B is for...

B is for Beta-reader -- a hopefully honest sort who will not only read your MS before you send it off to agents/editors/kindle, but will tell you that your main character is too-stupid-to-live and has filed papers to have her name legally changed to Mary Sue. You will love your beta and hate your beta; you will consider writing mean things to your beta and (hopefully) delete them rather than send them. You may even (secretly) name a minor character after your beta and then take pleasure in making the poor character miserable. Your beta is your first taste of editorial changes and your first reality check that what you see in your head doesn't always make it onto the page.

B is for Blog -- this is that feeling that you're screaming into the abyss of cyberspace and hoping someone pays attention. ;-P

B is for Bad reviews -- they happen. They hurt. They suck. We want people to love our books, but not everyone will. Maybe the reader doesn't like the genre or maybe the book was over-hyped to them by a friend and didn't meet their expectation. Maybe they wanted a happy ending to a sad story or a less happy ending to a romance. Even if you score the next runaway, mega-seller, someone out there will hate it. (If that happens, it's likely that thousands of someones will hate it.) They will tell others and your feelings will be hurt, your ego will be bruised, and your hackles will be raised. At this point, B is for Be Careful, lest a Bad Attitude turn into Bickering and Bad Press.

B is for Backstory -- aka, Anakin Skywalker vs. the Star Wars title crawl. No matter where your story starts, or what condition your character is when he/she is introduced, their life as known by you is no more a product of that independent moment than you just appeared on the bus fully-clothed in 2nd grade. Good stories start before "Chapter One" and continue after "The End", or at least that's how it should seem to the reader. The question is, how much of what happened off the page should actually be ON the page? Here's a hint: "Luke, I am your father." is a really important detail the audience needs to know. The entire socio-economic history and breakdown of trade negotiations for planets never to be used again? Not so much.

B is for Breathless, Bitter, Bright, Beg, and Bored -- action should leave your reader breathless; you should never betray their trust to the point you leave them bitter; bright ideas are a dime a dozen (while good execution is rarer than platinum); if you do it right they'll beg for another installment; never, never, never leave a reader bored. The only reason a reader should fall asleep over your book is because they stayed up until four in the morning to finish it.

Next time on Josin's Junction: C is for Contracts, Characters and Critique.

A is for Author

I've been a little light on posts lately, not so much because of the 10,000 word delete-a-thon with the MS edits, but more because I was waiting for an "awesome" blog topic to drop into my head. Then it came to me - blogging is like writing (Okay, blogging IS writing. Shut up or I'll kill you off in a novel in ways you can't even imagine.).

Anywho -

Blogging is like writing. Sometimes, it just takes BIC (butt-in-chair) time to get posts done, even when there's no parting clouds or heavenly choirs involved. To that end, I'm going with the ABC's - each letter will be a different aspect of the writing process or journey. So my dear blog-buddies, skip on over to Josin's Junction (not as close to Sesame Street as you'd imagine, though there is a resident grouch and purple vampires are always welcome... unless someone turns Barney, then we put the priest on speed dial.) Let's start with "The Letter A".

A is for Author -- what we all aspire to be. You are a writer the second you put words in a chain to form a story, but to be an author requires input from an outside source. Either someone buys the rights to your story and publishes it, or someone buys your Kindle novel to enjoy, or someone clicks on your FictionPress account and puts you on alert for future chapters. To be an author, you must have readers.

A is for Agent -- what most of us aspire to have some day. These lovely people know the ins and outs of the business. They know the editors and they know the market. They know how many vanilla-flavored were-dolphin (It's a real South American folktale, do not give me weird looks, or I'll write you in as the bait in a piranha attack.) novels are due to hit shelves. At times, they seem beyond reach, but we keep trying to land one. (The agent, not the were-dolphin).

