You Do Too Have Time to Write!

"I wish I had time to write!"

Ever find yourself thinking that? Ever been on the receiving end of people saying that to you?

Lots of people think you need to sit down in front of the writing implement of your choice for hours on end to crank out the Next Awesome Bestseller, and while it helps, it isn't always necessary, and thinking that it is will just leave you spinning your wheels waiting for Enough Time.

When I started writing Heart of Steel, I had a guaranteed hour a day to work with. I work full-time, and I wrote like an absolute fiend during my fifteen-minute morning break and my 45-minute lunch break. It took a while, but I eventually ended up with a 54k-word novel. Neat, huh?

Now, this situation was not ideal, of course, because Heart of Steel was practically running out my ears at that point and I just wanted to get that sucker down, but it worked out okay in the end.

So how can you squeeze in the time to write? Here are some tips:

• Carve out a block for writing. This can be an hour that you specifically set aside for writing. During this time, you don't answer the phone, you don't check your email, and you don't browse on Facebook. You just write on whatever project offers itself up to your brain.
• Guard your writing time like it's the Holy Grail. Seriously. If you have housemates or family members you need to let them know that You Are Not To Be Bothered. Lock the door if you have to.
• Trash your excuses. The Procrastination Monster is an insidious beat. If you find yourself thinking, "I'll sit down to write after I finish the dishes", or "let me just read this next article on Facebook", or ""Let me check my email first", STOP. Close that off. put everything else aside and writing. The other stuff will be there when you finish. (Exceptions: if the house is on fire, someone dear to you is bleeding, or a Roland Emmerich movie is happening in real life.)
• Get in the habit. This one will be hard. Your brain might not always be cooperative during your writing time. Don't worry about it. If you're drawing a blank, just free-write. Get those words out. Set up a routine. Get in the habit. I had to do this during NaNoWriMo to make sure I got my word-count total down.
• Use writing tools. I found a bunch of sites that offer reinforcement programs to encourage you to write, both positive reinforcement (Written? Kitten!) and negative reinforcement (Write or Die). You may need to play around with some of these to see what works for you.
• Write whenever and wherever you can. If all else fails, bring your writing tools with you. My smartphone can access Google Docs, where all my works in progress are, so I can peck away at a story wherever I can find wi-fi. Failing that, bring a small notebook with you to capture ideas as they happen. Get creative!

If you follow these tips, soon enough you will be in the habit of writing. Guess what--that's all you need in order to crank out that story you have in your head! I won't happen all at once, but it will happen.

You just need to sit down and make it happen.

A Writer's Vengeance: How to Get Away With Murder

I have a T-shirt that reads, "You're dangerously close to getting killed off in my novel". Killing real-life people off in effigy by way of a character you've written is the best therapy for an annoyed writer, as it typically leave no mess, no clean-up, and if done properly results in no lawsuits against the author.

Admit it, writers--you've done this. Heck, I did it when I first started writing fiction in grade school. Was it childish? Yes. I was twelve. Was it amateurish? Yes. I was twelve, and had not yet gotten the hang of things like changing names to protect the innocent. I wrote thinly veiled vengeance fantasies that today would be termed hate-fics, and not one of them has ever seen the light of day. It was my therapy, and it was my way of coping with the difficulties of life.

Doing it this way as a professional writer can be dangerous, though. M. Night Shyamalan is reported to have done something like this with one of his critics, writing a thinly-veiled version of him into his Lady in the Water as The Guy Who Is Wrong About Everything. Michael Crichton, too, wrote a critical reviewer into his novel NeXt, as a politician with the same name and from the same college, only with a small manhood and an accusation of having raped a four-year-old. Both Shyamalan and Crichton came off as childish and petty with these character assassinations, even (especially) if the characters bore only the vaguest passing resemblance to the originals.

The trick to doing this properly is not to just drop your target into your book without even a name change, even (especially) if you write him as The Worst Human Being In The History Of Civilization. If you write speculative fiction, this is a bit easier, but still, step carefully. Get creative with the name changes, not just changing a couple consonants at the beginning of the surname. Make your target realistically obnoxious, so the sympathy is all on your protagonist (you do have a relatively sympathetic protagonist, don't you?) Then, when the pot is well-stirred so that your chosen victim is recognizable only to you, have fun.

