Episode #282: "To Live Is To Die Young"-The Real Journey Has Begun

My friends, after a very long (3+ years on this particular phase) journey, we have moved onto the very most important journey that a book can undertake: being published.

It took over three weeks (apparently the summer is a popular time period for publishing books) but here is the cover for my upcoming crime fantasy novella To Live Is To Die Young.

To refresh everyone's collective memory, it took me an aggregate total of 3 1/2 hours spread out over three weeks to come up with a title, a tag line, a short blurb, a long blurb and a basic concept for cover.

And to answer one very important question: the cover is multi-racial because the four main characters of the story are as depicted.

It was really weird how everything came together so quickly. Unlike with my previous novella, which took a couple of reader polls and the collective effort of a writing group to come up with the aforementioned items, this was truly a piece of cake. Like if you were called in to work on an issue that you're so familiar with, that with only a cursory glance at the issue, you know exactly what was wrong and fixed it. This novella went exactly like that sample scenario: a cursory glance and everything eventually wrote itself.

~~~~~

The teaser blurb:

Caught in a power struggle between his supplier and a drug kingpin, Jon needs to find a way to keep on living in order to not die young.

The short blurb:

Jon Morris was in a world of physical pain and mental numbness.

Caught in a horrific power struggle with his supplier Bradley Tomas, a raging wannabe who could never be and his morally bankrupt hybrid wife Alexia on one side; and an extremely violent regional drug kingpin Terrence Torquicelli, who had no qualms in collecting body parts to solve fixable issues on the other side, Jon needed a way to fix all three of his problems while staying comfortably alive.

Thing was, could he succeed before the others succeeded with theirs?

The long blurb:

Jon Morris was in a world of physical pain and inner turmoil.

After throwing one of his infamously raunchy house parties, he soon found himself under a vicious attack orchestrated by his drug supplier Bradley Tomas. Once the dust had cleared, Jon had found, much to his annoyance, that his new job was now to be a nanny to Bradley's hybrid wife Alexia.

Alexia, who even in the best of times was a barely passable professional escort of dubious morals, decided to show her extreme displeasure of her husband's choice of nanny by making Jon's life an absolute nightmare.

Which included, among other nasty deeds, ripping off a major drug kingpin.

Jon knew that being held personally responsible for Alexia's shenanigans, meant at the very least, he would be suffering a barely living death. Thing was, could he find Alexia to make things right with the kingpin before the kingpin could make things permanently right on his own terms?

~~~~~

Having sent the cover to my formatter over the July 4th holiday weekend, I think that a realistic date of release would be late July or early August. I'm very happy with the work done on the cover and I can't wait to show it off to the world at large. Sometimes being a light nag with a "I need to get this done" mentality is an endearing quality to have.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #281: Have You Ever Challenged Yourself?

When your brain is emptier than a plastic garden gnome, you know you be in some deep dark dank pit of creative nothingness...

Anywho, today's chop suey special is called "Challenging Yourself", or if you want to tweak a well known movie quote, you can say in the voice of the well known character actor Strother Martin, "Have you ever challenged yourself?"

Specifically, as a writer, did you ever go out of your comfort zone, just to see if you could produce a quality product?

I've gone out of my comfort zone quite a few times over the years. One of the very early instance of me going out of my comfort zone, was to write a clean story.

No, really.

When I first took my writing seriously, I knew right from the get-go that I was going to write adult fiction. While I enjoyed reading clean stories, my warped dark sense of humor and my exploration of adult....topics...in my younger days basically guaranteed that cleanliness in my writing was like men reading Playboy or Penthouse for just the articles: it wasn't going to happen.

But.....one day I decided that I was in a rut and needed to try something completely different to get out of the rut. So during the course of one day (maybe two), I wrote a G-rated short story called "Cedar Mountain". That short story became one of only two short stories that I managed to get published in my career, with this one being in a now defunct e-zine called "Beat To A Pulp". 

Another challenge that I decided to inflict upon myself, was to write a story in the first person/present tense. Now considering that we're all taught almost from day one that we should be writing our stories in 3rd person/past tense, with the occasional foray into 3rd person present tense, writing a complete story in the present tense is usually an exercise in frustration.

I've been known to do bits and pieces of an overall story in the present tense, but except for maybe a viable sliver here and there, I've usually reworked those passages to make them fit better with the overall story. But I had issued myself a challenge, and the challenge was accepted.

And I had just the perfect vehicle to implement my challenge with: a previously published novella that I wasn't too happy about (trust me, there were  A LOT of things not to be happy about). So back in the hey day of that nasty little thingy that made everyone's lives miserable for the first half of the 2020's (including my house), I took that previously written novella and re-wrote it to the present tense.

Definitely were not easy to do, changing everything from the proverbial "I used to be smart." to "I am smart." left it alone for a few years, then tidied it a bit this year, so when all is said and done it will come out as an e-book only. But, the challenge was successfully completed.

Another challenge that I had decided to do early on, and this one pre-dates the previous two listed, was to write a story in the 2nd person viewpoint, which is considered to be one of the hardest view points to write in. I can't really describe it well, but if you click on the link propagated by Google, all will be answered. But just the same, the challenge was accepted.

On the upside, I succeeded in writing two or three one page stories in that particular viewpoint. On the downside, I succeeded in writing, rather badly, two or three one page stories in that particular viewpoint. Also on the downside, there are no surviving paper copies, but one of my old XP or Win7 computers may have a copy or two. Maybe. 

And lastly, there was one final challenge that had multiple parts, of a personal nature, that I decided to accept: write a full blown novel. By full blown, I mean something along of the lines of being a supremely detailed, thoroughly researched, with completely fleshed out characters with just enough sub-plots to keep everyone cohesive without being too overwhelming.

I had actually tried this once before with another fantasy series that ultimately died an inglorious death (that is, I recently unpublished both the print and e-book versions), mostly because I was too much of a keyboard commando, for lack of a better term, to put in the work required to fix it/complete it. But that may change in the future....if I remember what the general plot is/was supposed to be.

Anyways, me accepting this challenge was the perfect nudge that I needed. I was waffling about whether or not I should switch to writing my stories via pen and paper then transcribing to the computer, but after writing about a half dozen chapters by hand for my latest novella and discovering the pros (no major digital distractions or chronic hand fatigue, to name just a few) more than outweighed the cons, I took the plunge.

The rest, as they say, is history, as I completed a five volume fantasy series totaling some 600k words over 122+ chapters, with every single page written by hand before transcribing to the computer, during the 1Q of 2025. Total time spent was almost three years, but it was well worth it. I want to note that I did chronicle this particular journey under the tag Hot Mess, so if you want to check out in greater detail about this fantasy series, by all means check out that tag.

And believe or not, I'm not flying on air, but I have decided to challenge myself once again: this time, taking a recently finished short story and turning it into a novella. And for an added bonus, the short story itself will be the actual ending of the novella. So unlike the fantasy series, in which I had the beginning and a nominal outline for an ending as a non-moving goal post, I have to create an entire beginning and middle to arrive at the completed ending.

