Which is harder to write, fact or fiction?
Sometimes, fact is easier because it involves less imagination. You don't have to worry about what the motivations of characters are or think up ten different scenes that reveal a motivation and then pick the one that works best.
But sometimes it's so much harder because you have to check all your facts and do a lot of research. Two paragraphs of text might represent two weeks of reading books and internet sites just to properly understand the topic or to double-check you've really understood the issue. And then there's the hard task of presenting sometimes really boring but necessary facts in an interesting way.
Fact can be hard.
So sometimes, moving into fiction is a lot easier. You don't have to do research, just make it up in your own head and write it down. But where is the structure? Writing loads doesn't mean it's worth reading. Two paragraphs might represent two weeks of re-editing three pages down into just those two paragraphs.
Then you can get to a point of conflict and have no idea how to proceed. Perhaps the hero's got a gun but can choose to side with the good guy or the bad guy. Now you wonder what your novel is really about. You spend days pacing up and down, soul-searching. What should the hero do?
Fiction can be hard.
What I've discovered is that writing of any type is a million times harder if you don't know what you're trying to say. So whether it's fact or fiction, know what you want to say in advance before you write.
Easier said than done, of course. And then there's the unexpected that appears, whether in fact or fiction. Writing is like that: you start off doing one thing but discover that to do it, you need to go down three other paths too.
Knowing what you want to say can help you decide which paths can be treated as small detours and which are the main routes you need to take.
But there's no getting away from it: writing can be hard.
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
Friday, 8 May 2015
The impact that wiped out the Slabosauruses
Given we've just had a General Election in the UK that produced two of the biggest shocks in our modern history, I thought I'd share a post from ScottiTics, the political blog I run. If you're unfamiliar with UK and Scottish politics, Scottish Labour is usually abbreviated SLAB or Slab. And as you can guess from the title, SLAB were almost completely wiped out, losing 40 of their 41 Scottish seats to the SNP. Like many in Scotland, I voted SNP.
A herd of Slabosauruses walk the land, unaware of the environmental change about to hit them. For months now, they've sensed something in the air. But their species can't conceptualise what it is. Then they notice one of the clouds in the sky is glowing yellow and somehow moving down towards the ground.
The members of the herd look at each other, uncertain of what it is.
But there is nothing they can do. They try to ignore it, to feed as normal but they sense something. It unsettles them and they begin to stampede, their jaws snapping in confusion at each other.
Then the long yellow cloud in the sky touches the ground and the whole earth shakes. The old landscape is destroyed and the air is filled with its debris. Members of the herd collapse, choking, unable to breathe. Darkness fills the sky and land that was once theirs descends in clumps around them. The largest one, the leader of the herd, snarls at the air; it tries to fight back. But it is hopeless and the sky falls upon him.
Eventually, the ground stops shaking and the sky begins to clear.
A lone Slabosaurus staggers through the land, its feeble brain unable to comprehend the destruction around it. It wonders where the rest of the herd has gone.
Then it sees a new feature in the landscape, like a giant nest dug into the ground. It doesn't understand that it is a crater, that the yellow cloud in the sky was an asteroid sent by a distant collision.
From the crater emerges a new herd, young and vibrant, keen to explore its territory.
The lone Slabosaurus steps slowly, quietly backwards to find shelter in the shadow on a once volcanic hill. Its brain doesn't know much but it understands enough. Without a herd, it can't survive.
From its hiding place, it watches the newcomers; they look strong and there are many of them. It doesn't know what happened but it understands: this is their land now.
A herd of Slabosauruses walk the land, unaware of the environmental change about to hit them. For months now, they've sensed something in the air. But their species can't conceptualise what it is. Then they notice one of the clouds in the sky is glowing yellow and somehow moving down towards the ground.
The members of the herd look at each other, uncertain of what it is.
But there is nothing they can do. They try to ignore it, to feed as normal but they sense something. It unsettles them and they begin to stampede, their jaws snapping in confusion at each other.
Then the long yellow cloud in the sky touches the ground and the whole earth shakes. The old landscape is destroyed and the air is filled with its debris. Members of the herd collapse, choking, unable to breathe. Darkness fills the sky and land that was once theirs descends in clumps around them. The largest one, the leader of the herd, snarls at the air; it tries to fight back. But it is hopeless and the sky falls upon him.
Eventually, the ground stops shaking and the sky begins to clear.
A lone Slabosaurus staggers through the land, its feeble brain unable to comprehend the destruction around it. It wonders where the rest of the herd has gone.
