Guest Posts

When we welcome someone else to the site to share their thoughts on all things books and writing

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Writing 101…How to Get Reviews

We already discussed writing reviews, and now it’s time for a topic that might be even more important to indie writers: getting reviews. Be willing to devote time to it, because reviews will help you as a writer in multiple ways.
How to Get Reviews
I feel confident in saying all indie writers want to get reviews from readers. Good reviews can add a certain appeal to your book, and they make it plain to book shoppers that someone, someday, read your book and felt strongly enough about it to write a review. People want what other people like; that’s just human nature. Having reviews can increase your sales and make your book look more interesting to readers. Now, all you’ve got to do is go out and get some.
  • Publish your book. If you want to get reviews, it helps to publish your book in multiple places. If you’re using Amazon’s KDP Select program, you actually don’t have this option — but you can still list your book at Goodreads. A social media site devoted to book readers, Goodreads can be a wonderful source of reviews for your work. The more places you can list your book, the more people will find it — and that means more reviews.
  • Find reviewers. I know, easier said than done. But once you know how to find reviewers, you’ll always have the skill — which is good, because you’ll need it again and again. The indie writer’s greatest resource is book blogs. Use your favorite search engine, and start seeking them out. There are lots of different ways to search. Look for blogs that cater to indie writers, blogs that cater to books within your genre, and blogs that discuss books and book reviews in general. Make a list of bookmarks for all the viable-looking blogs you find, and search their resource pages to find links to other book blogs.
  • Ask properly. Once you find potential book reviewers, don’t just flood them with free books and emails. Take the time to look around the blog and read some of the reviews. Look at the review policy to make sure your book meets all the right criteria. Then, and only then, write a brief email to the book reviewer. Introduce yourself and your book in one sentence or less. When asking for the review, tell the reviewer why you want them to review your work. Does it fit in with the other books on their blog? Do you like something about this reviewer’s specific style? Be succinct. Close the email with the blurb for your book, your relevant links and any other brief information you would like to include. Do not send them a free book; wait for them to ask you if they are interested.
  • Promote it. If you’re looking for reviews and reviewers, say so. Tweet about it, blog about it, announce it on Facebook. You can’t possibly find every available reviewer through an Internet search, and you never know who’s out there looking for new reading material.
  • Encourage it. Want readers to review your book? Tell them so. Include an “About the Author” at the end of your book, and invite readers to share their opinion of your work by reviewing it. Some readers simply don’t think of giving reviews. Why can’t you be the one to put the thought in their heads?
Trading Reviews
My own personal beliefs on reviews have evolved — quickly, I might add. I have a lot of thoughts on review trades that others don’t agree with, but to each their own. My opinion on the subject of trading reviews is this: don’t do it. I’m going to tell you why.
Indie writers are exactly like traditional writers in every single respect, without all the polish. Some indie writers are fantastic, with a strong command of editing skills, grammar and punctuation. But some indie writers areunbelievably bad at same. The moment you agree to a review trade with an indie that you don’t know and never have read, you’re more or less jumping off a cliff. Will you land on a pillowy-soft, fantastic book that cradles you gently in its pages…or into a pile of shite?
You have no way of knowing, and therein lies the problem with review trades. Here’s a review rule I live by: don’t ever commit. No one should have to clench their jaw, screw their courage to the sticking place and forcethemselves to waste time reading a book they positively hate in every single way. I’ve been there, and it’s not fun. You do a review trade, you commit, you open the door up for regret and eye-rolling that could last for days, even weeks. You can attempt to save yourself some pain by reading samples, working with only trusted indies and sticking to strict guidelines (I, for example, will not read your book if it isn’t justified the right way. No more exceptions).
Paying for Reviews
Lots of writers have lots of strong opinions about paid reviews. One of the more well-known is Kirkus, who by my book charges exorbitant and astronomical rates for their reviews. But a Kirkus review does carry a certain cachet, and some indie authors may have plenty of money to spend. Every business and every brand name is expected to spend money on marketing, and no indie can ever get the whole thing done completely for free (because, at the very least, you’ll have to pay for a copyright). So if you want to spend your money on reviews, spend it on reviews. It is, after all, your money.
Bad Reviews?
There are no bad reviews if you’re an indie writer. First of all, no matter what the review says you should sit back and bask in the glow of your computer screen regardless of anything. Why? Because you just moved someone with your writing — and isn’t that what you wanted? You actually motivated someone to write down their thoughts, you got them thinking, and you wrote something they remembered long enough to sign onto a website, at least. In today’s world, that’s no small achievement.
Second of all, any advice you get from any reader is valuable. Take every single comment seriously, no matter how it stings, because this one reader could be thinking something similar to dozens of other readers. You want to know what all your readers think, but in lieu of hunting them through cyberspace you’ve got to rely on the ones who feel strongly enough to comment. If you see a negative comment, think of it as a challenge. Here’s something you can improve upon in this book, or the next book, or tomorrow when you sit down to write a new chapter.

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This post originally featured on Jade Varden’s author blog on 29th May 2012.

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Author Jade Varden is a regular guest contributor on Aside From Writing. The Writing 101 features originate from her own blog  at http://jadevarden.blogspot.co.uk where you can see more of her thoughts on writing, as well as her own books. Her debut novel Justice and sequel The Tower are available now! Read our review of Justice here.

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Writing 101…How to Use Apostrophes

Apostrophes are an essential element in punctuation, but so many authors get their placement confused — or worse, leave them out entirely. A tiny little apostrophe can change the meaning of a sentence entirely, and when a wrong one appears it might just lead readers astray. Always be careful with your apostrophes, and learn how to use them well to make sure your words are getting the point across.

