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Generating Story 1: Can You Create a Redneck Crapper?

ByJohn Brown
Bugatti Veyron Super Sports $2,400,000

Almost everyone reading this knows what they like in a car. We know what we want a car to do. We can talk about acceleration, voom-voom styling, and handling. Some of us could talk about how engines and transmissions and tires all work together to create those things. We could get really technical.

But how many of us could then go manufacture a tire? Or the paint we’re going to put on the car? How about a windshield?

No?

Well, what about one little bolt? Just a little bolt. Can you do it?

There’s a difference between knowing what a thing is supposed to do, how it works, and actually building it. A lot of people can talk about the first two topics and have no idea at all about the third.

It’s the same with stories.

There are three things we have to learn to write killer stories.

  1. What a story is supposed to do.
  2. How the 5 parts of story—character, setting, problem, plot, and text–do that
  3. How to come up with and develop a story idea in the first place

We authors talk a lot about the second thing. You have books and blogs galore on dialogue, plot, characters, structure, grammar, world-building, setting—you name it. Heck, the big series I wrote last year about the key conditions for reader suspense was all about how story works.

Some of us talk about the first thing. And really there’s no point in blathering on about the how-to’s if we don’t know the what-for’s, which is why I tried to highlight one of the core what-for’s in my series on suspense.

But as important as those two things are, none of it matters if we don’t know how to put it to use. We’re not reviewers or editors. We’re creators. We’re writers—the ones that invent the story in the first place. And let me tell you, knowing how a story works and how to invent one are two very different things.  

I didn’t know the principles of invention when I was first starting out. And that gap in my knowledge was one of the things that held me back for years. In fact, I almost gave up my dream of writing stories because of it.

Very early in my attempts to start a career I wrote a story that won an award and $2,000. I was flown out to Cocoa Beach, Florida for a week-long workshop with amazing pros. Was published. And then I went home, finished another story (yea!), and proceeded not be able to finish another thing for five years.

Five years.

FIVE. YEARS!

And I tried.

After five years of failure you begin to wonder if maybe you didn’t get the wrong memo (what am I doing at this empty warehouse?). Your family begins to wonder that as well. You realize life is short and there are a lot of other things you could be spending your time on. You begin to think that only an idiot would spend more time on this. And you’d probably be right.

Unless, of course, you realize that what’s keeping you back isn’t a manifestation of cosmic will. Rather, it’s just a lack of understanding.

That’s what happened in my case. Just a few days before I gave up on all my dreams, the light was turned on for me. I learned some key, but simple, principles of invention that I hadn’t known. You can read the whole story here. After I learned these principles, my production took off like a rocket.

And so what I want to do in this series is share those principles with you. Hopefully, this will unleash your abilities. You might find a huge audience for your stories. You might find only the family dog will stick around to listen to them. The popularity of your stories is a separate matter. But you can’t even find out how big your audience will be if you don’t know how to finish.

So let’s start. A lot of people think that creativity is about passion. When they think of creativity, they think of someone like this.

Look at him. Brushed velvet jacket. Beard. Rakish devil-may-care hair. And that gaze. Look at that gaze! It’s full of passion. It’s coming off him in waves. In fact, we all know his inner world is a vast tempestuous sea of passion that sends ideas crashing in great surges onto the rocky beaches of his soul. And those earthly forces cannot be contained. No, he must write them, write them, write them. That’s the face of a man who will channel fire onto the written page because if he didn’t, he would surely burn.

Or maybe not.

Maybe creativity is about being like this guy.

  

Hello, Malcolm Gladwell. Look at him. There are so many ideas in that great blaze of brains they trip over themselves trying to get out. There are so many they kinked his hair with their electric heat. Oh, fecund mind!

Or maybe not.

Maybe creativity is all a function of being blessed.

 

Or maybe it’s about alcohol (or some other chemical). After all, isn’t that how Ernest Hemmingway did it?

Booze Makes Ernie Reel Smart

Or it’s about being mentally unstable.

