Steve Jobs: Rest Different

By now I'm sure you've heard that Steve Jobs died today.

Not many people really understood what Steve Jobs did for this world, and how he did it. They think it has to do only with Apple, and Macintosh and iPhone. They think Mac fans overlooked his flaws in adoration of his cool products.

But that ain't it.

You have to look at his flaws to understand how much more he did than foster the invention of the iPhone. It's the stuff he did that people hate which has brought us to where we are. It was in the fact that he not only built his company (and a few others) but that he saw what he wanted for the world, and he had the arrogance to make the world follow.

Somebody else invented WYSIWYG, and computer mice, and telecommunications, and the web and MPEG-4 and MP3 and even the iPod. The raw material, the inventions, all of it were out there. Jobs saw the potential, and it wasn't enough for him to just move his own company forward. He forced the hand of his competitors again and again.

Even those who refuse to ever touch an Apple product have benefited from this. It's why we have Windows and Android and other kinds of mp3 players in the advanced state they are in. Heck, it's why we have Kindle and Nook.

So I'll just end with the quote from Apple's "Think Different" campaign, becuase I think it's really suitable as a eulogy:

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Steve Jobs never doubted he could change the world, and by golly he did.

See you in the funny papers.

ROW80 Update - And My Writing Tools

This is the first update for The Round of Words in 80 Days Challenge (in which we are required to post Wednesdays and Sundays). The story so far:

Sunday, Day 0: Planned to do some organizing of notes and other things to prepare, but ended up just getting some blogging done ahead of time. Had a vision about how cool it would be if I really got off to a really really great start with bazillions of words and minutes on Monday and Tuesday.

Just a note about what I'm doing: Here's my Goals Page. Also, most of this book is done. I have 82000 words, and I don't think it will be more than 90k when it's done. However the middle is a mess. This is a comedy mystery and both of these require extremely tight timing and such. (At least the way I like them.) And I tried a couple different versions (which you can read about here).

So Chapters 12-19 were a major mess. And 12 was the nightmare -- and it's done. Which has cleared the way for the rest. Now, the New Challenge Begins, we shall see how quickly we can actually get this done, hmmm?

Monday Day 1: 158 minutes! Woo hoo! I was hoping for a little better, but that's still over the 90 minutes I have set for an average day. I got momentum up by going back over Chapter 14, then made a run at the multiple versions of Chapter 15 and straightened all that out. I got a little bit of prep work done for Chapter 16 -- but that's going to be harder. It's partly new and partly old. And I have to decide Tuesday, once and for all, whether Rosie takes part in it all. Unless I chicken out and skip to Chapter 17 (which is also a mess, but it's a good mess.)

Tuesday Day 2: 188 minutes! While I was hoping for 200, it's still over double the daily average -- which will be necessary, because Wednesday through Friday are going to be hectic at the day job.

In Today's efforts, I dug deep and did some tough but fruitful work. I didn't get as far as I wanted, but I like what I did. (And Karla took the bit in her teeth and when she was introduced to Zero, she blurted out "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Which, frankly, has stymied both me and him for an appropriate reaction.)

We'll see how it goes from here. The next update will be on Sunday.

In the meantime, here's a post about the tools I've been using to help me with this dare....


Shovels and Rakes and Implements of Destruction
or, My Writing Tool Chest

We all have our favorite pen, or notepad or even our favorite writing application on computer.

I myself am prone to gadgets. Always have been. I can't afford to buy lots of them, but somehow I manage to acquire them anyway -- some new, some used, some hand-me-down. Gifts.

Over the years I've put together a set of gadgets which seem to suit my writing style, and they have been particularly helpful in my writing dare efforts. Keep in mind that 1) I like to get out of the house for at least one writing session a day, 2) I don't like to take my laptop, and 3) I don't like typing long passages from scraps of paper any more.

So here is my Portable Writing Kit:

Ancient Asus Eeee netbook:

It's little enough to port around in a large purse but has a keyboard big enough for my typing. In a pinch, its wifi will work -- but unless I'm traveling out of town, I don't use it. I use this puppy for one thing only: typing. It has an SD card slot, and so does my home computer! Hallelujah! The return of the floppy disk!

So I write raw material on the Eee, and transfer it easily to the hard drive when I get home.

The one problem with using the Asus is organization: I do not believe in keeping more than one "current" copy of the manuscript - the rest are all backups. I don't like to even OPEN a back up copy, because I'll accidentally start editing on it, and then I end up with multiple versions of the manuscript. What I need is a read-only reference copy for when I'm on the road.

Which brings me to....

Kindle

Every couple of days I create a reference copy of the manuscript and put it in the Kindle. Easy peasy, and I don't have to worry about editing it, because even the annotation feature is such an incredible pain in the tuchis that I hate doing it.

(I am experimenting with using annotations for marking those last few typos, by marking them in Gutenberg books. Typing, as I said, is a pain, so when I find an error, I type one letter, and save that as an annotation. I haven't gone back to make use of those annotations yet, so the usefulness of his is To Be Determined.)

The other thing I do is put my writing "to do list" on the Kindle, so that I have a reference without creating too much more paper litter.

Paper litter is beloved of my middle cat, Maude, but she need not worry, I create plenty of that...

Steno Book

I used to write EVERYTHING in steno books, and I bought them in bulk. I use them for non-linear outlining and note taking and brainstorming. They're also useful for quick notes when I don't have time to pull out the netbook and wait for it to boot up and then wait for the app to boot up. Steno books also never run out of battery power.

But lately I've found a way to edit while I'm away from home -- even with my "the only REAL copy of the manuscript is the one on my harddrive" policy. I do not edit on my netbook. Never nohow noway.

So, instead, I read the current manuscript on my Kindle, and I write notes in my steno book. Those notes might be anything from "hte = the" to a rewritten paragraph, to a reminder to lay a clue in a particular scene, or to double-check the spelling of a name.

Because I'm not actually editing (i.e. making changes in the manuscript) this is a creatively painless process. Really easy to do. I do not have to make decisions, I just have to take detailed notes.

Then later on, I sit at the computer with the notes and type them in -- and that goes quickly and painlessly too, because while I was taking those notes I actually did make all the decisions, even if I didn't have to. I just have to implement them. Plus, in this two pass process, it goes fast -- but it's as good as two full writing passes as I review the notes as I go.

iPod Touch

I use my touch as a PDA more than anything. I call it my "brain," and its main job is calculating how the bill will be split up in restaurants. And like my old PDAs, it was my main ebook reader before a friend bought me a Kindle. And I still use it to read while waiting in line somewhere. But it's not much of a writing tool. The screen is too small.

However, the other thing I use it for is a pocket watch and clock, and that brings us to the new cool use I've found for it....

I'm measuring my Dare progress in minutes, and that makes the Touch my favorite writing tool of all time. It has a stopwatch built into the alarm clock! And when I hit "stop" and turn it off, it holds the time for as long as I want. So I can just accumulate minutes all day long -- measured to the microsecond.

The only problem (and this is a problem with a time-based dare no matter how you measure it) is that I sometimes forget to turn it on when I start. But because it's a spiffy gadget, I forget it less than I used to forget to look at the clock.

