SHOULD WRITERS WORK FOR FREE?

If you’re a writer, you know how much time it requires if you’re serious about it, and want to produce something of quality. Ray Bradbury said that his work schedule was to write a story on Monday, then write fresh drafts of it each day following until it was (hopefully) ready to mail out for consideration by a publisher on Friday. So, a week’s work—full-time—for a good short story. Are writers the only ones who know this?

I ask the rhetorical question because, when I search the short story market listings, I find an amazing number of magazines (some online, some print) that pay nothing for the stories they publish. Zero. Most will provide a contributor’s copy or two of the issue in which your story appears. That’s it.

Not a lot to show for a week’s work.

There are dozens of markets that pay $5 - $10 per story, others a maximum of one cent a word: $50 for a 5,000 word story.

Before publishers come down on my head, I know the many explanations: even the top professional SF and fantasy magazines have seen their subscription levels drop faster than Enron stock; many if not most, online magazines are free, and have only minimal income; lower and middle tier magazines may have volunteer staff and can’t afford to give contributors much. It’s not the publishers’ fault if people don’t read much anymore, and aren’t willing to pay for the privilege. And the fact of the matter is, offering no payment or token payment doesn’t prevent these magazines from getting lots of submissions, some of them very high quality. A lot of writers are doing good writing, and just giving it away.

Should we?

Maybe writing’s a hobby and you don’t need the money; you’re just eager to see your work in print (or online) no matter what; or you’re trying to build up publishing credits to interest agents and publishers in your full-length work.

But, like it or not, our society evaluates things according to the money that changes hands to buy them. If you can get something for next to nothing, that’s the worth you place on it, too. And every product like it is assessed with the same value.

I guess, in years to come, it will go one of three ways:

- it will never change.

- there will come a time when creative artists will have to pay to have the fruits of their labours displayed to an audience.

- there will come a time (maybe only once everything is made by machine) that people will begin to truly value that which is created by the mind and the hand.

Which one would you like to see?



DISASTERS: WHY ARE THEY SO POPULAR IN SF?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Japan. Maybe even more than most North Americans, because I have a wonderful Japanese daughter-in-law, I’ve visited the country, and I have a great affection and admiration for the people. The earthquake, tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear threat have tested Japan and its people in many ways.

Of course, this isn’t the only major disaster in recent years: a serious earthquake in New Zealand just last month, unimaginable flooding in Australia, the devastating earthquake in Haiti last year, even the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia are all vivid in our memories. And that’s a very short list, not including any manmade disasters.

It occurred to me that disaster stories have always been a mainstay of speculative fiction. My own story “Tartarus Rising” was recently published in the anthology Doomology: The Dawning Of Disasters, a collection of twenty-three examples of the form, all very different. I’ve also written a story called “The Cleansing” about a future consequence of genetic modification of crops. But why the fascination with disasters?

Apart from the fact that they’re naturally compelling, they also offer lots of narrative and dramatic potential. The moment a disaster strikes, any number of conflicts arise: man against nature, man against man, man against self, and nearly endless subcategories. There are always elements of a trial, ordeal, or quest—classic themes of fiction. Manmade, and even many natural disasters, provide the opportunity for the perennial SF strengths: allegory and cautionary prescience. But, perhaps most of all, disasters are the perfect means to reveal character.

I’ve heard it said that fiction isn’t about stories, it’s about the people the stories happen to. And a disaster scenario is guaranteed to reveal the best and the worst in a person, whether real or fictional.

In the media, much has been made of what the recent disasters have revealed about the character of the Japanese people. But these events, and even more so disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, reveal just as much about the character of the rest of the world community. Good and bad.

Maybe that’s why they’re so compelling—they teach us about ourselves as well as those with whom we share the planet. I think that’s reason to conclude that disaster stories in SF won’t be going out of fashion anytime soon.

On a completely different note, I was glad to see the newest issue of On Spec hit the stands. It includes my story "The Wind Man" about a born storyteller with a very unusual curse. I hope you'll get your hands on a copy. The whole issue is very good.



E-PUBLISHING: MORE TEMPTING THAN EVER

A few years ago I discovered the internet presence of a guy named J.A. Konrath, and specifically his “A Newbie’s Guide To Publishing”, both a blog and a book. Konrath is a thriller writer in Chicago, but he’s always had some very wise things to say about the business, and is very generous with what he’s learned over the years. In the past few years Konrath has become one of the most prominent figures in the campaign for independent e-publishing by authors.

Konrath did have a traditional publishing career, but then made the transition into indie e-publishing and now sells upwards of 10,000 copies of his books per month in e-format (Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords primarily). That’s pretty impressive sales, and although e-books are priced much lower than hard copy books, the author’s share of the revenue (when sold through Amazon’s Kindle store, for example) can be 70%, compared to 10%-30% in traditional publishing.

