Well, it took me a little while (darn my school load!) but I’m finally done editing Chapter 24 of Video Rage. And since the second installment of the Reborn City series is 37 chapters long, I’m about two-thirds through the second draft.
So excuse me while I do a little happy dance…
Still here? Cool.
I think the hardest thing about editing VR is that a lot of it is rewriting. When you’re doing a first draft, you think that a lot of what you included (including dialects in the narration) is just genius, the best thing for the English language since Shakespeare put quill to parchment or Hemingway put pen to paper or Stephen King put typewriter keys to…you know. And then you leave it alone for several months so you can look at it with fresh eyes, and then you think to yourself “What the f*ck was I thinking writing this crap?”
But I’m glad I’ve been able to take a second look at this. If I thought that the first draft was okay, I’m sure the second draft is going to impress maybe a few readers. That’s the hope anyway. In any case, I think after the second draft is done I’ll send VR to a certain science fiction writer I’m acquainted with who took a look at RC for me. I’m pretty sure his opinion on things will be very useful indeed.
Well, I’m hitting the hay. Big day tomorrow with lots to do, and I want to be well rested for it. Good night, my Followers of Fear.
Some of you are probably reading the title of this post and are wondering, Since when is there a purpose to any sort of violence? Very true, but I’m talking about violence in speculative fiction and when it is useful and when it is just excessive.
Granted, I might not be the best person to speak on this subject. If any of you have read or are reading Snake, you are well aware that the main character is very influenced by slasher films and the Russian mafia, so violence abounds. However, in my other books I try to hold back on the violence. Why? Partly because I’m just terrible with writing fight scenes. I actually try to avoid them when I can, which is okay because in horror it’s often more about the atmosphere and character interaction than about describing a punch or a gun fight.
But the other reason is that, when I’m writing and I think about including a very violent scene in my story, I think about whether it can advance a story’s plot.
Let me explain. In Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City that I’m currently editing when I have the chance (my time is so filled up these days), there comes a scene about midway through the book where some of the characters get into an argument and one of them ends up punching the other in the face. The actual punch occupies about maybe two or three paragraphs, but the result s of it is felt throughout the rest of the novel. Both characters in this little altercation have to reassess their relationship. One has to decide if they want to continue to be friends with someone who punched them, especially since they really cared about this person and the hurt feelings and pride hurt more than the being punched. As for the one doing the punching, he is horrified about what he did in a moment of anger. He has to take a hard look at himself and really decide whether he might need to change his actions and perhaps do some growing up.
Another example is in Rose, my work-in-progress/thesis project. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Rose is dealing with a young woman trapped by magic with the stalker who resurrected her. And when she tries to get away from him, he often gets violent and dangerous. While providing some very terrifying scenes, these moments also force Rose into a dark place. She becomes frightened, and, like many abused women, starts walking on eggshells because she’s afraid of arousing his rage. Over the course of the story, Rose finds herself driven into a darker and darker place spiritually because of all she suffers. At least until certain events allow her to seek a change.
So in a way, while I detest violence and I try not to use it when I can, in certain ways like the ones above violence can advance the story and allow for character development. Of course there are many other tools that allow for character development and propelling the plot forward: romantic relationships, deceit and treachery, other non-violent events in the characters’ lives that allow them to move forward in the story. But I think of all those, violence requires a delicacy that is much harder to handle than other methods (and not to mention romance can be a bit overused). You have to use it in just the right way or your readers will be overwhelmed and turned off from reading anymore. One slap or punch or explosion too many and it can really change things, and not for the better. So for the author, it’s up to them to figure out what is the right level of violence and how best to wield it in their story. And hopefully through practice one can figure out just that.
So am I good at wielding the violence? You’d have to find that out yourself or ask one of my other readers. An author can often the worst judge at their work. But I think I do okay at it. At any rate, I haven’t had any complaints about the levels of violence in my stories or how they’re used. In fact, I’ve been told that they’re rather scary, which pleases me to no end.
How do you use violence in your stories? Do you have any advice regarding including or not including violence in your stories?
I’m happy to announce that I’ve just finished the first chapter of Rose, the novel I’m writing for my thesis. I started it yesterday after I’d finished my homework, and worked on it on and off throughout the day. I was really surprised by how quickly I got through it, but I think I can attribute that to this new diet I’ve put myself on. I think cutting out all the diet sodas and junk I’ve been eating has not only helped me lose a couple pounds, but maybe also sharpened my focus and creativity. Or perhaps something’s in alignment and this will pass when we move into Virgo next Tuesday.
