On Writing

So, I'm stuck in NY for another week, and I thought I'd post a little something on writing tonight.

A few of us have been having a bit of an open discussion on science aspects of science fiction over the last few weeks, dealing with different things. When you're writing SciFi, you have to be careful whenever you get into anything science based (which of course happens a lot) because you don't want to do something that is already known to not be correct. (That was always the thing that annoyed me most about Star Trek TNG, because they were often guilty of it. Also their own 'science' was often inconsistent as well.)

Now I have an engineering background, and I've done a lot of science work over the years, so I (hopefully) have all of the basics down. I also expect one of my beta readers to catch it if I make a mistake. On the larger issues, I usually will talk to someone, or do some research. But this brings us  to the initial topic I wanted to discuss: Science in today's fiction.

A lot of discoveries have been made in the last twenty plus years, even in just the last few, that are changing the way you might look at something like space travel. If you go back to stories from the forties, fifties, sixties, and even seventies, you can find things that we now know are not true. But there are also things that have been written in the last ten years that are no longer science fiction, especially dealing with mass-less (or 'energy only') drive systems. So what do you do about things like that?

Well as a friend of mine once said, never describe how something works until you absolutely have to. And when you get to those things that are deep in science theory, well, yes - don't describe them. In my COS series, I have not gone into any real detail on how the FTL works, except to note that there is no FTL communications, you have to be a certain distance from a gravity well/source, and that when you exit FTL there is an energy dump. I think I've also mentioned that there is no communication or observations possible when in FTL mode.

Now this doesn't mean that I don't have copious notes on it, and on how it works, because I do. I have a few charts and other things, because I need the way it behaves to be consistent, I need what you the reader sees, and what the characters experience, to be understood. I need to make sure you have an idea of what to expect from it. But do you (or they) really need to know the scientific details? No, of course not, you really don't need to know very much about how it works, unless its important to the story. The only person who really needs to know, is me.

It's like how a car works, oh I suspect a lot of you know how the internal combustion engine works in theory, and a few probably understand the roll of the timing gear, push rods, cams, etc. But I'd be surprised if more than a handful of you really know how an automatic transmission works in detail, or what a planetary gear looks like. Same for say, an airplane, how many of you know how lift is generated? Or how a flight control system works? Or navaids? Because it's not important to you to know, and in any story about current times you might read or movie you may watch, you take these things for granted.

Some of it is 'suspension of disbelief', some if it is not wasting time to explain those things that 'everybody already knows', unless of course you need to give your reader a basic understanding for the purposes of the story. Some of it is just letting the background be the background.

Believe it or not, a lot of new writers really get hung up on this. They spend way too much time on developing their word, or their science, and then of course they want to tell you all about it. They can go into overwhelming detail about how it all works. In short, they want to tell you all about the map, when they need to be talking about the trip you're taking across the map.

They need to talk about the story.

The story is first and foremost what everyone has come to read. They want to read and experience the story. They want to get to know your characters. After that, they will have some interest in your world and the way it functions, they will also have an interest in how the people in your world function. Those last two can be swapped in order, depending on the type of story you're telling, but they are really, typically, the last things you introduce your readers to.

Now this isn't to say you can't go into great detail on your science, but if it is not key to your story, why would you bother? And if it is key to your story, don't describe it in anymore detail than you really need to, because the time may come where you have to change a detail. If you haven't described that detail, it's a lot easier to go back and fix it, than if you have. Also, it makes it easier to keep your science consistent if you don't go into unnecessary details.

Now yes, there are authors out there, very experienced authors, who can create a beautiful and very complex world and you really do want to learn about the world because it's so amazing (like say Tim Powers) but they're highly experienced pro's and they know how to break the rules and get away with it. But for most of us, it is better to never show more of the cards in your hand than you have to, and make sure that your science is consistent from front to back. And if you must do something inconsistent, have a reason for it that makes logical sense in your world. Which again, if you've only shown what you had to show up until then, will be a lot easier to deal with.

Now I think I'll go to bed, it's hot sticky and very very late here.

Proof readers... I thought I had one...

I have an editor who I pay to proof read and copy edit.
And still some people continue to say I need one.

So either the one I have isn't doing a good job, or some people don't know grammar as well as they think they do.

Not really sure which the case is, but it's only a couple of people complaining, so I don't think it's worth going back through the books and re-editing them right now. But it does drive me a bit crazy, I know my books are not littered with errors, there's probably less than 5 or 6 in a book, if that many. But I guess one mistake every 10K words is too many for some people?

Between editing and cover art, I have to sell 250 copies of a book before I start to make any money (and all of my books are pirated within 48 hours of publishing, I'm very popular with people who spend two grand on a computer, but can't spend 3 or 4 bucks for a book that takes me 8 weeks to write), so spending even -more- money on an editor to catch a few more mistakes? I'm not sure it's worth the money.

