2014 - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

Home » Posts Published in: 2014 (Page 5)

Don’t Refuse Your Muse

Is your brain in a rut? If so, you’re not alone. Today I’ll examine this tendency and suggest what you can do about it.

For all its desirable features, the human brain suffers from a love of the familiar and a fear of the unknown. This served as a good survival trait for our ancestors in their world, but it’s no advantage for a writer today.

This hard-wired preference probably prevents many people from becoming writers in the first place, since that can be a scary unknown. Even for those of you who’ve chosen to writers, this unfortunate brain feature keeps you using the same vocabulary words, writing about the same topics in the same genres, writing stories with the same themes and using very similar characters. It thwarts your creative urge, putting you at war with your muse.

As I’ve said before, your muse gets bored with the familiar and seeks the new and fresh. She grabs your arm and pulls you away from the safe and the known, beckoning you to explore the untrodden path. Her brain is wired in a different way.

Perhaps you disagree, thinking you don’t suffer from the malady I’ve described. You deny being a creature of habit who rushes to the familiar and avoids the unknown. Fine. Here’s your test. Tonight, before going to bed, hide your toothbrush. Let’s see how Mr. or Ms. Creativity handles things the next morning. Good luck!

For a great illustration of the problem, I encourage you to read “The Calf Path” by Sam Walter Foss. This poem paints an amusing metaphor of how our brains work.

Advertising Director Gina Sclafani wrote about dealing with the phenomenon. I find it interesting how she thought at first the task would be easy, since she prided herself on being open-minded. Then she well describes the difficulty, the inner resistance, to any steps outside the mind’s comfort zone. In the end, she’s glad she did, because the rewards are great, but she warns it is a journey pitting one part of your mind against a powerful counteracting part.

Here’s a three-step method you could try as a writer to push yourself out of your comfort zone. I’ll illustrate it with story genres, but it could also work with characters, themes, settings, style, or any aspect of story-writing in which you’re stuck.

1. Make a list of story genres you’d never consider writing about. Include the ones you find stupid, abhorrent, unseemly, etc. It’s no big deal, right? After all, you’re never going to write in any of these genres.

2. Spend five to ten minutes thinking through each genre on your list. Think about each one as follows: “I’ll never write in this genre, of course, but if I were to do so, here’s the story I’d write…” You needn’t write down any of these ideas, just think through them.

3. Now let some time pass. A few days, weeks, or even months. This allows your muse to do her thing. You might well find she’s yanking on your arm and leading you down an unfamiliar path toward writing in one of those unwanted genres.

A similar thing happened to me. I knew I’d never write in the horror genre. Then I noticed a publisher seeking stories for an anthology to be called Dead Bait. I dismissed it, but my muse didn’t. She worked on the idea for a story she made me write called “Blood in the River.” I’m still not a horror story writer, but it felt good to get out of the comfort zone.

One final thought. At one point in their lives, each of history’s greatest contributors (think of da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Edison, Einstein, etc.) had to leave a comfort zone in order to develop his or her eventual talents. Imagine the loss to mankind if one of them hadn’t taken that step? What if you could become a popular, successful, or timeless writer if only you stretch your mind in a direction it doesn’t want to go?

You’ll have to excuse me. This calf-path I’m walking along is nice, but some woman wearing a chiton is tugging at my sleeve. “What’s that? Where? But that’s off the path and looks terrifying to—

Poseidon’s Scribe”

April 21, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Just Your (Writing) Style

Style is one of the five fundamental elements of fiction, along with character, plot, setting, and theme. It’s also the most difficult of the five to explain or understand.

I like to start my blog posts by defining terms, but this time I’ll let the definition of style emerge as we go. For now, I’ll say that every author writes differently, with certain identifying characteristics. In theory, if we took a sufficient random sample of any single author’s writing, we could identify the author by the style.

According to Wikipedia, the components of style include: Fiction-writing modes, Narrator, Point of View, Allegory, Symbolism, Tone, Imagery, Punctuation, Word choice, Grammar, Imagination, Cohesion, Suspension of disbelief, and Voice.

