A Game Generated Story and Cover Draft

Last week I did a test run on The Story Game, and I have been fiddling with a story entirely generated by it.

It looks like it's going to be a novella.  It's hard to tell because I've been writing awfully bare bones prose. (When I rewrite it gets longer.)  I'm probably going to publish it under a pen name -- not a secret name, just one for this particular genre.  I'll talk about that later.

Tonight, I did the first work on a cover.  I like where it's going. The main work I'll do yet is on the figures -- which I'd like to make more abstract and "graphics" style, and less cartoony. I don't know if they will match the texture of the cliff or or be flat and dark. (Maybe the texture but with color saturation dropped down so they look blacker.)

Also, I don't know if "Vera Avrila" will be my pen name.  I am fond of the typographical possibilities of As and Vs.  (I will undoubtedly play with the typography a lot more, too.  I might use a casual font rather than the good old "move poster font" Trajan.)

I don't have a simple logline yet. Here is the blathery version of the pitch:

When she was seven years old, Lee Lee (Lily) White shoved her father over a cliff.  She didn't meant to hurt him. She was only protecting her step-mother from his erratic anger.

That night, she and her step-mother fled, shutting out the past and establishing a new life.

Twenty years later, Lee Lee has become Angela, a young woman with a life and job she likes, her past catches up with her as a relative walks in the door at work.  She prepares to flee again, to protect her beloved step-mother, the woman who loved and raised her who will be charged with kidnapping at the very least if caught.

But she can't help but want to know more about the family she can't remember, and why her step-mother really fled that night, and why the official story of her father's death is so very different from what she remembers that night.

Pursued by her own demons and mysterious figures, as well as by her good-looking and persistent boss (who may or may not want to fire her) she realizes she has to go home and face that cliff, and the truth of what happened that night.

I'll tell you more about how I used the game to come up with this story later.  Tomorrow, we'll get to generating titles and themes and subjects for the game story.  Though that is often the most important part of the generation for me, I have already abandoned my original title words for this.  The original title words were "Secret" and "Journey."  These did contribute to the generation of the idea, but I decided that "In Flight" was a better title.  I'm not sure the theme is going to survive either. (Though it might -- it's there under the surface. It's about generosity.)

Anyway, I'll talk about that stuff later.

See you in the funny papers.

Sunday Update: Ghosts

En descendant la Rue St-Jean, J'ai rencontré mon père....

It was three years ago today that my father died.  It's funny, but since he died the song "La Rue St-Jean" by Gilles Vigneault had haunted me.  I don't speak French well enough (and certainly don't hear Québeqois well enough) to really understand the words.

But as I listen closer, I think it's about exactly what it means to me personally.

Plains of Abraham, not far from La Rue St-Jean, 1967

The Rue St-Jean is the oldest street in Québec City.  It's an active busy popular street, and a place where people meet.  But it's also an historic street where the past meets the present.  And Gilles Vigneault is a poet whose songs are always filled with metaphor and meaning about Québec and its people and history.

In this case the first line is; "On walking down the Rue St-Jean, I met my father again.  He was walking along his dirt road and I was walking on a cement road...."  The narrator raises his hand to stop and talk, but his father doesn't see him.  Later in the song he uses phrases like "each his own time/age". He talks about running into other people who seem to be there at a different time: an old lover with an umbrella as though she's there on a rainy day, even though it's a fair day.  And he sings about how the road remains when the people have worn out.

I'm pretty sure this is a song about ghosts.  Real ghosts, ghosts of memory.  Which is kinda how it felt to me even before I looked beyond that first line.

I'd like to wave and get my dad to stop and tell me what the rest of the words mean.

But he doesn't see me.

So he keeps going on his chemin de terre....

("La Rue St-Jean" on YouTube)


On a less melancholy note: What I'm Up To

I haven't kept up on the blogging goal.  Well, I guess I sorta did. I wrote a bunch of blog posts.  Unfortunately, they were mostly the same post, over and over again.  I kept pitching it out and trying again, thinking "This time for sure!" like Bullwinkle.

And like Bullwinkle, I'm thinking maybe I need to get another hat.

Specifically, I think I've lost my enthusiasm for all the wrangling that is going on in the self-publishing community.  In particular, I thought I was going to have something profound to say about the sudden controversy about whether "Write More" is good advice or bad.  But instead, I'm finding that such overblown, irrational debates really just annoy me.

All I really want to say is to quote William Goldman: "Nobody knows anything."  (And then add: "So chill out, will ya?")

So there may or may not be an Artisan Writers post on Monday.  That may go on hiatus for a while.  Instead I might start up with the Tuesday Passion Posts again.  Not a long series, but I have a number of topics I want to talk about.

*French Scenes -- a different way of looking at how to define scenes: doing it in terms of character dynamics.  This is actually how I "beat out" a sequence or chapter before writing (when I feel the need to). It's more about entrances and exits than locations.

*A look back at half-forgotten books (ghosts of books, if you will) that I'd like to capture some tropes from and maybe create my own genre to play with. (Or "series" for you genre puritans.) Think of this, right now, as the Nostalgia Project.

I don't know if I'll post about either of these this week. I'll probably wait until I have posts in hand.

I'm also back to writing fiction.  Just now I'm playing with a story I generated purely from the game this week.  (Part of my interest in French Scenes is because that's what I was doing today.)  I think it's going to be a novella.  Although I rolled the words "Secret" and "Journey" -- which led partly to developing the story, the working title is now "In Flight."

Youl could say there are ghosts in that story, since it is about a heroine who is haunted by very dimly remembered events of her early childhood.

And More Ghosts

In the meantime, I just finished listening to the audio podcast of The Uninvited on Forgotten Classics. (The link it to the library of all past episodes.  The Uninvited starts around #98.) It's a classic ghost story (not a horror story).  It was made into a great movie, but I think the book is even better.

I'm now listening to some Edith Nesbit stories from Librivox. (Right now: The Railway Children.)  This seems to fit into my Nostalgia Project, since I'm reallyu interested right now in children (or innocents) on Journeys and in Changed Life Circumstances

I listen to these while I draw. It's a good excuse to do art on a specific schedule -- maybe an hour to an hour and a half a day.  I've been doing a lot of individual parts of artworks -- figures running, ornamental dingbats, "clip art" sorts of things -- but not that much on finished art works. I'm going to work a little on my fine art too now.  I want to expand my options on how things look.


This week, I might post something any or every day -- or I might just post on the Friday Story Game.  In any case....

See you in the funny papers.

Story Game: The Villain and Crime Wheels

Just to review what we're doing with these Friday Story Game postings: We're creating a game for brainstorming a pretty detailed story idea and plot.  It's actually a set of little games or exercises which can be used together or separately.  The first step is to create the game itself to suit the kind of story you want to tell.

We're creating a specific kind of "Woman in Jeopardy" type Romantic Suspense story as an example.  You can have fun with this game as is, or adapt it to suit whatever kind of story you want to tell.

Last week we created the random choice Heroine and Hero Character Wheels of our little game story.  This week we're going to talk about the key attributes of the Villain -- his disguise -- and the crime that drives the story.  (And also a little about the Victim, Helper and Red Herring characters.)


Villain's Cover Identity

One of the first things I noticed when I started reading romantic suspense is that the killer appears harmless and maybe even likeable and is the person the heroine confides in.  And for this reason, at least on the romance end of the spectrum, it's not at all hard to spot the villain. Sometimes he's the only other character than the hero.

But as I mentioned yesterday, in any kind of suspense (romance or not) the audience may well know who the bad guy is up front.  There will always be twists and secrets and surprises, but a suspense story isn't the same as a whodunnit. (Although they can overlap.)

However, suspense almost always hinges on the heroine not knowing who to trust.  At some point she will trust the wrong person, and not trust the right person.  And, IMHO, the strength of the story will rest on how much we agree with her motives for trusting and not trusting.

Furthermore, since this formula I'm writing is based on my own preferences within the genre, I gotta admit I'm partial to mystery.  I don't mind that the puzzle doesn't drive the story, and that the protagonist may be too busy running for her life to run a cold and logical investigation.  But I like it when I can be mentally flipping through the suspects and possibilities while the heroine is busy with  more urgent matters.

Therefore, I like the villain to be in disguise, even to me.