That jerk that cut you off in traffic? His car gets stepped on by the monster of the week. The co-worker that nobody likes who's decided you and he are best buds? A stampede of a chase spills his coffee, wrecks his laptop, and covers him in grime. Your ex? Riddled by arrows while trying to attack the hero's army. Your current squeeze's psycho ex who is determined to ruin your happiness together? Eaten by something horrible. A  narcissistic acquaintance for whom ruining your entire life is considered an average Tuesday? Eaten by something even more horrible, or taken for study by something from beyond sanity and vivisected alive if you're not feeling merciful.

Doing this is the writer's equivalent of coming home from a rotten day, plugging in a first person shooter, and mowing down wave after wave of virtual enemies. If done well, it can be seamlessly therapeutic, relevant to your novel, and equally satisfying to your reader to see That Jerk get their comeuppance, even if they don't know That Jerk from Adam beyond the story. Done badly, though, it comes off as a tantrum in text, and could get you in serious trouble. So get your therapeutic deaths out of your system, writers, but step carefully. Bad writing is still bad writing.

Post-NaNoWriMo Recovery

It's December. That means that those of you who were working on a novel for the National Novel Writing Month are in the clear by a significant margin. Heck, I had to postpone this article for a week just so that I could think clearly about the topic. Assuming you finished your rough draft (and if you did, good for you!), now comes the time to decide what to do next.

The main thing that you absolutely do not do if you value your reputation as a writer is send your rough out to publishers as-is. I've heard of this happening and it makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit every time. And even if you think its the finest contribution to modern literature since Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for the love of your deity of choice do not self-publish it as-is. I've heard of this happening and my faith in humanity crumbles a bit more every time.

You take that rough draft and you put that sucker away for a while. I'm not even going to look at Necromancy Will Kill Your Dating Life until January. Stephen King recommends letting your draft hang out in solitude for six weeks. Why? Because when you do pick it up to look it over and unleash the fury of your red pen on it, you'll be able to do so with the level of detachment this process requires.

What to do in the meantime, though? Lots of things. Read. Work on another rough draft (I have a whole pile of works in progress I could pick up). Edit another manuscript. Do what you can to clear your NaNo novel from the front of your mind. Think of December as a mental palate-cleanser. Relax.

Why is this break important? Because after living and breathing your draft for a month solid, the words might start to blur together. You'll start seeing what you meant rather than what your fingers actually typed. Stepping back and clearing your head will let you do that first pass of editing properly. I generally recommend self-editing for the first pass of a manuscript, but especially here, because you'll be able to catch all the embarrassing mistakes that you will subsequently be glad nobody else saw.

It's understandable if you want to get right into editing your NaNo novel right away, but have patience. The results will be well worth it.

NaNoWriMo 2014: DON'T PANIC

Here we are in the last few days before the National Novel Writing Month begins, and if those of you who are participating are anything like me, you're in a flat panic. Questions and doubts may be flooding your mind:

• What if my idea sucks?
• What if I don't finish?
• How will I manage writing so many words a day between work/school/social life/errands/sleep?
• What if I get writer's block halfway through?
• What if there's a crisis and I just can't devote the time?

I know how you feel. This is my first NaNo, and I've got all those doubts and more keeping me from sleeping and threatening to make me lock up in front of my computer screen. (My brain is really sadistic that way.) Let's see if I can address them in order, shall we?

What if my idea sucks?
There are very few ideas that cannot be salvaged or improved on editing. If you enjoy your idea enough to use it for NaNo, then it can't suck that much. Just remember that this is a rough draft. Nobody has to see it but you. (You do plan to edit it, right?)

What if I don't finish?
This is actually two questions.
What if I don't manage to write 50,000 words in November?
When you will still be further along in your novel project than you were on November 1. There's no penalty for not hitting that benchmark, and not everyone will get there. Relax.
What if I write 50,000 words, but my story's still not done?
Then you can continue writing it through December or however long it takes for your story to be done.

How will I manage writing so many words a day between work/school/social life/errands/sleep?
You'd be surprised how much writing you can get done if you dedicate yourself. You might have to make a few sacrifices, though--like no spending hours at a time on your social media and/or games. Any requirements for prime functioning, absolutely stick with those, but other than that, block out as much time as you can and get that draft written.

