Nick Bryan

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Fighting The Skeleton Army – Fleshing out NaNoWriMo writing (WriteBlog #23)

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This week, I came within 1.5 chapters of finishing the second draft of the novel! But this isn’t quite the victory lap blog post yet, I’ll get to that next week. This week, after editing 5.5 chapters worth of NaNoWriMo work (I wrote the last seven chapters during NaNo 2013), I finally worked out the real difference between this and better, more carefully written first draft material.

No, it wasn’t the terrible spelling and barely comprehensible sentences, those would’ve happened anyway.

“An interest work, yes, but I can’t help but feel it may have been written by a burning cat.”

As documented in past WriteBlogs (and even a video that one time), I was concerned that the stuff I wrote in NaNoWriMo would be wretched godawful swill, a confusion of mess that looked like a cat had leapt onto my keyboard, then been set on fire.

But I worked myself into such a mess of pessimism that it was never going to be as bad as I expected. Yes, I stumbled upon a few bits which just didn’t make sense – after a few re-readings, I was forced to jettison entire sentences because no amount of re-reading could let me in on what my past self had been thinking.

Still, that was rare. Mostly, the plot was there, even if it still needed tweaking, and there were moments of great dialogue where I found myself thinking: “You know what, Past Nick, even though you were clearly hammered when you wrote that other bit, this is masterful.”

The one recurring problem I have found: most of it it just a bit thin. Not very fleshed out.

Zombies can’t eat the flesh if it wasn’t there in the first place

This could be a common enough issue with everyone’s first draft, but even compared to my other early work, this lacked in shading. Quite a lot of scenes boiling down to “Man and woman were in the room, it was green, one said blah, another said blah blah,” and so on unto infinity.

Not that the dialogue was bad, in fact some of it was very good, but compared to other, better bits of first draft, it did read a little like I was hurrying to the finish. So, in short, my experience of editing NaNoWriMo writing: putting some meat onto the blasted white bones of description-free scenes.

This grew a repetitive when blasting through scene after scene doing the same thing every time, but it could be worse. At least I didn’t have to delete and rewrite everything. And hopefully next week, we move on to the next big step: finishing the second draft.So that’ll be exciting.

Black Panther by Christopher Priest – A Homage

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Black Panther #1 cover by Mark Texeira

I recently subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, a Netflix-esque system that gives me all-I-can-eat Marvel comics for a fairly low price. Not bang-up-to-date ones, but I’ve not read half the comics I wanted to over the last decade due to financial concerns, so I can keep trawling for a while.

However, as well as striking out for new material, I’ve also re-read some old favourites, and I’d like to talk about one of those now: Black Panther by Christopher Priest and various artists, a series that ran from 1998 to 2003. The Black Panther character has existed since 1966, King of a fictional African nation called Wakanda, and mostly associated with standing in the backdrop of Avengers groupshots in the later decades of the twentieth century.

Attentive readers may note Priest also wrote Quantum & Woody, a series even closer to my heart than Black Panther. I started reading Panther due to following Priest over from Q&W, barely knowing who the character was, and Priest made me love it in approximately one issue. If you want a gushing tribute to Q&W, here’s one I wrote in September 2012.

But anyway. Black Panther. What was that about?

“The bathroom had no door. I still had no pants.” – Everett K. Ross wins my heart in one page.

Everett K. Ross by Mark Texeira

As you may have guessed from both the name and his status as King of an African nation, the Black Panther (aka T’Challa) lives outside the standard white American superhero demographic. And yes, particularly in the old days, black superheroes did have a bad habit of having the word Black in their alias.

Characters outside the standard demo didn’t tend to hit mega-sales in the pre-2010s US mainstream Marvel/DC comic market, but Priest found ways to embrace that. First up, he introduced Everett K. Ross, T’Challa’s new state department liaison and self-proclaimed King of Useless White Boys. With Ross serving as narrator, comic relief, audience POV character and exposition monkey, Priest took a different tack with the title character.

He made Black Panther effortless, dangerous and scary, and T’Challa a ruthless, brilliant schemer with the world’s finest poker face, an enigma one step withdrawn from the reader thanks to the Ross-focused storytelling. He also dug into the real implications (or as real as you can get in a fictional superhero universe) of the politically active King of a nation choosing to wear tights and play superhero, and the international politics of the Marvel Universe. All while Everett K. Ross flippantly monologued about the oddness of superheroes and explained T’Challa’s labyrinthine plots to us.

And seriously, labyrinthine is not hyperbole. I was in my mid-to-late teens when this comic came out, and re-reading it at the ancient age of thirty, I now realise how little of it I understood, especially in the latter, really confusing storylines. The out-of-sequence storytelling in the opening two or three years didn’t help matters, nor did reading it in twenty-two page monthly chunks.

