It's been a while since I wrote "Mr Lye's Laundry of Doom". At the time it first appeared, the Lair Legion was starting to worry about rumours of some nasties called the Hellraisers, Nats had been betrayed by Ruby Waver, Hatman was broken-hearted over her cousin Sorceress. and Xander the Improbable was playing some kind of machiavellian long game (okay, that last one could be at almost any time in our history).

In the last few months I've been rewriting some of my older material for a wider audience. A lot of my stories on this board can be "de-Parodyverse-d" fairly easily, especially the Mumphrey and Vinnie de Soth material. I've substituted different characters for those who don't "belong to me" and mostly shifted the action across the pond to the UK, which I know better and can write with more accuracy.

Sitting on my hard drive right now are two completed novels. SIR MUMPHREY WILTON AND THE LOST CITY OF MYSTERY is a substantial expansion and reworking of Mumph's World War II adventures with the charming Miss Canterbury, and is ready to go to the publisher as soon as I have time to package it off (we also have to agree the right deal, which is where the delay comes).

THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY reworks another of the storylines I first explored here at the PVB, featuring new characters in the niches of some of the PVB ones and renaming others. I've had some really helpful input from Al B. and Vizh on this one (they've both read and commented on the manuscript). Again ready to go, probably three months or so after the Mumph one through the same publication route.

I've also got a LOT of Vinnie De Soth stuff, perhaps 30% reused from PV originals, the rest all-new. I'd like to establish Mumph and the TTC team before putting Vinnie into a novel or anthology, but I've dipped my toe into the supernatural corner of what Al B. called "the Watsarverse" by publishing a revised version of "The Laundry of Doom" in the magazine WONDERLUST #12.



An online version of the Magazine as a whole is available here. My story is available in .pdf format from Mr Lye's Laundry of Doom. Note that's a very slightly different version to the one in the magazine - this is the writer's cut.

I hope any of you still around out there enjoy the story.

HH

...and regretting a little bit that I haven't had much motivation to write anything. I still have ideas and stories, but I feel like spending too much time writing them down so no one actually reads them (on the web site) is kind of a waste.

But it still does bug me, so I'll probably pick it up again eventually.

I can't now see how you can generate a readership here without first generating one elsewhere to follow you back here.

So here's what I think you need to do. Get a stand-alone Sean and Keiko story of 60,000 words ready for publication. Take your time. Make it your best shot ever.

When it's ready, let me know so I can send you a couple of contact addresses for you to pitch your work for either print or e-publication. Or take another pass at self-publishing using Createspace and Kindle; the process has come a long way in the last couple of years.

If your book gets picked up by some small-press publisher you won't likely get rich but you will get some profile for the next time. Also note there's often a lag time of 9-18 months from acceptance to print.

So seriously, gear up, bring your pro-game, and have a go.

IW

I actually had one that was halfway there. I guess if I rewrite it, it will only take me twice as long.





Self-publishing is a nice idea, except without money for promotion it's kind of a waste of time. Unless people already know to look for it, then it's promoting itself.





I kind of figured there would be a lag. There's always bureaucracy to get through in publishing companies.





It's going to be a slightly delayed gearing up, though, because I have paying and potentially paying game development work in the queue at the moment. I can work slowly on writing during idle points, but it won't be full time just yet.

My biggest enemy with writing anything that long is the more I go back and read earlier stuff the more glaring problems bother me. Right now I solve that by never going back. But if it's a full publication, I'm going to have to, so I'm going to need to learn to draw a line where I can say this is good enough, and leave it alone before I make things worse.

Another enemy I have to fight is that I hate filler. It's really difficult to write 60,000 words without at least one section where nothing is really happening, but it'll probably be necessary. This is actually the number one thing that causes my writing to come to a halt completely for a while - I realize the entire section I'm writing is filler, and I toss it out. I probably throw out 1/4 of what I write and no one sees it because of that.

It's not so much the bureaucracy as the low resources. Most of these guys have half a dozen staff tops. Some are one-man bands. Half a dozen books a year out there is a big deal to some of them. The publisher that's put out the most of my work so far celebrated because they got 14 titles out in 2013, an all-time record. With that kind of limit in personnel and advertising budget (if any) there's quite a queue of stuff heading to print. The delays tend to be around editing, artwork, and compositing.

