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 This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| Novel #10 The next novel took a while to write. I really wanted to make it a good one after what I felt was the success of Brothers In Arms. And, indeed, the story that emerged in 1998 was one I was probably proudest of until 2016. More than that, Some Other People clocked in at 87200 words. Once I finished it, and editted it, and then editted it again, I found a beta reader. My first ever beta reader for a novel! Then I sent it off. Over the course of the next 4 years it reached 8 publishers and 4 agents. The responses that were not form responses were encouraging. One agent asked me for $500 to represent me; by then I had a slightly better understanding of the publishing world and so rejected this request (registered U.S. agents do not get paid upfront, but apparently Australian ones insist on it). But the best were from Tor Books in the USA and Random House in Australia. If I’d had my druthers, I would have gone for Tor, but they wanted a face-to-face meeting… in the USA. No money, so no go. And so it was Random House. Under the guidance of an editor, I rewrote the bits they wanted me to rewrite (about 20%), and changed the format of the ending. A second rewrite followed. And then… the fiction editor left and the new fiction editor said she hated the work. Bang, gone, just like that, on the whim of one editor. I then sent the newly revised version out to a few more publishers (my records indicate 3), but nothing. I entered it in an unpublished novellist competition, was short-listed, but nothing else. Shame, as I think it is one of the very best long tales I have written. The story involves a narrator who is essentially unnamed (though he is James). He is involved in a car accident, and awakens in a hospital where he is the only patient and where he never sees the staff. He eventually escapes and finds himself in an outback Australian town. He decides to look for the people who cared for him, and finds himself at an Aboriginal township. There he meets Mother Makura who takes him to the village of a strange cat-like people. There he meets and falls in love with the leader’s daughter. But he also unwittingly leads the humans to them, and a battle ensues in which many die. And out of this the narrator loses… There’s other subplots – saving his lover from a cellar, dealing with authorities, etc – but that’s the tale in essence. A tale of outcasts finding one another and love lost. A sad story, but I still like it. Okay, there’s still a few clichés – the accent I gave the cat-people was a little odd, and the narrator is a little self-obsessed… as well as the ever-present love affair with the ellipsis – but there’s also some good bits. The scene the morning after the narrator and his lover first have sex, and he wakes up in her cave is one I can’t believe I wrote, and the description of itching under bandages still makes me scratch my arms. More good than bad, I reckon. Excerpt: I did not realise that we were in a village. The buildings were not at all what I had expected after seeing and being inside their hospital. In fact, buildings was entirely the wrong term; dwellings was closer to the mark. For that was all they could have been. The ones which I actually could make out (what few of those there were… most seemed to be completely invisible) were carved in simple design out of the trunks of trees, appearing as no more than scars caused by some ancient bush-fire, leading to what I assumed were large, underground complexes, similar to the one beneath the spirit tree. But these were few and far between; generally, all that I could see were trees, plain and simple… However, I was not taken into any of these; Mother Makura and I were led – Peter holding her hand, the girl I had loved keeping a firm grip upon mine, her head resting upon my upper arm – down a road between the trees, a path which I would not have otherwise have even noticed had I happened to stumble into this part of… Of where? Of the forest, that was where… The huge, enormous wooded area in this part of the country… Huge, enormous, wild, uncharted… I had to force that from my mind. All my grandiose plans of working out where this place was had evaporated with that numbing trek to get here; almost three hours of walking at a pace I thought faster than possible for some-one who had not made competing at the Olympic Games their life’s ambition. All that really mattered was that I was here now… Here with her. And we were walking through the village she called home… And which I had called a prison not so long ago… Again, memories – unpleasant, uncomfortable memories – that had to be forced from my consciousness… Then we veered to the left and I was taken down another track, a narrower one, to what looked like a clearing, but with a huge, over-hanging canopy of branches from the nearby trees, carefully cultivated to cover the entire area like a natural roof. It was an incredible sight, especially in the very dull light that was available to my eyes. And all I could do was look around at the surrounding trees in awe-struck wonder… And through the thick trunks, and in what little light was afforded by the almost completely hidden moon I thought I saw a glimpse of something else. Something out of place. I slowed… and kept my eyes as well on it as I could without letting on what I was doing exactly. I sudden flash told me all I needed to know. The glint of the moon on glass. It was a building. A building set well back into the trees. So, yeah, for many years this was the story I considered one of the best long work I ever wrote. Part of me thinks I should go back and revise it, update it to 2025, but there is another part of me that thinks maybe its time has been and gone. Still, I reckon this is not too shabby at all. |
