Advice from Authors - Or Not?

Over the years, I've seen plenty of articles written by other authors. Two articles I saw were from Erica Verrillo's blog; one set of tips from Stephen King, a key one from Frank Herbert and one from Ray Bradbury. Advice is all very well, but if you let it begin corrupting your own style, it's stops being helpful.

My advice came in the form of emails from Frances Hardinge, an author who had just entered the scene when I was introduced via a family friend. Her criticism and appraisal of my work helped me get a good idea of where I wanted to go and what I needed to improve. Hardinge's advice was far more helpful than a lot of things my family and friends were saying at the time. But while her advice was helpful through and through, others have not been.

The quote from Herbert above is hugely significant for me, as my stories are driven by characters and a set progression inspired by many things from television series to Herbert's own work. I find his advice valuable and insightful. I'm still aware of the industry's pitfalls in this regard, but Herbert's advice helps me see past it towards making my hopeful career.

Verrillo's article on King's advice. It focuses a lot on story-telling style, and advocates a streamlined style which is short and snappy, but leaves little-to-no room for going mad with things like poetic expression and deep description. As I've seen plenty of authors make successfully careers out of that style, I don't find his advice entirely convincing. But I also see the merit of keeping it in mind. Being able to do both gives an author an edge; they can switch markets when needed, increasing their readership by at least double. There is a different piece of advice she extracted from the writing of his debut Carrie, which basically boiled down to revision and never throwing away old drafts in case they might be useful. That I agree with.

Bradbery's advice boils down to "write, write, write". To quote:

If you can write one short story a week, it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start – at least you’re practicing. At the end of the year you have 52 short stories. And I defy you to write 52 bad ones. It can’t be done. After 30 or 40 weeks, all of a sudden a story will come that is wonderful – just wonderful. That’s what happened to me...

He also emphasises the importance of absorbing the works of the masters. Personally, I feel a little conflicted. While I'm certain many of the story ideas I create wouldn't make good novels, and I could write a story per week, he's writing from a very different position. In fact, all of these authors seem to be speaking for a perspective that isn't mine; a self-employed writer trying to break into a competitive market, where the industry is in the midst of the e-book revolution, which in turn impacts the conflict between short fiction and longform works.

All of these little bits and pieces have helped inform my approach to pushing at the industry's iron-clad walls. And I hope these may help others in the same position as me. Just make sure you take these pieces of advice as they are offered, and remember their context. You'll take more away from it if you do.

Let's Play the Ten-Word Game

Anyone here know the ten-word game? If you don't, here's a basic explanation. Take a story - any story - and condense the plot into ten words or less. It's really quite fun, and throws some interesting revelations on how derivative or formulaic some stories can be. Including mine.

So for this post, I'm going to do some ten-word summaries of several stories, and the answers will be blacked out. Just highlight them after you've thought about it for a while, and see if you were right.

("E" stands for example, and "A" for answer)

1E; Person makes journey to destroy lethal object. Succeeds. World saved.
1A; The Lord of the Rings. And a few other stories.

E2; Two people from different groups meet. Form a bond. Conflict.
A2; This could be a wide range of stories as the theme is present in much of fiction. To my mind, this is Romeo and Juliet, How to Tame Your Dragon, Disney's Pocahontas and Avatar.

E3; Bad person gets redeemed. Fights crime. Battles adversary. Finds love.
A3; Once again, this has many parallels, particularly in the superhero genre. My personal pick would be The Shadow. The movie version, that is.

E4; Person cruelly wronged. Survives and returns to seek retribution. Succeeds.
A4; Any descent revenge story follows this pattern, with The Count of Monte Cristo being the most famous example in modern literature.

That's just a very few. There are endless possibilities for describing any story in ten words or less. What stories can you describe? You don't even need to show their titles. Just describe it to someone, and wait to see if they get it.

Go on. Try.

Choices, Choices

NOTE: Many apologies for my lack of activity between Saturday and Thursday. I was on a camping holiday in Herefordshire with three other generations of family. Not entirely nice due to my inexperience with camping, but enjoyable enough that I'll remember it.

The life of someone trying to get published as an author is hard. You finish one work, and immediately think about moving on to another one once you've recovered. But is there any point? You're not published yet. Yes, there is a point! There is absolutely a point! Stopping at one work won't cut it. Some authors can tenderly refine and improve their work over so many years and strike lucky with an agent or publisher. But that's not my way. You can still refine and polish one work while writing another. And that's not counting short stories, and posts like this.

Right now, I've got between three and four possible large projects to pursue. By large, I'm talking about novels. Short stories can be completed in around a week, though that's without taking editing and proofing into account.

My first possibility is a strange blend of sci-fi and fantasy, inspired by two things; that amazing trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2, and pirate stories ranging from On Stranger Tides and Treasure Island to contemporary offerings such as Laputa and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Basically the romping tale of one woman's selfless search for a wish-granting island, it's something light and friendly I can do after completing an extremely weighty sci-fi revenge story.

The second is slightly darker, and comparatively easier. A take on Lovecraft where the Eldritch monstrosities he described are simply how we appear in a simultaneous parallel "Other" realm crossing the prose of Lovecraft with the fleshy weirdness of Cronenberg. I'm setting it around North Wales, particularly Anglesey - my home, and consequently the perfect setting for me to describe a place with native detail and twist it using the filter of the Other.

The third is something that occurred to me on holiday, while I was playing the card game Once Upon A Time with my mother, sister and niece. I'd long had the idea of creating a grand adventure in a "classic" fantasy swords-and-sorcery realm which would help question many of the genre's accepted tropes. The role of the hero and "princess", what evil is, the sometimes-contrived events that happen along the way. Combined with the card game's premise of telling and influencing a story based on the cards in your hand to reach your "Happily Ever After" inspired this concept. A grand fantasy world where the hero's actions and events encountered were influenced by a group playing a game in the real world. The only one conscious of this at first is a single player expelled from the game that has entered the world controlled by the cards to tilt the game in favour of winning its freedom from control.

Those are the best contenders. And so, as the title of the post says.... Choices, choices.