I believe that you should always challenge yourself as a writer, because you just never know what you can actually accomplish if you don't actually give it a try.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #279: Sometimes Life Feels Like A Venn Diagram

Believe me, this blast from the very distant past (like early 2000s) kind of matches up with my state of being for this past week.

My life currently feels like a Venn Diagram. For those who need a tiny refreshment of minutia on what it is, please click on the offered link. Everyone else, I apologize in advance for bringing up something that horrified normal people in 2024.

To elaborate just a tad, I had a lot of things going on in the past few weeks in which the only common denominator was me. So, with that being said, let's explore this human equivalent of a Venn Diagram with me being the central connecting point to all four circles.

Circle #1: let's say this one features my recently completed fantasy series "Sister vs Sister". Because of the general state of blue funkiness that I was in, I decided to do one last round of pen edits before I really put it away for the next year or so. Going through that five volume monstrosity didn't really do anything to negate the blue funkiness, because afterwards, I really felt just a little bit...lost. Like an actual hardcore empty nest syndrome.

Circle #2: let's say this one features book reading. Normally I try to keep up with my reading by consuming at least two books per month, but lately, my heart really isn't into consuming books, new or used. As I've mentioned previously, I really had to push myself to finish the book, because even though the topic intrigued me, the content was just...meh. Because it was meh, this 240+ page tome really did a number on me, as I was torn between DNF'ing this bad boy and pursuing the sunken cost fallacy to the bitter end. Suffice to say, the latter was chosen.

Circle #3: this one is a toss-up between two writing related options, so.....Jeopardy? And my answer is, writing fresh stuff. I spent the better part of two months writing nearly one dozen short stories as a distraction to actually doing the item in the final circle. Out of those nearly one dozen stories, one of them had ultimately planted the seed of writing yet another novella, featuring the two main characters from that story. So here I sit, mulling over that particular idea. Or rather, that idea gently nudging me saying, "write me, write me...you know you wanna."

And finally, circle #4: my novella, "To Live Is To Die Young". After completing all of the necessary tangents that are required for this novella {e.g. title and blurbs}, I finally pressed the proverbial Pay Now buttons and did just that, to the tune of $450. Yay me!

So we have four properly labeled Venn slightly illogical circles, none of which actually touch/intersect with each other, but do intersect with yours truly. Which if you really think about it, is quite odd. In theory, all four circles should have at least one thing in common with each other besides the main point, which in this particular case, is me.

But...they do not. Unless you count that they were all vehicles for my procrastination, which really doesn't work for me. Absolutely none of them have a common.....wait a minute.....wait a minute....okay, let me stare at the screen for thirty seconds.....

at this point, G.B.'s legendary muse walks up to him and slaps him upside the head like Moe does with Larry, Curly and Shemp. He promptly slides out of his chair, but is immediately caught by his muse and placed back in his chair. She sternly shakes her finger at him before silently walking away with a swagger in her stride.

Dumbfounded, which is a normal state of being at least once a month for him, G.B. suddenly picks back up where he had left off at previously.

Well, I'll be a McDonald's ice cream cone. They do have at least one thing in common with each other: reading! No, really. Think about it for second: circle #1 requires a boatload of reading since editing is being done; circle #2, no-brainer since a book is being consumed; circle #3, needed to do reading because one has to proof their stories to makes sure there's no typos etc.; and finally circle #4, reading was definitely needed while putting together one monster manuscript for the formatter to begin work on (my formatter of choice requires the entire novel/novella to be one entire manuscript, no matter how many pages/chapters it has in order to create the necessary files for KDP/Print/Non-KDP platforms).

Huh...so we had a come to your deity of choice moment while writing this heartfelt lament featuring the almighty (to some) Venn diagram. Which, if you really give it some thought, is about a bogey over on the golf course of life for me. More often than not, I will arrive at a conclusion a few minutes after the train left the platform, only to belatedly realize that making that stop at my local mom & pop coffee house allowed to arrive at that wrong conclusion, thus missing the train.

So now what this post boils down to is to pay closer attention to your surroundings, because while you're focused on the beauty of the blossom in your hand, you're completely ignoring the vulture standing on the arm of the cacti who is counting down the minutes to when his dinner will be served al dente.

Having good eats is not the same as being good eats. Paying attention to finding a common denominator to the multi-tasking that you're performing can only breed success in the long run. But definitely pursue finding that common denominator early, otherwise the end result will be something like this:

"A blog post that started with good intentions, but stumbled so badly out of the starting gate that it has no choice but to flail its arms in a cartoonist manner while running like Woodstock flies."

Happy Monday to one and all, and to those who are parents, whether dual or single, I sincerely hope you had a very good Father's Day.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #274: A Fugly Tale Of Two Novellas

Pretty sure I posted another version of this photo in late 2024, but I still think it's a cool pic. I mean, when a cat casually appears in the street to survey you, and only you, it makes you feel...special.

It's been a really slow week here in Connecticut, which usually means we're going to blog about something writing related. This time our writing related topic, like the title suggests, is about two novellas, one published and one hoping to be published, and the two radically different paths that were trodden to get where they currently are today.

Let's start at the beginning with the comparison. They were both born during a rather fertile creativity period of the very early 2010's, in which I was churning out all kinds of slop for stories as well as for my blog (I think I was doing maybe three to four blog posts a week at that point). They were both poorly written but they were near and dear to my heart, which of course meant at the time they were ready to be published.

This is where their dual journey took a major diversion at the proverbial fork in the road, with the published book going left and the unpublished one going right.

The published book caused me a whole lot of stress and a whole lot of money. Because I was simply oozing with confidence, I decided to hire a now ex-Facebook friend in 2014 who was a freelance writer and editor, to edit my book. About two to three weeks later and $300 poorer, I had a nicely edited novella and a three to four page critique on what needed to be fixed on it. I read the critique, studied the editing notes that were written on the manuscript....and promptly shelved the entire thing because I was too chicken to actually knuckle down and fix it.

Fast forward to the wonderful world of Covid-19. We're happily retired and got to work on a number of projects, including this novella. Once I had fixed all of the issues and got it to where it was ready to be published, I promptly ran head first into a two-bay garage door.

It took me a total of ten years and an online poll to come up with a plausible title for the novella. I've always had issues creating a title for my stories, and this novella was no exception. The next problem that popped up was writing a long blurb, a short blurb and a tag for the novella. This also took about a month to write both, which included some substantial help from my Facebook writing group to hammer out two rough drafts of the long blurb before nailing it on the third. Had the same issue with the short blurb and the tag, multiple drafts before nailing each.

So overall, the published book caused me a ton of stress because I had a wickedly hard time trying to write 150 +/- word long synopsis, an 80 to 100 word short synopsis and a 20 +/- word tag for a novella that I had a moderately difficult time, due to the complexity of the plot, in deciding what the story was actually about.

Now we move on to the unpublished novella.

