There Are 3 Rules For Writing A Novel... Problem is, No One Knows What The Hell They Are

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are."

- W. Somerset Maugham

Chances are good that if you're a writer you've been inundated with advice from the moment you picked up your pen or opened a word processor. Some of it may have come from more experienced writers, and a lot of it probably came from people who have no clue what the hell they're talking about. If you're a regular reader, you've probably cherry picked a few examples from this very blog.

As I so often say, though, writing is a lot like exercising. Everyone is different, and what works really well for one person may not work at all for someone else... but you've got to start somewhere if you're going to get those gains.

Exhale while you type. Trust me, it helps.

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Try Different Things To Find Your Groove

We've all heard the general rules for writing which we can usually agree on to one degree or another. Read a lot of books to ensure you're lubing your mental wheels. You can always edit a bad story, but you can't edit a blank page. If you have an idea while laying in bed, write it down, because you will not remember it tomorrow no matter what the sleep demons say.

Beyond that, though... well, things get squishy regarding what does and doesn't work.

Your mileage may vary.

For example, some people say you should set yourself a mandatory word count every day, and write till you hit it. Others say you should write first thing in the morning, because that's when you're fresh and have the best ideas. I've even advocated for writing short stories before one tackles a novel because it gets you more used to actually finishing things, and it acts as a kind of tutorial level for you as a writer.

That advice works for some people. For others it's like a ball and chain around their ankles.

Let's take that, "write in the morning," tip. Some people loathe mornings, for example. Or they already have early days with work, childcare, or other duties that simply cannot be moved to make room for writing. Some people are more awake and alert at night, finding the quiet of a sleeping house far more conductive to their work. Everyone is a unique individual who has their own life situation and personal preferences, so it's impossible for most advice to be universally applicable.

And that is okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad writer if something that works for your friend, your teacher, your mentor, or even a super successful author simply doesn't work for you. I do have one more piece of advice, though... try it. Whatever methods someone proposes, or advice that's worked for them, give it honest consideration before tossing it aside... provided it's possible for you to do so, of course.

Write first thing in the morning? Write late at night? Keep a tiny notebook in your pocket at all times? Storyboard your ideas? Go in with no plan and see where it takes you? Write to a specific word count? Write till you feel you're done? Try them all out, and see what gets you the best results, and what works with your life.

This applies no matter what stage of your writing career you're at. Especially since a lot of our habits can get set in over time, and we never take a moment to examine them. Sometimes we're carrying around baggage we don't actually need, and it pays to kick it off from time to time!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Audio Dramas, Podcasts, and Short Stories, Oh My! (News on Tales From The Sellsword Skull)

To lead off this post, my apologies if the embedded video auto-plays. I'm tinkering with it to try to get it to not do that, but success seems to be very hit or miss!

Now that the cat's out of the bag, though, this week's update is about the project I mentioned last month in Tales From The Sellsword Skull, A Potential Podcast. Phase One is nearly complete, but I could use a little bit of help getting me over this last hurdle!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

What is Phase One?

For those who are hearing this news for the first time, let me back up a bit. Since the beginning of this year I've been making little audio dramas for the Azukail Games YouTube channel (which, incidentally, you should totally subscribe to). These vignettes dramatize the introductory fiction for a lot of my RPG supplements, and they've sort of allowed me to explore and build up my skills for the past half a year or so. I've wanted to expand into longer-form projects, however, so I figured that it was time to bite the bullet and get the ball rolling on a bigger, more expansive series of audio dramas.

Phase One was monetizing them over on my Daily Motion channel, The Literary Mercenary.

Seriously, check it out if you haven't yet!

To that end I've put together the 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories above, as well as Dead Man's Bluff, a weird Western short story from my collection The Rejects. My hope is that between these two videos I'll be able to pull the 1,000 views I need to monetize the channel. As of time of writing, the videos have a combined view count of 894, putting me 106 views out... not bad, all things considered!

But, you know, more views never hurts! And once I hit that 1k view mark, that's the end of Phase I, and I can move onto Phase II, which is populating the channel with more videos.

I have a couple of smaller projects in the works to flesh out the channel's early offerings (including a re-mastering of a Vampire: The Masquerade vignette from one of my supplements, as well as 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Warhammer 40K Edition), but after those smaller videos are out of the way I plan to make 9 more full-length short story videos for the channel. Some will be taken from The Rejects, but I've reached out to publishers I've worked with in the past to ask for their permission to dramatize some of the short stories I've put in other collections in the past.

