Written To A Pulp

It’s been a little over three months since my last post, and some of you may be wondering….

What have you been doing? You said a brief hiatus!

I had planned to take a little time off, perhaps to finish the sword & sorcery novel I’d been working on, then redo the SEO for the site. Hopefully, by the time I finished those two things, I’d have figured out a solution to the big problem I was facing… how could I document the creation process for a novel without taking two years to do it? I didn’t figure it would be a problem, as my blog seemed to be lost among the millions already on the web.

Well, things have a way of happening when you least expect it. I never got to finish the novel or redo the SEO. A previous project, a nonfiction book, suddenly caught fire and I found myself struggling to get it done in a very short time period. I was hampered by a computer that crashed, and it took nearly ten days to restore all the software and settings. (At least I didn’t lose any data.) I made the deadline, but just barely.

That book, a golf instructional book called Ruthless Putting, was released in paperback, PDF, Kindle, and Mobipocket versions in early July. I launched another blog, Ruthless Golf, to help support the book and I’ve been working with several golf bloggers to help build the visibility of all our blogs.

And then, somewhere in the midst of it all, writers began to discover Written to a Pulp… and I realized I still hadn’t solved the original time problem my approach caused. To be honest, I was considering a complete shutdown and relaunch of the blog at a later time, after I solved the problem.

But here I am, and there you are. We need to solve the problem now, because I believe in the effectiveness of formula fiction techniques to overcome writer’s block, and all of you seem interested to learn how it’s done. Here’s my idea:

There are plenty of writing sites on the web that deal with the actual writing of novels; Written to a Pulp is one of the few devoted to the actual development techniques that undergird that writing. So here’s my idea: Suppose, instead of me actually writing the novel on-line, I just focus on the process through the completion of what I called the schnopsis. This will take us through the creative process for an entire novel, and allow me to focus on the unique techniques of formula fiction.

Does this solution sound workable? I’d like to hear from all of you. Either drop me a line or post a comment with your thoughts.

I’ve written just over 37,000 words since I started this site nearly four months ago, and one thing has become very clear…

Written to a Pulp needs some reorganizing.

This is my first attempt at a teaching-oriented blog - a learning experience, for sure - and I have approached it as if I were writing a book. That probably wasn’t the best plan of attack, and it’s presented me with a couple of problems.

One of those has to do with things like search engine optimization and accessibility. Those things are just a matter of work - redesigning the permalinks, changing the wording of some post titles, etc. Those of you who have been blogging for some time know what I’m talking about. Fortunately, I’ve only got about 60 posts to deal with, provided I deal with it now… so that’s what I intend to do.

The second problem is more upsetting to me, and that’s the amount of time required by the Virulent Project - or rather, by my current handing of it. I made a brief mention of it a few weeks ago in a post called Just How Long Will This Take? At that point, I had spent five weeks discussing material that I developed in less than a week.

At that rate, once I begin actually writing the novel, it could take 12-18 months to complete the Virulent Project. That’s just way too slow for any of you to get the kind of writing encouragement I intended this blog to provide.

So I’m going to take a brief break to redo the SEO of the site and figure out how to restructure it so I can better show you how formula fiction techniques help eliminate writer’s block and speed up your writing. In the meantime, spend some time going back through the existing posts; you’ll find a lot of guidelines that will re-energize your writing.

I’ll be back soon. In the meantime… do a lot of writing!

Time to check in on our bad guys; we haven’t talked too much about them yet…

Meet the CEO of Offworld Inc., Auric Connor. The name has an interesting genesis. As I played around with sounds, I found (as you probably will) that the names of book and movie characters you already know have a big influence on your thought processes.

Auric comes from Auric Goldfinger, the bad guy from the James Bond classic Goldfinger. The symbol for gold is Au, from the Latin aurum, and Auric comes from that.

Connor comes from John Connor, the ultimate hero of the Terminator flicks. While John Connor is a hero, he’s far from perfect; in fact, he’s a pretty dark character in his own way. Add the connection to murderous technology, and you have a great name for a complex character.

In fact, Auric Connor sounds almost Norse, doesn’t it? I can see him cast from the same mold as Thor, with a muscular build and a long blonde mane. An alpha male, loved by the ladies, cultured yet bloodthirsty in his business dealings - this is Auric Connor, the geek who made good.

He’s the kind of villain who’s not used to losing - definitely the kind of pulp villain I’d like to see in my novel.

But at the beginning of the Virulent Project, he is losing… and he’s not happy about it at all.

For the first time in his life, Offworld Inc. is struggling. The cutting edge of Earth technology hasn’t had a new “discovery” (perhaps I should call it an “acquisition”) in several years. His plan to create a new type of lightweight high-pressure construction material from the unusual Kuiper Belt hydrocarbons ran into problems, and now corporate profits have been down for three straight quarters. Far worse to him and his shareholders is the loss of face; they are no longer the trendsetters in tech.