The unpublished novella was also similar to the published novella, which also included a complex plot and a fast pace. But that's where the similarities end, as even though it had a complex plot line, the underlying event/reason (drug turf war) was very simple to understand and work with. We performed at least four rounds of editing, both in Gdoc and Word (the formatter I use works in Word as a starting point for everything else) and in that process became overly familiar with the entire novella cover-to-cover.

Because of this over-familiarity with my story, everything else associated with it became the polar opposite of what was done for the published novella. In a span of three days totaling one hour, I had a 159 word long blurb that I was happy with. It took me twenty minutes to write a 91 word short blurb, and another twenty-five minutes to create a title. Because of the difficulty I had in trying to come up with a cover concept on the fly the first time around, I sat down and spent an hour re-reading the novella and taking notes about what I want for a cover. In fact, the only thing that I have left to do for this novella before I move on to the next phase of publishing, is to come up with a proper tag.

So we have a tale of two novellas, both of which took over a dozen years to come to fruition, but took divergent paths to reach the proverbial golden ring. One fed directly into my stress/anxiety of writing blurbs, a story title and a vision for a book cover; the other ignored my stress/anxiety and instead gently stroked my ego and self-esteem to the point where I was able to complete all but one of my goals in rapid succession.

A question that I would have for you: does your stress/aggravation level ebb and flow when it comes to writing the blurbs/tags, creating a cover concept or even coming up with a title with every book that you complete? Or do you find it to be the same no matter what kind of book you write?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #259: My "Hot Mess" Is Now "Sister vs Sister"

This pic from the late '00's represents the fire that was first lit in June 2022 was finally extinguished on January 23, 2025.

June 2022. The sentence, "Jhon staggered into the bathroom, flipped the light switch and screamed in pain as the soft white light shot a dual laser beam directly into his eyeballs.", was the opening salvo to a story that immediately took hold of me much like my only trad published novel.

January 23, 2025: The sentence, "Fifteen seconds later Blanco and Akhal took off in the same cloud of dust towards home.", was the closing salvo to a truly epic fantasy story.

In between those two sentences, we wrote an estimated 600k words, totaling an estimated 1,320 pages, contained in 120 chapters, spread across five glorious volumes, with the overall series title being "Sister vs Sister". This particular project was not only an obsessive labor of love, but it was the first to be written completely by hand before transcribing it to the computer.*#

*t.l.;d.r.: less digital distractions, more meatiness to the story.

#longer t.l.;d.r.: basement flooded in 2021, recovered four writing projects in various stages of completion, this project was the third of four to be worked on to completion.

The interesting thing about this particular series, is that when it came time to finally tidy up all the loose ends once we arrived at the original conclusion, it became remarkably easy to actually write those conclusions. Over the years I've always had major problems in writing personally satisfying endings to my stories, which I think had a lot to do with trying to reconcile what I wanted to see as a reader versus what I actually wanted to write. Writing by hand helped me tremendously to properly resolve the nearly one dozen story lines that I had woven throughout the series.

A few random observations to give you the reader a better understanding of what it took to write this series.

1. The page count given equates to the minimum amount of notebook paper used as 660 sheets: two pages of transcribed text per sheet. However, the reality was more like this: 1 1/2 pages of printed text equates to one page (give or take a paragraph) of transcribed text. So this in turn, bumps up the amount of notebook paper used to nearly 1,000 sheets (1,320 transcribed pages at 1 1/2 handwritten pages per one page of text equals to roughly 1,980 handwritten pages, or about 990 sheets). To put this in perspective, I probably wrote out the equivalent of nearly three Harry Potter novels in order to write this series. I think I was a medieval scribe in a previous life.
2. The amount of pens and assorted items to fix corrections was mind boggling. For starters, I employed a rotation of 4 pens, two black & two blue, to write this series. Using a rotation like this helped me limit the overall total of pens used to about 25-30 for the entire 2 1/2 years spent writing this series. This total includes the two cheap ten packs bought, but also several others that were simply gathering dust in my pen box. As for the fixing of mistakes, I employed a two prong attack: liquid paper and address/file folder labels. In regards to the former, I did not have the hand strength to use the standard stuff, so we switched to the liquid stuff, of which roughly 10 bottles were used. As for the labels, a pair of scissors allowed me to squeeze out two to three strips per label in order to fix large errors. I won't even tell you what I used to do to fix seriously egregious errors like making a character go into a direction not of their choice and having to bring them back.
3. There really is no number three to speak. I mean everything else that was associated with this project was just part and parcel of my editing routine: reams of paper (currently finishing #4 and will be purchasing #5-8 shortly) and toner to print everything out; three ring binders (8) along with the requisite dividers (20 packs in total as they ranged from 5-10 per); and bullet point chapter synopsis so that I could easily find a particular point in the story (stopped after chapter 96).

Like I stated earlier, this project was very much an obsessive labor of love, and unlike the previous stories written where I had stressed about how to get from point A to point Z while making sure that I touched on the remaining letters of the alphabet, my stress level was significantly lower this time around. I'm pretty sure that the new writing routine was a large contributor to reducing my stress level (if you go slower, you can see further ahead) thus allowing me to pursue the statement in parenthesis to its ultimate conclusion.

Thank you for joining me on this Don Quixote-esque journey exploring just how far I can stretch my imagination while staying strongly tethered to the reality of today.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #255: Research Is The Essence Of Good Writing

Our doggo Oreo chilling out in preparation for a very busy and fulfilling Christmas day.

As any good writer will often tell you, on the point of poking you very hard in the chest, thoroughly researching the main topic of your book, along with the other various tangents that make up the meat and potatoes {or the bean burger and organic fries if you're a veggie} of your story is essential to creating a fantastic product.*

*sorry, but old work habits like using three dozen words instead of an eighteen pack to explain something never really goes away, they just stay dormant.

Since I write fiction, today's post will be about doing the required research in order to make your story as realistic as possible, no matter the genre.

I've always been a bit of a macadamia when it came to researching a particular topic, whether it was work related or personal amusement, and I took that macadamia-ness to a whole new level of neurotic clarity when I started writing. For example, with my first published novel, some items of note included motorcycles, the adult entertainment industry and the feminine form.

The more that I grew as a writer, the more widespread my research efforts became for the stories I was creating. Even though at this point I was writing mostly fantasy based stuff, I still wanted certain elements of the story to have some basis in reality. So my current project became the ultimate test of my research skills.

Different cultures: I became enamored of different cultures a few decades ago with all the books/documentaries/videos that I was consuming, so it became a no-brainer to introduce those elements into my current project.

So I performed what I considered to be a deeper than normal research dive for the cultures that I chose to have a larger than normal focus on in the story: Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. And when I say a deep dive, that included things like family life, language, certain culture norms and deities. In regards to the cultural norms, I made a conscious decision to err on the side of being conservative, since I had no real way of knowing how those cultures felt about certain elements that were woven throughout the story (except maybe the Incas). And can't forget that I created a whole other culture from scratch that had all kinds of other historical elements woven into their fabric.