Big Cats do not have slit pupils ('cats' eyes)

If your artwork or comic has say, tigers and lions with 'cats' eyes, you know the slit pupils that small cats have, well then I'm probably not going to look at anymore of your work. Because you didn't take the time to ever once in your life to look at a tiger or a lion. Because you would have seen then that they have round pupils. Like people do.

These are also the kinds of 'little' mistakes that I see others make in other things, (and that I try very  hard to avoid making myself) that show you really just couldn't be bothered. I mean it's one thing if you make an occasional mistake here or there, but when you mess up a fundamental, and you mess it up constantly, well, you lose me. And probably a lot of other people as well.

Be mean to Will month

So June looks like it is going to be national 'Be Mean to Will' month.

Let's get started, shall we?

Interregnum is now live on Amazon!

Here's the link to the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YIP44D2

The Sequel to Children of Steel is Posting to Amazon

The sequel to Children of Steel is complete, the title is Interregnum, and I will be posting it to Amazon for sale in a few hours. So it should be on sale sometime early tomorrow morning (Saturday).

Here's the cover:

The cover for this one was done by Rozga (http://rozga.weebly.com/) That is what the Astra looks like minus the cargo containers that it usually hauls.

Patreon - I now have an account

If you look to the right of this page, you  will see that I now have a patreon account.

The primary reason for the account, is the same as for most of the others that people have out there: To help me cover my bills and allow me to write full-time.

Being an artist or a writer is a difficult job: You don't get a regular paycheck, and your pay varies significantly from month to month. Book sales are cyclic, and you always know that some months are going to be slow. So hence the Patreon account. Basically by contributing you are making it easier for me to be creative and write. To devote more time to creating more of the stories you like and want to read, so I don't have to take consulting side jobs to cover expenses, during which I'm often so busy that I rarely can spare the time to write anything.

I have set up a few rewards for people who donate more than just a few dollars, to show them that I appreciate their contribution. Of course being new to this I'm still looking at the page and wondering if I should make any further changes, so suggestions are welcome.

-John

INTERREGNUM the sequel to Children of Steel

The sequel to Children of Steel is finished, mostly. I need to send it to my editor, and I will send out copies to my Beta readers, just to be sure that there aren't any issues that I may have missed.
Barring any unforeseen issues, it will be available on Amazon before the end of the month.

There is a sequel to this story, that I plan on writing eventually, it is sort of a convergence of several of the threads of the 'universe' that cross each other at one point. How soon I get around to writing that story will depend somewhat on how well this story does. The better it does, the sooner I can justify writing the sequel.

I will now be starting book five in the Portals of Infinity series, as I'm getting a lot of requests for that, and that series right now is selling extremely well. So I owe it to the people reading it, to get out the next installment in a timely fashion.

Children of Steel Sequel, progress report

So, the sequel to Children of Steel​ is almost done. Got 5K written yesterday and now I just need to rewrite one scene, tie two parts together and that's it for the first draft.

After that, do the first re-write and edit, send a few copies out to some beta readers, come up with a title (!), then send it to my copy editor, and start on the cover. So it should be done by the end of the month. I hope to get it out by the end of May.

Lost Souls will also be coming out soon, I need to do a quick rewrite on that, and send it to my editor, and get a cover done. Lost Souls is a fantasy story, more of a Young Adult (YA) type. It will probably come out in early June.

Status on the next book

I'm currently working on the next novel in the 'Children of Steel' universe (I really need a better name for that universe, but that was the name of the first book I wrote in it). This book will be a sequel to that first book, picking up about where Children of Steel left off.

Right now I'm about 50K words into the first draft, it will not be as long as the first book (which was over 170K!), though if it does well in the market, there will be more released in that 'universe'.

This is a bit of a risk for me, but I have gotten quite a few requests for a sequel, so I decided to take the time to honor them, and see if there was enough of a demand to write a line of stories there, as well as the current POI series. As I hope to publish in a few more weeks, I will just have to wait and see.

As for the next Portals of Infinity book in the series, right now I have the basic plot and the title:  Demigods and Deities. (Yes, sometimes I do come up with a title before I start a book!) I will be starting work on Book Five as soon as I finish the current COS story and send it off to my proofreader. My target date for publication on Book Five is currently set for the end of June.

And no, the title does not mean this story will have something to do with the old D&D book with a similar name.

Moving to my books Amazon exclusively

I've decided to move all of my writings to Amazon exclusively.
Why? Well simply put, I now sell 99.9% of my work on Amazon. I sold one book so far this year (under my name) on B&N, and one on iTunes. But I sold over 10K on Amazon.

Moving a book to being exclusive to Amazon also allows me to sign that book up for the Kindle unlimited, and while I make a lower return in the way of royalties from those books, I still get a respectable return from that sales channel. So it really just comes down to simple economics, and as this is my sole source of income, it is important to do what I can to increase the return on my writing efforts.

As for the printed versions of my works, those will still be available through multiple channels, as this only applies to my eBooks.

Thanks,
-John

Portals of Infinity, Book Four: The Sea of Grass is now available on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VNNV0VQ