Sunday, September 30, 2018

Sunday Fun Day: a little about the Author.

I spent a few years with a very odd crossover between my hobby and my paying work, especially while still at university. A little bit of that was superimposed on the problems The Roomie had with normal life things, in Remember When. In my case I came by it honestly... I went to school with one of the creators of a very popular role-playing game series, and was both a player and later an occasional writer for their games. One part of all that was the general awareness that I... knew a lot of people who did adventurous and military things. It wasn't a thing I kept secret. It was actually a sort of "hiding in plain sight" for me to be the guy who was into all sorts of stuff, but obviously not actually be some Green Beanie out in Boondooistan. The upshot of this was that I got to write a column for their gaming magazine about how to build characters for the Spy Movie Genre game in their system. That worked fine. It was fun. I even wrote an adventure for the game... which wasn't quite as fine or fun as some real life coincidences led to some issues about that, a few years after I wrote it. Anyway, the best thing from that whole time was the magazine editor's introduction of me in the first of the columns I wrote about the game. It follows, below:

"Editors Note: L. Douglas Garrett is our new author for the Covert Action department. He brings a wealth of experience to this topic, being the author of BORDER CROSSING (the first ESPIONAGE supplement), and then there's his many intelligence missions for.... What? I can't tell them about that?.... Well, what about the time in Rangoon with the steamer trunk? ....No? Perhaps I could mention the incident in Kabul involving the goat? ....Oh, all right. You'll just have to take my word for it. I can't even tell you what the L. stands for. Blasted security regulations."

Adventurers Club magazine, Winter 1983 edition, copyright 1983 Hero Games.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

What comes next?

No, this is not about "what comes next in the novella?". No matter what the Muse that drives me to write says about wanting more Sherri stories, let's be plain about it: that story is told. But there are more stories...

The next work is outlined, basically framed, and had bits of three chapters in-progress. Chapter One in a very rough first draft form was handed over to my Editor yesterday. I guess that means things are really underway on that now. I'm willing to share only a little bit about it at this point, but here they are:

It will be novel length, planned at 20 chapters and somewhere around 50k words. I'll write what the story demands, however.

It is set in 1984. The introduction occurs in the Spring of that year, and the main story late in the Summer.

The locations are a bit varied, but the key ones are both in West Africa.

"The Roomie" is no longer referred to by that appellation; His base identity is now called "Amy's Husband". Yes, he's back in action.

Hope you all enjoy this tease, and I look forward to keeping you all updated on the progress of writing and producing this novel!

Friday, September 28, 2018

Characters in Remember When, 4. Are we the bad guys?

One thing that emerged as I was pouring out the story that became Remember When was that the conflict that mattered in the telling was one of a personal nature and circumstances. There was no essential Us vs. Them to the story itself. That said, there certainly were bad guys as part of it all.

The two identifiable bad guys played very different roles, though. One was the Distant Foe (or Objective), one whose direct actions were rarely portrayed. That would be Guillermo Restrepo. He's first seen in a flashback two years previous to the time of the story, still rising inside the Medellin Cartel structure but also laying the groundwork for making a play to have an advantage over his fellows. In many ways, he's a mirror of the Main Character in the story. Guillermo doesn't create identities; he is simply so unknown as he is that he can be himself. Oh, and kill anyone who can recognize him that isn't loyal to him or unable to harm him. He's the embodiment of how hard it was to gain positive identification on any of the Drug Lords of the era who didn't let themselves become public figures, didn't brag, and stayed in places where outsiders didn't interact with them.

As such, he's described mostly by what effect his actions have upon others. There is some hint as to his looks at time, and one precise reference to his facial hair or lack thereof, but it is also one of the key elements to the story that he wasn't very memorable in appearance or manner. An attributable photograph would have identified him, but as the protagonists lacked that, it was only possible to know it was him if a trained observer knew to look for the very precise visual cues of his features. Those being things that an onlooker wouldn't notice.