Or it’s about having the right personality type. I remember the day of woe when I learned that I was an ENFJ but that the “natural” writers were all ISFPs!

Alas, me being a blockhead was all scientific

Or it’s about being eccentric.

Patrick Rothfuss shows us the key is crazy beardage and an Alice in Wonderland chair

Or it’s none of that. It’s about being born to it.

I wrote my first novel when I was six

Right? All of those things are what creativity is about. And if, as so clearly demonstrated by those pictures, you don’t have passionate hair, well then, forget about it. Except here’s Larry Correia, a New York Times bestseller, who has no passionate hair whatsoever.

I keep guns in my basement

Huh?!

How could that be?

Here’s how. All those ideas above about creativity–they’re rubbish. Creativity has nothing to do with passion or hair or whether you wear Argyle socks.

Nothing.

Let me show you the face of creativity.

That is Warren Ellis. Warren is my brother-in-law, except when he’s not (do not ask me to explain this). One day our fridge started to drip. The freezer would cycle through its normal thawing, and all the water would drip down into the fridge and soak up our egg cartons and pool in the vegetable crispers. It was a mess.

We defrosted the freezer we weren’t supposed to ever have to defrost, but the problem persisted. So we called Warren because he fixes things.

Warren came to our house, looked the fridge over. He declared that the freezer’s drain tube was plugged. We thought up a few ideas for cleaning it out, none of which were any good, then Warren asked if we had an air compressor. We did and hauled it in.

Warren plugged it in, let it build up the pressure, and then held the compressor nozzle to the bottom end of the tube. The compressed air went in. The obstruction flew up and out and landed on the counter. The obstruction was a fat fly that had crawled in there, gotten stuck, and died.

We poured a quart of water into that freezer, and it all flowed down into the catch pan at the bottom. Warren fixed our freezer with an air compressor.

Folks, that is creativity.

What did Warren have? He didn’t have passionate hair; I can tell you that. No. He had an objective. He knew basically how fridges worked. And he came up with a couple of options to fix the issue.

Let’s look at another example. Here’s Ed Smylie.

Ed was like Warren. He ran into some problems. Actually, the astronauts in Apollo 13 ran into some problems. Ed was tasked to help solve them.  One of those problems was the fact that the astronauts were running out of air.

Ed and the others designed the solution in two days. The ground crew relayed the instructions to the flight crew. The lunar module’s CO2 scrubbers started working again, saving the lives of the three astronauts on board.  Of the experience, Ed said that he knew the problem was solvable when it was confirmed that duct tape was on the spacecraft. “I felt like we were home free”, he said. “One thing a Southern boy will never say is: I don’t think duct tape will fix it.”

Ed and his crew saved the day. The made a round peg fit into a square hole. How did he come up with such a creative solution?  

Ed had an objective. He knew how the CO2 scrubbers and the shuttle worked. He knew about duct tape. He came up with options.

Let’s look at a few more examples of this. I know you’ve seen some of these.

 

That is creativity. So is this.

 

And this . . .

 

And this . . .

Or this, if you don’t need to go so fast . . .

Smaller size, for trolling

And this . . .

And this, which is officially called a Bumper Dumper . . .

Do you really want to dig?

 These fine folks had a goal. They knew the basics of how things worked. They came up with some solutions.

That’s all there is to creativity. Three things. You need to have an idea of what you’re trying to do. You need to have a basic knowledge of how things work. And you have to know how to come up with some solutions to meet your objective. 

Not so mystical, is it?

But I can hear some of you complaining. Writing is different. It’s a whole other world. It’s Fiction, which is so significant we must capitalize it. It’s passion. It IS mystical. This is a matter of the heart. It’s not a fridge or space ship or some dumb hotdog roast. You cannot compare these things.

Except I can because they’re the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to invent a different recipe like the folks at Cook’s Illustrated, or decorate your house, or come up with a way to keep the squirrels out of your bird feeders, or make people weep in a movie theater.