Each item on that long list does contribute to style, but some are more important than others, and some are more characteristic of a particular story than of the author’s general manner of writing.

To me, the major characteristics of style are Tone, Word choice, and Grammar:

Tone is the attitude displayed by the writer toward the subject matter of the story.
Word choice, or diction, relates to the author’s vocabulary. Does the author stay with simple, understandable words or employ arcane words? Does the author embellish with adjectives and adverbs, or let the nouns and verbs do the work?
Grammar is all about the structure and logic of sentences. What sentence patterns and lengths does the author prefer?

Although your style may change as you mature in your writing, readers like it better when authors maintain a consistent style. Style can set you apart from all other writers; it can be the factor that keeps readers buying more of your books.

If you’re wondering how to go about creating your own style, I recommend you read the list created by author David Hood in this blog post. His eleven-item list can seem intimidating, so just focus on items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. I think if you learn the rules of writing, expand your vocabulary, read a great deal, experiment with different styles, and learn about literary techniques, your own style will emerge naturally.

What’s more, you shouldn’t have to work too hard to continue using your newly discovered style. It should flow from you in a natural way. Unlike your stories, which are overt acts of creative effort, your style is something that should emerge. In a sense, you’re unleashing it, not creating it. Even if it does require a little effort at first, in time it will get easier.

Perhaps you’ve gotten a better understanding of style now, that signature or fingerprint that identifies you and separates you from other writers. With any luck, readers will love your style. For now, I’ll sign off in the usual style of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 13, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dreaming of Success

Do you fantasize about being a best-selling author? If so, what form does your daydreaming take? Are you being interviewed by a famous talk-show host? Receiving a call from someone in Hollywood who wants to turn your story into a movie? Throwing a huge book launch party? Swimming through money in your mansion’s vault?

Today’s ramblings are about whether your Walter Mitty-type flights of fancy are helpful or harmful.

First of all, I think such dreaming is normal. It’s typical when a person embarks on any new endeavor. It’s natural to wonder, “What if I turn out to be really, really good at this?” My guess is that everyone considers this question whether they’re throwing a football, playing a piano, or writing a story. After all, someone has to be the world’s greatest, and maybe it could be you.

Further, some experts see the practice of visualizing future success as useful, even necessary. Sports trainers often urge players to imagine succeeding on the field or court. However, I believe the focus of such training is on actual moves or plays while engaged in the sport; the players are not encouraged to dream about lofting trophies high in the air while confetti rains down.

If you’re a beginning writer who envisions instantly skyrocketing to the New York Times bestseller list, it’s important to understand that such stratospheric success is a low-probability thing. The overwhelming majority of authors get nowhere near that.

However, I’ll be the first to admit that such literary victories, however rare, are possible. In my view, though, if you do become a famous writer, it won’t be because you daydreamed about it first.

Here’s my list of ways you can know if your dreams of success have become harmful to you as a writer:

The fantasies take time away from writing.
You begin to see your visions as the measure of your success.
Fame or fortune becomes your sole goal, rather than becoming the best writer you can, or creating the best stories you can.
You become disappointed or frustrated when you can’t achieve the exact scene foretold in your dreams.
The dreams become a fixation, a dominant part of your life.

On the positive side, here’s my list of ways you’ll know that such dreaming is okay, or even helpful:

Your flights of fancy are occasional.
You see your daydreams as motivational and inspiring.
After your visualizations, you feel like writing.
You understand that your visions represent unlikely events, and you regard them as fanciful, innocent fun.

When the glittering fame and fortune of your imagination collides with the dreary reality of long, solitary hours spent writing followed by numerous initial rejections, it’s important that you learn certain things:

1. You can enjoy writing for its own sake. The goal is a well-crafted story, not any accolades that might ensue.

2. Two of the prime factors determining whether you’ll be a well-known author are skill and luck. You can work to improve your skill. You can’t control luck.

