My beloved and I tried to watch a show a month or three back. From the moment we met them—their very first scene—one of the characters was just awful. Blatantly ignorant and incompetent, and always trying to bluster past it. Insensitive to the point of almost being cruel. And incredibly self-centered. We watched three episodes before giving up, and in all of that I think said character maybe had two conversations that didn’t center around themself.

In fact, said character was the reason we stopped watching. Yeah, by then there were some hints of growth and improvement, but at that point they were so deep in the hole we didn’t want to watch another two or three episodes and see if they managed to climb out.

And just to be clear, this wasn’t a minor character. This was one of the leads! Arguably the lead, depending on who you asked and how the show had worked out billing. Pretty much from the start, the main character of the show made us not want to watch the show.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, first impressions matter. In the real world and in fiction. Maybe even more in fiction.

This ties back to an often-misunderstood idea I’ve mentioned once or thrice before– three act structure. No, really. As a writer, I establish the norm, I introduce some form of conflict into the norm, and then I resolve that conflict. That makes sense, right?

So when I introduce a character, nine times out of ten I’m establishing the norm. This is who they are. It’s how they act every day, how they usually treat people. These first impressions is where my character arcs are going to begin. They’re who my character is without the added pressure of that conflict I’m going to be introducing.

It may sound really obvious, but this is why we tend to meet protagonists doing good things (or at the very least, neutral things) and antagonists doing bad things. Because if I start with someone being a self centered idiot, well… they’re a self-centered idiot. And probably have been for a while. Which doesn’t always make for a compelling character.

Getting past that first impression can be tough, especially if it’s something that’s going to give my audience—my readers—a strong reaction. It’s not impossible, but I’m definitely choosing an uphill battle as my starting point. If your first thoughts are that my character’s kind of a rude bastard or just a general ass or maybe a bit creepy in the bad way… I have to spend time getting past those perceptions. And that’s time I can’t spend getting to, well, the plot.

Think about some of your favorite characters from books or movies and think about how we first meet them. How often are they doing essentially decent things, even if it’s just in a low-key, maybe even not terribly joyful way? It’s rare that a character’s first page is trying to convince us they’re a horrible person.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying they have to be so happy-go-smiley-sweet that Mr. Rogers goes into diabetic shock. I just don’t want them to be an awful person. That’s it. Someone can be frustrated, depressed, annoyed, or even full-on angry and still not do awful things.

This might sound a little weird because we had a big, maybe ten year span where it was really common to have main characters who were… well, jerks. They were rude. Petty. Sometimes flat-out cruel. We’d see it in movies and TV shows and even commercials. They’d show people doing unquestionably mean things and narratively treat it like “ha ha, that was great!” If you stopped to think about it, though… those people were jerks.

And there’s always going to be exceptions of course. It’s possible I could have a clever reveal planned, and this ruthless gang lieutenant we met in chapter one is revealed as an undercover FBI agent early in chapter two and hey wait did we actually see him do any of this stuff he keeps talking about? It’s also possible to structure my story so we’re first meeting someone a bit further along their arc, and that might change things a bit, too.

But I still need to introduce an interesting and semi-likable character. Or, at the very least, not an unlikable one. If my readers don’t enjoy following a character, there’s a really good chance they’re just going to stop reading. And then they’ll never see that cool twist I set up at the start.

So think about those first impressions. Because I only get one chance at them.

Next time, unless there’s some serious opposition, I’d like to talk about conflict.

Until then, go write.

This issue of the newsletter was a little date-specific, so some of it may not be relevant anymore. You could avoid this horrible faux pas by subscribing to The Uncanny Cosmic Horror Zombie Almanac and then the newsletter would be delivered to your inbox in a timely fashion.

Just sayin’…

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A little early this month. For reasons. Which I will explain.

Eventually.

You’re probably reading this the day before Valentine’s Day, a holiday that can get a bunch of different reactions from people for a bunch of different reasons. I hope you’ve got someone to celebrate it with. Somebody who, in one way or another, makes you feel a little more complete or whole and a little less… well, less. A lover, a friend, or even a pet. Heck, even if it’s a place or an activity or a hobby. Something that makes your days feel a little lighter and easier.

In other news… about two weeks after the last newsletter I was finally done with Instagram. Locked down, no longer updating, no long replying. The only reason I’m not deleting is because A) I don’t want some rando grabbing my name/account and posting who knows what and 2) I mean, seriously, it could be a month before half my followers even see the announcement I’ve left. Which right there is, y’know, a pretty good argument for leaving.

