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Post by The Counter Cultist(Sawyer) on Jun 17, 2015 17:54:37 GMT -5
So, over to the forum: do you guys like to write "short fiction" or are you wanting to write longer stuff? What are your thoughts about the whole thing? I'm definitely interested if there's anybody who actually wants to write "short fiction" in favour of novels. I've actually been thinking about this a lot since you posted it. While I don't necessarily have a preference for long or short, I've been writing/building a lot more longer stuff lately. I still drafted some short stories, but most of it was little world building stuff that I would've put out after the novels were finished. Now that you've brought this up though I think I may be going about it the opposite direction. With the whole multiverse I'm trying to build, perhaps writing and publishing some short fiction, and building this grand idea along with the worlds in it before I write any novels. Sort of a play on what Lovecraft(and other writers) did with the Cthullu Mythos. To get right to the point James; yes I was into writing longer stuff, but when you brought this up I started looking into maybe starting small. Having had some time to think about it, I'm all for it. So I've been pretty quiet on the subject of The Selfie of Dorian Gray, and I haven't been writing anything for it lately. But I am thinking about it a fair bit and I've got a question for people who have read or remembered it. I'm thinking of pulling away from the text way more than I am currently. In Inklings, we discussed how it seems to work best when I'm not trying to stick to the original. My original plan was to basically follow the story's plot the whole way through (Dorian's descent, travel, Basil's death, etc). I'm now thinking of pulling way back from that and writing a far more original script which pulls from the central element, but has a lot more freedom. Good idea? Bad idea? As for this, I'm honestly with Adam. With all the time that has passed between now and the novel's original publishing date I feel like you've got some room to take some liberties with the plot. I could be wrong, but... No way to tell without trying it. EDIT: Typed 'novella' when in fact the Picture of Dorian Gray was a novel. Thank you typical college know it all best friend for being a creeper and reading over my shoulder.  |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 17, 2015 17:58:44 GMT -5
Did a memo go out or something where everyone decided to start using my real name?
I don't mind, it just seems like it's become much more prevalent recently.
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Post by The Counter Cultist(Sawyer) on Jun 17, 2015 18:00:53 GMT -5
I blame Inklings. I get the feeling now that we've carried on actual conversations(EDIT:even if they aren't face to face) we're a lot less uptight about screen-names.
Though personally I still find myself swapping between real and screen names from time to time.
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Post by James on Jun 17, 2015 18:05:17 GMT -5
Did a memo go out or something where everyone decided to start using my real name? I don't mind, it just seems like it's become much more prevalent recently. Inklings. It'll be Inklings. I've started calling Taed, Matteo, way more now on the forums. I figure you'll be next once you turn up more. Pete's been Pete for years, though. |
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Post by James on Jun 17, 2015 18:08:56 GMT -5
So, over to the forum: do you guys like to write "short fiction" or are you wanting to write longer stuff? What are your thoughts about the whole thing? I'm definitely interested if there's anybody who actually wants to write "short fiction" in favour of novels. I've actually been thinking about this a lot since you posted it. While I don't necessarily have a preference for long or short, I've been writing/building a lot more longer stuff lately. I still drafted some short stories, but most of it was little world building stuff that I would've put out after the novels were finished. Now that you've brought this up though I think I may be going about it the opposite direction. With the whole multiverse I'm trying to build, perhaps writing and publishing some short fiction, and building this grand idea along with the worlds in it before I write any novels. Sort of a play on what Lovecraft(and other writers) did with the Cthullu Mythos. To get right to the point James; yes I was into writing longer stuff, but when you brought this up I started looking into maybe starting small. Having had some time to think about it, I'm all for it. I think short stories give you a sense of progress and development. It teaches you to finish things. You can move through each story, learning things, and if what you wrote is rubbish, you can just move onto the next thing. Whereas starting with novels (which is what I did before realising the above) meant I wasn't often finishing things and realising that what I wrote was bad was slightly more upsetting because I had spent so much time on. Although, honestly, it wasn't actually that upsetting. I kind of rolled with the realisation that Phantoms wasn't as good as I thought it was. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 17, 2015 18:19:27 GMT -5
I've actually been thinking about this a lot since you posted it. While I don't necessarily have a preference for long or short, I've been writing/building a lot more longer stuff lately. I still drafted some short stories, but most of it was little world building stuff that I would've put out after the novels were finished. Now that you've brought this up though I think I may be going about it the opposite direction. With the whole multiverse I'm trying to build, perhaps writing and publishing some short fiction, and building this grand idea along with the worlds in it before I write any novels. Sort of a play on what Lovecraft(and other writers) did with the Cthullu Mythos. To get right to the point James; yes I was into writing longer stuff, but when you brought this up I started looking into maybe starting small. Having had some time to think about it, I'm all for it. I think short stories give you a sense of progress and development. It teaches you to finish things. You can move through each story, learning things, and if what you wrote is rubbish, you can just move onto the next thing. Whereas starting with novels (which is what I did before realising the above) meant I wasn't often finishing things and realising that what I wrote was bad was slightly more upsetting because I had spent so much time on. Although, honestly, it wasn't actually that upsetting. I kind of rolled with the realisation that Phantoms wasn't as good as I thought it was. I still prefer short-fiction because I'm a really minimalist story teller. I try to keep to the essentials and not include a bunch of filler which tends to result in shorter stories. However, I have found that over time I've grown more comfortable telling stories which are somewhat more complex and as a result my short fiction is getting longer and longer. I've always regarded novels as merely a collection of short stories with similar themes and related characters; each chapter containing a beginning, middle and end. So I don't really see a giant difference between the two. |
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Post by James on Jun 17, 2015 18:22:51 GMT -5
One thing I've noticed is my short stories are getting rejected for too much "filler". I've just had my Afghan Combat Magician story rejected, mostly because they felt it took too long for the magic to turn up (the opening 1,000 words is all to do with dreaming, Afghanistan, character and so on).