Using Apostrophes, Let Me Count the Ways

Apostrophes serve many extremely important functions in language; certain words could never even exist without them. To understand how to use apostrophes correctly, you’ve got to understand how, exactly, they’re used.
  • Missing letters
In certain circumstances, apostrophes can be used to represent missing letters — this is the case in absolutely every single contraction. Words likecan’t, don’t, you’re and all the rest rely upon apostrophes to exist. We get so used to seeing contractions, it’s easy to forget what they mean, easy to forget the function of the apostrophe. But without it, you’ve got two words that sound stiff and formal. In the examples above, without the apostrophes you’re working with cannot, do not and you are. The apostrophe takes the place of the letters and spaces that you’ve eliminated.
It’s important, because many writers have used the apostrophe as a device in dialogue. Certain regions of the world have their own specific accents and sayings. For example, no self-respecting southern writer would pen a tome set in the southern US without the word y’all in it. Brits are known for sayingi’n’it, a bastardization of isn’t it, and in words like this the apostrophe is essential to make the text understandable to readers who might not be familiar with regional speech. Because the apostrophe in y’all takes the place of the missing o and u, you can never write this word as ya’ll — though I’ve seen this in several situations. It’s wrong, and it’s truly an insult to apostrophes everywhere (not to mention southerners). When you use contractions for any reason, don’t ever forget what the punctuation actually means.
  • Possession
Apostrophes don’t always represent missing letters; they’re also an integral device if you want to show ownership, or possession, of any object (or idea, or person, or what-have-you). For example: This is Jade Varden’s blog. Now, the apostrophe clearly shows that the possession (the blog) belongs to Jade Varden (that’s me!), and the apostrophe placement is correct.
See what happens when I put it in the wrong place: This is Jade Vardens’ blog. When the apostrophe appears after the s, rather than before, it’s used to denote plural possession. In the sentence above, the apostrophe suggests that there is more than one Jade Varden (which is no good for anybody, not to mention confusing for all the readers). The only time, and I mean the onlytime, the apostrophe is placed after the s is to show possession of any object or objects by more than one person. It’s used for plural possession, and only then.
  • Getting it Wrong
I touched on this problem briefly in a previous post, but it bears repeating because this is a mistake that I see literally every single day. It seems the apostrophe is a little too common and a little too useful, because a ton of writers from the casual to the professional want to shove it into the middle of words where it absolutely doesn’t belong. It certainly is a cunning little piece of punctuation, and I love using it as much as the next blogger, but there are times when you’re going to have to keep the apostrophe from crashing your party. Otherwise, everyone’s going to know you have no idea what you’re writing.
Again, and I cannot seem to stress this enough, apostrophes are coupled with the letter s only to show possession. I can have possession of this blog, the words I write, an idea, the pair of glasses I wear when I don’t have my contacts in my eyes, my fingernails. I can have possession of all these things because I am a person. Animals may also have possession — I might say my cat’s coat was shiny. The cat is mine, but I’m not in possession of the shiny coat of hair — my cat is, so that’s where the apostrophe goes.
But when I am pluralizing something, because there’s more than one of those things, I only need the letter s. For example, my cats have shiny coats. No apostrophe, because I’m already showing possession with the word have. If I eliminate that word, I’ll have to bring the apostrophe back to show the possession (otherwise, the reader won’t know who has the shiny coats): my cats’ shiny coats…. 
When you are simply pluralizing an object, you only need the letter s. Remember that, and don’t let a spare apostrophe show up and completely change the meaning of the sentence. By the same token, if you’re attempting to show possession and you don’t include an apostrophe, you’re muddying the reading waters in a different way. Proofread all your apostrophes, and make sure they’re only where they’re supposed to be, and nowhere they shouldn’t.

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This post originally featured on Jade Varden’s author blog on 15th June 2012.

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Author Jade Varden is a regular guest contributor on Aside From Writing. The Writing 101 features originate from her own blog  at http://jadevarden.blogspot.co.uk where you can see more of her thoughts on writing, as well as her own books. Her debut novel Justice and sequel The Tower are available now! Read our review of Justice here.

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Guest Post…Orphan Heroics

Think about what defines a literary hero in speculative fiction—science fiction or fantasy. The hero must possess courage. Given. He or she must be virtuous and good. They would not be a hero if they were the opposite. The list can go on, long enough maybe to fill all the shelves in a brick and mortar bookstore. What about a hero’s background… Where does he or she come from? Not the physical place on a map, though that might matter. Rather, what type of environment does the hero grow up in before setting off for adventure, to save the world?

 

There was a discussion on one of Goodreads’ group boards last year. Members were discussing the backgrounds writers give to their protagonists. They were specifically asking this question: do our heroes always need to be orphans? Why cannot the hero come from a family with three brothers, two sisters, loving parents, and a modest, happy homestead? The complaint some members had was that many fantasy novels/series rarely have a protagonist who comes from a well-rounded, well-adjusted, loving family home. They said too many heroes in speculative fiction are orphans with broken homes, that this type of character has become overused.

 

Consider this. A boy lives with his aunt and uncle, farmers tilling a meager existence in a desert wasteland. The boy doesn’t remember his parents, they’re out of the picture before his adolescent mind can capture a memory of their faces. He longs for adventure. One day the boy comes home to find his aunt and uncle dead, murdered. His home is ravaged. A grizzled wizard sweeps the boy away to start a new life filled with adventures but with obstacles that will test his mettle and shape him into the savior for a galaxy far, far away. Oh yeah, along this hero’s journey the boy also figures out his father is the most dastardly villain in that galaxy far, far away.

 

Talk about a broken home. If you didn’t already guess, the aforementioned “origin” is Luke Skywalker’s beginning. He’s the quintessential hero model. Is he a tragic hero? No. Luke is good and just, a virtuous character. He does not befall a misfortune based on his own frailty, his character flaw. The tragic hero is Luke’s father, the scourge of the galaxy, Dark Vader, a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker. Alternatively, Luke is an example of a hero born of tragedy. The same type of hero a number of GoodReads members were decrying. An orphan, society’s castaway.

