Month: May 2017

The May Patreon Supporter Post is Now Up!

Max Misc

Heads up! If you’re a supporter of mine over on Patreon, you should know that the May Patreon Supporter Reward Post is now up! What is it this time? A retrospective actually, digging into the history and creation of my first book: One Drink!

It’s a pretty heft post, actually. Almost 4,000 words worth! All about the creation, the backstory, etc of One Drink. When I wrote it, where the ideas came from, how and why certain decisions were made … if you’re curious at all about my first work, well then, head on over to my Patreon page’s posts section and take a look! You’ve gotta be a supporter, though. That’s how bonuses like these work.

That’s all for the moment! Have a nice night!

Happy Memorial Day!

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As is the usual, there will not be a Being a Better Writer post today because “Hey! It’s Memorial Day!” Instead of reading on writing, go enjoy the holiday. Though, if reading about writing is one of the things you wanted to do to enjoy said day, there is a solid backlog of old, awesome articles here on the site.

Of course, if you’re just looking to read rather than read about writing, you may be pleased to hear that Dead Silver is now, as of last Saturday, three years published! As a result, it has seen its final price-drop in honor of its heroic status. You can now pick it up for $2.99! New Mexico, silver mines, chupacabras, missing persons … You can’t go wrong!

That’s all for now. Enjoy your Memorial Day, everyone!

Classic Being a Better Writer: Character Growth

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Trying something new here today. It used to be, back when I was transferring over posts from my old blog to this site, that Thursday or Friday would be home to a Blast from the Past post—essentially an excuse to go back to one of the old Being a Better Writer posts that wasn’t on Unusual Things yet and transfer it over (albeit with a little editing). Those posts ran for a little over year, if memory serves, but inevitably had to stop, as I caught up with the present day.

But … that left a large gap in my posting schedule. Now, I’ll admit that I’m not a frequent blogger like a lot of other authors, mostly because—no offense—I spend that time writing on the books rather than writing on the blog. Monday’s BaBW is the only regular exception. Otherwise I don’t have much to say unless something catches my attention. But that leaves dead-time on the blog, and on the internet, dead-time is kind of a literal term.

So, the solution? Classic posts!

Okay, it’s not a perfect solution. And I don’t think I’l throw these up every week, but here’s the idea: BaBW has a pretty big backlog by now. At least 200 articles on all sorts of writing topics. So, from time to time, I’m going to pick a topic, then gather three BaBW posts on that topic and post about them in one of these “Classic BaBW” posts. That way newcomers can easily find older articles that they may not have clicked through the archives for, and recurring readers can get a nice moment of “Hey, I’d like to reread that!”

So, that’s the intro. Now onto the post! Today’s topic: Character Growth! Three articles about developing characters from the archives of Unusual Things!

Character Development and Character Growth—
Characters. There’s no force more central to any story you tell. Be it a run-and-gun thriller or a dramatic love dodecahedron, a tale focused around a lone wanderer exploring a crumbling city or a baker expanding her rivalry with a butcher (that last one sounds like a potential rom-com, doesn’t it?), your stories are going to have characters. Characters that laugh, characters that scream, characters that live … Well, you get the picture.

Exploring Character Growth and Conflict—
So, to begin with, I view character growth as having two distinct types. The first is the growth of the character to the reader, and the second is the growth of the character to themselves.

Showing Character Through Dialog—
Now let’s put this in a scene. We have a grizzled FBI man, undercover on a train, sitting in his seat and pretending to be a newspaper. His passenger, a woman who has no idea who he is, turns towards him and asks “Would you like some gum?”

Now, let’s look at his response. The grammatically correct response is “No, thanks.” However, what differences does this imply about his character over “No thanks,” without any pause? One is timely, implies a pause and perhaps some thought. The other is brusque, pre-determined, almost dismissive, and can be more so based on what action he couples with his statement.

 

 

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Being a Better Writer: The Keystone

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Welcome back readers! As you may have guessed from this posting date, I had another Monday shift at my part time, hence why you’re getting this today (I’m at the moment writing it up during the early evening of the 22nd, so you’re reading this in what would technically be the future). Nothing too unusual there.

So, let’s dive right into today’s topic, shall we? I really don’t feel like beating around the bush; but rather I’d prefer to just get down to it. Today’s topic comes from … well, it comes from a number of sources, actually. Listening to other authors talk about writing, certainly. Reading a few books and whatnot over the last few weeks. And just following various forums about writing online. Toss all those things into my head, and let simmer for a few hours, and this post and topic is what came from it.

First question: Are you familiar with what a keystone is? You might remember this from your history classes, particularly if they covered the Roman Empire. A keystone was, well, the key to constructing those awesome Roman arches ancient tourists would see everywhere in Rome. And modern tourist still can see in the same places, 3000 years later. You know the shape—the classic pillars with the half-circle on the top?

This design was the one of many things that took Rome to stardom and made them the most influential empire in the world (so influential that many today still underestimate exactly how much of our day-to-day society was shaped by them). It enabled Rome to build bigger, grander, more spacious structure than anyone that had come before them.

So yeah, kind of a big deal. But how did it work? And what does it have to do with writing?

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Price and Profit

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So I learned something rather embarrassing a week ago.

Since the release of Colony, one of the more common questions I’ve received from fans about it has been “How should I purchase your book in order to make sure you get the largest cut of money?” Which is actually a pretty valid—and thoughtfully appreciated—question. This question comes from a reader who isn’t just concerned that they read a book, but that the author of said book is able to support themselves to the next one. Some of you may be scratching your heads even so, though, thinking to yourselves “Wait, I thought it was just an ebook?” Well it is, but there are two ways you can acquire it.

