eBook Readers

I haven't bothered to look at eBook readers yet, because I love old-fashioned books on paper. However, the little I have read about them offers up some intriguing possibilities. I like that they came up with eInk to reduce strain on eyes, though I have yet to see it myself.

I hope that any good eReader will have easy access buttons to maps and/or art that the book may contain. When I am reading, say, The Sword of Shannara, then at any point in the book I should be able to push a button and see the map. And, when the appropriate scene comes up, I want to be able to see the corresponding artwork.

How long before a book has a soundtrack developed specifically for it? I can imagine reading along in The Lord of the Rings and hearing the soft strains of Enya's "Council of Elrond" floating up from the eReader at just the right time. Probably it would be annoying, but of course you could turn it off.

Publishers Should Rethink Advances

In my opinion, some publisher should innovate in this bad book economy and rethink the idea of advances. This could help authors like me get books published that wouldn't normally be given a chance. I don't need an advance. I have a good career and can take care of myself. I just want my book published.

The drawback of advances is that this is how agents make their money, so no agent is going to want to deal with a book that brings no advance. There have been some new publishers who do smaller or no advances, and I would bet few agents bother to direct books to them. Why should they if they will not get paid? I say try a new model, in which no advance is paid, but the agent can get a percentage of whatever the author makes on the book. That way agents will be happy to direct books to such publishers, and authors like me can have a better shot at getting our work published. By making it a percentage of the book's profits, this forces the agent to still work to make the book the best it can be. Sure, there would be a number of bad agents who would be willing to just toss any trash out there, hoping to make money from whatever the book happens to take in, but I think such agents would be identified pretty quickly by the marketplace, or at the very least the good agents would become identifiable.

Editing My Book

I am still in the long process of editing my first novel. I began editing on my computer, which saves a lot of time when doing searches for certain words or doing mass substitutions. I also followed the standard advice about reading the story out loud - I read the book to my wife and kids, and this did allow me to find other obvious mistakes.

However, I have found a far more useful way of doing the editing, and I have not seen anyone mention doing this before (though I admit I have certainly not read everyone’s blogs). I 'published' my book on LuLu.com. I did it only for myself and did not reserve an ISBN number. What I found is that holding what appears to be an actual book in my hand allowed me to find so many more problems than I have ever found while reading the text on the computer. Somehow, just seeing the story as a book is both satisfying in some odd way (odd since it is not a truly published book) and also gives me a deeper view of the material as I read it, thus letting me fix things better. I highly recommend this method!

First Paragraphs

Nathan Bransford put up a contest to see who can write the best first paragraph - http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/10/3rd-sort-of-annual-stupendously.html. Of course it is subjective, but there are so many good entries already that it will be interesting to see what he picks. I know mine won't be chosen, because fantasy is not one of Nathan's areas of interest, but I posted anyway.

I had to cheat a little. First, the paragraph that used to be my first paragraph is a little too short, so I combined it with the second to add a little meat to it. Second, well, it isn't truly my first paragraph; I have a prologue. However, so many people hate prologues that I don't mind simply not counting it in this case.

I guess I should go ahead and post my first chapter here: (Hmm, I tried to put indentations on the paragraphs, but they didn't take upon publishing)



*****

Midas had never heard of elves killing men before. He slumped in his saddle, staring at the bodies scattered near the forest edge. Crows hopped about just out of kicking range, cawing at the interruption of their meal. The horses stamped their hooves and flicked their tails at flies. The smell of corruption was still mild.

“I don’t recognize any of these men,” Midas murmured. He should recognize them; he knew the people on his lands. These men hadn’t just been passing through. Three axes lay near the corpses, and two of the trees showed chop marks. Red sap flowed over the silver bark from the cuts, making the trees look as if they bled.

Laithtaris -- called the Elf Wood by men -- bordered the tiny province of Welby. It was home to the elven folk -- their only remaining home since the race of man had come to the Known Lands more than two thousand years ago. A treaty was signed at the time promising these woods to the elves, to be untouched by man for all time. Midas had rarely heard of any encroachment of the forest; if it happened it was usually an accident and elven rangers would politely but firmly let the offenders know that they must leave immediately.

Three bodies were near the trees and two more lay in the brown grass and weeds a few yards away. Each of them had a single silver-fletched arrow jutting from their chest or back. They were elven arrows. No man could make arrows so perfect.

Midas shifted his gaze to the woods. Silverbark trees towered into the sky, their canopies forming a ceiling over the tangled shrubs and dead leaves below. The edge of the forest was thin and the summer light shone down in beams to the forest floor, but there was no sign of elves. That was nothing unusual; Midas had never seen an elf in all of his thirty-eight years. There could be dozens of them staring at us right now and we’d never see them.

He twisted in the saddle to speak to Fridrik. “Bring a wagon from the village. Post a guard on these bodies until they can be loaded up and brought to Welby. Something's happening and I want to find out what it is.”

“Yes, milord,” the squire said. He detailed two men to guard the bodies, picked out two more as escorts, and rode off toward the hamlet they’d passed on the way here.