What I’ve found is that when we have troubles coming up with ideas, we probably don’t know what our objectives are. Or we probably lack some understanding of how fiction works. Or we don’t know the principles of generating options.

And so we conclude it’s a mystery. It’s arcane lore.

But it just ain’t so. Can you create a redneck toilet? Then you can write a story.

Now, it’s true that a lot of people feel their way through this. They don’t know what they’re doing, but they do it. I did that. Remember: I won an award. But then I couldn’t repeat it. Couldn’t find that groove I’d stumbled into.

I don’t want to stumble around hoping to get lucky. I want to make a living at this. And if I’m going to make a living, I need to produce. Regularly. I can’t be bumbling around, hoping to create something by accident.

The good news is that we don’t have to create by accident.  We can create on purpose. There are principles to invention. When we learn them, our productivity will shoot through the roof.

Finding a solution to Apollo 13’s issues might seem impossible to us. But they weren’t impossible to Ed Smylie because Ed had an objective; he knew how things worked up there; and knew how to come up with options.

My intent is that when you finish this series, you’ll know what Ed Smylie knew, except for stories.

For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas

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    Audio for my presentations

    ByJohn Brown

    Folks. I have 2 mp3 files. One for Story Turns. One for Vivid & Clear. They are each about 48mb in size. But I don’t have the time to figure out how to make them available to you.

    But I know someone out there does have the skillz to mash the slides with the audio in a short period of time and make it available. Maybe create something to upload to YouTube.

    So if you have been waiting for this and would like to offer your services, I’d be happy to throw in a free copy of the ebook edition of Bad Penny and Servant for your efforts. It would in no way cover your time, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And the project will also give you all sorts of glowy goodness inside knowing that you’ve served a whole bunch of writers.

    That’s my offer: glowy goodness and ebooks.

    If you’re interested, click my picture in the left sidebar and and let me know 🙂

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  • Is trying to improve your style a bad thing?

    ByJohn Brown
    By Stan Eales
    Ink and Quill by Stan Eales

    Another great podcast by the Writing Excuses team, this time on style and voice: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/10/06/writing-excuses-episode-35-voice-tone-and-style/

    Quesion: is it dangerous as a writer to try to improve your style?

    A lot of respected authors say it’s foolishness to focus on style. Because story is what people want. Story is the thing. Put all the lipstick you want on a pig, it’s never going to be anything but a pig.

    I agree with them. Why fiddle with the words when the content oinks? If you have to focus on something, focus on delivering killer stories.

    However, story content is not everything. There is a feeling that comes with how the story is written. You can serve prime rib on fine china in a $100 / plate restaurant, or you can serve it in a cardboard box out on the back lawn by the shed. Same beef, but not quite the same experience.

    Orson Card is one of those who cautions against thinking about trying to improve your style. I want you to read this.  

    Question 5:

    I would like to use the discussion in Lesson One as a springboard to my own inquiry. I understand that obsessively analyzing the style in which one writes can lead to bigger problems. However, my problem is not with an overall stylistic deficiency, but a very specific one. Through dialogue, the voices of the characters speak with one another. Are there any techniques you can offer which make the process of composing dialogue any easier? (I don’t expect a wonder formula, just some methods which would help me organize my thoughts a little better.)

    — Submitted by Jennifer Dittrich

    OSC Replies:

    Composing Dialogue

    The secret is not to think about dialogue as a separate task. You aren’t writing dialogue, you’re writing an encounter between characters. Part of the encounter is what they say, but part of it is how they react to each other, what they want from each other, what has happened between them in the past, who else is watching and the impression they want to make, and so on. When the characters speak, therefore, they aren’t “speaking dialogue,” they’re using words to do something to the other person — sometimes to try to get the other person to understand some information, but more often to get the other person to do something or feel something or reveal something. That’s what you concentrate on, and then come up with words you might use to accomplish that character’s purpose. Sometimes you’ll try many different opening lines as a conversation begins, and see where they go; sometimes you’ll erase long passages because they don’t feel right to you. But the solution to dialogue problems is rarely to “write better dialogue.” It’s almost always to clarify or change what the character wants or feels or thinks.

