Uncategorized – Page 100 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

How’s my new blog template?

It’s up! What do you think?

I especially like the sidebar layout, with the featured item on top and the double sidebars below. I think I’m going to put all my promotional stuff (books, social networks) on the right sidebar, with all the blog stuff (tags, archives, recent comments, blogroll, etc) on the left.

I’m not so sure about the Current Projects bar, though. Does it look good on the left, or should I put it on the right, above my books? I don’t want the sidebar to look too busy, but at the same time I don’t want to push my books too far down from the top.

I made a few tweaks to the color scheme, though there will probably be a few more kinks to work out in that area. The black text on white is a radical departure from the previous template, which is going to take a while for me to get used to. However, now that my blogging goals have shifted from personal to more professional, I think it’s a move in the right direction.

Things I’d like to change but don’t know how:

The blog header font. I’d like to go back to Courier New small caps, like the old one. Every time I try to tweak the CSS stylesheet, though, nothing I do seems to work.
Font size for pages and categories (pages are above the blog header, categories are below). Jerle pointed out that they could be larger, and I agree with him.
Background color for the child category pages. They blend in too much with the current shade of gray.
The favicon. I don’t want the generic WordPress logo, I want to make something unique to this site (like the eye).

That’s about all I can think of right now, but I’m definitely open to any of your suggestions. My goal is to turn this blog into a home site for my writing career, where readers can connect with me and easily find my stuff.

Also, if you have any cool ideas for my Error! 404 page, please let me know. Those are always fun.

Why I am not afraid of the Noise part II

A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “Cherish the Book Publishers–You’ll Miss Them When They’re Gone” has ignited a firestorm across the indie publishing community. The post’s basic argument is that the ease of self publishing and the end of New York as the gatekeepers of quality will make it harder for readers to find the truly worthwhile literature amid the flood of crap that will inevitably overwhelm us all.

Joe Konrath fired the opening salvo; in characteristic fashion, he decried the op-ed as hogwash and blamed jealousy among traditionally published writers for the perpetuation of this myth. He concluded that while the “tsunami of crap” is real, it is ultimately irrelevant.

His advice? “Don’t write crap.”

Michael A. Stackpole responded by examining the much more dangerous fear of authors worried about the coming flood; the fear that their own work is crap, and not worth putting out. After examining what we mean when we call something “crap,” he concludes that the really bad stuff will sink to the bottom…

…not because of a rising tide of crap, but because they deliberately swim toward the bottom, open their mouths, and willfully suck.

And the rest of us will happily swim past the effervescent markings of their demise, moving on into the golden age.

Kris Rusch’s take on the issue was perhaps the most instructive of all. First, she used her own experience as editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to completely blow out of the water the idea that editors are arbiters of good taste. Editors buy what they like; when they try to predict what the public will like, more often than not they fail–and when they try push their own reading tastes onto the public, they make themselves irrelevant.

She concluded that the only truly relevant “gatekeepers” are other readers–that word of mouth is still king, and because the traditional publishing system treats books “like produce, taking them off the shelf as if the book will rot after a month,” indie publishing is much better suited to help the good stuff rise to the top.

David Gaughran responded next by pointing out all the ways that indie publishing and the ebook revolution are enriching the literary world. He concluded that the only people hurt by these changes are the middlemen–that both writers and readers only stand to benefit.

Well. Like I said, it’s quite a firestorm.

So what’s my take? I already posted my thoughts on why the original argument is invalid–that fear of the Noise, aka the “tsunami of crap,” is a specious reason not to epublish. However, I think that the real issue goes much deeper than that.

The most fundamental divide between those who embrace the ebook revolution and those who fight it is whether or not they trust readers to find the truly great works of literature on their own.

The obvious question, of course, is what exactly constitutes “great literature.” As a lover of genre fiction, I measure the quality of literature by the impact it has on readers; that when readers can’t stop talking about how awesome a book is, it’s a good book. For that reason, I’ve never put much credence by Twilight bashers; paranormal romance might not be my thing, but Stephanie Meyer struck a chord in a lot of people, and that certainly counts for something. In other words, story is King.

