Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story

Jim Butcher is a writer I have a lot of respect for. Not only because I love his stories, but because time again he demonstrates a level of skill in his writing I can only aspire to. Thankfully, Mr. Butcher has been generous, penning many articles about the writing process and giving folks just starting out--or perhaps even well on their way!--many useful tips.

I'd like to talk a bit of about one of Mr. Butcher's articles, "Putting It All Together: How to get your story started," or "Organizing this frikin' mess."

Honestly, when I read this article I felt he was writing to me, this was just what I needed. So I thought I'd pass it along.

So, what are we waiting for? Let's write a story! Here's what we'll need:

1) A story question

2) A protagonist and antagonist

3) A turning point in the middle

4) A story climax

Sure, we need a lot of other things too, but this should help us get started.

1) The story question/The Story skeleton
 Jim Butcher writes:

The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

For instance, look at Storm Front. (Yes, I'll use my own books as examples, because I'm just that way. ;) Also, I'm more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.) Storm Front's story question:

****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?
****************************

Why does it seem so easy when he does it?

2) Protagonist and Antagonist
Jim Butcher writes:

Simply put, a story is a narrative description of a character (the protagonist/hero) struggling to attain an important goal. In general, the protagonist is opposed by another character (the antagonist/villain).

The protagonist sets out to achieve his goal and faces problems and opposition to his intentions along the way. His risk of loss increases as the narrative proceeds, and casts an element of doubt over whether or not the protagonist will attain his goal. Then, in a final confrontation of some sort (the climax), the protagonist either succeeds or fails, based upon his own choices and actions.

Jim Butcher gave an interview not long ago in which he spoke about how to build a villain, so I'm going to let you follow that link and not talk a whole lot about the antagonist. Kristen Lamb also has an excellent post about this: Spice Up Your Fiction–Simple Ways to Create Page-Turning Conflict.

3) The Great Swampy Middle: Turning point
Jim Butcher writes:

Here's the nutshell concept: Plan a great big freaking event for the end of the middle. You want it to be a big dramatic confrontation of whatever kind is appropriate to your genre. The fallout from your big bad Big Middle event should be what boots the book down the homestretch to reach the story's climax. Really lay out the fireworks. Hit the reader with everything you can. PLAN THE BIG MIDDLE EVENT. Then, as you work through the middle, WORK TO BUILD UP TO IT. Drop in the little hints, establish the proper props and motivations and such. Make sure that everything you do in the middle of the book is helping you build up to the BIG MIDDLE.

(I've used the Big Middle concept in EVERY book I've ever published. It works. It ain't broke. It ain't the only way to do the middle, either, but it's one way.)

I love Jim Butcher's name for the often amorphous middle part: The great swampy middle.

4) Story Climax
Jim Butcher writes:

A story climax is, in structure terms the ANSWER to the STORY QUESTION that we talked about earlier.

There, see how tidy that is? Simple! Again, not EASY, but simple!

For example, the overall Story Question of Lord of the Rings:

*************
When Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring of Power from his Uncle Bilbo, HE SETS OUT TO DESTROY IT before its evil can wreak havoc upon Middle Earth. BUT WILL HE SUCCEED when the Dark Lord Sauron and every scary evil thing on the planet set forth to take the ring and use it to turn the entire world into the bad parts of New Jersey?
*************

And the story climax of the Lord of the Rings:

******
Yep.
******

See? ANYBODY could have written Lord of the Rings!

.  .  .  .

Remember earlier, how we talked about ways to hook your readers and get them emotionally involved in the story? Well, if we've done that right, then when you reach story's end, they are INVESTED in its outcome. They want to SEE what happens, preferably as vividly as they possibly can. By the time you've reached the end of a story, a good writer has got their readers on the edge of their seats, at 3:30 in the morning, and the pages are tearing every time they turn because the reader is so excited.

You've made an implicit promise by getting your reader so bound up in the story. You've /got/ to deliver on it, or that reader is going to freaking /hate/ you for doing that to them. They are gonna go away from that ride all hot and bothered and frustrated as hell. That's what catharsis is: the release of all that tension and sympathetic emotion that the reader has built up because of the writer's skill at weaving the story. Done right, your readers will cheer and cry and laugh out loud and dance around their living room.

