James Moore

RETURN TO THE STORYTELLERS HOMEPAGE

Well, I’m behind schedule today, so this will likely be a rather short article.

Today, because I so love the taste of irony, I will discuss deadlines. I like deadlines. First, they have the word “dead” in them, and as a horror writer, I’m just plain fond of that word. Second, I like that they help keep me focused. I tend to let my mind wander wherever it will, because for me that’s part of the process of being a writer. If I’m watching the news my mind likes to capture a couple of headlines from time to time and start playing around with them like a curious kid with a Rubik’s cube. It may not solve the puzzle, but it will certainly have a good time trying to. For that reason, I need deadlines. Left to its own devices, my mind is a hazard zone of contradictions and what ifs. Deadlines make me remember to focus.

Want a great example? Right here. I’m writing this essay on the fly, because I forgot to jot down the due date on my calendar (okay, reality check: yeah, I don’t have a calendar. I would never actually remember to use it, but I tend to juggle my work schedule, my writing schedule and what passes for my social schedule in my mental calendar. So let’s just pretend that I have a real calendar for the sake of argument, shall we? Thanks!) Normally I would have gotten this done at least a couple of days ago. This time around, I dropped the ball.

And remember, there are consequences to our actions. In this case, I’m probably safe. I mean, come on, I do this gratis. So if they want to fire me, I can accept it. I’ll be hurt, but I’ll understand. It will now, however, affect my pay scale in the very least.

This gig is the exception, not the rule. Most publishers understand that fiction writers are flakes. They probably factor in a certain amount of time for daydreaming, procrastination and intellectual navel gazing, but even so, they’re eventually going to want you to deliver your promised manuscript. We’ll start at the low end. Five thousand dollars for a novel. You have six months to deliver the first draft. That is assuming you’ve run across a publisher who trusts you enough to give you money for what hasn’t been written yet. It does happen, but a little less often if you are unpublished. That’s why I always encourage a first draft be finished before submission. Here’s the other reason: you’re already ahead of the game that way.

Now, the way it usually breaks down is three payments. We’ll say 2,000 upon signing, 1,500 upon delivery and acceptance of final draft and 1,500 within 30 days of publication. Sound crazy? Not to the publishers. That way, if you drop the ball, they haven’t lost 5,000 dollars, they’ve only lost 2,000 and even if you never pay them back, they can recover from that loss if they’re one of the bigger houses. The smaller houses will probably be forced to insert needles into a voodoo doll with your likeness and possibly a locket of your hair if they want to survive that sort of loss these days, but it is what it is.

Simple rules for deadlines:

One: Make realistic deadlines for yourself.

Two: Keep them.

Three: Factor in the Life Equation. Because, folks, life can and will screw with you. I don’t care if it’s the unexpected pregnancy, the sprained wrist, the broken collar bone, winning the lottery or Aunt Selma’s mental breakdown, life will screw with you. Expect that and factor in a few extra weeks to catch up to where you should be.

Jim’s Rules for deadlines:

One: See above.

Two: Subtract four weeks off the realistic deadline. (I like a challenge)

Three: Proceed as if step two never occurred and get your ass in gear.

The difference is I like the pressure of a tight deadline. Give me a month to write a novel and I’ll get it done. Give me six months, I’ll take my own sweet time. I’m not normal. Don’t try to follow my rules unless you dig having ulcers.

One final rule: ALWAYS make your deadlines. Fail on that one too often and your publishers will no longer want to deal with you. I’ve seen it happen to a few writers. If you must fail to reach the expected goal, make sure you give your editor plenty of warning. It might make a difference as to whether you get published by that particular house again.

James A. Moore

Depending on who you talk to, the three words that I used for today’s title are the most repugnant in the English language when put together. You might sooner expect some authors to give consideration to self mutilation before they would seriously consider work for hire.

 Because there are those people who don’t understand the phrase, allow me to clarify. Work for hire is writing for someone else. By that I mean you are paid, but the copyright and everything associated with the work is somebody else’s intellectual property. Your words, their property. Horrible notion, right? I mean, come on, they keep the copyright, the licensing options for movies, toys, trading cares, et al. Why would anybody every consider doing work for hire?

Well, let’s see. First there’s the money thing. A lot of times a writer isn’t going to get much by way or royalties and in some cases they won’t get any royalties, so to sweeten the pot, the publishers often offer a much larger up front advance than they would normally. Five thousand for a novel isn’t great, but it’s reasonable in a lot of cases. On the other hand, a work for hire property might ask for the same length novel and offer 25,000 dollars instead. Not exactly chump change, if you see my point. I’ve heard rumors of a few properties that do not, in fact, offer any royalties but instead offer 125-250 thousand dollar advances in exchange. If those rumors are true, and if the editors are listening, I’m there for you in a heartbeat. And I will move heaven and earth to make every deadline. No, seriously, call me.

Next up is exposure. Listen, you’ve probably seen me rant a few times about how for the love magazines don’t really get you much exposure. I’m not wrong. On the other hand, writing a Star Trek/Star Wars/Super Hero Flavor of the month novel will get you noticed. It might not change your life, but if you do manage one of the bigger tie in titles and you do it right and make a story people remember, there’s every reason to believe that at least a few of those readers will remember your name and maybe give you a test run outside of the playground you’ve just played in. It can also lead to OTHER media tie ins and those can do the same thing again. An astonishing number of mid list authors have written tie in novels and a good number of them would probably agree with what I’ve just told you.

Cash flow.

Seriously, cash flow should be a consideration. In this day and age the market for original fiction can be fickle. You’ve got seven novels written, three of them under consideration, two of them sold and two more being looked at by a few more people at the publishing house before you get an answer. Awesome, great news and congratulations. None of them are paying you a damned thing yet. Might even be a few months before any of that scratch comes your way. So, you can live on your minimal savings, or you can use your brain and try to get extra money. Again, I work a day job, but not every writer is in the same boat as me and you’d be amazed at exactly how many professional writers I’ve run across who have told me of their financial woes brought on by slow publishers, dwindling sales figures or gaps in the payment schedules for their books. It is very, very rare to be anything less than a best seller and not run across financial woes a few times in your career. Cash flow is a lovely thing.