Ironically, comics have milked death beyond death

Black Panther #14 cover by Sal Velluto

All those things probably contributed to the constantly middling sales on Black Panther, but reading back now, I’m glad Priest stuck to his guns, as it’s great. A uniquely idiosyncratic, smart take on a genre that really has been milked to death and back again. People talk about adult comics as the ones with tits and blood, but this is adult in the sense that it can be denser than a lot of political thrillers. In many ways ahead of its time, considering how much reading comics in collected edition format has exploded in the 2000s, not to mention recent industry moves to diversify a little from the white male superhero demo.

I’ve focused on the writing as that’s my area of interest, but I would be a prick not to mention the artwork – especially the gorgeous painted art by Mark Texeira and Joe Jusko in early issues and the reliably beautiful, clear, emotive work by Sal Velluto after that.

Sadly, Priest’s Black Panther had the poor fortune to be published just before collected editions of everything became standard practice, so it’s not available through many venues – except the afore-mentioned Marvel Unlimited, which has it free and easy, but for some reason it’s not on Comixology yet. Well, they have one issue, but it’s a midstoryline episode published because it crosses over with Deadpool, and would be utterly incomprehensible to a new reader.

Indeed, the series as a whole is quite dense on Marvel Universe guest stars at times. Still, considering we now live in a world where everyone in the geekosphere knows roughly who the Avengers are, it’s worth a go if you can find it and fancy a good, different superhero read.

Post-Panther Notation

Black Panther (Kasper Cole version) by Dan Fraga

The above is talking about the bulk of the Black Panther series by Priest, specifically issues #1-49. After that, other things happened…

  • With #50, the series underwent radical retooling – Priest stayed on as writer, but New York cop Kasper Cole took over as Black Panther after finding a costume abandoned in an alleyway. Cole’s adventures never hit the dizzy joyous heights of the best Priest/T’Challa/Ross stories, but they’re good, engaging super-crime stuff.
  • Alas, the Kasper Cole revamp was not enough to get sales up, and the book ended with #62. Which is about fifty more issues than a low-selling book gets nowadays.
  • Proving that point, Priest and artist Joe Bennett launched an ensemble book called The Crew partly spinning out of Black Panther, featuring Kasper Cole teaming up with a few other characters. It lasted seven issues, and that’s a shame, as it was excellent. Also available on Marvel Unlimited, happily.
  • Priest himself hasn’t done much in comics since the early 2000s, but seems to be dipping his toe back into the water at the moment, with an upcoming Quantum & Woody sequel mini-series and a short story in a recent Deadpool anthology issue. My fingers are predictably crossed that this leads to more – and not necessarily on existing superhero characters, I’d be just as up for a new property for a smaller company.
  • If you want more in-depth (and at times brutally honest) essays on Panther from the author himself, there’s a few on his website.

More blognotes may follow if I want to spotlight anything good on Marvel Unlimited. Or I might just plough through endless old Avengers and X-Men issues rather than taking the time to write about them. Let’s wait and see!

The Trouble With All That (WriteBlog #22)

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Since last week’s London Book Fair adventures, I’ve returned to my normal life and tried to live the lessons, y’know? I’ve emailed a couple of people, spoken about things, set wheels in motion, and then… well, at some point I had to sit down and do some writing again.

And honestly, it almost felt a bit dull compared to all the faffing around checking my book options and seeing pretty colours. Not to mention, there are so many things to be done on the vague self-pub checklist, there’s always some other task I could/should be doing.

In fairness, I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to feel this way. In fact, the self-published authors who spoke last week often touched on the difficulties involved in both achieving the ten million sundry publishing tasks and getting the work done. Oh, and continuing a regular human life outside both those areas, if possible.I think there’s a lot of novelty value here too.

I’ve been writing in some form since I was about 18 and I’ve pushed a hard cranking schedule in the last year or so especially. At this point, I know pretty well what it feels like to sit at a desk and type. But all this cover-selecting strategy stuff, that’s new and interesting.

Still, I’ve done some research and at some point soon enough, I’m going to have to process my Scrivener files into a correctly formatted ebook. I don’t see any way that won’t be an enormous ballache, so I imagine that’s about the time I’ll fall back in love with writing.

So for now, things keep going as they have been. A few slow, steady moves towards that self-publishing thing, another 1.5 chapters edited in my novel. Imagine I’ll have settled happily back into my routine soon enough.

And happy Easter to anyone reading this. Hope you’re having a good one and not yet suffering from diabetes. A more substantial entry next week, perhaps. For now, stuff is happening, work continues.

Hobson & Choi Podcast #33 – “A Long Weekend”

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The conclusion is here! Hobson and Choi face the epilogue of their big wolf-case, while I deal with something even more heartbreaking: the end of the podcast itself. At least you get an extra-length 15 mnute episode before it goes away.

Thanks to everyone who listened to the podcast while it existed – as I’ve said in various episodes, I enjoyed working on it a lot, so I may one day return with a new audio-based vehicle. For now, though, this is the end. If you want more multimedia material, I did a video blog the other week.

