I should have said this last time...
I mentioned that I'm doing the National Novel Writing Month thing for the first time this year. What I didn't mention was what I was writing. I'll be working on a sequal to "A New Threat", titled: "Threat From The Past".
We'll see some recuring characters, as well as learn more about the Guardian's past...
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
A Novel in a Month??
I'm going to try National Novel Writing Month this year.
This should be interesting, as I usually only write when I get free time between work and family, my usual writing time for a first draft is around four years. (Well, it was four for the first one, and it's been about ten months for An Uwanted Apprentice at 34,000 words so far...)
I'll post my progress here in November, and we'll see how I do! I'll also post excerpts, that should be interesting....
This should be interesting, as I usually only write when I get free time between work and family, my usual writing time for a first draft is around four years. (Well, it was four for the first one, and it's been about ten months for An Uwanted Apprentice at 34,000 words so far...)
I'll post my progress here in November, and we'll see how I do! I'll also post excerpts, that should be interesting....
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Why you need reviewers
I've read my draft of "A New Threat" at least six or seven times. Every time, I spot a minor typo. Until, one day when I thought I'd found them all.
Then I had someone who hadn't read the story before, and hadn't heard any of my thoughts as I was writing read it. And of course, more typo's were found.
In one of the climatic scenes near the end, the bad guy gets caught. Something bugged me about this, but I couldn't figure out what. Everything was in there, it made sense, and yet...
I had a few people read it, and they all liked it, then the above mentioned reader read it, and pointed out something. What I read what was pointed out, I said "THAT'S IT!" (Just like Charlie Brown in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"....)
Looking at it now, the problem was obvious... I'll post the old version of the scene, and the new version once I get down re-writing it.
Then I had someone who hadn't read the story before, and hadn't heard any of my thoughts as I was writing read it. And of course, more typo's were found.
In one of the climatic scenes near the end, the bad guy gets caught. Something bugged me about this, but I couldn't figure out what. Everything was in there, it made sense, and yet...
I had a few people read it, and they all liked it, then the above mentioned reader read it, and pointed out something. What I read what was pointed out, I said "THAT'S IT!" (Just like Charlie Brown in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"....)
Looking at it now, the problem was obvious... I'll post the old version of the scene, and the new version once I get down re-writing it.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
10 Tips To Help Your Writer Friends
Do you have a friend who's a writer? Do you want to encourage them, but don't know how? Here's ten things you can do to help:
1. Read their work.
This one seems obvious, right? Writers love to have people read their work and give their perspective on it. Most of the time though, people read something, and the writer gets comments like "I love it!" That is helpful, somewhere deep down, every writer worries that what they've written is crap, and it's nice to know that at least someone else likes it. What a writer is really looking for though, is why you like it, or why you didn't. Do the characters sound real? What do you like about them? Does the plot seem feasible? Does something feel "off" about it, even if you aren't sure what? That sort of thing.
2. Give them time to write.
For best results, just like anything else, writers need to write at least a little everyday. Sometimes, it's hard to squeeze the time in. Writing time also needs to be distraction-free. It's hard to explain this, but when you get in the zone, and the muse is good to you, the story just flows. This doesn't happen often. Most of the time, writing is hard work, each word has to be carefully pulled and considered. The worst thing you can do to your writer friend is to interrupt them when they are in this writing trance. Once interrupted, it's almost impossible to get it back. It's worse when your writer friend is trying to edit. He's trying to keep whole chapters in his head to see if he dropped a plot-line somewhere, and then the train is derailed and all he can think about is the grocery bill you just asked about. Now he has to start over from square one and re-load that whole chapter, and try to find the one word he was worried about among the 100,000 or so other words in the book.
3. Remind them to write.
This one goes hand-in-hand with number 2. Writers love to write, but sometimes it can be hard, the words just won't come. Dealing with that is a whole other post, but basically we just need to work though it. Encourage your writer friends to write. Ask what happens next, comment on what you think the characters would do. Writers love it when they've done a good enough job to get people wrapped up in their imaginary world. Keep reminding them to work on it... polietly!
4. Help them avoid distractions.
This again goes along with 2 and 3. Writers these days just about have to blog and maintain a facebook page, and half a dozen other activities to let other people know they exist, and that they might want to read this book.... but that's only helpful if the writer remembers to write the book too.
5. Recommend their book.
If your writer friend has a book published, recommend it to your friends.... as long as you think they'd like it. I've seen posts on the net from agents and book reviewers both that primarily deal with just one or two genres, and they apparently get asked to review books outside of those categories all the time.
6. Be Honest...
Even if your writer friend is a family member, be honest with them. Don't be afraid to tell them if you don't like something, or if you just don't think a concept will work. Don't worry about sparing their feelings, if they're trying to get published, agents and editors will be much more critical that you'll ever be. If the bad is never pointed out to a writer, they can't get better...
