Owe Nothing: Two Reviewer’s voices help me to listen to my own…

Read sample chapters or purchase Owe Nothing online

In January, I entered an excerpt from my novel, Owe Nothing, in the 2010 ABNA Amazon Fiction Contest. I held no expectations of success – at least that’s what I told myself going in. There were 5,000 entries along with me, in the General Fiction category – to me, it seemed like a big field.

In March, I learned that Owe Nothing had succeeded to the next round, along with 999 other contestants. I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t happy about that!

The underlying question motivating me to enter a contest like this must have been ” How good is my book, really?” I spent years writing it, paragraph by paragraph, with little to no outside input as the first draft came together.

I finally started getting feedback in April 2008, after Owe Nothing was finally published. I would never disparage the opinions of the readers who’ve been kind enough to offer me their feedback on it. They went cover to cover, as far as I can tell, and seemed to enjoy the story, and I appreciate that. Most of the feedback I’ve received has been enthusiastic and positive, and I must say, gratifying or even comforting. But, my eyes are open – Steinbeck, I ain’t. I tell myself that I can see myself clearly, and that I’m a relative babe in the woods in the world of fiction.

All the same, I was a bit disappointed to learn in March that I’d not advanced to the next round in the ABNA contest. 500 writers advanced, and I was not among them. I shrugged this off, swallowing a tiny dose of disappointment.

To set the scene for the reviewer’s comments, the excerpt I submitted was from the second or third chapter, where the main character, Jack, and his pal, Parm, have been called into their boss’s office at the Paradise Car Wash. Their boss, Bill, wants to recruit them into a covert group of evening vigilantes called “The Insiders”, who are engaged in spying and courier operations all over greater Vancouver. Parm and Jack are not convinced by Bill’s offer, so Bill plays them a recording from a man called “Ed”, who explains their mission in idealistic, somewhat moralistic terms that resonate with Jack more than Parm.

After this, Bill takes them out to his storage shed behind the car wash and shows them the bullet-riddled car that belonged to the last operative – a man who’d recently left his employ very abruptly. Bill might have been trying to discourage them with this evidence.

Later, away from Bill’s office, Jack and Parm have a long discussion about the risks and benefits of joining the Insiders, and the possible motives of their handlers.

A few days after learning that I’d been eliminated from the ABNA competition, I received an email from the contest advising me that there were reviews written about my submission. I was curious to know what the judges or reviewers of the ABNA contests thought, so I went online to read them. Having been written by ‘Professional Reviewers’, I knew Iwould give their feedback some weight. Plus, I was waaaay curious to read what they had to say.

The first review from ABNA said that the “dialogue between the two individuals trying to figure out whether to take the vague offer to do the angel’s work ” was the strongest aspect of the piece, and that the weakest was “the recorded voice giving directions and reassuring the operatives that they’re doing good”, which was considered to be “very reminiscent of the TV show Charlie’s Angels”. This reviewer felt that Owe Nothing was “good, well-written” and “creates some tension, but I’m not quite sure where it is going at this point”.

The second review from ABNA said that the excerpt “has trite dialogue with phony dialect and inflection”, and felt that the story was unoriginal, too focused on the inner monologue of one character, and too derivative of “tough guy, private eye fiction”.

The reviewer that gave the more positive review seemed curious about how the story would progress. The other reviewer was turned off, and not interested in reading the rest of the story.

Now, some personal admissions of my own:

  • I have steeped myself in old-school “tough guy, private eye fiction” over the years, particularly the now dated, but undeniable masters of the genre, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
  • Contemporary writers like Brad Smith and Elmore Leonard have also been influential.
  • To a certain degree, I have consciously set out to write like them. Perhaps that’s just a symptom of a novice in a beloved genre. It’s fair to ask myself if this emulation serves the story or just serves my own personal enjoyment.
  • I do indeed write to amuse myself, first and foremost.

I must also admit that after I wrote that scene in Bill’s office, I did chuckle at the similarity to “Charlie’s Angels”. Looking back, maybe this was a kind of vague parody – a tongue-in-cheek homage to aspects of low-brow TV detective fiction that could have subliminally influenced me.

I’m fairly philosophical about this kind of feedback. Some people dislike low-brow dialogue (or perhaps more accurately, dated, or poorly-executed low-brow dialogue), and some accept it. I really don’t take myself all that seriously, but I’ll admit that the first few chapters of Owe Nothing are written with less confidence and more self-consciousness than the rest of the book. Maybe I shouldn’t try too hard to make characters (or the voice of the story) sound a certain way.

I pondered all this while watching “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”, Steve Martin and Carl Reiner’s hilarious tribute to (and parody of) 40s tough guy detective movies. After I watched it, I did begin to notice that some of the idioms and colloquialisms uttered by Raymond Chandler’s character, “Philip Marlowe”, in his novels seemed a bit overdone, or too much of their time.

I think that all feedback can be potentially positive if you can learn something useful from it. I’m going to keep on studying, and keep on writing. Jack Owen has a few more stories to tell, and if he keeps at it, they will probably get better and better.

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Owe Nothing: a different look at life in Vancouver…

Recently, people from all over the world have been watching Vancouver, BC perform at its best, and there certainly is a lot to be proud of.

This city has many sides to it, and truly, no two people experience this town in the same way.

Owe Nothing is a non-mainstream look at this city: an adventure novel based upon real people and places that I knew when my family lived in dodgy Vancouver Motels for over a year. The names of the people in Owe Nothing are fictionalized, but the events and feelings are based in reality…

Meet a few of the characters…

Jack Owen:

A young guy looking for adventure, and an escape from his lower-class rut. By accepting a bizarre job offer, he soon discovers that the back alleys and rooftops of East Vancouver hold more mysteries than he may be able to hide from his Dad or his Sister.

Parminder Singh:

Jack’s buddy from work, and his companion through some bizarre surveillance tasks that they’ve been recruited to do for a man they’ve never even met. Parm’s not sure if this is on the up and up, but he’ll do it for the money.

Mike and Chris Coffey:

Brothers, and friends of Jack from the neighbourhood. They’ve got to find a way to get rid of their violent alcoholic step-father Ted, without their mother Regina finding out. Maybe Jack can help them…?

The Reviews are Good:

Readers have given me some very positive feedback:

“Awesome”, “Engaging, endearing… with a deft humorous touch”, “a great read!”, “A real coming-of-age story”, “Vancouver is a city without much appreciation for its history… you’ve rendered a great service with such a vivid picture of that time and place”

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Owe Nothing has Advanced in Amazon’s 2010 Breakthrough Novel Awards

A good start: I’m excited to report that Owe Nothing is now one of 1000 entries that has advanced to the second round in Amazon’s 2010 Breakthrough Novel Awards!

This fiction contest is sponsored by Amazon and Penguin USA. I’ll keep you posted…

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Owe Nothing, reviewed by Apex Reviews

On February 23rd, Owe Nothing received a great review from Apex Reviews:

You can download the full review here.

[callout title=”Reviews Callout”]”With an effective balance of wit and suspense, Owe Nothing is an equally compelling and entertaining read. In skillful fashion, author E. John Love has crafted an enjoyable tale of a lovable loser in search of a bit of adventure. In Jack, Love has created quite the sympathetic protagonist: a ne’er-do-well everyman with which readers from all backgrounds are sure to relate. An engaging, endearing tale with a deft humorous touch, Owe Nothing is a rewarding literary treat.”
– Renee Washburn, Apex Reviews[/callout]

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An excerpt from my next novel, “The Two Sisters”

The following little scene is from my second novel, a work in progress tentatively titled “The Two Sisters”.

This will be a sequel to my first novel, “Owe Nothing”. I hope you enjoy this little preview…

“Jack looked down at his plate, still preoccupied with thoughts of the Paradise Car Wash. He wondered what to eat next. The more he sat back and thought about the Paradise, the more crazy the whole thing seemed, as if the farther away he got from the place, the more different (and maybe more objective) his view of it became. The idea that a car wash could front for a secret operation which fed information to law enforcement (or god knows who else) sounded utterly fantastic and completely ridiculous. Car wash attendants acting as amateur field operatives – it was like something out of a bad novel, except it became all too real once he was hip-deep in some operation with Parm. As unlikely as it seemed, it had turned out to be financially rewarding and exciting work, and on more than one occasion, Jack had proven himself to be surprisingly adept at spying on people and appearing natural while recording the sights and sounds around him. Even though the idea of skulking around old warehouses or creeping down dirty alleys would never have appealed to him if anyone had suggested it, once he’d started doing the night-time work as one of Bill’s Insiders, he was amazed to learn that in practice, he got a huge rush when doing something that could be considered dangerous or even illegal. It was a weird thrill, and a guilty, secret pleasure.

Jim looked at his quiet son and wondered what was eating him, and why he was eating his dinner. Then Kelly noticed her Dad’s interest and looked over to Jack as well. “You’re not still working at that car wash, are you Jack?” she asked. Kelly had always tried to be supportive of her little brother, but it used to grate on him that she’d never thought very much of that job.”

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Real ink on paper? Where’s it going?

In my life, I wonder if ink on paper is slipping away from me, just a little bit. There’s something reassuring about a newspaper: you know what it is, it’s size and shape and depth are self-evident.

Yet, I now receive much more info each day on my Pre than I could ever read (or need to, for that matter). Online news text has replaced the newspaper for me. I have never subscribed to one of the local dailies, and rarely pick one up. I think that eventually, I’m going to do most of my reading on my handheld.

Podcasts (mostly the CBC) and MP3 music files have started to replace my radio. It seems like more motorists listen to the radio than others, these days. (I’m just guessing…)

The “convergence” that people have referred to in mass media is the tri-fold convergence of broadcast, print and computer technologies. At leat, that’s what I learned back in Media Class, back in 1988. Like Vannevar Bush’s idea of a “Universal Machine”, computers and digital tech have co-opted, transformed and consumed the roles of older analog media. Digital is a medium for media, or a medium about other media. A meta-media?

Now, is the “convergence” truly occurring between my mind and the Internet? It seems like that digital immediacy that I’ve become used to in the past 5 years is the kinds of convenience that’s most likely to change my perception of the world around me.

http://www.cs.sfu.ca/CC/365/mark/material/notes/Chap1/VBushArticle/vbush-all.html

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A Metaphor for the Creative Writing Process…? (Part 2)

So, finally, here’s an answer to one of the questions I posed earlier:

“Am I really writing more for myself, or more for my (hypothetical) reader?”

The answer to this is both.

I certainly write for myself, as a creative outlet (“I gotta be me”), a personal challenge (“Can it be done?”, or more to the point, “Is it any good?”), etc. That is my selfish personal development stuff, exorcising itself.

For my reader (you know who you are, and I look forward to finding a few more like you), I hope there are engaging-enough characters presented, in an interesting and sympathetic world that makes you want to return. I want the people, places, circumstances and imagery to resonate with you.

Actually, I want to visit these people and worlds again myself too.

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Process: Wiggle out of that corner, writer boy

Joseph Campbell wrote about “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”. I just had an image of my next novel having a few of its own faces too – maybe not a thousand, but perhaps half a dozen or so.

Okay – dynamics, not faces. (So much for that lousy metaphor. Maybe I just wanted to invoke Campbell.)

Okay… not six. three. I’ve got three dynamics to my storytelling.
Here they are:

1. Framework: The Laws of my Universe

My story has a skeleton, a framework, a basic structure upon which everything else is mounted. For me, this structure helps to define the “physics” of the world in which one or more events take place. My particular framework has a few premises, such as “you can’t fly or change the laws of physics”, “people are born, live, and die”, and many other premises that make the world of the story resemble my own reality to a large degree.

Psychologically, in some cases, dreams or imagination can be just as real or have as much impact on my characters as their waking experiences.

Real-life experience, or research that results in plausible actions and events – cause and effect – is what drives the creation of the framework, and helps to determine it’s structure.
Thank God for Google. I do not know how people researched things before it.

2. Believability: Dancing on the Edge

Once I’ve have established a plausible-sounding story framework, I feel that any fantastic-sounding elements which I introduce don’t need to be overly fantastic in order to surprise, or hopefully entertain, my reader. I think that this juxtaposition of expectations is similar to how the same middle-tone colour can appear to be darker or lighter in tone, when placed next to black of white. In other words, context is key. But how much unreality is tolerable? How much camp and wit is acceptable? How many cliffhangers can the reader stand? That kind of exciting stuff rarely happens to me. How much unbelievability is believable?

3. Dialogue and Characterization: “What are you lookin’ at, Bub?”

How should people talk and behave and react to the things that happen to them? Admittedly, this is largely subjective territory, although in some ways, this aspect, which encompasses things like culture, age, society, “life” experience, and strong plot-lines, is connected to and driven by (or perhaps just interacts with?) the “Framework” aspect and the essential laws of my world.

Sometimes, this aspect of writing becomes easy and almost automatic, and for me, occasionally emerges almost spontaneously, almost from within itself. Some dialogue or setup scenes emerge in a blur, like raw material forced through a die into an extrusion that seems to have just the exact profile that’s needed at the moment – a “Fuzzy Pumper Writing Factory”. This experience is a major high in the process for me, emotionally.

At other times, writing is like digging a well with your fingernails – a real tough claw through very hard and stubborn territory. That’s where I end up questioning myself as a writer, questioning my raw material – my past (that well that appears too dry to give me anything useful at the moment), and questioning my endurance as a writer. At these times, writing feels like a real elusive bitch-goddess… That’s when I find myself going back to do more research, or seeking inspiration from other writers or from stories in other media, or just dropping the project for a little while.

But man, when I can get it so I can see that character’s face, smell their hair, their cigarette smoke, and can see right through their skull into their minds, it feels like I know exactly what to say for them. When that happens, the well runneth over, and the paragraphs seem to grow and grow.

That’s when it’s fun to write.

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Writing the novel was fun! Marketing it… not so much.

…but that’s life, right?

In my naivete, back in the heady days April 2009, I imagined that the act of publishing my novel “Owe Nothing” would automatically bring some level of attention, and – more importantly to me – some new readers.

Money is great, but to me, it’s a by-product of the other success: popularity.

Back in 2008, as I slowly reached the final editing stage and started thinking about the publishing process, I wondered how and if my little book would make some kind of splash in “the market”. I barely understood what “the market” is, much less had a plan for penetrating it successfully.

(Hm. Let me rewrite that last bit…)

…much less had a plan for joining it successfully.

(That’s better.)

A few things I’ve learned or opinions I’ve formed since April 17, 2009, when my book first went live on the Internet:

  • I probably expect too much from the webbed world, for my sporadic e-marketing efforts. As with my personal web projects, I am throwing a pebble into the sea, not a boulder. The initial splash and it’s ripples won’t be noticed amidst all the other motion of the ocean.
  • In many ways, it is the author or their personality or reputation that are being marketed, more than the work itself. Am I prepared to market myself in this way? I’ve certainly had a life worth telling. Is that the hook that will get people’s attention?
  • I only need between 100 to 1000 fans. There are, I don’t know, millions of authors out there, vying for attention! Good god – how would I ever be heard in a room that size? I am trying to find smaller groups, more targeted to me and my stories. “Sniper marketing”, instead of a weapon of mass promotion. (Gee, I hate that metaphor.)
  • Physically, books have a long lifespan. In popular terms, less so, unless you can stir up their relevance in some way. A book can be a flash in the media, and then linger in old age in discount bins and archives for many years. Maybe all I can hope for is that copies of my book will outlive me…
  • I want feedback, commentary and reviews. Me and my jangly nerves survived the critiques back in art school. I’m ready. This is all part of the growth and refinement process. But, I must go outand make an effort to solicit the feedback I need. It won’t come to me, and many ways, won’t come for free.
  • At the end of the day, the story’s the thing. I’m not in this to be a marketer or a salesman for my own wares. I’m in this to try and affect people and connect to them by telling my own story, thinly veiled behind some entertaining avatars.
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Process: Casting a play with composite characters…

My first novel, Owe Nothing, was finally published on April 17, 2009. This is, of course, the achievement of a personal goal that took me years to accomplish (I write slowly). It’s also an accomplishment in how it has allowed me to continue writing about my family history, using surrogate characters instead of directly writing about the real people.

Owe Nothing takes scraps and bits of my own personality and embeds them into the main character, a twenty-ish young man named Jack Owen, and to a lesser degree, his father Jim. Jim embodies little pieces of my Dad (also Jim) and of my brother David. Aspects of my sister Kim live on in the characters of Jack’s older sister Kelly, and in Regina Coffey, whose struggles with her abusive partner Ted form a central theme in the book. Old men look back with regret on the mistakes and losses from their past, women struggle in abusive relationships, and young people try to learn about who they are and where they are going in their lives.

The list goes on and on and on through the dozen or more characters that appear throughout the novel. Structurally, it represents the method and challenge that I put to myself when originally embarking on this long writing project: How can I use the memories, emotional energy, joy, anguish, smells, temperatures and opinions from my scattered memories, and form them into a cohesive and compelling story.

Almost like a form of psychological recycling; taking images and impressions from my past, reforming and refocusing them, and spinning them out there in a new form. My hope is that it will result in a story that others will recognize and enjoy – something that resonates outside of its pages.

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