Day 70 - Rate This Short Book "Blurb"

Black Hole

So my manuscript is finally cleaned up and in the hands of the graphic artist who can convert it to the file format I need to upload to Createspace. Going through that sucker was hard core, as you may have gathered from my post last week. But, I set a schedule and stuck to it, and got it done, so now it’s ready. Which means, while he is working on that, I need to get the last pieces together. Leading me to my book description, or blurb.

Jenna Jameson

So every book needs a short “blurb” on the back cover or jacket sleeve. This blurb has a very specific job it has to do, and a critical one. First and foremost among them is that it has to catch a prospective reader’s attention and make them want to BUY. They have to read it and think, “Hey, that sounds cool. I want to see how that plays out,” then they need to whip out their wallet and buy that sucka! To do that, it has a base set of functions that have to take place.

1. It has to give a sense of what the book is about. 
2. It cannot give away what happens in the book.
3. It has to confirm genre/book type immediately.
4. It has to be compelling.
5. It has to be short.

Hoover

The bottom line is that the blurb is a sales pitch except that it can’t look like one. In a way, it’s the true manifestation of what we call “selling the dream” in the sales and marketing world.

So, here’s what I need from anyone willing to take the time: your opinion. I’m going to post the blurb I have made and I’d like you to read it and tell me if it meets the 5 criteria above.

Now, I realize that many of you are not science fiction and/or fantasy fans, so I ask those of you who are not to do two things for me. The first is, tell me what your reaction is when you read that blurb anyway. If you, the non-science fiction fan, were sitting on an airplane and noticed my book in the seat pocket in front of you and pulled it out, read the back… would you open the book and read it even though it isn’t your type of thing? Second, after you do that, try to put yourself in the mindset of a science fiction and fantasy fan and evaluate it for me as fairly as you can.

Alright, so there you go, that’s my request. Please be honest, as being kind does not help me at all. I have had so much of my work critiqued and work-shopped and graded and discussed, I really, really can take it. Just say it plain. Thanks. Here goes:

They told him space travel was impossible. They told him the five greatest wizards who ever tried it died. He’s going to do it anyway.

The Galactic Mage is the story of Altin Meade, planet Prosperion's most promising young sorcerer--and also its most reckless. Altin is on a quest to bring space travel to the people of Prosperion, but he's about to learn that ignorance can be more dangerous than orcs and dragons combined.

If Altin’s obsession is getting into space, his perfect opposite is Ensign Orli Pewter far across the galaxy. Bright, strong and beautiful, she is an officer aboard the spaceship Aspect, part of the fleet from Earth. There is nothing Orli hates more than the cold emptiness of space. Brought aboard as a child, her entire life has been spent amongst the stars, a life she never asked for, a prisoner of fate. As the lumbering sub-light-speed fleet hunts a dangerous race of genocidal aliens in the enormity of the galaxy, years are ticking off Orli's life. She’s got to get off the ship. She’s got to get out of space. But there is nowhere for her to go.

Or is there?

Day 60 - Holy Crap and the Tale of the Giant, Red-Flecked Manuscript

Oh, the carnage!

Well, they say you should be careful what you wish for, but did I listen? Hell no. I don’t like those they guys anyway. They are always saying stuff. They say don’t go swimming after you eat. Don’t run with scissors. Don’t have sex with strange women who have conspicuous facial sores. They just keep talking, so I ignore them. Which is why I wished for a good editor to go through my manuscript.

Wow.

Really?

I’m thinking of going to the college and demanding a refund. All that time spent on grammar and crap. And I’m still almost completely illiterate. Good god. In fact, I think I might go back to my old high school and demand a refund for that typing class I took too because, I mean, how does anyone make as many typos as I have? And we’re not talking about a manuscript I hadn’t been through 500,000,000 times. I’m serious. That manuscript was PERFECT. I have gone through it with a fine-toothed comb. A really fine-toothed one, like the kind you need after you’ve had sex with strange women who have conspicuous facial sores.



Mmm, facial sores are hot!



So anyway, just an amazing amount of red ink. I bet she went through like ten red pens getting to the end of my perfect manuscript. In fact, I had to go 17 pages before I got a page that had NO red ink. And while you might think, well, that’s not too bad, it gets worse, because it wasn’t until page 117 that it happened again. No lie. 100 pages before I could find ONE error free page after the first. And it actually was page 17 and page 117; I’m not rounding for narrative simplicity. I wonder what that means in cosmic terms. Should I bet on 17 or avoid it like, well, women with conspicuous facial sores.