Different time periods: This probably could go hand in hand with the previous point, since I decided to have different time periods intermingle. For example, I had various characters that were part of the aforementioned cultures, directly or indirectly. A few other characters were part of the modern civilization (mostly North America), while another was part of the late medieval time period. 

Modern/old-fashioned technology/norms: This particular aspect of the story is where I had the most fun playing with. From a modern perspective, both major areas of action (Earth and Pod Planet), were heavily peppered with references to the use of modern technology: drones, cctv, computers, weaponry and digital media; old fashioned technology like having the horse as a main mode of transportation.

Odds and Ends: This particular category is for mostly all of the various bits of research that I had to do for various subjects like grammar (description mostly), certain concepts that I wanted to make sure I was using properly (e.g. slavery & sexual orientation), animal/personal traits (e.g. can horses sleep while walking and certain human characteristics), and other assorted items that would randomly pop into my head while writing a particular scene and I would want to know if it would fit or not.

Names and languages: This one was an ongoing issue throughout the entire series. First, I wanted to make sure that the names made logical sense for the adventure I was writing about AND that they emanated a powerful aura; Secondly, except for one made up language, I wanted the languages to be universally known and used. Which is why I chose English and Spanish as the two dominant languages that were used throughout. I also threw in the languages of the Aztecs (Nahuatl), Incas (Quechua) and Mayans (Yucatec Maya), as those cultures are moderately featured throughout the story. And I threw in ASL, as I have one character who uses sign in addition to telepathy.

One should also note that I didn't use any of the actual languages involved beyond English. A very good editor told me years ago that one should state what foreign language is actually being used in a given conversation, as opposed to actually using the language itself. Less aggravation and definitely less verbiage.

So overall, I enjoy most aspects of research, whether for personal curiosity (e.g. a used c.d. of a band that I've never heard of before) or for writing (clothing was in the top three of the biggest non-culture items that required heavy research). I find it's always better, at least in writing, to sound like you know what you're talking about, as opposed to actually knowing what you're talking about.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #254: Is The End Really In Sight, Or Is It Just A New Beginning?

Another candidate in my continuing quest of finding books about any kind of topic under the sun: the Oxford English Dictionary. Acquired from my public library's perpetual gently used book store (also features c.d.s, DVDs, puzzles and children's books).

In case anyone was thinking the worst about my blog, have no fear, as this is a writing update on my now five volume series that has a working title of "Sister v Sister".

As the post title hints at, the end is really within sight with this series. Over two years of hard work, totaling (as of the day of this post) 1,200+ pages/112 chapters and a shade over 550k+ words. Oh, least I forget, this is also (currently) spread out to 8 three ring binders.

In the time spent writing this weighty tome, I have developed what I believe is a solid theory that can be applied to all books, consisting of two good points and one incredibly fugly point.

Good point #1: The basic idea for the story. This, in my opinion, is the easiest goal to accomplish. If you consistently carry a small pocket notebook and a pen, you can easily jot down ideas for stories as you go about your day. In my particular case, the story idea was a kidnapping. We fleshed it out afterwards, but the premise was very simple and very basic.

Good point #2: A starting and ending point. Again, in my opinion, it's another easy goal to accomplish. You decide on how you want it to start and how you want it to finish. In my case, it was a home invasion that was the actual starting point to the story. As for the ending point, it was to be the two sisters and the husband of one to become co-rulers of an unknown planet.

Fugly point #1: It has to be the journey itself from the beginning of the story to the perceived ending of the story. It truly does become something with all of the meaty entrees, appetizers, salads and desserts. A true smorgasbord of delightful pieces that make your story complete, but man, it can drive you to pull out a pair of Zircon encrusted tweezers so you can remove all those hair follicles from your body just to kill the mental pain.

With all of the various side plots, side tangents and the solid growth of all the characters involved (e.g. dribbling in almost one dozen highly necessary backstories for all of the characters involved, no matter how long they hang around for), and if you're like me, a pantster, you have to find a way to keep track of all of those various story parts.

For me personally, it was the chapter-by-chapter print out, which was soon followed by a bullet point synopsis that made it up to chapter 96 before petering out. Still, it has been a nightmarish process, as it seems that the closer I get to the actual ending, the harder it's becoming to write each chapter that takes me to that actual ending. Especially since it's taking me a bit of time to wrap up the various plot lines as I progress to the ending.

And even when I finally do write the intended ending, which is still in flux as we speak (think of it as a movie anecdote where the scriptwriter is furious pounding out enough re-writes in order to film the movie for the next few days, only to wash/rinse/repeat), I still have to write a bunch of epilogues. Why, you might ask?

Well, wouldn't you like to know what the immediate aftermath for all of the characters once the final ending is written? I certainly do, because even though I'm toying with the idea of writing a few adventures for those characters, I still want to know what the final outcome will be for them. For example, I would like to know what the final fallout will be with the kingdom after the coup d'etat is enacted.

So the T.L.;D.R. of this post would probably read something like this: our blog host is finally heading down the home stretch of a typical writing marathon and desperately trying not to be the very last runner to cross the finish line, but kept getting sidetracked as he learned and applied new (to him) writing techniques in order to create a thoroughly enjoyable tome.

So my question to you is this: does my proposed theory sound off the mark, spot on, or somewhere in between?

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #248: The Power Of Persuasion Can Be Insidious Indeed

For those of you who enjoy the Elf ruling the world from a Shelf, I bring you his cereal. Sugar Is Good Food.

The title of today's post can mean a multitude of things. For those of you who have a genuine sense of humor, you'll immediately get the gist. For everyone else, today's post is about how the arts & entertainment sector can surreptitiously remove your hard earned dollar from your locked wallet without you being the wiser.

But first, a writing update that features, rather annoyingly, a setback. My current saga, conveniently titled here as Hot Mess, has been forced to expand to one more volume. Between last week's post and the writing of this post, I've been forced to concede that in order to bring everything to a proper conclusion (including uniformity of content), I need to drift into one more volume. This pain is still fresh, and it's something I will elaborate on in a future post. 

With that out of the way, let's jump to the topic at hand: persuasion in the arts & entertainment field, with a specific look to books.

Oddly enough, this topic came to me in a roundabout way. I was settling down with a gently used book that I had purchased from my public library a few weeks ago {"Drunk" } and had posted a picture of here boasting how you can find a non-fiction book about any topic under the sun, and one of the main reasons why I had acquired the book were the jacket blurbs that were touting the praises on how good this book is.

Within the first thirty pages, this book performed a complete 180 from what it outwardly presented itself to be. Outwardly, it presented a picture of a fun-filled historical romp through the millennia about drinking. Inwardly, it presented a detailed picture of social/behavioral sciences indicative of what the various people of the world did when it came to producing/consuming/regulating fermented drink. All well and good, but this book was more suited for a college level social sciences course than as a book for the masses {aka literary non-fiction}.

Usually I've been pretty good about weeding out reading material that says one thing on the cover but says something completely different on the inside, but this time, I fell for the hype without researching to see if the hype lived up to the product. As the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I'm just a gullible kind of guy {modern twist, so sue me}.

