This is the cover of the book. This is exactly what it would look like in the bestseller section at Borders or B&N if a crazy person printed it through Lulu.com and left on the shelf with a half-eaten bakery item of their choice.

I’m going to do something stupid.

Isn’t it nice when you get a warning like that? I really wish that more people would take this approach in life. It would help smooth over so many uncomfortable situations where both parties know that something truly idiotic is about it happen but neither is capable of acknowledging it.

There are some stories you are proud of and some not so much. There are some stories that you just have to write and put away in a drawer and hope beyond all hope that no one will ever find. For me, The Madness of Ants is just such a story. So of course, I am going to put it right out here where everyone can see it.

This all started as part of my experiment in digital publishing. I wanted to try a book-length bit of fiction, and since I only have two novels I figured I’d start with the first.

Wow.

You know, I’ve said many times that this book is terrible but in preparing it for the Kindle I found that it is even worse than I remember. Well, there’s nothing for it now but to get on with it. Here we go…

The Original Sin

To begin, The Madness of Ants (TMOA) is a book not a story. It is only a book because it has 59K words and that the words are written in a language people can read. It is not a book because it is particularly interesting or engaging.

It is a book because it is my first novel.

Almost 16 years ago, I spent a summer writing the first novel I would actually finish. That in itself is something of an accomplishment and I’m proud of the fact that I did it. The work itself though is really a study in everything that a first time novelist can do wrong.

• Surrealism
• Obscenity
• Aping the styles of literary authors
• Wild plot twists
• Total lack of plot (yes, you can have both)

About the only thing I didn’t do is plagiarize, but considering how many ideas I stole from other writers I suppose it would be fair to heap that sin on the pile.

Original Sin

So why am I publishing this book at all?

It’s a fair question. After all, the book is so horrible that no one should be allowed to read it. But then, every writer has something like this in their closet, hard drive, etc. It is their Original Sin. The work they finished but cannot be proud of. The work that haunts their waking moments for no reason other than it was the first reason they started down the path.

Lately, I’ve not been writing at all. Even worse, I’ve gone weeks without even thinking about writing. Then, when I have a moment to myself, I wonder just what the hell happened to the guy who got up at 5AM every day to write. I wonder what happened to the guy who sequestered himself with his words and his characters and wrote thousands of words each day.

Eventually, I come around to thinking about the work I’ve done, as most writers do. I dust off a manuscript. I look deep inside to find some gleam, a gem, a reason…

But this practice rarely produces anything resembling inspiration.

Research shows acquiring a thing only give us half the pleasure of holding onto it. In other words, we’re stubborn as hell once we’ve got hold of something. It is twice as painful to lose something than it is pleasurable to acquire it in the first place.

I think this is the real truth of a writer’s Original Sin, and it probably applies to a lot more than just writing.

So, to answer the question, I am publishing this book so that I can forget about it and move on.

Why You Shouldn’t Read This Book

It should be fairly obvious that the book is really bad. What’s worse is that sixteen years of holding it in have given the book more gravitas than it deserves by a hundredfold or more. Still, long time readers of this site are undoubtedly curious and no warning whatsoever will keep them from reading the thing.

So, here is a brief list of reasons why you might not want to read this book:

• You are offended by obscenity in all forms.
• You are put off by incessant navel gazing.
• You are filled with rage when reading political discourse.
• You dislike stories where there is an excessive amount of drinking.
• You hate it when writers ape the styles of more famous writers who are only famous for being infamous.
• You loathe pretentiousness.
• You generally believe that anyone under the age of 25 should never be allowed to hold a pen.

This is not meant to be a complete list. No, not by any means. I am certain that readers of this book will find many reasons to dislike it. I hope you will share those reasons in the comments.

The Madness of Ants will soon be available in the Kindle store. However, because it is such a bad book, I feel awful about selling it. So, I’ve produced both the Kindle (mobi) and ePub version here. If you wish to inflict a PDF on yourself, I can make that format available too but be careful what you wish for… A PDF version is now available as well!