But, all the bitching and whining aside, I’m glad I did it, and my editor is worth every dime I owe her. She’s found some really, really great stuff that I would NOT have caught even had I read through it another 500,000,000 times. I’ll give you an example.

In one scene, my story’s heroine, Ensign Orli Pewter, and her crewmates are in a desperate space battle. Some aliens are attacking their ship, and this one alien comes swooping in as if to ram them. The ship’s gunner, Roberto, fires missiles at the thing and it shifts position inexplicably, instantly moving out of the line of fire in a way that is impossible to fathom, much less see. So here is what I wrote originally, pay particular attention to the last paragraph; see if you see it too:

“Oh my God,” shouted Roberto at the screen. “Did you see that shit? Goddamn it, there is no way I missed that shot, sir. They can’t do that. It’s impossible. Nothing moves like that.”

“Calm yourself, Ensign. Bring them back,” ordered the captain. “Hit it when it passes by. Make sure they’re far enough away.”

“Yes, sir,” said Roberto, tapping in commands to swing both missiles around and muttering anxiously under his breath.

Orli was in complete agreement with her friend. She’d watched it happen too. The orb had just, well, not been where it was anymore. The first time she’d seen it, it seemed like a really eye-defying move, but not this time. There could be no mistake. That orb had shifted its place in space. There was no other way to describe it. Quick as a blink, one minute it was there, the next it was beside itself, as if the space itself had moved. The maneuver was, as Roberto had pointed out, impossible. Physics did not allow for such a thing.

Ok, did you see it? The totally lame writing that took place in there, that “how could I miss that?” word that is completely antithetical to the whole point of what it’s being used to described? I’ll give it to you again, with a hint:

There was no other way to describe it. Quick as a blink, one minute it was there, the next it was beside itself, as if the space itself had moved. The maneuver was, as Roberto had pointed out, impossible. Physics did not allow for such a thing.

One MINUTE?

Wow. Nice writing, pal. Nothing says instant spatial shift like “one minute it was there, the next minute it wasn’t.” I mean, if I really, really wanted to go for super-ultra-fast, I could have said, “One hour it was there, the next hour it was gone,” or maybe even one decade it was, or one century…. It was so fast it stayed right the hell where it was for eternity!!!!!


Hey, look at Everest speeding along!

Sigh.

So anyway, if there was ever a question in your mind as to whether or not you might want to hire an editor to go through your stuff, that’s why. Right there. It’s one thing if you are sending to a publishing house. You make your book as perfect as you can, and, if the story is good, maybe they’ll spot the quality and the in-house editors will butcher, I mean, clean it up for you. But if you’re going to self publish, you are on crack if you think you will catch all that sort of thing. It's humbling.

Okay, so there you have it. I'm right about half way through. Back to work.

Day 57 - Book Cover Art Begins in Earnest Now

Cover image template

Well, this has been an exciting week for my book. Things are underway with relative speed now, which means I won’t have to write more rat poetry today. In fact, there’s so much to write about, I am going to just cover one thing with this post so as not to make it 9,000 words: Book Cover Art.

So Cris Ortega is now officially working on my project, meaning we’re not just agreed to get it done, we’re corresponding on the particulars and she is doing research to get her mind around the places and times involved with my story.

Just so you all have the INSIDE, inside scoop, I’ll copy/paste in some of the actual correspondence. First, here’s my opening description for her as to what I’m looking for:

… Here are the two things driving my cover design as I envision it right now:

1. Sex sells, so I want the character of Orli prominently in the front, and I want that amazing Cris Ortega sumptuousness you do, so that when ads for my book pop up on Facebook and when people walk by it on a shelf or table, they see how “hot” she is and pick up the book. (My audience is largely male, but done right, this can work like a romance novel cover would on both males and females). Sexy but not slutty.

2. It needs to convey the two very different worlds the characters are coming from. She is from Earth: Space ship, Laser,Technology, etc. He (Altin) is medieval. He’s more: wood and cloth and old, dusty leather-bound books.

Characters: Orli Pewter – space ship officer
Female, age 21
Hair: blond, short cut, you can be creative with the style
Eyes: blue
Skin: white and very pale (she’s been on a space ship for ten years)
Build: athletic and very fit. She’s a runner, so very lean. Great arms, abs etc.
Attire: Tight garments, black or dark ‘space pants’, with a really cool gun belt and a SUPER cool laser pistol strapped to her thigh. I’m thinking a “military issue sports bra” (lol) would show off abs and cleavage well in the scene I have in mind (will expand in a moment). Cool high boots with cool buckles or whatever (assuming the image shows that much of her, which it might not because I really want to have the view close enough so her beauty is obvious from a distance viewing the book on a shelf). Feel free to do her nails and add earrings/jewelry if it’s in keeping with a Spartan, military life aboard a space ship.

