Novels and other fiction by Vancouver writer and designer E. John Love
What does it mean when the major online retailer of books and movies is getting into the content production business? It’s more industry convergence that proves that “content is king”, even when it’s crowdsourced…
I think that Amazon is doing a kind of Zeroes2Heroes approach to getting original content, but on a bigger, Amazon scale: promises of “options”, coupled with free (but strings attached, I think) tools like their Storyteller storyboarding app and online network.
Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to sit down with Canadian author Jay Clarke (aka “Michael Slade”).
He’s a former lawyer and the author of over a dozen crime novels, in a genre sometimes referred to as “Mountie Noir”. (It’s a great label – almost as good, IMHO, as “Tartan Noir”, which refers to Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin.)
Mr. Clarke is currently doing a Writer in Residence at Vancouver Community College, and during that time is making himself available for one-to-one’s with students and staff, as well as conducting some presentations or classes. Check out his personal “Special-X” website.
What did I learn from talking with Michael Slade?
Michael Slade appears highly energized, with a laser-like focus and a rapidity of speech akin to a machine-gun. In answering my questions, he flowed breathlessly from one story to the next, in effect raising me up out of my chair a little, buoyed on his waves of enthusiastic patter. The man has a lot to say, and says it with a quickness and precision that had me picturing him sweet-talking many a jury back in his day.
I had hoped to ask him some questions such as who his favourite writers were, what fiction had influenced him, etc. I had considered my questions around in my mind, but I never asked them. I never even got close to ’em. That’s because when I spoke, my mouth began telling him about how I hoped to find an Agent or a small publisher to help me repackage and market my first novel. I suppose this is what I was really frustrated by – a lack of success in selling my books.
What he told me was this: the eBook revolution is still a work in progress. The market will soon “tip over”, and eBook sales will eclipse print book sales entirely – not just at Amazon, but everywhere in the market. The tablet and eReader markets are making this happen, and the traditional publishing industry will be changed forever.
What does it boil down to?
My efforts as a novelist are split down the middle by an important boundary, One the one side (the side I love and am blindly devoted to), there lives me, the caring creator, trying to formulate and legitimize a mythical world of characters and events through the written word. On the other side, there’s this realm of unknown results and lack of predictability, where I stuff little messages into bottles and fling them out into the sea, hoping for one of my books to get purchased. On the first side of the boundary, the one where I’m synthesizing out of fragments, I’m in familiar territory. I know I can do it and have confidence that my skill will improve over time with lots of practice. On the other side, it feels like a no-man’s land, with me flailing around in the dark.
All the same, the aspect of both those things is the concept of me remaining in control of the work and the process. Above all, that is what appeals to me the most.
The books I’m trying to write (and Jay, if you read the copy I handed you of my little novel, Owe Nothing, then bless you sir), are vastly different in content, pace, and tone from anything by Michael Slade, whose last novel, Red Sun was described by one reviewer as “Ian Fleming-esque in its narrative drive”. I am still developing my voice.
But, we’re all working in the shadow of the same industry-changing technological tide that is putting more emphasis on writers becoming their own publishers, and paper turning into pixels.
The stigma attached to self-publishing (“vanity press”) is eroding as more readers and writers get involved online, and as the barriers to “getting published” continue to transform.
Jay Clarke also named quite a few famous authors who initially self-pubbed (Mark Twain?) or who had struggled for decades before their big book came (Elmore Leonard!). He mentioned that every author tends to compare himself to another whom he admires, whether newer or older. We’re all influenced or inspired by somebody else.
I believe what Michael Slade was telling me was essentially this: Don’t quit. Keep trying, and keep control of your work, because the sea change is coming…
Have gaming and interactive storytelling finally matured to a new level? This is the impression I’m left with after reading reviews and watching clips from Rockstar/Team Bondi’s impressive new game, “L.A. Noire”.
Granted, I’m no gamer. Hell, I’m practically a neophyte. In the last year, I’ve probably spent more time playing Bejewelled and Angry Birds on my Palm Pre than I have playing any 3D first-person shooter on any platform in the past ten years. Remember Doom, Jedi Knight? I played those a fair bit, back in the nineties. I also spent hours exploring Second Life. That’s about as immersed as I ever got. Good times, but a bit meager compared to active gamers, but that’s pretty much my gamer cred.