Which is a completely fair call for a fantasy publication for short stories. But I also think cutting that opening to get to the point quicker really would make the story worse. It makes the story less, I think. More focussed on magic and less on the place. I feel like if it was a part of a novel, that point is more readily accepted whereas a short story is restrained by the clock ticking.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 17, 2015 18:31:03 GMT -5
One thing I've noticed is my short stories are getting rejected for too much "filler". I've just had my Afghan Combat Magician story rejected, mostly because they felt it took too long for the magic to turn up (the opening 1,000 words is all to do with dreaming, Afghanistan, character and so on). Which is a completely fair call for a fantasy publication for short stories. But I also think cutting that opening to get to the point quicker really would make the story worse. It makes the story less, I think. More focussed on magic and less on the place. I feel like if it was a part of a novel, that point is more readily accepted whereas a short story is restrained by the clock ticking. I could take a look if you want... Likely, though, if you can shift some of your front-heavy exposition to the middle of the story via flashback or something; or cover it in dialogue somewhere, that'd help to shift the action toward the front. |
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Post by James on Jun 17, 2015 18:48:36 GMT -5
One thing I've noticed is my short stories are getting rejected for too much "filler". I've just had my Afghan Combat Magician story rejected, mostly because they felt it took too long for the magic to turn up (the opening 1,000 words is all to do with dreaming, Afghanistan, character and so on). Which is a completely fair call for a fantasy publication for short stories. But I also think cutting that opening to get to the point quicker really would make the story worse. It makes the story less, I think. More focussed on magic and less on the place. I feel like if it was a part of a novel, that point is more readily accepted whereas a short story is restrained by the clock ticking. I could take a look if you want... Likely, though, if you can shift some of your front-heavy exposition to the middle of the story via flashback or something; or cover it in dialogue somewhere, that'd help to shift the action toward the front. Yeah, I am thinking about shifting the dream around a bit which could introduce magic earlier, but on the whole I'm not too concerned. I'm not going to spend too much time editing one short story at the moment, I just want to get some outright writing from scratch done after a bit of barren period. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 17, 2015 19:06:17 GMT -5
For Your Reference; The Zovo Method:  |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 23, 2015 12:58:34 GMT -5
Spotted this today, thought I'd share it with you kids... techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/turn-the-page-to-trigger-more-royalties/#.0plhhp:gQw7Basically, what it boils down to is, Amazon is changing their royalties program for self published authors on their Kindle Direct Publishing service to pay per page read. So if you publish something and whomever purchases/rents it gets bored after the firs two pages, you get less money. But if you can keep their interest all the way through, you could, theoretically, make more than before. I, personally, feel like this is a dangerous precedent to set... But at the same time, there's so much absolute shit out there saturating the market, that maybe this will weed some of that out? I dunno. |
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Post by James on Jun 23, 2015 17:04:11 GMT -5
My gut feeling is that this is a bad idea. Also, I've heard conflicting reports about how it's going to work. Is it simply "you get more money for more pages turned" or does it work off some percentage of the book read equals percentage of the retail price?
Because, I've read in several places the underlying reasoning is that longer books should get more money than shorter books. And I don't like that, for two reasons.
A: The market can handle that. People already tend to set lower prices for shorter books, and if they don't, people are free to not buy an expensive but short book.
B: Long =/= good.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 23, 2015 17:49:59 GMT -5
My gut feeling is that this is a bad idea. Also, I've heard conflicting reports about how it's going to work. Is it simply "you get more money for more pages turned" or does it work off some percentage of the book read equals percentage of the retail price? Because, I've read in several places the underlying reasoning is that longer books should get more money than shorter books. And I don't like that, for two reasons. A: The market can handle that. People already tend to set lower prices for shorter books, and if they don't, people are free to not buy an expensive but short book. B: Long =/= good. From what I understand, it'll work by "Pages Turned." I guess the whole thing is a response to how some folks were abusing the system before. I guess, with this particular program, Amazon has a set amount of money allocated to pay out to authors over a certain time period, and that money is allocated in accordance with sales (or it was), so people who sold more got a larger percentage. But the way it was set up is that if more than 10% of a book was read, then the author was paid full retail, and less if less than 10% was read. But because it was base don a percentage, people who wrote longer works were getting screwed because reading 10% of a 100 page document is a lot more work than 10% of a ten page document. So they've changed it to pay by "Pages Turned" so that it's a little more equal for everyone. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Jun 23, 2015 22:42:30 GMT -5
In other news, a coworker reached out to me about writing a script for a short film he wants to do later this year. I'm excited and nervous about it.
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Post by James on Jun 23, 2015 22:44:29 GMT -5
In other news, a coworker reached out to me about writing a script for a short film he wants to do later this year. I'm excited and nervous about it. Awesome! |
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