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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. It follows on from the old one, which is now full. An index of topics from old and new can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. And to suggest topics! |
| Six Blame Winter's spudâïž for this one. She tagged me. So, I've been challenged to "blog" 6 things about me that not many know. While it is not the purpose of my blog, I have gone personal at times, so this will be brief. Things I find acutely embarrassing or not something I want to expose are not here. So... 1. I was named Steven for the saint whose day falls on the day after my birthday, and then Anglicised. My initials were chosen to mimic the initials of a famous Australian sporting ground. 2. My father died when I was ten. My sisters don't remember him at all; my memories are of conflict between us. 3. Most know I was a professional wrestler and an acrobat , but I also did stand-up comedy, appeared in TV commercials, drummed for a 50s/60s cover band, and appeared in the TV show Ultraman as a glorified extra,4. My mum taught me to read and write before I started school so I'd stop dictating my stories to her. 5. In 2004 I suffered a catastrophic knee injury while training for a trampoline routine for an acrobatics show. The bed broke and I came down with all my weight on my right leg. This shortened my leg by almost two inches as the tibia and fibula ended up on either side of my femur and my patella suffered a 95degree dislocation. All four ligaments were ruptured. The operation took 10 hours; they sewed up the lateral and medial collateral ligaments, pinned the posterior cruciate ligament in place with a bunch of screws, and could do nothing about the anterior cruciate ligament as it had exploded. To this day, I don't have one; a leg brace acts as my ACL. My doctor told me I would struggle to walk and that sport was now out of the question. I am trained in rehabilitation, so I designed a programme. 13 months after the injury, I performed in front of a crowd; 6 months after that I was back in a wrestling ring. The doctor and I subsequently wrote a paper on my rehabilitation. 6. I am vaguely academic. I got a full academic scholarship to one of the elite private high schools in the state, then went on to tertiary study to get: Bachelor of Applied Science (human movement, combined with a B.Sc., as I majored in biomechanics, and got my rehabilitation training here) Diploma of Journalism Bachelor of Education Diploma of Professional Writing Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing - I topped the course) and I am about to embark on a Master of Arts (MA) in Creative Writing. So, if I come across as a smart-arse, there's my excuse. And that's 6 boring things about me. |
| Novel #35 The second of my spec fic comedies, Fluffy Doom was about the same length as Steele BlastâŠ, but this time based on horror tropes. I started writing it before I finished Steele Blast⊠because the idea would not leave me alone. So, what happened was I was watching an old film where a guy was bitten by a reptile-man and became, himself, a reptile-man. Now, I was already well into my monster dictionary, and so knew about therianthropes, and decided to use the least likely animal that would be turned into a human-animal cross-breed, and the least scary. I chose hamsters. So, this is a story about man-biting were-hamsters. And normal hamsters being carriers of the disease that creates the change. I used every werewolf clichĂ© I could find and added it to a were-hamster tale and made it silly. I also added the clichĂ© of searching for a cure, the girl spraining her ankle at an inopportune time, a giant hamster wheel and the police being completely ineffective and bipolar. Unfortunately, I think the idea was funnier than the execution. There are still some funny bits in it but it is certainly no Steele BlastâŠ. I reckon I might have rushed it. In the end, after all the Speculative Humour tales were completed, it is the second worst (the worst is the last one, and that has stopped me writing them; I was forcing the humour). But it has were-hamsters, changes PoV to lots of side characters, and has some weird situations. It is not the best, but it still makes me smile. Excerpt CHAPTER 1 â THE CHAPTER WHERE WE MEET OUR HERO AND GET A HINT OF WHATâS TO COME. It all started for Craig, interestingly enough, with a solid kick to the testicles. And, unfortunately for Craig, he was most definitely the kickee and not the kicker. Even more unfortunately, the kicker in question possessed the legs of a goddess and the breasts of a relief map of the Himalayas, and was wearing, at the time, a pair of blue stilettos. Still even more unfortunately, the particular kicking person also had a third dan mauve belt in taekwondo. To say Craig dropped like a lump of jelly from a kitchen table would be to understate everything about his response. Words were not possible from the prone pile that had once been Craig, and his hand stretching out pathetically towards the retreating beauty barely left its tender cupping of the afflicted area. It may have been his fault, that part of his mind not engaged in the processing of pain and curling into the foetal position suggested. After all, he had