Huge, Colossal, Thirty-eight Author Halloween Giveaway!

A huge, colossal multi-author giveaway, the Dark Dreams Halloween Giveaway, via Rafflecopter:

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Lots and lots of prizes and a grand prize of $175. Check it out! You can even win a signed copy of my novel Book of Death.

Are All My Main Characters "Mary Sue"?

There is in fiction writing a concept call the "Mary Sue" (some call the male versions "Marty Stu").  A "Mary Sue" is a character who represents the writer themselves.  They are, thus, often wonderful amazing characters that achieve they hopes and dreams of the writer. Wikipedia notes the term comes from a satire of unrealistic "Star Trek" fan fiction:

The story starred Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old")

Also according to the same article, it has been speculated that Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was a "self-insertion" by Gene Roddenberry and thus a Marty Stu.  (I held this opinion long before I learned the term "Mary Sue" and in fact, since about half-way through the first season of ST:TNG.)

But here's the problem.  Who does the writer know best?  Himself or herself.  So where can the writer best draw character distinctions?  From himself or herself.  For instance, my main character in Hammer of Thor, Francis Kader, has a couple of flaws I have myself.  Michael Vaughan of Agent of Artifice is pretty much based on how I would probably act if I were an adept (the people with magical powers in my Adept Series novels).  And Peter Branton of Book of Death and the forthcoming Gods of Strife has more than a few of my personality quirks.  But does this make them Marty Stus?  I don't think so because they have flaws (mostly mine) and are not perfect.  Is there a little self-insertion going on?  Yeah, but I don't think that makes them bad characters.

(Speaking of self-insertion, I have read two fiction novels which mention the author: Brothers No More by William F. Buckley mentions Buckley's run for mayor of New York City and in Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein a character says of Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land something like, "what some writers won't do for money."  But that's a different kind of self-insertion and in both cases the authors used it as self-denigrating jokes.)

In my novel Rock Killer, I gave the main character, Alexander Chun, horrible space sickness (and he works in space).  I did this because I suspect I would have horrible space sickness (I get motion sick very easily) and it was an easy flaw to give him (yes, he has other flaws).  So again, I drew upon myself.

Of course, for writers there are countless places to draw characters from.  And you should never base a character on a specific person but use an amalgamation of people and their characteristics.  But don't be afraid to give a character a characteristic you have in fear of having a Mary Sue, especially if it's a flaw.  And, whatever you do, don't have an idealized character who is flawless in every way.  Even Superman had Kryptonite and Lois Lane.

NaNoWriMo . . . Not!

Friday is November first and that means it's the start of NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month).  The object is to write 50,000 words of a novel (can be a complete novel or part of a novel) in the 30 days of November.  You're not supposed to start the novel, however, until November 1st.

I tried to do NaNoWriMo in 2011.  I did it unofficially on my own because at the time I was not part of any organized writing group.  The result: I wrote about 30,000 words in November, hit a research wall (i.e, I needed more research to go on), and it ended up taking me about five months to write the approximately 81,000-word novel which became Book of Death.

But, in the spring of this year, I wrote an 77,000-word first draft in 35 days ending March 23rd (the final draft was 88,000 words).  That's about 66,000 words in 30 days which obviously exceeds the NaNoWriMo goal.  I just did it in February and March instead of November.  That novel, Gods of Strife (sequel to Book of Death and part of the Adept Series) is at my publisher.  So, I can write 50,000 words in 30 days if I want to.

Last Friday I went to my local writers' group's NaNoWriMo kickoff gathering.  I learned more about NaNoWriMo than I knew before (I first joined the writers' group in December of last year).  And I know, now, what the goal and philosophy of NaNoWriMo is.  And, to be honest, I have some problems with it, now.

They have you sign an "Agreement and Statement of Understanding" which states, in part:

During the month ahead I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots.  I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point.

In other words, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to just get words down on paper (or hard drive).  I realize some people need this.  They even talked about "locking up" your inner editor that tells you that what you're writing is crap.  Just keep writing!  They say don't go back and edit/re-write.  Just keep writing!  Don't worry if what you are writing is actually crap.  Just keep writing!

I see some validity in this.  Some people just need the push to write without their self-doubt stopping them.  But some people need their self-doubts because they aren't very good.  Combine that with the ease of publishing these days, and a lot of crappy NaNoWriMo books are being published because people are forgetting the next stage: edit and polish your work.

For example, the Gods of Strife first draft was written in 35 days.  But there was over three months of editing, proofreading, beta reading, and just plain re-writing before I thought it was ready to be submitted.  Yes, you may write 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, but you have probably 3 months of work to do polishing it into something decent.  Don't forget that step.

