Celebrations and Ceremonies

Today is my mother-in-law's funeral. It's also my brother's birthday. Both have me thinking about milestones and the way we mark them.

The older I get, the more complicated my feelings about birthdays. Remember being a kid? Your birthday was almost as big as Christmas. My parents weren't big on parties or presents, but I usually got a cake. My birthday was supposed to be my special day. Most of them were a big disappointment. We were either at a family reunion where I had to share my cake and candles with several aunts, cousins, and other relatives or something else obnoxious happened. I had my tonsils out right before my twelfth birthday. By the time I could eat cake, it was long gone. These days, each birthday is a reminder that I'm not getting younger.

Funerals are a tricky subject. For my husband's mother, it will be a celebration of a life well lived and a woman well loved. Because of my faith and my religion, death isn't a final ending. It's only another step in our journey of existence. But the funeral isn't for the deceased, it's for the family and the friends. It's a way to find closure. It's a necessary step in grieving.

Another common milestone in life is marriage. Many societies also have a coming of age ceremony to celebrate the passage of a person from childhood to adulthood. Without these milestones, we may become lost, anchorless. These help provide the framework for a social structure, the basis for many traditions.

What are some of your favorite traditions or celebrations? Have you created a set for your fiction stories? Are there traditions in fiction books that bother you? What and why?

Writing a Serial Story

For the last few years I've been playing with a serial blog story. It's just for fun, Star Trek fanfic sort of, based on a character I play at work. Read it here, if you want. It's a different exercise than writing a short story or novel. Those I plan out. I know what's going to happen and where the story is going. With a serial story, I make it up as I go along. I have no idea where the story is going to end when I start writing. Each week or so, I sit down and write another episode. I guess it's like writing a tv show, but I wouldn't know. I only watch those, I've never written one.

For those who like to write by the seat-of-their-pants, this process will sound very familiar. From what I understand, those authors make it up as they go. I respect them for that. It's a tough process when you give yourself that much freedom. I write from a loose outline, nothing too specific, except for my serial story. That is truly seat-of-my-pants.

It's a weird feeling and more than a little scary to write an episode at a time and post it before you write the next one. What if the writing isn't polished? What if I made mistakes? What if I change my mind and want to rewrite to take the story in a new direction? What if it isn't any good? What if no one reads it? Wait, that last one is a good thing. Sort of.

So why do we write stories if not to share? And what's more fun than sharing that scary but exciting first exploration draft? Serial stories can be lots of fun to write and read. You have a new chapter every week, if the author sticks to a schedule (sorry, I don't do that very well with my story. I post as I write which can be very hit and miss but the first two stories are up and story #3 is started). Writing them is usually done just for fun. There is no real plotting or planning, at least the way I'm writing. The story is free to wander wherever it wants. Scary, but exciting. The story and characters can take surprising twists. For those who believe that the author is in charge and decides everything, you've never really written stories. The characters come alive and do things different than the author may want. The story may wriggle itself in brand new directions. Ideas rise from your meta-consciousness like the kraken from the deep, mysterious and unexplained.

Do you write a serial blog? Post a link and share! For those of you who've never read one, go try one.
Adrian Stevens, Quartermaster

What Really Matters in a Story

I've been involved in too many discussions over the last months, mostly with other authors. One question I've never resolved to my satisfaction is, "What matters in a story? What do the readers want?"

Authors will tell you that point of view matters. Sentence structure is very important. Grammar is necessary. Rhythm and pacing are important. Character, setting, and plot and all sorts of other technical aspects matter. And they're right. All of it is necessary. Good writing is the foundation and structure where you hang your story. If the writing is flawed, it's harder to create a strong story.

But one aspect I think gets lost in the discussion is that the main thing readers want is a story. They want characters they care about to take action and resolve problems. They want a story to carry them away. Most people read to escape. They don't care if a book is technically flawless. They care if the characters are likeable, if the story is entertaining.

Authors love to pick apart other books especially best selling books, pointing fingers at the flaws, at the terrible prose and weak descriptions and wandering dialogue. Readers don't seem to care about the technical flaws. If they did, the books wouldn't sell like they do. The authors wouldn't have rabid fans mobbing them.

So what do readers really want in a book? Am I completely off base in my assumptions? Do typos make you quit reading or can you overlook them if the story is good enough?

Here's the incentive to participate in the discussion: If I have more than twenty people commenting on this post in the next week or so, I'll pick a random commenter to win their choice of one of the books I've got on my shelf - Nexus Point (my SF adventure novel), Rotting Tales (a collection of mostly silly zombie stories), Wretched Moments Anthology (celebrate those moments no one wants to ever remember), How the West was Wicked Anthology (weird western horror stories), or Leather, Denim, & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter Anthology.

Comment away and tell me what you as a reader look for in a book.

Author Interview - Gene Doucette

I met Gene Doucette about a year ago on Twitter. I've followed his journey to publication with interest and sympathy. I've been there, too, and not long ago. So, let me introduce you to the author of "Immortal", Gene Doucette.

How can we find you? Website, blog, Facebook, Twitter?
All of the above.  The website is http://genedoucette.me, which is also my blog.  I’m on Facebook and Twitter as Gene Doucette and @GeneDoucette.  (I’m not one for handles.)  My main character is also on Facebook as Adam Immortal and on Twitter as @adamtheimmortal.  And just for fun, you can also find me on Goodreads (as Gene Doucette, of course) and I’m even listed on IMDb.
 I'm just as creative with handles. Name recognition is where it's at. What do you currently have in print and where can we find them?
Immortal is the big one.  You can find that for sale in print on Amazon, and in ebook everywhere, more or less: Kindle, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Smashwords… it’s even on sites I just learned existed, like Diesel.  I also have a few humor books out: Beating Up Daddy, which is in print only, you can find at Amazon.  Vacations and Other Errors In Judgment is an ebook on the Kindle.  And there’s The OTHER Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: A Parody.  You can find the original version of that in print from most online retailers and the anniversary edition I just put out on the Kindle a few weeks ago.