A is for Anger, Apathy, Admiration, Agony, and Aspiration -- things you will feel at some point during the writing process. Sometimes, you'll feel them all at once, think you're losing your mind, but quickly realize that as an writer you're allowed to have multiple personalities and voices in your head. (Check your union card; it's on the back.)

Next time on Josin's Junction: B is for Beta-reader, Bad reviews, and Backstory...

Flash Fiction -- Flaming Moe

It's that time again. Chuck Wendig has issued his weekly flash fiction challenge (but cut the words in half this time). The title this week had to be a cocktail, and then he went and posted about a bear with a scimitar and a jetpack on meth. So, I blame him for this.

I chose the title "Flaming Moe" because there's something decidedly Simpsonesque about this whole set-up.

Like most bad ideas, it sounded good at the time. Considering "the time" was a moment when all involved were so plastered they couldn't remember their name, eye-color, or state of residence, it probably would have been best if they'd just passed out on someone's couch.

Idiot Number One (as their names were being withheld by authorities) had picked up some extra shifts at the convention center while the circus was in town, so he had access.

Idiot Number Two had a car.

Idiot Number Three had a camera. (All three had smartphones, but, being idiots, they forgot this tiny detail, and actually waited to find a camera.)

When they reached the convention center, as near as anyone can tell, Idiot Number One let the others in through a back door meant for service personnel. They snuck through the auxiliary areas into the portion of the prep-space that had been cordoned off for circus use. (As no one thought there was a danger of three idiots sneaking in to annoy several thousand combined pounds of wild animals, security was light.)

Now, at this point, they could have gotten bored, or chosen one of the smaller animals because they had no idea how the place was laid out or how long it would take to locate something more spectacular, but Idiot Number Two (whose possession of a car meant he knew how to turn knobs and push buttons) found a light switch.

Turning it on only made things worse because that was the point they discovered that not only was the room full of animals, but the circus trunks were littered about as well, and since they were already miles down the road of ill intent, they figured a few more feet along the way couldn't hurt.

While Idiot Number Three selected a target, Idiots One and Two raided the costume trunks, and in their addled stupor came to the conclusion that a Turkish scimitar went smashingly with the Human Bullet's jetpack. (It was the jetpack that did them in really, because they had to pick an animal with "arms" to fit it. Up to that point, Idiot Number Three had set his sights on the giant tortoise.)

The young grizzly they finally decided on was still half asleep when they picked the lock on his enclosure and slipped the jetpack on his back. They used a scarf to tie the scimitar to one of his paws, then stepped back so Idiot Number Three could line up a shot... but the bear just wanted to go back to sleep.

Undeterred, the three idiots, who were still trashed, decided the poor animal needed a pick me up, and never having been the kind to hoard their stash, spiked a bit of food from the treat barrel and tossed it over. Then they waited and waited and waited and...

… well, no one really knows what happened after that. The camera didn't stay upright long enough to capture more than their screaming voices.

And that's where I ran out of words :-(

Steampunk'd!

Today is April 1, which means you can trust nothing you see, read or hear online (or almost anywhere else) until midnight.

As per tradition, Absolute Write has altered itself for the day, and this year's "theme" is Steampunk! YAY!

(Okay, so maybe I just wanted an excuse to upload my steampunk'd self...)

Anyway, fire up the old computational engine and be on your guard, for today, nothing is as it seems!

*atmospheric, creepy laughter*

Those Books We Loved... but can't remember

I've been reading some blog posts today about the books we loved as kids. This one in particular, which is part of the YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday, sparked this post.

At the time the post went up, Kathleen, the blogger, mentioned a series she loved as a kid, but couldn't remember the name of. (Thanks to some details provided, someone else gave her the title.) I found myself in a similar spot - knowing the plot, but not the title of a book I'd loved as a kid. I realized half-way through my answer that one of Kathleen's favorites was the title I was missing.

