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 This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| Types Of Editing {huser: schnujo} asked me a heap of questions. I looked at the easy answers in "20250702 Answering Questions" , but there are two more topics to examine. This is the first.The different kinds of edits, when to get them, and why So, there are 4 different types of editing. 1) Developmental editing This is the big picture stuff, and is what a good beta reader does. They look at the plot, the characters, the facts, the inconsistencies, and the way the different levels of story (plot, sub-plots, tertiary character arcs, etc.) work, together and on their own. So it is an advanced form of beta reading. Extremely important in long works. 2. Line editing This is looking at how easily something is able to be read. This is where things like paragraphing, info-dumps, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, etc. There is also a quick look at grammar, punctuation, spelling and homophones, but the main thing is how readable a piece is. It is like a more detailed beta read. However, the main thing a good line editor will look at is show vs tell. They should indicate where the tell is and leave it up to the writer to change it to show. This is the main thing you will get out of a line editor, and it is so important this is done to make the book the best it can be for a reader. Line editing occurs after beta reading. 3. Copyediting This is where every single line is looked at in detail. The story is ignored here – the first two look at that – and this is where the actual technical aspects of writing are pored over. Grammar, punctuation and spelling are hit hard. If a person needs a lot of copyediting, a traditional publisher will generally pass on them, because editors cost a lot, and this is a huge expense; they might have to sell an extra 50-plus books to pay for it. I’ll give a personal example. Invasive Species had a grand total of 23 copyedits needed for a 96k-plus word book when the editor at the publisher went through it. This meant the publisher (AM Ink) did not have to pay a lot for an editor, and used the money set aside for that in marketing, and the book has been my best seller. The publisher had more money because I gave them the cleanest copy I could, and used this to market the book. Many writers – and I have encountered them here at WdC – think a copyeditor will clean up their work. Two things – copyeditors are human, and the more mistakes they are confronted with, the more they are likely to miss; and it makes you look like you don’t care. Self copyediting before submitting to a publisher or paying for an editor (and the more mistakes, the more it will cost you; I have worked as a freelance editor, I know) can save money and improve your own writing technique and style. End rant. 4. Proof-reading Proof-reading is the final run-through. The book has been accepted and edited, or you have done the self-publishing work, and you get a galley proof. A proof-reader goes through to see if anything is amiss. This includes missed edits, names that have changed, formatting issues, things like that. This takes place right before final publication. Even in short stories, I am generally given a galley proof copy of the book and expected to go through my own story to find errors (including the author bio). Last chance to fix mistakes here! And that is the types of editing, and when they happen. A lot of editors will do line and copy editing at the same time, but I prefer to keep them separate. I will do one or the other for a writer. I do feel that a different line editor and copyeditor help. First, it is two sets of eyes; second, the second time they read it, they know what is happening or going to happen and might miss errors through complacency or familiarity. Developmental comes with the beta reader. Line editing is something I feel a writer should pay for. Copyediting is done by the traditional publisher, so a self-publisher will need to pay for it. And proof-reading is generally done by the writer themselves. Hope that explains it all. |
| Answering Questions Schnujo's Doing Homework asked me a heap of questions. I am going to answer the easy ones or previously answered ones here, and use the rest in upcoming columns. 1) Good 1st lines/ Good 1st pages This is so subjective as to be insane. What one editor/ publisher/ reader likes, another will hate. For example, I have been told to never start with dialogue; I’ve sold more than a dozen that start just that way. But one thing that you should never do is start with an info-dump of world-building or personal description. However, I’ve covered it here: "20240612 Starting A Story" 2. Good endings Covered here: "20240618 Endings" 3. Writing unlikeable protagonists we still want to read about Not 100% sure if I did this properly, but protagonists are covered: "20241208 Protagonist and Antagonist" I have to say, I have not come across this much in literature, except where the villain is the protagonist. Artemis Fowl (in the books) is the only great example where this is done deliberately. 