The Madness of Ants (ePub)
The Madness of Ants (Kindle – mobi)
The Madness of Ants (PDF)

Jeremy Shade and Spatula Inn, a Halloween Tale now available on Kindle!

Last week I read an interesting article in the Huffington Post about publishing work on Kindle by J.A. Konrath. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile now, so I took a stab at it over the weekend. I’m happy to report it was really quite simple.

I didn’t feel like putting up one of my awful novels, so I went ahead and put up a short story I ran on the site back in 2008 called Jeremy Shade and Spatula Inn. It’s a Halloween story for kids, runs about 5,000 words, and is written in a style that is meant to be read aloud.

Adding Jeremy Shade to Kindle

Putting up the story involved, signing up for the Amazon Digital Text Platform and then uploading the text of the story. Really, that’s it.

Amazon allows you to upload in one of several formats, including Word, HTML, or epub. When you upload your work, you can also upload a cover. There are a few additional fields for description and category, but all in all it’s what you would expect in adding new content to any large system.

Once everything is submitted, Amazon does some magic on the files to prepare them for the Kindle and then it goes off for a quality check. I thought the quality check would be editorial in nature, and maybe it is, but I believe it’s just to be sure that the work you’re putting up looks okay on the Kindle.

Less than 48 hours later, my story was available for sale.

I did feel a little odd about selling just one story. It didn’t feel like a product on its own. However, Amazon didn’t give me the option to offer it for free so I went with lowest price I could set and left it at that.

One thing that is interesting about the Kindle platform is versioning. After you release a work, you can update it by editing the title you posted and putting up a revision. This revision gets pushed to readers automatically, just like apps on the iPhone.

Adding Myself to Author Central

After the story went live, I received an email from Amazon inviting me to add myself as part of Author Central.

Author Central allows you to put up information about yourself (including photos) and link yourself to your books. Once linked to your books, you can add author notes, editorial reviews, and additional information about the books and content Amazon is selling.

I went ahead and created a basic profile for myself. It just as easy as adding a new title.

A whole new world?

As the Konrath article points out, a traditional publishing company provides editorial, marketing and distribution services to authors. Yet with so many things changing in the way that content is marketed and sold, I’m beginning to wonder why anyone starting out would go the traditional route.

Why not put work out directly, promote it, and build up a following? If things get rolling, sign a licensing deal with a publisher to produce the work as a physical book when you have some leverage?

Don’t get me wrong, Jeremy Shade doesn’t have that kind of gravitas. It’s just a fun Halloween story I wrote for my boys. But the idea is intriguing…

What do you think?

I AM PUBLISHED! Ok, enough smiling back to work!

This is a post I expected to write, I just didn’t expect it to be today nor did I expect it to be this year:

Today, my work appears in Brain Harvest. It’s a short story. Just 750 words. I hope you enjoy it!

Read “How Duane Came To Be In The Bathroom” in Brain Harvest, an Almanac of Bad Ass Speculative Fiction.

I’m not really sure where 2009 will rank in the years of my life, but I’m fairly certain it will be hard to top it as a year of change. I left a job of seven years. I made my living by my wits (which is a huge accomplishment given my limited supply of brainpower). I moved across the country without my family. I wrote a novel. I worked myself raw. I forgot how to sleep.

But last night, in the middle of a snowstorm, I slept.

I slept for nearly twelve hours and when I woke I was published and my wife was 500 miles away making buttercream frosting with real Mexican vanilla. The sun is shining and someone finally figured out that salt melts snow and everything is dripping both above and below.

It looks happy outside and I am happy too, but now is the time to start again. Another story is waiting. Time to write…

Editor’s Note: Wow… With a lead in like that, you’d think I’m laying claim to being the next Alice Munro. No, I’m no Alice Munro. I admire her work, but I find the universe far to funny to ever write a story like hers. Besides, as far as I know, Ms. Munro has yet to write a comedic story with overtones of necrophilia. So, I got that going for me, which is nice.

“… a little silly, a little strange, and a little WTF thrown in”

“It Likes Italian” is a short screenplay I’ve had kicking around in my head for awhile. If you want to get to the action, got ahead and skip down to the header below, but I thought I’d take a moment to talk about the process of writing this screenplay because I’ve never actually done one before.