The Villain's Disguise

The key to the villain in this kind of story is that he/she blends in with the other character types.  In pure suspense, he could even be the romantic lead.  However, romance readers seem to dislike it when a woman is truly torn between two lovers, therefore the villain or any other romantic rival should  never be a real contender for her love, even if he does earn her real sympathy, friendship or general affection.

And because the killer is disguised as one of the other types of players, his wheel can be like a "Wheel of Other Characters."  Or if you were a writing a straight mystery a "Wheel of Suspects."

I am currently not happy with my villain list.  However whenever I run through the game, I never get stuck on the villain, so I guess it's good enough.  I might also roll the sex and age of the character if it is not defined in the item.

1. Woman (older mentor or helper type)
2. Woman (same age pal from school, college, childhood, coworker)
3. Woman (rival)
4. Non-romantic Guy Pal (gay)
5. Non-romantic Guy Pal (mentor)
6. Non-romantic Guy Pal (relative)
7. Romantic interest (flawed ex-boyfriend or husband)
8. Romantic interest (too perfect)
9. Romantic interest (poor schlub she'd like to dump but she doesn't want to hurt feelings.
10. Romantic interest (charming cad she knows better than to get tangled with)
11. Authority figure (boss or landlord)
12. Authority figure (cop)
13. Authority figure (town leader)
14. Apparently unconnected person (neighbor)
15. Apparently unconnected person (worker - cable guy, secretary, butler, lawyer)

The Victim -- and The Nature of the Crime

In a suspense story, the crime might not be murder.  There may be no intension of killing the victim.  Or the victim could be someone killed before the story starts.  The victim may even be the most boring character in the story. She's kind of a MacGuffin: she drives the motive but doesn't have to matter to the story or audience.  I call her she, because in my mind, the symbolic character for her is the wealthy dowager who can be tricked into signing over her bank account, or murdered for inheritance, or whom the villain has been sucking up to, and desperately doesn't want her to learn of his sordid past.

So I guess you could say that the victim is actually defined by the nature of the crime that drives the story.  Just as the Heroine is defined by what makes her vulnerable, and the hero by what keeps the heroine from trusting him, and the villain by his disguise.

Some crimes have multiple victims, so even if you spin the wheel and pick randomly, you may still have to decide which is the primary victim.  For instance in the scenario above:

A Gigolo is sucking up to the Wealthy Dowager, and is blackmailed.  You could make the blackmailer the villain, and the Gigolo the victim.  Or you could make the Gigolo the villain and if he kills the blackmailer, both the Blackmailer and the Dowager are the victims.  In that case I might prefer the Dowager as a victim -- because she's an ongoing victim. But in some stories the murdered blackmailer might be the prominent character -- someone close to the heroine.  And there is always the possibility that the Dowager herself is much more aware of what is going on, and she is the villain herself.  She might want to kill the blackmailer because she wants the gigolo to keep paying attention to her. (Agatha Christie was always good at pulling that twist off.)

So you could say that any blackmail plot is going to be defined by which of the three characters (the blackmailer, the blackmailee and the third party the secret is kept from) is the villain, and which is the primary victim.

I like blackmail as a crime for a suspense story, so I am going to break it down into several options so it has a better chance of being chosen.

So without further ado, here is my list for the "Nature of the Crime Wheel"

1. Blackmail (Blackmailer is the victim)
2. Blackmail (Blackmailer is the villain, blackmailee is the victim)
3. Blackmail (Blackmailee is the villain, third party is the victim.)
4. Blackmail (Third party is the villain, manipulating the blackmailer and blackmailee)
5. Fraud
6. Embezzlement
7. False Identity
8. Faked Will
9. Faked Death
10. Long term secret jealousy or passion
11. Bigamy
12. Smuggling
13. Forgery
14. Money Laundering
15. Professional Fixer (cover ups for drunk driving Senators, etc.)
16. Assassination
17. Long Term Love Affaire with Consequences
18. Protector of Reputation of famous figure
19. Kidnapped or Abandoned Child Returns
20. A Family Preserves Its Honor (keeping secrets in the midst of strife)
21. Hidden Loss of Family Fortune
22. Gaslight - Driving someone crazy to cover a search for hidden loot
23. Scooby-Doo (Campaign of harrassment to get someone to sell property.)
24. Competition for Hand of Heiress
25. Competition for Local Honors (Texas Cheerleading Mom, Top Churchlady, etc.)
26. Dirty Local Politics


Secondary Characters - Helpers and Red Herrings

If you wanted to completely automate the creation of this story, you could reuse the villain wheel to create the remaining characters. (After all, he's supposed to blend in with them.)  The question is.... should you?

I think you shouldn't.  Or at least not until later.  That's becuase, by the time you get done with all of these choices, you're going to have almost too much to to work with.  You're probably going to want to veto some of your more important choices. (We'll get to that in two weeks when we get to playing the game.)

With some stories, once you have those four basic characters (Heroine, Hero, Victim, Villain) and the theme/title idea starter, the additional characters may be obvious.  You will want to just fill them in.

Or sometimes you find that the main four characters completely cover the roles by themselves.  After all, the victim can be a helper or even a red herring, the heroine or hero can be victims, the hero can be a red herring, etc.

So you might roll the age and sex of these characters (along with the victim and villain), but hold them in reserve.  Then during brainstorming, if you find yourself in need of a new kick during brainstorming, roll these other "spare" characters.  Use the villain wheel, or if you want to, create a new wheel that suits the story.

Here are some thoughts on these last two character types to help you think about htis.

Helper

The helper character is incredibly important to the suspense story, for two reasons.  One is that the killer may disguise himself as a helper, so always having a good helper around gives more options to twist the story.

The helper doesn't have to be likeable.  The protagonist is isolated, so it's best not to give her a sidekick.  That's her problem -- she is on her own.  So if the helper is a grumpy neighbor who gives her constant shit about the condition of her yard, or the churchlady who firmly disapproves of her in every interaction, that's only for the good.

The helper is a bit of a utility player.  She (let's go with the churchlady) can be a gossip who can be counted on for good information.  She can be counted on to stick her nose in and hamper the villain at a key moment.  She can be a cop, or call the cops, when you need the cavalry.  She can provide shelter from the storm when your character is at wits end.  And she can be a secondary victim.  She can even be the main victim.

You might find, after you get the characters and story concept all worked out, that you can swap the helper with the villain for one more twist.


Red Herring

While the Helper is a bit of a utility player, the Red Herring is fully a utility character.  Basically, this character can be a second version of any of the characters as needed.  He can be a love-besotted swain who persues the heroine through rain and snow and sleet and a hail of bullets.  She could be the blackmailer who gets killed.  A sneaky sidekick.  The rival for the hero's affection.  Or a secondary helper who provides confirmation (or disproof) of key information.

Unless you're writing a full-blown whodunnit, though, this character is likely to be a bit player or maybe a sidekick to one of the others.  You may not even need this character at all. 


Next Week: Title and Title Words

Okay, next week we'll deal with the remaining two items on the situation sheet: Title and Theme.  I held them until last because they are simple, but also because they are fun.   The truth is, it's really common to use titles and themes or subjects as writing prompts.  And, imho, you could substitute any other kind of writing prompt for these items and come out the same.

Then in two weeks, I'm going to put it all together with a  post about the brainstorming stage.  I have played around with this, but I decided this week to actually formally roll a story, and see it through -- maybe a half-hour to an hour a day -- as a test run.  I'm dating the notes as I brainstorm, and I'll see if anything interesting comes of it.  I might post the development of the story -- spoilers and all.

See you in the funny papers.

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A Few Words About Suspense

In the Friday "Story Game" posts, I'm talking about a particular kind of formulaic romantic suspense.  And this Friday -- tomorrow -- we're going to talk about an important character: The Villain.

But while I was writing that post, I found myself going off on a tangent as I talked about fact that the heroine will trust the villain at the wrong time.

There is a choice that you have to make with suspense: is the villain's identity as secret from the audience?

Suspense is not a whodunnit.  It's perfectly permissible to show the audience who the bad guy is.  This actually is a great tool for raising the tension: Suspense is always about what the audience knows, not what they don't.  You'll notice that in many Hitchcock movies you know who the bad guy is.

