Why do I even have a blog?

As you can see from snooping around this blog even a little, I'm not yet published.  I mean, I'm an author, but only because I say so.  You can't yet buy my stories, and I haven't yet made any money from them.  So why does a guy like me have an author's blog?

Well, to be fair, the foremost reason is because that's what the industry experts suggest.  They say to get your voice out there even before you're published, and that's what I'm doing.  So why would they advise this?  Why would an author with nothing to sell be advised to have an online presence?

First, establishing myself, however obscure, as a presence on the Internet before I'm published means I'm already ahead of the game when I do eventually publish.  I'm already ahead of the author who starts to blog, tweet, and otherwise connect at the same time his or her book is published.

Second, it shows that I'm already willing to work on publicity myself, to do what I need to do to get my stories visible, away from the dark claws of obscurity.  If I'm willing to work on things on my own, they know I'll work with them however they need in order to promote my books.  It's the sign of a good investment, and with the risks agents and publishers take with new authors, that's a good thing.

And third, it gives everyone - readers, agents, editors, publishers - a taste of my writing.  Sure, it's not the same as fiction, but it gives them a snapshot of the quality, style, and attention to detail that I likely (assuredly, actually) give my stories.  They can see my typos, or hopefully lack thereof, my grammar, my style and my voice.  Anything that allows a preview into what someone is getting makes it more enticing.

Aside from that, it allows anyone at a glance to see what type of stories I write.  It's right up there at the top: science fiction, horror, and fantasy.  You know instantly if you like the genres I write, and you know what to expect when you pick up one of my stories.

If you've been following my blog for any amount of time, you probably realize I intend to self-publish two novellas.  And you realize I'm behind my targeted schedule.  There are a couple reasons for this.  The first, and probably biggest reason is that a fractured ankle in the household has left me playing caregiver rather than maniacal wordslinger for much of the last couple of months.  I haven't been able to work nearly as much as I'd expected, but priorities being what they are, I'm fine with that.

Also, in talking with my amazingly cool editor, Karin Cox, I came to the conclusion my first story had a thread or two that needed more fleshing out to make it a much better story.  Every piece of quality advice I've found out there for self-publishers tells me the two things I had better get right are the cover and the editing process. Both are absolutely vital in producing a quality product, worthy of your hard-earned money.  And an author can't do that alone and be completely successful.  If my editor says my book would be better a certain way, then I'd damn well better listen.

Both these things, coupled with the normal family-centric holiday season, have left me woefully behind schedule.  It grates on me, knowing that schedules and deadlines are absolutely necessary in this business.  I'm still learning the ropes, but I should be able to function within the parameters I do know.

Whether I call these excuses or reasons, it all amounts to the same thing.  I'm working on it, I promise.  In fact, I've wrapped up the editing process and have begun the formatting.  Correctly formatting an e-book is a bit complicated, and involves a bit of HTML and other types of magical computer tomfoolery.  Sure, any idiot can zap a word document into the right format and have it uploaded and ready in an hour.  The problem with that is not every type of e-reader works well with formatting it the easy way, making it a very unprofessional looking product.

So bear with me just a while longer, while I wrangle through the correct way to format the book for all the major e-readers.  After all, if I'm taking your hard-earned money in good conscience, I want to make sure I have as professional a product as I can.

Progress on Publication

I've been working on publication for a long, long time now.  I believe my first short story rejection is dated sometime in the 80's.  Yea.  A long, long time, indeed.

There have been hiatuses from time to time, when I either didn't feel anything was good enough, or I was between duty stations in the Navy, or I was just plain too busy or away too much of the time to constantly send things out in the mail.  This was especially hard before the advent of e-queries.

I've also recently been thinking a lot about epublishing.  It certainly seems to be the way of the future.  I've been doing copious amounts of research on the subject, and it's frankly quite intriguing.  The royalty margins are better, that's for sure.  I also have more creative control over what I'm putting out there, and while that may not always be a good thing, at times even the pros don't get it as right as they could.  And, perhaps the most enticing part, it allows publication of stories that might never otherwise see the light of day.

It's a lot of work, though.  If I'm to do it right, there's no cutting corners.  There's no putting out a less than quality work.  If I'm in, I'm all in.  And that means editing it and refining it until I'm sick and tired of it, and then handing it over to a pro to do the same.  Then back for additional edits and tweaks.

And it means getting a professional cover for it, one that will hopefully set it apart from the other self-published stuff, and help it compete with the big boys.  Which brings us to the progress I noted in the title.  I'm pleased to be able to say last night I got a sneak peek at what the cover for Separate Worlds is going to look like.  I won't give away too much, but the digital designer who's doing the cover mailed me the initial base from which he's making the cover, and I was much impressed!  It's a work in progress, but so far it looks excellent.  It's going to be a great one, and a critical part of the publishing process.

I've said before there are only a few things needed, besides a great story of course, to propel book sales.  Marketing is an obvious one, and we'll talk more about that later.  Another is the jacket blurb.  That's often the only real snapshot of what's inside the book a reader gets before buying it or putting it back and walking away.  I'm working on that part.  The other thing is the cover.  People are drawn to professional-looking covers, because it suggests a professional book.  And even if the book isn't produced by one of the big six, having a professional cover does a lot for it.  Not only is it harder to tell it wasn't published in New York, it suggests that care and professionalism were put into the book.  It suggests the author took the time and effort to put out a quality product, and that's what readers are looking for.

So it appears I'm well on the way to solidifying one of those areas with exactly the professional quality I was looking for.  We'll see about the rest.  For now, things are looking good.  I have a long way to go, but in the end I will be confident about the product I'm putting out.

Story Length, e-Books, and the Salvation of the Novella

This interesting topic has come up again recently for me, and it's one that has seen quite a lot of heated debate since well, about as long ago as when stories were first published, or even invented.  How long is too long?  How short is too short?  What's the right length for a publishable work?  I feel like Goldilocks and the three bears just thinking about it.

Too short, and your story isn't publishable.  There's just not enough profit to be made over such a small story and it won't cover the costs it incurs.  And while short stories and flash fiction can be combined into anthologies and collections, with some exceptions, even those are not terribly popular and are difficult to sell for all but the most popular authors.

Too long, and your story is again not publishable.  No one will touch it because it will cost too much to put into print.  They won't have the profit margins they need to make the money they need to off the book.  They have strict guidelines in place to maintain profitability, and they need to in order to continue publishing.

But the problem lies in the stories themselves.  A good writer can tweak the story some to control the length of the work he produces, but a story is really exactly the length it needs to be to be told.  If the story is told as it should be in 30,000 words, then so be it.  That's the length it needs to be.

But how to you sell the thing at that length, especially if you don't want to pare it down to a short story magazines will buy, or pump another 20,000 words into it to market it as a novel?  After all, at those lengths, changing the story by that many words is essentially taking half of it away or nearly doubling it in length, and that changes a story to the point where it's essentially a different story altogether.

That's exactly my latest quandary.  I'm still toying with the idea of putting out an e-book, to experiment with the new market, and to gain more experience and a better understanding of the moves the publishing industry may be making in the near future.

I don't really want to put one of my novels out there.  I just don't feel it's the right move to make at the moment.  I thought about bundling 50,000 words of my favorite short stories and putting them out as an anthology, but I don't know about that either.  It might be a good idea, but I'm hesitant to put so many of them together and publish them all at once.  I don't really know why, other than the fact that I'm obsessed with doing things the right way the first time.

Which leads me to my novellas.  I have two of them so far that are sweet middle of the road lengths that are too long for almost every magazine and too short for publication as stand-alone books.  But e-books change the dynamic on things.  There's no length restrictions with e-books, because it takes no more resources to crunch a novella to the proper format as it does an epic novel.  Maybe a few more bytes of memory, and maybe a little more time to save the thing, but really, in today's age of gigabytes and terabytes, that's not an issue.

There may be additional editing expenses for longer works, but for a novella that's not the case.  On the surface it seems like the perfect solution.  If I want to push the envelope on my writing a little further and explore the e-book experience, novellas may be the perfect way to do it.  I can put those stories out for people to read in a medium that allows it, while saving shorter and longer work for the more traditional methods already established in the industry.  And if I ever want to go back and put the novellas in print, I might have a better shot at doing that by bundling two or three of them together as an anthology once I get my career off the ground.

I really, sincerely hope the advent of e-books have changed the dynamic of publishing so much that an entire market for novellas and novelettes has been created.  I hope the floodgates open for these mid-length stories and sales prove they're just as viable as works of other length in the marketplace, and just as important for the reader.  It would be nice to see that, because there's something to be said about a story of that length.  They're fun to read.  They let you in a little more than a short story does, and a lot more than flash fiction.  They allow you a little closer than just the quick peek of shorter fiction, but yet don't take the time and emotional commitment of a novel.  After all, when you buy a novel, you're committing both time and emotional energy to something you don't even know you you'll like.  With a novella, you can get pulled into a really great story without investing the time and energy necessary for a novel.  It's a happy medium.  It's not the day trip, nor is it the two-week family vacation, but the weekend getaway of reading, and I think there's a need for that.

We'll see how things turn out, but for now it looks like the evolution of the publishing industry may have taken a turn for the betterment of stories.  After all, if it allows the publication of those stories stuck in the no man's land of "improper" length, that's a win for readers and authors alike.

Plot-based vs. Character-based

This is an interesting discussion, and while I'd like to point out that a great story had better have both great characters and great plot, there is a definite difference between the two in storytelling.

Let me explain.  First, let's get the basics out of the way and describe what makes a story plot-based, and what makes one character-based.  The essential difference is seen when we look at what drives the story along.  In one that is plot-based, the plot itself is what drives the story to conclusion.  Point A naturally leads to Point B, which then uncovers Point C, which leads us to the eventual Point D.  Things that happen along the way are what point the tale in the next direction.

But how is that different than any story, you might ask?  That's what plot does, after all.  Yes, that is what plot does, but it's not always what drives the story.  In a character-based story, it's the characters' decisions, based on who they are as a person that drive the plot.  It's their interaction with each other that makes the plot come together, not just what they must accomplish along the way.

Well, that's fine, you say, but characters interact with each other.  It's kind of their job as characters.  Again, yes.  But in this case, they're what pushes the plot along, not the other way around.  Let's look at a couple of examples.

The first story we'll look at is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  While each character is unique, and brings a different perspective to the story, the story itself is plot-based.  There is a goal to achieve, and it really doesn't matter who is achieving it, the desired end result is the same.  Certain requisite tasks must be completed to satisfy the plot.  Sure, certain characters must do specific tasks, but it's still very task-based, not something that happens as a result of specific character interaction.  Frodo Baggins must return the ring to Mordor, and that is because of his unique character.  The thing is, anyone possessing that specific character trait would have made a fantastic substitute and the plot would have remained the same.

Now let's look at Alexander Nabokov's Lolita, a very character-based story.  The entire plot is driven by the interaction between Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze.  Sure, there was an end goal in Humbert's mind, but it was specifically the interaction between him and his Lolita that caused the tale to go as it did.  Substitute a different Humbert and the story would have been much, much different.  Substitute a different Lolita, and she would also not have reacted the same way Dolores Haze did when confronted with any of the situations she was.  And each of the characters in the novel brought a different twist of the plot into the story with the way they reacted to what was going on.  The entire story revolves around how they react to each other's desires and motives with their own.

There is a theme here.  Many stories of action, suspense, and horror genres are plot-based, while many dramas are character-based.  But that's not to say there's a line drawn in the sand firmly separating each into respective sides.  An action piece can easily be a character-driven story.  I'm writing one right now, and it's firmly in the character-based camp.

Sometimes it isn't really all that obvious which a story is until you think about it.  They do overlap.  The way a character acts often drives the plot as much as anything, and many times things outside the realm of a character's motives influence the plot.  It really didn't dawn on me my latest sci-fi time travel romp was character-based until well into the story.  You might not tend to think of science fiction action stories as being all that character-based, after all.

The television series Firefly was, though.  That story was all about how the characters interacted among themselves, and you know if you were to have substituted any other character for one of them, things would have gone quite differently along the way.  It's the epitome of a character-based story.  And when you compare it to Star Wars, for example, the differences between what drives the action in both stories are obvious.  "Defeat the Empire by becoming a Jedi Knight, destroying the Death Star, and confronting Darth Vader" sounds far different than "Our previous contact had some serious issues with how we handled the last job, and that is having a direct impact on our current job".

Now that's not to say that characters are simply interchangeable in a plot-based tale either.  Hardly so.  The Indiana Jones movies are all very much plot-based, and I dare you to replace that iconic figure with anyone different and have it turn out nearly as well.  One could argue that same point with a number of great characters in plot-based stories.  They're great characters for a reason.  They just don't drive the story, the plot does.

If it isn't terribly obvious which side a story falls on, take a look at what causes the conflict or action.  Many times a plot-based story relies on a plot device to cause the action.  Two characters are fighting over the same thing.  Two characters want different results for the same quandary.  Compare that to a plot that hinges more on the action and reaction of the characters based on who they are as characters rather than simply their goals.  Another way to think of this discussion is in terms of a story being motive-based rather than goal-based.

So what's the best type of story, plot- or character-based?  Of course that's completely unanswerable.  At least I think so.  They're both great in their own way.  I like characters with a little more meat on their bones.  That is to say well rounded, and less cardboard-y.  That doesn't mean that plot-based stories lend themselves to cardboard characters, and it doesn't mean a good plot that really pulls the story along isn't necessary for character-driven stories either.  Both are essential elements of storytelling.

My bottom line is I use whatever moves the story in the right direction.  If it's the necessity of getting from Point A to eventual Point D, then I roll with it.  If it's letting the plot flow based on the interactions of the characters, their motives and decisions, then that works too.

Go with what works for your story.  If you figure out which type yours most closely follows, you might have an easier time figuring out what to do if the story stalls, but in the end, it really doesn't matter much.  As long as something pulls the plot along and makes it go somewhere.

The Right Format for your Manuscript

First of all, there is no 'right' format for a manuscript.  Everyone says something a little different.  No one wants it exactly the same as anyone else.  Let me say that right up front.

Let me also say that I'm not the expert here.  I'm trying to figure things out just like all the rest of the starving authors.  But I have learned a few things along the way, and I figured I'd share them with you.  For what they're worth.

So while there are no absolutes in what agents and publishers want from an author in the form of a manuscript, there are some basics, some standards, and some general rules of thumb that you'd probably do well to follow.

Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford wrote a really nice blog entry on the topic, as did Moira Allen in her article on Writing World.  Chuck Rothman, writing for SFWA wrote an excellent article on the subject.  Daily Writing Tips has even more advice - sixteen manuscript formatting tips, to be exact.  And if you read down into the comments of that article, you'll find people divided all over the place on the 'right' way to do things.  And this just scratches the surface of the subject.  A little more research will provide you with additional voices, each with their own advice on how they think it should be done, or what the 'right' way of formatting is.

The agent or publisher wants to be able to read your manuscript easily, make notes where necessary, and not have to work around excess garbage to do it.  It's their job to read manuscripts.  If they read everything in 10-point Lucida Calligraphy, they'd be blind by the end of the week.  Even reading something only slightly difficult to read puts a tremendous strain on a person.  Which is why they have guidelines for the type of formatting they'd like to see.

Font is the first major bone of contention.  Some folks say Times New Roman.  Some say Courier New.  Others are less picky, and include fonts like Arial, which is a sans-serif font.  Advice I've seen says that most editors don't like those fonts.  Generally, the two most preferred fonts are Courier and Times New Roman.  Now you may have some folks who mandate one or the other - and I've seen examples of each - but they're both simple and easy to read.  And you're probably not going to receive a rejection based solely on font choice.  Change the font to whatever the agent's stated preference is and send it to them.  If they don't say, I pick either one of those two and roll with it.

As far as layout goes, almost everyone agrees on some standards here.  Generally they want to see your manuscript double spaced, printed on one side of the paper only, left justified, with one inch margins.  Again, you're going for 'easy to read' here, not 'looks like a published book'.  It's your job to provide content, the actual words written down on the page.  It's the publisher's job to provide style, what they actually look like when it's finished.  You may be adamant in your ideas of how you want it to look, but frankly, they really don't care about that.  It's supposed to look like a manuscript in the manuscript stage - they want something they can work with.  Remember, you're paid for your ideas and how eloquently you put them into words.  They're paid for how the book looks when it's sitting on the shelf in Borders.

Avoid the cutesy fancy stuff.  Just open up the word document, set the spacing and margins and font and begin typing.  That's all you need to do as an author as far as formatting goes.  You may think it looks cool to try and give the story a more interesting font, or that it helps with the theme of the story to provide it with an appropriate title font.  You may think it helps with your creativity and ability to get the words down on paper.  Whatever.  If it works for you when writing, knock yourself out.  But when you format it to send to the professionals, it needs to be professional too.  And that means you axe the Comic Sans for Courier, and take out the extra spaces and neat characters that signify the end of chapters.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of neat characters, almost every piece of advice I've heard says to simplify here too.  Lose the 'smart quotes' feature, the 'em' dash, and any other auto-formatting feature, especially when e-mailing your submission.  Characters like that tend to lose something in the translation of documents, and you really want them to see what you wrote, not some squiggly messed up character that converted wrong from ASCII.  This is especially true when sending work via e-mail.

The only formatting an editor generally wants to see is for words you want italicized.  The catch is, they almost never want you to italicize them.  They'd rather you underline them instead.  In the publishing world, underlined text is almost always understood as italicized.

It all boils down to presenting an easy-to-read document that conforms to general industry standards.  It's a simple matter of making their work easier for them, and thus making it more likely they'll want to work with you and publish your novel.  Find out the particular way a particular agent or publisher wants it and give it to them that way.  If they're not specific enough in their submission guidelines, follow as close to a standard format as you can and you should be fine.  The more professional your work is, regardless of how close it looks to a 'real book', the better your chances are to turn it into a real book.