Altin Meade – Medieval sorcerer
[Male, age 22]
Hair: dark brown, fairly short, untidy, “tousled” (he’s distracted by his studies and doesn’t comb it much).
Eyes: green
Skin: He’s been outside. Not weathered or deeply tanned, but not milky white pale either.
Build: very normal. NOT muscular, but he’s not a scrawny guy either.
Attire: He wears gray sorcerer’s robes (but you can make them whatever color you think works best, brown, dark blue, forest green if you need them to be… just not red). Some fancy threadwork in the long, wide sleeves and/or collar would be cool. He does not have the hood up (and the robes don’t need a hood).

Okay, that’s what I sent her. I also wrote a 2 paragraph synopsis of the story and offered to send her the two-page version, but I’m not going to include that in this entry—mainly because you won’t want the surprises ruined. In fact, it’s really hard not to give stuff away. I was working on the book description yesterday, and its’ really hard to pimp a book without revealing what happens. However, I’m still working on it, and am going to ask for input on it from you in a few days, so, enough about that.


So, that was the core part of my email reply to her request for information, and then I included three scene ideas. You may remember the sketch I put up in one of the first blogs (or at least I think I did), the one that was briefly on my website before I wrecked it (I put it on the right just in case, and I think I will try to get back up on the new, functioning website today now that the theme works... if I get time). Anyway, that scene is the first scene of three I described in my email. The second I described was similar but for just the front cover as opposed to a wrap-around full image that covers front and back with one giant picture. Rather than include all three descriptions, I’ll just include the third actual description, so you get an idea of the conversations going on. Here was my third suggestion:

3. If that’s too dark or not enough background to be cool, my third idea is this:

He [Altin] and she [Orli] are in a lower room of the tower, the one with some bookshelves in it. It’s his bedroom. Stone walls, leather-bound books on old wooden shelves, old wooden bed frame, straw mattress with a few straws poking out (lots of cool textures). He could stand behind her and hand her the [edited out to not spoil the surprise]. I think the medieval stone and books and cloth if you needed would contrast with the silvery [edit] and with her laser, belt (and boots if we show that much of her). Again, [this image could be] composed sort of like your Ex Machina.

Also, it should be noted that it is VERY hot in the tower (the dragon had a fireblast tantrum earlier), so if it is advantageous to make use of the sheen on her skin with the golden torchlight for purposes of sultry sexuality, please do. The scene is described that way, and with that kind of lighting, muscle tone can be pulled off really beautifully.

So that’s the sort of things I’m sending to Cris to guide the project. I chose scenes that work to convey the sense of the story and give readers a good idea of what to expect.

She replied and asked for a bit more info. Here’s a bit from her response:

Hello John,


Thanks for all the info. I would need some more things to know before I can begin working. First, the synopsis would be great, so I can know a bit more about the story and characters. Also, I need to know the sizes for the cover art, and it would be great if you can send me some graphic reference -photos, art...- about clothes, guns, spaceships... you know, since you seem to have on mind exactly what you want, it will help a lot to see some samples of similar things to work with, apart from my own references =).

If you have gone to her website, you will see she hasn’t done a whole lot of science fiction illustrations yet. In fact when I first approached her with this project, she seemed to be very enthusiastic about the science fiction part of it, which was cool. From my observations, her focus has been in the vampire and fantasy realm, although she does have one science fiction piece, which she wrote, "My first attempt at sci-fi," beneath it on her website. I'll put it below, and just say that if this is a first attempt, then most people who do tons of them are working whole carreers to catch up to where she starts off. (It's called The Outer Frontier... and I want to live there.)



Copyright Cris Ortega (You can buy prints of this btw)

So, besides the fact that she is obviously awesome at what she does, the main thing about working on someone else’s artistic idea, if we put ourselves in her shoes for moment, is that what is in your client’s head sometimes doesn’t translate well across the “ether” into your own head. I know this from personal experience as a copy writer. I get requests all the time for web content and advertising materials where I am given descriptions of the desired outcome and, though I think I have a clear picture of what they are asking for, when I’m done, they’re like, “Oh, uh…, well, that’s nice, but, umm, well, that’s not at all what I had in mind.” [cough]Jim[cough]. That’s the nature of commissioned/contract work, so the most important thing I can do as a writer is ask as many questions and get as much up front information as I possibly can. Which is why, I’m sure, Cris asked me for samples of the kind of images I am seeing in my head rather than just letting me describe the scene in words. Frankly, just proves how totally pro she is.