Anyway, Chapter One was quite a bit of work. It’s always hardest for me starting a new project, especially with that first page. You want to start off with the right hook that’ll keep a reader’s interest and encourage them to keep going. It actually took me a few attempts to get going with this and find what felt right. But after I found an opening sentence that worked for me and after I managed to get a page typed, it sort of rolled on from there, and I had relatively little trouble writing out the rest. Which leads me to this morning, where I’m announcing for all the world to see and hear that I’ve finished the first chapter of the book.
My first impressions of this chapter is that it’s rather wordy (and phrase-y, too. I use plenty of fun phrases, like “the stars beneath her”). In fact, it’s 4,240 words over 15 pages. Not bad for a first chapter at all, and it wouldn’t surprise me if subsequent chapters were of a similar length. The first chapter is also pretty uneventful until the last couple of pages, but it allows me to introduce Rose to readers and interest people in her before I actually start eh main events of the story and put her through so much horror that you can’t help but want to hope that she’ll make it out okay.
In the meantime, I’ll hopefully start on Chapter Two later this week and see how that goes. I’m meeting with a professor from the Japanese department on Tuesday to get some phrase translation, so that should be helpful (if I didn’t mention it earlier, Rose’s stalker is Japanese). And unless something comes up in the next couple of weeks worthy of an update or mention of Rose, I probably won’t do another update post until I’m at least seven chapters into it, about a fourth of the way through the book.
On an unrelated note, this morning I had a new idea for a short story and added it to my list, making for a new total of 300 short story ideas (and only nine of them written. God help me get through them all!). And tonight I might be able to do some more editing on Video Rage, so hopefully nothing will come up to prevent that from happening.
That’s all for now. I’ve got a meditation class to get ready for, so I’ll sign off now. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear, and wish me luck.
Boy, I’m not sure my life could get any better. Things have just been going so well for me these days. It’s like my Tarot was right and fortune really was just around the corner.
Today, my science-fiction novel RebornCity received a new review on Amazon. This new five-star review makes for two 4-star reviews and five 5-star reviews, for a total of seven reviews and an average score of 4.7 out of 5. As you can expect, I’m super excited and super-grateful for all that’s been going on and can’t thank the people who make it happen enough.
This latest review comes from Marc Neiwirth, one of the people to whom my second novel Snake is dedicated to (speaking of which, he just downloaded a copy of Snake today. I hope he likes it when he gets the chance to read it). His review, which he entitled Fantastic First Novel (I love that he capitalized the first letter of each word), goes like this:
This is an extremely commendable effort by a new young writer, whom I believe we will see much more of in the years ahead. Rami Ungar’s vision of a frightening dystopian future is peppered with those elements that make us all human. There are quite a few surprises in the book, and I am anxious for the next volume in the series to be released.
Marc, your words mean a lot to me. I’m glad you enjoyed it and that you found parts of it surprising. Sadly, since I have to focus on schoolwork and my job at the financial aid office before I can do creative writing, editing Video Rage is on the back burner at the moment. Still, there’s a good chance I’ll find time to do editing later on in the semester. I’ve done it before, so I don’t see why it can’t happen now.
In the meantime, if you would like to check out some of the other reviews of Reborn City, or if you’re interested in getting a copy for yourself, you can check out Reborn City’s page or you can check it out on Amazon and Smashwords, where it is available in e-book and paperback (but only through Amazon for paperback). And if you end up liking what you’re reading, please let me know what you think, either in a comment or a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback and I want to hear yours.
That’s all for now. I’ll do a little more homework and then try to relax. Have a good night, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares!
It’s been not even one full week into the new semester and there have been some interesting developments in the classes I’m taking. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m taking a creative writing course this semester. The course requires us to turn in two short stories and a revision of one of them at different points throughout the semester, though not necessarily in that order (I wanted to turn in a revision and two original short stories, but I don’t have anything to revise at the moment, so forget that). And as I’ve also mentioned in previous posts, Ohio State’s English and Creative Writing departments tend to focus on classic and literary fiction. Genre fiction doesn’t often get as much discussion in Denney Hall.
I came into class with the idea that we were going to be writing several literary short stories during the semester, and even had a list of ideas for stories I could write. Imagine my surprise when my teacher announced that we could turn in genre fiction, so long as it was interesting. Yes, she said that. As long as it’s interesting and doesn’t hold to time-honored (0r time-worn) conventions, I could turn in something from genre fiction. The following conversation then ensued:
Me: So I could write a terrifying horror story, and as long as it is interesting and doesn’t hold to conventions, I can turn it in?
My Professor: Of course.