The other identifiable bad guy in the tale was a guy who had made part of the climb into being a player at the local level on the Distribution side of things. A bit of a loser in some ways, or at least a slow achiever, he has made exactly one smart choice in recent times: to be one of the first of the L.A. distribution middle level to sign on with Guillermo's faction and his new way of doing business through Panamanian banks rather than trying to launder the profits inside the U.S.A. He has also become, by his own standards, rich by doing so. Not bad as an achievement, for a past-his-prime Surfer Joe-sort of fellow. Which is how he is referred to throughout the story. He buys clothes, and cars, that are way too fancy for the lifestyle he's capable of living, and he indulges his desire to be one of the "cool people" by ingratiating himself thoroughly into the Music (and likely Movies / Television) Scene in L.A. That much blow buys a -lot- of temporary friends.

Unfortunately for Joe, that much cocaine running through his fingers also proved impossible for him to keep his own nose out of. A moderately competent Santa Monica thug with the basic skills of being a gangster, and hiring others to be gangsters that worked for him, was pretty far off his best game by the time of the story. Unstated in all this was any precise description of his build, but there were a lot of mannerisms and some physical descriptions mentioned about him. By an act of random public humiliation at the hands of Sherri, and the paranoid fixation memory that so much cocaine induces in a person, he also became the Close Foe, the Active Antagonist of the story. This meant he got a lot of time in the later parts of the story. One amusing effect of this was revealed during the Critical Readings while the novella was being edited... Women readers had a very different, earlier, and far far more visceral reaction to Joe as a character than Men did. They may have thought he was an interesting character, or important to the story, or even tried to fill in some of the blanks about him... but in reacting -to- him, it was almost 100%... hate. In their reports, Joe was pure scum.

I'm kind of proud they felt that way about him.

How did these two characters work for you as reader? Did they "live"? Did you react to either or both of them? Do feel free to say so in the comments!

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Characters in Remember When, 3. It's what he does.

I've already mentioned that characters in RW have increasing detail of description based on need and proximity of their role to the main story. Did you notice there is one character who is very close to the MC and a key to all the action, who has -no- physical description at all? And yet he was the character most cited in the feedback from Critical Reads as memorable, and almost always in a way good for the story. (Caution: The good way matters. If your readers ask "why was So-and-so even in this scene?", they are remembering your characters for the wrong reason.)

Why would you want a character who conveys his entire personality in his lines of dialogue and his mannerisms? Well, think about who we are talking about: the Operational Controller on this job, "Barry". The role furthest concealed behind the curtains on any mission that is still part of the deployment itself. He's out there with the assets doing the job, but not out where he can be seen. At least not if everything goes right.

Readers also really seemed to connect easily with Barry. I guess sleazy, self-interested. mid-career. devious bastards have a certain charm. If I did my job as a writer correctly, you got all four of those defining traits he has just from how he went about his business. The bastard part is a value judgment.

He was very high on the "Have a drink with" choice list by readers during the Critical Read interview, too. Folks just seemed to want to sit down and hear him growl out one of the stories he seemed prone to tell while relaxing. The people composited into that character were capable of doing that, and one in particular real-life contribution to the composite was downright foolish about what he'd say when slacking in a bar sometimes, but only with people on the inside. But yeah, he'd certainly be the life of the storytelling party when in appropriate company.

There were some questions asked about him, and about his relationship with The Roomie / David. Those varied from "did he smoke cigarettes?" (easy answer: Yeah, a few. Such was still common then.) to "His past encounters with David have left some bad blood there, yeah?" (harder answer, but one addressed in the story; the two of them mutually dislike having to work together, and yes they feel that way for a reason.)

He's generally competent at his job, excellent at the logistics side of an operation, and a moderately good operational planner when pressed to make up something on the fly. He does suffer from having lost respect for any but the most competent of opponents, and isn't anywhere near as careful protecting his team mates as he should be, at least not any more. That, and a wide streak of amorality, can come back and bite him some times.

But any image you have of what he looks like? That was all your doing, my friends and readers.

How did he work for you as a character? I'd be curious to hear your comments, and will reply to questions about him as I can.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The Cause of all doubts expressed...

If you've read Remember When from beginning to end, then you might find some relevance to these links. If not... go read it? Heh.