Once I have a full 10 stories, that's when we get to Phase III, which is turning this beast into a genuine podcast! The initial 10 stories will act as season one, and while that's going out on various platforms, I'll be hard at work dramatizing season 2, which will be the Pathfinder adventure The Silver Raven Chronicles (the current works are listed below for those who are curious).

It's my hope that I'll have Phase I in the bag very soon, and that Phase II will be going smoothly by the end of the year. Phase III will take some work, but if I can get folks behind the project and sharing the videos around to help ensure that there's a budget for making more content, then I should be able to keep this going as long as people want to keep listening!

- Part One: Devil's Night

- Part Two: From The Ashes

- Part Three: The Raven's Nest

- Part Four: Circles in Salt

Why Am I Not Putting These on YouTube?

This is the most common question I've received so far, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to address the elephant in the room; why am I putting these videos up on Daily Motion instead of on YouTube? After all, YouTube is the biggest platform out there, so wouldn't it make more sense to use it?

Firstly, I can't. Secondly, even if I could, it would be a colossal pain in the ass to try.

Let me break it down for you.

A lot of folks don't know what it takes to get monetized on YouTube as a content creator, so let me break it down for you. First, you need to have 1,000 subscribers to your channel. Then you need to have 4,000 hours of watched content in the past year (not total, just in the past 365 days). For perspective, that's 11.5 hours of watched content every day for an entire year... that's absurd. Worse, though, it means that unless you make something that goes really viral, or you already have a huge audience that will follow you onto the platform, you could be making content for YouTube for years before they share any of the money with you. Because make no mistake, the site is still putting ads on all your videos, it's just that they're keeping 100% of the revenue you generate and putting it in their own pockets.

However, even if I wanted to try to swing for the fences and get monetized on YouTube, I can't. YouTube pays via Google AdSense, which is a program I once used to monetize this very blog. It's also a program I was banned from going on 8 years ago for "suspicious traffic." I put it in quotes because I have no idea what that means, Google wouldn't explain it to me, and when I appealed I was denied with no additional information being given to me.

So, since I can't use their payment program, I can't actually get paid by YouTube at all. Even if I could, though, Daily Motion's monetization goal is something I've nearly managed in a little over a week, instead of making content for a year and a half and still not being anywhere near the finish line.

Now that you know this, though, make sure you subscribe to all the YouTubers out there whose content you like, and consider letting a playlist run in the background... they need all the help they can get!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Work, School, and Daily Routine Don't Belong in Your Story (More Than Once)

Not every protagonist in every story is a wandering, one-eyed sellsword, a dangerous grandson of a witch sent on a mission, or a cybernetic super soldier deployed onto an alien battlefield. A lot of our protagonists are, in fact, just regular people. They have routines they follow, and but for the events of our story their lives are pretty much the same day in, and day out.

With that said, however, the audience isn't here for that daily routine... they're here for the story. So if the tale you're telling spends too much time at the office, or in the third row of English Composition 302, it's probably time to start re-evaluating where your word count is going.

Absolutely riveting, this test-taking scene.

Before we get into it this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Trim The Fat

A story needs to establish a character's routine; that should go without saying. However, the problem arises when the author just keeps going through that same routine time and time again when it isn't adding anything to the story.

As an example, we've all read a few YA books in our time. Some of us have read more than a few. Whether the protagonist is the new kid at a regular old high school, or they've been accepted to a super special sorcery academy, we still follow them along through their average day at least once. We need to see them in their natural environment, figure out who they're sitting near, what teachers hate them, and so on, and so forth.

But after that? We don't need to know. At all.

But... but my routine!

That is not to say that the setting of the story needs to completely change once routine has been established. Your office worker who caught the eye of the billionaire CEO will still have to clock in to keep earning a paycheck... but after that first run through we should only see them at work when it advances the plot. Whether it's chatting with a coworker about said CEO showing up around the office more, or the worker finding themselves alone in the records room with the big wig in a sexually tense scene, we should only be tuning in if the scene in question advances the story in some way.

What we should not be seeing is our protagonist just doing the same old thing. If they're just rearranging flowers on the shelf in the home and garden section, or attaching labels to the items at the auction house they work at, or even if they're a detective who's interviewing witnesses and filling out paperwork, stuff that doesn't pertain to the story you're telling should be cut.

Ask What The Audience is Learning

Every scene in a story needs to show the audience something about the world, the character, the plot, etc. And sometimes an extremely useful scene may seem like it's useless if you don't lift up the hood and ask what it's doing.

