Creating The Perfect Murderer

I've always wanted to write a murder mystery. I read them all the time but I've never written one. I'm hoping to change that.

Over the next few days and weeks I'm going to publish a series of posts (not all at once, though!) about writing a murder mystery. I think that in order to really truly learn a subject one must teach it--I know that sounds strange, paradoxical even--but I think it's true.

In what follows I make certain broad statements, please take these with a grain of salt. I'm talking about the kind of murder mystery I'm interested in writing, which is also the kind I usually watch. If something I say doesn't seem right to you, please ignore it. Better yet, talk to me about it in the comments! :)

The bare bones of a murder mystery

Although there are a number of variations, this is the bare bones of a murder mystery: the murderer/villain kills someone. The murderer is then pursued by the hero/sleuth who will, before the end of the story, solve the mystery and bring the murderer to justice.

Secondary arc

In a murder mystery there is generally a main arc--the story of the hero solving the mystery and bringing the murderer to justice--and a secondary arc.

The secondary arc is often a story that has some intrinsic interest and that is interwoven with the main plot. For instance, in Scott Turow's excellent murder mystery Presumed Innocent, the murder investigation happens against the backdrop of an election for County PA.

The secondary arc often poses a problem for the hero, the solution of which he uses to ultimately solve his primary problem: how to bring the murderer to justice. For instance, this sometimes happens on the TV show Castle; the solution to the secondary arc/dilemma has to do with his family and it will provide the solution to the problem of the main arc.

Setting

The secondary arc is often tightly related to the setting. For instance, I mentioned Castle. In that show the secondary arc almost always involves Castle's interactions with his mother and daughter and much of that show takes place in his penthouse apartment where they live.

The key: Create a place where dramatic things are happening besides the mystery.

Main Arc

The story's main arc will be about a sleuth investigating and solving a murder and, ultimately, bringing the culprit to justice.

The first thing we need to do is figure out who our murderer is.

Why the murderer and not the sleuth? Because the murderer is the one who plans and executes the crime. A murder mystery is really all about the murderer, about why he/she committed the crime and about his/her identity.

Meeting the murderer

What is the murderer's ruling passion? What does he/she love? Everyone loves something above all else--often ourselves! What does our murderer love enough to kill for?

Let's make something up.

Chances are our murderer has killed more than once. The murderer could have committed the first murder for plausibly noble reasons; for example, to protect someone he cares about.

In Columbo, 'A Deadly State of Mind,' a psychiatrist kills his lover's husband while defending her from him. It was self-defense but the killer doesn't think the police will believe them so they make it look like the husband was killed by a burglar. When Columbo sees through that story the psychiatrist kills again, this time murdering his lover in cold blood in a vain attempt to cover his involvement in the crime and pin everything on her.

Motivation: self-interest

The main point is that the murderer acts out of his/her own self-interest. In the example, above, perhaps the first killing was done for someone else, but the second was cold and calculated.

The murderer doesn't appear evil

The murderer will not seem evil to those around him. Perhaps he will appear to be a good family man/woman, a member of the PTA, a respected business person, someone liked and looked up to by those around him.

Or not. Perhaps, as in Presumed Innocent, the murderer will be someone quiet, subdued, controlled. Still, though, they are generally the last person one would suspect.

The murderer will appear clever and resourceful

The murderer must appear clever and resourceful. After all, if the murderer isn't clever and resourceful then it's not going to be much of a mystery. The antagonist/villain/murderer has to seem to be at least as clever and resourceful as our sleuth.

Deep psychological wound

The murderer (this will be true of the hero as well) will have a deep psychological wound. For instance, perhaps the murderer has a deep fear of being alone, of being friendless, shunned. They would do anything to be popular. They are rabid for approval.

This point ties into the next one which is that ...

The murderer must be extreme

For instance, the deep psychological wound must be severe and potentially debilitating. This will help explain why he murders, his deep inner motivation.

Characteristics: Physical, mental, social

- Is the murderer male? Female?
- Tall? Thin?
- In good physical condition?
- Does he have physical injuries? Scars?
- What color is his hair?
- How old is he?
- What kind of a childhood did he have? Who raised him? What did his parents do for a living?
- Did he like school? What kind of grades did he get? Did he finish high school? Did he finish college?
- How does the murderer currently earn money?
- Does he have a violent temper?
- Does he find it easy to make romantic connections?
- What does the murderer find easy? There is one thing he is exceptionally good at. What is it?