EVERYTHING YOU DID IN YOUR BOOK LEADS UP TO THIS. Deliver on the climax or die as a working writer. Simple as that.

Okay? Got it? Ready to write that story? Well then, what are you waiting for!

Oh, and if you want to read some of the best writing on writing--that just so happens to be free--head on over to Jim Butcher's livejournal. All the excerpts on this page are from http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/.

Tips For Writers From Richard Nash, Previously Of Soft Skull Press

Mexican Sugar Skull

Richard Eoin Nash writes about his time at Soft Skull Press:

The real work is in the day-to-day writing and connecting with people. So you're continuously putting out the poem, the short story, you're doing a reading in a series, you go to your writing group, you show up at a writers conference, you study with someone you admire, you go to workshop, you're blogging, you're critiquing, you're putting your ideas out there, that's the true work of writing. There's something profoundly wrong about the model of sitting in a room for three years writing a novel all by yourself. Successes that happened with that model happened in despite of the process, not because of it. That whole writer in the garret cliché came out the Industrial Revolution, and it created an absolutely alienated producer, the writer. I'm not saying all you should do is sit around and shmooze and not write your book. Not at all. I'm saying engage with others who are doing similar things, and if you do it right these people will advocate and be your ally in making better art that means something to you and your friends. And in fact, agents and publishers are more likely to find you if you are actively participating in your culture. If you do it for your own sake, it will make you a happier and more fulfilled writer.

 Amen!

Mr Nash talks about what he was looking for in both writing and writers when he was at the helm of Soft Skull Pres, so if you're thinking of submitting your work to a traditional publisher--and even if you're not!--it's worth a gander.

Read the interview here: How to Get Love From Independent Publishers and the Future of Books: Richard Nash & the Book Doctors

Here is Mr. Nash's impressive biography:

Richard Nash is an independent publishing entrepreneur -- VP of Community and Content of Small Demons, founder of Cursor, and Publisher of Red Lemonade. He ran the iconic indie Soft Skull Press and was awarded the AAP Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Books he edited and published landed on bestseller lists from the Boston Globe to the Singapore Straits-Times; the last book he edited there, Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys, was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Utne Reader named him one of Fifty Visionaries Changing Your World and Mashable.com picked him as the #1 Twitter User Changing the Shape of Publishing. Twitter: @R_Nash Website: http://www.rnash.com/

Cheers.

Photo credit: Tatooology

The End Comes For The Rock Bottom Remainders

Rock Bottom Remainders

After raising 2 million dollars for charity, the Rock Bottom Remainders are going their separate ways.

I'm saddened by this news, especially since it follows the death of the group's founder, publicist and lead singer Kathi Goldmark. But there is good news, the Rock Bottom Remainders are playing at least once more.

The group's "Past Our Bedtime Tour" (because real musicians don't get up early like writers do) will include a public performance June 22 at LA's El Rey Theatre, followed by a private show the next day for the American Library Association's Anaheim convention.

To read about the Rock Bottom Remainders and their final tour, click here: Rock Bottom Remainders saying goodbye to lit-rock.

It's sad when something ends and I always thought it was cool that Stephen King was in a rock band. And, yes, I know Mr. King cherishes a special hatred for the word "cool," but it fits so I'm using it.

Keep writing!

Photo credit: RockBottomRemainders.com

Audiobook Sales Up 33% From Last Year

Net Sales Revenue From Book Publishing Is Up

According to a recent article in gallycat, revenue from downloaded audiobooks has increased by a whopping 32.7% from last year (25 million vs 18.8 million). That's amazing, and excellent news for folks, such as myself, who love listening to stories.

Lately, I've been putting together a list of book bloggers who review self-published books, or who do author interviews with self published authors, and I've noticed a startling trend: increasing numbers of reviewers prefer submissions in audiobook format. Good news for authors who have made an audiobook version of their story and something that could give self published authors an edge.

