You are what you create…

There is a sushi restaurant in the OSU campus area here in Columbus that allows patrons to essentially custom-design their own sushi.    (For those who are curious, it’s called Fusian.)  You pick the wrap, the fillings, and even the sauces.  You then pay for and eat your creation.

On the way out, I noticed the sign at the left.  For the employees and patrons of the shop, it’s a clever way to say “you are what you eat” and, since what you eat there is something you get to create, if you are what you eat then you are also what you create.  I would imagine most patrons walk out of there feeling good when they see that message, convinced that their custom-created sushi, made of fresh ingredients, has made them healthier.  Nothing wrong with that.

As a writer who has written several novels that are not publishable (and I don’t think I’m being hard on myself here), the message struck me on two levels.

The first level was a kind of sadness.  My inner critic popped up and said to me, “No novels on the proverbial store shelves yet, eh?  You haven’t really ‘created’ then, have you?  If you are what you create, then you’re nothing, big guy…”  While I don’t totally buy what he’s trying to sell me, he knows I’m disappointed that for all the hours I’ve put in, my writing’s just not there yet.  My characters are flat, the plots lack escalating conflict, and my descriptions could certainly improve.
But that’s as far as I’ll agree with him.  I’m not published as a novelist, but I’ve been published in magazines and journals.  So I have created, and it’s been good enough for publication.  In time, I’ll work out the problems in my fiction and produce something I’m happy with – if not proud of. 

The quote hit me on another level, too.  In his book Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon talks about how artists need to explore the work of other artists, the topics that interest them in life, etc.  These things find their way into our subconscious and (for want of a better description) fill up a “creative gas tank” inside us.  We want to be sure we fill that tank up with good stuff – stuff that makes us happy, gets us excited, or fills us with awe.  When we finally sit down to create, our “tank” will be filled with lots of great fuel to work with.

I’ve tried to fill my tank with good writing advice from the likes of Dean Wesley Smith, Mike Stackpole, the late Aaron Allston, Joe Konrath, and Joe Straczynski.  I’m trying to inspire my creative side with the writing from great TV shows like Dexter, memoirs like Jackson Galaxy’s Cat Daddy, thought-provoking ideas like those in Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.  I’ve even started to engage other parts of my brain by trying my hand at drawing, painting, and sculpting.  I may even try to learn to play the guitar at some point.  I’m trying to give my creative tank a lot of good material to work with.

If you find yourself blocked creatively, it might be time to sit back and asking if you’re taking in enough creative stimulation to fill up your inspiration tank.  If not, get to it!

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Adding Complexity to a Story

The July/August 2013 issue of Writer's Digest carries an article by author James Scott Bell entitled "Vitamin C For Your Thriller" (on page 24).  Building on the "C" theme, the article talks about complex characterizations, confrontation (the main conflict in the story), careening (twists and shocks), coronary (heart-touching), and communication (what's the "real message" in your story that you want readers to take away from it?).  Part of the complex characterizations section really resonated with me.

Bell suggested creating a grid listing the characters in your story along both axes.  In each box of the grid, you add possible relationships, secrets, and areas of conflict between the two characters whose names line up there.  For example:

Character	Fred	Dave	Jane
Fred	X	Dave is jealous of Fred for getting the promotion he wanted at work	Jane knows that Fred's wife is having an affair
Dave	Fred considers Dave a good friend, but is tired of covering up for his mistakes at the office	X	Jane saw Dave drinking in the office, and watched Fred throw out the bottle when Dave wasn't looking.
Jane	Fred thinks Jane is a bit nosy and kind of a gossip, which is something he hates	Dave secretly thinks Jane is very attractive, but hasn't trusted her since he saw her take money from the petty cash box and slip it into her purse.	X

Brainstorming all of these points of connection and conflict between the characters could improve the complexity and depth of the relationships depicted in the story.  For example, if Dave tried to make Fred look bad so that management will demote him, Fred might admit that he's been covering up for Dave.  Jane could back Fred's story up, since she's seen him throw out Dave's bottle. 

Or, if we wanted to start an affair between Jane and Fred, the fact that Jane knows Fred's wife is fooling around is a secret she might slip to Dave. Dave could use that to get back at Fred in retaliation for the promotion he thinks he deserved.  By concealing her knowledge of Fred's wife's affair, Jane could engineer situations to be with Fred and console him, improving her chances to catch him "on the rebound".  Of course, if Fred finds out that Jane knew about the affair and didn't tell him, he might want nothing more to do with her.

Michael A. Stackpole describes something very similar in an article on characterization techniques that appears in his The Secrets writing newsletter (Volume 1, Issue 23).  He calls this "Interaction Dynamics" and tells us:

Characters do not operate in a vacuum… once you begin to see how they will function, you have to then compare and contrast them to other folks in that world and other characters in your story.  In essence this is a playtest of how the characters will function inside their world.

You are looking for affinities and oppositions.  Who is this character's natural ally?  Who is her enemy?  Is she willing to compromise on some point of pride to make thins work with this person? What behavior by someone else would turn her against him, or endear her to him?  How will she react if an enemy spares her life or saves it?  

…None of us have a relationship with one person that is unaffected by our relationships with everyone else.  We just don't operate in isolation like that – or if we do, there is some serious pathology that needs to be dealt with. 

…Between and among the major characters… there should be a lot of energy and strength, whether they get along, as passionately in love, or hate each other's guts.

What all this boils down to is that our characters aren't robots, they're people.  They don't necessarily like (let alone love) everyone else in the story.  They may not trust some of the other characters.  They may, even subconsciously, want another to fail.  All of these "connections" can be used in your story where and when they make sense.

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Career Advice from a Successful Author

Today I had the privilege to learn from a New York Times bestselling author, Michael A. Stackpole.  His seminar "Digital Publishing and the Independent Author" at Gen Con Indy 2012 was very well-attended.  Some of the take-aways from the seminar:

• If you're trying to succeed as a writer, your guiding principle should be "Profitable is Good."  Actions you take should ideally contribute to your overall profit.  If you spend $7 a month to host a web site, and that web site generates $10 in sales, it's profitable.
• Just as important as generating a profit is being sensible about what you do.  You shouldn't risk your retirement money or rent money, for example, to fund the printing of a book.  For instance, you might use Amazon's CreateSpace program to print copies on demand, or sell it as an e-Book.
• Success in the world of digital publishing is a moving target.  Techniques that work today may not work tomorrow, or in two years.
• When in doubt about what to do, generate new content.  Everything you write serves as a promotional piece for everything you've already written.  Readers who buy one book you've written and enjoyed it will be more inclined to buy others.
• Every book or short story you publish should contain a 1-2 page list of all the other items you've written (or at least as many as fit on 1-2 pages).  This should appear near the front of your book, so that someone downloading a sample of your book will see this information in the sample.
• Digital sales count for 20-30% of a typical book's sales today.
• Digital self-publishing is a boon to authors.  Traditional publishers paid about 8-10% of a book's cover price to the author, about 6-9 months after the sale was made.  Digital publishing through organizations like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo pay about 70% of the cover price in 60 days after the sale.
• You shouldn't adopt the narrow view that you're "writing a story".  Think of it as "developing an intellectual property".  Think about other ways you could distribute the content (audio books, podcasts, related short stories, etc.).  For your particular content, these could be more profitable venues for you.
• When you choose or create cover artwork, remember that your cover should look good at sizes ranging from postage stamps (as seen in a typical online book listing) all the way to iPad Retina Displays.
• Be sure to hire a good editor and proofreader to look over your work before publishing it.
• In your e-Books, be sure to include a revision number, build number, or other value,  This way, when a reader reports that they've found typos or errors in your work, you can identify the correct draft to look at.

