Alex Livingston

Category: Uncategorized

  • Guest Post!

    If you haven’t been reading What Not To Do As A Writer, you should remedy that immediately. And what better way to start than to read my guest post?

     

  • Does being DM make for better writing?

    They say being a Dungeon Master and running a D&D campaign makes you a better writer. Sure, any time spent making up stories helps; extemporizing characters, plot twists, and locales to keep your game going flexes those metaphorical creative muscles.

    But I’m not convinced being a DM really makes me a better writer. Here’s why.

    1 – Less time writing. Every minute spent coming up with interesting and unusual ways for the stalwart band of adventurers to find their way into the enchanted city of Crystalspire means less time actually writing stories. Detailed world-building? Yes, but only as it relates to gameplay. No one wants to hear my history of the place. They want to roll dice and get stuff.

    2 – Less time reading. See above.

    3 – Railroading. The heroes find themselves in a room surrounded by slavering baddies. The humble DM has built a cool narrative experience for them around the challenge of talking their way out. Then the Dragonborn breaks down the wall and walks through the wreckage into the street. DMing is about bringing the players – who are creative people looking to collaborate with you on a fun story – engaging and fluid content. If you force them to do anything, in most cases you’re not doing it right. But if you let the characters in your fiction run around pell-mell, you’re going to end up losing focus.

    4 – Good and evil. There’s always a Big Bad. He’s bad. He’s not complex, you can’t see his point of view, and you don’t identify with him. He’s got the PCs right where he wants them, and he’s gonna kill ‘em dead. He’s the flattest character you can imagine – and you always need him just as he is. This is a game about fighting. Sure, sometimes it’s about sneaking or negotiating, but mostly it’s about fighting. If your PCs just go around waxing everyone they come across, that makes them the bad guys. They don’t want that (especially if there’s a paladin in the party). So, if your buddies are going to enjoy this fighting game, they need someone to fight. Not a deep and subtly-crafted character: a punching bag in a Peter-Jackson-Sauron helmet.

    Participating in collaborative fiction is a blast, and definitely uses some of the same skills as writing, but the two are different beasts. DMing can help the writing process, though, by teaching you about people, about their motivations and reactions. As it turns out, not everybody wants to save the village. When they do, there better be some reward. PCs can be distrustful, boorish, violent, selfish and any of a number of qualities not normally attributed to a square-jawed hero — all while still being relatable and interesting characters.

    And when you’re trying to build the scenes in which these people participate — that’s when it feels most like being a writer.

  • Rhymer is up!

    Rhymer (my book) is now available in Kindle format.  (FYI – PC, iOS, Blackberry, and Android all have Kindle apps, so those work too.)

    Go here to check it out — you can download a sample, which is cool.

    Seeing one’s own name on Amazon for the first time… well, let’s just say it adds some gravity.  I’ve been plugging away at this project for months (and the world for years), and now it is let free to sail into the hands of The Reader. I’ve been swinging between excitement and terror since seeing the word “LIVE” last night, and I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to take to make the pendulum stop.  A specific number of sales? The first review? The first BAD review?

    Thinking back to the release of The Nightmare Maze at Choice of Games, I seem to remember the jitters subsiding a bit when the iOS reviews started coming out. Some folks said it was 5-star awesome and others loathed it to no end, but all of them felt strongly enough about it to get online and say something. That was a good feeling.

    And now to start the next one….

  • Submit – or, I’m old

    I’ve got a few short stories in the bank, and have started the process of sending them off to magazines and sites for potential publication.  Since I’ve been focused on plays and IF for the last few years, it’s been ages since I tried this in earnest.

    So, there’s this thing called the internet now. No longer must you print out a copy, put it in a piece of folded paper, figure out how much the thing weighs, affix appropriate governmental tender, and drop it into the designated bin.  And then you hear back quickly via something called “email”.  What a time to be alive!

    I sent a story over to Lightspeed, and received a response in days.  That’s right– days.  As in, a division of time smaller than a week. Amazing. One down, on to the next.

    Sure, online submission existed last time I tried a major blast, but it was a rarity. Now it appears to be the standard. I find myself wondering whether or not publishers have found the number of submissions increasing since the paper days.  And, if so, what about the quality? Did we put more care into our submissions because we knew we had pay for the paper?

    I say nay. I’m just as cautious with digitext as I was with paper. The only difference is now I watch my gmail inbox rather than my mailbox.

  • Cover Time

    Yes, the time has come for me to make a cover for Rhymer. The recording process for the podiobooks version starts this weekend, and (assuming they accept the project) I need to get the associated image ready.

    Rhymer is a retelling of an ancient Irish imram (seafaring wonder voyage myth) set in a sci-fi space universe.  My goal is to convey this in an image.

    I’ve been digging on all the minimalist covers/posters which have been running around online, so a few circles and vectors led to this:

    Green circles = space, right?  And a sailboat where a spaceship would be = something unusual and ancient is afoot here.

