Month: March 2014

'True Detective' Creator Nic Pizzolatto Looks Back On Season 1

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This interview by Alan Sepinwall originally appeared on HitFix on 3/10/14. It’s being shared here because True Detective has deep literary roots that extend all the way back to The King in Yellow (public domain work, free in Kindle format on Amazon), a dark and somewhat mysterious story written by Robert W. Chambers and first published in 1895. That story has gone on to become a major influence on such celebrated authors as Lovecraft and Gaiman, and of course, on True Detective series creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto.

 

Earlier tonight, “True Detective” concluded its first season — and, with it, the stories of Rust Cohle and Marty Hart. I reviewed the finale here, and as a bookend to a conversation we had before the season started, I spoke with the show’s creator, Nic Pizzolatto, about the finale and the season as a whole (along with a vague but intriguing hint about season 2, which hasn’t been officially ordered yet, but only because I suspect HBO is waiting until they’ve signed the actors they want before announcing). That’s coming up just as soon as I strike you as more of a talker than a doer…

The structure of the series means you could have done anything with the ending, up to and including killing the two leads, because you get a clean slate with the next season. Why did you choose this particular way to end the story?

Nic Pizzolatto:
This is a story that began with its ending in mind, that Cohle would be articulating, without sentimentality or illusion, an actual kind of optimism. That line, you ask me, the light’s winning, that was one of the key pieces of dialogue that existed at the very beginning of the series’ conception. For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kill one or both of these guys. I even had an idea where something more mysterious happened to them, where they vanished into the unknown and Gilbough and Papania had to clean up the mess and nobody knows what happens to them. Or it could have gone full blown supernatural. But I think both of those things would have been easy, and they would have denied the sort of realist questions the show had been asking all along. To retreat to the supernatural, or to take the easy dramatic route of killing a character in order to achieve an emotional response from the audience, I thought would have been a disservice to the story. What was more interesting to me is that both these men are left in a place of deliverance, a place where even Cohle might be able to acknowledge the possibility of grace in the world. Because one way both men were alike in their failures was that neither man could admit the possibility of grace. I don’t mean that in a religious sense. Where we leave Cohle, this man hasn’t made a 180 change or anything like that. He’s moved maybe 5 degrees on the meter, but the optimistic metaphor he makes at the end, it’s not sentimental; it’s purely based on physics. Considering what these characters had been through, it seemed hard to me to work out a way where they both live and they both exit the show to live better lives beyond the boundaries of these eight episodes. Now they are going to go on and live forever beyond the margins of the show, and our sense, at least, is they haven’t changed in any black to white way, but there is a sense that they have been delivered from the heart of darkness. They did not avert their eyes, whatever their failings as men. And that when they exit, they are in a different place.

 

Click here to read the full interview on HitFix.

 

Parsing Is Such Sweet Sorrow

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This article by Emma Pierson originally appeared on Five Thirty Eight on 3/17/14.

More than 400 years after Shakespeare wrote it, we can now say that “Romeo and Juliet” has the wrong name. Perhaps the play should be called “Juliet and Her Nurse,” which isn’t nearly as sexy, or “Romeo and Benvolio,” which has a whole different connotation.

I discovered this by writing a computer program to count how many lines each pair of characters in “Romeo and Juliet” spoke to each other,1 with the expectation that the lovers in the greatest love story of all time would speak more than any other pair. I wanted Romeo and Juliet to end up together — if they couldn’t in the play, at least they could in my analysis — but the math paid no heed to my desires. Juliet speaks more to her nurse than she does to Romeo; Romeo speaks more to Benvolio than he does to Juliet. Romeo gets a larger share of attention from his friends (Benvolio and Mercutio) and even his enemies (Tybalt) than he does from Juliet; Juliet gets a larger share of attention from her nurse and her mother than she does from Romeo. The two appear together in only five scenes out of 25. We all knew that this wasn’t a play predicated on deep interactions between the two protagonists, but still.

 

Click here to read the full article on Five Thirty Eight.

 

Lush Rot

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This article by Lincoln Michel originally appeared on Guernica on 3/17/14.

Flannery O’Connor, True Detective, Southern hip-hop, and the gnarled roots of Southern Gothic.