The problem with letting your audience know more than your character is that the audience will then hold the character to a higher standard.  They will be less forgiving if the character does something foolish.  Heck, they may not even forgive her for doing something smart: sometimes they feel that if they know the truth, she should have figured it out.

(At the same time, the audience does get a little satisfaction from being smarter than the heroine -- so the more they know, the smarter you need to make your heroine.  Because there is no point in feeling superior to a twit.)

When you have an audience who knows too much (because you needed them to know for some other element of suspense) one great trick is to make them anticipate something, and then have something else happen.

This is something that we've seen in comedy since the dawn of time:  There's a clown having a bad day.  There's a pie.  The pie is going to get thrown: the audience knows this for a fact.  Then the policeman arrives.  Oh, crap, the clown is going to throw the pie at the cop and get arrested.  Yep, there, he picks up the pie.  He turns, and lets loose... just as the cop bends down to look at the license plate of the car or something.  The pie sails past and hits someone else.  That person thinks the cop threw the pie. Now the cop is in trouble and the clown isn't.

(Edit to add: Actually, now that I think about it, the best twist is when you expect the pie to be thrown and someone sits on it instead.)

You can do this in a non-comedy too.  Hitchcock did it all the time.  And here is the irony of it all: One of the best ways to get the audience to trust you as a storyteller is to trick them like this.

If you raise the specter of inevitability, and then give them something unexpected, they will love you.  Because they want to anticipate and feel smart, but they don't want to be bored.  And it doesn't matter whether the unexpected thing is a relief or something that makes the tension tighter.

Except for one thing: the audience has to know how far to guard their feelings. So if you lead the audience to believe that you will, ultimately, save the puppy, then you can't pull a switch on that one.  You can never let the puppy die.  If you want to pull a surprise on them because you think they are expecting the puppy to be saved, then you can only go two ways: have the puppy saved in a surprising way (for instance, the villain decides he loves the puppy), or make the puppy suddenly much harder to save.  But he will have to be saved by the end.

Meanwhile, in tomorrows Story Game post, we'll create our randomized choices -- our story wheels -- for the villain's cover identity, and for the nature of the crime or plot that drives the story.  We'll also talk about the secondary characters: the victim, the helper and the red herring.

See you in the funny papers.

Artisan Writers: The Indie Shake Up, Pt 2

Last week I posted, in response to some other blog posts, some thoughts on how we seem to be moving into another phase of change in publishing, one that affects Indie Writers. (The Indie Shake Up, Pt. 1)

I want to emphasize something from last week's post: While I see this as a widespread continuation of the "sea change" that hit publishing with the advent of viable self-publishing, I don't see this is a burst bubble or even a major issue for most indie writers.  What we're seeing is a maturing of the systems, so there aren't so many "get rich quick" cracks to exploit.

And I hope it doesn't sound like I blame those who have suffered a bigger loss recently for their own problems: Their only fault, if they have one at all, is if they thought things wouldn't change and they didn't leave themselves an out.  Quite frankly, most of the writers I'm going to talk about below, didn't think it was going to last forever (though they might have hoped), and they aren't just sitting around crying "woe is me" -- they're scrambling to rebuild other options they may have let lag.

I also apologize if this post comes out a bit rambling -- I see things changing around me pretty fast, and my points kept changing on me too.


Is There An Indie Shake Up?

I'm not 100 percent sure we're actually seeing a shake up so much as we're seeing people's perceptions and expectations are adjusting to the realities of life.  When we start out on something new, we look forward, make our best guess as to what we are getting ourselves into, and then jump in.  Our first guess is always going to be a little wrong, but it takes a little time for it to prove out and show us how it's wrong.

If there is anything going on right now in indie publishing, it's that we all started around the same time, and the first big wave of first and second guesses are just reaching their expiration date.

One of these "First Best Guesses" that is common not only in publishing, but in every new wave of business and finance, is The Pareto Principle.  And, imho, it's a principle that tends to slam people against the wall pretty quickly.


The Pareto Principle Holds The Seeds of Its Own Destruction

The first couple years of Indie Publishing were very much like what we saw when the web went mainstream, and the subsequent sub-economies that rose from it.

It began with a lot of enthusiasm, creativity and experiment.  And people took common sense advice (know your audience, produce more, specialize) and used it to succeed.  But because the system was new, people were basically trying everything.  And then they narrowed it all down to what worked best.  That process is what the Pareto Principle is about.

The Pareto Principle is the concept that 20 percent of your efforts will bring in 80 percent of your profits.  And 80 percent of your problems and costs will come from 20 percent of your business.  So the idea is that you cut off that twenty percent that gives you more trouble than income, and focus on that 20 percent that gives you the most return.

The problem with the Pareto Principle is that it ignores the facts that:

1.) Usually there is a big overlap between the 20 percent that gives you trouble and the 20 percent that gives you profits.

2.) Sometimes that highly profitable 20 percent is dependent on some of the margin created by the other 80 percent.  One would not exist without the other.

3.) Sometimes that top 20 percent is a temporary situation or fluke.  It's a bubble, and can kill your business when it bursts, if you depend to much on it.

The publishing industry has long been in the thrall of the Pareto Principle.  Or to be more exact, the Big Book Distributors (such as Barnes and Noble, and Borders) were in the thrall of it. That's why they killed the midlist to focus on the best sellers.  Their only margin, then, was provided by new writers, whom they treated like cannon fodder.

(What is "margin"?  It's room for error.  Elbow room.  Room to maneuver.  It's that little bit extra -- the safety margin -- that keeps you from disaster, and also allows you to move more quickly and easily when something changes or goes wrong.  Some people mistake it for "waste.")

Many indies have optimized their business model just like the big publsihers did.  And just like the big publishers, some are now finding that the world is continuing to change, and they have to scramble for alternatives.

Luckily, indies have a MUCH more flexible business model.  They can change course almost instantly, if their emotions, preconceptions and financial planning allow it.  (For us, "emotions, preconceptions and financial planning" are our margins.)

But what they're finding is that it's harder and harder to find "hot spots" to exploit. Either the area is saturated or the audience moves on or the opporutnity gets cut off.

Recently the erotica market experienced a big shake up, and it makes for a good example. (Largely because some of the writers involved are generous and open people who have shared a lot of details.)


The Great Smut Disaster

(First off, I want to say that I'm not singling out these authors as having done something wrong.  They're just an example of something that happens in smaller, less dramatic ways to all kinds of writers and business people -- especially small operators on the internet.)

A little over two years ago, Dean Wesley Smith speculated on a business model that could provide a writer with slow steady income just writing short stories.  If you wrote a short story a week, just on any genre, and submitted the most marketable ones to commercial magazines, and self-published the rest at premium prices, in a couple of years you'd have a nice, tidy -- but slow -- income.

Several people on KBoards decided to try this.  And soon they were reporting phenomenal results -- maybe not superstar level, but far beyond what Dean had predicted.  So a few more people joined in, and others started watching the experiment closely and considering it.

But as more and more people reported in, I started seeing red flags waving.  People would start this process writing all different sorts of genres, but they would discover that one or two genres were the ones that made them all the money.  They started applying the Pareto Principle to what they were writing.

And in nearly every case that was being reported, they were focusing on the same couple of closely related genres: erotica or erotic romance.

Those who were reporting success with other genres were much more in line with what Dean first speculated about.  And while that might be cool, the erotica writers were reporting ten times the return.  (That's a guestimate.)

Which is to be expected and not that alarming in terms of the future of the strategy.  Sex has always sold.  There was no reason to think it wouldn't continue to be. (And also no reason to think it wouldn't be very competitive.)

But then I began to learn more about what the most successful people were writing.  They were writing fiction that emulated very taboo subjects -- subjects which were downright forbidden by Amazon and other vendors.  These writers were staying within the letter of the rules... but pushing the boundaries as hard as possible, and frankly, not staying within the spirit of the rules.

I'm not going to argue against the rights of these artists to create and publish what they choose.  However, I can't believe they didn't see it coming that Amazon and other retailers would crack down on this.

I understand Kobo went so far as to remove ALL Indies from their UK store, at least temporarily.  Amazon has been combing through the works, unpublishing things that have too extreme of a cover, or title or blurb. (Last I heard, they were letting the works themselves stay as long as they adhered to the letter of the rules -- but they couldn't be advertised or described in any way that appeals to those who would like the rules broken.)