| Types Of Writer So, this is a personal opinion piece. Completely understand if you avoid it. To my mind, there are 4 types of writer (well, 5, but we’ll get there). None is any better than any other (sort of); they are just different ways that writers approach what they have written. So, let’s go through them. Repeating myself: This is my opinion. I know that won’t stop the abuse, but it is an important disclaimer here. 1) The Introvert. This is the writer who writes – often a lot – but does not share what they have written. Their piles of notebooks and journals are only opened when the writer themselves wants to go back and re-read something, but no-one else in the universe sees their work. They might even burn it after writing. Or else it never sees the light of day until they die. It is often because they feel what they write is too personal, but there is also a fear of rejection or being laughed at for even the simple act of writing. But, whatever it is, they write for an audience of one – themselves. 2) The Uncritisable (the “Idol”). This is the writer who only shows their work to people who will give them affirmation, tell them they are wonderful, and stoke their ego. That last might be a little unfair – often these writers have self-esteem issues anyway – but that is how it seems to an outsider. They have a very select group who read their work, and these people are uncritical, only give positive feedback, and lead to the writer thinking they are really wonderful and the very best. This is fine, but it can create issues if they do decide to go public and we get what I call “Idol Syndrome” ("20240131 #2 Criticism & The Writer (Idol Syndrome)" ). Unfortunately, these people can so easily be discouraged, but that is a discussion for a different day.3) The Excited Puppy. This is the writer who puts everything out there in the public eye, regardless of quality. They just have to show the world what they are doing, they always talk about their latest projects, they blog about writing, their entire portfolio can be found online somewhere, and they are always directing people to their works. Sometimes even their drafts, their unfinished works, their ideas, their outlines and their character sketches (and anything else) are also all online for the whole world to see. Writing makes them excited, and they just want to share every single morsel with the world. This does mean that a lot of their stuff is not well-edited and not brilliantly written, as they tend to just publish and be damned. They also tend not to take criticism well or simply ignore it, because they claim they are not doing it for approval or otherwise, they just want to share what they see as their talent with the whole world. 4) The Accountant. These are the ones who take their writing very seriously. They pore over each sentence, hire editors, use beta readers, look at their writing as more than just an art, but as a business they are engaged in. They do tend towards being humourless, and take criticism to heart, feeling each comment about stories that didn’t click with readers, and trying to adapt and adopt and change to keep as many readers and publishers and editors and agents as happy as possible. They can have a tendency to overwork a story, not sure when to stop editing and changing and making things feel perfect. They are very critical of their own work, and will only put things out there they consider very good, and so have a heap of other work no-one sees. They are also very often quite traditional in their publishing aspirations. That’s the four writer types I have come across. A person can straddle two of them, and can definitely go from one state to another, and they tend to go in this order (and straddle the ones beside them), but it is circular because Accountants can become Introverts as their perfectionism prevents them from showing anybody what they have written. All have positives and negatives, and none, really, in the end, are better than each other. But I mentioned a fifth one earlier. And one that is not as good as the rest. This is the last one. 5) The Gunner. This is someone who does not write, but they are going to one day. They are “gunna” do it… honestly. They are the sort of person who tells a writer their great idea, or say to others they will write something “one day” because of how fascinating their lives have been, but never do. They annoy writers who are working by constantly telling them about their ideas. They might even grab a notebook – or a dozen – from the newsagent but that’s about the end of it. And they are extremely critical of everything everyone else writes. Because when they do it themselves, they will be the best and better than the lot of them. Writers who actually put pen to paper find the Gunner annoying and non-writers just consider them a joke. But they are out there. And they always seem to find me when I’m writing at the pub… Non-writers don’t count and definitely shouldn’t be denigrated. People have different ways of expressing themselves through their arts, or they are people who just like to appreciate the art of others. They are the readers of the world, the people who watch movies, listen to music, go to galleries. It doesn’t matter that they don’t write. They have no aspirations in that regard. More than that, they are great for one very important reason: they are the audiences. And that’s my opinion. |
| The Fallen Hero There is something that is done often, and that is the Fallen Hero Arc, also known as the Corruption Arc. It does mean a depressing story, usually, as a true tale of this style has very little redemption except in the long-term, hard-earned, but it can lead to a fascinating character. So, what is it? The Fallen Hero is someone the reader sees lose his moral compass, his “way”, over the course of the story. Most of the time, it is not the central thrust of the story, but something that happens while greater events occur around, but sometimes it can provide the narrative thrust. We see a person who acts heroic, but then something happens, or lots of little things happen, that make them question what they are doing until, finally, there is a straw that breaks the camel’s back, and they start down the side the reader would consider “bad” until they are no longer heroic, and are either an anti-hero or even a villain. The most obvious one would be the fall of Anakin Skywalker over the course of Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith. His concerns are pushed aside by those he trusts, one he is not sure if he can trust offers what the others cannot, then he is offered a hope of something, but when it looks like this could be taken from him, he protects the bad guy and joins him. Then he fights his best friend and kills his lover. Classic Fallen Hero. For a character to follow this arc, there needs to be a few things: 1) An initial genuine sense of the heroic. This is not Joe Blow down the servo becoming a bad guy; this is someone regarded as a hero to people. 2) A sense that something is not going the way the hero’s world-view agrees with. It needs to be subtle at first, then build up. 3) An inciting event that makes the hero’s already questioning internal conflict switch to the other side. 4) An opportunity for this character to solidify the negative nature they now express. 5) An act that makes them “everything they used to hate” (TM Chris Jericho). The inciting things can be people in their ear, their changing attitudes, societal events, overhearing something, seeing something, an inability to affect the change they desire, or (usually) a combination of some/all of these. For a character to go through a successful Fallen Hero/Corruption Arc, it needs to be shown that the change makes sense for the character. Then there is redemption. Let’s go back to Star Wars. When did the redemption occur? Episode 6 – Return Of The Jedi. It was hard-earned for all involved. And it took a long time. And sometimes the main reason for turning someone bad is to do the redemption later on. Okay, let’s look at my favourite arc – a professional wrestling one. In 1987, Randy Savage was a bit of a tweener with some bad guy tendencies. He lost the Intercontinental title at Wrestlemania 3 to Ricky Steamboat in a match that stole the show, which is saying something considering Hulk Hogan v Andre the Giant headlined. Well, the crowd started to appreciate Savage for his skill and for his manager Miss Elizabeth. At Wrestlemania IV, with the backing of Hulk Hogan and the crowd, Savage won the tournament for the vacant world title. He was a hero and beloved. Over the course of the next year, Hogan started to needle Savage, and Savage turned on him, so at Wrestlemania V. he lost the title to Hogan. And he lost Miss Ellizabeth. This started a downward spiral where, come Wrestlemania VI, he was facing the everyman character Dusty Rhodes who, with the help of Savage’s former manager Miss Elizabeth, defeated Savage. He had bottomed out. Leading up to Wrestlemania VII, Savage cost the Ultimate Warrior the title, and at VII, they fought (my favourite ever Wrestlemania match) with a loser retires stipulation. Savage lost, and his new manager, Sensational Sherri, turned on him until he was saved by Miss Elizabeth. He was retired, but he got the girl, and the crowd loved him again. Fast forward to Wrestlemania VIII in 1992 and he defeated Ric Flair for the world title, and was a hero from then on. 5 years to become the hero he deserved to be. And then there is Lancelot. Arthur’s best friend, He fights by Arthur’s side, conquers monsters and bad guys, and is trusted… then he has it with Guinevere, he and Arthur fall out, then, at the final battle, he returns to help Arthur and dies on the battlefield a hero once more. But not every fallen hero gets a redemption arc. Harvey Dent in the Batman comics went from beloved attorney general to the villain Two-Face, and stays a bad guy. Michael Corleone tries to stay out of his family business in The Godfather by becoming a war hero, but is then drawn in by the attempt on his father’s life. Even in Part III, he tries to get out, but cannot. Some might be redeemed in the actions that lead to their death, like Lancelot, but most do not. They become the bad guy, the villain, the antagonist, and we, the reader, go along for the ride. It does take a skilled writer to make the face-heel turn work so the audience believes it and even has sympathy for it happening, but there is not harm in trying it. Why not give it a go? |
| Jargon Following on from my column on technical terms ("20250514 Technical Terms" ), this came up – jargon. I did mention words and phrases that have different meanings to the norm, but these are actual words in formal use. Here I am going to look at some with even more niche meanings, but which are not official words or phrases. They are not technical terms – they are just words and phrases used on the job.Why? Because when writing about a group of people who know one another well or a well-established group or profession, you might want to portray them as having a language all their own. Still English, but different enough. It makes your world unique, and can be a part of world-building, creating that jargon-laden language so many have. Telling you how to do that is long and complex, so what I’ll do is list a bunch of them and hopefully you can see where the ideas come from, and utilise this to create your own. So, this is words, abbreviations, acronyms and initialisations that I have picked up in my various researches that are not exactly technical, universal terms, but are on-work jargon. Code Brown – in hospitals or police stations, something really bad is happening involving poo. Human excrement. Shit. Crop-dusting – when a flight attendant lets out a slow, silent fart