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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Karen E. Taylor

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Karen E. Taylor

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Photo by Chris Whitlow
Photo by Chris Whitlow

About every other week, I’ll be hosting the wit and wisdom of professionals across the Spec Fic field. I’ve compiled a list of some of the most frequently asked questions posed by new authors, and provided that list to some of the pros. (Feel free to suggest a question you’d like answered, using the comments section below.) The pros are invited to pick one and respond to it. This week, the prolific, award-nominated author Karen E. Taylor talks about how she delays the outlining process until she’s well into the piece.

It’s hard to classify Karen’s body of work (though when forced to, most will say she’s a horror and paranormal author). She writes about vampires, intergalactic saleswomen, telepathic dinosaurs, humanoid robots, ghosts, drafty castles, and assorted magic workers. She has at least eight published novels, and two short story collections: Mexican Moon and Other Stories, new out this week (available in trade paperback and Kindle ebook), and Fangs and Angel Wings (a 2003 hardcover from Betancourt & Co.), which received one of the best author blurbs I’ve ever seen:

“Karen writes like an angel – an angel in black lingerie with a straight razor tucked into her garter belt.” – William Sanders

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The Great Serialization Experiment: Attack on Multiple Fronts!

The Great Serialization Experiment: Attack on Multiple Fronts!

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As mentioned last time, serializing has its challenges and potential successes, JUST LIKE ANY WORTHWHILE BATTLE!

Plus: Strike a Pose.
Plus: Strike a Pose.

Different Attack Plans:

  • POWER RANGERS MORPHING TIME: You can serialize a novel in several chunks, which can then be put together into one giant destructo-omnibus, like I did with Nigh.
  • D&D MIGHTY PARTY: You can serialize a universe in several stand-alone projects that are all linked to one another.
  • FRANKENSTEINING: You can also serialize a book one chapter at a time, with or without a subscription service or a social media platform such as Wattpad.

My first serialization was done à la Frankenstein with an existing book, Destiny’s Blood, on Wattpad. There are two other books in the series, so the hope was that readers would either get impatient and buy Destiny’s Blood before I was done posting it, or they’d at least buy the other two novels.  Linda Poitevin, author of the Grigori Legacy series, had lots of success on Wattpad. Check out her details on the subject.

Nigh was serialized differently, à la Power Rangers Morphing Time, with the whole novel published in five parts (you don’t *need* five parts to morph together, but if it worked for the Power Rangers and Voltron, you obviously can’t go wrong).

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Peer-Pressure Writing: Offering Encouragement & Just a Little Shame

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Peer-Pressure Writing: Offering Encouragement & Just a Little Shame

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Writing group 3Mama may have warned you as a child not to give into peer pressure, but that all depends on what the chanting crowd is pushing you to do. In more and more cases, in a variety of ways, writers are inviting other writers to pressure them to write, right? These can include formal educational writers’ retreats, but can be as simple as you and a buddy meeting at a coffee shop.

The classic model is to attend a writers’ retreat. There are lots of them with varied focuses on writing form, commercial genre, regional location, school affiliation, and more. Often, these retreats also offer work-shopping of the manuscripts written there, and in some cases, guest lectures by top tier authors and editors.

One of the best in the spec lit field is the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. A six-week program held on a college campus, it was established in 1968 and has a stiff competition among applicants to be accepted. It has other regional offshoots. As you can imagine, paying room, board, and instructors fees can add up: the 2015 Clarion workshop was estimated to cost around $5,000, plus travel, and that’s in addition to being able to afford six weeks away from your job.

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The Great Serialization Experiment: The Lay of the Land

The Great Serialization Experiment: The Lay of the Land

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Nigh Marie Bilodeau-smallSerializing stories is an old art form, from the penny dreadfuls to Charles Dickens. Even Robert E. Howard serialized a few stories in Weird Tales. I recently decided to serialize a novel and, over the next few posts, I’ll share lessons learned. As I tend to leap without looking and landing on thistles, I typically learn a lot of lessons (woo?)