4. The difference between alpha and beta readers and why we probably want both (at least for self-publishing -- maybe traditional doesn't) I cover readers here: "20240522 Readers" However, the tl;dr is: alpha readers are not necessary, in my opinion, for any writer. But beta readers are vital for all writers. 5. Writing what readers want to read, not just what you want to write How long is a piece of string? This is sort of like bandwagon jumping, and today’s flavour of the month will be tomorrow’s cringe. I always say write what you want to write. You are the first reader, after all. Don’t write to a market is my advice. 6. Book marketing on the cheap No idea. I publish traditionally – my publishers market for me. But I will say this: nowadays, social media is only selling to friends and people who know you, and whereas in the late 2000s through to the pandemic, socials really helped, now it is not making perceivable differences. I have no idea, in other words. 7. Know your audience Covered here: "20241014 Know Your Audience" So, thanks, Schnujo's Doing Homework, and the other 2 things you asked for will be upcoming topics of their own! If anyone else has things they want me to look at, drop a line in the comments or Newsfeed or in an email! |
| Letting ”The Idea Tap” Flow From Beholden: So my question concerns this only: how does one open the faucet of ideas so that they become a steady source of new and interesting stories? This came about because I have a habit of writing a lot (in this case, during the course of the "The Beatles Musical Extravaganza" ).So… how do I write so much? I have had to think about it. In my current state of mental health fluctuation I have been stupidly self-aware, so here goes. First, everything is an idea. If it is out of the ordinary, I write it down. It might be one word, might be sentence or question, might be a paragraph. Are all of them going to be used? Probably not, but you need them. Second, I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I use “what if?” questions. And when it comes to something like The Beatles, listening to the songs, a lot of these questions occurred to me… and I wrote them all down. Now that I’ve written that, that is all well and good, but how do these ideas appear in the first place? One, I relax. I put myself in a situation where the only distractions are ones I have chosen – music normally. I turn the phone and Internet off and (again, unless I choose it) away from people. If there is a stressor (worry about work, about relationships, about anything), then I do not produce as much, so relaxation is very much the first key. Second, I do not sit down to write something – I sit down to write anything. I let the ideas come to me, use old ideas I have written down, or get inspiration from external sources (rewrites of scenes of books, films, TV shows, song lyrics, other people’s poems – all of these are fair game) and let them fester and come out however they want. I do not try to channel them into a form. They start as free-form concepts. I am not a planner, so it is common that one of these free-form concepts will just continue on and, voilà , I’ve written something. Now, here is where a lot of writers get hung up, and it comes down to two things: 1) I do not care about quality, & 2) I do not sit down to write in specifics. Quality first. A lot of writers will look at what they are writing, decide it isn’t any good, give up and go to something else. On the other hand, I don’t care. I’ve written whole novels that I will never show anyone because they are rubbish. That is because the idea needs to get out. This does three things. First, it gets you into the habit of just writing. Second, it stops that blockage in the mind of an idea unrealised stopping everything else from coming out. Third, it might be able to be rewritten better. As such, I do not care about how good a work is until it’s finished. I just get it out of my system As an aside, if a work bogs down and does not work I throw on a makeshift ending before going onto the next thing. Again, this gives an ending and so stops blockage. Next, writing specifics. I do not sit down to write a poem, short story, novella, novel. I just write. Even in a short story, it might be a drabble, flash, standard short, long short. Doesn’t matter. I do not dictate to my writing how long something has to be in the case of prose. I just write until it is finished. As for poetry, I nearly always start writing prose, but if it suggests itself as a series of rhymes, poem it is. This only comes from being relaxed enough to let the mind wander everywhere. Finally, I never have just one thing going at a time. If something in a story is not working, I distract my mind from it by going to one of the other things I am working on. That means I always have something to write, and writer’s block is not an issue because one story might stumble, but the other 3 don’t. I hope that answers the question. |
| Novel #12 The next novel was something of a magnum opus. It took more than a year to write, then another year of rewriting before I was happy with it, finishing finally halfway through 2001. I pretty much worked only on this, with just a few short stories making appearances in this time. Mary clocks in at almost 124,000 words. It is huge. In its original form it reached 150,000, but some judicious editing and rewriting helped knock that down. It tells the tale of Mary and the former police officer who looks after her. Mary is, in fact, the reincarnation or re-coming or whatever of Mary, mother of God. And the story tells the tale from her odd birth, through to her giving birth to the new Messiah. There is, however, someone out to stop this from happening – the wife of a televangelist who thinks she is doing God’s work, but her God is not quite who she thinks it is. There are also three wise men and a Swedish guy who helps save the day. This story is based on a theme I have visited a few times – the second coming. A long short story or short novella called II followed the death of a new Messiah in Adelaide, a story I was quite proud of at the time I wrote it (end of high school), but now reads rather stereotypically. A few short stories have also been done, and even an essay. But this tale, I think, captures it best. It has some very overt religious themes… which, it must be said, some religious friends who have read it were offended by. How dare an atheist examine religion like this, and write about Christ! Yes, not about the content, as such, but about me as a writer daring to write it. Oh well – offending people could mean it would sell, and make a really bad film. This was entered in two novel writing competitions (including one which cost me $50), and forwarded to a number of agents (either 6 or 10). All passed. I guess. I only heard back from 5. It was then submitted to a number of publishers, including quite a few that I would not normally consider, but only because of the subject material. I heard nothing from 5 of them, received form rejections from another 6, received a detailed rejection from 1, and received an encouraging letter from another. Over the course of 2 years, it was rejected 19 times (21 if you count the competitions). And yet I still don’t think it is that bad. Mary herself is another in a long line of whiny teenagers I have created, but her police officer charge, Jason, is not too bad. His former partner (in both senses of the word) is well written, I think, with realistic motivations. The evil woman and the good guy Swede are two-dimensional ciphers. However, the best characters are the three wise men. I probably gave them too much page space, but I liked all of them. I still think there’s a market for this, and one day I may try again to get this out there. Excerpt: The room at the back of the Church was not what Mary would have expected for a place of worship. It looked like a school class-room. The mis-matched seats were all set up in a circle, interspersed with bean bags and two couches. Against one wall was a large screen television set up in front of three old sofas, two lounge chairs that matched none of these with a few more gaps that were obviously designed to fit in some of the chairs set into the circle. The teenage girl approached tentatively. She was very late and had waited outside until she saw that the people in the circle – twenty-one of them; she had counted them five times – had stood up and were gathering around a small kitchen-like set-up behind a door near the television. It was Dave who first noticed her. “Mary!” he cried, running across and grabbing her in an embrace before she could react. And then he was leading her towards a beaming group of people. “Everyone, this is the girl I was telling you about: Mary. Mary, this is everyone.” “Sorry I’m late,” she stammered. “Got held up at home.” Dave smiled at her and she could see that it was genuine… and infectious. “That’s all right. You just missed the opening prayer and a bit of a discussion. But we’re all about to grab a cup of tea and watch the movies I rented this afternoon.” He was talking at a hundred miles an hour and she saw some of the others snicker at him, but it was friendly and light-hearted; he actually seemed to be genuinely liked amongst this group of people. “So grab a cuppa and come sit over with us,” a girl to his left offered, taking her gently out of his grip and leading her into the kitchen while the sounds of chairs being moved behind her reached her ears. “I’m Imogen, but everyone here calls me Immy,” she said once they were alone. “Mary.” She was barely starting to relax; she felt all too much like an outsider. “I know.” She