Awful Intent Update: Climax Finished

ByJohn Brown

The first draft of the novel is essentially finished. I have two chapters left–one that confirms the resolution of the A story, and one that wraps things up in the B story. I am so excited to let this sit for a week or two, then come back to it with fresh eyes and get the second draft written. That draft will go out to my beta readers. And while they’re reading, I will be developing the idea of the next novel.

These last two weeks, I have been applying the techniques used by sports psychologists to enhance professional- and olympic-level sports performance to my writing sessions. I’ve noticed the difference. And it’s been very good. I’ll be describing what that is in a future post.

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  • CONduit report & some interesting numbers

    ByJohn Brown

    CONduit is a conference for speculative fiction writers. This year’s conference was great. I was able to see and talk to a bunch of writer friends (Dave Wolverton, Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, Howard & Sandra Tayler, Eric James Stone, Ami Chopine, Darren Egget, Skipper Ritchotte, Mette Harrison), make some new ones (Lee Modesitt, James Dashner, Julie Wright, Aprilynne Pike, Larry Correia), plus chat with a multitude of others who are trying to break in. I also got to record with the Dragon Crawlers Radio guys. Nothing better than spending a weekend with a swarm of friendly and talented folks.

    I’m amazed at the success some of these people are having:

    • Aprilynne Pike had an initial print run of 200,000 hardback copies and was #1 on the NY Times Best Seller list.
    • James Dashner is going to be one of the main events from Random House this fall. I’m expecting an equally large print of his Maze Runner.
    • Brandon Sanderson just signed a contract that was announced on Publisher’s Lunch for somewhere around 2.5 million for four books. Folks, this is amazingly large for our genre.

    Of course, we already know Dave Wolverton and Lee Modesitt are some of the biggest sellers for Tor. Dan Wells is going to be big as well. And the Taylers have already got tens of thousands who read them regularly. They threw a great release party at this con.

    Larry Correia has had some interesting success as well and came at it from a side alley. He self-published Monster Hunters International. He sold a few thousand copies (no mean feat, especially for a self-published book), with many of the readers coming from the armed forces in Afganistan and Iraq. The book was so good the owner of a large independent store in Minnesota, Uncle Hugo’s, called the editor of Baen Books up and told her that she was an idiot if she didn’t buy Larry’s book because he could sell the heck out of it. So she took a look, agreed, and Larry’s now under contract with a real publisher. It’s coming out in July.

    In one conversation I learned the following about the Science Fiction & Fantasy genre.

    • 4,000 hardback copies for a title in a year is the rough break even point for Tor. You sell more than that, you’re okay. You sell less and Tor might have to drop you.
    • 10,000 hardback copies would be considered a very good seller.
    • 15,000 – 30,000 hardback copies and you are hitting the top of the midlist
    • Robert Jordan sold around 600,000 of each of his titles in hardback.
    • Depending on the time of year, 4,000 – 5,000 hardbacks sold in a week will put you in the top ten, even the top three, on the NY Times bestseller list.

    As for me, I printed up some posters and book marks using Swanland’s art. The cover got a great reaction there. And that’s huge for me because, looking at that Gallup Poll blog I wrote, the cover is going to drive a lot of sales for a new author. I had a wonderful time giving my workshop. And I think I finally figured out which part of my novel I can use for readers. Oh, and if you get a chance to hear Eric James Stone read any of his short stories, take it. I’ve listened to him twice now and both have been well worth the 20 minutes.

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  • Curse of a Dark God draft 2 finished!!!!

    ByJohn Brown

    Rejoice! Sing! The draft is done!

    Hallelujah.

    Based on my records I spent:

    • 48.5 hours on the pre-draft for this book
    • 503.5 hours to finish draft 1
    • 130 hours to finish draft 2
    • A total of 682 hours of work to this point

    If I’d been working full time on this that would be roughly 17 weeks. That’s about 4 months. I don’t think that’s so bad, considering this book clocks in at 230,000 words. Not bad at all. But no wonder just finishing a novel is the thing that filters most would-be writers out. That’s a freaking huge amount of time. I hope as things progress I get faster.

    Here’s what I focused on in this draft.

    • Sugar’s story. It was a mess and the biggest problem with draft 1. I had to rewrite or massively revise about a dozen of her chapters. In fact, I ended up added three chapters to her story: White Tower, Withers, and Loyalties. I’m very please, however, with the result. I think it works very well.
    • The Gnolum. I had purposely left the seeding chapters for these giants out (seeding as in I can’t just have them show up at the end without laying some groundwork). I had to add 2 chapters for them to this draft.
    • Early Argoth chapters. The first two chapter of Argoth’s story needed to be totally rewritten. The second needed major revising.
    • Chapter titles. For titles in draft 1 I used the name of the main pov character in the chapter and a short summary of what was happening. It helps keep things clear. So those are now out and the chapter titles in.
    • Rough stuff. In many of the early chapters I was still feeling my way into the story. Yes, I had an outline, but I just can’t get the whole story until I begin to write. So there were many chapters with notes to myself or blanks to fill in. Some things no longer worked because of later chapters. All this I had to fix.
    • Reordering chapters in the last half of the book. About halfway through the book Talen’s story breaks off from Sugar’s and Argoth’s. So when I was originally writing them, I found it easier to just write all of Talen’s story and then all of Sugars and Argoth’s until the three met up again. Well, this created some time gaps. I fixed those. I also had long stretches of one pov. For example, I had Talen’s story running for 14  chapters without any break to the other viewpoints. All this had to be fixed.

    So I’m very pleased with this draft. Here are the first three chapters for your enjoyment: CODG draft 2 beginning for readers. Remember: feedback from my wife, agent, editors, and other early readers will change it. You’re welcome to contact me with any comments you might have about it.

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  • LTUE presentation materials

    ByJohn Brown

    On Friday night I’m going to be part of a panel on RULES FOR WRITING MAGIC, and then I’ll be presenting VIVID & CLEAR to a bunch of SFF romancers. On Saturday I’ll be following that up with a presentation on STORY TURNS. Every time I present folks ask for the presentations. So instead of making them wait until I get home, I’ll just post them now.

    Enjoy!

    Some thoughts on inventing magic to go along with Friday’s panel.

    Presentation slides: Vivid and Clear v2

    Presentation slides: Story Turns v2

    And here is the fine car chase clip from the Story Turns presentation.

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  • Press Release – Utah Author Selected for Best SFF Stories 2008

    ByJohn Brown

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    UTAH AUTHOR SELECTED FOR BEST STORIES OF 2008

    Will Present Keys to Successful Fiction at BYU Symposium

    LAKETOWN, UTAH |  February 9, 2009 |  Utah author John Brown’s novelette, “From the Clay of His Heart,” has just been listed as one of the best stories of 2008 by Locus Magazine, the main trade publication for the field of science fiction and fantasy. Locus Magazine selected its list from the hundreds of stories published and reviewed in 2008. Brown’s novelette will also be included in the annual Year’s Best Fantasy anthology edited by Hugo award-winning editor David G. Hartwell.

    “I’m thrilled with the recognition,” says Brown. “Still, I suppose you’d have to be a potato head not to squeeze some drama out of a story that’s a mix of religion, thieves, monsters, and love.”

    Brown will present his views on the keys to successful fiction in a lecture and workshop titled “The 3 Things You Must Learn To Write Killer Stories” at BYU on Friday evening, February 20, 2009 as part of Life, The Universe, & Everything, a symposium on science fiction & fantasy. Admission is free and open to all.

    John Brown is an award-winning Utah author. His epic fantasy, Servant of a Dark God, will be released in September 2009 by Tor, the largest publisher of science fiction and fantasy in the world. For more information on the author visit: http://JohnDBrown.com

    MORE INFO

    Click on image. Artwork for “From the Clay of His Heart” which will appeared in Locus Magazine’s recommended reading for 2008 and will appear in the Year’s Best Fantasy #9 edited by David Hartwell. 

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  • Writing update: Servant proofs & cover, Curse battle finished, events

    ByJohn Brown

    Two bits of news about Servant of a Dark God. I received the proofs for the paperback version in the mail this week as you see below. The cat is used because he deserves a cameo. This is Panther giving us either his “Sigh, whatever, I’ll submit to your weird human ways” or “Umm, scratches” looks. He’s the last of the original eleven cats we inherited when we moved to Laketown back in 2003 (nine of them were black, one was a gray tabby, another a sort of tortoise color). Dutchess, the one who liked to tear open our bread bags while we weren’t looking and eat the bread, got run over. Three others, including our talker Tabby, we think were stolen by a woman looking for “stray” cats because, golly, the rattlers keep getting all hers. Ours were obviously strays because we live in 2.5 acres surrounds by dozens and dozens of acres of open land around us and we let them roam the hills! A few were shot, we think, by a kid who came to visit his grandfather who lived 1/2 a mile down the road. We think coyotes might have gotten the rest. So Panther is the last survivor. 7 years old. We love the old man.

    I have just a few days to go through the proofs and find any typos and punctuation errors and get it back. The paperback version is scheduled right now to be released in November. And here’s the cover the publisher is using on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can see the difference between it and the hardcover by comparing it to the image in the sidebar.

    *

    As for Curse of a Dark God, I typed the last word of the final battle and climax on Saturday. As it now stands, the final battle required 34,429 words to write. Holy schnitzel! Again, many adult novels average around 90,000 – 110,000 words total. So this is a significant sequence. For those of you who like to think in pages, it’s going to be anywhere from 100 – 140 pages depending on how the publisher configures the book. I have one more short chapter to write and the draft is finished. Well, I have a few things to seed into earlier chapters so that the ending etc. works, but that’s small stuff. The next step is to have a few readers go through this draft. Make any necessary edits. Then get it out to my agent as quickly as possible. Once my editor accepts it, we’ll be able to set a release date. And I might feel the sword of editoral doom lift just a little from my head.

    *

    Finally, just wanted to give folks a heads up about the following events I’ve committed to.

    Date What Area Details
    Saturday, September 18, 1-4 PM Book signing Orem, UT The Orem, UT Barnes & Noble is having an authorpalooza. Come meet a boatload of authors.More details here: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/store/2626 University Crossings Barnes & Noble
    330 East 1300 South
    Orem, UT 84058
    801-229-1611
    Saturday, October 9, 2010, all day Writers conference American Fork, UT The American Fork Arts Council writers workshops have become so popular that they’ve decided to start holding one conference in the spring and one in the fall. These conferences focus on giving concrete advice and encouragement to aspiring writers. I’ll be giving a keynote speech and participating in some breakout sessions. I was really happy to be invited back since I had to bow out of the last one two days before it was scheduled to run because of a death in the family.
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