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Fantasy, Reading, Writing

Building a Fantasy World: Geography, Climate, Weather, and Time

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I thought I’d do a bit of discussion about world-building, especially with a focus on fantasy genre world building. I’ll be using the setting of Echo of the High Kings for this, my upcoming epic fantasy novel. First, one thing I feel is valuable is taking the time to establish a world, culture, history, and all that goes with it. There are fantasy stories and novels where this is all kept very vague or even mutable. I would point out, however, that some of the most successful fantasy authors are the ones who have taken the time to build the world in which their characters live. It isn’t just about knowing what lies beyond the hills the characters are climbing, it’s also about knowing why the character’s culture and background might drive his decisions.

For my science fiction and fantasy novels, I like to do extensive world building. There are a million details that I like to know. The place I started, with my epic fantasy, was the world. I drew the original map as the first bit. Maps are a staple of epic fantasy, but that’s not why I drew mine. I drew it because I wanted to know where things were in relation to one another, long before I even started writing. I started with a large, central continent, which I gave a large inland sea. This sea both split the continent, and allowed for trade along its coastlines. I wanted trade to be well established, so that communications and travel are also established. Also, while I wanted each area to have its own background and culture, I wanted them speaking a common language in most of the areas, which basically required that they have constant communications and travel, else over generations their languages would shift. I also crafted a natural channel or rift that connected the inner sea to the southern ocean, and left the top of the sea open to the northern ocean. This meant that the natural trade facilitated by the inner sea could easily spread to the rest of the world. From there, I wanted to establish natural boundaries that would separate some of the more distinct cultures and empires. Mountains and rivers often act as the natural boundaries with nations, so that’s where I started. Also, with the large geological rift splitting the continent, I figured there would be some extreme tectonic upheaval. This served another purpose because I wanted a strong presence and threat of barbarians, so I established high mountain ranges, with deep, secluded valleys which could act as the refuges for these barbarians as they attacked the lowland civilizations. I also wanted an ‘evil’ empire, based in the south, so I crafted a deep jungle region for them to live in and follow their bloody and violent gods.

Map drawn, I wanted to know where this was in relation to other places. I made my decision, early on, that I wanted this world to be part of a greater universe. So I expanded it. The continent was joined by four others, which make up the world of Eoria. Eoria, I decided, has a severe axial tilt, which basically means that the seasons are very extreme, making for scorching hot summers and bitterly cold, dark winters. In addition, it has a much longer orbit than Earth, a total orbit that lasts six hundred and ninety nine days, which are twenty six hours long. I divided this up into twenty four months of twenty nine days, along with three non-month holy days. In addition, each month would have four weeks of seven days along with a single feast day. Why is that important? Well, it means that those scorching summers last for six months… and the winters the same. It means that a campaign or fighting season could last as long as eighteen months, depending on weather. It means that extreme snow-fall in the winter will lead to particular designs for buildings and that spring flooding will be a huge issue, as will drought control in the summer. This is a setting where survival of civilization requires work, hard work at that. Surviving winter is an endeavor that requires preparation and forethought and a certain level of pragmatism, especially in the far north where the growing season relative to the rest of the year is so short. With only a six month growing season, it makes sense that many northerners would turn to raiding to augment their supplies for eighteen months of cold and darkness. It makes even more sense that they might make pacts with beings or creatures that others might find unfathomable, in order to prevent death by starvation or freezing.

What about tides? And also, with that severe axial tilt, how is that maintained? Earth has a moon, a large one at that, which maintains our axial tilt and provides us with ocean tides. Here I came back to the fact that Eoria is going to be part of a larger universe. Maybe not at first, but they need to be able to adapt to the idea that there are other people out there. How better than another world, just as blue and green as our own? Thus, Eoria has a twin world, Aoria, also a life bearing world. In addition, it has cities and towns and people of its own. More, there has, at times, been contact back and forth. Thus, people know it is there, and the underlying assumption is that of course there are other worlds, other people. Eoria and Aoria are locked in orbit together, a dance that has lasted several billion years. They are distant enough that the tides are not extreme, though they are higher than what we are used to here on Earth. Why does that matter? This will make harbors and channels more important, for both tactical and strategic considerations. Deeper harbors will prevent ships from being stranded on low tide, while deep channels will remain navigable.

Moving outwards, there’s the star that both worlds orbit. I could call it ‘the sun’ but I’ve already established that this isn’t Earth. Nor is it some almost Earth. This is Eoria. In Eoria, they call their star Auir. Now with the orbit for Eoriel being so long and therefore so far out, Auir needs to be a bit warmer than our sun. Therefore, Auir burns a bit hotter and has a faint greenish cast to its light.

At this point, I’ve developed the world, its climate, its weather, and even a calendar. That allows me to link things not just to a timeline but also to peg down when characters might celebrate a holiday and when they might shutter their windows and hunker down in fear of dark or wicked spirits. The weather and geography allow me to design the cultures of the people that live in certain places and to justify some of the actions they may take as a result.

Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Reviews and Stuff

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First off, Cedar Sanderson has a review up for the Fallen Race right here.

Second, I’m midway through my YA SF novel, roughly 40,ooo words.  It’s coming more slowly than I’d like, with the main issue being I only really have had time to write for it on it on my lunch break during the work day.  Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to work on it a bit this weekend and then again Memorial weekend.  The secondary issue is that I’m editing my epic fantasy novel, Echo of the High Kings and preparing to write the sequel to The Fallen Race, The Shattered Empire.  Ideally, I’ll have all three books finished by July and, with editing, will have them coming out late August to mid September.  Granted, I’ll also have a newborn in the house at that point, so my writing/editing time might be more constrained than would otherwise be ideal…

 

Fantasy, Science Fiction, Writing

Independent Author’s Toolbag: Economics of Writing

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This is going to be one of those boring articles where I go into one of the important professional aspects of writing. This is both from my personal perspective as well as from talking with other authors and going through some internet research. There’s lots of information out there on the subject, because it’s near and dear to any author who isn’t a trust fund baby, retiree with a good pension, or someone who is idly rich.

The question at hand: Should you take that leap to quitting the day job and writing full time? More, how do I write full time and still do those fun things like eating and having a roof over my head? It’s an important question, because without being able to pay the utilities, it becomes rather difficult to power up the old computer and write. Sure, you can emulate the writers of yore and click away at your typewriter, but seeing as most agents, publishers, and even indie platforms require digital submission, you’re going to have issues.

There’s a variety of metrics to consider. A single person with aesthetic tastes can live off considerably less than a married writer with several kids. For the importance of renting versus owning versus a mortgage, the author may have a fixed chunk of money that has to go out. Then there are the unexpected expenses: car repairs, medical expenses, etc. How can you judge whether you can afford to write full time?

It’s an economic decision. Part of it is dependent upon your method of publishing. If you’re traditional publishing, how much of an advance will you get, do you have a contract, how much of a cut does your agent get (if you have one)? Then you have to track your royalties, project your sales trends and decide for yourself if this would pay for itself. For most of us, it can be a fairly easy decision: I have a contract to do Y books, each with an advance of X dollars. X times Y equals Z, and my expenses are A. Z minus A is negative, well, then I need to keep my day job. Z minus A is slightly positive, I might want to keep my day job. Z minus A leaves me lots of money, well, get writing.

It can be a lot more difficult as an independent author. You’ve got to study your sales trends, make sense of what you’re seeing, and really make some hard decisions about expenses and savings. There are no advances to judge your initial income. You’ll be a couple months (or more) into sales before you really start to see any kind of trends… and even then, sales can change overnight.

At its roots, it’s the same perspective with either method of publishing. The important thing to remember is that your book sales and your royalties are your income. That cut of income is the deciding factor between working a day job and writing full time. For independent authors, we get a bigger cut of the royalties (as much as 70% dependent upon the platform), but we reach a smaller pool of readers than many who go the traditional publishing route. Depending upon your audience, that can be the difference between working and not needing to.

My own personal experience is rather mixed. I’ve had very good initial sales with the release of The Fallen Race. Assuming I see a similar spike with the release of it’s sequel, The Shattered Empire, I should continue the trend. However, my novella series sells moderately, with most sales driven by people who read The Fallen Race and want to read more of my stuff. The issue, there, is that my novellas sell for less and also give me a smaller royalty cut. Why is that important? Well, the novellas, all told, are somewhere over 200,000 words, which is a hefty writing challenge. Because I priced them at $0.99 I get only 35% royalties with Amazon, so if a reader buys all five, I get: $1.75. If a reader buys my novel The Fallen Race, I get 70% of the royalties, or around $3.50. So I’d need to sell twice as many of the novellas as I do novels to make as much off of them.

The issue there: people like novels more than novellas. This is a sales trend I’d heard, but I didn’t really understand it until I saw it in action. It becomes all the more important when I’ve got expenses like a mortgage and such. Writing full time will require publishing novels, more than that, publishing series of novels. The reason publishers and authors like selling series is that it builds a fan base and is a good way to maintain interest and grow additional readers. In action, as readers become attached to the characters, they tell others about the book series. Since it’s not just one book, but several, it means a higher overall income off of the ideas presented. Why does that matter? Well, authors like Robert Jordan, David Weber, and George R.R. Martin show that there is a good money in writing a long series, one which can continue to capture fans and make money over not just years, but decades.

Making money as an author is made more perilous by taxes. Authors, whether independent or traditional, are considered self employed. Which doesn’t seem too bad, right? You make your own hours, work from home, and can set your dress as casual or formal as you want. The issue is, more money comes out of your earnings at the end of the year than if you had an employer. You’ve got to pay the self-employment tax. Also, your royalties don’t automatically have deductions. So you’ve got to work through your taxes yourself and set aside enough money to account for your earnings. If you’re earning enough to quit the day job, you’re probably earning enough to bump yourself into a higher tax bracket (unless writing is a step down for you). This can be especially difficult in your transition from working a day job to writing full time. If you find yourself successful while still working that day job, then you might just find yourself giving lots more of your hard earned money to the tax man than you expected.

As with most things, having a plan and keeping track of how things are going is a vital part. You may be one of those self motivating types who can write all day without any deadline pressures, but even so, you’ll need to monitor your finances. For those of you who are procrastinators like me, deadlines (and bills) can go a long way into ensuring you write hard for your supper. And though you may find initial success, you have to be ready to dig in and do what you don’t want to do: go back to working a day job. It sucks, especially with that first taste of freedom, but it’s far better to suffer a little and still maintain yourself and your family than it is to end up out in the streets. While the starving artist is a trope, it can be painfully accurate if you aren’t careful. Remember, lots of those starving artists die young, miserable, and alone. Don’t be like them. Make a plan, map out your route to success, and look before you leap.

Writing

Independent Author’s Toolbag: Editing

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If you’re an independent author like me, when you get to the point where you’ve finished your manuscript, you need to start editing. This really gives you three options: self editing, getting someone to help, or hiring a professional. Each of these has some positive and negative aspects, and I’ll do a rundown of my own experiences therein. I cannot overstate the importance of editing, both for formatting and for appearance. Nothing turns off readers faster than poor grammar and misspellings.

First off, self editing. Self Editing is just what it sounds like, going through your manuscript and doing a line edit for grammar, punctuation, and flow. Most of this is simple stuff, but sometimes, you may have to stop and look up specifics on how the mechanisms work and to make sure you’re using things correctly. There are a couple major issues with self editing. The first one is that you, as the author, are probably not the best person to do this. A tendency for most people is to see what they expect to see. What that means is when you look at something you wrote, you know what you wrote and therefore might miss a typo or will understand something that will be confusing for someone else. The second issue with self editing, especially if this is your only method of editing, is that without outside influence, issues with the flow or structure of your work will not receive outside attention. It is difficult to improve these kinds of problems when you may not even realize that they are there. In the positive, self editing allows you to improve your writing through discovering issues with word use and other bad habits. In addition, self editing is cheap. For those looking to save money, this is one place where that can serve as a trade-off. However, you may find you’ll have to do multiple series of edits to make sure you clean up your manuscript. There are a few tools to mitigate some of the issues and maximize the positives. The first is reading your text aloud as you go through. This will often allow you to notice issues with grammar and word choice. Why this works is complicated, but basically you use a different part of your brain when reading aloud. It’s also a great method to see if your dialog is wooden. Another method is, oddly enough, reading sections of your book in reverse order. Note, I don’t say read the sentence backwards, but start at the end and read paragraphs out of order. This disjoints the experience and allows your brain to focus on the individual sections rather than putting the whole into a story.

The second method is getting a friend or someone else to help out. Note, if your ‘someone’ is a professional editor, that’s a different can of worms which I’ll address later. This method is great if you have a friend or family member (or even a fan) who has a mind for nitpicking details. This method is good for a few reasons. First off, a fresh set of eyes may catch details that you would miss. Also, if the person finds some section confusing, then you probably need to go do some edits. It is also a great method for seeing if the story flows well and if it hooks the reader. If your friend can’t put it down and finishes it quickly, that’s a great sign. On the downsides this method is rarely foolproof. No matter how helpful the person might feel, this will probably not be their priority. You may have to wait weeks or even months for them to finish their review. Also, depending on their background, your friend may miss certain issues, especially the kind of things such a pacing and scene tones which can change a good book into a great book. Lastly, sometimes these kinds of arrangements can go sour or can strain a friendship. There are a couple of methods to improve your results in this style of editing your manuscript. The first is to take a step back and realize that any criticisms are not attacks on you… they’re attempts to help you improve your story. Unless of course, they are attacks on you, in which case you should politely tell your editor that their assistance is no longer required. The next method, is to be sure you find the right kind of help. Writing groups are good places for authors to network, and some authors are more than willing to exchange manuscripts. Editing someone else’s manuscript is also a great way to learn about your own writing issues and can give you a different perspective on the editing process.

The last method is to hire a professional editor. This is often a task that can seem daunting, but can have the biggest payoff. There are a number of freelance copyeditors and editors who will look your manuscript over for reasonable rates. The first issue here is cost. If you don’t have the money to pay an editor, then this probably won’t work out for you. However, I view this as an investment. Find a good editor and they are professionally inclined to clean up the issues… because it’s not just your work at that point… they put their professional name behind it as well. The other issue here is making certain you find the right editor. Talk with other independent authors. Many times they have experiences with various editors and can give you info on the ones they liked to work with.

Hopefully this helps you in editing your manuscript. Remember, editing is an investment (of time or money) to make your story better and more palatable to readers.

Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Human Wave, Pushing the Boundaries, and Themes of Hope

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Human Wave Science Fiction is an interesting group. I remember reading the original post by Sarah Hoyt (here) and going, well, duh. Some part of me wondered what other kinds of books were out there… I mean, I knew that people wrote wretched books and short stories designed to torment kids in English class, but I didn’t think anyone actually wrote those anymore.

Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, there’s been a lot of ruckus between the Hugos, the SFWA, and various other esoteric items in regards to the Science Fiction Community. Me, up until a few years ago, I hadn’t realized that there was such a thing as a “Science Fiction Community” I just read the books and authors I liked and looked for more. Occasionally I’d find one with a fancy award strapped to the cover, glance at the back, wonder why someone gave it an award and put it back.

I remember reading older books that had awards. Ender’s Game and a few Heinlein books for example. I thought they were pretty good. I didn’t really remember any newer books that were the same, but I didn’t really think much about it. What I knew was that I like books that were fun, exciting, that gave me a glimpse at a future that was, well, if not bright and shiny, at least full of possibilities.

That’s what Science Fiction is about, right? The endless possibilities? Exploring space, pushing the boundaries of human understanding in a way that science is supposed to do, just in a story format that leads the reader along and adventure while exploring the possibilities. The books I read growing up were all about the possibilities… where as now, I see a lot of books which are the opposite. Hope is dead… dystopian futures where war, plague, zombies, the internet, environmental disasters, evil corporations, evil governments, evil unicorn aliens, and all the rest have destroyed all that is good and happy in the universe, leaving the characters to struggle to survive. Victory, in many of these stories, is not about actually winning. Seldom do the heroes craft a better world or even better circumstances. Often these stories end in morally ambiguous conclusions where the reader is left to scramble at straws.

Where I see this the worst is in young adult books. The trend is a dark, depressing outlook on a world without a future, where the struggle to survival is littered with morally ambigious characters who teach us to lie, murder, and above all, don’t stand out, don’t attract attention, and most of all, that no one can change the course of history. Where comes this darkness that has so infested literature? I mean, I know there were books like these, but again, I thought it was all just some sort of sick joke played by English teachers, not that anyone actually wanted to read these sorts of things.

I can see why there is that trend in YA literature, especially. There’s some attraction to the dark, nihilistic tendencies, especially with kids going through those angsty years of ‘no one understands me.’ The thing is… maybe we shouldn’t encourage that. Growing out of that stage, coming to see that there is hope, that we can make something of ourselves, is part of growing up. Reading books that inspire and tell fun, exciting stories are part of that, in my opinion. If we allow our society to drown in the echoes of apocalypses without showing any light at the end of the tunnel, we basically tell them to stop looking up, that there is no hope… that all we build is for naught.

I’m of the opposite opinion. One of my favorite quotes is from Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” What we build, now, is what the generations that follow can further build upon. There is hope for the future, that every year grows brighter and with more possibilities. We truly live in an age of wonders… and we need to tell stories that encourage that wonder. Not stories about crumbling empires and dystopian, tyranical futures. Stories where the characters face challenges, yes, but stories where the characters build and work towards a brighter future as well. Hope seems to be gone from a vast swath of fiction… we, as authors, need to bring that back.

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Yar… pirates

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This is not a post about me starting a new story based on pirates.  A FB friend was kind enough to inform me last weekend that I, apparently, am being pirated.  Someone was kind enough to post free downloads of my books.  This gives me a somewhat mixed feeling. On the one hand, there’s the feeling that I’m successful enough that people want to make my stuff available to others. On the other hand, I’m not getting money for that. As I said, mixed feelings. Mostly, however, I just feel slightly amused. I mean, sure, I could see someone trying to save five dollars on the Fallen Race… but a dollar for each of the novellas? Seriously?  You can’t even buy a quart of milk for a dollar.

I won’t say I’m indifferent to the money, but in reality, I’m somewhat ambivalent about any potentially lost funds because, hey, folks are reading my stuff, whether they paid or not. I don’t support Digital Rights Management. I feel that ebooks should be available to lend, borrow, and so forth just like paper books. If someone likes what they read, then they might look for my other stuff. If they don’t, well, then they don’t. Not much I can do about that.

I get this attitude from the publisher Baen, who have had their Free Library for over a decade. They also make available books from various authors for cash money. It is one reason which, as a reader, I love their stuff so much. It is also a pain because I’ve lost hours of productivity reading both from their free library, their CDs, and the various books available from their ebook site. Check it out, it’s worth the visit.

The point is, whether someone bought my book or pirated it or downloaded it for free, they’re still increasing my ‘author’s footprint.’ And if they like my stuff, they might tell others, some of whom will, hopefully, buy a copy rather than downloading it for free. If not, well such is life. Would I rather have my readers buy my books and receive that money? Of course; I’m married with kid(s) on the way.  Money is a good thing, it pays for necessities like food, shelter, and power so I can work on my computer.  Still, I’ll take the fact that I do have readers as a net positive.

Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

Writing Progress & Update

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I thought it best that I update my readers (or at least those of you who check here for inf0) on my current work and progress.

Right now I’m done writing Renegades: A Murder of Crowes, the fifth novella in the series.  That will be posted singly.  I’m currently working on Lab Notes, a short story from Run the Chxor’s perspective.  That story, along with Runner, Fool’s Gold, XXX, and Refugee will be included with all five Renegades novellas into one omnibus called Renegades: Origins.  While I know that many people have already purchased some or all of the novellas, this will be your chance to get all five as well as five short stories, four of which are all new.

Once Renegades: Orgins is completed, I’ll go to work on my next project: The Shattered Empire.  The second book of the Shadow Space Chronicles follows the events of The Fallen Race.  It takes place a short time after the Third Battle of Faraday, and it covers Baron Giovanni and the UC taking the offensive, not just in a raid or battle over a minor world, but engaging the Chxor at vital systems and trying to turn the tide of the war.

While writing that, I’m going to try to balance attendence at various conventions, editing and releasing some of my other finished works, and plotting out the YA science fiction book I’ve been wanting to write.  So I’m pretty busy.

I’ve been asked where some of these series are going and whether there will be series.  As a short answer… yes and no.  The Renegades novellas are something I love writing, but to be honest, they don’t earn back nearly as much effort as I’ve put into them.  I’ll still write them and I plan that series to be a long-running one.  The Fallen Race has left some (very big) loose ends, which I plan to tie up in another two or three novels.  After that I’ve got another series planned that ties in, though it is set a few years later, with new characters and a new storyline.

I do have a few stand-alone books, both written and plotted.  The issue I face with that is as an independent author, there are some readers that I can’t reach without an estabilished series.  That said, I’m not the type to run a character through ten or even twenty books of action.  At a certain point an author runs the risk that the character’s arc is spent, either they’ve culminated and grown to the point that they can handle whatever follows or the story becomes repetitive.  Don’t get me wrong, some authors can do it, and do it brilliantly.  But that’s not where my current novels are headed.  Eventually Lucius Giovanni’s part in The Shadow Space Chronicles will come to an end.  I know who will take up the fight after him.  I know where the story will go from there.  But, it will be a different series, new characters, and a new story arc.

All that said, any comments or questions from me?  I don’t mind taking time to answer questions.  Also, I’ll be attending Starfest at Denver on 2-4 May, 2014, so if you have questions, want a book signed, or just want to talk, feel free to find me there!

Science Fiction, Writing

Taxes for Writers, part 2

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In my last bit on taxes, I went into what I’ve learned as far as tax deductions.  Now comes the less fun parts.

Writers, God(s) help us, are considered self employed.  This has a number of effects upon the money we earn and the taxes we have to pay.  As far as the US tax system and the IRS, being self employed puts most of the burden upon the writer.

There’s three types of tax that all US Citizens pay.  There’s Social Security, Medicare, and then income tax.  Normally, you only have to pay a net 7.65 percent of your income to social security and medicare.  The problem is, your employer is paying the other 7.65 percent.  As a writer, your employer is you (regardless of whether you publish with a big company or not, they push the onus of paying that to you), so you have to pay all 15.3% as the self employment tax.  Now then there is income tax on top of this.  What’s nice about being a writer is that your deductions come from both areas, because your income is what is left over from your earnings after your expenses.  In case you didn’t notice, right off the bat you’re in around a 30% tax bracket.  This is pretty painful if you’re writing with no other income.  It is especially painful when you are supposed to pay your taxes quarterly, or face fines from the IRS, and you may not receive your royalties until months after the quarter (trust me, it’s happening to me now, it hurts, I’m paying taxes on income I still haven’t received, which comes from my savings…)  Bringing those taxes down a bit you have the things I listed in the previous tax article, which is why keeping track of all that is essential to making sure you keep a little bit of that hard earned money.

The problem some authors run into when they file their taxes is that they see their income as royalties and try to file them that way.  Those kinds of royalties are more for land owners who earn royalties on mineral rights.  Your royalties from book sales are income, much like a contractor.  That’s how you should report it and that’s how you should take deductions.

This is important because if you are a professional author, this is your income.  You’ve probably spent tens or even hundreds of thousands of hours writing, honing, and perfecting your craft.  You’ve earned that income, you can’t avoid paying the taxes on it, but you can make sure that you only pay as much as necessary.  As a disclaimer, I am not a tax professional, I’m heavily reliant upon the things I’ve learned from writing conferences (where they have tax panels) as well as using programs like TurboTax and even going to some tax professionals.  Also, this is just an overview, more to get you thinking in the right direction than anything else.

Here’s some links you may find helpful

Taxes for Writers

Tax Advice for Writers

Writing

Taxes for Writers, Part 1

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In writing, as in many things, there is no getting away from the absolutes: Death and Taxes. The good news, such as it is, is that writing can have a number of perks, chief among them is making you a bit of money.  The bad news, of course, is that you’ll have to pay taxes on that money.

Even if you’re not earning money on writing just yet, your writing can save you a bit come tax season.  Writing, so long as you are making a sincere effort at publishing or getting published, is a business.  As a business, you can take deductions from expenses common both to general writing and genre fiction.  Those deductions can really start to add up and can be a real benefit when you go to file your taxes, hoping to get a little bit more money back.

If, like me, you’ve earned money writing, those deductions can help you to keep a little bit more.  As a business, you need to keep track of receipts, invoices, and other expenses.  That part can be the most frustrating, particularly when you return from a convention tired, travel-lagged, and of course with a case of the con crud.  Still attention to detail here can save you a lot of money when it is time to file those taxes.

The big thing is to know is what you can and can’t deduct.  Remember, this is the fun part because deductions are expenses that drop your earnings so you pay fewer taxes.  There are a lot of viable areas for business expenses that you can deduct.  Attending conventions, both writing and genre is a networking and educational event.  The convention fees, hotel room charges, and even your meals are tax deductible.  If you’re attending conventions, you also probably have business cards or some other means of marketing, these too are tax deductible.

There’s more than that, though,  Your travel to and from the convention is deductible, both in whatever mileage you drive (keep a record of miles you drive in your car for such events), as well as airline, train, or bus tickets.  That new computer you had to buy, that’s deductible, though you may have to depreciate it because it’s something that should last more than a year.  If you’ve bought Microsoft Office, that’s a tax deduction too, as you need it to do your writing.  Most meals for business are only 50% deductible, however, that’s still 50% that comes out of your taxable income.

If you’re meeting with an editor or artist over lunch to do your cover design or illustrations, not only is the travel to the location a deduction, so is the meal.  So, in fact, is the expense of the editing and the artwork for the cover.  Any kind of entertainment meals are 100% deductible, so keep a log of what is just a business dinner and what is entertainment.  Any time you conduct business during the meal or the discussion is going to take place immediately before or after, you can consider it an ‘entertainment’ expense and you get the 100% deduction.

There’s also deductions you can take towards research that you do as a writer.  If crucial scenes in your book are set in a specific location, travel to that location as well as any expenses towards researching it are deductible, within reason, of course.

All these deductions can add up and that’s important because, as we’ll see later, as an author, you are self-employed and you’ll have to pay more taxes, the Self Employment Tax, on top of what you would normally pay.

So, save those receipts and try to save as much of that hard-earned writing money as you can!

Fantasy, Science Fiction, Writing

What’s in a Villain?

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Star Wars’ Darth Vader and Conan’s Thulsa Doom have one thing in common.  Well, two, but this blog post isn’t about James Earl Jones.  The commonality is that they have strong, powerful villains who strike the audience with fear and hatred.

Building a character beyond the antagonist role, into a true villain is something that brings both challenges and rewards to an author.  A powerful villain can bring instant emotional involvement to the audience, in a way that makes them root for your protagonist(s).  A powerful villain is memorable and the elements of their character can heighten the audience’s emotional highs and lows as the villain and heroes clash.

The two examples above are from movies, and in movies they have some advantages.  They can make use of impressive audio and visual techniques to impress an image on them.  In writing, we don’t have that advantage.  We can describe the villain, but in that, we need to pick our words with care.  Getting overly verbose can distract the reader, while a few quick words can too easily be overlooked.  It falls on an author to choose the description carefully and to insert it in such a way as to avoid distracting the reader.

But a description doesn’t tell the whole story.  It gives the reader a few words to capture their imagination, but it doesn’t tell them what makes the character a villain.  True villany requires acts of darkness and it is this that makes a villain truly vile.  As with most writing, showing is better than telling.  Don’t tell the reader that the villain has no value for human life… show it.  Such callousness is part and parcel for evil characters.  A caution here, it is better to make implications rather than dive too deep in such darkness.  With small implications, you capture a reader’s imagination.  Often the readers can paint a darker idea of the character’s actions than you can describe on paper.  Wallowing in such details can also quickly go from tasteless to ghastly.  An atrocity is there to remind us what the hero opposes, not for authors to work out latent psychological issues.

Making a villain distinct is the next important area.  This is difficult for a number of reasons.  Science fiction and fantasy are replete with villains, both well developed and… not so much.  The tropes and cliches are such because of the vast scope of the genre.  The genre lends itself to powerful, maniacal and insane villains, and you’ll see scores of these chewing on the scenery and sending forth their Legions of Doom.  This is where being able to build strong, vibrant characters is important.  If the villain feels real and the actions they take seem to follow from their motivations, then the tropes and cliches won’t jar the reader.  Making those characters as unique as possible goes a long way towards this as well.

Hopefully this helps you to develop strong, powerful villains in your stories.