Other stuff:

I have used 3x5 cards and postit notes for outlining. I don't use them most of the time -- they're too much trouble -- but now and then when I have a knotty problem, I like to work with them as physical objects.

A set of Happy Meal Toys (the Disney ones in particular) for staging complicated scenes. Again, not something I do all the time, but knotty problems with too many characters finds these a wonderful tool.

Job Jar: this I've never used for writing, but it really appeals to me. I'd like to use it as a randomization tool of some sort. Instead of filling it with tasks, I'd fill it with brainstorming questions -- even generic things like "Why?" Or with adjectives or other loaded words. Then, whenever you get stuck, or if you want to start a brain storming session, you reach in and grab one or two cards, and let it inspire.

Pens and Pencils: I never use good pens any more because you can never get proper refills for them. (I don't like fountain pens -- but if I did, those would be easier, of course.) Instead I use mechanical pencils. I collect them, I love them.

Some people like simplicity, but I find that the right tool doing the right job is a joy.

See you in the funny papers.

Finding New Short Fiction -- Author Blogs

Last week I recommended some specific authors and stories and collections. They were almost all classics, and nearly all to be found in traditional permanent book form.

This week I wanted to give you an overview of places to find new fiction, but the subject is really too broad, and I'm trying to get a book done, so I'm just going to tell you about one small corner. Well, not such a small corner, really. It's actually huge and difuse.

Author blogs.

There are a lot of magazines on the web -- both formal print magazines and small webzines -- but one of the more interesting places to find short fiction is on author websites.

What I like about blogs is that they're like magazines or newspapers. I read them for the regular non-fiction content, and when a story pops up -- especially if it's a flash fiction -- I just naturally read it without even thinking about it. With longer stories, I usually want to set aside time to read it properly, and that time never does come. Of course, sometimes you get lured into reading a longer story without even thinking about it....

This is all just beginning, and I have barely started finding these sites myself, so I'm not going to try to give yo a "best of" -- I'm just going to tell you a few sites I've found. (And I'll continue to do so every Tuesday.)

Dean Wesley Smith

I've mentioned elsewhere that Dean Wesley Smith is in the middle of a short story writing challenge, and he's publishing stories on his website as he finishes them. Each story expires when the next one is put up, however, so you have to read regularly to catch them all. The stories are off-the-cuff and sometimes quite odd-ball. (For a while he was holding back stories which were suited for commercial publication, but he's behind on the challenge, so some of those are also creeping onto the roster.)

Kris Rusch

Kris (who happens to be married to Dean) is an award winning author/editor who also writes like a fiend, and she puts up a story on most Mondays on her blog Kris Writes, and also does a book excerpt once a month.

Morgen Bailey

Morgen Bailey's author site has started doing "Flash Fiction Fridays." These are not her own stories, but those of people who submit.

Karen Wojcik Berner

Karen's Bibliophilic Blather page also does flash fiction on Fridays, also stories submitted by other authors. She usually has a theme, but has some open periods too.

And there are so many others, and many who will start in the future. Keep your eye on your favorite author's blogs.

Tomorrow I report the progress on my Round of Words in 80 Days effort.

See you in the funny papers.

Monday Covers: Evocative Images and Little Text

For these "Monday Cover" posts, I sometimes just browse through the Shelf Awareness newsletter for the more attractive or interesting cover in the bunch. This time, while I saw a couple of good nonfiction covers, I almost despaired of finding anything interesting in the fiction area....

Until I got down to the paid "advertioral" section. There at the very bottom, was this evocative cover for When The Dust Finally Settles.

The first thing that strikes me is the fact that it's both dark, and vibrant. The colors are all secondary colors, all blended, but still highly saturated: green, red-violet, yellow-orange. That alone evokes a muted intensity, something under the surface. The buildings and details up at the top are crowded, and yet lonely in the fact that there is a field between us and those buildings. It's lush with green, but feels barren in the stark, unidentifiable rows. (It could be rows of moss for all we can tell.)

Little (or No) Text

Here is something for the e-publishers to think about: We all talk about how we have to have a legible cover in thumbnail; use big fonts so you can see the title and author.

And yet, note also that the title here is small.

But Seth Godin has pointed out that with an ebook it doesn't really matter. It's not an actual physical cover -- it's a "product image" which goes next to the title on the page. He's leaving text off his ebook covers altogether now, and just going with an image.

I'm not sure I agree with him. The problem with leaving all text off the cover is that it confuses the issue. It's supposed to be a picture of the product. If the product is a book, well, a book has text on the cover. (This is why ebook-only publishers sometimes put little blurbs in tiny illegible text on ebooks covers -- to make them look like paperbacks) . A picture without text confuses the reader as to what they're getting. Is it a print or painting? Or are they getting the item depicted? If you write a book about a clown, the customer can't tell at a glance whether they are getting a clown costume, or a DVD of a clown's performance, or what.

That's why proportions are important as well. Last week, when I went looking for links for those short story recommendations, I kept coming across video and audio adaptations and spin-offs. In some cases it was hard to find the original book. The only thing that helped was that the CDs and DVDs and such were all different dimensions.

Right now, it's great to use the freedom we have to deviate from the norm... but we're still trying to communicate here. What will a "book" look like when there are no more physical books? I have a feeling we'll still be using some of these unnecessary elements as a cultural signal.

Evoking Other Books, Evoking A Genre.

The other thing I wanted to talk about with this cover is what it evokes intellectually.

The book is described thusly: "Narrated in part by a ghost, When the Dust Finally Settles is a novel focused on land, loyalty, and Southern racial politics in 1968."

I'm not a big fan of the Southern Gothic, but I am fond of its cousin, a genre you could call "Northern Noir." Things like the movie Fargo, and also like Archer Mayor's police procedural novels about a team of detectives in Vermont.

And that cover above immediately reminded me of a set of the older covers from the Mayor series:


I always really really loved these covers. I wanted to collect the whole set of Mayor's books with them. But alas they changed the style, and the later books never saw a cover like these.

The cover of When The Dust Finally Settles evokes the same feeling via the saturated colors and the countryside subject matter. The use of pattern within rows. The colors here are brighter and closer to primary colors, but there's a lot more black to mute them.

The other element that draws these covers together is the primitive style. The Mayor books are woodcuts, the one up top has the odd off-set proportions of a an American primitive painter. They both evoke the folk art of a deep-rooted culture.

Will I buy that book up top? Probably not. Like I said, it doesn't sound like it's quite my cuppa. Nothing against it, though, and that cover DID put it on my radar in a positive way. I'll grab a sample, and even if I never get around to reading that, the author and book will be in my mind when I hear about them another time.

See you in the funny papers.

Week In Review/Preview - Drinking Koolaid, Kindle Fire and Funny Floppies

Just 24 Hours before I start the next dare!

The Round Of Words In 80 Days Challenge begins Monday. Am I ready? As ready as I will ever be. I am glad I took the last week and a half off. I am back to battling the cold, and the cluster-(bleep) at the day job involving the new computer order has continued to get bleepier as drop-dead dates zoom past, and we have less and less time to resolve unresolvable problems. (Just a usual fall semester....)

I am, however, very much looking forward to the new dare. The Goals are posted Here. The rules demand an update on Sundays and Wednesdays, so those days will be devoted to that here on this blog, although I will often include a related post about productivity or something, especially on Wednesdays. (Since weekends are the "review/preview.") For instance, this Wednesday I will be talking about how I use my excess of writing gadgets and tools in the maintenance of this dare.