That said, I was pleased to see a bunch of names I recognized from Instagram show up on Bluesky over the next week or so. A couple old friends (old in the sense of we’ve known each other along time—not that any of us have gotten old, ha ha ha ha, no). One or three toy-related folks. Heck, my publisher, Blackstone, has started an account there (which I think makes them the biggest publisher on Bluesky).

Speaking of social media, I also finally deleted my Twitter account. Well, deactivated, and now I’m waiting for Twitter to actually delete it. Like I mentioned last month, it’s been two years. More than enough time, and the past month has established it’s never coming back. Plus, y’know, all the Nazi stuff from Musk That made it easy, too.

So at this point I’m on Bluesky. Right now there, here (the newsletter), and my website are probably the best places to reach me. I’m still trying out Pixelfed and Cara for more visual stuff. No idea which one, if either, will be the one to pass that all-important critical mass point. I like Cara more, but it does feel a little more art-oriented. I get this weird vibe that my random toy photos or book covers are pushing some sort of invisible line. Pixelfed seems to be a little more open and has a lot of features I like, but like so many federated things (see: Mastodon) it’s kind of impossible to find anyone/anything unless you know exactly where to look, so it also feels very empty right now.

No, this isn’t an invitation for anyone to explain how inherently better and simple federation is, you just need to…

Anyway, let’s get to the real reason you signed up for this newsletter…

As I mentioned in the surprise mailing, God’s Junk Drawer is now up for preorder. I think everything’s updated/ rolled over/ rebooted/ whatever so it should be available to preorder everywhere now. I’ll probably bug you about it in the next eight or nine newsletters because preorders are so important and you wouldn’t believe how low the numbers usually are. Folks were stunned (and very happy) when my book, The Fold got around (if memory serves) 1300 preorders. I’ve been told Stephen King rarely gets more than a few thousand. If everyone reading this newsletter preordered it (and there’s only about 500 of you at the moment), it’d make my publisher giddy. Seriously.

So I’m going to keep mentioning it.

THAT SAID… Now that we’ve got an actual release date and preorders, I want to hammer out details for that west coast signing tour I mentioned last time. Starting in San Diego and then tentative stops in LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle and… I don’t know, you tell me. Is there somewhere else in there I should stop? I was thinking of San Luis Obispo at one point, but I don’t really know the town. Feel free to toss out suggestions for specific bookeries in these cities or other places I should consider stopping by (and yes, some of you already have).

There’s also New England. Hoping to be out there just after Thanksgiving. I think I’ve got a slightly better sense of bookstores out there, but if you’ve got a local indie you think would be open to me scribbling, please let me know. My hope is to do a stop in each state, with maybe a signing in eastern and western Massachusetts. And yes, some folks have already offered suggestions here, too.

Again, none of this is a guarantee—it’s possible stores might not be able to make my schedule work for them (completely understandable), plus… I mean, who knows what’s going to happen between now and then. It’s the undiscovered country. But once we get these nailed down (hopefully in the next couple of weeks) you could switch your preorder to your friendly local bookstore, give them some business, and then we’ll all see each other this fall.

In other news, TOS is off with a handful of trustworthy, brutally honest friends and so far the response is… positive? I’m feeling really good about this one, which could very likely be massive self-delusion or… maybe it’s actually good? Hoping to have notes/ comments/ critiques back from everyone in another week or two, which means I’ll probably have more thoughts on this for the next newsletter.

Also– Combat Monsters came out this week and is available everywhere. yes, everywhere! It’s got a new Carter & Kraft story from me, “The Night Crew,” and if you live in southern California I’ll remind you that a few contributors (including me) are going to do a sort of mini signing tour over the next few weeks. We’re going to be at- Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego this Saturday (the 15th) at 1:00, then Dark Delicacies in Burbank (3pm, Feb 22), and Artifact Books in Encinitas (3pm, March 1). Preorder the book through one of them, then come by and get it signed by us when you pick it up. And if you’re a few hundred miles away and can’t make it, I’m pretty sure they all deliver. Just sayin…

Also-also– I’ll be at WonderCon at the end of March. Possibly doing a few panels. Probably more on that next time, too.

Wow this has gotten long. Okay, not much more…

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
Finally started watching Severance, which I’ve been hearing about for a while. Only knew the premise, very little of the actual plot or story so this has been fantastic. We’re probably four episodes in as you’re reading this. Also The Dragon Prince is back and we’ve been enjoying that a lot, as always.

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Got an early peek at Fantastic Four: Solve Everything by Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham and that was really great. Also finally got around to Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne and it’s simple phenomenal.