smiled and it was warm and inviting. “Dave’s told us all about you. But I gather you’ve only spoken to him once?” Mary nodded and she laughed a little. “He’s like that. Talks and talks… or maybe you hadn’t noticed.” “I did.” Mary finally giggled a little. “So, let me get this straight – you’re new here in town and you’re interested in old buildings.” She was not mocking her, but seemed to be genuinely interested. And so Mary merely nodded. “Good. I hope you enjoy our company.” “Thank-you.” Mary felt the smile widen across her face. “And what religious persuasion are you?” Imogen asked innocently as she poured her own cup of coffee. Mary stared at the cup she held in her hands. “I’m not,” she muttered. “Sorry.” Imogen just gazed back at her. “Really?” “Really.” She was starting to feel uncomfortable again. Although not the third degree, to her own scared mind it was too close. She was feeling the outsider again… “Look, maybe I should go. I don’t really belong and…” “No, I’m sorry.” The expression on Imogen’s face softened. “I don’t mean to pry. But I’d like to know one day why you feel that way.” Mary stared and felt her smile drop quickly. Too quickly. “A relative of mine was killed by a religious cult.” “I’m sorry.” And the tone of voice was genuine. “Forget it. It’s your life. I really shouldn’t have pried.” So, this is a really long religious thriller involving a lot of religion and yet taking the concept of God and Jesus quite seriously. I think being an atheist made it easier for me to do this without the thinking I needed to stand up for my religion or whatever. I still think it is one of my better efforts. Just a shame no-one agrees with me… |
| Blog Entries So… I have no other ideas of what more to write to help authors. If you, the three people who read this, have anything you’d like me to look at or have anything you think I might be able to help with, leave a comment, and I will see what I can do. In the meantime, I am going to continue to outline my novel writing journey, as well as I can, at least whenever I have nothing else to write about. I think I am also going to re-post some things from my old blog (non-WdC), updating them as I go on. So… if you have anything at all, let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to be completely boringly historical. |
| Novel #11 The end of 1998 saw a 66300 word novel appear, Comeback. After Some Other People, it was something of a letdown at the time, but reading it nowadays, it isn’t that awful. As it was, I sent it to 2 publishers and an agent, but never heard from any of them. I think my biggest problem at the time was that it was a real departure for me. This one was just a thriller. No horror, not fantasy, no monsters, nothing supernatural – just three people not coping at all with anything, and their lives – their second chances at lives – spiralling out of control. It was also written in an odd way. The opening scene with the taxi driver was written while I was in high school, while the ending in the hospital was written a few years later. It was only when I got them together a few years later again that I realised it was the same story and this was born. I had a character first, and the story came from what happened to him. At the time, it seemed forced, I guess. Nowadays, it is how I’ve had more success with my writering – character first. And maybe it started here for me? It tells the tale of a British guitar hero from the 1960s and 1970s now living in Sydney. He chances upon a US singer who made his name in the 1970s, who had come to Sydney to try and revive his career in musical theatre. Both are down on their luck, but this meeting inspires them to try and get together for one last chance at fame. This results in a rather demoralising tour of country New South Wales. During the course of this the singer does something which jeopardises the tour and appears to kill himself, while the guitarist hooks up with a middle-aged, long-term fan. They end up in South Australia, and then things steadily go from bad to worse. There’s a lot of death, and some convenient career chances appearing, but the story itself is a different one for me. The guitarist was a combination of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck; the singer was John Farnham, Del Shannon and Roy Orbison. And I wrote the whole thing as though I was seeing a movie in my mind. That often happens, but this was clear. I visualised the entire thing, and so my descriptions are somewhat lacking – I could see it all, so writing it down seemed superfluous. This is another story that I should go back and rewrite, especially the downfall of the singer, and the final confrontation in Port Lincoln. So while it’s certainly not the best thing ever written (and the ellipses are ever-present again), it’s still not too bad a story, I think. Having said all that, it seemed by this stage of my writing, I was finally getting the hang of