 

I maintain that the hero born of tragedy needs a catalyst to propel him or her from mediocrity to something beyond what he or she believes themselves capable of achieving. Desire is not enough. For a character to say, “I want to be a knight” or “I want to be a sorcerer” is all well and good. These are noble aspirations in a normal world, except speculative fiction is not a reflection of the normal world. Magic wielding baddies, twisted and malformed entities of evil, gods with chips on their shoulders and too much power, aliens with technology capable of blowing up a planet, all of these antagonists threaten life in any given fantasy world. To stand toe-to-toe against these threats, to prevail against these oppositions, the protagonist needs to aspire to greatness. Luke Skywalker was never going to leave Tatooine. He wanted to become a Rebel Alliance pilot but he could not escape the farm. It’s unfortunate that stormtroopers killed his aunt and uncle and destroyed the family farm but the event propelled Luke toward his destiny. Before this event Obi-wan Kenobi offered Luke a chance to leave with him and save Leia from the evil Empire. Luke turned down Kenobi. Remember? It was his surrogate parents dying, his way of life destroyed, that left Luke with no options.

 

Aspirations are noble. However, aspirations are not that push. Oh yeah, it’s a component of the continual flame in the belly that pulls out all the stops, but I believe it’s the source of that flame, the striking of the match that is most important. That flame is hottest, brightest, when it’s lit and fueled by a terrible event or set of circumstances. A character who stand in the ashes of his or her family, a past, has an even greater motivator underneath their feet to press them into taking not just steps forward toward a goal but leaps. Heroes take leaps. And when they think they cannot go any further, that flame guides them the rest of the way.

 

In history, there are stories of army commanders sailing their troops across the sea to concur lands. After landing, those commanders would burn the boats. Nowhere to go but forward, the soldiers fought harder and longer because they had no escape route. Die or succeed. If the former, they would die in the pursuit of success. Heroes with tragedy in their pasts also have no other place to go but forward.

 

Don’t get me wrong. Our heroes need fundamental building blocks for their moral foundations. Family units, fathers and mothers, friends, all provide those initial life lessons that first shape the hero. Potential heroes from horrible backgrounds, like a street urchin or the harlot, need positive influences in their lives in order to strive toward heroics. Instead of families these characters might have friends who sacrifice for them, save them from dangers, give them a loaf of bread despite their own bellies rumbling. Thus, positive influences, the family or segregate family (i.e. friends), are important to shaping the hero born of tragedy. I dare say it’s a necessary component.

 

There are also examples of hero characters that come from stable, mundane backgrounds with good homes, as opposed to the hero orphans in my initial argument. I’m referring to the shepherds, the Rand al’Thors of fantasy. But even these heroes are thrust into adventures based on tragedies. For example, in the Wheel of Time series protagonist Rand and his friends from the Two Rivers don’t necessarily want to become heroes or fight evil. An attack on their village by hideous monsters called Trolics and the intervention of a female wizard known as an Aes Sedai force Rand and his friends into their later roles as heroes and saviors. Again, the heroes are born of tragedy. In this case their families are whole (except Rand, technically, his backstory is more complex and I won’t delve into the particulars), which lends more to my point that heroes need a stable foundation of values and morals rooted by family and friends in order to make their future choices.

 

Some readers will disagree with me but I stand by my belief that heroes need a flame to light their path, to show them where to plant their feet along the path of destiny and fate. That flame originates from somewhere and not always from happy beginnings. Striking a match can be violent; sometimes a house catches fire and burns down. In many instances these characters are the orphans, the beggars, the harlots… the lowliest of the low. They possess hearts of gold yet are defined by family or personal misfortunes or society’s rejection. Strength and courage are their greatest weapons, sharper than any sword and mightier than a thrown fireball.

 

Who are your favorite heroes born of personal tragedy? Sound off and debate. Maybe you believe a hero needs only a good home and a strong foundation of morals to fight the evils of the world. Again, sound off and give examples.

 

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About the Author

Clinton grew up in Southern California, where the sun shines all day and where most kids spend their days outdoors skinning knees and browning their flesh. He spent those same days inside, reading comics, books, and dreaming of fantasy worlds. These days he not only dreams but he creates and writes about those same worlds. In college Clinton found himself in the dregs of a business school, studying accounting. Sneaking English and philosophy courses into his schedule were the only things that kept him sane! As a result, he spent way more than four years getting a well-rounded degree. Adult books and books for kids, Clinton reads it all these days. He still enjoys traditional American comics and manga/anime from Asia, but when not writing he can also be found immersing himself in video games.

            Clinton today still resides in Southern California with his wife, Kathy and their two Scottish terriers, Mac and Bonni (wheaten and black).

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

http://clintondharding.com (official site)

https://twitter.com/#!/ClintonDHarding (twitter)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clinton-D-Harding/76506701006 (facebook)

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5381520.Clinton_D_Harding (goodreads)

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Tony’s Thinking…Why Stephen King Missed His Calling

I’ve read quite a few Stephen King books. Not all of them by any means – I believe the list is now up to sixty two, – but I’ve read enough of them to know his writing pretty well.

We all know the genre: Joe Average (who has a habit of being a writer) finds himself in a supernatural situation, gets himself out of it – though doesn’t always survive mentally.

And fair enough, some of them are gruesome to the max – I believe all aspiring writers should read Misery, just as an object lesson to run from anyone who tells you, ‘I’m your Number One Fan’, and as a delve into the writing process.

But I digress, and back to my point.

I put it to the world: He missed his calling. The man was born to write YA.

I came across the review Em posted on here for The Long Walk, and flicking through my shelves of King today, it occurred to me that the works I think are his best are all, at heart YAs: IT. The Long Walk. The Body (Stand by Me, for those who only know the film). The Talisman. Christine. Carrie.

But what about the horror? What about the profanity? Some might ask. I’d ask if they’d read any YA recently. I’d pick up a Bali Rai and point out the profanity in there. I’d pick up a Darren Shan and show you the gore inside. He’s not written anything in the books I’ve mentioned above that couldn’t be handled by a teenager.

The simple fact is Stephen King works best when he’s writing about teenagers and children.