The best way to do this is to ask what the scene is showing the audience.

For example, that scene where the office worker shares lunch with their best friend from the records department may not seem like it's vital to the story. It's just two office drones eating chicken salad and trying to make it through the day. But is this scene sharing painful parts of a character's past? Is it giving the reader need-to-know information, such as that one of them has an ex who might be a stalker? Is it setting up dominos that can later be knocked down, such as discrepancies in the records that might lead to motive in a murder plot that's uncovered in chapter 11?

Sometimes the thing your audience learns is subtle. Sometimes it's blatant. But if a scene can be trimmed away without costing your audience anything, chances are good you can probably do without it.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Authors Need More Than Just Money

I had a client several years ago who always seemed to have work for me. Whether it was revising nations in his setting, or adding new wrinkles to plots in the RPG modules he was preparing, it seemed like no sooner had I turned in one assignment than he would have another one ready for me. This client was generally agreeable, gave me some free rein with my creative decisions, and was generally appreciative of what I was doing. Not only that, he paid me promptly when I turned in a given assignment. But eventually I had to stop working for him.

Why? Well, because he never actually released anything I wrote for him. And while we need bread to live, as the saying goes, we need more than just bread if we are to truly feel alive.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Validation, And Audience Reaction

Folks who read the Business of Writing section on here may be scratching their heads a bit. After all, for someone whose handle is The Literary Mercenary, and who is usually focused on the nickels and dimes of the profession, this might seem like a bit of a left turn into the artsy-fartsy part of the profession. However, as anyone who's ever commanded soldiers or tried to act as a team lead can tell you, morale is a very real thing. And speaking as a writer, it takes more than just the satisfaction of putting words on the page, or getting some cash in your hand for the job, to keep you going.

Your stuff needs to be seen, read, and reacted to.

Let's talk about science for a second...

We all know how dopamine works. While there's a lot of scientific descriptions of how it's made and the purpose it serves, generally it's a hormone that's associated with happiness and pleasure. It's your brain's way of telling you, "This is a good thing. Keep doing this thing." We get it from all sorts of sources, but one of the ones we're all familiar with is when something we post on social media gets likes and positive approval from the site. Whether it's from friends and family, or from complete strangers, the ding of notifications can put a little shot of good feeling into you.

It's not so different for authors. While there may be folks who write just for themselves, or who don't want their work seen, those of us who do this professionally want our work to find its fanbase. We want people to read our stories, to learn about our characters, and to follow the path we've trailblazed for them with our imaginations. And even if we're being paid for our efforts, it is hard to keep pushing forward if we know we're basically shouting into the void because none of the words we're putting down on the page are ever getting released to the public... or being read by anyone if they are released.

A good example of this for me are my short stories Waking Dogs and Field Test. These are just little throwaway pieces of Warhammer 40K fan fiction I put together as a kind of palate cleanser to keep my story mind sharp when I didn't have the resources to work on new novels. The former is a tale of a World Eater space marine coming out of the fugue state caused by the butcher's nails, and the other is about an inquisitor testing a unique, living weapon she's been training for several years, for those who are curious.

What makes these pieces unique, though, is how far they've gone in the 40K community, and how many people reacted positively to them... something that happened largely because of A Vox in The Void's beautiful audio renditions of these tales.

Now, I'm not claiming that my name is known as well as folks like Dan Abnett or any of the other authors whose official work with Games Workshop is the cornerstone of the Black Library. But when hundreds of folk leave supportive comments about how much they liked a story, and when subreddits dedicated to the Death Korps of Krieg, the World Eaters, or Chaos Marines actively recommend me my own story before they find out who I am, that definitely hammers on the dopamine button in my brain.

Because it's one thing to have a nice, fat check in your hand. But knowing there are people out there who read your story (or listened to it) who actively enjoyed it? People who talked about it, and told strangers that they should read it? That is a feeling that you can't get anywhere else.

That feeling won't pay your bills at the end of the day. On the other hand, having your bills paid also won't feed your spirit the way knowing you wrote something that stuck with readers, and that they want other people to read as well. And that feeling can drive you pretty far, making you take on projects that have no real return on investment, but which may let you get another hit of that good stuff.

Because, contrary to a lot of what people might say, being popular (even popular within a small part of a fandom) is not a guarantee that you can turn your name recognition into money and opportunity. But sometimes you really just need to hear the crowd roar, and to be told you did a good job.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!