Search: “faq”

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.

A few folks on Bluesky recently asked about -14- and why it’s not available in paperback. As I’ve said once or thrice before, it’s a whole weird confluence of things all piling up on this one book, and it’s not easy to explain in a handful of social media posts. Especially when you know somebody’ll jump in halfway through to say “Well, have you considered trying…”

So I figured, what the heck. Bonus blog post.

First, before you read any further here, please go read this post about book publishing. Also, while I’m thinking about it, go read through the FAQ, too. Punishment will me meted out if you ask a question/ make a statement regarding any of this that’s already been covered.

So, first off, let’s have a general talk about numbers.

Whenever a publisher considers a book, one of the main questions they ask is “how many copies of this do we think we can sell?” That’s not shocking, right? They actually have teams that sit down and try to figure this out based off the book itself, but also the author, past performance (if any), market trends, and so on. This is also one of the numbers they use when calculating advances. They’re only expecting XXX sales total, so they’ll offer an advance of X that makes sure they at least break even.

This all makes sense, yes?

Now, these numbers also matter when a publisher decides to pick up a book that’s been previously published—either by another traditional press or self-published. If I tell them my book’s only sold eleven copies in the past year… well, I’m not exactly making a great case for them to re-publish it. Why would they pick up a book that doesn’t sell?

But by the same token, they also don’t want a book that’s sold too many copies. Y’see, Timmy, if all the research numbers say my book’s going to sell 50,000 copies, but I tell them it’s already sold 45,000… well, hang on. How many should they really expect to sell now? We’re pretty much saying 90% of the potential audience already has the book. Sure, there’s wiggle room in there, but… it kind of sounds like this book’s sold all the copies it’s going to sell, yes?

Hopefully this also makes sense. I’m not asking you to like it. But from a business point of view—and publishing is a business—you should see why someone would think this way, yes?

Okay, so, with all that in mind… let’s talk about -14-.

–14- started out at a small, traditional press. I feel safe saying it was one of the most (if not the most) successful books they had. By a significant margin. I’m pretty sure it was a factor in the original owner selling off the whole press to a group who put some, politely, less-experienced people in charge.

After maybe two years of fairly questionable decisions on all fronts, the new owners decided to take it up a notch and stop publishing physical books. Y’see, they ran the math and realized physical books had the smallest profit margin, so only putting out ebooks/ audio books meant more profits. For them. Theoretically. If you know the publisher I’m talking about, you may recall this caused a bit of discourse for a few days.

I will take a moment to point out the publisher was 100% in their legal rights to do this. It was an incredibly stupid decision in so many ways (again, one in a long chain) and all of the many, many authors they’d signed over the past two years were very rightfully furious. But it was absolutely the publisher’s stupid decision to make.

And while -14- was one of the very few books they kept in physical print… they also stopped pushing it. Because, y’know, profit margins. They had a loose distribution deal with a larger house they let kind of wither away. People would try to order the book from their local bookstore or Amazon and be told there weren’t any copies available. When the contract ended and I got the rights back, the publisher told me they had almost 250 copies just sitting in their warehouse. No, seriously.

Okay, so I’ve got the rights back now! Super-easy to find another publisher who wants this book, right?

Well… remember that math?

Y’see, even though it’d been effectively out of print for almost two years at this point, with ebook and audio -14- was selling phenomenally well, even seven years after it’d been released. Like, I’m pretty sure 99.5% of the people reading this would be seriously jealous of the royalty checks -14- was still getting from Audible when their contract ran out a few years ago. And your heads would explode if I told you what they offered me to renew that contract for another ten years.

But other publishers looked at that and said… oh. So it’s already sold that many copies? Hmmmmm…

Hang on, my agent and I said. There’s still a huge market for the print book, though. I’m constantly getting requests from folks who want to own a physical copy of it.

At which point the publisher would usually ask how many physical copies it was selling under the old publisher, before their rights expired, and we’d have to say “Well… none. For a couple of years.”

And that’s where we were kind of stuck. Because, yeah, it makes absolutely no sense that a publisher would stop selling copies of their most successful book. None. So the real answer has to be that the book has run its course and doesn’t actually sell.

Despite all the sales it’s still racking up to this day.

Does this mean -14- is doomed to never be in print again? Maybe? It all comes down to something changing that math and pushing that number higher. If my profile radically increased for some reason or the book got notably more popular. Heck, if someone announced a Netflix series tomorrow there’d probably be publishers fighting over it.

But right at this moment, for the foreseeable future… we’re probably not going to see it.

Sorry.

Okay, I know last time I said I was going to talk about three act structure but…

There was, as my fellow youths say, some discourse on Bluesky (and maybe the dead bird site, too, but why would anyone be there?) about recognition. It’s one thing to finally make some money off my writing, but let’s be honest. It’s also nice when we finally get known for our writing. When we get those starred reviews and interviews and con invitations.

And the awards. Can’t forget about the awards. We just had a couple sci-fi/fantasy ones in a row, and I think that’s part of what spurred this little bit of discourse. That’s the big recognition, isn’t it? Getting to stand up there in front of our peers and give a speech and get applause and know that we’ve been acknowledged. Our work’s been judged and recognized and now we’ve got a little rocket/ obelisk/ haunted house on our shelf at home to remind us—to remind everyone—that we’re really good at this.

I felt like a lot of folks covered said discourse pretty well. But it kept nagging at me. I think it’s because it’s something I’ve got a fair amount of experience with. On both sides.

So let’s talk about screenplays for a few minutes.

If you’ve been following along here for a while, you know my partner and I both read for a couple different screenplay contests during our poverty years. Some of them were big enough contests you may have heard of them, if you follow such things. And some of them you probably haven’t heard of, even if you really follow such things.