I'm looking forward to reading those, when I have money in my book budget again. What genre do you write?
I write serio-comic historical fiction crime/noir drama sci-fi fantasy action/adventure novels.

I asked Christopher Moore once what I could possibly call Immortal, seeing as how his novels face a similar problem.  He suggested I call it contemporary fantasy and get on with my life.  But it is not simply a fantasy, even though that’s the shelf it ends up on.  I have another novel called Fixer (sale pending, or maybe “pending”) that uses much of the same techniques as Immortal, but which would fit much more firmly on a science fiction bookshelf.  I think the most conventional book I’ve written was Charlatan, (book unsold; screenplay is award-winner though) which is a thriller.
 
Do the genre mash-up. Everyone else is. The only people who really worry about genre are authors, publishers, and booksellers. Or do readers really worry about genre?
Do you have cats or other pets? Why or why not?
We have three cats and a dog.  As I write this, the oldest of those cats is trying to get comfortable while sitting on my wrists and stomach.  I’m thinking of renaming him Handcuffs.  The other two cats are Wrecking Ball and Satan, although those aren’t their names either.  Our overweight dog, Penny (her actual name) is thankfully not attempting to get on my lap right now.  We’re pretty sure she thinks she’s a cat.

What inspires your stories?
I don’t know, but that’s the point of inspiration, isn’t it?  It sort of comes out of nowhere.

I read a lot of non-fiction—I’d say I read five non-fiction books for every one novel—which means I tend to go around with a lot of useless facts in my head.  Sometimes those facts gather together in one place and form a what-if, and then I sit down to try and figure out the consequences of that what-if.  If the consequences are interesting, I start writing.  Sometimes I don’t get very far because it didn’t end up being as interesting as I had thought it would be.  Sometimes I finish a novel.

That process sounds very familiar. I do similar things with my ideas. I won't admit how many starts to novels are sitting on my hard drive. What is your current WIP?
I’m still trying to iron out the kinks in Hellenic Immortal, the follow-up to Immortal.  It’s nearly there.  Then I have to wait for the things in my head to line up and point me the way through the third Immortal book.  And somewhere in there I need to rewrite Fixer, which I finished a while ago but which needs to be beaten and tossed around the room a few more times.  I’m also involved in a short film project that threatens to take up all of my time suddenly and without warning.

Ah, the joys of editing and rewriting. Good luck. What hobbies do you have that you want to share?
I wish I had time for hobbies.  What I have is work, writing, cooking, housework, and exercise.  I suppose you could call cycling a hobby, but I’m just using it as a means to commute to my job.  And I might not be able to do that much longer as my office just moved from 4.2 miles away to 18.5 miles away.

Did you always want to be an author? Who inspired you?
I decided I was going to be a writer about ten minutes after I learned how to read.  Or something like that.  I don’t remember a time when I didn’t define myself as one.  So in terms of inspiration it’s possible Shel Silverstein was responsible.

What are your favorite movies, tv shows, or books to read? Is there one that you could watch/read over and over without ever tiring of it?
I don’t have a “type” of movie or TV show I adhere to, i.e., I don’t just watch films where dudes blow stuff up, or only TV shows were dudes solve crimes.

Since I’m also a screenwriter, I really need a film or television show that’s written well enough to keep me guessing.  This is nearly impossible with TV; I’m usually calling out plot points two to twenty minutes before they happen.  Unfortunately this means I’m usually most interested in shows that the fewest people are also watching.  I thought Terriers was the most brilliant thing to come out this season, and it was canceled.

Movies can surprise me more easily.  I thought Black Swan was utterly devastating; I was completely lost in the film, and that’s a rare and great thing.

Books: I read mostly non-fiction, because aside from humor I hardly write non-fiction.  I cannot both read fiction and write fiction, so I have to make time for reading when I’m not also writing

What characters are your favorites from your books? From any work of fiction?
From my own books, Adam is an obvious choice.  He’s much more entertaining than I am.  I don’t know that I’ve ever become singularly fixated on major characters from other works, although I do recall a great fondness for Eliza from The Baroque Cycle.

If you could travel anywhere on Earth, where would you want to go? If you could travel anywhere, fictional or real, where would you go?I’d love to have an excuse to travel Europe, just to see some of the places Adam has been talking about.

If you could time travel, what is one event you would want to see in person, either future or past?
I sort of am time traveling when I write Immortal. Immortal is very much about imagining the past as it might have actually been, rather than how we generally depict it; we tend to romanticize or otherwise ignore certain realities.  For instance, most kings toured their lands for about six months out of the year, not just because it was something kings did but because the castles they called home were typically unlivable for long periods… because they had no indoor plumbing.  They traveled the land, in other words, because they and their fifty person entourage needed a place to take a dump.  I love things like that, even if it makes Ren Faire gatherings about as sensible to me as Civil War re-enactments where the South wins.

Romanticizing the past is the only way to want to live it. Medieval times weren't as nice as people want to believe. Thanks for stopping by, Gene, and good luck with Immortal! Check out his blog for other stops on the tour and thanks for reading.