Me: Party time.
You can probably tell I’m excited. I love writing horror stories, and with the focus on finishing the first draft of Laura Horn and editing Video Rage taking up most of my time this summer, there hasn’t been all that much time to seriously focus on writing a decent scary story or two. However, there’s been plenty of time to accumulate ideas for short stories, so at the next available opportunity, I plugged in my flash drive and started looking over the Word document that contains all my ideas for short stories.
So much to work with, so little time.
What a list that was, with 294 entries at last count. Yeah, I know. And no time to seriously work on them. One of these days I’m going to have to set aside a period of time where I won’t work on any novels and I’ll just work on reducing the amount of ideas on that list, maybe put out a couple more collections of short stories.
But the other night when I went over the list, remembering ideas I hadn’t thought of in a while (good thing I keep a list!) and trying to remember what I was thinking of when I wrote down the idea I had for certain stories, I was looking for particular stories. They had to be the right length (under 10,000 words), they had to be one of the more interesting ideas I’ve had (I like to think they’re all interesting, but I tried seeing it from the POV of someone who’s not me) and I had to look for a story that wouldn’t be tied down to the conventions of horror.
And as many of the horror fans know, that last one can be tough. As the Scream movies, Cabin in the Woods, and Behind the Mask so wonderfully point out, horror stories often work within a certain narrative framework. This gives the writers who create these stories more freedom than you’d think as we struggle to please our fans who are looking for a certain product in their story, but there has been criticism (some of it well-founded) that horror stories can get a little too predictable, to the point where you get useful advice videos like this:
He does bring up some good points. Actually, a slightly paranoid fear of a horror movie death is why I’ve never smoke weed, drink sparingly, and I’m not violent outside of the books I write (I’m not commenting on the sex and abstinence part). I don’t want to die like that. That would suck! Especially if somehow my soul gets trapped in the place where I was murdered or is digested by whatever killed me or something. That would suck even more!
So in the end, I managed to pick out about eight or ten short stories that I thought fit the bill for what I was looking for, and I selected two out of them. Neither of these stories have any particular reason as to why I chose them. I just thought they were very unique and that they would be choices my teacher and classmates wouldn’t find boring or stereotypical. In fact, I’m hoping to keep them on the edge of their seats with suspense.
And as for what those short stories are, I’ll give you some hints. This is the hint for the short story I’ll probably start work on sometime next week:
And here’s the hint for the one I’ll probably start in late September, early October:
Anyone want to hazard a guess at subject matter and plot line? There are wrong answers, but no consequences if you guess wrong.
Well, that’s all for now. I have some homework to do if I want to get any form of creative writing done, so I’m off to do that. Wish me luck, and have a good weekend, my Followers of Fear. I’ll let you know the progress of each of these short stories as there is news to report and maybe even let you know what my classmates think. Hopefully they will be terribly scared.
As of last night, I’m a little more than halfway through editing Video Rage, the sequel to my first novel Reborn City. It’s been a long and slow process, not helped by work, preparing for the new semester, and the general craziness of life itself. Still, I am making progress. And I have become a bit more cognizant of the fact that I like to make issues that are important to me part of the stories that I write.
I’ve mentioned this before, but RC and its sequel VR have a lot of themes in them that reflect societal problems we face today, including Islamophobia, racism, and drug addiction, among a few others. I thought that these were the only book I’ve written where these issues have become so embedded within the story’s narrative, but then I realized that wasn’t the case. Snake, my other novel, explores the trade in human beings and in flesh, albeit slightly less prominent due to the focus on a certain serial killer. And Laura Horn, the novel I finished last month, stars a main character who suffers from the trauma of sexual assault. Even Rose, the novel I’ll be writing for my thesis, has a lot of themes reflecting issues that I find important, including gender dynamics and women being viewed solely for their biology, domestic abuse in relationships, and even gun violence*.
*Speaking of which, I have a post about that. Remind me to write about it later this week.
I think I write in all these themes into my stories for a number of reasons. One is because a lot of what I write is taken from today’s world. You look around you, and you’ll see the world plagued by many issues that are not easy to solve and nowhere close to being solved. Often I will write a story and the problem can either be inserted into the story or it just evolves its way in, showing up throughout the story. Another reason is that, as an author, I have the potential to influence plenty of people through the words I write and the stories I tell. If I can do some good through that, then why shouldn’t I? Third, sometimes you feel so upset about the problems yourself you can only vent about them through words on paper, which is something I sometimes do. And fourth, because I can.
