On Writing

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    Everything I know about writing, I learned from The A-Team …

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    I’ve mentioned my love of The A-Team television show many times here on the blog, and I’m super excited about the movie that’s coming out on June 11. But you know what? I’ve also learned a lot from watching The A-Team — things that have helped me in my writing. Seriously. So without further ado, I give you this blog post, or Everything I know about writing, I learned from The A-Team:

    Characters are the most important thing: Hannibal, B.A. Murdock, Faceman. All Vietnam vets and all with their distinct personalities. Hannibal was the thinker, the leader, and just as crazy as Murdock if you ask me. B.A. was the muscle, the guy with the bad attitude who’d just as soon punch you as look at you. Murdock was the crazy one with the overactive imagination and sly twinkle in his eye that hinted that maybe he wasn’t quite as loony as he appeared to be. Faceman was the pretty boy, the smooth talker and charming womanizer who could get his hands on anything, anytime, anywhere.

    One of the reasons that I think The A-Team was so successful was that each one of these characters was distinctive, entertaining, and quirky in their own way. By themselves, they were all interesting enough, but put them together and watch them play off each other (especially Murdock and B.A.), and you had something really special.

    The same thing applies to writing. My books are only as good as my characters. That’s why I give Gin Blanco and the rest of her gang different personalities, hobbies, and interests in my Elemental Assassin urban fantasy books. Gin Blanco is the strong one, the woman with the magic, the muscle, and the will to get things done. Finnegan Lane is the charmer, the shady investment banker who likes ferreting out other people’s secrets. Jo-Jo Deveraux is the wise healer, while her sister, Sophia, is the quiet, wounded one.

    Every character has a role to play, different skills that can be of use, just like Murdock’s ability to fly anything with wings, Faceman’s ease at charming/conning anyone, Hannibal’s uncanny knack for getting the team out of tough situations, and B.A.’s just being tougher than anyone else around.

    Sure, the individual characters matter, but sometimes, the real magic is in how they play off each other. How many times did B.A. threaten to annihilate Murdock? And how many times did we laugh and smile, knowing that in the end, they’d still be part of the team at the end of the day? I try to do the same thing in my books. Gin, Finn, and the others may have their squabbles, but they’re still a family when it matters most — and Gin will do anything to protect her family.

    Action, action, action: Car chases, gun battles, kidnappings, rescues. If there was one thing that The A-Team had, it was plenty of action. One of the reasons that I don’t care for literary fiction that much is that nothing ever seems to happen. People talk about their feelings, mope around, and talk about their feelings some more, but that’s about it.

    Well, not in The A-Team. You could always count on at least a couple of action sequences in every episode, whether it was the team running from the military police or taking down the bad guys in the end with whatever improvised weapons they came up with. Seeing what they created out of used gum and shoestrings was half of the fun.

    I think it’s a winning formula. Car chases, gun battles, kidnappings, rescues — any of these things is enough to drive the action and propel your characters forward into even more danger, especially if you’re writing slam-bang urban fantasy like I am.

    I always try to include a few fight scenes in each one of the Elemental Assassin books, a couple of small scenes that gradually lead up to Gin taking on the big bad at the end. Each scene, each fight, gets her into more and more trouble, until she’s forced to rely on all of her toughness, skills, and magic to defeat the villain. The only thing that Gin doesn’t do is make weapons out of scrap metal, bottles of soda pop, or kids’ toys — all things that The A-Team used at one time or another. 😉

    The better the villain, the better the story: My favorite episodes of The A-Team were always the ones where the team was really pushed to the limits by the villains. Like in Season #2 in Deadly Maneuvers when the team was threatened by a group of mercenaries, who captured Murdock, Faceman, and B.A., and poisoned Hannibal. Or the two-part When You Comin’ Back, Range Rider?, also in Season #2, which introduced Colonel Decker, who was easily the best and most capable of the military policemen sent after the team.

    In other words, your heroine is only as good as the bad guy that you put her up against. That’s why in each one of my Elemental Assassin books, I give Gin progressively tougher and tougher opponents to test her and get her ready for the inevitable confrontation that’s coming up with her lifelong nemesis. Along the way, Gin has to come up with new ways to get out of her latest scrap, as well as learning new things about herself and realizing that her magic/powers/confidence are growing.