But Jim, you’re still giving up your copyright! Yes, you are. But in the case of media tie ins, somebody else already owns that intellectual property and they have absolutely no desire to let you write whatever you want in the worlds they’ve created for fun and profit. It’s called fan fiction in most cases, and a shocking amount of that stuff deals with unnatural sexual acts. Hey, more power to the people having fun with that, but if you’re trying to sell it, be prepared to get nuked in a court of law. Again, in the case of a franchise like Star Wars, you may rest assured that the owners of that particular property have a lot more at stake than you do.

My small digression du jour (like you didn’t know one was coming): On fan fiction. That story where Luke and Han get together and explore their latent sexual frustrations with each other while Leia is babysitting? It’s fine. But the moment you print it, send it to the internet or try to sell it in a fanzine (Or give it to the fanzine for the love) you are in violation of the Copyright laws of the United States and a lot of other countries. From a professional standpoint, you have just broken a cardinal rule of publishing. You may as well start writing under an assumed name immediately if you’ve already put that stuff up with your name on it, because I can pretty much guarantee you that your writing career is over. Maybe a lot of smaller presses will forgive that sort of thing, but by and large the owner of the copyright and the publisher who’s paid very dearly for the privilege of printing those licensed stories legitimately are very likely to see you in court, and you may rest assured that their lawyers will eat your lawyers for breakfast. If you’re very lucky the worst will be your financial ruin. Seriously. Don’t play in that field if you want to get published for money.

In the long run there are positives and negatives. I have done work for hire before and I very likely will again and without hesitation. It may not be everyone’s cup of proverbial tea, but I enjoy the change of pace now and then and I’ve collected a few new fans every time I’ve written a work for a licensed property. Of course, I’m careful about what I pick, too. I don’t see me successfully writing a Legally Blond romantic comedy. Know your limitations.

James A. Moore

Depending on who you talk to, the three words that I used for today’s title are the most repugnant in the English language when put together. You might sooner expect some authors to give consideration to self mutilation before they would seriously consider work for hire.

 Because there are those people who don’t understand the phrase, allow me to clarify. Work for hire is writing for someone else. By that I mean you are paid, but the copyright and everything associated with the work is somebody else’s intellectual property. Your words, their property. Horrible notion, right? I mean, come on, they keep the copyright, the licensing options for movies, toys, trading cares, et al. Why would anybody every consider doing work for hire?

Well, let’s see. First there’s the money thing. A lot of times a writer isn’t going to get much by way or royalties and in some cases they won’t get any royalties, so to sweeten the pot, the publishers often offer a much larger up front advance than they would normally. Five thousand for a novel isn’t great, but it’s reasonable in a lot of cases. On the other hand, a work for hire property might ask for the same length novel and offer 25,000 dollars instead. Not exactly chump change, if you see my point. I’ve heard rumors of a few properties that do not, in fact, offer any royalties but instead offer 125-250 thousand dollar advances in exchange. If those rumors are true, and if the editors are listening, I’m there for you in a heartbeat. And I will move heaven and earth to make every deadline. No, seriously, call me.

Next up is exposure. Listen, you’ve probably seen me rant a few times about how for the love magazines don’t really get you much exposure. I’m not wrong. On the other hand, writing a Star Trek/Star Wars/Super Hero Flavor of the month novel will get you noticed. It might not change your life, but if you do manage one of the bigger tie in titles and you do it right and make a story people remember, there’s every reason to believe that at least a few of those readers will remember your name and maybe give you a test run outside of the playground you’ve just played in. It can also lead to OTHER media tie ins and those can do the same thing again. An astonishing number of mid list authors have written tie in novels and a good number of them would probably agree with what I’ve just told you.

Cash flow.

Seriously, cash flow should be a consideration. In this day and age the market for original fiction can be fickle. You’ve got seven novels written, three of them under consideration, two of them sold and two more being looked at by a few more people at the publishing house before you get an answer. Awesome, great news and congratulations. None of them are paying you a damned thing yet. Might even be a few months before any of that scratch comes your way. So, you can live on your minimal savings, or you can use your brain and try to get extra money. Again, I work a day job, but not every writer is in the same boat as me and you’d be amazed at exactly how many professional writers I’ve run across who have told me of their financial woes brought on by slow publishers, dwindling sales figures or gaps in the payment schedules for their books. It is very, very rare to be anything less than a best seller and not run across financial woes a few times in your career. Cash flow is a lovely thing.

But Jim, you’re still giving up your copyright! Yes, you are. But in the case of media tie ins, somebody else already owns that intellectual property and they have absolutely no desire to let you write whatever you want in the worlds they’ve created for fun and profit. It’s called fan fiction in most cases, and a shocking amount of that stuff deals with unnatural sexual acts. Hey, more power to the people having fun with that, but if you’re trying to sell it, be prepared to get nuked in a court of law. Again, in the case of a franchise like Star Wars, you may rest assured that the owners of that particular property have a lot more at stake than you do.

My small digression du jour (like you didn’t know one was coming): On fan fiction. That story where Luke and Han get together and explore their latent sexual frustrations with each other while Leia is babysitting? It’s fine. But the moment you print it, send it to the internet or try to sell it in a fanzine (Or give it to the fanzine for the love) you are in violation of the Copyright laws of the United States and a lot of other countries. From a professional standpoint, you have just broken a cardinal rule of publishing. You may as well start writing under an assumed name immediately if you’ve already put that stuff up with your name on it, because I can pretty much guarantee you that your writing career is over. Maybe a lot of smaller presses will forgive that sort of thing, but by and large the owner of the copyright and the publisher who’s paid very dearly for the privilege of printing those licensed stories legitimately are very likely to see you in court, and you may rest assured that their lawyers will eat your lawyers for breakfast. If you’re very lucky the worst will be your financial ruin. Seriously. Don’t play in that field if you want to get published for money.

In the long run there are positives and negatives. I have done work for hire before and I very likely will again and without hesitation. It may not be everyone’s cup of proverbial tea, but I enjoy the change of pace now and then and I’ve collected a few new fans every time I’ve written a work for a licensed property. Of course, I’m careful about what I pick, too. I don’t see me successfully writing a Legally Blond romantic comedy. Know your limitations.

James A. Moore

Want to know why no one ever writes about a perfect day? Because it’s boring. Want to know why no one cares about a perfect person having a perfect day? Same answer.

It’s simple, really. Your characters have to be human enough in one form or another for people to read about them and to care about them. If they don’t have any flaws, no one will be able to empathize.