while walking down the aisle of the plane. DWI – in the USA, police use DWI for “Driving While Intoxicated.” In Australia, the term is DUI, “Driving Under the Influence”, and covers drug-driving as well (remembering our more liberal drug laws). But sometimes cops will mention DWI. Most people think this means the US version… Nope. “Driving While an Idiot.” Elf On The Loose – used in retail stores for when a child goes missing during the hectic Christmas shopping period. Elf On The Shelf – used in retail stores during the Christmas madness when a child has been found and parents are being sought. Face/Heel – the good guys and bad guys in pro wrestling, now used in describing movie or TV characters as well. Face comes from Babyface, while Heel comes from the fact nothing is lower than a heel. Gone Camping – in hospitals means a patient has been moved to an oxygen tent. Hicide – another Australian police term, it means a death caused by a speeding vehicle, especially used for a motorcycle fatality. Honey Wagon – the truck used to empty septic tanks, especially from private residences. ID-ten-T Error – another tech support phrase. Why? ID-10-T… id10t… Mark – in carny speak or pro wrestling, a mark is one who does not realise that the games are rigged or the outcomes of the matches are pre-determined. PEBKAC/PEBCAK – a computer term used by people who work in IT tech trouble-shooting, especially for large companies: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair/Chair And Keyboard. PICNIC – UK version of PEBKAC: Problem In Chair, Not In Computer. PO Box – another hospital one, slightly morbid. A patient is described as a PO Box meaning they are being kept alive as a “Parts Only” receptacle, there for organ donation only. Roo Poo – chocolate covered sultanas or peanuts; used to disguise just what is being shipped for… reasons. Sand-bagging – in professional wrestling and circus performing, it means dropping the weight and stopping co-operating. Can be because of injury or just being a dick or, often, forgetting what they were supposed to do next. Scooby Snack – a police term for a suspect who has been bitten by a police dog. Shoot The Puppy –in business, making an unpopular decision, often seen as cold and heartless, for the greater good of a company or organisation. Status: DQ – hospital term meaning “Status: Drama Queen”. Used for a patient who is, well, a drama queen. If asked, the meaning given to a patient I have heard is “Diagnosis Qualified.” So, there’s a few jargon terms that are very specific for certain occupations or situations, and can be used to hide the real meaning, so as to not upset or alarm the public, or because they just want to keep their inner workings to themselves. If making up your own, you can probably see where a lot of these come from. And why they would be used. Some are funny and abusive, yes, but all of this goes towards making people doing certain jobs feel like they are a part of an elite or special group. And humour can help alleviate a stressful situation. Don’t be afraid to invent your own. Heinlein did it in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress with TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. And in the Long… series Pratchett and Baxter developed “stepping” as the ability to move between worlds. Don’t be afraid to experiment. And if it fails? Delete in draft #2. Have fun! |
| Novel #9 Brooke was written quite quickly – I had an idea and it just came out onto the page, logorrhoea. However, it was actually written in the middle of my writing the next novel – Brothers In Arms. This one I was really happy with. Clocking in at 78100 words, it was also the first novel to break that 72000 word barrier, and so be officially classified a novel by every publishing house I knew at the time (I have since found some that consider 78000 words to be the cutoff, and it breaks that as well, albeit only just… but Baen has 80k words, so not quite there). As is my wont, it falls into that genre of supernatural horror, with demons and the living dead and lots of death and destruction. Brothers In Arms tells the story of a young man, recently divorced, whose parents and twin brother have all died, as well as a young son. But his brother somehow comes back, and is pursued by otherworld entities that do not wish the dead to return to Earth. While these monsters are the “bad guys”, I like to think I put enough shades of grey in the story for the reader to think they were just doing their job; after all, what would the world be like if the dead could come back at will? And yet, in the end, there is a hint that maybe it was allowed after all… The story follows along smoothly. I like the character development, even though yet again I have a whiny, neurotic main character. His ex-wife is well developed, though, and the brother who comes back has just enough manic presence to be believable (I hope). The secondary hero – a cop – is a bit of a two-dimensional stereotype, but he is only important at the very end. I also like the way I have set up Adelaide, Victor Harbor and Port Hughes (all real places). I think I’ve captured a little something of the towns/cities in winter. At least, at that time. Port Hughes looks very different nowadays, after a golf course and subsequent development extension, and Victor Harbor has exploded in size. Also, the destruction scenes are surprisingly subdued for me. The biggest complaint I’ve had from readers is my description of the hunter at the very end of the story. The general consensus is that I put in too much description, and should have left more for the reader’s imagination. As it is, I described it using a Hieronymus Bosch creation as the template, and yet I probably agree with the criticism. If I ever do go back and try a re-edit, I’ll definitely reduce the physical description in this case. I was so happy with it that over