I don’t remember drinking sweet tea as a child, and no one in my family wore seersucker. But I do remember the kudzu. There wasn’t as much of “the vine that ate the South” in Virginia as there was in the Deep South, but there was a growth of it hidden in the woods that stretched between two branches of our neighborhood. My friends and I would play back there, launching smoke bombs from beneath the cover of giant leaves. It had already overtaken a football field length of land, descending down from a green tumor of a hill. Each year, it grew a little more, eating into the neighbors’ backyards.

The South is in a perpetual state of crumbling, at least in its own mythology. The paint is peeling off the walls. The yard is littered with trash. General Sherman burned the countryside to the ground. The plantation houses have been chewed apart by termites. Everything is collapsing and being overtaken by vines. In Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner describes the Deep South as “dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts.” Of course, most of us can only play the most microscopic of violins for the collapse of an economy dependent on slavery, brutality, and dehumanization.

It’s comforting for Americans to see bigotry in art and entertainment confined to one ever-shrinking area. It allows us to admit our sins while simultaneously distancing ourselves from them.

This sense of rot and ruin is somehow fertile, like compost. The same region has given us everything from deep soul and bluegrass to southern hip-hop and sludge metal. Southern literature is also vast, yet perhaps best associated with Southern Gothic—a style of American literature that presents the South as land of freaks, violence, and the grotesque. This is the tradition that gave us such titans as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, and Cormac McCarthy.

 

Click here to read the full article on Guernica.

 

How To Write A Book Review For Amazon.com

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This post by Kristen J. Tsetsi originally appeared on her site on 3/12/14.

The integrity of The Book Review has been demolished by too many reviewers who use the book review space as a personal venting venue, whether it’s to beat an author with one-star reviews because s/he said something in public that annoyed people, or to slap an author with a once-star review because the F word appeared on too many pages.

Unfortunately, there’s really no way to stop the bad-review assaults written by people with personal vendettas, but it is possible to improve the quality of book reviews – making them truly helpful to other potential readers – by answering a short, simple set of questions while writing the review.

First, some examples of what not to do. Consider the following reviews pulled directly from Amazon:

“Don’t waste your money. Justin Bieber needs a more supportive family not so self absorbed, he seems like a nice person to bad he does not have a solid support system.” – One-star review of Nowhere but Up: The Story of Justin Bieber’s Mom

“She is putting her story out there and being vulnerable to the people who love her and follow her that is a very personable thing to do . I love her more for it” – Five-star review of Nowhere but Up: The Story of Justin Bieber’s Mom

I have no idea whether I want to read Pattie Mallette’s book based on these reviews. What I do know is that one person feels bad for Justin Bieber and his apparently lacking support system, and another really likes Justin Bieber’s mom. These are valid emotions, but they’re not book reviews. Neither does anything to help a person make a purchasing decision.

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen J. Tsetsi’s site.

 

Becoming a USA Today and New York Times Bestselling Author

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This post by Carolyn Arnold originally appeared on her blog on 3/18/14.

It’s every author’s dream to reach the bestseller lists. I have been fortunate to reach bestselling status on Amazon and Barnes & Noble with my Madison Knight Series, and Brandon Fisher series. For this, I am deeply grateful.

But what I want to discuss today is taking things to that next giant step. I’m talking about becoming a New York Times or USA Today Bestseller. I believe that’s the goal of most authors.

Speaking for myself, I would love to attain this for more than the fame or money that comes with it—it’s the ability to reach even more people, to entertain, to bring relaxation into people’s lives. The fact that as an author, I have my books as a legacy to share with others touches me on a spiritual level. You also never know the full effect your books have on other people. How privileged we are as authors. I am grateful for this every day of my life. You may feel the same way and wonder, how do I go from here to there?

You may have noticed how things are changing in the publishing industry. It’s not just traditionally published authors hitting these lists—it’s the self-published author as well. Typically, we’re used to seeing fiction works standing on their own, but these days even book sets or collections are making best-selling status, giving the contributing authors bragging rights.

Taking from a recent telephone seminar with Jack Canfield and Steve Harrison, I am going to share what they taught.

 

Click here to read the full post on Carolyn Arnold’s blog.

 

A Treasure Trove Of Book Covers

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Over on The Casual Optimist, blogger Dan Wagstaff regularly highlights effective and unusual book cover designs. For anyone looking to design his or her own cover, or looking to bring some ideas to a professional designer, this site’s book cover design posts are required viewing.

Start with 50 Covers For 2013, which also includes links to similar lists for prior years, going back to 2010.