Drinking the Koolaid?

I love Janet Reid, a funny and generous agent who maintains a couple of great blogs (including The Query Shark). Recently, though, she pissed off a bunch of writers by making a comment about how writers shouldn't "drink the Koolaid" of self-publishing.

I actually sympathize with her feeling that indie publishing is kinda like a cult. Sure people get excited and make mistakes, and maybe follow advice a little too slavishly. But I agree with those who think she got the wrong end of the stick on this "drinking the Koolaid" metaphor.

Here's the thing: drinking the Koolaid isn't about getting excited and making mistakes. Excitement and mistakes are GOOD and NECESSARY things. Drinking the Koolaid doesn't happen at the start of something new, it happens at the end -- when the system is teetering and there is no reason to continue to support it, but you do something self-destructive out of loyalty.

Right now, self-publishing isn't going to do anybody any harm at all. Zero harm. It may not do you good -- other than be a learning experience -- but it won't do harm. Signing a publishing contract right now, on the other hand, could do you a lot of harm. Signing a contract is a commitment. And right now, the contracts are crazy, and really force a huge commitment on the writer. Same with agency contracts.

Look, the industry is changing. Everybody is flying blind. You don't want to make commitments right now. You don't want to lock up your rights. THAT is a lot closer to drinking the Trademarked Sweetened Beverage.


Kindle Fire Released!

This week, Amazon released their iPad killer -- the color touch-screen Kindle Fire. Honestly... I think it's more of a Nook killer. It will push Apple on a couple of elements (namely size and price) but it doesn't appear to be a full-featured tablet computer.

But you never know, it might grow into one. (Just remember that the iPad evolved from the iPod, which wasn't originally a multitasking device.)

What excites me is that they are now offering sub-$100 Kindles, and better yet, a SMALLER Kindle! Yes yes yes! It's close to the dimensions of a mass-market paperback. If Apple were to come out with an iPad that size, I'd buy it in a second. That extra inch or so of screen space is exactly what I need to make my iPod Touch more useful.

Unfortunately, the tiny Kindle is not the one with the fancy color touch screen.

Now, I don't own an iPad yet because, cool as it is, it fits my lifestyle exactly wrong. It doesn't fit in my purse to carry around like my Touch, and adding a keyboard would make it bigger and clunkier than my netbook. And because it doesn't play Flash, my video viewing choices online are limited. (For instance, Hulu wants you to pay for a subscription before you can watch their media.)

The new color Kindle does not beat the iPad on any of those. It might be smaller, but not small enough to make a difference. Typing isn't any better. As for the video functionality? It sounds like the content choices may be worse. I haven't seen any definitive answer, but it sounds like it's really geared toward Amazon content, and limited online sources.


Upcoming Posts

• Monday Covers: Evocative Images With Little or No Text
• Tuesday Short Stuff: The New World of Short Fiction -- finding current stuff. (The web is crawling with short fiction... it's coming out of the woodwork!)
• Wednesday Update: Update on ROW80 -- an a look at my implements of destruction, er, I mean my writing tools and gadgets.
• Thursday: Coverage vs Critique (or Reader vs. Writer -- or is it about you or me?)
• Friday: Delayed Gratification, and What Holds a Story/Series together. (With a look at the TV Show Castle, and the movie Arsenic and Old Lace.)
  

Video Of The Week: Dramatic Floppy Drives

Okay, maybe it's not as dramatic as the Singing Tesla Coils playing the same tune at a deafening volume, but it's still pretty cool....



See you in the funny papers (if the floppy drives don't take over the world....)

Short Fiction Recommendations: Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie, of course, was a master of deception and revelation. The great thing about her short fiction is that she uses simpler versions of her techniques and it can be easier to study.

I've always enjoyed these stories, which are much like her novels -- good puzzles with an emphasis on psychology and character. And while I like the Poirot stories, there are two non-Poirot collections I especially remember:

Partners In Crime

This collection of short stories is the second of the five books about Tuppence and Tommy Beresford. It was the first one I read, however, and it made me fall immediately in love with these young adventurers. I was then disappointed to find that every book in the Tuppence and Tommy series was significantly different -- but I got over it. I soon realized that there was something cool about the four novels, as a set. They covered the four stages of life, youth, maturity, middle-aged, and old.

The short stories, though, are a fun off-shoot of that first novel, a light spy-thriller mystery. It has been a long time since I read them, and I doubt they are brilliant mysteries so much as they are great characters, but all I remember is that after I'd read them I was starved for more Tuppence and Tommy. Partners in Crime is available for Kindle -- and like most Christie books, priced at about standard paperback price.


Thirteen Problems (or The Tuesday Club Murders)

Thirteen Problems (which is actually a combination of two small collections which were very similar) is probably the finest collection of all the Christie short stories.

The series concept is simple: a group of people who meet regularly for dinner challenge one another. They each must come up with some real life experience, something they were personally acquainted with, and which seemed utterly mystifying at the time, but they learned later of the real solution. Then they take turns telling the story and seeing if the others can solve the mystery. Nobody expects that old dear, Miss Marple, to take part in the game. But of course, she's the one who solves every one of them.

Not all the stories are brilliant, and of course, they've been imitated many times since, so some of the solutions don't seem as clever as they once did. But they are good stormy night stories. My favorite is near the end of the collections: "The Affair At The Bungalow" has a clever twist on the structure of the others. (And it's better if you read it after reading at least some of the others.)

I recommend them for any reader, but I recommend them double for writers.

Told stories come in a lot of formats. For instance, when P. G. Wodehouse writes a golfing story it goes something like this:

"Golly I'm never playing golf again!" declared the young golfer, tossing his clubs aside in frustration.

"Now now," says The Eldest Member, "don't be hasty. Let me tell you the story of Gavin Plitherickhampton and I think you'll see that your situation is not so hopeless...."

It was a brilliant day on the heath (began the Eldest Member) and Gavin had been invited to play by none other than grand master Roderick MacRoderick himself...

In other words, there might be a set up scene in the present day, but once the story begins, the quotes -- and the present scene -- go away until the end. And even though the voice of the narrator remains, you are inserted into the story he's telling. (I used this technique in my Hemingway's Babyshoes story.)

But an "Armchair Detective" story has a different structure. You remain in the room where the story is being told. People interact, and ask questions, add information of their own. While the regular "told story" is built on an artificial narrative voice -- a master storytller -- the armchair detective story is built on more naturalistic dialog. The teller of the tale may be scattered, may need direction, may be lying.

It's basically an extreme version of an interrogation or questioning scene. What makes it extreme is that it's all you've got to tell the story. You can't make up for the slowness of it with an action scene. You've got to do a good job with how you handle all that boring exposition in dialog.

That's something dramatists do all the time -- since drama is made up of dialog, mainly, and is often limited in scope. But an armchair detective story is trickier than simple drama, because it isn't just that you reveal information through dialog. It's that one of the other characters (the armchair detective) must spot the solution from what he or she hears in that conversation. And although Christie set her problem up so that the teller of the story knows the solution, in many classic armchair stories, the teller is just a witness, and is completely mystified by what he or she saw.