But that isn't the only interesting statistic. Net sales revenue from ebook sales (283 M)  has surpassed that from adult hardcover sales (230 M)--although not from adult paperback sales (300 M), although adult paperback sales have gone down by 10.5 percent. But the largest decrease of all was in the category of sales revenue from mass market paperbacks; sales in this category have decreased by an amazing 20.8 percent.

For your viewing convenience, I've included the table from the original article, above.

To read the original article, head over to galleycat.com and read eBook Revenues Top Hardcover.

Thanks to Passive Guy for writing about this (eBook Reviews Top Hardcover).

Amazon's KDP Select: Another Author Shares Her Experience

P.J. Sharon writes:

I’ve come to the end of my ninety days of exclusivity with Amazon’s KDP Select program. That means that I’m now able to upload and distribute SAVAGE CINDERELLA on other sales channels, such as B&N,  Smashwords, and coming soon, Kobo. I thought I would give you my final analysis on my experience.

PROS:

1)      All sales on one distribution channel. Easier accounting and focused marketing plan.

2)      Cross promotion opportunities with other KDP Select participants.

3)      Five days to offer the book FREE in an effort to gain exposure and readership.

4)      Participation in the Prime Lending program (approximately $2 per borrow).

CONS:

1)      Narrows your readership to Kindle owners, and may alienate Nook or I-pad owners.

2)      Contributes to Amazon’s attempt to monopolize the e-reader market.

3)      Unable to post excerpts for advertising purposes.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the outcome of my KDP Select experience. I’m not sure if I will do it again, only because I think it’s generally bad for the publishing industry for any one entity to have exclusive rights to our work, but I can’t deny the short term benefits are very enticing.

Read the rest here: The End of Select

Although it seems P.J. won't be re-enrolling in Amazon's KDP Select anytime soon, I'd say her experience makes the program seem attractive.

The problem is it's devilishly hard to decide if a book would have done better if it hadn't been placed in the KDP Select program. From what I've seen, when authors report their sales, generally over 60% come through Amazon.

Are Amazon's promotional efforts worth losing up to 40 percent of your sales? I don't know. I'm very interested to read what authors say about their sales (thanks P.J.!) after the changes Amazon made to its all-important ranking algorithm.

Stay tuned and keep writing!

Authors File Class Action Lawsuit Against PublishAmerica

Finally! PublishAmerica has been scamming authors out of their hard earned dollars for too many years. If you haven't heard about the shenanigans of PublishAmerica, take a gander at what Writer Beware has to say.

The Great PublishAmerica Hoax:

Writer Beware has received scores of complaints over the years about PublishAmerica, and hundreds more can be found online. The company has been the subject of at least one successful arbitration proceeding, resulting in a substantial award for a PA author.

On June 11, 2012, a class action complaint against PublishAmerica was filed in US District Court in Maryland, in the name of three plaintiffs. See Writer Beware’s blog for more.

This information is current as of the update date at the top of the page. Writer Beware receives complaints, advisories, reports, and/or questions about PublishAmerica at least monthly.

My advice: Don't even think about sending your work to PublishingAmerica. Few things in life are guaranteed, but if you send your work to PublishAmerica you're sending it into painful obscurity.

Here's part of the introduction to the complaint in the class action lawsuit:

Like plaintiffs, thousands of other aspiring authors who signed up with PublishAmerica have become demoralized because the publishing contract appears to be little more than a pretext for selling dubious services...These authors also feel trapped because PublishAmerica owns the rights to their books for seven to ten years. This presents a Hobson's choice for the authors: either throw good money after bad for suspect promotional services or abandon the book that was a labor of love.

Read the rest here: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against PublishAmerica.

Writer Beware will keep on top of this issue, and I'll provide updates as I receive them.

4 iPad Apps For Writers

The following is from writerswin.com:

There’s a writer in all of us, or so the saying goes, and in this day and age of modern technology and mobile computing, more people are considering this true. People update blogs from their smartphones while commuting to work on the train, and use their tablets to continue the next great American novel in every location from home to coffee shops to church on Sunday.