That's a partial list. There are many wonderful character sheets on the Internet that can help with character development.

I will pick up this topic again and, next time, we'll talk about our sleuth/hero and start developing that character.

Happy writing!

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For the past few days I've been reading through notes I made at (it looks like) a workshop on how to write mystery stories. Unfortunately I didn't write down where it was, when it was, and so on, but I'm going to share them with you anyway because they're too good/helpful not to.

Question: What do you think is the most important characteristic for a murderer/antagonist to have?

Other articles you might like:

- 25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes
- 4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story
- 3 Steps To Better Prose

Photo credit: "Untitled" by Mark Wooten under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes

Folks, this is the best post on writing sex scenes I've ever read: 25 Humpalicious Steps for Writing Your First Sex Scene, By Delilah S. Dawson (Author Of Wicked As She Wants).

As you might imagine from the title--"Humpalicious" was a dead give away--this post comes from the incomparable blog of Chuck Wendig.

Here are my favorite bits of advice:

4. Write the scene in one sitting

Just as with sex, it doesn't improve if you stop in the middle to go grocery shopping.

5. Don't self-edit

Don't re-read what you've written, don't look back. Delilah writes:

Do not look back while you’re writing it or think about how wretched it [the scene] is. Of course it’s wretched. It’s the literary equivalent of virgin sex.

6. Keep the same point of view

[W]riting sex is far more fluid ... if you limit yourself to one character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Not only does this help the reader keep track of pronouns and hands, but can you imagine having sex if you had to hear every single thought the other person was having?

7. Read how other writers have written sex scenes

Yesterday I wrote about how to improve one's prose. That exercise would work here. Find a book that contains sexy scenes you think are well done. Pick one of them and copy it out--or at least two pages of it. Then, try to write a few paragraphs in the same voice, using the same setting.

Do this with, say, three of the scenes and then move on to another book.

Conveniently, most romance novels have (at least) three sex scenes. Delilah writes:

Most romance novels have a kissing or make-out scene that surprises both characters early on; one very detailed “first sex” scene somewhere between halfway and three-quarters of the way through; and then at least one other, “Oh, okay, we’re good at this; let’s hump HARDER scene” closer to the end. Your mileage/sexytimes meter may vary. But keep writing until it’s done.

Identify the book's three core 'sexy scenes', write each of them out, then try and match the author's voice.

14. Have a sequel after the sex scene

Jim Butcher has written an excellent post on sequels. Sex scenes are action scenes, so they need to be followed by a sequel. Delilah writes:

Your story needs a lull, an afterglow, a reaction to the sex just as honest as people have in real life. It doesn’t have to be all cupcakes and rainbows—maybe he storms off, maybe she runs for the shower, maybe they tell Muppet jokes while he offers her a Clorox wipe. But what happens immediately following the sex can be just as important as the sex. It may seem like a small thing, but falling asleep in a lover’s arms (or not) for the first time can be a big deal. Especially if he’s the kind of guy who has a hook for a hand.

15. Sex complicates relationships

After sex, the characters will glance away, avoid eye contact, doubt themselves, doubt each other, maybe rethink their involvement. Chances are, one of them feels more secure than the other. At the very least, even if they’re both happy, something in your story must push them apart, or they would just spend three months in bed, humping like rabbits.

19. Get the details right

"Have a clear idea what the characters are wearing before they start to get undressed" and then remove it in a sexy fashion.

So, um, NOT like real life.

21. Make the sex count

Delilah writes:

[Your sex scene] should move the story forward and somehow affect the characters emotionally. Maybe the hero learns to open up, maybe the heroine decides she wants to be more aggressive in her real life, maybe they’re just having what they think is a last fling before a giant orc battle. But it has to mean something, or else it’s just porn.

22. Get a second opinion

You need this. It's next to impossible to be objective about your own work and when it comes to writing good sex its doubly important--triply important--to get objective feedback you can trust. Did they think the scene was sexy?

23. Let it go.

This is true for any story, after you've done your best, after you've edited, given it to beta-readers--whatever your process is--let it go.

Dean Wesley Smith has written a lot about this, especially lately. Do the work send it out, let it go, and turn to the next project.

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By the way, at first I was convinced that Chuck Wendig and Delilah Dawson were one and the same person because their writing styles are similar but then I looked at Delilah's site, did a Google search (or two), and came across this picture of Chuck sitting beside Delilah. Here's the post: a kick in the inspiration bone: Crossroads Writers Conference.