Then it sees a new feature in the landscape, like a giant nest dug into the ground. It doesn't understand that it is a crater, that the yellow cloud in the sky was an asteroid sent by a distant collision.
From the crater emerges a new herd, young and vibrant, keen to explore its territory.
The lone Slabosaurus steps slowly, quietly backwards to find shelter in the shadow on a once volcanic hill. Its brain doesn't know much but it understands enough. Without a herd, it can't survive.
From its hiding place, it watches the newcomers; they look strong and there are many of them. It doesn't know what happened but it understands: this is their land now.
Thursday, 7 May 2015
Early draft: counting the seconds
It's interesting to look back at early drafts of a finished work. A key part of the plot of The Record Count of Westminster, about a British Prime Minister who travels back in time to try to prevent the prostitute scandal that ruins him, is the role of the Private Secretary.
This character is called Stephen Montgomery and I note his name never changed at all from my first keyboard scribblings to the final published book. I wanted him to be someone who liked to tell stories - or, perhaps more accurately, to gossip - about the behind-the-scenes goings on in Westminster.
A part of that storytelling concept for this character was that he liked to time the discomfort a politician openly suffered when confronted with bad news. The politician's mask would fall and he'd time how long the look of panic stayed on their face before their political training kicked back in and they once again hid their true emotions.
Obviously Stephen couldn't bring out a stopwatch and time them, so he developed a skill of "silently counting the seconds" and, we discover, it's something he "took great pride in doing accurately." This key part of the plot is introduced in Chapter 1.
In my first few drafts, where I'm more concerned about putting down the overall plot structure (or skeletal framework) of the story, I left it as I had first written it:
You can purchase a copy of my short novel The Record Count of Westminster from Amazon. Click on the book cover below to be taken there. Remember: you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books - simply download the free software and read on the usual collection of electronic devices.
This character is called Stephen Montgomery and I note his name never changed at all from my first keyboard scribblings to the final published book. I wanted him to be someone who liked to tell stories - or, perhaps more accurately, to gossip - about the behind-the-scenes goings on in Westminster.
A part of that storytelling concept for this character was that he liked to time the discomfort a politician openly suffered when confronted with bad news. The politician's mask would fall and he'd time how long the look of panic stayed on their face before their political training kicked back in and they once again hid their true emotions.
Obviously Stephen couldn't bring out a stopwatch and time them, so he developed a skill of "silently counting the seconds" and, we discover, it's something he "took great pride in doing accurately." This key part of the plot is introduced in Chapter 1.
In my first few drafts, where I'm more concerned about putting down the overall plot structure (or skeletal framework) of the story, I left it as I had first written it:
The prime minister closed his eyes.
Stephen stood counting the seconds. One, two, three, four, five, six…
He opened them.
Stephen continued to count. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…
“Damn,” he said.
But once I'd got the rough plotting complete, I went back over the story to flesh it out properly and re-write it in a more engaging way. For a while, I was wedded to the idea of showing Stephen counting the seconds because I thought it forced the reader to count the seconds with Stephen, thus 'drawing you in' to the story and making you physically experience the same wait as Stephen.
However, I ditched that idea for three reasons:
- The story is always told from the point of view of the main character: the Prime Minister, Edward Marsh. We see inside his head and feel his emotions; every other character is purely revealed through their words and actions, never their inner thoughts. Having Stephen mentally count the seconds in this explicit way takes us inside Stephen's head, taking the focus away from the person the story is about: the Prime Minister.
- I wanted to show more of what the Prime Minister was thinking while Stephen was counting.
- You don't need a reader to experience real-time waits in order to convey the atmosphere and tension of what is happening to the characters.
The final version of that scene is around 300 words long. Its intent is to show just how much the Prime Minister dreads Stephen's skill now being turned on him. Here is the opening paragraph from that scene in Chapter 1:
The Prime Minister slowly sank backwards into his chair and closed his eyes. He knew Stephen would be silently counting the seconds; it was something he took great pride in doing accurately. His favourite boast was still Katrin Garcia’s record count. He’d informed her, “The PM is concerned your personal troubles have become a distraction and would like to discuss your options.” It had taken her a whole fourteen seconds to finally nod an acknowledgement. By the time she’d appeared in his office, she’d regained her composure and had taken her sudden resignation from the cabinet well. But within two days, thanks to Stephen’s storytelling, Katrin was left with no option but to humiliatingly announce her resignation from politics.I hope you agree that the final version has more power than my initial recording of the idea of the scene in that opening draft.