I'm often seeing this more and more when it comes to browsing both the new book selections at B&N or the gently used book selection at my public library. Lots of hype that I take with a large boulder of rock salt because why would a particular author have (at least with non-fiction) have so much hype about their book that contains a topic more suited for pop culture as opposed to not.

Now, I have seen some good hype geared towards books in certain non-fiction genres where the content ultimately lives up to/exceeds the hype (e.g. certain historical events/periods, sports and true crime), at least in my personal opinion. But I've also been the victim of where the hype thoroughly masqueraded the dullness/zoning out capabilities of the book itself (again, looking at you the literary genre).

The reality of good hype/bad product is that the person who created the perceived bad product will almost never have the opportunity to win that particular reader back. Reputation is everything in the literary world, and unless you're someone who has churned out quality product and can get away with the occasional lemon, one perceived bad tome is very hard to recover from.

Sad to say, I only purchase books based on the reputation of a writer who I have either interacted with personally, or peripherally in another format (e.g. a podcast host who writes a book in their particular field of knowledge). For general reading, the public library remains my go-to source of material.

So my friends, have you fallen victim to this insidious issue when it comes to the written word? 

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #247: A Little Coagulation Makes Everything Gel

While yes, this picture is...wait for it...nearly 17 years old, I'm reposting it not so much as it's a cute picture of my daughter but the store that's in the background next to Jo-Ann Fabric (in bankruptcy I believe), Big Lots, which has closed/is closing over 350 stores, including the one pictured, as it works it way through bankruptcy. Welcome to the new retail world of 2024.

Today's post, while writing related, won't be that heavily skewered towards the nuts and bolts of my current project {e.g. page/chapter/word count}, but like looking for an opinion on a particular part of a book that people have lots of opinions about.

Epilogues.

As loosely defined, an epilogue is a coda/summation that brings to a satisfactory conclusion to what you've just read/heard/seen. It's quite prevalent in books, of all genres, when you want to shine a light on what might've possibly happened to your characters after your story has wrapped up.

In my particular instance, because I have invested so much time/energy on the lives of all my main characters, giving them nuanced motives in pursuing/completing/not completing a particular task, that I sincerely do not think that trying to WRAP UP ALL OF THOSE PLOT POINTS in one final penultimate chapter will be fair to the readers (or myself for that matter) who invested so much time with those characters. 

Just to give you a basic idea of what I'm looking at that must have A RESOLUTION of some type, and this doesn't include the actual ending, which I'm still trying to resolve to my satisfaction.

1. A sentient being that was "killed" off in book #3, is deciding whether or not to reincarnate and become a sentient to another, or stay with her current host, who is serving penance for causing her to die to begin with.
2. Two cousins who are trying to successfully complete their last assignment, which will allow them to regain control of their lives AND find a new home/host in which to restart their lives with.
3. A swerve in which one protag/antag must decide on which person who should take delivery of her hostage, with each person having their own different outcomes.
4. A secondary swerve involving the protag/antag mentioned above, which culminates in the gentle reassignment of the remaining four members of her family conclave.
5. I have two immortals, one who is now host to a sentient being, who are in charge of making sure that the hostage is being delivered on time.
6. The two sisters who ultimately betrayed their Queen for the Queen who wants the man in question.

Those are the main points that indirectly involve the actual ending as it applies to the pursuing/pursued side of this conflict. The following points that directly involve the actual ending as it applies to the receiving side.

1. I have a lady-in-waiting who has recently become a host to a person who was reincarnated into a sentient being and is recovering from a brutal multi-faceted assault from the next bullet point.
2. The renegade from the conclave that is the actual power behind the throne who is looking to perform his own usurpation.
3. The Queen who was the catalyst for this entire story. Does she win in the end? Does she lose in the end? Does she break even in the end?
4. The Queen who was the pursuer for the entire story. Does she win in the end? Does she lose in the end? Does she break even? In regards to a couple points mentioned above, does she win or lose?
5. The Milady, who was the hostage in question's first wife, what does she win in the end? How does her life continue afterwards?

Since all of these points have to be concluded to everyone's satisfaction, and there are many intertwined points at stake here, I guess the question now pivots to this: should I have two separate epilogues involved for both sides?

Funnily enough, writing this blog post has allowed me to look at my entire series with a fresh set of eyes, and in order to do all of the intertwined/interconnected plot points, both large and small, I really do need to write two distinct epilogues in order to properly close out this series.

But after reaching this very realistic possibility for this series, I've also come to the very realistic possibility of writing novellas/novelette as follow-ups to these particular characters. Note: these characters have been my entire world for the past 2 1/4 years, so I can truthfully say that I've grown quite attached to them.

Not sure if I've ever experienced something like this before, in that while trying to make a case for something, I ultimately convinced myself to make a major swerve into something else. But, while writing this blog post, I also came up with another idea for this series, which I will presently keep to myself until I can talk to others about it.

In any event, please enlighten me with your thoughts about epilogues in general or a proposed dual epilogue ending. Have a fantastic week everybody!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #243: I'm Sorry, What Was Your Name Again?

Another lovely chalk drawing created during the annual Newington Waterfall Festival, which is the official goodbye to summer and a timid hello to autumn.

I love creating throwaway characters for my stories. You just give them a few characteristics and a reason for being in your scene, then POOF!, they're discarded like a celeb's political opinion, never to be heard from again. Usually.

However, while I love creating throwaway characters, I do have a small issue when it comes to giving them a....bleech...name. When I have to plaster their entire being with a name, it usually means that this person can't be deposed of like a celeb's political opinion, but instead you have to give them the short attention span treatment.

Which is easier said than done. But...I do have secret guilty pleasure when it comes to slapping a moniker on a throwaway: giving them the most horrendously puerile name that I have stashed in my memory.

I know you know what I'm talking about. There are names that we have heard used back in the day in books, movies, radio and t.v., that automatically makes us want to use a spoon for gagging purposes. That's right, they're the kind of names that you can instantly conjure a bad stereotype of right off the bat (think of Ralph Wiggins from the Simpsons), whether they're male or female.

I actually have a short catalog of annoying names, mostly male, that I draw from when I have a character that appears in the story just a shade longer than a "blink and you'll miss" cameo. I say 'mostly male', because the majority of my stories skewer quite heavily towards women and I cannot bring myself to write those kind of obnoxious people as female.

For example, I use the name Melvin quite a lot in my stories. Back in the day, I rank the name 'Melvin' right up there with 'Myron' and 'Eugene' for names that I instantly dislike {equivalent would be those cute kitty memes/pics that often can induce rage among the populace}. So I often use the name for very unlikable characters that need to stick around longer than a "blink and you'll miss him" cameo.

In an upcoming novella, I had a character that was key to moving a few plot points along, even though each encounter lasted less than two total paragraphs (had three appearances in total). So naturally he gained the sobriquet of 'Melvin'. 