There is some validity to the NaNoWriMo philosophy.  I keep seeing a quote attributed to Hemingway: "Write drunk, edit sober."  Pounding out 1,666 words per day is pretty much writing drunk.  Also a quote attributed to Hemingway: "Everything is shit in first draft."

But a lot of NaNoWriMo participants forget that, and go ahead and publish their crappy first draft, which reflects badly on all authors, especially those independent authors who actually strive to put out a quality product. (Seems I've discussed this before.)  NaNoWriMo, to me, encourages bad writing in the name of JUST KEEP WRITING.  It does not teach new writers the skills they need to make their work good.  It's quantity over quality.  And that's never a good combination.

So this year I'm in the middle of a work in progress (WIP).  It's tentatively titled The Black Hole Treasure.  My goal is for it to be at least 60,000 words long.  As of this moment it is 37,855 words long.  For NaNoWriMo I promised to produce 30,000 words on this WIP (which is not what you're supposed to do).

For the new writer who needs a push to actually write, I see NaNoWriMo can have some usefulness.  For me, I write anyway and I don't need prodded to write.  My inner editor is alive and well and tells me when I need to fix problems.  But I have not given it the power to stop me from writing. 

Sure, sometimes months go by when I haven't been writing.  But NaNoWriMo is not going to make me write more.  So while I'm sort of doing NaNoWriMo, I'm not doing it, really.

Movie Review: Star Trek into Darkness

I suppose I should explain my point of view before jumping into this movie review of Star Trek into Darkness.  And yes, this movie came out in May and I just watched it because I watch most movies via Netflix Blu-ray discs because I really don't want to pay to see most movies in the theater when I can't pause them for a bathroom break.

If you don't want to hear my explanation of how I approach Star Trek into Darkness, skip the next paragraph.

I've been a fan of "Star Trek" in its various configurations since seeing the original series (TOS in Trekker argot) in first run when I was seven and eight years old.  I didn't get to watch it much because no one else in the family liked it and being the youngest my opinion of what to watch was taken into consideration last.  In other words, if no one else was watching the single television in the house, I could watch "Star Trek."  I really didn't get into Star Trek heavily until we got a third commercial television channel in the early '70s and starting in about 1974 they started running Star Trek: TOS at 4:00 P.M. everyday which was not long after I got home from school.  I have, as far as I can determine, seen every episode of every Star Trek series except one of "Deep Space Nine" (in it's first run I was preparing a hellacious assignment for a Chemical Engineering class and somehow missed it in reruns).  I have seen every Star Trek movie from the good (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn), the bad (Star Trek The Motion Picture) and the ugly (Star Trek V: Where No Man Has Gone Before).  So I am a Star Trek fan.  Now I'm not crazy.  I have never been to a convention.  I have never dressed up like a crew member or an alien.  I have not bought every episode on DVD (I do have some favorites from TOS on VHS but . . . well, you know).  So I am an old-fashioned Star Trek fan.  My protagonist of Book of Death is also a fan. 

Now, the movie.  Star Trek into Darkness is well-written, visually interesting, well made, the direction is very good, and it is exciting and fun.  It's just not a Star Trek movie.  If I forgive the violence the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies do to the Star Trek universe, I can enjoy them.  J.J. Abrams knows how to fill the screen with exciting imagery.  I do enjoy the shout outs to old Star Trek memes (and being a fan, I recognize them).  If I was looking at these movies not from the perspective of a Star Trek fan, I would still have some quibbles (A spaceship is not going to do well underwater and those big heavy things in engineering wouldn't be in a spaceship where reduction of mass is all-important) but they are still good, entertaining movies.  It's sort as if they are fictional stories written by people who live in the Star Trek universe.  Like if Sulu decided to write a novel.  But he'd at least have his science right.

I gave Star Trek into Darkness four stars on Netflix which I think it earned simply on the value of its entertainment.  But it's not a  Star Trek movie.

Research (Again)

I found myself thinking today about research for my writing.  Don't ask me why, my pshrink says I'm mildly ADD (or as I call it "ADOS": Attention Deficit--Ooooh, Shiny).  So here's what I've been thinking:

For Hammer of Thor I read all or parts of five books (2 fiction, 3 non-fiction), lots of internet research (planes, weapons, uniforms), plus because my father is a war movie nut I've probably seen every movie made about WWII.  And I watched a documentary about the Korean War.  (I also knew a lot about Korea from my time in the Army even though I was never stationed there.) 

