Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Writing Prompt 44

Mike kicked a pebble on the pier and watched it plop down into the sea. “Okay, we’re here. Now what?”

Alex rolled his eyes and sighed as if he had other, better things to do than explain trivial things to the village fool for the tenth time. “Now we wait.” He spoke slowly and intoned each word to make sure the message got through. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and bounced on the balls of his feet.

Mike fought the urge to introduce his fist to Alex’s face. Instead, he nodded and chewed on his lower lip. Moments later, when the silence became unbearable, he spoke again. “For how long?” Pompous, know-it-all little prick was going to get the beating of a lifetime, if he gave him another stupid or arrogant answer.

“Until something big happens. Now. Shut. Up.”

Mike flexed his fist and tried to picture his friend’s nose as a swollen, three-feet-wide monstrosity across his face. He caught sight of something strange from the corner of his eye. He turned his head to it, and something cold sped from the base of his skull, down his spine, all the way to his limbs. “Big as in… like that perhaps?” He pointed at the shore.

Alex turned and looked. His face turned ashen, and the bulge on his throat went down once and rose slowly. His mouth hung.

“Sea going away big enough for you? Where’s the sea going, Alex? Huh? You messed up. Again.”

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Through Stranger Eyes to the first beta readers

Through Stranger Eyes is now at the hands of the first betas. I’m really curious what mistakes each will find and how they’ll deal with the questionnaire I sent them. I’m 100% sure that some of the mistakes will be the same ones I spotted in other people’s work in the past. It’s amazing how hard it is to identify simple things in our own work, but once we get someone else’s work, boom! The mistake is there, glaring and annoying. I should clarify here, that when I say mistake, I mean anything that draws the reader away from being immersed in the story. There are no mistakes in creative work.

It’s always strange when others read someone else’s work. As long as the book stays with the writer, it’s protected. Not only that, but the writer is also protected. It’s almost like the two form a symbiotic bond. They’re both barricaded in a safe zone the other creates. The moment someone else reads the material, both writer and book are exposed and vulnerable. And if the writer isn’t used to receiving criticism… It’s our baby, our creation, our vision.

I don’t know how established writers feel about this, if they’re worried of the quality of their work, even with the team of professionals and fans behind them to pick up on continuity issues, spelling mistakes, plot holes etc. I imagine they feel the same. Perhaps their lack of confidence is short-lived, since they have an established reader base and a brand name to back them up. If I ever reach that point in my career, I’ll let you know.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Discoverability is directly related to readers

New and seasoned writers alike read all the time about the importance of promotion and marketing. The necessity for discoverability. Of how to tap the readers’ shoulder and politely (hopefully) let them know of their presence.

Since I decided I wanted to publicise my work and earn money from my words, I’ve bookmarked and read tens of articles and advice on the process, what is needed, what should not be done, about the hurdles a writer has to overcome. And still, until recently, I couldn’t picture me actually doing it. I couldn’t put my mind around what it would be like. I expected it would happen at some point, regardless of the path I’d choose – self published or traditional. I wanted it to happen, to have people read my work, but when it came to picturing it, it eluded me.

Discoverability is directly related to readers. Vague concepts. Readers. Plural. Impossible to see their faces, impossible to reach them, yet, they’re there. I guess it’s one of those things that no matter how much you expose yourself to the theory behind it, you can never fully grasp it until you get your hands dirty with it.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I self-published my first short story on Amazon and let me be honest with you; since I did it, most of the time I feel like a Lilliputian creature, hopping up and down, waving my arms like a drowning man begging for help, squeaking in my barely audible tiny voice, for the readers’ attention. Tap on their shoulder? I can’t even reach their toes to get their attention. And you know what’s worse? The more I read and try to implement the theory to practice, the theory, the less sense it all
makes, and the less everything seems to work. For me, at least, since others are doing fine.

Then again, it could be the reason behind my seeming ineptitude in making marketing work for me, is because I expect things to happen instantly, even though I keep reminding myself that the publishing process is a marathon (if not a super marathon), not a sprint. I recently added myself to two author promotion communities; iAuthor and Allauthor. My flawed mindset told me I should witness results of some sort within the first couple of days. My rational side said, “nah. Not the way it’s going to happen.”

Guess which one won?

I’m not sure if it’s my educational background to blame. Hard sciences (Geology is part of them, or so I was told) deal with experiments, observations, and results (yes, even though geologists can’t exactly experiment – when was the last time you moved a continent to see how it collided with another? – we do come up with observable results). You do the math, you apply the theory, et voilà! You get the answer, the result, the number within the little square of an Excel sheet, or a blown up lab (hello, chemistry folks!). To a certain extent, even Management and Economics (my postgrad education) made it sound as though all I had to do was to apply the theory to practice, and the results would be measurable immediately. Especially in the case of Economics (cut down salaries and pensions, see how fast people starve – it made sense).