The current superstar of e-publishing is a 26-year-old woman who writes paranormal romance fiction named Amanda Hocking.  You can also read about her here. According to Amanda’s blog, she’s written 19 books, but published 8 novels and one novella, beginning with two e-books in April 2010. Since then, she has sold more than 900,000 copies of her work, mostly since October. Most have been e-books, but after their success she began making paperback versions available, and has sold thousands of them, too. Sure, some of the books are sold for 99 cents each. But even at a 35% royalty rate for those, that’s still one spectacular amount of money (not to mention that one of her trilogies has been optioned for a movie). She has never had a traditional publishing career.

Tempted yet? Well, before you completely abandon the traditional route, you should know a few things. For one thing, as Amanda says herself, she is definitely still the exception rather than the rule. Also, print publishing still accounts for 80% of the book market, e-publishing only 20%. That number will grow, no doubt, but you’d still be giving up a huge market if you give up on print. Another thing: success in e-publishing is heavily tied to genre (check out the pie charts at Derek J. Canyon’s blog with romance and paranormal in the lead, followed by mystery and thriller fiction. And by far the biggest sales figures are for authors who have three or more titles available. Sales really don’t seem to take off until you have at least that many books available, and preferably six or more, especially if they’re in the same series. So unless you’re a genre writer who writes series books, and a lot of them, you probably won’t see spectacular sales like these.

Any way you look at it, the e-publishing arena can no longer be ignored. If you’re interested, I suggest you keep a faithful eye on J.A. Konrath’s blog. He’s sure to have his finger on the pulse of the industry. The man is a writing machine.



THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF A SUCCESSFUL PLAYWRIGHT

This past weekend I had a chance to participate in a chat session with comedy playwright Norm Foster and talk with him in person. Having written nearly forty plays, and with an average of about 150 productions of his work taking place every year across Canada, he’s the country’s most often produced playwright. Yet he didn’t begin writing plays until middle age—he hadn’t even seen a stage play until, on a lark, he got the lead acting role in an amateur production of “Harvey”. He had a twenty-five-year career in radio before becoming a full-time playwright, which tells me it’s never too late to pursue the dream of being a writer.

What does a writer of stage comedies have to do with writing science fiction? Clearly all writers can benefit from any insight into the creative process, especially from someone so successful in his field.

As a former radio morning show host (something I know a little about) Foster still gets up most days soon after 5:00 am and usually finishes his writing by noon. On a slow day he completes two or three pages, while a good day might produce seven, so he can complete a ninety-page script in two or three months. He claims the best advice he was ever given was to write every day. If he’s not working on a specific play, he’ll write character monologues for practice. Foster also sometimes works on two projects at the same time, because if he gets stuck on one he can switch to the other, although he admits that he rarely gets writer’s block. He also agrees with Hemingway’s advice that you should stop work for the day knowing exactly how you’ll pick it up again the next day.

Foster doesn’t begin the actual writing until he’s got the play planned out in his head, so he at least knows where it starts, where it’s going to go, and how it will end. He doesn’t picture specific actors as he writes, but he does have pictures of the characters in his head. He produces a few drafts, then ‘workshops’ the script (because he’s almost always writing for a given theatre, the cast will get together and read the script out loud). Another rewrite follows that, and once the play is finally produced, he’ll watch several performances to see what works and what doesn’t with a live audience. That leads him to one final revision, and then he never touches the play again. According to Norm Foster, one of the most important things a writer needs to know is when to stop. So with that in mind, I’ll close by saying, Norm Foster isn’t just a very funny writer and actor, he’s also an inspiration.



WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULD WALK THROUGH WALLS?

People always ask writers where we get our ideas. There must be as many answers to that question as there are writers. No—scratch that. There might be as many answers to that as there are stories. Because each story is different and comes to us in a slightly different way.

My story “No Walls” is the only one I can remember that sprang from one line. The first line of the story. Suddenly it was there, in my head: I almost died the first time I learned that I could walk through walls.

Along with that first line came the basic premise: the main character can sometimes, for some reason, walk through walls. Of course, some of the walls of a structure are exterior walls, and if you’re on the thirteenth floor of an office building, that’s not a good wall to walk through. So he almost dies, taken off guard by this sudden ability.

Neither a first line, nor a basic premise, do a story make. SF writers have to come up with a basic concept, then extrapolate for all its worth to make an actual story. As the narrator of the story says, “What would the average person do with a ‘gift’ like mine? Is it good for anything but larceny?” I guess that depends on what kind of person you are before getting the gift. It also could depend on who finds out about your gift and what ideas it gives them. Clearly, the dark direction I took with the premise must say something about me.