He knows on a fundamental level how they tick, the elemental fears that move and shake them. He knows how a dark cellar scares the lunch out of them, how sunlight gleaming from the ankle bracelet of the first girl you ever love melts your heart.

And he knows the value of childhood friendships (The Body: I never had any friends later on like I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did anyone?), the easy pain cruel parents inflict on their children – and not always physically.

That’s why his horror works so well…he knows the fears of childhood and knows we’ve all been there. Who’s never been frightened by a clown like Pennywise in IT? Personally, I don’t remember a time I didn’t find clowns scary.

Even Christine, which is perhaps a borderline case for YA, is all about the losers in high school, full of teenage angst and anger. Breaking the rules for the first time to get what you want, breaking away from your parents.

Stephen King missed his calling. He’s wasted on all those adults! YA’s should take him as one of their own!

So I put it to the world: Start a campaign. Stephen King should write YA!


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Guest Post…To Kill Or Not To Kill: That Is The Question!

Many of you probably remember the Artemis myth. She’s one of the most widely known of the Greek goddesses. Her Roman counterpart is Diana. Artemis is a departure from the maiden/mother/crone depiction of women in that she was a virgin goddess. Women who attended her also had to be chaste. What she’s probably best known for, other than tending to the moon with her brother, Apollo, is righting wrongs.

Years ago when I was in Soundpeace, a metaphysical bookstore in Ashland, Oregon, I plucked a silver pendant off its black velvet backing. It was about an inch-and-a-half in diameter and had a woman with a dog by her side and a bow behind her, carrying a light. This was long before I’d studied much in the way of mythology. All I knew was that I was drawn to that pendant and had to have it. It’s been around my neck for most of the thirty years or so since then. In the intervening years, I’ve come to recognize my pendant goddess for who she is: Artemis. 

 

So what does that have to do with my life? Or with writing? To answer the first question, I’ve always had a finely etched sense of what’s right and have fought many a losing battle because I didn’t want to see the other side, mostly comprised of big businesses like pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies win. While my ideals may have been admirable, retrospectively, I never had a chance. The magic of writing is you can make everyone an Erin Brokovich. Remember? She took on a big corporation that was polluting water and won the largest class action suit ever.

It probably won’t surprise you to know that in real life things like that don’t happen very often, which leads us to the answer to the second question.  In fiction, they happen all the time. I think that’s why people read. At least it’s why I do. To transport myself to the world of the possible. To have heroes I can root for.  A skilled author can scare me half to death that things won’t go well, even when I know in my heart of hearts they won’t kill off the protagonist. Or, maybe they will. George R.R. Martin is quite good at that. Though, I must admit I didn’t like the series nearly so well after Eddard lost his head. It started feeling like a Greek tragedy after that.

There is a fine line to who to kill off in a story so you don’t alienate your readers. That’s something I struggle with. I might add maim and traumatize to kill. There are lots of ways an author can stress his/her characters. Each stressor adds depth to a character, but only if you can tie the wounding back in with how the character acts after it happens. The character shouldn’t overreact, but they can’t underreact either. 

To put a finer point on things, it’s easy to kill off a character no one liked in the first place. Face it, even the author didn’t particularly like them which is why you, the reader, saw them as vapid and shallow, too. This is why drawing three-dimensional antagonists is just as important as creating fully developed protagonists. The reader has to feel something when a character dies or gets hurt—other than relief because the character seemed superfluous and annoying anyway. 

To the extent fiction mirrors real life as much as possible, we can relate to it. That’s one of the reasons I set my novels in “real world” settings rather than a more typical, high fantasy world. I want that dystopian, near-future to feel real enough to make readers think. I suppose that’s my Artemis complex creeping in, but there’s not much I can do about that. One of the reasons many of Stephen King’s books work so well is they start out feeling fairly normal. The creepy, crawly elements often don’t intrude till near the end, like in Bag of Bones, for example. I don’t think the ghouls came out until the last fifty pages. By then I was so caught up in the reality of the world King had drawn—because it was my world—the addition of fantastical elements felt perfectly logical. 

What have some of your favorite books been? Why? 

What drew you in and made the world feel real? 

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters?

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Today’s guest post is from author Ann Gimpel – you can find out more about her books and blogging at:  http://anngimpel.blogspot.co.uk/ It was originally published on her blog 19th March, 2012.

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Guest Post…Making Memorable Villains

Making Memorable Villains

We said “mean – really mean” and from that you heard “green and lilac lycra”?

Back in April I participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge—it was a 30-day challenge in April and where your blog topic has to correspond to each letter in the alphabet. I wanted to have a lil fun with the idea so I started talking about the villains we all know and love and what we can learn about them. Well 50 villains later, I’ve learned a thing or two about the darker side of the villains that stick with us.

Villains Have a Clear Purpose

You ever watch a James Bond movie? Some of those villains you really remember, like Blofeld, and some of them you end up wondering what in the world was going on, right? That’s because their purpose wasn’t clear. The alien in Alien taught me about this—that animal, for all its disgusting attributes, just wanted to survive. It did what it was always meant to do. The unfortunate souls on the Nostromo happened to be in the way.

Villains Are Mean—Like Really Mean

OK so this is tougher than it sounds. Sure all villains are mean but Cruella DeVille told us that we have to take things up a notch to be memorable. You don’t remember the two guys in the movie with her, do you? But you remember that this chick wanted to kill puppies to turn them into high fashion. Think about the Evil Queen from Snow White: “I should kill my stepdaughter because she’s prettier than me”? There is a line villains must cross to be ranked in the pantheon of the greats—the truly memorable ones dance across that line and leave it in the dust.

Villains Have Focus

A villain without clear focus on that singular purpose we talked about above gets lost in the shuffle. Look at Voldemort. This cat murdered a bunch of people so he could split his soul, store it in seven horcruxes, all so he could live forever. And he figured this out in high school. At his age I was trying to figure out how to ditch English. And even in his “death” people were too scared to say his name. Focus, man, focus.