     

    My first draft of the complete cover keeps with the minimalist thing.  The font looks like 70’s mythology text to me, very D’aulaires’.

    I used this as the cover for the proof copies I Lulu’d up to make editing and proofing easier. It looked OK, but much more suited to online.

     

    For draft #2, I poked around for 60’s and 70’s book covers to see what the masters did.

    And yes, I added a distressed look because I am a book nerd. The drawing for the logo is taken from one of a hanafuda cards.  Chance, games, and weather play major parts in the book, so the Rainman card seemed a natural choice.

     

    Of course, e “covers” don’t really need all the same stuff that RL covers do.  Like, ya know, words and all that.  Perhaps I’ll end up just using the “icon” version. Hmm….

  • Authors, Voice Actors, and Listeners

    My car and I have developed a new relationship due to the audiobook.  Where before it represented only the oppressive duties of commute and errand, now it serves as my private listening chamber.  Focused.  Utilitarian.  A reading nook can be entered, a book interrupted by a phone call.  But for forty minutes a day, I get to enjoy whatever fiction I choose without disruption.

    Gaiman classifies it perfectly, of course:  “I grew up in a world where stories were read aloud”. When I heard the next story on NPR was going to be an old favorite talking about my latest obsession, I tuned in (pun intended) closer.  The first sentence of his essay on audiobooks did more than simply grab my attention; it enlightened me on part of what I enjoy about the medium.  I like to listen.

     

    I had a reputation on the schoolyards.  Not for shove-fights or brilliant kickball plays, of course. No, the kids knew that if they gave me a chance I would burn up their recess time with over-long jokes.  The kind where the joke is on the listener:  ‘I can’t believe he made me listen to that whole thing for a stupid pun’. When the other kids asked me to retell one of these extempore epics, it was only to fool another friend into suffering through it.  Jump in the lake — it’s not that cold.  Here, smell this.

    These jokes were my favorite to hear, though.  Antimacassar-intricate stories knotted by scout leaders looking to keep the boys entertained on road trips in a time before texting.  Yes the puns were bad, but each detail of the protagonist’s journey was built from that wordplay.  The disembodied fingers which guarded the drawbridge could not be a full hand.  Neither could they be an ominous red or black.  The hero could not be a gallant knight; he needed to be the lowest-ranking member of the court to succeed at his Arthurian task.  How else could the king let his pages do the walking through the yellow fingers?

    See what I mean?  Bad (and now dated) pun.  But the trick is in the telling.

     

    I’ve been hanging around Podiobooks.com for a while now, and most of what I’ve listened to has been read by the authors themselves.  Does that add to my enjoyment?  A remarkable level of connection between reader and writer.

    How different would my perception of Ishmael Wang be if Nathan Lowell did not read him?  Would a voice actor have made him different somehow?  More aggressive, more eccentric?  The lines between protagonist and author can get a little fuzzy in any form, but particularly in audio.  How much of Wang is Lowell? Does he say things the same way Lowell does? How much Mur Lafferty is there in Kate from the Afterlife series? Some? Any? Someone else read Daniel’s sections in season one – why?

    When authors read the first-person text of their own stories, I find myself assuming that the protagonist has a great deal in common with the writer.  Not intellectually – I understand the difference.   But the feeling is still there.  “This person is talking about himself”.  This is a great fear of mine about my own writing, and I’ve certainly written protagonists who say things I don’t believe.  Perhaps I’m just projecting.  Or is it that I crave to know the mind of the author?  Either way, I can’t stop listening.

    The audiobook has its flaws, certainly.  I wonder how much I’ve missed by not being able to reread a paragraph or flip back a chapter or two.  A narrator puts an interpretive layer between the author and the audience… but is that really a flaw?  Lowell did a great job reading Michael J. Sullivan’s The Crown Conspiracy, a story about as far from the Trader Tales as possible. Robertson Dean’s pleasant narration did not detract from my experience with Zero History any more than an actor’s detracts from a script.  Indeed, the opposite is true more often than not.

    Why am I obsessing over this, you ask?  I’ve asked a highly talented friend to read Rhymer for podiobook distribution.  Am I taking something away from the listener by denying them the opportunity to hear my mumbling?  I say ‘nay’.  ‘Author’ and ‘voice actor’ are two different roles, even when performed by the same person.

     

    PS – Boy, I referenced a lot of stuff in this post. A critic at heart, I guess. I often spend more time thinking about other peoples’ work than developing my own.   If only I could write in the car….

    Seriously, go listen to all of this:

    Gaiman’s NPR story.

    Podiobooks.com

    Nathan Lowell’s Traders Tales.

    Mur Lafferty’s Afterlife series.

    Michael J. Sullivan’s The Crown Conspiracy.

    William Gibson’s Zero History.

  • What Genre Is This Thing?

    The closer I get to the end of the revision process, the more I need to answer a few basic questions about this piece.  I mean, what am I selling here?  The choice of the word “selling” is intentional;  I know what I’m writing.  The question is how to describe it to people who buy books (aka, readers) so they know what they’re getting.

     

    • Is it sci-fi? Space opera?  Space fantasy? Adventure? Alternate history?  What genre does a retelling of an Irish myth fit in to?  What if it’s… IN SPAAAACE?  The protagonist is possessed of some wacky ‘powers’, but they’re based in scientific theory.  Spice that lets you see the future sounds a lot like fantasy, but Dune is sci-fi.
    • Is it a novel? It’s long enough to be called a novel, but is word count really the only defining quality?  It feels like a novel, if a short one.
    • And most importantly, is it any good? Once I’ve finished, will I have done what I set out to do?  Will it be worth reading?

     

    The first two will decide how I classify this thing to the customer, which check-boxes I check on Amazon’s site.  The last… best not to think too hard about that one.

     

    The word count is in that weird middle-space between a novella and a length publishers want to see.  Will the self-pub revolution loosen the laws of nomenclature?  Will mid-length works become more readily available?  Or is my book just missing a few chapters?

  • The New Sci-fi Archetype: Courier Girls

    What is it about courier girls?

    Odd synchronicity/confirmation bias as I read last night.  I finished Zero History and read issue #1 of Image’s new comic Nonplayer.  Both feature characters I hereby declare to be a sci-fi archetype:  the aforementioned Courier Girl.

    Examples, you ask?  Fine.

    Zero History: Fiona. London courier working for Bigend (kinda).    Young, attractive, cool, streetsmart, competent.  Motorcycles about town with ease in her deeply scratched yellow helmet.  Rides an unremarkable Kawasaki.

    Nonplayer: Dana. Not sure yet where she lives.  A city.  Future.  Spends a lot of time playing an MMO.  Young, attractive, cool, streetsmart, competent.   Delivers tacos.  (Note:  this comic is gorgeous.  Go and buy it.)

    Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: Ramona Flowers. Amazon delivery staff in Toronto.   Young, attractive, cool, streetsmart, competent.  Vehicle of choice: Rollerblades.

    Note the goggles.

     

    But where did all start?  To my knowledge: Y.T. from Snow Crash. It all goes back to Y.T. (short for Yours Truly).   Kourier in post-fall Los Angeles.  Angrily independent, dangerous, smart, and did I say dangerous already?  Deals with a mafioso,  a hacker/swordfighter/Cosa Nostra pizza Deliverator, cops, creeps, and a very scary obsidian-knife-wielding Aleutian without batting an eye.  She rides a smart-wheeled skateboard down the highway, magnetically harpooning herself to the cars for speed.  She’s it, man.  Do.  Not.  Mess.

    After running into four of these characters, I think I can safely say we’ve got an archetype.  Keep your eyes open for more — if you can catch up with one.

  • On Book Trailers

    I’m still a little fuzzy as to how we live in a world where book trailers exist.  Do people really watch these things?  I’ve never seen one tweeted, posted to Facebook, etc.  And it’s not like I don’t know people who read.

    Maybe it’s a logical extension of cover art.  You’ve got your text.  You want to give someone a sense of what’s inside, and you want to do so in fractions of seconds.  Sword, glowy magic, vaguely celtic rune thing. Vector illustration of a thin, racially-neutral woman smiling while walking.  Black and white picture of some dudes in uniform.

    (This leads to some trends, of course.)

    With the creation and distribution of video content becoming less expensive by the moment, why not extend this to a trailer?  Makes sense, I suppose.

    I’m currently reading Zero History.  Haven’t read any Gibson since Neuromancer, and wanted to see what’s up.  Not only did I not realize it was part of loose series, I didn’t realize it was about clothes.  Clothes.  The surprise has been part of the enjoyment for me; would I have picked it up from the trailer?

     

     

    Not watching works if you’re gonna read the book anyway and like to go in blind.  But in most cases, why not watch?  It’s no more than you’re going to get from a blurb or a review.

    And the next question — when I finish my current project, do I have to make one of these things?  Man, I hope not.

  • A Fan Content Proposal

    I e-spoke with a very talented illustrator t’other day about purchasing a print of one of her pics.  Trouble is, the image in question not only depicts a scene from a major science-fiction franchise but also includes the most famous text from the book.  So she doesn’t want to sell prints out of fear the Big Copyright Machine will come for her and her loved ones.

    The work is there.  There’s someone willing to pay for it (namely me).  Should be pretty straightforward.

    I propose a solution: legitimize the sale of art based on existing content.  50/50 split between the artist and the copyright owner.  Somebody draws a bitchin’ Samus and sells it as a T-shirt on Cafepress, Nintendo gets 50% of the sale.  The copyright owner has the ability to cast Cease-And-Desist on anything they don’t like, for example a piece that doesn’t fit with canon or represents the character in a way they dislike.

    Does this open the gates for people other than the owner to make money off their content?  Yes.  But it also provides an easy revenue stream they don’t have to do a thing to maintain. Maybe follow up on a few folks to scare ’em.

    Do I need to use a buzzword?  How about “crowdsourced”?