Click to enlarge

Other articles you might like:

- 4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story
- How To Create A Press Kit
- Book Design: What NOT To Do

Photo link: "Dancing With The Storms" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story

At first I was going to call this post, "How to establish character identification," but that sounds about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Why do we want our readers to identify with our characters? For me it's because I want them to hang on every word the way kids around a campfire breathlessly listen to a well-told ghost story.

We establish that kind of dramatic tension by crafting characters readers care about.

Why do we keep turning the pages at 3 am when we've got an early meeting? Because we have to know what happened. Why do we care? Because we care what happens to the characters.

How To Establish Character Identification

1. Sympathy

As writers, we need to connect the reader's emotions to the story and one way to do this is to get them to sympathize with, to feel sorry for, a character.

How do we do this? Show your character experiencing a loss, a setback. An undeserved loss works especially well. For instance, a character might lose his job because of something that wasn't his fault. His wife might die in a car accident while she was shopping for his birthday present.

2. Empathy

When a reader feels empathy for a character she feels the emotions that character feels.

Here's the key. Over and over I've heard writers say: If you feel the emotion when you're writing the scene, the reader will feel it.

When writing these scenes:
- show don't tell
- use sensory detail from at least two senses.

3. Similarity of goals

Fundamentally, we all want the same sorts of things. I'm not talking about low level goals like cream for your coffee and no traffic on the way to work--though that would be awesome! I mean high level goals like the desire to be treated fairly and with respect.

If a character is denied one of these fundamental goals--some would call them fundamental rights--that's something a reader can identify with.

4. Inner conflict

Inner conflict occurs when a character has competing desires.

For instance, lets say that our hero is a upstanding lawman whose job is to catch the villain. Further, let's say you've done a glorious job illustrating how totally despicable the villain is.

Our hero is in love with Martha, someone who is as good as the villain is despicable. Or so he thinks. It turns out Martha is the villain. Perhaps the hero finds something, some clue, and everything falls together as he looks at it. Martha is in the room, she watches the play of emotions across our hero's face as everything comes together. The hero looks at Martha, the realization of her guilt in his eyes.

Or something. If that sort of scene is done right the play of conflicting desires will ooze with dramatic tension and the reader will be caught up in your fictional world/web.

Also, notice that not only does the hero achieve his goal--he discovers the identity of the villain--but we learn something about him. Is the hero the kind of person to let the villain go because he loves Martha? Or, like Sam Spade, will he refuse to "play the sap" for anybody? Either way, his character is revealed through his choice.

(Also see: How To Get Your Readers To Identify With Your Main Character for a slightly different take on this issue.)

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Yesterday I mentioned that I've been going through boxes of my old notes and found some great material, that's were this came from as well.

Question: How do you get readers to identify with your characters? 

Other articles you might like:

- 3 Steps To Better Prose
- Book Design: What NOT To Do
- Cliffhangers

Photo link: "Wet Lorikeet" by aussiegall under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

3 Steps To Better Prose

How To Improve Your Prose In Three Months

A few years ago I attended a writing conference at which one of the lecturers made the following claim: If you follow these simple steps you'll markedly improve your prose writing in under three months.

At the time I thought it was too simple to work--just do these few steps every day and in 3 months (give or take) I'd be a better writer. Yeah. Right.

At the time I took the lecture I was skeptical, but now I'm not so sure. I think I might try this.

1. Go through your bookshelves and select a book that you think has terrific prose.

2. Select three pages of the book and copy them, word for word. 

This is only for your own edification so you can delete the pages after you're done. It is the act of typing/writing the words that is important.

Copying out the words will give you a feel for the writer's timing, their rhythm.

3. Write a few paragraphs that imitate the prose you've just copied.

For instance, if the text you chose to copy was a love scene, then you write a love scene. The setting you choose for your scene should be similar to the setting in the text you just copied.

Do this for three or four days picking 3 (or so) pages from different parts of the book. Then pick another book and do the same thing with that one.

After 3 or 4 months of this you will find it easier to write in your own voice and your prose will have improved.

#  #  #

The above is based on notes I took at a writing conference but unfortunately I didn't mark down the name of the conference or when I attended it, but it must have been some time ago. I hate not being able to give a reference but this information seemed too valuable not to share.

