FYI, all my indie-pubbed ebooks are going out free this Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 12 and 13).
That's: Salesman of the Year, The Black Box, Hot Status, Mad Minute, The Exploding Wizard's Right-Hand Boy, and Kindle Creation for Control Freaks.
All of them free for two days. Go for it!
Monday, November 10, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
CHARACTER ARC
Hollywood loves the character arc. Studios and producers want the main character of every script to be transformed by the process of the story.
Since the happy ending is wanted most often, it wouldn't do for the character to end up worse than he started. This means main characters must start out flawed—and work to remove that flaw during the course of the movie.
As a consequence, heroes always learn stuff. They learn to be more tolerant of others. They learn to love. They learn to enjoy life. They learn to take responsibility. They learn to trust.
And so on.
Whatever it is they learn to do, they have trouble with the concept at the beginning of the story. They're spoiled, broken creatures. They may not know how messed up they are at first, but they're about to find out.
Character and plot intertwine.
The hero has a flaw, and the adventure he's about to endure is just the medicine he needs to set him right.
If all is well designed, the hero's flaw puts the whole enterprise at risk—including innocent bystanders (and the love interest). He has to address his flaw to complete his mission and save the day.
In other words, the main action is designed by the author to attack the hero's flaw. The story forces his defect to take the stage, where it demands his immediate attention.
Plot and flaw are therefore bound together.
If you start your story development process with a flawed character, let the nature of the flaw create the details of your plot.
If you start with a plot situation, design a main character who would be hit the hardest by whatever monster you've set loose.
In the simon-pure arc design, the character flaw is the plot problem. That's formula.
In so far as you want to move away from formula, you need to slide the hero's flaw away from center stage. In this case, fixing the flaw doesn't literally conquer the main plot problem. Though it should definitely help.
(An interesting variation: fixing the character flaw leads directly to disaster on the plot level.)
In a more subtle story, the entire back and forth sequence of events—whether they ultimately lead to success or failure—has the effect of altering the main character's emotional or psychological makeup.
Here, the change (like other story elements in this subtle environment) is a lot more subdued. The flaw may not be entirely eradicated in the end, but it has at least been noticed by the main character. He may now start to address it. Baby steps.
It's hard for a character in a series (TV episodes or passel of novels) to change. It would mess with the very concept of the overall story.
In this case, it's the "guest character" who may participate in an emotional arc, coming out a changed person at the end. The week-to-week series characters stay the same, ready to encounter new situations and guest characters in the next episode. You always know where you stand with those guys.
It used to be television was based on the series. The Lone Ranger was always the Lone Ranger. Tonto would never abandon him in a tight situation. (Insert the Lone Ranger joke here: Tonto sides with the Indians.)
Nowadays, the series is more often a serial. Characters change. Even fundamental elements of the background change. Good guys become bad guys, and so forth. Night-time drama imitates day-time drama.
In the indie pub world, the pendulum is once more in motion, swinging back to the series. As I mentioned earlier on this blog, Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords) says the books that sell best on his site are full-length series novels (~75k) that can be read in any order. Series, not serial.
The danger with character arc comes when it is forcibly inserted into the story.
In the movie Liar Liar, a trial lawyer is forced to tell the truth for a whole day. This is funny because as we all know lawyers lie all the time. You could design this story with a real-world reason why the guy can't lie. Something to do with a big bet or something.
But the movie goes with a fantasy-world device: a child's birthday wish. The kid feels abandoned by his dad because the guy breaks promises to hang with him. The kid sees this broken promise as a lie, and so tries to stop his dad from lying.
That's a logical flaw. A broken promise (caused by job pressures) in not a lie. The kid should have wished for his dad to spend more time with him. But where's the fun in that? (Okay, there's a movie there, too, but not the one they made.)
The movie makers were required to have their main character learn something from the action that somehow changes him in a fundamental manner. This desire (or corporate mandate) warped the concept and weakened the movie, which ought to be about how the inability to lie messes up your life.
I guess the lesson is, if you can't be subtle in your character arc, at least be ruthlessly logical.
I'll leave you with this: Having flaws is one of the basic ways of defining character. Fixing those flaws destroys that character. Do you really want to do that?
Since the happy ending is wanted most often, it wouldn't do for the character to end up worse than he started. This means main characters must start out flawed—and work to remove that flaw during the course of the movie.
As a consequence, heroes always learn stuff. They learn to be more tolerant of others. They learn to love. They learn to enjoy life. They learn to take responsibility. They learn to trust.
And so on.
Whatever it is they learn to do, they have trouble with the concept at the beginning of the story. They're spoiled, broken creatures. They may not know how messed up they are at first, but they're about to find out.
Character and plot intertwine.
The hero has a flaw, and the adventure he's about to endure is just the medicine he needs to set him right.
If all is well designed, the hero's flaw puts the whole enterprise at risk—including innocent bystanders (and the love interest). He has to address his flaw to complete his mission and save the day.
In other words, the main action is designed by the author to attack the hero's flaw. The story forces his defect to take the stage, where it demands his immediate attention.
Plot and flaw are therefore bound together.
If you start your story development process with a flawed character, let the nature of the flaw create the details of your plot.
If you start with a plot situation, design a main character who would be hit the hardest by whatever monster you've set loose.
In the simon-pure arc design, the character flaw is the plot problem. That's formula.
In so far as you want to move away from formula, you need to slide the hero's flaw away from center stage. In this case, fixing the flaw doesn't literally conquer the main plot problem. Though it should definitely help.
(An interesting variation: fixing the character flaw leads directly to disaster on the plot level.)
In a more subtle story, the entire back and forth sequence of events—whether they ultimately lead to success or failure—has the effect of altering the main character's emotional or psychological makeup.
Here, the change (like other story elements in this subtle environment) is a lot more subdued. The flaw may not be entirely eradicated in the end, but it has at least been noticed by the main character. He may now start to address it. Baby steps.
It's hard for a character in a series (TV episodes or passel of novels) to change. It would mess with the very concept of the overall story.
In this case, it's the "guest character" who may participate in an emotional arc, coming out a changed person at the end. The week-to-week series characters stay the same, ready to encounter new situations and guest characters in the next episode. You always know where you stand with those guys.
It used to be television was based on the series. The Lone Ranger was always the Lone Ranger. Tonto would never abandon him in a tight situation. (Insert the Lone Ranger joke here: Tonto sides with the Indians.)
Nowadays, the series is more often a serial. Characters change. Even fundamental elements of the background change. Good guys become bad guys, and so forth. Night-time drama imitates day-time drama.
In the indie pub world, the pendulum is once more in motion, swinging back to the series. As I mentioned earlier on this blog, Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords) says the books that sell best on his site are full-length series novels (~75k) that can be read in any order. Series, not serial.
The danger with character arc comes when it is forcibly inserted into the story.
In the movie Liar Liar, a trial lawyer is forced to tell the truth for a whole day. This is funny because as we all know lawyers lie all the time. You could design this story with a real-world reason why the guy can't lie. Something to do with a big bet or something.
But the movie goes with a fantasy-world device: a child's birthday wish. The kid feels abandoned by his dad because the guy breaks promises to hang with him. The kid sees this broken promise as a lie, and so tries to stop his dad from lying.
That's a logical flaw. A broken promise (caused by job pressures) in not a lie. The kid should have wished for his dad to spend more time with him. But where's the fun in that? (Okay, there's a movie there, too, but not the one they made.)
The movie makers were required to have their main character learn something from the action that somehow changes him in a fundamental manner. This desire (or corporate mandate) warped the concept and weakened the movie, which ought to be about how the inability to lie messes up your life.
I guess the lesson is, if you can't be subtle in your character arc, at least be ruthlessly logical.
I'll leave you with this: Having flaws is one of the basic ways of defining character. Fixing those flaws destroys that character. Do you really want to do that?
Friday, October 17, 2014
CHARACTERS
Here's a few words about creating characters for your works of fiction.
It may be these words will be irrelevant to you. Perhaps in your case there are characters flowing from your fingertips without limit, all clamoring to take up space in your next oeuvre.
I'm writing for the rest of us.
There are a number of ways of coming up with a character:
You can grab one right out of the world. Just use somebody in your book you know from life. Your dad, your sister, your barber, your dope dealer.
But if you put your best friend in your book—and use his or her real name—you might get sued.
Actually, even if you change the name, the real person may recognize himself and object. They might claim you are holding them up to ridicule from the world.
So you could try this: Take a real person, then change him in some significant way. And change the name, of course.
(A woman used her best friend as a character, but changed her into some sort of a bitch [she really wasn't a bitch]. The writer got sued—successfully, I'm pretty sure.)
If you're taking from real people, its safer to mix and match a number of traits. And keep your lawyer handy.
Safer yet: write under a pseudonym and never hint to anyone you're publishing stuff.
Because even if you make it all up, folks will find themselves in your work and get mad (followed by litigious). Thomas Wolfe claimed all the characters in Look Homeward, Angel were fictional, along with the events. Still, the folks in his home town saw themselves in his work and bristled. They even remembered events Wolfe claimed he made up out of whole cloth.
(They hated his guts for awhile, but reconciled shortly before the end of his short life.)
Sometimes you come up with an interesting character and cast about for a place to use them. Character is action, they say (Aristotle said it first, no doubt). Your characters just naturally ache to perform, to act out their traits, to make themselves real.
One way to develop a plot around a character is to ask yourself what his most vulnerable area is—then attack it in the story. If he's shy, make him give a speech before a large audience. If she can't swim, toss her in the ocean and watch the fun begin.
Books on writing suggest you write a detailed biography of your characters. What they look like, what they wear, what they drive, how they live, what they were like in high school, and so forth.
The books say "write it down." What they mean, of course, is "make it up." And then write it down.
(Of course you don't have to make it up if you're writing about real people, like some high school idiot who really did barf down the back of a chick's dress.)
The novelist E. M. Forster (in Aspects of the Novel) says readers find characters "real" when the author knows everything about them—though it may not all be revealed in the novel.
In his lectures about the people in novels, Forster suggests a mixture of flat and round characters is acceptable for most books. Flat characters have but one trait, which is easily described in a single sentence. Flat characters border on "types."
Forster would have you save the round characters for the main guys. They have multiple traits and cannot be summed up in a single sentence. The test of a round character is that they can surprise the reader in a convincing way. In other words, round characters have hidden content that may come out under pressure, like pearls hidden in a tube of tooth paste.
(By the way, Aspects of the Novel is well worth a look. But it's not so much a book about how to write a novel as it is a book about how to read one.)
Like I say, some writers begin with characters and contrive something for them to do—a way of revealing that character. Modern novels rarely explain their characters explicitly; readers have to build them up on their own from a list of their actions. (Dialogue is action, as are revealed thoughts.)
Other writers conceive of situations (a new way to murder someone, a new place to do it, etc.) and engineer characters to play the rolls required by the situation.
This method does not prevent you from creating round characters to act in your dramas. You just have to put on your "people making" hat. And be prepared to let those three-dimensional characters distort your precious plot. Might do you some good. (Or do the book some good, at least; you may be seething with rage the whole time.)
If you're constructing your characters from a junk yard of random parts, consider this: Astrology may be a load of crap, but a lot of people think they can guess your sign by your exhibited traits.
This would suggest the cluster of traits provided by astrology books for a given sign is widely considered to be credible. You might therefore be able to use these descriptions to reinforce the internal logic of your made-up characters or to help fill out their 3-D forms.
There's also information in astrology books (widely believed, apparently) detailing which signs are compatible with one another. Who should couple with whom, and who should be avoided at all costs. Could be useful for getting your characters in and out of trouble.
(I'm not suggesting you tell the reader what astrological signs your characters have—though I suppose you could.)
If you know a lot of real people very well, you could also use clusters of their traits as a guide. But here's the danger in that. Fiction is fiction, and you must stand guard when you allow the real world to roam your made-up territory.
Whether you're creating characters or constructing plots, reality is no excuse. That "it really did happen just that way" is irrelevant. Reality pulls no weight here. Inner consistency should be your watch word. A person or occurrence needs to be plausible in the context of the world you've created.
And maybe just a little surprising.
It may be these words will be irrelevant to you. Perhaps in your case there are characters flowing from your fingertips without limit, all clamoring to take up space in your next oeuvre.
I'm writing for the rest of us.
There are a number of ways of coming up with a character:
You can grab one right out of the world. Just use somebody in your book you know from life. Your dad, your sister, your barber, your dope dealer.
But if you put your best friend in your book—and use his or her real name—you might get sued.
Actually, even if you change the name, the real person may recognize himself and object. They might claim you are holding them up to ridicule from the world.
So you could try this: Take a real person, then change him in some significant way. And change the name, of course.
(A woman used her best friend as a character, but changed her into some sort of a bitch [she really wasn't a bitch]. The writer got sued—successfully, I'm pretty sure.)
If you're taking from real people, its safer to mix and match a number of traits. And keep your lawyer handy.
Safer yet: write under a pseudonym and never hint to anyone you're publishing stuff.
Because even if you make it all up, folks will find themselves in your work and get mad (followed by litigious). Thomas Wolfe claimed all the characters in Look Homeward, Angel were fictional, along with the events. Still, the folks in his home town saw themselves in his work and bristled. They even remembered events Wolfe claimed he made up out of whole cloth.
(They hated his guts for awhile, but reconciled shortly before the end of his short life.)
Sometimes you come up with an interesting character and cast about for a place to use them. Character is action, they say (Aristotle said it first, no doubt). Your characters just naturally ache to perform, to act out their traits, to make themselves real.
One way to develop a plot around a character is to ask yourself what his most vulnerable area is—then attack it in the story. If he's shy, make him give a speech before a large audience. If she can't swim, toss her in the ocean and watch the fun begin.
Books on writing suggest you write a detailed biography of your characters. What they look like, what they wear, what they drive, how they live, what they were like in high school, and so forth.
The books say "write it down." What they mean, of course, is "make it up." And then write it down.
(Of course you don't have to make it up if you're writing about real people, like some high school idiot who really did barf down the back of a chick's dress.)
The novelist E. M. Forster (in Aspects of the Novel) says readers find characters "real" when the author knows everything about them—though it may not all be revealed in the novel.
In his lectures about the people in novels, Forster suggests a mixture of flat and round characters is acceptable for most books. Flat characters have but one trait, which is easily described in a single sentence. Flat characters border on "types."
Forster would have you save the round characters for the main guys. They have multiple traits and cannot be summed up in a single sentence. The test of a round character is that they can surprise the reader in a convincing way. In other words, round characters have hidden content that may come out under pressure, like pearls hidden in a tube of tooth paste.
(By the way, Aspects of the Novel is well worth a look. But it's not so much a book about how to write a novel as it is a book about how to read one.)
Like I say, some writers begin with characters and contrive something for them to do—a way of revealing that character. Modern novels rarely explain their characters explicitly; readers have to build them up on their own from a list of their actions. (Dialogue is action, as are revealed thoughts.)
Other writers conceive of situations (a new way to murder someone, a new place to do it, etc.) and engineer characters to play the rolls required by the situation.
This method does not prevent you from creating round characters to act in your dramas. You just have to put on your "people making" hat. And be prepared to let those three-dimensional characters distort your precious plot. Might do you some good. (Or do the book some good, at least; you may be seething with rage the whole time.)
If you're constructing your characters from a junk yard of random parts, consider this: Astrology may be a load of crap, but a lot of people think they can guess your sign by your exhibited traits.
This would suggest the cluster of traits provided by astrology books for a given sign is widely considered to be credible. You might therefore be able to use these descriptions to reinforce the internal logic of your made-up characters or to help fill out their 3-D forms.
There's also information in astrology books (widely believed, apparently) detailing which signs are compatible with one another. Who should couple with whom, and who should be avoided at all costs. Could be useful for getting your characters in and out of trouble.
(I'm not suggesting you tell the reader what astrological signs your characters have—though I suppose you could.)
If you know a lot of real people very well, you could also use clusters of their traits as a guide. But here's the danger in that. Fiction is fiction, and you must stand guard when you allow the real world to roam your made-up territory.
Whether you're creating characters or constructing plots, reality is no excuse. That "it really did happen just that way" is irrelevant. Reality pulls no weight here. Inner consistency should be your watch word. A person or occurrence needs to be plausible in the context of the world you've created.
And maybe just a little surprising.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
MORE PLOT THOUGHTS
Last time I talked about plot, using as an example the conundrum story of the fox, the duck, and the bag of grain. Now I want to get more general.
When Alexander Dumas fils decided to try his hand at playwriting, he asked if his dad had any advice. The old man did: "First act clear, last act short, all acts interesting."
The traditional three-act structure of stage drama can easily be adapted to the writing of stories and novels. Generally: Act One is the setup (location, period, characters, their goals); Act Two is filled with complications (answering the question: why can't the main character achieve his goal immediately); Act Three is the resolution (the MC succeeds or fails, and the consequences thereof).
When Dumas pere said "first act clear," he meant exactly that: a reader should come out of it with a clear understanding of who the main characters are, where they want to go, and that they're on their way. Leave no doubt. (Doubt may be something the MC experiences at some point toward the end of Act Two.)
At the end of Act One we're off! We're in motion! We're at the beginning of what is tantalizingly called "rising action."