In addition to the industry and self-publishing information, Stackpole also shared important information about building an online presence:

• Remember that different potential readers for your work may not all use a given social media tool.  For example, those who are avid Facebook users may not follow Twitter.  Get your message out to a variety of outlets to reach the most people.
• It's important to think about your online image.  You want to come across as positive, confident, successful, hard-working, persevering, and friendly to your readers.  If you're struggling with characterization, for instance, don't share that.  Do not show yourself "warts and all" to your readers.  This is a recipe for disaster.
• When critics arise, you should generally not respond to them.  There are too many ways it can go badly for you.  For example, you might write a scathing retort to a mean-spirited comment on your blog, only to find that the commenter was a young child.  Suddenly, you've become the author who "beat up" little Janie online.  Not a reputation you want to foster.
• Everything you post online doesn't have to be a story or book.  What is important, though, is that it be entertaining or informative to a reader.  A blog post about how you spent the day trying to overcome writer's block is probably not entertaining.  Telling a story about how your grandmother used to cheer you up when you got stuck by baking you cookies may be entertaining.
• Think of your blogging, tweeting, etc., as building an audience.  You want your audience to see you as a good person who works hard, overcomes problems, and treats others well.  Share some of who you are with them but not everything.  It's like developing yourself as a brand.

When it comes to digital publishing, one of Mike's strongest pieces of advice was that there is no reason whatsoever not to digitally self-publish your work… even if you're trying to sell it to a publisher.  If you succeed in selling it, you can always take the book off the market.  If you don't succeed in selling it, you may at least be earning something from it

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How to Write an Essay Easily

Writing, in general, is something many people find difficult.  Stringing together words and sentences is something they struggle with.  Writing an essay can seem like a difficult task.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  In this tutorial, I'll show you how to write an essay on any subject easily, provide evidence that supports your point of view, and flows smoothly from beginning to end.

Why Write an Essay?

An essay is an attempt to prove a point.  Perhaps you're arguing against a change in your school's rules, or trying to convince readers that Fringe is the best television show ever, or simply persuade your parents to let you borrow the car Saturday night.  Regardless of the point you're making, a well-written essay can help you convince your reader to see things your way.

What Makes a Well-Written Essay?

What does a well-written essay look like?  One of my high school teachers provided this diagram:

What does this diagram mean?  It means that you begin to write your essay with an introduction which starts from a general subject area and narrows down to a specific point.  (That's why the first shape is a triangle that comes to a point at the bottom.)  Once you've made that point, you provide three or more paragraphs that each contain an observation or fact that supports your point.  When you feel you've provided enough evidence to support your point, you re-state the point in your conclusion, briefly summarize your evidence, and end with a general statement about your general subject area.


Writing a Sample Essay

That's a bit vague, so let's look at a more specific example.  Let's say I'm writing an essay to convince readers that chocolate ice cream is superior to strawberry ice cream.  That's the "point" I need to get to in my essay's introduction.  Next, I'll need to provide evidence to support that argument.  I do some research online and in my local public library, learning about ice cream in general, how chocolate and strawberry ice cream are made, examining nutritional facts about each, etc.  Let's say that my research has given me three good points to support my argument:

• According to About.com, chocolate contains flavonoids, which area antioxidants that can help reduce blood pressure and cholesterol.  That sounds like a good point to support the argument that chocolate is better.


• Wikipedia says that some people are allergic to strawberries.  Allergies to chocolate are rare, according to About.com.


• According to the International Ice Cream Association, chocolate is a more popular flavor than strawberry.  Vanilla is more popular than both, though, so I'm going to have to dismiss that point somehow.

In a "real" essay, I'd recommend finding some more persuasive points than these.  I'd also put extra effort into ensuring that these sources are reliable and accurate.  While Wikipedia and About.com are fairly accurate sites in general, it is possible that someone could find better evidence to dispute these points.  If I was writing this essay for a grade, I'd want the best sources I could find.

When I look at my three points, let's say that I decide the "popularity" point is the least persuasive.  The allergy issue is a bit more powerful.  But the health benefits of chocolate are the point I think will really convince people.  I'm going to arrange my points in order from least persuasive to most persuasive.

Here's how all this fits into the essay writing diagram:

My essay is practically written.  I know the point I'm making.  I can support it with at least three arguments.  I know how to conclude the essay.  So how might this essay look when it's finished?  Try this:

Ice cream is one of the most popular desserts in America.  Ice cream makers offer it in a variety of flavors.  Strawberry and chocolate are two of the most popular ice cream flavors on the market.  Of these, chocolate is the better flavor.

I'm not the only one who thinks chocolate is better.  In a study done by the International Ice Cream Association, chocolate was far more popular with consumers than strawberry.  The study reports that 8.9% of people prefer chocolate ice cream, while only 5.3% prefer strawberry.  Clearly, many more people find chocolate to be the better ice cream flavor.

Chocolate isn't just more popular, it's safer to eat.  According to About.com, allergies to chocolate are extremely rare.  Allergies to strawberries are somewhat common.  Who wants to risk a serious allergic reaction just to eat ice cream?  Stick with chocolate.

If safety and popularity weren't enough, chocolate is also good for you.  Chocolate contains antioxidants known as flavonoids, which studies have shown will reduce cholesterol and help lower your blood pressure.  Strawberries, though they may be good for you, can't do that.

Chocolate ice cream is simply a better choice than strawberry.  It's healthier.  It's less likely to trigger an allergic reaction.  It's also a lot more popular.    The next time you're in the grocery to pick up some ice cream, remember to choose chocolate.  You'll be glad you did.

That's really all there is to writing an essay.  Choose a point, support it with facts, dismiss any likely arguments to each fact, and close by re-stating your point.

Linking Your Essay Together

There is one more thing you should do.  When you look at the diagram, you'll notice there are "chain links" connecting the blocks.  These tell you that it's important to transition from one paragraph to the next.

If you look at each of the paragraphs in my sample essay above, I did that.  At the end of the first paragraph, I closed with "chocolate is the better flavor".  The next paragraph linked back to that, saying "I'm not the only one who thinks chocolate is better..."  The third paragraph started with a reference to the "popularity" of chocolate in the second paragraph.  The next one calls back to the two preceding paragraphs, saying "If safety [second supporting point] and popularity [first supporting point] weren't enough..."

The end result is an essay that makes its point, backs it up with facts, flows nicely from one paragraph to the next, and reminds readers of the points it makes in its conclusion.  Don't forget to re-read it, spell-check it, etc.

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SEO for Authors

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of helping search engines like Google or Bing identify what the content on your site is about, so that people searching for the kind of information you're offering will see your web site in their search results.  It is not about "fooling" the search engine or "tricking" users into visiting your site, but about ensuring that your site appears in search results for which the content is appropriate.

For example, let's say that you sell motorcycle accessories.  People refer to motorcycles by a number of different phrases.  One person might search for "chopper accessories" while another looks for "motorbike saddlebags" and another wants "Harley jackets".  If you want to draw as many visitors to your site as possible, you'll hopefully include all these phrases somewhere on your site (and with enough frequency) that a search engine associates those terms with your site.

There is a lot more to SEO than just plopping lots of phrases on your site.  We'll cover the more critical points in this article.  The rest I plan to offer later in an eBook.

Why Should Authors Care About SEO?

If you're a million-selling author with legions of dedicated readers, you may not need to care about SEO.  After all, anything you write is likely finding its audience and publishers are clamoring for your work.  Bit if you're not one of those fortunate few, you're probably experiencing some pressure caused by changes in the traditional publishing industry.  Advances are smaller.  Books go out of print faster.  Publishers take longer to pay.  Royalties on eBooks are declining.

Many authors are sitting on novels, short stories, and other writing that could be earning them money, but isn't.  Self-publishing that content is one way to make money with it.  Another is to share that content on the Internet and use advertising to monetize it.  Regardless of the technique you use, you want to help readers find the content you're offering.  If they can't find your work, they can't read it, and they can't pay you for it. SEO for authors is a tool you can use to ensure that when your readers look for you (or "something like" the content you're offering) they will find your work.

Knowing how to optimize your content for search engine indexing will help you.  Knowing what NOT to do will help you as well.  I'm going to discuss what search engines look for, how you can write and structure your content to make it easier for search engines to index your material, and warn you about mistakes that could hurt your search engine ranking.  Although it may sound complicated, much of search engine optimization for writers and authors is based on creating good content that is accessible to your readers, which is something you hopefully already strive for.

What Do Search Engines Look For?

