Category: Writing

The Way In

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

This post is an expansion (and partial reprint) of a comment I left on Alex J. Kane’s blog the other day in response to a very nice post he made about cover letters, e-publishing, and the career path of up-and-comers.  It might help to read Alex’s post first.  Or it might not.  Your call.

One of the big questions on the mind of every writer, publisher, editor, and agent is this: where are ebooks taking the market?  The Kindle is the primary culprit here, producing sales of electronically published work for pros and newbies alike.  Everyone that publishes through Kindle seems to be registering sales.  Not all spectacular numbers, mind you, but for some of us any positive number is…well, positive.

I’ve been following a friend’s study of ebook sales (an established pro without a big name but a name nonetheless) and it seems (in his studies) that the key to ebook sales is other ebook sales. The more times your book/story sells, the more it will show up on “people who bought this item also bought…” lists. This puts your story in the eye-line of people likely to buy it, and the cycle continues. It is a bit of a “turtles all the way down” strategy, though. To inspire those first sales to reach numbers that perpetuate the rest of the cycle, you need to grab an audience. Sales to big mags can help with that, as can appearing on a television show or buying up billboard space in every city in North America.  Selling a novel to a publishing house can also work, of course.  Somehow you need to get it started, but there is evidence to suggest the reaction will self-sustain for a while even through self-publishing.  The idea that you need a publisher behind your book ay be becoming a myth of the olden days.  A running start may well be all you need.

I’m awfully tempted to Kindle a collection of my own stuff. I could do it and I have a tiny bit of street cred (WotF and my eventual Escape Pod appearance) to propel things a little. It might prove more profitable to sell the stories in ones and twos rather than in a big omnibus since price seems a driving factor of Kindle sales. 20,000 words for a buck? People take a chance. They like it and they drop more dollars for more words.  And then turtles, turtles, turtles.

But I still feel like it’s too early. I don’t want to start the roller coaster too soon lest I get stuck in the loop. There’s a chance I won’t get stuck, but I don’t want to risk it. Perhaps I’ll end up waiting too long and find too much coaster traffic to ever reach the loop, let alone get through it. Market saturation may not be too far ahead.

Selling to a mag is a guaranteed amount of money…but hard to achieve. Going it alone on Kindle is a lot easier to get money…but no guaranteed amount. Two different gambles. Which is the better lottery ticket, PowerBall or MegaMillions?

As a traditional kind of guy, I’m still wandering traditional kinds of routes, finally getting a few select editors to recognize my name and pay my rejection letters some special attention. It’s a slow process, but I’m making progress. If I wasn’t, I’d likely take the other road. Either way, I suspect success in the future will require both roads to some extent. The all-or-nothing approach is the riskiest of all.

As a matter of fact, I’ve been engaged in some conversation with other WotF winners about where ebook rights will fit into future book contracts for those of us that do continue along the traditional route.  They’ll likely be the hot item that both sides want.  If I can sell a self-published ebook for a fraction of what a hard cover goes for and still make more money on it, I’d like to do that.  I dare say that a publisher that provides professional editing and such deserves the right to sell the electronic version that they influenced.  I also dare say the author deserves a bigger cut of those no-upfront-cost sales.  I confess that I don’t relish the idea of negotiating such things.  That’s what agents are for.  In fact, that’s always been what agents are for: negotiations, not talent searches.

Also presented in Alex’s post was a discussion as to whether small press and semi-pro sales belong in a submission cover letter.  My recent strategy is to only list the one or two biggest sales and provide a link to my full bibliography.  That way I am demonstrating competence and a track record without seeming desperate when I list zines and anthologies no one has ever heard of.  Semi-pro and lower-paying sales are for the benefit of the author, not really their career.  If you’ve not made any professional-rate sales (I hesitate to just call them “professional sales” lest I detract from the true value of the achievement of other sales), you’re not likely to impress a pro market with your backlist.  That doesn’t mean they won’t prefer a sale or two mentioned.  If someone gave you money for something you wrote, that suggests you are not totally incompetent.  So this is good.  However, a brief cover letter suggests confidence in the story itself.  It’s like the interviewee that won’t stop talking because he/she knows their resume isn’t up to snuff.  Here’s the story; I’ve sold to market XXX before; thanks for your consideration.  One low-end sale is as impressive as eight.  Mention your best and move on.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard to break into the market these days.  Writers of the Future has been a big help, but it was no magic key.  It merely showed me the door.  I still have to either convince someone on the other side to let me in or start trying to batter my way through.  There’s more than one “right way” to make it happen.  The only wrong way is to stop writing.