Convergence of Pulp Fiction, Cinema and Gaming
Seeing a game that looks like a cross between an animated Raymond Chandler novel and the movie L.A. Confidential really piqued my curiosity. I think that the nature of the content – the hard-boiled detective genre and the quality of presentation – is what has drawn my attention to L.A. Noire. I love social realist authors like John Steinbeck and I’ve been reading classic hard-boiled detective fiction for years too.
From golden-age masters like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and cold-war veterans like Ian Fleming, John D. McDonald, and John LeCarre, through to modern crime writers like Elmore Leonard and Ian Rankin – the crime fiction genre is still alive and well in the written word. TV has, of course, made it even more prevalent. Is there anyone in the western world who hasn’t watched an episode of “Law and Order” on TV by now? I doubt it.
I’m probably the new audience that the game creators were hoping to attract, along with the folks who already play 3D games. I think that L.A. Noire is definitely a “crossover” game – an attempt to draw readers and cinema-goers into gaming. From a marketing perspective, the ads I’ve seen for L.A. Noire definitely emphasize the action-adventure aspect, showing lots of gun-play and violence, obviously aimed at existing gamers who are still at the core of its potential market.
However, the “How-to” videos I’ve seen of L.A. Noire remind me of the behind-the-scenes extras you’d get on a special edition DVD of your favourite movie. Here, production values, innovation and name-brand performers are all promoted and explained, which adds a new level of credibility. Overall, L.A. Noire and its marketing and promotion seem to have a very strong cinematic feel.
A More Mature Approach?
If 3D gaming were a coin with GTA on one side, Noire could be the other side, opposite in goals and attitude. In Noire, you play a cop fighting corruption and lawlessness, instead of embracing it as in GTA. The major emphasis of Noire seems to be on strategy, deduction, and observation, and not just action, although it still has a good deal of that. The soundtrack is different too, made up of period jazz and swing music that probably wouldn’t appeal to many younger gamers. Overall, it feels like this is a gaming experience that was designed as a cinematic period piece, for a more patient, mature audience.
From the promo clips and walk-throughs that I’ve seen so far, there also seems to be a higher-level of artistic maturity and (IMHO) name-brand performance involved in L.A. Noire than in previous Rockstar games, like GTA. (Set me straight if I’m wrong about that, GTA players. You know better than me.)
The creators of L.A. Noire say that the ability to use your emotional intelligence is a major factor in succeeding in this game. Because of the effectiveness with which characters in L.A. Noire portray realistic facial expressions and body motion, you can actually decide if a character is lying to you or is telling the truth based upon their facial ticks, dodgy eyes, or body language.
Aren’t these all emotional intelligence and empathetic skills? I remember reading about how the military would use 3D gaming platforms to develop combat training scenarios for young soldiers? Are sensitivity, social skills and good judgement now the skills that gamers will require to win? Can games now help a gamer develop those skills? I find that possibility totally fascinating.
Similar to how comic books shrugged off their childish associations from the 1940s to evolve into complex, challenging graphic novels written for a college crowd, 3D gaming may be evolving closer to cinema. At least in the case of L.A. Noire, 3D gaming seems to be growing up.
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To observe and comment on your life and world, you need to have a certain amount of objectivity – detachment – from it. If you’re too-comfortably living inside your world, you really can’t see the outside shape of it.
To observe and comment on your life and world, you need to have a certain amount of objectivity – detachment – from it. If you’re too-comfortably living inside your world, I don’t think that you really can see the outside shape of it. You’re too close to it.
On Having an Outsiders View of Things
By outsider, I’m thinking of someone who goes against societal norms, conventions or values, especially in cases where they wish to help someone else who is less fortunate.
Dickens and David Copperfield
I tried to read Copperfield back when I was about twelve. We had inherited a few classics in old hardcover editions, which I’m guessing could have been from the early teens of the century. Being something of a fetishist for old things, I took David Copperfield and Huckleberry Finn to my bookshelf, like a thief in the night. I wish I still had those old books. I got through Huck Finn without any trouble, but Dickens’ complex, florid style stopped me cold after a few pages, and I never went back, until recently. Thirty years later.
Anyway, Dickens had really gotten to me when I finished reading Copperfield last month. It struck me just how much I felt in agreement with the social values that he communicated through his characters. He boldly ran counter to the class-snobbery of his day, imbuing the poorest folk with the purest ethics and strongest character. David felt compassion for others, and tried to help them even when he himself would suffer because of it. Especially, Dickens seemed to care for the suffering of children living in poverty.