Question: Do you have any writing exercises you'd like to share?

Other articles you might like: 

- Book Design: What NOT To Do
- Cliffhangers
- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words

Photo link: "Leap Day" by garlandcannon under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Book Design: What NOT To Do

Jane Friedman recently asked book design guru Joel Friedlander to talk about the dos and don'ts of book design: How Much Attention Should You Pay to Book Design? A Q&A With Joel Friedlander.

The most common mistakes in interior book design:

1. Not using full justification for their text, so that both the right and left margin square up and create a rectangle on the page

2. Not hyphenating the text, resulting in gaps and spaces on the page

3. Putting the odd-numbered pages on the left, when they should always be on the right

4. Leaving running heads on display pages like part or chapter openers

5. Margins that are either too small to allow the reader to easily hold the book, or that don’t take the printing and binding of the book into account

6. Publishing a book with no copyright page

How much should an author expect to pay an interior book designer? 

 

Joel writes:

For novels and other lightly formatted books, you can expect to pay between $200 and $1,500 for interior design. At the low end you’re likely to get a “template” design. At the higher end, expect to receive several custom designs prepared expressly for your book. You’ll also want the designer to take responsibility for producing the reproduction files for your printer, and make sure there’s an allowance for “author’s alterations,” because I’ve never seen a book yet that went all the way from manuscript to press without at least some changes being made.

Joel mentions that for cover designs the range is between $200 and $3,500.

Professional design can make all the difference, when folks are browsing the cover is all they see. I know I've started reading many books because of their stunning covers.

You can read more of Joel Friedlander's design tips on his site The Book Designer.

Question: Do you have a cover design, or interior design, tip to share?

Other articles you might like:

- Cliffhangers
- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words
- Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go

Photo credit: "paesaggio3" by francesco sgroi under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Cliffhangers

Today I'd like to talk about Cliffhangers.

I've been reading Dean Wesley Smith's mini-series about ghost writing a 70,000 word novel in 10 days. (And he's doing it! It's day 9 and he has less than 8,000 words to go.)

One thing Dean has talked about are cliffhangers. He doesn't outline--he's not saying writers shouldn't, just that it's not his style--but he does try and end chapters on cliffhangers.

That got me wondering, What exactly is a cliffhanger and what different kinds are there?

What Is A Cliffhanger?

Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma. (Cliffhanger, Wikipedia)

TVTropes.org (a great but addictive website) adds that the cliffhanger can involve "some or all of the main characters" (Cliffhangers).

Basically, a cliffhanger is when a character your audience cares about is put in jeopardy and left there. At least for a short time. Perhaps you put the cliffhanger at the end of a scene, or the end of a chapter, or the end of an act. You can put it in anywhere there some sort of a pause, break, in the action. Then you have the obligation to resolve the cliffhanger when the story resumes.

I read once that in the early days of European theater, playwrights started using cliffhangers before a scene change so audience members would return! A cliffhanger is another way of making folks care about what happens next, care enough to, hopefully, turn the page.

What Makes A Great Cliffhanger?

As TV Tropes notes, a great cliffhanger will have you on the edge of your seat screaming, "What happens next?!" But how do we, as writers, craft that?

The following advice comes from Martin Ralya, in his wonderful article Key to a Good Cliffhanger. Although Martin was thinking of paper and pencil gaming when he wrote this, storytelling is storytelling. Martin writes:

The key to a good cliffhanger is ending your session on a pause in the action, not right in the thick of it.

That may seem counterintuitive at first, but it’s actually pretty easy to implement. Let’s tackle this tip with a classic example: a big battle.
A climactic battle might break down into five segments:

1. Opening skirmishes
2. Major wave of enemy attacks
3. Wave of attacks is repulsed
4. More skirmishing
5. Final showdown with the Big Bad

Assuming that the PCs [Player Characters] are heavily involved in segments 3 and 5 (the two most important parts of the battle), you should put your cliffhanger right before segment 5. (If you put it in 1, 2 or 4, that wouldn’t be a cliffhanger.)

Kinds Of Cliffhangers

There isn't just one kind of cliffhanger since there are many ways to put one's main characters in peril.

