Category: Ex-Patriots

            What the heck?  How’d it get to be Thursday already…?

           Continuing on to a second minor aside, ConDor Con was pretty fun.  It was a bit stunning to hear that another writer, Art Holcomb, reads this little collection of rants on a regular basis.  So expect me to be very self-conscious for the next few weeks.

            Anyway, on to the reason you all bother to show up here…

            I know I hinted that I was going to talk about dialogue this week, but two weeks back my friend Bobbie (who I know from a far classier place on the web) asked about sequels.  I started thinking about responses and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to say.  This wasn’t just something to jot off a quick answer to in the comments —it was a full post.

            So, here’s my thoughts on sequels.

            First off—and I can’t stress this enough—here’s my first thought about writing a sequel.

            Don’t do it.

            I don’t think you should ever write a book or screenplay with a sequel in mind.  Ever.  The only time to do this is when the person paying you says you’re going to get a sequel.  If I go to a publisher or a producer with a story that is “the first in a three part epic,” there is no possible reality in which I am going to be making a sale.  It’s just good math.  Most publishers and producers don’t want to be stuck with one manuscript from an unknown writer that doesn’t sell, so why would they possibly want to get stuck with two or three or more?  Why risk signing a contract for a three book/ movie series when you don’t even know if the first one’s going to do well? 

           Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  There’s always some chance of someone buying a series.  But the odds are already slim for an unknown writer, so why trim them down to almost nothing by writing something that’s going to put the publisher in an awkward position?

Seriously, would you think this was getting a sequel?

            Ex-Heroeswas written as a single, stand-alone book.  So was A Princess of Mars (see, it was relevant) and Rendezvous with Rama and Interview With the Vampire.  Same with Star Wars (no subtitle), Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, and Planet of the Apes (both versions).  I got to interview Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci once–arguably the  most successful, highest paid screenwriting team in Hollywood today–and they both shook their heads and scoffed at the idea of working on a  sequel story before you even knew how the first one was going to go over.

            Now, if you’ve bothered to read any of the stuff I’ve written past this blog, you may be poised to respond.   Some of you may have already skipped to the comment section.  Yes, Ex-Patriots was clearly written with a sequel in mind.  And the only reason I got to do that was because the first book did so well the publisher guaranteed me two sequels.  When the third book comes out you’ll notice everything stops there.  If they both do well, maybe Permuted Press will offer me a fourth and fifth.  Or maybe just a fourth.  Or maybe another three.  It’s foolish of me to plan on anything until both of us know where things stand.

            So, to recap, never write something that depends on a sequel.  Never. Ever.

            With that out of the way, let’s talk about writing sequels.

            One of the big challenges in writing a sequel (but not the only one) is making it accessible for everyone.  Readers can’t feel alienated and left out.  If my manuscript doesn’t have an entry point for them, I’ve just ruined the chances of anyone randomly picking it up and enjoying it.  And they won’t say “oh, I should’ve read Book X first,” they’re just going to say “It sucked.”

            As a writer, I need to make sure everyone is up to speed.  I don’t need to revisit every detail of the first book in the sequel, but I do need to make sure readers have a basic grasp of my characters, the world they’re in, and any key events that happened in their past.

            Here’s a few ways you can do that.

            Firstis just honest recollections.  People talk about things that have happened to them in the past.  I do it here all the time.  Someone could go back and reconstruct a semi-decent history of my life just from this blog.  I didn’t lay it all out in order, but a lot of it’s come up at one time or another.  When my lovely lady and I talk, it’s not unusual to mention “the last time your parents were out here” or “that place we went mini-golfing.”  My friend Marcus and I talk about theater shows and movie nights and miniature wargames we’ve played.  When I talk with my friend Patrick, we sometimes discuss films or shows we worked on—some separately and some we worked on together.

            The trick, of course, like all dialogue, is that it has to be motivated and it has to sound natural.  Patrick and I don’t randomly discuss films, after all, it usually spins out of another conversation.  If I’m just going to have a character do an infodump then it’ll come across as awkward at best, false at worst. 

            Secondis character descriptions.  Hopefully my characters have grown and changed a bit since the first story, so I can also add in hints of things that happened in the last book.  Maybe someone has a special coat or a piece of jewelry or maybe a new nervous habit.  It’s easy to mention where these things came from or the circumstances that led your character to them.

            In Ex-Patriots, for example, St. George now wears a long, dagger-like tooth on his jacket, a trophy from the final battle in Ex-Heroes.  He’s also got a web of scars on his arm where a zombie demon bit him.  And he can actually fly now, unlike the extended leaps he was doing in the first book.  Since all of these elements are part of his character, it’s simple to bring them up early on in the story.