So from that point, I had to go hunt around. If I could draw exactly what I want from my head, I wouldn’t need to hire an amazing artist like Cris Ortega, so it took some time to go through lots and lots of websites and search through stuff. There are an astonishing number of spaceship images and laser images from the corny to the goofy out there. And what constitutes a “hot chick” literally runs the spectrum of humanity. So, I had to spend some time finding things that had the emotional “feel” of what I am looking for. I took screen shots of things that seemed to have the right temporal and technological locus for the ships and guns, and that had the right edge of sexuality for the character of Orli, and, last and far easiest, the essential look of a wizard as he might appear in my story. So, that said, here’s what I sent for the lasers:

The red circles indicate the ones that are "closer" to the right feel.

As you can see, there’s a particular look to these guns, long, and feminist literary theorists would probably say phallic. Definitely high technology, but of a sort that seems within reach of modern man were he to keep going as he is. My characters and their technology are not the Star Wars or Star Trek variety. There are no Romulan cloaking devices aboard the ships. Here’s an example of what would not fit for the look of a laser in my novel’s world.

Notice how totally different these all are from the one’s I sent Cris. They don't "feel" like the world I have written. The spaceship thing is the same kind of idea as the lasers, not too slick and perfect, not too "alien." Here’s what I sent to her:

Notice they’re all blocky and crude. There’s no “Warp 10” in my story. It’s based on real physics and quantum mechanics (even if I never talk about it in the book… although some of it comes out near the end of book two, and into the third one of the trilogy).

So, lastly, here’s what I sent to give Cris a sense of how I’m seeing the attire of the characters. Altin (the sorcerer) is pretty easy, the classic fantasy wizard. Orli on the other hand, is hot and has to appear so. And, since my target audience is largely male, and the females that like this sort of thing will like it for the romance, there is benefit to making her front and center. The “sex sells” thing with which I started the conversation with Cris. Here’s what I sent:

That took a lot of crawling around to cobble together. The character is described as wearing form fitting uniforms and boots, but there is room to interpret how that looks, especially since she is athletic and has the option of layers too. So, I’m looking forward to seeing how Cris takes it from there.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. I have a huge stack of manuscript pages covered with red ink to get too. I’m hoping to have that done by the 24th of May. We’ll see how that goes. Maybe I’ll talk about that strategy in one of my next posts. Stay tuned. Oh, and don’t forget to send this to any friends you have that might be interested in following my journey. Things are heating up.

Day 49 - Rat Watchin'

Ok, so this entry is mostly going to be about watching the rats run across the top rail of my back fence (along with the other critters, like possums, skunks and the occasional raccoon). I know this blog is supposed to be about my novel progress, and I was going to write about that, but there's nothing really interesting enough to blog about at this moment so you get rat poetry instead. That said, here is the quick novel update: I got my manuscript back yesterday from my editor--I'm very happy to get cracking on that--and I got a call from Createspace again wanting to know if I am ready yet, which obviously I am not. So, that's the book update, minus a cussing rant about how much of a pain in the ass trying to do my own website is proving to be. If you want to laugh at my ineptitude, feel free to go look at it and enjoy the train wreck I have made out of my theme. (http://www.daultonbooks.com/). (sigh). All good things in time, they say.

So, that said, and without further adieu, here is my new, illustrated poem, "Rat Watchin."



Evening in my back yard

Rat Watchin’

By John Daulton

Staged upon the top most rail

Of my gap-toothed backyard fence

Runs a rodent play we love to watch

Each night it does commence.

The backdrop hangs a sky of gray

Above distant city lights

The glow of them behind it all

Blacks silhouettes just right.

Each character makes its entrance

Dark shapes and nothing more

A furtive wave of rats that run

From offstage to next door.



The players enter

Little nimble Romeos

With pointy noses sniff the air

Rat Hamlets do soliloquies

Speaking silently of despair.

"To be or not to be ..."

On the Broadway of our back yard

While the ghost of Willy Loman

Eats the garbage we discard.

I’ve seen those little hunchbacks

Running the fence line now for years

A Street Car Named Desire

Done with whiskers, claws and ears.

But soft, what light through yonder city breaks?
It is the west and Juliette is a rat...


My wife and I, we sit there

and gaze upon the show

While the rodents keep performing

As if they didn’t know.



It’s like they have no worries

No care, we’ll think they suck

They fear nothing of our criticism

Although they watch for LeRoy’s truck.

For LeRoy does our pest control

And the ensemble he could kill

Only we, the audience

Know if he won’t or if he will.



