Author Questions: What Excites You Most As An Author?

This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

 

Question:

What excites you most as an author?

The quick answer:

Sharing my stories with new readers.

 

The long answer:

There are a lot of exciting times as an author. I love coming up with ideas for new stories and daydreaming about them, like watching a movie of the story come to life in my imagination before I ever type a word. It’s a small excitement, sorta like seeing a piece of chocolate cake and knowing you’ll get to eat it.

There’s also that moment when you first sit down and start typing to bring the story to life, as if you were giving birth to the idea (I know that sounds corny, but stick with me).

Or there’s the excitement and satisfaction of writing “The End” at the end of your first draft. Oh, that’s a good one! In fact, that was almost my official answer to this question. It’s a moment that you celebrate in some major way. I buy myself a small luxury when this happens.

The moment when the first author copies arrive and you get to open the box and hold your creation in your hands, that’s also a good one, particularly for your first publication. Here’s a video of the unboxing of my first copies of Dragon of the Federation. You just want to take that book, do a little ritual, climb to a high rocky prominence, and present it to the world with some epic music in the background, à la Simba’s birth.

Oh, and there’s also the excitement of walking into a bookstore and seeing your book sitting there on the shelf next to all those other published authors. That’s always a very validating moment (it’s even better when you knew it was there and then is gone the next time you walk in, because it was sold to someone!).

But truth be told, nothing gives me as much of a rush as a new reader who has come up to my table, heard my pitch for a book, and their eyes go wide, they say “Oooo!” as they learn about the interesting premise of the story, and they eagerly want to start reading my work. Dear reader, now you are as excited as I am. How wonderful that we share that!

Sometimes I think it’s a bit of an ego trip. Like my inner child is yelling “I can’t deny the fact that you like me! Right now, you like me!” lol. Yes, I feel that, every time.

But it’s not just ego or vanity or whatever. There is an overwhelming joy that I, and most authors, feel in sharing our creations. Bringing our characters to life in our head isn’t enough. It’s far more satisfying that they come to life in YOUR head, too, and in your own imagination, however different that character may be for you. It’s not just about the money we earn or the volume of sales or spreading our “brand” or whatever. Sharing is caring, right? Those moments that you spend reading my books, we are sharing a common imagination and bringing that world to reality.

 

Cheers and happy reading!

Author Questions: What scares you most as an author?

 

This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

 

Question:

What scares you most as an author?

 

The quick answer:

That I won’t be able to get all the stories out of my head and onto paper before I die.

 

The long answer:

Yeah, I know, it sounds a little corny, but it’s true. You see, I’m not afraid of anything. I have no fear of dying (I’ve nearly died several times, in fact, including twice by nearly drowning). No fear of spiders or creepy crawlies (I’m a trained entomologist, actually!). Heights give me the willies, but I’ve conquered it. Darkness? Bring it on. Claustrophobia? Nah, I’ve gone spelunking and did fine. Ghosts? I literally grew up in an actual haunted house. I can deal with it.

No, it’s all about my stories. I have endless stories locked in my head, waiting to get onto paper. My fantasy world, Irikara, in particular, has more tales to tell than I could ever write. It’s a vast world, and sometimes it’s more real to me than the real world. I can point to any place on the giant map and tell you what the languages sound like, the smells of the streets, the migrations of the people, the gods, the heroes, the villains, the government structure, and the present and distant past of the land, and so much more.

But if I die, it all dies with me! Imagine being the gatekeeper to an entire world – the sole person who can share it with everyone else – as if you were an alien from a distant planet and only you could share your homeworld with the entire population of Earth. Seriously. That’s what if feels like.

I wonder if other writers share this odd fear.

Author Questions: What’s the Worst Writing Advice You’ve Ever Heard?

This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

Image generated with ChatGPT

Question:

What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever heard?

 

The quick answer:

"Only write what you know."

 

The long answer:

This is actually a common bit of advice you’ll hear as a writer, often delivered with an air of pomposity, and I couldn’t disagree more.

At the heart of the statement is the idea that authors put a part of themselves into their writing, whether they mean to or not, and if you want to come off as genuine, you should avoid putting in your story/book/essay anything that would seem beyond your own experience. Makes sense, right?

Not at all.

Maybe this is true for memoir/autobiography writers. After all, you wouldn’t want to lie about your own experience and sell it as authentic (like this author did). And if you’re writing other non-fiction, then, yeah, you need to do your research and make it accurate. You wouldn’t want to lie about your sources or make up facts (as this author did).

