Option A, A Stunning Lack of Creativity

I saw the movie "Clash of the Titans" this weekend.  It was okay, but it's one of the previews I saw before the movie that inspired this blog post.  I saw a preview for a movie where a pair of scientists try to create a human clone.  That's a story with a lot of possibilities.  Unfortunately, all it does is turn into the back story for a huge monster movie.  Really Hollywood?  Somebody tells you they have the ability to clone humans and unlock the secrets of life and genetic disease and all you can think to make is another generic horror-monster movie?  Really?  That's ALL you could think to do with that kind of premise?  It's what I call an "Option A" story.

In Improv, a group takes a suggestion(emotion, location, occupation, etc...) from the audience and immediately turns it into a scene.  One of my favorite Improv instructors once told me that there are 3 types of options for every suggestion.  Option 'A' is the obvious one - something so obvious that anybody could come up with.  Then there's option 'B' that provides enough of a twist that everyone will think you're clever.  Then, there's option 'C', something that's so creative that nobody but yourself could come up with it.  A good example would be, let's say someone shouts out "Gay Bar".  Option 'A' would be a scene in a gay bar where some dude is trying to pick up another dude.  You might get some laughs from the audience, but any idiot could come up with that scene.  Option 'B' might be something with a little bit of a twist.  Somebody who is just realizing they are gay goes to a gay bar for the first time.  Note that Option 'B' is just like option 'A', but has enough of a twist to be good.  Finally, option 'C' could be several barely related things.  For instance, what about a scene where a gay bar has just been burned down by a homophobic arsonist, and worse still, the police have little intention of investigating the crime?  As you can imagine, the instructor told us to "never choose option 'A', always try to come up with an option 'C', and only fall back on option 'B' if you have to".

I always remembered that because I thought that the same principal could be applied to fiction.  Movies and books that are trite are option 'A' stories.  A story that's been done so many times that an audience or reader can already guess the ending.  A good story has an option 'B' story.  It's enough of a hook that it can surprise, and yet satisfy the reader.  Then of course, a great movie or book would follow and option 'C' story.

I think all great movies and books are option 'C' type stories.  An example would be, let's say you want to make a movie about so called "Pro" Wrestling.  A couple ideas that I might call Option 'A' would be a movie following a new wrestler\actor that goes from new guy to "champ", but the new fame causes chaos in his personal life, and the older wrestlers resent the new guys popularity.  This is an old story that's been done to death, just change the job\sport\club.  An option 'B' might be story that starts with someone training to become a wrestler because it's their dream, but when they arrive they end up having to always play "the villain" and it's about his struggle to be rewritten as a "good guy".  Finally, an option 'C' story about a Wrestler might be... well... it's been done, and it was fantastic.  For those who never saw The Wrestler, it was a powerful movie about a wrestler well past his prime that must now face all the mistakes he made in his life.

Let's look at another example.  You have 2 scientists experimenting with the ability to create and manipulate life.  Option 'A' is to just do what Hollywood did and make it a typical horror-monster movie.  Option 'B' might be a small twist.  Something like they create a lab creature they become emotional attached to, but then they have to put it down because they screwed up the cloning and it's dying painfully.  Option 'C' might be well... Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.  They create a 'Monster' that's even more human than they are.  There's a reason Frankenstein is such a classic that's still read today.  It's an Option 'C' story that no one will ever be able to replicate.

So, if you're going to write a book, movie, or blog fiction, don't be like Hollywood.  Try to be like Mary Shelly and choose Option 'C', .  It could mean the difference between writing a forgettable story and a classic that's still read hundreds of years after you're gone.

Don't write Blog Fiction like a Blog, Cheat!

When you talk to someone in real life, chances are you turn and face them when talking.  However, when performing for a live audience, stage actors do not.  Instead of imitating real life conversation, stage actors when talking to each other in a scene, they will often turn themselves to face, or partially face, the audience instead of directly facing each other.  This makes them more visible to the audience and more audible.  They sacrifice a little bit of realism to create a better experience for their audience.  This technique is knowing as cheating.  Acting coaches or directors will say things like "Cheat to the audience".  If you watch old movies, when directors were still using stage techniques, you'll see many of the actors do the same thing.

Stage actors aren't the only group who cheat real life for the sake of entertainment.  Novelists and Playwrights do the same thing when they write dialogue.  Listen to a normal conversation, or read a transcript from a normal conversation.  You'll find that it's full of long pauses, "um"s, "uh"s, and non sequiturs.  However, you don't read those in a novel, and you don't see it in movies.  Why not?  Because that would be terribly painful to listen to.  Therefore writers take them out thus sacrificing realism for the sake of the audience.

Blog Fiction writers should also adopt this "cheating" technique.  When writing a blog fiction you might be tempted to try and make it emulate a real blog.  However, there are many things a real blog does that your readers will not find entertaining.  Unless you have a good reason to do so, you should cut these out.

Some examples might be posts that are completely superfluous.  A real person's blog might mention a cool video game they played and go into agonizing detail about it.  A blog fiction shouldn't do that.  Just like when writing a novel, a writer should leave out writing that doesn't affect the story or demonstrate the quality of the character.  It would be painful to a reader to read about what the character had for lunch everyday.

Test posts.  This is something I've talked about before.  It's been done, and only distracts from what's important.

A character deliberately lying about their situation.  A real blogger might try and deliberately lie about something they saw or did in order to make themselves look better.  I wouldn't do this in your writing.  Mostly because the reader has no way of knowing that the fictional character is lying.

A character leaving out details because they're afraid of who might be reading.  A personal, online journal will probably be full of omissions in their life.  For instance a cheating husband isn't going to blog about his mistress.  He never knows when his wife might be reading his blog after all.  However, in blog fiction, you don't want to leave that stuff out and hope the audience can infer what's going on.  It's best to just pretend that your character is blogging in a world where he has no fear of someone they know finding them out in real life.  A great example of this is Fly Over City.  A super hero isn't going to blog about their secret identify, but Fly Over City just kind of cheats and pretends that they would.

Summarizing everything.  Don't be afraid to have some or all of your posts to read like a novel.  Have a play-by-play with dialogue quotes and character direction.  It's a good way to build a suspenseful scene.  One might argue that people don't write blogs that way, but I say CHEAT! and entertain your audience by pretending that they do.

These aren't all hard and fast rules.  There are times where you might want to break them.  That's okay, just make sure that you break them for a purpose.  For instance, if you have a multi-character blog fiction, you might have a character purposely lie about a detail only to have another person "find" their blog and reveal the truth.

Also, this isn't a comprehensive list.  This is just things I've seen that annoy me as a reader.  Anything that might bore or confuse your audience should be left out whether or not "real" bloggers do it.  You don't have to be "just" like a real blog to add a sense of realism.  Your plot and characters (i.e. your writing) should be able to make it seem real without gimmicks.

Be like those stage actors: CHEAT... and your audience will thank you.

Writing your first Post: Get on with it!

When writing a book, the first page of a book is the most important because it is going to be the most read page when it's sitting on the shelf at the bookstore. It better be good, or the other pages aren't getting read. The same thing goes for Blog Fiction. If the first post isn't interesting, you may not hold your audience.

So how do you write an interesting first post? Well, first of all, don't write one that reads like an online dating profile. e.g.

My name is Mary Nextdoor. I am 33 years old and live in Manhattan. I'm 5' 6'', blonde(natural), brown eyes, and have curves. I love my pets, hate my parents, and only go to church on Christmas eve.

Luckily, most people haven't written anything quite that boring, but I do see a tendency to always want to introduce themselves. Here's some real examples.

The Professional Pet's first paragraph

Lets start with the basics, my name is Fluffy and I live with a family in England. Yes, I'm a pet and I'm still pretty much a baby as you can see from my picture. Most people comment on my name because, well, I'm quite clearly the least fluffy thing you are ever likely to see. Lets be honest, a mouldy carrot has more fluff than me! Why am I called Fluffy then? My owner thought it would be funny... I didn't agree. I wiped the smile off his face when I left a little present on his bed though, hehe.

Wilf's World's First Paragraph

My name is Wilf and I am eight, very nearly nine years old. I would really like to be called 'Buzz' like, Buzz Aldrin but my parents wouldn't talk to me when I tried to change my name. I mean whoever heard of an astronaut called 'Wilfred'? I live with my parents who are extremely old and like to visit garden centres and stare at things. My favourite place (apart from The Science Museum of course!) is my bedroom or inventroom, as I like to call it. I have a computer in my inventroom and its name is Dexter. I named it after my best friend, Dexter. I am sad to say that Dexter is a bit slow and so is the computer-ha! Anyway, I want to tell you about my world because I can. The first bit of my story has to do with Christmas. Mum says this is always a difficult time. Too right. I'll start you off tomorrow as I have to go to bed now.

Great Swan Alley first post

I was born on Great Swan Alley in the April of 1725. Or rather I should say, I was left in a doorway on Great Swan Alley in the April of 1725. I do not know where I was born, or of what parentage, but I am on a quest to discover.

In all 3 examples, the character introduce themselves. Granted they all find little ways to make sure it's not boring, but the goal shouldn't be "not boring", it should be "so interesting a reader just HAS to read the next post".

When reading a Blog Fiction, I like the ones that form the first post, just "Get On With it!" There is no introduction, the writer just jumps into a story where the fictional blogger already has a problem. I love blogfic that starts that way, and I'm willing to bet your readers will too. I'm not sure what the formula is for writing a great beginning post. So the best I can do is post some examples that work.

Here's from the first post of The Voice of the Living

We’ve been running all night, and the sun is about to rise. I hope and pray that we are not the only ones who’ve made it out alive, but from what we saw back there, I find it unlikely. With me are Dr. Graham York and Pte. Hannah Johnson, and right now we consider ourselves the only survivors after the outbreak of infection in the state of New York.
Due to the aggressiveness of the virus, there’s a good chance it has spread even further by now. That would explain why no help was sent for us.
Right now, our main priority is getting in touch with any other survivors out there. I will continue documenting everything, so that if we do not survive, our story will.

Reading this really makes me want to continue reading it. It makes me want to find out several things. "Where did they make it out of?" "What kind of virus was this?" "Were these 3 involved in making it?" "Are there other survivors?" I want to keep reading because I want those questions answered.

From the first post of Alone on Earth

I awoke this morning to a slight humming noise. I thought it was coming from the communications center. But, I turned it down low in case of any incoming calls or email. I went outside and just as it started, it stopped. Ralph was whining the entire time. The humming lasted only about 2 or 3 minutes. A few years ago I would have said it was coming from power lines. Except there are no power lines any longer. I need to take Ralph in to town for a checkup. He’s been acting funny for the past few days.

This is another great example of a story just starting. It too makes me want to keep reading. I want to know "what was that humming that woke up the blogger?", "Who or what is Ralph and why has he been acting funny?", and "where is he that there are no power lines?" In both cases the stories above did eventually introduce the characters, but they did so either a little at a time, or well enough after the first post that the reader should already be hooked.

One more piece of advice on your first post. I've noticed that several blog fiction writers try to be clever by making their first post be a "test" post. That is, they right a post that just has the word "test" or "test post" in it. I do get that they're trying to emulate real bloggers that might have done this. Unfortunately, this is being done so much that it can no longer be considered clever. (see I woke Up in Pittsburgh, Modern Vampire, Ten-Sided) Just... GET ON WITH IT!!!

Time to relearn how to type

It seems like everyday I am turning more into an old folgie. First, I'm complaining about those crazy kids and their new fiction, now I'm being told that I type wrong. Apparently, after a period I no longer need spaces. I only need one. This is true in both APA and MLA typing style. Of course, on the internet it doesn't matter. Two spaces are usually condensed into one, but that doesn't stop me from typing them. It almost pains me to keep my thumb from double-tapping that spacebar after typing a period. I hope other old folgies have better luck changing than I am.

Short Posts or Long Posts

Is it better for your blog fiction to have a lot of short posts, or is it better to have fewer long posts? This is something I've thought about a lot. When I'm reading Blog Fiction, I prefer nice short, bite-sized posts; however, when I'm writing, I seem to prefer writing longer posts. In deciding which is better, I broke it down by pros and cons for each.

There are a lot of things I like about short posts. They are easier for me to read. I can read a short post quickly and get a sense of satisfaction very quickly. When I write short posts that means I can (usually) write more total posts, even if the word count is the same. With more posts, that gives readers more of a reason to frequently check the website for updates.

One of the cons to writing short posts is that your writing can get choppy. If you're stringing together a lot of events, readers may forget certain details. When it comes to new readers, they may get lost because there won't be much context in shorter posts. As a writer, you have to be more careful to provide backlinks or sidebar summaries for your new readers.

There are a couple reasons that long posts are better in Blog Fiction. First of all, when it comes to fiction, most readers are used to long passages when reading fiction. A post that is considered "long" by Blog standards would more than likely be considered very short in terms of chapters in a book.

Another advantage to long posts is the ability to have a more contained story in each post. Each post has a better chance to entertain and interest new readers. A longer post could be more likely to be linked\stumbled\dugg\reddit\etc... That of course means more readers for your blog fiction.

There are of course some disadvantages to longer posts. The biggest thing is that longer posts is going to reduce the frequency of new posts. That means readers are going to be very disappointed if the writer misses a post. This places a burden on the writer to make sure to post on schedule. If you're posting long chapters once a week and miss a week, that means readers will think they have to wait a whole week for an update. Whereas if you're posting short articles everyday, it just means that they only have to wait one more day for an update. In the A.D.D world of the internet and blogs, that might mean losing readers.

Speaking of A.D.D., that brings me to the other disadvantage of longer posts. They are going to be harder to read. Internet readers are used to nice short posts. Better yet, they prefer nice bulleted top 10 lists. It's just like when reading a book. When I read a book, I'm always more likely to read "just one more chapter" before putting it down if the next chapter is only 3 pages, as opposed to 30 pages.

Which is better to do? I'm not sure. As a general rule, I prefer reading blog fiction that has generally short posts (with occasional long posts being tolerated). I'd like to hear from you what your preference is when reading blog fiction (or any online fiction): Long posts? Or Short posts?

Who is protecting your content?

I have a question to all authors who write online. Who is protecting your content? If you can't answer that question with a simple, "I am", then chances are, the answer is "no one". It's amazing how much time someone would put into a blog, but never take the time to do a backup.
Whether you host your blog on a shared server or a managed blog host like blogger or wordpress, you are the one that needs to take responsibility to make sure your content isn't lost.

If you don't believe me, just look at some of the terms of service for blog sites. First, let's look at a section of Google's Terms of use:

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

15.1 SUBJECT TO OVERALL PROVISION IN PARAGRAPH 14.1 ABOVE, YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT GOOGLE, ITS SUBSIDIARIES AND AFFILIATES, AND ITS LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR:

(A) ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES WHICH MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU, HOWEVER CAUSED AND UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY.. THIS SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO, ANY LOSS OF PROFIT (WHETHER INCURRED DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY), ANY LOSS OF GOODWILL OR BUSINESS REPUTATION, ANY LOSS OF DATA SUFFERED, COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSS;

(B) ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE WHICH MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OR DAMAGE AS A RESULT OF:

(I) ANY RELIANCE PLACED BY YOU ON THE COMPLETENESS, ACCURACY OR EXISTENCE OF ANY ADVERTISING, OR AS A RESULT OF ANY RELATIONSHIP OR TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND ANY ADVERTISER OR SPONSOR WHOSE ADVERTISING APPEARS ON THE SERVICES;

(II) ANY CHANGES WHICH GOOGLE MAY MAKE TO THE SERVICES, OR FOR ANY PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY CESSATION IN THE PROVISION OF THE SERVICES (OR ANY FEATURES WITHIN THE SERVICES);

(III) THE DELETION OF, CORRUPTION OF, OR FAILURE TO STORE, ANY CONTENT AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS DATA MAINTAINED OR TRANSMITTED BY OR THROUGH YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES;

(III) YOUR FAILURE TO PROVIDE GOOGLE WITH ACCURATE ACCOUNT INFORMATION;

(IV) YOUR FAILURE TO KEEP YOUR PASSWORD OR ACCOUNT DETAILS SECURE AND CONFIDENTIAL;

15.2 THE LIMITATIONS ON GOOGLE’S LIABILITY TO YOU IN PARAGRAPH 15.1 ABOVE SHALL APPLY WHETHER OR NOT GOOGLE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH LOSSES ARISING.

(emphasis mine)

I highlighted the important part. If blogger goes down and your blog is accidentally deleted. Too bad. Google is under no legal authority to restore your content or replenish your loses do to the loss of your blog. Google is not alone. Wordpress offers no such warrenties either. From sections 11 and 12 of their terms of service.

Disclaimer of Warranties. The Website is provided “as is”. Automattic and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither Automattic nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. If you’re actually reading this, here’s a treat. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the Website at your own discretion and risk.

Limitation of Liability. In no event will Automattic, or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of this agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement or substitute products or services; (iii) for interuption of use or loss or corruption of data; or (iv) for any amounts that exceed the fees paid by you to Automattic under this agreement during the twelve (12) month period prior to the cause of action. Automattic shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

Even if you did find a service that took responsibility that they would never lose your content, there's still alway id10t error. You may accidentally hit delete or your account gets hacked.

So what should you do to protect your story? Backup, Backup, and Backup. For my blogger account, about once a month I like to download a copy of both my layout and also an export of all of my posts. I do something similiar for the blog fiction forum. Whenever I change or upgrade, I copy all of the files from my webserver to my desktop and then also export the a copy of the databases.

Granted, my content isn't 100% protected on my computer either. However, I find the chances that my computer's harddrive crashing at the same time as either Google's or my ISPs to be remote. So that's what I'm doing to protect my content. What are you doing? or should I say, what SHOULD you be doing?

How to Use Hyperlinks in Blog Fiction

It seems that blog fiction writers just can't win when it comes to the editorial reviews at Web Fiction Guide. Check out these two reviews. First, this little excerpt from a Gavin Williams's review of Charlotte.

The Charlotte character mentions a website where she collects photos; a real blog would link to it and display them. Blog fiction should use the web just as well, if not better, than your average person’s real blog.

A good point that Gavin makes. Now let's take a look at an excerpt from another review. This time Morgan O'Friel's review of FlyOver City.

Another problem with this story is the liberal use of the ever-controversial hyperlinks through-out the blog. I found myself feeling as though I had to click on the hyperlinks to understand the references (or else why would the author put them in there), but once I did, I got so distracted by the other sites that it threw me right out of the story.

Well this creates quite the conundrum, doesn't it? Whether or not you use hyperlinks in your blog fiction, you lose. So what do you do? Well, I think that Blog Fiction is a little young to say that things should or should not be one way or the other. There is no "convention" to follow. I think ultimately you should do what you think is best for your particular story. Maybe someday, after a lot of experimentation, "conventions" and "best practices" will develop for Blog Fiction. That day is not today.

That being said, I'm not going to let it stop me from offering my opinion on the matter. As of right now, my opinion is closer to Gavin Williams's than to Morgan O'Freil's. I say, link away. It's one of the built-in advantages blog fiction has over dead-tree publishing. People read blogs all the time that have links in them. I think they'll figure out how to read fiction with links as well. I don't think they'll get distracted by too many of them.

I can think of 3 instances where you would want to use links in your story. They are:

1. Referring back to previous events and characters
2. Normal Blog linking and esoteric references
3. Leaving "Bread Crumbs" for your careful and savvy readers.
   

Referring back to previous events and characters
The first case where you might want to use links is when referring to a past event or character in the story. Imagine if you're reading a book and a character disappears on page 50, and then reappears page 150. By then you may have forgotten who he is. How convenient would it be to be able to go back to the first page he appears to remind yourself who that person is. The ability to refer people back becomes more important for Blog Fiction, because now imagine instead of reading something 100 pages later imagine it's 100 days later. Links solve this inherent drawbacks to serialized fiction - people forgetting what happened since the last entry. Also, it's a great way to get new readers caught up without having to reread the whole story. The User Pool uses this linking strategy a lot.

Normal Blog linking and esoteric references
Another way to use links on your blog fiction site is to use them exactly the way you would on a non-fiction blog. That is, you would link to stuff that your character might find interesting. Videos, news events, and other sites they find. Links like that could either give comic relief to your story or offer insight into what that character finds interesting . You might also use links to reference something your readers may not be familiar with. For instance, the Cranky Product Manager is all about creating software. Not everyone understands software development. So, when the writer mentions the "Agile" development method, she provided a link to a Wikipedia article about it. Those who know what it is (or don't care) can skip over it while others can click the link for more information. The story is not ruined for readers who aren't "in the know" because they can find out, and the story is not interrupted for readers who are "in the know".

Leaving "Bread Crumbs" for your careful and savvy readers.
The third way of using links is to reward careful and savvy readers by leaving "bread crumbs" (additional information in the story) on other websites. This is not something that I've seen done a lot, but if used, can be really fun for readers to find. Lord Likely is the only fictional blogger I've met that stays "in character" on other web sites.

The bread crumb idea is something I thought of while reading Fate's Acquittal. One of the entries makes reference to the website Don't Date Him Girl. The website is meant for women who get treated like crap by an ex-boyfriend. They can tell all the horrible things he did to her as a warning to other women that they shouldn't date the guy. In the story, one of the characters get listed there by another character. The blog quotes word for word what is written about the male character. I thought to myself, wouldn't it instead have been a lot more fun if the writer would've created an account under the name of the female character "writing" the bad stuff and then actually have an entry on the website that is bad mouthing the male character. Then, in the blog entry it could list the general "gist" of the post, but actually link to the full listing on the site. Wouldn't that have been a lot more fun? Careful and savvy readers would've checked the link and found the article(rewarded), while careless or hurried readers would've missed it.

Another example from fate's acquittal is the use of myspace and facebook. Sure the characters have a facebook and myspace account but they really aren't updated that often. In the story there are numerous references to myspace and facebook where the author could've created and linked to fictional characters' profiles.

Another good example that I can think of comes from the first entry of FlyOver City. In it he references (and even links!) to a yahoo page about "Taki's" restaurant. A really fun "bread crumb" could've been the fictional character leaving a review of the restaurant on the yahoo page. Again- this would've rewarded careful readers who clicked through and may have noticed it.

So there are my suggestions for when and how to use links in a blog fiction. When, if ever, I attempt to write my own blog fiction, I would use links for all 3 purposes I've laid out. However, if you're a writer and don't use all or any of my suggestions I wouldn't be upset. As long as whatever you're doing works for your story. Experiment and use what works for you.

Determining your posting schedule

A couple weeks ago I wrote a column giving advice on how to avoid abandoning your blog fiction. The very first tip was "Decide on a manageable posting schedule". Reading back, I left out how to determine that manageable posting schedule. Determining your posting schedule is simple. Rather than just haphazardly guesstimating about how many posts you can do, I created a formula to figure out how many posts a week you should do.

It boils down to a simple formula. Look at your life. How many minutes a week do you have to spend on your blog fiction(call this 'T', for Total time)? Subtract the amount of time you need to spend marking and maintaining your site(call this 'M' for Marketing and Maintenance time). Now, Divide that number by the amount of time it takes you to write a single post (call this 'P' for Posting time). What number you have is the number of posts you can realistically make in a week. Formula: Number of posting per week = (T - M) / P. For example, if you have 480 minutes(8 hours) a week to spend on your blog. You intend to spend 1 hour(60 minutes) of that promoting your site. And finally, let's say it takes you 3 hours (180 minutes) to do a post. In the end, it comes to (480 - 40) / 180 = 2.44 posts a week for our imaginary author.

Obviously one would find it difficult to write .44 posts. I would always round down. That way you know what you can almost always accomplish. The worse that can happen is that you'll start getting a backlog of posts and you can take a vacation once in a while. Short post today, but this formula is something I'm going to use the next time I start a blog fiction and thought others might find it useful.

(T - M) / P = N
T = Time to spend on Blog
M = Marketing and Maintence
P = Amount of posting
N = Number of posts per week

Peculiar Blog Ficiton How-To Article

I found a peculiar how-to article on Blog Fiction. It gives 5 steps on how to start your own blog fiction. It wasn't peculiar in that there was anything wrong with each step. What was peculiar was the order it had those steps. Summarized, here are the steps:

1. Find yourself a blog-hosting site.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character.
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.
   

Do you see something wrong here? If not, let me rewrite the article as a how-to for writing a book.

1. Find yourself a publisher.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Or, how about if you're creating a broadway play.

1. Find yourself a stage.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Or how about, creating a movie.

1. Find yourself a video camera.
2. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
3. Choose the right character(s).
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find your market.

Do you see it yet? The first step listed is most certainly not your first step. Also, if you have any intention of attracting readers, the last step listed, is most certainly not the last thing you should consider. What would be the better order to start a blog fiction? How about this:

1. Choose a fictional world that will appeal to you and that you won't lose interest in.
2. Verify a market exists for it and Find it.
   
3. Choose the right character.
   
4. Write out a story arc.
5. Find yourself a blog-hosting site.

There are 2 advantages to using this order instead of the original. The first advantage is that if there is no market for your story you won't find out after it's too late. You won't invest countless hours in creating a blog fiction for the 'smoking man' from the X-Files to only find out that no one really cares about the X-Files anymore.

The second advantage is that it keeps you focused on the important part of writing blog fiction - the writing. You create the world, choose the characters, and write out a plot before doing anything on the internet. Then you can decide what tools you need to write the blog fiction and then figure out which blogging platform best provides those features.

When starting a blog fiction-or any blog for that matter-I can understand why someone would think that the first thing to do is create a blog. It's the first concrete visible step you take; however, if you do it that way your blog will likely fail from a lack of planning. If you don't plan ahead a zillion things can go wrong. You might pick the wrong blogging platform. You may start writing before you're ready. People might find your site before you're ready and ignore it due to lack of content and activity. All of these things you want to avoid.

It is like the ancient advice of SunTsu, "Victorious writers write first and then publish their blog fiction, while defeated writers publish first and then seek to write". Or at least I think he said something like that.

8 Strategies to Avoid Abandoning Your Blog Fiction

Looking across my list of blog fiction sites, I see a lot of abandoned stories. To be clear, I don't mean stories that ended or that have taken a planned hiatus. I mean stories that without any given reason no longer update and never resolved the primary conflict. In my opinion this is the worst thing that can happen to a blog fiction site. If not careful, this can happen even to your brilliant blog fiction.

My best guess is that the authors of these sites experienced either burnout, became disinterested, or died. While I can't help with that last one, I have some ideas and observations on how to avoid the first 2. I've divided these tips into 3 sections. Things to do before starting a blog fiction, after starting, and after become well established.


Before Starting:

1. The first tip, Decide on a manageable posting schedule.
This should be a minimum of your best and worst weeks. If you can usually crank out 4 posts a week except when you're busy, but only 2 when you are busy, then you shouldn't decide on 4 posts a week. I would say only do 2. You'll thank yourself when you're busy.

2. Create a Nice stockpile of posts.
Whatever your posting schedule is, create about a months worth of posts. This buffer will serve you well when you get busy, or need to take a vacation form your blog.

3. Outline, or at least plan, some plots.
While you don't have to plot your entire blog, you should have a good idea of plots, sub-plots, and sub stories to introduce along the way. If it starts to drag, BOOM! drag in one of your sub-plots.

After Starting:
4. Don't post in real-time unless you mean it.
I'm a strong advocate against writing blog fiction in real-time. That means, 1 day in your character's world is the equivalent of a day in your reader's world. However, some people like the idea and thinks it provides a better response from the readers. While true, that means you have to consider one important thing. You can never take a break without explaining why your character hasn't posted in that time. So ask yourself, can you really provide a weeks worth of story all 52 weeks of the year and never take an unexpected break? If not, figure out how to separate your character's time from real-time.

5. Watch out for the "groove" trap.
I know this probably sounds like a weird warning, but it's an important one. What I'm talking about is when you get a sudden burst of creativity. Let's say you usually only do 2 posts a week. In one month though you really get in a "groove", and you start cranking out 5 posts a week creating a HUGE backlog. Now you're tempted to up the number of posts you do. Should you do it? Probably not. Remember, there's a reason you chose the posting schedule you're on. Take the extra time instead to do some editing, promote the site, or heck! even take a break! Bursts of creativity can be followed by bursts of apathy.

6. Take planned breaks
I seriously doubt anyone can do something as fun and "optional" as a blog fiction 365 days a year. Take a planned break. Announce it ahead of time so your readers aren't shocked. Also announce when you'll be back - and make sure that you do come back! Even if you're writing in real-time, try to make up excuses why posting would be cut off for a week or 2. For example, every year for 2 weeks your character visits Aunt what's-her-face who doesn't have an internet connection.

After Well Established:
7. Don't be afraid of unplanned breaks
I mean it. Don't be afraid to just say ENOUGH! It's perfectly acceptable to say.

My brother is missing, my spouse has explosive diaria, my kids have lice, and the dog keeps running away. I don't have any more time to spend on this stupid blog, or to waste time reading comments from my whiny readers about how my posts never go up on time! GO. TO. HELL!!!! ... I'll be back in 1 month, see you all then.

Well, except for that last sentence, maybe it isn't acceptable to say all that, but you get the point. Give a reason why you're taking a sudden break, apologize, and announce when you'll be back - and make sure to be back.

8. End it
Yes, you heard me. You never know, it could just be time to end your masterpiece. If you've been writing as a character for a while, most of the plot points you outlined have been used up, and no new ones are coming to mind, face it, the story is over, it's time to end it.

Now, I'm not saying you should end your story Farscape style by vaporizing your main characters. Rather, tie up some loose ends and have your character announce they will no longer write a diary. You could always come back and do a "sequel" - different blog, same character.

So there are my 8 tips to keep prevent burnout. Does anyone have any other tips that I might have missed?

Ways to Get Your Readers Caught Up

My post about a "Catch Up" button got a few comments suggesting other ways new readers of a blog fiction to catch up on past story. I thought that the ideas were important enough to pull out of the comments and into a blog post.

Catch Up label
This was already discussed.

Character Guides
One way of getting your readers up to speed is to have a page of character descriptions. That way, with every scene readers can click over to learn about a character mentioned in the latest post. That way someone new to the story can jump right in and know who everyone is.
See Melly Mills, or The User Pool for examples.

Plot Summary in sidebar
A lot of people will put a summary of what's going on in the sidebar. The description would be something akin to the back cover of a book. Just a little intro so that reader's aren't completely lost.
Just a few examples: Wilf's World, Horton's Folly, Charlotte.

Plot Summary in separate page.
This is something that I haven't seen used in practice. I'm not sure why. It would seem to be very effective. Every time something significant happens a writer could just add a line to the summary page so that a reader can get up to speed quickly and directly.

Constant Link Back to previous events
This strategy of keeping your readers up to speed is something unique to the blog format. A mention of a story or character could have a link back to an old post about that story or introduction of that character. For readers who are constantly up to date, they can just read right over the text. For those who haven't read every word you've ever written still have a chance to get up to speed with the plot. A log of different sites use this, just a few examples are:
The User Pool, Terran Resistance, and Death's Blog used it.

Change Your writing style
This is something that Odin Soli pointed out when talking about the "catch up" button. When you're writing a serial, you must always keep that in mind and your writing should reflect it.

Episodic scriptwriting is full of tricks for mid-streaming viewers, since TV shows and other serials deal with this problem all the time. Something we did in a journalism class once -- watch a soap opera episode, then write down as much backstory as we could. It was amazing to discover how much we'd learned about the setting, characters, conflicts, etc. from a single episode.

The point is, if you write something correctly your reader's won't have to spend much time catching up.

I've listed all the methods I've seen and can think of for getting reader's of a blog fiction "caught up", but which way is the best? I don't know the answer to that. I don't even know if there is an answer to that. I think that they all work. I haven't seen enough examples of any of them to say that one is better than the other. Also, there is no reason a writer can't use more than one or all of these strategies to get new readers up to speed. For now, I would say use whichever strategy makes sense to you to get your new readers up to speed. Just make sure that you have a strategy.

Performance Writing

No, the title to my post is not referring to an Olympic sport that I'd like to see. I'm referring to the fact that writing blog fiction is just as much a performance as it is writing. Sure you have all the traditional writing elements to worry about: plot, character arc, pacing, etc... But with Blog Fiction there is an added curve ball. Depending on your format, comments and others' blog posts(if more than one author) could throw a writer's best laid plans under the bus.

Over in the forums I responded to a post asking what people like about Blog Fiction. One thing I mentioned was,

Multiple authors working on the same story blending the distinction between writing and performing.

After doing some thinking, I now realize what a dumb thing that was to say. A blog fiction does not need multiple characters or authors to blend the distinction between writing and a performance. Even a standard blog fiction(one diary, one character) enters performance the moment they allow comments. Two examples of just that happening.

Last week it looked like the writer's over at Giant Girl Rampages tried to get their audience to help the main character, Melly, figure out Dr. Crisp's code talk. The diary made it clear that Melly was not getting something that was quite clear to the audience.

"Strictly closed. The only way a person might hear what's going on would be if they happened to be located 18 feet off the ground, just outside that open window." It was like he was speaking in code, I thought, but I was just too tired to figure out the message.

"I have a math exam for you, Melly," he said, handing me a few sheets of paper. "I'll be by later to pick up your answers, on my way to the school board meeting, in my big empty truck."

I took the papers and nodded. I wanted to ask Doc if he'd come up with a way for me to attend the meeting, like he said, but I'm sure he'd have told me about it if he had.

Fortunately, an astute reader helped Melly out. She then stowed away in the van so that the story could continue. I'm not really sure what the writer's would've done if none of it's readers helped Melly figure out Dr. Crisp's "code". Would they have had Melly miss the board meeting? Or would some deus ex machina fallen out of the sky and clonk her on the head allowing her to decipher Dr. Crisp's "code". I'm not sure what they would've done, but the point is, they had to plan for it.

Jason X over at the User Pool has some very engaged readers and commenters. Some have even taken to giving Jason advice on helping him out of some of his predicaments. Advice that Jason has been known to incorporate into his story. Well, reading through is archives, I do believe that one of his more observant readers nearly ruined a clever storyline for him.

[Warning: Spoiler Alert!]
In the story, Jason thinks he's being framed for a murder. He reveals this in a Friday post. The names of characters and some of the circumstances are very similar to the movie, Basic Instinct. There are no further posts until tuesday. On that day it's revealed that someone was using the Basic Instinct plot to play a practical joke on Jason, but not before Jason really twists in the wind with stress and worry that he's about to get arrested.

Here's the problem. Back on friday one of his more astute readers commented on the similarities between his situation and Basic Instinct. As smart as the character is, after reading that comment he should've been able to figure out that it was a practical joke. Also, it kind of ruined the suspense for the readers who never saw, or don't remember the details of Basic Instinct (like moi). We were able to realize something is up. So, at best, the innocent comment ruined the suspense, and at worse, caused a small plot hole. Jason did acknowledge the comment in the tuesday post, but the story didn't seem to be affected by it. (My guess is that he already had the post written and didn't have time to rewrite the whole thing and just allowed the small plot hole)

Those two examples were enough for me to realize that almost all blog fiction is a written performance, not just the multiple character\author blogs. In both cases the writer's have had to react to their readers in some way. It would seem that all blog fiction blends the distinction between writing and performing if they allow, and respond to, comments.

The Leviathan Chronicles

A slightly off-topic post today. I won't be talking about Blog Fiction, but another new (technically old) style of story telling. The Leviathan Chronicles is a podcast fiction. In the style of old time radio it tries to resurrect audio only story telling. It has voice actors, sound effects, and a narrator.

The story exists in a well thought out scifi world. The podcasts have top notch sound quality and effects. It has nearly two dozen voice actors. The soundtrack is all original and does it's part to help engulf the listener into the story. Hell, it even comes with it's own theme song. Nearly everything about it gleams a well polished, professional production and yet... it sucks.

Why? All because the writing is amatuerish. Christof Laputka, The writer and creator, has fallen into the traps that we all probably did when we first began writing. Since Blog Fiction is all about constructive criticism, let's take a look at a few ways to improve the writing and make the Leviathon Chronicles as good as it can be.

Trap #1 We're "told, not shown" the story.
Show, Don't Tell. It's the mantra of fiction writers everywhere. Whether you're writing a book, short story, or screenplay everyone tells us to "show, don't tell" in your writing. There are hundreds of articles out there about how to do that. This article by Dennis Jerz had the best example I've seen. The first block is "telling". The second block is "showing".

Telling:

I'll never forget how I felt after Fido died. I was miserable.

Showing:

Whenever puppies in the pet store window distracted me from the serious business of taking him for his walk, Fido snarled fiercely and pulled mightily at his leash yet he always forgave me instantly. Over the past few years he lost his hearing and his sight, but when he felt the leash click on his collar and smelled fresh air, he still tried to caper. He's been dead for three months now. This morning I filled his water bowl all the way to the top --just the way he likes it -- before I remembered.

The Leviathon Chronicles tells almost everything. The most egregious example comes in the first 40 minute episode. The narrator, for four and a half minutes, goes on to tell us about Whitt Roberts and the hallway he's walking down. I want you to reread those last two statements because you really need to soak in that fact. For four and a half minutes the listener is forced to listen to a stranger's life story. That's over 10% of the episode. You can go download the podcast of the first episode if you don't believe me. It starts at 21:30 and goes to 26:00. Have you ever had someone trap you in a conversation where they told you about their life? It's boring. backstory needs to be revealed piecemeal, and as much as possible, shown, not told. Just to drive home the point, I transcribed the 4.5 minute info dump for your reading pleasure.

Langly Virginia, 1 yr later.
The winds that blew through the CIA campus were growing colder as October faded away. Scarlet leaves speckled the rich green lawn that covered most of the modern grounds. Two White Stone arches filled with aqua marine glass, planked the long central entrance hall - The door that all employees entered to begin the extensive identity verification protocols that were part of everyday life of the farm.

On that Saturday, deep in the Southern annex of the CIA headquarters, a 33 year old man named Whitt Roberts was walking down a sterile hallway that lay more than half a mile underground. He stood about 5 foot ten with straight brown hair that was side parted and combed neatly over his ears. His eyes were a sharp hazel and his medium build seemed to fill out the casual forest green polo shirt that he wore with his banana republic jeans. Indeed, he had been told it was his perfectly non-descript looks that made him so perfectly suited for field work at the company. He wondered if that's why he received the call twelve months ago to come down this hallway.

A great deal had changed for Whitt Roberts in the last twelve months.

What made the hallway deep below the southern annex so unusual was that there were over 20 sets of jet black doors in perfect formation on both sides of the hallway. The floors of the hallway were non-descript white, linoleum that caused Whitt's penny loafers to echo sharply against the glaring, glistening white walls of the hallway. None of the doors had any marking or any nomenclature of any kind. They were sterile, lifeless, and black. The hallway was straight and perfectly rectangular with a stainless steel elevator through which Whitt had exited on one end and a white wall on the far end.

Whitt had heard whispers about the mythical black door group, but never suspected that it actually existed. Certainly, no one who worked in his area ever spoke of it and it was rumored that not even those who worked behind one of the doors knew the nature of the operations conducted behind the other doors. "Boxes within Boxes", Whitt thought. Never at any time when he visited the black door group did he ever see another soul. Never. He hadn't been asked to actually become a part of the black door group, but his boss's boss's sector head had called Whitt into his office for the first time after nine years at the CIA to inform him that he should lend his assistance to a Mr. Jason Sterling when and if called upon.

Any information and conversation would be given top secret security status and considered compartmentalized between the two of them. Any such assistance Whitt provided was not intended to represent any sizable increase in his current work load and Whitt should speak up if it did in any way interfere with his current duties as a third world cryptographer and monitoring agent. Anything Jason Sterling asked for was to take the utmost precedence. It was, in short, the most unusual conversation that Whitt had ever had in the CIA.

His work for the mysterious Jason Sterling began with a phone call twelve months ago as a request for the name of the Egyptian telecommunication company used in the construction of the U.S. embassy in Cairo. This wasn't Whitt's area of expertise, but he knew how to get the information. This person, this Jason Sterling, on the other end of the telephone line, seemed curt, but very grateful and complimentary of his work and then promptly disappeared for 3 months. In the weeks that followed, Whitt received more unusual and seemingly unrelated information requests.

These requests necessitated increasingly deaper levels of investigation into various intelligence databases throughout the government and civilian rounds. Despite his increased level of activity with Sterling, his official jobs work flow seemed to miraculously lighten - as if he was being silently time managed - and much as conducting research for the black door group was flattering to Whitt , he harbored no illusions that he was any member of a privileged circle. In fact, it made him feel even more isolated within the CIA - because his day job had stagnated quickly and his night job - and all work associated with it were kept secret from all others.

(I broke it up into paragraphs to try and make it easier to read There were no such breaks in the audio)

If you think it's boring to read, trust me, it's just as boring to listen to it. This wasn't just a first episode occurrence. It happened again in the second episode when introducing Macallan Orsel. 3 times the narrator launched into an exposition about Macallan, her life, and her relatives - all within a 14 minute span. In all there was nearly 6.5 minutes of exposition. (7:45 to 11:30, 17:40 to 19:00, 20:30 to 21:45). I didn't transcribe that one, you'll have to trust me that they were long, boring, and mostly unnecessary.

I am, by no stretch of the imagination a good writer. That being said, let's see if I can apply a few simple tricks to liven up the exposition about Robert Whitt.

Langly Virginia, 1 yr later.
The winds that blew through the CIA campus were growing colder as October faded away. Scarlet leaves speckled the rich green lawn that covered most of the modern grounds. Two White Stone arches filled with aqua marine glass, planked the long central entrance hall - The door that all employees entered to begin the extensive identity verification protocols that were part of everyday life of the farm.

One should always include details to help the reader picture the scene. However, this paragraph mostly describes the outside, while the scene takes place inside. Also, us as readers are smart. We're all aware that the CIA is a very secure place. We don't need to be told that they have a lot of security in place. So you could shorten this whole paragraph to:

Langly Virginia - CIA Headquarters, October of 1 yr later.

Let's look at the next paragraph.

On that Saturday, deep in the Southern annex of the CIA headquarters, a 33 year old man named Whitt Roberts was walking down a sterile hallway that lay more than half a mile underground. He stood about 5 foot ten with straight brown hair that was side parted and combed neatly over his ears. His eyes were a sharp hazel and his medium build seemed to fill out the casual forest green polo shirt that he wore with his banana republic jeans. Indeed, he had been told it was his perfectly non-descript looks that made him so perfectly suited for field work at the company. He wondered if that's why he received the call twelve months ago to come down this hallway.

Here's the information conveyed that the reader needs. To the writer's credit it shows(not tell) that Whitt works hard because he's in on a saturday. Everything else is "telling". We're told it's a mile underground. Instead Whitt could "breath in the damp, musty air". That action could "show" that he's underground. Also, there's no need to know tell us it's "deep in the southern annex of the CIA headquarters". We know it's "deep" or "buried" because it's a half mile underground and we also already know it's the CIA headquarters. We're then told about his "non-descript looks". Instead of being told that we could be "shown" that he's easy to skip over in a crowd. One way I'd show that is to have a brief scene when someone doesn't notice or recognize him.

Whitt got up from his cubicle. Jack, a fellow analyst, was scurrying past him.
Whitt: "Hi, Jack"
Jack: "Hi, Do... I know you?"
Whitt: "We worked on the Weinberger project last year"
Jack: "Oh... Whitt! I... I don't know why I didn't recognize you."
After small talk, Whit continued to his destination. A destination he'd gotten familiar with over the last twelve months.

There, we now know he isn't memorable, AND established his work for the Black Door group for about the last year. Next paragraph.

A great deal had changed for Whitt Roberts in the last twelve months.

This is the definition of "telling", instead of showing. I would take this line out. We'll expand on it later.

What made the hallway deep below the southern annex so unusual was that there were over 20 sets of jet black doors in perfect formation on both sides of the hallway. The floors of the hallway were non-descript white, linoleum that caused Whitt's penny loafers to echo sharply against the glaring, glistening white walls of the hallway. None of the doors had any marking or any nomenclature of any kind. They were sterile, lifeless, and black. The hallway was straight and perfectly rectangular with a stainless steel elevator through which Whitt had exited on one end and a white wall on the far end.

First of all, I think this paragraph has a lot of description that's "telling" that could be removed without replacing with "showing".

• There's no need to repeat "southern annex".
• I don't know what "doors in perfect formation" would look like.
• Plain White Linoleum implies "non-descript" so that phrase could be taken out.
• If the doors have no marking, then have no nomenclature, so that word isn't needed.
• If you take out the words, "of any kind" the sentence doesn't change meaning, so that can be taken out.
• We already know the doors are black. We already know the doors have no markings so it implies sterile and lifeless. So that entire sentence could be removed.
• How many hallways aren't straight and rectangular? While there are a few that aren't, I think it's safe to assume that the reader will assume that a hallway is straight and rectangular.

So, here is how I would rewrite the previous paragraph to "show" more, tell less, with the superfluous descriptives removed.

The stainless steel doors of the elevator opened. Whitt walked inside. After the doors closed he put a key into a keyhole, turned it, and then entered a 4 digit code. The elevator began to descend, descend below the other floors, descend below the lobby, and below the basement levels. The elevator opened it's doors, but did not make the familiar "bell" noise when arriving at any other destination. Whitt stepped off the elevator and onto the hallway's linoleum floor. His penny loafers made a sound that echoed down the hallway, off the white walls, off the ceiling, and off the wall at the end. He walked past 11 doors and upon reaching the twelfth, he recounted the doors to make sure he was in front of the correct one.

I think that paragraph still conveys the secret, "sterile" nature of the hallway. It's implied there are no markings on the door since he had to count and recount to get the correct door.

Whitt had heard whispers about the mythical black door group, but never suspected that it actually existed. Certainly, no one who worked in his area ever spoke of it and it was rumored that not even those who worked behind one of the doors knew the nature of the operations conducted behind the other doors. "Boxes within Boxes", Whitt thought. Never at any time when he visited the black door group did he ever see another soul. Never. He hadn't been asked to actually become a part of the black door group, but his boss's boss's sector head had called Whitt into his office for the first time after nine years at the CIA to inform him that he should lend his assistance to a Mr. Jason Sterling when and if called upon.

Again, a lot of this stuff can be left out or should be shown. Here is what we learn from this paragraph.

• The Black door group is very secretive
• Whitt was drafted to work for them
• Whitt's worked for the CIA for a while (nine years)

So instead of being bored to death by being told about sector heads, let's show these things.

Whitt saw Rob waiting for the elevator.
Rob: Hey buddy, coming to the poker game?
Whitt: No, I-
Rob: (imitation Whitt) No, I gotta work. Fine, have it your way. More winnings for me. Eight years later you're still the only one who can beat me.
The elevator doors are heard opening.
Rob: What are you up to? Are you even still on the Weinberger project?
Whitt: Yeah, when I have time. I just... got something else going on.
Rob: What?
The elevator doors are heard closing and the sound is heard in the background.
Whitt: Can't talk about it.
Rob: Right, you're all important and secret now..
Whitt: I didn't ask for the assignment, they just gave it to me.
Rob: At least tell who you're working for, It's that overpaid sector head, isn't it?
Whitt: (whispering) You really want to know?
Rob nodded his head and leaned in close.
Whitt: It's the Black Door Group.
Rob looked at Whitt
Rob: You mean... they're for real?
Whitt started chuckling.
By the time the elevator doors opened, they were both laughing with mouths wide open.
Rob: You jackass. You had me.
The elevator doors close.
Rob: (muffled) Someday I'll get you to tell me for real.
Whitt: (muttering) I just did, you didn't believe me.

I think you'll agree that this conveys the same information, but a little less boring. It has the bonus effect of introducing a little conflict between Whitt and "Rob" who I made up. Conflict, no matter how subtle, is always more interesting than being told backstory.

Last 3 paragraphs:

Any information and conversation would be given top secret security status and considered compartmentalized between the two of them. Any such assistance Whitt provided was not intended to represent any sizable increase in his current work load and Whitt should speak up if it did in any way interfere with his current duties as a third world cryptographer and monitoring agent. Anything Jason Sterling asked for was to take the utmost precedence. It was, in short, the most unusual conversation that Whitt had ever had in the CIA.

His work for the mysterious Jason Sterling began with a phone call twelve months ago as a request for the name of the Egyptian telecommunication company used in the construction of the U.S. embassy in Cairo. This wasn't Whitt's area of expertise, but he knew how to get the information. This person, this Jason Sterling, on the other end of the telephone line, seemed curt, but very grateful and complimentary of his work and then promptly disappeared for 3 months. In the weeks that followed, Whitt received more unusual and seemingly unrelated information requests.

These requests necessitated increasingly deaper levels of investigation into various intelligence databases throughout the government and civilian rounds. Despite his increased level of activity with Sterling, his official jobs work flow seemed to miraculously lighten - as if he was being silently time managed - and much as conducting research for the black door group was flattering to Whitt , he harbored no illusions that he was any member of a privileged circle. In fact, it made him feel even more isolated within the CIA - because his day job had stagnated quickly and his night job - and all work associated with it were kept secret from all others.

First of all, when you have a 4 and a half minute exposition, you are not allowed to use the phrase, "in short". Second, with the exception of the last sentence, none of this information is neccesary. The last sentense says how isolated Whitt is. Well guess what, I cheated and conveyed that in his conversation with my- made up chracter - "Rob", from above. Besides that, we only learn that Jason Sterling is mysterious and is who Whitt reports too. Those two things are established in the dialouge - more on that next post.

So, instead of the 4.5 minute exposition. Here is my completed rewrite. :

Langly Virginia - CIA Headquarters, October of 1 yr later.
Whitt got up from his cubicle. Jack, a fellow analyst, was scurrying past him.
Whitt: "Hi, Jack"
Jack: "Hi, Do... I know you?"
Whitt: "We worked on the Weinberger project last year"
Jack: "Oh... Whitt! I... I don't know why I didn't recognize you."
After small talk, Whit continued to his destination. A destination he'd gotten familiar with over the last twelve months.
Whitt saw Rob waiting for the elevator.
Rob: Hey buddy, coming to the poker game?
Whitt: No, I-
Rob: (imitation Whitt) No, I gotta work. Fine, have it your way. More winnings for me. Eight years later you're still the only one who can beat me.
The elevator doors are heard opening.
Rob: What are you up to? Are you even still on the Weinberger project?
Whitt: Yeah, when I have time. I just... got something else going on.
Rob: What?
The elevator doors are heard closing and the sound is heard in the background.
Whitt: Can't talk about it.
Rob: Right, you're all important and secret now..
Whitt: I didn't ask for the assignment, they just gave it to me.
Rob: At least tell who you're working for, It's that overpaid sector head, isn't it?
Whitt: (whispering) You really want to know?
Rob nodded his head and leaned in close.
Whitt: It's the Black Door Group.
Rob looked at Whitt
Rob: You mean... they're for real?
Whitt started chuckling.
By the time the elevator doors opened, they were both laughing with mouths wide open.
Rob: You jackass. You had me.
The elevator doors close.
Rob: (muffled) Someday I'll get you to tell me for real.
Whitt: (muttering) I just did, you didn't believe me.
Whitt put a key into a keyhole, turned it, and then entered a 4 digit code. The elevator began to descend, descend below the other floors, descend below the lobby, and below the basement levels. The elevator opened it's doors, but did not make the familiar "bell" noise when arriving at any other destination. Whitt stepped off the elevator and onto the hallway's linoleum floor. His penny loafers made a sound that echoed down the hallway, off the white walls, off the ceiling, and off the wall at the end. He walked past 11 doors and upon reaching the twelfth, he recounted the doors to make sure he was in front of the correct one.

Next time, We'll take a look at fixing some truly atrocious dialog. (Yes, even worse then what I wrote in this post)

Meta Posts in Blog Fiction

Almost all fictional blogs need some way to convey non-story elements. Things like a short introduction, a short summary of the story so far, a note from the author are all examples of this. The problem is, where to put that information. Some people put it all in their sidebars. Others put the info in header links. Still others put the info in "Author's notes" posts, and still others maintain a separate non fiction blog. Some of course, might do a combination of all of these.

Of all the methods, the one I like least is what In My Daydreams does. It has entire meta posts here and there, and then some of the story posts have author notes embedded in them. Having all that non story text is a huge distraction. It prevents me from immersing myself in the blog. It also serves as a constant reminder that it's fiction. For me, reading is the most entertaining when I can almost forget that what I'm reading is a work of fiction. Looking at Fleet Commander, I must say that even one "author's note" can be jolting. If I'm reading to catch up, I don't need to read an author's note from 3 months ago. Especially since it probably no longer contains relevant information.

I'm not trying to pick on In My Daydreams or Fleet Commander, lots of fictional blogs do this. Transplanted Life does it, I did it, Anonymous Lawyer did it, etc... I think as a writer it just made sense to once in a while slip in a meta post the same way as a fictional post. However, now that I'm evaluating this practice as a reader, and in spite of the fact that everyone seems to do it, It's a practice I now discourage.

Instead of doing Meta posts, consider these other ways to convey meta information:

• Put an announcement at the title level
• Maintain a separate "meta" blog.
• Consider if you really need a meta post
  

If you're late in your scheduled posting or you're taking a brief hiatus, why not putting it at the top of your blog, instead of a post. That way you can still convey the announcement to your readers, but don't have to permanently embed the info into your blog. You can just take down the announcement later on.

If you're going to be posting a lot of meta information like Entia did, you should definitely consider having a separate blog for the non-fiction posts. It makes for a clean separation.

Do you really need that author's note? If your post is a little late, your readers will get it, you don't have to tell us in a post. Also, instead of responding to comments as a post, You can respond to your readers in the comments as well. There's no law against leaving a comment on your own blog.

Of all the ways to convey what I call "meta" information. That is, information that isn't part of the story, I have to say my favorite method is what was done by (the now defunct) Entia and Big Melly. They use a separate blog. That way the story posts are completely separate from the author's notes.

I like the idea of using a separate blog because it really lets the story blog sit out, uninterrupted. A reader can really immerse themselves in the reading. If I'm catching up on a story, I won't be jolted out of my reading by an "author's note" from 3 months ago that's no longer relevant.

While I don't expect everyone to start maintaining 2 blogs, I hope everyone will consider getting rid of meta posts using the strategies above. If you really really have to have one, consider eventually deleting it when it's no longer relevant. That way it won't distract readers when looking through your archives.

Introducing the "catch up" button

In a recent post I put forth one of the challenges of attracting readers with a blog fiction site.

You could read a blog fiction just like any other. Subscribe to the feed and when there's a new entry go read it. One entry by itself is easy to read once in a while. The problem is that once we've written a lot of posts, people will want to read our fictional blogs from the start. That can be a lot of on screen text to read "for fun".

The assumption I'm currently working on is that, once a reader is caught up with a story and likes it, they'll subscribe to a feed and read it when updated. So the question is, how do we get readers up to speed on our blog fictions?

Well, one way of dealing with this problem is the way that Tom Evans does it in his blog Fate's Acquittal. He uses a tag (or "label" in blogspot speak) called "Catchup". Each post that has a something important that you need to know about the story is labeled "CatchUp". Of the total 32 posts, I read only the 9 with the "CatchUp" label. It reminds me of those short clip compilations that begin episodes of 24.

So the question is, how well does it work. Well, based only on the one example I've seen so far, pretty well. As you might expect, a lot of the earliest posts are labeled "CatchUp". As the story went on, the posts labeled "CatchUp" became more spread out. After reading only the CatchUp posts, I then read the most recent 2 posts and was able to follow them both pretty darn well. Although, don't take my word for it, go try it yourself. (One thing to note though, if you do read it yourself, use the Catchup Link in the label list, not the one in his welcome message. His link in the welcome message is broken\uses the wrong case.)

So here's a hat tip to Tom Evans for using a common blogging tool to solve a common problem. I think each blog fiction author may want to consider if it would help the readers of their own blog. I'm not saying it'll work for every blog fiction I've read -or even needed-, but I'm willing to bet it could help attract new readers for some.

Grammar Check!

Bad grammar or bad spelling can ruin even the best story. No matter how compelling the characters or how witty the writing style, no one is going to enjoy it if they have to take out the teacher's pen before they know that hell you're trying to say. If your writing has someone "sitting at the table and eating desert" or have a driver "cames to an complete stop", it's going to jar your reader out of the story. You don't want that to happen, and neither does your reader. That's why it's important to edit your writing before publishing.

Grammar rules apply for blog fiction as well. Last night I was reading the archives of a blog fiction and kept finding myself having to reread sentences because of bad spelling or grammar. It was really distracting. It slowed down my reading and I couldn't get through the posts as quickly as I'd like.

Now, in the world of dead-tree publishing, fixing a grammar or spelling error is not a cheap thing. It requires printing a second edition and configuring a new press and distributing the new copies. In the digital world that blog fiction lives, it takes about 5 seconds to fix. (30 if you're using dial-up and god help you if you are!) That's why I think Blog fiction writer's should occasionally reread their older posts. If you see a grammar error, fix it. It won't change the story, just make it easier to read for new visitors. Don't abandon those old posts until you've reread them at least 2 or 3 times.

I once read a counter argument about editing a blog fiction post after hitting the "publish" button. It said that it lent "authenticity" because people make errors when posting to real blogs or diaries. That is total BS. When speaking in everyday conversation people will say "um...", "uh...", stammer, pause, etc... but it doesn't mean you should include those in your character's dialog.

In fact, dialog is a good analogy. When writing a novel authors only have their character's speak poorly to convey something. Like a 5 year old might mispronounce a word. The author does that to remind the reader that she's only 5. Another example might be someone stutters in their dialog because that person is nervous.

The same principle can be applied to Blog Fiction writing. The only reason to have bad grammar is if you're doing it on purpose for a plot point or character development. Maybe it's a joke that your character always misspells the same word and it gets him in trouble at work - or something. Otherwise, don't do it.

So, there. I'll quite channeling my 11th grade English teacher now.

How to actually kick Writer's Block

After posting bad advice for kicking writer's block, I thought I'd share a link that give good advice for kicking writer's block. Here's a summary.

Get to Starbucks

Play the Butt in the chair game

Set a deadline

Get out of town

Blog your book

Check out the link for more details.

Save Your Tuition Money, Read This Article Instead

After giving the worst writing tip ever yesterday, I figured I'd give a positive one today. If you're thinking of becoming a writer don't take a class, don't go to college just Read this article, How to create powerful characters. Read it, think about it, internalize it, reread it, and then just do it.

No matter what you're writing, having strong characters is the best advice anyone can give. If everything else in your story sucks, but you have good characters it can be fixed. The opposite is not true. Bad grammar can be fixed. Bad writing style can be reworked. A protagonist that nobody likes(or worse, doesn't care about) can't be fixed.

For Blog Fiction it's even more important. After all the entire story is being told from the point of view of characters. If it's a person that takes credit for other people's work that needs to be reflected in the writing.

As I write Terran Resistance, Alex Chou has the most detailed history. Some of that history will be revealed directly. Like that he was raised in a very conservative even regressive community. Some things are revealed indirectly: Like that he's very smart and doesn't respect authority. Other things may never be revealed. Like the fact that he's the oldest of 4 brothers. Until now, I'd never revealed that to my readers, nor needed to.

Worst. Writing. Tip. Ever!

I was surfing around the internet reading other blogs on writing and etc when I came across an intriguing link. Five Ways to Kick Writer’s Block and Get Inspired. Being that I was trying to get rid of my own case of writer's block, I clicked it. The five basic pieces of advice were:

1. Exercise
   
2. Do Chores
3. Talk to people you haven't talked to in a while
4. Play with your pets
5. Meditate

Now it could be just me, but that list doesn't sound like kicking writer's block. It sounds more like procrastinating to me.