Whitcoulls: An Apology

Many of you will have already seen my post last week about Whitcoulls closing their largest store. I will admit, it was a little vitriolic. I was impassioned, and passion drives men to do rash things. I also had an experience that changed my life while entombed in the half-bare shelves of your flagship store, and so I feel it's time for an apology, Whitcoulls.

I'm sorry for saying you had nothing I wanted to buy. It turned out you had exactly two books I wanted to buy, which is more than I had ever hoped for. To say I am pleased would be an understatement. I am awed, and I am humbled. Your gracious stocking of two bestselling fantasy books was a blessing indeed to genre fans like myself. There are millions of us, and to have our voices heard by your bankrupt ears was nothing short of magnificent. Moreover, the fact that these were the only two books on that otherwise empty shelf made me feel, dare I say it, special. It was as though these books were meant for me and only me, like a light had shone down from the heavens to part the shelves of clearance-price romance and reveal those two tomes, nestled on a naked shelf.

I'm sorry for insinuating your prices are too high. I said you couldn't compete with the online market, but I was wrong. I snatched up those books and hurried to the counter, joyed that I did not have to wait two weeks after my purchase to read them. My steps resonated in the spacious cavity of your three-storey shop, echoing against the elegant, barren walls. At the counter, I paid exactly $30 for these two thick paperback blessings. 'What a bargain!' I proclaimed to the ghostly attendant stood behind the counter. The markdowns were proof that you wanted readers like me to buy from you. And Whitcoulls, I answered your call. Like a phone-sold cold call target buying into shares, I was thrilled by thoughts of money well spent. It was ecstasy, having spare cash upon leaving your hallowed doors.

But like an invester in a property bubble, I knew it couldn't last.

I have the full trilogy of Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' books, and afterward I had money left for a doughnut. Such luxury you have allowed me! As the sweet, sugary crumbs rolled down my chin I savoured the moment, quashing thoughts that, inevitably, this indulgence would end. Your doors would close, and I would no more be able to afford such thick stacks of paper. In fact, I would likely never see them on your shelves again.

Whitcoulls, without you this afternoon of sheer robbery would have been impossible. I have plundered your sinking ship, and for that I am thankful.

Sorry Whitcoulls, you were right, closing your doors was a good idea.

2spooky

Here's a bad Creepypasta. I got bored at 3AM.

Photographs

Let me tell you about Julia. Smart girl, quite pretty I would say, strong-willed, altogether a level-headed and sensible person. She had one hobby that I found frankly quite intriguing, and it was perhaps the one aspect of her personality that demonstrated her powerful capacity to pursue that which she loved. She would go on long hikes, sometimes for days, alone in the wilderness.

Julia was a smart person, like I said, so she was always exceptionally well-prepared for these trips. The first few were with other people who knew what they were doing, but pretty quickly she started going on these walks by herself. I would ask her about it often, ask why this one activity in particular roused her passions so strongly. She could explain to you so many things and was always in full understanding of her emotions, but when I’d ask her that question, she’d always say,

“I’m not sure, I just enjoy something about it.”

I could respect that, and I totally did. I worried a little for her safety, like anyone would, but she wouldn’t just wander around in the woods at night or something, she’d go on a full-on hike in some mountains or something like that. Different place each time, actually. It was just something she loved to do.

She got a camera one year at Christmas from her boyfriend at the time. The boyfriend was gone pretty quickly, but that’s a different story. She started taking the camera with her on hikes. It was an oldschool one, where you’d develop the film later at a shop. She took some amazing pictures of landscapes I would never see, and slowly the labours she put herself through for her hobby began to bear fruits. I told her she could probably sell those photos to a magazine, so she did. Two months later she’s writing articles about places she walks and the things she thinks about on her journeys. It gets pretty heavy at times, but it’s always amazing stuff. Baring one’s soul always produces 

something amazing.

She went for a hike in these mountains one time about an hour’s drive from where she used to live, a real middle-of-nowhere kind of place. When she got back we met up to chat about it, because by then I had become her boyfriend, and decided to get the photos developed that same day. Now, we didn’t end up picking them up until the next morning for reasons I don’t feel I need to explain, but when we did we decided to walk up to this lookout point and sort through the photos. She was telling me the stories behind the ones I thought were the best, and the things she shared about herself struck me as being things that hadn’t been said out loud before.

I’m sitting there, shuffling through these photos that this beautiful girl took on a hike alone in some far away mountains, and out of nowhere there’s this photo.

There are two more almost exactly like it right after. Three photos of her sleeping alone in her tent.

She didn’t go on anymore hikes after that.

A Bite-Sized Story: Just Fun

I asked Twitter to give me a prompt for this post, and Twitter delivered. Thank you to everyone who gave their suggestions, and a special thanks to @RogerDColbym whose prompt won out. He sent me this:

'Something exists just at the edge of your vision and when you look it vanishes.'

Here's what I came up with.

Language warning ahead.

            Just Fun

            I feel bad about it. I'm meant to, it's my job. It's just so funny though.

            "He still hasn't figured it out." I giggle.

            "No, he hasn't." my co-worker replies

            Oh Jesus it's killing me, this is just too funny.

            "Again, again, one more time." he says.

            I nod, smile all wry and twisted. What have I become? Oh whatever, it's still funny. My co-worker leans in close and whispers "You're a faggot."

            I'm right on the ball with my response, whispering "No, don't listen to him."

            Then we're snickering away again like two little girls. Poor kid swats at his ears like there's a mosquito about. Oh my sides.

            "Ok, ok, ok, we should stop now." I tell my co-worker, fitting words in between gasps of air.

            "No way, look at him. This'll never get old." he says, that toothy grin of his telling me it's fine to keep going. Damn is he good at his job. And I guess I'm not good enough at mine.

            I don't say anything, but he starts leaning into the kid's ear again. I don't really have a choice but to be prepared. We have to keep up appearances after all.

            "You like boys." he whispers.

            "No you don't, you're mad for pussy." I barely keep it together as I talk.

            Then we're off sniggering again. Ohhhh it's so funny being mean. I lean in again, knowing this will be a master stroke. My co-worker's gonna lose his shit at this one.

            "And even if you do, God doesn't mind these days."

            The kid slaps at where I would be standing, his hand goes straight through me. My co-worker is on his arse, full-on bellowing with laughter. I tried to keep my composure, but as it turns out I'm a comic genius and now I'm full of rolling hysterics. The kid glances nervously left and right, and my laughter redoubles. Jesus he's dumb.

            "Ohhh noooo, we really need to stop." I say, knowing I probably don't sound like I mean it. I do, deep down, but it's hard to sound sincere when you're laughing. And even then, I've already gone this far. I'm fired, sure as shit, might as well enjoy the last day on the job.

            "Haha, maybe. We can wait, then come back. God that'll really fuck with him." he says, grin still wicked with schemes.

            "Aww, come on, don't say the boss' name like that." I saw, laughter finally waning. I'm still grinning like I'm high though.

            "He won't be happy with you." says the co-worker, like he's half of my own brain. I guess he is, in a way...

            "No, not at all, not at this point. Shit though it was worth it." I saw, letting out a long breath like I've just puffed a cigarette.

            "Might as well keep going then." he says, and this time he knows I've already thought it.

            "No, come on, we can't. The kid probably thinks he's a schizophrenic by now."

            "I CAN SEE YOU!" the kid yells. I fall over laughing again, and by the time I get myself together the kid's swatting at his ears and shoulders again. "RIGHT THERE! STOP MOVING WHEN I TURN MY HEAD!"

            Holy fuck, he's 16 and he sounds like he's having a temper tantrum. We're still on our arses laughing. Then my co-worker sits up, leans into the kid's ear again, pulls back to stifle another chuckle, gets right up close.

            "We're not reeeaal." he sing-songs.

            Then he falls back laughing again, harder than ever before. I snigger a little, but damn does the kid look worked up now. We can't see much of him, mind you, but he's flailing his arms about and shaking his head like a mad dog. I can hear crashing sounds, like wood breaking. I've never been able to hear the kid's sounds before. Something isn't right.

            "I think we've gone too far." I say to the co-worker, and thank Christ I actually sound serious this time.

            "Don't tell me that, tell him." he says through his boiling laughs, nodding his head toward the kid.

            Oh Jesus, he's right. I didn't say anything right after him either. The kid's probably panicking. He'll be having a moral crisis nearly. And I was right, he probably thinks he's a schizophrenic now too. Oh shit, I've fucked this up so bad. It was funny, sure, and I'm over the job, but this kid is messed up now. What can I say? What can I say!?

            I lean in close. Something will come to me, right? That's what I do, isn't it? I'm the voice of reason.

            BOOM!

            "Fuck!" the co-worker cries.

            BOOM!

            What the fuck is going on? The sound goes again, and again.

            "He's got a fucking gun. Oh Christ, I was doing my job." he says. I know it's not true. He's just trying to justify himself.

            The bullets don't hurt us, but he's firing like mad. His arms are flailing about and he's just shooting this thing again and again. I think he was trying to aim over his shoulders, where he thinks we must be, but now he's just firing blind.

            Then it happens. He hits himself, right in the head. Chunks of blood and brain go sailing past me. Oh no, oh we fucked up bad.

            "It was fun..." mumbles my co-worker. His face looks pale as my robe. "It was just honest fun..."

            I guess the kid didn't agree.

The Worst Prompt Ever

Sorry John

So about a year ago I was on a writing course, and it was excellent. In the last few weeks of it we were given a writing exercise that went 'here's three things, write a piece that includes all of them'. Some of them were fun and challenging, but one of them had the following three prompts:

Donald Trump's gold encrusted 757
A lobster
A bad acid trip

What the fuck is that? You want me to write a story using those?

Whatever, I'm not afraid of a challenge, so here's the story I wrote. Let this be a lesson in bathos.
Oh and yeah, language warning and all that. Like seriously, if you've found me offensive so far then do not read on.

                Some lobsters are blue. Most are pink, but some are blue. Of course Donald Fucking Trump would buy a blue one. I'm sitting at a dinner table across from him and he's wanking on about Kobe lobster, as if that's a real thing. It sounds like the rich person version of the gluten-free fad. Slap 'Kobe' on something and the Donald Trump's of the world, yes all 7 of them, are all over that shit. I would bet $20 that the truth is that the lobster's name is 'Kobe', but $20 to Donald Trump is like a jumbo jet to a cockroach; totally fucking irrelevant.

                The menu is about as wanky as the man himself, shit like 'venison Carpaccio' and 'corn-fed chicken'. I don't care about the chicken's childhood, just how it tastes. I actually don't care about Donald's childhood either, but here he is going on about it. Fuck off, this isn't your autobiography Donny just some kid who won a competition. You know that shit on cereal boxes and cans of V where they say shit like 'buy one and you're entered in the draw to win'? Well fuck me I didn't know they could enter you automatically and track you down using your credit card number. Creepy shit...

                Backtrack with me for a second. I buy this coke months ago because I'm thirsty as an east-end whore. This can has their latest summer promotion emblazoned over the side, and Donald Trump has just done some ghastly TV ad with him in a Hawaiian shirt drinking coke with teenagers like he's finally found time for his midlife crisis. I don't put two and two together ok? And why the fuck does coke do a competition to win dinner with Donald Trump? I've seen the apprentice, dude's like the corporate version of Gordon Ramsay.

                I get a phonecall, and I'm a winner winner fucking corn-fed chicken dinner. Donald picks me up from an agreeable location, which means I had to bus to the richest part of town so that poor people don't tarnish his car with the gaze of their unwealthy eyes. He rolls up in, I shit you not, the author shits the reader not, one would not consider themselves shitted, a stretch Maserati with his initials made from rows of diamonds on the side. What the ever-loving fuck? What does his automobile actually fucking gain from that? Do diamonds increase the fuel efficiency of his car so that he can pay less for gas and have more to spend on diamonds? Fuck this cunt and his god damn car. Especially fuck the pictures inside. He looks like a rapper with his framed picture of a plane made of fucking gold and him beside it with his toupee that's probably made of the hair of fucking Kobe African orphans.

                I don't know what to order, mainly because I can't pronounce half this shit and the other half has 'Kobe' written next to it and I couldn't possibly subscribe myself to such wanky dining. He explains to me that the plane is a Boeing 757, and he has a huge, throbbing stake in the company with his 9-inch shares and he can arrive 7 times in a night at any given airport with this plane. The rage boils inside me and I start doing this thing where I stop breathing and imagine my fist buried in various objects around me.

                The waitress wonders over because Donald clicked his fingers and I get so angry tentacles begin to sprout forth from my upper lip. He orders that blue cunt-fucking lobster and looks at me, ready to judge my mispronunciation of my choice of main and I look at the waitress and I say 'I'll have the twice-cooked Donald Trump' and she looks at Donald Trump and he says he'll have the crème brulee for dessert and I lose it. I've lost it before, but in the past 'it' has referred to 'most of it'. Today I lose literally all of it, absolutely everything 'it' could ever be. I look at Donald and say in a voice so neutral it could calm Hitler 'I don't fucking care'. Leathery wings break through the skin on my back and spread out behind me, my head grows outward, morphing into that of a cephalopod, Donald implodes leaving behind a small raincloud and the smell of mackerel. I raise my head and let out my mighty Cthuloid screech, fist-bumping the waitress as I stand and moonwalk out of the restaurant. And that, kids, is how I met your mother.

I Won't Tell You Again

I had an interesting conversation the other day. I was chatting with a beta reader about Part 2 of Ambervale, and they made some (positive) comments about a certain part. I replied saying I was glad it came out well, because it was the biggest 'rule break' I'd ever done. For just 1 short line, I throw away all conventions of 3rd person narrative and totally change the tone of the text, and it worked. Everyone who's read it so far loved it. Safe to say, I was chuffed as a bucket.

Then they said something I wasn't prepared for. They asked 'what other times have you broken the rules?'

I had to think for a long time about the answer to that. Then all at once it hit me, I break the 'show don't tell' rule. Why? Because it's fucking dumb.


Ok, I'll eat my words for a moment here. It's not a terrible rule, and like all rules it's there for a reason. It's there because it works. The problem is, it doesn't work 100% of the time. Maybe 99%, but if you're trying to 'show' in that remaining 1% when you should be 'telling', your writing ends up just as bad as if the whole thing was 'telling'. Show don't tell is a good rule, and reiterating it to writers who are just starting out, especially young ones, is crucial. It's a fundamental part of the craft.

But like every fundamental piece to every art form, there are times it can or even should be broken. The skill lies in knowing when to do just that. The reason 'show don't tell' frustrates me is because all the way up people in the industry will talk about 'show don't tell' as if it can't ever be broken. Then, of course, they don't notice the places where it is broken to great effect because the writing is good. 'Show don't tell' is something people bring up as advice when writing is bad, so they never think about it when reading good writing.


This would be a terrible opinion to have if I couldn't back it up, so here are some times where perhaps you should tell rather than show.

Let's say a character makes an internal decision. It's pretty obvious you'd say something like 'he decided it wasn't worth his time'. That's telling, right there. You're telling your reader what the character decided, you're not showing him arriving at that conclusion. Why? Because it's internal. You can't show internal stuff all the time, especially if you're not using internal monologue. If you are using internal monologue, you still shouldn't show in most 'decision' places. Let's look at the 'showing' version of that.

'Hm, that looks really difficult. Should I do it? I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm physically capable. No, I don't think I'll do it'.

What a load of crap that was, all to explain one tiny decisions. Imagine if you did that for every 'he decided/she decided' in your book. When do you use that internal monologue? When a part of the thought process is important. Otherwise, can it. If the fact that they made that decision is what's important, just roll with writing 'he decided'. We make decisions all the time without any kind of internal debate or hesitance. If your character is driving along a motorway, are you going to have them think for two lines about whether or not they should change lanes, then doing it? Or are you going to say 'he decided to change lanes'.

When else can you throw out 'show don't tell'? Expository scene setting. Sure, you do it through 'showing' (in that you describe the physical area and 'show' what it looks like) but at the same time there's no difference between that and 'telling' the reader what the place looks like. Sure you can write 'sun streamed through the window onto the red table below' or 'there was a red table, a window above it and outside it was a sunny day', but neither one is 'showing' or 'telling'. They're told the same way, it's just that one is badly written. Sooooo maaany people read the second one and say to the author 'you need to show, not tell', but the rule doesn't even apply! There is no 'showing' or 'telling' here, it's its own thing altogether, existing outside of your overhyped boxset of 'writing for dummies' rules!

Next week, I talk about how I showed Neil Gaiman my blog and he told me it sucked.

Raising the Dead

It's been a long, long time since I've posted here, and I daresay I've had good reason to stay quiet. I've been a busy man, and busy men don't blog. Why write a post now then? Well, I felt like shouting into the void again. Whereas before my posts here were a self-deprecating croon, this time it's a fanfare of achievement. I may be tooting my own horn here, but there's traffic and no-one else around to toot for me.

'So what's been happening, Pixie?' I hear you cry with anticipation. I'm teasing you, drawing it out. All you want is the sweet release of information. Well, let me slake your thirst ever so slightly. I finished the first draft of Maiden Voyage a few months back. 'Aww, is that all?' you whine. Now now, I can't have you fully quenched just 2 paragraphs in. The first draft of Maiden Voyage was completed late last year, clocking in at 65,000 words and just over 300 pages. The first editing pass included some sparing structural shifts and 2 shiny new chapters, bringing it to just over 70,000 words.

Where am I now then? Well after finishing the draft I spent a long time avoiding the piece entirely. Perhaps I needed to step away from my fictional world and look at it again as a reader. Whatever it was, I was eventually able to return to Maiden Voyage and fix a series of errors with layout and grammar. 'But Pixie', you whinge, 'that's not where you are now, that's were you were a few months ago.' Shut the fuck up, reader, I'm getting there. If I gave you the whole story in the first sentence I wouldn't be a very good author would I?

Around the beginning of the year I signed up to a frankly excellent writing course. I had already taken the introductory course, which spanned 8 weeks in the latter half of 2013, and had learned little. Why take the follow-up course then? Well, when you're around writers and talk for 3 hours on a Thursday night about writing, you tend to go home and write. Did I pay $5,000 to stay motivated to write? Of course not, I paid to learn from the best. Writing was a side-effect.

As a part of this course I was paired up with a mentor. I was lucky enough to be placed under the temporary tutelage of Fiona Kidman, possibly the country's most prolific author. It is with some shame that I admit I had to google her when I first read the name, totally oblivious of her laudable works. With the help of Fiona, I was steered in the right direction for the remainder of my editing work.

So that's where I am now, a third of the way through completing Maiden Voyage. The piece currently stands at just under 73,000 words and fills 334 pages. I have a sequel planned, and others within the same world idly being cooked up in my mind as the days go by. When I finish this editing pass, I'll likely sweep once more for grammar's sake and start shipping copies off to publishers. Have I written a bestseller? Probably not. But fuck you, I wrote a book, what the fuck did you do with your year?

The Private Punchline

I love inside jokes. Inside jokes are the only thing that allow you the opportunity to grunt at a friend while rolling your shoulders backwards and make them laugh. It's a unique form of humour that can make or break the believability of a friendship in a story.

Maybe I've just read too much terrible fiction lately but I've come across so many stories that have had characters do or say incredibly weird things around a friend, have the friend laugh, explained that 'She laughed because it was an inside joke' and expected the reader to find it funny. It might be amusing to picture someone doing the macarena behind the back of an unsuspecting teacher in a hallway but it's not funny to be told it's funny. This breaks the believability of that friendship, because suddenly the reader is being told that the friends are friends and they have this inside joke because they are friends and it is funny because it is a joke. Maybe this boils down to show-not-tell, but I definitely think there's something more to it than that.

Some inside jokes in stories are good, and not just because the joke is funny to the reader. In fact, the entire point of an inside joke is that it's only funny to the people that are in on it. A good inside joke should be explained in a way that ends with 'I guess you had to be there'. It should seem weird to an outside observer. It doesn't even have to be funny to the characters anymore. The hilarity of it might have worn off and now it's a force of habit for those friends.

That seems boring though, doesn't it? What's the point of a form of humour being placed in a story if neither the reader nor the characters are laughing? It's simple really, the reader believes the friendship very quickly. I distinctly remember reading John Green's  'An Abundance of Katherines' wondering why the main character and his best friend kept saying 'fug' instead of the notably more offensive 'fuck'. It wasn't even explained to me directly that it was an inside joke of theirs (which, for good measure, had lost its humourous quality and was now a habit for them, which added to the implied closeness of the friendship). It was eventually explained to another character and only then did I come to understand the origin of the joke. Up until that point I had seriously been questioning whether Mr Green had simply been lamely censoring himself.

I think this all links to a wider opinion I have on writing humour into a story. In it's most basic form, the theory goes something like this:
Only write the humour in if you understand why the humour works.
Everyone has laughed at jokes before. Some of us have had the pleasure of making others laugh at jokes before. Few truly understand why they made the other person laugh. Even if they do understand it all, they must always keep in mind that when writing you lack the ability to truly apply things like comedic timing, intonation and rants about the Oxford Comma.