Instead of a blog, I have helped launch a new program called the Emerging Authors Project:  http://www.emergingauthorsproject.com.

Part of this project will include semi-weekly podcasts.  So, instead of doing blog entries, I will be doing podcasts.

I am actually quite excited about the podcasts.  One, I feel like I am teaching instead of lecturing.  It is a more natural mode for me.  Two, I am an auditory person.  I mostly read books by listening to them.  Audible.com is a wonderful thing.

Which leads me to my advice for today.

As you are writing, stop and read it aloud.  Often, things look fine on the page (or screen), but when we try to speak them aloud, they just don’t sound correct.  They may not sound natural even though the words might be grammatically correct.

Why?  Because the English language, or any language for that matter, originated as a means of ORAL communication.  The written word came later.  There is much more to be gained when words are spoken rather than read.  Voice inflection, sarcasm, body language, etc. are all part of the communication and do not translate well into written form.

Example:  Jimmy, go outside and play.

A simple statement of command to a child.  But inflection and body language add so much more meaning to the words.

Jimmy, go outside and play.  Jimmy’s in trouble.

Jimmy, go outside and play.  Jimmy should not be in the room.

Jimmy, go outside and play.  Jimmy needs to get off his butt and do something.

Now, yes, we can add italics to provide the emphasis, but how well does even that translate.  Say each of the above lines, sitting in your chair.  Now, stand and put your hands on your hips like an irate mother and say these lines again.  Hear the difference?

Read your writing aloud to find that emphasis and intonation.  Then, go back and add the physicality to the character to help portray that meaning and emotion behind the words.

“That’s a fine idea,” Mary said.

Or

“That’s a fine idea,” Mary said rolling her eyes and twirling her finger around her ear.

See the difference this time?  What actions would you do to add emphasis.  Give that same physical action to your characters in your writing.  Your characters will come to life and your writing will jump to the next level.

So, check out the Emerging Authors Project for more podcasts and classes.  See you there.

First, thanks to all who attended my book signing on Saturday.  I had a lot of fun and having the event where ice cream was being served didn’t hurt at all.

Second, thank you to those who have contributed to the title of the second book.  If you haven’t heard, I do not like the working title of my second book and I am asking help in changing the name.  You can read the first chapter and then suggest a title.  More details and the first chapter is available on my website, http://www.michaelcombe.com.

Third, thanks to those that have purchased and started reading Moon Flower: Book 1 of the Convergence Series.  I have received some good feedback and even a pretty good text review on Goodreads.com.  I’m very pleased with the reaction of the readers.

And lastly, thanks to those of you who have been attending my monthly classes.  They have been very helpful to me personally and I hope that you get as much out of them as I do.

With that in mind, my next class is on February 7^th at 6:30pm at the Pleasant Valley Branch of the Weber County Library.  In keeping with Valentine’s Day, the title of this class is “Hello, I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name? – Adding Romance to Fiction.”

For the “helpful” section of this post, I would like to talk a bit about titles.  There are two major schools of thought regarding book titles.  The first is that the title should reflect what the book is about and should coincide with major plot points.  This is true.  I think a title should describe the book in a single short phrase.  Books like Cold Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, Cujo, The Hunt for Red October, and Storm Front do this very well.

However, we also cannot ignore the marketing side of the title as well.  In addition to describing the plot, it should also be catchy to the reader, as well as bring the right book to the top of the list when entered into search engines and online libraries.  Books like Skinny Bitch, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, and The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo do this very well.  They title stands out in the reader’s mind as well as includes unique key words for the search engines.  Even if you entered, “Girl Dragon Tattoo” in a search engine, the book you are looking will be the top of the list.

It is important for us as authors to keep that in mind.  The title of a book is much more of a marketing game than it is a literary one.  Do not be surprised if your editor suggests several different titles than the one you thought you should use.

I went through this a little bit with Moon Flower as well as Book 2 of the Convergence Series–title still pending.  Whenever I refer to the book, I always use its full title, Moon Flower: Book 1 of the Convergence Series.  The key word in the title is “convergence.”  This is the word that will bring the book to the top of the list on the search engines.  With the rapid releases of my books in the Convergence Series, the publishing company wants to create the interest in the series as a whole, not just the individual books.  This will help market the books better, especially as new ones are released.

