Vampy Black: Mysteries, Pay Offs, and Build Up

I am almost done editing the 5,000 word long central chapter of Darthaniel's Vampy Black project, and this one is a key investigation scene that is key to the book. It was a heck of a chapter to edit, and we both love how it came out. We chose to emphasize our heroine's investigative abilities and put the focus on her as a participant and instigator, instead of someone who took in clues and internalized them, and the chapter is gripping and very entertaining.

In the end, the chapter broke up into a 1,200 word leading introduction to the scene that builds tension, and a 4,500 word chapter where the mysteries are laid out. That is still long, but I didn't want to break that up since the entire scene is the focus of the book and important to setting up the book's conflicts. I am still on the last thousand words and wrapping the chapter up, so there is still a bit of work to do later.

I haven't written mysteries in a while, and this rekindled my love of the genre. While we search for clues, there are a couple layers going on here with other characters, so this is not a one-dimensional "find Waldo" type of chapter. It works on a couple levels, and the character interplay is fascinating and intermixed with the investigation - and it also influences a big part of what happens. We have a struggle between two characters that is fascinating to watch, and I love how the two of these people play off each other with their conflicts and shared concerns.

Layers are fun to write. Letting readers see a character's incredible skills putting pieces together is also one of my loves. The readers of course should have every opportunity to put things together themselves, so there is a lot of setup required to do this correctly. You need to lay our pieces and mix them with the scene. You need to present information before it is needed. You need to write it all as naturally as possible without tipping people off, or hitting them with blindsided clues they knew nothing about.

You can't rob readers of the satisfaction of letting them figure it out before the character does, that is a big part of the fun of the mystery genre. If you blindside them with a clue nobody knew anything about, it takes the game away from the reader.

So good mysteries and clue collecting takes time. Clue collecting is also inherently boring to the reader unless you have some tension involved, and in this case we have a deep-seated tension running between our main characters. Things could go terribly wrong here with tragic consequences on both sides. There has to be something else going on, a ticking clock, a moral dilemma, or some sort of conflict.

The chapter of course looks nothing like what it was when we started, and I love it when a chapter gets turned on its head and the whole thing comes out better. I also love writers like Darthaniel who have the stomach and insight to help transform a chapter like this, and who also have great ideas to contribute when the reshuffling and rewriting is still going on. He is incredible with taking and giving feedback, and someone I love working with.

In away some of this is 'extreme editing' with the amount of reworking and improvement going on. This is one of those I will talk about long from now, a complete rebuild of a chapter into one I consider an incredible piece of work between an editoress and a engaged writer focused on improving the end product. I just love this sort of work, and I hope readers have that gut reaction to it that I love making happen.

More on this project soon, and work continues.

Vampy Black: Cutting Down Monsters

I am still editing Darthaniel's Vampy Black project novel, and I am hitting a huge 5,000 word monster chapter today. I am cutting this one up into at least two or three chapters, as I dislike long-long chapters as both a reader and an editor.

I will blame MTV and shortened attention spans for this one, but there are some good points to this practice.

In a literary book, I don't mind long chapters if they are gripping and immersive, I will gladly lose myself in something deep. In an action or thriller book, I mind long chapters because you want to keep things fresh and paced snappily. There feels like too much information here, and I will either start cutting or dividing, and in this case, both.

Chapters provide a rest, a natural break where you invite the reader to put the book down and pick back up later. I want chapters in books with a quick, snappy pace to be shorter, and feel like they get to the point and deliver the next slice of action in a timely and concise manner.

Now in a book like a Stephen King novel, I don't mind longer chapters because you are wading through a sea of greatness. There's a trust there with established writers that allows them to write chapters however long they want, because we know it's going to be good, and we trust them to deliver on the long hauls.

With newer writers, and especially e-reader books, I feel the need to keep things punchy and short. We don't want to overload readers unless what we are writing is truly and unquestionably great, but the burden of chapter length runs against us as new writers. One of the big faults of writers is we tend to think everything we say, no matter how trivial and informative, is worth our reader's time.

This is the curse of hubris.