In any case, I look upon this habit of mine as beneficial. Like I said, inserting issues such as racism, gun violence, LGBT rights or whatever into my stories has the potential to perhaps do some good in the world and allow for discussion that sometimes is stifled out of fear or because of strong emotions (or because being politically correct can make you feel like you’re walking on eggshells). And besides, I think it makes the plots of my stories much better. Rose originally didn’t have the gun violence aspect to it, but when I realized that it could make things in the story more interesting and allow me to flesh out the main character more, I decided to go with it, and with fantastic results too.
And if the reviews I’ve gotten on my books are any indication, people like my books better because I add in these issues.
Do you insert issues important to you in your stories? What issues and how do you put them in? What have the reactions been like?
I’m about a third of the way through editing Video Rage. And while I was editing Chapter 12 yesterday, I had a bit of a problem that I had to really rack my brains to solve.
Does anyone remember the Kony 2012 video from two years ago? If you don’t, here’s a quick reminder: Joseph Kony is an African warlord leading a terrorist organization that recruits children to be soldiers and sex slaves. The video Kony 2012 exposed many people to Joseph Kony’s crimes to many people in the West for the first time, amassing nearly 100 million views and becoming one of YouTube’s most viral videos ever. However, despite a powerful Stop Kony campaign, a Cover the Night event, and a sequel to clarify points made in the first video, interest in Joseph Kony and Invisible Children, the organization behind the video, waned after questions of the legitimacy of the campaign came up and the video’s narrator/producer suffered a very public mental breakdown.
Maybe it was because I was really impacted by the video at the time, going out of my way to make a Kony 2012 T-shirt and participating in Cover the Night, but when I decided to make an original viral video in Video Rage, I wanted to use Kony 2012 as an example to compare to the viral video in the story. So I wrote it in, ignoring the reservations I had about using such a famous (and infamous video).
Well, perhaps there’s some truth to the phrase “Another year older, another year wiser.” I was 20 when I wrote that chapter, but I’m 21 as I edit the novel. And I decided to cut Kony 2012 from the story. It’s just that a well-known video like that being featured in my novel might do more harm than good, especially considering everything that went on in the aftermath. So I ended up replacing it with a fictional documentary that I made up pretty much while editing. It took me a while to come up with the subject matter behind the documentary and what it did to achieve the level of fame that it would inspire a viral video in the novel’s universe nearly forty years later, but I finally managed to come up with something that I was satisfied with. And hopefully any future reader will be satisfied with it as well.
So what’s the point of this post? I’m not sure there is a point. Maybe I just wanted to tell you all a story while letting you know how the editing for Video Rage is going. Or maybe I was trying to illustrate how something that seems like a good idea when you’re younger or at an earlier stage of a project (or both) can really seem like a bad idea later on and you just have to nix it. (Strange that Stephen King didn’t think of that when he wrote in that scene in IT with the kids all having sex with each other).
In any case, I’ve fixed what I considered to be a great problem with that one chapter of Video Rage, and I think that the rest of the draft will go smoothly…if I can stay on track with finishing the second draft of the book.
Well, that’s all for now. It’s late, so I’m going to bed. Have a good night, my Followers of Fear. I’ll update you on Video Rage and anything else that needs updating as time goes on. In the meantime, pleasant nightmares.
Most of you have read my reviews (and if you haven’t had the pleasure, I’ll probably be doing a review soon, because there are some awesome horror films coming out this month). Since I’ve done so many of them, and occasionally they’ve gotten a lot of views, I decided to do a post for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors on Writing Reviews.
I’m hoping this post will be helpful to the many authors who would like to try writing reviews themselves. Those things can have so much influence over a person’s decision to buy a movie ticket or place a reservation at their local library for a new book. And I had fun breaking down the process I use for writing reviews and making it into a helpful article.
If you have the chance, please check out the article. And if you’re a self-published author or are thinking of pursuing self-publishing, please check out the rest of the website. There are plenty of articles written by independent authors for independent authors to make all aspects of self-publishing easy and cost efficient.
That’s all for now. If I have time later today, I’ll write another blog post. Until then, I’m busy editing Video Rage. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Every author has a different metaphor for what it’s like writing a novel or creating a story or even outlining a story. Stephen King said in his memoir On Writing that he approaches writing like an archaeologist uncovers an artifact, finding the top of it sticking out of the dirt and then carefully chipping and dusting away to uncover the rest of it. I guess that means His Royal Creepiness likes to come up with the story as he writes it and doesn’t plan too far ahead, but whether or not he does, he’s almost always brilliant with it.