Villains Take Matters Into their Own Hands

Darth Vader taught me this lesson.  My man was first in the room ALWAYS, killed his homeboy with the lightsaber, tried to kill his own kid—three times, took two shots from Han Solo, and had the best battlefield promotion plan in history. You can’t say he was ever afraid to get his hands dirty. The villain that delegates is a villain we forget.

Villains Commit

You can’t buy a villain whose not committed to their cause hook, line and sinker. Once they start, there is no going back. The ghosts in Poltergeist took Carol Ann, tried to eat the boy, and eventually ate the entire house. Khan sacrificed his entire crew and himself for revenge in Star Trek II. The Coyote routinely risks life and limb trying to catch the Roadrunner. If your villain isn’t committed, there isn’t much conflict and the hero is never really in danger. That equals BORING!

Villains Have A Real Rationale For Their Actions

We don’t have to agree but the villains whose plans make sense tend to stick with us. If we can understand why they might want to do something, we automatically sympathize, even if we detest their methods. Magneto is a fantastic example of this: he’s trying to avoid a holocaust against mutants. That’s a noble, even virtuous sentiment. His methods, though, well, they leave a lot to be desired.

Villains Make It Personal

The best villains have a personal connection to the hero. Darth Vader was Luke’s dad. Clubber Lang killed Rocky’s father-figure manager. Voldemort handled Harry’s parents. Scar killed his brother and traumatized his nephew—on the same day. Villains who make it personal for the hero are the villains we can never let go. They, in essence, make it personal with us.

Think about the villains that have stuck with you—do you agree? Disagree? And join the conversation over at christophercstarr.net.

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About the Author: Christopher C. Starr is the founder of Sanford House Press, an indie publishing house. The Road to Hell is his first novel and the launch of the HEAVEN FALLS series. Chris lives in the Seattle area with his wife, two kids and his huskies, Rocky the Wonder Dog and his colorful sidekick, Leylah Redd. Check him out on the web at christophercstarr.net

Want to know more? Check out the links! 

Blog: http://www.christophercstarr.net

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/christophercstarr

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/christophercstarr

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SuperStarr73

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Guest Post…What, Exactly, is a Dystopian Book?

It has come to my attention, during my various adventures in writer and reader forums around the Internet, that lots people — even some authors — don’t actually know what a dystopian society is. It’s not really a big deal…until you start incorrectly marketing your work as something it’s not. It’s true that a lot of readers might not know the difference, but plenty of them will. The readers aren’t the ones who are going to look bad for not understanding the genre…you are. It’s time to find out just exactly what makes a dystopian book dystopian. Don’t assume you already know; you might be one of the people who made me sigh recently with a forum post.

Dystopian Society

 If you want to get technical about it, calling something “dystopian” isn’t altogether accurate anyway. More properly it ought to be referred to as a dystopian society, and that’s the first piece of really important information you need to know. Dystopian books and stories of all kinds are deeply rooted in the society itself; often, authors will present the readers with a world view of this society through the eyes of a main protagonist.
 What’s characteristic of a dystopian society? For starters, the people who live within it are being oppressed and usually wholly controlled by some sort of all-powerful government or collective. Control is the most important word here, and one of the defining characteristics of a dystopian society. In many cases, there are at least two distinct classes present in such stories: the people who are being controlled, and those who are doing the controlling. This type of society is also called anti-utopian, and the word itself is derived from the Greek word for “bad.”



Dystopian vs. Post-Apocalyptic Societies

It seems to me, after wading through all the confused readers and writers on the forums (which shall not be named), that the big stumbling block in all this is post-apocalyptic societies. People who don’t fully understand the idea of a dystopian society seem to think that dystopian societies are identical to post-apocalyptic societies, that in fact the two go hand-in-hand. This is patently incorrect.
A post-apocalyptic society isn’t necessarily dystopian. In this type of society, some horrible event has occurred which has fundamentally changed the world on a global scale. Nuclear war, catastrophic weather events, alien invasion — take your pick. Often, a new society rises in this new world in place of the old society…but there’s no reason to presuppose that this new society is dystopian simply because the Apocalypse has occurred.

The Necessary Separation

I’m going to go ahead and blame lots of the current confusion on The Hunger Games, though let me add that I have nothing against Suzanne Collins or her work or her fans or anything else that has to do with her books. In The Hunger Games, a society which is both dystopian and post-apocalyptic is the setting for the events which take place. However, readers and writers should not take this to mean that all post-apocalyptic societies are dystopian, or vice versa.
I recently saw a list of “favorite dystopian movies” which included such films as Waterworld. This is not a correct classification of this film, based on my somewhat hazy memory and cursory research. As I understand it, the “bad guys” in this film are pirates…and not government officials. People are not being controlled. They’re just trying to figure out life on the water. Also on the list: The Postman, The Book of Eli and Repo! The Genetic Opera. Two of these films are post-apocalyptic, and there is little to no mention of the government in them. One of these films is dystopian, but not post-apocalyptic.
Your Role as an Author
What do you look for if you want to know the difference? Control.Catastrophe marks post-apocalyptic stories; control marks dystopian stories. Knowing the difference is important if you’re going to write a story that’s one, the other, or both. If I go shopping for some all-hell-has-broken-loose post-apocalyptic fare and find a bunch of dystopian stories instead, I’m not just going to hate you as the writer who got it wrong.
I might hate all indies, because I might think that none of them have any idea what they’re talking about. So don’t be that guy. Know your business, know your genre, know your categories. Know what the heck you’re writing, and how to identify it. If you don’t identify it properly, you’re not going to like the way you get identified as an author hack. Never forget that the title author is absolutely necessary for the word authoritative. That is not a mistake.

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This post originally featured on Jade Varden’s author blog on 4th June 2012.