Thing is, it gave me a real look behind the curtain at this sort of thing. How semifinalists and finalists and winners get chosen. And look, the simple truth is so many contests and awards and fellowships all have a bunch of inherent problems. Some of them have poorly written rules for the contestants and/ or poorly written instructions for the people judging them. The judges all have their own personal biases they may or may not be able to avoid to some extent. Hell, most contests and awards are very limiting by design—you may notice it’s been quite a few years since a sci-fi romance won the Stoker Award,

And this is before we even get into someone deliberately putting a thumb on the scales, which has happened… well, quite a few times in the recent past. People tend to abuse systems. Sometimes they abuse systems that let them abuse other systems. And all of that, again, affects the final scores and results of all these judging systems.

Now to be very, very clear, I’m not saying that contests or awards are bad things. They’re absolutely not. I think it’s fantastic to recognize achievements and it can be a gigantic morale boost for lots of people when a book or writer you really relate to gets that recognition. Hell, especially you if it’s you who gets the recognition.

But I also think it’s important to remember that not getting recognized isn’t necessarily a sign of failure or that my work’s lacking something. It can literally just mean one (just one) of the key people who looked at my screenplay (or novel or whatever) didn’t connect with it. Or maybe connected too much in the wrong way. It could just mean three people sat around a table and said “well, that one’s a little less sci-fi than this one…”

In a way, this is a lot like deciding what gets to be art, which I talked about a few months back. Art is a completely random, subjective term that gets redefined constantly. Some things will get recognition now. Others get acknowledged years later. And yeah, some things should get recognized in a much bigger way and just never are.

(quick note that not getting recognized also doesn’t automatically mean everything was rigged and my work is flawless and brilliant and I’m a genius who deserved to win. Don’t be that guy)

Anyway, my personal take has always been that awards and recognition are great, but they really shouldn’t be seen as the end all-be all of writing. I definitely shouldn’t let it drag me down if I didn’t win. Or even get nominated. Being a writer’s tough enough without beating myself up because some random strangers decided they liked someone else’s book slightly more than mine.

And that’s my thoughts on that.

Oh, I also updated the FAQ, if that’s of any interest to you.

Next time, three act structure. Really.

Until then, go write.

Okay, so… I’m flailing a bit right now. I think I’ve mentioned our two sick cats, yes? Then I ended up one of the many, many people who caught covid at SDCC (despite being masked). I isolated pretty quick, but it wasn’t a big surprise when my beloved tested positive a few days later.

So life’s been fun here.

But let’s talk about you and your life.

And your writing.

So, as promised last week, here’s a simple tip for checking what kind of shape my story’s in. Pick something you’ve written—it can be completed or a work in progress or whatever. It’s okay if it’s not fully written out. I just need to know it.

Now I just want to tell the story. Not word for word, more like beat for beat. Just tell it like you and I are sitting at a bar or hanging out or whatever. Maybe it’s a very casual pitch session or something like that. That’s the level of “telling my story” I’m aiming for.

Have I ever talked about pitching? Maybe I should do that at some point. Would that be interesting to anyone?

Anyway, now that I’ve got this simplified story in my head… write it down. Go for speed. Seriously, we’re not worried at all about typos or grammar here. Run-on sentences are fantastic for this. I just want to fill a page and tell the story as quickly as possible.

Go!!!

Okay, got it?

Now I want to go through this abbreviated version or my story and look for conjunctions. Specifically and, but, and or. Yes, just like Conjunction Junction. ha ha, you’re old if you know what that means.

Everywhere there’s an and (or a plus, also, in addition, or so on) odds are that’s me character- or worldbuilding to some extent. It’s me expanding on things, adding details and facts and more details. Every place there’s a but (however, although, you get the idea) that’s conflict. We want this, but unfortunately that. And everywhere there’s an or, there’s a good chance it involves one of my characters making a decision.

Knowing this, it’s real easy for me to look at things and say, huh… my story seems kind of short on conflict, doesn’t it? Maybe my protagonist doesn’t really seem to make that many active choices. It’s possible there’s so much going on that nothing’s ever really explained.

Simple, yes?

Now, right up front, this isn’t an ironclad, infallible test. There’s a chance I did some weird phrasing at some point and managed to skip a conjunction or two. By nature of rushing through, there’s stuff I probably left out. Other things I over-simplified. And that’s going to affect how I put things down in my page of text. So again, not a perfect test.

But maybe I could also ask myself… why did that point get left out when I knew I should be listing all the key things? If it’s not an important thing, but I want to use it to balance out all the things that are important… maybe that’s worth looking at a little closer. This is one of those exercises that can always give me a little more if I’m open to looking at it.

And that’s your quick and easy tip for the week.

In other news…

Like, I mentioned up top, my life’s been kind of hectic lately, and to be honest… since consolidating things here the ranty writing blog isn’t getting anywhere near the interest/ response it used to. Which was never gigantic to begin with. I don’t know if it’s because I moved it over here and a lot of folks didn’t follow? Or maybe it’s just another sign of social media collapsing and people just don’t know I’m posting? Perhaps we’re just all flailing on the internet now, trying to be heard and seen? Maybe I’ve gotten very boring and repetitive and not offering the tips people are looking for. Any of these is plausible.

Whatever it is, I’ve decided to scale the blog back to biweekly for a while. That and the newsletter—have you signed up for the newsletter? It’s completely free—will still keep things coming here. Oh, crap, and I really need to update the FAQ, too.

And, of course, if anyone wants to ask any writing-related questions, I’ll still do my best to answer them.

Next time… maybe I’ll talk about three act structure real quick.

Until then, go write.