But if you’re writing fiction, “only write what you know” is the worst advice. The entire POINT of fiction is to escape reality and see things from alternative points of view. The two point of view characters in my first fantasy book, Dragon of the Federation, are an elderly dragon and a young female mage. What do I know about being elderly, much less an elderly dragon? I’m also male. What do I really know about the experiences of any females? Or, for that matter, elves, demons, evil generals, ghosts, space nuns, space opera heroes, or all the other weird POVs I’ve written over the years. If I took that bit of bad advice, I wouldn’t have even started those stories.

Dragon of the Federation was released in 2021, and so far no one has come to me to tell me that I got it wrong. Nor for any of my other stories or books.

When I point this out to those who give this advice, they tend to stutter and backtrack and justify their statement by saying that I must be very imaginative to think of life as a dragon, and that my observations of the female condition must be very good. Maybe that’s true. And to be fair, I’ve tried to have “sensitivity readers” read my work who are more like the lead characters (when possible. There aren’t exactly real dragons flying around).

But we can’t go around stifling creativity.

So consider this your official approval to write whatever you want, no matter how outside your experience it is. Feel free to explore and create. And if someone tells you it isn’t accurate, ask them how, then go back and revise, but don’t give it up.

 

Cheers and happy reading!

Author Questions: What’s the Best Writing Advice You’ve Acted On?

This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

Question:

What’s the best writing advice you’ve acted on?

The quick answer:

"Good writing is emotional writing."

The long answer:

There’s a book entitled The Emotional Craft of Fiction, by Donald Maass. On the back of my copy of the book, the blurb says “engage your readers with emotion” and “If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader’s experience must be an emotional journey that aligns with your characters’ struggles, discoveries, and triumphs.” If you don’t have this book, dear author, I highly recommend you purchase it and read it.

This, to me, is the one best piece of advice I’ve ever found for writing compelling fiction. It goes of other forms of entertainment, too, such as poetry, script writing, memoir, acting, composing, singing, sculpting, or dancing. Anything that uses your creativity is a place to insert your emotions.

Have your characters react emotionally. Make them struggle. Torment them. Have them claw their way out of the holes they’ve dug, only to be kicked back down and have to struggle back up and finally climb out. The reader will be right there with them experiencing the moments of struggle, sadness, and joy. Take them on an emotional rollercoaster. That’s what fiction is for, after all. It’s to experience all the things that we are afraid or unable to experience in real life, and to walk in the shoes of someone else for a little while. Keep it exciting. Never be boring.

And it needs to be emotional for you, as the author, as well. Feeling angry about the state of the world? Lonely? Happy about a success? Whatever you are feeling, pour it into your writing that day. Everything an author writes has some little bit of the writer’s persona in it. You can’t help it. So own it! Pour your feelings into your words. It will come through to the reader and bring with it a powerful impact.

Cheers and happy reading!

Author Questions: What Did You Learn Faster By Doing Instead Of Studying?

 This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

 

Question:

What did you learn faster by doing instead of studying?

 

The quick answer:

In-person table sales of my books.

 

The long answer:

I had published books, but few were selling. I had some reasonable sales on Amazon, but I knew there were plenty of readers out there who would be eager to read my books if only they knew about them. But getting your book in front of potential readers online is incredibly difficult. There is so much competition for their attention, and so many millions and millions of books, that it seems like a Herculean task just to get the cover in front of them, much less tell them what it’s about.

Before I did in-person sales, I would try loads of social media posts across all of my social media platforms. I tried Facebook ads. I tried Amazon ads. I even ran an ad that showed on the screen at my local movie theater (yes, really).

My publisher, too, was selling very few of the books they represent.

So I had to take action and go out, in person, to talk to readers.

There’s no guide for how to do this. There’s no self-help book for authors that I’ve ever seen that discusses this topic. No one mentors you on these things. [if you’d like some advice, read to the bottom and follow the links]

I had seen authors at events, smiling at people and talking about their books, which were neatly arranged on the table in front of them – at festivals and fairs as people milled about eating ice cream or listening to live music or perusing art stalls - at author fairs where there were dozens of authors and too much to take in at once – and at bookstores.

So I started talking to them. Introduced myself as an author. Asked them how to sign up for the next event. Asked them where and when other events were, and who organized them.

And then I got my first event, doing a reading at a local bookstore during a monthly “street art walk” in a nearby town. Then I was able to get a table at a yearly author event.

