The Inadequacy of Emotions to Capture Words: Flash Fiction

Tobias suggested it, after Mark died.

“It’s not crass,” Tobias insisted. “And you need the money for the kids. You know Mark’s life insurance and the money you’re getting from Unemployment isn’t going to enable you to keep the house. No one I know has had more tragedy in her life than you. You should share your feelings with people.”

Still, she didn’t do it right away. She nursed her grief quietly, inside, alone, until she thought she might burst of it. Then and only then did she admit Tobias was right. She needed to share this feeling with someone, or go mad.

She read about a call for feelings and showed up at the audition, feeling like a fool. Hundreds of people waited in the line, which she had somehow not expected. Many of them were weeping openly, or disfigured physically, something else she had never expected.

After two hours, she entered the audition office, a cramped, dark room divided by a wall of one-way glass. On her side, a single chair, resembling an old fashioned electric chair, rose from a metal pillar. She couldn’t see the people on the other side, but a male voice said, “Hurry up, babe, we haven’t got all day.”

She sat down. Seven little plastic cups snaked out of the headrest and bit into her head with tiny prongs. It stung.

“Give us your feeling, babe,” said the voice.

And it all rolled over her again, everything she had felt the night she answered the phone and found out Mark had been in an accident, the agonizing days when he was in surgery, the shake of the doctor’s head. The months of loneliness and desperation. The guilt she felt that when her kids asked about Daddy, and she wanted to comfort them, all she could do was pour out her own selfish grief, until they comforted her. Tears streaked down her cheeks. The pain felt like nails inside her head, as raw as ever, and as unbearable.

A light flashed, and the cups snapped off.

“Sorry, babe,” said the disembodied voice. “We’re not going to buy this emotion. Not sad enough, ya know? We’re lookin’ for real rock-bottom grief here. Thanks for coming in. Next!”

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter: the Book Trailer

I love book trailers. Not everyone does; I get that. But I love ’em. I’ve always loved movie trailers, and thought that books should have their own trailers…and now they do.

Now that I’ve finally learned how to embed a video on my blog, I’m going to share more book trailers. They won’t all be as high budget at this one, but I will pick books or trailers that kick ass.

If you’ve made a book trailer or want to recommend one, let me know in the comments.

Upcoming Bloggery

Damn, I guess I should stop complaining in my blog about my family…. It appears that I have family members reading this blog. Please disregard all that stuff I told you about my sisters.

Ahem.

Me? Complain about my family? That would never happen.

Anywhoo.

I’ve started school again, so in all likelihood, I won’t be able to blog daily. Unless you’re all reeeeeeeally dying to hear about postmodern literary criticism, which I doubt. You might get some anyway, if I just can’t help myself, but I will try to spare you.

Nonetheless, I would like to keep up regular blogging, say, once a week. And I had so much fun interviewing Michelle about Cinders, I’ve decided to do more reviews. I won’t have time for a lot, one a week at most, but what I would like to do is especially highlight indie books and small presses. Because there are a lot of awesome small presses and indie books out there. Also, I’m going to invite more guest bloggers.

In September, I’m going to feature Chalet Publishers and a couple of their books, starting with Fins. Fins is about mermaids. Did I ever mention that I was once a mermaid? I had every attribute you would expect of a mermaid — shell bra, shiny tail, long green hair, and fliers for a seafood restaurant. This was the first time my future husband saw me, and…. well, I’ll tell the rest of the story when I review Fins. 😉

In October, I will feature Rhemalda Press. J.S. Chancellor will be a guest blogger to discuss her upcoming fantasy epic, which I haven’t read yet, but sounds awesome.

For November, maybe I can convince Mercury Retrograde’s Barbara Friend Ish to come over and chat about her press and her book, and slow publishing and what that means, and other cool stuff. (I haven’t asked her yet, just thinkin’ out loud here, so no promises yet.) I’m looking forward to reading Secrets of the Sands by Leona Wisoker and The Shadow of the Sun by Barbara herself, and… um, wow, all the books in their line-up sound good.

And of course, I won’t ignore indie authors. I’m reading Zoe Winter’s paranormal romance Blood Lust right now, and really enjoying it, so I hope to put up a review of that. There are a few other self-published books I have sitting next to me waiting to be read, so maybe I will do a whole month of indies.

I can see that the big problem with my bloggery plan is going to be not enough time to read all the books I want to. I apologize in advance.

Right now, I’m not going to plan anything explicit for December, because I expect to be especially busy. I have a tendency to overcommit myself and then go crazy. I’m trying to be realistic about what I can deliver. But if this works out, it should be a lot of fun!

If you’re interested in guest blogging, email me.

P.S. Brandon Sanderson, I never said you have to be with a small or indie press. If you really want to guest post on my blog, I will struggle to find space for you. 😉

Expectations on Novel Sales

How many books should you expect to sell if you publish a…

Vanity book?
33

Self Published book?
99

Small Press book?
500-1000

Another way of looking at it is that if you sell less than the average for your category, you will be considered a loser.

But you never know.

The numbers could be on your side.

1000 – The number of books in the first run of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, half of which were sold to libraries.

$2,500 – advance for Stephan King’s first novel

$105,000 – the US advance for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

1.3 million – number of copies sold on the release day of Breaking Dawn

15 million – number of copies sold on the release day of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

17 million – number of books sold for the entire Twilight series

400 million – number of books for the entire Harry Potter series

Yeah, yeah. We know. Mifty-gazillion books sold by I.M. Famous and thirty books sold through Publish America by Ikaint Ritegood. But what is a realistic expectation?