Since its inception and wide availability, writers of all kinds have embraced the Apple iPad. It’s smaller and lighter than a laptop and as conveniently portable as anything on the market today. Here’s a look at some of the top writing apps for the iPad, each designed to help you be the best writer possible…

Read more here: 4 of the Best iPad Apps for Writers

The iPad apps in question are: Pages, My Writing Spot, Chapters--Notebooks for Writing, Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus.

I have Pages on my iPad and I use it constantly. Great app. The other ones I've never used, but I'm tempted by the dictionary app.

Hope you find something to make your writing life easier. Cheers.

Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester

Kobo Writing Life

Jen Talty from Cool Gus Publishing talks about her experience with Kobo's new publishing portal, Writing Life. She writes:

I got the email on Friday after BEA giving me access to the beta test of the new Kobo Portal. I had a book from an author to load, so I immediately said why not try it this way. The portal was very easy to use. I simply added my information and hit publish. It’s very much like some of the other dashboards, but it has a few neat things that I can access, like sales trends. I can also access hourly sales numbers. Something I couldn’t do before.

There are 4 basic pages with information that needs to be filled out for your eBook. It took me 10 minutes to load the first book and it appeared in the bookstore less than a day later. I made a mistake in one of the books that I loaded and the change, after I fixed it, took only about an hour. So far, I have loaded two books via the new portal:  A Compromising Situation and a Dangerous Compromise by Shannon Donnelly. Check them out! I will be loading her third in the series when I’m done with this blog post.

There are a few things I’d like to see changed in the portal. There needs to be more category choices. For example, when loading one of my books the option for “Romantic Suspense” is not an option. There are actually only four options under Romance. This needs to be change. They do, however, let you choose 3 categories. I believe that is a good number. 3-5 is perfect. But just as a small piece of advice, if you book only fits in 3 categories on B&N where you get 5, don’t just go pick 2 more because you can. That will upset readers. And Readers Rule.

Writing Life is a work in progress, but I really do believe that once more authors are on there we will all see a spike in sales.

Read the rest of her excellent article over at Bob Meyer's Blog: Kobo’s Writing Life: The Long Awaited Self-Publishing Portal

Related reading:
- Writing Life: Kobo's New Platform For Self Publishers
- More On Writing Life, Kobo's New Self Publishing Platform

Conflict Creation: The Needs Of Your Characters

A Character's Needs

Every character has needs, otherwise they'd be about as interesting as drying paint. So, here are a few points about needs:

1. The bigger and more urgent the need the better
Reading about someone who is slightly thirsty has zero drama, but reading about someone who is on the verge of dying from thirst gives a scene more immediacy. Be sure the solution to the character's problem, the thing that will erase his need, is both clearly described and difficult to attain.

2. Have your character's needs conflict
Let's say that our character--let's call him Joe--needs to drink water in the next hour or he'll die. He knows there's an oasis over the next hill, if he can only reach it before he collapses he'll be okay.

In this scenario we could throw all sorts of obstacles at our character--he trips and twists his ankle, a poisonous snake pops up out of the ground in front of him, and so on--but after a snake or two pops up to bar his way, what next?

How about giving our character a conflicting need? On his way to the oasis--Joe can see it now, shimmering in the air--he meets a damsel tied to a bomb. Joe can defuse the bomb but that will mean he won't be able to get the water he needs to stay alive.

I've provided a hackneyed example, but you get the idea.

3. Give your character different KINDS of needs
Last year I had the pleasure of hearing Michael Hauge speak; if you ever get the chance I highly recommend it. He talked about inner and outer needs. I'm calling them needs but we could also talk about motives or goals. Whatever it is that gets the character out of bed in the morning and doing something, preferably something interesting.

In our example, Joe has obvious outer needs: don't die of thirst, get water, diffuse the bomb. But what about his inner needs? Here's where things can get tricky because it works out best if (see 2, above) the inner need conflicts with Joe's most pressing outer need.

Perhaps Joe falls in love with our conveniently placed damsel. The problem: if he frees her he'll die of thirst and won't be able to enjoy her love or appreciation. Now we have a situation fraught with tension. This particular example is silly of course, but you get the idea.

Thanks for reading! And remember, keep writing.

Cheers.