In her engaging article, Cliffhangers, Anne M. Leone writes:

My go-to resource on most plot-related things is the wonderfully organized and helpful Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. Bell has created a list of nine different types of cliffhanger endings (or as he calls them, Read On Prompts):

Impending disaster
Dangerous emotions
Portent
Mysterious dialogue
Secret revealed
Major decision / vow
Announcement of a shattering event
Reversal / surprise
Question left in the air

Anne gives a lot of great examples of Cliffhangers from literature. Her article is definitely worth the read. TV Tropes mentions the Bolivian arm ending. This is probably a kind of impending disaster cliffhanger (the first one on James Bell's list), but I'll include it here anyway. If you have time, investigate some of the links in the quotation, lots of great information there.

Bolivian army ending

A Bolivian Army Ending occurs when the main characters face seemingly insurmountable odds which, for once, they fail to surmount, although their ultimate doom is sometimes left to the audience's imagination. The trope is named for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which ends with the two heroes surrounded by seemingly the entire Bolivian army (more likely just a company of riflemen) after escaping from the States. They could surrender, but instead they choose to come out all guns blazing. The film ends just as they do so, and we never see them die. ...

Nowadays, thanks to Conservation of Ninjutsu, there is a 99% chance that any character caught in a Bolivian Army Ending would survive if the incident took place earlier in the film. (Bolivian army ending)

A Conservation of Ninjutsu is a principle that states:

In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder. (Conservation of Ninjutsu)

But there's more:

... the Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, can be used in TV shows and other serial media to raise the audience's tension over which characters survive to the next season or installment. See Uncertain Doom for scenarios in which a character's fate is left hanging in the middle of a work, season or installment rather than at the end.

Can be considered a variation of a Downer Ending, although it's ambiguous enough to give the viewer/reader some hope. When the camera cuts to a different scene unrelated to the battle right before the work ends, this overlaps with Charge Into Combat Cut.

Examples Of Cliffhangers

For examples of cliffhangers, see the bottom of TV Tropes post on Cliffhangers. Here is a link to some examples of cliffhangers in film.

I don't use cliffhangers enough in my own work, that's something I need to do more research on. I'm going to spend some time going over these examples and thinking about the different sorts, categories, of cliffhangers one could use.

Question: Do you use cliffhangers in your own work? What is your favorite cliffhanger in literature, TV, film or the theater?

Other articles you might like:

- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words
- Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go
- Dean Wesley Smith, Harlan Ellison, The Internet, and Writing A Book In 10 Days

Photo link: "crisp way" by fRandi-Shooters under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words

This is from Galleycat:

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing is reportedly planning to remove Kindle books that have fewer than 2,500 words.

At the KBoards site for Kindle readers and writers, one author shared a letter from Amazon that explained: “Content that is less than 2,500 words is often disappointing to our customers and does not provide an enjoyable reading experience.”

... A few of writers responded to the post saying they were selling books that were under 2,500 words at Amazon, including a speculative fiction author and a fantasy writer.

You can read the complete article here: Amazon Cracks Down on Kindle Books Under 2,500 Words.

Here is the letter that Amazon sent out:

Hello,

During a quality assurance review of your KDP catalog we have found that the following book(s) are extremely short and may create a poor reading experience and do not meet our content quality expectations:

Name of Short

In the best interest of Kindle customers, we remove titles from sale that may create a poor customer experience. Content that is less than 2,500 words is often disappointing to our customers and does not provide an enjoyable reading experience.

We ask that you fix the above book(s), as well as all of your catalog’s affected books, with additional content that is both unique and related to your book. Once you have ensured your book(s) would create a good customer experience, re-submit them for publishing within 5 business days. If your books have not been corrected by that time, they will be removed from sale in the Kindle Store. If the updates require more time, please unpublish your books.(Amazon going after short shorts)

Question: What do you think? Should Amazon leave it up to authors to determine the minimum length of their stories or should there be a minimum length so readers don't pay, say, $2.99 for a 1000 word story?

Other articles you might like:

- Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go
- Dean Wesley Smith, Harlan Ellison, The Internet, and Writing A Book In 10 Days
- Prada Writing Contest: Winner receives 5,000 Euros

Photo credit: "Untitled" by Mark Wooten under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go

Christopher Shultz, in his engagingly written and informative article, First Drafts in a Mobile Landscape: Five Word Processors for Tablets & Smartphones, walks us through the jungle of word processing apps.

