Thursday, October 17, 2013
"Out of Time" on Amazon!
My debut novel, "Out of Time", is now up on Amazon.com for preorder! More news to follow once it hits the shelves, including a Launch Party in Thunder Bay. Stay tuned!
Monday, October 7, 2013
How to Write a Novel - Part 2
So previously I said, "How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper, so they form a complete story that other people will want to invest their time and energy in reading." Okay, that was easy to say, but way, way harder to do.
"Out of Time" started out about fifteen years ago as a short story about a young, teenaged boy who was forced to spend a summer in a remote, almost ghost-town on Lake Superior. His mother had just lost her husband to an accident, so she decided to return to the town where she'd grown up and where her parents--our young protagonist's grandparents--still lived. The boy (then named Jamey) was pretty miserable about the whole experience; after all, he's fourteen, it's summer holidays but, instead of hanging with his friends back in the city he's stuck in this tiny, mostly derelict community in the middle of nowhere. This leads to inevitable conflict with his mother, heightened by the fact they've both lost someone they love; she just wants to rest and heal, while he wants to immerse himself in the life of a young teenager to try and escape his pain.
Okay, good set-up. Immediate conflict, interesting setting, not too many characters to service. As it stands, though, it's missing something--a plot, something to drive the action forward. Without that, it risks becoming a slice-of-life piece, and there's way too many of those masquerading as stories already. Well, I write fantasy, so after some thought I decided to introduce a fantastic element to push things along. After some false starts, I finally hit on the idea of drawing on the setting itself. Lake Superior has a long history involving Aboriginal people, explorers, voyageurs and the fur trade, the railroad that linked Canada into a nation, mining, lumber, trapping, fishing.... What if, I reasoned, Jamey could see ghosts? What if he could meet some ghosts from the region's past? I made a list. An Aboriginal person from pre-European times. An early explorer, opening up the country. A voyageur. Someone who'd worked on building the Canadian Pacific Railroad through the rugged Shield country of the area. Maybe a miner or a trapper. And, drawing on a more recent aspect of the area's history, how about a German POW from World War Two, since there were, indeed, several POW camps that operated in the region in the 1940s. This seemed like a good line-up of interesting characters, all linked by the fact they'd died close to where Jamey was stuck spending his summer. Now I had a fantasy plot to use to drive things on. Jamey would meet these people, interact with them, learn things from them, grow as a character. Some of those interactions might be dangerous, creating more conflict. Perfect!
Trouble was, this was no longer a short story. This was going to be much longer, probably a novel. Okay...cool. I can write a novel, I thought. So I started that process, putting a bunch of words on paper, trying to write a story people wanted to invest time and energy in reading.
I sputtered along, off and on, for about three years. I put a lot of words on paper. Trouble was, even I was finding it all that interesting. Something wasn't working, wasn't right. I plugged away at it for another year or so, then gave up and moved onto other things. Obviously, I just didn't have a story here, just a much bigger "slice of life" than I'd thought I had.
Fast forward to 2009. I'd just finished the first draft of a different novel (one I'm still shopping around) and I needed a new project. Looking back through my notes, I rediscovered Jamey and his summer meeting ghosts around Lake Superior. Thanks to about nine years of distance, I was able to look at it and immediately see what the problem was. The piece had no real focus. There were too many characters. I was trying to do too many things. I'd lost sight of the fact that my original, gut reaction--there were just a couple of characters, Jamey and his mother--was a good one. I'd let the story become too diffuse. Okay, easy enough...tighten the focus back on Jamey and...his mother?
Okay, but I write fantasy and wanted a fantasy element. How about a focus on Jamey and a different character? I had many to choose from, but the one that intrigued me was the pre-European Aboriginal person. And that immediately tweaked a memory about something I'd read in a great book, "Ojibway Heritage" by renowned Aboriginal scholar and writer Basil Johnston. He describe the "vision quest", a sacred undertaking of Ojibway males when they're boys, usually twelve to fourteen or so years old. They would go to a place considered close to the spirit world and hold a four day vigil, seeking to receive the vision that would guide them through the rest of their lives. This was perfect! Jamey could meet a boy his age, who had died while on his vision quest. Now I have a much tighter, more focused story. Again, I start putting words on paper....