Cool New Toys
Weirdly enough, the cool new toys that stood out this past month were a bunch of old toys. See, back when I was in college my parents cleaned a lot of stuff out of my bedroom and accidentally (or so they claimed) got rid of, well, pretty much every toy I owned before the age of twenty. The only ones that escaped were some things I’d locked away or taken to college with me. As such, it kind of stung when, a few years back, my mom started talking about this box of Transformers she’d found that was probably mine or my nephew’s. I grumpily pointed out they couldn’t be mine since those were all somewhere in a New England landfill. She laughed it off and eventually asked my nephew, who looked at the box and said they weren’t his, either. Said box came up again when my folks were visiting back in November and I said, fine, send it to me. It’s be interesting to see what it was, anyway.

Anyway, I told you all that (this is so long, I apologize again) so you’d have an idea how stunned I was to open this box when it showed up and see that it was a random bunch of my old toys, including, yes, some G1 Transformers. Things I hadn’t seen in almost thirty-five years! An Optimus Prime. Two of my favorite Decepticon jets. A GI Joe B.A.T. And more! I just sat there kind of awe-struck for almost half an hour.

Okay, I think that’s all (ha ha ha) I’ve got for you for this month. See you next time. Thanks for reading.

And again, I hope you get to spend some time this weekend with someone or something that makes you feel more complete.

I know I said I was going to talk about the first time I met Yakko Warner, but then Bryce asked a question in the comments and I thought, hey, that’s a fantastic idea for a topic. Let’s do that instead.

Bryce wanted to know…

As someone who has had numerous Audible exclusives, can you speak on the difference (if one even exists) between writing something intended to be read silently in your head versus writing something intended to be read aloud? Obviously any book can be read aloud. But when you know or expect that most of your audience will be listening to a narrator tell the story, recorded onto mp3’s, coming through little speakers we shove in our ears, how does that change the storytelling?

So let’s talk about this a bit.

I guess the first thing would be establishing what counts as an Audible Exclusive. Weirdly enough, somebody asked me about this on Bluesky the other day, and it’s a bit of a tricky question because Audible likes to slap that label on a lot of things. For example, I did two books– Dead Moon and Terminus— that were exclusive to Audible in the sense that, for six months, the only place you could get them was through Audible. No ebook. No print. No foreign editions. Nothing else. But after that six months… they spread to other formats.

But there are also Audible exclusives where “exclusive’ just means the audiobook isn’t available anywhere except Audible. For example, The Broken Room and Paradox Bound both had print and ebook versions (from Blackstone and Crown, respectively) that came out the same day as the audiobook. But Audible is sort of a one-stop place, so if they produce an audiobook you’re not going to see it show up on other sites.

Does all of that make sense? Cool. I just wanted to be clear on that moving forward, because it kind of addresses one aspect of the overall question. There’s a lot of storytelling out there that’s always aimed at audio only (a narrative podcast, for example), but it’s kind of rare to be writing a book that’s just for audio. They tend to reach other formats.

So here’s some things I’ve learned that can make my writing better in either text or audio format.

And, as always, these aren’t hard fast rules. They’re more like guidelines. There’s always going to be an exception, a time they don’t apply. But if I’m mostly finding exceptions… maybe I should take another look.

I’ve mentioned repetition here before. It can be a powerful tool, but as I’ve said if I’m not careful repetition can go from clever to annoying really fast. And because our brains don’t process listening and reading the same way, I’d guess in audio format I can reach that tipping point… maybe ten-fifteen percent faster? Like anything artistic, there’s going to be a degree of personal taste/ tolerance in there. But something that’s pushing that line in text will probably step right over it in audio. Which should make me ask, hey, why am I right up against the “annoying” line, anyway?

On a similar note… I’ve become aware of words that rhyme. Talking about the lair over there. Yakko said he was dead. Within sentences or between sentences. Sometimes these rhymes can unintentionally create a weird rhythm, so I tend to look for those and nix them. Unless, y’know, I was trying to create that rhythm. And again, it’ll be just that little bit more in audio. If it’s questionable in text, it’ll definitely stand out when we hear it.

Similar-but-different thing…I also keep an eye out for sound-alike words. There’s words we’d pass over without a second thought in text because they’re spelled differently, but when we’re just hearing them… they can hit a little differently. For example, there was a place in God’s Junk Drawer where I’d used gate and gait in the same sentence without thinking about it. I think it was on my second pass with the editor when I realized how—out loud—this could create a little mental stumble because we’d be hearing the same thing twice. It’s repetition and rhyming combined. Also, this is probably the most “audio only” thing I’m going to mention.

