Tag Archives: writing

Lines in the Genre Sand

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Science fiction, fantasy, and horror are playmates in the genre sandbox, but there are clear lines that divide and define the genres, right? Spaceships=Science fiction. Magic=Fantasy. Ghosts=Horror.

How would you define Ray Bradbury? Was he a science fiction writer? A horror writer? Many of his stories blur the genre lines. There Will Come Soft Rains is the story of an automated house going about its usual tasks of cooking and cleaning. After a time, it becomes clear that humankind has been destroyed by nuclear war. At face value, it’s science fiction. Except for the burned-out images of the family on the side of the house; except for the dog that returns to the house to die; except for the house itself unable to prevent its own destruction when fire breaks out.

The story has always felt like horror to me. Science fiction flavored horror, sure. Much like the movie Alien which is basically a haunted house story, with a xenomorph and a ship instead of a ghost and rotting rafters.

I think writers often limit themselves genre-wise. They define themselves (or are defined) with a genre label and then write only things that will fit within that box. Maybe you’ve written ten science fiction stories and call yourself a science fiction writer, but what happens when you have a great idea about a magician? Are you going to decide not to write it because it isn’t science fiction? If you choose that path, I ask why?

Sometimes exploring another genre will open you up to new storytelling methods or new ways to twist the familiar into something else. And you don’t have to follow clear cut genre definitions; the Genre Police will not come and slap on the cuffs if you add a pinch of magic to your horror or a bit of horror in your science fiction.

If you feel your career will be best served by keeping your published work in the same genre, you are still not bound by a set of invisible rules when it comes to writing. Sometimes you just need to write for yourself. Warm up the word machine with tidbits of an epic fantasy or science fiction or horror. Indulge in a literary vignette.

If Stephen King had decided to write only horror, there would be no The Shawshank Redemption, no The Body (filmed as Stand by Me). If Justin Cronin had decided to remain a literary writer, there would be no The Passage. Same with Colson Whitehead and Zone One.

Write the stories that are in you. Let other people decide the genre.

 

A final caveat: My debut novel, Ink, was released last year from Samhain Horror, but if you ask me if I’m a horror writer, I’ll probably answer, “I’m not sure.” Most of what I write is dark, but is it all horror? I’m content to let others decide.

Writing Horror (When You Didn’t Think You Could)

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Ivan Ewert’s debut horror novel, FAMISHED: THE FARM, was released October 12, 2012 through Apocalypse Ink Productions. It has been described as “a lovely, gruesome book” and is available through Amazon.com. His work has previously appeared in the award-winning anthology Grants Pass, as well as in Human Tales and Space Tramps: Full-Throttle Space Tales. His dark supernatural novella, Idolwood, was serialized in the e-zine The Edge of Propinquity throughout the year of 2011. Ivan can be reached at www.ivanewert.com and on Twitter @IvanEwert.

 

The last horror movie I saw was the original Jaws, in 2006. I never watched it before then. I was too frightened.

Today I’m a published horror author.

I admit it doesn’t really add up.

Horror’s not something I thought was in me, and yet FAMISHED: THE FARM apparently gave a few readers nightmares. It’s  been called “super gruesome” and “disturbing,” and I suppose there are a few scenes that fit that bill. Still, I really only felt the disturbing feelings it awoke during a single scene – and that had more to do with the emotional betrayal of the characters than the horrific acts being described.

So how did I write up-front horror when I didn’t think it was part of me?