Books on writing I recommend.

Recommended Reading:
- Call For Authors: Write a DEAD MAN Novel
- Indie vs. Traditional Publishing, Which Should You Choose?

Photo credit: Peak Oil Blues

Indie vs. Traditional Publishing, Which Should You Choose?

In today's business world writers have more choice than ever but sometimes that makes life harder rather than easier. Today writers can choose whether to self publish or submit their work to a traditional publisher. Sometimes the right choice is to self publish and sometimes it isn't, so how do you decide?

In her weekly article on the business of writing, Kris Rusch talks about this choice.

Indie publishing: Hurry up and wait

With indie publishing you write your stories, get them out to the world, and then wait for the book to be downloaded, read, reviewed and, ultimately, earn money so you can continue to write (and eat!).

The thing is, with indie publishing, it can be a long wait. Kris writes:

Sometimes you don’t even have your first sale for weeks, maybe months. The cash doesn’t roll. You panic. You stop your current project and do “promotion,” contacting all the book bloggers you know. You annoy your followers on Twitter by mentioning your book’s title every other Tweet. You look at the real-time sales numbers (or lack of them) over and over again.

You’re waiting for the book to “catch on,” for “lightning to strike,” for “miracles to happen.”

And if you’re smart, you’re also writing your next book. More on that a little later.

But really, what you’re waiting for is time to pass. Five sales per month over 120 months will make you quite a bit of money. Only it won’t seem that way at first.

The indie writer, particularly the indie writer with very few books published, has to be patient. The readership—and the income—will grow exponentially if the writer continues to produce work. One day, the indie writer will wake up and realize she’s making $1,000 per month on a single title, and that amount spread out over a year is more than she would have gotten as an advance for a first novel. (Most first novel advances in all genres are under $10,000.)

The thing is, if she earns $12,000 one year, nothing will stop her from earning the same or possibly more the next year, and the next, and the next.

The indie author must be patient, but if she’s a good storyteller (and her book has a decent cover and is copy edited, and if she keeps writing and publishing new material), she’ll make a living wage over time. In fact, over time, she’ll sell as many or more copies of that book than she would as a first-time novelist who is traditionally published.

The key phrase, though, is over time. Years, in fact.

Traditional Publishing: Wait and hurry up

With a traditionally published book you can wait for years while you query agents and/or editors but if your book is accepted it could have the benefit of the kind of support it would be next to impossible to generate yourself. Interviews for instance, and book reviews. I've been collecting the names of book review blogs that accept queries from independent authors and, let me tell you, there aren't a lot of them.

Kris' Advice:

Only you can know what kind of writer you are, what you want, and what you can live with.

And, of course, all publishing is not equal. Traditional publishing has long-term contracts. Indie publishing has agreements with distributors that can be canceled with the click of a mouse.

All publishing isn’t the same within one publishing house. One fantasy series writer might make millions on his series; another (with the same cover artist, editor, and sales department) might make thousands on her series.

All publishing isn’t even equal inside one writer’s career. I have books that sell really well and books I can’t give away. I’m the same writer. But readers have different reactions to different books.

So the key is to give readers what they want. What do they want? Good stories. And the readers will differ as to which of your stories are “good.” So give the readers a lot of stories to choose from.

That’s what traditional publishers do. That’s why they release a new set of books every month. Because they’re giving the readers a choice all the time. You have to do that too, no matter how you publish the books.

What you decide to do, how you decide to make your books available to readers, is truly your decision. If you go traditional, make sure you have an IP attorney vet your contract so you know what you’re signing. Be prepared to wait before seeing your book on the shelf.

If you go indie, spend some money to get that book in fighting shape before launching it at those bookstores. And be prepared to wait before seeing sales of your book.

Neither decision is right or wrong. It’s only right for you.

I agree 100%. These days the choice between publishing independently and publishing traditionally is made on a project by project basis. The days of having to commit to one way of doing things is, happily, behind us. Hopefully something Kris said makes it easier to choose whether to go indie with it.

Keep writing!

Related Reading:
- 5 Points To Ponder Before You Self Publish

Photo Credit: Mysteries and My Musings