Uncategorized – Page 97 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Journey to Jordan is now published!

My travel journals from the 2008 BYU Jordan Study Abroad are now available as an indie published ebook from Smashwords!

Originally published as a blog, I always wanted to make it available as a book someday. I spent the last couple of months running through it, putting together all the old posts as well as a few private ones.

I’ve edited them to bring the quality of my writing up to date, but did my best to retain the original sense of enthusiasm and discovery. I’ve also added a foreword and afterword to give it a little more context, especially in light of the past few years.

This is the unillustrated version; I’m not exactly sure how to format ebooks with pictures, so the illustrated version with the photographs will have to wait. I can’t promise I’ll get it up before I head out to Georgia (I’m just waiting to get the call–I could be leaving as soon as next week), but I’ll do what I can.

This version will be exactly the same as the other except for the photos, however, so if that’s not important to you, the unillustrated version is cheaper and much less unwieldy (only 895 KB). Also, until Smashwords allows for direct epub uploads in a little less than a year, the only version available from Smashwords will be this version.

It was a lot of fun putting this one together, and I’m excited to see it up! As with all my books, thanks for taking the time to read it, and I hope you enjoy!

Trope Tuesday: Character Alignment

firefly-character-alignment — Alternate versions put 20th Century Fox in the Lawful Evil slot.

I love personality tests. There’s something immensely satisfying about putting yourself on a grid that tells you something new and insightful about yourself and the people around you. My personal favorite is the Meyers-Briggs test (I’m an ENTP), but I like playing around with others as well.

Character alignment is what you get when you combine fictional characters with the role they’re supposed to play in the story. It’s a way to categorize the different ways they react to problems and ethical dilemmas, and to see which are inclined to be enemies and which are inclined to be allies.

These systems initially arose out of RPG systems like Dungeons and Dragons, which use numbers, charts, and statistics to turn a story into a playable game. There are many different kinds of alignments, but the most well-known is probably the one used by D&D, which charts characters along a good-evil axis and a lawful-chaotic axis. In practice, the result looks a little like this:

Of course, that’s a very simplified version. The tvtropes page goes into much greater depth, but I’ve personally found that this page right here does a much better job explaining the concepts behind the chart.

The horizontal axis, law vs. chaos, describes how much the character values order and authority vs. their own independence and freedom. Lawful characters value honor and obedience, while chaotic characters value innovation and rebelliousness. Characters who are neutral with regards to law and chaos generally respect authority, but put their own interests first and go against the established norms when that’s the best way to further their own ends.

The vertical axis, good vs. evil, describes how well (or poorly) characters tend to treat other people. Good characters are altruistic and make sacrifices to protect the defenseless, whereas evil characters will kill, rob, or torture the innocent simply for the evulz. Characters who are neutral with regards to good and evil don’t like to hurt others, but are not above pursuing questionable means to achieve their own goals.

Put together, the alignments create a 9-square chart, like the one at the top of the post. While it’s certainly not obligatory to fill every slot, doing so can add a greater degree of depth to your story, as it certainly did with Firefly.

As with any formula, however, there is danger in holding too closely to the chart and becoming inflexible. In real life, people switch alignments all the time, just as personalities can change and evolve (in high school, for example, I was an INTP). Not only that, but some characters even fulfill all the possible roles, depending on the incarnation and the story.

The point is, character alignment is just a tool, not a hard-and-fast rule that needs to be used with every story. If it’s a helpful way to think about your characters and set them up with interesting conflicts, great. If not, don’t sweat it; Homer and Shakespeare were telling great stories long before this chart.

I’m going to be going overseas soon, so I expect my internet access is going to be spotty for the next couple of months. Because of that, I’m going to write up a bunch of Trope Tuesday posts on each of the nine alignments and schedule them to post automatically. So stay tuned for more!

Trope Tuesday: Big Damn Heroes

You know the drill. The clock is ticking down to zero, the evil hordes are swarming through the gates, the virgins are about to be sacrificed and the damsel in distress is about to be lost forever–and then the heroes show up in all their glory to save the day.

