Posts Tagged ‘authors’

Plenty of Good News To Share

Posted: June 6, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Yes, I have some good news for you, and I cannot wait to share it with you. So I shall not mince words and just tell it to you, in order from smaller pieces of news to bigger pieces of news. Here we go:

1. I finally bought a Kindle. Yes, I finally bought one. It took a lot of saving of Amazon gift cards, taking part in those websites where you fill out surveys for prizes, and more than a little resisting the urge to buy mangas I can’t get at my local library or through interlibrary loan services. But yes, I finally bought one, and it should be arriving sometime next week. I’m very excited, not only that I’ll have my own Kindle, but I can download the books of friends and fellow authors I’ve met while blogging and on Facebook. Heck, I can even download and read my own fiction on my Kindle.

And speaking of which…

2. Daisy has been downloaded 130 times. Yes, the short story I published as a promotional piece for The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones has been downloaded that many times. I’m very grateful to all those who are downloading and I hope that if you decide to do a review on Amazon or Smashwords or B&N or wherever, that you let me know so I can feature it here on Rami Ungar the Writer. And if you haven’t read Daisy yet, please do. Unless you’re easily scared to the point that you soil yourself when you get scared, in which case I don’t recommend reading.

And last, but certainly not least…

3. I’ve accepted a new opportunity. Some of you may remember I wrote an article for the blog Self Published Authors Helping Other Self-Published Authors. Well, one of the blog’s writers, Ruth Ann Nordin, emailed me and said she really enjoyed my article and asked if I would like to be a regular contributor to the blog. I had maybe a moment’s hesitation before I emailed an emphatic “YES!” As of today I am now a contributor and will have a profile page and whatnot soon. I already have a few ideas for what I’d like to write, including interviews with other self-published authors and some more articles with tips for writers on how to do this or that for their stories. I’m really excited and I would like to thank Ruth Nordin for thinking so highly of my article and  for giving me this chance. I won’t let you down.

That’s all for now. If I have any more good news, I’ll be sure to share it with you. Wish me luck in the future.

Getting Reacquainted with the King

Posted: June 2, 2013 in Living and Life
Tags: , ,
6

I recently ran out of things to read. I had free time, so I took the bus down to the library and went on a search for books I wanted to read. Unfortunately, there were no copies of the books immediately on list, so I decided to pick up some good old Stephen King.

I first discovered the current King of Horror when I was 12 or 13 when I read It and I found myself hooked. For the next couple of years, I read a huge amount of King’s work. Unfortunately, around age 16 or 17 I started to grow tired of the King, and I stopped reading him. As sad as it is to admit, I got sick of Stephen King, and rarely picked him up unless to read one of his new books (Duma Key or Under the Dome) or read an old favorite (The Stand or It). But this trip to the library was the perfect opportunity to get friendly with His Scary Highness again.

So I picked up Carrie (read once before and needed to read again before the remake comes out in October), Misery (seen the movie, never read the book) and Cujo (never read, have to since they’re talking about remaking the movie), plus two other authors I’d heard or read good things about and I started to read. As I read Carrie, I felt all the old love come back. By the time I’d finished, I was back on loving Stephen King.

I’m looking forward to meeting this dog.

I’m now in the middle of Misery, and although I’m not that easily scared, it’s proving a good read. I also can’t wait to read Cujo, but I think afterwards I’ll take a break from the King. After all, I don’t want to get sick of him again! That would be horrible.

Have you ever gotten sick of a certain author and then rediscovered your love of them? Which author?

Different Types of Chapters

Posted: June 2, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

In the article I wrote that was published last weekend (you can read it here if you like), I mentioned that chapters and scenes don’t always mean the same thing. Some scenes take up several chapters, while sometimes several chapters are needed for one scene. This got me thinking on the different types of chapters I’ve seen over the years and doing an examination of these sorts of chapters. Hence the post you are currently reading.

I’ve divided the chapter types into three categories. Note that the names are my own creation and if there’s a proper name for these chapter types, then they’ve escaped me. Also, feel free to add any criticism or any fourth type of chapter that I may have missed or I am unaware of by leaving a comment, and I will gladly write a second post.