Next, browse the Recent Covers of Note posts.

Finally, check out the 50 Canadian Book Cover Designs post.

 

Ride the Tide of Group Promos!

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This post by Jodie Renner originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog on 3/16/14.

Savvy indie authors are quickly discovering the power of increasing book sales and visibility by collaborating with other authors in various ways. Here are four different avenues to explore that all work surprisingly well.

1. Create or join a Facebook group “event.”

Not long ago, a complete stranger contacted me to ask if I’d like to add my writing guide Fire up Your Fiction (which, until recently, was titled Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power) to a group promo he had planned to put 15 books, all related to writing, publishing, and promoting books, on sale for 99 cents each for one day.

I was flattered, and after checking out the organizer and the other books on the list, was eager to jump in, especially since I’d just changed the title of the book and it has won several honors recently.

Bryan Cohen turned out to be not only a nice person, but a creative, skilled and enthusiastic organizer, with lots of great promo ideas that really worked well. He created a Facebook page for the event as well as a page on his website, and enlisted us all to help promote it on our blogs and on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. He asked us for possible giveaways and offered attendees/participants a chance to win prizes for sharing the event on Facebook and Twitter.

As a result of this great promo on February 28, which Bryan named “March to a Bestseller,” all 15 participants had a significant increase in book sales, ratings on Amazon, and visibility. For a few hours of responding to readers on the event page on Facebook (my “shift”) and promoting the event on my blog and in social media, my sales for Fire up Your Fiction increased that day by about 20 times the normal daily average.

 

Click here to read the full post on the Crime Fiction Collective blog.

 

Clean Up Your Blog – A to Z Preparation

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This post by Donna B. McNicol originally appeared on her Writing My Life site on 2/17/14.

Updated repeat from a 2012 blog post:

I’m fine tuning my blog in preparation for the, hopefully, gazillion visitors I’ll have during the month of April. Okay, so maybe not a gazillion, but a lot more than normal. I just read and implemented some of the tips on Sommer Leigh’s blog post, Sommer’s Top Ten Tips for A-to-Zing it in April.

There was one tip that REALLY caught my attention since I recently vented about it: Blogger and Word Verification [rant] If you want people to comment, you really need to make it easy for them to do so. Check your blog to be sure, and while there check to be sure you allow anonymous commenters as well (as mentioned by Sommer).

One missing tip that helps keep your blog looking professional as well as identification once loaded. It’s time to add a favicon to your blog. For years professionals have used favicons to identify their websites. For those with blogs hosted on their own domains, it’s an easy enough process to create the .ico file and upload it to the home directory. I use the freeware program IrfanView to create .ico files from images. You can easily crop, resize and ‘Save As’ with this program (and much more).

But for those of us using Blogger, we were left out in the cold. Not any more! If you look at your browser tab, you will see the icon with my face (from my blog header). I use that for my blog as well as my website, DonnaMcNicol.com.

 

Click here to read the full article on Donna B. McNicol’s Writing My Life.

 

Reading to Have Read

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This post by Ian Bogost originally appeared on The Atlantic on 3/14/13.

Spritz doesn’t strive to fix speed reading’s flaws, but to transcend reading entirely.

If you’re a person who reads, you may have read about Spritz, a startup that hopes to “reimagine” reading. Like most tech startups, reimagining entails making more efficient. Spritz promises to speed up reading by flashing individual words in a fixed position on a digital display. Readers can alter the speed of presentation, ratcheting it up to 600 words per minute (about three times the speed the average reader scans traditional text).

This method, called rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), isn’t new, but Spritz has added an “Optimal Recognition Point” or ORP to this display technique. They claim it helps readers recognize each word most effectively by focusing their attention on a red letter representing its optimal point of recognition. Public response to the technology has been tremendous. According to Spritz, over 10,000 developers have already signed up to develop “Spritzified” products.

Does Spritz work? Well, it depends on what you mean by “work.” As Olga Khazan wrote here at The Atlantic, speed reading has long been accused of sacrificing comprehension for convenience. University of South Carolina cognitive psychologist John M. Henderson further explains that Spritz’s ORP doesn’t improve matters:

 

Click here to read the full article on The Atlantic.

 

Identity and the Writer

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This post by J.A. Konrath originally appeared on his blog on 3/10/14.

Who am I?

What do others think of me?

Identity is a very important, and terribly difficult, concept to grasp. What makes us who we are is fodder for philosophers, and perhaps biologists, not for this blog.