My first serialization, composed of one storyline over five short releases (15-20,000 words each), did well. Released from January to June 2015, it hit bestselling status in Canada, U.S.A., and a few other spots like Italy. It grew my fan base dramatically, which I assume is good for future sales (either that, or they’re waiting to warn people off my next book. Well played, Internet. Well played.) Am I living off this book? Um, no. But I’ve bought many a fine meal with it. And I still have plans to continue growing the series.

But first, the beginning.

Basic Economics (or, Eating is Fun and Good)

A year ago, when I left my full time job to focus on my storytelling (think bard) and writing careers, I wanted to look at different ways of maximizing sales. Because, dear friends, money buys food and every time I try to organize a raid on the supermarket or on my neighbor’s vegetable garden, I’m rather quickly reminded that those activities are not only illegal, they are even frowned upon. Since that societal penchant spoiled my plans for eating, an activity I’ve grown quite fond of, I had to come up with alternative methods. I’m lucky because storytelling offers me a scalable means of making money (tell story, make money. Tell more stories, make more money. Tell no story, get arrested for raiding neighbor’s garden). But writing has a longer term potential of continuous revenue, which is extremely appealing to those of us who eat every day.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tips From Paul Dale Anderson

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tips From Paul Dale Anderson

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Paul Dale Anderson (photo by Tim Hatch)
Paul Dale Anderson (photo by Tim Hatch)

For our Pro Tip this week, we’ve got the first of what will be several installments from the prolific and generous Paul Dale Anderson. He’s answered all of the questions on our list. I’ve grouped related questions together and will share them over the coming weeks.

Paul has written across a variety of media and genres for more than twenty years, including nonfiction for television, radio, newspapers, and academic journals; poetry and book reviews; and all across the spectrum of commercial fiction, including romance, westerns, science fiction, erotica, and horror.

His latest novels are Abandoned (Eldritch Press, 2015), Darkness (2AM Publications, 2015), and Axes to Grind (Crossroad Press, 2015). He has new short stories coming out this fall at The Horror Zine Magazine, Weirdbook 31, and Pulp Adventures 18.

Paul Says:

Just remember, what works for me may not work right for you. But I often find it helpful to know how other writers work.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

From reading widely, especially newspapers.

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Enough, Part II

Enough, Part II

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Hugo Award Black GateA couple of weeks ago in this space, I waded into the Hugos nomination controversy with a statement about my own view of awards. Today, I wish to take that discussion in a somewhat different direction.

I’d like to begin today’s installment with an anecdote. Back in 1996, my wife and I were watching the Academy Awards, rooting for our favorite films to win. One of those films was Apollo 13, which was up for nine awards that night, including best visual effects.

The visual effects category was unusual that year, in that only two movies were nominated. And to us, Apollo 13 seemed to have it in the bag. In the introduction of the category the presenters talked about all that director Ron Howard had done to reproduce faithfully for the screen the launch and flight of an Apollo spacecraft, including the use of reduced gravity aircraft. It was impressive stuff. To top it off, the movie was up against Babe, a movie in which pigs and other barnyard animals had been made to look like they were really talking.

So what happened? The pig won. We were flabbergasted.

Looking back in later years, though, I understood what I hadn’t then. As good as the effects were for Apollo 13, there had been, in past years, other movies that recreated space flight, including zero gravity conditions, and did so convincingly. Apollo 13’s effects were amazing, but they didn’t change the game. On the other hand, no one had ever seen a pig talk quite like this.

The Academy wasn’t saying that Apollo 13’s effects were bad. They might not even have been saying that Babe’s effects were better. They were recognizing the innovation, as awards of this sort often do.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: A Story Analysis Worksheet

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: A Story Analysis Worksheet

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Writing Group-smallPeer review or small group critiquing is one of the most common techniques authors use to improve their story drafts. Virtually every author I know has been a part of a critique group at one time or another. Some authors are strong proponents of the exercise, others are adamantly opposed to it. I suspect the primary factor in how authors feel about them is whether their early experiences were helpful, or not.

Feedback that amounts to little more than, “I really liked this!” or “I don’t really like this kind of story,” are equally unhelpful. While the first is more pleasant to hear, it’s no more constructive than the second.

Critique groups are just one of the manuscript analysis exercises I have my students do. Done in-depth, they can take a great deal of time. It is not unusual for it to take five hours to do a written critique of a 3,000 word story. It may take much longer than that.