The complications of Act Two represent more rising action. Each obstacle should be bigger and nastier and harder to overcome than the one before. Rising action. The man faces three assassins at once. Then: five!
If your MC defeats five major fighters all coming at him at once in a rabid pack, but is later confronted by two mediocre fighters causing a minor sweat, you have a problem. Falling action.
Falling action is a signal to the reader (or audience) that things are winding up (or winding down), that the story is chugging into the station.
On the other hand, maybe it's like this. Your guy defeats five, then barely defeats two, the MC disastrously running out of steam. That could indicate something bad is happening to his powers—which is another, perhaps more insidious complication. And that's okay.
But the overall threat level should be going up all the way to the climax, where it maxes out, demanding the utmost effort from the MC.
Don't have your guy defeat the most powerful evil character, only to face the guy's lame sidekick. Unless it's meant to be a joke, the sidekick slapped down without effort. Or as an indication of the hero's newly developed talents. (Having the sidekick slaughter the MC and run off with his chick—with her eager consent—is a joke played on the reader.)
The senior Dumas wants the last act to be the shortest because it deals with but one major event: the climax. The lead-up to that event is all in Acts One and Two. And once the climax is concluded, the goal is met (or lost) and it's time to quit the stage.
Sometimes there is room for a denouement ("unraveling") to indicate how the world is now different after the success (or defeat) of the MC.
Plot structure is most explicit in books on screenplay writing. Here's the version from Michael Hauge:
Act One covers 25% of the total movie (script pages or film minutes, either way). There are two stages of Act One, the "setup" and the "new situation." Setup gives you the main characters and their place in the world. Hint at a defect or a yearning for change. The New Situation grows out of a turning point called Opportunity, which is to occur at the ten percent point. Something has happened in the world. The MC responds to the New Situation by launching himself into Act Two.
Or not.
In Joseph Campbell's book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the "opportunity" is the Call to Adventure. The hero may respond in the negative: Refusal of the Call. There the action ends. The quest is over. The Wizard has said: "Go thou to the Belly of the Beast and retrieve the Golden McGuffin!" And the hero says: "Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I'd ever do." End of story.
Screenwriters often include the Refusal as if it were a part of the official process. Rocky is offered a chance to fight the champ, and refuses. But he changes his mind. In Campbell, there is no changing minds. The Call has been refused, the Quest est fini.
If, in a movie, the hero refuses the call, that can't be the end, because there's another hour and a half to fill. Something else has to change, forcing the hero onto the preferred path. Luke says no to Ben Kenobi, then finds his aunt and uncle have been slaughtered. Now it's off to Mos Eisley.
In Hauge's view, Act Two occupies half the script pages (or movie time) and is broken in two by a turning point called the Point of No Return. The first half is labeled Progress, the second Complications and Higher Stakes. It ends with another turning point called a Major Setback.
If you're writing a tragedy, however, the second act ends with a Major Victory. Followed in Act Three by Ultimate Defeat. Major victories spur flawed characters to attempt the impossible (for him), leading inevitably to doom.
Hauge says Act Three has two phases: Final Push and Aftermath. Separating the two is the Climax. (The final push becomes the climax.) Rising action has reached its pinnacle, an event that takes place somewhere between 90 and 99% of total time (or total script pages), depending on how much aftermath is needed to make things clear.
Novels tend to have more complications and set-backs for the hero, but the pattern is the same: short take-off, long bumpy flight with engines afire, ending with a sudden crash-landing (which is usually found to be a triumph for the MC).
There may be a subplot, usually involving secondary characters. Sometimes the subplot invites the audience to compare and contrast its elements with those of the main plot, leading to some notion of theme.
Parallel plots are more common in novels than in movies, because they take up a lot of room and involve multiple sets of "main" characters. Hollywood likes to keep things simple: one MC on the hero path, with a recognizable "character arc" changing the MC for the better. It's not about a situation, see? It's about a person who is dealing with a situation.
If you need another take on plotting, the Internet is packed tight with advice. Go get it!
Then get back to work writing!
When Alexander Dumas fils decided to try his hand at playwriting, he asked if his dad had any advice. The old man did: "First act clear, last act short, all acts interesting."
The traditional three-act structure of stage drama can easily be adapted to the writing of stories and novels. Generally: Act One is the setup (location, period, characters, their goals); Act Two is filled with complications (answering the question: why can't the main character achieve his goal immediately); Act Three is the resolution (the MC succeeds or fails, and the consequences thereof).
When Dumas pere said "first act clear," he meant exactly that: a reader should come out of it with a clear understanding of who the main characters are, where they want to go, and that they're on their way. Leave no doubt. (Doubt may be something the MC experiences at some point toward the end of Act Two.)
At the end of Act One we're off! We're in motion! We're at the beginning of what is tantalizingly called "rising action."
The complications of Act Two represent more rising action. Each obstacle should be bigger and nastier and harder to overcome than the one before. Rising action. The man faces three assassins at once. Then: five!
If your MC defeats five major fighters all coming at him at once in a rabid pack, but is later confronted by two mediocre fighters causing a minor sweat, you have a problem. Falling action.
Falling action is a signal to the reader (or audience) that things are winding up (or winding down), that the story is chugging into the station.
On the other hand, maybe it's like this. Your guy defeats five, then barely defeats two, the MC disastrously running out of steam. That could indicate something bad is happening to his powers—which is another, perhaps more insidious complication. And that's okay.
But the overall threat level should be going up all the way to the climax, where it maxes out, demanding the utmost effort from the MC.
Don't have your guy defeat the most powerful evil character, only to face the guy's lame sidekick. Unless it's meant to be a joke, the sidekick slapped down without effort. Or as an indication of the hero's newly developed talents. (Having the sidekick slaughter the MC and run off with his chick—with her eager consent—is a joke played on the reader.)
The senior Dumas wants the last act to be the shortest because it deals with but one major event: the climax. The lead-up to that event is all in Acts One and Two. And once the climax is concluded, the goal is met (or lost) and it's time to quit the stage.
Sometimes there is room for a denouement ("unraveling") to indicate how the world is now different after the success (or defeat) of the MC.
Plot structure is most explicit in books on screenplay writing. Here's the version from Michael Hauge:
Act One covers 25% of the total movie (script pages or film minutes, either way). There are two stages of Act One, the "setup" and the "new situation." Setup gives you the main characters and their place in the world. Hint at a defect or a yearning for change. The New Situation grows out of a turning point called Opportunity, which is to occur at the ten percent point. Something has happened in the world. The MC responds to the New Situation by launching himself into Act Two.
Or not.
In Joseph Campbell's book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the "opportunity" is the Call to Adventure. The hero may respond in the negative: Refusal of the Call. There the action ends. The quest is over. The Wizard has said: "Go thou to the Belly of the Beast and retrieve the Golden McGuffin!" And the hero says: "Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I'd ever do." End of story.
Screenwriters often include the Refusal as if it were a part of the official process. Rocky is offered a chance to fight the champ, and refuses. But he changes his mind. In Campbell, there is no changing minds. The Call has been refused, the Quest est fini.
If, in a movie, the hero refuses the call, that can't be the end, because there's another hour and a half to fill. Something else has to change, forcing the hero onto the preferred path. Luke says no to Ben Kenobi, then finds his aunt and uncle have been slaughtered. Now it's off to Mos Eisley.
In Hauge's view, Act Two occupies half the script pages (or movie time) and is broken in two by a turning point called the Point of No Return. The first half is labeled Progress, the second Complications and Higher Stakes. It ends with another turning point called a Major Setback.
If you're writing a tragedy, however, the second act ends with a Major Victory. Followed in Act Three by Ultimate Defeat. Major victories spur flawed characters to attempt the impossible (for him), leading inevitably to doom.
Hauge says Act Three has two phases: Final Push and Aftermath. Separating the two is the Climax. (The final push becomes the climax.) Rising action has reached its pinnacle, an event that takes place somewhere between 90 and 99% of total time (or total script pages), depending on how much aftermath is needed to make things clear.
Novels tend to have more complications and set-backs for the hero, but the pattern is the same: short take-off, long bumpy flight with engines afire, ending with a sudden crash-landing (which is usually found to be a triumph for the MC).
There may be a subplot, usually involving secondary characters. Sometimes the subplot invites the audience to compare and contrast its elements with those of the main plot, leading to some notion of theme.
Parallel plots are more common in novels than in movies, because they take up a lot of room and involve multiple sets of "main" characters. Hollywood likes to keep things simple: one MC on the hero path, with a recognizable "character arc" changing the MC for the better. It's not about a situation, see? It's about a person who is dealing with a situation.
If you need another take on plotting, the Internet is packed tight with advice. Go get it!
Then get back to work writing!
Saturday, September 20, 2014
SOME THOUGHTS ON PLOTS
Some writers need to outline their stories ahead of time, others like to plunge into the middle of the action with a character or two and see what happens.
However way you start, you may find yourself stopping and starting a great many times as the story unfolds. Turns out, it's those pesky details that operate the plot.
Take the famous dilemma story: the fox, the duck, and the bag of grain. Some peasant hero or other (in olden times, I think we have to assume) is traveling across country with those three items, each of which presents some problems.
Problems which are never more obvious than when the fellow finds himself on the bank of a wide river. He needs to get to the other side to continue his journey, and luckily (!) someone has left a (very) small rowboat on this side.
Just row his butt across, right?
Ah, but there's a complication . . . which we'll get to in a moment.
Let's consider what we have so far. A character is on a journey. That's good. You pretty much need at least one character to carry the viewpoint of your story. And the fact the guy's on a journey is even better.
Characters (especially main characters) need something to do. They need to be going somewhere or going after something. They need a goal. Something important to the guy. Something a reader can understand as worth having. (In a movie script, it's preferable the goal be visible, so the audience will be able to see when he's got it.)
Okay, we're on our way: a character with a goal. (Kurt Vonnegut used to say he liked his characters to start out wanting something, if only a glass of water.)
Now we need complications. You can't just let the guy walk up and cop the goal. (Or if he does, that event has to lead to something even bigger. A kid pulls a sword from a stone. That was easy. But now he's entered a wider world of adventure and the real story begins.)
Okay, so here's our guy standing on the bank of the river he must cross. That's the first problem (complication, obstacle). And here's the second: The little rowboat is too small to carry more than the guy and one of his three objects. He can take the fox across, or the duck, or the bag of grain—but just one at a time.
Next, an even bigger problem: There are disastrous restrictions on his choice. He can't just grab the object nearest to hand, haul it across to the other side, and come back for another until all are across.
If he leaves the fox with the duck, the fox will eat the duck. If he leaves the duck with the bag of grain, the duck will eat the grain. Neither of these outcomes will do, because for some reason the guy must arrive at his destination with all three items intact.
And by the way, the "reason" for this restriction on the goal must be vital and unavoidable, as is the nature of the conflict between fox/duck and duck/grain. Problems have to be "real" in the context of the story. No "paper" tigers allowed.
(In the movie Ghostbusters it was set up you can't cross the energy streams of those "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" the 'Busters carried on their backs. But to defeat the final threat, they crossed the streams. Excuse me? If you go to the trouble of setting a thing up, you have to obey your own rules. In this case, maybe it would have been possible to fire two of the weapons into reflective surfaces, reversing the beams' polarization before letting the streams come together. Or some other such nonsense; hey, it's only a movie.)
Let's say our character is not very bright. When he realizes he can't take everything at once, he grabs up an item at random (let's say it's the fox) and climbs into the boat. Just as he's about to cast off, he looks back to shore and sees the duck standing there eyeing the bag of grain. And he stops.
He's not a complete idiot, okay?
So he climbs out of the boat, puts the fox down, and considers his problem. Now—at last—he realizes there is a problem. He puts his feeble imagination to work, mentally removing each item one at a time and envisioning the results. Can't leave the fox and duck together, can't leave the duck and grain together.
When he gets to the last combination, he rejoices. He can leave the fox with the bag of grain.
So he grabs the only item that works (the duck) and rows across the river. He leaves the duck on the far shore and comes back for . . . well, does it matter? Pick up either item (fox or grain) and what does it leave? Just the other item, all by itself, perfectly safe.
So he grabs the bag of grain and rows across the river.
But as he approaches the far side, he looks over his shoulder at the duck, then down at his feet at the bag of grain, and realizes with a sinking feeling he has made a mistake. He can't just drop off the bag of grain and go back for the fox.
Let's say our guy is not smart enough to call a time out to think things through. Instead, he spins the boat around, rows right back across the river, and heaves the bag of grain out onto the grassy bank next to the fox.
Here's the meta problem: If you, as the author, don't like to plan stuff out in advance, you still have to make a decision concerning your main character. Is that guy also the sort of person who strikes out on a quest without a plan? I think the answer is "probably."
Let's say, then, your hero is not the "thinking" type. He's tried the grain. This time he grabs the fox and rows it across the river. Only to realize when he gets there he's made yet another mistake.
Now the despair sets in. He had no problem hauling that duck across the river. (In fact, it was the only possible action to take, given the restrictions.) But now he's stymied. He can take neither the fox nor the bag of grain across the river and leave it with the duck long enough to go back for the final item. What's he going to do?
There is a neat solution to this problem, one that gets him everything he wants, but there's a new detail in the way. You (as story teller) have to consider the mental make-up of your character. Is the guy smart enough to come up with this "magic" solution? Or will it look like you came up with it on his behalf?
Absent the magic solution, what are his alternatives? He can always drag one of the remaining items across the river and keep going on his journey, abandoning the third item forever. But would that even work? Maybe. It all depends on how the story is set up.
See, now you have to stop again and get into the reasons for his journey and what he hopes to accomplish at the end of it. You need to establish his goals in greater detail.
Also, you need to build the world he lives in.
Suppose he shows up without the fox or without the grain. What are the consequences for each failure? Which of these items can he live without?
(Technically, neither of them, or your initial set-up is faulty.)
How likely would it be for him to find a substitute? Can he go on without the fox in the hope he can trap another fox on the way? Or does it happen this particular fox is special? So special, in fact, the folks at his destination will be able to tell the difference the instant they lay eyes on the thing.
So let's say he keeps the fox. Would it be possible for him to obtain another bag of grain? Maybe he could train the fox and the duck to stage some sort of fake fight, and get villagers to bet handfuls of grain on the outcome. Keep doing that until he had a full bag.
More problems. You need to look at the day-to-day details of his journey. How is he handling his three items? Is the fox in a cage of sticks lashed together with string? Does the duck have a lanyard around its neck, with a line that can be staked to the ground to keep it from wandering off?
These sorts of practical details need to be worked out if the story is to have enough verisimilitude. The details might make your story harder to sell to the reader. You might complicate your story too much. Or not enough.
But you need to answer the obvious questions: Why isn't the fox in a cage? How does the guy keep the duck from wandering off? Are there magic spells involved? What are the rules for the magic? How might those rules complicate the story?
(Got Gremlins? Don't feed 'em after midnight!)
More details to trip over: How long is this journey? If it's more than a day, how does the hero handle nights on the road? Does he just keep trudging along in the dark? If he stops, how can he get any sleep, knowing his charges might be getting up to mischief?
(If the guy turns out to be blithely unaware of the problems, his problems are likely to settle themselves on the first night.)
If the fox is in a cage, it would probably be safe to leave it alone (for a while, at least) with the duck. If the duck can be staked out, the hero should be able to place the bag of grain far enough away for it to be safe.
The more these (necessary) details are established, the more options the guy has. The problem here is that any reasonable set of details moves the story in exactly the wrong direction . . . from the point of view of the writer. In the beginning we had lots of complications. Now, we have none. The original story is effectively dead.
But that's just too bad, kiddo. You have to supply reasonable details, then live with the results. You can't omit those details for your own convenience in plotting. You'll just need to find your complications someplace else.
The hero might decide this way: Let the duck have the grain. In the time it takes to get the fox across the river, it's unlikely the duck could eat all of that stuff.
(If the hero makes the other choice, the fox might not be able to eat all of the duck, either, but the duck would almost certainly be dead—which sounds like something that would violate the rules of the goal.)
So, okay, he leaves the duck alone with the bag. When he gets back with the fox some of the grain is missing. Does that have to be a fatal outcome? Along the way the hero might pick up some rocks to fill out the partially eaten bag of grain and sew it back closed. Problem solved.
Or is it? At the end of his journey, those few clunky stones might cause a major stink when the bag is examined by the King's grain inspector (or whatever).
On the other hand, it's nice to have one final, unexpected problem to challenge your hero. Sometimes the "solution" to an early problem can turn out to be a disaster later on.
Remember, every problem must have its solution, and the best solutions come from the efforts of the hero himself. Accordingly, heroes need to have various useful skills. Moreover, those skills should be demonstrated (or at least mentioned) early in the story. Sometimes readers fix on these skills, keen to see them in action. Be careful not to disappoint.
(Someone [Chekhov?] suggested the gun mounted on the wall over the fireplace in Act One must be fired by the end of Act Three.)
Better to have the reader worried about problems the hero is overlooking. It creates suspense. Also, this way the reader can count himself right when the problem surfaces at last. It's your job to surprise those guys even though they've got their eyes on the ball. Try a little misdirection.
After the problem comes up, have your hero whip out one of his skills . . . but maybe it could be the wrong skill—which he applies in some unexpected manner to solve the problem.
