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Positive Review from James Maxey on Orson Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show
James Maxey is a writer I admire. For his work ethic. For the quality of his prose. For his imagination. His story “To Know All Things That Are In The Earth” is one of my favorites. So you can be sure I was pleased to find and read this today.
I will say, in utter candor, that Servant of a Dark God is a work that truly stands out from other fantasy books on the market. What makes this book work so well is that it’s a story about family first, and a fantasy adventure second. Full review.
LTUE schedule posted
LTUE has posted its schedule for the upcoming conference Thursday – Saturady, Feb 12-14. I’m, of course, stoked to present and participate on the panels. But I’m also looking forward to attending some of the sessions.Look at this one: How a Military Unit Works in Real Life: Zachary Hill, Brook West, Robert J Defendi, C. R. Asay, Mike Kupari (m)
Or this one: All about armor: Zachary Hill, J. D. Raisor, Kay Mildenhall, Charles B. Stanford (m)
Or what about this one: Law Enforcement: James Ganiere, Zach Hill, Robin Ambrose (m), which conflicts with one of mine, dang it!
Or this: Making Creatures Realistic to their Environment: Keliana Tayler, Brian Hailes, Jessica Douglas, Bryan Beus (m)
This: Applied Biotechnology: Derrick William Dalton, Mikki Kells, Charlie Pulsipher, Chersti Nieveen, Ali Cross (m)
This: How to Create a Language: Maxwell Alexander Drake, Dirk Elzinga, Valerie Mechling, Samuel Stubbs, Bryce Moore (m)
And tons of others.
Oh, and what about the keynote address on Saturday by Toni Weisskopf?
It’s going to be a great conference. I’ll be giving these presentations.
- How to Build an Action Plot. In this one, Larry Correia and I team up to share a model of plotting that should make developing your action story much easier. Attendees will be able to use the methods on a novel idea Larry, Joe (Larry’s son), and I came up with called Mech Runners. Basically, Larry turned to Joe and said, “What’s awesome?” Joe said, “Giant robots, bandits, and murderers.” We took it from there.
- How to Build a Romance Subplot. In this one, I team up with romance author LL Muir to share a model of plotting that should make developing your romance plot or subplot much easier. Attendees will be able to use the methods on a story idea Lesli and I came up based on The Hobbit. It’s called My Precious.
- Tapping into the Power of the Story Setup. The story setup is a fabulous tool that’s not only helped me drastically cut down the time it takes me to develop my ideas, but it has also helped me develop better ideas. In this presentation, I will explain what the story setup is and how you can use it to help you nail your novel.
I’ll also be moderating or participating on these panels:
- The Hero’s Journey & the Virgin’s Promise: Patterns and Archetypes for Better Characters:Michaelbrent Collings, Tracy Hickman, Blake Cassleman, Renee Collins, John D. Brown (m). Did I tell you I think the hero’s journey is stupid? This ought to be a fun one.
- Action Sequences: John D. Brown, D. J. Butler, Peter Orullian, Adrienne Monson, M. Todd Gallowglas (m)
- Self-Publishing Pros And Cons: Jared Abram Barneck, John D. Brown, Mikki Kells, Joe Vasicek (m)
Hope to see you there!
Woof Woof Yip! (that’s doggie fanfare)
Servant of a Dark God in Paperback, Tuesday, November 2!
For those of you who have been waiting for the cheaper version — Be happy, pre-order the book today! Alternatively, you may vote in the national elections then immediately reward yourself for being such a responsible citizen! Or make someone else happy for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or some pagan solstice ritual with 624 AWARD-WINNING pages of thrilling ACTION, cool MONSTERS, wicked MAGIC, and a Ginzu KNIFE! (okay, so there’s no knife, but the book does feature the most awesome weapons ever; I’m talking about the three living silver spikes called Hag’s Teeth). Whoever gets this book will love you forever*. Book info in the Fiction part of my site.
*tested on a statistically valid sample of gerbils, hamsters, and various other intelligent rodents who all cheered with wild delight at the reading and then asked for more peanuts and crackers
Servant of a Dark God is a Whitney Award finalist
Yea! Thanks to those of you who nominated. The judges have chosen Servant of a Dark God as a Whitney Award finalist. Of course, the four other books in the category are great. Here’s the list of finalists in my category:
- Servant of a Dark God by John Brown
- The Maze Runner by James Dashner
- Wings by Aprilynne Pike
- Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
- I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells
Check out all finalists in all categories here. If you click on the Whitney Academy link on the top of that site, you’ll see all the folks who will be voting on the finalists.
Calendar updates
I’ve added a number of entries to the calendar, including three conferences I plan on attending.
I know I’ll be presenting at the first two. The title and description of the League of Utah Writers presentation are:
TITLE: The Secret to Getting Story Ideas
DESCRIPTION: How to stop generating great story ideas by accident and start generating them on purpose, whenever you need them.
I don’t know what I’ll do for LTUE. I might do a repeat of the “The Secret to Getting Story Ideas,” or I might do something on how to write scenes or how genre is the key to plot. Stay tuned!