The instructions I give to my students are as follows.

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Enter the Grimdark Magazine Battle-off Competition

Enter the Grimdark Magazine Battle-off Competition

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Grimdark Magazine Battle-off Competition

Grimdark Magazine is getting some great notices among fans of heroic fantasy — including from our own Fletcher Vredenburgh, who said in his review of the first three issues, “From a swords & sorcery perspective, the biggest — and potentially most interesting — new publication out there is Grimdark Magazine.” Grimdark editor-in-chief Adrian Collins contacted us this morning to let us know of a new contest sponsored by the magazine, open to heroic fantasy writers of all kinds. Here’s the deets:

We’re running a competition over at Grimdark Magazine that may interest some of Black Gate‘s followers — both readers and writers. It’s a battle-off, where self and small published authors enter a 1K word excerpt featuring a battle scene, the readers then vote on a top 7 and a panel of judges then decide on the top 3 to win awards.

It will run for a couple of months between mid August and the end of October… There are some pretty awesome prizes up for grabs, including a Kindle HD, signed hardcovers, plenty of paperbacks and ebooks, editing services and cover art services.

This is one of the most unusual writing contests I’ve heard of, and I highly approve. So sharpen your pens, all you aspiring adventure fantasy writers. This is your chance to show that you have the chops to deserve wider attention — and maybe win something that could help your new novel really stand out. Get the complete details here.

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Lawrence Watt-Evans

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Lawrence Watt-Evans-smallAffectionately known as LWE (pronounced Louie) by many of his friends and fans, Lawrence Watt-Evans is the second author in our series of Pro Tips — wit and wisdom from professionals across the Spec Fic field. (You can find our first one, from Laura Anne Gilman, here.)

LWE is the author of more than four dozen novels and short story collections and more than a hundred short stories, in addition to comic books, poems, and more than 150 non-fiction articles. He works mostly in the fantasy genre, but has numerous science fiction and horror publications, too. He sold his first novel at the age of twenty-four, and has been a full-time writer ever since.

What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started writing/ publishing?

I wish I had known that the publishing business is always changing. Always. Publishers come and go, genres rise and fall, formats change. When I broke in, mass-market paperbacks sold on newsstands were where the money was, fantasy was a poor stepchild of science fiction, and there were a dozen or so major fiction publishers and no one else mattered.

Then national chain bookstores blossomed, the old paperback distribution system collapsed, fantasy surpassed SF in sales, horror boomed and then busted… and that was before the internet, Amazon, ebooks, print-on-demand, self-publishing, etc. I learned more about publishing history and discovered that the system I had thought had dominated forever only came into its own in the 1950s.

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Chuck Wendig Writes an Open Letter: “Dear Guy Who is Mad Because I Wrote a Gay Character in a Book”

Chuck Wendig Writes an Open Letter: “Dear Guy Who is Mad Because I Wrote a Gay Character in a Book”

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Blackbirds Chuck Wendig-smallChuck Wendig, author of Star Wars: Aftermath, Blackbirds, and The Blue Blazes, has written an open letter to a fan who complained because one of his characters was gay:

Earlier today I got a bit of hate mail — though I guess hate mail is strong, as the writer of said email was not like, threatening to murder me with a brick or anything — from what appears to be a male, adult reader of my young adult series. In particular, he read the third book in the series, which came out last week: The Harvest.

I won’t reprint the email here, but he said, and I quote, “I didn’t like that you had a main gay character reviling [sic] in a homosexual sexual relationship.” (Reveling, I guess he means?) He feels I “corrupted” the book with the presence of “gay male relationships.” He then added that he feels I was jumping on some kind of “bandwagon,” which I assume (he did not clarify) means that I was doing this to fill some kind of diversity bingo card. Finally, he concluded that it “didn’t matter” or “effect [sic] the story” that the character was gay so why include it at all?

Here is my response that I won’t actually bother sending to him, but maybe he’ll read it here.

Read Chuck’s complete response here.

Kelly Swails reviewed Blackbirds for us (“Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds is Punch-You-in-the-Face Good“), and James McGlothlin looked at The Blues Blazes (“Goblins, Demons, Zombies and Fights Aplenty: A Review of The Blue Blazes.”)