See, I'm not sure about the advice to "just keep writing."
On one hand, if you're consistently putting out a thousand words a day, you know that you're definitely not becoming stagnant and passive as a "writer."
On the other hand, quite frequently when I follow that advice, what I write (often vast chunks of thousands and thousands of words) just end up getting tossed. That's what's going to happen to everything I wrote in the last couple weeks before I decided I was wasting my time and spent three days reading HOW TO WRITE A DAMN GOOD THRILLER instead of writing a word. Then I put the book down, replotted, started writing again, and now I'm back on track.
Did I waste all those hours, like a snake swallowing its tail? Maybe. I'm leaning toward yes. Hard to say.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Bad Blogger. Spamming!
Bad blogger, right? I post nothing for, lemme check, ever and then I get all spammy for a contest. Ah, c'mon. It's Rob Wells. If you're reading this blog it's because we've chatted online or something, and you know that I pretty much stalk Rob Wells online. (And thus you've learned never to be TOO accessible to chatty fans via Twitter. You may thank me for this demonstration by sending me ARCs when you are published.)
Anyway, he's having a contest: ARCs. I love ARCs and I never seem to win them. (In fact, the basis of my desire to become a published author is to become part of the regular ARC-exchange community.) Check out the contest. I'd ask you not to enter, but that's not very sporting of me, so I'll take my chances.
Awesomeness is here: http://www.robisonwells.com/2012/08/the-big-three-arc-contest/
Anyway, he's having a contest: ARCs. I love ARCs and I never seem to win them. (In fact, the basis of my desire to become a published author is to become part of the regular ARC-exchange community.) Check out the contest. I'd ask you not to enter, but that's not very sporting of me, so I'll take my chances.
Awesomeness is here: http://www.robisonwells.com/2012/08/the-big-three-arc-contest/
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Twisted Viscera
You ever feel like the right words are deep down, all twisted up in your viscera, and if you were just willing to reach in and pull hard enough, they'd come free?
Friday, July 20, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Relentless Pacing: Compressing Action
Last night I read a rejection letter (it wasn't mine, because I'm not cool enough to have started getting those yet), in which the agent said that novels must have "relentless pacing." I've heard the phrase before, but last night it caught my attention. What is relentless pacing? How does it work? What are its characteristics? Sure, I've studied fail cycles, etc., but I still don't have pacing anywhere close to mastered.
As it happens, I'm reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, who is pretty much the master of relentless pacing, and one thing I've noticed about his book is that the action is extremely compressed. My action is often slow and spread out because I want my book to be realistic, and in reality, major events rarely happen on the same day as each other; characters usually dink around before they get around to doing things; and important discoveries usually occur over time rather than at the most convenient, interesting moment.
But let's take a look at what happens in the first 24 hours of Odd Thomas.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I MEAN IT. LOTS OF SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ODD THOMAS, YOU SHOULD REALLY LEAVE THIS POST AND GO GET THE BOOK RIGHT NOW. IT'S QUITE GOOD.
AND MORE SPOILER WARNING . . .
'Nuff said? Okay, then.
In the first 24 hours of the book, Odd Thomas identifies a child killer, chases him through a house, saves another child, and turns the killer over to the cops. (That's in the first hour of his day.) Then he slings hash for several hours. Then he spots a suspicious character, breaks into his house, and discovers a portal to hell and the character's shrine to mass murderers. He reports that to the cops, and then he sees the suspicious character again and tries to chase him down, picks up his girlfriend for dinner, gets chased from a church by a rampaging poltergeist, gets engaged, tucks his girlfriend into bed, goes home to find a dead body in his apartment, disposes of the body, confronts a pack of coyotes, releases a hooker's ghost from limbo, discovers that his contact on the cop force has been shot, and finds a meditation card that is basically meant to summon the devil. In addition to this, he makes about 6 social calls, describes 6 different locales, and interacts in about 10 different major relationships (7 of them with the living, 3 with the dead). And I don't think he's even hit the 24 hour mark yet.
Now, I realize that not every book is suited to be a Dean Koontzian novel, but this is an excellent example of how time and events are tightly compressed so that bam, bam, bam. There's never a down moment.
Of course, there's a lot more to relentless pacing. There's the variety of setting and character dynamics. There's the variety in types of conflict. There are reveals that dangers were misunderstood or underestimated. There are the introductions of new dangers and new disasters. There's the overall sense that this world is alive and moving on, with or without the reader. I'll probably write more about those later as my brain works through them, but for now--compression of action. This is one of my biggest weaknesses, and Odd Thomas is a great example of how to take it to the extreme, and pull it off.
As it happens, I'm reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, who is pretty much the master of relentless pacing, and one thing I've noticed about his book is that the action is extremely compressed. My action is often slow and spread out because I want my book to be realistic, and in reality, major events rarely happen on the same day as each other; characters usually dink around before they get around to doing things; and important discoveries usually occur over time rather than at the most convenient, interesting moment.
But let's take a look at what happens in the first 24 hours of Odd Thomas.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I MEAN IT. LOTS OF SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ODD THOMAS, YOU SHOULD REALLY LEAVE THIS POST AND GO GET THE BOOK RIGHT NOW. IT'S QUITE GOOD.
AND MORE SPOILER WARNING . . .
'Nuff said? Okay, then.
In the first 24 hours of the book, Odd Thomas identifies a child killer, chases him through a house, saves another child, and turns the killer over to the cops. (That's in the first hour of his day.) Then he slings hash for several hours. Then he spots a suspicious character, breaks into his house, and discovers a portal to hell and the character's shrine to mass murderers. He reports that to the cops, and then he sees the suspicious character again and tries to chase him down, picks up his girlfriend for dinner, gets chased from a church by a rampaging poltergeist, gets engaged, tucks his girlfriend into bed, goes home to find a dead body in his apartment, disposes of the body, confronts a pack of coyotes, releases a hooker's ghost from limbo, discovers that his contact on the cop force has been shot, and finds a meditation card that is basically meant to summon the devil. In addition to this, he makes about 6 social calls, describes 6 different locales, and interacts in about 10 different major relationships (7 of them with the living, 3 with the dead). And I don't think he's even hit the 24 hour mark yet.
Now, I realize that not every book is suited to be a Dean Koontzian novel, but this is an excellent example of how time and events are tightly compressed so that bam, bam, bam. There's never a down moment.
Of course, there's a lot more to relentless pacing. There's the variety of setting and character dynamics. There's the variety in types of conflict. There are reveals that dangers were misunderstood or underestimated. There are the introductions of new dangers and new disasters. There's the overall sense that this world is alive and moving on, with or without the reader. I'll probably write more about those later as my brain works through them, but for now--compression of action. This is one of my biggest weaknesses, and Odd Thomas is a great example of how to take it to the extreme, and pull it off.
Monday, June 18, 2012
This Story is Too Smart For Me
I woke up this morning with a great idea for a time-travel thriller. (Ran it past hubs, who is totally willing to tell me when my ideas suck or are mediocre, and he confirmed that this is indeed a exciting idea.) The problem is that I'm the type of writer who thinks I need five generations of explanation for why my MC owns a dog, so trying to plot and come up with adequate quantum and character background for a time-travel thriller is literally giving me heart palpitations and a headache.
Friday, June 15, 2012
I Want to Quit
Today is a day when I really want to quit writing, but I won't because after ten years of trying, I know it won't do any good.
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