Think of some of the better series you know.  Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time and The Dresden Files.  These are some of my favorites.  I think with the exception of the Lord of the Rings, I could not tell you the order of the books, nor could I name every title in the series off the top of my head.  But, if I were to enter “The Dresden Files” into a search engine, the books in that series will all appear on the results page at the top of the list.  Granted, I might have to scroll down to find a particular book, but I know I won’t have to weed through several books that aren’t even related to Harry Dresden to find the book I am looking for.

But I know that some of you are asking, why not search by the author?  Good idea.  The author is just as much as the marketing campaign as the title and the series.  Often, the author is promoted as much, if not more, than the book, especially when they have multiple series like Jim Butcher, James Dashner, and Brandon Sanderson.

The point is, marketing.  When you think of a title of a book, remember the full appeal of the title, series (if there is one) and author.  This is how your readers will find your book.

Case in point, I love John Steinbeck.  I love his character development and the natural way his characters interact.  Conversations in his books do not seem forced or contrived.  They are true and real in a way that most writers can never achieve.  But I’ll save my tirade on bad conversations in writing for my dialogue class.

When I write, I really try to emulate Steinbeck’s genuine and instinctive tone.  Sometimes I succeed.  Often, I will go back and re-read some of my favorite Steinbeck works just to sharpen the flavor, as it were.

And I just don’t do that with Steinbeck.  While writing Moon Flower, I went back and re-read half of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series to get his flavor.  Write what you know and write how you read.

Which leads me to the real twist I wanted to present.  And this is really my personal insight on language, so take it for what it is worth.

Language was invented to communicate.  Written language was invented to be used when verbal language could not be used.  Meaning, language’s primary method of delivery is the spoken word.

If words should be spoken, then where do books come in?  Books are long stories, plain and simple.  But, I believe that books should be read aloud.  Take Dr. Suess for example.  “I would not eat them with a house. I would not eat them with a mouse.  I would not eat them here or there.  I would not eat them anywhere.”   On the page… repetitive and not very interesting.  Any editor would immediately send these lines for a rewrite.  But spoken in character and with emotion (and with an affected and accented voice that my kids love), these lines leap out and paint a visual picture of a dynamic interaction between two characters. 

Often much of the nuance character is lost when the auditory version of the story is neglected.  So, to fix that, when you are re-reading your favorite authors that you try to emulate in your own writing, get the book on audio.  I’m sure your local library has several of your favorites available on CD or for download.  Personally, I subscribe to Audible.com where I can download two full-length books every month.  To be honest, I prefer to read recorded books.  I get sooooooooo much more out of the story than if I had read the printed page.

Try it.  Get one of your favorite books on audio and see if the reading experience in heightened by reading the story aloud by a professional reader.  I really think you will find a huge difference and will want to keep reading several of your favorite stories on audio.  As you read audio books and try to emulate the writing, I am sure you will see a marked difference in the quality of your writing.  Mine is clearer and with a more natural rhythm.  Give it a shot.

One caveat: If you are reading the classics, make sure you get a good reader.  There are some that are just plain boring and make you want to fall asleep like you did when you had to read that book in high school.  Audible.com lets you download a brief sample to test the reader.  Some readers are better than others.

Every emerging author has that coming-of-age story.  It is usually the story that we wrote when we were in our early 20’s and realized that childhood was over and adulthood basically sucked eggs.  Actually, you might be at that point and writing your coming-of-age novel, and that is okay.  There is definitely a time and place for coming-of-age pieces and some of them are really good.

However, in spite of coming-of-age stories being written on an epidemic level, few of them get published and even fewer achieve any kind of financial success.  What is important is to get that story out of your head and on to paper.  Once it is done, don’t sit on it and do nothing else.  Move on to your next project.

Hold on to the coming-of-age piece.  Keep it in a drawer and come back to it.  Chances are, it will never be published, but there is probably a ton of stuff in there for fodder for a later book.  But for right now, especially if you are just emerging as a new writer, don’t rest all your hopes on this story that, quite honestly, has been retold thousands upon thousands of times.

That does not mean that you give up on writing.  It means that you find yourself as a writer.

Enter genre fiction.  Most people have a favorite author, or several favorite authors that they enjoy.  I have my three or four that I will read everything they put out, whether it is crap or not.  Why do you read these authors?  What makes you keep reading them?  Why are they successful?

The idea is to emulate those authors that are doing it right.  Notice I said emulate, not copy.

As you read your favorite authors, take the time to do an effective analysis on the stories they write and why they work.  Once you understand some of the mechanics they use, try to apply that in your current story, even your coming-of-age piece.