So dream your dreams, novice writer, but keep a bit of perspective about the whole endeavor. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to try on my tux and practice my acceptance speech for the big award dinner. Or perhaps that’s all in the mind of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 6, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

8 Useful Facts about Copyrighting Your Short Story

Sure, I know, you’re an author and you don’t want to have to bother with all that legal stuff like copyrighting. You just want to write. You don’t understand that funny little symbol (©), and you hate that your word processor comes up with it when you type (c). You’ve landed at the right blog post. I’ll make this easy.

First the necessary disclaimer. I’m no lawyer, let alone a copyright attorney. For the best legal advice, hire or befriend one of them.

Definition time. What’s a copyright? It’s a granting to you by the government of exclusive legal rights to the distribution and use of the story you wrote, for a set period of time. The rationale for copyrights is to forge a compromise between two desirable goals: (1) writers should get paid for their creative effort, and (2) eventually, all creative works should be shared without restriction for the betterment of humanity.

This blog post covers copyrights of short stories in the United States only. For other intellectual property and for the laws in other countries, you’ll have to search elsewhere.

Here’s the stuff you need to know:

If you wrote the story yourself and didn’t copy someone else’s, and if you have finished it in some fixed form, it’s already copyrighted. Automatically. (The only known case where lawyers and the government made things easy for you.)
Your copyright gives you the following rights and denies them to others. You can copy it, distribute it, perform it, display it, and create derivative works like sequels or adaptations in other forms.
Your copyright is effective immediately and will expire seventy (70) years after your death, at the end of that calendar year. That’s according to current law, but they change it every now and then.
Since you wrote your story after 1989, you don’t need to add the copyright symbol, though you may do so if it makes you feel better. The format is: Symbol (©), year, your name. (Example: © 2014 Steven R. Southard)
You also don’t need to register your copyright. If you decide to do so, (with the U.S. Electronic Copyright Office), then things are a bit easier for you if someone steals your story. You won’t have to prove it’s yours, and I understand you can sue for greater amounts. But there are fees for registration.
If you’ve heard about mailing your story to yourself and using the postmark as an official way to establish the date of your story, forget it. That so-called “poor man’s copyright” doesn’t give you any more protection than you had before mailing, and it isn’t a substitute for registering a copyright.
When you sign a contract with a publisher, you’re selling some of your story rights to that publishing company in exchange for payment. If you’re just starting out, these contracts are pretty standard. Once you become more experienced, you can negotiate which rights you want to retain.
If you post your story on the internet, you may be giving up some or all of your copyright protections. (If that’s your intent, good!) The site on which you post the story will have user agreements that specify the rights you’re granting them by posting there.

That’s it. If you’re feeling more like a lawyer than a writer now, I suggest you burn any briefcases or suits you might have, and take a warm shower with vigorous application of soap and water to get the lawyerly residue off. That’s what’s next in store for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 30, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Interview with the Adjective Expert

Recently I had the honor of interviewing Amber Wise Savage, President of the English Language Adjective Council (ELAC).* Following is the entire text of that interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: First of all, Amber, welcome to the world of Poseidon’s Scribe and thank you for consenting to this exclusive interview.

Amber Wise Savage: You’re most welcome, and many thanks for the superb opportunity.

PS: Let’s start with the basics. Please tell us about adjectives.

AWS: I’d be happy to. Adjectives are describing words. They modify or qualify nouns and noun phrases. They make up about a solid quarter of all English words. That’s only half the number of those over-plentiful nouns, so we have some catching up to do.

PS: Catching up? Do you think the language needs more adjectives?

AWS: Of course. The current number is meager, scanty, and insufficient.

PS: But don’t you think fiction writers should be sparing in their use of adjectives? Not every noun needs an adjective, after all.

AWS: I disagree. I’ve never seen a noun that couldn’t benefit from two or three choice adjectives.

PS: That used to be true, certainly, when authors used long and flowery descriptions, but don’t today’s readers prefer prose with unadorned nouns and powerful verbs? Don’t adjectives slow down the pace?

AWS: What a dreadful thought, and quite false. Fiction would be bland, barren, and dull without adjectives.

PS: But you’d agree that most adjectives tend to tell, not show, and writers are always being told to show, not tell.

AWS: Again, indisputably false. Writers whose fiction tells too much should not blame innocent adjectives. In like manner, in fiction that shows, you’ll always find well-placed adjectives there, shouldering their share of the burden.