Slowly, event by event, I built up a rapport with other authors, signed up for more events, until my weekends were filling up with them. I eventually even purchased a little camper so that I could extend my range to do events around the state and even into other states without having to pay for hotel rooms (which would eat up all of my meager profits), taking my efforts to a whole other level.

And, more importantly, I “learned by doing” slowly, figuring out how best to display my books, what accessories to bring, which book pitches worked for which kinds of customers, being able to pick out who my likely customers would be, and how to just put on my sales face and speaking tone.

It helps to be a “people person,” of course. But let’s face it, if you aren’t out there engaging readers, you aren’t going to sell many of your books. And that’s the point, right? You want your hard work to be appreciated. You want to share your inspiration. You want to have other people escape into the worlds you created or learn the knowledge you wish to share with your words.

Last year I sold 516 books at in-person events, which for me is a lot, and way more than I sold online or with my publisher. You can do it too.

HERE is my advice on how you, too, can find events to do in-person sales for your books, sign up, and what to bring.

HERE is my advice on what to do, and what not to do, while selling your books at those tables.

To learn more about what events I’m doing this year, click HERE (the page will be updated throughout the year as events are added and confirmed). That list will give you a good idea of the range of events that maybe you could find, too.

So get out there. Engage your readers. Build your fan base. There are people who crave what you write, you just need to find them first.

 

 

Cheers and happy reading!

Author Questions: What Made You Start Writing?

 This is an ongoing series of “questions every author avoids answering” (based on this video by Dale L. Roberts) and my answers to them. I recommend every author ask themselves these same questions to better understand themselves and their art.

Question:

What made you start writing?

The quick answer:

An insatiable desire to be creative and lose myself in other worlds.

 

The long answer:

For the most part, I both read and write to escape the real world. This is why speculative fiction is my thing, for what I read and what I write: primarily fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

It has always been this way for me. I remember, as early as ten years old, reading books in those genres that were meant for adults. Authors such as Michael Moorcock, Stephen King, Stephen R. Donaldson, and J.R.R. Tolkien, took me far beyond the childhood books I had been reading and launched me into new worlds.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I read books for my age range, too. For instance, I consumed all of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle In Time, and so many others. Scholastic book sales at school were super exciting to me. But it was the adult books that really set my imagination on fire.

Around the same age, my mother introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons (thanks, Mom!). It was the first edition basic box set. I promptly found other kids to play it with. Thus began a lifelong love of roleplaying games. Soon I found myself with a group of kids and doing dungeonmastering. Over the course of my junior high and high school years I developed the world of Irikara, which now serves as the world I set my fantasy stories in. It’s a vast world, with so much complexity that sometimes it feels more real to me than the real world we live in.

The need to escape from the real world is a driving factor for so many readers of speculative fiction. I know I’m not alone in that.

There are two very moving anecdotes I want to share, along these lines:

A few years ago, I was contacted by a young man who was an online acquaintance of mine. He said that he read my scifi space opera novel, The First Nova I See Tonight, and it changed his life. I was really surprised by this. To me, it’s just a fun and sexy romp through space with lots of action. I asked him why he felt this, and his response moved me to tears. His girlfriend had died, and he had a hard time dealing with life and coming to grips with it. He said that my book had helped him escape the pain, at least for a while, until he could get back on his feet. This was a real eye-opener for me, and I thanked him for telling me.

Then, last year, another young acquaintance of mine came forward. I had previously given him my book of poetry, Guide Me, O River. Then his best friend was murdered in a horrific manner. He said that reading my poems helped him get through that hard time. Again, I was very moved by this.

These anecdotes serve as a reminder to me that the power of the written word can move mountains. Our lives are complex and often difficult. Reading speculative fiction can help you escape those real world issues, at least for a little while.

 

Cheers and happy writing!

Why Have A Prologue In A Fiction Novel?

Why not just start with Chapter One? Is a prologue just fluff you can skip over? Why write it at all? Like everything else in a book, a prologue has to do work, but not every book needs one.

The prologue serves purposes that are entirely different from other chapters. If it didn’t, it would just be “Chapter One.”

Image by Rowan Freeman
via Unsplash.com

Before I continue, here is a good page that defines the differences between a prologue, preface, introduction, and forward, so I’m not going to redefine them here. I admit that I’ve mistaken these before. All four are different types of “front matter.” That first link defines a prologues as follows: A prologue sets the stage by bringing the reader into the story before it begins. But in my opinion, there’s more than that.