This blog is about publishing, and it is written for writers. But I’m going to take a stab at discussing identity anyway.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of stuff on the internet that falls under the umbrella of what I call “identity issues.” There are a lot of writers, and a lot of people in the publishing industry, who believe they have clearly defined identities, and who believe they have the ability to understand the identities of others. Identities that may be embraced and accepted, or dismissed and derided.

Let’s take a look at some of the things I’m referring to.

Years ago, Barry Eisler used the word legacy to describe traditional publishers. This word is apt because publishing fits the definition of a legacy system. Since Barry began using this, it has fallen into the common vernacular, but only in the shadow industry of self-publishing, used by self-published authors. Legacy publishers don’t like to be thought of as “previous” or “outdated”, even though they indeed are by any definition, so they reject the term because it conflicts with their personal identities. They believe they are relevant, forward-thinking, guardians of culture. They are wrong, but their identities are so entangled in these labels it may prevent them from doing things that could improve their bottom line, like treating authors better, innovating, and using new technology to reach more readers.

 

Click here to read the full post on J.A. Konrath’s blog.

 

The Author Monthly Planner: A Freebie to Organize Your Writing and Marketing Life

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This post by Toni Tesori originally appeared on Duolit on 3/11/14.

We’re stuck in this cycle where, for at least one week every month, one member of our family is sick (I blame Olivia for bringing home the germies from daycare, BTW).

While being sick doesn’t rate highly on the ol’ fun-o-meter, it did give me an awfully convenient excuse to skip out on my regular cleaning routine.

After catching Olivia practically wading through a pile of books in her bedroom, however, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to get back on my game.

So, I made a to-do list. A looong to-do list. Pretty reasonable, right?

The result? My house is still a mess.

Wanna know why?

To-do lists suck.

Listen, if you’re one of those folks who make perfectly reasonable to-do lists and attack them daily with gusto, I envy you. I wish the doggone things worked that well for me!

Personally, I’ve always found to-do lists a bit mocking. Appealing to the procrastination side of my personality, those lengthy lists just beg me to move some of the items to tomorrow’s list. As long as the tasks get done eventually, right?

Hint: those moved items never get done. Because more and more tasks are added and fewer are crossed off. Before long, I simply despise the sight of that stupid list! I become completely overwhelmed with the number of tasks, and my brain decides that surfing Tumblr is a far more appealing use of my time.

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve ever used such a list to keep track of your author-ly life to-do’s, I bet you’ve experienced the something similar.

 

It’s Not the List’s Fault

I’m being awfully hard on the humble to-do list, when it’s not the fault of the list itself. The fault instead lies in the to-do list process. Since the list is, by design, a running list of tasks to work on right now, it offers no perspective; it doesn’t tell me why I’m checking off the items. There’s no birds-eye view of where I’ve been, where I’m going or any kind of final destination.

This is especially important for authors: most of us don’t work on this authoring gig full-time, and jumping in and out of an ever-mounting task list is difficult/scary without an overall plan. We need a status update reminding us why we’re doing what we’re doing, where we’re trying to go and what we need to work on right now to achieve those future goals.

Basically: instead of tasks, we need focus.

 

Focus in a PDF: The Author Monthly Planner

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes a link to a free, downloadable author’s monthly planner in PDF format, on Duolit.

 

Ricky Gervais Tells A Story About How He Learned To Write

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Did you know Fast Company now has a special “Create” site, dedicated to the arts and creativity? And that there’s a special subsection there called Creation Stories, where writers and other creatives share their stories? From the site:

“Stories are an elemental form of human communications–they are how we understand each other and the world. With that in mind, we wanted to bring you…great stories!”

“Creation Stories are stories from the minds and mouths of some of the most creative people around–stories that entertain while shedding some light on the creative process.”

The series launched with Ricky Gervais talking about the most important lesson he ever learned about writing. From the site:

“Here, in the inaugural episode, Ricky Gervais (whose new Netflix series, Derek, debuts September 12) shares a story about an early creative turning point that forever informed the way he writes and works. It has to do with a teacher, a cheeky kid who maybe watched too much TV, an elderly neighbor and an unexpected creative lesson. Of course, it being Ricky Gervais, he delivers the story with some inimitable extras.”

 

Click here to watch the video on Fast Company’s Create site.

