Carrying on the theme of the last post … sites for writers seems to be a common subject at present. 

Jessica Faust, over at Bookends LLC - A Literary Agency, gives the following advice about web sites for unpublished writers.  She recommends getting a web site now, before you are published, as you need the site ready for any prospective agents or other readers who may be able to help you with your career.

Jessica also suggests that posting a chapter of your novel is a good idea. 

Some of the people who commented on her blog thought this was a good idea, others were a little wary.  I confess to being one of the wary ones.  Yes, we are posting Barrain here on this blog, as unpolished in its early drafts as it possibly can be, but I’m not sure about posting any of the work we are currently trying to sell.

There is a practical issue here as well.  The first chapter that you write is probably the last one that you finish.  We occasionally still polish the first chapter of Potion as it arrives back from yet another agent. When would we post this chapter?  Timing is everything.

Site design was discussed—by Jessica and the people who commented. The general consensus is that you need a simple, basic site that looks okay.  You don’t have to pay a professional to design the site, but it doesn’t hurt if you do.

One thing that wasn’t discussed on Jessica’s post was blogs.

A web site is not a blog, although you can have a blog associated with your site, or even set up as the whole site.  In an ideal world you would have both, a la Neil Gaiman, say. If you had the choice, though, and could only do one, which would you do?

I think that would depend on the type of writer you are, and how comfortable you are with the web.

Me. I think I would go for the blog.

People write blogs for different reasons. 

As writers, I would say that some of the major reasons would be:

• For writing practise
• To maintain enthusiasm
• To showcase our talent.

This last is important.  Some agents (e.g. Miss Snark) mention that if they are interested in an author’s submission they will check out their web site.  I know, as a reader, if I find a writer I like, the first thing I do is look up their web site on the internet.

Which leads to the question—how much should we polish what we put in there?

When we write novels they go through a few major drafts, plus numerous minor ones, and every draft is reviewed by both of us.  We take time between the drafts.  Yet this blog gets one draft and one revision, by the person who wrote it. Not only that, it is generally reviewed on the same day it is written, so there is not even the distance of time between the initial writing and the revision.  I still find mistakes in earlier posts, months after I posted them.

What does that say about me (or about us, really) as a writer if you come to this site and see first draft material?

How much should we worry about what people see?

In an ideal world we would polish our blogs until they are as sparkling as our other writing (or at least, as sparkling as our other writing aspires to be), but for a basic return on investment, wouldn’t we be better polishing our novel instead?

Time we spend writing blogs is time we aren’t writing the novel.

It takes me around two hours to write a post and review it.

My aim is to post two articles a week each for A Novel Idea and two for Technical Writer.  (I haven’t done so well at that lately.)  Four posts, eight hours. 

That is eight hours per week of novel writing I have voluntarily given up.  One full working day.

If I wrote novels for a living that might be reasonable time out, but it’s actually time out of the few precious fiction writing hours I can scrape out of a full working week and other life. It’s quite a sacrifice.

I’m not complaining, by the way, it’s my choice to do it.  However, should I be worrying that anyone who visits our site sees writing that is not particularly polished, or are my priorities right?

I don’t know.  I don’t know that I will ever know.

One thing is certain. The impact of your blog is not just in the writing. It’s also in the design.  If your web site looks good then people are predisposed to think of you as a better writer, unless your writing is appalling.

I am no web designer, and I have come to the conclusion over the years that you don’t have to be a brilliant graphic artist to create a functional web site.  You just have to be competent.  You may not end up with the ‘wow’ factor (to quote that advertisement currrently doing the rounds) but at least you end up with something that doesn’t prejudice people immediately.

I think writing a blog is a bit like that too.

While we would all like to put up dazzling prose, mostly it just has to be competent.

For those of us who write novels but are unpublished as yet, we’re far better off spending the extra time writing them, than polishing our blog posts to that final 10% brilliance.

Mathers is a wimp.  He’s taken over from Scott in the wimp stakes and I’m not sure how to fix him.

All Calder can say is “Really?”  She is so surprised.

I think she should expect one wimp per novel.  One wimp per draft, until the last draft.  Maybe that’s how we’ll know when we have finished.  When we know the characters are not wimps.

Do we, as authors, give our characters more pain than they can realistically tolerate? 

I haven’t written much in the blog over the last month, as I have been somewhat incapacitated by a pulled muscle in my back. 

I haven’t wanted to write.  I haven’t been able to concentrate, and I haven’t been able to sit for long periods, whether it be in front of a screen or just sitting generally.  I haven’t been able to stand long either, so I have spent days sitting, then standing, then sitting, and—more preferably—laying down.

Everything hurts.  It’s only a back strain, but my hips ache, my legs ache.