You can purchase a copy of my short novel The Record Count of Westminster from Amazon. Click on the book cover below to be taken there. Remember: you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books - simply download the free software and read on the usual collection of electronic devices.
Wednesday, 6 May 2015
How to change publication date on your Amazon self-published book
As I described in yesterday's post, learning Amazon's self-publishing system can lead to problems for you later - especially if you load a draft version of your book to the site and press the publish button to see how it looks.
You might think pressing the publish button on an unfinished book is silly but unless you advertise your book, no one will see it. So you can relax on that front. The reason to do it is to see how your book would look on Amazon. Then you simply hit the unpublish button to remove it. It really is that simple.
But the publication date stays with the book. So when you formally release your finished book, the publication date listed is from the time you were playing around with the system. This date can't be changed.
The workaround is to unpublish your book.
However, do not press publish again. All that happens is your book gets relisted with the same out-of-date publication date.
Once you've unpublished your book, rename it to Test Book or something similar. Then change the cover. Even if you'v paid an artist to draw you a stunning cover, get rid of it. Unfortunately, there's no 'Delete Cover' button. Instead, go into the cover creator and just pick any old cover at random, press preview then save it.
Now your book will be called Test Book and it'll be listed in your Bookshelf as unpublished.
Now click on the 'Add new title' button and re-load your book again, going through all the same steps you did previously. A bit of a pain, I know, but this is what you have to do. When that is complete and you hit publish, Amazon will see the book as a brand new title and will assign it a new publication date.
It's a pain to re-load your book but it will save you hours of pulling at your hair and writing to the Amazon help, begging them to change the publication date for you. Having done that, I can confirm that the method I describe above is by far the quickest way to change your publication date!
Unfortunately, you're now left with a 'dead' entry in your Bookshelf. You can't delete it from Amazon's system. However, only you will ever know that 'dead' book exists. So just ignore it.
However, it can come in handy when you want to test how your next book looks on Amazon. Just edit its details to reflect the new book and play around with it. When you're finished, just rename it back to Test Book.
Easy.
You might think pressing the publish button on an unfinished book is silly but unless you advertise your book, no one will see it. So you can relax on that front. The reason to do it is to see how your book would look on Amazon. Then you simply hit the unpublish button to remove it. It really is that simple.
But the publication date stays with the book. So when you formally release your finished book, the publication date listed is from the time you were playing around with the system. This date can't be changed.
The workaround is to unpublish your book.
However, do not press publish again. All that happens is your book gets relisted with the same out-of-date publication date.
Once you've unpublished your book, rename it to Test Book or something similar. Then change the cover. Even if you'v paid an artist to draw you a stunning cover, get rid of it. Unfortunately, there's no 'Delete Cover' button. Instead, go into the cover creator and just pick any old cover at random, press preview then save it.
Now your book will be called Test Book and it'll be listed in your Bookshelf as unpublished.
Now click on the 'Add new title' button and re-load your book again, going through all the same steps you did previously. A bit of a pain, I know, but this is what you have to do. When that is complete and you hit publish, Amazon will see the book as a brand new title and will assign it a new publication date.
It's a pain to re-load your book but it will save you hours of pulling at your hair and writing to the Amazon help, begging them to change the publication date for you. Having done that, I can confirm that the method I describe above is by far the quickest way to change your publication date!
Unfortunately, you're now left with a 'dead' entry in your Bookshelf. You can't delete it from Amazon's system. However, only you will ever know that 'dead' book exists. So just ignore it.
However, it can come in handy when you want to test how your next book looks on Amazon. Just edit its details to reflect the new book and play around with it. When you're finished, just rename it back to Test Book.
Easy.
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Caution required when testing Amazon's self-publishing system
Learning a new system can be a pain. You're bound to make mistakes first time round. I certainly did. But the biggest was over the publication date Amazon automatically assigns to your book. This date cannot be changed - but there is a workaround.
In truth, once you get used to it, Amazon's system is relatively straight forward. But it's getting used to it that's the key.
Once you upload your book, put in your description and so on, you then take the brave step of hitting the publish button. That button steals today's date and hammers it into your book's Amazon page forever.
But if you were only testing the system, trying to learn it, playing with it to see how it all works, including publishing your book even though it's not finished yet, then clicking the unpublish button when you're done, you'll be stuck with that publication date forever. Six months later, you upload your final final redraft only to find the publication date is six months out.
No matter how many times you unpublish and republish, your publication date will never change from that first time you hit publish.
So when testing the system, don't put in the real title of your book. Instead, put in a fake title like Test Book and then upload and publish your book as normal, including the cover with the real title on it. Then you can unpublish and republish that as often as you like.