7. ...but be nice while being honest.
Honest feedback is very necessary, but remember to include what you liked along with what you didn't, or put in possible suggestions to how to fix what you think might be wrong.
When a writer writes, he often bares his soul in the writing, don't rip it out.
8. Take your writer somewhere.
If your writer friend is stuck, take him somewhere, like a walk in the park, to the local mall, anywhere that might inspire creativity. Places with people to watch are good; watching people can help if a writer is struggling to get a character's mannerisms just right. Places with inspiring scenery are good too.
9. Make sure he reads a lot.
It's been said that good writers are good readers. One of the best ways to learn is from the best. A writer could learn about writing from a professor who's never published a book, or they could read a best-selling author and see how that author handles a situation that they are having a problem with.
So, if you read a good book, and see a situation similar to one that you're writer friend is having a problem with (whether they know it or not), recommend the book to them.
10. Be Supportive
If your writer friend submits anything, they'll get a rejection at some point. That's one thing friends are there for, right? ;)
Share more in the comments...
1. Read their work.
This one seems obvious, right? Writers love to have people read their work and give their perspective on it. Most of the time though, people read something, and the writer gets comments like "I love it!" That is helpful, somewhere deep down, every writer worries that what they've written is crap, and it's nice to know that at least someone else likes it. What a writer is really looking for though, is why you like it, or why you didn't. Do the characters sound real? What do you like about them? Does the plot seem feasible? Does something feel "off" about it, even if you aren't sure what? That sort of thing.
2. Give them time to write.
For best results, just like anything else, writers need to write at least a little everyday. Sometimes, it's hard to squeeze the time in. Writing time also needs to be distraction-free. It's hard to explain this, but when you get in the zone, and the muse is good to you, the story just flows. This doesn't happen often. Most of the time, writing is hard work, each word has to be carefully pulled and considered. The worst thing you can do to your writer friend is to interrupt them when they are in this writing trance. Once interrupted, it's almost impossible to get it back. It's worse when your writer friend is trying to edit. He's trying to keep whole chapters in his head to see if he dropped a plot-line somewhere, and then the train is derailed and all he can think about is the grocery bill you just asked about. Now he has to start over from square one and re-load that whole chapter, and try to find the one word he was worried about among the 100,000 or so other words in the book.
3. Remind them to write.
This one goes hand-in-hand with number 2. Writers love to write, but sometimes it can be hard, the words just won't come. Dealing with that is a whole other post, but basically we just need to work though it. Encourage your writer friends to write. Ask what happens next, comment on what you think the characters would do. Writers love it when they've done a good enough job to get people wrapped up in their imaginary world. Keep reminding them to work on it... polietly!
4. Help them avoid distractions.
This again goes along with 2 and 3. Writers these days just about have to blog and maintain a facebook page, and half a dozen other activities to let other people know they exist, and that they might want to read this book.... but that's only helpful if the writer remembers to write the book too.
5. Recommend their book.
If your writer friend has a book published, recommend it to your friends.... as long as you think they'd like it. I've seen posts on the net from agents and book reviewers both that primarily deal with just one or two genres, and they apparently get asked to review books outside of those categories all the time.
6. Be Honest...
Even if your writer friend is a family member, be honest with them. Don't be afraid to tell them if you don't like something, or if you just don't think a concept will work. Don't worry about sparing their feelings, if they're trying to get published, agents and editors will be much more critical that you'll ever be. If the bad is never pointed out to a writer, they can't get better...
7. ...but be nice while being honest.
Honest feedback is very necessary, but remember to include what you liked along with what you didn't, or put in possible suggestions to how to fix what you think might be wrong.
When a writer writes, he often bares his soul in the writing, don't rip it out.
8. Take your writer somewhere.
If your writer friend is stuck, take him somewhere, like a walk in the park, to the local mall, anywhere that might inspire creativity. Places with people to watch are good; watching people can help if a writer is struggling to get a character's mannerisms just right. Places with inspiring scenery are good too.
9. Make sure he reads a lot.
It's been said that good writers are good readers. One of the best ways to learn is from the best. A writer could learn about writing from a professor who's never published a book, or they could read a best-selling author and see how that author handles a situation that they are having a problem with.
So, if you read a good book, and see a situation similar to one that you're writer friend is having a problem with (whether they know it or not), recommend the book to them.
10. Be Supportive
If your writer friend submits anything, they'll get a rejection at some point. That's one thing friends are there for, right? ;)
Share more in the comments...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Cover design prosess for A New Threat
A day or two ago I talked about titles, today, we're talking covers. Specificaly, how I came up with the current cover for A New Threat.
I knew I wanted a planet on the cover, since most of the story takes place in space. It also lets potential readers know right away that this is a sci-fi story.