Okay, back to the story. Things might work out another way. Say the hero examines the fox's cage and sees the wily beast has been gnawing at the lashings that hold the sticks together. Uh-oh.
Averting disaster, the hero leaves the devious fox on the bank and takes the grain across. He drops off the grain a reasonable distance from the staked-out duck and heads back. He grabs the fox and sets off in return, singing a happy song of triumph. But halfway across the river he realizes the duck is nibbling furiously at the string that holds it to the stake. Suddenly the bag of grain is once again in jeopardy.
The guy rows faster, but before he can make it across the fox chews its way out of the cage and jumps overboard. Back on the far bank, the duck has gotten loose and is ripping into the bag of grain. And now the fox has emerged from the water and is running right at the duck.
Our hero freaks, upsets the rowboat, and tumbles into the water himself. Naturally, he can't swim.
And so forth. That's plot. Things happen for a reason, cause and effect. Situations get a lot worse before they get better. There are reversals. The stakes are raised. The hero despairs, then makes the supreme effort. When at last your guy reaches the goal, the story's over. Bail.
Longer works have multiple, interlocking goals. Try not to conclude one without first introducing another, even thornier one. The working out of all these goals might just lead to a conclusion someone could mistake for a theme.
But that's their problem.
[Spoiler Alert! If you've never heard this fox/duck/grain story before, here's the "magic" solution: The guy first hauls the duck across the river and comes back for one of the other two items (it doesn't matter which). He drops the item off next to the duck, realizes his problem, and rows the duck back across the river. Now he's free to take the third item, leaving the duck behind for one last trip.]
However way you start, you may find yourself stopping and starting a great many times as the story unfolds. Turns out, it's those pesky details that operate the plot.
Take the famous dilemma story: the fox, the duck, and the bag of grain. Some peasant hero or other (in olden times, I think we have to assume) is traveling across country with those three items, each of which presents some problems.
Problems which are never more obvious than when the fellow finds himself on the bank of a wide river. He needs to get to the other side to continue his journey, and luckily (!) someone has left a (very) small rowboat on this side.
Just row his butt across, right?
Ah, but there's a complication . . . which we'll get to in a moment.
Let's consider what we have so far. A character is on a journey. That's good. You pretty much need at least one character to carry the viewpoint of your story. And the fact the guy's on a journey is even better.
Characters (especially main characters) need something to do. They need to be going somewhere or going after something. They need a goal. Something important to the guy. Something a reader can understand as worth having. (In a movie script, it's preferable the goal be visible, so the audience will be able to see when he's got it.)
Okay, we're on our way: a character with a goal. (Kurt Vonnegut used to say he liked his characters to start out wanting something, if only a glass of water.)
Now we need complications. You can't just let the guy walk up and cop the goal. (Or if he does, that event has to lead to something even bigger. A kid pulls a sword from a stone. That was easy. But now he's entered a wider world of adventure and the real story begins.)
Okay, so here's our guy standing on the bank of the river he must cross. That's the first problem (complication, obstacle). And here's the second: The little rowboat is too small to carry more than the guy and one of his three objects. He can take the fox across, or the duck, or the bag of grain—but just one at a time.
Next, an even bigger problem: There are disastrous restrictions on his choice. He can't just grab the object nearest to hand, haul it across to the other side, and come back for another until all are across.
If he leaves the fox with the duck, the fox will eat the duck. If he leaves the duck with the bag of grain, the duck will eat the grain. Neither of these outcomes will do, because for some reason the guy must arrive at his destination with all three items intact.
And by the way, the "reason" for this restriction on the goal must be vital and unavoidable, as is the nature of the conflict between fox/duck and duck/grain. Problems have to be "real" in the context of the story. No "paper" tigers allowed.
(In the movie Ghostbusters it was set up you can't cross the energy streams of those "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" the 'Busters carried on their backs. But to defeat the final threat, they crossed the streams. Excuse me? If you go to the trouble of setting a thing up, you have to obey your own rules. In this case, maybe it would have been possible to fire two of the weapons into reflective surfaces, reversing the beams' polarization before letting the streams come together. Or some other such nonsense; hey, it's only a movie.)
Let's say our character is not very bright. When he realizes he can't take everything at once, he grabs up an item at random (let's say it's the fox) and climbs into the boat. Just as he's about to cast off, he looks back to shore and sees the duck standing there eyeing the bag of grain. And he stops.
He's not a complete idiot, okay?
So he climbs out of the boat, puts the fox down, and considers his problem. Now—at last—he realizes there is a problem. He puts his feeble imagination to work, mentally removing each item one at a time and envisioning the results. Can't leave the fox and duck together, can't leave the duck and grain together.
When he gets to the last combination, he rejoices. He can leave the fox with the bag of grain.
So he grabs the only item that works (the duck) and rows across the river. He leaves the duck on the far shore and comes back for . . . well, does it matter? Pick up either item (fox or grain) and what does it leave? Just the other item, all by itself, perfectly safe.
So he grabs the bag of grain and rows across the river.
But as he approaches the far side, he looks over his shoulder at the duck, then down at his feet at the bag of grain, and realizes with a sinking feeling he has made a mistake. He can't just drop off the bag of grain and go back for the fox.
Let's say our guy is not smart enough to call a time out to think things through. Instead, he spins the boat around, rows right back across the river, and heaves the bag of grain out onto the grassy bank next to the fox.
Here's the meta problem: If you, as the author, don't like to plan stuff out in advance, you still have to make a decision concerning your main character. Is that guy also the sort of person who strikes out on a quest without a plan? I think the answer is "probably."
Let's say, then, your hero is not the "thinking" type. He's tried the grain. This time he grabs the fox and rows it across the river. Only to realize when he gets there he's made yet another mistake.
Now the despair sets in. He had no problem hauling that duck across the river. (In fact, it was the only possible action to take, given the restrictions.) But now he's stymied. He can take neither the fox nor the bag of grain across the river and leave it with the duck long enough to go back for the final item. What's he going to do?
There is a neat solution to this problem, one that gets him everything he wants, but there's a new detail in the way. You (as story teller) have to consider the mental make-up of your character. Is the guy smart enough to come up with this "magic" solution? Or will it look like you came up with it on his behalf?
Absent the magic solution, what are his alternatives? He can always drag one of the remaining items across the river and keep going on his journey, abandoning the third item forever. But would that even work? Maybe. It all depends on how the story is set up.
See, now you have to stop again and get into the reasons for his journey and what he hopes to accomplish at the end of it. You need to establish his goals in greater detail.
Also, you need to build the world he lives in.
Suppose he shows up without the fox or without the grain. What are the consequences for each failure? Which of these items can he live without?
(Technically, neither of them, or your initial set-up is faulty.)
How likely would it be for him to find a substitute? Can he go on without the fox in the hope he can trap another fox on the way? Or does it happen this particular fox is special? So special, in fact, the folks at his destination will be able to tell the difference the instant they lay eyes on the thing.
So let's say he keeps the fox. Would it be possible for him to obtain another bag of grain? Maybe he could train the fox and the duck to stage some sort of fake fight, and get villagers to bet handfuls of grain on the outcome. Keep doing that until he had a full bag.
More problems. You need to look at the day-to-day details of his journey. How is he handling his three items? Is the fox in a cage of sticks lashed together with string? Does the duck have a lanyard around its neck, with a line that can be staked to the ground to keep it from wandering off?
These sorts of practical details need to be worked out if the story is to have enough verisimilitude. The details might make your story harder to sell to the reader. You might complicate your story too much. Or not enough.
But you need to answer the obvious questions: Why isn't the fox in a cage? How does the guy keep the duck from wandering off? Are there magic spells involved? What are the rules for the magic? How might those rules complicate the story?
(Got Gremlins? Don't feed 'em after midnight!)
More details to trip over: How long is this journey? If it's more than a day, how does the hero handle nights on the road? Does he just keep trudging along in the dark? If he stops, how can he get any sleep, knowing his charges might be getting up to mischief?
(If the guy turns out to be blithely unaware of the problems, his problems are likely to settle themselves on the first night.)
If the fox is in a cage, it would probably be safe to leave it alone (for a while, at least) with the duck. If the duck can be staked out, the hero should be able to place the bag of grain far enough away for it to be safe.
The more these (necessary) details are established, the more options the guy has. The problem here is that any reasonable set of details moves the story in exactly the wrong direction . . . from the point of view of the writer. In the beginning we had lots of complications. Now, we have none. The original story is effectively dead.
But that's just too bad, kiddo. You have to supply reasonable details, then live with the results. You can't omit those details for your own convenience in plotting. You'll just need to find your complications someplace else.
The hero might decide this way: Let the duck have the grain. In the time it takes to get the fox across the river, it's unlikely the duck could eat all of that stuff.
(If the hero makes the other choice, the fox might not be able to eat all of the duck, either, but the duck would almost certainly be dead—which sounds like something that would violate the rules of the goal.)
So, okay, he leaves the duck alone with the bag. When he gets back with the fox some of the grain is missing. Does that have to be a fatal outcome? Along the way the hero might pick up some rocks to fill out the partially eaten bag of grain and sew it back closed. Problem solved.
Or is it? At the end of his journey, those few clunky stones might cause a major stink when the bag is examined by the King's grain inspector (or whatever).
On the other hand, it's nice to have one final, unexpected problem to challenge your hero. Sometimes the "solution" to an early problem can turn out to be a disaster later on.
Remember, every problem must have its solution, and the best solutions come from the efforts of the hero himself. Accordingly, heroes need to have various useful skills. Moreover, those skills should be demonstrated (or at least mentioned) early in the story. Sometimes readers fix on these skills, keen to see them in action. Be careful not to disappoint.
(Someone [Chekhov?] suggested the gun mounted on the wall over the fireplace in Act One must be fired by the end of Act Three.)
Better to have the reader worried about problems the hero is overlooking. It creates suspense. Also, this way the reader can count himself right when the problem surfaces at last. It's your job to surprise those guys even though they've got their eyes on the ball. Try a little misdirection.
After the problem comes up, have your hero whip out one of his skills . . . but maybe it could be the wrong skill—which he applies in some unexpected manner to solve the problem.
Okay, back to the story. Things might work out another way. Say the hero examines the fox's cage and sees the wily beast has been gnawing at the lashings that hold the sticks together. Uh-oh.
Averting disaster, the hero leaves the devious fox on the bank and takes the grain across. He drops off the grain a reasonable distance from the staked-out duck and heads back. He grabs the fox and sets off in return, singing a happy song of triumph. But halfway across the river he realizes the duck is nibbling furiously at the string that holds it to the stake. Suddenly the bag of grain is once again in jeopardy.
The guy rows faster, but before he can make it across the fox chews its way out of the cage and jumps overboard. Back on the far bank, the duck has gotten loose and is ripping into the bag of grain. And now the fox has emerged from the water and is running right at the duck.
Our hero freaks, upsets the rowboat, and tumbles into the water himself. Naturally, he can't swim.
And so forth. That's plot. Things happen for a reason, cause and effect. Situations get a lot worse before they get better. There are reversals. The stakes are raised. The hero despairs, then makes the supreme effort. When at last your guy reaches the goal, the story's over. Bail.
Longer works have multiple, interlocking goals. Try not to conclude one without first introducing another, even thornier one. The working out of all these goals might just lead to a conclusion someone could mistake for a theme.
But that's their problem.
[Spoiler Alert! If you've never heard this fox/duck/grain story before, here's the "magic" solution: The guy first hauls the duck across the river and comes back for one of the other two items (it doesn't matter which). He drops the item off next to the duck, realizes his problem, and rows the duck back across the river. Now he's free to take the third item, leaving the duck behind for one last trip.]
Thursday, September 4, 2014
COUNTING WORDS
I mentioned last time I was going with Notepad++ for all my writing. I said the only thing I might miss from MS Word was the word count tool. I also said it's not that important for indie puppers to have an accurate word count.
Ignoring that last bit (and to aid those who just gotta know what the count is), I set out to obtain a substitute for Word's counting tool.
I found a free program called Primitive Word Counter, but when I ran it, I was surprised to discover the program does not give you a count of the total number of words in a chunk of text. Rather, it tells you how many times you used each word (by raw number and percentage).
As a bonus, it provides the total number of different words used, in case you want to check the breadth of your working vocabulary.
(There was also a list of "phrases" used. In the work I used as a sample, the phrase "of the" was used the most [200 times]. Maybe I should watch that in the future.)
Since I didn't want to waste the time I spent downloading the program, I tried a little calculation. It said I used the word "the" the most: 1935 times or 6.56% of the time. I divided 1935 by .0656 and came up with 29,497 (after rounding). That should be a good approximation of the total words.
How close was it to the MS Word count? Word clocked this manuscript at 29,204. Assuming this to be accurate, the error was 293 words, or 1.0033%. Not too bad. Using other words from the top of the list resulted in similar accuracy. (There were 5132 different words listed.) If the Primitive counter had given the use percentage to three places, I could have done better. (Words used only once [more than half the total] produced a 0.00% use rate.)
Since I always end up proofing my books in Firefox, I also downloaded an add-on app for word counting. Its count for the same chunk of text was 29,871. An error of 2.28%. Less good...
Then I messed about with Notepad++ itself. Every word has a space after it (except the last one in a given paragraph). Counting the number of spaces gave me 28,449 "words." That's 2.58% low. Adding one word for every paragraph brought the count to 29,217. I then subtracted the number of dashes (16), because en dashes (when expressed on the final page) add an extra space to the text, distorting the count. Final tally: 29,201 words, just 3 words less than MS Word's count. Error: .01027%.
I'll take it!
But here's the problem I just ellided over. I started with the "completed" HTML version of the manuscript. I opened the file in Firefox and highlighted the main text (to give the add-on app a chance to get a count), then copied and pasted the text into Word for its count.
I also pasted the text into a new tab in Notepad++ to get my text-based count of spaces. (Just open the Find window, tap the space bar to put a space in the "Find what" window, and click Count.)
(Skipping this step, and counting the spaces in the HTML file, is problematical. There are lots of extra spaces embedded in the tags.)
If you use Notepad++ to compose text, you can count spaces in your WIP to get a fast idea of the wordage to that point. The "space" count will be, as we've seen, some 2.5% low. You could just make the adjustment.
To get the most accurate count, however, you need to include paragraphs and dashes into the mix. How do you find out how many paragraphs and dashes there are?
Since I was starting with an HTML version of the book, it was easy to count the number of times /p> showed up. (For more accuracy, I also temporarily removed the front matter of the document.) Similar procedure for counting dashes; run a search for the HTML tag for dashes.
But if you haven't got that far in the writing process, you won't yet have an HTML version to make counting paragraphs easy. In a text only environment, Notepad++ doesn't let you count carriage returns (which appear when you click the Show All Characters icon). And if you're well along in the writing there will probably be too many paragraphs to count manually.
I suppose you could use Primitive counter and make the calculation based on the use of selected words. You'll only be off by one percent.
But there's a better way.
The method I suggest for creating text destined to run through MobiPocket Creator is to leave a blank line (an extra carriage return) between paragraphs. As a result, the number of actual paragraphs is easily calculated. Add one to Notepad++'s last line number and divide by two. Now add this to the number of spaces found.
Dashes in manuscripts are handled differently than final page text. In the draft, I suggest you use two hyphens (and no spaces) to denote dashes (they become en [or em] dashes after a search of the HTML document). This means each "dash" links two words into one extra long one, actually reducing the count. So: Count the double hyphens and for each add one word to the total. (Same with ellipses: add one word for each.)
The adjusted "space" count for this blog post was dead on, compared to MS Word. Error: 0.00%.
Using the HTML file to create a word count is very, very accurate. Just not as accurate as working with the original text file. If you still have one.
Ignoring that last bit (and to aid those who just gotta know what the count is), I set out to obtain a substitute for Word's counting tool.
I found a free program called Primitive Word Counter, but when I ran it, I was surprised to discover the program does not give you a count of the total number of words in a chunk of text. Rather, it tells you how many times you used each word (by raw number and percentage).
As a bonus, it provides the total number of different words used, in case you want to check the breadth of your working vocabulary.
(There was also a list of "phrases" used. In the work I used as a sample, the phrase "of the" was used the most [200 times]. Maybe I should watch that in the future.)
Since I didn't want to waste the time I spent downloading the program, I tried a little calculation. It said I used the word "the" the most: 1935 times or 6.56% of the time. I divided 1935 by .0656 and came up with 29,497 (after rounding). That should be a good approximation of the total words.
How close was it to the MS Word count? Word clocked this manuscript at 29,204. Assuming this to be accurate, the error was 293 words, or 1.0033%. Not too bad. Using other words from the top of the list resulted in similar accuracy. (There were 5132 different words listed.) If the Primitive counter had given the use percentage to three places, I could have done better. (Words used only once [more than half the total] produced a 0.00% use rate.)
Since I always end up proofing my books in Firefox, I also downloaded an add-on app for word counting. Its count for the same chunk of text was 29,871. An error of 2.28%. Less good...
Then I messed about with Notepad++ itself. Every word has a space after it (except the last one in a given paragraph). Counting the number of spaces gave me 28,449 "words." That's 2.58% low. Adding one word for every paragraph brought the count to 29,217. I then subtracted the number of dashes (16), because en dashes (when expressed on the final page) add an extra space to the text, distorting the count. Final tally: 29,201 words, just 3 words less than MS Word's count. Error: .01027%.