I recall one character (maybe Wilkins Macawber?) stating that you cannot judge a book by its cover. As a young lad, David was not well-off at all, and went out of his way to demonstrate character traits that one wouldn’t expect from such a young person. I heard David’s voice in my head, throughout the course of his “life” in the novel, and identified with his ethics, humanity, strengths and weaknesses.
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep, and More…
The two Raymond characters who stand out in my mind the most are probably his most famous: Phillip Marlowe, and The Continental Op. Marlowe’s clear-minded, almost weary cynicism, and keen observations of the weaknesses in the ethics of others fascinates me. At first, I found some of Chandler’s use of period vernacular to be too frequent (almost to the point of obscuring meaning, rather than accentuating the colour of it), although I’ve come to appreciate how skilled he was at it, and how difficult it is to create punchy, compelling and rich dialogue that portrays the personalities, motivations and world of each character. Chandler wrote as if he was having fun with his colourful, smirking, almost expressionistic similes. You were allowed to accept his artistic license with tongue in cheek. Marlowe seemed a bit too flipant or devil-may-care, but he was no chump, and neither were you, thanks to Chandler. (I think the makers of the James Bond movies used this same kind of flippant tone. Ian Fleming did not, in his original novels, although he admitted to being a big fan of Raymond Chandler.)
Jeff Lindsay’s “Darkly Dreaming Dexter”
Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter Morgan (you know – from that TV series?) is a unique mix of cold-blooded serial killer and objective observer of the human condition. He’s bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the emotions of his friends (and his victims), and searching to validate his own existence. He kind of sees himself as the trash collector of the universe, killing those most despicable monsters – child killers, rapists, pedophile priests – whom he decides deserve it, according to The Code of Harry.
Dexter is highly intelligent, wryly funny, and in many ways, truly superior, and yet, he is bereft of real emotional reactions (i.e. sociopathic), so plays an elaborate game of pretend in order to pass as normal to his coworkers and the rest of the waking world.
Something in Common with Uncommon Voices?
What is it that makes me feel kinship to someone who died well before I was born? I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed David Copperfield, and hearing Dickens’ voice. Chandler’s voice acts on me similarly: I feel a familiar personality at work in my head, some recognizable territory that I’ve visited in the past, but remains a little fresh each time I see it again.
I think that the intimate, personal sense of recognition that I have with these two authors has a lot to do with their characters’ first-person perspective: David Copperfield, The Big Sleep (and all the other Phillip Marlowe stories I’ve read by Chandler), and Darkly Dreaming Dexter are all written in the first person. It’s incredibly personal, intimate and effective – putting the reader right into the protagonist’s point of view.
Perhaps because I live in my head so much of the time, I enjoy living in someone else’s head in the same way.
I enjoyed this article by Nilofar Ansher. It deals with the way new media and technology play a role in moving the control of opinion away from from critics and specialists and into the hands of consumers.
In fact, consumers are ever-more becoming producers. I think this is the real shift: the audience is not only listening, they’re talking back.
I enjoyed this article by Nilofar Ansher. It deals with the way new media and technology play a role in moving the control of opinion away from from critics and specialists and into the hands of consumers.
In fact, consumers are ever-more becoming producers. I think this is the real shift: the audience is not only listening, they’re talking back.
I found this article to be a very useful, first-hand account of the challenges and advantages of self-publishing.
I think that opinion tends to be divided between those who feel that eBooks are opening new opportunities for readers and writers, and those who feel that the eReader medium is still too immature and under-refined compared to paper books and traditional book publishing and book selling.
This fellow’s travails in self-publishing and book marketing provide a practical example of the pros and cons of being an independent author and book publisher.
In the spirit of “try before you buy”, I invite you to read a preview of my novel, Owe Nothing, on Google Books.
Owe Nothing is my non-mainstream look at Vancouver: an adventure novel based upon real people and places that I knew when my family lived in dodgy Kingsway Motels for over a year. The names of the people in Owe Nothing are fictionalized, but the people and events are inspired by reality…
All ow me to introduce a few of the main 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…?
Check out the rest of Owe Nothing, on Google Books.
I read this 2010 Survey of Book Buying Behaviour that gave some interesting stats on eReader adoption rates among book buyers. Compared to buyers of printed books, eBook purchasers are a small lot, but growing every day.
The survey said, among other things, that of the 9800 some-odd people surveyed…
My impression of book marketing is that my message is effectively a pebble thrown into the ocean. I must make a much larger splash for my ripples to be noticed out of all the rest of the masses of motion in the ocean.