Putting it that way makes the argument somewhat circular. Can we trust readers to find the good stuff on their own? Yes, because readers read what they love. But what about that literary piece about a depressed writer who has a sexual affair that completely changes his life? Well, I guess it just wasn’t that good. But they would have loved it, if not for all that genre crap flooding the system!

As for readers getting swamped, I think the system itself prevents that.

First, readers browse by means of tags, search terms, categories, top seller lists, “also bought” lists, etc. They follow book bloggers and take recommendations from friends. When they find a book with an attractive cover, they click on it, give the book description a cursory glance, and perhaps check a few reader reviews. If their curiosity is still piqued, they download the free sample to their ereader.

Up to this point, no money has been spent. Readers can download as many free samples as they want, of anything that catches their fancy. When they finally get around to reading the sample, they can decide whether they want to buy the book. If they do, all they need is to click a button on their ereader, and the book is theirs.

Once they finish the book, the ereader prompts them to leave a review (at least the Kindle does this–not sure about the others). If they enjoyed it, they can give a favorable rating which helps other readers find the book. If they don’t, they can give an unfavorable rating which warns others to stay away.

What is happening is nothing less than the democratization of literature. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that those who trust readers will embrace the new system, while those who still cling to editors-as-gatekeepers will reject it at all costs.

But can we really trust readers? Yes, if we believe that story is King. If readers and writers are collaborators in the literary experience, and the truly great literature is that which has the greatest impact on its readers’ lives, then it stands to reason that readers must be the ultimate judges of quality.

Therefore, if we truly believe in the power of story, we cannot help but put our trust in the readers. And if that’s true, why shouldn’t we rejoice in the revolution?

I sincerely believe that we are witnessing the dawn of a great golden age of literature. The invention of the ebook is at least as revolutionary as the Gutenburg press, perhaps a great deal more.

The only ones who have anything to fear from the revolution are those who have built their livelihoods by pushing their own arbitrary tastes on others. Frankly, that’s nothing less than cultural tyranny–and with the democratization of literature, we no longer have to put up with it.

Viva la Revalucion!

Craving another retreat

Last night, I got together with an old friend from last year and went camping down in Sanpete county, in the Manti-Lasal National Forest. Even though I didn’t get a whole lot of writing done, it was a much needed change of scenery.

Man, southern Utah is so different from the Salt Lake and Utah valleys. More rural, more laid back, more of a back-country attitude but not in a California kind of way…I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I like it out there. It feels like the kind of place you’d pass through on a road trip, that mystic old-time Americana that always feels like it’s just out of reach. Part of me wants to settle down in a place like that someday, while the other part doesn’t want to settle down ever.

Spending time away like that gives you a renewed perspective. I wouldn’t say that I feel more “centered” now, but getting out in the wilderness certainly made me see the daily grind here in Provo a little differently. It’s so easy to get caught up in a routine, where the weeks and months go by until suddenly it’s summer again and you don’t know where the last year went. Unless you take the time to step back, you can never get perspective.

Unfortunately, in order to save up for Worldcon this August, I’m going to need to work 40 hours per week almost right up to the convention weekend itself. I’m not complaining; I feel blessed to have a steady source of income right now, especially in this economy. But as a writer, it’s hard when your job takes so much time and energy away from your writing time.

Lately, I’ve only been spending two or three hours a day writing, and a lot of that time is filled with interruptions. Part of it is just procrastination, but another part is that my day is so split up that the only periods of unbroken free time are from 9 pm to 8 am. That’s tough, because I need a big chunk of writing time to do my best work.

Even though I’ve been making decent progress on Desert Stars, I feel like I could be doing so much more. If I could take a week off for a retreat where I did nothing but focused on my writing, I could probably finish this draft in a matter of days, with time to start a bunch of new projects. In fact, I already have about a half dozen stories in embryo, with scenes and characters just begging to be written. Once this latest project is finished, I don’t quite know what I’ll be starting next.

Since I should be writing right now instead of posting to this blog, I’ll wrap up by saying that I really wish I could take some time off for another retreat, this time to focus solely on my writing. But since I can’t, I’ll do my best to carve away large periods of unbroken time for writing, and unplugging myself from distractions both online and off in order to make the most of it.

It’s a difficult balance, one that’s a constant struggle to maintain. Right now, I feel like I’m on the losing side of the battle, which means it’s time for a change of routine. Thankfully, taking some time off in the wilderness has helped me to better see what I need to do. I only hope I can maintain that perspective in order to break out of this stifling routine.

