DIY Autobiographies

It’s said that everyone has at least one book in them, and naturally many of these books would turn out to be autobiographies. Having read a whole host in my time, I would hazard this contribution to the best way of going about writing them.

The majority of autobiographies that I’ve read and really enjoyed have to be the ones which have given me a frisson of surprise somewhere along the line. All of us believe our lives would make interesting reading. It’s the selective process which we apply that is going to make the difference between a book that we pick up and read to the end, and a book we abandon after the first half chapter because it is boring.

We all share a common start. We are born. For the most part, the very beginning is usually pretty dull but as one engages with the world, things start to happen.

If you are going to write about a slice of your life, however big or small the slice, it has to keep people wanting to turn the pages. Seek out the parts of your life that you feel would be of interest to others.

There is nothing exciting about catching the 7.45 to work every morning and catching the 5.45 to return home in the evening. It is the one day that the 7.45 is late and something unforeseen happens that the interest begins. So the ability to convey various pieces of information that have a twist, or a difference, seems to be the key factor.

Any way that you can introduce an element of humour will also help. The ability to send yourself up, and find as much comedy in the anecdotes as you can, tells the reader something about who you are and what your personal perception on life is, which could create an affinity between you and the reader.

A classic example is someone like Maureen Lipman, who is able to take the most mundane happenings and turn them into a series of hilarious stories.

Autobiographies, like fiction, must have a beginning, a middle and an end. If you are going to attempt your own autobiography, it makes most sense to try and choose the most diverse period of your life. This will provide variety and help to engage the reader.

As a final suggestion, it is best to read as many autobiographies as you can, to see how each author handles their childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, and how they convey their own emotional take on the world. Write truthfully and from the heart. If it hurts, don't be afraid to say it hurts; if you make a serious error of judgement, say so and learn from it. As Shakespeare once wrote: "To thine own self be true".

Jennie Phillips writes for Any Subject Books. After many years of associating with the famous entertainment world friends of her actor husband, Conrad, the pair buy a small farm in South West Scotland. Skeoch - Our New Life On A Scottish Hill Farm tells the story of their numerous trials and tribulations.

An actor and his wife are an unlikely pair to combat the rigours of farming in South West Scotland, but with very little relevant knowledge let alone experience, Conrad and Jennie buy Skeoch Farm and set about making it viable. They are visited by hardship and tragedy, but also by beauty and contentment. This is a lifestyle more to be admired than envied, perhaps, but we can certainly share in the roller-coaster existence which is so vividly described.

Six More Steps to Improve Your First Draft

 A few weeks back I posted a piece called Writing in Layers: Six Steps to Improve Your First Draft.  Often, writers are filled with self doubt when they review their work in its early stages. Don't let negative mind chatter get you down! Keep working. Here are six more steps to try as you work towards creating a powerful second draft.

1. Look at you scene and ask yourself what typically happens in a scene like this? What do we expect to have happen? Then...do the opposite and keep us on our toes!

2. If you are writing a specific genre such a romance, put yourself aside and think about the reader. Who are they? What do you think they would want to see happen in this scene? Romance readers expect specific things in their novels. Once you've figured out what the reader wants for this genre, give it to them or cut the scene.

3. Do you have humor in your story? Every now and then your reader needs a high note, a moment to relax from the situation. Give them something to laugh at or relate to while you're preparing them for the next dramatic scene.

4. Let's look a those scenes again. Are they the kind of thing you'd jump on Twitter or Facebook and tell you friends to read? Do they make you excited? If not, revise or cut them.

5. What is something you might never expect from your character? Reveal that. You'd be surprised at how much depth it can add to this person. Just make sure it's relevant to your story and makes sense.

6. Give your character a catchphrase or mannerism. What is something they do at least three times in the story? Is their a specific phrase they rely on? This is a technique that can be really helpful when building a character, but be careful about over doing it. No one can flush beet red a million times in a book without coming off as silly.

Hope these tips help and allow your first draft to grow!

A Writer's Most Important Tool

Since the title of this blog is All Things Writing, I thought my debut post as the regular Monday contributor would share the single biggest secret I have learned as a writer. After four books I have learned more than a few. So that's what I'm going to talk about - the most important tool I've 'acquired' since starting this painful, frustrating, rewarding, pain-in-the-rear journey we call writing.

When I started this game some years ago I began with an idea. It was a good idea that is the basis for my recently published novel, The Silla Project. In the parlance of Hollywood, with which the literary world shares not a few important concepts, it would be called "High Concept."An easily relatable idea that appeals to a wide audience. What if an American nuclear scientist were kidnapped by North Koreans and forced to help them build a bomb? To bring this novel to life I sequestered myself for about two years, yes two years, and crammed everything I could dig up about North Korea and nuclear weapons into my head. Why my totally awesome wife didn't pack up the kids and split I'll never know. Probably because she is totally awesome.

1958 Ford Edsel.

Following that rather insane opening (I tend to be... let's say "passionate," about my interests) I spent the next two years hammering out the greatest novel of all time! Except, when I finally finished it, it stank. Not only that, it was like, 220,000 words! I'd given birth to the Edsel of thrillers! With a sinking heart I realized, I had no idea how to write a novel. I had a great command of the facts. I'm a physicist so the nuclear material was quite digestible. I'm... what did I say? Oh yes, "passionate," so had learned to read and speak some Korean. I also knew about every street, building, and monument in P'yongyang and was probably one of the leading experts on North Korea in the United States. But what I had written was a physics book with characters. So I spent the next few years working on a new novel which also sucked. Time to regroup.

Obviously I needed some training so I spent a couple more years actually studying how to write a novel and I learned much. I am happy to admit that I really enjoyed it. The philosophical underpinnings of story are fascinating and, as we are completely surrounded by story, my lab was any book or the nearest theater. In fact, I found writing to be very much like experimental physics with a development structure similar to the scientific method. To hone my plot skills I studied and wrote screenplays for a year. To master character I read psychology books and some very good works on developing character. Flush with newfound knowledge I delved into my next book with my highest concept, concept to date.

Geodesic Dome Home. Well-
structured but...

This one was called Multiplayer and it went far, far smoother. The training showed. It was much easier to develop, the plot had better structure, the pacing made sense, the characters were better. Overall, it was a much better product. But something was still missing. It was closer, but I still didn't have it quite right. I was also halfway into another book, Viridis, that was a step closer yet again. But, I didn't want to have it go awry and be forced to structurally rewrite it again so I stopped. I already had three of those waiting for that elusive magic. 

Now I'm getting a little frustrated at this point. I'm six or seven years into this journey, I've written three and a half books and a screenplay, and my work is still crap! Actually, it wasn't crap. If it was crap I'd have stopped. There was some very good stuff in what I'd done and I already had some glowing reviews from readers. Enough to convince me that it made sense to keep going. So, while it wasn't bad, it just... If you're a writer you know what I mean. It was time to take the plunge. Writer's conferences. And that is where I found a writer's most important tool.

So, I went to some writer's conferences. And while I learned some good stuff and discovered some very deep, possibly pathological, problems with the industry, I didn't find that magic I was looking for. At least, I didn't realize I'd found it until later. About eight months later to be exact. Now, if you don't have one of these, you really need to get one. It might take a writer's conference to find one, or you might come across one locally. They are very difficult to find and it takes some slogging. Especially the good ones. But when you find the right one, you know it like a flash of lightning. BOOM!

I met a lot of people at these conferences and, as all aspiring writers do (I really hate that word, aspiring) I collected emails and stayed in touch. We also started sharing work. Some of it was decent. Some of it was not so good. None of it was great. But what I quickly discovered was that most people don't want to hear the not-so-good about their work. Moreover, I wasn't hearing any "not-so-good" about my own work, which is why I'd gone to the conference in the first place. I knew there were elements of my work that were "not-so-good." I just didn't know what was wrong. Apparently, neither did anyone else.

That's when I found a writer's most important tool. One of the manuscripts I read fell into the 'decent' category. Part of it anyway. Particularly, character work was very strong. Even though the plot structure was off, the characters kept me reading to the end. And when I was done, I told this person the good and the not-so-good. And she said, "You're right, how do I fix it?" <Flabergastization> Meanwhile, she'd read through Viridis and came back with glowing reviews except... she thought my characters were weak in places. I said, "Okay, what would you do?" And she told me. And it worked. In fact, it was friggin' brilliant!

I jumped into her book, which is called Foreseen by the way, and identified the structural problems and made recommendations. She incorporated them in her way and voila, it worked! And just like that I had found the most important tool a writer can have: someone who will not only tell you the truth, but tell you how to fix it. She jumped into Multiplayer and working together, it came to life. The story was always good but now the characters were people that you cry with. More importantly, over the next two years both novels were published. Without our collaboration, neither would have ever seen the light of day.

Somewhere along they way I said, somewhat shyly I recall, "Say, would you like to read some of the other stuff I've written?" Working together, we fixed The Silla Project and it was published, also. The wonderful lady who had become my full time writing partner, the brilliant and gracious Terri-Lynne Smiles, is now working on the sequel to Foreseen, which she calls, Choices. And when it is ready, I will work with her to iron out the bumps. And when I finish Non-Player Character, the sequel to Multiplayer, she will help me with the characters.

To say it has been smooth sailing all the time would be a lie, though. Neither of us is famous yet. Neither can support ourselves on royalties. (Yet.) But readers rave about our work. We're getting solid reviews. We have new books in the pipeline. And lots of high concepts. We've also had some pretty good... fights. We DO NOT always agree. Sometimes I become a guy and clam up like a stone, or say something stupid. Sometimes she becomes a girl and gets emotional, or says something stupid. We get get past it. We're friends. We trust each other. It's Rogers and Hammerstein. My work needs her help. Her work needs my help. And we both put aside our egos to make it happen.

Terri-Lynne in NYC,
September 2009.

There are a few good pieces of advice I've come across on this journey. "The three R's of good writing, revision, revision, revision." "Good writing is ass plus chair." "Writing is like driving a car at night, you can only see as far as the headlights but you always get where you're going."  I even have one: "The secret to writing a book is to start, and then don't stop until you are done." They go on. And they help. But nothing helps like that 'tool' I found at an otherwise useless conference in New York City. We didn't even like each other at first. How could we have possibly known our fates would become inextricably intertwined? That we'd become fast friends. Shelve your ego. Find a writing partner that will tell you the truth. But you can't have mine. You can't even borrow her so don't ask. She's too busy fixing my work.

Happy Writing! - John C. Brewer

You can learn more about John's work at johncbrewer.com

Andy Gavin Stops by All Things Writing for an Interview!

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Andy Gavin to All Things Writing. I read his book, The Darkening Dream, as part of his Innovative Online Book Tour, and jumped at the chance to ask him questions about it and his second novel, Untimed.
Check out his bio!


Andy Gavin is a serial creative, polymath, novelist, entrepreneur, computer programmer, author, foodie, and video game creator. He co-founded video game developer Naughty Dog and co-created Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. He started numerous companies, has been lead programmer on video games that have sold more than forty million copies, and has written two novels including The Darkening Dream, a dark historical fantasy that puts the bite back in vampires.

Mary Ann: Welcome, Andy! Thanks for joining us today!

Tell us a little about yourself. I see that you are the creator of a well-known video game series, but how long have you been writing novels?

Andy: I’m a lifelong creator and explorer of worlds. As far back as first grade I remember spending most of the school day in one day dream or another. I had a huge notebook stuffed with drawings, story bits, and concepts for an elaborate Sci-Fi/Fantasy world I cobbled together from bits of Star Wars, Narnia, and Battlestar Galactica. By fourth or fifth grade not only was I loosing myself in every fantasy or Sci-Fi novel I could, but I was building Dungeons & Dragons castles and caverns on paper. Then from 1980 on the computer.

Over the following decades I wrote dozens of stories and created and published over a dozen video games all set in alternative universes. And as an avid reader (over 10,000 novels and who knows how many non-fiction volumes) it was no surprise that I eventually decided to write some books of my own.

 

Your novel, The Darkening Dream, is listed on Amazon as dark fantasy. How did you come up with this storyline and is this your typical genre to write in?

 

There are two answers to that, the visceral and the cerebral. The visceral part was this image I had – and some might consider me disturbed – of a dead tree silhouetted against an orange sky, a naked body bound to it, disemboweled, and bleeding out. The sound of a colossal horn or gong blares. The blood glistens black in the sunset light. Bats circle the sky and wolves bay in the distance.

But sacrifice isn’t just about killing. It’s a contract. Someone is bargaining with the gods.

And on the cerebral side, I’ve been obsessed with vampires for decades. Not because they are romantic, but because they are undead – and I really mean undead – and because older ones are creatures that have stretched across the centuries. But it always bugs me in stories full of supernatural where they touch on the historical roots of superstitions but don’t bother to do the research. I always felt that, as they say, “truth is stranger than fiction” – if, like me, you count myth as truth – and so I wanted to write a fast paced supernatural action story where the spooky stuff is all based on real spooky stuff. And truly, the real deal is much more creepy.

 

Who is your publisher? How did you make that connection with them?

 

I own the publishing company, Mascherato. With both of my novels I used top flight professionals for the entire process. This started with the editor, and continued with cover artist, illustrators, and book designers. Untimed, for example, has a lavish production including a cover by award winning fantasy artist Cliff Nielsen and twenty-one gorgeous interior illustrations by Dave Phillips.

 

  Is it easier or harder to make the transition to writing from the world of gaming?

 

As a serial creator (having made over a dozen major video games) it was interesting how similar the process was to any other complex creative project. Video games and novel writing are both very iterative and detail oriented. They use a lot of the same mental muscles.

 

 What's your take on getting an agent? Do you currently have one?

 

I have a really terrific agent, Eddie Schneider of Jabberwocky Literary. They represent Charlaine Harris and Brandon Sanderson among others. I can’t say the process of getting one was a whole lot of fun, although it was pretty smooth with Eddie in particular. I sent him a query for Untimed, he asked for the book a couple weeks later, a couple weeks after that he called and offered to represent me. Before that, I had the usual frustration that included at least 100 query letters and a dozen MS submissions. But getting an agent is just one hurdle. After that you still have to get an editor to offer, and an offer I’d want to take at that.

Some of the typical “features” of traditional publishing offers, like low e-book royalties, non-competes, and most painfully, 18-24 month publishing schedules, are pretty hard to stomach.

 

What do you think the best promotional tool is for an author?

 

I wish I knew. I do a bit of everything. Sending your book out exhaustively for review helps. Some promotions help, but not most. Advertising is mostly a bust, and I’ve tried a lot of it. Publicity in high traffic web sites REALLY helps, but is hard to come by. I have a very active website and social presence, about a million views a year and over 40,000 Twitter followers. Still, it’s hard to get conversion from reading a blog to purchases. Only a tiny percentage of the thousand or so visitors a day to my blog actually buy the book (at least then and there). Visibility on Amazon itself is huge, but also hard to come by.

 

Your book The Darkening Dream is a dark fantasy, vampire novel. Untimed sounds very different since it deals with time travel. As a writer, do you have trouble switching back and forth between genres?

 

I have fairly broad interest within the wider genre of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror etc) and really consider these all to be close cousins. That being said, different books have different moods, and even more specifically different voices. It’s this last thing that can be a little tricky to switch hit on. The Darkening Dream was written in a number of different third person points of view, and with Untimed I wanted a more immediate, more focused, voice. I went with a very tight first person present. It can be a bit of a brain flip to toggle between past and present tenses in rapid order.

 

How long does it take you to complete a novel? How many drafts do you have to go through before you feel that it's ready to show a reader or editor?

 

I tend to do two drafts before sending it to my editor. By the time you get to the end of the first draft there is always a pile of stuff you need to do, and if you know you need to do it, you should do it before showing the work to anyone serious. I’ll get notes back and do a big revision based on the notes, then a minor cleanup pass. With The Darkening Dream I ended up doing a lot of revision, nine major drafts in total. Untimed was only four. The thing with TDD was that I knew in my heart that certain big changes had to be made, but I resisted. I believe in revision. For me it would be impossible to have a first draft with excellent characterization, until you get the plot all the way to the end it’s hard to know what the character is totally going through.

 

Time travel is a fascinating subject! How do you keep your time lines straight? Does your MIT background assist with that?

 

First of all, I had to come up with a unique new system that allowed multiple visits to the same time period, but wasn’t too overpowered. If your characters are too powerful, there is no jeopardy. So I had to invent all the restrictions and deal with the issues of paradox (and I think I have a crafty new solution there). Then I had to figure out how to make returning to the SAME action actually interesting for the reader. That was even harder.

 

What is your favorite time travel movie or story?

 

Back to the Future is certainly one. It’s not the most realistic, but it is one hell of a fun ride and one hell of a well crafted screenplay. Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale did some serious revision too because I’ve read an old draft of it that was hugely different. No DaLorean!

 

Who would you say influenced you the most as a writer when you were a kid? Would you still consider them an influence as an adult?

 

As an early teen, some of my favorite authors were Piers Anthony, Jack Chalker, and Orson Scott Card. I’ve outgrown most of these (possibly not Card) as I no longer prefer pure adventure stories where character is secondary. Now I like characters put in really dramatic circumstances! These days I’m more influenced by the likes of George R. R. Martin and Tim Powers. But I read a lot, at least 10,000 novels, so I have a lot of influences.

 

 

What advice would you give for a young writer who is just starting out?

 

Read, read, write, write, edit, edit, edit. And hire good professional help too. Friends and family can give you a sense of how the book reads, but they can't usually tell you how to fix anything serious. I've read a lot of half-decent Indie books on my Kindle that are at their core good, but just need some serious tightening and polish. Hell, I've read plenty of big-six bestsellers you can say this about.

 

 

Monty Python or Seth MacFarlane? Which type of humor floats your boat more?

 

Monty Python any day. ‘Tis just a flesh wound! Come back here and take what's coming to ya! I'll bite your legs off!

 

What's next for you?

Right now, I’m writing two more novels and adapting Untimed into a screenplay. The new books are the Untimed sequel and a totally separate short novel that involves old school fairies and iambic pentameter.

Thanks again for joining us today at All Things Writing!

To learn more about Andy Gavin check out his links:

website: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com
 FB: https://www.facebook.com/andygavin
 Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/andygavin
 GR: http://www.goodreads.com/asgavin
 Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/andrewgavin/
 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Gavin

Steaming and smoking?

I'll explain the title in a moment but, before I do that, I'd like you to think back to any film or book with a memorable dénouement or exposé of the lead villain that you've recently come across. How did the producer or author handle it?

As you'll know if you're a regular reader of my posts, I'm obsessed with the characters of my bad guys. Any fool can describe someone who's holier-than-thou, always squeaky-clean and has a certain ‘savoir-faire’ about them. But a book stuffed full of such individuals would be like eating neat honey. That's OK for Winnie the Pooh but, for the rest of us, a couple of spoonfuls and enough's enough.

No, it's the bad guys who matter. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Now to my title but, first, think of that dénouement I mentioned earlier. How often have you seen situations where the bad guy can't wait to explain his (or her) devious plot to our hero/heroine? Is that realistic? Does anyone really think that our resident psychopath/criminal genius/black-hearted scoundrel is going to blab out the nitty-gritty of their chicanery?

Of course not.

However, your storyline may well require them to divulge their plans without having the hero dredge these details from them. Obviously the latter is better but I appreciate it may not be possible. That's why I'm going to introduce you to the psychology of steaming. At the same time, I'd also like to let you in on a little secret of mine for learning about human behavior under pressure.

I'm going to ask you to record and then watch a TV poker program. If it bores the heck out of you, I'm sorry, but believe me, it's well worth the time and trouble. All life is to be found around a cards table - the smug winner, the guy who wins by annoying everyone else and then taking advantage of the other players’ errors, the obvious loser, the strong silent type. You name the sort and you'll find them there.

There's one in particular I'd like you to watch out for and that's the chip leader (the guy with the most chips) who gets what they call a bad beat. That’s when a (for them) bad card comes up that defies the laws of probability and which ironically pays dividends for a player with a hitherto lesser hand who's maybe got in too deep. See the analogy with your hero in their moment of adversity?

Let me continue.

The bad beat shakes the chip leader to the extent that they get so desperate to win back their chips that they play the next few hands recklessly merely because they feel they need to do something, anything. In fact, they'd have been better just passing and taking time to sort out a new strategy. You'll see players go (quite needlessly) from winner to loser in three or four hands.

Why?

This out-of-control gambling is called 'steaming' by the poker profession and it's similar to how your anti-hero needs to behave if he or she is going to go off the rails and collapse in front of your hero. With that in mind, go back and watch the steamer's behavior in more detail. Look at their body language, note their comments and see how they are perceived by the other players.

In almost all cases, you'll see that they don't suddenly collapse: it's more like a block of flats being demolished. It starts with a small wobble and then gradually builds up momentum until it's almost chaotic - well, it would be if it weren't for the skilled actions of the explosives experts who plant and orchestrate the charges.

Now think about the dénouement scene. Consider your 'bad guy' falling apart and remember the steamer. Have something go wrong that unsettles them and then let them start unraveling. Don't make the mistake so many others have made of just having them woodenly spouting out all their bad-guy activities. It's not realistic.

The steaming poker player feels cheated by Lady Luck (never the most monogamous of mistresses) and this gradually leads to paranoia which induces panic and that adversely affects the brain's ability to function logically. Your villain should emulate this in whatever way is most appropriate to your story.

Do that and turn a steaming villain into a smoking book.

Clive West has written an anthology called 'Hobson's Choice and 15 other twist-in-the-tail short stories' and a full length novel called 'The Road' which is about white collar crime and how every crime has its victim.

Here's a brief excerpt from one of his stories which describes one of his bad guys who's building up to get his come-uppance.

The removal van had had to park across a shared drive to unload the relatively few personal possessions that he had allowed himself to bring. Less than five minutes after it had parked, Jason was met by a young man who somewhat stiffly introduced himself as his new neighbor before asking how long the drive would be blocked for.

Jason immediately took the opportunity to tell him where to go and what to do when he got there – just in case the man was in any doubt. Jason’s strong words and his large physical presence had not been what his neighbor had been expecting and he had beaten a hasty retreat indoors, muttering about ‘consideration’.

Since then, Jason had planted Leylandii to block the sunlight from his neighbor's house, had held loud parties that were not quite raucous enough to get him an ASBO, and left his wheelie bin open as near to his neighbour’s kitchen window as possible so that they were plagued with flies. Also, and knowing how his neighbour felt about blocking the drive, Jason had abandoned his Mercedes diagonally across it at every opportunity.

Not that the neighbours on the other side were exempt, either. Jason had hacked back their mature fruit tree where it ventured over the property line into his garden, making sure to coat the cut ends generously with herbicide, set up halogen security lights that shone directly into their bedroom window, lit bonfires whenever the wind was blowing in their direction, and so on.

The odd solicitor’s letter arrived asking him to desist but, as Jason well knew, he was doing nothing illegal and he carried on heedless of their thinly veiled threats. This continued for some months until eventually, the mainly elderly people and young families living in the little group of houses, formed a residents group to discuss Jason and what to do about him. They had also elected a representative, one of whose functions was to explain the group’s grievances to the perpetrator in person.