Another author, I forget who but I’m pretty sure they were Freshly Pressed for writing an article on this, once compared writing to putting together a sandwich. You have a bunch of different ingredients, and it’s up to you as the chef of this particular sandwich to make it into a delicious meal that people will want to savor and discuss for hours to come. Like I said, I can’t remember who this author was, so I can’t tell you whether or not they were brilliant at it, but they certainly can create a compelling metaphor.
And there are plenty of other metaphors that one author could apply to the writing of a novel: mixing an interesting cocktail; building a house; decorating a room; putting together a collage; building a Rube Goldberg device (I love those things!) and then some, on and on, etc. Each author probably has their own metaphor that relates to their own process.
How some people see writing a novel: building one of these.
I thought about this a lot while I was writing the outline for my thesis Rose, especially since during the early stages of writing the outline I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to go with the story after the first chapter or two. And after a lot of thought, a bi of frustration, and finally typing out a sixteen-page outline complete with short character bios, I finally figured it out. To me, writing is like sending my characters down a path in a heavily wooded forest, and letting them find the way to the end.
I think this has a lot to do with the many philosophers, musicians, and others who have said “Life is a road/path/journey”. For me, I’m seeing the path my characters are traveling on as they move through the story, meeting each obstacle, struggling against their own darkness and striving to be better people. And sometimes, this metaphor takes on a much more…I guess literal tone. For example, those of you who’ve read my novel Snake know it takes place in and around New York City (for those of you who haven’t, now you know). In a strange way, I see the path the Snake takes, not just the one in the woods but how he travels from location to location and scene to scene. I see what he does to get from Point A and Victim 1 to Point B and Victim 2, and from there to Point C and Victim 3 and so on and so forth, whether he’s driving a stolen car or walking through a dark neighborhood or using a disguise to figure out what his next move will be. (Right now, someone is reading this post and hears this description of Snake and is either deciding the book’s not for them or they’re strangely intrigued and want to find out more. I hope it’s the latter).
This “path” metaphor gets even more literal in some of my other works. In Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City which I’ve begun editing, most of the novel is spent on the open road, so those characters of mine aren’t just on a path with many twists and turns in a metaphorical sense. They’re really on that road!
Which to take to get a better story?
Whether in a metaphorical or a literal sense though, writing like my characters are on a road or a path helps me visualize where my characters and the story are going and where I ulitmately want them to go. During the writing of the outline for Rose, there were several paths that the story could have gone on, and in the early parts I couldn’t figure out where to go. Some of those paths I tried, and I ended up not liking the direction the story would’ve gone down if I went down those paths. Thankfully I ended up taking the right path around the third or fourth attempt, and things got a lot easier from there on out. I’m looking forward to seeing what people think of the path I took with this story, and the others I’ve written.
What do you think of this metaphor for writing?
What metaphor do you like to use? What are some others that you’ve heard that you agree with?
Or at least the first draft is. There’s always a chance that my adviser will make me rewrite certain parts of it, but I hope to keep it like it is.
Anyway, late last night I went about finishing the outline, and somehow I managed to do it before it was too far past midnight. This outline gave me more problems than outlines usually do, because up until I started writing the outline I had only a few scenes planned out, so I had to come up with the rest as I was writing. Once or twice I had to actually go back and erase what I’d written before because I didn’t like which direction the story was going. Around the third attempt though I managed to get this story going in the right direction and from there it was just a matter of figuring out where I wanted to go, what would be the logical step to get there, and what sort of events could happen without stretching the limit of credulity.
In the end, I think this story will turn out very well. It’s about twenty-eight chapters, and will probably be around the normal length for one of my books, between eighty-five thousand and one-hundred thousand words. I often wrote the outline looking for plot holes and trying to find good ways to plug them up (I hope I succeeded). And I hope I create an interesting and somewhat scary story about a woman who dies but is resurrected by her stalker through magic and finds herself trapped in his house with not only him, but very malevolent supernatural forces. Thank goodness I have an adviser who will be helping me out with that part. He’s a published writer himself, so odds are he’ll have a few lessons to help me.
And while I’m waiting for my research books to arrive in the mail and for the new semester to start (three weeks from today, by the way), I think I’ll edit Video Rage. God knows it’s about time, and I have time to do it now before things get really crazy! In fact, I’ll start it today! But first I need to run an errand, then I need to vacuum the apartment, then I need to run the dishwasher, then I need to have lunch before I go to work, then I have work, and later tonight I’m supposed to be at a friend’s birthday party…life’s crazy sometimes.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you updated on Rose, Video Rage, and other projects as time goes on and I have news to give. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Rami Ungar The Writer 