<sigh> One of these days, when writing is my primary source of income, this will not be nearly so difficult of a problem. You have no idea how much I want to make that happen. In the meantime, back to work.

Writing is like tending an orchard

So I was hiking the Y tonight, pondering various things, and the thought occurred to me that writing is a lot like an olive orchard.

First, you’ve got the land, both cultivated and wild. Cultivated land is like your conscious mind, where everything fits neatly into order and you have control over what you create. The subconscious is the land beyond the fence, where things grow wild.

Ideas are like seeds; they’re everywhere, but only a few ever take root and sprout. Those that do need to have new sprouts periodically grafted into the old, in order to preserve the entire tree. These grafts may come from the cultivated ground of your cultivated mind, but more often than not they come from the wildlands of the subconscious.

Each novel is like an individual olive tree. It takes a lot of time and work to grow one to maturity, but once you do, it can live for a long, long time. The fruit itself is like the earnings you get by licensing copyright; if you prune the tree carefully (aka do a good job managing your intellectual property), it just keeps on producing.

Of course, in order to make sure your trees grow properly, you need to be constantly enriching the soil of your mind. That’s where education and life experience comes in.

Since trees sometimes die, you have to maintain several trees at once in order for your orchard to succeed. And even though it’s a hell of a lot of work, over the long run the returns are enormous.

For the ancients, olives were a major staple crop. In Greek mythology, Athena was chosen as the patron goddess of the city of Athens because her gift of an olive tree was considered more precious than any other. And just as good books help us expand our minds, better understand and empathize with others, and generally rise above the boredom and mundane-ness of our daily lives, so also the fruit from this metaphorical orchard is truly of great worth.

Anyhow, those were some of my random ponderings, climbing down the mountain. Someday, I want to have an orchard that covers an entire hillside and produces thousands of pounds of olives! Just thinking of it makes me hungry. Mmm, olives…

Hmm…short stories?

Kris Rusch has another excellent Thursday post up on her blog, and this one deals with the effect of the ebook revolution on the short story format. Synopsis: short stories stand to EXPLODE in the next few years, and this is good for everybody, especially indie writers.

Getting a story published in a magazine 1) builds a writer’s cred, 2) attracts new readers to the writer’s other works, and 3) pays decently well without giving up copyright for longer than a couple of years. Basically, it’s like getting paid to advertise.

I have to admit, I’m not much of a short story writer, but if Kris’s predictions are right (and they sure make a lot of sense), I might have to take some time and rework my short form game.

To start, I should probably read short stories voraciously. Fortunately, I have like twenty back issues of Leading Edge on my shelf (the best short story I have ever read is “When She Grows a Soul” by Patrick Weekes in issue 46; I reread it on my lunch break today and it made me cry. Seriously). I’ve also subscribed to Clarkesworld magazine, which is only $1.99 per month on the Kindle.

Once I’ve finished the current draft of Desert Stars, I may or may not take off some time to focus on writing short fiction. I’m a little hesitant to do that, though; novels are my first love, and will probably be my bread and butter as this writing career takes off. Still, I need a lot of work on my short form, so maybe it would be worth taking a month or so…not sure yet.

In any case, I discovered via the Kindle Boards that if you release an ebook/estory for free on a competing vendor’s site, Amazon will price match and drop the price to free. Since I probably won’t be able to sell the short stories I’ve epublished, I figure I ought to give that a try. I never really planned to make much money off of them, and “selling” them for free will hopefully attract readers who will buy my novels.

In the meantime, I really should get back to writing. Whether novels or short stories, my bread and butter lies with putting words to paper–electronic or otherwise.

The Swords of Night and Day by David Gemmell

A thousand years ago, a young warrior named Skilgannon helped the princess Jianna escape an attempt on her life. They became lovers, and when she retook her throne, she made Skilgannon her chief general. When she ordered the abject annihilation of her enemies, he loved her too much to refuse her–and thus became Skilgannon the Damned.

Now, the wizard Landis has recalled Skilgannon back from Hell to defeat the tyrant queen known as the Eternal. For hundreds of years, the Eternal has ruled the world, using the arcane arts of a fallen civilization to achieve immortality and crush all who oppose her.