I recently had one of my regular readers explain to me that he didn’t much care for one of my characters, Jonathan Crowley. When I asked why he said, “because nothing ever hurts him.” Well, having done several books with the character and having seen the character bloodied a dozen times I could have argued the point, but it would have been a waste of my time. He’s right to a certain extent. The character regenerates a good amount of the damage inflicted on him. That’s a side effect of dealing with fantasy, science fiction and horror characters. They aren’t exactly normal in a lot of cases. They aren’t even human from time to time. That one reader is the only person I’ve known to run across Crowley and have that problem, but that doesn’t make his point any less valid. On the other hand, the knowledge that he doesn’t dig the character isn’t going to change the way I handle the character, either. As I’ve said before, I write first and foremost for myself. If I’m not having fun with it, no one else is either.

Crowley has plenty of flaws. He’s borderline sociopathic, has all the social skills of Dr. Gregory House M.D., is arrogant to a fault and quick to lose his temper. He just happens to be hard to kill.

Like every character, he has flaws. He should, too. Listen, if you want to write stories about characters who are perfect, I can’t stop you. But I can almost guarantee you that no one aside from you will give the least bit of a damn about them, with the possible exception of your mother. Mind you, she’ll probably just tell you she likes the characters you’re creating for fear of hurting your feelings.

In DC Comics, Superman is nearly indestructible, but he has flaws. He has the allergy to Kryptonite and there’s the fact that his powers come from hanging around a yellow sun and basking in the radiations released by that particular color of star. Over at Marvel, Spiderman has all sorts of awesome powers and he can be taken out of commission by the common cold. There have to be limits to the abilities of these characters because without them, there is no conflict. Seriously, with all of the power that Superman holds he could rule the world if he wasn’t mentally stable. So to make sure that sooner or later there’s something that can pose a threat to him, so that there’s a struggle he has to overcome, they gave him weaknesses aside from merely having a fondness for Lois Lane and a few other people. I’ll do you one better: the fine folks at DC have even managed to use his status against him a couple of times by having him distance himself from humanity too much, to the point where he not only felt a bit alienated, but to the point where his alien heritage came back to bite him in his invulnerable rear end.

It is the flaws that shape your characters as surely as their physical appearance or their particular way of looking at the world. Going to a different media and a name I already mentioned, let’s look at Greg House from the show House (We can also look at his literary inspiration, Sherlock Holmes). House is a genius. It’s that simple. He can diagnose most medical cases without ever talking to the patients. He can observe them in action and normally tell you what their problem is. He’s that good. In fact it’s that very ability that makes him the best damned medical diagnostician around. That said, he also has a medical issue of his own, involving atrophied muscles in his leg and chronic pain. Pain so bad that he started taking heavier and heavier doses of serious narcotics in order to function. Through the course of the show he has evolved beautifully. He’s gone from a rude bastard with a bum leg to an addicted rude bastard with a bum leg, to a seriously delusional and addicted rude bastard with a bum leg. Through the course of multiple seasons the character has evolved and along the way the writers and creators of the character never forgot that he has a serious medical condition or that he’s an addict. This season, just to change things up, the show’s creative force have Gregory House dealing with the fact that he is now clean and sober and wants desperately to stay that way.

Want to know what’s even more amazing about that show? Every single major player on the series is just as flawed as House in their own ways. Those personal neurosis and the complicated relationships the characters get into are what make people come back to the show every week. Sure, there are cool medical cases with (mostly) good medical research, but in the long run, the characters and their flaws and the interactions they have with other flawed characters are what bring the viewers back.

Whether you love or hate soap operas, the same is true of the stories that interweave within the scripts of the regular daytime dramas. The characters and their flaws are the draw that keeps viewers coming back. The same is true in most ongoing book series, too.

Just a little food for thought. You want people to care about your creations? Remember that they can’t be perfect. If they are, no one will be able to understand them or care for them except for you and maybe your mom.

Welcome to Storytellers Unplugged. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Storyteller’s unplugged

The trouble with computers is that sometimes they melt down. It’s not pretty but it does happen. It’s happened to me a few times and I normally manage to recover the information because I’m smart enough to back it up. I’ve learned to be that smart.

I’ve had to. I lost 40,000 words of a novel once. You only ever do that once and not learn from your mistakes. If you do it more than once, you are likely beyond help. Back it up. It’s not hard, it’s even rather easy. You can save it on a disc, put it on a flash card, hell, you can even e mail it to yourself to make absolutely sure you have it if you need it.

And you will need it.

Not long ago I started dealing with Larry Roberts of Bloodletting Press. Larry makes amazing books. He is a craftsman and an artisan and one of those amazingly rare book collectors who decided to make the best possible books that money can make. He has also weathered the proverbial storm of the economic crush by being sensible. So, yes, he and I get along just fine. Even more so lately, because in addition to being all of the things I mentioned above, he also likes my writing. How could be we not be friends after that?

Larry bought the rights to VENDETTA and to CHERRY HILL, the latest stories involving my recurring character Jonathan Crowley, a man who hunts monsters when he’s not busy trying to avoid anything like a relationship.

And after a little discussion, Larry suggested doing a library of the various books staring the character. Let’s see, would I like all of the novels of Jonathan Crowley reissued as signed, limited editions, with lavish artwork and gorgeous production values? Does the term “no-brainer” mean anything to you?

Awesome. We made our arrangements and got to business. Him with publishing, me with keeping up with my myriad projects. Flash forward about a year and Larry politely asks to see the manuscript for the first volume of The Jonathan Crowley Library (Sorry, I just love the way that sounds). No worries I’ll just pull up the file, give it a good once over and-

Oh. Wait. I haven’t actually LOOKED at that file in a long time. UNDER THE OVERTREE was my very first novel, see, and well, I wrote it some three computers ago. Now, it’s true that I had a back up on my zip drive, but let’s be fair. I haven’t had a zip drive that was functioning in at least eight years, maybe longer.

So that means I’m screwed. Unless, of course, one of my 500 plus 3.5 inch floppies has the file.

One of my 500 plus floppies. The ones I either never labeled, mislabeled or relabeled as I needed because I’m a writer and therefore often too poor not to reuse my discs.

Did I mention my new computer? Or my laptop? The ones without a 3.5 disc reader?

Yeah.

Off to the store. I got lucky. Turns out that Microcenter DOES have external 3.5 disc readers. Well, they had one. Now I have it.

