Does anyone going to LTUE want “What Comes Next?”

ByJohn Brown

LTUE didn’t have enough slots to include the presentation in the schedule, but I’m willing to give it in the chat area by the lobby to folks who are interested. Probably on Saturday.

So in “What Comes Next?” I share two tools I use that help me figure out where to start my stories and, well, what comes next all the way to the end. The second tool encapsulates, for me, the core of what story is all about.

If you’re interested, let me know

EDIT: I’m targeting 8-9 am on Saturday.

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    Free stories from Year’s Best Fantasy 9 anthology!

    ByJohn Brown

    Tor is posting ALL the stories in the Year’s Best Fantasy 9 anthology (published summer 2009) for FREE. Mine was in the second installment, but you can already get it here. What you want are all the others! For example, installment 3 has one of my favorite short stories I read last year: Kij Johnson’s “26 Monkeys and the Abyss.”

    Here’s how to get them.

    1. Go to the Tor.com site.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of that post and click the “Year’s Best Fantasy 9” tag to see all of the installments.
    3. Click on each installment and download!
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  • Faithful Readers, Nominate Awful Intent for the Whitneys before Dec 31st!

    ByJohn Brown

    Awful-Intent-originalSend Frank, Sheriff Hood, and the Knitters of Death club to kick some award patootie!

    Here’s how: go to: http://whitneyawards.com/ and click “Nominate” at the top.

    Enter a bit of info and boom! But this needs to happen before December 31st.

    The Whitney Awards are open for the public to nominate books they think are great and which are written by LDS authors (this is where your voice is heard, Faithful Reader). Those books that get at least 5 nominations are read and rated by a panel of judges. The judges then send on the finalists in each category to the Academy for voting.

    Servant won an award in 2009. Awful Intent is doing well, and if the reviews piling up are any indication, it could win another.

    Please take a few moments to send Frank to kick some award patootie.

    It’s time for Frank to bring home a trophy.

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  • Audio production of “Loose in the Wires”!

    ByJohn Brown

    starshipsofa-logoEarlier this year, Gary Dowell, an editor at Tony C. Smith’s District of Wonders,  contacted me, wanting to know if they could make an audio production of “From the Clay of His Heart”. I was, of course, delighted. Smith’s podcasts include the Hugo Award-winning Starship Sofa.

    During our conversation, I suggested that if they were looking for a shorter contemporary fantasy with some more humor, they might also want to consider “Loose in the Wires”.

    I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed writing that story.

    It all started with one sentence.

    I was generating ideas, brainstorming, and out popped this line: “Bill had two African gods in a Smucker’s jelly jar in his trunk.”

    That was the trunk of his car. And these were, of course, live gods. But what would fit in Smucker’s jar? How did they get there? What would they do? And what was going to happen with Bill?

    I loved the sound of that line, the image, the situation, but one snippet of an idea is not enough to build a story. I toyed around with the idea now and again. And then years later I was listening to O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton. The voice of one of the characters was exactly what I needed. He was all hick. And as soon as I decided that’s what my character would be, the story began to hum with electricity. Very soon after that, I finished it. Orson Card published it in the debut issue of Intergalatic Medicine Show.

    For a long time, I’ve wanted to make an audio production, but just haven’t had the time. Well, District of Wonders decided to pick that one up too.

    The audio production of “Loose in the Wires” will be featured in their upcoming February, 17th episode.

    I’m told the production of “From the Clay of His Heart” should be done soon. I’ll let you know the date it will be available as soon as it’s scheduled.

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  • Awful Intent Cover Reveal

    ByJohn Brown

    For Awful Intent, I looked around at different cover design shops and decided to use Damonza. I sent over the brief, and we began. What I needed was a cover in the same style of Bad Penny. A match. I also told Grady, the designer, that if he did something new with Bad Penny, I might consider it.

    He sent back these.

    PennyB  Intent1

    Intent2  Intent3B

    I loved what he did with Bad Penny. But it was nowhere near what we’d done with the original. And none of the others matched either. And that was a problem. I need all of the covers in the series to look like siblings.

    We went back and forth with a number of iterations. Then decided to focus on Bad Penny.

    Penny2B  Penny6B

    Penny7  Penny8

    And then I realized that I was falling prey to shiny object syndrome. It’s the bane of my life. There were all sorts of great ways to approach the cover, but I had already spent hours sorting through all that with the Bad Penny original. And the cover must be doing okay, because we sold lots of copies last year. I decided for everyone’s sanity to stick with the original decisions and parameters. That meant:

    • Bold, action-thriller colors
    • High contrast
    • Big fonts
    • Some texture
    • And some small element over top

    But I was still having a hard time clarifying in my mind something that was eluding me. Luckily I was in Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival at the time and having lunch with Dixon and Linda Leavitt. Dixon pointed out that I was waffling between a literal and symbolic approach. Once he said that, I could see exactly what he meant. For example, the Bad Penny in the first batch was painted on a board. It was more realistic. The red Awful Intent was more symbolic. He also pointed out that I had used a small element in the original. With that clarity, we went back to work.

    I’m very pleased with the finals (BTW, I’ll be tweaking the text above my name in Awful Intent; so that one isn’t final-final yet).

    BadPennyAwfulIntentFinal

    I think they say action thriller loud and clear and will easily stand out in a line-up.

     

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    MountainCon 2008 Killer Story Workshop

    ByJohn Brown

    Just got word from the programming organizer that my killer workshop is a go for MountainCon this year. The bonus is that Brandon Sanderson will be teaching it with me. You do NOT want to miss this one.

    WHAT: Writing Killer Stories: This is a hands-on workshop conducted by two professional
    authors (Brandon Sanderson, John Brown).

    When you finish, you will know:

    • The 3 keys to writing killer fiction
    • 4 parts of story & how they relate to the key
    • The creation process
    • 7 principles of creativity
    • Critical guidelines on suspense, plotting, setting, and character building

    WHEN: Saturday, September 20th,  7:30-10:00 PM, Panel Room 1

    WHERE: Davis Convention Center, Layton, Utah

    For more information go to MountainCon.org

    And if you get sick of me, you can listen to Sarah Douglas, the villain from Superman II.  She’ll be there as well with lots of other folks including

    Kevin Sorbo*

    Richard Herd

    Herb Jefferson Jr.

    Sarah Douglas

    Scott Schwartz

    Victor Brandt

    Tad Atkinson

    Mark Goddard*

    Penny Johnson Jerald

    Brandon Sanderson

    Brandon Mull

    David Reddick

    Rebecca Shelley

    JoSelle Vanderhooft

    Paul Genesse

    Sky Conway

    Gralin Jerald

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6 Comments

  3. It’s all a matter of timing for me. I’d be interested, but must get the toddler up and drive for nearly an hour to get there, so 8 am is a reaaaaally early start.

  5. Oh, John. I am so ready for just about anything that you have to teach. Looking forward to it.

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