When the Eternal learns of Landis’s treachery, the only hope for freedom lies with Skilgannon, the axeman Harad, the huntress Askari, and the Drenai ranger Alahir. But how can they defeat an enemy who commands nearly all the armies of the world? Who has lived a dozen lifetimes and simply steals the bodies of her clones whenever she is killed?

But most of all, how can Skilgannon defeat the Eternal when she is none other than Jianna, his beloved?

The Swords of Night and Day is a direct sequel to White Wolf, the first David Gemmell novel that I read. I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly impressed with White Wolf; it meandered a lot and didn’t seem to have any clear direction.

That is most certainly not the case with The Swords of Night and Day, however. I was hooked from the very beginning, and could hardly put it down until the shocking, mind-bending twist at the end. It tied up all the loose ends from White Wolf and completed Skilgannon’s character arc in a surprising yet satisfying way.

One of the reasons I think I love David Gemmell so much is because he captures so perfectly the experience of being a man. In that, I suspect that Gemmell is to me what Jane Austen is to most women.

But even though Gemmell’s characters might be crass, vulgar, chauvanistic, and downright detestable at times, there is always something heroic deep inside of them–something worth redeeming. And when he does redeem them, it surprises me how powerful it is–even when he redeems someone I don’t want him to.

With The Swords of Night and Day in particular, one of the things that particularly fascinated me was the fictional cosmology of the Drenai universe. With magic that can resurrect people’s spirits from hell, the story must inevitably deal with questions of the afterlife. Yet even so, there’s still enough ambiguity and latent potential that it never felt stilted or labored. If anything, it felt a bit like Tolkien’s cosmology in The Silmarillion, where all the stuff about gods, angels, and the undying lands only added to the sense of wonder.

I love just about all of David Gemmell’s books, but this one in particular was well worth the time and experience reading it. I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one, though: better to read Legend, White Wolf, and The King Beyond The Gate first. But if you’ve read and enjoyed those ones, you will DEFINITELY love this one. I certainly did.

That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone

When Harry Malan’s work transferred him to Sol Station deep inside the sun’s core, he didn’t expect to become a Mormon branch president over more than a hundred alien converts to the faith. The Swales, ancient sun-dwelling beings with their own history and culture, travel the universe by naturally teleporting between stars.

When Harry learns that one of the members of his congregation has been raped, he determines to take it up with the chief Swale. But at several thousand meters long and more than a hundred millenia old, the chief is revered by the Swales as a god incarnate. To make matters worse, the only other eligible female on the station is an atheist xenoanthropologist determined to stop Harry from “polluting” the Swale culture.

In an alien society millions of years older than humanity, where gods were dwelling among mortals long before the birth of Jesus Christ, is there a place for those who convert to any of the human faiths?

This story was awesome, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a practicing Mormon. The story concept was brilliant, the alien world was fascinating, and the issues raised were dealt with in a very balanced way. This is a must read for any Latter-day Saint science fiction writer–or for aspiring writers of any religious faith, for that matter. In fact, Eric James Stone has it available right now on his website for free–so check it out!

My only issue was that the story didn’t feel fleshed out enough. The Swales were so fascinating, I wanted to spend more time with them–I wanted to explore their culture, learn more about their history and evolution, etc. I also wished there were more detailed descriptions to make me feel like I was there.

I think that has more to do with the shortcomings of the medium than anything else, though. The piece is an 8,000 word short story / novelette, so there isn’t a whole lot of room to flesh things out. Still, the world is so fascinating, can you blame me for wanting more?

All things considered, “That Leviathan, Whom Thou has Made” definitely deserves the Nebula Award which it won earlier this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins a Hugo as well. It represents a significant milestone in LDS literature, and is an excellent mainstream piece as well. Whether you’re Mormon, Christian, Muslim, or whatever, if you’re a religiously devout writer of science fiction, this is a must-read. And even if you’re not, it’s still a great story. Highly recommended.

I’ve never registered on the Absolute Write forums…

…and now I don’t need to.

The publishing industry has turned into the wild and lawless west, complete with lynch mobs and posses, isolated and inbred communities, a gold rush for ebooks, and dirty corporate executives looking to railroad their way over the honest, hardworking authors who just want a plot of land to call their own.