Of course, this won’t be a surprise to the screenwriters in the house as I’ve totally botched the formatting.

In any case, blasting out reams of dialogue is one of my oldest methods for starting a new story. I just sit down and let a group of characters start talking. Eventually, they tell me what’s going on.

My work with Kip Frazier is a lot like this: he talks, I listen, when I interrupt he usually says something like, “Well, Mister Writer, you stick to the scribbling and I’ll stick to the story spinning, cause I’m sure ain’t nobody wants to hear it the other way around.”

And, as usual, Kip is right. My job is to write. The characters are supposed to tell the story.

Another thing worth mentioning about “It Likes Italian” is that it has a liberal dose of colorful language. This is a little different from things I’ve posted of late, but I’m also trying to get back to writing from the gut… And as the son of a man who was a sailor and then a cop, my gut often coughs up some rough edges.

Of course, this story is really me, through and through (a little silly, a little strange, and a little WTF thrown in), and that’s one thing I like about it.

Enjoy!

“It Likes Italian”: A Short Screenplay

[Setting; Space]
[Open with a small research craft orbiting a gas giant planet. Close by is an enormous black sphere, metallic and smooth.]

[Interior of craft: One man is asleep at his terminal, while another pokes at the keyboard in a bored way.]

[Terminal Screen close-up: Saying hello in different languages, math questions. A delay... nothing comes back in response. Bored man at the terminal (Roy), stops the script. Types in something and chuckles.]

Roy: “Apparently, it likes Italian…”

[Clay wakes up]

Clay: “Huh? What do you mean, ‘It likes Italian?’”
Roy: “The protocols weren’t working so I tried flirting with it in Italian.”
Clay: “What the fuck do you know about Italian?”
Roy: “I spent a summer in Rome.”
Clay: “We’re supposed to be following protocol.”
Roy: “I know. I was just screwing around.”
Clay: “Keep running the scans…”
Roy: [sigh]

[Roy goes back to running the scans, but there's no response. He looks to see if Clay is watching. He's back to sleep.]
[Terminal: Roy taps in a few Italian phrases. The entity answers back.]

Clay: “Are you doing the Italian thing again?”
Roy: “Yeah…”
Clay: [Frustrated resignation]

[Clay leaves his terminal and watches Italian streaming across Roy's screen.]

Clay: “Fuck. What are we going to do?”
Roy: “I guess we report in and say it likes Italian.”
Clay: “Brilliant, Jackass… That’ll look great on the report.”

[Terminal: More Italian flowing across the screen]

Clay: “What’s it saying?”
Roy: “I don’t know. All I learned to do is flirt. I can ask directions too.”
Clay: “Directions? Somewhere you need to go?”
Roy: “Hey, man, I’m just telling you what I know.”

[Terminal: Italian insult]

Roy: “Oh shit.”
Clay: “What’s wrong?”
Roy: “I think it’s pissed off.”
Clay: “How do you know?”
Roy: “It just told me to fuck my mother. I think it’s angry because I haven’t responded.”

[Terminal: More insults come across the screen.]
[Exterior shot: Entity begins moving toward the craft.]
[Interior: Clay and Roy see entity moving on the monitor.]

Clay: “Jesus! Well, if it wants a response – respond!”
Roy: “What should I say?”
Clay: “I don’t know! Ask for directions or something!”

[Roy types quickly.]
[Terminal: A single word answer comes back in response "sì" ]

Roy: “Shit.”
Clay: “Now what? What did you say?”
Roy: “Well, I asked it if it wanted to sleep with me and it said yes.”
Clay: “Christ! Stop flirting with it!”
Roy: “What else do you want me to do? That’s all the fucking Italian I know. It’s all I ever needed to know.”
Clay: “I took some Spanish back in high school. Maybe we could try that.”
Roy: “I don’t know. I think it might not like that.”
Clay: “What the hell do you know? Now you’re the shrink?”
Roy: “That never worked in Rome. The girls there got pissed if you tried to switch to Spanish.”
Clay: “So now it’s a girl?”
Roy: “It wants to sleep with me, doesn’t it?”
Clay: “You don’t know that. Shit. We need to call this in.”