PS: I can see why you’re President of the ELAC. You must acknowledge, though, that some adjectives are used in a redundant way, pleonasms such as closed fist, exact same, and new invention. Also, there are some worthless adjectives that do nothing to modify a noun, weak and ineffectual words like comely, foolish, lovely, pleasant, pretty, stupid, and wonderful.

AWS: For every poor use of adjectives you could cite, I could give you a myriad examples of excellent adjectives that give crisp, focused meaning to their nouns.

PS: I’m sure that’s true. On that note of agreement, I’d like to thank you, Amber Wise Savage, for joining me today. You’re an effective advocate for adjectives everywhere.

AWS: You’re welcome. It’s been…interesting.

Well, that was something. You readers of my blog will have to form your own opinion. Other good blog posts about the use of adjectives in fiction are here, here, here, and here. Amber and I disagree about the extent to which fiction writers should use adjectives. But you’ll have to decide who you’re going to believe, a paid proponent of adjectives, or—

Poseidon’s Scribe

* Not a real person. Not a real council. No interview took place. Some of the facts are true, however.

March 23, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Cliché Okay, or So Passé?

Every writer tells you to purge clichés from your prose (and I will too), but then those same writers go ahead and use clichés in their own books. Sadly, I have too. That’s not due to intentional hypocrisy; it’s just that the nasty critters are so darn hard to eradicate.

What’s a cliché? It’s an overused expression or phrase. Before becoming a cliché, the short collection of words started out being clever. The original author discovered a compact, understandable, shorthand way of stating an idea. The trouble began when others liked the phrase and repeated it. Over and over. Eventually readers got sick of it. The expression lost its freshness and became annoying.

Apologies up front—I have used some clichés in this very blog post. Again, it’s just because the infernal vermin can be difficult to spot and exterminate.

You can understand why it’s unwise to use too many clichés in your writing. They mark the work of an unimaginative and lazy amateur. Such writers just go for the easy, readily-available, (and perfectly apt) phrase instead of thinking deeper about fresh, new ways to express the same thought. The prose comes across as tired, hackneyed, trite, and stale.

Your first draft may contain clichés by the bushel-full. That’s because you were writing at full speed to get the basic thoughts down, knowing you would come back later. At that fast pace, you’re more likely to grab the convenient phrase that comes to mind, the combination of words you’ve heard a hundred times—the cliché. Make a point of hunting for them as you edit and proofread your later drafts.

The best place for spotting clichés is in descriptive passages, where you tried making a comparison between some object or situation in your story to a more real-world example familiar to the reader. Many, many clichés are of that type, handy for relating one ‘thing’ to another in a few, image-enhancing words.

How do you know if you’ve written a cliché? There are lists of clichés online, but by definition clichés are always being created and a few get forgotten through lack of use, so the real list is dynamic.

If you find one in your prose, what do you do? Probably the easiest thing is to delete it and substitute some non-cliché that conveys the same meaning. A more creative alternative is to give the cliché a clever twist, especially one that delivers your message even more exactly than the cliché would have. Consider the twist imparted to the cliché ‘passing the buck’ by President Truman when he posted a sign on his desk reading, ‘The buck stops here.’ Of course, that saying became famous enough and repeated enough to become a cliché itself.

When is it okay to use a cliché? I’d say it’s more acceptable in dialogue, since that’s the way people speak. You can also use them in book or chapter titles, but make sure they fit and are appropriate to the book or chapter text.

At the end of the day (cliché), when all is said and done (cliché), you’ve got the gist (cliché) of clichés and been put in the know (cliché) by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 16, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

FAQs About My Latest Book

Ever since I’ve been dropping hint after hint about my upcoming book (Rallying Cry and Last Vessel of Atlantis), questions have been pouring in. Flooding in. Give me a break, I’m drowning here! More questions came in than I could answer individually.

So I paid for some time on a supercomputer that compiled all the questions, sorted them, combined similar ones, performed complex statistical analyses, and spit out a list of the most frequently asked questions.