The Harry Potter chapter

When I wrote Reborn City, I used this chapter format. This type of chapter I first encountered when I read the HP books, so I’ve always associated the type with Harry Potter. However it is by far the most common type of chapter out there, mostly because it is easy to write and can encompass many events within itself, such as when Mr. Dursley has a very odd day, followed by his nephew being left on his porch in the first chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone. And changes of scene within the chapter are very easy to do, as they can be accomplished by a large space between the ends and beginning of sections or a series of asterisks (I prefer using ~~~ though). When I outline this sort of chapter, it usually looks like this:

Chapter 1: Rami Ungar sits down in front of his computer. He has published several novels, but has written nothing new lately and can’t even be inspired by his trusty list of ideas. He decides to write a story about a man haunted by a muse for no reason but to write something, and when he wakes up, he finds said muse on his couch, telling him to continue to write so that she can take form in this world.

Yes, that sounds like a recent movie, but I’d probably put a more sinister twist on it.

The Alex Cross chapter

This is the chapter format I used when writing Snake. I first encountered this format when I read The Da Vinci Code, but I’ve come to associate it with the Alex Cross books since then. In this format, a scene can take up several chapters, each likely very short, and is usually best utilized in the form of a thriller or other fast-paced novel, due to the short chapters heightening the tension before stopping and leaving the tension to continue in the next chapter. When I outline this sort of chapter, it might look like this:

Chapter 1: Rami Ungar wakes up when he hears a noise in the living room. He goes down to investigate with a baseball bat, but when he looks into the mirror hanging on the study door, he sees someone behind him.
Chapter 2: Rami turns around but sees no one there. He looks back in the mirror and sees no one there. He goes back to his room when he hears someone calling his name. He goes into the kitchen and sees a face peering out of the television beckoning for him to come closer.
Chapter 3: The face in the TV tells Rami she will be his muse from now on and will bring him fortune. Rami is stunned.
Chapter 4: Rami accepts the muse’s help and she tells him his name: Melly. Rami thinks it’s a nickname and wonders what it could stand for.

I could actually use this idea if I’m smart and change some names. Don’t steal it!

The Mark Chadbourn chapter

I have yet to use this sort of chapter, but I’m sure I will at some point in the future. This type isn’t named after any sort of literary character, but is named after the fantasy author Mark Chadbourn, who used this style of chapter with his series of nine fantasy books starting with World’s End and ending with Destroyer of Worlds. This format is unique, because it uses chapters, but each chapter is like a section of the story, and it has numbered sub-sections. I find this helpful for novels where there are a lot of different characters and plotlines to follow and you want to switch between characters and plotlines as dramatically as possible without being cheesy. When outlining this sort of story, it usually looks like this:

Chapter 1: Muse Makes Contact
           I: Rami Ungar wakes up and finds a ghostly woman in his room. She calls to him before she disappears.
           II: A witch has a prophetic dream of danger to come and summons her familiar. The witch, whose names is Azzie, tells her familiar Collos to head to Columbus Ohio and investigate an author by the name of Rami Ungar.
           III: Rami goes to work and then to classes, but sees the same ghostly woman everywhere he goes. Also, he feels like he’s being followed…and is then attacked by a man with a knife.

It goes on like that, if you get my drift, and can have any number of subsections. It’s a tough sort of format to pull off, but it works best with stories like this with multiple narratives, and can leave the author the option of working with many different characters at once.

As I’ve demonstrated here, there are many different types of chapters, and probably some that I’m not even aware of. Whatever one you use though, if you use one because you’re comfortable with it or you switch it up depending on the story, it’s probably because you know the story best and therefore you know what sort of chapter is needed. And if you can give your story what is needed, including chapter, then that is one mark of a great author.

Great Stories vs Great Lines

Posted: June 1, 2013 in ideas, Novel, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , ,
2

Every author wants to write a great story, one that’ll be remembered for years and years after the author has passed on from this life. It’s the reason why so many of us spend years bettering ourselves, polishing ourselves and learning from as many experts in the field as we can so we can be great at our craft.

But what about writing great lines? Every author also has a desire as the person who coined a phrase like “To be or not to be”, or “Luke, I am your father”, or “When you play the game of thrones, it’s either you win or you die” (That last one I had to find through Google to get the quote right). How do you create a line that will be remembered throughout all time and be dissected in high school and college classrooms for generations to come?

I wish I could offer a trick to creating a great line that’ll stand out in your work. Unfortunately, none exists that I know of. In my experience, the most famous lines happen through accident and luck. Take Stephen King’s The Shining, arguably one of his best novels. The term Redrum has become a part of our social consciousness and is often used for creepy (or sometimes comedic) effect. I bet when King created the term though, he was just looking for something scary and strange, a device to add another layer of menace and mystery to the Overlook Hotel. I also bet that when the novel (and later the movie) became a success, King was very surprised by how popular the term Redrum was becoming.