[Chiming sounds, warning bells]

Roy: “It’s still closing.”
Clay: “Is it going to crash into us?”
Roy: “No, it’s on an intercept vector, maneuvering to come along side.”
Clay: “I’m calling in.”
Roy: “The communications array is dead. It’s jamming us.”

[Clay takes a seat at his terminal and starts pounding the keys]

Roy: “It says it wants to be alone with us.”
Clay: “We’re getting the fuck out of here!”

[Exterior: The entity closes on the ship. Grapplers extend and clamp onto the ship.]

Roy: “Too late…”

[Clay checks exterior monitors.]
[Exterior: Something else extending from the entity.]

Clay: “Are those arms?”
Roy: “No, they look more like…”

[Terminal: Sweet nothings murmurred in Italian]

Clay: “Oh hell no. This thing is not going to fuck our ship is it?”

[Crash into the hull, grinding of metal.]

Clay: “We’re getting spaced raped!”
Roy: “Technically, the ship is getting space raped.”
Clay: “We’re in the ship, Roy. So, I think that means we’re getting space raped by default!”

[Awkward moment for crew. Eventually, the grinding stops. A few moments pass. Terminal beeps.]
[Terminal: Murmuring in Italian]

Clay: “Now what is it saying?”
Roy: “It’s giving directions. I think. I’m not sure.”
Clay: “It’s not letting go.”
Roy: “No, I think… I think it wants to show us something.”

[Terminal: Repeating on the screen in Italian]

Clay: “What is it?”
Roy: “It wants to show us the stars.”

[Roaring sound shakes the craft.]
[Exterior: Entity's engines igniting]

Roy: “Detecting a warp field.”
Clay: “Fuck, fuck! Drop the log beacon! Now!”

[Log beacon shoots out of the ship as the entity blasts into warp, taking the research vessel with it]
—
[Some time later... A military rescue ship arrives. Picks up the beacon.]

Captain: “No sign of the ship?”
Ensign: “No, Captain. Just her log beacon, but the data is truncated. They must have jettisoned early.”
Captain: “What does it say?”

[Ensign works at his terminal.]

Ensign: “‘Apparently, it likes Italian…’”

[END]

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!

“Hey, there, Mister Writer, you want to quit your dreaming about flowers and posey and get back to work?” ~ Kip Frazier

Those of you who followed me in November know that Kip Frazier is the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo. In a nutshell, Kip Frazier is my take on Huck Finn meets Steampunk (plus some magic thrown in). It begins with the line…

“In all my life, ain’t nobody ever caught me when I was running on top of the air.”

Below is Chapter 2 of the tale.

Chapter 1 is a super hot action thing where Kip is introduced in media res. I’m sharing Chapter 2 first because I am in desperate need of another cup of coffee (you’ll figure that out when you read it). Oh, and maybe I wanted to show that I maybe I can’t write stories but I can write more than first chapters.

Note Bene – ’cause I’m getting all writerly now…

If you don’t read SciFi or Fantasy, references to “the Fey” mean fairy folk. Fey is a medieval term. It wasn’t my decision to use it either. Kip Frazier insisted. In fact, I have an entire author-character discourse in my notes were he berated me for trying to doll it up, “Writers! Always fiddling with the way things is! Stop it!”

Also, when I talk about clankers, I mean robots. This takes place in a time and place similar to Huck Finn, so I try to use words that fit into 19th century. Fantastic or romantic technology based on what was available to makers in the 19th century is an effect known as Steampunk.

READ Kip Frazier – Chapter 2: In the Biddy’s Kitchen (PDF). Just six pages. Won’t take long.

This’ll probably get another polish or seven as I’m the worst proof reader in the world. Of course, when you write in a colloquial style, it gets even more difficult to proof because you’re working off sound as well. It takes a long time to get this kind of thing right.

A big thanks to everyone who voted in my poll. It was a lot of fun to get back to this story, which of course is not a story but a novel…

“Aw, skip it already, Mister Writer!”

Sorry, Kip.