Once you are happy with how it looks, click unpublish on your Test Book and then leave it alone until you want to play around with how your next book looks on Amazon. To publish your real book, add the book as a brand new entry by clicking the 'Add new title' button and go through the cover and book upload all over again. For book description and other fields, you can copy-n-paste from your Test Book to a text file on your computer and then in your real book entry, copy-n-paste from the text file back into those fields.
Here is how my Bookshelf looks, with my Test Book and my real book, The Record Count of Westminster.
Believe me, doing it this way will save you a lot of hassle later.
If you haven't done that and are stuck with the wrong publication date, then don't worry - there is a workaround. However, to keep this blog entry short, I'll explain that tomorrow.
In truth, once you get used to it, Amazon's system is relatively straight forward. But it's getting used to it that's the key.
Once you upload your book, put in your description and so on, you then take the brave step of hitting the publish button. That button steals today's date and hammers it into your book's Amazon page forever.
But if you were only testing the system, trying to learn it, playing with it to see how it all works, including publishing your book even though it's not finished yet, then clicking the unpublish button when you're done, you'll be stuck with that publication date forever. Six months later, you upload your final final redraft only to find the publication date is six months out.
No matter how many times you unpublish and republish, your publication date will never change from that first time you hit publish.
So when testing the system, don't put in the real title of your book. Instead, put in a fake title like Test Book and then upload and publish your book as normal, including the cover with the real title on it. Then you can unpublish and republish that as often as you like.
Once you are happy with how it looks, click unpublish on your Test Book and then leave it alone until you want to play around with how your next book looks on Amazon. To publish your real book, add the book as a brand new entry by clicking the 'Add new title' button and go through the cover and book upload all over again. For book description and other fields, you can copy-n-paste from your Test Book to a text file on your computer and then in your real book entry, copy-n-paste from the text file back into those fields.
Here is how my Bookshelf looks, with my Test Book and my real book, The Record Count of Westminster.
 |
| To my Test Book I added the subtitle: Not for publication - just testing the system |
Believe me, doing it this way will save you a lot of hassle later.
If you haven't done that and are stuck with the wrong publication date, then don't worry - there is a workaround. However, to keep this blog entry short, I'll explain that tomorrow.
Monday, 4 May 2015
My first SF book launched
After a lot of re-editing and fine tuning, I've finally published my first science-fiction book: The Record Count of Westminster.
It's a time-travel tale filled with a mix of power, politics, prostitution, religion and the obsessions of the media. Here is the back-of-the-book blurb:
Although there are no classifications for books in the same way there are for films, there is nothing in the book that you wouldn't find in some of the more challenging episodes of Star Trek. So it's a safe read but doesn't shrink for delving into some serious social issues.
The book is around 25,000 words along, equivalent to 60 page of A4. It is self-published via Amazon's Kindle publishing platform. Cover art is by Stuart Geddes:
Here is a section from near the start of the book to further whet your appetite:
The book is now available and you can read the opening chapter via its Amazon page. Hope you enjoy!
Cheers,
Greg.
It's a time-travel tale filled with a mix of power, politics, prostitution, religion and the obsessions of the media. Here is the back-of-the-book blurb:
In the year 2062, Edward Marsh’s career as UK Prime Minister is being destroyed by a prostitute scandal from his past. The media is relentless in its attack. But the Ministry of Defence has been experimenting with time travel and may offer a way out – but only if he has the courage to carry out one secretive, brutal change to history…
Although there are no classifications for books in the same way there are for films, there is nothing in the book that you wouldn't find in some of the more challenging episodes of Star Trek. So it's a safe read but doesn't shrink for delving into some serious social issues.
The book is around 25,000 words along, equivalent to 60 page of A4. It is self-published via Amazon's Kindle publishing platform. Cover art is by Stuart Geddes:
Here is a section from near the start of the book to further whet your appetite:
What did it matter that he’d used a prostitute in his twenties? Not every man on Earth could be a saint.
He picked up the voodoo doll again. It was tacky and cheap, a tiny little thing an ex-girlfriend had given him as a joke at university. But he’d kept it. It reminded him that there was no magic fix to life’s problems.
Rose Thompson had fathered him a son. That had been a shock. Worse, the son was useless, all tracksuits and tattoos. His thumb pressed hard against the voodoo doll’s black-cloth belly. How could he have been so stupid?
The book is now available and you can read the opening chapter via its Amazon page. Hope you enjoy!
Cheers,
Greg.
Saturday, 2 May 2015
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