It’s insane–and yet, at the same time, so freaking awesome.

Just five years ago, there was only one real way to make a living as a writer: go with a traditional publisher. But now? Now, there are no rules. Now, you can be a cowboy and still make a name for yourself.

I do want to express my sympathy for Robin, though. Her blog, Write 2 Publish, is an excellent source of information on the changing publishing world, and I’ve always found her commentary thoughtful and insightful. The fact that she was banned from one of the largest online communities of writers (and especially the way in which she was banned) only confirms to me how seriously wrong-headed people are who cling dogmatically to traditional publishing models.

There are two kinds of people in this world…

Guest post: Developing Characters in a Fantasy Setting

Nathan Major is a friend and fellow writing who, like me, has taken the epublishing route for his first novel, Paradise Seekers. I met him through our mutual friend Charlie at Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class. His book is pretty good; I’m only partway through it right now, but he’s playing with some interesting fantasy concepts and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how he pulls it off.

I recently appeared on his blog with a guest post on how I develop my characters; for his appearance here, I decided to throw the question back at him. Like a true fantasy author, he answered it with a multi-part epic that is probably only the first installment of a trilogy. He makes some good points, though, and it’s definitely worth reading (and not just for the snarkiness, heh).

On a tangentially related note, I also appeared recently on Charlie’s blog with a post on ebook formatting and book DIY. When you’re finished here, be sure to check it out!

And now, I give you Nathan Major…

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When you think of fantasy, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Mystical worlds populated with elves, dwarfs, and other magical races? Kingdoms and castles, dark lords and noble heroes? Perhaps you entertain a world that is more supernatural and more interesting than our own, one that would allow you to escape to its enchanted forests and sweeping vistas.

The fantasy genre differs from other forms of fiction (except perhaps science fiction) in that the worlds they take place in tend to be the stars of the stories. Middle-earth and Prydain. Oz and Earthsea. And within these worlds, a classic clash of good vs evil is expected. The characters and story can often take a backseat, with many authors spending years of their lives crafting the perfect magic system, most precise system of fantastical government, and the means to make their elves the best damn elves you’ve ever seen.

This drives me crazy.

I’ve been reading fantasy my entire life, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I got fed up with the whole thing. I loved The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but as I dug deeper and picked up more modern fantasy, it all seemed to start blending together. Here is our noble hero, beating the odds to fight against a nameless, oft-hidden dark lord. Here is his spunky princess sidekick slash love interest, his old mentor who dies in act two, and the hardened warrior with a dark secret. While not all books contained these tropes, the main issue still persisted: I wasn’t seeing any new characters.

That was actually what drove me to writing. After reading through a particularly popular fantasy book that was also atrociously generic, I remember tossing the book on the couch and thinking, “I could do better than this!” So I set out to try my damnedest to write a fantasy novel that, yes, was in a fantastic worlds that we wish we could live in, but was populated by people just as interesting and well-developed as the world.

Since I’m severely ADHD, I’m going to break this up into a few key ideas that (hopefully) will get my point across. These aren’t just applicable to fantasy, but it’ll be my main focus.

1) Plan your characters first, before you plan the world.

Simple enough, right? When speaking with most other fantasy authors on the subject of brainstorming, the first things they say are, “Oh, I got the coolest idea for a magic system!” or “This world is going to be amazing…it’s made entirely out of White Chedder Cheese-its!” To which I say, “Ok, but what’s the story? And who are the people influenced by the story?” This is usually met with a, “I don’t know, I’ll figure it out later!” Then I defriend them on Facebook and pretend they never existed.

Ok, so the last part was an exaggeration. But the point still stands: you may have the greatest world ever devised, but so do map-makers, and theirs looks better. What is actually in the book is the plot and the characters, and the world is just what it takes place in. You might have the greatest appendix ever at the end explaining how the Haku-Bula Wolf Tribe’s language is actually a combination of grunts and Swedish, but that doesn’t matter to the average reader. Figure that stuff out after you’ve got a story, because it’s less important.

2) Don’t fall into cliches.

