Popcorn and the Single Writer

Kevin J. Anderson uses a popcorn analogy to illustrate two methods that beginning writers can use to break into print.

One of them consists of writing a single novel and polishing it and perfecting it until it is the absolute best it can be. He compares this to putting a single grain in a pot with just the right amount of oil, at the right temperature and waiting till it pops to produce the perfect single kernel of popcorn.

While this can work, if the kernel you put in is a dud, or if the one novel you concentrate all your work on is unpublishable, for reasons having nothing to do with how well crafted it is (theme, market, events in the world that make your premiss untenable) you’re going to fail.

Then there’s the other method that I – and a lot of other people used – you throw some oil in a pot at as close to a perfect temperature as you can make it, and you heat it. A whole bunch of them are going to pop, even if you get a few duds. (This doesn’t mean by the way that we care less about each individual kernel... er... novel. And it doesn’t mean that in the middle of the “okay” kernels there won’t be one or two perfect ones. Possibly not the ones we expect.)

This approach, of course, takes its toll on the writer, but it has the opportunity for bringing the greater rewards.

What Kevin didn’t say is that for at least the last ten years and probably more, publishers have taken this approach to writers themselves. It used to be they carefully selected a writer and often invested considerable time and effort in helping him or her perfect the craft and improve. Perhaps there are still editors out there that do that. One or two of mine have been very good, but often work with limited time, because these days their job is not to help the writer progress, improve or even become more commercial. At best, if they’re interested in you, they give you a call and make suggestions. My friend Rebecca Lickiss, for instance, at one time got asked to write a “bigger” novel. But that was all the guidance she got.

Gone are the days of legendary editors shaping a house to their vision and keeping writers for years as long as they were paying their own way, trying to help that writer develop a following.

These days, and I think since publishers have been able to control every process of distribution and exposure a writer can get/have so that they could “comfortably manufacture bestsellers” at will, they have used the popcorn theory with authors.

Well, not quite, because they do have favorites. In the center of the pot, they would clear a little space and drop one or two little favored kernels they shepherded to the popping into bestsellerdom. The rest of the kernels were thrown in haphazardly, around the edges, where it might be too hot or too cold. And if they didn’t pop they got thrown away and other kernels thrown in.

This total absence of response to market signals – in fact, inability to get market signals – since what the system was rigged for was GIGO, that is to give you back what you put in, didn’t bother anyone, because those perfect kernels that popped meant great profits for the houses. Also, the smart ones were aware that the house giveth and the house taketh away and they would toe the line. The dumb ones... well, there were always replacements for those.

But now in the brave new world of electronic publishing, which will only grow faster as paper books grow more expensive – and for our friends across the pond, this is guaranteed as our price of energy is skyrocketing, thereby skyrocketing manufacturing and transport as well – anyone with a name, no matter how acquired has a great incentive to publish him or herself. As Dave Freer detailed in his Monday post, there is no real reason for bestsellers to go with mainstream publishers anymore, and sooner or later they’ll all realize it.

This means the popcorn theory of publishing is dead. Heaven alone knows how many publishing houses it will take with it.

To me this seems amazingly obvious, as it seems amazingly obvious that the only way for a publishing house to stay afloat and prosper is to establish a brand – a taste if you will. The only way for a publishing house to stay afloat is to return to the days of legendary editors, say a Hugo Gernsback or a John W. Campbell, who take authors in whom they find a glimmer of something that could be great and mold and shape them and help them find their audience.

The big ones will still escape – unless you really make sure your brand is a value added (and you might. I know people who read everything Baen publishes, for instance, just for the brand) – but by the time they escape they’ll have been writing for you for years and getting incrementally better. And those who aren’t total SOBs might even write for you, on the side, for years after they start a solo-publishing career, because they’re grateful for the help you gave them.

Why aren’t any of the businessmen in publishing houses seeing this? Have I made some huge mess in my reasoning? Because this has gone beyond “obvious” to “plain as the nose on your face.” I don’t understand how anyone can miss it, much less people whose livelihood depends on the current, soon to become toxic, model.

