Writing Advice

After reading the Jeff Vandermeer advice for writers below I started to think of what advice has really stuck with me over time. A few things seem jammed in the wet confines of my Hippocampus:

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
— Salvador Dali

And so, by giving myself permission to fail, I was able to begin.
— James Patrick Kelly

And the now famous The only 12.5 writing rules you'll ever need:

1. If you write every day, you'll get better at writing every day.
2. If it's boring to you, it's boring to your reader.
3. Get a writing routine, and stick with it.
4. Poetry does NOT have to rhyme.
5. Resist stereotypes, in real life and in your writing.
6. Writers read. Writers read a lot. Writers read all the time.
7. Make lists of your favorite words and books and places and things.
8. There doesn't always have to be a moral to the story.
9. Always bring your notebook. Always bring a spare pen.
10. Go for walks. Dance. Pull weeks. Do the dishes. Write about it.
11. Don't settle on just one style. Try something new!
12. Learn to tell both sides of the story.
12 1/2. Stop looking at this list. WRITE SOMETHING!

I've always thought that in writing and reading fiction it's more about the journey than the destination.

And whatever you do, please never go for one of Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations, let your story develop on it's own.

Jeff Vandermeer

My buds over at Skullring.org just clued me into an interesting read on advice for writers from Jeff Vandermeer entitled "Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing," it's worth a read and maybe even printing out.

Never seek validation from others. Some people will always think you should not be a writer. Some people will always think you should be a writer. All of these people are fools. There is only one way to determine whether or not you are a writer: you must find the secret tunnel leading to the hidden door. Once there, you must place your hand upon the doorknob. If you are really a writer, the door will open. You will be ushered into a magical palace. Inside of this palace, a beautiful woman (or man, depending on your wont) will take your hand and whisper in your ear, “I’m glad you made it here. I need someone to mop the marble floors. I’ll pay you good money. This will keep you from starving while you write.” Of course, everyone is chosen. The door opens for everyone.

Go read it right now. Refresh your coffee later.

Automaton Books

This doesn't have much to do with writing but these books are animated with a sensor so when you walk past them as they sit on your shelf the middle one slides out a bit and they emit spooky sounds.

Writing a Novel on a Cell Phone

Robert Bernocco, an IT professional took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), on his Nokia using the phone's T9 typing system.

I love the idea behind this. Writing a novel in spare moments here and there is something I think more people could do if they thought seriously about it. The concept isn't new, it was used as a plot device in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Hocus Pocus. I guess the danger is in it turing out more like a blog than narrative fiction. Plus I STILL can't type efficiently on my cell phone...

But for some writers that's the trick; writing a little every day. I know people who write great swaths of text every day and others who struggle to bang out a few sentances...but they write every day. It has to do with how you not only manage your time but how you view your tools.

Collaborative Novels

I've never been one for writing with a partner. Sure I've collaborated on scripts and short stories and one novel with other people but overall I prefer to write alone. But the idea of a communal novel has always fascinated me. One that everyone thinks of first is opensourcenovel.com which is up to um...page 4 as of this post. I'd contribute to it but it's written in the first person and I'm not a big fan of anything other than 3rd, I'm snootish like that. Then there's Novel Twists which is quite similar and up to page 41. A million penguins is another one but much further along.

Scriblist is interesting because it could be a door to getting published.

Other famous collaborative books range from the classic novel format such as The Whole Family which had 12 authors, one for each chapter (Natural Suspect is a modern version of that idea) to the more technically minded tomes of Wikibooks and a variant on that called OpenEffort. Even fan fiction has dipped into the idea with things like the Blade Runner Interactive Story.

There are even collaboratively created worlds such as those at Galaxiki.

One thing to consider regarding open source collaborative novels is the concept of crowdsourcing where the creative energy expended transitions from something fun and donated to something that's labor and a potential profit making project.

Another thing is that this collaborative crowdsourced novel idea doesn't always work. Smart Gene is an example of this. Then there was unblokt which (I think, from memory here) allowed a different person to pen each sentence in a collaborative novel.

Other than Wiki's there are a few online tools out there for open sourcing novels. Two of the best I think are Glypho and Writeboard.

(There is some novel that was written collaboratively by various authors mailing in their chapters and not having read or even knowing about the other authors work. It was published and there was some confusion about it but I just cannot remember the name of it...gah. I'll post it here if I think of it.)

Overall, other than for the sake of art I don't think collaborative novels work all that well. Too many cooks and all ya know? As experimental art okay, and for technical books it could work but for fiction I'm beginning to think that even two authors is one too many for a novel.

Gordonator Precision Search Engine

I have no idea really how accurate or updated the "Gordonator Precision Search Engine" is but it's a good idea overall.

The Gordonator Precision Search Engine (GPSE) seems merely complex, but is actually extremely complex. The basic idea is to make finite categories which describe the plot, character, setting, and style of a book or movie and list those categories to users and reviewers in a logically organized hierarchical system. By making the categories finite and presenting them to the user, the user is helped because he is presented with the same list that the reviewer of the book used when the book was categorized. Also, by presenting the categories to the user, the list of options may give search ideas to the user that the user hadn't before considered.

Try it out here and see for yourself.

Of course the main site has a more basic plot search engine but it's not that good. Searching for "talking spider" did not turn up Charlotte's Web.

Harry Potter vs Trees

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

first printing will consume 16,700 tons of paper (which, depending on whose estimates of tree per piece of paper you believe, equals roughly 400,800 trees), according to Scholastic.

Although some editions will be printed on recycled paper and some of the wood for the initial print run comes from so-called "sustainably harvested" trees, that's still an astonishing figure.

Hyping Your Own Book

Antony Moore describes the trials and tribulations and, frankly, dirty tricks of a first-time author trying to get his book noticed in the days just after its ‘birth’

I really can't put it any more succinctly than that. The very interesting article is here.

Read A Book

Read A Book is a music video (with some potentially offensive lyrics) that addresses the lack of interest in not only reading and literacy but other issues as well. It's not a race issue, in my opinion, it's a question of the individual and what they see the future holding for themselves and their level of self-worth. It's causing quite a stir on some message boards.

Either way it's serious satire in the true denotative sense of the word.

(Thanks to Willie for the link)

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Ok, this doesn't have much to do with real writing but Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is just a brilliant parody of classic 80's horror television and celebrity authors like Stephen King.

The premise of the series is that in the mid-1980s, Garth Marenghi and his publisher Dean Learner made their own TV series on a shoestring budget. Set in Darkplace Hospital in Romford, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace tells of the adventures of Dr. Rick Dagless, MD, as he fights the forces of darkness while simultaneously coping with the pressures of running a modern hospital. In spite of the programme's obvious flaws — wooden acting, cringeworthy scripts and amazingly poor special effects, to name but three — both Marenghi and Learner still regard the series as a masterpiece. But nobody else does, which is why it's taken nearly 20 years to reach the screen.

It's hilarious, and to me at least, what's funnier still are the interviews (most of the good ones are on the DVD) where they play up in perfect style the self-aggrandizing gobbledegook that most interviews with artists end up being full of.

If you've ever been a fan of 80's horror and horror authors and shows like Tales from the Crypt and Monsters, then you're bound to love Garth. It's just fascinating how saying just about the same things about writing and creating horror and fiction in real interviews and then in a parodic context end up being so hilarious.





Here's a sample of an interview with his Publisher:

"I will generally put in punctuation. I see that as my job. Garth, does one draft. He doesn't want to dalliance by constantly revising. He'll do one draft and he'll often elect to omit punctuation. That's his call. I will, put in commas. I won't put in semi-colons, this isn't Joyce. Um...I will omit dashes, again, this isn't French writing. I will make sure sentences start with capital letters; that's what they're called. I will make sure the book is long enough. Or should I say, thick enough. And that could be a question of adding more words. It could be a question of making the paper thicker. Depends what we've got time for."

Some Harry Potter Books Are Missing Pages

Egads.

The Associated Press reports that Scholastic said that of the twelve million books printed, several hundred have pages missing.

And this is to be expected I guess. It is one of, if not the, largest initial print run in history.

I did buy an anthology many years ago of short horror fiction and while I was reading it I noticed that it had a chunk of pages in the middle duplicated. I went back to the store and they happily exchanged it but it was a weird experience. People come to trust books in many ways and to see one flawed like that was just unsettling in some way to me.

It's a bit frightening to wonder if any of the as of yet unread books lining my walls are defective...

THE BIG BOX OF OLD PAPERBACKS BOOK CLUB

Last summer, while shopping at a Half Price Books And Records location in Chicago, I [Keith Phipps] came across something I didn’t know I needed until I saw it. After perusing the recent arrivals, I made my way to the less heavily trafficked back of the store where, next to stacks of back issues of Good Housekeeping I found a big, narrow box wrapped in plastic. It contained over 75 old paperbacks published between the ‘60s and ‘80s, all of it genre fiction, most of it science fiction. I had to have it, and at the price of $35, I somehow couldn’t afford not to buy it.

I also gave myself the project of reading the entire box. And after neglecting that project for a while, I decided to revive it here

He's started on his 5th book and I think it's a lot of fun to keep up with his reading of the entire box.

(I've always though books with commercials/advertisements in them were just hilarious.)

The Accuracy of Novels

I don't mean how accurate the facts contained therein may be but how accurately your edition of a novel is represented according to the author's original text. Take the infamous Great Illustrated Classics editions for example.

GIC published The Time Machine a while back since it's in the public domain just about everywhere right now. It'll be PD in the EU around 2017. But they changed the text without really letting anyone know. But this wasn't the first time the text of The Time Machine was altered upon publication.

The Time Machine was first published as a series between 1894 and 1895. But even back then it was altered before reaching the public's eyes, for an entire chapter was excised because it was thought too harsh or depressing or just too shocking for the readers of that time. You can read this "lost" chapter here.

But, the GIC edition did something even more sinister in my opinion; it ADDED an entire chapter to the novel (and changed the ending). This chapter, added years later...

[Tells of a time] in which the Time Traveller blunders into a highly advanced future society where time travel is illegal. The time machine is confiscated and the Traveller is arrested, but he eventually escapes after one of the future men attempts to steal the time machine.

It makes you wonder just how complete or at least what version of a novel you have and have read is. One red flag unfortunately may be the simple fact that the novel is now in the public domain.

Stealing By Remembering

This is something to think about. Is it legal to read a book in a bookstore without buying it and then leave? And if not, why is it okay to read that same book in a Library without checking it out and then leave?

Here's a fun comic about this.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.

I haven't tried it but I hear (and read) good things about it. I don't know much about online copyright and how rights and usage in the real world translate to the interwebtubes but this could prove helpful to someone.

For me it's interesting because I'm seriously considering releasing a novel I've been working on online in it's entirety so maybe a Creative Commons "Some Rights Reserved" license is just what I'd need.