What if I get writer's block halfway through?
This is why NaNo support groups are awesome.  The official website itself allows you to find writing buddies (local or not) to help you power through the tough times. Try free writing and turning over ideas in your draft. Add padding if you like (you can always take it out later). Just keep those words flowing.

What if there's a crisis and I just can't devote the time?
Well, honestly, stuff happens. If you have a major Crisis with a capital C that completely torpedoes your entire month, that's okay. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Write when you can but remember that there's nothing wrong with not making your word count.

As near as I can tell, the best (but by no means only) way to get through a successful NaNoWriMo is to just sit your butt down and write. Write until your vision blurs and your fingers ache and your brain goes numb. Then do it again the next day, and the next, until it's done. Don't worry about plot holes or spell checking or editing--just get that draft down as quickly as humanly possible. Don't second-guess yourself. Don't go back and fix anything, even that typo that's just screaming at you from the page. Editing comes later. Just find your zone and write that sucker.

As for myself, I'm going to keep blogging throughout NaNoWriMo and share with you my experience as a first-time participant, including (drum roll) a word count graphic.

Here it is:


My username on the NaNoWriMo website is GeekGirlWriter (same as my Twitter handle) so if you're participating and want to be writing buddies, go ahead and look me up!

Happy NaNo!

The Fine Art of Steampunk

My latest project is a steampunk novel entitled The Demon of Butcher's Row, and in light of this it seems like a dandy time to go over exactly what the heck steampunk is. It's one of those weird little subgenres of science fiction and fantasy that seems to be making a minor resurgence these days, but it has a couple of cousins with which is is occasionally confused.

So, to start: what makes a work steampunk? Steampunk is any work that takes place between 1850-ish and 1910-ish that combines historical details with science fiction elements. A lot of early science fiction would be considered steampunk today, simply because it was contemporary to that time. Of course, modern steampunk tends to use the Disney version of Victorian England, polishing away the grittiness of the era to something that Phil and Kaja Foglio have called Gaslamp Fantasy. True steampunk embraces rather than ignores the dirty underbelly of Victorian society, much like cyberpunk does with its near-future societies. Of course, the full spectrum of gritty-to-shiny encompassed in steampunk ranges from A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to Girl Genius, so the reader is free to choose how they like it.

So why is it called steampunk? A lot of the tech used in steampunk fiction is based on steam technology, the main source of power under development and thus takes place right on the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, in real-world terms, steam and coal turned out to be a technological dead-end, so many steampunk works handwave this with an element of magic or occult assistance. Since we sci-fi nerds love our cool gadgets, a lot of modern steampunk works will be heavy on the awesome dingbats and light on explanations of how sustainable they are.

Magic in a steampunk setting may come in many forms, if it is used. The main interest of the society of the day was occultism and spiritualism, in particular communicating with the spirits of the dead or generally contacting other worlds. As such, a steampunk spellcaster may find himself called upon to summon or communicate with beings from the afterlife of distant planes, or else to identify and clean up after a supernatural menace that some nimrod called up and couldn't control. There may also be some overlap with alchemy, using quasi-scientific processes to transmute Substance A into Substance B, or to bind elemental forces in ways that augment the technology of the setting (see above). Magic can also cover the ways that certain scientifically-minded individuals can do inadvisable or flat-out impossible things with Science, in much the same way that Dr. Frankenstein was able to create a human being out of spare parts and a nebulously-describe process, Dr. Jekyll was able to unleash his own dark side, or the average Igor in the Discworld universe is able to generally tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up.

Gender roles in real-world Victorian society were strictly regimented. Women were often the property of the nearest male relation or husband, and typically were not allowed out and about without an escort, to prevent the potential sullying of their honor. By contrast, women in steampunk works are often in active roles in the story beyond damsels in distress. They may work as spies for the government, assassins, spellcasters or other subtle roles which wouldn't be considered ladylike. This can set them up in a contrast against male characters, such as male intellectuals vs. female intuitives, male bruisers vs. female persuaders, or obvious male menace vs. subtle female menace. Of course, their active role has a darker side, as it may be caused by or result in a female protagonist being put into greater danger--and if she can't defend herself ably from the start she better learn in a hurry.