Of course everything we write is special! We are letting them look into our magical world, and every fact, no matter how trivial, should be treated as a treat and an honor that we shared it with dear reader! Even if the fact has nothing to do with the current situation, they should feel entertained and privileged that we chose to share out wit and majesty as a writer with them!

In reality, this is like laying out a wonderful dinner on the dining room table, and then covering every square inch around the food with chocolates and candy in case someone wants to have a sweet after dinner. Or during it. Or before it. What was once a beautiful spread of food and delicious presentation becomes a travesty of culinary disasters, and the entire spread looks garish and the candy and treats take away from the food's presence. It's too much food, unfocused, and now none of it goes together.

Clear the table, put the candy away for Halloween, and just put dinner out. That's all your guests want. This is what they will remember the night by. Just the food, not the flourish, and certainly not all the extra treats you laid out for them because you fear you would be a lousy hostess if you hadn't.

It's fear again, isn't it? The fear our readers will not like us. It's the same fear that drives our addictions to adverbs and alcohol. We need to put treats and random factoids out because we fear readers 'won't get it' or feel what's there is sparse. Guess what, if it was sparse before, it will be sparse with any amount of empty calories added to it.

Also, we feel the need to load up the table with the great stuff. Why not have a roast, and a turkey? Let's put a ham on there as well! Longer chapters are better, right? Let's make every side dish we can imagine, and put one on every square inch of empty tablecloth.

Same problem. We fear our gusts won't enjoy what we serve, so we give up and serve everything. Everything we make is special and we expect everyone to enjoy everything we create, right?

Instead of a focused meal where everything goes together, we give up and take our guests to a buffet. There's a time and a place for that, but not when we are trying to deliver a dinner we want people to remember. So again, it's fear.

Our guests wanted turkey and stuffing, with yams and potatoes. They expect corn and cranberry sauce. The hamburgers sitting on the table are great, but they don't belong, and they distract from the meal. So take them away. Let's just deliver what the people came to see. There's plenty of room within what we are cooking up to deliver our signature style, presentation, and express ourselves within what we do.

Don't let that fear that people won't like you control your writing. You are a great writer, with plenty to say. People will like anything you make. But don't overload their plates. Promise to deliver what you are going to deliver, and serve them just that.

Save the other ideas for another meal, and another book.

Vampy Black: Editing Continues

I am back at editing Darthaniel's urban fantasy vampire thriller book today, and I just finished a great chapter. It isn't action or fighting or anything else like that, just a 'going home' scene that turned out to be critical for character development in many more ways than I expected.

Normally, I would say 'cut out the nonessentials' and get rid of it for more vampy-sexy investigation, but we got to share some incredible character building time with two of the central characters here that I cannot leave on the editing room floor.

Like a good pastry dough, a story gets better the more you fold in layers and the more you work it. I went through this chapter and did my usual clean-up, but I found a lot of places I could hide secrets, show character through environment, and give some meaningful interaction between two characters that gives you a feeling of why you should care.

Secrets? Yes, I hide secrets in things the read has to pull out by being attentive and careful. Knowing what I know about the book and the series, there are things characters do that they don't immediately explain that should key you off to character motivations or even foreshadow major plot elements.

But more importantly, why should you care? This chapter gives you a slight breather and answers that question. It also kicks off a very hot romance that stays within the boundaries Darthaniel has set, but it managed to turn a flame on in me to 'ship' these two characters in a major way. So there is  another layer, another subtext, and the tension ratchets up a couple more notches.

I like romance, and for those who know me, they know I can push limits and characters right where I want them to go.

The fun thing is we did a read-through today and Darthaniel approved most every change so far. He is a great writer to work with and he understands the collaborative nature of how I work with writers. His dialog is wonderful, and it is a joy to work action and narrative around. He has this sharp, movie-like tone that I love working with, most all of the dialog is unchanged, and a lot of the work I do is in support and detail surrounding dialog.

My methodology is to keep the essential action, dialog, and flow to the story and keep those sacred. Where I work is in narration, detail, showing/telling, and the fundamentals of story and flow. I get to put some artsy flourishes that aren't too purpley every so often as well, so a bit of my style inevitably creeps in.