            The Thirdway is the ignorant stranger.  Sometimes I have to tell someone else what happened before and why things are the way they are.  Maybe I need to explain why I have all these scars (like St. George had to explain to Captain Freedom in Ex-Patriots).  Perhaps Han Solo has to remind Leia he’s glad to help the rebellion, but he’s also hiding from Jabba the Hutt (in The Empire Strikes Back).  And I’m sure more than a few of us had to explain to the new kid what happened last summer between Wakko and Dot.  There are always meetings and debriefings and those awful Christmas catch-up letters.

            The ignorant stranger works very well with sequels because odds are I’m going to be introducing new characters.  As long as I’m not trying to do the “they were here all along” bit, that’s an instant excuse to explain things and talk about the past.

            And the Fourththing you can do is probably the most important to remember.  Don’t do anything.  Sometimes we don’t need to know what happened before to understand what’s going on right now.  Most of the Friday the 13th films didn’t felt the need to explain Jason’s origins.  They understood that there’s not much we need to understand about a psychopath past “he’s here” and “he has a machete.” 

            Tell the things you need to tell, but don’t be scared to leave some things mysterious, too.  Let the audience piece a few things together on their own.  You want a story with an entry point, but you also want it to entice readers to go back and see what happened before.  If I spell out everything that happened in book one, there’s no need for you to go back and actually read it, is there?

            The best part about all these methods, of course, is that they’re all pretty natural.  I can slip them into conversations and introduce them into a story without much effort.  And that means I’m getting this information out to the reader without making it look like I’m beating said reader over the head with it. 

            Speaking of sequels, I need to get back to Ex-Communication.

            Next time, that rant about dialogue.

            Until then, go write.

            Just enough time and space left in 2011 for me to squeeze in one last ranty blog post.

            This was a big year for me.  For the first time in my life, I spent the entire year writing fiction.  I’ve spent over five years as a full-time writer, but a lot of those years were writing magazine articles as well as my own stuff.  This was the first year of nothing but my fiction and living (well, squeaking by) on the money I made off that.

            Which also meant this was the first year I had no schedule.  I had a few broad deadlines for projects, but even most of those had a 30 day buffer built into the contract.  So anything I got done this year—or didn’t get done—was all my responsibility.  If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.

            How did I do with all the extra pressure of living the dream life?

            –I started the year by finishing up the last draft of Ex-Patriots, which hopefully two or three of you have since picked up and enjoyed.

            –Then I wrote The Junkie Quatrain as part of a bonus material deal with Audible.com.  Four interlocking/ overlapping short stories that form a pretty solid-sized novella (about 37,000 words) in six weeks.  I was pretty darned proud of that.  It reminded me of tales about Ray Bradbury and Robert Lewis Stevenson writing stories specifically to pay rent.  Permuted Press is putting out The Junkie Quatrain as an ebook next month (shameless plug), and I think Audible.com is going to release them as a collected piece as well.

            –I wrote –14-, which was a whopping 149,000+ words in the first draft.  It went through five more drafts that cut a lot and added some more.  The 129,000 word manuscript is under the keen eyes of the Permuted editor right now.

            –I did about a dozen DVD reviews for the Cinema Blend website.  I wanted to do more, actually, but they’re shifting over to Blu-Rays and I haven’t gotten around to picking up a Blu-Ray player yet.  Maybe for my birthday…

            –I wrote forty-eight entries for the ranty blog (counting this one).  There’s also a half dozen on the H.P. Legocraftsite and another nineteen entries on another blog I do.  Plus a few lengthy diatribes on the Permuted Press message boards and the Facebook fan page I’ve got going.

            –At the moment I’m 20,000 word into Ex-Communication, the third Ex– book.  To be honest I’d hoped to be a lot further along at this point, but then there were holidays and traveling and this monster eggnog my brother makes with lighter fluid…

            –And as soon as I finish this post I’m going to try to grind out a superhero story for an upcoming anthology called Corrupts Absolutely.  It’s due by December 31st, so we’ll see how I do.

            So, that’s what I wrote this year. 

            How about you?

            Yeah, I had the advantage of writing fiction full time as my day job.  I’m guessing most of you didn’t have that.  Still, you’ve written something, right?

            Hopefully the answer is yes.  If it isn’t, here’s a simple New Year’s resolution, one I suggest every year about this time.

            Write a page a day.  That’s all.  Tell yourself you’re going to do that and stick to it.  It’s about three hundred words, depending on your formatting. 

            If you write one page a day, you can have a short story by the end of January.  You could have a screenplay by the end of April, giving you plenty of time to enter some of the big contests.  Next Christmas you could have a very solid novel on your computer.  All from writing just one page a day. 