Let me give you an example.  When I was 23, I wrote a story about a young, misunderstood man who seeks to find himself by seeing the world though the sights of an M16A2.  He joins the US Marines and is trained in intelligence.  While in training, he realizes… well, he comes of age.  Boring story, I admit it.

However, as I read more and more, I tried applying this same story in the manner of several authors.  In my Tom Clancy phase, I tried to make the young man a super-spy Jack Ryan.  In my Stephen King phase, the Marine’s unit was attacked by “Low-men” (Dark Tower readers will recognize these guys).  While on a Jane Austen kick, the young man became a new officer in a British regiment.  Then I got into fantasy and started reading a variety of excellent authors including Brandon Sanderson, R.A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood and others.  I realized that my misunderstood Marine would be perfect as a young, misunderstood, elven, super-spy.  And from him, the character Ashe was created.  Ashe is one of the main characters in the first book of the Convergence Series, Moon Flower.

But Ashe’s coming-of-age was soooooo boring!!!!  So, I cut it from the story and started at a point in Ashe’s life when he was already of age, but shaped by his past experiences.  His past experiences actually came back to haunt him.  We see in Moon Flower, several instances where his choices he made as a young man actually had dire consequences later in life.  As the series progresses, we will see more.

What is the point, Mike?  The point is that while your coming-of-age work may not really work, it does provide some excellent material for later in your writing.  Don’t scrap it, but don’t hang all your hopes on it either.  As you evolve as a writer, you will find places where many of your early pieces can be used better… and more fun for the reader.

I’m excited because they serve some excellent sandwiches.  Not to mention they also serve Farr’s Ice Cream.  Stop by and see me.  Pick up a copy of Moon Flower and a sundae.  It will be a fun time.

The next book signing is at Hastings Books (340 E. 525 North, by the Harrisville Wal-Mart) on Saturday, February 25 from 3pm-5pm.  This one was fun to arrange, mostly because when I went in to speak to Stacy, the books manager, I noticed eight copies of my first novel, Trust with a Razor, sitting on the shelf behind him.  Granted, I would prefer to see the book in the hands of the customers but we’ll see if the signing there can’t help that.

I am rather excited about these signings and about the release of the Convergence Series.  I am already working on the next installment.

Which leads me to a realization: I have been so wrapped up with the release of the Convergence Series that I have completely neglected posting any valuable writing advice in my blog.  I hope to rectify that today.

I would like to talk about something more practical and concrete, and something that I don’t cover in my monthly classes.  I want to talk about this concept of “Write what you know.”

I attended a writer’s conference a number of years ago and I spoke to a number of people that declared themselves to be “LDS authors.”  This means that their primary audience is members of the LDS church living in Utah.  When I asked them why they didn’t try something new, they recited this old adage.  “I write what I know,” they told me.

I’m sorry, but I find this absolute crap.

I can say this because my primary focus is fantasy.  I know nothing about what it is to be an elf or a dragon, and yet elves and dragons are primary characters in the Convergence Series.  So does that mean that I am not writing something that I don’t know about?

No, it doesn’t.

Because writing is not about what I know now.  It is about what I can learn.  The reason I was able to understand the elves in my story so well was because I researched them.  Yes, I know there are no such things as elves and dragons and it would be very difficult to conduct adequate research.  So instead, I read about what other people wrote about them.  I read several fantasy novels and read about how elves and dragons are portrayed in fantasy.  That way, my depiction of an elf in a fantasy novel was consistent with the general and accepted depictions of elves.  My version of a dragon is right in line with other dragons in similar stories.  I did not copy characters. I gave personalities to accepted archetypes.

It took research, yes.  The same research I used in my first historical novel, Trust with a Razor.  This required research, obviously, since the story took place in 1933.  I had to try to understand what life was like in Ogden at that time.

So, my question to those people who limit themselves because they don’t know anything else is, “Why don’t you go out and learn something new?”

Yes, I am bit on a soapbox here, but this really frustrated me.  I hate to see people limiting their creativity and systematically sabotaging themselves.  I asked one person at the conference why she didn’t try science fiction.  She read scifi and liked scifi.  So why didn’t she take her story of a conflict with a LDS bishop (a leader of an LDS congregation) and one of his parishioners and instead make the bishop the captain of a starship destined for an unknown and glorious port (turning the religious connections into unknown worlds).  She became intrigued a bit, but laughed off the idea, saying that she could never do that because she was an LDS author.

So is Orson Scott Card who wrote probably THE definitive science fiction novel of the 20^th Century with Ender’s Game.

My point is, don’t be afraid to try something new.  Take your plotline and see how it fits in outer space.  I will admit my outline for the Convergence Series did not begin in the fantasy world of Cordia.  It actually began with an aborted military operation I was part of while serving in the Marines.  My idea was to create a fictionalized account of those events.  I had all the relevant data: the names, the dates, the personalities involved, the eye-witness accounts, even the classified information surrounding the operations.  And THAT was the problem.  The entire operation was considered classified and, by law, I could not disclose it in any way, including a fictionalized version.  It wasn’t like people could find out everything by piecing together accounts in the newspaper, but because I was part of the operation, any retelling, fictional or otherwise, could be considered as the unlawful disclosure of classified information and I could go to jail.

Consequently, I moved the location of the events from… some undisclosed location… to Cordia, a fantasy world.  The personalities changed slightly, the events changed dramatically, but the themes and motivation behind the operation remain intact.  I am writing what I know… but I had to learn a bit more to make it work.

So, I will add to the saying.  Write what you know… and if you don’t know it, learn it.

Moon Flower: Book 1 of the Convergence Series is out!!! It is currently available in Kindle and Nook formats. Print is also available for special order in your local book store. It should be on Amazon shortly. Apparently, there is a delay when books are available on Amazon that no one can seem to control. Weird.

Announcement #2:

I have decided to take my classes (and my exposure) to the next level and offer them online. My writing classes will still be FREE and will be offered at varying times and days throughout the month to accommodate different schedules. Visit my “Classes” page for the schedule.

Announcement #3:

Ok, this really isn’t an announcement. It is just my explanation of the title of my next class” “Where Were You on the Night of January 16th – The Suspense of Information.” A few people have asked me what this means, so I thought it would be a good idea to describe the twisted workings of my brain.

“The Night of January 16th” is a play written by Ayn Rand who also wrote Atlas Shrugged. The play is a courtroom drama, but without all the cool investigation you see on Law and Order. Instead, the jury is selected from members of the audience and the actors put on the trial of a woman accused of murdering her lover. There are several plot twists and contradicting testimonies until no one really knows what the truth is. Someone on the stage is most assuredly lying, but the question is, who? It is up for the audience/jury to decide and cast their vote whether or not she is guilty, resulting in two different possible endings of the play.

I performed this play when I was a junior in high school and it was a fun, but difficult play to do. Every character HAD to be genuine. Every character HAD to believe what he or she was saying. The play was not about a discovery of the truth, but a discovery of… believability.

Wow. Crazy concept.

Who does the audience believe? What testimony is plausible in their minds? Is she guilty or innocent? No explanation, no dramatic confession, no Jack Nicholson shouting, “You can’t handle the truth!” The play is about why we believe truth.

Ok, enough about that. What does this have to do with writing suspense?

Well, come to the class if you want to find out.

Briefly, suspense is all about revealing information to the audience. What do they know? What do they think they see? Of course, we will be discussing the great Alfred Hitchcock who is considered to be the Master of Suspense. With good cause I might add. As you think about certain Hitchcock films, you begin to see how, quite honestly, he is able to string you as an audience member along to reach a conclusion, and then pull the proverbial rug out from under you. It is a question of manipulation.

And that is what we will be discussion in class. How to manipulate an audience to believe something and to create that tension that comes from holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. Psychologists call that Gestalt. We’ll be talking about how to create it. Cool stuff.

Sign up for my next class and find out more.

You may view the first chapter here:

http://www.michaelcombe.com/Moon_Flower_Sample_Chapter.html

Thanks, and happy reading.

Michael Combe

I will admit I started off pretty well.  However, on about Day 4, I got a message saying that I needed to do a bit of rewriting on my novel that is being released in December.  That has been taking up a lot of my time that would be dedicated to writing.  Not a big deal.  It needs to be done.  So, I have been slacking a bit in my word count.

I think that many of us get discouraged with our writing this month for similar reasons.  Life happens, we don’t get our word counts, we fall behind, so we quit.  I don’t think that there is any reason to feel bad about this.  Maybe because I spend most of my time writing SOMETHING, that I feel I have accomplished my writing goals every day.  I guess I am lucky in that.

But, just because you may not be writing on your NaNoWriMo word count should not mean that you get discouraged with writing your novel.  Every writer will tell you to write every day, and that is true.  And I have heard it from several writers that it does not matter one iota WHAT you write, as long as you write.  So write in a journal, post a thoughtful message in a political web forum, give some good feedback to someone’s blog entry, write a detailed e-mail to a spouse or friend telling them something new.  Write something. . . anything.

Switching gears here, you might be wondering why I am doing a rewrite one month before the release of my novel.  You might ask, “Shouldn’t the manuscript have already gone to print?”  Well, if we were doing traditional publishing, yes.  But the people I am working with are focusing on electronic publishing (i.e. Kindle, Nook, etc.).  This means that there is a faster turnaround time.  So we don’t have to wait for six months for my book to be released.  It will be released next month—If I can get the rewrite done, that is.

It also means that we will be releasing three more of my novels throughout 2012: one in March, one in June and one in September.  We might wait to see if the whole end of the world thing happens before we commit to anything more.

This also means that I am going to be very, very busy over the next few months.  But that is a good thing.  More info about the releases will be posted on my website as I get it.

With that in mind, I would like to announce my next class.  Mark your calendars for December 6th at 6:30 pm at the Pleasant Valley Branch of the Weber County Library.  The topic of this class will be:

Buy Low and Sell High – Applied Economics in Fiction

Ok, go ahead and ask the question…  What???

Yes, Applied Economics in Fiction.  Now this topic has nothing to do with creating and interpreting supply and demand charts, but has everything to do with filling in plot holes in fiction.

I actually learned this while attending a writer’s conference.  L.E. Modestitt Jr., author of the Saga of Recluse Series, the Spellsong Cycle Series, the Corean Chronicles Series, and many others.  He said that there was a major problem with most fiction (primarily speculative fiction) because the authors knew nothing about economics.  Now, I had no clue what he was talking about, so I asked him to explain.

Here is what he said:  Good conflict is about supply and demand.  Who has the commodity (i.e. power, magic, love, sex, money, technology), who wants it (i.e. good guys, bad guys, others), and—most importantly—what are they willing to do to get/keep it (i.e. buy, beg, borrow, steal, kill, destroy the world, etc.).

I have mentioned this idea in a few of my other classes as well as to some other writers and they have wanted more.  I think it will make an excellent topic for a class where we can discuss it in detail.

So mark your calendars for December 6th at 6:30.  I think this might be one of the best classes I have given so far.

And to give a further update.  My next novel, Moon Flower, Book 1 of the Convergence Series, will be released on December 12.  My editors are putting together a book signing for me at a local bookstore, but because of the Christmas shopping season, we are extremely limited in times and places.  More details to come, as well as some cool graphics for the book.

We will also be developing a website that will give a lot of the background to Cordia, the world in which the novel takes place.  And for some of you gamers out there, it also contains info on incorporating the world into a d20 RPG system.  Yes, I am a nerd, too.  Go figure.

I would, however, like to put in two shameless plugs if I may.

The first is that my next novel will be released around Christmas time.  We are trying something different this time and pushing electronic publishing.  We feel that there will be a lot of Amazon, B and N, and iTunes gift cards given during the Holidays so what better time to capitalize on some of this Hey-I’ve-got-$25-to-kill mentality that seems to come around this time.  As people are
using their gift money on things they would not normally buy, they might be willing to risk a couple bucks on a new author.

So, if you get a gift card and want to blow it on a new book…  The new novel is called Moon Flower.  It is a high-fantasy, but more of an intrigue, rather than a quest line.

Mass destruction has erupted all over the world and one group is laying claim: The Darkwings. But this mysterious group will not reveal their hidden agenda nor will they cease their carnage until their unknown mission is achieved.  Only the ultra-secret spy network of Monitor can possibly stop them.

In this whirlwind of clashes between nations and ideals emerges Moon Flower, a  survivor of one of the Darkwings plots.  Alone and powerless, she tries for rescue her friend from Kraagen, a renegade dragon and Darkwing Commander who has plans for his captive in a future Darkwing scheme.  It is a race against time, against military forces, against the very essence of magic itself to save the girl and the world.

Shameless plug #2.  My classes have been going great.  I have learned quite a bit and have really tried to incorporate the lessons learned in my books.  The classes have been going so well that Weber Human Services has asked me to come in and teach a class on writing personal and family histories to their Senior Companions (volunteers who work with seniors in the area).  The
idea is that the companions will encourage their seniors to write their histories.  I am VERY excited for this.  And VERY nervous.  But I am looking forward to it.

So, yes.  Things have been busy.  Hence, the gap between blog entries.  But I hope this news makes up for it.