Hour one. I had no idea I had that many duplicates of some of my short stories. Hour two. I’ve found out that many files tend to corrupt when they’re one a magnetic medium. Hour three. No matter how much I curse, the elusive file is still missing. Hour four. My comfortable couch is no longer comfortable and the laptop is weighing in at around five hundred pounds. Also, I need to start dinner soon, because it’s not going to cook itself.

Hour five. Success! I finally found the damned novel. No, wait. That’s just chapter one. But there are lots of files with just a simply number for a title and they seem to correlate with chapter titles. Unfortunately, the disc is old and it makes groaning noises every time I ask it to open another file so that my computer can read them. I manage to pull almost all of the chapters off the disc. Dinner will be late, because I’m starting to feel like a surgeon trying to save the life of a horribly mangled child. My horribly mangled child, who will have to be rewritten from my one dog eared copy of the paperback Leisure edition if I don’t find the freaking files. It’s okay, really, looks like I’m only missing around 40,000 words. No the irony is not lost on me. This could be the second time I’ve lost 40,000 words because I didn’t make enough backups.

I finally save what I have, carefully extract the disc from my laptop and get ready to swallow the bullet and make that late dinner. Yes, I will now have to write 40K of words, but, hey, got a novel sale out of it. And, really, I’ve long since acknowledged that UNDER THE OVERTREE is sort of wordy. In my defense it was my first novel and I have changed a bit as a writer since then. And maybe, just maybe, I can cull a few words. I don’t really want to. I mean, it’s the way it was when I first wrote it and I thinkj changing too much would be unfair to the people who want the novel for their collections. I mean, they’re buying a library. Seems unfair to change too much. I should only work on the typos—and this is a first draft manuscript, sewn together from first draft chapter files, so there are a LOT of typos—but I’ll probably tweak it a little here and there as I’m typing the 40,000 eyestrain words back into my computer. Of course I’ll have to let Larry know about the delays. I mean, a quick edit is maybe a week or two, but this? Sweet Jesus, this could take a while, especially since I’ve got the YA deadline and I’ve been doing a lot of reworking on that stuff.

I made dinner on autopilot. I couldn’t even tell you what was anymore, but no one threw food at me so it probably didn’t suck too much. Years of working in restaurants has once again saved me from certain death.

While I ate, I contemplated the workload I’d have to deal with. Still got the day job, because, again, not going through this life without insurance. That’s 35-40 hours a week I’m not going to write or transcribe older writings. Can’t afford a secretary to hand the book to and ask to handle the transcription. Don’t have a scanner. Could maybe buy a scanner. Won’t take me more than a month or so to figure out the whole installation thing. I mean, that sort of thing is basically idiot proofed these days. Even I managed to install the external disc drive and believe me, I was sweating that one. So, yeah, maybe a scanner. Okay, I’ll have to cut the book apart to scan all of the pages, but, hey, you know, you gotta do these things sometimes, because it’s that or physically retype those pages.

Three discs left in my massive pile of discs. May as well see if there’s anything on them. Because there’s that story of mine, “Virtually Perfect” that had been missing and is now safely on my computer and maybe I’ll find another nugget.

Seriously. Last disc? Full copy of UNDER THE OVERTREE. Every last word, even the ones I wish I hadn’t used.

Still a lot of typos to fix, but no transcription now. I felt like somebody had graciously moved the car that had been parked on my chest out of the way. I could breathe again.

There was no name on the disc. That would have made my life much easier.

So, have you been paying attention? Please, for the sake of your sanity, label your discs. Back them up. Do yourself a favor and put all of your important files on a CD or DVD and then, just to be safe, back them up onto another dozen or so discs.

And label them. Because you never know when someone will want to reprint one of your older works. Seriously. You never know.

James A. Moore

Here it is in a nutshell: Censorship is like incest. It should always stay in the home (Oh, lighten up; the incest part’s a joke.) That’s my opinion of the matter and I doubt sincerely you’ll change my opinion.

Not all that long ago I was rather surprised to see a horror author urging people to sign a petition against the upcoming movie THE ORPHAN. The reasoning? Fear that people seeing the movie would be yurned against the idea of adoption.

Fair enough. It’s always possible that the masses will suddenly forget their common sense, watch the movie, decide that all orphans are hideous demon spawn and then urge their elected officials to ban orphanages, orphans and adoption. It’s even possible that the elected officials might decide to do exactly that, too. Not probable, but possible.

That said, I was still a little puzzled. See, we’re not talking a political debate here, we’re talking a movie. One that looks like it could even be fun. From my perspective at least. On the other hand, I haven’t been trying to adopt a child for a while. But back to that first hand, I’m not exactly known for holding back in my writing, so why would I want to encourage others to ask a movie production company to forget about the few million dollars they put into the movie and advertising and take a financial blow during these tough economic times?

I wouldn’t. I don’t agree with that mentality. I will, however, defend the rights of one or a hundred others to state that they disagree with me.

The thing is, as I stated above, as far as I’m concerned, censorship belongs at home. If you don’t want to watch a movie about demonic children being adopted, then by all means don’t fork over the ten bucks to go see it. That’s just as solid a blow against the company as a letter writing campaign. You’re taking money out of their pockets. I feel the same way about all censorship.

Once upon a time a few concerned politicians decided that Batman and Robin were possibly secretly condoning funny business between men and young boys and that reading Tales From the Crypt would lead children to killing everyone who looked at them funny. In order to avoid being raked over the coals for a few more years, the comics industry came up with the Comics Code Seal of Approval, which let parents know which comics were safe for their children and which ones were not. Back in the day, Tipper Gore suggested putting age restrictions on music because she discovered that some music that kids like has suggestive language, profanity and threats of violence. Actually, I believe she was just flat out trying to get the stuff banned, but instead we wound up with a voluntary system of labeling music to let parents know if the music their children want to listen to is risqué. That’s fine with me. There’s also a ratings system for movies, for television and for video games. The TV and games are voluntary. I believe the one for movies is mandatory. All of these things are to protect children and sensitive adults. They’re warnings. They’re supposed to prepare you for the potential issues that will come up.

Rated M for mature: extreme violence and sexual situations. I worked in a store that dealt with movies, books, games and music. I learned all of the ratings systems. I also learned, oddly enough, that most of the parents in this part of the country are just fine with extreme violence for their ten year olds, but a lot of them felt letting their child (male or female) see any part of a naked body was nearly a criminal offense. Apparently it’s okay to cave a few heads in, but knocking up the girl next door is the sort of thing that can really cause a scandal and looks bad at the next PTA meeting.

See, I’m very fond of those ratings systems. Why? Because they allow consumers to choose for themselves. I’m a consumer. Frankly, I don’t want anyone telling me what I can or cannot watch, read, listen to, or interact with on a digital level. Nor do I need it. I’m a big boy and can decide for myself.

The counterargument is that there are some people who are unstable and dangerous and that they can be influenced by the ideas put into music, film, video games, comic books and written words. They could get ideas from those very sources and those seeds could lead to them harming others.

Fair enough.

I mean, really, Columbine. It happened, right? There were guns and bombs and those kids watched that movie, The Basketball Diaries and that contributed, right?

Or, maybe, follow along with me here, people, maybe it was the fact that the kids were constantly bullied by the school toughs. Maybe it was the fact that they had access to guns. Maybe it was the long hours of being unsupervised and left to their own schemes. Maybe all of that contributed even more to the problems than a movie did.

Listen, I’m not judging anyone here. I’m just stating my opinion. All I know is that if I had even TRIED to build a homemade bomb in my garage or bedroom or really anywhere at all, my mother would have known about it. Even if she wouldn’t have known about it, I would have been too damned paranoid to consider it on the off chance that she would have known about it.

The Basketball Diaries is no more responsible for Columbine than Stephen King is for a sociopath who writes “Red rum,” on a wall in a victim’s blood. The murders would have happened either way, but because a movie was seen or a book was read, suddenly fingers start pointing. Nor do I believe that every child who reads a Harry Potter book is suddenly going to start worshipping Satan, but in my time I’ve dealt with no less than four adults who, having not read page one of any of the books, had already decided that J. K. Rowling was trying to corrupt the minds of their younger relatives.

I don’t believe that every kid who sees The Orphan is suddenly going to be a scheming destroyer. I believe that a scheming destroyer is going to exist with or without the movie as an influence. And, frankly, if seeing a movie is all it takes for anyone to decide to go on a killing spree, then that person is beyond merely flawed to begin with.
So, no. I do not believe in censorship.

I believe that when I’m writing a short story or a novel I am the censor. Possibly with a secondary censorship put in place by my editors depending on the circumstances. If I’m writing a young adult novel, there are certain limitations that I am well aware of. Those are there because the market is different and because, frankly, some of the subjects simply do not need to be a part of the story.

When I wrote BLOOD RED I had a character who was a prostitute. Her world view was a bit changed by the fact that she had sex for money. As it was a part of her perspective, sex became prevalent in scenes with her. I did not get overly graphic, but only because I didn’t deem it necessary. There are sex scenes. They are, in my opinion, necessary for the story. If they weren’t, I’d have cut them. There are no sex scenes in DEEPER, which does not have a hooker as a main character. They weren’t necessary.

I’ve had my share of arguments about whether or not scenes were important. I’ve done my best to actually listen to the arguments presented. I’ve also had a few of my books banned to one extent or another. Some of the work I did for White Wolf Games caused supplements to be banned by distributors who took offense to my writings because the fiction involved children getting hurt or corrupted by outside influences. My answer: welcome to the real world. You know, where sometimes children get hurt, corrupted or flat out killed. I write fiction, true, but there should be at least a few elements of truth in the work if you see my point.

I don’t listen to much hardcore rap music. It isn’t my thing. Doesn’t mean I should be telling people they can’t listen to it. I also don’t listen to much country music. I don’t believe that every person who listens to rap music is suddenly going to get into gang violence and I don’t believe that every person listening to country music is going to take up chewing tobacco, drinking a 12 pack a night and beating all hell out of their girlfriends, either. Is there a correlation? Maybe. Should the possibility that these things could happen stop my ability to listen to either form of music? Absolutely not.

Censorship belongs at home. You can censor yourselves and your minor children to your heart’s content, but please, people, do not expect everyone else to follow your example. If they did, there’d be a lot less interesting fiction in the world.

If you intend to write horror, fantasy, science fiction, straight fiction or any sort of fiction, frankly, censorship should belong in your hands, not in the hands of a select few who decide to take offense at your writings.

That’s all for this rant.

James A. Moore

And here we are again. A month has blurred past. Seriously, June? Already?

Last time I was writing one of these articles I had just finished the first draft of a Young Adult novel and I was getting back to work on the last 20,000 words of the next novel. I had stopped the previous novel to work on the YA novel, you see. Not because that’s my preference, but because the YA novels have a tighter deadline. The sooner they are ready, the sooner they come out and the better the chances that I will be paid for my troubles.

That may not make sense to you, so let me clarify. The YA novels are for the YA market. Right now (really this part shouldn’t be too surprising for anyone familiar with the markets) YA is paying better. More YA books sell than Horror, so the publishers have a bigger demand and they pay better. That’s sort of the way the industry works. If I had a passion for writing Romance novels, or even Supernatural Romances, I’d probably be living on easy street. I don’t, so instead I write what I love to write. That’s the way I play the game. I never said I was very smart. The other novel I’m currently writing is a Supernatural Western, and while there are a few relationships between male and female characters, I can’t in good conscience call any of what happens a Romance, so, there it is.

The part of me that says people might actually come back and read more than one essay by yours truly is also telling me that I’ve probably confused the hell out of everyone around me. Why? Because I’ve said more than once that you should finish a project before going on to the next one. I still say that. I tend to think that for most people multitasking through several novels at once is going to be rough.

I am not most people. I tend to read several books at once and in order to avoid writer’s block I always have several projects going at once. I got stuck on the Supernatural Western. It wasn’t going where I wanted it to and insisted on heading into directions that made no sense to me, so I decided I needed time to think about it before continuing. Also, there’s no real deadline on that novel except the one I imposed. The YA situation is very different. The YA is part of at least a two book deal, potentially a series; it has deadlines and it is also the first project I’ve ever really done where I decided to sell the book before writing it. It’s a market I’ve been out of for a while, you see, and that means I have to relearn who is buying, who is not, and what they are looking for. I even broke down and got an agent on this one folks, and I’ve made my opinions of agents well known over the years but just for clarification: I will work with agents when they work with me. I will pay agents when they actually EARN the money. I found one who’s working with me and actually earning his fifteen percent of my blood and sweat. So it all worked out.

Again, I digress.

The YA books take priority. I dropped the Supernatural Western because it refused to do what I wanted and I needed distance.

Then, first draft done, I went back to the Western.

And the YA Editorial team got back to me with a few changes.

Eight single-spaced pages of changes and recommendations.

Naturally, I felt my blood pressure soar through the roof! I mean, come on! What the hell were they thinking? I’d spent weeks writing the first draft, and at least as long agonizing over every word of the proposal! And they just come along and decide to change things? That I should change things?

Oh, wait, they’re paying me. They’re publishing me. They’re possibly even going to do a series. And really, maybe it’s best to actually look over what they have to say before I decide to have an embolism.

So the ego? It has to go. After a short struggle my ego was beaten into submission, locked in the basement and threatened with a low carb diet if it didn’t behave. After that I went about reading the suggested changes.

Love the story.

Check.

Would make an awesome series.

Check.

Might need to trim a little from the introductions and expand the end of the book a bit for clarity.

Well, okay, I can do that.

Might want to lose a character.

Um. Then again, might not.

From there on the pages go into clarifications, elaborations and a series of questions not answered clearly by the manuscript. Okay, that last part hurts a little, I admit it. I tend to think I’m fairly direct in my writing. Of course my friends and critics often disagree with me, so, you know, maybe I can give that a second look.

I sent a twelve page response to the letter. The only thing I covered in the letter was the answers to eight questions about the series. Oh, and to tell them that, yes, I was pretty sure I could have the next draft ready by July first. As I write this, I have one more scene to go on the rewrites. I’m ahead of schedule. I prefer it that way.

Now, here’s a few things to remember: 1) I write horror. YA is a different field. There are different rules and I warned my editors that I was going to push every boundary there is and that they should feel free to rein me in. I know myself. I cut loose with the violence, I pushed into uncomfortable and taboo territories and then I did it again. That’s my job, especially when I’m dealing with characters in stressful situations. I cut loose, I draw blood and then I wait for the literary equivalent of the network censors to tell me to knock it off.

2) Why? Because it’s my book, but it’s their playground. I’m still telling the story that I wanted to tell. I’m getting paid rather nicely for it, too. But there are different rules in YA than there are in horror, even in mass market horror. The market is different. The target audience is younger and has different expectations. I’m not talking kiddie books, here. I don’t mean picture books with a few words to keep everything coherent. No, It’s a novel. Albeit a little shorter than I’m used to. And my job is the same as before. I’m here to tell a tale and entertain. The difference is that I don’t know the market as intimately as the people who have agreed to publish me. I can make a few guesses as to who is getting noticed by the YA crowd, but at the end of the day they’re only guesses. I can tell you without any hesitation who’s going places in the horror field and who isn’t. I know the genre fairly intimately at this point. Even if I haven’t read someone I know ten people who have. But that just isn’t true with the YA field. The last time I did a YA novel was half a decade ago and at that time I took myself up to New York to have a chat with the editor because she was worried that maybe there were too many murders in my horror story. This? By page two we have someone putting a bullet through his own head. I think my first editor would have sent the manuscript back with a polite suggestion to choke on it.

3)) My editors really had very little issue with the violence in the story. In fact, I’m actually going to quote from the letter because, well, it’s just easier. It also gets the point across using less words that yours truly.

“This is great stuff! You have a remarkable talent for graphic action: but the often gruesome quality of your language is not gratuitous; rather, it helps set the perfect tone for a page-turner that’s both frightening and intricate in its design. Kids are going to love this book.”

Seriously, how the hell am I supposed to complain about that? Yes, I did my best not to get too graphic, but it’s nice to hear I did it the right way for the editors in question.

“Now we need to take all the material you’ve shared here and really work it through to its absolute dramatic and logical high points. We are going to be relentless with the material you’ve shared. Because if we don’t understand how something works, kid readers definitely won’t.”

And there you have it. That is the reason for eight pages of notes. I’m probably working harder on this novel than on anything I’ve written in a while, because there are new rules that have to be applied and in a few cases I still haven’t learned those rules. We’re going to lock horns, me and these editors, and we’re likely to do it often. Because we both want what is best for the final product. In the long and short of it, there is no place for my ego in this equation. I might want to fight for a few aspects to remain unchanged, but if there is a solid logic behind the changes they want made, I’ll probably accept that logic and make the necessary changes. It’s a part of the process that I and damned near every writer has to go through. It isn’t always comfortable, but there is a reason for it.

Your books are your babies. Your stories are your children. You want the world to love them as much as you do. That’s almost never going to happen, but that’s what you want. And yes, when they’ve grown up and moved out of the house, you’ll probably look back and shake your head and wonder how the hell you ever survived dealing with them when they were so damned obstinate and grammatically challenged to boot.

Don’t let parental pride get in the way of making your stories the best they can be. I’ve been opposed to self publication because the editors usually suck and that same opposition stands in here as well. I am not the best judge of what the YA market is looking for. I am not the best critic when it comes to my own works. Happily, I have a few editors who are perfectly willing to take a good portion of that burden on themselves. It’s their job to make the books the best they can as well, you see. Like me they have invested a good deal of time and effort and they’re also investing a portion of the publisher’s money. Not only are they paying me, they have to cover the printing costs, distribution, cover art, and everything else. Of course they want my novel to be a success. They’re pretty much betting on it. And like everyone else, they’ll do all they can to hedge that bet in their favor.

Now having said all of that, most of the suggestions made by an editor or editorial team are just that: suggestions. No one expects you to make every change automatically and to have no say in the matter. I did not, in fact, cut out a character. First, I like that character, and second, that character is important to the story. I did, however, change the names of a couple of characters who sounded too much alike. And I also brought one of the characters in later, because they were right. There was too much going on in the story before the action began.

James A. Moore

In light of the new Star Trek movie, I’d like to switch subjects. However, because I’d already planned on doing an essay on professionalism (one of my favorite subjects) you’re going to get two essays for the price of one, which is to say for free.

First Essay:
Professionalism:
I’ve been writing essays for Storytellers Unplugged since its inception. I have never missed a deadline. That’s called professionalism. I’m not paid for these essays, but that does not, in my honest opinion, allow me to ignore doing my best to get them in on time. The two counterarguments that can be used against me are as follows:

1) Jim, some of your articles were a mess of incoherent babble.

2) Answer: Yep. But they were on time and they were free.

3) Jim, some of us have lives and have to make a living.

4) Answer: True. So do I. That’s why from time to time my free advice column has been a long ramble. Thanks for playing.

Second Essay:
Retreading the classics

So, it’s safe to say that there have been a LOT of vampire novels written since Varney The Vampire came along back in the day. A lot. At least hundreds if not thousands. Seriously. I know, because I wrote at least four of them myself. Only one was original. The other three were licensed properties. It would be easy to argue that absolutely everything has been done to vampires that can be. I mean, come on, the latest trend is that they’re sparkly. I’ve had no less than a dozen people bitch at me about the whole glittery vampire trend.

My answer: Who cares?

If you want to write a vampire story, what the hell is stopping you? The closest thing you’re going to get to a complaint from me is if you are writing one solely because you believe that’s the only market that’s available. It might be an easier market to break into, but there are others out there as well. I’d much rather see everyone write a novel that they truly wanted to write than one they thought would sell well.

Recently a new trend popped up. I’m not going to justify said trend by listing titles. Either you know them or you don’t. The new trend is to take classic works (read: Public Domain) and “rewrite” the stories adding in zombies.

Let’s ruminate on that for a moment, shall we?

I’m not talking about doing a riff on the classic. I’m talking about someone coming along, adding in scenes with zombies and then rereleasing the original with the inclusion of these new scenes. Now, seriously, the first time it sounded humorous. Why not try something different? But within WEEKS of the announcement, a dozen other works that are public domain are getting the exact same treatment from authors and hacks alike.

What? You’re THAT desperate? You can’t even TRY to sell something a bit more original?

But Jim, you co-wrote BLOODSTAINED OZ with Christopher Golden, and you’ve got two sequels, BLOODSTAINED WONDERLAND and BLOODSTAINED NEVERLAND not only contracted but halfway planned out. What makes that different?

Good question. Because it’s a good question, I’ll go ahead and answer it. Yes, we wrote OZ and we’re planning out the other two. They do, in fact, incorporate aspects of the aforementioned classics. They do not, however, take much beyond a few fun settings. They are still original works, not reprints with added scenes. We also started the series several years ago, not as a response to someone rewriting GONE WITH THE WIND (NOW WITH WEREWOLVES!).

And yes, I wrote a continuation to A SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH, and I did it without hesitation. I did not add vampires and pretend it was something new. No, I wrote a continuation to a tale that offers lots of room for continuations and one that was written by an author who enjoyed seeing what other people would do with what he started. H.P. Lovecraft encouraged the use of his locations among his peers and in that spirit I wrote DEEPER.

And yes, I’ve written about werewolves, ghosts, vampires, demons, golems, scarecrows, witches and a few dozen more critters that are hardly brand new. I don’t deny it. The evidence is on bookshelves in homes and in stores alike. Town curses? Been there. Evil Clowns? Done that and still doing it. Hell, I’ve even recently broken down and written a zombie story, which I honestly never expected to do. No hesitation whatsoever.

I have a new young adult series coming out that does a riff on the entire Jekyll and Hyde concept.

I’m writing a supernatural Western even as I write this article.

I have used and will very likely continue to use every notion that strikes my fancy. Especially the old standards. Why? Because they have a special place in my heart and because, while there have been plenty of tales told, they aren’t necessarily the tale that I would tell.

Vampires have been done a zillion times. Anne Rice is single handedly responsible for an entire subgenre, and you can also throw in detective vampires, and sexy vampire hunters as subgenres.

Hell Harry Potter started a run of similar novels for kids about young sorcerers/witches learning their trade. Nothing wrong with that, really. It’s called a trend. They happen all the time.

The difference here, as near as I can tell, is that while J.K. Rowling may have started something with Harry Potter, what has come afterwards is still new (Though there may be a few stories out there that come dangerously close to plagiarism, I have yet to run across one myself). The Classics + Zombies trend? That’s just…well, that’s just cheating.

Want to do a new zombie book? I’m all for it. Hell, Brian Keene did things with zombies that hadn’t been done before. He made them new again and restarted a strong interest in the walking dead. More power to him. At least he didn’t try to sneak them into THE MALTESE FALCON and then claim originality.

You should always write what you want to write. Yes, you should have an eye toward marketability if you have a desire to be a professional, but as far as I’m concerned, a good story will always find a home, regardless of whether or not the monster is a retread of one that’s been done before. I suppose it’s possible that every author suddenly doing a zombie + literary classic came up with the idea on their own, but I have serious doubts. I suspect it’s far likelier that they realized they could put out a novel with minimal effort and still sell copies to anyone who happened to be attached to this new trend. A lot of the names I’m seeing are the same ones I’ve seen jump on other trends in the past and a lot of them are self published this time around, too.

Pity. I keep hoping that some of them will try something original, or even just try to write something they truly care about instead of what they think the world at large might be interested in.

I’m not the world’s leading authority on how to be successful. Heaven knows there are a lot of authors out there making far better money than me. I certainly can’t claim to be the most original writer in the world, though I like to think I put my own spin on the older subjects that I decide to play with. But I still think it’s better to write for something other than a momentary trend. How many zombies do we really need shuffling through reprinted classics? Are literary alien invasions made better if the victims of the invasions rise from the dead to eat the flesh of the living? I have my doubts.

Just food for thought. As always, exactly how much good or ill this essay will do you is entirely at your discretion.

Jim, what has all of this got to do with the new Star Trek movie, anyway?

Everything and nothing.

The new Star Trek movie is a damned fun film. It embraces the original series, pays proper homage to the original series (is even dedicated to Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry) and is set in the (arguably) same universe; the movie goes beyond the original series. It does so with respect and regard to the original series and doesn’t hesitate to make the changes necessary to refit that universe to director J.J. Abrams’ (and let’s not forget those writer types, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, et al.) new vision. That’s the way it should be. There is a very obvious love of the original series, but that doesn’t stop the team from progressing in new directions.

They didn’t take an old episode and change it (Though that was done once on DEEP SPACE NINE and admirably), they instead wrote the story they felt worked best and remembered the source material with proper respect. That’s my point here. They did it the right way.

Again, just food for thought.

Until next time,

James A. Moore

What makes it new?

Recently, I ran across a post by an author I admire. He was celebrating the fact that he had just gotten into an anthology edited by someone I know.

I knew nothing of this new anthology. This would not do.

So I checked with the editor of this anthology. I sent a simple enough email. It said “Hey, what’s up with this new anthology and how come I haven’t heard about it?”

This is my semi-polite way of testing the waters. See, if I’m met with awkward silence, then the truth is, the editor just hates my writing or possibly me and I can go sulk in a corner and wonder why it is that he never told me how badly my writing sucks. If I’m met with an explanation like “It’s a collection of stories about anorexic Goth vampires,” well, then I know that the editor understands I’ve done my share of stories along those lines and have no real desire to go there again, at least not for a while.

Nope. This time around it was a closed anthology.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a closed anthology is never made public. It’s by invitation only. If someone finds out about it, cool, but more often than not, once the first run of invitations has gone out, the deal is done. Exceptions are incredibly rare.

Okay, I can forgive that. I opted to not sulk. Instead I asked for details.

It was not, in fact, an anthology about anorexic Goth vampires. Hell, it wasn’t about vampires at all. It was about zombies.

Humor me. Go Google the words Zombie and Anthology. No, save yourself the trouble. I just did it for you: according to the first response there are “about 153,000” more responses. I’m sure a lot of those are duplicates and some are probably just articles online that happen to use the words together. So we’ll cut that back substantially and say there are only 1,000 actual zombie anthologies out there. Not including THE BOOKS OF THE DEAD as edited by John Skipp and Craig Specter some years back.

Okay. That only leaves a thousand.

Still a lot of zombie anthologies when you think about it.

So I asked who was involved with this one and was given a partial list.

And just like that, I wanted to be involved in this anthology, too.

We all have people we admire. We all have our personal heroes in the field. Some of the people involved already qualified as personal heroes.

Suddenly, for the first time in a very long while, I liked the idea of writing about zombies.

Were there any openings in the anthology? Well, no, not officially. But there were a couple of stories that hadn’t come through. If I could get a good story to the editor in short order, I could MAYBE get into the anthology.

Now, I have nothing against zombies. I rather like them. Sure, they’re smelly and most of them are flesh eaters, but we all have our flaws.

The thing about zombies is they’ve been done, if you’ll pardon the pun, damned near to death.

I don’t want to write the same story as everyone else. I want to write my story. Even if it’s on a subject that has been covered extensively. I said the same thing about writing BLOOD RED, which was unusual in that the publisher asked me to write a novel specifically about vampires. So I did, but first I had to consider how to make them fresh. I didn’t want to write ‘SALEM’S LOT or INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. They’ve been done and done well. I wanted to write something that was uniquely mine. Whether or not I succeeded depends on who you talk to, but in the long run I had a good time writing it and I was paid to boot. I call that a success.

Well, I mean, come on, how much can you do with a shambling dead thing?

Okay. Let’s see. Romero, of course. He did a great job. Keene. Brian Keene did THE RISING and it was pretty damned intense. He followed through with CITY OF THE DEAD and it was good, too. It was also, to be blunt, conclusive. No more sequels there, boys and girls. He went on to do DEAD SEA, but it’s an entirely different zombie story. There have been several series of graphic novels, no end to actual novels, there’s actually a small press or two almost exclusively dedicated to zombies, and the thousand or so anthologies. Do I have to go into the movies? For God’s sake, people, we had one called FLIGHT of the Living Dead, as if Snakes on a Plane wasn’t a demented enough stretch! So, having established that I want to make it into a particular anthology and having wrangled an invite of sorts, I simply had to settle down and write a zombie story that would stand out from the crowd.

The crowd of several thousand tales already told.

Well, really, I suppose I could reinvent the shambling dead man, couldn’t I? If I maybe stepped completely away from the voodoo origins? Oh, wait, everyone has already stepped away from that. Hell, these days going back to the roots of the legend would be considered innovative. I mean, we’ve had comets, meteors and other falling stars as the progenitor. The government has caused the dead to rise. Alien slugs have done it. New strains of rabies found on rare types of rats, the list is endless.

No. I don’t think I can come up with an origin for zombies that’ll really stand out.

I don’t much like giving up, but there isn’t a lot kicking around in my skull at this point. So I work on other projects for a day or so and let the old subconscious start kicking the idea around a bit. I force myself to resist the temptation to pull out all of my zombie movies (I don’t have all of them, but I’ve got decent numbers, thanks just the same) and I continue to ponder the zombie.

What is it that makes the zombie so fascinating? Is it the idea of the dead coming back? Could it be that simple?

Maybe for a lot of people it is. Surely I’ve read a fair number of tales that involved little beyond descriptive sentences about flesh being rended and loved ones dying only to rise again.

But not for me. Not on this one. There’s something that’s missing from every single notion that comes into my head and it’s something that is elemental and elementary both. I should be seeing it, but this is a case where I might have examined the situation too closely for my own good.

What is it that makes the truly good zombie stories stand out for me? I contemplate that notion for a long while, and at the same time I go on with my life, because I’m happily functional even when my brain is trying to twist around old notions and make them into something fresh.

And then I had an amazing little epiphany. It was a quiet revelation, but the sort that could have left me speechless if I had been speaking instead of writing.

Night of the Living Dead was never about the zombies. What made the story stand out—aside from excellent direction and a stark and unsettling cinematography—was simply the characters.

Could have knocked me over with a feather. I sat at the computer and shook my head and if I were the type, I’d have found a way to kick myself in the ass.

People. Characters. You know, what I’ve been bitching about for the last few years as I write these articles. The story is about the characters and how they react to the situations they find themselves in. I don’t care if you’re writing about Godzilla (though Toho Studios might be a little pissy if you don’t have permission) or if you’re creating a beast that has never been imagined until this very moment (and good luck with THAT boys and girls). In the long run, the critters are never the true center of the story. They might be the catalysts, they might be the central focus that all of the people they meet must consider, but in the long and short of it, if I don’t like the characters, if the readers cannot at least empathize with the characters, then I have failed to make a good story.

The anthology hasn’t been formally announced yet.

I won’t even tell you what it’s called or who else is in it. What I will do, however, is give you the first sentence of my story. You can decide for yourselves if it’s strong enough to do what it’s supposed to do.

“Of course they poked it with a stick. What else would twelve year olds do with a freshly discovered corpse?”

James A. Moore