Steampunk can be a fun genre to read and write if you're interested in that general time period and really dig the idea of beating history over the head with the spec fiction stick. When done well, it is a fun look at what might have been, if technological advancement had taken a left rather than a right. You might even have read some steampunk without knowing it, as much of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne fits tidily into this category, as do some of the later Discworld novels, as mentioned above. Done badly, though, it can easily turn into an anachronistic, incomprehensible mess (though I won't name any names). Like with most of the smaller genres, my best advice for a hopeful steampunk author is to start with the classics and find your way from there.

Handling the Damsel in Distress

The damsel in distress is a very old trope, dating back to Greek mythology and beyond. You have a girl that needs rescuing, and this drives the plot. Simple, right? Well, in modern media the unqualified damsel in distress has become less popular, due to the rise of various shades of action girl and self-rescuing princesses. Even Princess Peach, the quintessential damsel of the Super Mario Brothers games, has taken a role in ensuring her own safety from time to time (though she still gets kidnapped more often than not).

As a result, the modern damsel in distress must be handled very carefully in order to avoid accusations of one-dimensionality, bad writing, or misogynist subtext. However, not every female character can be Xena Warrior Princess and get herself out of a pinch. Let's explore the reasons why a damsel might be put in distress.

• Simple Kidnapping. Yes, this old chestnut. The villain might need to take custody of your impending damsel for a series of reasons, whether it's for financial gain, to force another character's hand, or because the villain has a serious crush on her.
• She Has a Plot Coupon. Some damsels might possess an item (or know how to access it) upon which the plot hinges. This could be a tattoo that happens to show where the thing that everyone's looking for is, it it might be a book with an encoded message that tells how to get to the thing. In either case, get the damsel, and eventually you get the thing.
• She Is a Plot Coupon. The damsel has a certain ability or set of abilities that will allow her to get to the thing, or access the thing herself, or otherwise solve the plot's main problem. Or maybe she's the heir to the kingdom and everyone in the land is squabbling for the right to marry her--and then someone just cuts to the chase and makes off with her. (That someone might not even know she's a plot coupon when the absconding happens, only that she's pretty or important or what have you.)
• She Happened to be Handy. The damsel of convenience in these plots can offer the perfect opportunity to set up epic amounts of ass-kicking if the villain grabbed the wrong damsel out of the crowd. Whether this is foreshadowed before the throw-down happens is entirely up to the writer.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of why a damsel might be in distress, but it covers most of the basics. Of course, now that your damsel is in distress, let's explore reasons that she might not be able to get herself out of distress.

• Physical Restraints. Again, a classic. This might mean she's tied to a rock or locked in a room or tied up on the metaphorical railroad tracks. Barring any established skills as an escape artist, this is often a perfectly valid reason for the damsel to remain in her predicament and need rescuing.
• Geographical Restraints. The next best sting to tying her up is putting her someplace secluded where the hero can't get to her right away. She might be locked at the top of the tallest tower or parked in a stronghold on a secluded island or in the middle of the villain's stronghold with thousands of guards between her and the hero. In many cases, the hero might have to find her to rescue her, and him finding out her location can make up the bulk of the plot.
• Guarded by Something Scary. This could be anything from a trained Bengal tiger to the villain's trusted assistant Moe to a fire-breathing dragon, but in any case the scary thing provides a really healthy incentive to not try to run off.
• Drugged or Hypnotized. If the damsel is not able to properly get her bearings, obviously she can't make a valid effort to get herself free. Part of the plot might be her trying to clear her head and meet the hero in the middle, bot not always.
• Physical or Mental Handicap. This needs to be navigated carefully, lest one be the target of accusations of insensitivity. However, certain neurological conditions can make a damsel of either sex unable to properly defend herself from harm, or even recognize danger. A blind damsel might be able to use her senses to evade the bad guy, but that's still a form of distress.
• She's Naive. DANGER WILL ROBINSON! You better have a really good reason to use this one (like a sheltered upbringing) and it must be handled very carefully lest your prospective damsel be branded an idiot. I know as well as any that there are dingbats and airheads in the real world who wouldn't know a dangerous individual if he pointed a gun at their face, but if this keeps happening repeatedly without her learning her lesson or taking measures to protect herself (that's called character development, for those of you following along at home), eventually the audience is going to brand her an idiot and throw your book against a wall. If your damsel seems to exist solely to have the plot happen to her, you might want to consider heavy rewriting.

While the damsel in distress may have waned in popularity in recent times, she can still be an effective plot point if handled carefully. Just watch out that she doesn't become nothing more than a cardboard cutout with "LOVE INTEREST" written on it in Sharpie and give her motivations of her own, and you will be well on your way to having an interesting, sympathetic damsel.

 And now, for something completely different...

This week's progress report for Sheep's Clothing sales continues my slow and steady trend. Next month I will propose regular book-signings at the St. Louis Bread Company to see if I can do better there with more advertising and an expected crowd, and in October I plan to sell my books at Archon 38!

2.3%

Things I Wish I Knew About Self-Publishing Before I Started

As I get ready to self-publish my next book, I find myself looking back on the lessons that I have learned from publishing my first--things I wish I'd known the first time around. In hindsight they seem like fairly simple things, but they can mean everything in terms of success.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Self-Publishing is Hard

It's not hard in the same way traditional publishing is hard--goodness, no. With traditional publishing they hard part is getting past the gatekeeper--usually the lead editor--but once you do, everything is gravy.  They take care of formatting cover art, promotion, and distribution. They have complete control over how much exposure your book gets.

The good news is that a self-pubbed author has complete control over all of this.

This is also the bad news.

Print-on-demand companies like Createspace do ease the pain quite a lot, but you, the author, are still in charge of getting all the different components together. If you don't plan this stuff out ahead of time (see below), you will likely be left scrambling.

Self-Publishing Can Be Expensive

Note that I said "can be" rather than "is". You will find sites all over the internet that offer "author services" that range from copy editing to cover art to formatting, for anywhere from a few hundred dollars to something equivalent to your first-born child. If you're not careful, you might drop a whole load of money into one of these places and get something in return that looks like crap.

Thus, it is imperative that you take the time to shop around. If you're self-publishing, you're not on anyone's schedule but your own. You will have plenty of time to get all your ducks in a row within whatever budget you happen to have.

Pursuant to that...

Plan Ahead

I will be the first to admit that I didn't plan out how I wanted to get Sheep's Clothing out there and in the public eye. I was just so excited by the prospect of getting my book published that I completely forgot about this step. This left me scrambling to get my marketing stuff all set up and to find reviewers that wouldn't cost me hundreds of dollars, and to contact bookstores for events and all that jazz.

It was way more stress than I needed.

Your best best is to plan your marketing about four months before you release your book. This will give you time to create buzz on the various book blogs and in your social media (you do have that, right?) and tell whomever you want to know about your Really Awesome Book Coming Out. It will also allow you time to line up venues for a book release party and for signings after release day. Trying to do all this after release really, really sucks.

In Conclusion

I was young and naive (...this past February) and I've learned some hard lessons since then. I hope to do better with my next self-pubbed book, but I'm sure this will be its own brand of a learning experience as well. The publishing world is always changing and evolving, and as more and more authors start taking the self-pub route, more people will find out additional quirks in the process.

Hopefully, if you decide to self-publish, you won't make the same mistakes I did.

Happy writing!

And now, for something completely different...

I've been making decent progress with selling my books this month, though not as much as I'd like. At the beginning of August I'll provide a complete breakdown of what I did in July.

12 / 1000 (1.20%)

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Don't Fear the Beta Reader!

I've just started getting back feedback on Heart of Steel from my beta readers (thanks, everyone!), so it seem appropriate that this week's post should be about handling the feedback you get from these previews. Putting your story in front of people can be scary and discouraging, especially if they don't seem to see the Grand Vision of Brilliance that you've cooked up, but don't fret! Here are some simple tips for getting and handling honest critiques.

1. Take a Deep Breath

This won't be easy. You've slaved away for however many hours/days/months on this thing and it's your baby. Trust me, I know. Churning out my first novel-length piece was exhilarating until I realized that eventually I wanted other people to see it. That was when I briefly turned into Gollum and wanted to hide my precious away from those nasty hobbitses who might say bad things about it.

Well, that's a beta reader's job. They're the first line of defense between you and the deeper waters of your target audience, and if your book has narrative problems or plot holes or whatever, you've prefer to know sooner rather than later, right? So take a deep breath (literally, if you need to) and relax. You will come out of this a better writer.

