If you’re looking for new books to read this year, I’ve partnered with over 300 authors to offer specials on new books and boxed sets:
NEW MYSTERY & SUSPENSE – A collection of new mystery, crime, and suspense novels, many with a special price. Includes my novel of suspense and paranoia, Man in the Middle, on sale for 99¢.
SCI-FI & FANTASY GIVEAWAY – Hundreds of free science-fiction and fantasy e-books available free for a sign-up. Includes the first book in my Bridge Daughter series.
Too many books! All promotions end February 28. Please give these authors a try, or use this as an opportunity to pick up one of my reads.
Recently I spoke again with Sarah Meckler of the GSMC Book Review podcast. It has been a couple of years since we last spoke, which was shortly after the release of Hagar’s Mother.
It was a pleasure to catch up with Sarah. Since then, I’ve published In My Memory Locked, which we discussed at some length, and Stranger Son, which we also touched on.
If you’d like to hear the full interview, you can download the episode at Apple Podcasts or listen to it on YouTube. I heartily recommend subscribing to Sarah’s ongoing podcast series, where she interviews a wide variety of writers and genres.
Bridge Daughter will be on sale for 99¢ October 7th.
In My Memory Locked is my latest novel, a cyber-noir mystery thriller set in near-future San Francisco. Early reviews call it “first rate cyberpunk” with an “ingenious plot.”
This page-turner will be on sale for 99¢ October 11th.
And remember—Kindle Unlimited subscribers are free to read these books (and the rest of the Bridge Daughter Cycle) any time.
IN MY MEMORY LOCKED is a modern detective story set in near-future San Francisco. The Internet has been decommissioned and replaced with the Nexternet, a worldwide network allowing people to transmit thoughts, emotions, and memories like text messages. The Old Internet has been stored on Alcatraz Island unchanging and in stasis, preserved as an artifact of history.
The detective—computer security consultant C.F. Naroy—is hired to located a piece of the Internet’s history stolen from its repository on Alcatraz. Naroy’s search for the stolen goods leads him to uncover blackmail, political intrigue, and murder. He also discovers his own past is connected to the theft.
More so than any novel I’ve written so far, IN MY MEMORY LOCKED was a labor of love. Heavy on the labor, though, as it took me far longer to complete than I anticipated due to the intricacies of the book’s execution. When I finally set the novel aside, exhausted, I found myself ready for a change of pace, which led to a surprisingly quick turnaround writing Stranger Son (released in April).
I hope you’ll pick up a copy of IN MY MEMORY LOCKED and give it a read. Even though it sounds like far-flung science fiction, it’s far more pertinent to today’s world than the story’s time and place suggests.
This June 15th, take a journey to a future where emotions are sent like text messages and others’ memories are streamed like movies. IN MY MEMORY LOCKED is my latest, a futuristic detective novel set in San Francisco, 2038.
C.F. Naroy is a computer security consultant hired to stop hackers from destroying the only remaining preserved copy of the Old Internet—”Old” because the Internet has been replaced by the Nexternet, a technology that allows anyone anywhere to transmit instantly love, hate, outrage, joy…their very thoughts.
Naroy’s investigation uncovers blackmail, political intrigue, dark family secrets, and more than a few dead bodies. The stolen data is so explosive, someone is willing to kill for it.
Then Naroy discovers his own painful past is the key to the entire affair. He must choose between solving the crime…or burying it for good.
Among fiction writers, the editing process is notoriously dreaded as drudge work, but revision is where the magic happens. It’s where a struggling, plodding story is shaped into the author’s vision.
Recently I discovered “How Star Wars was saved in the edit”, an impressive and succinct video on the high art of film editing. It demonstrates revision so well, it should be required viewing in creative writing courses everywhere.
That’s right: Creative writing. Even though it regards film editing, almost all the techniques described have application in revising fiction.
To clarify, I’m not talking about the Star Wars story line. The formula behind Star Wars has been so imitated and overdone over the past forty years, there are few morsels left to claim as one’s own. Narratological analyses of George Lucas’ little sci-fi flick are bountiful, as are the reminders how he borrowed much of his structure from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. All of this is well-trod ground and not what concerns me here.
What “Saved in the edit” highlights is a criminally unknown aspect of Star Wars‘ mega-success: The role of Lucas’ then-wife Marcia in sculpting the movie’s rough cut into a blockbuster. If Marcia Lucas had applied her formidable editing talents solely to the movie’s heart-pounding conclusion (the rebel attack on the Death Star), she would have deserved the Oscar for editing she eventually received. Her contributions went far deeper, it turns out.
