Category Archives: Writing
What Great Stories Have in Common
Ever feel deja vu when reading a book or watching a movie? Here’s why.
To Blog or Not to Blog
To blog, or not to blog–that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous comments
Or to take arms against a sea of bloggers
And by blogging join them. To write, to blog–
No more–and by a blog to say we endure
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That blogging is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be missed! To write, to blog–
To blog–perchance to be Freshly Pressed: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that blog of ours what thoughts may come
When we have blogged of our weekly toil,
Must give us pause. There’s the rejection
That makes calamity of so long a blog.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of blogging,
Th’ writer’s wrong, the proud man’s comments
The pangs of despised blogs, the blogger’s delay,
The insolence of bloggers, and the spurns
That patient bloggers of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his blog make
With a bare pen? Who would blogs bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary blog,
But that the dread of something other than blogging,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No blogger returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those blogs we write
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make bloggers of us all,
And thus the native hue of blogging
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And blogs of great pitch and moment
With this regard their blogs turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair blogger! — Author, in thy bloggings
Be all my blogs remembered.
(An adaptation of Hamlet’s Soliloquy from the play by W. Shakespeare. Sorry, Will, we couldn’t resist!)
Why Writers Shouldn’t Read Reviews
The agony and the ecstasy. That’s the best way to describe what it is like for authors to read reviews of their books. It’s natural to want to know what readers think of your story, but, overall, it is better to give it a miss. Why? Reviews will eventually affect your writing.
But isn’t that the point, some folks will ask. Don’t reviews help authors improve, point out flaws, show them the strengths and weaknesses of the story? Not necessarily. Reviews reflect the personal experience of the reader and every reader’s experience is unique. Readers bring their own ideas, fears, prejudices, and emotions to any book they read and will interpret the story through the filter of their own perception.
No writer can write to meet the expectations and beliefs of every reader. Louis May Alcott in her book Little Women describes the character Jo’s struggle with this very problem. Jo has written a book and everyone around her has made helpful suggestions about how she can make the book better. She rewrites the book according to these criticisms and the book is published.
Well, it was printed and she got three hundred dollars for it; likewise plenty of praise and blame, both so much greater than she expected that she was thrown into a state of bewilderment.
“You said, Mother, that criticism would help me. But how can it, when it’s so contradictory that I don’t know whether I’ve written a promising book or broken all the ten commandants?”
It can be very confusing to read some of the comments reviewers make. Some reviewers praise our book for being great science fiction. Others say it is pure fantasy. Still other rail that it should be one or the other. One reviewer complained that we used too many “ten dollar words” while another reader lambasted us for having a limited vocabulary. Some love the story, claiming it was the best book they ever read. Others attack with such nastiness that you might think our book was going to be the cause of the fall of western civilization.
Bewildering, indeed.
The worst part is that when an author sits down to write, these reviews rattle around in his head subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, tainting his writing. Gee, someone really loved this; I’d better give them more of it. Hmm, someone really hated that. Better leave it out altogether. And on and on.
Reviews can get in the way of creativity. They obscure the unique perspective an author brings to her book. Part of the joy of writing is the creating a story for the love of telling a tale your own way. If an author begins to try to write to suit other people’s visions of the story, the uniqueness is lost.
The joy of reading comes from interpreting the story from your own viewpoint. Each reader takes away a different experience from a book. Reviews are nothing more than an expression of each reader’s unique view of the world. So, authors, don’t take it to heart.
Living your life according to what others think is best for you is dust and ashes. Creating stories according to what others think is best is the same.
The Future: If You Blink, You’ll Miss It
We were recently asked if it was difficult to write science fiction in a world where the future quickly and persistently becomes the present.
You betcha!
How lovely it must have been to be a sci-fi writer one hundred years ago. The inventions and devices you imagined and described were unlikely to show up not only in the near future but in your lifetime. Your futuristic world would remain just that, an imaginative journey into a far-off place.
Not so today. When we wrote the first draft of Time’s Edge twenty-five years ago, the future we imagined included wireless mobile computers, touch screens, voice-activated devices, quantum physics… Well, you get the picture. Flash forward twenty years. We haul out the manuscript, begin to polish it for publication, and notice a big problem. The future we described had pretty much become the present.