the next year I sent it out to 6 publishers and 2 agents. I got one response, from an agent, who said it was not “the genre” he sold, even though supernatural horror was prominent in his advert. I edited it and rewrote bits of the middle and tried again in 1999 with (according to my records) 5 publishers, including one I’d sent it to before, albeit inadvertently. Surprisingly, it was this second try publisher who was the most encouraging. They wanted the full manuscript, and an alternate ending. I gave both. 6 months later a “sorry” rejection, but with 3 suggestions for improvements: amp up the blood and gore aspects, amp up the relationship between hero and ex-wife, and get into the hero’s emotional head a bit more. But by now I was rewriting another novel, and so put it on the back-burner, and never got around to rewriting it. Now, of course, I’d have to re-write absolutely everything and make it 2025… almost 30 years later… Excerpt: “Relax…” the husky voice said soothingly. “Just calm down…” “What?” Panic had taken a firm grip on Robert’s mind. The sight before him was one which should not even exist in his nightmares… but here it was. Tony, his own brother, drowned at Port Hughes ten years ago, was standing before him… although it wasn’t Tony, was it? It could not be him… No way known… “Robbie, I need your help,” the person pleaded. “This can’t be happening,” was the muted response. Robert could feel his mind going numb again… but he also knew he had to fight it. If – just if – he let go this time he probably would not come back… “You’re not real.” “But I am.” The figure shook his head sadly, but never took his eyes off Robert. His eyes… and finally a smile crept across Robert’s lips. “You can’t be Tony,” he whispered. “Tony had…” “Blue eyes, I know.” An uncomfortable pause, then: “And brown hair, like yours. My eyes are black, the eyes of death. And my hair has gone white. It’s just the way it is…” “NO!!” Robert started to scream, but a firm hand over his mouth silenced him. A cold, clammy hand, waxy to the touch, slightly damp… He shivered violently and the Tony-person released him. “Please, listen to me,” he begged. “It is me, Tony, Anthony, Tone, as you called me, whatever you want, but it is me…” “A ghost,” Robert stated firmly, nodding, grasping at this new conviction firmly with his mind. “If this isn’t a dream, then you’re a ghost… ow!” The figure slapped him hard across the side of the face. “Can ghosts hit people?” “Poltergeist, then…” Robert rubbed his jaw slowly, not really feeling either the blow or his hand on his skin. Despite all his best intentions, he could definitely feel his mind slipping away from him, going fast, going forever… “If you’re real, and this isn’t all just a bad dream…” And that comment seemed to stir something in the dark recesses if his mind. “You can’t be real. I just think you look like Tony. You’re just some little punk playing stupid fucking games with me, aren’t you?” He grabbed the collar of the too-big jumper the teenager before him was wearing and shook him hard. “So who put you up to this? Who’s making you do this to me? Answer me, dammit!” The look of fear which came over the other’s face was instantaneous. “You used to call me Toto because you knew I hated it,” he muttered. “And I called you Robber Robbie because you stole two dollars from mum’s purse when we were ten or eleven. You caught me sleeping with Jody Harmer’s undies one night when we were fourteen. And I saw you kissing our sister Kathleen’s best friend when we were fifteen and she was nineteen! You lost your virginity when you were fifteen to that Margie Carlyle girl from up the road! What more do you need to hear? I’m your brother! I’m Tony! And I need you now!” Robert’s whole body shook madly, without restraint and he was doubled over in pain. He could sense the nausea rising strongly in his chest and into his throat, but he did not want to go through that again. “I don’t believe you…” he growled. “But you’ve got to,” was the response. “I need your help…” “You’re a ghost, if you even exist. And ghosts don’t need help…” he returned thickly. His tongue was growing thicker in his mouth, or so it seemed, making speech difficult… and, for some reason, thought as well. “Robbie…” “I don’t think you’re even real…” Robert muttered as thought he teenager wasn’t even talking. “It’s the cold, and my grief and everything else. I’m imagining things. I’ve just got to see a doctor and everything’ll be all right, I know it will…” “Robbie…” “…I just know it will. It has to be. I’m seeing things and hearing things and feeling this and it’s just not right…” “Robbie, please…” “…I need help…” “Robbie…” Suddenly Robert’s head snapped up and his angry eyes seemed to push the youngster back. “Go!” he growled. “Just leave me be. I don’t want to know about it!” “But…” “GO AWAY!” he screamed, dropping to his knees and leaning his head on the damp ground, his wet hair plastered about his face like a coating of wet mud. Nothing came to him through his mental anguish… then footsteps walked briskly away, fading into the distance. He was alone again. Alone with his feelings and memories… alone in a world all his own… It is too much tell and not enough show, I stick with very superficial descriptions of what is internal, ignoring a lot of that physiology that hits, and the emotions are surface level. The rekindling of the romance also feels undeserved. And look at all those ellipses! But I think this story shows me (at least) that I was improving, even if a little, as a writer. I do still like this story, and is one of the very few older novels of mine I don’t mind re-reading. Maybe one day I will give it a do-over… Maybe. One day. |