This happens all the freaking time, which means that if you want to make a living telling stories, this is not a trope that you should ignore. And with good reason. Not only does it give the writer ample opportunity to play with suspense and action, but it arguably lies at the very core of what makes a hero a hero:

David Gemmell, according to this interview with Ian Graham, defined a hero simply as “someone who does heroic things.” They might not always take the right side, or they might not even care about doing what is right, but when the universe conspires to bring them to a moment of decision, they make the choice that all of us would like to think that we would take and do something extraordinary.

I like this definition of a hero. It strikes me as a lot more honest than the perpetual do-gooder whose only motivation is Truth, Justice and the American Way (though those characters can–and do–have Big Damn Hero moments of their own). Also, it means that true heroism is not contingent upon actually winning. History may be written by the victors, but that doesn’t cheapen the experience of those who actually lived it.

Of course, if the heroes don’t save the day, it’s pretty hard to pull off a crowning moment of awesome without bringing in the Bolivian Army. Either the heroes find out that they’re too late, or they make things worse, or (as is so common with Othar Tryggvasson of Girl Genius) they just prove that their ego is too big for its own good. When taken to the extreme, the heroes may even be in danger of turning to the dark side.

The biggest danger with this trope is turning it into a Deus Ex Machina. The thing that makes Big Damn Heroes so incredibly satisfying is the sense of climax when they show up to save the day. Thus, proper foreshadowing is key. Yes, the rule of cool still applies, but if that’s all you rely on, you’re not going to be able to pull it off to maximum effect.

One of my favorite examples of this trope is Liam Neeson in Taken. Plenty of action movies are more violent, but few are more satisfying. It’s the perfect pick-me-up after a long crappy day at the office–not that I work in an office anymore. I wonder why…

In any case, this is a great trope to look out for, and definitely one to master, especially if you’re writing any sort of action-adventure story.

The Prophet by Gibran Khalil Gibran

AL MUSTAFA the chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth. And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielol, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.

Thus begins The Prophet, a timeless masterpiece by the Lebanese poet Gibran Khalil Gibran. As the prophet Al Mustafa prepares to leave on his ship, the people of Orphalese come one last time, asking for him to share his wisdom. And so he does, on a variety of subjects from love to houses, clothes to prayer, beauty, pleasure, and finally, death.

I really love this book, and not only because it gives me a chance to practice my Arabic. Just about every line in this epic poem is both moving and profound, and gives you pause not only to think, but to feel, and feel deeply. One cannot help but feel that Khalil Gibran was a man who knew not only great joy, but also great pain in his life–pain which made his soul all the greater.

Like many things Middle East, however, the book is not without controversy. I have no doubt that many of my friends would find some words in this book with which they would strongly disagree. Even some of my Arab friends don’t like it for (I suspect) that reason. However, even though I don’t necessarily agree with everything in here, it’s such a thoughtful book and makes so many good points that I can’t help but love it.

The style is very Arab, which is to say it’s a lot wordier and more colorful than most modern English literature. From what I’ve heard, though, Khalil Gibran wrote this in English first, and then translated it into Arabic. Still, it has a distinctive Middle Eastern feel to it, which I love. One of my favorite passages:

Yet I cannot tarry longer.

The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.

Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.

And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

That’s exactly how I felt before I left Utah, and one of the main driving reasons why I’m leaving to start a career teaching English abroad. In dozens of passages like this, Gibran’s words reflect my own feelings even better than anything I could ever write.

I suppose that’s what poetry is all about; using words in such a way that you can really make people feel. Gibran is a master of that, which is probably why he’s the third bestselling poet in the world (after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu). Regardless, this is definitely a book that I will read over and over, in English and in Arabic.

Back from Texas, or My Last Day in Provo

So! My Christmas vacation in Texas is over, and I’m on the road again, hanging out here in Utah before catching the train to my parents’ house in Massachusetts and (hopefully) going overseas before the end of the month.

It was a great break! Great to see my niece and three nephews together. I swear, my sisters have the cutest kids; it’s going to be a real challenge to find a woman beautiful enough so that my kids will be able to compete! For Christmas, I gave them all trilobites from my fossil collection.

My favorite moment was probably playing with them at the community park, on the slides and other stuff. Jane, who is two and a half, likes to wear pretty dresses and run around the playground talking to herself, which is really cute. Dan, who just started to walk, would climb up to the slides and then stop at the top because he’s too scared to go down. It was fun watching him discover and explore his world.

On the way back to Utah, we stopped by my old roommate Steve’s place up in Dallas. He lives in an apartment that is just like a freaking motel…how crazy is that? Pretty cool, actually. It was fun to see him again, especially since he’s getting married in April. Good times.

My sister gave me the gift of her stomach flu, though, which really hit the next day. Around Amarillo, it got so bad that we pulled over on the shoulder and I fell out of the car vomiting. It was…like something from one of my novels, actually. We were hoping to make it all the way to Farmington and the Navajo reservation, but ended up in a Hotel 8 outside of Clines Corner for a very miserable night.

The next day was much better, though, and we made good time all the way back to Provo. My brother in law couldn’t stop talking about the book I’d gotten him, Born to Run, and said that it’s changed his life (he’s a runner…go figure). We also talked about story structure, Girl Genius, places we’d like to settle down, life plans, etc. Stopped in Moab for some dinner, and in Bluff to check out this really cool looking historical site. We switched over in Blanding, and before we knew it, I was pulling us into Provo after driving almost five hours straight.

As a side note, I want to say that I love Southern Utah. ZOMG, it has some of the most beautiful desolate country I have ever seen. Inasmuch as I can see myself settling down anywhere, I’d really like to settle down in a place like Monticello or Blanding or Saint George.

Texas is also beautiful, but I’d probably find the rampant consumerism a bit too stifling, and New England winters are far too dark and depressing (unless you have a cozy little cottage with a wood-burning stove). But Utah–this is my people, living in my kind of country: wild, open, and desolate, where the pioneers are remembered by name and ancient Indian ghosts still haunt the land.

So anyway, I’m back in Provo for a day before heading out on a train late tonight to Massachusetts. If you’re in the area and want to hang out, give me a call. This is my last day in Utah for at least the next couple of years or so, and I want to make it count!

My internet access in the next couple of days is going to be spotty, but I want to do a couple more posts to round out the year. A lot of things changed for me in 2011, so I want to recap that, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my New Year’s resolutions, so I’ll definitely do a post on that as well. I’ll probably write those on the train, though, so they might not go up until next week.

That’s the plan, anyway. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and I look forward to hearing from you again soon!

Trope Tuesday: New Year Has Come

Just like a story, every year has a beginning and an end. For this reason, New Years has become a time to celebrate change, renewal, and the setting of impossible goals which we will all probably break by March. Over time, this tradition has become so ingrained in our culture that it’s only natural for it to pop up in our fiction.

Most stories that feature a New Year subplot are episodic, such as cartoons, comics, anime/manga, and television shows. They usually reflect real-world holiday traditions, such as the practice of setting New Year’s resolutions. Because all stories need conflict (but also because fiction sometimes reflects reality), the characters in these stories are often just setting themselves up for failure in some hilarious way.

At first glance, this might seem depressing. After all, if most of us will never reach our goals, why do we even bother setting them? Why torture ourselves with guilt when, in all likelihood, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure?

In some ways, I think it comes down to this quote from David Gemmell:

May all your dreams come true save one; for what is life without a dream?

One of the things that makes us human is that we all need to have some impossible dream to strive for, some sense of hope for the future. Through our New Year’s resolutions, we tap into that sense that anything is possible, and that we can change who we are and become better people.

For some of us, those resolutions are an effective tool to turn their lives around. For those of us who lack that kind of will or self-discipline, the act of setting resolutions still helps us reflect on our lives and change in ways that perhaps we don’t immediately perceive. After all, the truest measure of success isn’t whether you’ve accomplished all your goals, but how much you’ve changed through striving to meet them.

That’s my take on it, anyway. In any case, a New Year’s story is a great way to give your characters some time for reflection, since it’s probably the most introspective holiday in our Western culture. It’s a time for beginnings, endings, and chasing impossible dreams.

Happy New Year!

The Jerusalem Man by David Gemmell

The old world is dead, destroyed by nuclear fire. The old ways are long forgotten–except by one man in search of the Holy City. He wanders the Earth with two guns and a Bible, leaving a trail of death and ancient prophecy in his wake. Brigands fear him, honest men pity him, and the Hellborn hunt him. He is John Shannow–the Jerusalem man.

This is some vintage David Gemmell. In fact, I think this particular edition has been reprinted as Wolf in Shadow, and can no longer be found except in used bookstores and book trading sites. Regardless, the book is awesome, right on par with Gemmell’s other work.

David Gemmell has the uncanny ability to suck you in almost as soon as you open the book, making you emotionally invested in the characters and conflicts to the point where you can’t stop thinking about it. My favorite part of this book was in the first few chapters, when John Shannow found a frontier woman and briefly settled down. It only lasted a handful of pages, but it was so powerful and moving that I felt compelled to read almost nonstop until I’d finished the book.

The later half gets a little outlandish, with magic stones, the lost city of Atlantis, and a Satanic cult bent on world domination. It was a fun adventure, but not as compelling for me as the personal story of John Shannow. In fact, it seems as if Gemmell unconsciously fell back on all the old tropes of the Drenai series, turning his post-apocalyptic western into a sword and sorcery romp, like Waylander with guns. It wasn’t bad, but at times it did feel a little over the top.

This might have to do with my own personal tastes, however. I tend to enjoy stories that have more to do with the personal lives and intimate struggles of the characters than grand quests to save the world. I don’t know if it’s always been like that, or if it’s just something that’s changed as I’ve gotten older.

Regardless, The Jerusalem Man was a great book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of fantasy-western mashups, or post-apocalyptic fantasy in general, then this is a must-read. And even if that’s not your usual fare, if you’re drawn to loner heroes who don’t pull any punches, you’ll almost certainly love this book.

Trope Tuesday: Space pirates with Kindal Debenham

For today’s Trope Tuesday post, I thought it would be fun to bring on my friend Kindal Debenham to speak about one of the tropes in his new book, Wolfhound.

Kindal and I were in the same writing group in college, and attended Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class together. I just picked up a copy of his book, and it’s pretty good–definitely the kind of science fiction that I love. You can currently find Wolfhound on Amazon, as well as Kindal’s self-publishing site.

So anyhow, here’s Kindal’s discussion of space pirates in Wolfhound.

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Space pirates are kind of a staple in science fiction. We’ve seen them in all sorts of different forms since the genre came into being. As the trope states, though, there are basically two main classes. The first class is basically a bunch of violent criminals on a spaceship, kind of mirroring the behavior of modern day pirates in Somalia or Southeast Asia. The second are a corny recycled in space variant of the eighteenth century Caribbean pirate with robotic peg legs and a space parrot. Obviously one is a bit more realistic than the other. 🙂

The version I went for leans a lot more heavily on the first class of space pirates rather than the second. I wanted a smaller scale conflict in order to introduce my main character, and pirates seemed to be a good opponent to use for that purpose. Since the ship that Jacob Hull is on was partially based on the USS Constitution, I decided that I could use some of the pirates that ship fought during its history: the Barbary pirates.

These pirates weren’t your clichéd corsairs with parrots and a desire for plunder. The Barbary pirates were a collection of raiders that operated out of northern Africa. Their motivation was to support their nations by taking ships and capturing crews, which they then added to their fleet and put to work as slaves. In addition to raiding ships, the Barbary pirates also went on slave raids throughout southern Europe. They would accept tribute to ignore the ships of certain countries (think ‘protection money’ for a mob equivalent). The US had to pay about a fifth of the early national budget in tribute to these pirates until the politicians decided that guns were cheaper to buy—which led directly to the creation of the USS Constitution.

Building off of those ideas, I created the Telosian pirates. Vicious, more interested in valuable ransom for prisoners and well armed ships than simple cargo, and willing to do just about anything to satisfy their greed. With an utter ruthlessness only matched by their subtle plots, they made quite a good enemy for Jacob Hull and the rest of Wolfhound’s crew, and they were a much more interesting enemy to fight than a stereotypical Pirate-with-an-Eyepatch would have been. In my opinion at least, though I’m a little biased.

So those are the bad guys of Wolfhound—at least, they’re the majority of the bad guys—and believe me, they live up to their reputation as nasty pieces of work. Hope you guys enojoyed the background, and I hope I didn’t get too history nerd on you guys. See you around!

Why I won’t be signing up for KDP Select

In the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion about Amazon’s new Lending Library program. Just a few days ago, Amazon opened it up to indie writers with the KDP Select program. By signing up, writers gain access to Amazon Prime members (US only), where readers can borrow the book for free and Amazon still reimburses the writer.

The catch? Two, actually: writers agree to make their books exclusive to Amazon for 90 days, and payment for all KDP Select authors comes out of a monthly “fixed pot” of $500,000, where every writer gets a cut according to what percentage of the Lending Library downloads were for their books.

Reactions from the indie community have been mixed. Within only a few hours, several thousand enthusiastic writers had signed up (the current number of participants is ~50k), but many others remain cautious and aloof.

The full range of reactions can be seen in the Kindle Boards thread. Guido Henkel does a good job pointing out how the numbers don’t add up, while David Gaughran offers a compelling analysis that likewise dampers enthusiasm for the program. On the Smashwords blog, Mark Coker pleads with writers to keep their options open, while at Writer Beware, A.C. Crispin points out some disturbing language in the terms & conditions that essentially amounts to a non-compete clause.

I’m sure that many others will weigh in on KDP Select in the coming days, and I look forward to reading their analysis, but I’ve already decided that I won’t be signing up with the program. Even if no one else signs up, with 50k writer splitting a $50,000 pot, the average monthly paymentis only going to be $10. Unless you’re one of the lucky bestsellers, you’ll probably make even less than that.

But the real reason I’m not signing up is because I don’t feel that it serves my readers. If I put any of my titles through KDP Select, I’d be giving Amazon a 90 day exclusive, which means that my readers would be forced to either buy through Amazon or wait three months to buy my books. I don’t feel that that’s fair to my readers, especially in territories where Amazon levies a $2 surcharge.

At this point in my career, my goal is to build up a dedicated fan base that looks forward to each new release. To do that, I want to make my books available in as many places as possible. Even if I’m not selling all that well right now at Barnes & Noble or the smaller retailers, it’s not worth it to cut those readers off and tell them to go to Amazon or wait.

However, the KDP Select program does foreshadow the next big phase of the ebook revolution, and that is the move to subscription services. I expect that in the mid- to near-future, we’re going to see a lot of ebook lending models arise, kind of like Netflix for books. The big question in my mind is how the writers are going to be compensated.

Like David, I have a lot of concerns with KDP Select’s “fixed pot” model. Besides the lack of any guaranteed or minimum rate of compensation and the general opaqueness of the system, it fundamentally pits writers against each other in a zero-sum game, where one writer’s gain is another one’s loss. To me, this represents a giant step backward.

When a reader finds something they like, they’re more likely to try out another book just like it. This is how readers have historically found new writers, and it fosters a sense of community, where writers work together to reach out to new readers and expand the scope of the genre. The “fixed pot” model disincentives all this and replaces it with a Machiavellian system that, at its worst, works against the natural advantages of the medium and undermines the genre community.

For all these reasons, I won’t be signing up for Amazon’s KDP Select. The exclusivity hurts writers and readers, the numbers just don’t add up, and the “fixed pot” model represents a fundamental shift in bookselling that I cannot support.

How to make an ebook

Since I plan on publishing a number of books this next year, I decided to write down the step-by-step instructions for how I make my ebooks.

There’s 50 steps altogether and the process can get a little complicated, but if you follow the instructions it should all be very straightforward. It takes me about two hours now to run through all the steps, and when I’m finished I have a .mobi file for Amazon, an .epub file for Barnes & Noble, a .doc file for Smashwords, and a couple .jpg files for cover art and thumbnails.

The best part is that all the programs are free, so once you know what you’re doing, it costs nothing but a couple hours of your time to actually make the ebook files. Other than maybe another hour (if that) to upload the files to Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, that’s all it takes to publish.

Since publishing isn’t a zero-sum business and all of us benefit when writers have options, I’m making this short manual available as a free PDF. It may or may not work for you the way it works for me, but if it helps you to climb the steep learning curve that all of us face when we first start out, then I’ve done my job.

Vasicek epublication manual

Also, if any of you are more knowledgeable about formatting than I am, please let me know if you have any suggestions. I’m always looking out for ways to make my books better, so none of this is set in stone (or print, for that matter 🙂 ).