And things begin to flow. As they do, things also begin to change. Jamey becomes Riley (the reason I name him Riley becomes evident in the book, and I don't want to give it away). The Ojibway boy, Peetwonikwot (Ojibway for "Gathering Cloud"; he ends up being called just Cloud in the story), starts out as a ghost in Riley's time, but soon comes back to life in his own time. Riley now meets up with Cloud across time (again, I won't say how...read the book!) And Riley's mother disappears from the story, replaced by his father; both boys have somewhat difficult relationships with their fathers, which I wanted to build into the story of each and of both of them together.
By late 2010, I end up with a first draft, just under 100,000 words, of a story then-titled just "Riley". A bunch of words--a whole bunch of words--on paper. Awesome.
Trouble is, it's basically crap. No one's going to want to read this. And that leads to my next great revelation about writing a novel, which I'll cover next time.
"Out of Time" started out about fifteen years ago as a short story about a young, teenaged boy who was forced to spend a summer in a remote, almost ghost-town on Lake Superior. His mother had just lost her husband to an accident, so she decided to return to the town where she'd grown up and where her parents--our young protagonist's grandparents--still lived. The boy (then named Jamey) was pretty miserable about the whole experience; after all, he's fourteen, it's summer holidays but, instead of hanging with his friends back in the city he's stuck in this tiny, mostly derelict community in the middle of nowhere. This leads to inevitable conflict with his mother, heightened by the fact they've both lost someone they love; she just wants to rest and heal, while he wants to immerse himself in the life of a young teenager to try and escape his pain.
Okay, good set-up. Immediate conflict, interesting setting, not too many characters to service. As it stands, though, it's missing something--a plot, something to drive the action forward. Without that, it risks becoming a slice-of-life piece, and there's way too many of those masquerading as stories already. Well, I write fantasy, so after some thought I decided to introduce a fantastic element to push things along. After some false starts, I finally hit on the idea of drawing on the setting itself. Lake Superior has a long history involving Aboriginal people, explorers, voyageurs and the fur trade, the railroad that linked Canada into a nation, mining, lumber, trapping, fishing.... What if, I reasoned, Jamey could see ghosts? What if he could meet some ghosts from the region's past? I made a list. An Aboriginal person from pre-European times. An early explorer, opening up the country. A voyageur. Someone who'd worked on building the Canadian Pacific Railroad through the rugged Shield country of the area. Maybe a miner or a trapper. And, drawing on a more recent aspect of the area's history, how about a German POW from World War Two, since there were, indeed, several POW camps that operated in the region in the 1940s. This seemed like a good line-up of interesting characters, all linked by the fact they'd died close to where Jamey was stuck spending his summer. Now I had a fantasy plot to use to drive things on. Jamey would meet these people, interact with them, learn things from them, grow as a character. Some of those interactions might be dangerous, creating more conflict. Perfect!
Trouble was, this was no longer a short story. This was going to be much longer, probably a novel. Okay...cool. I can write a novel, I thought. So I started that process, putting a bunch of words on paper, trying to write a story people wanted to invest time and energy in reading.
I sputtered along, off and on, for about three years. I put a lot of words on paper. Trouble was, even I was finding it all that interesting. Something wasn't working, wasn't right. I plugged away at it for another year or so, then gave up and moved onto other things. Obviously, I just didn't have a story here, just a much bigger "slice of life" than I'd thought I had.
Fast forward to 2009. I'd just finished the first draft of a different novel (one I'm still shopping around) and I needed a new project. Looking back through my notes, I rediscovered Jamey and his summer meeting ghosts around Lake Superior. Thanks to about nine years of distance, I was able to look at it and immediately see what the problem was. The piece had no real focus. There were too many characters. I was trying to do too many things. I'd lost sight of the fact that my original, gut reaction--there were just a couple of characters, Jamey and his mother--was a good one. I'd let the story become too diffuse. Okay, easy enough...tighten the focus back on Jamey and...his mother?