    It’s always good when stuff blows up: There’s something really beautiful and artistic about a well-done fight scene, whether it’s in a TV show, movie, or book. The slow-motion explosions, the cascade of bullet casings, the dancing leap of smoke and flames into the sky. The A-Team excelled at blowing stuff up. Folks always complain that no one ever seemed to get hurt on the show, but that wasn’t the case. B.A. was injured a couple of times (most notably in Black Day at Bad Rock in Season #1), and Murdock almost died of a gunshot wound in Curtain Call in Season #2. Not to mention all the punches that the guys took and threw over the years.

    I may not blow as much stuff up in my books as they did on The A-Team, but I really enjoy writing action/fight scenes, in finding new and different ways for Gin to overcome her enemies, and trying to make it fun and readable all at the same time — even if there’s no bombastic theme music playing in the background. And yes, I love The A-Team theme music because it’s upbeat, catchy, and infinitely hummable. 😉

    Have some fun and mix it up: One of the things that I enjoyed the most about The A-Team was that it was just a fun show. Hannibal, Faceman, Murdock, B.A. Whether they were on the run from the military police or about to square off with some bad guys, none of them took things too seriously, especially not Murdock, with his invisible dog, Billy (mentioned in several episodes).

    Also, something else that I appreciated was the fact that the guys went somewhere new and got involved in something different every single week. During the course of the show, the guys did everything from take charge of a soda-bottling plant (Trouble Brewing in Season #3) to work as firefighters (Fire in Season #3) to get involved in racecar driving (Blood, Sweat, and Cheers in Season #4).

    The same thing applies to my books. I’m not writing the next great American novel, and I don’t want to. My Elemental Assassin books are genre fiction, and my goal with them is just to entertain folks — to give people an action-packed escape to another world, if only for a few hours, just like The A-Team did for me as a kid.

    And I try to mix it up a little with every book. The overall formula stays the same, but I try to take Gin and readers to new places in Ashland, my gritty Southern metropolis. For example, in Spider’s Bite, readers got to see the Ashland Opera House. In Web of Lies, folks will go to Country Daze, an old-fashioned country store up in the mountains above Ashland. You always want to expand your world a little with every book that you write and give your characters new places to explore.

    I love it when a plan comes together: Say what you will about The A-Team, but you always got a satisfying conclusion at the end of the hour. The bad guys got what was coming to them, the good guys were free to prosper, and the team was thumbing their noses at the military police yet again, before racing off in the van to help someone else.

    In other words, give your audience what they want. If you’re writing romance, you gotta have that happily ever after in there, or your readers are going to feel cheated. The mystery has to be solved, the world needs to be safe once more … you get the idea. That’s why at the end of each one of my Elemental Assassin books, Gin has defeated the bad guy, learned a little something about herself and her magic, and is looking forward to her next challenge.

    Hannibal always loved it when a plan came together, and I feel the same way about my books — especially when I finally get to type The End. 😉

    So there you have it — all the things that I learned about writing just from watching The A-Team. Comments? Questions? Ask away.

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    Finished … for now …

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    So I finally finished Elemental Assassin #5 and shipped it off to my agent to read. Huzzah! There’s nothing quite so satisfying as finally turning in a complete manuscript.

    Also, a quick update: Some folks have asked, but I don’t have titles for Elemental Assassin #4 or #5 yet or release dates, although I imagine both books will come out in 2011. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.

    Another quick update: I’ve written two free short stories to go along with Web of Lies, coming out on May 25. I’m going to try to get those posted to the Web site soon. I’ll put up a note here on the blog when they go up.

    That’s it for now. Enjoy your weekend!

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    Timelines …

    So I’ve talked about copy edits and page proofs, and now, I thought I would share a rough timeline of when I get them in regards to when the book is published. So here’s an example of a rough timeline of a book based on Web of Lies, which comes out on May 25.

    When I turned the book in: Winter/spring 2009, or about one year before the publication date.

    Revisions from editor: These arrived about two months after I turned the book in.

    Copy edits: Arrived about six months before the publication date.

    Page proofs: About four months before the publication date.

    Confirmation pages: About two months before the publication date. Note: Not all publishers send confirmation pages to authors. A lot of publishers just send the page proofs, and that’s the last time the author sees the book before it goes to press.

    Final book: Usually, the finished book goes to press about a month or so before the actual on-sale date, so my publisher will actually start printing copies of Web of Lies around the last week of April. Books will start shipping out to store usually about two weeks before the on-sale date.

    The publication date: This is when I’ll see the finished book for the first time, either by going to the local bookstore and finding it on the shelves or getting my author copies in the mail. I don’t usually get any early copies.