*crossposted at According To Hoyt and Classical Values*

Race in Speculative Fiction

I came across this article by Jha on the Intersection of Race and Steampunk. It raises some interesting questions. Since Steampunk is based on the Victorian era, when colonialism and repression of indigenous races was rife, how do you translate this for a modern sensibility?

The author says:

'I’m aware that other steampunks come to the subculture differently. Our stories are as diverse as our backgrounds, our reasons for participating are many. Interests tend to overlap in steampunk; we’re all geeks in some form or another. Reasons for being drawn to the subculture are various: a love for history, a love for speculative fiction, the giant robots, the ray guns, the fabulous clothes.'

But the fact remains that the steampunk genre is romanticising a period when anyone who wasn't a white protestant male, was repressed. How accurate do you want to make a story, to give it the flavour of the time? I'm currently writing a story set in approx 1840, during the settlement of Australia where everyone is racist to some degree. I expect the reader to be mature enough to see it as characterisation, not my personal endorsement.

When Le Guin wrote the Earthsea books she set out to create fantasy characters of colour, but she wanted the reader to identify with these characters before they realised the characters were coloured so that the average readers of the period would not be put off. So she did not slip in the colour of their skin until the story was well under way. Yet, when the TV series was made, the producers managed to white-wash her characters, which did not please the author at all.

How do you handle the ticklish question of authenticity of historic characters without crossing the line and making them all touchy-feelie?

The book is dead. Long live the book

In the small hours of last night - 2.57AM to be precise I finally wrote this
-00-
Which is either monkey-code for 'I am flat on my back' or 'DOG AND DRAGON is finished.'
Unfortunately Roly, my beloved Old English Sheepdog decided to celebrate for me by being not a well puppy (he's 10, not exactly a puppy except mentally). So sleep has been a little short in supply. Today has been spent Spill-chucking, dog caring, dealing with people who can't manage their own account numbers (I bought some scuba gear from a guy who sent me account number... wrong) Couriers who seem to want to pee me off, and not much sleep. So the gifted blog piece explaining the inner workings of the writer's mind and how to make readers love it will just have to wait - probably for another writer.

I've been watching the e-book saga slowly unfold and wondering in my cantankerous way why no-one reads or seems to understand Adam Smith*. As a philosopher, Smith was accused of merely writing down what was common sense, which accounts for him appealing to me more than some others. While I actually believe his first book the more brilliant, with refence to e-books it's the economic principals in the second book that apply. It's all about the value of labor. And anyone who doesn't believe a book is the product of much labor is smoking their own socks. But the value of that labor has been very depressed by the middlemen between the production and consumer. In fact, generally speaking that labor has valued at about a quarter of that of ditch digging or floor sweeping. And that's for experienced writers, because the labor pool exceed the number of employers by several orders of magnitude. This brings one to think about the aftermath of the Black Death on the pay for labor: scarcity drove that to levels not reached (in relative terms) for IIRC 4 centuries when the industrial revolution was well underway, and production increased... and so did a need for labor.

At one time Authors were relatively rare, and earned quite well - our just after the black death period. It went steadily downhill from there. Publishers could, and often did, treat authors as less valuable than a square of toilet paper and as interchangeable. Of course daring to complain, or even to talk about the share of income or even the relative support of different authors - to put this to society's mirror (Smith's first book) was simply not possible.

Along comes the e-book, and publishers in a clash with Amazon force the agency model. Amazon's broadside is to allow authors the same terms. Now one has to think of this in labor terms. Is this going to make less laborers toiling at books? No. More, probably. Publishers can pick and choose from newbies on the same or worse terms than ever...

But only if they are failing to sell on their own or have never sold a book. Otherwise the ordinary publisher has to - in economic terms - multiply readership 250%-700% to be as attractive. Now let's face it, there are plenty of authors who have been made by publicity and marketing who are no different from millions who haven't. But of course that relied heavily on controlling the access to books for both readers and authors. Now, according to Mintel - that market is going to lose 51% of its readers. 51% going... to the e-books they prefer. And that's NOW. In 10 years time expect that to be 70-80% IMO.