| External Writerings May 2025 That time of the month where I list the writing I have done for Weekend Notes (and any other places that could be bothered publishing me online). Songs and films only this time. Just some favourites and a DVD review. Standard stuff, but lots to listen to! Remember, you do not have to listen to the songs (though I would be grateful if you did), but every look at the articles from a different IP address with no ad blockers helps me out in my increasingly desperate attempts to make money as a person who writes. My favourite songs from Eurovision... and most didn't make the final! Although the winner is here. Some songs about praying. Reviewing a film that I think is often under-valued from the Star Warts canon , for May the 4th (B with U). Some very different cover versions and reinterpretations of classic rock and pop songs. (And a Christmas carol.) My favourite albums released in 1965. Some absolute corkers here! 5 articles this month. I have to do at least 4 to keep my ranking in the top 25 contributors, so your clicks will also help me in that regard. As usual, if you want a certain topic covered in songs (I can do films and books as well), leave a comment below. I would love to give readers what they want. |
| Using Real Places – A Warning A thing happened. This is sort of related to my "20250509 Using Real People In Fiction Pt 2" post as well.A fellow local writer (who has had a great deal of success as a writer of Westerns) and I spoke about this the other day. Yes, an Australian writing US westerns, all of them published by a UK firm and selling really well in mainland Europe. Let’s not get into the way publishing works… Anyway, nowadays he writes historical romance stories and modern thrillers, all set in the local area in which we live. He self-publishes and sells them at markets. I’ve read them; they are quite good. He could easily have a publisher pick them up, but he reckons he’s beyond that at over 80 years of age. Like me, he uses the real local locations to make our stories more realistic. If anyone read my Invasive Species, they could go to Ardrossan and see all those locations; and, yes, all of them are still there! A mutual friend of ours who also self-publishes – her books are not the best; I avoid reading them now – writes detective stories set in the same area. Like the other two of us, she uses businesses and buildings that exist. She’s been doing this for a few years – I think her series (with a recurring character…) is five books in – and she makes a point of mentioning when businesses change or close or whatever, to give her stories that sense of now, and a sense of definite time. I have no issue with that. Sue Grafton did something similar with her alphabet series. However, someone has now had an issue with that. One of the businesses that appeared in her first two books, and was then quietly dropped, has demanded the business be taken out of the books. So… what happened? Well, the reason the business – a café – was dropped from the books was because the author and the owner had a falling out. To the author’s credit, her detective simply started going to a different place to have her “cuppa, white, no sugar” and no mention was made of the other business. Nothing disparaging, nothing at all. The character just went elsewhere. Readers might have been confused but it was hardly a big deal. Well, the issue between then grew a little more heated recently – neither of us know why, but there are “sides” being formed; stupid small town personality politics –and now this demand. The author went to our local (state) writer’s centre for free legal advice. Guess what? The business is fully within their rights. There was not even a verbal agreement between them. The author just started using the business and its name. I guess that beggars the question – how have the other two of us not been caught up in something similar? I mean, apart from the obvious reason of not being dicks and getting involved in petty power politics of a personal penchant. One, both of us went to the businesses and asked permission to use them. In my case, it was a café, a gym, a bakery and a corner store. The gym has since changed hands, but it is still there. Second, and I think this is very important, neither of us used the actual names of the businesses. I called the bakery “the bakery”, for example, not “Ardrossan bakery”. We use the names of real streets, but both understood you don’t have to use the real names of businesses. What I think this means is that you need to be careful not just using the names of real people, but everything that has a name. Now, the advice we have received legally is that multi-national corporations are fair game (like public figures), and only two companies do not like their company names used in fiction works – Disney and Apple. So your characters can drink Coke or Pepsi, go to KFC or McDonalds, use an IBM or HP computer , no issue. But drinking the KIS honey drink, go to Wallaroo Shores Eatery, use an OZMachines computer… maybe not? Just use generic terms: “the pub”, “the deli on Washington Ave”, “the local ginger ale”… Better be safe than sorry. As to our mutual friend, the legal advice is that she might have to pulp any leftover copies of those first two books unless she can reach an agreement with the business owner. There is nothing libellous, so what a court would decide is anyone’s guess, but it will also be costly. Just be careful who you mention and who you talk about. |