For Agent of Artifice I read all or part of four books (all non-fiction), plus I spent a day in the Chicago library reading newspapers from that era (specifically, when my character was in Chicago).  I watched three movies (fiction) on the Cuban revolution (none of them very good).  I travelled to Seattle to visit the Space Needle and I even traveled to Key West to see what it looked like (I was in Miami on business).  Plus lots of internet research (the CIA, the Bay of Pigs invasion, weapons, Cuba before the revolution, mobsters in Chicago). And on a trip to San Francisco I walked by the Huntington Hotel (which forced me to re-write a few things in Hammer of Thor and re-write a whole scene in Agent of Artifice but it ended up being a great scene).

For Book of Death I read all or parts of two non-fiction books, communicated through email with a Romanian who immigrated to America (she wrote one of the books I read), and lots of internet research (Romania, Vlad the Impaler, and more).  I also watched two documentaries on San Francisco in the late '60s.

However, for Rock Killer I did very little research.  But it was science fiction so I had to do no historical research like on the Adept Series books (the three listed above). I did a little internet research on space life-support systems but most everything else in the book either I knew from college courses or it was science fiction (I tried to make Rock Killer as scientifically accurate as I could).  I found someone who spoke Arabic and they gave me some background on culture and politics of the Middle East.

Then comes my latest almost-finished book, the last book in the Adept Series (unless I write another) called Gods of Strife.  I read zero books and everything was done on the internet.  I watched no movies or documentaries (unless Argo counts but I didn't learn anything from it).  I did travel to Seattle to walk through the Concorde at the Museum of Flight.

And here's the thing: Rock Killer, my least researched novel, is my best-reviewed book (sometimes I think the Adept Series is too unique for a lot of people).  So the amount of research I put into a book does not necessarily correlate at all to how good people think the book is.

Gods of Strife I think is a really good book (but I think all my books are really good) and it has almost no research.  I think I spent more time researching a Lamborghini Countach than anything else.  So how much research I put into a book doesn't seem to make it better or worse.

My thoughts on research are that you can't do too much unless you lived through what you're writing about. But what you can (and shouldn't do) is show off how much research you did by putting in some cool thing you learned that isn't germane to your narrative.

Featured Author

Check out my feature in BTSe Magazine's April issue.

The Future of Novels

I envision in the future novels will not be quite so . . . linear.  Now days you read a novel from beginning to the end.  But with technology and the probably demise of the paper book, this is no longer necessary or even desirable.

For example, novels could contain links to more information.  You read a line such as (from Book of Death) "Walter Cronkite looked especially serious on the color screen," and if you click the link you get a picture. Or a Wikipedia article on Walter Cronkite.

Or there's a link on a character's name, you click it, and you read their back story or maybe a side adventure they had.  And maybe a list of all the other novels they appear in.  Or reading a science fiction novel set on another planet, you could click the name of the planet and get a (fictional) encyclopedia entry for that planet, star system, etc.  You could have maps of your fantasy world (or the real world) that relate to your novel.  The choices are only limited by the author's imagination (and when I say "click" I probably mean "touch").

The possibilities are endless for text books, I would think.

This will mean the writer will have to come up with a lot more information and be careful what he shares in the links.  In my novel Agent of Artifice, I purposely left the background of the character Maria vague.  If I wrote a whole back story for her, some of the mystery of her as Vaughan's lover would have been missing.  But it would have been interesting.

RadCon Schedule

This weekend is RadCon science fiction and fantasy convention in Tri-Cities, Washington.  It will be at the Red Lion Inn by the Pasco Airport (across the street from the community college).  I am a "visiting professional" and will be doing a reading and appearing on three panels, including one about asteroid mining (viz, Rock Killer).

Here is my schedule of events:

Friday the 15th, 4:30 P.M. to 5:00 P.M., Small Press room: I'll be reading from my urban fantasy, Adept Series novels Hammer of Thor and Book of Death.  I'll also be handing out swag.

Saturday the 16th: 1:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M., Small Press room: "Working with a Small Press Publisher" panel.

Also Saturday: 2:00 P.M. to 3:00 P.M., Sage room: "What can we do with an asteroid?" panel.

And finally Saturday: 4:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M., Room 2205, "Mixing Genres" panel.

I hope to see you there.  Come up and say "Hi!"

UPDATE: I'll have swag and books!

Research

Learn how doing research (and finding out I was wrong) improved my novel Book of Death at the Ask David blog.  And while you're there, leave your own review!