LeRoy



So caper, prance and pirouette

Rat Macbeths and Gertrude queens

To keep your thespian freedoms

Make this the best we’ve ever seen.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the poem. I'll be back in a few days with a real update on my progress. Oh, and if you live in the greater Sacramento area and need some pest control, LeRoy (Outback Pest Control) is seriously the most awesome pest control guy you will ever get. He is courteous, thorough, uses all the right chemicals so the bugs die and your cats don't, AND, he puts up with stupidity like us not letting him kill the snakes and pigeons and other crap that we are too soft and bleeding-heart to want dead. Yet. LOL. One too many actors up on that stage and the Globe is going down, if you know what I'm saying.

Day 42 - The Secret to Getting Paid

This is the winner.

Ok, so I was going to buy my website template (getting item number 1 from my last blog entry), but apparently that’s not going to happen today. Here’s why: THEY MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO BUY FROM THEM.

As a sales veteran of almost a quarter century now, I am going to give you a little tip that I got from one of the richest men I ever met, a guy who made his fortune in clothing retail. Here’s what he said, and it is as true today as it was back then: “Make it easy for people to buy.”

I know, you were expecting something else, something deep or profound. But that’s what he taught me. He wanted me to understand that just having something good that people actually like is not enough to ensure success. It’s huge, but it’s not enough. The main reason is that people want stuff NOW. Something that looks good today might not have the same appeal tomorrow (this is why they make people wait 10 days to buy a gun… just in case the would-be buyer is making an, uhh, emotional purchase if you know what I mean—they make it hard to buy on purpose). People make buying decisions emotionally. It could be based on mood, it could be the lighting in the showroom hit their inner magpie reflex, it could be any number of things. Things that can go away. Things that pass. So the best way to ensure lots of sales is to make sure that WHEN someone is in the mood to buy your product, they can. Right then. Easily.

Think about it. You went to all the trouble to get them interested in it: you built it, paid the costs, put in the time, then you put it out there, advertised it, spent the energy on it. You did all that stuff.  So, now that it’s ready for sale, make sure you aren’t standing in the way of their ability to say, “Yes, I’ll take that.”

It’s not enough to just have the product on the shelf or visible on a website somewhere if, once a would-be customer finds it, they discover you only take credit cards. Congratulations: you just ruled out everyone who doesn’t have a credit card. Maybe you don’t like people who don’t have credit cards. But for me, I don’t care what you buy stuff with. I just want you to buy my crap.

Here’s an example from the other extreme: my shoe repair guy. This guy is like 8,000 years old. He’s a master craftsman, but he’s behind the times. He only takes cash and checks. No credit cards. No debit cards. Just cash and checks. Well, the last time I was in there, I watched him lose a customer who thought that was stupid, and I watched another customer have to ask a total stranger for three dollars because she’d had no idea it was cash only when she dropped her stuff off. Heck, he even had to wait two days for me to do business with him because I had to remember to bring cash and forgot the first time I went to pick up a pair from him.

So, here’s why I’m telling you all this. Today I was TRYING to buy that website template and it turns out they have made it excruciatingly hard for me to give them my money. I have literally spent the last TWO HOURS trying to find ways to take my money and put it in their hands, and I literally cannot give them my money. What’s even more annoying is that this is the second time in two weeks I’ve had the same problem.

Here’s the deal: the website themes site (themeforest.com) only takes two forms of payment. It looks like they take more because when you click to pay, you see options that say, “Buy with Prepaid Credit” and “Buy Now (via PayPal).”  Below the Buy Now option, you see the following: PayPal, Visa, Amex, Master Card. Below the Prepaid Credit one you see that you have 0 balance with an option to “Make a deposit" (its the green letters; you can't read it very well in this image).

Well the problem starts with the “(via PayPal)” part of the “Buy Now” thing. All those credit card types don’t really mean crap, because you are going to have to use PayPal. Which is fine. I have a PayPal account. So I tried to use it. It’s not working. It works on my credit card, I tested it, balances are going back and forth as of last week (which has to do with the second time in two weeks I mentioned above and will explain shortly), but it wasn’t working here, with these guys today. I even logged onto the credit card account and checked it. No holds. Everything’s dandy.

So fine, maybe there’s some weird glitch with my credit card company approval mechanism or something. No big deal. PayPal can work directly from my checking account too. Except it’s not. I even tried transferring the money directly into PayPal. That’s going to take three days. And, based on the failures of the other payment options, may not work anyway.

So the problem is probably PayPal having a glitch. Maybe there’s some glitch on my credit card that is only glitching at PayPal and nowhere else. Whatever. Who cares? There’s lots of ways to pay… if you give me options. I have other credit cards. Lots of them. They are all just as good as the one I’m using. But since any credit card I use has to go through PayPal, if they have a problem, Themeforest isn’t going to get my money… which they aren’t right now.