Ordering scenes
I’m most interested in two of the video’s sections. The first is the explanation of intercutting (or cross-cutting), starting at 6m50s in the video. Intercutting is a film term referring to a specific editing technique. For fiction, a more general (and blander) term would be scene ordering.
Marcia Lucas and her fellow editors crispened the first act by reordering scenes to better establish the story and get the audience involved. Since viewers are able to fill in blanks on their own, the reordering allowed for the removal of entire scenes, keeping the story line brisk and taut.
Revising scene order is the author at her most godlike. She is rearranging the events of her dreamworld like a child building up and tearing down sand castle turrets. Scene reordering requires bold moves and wide peripheral vision. It’s not about word choice and tightening dialogue, it’s asking if each scene is in the right place at the right time—or even if it should be included at all.
(Another visual medium that uses visual cuts effectively is comics, a topic I’ve explored before.)
My latest (and, as of today, unpublished) novel offers a personal example of scene reordering in my editing process. My early chapters were a mess. The main character was traveling quite literally in circles. An early reader (and good friend) pointed out the wasted time and lack of energy in the first act.
Although I like to make a rough outline when I write a novel, I don’t organize down to the scene, or even the chapter. After hearing my friend’s criticism, I went through the draft and produced a rough table of contents. Each chapter was listed with a brief one- or two-sentence summary of its major plot points. (A writing notebook, even a digital one, is a good tool for this task.)
Thinking of his complaints, and referring to my makeshift table of contents as a guide, I “re-cut” the opening chapters and produced a sleeker first act. Sections of one chapter were lifted and dropped into another chapter. Events were shuffled to tighten the story, sharpen focus, reduce transitions, and get the story on its legs. Thousands of words wound up on the cutting room floor, so to speak. It was worth it.
Marcia and George Lucas
Ordering beats
My other interest in “Saved in the edit” regards the first meeting between Luke and Obi-wan (11m50s in the video):
Originally the scene started with Luke and Obi-wan watching the princess’ message, then they play with lightsabers, and then they consider to go help her.
The editors realized how “heartless” this scene played out due to the lag between hearing Leia’s holographic plea and discussing whether or not to help her. They reordered the scene by opening in medias res to make it seem the two have been talking about Luke’s father for some time. From there,
Obi-wan shows Luke the lightsaber,
they watch Leia’s message,
and then they argue about flying off to help her.
It’s a simple change, which is kind of the point: Sometimes vital edits are not complex or massive, but surgical and subtle. What’s more, notice how this edit did not require re-shooting the scene. All the elements were in place, the problem was their presentation.
The new ordering creates an emotional cone. The tension starts low with exposition (Luke’s supposedly-dead father, a forgotten religion that tapped into a mysterious cosmic “force”). The stakes rise in pitch as they watch Leia’s plea. A tension point is reached when the old man in the desert tells Luke he must drop everything and travel across the galaxy to save a princess.
If you find a scene you’re working on meandering or feeling aimless, consider how the tension rises within it. Is it building, or is it wandering around?
In play-writing, the basic unit of drama is called a beat. A beat consists of action, conflict, and event. Marcia Lucas improved the scene with Luke and Obi-wan by unifying a beat that had been split apart with the lightsaber business:
Action: Obi-wan wants Luke to learn the Force and save the princess;
Conflict: Luke has to stay and help his uncle with the farm;
Event: Luke refuses Obi-wan’s call and goes back to the farm.
Not all edits are rearranging action/conflict/event. If you think of a scene as a collection of little beats, sometimes revision is moving the beats around, much as scenes can be reordered.
One sin I’m guilty of is opening a chapter with the character in the middle of action or a conversation, then dropping to flashback to explain how the character wound up in this situation, then returning to the scene. It’s a false and inauthentic way to start chapters in medias res.
How to correct this? Sometimes by moving the flashback to the start of the chapter and rewriting it in summary. Often I drop the flashback and assume the reader will catch up on their own (as Marcia Lucas did by opening the Obi-wan scene in the middle of the conversation). Each edit is situational and requires a film editor’s mindset. Simplifying scenes is the core of powerful revision.
These editing skills really should be the stock-and-trade of every novelist and playwright. Yet I’ve never seen a book on writing fiction explain these points as ably as “Saved in the edit”. It’s unfortunate it takes a YouTube video on the making of Star Wars to lay out the power of editing in such a lucid and compelling way.
Writing a book is like being an all-in-one film crew. The author is director, screenwriter, editor, and casting agent. The author plays the roles of all the actors. The directing and writing and acting is the fun part, or at least it can be. But editing is where a manuscript goes from a draft to a novel.
Further reading
For more on Marcia Lucas, I suggest starting with her biography at The Secret History of Star Wars. It details the shameful way she was written out of the history of the movie after divorcing George Lucas.
