Category: Ex-Heroes

            Well, here we are yet again.  Another year gone by.  Time to look back and see how well we stuck to our resolutions.

            If you bother to stop in here and read these little rants, I’m guessing you’ve thought about being a writer.  Not a weekend dabbler, not an incorruptible artiste, but someone who wants to make some sales and write for a living.  And the only way to do that is to write.  Not to plan, not to research, but to sit down at the keyboard and start typing out my story one word at a time.  There’s no other way to get something done and no other way to get something sold.  If I’m not writing… it’s just not going to happen.

            So, all that being said… what did you get done this year?

            Me?  I started 2013 already waist-deep in Ex-Purgatory, which was due at the end of April.  Of course, before I could finish that my editor at Broadway had some notes for me on Ex-Communication.  Really good notes, for the record.  There were only one or two things we argued over, and even on those we found a solid middle ground that made us both happy.

            But before I did those, I had to go over the copyeditor’s notes on Ex-Patriots.  They were doing a quick run through it before the re-release in April.  So I spent a day or three on that.

            At least, I would’ve, but first I had to go over the new layout proof for Ex-Heroes.  It was coming out in February, after all.  So that got priority.  Then Ex-Patriots, then Ex-Communicationnotes, and then back to working on Ex-Purgatory.

            Of course, by that point, I now had copyedits on Ex-Communication.  And a layout proof for Ex-Patriots.  And even some very last minute input on the Ex-Heroescover.  And after all that, I could get back to Ex-Purgatory.

            Until… well, I’m sure you can see the pattern at this point.

            Despite all this, I still managed to get Ex-Purgatory done on time.  It went long, and then I cut it way back, and then my editor suggested a few other cuts and some other additions.  We did a bunch of work on it, and in the end it went from a book I was kind of worried about to one that I’m almost proud of.  And it’ll be in stores in less than three weeks.

            That was the first eight months of 2013.

            Somewhere in there, between rewrites and layouts for Ex-Communication, I started a new book.  Something kind of urban-fantasy-ish, but a lot darker.  I was about 15,000 words into it when I went to Comic Con.  Alas, after talking with my agent and my editor, it’s going on the back burner for a little bit.  Hopefully it won’t end up being my new Dead Moon…

            There was also another idea I worked with for a while.  I pitched this one to my editor as “Neil Gaiman’s Neverwherecrossed with Cannonball Run.”  Which, if nothing else, caught his attention.  For the double-handful of you who were at Booktopia this summer, it’s the story I mentioned about the Model T Ford. I was about 19,000 words in when new deals were finalized with Broadway.  This one’s still going to happen, but it’s been pushed a bit further down the line.

            I wrote a handful of short stories, too.  “Flesh Trade,” alas, didn’t make it into Clive Barker’s upcoming Midian Unbound anthology (I only cried a little bit at that).  But the guys at Kaiju Unbound really liked “Banner of the Bent Cross” and the folks at Evil Girlfriend Media said yes to another story (which I can’t talk about quite yet).  I also polished up an old tale, “Contraption,” for an upcoming collection of short stories from Permuted Press.

            And since then I’ve been working on my current book, The Albuquerque Door.  Well, there’s been some concern about the title, but I’m hanging onto it as long as possible.  I’m about 25,000 words into it so far. 

            Plus there were also thirty-eight posts here (to be honest, one of my worst years since I started the ranty blog).  And another thirty posts on other pages I keep.  Plus a dozen or so promo articles for different books (including a handful of titles from Broadway’s new Doctor Who line).
            Thing is… I feel like I slacked off a lot this year.  There were a few times when I was waiting to hear back on deals or between drafts or just feeling burned out by that glut of work at the start of the year… and I took a day off.  In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with it, and I didn’t miss any deadlines, but the truth is I took off a couple of days I really had no business taking off.  Days I should’ve been writing.  I look back at this past year and I think that I really should be further along in that urban fantasy story.  The Model T story should have a lot more to it, too.  I look at this list and think I didn’t write enough this year.

            How about you? How much did you write…?

            Next time—next year, really—I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about what I talk about here.  A mission statement, if you will.

            Until then… Happy New Year.

            And go write.

The San Diego Comic-Con was pretty amazing.  My first year going as the guy behind the table—which really changes your view of it, I learned.  I crashed with friends in San Diego for a few days, and then Crown put me up in a hotel by the con for part of it.  

So here are a few of the random high points, as I remember them.  And a couple pictures of random folks/things, too, just so you’ll keep scrolling down.