putting things down on paper in a way that was almost believable. Excerpt: A crowd. That was all it came down to, that single beast that the multitude becomes when a performer is on stage. A crowd… Just staring at that anonymous sea made everything worth it. No matter what other emotions churn through a performer’s mind – feelings of nausea, worthlessness, inferiority, lack of confidence, foolishness – there is one over-riding factor that always drags them back to the same situation, over and over again. It was something Richard had always revelled in and sought, something that Michael had deliberately gone out of his way to forget. And it swamped over the two of them in a tidal wave of love. Michael especially… he knew immediately he stepped foot upon the stage that that really was what was missing from his life. Richard had been one hundred per cent right. That one simple, little word, that one feeling that really drove everyone who ever appeared on stage to go back again and again, no matter how bad they knew they were. The Crowd… And their power over the crowd… He had let his other emotions get the better of him last time he had done this, the vomiting and fear had made him forget how good this really could feel. But this time it was different… but also the same. Different to the way he remembered it, but the same, he knew, as it had probably felt to him when he had first started. The small club atmosphere, the faceless crowd having some features, all eager and happy just to see and hear him play, the sounds of people having a good time and enjoying themselves, a partner living up to and feeling and contributing to the whole scene as completely as the crowd. He would never have dreamed it would have felt this good again… “Fuckin’ brilliant,” Richard whispered in awe as he emerged from the bathroom, having towelled himself down. Both were sweating profusely – due more to nerves than any great heat or exertion – and Michael’s fingers actually hurt, but it was worth it; the crowd here at the hotel had been larger than either could dare dream of when they had started all of this – full, the barman had said, and that meant in excess of five hundred people from a town with a population of less than five thousand – and, though not as enthusiastic as especially Richard would have liked, deeply appreciative of the music. Especially the music… A thriller, I guess, with a tragic ending, and this one was definitely based around the characters – they had come before I had a story to put them into, and this was a very real case of me writing their tale. Even the ending was not what I had really planned on doing, but I made the love interest a money-hungry bitch and it was all maybe too much a character change in her, but I was focused too much on the musicians. However, reading through the story for this… it is not too shabby. I think this would make a great film. Maybe… one day… |
| Writing Westerns Well, this was unexpected! Those who have listened to me on the radio have heard Roger, the guy who hosts the show. Well, he is a rather accomplished author. He spent a lot of the 1990s and 2000s writing Western novels (as in, the US Old West) which he sold to a UK publisher, and which still sell in the European market. Yes, an Australian writing a US genre selling to the UK and popular in Europe… only in writing, huh? In fact, I recently learnt that he is in the top 50 authors for number of books traditionally published in this country! He now self-publishes historical romance because he’s older and feels he’s earned the right. Hard to argue. Anyway, he found my published Western short story and he loved it. So we did a Zoom call with his publisher, who is looking for some new Western writers, and his advice is what I am going to share now (and, yes, I did ask, and, yes, he said I could). 1) Setting The setting needs to be in a desert region of the United States or northern Mexico, in a town, a farm area, or the open plain/canyons. It is really that simple. And, more importantly, it needs to be set in a time when horses were the only mode of transport (oh, and shank’s pony). Contemporary westerns, westerns set in big cities, and westerns with cars and things just do not sell as well. The publisher said that this part of US history is very much mythologised and probably never really existed the way it is portrayed on the big screen or in populist fiction, but it is what is expected by readers. 2) Characters This was simple – think John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, et al. The white hat wearing good guys, rather stoic, quick on the draw, but with very few friends. He made a point that the shades of grey hero as exemplified by Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef might work on the big screen, but this does not translate to good book sales. There is a trend towards female main characters, and the only difference is they are shown with more compassion and have to be more reluctant to use a gun, but, in the end, they should end up being (and I quote) “Gary Cooper with breasts and a cute face”. 