We are at about 40,000 words for this book, and I am moving on to chapter six. My editing passes typically add 10-20% to a book's length, so this could push 45-50,000 words soon and be a full-length novel. It is wonderful to have a writer that trusts you that much to make significant edits and approve them, and I am honored to work with him so much.

Look for this soon, I know Darthaniel is working on the cover, and it is great to be working with another writer as an editoress again. More news soon, stay tuned.

Love vs. Hate

Love.

It's all too precious a resource, and at times it is easy to think the world is running out.

Like air, we need love to live.

Like air, we need to share it with everyone else.

It's so easy to hate. It's so easy to spread. It's so easy to fire off a backhanded insult and walk away, leaving a crater of emotional damage and silent regrets.

Love is hard. Hate is easy.

Love takes bravery.

Hate is for cowards.

Yet, I see people selling hate and fear everyday. And we keep buying it. Insecurity, fear, prejudice, and envy are all worth big money. Just look at commercials blasting messages that we are somehow sick and we need this pill or we will die. News networks that are 24-7 breaking news alerts, endlessly, day after day, making you panic at the bass drum roll and hallowed bell toll because...a celebrity said something stupid in Hollywood.

And then the adrenaline subsides, but it stay with us like the poison of too much sugar in our foods. Until the next commercial comes on that strips away our securities, or the next news alert that rings the death bell and sounds the gallows drum roll because a new taco came out at some fast food restaurant.

The lesson? You can take hate and fear to the bank. It works.

But that adrenaline rush from the hate or the fear they sell us lingers. Like too much sugar in our diet, it stays in our system for a long time. We become addicted to it. It raises our blood pressure point by point as it builds. It drains our energy. It's not natural. Fear and hate are poison to us, and the slow tick of each moment of anger or heartbeat of fear builds up in us as we feel less in control every day.

Am I going to wrap this up with a slogan or a simple answer that makes you feel good? I can't. It would be dishonest to end this by saying, "Love will make everything better!" and let you go back to your normal life with a warm feeling. Because this doesn't end here. Hate doesn't end here.

It ends with us.

It ends with you.

It ends with a struggle not unlike mankind's decision to go to the moon, or to beat cancer, or to end hunger. This is an everyday fight for every day for the rest of your life sort of thing. It's a conscious decision by every one of us to refuse to add another drop of hate into that toxic ocean that pervades our world, with every moment hate offers us to, with every heartbeat fear takes from us - we must stand strong and refuse to let one drop of hate go back into this world.

Never let that drop of hateful blood sail free into that great ocean of misery and tears.

It means holding back. I told you this was hard, but changing our ways for the better of everyone always is. You'll need to show us how brave and strong you are every day by refusing to participate in the shared madness of maniac culture.

Recycle your hate, compost it into love.

Turn away. Turn negative energy into positive energy. Ignore being drawn into a fight. Spread love and understanding. Let others be. Respect opinions. Be constructive.

Understand.

Feel those drops of adrenaline subside. Feel how much better your life becomes by denying anger and fear. Notice how calm you become, no matter what happens in your life. You become slowly immune, and your outlook and health improve.

Accept.

If anything, do this for yourself.

Love.

Note 10.1 Down, Time to Change

So my 3 year-old Galaxy Note 10.1 (white) bit the dust last weekend and I am in the market for a new tablet. It is not under warranty anymore, so I am debating the cost of repair versus the cost of a upgrade to something more modern.

I am not a fan of the strangely low-res 1280x800 screen, and the processor feels barely enough to keep up with the stylus. I like the stylus, but for drawing the line lags behind the pen enough that I would think twice about using this as a serious artistic tablet. The on-screen buttons are also something I don't like, I have had that on-screen home and back navigation bar totally disappear on me several times, plus it eats away at the already low vertical resolution of the device. Samsung's version of Android also takes a lot of space and I never use many of the functions it provides, so I question the utility of it and the space and speed it takes from my cramped 16GB user experience. Plus, updates for this device have been so slow.

Likes? I liked the micro SD-card storage. I liked the front-facing speakers. I liked the thin form factor and light weight. I liked the stylus. It traveled very well, and battery life was good.

