I'm a Gamer. This is What We Do.

Our buddy Emmet is in town, which means we've been playing more games than normal. It's been a while since I talked about board games. Here's what we've been playing. (I promise to be less crazy than last time).

Agricola
Start off as a poor farmer. You and your spouse have to choose how to manage their time. Do you collect building resources to build fences or improve your house? Do you plant grain? Collect animals? Build a fireplace so you can actually cook them? Eventually you'll want a larger family, which lets you get more work done, but you have to feed them all too.

This game is surprisingly balanced, and it handles 1 to 5 players. It's not even very hard to teach. The only real problem is the time the game takes. According to the box (which we've found rather accurate): half an hour per player.

Betrayal at House on the Hill
Play a group of explorers checking out a creepy old mansion. Weird things happen as you explore each room until eventually you discover what's really going on. Maybe one of the explorers is an alien scientist trying to trap the rest of you for his experiments. Someone might become an incubation chamber for a nest of giant spiders, and you have to save them. Maybe you'll have to beat Death at a game of chess.

There are 50 different scenarios to play out, chosen randomly each time. Whereas Agricola is all about strategy (there's very little luck involved), Betrayal is all about the story. As a writer, that's what I love about it. I love when the young boy befriends the strong madman (Sloth love Chunk!). Or when the tough Ox Bellows turns on his girl, and she has to maim him with a strange dagger she found just to get away. I love that you can win even if almost all the explorers are killed (just like a real horror movie!). The game's a little creepy, but totally fun with the right people.

So what have you been playing lately?

Proving the Rules Wrong

As Professional Aspiring Writers, we hear a lot about the Rules of Writing. Aspects of the craft that we are supposed to adhere to in order to "write well." More experienced PAWs know that the Rules are, in fact, only guidelines. If you don't know what you're doing, you should follow them, but a story can break them and still be good.

I submit here five fairly standard rules and their counter-examples: books or authors that have blatantly broken them, yet remain extremely successful.

Yes, you could argue that the reading public is dumb because it doesn't recognize "Great Literature" (which isn't a very nice thing to say about your future fans, btw). Or you could decide that maybe -- just maybe -- each of these authors does something SO right, their rule-breaking just doesn't matter.

Rule: Write what you know.
Counter-Example: The Dresden Files
Jim Butcher has never been a private eye nor a wizard (I don't think), but it doesn't seem to affect his income much.

Rule: Your protagonist must be proactive.
Counter-Example: The Twilight Saga
Say what you will about Bella, the books about her sell. And Stephanie Meyer now has the freedom to write pretty much whatever she wants.

Rule: Show, don't tell.
Counter-Example: James Patterson novels
(From London Bridges):

It was amazing footage--black and white, which somehow made it even more powerful. Black and white was more realistic, no? Yes--absolutely.

Rule: Never use adverbs.
Counter-Example: Harry Potter
(From Chamber of Secrets):

"We wanted to ask you if you've seen anything funny lately," said Hermione quickly.

"I wasn't paying attention," said Myrtle dramatically. "I was so upset I tried to kill myself. Then I remembered that I'm -- "

"Already dead," said Ron helpfully.

Rule: Be original.
Counter-Example: Eragon
(From TVTropes.org): The novels feature the tale of a farmboy who discovers a Plot Coupon sent to a wise old mentor by a captured princess, and has his uncle who raised him killed by the impenetrably cowled servants of the Evil Empire. The mentor is a former knight, who teaches the farmboy how to use his mystical powers in about five days. Luckily, the farmboy meets up with a Badass AntiHero, rescues the princess, who is also a major player in the Rebel army, and joins the rebellion, becoming a key member before going to train with a half-mad old hermit in the forest. After this, he discovers that his father was the Empire's right-hand man and he's been betrayed by his own family.


So don't let the rules scare you. They can be trumped.

Where else have you seen rules broken, but where it didn't ruin the story at all?

Choosing What to Write Next

Usually, the way I choose the next story -- assuming I have more than one idea -- is just to write the one I like the most. But after two failed query rounds, and my hopes resting all too precariously on an upcoming third, I'm taking more care with what I invest my writing time in. In my friend Ricardo's words, I'm leveling up.

I have two criteria now for what I write next:

1. It has to be something people want to read.
2. It has to be something I want to write.

Not that I (or anyone, really) knows what the public wants. Mostly the first criteria helps me look critically at my concepts. Is it a strong premise I can explain in a sentence? Has it been done before? If it has, do I have a unique enough twist on it to keep it interesting? (Or was it done so obscurely that I can do it again without anyone noticing?)

The second criteria is more about theme. Usually I just jump into a story because I think the plot or the world is cool; only when I get to the end do I realize the story's supposed to mean something too. I've been a Professional Aspiring Writer* long enough to know that I'll enjoy most any speculative premise, but I can't be passionate about every theme.