The other feature of these small-print runs is that maybe 50% of sales come from trade stands at conventions etc. Lots of the small publishers have a deal where any creator can get at-cost copies for resale like that, but then there's no other royalty on those sales. And since the creator list includes the editor and cover artist as well, there's a chance that large numbers of your work get sold without you seeing any reward other than a healthy circulation.

Some authors I know have a nice sideline in taking copies of their books to such places - especially the ones where they can double as a guest and get a free table. Shifting say 100 books with a profit of $3.50 a unit over a weekend isn't too shabby.




There's an art to longer-form stories. The techiniques vary from writer to writer. I generally power all the way through to the end then crawl over it again at least a couple of times, with a few weeks break in between.




Avoid filler at all costs.

If a 60,000 word story seems too much for the story you're telling, look to four 15,000 word stories that link together. For World Class, story 1 is Keiko and Sean meeting and their first case together. Story 2 has some link to Keiko's past. Story 3 gives some emphasis on Sean's circumstances. Story 4 features the fight against the bad guy who's been behind it all from the start. Or similar. That was the book has sections, each of which is a novella in its own right, all of which lock together into a complete narrative.

I never really checked to see if any of those kinds of conventions are around here. I've only noticed trade fairs and Megacon which is comics and anime themed.





The longer I wait to go back, the more I think the older stuff is crap. That's what I have to get over, the temptation to keep rewriting stuff forever.





Well...what I call filler and what most people do is slightly different. This is where I'm really tough on myself. For instance, occasionally there was a chapter of World Class or a PVB story where there is "down time" and it's mostly just setup and people getting from one place to the other. I call that filler! I don't like it much, but in order to make a 60,000 word book continuous it's going to have to come into play at some point.





I went and looked back, and I already have about 20,000 words written even though I didn't post it. I feel like most of it needs re-writing, but considering it really didn't take very long to write in the first place, it shouldn't take long to re-write since I have the basic plot already. What I don't have yet is an end point, so I need one of those.

He's a fav.

Been wondering how things were getting along for you. Was going to shoot you an email soon to inquire.

Glad to hear the novels are progressing. I think the Laundry of Doom will be a nice return to the Watsarverse, and I'm looking forward to having a read, via the link, presently.

Will come back here and give feedback once I'm done.

Al B.

I can't claim to be an expert at that kind of thing. One advantage of going with a small-press publisher is that they probably will know how the business works - and how to work it. They also sometimes "share" a table with their writers, which is a cheap way to get into some cons. A couple of writers I know carefully do cost/benefit assessments to determine whether its worth travel and accomodation to be at certain cons. Windy City seems a popular one.







That's also where an external eye comes in. Some one who honestly says "This was good, except for that bit" can be invaluable to help determine what to chance and what to keep.







I'd say that filler is anything that's not needed to serve the story. A space-wasting fight that doesn't do anything but take up pages is as much filler as some downtime stuff. On the other hand, if the downtime stuff establushes something we didn't know about the characters, or sets up situations that are going to be relevant later, then that's not filler.







It might be helpful to visualise it as a six-issue comic series that then gets collected for trade. Each episode has to have a punch and a point, each one leaving you reeling for the final haymaker.

I would say: figure out what the bad guy is doing. Work out some intermediate steps that our heroes can clash with/interrupt/fail to stop. Introduce some sub-baddies to get taken down mid-plot. Work out how the bad guy's plot is personal to the heroes backgrounds or interests - what makes this personal? Look for four or five "mini-climaxes" with their own resolutions. List the secrets each character is keeping that need to come out in the course of the story, and then work out when they'll get exposed, confessed, or otherwise revealed. Plot three occasions where the reader thinks they know what's happening and then the whole thing curves and defies their expectations. Stick all this on one piece of paper, possibly with boxes and arrows. then write the story you want to write anyway, but keep the paper in the corner of your vision and work in what bits of it seem good at the time.

...Tanner is one of the major supporting chatacters in my refuses-to-end Vinie novel, along with party-ghoul Ursula. One day.