So I tried the other option. The direct deposit thing is really another company, sort of like PayPal, called Moneybookers. They appear to have been around for a while, and for the most part are probably okay (but have a look at how long the terms of service document is... I shrunk it down just to fit it all on here, but that is actually a full screen list of 22 different section).

But if you sign up with them, you better stay on your toes.

I was going to sign up for that service, but I made the mistake of reading the fine print. What a bunch of a-holes. It turns out that if you sign up for Moneybookers to make a one-time purchase like the one I wanted to make, you must first open an account (which takes time and does not fit in well with the idea of “making it easy for your customer to buy the website theme you sell”). Upon opening that account, you agree to pay all the extra charges that get added to your purchase price for convenience (not mine) AND—this is the good part—you also agree that if you don’t use the service at least once every 18 months, they can charge your credit card a buck a month forever.

Wow. Really?

I want that deal. I would like to know if any of you reading this right now would like to open an account with my new payment processing company I’m starting right now. I’m going to call it the Financial Undertaking Company, or F. U. Company for short. You don’t even have to use my services, just sign up. And as soon as you aren’t paying attention, I’m going to charge you every month for NOTHING. It’s just a fee you can pay for the joy of knowing me. In fact, I think I will also use your personal information now that I have it to come find your house and kick your dog. I simply love this idea.

Just wow.

Sure I can delete the account after everything processes I guess (they hold your records for 18 months… says so in the fine print), or I can make a point of using the service every 18 months even though their per-purchase fees are high and I have no need for them outside of this ONE item I’m trying to buy. But why should I have to go through all that? Why should I have to add that to my schedule? Come on. I’m just trying to buy a freaking template for my goddamn website.

Needless to say, I did not sign up for that insanity. Which means, I have NOT bought the website theme from Themeforest. I will, but only because I’m not buying on impulse. If it were a book, a CD, or a work of art, I would be over it by now. Kind of like the book I didn’t buy last week because the author only takes PayPal too.

Here’s a little piece of data for you: less than 10% of online purchases are made through PayPal (source). Yes, this number is gradually rising, and yes lots of people have PayPal accounts. Like me. But it’s not a great option if you’re only going to have one or two payment methods. It’s expensive and, not always reliable (either on their side or on the user side). So spend the time and effort to set up a real credit card account. Or have an Ebay option. Or Amazon.com. Hell, have a P.0. Box and take checks and money orders. Just make it easy for people to buy.

The End

Oh, but if you care, here's what you get if you go to that link in that long contract I pointed out...

See...

Day 33 - Help Me Choose the Look for the Site

Alright, so it's getting close to crunch time (or should be). In fact, the Createspace folks called me yesterday wanting to know where my manuscript was. I had to tell them, "Not quite ready yet." But it's going. I'm going to lean on my editor today, but only a little because I really don't want her to rush. I'll take quality over speed, but I'm soooo impatient to get this thing rolling.

Speaking of which: it is officially at, and a few days beyond, the "middle of April," so I would be a total liar if I did not confess to being completely impatient to hear from Cris Ortega. I am jonesing for her to make something gorgeous like you can't believe. I have plans for not just the book cover, but for my website and, get this, even a video to promote my book when it's done.

On create space, they have a few examples of videos people have done to promote their books. It's actually pretty simple stuff, but very cool, stuff that I can make with the help of some friends from work—and not pay $1200. Check out the example I have linked (which is NOT a fantasy one, but gives you the idea of what can be done).

So, in that vein, I can see having the "camera" pan along parts of the cover art while voiceover does a dramatic narrative summary. I can have stills of good quotes from the pages themselves come in from dark backgrounds, then fade and move away. It only has to be like thirty seconds to a minute, so just enough to tease and just enough to heighten interest. I can use it to promote my book on various sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. With a good script, some clever video, and the artwork from Cris Ortega it will be stunning.

That last part gets me back to my website. So as I am learning the art of website making (very slowly), I have found a template site that has a lot of "themes" for websites that make design easy and that will really help me get the most out of the artwork. I've been poking about, and I found three really cool ones that I am kicking around. One is very bookish, but solid marketing, and two are just plain cool. I would love to find out what other people think. So, in the interest of getting your opinion (and in the interest of seeing how different media channels work together, and whether people will bother to participate across them), I'm having a little opinion poll to help me decide which theme I should use.

So, first, below are links to the three themes I like. I've posted a small screen shot and link to the actual demo (full size) for each. I hope you'll go look and click around on them, because they are gorgeous on a full screen, and part of the appeal is how they WORK.  Try to imagine a book (actually try to imagine a trilogy and beyond). Keep in mind, that the cover art for my novel will be sumptuous (see blog Day 16).