You can listen on Mixcloud, download the MP3 here or subscribe on iTunes. Or if you hate iTunes on principle, you can point your RSS reader at our Libsyn page to get every episode.

London Book Fair 2014 – “Eventual self-published author Nick Bryan goes to seminars, eats crisps!”

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I normally have a writing update in this slot on the blog, but I haven’t done much work this week, as I went off to London Book Fair 2014 in Earl’s Court. So, I thought I’d write about the experience from my perspective as an internet-using nearly-maybe-self-published author, on the off-chance it helps someone else or satisfies some curiosity.

(Although for anyone who is here for the writing updates: I got another short comic story pitch accepted by the nice chaps at GrayHaven Comics, so things are progressing.)

Anyway, for one week only, let’s move the adventure outside my room. I went to London Book Fair and what did I learn?

Forging the Ultimate Edition

As plenty of people will tell you, London Book Fair is not really a place where writers go to talk/learn about writing – it is a publishing industry event where those in the business go to network and discover what is coming up in that world. Not many traditionally published authors seem to go, unless they are one of the few special guests or have a meeting lined up.

However, we are living in an exciting new age. Not only are some authors doing a lot of their own marketing via Twitter, but a fair few are their own publisher too. I haven’t yet self-published anything – although you can buy my stuff on Amazon in these anthologies if you want – but as avid H&C Podcast listeners will know, I’m slowly getting my shit together for some kind of Hobson & Choi Ultimate Edition via self-publishing.

With that in mind, I went to quite a few seminars about the whys and wherefores of self-publishing, and did end up reconsidering quite a few of the approaches I’d been going for before. Firstly: probably will do a print edition as well as digital, at least for my first volume. If it sells fuck-all, might not bother for Volume 2, but I’d been assuming I wouldn’t be doing any hard copies at all. But apparently print readers are still out there, according to a few of the Bestselling Indie Authors who spoke.

If nothing else, my Mum will be happy. And, in fairness, the first time I mentioned this plan to a friend, they immediately asked if there would be a print book – and they’re a Young Person with an iPad and everything.

Obvious Idiocy – the worst kind?

Also, I will likely hire a proper editor, for at least a copyedit to make sure it’s a competitive product. This is something I have been back and forth on, but it was the one lesson every single self-publishing seminar agreed on. And if this venture turns out to be a disaster, I’d rather it not be because I ignored the most obvious tip everyone gave.

I’m also hiring someone to do a decent-looking cover design, but I’d decided that already. My limited Photoshop skills are not up to the task, and I’m not really up for joining the terrible self-published covers club.

So, that was the fundamental returns of London Book Fair for me. I went to immerse myself in self-pub research and I succeeded. I have discovered things. Well done me. If you too are an author wanting to explore this area, it is probably a good exercise – but again, little discussion of the actual writing.

If you’re planning for the publishing end of your operation to be handled by your mum/a publisher, there may not be much to do. But hell, it’s a fairly cheap event, so if you can see any interesting seminars then why not? It’s sufficiently inexpensive that you probably won’t feel guilty if you pay and only go for a day.

Sundry Observations

Nick failed to take a photo at London Book Fair, what a moron

I spent a lot of time in self-publishing seminars (in fact, probably enough time – I was feeling ready to lie down by the end), and the above section does contain my substantial learnings of LBF. But there were other things, and here are the highlights:

  • The Negotiating Author Contracts panel on Wednesday with a group of literary agents was a pleasantly insightful, intelligent, enjoyable discussion. Nice mix of enthusiasm and insight. Worth a listen if it ever appears as a podcast or similar, I’ll tweet it if I see it.
  • I don’t even like crisps that much, but I swear the packet I ate Wednesday luchtime after not eating all day was one of the tastiest treats I’ve ever consumed.
  • Did The Power Of Series Fiction panel on Tuesday. Obviously, I love serialised fiction in all its forms, so good to hear people caring, even if this specific discussion was largely about child-targeted serial stories.
  • The packet of mini-Party Rings I ate later on almost surpassed the crisps. Almost.
  • Author HQ at LBF was sponsored by The Daily Mail, unsettlingly. Gotta get the money somewhere, I suppose. I wasn’t bored for long enough to read the free papers left everywhere.
  • Really should’ve taken a relevant picture to accompany this blog post, but no, the only photo I took during those two days was the one over there of a smashed up bathroom and toilet near my house. Let’s pretend it’s a metaphor or something, okay?

That’s it, I think. Thanks to fellow blogger/writer-type Julianne Benford for accompanying me to the event – read her more informative, less crisp-focused blog post about it here – and already-self-published author and fellow Big Green Bookshop writing group member Chele Cooke for sharing her personal experience between seminars. If nothing else, self-publishing almost feels like a real thing that real people do now, y’know?