Have B&N Execs Gone Mad?

By CJ West

Last week Barnes and Noble issued a press release including results for the holiday sales season and an announcement that they are seeking to spin off the Nook business. Store sales rose 2.5% and digital content sales rose 113%. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this business is headed. So why is B&N getting ready to spin off the most strategic portion of their business?

The NY Times applauded B&N for the inroads they have made competing against Amazon for a share of the digital book market. They report that B&N has captured 30% of the digital book market and is seeking outside investment to help them compete against Amazon.

I agree with the Times that B&N has its hands full fighting Amazon and that it is good for the business to have another big player in the e-book market, so for the market as a whole, I think the B&N move is a good thing. Amazon has a history of flexing its muscle with publishers and authors. The KDP Select program, where Amazon asks for an exclusive on digital content in exchange for the opportunity to offer a book free to Kindle users, is certainly heavy handed if not anti-competitive.

The problem I see for B&N execs comes in once the two groups are split. B&N has invested heavily in the Nook and when future results begin coming in and there is strong growth in the Nook business and a steady decline (or modest growth) in the brick & mortar outlets, B&N will be forced to make another series of investment or cost-cutting choices and it is the brick & mortar outlets that will suffer.

We haven’t yet felt the long term impact of all those shiny e-readers given as gifts this Christmas—not to mention the many authors and bloggers giving e-readers as prizes—but you can bet those new users have already downloaded millions of e-books in the last two and a half weeks. When the weather gets warmer, those proud digital book owners will be out in parks and on beaches and they’ll become e-reader evangelists like the generations of Kindle owners before them.

To me this move looks like the beginning of the end for B&N stores.  Digital Book World reports that B&N continues to lose money online and off.  It may take 7 or 8 years for financial pressure to force stores to start closing, but B&N can’t overcome the economic disadvantage of selling a mass produced product at a cost higher than its most significant competitor.

Not only does it cost more to stock a book on store shelves, but in-store book buyers have little information to help them choose books. Online customers can click through scores of reviews and ratings, but giving in-store customers access to this information also lets them see how much more they are paying for the convenience of buying a physical book off the shelf.

It seems the only concrete competitive advantage stores have is the physical space to bring people together and I see only a few true indies making the most of that advantage.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the years to come. I for one am glad that my future doesn’t rest on the success of stories printed on paper.

Appeal to the Senses — and Emotions

by Jodie Renner

Often, in my editing of fiction, I see dialogue on the page, but with no indication of where the characters are, what they’re doing, what they’re seeing or sensing, and how they’re feeling. In order for your story and characters to come to life, your reader needs to be able see what the viewpoint character is seeing, hear what he’s hearing, and smell, taste or feel along with him.

And we need to see/feel their reactions and thoughts, too. Readers won't empathize with or bond with a character if they don’t even know how she’s feeling and reacting. As Jack M. Bickham says, “Dialogue without any sense impressions, thoughts or feelings of the viewpoint character gets totally abstract; it stops making sense; the reader gets lost.”

So if you’ve written a page or more of almost all dialogue, or a page of exposition/description, here’s a list of what your reader needs to know, sense and feel to get involved and absorbed in your novel.

To bring your scene and characters to life, the reader needs to:

·         See what’s happening – but only what your viewpoint character can see – physical impressions of the scene. And best to just include relevant information – we don’t usually need a detailed description of everything in a room, for example.

·         Hear sounds around – anything your POV character can hear.

·         Smell anything that might be pertinent (bread baking, bacon frying, a dead body decomposing).

·         Taste (in general, or occasionally) some of the things the character is consuming, or know their reaction to what they’re eating or drinking.

·         Touch  – feel any possible tactile sensations of the viewpoint character.

·         Know any thoughts the protagonist or POV character might be having

·         Feel any emotions of the viewpoint character, to help assess and respond to what’s going on in the scene

·         Be aware of the scene goal and intentions of the viewpoint character, so we know his reactions to what’s going on, and why he’s acting as he is, or saying what he’s saying.

(Adapted from a list by Jack M. Bickham)

So if you want to write compelling fiction (and who doesn't?), don’t have your readers stumbling around in the dark, wearing ear plugs. Provide them with varied sense impressions of your viewpoint characters, and show them what the characters are thinking and feeling, too – their reactions to what’s going on around them. Then your readers will empathize with and care about your protagonist, and be truly engaged in his plight, worrying about him and cheering him on.

Resource: The 38 Most Common Writing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham.

Copyright © Jodie Renner, January 2012

For more info, see "Show Those Feelings -- and Reactions!", Jan. 15.

  Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter. 

An Icon Tackles an Icon

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.*

A review by Marlyn Beebe.

In the author's note prefacing the story, P.D. James apologizes for involving Jane Austen's characters in a murder. She quotes Austen (from the final chapter of Mansfield Park)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

James concludes her apology by saying

No doubt [Jane] would have replied to my apology by saying that, had she wished to dwell on such subjects, she would have written this story herself, and done it better.

As much as I admire Miss Austen (and I have been a Janeite for decades), I must respectfully disagree with Ms. James. Her "sequel" to Pride and Prejudice, which begins some six years after the marriage of Elizabeth to Fitzwilliam Darcy echoes Austen's style so well that at times I had to remind myself whose work I was reading.

Our story begins as Mrs. Darcy and her household are preparing for the annual ball in honour of Mr. Darcy's late mother, Lady Anne. Little do they know that Elizabeth's flighty sister Lydia (who, along with her husband Mr. Wickham, is persona non grata at Pemberley) is planning to crash the party.

Lydia turns up at the Darcy's door in a speeding, barely controlled coach, screaming that her husband is dead. On their way to drop Lydia at Pemberley, Wickham and his friend Denny had a disagreement so intense that Denny had jumped out of the carriage and Wickham had gone after him. Hearing gunshots, Lydia had immediately assumed that Wickham had been killed and directed the driver to go immediately to Pemberley.

I must confess to being somewhat disappointed that Lydia's husband was fine. It was Denny who was dead; being the only other person present, Wickham was charged with the crime. Such a turn of events caused all kinds of turmoil to this Janeite: is the admittedly immoral Wickham really capable of murder? The Darcys believe not, and set about to prove his innocence.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this novel is James' descriptions of life in the early 19th Century, and the amount of detail that she imparts about the day-to-day activities of not just the Darcys, but their servants, their families and their peers. The description of Wickham's trial and its aftermath is particularly interesting.

Like P.D. James' more typical works, her paean to Jane Austen is well-written and -constructed, and completely absorbing. If Miss Austen were to read it, she just might approve.

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to my sister-in-law for the gift of this book.

The Evil Optimist

By Peg Brantley, Writer at Work, Stumbling Toward Publication



I'm an optimist who can't imagine living life any other way. I work at making the choice to constantly see my world in a fresh and positive way. I would prefer to be a bit naive rather than suspicious and guarded. Not stupid—just not paranoid. For me, this is an easier way to live.

When people find out I write crime fiction—and we get the inevitable and uncomfortable question of my publication status out of the way (sigh)—if they're still interested (and if they're readers, they're still interested), they want to know about where I get my ideas, and finally, they want to know about how such an upbeat person can write about such bad things happening to people.

Maybe what they're really asking is where they need to draw the line regarding our friendship. I know I'm in trouble when, after talking about some of the plots of my books, I'm asked if they are based on personal experience. Usually as my new friend backs toward an exit.

When I write bad things in my books, it's to depict people with the strength to survive those events. People who continue to love and laugh and don't allow trauma to rule their lives. People whose appreciation for life gets bigger as their world gets smaller and uglier. People who, usually, are honest and courageous at some level.

Evil is a choice. Just as love, hate and goodness are choices. Most people (except in my books) choose goodness, but even good people find themselves from time to time facing a part of themselves that is to some degree malevolent. That's how we recognize evil when we see it, or read it. That's how I know how to write it.

I'm an optimist with a bad side. Go figure.

Do you have any resolution?

In honor of the brand-spankin' New Year, I thought I'd reprint a post from my own blog that seems appropriate for those of you who are thinking about New Year's resolutions. (Note: I usually just resolve each year never to watch Robocop again and that takes care of me.)

JUST ASKING

I have a tale to tell, but first, a disclaimer:

Although this little story involves my son and his music, it is not meant as any particular form of praise for his abilities. I am no judge of my son's talent. I love him fiercely and anything he does is golden, nay, platinum, in my eyes. This is only a story of will, not skill.

When my son was a high school freshman, he auditioned for the smallest, most elite singing group in the music department. He didn't get in, but he was accepted for the larger, still good, chamber choir. This made him happy; however, he went to the music teacher that year and said, "My goal is to be in the smaller group. What do I need to improve in order to achieve that?"

She gave him a list of things he needed to work on. He worked on them all year. He even took private voice lessons. In his sophomore year, he got into the smaller group.

By then, he knew he wanted a career in music, so he went back to his teacher. "What classes should I take if I want to major in music? What school would be a good fit for me? What else should I be doing?"

The music teacher gave him the information, and he followed her advice. He took music theory, he applied to strong music schools, and he auditioned for, and participated in, state choirs. Everything he did built his resume and helped him meet and network with both professors and professionals.

Today, he is in his second year at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, at California State University, Long Beach. He's studying vocal jazz performance, having a great time, and finding his classes fairly easy because he was prepared. His first year he made first the Dean's List, then the President's List.

There was another student in my son's high school classes, a lovely girl with a nice voice. As a freshman, she also auditioned for the small group and didn't get in, but she got into chamber. She was happy and didn't ask for more. For three more years, she auditioned for the small group, got into chamber, and was happy. She didn't try out for any state choirs, didn't take any theory classes, and didn't ask the music teacher for any advice.

When it was time to choose a school and a major, she chose music. After all, she had a lovely voice. What could be so difficult about singing?

I saw her mom in the store and she asked how my son was doing in school.

"He loves it," I said. "He's having a really good time. How's your daughter?"

"She has so much work. All the theory and stuff is really hard, and she didn't get any kind of preparation from the high school teacher."

I could have told her that my son got lots of help, and that all she had to do was ask, but I didn't. I figured it was water under the bridge now, and there was no way to keep it from sounding neener-neener-smug.

There's a lesson in this story, no matter if you're a writer or a singer or anyone with a goal of success at anything: what are you willing to do for it? If you're a writer, what do you do with rejection slips? Do you shrug your shoulders and send a query to the next agent on the list? Or do you take another look at your manuscript? Have you taken classes, joined a writing group, or hired a free lance editor? Are you making it better?

Or do you just spin your wheels in the same spot and blame someone else for not spoon feeding you the information?

Just asking.

* * * * *
Happy New Year!

Do Authors Deserve a Little Respect?

By Andrew E. Kaufman

Let me first say that I will, until the day I die, defend a reader’s right to give an honest assessment—good or bad—about any author’s work, my own included. It's their right, and after all, that’s what reviews are about. It’s a safe bet to say that opinions will vary greatly in this business, often going from one extreme to the other. Some may love a book, some may hate it, while others may have no opinion either way. I get that. But do they also have the right to be disrespectful or even downright mean?

I’m not so sure.

I do come across these from time to time and it kind of bothers me. I suppose that’s because as an author, I understand how incredibly difficult it is to write a novel and how much we give of ourselves during that process. Granted, we choose to make ourselves fair game—it’s what we sign up for. I’m just not sure whether ridicule and name-calling are supposed to be part of the deal. And if a reader wants people to take his or her review seriously, isn't that more likely to occur if they give their opinion in a manner that's thoughtful rather than disrespectful and angry?

photo by Hannibal Poenaru

I once had a reader call one of my books dumb, stupid, and ridiculous, not once, but four times in a review. Fortunately, his opinon was in the minority; most of the eighty-six reviews were five starred. But even so, I found it a bit troubling. I can’t imagine what I’d done to make him so angry—after all, it’s just a book—but I have to wonder if whatever that was, it merited such hostility.

I also have to wonder if he realized that as authors, most of us write because we want to give our readers enjoyment and that we’re just as disappointed when we don't as they are—maybe even more so. 

Of course, I do realize this is the exception, that the majority who leave reviews on Amazon are extremely courteous and constructive, even when they don’t like a book.

But I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter, both as readers and as writers. Is it no-holds-barred where reviews are concerned? Is an opinion just an opinion, no matter how strong the language might be? Do we, as authors, give up the right to be human, to have feelings, and does our right to get respect end where the word "published" begins?

Can You Get Fingerprints From a Dead Body?

No, I'm not talking about taking the victim's fingerprints, I'm talking about developing the killer's latent fingerprints from the victim's skin. The simple answer is yes, but the process is anything but simple. Latent fingerprints are a reproduction of the raised (friction) ridges in sweat. The sweat is 99% water but the remaining residue is made up of amino acids, fatty lipids, and salt among other "contaminants". There are a lot of factors including, environment, surface conditions, and a person's biology, which may affect the quality and recovery of those latent (invisible) prints. For example, a heavily textured surface won't allow enough of the ridges to make contact in a way to leave a recognizable print. Other surfaces may be so contaminated (dirty) that the fingers simply remove dust rather than leave an impression.

Human skin presents unique challenges to the investigator. First, the skin may not be totally smooth (hair). Second, the skin may already be "sweaty" or covered in a residue that masks the deposited fingerprints. Third, fingerprints can be easily damaged or smudged and are at constant risk of being lost during a struggle or movement of the body. Time is another significant factor. As the body decomposes these prints can be lost in a matter of days. Living victims can also rub them off through cleaning or massaging injuries (like wrists). Having said all that fingerprints can be recovered from a dead body.

One of the most critical factors in recovering fingerprints from skin is humidity. The humidity helps to "activate" the fingerprint residue making it more susceptible for reagent processing. Successful cases in the literature seem to be from crime scenes in humid environments (like Florida or Mississippi). Investigators may also alter the humidity by erecting a "tent" over the victim and adding humidity via a humidifier or bucket of hot water. Investigators have found that a relative humidity of at least 75% is ideal.

There are a couple of processes which have been successful in developing suspect fingerprints from a dead body. One is the use of a superglue (cyanoacrylate) fuming wand. The superglue is heated to a vapor form which then affixes to the residue of the fingerprint. It can then be photographed or developed further with powders. Another method is the use of magnetic fingerprint powder. This process seems to work best if the body is only a few hours old. The powder is brushed onto suspected areas (like the wrists, ankles, face, or breasts) and any developed prints are photographed and lifted.

Although is is very difficult to recover suspect fingerprints from human skin you should consider using it in your story. It is an amazing discovery linking a suspect to a body. If nothing else, your characters should make the effort to recover them or have a "white knight" character do it to break the case wide open. However you plan to use this process just remember that anything your suspect does with the body after touching it (such as burial, rolling down a hill side, putting in a dumpster) may all potentially damage the prints. IN an ideal situation the suspect would simply drag the victim by their wrists or ankles and leave them be. Don't be afraid to experiment with alternatives, just keep in mind that they are fragile.

Don’t Lecture Your Readers

-          by Jodie Renner, who posts craft of fiction articles here on CFC every second Monday.

Have you ever been reading a novel when suddenly the author interrupts the story to give you background or technical information about something, or he/she tries to sneak in some info via a dialogue, only it's really a monologue, with a character going on for a half page or more, uninterrupted, lecturing about something? Fortunately, this rarely happens to this extent anymore. Unlike 100 years ago, today's readers of fiction won't stand for this kind of heavy-handed, clunky imparting of information within a story.

Savvy authors know that readers choose fiction to be entertained and swept away by a compelling story. Stopping to fill them in on a topic as an aside jars them out of the story, slows down the pace, and runs the risk of boring many of them. If readers want to find out more information on a subject, they can do that very easily these days, through internet searches.

So unless you’re writing a historical saga like those of James Michener, or the one I’m reading right now, New York by Edward Rutherfurd, where readers welcome background info on historically relevant times and locations, I don't think fiction is the place to interrupt the story to insert a lot of detail on a particular subject. And of course, if you are writing a saga, it's best to include the info in a natural, character-specific way, so it doesn’t come across like a history textbook. (See below for some hints.)

So be careful not to dump a bunch of factual information willy-nilly into your story. A novel or short story is no place to give a lecture on a technical subject –- or to get on your soapbox about a topic that's dear to your heart or makes your blood boil. Readers will feel annoyed, patronized or manipulated, when what they really want is to be entertained and captivated by your tale.

Here's why most readers of contemporary fiction don't like having their story interrupted by author explanations:

• It takes them out of the character’s viewpoint, so the illusion of being right there in the story is shattered.
• It creates a jarring interruption to the story line, which you then have to re-establish, and hook your readers back in.
• Readers may feel you’re lecturing them or preaching to them, which has no place in fiction.
• It’s distracting, annoying, and often boring.

What about info that’s essential or relevant to your story? There are ways to slip that in without interrupting the narrative flow or dumping a pile of information on the readers. For example:

• Your viewpoint character has to recall some critical information she once knew, and works to remember or find it.

• Your protagonist asks another character (or several) to fill him in on some info he’s fuzzy on –- but be sure it’s in a conversational way, and keep the information-imparting as brief as possible. (more on this below)

• Your protagonist is researching critical information on the computer or in the library. Show what she learns as thoughts or in dialogue –- but only what is essential for the plotline. And give her emotional reaction to what she’s learned, and to how the new info changes things.

•  Your character is interviewing people to solve a problem. Show some of the interview in real time, with dialogue.

• She’s reading the newspaper or watching the news or other TV show, where she learns some new information on a subject.

• For backstory, use flashbacks and play them in real time.
  

And of course, don’t let your characters lecture or pontificate in dialogue, either. It’s just not natural, and will bore the readers just as much as an author aside or intrusion. Avoid “info dumps” in the guise of dialogue –- in real life, no one likes to be lectured to in a casual conversation. Replace long monologues of information with questions and answers or a lively discussion, and keep it relevant to the scene question. And, for more interest, insert some tension in the give-and-take –- a little (or a lot of) arguing about facts, or their significance, for example.

So if you need to give your readers some background or essential information, work it in as you go along, in natural, brief, interesting ways, with lots of interaction and some tension or out-and-out conflict. And perhaps rethink whether any more detailed information is really needed in your story. Remember, if any readers want to know more, they can always google the topic. Leave the lectures for the classroom, articles, or nonfiction books –- the goal of fiction is to entertain the readers with a riveting story. Period.

What are your thoughts on this, as a reader or a writer? Agree? Disagree? Why?

Writers - what are some techniques you've used successfully to impart some information to your readers without interrupting the narrative flow?

 
Jodie Renner, a sought-after freelance editor, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Writing a Killer Thriller and Fire up Your Fiction, which has won two awards to date, and is a finalist for two more. Her third book in the series, Captivate Your Readers, will be out in fall 2014. For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, her group blogs, The Kill Zone and Crime Fiction Collective, and find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. To be the first to hear when Jodie's next book is out and to receive links to valuable, timely blog posts, sign up for her newsletter here.