The first is to simply impart money to Amazon.com ($7.99 in this case, unless there’s a sale going) for a digital, DRM-Free copy of Colony. And for many readers, that’s what they do. However, I’m also a fan of putting my books up on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Program, which is kind of like a Netflix for books, and that means that it’s also available to those paying for the KU program to read whenever they want. Now, KU pays authors, but the question from these readers is “Which way pays you more?”

And it turns out, in giving my answer, I screwed up.

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Being a Better Writer: Keeping Things Moving and in Context

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So this last weekend I came to a conclusion. I’d spent the week writing, as usual, working on the first draft of Jungle (you know, that sequel to that Colony book everyone keeps talking about), but between being sick and low on sleep (said sickness really, really wanted me to sleep), something just wasn’t clicking. Something about the chapter I was working on, even when I finished it, felt off.

I spent my Saturday thinking about it. Running things over in my mind. Thinking about what critical plot elements the chapter introduced, how it did so, what the characters did when interacting, etc. And finally, I reached an important conclusion: The chapter wasn’t working because it was dragging. It was a slog. And it had to go.

Said chapter is now marked for deletion and rewrite. Actually, rewrite isn’t even the right term. Summation is more accurate. Because, I realized as I was thinking about it, everything that happens in that chapter could also be told in a different chapter in half the time, at a later point in the story, when there is, to put it plainly, more going on.

The chapter I’d written was dragging. It wasn’t keeping the story moving.

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Fisking an Anti-Amazon Article From the New Republic

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Oh boy. I woke up this morning to see this article on the front page of r/books, and you  know … I’ve never fisked anything … but this piece couldn’t be ignored. For those not in the know, a “fisking” is when someone replies point by point to the salient points of an article, offering a piece by piece rebuttal. I’ll let you read the original article first, so you can get it in your mind, but it’s just part of the continuing—You know what? You be the judge. Read the article, then check this rebuttal.

The quoted article bits are both quoted and italicized. My responses are the normal text.

So, let’s get started.

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Being a Better Writer: References and Pop Culture

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Hello readers, and welcome back to another post of Being a Better Writer, coming to you bright and early this Tuesday morning.

Yeah, Tuesday. Mondays shifts at my part-time job again. Just a fair heads-up, I’ve got a Monday shift next week too, so next week’s BaBW post will also  be delayed. It happens. And I need the money, so …

Oh, and I apologize in advance if this post seems a little scatter-brained. I’ve not been sleeping well lately, and that’s probably had a detrimental effect on my writing.

Right. Back to the topic at hand. Which is a request topic from one of you readers! And an interesting one at that, one I wouldn’t have likely come to on my own. See, this reader asked after right and wrong ways to do pop-culture references in a book. And while yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about this … it’s not a topic I would have thought to discuss until it was posed!

This is why reader questions are always good to hear. Sometimes there’s just a topic I wouldn’t have ever considered on my own, but someone else has. And in this case, it’s a topic that’s worth talking about.

So, references and pop culture … Where do we start? Well, how about some definitions and clarifications for those who aren’t quite certain what I mean when I talk about these terms?

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Op-Ed: The Sixth Thing

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It figures. Barely a day after the original Five Things Non-Writers Should Know About Writers and Writing went up, I was hit with the epiphany that I’d left something out. And I had. I’d left out a very important bit that, for whatever reason, didn’t occur to me while I was putting together the original post.

Oh well. We all know that “Five Things” feels a bit snappier than six. Humanity is odd like that, but it’s true.

Still, this realization left me with a conundrum. The first post was already up and being read; had been for over a day. So I really didn’t want to go back and awkwardly shoehorn in a sixth entry. But I still wanted the issue I’d thought of to be addressed. Hence, we come to this: a follow-up post.

Just a quick refresher before we dive in. Tuesday’s post was all about breaking some common misconceptions about writers, writing, and being an author, summarizing things into five core points. This post is going to add a sixth. The original post is found here, and I highly advise reading it beforehand if you haven’t already, just to get caught up. And I’ll be going back to it and adding in a link to this post as well once it’s up and ready for viewing, so the two will be forever linked.

So, all that said, let’s get down to business. The sixth thing that non-writers should know about writers and writing.

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Op-Ed: Five Things Non-Writers Should Know About Writers and Writing

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So, you may have noticed that despite being in the place of what would normally be a Being a Better Writer post, this isn’t that. And no, it really isn’t. Though if you’re an aspiring writer, this is a good post to read, because it’s going to be helpful, so I’ll leave it tagged under BaBW.

So then, what am I putting forth today? Well, it’s basically my shot at doing away with a lot of the misconceptions about writing, being a writer, and being an author. Because one thing I’ve found as I’ve embarked on this crazy, busy journey is that not a lot of people know a lot about it. And, even worse, what they don’t know is usually filled in with a lot of completely untrue misconceptions.

So, this little editorial is meant to set some of this misconceptions about writing and being an author straight. Because, being an author myself, I’ve heard a lot of them. It’s meant to be shareable (there are actually buttons at the bottom of the page for that), so if you’ve ever heard some sentiments to the opposite of the topics discussed here from someone, go ahead and fire this at ’em.

So, that said, and without further ado, here are five things that non-writers should know about writers and writing.

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