I stumbled upon (literally) this site, that had a tutorial for making planets in GIMP:
http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial
Using that, I made a planet and basicly slapped a title over it. This was just a placeholder:
At this point, I had friends at The Anomaly look at and comment on it.
Several issues were pointed out. Mostly some spacing issues with the various lines of text, and also that "Meskka" looks funny. I'd applied a text effect to it, trying to make it "pop", but...
At this point I tried out a few suggestions:
For those tests, I fixed the font spacing, and tried out a darker font color.. I didn't like it...
At this point, I also had a discussion about the title. You can read about that in the last post.
And so, the current cover was born:
I might make some more changes yet. I'm thinking about adding some illustrations of two of the characters superimposed over the planet, but I'm not really an artist, and I'm not sure if I really want to do that or not.
I knew I wanted a planet on the cover, since most of the story takes place in space. It also lets potential readers know right away that this is a sci-fi story.
I stumbled upon (literally) this site, that had a tutorial for making planets in GIMP:
http://mygimptutorial.com/the-ultimate-gimp-planet-tutorial
Using that, I made a planet and basicly slapped a title over it. This was just a placeholder:
I didn't like the white font though, looks too sterile and plain. So I made it yellow and added the series name:
This looked better but still a little "blah". Also, the proportioning is wrong. (Sadly, I didn't even think of this until I loaded the book into iBooks and saw it looked weird...)
For version three, I fixed the sizing issues. I also decided to show only part of the planet, and make it fill the cover. The effect I'm going for here is a similar look to one that you'd get looking out the viewer of an orbiting spacecraft.
At this point, I had friends at The Anomaly look at and comment on it.
Several issues were pointed out. Mostly some spacing issues with the various lines of text, and also that "Meskka" looks funny. I'd applied a text effect to it, trying to make it "pop", but...
At this point I tried out a few suggestions:
For those tests, I fixed the font spacing, and tried out a darker font color.. I didn't like it...
At this point, I also had a discussion about the title. You can read about that in the last post.
And so, the current cover was born:
I might make some more changes yet. I'm thinking about adding some illustrations of two of the characters superimposed over the planet, but I'm not really an artist, and I'm not sure if I really want to do that or not.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Choosing a Title
Choosing a title for a novel is hard. Well, it is for me.
I called the first book in the Guarding universe "Meskka" for quite a while. My thinking on this went something as follows:
The series on a whole is about the Guardians, with more being revealed about them and their history over the course of several books. Each book will be about something else in the same universe, with some of the same characters and some over-arching plot lines tying each book together.
So, the first book in the series was about the Meskka, thus, "Meskka" for a title. The only thing I didn't like about this was that the title just by itself didn't tell you much about the book. Sure, it'd make sense after reading the book, but the title should say something by itself to someone who's glancing at titles on a shelf. There's also the danger of having a made-up word for a title, it really doesn't say anything. Some readers don't care, and some will browse right past them.
I played around with several different titles looking for one that I liked the sound of, fit with the series title (The Guardian Chronicles, Book 1), and described the book. Some examples of the brainstorming process:
"Cats of Alkask" (I thought "cats" was somewhat misleading, and it didn't sound good)
"Allies of Alkask" (I like, except one of the very minor plot points is "are the meskka going to be allies or not?" this title kinda ruins that, or at least creates the impression that it does.)
"CATS IN SPACE!" (I wasn't serious about this one at all, but it popped into my head... too many muppets....)
"A Strange New World" (This one kinda sums it up, but it's already taken ;) )
I didn't really love any of these. Then I thought about it from another angle. I wanted the title to fit in with the rest of the series, and I'd already thought of a title for the second book in the series, "Threat From the Past". Thinking about this gave me the title, "A New Threat" for the first book, that sums up a few different plot lines in this book. I like it, and people I've ran it past seem to like it too.
Anyone else have title tips to share?
I called the first book in the Guarding universe "Meskka" for quite a while. My thinking on this went something as follows:
The series on a whole is about the Guardians, with more being revealed about them and their history over the course of several books. Each book will be about something else in the same universe, with some of the same characters and some over-arching plot lines tying each book together.
So, the first book in the series was about the Meskka, thus, "Meskka" for a title. The only thing I didn't like about this was that the title just by itself didn't tell you much about the book. Sure, it'd make sense after reading the book, but the title should say something by itself to someone who's glancing at titles on a shelf. There's also the danger of having a made-up word for a title, it really doesn't say anything. Some readers don't care, and some will browse right past them.
I played around with several different titles looking for one that I liked the sound of, fit with the series title (The Guardian Chronicles, Book 1), and described the book. Some examples of the brainstorming process:
"Cats of Alkask" (I thought "cats" was somewhat misleading, and it didn't sound good)
"Allies of Alkask" (I like, except one of the very minor plot points is "are the meskka going to be allies or not?" this title kinda ruins that, or at least creates the impression that it does.)