said he wasnât overly keen on her choice of movie and maybe couldnât they see something in a language other than French. Of course, when it came to Sandra, he should have known better â didnât the Riesling versus Moselle argument of last Christmas and subsequent coma teach him anything? â but he wasnât really thinking. He was just hoping that the fact the only language he knew apart from English, was a list of Indonesian swear words he had learnt in Bali a decade earlier might sway things in his favour for once. He had been, as already mentioned, catastrophically wrong. He stayed where he fell for quite a while. He wasnât really sure how long, but it must have been some time because the amount of people walking around and over and on him diminished markedly. By the time his eyes forced themselves open, only two pairs of black boots could be seen. The unfortunateness continued when he gazed upwards and saw who the owners of said boots were. Two police officers stared down at him with practised malice, one already holding what looked like a taser in his hands. âWell, well, well,â one said stereotypically, âWhat have we here then? Drunk in public?â He seemed pleased by the prospect. âHelp. Kicked.â Craig managed to speak. âWhat did he say?â the cop with the taser asked, clearly struggling to form a coherent thought. âKicked. He was kicked. You know, kicked.â To emphasise his point, the other cop kicked Craig with each mention of the word. âOh, kicked.â The other followed suit. âYou know what that means?â the slightly more intelligent cop asked with an exaggerated sigh. âUhh, no.â He went to kick Craig again, but missed and got his own ankle. The pain didnât register. âPaperwork.â Another overly exaggerated sigh and a âwhy me?â look to the heavens. The otherâs shoulders slumped giving him an all too natural Neanderthal look. And that is Fluffy Doom, a strange horror tale that purports to be funny⊠|
| Writing Disabilities Disabilities are becoming more and more common in written works. Unlike in earlier times where the disabled were portrayed as either the bad guy (especially with a physical disability) or an object of pity, or even a joke character, there has been a concerted effort of late to make people with a disability more like, well, people. But this does not come without some issues. So here is a brief look at some common disabilities and how they are and can be used. I will say that I rarely use people with a disability in stories, unless it is a disability I have. I feel it is their story to tell. But sometimes I do know some people want to include people with a disability in their tales. I will also say I know that the term "disability" is no longer generally used, but I think it is the term most of us are familiar with. This is not to imply people who would fit into this list are any lesser as people. It is a look at the tropes that should be avoided when it comes to some people. Blindness This is one disability that seems to have been treated well by creatives. And while the lack of this sense does create a heightening of other senses, the character Daredevil is not a good exemplar of what can happen. Deafness It is difficult to write people who cannot hear, and so few do it. But if you want an example of it done really well, I recommend Impossible Music by Sean Williams (2019). Autism Spectrum Disorder This is one of the more common neurodivergencies used in fiction. But they are either used as figures of fun, or as something akin to an evolutionary step (yes, I am looking at you, The Predator), or as some sort of savant (Big Bang Theory, anyone?). When they are not utilised in these manners, we get horrors like Siaâs Music. The thing is, as the title says, it is a spectrum, and the differences between those on the spectrum can be wide. There are some similarities, but that does mean you cannot represent every person on the spectrum with one character. I have some experience as a qualified teacher of those on the spectrum, and the representations I have seen in films and read in books just makes me sad. I will not write of a person on the spectrum despite my experience because it is definitely their story to tell, and with what I write, how is it going to help the narrative? Down Syndrome People with Down Syndrome are often portrayed as stupid and used as victims or butts of jokes. They are depicted as not being able to learn or being taught things as a matter of rote learning with limited understanding. This diminishes those with Down Syndrome markedly. One of the ladies on the radio station I read at each month has Down Syndrome and she is amazing. Stereotyping people can lead to belittling, and that is what I see too often in written works. Missing Limbs This is where the bad guy trope comes in â they have a missing arm, leg, eye, hand, whatever, and it has made them embittered. That is ridiculous. Often, the person suffering this is resilient and copes really well. They have some issues â phantom limb syndrome is surprisingly common â and depression often accompanies it. Prosthetics do help, but they are not real. It is only in recent years that we have some technologies that enable these prosthetics to be functional, and even then it does not work for everyone. Acquired Brain Injury This is the disability