Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

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Yog's Law has served me well, over the years.

In my limited experience, the same people who jump at multi-level marketing scams are often the same ones who jump at vanity presses and low-quality e-publishers. With the same expectation that they don't need a marketing and distribution plan, because they will get all their friends and relatives to buy into the scheme.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Where does Mephistopheles live in all this?

Faust. Where are you damn’d?

Meph.
In hell.

Faust. How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

Meph. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.


==================

If self-publishers can't see their way clear to putting 10-15% of the cover price of every volume sold into a savings account, they're not ready to self-publish.
[SIZE=-2][/SIZE][SIZE=-2][/SIZE]
 

FOTSGreg

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Where does Mephistopheles live in all this?

In the DRM.

:)

Uncle Jim's comments above regarding "pockets" reminds me of something. Be careful about "co-mingling" funds. Keep careful, very careful track of your business expenses. Pay yourself, but not at the expense of co-mingling money from your day job with the money and expenses from your writing. Writing is your business. Keep those expenses and profits or losses completely separate from other aspects of your life.

the IRS knows where you live.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Just a reminder: Only two more weeks to contribute to the Atlanta Nights movie. It would be fun if this actually happened.

Also, speaking of piracy, here's a pirate tower defense game. It has a really cheerful theme song.

But that isn't what I'm going to mention this morning. My latest cat-waxing has been putting our short-story back list into e-book format. Covers are by my son, Brendan. Ten stories up so far. (One of the e-books is a collection of three stories.)

We'll see how this goes. But for the moment, like I said, it's cat-waxing. Only writing is writing. Putting old stories on line isn't writing.
 

Laura_6

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I have a question. How important is 'deep meaning' in a fantasy/action adventure (or horror) novel? Is it enough to entertain your readers, or should you also be commenting about the human condition?

(I mean, of course, how important is that to publishers. If I were just writing for me, I could write any darn thing I wanted to.)
 

Krintar

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Entertaining your readers is both necessary and sufficient. As for being "deep and meaningful" with deliberate themes and all that... well, if you want to that's great, but don't ever force it. Very few people will complain about the lack of Important Philosophical Context in a book they really enjoyed reading.
 

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I have a question. How important is 'deep meaning' in a fantasy/action adventure (or horror) novel? Is it enough to entertain your readers, or should you also be commenting about the human condition?

(I mean, of course, how important is that to publishers. If I were just writing for me, I could write any darn thing I wanted to.)

My view is you can sell work with a deep meaning, and you can sell work without. I don't think you should be worrying too much about this. Readers want good books. Write good books, and readers will want to read them.

Write the book you want to read, in other words.

Odds are, it will take you six months to write it... who wants to spend six months writing something they don't even like?
 

James D. Macdonald

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I have a question. How important is 'deep meaning' in a fantasy/action adventure (or horror) novel?

It's important enough that I stress it when I'm teaching writing. It's the difference between the top 1% that will sell and the next 2% that might sell.

It's the difference between a good book and a mediocre book.

For example: My own Mageworlds series. The first three books were not only slam-bang space opera adventure, they were a refutation of the Manichean heresy.

You always want Something More. You need the surface plot for the deaf old lady in the back row, but you want the multiple levels of meaning for the clever buggers in the front row.
 

zegota

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It's important enough that I stress it when I'm teaching writing. It's the difference between the top 1% that will sell and the next 2% that might sell.

It's the difference between a good book and a mediocre book.

For example: My own Mageworlds series. The first three books were not only slam-bang space opera adventure, they were a refutation of the Manichean heresy.

You always want Something More. You need the surface plot for the deaf old lady in the back row, but you want the multiple levels of meaning for the clever buggers in the front row.

I love stories that make me think about more than the base plot. The thing is, I think a 'deep meaning' is easier to come by than many people think. It's certainly not a given, but having strong characters with believable emotions and growth gets you about halfway there, in my opinion.

Also, if it's a choice between a 'deep meaning' that doesn't grow organically and is just tacked on, and none at all (false dichotomy, I know), I'd take the lack of meaning every time. And then, it's possible, if you're not careful, to go *too far* with the deep meaning and forget that you're supposed to be writing a story, not a polemic (See: Ayn Rand).
 

Laura_6

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It's important enough that I stress it when I'm teaching writing. It's the difference between the top 1% that will sell and the next 2% that might sell.

It's the difference between a good book and a mediocre book.

For example: My own Mageworlds series. The first three books were not only slam-bang space opera adventure, they were a refutation of the Manichean heresy.

You always want Something More. You need the surface plot for the deaf old lady in the back row, but you want the multiple levels of meaning for the clever buggers in the front row.

I must say, I agree. That's why I'm nervous. I just completed a YA. I know the plot's solid and fast paced, and I know I wrote "the truth" about the mc's character (including an arc), but I feel it's lacking something. It's as if there's another "truth" wriggling below the surface, but I can't quite see it. Since I'm now revising, this would be a dang good time to see the stupid thing! :p

Guess I need to send away for those super x-ray glasses from my next box of Cracker Jack...
 

James D. Macdonald

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Yet more horrors of the literary life: The Printer's Error.