And the writers have been scrambling to fix their books, or take them down before Amazon does.  They're taking a second look at their business model.  Most of them are flexible enough to go back to writing less troublesome works.  But they have to adjust their expectations -- because the less troublesome works are also less lucrative.

Most of these writers -- at least the ones I know -- are smart people who can adjust.  A few probably had a good idea this was coming and were just taking advantage of a great market while they could.  And even those who are unprepared haven't been at it long enough to have dug themselves into a rut.

It's Not Really About Smut

It's easy to pretend that what happen was an anomaly just because those people were writing smut.  The fact is, what happened to the erotica writers happens all the time.  For instance, web businesses often use the Pareto Principle to totally optimize their business into the most lucrative niches and to select the most lucrative strategies.... and then Google changes the algorithms. And those websites saw their great income completely dry up.

I remember when I was writing articles for eHow, a situation very much like this happened.  Everyone started writing articles all on the same lucrative subjects with the same lucrative take on it.  They were making a good living. They started writing books to help each other do the same thing.  And eHow decided they no longer wanted 25 million articles on How to Refinance Your Home and How To Lose Weight With (Ingredient of the Month) -- and they started deleting duplicates. And now these authors saw their income dry up.

In both of these cases, there were lots of warning signs, and lots more discussion about the problems than there were to warn the erotica writers.  But if you're making money, it's kinda hard to listen to warnings.  (And if you do, a lot of the time you listen to the wrong warnings and regret it.)


So.... What Does This Mean?

Things are changing so fast that I no longer think that my original conclusions to this post are relevant. 

I think Scott William Carter has got it right when he said that the long tail is getting longer and more spread out.  I think that opportunities are continuing to crop up, but they aren't the low hanging fruit any more.

I know for sure that I can't presume to tell anybody how best to make a big best seller -- and if that's what you want, don't come here for your advice.  However, I also know that the opportunities for the small operator, the niche writer, the artist and artisan and homemade fiction writer are growing.

They're growing in number and variety, though, not in size.

And that's part of why I decided to start writing about business from the Artisan point of view on Mondays.  I think the time of the small operator is rising, and maybe we need more points of view out there on what's happening in the publishing world.

Next week I want to take on the latest controversy about writing more.  There seem to be some people who feel betrayed by the advice to write more -- they aren't making more money.  Was the advice wrong?

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Sunday Update - a Different NaNo

And I said I was done with Challenges....

November is National Novel Write Month.  And since I am assiduously avoiding working on novels right now, I have decided to play the NaNoWriMo game this year with art and blog posts. (I have, ironically, never used NaNo for novel writing, because I find its silly restrictions make it useless for real production.)

Therefore, this month, among other things, I intend to:

*Create 30 Book Covers and Illustrations -  These will mostly be "pre-made" book covers, but some will be covers for my own work, and some will be illustrations for The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.

*Write 30 Blog Post Drafts - If I get sick of writing blog posts, any one can be replaced by a full draft of a flash fiction story, or 1500 words of fiction on anything else. (However, episodes of Misplaced Baroness count as blog posts, not fiction.)

Update posts do not count.  Also, these 30 blog posts will not be posted in November (well a couple will) but rather are meant to cover the regular posts up through January or so.  Maybe a few guest posts, too.

I think these are ambitious goals, but I also kinda want to beat those numbers.  I'm a little behind already, as on Friday (when I decided to do this) I was really busy and didn't do anything. Today I did one cover, and wrote (I think) 1.5 blog posts.

Now, as for the serial....


Perils of Plink

I find myself spinning my wheels and doing all sorts of cat vacuuming when I set to work on The Case of the Misplaced Baroness.  The reason I'm doing that is because I've started thinking ahead... and I'm not looking forward to make this match up with the place it crosses over with The Case of the Misplaced Hero.

I mean, yes, there are lots of places to have fun with that, but it keeps me from being too adventurous about what happens next.  I keep thinking about how it won't match up with what's said in the teaser chapter at the end of Misplaced Hero, particularly what Lina says to Rozinshura.

My first thought on dealing with that was that I should get it over with.  Just rush the story straight to that point, and get past it....

Except that I think what I should do is the opposite.

Pull back and let this story wander FAR afield of where I think it will end.  Because the farther you wander, the more options you have in wandering back to where you want to be.  Also, if anything said in that teaser chapter turns out to be wrong, it gives me space to set it up as an intentional lie.

I said a long time ago that that's one of the features of a live serial; mistakes and inconsistencies become an excuse for more stories.

Coming Up On The Blog This Week

*Monday: Artisan Writers: The Indie Shake Up, Pt 2
About Expectations and preconceptions.
*Friday: Story Game - Villain and Secondary Character Wheels
Since the villain must pass himself off as one of the other kinds of characters in a Romantic Suspense story, it's natural to talk about all these folks together.

I'm not going to do more than that this week (I might update my Non-NaNo challenge on Wednesday).

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Story Game: The Heroine and Hero Wheels

Just to review what we're doing with these Friday Story Game postings: We're creating a game for brainstorming a pretty detailed story idea and plot.  It's actually a set of little games or exercises which can be used together or separately.  The first step is to create the game itself to suit the kind of story you want to tell.

We're creating a specific kind of "Woman in Jeopardy" type Romantic Suspense story as an example.  You can have fun with this game as is, or adapt it to suit whatever kind of story you want to tell.

Last week we created the Situation Worksheet; a list of the major character roles and elements we'll have to chose for a basic story.  These elements are supposed to be filled in with random choices.

Now we're going to start creating lists for those random choices -- or the "wheels" as Erle Stanley Gardner called them with his plotting game.  He actually wrote his plot elements on cardboard wheels that he could spin to make choices.  Which you can do if you want. (Look up "Game Spinner"  or "spinning game board" on Amazon.)  But that will limit your number of options.  So I recommend just numbering the items on each list, and using Random.org to choose a random number.  (Or put them on slips of paper and draw them, etc.)

Of course you don't have to use the random lists: you can fill in the worksheet from your imagination. However, randomizing these genre-specific elements allows you to jump deeper into the story sooner. The idea is to brainstorm the genre-specific requirements just once -- for the game -- and then when you create a story from it, you can save your energy for the specifics of the story.

So let's get to it:

Today we're going to create wheels for the Heroine's Secret, and the Hero Type.  But before we do that, we have to think about the restrictions of the genre.


The Restrictions of Romantic Suspense

All suspense, romantic or not, is about an isolated protagonist.  An ordinary guy or gal who has to deal, alone, with extraordinary and threatening circumstances.

A romance, on the other hand, is about a pair.  It's about losing your isolation.  That's part of why these two genres work well together.  They have a natural tension.  The isolation is a natural threat to the romance, and the romance is a solution to the isolation.

But, in my opinion, the driver of the suspense story is the threat to the romance. The romance is the prize.  And since romance readers often consider different types of lovers to be different genres (young love, "second chance" older lovers, May December romance, gay or straight), I don't randomize this -- I just choose.  The romance genre is just too restrictive to mess with this relationship when you're also juggling the suspense.  And to keep it simple, I just picked the vanilla romance story: white, straight, around 22-35 years old. (You may pick any variation that floats your boat.)

Ironically, if I were writing a mystery suspense, and not worried about fitting it into category romance, I would definitely randomize the sex, age and/or race of the characters. Since this relationship is the key relationship of the story, cutting it free of category romance restrictions can really spark interesting ideas.  You could even do things like (gasp!) have less than attractive people as the main characters.


The Heroine in Jeopardy

As I said above, the key element of a suspense story is that the heroine is isolated in some way.  It might be physical isolation, like she's taken a job as a park ranger or a governess in a secluded estate.  It could also be an internal factor: anything from a disability to extreme self-consciousness. (As often as not over some tiny blemish she thinks is disfiguring but nobody else notices.) Or it might be social isolation: she's a member of a dispised class or disgraced family.

In most romantic suspense stories, there will be more than one factor.  However, for brainstorming we need to pick the most important one -- the one that drives the story.

