Pubbing Is Still A Pain In The Ball Sack

Self-publishing takes work that goes beyond. You know this. I know this. I just want to reiterate it for those who are planning on going that route. From cover design to e-book prep to marketing to all that jazz, more of the weight falls to the author’s shoulders. Because now, author = publisher. Again, this is both good and bad. It’s just worth noting.

This time, I prepped the book for Amazon using MobiPocket, and while it took me a little bit to learn how to use it, I think it came out better. Though the table-of-contents gave me problems.

Getting the book onto the Nook marketplace was actually a lot easier. Upload, one, and done.

Smashwords can pretty much go eat a dick.

I’m not yet on iBooks. Not sure why I would, yet.

Also still considering a print version.

Goddamnit, Authors, Create A Direct Channel

Still surprising how few authors offer a direct channel to sell their e-book. Everybody’s so up in arms about “middlemen,” well, fine, then recognize that Amazon is a middleman.

I will forever sell a PDF version directly to readers. Not only do I get more value out of that (PayPal takes a far less robust cut), but it offers readers a different way of getting your book.

Why do that? Well…

Sales Numbers

I don’t know how many books I sold on the first day of release because, oops, my son — the baby penmonkey — decided he wanted to be born on Friday. (As dear friend Aaron Dembski-Bowden said, “you published a baby”). I had crapgasmic Internet at the hospital, and no way to really check how the book was doing. I did see that the book rocked up the Amazon charts, which was neat. Made it to #1444 across all Kindle books. Made it to #1 in writing reference (Kindle) and I believe #10 across writing reference books across the board (meaning, beyond the Kindle marketplace).

I know that I sold about 150 copies over the first few days of release.

A happy-making number, and again, many thanks to those who procured.

My numbers are currently at 67% Kindle, 24% PDF, and 9% Nook.

It’s that middle number that I want you to note: my direct sales through PDF are, as they were with IRREGULAR CREATURES, rocking at 20-25%. That’s a big number. Better than Nook.

Authors: offer your product directly.

Interface with the audience as one facet of sales.

What’s Next?

Well, PENMONKEY shall continue, one hopes, doing well. I’ll eventually do some contests and what-not.

I am available for interviews.

I am available for gust-bloggening.

I am available for handjobs behind the Burger King dumpster.

If you contacted me on Friday about any of these, please re-contact. I apologies, but again, that day was apeshit. Much that I probably missed, so please, re-contact.

Spread the love. If there’s anything I can do for you, please say the word.

I do anticipate a print release, but I’m not sure about Lulu or Createspace. As noted earlier, thinking on doing something with a higher-end printing that incorporates some of my photography.

Beyond that, I’ll continue to work in the self-pub space, though obviously I’m a fan of “traditional” publishing, too. Got DOUBLE DEAD coming out in November and hopefully more beyond that. Again I say that everybody needs to get used to an ecosystem that features a many-headed publishing beast. Authors are best straddling those worlds, in my opinion. Lest they fall into the spider-clogged abyss.

May 24, 2011 / 21 Comments

This Is Freelancer Law, Or: “How Not To Suck As A Freelancer”

Oh-ho-ho. Where do you think you’re going?

Ah. I see. You thought, “Heh, Old Man Wendig over there just had an adorable baby. He’s gone soft. His heart has wilted like the spinach in a hot bacon salad. We’ve got the run of the place! This is a lawless wasteland! Fuck commas. Piss on deadlines. I’m going to pop a squat on this stack of Bibles!”

First, I am not an old man. Stop that. Stop saying that. It’s hurtful.

Second, why are you pooping on Bibles? That’s not related to anything I do here. Now you’re just acting out.

Third, my heart’s hard as tungsten, motherfuckers. My baby’s cute as shit, but I learned from my wife that the best things in life come in a flood of pain and fluids. (I may be taking this lesson too literally. For my next book release, I’m going to first pass it through my colon. Purification through pain! D.O.C.E.: Damaged Orifices Create Enlightenment!)

I’m going to be a tough-love Daddy. I’m going to be the gavel-banger. The unyielding wall.

And since I see you all as my children, it’s time for some hard truths.

It’s time to lay down the law.

Today: I’m laying down the freelancer law.

Also known as: how not to be a crap-tastic, shit-tacular, poo-glutted freelancer.

*bangs gavel*

Those Who Fuck With Deadlines Get Fucked By Deadlines

Deadlines exist for a reason. A client does not just pick a deadline out of a jaunty bowler hat. It’s not a lottery. It’s not a game. To get the project to the web designer, to get it to the printer, to kick it up the chain to the Secret Council of Squid Wizards who slap their greasy “tentacles of approval” upon it, then everybody’s got to his a series of critical deadlines. You miss a deadline, now you’re a pair of blood-caked pantyhose clogging up the pipes. Now nothing moves forward.

