Putting my Writing Knowledge into Practice

Knowledge without practice makes but half an artist.
(old proverb)

Writing is something I've always enjoyed. In high school and college, I wrote some poems and short stories that I was proud of. When I started working, most of that writing stopped. I spent most of my work days from 1987 to 1996 writing technical and marketing documents, so going home to write more didn't sound like fun. I bought a few books on writing during those years, but wrote very little. By the time I changed jobs in 1996, I had gotten out of the habit of writing for myself. Occasionally, an idea came to mind but I never did anything with it.

Last summer, at the Origins Game Convention in Columbus, I was feeling the urge to "create" something. I decided to sit in on a writing seminar by Michael A. Stackpole entitled "The Rules of Writing". It was a great seminar and gave me the writing bug again. A month later, at Gen Con 2009, I attended more writing seminars. I got so wrapped up in the idea of writing, I almost forgot about gaming.

In November, I took a much bigger step. I took part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) contest online. I didn't start until about a week into the month, but still managed to crank out my 50,000 words of fiction by the end of the month. It was the closest I'd ever come to actually finishing a novel!

Since then, I dusted off those writing books I bought 20 years ago and started reading them. I attended a few seminars at the game conventions this year. I bought a few of the documents offered by the authors teaching the seminars, and read those, too. I've learned a great deal from material written by several published authors, including Michael Stackpole, James N. Frey, Josip Novakovich, Orson Scott Card, and others. I suspect that if I were to go back and rewrite my 2009 NaNoWriMo book, it would be considerably better today.

One thing all the authors have suggested is that reading other novels is key to learning to write your own novels, so I've read a few of those in the last few months as well. I've recently read Aaron Allston's "Doc Sidhe", Michael Stackpole's "Talion: Revenant" and "I, Jedi", Chelsea Handler's "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang", and some others. I've found my iPod Touch very useful for this (since it fits in my pocket and goes everywhere with me, I can read any time I find myself not doing something else).

I started looking at software designed to help novelists out, things like Dramatica Pro, PlotCraft, StoryCraft, PageFour, Scrivener, yWriter, and NewNovelist. I also started gathering my favorite writing advice into a Microsoft OneNote notebook.

You'll notice by this point that there is one thing I really haven't done since last November... Write!

This weekend, I decided to really start fleshing out one of the story ideas I've had for a while now. I don't want to spill the whole thing (because I want you to read it when I finish it), but it's about an IT guy who stumbles on to some very nasty malware (malicious computer software) that turns out to be only the tip of a much larger iceberg. I used an old version of StoryCraft I found on eBay to help me start putting the story together, just to get a feel for that particular product. It's been helpful in organizing my thoughts so far, but I've got a long way to go.

(Note: All Amazon.com links in this article include my Amazon affiliate code, which earns me a percentage of your purchases there - without changing the price you pay. If that idea upsets you, delete the part of the url that includes "mikesalsbusbl-20" and you should be good to go.)

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Notes from Stackpole's "Writing in the Post-Paper Era"

At Gen Con 2010, I attended one of author Michael A. Stackpole's seminars entitled "Writing Success in the Post-Paper Era". The seminar description mentions that Stackpole was "the first author to offer fiction on the iPhone/iPod Touch through Apple's App Store" and that he would give attendees "an up to date look at the digital revolution and explain how you can profit and develop your career". He definitely delivered on that. Below are my notes:

• For every hardcopy book sold, two are printed.


• The economics of publishing are such that if 25% of the copies of a book sold are digital, publishers will drop the paper version.


• If you intend to make a living writing, you need a professional web site, a Facebook presence, and a Twitter feed. All of these will help get your name out there and draw people to your work.


• If you do a blog, everything you write, tweet, or post on Facebook should be entertaining. It should also be positive, and professional. All of these things become part of your image, and you want to present the image of an entertaining professional with a pleasant personality. If you come across as a moody jerk, a loser, or a person who sulks over all their rejection slips, that's not going to help your reputation.


• You should be able to generate 500 words on pretty much any topic and make it entertaining. If you can't, you probably shouldn't be looking at writing as a career.


• A good, professional WordPress design will cost you $150-200. You should consider that an investment in your future, and not go with one of the free, cookie-cutter themes on the web. (Like the one I'm using here, I guess...)


• Buy domain names for yourself, your main character names, and book titles. That will make it easier for people to find your site and your work.


• Mr. Stackpole uses Zen Cart on his site to handle payments and shopping cart duty.


• Paypal can provide a good payment option for customers. Make sure you get a merchant account with them, though.