I have not been able to do much of anything, and my whole life seems to be centred around my back.

I realise that this response is an over-reaction to pain in someone who seldom experiences it, but it made me wonder.  Exactly how much pain would the heroes in our novels be able to bear?

As fantasy and science fiction writers we are more likely to inflict pain on our protagonists than the average author.  Do we let them off too lightly?

Our hero gets a sword between the ribs. The local doctor—or equivalent—patches him up.

Next hour he’s limping around the battlefield, offering encouragement to the fighters who are left.

How likely is that in real life? 

He’s going to be sore.  All that movement will likely tear the stitches.  He’ll start bleeding.

Because he’s our hero he’ll be thinking of his people, naturally, but he’s going to be really conscious of the pain. Sometimes, that will be all he can think about.  Sometimes he will snap at people trying to help. He won’t be able to stop himself.  All he wants to do is lie down, and for the world to go away.

Some remarkable people put up with crippling pain every day.  Most of them adjust, and learn to live with it. Some even manage to be cheerful in the face of it.  Often the people who tolerate pain least are those who seldom experience it.  Me with my back, for instance.

As authors, we generally create hale, hearty heroes who become injured in the process of the story, not beforehand.  Yes, they’re used to bruises and minor battle scars, but because of their very hero-ness, aren’t they more likely to be unused to major injuries?

Does this mean that they are also more likely to be incapacitated by deep, real pain when they experience it?

How important is it as a writer that you create likeable characters as protagonists for your novel? Is it better to create well-rounded characters who may not be very likeable, or is it better to create likeable stereotypes?

The only hero I ever knew broke down the door of a burning building, raced inside and rescued the two occupants, both of whom were overcome by smoke inhalation.  It was a very brave thing to do, and it saved their lives.

This same man bashed his wife—frequently—and followed her around the country for ten years after she left him, making her life an absolute misery.  No matter how far she ran, he always found her.

To people who didn’t know him well he was witty and good looking, a real charmer.

To those of us who did, he scared the hell out of us.  I know I wasn’t the only one who genuinely wished him harm and there were days when I seriously contemplated doing something about it myself.

Had this man been in a book he would have been considered a ‘well-rounded’ character.

I recently finished Sara Douglass’ “Hade’s Daughter”, the first in the four-book Troy Game series.  This is an excellent book.  Well written and engaging, and I love the idea underpinning the story.  However, as the Publisher’s Weekly blurb says on the back cover of my copy:

“Dazzling … full of seriously flawed characters both abhorrently evil and appallingly empathetic.”
Publishers Weekly

The thing about Hade’s Daughter is that it was a really good book, but I’m not going to race out and read the next three books in the series right away.  I may do in future, I’m not sure.  I need time away first, because sometimes the main characters were really not nice.  Publisher’s Weekly really described them well.

For me, personally, no matter how good a book is, if I can’t like the characters I have trouble staying the whole book.

So does this mean that I prefer books with likeable stereotypical heroes than a really good book with a truly flawed character?  Obviously, it depends on the flaws, and one person’s idea of fatal flaws is not necessarily another’s.  Some people will love Brutus, for example, in Hade’s Daughter.

I can definitely say that if you gave me a choice between:

• A Pulitzer-quality novel about a charming, but flawed hero (who just happens to beat his wife) who investigates the arson of a house where he rescues the occupants, and
• A lighthearted whodunnit about a (nicer) man who investigates the arson of a house where he rescues the occupants

I know which novel I am going to read, and it’s not the quality one. 

In an ideal world, of course, the character would be rounded, flawed, and still likeable. That’s the type of book we all strive for.

I am currently reading Jared Diamond’s “Collapse“, subtitled “How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive“.

If you write fantasy or science fiction and want to build worlds, this is another book I recommend.

Collapse talks about the impact of climate change, environment, friendly/hostile neighbours and how society responds to these first four problems.  The way it responds then determines whether that society survives or fails.

The world we created in Shared Memories was devastated by a war 40 years previously.  In that war the people in our story lost their ability to produce energy, lost immediate access to major food supplies, and lost most of their healers. 

The population crashed.

When we wrote it I wanted the population to drop by 80%.  Calder convinced me it would be more like 50%.  I eventually came around to her way of thinking, but after reading Collapse I’m starting to think that an 80% drop in 40 years is still possible.

We’ll stick at 50% though, because to drop 80% the world would need to be a closed system, with no outside contact at all.

Our world—Roland’s world—did have external vistors and contact with others, albeit slowly.

The great thing about books like Collapse is that they show you how other factors, not just politics, influence a society, and make it survive or fail.  As writers we often focus on the politics and omit the rest.

Here are some of the other factors we should be considering.