| Dreams I received this request: I know the conventional wisdom of "don't open a story with a dream" but what about writing a whole story where your character is within the dream world and it's only revealed at the end? Is that considered a "cheap trick" ending? I quite literally only thought of making it a dream when it got too absurd to be real. Let’s look at dreams in stories! First, and this is important, never end a story with “it was all a dream.” That was fine 150 years ago, but even Carroll’s Alice… stories had it ambiguous as to whether it was a dream or reality. This also goes for “it was all the drugs” or “it was just a vision of a possible future” – dreams in different clothing. It feels cheap, like a cop-out, like the author could not find an ending. Having said that, there are some exceptions. When it starts and ends with a dream is fine, especially if done well. When dreams make up a large chunk of the narrative, then that can also work. Here’s an example – from a TV show in the 1980s (like a sort of Twilight Zone, but not the 1980s remake of that show) a man kills his wife and then goes off with his secretary… then is woken up and kills his wife and goes off with his secretary… then is woken up and kills his wife and goes off with his secretary… then is woken up, kills his wife, his secretary has no idea what he’s talking about, the police arrest him and he begs the camera to tell him it’s all a dream. And finally when a character is broken and a dream is the only place they now exist. Opening with a dream is something that can work, but it went through a spurt in YA fiction in the 1990s and it still feels clichéd. It is designed to show the ideal for a character whose life sucks. We saw it so often that when you read a story of a happy kid you knew next chapter was going to show a miserable reality. And the ending was never like that dream-state. Using dreams through a story works better. Think of the original Nightmare On Elm Street – Freddy got you through your dreams! Gilliam’s Brazil (UK version) used dreams to show an ideal, and the fact they were never achieved makes it all the more depressing. In some contemporary fantasy and horror, dreams can be used as signals to the future or premonitions, with hidden messages to those with some sort of “sight”. And at their most obvious, dreams can show us the innermost thoughts and feelings of a character that would otherwise not be able to be shown in a narrative without being an info-dump. Dreams can be an important story-telling device, so long as they are not over-used. Looking at the question – I don’t think it is an issue to open with a dream, but to come to the end and discover the whole story was a dream can be something that turns readers off. And there has to be a good reason for it being a dream, not just because the story has gone in a surreal direction. One story I did read was a story where a man talks to his wife and child; about halfway through she mentions her death and the child says that it hurt; at the end it was a dream the man was having while he was on the verge of death himself. That worked because it was him coming to terms with the sadness and realising he was not ready to go, so his mind/body fighting to stay alive after all. But if it’s because a writer is struggling with an ending… maybe not. Finally, there is also the ambiguity of dreams. Was it a dream or not that makes the Alice… stories I mentioned before so intriguing has been done a lot, but I feel there is so much left to explore. A bit of early pulp horror was focused on this conceit, as was a deal of fantasy, especially in the EC pre-code comic days. So it’s old, but possibly hasn’t been explored in a modern/ contemporary setting. Something to consider. So, dreams can be fine. There’re just a few caveats, is all. |
| Recurring Characters Following on from "20250523 Frame Story" .This is something that a few writers have experimented with – the idea of recurring characters, though not writing sequels. This is when the same character appears in separate and distinct stories. I guess the most famous would be the creations of Robert E Howard: Conan, King Kull, Solomon Kane. And so, as such, I am going to use Howard’s technique to show how to do it well, and how not to do it well. Something that Howard understood was that characters age, their skills improve, they become smarter… but they also become a little slower and their attitude becomes world-weary. He understood this, and he wrote the King Kull and Conan stories in a vague sort of order so that he could show them aging. In the original Conan stories, he even had allusions to the stories he had already written to make sure there was a sense of continuity. However, the reader did not have to know this previous story to enjoy or understand the one they were reading – it was only a reference, a brief mention that maybe he’d faced this sort of opponent before, or maybe that he’d known fear only once, as a child. With the King Kull stories, though, he did this and made the allusions to important events that had been written… and then he went and wrote a few stories of early on in his life, including how he became a king. The problem? That was a brutal fight and the later stories make no mention of it. So such an important life event meant nothing to the older Kull. It hardly felt right. However, when it came to Solomon Kane, Howard wrote two stories, and then went and outlined a sort of life story with question marks at certain points where he had no idea what could happen. He wrote a heap of older Kane stories, then a few earlier, but these stories had been alluded to already because Howard had the life worked out. This is the way to do it properly. And he had friends re-appear where Kane said he knew him from elsewhere, and then Howard went back to write that story when he had the details some time later. You can read the Kane stories out of order because each is a standalone, but in order and they paint an interesting life picture. That is the thing, though – each story needs to be a standalone. I use a core group of around 10 characters in my main fantasy stories, but I have a complete chronology worked out of important events, so when something unimportant happens I can put that into the chronology and it is understandable that later on the characters would not remember it after the War of the Demons. They have scars and gain them in other stories, but there have been times when I