• Put writing samples on your web site. This will help readers who are new to you decide whether or not to buy your work.


• Non-technical documents/books priced at over $10 will pretty much not sell as e-books.


• Pricing recommendations based on his experience: $2 for up to 10,000 words. $3 for 10-40,000 words. $5 for 50,000+ words.


• He recommends a metric over "word count divided by 10,000" to represent "hours of reading enjoyment" for your work. Price based on that metric and describe your content in that terminology. The term "pages" doesn't really apply in a digitial setting. Even describing in "word count" doesn't work. What you're really selling is the hours of enjoyment someone will get from your work.


• Consumers tend to be more concerned about the time cost of entertainment than the money cost.


• We'll start seeing more digital serial stories in the future, similar to TV episodes, that are sold for casual reading sessions and priced as above.


• The three main formats you should consider publishing your works in: PDF (optional), ePub (works for all devices except Kindle), and Kindle format. Those three formats should cover just about any e-reader your customer might have.


• Stackpole recommends "Legend Maker" software on the Mac for creating the eBooks.


• At some point there is probably going to be a "big collapse" of traditional publishing. Until then you have no reason not to submit your work to traditional publishers.


• Physical books will drive readers to your web site. That's good. You get money from your web site faster. Publishers tend to pay 6-9 months after the sale of the book. Payment tends to be around $1.35 from the sale of a $10 paperback. Sell a $2 short story through your web site, and you'll pocket around $1.67... so digital publishing is a better deal for the author. More money, sooner.


• As far as editing and proofing services, for a short story, it's sufficient to have another writer look it over. For a novel, hire a freelance editor.


• A good strategy for offering samples on your site: Put up installments of a serial story free. Take them down after a week or two. Put up the next installment. Near the end, offer a digitial omnibus collection of the entire series, including the as-yet-unpublished installments. People will buy them to get the parts they're missing and read the parts not available yet.


• In the digital age, there are no "established authors" anymore. You are as established as your web store.

Mr. Stackpole offers a "Digital Career Guide" for $30 through his web store that offers more detail, recommendations, and information. I purchased a copy at Gen Con but haven't read it yet. I hope to publish a review when I do.

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Notes on Creating Conflict in a Novel

While attending Gen Con 2010 this year, I attended the "Creating Conflict" panel in the writer's track. The panelists included Anton Strout, Chris Pierson, Brad Beaulieu, and John Helfers. The seminar description was:

Make war, not peace! Ruffle the feathers of your characters. Stir the pot of emotions. Add a fistfight or two. Craft a clever and entertaining argument among your heroes. Not all conflict has to be bloody or increase the body count, but it does have to keep the reader turning the pages. Our panelists discuss the art of adding a dash of conflict to your pages.

Below are my notes from the seminar:

• Conflict drives everything in a book.


• Conflict happens whenever two or more characters (or forces, or philosophies) are in opposition.


• Conflict should build over the course of the story, starting small and growing larger.


• It's important that you, and your reader, understand "the bad guy" and why that person does what they do. You don't have to AGREE with the villain, just understand what makes them do what they do. Few, if any, human beings are intentionally "evil".


• The term "psychometry" refers to knowing the history of an object at first touch. (One of the authors used that in a story. Sounded interesting to me so I made a note of it.)


• Having characters make the wrong choice because of their personalities can help build conflict.


• In achieving a goal, the character should try an easy or obvious solution, but fail. Then try a harder solution, and fail... and so on until the goal is achieved.


• Consequences of characters' choices and actions should be explored. They might achieve their goal, but at what cost?


• Characters (and by extension, the reader) may not know the "right choice" for solving a problem.


• The two important points to consider in a conflict: What are the stakes? Why should we care?


• Conflict should be meaningful and advance the plot.


• Conflict should start as early as possible in the story.


• During action scenes (like fights), you want a level of descriptive detail that is appropriate to what a character in that situation might actually notice. For example, during a frantic martial arts battle, we shouldn't see something like this:

The blow connected with Fred's chin, knocking his head back. As his face turned toward the ceiling, Fred noticed the wallpaper border around it. The pattern looked familiar somehow. Of course! It was the same border his mother had put around the walls in their home on the Cape. He wondered if he would ever get back to that house. The summers there were so relaxing...

(A sequence like the above would stop the action DEAD in the story, and it's unlikely anyone in the middle of a fight is going to reminisce about wallpaper and summer homes from their childhood. They might think back to a similar hit from a previous battle and how they reacted, but even that recollection is likely to be short and to the point.)

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