  

Wednesday – I came down a day early so  there’d be no stress, so I woke up in San Diego.  My friends and I headed over to the convention hall around four to pick up our badges.  Then we killed time at the Spaghetti Factory bar until the doors opened.  I make my first attempt at a Webarella doll for my niece, but on preview night it turns out they’re only selling to people with regular badges—no pros or vendors.  Curse my professional status!  I drown my sorrows in model robots.  Check out Robot4Less—they’re cool.

Stopped by the Random House aisle and the Crown Publishing booth, where I finally met my editor and publicists face to face.  Chatted a bit.  Pre-signed a few books.  Then went back home with my friends to watch Sharknado.

Thursday—The first full day of Comic-Con, and I had free reign for most of it.  I wandered a lot.  Made another run for Webarella, but they’d sold out of their day’s allotment in under an hour.  Doubly frustrating when you saw all the folks walking around with shopping bags full of the dolls.

Checked out lots of booths.  Had lunch with Rick Marson, creator of ZOMS and Katie Cord of Evil Girlfriend Media.  Later in the day I met Bill Barnes who draws the Unshelved comic strip (they did a fun Ex-Heroesreview in comic-strip form a few months back).

That night was the Random House party.  There’s an embarassing story about me changing for the party in my friends’ car, but it won’t be told here.  Met Peter David,  George R.R. Martin, and also fellow Crown authors Scott Sigler (Pandemic) and Peter Stenson (Fiend).  I also got free drinks served to me by a woman dressed as Daenerys Targaryen (the bar was doing a Game of Thrones theme for Comic Con) while pictures of my book covers (and several other people’s) flashed up on screens around the bar.

Friday – I got to check into my room at the Hyatt.  There are definite perks to being a big press author.  It was also nice to have a place to dump things.  And then I got to go find that Webarella had sold out again.  Saw a jackass offering to sell them at 400% markup right there at the con.

I did a panel with a few other authors, then a signing where I met a few folks.  Talked briefly with Max Brooks (World War Z) at the Crown booth.  Then I moderated a panel with several costume illustrators (who worked on some amazing stuff).  After I dropped off some stuff in my room, it was up to the Top of the Hyatt for drinks with friends while we watched the sunset.  And then down to Seaport Village for dinner with all the Crown folks, including Scott and Peter.  Much smaller than the previous night’s party, and we end up talking about books, publishing, and similar things.  Which led us back to the Top of the Hyatt for more drinks (drinking, you may notice, was a recurring theme). One of the publicists came up with the idea of trading badges so I could get into the hall before it opens and finally get the Webarella doll.  

           

It was very nice to just take an elevator back to the room after all that, kick off my shoes, and scribble a few story notes on my legal pad.

Saturday – My last attempt to get Webarella met in failure.  Con security finally decided to stop other vendors from lining up before the doors open , but they only did a half assed job at it so vendors just lurked in the area.  And then doors opened and Mattel announced they’d changed their criteria, too—no selling to vendors (so my badge is now preventing me from getting the doll).  I slink back to the Crown booth, broken and defeated.

After meeting a few more folks and signing a few more books, I head over to Nerd HQ for lunch and to hang out “off campus” for a while.  Met up with a few folks, had a great turkey sandwich ( I was ready to gripe about the price, but this thing was huge), and missed one die-hard fan (you know who you are) by about ten feet.  Then it was a race back to the Crown booth for my first official signing there.  Met lots of people.  Signed lots of Ex books (I think close to sixty or seventy in a two-hour period) and even a few copies of 14.

Finished up the day having drinks with my agent and editor, talking about future projects.  Then ended up having more drinks at the Top of the Hyatt until… way too late.  Again, thank God the hotel room was right there.

Sunday—One last visit to the Robot4Less booth and then I was back to Crown.  After listening to me grumble every time we ran into each other, Katie from Evil Girlfriend came through with some extra Monster High swag for my niece.  I met a bunch of folks, signed another few dozen books, and the con closed.  Final estimates said over 200 books signed, and both Crown and the nearby Mysterious Galaxy booth both pretty much sold out.  I helped pack up a bit, said my goodbyes to everyone, and then wandered to an undisclosed location downtown, where I was picked up by a man in a dark car…

I was so exhausted that when I got back to my friend’s house I collapsed almost immediately on the couch.  A few of us tried to hang out for a bit, but four days of very little sleep and too much going on finally caught up with me.