The real 83 US Festival reference that inspired the story's Saturday Second Act, full set. Beware, damaged Master Video tape and all the fun of live event sound mixing occurs too. 33min 34sec

The specific song from that set that mattered most in the inspiration. Presented here for those of you who have little spare time. 5min 40sec

Note from this poster as to that real band being scheduled for Monday.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Spoiler Warning, or about using reverse order.

I got to start at the end with Remember When. I'll claim a combination of Muse influence and a personal love of the foreshadowed effect the story as-told will cause.

Stories like Memento (Nolan 2000 film) and the same-source Memento Mori (J. Nolan 2001 Short Story), the 1995 film The Usual Suspects... they use versions of this same device to great effect. Differences in methodologies in all of those, but they are great examples of how it is done.

How much can you tell in an End-At-The-Beginning and not spoil?

Answer: in fact, you can tell anything you want to. You are simply obliging yourself as a writer to then justify or reference the pathways that lead to those ramifications of the ending. Worst case, you just wrote the whole book in Chapter One (300 pages) and have a hell of a motivation to write a Prequel.

Remember When also uses the following structural devices, although I will strongly assert that I only recognized I was using these in Edit / Post-analysis. The original writing was a flow, after all. Here they are:

End at the Beginning.
Two path parallel, same Main Character, different times / places.
One real Flashback to years before.
A fairly classic Arc Convergence.
An Epilogue rather than extended Denouement.

I have had a couple of discussions with other writers about this all. Their feedback varied as follows:

Yeah, it's great.
Twisty, hard to follow.
Are you @!#$% kidding, trying something this stupid?
You better do it right.
and
It's not a literary style that is accepted.

Other than the last, I accept those all as appropriate.

Post Comments if you have specific questions or remarks, and I'll reply!




Sunday, September 23, 2018

Sunday Fun Day question:

Who played who?

In Remember When, "Barry" is in place as a DEA agent and using their capabilities to set the trap for Guillermo Restrepo. But the active operators on the actual killing are a trio of Medellin Cartel Mainstream hit men.

Is the DEA willfully being blind to this happening? Has Medellin Main tricked Barry into orchestrating things for their convenience? Is Barry, and the up-chain that gives him orders, using both DEA and Medellin Main to make the problem of Guillermo go away in a simple, permanent, and entirely extralegal way?

What's your guess on this?

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Characters in Remember When, 2. Another Counterfoil.

Supporting characters can be nearly as fully developed in a novel-length work as the main characters are. That's one of the luxuries of that style, but also can be one cause of word-bloat. (The other being some novelist's burning need to "show everything, never tell" and thus spend a page on the consistency of the eggs served on each character's plate at a breakfast.)

At novella-length, or in any work using traditional storytelling "like told while sitting around the room together" rather than literary techniques, there really isn't a good way to give all the details about all the supporting characters. So, I give more description to the characters the more central they are to the telling, with the exception of if their appearance or manner specifically needs to be known so that what they are doing as part of the story is plausible and apparent. Here is an example from Remember When:

"Jon" is quite tall. "Sherri" (a main character) is tiny. This leads to some powerful images when they are talking or performing together. In the After Party scene mid-story, The Roomie finds them talking in a side room. Excerpt:

     Jon was sitting on the edge of the bed in that side room, leaning slightly forward. The curved line of his posture made him look less like the tall beanpole that he was. He hadn’t changed from his stage wear other than to open the collar and lose the tie. He was explaining something about a song he was writing, or rewriting, ardently. Measured, but passionate, letting the words tell the story of how he felt about what he was writing. He was saying all this to Sherri, sitting on the floor on some pillows, with her knees drawn up to her chest. She had her head tilted back, making her a little star perched between the points of Jon’s crescent moon pose. She was listening, intently professional, to the nuances Jon was explaining were in his song because it was written for her voice to sing. Only her eyes revealed that she was becoming desperate to be somewhere else.


So, Jon being tall, and my saying so, matters a lot. How tall is "Ed", who we spoke of in the previous posting https://ldgarrettfiction.blogspot.com/2018/09/characters-in-remember-when.html ? Who knows. Well, *I* know, but the reader isn't told and that's because other than Ed being big enough that physical labor like roadie work doesn't give him pause, it doesn't matter.

Risk question #1 then: Does that work for the reader in this sort of Short Fiction / Novella style, or is it some glaring point of failure by the writer?