And then, conveniently, along came Planet X. Jackpot! The destruction of the mining station was a minor irritant compared to the possibilities this event presented. Imagine - the first new temporal incursion in years! And when the ships suddenly appeared over Earth, and disappeared just as suddenly, Auric Connor saw a chance to make the coup of a lifetime!

So he called in all his “markers” - favors, if you please - which included the admiral of Spacial Forces. I don’t know yet how Auric got the admiral under his thumb, but part of the answer, the obvious part, is that he got the admiral into his present position somehow. I’m entertaining the idea that the admiral became the hero in a crucial military maneuver because Auric offered the enemy a very lucrative bribe… a very illegal lucrative bribe.

In other words, Auric owns the admiral…                                                                      

And now Auric wants the Virulent working for him. Whatever dangers may await them, the Virulent crew has demonstrated an unerring ability to get the job done… and it does little good for Auric to obtain Slugtech if he can’t get it back to Earth.

How will he get the crew to help him in this nefarious plot? I suspect this will be accomplished by having the admiral call the Virulent back into action - it’s a sensible act now that the rest of the fleet is out of action - and placing some of his own people in a critical mission role. Currently I’m considering a male/female team, Damien Sloane and Tasha Wright. (Auric is an Earthling, through and through; no other races are in his inner circle. This may come back to haunt him later in the novel.)

For those interested in the names, Damien came from the Omen movies and Tasha is short for Natasha, a name often used for villainesses. (Remember Boris and Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle?)Wright hints that she may have some good points that will come out, and Sloane just sounded good. There is no science involved in these names; they just came to me as I wrote this post, and these are the associations that the names call up for me.

So much for the bad guys. Now let’s see what we can stir up among the other characters…

I hope you’re beginning to appreciate just how little the “formula fiction approach” requires in order to help you beat writer’s block. Already the Virulent Project has grown far beyond its failed comic strip roots and is beginning to look more like a heavyweight story. I can promise you, I had no idea it would mutate like this when I started.

To me, that’s the real beauty of formula fiction. It looks like you’re just “painting by the numbers,” then suddenly you’ve got something you never dreamed of forming under your fingers. It’s as exciting for the writer as it is for the reader.

Now, as promised, it’s time to create the incident that sent the Virulent to the sidelines.

They didn’t just bend orders; they defied them. And the fact is, most Spacial Forces officers approved - albeit silently - of Forge’s actions, and hoped they would do the same in his place. Forge never even protested the charges against him; he only asked that his crew be shown leniency since they were just following orders like a loyal crew should. Only disciplinary action was taken; nothing was said during the trial, but afterward no one had anything but praise for the Virulent’s crew.

No one but the admiral. He carries a personal grudge against Forge, a major case of not-so-professional envy. He lobbied, unsuccessfully, for a much harsher penalty - as harsh as he thought he could get past the rest of the tribunal. It’s only heightened his resentment of Forge.

And just what did Forge do?

Grothgari anti-human radicals took hostages. In an effort to push their fanatical politics into the mainstream, they took control of a government building during a major political rally. The media was there, and they were allowed to broadcast in order to cause maximum disruption of the government. Because of the delicate nature of the situation, Spacial Forces decided to stay out of it… and Forge was perfectly alright with that.

That is, until he found out that T’ger was one of the hostages. She had gone home for a visit, but the current administration requested her presence as a member of one of Spacial Forces’ top officers. (Remember, Spacial Forces is popular among the pro-human Grothgari.) When he suggested that Spacial Forces couldn’t afford to let this affront go unanswered, he was told - and none too politely - that this was a political matter and he should butt out.

Wrong thing to tell Forge, especially when one of his people is in danger. (Remember the character sketch done several posts ago; Forge sees his crew as his family.)

Forge commandeered an atmospheric attack vessel, took a volunteer crew from the Virulent (half human, half Grothgari - he’s no idiot), ran the Zone, and launched a ground assault against the radicals. Not only was he successful in rescuing T’ger, but he was seriously injured while personally saving the life of the Grothgari Prime Minister, who is a very popular person on both planets. The resultant rush of positive media coverage on Grothgar, coupled with the personal gratitude of the Grothgari government, left Spacial Forces in a quandary. They couldn’t let such a blatant disregard of authority go unpunished; however, Forge’s actions gave their image a much needed shot-in-the-arm. By using a blended team, by giving the Grothgari team members a prominent (and critical) role in the rescue, and because of the crew’s obvious devotion to their leader, Spacial Forces managed to attain favored status on both worlds.

The admiral may have spit nails, but he decorated Forge and the crew of the Virulent for valiant action above and beyond the call of duty… just before he shipped them off as far from any other action as he could arrange.

And, as our novel begins, that’s where things stand for the Virulent. Quite frankly, jealousy does strange things to people, and I’m not so sure that the admiral isn’t willing to do almost anything to get rid of Forge Derring and his crew.

Maybe even conspire with the bad guys…

And that brings us to the situation at Offworld Inc. We’ll look at them in the next post.