            If you’re actually serious about being a writer, this should be the equivalent of resolving to sleep in the months to come.  Not sleep more or sleep better.  Just to sleep.  In other words, it should be something you couldn’t stop yourself from doing if you wanted to.

            Happy New Year to the double-handful of you who keep stopping by to read this.  Next time will be the first post of 2012, so I thought I’d do a quick recap about the history of the ranty blog and why I keep scribbling here once a week for several years now.

            Until then, go drink some champagne, kiss someone you love, and toast the new year.

            Then go write. 

            Just write one page.

So, let’s talk about cutting things up.

I’ve got a lot of slashing to do in my near future. The first draft of my new book is almost done, which means a polish draft and then I start cutting. And there’s going to be a lot to cut. It’s closing in on 140,000 words and around 110,000 is where a trade paperback starts to get a little too heavy. I already know a few sections that are going to vanish, but there’ll have to be more to get this down to fighting weight.

So, there’s a little tip I’ve mentioned here once or thrice. First time I heard it was in Stephen King’s On Writing. He got it from an editor when he was a kid, and still tries to follow it today. It’s not a hard-fast percentage, but it’s a great rule of thumb. I’m sure you remember this one–

Now, by coincidence, I’m also going over layout pages for Ex-Patriots right now. It’s coming out in about two months, and it’s already out as an audiobook. By further lucky coincidence, I actually kept track of some exact numbers for Ex-Patriots as I started to edit it. So let’s go over some of them.

The first full draft of Ex-Patriots was 109,088 words. For me, that’s really the second draft because I tend to fly through the first draft and neaten up in my second draft. It means some stuff gets cut early, some stuff gets tightened up, but some stuff gets added, too.

For example, I lopped out one whole chapter because I realized after the fact it didn’t fit the tone and a couple elements in it were happening a bit too soon in the big scheme of things. It was only half-formed, granted, but I still thought it was well done and I liked it, so I plucked the whole thing out before it even got polished. It’ll probably show up in Ex-Communication. Seventeen months from now you can say “Ah-HAH!” when you read the dinner party chapter. That was 500 words gone before I even start the serious cutting.

So my second draft tends to be tighter and leaner, but still a bit larger overall. Let’s see how much I can cut out of this with just a few passes.

First off, I removed 225 thats in the third draft. Almost a full page of them. For the record, I cut over one thousand thats from The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe. I’ve mentioned that before as a word which is easy to cut. Go through your writing and I’ll bet you’ll find half your uses of that could go away with no problem. Right there, the draft is down to 108, 863 words.

Then I cut 406 words worth of adverbs and adverbial phrases. I’ve mentioned a couple times how easy it is to lose adverbs. It usually forces you into using better words, too.

Next I got rid of useless modifiers. This is a bad habit I developed along the way that a friend (and editor) of mine named Somewhat Syndrome. It’s when I use modifiers as half-strength adverbs and adjectives. It comes up a lot when I have to describe measurements (a bit over a mile, almost two hundred pounds, and so on). I deleted 61 kind ofs, 14 sort ofs, another 61 uses of almost, and a whopping 70 a bits. That’s over 200 more words gone altogether. At this point the manuscript’s down to 108, 251 words.

Then there was some general tightening. I’d go through and look for places where contractions would make the dialogue flow better or excess verbiage had just crept in one way or another. It happens when I think too much, to be honest, and start wondering if sentences are clear or if I’m being specific enough.

For example, what’s the difference between I’ll drive my own car and I’ll drive my car? Not much except for some emphasis, which might already be established with the tone of the moment. Or what about she blinked her eyes open and closed, as if there was some other way to blink and some other part of your body to do it with.

Another 220 words went away during this pass.

So check this out. Remember that great little tip from Mr. King? At this point I’ve cut well over a thousand words, five solid pages of manuscript, and I haven’t even changed anything. I haven’t taken out any dialogue or removed characters or shortened sequences.

Y’see, Timmy, editing isn’t always painful and arbitrary. A lot of the time it’s necessary. And the necessary stuff isn’t that hard to deal with. All those cuts I just mentioned used the Find feature in word, so that’s only a day’s worth of work.

A few other chunks went away later in the editing process. There were a few jokes and ten percenters I’d added that I since admitted weren’t worth the payoff. One scene went away when I realized it made no sense with my revised timeline.

By the end of the third draft of Ex-Patriots, I’d cut over thirty-five hundred words. Not the mathematical ten percent we’re aiming for, but with the cuts and revisions between first and second, I felt pretty good about it.

Of course, you can get the book in a few weeks and tell me if I messed up

Next time… well, I’m open to suggestions. If no one has any, I might rant about spelling again (we’re due). I’ve got one potential idea, but I’m not sure if it’s been done already…

Until then, go write.