Jon also plays another role as a person present in the story, rather than just mentioned or referred to. He is the stand-in and "voice" for the rest of the band as a whole. Some of that occurred because I wasn't going to make the actual people in the band as characters. The story needs there to be a band, of a certain type, and that it reflect in some ways one of a couple bands I knew then in real life, but it need not be either a faithful fictionalization of any one band, nor a detailed creation. How Sherri relates to the band matters, a lot. How the specific people in the band interrelate with Sherri, and thus her part of the story, not so much. Who they are, even, isn't really important. So Jon gets to carry most of the weight either by being present and speaking, or by being referred to by Sherri in her own thoughts and words.

Risk question #2 then: Would telling more about the band and the members of it do more for some purpose? As in to fulfill some reader curiosity or add to the feel of the lifestyle in those days?


Friday, September 21, 2018

Characters in Remember When. First Look.

This is one of those "okay, I might be begging trouble here" sort of posts, but hey let's take a whack at it. There is a delete button for posts if this goes wrong.

Writing Remember When was a near-Fugue experience, producing a complete but messy-as-hell draft in under three days. There was very little conscious drafting of the characters before that happened. This is not a thing that is often wise to do. I was very fortunate that my motivation to write the work included a pretty keen sense of which characters would be "cracked mirror reflections" of real people, which ones were composites, and which ones were outright fabrications.

After the deluge of writing, there was a lengthy editing process for the story. That also included a whole lot of asking the questions "is this character complete? do they as-written convey a person who could have been? do they fulfill a needed role in the presentation of the story?" and all of that applies in any fiction writing process. There were a couple of times where "is this character sufficiently distinct from anyone real that I'm not going to catch hell for writing about them?" too. Might have succeeded at that; sure hope so. With that caveat in hand about any analysis having happened after the characters were written, how about a closer look now?

Let's take the example of a supporting Character like "Ed".

He's the counterfoil to how I expressed The Roomie's changes in ordinary life. He provided opportunities to express how those changes had wider effects than just internal to The Roomie. He's also the most normal guy around. As such, the reader knows him by what he thinks, and how he interacts with some of the same things The Roomie does... but how he looks in detail isn't important.

What is important is how he sees the same things The Roomie does, and yet acts on them differently. How he questions and draws out The Roomie's feelings and thoughts, occasionally. Sure, he also brings a bit of dry humor to some moments, but he's neither played as a joker nor as a scold.

When the manuscript went out for Critical Reads (beta readers, if you prefer that term), Ed was one character that came up early in many of the feedback reports. "I knew an Ed." was a thing said. "I cleaned that mark off the wall." was one that made me laugh, but also told me that character had worked as far as being accessible and relatable to readers. He was also pretty high on the "Characters I'd have a drink with" list from the old feedback question I used in the interview with Critical Readers of Hit, Kiss, Drink with, or Ignore?

How did he work for you? Is there more you wanted said about him, or are there unanswered questions as to his role and nature? Did he "live" for you?

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Reviews: keys to Kindle sales, part one.

There is a lot that goes into driving sales for a KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) product. You need a good product, sure. A good Cover, one that signals the genre of the book, is a big thing. The 'Blurb for the book also matters a lot; it needs to get the site-viewer to be willing to turn a page in the Look Inside or just impulse buy. But that all presumes that a possible buyer even got to your Storefront page...

To get those eyes on your product, you need... NEED... things that drive the Amazon SEO to prompt people to go look.

Sales feed sales, of course. You get to the 1st page of a listing for a genre or classification, you get recommended a lot. For the rest of us, though, you'll need the other drivers to kick in first. By far, the most important seems to be "10+ Reviews, several of which with high Stars count". 5-Stars are golden; a couple of those really matter a lot.

You can't, without sock puppetry evils, make those happen, and sock puppets or surrogates will be noticed unless you are very very sly about them. But you can use your initial Marketing push to Friends, Family, and Favors-owed to make a pitch to all those buyers to Review.

Do it. The reward for getting those Reviews up in the first week are matchless.

If those happen, even a few, it is more likely that the spot- or impulse-buyers that come along will post Reviews too. That virtuous circle is one of the best things that can happen for your book.

