“Why Write a Series? Don’t You Have Enough on Your Plate?"

A guest post from Barry Napier...

I asked myself this question roughly one hundred times as I was about halfway through the first draft of Everything Theory: Cold Compass.  Honestly, the first answer that came to mind was the fact that I simply wanted to put myself into an overly ambitious project and see it through.  The second (and honestly most important) answer was this: because the characters of the story were demanding it.

At first, I had never intended Everything Theory to become a series.  It was going to be a nice little one-off story with the potential for other books that tied into the same universe with the same characters. I certainly had no intentions of the books taking up about 90% of my writing time.  But as I made my way through the first book of the series, Cold Compass, I realized that these characters—primarily Gabe, the central character—had a lot more going on than could be covered in one book.

I assumed I could probably get three books out of Gabe, his back story, his father’s sordid history, and the shadow organization that connects it all: CSAR.  I made a few plot maps and was ready to tackle a trilogy.  Then I ended up introducing the villain of Cold Compass, a mysterious figure named Garrison Sleet.  And as I delved more into who/what he might be, it started to appear as if a trilogy might not cover the entire story, either.

So as it stands, I have a 5-book series on my hands.  It is all mapped out and fits rather well (although it appears that Book 4 might be pretty lengthy).  Book 1 has been released, and Book 2 is a few editing sessions away from being wrapped up.  I am currently taking a slight break from the Everything Theory books to give myself a break (or maybe it’s the characters that needed a break) from the twists, turns, and conspiracies.

So…why write a series?  Because sometimes the writer is just the conduit; it’s the characters within the story that are really producing the words.

To learn more about Barry, his Everything Theory books and other works, visit him at his online home: www.barrynapierwriting.wordpress.com.

The Travelling Theatrical Tour: On Dreaming the Impossible

(a guest post by Cate Gardner)

Thank you to Aaron for allowing me to invade his blog so that I can celebrate the release of my book, Theatre of Curious Acts. Aaron is one of my favourite online folk and I thought an apt subject for his blog would be 'On Dreaming the Seemingly Impossible' for as Aaron's recent publication in Shimmer proves, perseverance pays off…

Clarkesworld (insert magazine of your choice here) will never accept one of my stories. I fully expect they won't - most of the time. This isn't a case of doubting whether my stories are good enough, it's about a market that thousands of writers target and, which only accepts twelve a year from the slush pile.

Despite this fact, every time I send them a story I think 'this is the one'.

It never is, of course.

Does receiving a rejection from Clarkesworld bother me? Heck no, I just sent a story to one of the top magazines in the speculative fiction business. I dared to dream.

If rejections get you down, and hey we all have our moments, try to remember that every other writer out there, that one you just twittered, that other who just wrote a Facebook update that left you gasping with envy, they got a rejection yesterday or they'll get one tomorrow. You're not alone. Rejections are part of the business, but their partner is a wonderful thing called hope. What was just rejected goes out into the world with fresh hope.

And you know some of those writers who've had stories accepted by or already published by Clarkesworld, well they didn't think they'd make it in either. Now I need to go check if seven days have passed since I last subbed to Clarkesworld.

*

Theatre of Curious Acts is available at all good online bookstores.

Daniel Cole wants the world to  end.

Returned home from the Great War, his parents and brother in their graves, Daniel walks a ghost world. When players in a theatre show lure Daniel and his friends, fellow soldiers, into a surreal otherworld they find themselves trapped on an apocalyptic path. A pirate ship waits to ferry some of them to the end of the world.

Already broken by war, these men are now the world's only hope in the greatest battle of all.

More information is available at www.categardner.net

 

Guest Starring: Jeremy D. Brooks

Take it away, Jeremy:

My debut novel, Amity, is on the streets...

One of the over-arching themes in Amity is anonymity--specifically, the potential for abuse thereof in online worlds.

In general, the ability to say what you feel in a global forum without fear of personal reprisal is a powerful thing with huge, Peter Parker-esque clauses hidden in the fine print: use it for good or be confident that somebody will eventually swoop down on your favorite online haunts and take that anonymity away.

The internet is rife with examples of free-range anonymous trolling, particularly the chan-style forums.

Imagine Lord of the Flies, but the island inhabitants are cloaked head-to-toe, unidentifiable by size, gender, or age. And there are tens, hundreds of thousands of them lurking about at any given time.

The users have the default option of being anonymous, and that insulation breeds interesting results. Intellectuals become perverts, teenage introverts become leaders, cops share their snuff fantasies, conservative professionals show skin to strangers. The walls are painted with racist jokes and hateful pranks.

Creativity soars. Bits of artistic brilliance often float in unremarkable slime.

Sometimes good deeds are done from behind the wall--recently, thousands of the anonymous users from 4chan called a 95 year old WWII veteran to wish him a happy birthday, much to his delight. They are also known for peaceful protests of the Church of Scientology (and peaceful protests are always a good thing, both the Peaceful part and the Protest part).

But, when a crowd of that size is both self-regulated and anonymous, you can't expect that they will behave themselves often. The collective id tends to take over. And those stories aren't hard to find.

Amity takes the concept of a chan-style website (I feel compelled to repeat that the fictitious website Amity is not, in fact, 4chan, although 4chan did serve as an inspiration) and takes it to darker places. The worst of 4chan is comparable to the most innocuous parts of Amity. It's a kind of thought-experiment: what is the logical conclusion of that world, drawn as a characterization of itself?

The results were, as you'll find in the book, creepy.

Anyway...Amity is available in paperback or Kindle on Amazon, and in most other electronic formats at Smashwords. Check out my website for details: http://jeremydbrooks.com .

And thanks to Mr. Polson for giving me a day on his blog!