Search engines aren't all that difficult to fathom.  They use programs referred to as "spiders" which scan the web looking for pages to index in their massive databases.  When they find a new page, they begin looking at different items on that page in order to decide how to index it:

• What words and phrases appear on the page?  Which ones appear most often?


• What words and phrases appear in title tags, bold type, italics, etc.?


• What words and phrases appear in image (photo, picture) tags?


• What words and phrases appear in HTML links to other pages (on this site or others)?


• What other sites link to this one, and what text do they use to do it?


• How often does the content on this site get updated?

All the above items are under your control, with the exception of sites linking to yours.  You can encourage that, and do some of it yourself, but largely that is under the control of others.

The most important element in SEO, however, doesn't appear on that list:  quality content.  Fortunately, as an author, you should have everything you need to provide good content for your readers.  How does a search engine decide that the content on your page is "quality" content?  They use human beings.

There are individuals employed by the search engines to review web pages for quality content.  These people actually go out and read the web pages found for a given search result.  They rate it based on relevance, and their input goes into the indexing algorithm.

According to a Google search engine patent application I read years ago, they use another trick to "punish" deceptive sites.  Specifically, they watch how long you stay on a given web page before hitting the "back" button in your browser to look at the search results and pick another page.  How does this work?

Imagine that you've just searched for "mystery novels" in Google.  A list of results appears.  You click the first link in the list.  When you get to that page, you find that it's nothing but a crappy page filled with advertisements and no usable information on mystery novels.  You hit the back button almost instantly and go back to the search results.  You try the next page in the results.  This time, it looks pretty good.  You stay and read for a few minutes. You hit the back button to look at more sites.  Since you stayed on the first site for only a couple of seconds, but spent minutes on the second site, that tells the Google database something... The second site on the list must be more relevant, or have better content, than the first.  They'll record a sort of electronic "vote" that the second site is better than the first.  Over time, the first site (the one with lots of ads and crappy content) will start dropping down the list of search results.  The second site will move up.  The humans using Google actually help it improve the quality of search results.

Google does a lot more than the above, including things I'm sure we'll probably never know about.  Because of the human review element, it's important that you don't try to "scam" or "spam" the search engines with your content.  Doing that is the quickest way to move to the bottom of the search results.

How Should I Prepare Content for SEO?

Here are some basic guidelines for improving the ranking of your content in search engines:

• Write good content.  This is the most critical piece.  If your content is terrible, no amount of SEO will help keep it high in search results for long.  The human element in search engine use will see to that.


• Include words and phrases people would use to find your content.  Remember the motorcycle example earlier?  When writing your content, try to imagine the various words and phrases a reader might use if they were looking for what you are offering.  As best you can, weave those words and phrases into the text on your page.  Don't overdo it or you'll run the risk of alienating readers or tripping the "spam" detectors.


• Include important words and phrases in HTML title tags, bold face text, and italic text.  Search engines, like human readers, recognize that we tend to highlight the key words and phrases in our text.  Careful use of these things will help the search engine to recognize what's relevant in your content.


• Include good links, with key words and phrases in the link text.  For example, your short mystery story should probably have links to your other mystery stories.  Those links should probably include the phrase "mystery story" (as in "here is another mystery storyI wrote" where the underlined words are linked).  Remember it's the actual linked words that matter here. Ideally, the links should appear within the normal flow of the text, not in lists of links, as some search engines reduce the value of links presented that way.


• If you use images or photos, add "alt" and "title" attributes that contain descriptive phrases with your key words.  Search engines, much like readers, will find articles with useful images more relevant or interesting than articles without images.  If your page includes images, you can help show the search engine those images are relevant by using the "alt" and "title" attributes in your HTML image tags.   Only do this if the image really is related to the keywords you're putting in the tag.


• Make sure the title and heading tags on your page contain descriptive text.  For a short story, your HTML title tag might contain the phrase "Short mystery story - Murder at Midnight by John Doe".  This helps a search engine to recognize that this page is a short story, a mystery, and is by John Doe.  Often, these title tags become the heading in search results.  Use them to help readers find your content.


• Use appropriate headings (H1, H2, etc. tags) in your content.  Notice how I've used HTML headings (large bold tags) for phrases like "What is SEO?" on this article?  That's intentional.  Those headings help readers quickly see what parts of this article are about.  They also help the search engine identify phrases that are relevant to the content I'm presenting.  To the extent you can, you should do the same.


• Make it easy for readers and search engines to identify related content.  One way to do this, as mentioned earlier, is to ensure you link related pages on your site together.  If you post a short story, for example, linking to some of your other short stories from it will help.  Having a "My Short Stories" page, which acts as a sort of central menu to your library, will also help.


• Phrase the same thought different ways in your text.  Going back to the motorcycle example, brainstorm the various ways you might phrase a given thought.  To the extent that you can naturally weave these various phrases into your content, do so.  Use them multiple times if you can do so without hurting readability.  Use them in link text, bold type, italics, heading tags, etc.  This will all help the search engine (and the reader).


• Encourage people to link to your content.  You can do this by opening asking in your content, by including links to Facebook/Twitter/Digg/etc.  You can do it yourself by participating in online forums and linking back to your content where it is appropriate and relevant to do so (i.e., linking to your mystery story from a Chevy Corvette forum isn't appropriate or relevant and may hurt your ranking).

All of the above suggestions will improve your page's appearance in search engine results.  To the extent that you can incorporate the above suggestions in your web site, you should.  But if they hamper readability for humans, make your content look cluttered, etc., you should ignore them.  (You may also want to read Google's Starter Guide to Search Engine Optimization.)

What You SHOULD NOT Do in SEO

Just as it is important for an author to do certain things in order to improve his or her search engine visibility, there are lots of things you should NOT do as well.  Doing these will hamper your positioning in search engine results and could result in your site being blacklisted from the search engine (or being ranked very low in spite of really good content).

• Adding text strictly for search engines.  Suppose you're posting an article on your site about writing fiction.  You want to be sure that search engines figure that out.  Should you put a blob of text at the end of that article which is nothing more than dozens of repeated phrases like "writing fiction, fiction writing, how to write fiction, write fiction, write stories" and so on?  No.  It may initially raise your ranking in search results, but humans will likely start penalizing you for that "paragraph of nonsense".  (By the way, making the content invisible to readers by changing the text color to blend into the page background will get you banned very quickly.)


• Overdoing the bold, italic, and heading text.  This will alienate readers and search engines alike.  Depending on the length of the content, you don't want to do this more than once or twice per 500 words.


• Stuffing your content with key words.  It's perfectly appropriate to use different phrasings for a thought in your content as long as it flows naturally.  What you don't want to do is stuff those phrases into the content to the point that it hurts your readability.  This makes you look like a terrible writer and will inevitably hurt your search engine ranking.


• Acquiring a lot of irrelevant links to your site.  While having 300 pages link to your short story will generally help it in the search engine results, if those 300 links are from cooking sites, trading card collector sites, etc., they can hurt you.  You can't control who links to your site, but if you're creating your own links, be sure they're coming from relevant sources and using relevant link text (i.e., "click herefor my content" is not a relevant bit of link text).


• Duplicate your content.  While it's true that having 20 short stories on your web site will help it rank higher for the term "short story", putting 20 copies of a single short story on your site will hurt you.  This is a trick used by a lot of search engine spammers, and will quickly get you blacklisted.

Google's rules change frequently, primarily because people try to "game" or abuse the system.  It is recommended that you regularly check Google's recommendations to ensure that you don't run afoul of them.

SEO for Authors/Writers

I would encourage you to worry first about your content.  Write the blog post, short story, novella, etc., in the manner you normally would.  Don't think about SEO.  When you're ready to post the material online, walk through the following steps.

• Brainstorm the phrases and terms that readers might search for when seeking the content you've just written.  For works of fiction, you probably can't do much with the actual text.  But you can incorporate an introduction or "about the author" section on the same page which does include key words and phrases.


• Where appropriate, bold or italicize important words and phrases.  Again, within a work of fiction this may not be appropriate.  But within the introduction or other text, it is.