So encourage Reviews. Lots of them if you can. Live with any that are less than optimal; learn from anyone who spikes your work; cherish the 5-Star wonders. They really help.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

The Push

I want to be writing or, you know, doing those self-indulgent things in life. What I *am* doing is Marketing. The release of any new or small niche creative content, whether it be YouTube or Books (but especially E-books), Twitch channels or Fan-sites for some major product, all goes about the same.

You line up everything on your side, trying for and hopefully achieving 0 Defects on your production quality and also minimize the human error problems... and then you line up "Everyone you've ever hit or kissed" to know and repeat what you are about to do. Yes, that is quote from a friend far more savvy and experienced at this than I am.

You'll need platforms to push your content across, too. I abhor many of the newer forms of Social Media for the inability to control your own content and the fact that there is a reason you don't discuss politics with most of your associates. (( grin)) But let's be honest. The REACH of things like Facebook, Twitter, and a network of Discord sites  is simply astounding.

For the effort of about 3 days time, I've gotten at least a glance at my advertising for Remember When in front of about 50k~75k people. Probably 1/50 of those actually saw about it long enough to really notice. That's nothing to sneeze at, IMO. Not real Ad Campaign numbers, but something.

The keys have been to have a network of networks, and to have a bond of trust from established relationships to the content creators who "own" those networks. All 4 of my cold-calls to more established writers or media creators turned up yielding nothing, although 3 of those did reply about it. All my established relationships and those through my Editor, totaling about 20 network connections, came through except for 3. Of those 17 that did, 4 led to new connections to networks outside my circle.

If people are interested, I can write more here about the actual mechanics of the Push, and what was pushed out over the networks.

But more to the point, I'm grateful to everyone who helped there on Day One, and remain grateful that many of them are sustaining the Push even now. Thanks to one and all!

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Learning Experience

So much to learn about taking a book directly to e-publication. Still. Yes, we got it done with a fairly high approximation of "done right" this time...

...doesn't mean there isn't more to learn.

Think of it as getting the error-band reduced on a calculation; we've got to within tolerences of +/- 1 or so (abstract value). We can get it down to +/- 0.1 with more work, and more learning.

Kindle Direct Publishing handles the Epub file upload and "rendering" into the final product completely inside a black box, from the point of view of the author. There are very few ways to know how the finished product will look *on all devices that will display it* even with previews, proofing, and generating a test MOBI file.

Artifacts from, oh say, Scrivener files being used to generate the Epub can come back in some MOBI file versions, and not in others. I've been lucky so far, and have great friends helping understand what happens.

But it's been a Learning Experience, and will continue to be.

Any of you with experience with Scrivener -> Epub vs something like Jutoh -> Epub for file preparation, please do comment here.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

About the author


 
L. Douglas Garrett is a semi-retired consultant to businesses and governments in the nebulous field of International Services. He’s well-travelled and helps others return from their trips happy, hale and hearty… or if things go poorly, at least return. This often involves a lot of helping international journalists understand the story they are being sent out to report.

 
His semi-retired state has allowed him to become a Permanent Resident of Japan. He’s built his home there and settled for the first time in his adult life. He’s been there twenty years, and rather likes it. He resides in Tochigi Prefecture, which is the region where Tokyo suburbs turn into farmland and then forests, rivers and hills. It suits him to have things like a forested mountain within walking distance of his home.

 
His hobbies and interests are wide-ranging. He’s still able to discuss some of the finer points of chemical engineering, research medicine, history and gaming, especially grand strategy and turn-based tactical games for the PC. He’s been known to offer pointers on improving one’s skeet shooting technique. Reportedly, he’s not a bad role playing gamemaster. He knows nothing about the proper breeding of racehorses, so don’t ask him for advice at the track. He’s a dedicated fan of H.C.TOCHIGI Nikko Icebucks, a rather hard-luck Asia League ice hockey team with a storied history.

 
Since keeping horses is not exactly practical where he lives, and he doesn’t need a hunting dog, he chooses to direct his affection for animals to a modest number of cats that share his home. No more than four. Really.


 
*** Every blog needs a welcome post. Welcome, friends.***