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Author Jade Varden is a regular guest contributor on Aside From Writing. The Writing 101 features originate from her own blog  at http://jadevarden.blogspot.co.uk where you can see more of her thoughts on writing, as well as her own books. Her debut novel Justice and sequel The Tower are both available now! Read our review of Justice here.

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Guest Post…by Ian Truman

A Teenage Suicide: How I Jumped From Crime to Young Adult

Ian Truman, Montreal, June 6, 2012

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Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair by Ian Truman

I guess that in a sense, I didn’t really jump from “Crime” to “Young Adult”. Or at least the jump didn’t seem to be that far. I believe it is because I apply a few writing techniques regardless of what project I am working on. It allows me to write in a variety of styles while maintaining my own voice regardless of what I write. I have always been a fan of realism. Some of my major influences include Hemingway, Mordecai Richler and Dennis Lehane. I always try to depict life as I see it in a certain context and I try to avoid filtering it through my own judgements. That is basis of my approach to writing.

My very first novel was titled “The Factory line” and it was quite simply, a day in the life of a factory worker. Although I enjoyed writing it (and it was mostly therapeutic, I have to admit) I did not enjoy so much the years I spend on assembly lines. (But that is in the past, I have since then managed to get back into college and get out of the factories, for now at least.) That novel was HORRIBLE to write. I had no knowledge of techniques or structure. I had no work ethic which I have since developed. The novel was really more of a gathering of small, realistic snapshots about life in a factory. After writing and re-writing it several times, I considered it a failure before sitting down and trying to organize my writing. That is the moment I began to develop skills that would greatly improve my productivity as a writer: I needed a plan, a structure. Now, I know a lot of writers I’ve met over the years believe that a plan is something too restrictive to their creativity. On the contrary, I believe that your plan has to be creative as well. Take my first novel, The Factory Line. I wanted to depict life in a Canadian factory. So my plan was simply to follow this one fella through a single day in his life. So I made it a Friday night and I managed to adapt each snapshot I had into a storyline that made sense. That was the only way The Factory Line could exist and I used this kind of creative planning in order to get it done.

Still, I believe my first novel has a lot of problems, flaws and such. I wanted my second novel to be more structured. I also wanted to bash in the door of the largest market out there: Mystery novels. I figured I had nothing to lose and “if you’re going to try, go all the way.” That’s what Bukowski said anyways. I came up with a title pretty early as well: “Tales of lust, Hate and Despair.” I made a three page outline only with plot points, actions and twists. I’d say I planned 70% of the novel before writing a single line, allowing myself to have that “30%” room for creative inputs I might come up with during the bulk of the writing process. I wrote most of it during my studies in Creative Writing at Concordia University and I have to admit that I am pretty damn proud of the novel. The thing is, it was not a “formula” novel. It was not a series either. I do not write like a 24 episode or an “Alex Cross” series. When I think about it, my crime novel is still very much realistic and (I hope) perfectly believable in terms of place and violence. I used real names of streets, neighbourhoods and places in Montreal. I always do a little bit of research to make sure the types of cars I put in or the songs I mention do fit the “era” of the novel (in this case, most of the story took place in the 90’s). I have nothing against writers who like hyperboles or fantastic storylines; it is simply not my thing.

That was my second novel. I am now working on my third and I guess I was as surprised as the next guy that I ended up writing a YA novel. Now, YA is just as wide a category as anything else in the publishing world, but “A Teenage Suicide” is still very much a young adult title. As I come from the Province of Quebec, teenage suicide (and suicide in general) is an everyday reality as we have one of (or THE) highest suicide rate in the world. Having struggled with this issue myself as a teenager and a young adult, I felt compelled to address the issue. I also wanted to do it without being moralistic or wanting so save the world. Somebody else will save the world, I, for now, am just trying to write good novels. So I went to work on my third title and again, I stayed true to my style and I had developed a work ethic that had been good to me. I wanted to depict the life of young men and women as realistically as possible without judgment or restrain. I also planned out 70% of the novel ahead of time and I am surprising myself every time I sit down to write that the novel might actually grow beyond my planned “30%” room. The original structured actually allows me to expand the story without getting lost in loose strands. I know it sounds weird, or no so much if you are a writer as well, but I feel there comes this point in a story where the characters you have created react on their own terms and I often find myself surprised about the answers that I let them give me. I guess this is my approach to dialogue: keep it as realistic as possible and let your characters say everything they actually want to say. I don’t want my characters to stop talking to one another. This was true in “The Factory Line”, it was true in “Tales of lust, Hate and Despair” and it is becoming increasingly true as the pages to “A Teenage Suicide” stack up on my virtual desk.

One more thing that made this transition from crime to YA no so dire is my “writing playlist”. I am a huge music fan, and of a variety of styles and eras so vast you’d be surprised. I was a signer in a hard-core band before I began writing novels and I will always look to music for inspiration. This is why, when I come up with a new idea or a project, I try to figure out a musical mood for the project and I make myself a playlist. When I wrote The Factory Line, I was working in a factory, so the playlist kinda made itself up: whatever was on the radio. But I did look into more songs and albums from what the blue collars hear all day (the radio really fucking sucks, let me tell you that). And so I ended up with a weird mix of country, gansta rap, metal, classic rock and etc… My playlist for that project included David Allan Coe, Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac, Social Distortion, Motorhead, Guns n’ Roses, Danzig… Anything a proletarian may listen too, I listened to it too (and hell, I like the stuff as well.) My playlist for Tales of Lust, Hate and Despair was darker and grittier. It was more like Neurosis, Marilyn Manson, Sage Francis, Tom Waits, Onyx, Nirvana etc… I wanted the whole of the urban-poverty experience. (And let’s admit, I experienced it myself) so that kind of music felt right for the project. My YA novel, despite being titled “A Teenage Suicide” has more of a hopelessly romantic feel to it. I listen to a lot of softer music like Sigur Ros or Mogwai. I also have chapters that need something a bit more rough, but I find myself listening to “positive hard-core” like Rise Against, Have Heart, Champion etc… This is because I don’t want A Teenage Suicide to be melodramatic or preachy. I just want to write the story of teenagers and young adults who are growing up in a world that is not giving them a place. I wanted to address issues that I was facing myself not so long ago (I am 29 years old now). I know that how I felt only a decade ago or so, is still how a lot of young people feel today and I wanted to give them a story they could relate too. A Teenage Suicide is very much a “coming of age” story, but sometimes, coming of age hits a concrete wall.