Sunday Six: Battle Preperations

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Thirteen of Book of Death:

The helicopter landed at the Romanian Land Forces' temporary headquarters ten kilometers east of Hunedoara, just outside a small village called Orasul Nou.  The tents and vehicles were lined up in a farmer's field next to a river.  We had no idea how far the necromancers would be watching for threats and we hoped ten kilometers, or just over six miles, was far enough away.  The Militia was stopping any civilians from leaving or entering the city.  That in and of itself might arouse suspicions, but I thought the necromancers might not be paying much attention to the civilian population…at least I hoped.

The RLF had split its tank brigade in two: fifteen tanks north of the city, fifteen south with the "command tank." 

Sunday Six: The "Spontaneous " Rally

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Twelve of Book of Death:

The door opened and a middle-aged man in a business suit scurried out, closing the door behind him.  He was carrying a sheaf of papers.
"What is wrong, Comrade Buscan?" Parasca asked jovially.
Buscan gave a harried scowl at Parasca.  "He wants a spontaneous rally tomorrow to protest the invasion."
"A lot of work to prepare for a spontaneous rally," Parasca said, patting the man on the shoulder.
"Yes; now if you'll excuse me, Comrade General."

Sunday Six: The Mob Doll

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Eleven of Book of Death:

A man walked in wearing an expensive suit that somehow didn't fit him right.  Two other men followed, also in suits, also looking out of place.  Then a girl came in, blonde, chewing gum, in a sequined minidress, her hair all piled on top of her head and too much makeup on.  She sat at the bar, looking bored.  The bartender gave her a martini without her asking.  She must be a regular, I thought.

Sunday Six: The Great Conclave

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Ten of Book of Death:

The Great Conclave was scheduled for the summer solstice on Friday, June 21st, in Paris, France.  I don't know why Paris was chosen.  Maybe tradition.

Inter-guild messages flew back and forth by both modern and meta means as arrangements were made and guilds contacted.  Some guilds still hated each other after various slights, such as helping Hitler during World War II.  Vaughan wondered out loud to me if the Cuban Guild would show up, or if they’d be embarrassed by their working with Communists in an attempt to take over the world using zombie armies.

Sunday Six: The Secret

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Nine of Book of Death:

Ernestine caught me in a vulnerable moment, our sweat-damp skin clinging as we cuddled in bed in Vali's apartment over the garage.

"Peter?" she whispered.

I grunted something sleepily.

"You can't tell anybody."

I opened my eyes, turned, and looked at her.  "Tell anybody what?"

Sunday Six: The Suit of Armor

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Eight of Book of Death:

The woman who had initially screamed did so again and jumped out of the way as a third suit of armor came in the back door, swinging its flail over its head.  Wynter couldn't stop in time and the ball hit him right in the temple with a sick, moist crunching sound.  Blood jetted in all directions from the impact, hitting me in the face and chest.  Wynter made a sound of anguish that I hoped I never heard again as he was knocked against a wall, his skull caved in, and I didn't want to imagine what was gushing from the wound.

I ducked and shot an airbolt at the suit.  That knocked it back a bit and dented the supposedly priceless metal, but it still kept coming.

Sunday Six: Undercover

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Seven of Book of Death:

Unfortunately, one couldn't just hop in a car and drive to a city seventy-five miles away.  Maybe Romanians could but not foreigners.  The Romanian government had to be informed and permission obtained.  I wasn't too happy about informing the Romanian government that I was traveling to Pitesti.  But since I was officially a diplomat, an excuse had already been fabricated for me to go there.  Apparently I was to study the puppet theater at the County Theater for its cultural significance, and to determine if the performers could travel to the U.S. in a "cultural exchange." 

Review of Book of Death

Check out this great review of Book of Death at Beauty in Ruins blog!  An excerpt:

I was hoping for something different with Book of Death, and I'm pleased to say it delivered.

Ebook Giveaway

Sign up to win a free eBook copy of Book of Death at Literal Addiction.

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Sunday Six: The Cop

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Four of Book of Death:

A motorcycle cop I hadn't noticed jumped off his bike, pulled his service revolver, and shot it into the Indian with six cracks of bullets being fired.  It had no effect other than sending burning splinters of wood flying.  The cop suddenly looked frightened, and was gripping his billy club but taking no further action.

People were screaming loudly now.  I looked around, looking for an escape.  If I could teleport away I might escape, but I could see no clear place to teleport to. 

Sunday Six: Skin

Today's six sentence Sunday from Chapter Three of Book of Death:

Skin was against mine as I woke: warm, soft, skin that pulsated with life pressed against my body.  I realized Ernestine was cuddling with me as I dozed.  I smiled and turned to face her.
"Good morning," she said with a smile, those brown eyes seeming to sparkle.
"Good morning," I said, grinning.  I had no idea what time it was, but I knew we hadn't slept much after she dropped her towel.