(Rex Stout took this concept to another level with his novellas and novels about Nero Wolfe. Wolfe hated to leave his house, so he insisted that his more sociable sidekick go out and gather information and relay it to him, or to round up suspects so that Wolfe could question them from the comfort of his armchair. I may talk about him in a future installment, when I get to novellas.)

In any case, I think every writer could learn a lot from reading Christie's Thirteen Problems -- and I think every mystery writer should write at least one, if not a couple, of armchair stories, if only for the practice with making questioning scenes interesting.

That's it for this week.

This weekend, I gear up for the Round of Words in 80 Days challenge, which starts Monday. I'll post more about that (and some thoughts about the new Kindle Fire) on the weekend "Review-Preview" post.

And next week I'll talk a little more about places to find current short fiction, which is exploding all over the web, and cropping up in some unexpected places -- kind of like it used to.

See you in the funny papers.

Short Fiction Recommendations - Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is at the opposite end of the spectrum from P.G. Wodehosue. His stories are brilliant. They are also intense and dark and literary (usually) and not for everyone. I don't read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but I do read Ellison. I don't read it often because a little goes a very long way. But I love to hear him read his work, and I place no limits on how much I will listen when he's talking.

Because Ellison brings together two things -- the artistry of the master poet combined with the verve of the master raconteur. If you've ever met him in person, you know that words pour out of the man like water out of a fire hose.

I don't have a thorough experience of Ellison, but I can give you quite a few stories I've read. They're just all in different collections. (Note: I'm providing Amazon affiliate links to ebooks where possible. You can find these books in all sorts of places, including used bookstores or at your library... and probably a whole lot more.)

"The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" This is probably Ellison's greatest work, and also the most disturbing. It was inspired by the Kitty Genovese incident -- when a woman was raped and killed in full sight of others and they just ignored it. Ellison writes of our culture as if there is an ancient, evil, blood-thirsty god lurking in modern times, driving the behavior of not just the villains, but of the onlookers. This one is SO relevant to what's going on in the world right now, where people cheer on torture and the death penalty and even the death of uninsured cancer patients. And where it's most relevant is that it's not about people enjoying the pain of others, but rather the driving force of fear and helplessness.

"The Wimper of Whipped Dogs" is in what many consider to be his most masterful collection, Deathbird Stories.

"Paladin of the Lost Hour" A story about a friendship and responsibility, as a young man saves an old man from muggers, and what he learns of the old man's mission. This one is touching as well as gripping. I could not find this in any Kindle edition of Ellison's work, but it is available in the paper edition, Angry Candy.

"I'm Looking For Kadak" is one of his light, funny stories. On a dying planet, off in outer space somewhere, the last few Jews want to sit shiva for the planet before evacuating, but they are short one man to make a minyan. So they send one of their number on a quest to find Kadak, a former member of the congregation who went off to find himself. It's a strange and silly journey through an alien landscape. (This is one I haven't actually read, but once had a cassette of Ellison reading it.) This is collected in Approaching Oblivion.

"Repent Harlequin! Said The Ticktockman." One of Ellison's earlier literary stories, often cited and collected in textbooks. I read it in school, when I was too young to grasp it all. It's a futurist fantasy, where the Ticktockman enforces behavior in a highly regulated society, while the Harlequin is the rebel. The beginning is a little wandery and hip, but once you catch up with the slick style, the end is a grabber. People talk about it as if it has a downer ending, but the very end is optimistic and imho, very satsifying. Ticktockman is collected in The Paingod and Other Delusions.

"Jeffty is Five." Another lighter (though melancholy) story, about a little boy who doesn't grow up. Ever. It's collected in Shatterday.

One other book of his which I love is Mind Fields. Ellison loves art, and when was asked to write an introduction to a collection of paintings by Jacek Yerka -- a Polish surrealist painter -- he decided instead that he wanted to write a story to go with each of the paintings. It's a beautiful collection, and the styles of the two artists are to wonderfully melded. I own more than one copy of it, because I wanted to tear one apart so I could frame the pictures... but I've never been able to bring myself to do that.

Which brings me to one more thing: Ellison's non-fiction is also frickin' brilliant. Read the intros he writes to his books, read his movie and television criticism.

And hearing him read or give a speech is even more frickin' brilliant than reading his stories yourself. Listen to the guy if you can. (Just remember he is naturally uncompromising and, er, forthright.)

Tomorrow, I'll go into more conventional territory with Agatha Christie. Her short fiction is much like her novels -- except that she is more likely to use one technique at a time. This makes her short fiction worth studying for writers, as well as just fun to read.

See you in the funny papers.

Short Fiction Recommendations - P.G. Wodehouse

There are authors who can write anything -- tough or sweet or intellectual or dumb. Variety is the spice of life, and they do it all.

But sometimes an author does just one thing -- one voice, one kind of story -- and learns to do it so brilliantly that no one can ever touch him. Furthermore, after all those years of practice, he delves deeper and brings out more in the narrow medium than anyone ever thought possible.

P. G. Wodehouse, otherwise known as "Plum," is one of the latter breed. All of his stories, especially once he had fine tuned his style, are variations on the same bloody story. Nothing of real consequence happens in them, but they are rivetingly tense and surprising. His idiot heroes get themselves into terrible messes, in which they are menaced by domineering aunts, and sticky children and angry geese and terrifying prospective father-in-laws, and via mad twists and turns (and the assistance of brainy servants, and twists of fate) manage to wend their way back out by the skin of their teeth. They are often transformed from spineless terrified twits to bold, brave and honorable twits.

Wodehouse honed the voice and story style so well, that even though you can't always remember one story from another, the stories are still full of surprises and tension and laughs.

That's one of the reasons, though, I'd rather people start with his best stories. His earlier stories -- the ones in the public domain -- have all the elements, but he hadn't mastered them yet. The rambling narrative voice really does ramble a bit more, his story elements are not quite as surprising. Once the twenties hit proper, his timing was dead on, his set-ups and pay-offs sharper.

For writers: the thing to learn from Wodehouse is first his "deep point of view." One of the things he often did was narrate stories from the point of view of characters who, shall we say, aren't very bright? He used deep point of view to help us experience the world through the eyes of such a fool, and thereby sympathize. He also used this point of view to do two things: create anticipation when we could see what the poor airheaded hero cannot, but also to raise the stakes. The insurmountable problem for the hero is just as suspenseful for us. (Partly because we'd never have got into that situation, so we don't know how to get out of it either.)

Of course that part -- the twists and turns and the feeling of high stakes -- is due also to excellent set up. That is, the laying of clues and subtle touches of foreshadowing. This is worth it for any writer to study.

One other element Wodehouse is known for is "voice" -- clever, witty narration. He often used storyteller characters, like Mr. Mulliner, who would tell endless stories of the difficulties of his many nephews and nieces, and The Eldest Member, who told golfing stories at the club. These were actually omniscient and wise -- unlike the heroes of the stories -- and maybe just a little unreliable. But they, like Wodehouse himself, took advantage of deep point-of-view too, and so we got the best of both worlds, where information could be hidden or exposed at will by the storyteller.

We very seldom get this kind of art in a modern story. When we do, it's usually in a short story, since it's easier to maintain an experiment with something short.

