Trials

Riding Out the Storm

Max Misc , ,

Life has been … chaotic lately. That’s why there haven’t been as many posts on other topics outside of Being a Better Writer.

For one, Starforge is kind of a big deal at the moment. Right now I’m in the middle of a massively important chapter that the series has been building toward since the very beginning, so writing other things (aside from Being a Better Writer) is a bit … distracting. Starforge is at the 75% mark, by the way. Next up is the calm before the big finale. So yeah, like I said, it’s tricky to even think about other writing projects.

Granted, I do have to think about other things, and there’s been a lot of distracting elements going on in my life lately. Like, for example, my landlord selling the place I’ve lived in for the last few years, and the general lack of any respect by the company handling it for things like “renter’s rights” or “those darn laws you’re not supposed to know about.” People showing up expecting to walk through the house with zero warning, many of the buyers being flippers who just immediately want to evict us (or think that upon buying the house, any and all contracts such as a year-long rental agreement are null and void so we have to leave that way) … The last few weeks have had that specter looming overhead, which hasn’t been fun. Especially when at any hour of the day we can randomly be given a phone call from our landlord saying “Hey, someone’s going to see the house in a few hours, so you need to be there.” That whole 24-hour notice thing required by law? The realtor actually seems to have convinced our landlord that the contract he signed with them allows them to ignore it.

Then again, that seems par for the course with this realtor. The few times people have asked after their name, I’ve gotten scowls and nothing but “Oh they’re the worst” stories, even from people who own homes.

Fun, right? America: Where laws are only for little people. The US featured in Colony and Fireteam Freelance was supposed to be a warning … and yet I feel like for too many people it’s becoming a guide.

The on top of that, book sales are whiplashing hard right now. Some days I’ll sell a bunch of copies, then other days just one … and then I’ll have a whole string of days without a sale at all. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to it as well; at least that I can find. So then there’s that hanging over things. Plus … well, I’m not going to drop all of my trials here, but these are three of the vastly escalating pile slamming over things.

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Being a Better Writer: Taking the Lumps

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , ,

Hello readers! Welcome to another Monday! I know for many Monday is seen as a bit of a drag, being the start of the workweek and all that, but for me? Well, I always get to look forward to them because it means another Being a Better Writer post! And I kind of hope that in a way, a lot of you look forward to, if nothing else, at least this part of Monday because of BaBW.

Really quick, I do have some nice news, too, which also helps. Hunter/Hunted? Going into Beta. Look for a cover and a release date soon, fans! And Jungle? In Alpha, with a release planned for end of summer/early fall depending on the speed of editing. All I’ll say on that one is … dang. Rereading it and polishing it up, I’d forgotten how tense it got!

While I’m on the subject, Colony picked up two more Five-star reviews over the weekend across Goodreads and Amazon! Woo-hoo! One step closer to global domination!

Okay, got the news out of my system. So let’s talk about improving your writing. “Taking the Lumps?” What does that mean?

Well … interestingly enough, this is kind of, in a way, a related follow-up post to an incredibly popular BaBW post from two weeks ago on the Strong Female Protagonist. Not 100%, but … well, you’ll understand in a moment.

See, what inspired this post was a news article I read elsewhere on the internet. Well … read half of it. I started skimming when it got foolish, and then didn’t finish. Why? Because … it was bad. Terrible, actually.

I’ll give you the rundown. And, fair warning, it’s a bit of a socially charged article, which was the root of part of the overall problem with it. Just go with me for a moment.

The article was in effect a complaint piece. And half rage. And what it was complaining out—or at least, thought it was complaining about—was misogyny in a story series the author’s article followed.

Long story short, this was one of those “We want strong female characters articles” (and yes, this is putting it very simply and bluntly). The author really, really wanted all the male characters of this series stripped out and replaced by women characters.

Pitchforks down. Though that is a topic, really, all in and of itself, it’s not one we’re discussing today. Because in this case, they’d gotten their wish. The male characters had been sidelined, the female characters were the new leads … and the article writer was upset and offended.

Why? Because the female characters were suffering losses, injury, and even death, just as the male team had. And as the article writer felt, that was ‘misogynistic and sexist.’

Yeah, that’s why I stopped reading. It was a pretty dumb article. However hyperbolic it was, though, it was something that got me thinking, because the mentality behind it isn’t something that’s unusual or new. In fact, it’s been around for a long time. Regardless of the reasons we’re beholden to a set of characters, from gender to backstory to … well, any number of things that make a character appealing to us, there’s a constant we should never forget.

Struggle means risk. And risk can—and should—mean loss.

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Being a Better Writer: When Characters Fail

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome back, readers, to another Monday Being a Better Writer post! Today we’ve got a request topic, one that hopefully I’ll be able to do justice to the satisfaction of the one who asked. In addition, it’s also one of the last topics left on Topic List IX! We’re close to Topic List X, and I’m glad, because I’ve already got some pretty neat topics on there to go over.

But that’s in the future. For the now, let’s get going on today’s topic: When Characters Fail.

I’ll admit, I bounced around a bit on topic titles for this one, and not without good reason. For a moment it was “Failing to Succeed,” and then almost became “Letting Characters Fail.” But finally, I settled on When Characters Fail, rather than on letting, and I think that distinction is important.

See, if we go into our characters failing with the mindset that we’re “letting” them fail (and in fact, are), then we might be approaching our story in the wrong way. Sure, we’re giving our characters the “try/fail” cycle that they need, and they’re going through it, but here’s the thing about “letting” them fail. When we “let” our characters fail, then they’re not the ones acting on the try/fail cycle. We as authors are. We’re looking at our story and going “Okay, you can fail here, this is a good spot for it,” and letting the failure happen where we decide it works, rather than simply letting the characters be free to fail when their own choices drop it on them.

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