    Most often, bad dialogue is bad because it’s “clunky.” The usual cause is that you’re trying to “write well,” and your idea of writing well comes from the horrible essays you were forced to write in high school and college. Forget all that! But don’t forget it just when you’re writing dialogue — that’s bad writing even in the essays and papers produced by those very same teachers! Good writing sounds like a person talking. Your narrative sections should be written in fluid language that can easily be read aloud. In other words, your narrative should sound like dialogue spoken by a good storyteller!

    So if you worry about your writing style, especially your dialogue writing, chances are that the problem you have is that you are worrying about your writing style instead of worrying about what happens and why in the story! Bad style is almost invariably the result of trying for “good style,” because “good style” is invariably defined by writing teachers and the students who believe them as “writing like someone else who writes better than you.” But you can’t write like them, because you’re not them and their voice isn’t your voice. You can only write well when you write the way you talk, only more clearly and precisely. If you are laboriously constructing your sentences, searching in the thesaurus for “just the right word,” you are almost certainly writing unreadably; and, while you might only notice it in your dialogue, chances are you are writing badly all the time.

    How do you cure this destructive habit? Let me give you a parallel example. When I was a child, I had a lyric boy-soprano voice, complete with vibrato. I sang high and sweetly, and that ability to sing was an important part of who I was. But when my voice changed, the “high” was gone and so was the sweet. Grimly determined to get my voice back, I forced a vibrato using very bad technique — a strained, rapid diaphragmatic vibrato rather than one that arises from a relaxed throat. It made my voice sound eccentric and unpleasant — and the tightness that resulted severely limited my range. I went through my college career with that voice, even though I knew it didn’t sound all that good, because I didn’t know how to do it better.

    Then I went to Brazil as a missionary. Nobody there knew me as a performer. No one cared how I sang. I stripped away the old pretense and sang “straight,” with clear tone, no vibrato at all. I learned to relax my throat. I sounded like nothing; and then, to my surprise, a genuine, relaxed vibrato began to enter my voice on sustained notes. And my singing range increased, both higher and lower. When I came home, my singing voice was a far more versatile and powerful instrument than it had ever been before. During my forced-vibrato years, I couldn’t “do voices” — I could only sing the one way. Now I could take my relaxed voice and shape it to sound like an old man singing, or a child, or an untrained singer, or an operatic buffoon. I could sing conversationally; I could sing formally. I had my voice at last.

    But I had to stop trying to force my voice and just relax, concentrating on the song and not the singer. Before I could sing well, I had to stop trying to sing well and concentrate on singing clearly, singing to the audience.

    And if you don’t understand how this applies to writing style, I’m not a good enough writer to explain it to you any better.

    You can read it on his site here: http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1998-08-14-5.shtml

    Lots of great insights there. How many ways can you say, “Please, focus on the content of the story!”

    But did you notice this line: ” Your narrative sections should be written in fluid language that can easily be read aloud. In other words, your narrative should sound like dialogue spoken by a good storyteller! ”

    And this one: “You can only write well when you write the way you talk, only more clearly and precisely.”

    Card is talking about improving your style to make it more clear and fluid and authentic to you. Even while warning this questioner as strongly as possible to avoid trying to improve your style, Card prescribes improving your style.

    So style matters, even to Card. It just doesn’t matter nearly as much, in most cases, as content does. And I agree with him on his priorities.

    However, I still think Card is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Maybe because he’s seen too many wretched stories that had great style. Nevertheless, there IS a way that each of us talks. We talk that way out of habit, but also because we like some of those turns of phrases. Because certain sounds, words, and rhythms appeal to us at some level. Because they feel right.

    So what if you’re reading TC Boyle and love the rhythm of his prose? What if you figure out some of what drives that rhythm? What if you begin to use it in your writing? Is that bad?