with the widest spread of effects. It can include (but also not necessarily include) personality changes, mood swings, amnesia bouts, permanent memory loss, limb spasms, tics, eyesight issues, referred pains, headaches including migraines, memories of events that never happened, forgetting people they have known for ages, short term memory issues, medium term memory issues, hearing issues, tinnitus, audio and visual hallucinations, learning difficulty (sometimes in only one or two learning aspects), speech issues, and more besides. But no one person will have all of these, or even half of these. Instead, what we get in popular media are people with amnesia or superpowers. Thereâs five that I have seen the most of in films and books and TV. By the way, despite what some claim, depression, homosexuality, insomnia, et al. are not disabilities. They are just a part of what makes human beings an interesting species, and are things that are normal. |
| The Love Triangle In romance â and, recently, romantasy â the love triangle has become the main driving force of many books. Some blame Twilight but it has been around much longer than that. Really, Helen of Troy, Paris and Menelaus are a sort of love triangle, resulting in the Trojan War. They are a staple, it is just that lately it is almost expected that published romance-type works need one. So, this is to list the elements needed to write a decent one. 1) All 3 members of the triangle need to be formed characters This is something that quite a few writers let their readers down with. One of the three characters is not as fully developed, and this gives away just who the lead protagonist will end up with. I will say this is not often with a female/2 males dynamic, but more common in a male/2 females situation. But in Handbook For Mortals, one of the many terrible plot things in the book was that one of the men chasing the MC was just a 2-D cipher. This leads us to: 2) Donât make it obvious who is going to be the final couple Readers want to be invested and cheer for their favourites â think Team Jacob & Team Edward from Twilightâs fandom â so if you make it obvious from the word go who the couple is going to be, that investment is diminished and the Love triangle becomes a Third Wheel. Again, look at Twilight â it was so obvious Bella and Edward were going to end up together, is it any wonder it got icky with Jacob? 3) Both members of the same gender need to be realistic This means that, even if the writer knows who they are going to pair up, both the competing love interests need to have flaws as well as good sides. Too often the one who is going to end up with the MC is flawless, or the flaws are very minor. This is the one thing (ONE) Aster does okay in Lightlark â the two men after the MC have a lot of flaws and both actually come across as douchebags. Which is fine, because the MC comes across as a right cow as well. 4) The choice needs to be organic We are not talking porn where the choice is purely sexual, or the choice is both. The MC needs to choose one of the suitors, and the reasons for doing so need to make sense in the context of the story and the world as developed throughout the narrative. It should lead to it naturally and gradually. When should the choice be made? Not at the very end, but normally right before the climax is what romance writers tend to recommend, though during the climactic scenes often works as well. If the choice happens early, this can work if the rejected one then becomes a jealous antagonist, but that is a different sort of story to the standard Love Triangle. 5) The choice needs to make sense Everything in the story should subtly lead to the choice. Yes, the other suitor could have won, but the choice needs to make sense from the point of view of the MC making the choice. If itâs because the chosen saved the person, fine, but that needs to be developed, not just, âYou saved me, I choose you.â Complex emotions are at play, and should be shown on the page. The Love Triangle is a trope used often because it works. It can also work in other genres (scifi, western and, yes, fantasy) because it keeps the romance subplot from being a tacked on afterthought. It can interweave the romance into the narrative thrust of the story, especially if the rivals have to work together to save the MC from a big bad. Sometimes clichĂ©s and tropes are popular for a reason. And the reason here is simple â it fulfils a harmless fantasy. But the Love Triangle should involve more than a third wheel thrown in to make a bit of a conflict. |