Back in October, I mentioned the story “Deepest Shade” while discussing the Terror of Titles:

Deepest Shade is a story I’ve struggled with for close to 10 years. It’s been many things during that time but one thing is absolutely certain: Deepest Shade has always been the title. Or, at least I think it is. I’m still not entirely happy with Deepest Shade as a story. I think I really have two different tales going on not to mention the fact that I completely over edited the thing and now it feels sort of lifeless. Yet, I wonder if I haven’t hobbled the story by forcing myself to stick with a phrase that keeps clinging to my brain.

Of course I couldn’t just let the story go, or rather it simply refused to go away.

I don’t know what it is about this story that I like so much. Perhaps it’s the artistic struggle or maybe the interplay between Ali and Barbara. Maybe I just like the idea of blurring the possibilities of super high-end technology with the spiritual world, a bit of unexplained strangeness in an otherwise logical (and depressing world). Maybe I just like typing the word shikkoku.

Whatever it is, it’s probably a good idea if I stop talking about the story. I can think of no better way to ruin the pleasure of reading fiction than by talking the story out of it. So maybe the thing I should say here is nothing at all. Just share the story and by that example show that when old stories “return” they’re just stories that are not yet done and as a writer you should welcome that… though your readers may tire of messing with the same fluff again and again.

Click here to download the “latest” version of Deepest Shade.

When Sean “Writer Dad” Platt started a story newsletter, I was one of the first to sign up and I’m glad I did. Sean began with an excellent January tale. The story is touching and sweet, but as I read it I found myself thinking less like a reader and more like an editor.

I was thinking as an editor because there were certain aspects of Sean’s story that reminded me of one I’d written three years ago. As I wrote my comments to Sean, I kept going back to that old story. What follows is a combination of my general thoughts on criticism mixed with an analysis of my own story.

Before I get rolling, I encourage you to subscribe to Sean’s newsletter. He’s a great writer. Certainly better than me.

The Best Criticism: Remorseless, Specific, Honest

I believe the best criticism has three main characteristics:

1. Honest – If the writing is crap, tell them so. Think about the flow of the story. Did it keep you engaged? Did you think about it afterwards? If not, why and how could it be better?

Were there any places where you just stopped reading? If so, why? Did the author surprise you by changing gears or flipping expectations upside down? Did the story end up giving you a start-stop-start sensation not unlike riding in a car with someone who has an unnatural love of riding the brake pedal. If so, explain it and show specifically where the pavement ended [or where the metaphors wore thin].

2. Specific – Most readers stop at number #1. They deliver line edits line edits, questions about word choice, and of course the ubiquitous AWKWARD scribbled in the margins. Let me say something here…

Nothing is more AWKWARD than seeing the word AWKWARD scrawled across the page. Be specific.

Show them where the bodies are buried [especially when they use cliché]. Point out the places where the beautiful poetry they’ve constructed kills the story. Seriously, cut and paste sentences or paragraphs and tell the writer why they do not work for you. The more specific you can be the better.

3. Remorseless – Don’t be soft and try to pad your opinion with phrases like, “You show a lot of promise.” If you’re going to qualify a compliment with the word “but” or “however” strip that compliment off because you probably don’t mean it. Just deliver the news directly.

Too many adjectives or adverbs (or not enough). Poor dialogue. Shoddy craftsmanship…

Don’t worry about hurting feelings. You’ve been asked to give feedback, so give it. An editor won’t be kind and neither should you.

Analyzing One Of My Own

Above I mentioned that when I read Sean’s story, I found myself making mental comparisons to one of my own pieces. When began sketching out this article, I went back and read my old story and found that it was even more flawed than I remembered. I’ll provide a small sample of my feedback below. The real McCoy would be way too long to put into a single post, but this should give you a flavor.

A Quiet Dinner [pdf] is a story that came together very quickly. I took the initial idea, blasted through the details, and executed the story in less than a week. Once I was done, I went on to edit it three or four times, beating it into a fine paste.

I think the result is a story that is too heavy on poesy and too light on story. This is pretty typical of my work. Just reading the first paragraph makes my stomach turn.

Brian walked through the dark house on the balls of his feet. He thought himself stealthy, but there was no one to disturb, except his wife and she was already awake. Rachel didn’t sleep so well anymore.

Even now, three years later, I remember struggling with that whole “balls of his feet” thing. How do I describe that? Oh, and that whole “Rachel didn’t sleep so well anymore” could there be a more pregnant pause? Do we cue the dramatic music now?

If this were a detailed critique, I’d go through the entire text and point out places where things are just completed screwed. But, to save you the pain, let me share just a few choice bits that are way over the top:

The boys flew to Rachel.

Is this Peter Pan? A bit of sarcasm to be sure, but it’s to the point.

Brian ran the disposal. He wagged the sprayer to keep down the foam. He rinsed off the dishes, and put the glasses he didn’t wash into their slick dishwasher.

Maybe I should write down each and every time he takes a breath too and how that works. Just adding some fancy verbs won’t make this any less boring and non-essential.

The moment was ripe for a grand statement about Art, but Brian remained still. How he used to go on! He could fill hours with talk that ranged across themes and entire schools of thought. For the few artists he admired, Brian displayed a grudging sort of reverence but for the rest he had nothing, only foul contempt. Such rage! How he used to go on! He left Rachel exhausted.

Ok, seriously. If I didn’t need to type the number ’1′ every once in awhile, I’d honestly consider ripping the key off so as to avoid writing paragraphs like this. Nothing says, ‘bla bla bla’ like using exclamation points to emphasize how witty, verbose, exhausting, exasperating, etc a character might be.

Here’s a long bit of crappy dialogue that totally screws up what could be an interesting bit of conflict between the main characters. I’m including the whole thing so that you can see just how bad it is:

The waitress arrived. She was young, but she tried to compensate with detachment and formality. She stood close to Brian and asked about the wine.
“Well, you see, this is where we have a problem,” Brian said. “She prefers white, while for me there is only red.”
“I know what you mean,” the girl said. “I like dry reds, but my boyfriend, he’ll only drink red if it’s really sweet. But there is a solution.”
She stepped closer. Her open palm drifted over the wine menu, and Brian’s eyes followed her gesture to the bottom of the list.
“Half bottles.”
Brian looked at Rachel.
“Could you drink a half bottle?” he asked.
“We can have red.”
“Really?”
“It’s fine.”
Brian preferred Cabernet, but asked the waitress about the Merlot and the Pinot Noir.
“I’m a Pinot girl myself, but people like the Merlot.”
Brian ordered the Pinot, and after the waitress left, he faced Rachel.
“I really like this place,” he said.
“I can tell.”
“It reminds of a place in Zürich I think you would like.”
“Which one?”
“Bodega Espania.”
Rachel nodded, and a smile began to take root at the corner of her mouth.
“I haven’t told you about that place before?”

Who even wrote this?

“She prefers white, while for me there this only red.”

I think it’s a shame I screwed this part up. The waitress flirting with Brian could have created a nice bit of tension but instead I’m rolling my eyes at the language… Please step away from the melodrama.

Aside from the crappy writing, the characters in this story lack depth. The author of the story (that’s me) seems more in love with words than they are with the characters. This isn’t surprising as their is nothing interesting about them. They are the same at the beginning as they are at the end and all through the story they show only a single, stereotypical face.

If I were writing a real critique, I’d take this opportunity to pose a long series of questions meant to jar the author, make them think about how these characters could be improved and the drama deepened. I’d also tell them which parts are really screwing up the flow of the story.

Finishing Up

I’ve gone on about tearing a piece of work to shreds and generally being an ogre, but I’d like to wrap up with a word about kindness.

Delivering bad news about a bad story is part of providing good feedback. Some people may see this as demeaning or insulting, but I assure you that if you are very specific in your criticisms even a cutting tone such as the one I used with my own work will be helpful to the author. However, don’t take this as a license to shred someone’s person. Be nice.

Once you’re done writing your critique, take a moment to breathe. Read through what you’ve written and make sure that it is actionable. If it isn’t, strike it. Being nasty for nasty’s sake is no better than writing dialogue that does the he-said-she-said bit without advancing the story. The reader of such a critique will be as bored with your thoughts as you were with theirs.

Hope this was helpful! Don’t forget to sign up for Writer Dad’s newsletter!

One must always begin at the Beginning,
For that is where one finds the End.
Betwixt the two comes the Middle,
And therein lies the story.

Image credit: wsmith (Flickr) with a bit of touchup by me.

— 1

There is a dark, forbidden valley where travelers should never go, though sometimes, a careless soul manages to wander in and still make it back. Their hair gone white where once it was black. Their eyes never rest, and they look hard into the shadows. What they see we do not know, but they never, never sleep again.

“The wind may blow fierce, but it is not the cold that makes the trees shiver. Those poor, woody prisoners would burn their own branches, if only for the light.”

— 2

Jeremy Shade was a boy who treasured such tales. He collected them in fat notebooks with a fine and measured hand. He was careful to note each word as it was said, not wanting to miss the slightest detail or moment of dread.

His parents felt awful about this habit of his, wallowing in horror and fear. But try as they might, they could not convince him to give it up. He only laughed when something should have scared him, only giggled when terror should have gripped him, and rolled on the floor holding his sides when he should have been petrified.

UPDATE: This story is now available on Kindle!

I love titles.

When you’ve only got a title for your story, the whole world is open and free and wonderful. You don’t have to worry about plot threads that make no sense. You don’t have to fret about characters who won’t do as their told. No, when all you have is a title, your story is perfect bliss, just a shade more substantial than an idea.

I’m the sort of writer who likes to have a title before I begin working on a story. It doesn’t always happen that way but for the most part I have some sort of title before I begin pecking away that the keys. Sometimes the title comes right away and that makes things easier (at least I know what to save the file as, which is a start).

But what happens when the title won’t come? Do you stress out about it? Does it keep you awake at night?

The title for my NaNoWriMo novel is The Fantastic Adventures of Kip Frazier, but the nugget of an idea from whence this title was born, has like sixteen different variations. Since I added the title to my Wrimo profile, I changed it three times. Small changes to be sure, changes that really mean nothing to the actual draft of the book.

Or do they?

I find that having a working title for a story often influences the style of my writing. I know this sounds sort of odd, but when I write I tend to fall into character as I work and the title helps me get there mentally. Sort of like a series of rituals helps prepare the mind to receive cosmic goodness.

Without a title (or one I particularly like), I futz about in a haze of uncertainty. I get frustrated. I get snippy with the characters. There’s a real danger here that I might actually destroy the whole thing. Of course, it’s entirely possible to hang onto a title for too long. Let me give you a few practical examples (because Kip Frazier is a title I am very happy with).

Deepest Shade is a story I’ve struggled with for close to 10 years. It’s been many things during that time but one thing is absolutely certain: Deepest Shade has always been the title. Or, at least I think it is. I’m still not entirely happy with Deepest Shade as a story. I think I really have two different tales going on not to mention the fact that I completely over edited the thing and now it feels sort of lifeless. Yet, I wonder if I haven’t hobbled the story by forcing myself to stick with a phrase that keeps clinging to my brain.

There are other stories in my archives like this one, stories I’ve wrestled and tried to fit into the title I’ve found myself infatuated with. A few posts ago I put up a chapter from my last book Revisions. The original title of the book was The Man Who Forgot Language, which is about as horrible as a title could get. When I wrote it down, I used it as a placeholder for a filename. Eventually, I went about seeking another title, which became The Slaves of Burt Thompson. Again, wretched, but it kept me going on the story (and in fact shaped the plot a bit (if I can call it a plot). I settled on Revisions long after the final version was done and put to sleep in the depths of my hard drive and I like it. In fact, I like the title enough that I may even dig out the manuscript some day and fix all the things that are wrong with it – mostly by starting over.

The point of all this rambling is that I want to show you that titles are important for many reasons, but I also want you to see that you can change the title anytime you want. If you’re struggling for a title for your NaNoWriMo book, you could do a lot worse than just calling it BOOK.