In the meanwhile, having to compete in flooded labor pool themselves, it ought to occur to anyone in publishing with a single iota of common sense that all labor is not near equal any more - and that if they're going to pay 12.5% -17% _real_ royalies on selling price, they have deliver -- to compete with 70%(-costs), more than 4-5 times the e-book sales. In other words, if Joe Midlist has a following of 5K e-book buyers, the publisher either needs to find another 20 000 readers for Joe, or he's better off without them. Fred Bigname has a following of 50 000 anyway - they would have to offer him 250 000 readers to stay. Tom Noob has however 5 readers who blundered on his book, and he has no social network. If they can offer him 100 readers he's winning.

They have at this stage no levers that can do this sort of 500% increase. In fact they want Joe's 5000 so they can introduce them to Fred to push his 50 000 up to try and keep him. They have no real interest in Tom's 5 readers...

And there is not much in it for Joe or Fred. So: if the value of labor is to be realistic, the publishers are going to have to up their ante, offer more in publicty and services... That's reality.

I've seen a few tremors already with those with 'following'. "Bonuses" being offered on advances IF a certain threshhold is breached (large bonuses - half again the advance, not the derisory increase in percentage over 100 000 sales etc. bonuses based on last sales numbers being equalled.) At the moment that's it.

But it's going to change the 'flatness' of the price of writer's labor.

*I'm not referring Adam Smith the Zombie Apocalyse magna comic writer but the bloke who wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, back in 17 hundred and whatsit. The bloke whose work is the foundation of Capitalism _and_ Communism - who in fact said something very different to 'greed is good' (Actually said greed is very stupid, but that we all work for self-interest, and this works best when it is enlightened - when the self-interest is informed by being cognizant of the effects and feedbacks, which means working at the point where co-operation maximises the reward to self interest of both parties. Why did I start on this...

Nocturnal Origins -- Free Giveaway

Looking at the cover image of Nocturnal Origins, I still can't believe it. Finally, after a very long time, it's being published. Mixed with the excitement is more than a little bit of fear. What if no one likes it? What if no one, not even family and friends, buys it? That's like everyone saying your baby is ugly. Why, oh why, did I agree when the bosses came to me and said they'd made the decision to publish it without discussing it with me because they knew I would say no?

Okay, hysterics aside, or at least pushed down a bit. These really are the questions I've been asking myself since Origins came out the other day. Part of the reason is this is my first novel to be published. But it's more than that. Every author has that one novel or short story that is special. The one that just sings to them and never quite leaves the back of their mind. It's the world that keeps on living and has more stories to tell than you will ever be able to write. Origins is that for me.

In a lot of ways, this book came about because of a challenge from Sarah. She'll be the first to tell you that she had to drag it out of me, painfully and with much protestations and denials, that I was a writer. But she did it, at first by trickery and cajoling and then by downright demands and threats. Finally, worn down, I admitted that I did "write a little". Well, that was it. The next thing I knew, she had somehow convinced me to send her something I'd written. From there it was exercises and plot discussions and, well, the next thing I knew, Origins was born.

I'll admit here, this is a blatant post promoting the book. Why? Because that's what authors do -- or should do. Also because I'm really proud of the book and hope folks buy it and like it and tell their friends about it. So, along that same line, keep reading to find out how to win a free digital copy of the book.

So, what is Nocturnal Origins? It's an urban fantasy mixed with mystery mixed with police procedural mixed with just a hint of romance. It is not, as a friend said, lady porn -- not that there's anything wrong with that. I've read more than my fair share of it ;-)

I posted a snippet of Origins back in January. You can find it here.

Here's a snippet from later in the book.

* * *
Deep shadows swathed the neighborhood as night slowly crept toward day. The pre-dawn silence was broken by the occasional passing car or the lonesome bark of a dog left outside by owners still safely tucked away in their beds. So normal and seemingly so safe.
And so prime for the taking.

The large cat moved silently as a wraith as it kept to the deepest shadows. It avoided the occasional splash of light thrown off by street lamps along the edge of the road. The jaguar prowled the well-manicured lawns, a cat on the hunt. This might not be the jungle it longed for, but this was the jaguar's territory. Nothing else mattered.

A padding step behind her brought her to a stop. Her head swung in the direction of the sound, teeth bared even as she scented…him. A soft growl sounded in her throat. At the same time he stepped into the light cast by the nearest street lamp. For a moment, it was as if he called to her.

No! How dare he intrude on her territory?

He took a step forward and she bared her teeth, another growl cutting the silence of the night even as her ears folded back against her head. Undeterred, he moved even closer. How dare he! Her heavy paw darted out, barely missing his head as he pulled back, surprise reflected in his brown eyes.

To her surprise, he tried again to approach her. Maybe he was a bit more wary. Not that it mattered. Her guttural challenge came a mere split-second before her paw slashed forward, claws bared.

How dare he think he could intrude on her territory, hunt her prey! Such a foolish male. Just like all of them. Just because they are larger, they think they are the masters. Well, she'd shown him. She'd shown that she wouldn't meekly let him usurp her rightful place. The fight might have been short but it had been brutal and he'd slunk off into the shadows to lick his wounds, leaving her to her hunt at her pleasure.

Foolish, pitiful male.

A porch light switched on down the street, and the cat froze, melting into the shadows. Its head lifted, and surprisingly deep green eyes, eyes that seemed more human than feline, scanned the area even as the jaguar stood poised for flight. Finally satisfied no danger awaited, it continued on the prowl.

A few moments later, the jaguar paused once more. Its large head swung from side to side, something nearly a smile parting its lips to show a set of very deadly teeth. What good hunting could be had here. So many unsuspecting humans with their pampered, overfed pets. Yet, while it might be enticing, it wasn't sport. Not when the pets were penned like sheep awaiting the slaughter. Too bad, especially since the jaguar craved the joy of the hunt, a real hunt, that night. She hungered for the thrill of the kill, for the taste of fresh meat.

From somewhere down the street a dog, safe inside its fenced backyard, barked a challenge. As other dogs picked up the call, the jaguar once more bared its teeth in something that looked suspiciously like a grin. Such foolish creatures, these dogs. Brave as long as they were behind their fences with their humans close by. But so easy to silence.

A harsh growl sounded, low and rumbling. Almost instantly, the dogs quieted. The cat shook its head. They presented no challenge. It was time to move on and find more worthy prey.

Then, without warning, the silence of the night was shattered. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky followed almost instantly by an ominous roll of thunder. Barking once more filled the air as dogs up and down the street clamored to get inside to safety.

A few moments later the first large raindrops slashed to the ground. Unlike most cats, the jaguar didn't race for shelter. Instead, it waited, listening, watching. Then it crouched, muscles gathering before it leapt into deeper shadows at the edge of the trees. It was time to move on, to find a better hunting ground.
To find food.

* * *

The steady drip-drip-drip slowly penetrated the fog that held her. Consciousness returned and with it a paralyzing fear. Whatever had happened, she wasn't lying on her bed, huddled under the blankets. Nor was she safe inside her house. Somehow she was outside, and that couldn't be good.

Eyes tightly shut, she prayed it was all a dream. But it wasn't. She knew it just as she knew the cold seeping into her bones was leaching the last of the warmth from her body. If she didn't get up soon, she would be in real trouble.

Mac's mind wailed in fear as reality sank in. She lay cold, wet, and completely nude in a puddle of water. Mud oozed between her fingers as she struggled to gather enough strength to climb to her knees. After twice trying to rise only to fall back to the ground like a helpless kitten, she knew she had to open her eyes, no matter what she might find. But she didn't want to. Once she did, she'd be forced to face the truth. Something had happened, something she couldn't remember, and she had a very sick feeling it was nothing good.

