Nick Bryan

Writing About Writing

WriteBlog #3 – The Short Pitch And Me

by

As promised in the last one of these, I’ve been doing a few small projects in the buffer between finishing Part Two of my current novel last week and starting Part Three for NaNoWriMo. The main one I’ve found is submitting a few ideas for short comic stories.

In this case, they’re not looking for complete scripts, just short pitches describing your story. Now, some of you might be thinking this: “Great! Less work for you!” And although there was an element of that, it’s been harder than I expected too.

Because, to be honest, I’m pretty much used to sending in full scripts (or in prose submissions, full stories or substantial chunks of them) and knowing I’d be ultimately judged on my pacing, turn of phrase, etc – the brief description in the cover email is just there to get their attention.

Not that my story ideas suck, it’s just a different, more pressuring sensation trying to explain why your idea is brilliant in two paragraphs or less and knowing that’s all there is, rather than simply having to hook them enough to read the manuscript itself. After all, there’s not much time for immersion here – even two reasonably long paragraphs can be read in about a minute.

But it’s definitely a skill worth learning – after all, if I ever end up in the situation of trying to pitch my ideas to an editor one-to-one, I may not even get two long paragraphs worth of words to explain it in. Not to mention, I tend to be naturally over-wordy and it rarely hurts to cut down.

Mostly, I’ve ended up doing one paragraph in which I try and capture the mood of the story, then another where I explain how it unfolds. That seemed like the best use of space – we’ll see how it goes. If I can pull this off, it’s definitely going on the List Of Skills I’ve Totally Mastered.

All of which means that in the last week, I’ve spent almost a whole day on this project and produced… about seven paragraphs. By my usual standards, that isn’t much – hell, it’s probably less words than this blog post, which has taken about twenty minutes. But hopefully I’ll end up with individual paragraph-pitches that are so polished and shiny, you can see your face in them.

Should probably get back to them, really. If anyone has any time-honoured words of wisdom about the art of pitching in two paragraphs, definitely leave them in the comments.

WriteBlog #2 – Two thirds and working in the vacuum

by

Today, the oft-hinted Satan novel hit exactly two thirds done, and even though I’m well aware it needs a lot of editing, this makes me immensely happy, because it’s the least troubled novel I’ve ever worked on. No huge gaps, no stumbles, nothing I’m convinced is shit. I live in hope that this is something I can either sell to agents/publishers or persuade myself is worth the effort of self-publishing.

Also, I haven’t hit the wall of telling myself I have no talent, because thanks to the reasonably successful antics of Hobson & Choi over at Jukepop, I’ve got a good strong round of positive affirmation coming in for my fiction. One of the big problems with working on a novel is that you get stuck in this inner world where you only have yourself and your book and the inner walls covered in your own dark scrawl.

The internet can help with this, as can a writer’s group if you’re so inclined, wherein you read them your work and they give you feedback, in return for your returning the favour. Yes, it’s terrifying at first, because exposing your work to other people always is – it might be less intimidating to just expose yourself, to be honest – but once I got past that initial fear, it became infinitely preferable to just slashing onwards and hoping it works out. Even listening and mulling over other people’s scribblings can help bring ideas out

.For more on why writing groups are a good idea, the excellent Chris Brosnahan (organiser of the group I attend) has written a blog post.

Otherwise, as I say, there is always the internet for affirmation via likes/retweets/votes/magic stars/whatever the kids are using nowadays.

Anyway: point being, even though it isn’t finished yet, two thirds seems like a lot of novel to me so I’m allowing myself this small celebration. The final glorious chunk, as I mentioned last week, I aim to write during NaNoWriMo – more on that in future blog posts.

But before that particular mega-storm kicks off, I get a couple of weeks in which I can work on some non-novel projects more intensively than usual, plus do some hard planning for the final third. Score.

My editing is out of order! (WriteBlog #1)

by

As avid Twitter followers will already know, I’ve been entering a difficult phase of editing recently. My current novel in progress (the Satan one I mentioned earlier) is coming along well, but thanks to both my own instinctive genius and some insightful feedback from my writing group, I have a lot of changes to make already.

I am currently roughly 57% through the book – I worked that out with a calculator – and already I know I need to rewrite four chapters from close to the beginning and probably massively rejig even the most recent ones I’ve done.

Yesterday’s editing project: work out how to combine chapters 4 and 5 into a new, unified chapter 4, whilst sticking the original end of chapter 4 at the end of chapter 3.

Last week’s editing project: chapter 10 became chapter 12, and then I needed to write a new chapter 10 to fill the gap, and in the future probably rewrite chunks of chapters 11 and 12 to get everything in line.

I mean, I haven’t even reached two thirds yet – the rough plan is to write the final third for NaNoWriMo, and I’m sure you’ll here more about that on the blog and/or Twitter in a few weeks – but presumably more stuff is going to come up as I work on that?

I’m not particularly used to editing happening in so big a way; I’ve struggled in the past with working out how best to move parts around on this scale, so this is a big step forward for me. It’s exciting, and I’m 99% sure I’ll emerge with a much better story at the end of it, presuming I survive, and maybe I’ll even hone the necessary instincts to get the plan more right when I start the next book.

Still, as someone who has more or less always written in order until now, rewriting so many different parts of the same story hurts my head a little when I stand back and think about it, and I still feel a bit glum about the amount of already-done work I’ll end up throwing away. But I think this is still a positive progression, and at least I’ll always have Hobson & Choi, forced to be linear thanks to the weekly release schedule.