For instance, if you had a character who was both a park ranger and was excessively self-conscious about some minor scars on her face, only one of those would really drive the story: Either she was so self-conscious that it hampers her entire life, and she took the job to get away from people; or she is an independant woman with a career as a lonely park ranger, who has this little self-consiousness problem.  In the first, the villain will be able to play on this self-consciousness to defeat her.  In the second, the self-consciousness will be like Indiana Jones and snakes; if the villain uses it against her, it will only piss her off.

This is not an action adventure story, though, so in either case, she will still be vulnerable.  It's just that in the second case it's external factors that make her vulnerable.

Okay, so now we make the list.

There are two ways to go about it.  You can really drill down and get detailed -- have choices for "Park Ranger" and "Governess" and "Suffers from positional vertigo" -- or you can just do categories, and leave the specifics to the brainstorming stage.

I prefer to go with categories, however sometimes to figure out your categories, you have to brainstorm the specifics first -- so go ahead and do that if you want.  Also, to create a great wheel, you need to think about your own inclinations and preferences.  If there are some tropes I really like, I'll get really specific on those so that there are more choices of that type.  That not only means the wheel will favor that trope, but it will also force me to think deeper to come up with variations on each variation.

The other thing I like to do is intentionally put a few items that I don't particularly like - just to force myself to work at it sometimes.  And sometimes to do that, I have to make an item very specific.  For instance, one of the items is "Secret Child." I'm not really fond of that as a story trope, but it's common enough in romance that Amazon actually has a browsing category for it.  So it's on there even if it is rather specific.

1.) Physical Isolation (isolated job, isolated living quarters)
2.) Social Isolation (servant, poor relation or step-child, lives in a country where she doesn't speak the language, etc.)
3.) Made a Terrible Mistake in the past
4.) Made a Terrible Mistake which was really someone else's fault.
5.) Made a Terrible Mistake that is directly related to the mystery
6.) Physiological Issues (scar, partially debilitating injury or disability, subtle condition like positional vertigo)
7.) Psychological issues (PTSD, Phobia, OCD)
8.) Hidden identity (heiress, movie star, princess)
9.) On a secret mission (revenge, needs to retrieve something, investigative reporter, must prove someone innocent)
10.) Convicted criminal (innocent of the crime, did something moral, or commited crime of weakness which she is working hard to overcome)
11.) On the Run from the law
12.) On the Run from bad reletionship
13.) On the Run from pressure of success
14.) On the Run from (fill in the blank)
15.) Secret Child

This is the second version of the wheel and still not done to my satisfaction. I'm not sure I like the "Terrible Mistake" trope that much (and the "Convicted Criminal" might be a part of that group) -- but yet I want to break it down for creative reasons. There are just too many cliches there, so I want to force myself deeper into sub-categories.  In the meantime, I might prefer to expand on the physical location variants more.

One way to handle the way I want sub-categories is to create a second wheel.  Have one slot on this wheel for "Terrible Mistake" and then if it comes up, roll the dice to choose one of several options.

Now, on to the dude....


The Hero Type in a Romantic Suspense

The dude is probably the single most important thing that defines where the story falls on the gradation from "romance with suspense elements" to "pure thriller with a romantic element."

In a pure suspense story, the hero might literally be no more than a lurking shadow.  He is a scary mystery, until at the end she finds out he's a good guy. In that case, the romance only begins in that last chapter.  On the romance end, he could be a full-fledged co-protagonist, with the mystery and suspense just being a subplot that complicates their relationship.

However, if she can rely on him to help her face the crisis, then it's not a suspense story.  To be an actual Suspense story, something has to isolate her from him, so that she faces the danger mostly alone.

So for me, the key element of the hero for a romantic suspense is what keeps the heroine from relying on him.

The problem for creating this list is that the relationship is going to change throughout the story.  For instance, he starts as a mysterious background character, but somewhere around the midpoint they get together.  I'm not worried about that, though, because I can throw plot twists at that. He can be called away. He can be fooled by the bad guy. Heck, I can even put him in jeopardy -- locked up, drugged, knocked out -- and she needs to rescue him as well as save herself.

So this plot wheel really applies to the premise -- the situation as it is set up in the first half of the story.  I can deviate from that at any major plot point.

Also because he isn't the protagonist, the "hook" into his character can be more colorful and interesting without throwing the story off.  Also, since he drives the romance, his "type" should be driven by your hero preferences. And as with the "Heroine's Secret" wheel -- throw in some options that you aren't so fond of to force some creativity.

Here is my list (still working on this one too):

1.) Mysterious Background Figure -- undercover cop
2.) Mysterious Background Figure -- on a personal mission to do with the backstory. (I.e. someone wronged, or seeking revenge.)
3.) Mysterious Background Figure -- a rogue or thief
4.) Innocent But Interfering Bystander (neighbor, handyman)
5.) Overt Suspect (person with best and most obvious motive, or a close associate or enemy of the victim)
6.) Authority Figure -- arrogant cop ("Stay out of this, Miss. It's dangerous.")
7.) Authority Figure -- boss or trustee of her estate
8.) Flawed Ex-Lover or Ex-Husband
9.) Mr. Perfect -- she ran away from him out of inner conflict, and he persues her because he's Mr. Perfect (thus she avoids him)
10.) Overlooked Friend (someone she doesn't think of romantically -- they grew up together, he was once married and now widowed or divorced, etc.  Too casual to confide in.)
11.) Idiot/Useless Boyfriend (he could really be loveable but useless, or he could be secretly very useful and she just doesn't know it -- as with the Scarlet Pimpernel or Clark Kent)

As you can see, I like the "Mysterious Background Figure" trope -- and that's because I like the mystery end more than the romance end. Also when I am on the romance side of things, I like the smoldering "Mystery Man She Can't Trust" trope.  I think I should expand on the Authority Figure options, though.  The friendly cop can still be someone she keeps secrets from. But then, of course, the reason she keeps the secret has more to do with her situation than his.  So I might actually come up with a different list depending on what kind of options chosen for her.

One thing to keep in mind with all of those characters is that at some point, the heroine is going to look on him with suspicion, no matter what category he falls into.  That's the nature of the story, that she is going to have to get paranoid, and trust no one.

That's enough for this week.


Next Week:  The Villain, and His Plot. 

Villain, the crime that drives the story, and we'll also take a look at the secondary characters on November 8.  After that we'll talk about generating Title and Theme, and then, finally, we'll actually play the game! (November 22

After that, we'll take a break.  I'll probably scatter a few individual game posts in December: maybe "roll" a couple of stories and talk about the brainstorming options.  Or I might take some famous romantic suspense movies and break them down in terms of the character structure.

But in January, I'm going to talk about the next phase of the game: the  4-Act Plot Structure Game.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Update - Sold a Book Cover

Last February I did about a dozen "pre-made" book covers for Self-Pub Book Covers, and then just left them there to see what would happen.

I just got word that one of them sold. (Hooray.)

I will show you that one after I see if I can find what the author did with it.  In the meantime, I decided to do more covers!

The trick is to keep it simple AND to fit their weird typography needs. (Very limited selection of fonts and colors, and since the customer will set the type themselves on the web, it will be pretty no-frills.)

There are actually two reasons they have to be so simple: one is to keep the price cheap, but the other is actually more important: with pre-made covers, you just never know what an author is going to need. So you're basically throwing a whole bunch of ideas against the wall and seeing what sticks.  You have to do a LOT of ideas to hit just one of what a browsing customer might need.

I've got a bunch of things I'm fiddling with right now.  This one with the ship is actually a silhouette I did of the Luisitania.  The sky is a gradation with the smudgy finger brush to make clouds.

The other one, below, is one of a series I'm starting, inspired by background figures in various old book illustrations I find at Project Gutenberg. I think I'll do a series of historical designs, given how much I've been studying so many old illustrations and books.

In sketch that inspired this picture, it really was a very sketchy little image, and I squinted at it for a bit trying to figure out what was wrong.  Then I realized: the artist didn't leave room for the woman's right leg.  (When riding side-saddle, you don't sit sideways.  You sit forward, with your leg up over the pommel.)  She was practically sitting on the horses neck, and, well, I don't know where her leg went at all.

Anyway, the sketch had a couple of vague lines for her veil, and I realized I could have a lot of fun with my favorite smudgy finger brush doing both a veil and a tail.

I could have had more fun with it (with both of them) if I could have control over the typography, but alas, I cannot.  The up side of working with Self-Pub Book Covers is that it's a "set it and forget it" kind of place.  The down side is that you have to design for their needs.