3) Relationships There should be very few. You might have two friends or a hero and a sidekick, and that is all fine and dandy, but they do not gather other friends (unless you are doing recurring characters and this is a friendship origin story). They also do not gather love interests. A hero (or heroine) should never be shown in an intimate relationship unless they are married. There is no hanky-panky, no extra-marital sex, no casual flings – nothing like that on the page. In fact, treat your female MC as a nun and you’ll be right. If a hero spends a night in the room of a saloon girl, then do not show it. After all, he could have slept on the chair. And never mention having sex. Readers further do not like young children. It might have worked in the film True Grit, but not on the page. If the Widow Spanky has 2 kids, that’s fine; if a kid becomes an off-sider, that’s not. Children should not be a part of the story until they are 16 or so. 4) Weapons There are three weapons used – rifle, shotgun and revolver. You don’t have to mention the name or brand of them – readers tend to fill in the blanks – but if you do, do your research to make sure the weapons are era appropriate, and were actually used in the USA. Machine gun adjacent weaponry should only be used by bad guys, and cannons or heavy artillery by the army. Yes, that is not the way it happened, but the reader expectations are such. 5) Horses and Other Animals Do your research to make sure you know how far horses can travel in a day, what speed they can do, and for how long. Readers will know after so long. Heroes are allowed to have a trusty steed (think The Lone Ranger’s Silver), but if not, then horse transfer stations are expected. Horses should only be killed as a last resort or to give the hero a reason for being on foot or for seeking revenge or to make the stakes higher. Minimise horse death. No matter how hungry – they never eat horses!. Rattlesnake first. Heroes only work with cattle or sheep runs as temporary job. Dogs are rarely sidekicks in westerns; readers are not fans, apparently of having non-horse pets. Otherwise, just make sure the animals encountered lived in the region at that time. 6) Ending Unless it is the last book of a long running series featuring a recurring character and he is old, NEVER kill the hero on the page. Readers do not like that at all. Going further, each story needs to be a standalone. Even if you have a recurring character (or 2), a reader should be able to read a story without having read the ones before. Events from previous books might have an impact on the current one, but it should be alluded to such that reading that older book does not matter. It is a tough line to walk, but it is what the readers demand. Other things like length, language used, etc. is down to each publishing house. As a general rule, no swearing though, but blasphemy is fine. Don’t overuse cowboy jargon, but also don’t leave it out. Also make sure you have historical facts (number of states, names of states, names of local Indian peoples, etc.) correct. There are reader expectations. Westerns are growing in popularity again at the moment (the whole escapism thing, people yearning for a time when the USA was simpler), so it might be worth giving it a go. |
| I vs Me This is a re-post from my old writing blog. Why am I reposting something I already posted two years ago? Because I keep seeing it in writing here at WdC! So, this is a reminder post. As such, this is copy-paste (with some extra bits at the end). Deal with it. I received an email from a writing friend who was confused by an editor's changing of her "I" to "me" in a few sentences. So she asked me to explain how it works. Well, generally, I is in the subjective (the subject of the sentence when diagramming). This is "I went for a walk." On the other hand me is in the objective (the object of the sentence when diagramming). "The bull chased me." Me also appears after a lot of prepositions, as most come from the Latin and take the accusative or ablative. So, for example, "to" takes me. ("She sent a letter to me.") Between also takes me. "Between me and the cow was a fence." The confusion comes when the first person (I/me) is used in conjunction with another noun. "Mary and I went for a walk." "The bull chased Mary and me." Now, the secret to working out which is which is separate it into two sentences. "Mary and I went for a walk." --> "Mary went for a walk. I went for a walk." "The bull chased Mary and me." --> "The bull chased Mary. The bull chased me." One of the examples my friend had was: "The teacher told Elizabeth and I off." The editor, quite rightly, changed I to me. Why? The teacher told Elizabeth off. The teacher told me off. NOT: The teacher told I off. First person pronouns in the plural: the above rules apply with we equivalent to I, and us equivalent to me. When it comes to third person pronouns, the above rules still apply with he, she, they equivalent to I, and him, her, them equivalent to me… I think that explains it. I hope that explains it. |