It also struck me that a man with the power to ignore barriers would actually be trapped by that ability. And hopefully you’ll see the many ways that occurs when you read the story.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Gerard Houarner of Space and Time Magazine because, although he rejected “No Walls”, he gave me his reasons for doing so. There will be a special place in Heaven for all editors who take the time to do that! He was right—I made some changes, and my very next submission, to Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine, the story was bought. It became my first published story in Issue 18 of Neo-opsis in December of 2009. For that reason it holds a special place in my estimation. I hope you like it, too.



Writers And Their Work: Who Creates Who?

I don’t ever want to stop learning. So I still attend workshops on writing whenever I can. It’s a great way to learn new perspectives, like a few I encountered at a recent workshop given to my local writers’ group by a long-time university English professor and small press publisher named Laurence Steven.

Laurence believes that, as writers create our fiction, we are also created by it. Think about that. Unless you’re the world’s most formulaic hack, there will be many elements of your fictional universe that appear from somewhere you can’t explain or control. Call it inspiration, or the Muse—it doesn’t matter—the result will surprise you, in ways big and small. And in doing so, it will change you, too. You aren’t the same person at the end of a project that you were when you began it.

We always want our writing to affect readers that way—why should it surprise us that a creation of imagination will also reshape its creator? I say, “Bring it on!” (Just as long as it makes me a better writer.)

Related to that, Laurence feels there are two main approaches to fiction writing. Aesthetic writers are those of us who work in a very structured way: modeling characters and situations and working out detailed plots before ever starting the prose process, using discipline to marshal our resources and capture a vision. Inspirational writers essentially wait for inspiration to strike, and hurry to get it all down while the spark is hot, believing that good writing can’t be forced.  Aesthetics seek to capture; inspirationalists wait to be possessed. You may see yourself in one of those categories. Or you may see yourself in both, because the truth is, both approaches are present in all writing processes to varying degrees. Something has to happen to grab the writer’s attention before the process can even begin. No matter how disciplined you are, you have to depend on ideas coming to you all along the way. And no matter how much you depend on inspiration, you have to exercise discipline or you’ll never get anything done. Too much rigid adherence to structure can lead to formulaic writing and even copying others. Too much dependence on inspiration can lead to sloppy writing, and ignoring the culture of the genre you’re writing in.

Both approaches are necessary for significant writing to happen. It’s ultimately our interaction with something (Inspiration? Possession?) that results in the story.

And that’s how our work creates us.

Cancel the exorcist. Fire the life-coach. The keyboard’s really in control.



Does A New Year Make A Difference?

At the change of the year it’s the tradition to examine the past twelve months and develop a new strategy for the next dozen, in the form of New Years Resolutions. I’ve never gone into that in a big way. If there’s something I think needs to be changed in my life I don’t wait until January 1^st. Every day is just as valid as any other for the beginning of a new me.

So how do writers evaluate the past and plan for the future? Especially somebody just getting a career rolling?

For me, 2010 was a productive year in terms of the amount of material I created—I finished a first draft of a novel, polished another, completely rewrote a third (an earlier work), and began a fourth. Plus I wrote at least a half-dozen short stories. But it wasn’t so productive in terms of publishing credits. I only sold one fiction piece during the year. (Thank heaven I’m not counting on that income for survival!) Instead I aimed higher—I took a shot at the bigger, hardest-to-crack markets, reasoning that they’d be more impressive publishing credits when it comes time to solicit interest in my novel-length work. For my daring, I got some encouraging rejections from some of the most influential editors in the biz. Close, but no cigar.

So what should I resolve to change?

Thanks to some tips from Robert J. Sawyer, I’ve already begun to strive for more deeply meaningful stories, with significant themes. Writers like Sean Costello have taught me how to polish and cut and trim and polish some more. Each time a story is rejected it goes back under the knife for reconstructive surgery, to some degree. I’ve also taken greater pains to ensure there’s a real scientific basis to my SF stories. It didn’t help them sell.

As other writers before me have noticed, there’s been a shift—in the short fiction markets, at least—toward well-written stories with striking prose and SF-style premises, but no real science backing them up. In that sense they’re reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s fiction. Don’t get me wrong—Bradbury was a terrific writer, and I’m a fan. But at the risk of sounding like I’m crying sour grapes, I think having the whole genre skew that way is unfortunate.

So will I change my style? Chase the markets? Aim lower, just to see my stuff posted on somebody else’s website?

I don’t think so.

I will crack those big markets. I will get an agent, and a book deal (though maybe not in that order). I think 2011 will be the year.