On layers of meaning: As a medievalist, I use the quadriga. For those interested in what that is (other than the chariot on top of the Brandenberg Gate):

The Quadriga. The Quadriga was a method of interpretation that developed in the early church and survived up to medieval times. It stated that a text had four layers of meaning: the literal, the moral, the allegorical and the anagogical. The literal is the plain obvious meaning. The moral was what it meant for human behavior. The allegorical meaning is what it means for our faith, beliefs or doctrines. The anagogical meaning is what it tells us about the future (heaven). For example take a reference to the city of Jerusalem. In the literal sense this meant the physical city of Jerusalem. Morally it could represent the human soul. Allegorically it could be used to represent the Church of Christ. Finally, anagogically, it could be referring the new heavenly Jerusalem. Unfortunately, this method led to many wild speculations about the meaning of certain passages. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation changed that. Now we focus on the literal interpretation.

By focusing on the literal interpretation the protestants fell into error. But leave that aside. It's a useful way to see the depth of your own story, and a useful way to make those deeper layers coherent.

See also, the Gesta Romanorum, with the deeper layers in the stories explained.
 

Laura_6

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Thanks. I really like the Quadriga approach. I hadn't taken the ideas of allegory or symbolism seriously yet. I'll mull the various tangents this way of thinking leads me on during a few days to see if I can dig up some hidden meanings and (oh, please) some cohesion.

I hope you have a great weekend!
 

JayWalloping

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Even if readers don't consciously recognize the deeper levels in your work, they'll know that there are deeper levels. And unification at a deeper level will ensure that your surface plot is unified...

I think of William Golding's Lord of the Flies when I try to imagine how to blend an engaging surface plot with deeper interest. He did it well enough it's read in every high school, agonized over in papers, and won him a Nobel Prize.
 

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I like to think that novels contain "things" we call "Easter Eggs" in the software world. I you look and dig there is something behind the scenes that gives you a little special treat.
Microsoft has traditionally provided "Easter Eggs" in the operating system startup. You pressed the correct combination of keys and you were rewarded with something like the list of programmers who worked on the version.
I like to think of the possibilities writers can provide. A few paragraphs with the first letters of each sentence providing a clue to a watering hole of the writer is one idea.
The deeper meaning can mean more than an existential providence.


Even if readers don't consciously recognize the deeper levels in your work, they'll know that there are deeper levels. And unification at a deeper level will ensure that your surface plot is unified... that the chimney isn't directly behind the window.
 

Laura_6

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I understand Yog's Law is basically directed at unscrupulous agents and publishers. (Forgive me if I've over-simplified.) What about editors? It seems to cost anywhere from $400-$800 to get a 75k novel edited by a professional. I know people who've been helped by a professional edit and people who haven't. No one I know has sold a novel after revising to accomodate an editor's suggestions, although I've heard of ones who have. If the editor has excellent credits and money is no object, it's a no brainer. You can learn a lot from a good editor. But many of us are strapped for money in the current economy. Do you think a professional edit is worth it? Or should writers dig diligently, hoping to find superior beta readers and critters?
 

James D. Macdonald

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I think that in most cases, hiring a professional editor is a waste of time and money.

If your book isn't publishable, no amount of editing will make it publishable. If it is publishable, the publisher will assign an editor at no cost to you.

Suppose you do hire an editor. And suppose your book sells. When the revision letter comes what are you going to do? Re-hire the editor?

The words "this manuscript has been professionally edited" in a cover letter will make any agent's heart sink. And editors have a name for edited slush. They call it "slush."

If you hire an editor as a sort of intensive one-on-one workshop, in order to improve your next work, I could see it. But as a routine step before submitting your work? No, bad idea.
 

Laura_6

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The words "this manuscript has been professionally edited" in a cover letter will make any agent's heart sink. And editors have a name for edited slush. They call it "slush."

I'm on the floor! You gave me the best laugh in days. Thank you very much for your opinion. You've helped me a lot so far, given me new information, made me aware of different perspectives, and best of all -- made me laugh. Priceless.
 

euclid

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Jim,

One of my favorite SF writers is RA Lafferty. He had a character called Dr Velikof Vonk - a scientist - who appeared in several of his stories.

As a sort of tribute to Lafferty, I have written his character into one of my stories. Is this okay?
 

James D. Macdonald

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R. A. Lafferty being dead, it's kind of hard to ask him.

Have the stories with Dr. Vonk gone into the public domain? If not, I'd be very careful. Some might consider that to be creating a derivative work.

I suspect that Lafferty was himself referring to Immanuel Velikovsky. You might try a variant on the name.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Unless you're planning to self-publish, in which case, an editor is indispensible.

Indeed. Unless you are planning to self-publish.

As a self-publisher, you take on all the roles of the commercial publisher.

And if you self-publish, please don't forget to put the line-item
"Pay the author" into your business plan.

Imagine, for a moment, that some guy in Norton Mills, Vermont, wanted to be a publisher who would publish only the works of James D. Macdonald. "Great!" I'd say. "What are you paying?"

Same way if I were to publish the works of James D. Macdonald. "Great!" I'd say to myself. "What are you paying?"

If 15% of the cover price of each one sold isn't going into your savings account, you're doing it wrong.