| Christmas Tales So, it is Christmas time. And there are more stories featuring Christmas than nearly any other holiday. Even people in non-Christian countries know Christmas; even non-Christians celebrate it in some way. In modern times, Christmas has come to mean a time for family and supporting one another. So, what do Christmas stories involve? Surprisingly, there are four main ones. Yes, I know there are so many more than four, but the stories that sell, the most popular ones, involve four main⊠themes? Tropes? ClichĂ©s? Letâs see⊠1) Correcting the error of their ways This tends to be the main theme for Christian-based Christmas stories. When someone has the time of the season used to make them realise they are being something of a douchebag, or they have made or are about to make a poor choice. The classic in this style is Itâs A Wonderful Life, the 1946 film. 2) The truth of Santa These are stories where Santa Claus is either proven to be real, or is real and proves his reality to others. Very simple, really. The classic is Miracle On 34th Street (1947 film) where the truth of Santa is proved in a court. This also covers the film The Santa Clause (1994) and CC Mooreâs poem âA Visit From St Nicholasâ (1823). Santa is true and these tales relate that. 3) Getting together for Christmas This is the modern trope, the whole âfamilyâ entertainment thing. Someone has to get to the family in time for Christmas, a family needs to be reunited at Christmas, and similar other tropes. This is just emphasising the whole family concept, and we just need to look at the films Home Alone (1990) and the schmaltzy Iâll Be Home For Christmas (1998⊠and not a personal favourite) for examples. Also included here are tales about getting the desired Christmas present at the last minute, as in Jingle All The Way (1996). 4)Christmas Ghosts And we come to something that was exceedingly common in Victorian penny-dreadfuls, and which has never really gone away â the Christmas ghost story. MR James did a heap, Dickens did many, and I really recommend The Woman In Black by Susan Hill (1983). Ghosts can lead to either of numbers one and three on this list, or can just be a means of making someone understand Christmas and all it encompasses. For example, Dickensâ classic A Christmas Carol (1843) is a combination of this trope and the first one. Now, there are also stories about the birth of Jesus, but those are just reinterpretations or transformatives or interpolations, and really do not sell that well and are not generally popular outside of niche communities. Anyway, those are the four main types of Christmas tales that sell. Maybe something here will inspire you! |
| Novel #34 Now⊠the next novel⊠This is the start of what I have come to call the Speculative Humour Cycle, a group of short novels written from here on out where I take speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, science-fiction) and add what I hope is a humorous spin to proceedings. I am still debating whether Gorgon With The Wind and Singer, Not The Song should be included as well. Anyway, this is for me where that series of novels started. All are around the same length, and I know it is very short in the novel scale of things, but they are there. Steele Blast And The Missing Planet was written with the idea that it would be the first of a series of stories with the same characters, but I could never find anything that leant itself to the humour I was aiming for after this was over. Still, this is the story. It borrows heavily from so many science fiction stories and tropes and the humour is probably distinctly Australian, but with a lot of word-play, like the good UK humour, and very little cringe-based US humour. In fact, one of the more expansive rejections said the humour would âgo over the head of most Americansâ (direct quote). I did try to argue the same was true of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but he rightfully pointed out I am no Douglas Adams. Anyway, Steele reluctantly decides to help a professor find a planet that has been deleted from all official records, helped by a humanoid alien. Thereâs a planet-sized space station, a low-speed vehicle chase, explosions, death, violence, a religious group of loonies and a robot who annoys everyone. The planet is found, but is more than expected and there are a lot of weird neologisms used throughout. I still think it is one of the better long stories I have written, so I hope it will find a home somewhere. I will say, it is humorous, but not a direct parody. Steele Blast himself started as a play on Han Solo, but became more like the George Peppard character from Battle Beyond The Stars, and then took on a life of his own later on. The robot was originally stolen from Treasure Planet (it was the only part of that film I didnât like) but I downplayed the stupidity and made it more like the main robot character in Eric Idleâs Road To Mars, with singing instead of stand-up comedy. (Thatâs a bunch of old pop culture references no-one is going to getâŠ) I do think this is a decent work. I just wish a publisher agreed with me⊠Excerpt: He walked across and spun the map, then zoomed in until he was looking at what to me appeared to be nothing more than a blank bit. Just that â a blank bit. He palmed it and the legend that came up read, âDark Nebulous Cloud Region. Prohibited entry. Information access denied.â That was odd. âProhibited entry?â I asked. âInfo access denied? What is this?â âVenus-4 is in there, a planet with a life reading off the scale,â he explained suddenly. âWhen the information was first collated, we knew it was a single star system with one of its three planets in the Cinderella Zone, and that one showing life. Venus-4. And then all information on it disappeared from computers and everything else. All we had was a blank. That was seven Mars years ago. Iâve been searching for the source ever since and finally found a copy of the original transmissions in an off-line data collection. The best thing was that the life-reading for Venus-4 was given as ten-point-seven initial.