I am not considering upgrading to a future Samsung because of the extra-on-top of bloat and lack of updates for this tablet. My user experience has been just average when I expect great. Mind you, there are some nice tablets in Samsung's line-up, the 2014 10.1 pro with that drop-dead gorgeous screen, and I had actually considered the Note Pro 12" tablet once as a productivity device. Given the slow updates and problems I had with Samsung tablets, I don't feel I am in the market for another.

As an aside, I like a Chromebook's multi-user mode, and not all Samsung tablets support this feature. I like keeping separate accounts for work and personal matters, so logging in as a 'work' user and 'personal' user appeal to me greatly. If I go Android, it is going to be with a pure Android 5.0 tablet with Micro-SD. I like my Samsung Chromebook 2, it is my road-warrior netbook, cheap, secure, multi-user, long-lasting, light, small, and quiet. The keyboard and trackpad are both excellent, and the thing just loves to write with me.

If I didn't care about Micro-SD, I'd just grab a Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and forget about my worries for the next 5 years. Amazon has great customer service, and for $60 a year you have unlimited cloud storage so you don't really need Micro-SD except to save money. They now have multi-user mode too, so this is tempting. Being tied to Amazon has it's pluses and minuses, but for me, it is an overall plus. The speakers on this thing rock, and if all I did was watch movies and read books, this would be a no-brainer. I am happy with my previous generation Kindle Fire HD 7 and that one is still going strong. Kindle Fires are nice tablets, and I have low regrets about buying them, especially with that ecosystem to die for with a Prime membership.

But...Windows tablets? Like the new Surface 3 (non-pro, Atom version)? 128GB, full Windows, Micro-SD, pen-support, 1920x1280, 1.3 lbs, 0.3" thick? A bit more expensive, but running full Scrivener would be a major plus for me. Tempting as a one-tablet-to-rule-them-all offering I suppose. I've heard good and bad about this one, if I could get a good one I suppose that would be worth it, but the cost is high considering there is a lot of other pieces to buy to get the thing laptop-functional.

But then again, my Chromebook is my laptop of choice on the road since if it gets damaged or lost I'm not going to shed a tear or care about the loss or care about the security of personal files. For a home-tablet, yes, probably a good idea. For traveling? I suppose the utility would be a huge plus, but I dislike being tied to anything expensive on the road because I value peace-of-mind.

iPads? I did an iPad one back in the day, and I am not in that market much these days. They are the to-be-beat tablet, but again, expensive, and they are more consumption devices than productivity devices for me. They are nice, but you either are in the market or you were in the market. If I still had an iPhone, I would probably be in the market for one due to cross-compatibility of apps.

So my top choices right now are the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 and the Surface 3. If I want a pure entertainment device, it's the Amazon tablet. If I want a work machine and local storage, it's Microsoft's. Given my love of Chromebooks, I already have a work machine for on the road, so I am leaning towards Amazon's offering.

A Break...

I've been taking a break from editing, a bunch of other projects have appeared on my radar and I need to work through them. Plus, I wanted this time to reflect on where the book I am working on is going, and I want a little perspective on the process.

I also have been kicking around a couple book ideas in my head. There's nothing concrete yet, but I have a couple of fun books in mind.

I will be back to working on this soon, with some more insights and articles related to it along the way. Stay tuned.

Infinite Love

When you think about it, love is a lot easier than hate. With hate you need to think about what you are angry about, work yourself up, react to provocations, come up with reasons to hate, raise your blood pressure, and come up with ingenious ways to attack others without providing an opening for a counterattack that will invalidate your argument.

With love, all you need to do is say, "I love you, or I love what you do."

You can have your reasons why you love something, you can acknowledge weaknesses and flaws, but you just love something and leave it there with a warm feeling and be fine.

Can you suggest improvements? Sure! Because you love it already, even if it is only just a tiny part, and you love what that person is doing so much to offer your opinion.

Respect is another way to go. You can say, I may not love what you do, but I respect the hard work you put into it. This is a great way to disagree, but still love the person underneath, and love the passion they put into something that may not be for you.

But love is always the easy route.