Take care of each other out there.

Ian Truman

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

I would like to thank Aside from Writing for letting me use a bit of their space. I hope you enjoyed my 2 cents, feel free to contact me if you have any praises, insults or death threats. Contact me *I do my own follow-ups on social networks; it does take a bit of time, thank you for your patience.

Iantruman@hotmail.ca

http://www.facebook.com/iantruman1982

www.iantruman.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.com/The-Factory-Line-ebook/dp/B006X7SB64

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7828073-ian-truman

Twitter: @IanTruman

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Writing 101…Pricing Your Books

You were careful to choose great words for your book. You sweated it out through the editing process. You went through the formatting line by line to make certain every page is perfect. If you don’t price your books the right way, you’re going to watch that hard work go to waste. If you want readers, you’ve got to take a hard look at your book pricing.

How Much is Your Writing Worth?

A lot of factors are at play when writers are pricing their books. For any given book, whether it’s a short story of a full-length novel, every page represents hours of work in formatting, writing, editing and reading. If authors charged by the hour, every book would cost hundred of dollars.

But that’s not really feasible for the readers, is it? As a writer, you’re expected to love your book. You’ve poured soul into it; sweat, blood, tears, heartache. And, if you’re like many writers, you probably want to do nothing but write full-time. It’s easy to get lost in the math. Charge five bucks, sell a million copies — just imagine those numbers for a little while. Your book is a huge piece of your life, your heart and your skill. And you’ve got to forget all that. The price of your book isn’t a reflection of your skill or how much you put into your work. It’s a reflection of the market.

So the first thing you have to do when pricing your book is cut any and all attachment you have to it. Forget about the fact that you’re an author, that this single book represents all your hopes and dreams and everything you’ve worked toward for years. None of that matters, and honestly your readers don’t really care. They’re looking for a story, and it shouldn’t be one about the book that costs way too much. How much is your writing worth? Much more to you than to anybody else. Keep that in mind when you go to set a price, because now is not the time for sentiment.

The Book Market

You don’t determine the price of your book — the market does. Once upon a time, every book was hand-bound and printed on vellum. Making a single page was a big process, and books were costly. Today, they’re churned out every single day by automated machines on huge reams of paper that cost less than a penny a page. They are everywhere, and that’s just the printed books. The ebook market is getting bigger every day, and in the time you’ve been reading this post more ebooks have been published. You can’t navigate online without bumping into seventeen of them on your way to your favorite sites.

So if the first rule is to forget about the feelings you have for your book, the second is remind yourself that you are not alone. Yes, your book is probably special — let the content reflect that, not the price. There are way too many other books out there, and yours has got to be competitive.

You should know, by now, in which genre your book belongs. Before you set a price and publish your book, take the time to look around the virtual bookstores. Find bestsellers in your genre, and look for other indies in your genre, and find out what they’re charging. You cannot charge as much for your self-published book as the traditionally published books. Your work is probably just as good, but you don’t have the same name recognition or cachet as those big publishing houses and their authors. Know your market. When you self-publish, you need to take your pricing cues from the other indies — not just the other authors.

99 Cents

A great many indie books (mine included) cost 99 cents. This is a very common price in the ebook market, and you’re likely to find that many indies in your genre charge this amount for their work. It’s always good to stay competitive in your own market, and you don’t want to stand out by charging too much for your book (because readers have so many much cheaper choices), but you also have to be aware of the 99 cent stigma.

Self-publishing in general has a bit of a bad reputation among some readers, for good reason. I have found many indie books that are poorly edited, terribly formatted and otherwise riddled with errors — but I have also found some truly great indie books I’d be happy to read again. But because of all the bad apples in the bunch, many readers have been burned by indies. Some avoid self-published books altogether as a result, but others try to avoid the bad by avoiding 99 cent books. There are even self-published authors who turn their noses up at 99 cent books. To some, they are thought of as cheap and not worth reading. If it was any good, the author would charge more, right?

On the other hand, if you charge too much for your work and go above what others in your genre and in your position are charging, you will probably get fewer book sales. Pricing your books is a monumental task, and it’s not as easy as arbitrarily picking a number. Once you’ve taken the market into account, let that determine how to price your books and forget the rest. You can overcome the 99 cent stigma and other small pricing problems that may arise by getting good, and genuine, reviews of your work (just make sure your work is well-written, so that you can get some good reviews).

Readers will be more willing to look beyond their own preconceived notions and buy a book they might think is too cheap, but it’s much, much harder to convince them to buy a book that’s too expensive. If you’re going to err, do it on the side of affordability.

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This post originally featured on Jade Varden’s author blog on 18th May 2012.

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Author Jade Varden is a regular guest contributor on Aside From Writing. The Writing 101 features originate from her own blog  at http://jadevarden.blogspot.co.uk where you can see more of her thoughts on writing, as well as her own books. Her first two books in the Deck of Lies series are out now! Read our review of Justice here.

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Guest Post…What is Experimental Fiction?

It’s actually quite hard to say what experimental fiction is. It’s fiction that consciously departs from ‘conventional’ novels, so first we’d better define just what a conventional novel might be!

 

A novel depicts a fictional character or characters acting and moving through a period of time, usually but not necessarily a recognisable time from our actual history be it recent or long past. Its primary purposes are to communicate and to move the reader, a remarkable achievement of the author who is absent; that through the power of their words whispered inside the reader’s head as they read, can produce these responses across the separation in actual space.

The first myth I wish to dispel about experimental fiction is that somehow it is exempt from having to communicate and move the reader. It absolutely should, otherwise how could we expect a reader to devote time to reading a book that failed to communicate to them? Literature is a pastime and therefore must provide elements of entertainment.