Below are those FAQs, complete with answers.

1. What is the book about? In “Rallying Cry,” an aimless youth meets two old geezers who spin bizarre war stories. They tell of a secret World War I regiment in France with ship-sized helicopters and mechanized walking tanks. Just as an inspiring shout can move soldiers to action, perhaps all Kane really needs to turn his life around is a rallying cry. In “Last Vessel of Atlantis,” a ship captain and his crew of explorers return to find Atlantis gone. While facing violent savages, braving fierce storms, and solving internal disputes, they must somehow ensure their advanced Atlantean civilization is not lost forever.

2. Why two stories in one book? I was in a generous mood.

3. Why are these two particular stories combined? They seem so different. Actually, they’re both perfect fits for the What Man Hath Wrought series, which contains stories of alternate history involving people grappling with new technology. The tales are quite different, though, but that means any reader would be bound to like one of them, at least. That makes the book a pretty good purchase, I’d say.

4. What inspired you to write these stories? I’ve written about that before…here and here.

5. That’s a great cover. Who designed it? It is a wonderful cover. Charlotte Holley of Gypsy Shadow Publishing designed it. The bearded soldier gazes at something while a huge steampunk airship glides overhead and a big explosion goes off in the background.

6. Where can I buy the book? Right now you can get it at Smashwords and Amazon. Soon it will be available elsewhere, too.

7. You wrote an Atlantis story before, didn’t you? What a memory you have! My Atlantis-based story, “The Vessel” was published several years ago in an Atlantis anthology. “Last Vessel of Atlantis” is that same story, with a title change and a few other alterations. Definitely worth enjoying again.

8. When will you have a print version rather than an e-book? When the What Man Hath Wrought series is complete, I’m thinking about having a print version of the series. It won’t be for a little while yet, since I have more stories I’d like to add to WMHW.

9. What’s the next story in your What Hath Man Wrought series? But that would spoil the surprise!

Thanks for submitting your questions. I’d invite more, but the deluge nearly crashed the supercomputer last time and almost tripped a wide sector of our national electrical power grid. Let’s avoid tempting that fate, shall we? I suggest you read the book, post a review, and before long there will be another book by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 8, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Technical Difficulties

I know I said my latest book, the two-story compendium of “Rallying Cry” and “Last Vessel of Atlantis,” would be released today, March 1st. I’ve just been informed that due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, the book launch will be delayed a few days, perhaps as much as a week.

My many fans around the world, and on other planets, and those in alternate universes (I know you’re out there and that you read my stuff) must be disappointed. I assure you, no one is more distressed about this than I am.

Why the delay? The fact is, publishing an e-book is a complicated business, so I’ve been told. There’s the virtual ink to pour in, the imaginary rollers to align, the invisible type to set. There are gears that turn, levers that snap, boots that kick buckets over, marbles that roll down inclines into chutes, balls that fall into bathtubs, cages that catch mice. It’s very involved.

With all that bewildering complexity, it’s amazing that e-books get published at all, let alone on any kind of schedule.

Meanwhile, you were surfing to the various bookseller websites all day since midnight, searching for my book, ready to put it in your shopping cart and to hit ‘place order.’ And now you have to wait. I know what a frustration this must be.

But think how much worse things are for me. I’ve had to postpone the lavish book launch party, reschedule the reservations on the yacht, tell all the celebrity guests to come back in six days, delay the skywriter service and the fireworks team.

Still, I feel pretty bad about the whole thing. As a service to you, I’ll make some suggestions for fun things to do while you wait, things to take your mind off the anticipation.

1. You could buy and read any of my earlier books.

2. Read them all already? You could read one or more again. They are all good for re-reading since you can pick up subtle and enjoyable nuances you missed on first reading them.

3. You could peruse my earlier blog entries. You’ll find some real gems there.

It’s sad this has happened, but we’ll get through this challenge together, you and me. Think of it as just another of life’s little trials. Are you going to mope around, wallowing in misery? Or are you going to pick yourself up, shake off those blues, rise above your gloom and despair, and manage to make it through the day? Be brave, be resolute, and be patient.