So, check these out then go to my Facebook poll and vote for the one you like best. Or if you just refuse to go to Facebook and find the poll, then at least tell me which in a comment at the bottom of this blog entry.  Okay, here they are:

Theme 1 – This one is gorgeous, simple and elegant. But viewers do have to click on something to get to the book since it doesn’t appear instantly beyond the artwork. That can be a marketing minus point.

VIEW IT HERE 

Theme 2 – This one is also gorgeous and makes the book (and/or a video) easily viewable at least in part via the sliders. (I love how they slide up like that). This is my favorite... I think.

VIEW IT HERE

Theme 3 – This one is not "gorgeous" at all, but it puts the book front and center. It's probably the best one for having core marketing principles at work. As a demo, it's boring, but with the MY book cover graphics in there, it would probably look really cool.

VIEW IT HERE

Okay, now go to facebook.com/shadesbreath find my poll question and vote for the one you like best. And thanks.

Day 28 - Diction... It's not just fun to say. (Tips for good revisions.)

So I’m still in edits phase of this manuscript process. Well, technically my editor is in it, but I’m in that mood set and working on a different novel doing revisions (and trying not to be impatient—sigh). So I’m spending a lot of time thinking about editing, and about language and why each choice matters.

The other day, I was poking around some writers' forums and came across a conversation in which the essence of word choices came up. Here’s a bit of what was said by someone who was making a point about the limits of language, in particular, as it pertains to a disabled character versus an ambulatory one. This poster wrote:

. . . [I] decided to change my play to make the leading lady disabled. Before she became disabled she could walk, stride, pace, run, amble, stroll, step, skip, bound, hop, etc., etc. As soon as she was wheelchair bound she couldn't do much more than "wheel" or "move" - it seems the disabled do not even get equality from the English language!

Now, beyond the obvious and nauseating political correctness working there, there is another, and real, issue here. And it comes down to taking time to think about what your words mean and what they are doing in your story. This is a matter of diction.

This dude has as many verb options . . .

Diction is fun. And it’s not just fun because it has a penis reference buried inside it for those of us still sporting sixth-grade mentalities; it’s fun because it allows you to create space and meaning. It’s the difference between a story being told in a boring way or in an interesting one. First I’ll show you what I mean, then I’ll dig up some examples from writers who really do it well. Let’s start with the example from that writer’s forum.

. . . as this chick does.

Her premise is that there are fewer verbs for describing motion for a wheelchair bound character. So, using two people for examples, I’m going to create a scenario using what that forum poster gave us to work with. I’ll have a character named Hercamer who can walk, and a character named Gertie who is in a wheelchair. We’ll have both characters at a lake somewhere on a hot summer day. Here goes:

Hercamer walked to the water.
Gertie wheeled to the water.

Okay, so both of them got to the water. By the argument made by the poster on that forum, if I were to want to revise that sentence, I would only have a few options for Gertie, but several for Hercamer.

Hercamer stepped to the water. Hercamer ambled to the water. Hercamer hopped to the water. Hercamer strolled to the water… bounded to the water, skipped, ran, paced, etc.

Gertie moved to the water. Gertie rolled to the water.  And that’s it.

So the point that there aren’t lots of “rolling” synonyms when compared to bipedal options is, perhaps, arguably true.

But this is where diction comes in. Diction is about choices, and, more importantly, it's about story. It’s about adding words that enhance the story and engage the reader. It’s not just about conveying in the simplest way the “reality” of what happened.

Whatever my little story is, it isn’t a story about someone walking to the edge of a lake or wheeling to the edge of a lake. Or is it? Please tell me it’s not, because if it is, it’s the worst story of all time. Once upon a time Gertie wheeled to the edge of a lake. Dear God, kill me if that is ever a story.

What is really going on is that this lake scene is the continuation (or beginning) of plot, of the pursuit of desires on the part of real, living humans occupying the space, the actual physical place, of the story. That is what was missing when the poster in that forum wrote what she wrote. She was completely leaving out everything but the most basic constituent of the writing. She was just worried about how to write the actual mechanics of a character's motion. The sole focus, and therefore limitation, was about verb choices centered on how the character got to the water.

Who gives a shit?

Nobody cares if Hercamer walked to the water or Gertie rolled. That’s boring. That’s basic motion. Walking is crap that every toddler figures out by the time they are one and a half. Rolling is crap that a character in a wheelchair at a lake is already expected to know. Those verbs add NOTHING to the story.