| Graphic Novels Here’s something a little different – the format for writing a Graphic Novel, a short form comic (like in those old horror comic books, which are making a comeback) or something along those lines. This is if you are not working with an artist or are not an artist yourself – you have a story you think would work much better with visuals, and you want to format it so an artist can work with it. First, you need to have your story completely worked out. This is either written as a short story or as a detailed outline. If there are elements you feel need the visual element, then these need to be highlighted so your conversion of it to a graphic script is smoother. Second, each page needs to have panels. Three rules of thumb: 1) don’t over-use single-panel pages; 2) no more than 5 panels to a page; and 3) finish at the end of a page. Now, having said that, all of these rules are often broken, but they are good rules of thumb to go by. The title does not have to go at the top unless the publication you are submitting to demands it. But title must be on the first page. Assume an A4 page (or the US equivalent) is going to be used. Some publications ask that you show a mock-up of where the panels go for each page. Not all, but some. Some will also tell you how many panels, etc. they prefer per page, especially if what they want is out of the norm. For example, one Australian company printed a nice B4 sized comic, and they liked 9 panels per page (3x3) or equivalent. So, the rule, as it always is, is: (b}Always read the submission guidelines! You only need to write an order of where the people are standing once, and writing (as in panel X) subsequently is perfectly fine, but you need to indicate in your initial description where each person is, are they left or right of the panel, etc. Describe the images in the panel with as much detail as necessary to get your point across. Being over-prescriptive can see artists not wanting to work on it as they will not have their own agency. So, here is an example: PAGE 2/Panel 1 (upper left) Figure of Conan is silhouetted by lightning on top of mountain. Muscular and male. We see him from behind. He is wearing a cloak with no sleeves. In front of him, in the distance, is a ruined castle. Thought bubble: “The Castle of Thrydd. Time to face that cursed wizard Blackheart.” PAGE 2/Panel 2 (upper right) Conan, from behind, his battle-axe in his hands, pushes open the door. His muscles should be showing tension. PAGE 2/Panel 3 (full lower half) A giant of a man, twice the size of Conan (or more) strides toward Conan, holding a sword before him. His face is disfigured and he has scars on his body. Conan is on the back-foot, three-quarter on from behind, his axe held before him. MAN (speech bubble): “You dare enter the fortress of the mighty Blackheart, puny man? Prepare to die!” PAGE 3/Panel 1 (upper left) Large man swings his sword but Conan is ducking beneath the swing. PAGE 3/Panel 2 (central page) Conan leaps and swings his axe, opening up the torso of Large man. Large man’s head is thrown back in pain, Conan looks furious. A lot of blood. The castle’s interior is block stone-work. A picture of Blackheart is on one wall, not too big, but large enough to be clear. SOUND EFFECT: {Man screaming) Aaiiieeee! PAGE 3/Panel 3 (lower right) Man’s body is in foreground, dead. Conan is walking away, looking over his shoulder. CONAN (speech bubble): “The bigger they come…” Quick 2 pages (pages 2 and 3), 6 panels, and we have characters, a fight scene, a death, and the bad guy semi-introduced (name and image). The whole thing is 12 pages long. It may seem easy, but I find that it is not. You need to think visually while writing with words. To me, it is tough. But it still might be something to give a go. |
| Novel #10 The next novel took a while to write. I really wanted to make it a good one after what I felt was the success of Brothers In Arms. And, indeed, the story that emerged in 1998 was one I was probably proudest of until 2016. More than that, Some Other People clocked in at 87200 words. Once I finished it, and editted it, and then editted it again, I found a beta reader. My first ever beta reader for a novel! Then I sent it off. Over the course of the next 4 years it reached 8 publishers and 4 agents. The responses that were not form responses were encouraging. One agent asked me for $500 to represent me; by then I had a slightly better understanding of the publishing world and so rejected this request (registered U.S. agents do not get paid upfront, but apparently Australian ones insist on it). But the best were from Tor Books in the USA and Random House