And that makes Freelancer Jesus smite a horse cart full of adorable lambs.

That’s why they call it a fucking deadline. That’s a hard-ass name if ever there was one. “This is the line of death. Thou shalt not cross it.” They don’t call it the “marshmallow line.” It isn’t “lemonade-and-ponies street.” It isn’t the “ehhh-if-you-wanna-line.”

Dead. Line.

Now, I get it, sometimes you know you’re not going to hit a deadline. Your goat dies. Your father goes to jail (maybe for killing your goat). You catch some kind of super-SARS.

Here’s a pro-tip: get ahead of that. Let the editor or developer know this as early as humanly possible. If you’re telling them you’re not going to hit the deadline on the day of the deadline, you are a fucker.

Punishment: dragged by a bee-stung bull through a field of stinging nettles.

You Are Horse, Not Unicorn

Creative types like to think they’re special. It makes sense. You have a “voice.” A “talent.” Your work comes pouring out of your “imagination” like the glittery perfumed vomit of Strawberry Shortcake.

You can be special in your own special little mind.

But your client does not think you’re a prancing unicorn. You’re just a horse like everyone else. Not a zebra. Not a tapir. Not a unicorn. A horse. A work horse, at that.

What does this mean?

It means, when the client hires you to do a job, do the job they hired you to do. You get an outline for a book, cleave to that outline. “Yeah, I know you wanted me to write 40,000 words on the subject of the mating habits of the Venezuelan Micturating Wombat, but instead, I thought the book could instead use an epic poem about the bowel movements of Norse gods. Cool?” No. No. Not cool. *punches your throat*

Also, go ahead and take this hot iron and brand yourself with the phrase: write to spec. This is apropos directly to freelance writers, but it means, if they ask you to write 10,000 words, write 10,000 words. Don’t write 5k. Don’t write 20k. It’s like SkeeBall: get as close as you can.

Finally, this also translates to the notes you receive. You’ll get notes. Everybody gets notes. Few freelancers nail their task in one shot (“nothing but net — swoosh!”). Take the notes, and do what they say. This is not hard. “Please rewrite with less emphasis on dolphin penis.” “Nnnyeaaah, I didn’t do that.” *kick testicles*

Like I said: do the job you’re hired to do, not the job you imagined in your head. You don’t pick and choose how much of the work you’d like to perform. Don’t be that asshole.

Punishment: rectally violated by this robot.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Your first draft should never be “close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.” This is true of writing, art, anything. The thing you turn in should never be the equivalent of a thumb swirled around a full diaper and pressed onto an index card. Your job isn’t to make the client’s own work harder. Do you see why that would throw a client into a paroxysm of rage? Your job is to make their life easier.

Turn in quality work. Be as awesome as you can be.

Turn in trash, get tossed out like trash.

Punishment: nibbled to death by Bubonic marmots.

The Slack In The Rope Could Take Your Head Off

One of the many joys of being a freelancer — beyond, say, brewing your own coffee and living a blessedly pantsless existence — is having no boss. Your life is your own. Your schedule is yours to create and master. Nobody’s going to come in, ask you to punch a clock, fill out this form, clean your desk, rub his shoulders, express the sebaceous cyst on his lower back. You are the architect of your destiny.

But that doesn’t mean you get to laze off, you quivering slugabed. You think you have no boss? Bzzt. The client is your boss. Better still, you are your boss. Get behind on a project, and the slack on that rope could whip out and take your head off. Life presents its own challenges. Additional emergency work piles up. You might get sick. Maybe you’re eaten by one of those tornadoes that keeps popping up all over. Shit happens.

Don’t get left behind, like those poor assholes in the Rapture. (Wait — that didn’t happen? So this… this office of mine riddled with Scotch bottles and empty Chinese food containers isn’t Heaven? What was that floating sensation I felt the other day? What’s that, you say? That was just gas? Oops!)

Message: get ahead. Don’t get steamrolled by your own workload.

Fall behind and…

Punishment: you must manually masturbate Karl Rove to sexual completion.

No Freelancer Is An Island

It’s easy to feel like you’re on your own when freelancing. You lay in a pile of Wendy’s wrappers and Funion crumbs, your laptop splayed out across your chest; it’s just you and the work.

But you’re not alone. You’re no island.