There are differing philosophies for what a prologue is supposed to achieve. My philosophy is that the prologue in fiction should achieve three goals: 1) Introduce the setting and genre (as would Chapter One if the prologue were not there), 2) give a sneak peek for the reader at the plot or important plot points that will later become important or clear to the protagonists (and thus setting up the reader for something important), and 3) introduce important aspects of the story that might not otherwise be introduced right away in the first couple chapters.

This is the “work” that the prologue does for the novel.

In a way, the author is opening a door for the reader, revealing a world and its complexity, before launching into the first step of the journey together.

For instance, I had a prologue for my fantasy book, Dragon of the Federation. That prologue quickly introduced that the story was 1) set in a fantasy world rich with history and competing cultures, 2) introduced pivotal characters who weren't the protagonists and an inciting act that later was revealed as the start of a deep cabal that influenced the entire plot, which the protagonists would later discover, and 3) introduced in a big way some of the fantastic sorts of magic in a way that was action-packed. These things allowed me to introduce the protagonists and their struggles in the first few chapters in a slower, more thorough manner without resorting to some sort of "bang" moment or relying on big magic to do it.

Could the book have gone without it? Sure, but I think it would have seemed like it started too slow to "hook" the reader. With the prologue, the reader was already hooked and was ready for a deeper introspection of character. This prologue also serves as a sort of introduction to the whole seven book series I’m writing (it's the only book in the series that will have one. The last book will have an epilogue, too).

Do all books need a prologue? Certainly not. Most novels don’t, and arguably don’t need it. But it can be enlightening and even necessary when it is there, and I recommend you never skip them as a reader.

 

Cheers and happy reading!

Which Kind Of Writer Are You: A "Pantser" Or A "Plotter?"

You’ve got a great idea for a novel, but how should you go about it? Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?” Are you a “writing wanderer” or do you prefer a map for your writing journey?

 

(image by Glenn Carsten-Peters via unsplash.com)

First of all, let me say that every fiction author has their own method for writing novels. Do what works best for you! But after writing four fiction novels (three of which are published so far, plus my current WIPs, and a couple other books that aren’t novels), I’ve had some experience with this.

Generally speaking, the popular notion is that there are two camps: “pantsers” and “plotters.” Pantsers are writers who “write from the seat of their pants” without using any plotting at all. “Plotters” (sometimes called “planners”) are writers who outline a book ahead of time. I’ve written both ways.

As I see it, writing a novel is a journey. Plotting is like unfolding a map to guide that journey. That map guides your way so you don’t get lost along the trail, helps you choose the most efficient path and see the pitfalls, and you know your destination. But maybe you are a pantser, a sort of “writing wanderer,” preferring to explore the wilderness of your story. Getting lost along the way can be exciting, with unexpected obstacles to overcome. If so, your writing experience is not about the destination, but the journey to get there, wherever that may be.

Stephen King is a famous pantser, as he described himself in his book, On Writing, a book that is often cited as a sort of textbook on how to write novels (though about half of it is an autobiography and, frankly, King broke a lot of his own rules, particularly in his early books that made him big). He goes so far as to say, “Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters’ theses.” Wow, okay. But he enjoys discovering the book with the characters and being surprised by the ending.

John Grisham is an example of a famous plotter. He has said, “I’m doing the outline [of my story] upfront so I always know where I’m going. I work on the outline for weeks, months, sometimes even years if I can’t get it right. But when I start the book on January the first to finish by July the first I’ve got a clear outline—I know exactly where the story’s going— I know how it’s going to end.” Given that he’s published at least 74 books (about as many as King), 47 of which have made the New York Times Bestsellers list (King has had only about half as many), it sort of blows away King’s statement that he’s a “bad fiction writer” because he makes outlines.

In fact, King and Grisham had an online discussion with each other that included this very topic. King asked Grisham if he ever wrote himself into “a blind alley,” and Grisham responded quickly: “No.  I don’t write the first scene until I write the last scene.  So I always know where I’m going.” This must have made King’s head explode, since in On Writing he likened this to “eating dessert first.”

As far as I can tell, the term “pantser” may have come about from NaNoWriMo, an annual event where writers attempt to write a draft of a novel in just a month. From their website: “National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.” Who has time to do careful plotting when you only have a month to write a book, after all? (Personally, I can’t imagine being able to write a quality book in such a short amount of time, even as a draft, in part because I have a 50 hour work week dayjob and a life outside of writing, too. But I digress.).