I'll take it!
But here's the problem I just ellided over. I started with the "completed" HTML version of the manuscript. I opened the file in Firefox and highlighted the main text (to give the add-on app a chance to get a count), then copied and pasted the text into Word for its count.
I also pasted the text into a new tab in Notepad++ to get my text-based count of spaces. (Just open the Find window, tap the space bar to put a space in the "Find what" window, and click Count.)
(Skipping this step, and counting the spaces in the HTML file, is problematical. There are lots of extra spaces embedded in the tags.)
If you use Notepad++ to compose text, you can count spaces in your WIP to get a fast idea of the wordage to that point. The "space" count will be, as we've seen, some 2.5% low. You could just make the adjustment.
To get the most accurate count, however, you need to include paragraphs and dashes into the mix. How do you find out how many paragraphs and dashes there are?
Since I was starting with an HTML version of the book, it was easy to count the number of times /p> showed up. (For more accuracy, I also temporarily removed the front matter of the document.) Similar procedure for counting dashes; run a search for the HTML tag for dashes.
But if you haven't got that far in the writing process, you won't yet have an HTML version to make counting paragraphs easy. In a text only environment, Notepad++ doesn't let you count carriage returns (which appear when you click the Show All Characters icon). And if you're well along in the writing there will probably be too many paragraphs to count manually.
I suppose you could use Primitive counter and make the calculation based on the use of selected words. You'll only be off by one percent.
But there's a better way.
The method I suggest for creating text destined to run through MobiPocket Creator is to leave a blank line (an extra carriage return) between paragraphs. As a result, the number of actual paragraphs is easily calculated. Add one to Notepad++'s last line number and divide by two. Now add this to the number of spaces found.
Dashes in manuscripts are handled differently than final page text. In the draft, I suggest you use two hyphens (and no spaces) to denote dashes (they become en [or em] dashes after a search of the HTML document). This means each "dash" links two words into one extra long one, actually reducing the count. So: Count the double hyphens and for each add one word to the total. (Same with ellipses: add one word for each.)
The adjusted "space" count for this blog post was dead on, compared to MS Word. Error: 0.00%.
Using the HTML file to create a word count is very, very accurate. Just not as accurate as working with the original text file. If you still have one.
Friday, August 29, 2014
NOTEPAD++ FOR EVERYTHING
I now use Notepadd++ for all my writing: blogs, books, everything but emails (and it would probably be a good idea to write those there, too).
I just open a new tab and start right out, saving my work as a text file. I write in single space with no indents, leaving an extra line (carriage return) between paragraphs.
I also put a # symbol on its own line to indicate a change of scene. New chapters have titles in all caps, with a couple blank lines separating each from the end of the last one. (That will change in the actual book.) I use a key word in the title (like "chapter" or "chap"), so later I can find those thing for adding go-to-a-new page tags, the id link for tables of content, and so forth.
I put one space between sentences inside paragraphs, the way books (but not manuscripts) are meant to be. (Remember, you're writing the book, not the manuscript for the book. There are no manuscripts anymore.)
I use two hyphens (with no spaces before, after, or in between) to indicate dashes, and three periods for an ellipsis (again with no spaces). I'll want to run an automated search for those items later, so I keep the notation standard. (Of if not standard, consistent.)
I write all I want and revise the text until I'm goofy-headed. The only thing I miss is the Word Count tool. I still have a (semi) working copy of MS Word, so I can copy and paste a WIP there to check the wordage.
But in the indie pub world, the word count is a lot less important than in the trad pub world. If the work comes out short, put a lower price on it. If it's too long, readers love it. After all, they want to be immersed in your fictional world forever. For them, longer is always better.
(Recall that THE LORD OF THE RINGS came out in three volumes because of post-war economics. It was always meant to be one big book.)
Be sure to patch Notepad++ with the Spell Check option. And use it. If there's a highlighted word anywhere in the document, that's the only thing that gets checked. Otherwise, Spell Check starts at the top. If you want to stop halfway through and make some revisions, just highlight the text from there on down to resume spell checking in midstream. Or start again from the top, your choice.
For ebooks, I run the text file through MobiPocket Creator and open the resulting HTML in (where else?) Notepad++. Then I run the (amended) Puctuation Swap Grid, copy and paste the front-end of a standard ebook from "Code of a Short Book," and I'm ready to apply paragraph styles to chapter and section starts. Finally, I grab the TOC and OPF file templates and fill 'em out. (All this stuff is available in the Templates section, on the right-hand sidebar of this blog.)
Next comes GIMP2 and the creation of a cover and title page.
In the meantime, I open the HTML file in Firefox and start proofing. I narrow the window and bump up the font size till I have a Large Print ebook to work with. All its mind-boggling faults show up nicely.
Which is fine, because I've set up plenty of macros in Notepad++ for extensive rewriting (and new writing) in the HTML. Immediately checking the corrected text in the browser is addictive, I've found.
By the way, there's a new version of Notepad++ available. I haven't tried it yet, but expect to soon. Is it too much to hope there's a word count tool built in? (Yeah, probably.)
I just open a new tab and start right out, saving my work as a text file. I write in single space with no indents, leaving an extra line (carriage return) between paragraphs.
I also put a # symbol on its own line to indicate a change of scene. New chapters have titles in all caps, with a couple blank lines separating each from the end of the last one. (That will change in the actual book.) I use a key word in the title (like "chapter" or "chap"), so later I can find those thing for adding go-to-a-new page tags, the id link for tables of content, and so forth.
I put one space between sentences inside paragraphs, the way books (but not manuscripts) are meant to be. (Remember, you're writing the book, not the manuscript for the book. There are no manuscripts anymore.)
I use two hyphens (with no spaces before, after, or in between) to indicate dashes, and three periods for an ellipsis (again with no spaces). I'll want to run an automated search for those items later, so I keep the notation standard. (Of if not standard, consistent.)
I write all I want and revise the text until I'm goofy-headed. The only thing I miss is the Word Count tool. I still have a (semi) working copy of MS Word, so I can copy and paste a WIP there to check the wordage.
But in the indie pub world, the word count is a lot less important than in the trad pub world. If the work comes out short, put a lower price on it. If it's too long, readers love it. After all, they want to be immersed in your fictional world forever. For them, longer is always better.
(Recall that THE LORD OF THE RINGS came out in three volumes because of post-war economics. It was always meant to be one big book.)
Be sure to patch Notepad++ with the Spell Check option. And use it. If there's a highlighted word anywhere in the document, that's the only thing that gets checked. Otherwise, Spell Check starts at the top. If you want to stop halfway through and make some revisions, just highlight the text from there on down to resume spell checking in midstream. Or start again from the top, your choice.
For ebooks, I run the text file through MobiPocket Creator and open the resulting HTML in (where else?) Notepad++. Then I run the (amended) Puctuation Swap Grid, copy and paste the front-end of a standard ebook from "Code of a Short Book," and I'm ready to apply paragraph styles to chapter and section starts. Finally, I grab the TOC and OPF file templates and fill 'em out. (All this stuff is available in the Templates section, on the right-hand sidebar of this blog.)
Next comes GIMP2 and the creation of a cover and title page.
In the meantime, I open the HTML file in Firefox and start proofing. I narrow the window and bump up the font size till I have a Large Print ebook to work with. All its mind-boggling faults show up nicely.
Which is fine, because I've set up plenty of macros in Notepad++ for extensive rewriting (and new writing) in the HTML. Immediately checking the corrected text in the browser is addictive, I've found.
By the way, there's a new version of Notepad++ available. I haven't tried it yet, but expect to soon. Is it too much to hope there's a word count tool built in? (Yeah, probably.)
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
ADJUSTMENTS TO THE GRID
While I was putting together a new book for Kindle I noticed a problem with the Punctuation Swap Grid. Several unlikely searches were missing.
By unlikely, I mean searches unlikely to find a hit in a typical manuscript. Apparently the thing I'm working on right now is shading a bit out of the typical.
Following the grid caused the reversal of a double quote mark. The situation was unusual: a bit of quoted text inside parentheses. It was the sort of thing ("Like this right here!") that is more likely to be found in a work of nonfiction.
It got me to thinking about other unusual bits of construction:
The quoted words after a dash—"Of which this would be an example."
"The situation that might come up with single quotes and dashes—'like this'—with or without parentheses ('like this')."
So I'm going to add a bit of instruction to the Swap Grid. I don't think I'll be getting back into Gimp and remaking the Grid itself. I'll just slip in a note to add a couple more test searches:
--'
and
('
for single left quotes at the top of the list.
These are not Replace All searches. As with the two that are already there, you need to check each instance to make sure this is a legitimate left single quote (a quote within a quote) and not a case where a word is beginning with an apostrophe—which uses the right single quote mark.
As it stands, the next two searches on the Grid are for left double quotes, used for dialogue that begins at the start of a paragraph or is buried inside.
Add to that:
--"
and
("
to make sure you're dealing with these rare situations in your manuscript.
Like the searches for left single quotes, you don't have to set up the Replace window right away. Just do a Find search and click Count to see if there are any to deal with. If you find some, Replace All.
(These instructions are for Notepad++. You are using Notepad++, aren't you?)
By unlikely, I mean searches unlikely to find a hit in a typical manuscript. Apparently the thing I'm working on right now is shading a bit out of the typical.
Following the grid caused the reversal of a double quote mark. The situation was unusual: a bit of quoted text inside parentheses. It was the sort of thing ("Like this right here!") that is more likely to be found in a work of nonfiction.
It got me to thinking about other unusual bits of construction:
The quoted words after a dash—"Of which this would be an example."
"The situation that might come up with single quotes and dashes—'like this'—with or without parentheses ('like this')."
So I'm going to add a bit of instruction to the Swap Grid. I don't think I'll be getting back into Gimp and remaking the Grid itself. I'll just slip in a note to add a couple more test searches:
--'
and
('
for single left quotes at the top of the list.
These are not Replace All searches. As with the two that are already there, you need to check each instance to make sure this is a legitimate left single quote (a quote within a quote) and not a case where a word is beginning with an apostrophe—which uses the right single quote mark.
As it stands, the next two searches on the Grid are for left double quotes, used for dialogue that begins at the start of a paragraph or is buried inside.
Add to that:
--"
and
("
to make sure you're dealing with these rare situations in your manuscript.
Like the searches for left single quotes, you don't have to set up the Replace window right away. Just do a Find search and click Count to see if there are any to deal with. If you find some, Replace All.
(These instructions are for Notepad++. You are using Notepad++, aren't you?)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
BANNER PROMOTION
BLACK BOX is in a Countdown Promotion this week, from right now through the eleventh of August.
Last week about this time, to promote the coming countdown, I modified the book's cover image (which is shown along the left-hand sidebar) to include a banner giving the appropriate information.
(Update: The promotion is over. Here's the book cover with the banner.)
My reasoning was this. If I write a post about a particular promotion (like the post you're reading right now), only a handful of readers will see it during the active period. The average reader of this blog comes not to peruse the latest post, but to grab copies of the Kindle or ePub templates (see the right-hand sidebar). In addition, Google searchers are attracted to posts concerning topics of interest to indie pubbers.
After getting what they came for, curious folk appear to make use of the "popular posts" list to check out other parts of the blog. (The first two items on the list are disproportionately viewed.)
As a consequence, the banner promoting a price countdown will be seen by a lot more people than a blog post describing the event.
Normally. This last week, for some reason, the traffic was particularly meager. Sure, there were more hits overall than I expect to see for this post by August 11th, but not by the factor I was expecting.
Still, I think the idea of the banner is valid, and I will definitely do it again. At least, during the actual period of the promotion.
This time, however, I put up the banner nearly a week early. I thought: maximize the number of eyeballs. But you have to figure the sales of a book will suffer during the pre-promotion period, buyers holding off for the coming sale price.
On the other hand, does anyone worry about the "grumble factor" arising in readers who buy your book just BEFORE it goes on sale?
I suppose if books were free, the banner might only be deployed during the special period. In that case, you could create a reusable banner version of each of your book covers with the words "Free Today!" added.
This technique could also work for temporary price reductions. Once you've created an image of the banner-swathed book, its easy to go into the layout of your blog (or Web page) and swap images.
Even countdown promotion banners could be reused if you avoid mention of the actual dates. Treat it like a series of price reductions, creating a banner for each stage. Not TOO much work...
Speaking of free: Last week I ran a stealth promotion for five books, all free at Amazon for five days. I wanted to see what would happen if I said nothing on the promotion sites or in this blog.
I expected it to be a test of the visibility of each of the books.
I assume there's a certain level of traffic visiting each of the sell pages on a given day, people who discover the item and are interested, but put off by the regular price. Then, miraculously, the book is suddenly free! You have to figure 90% of those lookie-loos would pull the trigger, right?
I was surprised by the results.
Generally, the pattern of "takes" matched the results of PROMOTED giveaways. Nearly 62% were grabbed in the first two days, with the first day responsible for two and a half times more than the second (44.1% of total).
Oddly, the fourth and fifth days rallied, accounting for 27.5% of the total.
So the curve (which is nicely shown on the new Kindle Reports page) has two humps, with the first by far the tallest. It resembles the horns of a rhino: tall and sharp in front, low and blunt just behind it.
I expected to see a roughly flat plateau. Why would the discovery rate be so high in the first day or so? Fast word of mouth? Did some promotion site pick up on the books and put out the word, without being asked by me?
Googol searches have turned up promotions for my books on sites I never submitted to. It's easy to imagine content-hungry Webmasters grabbing up stuff like this. Everybody is living on advertising (more than before, now that the Amazon Affiliate program has become less generous). But it's one thing to crib from someone else's site. Are there guys out there prowling Amazon for free books just to put notices in front of their steady readers? Beats me.
It could be the lookie-loos are persistent, checking a number of wish-list books on a daily basis, hoping for that special price. If so, those who check daily could skew the count for the beginning of the free period, other guys coming in later.
Hard to tell.
Are there Web sites out there doing that? You submit the names of books you want and they notify you when one of them goes free (or on deep discount)?
(I was recently shopping online for computer stuff and some service popped up asking if I wanted them to inform me when the price went down.)
Marketing and selling are still pretty much opaque to me.
By the way, the book grabbed the most was the full-length tech thriller called MAD MINUTE, possibly indicative of the interests of the average Amazon book patron. I think romances (to include paranormal romances) are still the biggest sellers of mid-list books.
Last week about this time, to promote the coming countdown, I modified the book's cover image (which is shown along the left-hand sidebar) to include a banner giving the appropriate information.
(Update: The promotion is over. Here's the book cover with the banner.)
My reasoning was this. If I write a post about a particular promotion (like the post you're reading right now), only a handful of readers will see it during the active period. The average reader of this blog comes not to peruse the latest post, but to grab copies of the Kindle or ePub templates (see the right-hand sidebar). In addition, Google searchers are attracted to posts concerning topics of interest to indie pubbers.
After getting what they came for, curious folk appear to make use of the "popular posts" list to check out other parts of the blog. (The first two items on the list are disproportionately viewed.)
As a consequence, the banner promoting a price countdown will be seen by a lot more people than a blog post describing the event.
Normally. This last week, for some reason, the traffic was particularly meager. Sure, there were more hits overall than I expect to see for this post by August 11th, but not by the factor I was expecting.
Still, I think the idea of the banner is valid, and I will definitely do it again. At least, during the actual period of the promotion.
This time, however, I put up the banner nearly a week early. I thought: maximize the number of eyeballs. But you have to figure the sales of a book will suffer during the pre-promotion period, buyers holding off for the coming sale price.
On the other hand, does anyone worry about the "grumble factor" arising in readers who buy your book just BEFORE it goes on sale?
I suppose if books were free, the banner might only be deployed during the special period. In that case, you could create a reusable banner version of each of your book covers with the words "Free Today!" added.
This technique could also work for temporary price reductions. Once you've created an image of the banner-swathed book, its easy to go into the layout of your blog (or Web page) and swap images.
Even countdown promotion banners could be reused if you avoid mention of the actual dates. Treat it like a series of price reductions, creating a banner for each stage. Not TOO much work...
Speaking of free: Last week I ran a stealth promotion for five books, all free at Amazon for five days. I wanted to see what would happen if I said nothing on the promotion sites or in this blog.
I expected it to be a test of the visibility of each of the books.
I assume there's a certain level of traffic visiting each of the sell pages on a given day, people who discover the item and are interested, but put off by the regular price. Then, miraculously, the book is suddenly free! You have to figure 90% of those lookie-loos would pull the trigger, right?
I was surprised by the results.
Generally, the pattern of "takes" matched the results of PROMOTED giveaways. Nearly 62% were grabbed in the first two days, with the first day responsible for two and a half times more than the second (44.1% of total).
Oddly, the fourth and fifth days rallied, accounting for 27.5% of the total.
So the curve (which is nicely shown on the new Kindle Reports page) has two humps, with the first by far the tallest. It resembles the horns of a rhino: tall and sharp in front, low and blunt just behind it.
I expected to see a roughly flat plateau. Why would the discovery rate be so high in the first day or so? Fast word of mouth? Did some promotion site pick up on the books and put out the word, without being asked by me?