This is a hard one, as discovered by me when writing my third book, Where Gods and Mortals Dance. If you’ll excuse a moment of self-indulgence, when writing this book I had a female princess as the main character. She was a strong character, but due to circumstances beyond her control she was thrust into a situation that was almost impossible for her to fix. I remember trying to design her as strong but still fragile, as parts of her past haunted her and made her ability to rule difficult.

Then I took her to writing group, where the group was divided. Half said she was the, “generic, strong, masculine princess who takes charge,” and the other half felt she was the “weak, needy, spoiled princess” who has everything done for her.

It frustrated me, but also proved a point.

I was relying on two cliches and stereotypes to design my character. I drew from both in an attempt to be original, but that didn’t work. This happens all the time in fantasy. We have the old warrior, somehow inferior to our spunky young farmhand who picked up a weapon for the first time yesterday. We have a dark lord who never actually does any fighting or has any coherent plans, he just sort of sits on his throne of skulls and knives (which is probably black and on fire) and waits for farmhands to come and kill him.

Even in the most original novels, these cliches can become evident. They might not be as blatant as the ones said above, but keep them in mind when writing. Your book doesn’t have to star a teenager. It could star a forty-year-old man who wants to save the world. There doesn’t have to be a Dark Lord at all; the enemy could be something completely different. Stay the hell away from elves, dwarfs, or anything that Tolkien used. And taking Orcs, changing them slightly, and calling them “Orks” doesn’t count as being original, it counts as being a cop-out. Fight the cliché. Make your characters deep and unique.

3) Remember: Everyone is a hero in their own story

Sympathetic villains are a rarity in fantasy. Most of the time we have a group that is distinctly bad, and a group that is distinctly good. You can usually tell by how they live. If they live in trees, clouds, or anything that communes with nature: good. If they live in filth, a swamp, or basically anywhere that looks like it’s under the constant duress of a smoke-machine: evil. Usually bad-guy motives are just “they are bad and hate the good guys,” which is a freaking awful excuse. Oh, and don’t get me started on the “he’s insane, that’s why he wants to destroy the world!” villains. That’s the biggest cop-out of them all and if you use it I want to punch you in the face right now. You are cheapening your characters and your story to make things easier for you. Here’s a revelation: good books aren’t easy. It took Tolkien how long to craft the novel that essentially invented modern fantasy? I’m not saying you should take two decades to make your book, but you should at least have to take more than one sentence to describe your villain’s motives.

The best part about the above expression (which is probably my motto when it comes to developing characters) is that it changes the way you look at your book. Life isn’t black and white: it’s a whole lot of gray. You might see something in black and white, but if you were given a chance to enter someone else’s head, perhaps your view would switch entirely. Nothing is scarier than a completely sane, totally competent villain whose goals just so happen to be the exact opposite of our hero’s. In fact, it makes the reader uncomfortable, because many of them will no longer know who to root for. If you are doing it right, your villain’s motives and values should be just as convincing as the hero’s, which means the reader should be second-guessing their loyalties throughout the book. It makes for a hell of an engaging read, let me tell you.

But this little ditty isn’t just for main characters. Side characters also need to be their own heroes. Sam didn’t just tag along with Frodo because it was a fun thing to do. He knew what had to be done (probably even better than Frodo) and fulfilled that personal quest. Your side characters need to have their own motives and motivations, depth and personality. Don’t’ drag them to Mt. Doom with the only reason being “because the hero was heading that direction anyway.” They should be just as deep (or at least close to the level of depth) as your hero. Make them interesting, and your reader will love them even more.

4) For your characters to be successful, you must know them better than they know themselves

Wow, that’s a long one, and it is sort of off the theme of “broad, overgeneralizing statements” that these bullet points have been so far. At any rate, I’ll try and be brief with this one because it seems self-explanatory.

I have a friend author who, upon designing a character, takes an online “100 questions personality test.” While I’m not saying this is the “go-to” answer for everybody, it can be an extremely helpful tool in understanding a character better. What do they like to eat? What is their taste in women (or men)? If they magically appeared in our world and wanted to hang out, what would you do? These are questions that’ll maybe never be addressed in the story, but you should know these answers. If a character has a name and is in the book for more than a single chapter, you should know everything about them.

This can be hard work, especially if you like having a billion characters. But even if you just have one or two, you really need to be in their heads. Know them. Be them. Imagine them in other situations besides in your novel. And once you really understand what makes your spunky farmhand tick, then you’ll be able to write him in both a convincing and believable way.

5) Write characters you’d like to read about

Figured I’d end this on a simple one. It’s very easy when writing to get the rose-tinted glasses put on, and all of a sudden everything in your book seems perfect. Your characters are a little cliched, but whose aren’t? Your dark lord doesn’t really have a idiom, but he does have a badass axe carved from the ashen bones of the long-lost race of dragons. Who wouldn’t like this book?

Take a step back and think. And if you can’t think of yourself, think of me. A cynical, jaded red-head who writes fantasy only because most of the fantasy currently out there pisses him off. I am your audience. I am biased, blatant, and unbelievably good looking. What would I say?

If you know your characters (see #4!), and you know them well enough then this step shouldn’t be an issue. You’ll like them regardless, because any author gets attached to a character they know every aspect of. In my current novel, Effulgent Corruption, one of the viewpoint characters is complete scum. My initial development of him was a murderous, rampaging madman whose only reason for existence was to kill and destroy. However, as I dug deeper and began to understand the character, he became sympathetic. I realized the man’s goals, what emotional pains he’s been through, and what hurts him now. I knew who he relied on, and what parts of himself he hated.

He quickly became my favorite character.

This should happen with you. You should love your villains, and hope that, should this whole “world-saving hero” thing blow over, their goals will be accomplished. Your side characters should be entertaining and fun, people you’d want to hang out with, just like your hero does. You should know everybody and at least have a shred of sympathy for them. Then, you’ll have great characters.

This, of course, isn’t a complete guide to developing good fantasy characters. Hell, it isn’t really even a very specific one. But I’m almost 100% sure that, should you take these ideas to heart, you can beat the odds and write a fantasy novel that is as interesting in its ideas about elven politics as it is with its elaborate, three-dimensional characters. Fantasy as a genre deserves better, and you (yes, you!) can be the one to do it. So go forth, young author, and write the epic that will shake the Barnes and Nobles across the land!

Plus, it’ll increase your chances that I’ll actually read it, which is a perk in and of itself.

Staying in Provo

So, I have some news. After carefully weighing my options, I decided to stay here in Provo for at least another six months, rather than teach English in Korea for a year.

My main reason was the current pace of change in the publishing world. Originally, I wanted to take a year or two off to build a TEFL career and make some money to support myself as I tried to break in, but with the way publishing is changing, if I did that I would find myself completely lost as soon as got back.

Another reason was that I wanted to be able to focus on building my indie publishing career. Traveling and working abroad would take a lot of energy away from that, which didn’t seem like a good thing to do at this point in my writing career.

Yet another reason was the fact that Worldcon is in Reno this year, and it’s going to be huge. Anyone who’s anyone (at least here in Utah) is going, and it would be supremely foolish to pass up a networking opportunity like that.

And also, I have to be honest: since I’m in a local band now, I kind of want to stick around and see how that works out. Who knows? Maybe we’ll make it big…

So what am I going to do now instead? Probably work odd jobs to support myself, same as I’ve been doing since I graduated. I’ve got one lined up to start next week; apparently, the guys at this alarm company where temped in April were impressed with my computer skills and want me back. Maybe I can turn that into a part time gig once the summer’s up. If not, there’s always the costume factory job in September-October. And of course, I’m still keeping an eye out for local part-time jobs.

And really, all this stuff about getting a “day job” seems to me like another way of saying you can’t make a living as a writer, which strikes me as utter bull crap. Yeah, most people don’t become full time writers–but most people aren’t willing to do what it takes to get there. I am. I’m also fortunate enough to be in a good position to shoot for it. Young, single, no dependents, no debt…it doesn’t get any better than that.

In tangentially related news, my first guest post from my blog tour went live yesterday. My friend Nick Rose interviewed me and asked about epublishing, getting good cover art, what makes novels unique, and why I’m drawn to science fiction.

Nick is an aspiring novelist like me who’s hoping to turn this into a full time career. He’s also a great writer, even if his tastes are a little different than mine (seriously man, how can you NOT love Star Wars? Come on!). He writes mostly horror and reads a lot of manga, which he reviews on his blog. He also updates his blog every day, so check him out!