    People often wonder why it takes so long for books to be published. Well, this is part of the reason why. Each one of these steps takes about two months, which includes giving me time to do my part of the process and mail the book back before my editor sends it on to the next step. So even if I don’t have a book hitting shelves, I’m working on something all the time, even if it is all this behind-the-scenes stuff.

    So there you have it. A little bit about publishing timelines. Got questions? I’ll answer what I can in the comments.

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    10 things …

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    The folks over at All About Romance did a cool post about 10 Things I’d Like to Tell Publishers. I agree with a lot of their comments, especially the one about the cheesy romance book titles. (Seriously, I think someone has a lot of fun coming up with some of those groaners).

    Inspired by them, I thought that I’d do a post about 10 Things I’d Like to Tell Readers. Here goes:

    1. I have very little input/control when it comes to the cover art for my books. If you think the covers suck, there’s nothing I can do about it. (And yes, I know the covers for the mass market versions of the Bigtime books suck — they suck out loud, especially the one for Karma Girl. Believe me, I know and have spent many hours bemoaning that fact.)

    2. I do not know everything there is to know about publishing. I cannot find a cover artist for your book, or a copy editor, or tell you why no one wants to publish the annotated history of your belly lint. Well, I could on that last one, but you probably wouldn’t like what I had to say about it. I get a lot of questions about publishing and writing, and I’m happy to help when and as I can — but I can’t get your book published for you. Only you can do that. And yes, it is much harder than it looks.

    3. Fake even a little bit of interest in my work, and I will sign books until my fingers bleed and smile for photos until my face hurts for you. Buy one of my books, and I will shower you with all the bookmarks and goodies that I have on hand. Tell me that you read and enjoyed one of my books, and I will wish you joy and happiness for all of your days. 😉

    4. I look at reviews for my books. Good ones make me happy, bad ones make me sad. Reviews where folks call my books the worst things ever written after reading all of two pages of said books and never finishing them bring out my inner Hulk, who can only be controlled by eating massive amounts of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Or to sum up, authors have feelings too, folks.

    5. Getting asked where the bathroom is while I’m doing a book signing is depressing. Pop! Did you hear that? That was the sound of you just deflating my ego. Now, I want to crawl under the table and whimper while I eat a candy bar — or three.

    6. I don’t care what format you buy my book in. Paper copy, e-copy, heck, I don’t even care if you get a copy from the used bookstore. All I ask is that if you like the book, you tell your friends about it — and maybe take a minute or two to send me an e-mail about it (see 10). If you don’t like my book, that’s okay too — just be polite about it. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

    7. I’m a reader too, and I’m just as happy to talk about other authors’ books as I am about my own. I can prattle on and on and on about my favorite authors and books all day long. Seriously, I can make your ears bleed, folks. My significant other knows better than to get me started waxing poetic about my favorite books. Everyone else, you have been warned. 😉

    8. Yeah, I know that my books are not perfect. There are typos and continuity errors and sometimes I repeat phrases in books. But you know what? It’s hard coming up with 100,000 words that create a coherent story, and it’s even harder to ensure that every single one of those words is perfect. Manuscripts go through a lot of editors as they are turned into books, and we all do our very best to catch all the mistakes. But we’re human, and some errors are going to creep in. It’s not because I don’t work hard on my books — that’s just life.

    9. My inner fangirl squees with delight every time I see my book on the shelf at the bookstore. That weird woman you see taking photos in at Walmart? That’s me, ogling my book on the shelf for about the hundredth time.

    10. A positive e-mail from a reader telling me that she liked my books really does make my day (see 6). Knowing that people enjoy my books makes all the hard work and long hours in front of my computer worthwhile.

    So there you have it. Some of my (hopefully amusing) thoughts that I’d like to share with readers. What about you guys? What are some of the things you’d like to tell authors or publishers? Share in the comments. And keep it polite, please.

  • Half a million and counting …

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    I’m working on Elemental Assassin 5 right now, and I realized something kind of cool about it the other day.

    When I get done with this book, I will have written more than 500,000 words about Gin Blanco. Yep, that’s right — half a million words about one character. That’s a whole lot of words, not to mention all the typing! 😉

    Of course, I’d love to write more books about Gin beyond these five, but that’s going to be up to the sales gods and readers. Still, I think half a million words is a pretty cool accomplishment. I’m totally patting myself on the back right now — and keeping my fingers crossed that the words and Gin’s stories will keep on coming!