in Australia. If I’d had my druthers, I would have gone for Tor, but they wanted a face-to-face meeting… in the USA. No money, so no go. And so it was Random House. Under the guidance of an editor, I rewrote the bits they wanted me to rewrite (about 20%), and changed the format of the ending. A second rewrite followed. And then… the fiction editor left and the new fiction editor said she hated the work. Bang, gone, just like that, on the whim of one editor. I then sent the newly revised version out to a few more publishers (my records indicate 3), but nothing. I entered it in an unpublished novellist competition, was short-listed, but nothing else. Shame, as I think it is one of the very best long tales I have written. The story involves a narrator who is essentially unnamed (though he is James). He is involved in a car accident, and awakens in a hospital where he is the only patient and where he never sees the staff. He eventually escapes and finds himself in an outback Australian town. He decides to look for the people who cared for him, and finds himself at an Aboriginal township. There he meets Mother Makura who takes him to the village of a strange cat-like people. There he meets and falls in love with the leader’s daughter. But he also unwittingly leads the humans to them, and a battle ensues in which many die. And out of this the narrator loses… There’s other subplots – saving his lover from a cellar, dealing with authorities, etc – but that’s the tale in essence. A tale of outcasts finding one another and love lost. A sad story, but I still like it. Okay, there’s still a few clichés – the accent I gave the cat-people was a little odd, and the narrator is a little self-obsessed… as well as the ever-present love affair with the ellipsis – but there’s also some good bits. The scene the morning after the narrator and his lover first have sex, and he wakes up in her cave is one I can’t believe I wrote, and the description of itching under bandages still makes me scratch my arms. More good than bad, I reckon. Excerpt: I did not realise that we were in a village. The buildings were not at all what I had expected after seeing and being inside their hospital. In fact, buildings was entirely the wrong term; dwellings was closer to the mark. For that was all they could have been. The ones which I actually could make out (what few of those there were… most seemed to be completely invisible) were carved in simple design out of the trunks of trees, appearing as no more than scars caused by some ancient bush-fire, leading to what I assumed were large, underground complexes, similar to the one beneath the spirit tree. But these were few and far between; generally, all that I could see were trees, plain and simple… However, I was not taken into any of these; Mother Makura and I were led – Peter holding her hand, the girl I had loved keeping a firm grip upon mine, her head resting upon my upper arm – down a road between the trees, a path which I would not have otherwise have even noticed had I happened to stumble into this part of… Of where? Of the forest, that was where… The huge, enormous wooded area in this part of the country… Huge, enormous, wild, uncharted… I had to force that from my mind. All my grandiose plans of working out where this place was had evaporated with that numbing trek to get here; almost three hours of walking at a pace I thought faster than possible for some-one who had not made competing at the Olympic Games their life’s ambition. All that really mattered was that I was here now… Here with her. And we were walking through the village she called home… And which I had called a prison not so long ago… Again, memories – unpleasant, uncomfortable memories – that had to be forced from my consciousness… Then we veered to the left and I was taken down another track, a narrower one, to what looked like a clearing, but with a huge, over-hanging canopy of branches from the nearby trees, carefully cultivated to cover the entire area like a natural roof. It was an incredible sight, especially in the very dull light that was available to my eyes. And all I could do was look around at the surrounding trees in awe-struck wonder… And through the thick trunks, and in what little light was afforded by the almost completely hidden moon I thought I saw a glimpse of something else. Something out of place. I slowed… and kept my eyes as well on it as I could without letting on what I was doing exactly. I sudden flash told me all I needed to know. The glint of the moon on glass. It was a building. A building set well back into the trees. So, yeah, for many years this was the story I considered one of the best long work I ever wrote. Part of me thinks I should go back and revise it, update it to 2025, but there is another part of me that thinks maybe its time has been and gone. Still, I reckon this is not too shabby at all. |
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