I got a bit distracted by getting a couple of writing-to-order jobs and an unstoppable urge to write a five-part novella fantasy series called BYZANTIUM and a LABOURS OF HERCULES novel. But now that Rhiannon is coming back home for summer I expect to push forward with the Mumph and Firehouse stuff. Today I started on the expanded print/kindle version of BLACKTHORN: SPIRES OF MARS.




It was a test, really, to see if there's a regular outlet I could use for these stories. Given the long lag-time from submission to final approval and the very minimal publicity this probably isn't the route I'll take to establish a regular series. The other publisher I corresponded with sent me an acknowlegement about five months and then sank without trace, so I'm not holding my breath on that one either.




Splendid. Proceed.

I have no travel budget right now...





I sometimes have one, sometimes don't. Depends how busy everyone I know is at the moment.





Like I said, this is where I can be unusually tough on myself. I'll write a downtime scene as minimally as possible because, for instance, there has to be actual length transportation time conveyed to the reader, and the characters talk about the kind of thing people talk about during a long trip. But then I'll agonize about whether I dragged it on too long.





I try to do that anyway. The tricky part is keeping the end in site, but not revealing it too early by accident. Or looking like you're trying to avoid the ending because there aren't enough words yet. Man, I want to strangle so many movie writers for violating that rule...





I've sort of been sketching out/starting over the whole World Class story. It's mostly the same, except for a few changes so far:

1. Keiko starts out the story with a combination of being desperate for interaction after virtually imposing exile on herself working at the I.A., more trusting than earlier stories, and a lot more bitter and negative. (see #2 for why)

2. Part of the reason why is because her former I.A. "co-workers" are now characterized as being violent and vicious people who enjoy bullying and terrorizing people. You get a sense of that right away when Keiko's first in-story interaction involves a lot of thought about the novelty of strength being used for kindness.

3. The former I.A. people are not eliminated so easily. They will pop up from time to time throughout the story. Also, just so their appearances don't get boring, one opening character (the U.S. Marshal) will reoccur while suffering his own crisis of conscience. And bounty hunters, too.

4. Quite a few changes will be made along the route so that it's really difficult to tell if Keiko is actually in control or not. I had to remember that this is someone who has been struggling to maintain her own sanity in a world of psychotics. I'd like to create a little bit of worry about whether she made it out entirely unscathed. As well, I want readers to question both their own sense of morality, and hers, at the same time, because she uses so much logical justification.

This is a strength, not a weakness, and should be utilised as such.







Nobody said you have to write everything in order. Draft out the scenes that are burning in your mind. Lock down the big-budget finale and the end of the characters' character arcs. Fill in the intermediate boxes from there. Sure, it'll definitely require two drafts minimum, but they'll be productive rewrites based on clear developments.
















Key to this is going to be how you write "point of view". If we're in other cast's heads when they're speculating about Keiko then we get to wonder with them - and its easier to lead the reader into false temporary conclusions.

I almost never write in order. Usually it's ending first, then beginning, and then a few sketched scenes/situations to fit in somewhere. I found out relatively recently that makes me easy to adapt to script (for comics) and storyboard (for games) format.

I don't have an ending *yet* but I will. Sometimes it comes to me as I'm planning the rest of the story.





You've seen how I do that before. Sometimes I explore another character through the primary character's eyes, and other times I'll switch it back and forth. I do that without really thinking about it. It's hardest to do that when they're in the same room - if there's *some* separation, like even a doorway, it's easier to use context clues to show whose thoughts they are.

Like if one person is in the kitchen, you have them looking through the fridge while they're thinking. So if the next paragraph talks about thoughts someone is having while flipping through TV channels, you can tell they're someone else in a different room.

The other way I switch is I give each person's thoughts a slightly different "flavor". Keiko thinks in a very calm, philosophical, and zen-like manner with just a hint of paranoia - aware of her own fragility, but also not easily scared or surprised anymore. Sean is more logical and pointed, so his thoughts are mostly facts and off-the-cuff judgements, and he's more in-the-moment.

And whatever I have the time to finally have a look at it or not, I wish you the best. So I can say I know a famous person..

...The Big Brother reference even got a laugh out of me, which is more than Big Brother ever managed.

Nice to see the story again, and looking forward to the Mumphry one...