When I wrote my first novel (which is still unpublished), I was a pantser. I had a great idea for the start and some general ideas of what I wanted to have happen in scenes throughout. I had some characters in mind, too. But for the most part, I just let the ideas flow. Pantsing is a free-form storytelling. You, as the author, let the characters and action guide the story. You’re along for the ride, exploring the plot as it develops, which makes the process of writing more fun, at least at first. You’re as surprised as your readers will be when the plot twists. You get started writing quicker. The ending is an exciting discovery! I experienced all of these things as I wrote mine, and it was really interesting to see where the story went.

The problem with pantsing, though, is that you can’t see around the corner. Without knowing what’s coming, you can’t build in foreshadowing. You can’t develop the characters, plan the setting, or place important items along the way. You can’t as easily build up to events. This can lead to what writers call “the messy middle” – a situation where the plot and subplots just seem to fizzle or go astray, and you have trouble bringing them together, sometimes resulting in writer’s block. And the ending can fall flat. Coincidentally, Stephen King is often criticized for having poor endings. I wonder if this is why. The book I wrote as a pantser also had a “messy middle”, years to write, and it took far too many words to bring it all together. In fact, the first draft was a whopping 220,000 words! (I eventually pared it down to about 122,000 in a later draft). I think the ending was good, but maybe it wouldn’t be satisfying to everyone. It was bittersweet.

A hybrid approach is to write a synopsis or a partial outline. This would include a beginning and ending, significant scenes you expect along the way, and character descriptions. When I wrote my second book, which became Dragon of the Federation, a high fantasy novel, I used this hybrid approach. I basically wrote out a one-page synopsis with paragraphs describing the important scenes and characters. I had a defined beginning and ending, and the scenes acted as crucial stepping stones along the way. This approach worked pretty well, but I had to be very careful along the way to make sure everything came together, particularly since it was told from two different points of view. It took me years to write it. At some point in the middle, I wound up making a more careful outline using Microsoft Word in order to keep it all coherent. That was the moment I realized the full strength of proper outlining. Once I made it, the story came together in a much more seamless way and the writing went much quicker.

Plotting involves making an outline of each chapter. But even before that, it’s a good idea to write a one-page synopsis, or even an “elevator speech” (one or two sentences on what the book is about, as if you were describing it to someone during a short elevator ride), to summarize the book and it’s important concepts. The outline might be as simple as a short description of each chapter, or it might be as thorough as carefully describing each character’s motivations and actions, character arcs, settings, and how they weave into subplots. Again, everyone is different.

The third novel I completed became The First Nova I See Tonight, a fun science fiction space opera novel. By this time I had a lot of real-world experience with writing and had a better idea of what worked best for me. From the very start, I began with an “elevator speech.” Then I wrote a general outline of the book, chapter by chapter, each with a short paragraph of the character actions and story plot. After spending some time trying to visualize the book as a sort of movie in my head, I then created an Excel document with each of those chapters as a separate line and a few sentences of what was going to happen in each chapter. Since this was a fast-paced novel with lots of action, I wanted shorter chapters and a shorter overall length, so I aimed at an average of about 2000 words per chapter. This gave me an idea of how many chapters for a final length of around 80,000 words (in the end, I was just under that at about 79,000). Once I had that groundwork done, I started writing the book. I found that the outline was tremendously helpful. Even while working a full time job and having an active lifestyle, I still wrote the draft in about a year. Writing it was lots of fun, I didn’t have the “messy middle” problem, and the ending came together smoothly on the first try. I wasn’t rigid about my outline, however. I allowed flexibility, moving chapters around a bit, combining or separating chapters, and allowing the characters to develop in their own ways, which changed the outline a bit as I went.

An excerpt from the "visual outline"
I created for Footman of the Ether.

The fourth novel I published, Footman of the Ether, a sequel to Dragon of the Federation, also used this plotting method. It, too, went more quickly. The outlining helps pace the book and judge the length. But because it was told from four points of view (POV), I had an additional outline: a “visual outline.” This visual outline was a color-coded guide of how the four character viewpoints weaved through the novel. See the image attached here. Trust me when I tell you that involving multiple POVs makes the writing of the story much more difficult, as it requires careful balance. I doubt I’ll ever do more than four in one book, for this reason. The challenges of writing multiple POVs is a topic for a future blog post.

In another later blog post I will go into more detail on my current plotting method. For now, though, I hope this article gives you a good idea of the differences between pantsing and plotting, and a hybrid of the two, and their pros and cons.

 

Cheers and happy writing!