Googol searches have turned up promotions for my books on sites I never submitted to. It's easy to imagine content-hungry Webmasters grabbing up stuff like this. Everybody is living on advertising (more than before, now that the Amazon Affiliate program has become less generous). But it's one thing to crib from someone else's site. Are there guys out there prowling Amazon for free books just to put notices in front of their steady readers? Beats me.
It could be the lookie-loos are persistent, checking a number of wish-list books on a daily basis, hoping for that special price. If so, those who check daily could skew the count for the beginning of the free period, other guys coming in later.
Hard to tell.
Are there Web sites out there doing that? You submit the names of books you want and they notify you when one of them goes free (or on deep discount)?
(I was recently shopping online for computer stuff and some service popped up asking if I wanted them to inform me when the price went down.)
Marketing and selling are still pretty much opaque to me.
By the way, the book grabbed the most was the full-length tech thriller called MAD MINUTE, possibly indicative of the interests of the average Amazon book patron. I think romances (to include paranormal romances) are still the biggest sellers of mid-list books.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
THE PLATFORM
Let's take a look at blogs. What are they up to, what are they good for, why do folks have them?
There are people out there who are compulsive communicators. They have to say things to other people. Sometimes it may not even matter what they're saying. They just want to be heard. Their blogs are more like personal diaries they've decided to share with the world.
Others have axes to grind. Or maybe lots of axes, a veritable hardware store of edged implements. They need to make points, to educate, to enlighten. They have Important Stuff to say.
And yes, their points can be ground to a sharpness resembling the tip of a needle. With barbs: When the point is made, the needle goes in, and stays.
The point may be concerned with the intimate and personal or with humanity on a global scale. Keeping in mind all politics are local. Is this how the world's mind gets changed? The guy is saying: Let's find out.
Moving away from the ideological, we approach the commercial end of the spectrum. Some blogs exist to sell widgets and services that repair or tweak widgets.
Other commercial blogs are meant to be platforms where a personality can present itself to the world—with a commercial end in mind. There's money involved, somehow, down the line. Maybe a very long way down the line.
This blog is supposed to be such a platform. It's not a very good one, let's face it. (Though I'm pretty sure I could make it worse.)
I put up the occasional post, and that's nice (read: minimal), but there's a bunch of other stuff I should be doing. At the very least I should be posting more often, maybe even welding those posts to a reliable schedule.
I should be more engaging, soliciting comments and questions and so forth. I should be running contests and tossing prizes around. I should be promoting the blog by offering to guest on other, actually successful blogs. (You could ask: What's in it for them? A day off, that's what.)
There's lots I could (should) be doing. So why aren't I? The short answer: I'm busy. I've got a lot of crap to write.
The slightly longer answer: I'm pretty much an idiot.
(Being an idiot may impact other areas of my life as well. It's hard to tell [being an idiot and all].)
One of the things platform-savvy folks do is offer some token in exchange for collecting email addresses. Then they mass-mail to those addresses when they have "exciting" news to disseminate.
I have to say, that sounds like a lot of work. Also, what I consider "exciting" (i.e.: I could end up making some money) might not seem so exciting to the folks on the list.
Which brings us to one of the nastiest parts of being an indie pubbing author. You don't just have to write the damned books, you have to try to sell them to people. And to sell them, you have to help those potential buyers find your stuff.
Visibility is key.
It can be a lot easier if you turn indie with a huge trad-pub following, especially if you've got one or two successful series going. Make the first volume perma-free and announce the coming of MONKEY MAN number eight (or whatever). Let the inertia of your established career scrape a furrow across the belly of the World Wide Web.
If you're being trad pubbed right now, get your platform up right away, while existing books can promote it. (Your publisher will thank you, for now.) Then go indie and take your following with you.
Someone once said the establishment of the platform should precede the first book by two years. Any of you guys ready to plan that far ahead?
There are people out there who are compulsive communicators. They have to say things to other people. Sometimes it may not even matter what they're saying. They just want to be heard. Their blogs are more like personal diaries they've decided to share with the world.
Others have axes to grind. Or maybe lots of axes, a veritable hardware store of edged implements. They need to make points, to educate, to enlighten. They have Important Stuff to say.
And yes, their points can be ground to a sharpness resembling the tip of a needle. With barbs: When the point is made, the needle goes in, and stays.
The point may be concerned with the intimate and personal or with humanity on a global scale. Keeping in mind all politics are local. Is this how the world's mind gets changed? The guy is saying: Let's find out.
Moving away from the ideological, we approach the commercial end of the spectrum. Some blogs exist to sell widgets and services that repair or tweak widgets.
Other commercial blogs are meant to be platforms where a personality can present itself to the world—with a commercial end in mind. There's money involved, somehow, down the line. Maybe a very long way down the line.
This blog is supposed to be such a platform. It's not a very good one, let's face it. (Though I'm pretty sure I could make it worse.)
I put up the occasional post, and that's nice (read: minimal), but there's a bunch of other stuff I should be doing. At the very least I should be posting more often, maybe even welding those posts to a reliable schedule.
I should be more engaging, soliciting comments and questions and so forth. I should be running contests and tossing prizes around. I should be promoting the blog by offering to guest on other, actually successful blogs. (You could ask: What's in it for them? A day off, that's what.)
There's lots I could (should) be doing. So why aren't I? The short answer: I'm busy. I've got a lot of crap to write.
The slightly longer answer: I'm pretty much an idiot.
(Being an idiot may impact other areas of my life as well. It's hard to tell [being an idiot and all].)
One of the things platform-savvy folks do is offer some token in exchange for collecting email addresses. Then they mass-mail to those addresses when they have "exciting" news to disseminate.
I have to say, that sounds like a lot of work. Also, what I consider "exciting" (i.e.: I could end up making some money) might not seem so exciting to the folks on the list.
Which brings us to one of the nastiest parts of being an indie pubbing author. You don't just have to write the damned books, you have to try to sell them to people. And to sell them, you have to help those potential buyers find your stuff.
Visibility is key.
It can be a lot easier if you turn indie with a huge trad-pub following, especially if you've got one or two successful series going. Make the first volume perma-free and announce the coming of MONKEY MAN number eight (or whatever). Let the inertia of your established career scrape a furrow across the belly of the World Wide Web.
If you're being trad pubbed right now, get your platform up right away, while existing books can promote it. (Your publisher will thank you, for now.) Then go indie and take your following with you.
Someone once said the establishment of the platform should precede the first book by two years. Any of you guys ready to plan that far ahead?
Monday, July 14, 2014
TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE
Did this ever happen to you? You're working in MS Word, putting the final touches on some manuscript. You save your changes, check the word count real quick, then close the document.
A window pops up: Do you want to save the changes you made to "Excellent Book"?
And you're thinking, "What changes?"
Now you get all paranoid. What happened? Was there some sort of glitch? Did the power flicker or something? Did I lean on the keyboard, introducing spurious characters someplace in the depths of my manuscript? Where's that damn cursor right now?
So, what do you do? If you save changes, and you DID lean on the keyboard or something, you could be messing up your perfect book. If you don't save changes, you could be losing those perfect last-minute adjustments you just made. Are you absolutely sure you saved your changes before trying to close the document?
This is serious! You were all over that book today, tweaking this and that and getting it just the way you wanted it. If you had to start the day over again, would you be able to find all those places and make all those changes again? Almost impossible!
Okay, you might try this: Click "Cancel" on that warning window and go back into editing mode. Click File and Save As and create a new title for the work. This copy should have those changes Word was talking about, whether they be spurious or essential.
If you saved changes in the original version (as you're convinced you did), then it's fine under the old name. When you have time, you can open one version and use Track Changes to see if the other version has differences you want to keep. (It almost certainly won't.)
At lot of trouble, right?
Or you could do this: Trust that you saved changes in the first place.
And remember this glitch in Word: Checking the word count triggers a request for saving changes. Nothing actually happened. There ARE no changes in the text of your manuscript. Say Yes or say No, it makes no difference.
Just to be sure (sort of), train yourself to check the word count BEFORE you save current changes. There'll be no warning on exit.
On the other hand, can you really be sure you DIDN'T lean on the keyboard or something? Are you willing to run this version through KindleGen directly to the "shelves" of Amazon, where all the world can view your perplexing display of gibberish?
"What's this?" a reader might exclaim. "Is the author having a stroke? Is the character supposed to be having a stroke? Am I having a stroke?"
Personally, I don't set KindleGen loose on a Word doc. I create a text file, run it through MobiPocket Creator, and open the HTML in Notepad++. Once there I view the book numerous times in my browser, along with several other times in Kindle Previewer. There still maybe things wrong with it, but at least I can be sure there are no bouts of "keyboard-leaning" gibberish anywhere in there.
Unless my Oldtimers' Disease kicked in, then all bets are off.
Isn't paranoia a lovely way to spend your hours?
A window pops up: Do you want to save the changes you made to "Excellent Book"?
And you're thinking, "What changes?"
Now you get all paranoid. What happened? Was there some sort of glitch? Did the power flicker or something? Did I lean on the keyboard, introducing spurious characters someplace in the depths of my manuscript? Where's that damn cursor right now?
So, what do you do? If you save changes, and you DID lean on the keyboard or something, you could be messing up your perfect book. If you don't save changes, you could be losing those perfect last-minute adjustments you just made. Are you absolutely sure you saved your changes before trying to close the document?
This is serious! You were all over that book today, tweaking this and that and getting it just the way you wanted it. If you had to start the day over again, would you be able to find all those places and make all those changes again? Almost impossible!
Okay, you might try this: Click "Cancel" on that warning window and go back into editing mode. Click File and Save As and create a new title for the work. This copy should have those changes Word was talking about, whether they be spurious or essential.
If you saved changes in the original version (as you're convinced you did), then it's fine under the old name. When you have time, you can open one version and use Track Changes to see if the other version has differences you want to keep. (It almost certainly won't.)
At lot of trouble, right?
Or you could do this: Trust that you saved changes in the first place.
And remember this glitch in Word: Checking the word count triggers a request for saving changes. Nothing actually happened. There ARE no changes in the text of your manuscript. Say Yes or say No, it makes no difference.
Just to be sure (sort of), train yourself to check the word count BEFORE you save current changes. There'll be no warning on exit.
On the other hand, can you really be sure you DIDN'T lean on the keyboard or something? Are you willing to run this version through KindleGen directly to the "shelves" of Amazon, where all the world can view your perplexing display of gibberish?
"What's this?" a reader might exclaim. "Is the author having a stroke? Is the character supposed to be having a stroke? Am I having a stroke?"
Personally, I don't set KindleGen loose on a Word doc. I create a text file, run it through MobiPocket Creator, and open the HTML in Notepad++. Once there I view the book numerous times in my browser, along with several other times in Kindle Previewer. There still maybe things wrong with it, but at least I can be sure there are no bouts of "keyboard-leaning" gibberish anywhere in there.
Unless my Oldtimers' Disease kicked in, then all bets are off.
Isn't paranoia a lovely way to spend your hours?
Thursday, July 3, 2014
DEATH TO DASHES
When you're stuck in an ebook universe of right-margin justification without benefit of hyphenation (Kindle World, as imposed by Amazon), one of the more annoying bits of punctuation is the dash.
For various reasons, I've concluded the type of dash that works best is the en dash. The short one.
Unfortunately, in the corrosive environment of the ebook, the spacing around en dashes can get messed up. There is a particular problem when using a pair of dashes to set off a bit of information inside a sentence. If the dashes are far enough apart to appear on different lines of text, there is an excellent chance the spacing around them will differ—sometimes strikingly.
Never a pretty sight.
Even the use of a single dash inside a paragraph opens the door for noticeably loose spacing, compared to other forms of punctuation. The dash just seems to draw unwanted attention to itself.
Toward the end of the edit of my last book I went through the manuscript (in the HTML version) with a bloody axe, taking out dashes. Later edits restored some of those dashes. (They are a hard habit to kick.) With just hours to go, I went through again (search set for "ndash") and reduced dashes from 86 to 20. (In 95k words.)
Here are some of the techniques I used.
Substitution: swap in a colon.
Colons and dashes are meant to appear in reverse order.
This statement leads to a list: item, item, item, and item.
Or the dash version:
Item, item, item, and item – all coming from the same situation.
You may object to simply subbing in a colon for the dash in the previous sentence. It's a question of eye and ear. But often it's a fast change you can get away with.
If you have more time, you could rewrite the sentence, putting the statement first and the list last, with a colon betwixt 'em. Mainly you give up a bit of drama, which is why you're more likely to see the colon in formal writing, where drama is exchanged for clarity and organization.
Another simple substitution: the comma.
Often, little or no revision is needed to use a comma in place of a dash:
He wanted to know the truth – so I told him.
Becomes:
He wanted to know the truth, so I told him.
In the first example, the dash is all about the drama. The second sentence is more low key. In an already dramatic situation, the information that the first character ("he") is at last handed the truth is probably enough drama. And a lot of that is created inside the reader's mind, those good folks doing your job for you.
The reader "jumps the gap" in knowledge so quickly it hardly matters how the text puts it, so long as the information is clearly given. The loss in drama switching from dash to comma is negligible—if the situation is setup with the right amount of juice to begin with.
(Blog writing is generally a bit hyper, which is why I can get away with a dash in the previous sentence. Plus, the text is not justified, so there's no visual penalty.)
If drama is still sought from punctuation, go for the full stop:
He wanted to know the truth. So I told him.
There, an extra dollop of drama, and no dash.
Even more drama:
He wanted to know the truth.
So I told him.
Now the drama extends to a new paragraph. This technique also fluffs up the white space on your page, making the scene read just a little faster. Your eye and ear should tell you when you've used this technique too many times in one book.
These examples show how you can kill a dash with the least bit of rewriting. Save all that extra writing for your next book.
(And this time, try to think outside the dash box, so you don't have to keep cleaning up the mess.)
Fixing the paired dash situation can also be done quite simply, though there are consequences.
One solution is again to swap in commas:
He ran around all day – from one end of this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other – before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Becomes:
He ran around all day, from one end of this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other, before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Separating a chunk of text that includes at least one comma is often the main reason for USING a pair of dashes. Taking them out again by throwing in even more commas puts some demands on the reader. It slows the reading a bit, true, but makes it look more grownup, somehow. More serious. More literary.
Now, going another way:
He ran around all day (from one end of the this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other) before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Using parentheses is a risk, and in this case I think the result is slightly off-putting. If I couldn't have dashes, I would prefer the commas.
Other times, however, a parenthetical remark is perfectly acceptable. It tends to lighten the mood, though, releasing some tension. And it's right on the edge of being mistaken for an intrusion from the author.
Here's another example:
Bob Randall – no question, the stupidest man in the known universe – ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
Becomes:
Bob Randall (no question, the stupidest man in the known universe) ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
With commas:
Bob Randall, no question, the stupidest man in the known universe, ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
If the sentence is to forgo dashes, it appears to work better with a parenthetical remark, the comma version coming off positively comma-clotted. If using parentheses is not always a perfect solution, it is a solution that gets the job done.
There is, as I mentioned, a risk using parentheses you don't face with dashes. In a style-heavy third-person chunk of text it needs to be clear all the attitude is coming from the viewpoint character, and none from the author.
Remember, overuse of parentheses leads to a gushy, diary-like effect, and should probably be avoided—unless that's exactly what you're writing. BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY, for example, is packed with parenthetical remarks, but they seem at home there.
Of course, when you're writing in the first-person, everything belongs to the character, even if the character is mistaken for the author:
Bob Randall (no question, the stupidest man I ever met) ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
Now, I don't mean to leave you with the impression all dashes need to be removed. They work to great effect in short bits of interrupted dialogue:
"What the – "
As long as the text is too short to reach the right-side margin in the largest reasonable font, the spacing around the dash will be equal and normal looking. Just remember to use the same sort of spacing on both sides of the dash. Don't mix regular with non-breaking spaces (" " in HTML).
If you ONLY use dashes this way (interrupted dialogue), you might want to experiment with the big guys—one em dashes. Up to you.
But I've found embedding those guys inside sentences leads to problems their smaller brothers don't have to worry about. The dash may stick to the back of the first word, while opening a space in front of the next. Or worse, join up in a three-part unit with large spaces front and back.
And I would not recommend using both en and em dashes in the same book.
Personally, I stick with en dashes, keeping them out of the interior of paragraphs whenever possible. Increasingly, I find it possible to do just that.
For various reasons, I've concluded the type of dash that works best is the en dash. The short one.
Unfortunately, in the corrosive environment of the ebook, the spacing around en dashes can get messed up. There is a particular problem when using a pair of dashes to set off a bit of information inside a sentence. If the dashes are far enough apart to appear on different lines of text, there is an excellent chance the spacing around them will differ—sometimes strikingly.
Never a pretty sight.
Even the use of a single dash inside a paragraph opens the door for noticeably loose spacing, compared to other forms of punctuation. The dash just seems to draw unwanted attention to itself.
Toward the end of the edit of my last book I went through the manuscript (in the HTML version) with a bloody axe, taking out dashes. Later edits restored some of those dashes. (They are a hard habit to kick.) With just hours to go, I went through again (search set for "ndash") and reduced dashes from 86 to 20. (In 95k words.)
Here are some of the techniques I used.
Substitution: swap in a colon.