Another thing I’ve become aware is how long sentences can get, and how awkward they are as they get longer. In audio and text, somebody has to read all this. And keep track of it. And actually remember the beginning by the time they get to the end. That sounds a bit silly, I know, but I’ve seen people pride themselves for page-long, grammatically correct sentences (and some that are even longer). Every time my reader has to re-read something (or back up to hear it again) they’re getting knocked out of the story and it’s becoming less immersive.

And let’s talk about a big one. Dialogue. To be specific, dialogue tags. I’ve said before that I‘m a big, big believer in said, and that’s still true. Said is borderline invisible in text. Readers will absorb it and move past it without a thought.

But… when we’re in audio format, this isn’t quite as true. Again, our brains don’t process listening and reading the same way, so hearing said again and again can become repetitive and distracting.

Now, this isn’t to say audio is a good place for all those other dialogue tags. Quite the opposite. I think they might be more distracting in audiobooks because now we have to deal with the aspect of performance. Someone’s actually saying this dialogue out loud, so there’s going to be a slight disconnect if they don’t hiss, shout, exclaim, chortle, whisper, gasp, and so on. How weird would it be for be to say Yakko mumbled when the narrator just… read it? Because a big part of the narrator’s job is making everything clear and understandable.

But y’know what? When I got to work with an audiobook editor, it made me think about how often I need dialogue tags at all. And not just when I’m writing for audio. For text, too.

Y’see Timmy, one thing I became aware of is how often dialogue is a binary, going back and forth between two characters. Back and forth, back and forth. Which means I usually only need one or two dialogue tags at the start and then we’ll be able to follow the conversation. I talked about this at length a while back so I won’t take up too much time on it here, but if anyone wants an update or a refresher, just let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

Another thing I became aware of was ways to tag dialogue without, well, dialogue tags. If a character has a minor action, I tend to group it into the same paragraph as their dialogue. Something like this…
—————–
Kyle shrugged. “No, but I need to earn a few points with Hideko. She owed Barnes a favor, he needed people who knew the telescopes and the camera rigs to make sure some dumb undergrad didn’t destroy them.”
—————-
See? It’s very clear Kyle’s the one talking, right? Even though technically none of the dialogue is attributed to him.

Also, congratulations! You just got to read part of God’s Junk Drawer nine months early!

To wrap up, you may notice, a lot of these tips/ guidelines come down to breaking the flow. I think flow’s very important in a book, and possibly more so in an audiobook. We’ve introduced a new element—the narrator—between me and the audience, which is one more chance for somebody to pause or trip up and get knocked out of the story. And every time my reader’s knocked out of the story, it’s a chance for them to remember something else they should be doing. Like folding laundry. Or taking out the recycling.

And that’s not a good thing.

Hey, speaking of God’s Junk Drawer… you can preorder it now! Go down to your local bookporium and ask them to reserve a copy for you. Maybe two, just to be safe. If you’re ordering online, get at least three.

On a related note, this Saturday the 15th (tomorrow, as I write this) at 1:00pm I’m going to be at Mysterious Galaxy with a few other authors from Combat Monsters. We’ll be answering questions and scribbling in books. So come by and… y’know, ask questions. Get books scribbled in.

Next time, barring reader requests, I’ll be talking about the first time I met Yakko Warner.

Until then, go write.

Well, I offered you all a chance to make requests and not one of you took me up on it. Which means I get to rant about whatever I want this week. If you want rants more focused to your particular needs right now, just let me know down below.

But for now…

Back in November I talked about my drafting process—taking something from that messy, ugly first draft through to something I’m not ashamed to show my beloved or friends or, well, my agent. One part of that was my third draft, where I tighten and cut. And guess what? I just finished my third draft of TOS two weeks ago. And I took a bunch of notes as I was going through, because I was planning ahead for this.

Also, keep in mind this isn’t one-size-fits-all advice. Your story is your story, and your writing process is your process. Like so much stuff I toss out here I’m showing you how I do things with the hope it’ll help you figure out how you should be doing things.

So let’s talk about some cuts I made.

First off, I did a basic spellcheck. I’ve talked about spellcheckers a lot, and about using them correctly. I go through the manuscript one click at a time, examining each and every word the spellchecker flags. I don’t just blindly agree to change everything it says is a mistake because… well, it’s usually wrong. For example, it doesn’t recognize a lot of given names, and definitely a lot of nicknames, so I had to check each of those (or add them to the dictionary in some cases). Then there were words it just didn’t have (cyborg? Still? Really?) and a few where it refused to recognize a more common, alternate spelling (which, if I really wanted to put the work in, could probably tell me exactly which dictionary was fed into this particular spellchecker).