A freelancer assignment is universally a team gig. At the bare minimum, you have a team consisting of you and your client, but frequently enough you’re also part of an ecosystem featuring other writers, artists, and creators. What does that mean? It means: communicate. Communication is key in any freelancer gig. Ask questions. Offer thoughts. Make updates. Check in. You don’t need to be obsessed with it, and you certainly shouldn’t be irritating, but be a part of the ecosystem. I know, I know, you got into freelancing because you run with scissors, don’t play well with others, and aren’t allowed outside of your plexiglass enclosure. Just because you’re legally not allowed to use a fork doesn’t mean you can’t communicate with your client and with other freelancers. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto, for Chrissakes.

Don’t act the loner.

Punishment: eternal Cop Rock marathon beamed straight into your brain by an evil psychic chimp.

Get Paid, Or Get Fucked

In the realm of “creative” work, one could argue that there exists some advantage in writing for free.

The freelancer, though, gets paid. Or, he should. (Be not fooled by the misnomer of “free” in the word “freelancer.”) What are the dangers of working for free?

First: you’re worth what you charge, and if you charge nothing, then you’re worth the same. Don’t think so? Try writing for free, then putting that on your resume. “I did some free pamphlet work for Jojo’s Hymen-Breaking Hut? You know, the one down on Acevedo and Blumpkin Ave?” Watch the client stifle laughter. This is the same as, “don’t put your blog on a resume,” too. At best, it’ll fail to provide a boost. At worst, you’ll lose respect, and when you lose respect, you lose work. Plain and simple.

Second: there exists a corrosive effect when good writers choose to work for nothing. Why wouldn’t there be? If the standard is, say, ten cents a word, and then a handful of capable writers undercut that by five cents a word, hey, fine, right? That’s the market. Problem is, now you have to write twice as much to earn the same. Well, okay. Except what happens when the next batch undercuts by another two or three cents per word? Eventually (slippery slope alert): good writers are writing for free, and that’s where the market hangs. its hat. At that point, freelance writing becomes a non-viable career for you or anybody else. The earth? Salted. Again, one can argue that in more creative pursuits, there exists advantage in building readership and gaining audience. But freelancers: don’t give your stuff away. This is supposed to be a career, not a creative pursuit. Careers are not built on hanging out free handjobs in the park.

Third: writing for free takes as much time as writing for cash. Need I say more?

By the way, it needn’t always be “cash” you’re paid in. Just don’t fall for that old saw that you can get paid with exposure. Again, in creative endeavors, that might have more meaning. In straight up freelancing, it usually means someone wants your work for free, and that’s it. Pumped, then dumped. Exposure is not a measurable metric. “I will pay you in three exposures” is not a thing people say because it doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense. Get something for your work, something that is measurable.

If you’re a capable writer, you’ll find paying work. It’s that simple.

Related: learn how to get paid. By which I mean, keep a spreadsheet. Write invoices. Track payments. Pay quarterly taxes. Manage your income. This is a business. Treat it like a business. Sure, it’s a creative-flavored business. But it’s still about earning out.

Punishment: forced to live in a piano crate for one year with a grabby drunken hobo.

Happy Client, Hired Monkey

Keep the client happy.

Really, that’s it.

I mean, you don’t have to be a whore about it.

But go the extra mile. Please them with your work. Your attitude. Your moist and hungry mouth.

…uhh, okay, maybe not so much that last part.

Your resume is who you are. Your reputation is part of your resume.

Happy clients mean they keep on hiring you. Or it means they pass around word that you’re a worthy freelancer. Clients communicate with one another. Trust me on this.

…As Always, Don’t Be A Fucking Shitbird

Related to the last but deserving of its own section:

Don’t be an asshole. Or a douche-swab. Or a fuck-basket. Or a pimply dick-burger.

I’ve seen freelancers burn out their reputations by being problematic. They’re full of excuses. They’re unpleasant. Cocky. Argumentative. Preening ponies. And they fade away, like a guttering candleflame.

Be polite. Don’t be a fucking shitbird. End of story.

* * *

Chuck Wendig’s book about writing and the writer’s life — CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY is available now! Buy for Kindle (US), Kindle (UK), Nook, or PDF.

May 18, 2011 / 81 Comments

Shake Them Pom-Poms, Cheerleaders

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

What it is, then, is this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

You. Comments. Now.

May 17, 2011 / 50 Comments

Word-Karate: On Writing Action Scenes

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

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

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

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

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

Writing Fighting Is Like Scripting Sexing

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

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

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

Form Matches Function

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tricky to do, but cool if done right.

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

Clarity Versus Sensation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reality Versus Authenticity

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

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

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

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

How Action Reflects More Than Just Action

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

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

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

Your Turn, Class

Action scenes.

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

Why would an action scene fail to connect?

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

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