The other myth I would like to debunk is that the word experimental lends itself to notions of an unfinished process that is still ongoing. Or that somehow the work is half-baked because it’s not been thought through and planned out. That the writer has no idea of the destination he will end up at.

I started writing the way I do, because the books I read didn’t satisfy me. It’s been a long journey finding my way through to discovering alternative ways of navigating the problems of traditional novels as I saw them. This wasn’t something I just arrived at all of a piece, so in that sense I have experimented along the way. But in any new novel I write, I often don’t know the destination. But as I proceed, the things that don’t work I throw out. Thus I think I prefer the term ‘radical fiction’ rather than experimental. It has less negative connotations.

I said experimental fiction consciously departs from one or more elements of the conventional in the way it puts together its narrative. It can be in story, in language, in how it deals with time or space or perspective. It can be in how it treats character. It can even be in the physical look of the book, or the print on the page. B.S.Johnson wrote a book that was loose leaved and came in a box. You could read the chapters in any order you chose, in between the specified opening and closing chapters and the book still worked! Georges Perec wrote a novel without using a single letter ‘e’ throughout, this style of writing being called a lipogram.

What experimental writing seeks to do is not use these devices simply for the sake of being clever or tricksy, but to open up new ways of representing narrative. Conventional narrative usually has story as its main feature around which it is arranged. That story in all likelihood will have a beginning, a middle and an end. The inner workings of the main character’s mind will be slowly revealed through a build up of information as the book progresses and thus the character will undergo a journey or an arc, which will probably end up with them being significantly changed by the book’s end. Conflict will be the catalyst of the character’s actions and resultant change. Time will flow one way as the character progresses, even if flashbacks and memories are used.

Well I’d say that experimental fiction opts to avoid most if not all of those elements in structuring its narratives. First and foremost because human lives do not unfold with beginnings, middles and ends. And while we do live our lives one day after another in a way that we cannot relive yesterday in any real way today, the past is constantly informing and impacting us in the present, through thoughts and emotions which spark off and draw from past experiences. The human mind is not linear, it is constantly feedbacking on its present disposition and comparing to the past information and planning ahead to the future consequences of action. In a way we live in an eternal present. We do not have arcs. We don’t even have stories, rather we have ongoing lives instead. A story is merely a set of datelines we artificially impose on our own lives in order to group events together in such a way as to seemingly offer us a pattern for making sense of our lives. Experimental fiction may opt to represent its characters in this non-linear, constantly feedbacking way. An example is the book “The Damned United” by David Peace, which has the best depiction of a human mind I think I have ever read.

Why might any of this be important? Because experimental narrative attempts to approach ‘truth’ in a different manner than the conventional novel. What could be stranger than seeking to derive ‘truth’ from a work of fiction? Yet if a book can move us emotionally, then it has resonated with some truth within us to move us so. Therefore fiction can touch truth. Experimental narratives primarily seek to represent human life in a more ‘realistic’ way than the conventional novel. That does not mean its techniques are realistic, but it recognises our lives as being far more formless than they are represented within conventional narrative form.

Another significant difference being that the experimental novel is aware of itself as constructing yet another layer of representation of ‘reality’ and weaves that into its quest to more realistically represent human ‘truth’. It is less likely to ask a reader to suspend their disbelief in order to enter the world of the book that is absolutely fictional. Rather it says to the reader through its radical narrative forms, that it is absolutely a work of fiction and therefore takes its place in the confusion of life that forms ‘reality’. And it does so knowingly, in order to better help unpick the struggle for truth; it’s easier to separate fact from fiction, if fiction announces itself clearly.

A huge part of this revolves around language. Experimental fiction is aware of the limitations of language and adopts many different ways to try and make language do what it is supposed to do and communicate meaning. Words will be played with. The likes of Perec go further and play with the letters that make up words.

So experimental/radical fiction seeks different narratives from conventional fiction in order to differently attack the notion of human truth. It is less interested in linear story and plotting. It has a radically different approach to character, one that I feel is more akin to how we are as human beings. Language is key to our fiction, even down to the look of the words on the page which may not be blocks of print all flowing left to right. It endeavours to search for a different type of meaning. Personally, I’m not seeking a revolution to sweep away all other types of writing. This is just a different approach to stories that may appeal to readers who are interested in something a bit different. Something more in tune with our times, than the conventional novel which has basically remained unchanged in form for over 200 years.

Marc Nash

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A,B&E

From the black market economy of the 1980’s through the gangsterism behind the Clubbing scene of the 1990’s, to today’s decade of drift and low cost airline hedonism, one woman in exile has lived it all. On the run from her gangster husband, Karen Dash is hiding out in a Club 18-30 resort in Kavos on the island of Corfu. A home from home as the neo-colonial horde of hens, stags, booze cruisers and sex tourists turn mythical, Classical Greece into Little Britain. Meanwhile, back in the UK, an NHS nurse decides she has had enough of being assaulted by the patients she is trying to help heal…

A guided tour into the contemporary British soul, conducted by the presiding Mother Spirit as a barfly Scheherazade and an arse-slapping midwife. Avenging angels both. This scurrilous and scabrous book not only peels away the sunburnt skin of our hens, stags, booze cruisers and sex tourists, but delights in jabbing fingers into the pus below. Wish you were anywhere but here ?

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About the Author: Marc Nash lives and works in London. He has been in the counter-culture of the indie music scene for 20 years and now works for a non-government organisation monitoring censorship around the world. He has twin boys whose football team he coached for two years, which gave him more stress than anything to do with writing! He has published 4 books on Kindle, recorded 19 videos on YouTube and performs live readings often in costume! His next ambition is to perform a piece with live backing from a scratch DJ.

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Want to know more? Check out the links!

Amazon.com.Author Page

Website   Blog   Goodreads   YouTube Channel

Twitter: @21stCscribe