Medium Publisher or Mid-list book with a Big Publisher
5000

Big Publisher
10,000-15,000

So if you sell genre you probably need to sell at least 5000 to earn out your advance, and preferably more than 10,000 to prove you should be published again.

How much money should you expect to make per novel?

Average Advance for a Category Romance Novel
$1000-$1500

Average Advance for first Fantasy or Science Fiction Novel
$5000

Average Advance for Fantasy or Science Fiction Novel by a multi-published author
$12,000

Ok, thanks Google, but that’s not what I meant. I meant per novel sold.

As far as I can tell, the average is about $1 per book sold. With a big publisher, you might receive less. Big publishers offer between 5% and 15% royalties, with 10% being common. That means a book has to sell for at least $10.00 for you to make $1. If it is a mass market paperback, I assume the author either is receiving 15% or else only makes about .80 cents on each book.

Small publishers, at least the epublishers I am familiar with, charge the consumer less for your books and pay you more, usually about $1.20 per book, or between 30% and 40% royalties. Large publishers want to charge a lot for ebooks, and give authors only 25% royalties, though this may change as a result of the Wylie fiasco. Amazon is apparently offering self-publishers an awesome 70% in royalties, though remember, this has to cover the upfront costs invested by the author/publisher. That means an indie author can offer books for half the price of a paperback, $3.99, and still make more than $2 per book. So, though an indie author may sell less books, she or he only has to sell half as many books to make the same amount as an author with a big publisher. (Correct me if I am wrong, indie publishers).

Just something to consider.

Jump in if I’ve missed something!

Handling Short Scenes

In film and television, a scene can be extremely short and still feel complete. The visual medium helps. The eye can take in the whole setting, while also tracking the action. But I’m having a hard time with short scenes in my novel. I don’t want them to waste many words, but how do I make them feel “complete” — not rushed, or sketched?

One trick I’ve tried is to think of the scene as a piece of flash fiction. Flash also can’t be longer than 500 or 1000 words, and yet it needs to be even more independent than a scene in a novel.

Any other ideas? I’m scratching my head.

UPDATE: I was too tired to give examples earlier, but here’s what I mean.

In a movie script you could have two short scenes in a row, like this:

EXT. WOODS – NIGHT.

A DARK FIGURE runs through the trees.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. THE WAR LEADER’S COMPOUND.

WARRIOR
He’s taken the bait.

LEADER
Send someone to follow him.

DISSOLVE TO…

But if you do that in a novel, how do you do it? It seems very choppy if you say:

* * *

A dark figure ran through the forest, keeping to the shadows of the trees.

* * *

A warrior rushed into the compound and knelt before the war leader.

“He’s taken the bait,” the warrior reported.

A grim smile spread over the war leader’s face. “Send someone to follow him.”

* * *

…but do I really need to go into the details about how the woods looked and smelled, or the compound, if I’ve described these things before? I kinda just want to cut to the good stuff….

If I were writing in omniscient, I could roll both scenes together.

That night, illuminated only by a sliver of moon, a dark figure raced through the trees. The swift and furtive motion of the lone fugitive suggested he did not want to be observed.

He was observed, however, and not long after his flight through the woods, a warrior rushed into the compound and knelt before the war leader.

“He’s taken the bait.”

A grim smile spread over the war leader’s face. “Send someone to follow him.”

However, I’m writing the rest of the book in Third Person at various degrees of Closeness.

Can you have a scene in a novel that’s only one or two sentences?

Social Media – The Cult of You

Social media has been called “the cult of me.” It encourages each of us to cultivate our own little cult, to gather around us a circle of “Friends” and “Followers”, sometimes even “Minions.” Seems like the ultimate in self-indulgence, doesn’t it?

But does social media really encourage selfishness? Is worrying about what other people think of you is a form of selfishness, or is it a matter of not giving enough consideration to your own self-integrity, obsessing instead over pleasing others?

Jane Steen warned in her blog post on 5 ways to make your twitter time more productive that the surefire way to make your twitter (or facebook) posts deadly dull is to tweet all about yourself (and your kids, pets, wordcount). Actually, I think posts about oneself, even about one’s cat, can be interesting — there are more pictures of cats on the internet than porn! — as long as the poster keeps one motto in mind:

It’s not about you.

This is the irony of social networks. You write about yourself, you post about yourself, you promote yourself, but it is not about you — it’s about what you can do for other people. Are you tweeting/posting something that will make someone smile or snort or sigh? When you read other peoples’ tweets and posts, are you thinking, not, how does this help me, but, how can I help them?

And sometimes the best way to help someone else is to let them know that they have helped you. Because the good people on the web, not the trolls, are on the web asking themselves the same question, how can I help the people around me? How can I add value?

A lot of people do succeed in adding value, from a post that makes one think about a problem in a new way, to a comment that makes one smile, to even bigger things. I was terribly nervous about going on Facebook and Twitter because of the Timesuck Issue, and indeed, it’s worse than I thought (and yet so much better) because I’ve also found out about wonderful books to read, events I want to attend, and people I want to get to know better. And chances are I won’t have as much time to do those things as I’d like. But the problem is one of TMGS — Too Much Good Sh… er, Stuff.

And of all the problems to have TMGS is pretty much the best of the lot.

Oh, and by all means, if I’m not following you on Twitter or Facebook, drop me a note and I’ll remedy that. 🙂