On Writing

Category

An Author’s Review of: Freelance Heroics

As promised, here’s my author’s review of my second book, Freelance Heroics. Without unnecessary delay, let’s get to it! As I mentioned in my previous post, Freelance Heroics is the better written of my two books from a technical perspective. It would be worrying if this were not the case! An author ought to get notably better at the nuts and bolts of writing between his first and second books. This is especially noticeable in Adv5, where the combat writing is a lot stronger than in...

An Author’s Review of: Wage Slave Rebellion

Recently I embarked upon a novel project. Not a strenuous one, but certainly novel, and of concern to my novels. You see, once my disastrous two-year return to the world of full-time sales came to an end, and I began working on Book 3 again in earnest, I had an uncomfortable realization: it had been so long since I’d spent real time working on my books that I’d forgotten some of what happened. Embarrassing, to say the least. Not big things! Just...

Book 3 Progress Report

Hi all. It’s been a while, right? I figured it was time to finally give you that update I promised two posts ago, which was, er, in August 2017. You deserve an update about my progress on Book 3. The long and the short: there hasn’t been much. Progress, that is. So this is going to double as an explanation (exploration) of why (what happened). But before that: I have not given up on writing the next Firesign book, nor on writing novels in general....

I get it now!

I finally get it! Writers and salespeople are the same! They’re whiny, lazy, cowardly, constantly make excuses, always blame others, and are generally reprehensible! (Also, the drinking. All the drinking.) They’re the same because writers and salespeople do the same thing: they dance with the fear. Day in and day out, the thing they do is tiptoe up to the edge and, when they can no longer put it off any longer, they jump. And once you jump, it’s easy!...

Why I never give characters temporary names

If I give a character any kind of temporary name, it might stick. That’s why I never do it. I give them the name they will keep, or I identify them in strictly descriptive terms—the Prince, the Enemy Leader, the Chief. The less descriptive, the better. (Though sometimes, even those stick. I’m looking at you, True Head Cultist.) It’s a lot easier to give a name to the Swordsman than it is to rename a character with an ill-considered temporary name. Temporary...

Daily 11: The risk of naming early

I’ve learned a lot about naming over my time as a storyteller. Here’s the biggest tip: don’t name anything until you absolutely need to, use placeholders instead, and when you give characters/chapters/books their placeholders, make sure they’re flexible. It causes trouble down the line otherwise. I’ll give you some examples. The biggest one is that my upcoming book is not Book 3 as far as my notes are concerned. It’s Book 2. That’s because I reasoned that full-length, continuous novels should be...

Moody blogger

I’ve been thinking about my ViVid Strike intro at RandomC. In the comments, I received some criticism that struck a chord with me. Several people wondered whether I was cynical for not being taken in by the main orphans’ struggles. From where I stand, that’s absurd. In the context of my life, I’m the least cynical version of Stephen W. Gee that’s existed since I was a child. Teenage Stephen was a cynical bastard. College Stephen was only a little better. Early professional Stephen was...

I love sales jobs

It might surprise you to know that I, the author of Wage Slave Rebellion, a book where one of the main characters is so disgusted with his crappy sales job that he’d rather become a glorified mercenary, do not in fact hate sales jobs. In fact, sales and marketing fascinates me, and I may soon have a sales job once again for my full-time side job (i.e. the one that pays well enough so I can keep writing books). Does this surprise you?...

Momentum & mental space

The past month or so has been a reeducation in some of the inviolable rules of writing. And, like most re-educations, they’re brought to us by the wonderful teaching power of failure. Yay! I moved to a new city at the beginning of the month. Before that was packing, spending time friends and family for the last time in a while, then moving, then unpacking, then buying the furniture I was missing and setting that  up, then gradually getting settled in—and that doesn’t even mention the beginning...

Sheet music

A good story outline is like sheet music. When you read it, you should be able to understand the whole story. That’s not the same as truly experiencing the work, of course. Just because you know where the notes go doesn’t mean you can feel the ebb and flow, nor experience the unique connection that only the intersection of author and reader can birth. But when you’re playing a song, it’s nice to know where the notes go, even if you plan on riffing off them once you get started. The guideline...