I’ll tell you just as soon as the book is available, believe me. Soon enough your persistence and suffering will be rewarded and you’ll be the happy owner of the latest book by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 1, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

But I Didn’t Order Spam

When I started this blog three years ago, I imagined people would view it, and comments would start pouring in. I’m pleased to report the comments are pouring in, at a total of more than 37,000 so far. The bad news is, all but 73 are spam. Of the 73, only 42 are comments from other people, the remainder being my responses.

What is this spam that constitutes 99.8% of the comments I receive? It’s a comment not intended to respond to my blog post at all, but rather to create a link back to the spammer’s website that increases the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking of that website.

At first I puzzled over these. I’d get comments from someone named Daewrnad Ylkernkc, or Prostate Cancer, or Ugg Boots—vague comments like “Great blog post. I enjoyed it.” or “I was surfing the web, found your site, and the information here is great. Keep it up!” Often the comments contained spelling and grammatical errors. Some went on and on about topics unrelated to my post. Some comments were in foreign languages, and some consisted of nothing but question marks.

I considered replying “Thanks, Ms. Ylkernkc, (or Mr. Cancer, etc.), I’m glad you enjoyed my blog post. Visit any time.” But a friend explained the concept of spam to me.

Now I use a WordPress plugin called Akismet to screen all the comments I receive and it sorts out which ones it thinks are spam and which are legitimate. That Akismet software is pretty good, I must say.

Still, I do review every comment I get, whether Akismet considers it spam or not. Often the spam is entertaining. Sometimes I see a comment that comes quite close to a legitimate response to my specific blog post, but then I see that it’s from Ugg Boots and that there are seven more comments just like it from people with equally unlikely names.

I should state at this point that I do not mean to disparage the food product known as Spam® in any way. My blog post refers solely to a different meaning of that word. I’m sure Hormel Foods has considered renaming it, considering the negative connotations.

Akismet is not the only defense against spam. One day I might have to shift to Captcha, which makes would-be commenters have to pass a test to see if they’re human before they’re allowed to comment.

If you blog, are you inundated with spam, too? How do you deal with it? Leave a comment and let me know. If you’re a spammer, feel free to leave a comment, but I’ll warn you right now that it won’t get approved by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 23, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

What Everyone’s Waiting For

Everybody’s talking about it. It’s all over the internet, crashing servers with the added traffic. Social media sites are abuzz about it. You can feel the pervasive air of excitement and anticipation.

Calm down, world. It’s just my next book. You’re going to have to wait until the release date of March 1 to buy it.

Actually, it’s two stories in one e-book release, a two-fer. “Rallying Cry” and “Last Vessel of Atlantis” are paired together. What are these stories about? Thought you’d never ask.

In “Rallying Cry,” an aimless youth named Kane Jones meets two old geezers who spin bizarre war stories. They tell about having served in a secret World War I outfit in France—the Jules Verne Regiment—with ship-sized helicopters and mechanized walking tanks. Just as an inspiring shout can move soldiers to action, perhaps all Kane really needs to turn his life around is a rallying cry.

Ever since reading John Biggins’ novel A Sailor of Austria, I’d longed to write a story set in a nursing home with an older character (two, in my story) imparting the memories of a bygone time to a younger character. I finally did. “Rallying Cry” takes off in different directions than Biggins’ book, of course, and I recommend you read both.

In “Last Vessel of Atlantis, a ship captain and his crew of explorers return to find Atlantis gone. While facing violent savages, braving fierce storms, and solving internal disputes, they must somehow ensure their advanced Atlantean civilization is not lost forever. Fans with long memories will realize this is a slightly revised version of another story of mine published as “The Vessel.” The new title is better, don’t you think?

I explained the origin of this story in a previous blog post. It was fun for me to imagine the difficulties faced by a small crew of sailors who find themselves the sole survivors of their advanced civilization, with all other continents populated by primitive savages.

If you can just hang on a couple of weeks until March 1, the book will be available here. Deep breaths might help you cope with the anxiety until then, along with taking time to think about other, less exciting, things. Your patience will be rewarded, and that’s a promise from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 16, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink