On Mary Sue

I think it’s safe to say that everyone who’s been involved in writing for any length of time has heard the term Mary Sue. It’s a term that’s been around for a couple decades, and the meaning of the term itself has changed over the years. The core of what the character is hasn’t changed that much, but how it’s used has.

A Mary Sue usually exists in fanfiction as an original character, and is highly disruptive to the story they are in. They come in and someone take over, every existing character loves them, they can do no wrong, and if they do die it’s the greatest tragedy ever. The character itself is usually based on the author, but more attractive, with more skills and always gets the guy. They are better at anything the normal characters are, even if that is there specialty.

Mary Sues are boring characters to read. They have no faults (or if they do they are small ones that get ignored right after they are mentioned) and know everything. They will always be the ones to save the day, which is a problem in fanfiction as the series characters are the heroes.

A good example of this, if you’re a Buffy fan, is the episode “Superstar”.

It’s harder to have a Mary Sue in original fiction, but it can be done if you work at it. If anything the character is even bigger then in fanfiction, they usually start the story already well known and there very presences is a gift to the normal people. Expect skills all over the place and the ability to solve any problem. They might end up as some form of royalty by the end of the story (usually a princess) and any sequels will make it worse. These are rare, but you can find them. I think they are a misguided attempt to write a strong female character without understanding what makes a strong character in the first place.

Of course anymore none of this is what Mary Sue means. For most people Mary Sue translates directly into “A female character I happen not to like”.

Most characters I see called Mary Sue simply aren’t. They may not be well written, but having a teenage girl who has a few potential boyfriends doesn’t make one a Mary Sue, nor does being a war hero who ends up earning land and titles the hard way. The fact that a female lead is the main character means that the story will revolve around them, saying that makes them a Mary Sue is both silly and a misunderstanding of dramatic narrative.

When it comes down to it, a Mary Sue is the result of an amateur writer jumping in with both feet and writing what they think is an interesting character. If they are willing to improve it will go away after a while. Remember, it’s okay not to like a character, but don’t label every character you don’t like a Mary Sue.

2009 Book Reviews #2

The time has come for my second batch of pocket reviews. Nothing to exciting here, but hopeful more will be forthing coming as I have a lot more time to read now.

#6: Aviation Weather

If this book is ‘by’ anyone, it’s the FAA. It’s one of the publications they made years ago describing weather for pilots. It’s pretty direct in what it does, coving the basics of how weather works and why it works the way it does.

All told a fairly interesting book and the description of weather is probably one of the best I’ve run into while trying to study up on this topic. That’s not to say that it was all that easy or understandable, the whole thing is very complex, but I feel like I have a better understanding of things.

Funny thing is, it turns out the book is available online, though it’s a pretty low quality scan. It was worth then small outlay to get the hardcopy.

#7: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

It’s funny to look back at this book in light of the James Bond movies and the recent film version of the book itself. Being the first book of the series it does have a bit of a different tone. In fact it really wasn’t anything like I was expecting.

When it comes down to it, this book is more of a procedural drama then it is a thriller. It spends pages of time going on and on about what being a spy is all about, how messages are passed or how decisions are made, that sort of thing. There is some action, but it’s very quick and only lightly scattered over the book.

The ending is also slow, there’s still a good thirty pages or so between the resolution of the plot and the end of the book (the movie was very faithful to this fact). It seems to meander around until the plot decides to take a sudden twist and be done. There was also some confusion as to how baccarat was working here, it wasn’t very well described, it did have a human element to it (unlike how it’s usually played) so there was some skill involved.

Even so it’s still a pretty good book, and other then the last bit a fairly quick read.

#8: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

So, now I have a werewolf novel to go with the werelion novel from a couple months back. This one is set here in Washington, and fairly close to where I grew up, which was an interesting setting, but it didn’t really change the story.

Story wise, it’s pretty good, even if there is a bit of a convoluted plot. I never really understood the motives of the bad guys and how they were all related to each other. Even so I did enjoy the story to an extent.

I did have one problem with this story, and I think it’s an issue with the genre as a whole. The werewolves were way to powerful. They had super speed, strength, sense, healing, and are near immortal. All of this in human form. This really bothers me, were’s are really about physical magic, a man becomes a wolf, but as a man is still pretty much a man. I can buy better hearing or scent, but at the very top of human capability, but not wolf level scent in a human nose, it just doesn’t work for me.

Frankly, it did detract from the story, but not too much.

#9: Doctor Who: To the Slaughter by Stephen Cole

There are many different things a Doctor Who novel can be, it can be horror, it can be a mystery, it can even be comedy, but there’s one thing it should never be. It shouldn’t be boring. This book failed at that hands down.

The plot is simple, the 8th Doctor and crew land to get some repairs and get caught up in events. This time it involves ‘reworking’ the solar-system to be more pleasing and to bring business back to the system. It’s being run by a corrupt executive and a rather crazy artist.

Part of the plot involves hate making slugs and hypnotic paint. You think it could at least be a bit silly, but it’s not. There’s lots of running around where nothing happens, action that’s not very well described and the plot lurches from side to side every other chapter. It just doesn’t work.

What’s worse is that it turned out the whole book is a piece of fan wank. The writer created the story to explain a minor scientific gaff from the 4th Doctor’s era. That’s it, this is the whole reason this book exists because someone wrote a line in the 70s that said Jupiter had only 12 moons.

What a pointless reason to write a book.

#10: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Well, this is the second to last Narnia book, and it’s a pretty good one. Better then the last two by a narrow margin. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story this tells of the creation of Narnia, the Lamp Post and the Wardrobe, among other things. It fleshes out much of the back story of the setting, which is why it gets stuck as book #1 when it came out as #6. Sadly it makes a lot less sense if you read it first in the series.

Of all the books this is probably the most self contained. There is no large battle at all, and only small parts of it match the larger scope of the rest of the series. In fact it takes place over no more than a day or two and in only a hand full of locations. By most measures it is a small book, though I think it makes it a bit cozier then the rest of the series.

While this isn’t my favorite of the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader wins there; I think this one is in the top three. Pity that it’s one that never gets made into a movie. I think it would be rather interesting if done well.

Paying for the Paper

Today I want to touch a little bit on self publishing, only a little bit because it’s a very wild field and it’s still changing pretty much everyday. In fact the idea of self publishing has changed a great deal in the last ten years.

For perspective lets take a step back to the mind 90s and take a look at what self publishing meant back then and how it still colors some of the market.

Back then self publishing meant either something printed and bound in your basement, or something printed through a vanity press. The basement printing looked cheap, stapled or spiral bound and made on cheep paper. Vanity presses were books, and usually well printed at that, but came at a cost. The author had to pay for the printing and usually in lots to large to ever sell every copy of.

No mater how it was published, a self published book was a synonymous with bad writing. On the whole it was a bit of a bad mark for an author to self publish a book and it could have a negative effect on selling to a mainstream press.

Today things are different, there are many different ways to self publish, and many of them can be a wonderful springboard into the ‘mainstream’ markets, and even what is mainstream is starting to change as well.

To start with you have personal websites. I’ve had one for years and I’ve been posting my stories to my sight since the mid 90s. They are harder to sell (putting the story on your website does use the first printing rights) but can be a great way to introduce people to your work.

Of course a personal website is a hard draw. Very few people will find it by accident unless they are looking for you already. It does help you get on the top of the search results for your name which is an important thing for self-promotion, but that’s another show.

Next up in doing a print on demand version of your book, though sites like Lulu or BookSurge. I can only speak with authority about Lulu, but I believe that BookSurge works the same way. These are not like the vanity presses in the past; you do not pay to have your book published. These sites will take a part of the sale price for their costs and you get the rest, the only up front cost is time. The quality of the printing is pretty good as well, or as good as you want to make it. Lulu offers everything from simple spiral bound books to hard covers.

With POD you still have the problem of peopling finding your work, if no one can find you no one will buy your work.

The next option is the newest, Podcasting your work. This is still a growing market, and as large as it is, it is still feeling out exactly what it is going to be. The overhead to start a podcast, even a simple one, is pretty high. You need a good microphone and a computer you can mix audio on, that and a lot of time. Reading a full book like this can be a challenge, even more so if you’re doing more then just a direct reading. Unlike a POD book the work spans the life on the podcast and never really goes away until the show itself does.

On the other hand Podcasts are very easy to find. There are many different search engines just for podcasts, including iTunes. If you chose your title and description well you can make it easy for people to find. Podcasts are also a community; a good promo for your show can run on many different podcasts, bringing the show to the attention of even more people.

POD and Podcasts can also go hand in hand. Many podcasted books have come out with print of demand versions of the book once the show was finished.

Unlike Print of Demand, where only one or two books have broken into the mainstream, there doesn’t seem to be a month that goes by where some podcasted book jumps to the mainstream. It’s not easy, you have to really work hard to make a great book and a great podcast, but it can be done.

So, looking back at the last decade it’s amazing just how much self publishing has changed, and is starting to change the market. It’s no longer a bad thing to have put out your own work, and in fact can be the one thing you need to get you books into the stores (and into the hand of more readers). I’m sure this will keep changing over the next few years, and I look forward to seeing what these new markets will become.

It’s a bit of a contest

To help with my writing I have a weekly writing goal, in this case 5k words for the week (in this case the week ends on Sunday for historical reasons). Some weeks I make this, some weeks I don’t. To aid in this I keep track of what stories I’ve worked on and how much I wrote on them.

I started this back in 2003, and in 2003 & 2006 I managed to do just that, in fact I came in a hair under 300k words in 2006. In ‘04, ‘05, ‘07 and ‘08 I came in around 120k to 150k words. So far this year I’m on pace to come in a bit under my goal (I’m already behind for the year, but I’m catching up every week).

One of my other friends as her own writing goal that she is working to meet, and has been doing a wonderful job of that. After seeing this a couple weeks ago I suggested that we should have a little competition to see how long we could stick to our goals.

So far it’s been working, the last couple of weeks I’ve worked hard to meet my goals. In fact last week I would have been happy to slip by with 4k if it wasn’t for this contest. We’re just going to go to see how long it goes. It’s just another way to get a little extra kick to meet my goals.

Thoughts on “Star Trek”

Like a lot of people I went to see “Star Trek” this weekend and on the whole I can say that I recommend it. I think it’s a pretty fun movie with a good story and a nice collection of actors. Yes it’s a reboot of the series, but I think how they did it was creative and allows them to really just do what they want to do, both by touching of the best parts of the Original Series as well as doing completely new things.

Now, here is an interesting observation of the movie. Even at around 100 minutes long, it’s a very lean movie. Everything that happens on the screen either advances the plot and/or the characters. There doesn’t seem to be a moment wasted in the whole movie, everything is doing something, and usually two things at once.

This is an important lesson for both movies and for books. There are to many stories that just sit around talking about things that aren’t really related to the plot. Things like showing off the scenery or brandishing the research. These sorts of things don’t really add anything to the story.

So, a new second most important thing: When your editing your story ask yourself if the current scene either progress your plot or your character, if it doesn’t maybe it shouldn’t be in your story.

A Drafty Story

I’m sure this has happened to all of you out there at some point in the early stages of your writing career. At some writing panel an author talks about how they had to work on three or four drafts of a story. You, still young and naive, sit back and think to yourself how much time and effort you put on your first draft to make sure it’s perfect. Maybe you’ll need a little adjusting here or there, but hardly a full rewrite. It’s done the first time.

Let’s be honest, I’ve done this, you’ve done this, and if you’re still thinking this be assured that the odds are not in your favor. For the majority of authors this statement is simply wrong, your first draft will not be perfect and will need a lot of work until the story is publishable. But perfection is not what the first draft is for.

I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about what a first draft is meant to be. It’s not about doing a perfect story the first time, or even doing it right the first time. The first draft is about trying to write the story and seeing if it works. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be plotted, and it doesn’t even have to be spellchecked (though it couldn’t hurt).

All the first draft really is, is places to throw all your ideas you have for a story and see if they work. This could either come from fleshing out your existing outline, or just writing the story to see where the story will take you. It doesn’t even have to be structured when you write it. You could write it from front to back, sideways, or even top to left.

You can also write more then you need to. On your first draft there is no reason not to write ten pages of the villains POV to work out his motivations, or a prolog to help set up the setting. It’s the first draft; its job is to be there to put the fresh new story into words.

The important thing to remember is that quality doesn’t matter. It’s the first draft, and you shouldn’t care about the quality at this time around. If you get stuck on finding the perfect opening line you may never get to any of the interesting parts of the story.

One of the main points of the first draft is to, in the immortal words of Mur, “give yourself permission to suck” (which would make a great title for book on writing). Don’t take that permission for granted, and don’t skip it.

So, when it comes down to the first draft, just sit down and start writing. Put the words on the page, experiment with what you want to see, and create or destroy characters. Whatever you do, just remember to have fun doing it. It’s just the first draft, sit back and let it flow.

Everything takes time

So, here I am at the end of another week’s worth of writing. My writing goal is in site and my current story is almost done (and much longer then I had expected it to be). It’s a good story, but not great, I’m going to have to really work it in the editing phase to get it up to the level I want it to be, otherwise I’m just going to be disappointed with it.

Still trying to work out a good plot for the werewolf novel, I think I’m going to have to either do a full on brainstorming session or bust out with a rush of outlining to see if that jogs anything free. Maybe I should just start with working out how my weres work; I want them to be different than the current crop of overpowered werewolves I keep finding in fiction.

Naturally, once I have weres worked out I should do the vamps, even if they don’t show up in this story. They are a part of the setting and they have been mentioned in passing before. Of course there is nothing nice about them, they are just monsters.

I just need to juggle all of this between writing and editing, along with the rest of my life. Time never seems to be on my side.

Slipping forward

Well, I managed to write about 1000 words last night, I suspect about a third of them will be cut out when I get to the editing cycle. I'm starting to think that the current story has a lot more fat then I care for and is going to lose a lot more then the usual 10% during the editing process.

I'm still trying to keep up with my writing goals. My preference is to hold to the 5,000 words a week, but I'm well behind that goal. In fact I'm about 20,000 words behind that goal, but I'm slowly making up ground. I might break even by late fall.

My lower goal, that of 4,000 words a week, is a little bit closer. I'm only a couple thousand words below what I should be at. It's not the best goal, but it's okay for the wide target. I'm still hoping to get things a bit tighter.

To help with my goals I've been talking with a friend about doing some friendly competition. We each have weekly goals, so we'll see how long we can go without missing them. I think it will be a good piece of incentive. I'll keep you updated about that.

Lastly, there is a new writing blog on the block. Cranking Plot. It just started and I hope it goes well. We can always use new writing blogs with new perspectives on writing.

My written words

So, lets talk about writing for a bit, as I don’t really cover what I’ve been doing writing wise.

“Changing the Way” came back with another rejection letter attached to it. Can’t say I’m happy about it, but I’m just going to have to push through. I think I’ve finally been rejected enough that it doesn’t really bother me, now I just need to get over that fear of rejection.

I’m currently looking through the market lists again to see if I can find a market that it would work with it, outside of that I’m not sure what else I can do with it. It’s only been rejected a couple of times, once with notes, but it’s not enough for me to go back and try to rework the story, not until it gets rejected a lot more (or I get some more notes all on the same issues).

I’m working on something to submit to the current quarter of Writers of the Future. I have a couple of stories that stand out, both sci-fi though one is very low key, so low key I’m not sure if it’s even interesting.

I did have something interesting happen last month. I finally sat down to write up a story I’ve been playing with for years. During the writing I realized that while the story was told by one character, it really was another character that was changed by the story. Fair enough, it’s a bit of a rework for the story but it will work.

Except that this character needs a lot more then just the events in the story to change how he needs to change to tell the story. In fact it’s going to take a heck of a lot more stuff because of who this man is and because of his place in the world, and as I look at it, the same is true of my main character. There is to much going on for a short story.

So, my short little werewolf story is now only the end of the first act of a werewolf novel, with all the problems that go with it. It gives me the room to tell the characters stories in the way I need to, but now I need a much larger story. The plot of the short story isn’t enough to be expanded into a novel in and of itself.

On the other hand the theme of the story, in this case how the pack and human world can clash with each other, can be expanded to the full novel. In fact I might be able to swing that into an interesting plot line and perhaps avoiding some of the more cliche werewolf plotlines.

Funny, I think that might have given me a plot idea.

2009 Book Reviews, #1

Well, back to my pocket book reviews. I'm doing something a little bit different this time. Instead of trying to do a batch of reviews each month I'm going to post them in batches of five at a time. Nothing to crazy, just feels a bit more productive. The upshot is that I can go for a while without feeling like I'm missing a deadline or something.

Why do I do this? Well, partly because it's fun to point out what worked and what didn't and partly as a reminder that to be a good writer you need to also read.

#1: Galileo’s Revenge by Peter W. Huber

This is an interesting book covering the use and abuse of science in the court room, with a focus on junk science and how it can lead to bad judgments. If you’re interesting in science abuse this partly shows you that it’s not something that’s in any way new. It talks about cases that from the early 20th century all the way to the 1990s.

There are some interesting facts in this book that I never know. Like that for a long time it was thought that cancer was caused by trauma. If you got hit on the leg and two years later there was a tumor, it was because of being hit on the leg, and if the injury happened on the job compensation was in order. This sounds silly now, but lots of law suits resulted in lots of money changing hands because of this.

The book does have some suggestions of how to limit the scope of junk science, mostly turning on what makes an expert and expert and how they should be screened. Even so it wouldn’t remove the problem, just limit it.

There was one issue I had with book, and that was in the printing itself. The layout and the font choices are just a little bit off. The font is a bit too big and a bit too dark, like everything is printed in bold. It was actually rather distracting at first. I got over it after a while, but it made the early chapters slow going.

#2: Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

The second book in the Dresden Files, and I’m not sure it’s as good as the first one. The writing has improved over all, but I felt the plot was a bit lacking this time. True there was a lot of fun with werewolves of different stripes, but things didn’t quiet mesh together as well as the first time.

A few good things compared to the last book. First, the cover image wasn’t a major plot spoiler like it was last time, in this case it’s pretty nice to bring you into the story but doesn’t give away anything that you couldn’t find reading the back of the book. Second, the characters were better overall, and the writing felt a bit more polished. Third, the plot was a bit more creative then what you would expect with werewolves, so that’s a plus as well.

There are some downsides. The mystery part of the plot wasn’t very well executed. We’re seeing everything via first person, but sometimes were not told things the character knows, it’s a bit frustrating. The last couple of pages of the book had a good chapter of plot, all told to us and the plot just doesn’t really come together as well as it needs to. Even so, it’s an okay read, but no more the adequate.

#3: Origin in Death by Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb

I think this is one of the more interesting In Death books in the series, even if the plot is pretty much the same as they all seem to be. Someone is killed, Eve is called in, and it turns out it’s just the first is a strange and well planed series of murders. This one does have a nice twist; the victim really is a piece of work, playing god and trying to make perfect women with the long term plan of supplanting the normal process of conception and birth. There is a lot of cloning and genetics in this one, and the ending is much more action movie then the books usually get to.

It’s still a good series, and I find the writing enjoyable. I wouldn’t mind a shakeup of the overall plots, it would be nice if the killer was just someone who panicked and is now trying to cover his tracks instead of an intricately planed sequence of crimes. Even so, I’m going to keep reading, I like the books and I like the characters, it’s a good combination that can help overcome the common plotting.

Anyways, if I really have a problem with it, I could just write my own murder mystery/procedural /sci-if/romance book.

#4: Gridlinked by Neal Asher

It’s been a long time since I’ve been this disappointed in a book as I am with Gridlinked. It’s a sci-fi adventure setting, and the author has put together a lot of back story for it (you get a little essay at the start of every chapter, most of them not really important to the plot).

The story is trying to revolve around the investigation of a disaster with an FTL system. It’s what open the book and all. The main character spends the next 100 pages sort of wondering around trying to get to the plot. His main, and only character trait, is that he’s been mentally jacket into the computer system for 30 years, and is doing this job after disconnecting. This comes up about ever 100 pages and has nothing to do with the plot (yet the book is named after this, so ya...).

Eventually the hero gets to the plot, and after another 100 pages aliens drop in. This really comes out of left field. One chapter people start talking about the aliens for no reason, and then they show up. Of course it turns out that our hero has some past interaction with the aliens that would be a major plot piece and be something he would be well know for, but everyone forgets until right before it becomes important.

From there on the plot gets even more convoluted, all the while most of the plot points we need to know simply slip away. Characters know and do things that they have no way to know and no time to do. There are HUGE plot holes in the last 100 pages of the book that ruin what little story it does have. The book is filled with pointless subplots, way too many coincidences to make the story work and overall bad writing.

I got a copy of this one, in hardcover, in my con bag one year. The quality justifies that.

#5: Walk on the Wild Side by Christine Warren

On first blush this looks like your typical werewolf urban-fantasy romance novel, which it pretty much us. Normally I would just give something like this a pass, but there was something in the blurb that got my attention. Instead of talking about a pack, it mentioned a pride. Yes, I would pick up a book just on the off chance that it had werelions in it, I was more than happy to discover that I was right.

I was even happier to find that it was a really good book. The characters are good, the writing is tight and the romance aspect is pretty well done if a bit by the numbers. The big sex scenes are very well written and very hot. The interaction between the two leads had its ups and downs, and I’m not sure I would have taken in quiet that way myself, but as I said, it was by the numbers.

So the basics of the plot: The main character discovers her long lost father was “An Other” by shifting to save her mother’s life after a car accident. She contacts her father, and goes to Vegas to meet with him and learn to control her powers. Father is stinking rich and dying, and his second in command falls for her hard and fast (and very believably too). From there things kind of follow as you might expect.

If anything the story could have used a bit more mystery in the light mystery part of the book. The main character is attacked a couple of times, but no one really does anything about it until it all comes together at the end of the story. Of course if someone had done investigation into it the climax would have been very different.

There is also a minor subplot about a rouge male out on the edges of the pride, but that is only spoken about. The only time it touches the main plot was just a way to leave the main character unprotected to she could be attacked again. Really wish more had been done with it.

Keep on keeping on

Well, I heard back about my story with a form letter. It was a fast turn around, but what they promised on the page. I am a little disappointed that they rejected the story, but there are places to submit it to.

I just wish there was more of a market for fantasy stories. There are very few print markets, though a lot more online ones. Sci-Fi doesn't have that problem, there are print publications all over, but not for fantasy.

Of course I like writing fantasy, so I'm not going to let a little think like lack of markets get in my way.

Shuffling back

I decided it was about time I started taking my writing seriously again. It has fallen to the wayside over the last year or so, the easiest way to tell is that I haven't submitted anything in ages. This is doubly frustrating after getting Honorable Mention at Writers of the Future.

Well, I've changed that. I put a story in the e-mail tonight. We'll see how it goes.

Exit Question. Would it be in bad taste to mention that I, or the story I submitted, got the Honorable Mention? I didn't, but I thought about it.

Jump in

What an interesting weekend I had. Not only did I manage to write seven thousand words last week I got a very interesting phone message. It was a message from Writers of the Future, well; not literally, it was representative of the contest, but still.

My first reaction was a bit of surprise. I took a few minutes to try to relax and gave them a call back, unsure what to expect, but hoping for the best. Actually, I was hoping for the very best, I really didn’t think they would be calling me just to tell me that they couldn’t read past the first page.

The news turned out to be good. I didn’t win the contest, or even make into the semi-finalist, but I earned Honorable Mention. Looking at the website this seems to mean I washed out in the quarterfinals. A very respectable outcome for my first try. I was also told that they thought I had talent, and that I should send something in this quarter.

I didn’t feel let down by this. I think in the back of my mind I expected to drop out the first day. This is a real boon to my writing; it’s a bit of recognition for someone far from a friend or a personal contact. They have nothing to gain by sugar coating things. It was just the honest truth.

Guess it’s time to start editing that sci-fi story so I can send it to them for this quarter.

Knowing when to start

The beginning of a story is always difficult to work out. You need a good hook in the first few lines, something that will pull people in and make them read the first whole page, or two, or even three. This is even more important for a short story where your open line is about all you have to try to keep an editor reading. You screw that one up and everything goes wibbly-wobbly, but that’s another show.

This show (or what passes for one) is about opening your novel. There are many different ways you can do this, from a low key character introduction to starting in medias res. To be honest there are so many different ways to start a novel I can’t talk about every one of them, but I’ll try to hit a few of the high points.

First off, let’s talk about prologs.

Prologs are evil, never use them.

Okay, tomorrow I will... you want me to explain that bit about prologs don’t you? Okay I’ll try to explaine the best that I can.

Prologs are evil because they are sign of lazy, poor and sloppy writing. Nine times out of ten all a prolog is amounts to a huge info dump that has little if no real relevance to the story and the bits that are important can show up in the dialog without that much trouble. You don’t need to bore the reader with three hundred years of back story that can be safely skipped without any trouble.

You want an example, how about one that is probably on your bookshelf right now. “The Fellowship of the Rings” opens with sixteen pages of details back story for the culture of Hobbits, there land and how they view the world. Interesting stuff, but should have gone into the appendix of the trilogy (of course the appendix had a good deal of character development in it, which should have been in the book itself).

Another common sin of a prolog is to spoil the plot. They either give away important information that none of the characters have, allowing the reader to know everything in advance, or work to make a twist very obvious because all the missing setup ended up in one massive chunk right at the start of the book.

So really, if you’re writing a prolog you have to ask yourself do you really need it in your story? If the answer is yes you probably need to do another pass over the first few chapters to get all the relevant information in place so you don’t need it.

Of course there is that rare moment when you do need a prolog, and it’s a very limited case, one where you need to really think through before you put the words down on the page.

Sometimes you need some event to happen to set up the plot and which flows right into the first chapter. In fact it should be the first chapter, except it won’t feature your main character and the hero really needs to be in the first paragraph of the first chapter. So you make in a prolog.

This also gives you one extra advantage. You can have some action in the first scene, something to bring in the readers, and then allow the hero to be introduced in a more low key setting. We can spend the first couple of pages of chapter one seeing what his world is like before the plot rolls over it. Even so, the events of the prolog have to affect the hero by the end of the first chapter.

With that said, once again I would like to remind you that prologs are evil. Really put some thought into using them before you risk waste a reader’s time with a useless info dump.

Holiday Rush

For those of us in the US, we are at the start of a 3-day weekend. Just because you have the extra time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do any writing at all. If you get a chance you should try to get something done, even if it’s just editing or story notes, don’t let the holiday keep you from writing.

Ya, I know, short post, but I’ve been busy trying to write. Didn’t get much good out tonight, but there was some.