Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--X is for eXtreme Writing (the ONLY way to write)

Improv says you have to “commit 100%.”

One of my rules of comedy is that you should, “take it as far as it will go. All the way up to the edge . . . and then push.”

And as I’ve told members of my critique group (please excuse the PG language), “Don’t do anything half-assed. It should be full-assed or nothing!”

I honestly mean that.  

What I’m talking about is extreme writing—and it’s the only way you should write.

I think if you look at any successful book, you’ll see the author didn’t hold back, didn’t do things by half. Whatever the author was doing, the author did it all the way. You might like it. You might hate it. But either way, you have to respect that whatever the writer’s vision was, that writer went for it.

Take Harry Potter as an example. That book isn’t just about a boy with magical powers who waves a wand and recites spells. There’s a whole magical world around him that’s rich with detail. Hogwarts has a history. Letters are delivered by owls. Food comes alive. Trees can attack you. Staircases move. Paintings talk. Ghosts roam the halls. J.K. Rowling didn’t do things by half. She took it all the way up to the edge and then pushed.

Or Gilbert Garfinkle from Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer,book one). I didn’t set out to write a series about just any geek; I set out to write a book the ultimate geek. Gilbert isn’t just a hacker; he’s the ultimate hacker. He’s not just a nerd fighter; he’s the ultimate nerd fighter. He’s not just a fan of Star Trek; he’s a fan of pretty much every form of geek or nerd culture. And I wasn’t going to give him a little problem. I gave him the ultimate teenage geek’s ultimate nightmare: getting stuck with a gorgeous vampire girl who wants to be his platonic BFF, literally forever!

Now that’s extreme writing.

You don’t have to write fantasy, science fiction or comedy for your writing to be extreme. You can commit 100% to writing a quiet book, too. Just don’t set out to make a quiet book with a few exciting scenes, or an exciting book with a few quiet scenes. Whatever choice you make, stick with it! Commit to it! Don’t waffle. Unless, of course, you’re all about waffling, in which case, I want to see you waffle like an IHOP! I want to see you waffle like no one has ever waffled before! I want you to be the King or Queen of Waffles!

Like many people, The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. I love it because the hero, Andy Dufresne, isn’t just ordinary—he is extremely ordinary. He isn’t just boring—he is extremely boring. He’s an accountant, for goodness sakes! His hobbies include playing chess and reading. How boring (in the eyes of most people, not a book addict like me) can you get? His favorite music is opera. Opera! Andy is as ordinary as a piece of coal, but here’s the thing about coal: under a great deal of pressure, a piece of coal can turn into a diamond. And that for me is the beauty of this movie. Andy Dufresne succeeds—not despite being extremely ordinary and boring—but because of it.  

And that, I think, is a metaphor for extreme writing. Take something that could be boring and ordinary, put it under the pressure of making it extreme, and watch it shine. 

It honestly doesn’t matter what you’re writing about. As long as you make it extreme, your story will be more compelling for it. 

What Every Writer Needs To Know

Do you ever experience writer’s block?

In his autobiographical book Rewrites, playwright Neil Simon explains that writer’s block isn’t when a writer has no idea what to write; it’s when a writer has plenty of ideas but doesn’t trust himself to choose the right one.

The main thing you need to know is that writing is about taking a leap of faith in your story--and yourself.

Detail from Toren the Teller's Flight, book two of Toren the Teller's Tale

Toren the Teller’s Tale is a fantasy novel about a magical storyteller and her struggle to accept the magic within herself. She has a hard time taking that leap of faith. It seems wrong. The world doesn’t approve. She loves her own magic, but trusting in it is scary, terrifying, in fact.

In a way, Toren’s story is the story of every writer. We all have fears. We all struggle to accept our own magic. But we have to accept it. We have to believe. Our stories need us; but, more importantly, our readers need our stories, although they might not know it yet.