Melvin was one of those greasy fat blobs of a human being that seemed to live in his car 24/7/365 and was one of those annoying little druggies who thought he was hot stuff with his dealer and the ladies he would come across {what we would probably call today, an 'incel'}. Melvin was easily intimidated by anyone who had displayed just a tiny whiff of intolerance to his verbal vomit, so naturally, he became a verbal/physical punching bag to those who could actually back up what they were saying to him. So he was the perfect throwaway character that showed up, drank your beer, scarfed down your nachos, insulted your female guests, then left with his tail between his legs.

In my current novella, I managed to use quite a few throwaways that lasted less than three pages for each appearance: generic wannabe tough guys, corrupt cops, various members of a large collection agency, even an atypical druggie and pimp. All nameless and all were used to simply move the story along. I believe this was the first story where I didn't need to tack on a name for a long term throwaway, as everyone who was named was an essential character to the story.

In my current project, because I had so many plotlines going, the unfortunate aspect of naming my throwaways had to be deployed. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep the usage of each throwaway character to a manageable level, so in essence, they started drifting from throwaway to additional. But, and this is a big one, I actually had to go back in time to make sure that I wasn't repeating any of the names for those throwaways, because each and every character was injected with just enough personality to make them unique.

So the throwaways for this story with names were as follows: a Lothario teacher (Leonid), a peasant (Simon), a chatty horse who doesn't know when to stay silent (Lawrence), a well-respected teacher among his pupils (Mr. Percival), a group of humanoids (Arturo, Isiah, Louis, Anatole) and one dog (Cerberus). All of these charming people were essential to moving the various plotlines along.

Now comes the part that all writers can enjoy creating: throwaways with no names.

Those are much more fun to play with, as it's one of the few times that you can use a blatant stereotype in order to move a plot a long/showcase your protagonist/antagonist in their particular element without the reader getting too much annoyed with you. At least if you're putting that particular throwaway in their place.

Need a way to showcase a character's ability to inflict broken bones/leave a lasting impression by only touching them? Create a stereotypical brutish drunkard with more brawn than brain cells. For added hilarity, imply that the man might be from the Old West. To leave a lasting impression, create a stereotypical foppish palace courtier that is all bark and no bite. Need a way to showcase a character's acerbic wit that can cut a Sequoia down to kindling? Create a pompous Kevin/Karen who likes to name drop "important friends".

There are virtually an endless amount of opportunities to create throwaway characters that are both cannon fodder and move a particular plot point along. You don't need to pour a multitude of character development for a throwaway character. Remember, people playing a red shirt member of Star Trek or a starship trooper from Star Wars were there just to collect a paycheck. No more, no less. Your throwaway character is there to just collect a paycheck, only in the form of actual dialogue. No more, no less.

Have a fun filled happy Monday, and remember, every person deserves their moment in the sun, but not every person deserves to have multiple moments in the sun.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #241: Hello! And You Are...?

This is one of my newer little friends that my muse was kind enough to introduce me to, as apparently I now need someone to keep me properly motivated with my writing. I think she's trying to tell me something.

A few weeks ago, I had participated in a small conversational thread, on a favorite YouTube channel that I subscribe to, about old fashioned names {the Reddit story in question was about the poster's sister mocking him for naming his child 'Lyric', and the sister was enamored with old/classic names}. The conversation thread got me to thinking about old fashioned names in general and how they're used in today's world.

I wasn't a big fan of the old fashioned names early on, mostly due to the only exposure that I had to them was like everyone else: Hollywood {period t.v. shows, period movies and cartoons} and books. It wasn't until I had started my first state government job back in 1996, helping microfilm old CT newspapers, that I had decided to take a more serious interest in what we now consider to be old-fashioned/classic names.

Fast forward to roughly 15 years ago, when I decided to get serious about my writing. One of the first items on my list to tackle was how to properly name my characters, both male and female, so that the names would more accurately reflect the type of person I was writing them to be. Which basically meant that I didn't want to either use short versions of popular names {e.g. John, Kate, Chuck} or popular American English names {e.g. Matthew, Mel, Rich}. So this left me using other sources to come up with interesting first names that would accurately reflect the character I'm creating.

The road to interesting names is paved with pop culture, history, foreign languages and the Internet. To whit:

1} Pop culture: drawing on this particular item required me to search the memories of my life, specifically the world of Warner Brother cartoons, where all kinds of interesting names were used, abused and mocked. This went hand in hand with point #2.

2} History: I spent 1996 thru 2003 working with late 18th thru early 20th century newspapers, so this gave me a surprisingly in-depth education on the societal norms and habits of those eras, of which one was the first names of men and women. Almost to a fault, the full proper version of a name was used publicly, which I was eventually able to turn on its head once I had gotten serious about my writing.

3} Foreign languages: this basically worked hand-in-hand with the Internet, since a lot of the names I was brainstorming sounded way cooler after they were run through a foreign language {e.g. Spanish, Italian}. This led directly to #4.

4} The Internet: since going to the library nowadays, while a good place to do research, was not conducive to the almost ADHD style of research that I would typically undertake when writing a story {focus? what's that?}. Thus, the Internet was a very key tool when it came to researching character names, especially when I was struck with a whim of "hey, I wonder what this would sound like in French or what's the equivalent in Norse mythology?" {note, those were actual search terms used by me}.

So, armed with this vast not-quite-encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture/history, off I went in search of using names that were slightly different from the contemporaries but fit quite snugly in a given story. Let me give you three examples where I've successfully applied this philosophy.

A} My current novella, The Mortality of Familial Love, features an eclectic mix of character names that were chosen from all of the aforementioned points. Three of the main character names were Dmitri, Charles and Kaitlyn, while a few secondary characters had names of Amaliya, Andrik and Niles.

So I'm a big fan of using Slavic/Russian names for both good/bad/amoral characters; using alternate spellings of traditional names and using names directly inspired from t.v. shows. I'm also a major fan of using traditional names in general for some of my stronger characters, no matter where they fall on that tri-scale of good/bad/amoral.

B} Novella with a potential publishing date of 2025. This one I went a little hog wild by using all the aforementioned points, with the names falling under the entire tri-scale of good/bad/amoral. I did use a nickname or two, along with an alternative spelling for a few others. I will note that some of the following names were recycled for example C, because there are times where selective recycling of names is a good thing.

Names that I had chosen were: Jon, Alexia, Bradley (trad no nickname), Terrance (trad no nickname), Freddy/Frederick, Melvin, Claire, Virgil, and Xandra.

Again, the bulk of the names chosen were mostly old traditional names, which actually fit with the basic plotline that centers around two local criminal organizations that were vying for dominance in their home state. To me, using traditional names, no matter the gender, signifies respect, albeit 18th & 19th century style of respect, where nicknames were not really used.

C} My current lo-fantasy project. This is where I really went feral hog wild with choosing my character names, in which I had applied everything from the original four points plus others like different spellings.

I won't go into redundant detail on the names that I had actually chosen, as those could be found in this particular post from the Spring, but I will go into some of the background as to where they had originated from.