NaNoWriMo Fun

Even after all these years of writing stories and writing about writing stories (how’s that for keyword density), I still ask myself that question. Lately I feel like I’ve gotten a bit of a handle on it. This doesn’t mean I’ll be able to articulate my thoughts in any helpful way, but that’s never stopped me from trying before so why not give it a go?

Stories begin life in many ways. You may have an idea for a character or perhaps a floating bit of dialogue. You may even have a complete and perfect picture of a series of events that comes in a flash of pure artistic insight (in which case I recommend you keep the origin to yourself lest you receive a beating from those less fortunate).

That said, possession of raw materials is not a story. You can forge a wonderful bit of prose from the portrait of a person or even a sequence of beautiful events, but it isn’t a story. People may read your carefully wrought masterpiece and sigh from the sheer pleasure of your words careening about in their heads, but it isn’t a story… A story needs something more.

The actual Albany Cutter.

Down at the bottom of this post is a piece called “Albany Cutter”. This piece was inspired by a weekend in the deep country. My wife’s family farm had just gone to auction and sold, and the family was gathering for Easter. My father-in-law had salvaged an old sleigh from the woods near the farm and I was overwhelmed by the sight of this ravaged bit of history in his workshop.

Mixed in with lots of other emotions I probably had some wonderful material for a poem or even one of my little travel narratives. But underneath all of that, I began feeling the stirring of something else, something that did not exist anywhere but in my own mind. I felt like I had a story.

So I set about trying to create a story from this material. I began by writing down everything I knew about the events of the day and then I stitched them into a more palatable sequence for dramatic purposes. After that, I looked under the covers to see what magic could be found.

By “magic”, I mean the things that never happened. All of those characters and actions that never existed anywhere but in my own mind. As I dug there, I found that I had a very dark story emerging and I was afraid of it. I was afraid because I was worried that I would hurt someone’s feelings if I told it as it was being told to me.

Now, let’s think about this for a second. I was worried about something that didn’t exist anywhere but in my own mind. Truly, there is nothing to connect what I was thinking to the real events of that day or the people in my wife’s family. It’s completely made up. And yet, there is that fear. What on earth was I afraid of?

When you feel that fear creeping in, you’re on track to getting the story out of your raw materials.

This doesn’t mean that every story has to be some dreary affair where people are tortured and killed or lots of bad things happen (although it helps). The fear is just a guide, a marker, that indicates the entry-point to the dramatic events that should shape the story. As a writer of stories, you have to dig into this fear and find out what’s itching under the surface.

The reaction from readers of “Albany Cutter” (and editors who rightly rejected it) was fairly universal, “Nice. Nice but… ‘Meh.’” When I look back at this piece and my notes, I see that I was reaching for a large social commentary on the decline of the rural way of life, the farming life. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just a theme really, not a story. The story is completely untold.

So where is the story? The jumping off point is way down on page 9…

George put the boy into the bucket. How he knew to snap the reins, George couldn’t guess, but he laughed and played along while the boy went like hell across the countryside on a frosty winter’s evening.

But where did they really go in that cutter? George wondered if they raced it across the powdery snow of early morning or under the stars all night. A person couldn’t take a fancy sleigh like that to church. It was only big enough for one person anyway, like something that might have belonged to a doctor.

I wrote up a little section about the real story in my notes and in fact it is the place where I completely froze. I had a picture in my mind of a man, a horrible man who ruled his family like a tyrant. He’d race that sleigh like hell over the froze road, like the devil himself churning sparks in the pitch black night. This man was absolutely brutal. The real story is the murder of this man at the hands of his son who butchered him one night in the snow outside their house.

This is how the cutter came to be forgotten but also how the family could never seem to get rid of it. Only the old man (Henry in the story) knew the real story. Of course, Henry is based on a real man but the events I just mentioned above are completely fabricated – mostly.

Yes, that mostly should make you wonder and I think that’s inherently what makes a story a story. The something that is mostly if not probably true, if not in deed at least in thought. This is what makes you pause before writing or holds you back completely.

You must push through the fear or else you’ll end up with piece after piece like “Albany Cutter.”

Albany_Cutter.pdf