allude to the scar and then later I might write about how they got it. I follow Howard’s method. An example in my own writing is here: "Whispering Jack" . The recurring character is a cryptid hunter. Some previous stories are alluded to, but each story can be read independently of the rest. In fact, only the last story is a sequel to the very first; the rest are just with Whispering Jack the recurring character.Writing stories so the events of the previous story have an impact on the next is writing a sequel, and there is nothing wrong with that. But standalone stories are an easier sell (and, yes, I have sold seven stories from my fantasy world); recurring characters are more fun for the writer and, if you become well-known, for later readers to get the whole life of a character. Recurring characters are perfectly acceptable away from sequels, trilogies, decalogies or whatever. And they are some of my favourites I have created. |
| Novel #8 We hit another (and not the last) glitch in the road after Invisible Friend. Brooke was written at the end of 1996, after almost a year of churning out cliché ridden fantasy short stories. Clocking in at 50000 words, it has a flawed premise, and poor writing. I think the only bits I like are the first meeting of the titular character, and the ending where the narrator, Rick, finds out what she is going through. Brooke tells the story of Brooke, a girl who is fostered by a family who are friends of Rick’s family. She turns out to be a demon who has no memory of her demonic nocturnal activities. She is an evil killer at night, but an angst-ridden teenager during the day. Okay? Rick goes out of his way to save her, but fails spectacularly, though she is no longer evil. Stupid, odd, and probably I wrote it 15 years too early. It’s the sort of childish tripe which seems to get a huge audience nowadays. Much like Invisible Friend, the main character is whiny, though he has no reason to be. And Brooke is a two-dimensional cardboard cutout of a girl who needs the man to save her. Pathetic. But it does have some good bits. Some of the descriptions of transformation I think are well done, and I like the seminary library I created for this tale. I also revisited Mondragon, a town I invented for Invisible Friend… and would subsequently revisit a few more times. And my love affair with the ellipsis continued unabated… But a bump in the road is what this is, a bump I think I needed to get this sort of supernatural horror cliché out of my system, so my next novel actually had a sort of original premise. Sometimes it’s good to drive those clichés onto paper… Excerpt: Ch 11. Brooke sat beside me in the car in silence, not even complaining about my choice of music for a change. I had told her that we had to go somewhere, that it was important, that it could even help her. I could not bring myself to tell her that I thought the person we were going to visit was potentially our only hope. Yet she had just shaken her head and curled up in my arms, sitting there on the floor of our apartment. She fell asleep quickly; I not long after. I woke sometime after eleven in the morning. After laying her on the bed I showered and cleaned myself up. Then I very carefully dressed her, carried her to the car and took off; we were both going and that, I decided, was that. I had all but convinced myself that this was her only chance. She did not actually awaken until we were well past Gawler and on our way headed north. And for more than half an hour she just sat there, tense, refusing to speak, even shrugging off all of my attempts to touch her. It was only when the cassette stopped and I fiddled with a second one that she finally spoke. “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice full of fear. “We’ve got to see some-one,” I responded carefully, repeating the words I had been saying all morning, sounding harsh even to my own ears. She stared at me out of the corners of our eyes. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?” she asked pathetically. “What?” I asked in confusion. “I’m a monster.” She was crying. “Isn’t that why we’re out here? So you can get rid of the monster?” I sighed and grit my teeth as I pulled the car to the side of the road. The two cars that had been following us since Port Wakefield zoomed past at high speed, shaking my old vehicle a little, and then I faced her. She almost seemed to shy away from any contact with me yet again, but I grabbed her hands with mine and stared into those wide, deep, brown eyes. “Yes, it is why we’re out here,” I stated. “To get rid of that… that thing. But I’m not going to kill you.” “I am a monster,” she whispered as if the realisation had only just dawned on her. “Come on, Brooke…” And I dragged her in close to me. She resisted at first, still trying to keep away, but I held firm. She stared at me, looked into my eyes, then grabbed me just as tight, suddenly not wanting to let go at all. “I’m a monster…” she sobbed, over and over again. She was twelve years old again, trying to cope with an all-too realistic bad dream. And I did what I had done back when, as a fifteen year old, I was extremely uncomfortable with a situation that had been forced upon me with this youngster: I simply reacted as I would have back then – I stroked the top of her head and rocked her back and forth, but said nothing. Too much like when I was that teenager being asked to help a poor, sick child who had taken a liking to me, who I considered one of my best friends, I did not know what to do. So I did nothing really; I was just there for her. Like once before (and at least twice more to come), tough to find a good piece here… But this story was a real character study and told me just what I needed to learn… although I didn’t get the lesson for a few more years. |
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Thank you for this very informative piece.
