Writers Talk About Money

Must be something in the air- or the blogosphere. Recently, several writers took to the Internet to talk about money. One person bravely tells how she cluelessly blew a third of a million dollars, and others tell how to watch out for and cope with the trap of a sudden windfall from publishers or skyrocketing sales.
Makes for some very interesting reading and comparison between them all.

First was Heather.

Vincent Zandri is a sharp cookie, but even he had some difficulty after he got a big book contract.

Chuck Wendig weighs in.

And Dean Wesley Smith has some great advice.

So I'll be well prepared when the big contract comes my way. Let's hope it's soon, so I can test my strength of character coping with outstanding success and money...

Spooky Albany

The recent Bouchercon world mystery convention was held last weekend in Albany, NY.

(For a writeup of the convention itself, with pictures and links, go here.)

Albany is an interesting place- hilly, lots of funky architecture and sculpture.

 

 

And a state house that looks like the Dakota in NYC, or a Stephen King movie set.

 

But-- a couple of things. First, they don't like windows.

That's The Egg- a concrete, windowless theater, atop an indoor plaza, with no views to the outside.

Which is weird, because there's a beautiful plaza space up top.

But at 5 at night, people suddenly disappear, and the place becomes the set for a zombie movie- complete with a few shambling forms in the eerie shadowed corners. These open places look like post-apocalyptic landscapes. The streets are deserted, as if humanity has been swallowed up.

Okay- so maybe instead of having a mystery convention there, they should switch to horror. All the filmmakers would just go outside and begin shooting video.

Yeah, I know Vincent Zandri likes it there. But he's tougher than me.

Plot and Character

Last week when my interview aired on Author Radio, I'd said that plot was critical. I didn't mean that character was any less so, just that I concentrated on creating good, believable plots in my novels.

After reading the blog of noted mystery author Jane Haddam (I'm now a big fan-- she's a brilliant thinker and blogger), she said that she didn't think plots were all that important, the story was all about the characters.

So I thought about it, and we're both right. Yes, you have to have three-dimensional characters in your book, for without real ones, plots don't matter. For proof, study a lot of genre fiction from years past. Characters cannot be cardboard, or walk-ons. They have to live and breathe, and matter.

But without any action, any point, it's just so much academic fluff. Mere descriptions of people aren't enough, one needs a story. It's the framework which these characters move within.

I recently read two more blockbuster best-sellers with plots of immense stupidity. (I blogged on this awhile back.) Once again, it made me mad, as if the author and publisher had nothing but contempt for the reader. Where is this supposed, much vaunted editing quality that New York Big Publishing is supposed to provide? These dumbass plot idiocies would not have made it out of my editing/critique group.

Do people really not care if the plot is laughably dumb, as long as the writing is otherwise good? To me, it's all a package. If you've got really stupid stuff in there, I stop and roll my eyes, and consider the writer has not their job properly.

I've always said I don't write badly enough to have a best-seller. Two more data points of proof...

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In other news, here's a flash for all those who defend Big Traditional Publishing as the kindly, gentle, fairy godmother who cares for all writers. It's Vincent Zandri telling us about his experience. "Hating Amazon and What Random House Did to Me and My Family..."
(Would love to show this to the clowns on Absolute Write who said that publishers would never let a book fail.)