Make a Nerdy Living

by Alex Langley

  What obstacles do you feel are in the way for self-published authors?

  I think the biggest obstacle for me was overcoming other people’s judgments and opinions. So many people tried to talk me out of doing this. Only my closest family members believed in me enough to think self-publishing was a good idea. I’m quite sure a lot of people thought I’d completely lost my mind when they learned I’d dropped out of college so close to graduation, but it was honestly the best decision I’ve ever made. It kept me from having a backup plan, and I think that was a huge reason why I succeeded. I didn’t allow myself any other option.

  What do you feel are the advantages and disadvantages of online publishing, as opposed to traditional publishing?

  Honestly, I think it all boils down to one thing . . . control. When self-publishing, you control your own destiny. You control your covers, your pricing, when you run sales, and how you market your books. You also get to keep so much more of your profit.

  If you’re someone who wants to write and you’re not interested in the publishing side of things—the marketing or the preparation, etc.—then self-publishing is definitely not for you and traditional publishing would hold more advantages, but that’s one of the only circumstances where I believe self-publishing has a disadvantage to traditional publishing. If you do it right, it’s way more work, because you are doing every part of the publishing process yourself.

  What should a writer know before getting involved in self-publishing?

  First: Educate yourself. Read, take courses, go to conferences—do everything you can to learn the business. Second: Always put writing first. There’s no business to promote or grow without the books. Your craft should always be your top priority. Third: Hire professionals. Never create your own cover or do your own editing. Hire people who know what they’re doing and are experts in their field. It’s worth the investment and can make a huge difference in whether or not your books succeed.

  What do you feel are the advantages of using a nom de plume?

  There are lots of reasons someone might choose to write under a pen name (I do!). Someone may want to disguise their gender—i.e., a male who writes romance or a female who is writing in a very male-dominated genre. Or someone’s name may be too long to look good on a cover, or perhaps it’s too hard to pronounce or isn’t catchy enough. The biggest advantage in my opinion, though, is that it really has helped me create a clear separation between my professional and personal lives, which I enjoy.

  BUILDING CHARACTERS

  Characters, the dramatis personae, are those little fictional people we create to use as fabric in the grand tapestry of our narrative. While there are a near-infinite number of fictional characters, each with their own little human details, as writers we must consider them both in the personal and impersonal sense, considering their thoughts and feelings as sentient beings while also planning how they best weave into the story. In regards to characters-as-story-components, there are a few distinct types every writer should know:*

  The protagonist is the character you’re supposed to root for, the “hero.” The protagonist is usually going to be the character with the most pronounced character arc, meaning they will be the most changed by story’s end.

  To be clear, just because someone is your story’s hero doesn’t mean they’re going to be heroic, necessarily. Walter White from Breaking Bad and Light Yagami from Death Note are the “hero” of each of their stories but are also a couple of very bad boys whose stories make it clear that their flaws are to be learned from, not admired.

  A protagonist must be sympathetic in that they are understandable. We may not know what it’s like to have the weight of an empire on our shoulders or an insatiable lust for human blood, but we need to understand the core human emotions behind such fantastic problems.

  In Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat!, he describes numerous examples of characters who, despite being dislikable or potentially evil on paper, hold our interest. These characters grab us thanks to a combination of charm, intrigue, and the utilization of a Save the Cat moment—a critical moment early in the story that reveals a human, empathetic element to the protagonist that makes the audience connect with them. This can be accomplished many ways—a quick exchange of witty yet heartfelt dialogue, your character standing up for someone more downtrodden than they are, saving a literal cat, etc.

  Secondary characters exist to further the themes of your story, to act as help or hindrance to your protagonist, to define your setting, and to keep the plot moving. Secondary characters need relatively uncomplicated backstories to prevent the reader from getting confused—and you from wasting your time on utterly unnecessary details.

  Many secondary characters are actually foils whose purpose is to magnify or reflect the existing traits of a more prominent character by comparison. Sherlock Holmes’s partner and assistant, Watson, is the archetypal example of a foil, as he often stood around remarking how clever the legendary detective was. The “best friends” in any romantic comedy are generally foils, with the sloppy, gross male best friend making the male lead seem more together, and the promiscuous female best friend making the female lead seem more desirable. Foils are strong character tools but must be used sparingly lest they become annoying and obvious.

  Tertiary characters are only around for an instant. They’re there to further the theme a tiny bit, or to flesh out your world to make it feel real, or to be weird, outrageous, and hilarious, infusing some hot sauce into a scene that’s otherwise a bit too original-recipe. Hannibal Chau from Pacific Rim, the Sommelier from John Wick: Chapter 2, or Koh the Face Stealer from Avatar: The Last Airbender are all fantastic tertiary characters, staying around just long enough to spark our interest and expand their fictional worlds.

  For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. For every main character, there must be an equal but opposite force pushing against them. That’s the antagonist. The antagonist reflects our hero and opposes their journey toward self-actualization.

  The antagonist wants to prevent the hero from getting that which they desire most. They’re usually static characters, foiled by their inability to change, providing a sharp contrast to the (usually) dynamic growth of the protagonist. Antagonists often justify their behaviors through their own warped sense of morality, and, much as a protagonist doesn’t have to be heroic, an antagonist doesn’t have to be villainous to serve that purpose in the story. The Fugitive’s US Marshal Sam Gerard is an officer on the right side of the law, chasing down our hero for a crime he didn’t commit and serving as that film’s antagonist. In Captain America: Civil War, Cap and Iron Man both act as protagonists and each other’s antagonist.

  With antagonists, the key to writing them is to realize that they wouldn’t consider themselves antagonists. Dracula probably didn’t wake up every evening, look at his stupid little slicked-back hairdo in the mirror, and think, Yep, I’m such a supervillain that people will be writing stories with me as the antagonist for centuries to come.* Many villains consider what they do to be a necessary evil in the pursuit of higher goals. As a writer, it’s up to you to figure out what it is about these baddies that is human enough for an audience to find interest in.

  With any character, no matter their purpose in your story, try to figure out whether that specific character is necessary or if they could be combined with another underused character to simplify and streamline things.

  Don’t be too precious with any of them; your characters are there in service of the story, so don’t make them oh-so-perfect little Mary Sues; torture them when need be. Make them flawed and make them hurt and you’ll be on the right track to a story worth telling.

  CRAFTING PLOT

  In The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, author Christopher Booker posits that all stories can be divided into seven broad categories. Many writers disagree with this idea, as broadly categorizing disparate stories together based on general rules isn’t as elucidating as you might expect. Frankenstein, S
hrek, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, for example, would all fall under the same type of story despite being about as different as stories can be.† However, breaking stories down into their elemental components does serve as a useful way of examining them, thinking about them, re-contextualizing them. Take a look at the stories you love the most, try to find the parallels between them, and use that as a stepping-off point for your own works.

  THE BIG G: GENRE

  Some writers rebel against the idea of “genre” by creating wild, genre-straddling works that push the envelope of story structure; most stories, however, fall into broad categories based on the primary intent of the tale.

  The genre you choose is up to you, and the first step toward figuring out what genre to write is to examine what you read. If you read a lot of gritty, realistic crime novels, you’re probably not going to write much epic fantasy. We write what we read, and we should want to read the stories we’re writing.

  HORROR

  Stories that turn a mirror on society’s darkest impulses to garner understanding of ourselves, often incorporating fantastic elements as metaphors for our most terrible thoughts. Horror stories are generally meant to disgust and terrify readers, as both a way of increasing understanding and of allowing us to experience and control our fears.

  Examples: The Shining, It, Dracula, House of Leaves

  SCIENCE FICTION

  Stories that provide projective critiques of current and future society through the use of not-quite-real technology. Sci-fi stories generally avoid the supernatural, even if the science is loosey-goosey at best, often covering hypothetical scientific topics such as extraterrestrial life, time travel, parallel dimensions, and Martha Stewart.

  Examples: Frankenstein, Fahrenheit 451, Ringworld

  FANTASY

  Stories that focus on providing a fantastic setting to inspire the reader’s imagination and provide them an escape from the mundane, even unpleasant, world around them. Fantasy stories are often about building a grand mythology in which the reader can get lost, rewarding those who lose themselves in the details of these rich worlds.

  Examples: the Harry Potter series, the Lord of the Rings series, the Game of Thrones series, the Discworld series

  YOUNG ADULT

  Stories with themes of transformation and discovery of identity, framed around the perspective of an adolescent hero. Young adult (YA) is a broad genre that combines well with others, which is why the YA sections of most bookstores and libraries are subdivided based on subgenres such as YA fantasy, YA drama, YA romance, and even YA paranormal romance (you can thank Twilight for that one).

  Examples: the Hunger Games series, The Fault in Our Stars, The Outsiders

  MYSTERY

  Stories designed to titillate the logic of the reader and to create a grand game in which the reader can take part.

  Examples: Presumed Innocent, The Maltese Falcon, everything Sherlock Holmes

  ROMANCE

  Stories designed to stir the emotions, resolving in a satisfying and optimistic finale.*

  Examples: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Outlander

  THRILLER

  Stories designed to deliver thrills and keep the audience’s tense little booties right at the edge of their seats. Thrillers mostly shy away from supernatural elements, embracing the real world over a fantasy world.

  Examples: Most of the works of Dan Brown, James Patterson, Tom Clancy; basically, if you can buy it at an airport, it’s probably a thriller

  DRAMA

  Stories that use fictional people in realistic settings to illuminate real feelings, ideas, and problems.