Recommendations:

As I said yesterday: there are NO Wodehouse stories available for ebooks which are not in the public domain, but there are crooks who will try to fool you into buying the same stories, poorly packaged. Don't be fooled. (You can get the public domain stuff at Project Gutenberg's Wodehouse Page.)

Jeeves

Wodehouse is most known for his stories about Jeeves, the genius valet of the benighted Bertie Wooster. Bertie gets into trouble, and Jeeves, without so much as lifting an eyebrow, gets him out of it. These stories started early and there are a couple of collections in the public domain, and they are good. Just not great. (There are both novels and short stories in the Jeeves series.)

Mulliner Stories

If you can, get your hands on a copy of Meet Mr. Mulliner. Read "Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo" and the next story in the same collection, which is a sequel to the first. They are the best.

Golfing Stories

Wodehouse started out writing school and sports stories, but he eventually specialized in stories about golf. You don't have to like golf to love these stories -- which are more about love and honor than anything else. There is one collection available in the public domain, "The Clicking Of Cuthbert." These stories are not as fine tuned as the later ones, but could be a fun place to start if you do happen to like golf.

Blandings Castle

I don't think there are many short stories in this series about a fuzzy headed old Duke who is easily bullied or fooled, and he denizens of his castle, most of whom want something from him or each other. However, my very second favorite Wodehouse story of all time (after "buck-u-uppo") is a novelette called "The Crimewave at Blandings."

You can find examples of much of these, including "The Crimewave at Blandings," in The Best Of P.G. Wodehouse.

In the meantime I will end this post with the first page from "The Crimewave at Blandings."

The day on which Lawlessness reared its ugly head at Blandings Castle was one of singular beauty. The sun shone down from a sky of cornflower blue, and what one would really like would be to describe in leisurely detail the ancient battlements, the smooth green lawns, the rolling parkland, the majestic trees, the well-bred bees and the gentlemanly birds on which is shone.

But those who read thrillers are an impatient race. They chafe at scenic rhapsodies and want to get on to the rough stuff. When, they ask, did the dirty work start? Who were mixed up in it? Was there blood, and, if so, how much? And -- most particularly -- where was everybody and what was everybody doing at whatever time it was? The chronicler who wishes to grip must supply this information at the earliest possible moment.

The wave of crime, then, which was to rock one of Shropshire's stateliest homes to its foundations broke out towards the middle of a fine summer afternoon, and the persons involved in it were disposed as follows:

Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, the castle's owner and overlord, was down in the potting-shed, in conference with Angus McAllister, his head gardener, on the subject of sweet peas.

His sister, Lady Constance, was strolling the terrace with a swarthy young man in spectacles, whose name was Rupert Baxter and who had at one time been Lord Emsworth's private secretary.

Beach, the butler, was in a deck-chair outside the back premises of the house, smocking a cigar and reading Chapter Sixteen of The Man With The Missing Toe.

George, Lord Emsworth's grandson, was prowling through the shrubbery with the airgun which was his constant companion.

Jane, his lordship's niece, was in the summer-house by the lake.

And the sun shone serenely down -- on, as we say, the lawns, the battlements, the trees, the bees and the best type of bird and the rolling parkland....

You will note that there is a distinct narrator here -- an omniscient voice with an opinion and motive, even if he doesn't appear in the story.

Tomorrow I'll talk about someone who is near the other end of the spectrum from sweet and frivolous P. G. Wodehouse: Harlan Ellison. Ellison can be sweet and light and frivolous, but so can jalapeno candy. At the same time, of the authors I've read, he and Wodehouse have the most to teach us about mastery in the short form.

See you in the funny papers.

My Favorite Short Fiction

"So, where can you get the best Chinese food in town?"

I get asked that question a lot. And I tend to meet it with a long calculating silence -- a pause really, and not completely silent. I'll usually say something like, "Ummmmmmmmmmm...." And if there is a foodie friend nearby, we tend to exchange wary glances.

This always puzzles the asker, because they've been told I know all the best Chinese places in town. And they were not told wrong. It's just that recommending a restaurant it's not really about the restaurant. It's about the person asking.

So I ask: "How do you feel about chicken feet? What about spicy foods? What's your favorite Chinese dish?"

This is important because the best Chinese restaurant in town is the super-authentic Sichuan place, and the food there is on another planet compared to the kind of food you get on your average Chinese-American buffet.

And yes, the chicken feet question is not really an honest question -- it's a test. I don't need to know how you like them -- you don't have to order them (I generally don't) -- I just need to know how you respond to the idea that they are a food product. That leads to a discussion which will tell me whether I should just forget it and send you off to P.F. Changs.

Recommending short fiction to someone who hasn't read much of it is kind of like that.

And unfortunately I am no expert on all the kinds of short fiction out there, and I have no "chicken feet" question to help ascertain your tastes and limits.

So instead I am just going to offer you a sampler platter of the short fiction which I like, or has at least influenced me. And what I like is mostly mystery and comedy.

These are mostly not current writers, and mostly not available in ebook format. Frankly, I haven't found many modern writers of formal short fiction who excite me that much -- but I'm finding more and more all the time, and I'm finding a WHOLE LOT in the more informal venues. I'll talk about that next Tuesday.

Classics

The great thing about classics is that a lot of them are available at Project Gutenberg or at least inexpensively. Sometimes they are harder to read because of older styles (slower styles, as well as old slang and long forgotten references - and often politically incorrect).

O. Henry

I haven't read a lot of O. Henry and his verbal style is pretty dated, but his influence is everywhere, and his stories were usually light and funny, and always feature a clever twist. You've probably heard or seen some adapation of his "Gift of the Magi" or "The Ransom of Red Chief." Project Gutenberg O. Henry collection.

If you like old-time twisty stories, you might also look for translations of Guy de Maupassant. ("The Necklace" is probably his most famous.) Project Gutenberg Complete Original Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant.

Arthur Conan Doyle

If you're into mystery writing, you have to read at last SOME Sherlock Holmes. And though I don't know if it's his best, I think that everybody should read "Silver Blaze" because it's culturally influential. (It's where the bit about "the curious incident of the dog in the night time" comes from.) It's in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. And "A Scandal In Bohemia" is also culturally important -- it has "The Woman" in it -- and it was in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (As an overall collection, I enjoyed "adventures" more than "memoirs.")

Russian Dudes

In college I really enjoyed stories from Turgenev, Chekhov, and Gogol. And Pushkin was my dad's favorite author, I think. Many of the stories were bleak and ironic, but not always - and of course, the less bleak the more I liked them. I think Gogol's "The Overcoat" is a precursor to a lot of ironic modern science fiction, frankly.

I can't recommend many other stories by name, but here is a Chekhov story published recently in Flash Fiction Online which is a lot of fun: "A Living Calendar."


Baroness Orczy

Best known for her Scarlet Pimpernel stories -- about the secret hero who rescues people from the guillotine. She also wrote popular mystery short stories for magazines of the time. The short stories feel more dated than the novels -- I'll talk more about her when I talk about Agatha Christie on Friday but here are three public domain collections of her short stories:

League Of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Old Man in the Corner are both available at Project Gutenberg. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard is not available there, but here is an online publication of it, and there is a cheap Kindle Edition of Lady Molly (which I haven't checked out yet -- caveat emptor).

