you can't name a topic that doesn't have a devoted subculture With The Just Beyond in a holding pattern while the editor and cover artist do their work, a few posts not quite on topic may sneak their way in here. Which is a servicable segue into today's offering.
The great thing about blogging is that anyone can do it. The trouble with blogging is that anyone can do it. It's not surprising that every nobody, his brother, his cat, his goldfish, and his niece's Barbie doll are cranking out blogs. What is amazing is that people read them. Referring to the legion of prospective memoirists ("I should write a book!!")--which pretty much includes the entire human population--Kurt Vonnegut said something to the effect that your life story isn't half as fascinating to other people as you think it is. I'll restrain myself from digressing into the obvious tie-ins of that statement to dating and just say that his observation seems self-evident. On the face of it you'd think that principle would naturally extend to one's opinions, arguably even more tedious and grating than most life stories. And yet, the blogosphere is rife with otherwise ordinary individuals that have collected vast followings of daily readers. What gives? Well, for one thing, with due respect to Mr. Vonnegut who certainly was not wrong in a general sense, with the explosion of global communication it turns out there ARE some people who are utterly fascinated by...well...fill in the blank. It appears you can't name a topic that doesn't have a devoted subculture, and while in any given region their percentage of the population may be small, when you multiply by the number of regions across the face of the Earth, all of a sudden the numbers are meaningful. And this is actually pretty cool. It gives the blogger an outlet of expression and a sense that somebody cares about what they think, and it gives readers reassurance that they're not alone in the world with their interests and quirks. While I may have no use whatsoever for 9,999 out of 10,000 blogs, that remaining one may be my sole and precious tie to the community of the like-minded. It doesn't matter that each such community comprises only an infinitessimal slice of humanity overall. What matters is that its constituents found each other. Before the Internet's cheap, fast, and easy access to instant worldwide publication, this was impossible. It represents nothing less than a fundamental shift in the human condition, and its implications will only be fully appreciable through the hindsight of decades. Only a handful of people care enough about my little book project to monitor these half-baked writings. Even after it's published and even if it does reasonably well, the numbers won't impress in the context of a population of 7 billion souls. Nothing has universal appeal: I've often speculated that if the Beatles somehow rose from the half-dead and put on a free concert with unlimited seating, only a thin fraction of the population would go. But it's neat that there's a way for me to stay in daily contact with my modest group of Beyond supporters. It gives me constant incentive to deliver a level of quality as I craft this trilogy that will be worthy of their encouragement and support. -Mark (P.S. There actually is a Beatles Reunion concert that plays a significant role in The Just Beyond. There, I managed a pitiful tie-in to the book. lol - mt)
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"It was dark by the time Michael Chandler pulled in to the carport in front of his lonely San Mateo apartment at the end of the last normal day of his life." I wrote that first sentence of The Just Beyond in my head two years before the physical writing began. (The two years were spent working out the plot in detail.) I wanted to write the kind of book I'd love to read, and that meant gripping the reader right out of the gate. Nothing frosts me in a novel like a beginning that drones on and on through "florid prose" that may conjure a vivid image--provided it doesn't put you to sleep--but does nothing to inspire a compelling visceral stake in the story. I believe a writer's first responsibility is to respect the reader's investment. Anyone who forks over a fistful of cash and hours of their precious leisure time so you can make a living doing something you love deserves your utmost courtesy. As a reader, I want to know right away who the main character is and why I should care what happens to them. A first sentence, a first page, a first chapter that merely paints the scene, no matter how lovely, doesn't do that. Neither does a focus on the character's entire life history. A novel should begin at the beginning--not the character's beginning or the setting's beginning, but the story's beginning: the single moment that touches off its central chain of events. Some biographical background and nimble scene-setting is necessary--of course it is. But the proper place for that backfill is after the reader is hopelessly hooked. And that regard for readers' gratification should be sustained throughout the entire work. A very popular writer of paranormal fiction comes to mind (I won't name him, but he has the same initials as an iconic Nintendo ape) who just doesn't seem to get this. So why is he so popular? Well, he has one thing nailed. His novels, even the weak ones, create a unique and memorable sense of atmosphere. He is a talented and inventive writer, craft-wise. But atmosphere is not a story. I recall one of his books, representative of this peeve, where nothing essential to the main plot happens until Chapter 12. CHAPTER 12!! And I recall another by this same author that took the reader on a wild ride, much of it quite enjoyable, only to flatline its potential with an end showing that the main characters were mere bystanders--nothing they did had any effect whatsoever on the story's climax. They may as well have been wallpaper. (The plot involved an evil secret military facility that essentially disintegrates as they make their way through it--but not because of anything they did.) The "it was all a dream" season finale of the old TV show Dallas was less cheap. This is a reprehensible breach of the readers' trust, and if these novels had been submitted before he made a name for himself with his earlier, better work, no publisher would have read more than a chapter or two before ashcanning the manuscripts. And it's too bad, because at their core those books held excellent promise. They might have been really good if the author had focused on their central concepts from the start and finished in a way that made the characters matter. I did my best to launch this book with a bang, keep the ball rolling, and end each chapter with a cliffhanger. Whether I succeeded is the readers' call, but I can say in good conscience that I strove with every word to reward those kind enough to buy it. They deserve nothing less. - Mark BACK TO HOME PAGE |
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