    Or what if you notice how David Farland always puts movement into descriptive passages? Or that you use “really” and “very” really a lot in very many places? What if you like how Dean Koontz stops to paint his characters? His use of metaphor to evoke an image of a person? What if you notice how some of Card’s prose works poetically?

    What if your editor notices something you do that jars him so much it sets his teeth to rattling, and when he points it out you agree?

    What if you pick up new stylistic elements and options and try them? Are you then going to write excrement?

    No. You’re not. Because it’s natural to pick up words, phrases, manners of speaking. It’s natural to try them on. In fact, trying to AVOID this is what’s unnatural.

    I used to work with a guy named Rick Jendro. He looks like a young Sylvester Stallone. One thing I loved about him was that he is a wonderful water cooler story teller. Rick used his hands and voice and face when telling his water cooler stories. He wasn’t Acting with a capital A, but he was acting. He was evoking the story. He reminded me of another friend, Jeff Cuthbert, who did the same thing.

    I loved listening to both of them. LOVED IT. Partly because of this acting they did.

    So I noticed what Rick was doing and Jeff had been doing. The next time I told a story I let myself be a bit more free with my hand motions and actions. I didn’t study movements or anything like that. Didn’t rehearse. I found they just came when I reminded myself to let them come. I tell a better story today than I did before because of this.

    Was I wrong to delight in what they did and try it? I don’t think so. There’s nothing wrong with imitation. Good gravy, that’s how we learned language in the first place.

    My advice, lowly writer that I am, is to read and imitate. Notice things. Notice every thing that sings. Every thing that clunks. From character to plot to punctuation to paragraphing to dialogue to whatever. Then try things on. Try on structures and plot twists and dilemmas. Try on paragraphing and poetical devices like simile and metaphor. Try on everything that strikes your fancy. Get a whole closet of outfits that feel wonderful on your bones.

    And when you write, just write. Don’t worry about the style because all these new outfits you’ve got: the ones that feel most natural for the task at hand will present themselves to you when the time is right. I promise.

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  • Anti Monkey Butt

    ByJohn Brown

    Sometimes words fail me…

    Anti Monkey Butt

    With Calamine Powder

    Sweat Absorber and Friction Fighter

    Anti Monkey Butt® Powder is specially formulated to absorb sweat and minimize frictional skin discomfort. Helps to keep you dry and comfortable. Ideal for butt busting activities such as motorcycling, bicycling, horseback riding, truck driving, hiking, hockey, football, and baseball.

    Indoors or outdoors, work or play, or on occasions when you sit on your butt all day. Don’t let your buns get red. Use Anti Monkey Butt ® Powder instead!

    You can get your bottle of comfort for only $5.95

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    You’re invited to join the novel writing workshop pilot

    ByJohn Brown

    I am developing an online novel writing course and am looking for folks to pilot it with me and give me feedback. I’m thinking I want to limit it to 10-12 folks.

    It’s free and will probably take two or three months to complete. If you join, your job will be to do the work. And there will be work. I’m thinking 10-15 hours of work per week. Please don’t ask to join if you don’t want to make this commitment. I only want folks who are serious and ready to give this a shot. In addition to the work, you’ll need to report your experience with the course as we go, sharing with me where you get stuck, what’s confusing, what’s helpful, what does and doesn’t advance your skill. In fact, if at some point the course just isn’t providing you any value, you are welcome to drop. That’s good feedback too.

    It’s going to be a blended format that includes self-paced work and some type of weekly online meeting. I will be guiding the class. At the very least, we’ll meet and chat at my site. I don’t know if we’ll do a live meeting or not. Still working that out.

    I struggled for many years, trying to figure this stuff out, then had a number of epiphanies during Orson Card’s boot camp and continued from there. Of course I still have lots to learn. But I want to share what I have.

    I love teaching and have been teaching in one form or another for the last 20 years. I’m currently an education program manager at a large software firm. What this is all means is that I’m trying to build a course that guides folks through a process that will help them learn to WRITE novels. Not just talk about them.

    So this is not a series of lectures with quizzes that test your ability to recall, although I will quiz you.