“Marcia Lucas: The Heart of Star Wars“ is another fine YouTube video, focusing more on her career and her role with other 1970s films you’ll recognize, such as Taxi Driver and The Candidate. It also does a nice dive into Marcia Lucas editing American Graffiti into the phenomena it would become.
Marcia Lucas’ influence on Hollywood and film editing is still felt today. The Beat‘s “5 Editors That Broke the Hollywood System” are all women, including Marcia Lucas, even though the article is not specifically about women in film history.
Last week, I finished my fourth novel. I used my phone throughout the entire writing process: developing, researching, outlining, plotting, and revision, all the way to my final draft. For all purposes, my phone was my writing notebook for this novel.
I didn’t write the novel on my phone. I’ll probably never do that. When I’m writing I want the full typewriter experience, real keys designed for human hands, the tactile sense physical buttons offer, the whole shebang. And I need a screen display that at least approximates the size of manuscript paper, and not one the size of an index card.
But planning and revising a novel on your phone is certainly possible, and my latest book is proof of that.
In the past I’ve relied on paper-and-ink writing notebooks. A writing notebook is a tool I evangelize to anyone who will listen, mostly because I believe it functions as a kind of “inspiration laboratory” for writers. However, towards the end of my previous novel (Hagar’s Mother) I found myself turning to digital note-taking tools during the editing process.
In the final stretch of editing a novel, a torrent of small details begin erupting. The only way to keep the problems and details organized is with a writing notebook of some manner. When the edits are coming hot and heavy I find removing my hands from the keyboard to be a distraction, so I began using a free note-taking software packaged with my MacBook Air, Apple Notes. Rather than reach for a pen and my trusty notebook, I would ⌘+Tab to Notes and add a bullet point to a little checklist I kept. As I kept working, I would periodically consult my checklist and be sure the appropriate changes were made.
Well, Apple Notes is also available on my iPhone. Thanks to the Internet, at all times my writing notes were synchronized between my computer and my phone. That meant I could review my notes while at work, on the bus, even in bed. It also meant I could add more ideas at any time. Later, when I returned to my computer to resume writing, they were there waiting for me.
That’s the hard reality I faced, one I’m certain other writers face as well: While I sometimes leave the house without my writing notebook, I never leave without my phone. These little devices are simply invaluable to us (which is why I encourage writers to keep them in mind when writing their own fiction).
After Hagar’s Mother, I decided to try an experiment and use Notes as my primary writing notebook for my next novel. I told myself if I had the slightest of problems I would bail out and revert back to my old paper-and-ink notebook. It seemed a risk-free experiment.
Well, I finished my novel and I’m here to tell you: I’m sold. Yes, you can plan, write, and revise your next novel using your phone as a notebook. What’s more, you don’t need to spend an extra dime on additional software so long as you’re using a reasonably up-to-date computer and smart phone. The note-taking software already installed is probably good enough, and if it’s not, there are free alternatives available.
Ways of note-taking
Let me get this out of the way: I’m not a shill for Apple. I’m happy with Apple Notes and how cleanly it intersected with my creative process. That doesn’t mean you should use Notes if you don’t own Apple products, or if you want to try something else. (I list some alternatives below.)
Looking back over my notes, I see three “types” of pages I developed, each representing a period of time in the novel-writing process.
The earliest pages are scrapbooks of ideas, thoughts, and research. Random notions fill these pages alongside bits of dialogue, descriptions, even character names. (With my fiction, I try on character names the way I would try on a pair of pants.) For every novel I will read up on related subject matter to ensure I’m getting basic facts and terminology correct. Using my phone’s Share button I could add any page—Wikipedia, a news article, even a word in my phone’s dictionary—to a note. Although the foundations of the book are laid here, much of this primordial stew didn’t wind up in the final draft.
Later in the writing process, the pages start becoming more organized and less free-form. Here I was thinking about scenes I was developing. Dialogue and descriptions on these pages often reached the final draft. I also began roughing out timelines in these pages, primarily to flesh out the backstory of the main character.
The last note pages are highly organized. The novel was gelling; the big ideas are down on the page and I was more concerned about the small details and tightening up the narrative. In this stage, my note pages are mostly checklists of changes to be made. The pages are broken up into sections: Characters, Details, Terminology, Important, and so on. When I made the edit, I would check off the item.
This stage is where I wrote a final character list (to keep track of names and relationships) and lists of terminology and spelling (useful in a novel with imaginary technology). I also built a final master timeline which incorporated the chronology of the novel into the backstory—useful to avoid the problem of a character is talking about an event as happening the day before when it actually occurred two days before.