If anyone has sympathetic time-warping editing stories, feel free to toss them out in the comments. In the wrong order, if you like.

Look! Book! Fook!

by

Latitude evidence

Picture the scene, if you will. I was at Latitude festival last weekend – evidence of attendance visible to your right – and arrived early for a talk in the literature tent. The previous speaker was still going. We had been sleeping in a tent and were quite tired (I pray thee cry us a river), so my girlfriend did the only sane thing under the circumstances and lay down on the floor, instantly falling asleep.

However I am a sleep-masochist, so stayed awake on the nice carpeted floor and listened to this man talk. And as I processed his words, something stirred within me. After some soul-searching introspection, I realised it wasn’t exhaustion or my lunch, but an idea. Not just a small idea either, a large one that I could write a fair bit of stuff on. Hell, this might even be another novel idea.

I already have one book I’m writing, another I’m sending out to people, yet another I might write next, and of course my detective serial Hobson & Choi continuing on top of all of that.

So, much as I enjoy a bit of inspiration, there comes a time when it all gets a bit much, and I think we’re nearly there.

Inspiration – A Probable Humblebrag

Nothing personal, Shiny New Book Idea, you have a lot of potential, but I don’t want to start going off my current projects because I’m two or three items down the line in my mind. I have to keep myself grounded, focused and staying in the present, or I’ll never achieve anything. I’m already not doing that good a job of sending out my finished novel, because it’s just more fun to focus on the exciting creative process of writing new stuff.

Not sure what the solution is to this. Sell my new idea to someone else? Quit my day job, so I might actually have time to write everything I want to write? Work faster and stop typing ponderous blog posts when I could be churning out fiction? Spend less time on Twitter? Stop doing as much lurking on internet comics forums?

Yeah, let’s not get too crazy. But still, I need to lock the brilliant new idea away in its box for now, before it destroys the genuinely productive creative process I’ve built over the last few months. I’ve got nearly a third of the new novel done, I think it isn’t too shit, Hobson & Choi seems to be doing quite well, let’s not rock the boat, or indeed soak the tent with water up and down the walls. And, you know, there are worse things in life than having ideas, really.

So, end of the day, I’ve taken notes, so the brilliant new idea won’t slip away from me, and you never know, I may even get to write a few words of it by 2015. It saddens me that I’m already thinking that far ahead, but such is the slipping away of life.

Although the guy whose talk inspired me was an astrologer for the Daily Mail, so maybe it’s best this stays at the bottom of the to-do list.

Interview with me about Hobson & Choi!

by

Over here on the Online Novel Blog, an interview with me about Hobson & Choi, working with Jukepop Serials and various other bits. Includes half-decent Justin Timberlake joke.

So, yes, this is the exciting thing I was hinting at yesterday. Was published late yesterday night, but I was off watching the tennis. Still, people are interviewing me, I must be doing okay. Check it out.

Inspiration Vs Plagiarism Vs Heroes Vs Satan

by

Bastards.

Recently on the ever-lovely Web Fiction Guide website, a discussion arose on whether it was wise to avoid reading other material similar to your work-in-progress, lest you subconsciously steal their ideas, and it’s an interesting one.

I’m sure I’ve seen the ever-blunt Warren Ellis post on one occasion that he was avoiding certain material as it was too close to something he was working on. This would be a better anecdote if I could remember any context at all.

But the point being: should we worry? After all, if it could happen to Ellis, it could easily happen to the rest of us.

I Could Be Your Heroes, Baby

Broadly, I think the general advice is to read widely around your area, filling your head with influences, thus allowing yourself to plagiarise from several people at once, replicating no one story whilst homaging several, putting yourself above criticism. But what if the one story came up that really was exactly like yours?

I mean, my first ever completed novel manuscript was uncannily similar to the TV show Heroes – both revolved around normal people getting comic book superpowers. It was more of a contained character drama, rather than going into the conspiracy stuff, but I’d used a lot of the same scenarios as them. Basically, we were both influenced by/ripping off roughly the same superhero comics. (Don’t worry though, I still got some use out of the characters – they are the suspects/cannon fodder in my current Hobson & Choi serial. Except now they have no superpowers to save themselves.)

Most interestingly of all, my story had a villain called Skyler and Heroes had one called Sylar – does anyone know what we’re both “homaging” with that? I’ve never accurately traced it.

The Devil’s In The Doritos

Kneel Before Zod!

I mention this because I’m considering reading more around Faustian deals for the current novel-in-progress, and although I’m sure there’s some great stuff, I’m a little concerned I’ll just subconsciously rip it off.

Thankfully, I haven’t yet stumbled across the one story which resembles mine so much, it makes me throw my hands up in despair and say “Fuck it, it’s all already been done, I’m off home to cry, put Heroes DVDs on and throw Doritos at the TV again!”

But will I, one day? Or do I need to grow a little writerly hubris and accept that my work is unique for its voice and slight resemblences are inevitable? (Especially when dealing with something as well-mined as the Deal With The Devil.)

Probably the second one. Anyway, more ruminations may follow, just wanted to get that out there. If anyone has any recomendations for Faustian deals in literature, feel free to mention them in the comments. I’ve already got Doctor Faustus itself on the pile, don’t worry.

Or, indeed, if you know where me and Heroes nicked Sylar/Skyler from. It was a decade too early to be Walt’s wife from Breaking Bad.