Or how about “Live long and prosper”? Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, was drawing on his Jewish roots, as that phrase and accompanying hand symbol were used by the priests in the days of the Holy Temple to bless the nation of Israel. When they were looking for an iconic catchphrase and symbol for the Vulcan character, Nimoy suggested, “How about ‘Live long and prosper’?” It stuck, and thanks to the show’s sometimes mind-boggling fandom, the phrase entered into our culture.

(By the way, that story has been a beloved tale among Jews for decades ever since the show began, and we still get plenty of oppurtunities to tell it and sometimes educate non-Jews about its Biblical significance. L’chaim!)

I guess the best way I can say for someone to create an excellent line is to just write as great a story as you can, and hopefully someday, just by writing a great story, you’ll pen or type out a sentence or phrase or piece of dialogue that’ll really catch the reader’s eyes and resound in their consciousness. Basically, keep doing what you’re doing as a writer and someday a great line may be born.

What’s your take on creating great lines? And what constitutes as a great line in the first place?

Doing the Same Old Dance?

Posted: May 24, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , ,
14

I’ve heard fiction writers say they worry that they’re writing the same story over and over, just changing the names, the locations, and the situations. They say they worry they’re becoming one-liners, that their work is unoriginal and that they might as well be using cookie-cutters to write their stories.

I’ve had these worries myself. A lot of ideas for novels I have sound very similar if you look at them from certain angles. I’ve gone on thought trains that go something like this: “Oh, this story’s heroine reminds me of this heroine from another story…and she reminds me of another heroine…and don’t their stories sound a little similar?…and what about their male counterparts?…oh my God, did I repeat myself?!” Luckily I’ve got so many ideas for stories that I’m sure I can space these similar sounding stories enough so that critics and readers can’t accuse me of being unoriginal. But even if I didn’t have so many ideas, who cares? You can tell so many of the same story and still be successful. Look at Shakespeare! Every tragedy ends up with a ton of blood, every comedy ends up with bad guys getting butts kicked and lovers falling into each others’ arms in comical fashion, and every history…well, it’s history.

But if you still worry that your work is repetitive and just looking like the same old story over again, then don’t despair. Treat it like you do writer’s block–in my case putting the story aside for a couple of weeks and then getting it out again to look it over. In the amount of time that break took up, I’ve probably done a lot of fun things, or read several awesome books and graphic novels, or watched some pretty interesting TV shows or movies. I can add all that I’ve experienced to the story as I go over it and try to find some way to improve it. And if that doesn’t work, try using a random word generator and using three nouns from that generator to help mix up your story (it’s something I learned to do in high school. Thanks Mr. Guinan).

But if you still feel that you’re only repeating yourself, look on the bright side. Most people don’t have the energy or the fortitude to write a full story, even if they are born with the talent to do so. The fact that you can write only one story, you can do a lot more than others. Perhaps you can even make the best version of that story ever written. And isn’t that worth all the repeats over the years?

Snake: Third Draft Almost Finished

Posted: May 24, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

As of this evening, I’m only fifteen chapters away from finishing the third draft of my thriller novel Snake. Boy, it’s been a lot of work. I added two chapters, and I cut out a bunch of words and I added a lot more words than I deleted because it was necessary…and I’m starting to worry that it’ll be so long nobody will want to read it. It’s already kind of scary. If it’s long too, will anyone want to read it?

I hope. And I also hope to get this draft done by the end of this coming Memorial Day Weekend. Because once I’m done, I’d like to work on other projects before I decide if I need another draft or if I should go straight to the presses. I want to edit a couple of short stories that have been waiting for their next drafts. I want to finish “Vile”, the short story about coming back from the dead that I had some writer’s block on when I last looked at it. And I want to write a short story that’ll be a homage to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Premature Burial” (and yes, I love  The Following despite how crazy its story can get). And yes, I want to put out The Quiet Game and get ready for when it’s time to put out Reborn City.

But I do like how this draft of Snake has turned out. With every draft my story is a bit more polished, what the characters do makes more sense. I added a lot of character development and I fixed some things that I’m pretty sure some fanatic will nitpick to death on the Internet. And I’m sure that if I do another draft, give my story to a beta reader, or just send it to the presses, I can at least say this story turned out much better this draft.

So whether or not you like books up to 400 pages, I hope this book finds its niche and a group of fans…and hopefully not any mentally unstable fans. Until that time though, I’m going to finish this draft and keep working on my writing. Wish me luck.

Review: “World War Z” by Max Brooks

Posted: May 16, 2013 in Novel, Review, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , ,
6

I include the “by Max Brooks” part to distinguish this review I will eventually do on the movie (both will probably get a ton of traffic once the movie comes out, I bet). Also, I know I keep saying that I like to put a week’s distance between reviews and it’s only been a few days since I did the review for The Great Gatsby, but this was such a phenomenal novel, what could I do?

As a History major studying the Holocaust and World War II, I read a lot of memoirs by survivors and soldiers alike. As I read Max Brooks’s zombie apocalypse novel, one of the things I was struck by was that it sounded so much like a Holocaust memoir, it was uncanny. And I don’t mean in terms of content–it’s a zombie apocalypse novel, after all–but in terms of how haunted the voices of the characters are. Each section of the novel is a different person’s experience during “The Great Panic” and the war against the living dead, ranging from Chinese to Russian to Chinese to American to South African to Middle Eastern to English and everything in-between. The horrors and haunted tales of each survivor, which are all assembled by a nameless interviewer (Max Brooks in a world that he created, playing the role of reporter, perhaps?) into a single collection of tales, will keep you reading for hours after you should’ve gone to bed.

That’s kind of what happened to me: I was reading late last night, finished the book, and then went to bed. I had the craziest dream afterwards where I lived through my own zombie apocalypse. Just one problem: I didn’t find out what happened to the woman I met in my dream and the baby we were having together! I felt like Dorothy wanting to get back to Oz! Cursed alarm, waking me up in the thick of the battle.

Anyway, another thing I noticed about World War Z was that Brooks thinks of several things that we don’t. I’m not going into detail, but let’s just say that he considers everything from the disadvantages of conventional warfare on zombies, to survival plans foolish and wise, to how the public would react to zombies, and how other people would react to those reactions. It’s so detailed and so well thought-out, you think you’re reading something that actually happened. I’ve read memoirs and history books that have the same level of detail, and it’s crazy how real it all seems. Like Stephen King’s The Stand trying to pass for nonfiction, it feels that real.

A very engrossing read, 5 out of 5 definitely and deserved. I wonder how the movie, which will probably take more liberties than any other book-to-movie adaptation in the history of moviemaking (with the possible exception of Priest), will compare.

Oh, funny story while I have your attention: on Tuesday night, Jews everywhere started Shavuot, one of our more important holidays. During Shavuot, it’s traditional on the first night to have a long study session that lasts late into the night. The study session I attended was divided into two parts, the first consisting of different classes we could take. I took the one on bikkur cholim, which is the commandment to visit the sick but also implies praying and caring for the sick. Near the end of the session and after some lively discussion about the effects of biblical and modern-day quarantine, I asked about bikkur cholim and zombie plagues. The instructor’s answer: “Throw bikkur cholim out the window, and run for your life!” Sounds sensible, doesn’t it?

The Rabid Fans

Posted: May 12, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , ,
2

At the end of the 2012 presidential election, riots broke out at a Mississippi university where racial slurs were shouted by the mob, and over the ensuing months the White House was inundated with petitions asking for individual states to secede from the Union. All these and a few other interesting little acts of rebellion and political anger were the result of President Barack Obama nabbing a second term and, in the eyes of these people, sitting comfortably in a position to create a dictatorship.

I thought these people were being overdramatic and possibly a little unpatriotic. I mean, why not wait till the next election, like the Democrats were forced to do from 2000 to 2008? Why threaten leaving the Union? And until this past weekend, I thought nothing could match this overreaction.

I was wrong.

Author Charlaine Harris is receiving hate mail and death threats for wanting to end her vampire series and to end it a certain way. Seriously?

This past weekend, I read several articles, online and off, about how Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse books, was receiving negative reviews, angry letters, and even a few death threats. Why, you ask? Because a small but extremely passionate legion of her fans are upset that the latest book, Dead Ever After, also happens to be the last Sookie Stackhouse book. Some were angry that Ms. Harris was ending the series. A few were threatening to do horrible things to themselves or to Ms. Harris if the ending doesn’t put their favorite couples together (and when a leaked copy of the novel appeared in Germany, some fans did what they threatened).

This isn’t the first time an author has received this sort of treatment from fans. Stephanie Meyer received some very angry letters when she said she didn’t want to write any more vampire stories, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got his share of haters attacking him when he threw Sherlock Holmes over a cliff, seemingly killing him. For the latter, this led to Holmes’s resurrection, which can show how powerful fans can be, and in the age of the Internet, a few people can create a tidal wave of faceless anger and indignation.

But can I remind everyone of something? THESE ARE FICTIONAL STORIES! There’s no actual Sookie Stackhouse or Bella Swann, Sherlock Holmes doesn’t actually mysteries in London, there are no vampires or Hogwarts, Klingons are the creation of talented make-up artists working with patient actors in seats, and the fact that adults get so worked up by a show about talking animated ponies seems a little creepy! None of it is real, but the fact that so many people treat these things like life or death just seems to disturb me.

The new target: celebrities and artists. It’s ridiculous.

So why do people go all Annie Wilkes when their favorite author decides to do something that a few fans disagree with? Or to go a little broader, why do some fans threaten to boycott or do horrible things to a celebrity when that celebrity does one little thing that doesn’t fit with the image these fans create of certain idols? And yes, fans create the images of their idols, because it is only in their minds that Tom Cruise is truly a dashing, charismatic, very eccentric man, or that the super model is the cool, serious seductress of your dreams. Magazines and TV and movies may help perpetuate these images, but the fans are the ones who create these images in the first place.

But to return to my original point, I don’t know why certain fans act so crazy when an idol does something that doesn’t fit their image, be it a pure actress that cannot be anything other than the sweet girl from the country, or the author that wants to end a book series after so many years, or the bad-boy musician who keeps his marriage and family secret because “that does not fit his image”. I always look at what these people do as gifts: they give us a wonderful story or a performance or a song and we appreciate it because of all the work that went into creating such a beautiful present.

“Mr. Spock, please set fanatics to minimal. Their interference could jeopardize the smooth running of our operations and the lives of many civilians.”

Even more so, plenty of artists treat their work like their babies, children they create and give birth to inside themselves. What happens when someone else tells them how they should raise their own children, what those children should learn and who they should love? It’s a little freaky, to say the least.

But it seems that some fans don’t see things the same way. They love their idols while the idols do what the fans want, but as soon as the idol does the opposite, the fans become hostile, believing they are owed something. The truth is, the rabid fans are the ones who owe something to the artist, and that’s an apology. You don’t own the work, you didn’t create it, and you sure as heck can’t tell the creators of such work what they should do with it. And if you are willing to go to such lengths such as try to ruin an artist’s career like hurting yourself or go on a hate campaign, then I seriously worry about your mental state.

So people, the next time you want to do horrible things to an artist for doing something not remotely criminal but you still find yourself feeling really upset about it, take a step back and ask: Is this really worth going to war over?

I highly doubt it.

Family And Ideas

Posted: May 11, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
Tags: , , , ,
8

The second post I wish to finish tonight (assuming SNL doesn’t distract me too much) was inspired by both my dad and my friend and author Pat Bertram (you can read her blog here). I was talking to my father earlier this evening and we had an interesting conversation. He walked into the living room while I was sprawled out on the couch reading a graphic novel and told me he still had his mother’s phone number, the number belonging to my Savta, may her memory be blessed, in his phone even though she died several years ago.

(Savta, for those of you who don’t know, is Hebrew for “grandmother”, and is what I called my paternal grandmother from the time I was young.)

At first I thought he was going to ask me for advice about whether or not to erase the number. But then he asked me what would happen if he called that number…and Savta actually picked up the phone.

I grasped the idea pretty quickly that my father, ever supportive of my dream to become a horror writer, was trying to give me an idea for a short story. I also figured out pretty quickly that my dad had given me an excellent idea for a short story…but Stephen King had already done a similar idea. Well, when I told my dad that, he looked a little disappointed, to the point of crestfallen. I wasn’t sure if he was sad that King had gotten there first or that I had rejected his idea for a short story. Whatever the case though, I tried to let him know I wasn’t rejecting his idea or that it was useless. On the contrary, even if I couldn’t write a story based entirely off of that idea, it was likely to appear in a short story or a novel of mine someday. The idea of the dead picking up the phone would probably swim around in my subconscious for a while before finding itself in a story I could actually use. In fact as I was talking about it, I realized there was a story that the dead calling would work perfectly in and told him so.

Of course, being me I told him in a way like this: “Oh, that could go in that story…yeah, definitely there…uh-huh…definitely could work there.” That and the hand motions I used probably confused my dad and made him want to move the conversation in another direction. But even if I can’t use his idea for a short story, it’ll still probably appear somewhere else, and that would mean my dad contributed something to my creative process.

My friend Pat Bertram recently did a post where she remarked how some writers will give up time with their families to devote to their writing, and how she advised doing the exact opposite of that. Speaking from personal experience, Pat said that she found every moment she spent with her late husband important and stimulating and a boost to her writing (and I am so sorry if I am misquoting you in any way, shape, or form Pat).

It’s moments like the one illustrated above that makes me agree with Pat. Family and friends, whether or not they drive you up the wall, are important and you should spend as much time as you can with them. Because when you make it as a writer, you want these people to be behind you and support you. And in cases like this, they really give you some awesome ideas to incorporate into your work.

Many Ideas On My Mind

Posted: May 11, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

This is the first of two posts I plan to write this evening. This one was inspired by my younger sister, who asked me how many stories I’d thought about in my head yesterday as I was helping prepare dinner. Now I’ve mentioned my Ideas list on this blog before, a document on my flash drive that contains a little over fifty different ideas for novels, movies, TV shows, mangas, and even a video game. I keep this list because my memory is amazing on some things but remarkably poor on others (but doesn’t everyone have that problem?). However at various times throughout each day I’m thinking about one or more of these stories and trying to work out various plot points and scenes, even if I won’t write these stories for a long while.

I answered my sister truthfully, “About three or four.” One of them was my science fiction novel Reborn City, which is in its final draft and less than ten chapters away from completion (thank you, Matthew Williams, for your diligence on this project). The other, my thriller Snake, is in the middle of its third draft, and when I had the chance yesterday, I was able to edit a few more chapters. The other two was a possible novel about an assassin with multiple personalities, and a story influenced partially by Sleeping Beauty (by the way, I call stories I write based off of fairy tales and other well-known stories, of which I have many ideas for, “Fractured Fairy Tales Untold”. Catchy title. A prize goes to the first person who gets where I got the title for this category from).

Anyway, my sister’s latest dream of what she’ll do when she’s an adult is to write, though I think she’s more into fantasy and I’m not sure how deep her devotion is or if this is just one of those passing fancies all kids seem to go through, even during the teen years. She claims she has twenty ideas going through her head each day, which I take to be exaggeration and possibly the hubris all starting writers have when they find they can string a few sentences together to make the bare bones of a story. But the conversation got me thinking, and I’ve been wanting to write this post since then, because there are a lot of writers out there who have a ton of ideas running through their heads and I think it’s a good topic to explore.

Every writer wants to be known for something they’ve written. Some have just the one work and want that to be well known, while others want to be prolific and have lots of famous stories. I think the former dream of just publishing their manuscript, while the latter dream of being the next Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Ezra Pound. I also believe the latter tend to have many different ideas brewing at any one time in their head. After all, if they want to be known for a large body of work, they have to have a lot of it in their heads already, right? These authors are always working on something, and they often spend great amounts of time just working on a story, whether by writing or by daydreaming. Not to mention, they also have new ideas coming into their heads, so when they do get a new idea they may spend hours, days, weeks, months, or sometimes years plotting and planning before they start to write it.

Of course, with so much in their head, it’s doubtful they’ll run out of ideas at any point. Or more precisely, it’s in doubt that they’ll finish even a tenth of all the work they’d like to do. I personally view this to my advantage, as it means that I’ll have multiple objects every time I start a new project. Should I start the next volume of a series? Should I work on a new series? How about a stand-alone? Which one? A Fractured Fairy Tale Untold? A psychological thriller? Something with the potential of a sequel should it do well? A science fiction novel with thought-provoking social themes? The options are endless!

Other writers may not have the same view of having many ideas as I do. They may think its better just to focus on the one idea, or perhaps they try to write as much as possible so they can get as much out as they can while they’re still breathing. Or, if your name is James Patterson and you have tons of money on hand, you hire co-writers to work with you so you can get out nine books a year (yes, I’m still a little sore over this, though I thought Alex Cross, Run was one of the better books in the series lately). It’s different for every author.

But like I said, I like having multiple ideas to focus on at any one time. It gives me something to do, and I think as time goes on, like wine, these stories get better with age. And even if I don’t write everything on that Ideas list, even if every manga isn’t serialized, every movie made or every TV show has a pilot filmed, I can still say that I gave it my all while I was writing and that’s enough for me.

Do you have multiple ideas in your noggin? What’s your view on having all these ideas?

Older Entries
Newer Entries