Monday –I watched a few countdowns on the Chiller channel with my friend Marc while we talked about geeky stuff, ate lunch, and then I drove home to Los Angeles. There was, thankfully, much less traffic than there was heading down

And now I can’t wait until next year…

        Ex-Communication is being released on July 9th, 2013.  I know, finally…  It’s been done for ages, but then got caught up in the whole Crown deal and the usual publishing stuff.  Sorry for the long wait, but I really think it’s going to be worth it.

        Nope.  I’m currently finishing up a fourth one which should be out in October of 2013.  I’ve also got very tentative plans for a fifth book, but that would all depend on Broadway Books and how well the series does for them.

        I’ve never really planned it as a trilogy or having a set specific storyline.  I get to leave some threads hanging for later things, and if all goes well I get to pick up those threads in later books.  There are some specific things I know people are hoping to see resolved in Ex-Communication, but there are a few things that may still linger.  The series could go on for a while.

        I’d rather not say at the moment.  I don’t like spilling too much in advance because people tend to latch on to a lot of out-of-context stuff and make a lot of judgments about it—despite the fact that it’s a snippet they’re seeing out of context.  I’m kind of like JJ Abrams that way.  Just without the fame, prestige, money, or power.

        See above.

        I actually love to think people are talking about my books.  It still stuns me, to be honest.  What I hate are spoilers.  That’s why I always delete it when someone posts revealing information from the back half of a book and why I try to avoid those questions in interviews.  It’s fantastic that someone enjoyed it so much when XX found XXX and realized XXXX, but by talking about it (or posting or whatever) they’re making sure the person they’re telling can’t enjoy it the same way they did.  It’s like explaining how a magician does all his tricks and then taking someone to see the show.  It won’t be as fun, and it’s not how you’re supposed to see a magic show.

         And, yeah, this is a page for folks who’ve read my books, but not everyone’s read everything.  A lot of folks are here for the Ex-Heroes series, but a lot of people found this page because of 14.  It may be a stupid attitude in the information age, but I don’t want to ruin the experience of these books for anyone if I can avoid it.

Will there be a sequel to 14?

        I don’t really have one planned.  14 was always intended to be a stand-alone book, which was part of the reason I was able to do so much with it, story-wise.  It’d be tough to do anything with it that didn’t feel a bit cheaty or expected (I hate prequels).

        That being said… I have had a few very loose, very faint ideas for a sort of side-quel to it.  Think of it as more of a Next Gen– Deep Space Nine relationship.  But I wouldn’t do anything until I had a good, solid story to tell, so that’s not happening in the foreseeable future (for at least a year or two).

        Probably not.  I think a lot of the fun of The Junkie Quatrain was the interconnected-overlapping nature of the stories, and it would be tough to replicate that without feeling a bit forced and awkward.  I think we’ll probably have to draw our own conclusions about what happened to all those characters.  Well, all the ones that survived anyway…

        However, we may see some of the various characters again.  Quilt has been showing up in my stories, in one guise or another, since my first real attempt at a novel in college (sort of like Stephen King’s Man in Black, Randall Flagg).  If you follow my ranty blog at all, Quilt’s actually a supporting character in The Suffering Map.  I think he’s just a creepy, badass professional in almost every reality.

        I love attending cons and meeting folks, but it usually burns down to time (I do need to keep writing books) and money (airfare and hotels add up quick).  Driving distance has better odds than flying distance, west coast has better odds than east coast.  I’d love to do more, I just need to figure out ways to make them fit with those two factors.

        Nope.  It’s nothing personal, I just really don’t like Goodreads.  To be honest, I can’t stand the site, I submit nothing there, I post nothing there, and make it a point to spend as little time there as possible (which fortunately works out to “no time” in an average month).  I understand a lot of people love the site and if it works for you, that’s fantastic.  I won’t be there.  No friends, no reviews, no messages, no comments, no nothing.  I’d explain why, but… I’m taking the Thumper approach.

          Man, wouldn’t that be cool?  Alas, there’s been a lot of interest (from a few big players), some talks, a few meetings, one lunch where I had a really amazing cheeseburger, but as yet no one’s decided to move forward with anything.  Believe me, if it happens everyone will know.  Everyone.

         Alas, no.  It was just a funny comment to end an interview and some folks latched on to it.  I had a clever idea a while back for how the story could be redone, but I think it’s very, very, very low on Hollywood’s list. 