What follows is Christopher's discussion of iA Writer, but he also discusses the merits and demerits of Notes, Texilus, Doc2 HD and Pages.

iA Writer

If you're intrigued by the no-frills, bare-bones writing experience Notes and similar apps offer, but require something with a little more finesse, check out iA Writer. When using an external Bluetooth keyboard, the interface becomes nothing more than a blank screen—naked, waiting for the scintillating touch of your words. It's pretty sexy. If you have to use the onscreen keyboard, iA Writer provides additional arrow and quotation mark keys along the top row for reduced flipping (normally, you have to hit that "?123" button in the corner to access those keys).

There's Dropbox integration, as well as the ability to link your iCloud account, thereby providing automatic syncing between devices. iA Writer is also universal, meaning you pay $0.99 once, and then you’re able to download it to any device you see fit. So if you're in a position where you can't work on your iPad—on the train, on the bus, or at a really boring work meeting, say—you can still chip away at your daily word count by using your iPhone or iPod Touch, and resume work on your iPad later.

Furthermore, Apple's handheld devices are also Bluetooth capable, so even if you don't own an iPad yet, or if your iPad is in the shop, you can still type like a champ. There's no iA Writer for Mac/PC at the moment, but saving your documents to Dropbox makes for pretty easy access, and since all files are saved in .txt format, you can pretty much open them in any text editor or word processor.

I’m totally in love with this app, particularly the iPhone version, as it gives me a clean, easy-on-the-eyes way of hammering out drafts while I'm out and about. One downside is the complete lack of font choice—you use the font they provide. It's a clean, Courier-like typeface, so it doesn't bother me, but those of you more attuned to Times New Roman or Baskerville may want to look elsewhere. That being said, for $0.99 you get a pretty powerful, intuitive, and convenient app. Can't really argue with that.

There appear to be several simple text editors for Android devices. Amoeba has the best user ratings on Amazon. It doesn't quite stack up to iA Writer in terms of features, but then again it's also free and offers more than one default font. There's also xWriter, a $2.99 app with pretty much the same features as Amoeba, and roughly the same positive ratings. Since I haven't tested either one, I couldn't make a recommendation either way. Try the free one, and if it doesn't work, take a chance with the three dollar app.

As far as Windows goes, I couldn't find a single text editor in their app store; Office seems to be the only option, at least for now.

To read more of Christopher's article, click here: First Drafts in a Mobile Landscape: Five Word Processors for Tablets & Smartphones.

What is your favorite word processing app for your mobile devises?

Other articles you might like:

- Dean Wesley Smith, Harlan Ellison, The Internet, and Writing A Book In 10 Days
- How To Create A Press Kit
- Walter Benjamin's Advice To Writers

Photo credit: "fairy tale" by paul bica by Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Dean Wesley Smith, Harlan Ellison, The Internet, and Writing A Book In 10 Days

Writing A Book In 10 Days

I've been reading Dean Wesley Smith's miniseries of blogs where he publishes a running log of his progress as he writes a 70,000 word book in 10 days.

One draft.

With no outline.

When I first blogged about what Dean was doing I wasn't sure whether I was reading between the lines correctly but he has confirmed, over and over again, that he has no idea where he is going with the story, not even a rough sketch.

For instance Susan asked:

... do you have an end in mind when you start writing? As in, you know you’ll be in San Francisco at the end of your trip, but you don’t know if you’ll take a plane or a camel?

Dean replied:

Suzan, No. Not a clue, no idea, don’t care where it ends up. I’m just writing to entertain myself, just as a reader is entertained by reading a book. Do you, as a reader, need the ending before you start reading? Of course not. Why is everyone so surprised I don’t need it either.

Wow, this is teaching me a lot about some myths I knew existed, just didn’t think were very deep. I was wrong. (grin) I have no idea why anyone would read a book if they already knew everything that was going to happen in the book just as I have clearly little understanding of why any writer writes a book they already know all the details about. I had to do that under contract a couple of times and those were the worst and hardest for me. (Ghost Novel: Day 2, Comments)

Did your jaw hit the floor? Mine did!

Harlan Ellison

I was thinking about Dean's mini-marathon this morning and it hit me. Dean is doing a Harlan Ellison.

In one of Dean's posts, he wrote:

... many of you know that over the decades he [Harlan Ellison] has tried to prove this point* (and many others) to people. He would go into a bookstore, have someone give him a title or idea, then on a manual typewriter, he would sit in the bookstore window and write a short story, taping the finished pages on the window for everyone to read. He never rewrote any of those stories. He fixed a typo or two, but that’s it. And many of those stories won major awards in both science fiction and mystery. All first draft, written fast, in a window while people watched every word.