  Examples: The Kite Runner, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Book Thief

  NONFICTION

  Stories of real events and real people, filtered through the imagination of a writer to organize it in a way that gives these past events present meaning. Should this be your choice of genre, prepare for lots of research in your future.*

  Examples: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Into the Wild, March, My Friend Dahmer, The Story of My Tits

  IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL READ: STORY STRUCTURE

  While there are many ways to piece together fiction, most stories for Western audiences adhere to a singular adaptive pattern. In Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell analyzes story patterns and Jungian archetypes to define this structure as the monomyth, a singular story structure around which most stories are built. George Lucas made good use of the monomyth in his creation of Star Wars, which is one of the many reasons A New Hope became the universal hit it is.

  The monomythic story begins with the ordinary world, a portion of the story that establishes the stakes, characters, and setting of your tale.

  Star Wars Example: Farm boy Luke hungers for adventure outside of his dull life on Tatooine.

  The call to adventure is the inciting incident that kicks your story off by forcing your protagonist to make a choice that could result in change.

  Star Wars Example: Luke finds the secret message in R2-D2.

  The refusal of the call is when the protagonist weighs the costs/benefits of the journey they may face.

  Star Wars Example: Luke goes after R2-D2, but doesn’t commit to joining the rebellion.

  Meeting the mentor is when our hero meets the wise mofo who’s gonna dispense wisdomous advice.

  Star Wars Example: Luke meets Ben Kenobi, who teaches him a bit about the Force.

  Crossing the threshold is where our hero crosses over into an unknown world.

  Star Wars Example: Luke and Ben head into the Mos Eisley cantina, a world unlike anything Luke knows.

  Tests, allies, and enemies present the moment when our hero faces their first real challenges, meets some allies, and also meets some not-so-allies.

  Star Wars Example: Luke meets Han and Chewie, and they have to escape Imperial soldiers.

  Approach to the innermost cave is when the stakes are established and the story’s players move in for a massive conflict.

  Star Wars Example: Luke learns more about the Force as the group heads to Alderaan and finds it’s done been blowed up real good.

  The ordeal is when our hero undergoes their most strenuous trial yet. If the hero fails, all their struggles will have been for nothing and everything they hold dear will be lost. The hero’s victory often comes at deep cost.

  Star Wars Example: Luke and the gang rescue Leia, but Ben loses his battle with Darth Vader and becomes one with the Force.

  The moment of reward is where our hero obtains the lesson or object they need to triumph.

  Star Wars Example: Luke joins the Rebellion, just as he wanted to way back at the beginning of Act I.

  The road back is the moment when the hero has to decide between adhering to their old way of thinking or abandoning it entirely to grow as a person.

  Star Wars Example: Luke can either make the selfish choice to leave with Han or the selfless, dangerous choice to stay with the Rebellion.

  Resurrection takes place when our hero faces their toughest trial yet, emerging from the challenge reborn as someone new.

  Star Wars Example: Luke embraces his path as a Jedi to destroy the Death Star.

  Then comes the return with the elixir, wherein our hero returns, rewarded and transformed, to their previous life.

  Star Wars Example: Luke doesn’t go back to Tatooine here, instead finding himself a changed man who is rewarded for his efforts by becoming part of a larger universe.

  Some argue that following such a template too closely can result in stale storytelling. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat!, for example, has a wonderful little beat sheet that outlines the monomyth in Hollywood script-friendly beats but has also resulted in numerous writers adhering so closely to the beat sheet that their stories become formulaic. Even Star Wars: A New Hope, which is about as formulaic as you could ever expect to find, deviates a bit from the formula at certain points. Regardless of how you choose to structure your story, it’s important that you und
erstand these common story beats so you know how to build/mislead the expectations of your audience.

  REFINING PROSE

  Strong characters and plot are the guts and nerves of a good story, but you want it to have some flowing hair and soft skin to go along with those gooey internal organs, and, in this increasingly yucky metaphor, that’s going to be your prose.

  Prose refers to language unbound by metrical structure—i.e., not poetry. Writers often use prose to refer to everything—dialogue, characters, descriptions, emotions, environments, etc. Many new writers will make the mistake of crafting prose that is more functional than emotive; they’ll describe a room, the people in it, and what they are saying without taking a moment to ornament their words with the richness of metaphors.

  The room was big and black and made Lancie feel cold. Its walls were flat and not very pretty.

  Brr, thought Lancie. I’m cold.

  “Hey,” Tyban, who looked tired, said to Lancie.

  “Hey,” she sadly replied. “I didn’t find anything about those vampires, which is bad.”

  You’ll notice that the sheet of paper this page is on is 11 percent softer than the rest of the book. That’s because I knew you would fall asleep while reading that snore-fest of a section and wanted to give you somewhere nice to rest your head.