    It’s not a course with an end goal of teaching you what I’ve learned about the concepts and principles of plot, character, and setting, although you will need to learn that.

    This is about increasing your ability to get ideas, develop them, and then write.

    It’s about doing the work. It’s about production. It’s about finishing product. And having a good time doing it.

    If you already feel comfortable with your ability to finish novels, this is NOT the course for you.

    You can learn more about the course here by clicking The Path in the On Writing menu.

    Probably the only other thing you need to know is that the class is a PG-13’ish class. While the stories can deal with intense and adult themes, as the teacher, I’m not interested in working with stories with explicit or detailed sex or lots of language of the sort that would earn a movie rating more restrictive than PG-13.

    Remember, this is a pilot. Even though I’ve taught about writing for a number of years to various audiences, there might be some rough spots. We might find we need to change the work requirements or activities or any number of things.

    If you’re interested, click on the Contact link on the menu of my site, and shoot me an email.

    Edit 1/30/15: I’m getting a number of excellent questions about the time commitment and schedule. Let me answer them here.

    The gap I’m trying to fill

    First, you have to understand that I am not interested in talking about novels and writing novels. I’m interested in helping folks finish novels. That’s a big gap I see in most writing instruction. It’s the gap I had. There was nobody to help me move from the theory to the writing, and writing all the way to the end. So this isn’t a class about novels. It’s a class where I hope to help you learn a number of techniques for developing and finishing one. And to learn those techniques, you have to actually use them. Which means you have to develop and finish a novel 🙂

    So why 10 hours as a minimum?

    If you’re a slower writer, it’s going to take you around 50 hours to develop and write a novel of 25,000 words. That’s the size of one of Louis L’Amour’s smaller novels (which we call sometimes call “novellas” today). It’s the size of some smaller romances. A lot of indies are writing serials around this size. If you want to write a 50k book, it’s probably 100 hours, maybe more. A 75k novel? 150-200 hours. The development and first draft of a 100k novel? 200-300 hours.

    These are not exact times. Some writers are faster. But you get the picture. Writing a novel is a big project. And I’ve found that it’s just too hard to get any traction on less than 10 hours per week. When you spend much less time than that, you spend most of your time just trying to remember what the story is about. I’ve found it’s best to keep your writing engine hot, or at least warm.

    So will these 10 hours be in meetings?

    No. I don’t want to have a lot of meetings. That’s the beauty of online. We will have deadlines. But you should be able to complete you work during the times that suit you best.

    What’s the course schedule?

    I can’t give you an exact schedule. I haven’t timed everything. Figuring that out is part of what we’re doing in this course. But I do know what I want you to learn and how I hope to help you learn it. We’ll just have to see how far we get with each weekly 10-hour chunk.

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  • How to tell an author you don’t like their book

    ByJohn Brown

    Mette Harrison wrote a blog about how various authors respond when they read a book, don’t like it, and then the book’s author asks them directly what they thought of the book. 

    Here’s my response.

    As an author when I ask someone, especially another author, about their experience with my story, I’m looking for a data point to see how the book’s working or to get some insight. I realize others might be looking for validation. And, of course, I hope that everyone who reads my stuff finds nirvana even if I know that is not going to be the case. But I don’t ask unless I want data. And so I would hope they would report their experience accurately. I also hope they do it in friendly and helpful manner.

    So because that’s what I want, that’s what I try to do for others.  And the sandwich+ method has been one good way for me to do that.

    1. State something specific that works for me, e.g. “I love your character Bill because he’s so outrageous.”
     
    2. State the key thing that’s giving me trouble. For example, I might say, “I am having a hard time with the pacing.” But then I ALWAYS want to give the context of me as reader when it applies to my reaction, e.g. I’m a terribly impatient reader, I like to feel hope in what I read and know I don’t like as much despair as many other readers do, I can’t stand clowns (this is true: clowns are some of the scariest creatures out there, second only to crocodiles). The author should know these readerly things when they apply so the author can understand where the comments are coming from.

    If the book’s in pro shape and I think the issue is mostly my tastes, then it’s also useful to compare their work to another successful piece or author that had the same issue for me, e.g. “This reminds me of Twilight; I know people love it, but I just couldn’t get into that book either for the same reason.”

    I don’t think this is fluff. I think it’s part of being accurate. Our reality is what we focus on. And if I make a statement that leaves an author thinking I think the work is bad, then that’s not accurate because the truth is I think I’m not in the audience.

    If I think it’s a craft issue, then I highlight the main thing I think is causing the problem. A laundry list is usually useless. But thoughtful focus on the key issue can be very helpful. If I can’t tell whether it’s a taste issue or a craft issue, I admit it.

    3. State something else that’s working for me, e.g. “While I just couldn’t get past all those clowns freaking me out, I did think your chapter openers were compelling. I always wanted to read more, but then, alas, clowns.”

    4. The + is not just leaving statements hanging. Asking some sincere questions after demonstrates my genuine interest. And I am interested. If the book is unpublished, I might ask about their plans for the book, are they going to be doing another draft or shopping it, or if my reaction is common. If it’s published I might ask how it’s being received, what others are liking about it, and what’s next.  Maybe they tell me about another project they’re working on that sounds fascinating.

    This is what I’d want an author to do for me–be accurate, interested, and friendly. In such a context, someone having issues with a story is not such a big deal. It really isn’t.

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  • Indie Thoughts: 10 Things I Wish I’d Been Told

    ByJohn Brown

    From Russell Blake.

    I get a lot of emails from authors who are just starting out, or who are on the road but frustrated at the level of success they’ve seen thus far. I wish I had more time to correspond with everyone, but the truth is I’m usually slammed with writing/publishing related tasks, and don’t have a lot of opportunity to do more than offer a brief sentence or two.

    But the last few missives I received got me thinking about what I wish someone had explained to me before I started self-publishing in June, 2011. So here’s my top 10 list, such as it is:

    1) There are lots of talented writers out there. Lots. And it seems like everyone’s now got a book, or books, on Amazon. Being good isn’t enough to guarantee you anything but satisfaction for a job well done. It should, but it doesn’t. Don’t take it personally.

    2) There are lots of crap writers out there. Lots. And while many sink to the bottom of the swamp with nary a whimper, some sell well, and some even become bestsellers. This is because the world’s unfair and, depending upon the genre, oftentimes readers don’t care much whether they suck or not, as long as the story entertains or reaffirms some conviction or bias the readers have. These authors succeed in spite of their abilities, rather than because of them. Don’t take it personally.

    3) The internet is filled with gurus who know nothing. It’s hard to turn around without bumping into a writing or self-publishing expert. Most of them are completely full of shit, and don’t sell many books – but that doesn’t stop them from trying to get you to part with your money to hear them tell you what you need to do to sell well. Whenever you hear advice, consider the source. If it’s a million selling author, that means more than from someone whose work ranks slightly lower on Amazon than the collected love poems of Adolf Hitler in original German. Seems like everybody but me is selling seminars, courses, or how to books that promise much and deliver nothing. Must be a good business there, but I prefer labeling my fiction as such and putting in a car chase or gunfight rather than trying to trick the dim or desperate out of a few bucks.

    4) You need to be able to put out books at a decent clip. Sure, you might hit huge off one, but probably not. You’ll be building your readership the hard way, which means one reader at a time, and the more quality books you have on your virtual bookshelf the more likely one will catch someone’s eye. This doesn’t appeal to a lot of authors’ wish that they could write a book every year or two and have a nice living. Sorry. I have yet to see that happen. But it’s a seductive siren song, so lots of newbies listen to it like it’s still a viable way to go. In self-publishing, not so much.

    More at “10 Things I Wish I’d Been Told”.

    I know, I know. Stop making blog posts, John, and finish CURSE.

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5 Comments

  5. YES! If there was a like button, I’d use it, even though I don’t use those buttons. Thanks! And don’t forget the deodorant for that crapper, okay?

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