Date & Time Event Location Notes Right now Writing Office It’s all for you, Dear Reader 2015, Summer Release of Awful Intent, a Frank Shaw novel All major online retail venues The date is not firm. 2015, Aug 28-29 League of Utah Writers Fall Conference Logan, UT League of Utah Writers 2016, Winter Release of Hard Target, a Frank Shaw novel All major online retail venues The date is not firm. 2016, Feb 11-13 Life, the Universe & Everything Provo, UT LTUE website 2016, May LDStorymakers Conference Provo, UT LDStorymakers website 2016, Summer Release of Glory: The Dark God Book 4 All major online retail venues The date is not firm. How to Write a Story that Rocks
Folks, a huge thanks goes to Stephen Nelson for putting all this together. You may kiss his hand when you see him.
This is a recording of “How to Write a Story that Rocks,” a two-hour seminar Larry Correia and I just put on at the annual BYU’s Life, The Universe, & Everything symposium. I think we had 130-140 people attend. This symposium is focused on writing fiction. And while the panels and presentations do include things specific to the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres (both adult and young adult), a lot of time is also spent on story writing fundamentals that apply to ALL genres. So when I developed this workshop, I made sure I took the fundamental approach.
The two-hour seminar has been broken down into 12 segments. To switch between the segments:
- Hover your mouse pointer over the YouTube below
- Click the forward and back arrows that appear on the right and left sides to move to the next or previous segment, OR
- Scroll through all 12 segments and select the one you want using the playlist control at the bottom
If you prefer, you can watch all 12 on the How to Write a Story that Rocks YouTube playlist page.
I’ve found whenever I develop any presentation or training that it takes a few iterations and revisions before it’s the best it can be. This is the first iteration of this seminar. And so below this video I’ve provided additional comments on each segment explaining key concepts, principles, and techniques that we might have failed to discuss or convey as clearly as we’d hoped. Enjoy!
Handout
How to Write a Story That Rocks – Handout
Segment 1
It’s documented–right-wing gun nut Larry Correia sang “Kumbaya.” What’s next? The hugging of small trees? Oh, Larry, the disilluion. The disillusion.
The reason why I had Larry sing was not for his mellifluous performance, but to demonstrate the difference in reactions between him and our happy volunteer (“Country Road” by John Denver–this really was a love fest). The volunteer balked because he hadn’t taken any thought to know what to sing before he was commanded to do so. On the other hand, Larry and I had spoken before the seminar. So Larry had something to sing BEFORE he sang it. It’s a simple demonstration, but it illustrates a principle a lot of new writers forget. Writing is a performance. It helps to know what it is you’re going to perform before you perform it.
It’s one thing for you to tell yourself to write. It’s much easier to tell yourself to write the scene where the rancher finds out one of his illegal ranch hands has been kidnapped.
Now this doesn’t mean that you have to know everything. Or that you can’t write exploratory drafts to figure out what it is you want to write. But it does illustrate that whatever techniques you use, you’ll be a lot more effective in your writing when you have something to say first.
But what do you develop? What are the things that bring the story to life? How do you go about getting those things to say? That’s precisely what I wanted to address in the seminar. In the segments that follow, I try to:
- Explain what I’ve found are the most important things to develop, the things that define the essence of story, that make the story come alive in the writer’s mind–the things that really matter
- Demonstrate techniques to develop those things so you have something to say
Segment 2
I think this segment went fairly well. What rocks will different from person to person, even though there will often be a huge overlap between people. So it’s important for authors to seek to develop the kinds of stories that rouse their passion. Watch this interview with best seller Debbie Macomber to see what I mean. So I can’t tell you what to write about. Or if whath you think rocks will resonate with a large number of people. However, what I can do is share the techniques I use that have been most productive in helping me develop initial ideas into something that has much more power.
You can use the techniques to juice up any of the four parts of story. However, I will say that I find that the most productive, the most important parts, are character and problem. Plot and setting are important. I love them and work to juice them up. But when I get a good character and problem, that’s when the writing seems to flow the easiest.
And no, I don’t list theme as a part of story. Everyone talks about theme, but when I read what they have to say or press them for examples, it seems that it always either boils down to (1) a story element or topic that’s repeated, (2) a story problem/issue stated in an abstract manner, or (3) some moral situation. Les Miserables is about the “theme” of mercy versus justice. But saying justice versus mercy is just an abstraction of the story problem and dilemmas the story deals with. So, no theme.
Segment 3
Loved this bit about scenes from David Mamet: http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/03/23/a-letter-from-david-mamet-to-the-writers-of-the-unit/
Segment 4
I’ll be adding my comments to the rest of these segments over the next few days.
Segment 5
Segment 6
Segment 7
Segment 8
Segment 9
Segment 10
Segment 11
Segment 12
Dan Wells on Story Structure
Check it out: Dan Wells on How to Build a Story (story structure). I find Dan’s “start with the ending” technique helpful as well as thinking about a worst fears realized moment. Watch the videos and see if there isn’t something there that can help you develop your story idea.
You can get the PowerPoint of How to Build a Story on Dan’s site.
If you find this approach useful, you might want to check out what novelist Larry Brooks has written about the same material on StoryFix.com.