Golden Age of pulp and mystery

So many of these are simply not available, especially not in ebook format. They are likely to have a "best of" anthology here and there, though.

P.G. Wodehouse

Silly fluffy stories about air-headed upper-class British twits. Wodehouse was the master of wit, and of crazy drawing-room comedy plotting.

Some early work is available in the public domain -- and this is the ONLY work of his available in ebook form. Unfortunately, they aren't his really best work. You might like them, but if you want really top hole Wodehouse, you want the stuff from the late 20's, 30's and 40's. My favorite story ever is "Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo" from the collection Meet Mr. Mulliner which is apparently only available as a collectible antique. (You may find it in your library or used book store, however.)

But fear not: this more current collection The Best Of P.G. Wodehouse, has my second favorite, a novelette titles "The Crimewave at Blandings" as well two novels and maybe a dozen or so of his topping short stories.

I will talk more about Wodehouse tomorrow.

Dashiell Hammett

Hard to find in ebook form. Heck, it's hard to find his short fiction at all. He wrote a ton of great short pulp stories particularly during the depression. Probably my favorite character is The Continental Op (who never gives his name -- a detective, or "operative" for the Continental Detective Agency). While the Op was definitely one of the prototypes for the standard hard-boiled detective, he was 1) more realistic because Hammett had been an operative for Pinkertons, and 2) the stories were more puzzle-based than action based. (Although there was certainly action, and the Op would get drunk and get into trouble with women now and then.)

Agatha Christie

Christie wrote quite a lot of short stories as well as novels, and they are much like her novels in style. And best of all, her books are available in ebook form!! (but unfortunately tend to be expensive). Some of Christie's shorts are great to study for technique -- such as Thirteen Problems, which are all "armchair" stories. They take place at dinner where people are telling stories to each other -- trying to stump each other with a mystery. I'll talk more about Christie on Friday.

Ellery Queen

No EQ fiction is available in electronic form whatsoever. Bah! But if you can get your hands on a copy of The Adventures of Ellery Queen, you'll find some straight-forward modern-style mystery shorts. (At least, you will if I remember right. It's been a LONG time since I read them.)

James Thurber

Thurber is, I think, a great model for the coming generation of indie writers-- which is why I'm going to talk about him extensively next week. He wrote for magazines, and his stories ranged from regular straight up literary short fiction to his famous modern fables and satires, to essays and anecdotes and wild autobiographical stories. He also drew cartoons.

Though he's not available in electronic form, A Thurber Carnival appears to hold all of my favorites and best known: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "The Catbird Seat," "The Night The Bed Fell" ... well, I could go on.

Damon Runyon

Have you ever seen Guys and Dolls? That was based on a Runyon short story, as was Little Miss Marker and Pocket Full of Miracles. Twisty comedy stories about underworld mooks. Unfortunately, out of print and not available in ebook format. But you should be able to find him if you search.

Hemingway

Can't really say I like Hemingway. Can't really say I don't like him. Most of his stuff leaves me kind of cold. However, the classic short short "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" is available to read online, and a great place to dip in and see if you like the water. (And if you read it and say, "okay, uh, what's the excitement about this?" you can go over to Wikipedia -- or a thousand other literary sites -- and read what people tend to think about it. Hemingway is worth reading the interpretations, imho. If only because he leaves so much to interpretation.)

Modern Writers

Harlan Ellison

I can't say enough great things about Ellison, even though I don't read a lot of his fiction. His stuff is deep, intense and often very dark. Ellison is sharp, opinionated, extremely smart and extremely well-read and culturally educated... and he expects the same of the reader. I mean, yeah, some of his stuff is funny and light and just interesting, but he grabs you by the gut too much to be taken lightly. (Or perhaps I should say he grabs you by the brain, and sometimes makes it hurt.)

I'm going to talk about him this week, so I think I'll leave the specific recommendations for then. I'll just say the best collection is Deathbird Stories, and they're mostly not the lighter side of Ellison.

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl is perhaps better known for his wicked children's fiction, but he was also an incredible master of very wicked adult fiction. (Often very adult.) My two favorite stories of his are "Lamb To The Slaughter" and "Parson's Pleasure." (They both happen to be in this collection The Best of Roald Dahl. ) You can also see the wonderful TV adaptation of Lamb To The Slaughter on Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- free to watch on Hulu.

Garrison Keillor

The modern inheritor of Thurber's mantle if there ever was one. Keillor is as much a storyteller as a writer, famous for his radio show. I'll talk more about him later, but I do suggest that anybody serious about books should listen to his "The Writer's Almanac" podcast.

Lawrence Block

I don't recall particular stories by Block, but I do find that I always enjoy his short stories. Some Days You Get The Bear is a good collection. (Only caveat, when he's writing a well-established character, he sometimes writes as if you already know the characters.)

Dean Wesley Smith

Dean has written vast numbers of short stories, and his taste is often different than mine. However right now he is doing a short story writing challenge -- trying to write 100 stories in a calendar year. And he's writing them over and above his regular "professional" writing. He's publishing the stories on his website as he finishes them -- but he only leaves one up at a time. (Then he publishes them for 99 cents each on Amazon and other major ebook retailers.)

These stories, because of the nature of the challenge ,are often wild works of imagination. You should subscribe to the RSS feed of his website to catch them as they are written. The one that stands out most in my mind right now, though, is "My Socks Rolled Down" in which a man has a battle of wits with his socks. This story would never be published in a real commercial magazine. And this is why I love the internet.



I'll talk about most of these writers in their own post -- and probably some others -- over the course of the fall.

This week, though, I'll talk about three of these authors -- Wodehouse, Ellison and Christie -- in more depth. (I said earlier I would do O. Henry this week, but I'm rescheduling him.)

See you in the funny papers.

Monday Covers - Perry Mason and The Case of the Cozy Thrillers

I always find it interesting to look at mystery covers from the Golden Age of mystery. Nowadays, cozies have very different covers from thrillers and hard-boiled mystery -- and the books are very different too.

But back in the day, a mystery was a mystery. And I'm always surprised when I look at older covers and see how much more, well, thrillerish they used to be.

The other day I happened across some Perry Mason covers from the 1960's. These are some of the ugliest covers I've ever seen, but that's the sixties, you know? What interests me is that, just as with modern thrillers, the typography dominates. Who cares what's on the cover as long as you know it's a Perry Mason novel?


The striking difference between these and a modern best seller is the fact that the author name is tiny. The title is mid-sized. The main character name is huge. Of course, this is reasonable, after all by 1965, Perry Mason was not only a popular book series, but had been a big radio show and TV show. (Trivia: When CBS first wanted to put Perry Mason on TV, they wanted to make it a soap opera. Gardner wouldn't allow it, so they created a thinly veiled rip off, The Edge of Night, a very popular show which ran for 30 years.)

While the dominant type reminds me of a modern thriller, though, the images don't (they don't remind me of anything much current). And I can't say these are representative of much of anything. So I went hunting around a little further. Here are a couple of other Earl Stanley Gardner covers from just a tad earlier, 1958 and 1962.