            This week’s topic is kind of timely because I just got notes back from my editor and he’s called me on this in a few places.  I’ve also recently read two books by other people that suffered a lot on this front, and it kept good stories from being really great stories. 

            So let’s see if we can work through this together.

            You might remember when your junior high school teacher would talk about  first person and third person.  And third person would get divided up, too, with phrases like omniscient or objective or limited.  If you’re anything like me, you probably erased most of that from your internal hard drive as soon as the quiz was over.  

            If we’re going to take this whole being-a-writer thing seriously, though, it means going back and re-learning this stuff and knowing how these rules work.  More to the point, we need to understand how they work so we can use them without confusing or frustrating our readers.  A lot of otherwise good stories I see get ruined by an erratic, irregular point of view… or by a complete lack of one.  They jump from character X to character Y to an omniscient point of view to Z’s first person point of view and then back to X’s journal. 

            For a reader, this is a lot like trying to watch a movie while riding a Tilt-A-Whirl.

            For those poor folks who didn’t get that last reference, a Tilt-A-Whirl is a carnival ride that spins the riders in one direction while moving them up and down on a circular track that’s spinning in the other direction.

            Let’s do a quick recap.

            First person is when the narrator is a character in the story, usually (but not always) the main character.  Everything I see or read in this story is filtered through that character.  I see what she sees, hear what she hears, feel what she feels, know what she knows.  That knowing bit’s important—in a first person story I’m getting access to all the narrator’s thoughts as well.  This can be very freeing, but very limiting and challenging as well.

            I’ve mentioned epistolary style here a few times.  It’s a form of first person where the writer tells the story through letters, journals, and other “existing” material produced by the narrator (or narrators).  Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel, and so are Tony Faville’s Kings of the Dead and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. 

            Second person is very, very rarely used, but I’ve seen it done a few times so I thought it was worth mentioning.  It’s when the main character is you and the writer projects all the action and emotion onto you.  “You walk down the hall and a feeling of unease begins to creep up your spine.”  Second person is tough to work in because I’m forcing my reader into the story and taking away all their control.  It’s not my story or Wakko’s story—it’s yourstory, and you’re going to do these things and feel like this and react like this.  That tends to be kind of awkward. 

            If you remember the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, those were usually done in second person.  And you may remember that they were a bit odd to read, especially if you picked one up later in life.  If you’re a bit geeky, second person is like having a dungeon master who takes control of the whole game.

            Third person is still the most common point of view for fiction, even with the rise of first person stories in the past decade or so.  It’s an independent, non-involved narration of the events of the story.  In a third person story, the reader is just a spectator.  There’s still a question of how much they see, though…

            In a third person omniscient story, the reader gets access to everything.  I see Yakko, Wakko, and Dot’s actions—no matter where they are—and I also see inside their heads.  I know what they’re thinking and how they’re reacting to things, even when they don’t show it.  I don’t have numbers to back it up, but off my own experience I’d guess most stories get written this way.

            A third person limited story keeps the reader as a spectator but limits how much they see.  I may decide we’re only going to focus on Wakko and not wander away to see what other characters are doing.  Or perhaps I’ll only let the reader see actions and not get access to what the characters are thinking.

            The trick with limited is that it’s like looking through a telescope or a pair of binoculars.  I can see certain things very clearly, but not other things—even if they’re very close.  And if I try to switch targets abruptly, it gets very confusing.

            So, it’s clear that a big part of storytelling is the point of view.  It affects how the narrative unfolds.  It also determines what kind of things the writer can tell you or explain during the course of the story. If I have an inconsistent point of view, it’s going to be jarring and break the flow of my story.  If I’ve chosen the wrong point of view, things may come crashing down around me right from the start.

            Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering how can there be a wrong point of view?  Sure, it may change the story a bit one way or another, but how can the point of view be wrong?  It’s just an arbitrary decision, right?

            Consider this example…

            Let’s say I’ve decide to write a mystery novel in third person omniscient.  I start off with my detective (let’s make her a female).  So for the first few chapters I’ve got access to what’s going on around her, what she thinks of the various people she meets, what they think of her, and so on.  Then we get to the crime scene and… well, hang on.  Maybe the murderer’s here.  If she is (yep, the killer’s female, too) the reader will know instantly because we’re seeing what’s going on inside her head.  I mean, it’s kind of a cheat  if the murderer’s here at the scene of the crime and not thinking about the murder, right?