I know, I was going to publish a three-volume set of these award-winning stories written in public back when I was doing Pulphouse Publishing, but alas, he was still writing them, a new one almost every other week at that point, and the book never got out before we shut down. He’s done enough since then to fill two more books at least.

Every writer is different. I would have a tough time doing what Harlan does, but alas, it does prove the point that rewriting does not necessarily make a story better. And when you win as many awards in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and mainstream fiction as Harlan has, you can argue with him. But trust me, if you are rewriting everything to death, that will never happen [emphasis mine]. (Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Rewriting)

* That one should only rewrite to editorial demand and, even then, only if you agreed with the demand.

That quotation was taken from a post Dean made in 2009. There he writes, "I would have a tough time doing what Harlan does" but I think that's essentially what Dean is doing, ghostwriting a book in 10 days while positing a running log of his efforts.

Instead of onlookers peering through the windows of a bookstore he has us, the denizens of the internet, and instead of a bookstore, he has his blog.

Same idea, different tools.

Heinlein's Rules of Writing

Dean Wesley Smith often refers to Robert A. Heinlein's rules of writing. And with good reason, countless writers have attributed their professional success to them. That said, I'm not suggesting  there are hard-and-fast rules to writing, rules everyone must follow. As with everything, take what works for you, leave the rest.

But perhaps Heinlein's final rule needs to be--not changed--expanded, clarified, for the independent/self-published author. Here are Heinlein's rules:

1. You must write.
2. Finish what you start.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put your story on the market.
5. You must keep your story on the market until it has sold.

In Heinlein's day putting one's work on the market meant sending it to editors or agents. Today those options are still available but we also have the opportunity to publish our work ourselves. In that light, here are some questions:

- What if the story never sells? Leave it up forever? Wouldn't that be a bit like displaying a black-eye that never healed?

- Should independent authors market their work? If yes, should we wait until we have a certain amount of work on the market--say, 10 books or anthologies--or should we start with the very first one?

I'm sure there are countless other questions. I don't have answers, although I do favor the idea of holding off on expensive or time-consuming marketing efforts until a writer has been able to put a significant amount of their work up for sale.

Of course, each of us is unique and so no set of rules, even rules as wonderful and wise as Heinlein's, fits us all.

Thanks for reading!

Other articles you might like:

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Photo credit: "The Bird Watchers" by psyberartist under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Prada Writing Contest: Winner receives 5,000 Euros

That's right Prada is holding a short story contest, and the prize for the lucky winner is 5,000 Euros (about $6,500 US dollars). Here are the details:

Length

Stories must be "a minimum of 10 (ten) pages and a maximum of 20 (twenty) pages on A4 sized sheets, each page to contain approximately 400 words, written in Bodoni–DTC dim. 11 style."

Languages

The Short Story may be proposed in any language chosen by the Contender without any restriction.

Criteria:

PRADA and Feltrinelli will judge each Short Story according to the following factors: creativity, innovation, thoroughness, depth of inquiry, adherence to the theme of the Contest and quality of the Short Story.

Also, the judges will be looking for stories focusing on the "inquire of the reality and its perception, especially: Views of the world. Images, marks, idea." A more extensive writeup is here: Prada Journal.

Content guidelines:

Especially, the submitted Short Stories must not:

- be sexually explicit or suggestive, or derogatory of any ethnic, racial,
gender, religious, professional or age group or the disabled, be profane or pornographic;

- promote alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco, firearms/weapons (or the use of any of the foregoing), any activities that may appear unsafe or dangerous;

- contain any personal identification, such as license plate numbers,
personal names, e-mail addresses or street addresses;

- infringe any rights, including copyright, of any third party;

- contain materials embodying the names, or other indicia identifying any person, living or dead, without permission.

Prize:

The Contest’s Winner (or Winners) will receive the amount of Euro 5.000 (five thousand) (each). 

How to enter:

Here is the link to the submission form: Prada Journal. If you click that link you'll be shown an email address: pradajournal (at) prada (dot) com. Good luck!

Thanks to Litreactor and Of Course It’s A Prada Short Story Contest, Dahling.

Other stories you might like:

- Getting Story Ideas
- What Slush Pile Readers Look For In A Story
- How To Create A Press Kit

Photo credit: "Prada，hahaha" by Only Sequel under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.