 

How to Know When You are Boring Your Reader to Tears

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This post by Jean Oram originally appeared on her The Helpful Writer site on 3/11/14.

Ever wondered why your books maybe aren’t getting purchased? Finding an agent to rep them? Or just plain and simply catching on?

There are a ton of reasons why books don’t connect. Timing, luck, voice, content, etc. Some of these aren’t controllable. But one thing is.

Boring your reader to tears, death, or worse…having them put your book down in disinterest.

It happens. We can’t connect with every reader. And if we try, well, chances are we’ll end up with a book that connects with even fewer people. (Not everyone liked Harry Potter, believe it or not. They just stay in hiding.) But there ARE things we can do to increase our chances of connecting with our readers and one of the big things is not boring them.

I know, right?

 

How to Know if You are Boring Your Readers and What to Do About It

The easiest way to figure out if you are boring your readers is to see if you are boring yourself.

Seems too basic, doesn’t it?

Right now there could be some of you thinking, “But there isn’t a stitch of boringness in my whole story!” Could be true. Maybe you wrote The Hunger Games. If so, you’re excused. However, the other several billion of us did not. So, dig deep and fall out of love with yourself for a moment (shouldn’t be too hard–we are artists, after all where self-doubt and loathing is as common as cheap bar soap).

Here are a few inklings that things aren’t as tight and as exciting as you might wish them to be in your story and you might be boring your reader.

 

Click here to read the full post on The Helpful Writer.

 

How To Love Book Marketing

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This post by Bryan Cohen originally appeared as a guest post on Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn site on 3/9/14.

Opening note from Joanna Penn:
I teach a lot of authors about book marketing and many start the workshops with dread, knowing they have to learn this stuff, but not really wanting to do it.

My aim is always to change their mindset to one of happily incorporating marketing into their daily lifestyle, and generally, by the end of the day, most authors are much happier! In today’s article, Bryan Cohen talks about his own marketing change of heart.

 

If you had fun marketing would you be looking for advice on a book marketing blog?

Probably not. I imagine most people search these blog posts for a magic bullet. A marketing solution that takes less time and energy. A tactic that leads to increased sales and more time for writing.

I’m not sure this post fits the bill, but I will tell you what I’ve done to make space in my life for publicizing my books.

 

Stranger Sales

The summer after I graduated from college, my favorite acting professor invited me to New York City to run the marketing for her show that was part of the New York Fringe Festival. I’d had some success promoting student plays, once packing a 250-seat house to the brim by promoting an unknown but lewd play as an age 18 and up affair. My professor hoped I’d fill the seats in New York, but despite my best efforts, I failed to get the word out.

I understood what worked for marketing on a college campus to my friends and peers. Using flyers, Facebook events and cheap/free tickets, I was able to pack the house. The same tricks didn’t work in the Big Apple, especially given the 50+ other shows going on at the same time. I’d failed to learn an important marketing truth:

What works for your friends and peers won’t always work for strangers. And without strangers on board, your sales will be severely limited.

 

From Chore to Reward

 

Click here to read the full post on The Creative Penn.

 

Writing—So Easy a Caveman Can Do It

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her site on 3/7/14.

Recently a Facebook friend shared a post with me regarding Indie Musicians versus Indie Authors. It appears our culture has a fascination and reverence for the Indie Musician whereas Indie Authors face an immediate stigma. We authors have to continually prove ourselves, whereas musicians don’t (at least not in the same way). My friend seemed perplexed, but to me it’s very simple.

We’re not even going to address the flood of “bad” books. Many writers rush to publish before they’re ready, don’t secure proper editing, etc. But I feel the issue is deeper and it reflects one of the many challenges authors face and always will.

People give automatic respect to a musician because not everyone can play an instrument or sing. Simple. It’s clear that artist can do something many cannot.

As writers, we have an insidious enemy. People believe what we do is easy. If we are good writers, we make it look effortless. I recall being a kid watching the Olympics. The gymnasts made those handsprings look like nothing. Being four years old, I dove in…and broke my arm…twice (because I’m an overachiever that way).

The blunt truth is everyone has a story to tell. They do. Every life can be fascinating in the hands of a skilled author. Every idea can be masterful in the hands of a wordsmith. Ah, but the general public assumption is that the only thing standing between them and being J.K. Rowling is merely sitting down and finishing the story. Many believe that, because they’re literate and have command of their native language that they can do what we do.

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s site.