Midas sighed and glanced at Sir Brindor, who was gazing blankly into space as usual. Amidst the stubble of his gray hair, the crater in Brindor’s head was clearly visible. A few years ago, Sir Brindor had taken part in a tournament melee, during which his helm had been knocked from his head and a mace had bashed in the side of his skull. Healers had given him up for dead, but Brindor slumbered in a coma for three weeks and then woke up. He wasn’t the same man -- his speech was slurred and he had little memory of his previous life -- but he remained a ferocious fighter and devoted to his liege lord.

“Brin!” Midas said. Sir Brindor swayed on his mare, but then his eyes focused and he turned to Midas. “Brin,” Midas repeated. “That dwarf merchant who sold you the elven dagger, where can I find him?”

Brindor’s mouth worked silently for a bit and his face took on the confused look it always did when he was required to remember how to speak. “Iskimir,” he finally managed. “Sh- shhhop in Iskimir.”

Midas nodded to Brin and bent to examine the closest corpse. The man was filthy and wore ragged clothing. He looked like the beggars or thieves one might find in any of the big cities.

“How could they think to get away with this, Voor? Even desperate men…”

“I don’t know, milord,” Voor said.

“Someone paid them to do this.”

Voor nodded.

“Have Dalthis and two guards ride to Iskimir. I want them to find the dwarf merchant who sells elven goods. I want to know how he gets his goods; how he makes contact with the elves. Make sure Dalthis takes enough coin to persuade the dwarf. If he won’t speak to Dalthis, see if he’ll come to Welby and talk to me.”

“Yes, milord.”

Dust rose in clouds as the group cantered over the dry field. Even in the light of day the small red moon was visible just above the horizon -- an evil omen if there ever was one. Why would someone want to provoke the elves?

Publisher Decisions

My favorite agent blogger, Nathan Bransford, had an interesting post today about the pointlessness of complaining that such and such a classic would never have been published in today's writing world. It reminded me of one of my own complaints that is similar but a little different.

I see over and over again books by established authors that sell by the tons, yet if an unpublished author attempted such a book, no publisher or agent would even look at it. One obvious example is the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. It has so many main characters that even Mr. Martin could not possibly write a synopsis that would pass muster with any agent if Martin were a first-time author. If I had as many major characters as Mr. Martin in my story, no agent would bother to read past my query letter.

Yet, it is from such authors that new writers like myself draw inspiration. I thought up my story long ago due to my love of Tolkien, but it was reading Martin's stories that made me actually decide to sit down and type out the first chapter. I would have preferred to have a larger cast of main characters than the three I used, but I knew that even my three main characters would be a tough enough sell for a first-time author.

I guess what bothers me about it is that the publishers don't appear to me to be looking at what actually sells so well and allowing new authors the leeway to mimic such bestsellers in the structuring of our books. Martin's books are too long by newbie standards and have too many main characters, yet they sell fantastically well. Perhaps it is not just due to his great writing. Perhaps there are a ton of fantasy readers out here who love long, involved stories. That is what I think, and that is why it perplexes me that publishers and agents won't allow a new author to have a long, involved story.

Reconciling Story vs. History

When writing any kind of story, publishers and agents expect a tight plot where every word counts and every plot point has a reason. My book doesn't quite do this, and the reason is that in my novel I am writing not just a fantasy story but also a history. Sure, it is fantasy, so I should just be able to change any detail I like, because I created it, right? Not really. This story existed in my head for so long - more than twenty years- that it has essentially become historical fact within my created world.

This is a problem, because history doesn't tie things up nicely the way publishers and agents want stories to be. I have an almost war between the races of elf and man, halted due to the threat of a far more dangerous invasion from out of the East. I imagine many agents would tell me to ditch the whole approach to a war that never takes place. It's boring, because there is only a threat of action, no true action. To me, the threatened war between elf and man is something that actually happened, so I can't just cut it out. I imagine my created world as a real place with a real history, and history muddies up tight stories. I like it that way; it feels more realistic to me. Life doesn't work in neat, logical plot points.

My First Novel

I am torn by wanting to post some examples from my first novel, but not wanting to run into any future issues should I be lucky enough to get an agent and try to publish the book.

I really love my book, though the more I read on the internet, the more I continue to edit it. I keep wondering if I am actually making it worse rather than better! Correcting punctuation mistakes is one thing, but rewriting chapters because I worry they are not exciting enough or have pretty enough prose is another.

My book is fantasy and stands alone as traditional epic fantasy, yet it is planned as part of an arc that is mostly science fiction. That makes me concerned about whether I need more hints within this fantasy novel about the origins of certain characters, or if I should just not worry about it and let the future novels deal with that issue. I worry about this because some readers might question why my fantasy world has earth-like flora and fauna. I actually have an explanation for this, but I don't deal with it at all within the novel, because there is really no way to address it. Only one character in the book knows what has happened previously, and the issues are so complex that he doesn't wish to speak about them to other characters because it would open a Pandora's Box of further questions.

Anyway, I need to make a decision on whether to continue editing on this first novel, or begin writing the next. I am torn between the two so much that I am doing neither. I have a legitimate excuse in some ways, having just moved from Iceland to Azerbaijan, but this excuse goes only so far once I get settled into the new residence.

I've noticed that I don't really have any readers on this blog, and I suppose that is fine for now. I haven't tried to advertise it, and it may be better to build up a body of decent posts before I worry about readership. I'll try to think of a good chapter or snippet to post soon...