Why do these things keep happening to me?

Slowly, terrified of what she might find, Mac opened her eyes. Almost immediately, relief washed over her. She lay in her own backyard, safe - she hoped - from the prying eyes of her nearest neighbors.

That much, at least, reassured her. Nothing else did. Aches and pains too numerous to count spoke volumes about what she'd been though these last few hours - days? Worse, she had no idea, no memory of what had happened. How the hell had she wound up here? Had she been attacked again?

Or was it worse?

Could it be worse?

Swallowing hard against a sore, dry throat, she once more tried to push to her knees. A gasp of pain was torn from her, breaking the silence of the new dawn like a scream. Instinctively, she clamped her mouth shut and swallowed again, this time against the nausea that caused her stomach to pitch dangerously.

She most definitely was not in good shape.

Not daring to try to stand, Mac slowly crawled across the waterlogged grass toward the house. Never before had the yard seemed so large or taken so long to cross. Perspiration from the effort mixed with the rain, chilling her even more. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she forced herself to climb the three steps to the back porch on her hands and knees.

Sobbing in relief to have gotten that far, she paused. Part of her wanted to collapse where she was. She didn't have the strength to go any further. She could just lie there and rest awhile. There was nothing wrong with that. Then she could go inside. That would be all right, wouldn't it?

No! She couldn't stay there. No matter how badly she wanted to, she couldn't. Not when she was so cold and wet. Not when she had no idea how she had gotten out there in the first place. She had to find the strength to go inside. She had to. But how?

Placing one hand in front of the other, she dragged her now almost unresponsive body across the wooden porch to the door. Those few short feet seemed an almost insurmountable distance. Every movement hurt. Every breath felt as if it might be her last. Despair threatened to drown her as she collapsed and looked up at the doorknob. That shiny brass fixture seemed so far away. Could she reach it?

She had to reach it.

Please let it be open. Please.

Mac repeated it over and over like a mantra as her arm stretched upward towards the knob. Numb fingers touched and then slid off the cold metal. Biting her lower lip to keep from crying out, she once more reached up. Her eyes locked on her hand. Her focus narrowed to her fingers. Nothing else existed in the world in that moment except her fingers, the doorknob and her need to get inside.

Shaking from the effort, Mac willed her numb fingers to close around the smooth metal globe. Time slowed, seeming to almost stop. Then, miracle of miracles, the knob turned.

With the last of her strength, she pushed the door open and tumbled headfirst inside, landing in heap on the tile floor just inside. Slithering forward on her belly, she pulled her legs inside and kicked the door shut. She was safe. Finally. Her kitchen. Her house. Safe.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed the snippet. You can find Nocturnal Origins at Naked Reader Press or at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. And, as with all NRP books, Origins is DRM free.

If you're interested in winning a free digital copy of the book -- your choice of formats (epub, mobi, lit, lrf) -- leave a comment. You can comment on this post or about the state of the publishing industry in general. Just remember the rules -- no politics. I'll pick a winner tomorrow morning and post the winner. So keep checking back.

Sorry

I was supposed to be all self-promotional and everything but spent all day offline today, and totally spaced this.

So, open thread, whatever. I can't do self promotion worth a damn anyway.

Breaking PoV Rules

One of the things that gets drummed into writers very early (usually through critique groups) is the need to keep point of view (PoV) tightly controlled. This helps to build the link between the writer and the reader and allows the reader to get 'into the skin' of the characters.

I am a big advocate of this. However after years of mercilessly going through my manuscripts looking for PoV quibbles, it is interesting to see how very experienced writers sometimes break the rules with PoV.

There is a real temptation to do this. It is certainly a lot easier to simply write from a character's PoV then to stylishly convey the same thoughts or reactions from another characters PoV.

There is also the issue of economy. Sometimes breaking PoV - in a brief aside - helps to keep the pace and maintain the flow. The trick is flagging to the reader that this is coming so they do not get 'jolted'. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply insert a break between the paragraphs with a '#' or something similar so that the reader knows that this is a new scene. The other thing that I have seen work very effectively is to switch the PoV at natural points in the narrative where the pace changes - for example at the end of the chapter. The main PoV character may leave the scene before the end of the action, so the last few paragraphs can be from another character's PoV.