Fragment.

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve recently seen a fair amount of discussion regarding the role of proper grammar in literature, particularly science fiction.  As I’ve said numerous times here before, I am a fan of using the rules of grammar to one’s advantage.  That is not to say that grammatical rules should always be followed to the letter, nor is it to say that grammatical rules are to be ignored.  The key is to know when to use proper grammar and when not to.

One of my favorite grammatical violations is the use of the fragment.  A sentence fragment is a group of words that does not form a complete sentence or thought.  We are taught from elementary school that it is important to write in complete sentences.  But why?

Complete sentences serve to balance out thoughts, group ideas in equivalent chunks or at least interchangeably functional units.  However there are times in a story (and yes, this is pretty much restricted to narrative storytelling, fiction or non) that a word or idea is greater than those surrounding it and moreover needs to hold a specific location in the narrative.  How can you call attention to an idea?  True, there are a lot of ways, but I have a favorite.  Fragments.

Consider films (or books, television shows, whatever) with a precocious, taunting serial killer.  What does said killer do?  Leaves hints about the crime.  But our killer never leaves the hints out in the open.  He steals a relevant picture, leaving the empty frame.  Or leaves the victim’s arms pointing like hands of a clock for the time of their next murder.  Or plants their favorite cop’s fingerprint at the crime scene.  Whatever the point is that the psycho is trying to make, it’s left in a way that draws attention to itself. Subtlety is key for them, not for the writer.  If something needs to pop off the page, it needs to be obvious; reading it should feel different than reading everything else on the page.

This is a trick poets use all the ti.  Pull a word out of the rhythm or meter of the piece.  Dedicate an entire line to a single word.  A fragment is a story is a form of poetic license, a good and honorable thing to do.  Don’t let your English teacher tell you otherwise.

I’ve used several different types of fragments already in this post.  Some of my favorites were a couple paragraphs ago when I started sentences with the word “or.”  Did you notice?  Starting a sentence with a conjunction is a freshman English sin rivaled only by ending a sentence with a preposition (another thing I do, saved for another post). “Or” implies there was something else there to begin with, but starting with “or” makes it clear that there wasn’t.  Except there was.  There was a prior sentence.  A prior paragraph.  This I find more akin to ballet than poetry.  Picture a beautiful ballet with an intense section of low strings playing short, angry notes.  The dancer advances and stops when the music does, staring the audience down.  Then the music picks up again where it left off, just for a moment; the dancer moves again, advancing further, more in-your-face.  This may happen several times, building tension or what-have-you.  This is what starting with “or” does, carries the previous sentence more in-your-face.  Or makes it feel more stretched and hopeless.  Or more hopeful.  Or more energetic.  Or builds momentum.  Or tension.  Or antici…  Oh, you get the idea.  It prevents the release provided by the beginning of a new thought.

Fragments can also serve to make a narrative more natural and conversational.  Who uses complete sentences when they speak? Really?  All the time?  No one.  At least no one I’d want to talk to for long.  This may be the lower brow reasoning for a good fragment as opposed to the higher-brow poetic excuse, but it’s possibly even more relevant in today’s literature.  I don’t wan to read a dissertation, I want to read a story.  I want it to pull me in, make me think I’m the one thinking and doing these things.  I’m not restricted to rules of grammar in my head.  I think indigestible chunks.  One idea at a time.

Are there other reasons to use fragments?  Sure.  Dialects, interrupted thoughts, pondering.  There are as many reasons as there are writers, I suppose.  Maybe more.  They might be used in a blog post or essay to emphasize the uses of fragments.  That might be a little pretentious, though.

I confess, I was inspired to write this because there are people out there that believe there is nothing more damning to the credibility of a writer than bad grammar.  But the thing is, fragments aren’t bad grammar.  Nor are run-on sentences or ending on prepositions or comma splices or dialectical spelling or saying will instead of shall or dropping the commas between stacked adjectives or a hundred other things that my computer might underline in green.  These are choices a writer makes.  Conscious, intentional choices.  It’s up to the reader to figure out why.  Usually this is done subconsciously, simply absorbed in the reading of the story.  My goal is to make these points invisible to the reader (as opposed to the trained pigs that mistake grammatical irregularities for truffles).  Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s the story I wan seen, not the writing.  So if the fragment sticks out, don’t use it.  But when it comes down to storytelling versus grammar, my stories win out every time.  So there.

Another Zero Gravity Review

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Just a quick update before bed.  I have discovered that the blog Baryon Review reviewed Zero Gravity and had a sentence about my story “Leech Run”.  The implication is that the reviewer enjoyed the story; he explicitly says he liked the book.

My brief con report for ChattaCon will be up tomorrow or Tuesday.  I didn’t make any sales (that I know of), but I made some great contacts and new friends.  Check back for more details.

ChattaCon Choo Choo

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Here I am at ChattaCon.  Got here just early enough, nothing going on yet.  I’m sleeping in the building with “all the party rooms”, so sleeping may prove a relative term.  I’ll likely feel like an old man by Sunday.  Or by….now.  I’ll be sure to post some sort of Con report.  It’s a small Con.  I’m hoping it’s the nice-cozy-intimate kind of small (not that intimate) as opposed to the dull-boring-yocal kind of small.  We shall see.

Revelation: I can write!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

I can write.  There’s been evidence of this for a while, but it’s just dawned on me tonight.  I.  Can.  Write.

How did I reach this profound conclusion?  This requires a little backstory.  The culmination of the WotF workshop is the 24-hour story.  At some point during the week, you interview a stranger, receive an object, and research in a library all so you can combine these things into a story you start and finish writing in a 24 hour window.  I went through drafts and restarted and scratched and clawed until I had some sort of completed manuscript to turn in.  It was crap.  My characters were flat and cliche and there were loose ends and it was pulpy and I never wanted to see the thing again.

Anyway, “never” arrived today and I pulled this godawful manuscript up on the computer to read.  It was great.  I enjoyed the story in a did-I-really-write-that kind of way.  The woman’s manipulation escalated in a nice arc.  The main character’s internal conflict was not subtle but believable, especially since he was believably not-too-bright.  The antagonists were predictable in a good way, though maybe a little repetitive but that’s their shtick.  he tech was reasonable.  Descriptions seemed appropriate.

So I wrote a story I liked.  Lots of people write stories they like, does that mean they’re any good?  My revelation is in the fact that a story I forced out and thought was worthless may well be a marketable piece.  As in pro-market.  I intend to try it anyway.

A big thanks to Jordan who inspired me to pull the piece out.  (Sorry I wasn’t able to shave off the 1200 words I was hoping to for RGR.  Maybe I can grind something else out soon.)

I suspect this post seems a little egotistical or at the least self-indulgent.  It probably is.  But I felt like this moment was important to share for two reasons.  First, the secret to critiquing your own work is time.  The moment you finish a manuscript is not the time to look for flaws.  You’ll see none or you’ll see nothing but.    Set it aside and work on something else.  When you can barely recall what the story was about, that’s the time to read it.  You’ll see it more like a reader.  And second, and more importantly, a writer who can write well can do it under pressure, through writer’s block, underwater, against a deadline, or in any other case that might become an excuse.  If it types out like crap, you can fix it later.  I made a (large) number of fixes reading this story through, but I found the story in there and the fixes were so easy.  If I hadn’t finished, there would be nothing to fix and I’d likely scrap the whole story.  See, I told you there was a point.

In other news, I’m starting to fear I’ll miss ChattaCon.  Bad weather is moving in and I don’t do snow-driving.  Not a ton of snow so maybe it won’t be impassible; maybe the interstates and major highways will stay clear; maybe Chattanooga will be far enough south to miss it.  Maybe not.  We shall see.  I’m on two panels Saturday: Are zombies the new vampires? at 10 am and Getting off this rock, how and why @ 2 pm (presumably about space colonization).  Both should be good fun.  If I can get there.

Preditors and Editors

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

Not sure how well known the Preditors and Editors Reader’s Poll is.  It’s a small award whose prize is a lovely animated gif to post on your website.  This year’s poll (for last year’s stories) is open for voting through TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT (not sure which time zone).

Why do I mention this so late?  Mostly because it was just brought to my attention that “Leech Run” is on the poll for Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Story!  I didn’t put it there, but I’m thrilled.  Similarly, the anthology in which it ran, Zero Gravity, is also up for Best Anthology.  Very cool.

Anyone can vote and voters are selected at random to win prizes, too.  It’s probably tacky to tell you to go vote for me, so just go vote.  If it’s for me, so much the better.  🙂

Odd success and other Horrible things

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been going about this short story submission thing all wrong.  As it turns out, the only sale I’ve made in the past six months is one I withdrew (details to follow).  So maybe I just need to go pull all my stories out of slush so they’ll get bought.  Or perhaps I should take this anomaly for what it is and move on.

I am selling “Leech Run” to Escape Pod podcast/ezine as a reprint, my first reprint sale.  More excitingly, it’s my first audio sale!  It’s just as exciting as having “Poison Inside the Walls” illustrated.  Having another artist/performer interpret my work is very exciting to me.

The Escape Pod sale was not without hitches.  I won’t bore you with the details beyond the fact that the fine people at Pill Hill Press — the editors of the anthology Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space where “Leech Run” originally appeared — have been fantastic in their help to allow things to progress naturally.  (You should go buy Zero Gravity on Kindle.  Five bucks for thirteen awesome stories in deep space.  Or buy it in paperback.  Or special edition hard cover if it’s still available…but I think that was just through the end of 2010.  Or buy all three!)

This reprint sale has me wondering how many people would enjoy “Leech Run.”  Would it translate well?  There is money to be made in foreign sales, even for short fiction.  Other stories might also do well translated.  Or in audio.  “Excuse Me” would probably be better performed.  Maybe I could do an audio recording for this site?  It could be fun.  Surely I can find a student actor or two willing to read some lines.  Hmm… [sticks idea on shelf to revisit later]

Now on to my latest obsession: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!!  It’s a short film done by Joss Whedon (and family, it seems) starring Neil Patrick Harris as the eponymous villain-on-the-rise (was that Horrible or Howser?), Nathan Fillion as his heroic but egotistical nemesis Captain Hammer (or was that Reynolds?).  Funny, dark, and musical.  The cleverness and musicality of the songs hearkens to the South Park movie.  Afterall, NPH is a Broadway guy.  I love it in all its cheesiness.  I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on my iPod nonstop for two days.  If you have not seen this 42-minute marvel, find a way.  I’ll likely bring my copy to ChattaCon for a potential (small) viewing party/sing-along.  Consider the love shared.  If you too love it, I have done my duty.  If not, well, you may want to have your funny checked.  (You should do that every ten thousand miles anyway.)

When I get details regarding Escape Pod, I’ll let you know.  Until then, read Zero Gravity, watch Dr. Horrible, and eat Mezzetta Garlic-Stuffed Olives.

And I was just getting used to writing “2010”…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

It’s that time of year again…time for goal setting, promise making, and resolution vowing.  I have a few reso’s myself this time.  I think I usually do.  I don’t recall last year’s.  I suspect that means I didn’t keep them.  Anyway, here’s the list for 2011.

  1. Lose a pound a week. Sounds small enough until you do the math and see it leads to dropping 52 pounds.  And while my aim is to average a pound a week (don’t want to void a resolution by gaining a pound in late February or something), if I drop five in a week, I’ll still aim for one more the next.  I have plenty to lose.  Trust me, 52 pounds will still leave me well above my not-so-perfect target weight.  Like Kevin Spacey in “American Beauty”, I just want to look good naked…or have enough of a view to know how I look naked.  (There are supposedly feet down there, too.  Too much?  Let’s move on.)  The diet (Weight Watchers) starts Monday.
  2. Write 100 words every day. Paltry?  Yes.  Profound?  Definitely.  I’m installing a triple-count penalty for missed days; if I miss a day, I write 300 the next day — not just 200 — to compensate.  No building up ahead of time either.  If I write 2000 tomorrow, the next day I still need my 100.  I just need to get writing every day.  (I confess, I didn’t do it yesterday, so it’s 300 today…but I’ve not yet made it to bed to separate the days, so let’s move on.)
  3. Read a novel and two shorts each month. I’m a slow reader.  Now that I have my Kindle, though, I’ll be able to keep my stuff at my fingertips and make progress.  No reading = no writing…or at least poor writing.
  4. Exercise twice a week. I leave the definition of “exercise” vague because I’m not expecting miracles.  Beginner’s yoga, a walk, the elliptical, strenuous ping-pong…anything better than the walk-to-the-fridge routine I’ve been on.
  5. Get organized. I’m a scattered individual.  “Chaos Out of Chaos” is pretty descriptive of me.  I need to clean out my car, my classroom, all my closets, and redo my computer files…and that’s just January.  I need to start filing instead of piling and get papers graded in less than a week.

Five resolutions.  That’s a lot for a guy that has never followed through with one before.  I guess it’s like planting a lot of seeds hoping one or two might grow.

Space Opera

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

On the heels of my market list summary post, I get the fantastic news that the space opera zine Raygun Revival is back. Even better, my WotF vol. 25 pal, Jordan Lapp, is the one who brought it to my attention since his posse at Every Day Publishing is responsible for this resurrection.  They’ll be paying between one- and five-cents per word (Canadian, I suspect) for one story per week, 1k-4k words.

Ray Gun Revival (RGR) is an online magazine dedicated to fun stories, grand escapism, and good old sensawunda. RGR provides just that, a throwback publication that revisits space opera and golden age sci-fi. Their stories focus more on character development than hard science and sail all the wide-open waters between science fantasy and harder SF. Think of the original Star Wars stories, Doc Smith’s Lensman series, the Warlord of Mars tales from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Think of everything from John Carter and Gully Foyle to Kimball Kinnison and Han Solo. They are bringing out the deepest elements of what has traditionally been rather superficial fiction and updating them for a new generation of fiction enthusiasts.

I am rifling through some old stories to see if I have something I could send.  Most of my stuff is just too long.  I bet I have an abandoned draft or an undeveloped idea I can make work.  If not, maybe I can sequel “Leech Run” and see how Titan handles himself coming into port with a hold full of leeches on a crippled ship.  Fun to be had there.  Regardless, I’ll be sending something.  You should, too.

Tripping over my own feet

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Oops, I’ve let time get away from me without any new posts.  Part of that is the rush of all things distracting: school nears the semester’s end, Thanksgiving-related gluttony, Christmas-related shopping and decorating, doctor visits…all getting in the way of the normal flow of life.  Including writing.

I haven’t written much in a couple weeks I guess.  I had the urge to write bubble out of my head and into partial new stories a couple times in that span, both of which may turn into something.  But not a lick of real progress on anything.  Part of this can be blamed on one of my worst writer habits: waiting.

I have several stories out to markets that have taken longer than the median time to reply to (per Duotrope).  Some significantly more time.  But none beyond the query line.  (Okay one is, but it’s not so far over the median time, so I’ll give it a few more days.)  I spend way too much time actively thinking about these stories and their status.  Why?  Will thinking about it change the speed of reply?  Of course not.

It’s a bad procrastination.  I’ve run into a slow spot in my novel and my brain wants to focus on those finished items instead of doing the hard work.  Subbing is easy.  Even getting rejected is easy.  Writing is hard work.

I plan to put in some hard work tonight.  I need to get the ball rolling on a new part of the novel and it’s dreadfully painful to slog through, especially knowing I’ll likely cut it and/or rewrite it.  That should make it easier, shouldn’t it?

I’ve added Kevin J. Anderson’s blog to the Pro Writers blogroll.  He’s in the process of sharing advice for being a productive (and possibly profitable) writer.  I need that kind of push right now.