Colons and dashes are meant to appear in reverse order.
This statement leads to a list: item, item, item, and item.
Or the dash version:
Item, item, item, and item – all coming from the same situation.
You may object to simply subbing in a colon for the dash in the previous sentence. It's a question of eye and ear. But often it's a fast change you can get away with.
If you have more time, you could rewrite the sentence, putting the statement first and the list last, with a colon betwixt 'em. Mainly you give up a bit of drama, which is why you're more likely to see the colon in formal writing, where drama is exchanged for clarity and organization.
Another simple substitution: the comma.
Often, little or no revision is needed to use a comma in place of a dash:
He wanted to know the truth – so I told him.
Becomes:
He wanted to know the truth, so I told him.
In the first example, the dash is all about the drama. The second sentence is more low key. In an already dramatic situation, the information that the first character ("he") is at last handed the truth is probably enough drama. And a lot of that is created inside the reader's mind, those good folks doing your job for you.
The reader "jumps the gap" in knowledge so quickly it hardly matters how the text puts it, so long as the information is clearly given. The loss in drama switching from dash to comma is negligible—if the situation is setup with the right amount of juice to begin with.
(Blog writing is generally a bit hyper, which is why I can get away with a dash in the previous sentence. Plus, the text is not justified, so there's no visual penalty.)
If drama is still sought from punctuation, go for the full stop:
He wanted to know the truth. So I told him.
There, an extra dollop of drama, and no dash.
Even more drama:
He wanted to know the truth.
So I told him.
Now the drama extends to a new paragraph. This technique also fluffs up the white space on your page, making the scene read just a little faster. Your eye and ear should tell you when you've used this technique too many times in one book.
These examples show how you can kill a dash with the least bit of rewriting. Save all that extra writing for your next book.
(And this time, try to think outside the dash box, so you don't have to keep cleaning up the mess.)
Fixing the paired dash situation can also be done quite simply, though there are consequences.
One solution is again to swap in commas:
He ran around all day – from one end of this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other – before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Becomes:
He ran around all day, from one end of this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other, before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Separating a chunk of text that includes at least one comma is often the main reason for USING a pair of dashes. Taking them out again by throwing in even more commas puts some demands on the reader. It slows the reading a bit, true, but makes it look more grownup, somehow. More serious. More literary.
Now, going another way:
He ran around all day (from one end of the this stinking, crowd-addled island to the other) before arriving home in time to watch Game of Thrones.
Using parentheses is a risk, and in this case I think the result is slightly off-putting. If I couldn't have dashes, I would prefer the commas.
Other times, however, a parenthetical remark is perfectly acceptable. It tends to lighten the mood, though, releasing some tension. And it's right on the edge of being mistaken for an intrusion from the author.
Here's another example:
Bob Randall – no question, the stupidest man in the known universe – ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
Becomes:
Bob Randall (no question, the stupidest man in the known universe) ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
With commas:
Bob Randall, no question, the stupidest man in the known universe, ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
If the sentence is to forgo dashes, it appears to work better with a parenthetical remark, the comma version coming off positively comma-clotted. If using parentheses is not always a perfect solution, it is a solution that gets the job done.
There is, as I mentioned, a risk using parentheses you don't face with dashes. In a style-heavy third-person chunk of text it needs to be clear all the attitude is coming from the viewpoint character, and none from the author.
Remember, overuse of parentheses leads to a gushy, diary-like effect, and should probably be avoided—unless that's exactly what you're writing. BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY, for example, is packed with parenthetical remarks, but they seem at home there.
Of course, when you're writing in the first-person, everything belongs to the character, even if the character is mistaken for the author:
Bob Randall (no question, the stupidest man I ever met) ran for office in December, a month after the elections were held.
Now, I don't mean to leave you with the impression all dashes need to be removed. They work to great effect in short bits of interrupted dialogue:
"What the – "
As long as the text is too short to reach the right-side margin in the largest reasonable font, the spacing around the dash will be equal and normal looking. Just remember to use the same sort of spacing on both sides of the dash. Don't mix regular with non-breaking spaces (" " in HTML).
If you ONLY use dashes this way (interrupted dialogue), you might want to experiment with the big guys—one em dashes. Up to you.
But I've found embedding those guys inside sentences leads to problems their smaller brothers don't have to worry about. The dash may stick to the back of the first word, while opening a space in front of the next. Or worse, join up in a three-part unit with large spaces front and back.
And I would not recommend using both en and em dashes in the same book.
Personally, I stick with en dashes, keeping them out of the interior of paragraphs whenever possible. Increasingly, I find it possible to do just that.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
COMMENTS WELCOME
If you've prowled around this site, you will have noticed there are no comments following any of the posts [as of June 21, 2014].
I'm not blocking comments (although I did check the settings a year or so ago and found it was set so that only "members of the blog" were allowed to comment—I fixed that). The reason there are no comments is because nobody has ever commented.
I have it set for me to moderate comments. Your text will come to me as an email and I have the option of posting it or not.
I know it's actually set this way because the other day I got my first comment. Yippie!
Oh, wait.
There was something about it that made me suspicious. The guy was listed as "anonymous" but ended his comment with a link to a Website. Something about a typing service.
That worried me because I couldn't see why you would log in as anonymous and then send me to your Website—where, presumably, your anonymity would very quickly fall away.
Unless your Website is also anonymous for some reason. For instance, so folks won't know who to blame when the malware kicks in.
So I did some snooping.
I found that this fellow posts on a lot of sites, commenting on the blog in glowing but rather vague terms. And each time giving the link to his Website.
In fact, I noticed other comments on these pages have laudatory but vaguely worded information—and a link to some other Website.
On one page, where there was no actual article or blog post visible, all the comments suggested the content was tip-top and very useful and the guy will be sure to bookmark the page for future perusal.
And all the comments ended with a link.
On one page, nearly all the links went to some sort of "removal" service. British, I think.
(Dead body cleanup? Was Mr. Wolf involved?)
One comment used the same text as the one I received, but the link went to a another Website.
The fellow who commented on my blog used a variety of names on other sites, all with different messages, but the same link.
In fact, I'm guessing all these bogus commenters have subscribed to a service that promises to bandy their Website links about the Web—by making fake comments of unspecific praise.
Either all those sites are setup to have all comments go straight through to print, or the moderator fell for the praise and let them pass.
Of course, it does benefit the sites where these messages appear. Legitimate readers are treated to comments that praise the content or the page design. Might even encourage the average Web surfer to form a favorable opinion of the site.
As for this blog, I actually do welcome comments.
But to get through the vetting process, the comment needs to be specific enough to make me think the blog post it's attached to had been read by the author of the comment.
If your praise is suspiciously vague, please don't end with a link to your Website.
Makes me antsy.
On the other hand, if you make a real comment and want to end with a link to your own blog, go for it.
I'm not blocking comments (although I did check the settings a year or so ago and found it was set so that only "members of the blog" were allowed to comment—I fixed that). The reason there are no comments is because nobody has ever commented.
I have it set for me to moderate comments. Your text will come to me as an email and I have the option of posting it or not.
I know it's actually set this way because the other day I got my first comment. Yippie!
Oh, wait.
There was something about it that made me suspicious. The guy was listed as "anonymous" but ended his comment with a link to a Website. Something about a typing service.
That worried me because I couldn't see why you would log in as anonymous and then send me to your Website—where, presumably, your anonymity would very quickly fall away.
Unless your Website is also anonymous for some reason. For instance, so folks won't know who to blame when the malware kicks in.
So I did some snooping.
I found that this fellow posts on a lot of sites, commenting on the blog in glowing but rather vague terms. And each time giving the link to his Website.
In fact, I noticed other comments on these pages have laudatory but vaguely worded information—and a link to some other Website.
On one page, where there was no actual article or blog post visible, all the comments suggested the content was tip-top and very useful and the guy will be sure to bookmark the page for future perusal.
And all the comments ended with a link.
On one page, nearly all the links went to some sort of "removal" service. British, I think.
(Dead body cleanup? Was Mr. Wolf involved?)
One comment used the same text as the one I received, but the link went to a another Website.
The fellow who commented on my blog used a variety of names on other sites, all with different messages, but the same link.
In fact, I'm guessing all these bogus commenters have subscribed to a service that promises to bandy their Website links about the Web—by making fake comments of unspecific praise.
Either all those sites are setup to have all comments go straight through to print, or the moderator fell for the praise and let them pass.
Of course, it does benefit the sites where these messages appear. Legitimate readers are treated to comments that praise the content or the page design. Might even encourage the average Web surfer to form a favorable opinion of the site.
As for this blog, I actually do welcome comments.
But to get through the vetting process, the comment needs to be specific enough to make me think the blog post it's attached to had been read by the author of the comment.
If your praise is suspiciously vague, please don't end with a link to your Website.
Makes me antsy.
On the other hand, if you make a real comment and want to end with a link to your own blog, go for it.
Friday, June 13, 2014
THE BLACK BOX, AT LAST
My science-fiction novel, THE BLACK BOX, went live today, finally.
Since we last met, I went through it twice. Made over two hundred changes in the first pass, including the fixing of two actual errors.
The second pass generated about a third as many changes.
In between passes I targeted dashes (again), reducing their number from 86 to 20. I like writing in dashes, but it's a habit I really need to break. They just don't work well in ebooks. And they make the text appear a bit hysterical and gushy.
I also targeted ellipses, cutting them to the bone. Those guys are often even worse in appearance in ebooks, depending on the font size chosen by the almighty reader. If your characters use 'em a lot, they look tentative and a bit untrustworthy. (If that's what you're going for, fine.)
During the (most recent) final pass I noticed a pattern in my writing I needed to address. A character would ask a question of another, then "before he could answer, [this new event took place]." Some version of that sentence occurred a dozen times in 95K words. I revised all but three or four of them.
(I get hung up introducing unexpected action in a scene. I keep wanting to write something like: "And all of a sudden, the car blew up!" If I just wrote "The car blew up," that would certainly qualify as a sudden event, at least to the unsuspecting reader. I really shouldn't have to SAY the event occurred suddenly. Seems baldly stated, though, without a few words of introduction. It's just one more thing I have to work on.)
I added some images to the book: signs and lists and protest banners, etc. I think it's fun to do, gives the book some visual variety, and doesn't cost much. I used GIMP, indexed the image to eight colors, and saved it as a gif to minimize the file sizes.
The book (with its title page image) was right on the brink of tipping from seven to eight cents delivery fee. The images I added bumped it all the way, but not by much. Turns out, I had already done something else that put me squarely in the eight cent category.
The cover.
I tried using a cut-down cover to save money, but I found it looked skimpy in the Fire HD 8.9" Kindle. (According to Previewer.) Using the full sized display cover (1600 by 2500) got me a full screen cover image (from margin to margin) in every Kindle out there...and maybe some future versions, too. (In the HD 8.9" the image increased 47% when I went with the display cover file.)
I know handing KindleGen a big-ass image file (mine is 357,286 bytes) invites it to chop it down to 127K. I just think it does a fine job. But yes, doing it this way MAY bump you up a penny in delivery charges. (If you're already just over the half cent point, going this way won't cost you any more money.)
My next project will be the second book in the Trevor Blake middle-grade chapter-book series. (The first was THE EXPLODING WIZARD'S RIGHT-HAND BOY.)
Stay tuned.
Since we last met, I went through it twice. Made over two hundred changes in the first pass, including the fixing of two actual errors.
The second pass generated about a third as many changes.
In between passes I targeted dashes (again), reducing their number from 86 to 20. I like writing in dashes, but it's a habit I really need to break. They just don't work well in ebooks. And they make the text appear a bit hysterical and gushy.
I also targeted ellipses, cutting them to the bone. Those guys are often even worse in appearance in ebooks, depending on the font size chosen by the almighty reader. If your characters use 'em a lot, they look tentative and a bit untrustworthy. (If that's what you're going for, fine.)
During the (most recent) final pass I noticed a pattern in my writing I needed to address. A character would ask a question of another, then "before he could answer, [this new event took place]." Some version of that sentence occurred a dozen times in 95K words. I revised all but three or four of them.
(I get hung up introducing unexpected action in a scene. I keep wanting to write something like: "And all of a sudden, the car blew up!" If I just wrote "The car blew up," that would certainly qualify as a sudden event, at least to the unsuspecting reader. I really shouldn't have to SAY the event occurred suddenly. Seems baldly stated, though, without a few words of introduction. It's just one more thing I have to work on.)
I added some images to the book: signs and lists and protest banners, etc. I think it's fun to do, gives the book some visual variety, and doesn't cost much. I used GIMP, indexed the image to eight colors, and saved it as a gif to minimize the file sizes.
The book (with its title page image) was right on the brink of tipping from seven to eight cents delivery fee. The images I added bumped it all the way, but not by much. Turns out, I had already done something else that put me squarely in the eight cent category.
The cover.
I tried using a cut-down cover to save money, but I found it looked skimpy in the Fire HD 8.9" Kindle. (According to Previewer.) Using the full sized display cover (1600 by 2500) got me a full screen cover image (from margin to margin) in every Kindle out there...and maybe some future versions, too. (In the HD 8.9" the image increased 47% when I went with the display cover file.)
I know handing KindleGen a big-ass image file (mine is 357,286 bytes) invites it to chop it down to 127K. I just think it does a fine job. But yes, doing it this way MAY bump you up a penny in delivery charges. (If you're already just over the half cent point, going this way won't cost you any more money.)
My next project will be the second book in the Trevor Blake middle-grade chapter-book series. (The first was THE EXPLODING WIZARD'S RIGHT-HAND BOY.)
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
REWRITES AND STUFF
First, I want to announce my ebook KINDLE CREATION FOR CONTROL FREAKS will be free for five days starting the Friday (the 6th).
As is typical for me (lately), I've clumped the full five days in one pile at the end of the book's Select period. It's easily the most inefficient method of giveaway—assuming you want to maximize the resulting downloads.
(Best would be one or two day periods, since the great majority of downloads occur then.)
The only excuse I have is that I'm buried beneath the rewrite (slash proof) of something called THE BLACK BOX. It's been a week away from going up on Amazon for the last month and half. And just two weeks away from going up for about two months before that.
(When you're so close to the end, you tend to put off other tasks—like writing posts for your blog.)
So: What the hell is my problem? Why can't I finish the book?
Easy: I can't stop making changes!
By now I've finished finding actual errors. Mostly I just revise what I have now (at last) discovered to be clumsy sentence construction. Or I find out some fast change from last time duplicated a word already in use in the same paragraph (or in a problematically "too near" paragraph). I hate unconscious repetition, and sometime even the sound of a word can trigger my reaction.
(Some of this super-sensitivity is idiotic, of course. Often, common words can be left alone to repeat as needed. Around the turn of the last century budding writers became obsessed with finding other words they could use instead of "said" when tagging dialogue. Whole chapters of How to Write books were set aside to list the alternates (uttered, pronounced, articulated, responded, averred, declaimed, gurgled, trilled, chortled, and so forth). By the second half of the 20th Century, writers came to believe the word "said" carries no particular weight with readers, that they pay no more attention to it than to the word "the." Exotic tags are only used now in a deliberate exaggeration of some character's bizarre style.)
Sometimes, between readings (that is, at the end of the most recent "final" reading), I wander around the house telling myself the story of the novel. I do this out loud so I can listen to the words and object to logical problems.
Just one session like this can lead to pages of notes—even at an advanced stage of the writing. Sometimes rather fundamental problems pop up.
Embarrassing? Oh, you bet! But better to embarrass yourself now in private than in "print" in front of strangers later.
What you dread finding—but must still be open to—is a logical flaw that seriously undermines the very CONCEPT of your book. That, of course, can be crippling. Or it can be a challenge that leads to excellent changes (and lots more excellent delays).
For me, the scary part is that new ideas keep coming that MUST be incorporated into the book. It often takes me a LONG time to see the obvious.
This is one of the pitfalls of indie publishing—the lack of outside feedback.
In the trad pub world, you have professionals to watch your back. Maybe you even have a development editor to keep you on track during the gestation of the work.
In the indie pub world, writers have to make do with beta readers. I've no experience there, but I should probably get some (readers and experience with them).
Right now, every time I read my book I make changes, but the number of those changes does tend to diminish over time. In other words, there appears to be progress, which is maybe the only thing that keeps a writer sane. (That "progress" might be an illusion, but let's not talk about that.)
What I try to do is go over and over a chapter (or even a section of a chapter) until I can find no more changes to make. Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee all possible changes have been made. It just means things have quieted down for this part of the book. For now.
Theoretically, when you make that "final" batch of changes, you've made the section PERFECT. Which ought to mean you never have to go over it again.
So why do I find myself going over it again?
Partly, it might be a kind of OCD behavior.
After you leave the house, you begin to wonder if you locked the door. If you happen to have been preoccupied at the time (or in a hurry), that feeling can be very strong. So you go back. And find the door properly locked.
Or wide open.
Or it's locked, and your key is stuck in the lock.
Odd things can pop up when you go back to check.
With a book, you can metaphorically run back home to make sure the third floor of your "house" is in order, only to discover your second floor is MISSING.
That kind of structural problem can happen even if you plan your book out in great detail before you start writing. And if you're a "plunge-in" first-draft writer, you really have to keep your eyes open as you go forward.