What the forum poster was missing is that all the “ambling” and “strolling” that she was including for her upright character was beginning to prod at possibilities for her bipedal character in a way that she wasn't doing for her disabled character. Why does someone amble? Why do they stroll? Because they aren't in a hurry, that's why. And why couldn’t someone in a wheelchair have similar verbs to use?

Hercamer ambled his way to the water.
Gertie meandered her way to the water.

What matters is that neither character is in a hurry. There is something going on in the story that drives them to behave this way. The verbs reflect their motivation, their emotions and state of mind.

Moreover, verbs can also reflect a sense of place. The right ones can give sensory depth, add to the setting of the story, making place and temperature and even time more meaningful.

Hercamer leapt over large rocks on his way to the water.
Gertie wove her way around large rocks on her way to the water.

Hercamer trudged through the deep sand on his way to the lake’s cool embrace.
Gertie yanked and hove her way through the deep sand on her way to the lake’s cool embrace.

Hercamer stumbled his way down the rocky slope towards the water.
Gertie rattled her way down the rocky slope towards the water.

Obviously, I could go on, but you get the point. The only limitation any of our characters have is going to be us. I know that when I am writing a first draft, I am immersed in the dream of my story. I’m sort of watching it happen in my head and taking notes. So I don’t always get all the best verbs (or nouns) in. I might find that my disabled character did a lot of wheeling and rolling through my original draft when I go back through. But that’s the fun of revision. First drafts are fun because they are riding the wave. Revisions are fun because they are making art.

So, that said, I’ll give you a few examples from a couple of great writers. I’ll start with THE greatest writer of all time, Shakespeare. I’ll go with a play most folks know and take three lines from Macbeth

The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.

Now spurs the lated traveler apace

To gain the timely inn… (3.3.7-9)

Okay, before breaking this down, let’s add some contrast. The odds are, if I was writing a similar scene in one of my stories, and perhaps you would as well, I would have written something like this:

The sun was setting as the traveler rode towards the inn.

I just said the same thing he did, and there is nothing wrong with what I wrote. But look what mine is doing versus what Shakespeare's is doing. Mine is just TELLING you that the sun is setting; it’s just TELLING you that someone is on a horse. My verbs are doing crude, basic work. Just the facts, Ma’am. 

Shakespeare

Shakespeare gives you more. Shakespeare is engaging you. He’s not telling you what the sun is doing; he’s making you see it for yourself. He’s rendering an image in your head and YOU have to figure out from that visual experience what is happening. It’s almost a riddle, and you have to be involved in it to know what’s going on. You know you’re looking west because he starts you there, then he gives you “glimmers” so now the west in your mind lights up some, not a lot, just a glimmer, because that is exactly the verb he wanted for you. Then you get what’s left, some streaks of day. Not “streaks of day” but “some” streaks of day. So, we have this remnant of day glimmering and there’s only “some” of it left (which works nicely with “yet” in “yet glimmers” to give the sense of nearing dark as opposed to approaching day). With surgical diction, Shakespeare has rendered a sunset for you. You must extrapolate it though; you must participate. Which is interesting. It requires you become engaged. People always say that a good book is “engaging.” That’s an excellent word to hear about a book, right? Well, that’s what Shakespeare just did. He engaged us as readers. Me writing “the sun went down” is not engaging. It’s just telling you what happened. You don’t get to do anything. Yawn.

The same can be said for the “Now spurs the lated traveler apace.” That’s just like the walk or roll thing for Hercamer and Gertie. Shakespeare could have had the horse walking, or trotting or something equally banal. But he didn’t. He had the rider spurring. So we have in our heads the horse moving AND the rider acting in some fashion upon it. We now know he’s not just slumped in the saddle or sitting rigidly or anything else. He’s spurring it towards the inn. That’s what we should try to do when we write.

Edith Wharton

Ok, so to end this, I’m going to leave you with what I consider to be the finest example of descriptive writing ever penned. While you might find something you can make an argument for being as good as this, I do not think it’s possible to surpass this. I believe an entire semester of college writing could be taught out of this paragraph alone. Take some time and really look at all of this slowly and carefully. It will make you a better writer if you do. Watch the verb choices and how they function despite what this passage might at first appear to be. Observe the nouns as well. Look how much each adds, not just to description, but to theme, to scale, to personality, to history. There is nothing wasted in this, and this is not the sort of thing that one writes in a first draft. This is diction at its finest. So, without further adieu, here is a bit from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence:

The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the center of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. A flight of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still-snowy bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature portrait of the late Mr. Mingott; and around and below, wave after wave of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair, with two tiny white hands posed like gulls on the surface of the billows.

That's what good writing looks like.