The one of the left looks like modern Chicklit; on the right, it looks glitzier and more hard-boiled (which I think the A.A. Fair brand was trying to do -- although I haven't read the Bertha Cool books myself.) And while the first two are ugly as sin, both of these are actually rather attractive covers. Sure the woman from The Count of 9 looks very sixties in her make up and foundation garments, but otherwise there is a neat modern look to both of them. The only problem for a modern book is that The Case of the Terrified Typist doesn't look like a mystery cover. And I don't know that it did then either.

A well-established series can do what it wants -- the series IS the genre.

I decided to go looking for other authors, maybe looking for something a little more Golden Age. My own memories of these books, when I first read them as a child, were mostly of used hardbacks with no dust cover at all.

But I have vague memories of more thrilling covers, so I went searching wider, and look at these covers I found of Christie, Sayers and Queen books:


While there are aspects of these covers which are common with the modern cozy mystery, these look a lot more thrilling. They are suspense covers. They're for books you read on a dark and stormy night. They're... dangerous.

These days, cozies are seen as a separate genre from suspense. They have a reputation for being very safe (even when they're not). But once they were dangerous; the point of a cozy was not to stay in the light, but to look in the shadows and see that Evil lurks even in the sunniest of locations.

I don't think it's really a change in content. And certainly the writers and readers are still looking for the danger that lurks in the shadows. It's a marketing thing. Somebody -- someone who didn't even like cozy mysteries, I swear -- decided that the key hook to the whole genre was clean bright safety.

I understand it, really. Suspense and thrillers have moved into horrific territory these days. And I understand why the audience might want to be assured that the book is not going to be grueling and horrifying. But at the same time, frankly, you don't need to package something as G-rated just to assure me it's not R-rated.

I write silly, frivolous mysteries, but I really would like it if I knew people looked forward to reading them on a dark and stormy night. To me, that's what "cozy" means -- the night is dark, the house is creaking and the wind howling, and you're cozied up under blanket with a good book, a cat and a cup of cocoa.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about short fiction and recommend some authors and a few specific stories.

See you in the funny papers.

Week in Review-Preview: Great Links on the Blogosphere

Ah, Sleep!

That busy event cluster I was predicting for the beginning of this week? It crashed me. I ended up taking a sick day at work and staying in bed all Wednesday. I think there may have been a virus involved, but it was one of those little opportunistic viruses which can only hit you when you're down, and a good night's sleep charges your immune system strongly enough to kick it back out again.

So that Plan B where I was going to power through with my read-through? It's gone back to Plan A, where I say "F**k-it" and get some other things done, and ramp up for another major onslaught next weekend.

So I'm going to read, and I'm going to write a lot of very nice blog posts for you (for trickling out over the course of this next dare), and I'll draw.

In the meantime, this was a great week for writing posts on the blog-o-sphere, so see some links below. Also a preview of upcoming posts, and a funny story video.

Preview of This Week's Posts:

Deb Geary suggested I write up a "cheat sheet" for writers who really haven't read much short fiction and don't know where to start. This is a taller order than it sounds. It's like someone saying; "I'd like to get the hang of this 'book' thing. Can you recommend some of those novel thingys so I can see what they're like?" Only worse, because there is a lot more variety in short works than there are in novels.

So I'm going to devote most of this week to a quick cheat sheet as requested, and then start looking at individual authors. And then after this week, I'm going to devote Tuesdays to the Short Form, in all it's glory -- more authors, techniques and types, as well as the broader range of short storytelling, songs and cartoons and anecdotes and jokes and narrative essays, and even poetry.

• Monday: Covers -- Perry Mason and The Case of the Cozy Thrillers.
• Tuesday: Short Form -- Short Story Writers Who Have Influenced Me.
• Wednesday: A Look At P.G. Wodehouse
• Thursday: A Look At Harlan Ellison
• Friday: A Look At Agatha Christie (O. Henry postponed until next week)

Hmmm, I may not be able to confine myself to Tuesdays. I've got LOTS of favorite authors and stories coming, but I'll tell you about them on Tuesday.

Links of the Week

Lots of great stuff on the internet this week about what it means to be a writer.

First up, Ron Marz reflects on what he will tell his 10-year-old daughter, who just told him she wanted to be a writer. This is heartfelt and amazing, and covers pretty much everything about the writing life. It is an absolute must-read for every aspiring writer, to know what you're getting yourself into.

Here is one of the 28 or so paragraphs:

I will tell her that if she's lucky enough to actually work full-time as a writer... "full-time" actually means "all the time." Days, nights, weekends, holidays. And even though you work all the time, and often think about work on the rare occasions you're not working... most people will think you don't have a job. And because of that, you're the first one people call when they need help moving, or need a ride to the airport, or want their knitting club newsletter punched up a little.

Next up is Kris Rusch in a bit of a rant, but it's a lovely one. She's just had too many writers come up to her lately who want a pat on the head for selling themselves down river.

It's the end of the post which really gets to me though: she points out that to be a professional is not about getting some publishing to LIKE you. It's about acting professional.

We’re professional writers—emphasis on the word “professional.” And these other published writers? The ones who take the crap deals and do a ridiculous amount of work for no pay?

Those people might be writers, but that’s all they are. They’re certainly not professionals.

I think this got to me because I see so many things reversing themselves in the new era of publishing -- and the irony of this one is that a few years ago, the measure of professionalism was getting published, or to put it another way, to get somebody else to take care of you (and advantage of you). But now the really professional people are jumping ship and learning to take care of themselves.

And lastly, my marketing hero Seth Godin wrote about how we don't suffer from "Talker's Block." If we need to say something, we generally just say it. His thesis is that this is because we talk all the time, so his advice is:

Write like you talk. Often.

I would add something to what he says though. Because it isn't just a matter of mode of communication. Most of us can type just fine without getting blocked. All this stuff I've been saying about short fiction clicked with me and this post of Godin's:

Fiction writing is storytelling. And many of the great short story writers of the last century were newspapermen. They were guys (and gals) who told stories. Who told stories. Great bullshitters who could sit around the bar and talk all night, telling story after story.

So I'm thinking, don't just write like you talk... talk like you write. Tell stories. True ones, false ones, wild and weird.


Video Of The Week:

And speaking of journalists and storytellers, here is Keith Olberman reading a couple of very short fables from James Thurber. I'll talk about Thurber next week -- and how he wrote a whole LOT of different kinds of stories, including regular contemporary fiction, and personal anecdotes and something you might call commentary and satire -- which is what his fables really are....



See you in the funny papers.

Dwelling on Things With Agatha Christie

I've been reading some Christies lately, and I've noticed something that I really enjoy about Christie which I worry about in my own work, to the point of avoidance:

She dwells on things.

The detectives will discuss the evidence endlessly. Question a witness in detail. Go over the same clues, and same information multiple times... and it's never boring. Not with Christie. And the fact is, that's what I read Christie for.

Which isn't to say I never get bored when some other authors do it. Good gracious, I know I've seen it done badly. I must have, because I worry about it endlessly in my own work. But do I worry too much? I think I need to study Christie a little closer and figure out why it works for her. And maybe see if I can put my finger on times when it doesn't work.

I haven't gone off to study it yet, but I have some theories:

Character.

In Murder At The Vicarage, we get the Vicar, and Miss Marple, and the vicar's wife, and Inspector Slack, AND various suspects, AND Colonel Melchett all theorizing and giving opinions on the same info. When new information enters the scene, it thunders through the whole group of them and they all get to weigh in thoroughly... and their examination and reaction to it is a study in character from first to last. We may not get new information about the clue, but we do get a fuller picture of the characters.