Audio Podcasts

In the meantime, one of the things I love to do while I work is listen to Podcasts.  Garrison Keillor is an obvious one to listen to: News From Lake Woebegone (which I may actually start talking about later when I start talking about making my own genre), and The Writer's Almanac.  These are the first and last podcasts listed on the American Public Media website.  You can also find them at iTunes.

Another Podcast I've started listening to is Forgotten Classics.  These are mostly lesser known public domain (or with permission) books, read by a marvelous reader.  I hesitate to say this, but: She reads them kind of like you might read a children's book -- with voices and all.

The story selections are eclectic, but I think suited to modern tastes:  the stories range from the quirky pulp novellas of Norbert Davis, to the ghost story The Uninvited (which was made into one of my favorite ghost/mystery movies), to Uncle Tom's Cabin, to parts of the Bible.

The iTunes podcast doesn't go all the way back to the beginning of the blog, but you can download all episodes from the blog's library: Complete Episodes Listing.

So, off to draw and listen and make up stories.

See you in the funny papers.

Artisan Writers: The Indie Shake Up, Pt 1

This week Scott William Carter put up a post on his 5am Writer Blog with a very long title: "A Tsunami of Wonderful: How the Long Tail of Publishing Is Finally Overwhelming the Early Adopter eBook Bounce — and What This Means for Fiction Writers Going Forward"

He really struck a chord with what I've been thinking lately.  The landscape is changing again, it's not inherently a bad thing, but it is definitely causing disruption.  And Scott's thesis is that this isn't just a seasonal wobble -- we may be moving out of the period of relatively easy gains for Indie Writers.

The question rising in the back of a lot of people's minds right now might be "Were the nay sayers right?  Were those people correct when they said the ability of self-published authors to make a living is just a bubble and everything will crash soon?  Was Joe Konrath and other self-publishing gurus wrong when they explained why things were going to get better and better?"

No!  ... and yes.

The real truth is both sides are right.  The optimists are right that this fundamental change in publishing -- the rise of self-pubishing and the opportunities it brings -- that just isn't going to go away.  The world has changed; good, bad or indifferent, and it ain't gonna change back. Opportunities will continue... but so will change. 

And that's where the pessimists are right: Things will continue to change.  Stability is an illusion in a time like this, and even if there are some universal truths out there, odds are they aren't the ones we think they are.

An awful lot of indies over the past couple of years have patted themselves on the back for being the smart ones who adapted to the New World Order -- but that pat on the back is premature if they thought things have settled in and will stay put. There's a Newer World Order just around the bend.

Technically, it's not actually a different world order -- it's just that the change we've been going through has hardly begun.  Eventually things will settle down into something more stable, but it's hard to say when, and even when it does, I suspect it will be stable the way New York City is stable -- it never sleeps, never stands still.  Even the rate of change can't be counted on.  Only change itself.

Let's take a closer look at some of what prompted Scott's post and this one:

Reports of Lower Sales

Is it seasonal? Scott thinks that we've moved beyond the seasonal aspect of depressed sales.  I don't know that he's right.  The summer doldrums last year didn't start to recover until November.  But I've seen enough reports of record lows; people with good books who are publishing new works regularly whose sales are trending down over time -- not just per book, but over all.  People comparing numbers month to month over the past year, and shaking their heads.

There are also positive signs over the past year: more people around me than ever who are reporting they are making enough to quit their day jobs -- but at the same time, I've suddenly started hearing more and more concern from these same people that their income has taken unexpected hits.

And though these reports aren't scientific, they have one other advantage: they confirm my prejudices.  I've been expecting a wobbly correction -- not something serious to the indie publishing world as a whole but enough to hurt individuals and groups of writers, and to worry the rest of us.

So whether I'm just seeing my expectations reflected back at me or if it's real, I can't say for sure -- I can only say that it feels like there is a shift going on.  This fall feels darker and less optimistic than past falls. 

This may be more a matter of people lowering unrealistic expectations (which is a healthy sign) than it is actual depression of sales. I can't say.


Reports that Proven Strategies Are Failing

Over the past couple of years we've been burning through tactics.  Everybody got into "tagging" and Amazon cut off tagging.  Writers flooded into various online communities and then got kicked out for clogging the site with promotion. That one started long ago, and continues, but there were always other communities to run to.  Now (thank goodness) it seems like even the writer boards don't want to hear it.

Now folks are finding that Amazon's KDP Selects isn't what it was.  Offering books for free doesn't help nearly as much as it used to.  Bookbloggers are either saturated, shut down, or they have increased their standards for submission.  The prices of advertising and paid listings has gone up and up, and people report results have gone down and down.

And here's the place where Scott William Carter and I both disagree and agree.  I agree with him that we've reached a saturation point, and also with some of his ideas of solutions going forward -- but I disagree with the idea that the problem is competion.

Unsustainable Opportunities Cause Competition

All of those failing strategies I mentioned above -- they were competitive. They are all based on the idea that a writer needs leverage to boost himself above his fellows.  That worked in the "gold rush" of the first wave.

There were opportunities that were only there because everything was new so nobody thought to put up barriers.  The Amazon discussion communities, for a very short time, welcomed in all the lovely authors, until they realized that they couldn't hold a conversation without yet another new author interrupting to flog her book.  (As the Monty Python Sketch goes, "Well, if you don't want any Spam, you could order Spam, Spam, Spam, Egg, Bacon and Spam. That doesn't have much Spam in it.")  Even though most the authors learned quick, there were so many new authors who didn't know better that it utterly killed any love those readers had for authers.

And authors were soon banned.  And virulent anti-author gangs started roving the land.

But for that shining moment, before the bulk of writers knew about it, those few writers who "beat" the rest and got there first, got the attention of an interested group of readers.  And it worked!  Hey Mikey!

It wasn't that the rest of the authors came in and ruined something that was working -- it's that the first few got a unique, and unfair, opportunity that couldn't last.  Once the opportunity was equal, it broke the system.

This pattern happens over and over again as the new system starts to form:  a few first adopters discover a weakness in the system -- an unguarded crack. They mistake it for an ongoing opportunity (or an unlimited resource) and exploit the heck out of it, and tell all their friends that they've found this wonderful thing.

And then the system breaks or changes, and everybody is bewildered by how it doesn't work any more.

(This isn't just something writers do, it happens over and over again on the wild frontier that is the internet.)

It's not that anybody has done anything wrong.

It's just that we can't see the bigger system at work, or the power of so many of us all doing the same thing.  And there was no gate, no path, no lines or barriers to help the bulk of us see how it works.

And I honestly think this is a part of what is going on with the crisis facing the erotica writers right now.

But that, I think I'll talk about next week, along with some thoughts about the Pareto Principle and how it holds the seeds of its own destruction for those who adhere to it too vigorously.

See you in the funny papers.

Sunday Update - The Times A-Changin Again

A lot of posts on the interwebs this week about how this wild, tumbling joyride we call "Publishing" seems to be shifting into yet another phase.  This time, it's the Indies who are feeling the shake up most, I think. (Although traditional publishing is continuing to shake out from the previous wave.)

The particular post that snags my interest is (Scott William Carter's Tsunami of Wonderful).  He believes the "First Adopter Bounce" period is over, and takes a preliminary look at what this means.  I have been thinking the same thing, as I watch the indie community show signs of stress as the ground shifts beneath their feet.

Kris Rusch has an interesting review of the shake ups -- past and present -- in publishing via a metaphor she saw in politicial news in this week's The Business Rusch. 

We're also seeing some shake ups that don't seem to be a part of that bigger wave, such as the sudden crackdown we're seeing from many vendors on erotic fiction (including Kobo UK, shutting out ALL indie writers for a time), but I think this too is a sign of the maturing market.


This Week on the Blog

 On Monday I'll post my own take on recent developments, as an introduction to a new feature on my blog.  I think of it as "Artisan Writers and The Road Less Traveled", which is too long of a title for a series.  This new feature will be looking at business, advice and industry developments from the point of view of writers who don't fit the mold in one way or other.  Given the events above, which indicate to me that the new mold isn't exactly formed yet (or is cracking), that may well be all of us.