So now I'm thinking not just what are the themes of my story ideas, but what themes am I interested in writing? Like I had this idea of a kid born perfect in a Gattaca-style world where people are obsessed with genetic perfection, but he resents the pressure and attention people put on him. I like the idea a lot, and the theme of trying to be yourself is common enough I think I could write it. But the idea of writing a popular kid, when popularity is something I've never really "struggled" with, makes me wonder if it's really my story to tell. Especially when I've got other characters in my head whose struggles I have shared.

That doesn't mean I won't write it (I really like the idea), but it's one of the negative points I'm going to weigh when I decide what to write next. Although maybe I should finish these current projects first...

What about you? How do you decide what to write next?

* Feel free to borrow that term.

Why the E-Book Debate is Dumb

Choosing the Right Picture

This blog is going quiet for a couple of weeks for obvious reasons. Not that Thailand celebrates Christmas, but our family does, as do the 7+ relatives/friends here to visit.

I should be back on January 3rd. Until then, enjoy this undoctored screenshot of CNN.com, and meditate on the importance of choosing the right picture to go with your words.

Figuring Out Query Letters

Every aspiring author, at some point, wishes someone would tell us how to do query letters right. Just tell me what to write, and I'll write it!

Ahem.

But it's not that simple. For one thing, there is no Right Way to write a query. There are, however, a hundred wrong ways that agents see over and over. One of the best ways to learn, then, is to read other query letters -- hundreds of them, good and bad -- until something clicks and you get a sense for what works.

What? You thought it would be easy?

To help, here's a list of places where you can do exactly that. Many of these links provide free critiques -- both peer and professional. For most the wait is long, if your letter gets chosen at all. But the real value of these sites is not getting comments on your own letter. It's in learning from, and critiquing, the mistakes of others. Read enough of these, and you may actually figure out the answer to "How do I write a good query letter?"

Even if you can't put it in words.

• Query Shark -- 190 queries and counting, critiqued by literary agent Janet Reid.
• Evil Editor's Face-Lifts -- Nearly 900 queries, critiqued (and mocked) by an anonymous editor.
• Jodi Meadow's Query Project -- Over 100 queries, critiqued by author and former slush reader, Jodi Meadows.
• Nathan Bransford's Query (and First Page) Critiques -- By blogger and former agent, Nathan Bransford (see also these blog posts).
• Chuck Sambuchino's Successful Queries -- Queries that landed actual agents, along with comments from the agents who signed them.
• Nathan Bransford's Query Critique Forum -- Can't get critiqued by the agent himself? His readers are pretty smart too.
• AQ Connect's Query Corner -- Peer critiques and successful samples for query letters and synopses.

Know any good places I missed? Share them in the comments!

Overthinking Dr. Seuss

I read a lot of Dr. Seuss (9 kids will do that to you), to the point where I've caught myself thinking about the story behind the story, wondering if the good doctor ever considered these angles.

What do you mean I'm over-analyzing?

The Zax -- Evolution or Cruel Experiment?

"Never budge! That's my rule. Never budge in the least! Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will if it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!" 

A North-going Zax and a South-going Zax bump into each other during their long, seemingly pointless journeys, each stubbornly refusing to step aside for the other.

Are there more of these creatures? And are these the first to ever run into each other on their (presumably, magnetically perfect) paths? This appears to be a potential evolutionary problem.

Or is it intentional. One mentions a South-going school. Is there some genetic scientist who has trained them and set them on colliding paths, just to see what they would do?

The Sneetches -- The Economy of Beach Bums

Then, when every last cent

Of their money was spent,

The Fix-it-Up Chappie packed up

And he went.

And he laughed as he drove

In his car up the beach,

"They never will learn.

No. You can't teach a Sneetch."

Plain-belly Sneetches live oppressed by their star-bearing brethren. Until a con man convinces them to change their stars back and forth, taking all their money and leaving the Sneetches poor and confused.

But where did they get this money? In the entire book, the Sneetches have neither homes nor jobs nor clothes (it's cool, they're birds). Maybe their economy is just never shown, or maybe they are the world's most successful beach bums, spending vast welfare checks only on marshmallows and frankfurters.

The Sleep Book -- A Message from Big Brother

We have a machine in a plexiglass dome

Which listens and looks into everyone's home.

And whenever it sees a new sleeper go flop,

It jiggles and lets a new Biggel-Ball drop. 

From one perspective, the Sleep Book is about the bedtime and sleep behaviors of various creatures as the countryside goes to bed.

From another, it's subtle propoganda composed by a totalitarian regime. The message? "Everything is fine. All are sleeping peacefully, except you. We know."