In the following scene from chapter nine, Toren is attending a tellers’ gathering as a storyteller’s apprentice. What the others at the gathering don’t know is that she’s a girl disguised as a boy, and that her real master is a wizard who hired a storyteller to take her to the gathering so that she can learn about the magic of the storytellers.

~~~

“The first step to becoming a great teller,” one elder master said, “is to know your audience. You must know what they wear, eat, think and believe, how they live, how they die, and where their souls go when they slumber. Your story is a journey to a greater truth, and your listener will not join you on that journey if he doesn't see it as his journey. You must paint your story in such a way that the listener will see himself inside it.”

“So true, so true,” commented another. “A teller must study everything--from the smallest details of our mundane existences to our grandest hopes and fears.”

“Is that what a story is then?” one of the older apprentices asked. “A mirror showing the listener exactly what he is?”

A wave of laughter rippled through the hall.

“Of course not,” shouted a teller in the back. “That is the very last thing a story should be” He stepped closer to the platform so everyone could see and hear him. “Indeed, it must start with the listener, but it should take him far from his reality. In each person’s mind, he is the center of the world, for it begins and ends with his experiences, thoughts, and beliefs. The listener is the one and only hero of the story of his life. In his mind all other heroes and all other stories are insignificant. But in reality he is of no more importance than any other sorry soul of the millions who have lived or have yet to live. He is a drop in the endless ocean of existence, which carries us all where it will. Of course, you must never tell your listener that. If you do, he will throw you out on your ear. The only mirrors you should show him are those he sees in his dreams. You must say, ‘Look here you are in my story. The perfect hero, that’s you. You only need to close your eyes, and I will take you there.’”

A murmur of approval greeted his words. A few even applauded.

Giddy yawned. “Don’t you find this dull?” he asked me.

I raised a finger to my lips to tell him to be quiet. My real master’s words echoed in my mind. Pay close attention to everything the master tellers say, he ordered. You are here to learn about the magic of the telling. And so I did.

“Now, now,” countered the first elder master, “not all of our stories are dreams. Sometimes we lead our listeners through their nightmares and guide them safely through to the other side. Only two things remain constant: the listener is always the starting point and our goal is always the greater truth. The easiest stories to tell are the dreams or nightmares you and your listener share. Discover what you have in common, and from that common place of departure begin the grandest journey your soul will allow.”

“But what if you and your audience have nothing in common?” asked one of the apprentices. “What if you tell a story to a king, for example? Do you tell him a tale about royalty, even though you know nothing about life at court? It won’t ring true. And what about all the tales of princesses and daring knights? Surely, they’re not only for nobles. My master tells these tales to peasants all the time, and they love them.”

“Yes,” said another apprentice. “And what about made up stories, ones that deal with fantastic things that could never be true? Where’s the common starting point, and where’s the greater truth?”

The elder master said the answer to this question was obvious, and he turned it over to us. I hesitated at first, but when no one else spoke, I asked if I might be allowed to. He nodded.
“We all have common hopes and fears,” I said. Sol reminded me to raise my voice. I continued a bit louder. “From the lowliest peasant to the king, we dream of someone who will love us more than life itself. In her dreams, every maiden is a princess longing for love; in his dreams, every youth is the one who will win her heart. Even the king’s hopes and fears are as common as our own.”

“And what about fantastic tales?” the elder master asked.

“My master’s story was fantastic,” I replied. “And yet it’s true. A man wants a son to follow in his footsteps and may be blinded to a truth he doesn’t wish to see. A woman may know the truth and be afraid to speak it. And a child may suffer for not being what the world demands her to be.”

The elders smiled at my answer, but one of them shook his finger.

“Although what you say is true, young man,” he said, “I believe a story’s truth is even greater than that. One day you’ll see. You’ll think you are telling a story, but the truth of it will take over, and you’ll realize the thing you thought you created was always there--not in this place and time but somewhere in the infinite universe and as true as your own existence. We tellers are bridges from the past to the present, from the present to the future, from distant lands to here, and from here to everywhere.”

~~~

Realize there’s a journey your reader needs to make, and only you can take your reader there.

Embrace your own magic. Trust your story. Trust yourself.

Your story, your characters, and your readers are depending on you.

Response to a Traditionally Published Writer Regarding eBooks

Of course it differs from one writer to the next, and you certainly shouldn’t move to ePublishing only if you’re already traditionally published and earning a living from your traditionally published work. However, I have noticed there’s a reason why your ebooks aren’t selling as well as they could be, a reason that you’ve apparently overlooked and that can be easily remedied.

EPublishing is a great option for writers who haven’t been able to find a traditional publisher yet, as well as traditionally published writers whose books are out-of-print. For most of those who choose to epublish, the choice isn’t between self-publishing and traditionally publishing a particular book: it’s between self-publishing and not publishing that book at all.

It goes without saying that a game that allows anyone to play would have many players who don’t know what they’re doing, so of course the average self-published writer would earn less money than the average traditionally published writer. Traditional publishing has a vetting process that self-publishing doesn’t.

However, if you’ve been in this game as long as I have, you know the vetting process isn’t perfect. Christopher Moore—my favorite writer—supposedly sent out a hundred query letters to agents and received nothing but rejections. He only got an agent through a connection in show business. The writer of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Confederacy of Dunces committed suicide because he couldn’t get that book published while he was still alive. Great writers are looked over by agents and traditional publishers all the time. In fact, it’s the norm. And we’ve all seen terrible writers who have somehow managed to get their books traditionally published. (Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have your own reality TV show, like Snooki on Jersey Shore.) Luck plays a huge part in the traditional publishing game—more than talent, hard work, or anything else. In Self-publishing, however, luck only plays the smallest role. Success is determined by talent, writing the kind of book people want to read, marketing it well,  and learning from those who have successfully epubbed their own books, like Amanda Hocking, J.A. Konrath, and John Locke.

As for why you personally would have a 66% drop in earnings if you decided to only epublish your books, I checked out your books on Kindle and discovered that you’ve priced them out of the market. A book you sell on Kindle for $7.99 can also be bought on Amazon used in hardcover for $.01 plus $3.99 for shipping for a total of $4.00. It doesn’t take a genius to realize people aren’t going to pay twice as much for the Kindle edition as the hardcover. If you reprice your books on Kindle so that they’re less than $4.00 ($2.99 is the price recommended by both J.A. Konrath and Amazon), you should see a significant rise in your sale of books on Kindle. Keep in mind that you don’t earn a dime on the used copies of your physical books that Amazon is selling, but you could be making $2 for every Kindle edition priced at $2.99 that you've epublished yourself.