            So maybe it’s better if we just never peek inside her head.  Of course, any savvy mystery fan is going to wonder why we’re seeing inside everyone’s head except Phoebe’s (yep, it was Phoebe all along), and they’re probably going to assume it’s because she’s the killer.  And they’ll be right.  In which case this isn’t a mystery anymore, it’s just withheld information… and poorly withheld at that.

            Of course, I could just decide to see inside Phoebe’s head from the start, but now this isn’t a mystery.  If we know she’s the killer from the start, this is more of a suspense-thriller.  And it’s a tricky one, because now the detective is going to be playing catch-up with the readers for the whole book.

            It’s worth mentioning that Alfred Bester pulls off a wonderful third-person omniscient mystery in his book The Demolished Man.  But it’s kind of a trick. The mystery in his story isn’t who the murderer is, but how he managed to pull off his crime in a world where all police are telepaths.

            So, choosing the right point of view is important in a story.  At best, the wrong one can mean a lot of extra work.  At worst, it means I might find I’ve written myself into a corner.

            Another important thing to remember is that my point of view needs to be consistent.  If ninety-five percent of my book is focused on Phoebe and her thoughts and her actions and what she sees, it’s going to be very jarring on page 324 when the narrative suddenly jumps into Wakko’s head for a few paragraphs.  If I switch viewpoints five or six times in the same chapter, it can get confusing real fast.  If I’ve been doing an epistolary novel for the first three-quarters of my manuscript, switching to third person omniscient for the last quarter is going to take some adjustment.  And as I’ve pointed out many times, odds are the way readers will probably deal with this is deciding to put the book down and get caught up on all those Person of Interest episodes on their DVR.

            If you want to switch points of view in your story, here’s a couple of tips that might help…

Chapters – Writing different chapters from different points of view has been a standard for centuries.  Mary Shelly did it in Frankenstein.  Faulkner did it.  Heck, even William Shakespeare did it.  It was fairly common for different scenes of Will’s plays to jump to different locations and focus on different characters.  If it was good enough for him… well, who am I to say that doesn’t work?

            In the Ex-Heroes series I switch from third person to first-person every third or fourth chapter.  That first person point of view is entirely contained within the chapter, though.

Markers – This is like the chapter method but on a smaller scale.  Stephen King uses this one a lot.  He’ll be writing from one character’s point of view and then use a set of markers or flags to make it clear a shift has happened. 

# # #

            The readers continued to scroll down through the page, gleaning small clues and hints.  Some of the tips were subtle, other direct, and everyone took a little something different.  A few of the readers shook their heads and scoffed at the ideas being presented, convinced that they had a better grasp of what writing really involved and how it should be treated.  They mocked the idea of limiting creativity with rules or even loose guidelines.  But most of the readers saw the simple truths the blogger was trying to get across, and they got some useful tips from the post.

# # #

            See how the narrative shifted there?  But you accepted it—both times—because of the markers.  They let you know what was coming next was different from what you were just reading.

            In a way, this is one of the oldest methods.  Lots of old novels were done in the epistolary style, and this gave the reader an automatic, familiar marker for the start and close of each viewpoint.  I try to use this method in the non-flashback chapters of the Ex-Heroes series.

Do It As Little As Possible—Some people think switching viewpoints is hip and edgy, so they do it as often as possible, in as many ways as possible.  There’s nothing wrong with this in theory, but—like flashbacks—there needs to be a real reason for it.  If I’m just switching viewpoints to switch viewpoints… well…  that’s going to get old really quick.

            Lots of books have three main characters and spend alternating chapters with each one.  As mentioned above, though, these characters rarely come in halfway through the manuscript.  It’s clear from the beginning that these are the points of view the book will use and it sticks to them.

Don’t Do It At All– this is a bit challenging, but if you can pull it off your readers will love you for it.  Just stay in one voice—one viewpoint—for the entire story.  No cutaways or cheats.

            There are certain drawbacks to this method.  If I never switch viewpoints everything has to come from the same direction.  If I’ve chosen to tell the entire story from Yakko’s first-person point of view, then everything that happens has to meet Yakko’s language, his experiences, his knowledge base.  But this can make for a very, very powerful story if done right.

            And there you have it.  A quick (well, not that quick) overview of different viewpoints, and a few tips on how to use them in your stories. 

            Next week… well, later this week, really… it’s Christmas.  I’m enjoying some time off, to be honest.  But maybe I’ll put up something about the year in review and we can all see how well my time was spent.  And maybe talk about yours, too.

            Until then, have some eggnog.  And try to write a little bit.