"CATS IN SPACE!" (I wasn't serious about this one at all, but it popped into my head... too many muppets....)
"A Strange New World" (This one kinda sums it up, but it's already taken ;) )
I didn't really love any of these. Then I thought about it from another angle. I wanted the title to fit in with the rest of the series, and I'd already thought of a title for the second book in the series, "Threat From the Past". Thinking about this gave me the title, "A New Threat" for the first book, that sums up a few different plot lines in this book. I like it, and people I've ran it past seem to like it too.
Anyone else have title tips to share?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
New cover for "Meskka"
I re-did the cover for Meskka a little. Mostly made the planet and title bigger. What do you think?
Monday, September 19, 2011
Point of View
I've left Meskka alone for several months while I've been working on An Unwanted Apprentice. I've decided to go back and re-read it. (Every writing book and published author reccomends doing this after you're finished.) It's a good thing too. I've found several point of view errors that I somehow missed before. Also, I've found a few scenes that I wanted to re-write to do more showing instead of telling. Also, I added a viewpoint scence for Bast during the battle on Alkask. On re-reading it, I found it really strange that this battle is taking place on Bast's homeworld, yet we're in Tomed's viewpoint for most of it. So I added a viewpoint that shows what Bast was doing, and what she was thinking about the process.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
epub: Hyperlinks in ePub Books
I also have a site at www.jedisaber.com/ebooks where I talk about how to make ePub files by hand. I'm going to do some blog posts here with bits and pieces about the ePub format that don't fit in the guide. I thought this might be of interest, since I've almost decided to self-publish.
Anyway, today's topic, links in ePub files.
I've gotten a few questions about how to do links inside of ePub books. This question is both easy to answer, and complicated.
The easy answer is: Just like you would in a normal web-page. This is complicated by the fact that the ePub specification does not give any usage guidelines on how to handle links.
iBooks, Stanza, and Adobe Digital Editions all handle it this way:
If you have an eBook with two files in it, say, "chap01.xhtml" and "chap02.xhtml", and they are in the same sub-folder in the zip file, adding a link is easy:
<a href="chap02.xhtml">Link title here</a>
Put that code somewhere in the chap01.xhtml file, and it'll jump you right to it. This is handy if you want to include a Table of Contents, or link to annotations or something similar. (Yes, if you use the TOC.ncx file, the ePub book will have a Table of Contents, but only through the menu. If you want one to show up as part of the book when you're paging through it, you have to make a separate page with links.)
Also, note that all links in ePub files are relative links. If your folder structure looks like this:
Mimetype
OEBPS
- title.xhtml
- chap01.xhtml
Extras
- annotations.xhtml
You can link between title and chap01 by just using the filename, not the full path. If you want to link from chap01 to annotations.xhtml, your link would have to look like this:
<a href="../extras/annotations.xhtml">link text</a>
(Please note that while you can put files in different folders like this, it's not recommended.)
Linking outside of the book can be interesting. The standard link:
<a href="http://www.jedisaber.com/">Link</a>
works in iBooks, Stanza, and Digital Editions. I'm not sure if it works in others, due to limited testing ability. (I don't have a Sony Reader or Nook.)
Anyway, today's topic, links in ePub files.
I've gotten a few questions about how to do links inside of ePub books. This question is both easy to answer, and complicated.
The easy answer is: Just like you would in a normal web-page. This is complicated by the fact that the ePub specification does not give any usage guidelines on how to handle links.
iBooks, Stanza, and Adobe Digital Editions all handle it this way:
If you have an eBook with two files in it, say, "chap01.xhtml" and "chap02.xhtml", and they are in the same sub-folder in the zip file, adding a link is easy:
<a href="chap02.xhtml">Link title here</a>
Put that code somewhere in the chap01.xhtml file, and it'll jump you right to it. This is handy if you want to include a Table of Contents, or link to annotations or something similar. (Yes, if you use the TOC.ncx file, the ePub book will have a Table of Contents, but only through the menu. If you want one to show up as part of the book when you're paging through it, you have to make a separate page with links.)
Also, note that all links in ePub files are relative links. If your folder structure looks like this:
Mimetype
OEBPS
- title.xhtml
- chap01.xhtml
Extras
- annotations.xhtml
You can link between title and chap01 by just using the filename, not the full path. If you want to link from chap01 to annotations.xhtml, your link would have to look like this:
<a href="../extras/annotations.xhtml">link text</a>
(Please note that while you can put files in different folders like this, it's not recommended.)
Linking outside of the book can be interesting. The standard link:
<a href="http://www.jedisaber.com/">Link</a>
works in iBooks, Stanza, and Digital Editions. I'm not sure if it works in others, due to limited testing ability. (I don't have a Sony Reader or Nook.)
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