There still needs to be some sort of signal. If not after a deliberate break, then the first line should clearly signal the change i.e. 'Darius watched Kelly walk away, his eyes narrowing. The cut on his forearm burned as though he had been splashed with acid.'

I have noticed that many of the older genre classics almost tend toward omniscient, describing the action as though from a distance and only dropping the occaisional paragraph that is clearly from one characters PoV. I recently read 'Duke Elric' by Moorcock. It was hard to say at any given time whose PoV I was really in. I was clearly following Elric's actions, but it was almost as though I was listening through a intermediate narrator (no problems drawing me through the story though:)).

Do you ever break the PoV 'rule'? If so when?

Planning your battles or battling your plans

War - and battles, and smaller-scale conflicts - are something of a staple in science fiction and fantasy. If it's not central to the story, it tends to be part of the backdrop, not least because conflict drives story, and having two or more groups vying to control something (or someone), preferably with a high body count along the way, is a pretty effective way to push a storyline and to make life difficult (if not totally miserable) for your characters.

So, how many times have you read an interesting book and got to a battle, or a fight, and been left going huh? (Maybe I'm just fussy, but I'd guess something like 2/3 of what I read, with the usual exceptions, fall into this category. Most of the rest are smart enough to realize that writing a fight scene or a battle is hard and find a way not to write it.)

Here's the thing: it's bloody difficult to write battles well. It's just as difficult to write one-to-one fighting well. Whoever is point-of-view is either watching, in which case they're not seeing everything, or they're in the thick of it, in which case they're so loaded on adrenaline or sheer terror (sometimes both) that their perceptions are warped. Somehow the writer has to take that and turn it into something that gives an overview of what's actually going on while it's creating the illusion of actually being the point of view character's point of view.

And that's without a basic understanding of strategy - which is essential. All those space battles in the old-school space operas? I never really saw the point. They're either naval warfare with a different backdrop, or World War One dogfights with a different backdrop. Very few books cover things like why any group is going to go to the colossal expense and risk of space warfare when there's no apparent reason for it (if you can build a Death Star or equivalent, why the heck do you care about some back end of nowhere planet?). It's almost as bad as the fantasy races perpetually at war with each other for reasons that amount to "because".

When you add in the joys of supply chain logistics (which is, admittedly, rather more germane to fantasy than science fiction - but only because science fiction tends to deus ex out the distances and timeframes involved. The batteries and ammunition never seem to run out. At least swords never run out of ammo. But anyway...) and in-fight tactics, there's a lot for an author to juggle. Personally, I usually have to play out the entire thing several times while I'm writing it, from several different perspectives, before I can 'see' how things play out. Then I can write it with the portion of it seen by my point of view character while dropping in enough information that a reader can fill in the blanks. I'm not quite far enough gone to move little models around on grids, but that's a good chunk of what happens in my head. Along with crude emoticons on the models' faces to indicate what their general perspective is. (Admittedly, in Impaler the enemy perspective is usually 'WTF???' - but that's mostly because Vlad makes extensive use of night and surprise attacks to give his forces an edge. Okay, a lot of edges, and all of them very sharp. The blunt stakes happen after he's won.)

After learning medieval warfare and early renaissance warfare and battle tactics and becoming damn near a walking encyclopedia on how wars were fought during Vlad's time, it's incredibly frustrating to see battles written by someone who doesn't know "more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery". Maybe I've just been spoiled, but it seems to me like a lot of what gets published, the battle happens because someone's outline says there is one, and the end result is what the plan says it should be. It's kind of like the Final Battle for the Fate of The World is there because the book (or the mega-series) isn't done until you've had one.

What do you think? (And if what you think is 'Kate should not be posting when she's this tired because she's about as coherent as a politician in a lie detector', please don't bother. I know).