I think there's another reason why "perfect" chunks of the book are compulsively reread. I've found the process of going through a long manuscript—and making LOTS of changes—can erode my confidence in those earlier "perfected" chapters.
The sheer VOLUME of new changes makes me queasy, afraid I haven't found everything I need to find. And guess what? A slow, detailed look at "finished" chapters often gives me proof I DID need to go through the damned thing again. There really ARE monsters lurking in the darkness, un-slain.
Ultimately, I'm always glad I went back and took "one last" look. And knowing THAT also undermines my confidence.
Another part of the problem is the TIME it takes to get through the book. Longer books may take five to ten days to read carefully and amend. By the time you get to the end, the sense all is well with earlier sections has simply melted away.
If the book were shorter—a novella, say—I think I'd have a much more realistic idea of its "perfection."
A short story can be revised multiple times in one day (like a single chapter in a book), so the sense you've subdued the sucker once and for all is intense. (Though it may be false.)
The rule of thumb in trad pub is this: If you and your editor go over the manuscript twice in a row without making any changes, the book is finished. For an indie pubber, one without professional help, maybe the number should be three or four.
How freaking tedious is THAT?
(Note: I don't mean three or four passes altogether. I mean three or four times in a row when you find NOTHING to change.)
So, what is the ultimate solution? Do the best you can with a "reasonable" number of rewrites and proofs (whatever's "reasonable" for you), then give yourself permission to review the book in the future, after it's been published. Say one year later. Or when you decide to put out a POD edition.
Give yourself one more FINAL reading, with permission to change ANYTHING—just not right now.
Because at some point you HAVE to get on with the next book.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go read my book one more time.
As is typical for me (lately), I've clumped the full five days in one pile at the end of the book's Select period. It's easily the most inefficient method of giveaway—assuming you want to maximize the resulting downloads.
(Best would be one or two day periods, since the great majority of downloads occur then.)
The only excuse I have is that I'm buried beneath the rewrite (slash proof) of something called THE BLACK BOX. It's been a week away from going up on Amazon for the last month and half. And just two weeks away from going up for about two months before that.
(When you're so close to the end, you tend to put off other tasks—like writing posts for your blog.)
So: What the hell is my problem? Why can't I finish the book?
Easy: I can't stop making changes!
By now I've finished finding actual errors. Mostly I just revise what I have now (at last) discovered to be clumsy sentence construction. Or I find out some fast change from last time duplicated a word already in use in the same paragraph (or in a problematically "too near" paragraph). I hate unconscious repetition, and sometime even the sound of a word can trigger my reaction.
(Some of this super-sensitivity is idiotic, of course. Often, common words can be left alone to repeat as needed. Around the turn of the last century budding writers became obsessed with finding other words they could use instead of "said" when tagging dialogue. Whole chapters of How to Write books were set aside to list the alternates (uttered, pronounced, articulated, responded, averred, declaimed, gurgled, trilled, chortled, and so forth). By the second half of the 20th Century, writers came to believe the word "said" carries no particular weight with readers, that they pay no more attention to it than to the word "the." Exotic tags are only used now in a deliberate exaggeration of some character's bizarre style.)
Sometimes, between readings (that is, at the end of the most recent "final" reading), I wander around the house telling myself the story of the novel. I do this out loud so I can listen to the words and object to logical problems.
Just one session like this can lead to pages of notes—even at an advanced stage of the writing. Sometimes rather fundamental problems pop up.
Embarrassing? Oh, you bet! But better to embarrass yourself now in private than in "print" in front of strangers later.
What you dread finding—but must still be open to—is a logical flaw that seriously undermines the very CONCEPT of your book. That, of course, can be crippling. Or it can be a challenge that leads to excellent changes (and lots more excellent delays).
For me, the scary part is that new ideas keep coming that MUST be incorporated into the book. It often takes me a LONG time to see the obvious.
This is one of the pitfalls of indie publishing—the lack of outside feedback.
In the trad pub world, you have professionals to watch your back. Maybe you even have a development editor to keep you on track during the gestation of the work.
In the indie pub world, writers have to make do with beta readers. I've no experience there, but I should probably get some (readers and experience with them).
Right now, every time I read my book I make changes, but the number of those changes does tend to diminish over time. In other words, there appears to be progress, which is maybe the only thing that keeps a writer sane. (That "progress" might be an illusion, but let's not talk about that.)
What I try to do is go over and over a chapter (or even a section of a chapter) until I can find no more changes to make. Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee all possible changes have been made. It just means things have quieted down for this part of the book. For now.
Theoretically, when you make that "final" batch of changes, you've made the section PERFECT. Which ought to mean you never have to go over it again.
So why do I find myself going over it again?
Partly, it might be a kind of OCD behavior.
After you leave the house, you begin to wonder if you locked the door. If you happen to have been preoccupied at the time (or in a hurry), that feeling can be very strong. So you go back. And find the door properly locked.
Or wide open.
Or it's locked, and your key is stuck in the lock.
Odd things can pop up when you go back to check.
With a book, you can metaphorically run back home to make sure the third floor of your "house" is in order, only to discover your second floor is MISSING.
That kind of structural problem can happen even if you plan your book out in great detail before you start writing. And if you're a "plunge-in" first-draft writer, you really have to keep your eyes open as you go forward.
I think there's another reason why "perfect" chunks of the book are compulsively reread. I've found the process of going through a long manuscript—and making LOTS of changes—can erode my confidence in those earlier "perfected" chapters.
The sheer VOLUME of new changes makes me queasy, afraid I haven't found everything I need to find. And guess what? A slow, detailed look at "finished" chapters often gives me proof I DID need to go through the damned thing again. There really ARE monsters lurking in the darkness, un-slain.
Ultimately, I'm always glad I went back and took "one last" look. And knowing THAT also undermines my confidence.
Another part of the problem is the TIME it takes to get through the book. Longer books may take five to ten days to read carefully and amend. By the time you get to the end, the sense all is well with earlier sections has simply melted away.
If the book were shorter—a novella, say—I think I'd have a much more realistic idea of its "perfection."
A short story can be revised multiple times in one day (like a single chapter in a book), so the sense you've subdued the sucker once and for all is intense. (Though it may be false.)
The rule of thumb in trad pub is this: If you and your editor go over the manuscript twice in a row without making any changes, the book is finished. For an indie pubber, one without professional help, maybe the number should be three or four.
How freaking tedious is THAT?
(Note: I don't mean three or four passes altogether. I mean three or four times in a row when you find NOTHING to change.)
So, what is the ultimate solution? Do the best you can with a "reasonable" number of rewrites and proofs (whatever's "reasonable" for you), then give yourself permission to review the book in the future, after it's been published. Say one year later. Or when you decide to put out a POD edition.
Give yourself one more FINAL reading, with permission to change ANYTHING—just not right now.
Because at some point you HAVE to get on with the next book.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go read my book one more time.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
PROMO HEADS UP
Brief notice of several promos: My police procedural Salesman of the Year will be free starting midnight Wednesday (May 7) through the end of Sunday (May 11).
Next week: Hot Status goes out free from Friday through Saturday (May 16 – 17). The sequel (Mad Minute) will be running a countdown in the UK for a week starting Sunday (the 11th).
And The Exploding Wizard's Right-Hand Boy will be free for five days, starting May 13th.
Check details on Amazon before endulging.
Next week: Hot Status goes out free from Friday through Saturday (May 16 – 17). The sequel (Mad Minute) will be running a countdown in the UK for a week starting Sunday (the 11th).
And The Exploding Wizard's Right-Hand Boy will be free for five days, starting May 13th.
Check details on Amazon before endulging.
Monday, April 28, 2014
SLOUCHING, PART TWO
Even more time has slithered down the drain since I posted Part One (SLOUCHING TOWARD PUBLICATION).
I'm still hung up on the text of the book, trying to finalize it.
My new problem is an attempt to conform to proper style for particular terms. I've been here before, in the writing of other books.
It's always the same question: Is the item in question one word or two words or hyphenated? Is it the same in the noun form as it is in the adjectival? What do the authorities say?
Take "back yard," for instance. Some folks say it should be "backyard," for both noun and adjective (Associated Press, for one). Others (Roy Copperud, Paul Brians) want to use two words for the noun, one word for the adjective.
They argue that usually it's "front yard" not "frontyard" and "side yard" not "sideyard," so "back yard" fits better.
Same position concerning the "back seat" of a car.
I've decided to use "back yard" for the noun and "backyard" for the adjective. AP Stylebook can suck it. Same for "back seat."
"Bob's in the back seat, sitting next to a backseat driver."
Often, though, when the noun form is two words, the adjective is formed by linking the words with a hyphen.
"Bob writes science fiction; this is his third science-fiction novel."
"Bob has a buzz cut; he wears his hair in the buzz-cut style."
I've always used "okay" but AP says not to, preferring "OK" instead.
I had a character "passed-out" in a patio chair, but the Internet seems to like "passed out" instead. Okay, I'll go along with that. It also prefers "sport coat" over "sportcoat," but if that annoys you maybe you can write "blazer" (if it applies) or "jacket."
The thing about English is that "popular" usage determines "proper" usage. The more people do it a particular way, the more likely that way will be favored by authorities. Usage is more descriptive than prescriptive.
As a result, getting it wrong often enough seems to make it right.
So "restaurateur" evolved into "restauranteur." You can use either one, if you don't particularly care.
Foreign terms like "chaise longue" mutated into "chaise lounge."
Currently, the non-word "bicep" is getting a lot of play in novels and magazines (Newsweek uses it). I see the word as an illiterate back formation on "biceps," based on the mistaken notion that because "biceps" ends in S it must be plural. Authors use this made-up singular for when they're referring to just one of the muscles:
"Bob has a tattoo on his left bicep."
It's wrong, however. "Biceps" is singular. It comes from the Latin words for "two heads," indicating there are two attach points (at the shoulder, presumably—my Gray's Anatomy is AWOL).
The plural of "biceps" is "bicepses." (MS Word allows this plural, though I suspect I added it myself. Word does not like "bicep." Blogger's spellcheck doesn't like "bicepses" but is okay with "bicep.")
The 8th edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary doesn't list "bicep" (and I've never seen it in any other dictionary). It lists "biceps" but doesn't offer a plural form. Same with "quadriceps."
Oddly, the listing for "triceps" gives "tricepses" as a plural, but also allows "triceps" to be its own plural. (MS Word underlines "tricepses" in red. I'll need to have a word with Word.)
Paul Brians's list of errors says "bicep" is used (okay?) in casual speech, but is frowned upon in the medical community. I say it's a non-word and should be avoided. Or just use it in dialogue to show a character to be illiterate. But there's a problem. Your reader might not get it, so you may have to have another character point out the error.
(On the other hand, shaming your character may also shame your reader—who might not take kindly to that treatment.)
(To get a text version of his list, change "html" to "txt" in the address and open the new page in your browser; click Ctrl-A, C to copy, then drop it into Word; save as "Text Only with Line Breaks" to get an easy-to-read version that opens in Notepad. And by the way, Paul Brians would have written the possessive of his name without the final S. He doesn't like the look of the "–s's" form, though that is the rule. [Bridget Jones's Diary].)
In order to keep things straight in my current book (and in future works) I've started a Notepad file to list my own personal preferences. I'll also add any word I find myself looking up in a dictionary to check the spelling. Ultimately it should save me some time. (But right now it's just slowing me down.)
Is it better to be right or to be consistent?
It's a lousy choice: Be consistently right.
I'm still hung up on the text of the book, trying to finalize it.
My new problem is an attempt to conform to proper style for particular terms. I've been here before, in the writing of other books.
It's always the same question: Is the item in question one word or two words or hyphenated? Is it the same in the noun form as it is in the adjectival? What do the authorities say?
Take "back yard," for instance. Some folks say it should be "backyard," for both noun and adjective (Associated Press, for one). Others (Roy Copperud, Paul Brians) want to use two words for the noun, one word for the adjective.
They argue that usually it's "front yard" not "frontyard" and "side yard" not "sideyard," so "back yard" fits better.
Same position concerning the "back seat" of a car.
I've decided to use "back yard" for the noun and "backyard" for the adjective. AP Stylebook can suck it. Same for "back seat."
"Bob's in the back seat, sitting next to a backseat driver."
Often, though, when the noun form is two words, the adjective is formed by linking the words with a hyphen.
"Bob writes science fiction; this is his third science-fiction novel."
"Bob has a buzz cut; he wears his hair in the buzz-cut style."
I've always used "okay" but AP says not to, preferring "OK" instead.
I had a character "passed-out" in a patio chair, but the Internet seems to like "passed out" instead. Okay, I'll go along with that. It also prefers "sport coat" over "sportcoat," but if that annoys you maybe you can write "blazer" (if it applies) or "jacket."
The thing about English is that "popular" usage determines "proper" usage. The more people do it a particular way, the more likely that way will be favored by authorities. Usage is more descriptive than prescriptive.
As a result, getting it wrong often enough seems to make it right.
So "restaurateur" evolved into "restauranteur." You can use either one, if you don't particularly care.
Foreign terms like "chaise longue" mutated into "chaise lounge."
Currently, the non-word "bicep" is getting a lot of play in novels and magazines (Newsweek uses it). I see the word as an illiterate back formation on "biceps," based on the mistaken notion that because "biceps" ends in S it must be plural. Authors use this made-up singular for when they're referring to just one of the muscles:
"Bob has a tattoo on his left bicep."
It's wrong, however. "Biceps" is singular. It comes from the Latin words for "two heads," indicating there are two attach points (at the shoulder, presumably—my Gray's Anatomy is AWOL).
The plural of "biceps" is "bicepses." (MS Word allows this plural, though I suspect I added it myself. Word does not like "bicep." Blogger's spellcheck doesn't like "bicepses" but is okay with "bicep.")
The 8th edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary doesn't list "bicep" (and I've never seen it in any other dictionary). It lists "biceps" but doesn't offer a plural form. Same with "quadriceps."
Oddly, the listing for "triceps" gives "tricepses" as a plural, but also allows "triceps" to be its own plural. (MS Word underlines "tricepses" in red. I'll need to have a word with Word.)
Paul Brians's list of errors says "bicep" is used (okay?) in casual speech, but is frowned upon in the medical community. I say it's a non-word and should be avoided. Or just use it in dialogue to show a character to be illiterate. But there's a problem. Your reader might not get it, so you may have to have another character point out the error.
(On the other hand, shaming your character may also shame your reader—who might not take kindly to that treatment.)
(To get a text version of his list, change "html" to "txt" in the address and open the new page in your browser; click Ctrl-A, C to copy, then drop it into Word; save as "Text Only with Line Breaks" to get an easy-to-read version that opens in Notepad. And by the way, Paul Brians would have written the possessive of his name without the final S. He doesn't like the look of the "–s's" form, though that is the rule. [Bridget Jones's Diary].)
In order to keep things straight in my current book (and in future works) I've started a Notepad file to list my own personal preferences. I'll also add any word I find myself looking up in a dictionary to check the spelling. Ultimately it should save me some time. (But right now it's just slowing me down.)
Is it better to be right or to be consistent?
It's a lousy choice: Be consistently right.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
PROMOTIONS IN APRIL
Starting at midnight this coming Monday (April 14), my techno thriller HOT STATUS will be free for three days. During that period, the sequel (MAD MINUTE) will be selling at a reduced price: $1.99.
Then, for an additional three days (April 17 – April 19), MAD MINUTE will go up to $2.99, on its way to returning to its regular price of $4.99.
This time I'm sending the information about HOT STATUS to five of the book promotion sites I use—but nothing about the Countdown promotion of MAD MINUTE.
The idea is to see if giving the prequel away for free will engender sales in the sequel—even if nobody (outside this post) advertises the fact the second book is being sold at discount for awhile.
Will folks find this out on their own? Time will tell.
Then, for an additional three days (April 17 – April 19), MAD MINUTE will go up to $2.99, on its way to returning to its regular price of $4.99.
This time I'm sending the information about HOT STATUS to five of the book promotion sites I use—but nothing about the Countdown promotion of MAD MINUTE.
The idea is to see if giving the prequel away for free will engender sales in the sequel—even if nobody (outside this post) advertises the fact the second book is being sold at discount for awhile.
Will folks find this out on their own? Time will tell.
Monday, March 24, 2014
SLOUCHING TOWARD PUBLICATION
As I mentioned some time back, my current WIP is the recreation of an unfinished project that exists in numerous files, completed and otherwise. I found maybe 60 versions of the first book in the series and have spent some time blending and weaving the texts into one. This process is nearing completion.
I have at last given up any additional excursions into the earlier texts. I am making a stand with what I've got—revising this version into the final version. I know there may be excellent turns of phrase left on the table, embedded electronically on some floppy disc created fifteen or twenty years ago. So be it.
Let future scholars print sixty-lane superhighways of massively parallel texts.
(Or maybe I'll just erase them all. Who knows?)
One of the big problems in completing Volume One is that Volume Two does in fact run parallel to One for much of its length. Events that appear autonomous to the characters in One are observed and interfered with by other characters (or by alternate versions of the same character) in Volume Two.
As a consequence, I need to identify cross-over points in One that can be exploited in Two. And I'd kind of like to locate them all before I complete this "final" pass.