Okay, but I write fantasy and wanted a fantasy element. How about a focus on Jamey and a different character? I had many to choose from, but the one that intrigued me was the pre-European Aboriginal person. And that immediately tweaked a memory about something I'd read in a great book, "Ojibway Heritage" by renowned Aboriginal scholar and writer Basil Johnston. He describe the "vision quest", a sacred undertaking of Ojibway males when they're boys, usually twelve to fourteen or so years old. They would go to a place considered close to the spirit world and hold a four day vigil, seeking to receive the vision that would guide them through the rest of their lives. This was perfect! Jamey could meet a boy his age, who had died while on his vision quest. Now I have a much tighter, more focused story. Again, I start putting words on paper....
And things begin to flow. As they do, things also begin to change. Jamey becomes Riley (the reason I name him Riley becomes evident in the book, and I don't want to give it away). The Ojibway boy, Peetwonikwot (Ojibway for "Gathering Cloud"; he ends up being called just Cloud in the story), starts out as a ghost in Riley's time, but soon comes back to life in his own time. Riley now meets up with Cloud across time (again, I won't say how...read the book!) And Riley's mother disappears from the story, replaced by his father; both boys have somewhat difficult relationships with their fathers, which I wanted to build into the story of each and of both of them together.
By late 2010, I end up with a first draft, just under 100,000 words, of a story then-titled just "Riley". A bunch of words--a whole bunch of words--on paper. Awesome.
Trouble is, it's basically crap. No one's going to want to read this. And that leads to my next great revelation about writing a novel, which I'll cover next time.
A Shout Out To....
...Joe Mahoney, for an awesome post on his blog about "Out of Time"--before it's even been released, yet! Thanks, Joe, for your kind words.
My New Book Cover!
My debut novel, a young adult fantasy entitled "Out of Time", finally has its cover!
This is a very cool piece done by artist Jeff Minkevics, who has done several other covers for books from Five Rivers Publishing. "Out of Time" releases on November 1, 2013 from Five Rivers.
This is a very cool piece done by artist Jeff Minkevics, who has done several other covers for books from Five Rivers Publishing. "Out of Time" releases on November 1, 2013 from Five Rivers.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Guest Appearances
So, following When Words Collide in Calgary back in August, 2013, I was asked to put in some guest appearances on a couple of other writers' blogs:
- First up, Susan MacGregor, author of "The Tattooed Witch" from Five Rivers Publishing, asked me to write a guest blog on writing young adult fiction. My article, hosted on her blog called "Suzenyms", is available to read here.
- Secondly, Michell Plested, author of "Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero", another Five Rivers Publishing Book, recorded a panel at WWC in which both of us participated. You can listen to the podcast of the panel, entitled "Seeing through the Eyes of a Child" and which was a lot of fun, here.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Review - The Tattooed Witch by Susan MacGregor
The Tattooed Witch by Susan MacGregorMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up the Tattooed Witch because it's a product of my own publisher, Five Rivers Press, and I wanted to give a read over one of my fellow writer's works. Honestly, going into this book, I was a little wary; it came across as a "woman's book" and, well, I'm a guy. Two or three pages in, I realized I was wrong, wrong, wrongity-wrong. This is a fantastic book for anyone to read (okay, perhaps not for some younger readers, as in some places, the book--if not actually explicit--is pretty clearly treading into mature places involving violence and/or sex). The author has drawn some extremely compelling characters, and placed them in a well-constructed, consistent and richly-textured world that resembles our own Medieval Spain). Miriam, the main character, is both strong and vulnerable; she is far more than the dreary old female tropes that plague most speculative fiction i.e. "the guy with boobs" or "the shrinking flower/damsel in distress". If I have any criticism, it's that the villain, the Grand Inquisitor, is a little on the moustache-twirling side and could a redeeming feature or two...but that's pretty minor in the overall scheme of things in the book, and he IS pretty detestable, making him a guy we love to hate.
I have no hesitation recommending this book, and can't wait for the sequels/next books in the series!
View all my reviews
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
How To Write a Novel - Part 1
How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper.
Okay, not so easy. Those words all have to offer a coherent and interesting story, be arranged in grammatically correct ways and be spelled properly. But that's not going to happen until the words are on paper (or, more likely, a computer screen), and that's really the first hurdle. Since I've got immersed in this writing stuff, I've talked to a lot of writers, a few of whom are superstars and some of whom are quite successful, but most of whom are like me--struggling and starting out. Except, let me correct that--they're like me, struggling and starting out, but unlike me, they haven't actually, well, written a novel. Lots of them are working on novels, and some of those will actually produce one. Most, however, simply WANT to write a novel, or are planning on it, meaning to do it, intending to do it...they've written a synopsis or an outline, they've done plotting, they've drafted up characters...heck, they can tell you their protagonist has blue eyes, grew up in a three bedroom bungalow and prefers chicken soup over cream of tomato. What they can't do, though, is let you read about these characters in their unfolding plot, because they haven't actually started writing an novel, or they have, but it's not finished--and probably never will be. Harsh? Maybe. Sadly, though, it's likely also to be true. The number of people who want or intend or plan to write a novel is probably almost equal to the number of people who read novels. The worst part of that is that there's also probably some very talented writers and some excellent stories that are never going to come before us to read. So, to go back where we started--how do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper.
So I've written a novel and that makes me special, right? Well, to a point, yeah; I guess I'm one of very few people in the world that's actually assembled 60000+ words into something resembling a coherent story. However, (warning...shameless plug ahead) "Out of Time", my debut novel coming from Five Rivers Publishing in November of this year, isn't actually my first novel. It's my fourth. Of the previous three, one is a serious contender for publication and is out being shopped around to agents and publishers now, while the other two are never going to see the light of day. Why? Well, because they're basically crap. They are both enthusiastic, but otherwise pretty dreadful piles of words that represent early efforts of mine to write long fiction when I really didn't know what I was doing. One of them isn't finished, and probably never will be (putting me firmly in that "coulda-shoulda-woulda" category of writers I mentioned above, at least when it comes to this particular work). That said, I don't regret the effort I put into either of them, because they were valuable learning experiences and, more importantly, valuable exercises in discipline. They taught me to apply the seat of my pants to the seat of my chair and write, putting a total of about 180,000 words onto virtual paper. Along the way, they also taught me a lot about how to (and how NOT to) do characterization and plotting, how to break a story apart into component scenes, then reassemble those scenes back into something that flows from the beginning, through the middle and to the end, and generally how to engage in the craft of writing. These particular works--let's call them novels 1 and 2--didn't end up being something I'd like to try getting published, but they were still worth the effort that went into them. And, sure, there may be elements of them that I can scavenge down the road. So, with this in mind, let's revise that opening statement a bit:
How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper, so they form a complete story.
One last thing, though. You can write all the novels you want according to the above, but if they're not stuff other people want to read, then you're not going to find anyone who wants to publish them (or, if you self-publish them--an ever-more popular choice in this era of digital distribution via the Internet--you're not going to find many, or maybe even any, readers for them). Now, if you aren't really interested in getting published, or you're writing just for your friends or yourself, this isn't necessarily a problem. Writing for yourself, your family and your friends is great--nothing wrong with it at all! But if you're looking to get published/widely read, then you need to write something that's going to appeal to potential readers. That doesn't mean a Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight degree of appeal (though that would be nice), but there has to be enough appeal to get your stuff in front of a decent number of eyes. What a "decent number" is, exactly, is going to vary with the particular publisher, genre, etc. but we're probably, as a rough guide, looking for numbers in the thousands. If you don't think you're writing to that large an audience, then you're probably back to writing stuff for yourself, family and friends, maybe your local writing group, maybe a small local or regional audience or a community, virtual or otherwise, that shares a particular interest (and again, there's nothing wrong with that). Even having said that, though, what you ultimately have to do is "burn through" the many, many things demanding peoples' attention, so whether trying for a best-seller or just shooting for a small target audience, your novel needs to be compelling enough to grab and hold your readers' attention. So, one more revision:
How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper, so they form a complete story that other people will want to invest their time and energy in reading.
Okay, not so easy. Those words all have to offer a coherent and interesting story, be arranged in grammatically correct ways and be spelled properly. But that's not going to happen until the words are on paper (or, more likely, a computer screen), and that's really the first hurdle. Since I've got immersed in this writing stuff, I've talked to a lot of writers, a few of whom are superstars and some of whom are quite successful, but most of whom are like me--struggling and starting out. Except, let me correct that--they're like me, struggling and starting out, but unlike me, they haven't actually, well, written a novel. Lots of them are working on novels, and some of those will actually produce one. Most, however, simply WANT to write a novel, or are planning on it, meaning to do it, intending to do it...they've written a synopsis or an outline, they've done plotting, they've drafted up characters...heck, they can tell you their protagonist has blue eyes, grew up in a three bedroom bungalow and prefers chicken soup over cream of tomato. What they can't do, though, is let you read about these characters in their unfolding plot, because they haven't actually started writing an novel, or they have, but it's not finished--and probably never will be. Harsh? Maybe. Sadly, though, it's likely also to be true. The number of people who want or intend or plan to write a novel is probably almost equal to the number of people who read novels. The worst part of that is that there's also probably some very talented writers and some excellent stories that are never going to come before us to read. So, to go back where we started--how do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper.
So I've written a novel and that makes me special, right? Well, to a point, yeah; I guess I'm one of very few people in the world that's actually assembled 60000+ words into something resembling a coherent story. However, (warning...shameless plug ahead) "Out of Time", my debut novel coming from Five Rivers Publishing in November of this year, isn't actually my first novel. It's my fourth. Of the previous three, one is a serious contender for publication and is out being shopped around to agents and publishers now, while the other two are never going to see the light of day. Why? Well, because they're basically crap. They are both enthusiastic, but otherwise pretty dreadful piles of words that represent early efforts of mine to write long fiction when I really didn't know what I was doing. One of them isn't finished, and probably never will be (putting me firmly in that "coulda-shoulda-woulda" category of writers I mentioned above, at least when it comes to this particular work). That said, I don't regret the effort I put into either of them, because they were valuable learning experiences and, more importantly, valuable exercises in discipline. They taught me to apply the seat of my pants to the seat of my chair and write, putting a total of about 180,000 words onto virtual paper. Along the way, they also taught me a lot about how to (and how NOT to) do characterization and plotting, how to break a story apart into component scenes, then reassemble those scenes back into something that flows from the beginning, through the middle and to the end, and generally how to engage in the craft of writing. These particular works--let's call them novels 1 and 2--didn't end up being something I'd like to try getting published, but they were still worth the effort that went into them. And, sure, there may be elements of them that I can scavenge down the road. So, with this in mind, let's revise that opening statement a bit:
How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper, so they form a complete story.
One last thing, though. You can write all the novels you want according to the above, but if they're not stuff other people want to read, then you're not going to find anyone who wants to publish them (or, if you self-publish them--an ever-more popular choice in this era of digital distribution via the Internet--you're not going to find many, or maybe even any, readers for them). Now, if you aren't really interested in getting published, or you're writing just for your friends or yourself, this isn't necessarily a problem. Writing for yourself, your family and your friends is great--nothing wrong with it at all! But if you're looking to get published/widely read, then you need to write something that's going to appeal to potential readers. That doesn't mean a Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twilight degree of appeal (though that would be nice), but there has to be enough appeal to get your stuff in front of a decent number of eyes. What a "decent number" is, exactly, is going to vary with the particular publisher, genre, etc. but we're probably, as a rough guide, looking for numbers in the thousands. If you don't think you're writing to that large an audience, then you're probably back to writing stuff for yourself, family and friends, maybe your local writing group, maybe a small local or regional audience or a community, virtual or otherwise, that shares a particular interest (and again, there's nothing wrong with that). Even having said that, though, what you ultimately have to do is "burn through" the many, many things demanding peoples' attention, so whether trying for a best-seller or just shooting for a small target audience, your novel needs to be compelling enough to grab and hold your readers' attention. So, one more revision:
How do you write a novel? That's easy--put a bunch of words onto paper, so they form a complete story that other people will want to invest their time and energy in reading.
Simple, huh?
Next up, the first draft, and how that went for "Out of Time".
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