In the Sittaford Mystery, which I'm reading now so I can only talk about the beginning, we learn about the characters and situation in one way, and then after the crime, the detective enters, and we learn the same information over again as he questions people and looks at things. Some tidbits are new information, but most of it is stuff we already know. But we learn it from new people, and bare facts become humanized, etc. Which makes it interesting the way gossip is interesting.

So character is an important factor in keeping it all entertaining. But I think there has got to be another reason.

For one thing, I have noticed the same tendency to go over information again and again in Perry Mason, and frankly neither the TV show nor the books are particularly great about character development. Further, the parts that can really enthrall me can be the courtroom bits where the lawyers lay out strategies and repeat information and play games with it.

Ratiocination (i.e. Thinkin')

Deductive reasoning is supposed to be what the traditional puzzle mystery is all about. And for all the Sherlock Holmes personified the ratiocinative detective, he tended to hold back the actual thinking parts from us. We had to sit passively and watch him be smart.

But as the mystery novel blossomed into its golden age, the writers started to let us in on the thinking. We become one with the process -- as wrapped up in the investigation as the characters are. Such stories are not about being mystified, they're about having a knotty problem and going after it in a competent way. So the clues themselves are interesting.

And in those cases, the puzzle is not just a MacGuffin -- it's what drives the actual drama of the story.

I love MacGuffins, and I have nothing against a story being driven by something other the mystery (as with romantic suspense, or spy comedies, for instance) but if they are, the writer has to be more careful about dwelling on the dry facts.

Next week I'll probably do a post on a related topic -- pacing the reader with the detective. It can be good to let the reader get ahead of the detective once in a while, and vice versa.

See you in the funny papers.

(Illustration from the cover of The Green God by Frederick Allen Kummer, 1911 -- original artist was probably R. F. Schabelitz, though often the cover designer was different and uncredited.)

Joe Konrath On Pie

Joe Konrath posted a refutation of one of the great fears of many authors at the moment: that the flood of new books and authors will overpopulate the industry -- and that nobody will be able to make a living, because we'll have to divide "the pie" up into too many tiny slices.

I think Joe doesn't really understand the fear, because he chose the exact argument which is likely to freak such people out more. I.e. he chose the "there is no limit -- growth is forever" argument. Which is the standard argument of every disastrous effort in history. He is actually right, in this case, because this isn't an end game, it's a beginning. (Or actually, what we've been experiencing is the end game of a previous cycle, and this is the great growth that happens with the new.)

But those people still have no reason to worry. Here's why:

Let's just say these people are right. Let's assume that, while there's a lot of elbow room for change inside the limits, that there is a limited pool of money, and it's just shifting.

1.) The pool of writers has NOT increased.

Seriously, folks. If you want to compare this to an overpopulation/famine situation -- we were already IN such a situation for a century. There's a lot of people out there writing. Very few of them ever make a penny, and fewer yet make a living.

The changes in the industry has given all those writers access, but it has not made them better writers. And it has not given them more business savvy.

So the pie is not going to be divided up equally among all writers, even if it is going to be spread a little further.

2.) The portion of the existing pie which goes to the writers just got a LOT bigger.

Writers used to get 17-18 percent, tops, and often much lower -- and they had to pay their agent out of that. With indie publishing, 35-70 percent goes to the writers. That leaves room for all writers to make a little more, even with the pie being shared out further. Those who made nothing before will likely make a little something. Those who almost made a living will now be able to make a living, and those who made a decent living will make a very good living...

All without any growth in the industry at all.

And Konrath is right, ebook publishing has a phenomenal amount of growth in it. The publishing industry is in trouble. Book distribution and bookstores are in trouble. But reading is a growth industry.

By now I'm sure we've all heard the new Harris Poll info about how ebook readers are buying more and reading more. One thing may be buried in that data (may be included may not) is that I believe we're converting new readers as well as getting growth from existing readers. Used book people and library users are coming into the fold -- buying cheap ebooks. People who didn't read books are reading other things on their smartphones, because it's easy to slip from checking your email and the latest news to checking out a blog... to reading a story.

And in all the excitement that growth and "new stuff" creates, there may even be salvation for bookstores. Whether it's a social gathering place or a place to get out of the house and shop for gifts, it's still going to be possible for bookstores to sell ebooks, as well as nice paper editions or used boos. Check out Dean Wesley Smith's latest post about his "book card" effort. He partnered with Smashwords to create cards which can be bought and sold. (And even if bookstores go away, they are the kind of thing other retailers can carry.)

If the pie really does stay exactly the same size, the people who are getting hurt are the middlemen -- publishers, agents, distributors and booksellers. But if the pie is growing (which it is) that period of growth provides an opportunity everybody to find a new niche. I've been thinking about that one too, and it's on my list to blog about -- but not right now.

Tomorrow, I will talk about Agatha Christie. I have been reading a lot of her earlier books lately, and I notice that she does one thing that I try to avoid in my own work -- and I like it. She dwells on things.

See you in the funny papers.

What I Would Do Differently

I was thinking about what I would do differently if I were starting today.

I would do a lot of the same things:

1.) I would concentrate on short fiction to get my feet wet and learn my craft. Heck, I'd do that MORE than I did before. There are so many more opportunities for short fiction these days.

2.) I would still write ten stories before I tried to do anything else.

3.) I would still take the top three stories of that ten and send them to magazines, and as I wrote more, I would try to keep stories on the desks of my favorite editors.

I would do some things differently:

1.) I would take all the things I didn't send to magazines and publish them on my blog, or find some other online amateur venue for them -- guest posting, blogfests, contests, forums, online aggregators, even Twitter poetry. This is the equivalent of street busking for a musician: you get out there and you perform and you learn what gets people's interest, and you learn to ignore the hecklers, and who your audience is.

2.) As I said above, I'd do significantly more with short works. I would treat it like a job, and challenge myself to write a story a day as O. Henry did -- or at least a couple a week. I'd make myself write a microfiction story or five haiku on my lunch break. This is something I used to do once in a while when learning, but there wasn't much use for the output before. Now there are all of those amateur venues online. You need material for that. Write it.

I would call that an apprenticeship, or an internship. You don't get paid for it, but you gain tons of experience which allows you to beat the competition in a real job.

3.) I would set a goal based on the items above -- publish X number of stories in real magazines, write 300 shorts or poems, achieve a certain number of blog subscribers; something measurable -- and when I had achieved that, I would then look over my body of work and start self-publishing it. I would not only be confident of my skills, I would have 300 frickin' pieces of work to start with. I could explode out of the blocks like a thunderbolt.

That's what I would do if I were a young student who hadn't written much of anything yet, but wanted a road map to publication. Or at least I'd start with that plan in hand. Everybody is different, and most of us will eventually find our own path, no matter how and where we start. The thing about a map is that it gives you confidence. It's a safety net.

It's too late for me to do that full-throttle now. I have too many other irons in the fire -- too many novels, too many things in progress. But I'm definitely doing it in bits and pieces, because that's not just how you build skills and knowledge, it's also how you build an audience.

See you in the funny papers.