â âOkay, you lost me there. Whatâs a ten-point-seven life reading?â He blinked at me, then went on, âEarth is the standard, set as a one-point zero final reading. Terra-2 only had an initial of nought-point-five and a final of nought-point-eight-five.â âSoâŠ?â âThere are life-forms there that they donât want anyone to find out about, lots and lots of them. Iâm sure of it. I want to know what they are!â He sounded like a general about to go into battle, which suited him as much as clothes would a newt. However, something unnerving nagged at the back of my mind. âWhat have you done so far?â I asked him with a façade of casualness. âOh, the usual things,â he said. âI tried official channels, then academic ones, then I found an under-graduate who helped me hack into Central data, then I tried to break into the Chancellorâs quarters, and then I was sacked, so thenâŠâ âHold on. You hacked Central Data?â âDidnât find anything. Some student; couldnât even get past the third firewall.â âOn your own computer connection?â âWell, of course.â Now I understood why the spats had been after him. The Sol solar systemâs Central Data was not something you messed around with unless you wanted to be deleted. Not physically â I think â but in every other way possible. You end up completely homeless, friendless and penniless, and in space thatâs never a good thing. Especially for some-one like Dr Hasluck. But what he said had me intrigued. New life-forms were potentially valuable â I personally made a packet in the craze for the so-called parrot-snakes from Calran. Looked like legless parrots with the heads, necks and tails of snakes, they ended up being some sort of parasitic worm. I sold a few consignments for a huge amount, then got out of it, and just in time because that was when they discovered the, well, side-effects. I had to get myself checked and have an injection with a needle the size of a ball-point pen, but at least my fingers and toes didnât turn transparent and my urine didnât contain living, squirming baby parrot-snakes. That would have been yucky. Of course, people never learn, and so the same thing happened with Octavian Eyeless Fish â which I never got in on â only this time it caused a bowel obstruction that made people vomit up their own excrement. Still, third timeâs a charm, right? Another long excerpt, but I am quite chuffed with this one. I think it would be not only a fun read but could make for a great film or TV mini-series. So, why comedy? At this time in my life, I went through a lot of personal upheaval⊠wife and I started having issues⊠separated from my kids⊠lost my work⊠forced out of sport⊠comedy was my coping mechanism. So be ready because there are a heap more stories in this series to come up. This is genuine space opera, and nothing else is this blatantly sci-fi, but thereâs plenty more humour-based speculative fiction tales⊠|
| Brand Names So, this came up on Discord. Are we allowed to use brand names in our stories? The publisher who runs the site says we use brand names all the time. After all, the following were all originally brand names: Band-Aid Bubble Wrap Cellophane Chapstick Dumpster Escalator Frisbee Laundromat Styrofoam Super Glue Trampoline Zipper So, why worry? Theyâre everywhere! Well, I guess itâs when we use an actual product in our story. Some are apparently fine â both Pepsi and Coca-Cola donât mind â and some are very âantiâ use â the Maserati automobile company springs to mind. But it is hard to know. The advice I was given was that if a brand is exceedingly common, use it. A Ford motor vehicle is everywhere, and they have not indicated if they object or not. Having said that, there are three brands you CANNOT use! Disney is out. None of their IP, even in passing, not their theme parks, nothing. They are a litigious bunch of arseholes, and have been known to force self-published authors to pulp their books. How far this extends, considering what they own, is anybodyâs guess. Next, Apple is out. Apple do not allow their products to be indicated for use: (a) by criminals, (b) for anything even mildly nefarious; (c) in certain countries; and (d) if any other technology brand is mentioned. In general, publishers will change Apple to Nokia (who donât care). And third, Maserati, who donât like their cars even mentioned. I donât know why. What is interesting is that some of the higher end brands, especially fashion labels, like when their bands are named. An independent author mentioned that his bad guys looked amazing in their Armani suits and made a point of just how good they looked more than once, and the Armani company gave him some actual real money! What you cannot do, though, is say that a brand causes the ills of the story. So, if drinking Coke Zero caused all the people in the story to become cat eaters, you will get sued. The branded product cannot be a part of the bad guy. Someone poisoning a drink, you might get away with it. Faking it with in-story artificial product, so long as the company is found innocent in the end, yes, that should be okay. So⊠in the end, with a few exceptions, use Branded products, but donât libel them. After all, it does make a work more realistic to have them drink Pepsi Max instead of Generic Cola Drink #24. |
| Give The People What They Want A little while ago I announced that I had finally had my 100th traditionally published short story released into the world. From my first one (that I count) in 2002, it took me 22 years to get to that mark. Now, after I made that announcement, I received a few messages of congratulations, a few comments and a couple of questions. One question, though, I feels deserves a public response: How can you sell so much? What are you doing that makes people want to buy your stuff? What? Itâs not my innate talent at writing short stories?! No⊠considering that for every accepted short, I get around 5 rejections, itâs clearly not me being particularly good. I think itâs because I know how to use the tropes that sell. See, people still want the things that have always worked. In romance, the two leads end up together. In fantasy, the bad guy is defeated and monsters are slain and the leads act more heroic than humanly possible. In westerns, the good guy triumphs within the bounds of the law (if at all possible). In science fiction, there is a generally positive outcome, even if personal and technology is beyond what we currently have. And in horror, the monster (in any definition of that word) is defeated or sent back to their realm⊠mostly. If you write in the Chtulhu mythos then the cosmic entities are going to send the PoV character insane. If you write in bizarre, the monsters will often win. But those are subgenres, and getting into minutiae like that can lead to insanity (hi, Yog-Sothoth!). Yes, experimentation can take place. Tropes can be subverted. Stereotypes can be dis-reinforced. That is fine. But â and here is the main thing to remember â most readers are not writers or not into the experimentation of writing. Most readers know what they like and what they expect. Most readers read for fun and escapism, not for âmessagesâ or experiments. Yes, I know a bunch of people will say, âBut I know people who want to the message.â Awesome. You know people. Anecdotes are not evidence. Studies across the books that sell and stories that sell indicate the old, familiar tropes are the things that people want. So, how do I sell so much? Easy: What I write fits into the expectations and tropes of the genres I write in. I rarely try to sell my work that breaks away from the norm. Sure, I have sold a couple of more experimental pieces, but generally what sells is what is expected. Boring? Sure. Not challenging to a reader? Yes. But most readers do NOT want to be challenged (âI do!â is the inevitable come-back; you are not representative, and, I repeat, anecdotes are not evidence). I like to read stories that are comfortable, and so I like to write stories that are comfortable. And that is how, in my opinion, I have sold quite a bit over the years⊠|
| Endings To Avoid BookFox recently had a video about bad endings to books, and it came up on one of my Discord Servers, and we came up with 5 bad endings. BookFox mentioned the âit was all a dreamâ ending, but we decided everyone knows that ending sucks and that anyone who uses it is taking away all the character growth the reader has invested in, and is just bad on every level. One book works â Alice in Wonderland â but the whole story reads like a dream⊠or drug trip. Now, an ending is important because it what the book leads up to and what the reader has invested time into. The ending is also the thing remembered most because it is the last thing they read. So make your endings good ones. 1) Rushed Ending This is where there has been a whole lot of build-up⊠and then the ending is over in a page. So much build for so little payoff! Think the final battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort. Give us some tension, let it breathe! 2) Deus Ex Machina This is when an outside entity, force, whatever, comes in and saves the day. The characters we have lived with and been invested in have nothing to do with the ending. We feel cheated. Think the Hand of God ending of The Stand by King. 3) The Fundamental Change This is when the ending changes one of three things â genre (Picnic At Hanging Rock where the unpublished final chapter turns a chilling mystery into a UFO abduction); message; and theme. These need to be consistent or else the reader feels like theyâve experienced mental whiplash. Some books change genre well, but to do it at the end feels like a cheat. 4) An Unearned Happy Ending If the ending is happy because it is expected and so a coincidence or chance makes the end happy when the rest of the book does not lead to that, or the ending is inevitable and there are no twists or turns or doubts, the happy ending can feel unearned and flat. The characters need to work for happiness to make the reader become invested. Think the Tom Cruise version of War Of The Worlds when the son miraculously just appears unscathed at the end. 5) Untied Loose Ends Yes, sometimes this is done because it is sequel bait, I get that. But in a stand-alone book, having loose endings left open â unless, as in the case of the published version of Picnic At Hanging Rock, that is the whole point â can just annoy a reader. If there is a mystery, solve it, or have it explained why it canât be solved. If there is a third character in a love triangle, have them explained out of said mĂ©nage a trois (but donât have them fall in love with the child of the other 2⊠icky Twilight books). Donât have characters suddenly disappear (Ready Player Two, are you listening?). Tie up as much as possible within the confines of the story you are going to tell. So, five endings that a bunch of us (published) writers and publishers all feel do not really work, especially in longer works. Rules are made to be broken, sure, but you need to do it really well to break it. So the HG Wells book War Of The Worlds has the PoV characters, the humans, the army, ineffective, but microbes defeat the aliens. Is this a cheat ending? It certainly follows from 3 of the five endings here, if not all 5. But it does work because it was done well, as if the Earth itself was saving the world from the ravages of the red weed, et al. The Earth was being harassed, so of course it sent in its most formidable troops. These are not rules, as such, and you can ignore this, of course. It is just a list of the endings we felt do not work. |
| Novel #33 We come to a novel that I am not sure how to categorise. The idea is stupid, and the delivery is not the best, but I do like the characters, and I did kill a few characters off, and the ending makes sense. I also liked the setting, based originally on a local development that was being built on the site of an old reservoir, but changed completely. Still, thereâs just something about it that feels⊠odd In the end, though, Cats And Rats is pulp fiction at its finest (worst?), and the title gives away everything about the story. It clocks in at around 61,000 words, but its one beta reader think the ending should be extended out to increase the tension. Now, I started this in 2012 as part of National Novel Writing Month, an American thing that at the time had started to penetrate into some sections of the Australian writing community. I tried to finish it during the month of November, but I failed because I ended up in hospital for 10 or so days. I got 50k words done before being shunted in, but the story was not completed until December. In the end, 33 days of writing saw this completed. I wasnât working at the time, so I had a lot of time on my hands. This tale started with a very simple premise â I drew a picture some years before of a rat-man hybrid creature and decided to write about them. But the fantasy setting made them way too clichĂ©d, and so I struggled. A short story did come of it, but it is not very good. Then, some years later it came to me in a flash of what we shall call inspiration that it needed a modern setting, so an urban fantasy/horror story idea was born. To give you an idea of where it initially went in my head, the working title was Crazy Cat Lady, and a whole bunch of crazy cat ladies make an appearance, and they turned out to be very important. By the time the story was fully formed I had pipes and a forest and stupid cops. I had the beginning, I had a middle scene and I had the ending all formed, so I just started to write, hoping to get from the beginning to the end via other scenes without too much trouble. I sort of thought itâd be a long novella (short novel?), around 40k words. The story was pretty flimsy at best, the characters didnât really grow that much, and it was all by the numbers in what happened. But as I wrote it I realised that I had so much stuff in my head that it was going to be longer than I thought. Every chapter had something happen in it, it moves along at a not too bad pace and if the characters are a little like 2-dimensional stereotypes (even if I like them), so be it. Itâs the story and the ride. This novel is, in fact, truly mediocre. But thatâs okay, because I have read so much âprofessionalâ stuff that is truly mediocre, including from several multi-national huge publishing companies. So maybe mediocre is what they look for today. (Insert winking smiley here  âŠ)Excerpt: âPlease. I assure you, I am not crazy,â he tried. Joseph saw a small, fur-covered, long-fingered hand grasp the edge of the stairwell. He opened his mouth but the words stuck in his throat. Instead, all he could do was point with a trembling finger. The lawnmower man shook his head and looked down with contempt. With a speed that terrified Joseph three hands all reached up and grabbed the lawnmower man where they could, and then pulled down hard and just as fast. He lost his balance and tumbled from view in the blink of an eye, his scream ending with a very wet, echoing thud, the light from his torch switching off at the same time. But it was only when the head arose from the darkness, sniffing at the air, that Joseph moved. The small eyes set on him and narrowed, and he threw himself out of the door, then shoved it shut behind him. His trembling hands caused him to fumble too often and there was no need to guess just what the solid thing that slammed into the door from the inside was. There is a bit to like about this story, and I should go back and do a rewrite and update of it, because it is the sort of tale that seems to fit in with some of the weird or bizarre stories coming out at the moment. Again, a new beta reader probably also wouldnât go astray⊠|
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so I went ahead and read all three of them.