However: One of the main advantages of indie publication is the ability to go back and make adjustments of the text—pretty much any time you want to. You don't even have to tell Amazon, if the change is small enough.
If you need to go back and have a character turn to the left at the end of a scene (instead of turning to the right), it can be done. Try getting a traditional publisher to put out a new edition of your book just to accommodate small changes. (Or pretty much ANY change.)
To avoid as best I can those alternate versions, I need to plan out Volume Two in as much detail as possible before releasing One. Best, of course, would be to complete an earely revised draft of the second book before pubbing One. But let's not go crazy here.
One does want to publish in one's own lifetime, right?
Generally, the main reason for delaying any publication is so you can GET IT RIGHT. If you're a simon-pure indie (like me), you do everything yourself, including all editing and proofing. You strive to make your book free of errors or any kind, keeping in mind you alone are the last line of defense between the reader and your own idiotic mistakes.
That thought can be daunting—and lead to breakdowns in the schedule.
I mentioned earlier how I proof a book. Basically, several silent readings, followed by several "out loud" readings. For the out loud version I use a text-to-speech program called DSpeech. It's free.
(You can also be your own out loud reader. This is especially useful for testing dialogue: search the inside of your mouth for twisting tongue action.)
When the electronic "reader" stumbles over your words, take another look—something is sure to have gone sideways in there. For best results, follow along in the text as the voice reads.
The problem is, word processing creates special opportunities for error. It's so easy to swap out a verb, for instance, you can forget to also swap out the helper words that accompanied the old verb. Change ONE word, and you have to stare particularly hard at the whole sentence again to make sure you haven't introduced new problems.
I make a lot of changes in the HTML, which I edit in Notepad++. I'll proof the book in my browser (Firefox), insert corrections in Notepad++, then refresh the browser to make sure all is well. Frankly, I love to see mistakes and awkward text vanish, to be replaced with "perfection." (Sometimes it takes a number of passes to achieve a state you are willing to call "perfection" so you can move the hell on.)
Sometimes I get obsessed with what I consider the overuse of some word. I'll search the offending word in Notepad to see how many times I've used it. Often, I'll swap in another word only to find the new word has been used even MORE times than the first.
Before I know it, I've entered one of those word-swap hells where half a dozen synonyms are vying for position. Often I have to compromise, agreeing to accept multiple uses of a particular word as long as they don't occur too close together. Highlight a word in Notepad and you'll see all other uses of that word highlighted.
When you're focused on getting just one paragraph right, it's pretty annoying to find that perfect new word already in use in the previous paragraph.
Before long, the process starts to resemble those old animated cartoons in which one theatergoer rises from his seat in a packed house. His empty seat is grabbed by another guy, leaving open a seat suddenly in demand by a third patron. In seconds, everybody in the theater is in a frenzy to change seats.
And it's all because I become obsessed that certain words have risen above the threshold of the ordinary. I don't worry that I'm using the word "the" too often. (Okay, I do, inside a given sentence.) And other words are too high profile to use more than once in a book: tenebrous, incarnadine, sesquipedalian.
(Some authors will repeat words of this sort till the cows come home. Peter Straub is in love with "tenebrous," and you cannot pry Thomas Wolfe away from "phthisic" to save your life.)
Where I have trouble is in deciding exactly when a word has achieved too high a profile to be tossed about with abandon.
But I'm working on it.
I have at last given up any additional excursions into the earlier texts. I am making a stand with what I've got—revising this version into the final version. I know there may be excellent turns of phrase left on the table, embedded electronically on some floppy disc created fifteen or twenty years ago. So be it.
Let future scholars print sixty-lane superhighways of massively parallel texts.
(Or maybe I'll just erase them all. Who knows?)
One of the big problems in completing Volume One is that Volume Two does in fact run parallel to One for much of its length. Events that appear autonomous to the characters in One are observed and interfered with by other characters (or by alternate versions of the same character) in Volume Two.
As a consequence, I need to identify cross-over points in One that can be exploited in Two. And I'd kind of like to locate them all before I complete this "final" pass.
However: One of the main advantages of indie publication is the ability to go back and make adjustments of the text—pretty much any time you want to. You don't even have to tell Amazon, if the change is small enough.
If you need to go back and have a character turn to the left at the end of a scene (instead of turning to the right), it can be done. Try getting a traditional publisher to put out a new edition of your book just to accommodate small changes. (Or pretty much ANY change.)
To avoid as best I can those alternate versions, I need to plan out Volume Two in as much detail as possible before releasing One. Best, of course, would be to complete an earely revised draft of the second book before pubbing One. But let's not go crazy here.
One does want to publish in one's own lifetime, right?
Generally, the main reason for delaying any publication is so you can GET IT RIGHT. If you're a simon-pure indie (like me), you do everything yourself, including all editing and proofing. You strive to make your book free of errors or any kind, keeping in mind you alone are the last line of defense between the reader and your own idiotic mistakes.
That thought can be daunting—and lead to breakdowns in the schedule.
I mentioned earlier how I proof a book. Basically, several silent readings, followed by several "out loud" readings. For the out loud version I use a text-to-speech program called DSpeech. It's free.
(You can also be your own out loud reader. This is especially useful for testing dialogue: search the inside of your mouth for twisting tongue action.)
When the electronic "reader" stumbles over your words, take another look—something is sure to have gone sideways in there. For best results, follow along in the text as the voice reads.
The problem is, word processing creates special opportunities for error. It's so easy to swap out a verb, for instance, you can forget to also swap out the helper words that accompanied the old verb. Change ONE word, and you have to stare particularly hard at the whole sentence again to make sure you haven't introduced new problems.
I make a lot of changes in the HTML, which I edit in Notepad++. I'll proof the book in my browser (Firefox), insert corrections in Notepad++, then refresh the browser to make sure all is well. Frankly, I love to see mistakes and awkward text vanish, to be replaced with "perfection." (Sometimes it takes a number of passes to achieve a state you are willing to call "perfection" so you can move the hell on.)
Sometimes I get obsessed with what I consider the overuse of some word. I'll search the offending word in Notepad to see how many times I've used it. Often, I'll swap in another word only to find the new word has been used even MORE times than the first.
Before I know it, I've entered one of those word-swap hells where half a dozen synonyms are vying for position. Often I have to compromise, agreeing to accept multiple uses of a particular word as long as they don't occur too close together. Highlight a word in Notepad and you'll see all other uses of that word highlighted.
When you're focused on getting just one paragraph right, it's pretty annoying to find that perfect new word already in use in the previous paragraph.
Before long, the process starts to resemble those old animated cartoons in which one theatergoer rises from his seat in a packed house. His empty seat is grabbed by another guy, leaving open a seat suddenly in demand by a third patron. In seconds, everybody in the theater is in a frenzy to change seats.
And it's all because I become obsessed that certain words have risen above the threshold of the ordinary. I don't worry that I'm using the word "the" too often. (Okay, I do, inside a given sentence.) And other words are too high profile to use more than once in a book: tenebrous, incarnadine, sesquipedalian.
(Some authors will repeat words of this sort till the cows come home. Peter Straub is in love with "tenebrous," and you cannot pry Thomas Wolfe away from "phthisic" to save your life.)
Where I have trouble is in deciding exactly when a word has achieved too high a profile to be tossed about with abandon.
But I'm working on it.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
BELATED COUNTDOWN PROMO ANNOUNCEMENT
Okay, I sort of let this one get away from me.
Turns out I have a book in a Countdown Promotion right now. KINDLE CREATION FOR CONTROL FREAKS dropped to 99 cents yesterday and will run through Sunday (the 9th) at 11 PM (Pacific). Halfway through this period the price will jump to $1.99. (Full price is $2.99.)
The Promotion runs on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Go for it!
Turns out I have a book in a Countdown Promotion right now. KINDLE CREATION FOR CONTROL FREAKS dropped to 99 cents yesterday and will run through Sunday (the 9th) at 11 PM (Pacific). Halfway through this period the price will jump to $1.99. (Full price is $2.99.)
The Promotion runs on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Go for it!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
SELECT INFO LINK
For the last few weeks I was unable to get my Select enrollment dates from the KDP Dashboard. I noticed the "info" link in the Select column for each book points right back to the Dashboard page. I'd open the page in a new tab (Firefox) and get exactly what I expected: another copy of the same page—but no Select info.
Same thing on the "title – setup" page: The "enrollment details" link was set to open another copy of the same "title – setup" page.
It wasn't just a question of finding out when the Select period ended for a given book (so promotions could be planned). You can always go into Promotion Manager and see the end date there. But it might be important to be able to get your hands on the automatic roll-over box and remove the check—for those interested in ending the Select program altogether for a particular book.
In fact, I went ahead and set up some promotions without the official Select Info window available. Even so, I was concerned something wasn't quite right, so I got KDP support into the act, asking what was up. I thought maybe the some of the links on this new version of the Dashboard weren't ready for prime time.
Wrong. Turns out it was MY fault all along.
See, I have a very slow rural phone line connection to the Internet. As a result, I'm reluctant to give up a page already downloaded onto my browser until I'm absolutely sure I'm through with it. So when I click a link on any given page, I'm in the habit of right-clicking and selecting "open link in new tab."
But in this case, that won't give you what you want.
You need to left-click the "info" link on the dashboard. It causes a kind of pop-up over the entire original page—a semi-transparent black window containing a smaller white box that is already in the process of loading the information you want.
Same thing on the "title – setup" page (which you can get by clicking the title of your book on the Dashboard or by clicking "Edit Book Details" at the right side of your book's listing).
The difference there, you have to wait until the page completely loads before a left-click on "enrollment details" will work. (For my slow connection, that can take many minutes—the page is loading my book's cover image and so forth.) At any time, however, you CAN right-click and open it in a new tab—the "title – setup" page, not the Select Information window.
Bottom line: Whatever page you use to get Select info for your book, it's ONLY available as the left-click pop-up. You can't open it in a separate tab. Very likely this is not a change peculiar to the new Dashboard. I must simply not have noticed before.
In other words: Never mind.
Same thing on the "title – setup" page: The "enrollment details" link was set to open another copy of the same "title – setup" page.
It wasn't just a question of finding out when the Select period ended for a given book (so promotions could be planned). You can always go into Promotion Manager and see the end date there. But it might be important to be able to get your hands on the automatic roll-over box and remove the check—for those interested in ending the Select program altogether for a particular book.
In fact, I went ahead and set up some promotions without the official Select Info window available. Even so, I was concerned something wasn't quite right, so I got KDP support into the act, asking what was up. I thought maybe the some of the links on this new version of the Dashboard weren't ready for prime time.
Wrong. Turns out it was MY fault all along.
See, I have a very slow rural phone line connection to the Internet. As a result, I'm reluctant to give up a page already downloaded onto my browser until I'm absolutely sure I'm through with it. So when I click a link on any given page, I'm in the habit of right-clicking and selecting "open link in new tab."
But in this case, that won't give you what you want.
You need to left-click the "info" link on the dashboard. It causes a kind of pop-up over the entire original page—a semi-transparent black window containing a smaller white box that is already in the process of loading the information you want.
Same thing on the "title – setup" page (which you can get by clicking the title of your book on the Dashboard or by clicking "Edit Book Details" at the right side of your book's listing).
The difference there, you have to wait until the page completely loads before a left-click on "enrollment details" will work. (For my slow connection, that can take many minutes—the page is loading my book's cover image and so forth.) At any time, however, you CAN right-click and open it in a new tab—the "title – setup" page, not the Select Information window.
Bottom line: Whatever page you use to get Select info for your book, it's ONLY available as the left-click pop-up. You can't open it in a separate tab. Very likely this is not a change peculiar to the new Dashboard. I must simply not have noticed before.
In other words: Never mind.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
SLOW WEEKEND GIVEAWAY
I mentioned last week my middle-grade chapter book (EXPLODING WIZARD) would be free last Friday and Saturday. Just one week before, the book was also free for three days, but I submitted that information to none of the promotion sites I use. Still got a substantial number of hits, though.
I was convinced this time—WITH promotion—I would get even more.
Wrong.
Maybe it was the timing: Valentine's Day and the Saturday after. It was also during part of the Presidents' Day three-day weekend. On the other hand, maybe just about everybody interested in the book already had their free copy.
In any case, the two days of promotion yielded only 16% the downloads as the first two days of the un-promoted giveaway. Not, as you might expect, only 16% MORE than before. I mean 16% OF the previous giveaway. In other words, going WITHOUT promotion captured more than 6 times the downloads.
I was shocked, I tell you.
Now, I'm pretty sure promoting the book didn't turn folks OFF. The traffic to those sites must be made up almost entirely of people looking for free and bargain books.
And to be fully accurate, I didn't look at the sites to see if the book made it onto the page, so I don't even know for sure the book WAS being promoted last week.
I probably ought to pay more attention, but frankly this whole promotion and selling aspect of indie pubbing makes me sleepy. I'd rather put my time into writing more books.
(Writing more books also makes me sleepy.)
At some point in the next few months I'll repeat this experiment, perhaps with two different kinds of books and with a little more separation in time. I'd be astonished to find promoting free books was the WRONG way to go.
I was convinced this time—WITH promotion—I would get even more.
Wrong.
Maybe it was the timing: Valentine's Day and the Saturday after. It was also during part of the Presidents' Day three-day weekend. On the other hand, maybe just about everybody interested in the book already had their free copy.
In any case, the two days of promotion yielded only 16% the downloads as the first two days of the un-promoted giveaway. Not, as you might expect, only 16% MORE than before. I mean 16% OF the previous giveaway. In other words, going WITHOUT promotion captured more than 6 times the downloads.
I was shocked, I tell you.
Now, I'm pretty sure promoting the book didn't turn folks OFF. The traffic to those sites must be made up almost entirely of people looking for free and bargain books.
And to be fully accurate, I didn't look at the sites to see if the book made it onto the page, so I don't even know for sure the book WAS being promoted last week.
I probably ought to pay more attention, but frankly this whole promotion and selling aspect of indie pubbing makes me sleepy. I'd rather put my time into writing more books.
(Writing more books also makes me sleepy.)
At some point in the next few months I'll repeat this experiment, perhaps with two different kinds of books and with a little more separation in time. I'd be astonished to find promoting free books was the WRONG way to go.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
STEALTH PROMOTION
Last week I put a number of books up for free (it's near the end of the Select period, and I'm tidying up). I decided to skip the part where I send information about the giveaways to a half dozen Web sites dedicated to this activity. (The half dozen I use; there are many more, of course, but the others tend to demand lots of reviews before they'll list a book.)
Here's what happened:
For HOT STATUS (the techno thriller): the un-promoted giveaway resulted in only 12.7% of the action in the previous promoted session. Reversing that: promotion resulted in 7.85 times the activity.
For SALESMAN OF THE YEAR (police procedural): only 22.25% of the promoted session. Or: promoting the giveaway yielded 4.44 times the number of book grabs.
Clearly, a little promotion substantially beats letting people stumble upon a free book during the happy time.
By the way, one of the sites I used for listing giveaways (Sweety's Picks) no longer accepts listings of Kindle freebies. Might be related to the dust-up with Amazon over changes in policy about rewards.
One thing different this time: HOT STATUS lost ground to my middle grade fantasy (EXPLODING WIZARD'S RIGHT-HAND BOY). Back in November, STATUS dominated WIZARD by a factor of 4.38. This time, WIZARD was the big dog, doing 3.37 times the "business".
How come? Maybe most of people who wanted STATUS has already grabbed a copy. Or maybe more people prowl the children's fiction section than the thriller pile, resulting in more discoveries of free books. Don't know.
In the next Select period I'll try running the books head to head again, but with some promotion for both.
And now a special bulletin from the Department of Buried Leads: EXPLODING WIZARD will be free Friday and Saturday (Feb 14 - 15). This time I sent the info to five of the sites I use (minus Sweety's Picks). I'll let you know if the numbers pick up. They certainly should.
Here's what happened:
For HOT STATUS (the techno thriller): the un-promoted giveaway resulted in only 12.7% of the action in the previous promoted session. Reversing that: promotion resulted in 7.85 times the activity.
For SALESMAN OF THE YEAR (police procedural): only 22.25% of the promoted session. Or: promoting the giveaway yielded 4.44 times the number of book grabs.
Clearly, a little promotion substantially beats letting people stumble upon a free book during the happy time.
By the way, one of the sites I used for listing giveaways (Sweety's Picks) no longer accepts listings of Kindle freebies. Might be related to the dust-up with Amazon over changes in policy about rewards.
One thing different this time: HOT STATUS lost ground to my middle grade fantasy (EXPLODING WIZARD'S RIGHT-HAND BOY). Back in November, STATUS dominated WIZARD by a factor of 4.38. This time, WIZARD was the big dog, doing 3.37 times the "business".
How come? Maybe most of people who wanted STATUS has already grabbed a copy. Or maybe more people prowl the children's fiction section than the thriller pile, resulting in more discoveries of free books. Don't know.
In the next Select period I'll try running the books head to head again, but with some promotion for both.
And now a special bulletin from the Department of Buried Leads: EXPLODING WIZARD will be free Friday and Saturday (Feb 14 - 15). This time I sent the info to five of the sites I use (minus Sweety's Picks). I'll let you know if the numbers pick up. They certainly should.
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