I originally wanted to say that at least five of the original character names were brought over to the new series, but after giving it some thought, only two and a half were brought over: Jhon and Adeola, with Myla's alternate name of Alicia being brought over. Everything else was created from scratch using sources as diverse as: Greek mythology; real life; a reader's poll; Spanish and Italian translation; very traditional names, with source material alternating between WB cartoons/old newspapers/classic television from the 70's/period history. We then detoured to classic literature, 19th century Europe and modern life. 

In short, we tried to select names that closely mirrored the kind of character we had in mind to create. I think the biggest mistake one can make as a writer is to choose names that are the proverbial square peg to the character's proverbial round hole. For me, it's something that I can picture quite clearly in my mind that this character needs this particular type of name attached to them.

Over the years it's been a hard struggle to choose names for my characters, and even a harder struggle not to reuse a particular name as a lead character no more than three times in consecutive stories. But I am trying my very best with my selection of names for my lead characters, whether they're male or female.

Within the next few weeks, look for a post where I talk about how I choose names for characters that are either throwaways or hang around long enough to advance a given story arc.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #240: And You Are Called?

Books By G.B. Miller

Today's pic is a 100% honest attempt at promotion. This novella is my latest release, a dark fast paced rural/urban fantasy that doesn't slow down until the end. Available at most major e-tailers in e-book and print. Click the link for further details.

There are three things that I absolutely loathe as a writer: 1} picking a title for a story; 2} writing blurbs for a completed book and 3} choosing characters names.

As much as I would love to rant about my trials and tribulations in picking character names (and there are a lot) today's post will be about my trials and tribulations in picking story titles.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've always, ALWAYS, had problems in choosing/brainstorming titles for my stories. More often than not, the titles that I pick for stories would often have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the story whatsoever.

One example, the original title for the novella that you see standing before you. Prior to the final title that you see, I originally went through almost seven different iterations of what this story was known, and I only remember what the previous title to this novella was, "Blackness In The White Sand". Could not remember why I came up with that title originally and it took me over 8 years to come up with the title that you see before you, and I had to use the very sound advice of a writer's group to help me come up with that.

Another good example of a very bad title was the original title of my adult fiction novel The Inner Sibling, which was Line 21. This was a title that absolutely no one understood the meaning behind it. Twelve years later, even I came to the conclusion it was a crappy title. For those who are curious, the original title refers to the old version of the 1040A form, in which line 21 is where you put the amount of miscellaneous income that you had earned for the year.

Now let me give you a couple of examples of titles that I had given to some short stories of mine. Red Stripe and The Right Thing. The former story is featured in my collection called What Is Life? and it tells the story about a day in the life of a punk rock musician. Why I titled the story after a bottle of beer is anybody's guess, because the story has absolutely nothing to do with beer. The latter story is about a day in the life of a guy who was cheated on by his girl with another girl, and it uses the backdrop of a town festival for the story to unfold. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The latter story can be found in my collection called A Trilogy of Love, which is actually a replacement title for the same collection under the name Broken Promises.

Now to the present. When I had originally started my current project, which has the blog tag Hot Mess, it was called Dandelion Tears. Again, I have absolutely no idea as to why I had chosen that title to begin with. I mean, it's mentioned very briefly as a place of employment for one of the characters, but that's about it. I have, however, come up with a working theory as to why I choose bizarre titles for my stories: I simply latch onto a particular word, regardless whether it actually applies to a story, and viola! it becomes a title for a story.

However you want to break it down, the real challenge, at least for this series, is to come up with an overall title for the series. My saving grace this time around is that because I have the four volumes broken down by events {kidnapping, 1st recovery attempt at a campsite, 2nd recovery attempt is a pitched battle, and the final recovery attempt takes place at the place} I will have no problem it titleing those four volumes.

Literally, my entire writing journey is littered with stories that have absolute crap titles that I now have to rectify with brand new titles, and it hasn't been easy. I have succeeded in renaming a previously published story with one that actually makes sense, while another novella desperately needs one beyond the placeholder of the "Average American Novella". In addition to those messes, I have nearly three dozen short stories from my defunct short story blog that needs new titles so that I can create new collections.

Basically, I suck at picking out titles for my stories, because apparently I subscribe to the bizarre philosophy that some musicians apply to their works, which is to pick a nonsensical title for the c.d.'s, which leaves everyone collectively scratching their heads trying to decipher the reasoning {example: The Boomtown Rats, who had that cult hit "I Don't Like Mondays" titled their album "The Fine Art of Surfacing", which contains that cult hit}. I guess you can call me "The Muddler" when it comes to story titles, because my muddle choices often make no sense to anyone, including myself.

Happy Monday to one and all, and remember just because the world doesn't revolve around you, you can take comfort in the knowledge that people used to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #236: Cliche-ing My Way To A Brand New Day

I support my public library by purchasing gently used books and music year round. The money they make is used to supplement their annual budget for doing outside activities. The book on the left is about the world's oldest profession in the Old West, while the one on the right is a memoir about a barn owl. Yes, this solidifies the fact that I have eclectic tastes in books.

Continuing on a theme from last week's post, we're going to expand and expound on the concept of cliches. Now I know that most people do not like using cliches, but since they're a {un}necessary evil (like cheapskate owners in your favorite pro sport), it's up to us, the writer, to make them as fresh and palatable as possible. Granted, this is no easy task, but your pal G.B. is gonna try to give you some pointers just the same.

Now, roughly 98.5% of the cliches that I use are like the 4.0 version of the extremely tired cliches that one is usually faced with when writing a story. I say "4.0" because I try to make those loathsome cliches seamlessly fit into a given scene.

A good example is one that I mentioned in my previous post. The overused cliche is, "being thrown under the bus." While technically the meaning of that cliche is to blame someone else for your foul-up, that doesn't mean you should ACTUALLY use it like that in your story. In my particular case, my overall story has a blending of at least five different motifs: modern day; ancient early second millennium peoples (Aztec, Inca, Mayan) with a modern twist; Medieval Europe; pseudo steampunk/modern day/mid-to-late-mid second millennium and religious concept of Hell.

So in order to make it more appropriate for the motif in question (the pseudo steampunk etc), we tweaked it to be, "thrown under a team of draught horses". It still conveys the concept of blaming someone else for your screw-up, but makes it more appropriate for that particular motif. Because, why refer to a bus when your main mode of transportation is equine.

In general, if you need to use a cliche, always tweak it for the time period you're working in. Even if you're creating one from scratch, make sure it fits the motif you're writing in. For me, having multiple motifs to work with forces me to become that much more creative with my cliche usage. My saving grace in deciding whether or not to use/create a cliche, is the vast warehouse of minutia that is contained within my head. This allows me the luxury of performing deep rabbit hole digging without hitting the same vein twice.

And let's not forget another small, but salient point, when it comes to cliches: it doesn't necessarily have to be a longish phrase, like the example above. Instead, it can be something simple as a few words, like "hallowed grounds". Yes, that particularly short phrase can be a cliche, because how many times have you read it as part of a well worn (i.e. timeless) description of a school/college/university?

I thought as much. In my particular case, I was able to use it to describe the dominion of a Sulfur Underground for two different religions. As a personal preference, I've always used that particular phrasing whenever I'm describing Hell for a story. In this particular instance, I wove in the fact that the current overlord of the Sulfur Underground is also someone who has mastered the fine art of diplomacy, thus being able to expand his realm. Thus, we have given new life to another worn out cliche.

For me, a vital component for writing my current story, or any story for that matter, is to creatively rework a tried and true cliche so that it doesn't turn off a potential consumer of my product. Nobody wants to pick up a book and be bombarded with a mixture of fresh and stale writing.

Tune in next week when I explore the topic of creating fictional business entities out of two different parts of a noun: persons and places. Until then, have a fantastic week, and remember to apply the old cliche of "the world indeed does revolve around you", to your day-to-day activities.😎

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #231: Research Is The Writer's Way Of Playing Roulette

For the past week, our neighborhood has been visited by a doe. So far, this lovely doe has grazed in our front yard, snoozed in the shade in the back yard and grazed in the side yard. Note: I live some twenty feet away from Cedar Mountain, and this photo was taken while I was walking home on 7/11/24, at a distance of about fifty feet, give or take.

Over the past fifteen plus years of writing, I have done research on a plethora of nouns and other assorted parts of grammar, both the old fashioned way and the modern way. By old fashioned, I mean waddling my butt down to the local library and thumbing through the Dewey Decimal card catalog to find a particular book or wandering through the library shelves looking for a particular subject {e.g. baby name books or classical literature}. And by modern, using both the Google and Bing search engines AND by asking people certain sensitive questions.

Let me clarify the statement of asking people sensitive questions. I was actually doing a bit of research as well as soliciting a bit of feedback while writing my first novel, and a former friend had pointed out that I was writing a few of my female characters unrealistically. She clarified when I asked how, which sent me on a very odd research mission that could've gone so terribly sideways if my coworkers didn't know that I was doing that serious writing gig.

T.L.;D.R.: I asked a coworker of mine about what the letters A, B, C, and D meant as it pertained to bra sizes.

Now, the other bizarre research question that stood out from that same time period had to do with breast milk. At the time, I was writing the original 1st draft of Hot Mess series, and I thought it would be really interesting if one of the main characters had the ability to produce breast milk at will. So I actually asked this question in a blog post from that same time period, and the consensus was that my readers were even more enlightened than I was on this particular plot device.

With the two person-to-person research questions out of the way, let's discuss the overall oddity of what research I actually performed for my various stories.

In general, because I was such an early fan of having hybrid people {half human/half animal} in my stories, that required quite a bit of research into the lives of the various members of the feline species, both domesticated and wildlife. This animal research obviously involved other species such as horses and other types of wildlife.

We then went off on a small mechanical tangent doing basic research for certain cars and motorcycles (how to drive a true manual motorcycle was an adventure, since the required info translated to just one measly sentence in the aforementioned first novel). With my current book that is now out, that research delved into about a half dozen types of cars before splintering off to other things like...

Nature. I'm a big fan of Mother and Father Nature, to the point where I often write various parts of that charming couple as anthropomorphic beings. We've also done a large chunk of research into one of my very favorite topics...

Religion. Specifically, the aspects of what I consider to be very malleable to play around with: Hell and Purgatory. Oddly enough, I have always been drawn to those two members of the afterlife than I have to Heaven, probably because they've been more interesting to doodle around with. When I got more serious about my writing, those two particular topics opened my fictional world to endless possibilities.

Possibilities like, Hell being run like a well oiled family business in my current series, military style. Or in my recently released novella, the main villain is a modern day version of Satan. But seriously, I did do a moderately deep dive in both concepts, as well as a few of the archangels.

People. This one was one of my bigger research projects that is perpetually ongoing, with the methodology being almost even divided between asking people, observing people and the strange world of the Internet. The observing and the asking people almost exclusively dealt with clothing and everything associated with it, with a few related tangents such as body art (metal and inking) and hair; while the Internet was used to basically brush up on a few historical generalities, like different cultural time periods (e.g. the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans), certain pop culture events (e.g. the world famous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the 90's) and even certain mores/values of a given time period. Using the Internet also allowed me to confirm certain things like...

My memory. This is an interesting research topic, as a lot of the background info that I use for my stories involve my home state of Connecticut. I've done a lot of intra-state traveling in my lifetime, and a moderately sized chunk has made it into my stories, either as a major part or a minor touching upon.

For example, in a novella that I'm looking at a 2025 publishing date, I have references pertaining to Connecticut sprinkled throughout. Like, a major highway and state routes that run South-to-North and from North-to-South; I've used a few major towns and cities as minor-to-major focal points; I have used an semi-abandoned hospital and my local mountain as key turning points.

In another example, two stories within this particular trilogy, take place in my local park and local library, while the other takes place at the local town festival; while in another short story collection, one story takes place inside my local mountain and the other takes place, weirdly enough, in the center of town and my house.

One topic I do enjoy researching is names. I was never that much of a fan of using regular names for my characters. I was more in the realm of either using mythological names, old fashioned names, regular names that are misspelled, names based on other languages or names based on different types of nouns.

We delved deep into various kinds of mythology: Roman, Greek, Incan, Celtic and Christian. We dabbled a bit in the Victorian age, The Edwardian age, other languages and the classic cartoon age. And because a few of my female characters from my current WiP are a neat-o mixture of amoral/psychopath/sociopath, we researched a few various plants of the mortally dead variety, like various off-shoots of Nightshade. So those particular characters are named after Atropa Belladonna & Brugmansia, two very lethal members of that particular genus.

In regards to classic cartoons, back in the day, I watched (and still do) a ton o' Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons, and I grew to appreciate some of the very old fashioned names used, so I decided to use a few of them on my secondary characters.

Finally, as odd as this sounds, especially since I do not write the type of fiction this knowledge would be needed for, I did quite a bit of research on the human body (almost exclusively internal). For better or worse, I have a slightly above average quantity of violence (both gratuitous and non) in my stories, which required me to have an above average understanding of the human body.

So not as to not gross anyone out, I now have a passable understanding of the human body as it pertains to my type of writing. I know it's something one shouldn't really brag about, but for better or worse, it's something that I managed to cultivate over the years and successfully apply to my storytelling.

Grammar. I am a lover of the English language (mostly American but some occasional forays into British), but it became a full bloom passionate love affair (shhh...don't tell my muse nor my wife) once I began blogging/writing in 2008. I absolutely fell in love with the dictionary and thesaurus, and was always on the lookout on how to properly work in different words to express the same thoughts without turning any reader off. I simply started with reworking old cliches/adages and it just blossomed from there, to the point where I liberally sprinkle viable words that actually mean/say something in my stories. Grammar is the be all to end all when it comes to writing.

I think that about covers all of the very odd research I have done, and still do, for the stories that I create. So, what kind of research that people have looked at you rather oddly, that you have done for your writing?

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