  1. Look to the ordinary and make it terrible. I’ve got a bad habit, a mild case of dermatophagia. In English? I bite at my nails and skin. I don’t even think about it most times, but when I saw the divots in the pads of my thumbs, the white moistness of the flesh? That played a big part in FAMISHED’s conception. I had friends whose parents were farmers, and saw the way beasts of burden had to be handled, saw the easy decrepitude barns can sink into. There’s terror in your household cleaning supplies, in the rotting food in the back of your fridge, in the way a glass shatters and splinters against the floor. Use it.
  2. 2.       Have sympathy for your little angels. I dislike most horror films because I empathize with the victims. Even during trailers, I find myself thinking of their families, their children, wondering if mom or dad or their baby is ever coming home again. I wonder how I would react if someone I loved went missing, and imagine the worst … and then I write it down.
  3. 3.       … and sympathy for the devil. If your villain’s just a killer – or worse, a craaaaaazy killer, man – you’re not going to be able to make things horrible enough. Everyone in fiction has to have a reason or an explanation for the things they do, bar none. My villains in the Farm alternately believe they’re saving civilization, or rebelling against laws they find unjust; but they have reasons for doing what they do. That made my scenes in the pigpen, the loft, and the punishment chair much simpler to write.
  4. 4.       Writing. Is. Exorcism. Truth. Writing the scenes was sometimes difficult, and often done in the darkness. Once it was on the computer screen, though, the worst was over. I didn’t dream about the way the knife would feel, or the heat of the blood, or the voice of the Wound. It was done, and after a week, a clinical eye could be turned on the phrases without feeling my stomach lurch.
  5. 5.       Use your fears. Fearless heroes aren’t horror heroes, they’re hardboiled. Antiseptic terror is cranked out by a formula that counts decapitations like Harlequin counts heartbeats. If something makes you frightened, that’s half the battle! Grab that fear, and swing it by its tail. Bash its head against the rocks of your story and let the worst come out. It’s not real. It can’t hurt you.

That last one’s important. I’m not mothering anyone when I say that what we write isn’t real. If you’re prone to nightmares, then do what you’re supposed to do with all your life’s dreams, and use them. Humans with words in their blood have done that since wolves howled at the edge of the firelight, silver teeth and terrible claws, trying to keep us in the darkness.

We’re storytellers. We’re dreamers. We’re writers. It’s our life’s work to take all that’s in us, the good and the bad, and bring all our dreams into the light for others to learn from, shiver at, wonder about.

Cherish your fear, and share it with us all.

I’ll be waiting.

Writing When You’re Broken

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There would be a post here, but life got in the way.

Seriously, though, life sometimes does get in the way. Vacations, family responsibilities, illnesses, day jobs. But what about the days when you have several hours free and you sit at the computer, staring at the screen, willing the words to come?

What about when you get in the way?

I’m not talking about the distractions of social media. Everyone knows they can shut off their net connection if they have no willpower otherwise, right? I’m also not talking about writer’s block, at least not in the way you think.

What if the illness is a big one? What if the day job is suddenly gone, along with the paycheck and the health insurance? What if your partner or spouse just packed his or her bags and took a permanent vacation away from you?

How do you find the mental will to write when your brain is slowly crumbling from the stress and chaos?

The first choice is the easy one. Don’t write. Step away from the computer completely or limit your use to Twitter and Facebook. Maybe you have that luxury. Maybe writing is just a hobby.

But what if you have a deadline waiting and not writing is not an option? What if the bats in your belfry are not just lingering but swarming in a chaos of ammonia and fluttering wings?

Use your stress.

Yes, gather up those bats and channel them into your writing. Feed your words with anger, with sorrow, with hurt. Do terrible things to characters, give them the life you wish you had at the moment, or give them the life you fear most. Write dialogue that says all the things you wish you could.

Your writing may very well end up with a different, stronger, resonance. You may be able to see things from a different point of view. Strong emotions don’t have to work against you. They can be the incendiary fuel for your phoenix of words instead of immolation.

But maybe you can’t. Maybe what you feel is too big, too much. So escape from your stress. Disappear into your fiction. Use it as the buffer from the chaos. Maybe things outside the word cave are terrible but inside, you are the master. If you wallow too much in your chaos, you’ll end up spinning your wheels on a stationary bike to nowhere.

View your writing as a toy. Ever notice that kids like to play even when they’re sick? Sure, you say, they’re kids. They have that endless energy. Maybe so, but maybe those towers made out of blocks help them not pay so much attention to their illness. Use your words in the same way. Build your own tower. Slay a dragon. Banish a ghost. Break a heart.

Words can cut, they can wound, but they can also help you heal. Even when you’re not aware they’re doing so.

 

 

 

 

You Can Earn a Living as a Writer

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I’m a writer. I’ve been at it for as long as I can remember. Although you probably don’t know me, I’ll bet that you’ve read some of my stuff.

Growing up in the suburban wastes of Kansas City in the 1970s, most kids I knew spent their free time playing softball on the schoolyard lot off Mission Road. Others went fishing down at the lakes between Manor Road and Meadow Lane. Me? That wasn’t my thing. On a hot summer day, I loved nothing more than to stretch out on the carpet of my living room floor near the air conditioning vent and scribble all over the pages of a Big Chief tablet with a Flair pen until my fingers went stiff. I wrote all kinds of junk. The earliest piece I can remember writing was a fake brochure for some kind of rocket ship / Chevy van hybrid. I was eight years old at the time. It was a bi-fold brochure with color illustrations. I was pretty proud of myself then. Still am.

Although much has changed over the decades – my writing skills have improved, I think – I still write commercial copy. During the daylight hours, I write about lawn mowers and deburring machines and satellite TV. As I said before, you’ve probably read some of my stuff. Planned a trip to Louisiana for Mardi Gras recently? You’ve read my work. Frequent a popular dating website? That’s me too. Spend any amount of time online researching orthodontists, equestrian supplies, building materials, self-storage facilities, or high fashion? I wrote some of that stuff.  I run my own little “content development” company. We’re writers and bloggers for hire. After hours, I write supernatural horror and science fiction. The commercial copy pays the bills, and that’s what this article is really all about.

Since I subscribe to a number of writer’s magazines, I get a lot of junk e-mail about books, DVDs, and seminars where you can quickly learn “how to make a six-figure income writing advertising copy.” Let me say – right here and now – that some of you can. Most cannot. Sure, if you can string together words and phrases and clauses with a fair grasp of sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar, you have a talent that can command a fair income – if you know what you’re doing.

In this age where text-speak has spread like Ebola from cell phones to term papers to casual conversation, many under the age of twenty-five appear to be incapable of putting a convincing argument for one thing over another to pen and paper (my personal opinion, not that of anyone else here at BookLifeNow). And since most marketing – whether in print or online – is driven by written content, there’s a great need for those who can write well. But you have to know the rules – those rules above words and phrases and clauses. Marketing copy is not written like fiction or journalistic articles. I won’t go into deep detail here, simply because there isn’t enough room to spell it all out in a single blog article.

But I’ll give you a peek. Here we go.

1. If you’re writing copy that sells window treatments, roofing supplies, invisible braces, air handling units, bug and tar remover, party supplies, liquid face lifts, or financial products, you have to first identify your audience. Ask yourself: WHO would want this? If you can come up with an answer, you’re well on your way to some compelling copy.

2. Always write to the business purposes at hand. Your client wants to convince the market that they need to pick up the phone or fill out a form or set up an appointment. What you write must gently nudge the readers toward acting on this suggestion.

3. Keep it interesting, engaging, and brief. Most people can read about 350 words (a single page from a paperback novel) in about a minute. They read whole pages because they’re invested in the characters and story. As a writer of commercial copy, you have none of that to your advantage. The average time a reader will spend on any page of content on a website is a whopping 33 seconds. Interesting, engaging, and brief, yeah?

4. Sell! If you’ve never sold anything in your life (cars, computer software, shoes, whatever) you may not have the experience needed to craft compelling sales copy. Selling is more than listing features, advantages, and benefits. It’s about creating an emotional connection between your reader and the product. In sales, we talk a lot about building commonalities, discovering needs, leveraging pain points, and overcoming objections. And it all works beautifully – with practice. Lots of practice.

5. And you must sell without selling. If this sounds like some twisted Kung Fu technique, you’re right. You must strike without being seen. Truly compelling copy leads the reader to believe that their needs are in direct alignment with product features, advantages, and benefits. You can almost see them nodding their heads in agreement as they ponder the words on the page.

6. Learn to write for robots. Pick up a book on the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Online, everything is driven by search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!). Every piece you write for a website is going to be seeded with keywords and phrases and links. Why? Every search engine employs search bot software to scan every web page for its content and then adds that data to a searchable index. This is how the web works. If you’re writing a page about chocolate chip cookies, you’d better mention “chocolate chip cookies” a few times in the copy.

You can earn a living as a writer. Like many, I’ve had a number of cube farm jobs. Long ago, I decided that I was unsatisfied with corporate life and made a decision to bail. I spent years building a book of business for my content development company. I’m a full-time writer now. It’s a sweet gig but it has its drawbacks. When 5pm rolls around and you’ve been killing yourself to crank out 10,000 words for a plastic surgeon, it isn’t easy to switch gears and be creative. Somebody once said that the worst day job for a writer is as a writer. Some days, I fully agree.

Cheers!