• Where appropriate, link to other pages on your site from within your text.  For example, at the first mention of a character name, you might link to a description of that character or a list of other stories you've written which include that character.


• Provide "hub" or "index" pages that gather similar content together on your site.  A bulleted list linking to all your short stores, or all your mystery stories, etc., will help the search engine recognize the importance of those terms on your site.  It will also help readers find your other works.


• If your work contains related photos or graphics, make sure the image tags contain descriptive text that includes relevant keywords.


• Where appropriate, add HTML heading tags that contain keywords.


• Include encouragement for others to link to your content.  For works of fiction, you might include a paragraph at the end which says "I hope you've enjoyed this story.  If you have, please support my work by sharing a link to this page with others who might appreciate it."


• Promote your content.  Do this with Twitter posts, Facebook posts, links in appropriate online forums, and comments posted on other sites.

Remember that SEO is part art, and part science.  It is also not something that works instantaneously.  Over time, though, a well-written, properly-optimized page will tend to rank well in search engines.

Other SEO References for Authors

Following are some of the sites I've found helpful in learning to optimize my content for search engine ranking:

• Google's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) page


• SEOmoz's Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet


• Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide


• SEOmoz's Beginner's Guide to SEO

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Why Self-Publish?

A heated debate is raging in the community of professional authors on whether self-publishing is a good idea.  On one side are authors who have always worked through traditional publishers to offer their works.  On the other side are authors who are earning a living by self-publishing (and may or may not also be working with traditional publishers).   

Those on the traditional agent/publisher side of the debate feel that self-publishing diminishes the overall quality of books in the marketplace.  Their fear is that unskilled amateur authors will flood the market with badly-written books that will discourage readers from buying any books.  These authors feel that the traditional agent/publisher system acts as a gatekeeper that stops bad books from getting to market.  There is some merit to this viewpoint, in that anyone can digitally publish a book regardless of its quality.  It is also quite reasonable to believe that if a traditional publisher turns a book down it is unlikely that book will ever be a bestseller. 

Authors who engage in self-publishing have found that it increases their income.  Their backlist titles, which may not sell enough to warrant a small print run, can be offered digitally or through print-on-demand services.  The authors can offer books that appeal only to a niche group of readers, a group small enough not to interest a publisher but large enough to yield a profit for the author.  Self-publishers also have more creative freedom, telling the stories they want to tell - without agents, editors, or publishers demanding changes the author disagrees with.  Perhaps best of all, self-publishers collect a much greater royalty from the sale of their books (and usually collect it much sooner than with traditional publishers). On the other hand, in order to ensure a quality product, self-publishers must be sure to invest in a reliable editor to review the work and commission an artist to provide a professional cover for it.  These services would normally be provided by a publisher.

Chris Anderson published an article in Wired magazine in 2004 that (while not talking about self-publishing in particular) explains why authors should offer their works digitally themselves, even when a traditional publisher isn't interested in them.  I would encourage any creative artist to read that article and the book on the subject (The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More).  In a nutshell, Anderson says that a "hit" and a "miss" are on equal economic footing today.  A book that might sell only a few hundred copies appears (electronically) alongside a million-copy bestseller.  He presents a number of real-world examples where books, movies, and music that wasn't selling through the traditional publishing world is generating regular income for the creators in the digital marketplace.

One of Anderson's examples is the story of Joe Simpson's book Touching the Void.  Simpson's book received good reviews but generated only modest sales.  A decade later, John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, a similarly-themed book, became a sensation.  Touching the Void began selling again, and soon overtook Into Thin Air.  Anderson asks, "What happened?  In short, Amazon.com recommendations.  The online bookseller's software noted patterns in buying behavior and suggested that readers who liked Into Thin Air would also like Touching the Void.  People took the suggestion, agreed wholeheartedly, write rhapsodic reviews.  More sales, more algorithm-fueled recommendations, and the positive feedback loop kicked in.  Particularly notable is that when Krakauer's book hit the shelves, Simpson's was nearly out of print."

Amazon doesn't distinguish between product categories in its recommendations (nor do other retailers, generally speaking).  An eBook could be recommended alongside a hardcover or paperback (or a blender, for that matter).  If an author's backlist, out-of-print titles are available on Amazon, they'll still sell long after a traditional publisher has decided they're not worth printing anymore.  Someone buying an author's new book will see recommendations about backlist titles.  Someone buying a book by one author will receive recommendations about similar books from other authors.  All of this results in more sales for all the authors, which is a good thing.

Will self-publishing allow anyone to put a book on the market regardless of its quality?  Yes.  But will that result in financial harm for those authors who put out quality books?  Of course not.  Good books, whether self-published or traditionally published, will get positive reviews on sites like Amazon.  Lousy books will likewise get skewered in the reviews.  People will steer clear of the bad books, and spend their money on the good ones.  Mediocre authors will be forced to step up their game or get out of the market. 

Ultimately, it's all about getting your work in front of the people who will appreciate it.  If traditional publishers want your book, there's nothing wrong with publishing through them.  But if they aren't interested or decide not to reprint it, can there be any harm in publishing a digital version yourself?  I don't think so.

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Viral Writing

As a writer, I'm always watching for interesting writing tips and tricks.  For example, Ken Rand's "The 10% Solution" claims to reduce the size of your written fiction by 10% while improving the quality, by doing a series of "find" commands in your word processor.  Lots of people swear by that one. I plan to test it and report back to you.

When I heard of "viral writing", I was curious.  A proponent of the technique describes it as a great way to build a book with very little work.  The technique goes something like this:

• Decide on a topic you want to create a book about.  For example, let's say you want a book of tips on how to tune Microsoft Windows 7 for maximum performance.


• Draft an email to people you know who have expertise in the subject matter.  These could be computer hobbyist friends, contacts at your local computer store, computer clubs, etc.  The email should explain that you're writing a book on the subject and you'd like to include their tips in it.  You can't pay them for their tips but you can send them an eBook when it's done.  You also tell them that they're free to forward your letter to others who might be able to help you.


• Sit back and wait for the emails to come in.  When you have enough of them, write your book and be sure to include in it an appeal for "any tips you know that aren't included in the book".  This will get you material for the next edition or a second book.

The idea here is that the people you email will share whatever tips they have on tuning Windows 7.  They may also send your email to friends, who in theory will do the same.  Without doing much in the way of actual content creation, you've built a book that you can write, sell, or distribute without having to pay anyone for their work… apart from sharing a copy of the tips you receive.  (Which, since it's an eBook, costs you nothing.)

I'm not so sure I'd call this "viral writing" so much as "cloud-sourcing" your book.  You're basically asking people on the Internet to write parts of a book for free, while you reap the benefits.

On the one hand, this seems like a good way to build a fairly authoritative and comprehensive book with a minimum of effort on the writer's part.  On the other hand, you're not really an "author" anymore, are you?

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but it seems a bit disingenuous to me to put your name on such a book as the author and collect payment for it.  I suppose you could argue that you had to decide which tips to include and exclude, correct some grammar here or there, perhaps test the tips out, and put some kind of organization around the material.  That still leaves you as more of an editor than an author to me.  I guess if people are willing to share the content with you freely and without payment, that's their problem rather than yours.  It seems to me that it would be a lot faster and more genuine to use "Dr. Google" to help you research the subject and build the book yourself (though even that technique isn't entirely genuine).

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Create an MP3 of an iOS Voice Memo

Although this isn't strictly a "writing tip", it is a tip that can be useful to writers and non-writers.

I've had an iPod Touch for a couple of years now.  I was always disappointed that it didn't have a built-in microphone because I thought that would make it a very handy voice recorder for taking audio notes, recording meetings or seminars, etc.  Earlier this year, I purchased a "Chill Pill" microphone from Amazon.com.  It actually works pretty well.  I've been able to record a number of different speeches and seminars to my iPod and play them back later.  (To be fair, the audio is often weak until I boost it digitally later on, but once boosted it's pretty good.)

Personally, I prefer MP3s to the M4A files that the iPod uses for its recordings.  MP3s are easier to share, there are lots of tools to edit them, etc.  So I searched about for a way to convert the recordings I'd made into MP3 files, only to find that it's built right into iTunes.

The following screen shots and instructions are from the Windows version of iTunes 10.0, but you should be able to do the same thing from the Mac version if you want to.

1. Connect your iPod/iPhone/iPad and synchronize it with your computer.  Once synchronized, you may disconnect it if you wish.


2. If iTunes isn't already launched, launch it.  Under the Edit menu, choose Preferences.  Select the "General" tab at the top of the window.


3. Locate the "Import Settings…" button and click it:


4. Make sure the "Import Using" setting is changed to "MP3 Encoder" and the desired MP3 quality level is specified in the second drop-down.  Click "OK" to close the Import Settings window.


5. Click "OK" to close the iTunes preferences window.


6. On the left-hand side of the iTunes main window, locate the "PLAYLISTS" heading (which should be below Library, Store, Devices, and Genius).  In the Playlists menu, locate "Voice Memos" and click on it to select it.


7. Click on the Voice Memos that you want to convert to MP3 format in the main iTunes window pane.  Click on the Advanced menu and choose "Create MP3 Version" from the list.


8. iTunes will convert the recording, displaying progress in the top, center area of the window.


9. To locate the converted files, look in your iTunes media folder under Music, the name of your device (in my case "iPod Touch"), and Voice Memos.  The recordings will be labeled for the date and time on which they started.

You can copy these MP3 files to another location on your computer, email them to friends, edit them using tools like Audacity, or whatever you like.

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Writing a Software Review

As someone who works with computers and software on a daily basis, I've read a lot of software reviews as a part of my job.  As a gamer and computer hobbyist in my spare time, I've read a lot more.  I've also written my fair share of software reviews and analyses for work and various web site ventures over the years.

Several months ago, I analyzed a large number of software reviews from a variety of sources.  This included magazines, leading computer web sites like CNet and PC World, and informal reviews posted by hobbyists on web forums.  From that analysis, I compiled a structure for software reviews and a variety of tips for doing a fairly professional job of reviewing a software product.

Software Review Structure

I used a mind mapping tool to help me organize my thoughts and observations.  In the end, I decided that software reviews should follow the basic structure outlined below:

• 
  
  
  
  • A “50-foot view” or very short overview of the review results
  
  
  • Description of the software (its purpose, functionality)
  
  
  • The installation process
  
  
  • The user interface
  
  
  • What the software is like to use
  
  
  • How it compares with other products
  
  
  • How it compares with previous versions of itself
  
  
  • What its documentation and tech support is like
  
  
  • How it’s licensed and if demo/trial versions exist
  
  
  • What its technical specs are
  
  
  • What the specs are of the system you used to review the software
  
  
  • A conclusion summarizing the good and bad of the software
  
  
  
  

All of these parts aren’t necessary for every software review you do.  For example, if you’re looking at a program that has no competitors and you’re not familiar with its earlier versions, you wouldn’t bother to include a comparison to other products or to earlier versions.  Still, your goal will be to include as many of the above sections as you can authoritatively speak to.

Detailed Software Review Structure

For each of the points in the basic structure, I’ve developed a list of questions to ask yourself (and details you may want to include) to make sure you cover that particular point thoroughly.  Again, not all of these will apply to every review.  Think of them as a guideline.  Include what you think is relevant and useful for the package you’re reviewing, and leave out the stuff that’s not applicable, useful, or worth the time to research.

Below is the “fully expanded upon” list of points in the basic review structure:

• A “50-foot view” or very short overview of the review results
  
  
  
  • This should be just a very short list of bullet points, no complete sentences, and with the minimum number of words necessary to share the information.  Think of it as “If I had 15 seconds to tell someone about this software, what would I say to them?”
  
  
  • What are the product’s strengths, highlights, or best features?
  
  
  • What are the product’s weaknesses, problems, or frustrating details?
  
  
  • In 2-3 sentences, what would you tell someone who wants to buy this product or one like it?
  
  
  • This can include a 5-star or x-out-of-10 rating if you want it to
  
  
  
  


• Description of the software (its purpose, functionality)
  
  
  
  • What does it do?
  
  
  • What features does it include?
  
  
  
  


• The installation process
  
  
  
  • How long does it take to install?
  
  
  • Were there any problems installing it and getting it working?
  
  
  • Does it have any copy protection?
  
  
  • If there is copy protection, is it convenient or frustrating to work with?
  
  
  • Does it uninstall cleanly if you decide to remove it?
  
  
  
  


• The user interface
  
  
  
  • Is it intuitive to use, or did you need to consult the help or manual?
  
  
  • Can keyboard shortcuts, menus, etc., be customized to suit your needs?
  
  
  • Does the interface look modern or “dated”?
  
  
  
  


• What the software is like to use
  
  
  
  • How long does it take to launch the software and make it usable?
  
  
  • What file formats does it read and/or write?
  
  
  • Is there anything you found annoying about using it?
  
  
  • Is there anything you found especially fun or cool about using it?
  
  
  • Are there plug-ins, extensions, themes, or other “add-ons” you can get for it?
  
  
  • Did you find any security concerns (e.g., passwords stored in visible text form)?
  
  
  • Are there ample keyboard shortcuts?
  
  
  • Did you run into any glitches?
  
  
  • Does it integrate well with other products?
  
  
  • Is it easy to get patches/updates and install them?
  
  
  • Is any kind of automation built-in (scripts, macros, etc.)?
  
  
  • How long does it typically take you to do whatever it is the software does?
  
  
  
  


• How it compares with other products
  
  
  
  • Do they have features this product doesn’t?
  
  
  • Does it have features they don’t?
  
  
  • Is the other product easier, harder, or about the same to use?
  
  
  • Is it more or less expensive than the other product?
  
  
  • How do the other products technical requirements (CPU, RAM, etc.) compare?
  
  
  • What’s the other product’s “footprint” (RAM, CPU, hard disk usage) in comparison?
  
  
  • Is it faster or slower than the competitor?
  
  
  
  


• How it compares with previous versions of itself
  
  
  
  • What features have been added in this version?
  
  
  • Have any features been taken away?
  
  
  • Are any existing features harder to use now?
  
  
  • Are any existing features easier to use now?
  
  
  • How do the technical specifications compare with the old version?
  
  
  • How does the user interface compare?
  
  
  • Is it faster or slower than previous versions?
  
  
  
  


• What its documentation and tech support is like
  
  
  
  • Is the manual thorough?
  
  
  • Is the manual easy to understand?
  
  
  • Is tech support available?
  
  
  • How do you access tech support?
  
  
  • Is there an online knowledgebase on the manufacturer’s web site?
  
  
  • Were tech support staff professional, courteous, and helpful?
  
  
  • How much support comes with the product, if any?
  
  
  • Does there seem to be a big user community? (Search for web forums, newsgroups, or mailing lists where people share information about the software.)
  
  
  
  


• How it’s licensed and if demo/trial versions exist
  
  
  
  • Is it commercial, shareware, or freeware?
  
  
  • What are the license terms?
  
  
  • Is a trial or demo version available? If so, what’s missing from the trial/demo?  How long does the trial/demo last?
  
  
  • What does it cost to license?
  
  
  • Who sells licenses to the software, and who develops it?
  
  
  • Are there multiple variants (e.g., Basic, Advanced, and Pro versions)?  If so, consider a table showing which features are in which variant to help readers identify which one they need.
  
  
  
  


• What its technical specs are
  
  
  
  • CPU required, recommended
  
  
  • RAM required, recommended
  
  
  • Hard disk space required, recommended
  
  
  • Peripherals required, recommended
  
  
  • Operating system(s) supported and versions supported (e.g., Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.3 through 10.5)
  
  
  • Does it need a network connection?
  
  
  • Does it need anything else not specifically listed above?
  
  
  
  

• What the specs are of the system you used to review the software
  
  
  
  • CPU, RAM, hard disk, optical drive, video card, OS, etc.
  
  
  • How did the review system compare to the recommended specs
  
  
  
  


• A conclusion summarizing the good and bad aspects of the software
  
  
  
  • This should be about a paragraph or two long and summarizes the highlights of all the above points.  It should finish with a recommendation (or not) for the software relative to what you get for the money, how well it does what it’s supposed to do, and so forth.
  
  
  
  

If you manage to follow this basic structure, you’ll write a review that’s thorough, detailed, and useful.  Your readers should find pretty much whatever they’re looking for in that review.

The above structure probably would not work well for video games or hardware.  It’s oriented more toward application software and utilities.

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Analyzing The Stainless Steel Rat - Part 3

In the first two installments of this series, I looked at a statistical view of Harry Harrison's novel The Stainless Steel Rat.  In this installment, I want to examine how he developed the character James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz, the aforementioned Stainless Steel Rat.

Jim DiGriz would not appear to be a sympathetic character at first glance.  He is a career criminal.  He makes his living stealing from others, eluding the police, and committing any number of other crimes.  Yet, almost from the first page, you find yourself liking Slippery Jim.  Why?

To be certain, Jim has a few imperfections aside from his chosen profession:

• 
  
  
  
  • He's very smug and sure of himself. When he disables the police robot that tries to arrest him in the opening scene, we are told "He squashed very nicely, thank you."  Later, when the robot tries to grab him on the way out of the office, Jim says "I had been waiting for that and they [the robot fingers] closed about two inches short."  When he hears the police sirens outside, it's "a wonderful sound" and he tells us that "I accepted it as any artist accepts tribute."   At one point, he tells us "The very idea that someone could outthink me was odious."
  
  
  • He has little respect for authority or the police. When describing the reaction to his escape, he says "They were sure making a big fuss over a little larceny, but that's the way it goes on these overcivilized worlds. Crime is such a rarity now that the police really get carried away when they run across some. In a way I can't blame them, giving out traffic tickets must be an awful dull job.  I really believe they ought to thank me for putting a little excitement in their otherwise dull lives."  When he meets the leader of The Special Corps, the elite government unit that hunts down people like him, DiGriz describes him as "The old boy behind the desk".
  
  
  • He doesn't see his actions as harmful. In addition to thinking that the police should thank him for giving them some excitement, Jim also mentions that no one is really harmed by his crimes.  If he robs a bank or a business, for example, he figures they're reimbursed by their insurance company so no one really got hurt.  What about the insurance company?  They've lost money, and they're probably going to raise the victim's insurance rates, too.
  
  
  
  

Still, Jim DiGriz is a sympathetic and likable character.

Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole says that there are seven traits that tend to make characters likable:

• 
  
  
  
  • They are admirable.
  
  
  • They are "in control".
  
  
  • They are virtuous.
  
  
  • They are "human".
  
  
  • They exhibit courage.
  
  
  • They seem like "a force of nature".
  
  
  • Reading about them is a kind of "guilty pleasure".
  
  
  
  

How does Slippery Jim stack up to this list?

• 
  
  
  
  • He is admirable in spite of himself. Jim is creative, telling us "One of the main reasons I have stayed out of the arms of the law for as long as I have, is that I have never repeated myself.  I have dreamed up some of the sweetest little rackets, run them off once, then stayed away from them forever after."  He becomes more admirable when he joins The Special Corps and agrees to take down the more dangerous, homicidal killers.
  
  
  • He is "in control" by virtue of being a skilled planner and sharp thinker. In the opening scene, he knew a police robot would come for him and had already prepared the large safe and explosive charge in the ceiling to drop onto its head, disabling the radio that would call for backup.  He had an escape panel in the wall, knew how long it would take to make it through various parts of his escape route, etc
  
  The early scene where he's prepared his escape shows him to be in control.  The fact that his carefully considered plan to trap Pepe and Angelina worked, up until the point he let her escape (showing his "human" side), illustrates this.
  
  In most situations, in fact, Jim is a "take charge" guy who not only tends to bring others around to his way of thinking but also has a strong handle on his own emotions.  At various times he tells us "I stifled that train of thought before it started", and "Think first, then act." when he's feeling paralyzed with fear
  
  • He is virtuous, in his own way. Throughout all of his criminal exploits, Jim has never killed anyone.  This is confirmed during his "interview" with Inskipp.  Jim tells Inskipp that he hasn't killed anyone that he knows of.  Inskipp confirms this by saying "Well you haven't, if that will make you sleep any better tonight.  You're not a homicidal, I checked that on your record before I came out after you…"We see evidence of this non-violent nature throughout the book.  Jim's weapon of choice for incapacitating foes is a gas grenade.  He uses them on the occupants of the armored car he steals, on pursuers inside the department store, and elsewhere.  During the chase in the department store, he tells us that he "put an entire clip of slugs through the door, aiming high so I wouldn't hurt anyone."Even when he short-changes a cab drive "to break the monotony" he tells us "the tip I gave him more than made up the loss"… showing that he can't steal from individuals.
  
  
  • He is human. During the armored car scenes, we see Jim make his first mistake, failing to realize that the same trucks were going in and out of the parking lot. Later, when he finds himself in the office with Inskipp, he is asked "Don't tell me you thought it was an accident that you ended up here?"  His response is "I had, up until that moment, and the lack of intelligent reasoning on my part brought on a wave of shame that snapped me back to reality.  I had been outwitted and outfought, the least I could do was surrender graciously."Later, when he catches up to Angelina and Pepe, Angelina (the mastermind) pretends to be a victim of Pepe's evil schemes (when in reality the opposite is true).  When Pepe tells him that the whole plan was Angelina's and he's just let her get away, he says "The cold feeling was now a ball of ice that threatened to paralyze me.  'You're lying,' I said hoarsely, and even I didn't believe it."  This won't be the last time Angelina fools with Jim during the story.
  
  
  • He exhibits courage. Jim goes through several tense moments escaping from the police in the early scene, including walking across a plank between two tall buildings with no safety precautions.  He sets himself up as a potential victim for Pepe and Angelina, even though they shot a hole through a previous victim's shop.  In fact, Jim exhibits courage consistently throughout the story.
  
  
  • The book itself is a "guilty pleasure". There are many people who enjoy reading about criminal capers because they enjoy secretly imagining themselves to be the ones in the stories.  For example, they vicariously live the thrill of cracking a safe, robbing a bank, or running an elaborate con.  The Stainless Steel Rat books (there are at least 10) are told in first person perspective, making it even easier for a reader to imagine being Jim DiGriz.
  
  
  
  

So, by Stackpole's guidelines, Harrison has done a great job establishing Jim DiGriz as a likable, sympathetic character.  What might be equally interesting would be to see how Harrison turns Angelina from a psychotic, cold-hearted killer into a doting wife and mother.  However, that doesn't happen in this book.  It will have to be a topic for a later article.

In Part 4, I'm going to examine Harrison's use of Dialogue and Description in the novel to paint images of the characters, scenes, and action.

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Analyzing Harry Harrison’s “The Stainless Steel Rat” – Part 2

Part one of this series looked at Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat from a purely statistical viewpoint, examining chapter length, sentence length, and various readability indexes. This installment will take a look at the craft used by Harrison to tell the story.

Analyzing the Chapter "Hooks"

I've been told that if you want your novel to be a real page turner, there are a few simple techniques that can help you achieve that. First, start each chapter with a "hook" that gets the reader asking questions like "Who is this? Why did that happen?" End each chapter with a cliff hanger of sorts that makes the reader wonder what's next. If you also keep chapters close to an average length of around 2,500 words, most readers can get through one fairly quickly. They'll get to the end of the chapter they're reading and think, "That last chapter went pretty quick. I wonder what will happen next. I'll just read one more chapter before I quit." This cycle continues chapter after chapter, and soon the reader has finished the whole book. With this thinking in mind, I took a look at how Harrison started and ended the 19 chapters in The Stainless Steel Rat. (For me, the book has always been a page-turner.)

Chapter 1 starts off with a pretty strong hook:

When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker — but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same somber expression and heavy foot that they all have — and the same lack of humor. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable.

At once, the reader starts asking questions. Who is telling me this? What money-making game is over? Why is a cop coming in, and why does that make the character smile? How does he know what the cop is going to say? The rest of the chapter explains that our main character is a career criminal who has been running a scam where cans of fruit stolen from a government warehouse are re-labeled by robots and sold to unwitting shopkeepers at great prices. He knows what the cop is going to say because it isn't the first time they've tried to arrest him. The cliff hanger at the end of Chapter 1 is that although Jim has eluded the initial pursuit, he is still on the planet and might not get away.

Chapter 2 doesn't a hook at the beginning. It takes some time to explain what our anti-hero is all about, how he views his life of crime as a sort of public service, and that there aren't many like him in the galaxy. It ends with him on a different world, about to end a second criminal enterprise, only to realize that something isn't right. Someone is looking for him.

Chapter 3 starts with Jim wondering who is after him, and trying to escape from them. It ends with him receiving an offer to join The Special Corps, an elite government agency that catches dangerous criminals and solves problems that individual planetary governments can't. Jim sees this as "the end of loneliness".

Chapter 4 shows Jim finding life in The Special Corps as a new recruit incredibly dull. It ends with him discovering a plot to build a nearly unstoppable battleship and being sent to investigate it.

Chapter 5 begins with a description of the planet Cittanuvo, on which the battleship is being built. It ends with the battleship taking off ahead of schedule and escaping, and Jim wondering how he's going to catch it.

Chapter 6 is primarily there to slow down the frantic pace of action established in the earlier chapters. Jim spends time thinking about the mysterious people behind the battleship, what their motives might be, and how he might catch them. It ends with the cliff hanger that "the next four days passed very slowly", leaving a reader to wonder what happened after that.

Chapter 7 ramps the action back up, with the battleship threatening Jim's ship (which has been setup as a tempting robbery target). It ends with Angelina, who turns out to be the criminal mastermind behind the battleship's construction, escaping. Jim realizes he'll be seeing Angelina again.

Chapter 8 has Jim stealing a ship and heading out after Angelina. When an explosive device detonates on the ship just after Jim disconnects it, he realizes that he's on his own now and can't expect help from the Corps.

Chapter 9 sees Jim as an independent again, deciding how to find and capture Angelina. It ends with him finding her in a bar, pretending to be a prostitute.

Chapter 10 starts with Jim pretending to hire Angelina's services following her back to her room. It ends with Jim realizing that this was a trap, and that she knew who he was. "Then, at the exact and ultimate moment of my maximum realization and despair she pulled the trigger. Not once, but over and over again. Four tearing, thundering bullets of pain directly into my heart. And a final slug directly between my eyes." Naturally, the reader wonders how in the heck Jim can survive that.

Chapter 11 finds Jim coming around in an ambulance, groggy and in pain. He survived because of a bullet proof vest and a reflexive move to shield his head with his arms. He modifies his medical charts to appear dead on arrival and is taken to the morgue. He exits the hospital before being treated.

Chapter 12 finds Jim looking for a disgraced medical professional to help heal his wounds and perform plastic surgery on him. It ends with a realization that Angelina is mentally ill, and that he'll have to "follow her down the path of insanity" if he hopes to catch her. This is another chapter that breaks the action for a bit.

Chapter 13 starts with Jim taking a combination of drugs to simulate Angelina's various psychological issues. It ends with him passing out, after triggering a booby trap he set for himself to prevent him from taking human life in his psychotic state.

Chapter 14 begins with Jim realizing he's in love with Angelina and that simulating her psychotic mind was intoxicating to him ("Even while detesting the thought I felt the desire for more of the same.") It ends with executing the first step in plan to get her attention as a member of the planet's royalty.

Chapter 15 starts with Jim in the royal prison wondering if he'll ever get out. It ends with hooded figures breaking into the prison and pulling him out.

Chapter 16 finds Jim being introduced to Count Rdenrundt, who wants to take over the planet (presumably with Angelina's help). There's no way for Jim to know if Angelina is here or not, but he plays along anyway. It ends with him meeting Angelina and learning that he had killed the Count's wife, only to cause her family to threaten revenge.

Chapter 17 has Jim wondering what to do. Should he turn Angelina in or stay with her? It ends with him learning that her psychotic nature was caused by childhood taunting over her ugliness, and Jim telling her that she's not that little girl anymore (but slipping and calling her "Angelina" in the process).

Chapter 18 begins with some suspicion over an assassin sent to kill Angelina the night before. It ends with The Special Corps showing up and capturing Angelina, who thinks Jim was stalling her so that they could close in.

Chapter 19 explains that The Special Corps had been monitoring Jim all along, and waited to see what he did with Angelina before finally swooping in to capture her. It ends with Jim and Inkskipp believing they might be able to cure Angelina of her homicidal tendencies.

So we see that most of the chapters in the book follow the pattern. There is something of a mystery at the start of the chapter, and a question at the end that makes you wonder what will happen next. Chapters 6 and 12 serve as a kind of break in the action and provide readers with a chance to catch their breath.

The hooks are a bit subtle in some cases, but are present in nearly every chapter.

Coming Up in Part 3 - Characterization

In Part 3 of the analysis, I'm going to look at characterization. How does Harrison establish Jim DiGriz as a career criminal, yet a sympathetic and likable guy? How does he depict Angelina as a cold, calculating criminal, yet leave her sympathetic enough that Jim can fall in love with her? And how has Harrison set the stage for Angelina to become a major character in future Stainless Steel Rat novels?

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Analyzing Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat" - Part 1

One of my favorite science-fiction books is Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat. It tells the story of James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz, an interstellar criminal. DiGriz eludes the police after a successful caper, only to be captured on his next venture by an elite police unit called "The Special Corps". The Special Corps recruits him to help them catch other, more dangerous criminals. On his first assignment, he encounters a lovely but homicidal woman named Angelina. He spends most of the novel chasing her down, eventually falling in love with her. This makes turning her in a tough proposition, especially when she admits to caring for him.

In various writing books and seminars, it has been suggested that fledgling novelists take the time to examine the works of their favorite authors to study their craft and learn from it. Last night, I re-read Harrison's book with an eye toward learning what I could from it. I'm going to share my analysis of the book here.  It may help other novelists improve their craft as well.

Statistical Breakdown

Author Michael A. Stackpole suggested that novelists become familiar with several writing statistics to help ensure that their novels are publishable, accessible to readers, and hard to put down. Among the suggestions he offered:

• Novels should be between 80,000 and 100,000 words long. Longer novels have been published, but usually by established, best-selling authors like Stephen King.


• Sentences should average 12 words in length across the novel.  Naturally, sentence length should vary, but it should average around 12 words.  Longer sentences will tend to lose readers.


• Chapters should be approximately 2,500 words long on average.


• Readability scores like the Gunning-Fog index, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and the like should place your novel in the 8th grade reading level and as "easy to read" as is appropriate for the material.

I want to point out that Stackpole did NOT suggest that these were hard and inflexible rules. They are merely guidelines to help you identify possible problems.  For example, in "The Rules of Writing", Stackpole says:

The point of this rule is not to drive you insane by having you count words and agonize over word selection.  It's more of a diagnostic.  If you find a scene lagging, or a character not reading true, then you should go in and look at your sentence structures, lengths, word choices and the like. A little tinkering there can solve a plethora of problems, and set you up for avoiding them in the future.

Given Stackpole's suggested guidelines, I decided to analyze Harrison's novel using an electronic copy of the text and software that computes various readability measures. Here's what I learned about The Stainless Steel Rat:

• The novel is approximately 52,000 words long. This makes it quite a bit shorter than Stackpole's recommended length, but Harrison's novel was first published in 1961. Its size is fairly typical for science-fiction novels of its day.


• It consists of 19 chapters with an average length of 2,744 words. That's only about 10% higher than Stackpole's recommendation but not far out of line.


• The average sentence length is 14 words. This is two words longer than the recommended length, but again not far out of line.  The main character in The Stainless Steel Rat is a bit full of himself and is intended to be seen as quite intelligent, so the longer sentences make some sense.


• Its Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level rating is 6.94. This means that a seventh grade student should be able to understand the story.


• Its Gunning-Fog Index is 9.75 (where 6 is "easy to read" and 20 is "hard to read"). This means the story is relatively easy to read by this measure.


• Its Flesch-Kincaid Readability index is 73.04. A story in the 60-70 range is accessible to most students aged 15-16.


• Its SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) index is 9.81 (which means anyone with a ninth grade education should be able to understand it)


• Its Coleman-Liau Readability Index is 7.97. This implies that someone with an eigth grade education should be able to read it.

These results validate what Stackpole suggests in his seminars.  Harrison's writing certainly comes very close to Stackpole's suggested guidelines.

Below is a graph of the length of each chapter in the novel. The vertical axis represents the number of words in the chapter, and the horizontal axis represents each individual chapter in the book. As you can see, Harrison does a good job of varying the chapter length, while keeping the overall average at 2744.

Of course, all this statistical analysis is only a high-level look at the novel. Just stringing together sentences and paragraphs that generate the same statistics isn't going to get you a published novel. Of much greater importance is the craft with which the story is told.

Coming Up in Part 2

In Part 2, I plan to examine the "hooks" that Harrison used at the beginning and end of the chapters in his book. I'm curious to see how he made The Stainless Steel Rat such a page-turner for me. I also hope to look at how he used the often-discussed "showing versus telling" technique to enhance his novel.

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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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Writing Advice from Bestselling Author Michael A. Stackpole

At Origins and Gen Con 2009, I had the opportunity to attend seminars on writing provided by New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole. Mr. Stackpole appeared at Origins 2010 as well, and once more I had the opportunity to learn from him. As always, his seminars were very informative and professionally delivered.

Due to (in my opinion) a poorly publicized seminar schedule at Origins, Mr. Stackpole's seminars were poorly attended this year. I only found out about them when I saw him in the Exhibit Hall signing autographs. Had I not seen him there, I would have had no idea he was even at Origins. His seminars weren't listed on the site where other seminars and events were listed.

For Mr. Stackpole's "Serial Fiction" seminar, I was the only attendee for the first half or so. Ever the professional, he gave the seminar anyway and I eagerly listened. Later, others showed up. Here's what I took away from that seminar:

• In a typical series of stories, 70% of the material is "case work" - or material that is there as part of the current story only. It isn't used or referred to again in the series. The other 30% is "soap opera" material, or material that shows the growth of the main character(s) over the series and provides a "pay off" for series readers who stick with it.


• Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries are a good example of series fiction


• Case characters grow much faster in serial fiction than the "mythos" (main) character


• You need to plan out ahead how many stories/books you're going to have. You also want to have some vague idea what's in them, so you can plant clues in the earlier books to use later.


• When planting details in the early books, try to avoid too many concrete details. Say "I came from a big family" rather than "I have 2 sisters and 4 brothers" because you may find when you get to the book where you plan to use that fact, it might make more sense to have 3 sisters or 3 brothers instead.


• Keep track of your world details in a file, even for background characters. That way you'll know what you've established already as you go along, and you won't have to go back to find out those details later.


• It's not necessary in serial fiction to "dot every i" or "cross every t" as far as sub-plots go. It's OK to leave the reader wondering what happened to a minor character or plot line.


• "Soap opera" material should appear in the middle of your main story


• In a 10-part story, the breakdown should be something like this:
  Parts 1-2: Case material
  Part 3: A storyline
  Part 4: More case material
  Part 5: B storyline is resolved
  Part 6: More case material
  Part 7: A storyline
  Parts 8-9: Case material
  Part 10: resolve the case and the A storyline


• Remember that every story in your series is the "first story" to some reader. Make sure that you plant enough information in each story that a reader can pick it up and get up to speed with just that story.


• You may be tempted to do a 100% mythos story, where you explore a "what if" scenario for your main character or resolve some issue from their past. This generally isn't a good idea. It tends to result in too much change for the character to keep them viable or too little story to keep readers interested. Fan fiction is a possible exception.


• Something Mr. Stackpole has done is publish a serial fiction line in ten 1,000 word sections on his web site. This collection of ten stories is approximately "novel-size" and is bundled together and published as a single book or collection. If you start selling the collection before you publish the last stories in the series, some readers will buy the collection to read those last stores (even if you give them away on your web site).


• Burn Notice on USA Network is a good example of series writing, because about 70% of each episode is case material and about 30% of it is "mythos" material. Each season has an "up or down" feel to it.

In his seminar on "21 ways to kill a novel", Mr. Stackpole provided plenty of useful advice:

• Writing to a fad is a bad idea. By the time you recognize a fad, the market is usually saturated.


• Look for "evergreen" areas like Tolkien-style fantasy, "pet fantasy" (kid with a psychic link to an animal), or time travel stories.


• Don't write things you don't enjoy reading. Readers will sense it.


• Make sure you do market research in the field you're choosing to write in. Read the current leaders in that field. See how they tell stories, what they include in the stories, and from this develop a picture of what the audience expects from your story.


• Have a long-term career plan. Know what you're writing next.


• Make sure your characterization is good. Having no (or poor) characterization is the number one way to kill a novel. Write at least two sentences about each character that describes them one way, and one that goes against that. (Example: "Dave was an expert sailor and navigator. Unfortunately, he was unable to swim.")


• Give readers enough time to connect with your characters, or you will distance the reader from them. You want the reader to feel like they can see inside the character's head, especially if they'll be a viewpoint character. Introduce them early on.


• In every book, you need at least one "normal" character, or someone who is relatively normal. If you don't, readers will have difficulty gauging how "crazy" the other characters really are.


• Don't bounce the point of view around. This disorients the reader.


• No "tin" dialogue. Dialogue has to be appropriate to the character, the setting of the novel, and the situation. Listen to how real people talk in a similar situation. Don't repeat things in the dialogue that you say in the narrative.


• Let the characters decide what's going to happen, not the author. If the story in your novel appears to die out, go back about 7,000 words. Somewhere around there you'll probably find that you made the character do something he or she would never have done. Once you fix that, you'll be able to move ahead.


• Characters have to take responsibility for their actions and there must be consequences to the choices they make.


• Characters should grow, not just change. Growth is an attempt to alter behavior based on external factors, and the change made through growth is permanent. It may be some type of experimentation. It may even be a decision not to change something if that change would take the character away from who they are.


• "Nobody cries over change." but they might cry during growth.


• Make sure the story has an emotional "heart". Show the characters reacting to the good and bad things that happen, and how the events affected them.


• Predictability = Boredom


• Your story must have a plot. Even if people don't like your characters, they must be able to latch onto your plot. If they can't, they'll walk away from the story.


• If your research activities are stopping you from writing, you're doing too much research.


• Don't "file the serial numbers off someone else's novel". Don't just re-tell a Shakespeare story. You want the reader to say "I didn't expect THAT to happen!" or "I've never seen THAT before!"


• Make sure you examine the consequences of things in your stories. If you have a device in your story that replicates physical objects easily and cheaply, there's a definite impact on the economy in that world.


• Things in the story, like character and place names, should fit together and flow well.


• Think about how you choose to name things. The word "pope" has a particular meaning to Catholics, but not to other religions. The word "elder" means something to Mormons. The word "league" in reference to measurement has a specific meaning.


• Make sure the cultures and subcultures in your world get along.


• Sticking to your original outline can kill your novel. Make sure you give it a chance to grow naturally.


• Make sure you have an appropriate head-heart-hand mix. The "head" is the puzzle part of the story. The "heart" is the emotional core. The "hand" is the action.


• Try to have sentences of 12 words or less.


• "Show" as much action as possible and "tell" very little.


• Be careful with math and units of measure.


• Make sure the mechanics in the story are right. Don't have characters putting tinfoil in the microwave or talk about the "hammer" on a pistol that uses clips.


• Don't give an editor the opportunity to say "no" to your novel.


• Don't revise as you go. Wait until you have the draft finished.

If you found any of this useful, you'll undoubtedly like the various writing tips and guides Mr. Stackpole sells through his web store. I've purchased a few of these in the past and found them very useful. They generally include a bit more information than is communicated in the seminar, and are distributed in PDF format - which makes them easy to adapt to electronic readers like the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Kindle, and others.

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