2. Ask Your Friends

Be careful with this. Everyone has friends who will declare that you've just written the best [genre] novel since [really well-known and wildly popular genre novel] and that you shouldn't change a thing. These friends are great for ego stroking, but not so great for critiquing. Yeah, I know. Counter-intuitive, right? Wrong! Find your friend(s) who are outspoken and opinionated (without being douchebags about it)--the ones who will tell you your new hairstyle looks horrible, or that, yes, you look fat in those jeans. These are the people you want looking at your manuscript, because they will point out any flaws it has. Tell them to be brutal.

3. Ask a Writing Community

This might be a face-to-face community, or an online one via Facebook or whatever. You might have shared interests with these people, but they have no personal interest in being nice about something like this. If they're fellow writers, then a) they're there to improve their craft via b) helping and being helped by others, so c) they will be sure to give the sort of detailed critique you really need. Therefore, d) don't be afraid to ask. Not everyone will be interested in your story, but those that will, will give you a lot of help.

4. Set It Free

This is one of the hardest things to do. You turn your project over to someone else, and then wait to hear back from them. It might be a short period of time for a short story, or possibly weeks for a novel, but you must be patient. Bugging your beta reader is only going to make them annoyed with you. You want an honest opinion, not a "fine I'm done now go away" opinion.

5. Don't Take It Personally

Here comes the hardest part: reading the feedback. Not just reading the feedback, but reading it with the dispassionate eye of a writer wanting to improve his or her craft, rather than a creator watching their magnum opus being torn apart. This is your opportunity to improve on your story before you release it into the wild. This feedback (if it's constructive) will help your story be the best it can be, based on the opinions of people sufficiently detached from the thing that they can offer honest feedback.

6. Fix Any Problems

Now, if you took #5 to heart, #6 should be relatively easy. In theory, anyway. Reading through the feedback, asking clarification questions, and actually analyzing where you might have goofed can be painful, especially if your beta points out a misspelled word or a punctuation error that you know in your heart of hearts you should have caught, dangit. You might feel stupid at the obvious things pointed out to you, but get on your big kid pants about this. It's better to have caught the stupid stuff now rather than after your book is Really Out There and some editor is wondering why you think you should be published if you keep misspelling "the" as "teh" or your sentences are so long people get lost in them.

Finding a beta reader can be hard, and trusting your manuscript to them can be even harder, but believe me, your work will be greatly improved. You just have to close your eyes and make that leap of faith.

And now, for something completely different...

I have some exciting news regarding my Weird Western novella Sheep's Clothing: I've found a narrator for the audiobook!

Zach Brewster-Geisz is a stage, film, television, and voice actor whom I met via the Audiobook Creation Exchange website. I really liked his audition for Sheep's Clothing, and he's agreed to narrate. He said he would have the first fifteen minutes done and posted by the end of this month, so I will post an update as soon as it's up.

Have a good week!

Secondary Characters are People, Too!

In this week's post I'm going to talk about the secondary characters you might have wandering around in your work. If handled improperly, secondary and background characters will seem like part of the scenery rather than add to the flavor of your world. Why? Because it's so easy to have your secondaries just exist for the scene (or two, or whatever) they're in and then get stuffed back in the creative closet.

This is a mistake, but an understandable one. Your main characters--your protagonist(s) and your villain(s)--carry the bulk of the story, so naturally you want to focus on them. Your heroes have motivations. Hopefully your villains have motivations, too, that sound reasonable to them, rather than just having them wander around aimlessly being evil at people. But the people milling around in the background? Who cares about them?

Well, you should. You created them for a reason, and even if they're literally only there for a single scene to contribute a single piece of needed info to your hero, they need lives outside the story. This might seem like a lot of hard work that nobody's going to see, and you might be right.  BUT, that guy milling around in the background might turn out to be helpful to your hero at a crucial moment.

Remember that crowd of train passengers in Spider-Man 2 that Our Intrepid Hero nearly kills himself saving from Doctor Octopus? They came to his defense when Ock tried to finish him off because they saw that Spidey was "only a kid", like any of their own offspring. They didn't have much in the way of character development, but they helped the hero. They might have been listed in the credits as Bystander on Train #1 through #9 or whatever, but they had a reason to jump to his defense.

Now, unless you're writing a sweeping high fantasy epic or whatever, it's unlikely that you're going to break out in mass quantities of background characters. However, you do need to know who your named characters are, at least, in case you need an unexpected ally (or obstacle) for your hero at a key moment in your story.

Does this mean you need to provide a complete backstory for every single character who has even a walk-on part in your novel or short story? No, obviously not. That would be a lot of record-keeping, and a project you should only undertake if you're planning on lots and lots of ground-level world-building. Even then, just focus on a small handful of people in your fictional city of ten million, or you'll be so busy making characters that you'll never get to your story.

In conclusion, while the focus of your story should be on your main cast, don't neglect that background characters. Making sure that at least you know who they are beyond the context of the story will help you make them more rounded for the reader. Mapping out what secondary characters are doing while off-screen will also help you get them in the right place at the right time for some additional support for your main characters, and who knows? Heroic Bystander #2 might become a fan favorite as a result.

Convention Survival Tips

When you're a genre writer like me, eventually you're going to want to go to some of the many (many, many) conventions that are held all over the world. In my case, I was in luck this year, because the Wizard World Comic Con was in downtown St. Louis earlier this year, in addition to Archon in Collinsville, which I plan to attend this fall. Conventions are a great place to meet fans, both of the genre you write in and (potentially) of the stuff you write, and most people are pretty friendly. Additionally, conventions are great for introverts like me because for some reason I have an easier time approaching some guy dressed like Robocop or Batman versus some random guy on the street.

However, whether you attend a convention as a free-range guest to attend the seminars are see your favorite actors or writers or whatever, or you get yourself a table in the dealer's room to hock your wares, there are a few tips that will help you survive.

Wear Comfortable Shoes

I can't emphasize this enough. Chances are, you will be doing a lot of walking at the convention, possibly for eight hours or more, and you can't count on there being a whole lot of unoccupied places to sit (no, the floor doesn't count). Even if you are in costume, and the high-heeled boots you got look awesome with your outfit, think how comfortable they'll be towards the end of the day when you can barely walk. At Comic Con, I wore a mad scientist costume on Sunday that had a pair of really awesome looking stompy boots from Hot Topic (my #1 source for all big stompy boots). I had a great time walking around, taking pictures, getting my picture taken in turn, and buying geeky stuff. When I got home, I pried my really awesome stompy boots off my aching feet and found I had a raw spot worn in my heel.

Now, this might not be as much of an issue with those who get a dealer table, but you never know. You're not going to necessarily sit on your butt the entire time.

Stay Hydrated

Conventions will be hot and stuffy. There will be a lot of people. You will sweat. This goes double if you're in costume, no matter how much actual skin coverage is involved. Many conventions will have food vendors, but they will be expensive. Carry a bottle of water with you and refill it in the restrooms from time to time so you don't have to go hunting for a drinking fountain before you pass out.

Be Polite

This goes equally if you are a speaker, a bookseller, or one of the roving crowds of unwashed masses. Ask permission before you take someone's picture. Act like a freaking civilized human being. A lot of conventions have "no creeper" rules because some convention-goers have decided that a cosplayer in a skimpy costume deserves to be groped or have her zippers messed with (I wish I was kidding). That's a good way to get the snot beaten out of you by Superman, Thor, or Jayne Cobb.


There is an unstated rule that being in a Deadpool costume means you can act utterly insane and get away with it, but have some freaking standards, or the dozen or so other Deadpools will call you out on it. Acting like a jerk at a convention is a good way to get you not invited back at best, banned in the middle, and arrested on assault charges at worst.

Have Fun

This is why you went to the convention in the first place, right? Walk around! Meet people! Check out the costumes! Talk to fellow writers! Attend the panels! Buy the stuff! Get out there and have a good time (within reason, see above)! Chances are you'll make some new friends/networking contacts, and you might even link up on the social media platform of your choice.

Going to a convention does take some planning and some extra endurance, but the main reason you go to one of these things is to have a good time and meet people with similar interests. Bring a camera or Smartphone and a spare charger, though--you don't want to see the Best Costume Ever towards the end of the day and realize you're phone's almost dead from the 900 other pictures you took that day.