My list of favorite books was similar to hers:

• The Dollhouse Murders
• Wait 'Til Helen Comes
• Christina's Ghost (the forgotten title)
• The Vampire's Promise novels (though I'm fairly certain they had a different name back in the day)
• Christopher Pike
  
• I also read a lot of Poe, and the "Spooky Stories to Tell in the Dark" short stories.

It's really not all that difficult to see where my proclivity for dark-slanted tales comes from. (The irony of this is, I'm not a fan of gory horror. I much prefer psychological chills to blood and guts.)

All of that was just the lead in for my "real" post:

There's a book I read as a kid that I loved, but I've since forgotten the title. I'm wondering if anyone out there recognizes this set-up:

• It would have probably been published in the early 90's (though it's possible that it was an 80's hold-over), paperback and not very thick.
• The story was vampires (I've mentioned my fascination with the bloodsuckers, yeah?)
• The main character was a teenage boy 15-16 yrs old who lived in a boardwalk town (I'm wanting to call him Jesse.)
• His best (girl) friend had been taken by the "big bad" vampire, who was living in the shuttered boardwalk amusement park.
• The "less bad" vampire (because she certainly wasn't good) agreed to help rescue the girl because she wanted to destroy the "big bad" vampire, so she and the teen teamed up.
• They rescue the girl, and the big bad gets killed, but what made me remember this book was that it wasn't a happy ending. The last scene was in a sort of clubhouse, or treehouse, where the teen had taken his friend (because it was a standing structure with a threshold that couldn't be crossed, IIRC). She was out cold in an easy chair, and the very end had her waking up, him hugging her happily just as the scene faded to black on the light glinting off her new fangs.

Granted, I read a TON of thriller-style books as a kid, so it's entirely possible that my brain has melded two or three into one storyline that never actually existed, but I really want to find out the title of this book if it's out there.

Most kids' books are of the "happily ever after" and "problems solved by dinnertime" variety. Stumbling on one where victory was pulled out of reach at the last second was jarring, and obviously left an impression.

No Question About It.

GAH!

I have developed a new writing "tic", and I have no idea where it came from. I keep leaving off the friggin' question marks from the ends of questions and replacing them with periods.

I've caught myself doing this over the last few days, and have even found instances of it in my WIP's. Why is my pinkie finger avoiding the ??? key?


WHY?????????????

There... I feel better now. :-P

Back to work.

Self-Publishing Quandry

Here's a thought for discussion:

We've seen, over and over and over, writers put forth the mantra that it's not the idea, it's the execution that matters. So, putting that together with the idea that self-publishing might be on the upswing (with ebooks), let me ask you this:

What do you think the effect will be on trends?

Assume that the marketplace settles into a happy medium, with commercial publishers operating as they have been, but with another branch of successful "straight to ebook" self-publishers who have their own fans waiting to gobble up books as fast as they can hit upload. (What I think is the likely outcome to this "shift", but that's beside the point.)

Okay, now assume that a debut author nets a major deal (it's rare, but it happens *waves to Teherah*), and Publisher's Marketplace goes on to list the "specifics" --

First time author Newly Published, in a 3-book deal to Major House.
REALLY AWESOME SERIES is a fresh take on ... blah, blah, blah. It was pitched as Twilight meets Glee, but with garden gnomes.

So, all the writers out there who choose to write to trends start penning stories about singing, sparkly garden gnomes. Other publishers are looking for similar material to put out at the same time, yadda, yadda, yadda... 18 months later the shelves are full of pointy-hat-wearing gnomes singing and pining for human girls they want to eat for dinner.

However, two months after the PM announcement, someone with a decent fan following on Kindle, who happens to have very fast fingers uploads their own "Twilight meets Glee, but with garden gnomes" novel.

It's not plagiarism, because it's their book. It's not even unusual, given that writers tend to chase trends, but what impact do you think it'll have at the end of that 18 months, when the hardbound gnome book hits shelves and those who've been chomping through ebooks are tired of gnomes?

Do you think the two systems will have their own trends, independent of each other or what?

** discuss **