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Nameless Thriller Started
Those who check the progress bars, will notice that I’ve started the first draft of the thriller, which remains nameless. Poor thing. You’ll also notice I haven’t finished the working outline. That’s because sometimes–well, often–I need to do some drafting to get the feel of the story and characters before I finish that working document. And also because story development has never been a linear thing for me.
I did a lot of work on the premise (the story setup) these last few weeks. Ran into a lot of dead ends. However, it was all good. I got snippets of scenes throughout the process. Did a lot of useful research. Developed characters. I wrote a few drafts of another beginning that I realized didn’t feel right. It was telling the wrong story, had the wrong angle. A few days later, I figured out the right angle on the premise. And it is so delicious to me. Then during another work session–letting my mind run while I showered–I got the outline of the first chapter. I give you the first 300 words below. I’m sure they’ll change, but it’s a taste of what’s to come.
CHAPTER 1: Cowboy Donut
Trying to get a straight job as an ex-con was a lovely experience. Kind of like being dragged behind a bus.
No matter how tidy you looked or how sharp your resume was, it all came down to one question: “And what were you in for?” Frank knew it would be stupid to lie about that. First of all, he was trying to go straight. Second, any employer who didn’t have a carrot for a brain was going to run a background check. So there was no use trying to hide.
Frank was now sitting in the back office of Cowboy Donut in Rock Springs, Wyoming across from Mary Rogers, the sun-wrinkled owner. She was probably in her fifties and had two-tone hair that seemed to take its inspiration from a skunk or badger: all bleached up on top and dark underneath.
Ms. Mary had just asked the question. Frank had just dropped his bomb—voluntary manslaughter, a security job gone bad. He’d been protecting the wrong kind of noun for the wrong kind of people.
Ms. Mary narrowed her eyes. “What else am I going to find on your RAP sheet?”
“That’s it,” Frank said. “Just the one unfortunate incident.”
“Murder is a pretty big incident.”
“Manslaughter,” he corrected. “Not murder.”
She made a noncommittal sound and looked down to study his resume a bit more. Like maybe something new would pop up there.
This was always the fun part, waiting for the reply. First interviews were like first dates. And Frank had basically told his date he had an Ebola monkey virus that would make her eyes bleed, and would she now like to kiss? He’d done this now a couple dozen times and knew the best thing was just to be quiet.
Poor Frank. And in just a few pages things are going to get so much worse when he finds two old associates waiting for him at his house.
New Workshop: How to Write a Story that Rocks
Folks, the first tentative schedule for Life, The Universe, & Everything (LTUE) has been set. For the past few years I’ve been teaching a 2-3 hour workshop called “The 3 Things You Must Learn To Write Killer Stories.” I think I must have taught it over 15 times in different venues. Hundreds have attended and said they loved it.However, this year I’m going to be doing something different. I’m developing a new two-hour workshop called “How to Write a Story that Rocks.”
I’ll be teaching it Thursday evening, February 11th from 5 PM – 7 PM at LTUE at BYU. It’s FREE and open to all.
What I found was that a lot of new aspiring authors get lost in mountains of rules. But great storytelling isn’t about rules. They try to form stories with word counts, chapters, and weird plot diagrams. But stories aren’t about those things. They have a hard time knowing what to write next because they don’t understand how story works. In fact, some don’t know how to start at all. They just flounder in their piles of zing. Finally, even if they can get a bullet outline, they have a hard time turning that into a scene.
So what we’re going to do in this workshop is this.
- I’m going to bring in some ideas for character, setting, and problem. We’re not going to generate from scratch as we’ve done in the past because I want to get to the next steps.
- Then I’m going to teach you how to go from idea to outline–we’re going to do it together, and you’re going to learn exactly how to know what comes next
- Then we’ll go from outline step to scene sketch.
- Then from scene sketch to draft.
- At every step I’ll be pointing out key story development concepts and principles
When we finish, you should be able to:
- Identify the essential story objectives and story development questions–get these right and the rest doesn’t really matter. This will include the HANDFUL of key things you need to worry about and develop with character and plot.
- Develop more likeable and interesting characters
- Develop more powerful story concepts (call it premise, problem, situation, whatever). Once you get this the story writes a lot of itself.
- Explain the real Story Cycle. Not Campbell’s mumbo-jumbo hero’s journey. Not the three, five, seven, nine acts. Not Freytag’s diagram. Story.
- Explain what it means to “move a story forward,” “increase the stakes and tension,” “complicate the plot,” “complicate the motive” and how that’s done using surprise, conflict, motive, and problem. Included in this are “turns,” “rugpulls,” and “reversals.”
- Use the Story Cycle concepts to generate a story bullet outline and take a bullet step idea and turn it into a scene.
- Explain the creative principles that help you generate stories more easily.
Larry Correia will be there as well. So I’m expecting this to be a very helpful workshop. I’m going to do all I can to make it as good or better than the first.
Advance Praise for Servant of a Dark God
My editor just emailed me another endorsement from one of the folks we sent the manuscript to. I’m so excited! This one’s from Kage Baker.
I’m a total stranger to three of the four that have responded so far. It continually amazes me how generous the pros in this genre are with both their time and praise.
Here’s the last one.
“A classic heroic saga, dealing with the bedrock issues of good and evil and identity. These are classic themes because they matter; and Brown makes them matter both to his young protagonist and the reader. It promises to continue for quite a distance, and I hope it does.”
—Kage Baker, author of House of the Stag and The Company series.
Here are the previous ones.
“Thoroughly engrossing from the first page to the last! John Brown shows himself to be a writer with remarkable depth and power. I haven’t seen a debut novel this good in years!”
—David Farland, New York Times best-selling author of Runelords and Ravenspell series
“In Servant of a Dark God, John Brown has created a complex and intricate world, filled with all the permutations of human good and evil, as well as evil that goes beyond the human, where neither heroes nor villains are quite what they seem at first, and where the cost of virtue is high indeed, yet where, in the end, the tenacity of such virtue is what is required to triumph.”
—L. E. Modesitt, Jr., award-winning author of the Recluce Saga
“A complex, powerful story of a youth trying to learn who he is and what he is, with no allies he can trust in a world stalked by a monster. A book that copies nothing I have read before and which goes its own way brilliantly.”
—David Drake, author of the popular Hammer’s Slammers and Lord of Isles series
Wow. I think I want to read this book!
Interview on A Motley Vision
In this interview William Morris of A Motley Vision: Mormon Arts and Culture asks the normal questions about the book, but he also asks about my Mormonism and how that affects my writing. Enjoy!
Have the Proof of Servant
I received the proof of SERVANT from CreateSpace today. Folks, it is georgeous. Inside and out. The cover, title page, Isaac Stewart’s map, headers, front and back matter, chapter titles, the poems. I’m so pleased.
Most readers will look at it and say, hey, looks like another book. But that’s the point. The interior is designed to give a great reading experience and fade into the background, letting the story come to the fore. The cover is meant to grab and give the feel. I think both do their job splendidly.
Of course, you know what this means, don’t you?
It means that next week we will have a new release day with the new release discount pricing. You may wonder why I don’t just do it now. The answer is that there are some copy edits that need to be made. Things you never catch until you see the story in book form. That’s why you always get a proof. As soon as we’ve made those updates, I’ll announce the sale.
Bad Penny Cover
I know that many of you loved the Santa Muerte cover. But it was communicating the wrong thing. Alas. I love that tattoo. On another site I polled, everyone leaned towards the road and vanishing point. Then everyone I polled personally liked the initial concept for the one below. I liked the road, but the bullet holes won. Here is the final result.
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Aw 🙁 Oh well, we’ll cope.
Look how strong you are!
Any update on the release window?
Still trying to nail down dates with artist. This is the last piece of the puzzle. As soon as I have that, I’ll announce! Thanks for checking and asking.
Hi Jon
Can you remind me what’s going on with this new version of SERVANT – is it a re-edit, a ‘Director’s cut’, an overhaul…?
I have the original Tor version so just wondering what the differences are between the two? Will you be releasing any notes (maybe a blog post) comparing them? It would certainly help me decide whether to pick up the new version before CURSE comes out.
Also, can you recommend where would be the best place to order your new books in the UK?
Thanks
Tim F
Tim,
You betcha. This was a signficant edit, but it involved mostly line edits and resequencing and one important addition, so the base story remains the same.
Line edits are things that make individual sentences or paragraphs read more clearly.
Resequencing is moving chapters or sections around and does affect the experience. The biggest resequence was switching the first 8 chapters back to the original order I intended. Then there were two or three other sections that needed to be moved around inside the story.
Those are the bulk of the edits.
I did add a short section to the ending to clarify a few things that should have been revealed in the first version and that lead into book 2.
You will be able to get the books on Amazon in the UK in paper and electronic format. And I’ll be holding a sale in the first week or so of the release so previous readers like you can get either format as cheaply as possible.
Does that help?