We rewrote the story and have since added two sequels, but we wonder how long it will be before the devices and ways of life we described become part of our present lives. And then we wonder what it will be like for the science fiction writers of tomorrow. Technology is evolving so quickly, the future will be happening as they are writing it!
FUTURE WRITER: Let’s see. Orion steps into his personal protection pod (PPP) which will shield him from the harmful rays of the sun that shine through the depleted ozone layer, filter the smog-laden air, protect him from the chemicals that saturate the ground…
NEWS FLASH: Get your very own Personal Protection Pod. Don’t put yourself at risk of our deadly environment again! PPP’s will shield the sun’s deadly rays, filter your air, protect you from toxic chemicals…
FUTURE WRITER: Sigh. I wish I lived in the 21st century. Life was so much simpler then. Let’s see. Maybe Orion could just wear a special suit. Wait a minute. An ultra-thin fabric, transparent yet tough, which provides all the protection he needs from the environment. It will be practically invisible, so no one will know he is wearing it… I’ll call it WonderFabric…
NEWS FLASH: WonderFabric, now available from fine eOutlets everywhere. Transparent yet tough, invisible to others…
FUTURE WRITER: I’m switching to historical fiction.
We’ve Been Editing Our New Book
Sung to the tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
We’ve been editing our new book
all the livelong day!
We’ve been editing our new book,
and the time has slipped away.
We can see the deadline looming
so we rise up early in the morn.
We can hear each other shouting
“Damn it, cut some more!”
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more and more, more, more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more, more, more!
Someone has to check for grammar.
Someone has to check for form.
Someone has to check for style.
While rewriting it some more!
We’re singin’ “Gee, why did I write this?
Gee, this piece has to go-o-o-o-o.
Gee, why is editing so damn hard?
Wish we were strummin’ on the old banjo!”
Why Book Promotion Sucks
1. It’s tedious. Not at first. At first it’s new and exciting. Kind of like falling in love. But as time passes, monotony sets in. How many ways can you say “buy my book”? How many times do you have to say it? The answer? Forever! It’s an endless Groundhog Day of tweets, blurbs, and blogs. (Groundhog Day. The movie with Bill Murray where he lives the same day over and over. Just rent it and watch it. You’ll see what we mean.)
2. Everyone else is doing it. Yep. Me, you, our plumber, your mother-in-law, and everyone else on the block. The result? A cacophony of white noise in which nearly everyone’s attempts to be heard are lost. Like The Cricket in Times Square. (A book by George Selden. Go to the library. Borrow it and read it. You will see what we mean.)
3. It’s time consuming. Hours and hours every day. Must post. Must blog. Must check stats. It eats loads of time. Time that could be spent writing. Most authors are aware that the more books you write, the more income you bring in. And writing is what authors love to do. But who has time to do it? (Yes, we can already hear the writers who will say, I network, raise children, sew my own clothes, bake my own bread, and write ten novels a year. We admire you. We also promise to send flowers when you drop dead from over-work.)
4. It’s painful. In several ways. Physically. (Repetitive strain injuries from being on the computer too much. Also headaches from banging one’s head on the desk. ) Mentally. (I can’t possibly think of one more blog/post/tweet. Plus my head hurts from banging it on the desk.) Emotionally. (Riding the roller coaster of feelings as we watch our stats rise to new heights only to tumble back, dashing all our hopes. And the drama of restraining each other from banging our heads on the desk.)
5. We suspect it is not quite as necessary as everyone believes it is. Do our tweets, blogs and posts really make a difference? Probably not. We don’t have enough followers on any site to claim that we have reached a broad range of people. And yet our books are selling; sales are steady. (Phew. We can stop banging our heads on the desk.)
The bottom line? Ratings, reviews, and pricing seem to matter the most in promoting a book. What do authors do when they want their books to be noticed? They cut the price and have a sale. Some give a book away for free, knowing this will draw attention to their work. The hope is that if readers like the free book, they will be willing to pay for other novels by the same author.
We are going to try an experiment. (Actually it is already underway.) We are cutting back on all the social networking. Not abandoning it, just reducing the amount of time spent on promotion so we can spend more time writing. for when it comes right down to it, a good quality story is the best promotional tool of all.
J.M. Dattilo 