Again, each and every word. Check all of it. I’d guess the breakdown ended up being around 35% actual mistakes, 65% things that were correct but it flagged as mistakes.

Also, a lot of the time while going through, I’d check the whole sentence. Was there a better word to use? A better way to phrase this? Maybe switch a name to a pronoun?

This spellcheck pass took close to a full work day for a 300 page book. Sound like a lot? I mean, it averages out to about a minute and a half per flagged word. Some were easy to zip past. Some took a minute or two as I double-checked spellings myself or considered other factors (like I was just talking about). Plus, to be completely honest, I think I slowed down a bit while I was eating lunch. And I stopped to use the bathroom twice. On company time! I know!!!

Anyway… after this, I started doing passes for passes for different words. Lots of different words.

Adverbs and adjectives are some obvious culprits. I’m not one of those “kill all adverbs” zealots, but I do think a lot of the time they can use a good pruning. I once got to talk with editor Pat LoBrutto and his advice was “one adverb per page, four adjectives.” Like any rule, I think there’s some flex room in there, and different situations will call for different things. But I also think a lot of times we do overuse adverbs and adjectives because we just don’t know the really, really good word we could be using.

Some of the words and phrases I look for are what a friend of mine called “somewhat syndrome.” For me, it usually kicks in when a character says, for example, Yakko stood six foot four. It sounds too precise for a casual observation, right? Weirdly exact. So we write things like “Yakko stood a little over six feet” or “he was around six feet” or “stood a bit taller than six feet.” I used to do this a lot, with pretty much every description of anything, and it still show up sometimes when I’ve got a sort of casual, limited third person POV. So I search for a lot of things like about, kind of, sort of, around

There’s also a bunch of phrases that we tend do toss in, but we’re not using them correctly. Looked like, appeared to be, seemed to be, and constructions like that. These feel like the somewhat words and phrases I just mentioned, but almost all of these are part of an implied contradiction. Yakko looked like he was over six feet tall (but it was all just high boot heels). The door appeared to be made of wood (but was actually a veneer over steel plate). The car seemed to be in working order (but would fall apart if you drove it more than ten miles). See what I mean? What I probably want to say here is just Yakko was over six feet tall, the door was made of wood, and the car was in working order. So I should cut some extra words (that I wasn’t using correctly anyway) and just say that.

Also, there’s a bunch of verbs that have… well, they’re verbs we inherently associate with certain things. I shrug my shoulders. Nod my head. Point with my finger. I mean, it’s so understood if I told you “I pointed across the room”… well, what would you think I was pointing with? Which means those are all extra words. Just shrug. Just nod. Just point. You can probably think of a few, too.

Finally, there’s a bunch of words that fall into different categories and… look, they’re pretty much always good words to take a second look at. Very. Just. Rather. Really. Actually. Of course. Quite. So. Began to. Suddenly. I think some of these Benjamin Dreyer has pointed at (with his finger) as words you can almost always cut.

And yes, for the most part, these are going to be small cuts. But small cuts add up. When I was done making pass after pass for all these words and phrases… I’d effectively cut twelve pages out of my manuscript. Over three thousand words.

Want a few quick examples?

I cut 196 uses of very.

Also cut 141 uses of really.

And 139 maybes.

118 uses of kind of.

86 uses of about.

80 arounds.

Going off a standard 250 words per page for a double-spaced manuscript, that’s three pages gone right there.

Now in all fairness, every one of these wasn’t just that specific word. Sometimes while doing a pass and looking at everything (because, like with spellcheck, I don’t want to just delete everything that comes up), I’d realize I could reword a sentence, or maybe reword one and delete another. For example, out of those 196 words that vanished in the very pass, I’d guess maybe only 100-120 of them were the word “very” and the rest were other things.

Also, a small tip. Have you ever done find-and-replace on something and then discover you’ve accidentally created a bunch of mistakes throughout your manuscript? Like, you decide maybe Beth should be named Liz, but then discover her girlfriend now studies Elizalizan playwrights? Same principle holds here. I don’t want to just delete every very, for example, because then I’m also going to mess up every, everyone, delivery, slavery, recovery, and more.

And again… yeah, this is slow work. Slow, boring work. That’s what editing is a lot of the time. But it’s also a chance to sharpen things. Concentrate them. To make this hit a little harder and that get a bigger thrill. Editing might not be as thrilling as that initial raw creation, but I still get some creative joy out of it.

And I bet you will, too.

Also, I just realized I used this title for an editing post about twelve and a half years ago. What a hack.

Next time, unless somebody has a topic or question they’d rather I blather on about, I’m probably going to talk about the first time I saw Yakko Warner.

Until then, go write.