Perhaps part of the blame lies with how our demands are met nowadays; we sit behind our screens, click a button, clickety clack, and boom! We just bought a book, just downloaded a movie, just bridged the gap between
Europe and America and talked to our friends. Click, click, click. Results, results, results. All before our eyes before we blink them.

Somewhere at the back of my mind, the tiny squeaky voice, this small part of me that flails his arms to draw my attention, reminds me that it’s a marathon (a super, duper, freaking long marathon), not a sprint. But the voice is faint and the clicks happen one after the other. So fast.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Minor update

I have finally managed to get on track with the new WIP (provisional title Through Stranger Eyes) and be as productive as I want to be.For the past couple of days, despite every distraction imaginable, I have managed to produce 2k words solidly. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me feel. Yeah, I know it’s no big deal, but I had started doubting myself and the story I was trying to write. I mean, it took me hours to put 1k words down, when for my previous book (it feels so nice to be able to say “my previous book,” doesn’t it?) I used to churn 1k words in a little over an hour and a half, maybe two, if I was distracted.

The draft (so far about 21k words) is still not as great as it could be, and chances are I’m going to have to revise and rewrite to similar extent as I did with The Darkening (honestly, I hope not), but I’ve come to accept a simple fact; I can not produce a good first draft. That’s fine. First drafts are what the phrase implies, meaning only the first step of something better. It’s like digging a hole in the ground. It’s not pretty when you’re done, but what matters is what you build afterwards. I still don’t have a good feel for the characters (which was the case with The Darkening as well), but I’m getting there. I might also need to take a step back from the tight POV I’m using at the moment (the same as I used for the previous book), probably choose a more traditional POV, one where the main character can have after their dialogue the invisible tag “s/he said.” But I’m not worried so much about that now. The transition, if I do end up making it, will not be as hard as it was for The Darkening. I think I have also figured out which of the first scenes I’ll delete or merge with others, which means the story resonates better with me now, hopefully even more as I keep going. Overall, I’m satisfied, mainly because I feel productive.

I think one of these days, I’m going to have to publicize the board I’ve been using on Pinterest with images related to cyberpunk and the setting as I imagine it. Are you using any such boards or images when writing about another world (those of you who write fantasy or sci-fi)? Perhaps Google street view when you’re writing about places in other countries? I have found this method to be very helpful.

 

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Page changes and other news

I have added a new contact form in case any of you, devoted readers, wanted a more immediate method of communication. I know the comment system is not very convenient for some of you. You can find the contact link at the top of the page.

Also, I decided to have a go at twitter and now I have an account there as well. You can follow me, or even better you can help me figure out how twitter works, ’cause quite frankly, I can’t understand it. Now, before you point your finger and roll on the floor in a fit of side-clenching laughter, let me assure you that there was a time when no program or electronic device hid its secrets long enough from me. And by long, I mean I had mastered it within a day. And, no, I’m not referring to a bygone decade when I still had hair on my head (haha, funny you who thought of pointing that out, haha… NOT). I’m talking current stuff. But this twitter thing is… is… an infernal and alien machine designed to drive me nuts! I’m trying to follow a simple # thingy (tags or whatever they’re called), which is why I joined in the first place. #Pitmad (or #Pitchmad) will start in a couple of weeks and I was thinking of participating. Alas, I can’t save or follow said tags. I have to type a query and do a search every time I want to see if something new is happening related to it. For the record, I did check their help page; I might as well have tried creating energy out of nothing. It only left me with more question marks dancing mockingly around my head. I have figured out how to make lists, but that’s not what I was looking for. I also found out how to comment publicly mentioning someone else (the use of the @ symbol). But I knew that from Facebook, so… I just want to be able to follow a # tag. Is it even possible?!
Anyway, if you want to follow me on twitter there’s a link to the right of the page. Hope to hear from you.

In other news, outlining the next story has proven to be harder than expected. I thought I had everything, the main story, the characters, their background stories etc, but I can’t shake the feeling the story is too short, that the plot is somehow insufficient. I have about 30 scenes, but when it comes to chapters, I fear I will have around 20. Now, of course the number of scenes or chapters has nothing to do with whether a story is the right size or not. The problem is I keep feeling the plot moves too fast. I thought about introducing a second POV character, one that already had a somewhat significant role in the story, an investigator. I figured I could have him relating information, through his investigation, to the reader, information the main POV character wouldn’t know. The investigator was originally supposed to attempt to apprehend the protagonist, so why not allow the investigator some space to grow and show his side of the story? It makes sense in a way, but when I sit down and try to write some scenes about him, it’s like I’m slamming my head on a concrete wall. With spikes. Which could mean the idea of introducing a new POV is wrong, or that I’m not fully convinced, and my gut feeling is telling me to stop. Perhaps it’s because I’m meddling with a genre I’m not very familiar (mystery).

Here’s a question for you: do you think it’s structurally acceptable to have a second POV character if that character is not the protagonist (or one of them) and his/her chapters are not equal in number to the main character?