I don't have a new "Passion" subject started yet for Tuesday, and I'm not ready to start posting a re-introduction to the serial yet for Thursday.  So I'll probably post an Update on Wednesday - musings on how things are going. What I'm working on and not working on. Maybe a little pre-thinking on my next Tuesday passion series: creating my own genre.

Then Friday, the Story Game gets on to the fun stuff: we'll be creating "Character Wheels" for our heroine and hero in the Romantic Suspense game.  We'll talk about what kind of choices make for a good wheel, and what we specifically need for those roles in a Romantic Suspense story.

See you in the funny papers.

Story Game: The Situation Worksheet

The Story Game is either a very complicated story creation game, or it's a set of simple little writing games strung together.  It's kinda free form -- meant to be changed and adapted by the players -- but I'm creating a "Romantic Suspense" Game as an example.

Last week we talked about "Character Structure" as an alternate way to define a genre or structure of a story.

Or in this case, I was defining the roles of a particular flavor of Romantic Suspense, so I can make a game out of it.

I was going to dive deeper into the character roles today, but I realize that this is a good time to actually explain what I'm going to do with them first.

Situation Game

This game is basically a worksheet you fill in with randomized choices, and use to brainstorm a concept for a story.  It's designed to come up with a robust concept. That is, fully featured, lots of info with which you can build a whole situation that the story will spring from.

Step 1: figuring out the Character Structure of the kind of story you want to tell. (Which we did last week.)

Step 2: Create the worksheet you're going to fill in. I call this the Situation Form, and we're going to do that today.

Step 3: Create the lists you're going to make the random choices from. (Which we'll start next week.)

Step 4: Play ball! That is, roll the dice, spin the wheel, fill in the form... and then use the answers to brainstorm, and create a unique idea that still fits the formula you started with.

The Situation Form

Last week we came up with a Character Structure for the genre Romantic Suspense.  That's the six "roles" that characters play in that kind of story -- though this pattern appears in other kinds of stories too:

Heroine, Hero, Villain, Victim, Helper, Red Herring.

At this point we're not generating actual characters -- that's for the brainstorming at the end -- but rather nailing down the part these characters will play in the plot, plus a copule of important points that have to appear in every story of that type.

For my Woman In Jeopardy Romantic Suspense story, we're using the following four elements:

• The Heroine Type (Her secret or vulnerability that isolates her)
• The Hero Type (what keeps them apart so he can't help her too much.)
• The Villain's Cover Type (i.e. "nice" person disguise)
• The Crime Type (which drives the plot)

We'll also be randomly generating the sex and age of all characters, except the heroine and hero, which with romance are defined by subgenre.  More about that next week, when we talk about them in depth and create our "Character Wheels" to randomly fill in those elements.

All of the above will differ if you are writing a different genre or type of story.  They may differ quite a lot.

For instance, most Whodunnits have two separate character structures.  They have the detective and sidekicks who continue throughout a series, and then the characters of the murder plot.  I would suggest creating a game for the latter, but not the former.  The point of a game is to do it over and over again.  Series characters are only generated once.

And the list of characters for the murder plot might be as simple as: Victim, Suspect 1 (Killer), Suspect 2,  Suspect 3, Suspect 4.  And you might have a wheel for motives or relationships.

But Wait There's More

There are at least two more elements to the Situation Form.  These are classic "idea generation" elements: Title and Theme.  (You could also use "Subject" or even "Location.")

To me the most important is title, because that gives an identity to the story.  However, because it's at the start of the process, I actually only generate a random list of possible title words. This leaves me flexibility for later.

I like to have at least one of other item, because these help you define the mood of the story, and they also give you a hook to help define other elements.

For instance, say your heroine's secret is that she's on the run from the law.  There are a number of options there, but not really a flavor yet. (Or if you do have a flavor, you may be focusing on just one option.  In which case, another element can shake you out of a rut.)

But say your title words mostly kinda suck, except one of those words is "steam."  Hmmm.  That could mean "steamy" but if you put it together with the heroine's situation, you suddenly have another option: "Running Out Of Steam." That could indicate a whole different kind of story and a hook into a different kind of relationship.  He could be a lot more rescue-y, she might be a lot more brittle. (AND it could still be steamy.)

Now we roll a theme.  I just used a randomized theme chooser called Brainstormer and came up with "Letting Go."

Ooo.  A woman on the run, who is running out of steam, and the theme or lesson of the story is about letting go.  What a great theme for a romance in the first place, but there are so many layers you could build of that.  (The bad guy is stalking her becuase he can't let go of something.  She's been running so long she hasn't the strength to hang on any more -- but to survive she must NOT let go.  The hero, meanwhile, has to let go of his pride or past to help her hang on.)

Themes and titles give the story an identity.  And they give you more options if your other rolls are boring.

One thing about this game, you are always allowed to overrule the game's choices. If a couple of the choices give you a full blown idea, you can ignore anything that doesn't fit. (Although sometimes an element which doesn't fit can give you a new take on something.)  But more about that when we get to playing the game itself.

So, to review, my worksheet, or Situation Form for Romantic Suspense, looks like this:

Title Words: (pick up to ten randomly)
Theme:
Heroine (age/sex chosen by genre)
Heroine Type: (what isolates her)
Hero (age/sex chosen by genre)
Hero Type: (what keeps her away from him)
Villain: (age/sex)
Villain's cover Type: ("Nice" person disguise)
Crime Type:
Victim: (age/sex)
Helper: (age/sex)
Red Herring: (age/sex)

Next Week: the Heroine and Hero Types 

We'll talk about the critical characteristics of these two main characters, so we can make lists of great choices to fill in the worksheet. To do that, we'll have to talk more about the Romantic Suspense genre, and also about what kind of choices make for a good "Story Wheel."

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dogs - Agents and Rogues

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


I think I've wound down to the last I want to say in this series about Characters and their relationship with Money and Power.  (I would use a different word for Money -- one that starts with W and rhymes with "health" -- but every time I use it, I get SLAMMED by get rich quick spammers.)

Just to review, we're talking right now about Dominance as a character trait -- inspired originally by another blogger's tongue-in-cheek ranking of her own characters on a scale inspired by the fad for BDSM billionaires as romantic heroes these days.

So when I talk about "power" or "dominance" I'm talking specifically about characters exerting control over other characters. And I suppose I am particularly talking about characters who do this professionally, or at least as a life calling.  And I've mostly covered the territory: talking about the guns for hire who take control for their clients, and public servants who lead a team and wield authority (or not).

I just have three (well, four) more famous characters I want to talk about, and they blend from one kind of character to another, so I might as well cover them in one long post.

The key element of these characters is that they mostly work alone.  In the case of the first two, they are public servants. They do have authority and somewhere in the background is a team to back them up -- but we mainly see them working alone against their foe.  In some sense, they are like "agents" rather than cops.


Columbo - The Hound, or The Fox?

The TV show Columbo first appeared as a TV movie in 1968.  But in 1971, NBC created a series they called The NBC Mystery Movie, which played a rotating set of shows every Sunday night, and Columbo was one of those (along with MacMillan And Wife and McCloud).  It was created by Levinson and Link -- who had created many great mystery shows -- from Mannix to Ellery Queen to Murder She Wrote.

Levinson and Link were particularly brilliant, though, at stand-alone mystery dramas: TV movies which played out like a stage drama.  Always a battle of wits between charaters - someone trying to get away with a crime, and someone determined to catch him.  But you never knew exactly what each of the characters were up to.  These were clever, literate, deadly games.  (Two of these are currently available on YouTube, though they can be hard to find on DVD: Rehearsal for Murder and Vanishing Act.)

That was how Columbo began, and how it continued to play once it became a series.  And that twisty, game-of-wits nature is why I bring a cute cuddly chracter like Columbo into a series about domination.  I mean, yes, I did talk about Margie Gunderson, but that was in reference to her leadership style.

Although you do see Columbo interacting with other cops, for the most part, they work separately from him.  They are the system, collecting and processing evidence.  He interrupts them to look at it, asks them to get info for him, but his job is separate from theirs.  Even in those episodes where they give him a young sidekick, it seems as though the kid is there to learn from him, not really to assist him.  Columbo doesn't need or want a personal team.