Come along. It should be a good ride.

Print Versus Digital Magazines

After waiting for months to learn when my story “The Wind Man” would be published in On Spec magazine, I got word last week that it will be in the upcoming Winter issue slated for publication in January. Along with the notification was a request for permission to have the story included in the digital version of the magazine. For all the times I’ve gone to the On Spec website, I hadn’t realized they offered a digital version. I readily gave my permission—the more readers the better, even if the magazine isn’t offering additional compensation for the e publication.

I’m a book lover—I love all the sensations of a book in my hand, and that includes magazines. When I look for magazines to submit my stories to, I always prefer those that aren’t exclusively electronic, and at least include a print edition or a year-end print anthology. It just seems to make the publication more “real” to me. Literally, a more solid publishing credit. Yet I’ve subscribed to Analog in digital format for two years. I read it on my KOBO reader. I read a few other magazines that way, too. Does that make me a hypocrite? I hope not.

Some people will clearly prefer the convenience and lower cost of enjoying their favourite magazines with an ereader, and I certainly don’t want to miss out on that readership. There’s also something to be said about saving paper, and the environmental costs of delivering physical packages. But I can’t help it, I also want my published writing to have an element of permanence—a lasting presence—that I just can’t associate with a digital file on an electronic device. Not yet, anyway.

Whichever form of reading material you prefer, I hope you’ll look for the Winter issue of On Spec, either at your bookstore, newsstand, or online at http://www.onspec.ca/ . “The Wind Man” is a light fantasy about a restless wanderer with an unusual curse. I think you’ll enjoy it.



AWAITING PUBLICATION

Being a writer involves a lot of learning: much of it to learn the craft, some of it to learn research details to give a story authenticity. I don’t mind that—I’ve always loved learning. But one of the most necessary skills for a writer to learn, and possibly the hardest, is patience.

The waiting is a killer: waiting to hear back about a submission (a lot of that!), then waiting to get a contract, go through the copy-editing process, and above all waiting to see those sweat-infused lines of prose or poetry actually appear in squiggles of print. That’s why writers go grey. Or even bald…in patches.

All of this is a lead-up to say that I still don’t know when my story “The Wind Man” will appear in On Spec (http://onspec.ca/news ). I’ve been listed in the “Upcoming Issues” section for several issues now, so hopefully it will be soon. My story “Tartarus Rising” will be included in the anthology “Doomology: The Dawning Of Disasters” from The Library Of Science Fiction and Fantasy Press, (http://libraryofthelivingdead.lefora.com/2010/05/19/doomology-the-dawning-of-disasters-toc/) but no publication date has been announced yet. It should be soon, too. At least we’ve been able to get a look at the cover art for the anthology. I like it a lot—surreal, with just the right amount of B-movie pyrotechnics. Have a look.

"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"

If you’re a reader of crime fiction or a fan of crime shows on TV you’ve probably wondered how much of the police procedure you see depicted is accurate. In books? It’s probably not bad. On TV? Maybe not so much.

Sooner or later most writers, even if they’re in science fiction, will probably feature a crime scenario and the ensuing police investigation, and I think writers have an obligation to try to get the details right. Fortunately there are now lots of resources to help, including websites and books especially produced for writers. But details can vary a lot from place to place, so why not get it straight from the horse’s mouth (a police horse, of course)? You might be surprised to find that your local police service is very willing to help you get your facts straight. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about policing in a medium-sized city in Ontario, Canada.

-         police services in Ontario are networked and use PowerCase software to collect case information. One of the benefits is that similarities to a case in another jurisdiction can be readily found and flagged.

-         Any major case passed to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is handled by a Major Case Management Team (MCMT) which uses the Major Case Management Triangle, consisting of a Team Commander, a Primary Investigator, and a File Coordinator. The titles sometimes change, and the triangle can be only two people instead of three, but the three roles must be covered.

-         In my city, investigators routinely handle 20 cases at a time. In some jurisdictions it can be twice that many!

-         Some police services have Scenes Of Crime Officers known as SOCO’s who take all the photographs and collect all of the physical evidence at a crime scene. In other places, it is an officer of the Forensics Identification Unit who does this. In every instance they’re very strict about who gets access to a crime scene. A local FIU might process fingerprints on their own, but chemical or other physical evidence is sent to a specialized lab. In Ontario it would be either the Centre for Forensic Science in Toronto or the Northern Regional Forensic Laboratory in Sault Ste. Marie. Your area will have similar places.

Just from this sampling, it’s easy to see how a writer could go wrong and damage the credibility of their story.

So don’t “surrender” to your lack of knowledge. Get the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.