One article I read said there are 1 million books being published in print each year. That is a massive number. A publishing house employee was quoted as saying “that’s too many books”.
So, as an Author and book seller, it makes some sense to move out of the ocean and inhabit a smaller body of water, where there is less competition. In other words, to some degree, become a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Publishing for eReader platforms seems to be a simpler and more economical way to accomplish that, while at the same time, giving an Author an inexpensive (and almost immediate) publishing platform. And, distribution is to an audience who can control what they want to see to a greater degree than their bookstore-visiting cousins.
Similar to an opt-in email list, an eReader (or a Smartphone or PC running eReader software) is an opt-in platform. It displays content and content categories that are largely defined or controlled by the reader. The online bookseller (say, Amazon) wants to facilitate a sale quickly and easily, by feeding the eReader user book suggestions that match their interests. So not only are eReader users a smaller audience, but they are potentially a more focused, loyal audience, because their personal needs are being discovered and cultivated in real-time. Online content is catered more to their needs, and delivered in almost no time – barriers to entry are very low…
Is an eReader or tablet in your future, or mine? I think it’s very likely. What do you think?
What’s the right price, relative to the cover price of the printed edition, or relative to the expectations of the eReader market?
This is something I must resolve for myself: when I publish “Owe Nothing” in eBook format (which I am going to do fairly soon), what is the best price? I’ve seen eBooks on sale for $0.00, $0.99, $2.99, $4.99 and so on.
Aside from resolving this particular quandry, I’m beginning to see that eBooks represent a huge benefit to the author-seller: no shipping costs, no inventory, and no re-ordering from the publisher. Admittedly, the burgeoning growth of eBooks, eReaders and a new author-based publishing market (compared to some noticeable declines in sales for traditional publishers) is an exciting prospect.
http://www.secure-ebook.com/blog/post/2006/12/12/3-ebook-pricing
I tend to write the most and the best when the process is driven by a personal memory or feeling – something that might have been evoked by a unexpected sound or smell, or a memory triggered by that. Sometimes, a new perspective or pattern of thought evolves, which was brought on by a recurrence of events during the day.
I tend to write the most and the best when the process is driven by a personal memory or feeling – something that might have been evoked by a unexpected sound or smell, or a memory triggered by that. Sometimes, a new perspective or pattern of thought evolves, which was brought on by a recurrence of events during the day.
When I start digging into this raw material – often unconnected or disjointed – it takes shape as things that one of my fictionalized alter-egos, Jack, Jim, or maybe Mike – might say, do or have a strong opinion about.
Writing from the Gut?
In short, it’s a chain reaction: gut, sensory experience evokes a thought or a theme, which finds resonance inside my current cast of characters, until one or more scenarios begins to form.
This whole process happens in my skull, with often little or no input from outside parties. It’s like writing inside of a cocoon. Research comes later, when I realize that I’ve painted myself into a corner – when I don’t understand a particular aspect of what I’m describing – or if I’m dealing with things and places, rather than people.
Working this way is largely solitary, and I wonder if or how this process may limit me.
Most of my favourite writers are dead.
I’m largely ignorant of “the book market” or popular writers, save for a have dozen of the biggest, most famous names. I’m not up on new fiction, period. Most of my favourite writers are dead. Raymond Chandler. Dashiell Hammett. John Steinbeck. O. Henry. Ernest Hemingway. All dead.
A few writers I like are still kicking.
Canadian crime/adventure author, Brad Smith. I love his blue-collar humour and crime tales. His voice sounds so familiar to me.
Douglas Coupland. I loved Generation X, and I loved Microserfs even more. I relived my own tech bubble meltdowns reading Microserfs. Life After God was pretty good too. (I’m puzzled as to why Coupland needs his own Roots clothing line. Oh well…)
Elmore Leonard. His is a tough, contemporary voice, that reminds me of how much of our cop/crime fiction we get from TV shows like Law and Order.
But, here’s the thing… I’m selfish.
I read often – almost all the time, but I’m really much more interested in writing my own stuff than in reading someone else’s stuff. What does that mean? Does that mean I’m insensitive to readers and writers who aren’t me? Is it Art School all over again, where no project is as fascinating to you as the one you’re currently working on? It’s taken about 14 readings for me to see my own novel, Owe Nothing, in anything resembling an objective light.
I don’t really know. I suppose all I can say is that in time, I will see my audience more clearly, and when I do, I should listen to them as carefully as I can.