In terms of our subject of "dominance" then, the interesting part of Columbo is how he handles the killers.  He's the lion tamer, the crocodile wrestler.  The guy who goes in and, carefully, politely and without breaking a sweat, talks the monster into trapping himself.  Call him The Killer Whisperer, if you will.

Columbo's technique of dominating a killer (and make no mistake, that's what he's doing from the moment he first meets him/her) is what makes him so delightful to watch.  It isn't just that he seems to bumble around and get distracted and act harmless to get the killer to relax.  No no no NO.  That's the surface, but if that's what you think is going on, you are missing the beauty of the interaction.

These are inverted mysteries -- we see them from the killer's point of view.  So when Columbo bumbles in, he may seem to be harmless to the killer, but he also "accidentally" drives the killer up a wall from the moment he enters.  He sets his hook, and then proceeds to play the killer like a fish.  And not just for fun: he's carefully maneuvering the killer into trapping himself.

A typical scene has Columbo coming to the killer for help with the case.  Some stupid little loose end bothers him.  It's always something that is beneath the interest of the killer.  The killer should just dismiss it and ignore him.  But because the killer is a killer he's hyper alert.  He can't help but be at least a little bit interested.

So he listens, and Columbo immediately gets distracted; "Holy mackerel, look at that vase!  You know my wife would love a vase like that.  How much do you think something like that would cost?"
He does this to force the killer to pay closer attention -- to commit to listening and finally to ask "What do you want!?"

Then Columbo goes into the next phase of manipulation: he tells him about the odd little loose end, and lets the killer explain it away.  He totally accepts this explanation.  He is grateful.  The killer relaxes.  He thinks he's back in control, and then Columbo looks puzzled and says, "Oh, but that can't be true, because of this other evidence...." and totally blows the explanation out of the water.

From here on in, the killer will never be relaxed again.  Columbo has his complete attention, even if he doesn't have the guy's respect yet.  He continues to play the game, dropping tidbits, directing the killer's attention at will.  But never being an outright threat.  He is careful to let the killer believe that Columbo doesn't know the significance of these little clues.  Finally Columbo accepts that the killer's vague secondary explanation is probably right, and starts to go.  He may make it partway out the door, even.

The killer is relieved.  He needs to think about this.  But then Columbo comes back.  He's got his brow furrowed, his fingers pressed to his forehead.

"Oh, just one more thing...."

And then he drops a bombshell that is of critical importance to the killer.  And the killer is left with an urgent need to do something.

It's not just that Columbo is persistent or annoying or even generally unsettling.  It's that every single thing he does -- every bumble, every distraction -- is carefully timed and chosen to tie the killer in tighter and tighter knots. And often very specific knots.

Peter Falk, who played Columbo, always said that he didn't believe Columbo even had a wife.  He believed that the entire thing, from begining to end, was a con game.  I don't believe this myself, because even in the second season, we see Columbo talk about his wife to his vetrinarian.  Why would he con the vet who isn't even remotely connected to the case?

All the same, I think Falk nailed it that when Columbo talks to the killer, every detail is planned and calculated.  He's conning the guy even when he tells the truth.

If you have never seen Columbo, I recommend starting with the earlier seasons.  The show evolved, over the years, and got more cutesy, less sharp.  Even so, any Columbo is better than no Columbo.


Bud White - Budding Vigilante

The movie L. A. Confidential, like the book it was adapted from, is a classic of hot, 1950's West Coast Noir.  It's a larger story, about various scandals and corruption among the cops, gangsters, celebrities and scandal mongers in Hollywood of 1950's L.A.  Like other books by James Ellroy, it is inspired by real events that happened in that fair city.

This is not the functional LAPD of Columbo, or the precise correctness of Samuel Gerard's U.S. Marshal Service.  It's a world where powerful people get away with murder and worse, and where the good guy cops might very well moonlight as the baddest guys of all.

Bud White, played by Russell Crowe, is a simple guy in a complicated world.  He's just a detective, a minion.  He's not terribly bright, and doesn't ask questions of his own, and is perfectly willing to be as corrupt as necessary in the cause of justice.  Planting evidence is just what you do to be sure the bad guys get caught.  You could say that Bud it a team player.

But Bud also has a hobby, something he does all on his own, although his fellow cops know about it.  Bud, whose father killed his mother, hates "Woman Beaters" with a passion far beyond what the job can contain.  So he hunts them down, and keeps them in check.  In the opening scene of the movie, he's supposed to be picking up booze for the department Christmas party, but he stops along the way to take care of a little business.

Bud's methods are as simple as his philosophy: brute force.  Beat the guy up, handcuff him, scare the excrement out of him with threats.

But his power comes from a deep seated rage.  Where Sam Spade might pretend to lose his temper to scare the other side, Bud White really means it.  I decided to show you the scene below from the middle of the movie, because it's a more heightened example.

The set up is this: Bud's fellow detectives are investigating a murder at an all night diner.  They've picked up a couple of young men with blood on their clothes, and a fellow cop (Exley, played by Guy Pearce) who is brilliant at interrogation has them in adjoining interrogation rooms.  He's just gotten the younger one to confess... except not to the crime they're investigating.  This is a crime they don't even konw about -- a Rape.  (The ultimate in woman abuse!)

As the clip begins as everyone is just beginning to realize that this is a whole different case.  (It's only about a minute and a half.)




Exley is by the book, and good at what he does, but when it comes to abuse of women, Bud it outside and above the law.  And his simple direct brute force dominates everything -- the oak chair, Exley, the suspect.

When that inner rage is triggered, Bud becomes a vigilante.

However, that incredible force of nature makes him valuable to the LAPD of the time, so for him vigilantism is just a hobby that comes in useful at his day job. 

And he's a nice bridge into the last group I wanted to talk about in this series: the Rogues.


Sir Percy Blakeney - Laissez-faire Rogue

There are a lot of characters in film and  literature who work outside the law. However, most of them are not great examples for this series.  They're free spirits.  They aren't into dominance so much as twitting the authorities.  Often they are thieves and rescuers.  They right wrongs.  Bad guys may be punished, but mostly bad guys are just stopped from doing their evil deeds.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a perfect example of this laissez-faire hero -- he rescues people from the guillotine.  He does his best not to kill anyone, or to hurt anyone more than necessary.  Late in the series, he even rescues his nemesis -- a man who certainly deserves to lose his head if anyone does. (Although I have to admit it has been a long time since I read that book.  Maybe Chauvelin does get caught, but the person who matters most to him is saved. But I think he is left to live out his life in peace, knowing it is by the grace of a hero.)

While the Pimpernel loves to push the buttons of authority figures (sometimes playing the same sort of psychological games as Columbo) dominance is not his thing.  As a matter of fact, his thing is sometimes showing that he could dominate but won't.  Becuase domination is what villains do.

But there is one rogue hero who is all about domination: The Saint.  The original Simon Templar wasn't the idle gentleman adventurer we see in the TV show with Roger Moore.  The orginal was a vigilante.


Simon Templar - The Man Who Hates Crooks

The Saint's modus operandi was to target a villain -- say a drug dealer or head of a gang -- rob him, humiliate him, and hand him over to justice, and then take ten percent of the proceeds and give the rest to charity.  He did this as an outlaw, and the police were always on his trail.  (Though he often managed to keep his nose above legal hot water, and was also a friend to his persuers on the police force.)

He reveled in the intimidation and humiliation and sometimes put the victims at risk to be sure he could properly punish the bad guys.  Of course, he did it with more style than Bud White.  His signature card -- that stick figure with the halo that is associated with the character to this day -- was intended to terrify his target.  While the Scarlet Pimpernel left his calling card behind after a rescue, the Saint left it up front, a warning like the Black Spot: "I'm coming for you."

My own inclinations lean much more to the Pimpernel type hero than the original Saint.  Alex, from The Case of Misplaced Hero, was raised to be like the Pimpernel.  And though Karla compares George to The Saint, in The Man Who Did Too Much, she's talking about Roger Moore.

And that's it for this series on Characters and Money and Power.  If something truly interesting crops up, I might do a wrap up post next week.  Otherwise, I'm more likely to take up related issues in some distant future series.

On Friday, with the Story Game, we'll be talking more about the character types from Romantic Suspense (the Heroine and Hero, specifically) and maybe a little about the character structure of related genres, like Whodunnit.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)