A few points here. First, notice the pages are structureless because the process is structureless. Even the later page’s organization is more-or-less free-form. The notebook met whatever need I had at the moment. It never imposed a system on me. Some writing software wants to guide you through steps or categories for organizing your work. I’m not sold on that idea. I could use the digital note pages for anything I wanted to preserve for later. Make your writing notebook a tabula rasa.
Likewise, avoid reminder or to-do style software. Yes, I use checklists in my writing notebook, but I also used it for so much more. Task software imposes organization on your creative output. (“Mark this task High, Medium, or Low?”) That’s not what you’re looking for with a writing notebook.
These notes did not happen in concerted bursts. They represent hundreds of points in time, some slivers of seconds used to type out an idea. At any point in the novel’s progress, I was adding notes on the bus, at work (shh), in my easy chair, even at the gym, sweating and madly tapping a thought that came to me on the treadmill. The phone was always there. Losing even a single story idea to the frailty of human memory and our shortening attention spans is a loss.
Before you start
If you’ve read this far, you might be excited to start using your phone for your next big writing project. There are downsides to keep in mind.
First, be aware you’re entrusting your precious creative output with a third-party corporation. Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, or whomever) could, at any time and with no warning, discontinue the software, discontinue their services, or even go out of business. Whatever software you work with, be sure you can export your data, even if it’s nothing more than printing out your notes or saving them as a PDF. You absolutely do not want to wind up in a situation where a corporation has your precious creative output locked up—or has deleted it.
Just as you protect your word processing files, make periodical backups of your notes in case of disaster. Most modern note-taking software has some method of doing this in such a way that the backups can be restored later if necessary.
Do a little research into your software’s data security practices. While you’re at it, make sure you’re using a strong password. No, I’m not worried about another author “stealing” my ideas, but I do worry about unknown persons accessing my notes without my consent. My writing notebook is a creative and freeing place. Part of that freedom rides on an expectation of privacy.
Recommendations
If you’re curious or excited to start using your phone as a writing notebook, your first step is choosing your software. My checklist for baseline features it should include are:
It should run on your phone and your writing computer. While you could turn to your phone while typing on your writing computer, I found it invaluable to be able to read and update my notes without leaving the screen. Being able to Alt+Tab to my notes and Alt+Tab back to my word processor was invaluable when the story was flowing and I couldn’t type fast enough.
Your notes should synchronize between every computer you use. In the 1990s synchronizing data between computers required specialized software and arcane cables. These days synchronizing should occur across the Internet, all-but-invisible to you.
Your notes should be available on the Web. It’s handy to be able to access your notes from anywhere. In the case of Apple, I can login to icloud.com. Your software should have this feature as well.
…but you should be able to access your notes without being connected to the Internet. As I’ll explain in a moment, it’s quite useful if your note-taking tool has it’s own app and doesn’t require using a Web browser.
You’ll notice that the above three points revolve around a single convenience: access. The key to my success with note-taking software was that I could access it at any time. You never know when or where inspiration will strike. Recording inspiration and returning to it later is the entire reason for keeping a writing notebook.
The reason I like accessing my notes outside of a Web browser is simple: I turn off WiFi when writing. Disabling Internet access is a great way to avoid temptation and whittle away the day surfing around. Disabling your WiFi also removes distractions while writing, such as new email, social media alerts, and so on.
(While I’m on the topic, I also recommend looking into how to turn off all notifications on your phone and computer while writing. Disabling WiFi doesn’t disable your phone from receiving text messages, for example.)
Those are my top-tier must-haves for a digital writing notebook. Features I think are desirable include:
Checklists. It’s great to be able to add checkboxes next to the edits I need to make. It’s even better to check them off when they’re done.
Scrapbooking. Surprisingly, I found myself harvesting ideas from Web pages more often than I expected. Being able to store links, photos, dictionary definitions—even maps—was invaluable.
Folders & note organization. Eventually I would fill a page with so much raw material I needed to create a second page to continue, and subsequently a third. Organizing all these pages into distinct folders is invaluable.
Other features to look for:
Drawing or sketching. If you like to doodle in your writing notebook, you might seek out software that supports drawing. (Alternately, you could use a separate sketchpad app and add it to your notes.)
Audio notes. Some note-taking software can attach voice memos to a note. It’s not how I work, but it might be yours.
Searching. It’s surprising how many times I remembered a keyword but could not find the exact note for it.
Collaboration. Some software allows you to share your notes with one or more people. If you’re collaborating on a novel with another writer (or illustrator, or editor), this might be a real need for you.
If you’re not an Apple user or seeking alternatives to Apple Notes, there are other options you can investigate. I’ve not had a chance to use any of these but they seem promising:
