C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

08/04/2010 • 3:27 PM 2

My Top Three (Living) Writing Heroes. Who are Yours?

1. William Goldman: Author of Adventures in the Screen Trade and The Princess Bride. He wrote All the President’s Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and many others. He also wrote my favorite novel, The Color of Light. What sets him apart is his ability to twist a plot. Just when you think you know what will happen next is when he suckerpunches you with a surprise.

2. Kevin Smith: Director, raconteur, actor, comic book writer, Smodcaster. He wrote and directed Clerks starting with nothing at all. That alone makes him a DIY hero, but there’s more to this cat than 1992. He’s funny and smart, but it’s his facility with dialogue that gets him on my list. If it’s got quotes around it, he writes the shit out of it. Also, we could all learn something from his dedication to his fans and his horizons. He started a podcast, took it on the road and now has a regular home for his shows (Smodcastle.) He’s made a lot out of a little with merchandising and owns two comic book stores to boot. The dude knows how to work a keyboard and a fan base. He is loved.

3. Chuck Pahlaniuk: This author of Fight Club started late (early 30s) but is prolific. He has already equalled the number of books Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his lifetime. His fan base is The Cult and he spread a cultural phenomenon once Fight Club hit the public consciousness. He’s on this list because I share his dark sensibility, but my respect for his work goes deeper than that. He’s a very successful author who is willing to push his envelope with experimental fiction. You either love or hate Pygmy, in which the entire text is related through the broken english of a terrorist infiltrating America. Rant is a weird biography. Snuff details the weirdness of a porn shoot in gruesome detail. He’s not trying to do the same book over and over (Yes, I’m looking at you Bret Easton Ellis.) Is it horror or is it funny? The answer depends on the reader.

That’s the first three who came to mind. These three might strike you as strange choices. For instance, where’s Hemingway? Lists like this usually point to dead writers. It’s what I call “generational inertia.” Our english teachers and professors are still talking about a lot of dead writers because that’s who their english teachers and professors talked about. Stephen King won’t be on anybody’s else’s immortality list for years yet (such an idea was sacrilege when I was in university and is merely implausible now.) Yes, I love a lot of dead writers, but they are easily found on lots of other lists.

So the question today is:

Who are the living writers you idolize?

Filed under: Books, Writers, chuck pahlaniuk, Kevin Smith, literary heroes, living writers

07/15/2010 • 9:19 AM 2

Your Favorite Books

On being well-read…that’s all subjective but I recently saw a list of 100 books–classics we should have read by now according to…someone. I read two or three books a week and have done so for years, but apparently not so much from the list designated as most worthwhile by Central Command.

I have read a lot of “classics” (whatever that’s supposed to mean to you) I suppose and there were a bunch from the Top 100 List I was really glad I had read. I loved The Great Gatsby and Crime and Punishment and Lolita, for instance. But I won’t be making a point of reading some of what someone else has decided is a must. I tried Middlemarch and it’s not my cup of pee. It’s just not happening. It was a ghastly foray among some bookstore shelves.

Besides, many of the Must Reads for me wouldn’t be old enough for The List. I love Fight Club and most of Kurt Vonnegut’s work and Bright Lights, Big City. You won’t find The Color of Light on anybody’s top 100 probably, but for my reading time, William Goldman is The Shit, man. (Princess Bride, too.) The Color of Light is about an aspiring writer so, you know, that makes sense, plus it hit me at just the right time.

So…top 100 is a bit impractical,but what’s on your top ten must-read, God-I-loved-that-book list? What’s on your desert island list? Please do share.

Filed under: book reviews, Books, favorite books

07/02/2010 • 9:09 AM 0

Three Tips on How Writers Build Platforms

You need a platform, preferably a big one. You need a website that’s all about the magic that is you and what you have to sell. (Hint: that’s the same thing. You sell yourself first and all your products are secondary. If they don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling.)

1. Be nice. (And if you can’t be that, go work on that. It is possible to succeed without being a decent human being, but I’m not going to be the prick that encourages that sort of nonsense.)

2. Your Facebook page is not the center of your empire. Social Media is a moving landscape. Facebook might not be there five years from now. You scoff, but people who poured their hearts in their Friendster and MySpace pages are scowling about it now. Your website is the center of your empire-to-be.

3. Have Oprah owe you her life, be a world-famous expert on the next hot thing, be a reformed-junkie celebrity or be born to famous abusive parents. If you can’t manage these things, you’ll have to grow your following the old-fashioned way: provide value and help people with their problems.

There’s plenty more to say on this subject. Read it in Christina Katz’s Get Known Before the Book Deal and read How to Become a Famous Author Before You’re Dead by Ariel Gore.

Filed under: Books, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, web reviews, Writers, Books for Writers, How Writers Build Platforms, Writers and marketing, Writers and promotion

06/18/2010 • 12:04 PM 0

cHUCK pAHLANIUK: Relax!

A lot of authors come and go or are trapped in the midlist and never break out, soon to be dumped by their publishers and agents after having their hopes briefly elevated. Others soar briefly, but the brand doesn’t catch on and now industry insiders wink at each other, telling each other the has-been was a flavor of the month. (These same editors, agents and publishers were certain they’d discovered the next Philip Roth not long before.)

Jay McInerney, for instance, wrote three really good books I loved: Ransom, Story of My Life and Bright Lights, Big City (which was made into a very good movie starring Michael J. Fox.) I tried to read the author’s next work but I felt he was suddenly trying to write as if he was an English author from a previous century. His solid stuff exhibited a sharp post-modernist wit but somewhere between his experimental popular fiction and what he wrote afterward, he wandered off. He’s still a successful guy and writes about wine and has made it big in the magazine world. However, he’s unknown to a new generation of readers and so, has become a bit of a footnote. In the 80s, you had to read him. Now? Really optional. He’s got a new book out, so maybe he’s working on a comeback.

Which brings us to: In a recent interview Chuck Pahlaniuk said he still didn’t feel like a success. (Wha–?)

I have proof he is a great success. Of course he wrote Fight Club (and a great movie was made of the book which is so close to the book they lifted almost all the dialogue.) Choke was made into a movie. He’s written quite a few books now actually: Lullaby (liked it), Diary (loved it), Survivor (liked it), Rant (not for me), Snuff (okay), Haunted (okay) Invisible Monsters (not for me) and Stranger the Fiction (really solid and readable.) He could stop there and have about as much output in numbers of books as Kurt Vonnegut had. Nothing to sneeze at.

BUT HERE’S THE PROOF PAHLANIUK IS A SUCCESS:

In a review of Rant (which was laudatory, long and detailed) not once did the reviewer even mention Fight Club!

Chuck. You’ve made it into the pantheon.

Congratulations.

Filed under: book reviews, Books, Writers, books, chuck pahlaniuk, fight club

06/17/2010 • 2:29 PM 0

Premises, Promises and the Payoff

When someone says, “I have a good idea for a story,” they better not just stop at one. It’s not enough for a novel to have a good premise. More good ideas must follow the first. A good book is not just one good idea, but many, strung together in a way that builds and builds to keep the reader reading.

I’ve been trying to enjoy Three Bags Full, a detective story where the detectives are sheep and the victim is their shepherd, who died with a spade through his guts. Ooh, a spade through the guts! Delicious! I must read more, I thought. I wanted to like the book, but it didn’t work out that way.

The comer on the cover was that it’s like Agatha Christie wrote a Wind in the Willows murder mystery. I loved Wind in the Willows and I’ve read some Christie 20 years ago so hey, a match made in heaven. Not baaaaaa-ad! (Get it? Sheep? Not baaaaa-ad? Never mind.)

Alas, experimental fiction can be trying when it belabors the conceit. It’s a good idea that could work well in a short story, but at novel length I’m fading fast…and I’m getting it the easy way on MP3! Save the change. Three bags Full is a good idea…but just one. Halfway through I’m thinking, “Isn’t it time for the little Irish village to have a big Greek feast with lots of lamb chops with mint jelly?”

Good books, like The Wind in the Willows, for instance, have good ideas at every turn and keep you turning those pages. What happens next? And then what? Keep that narrative train moving moving moving. Will Mole and Rat finally run over Mr. Toad with his own car? They never did…which I guess I’m glad of. I remember reading Wind in the Willows late into the night and my mom finally coming in to tell me to go to sleep. “Just five more minutes Mom! I want to find out what happens to Mr. Toad!”

BONUS:

Keep the good ideas coming. There should be tension on every page, or a very good reaason why there’s not.

Filed under: Books, writing tips, books, writing tips

06/12/2010 • 9:01 PM 0

What Happens Next?

If you’re telling a compelling story well, you keep your reader wondering what happens next.

When I don’t know, here’s what I do. I sleep on it. (Wait, it gets better.) Each night before I go to sleep I ask myself what problem (plot problem, character issue, niggling story detail) I want answered when I wake up. When I wake the next morning into that special hypnagogic state between sleep and full wakefulness, I find my answer. The hypnagogic state is a very powerful state of mind where you can be most creative. It allows the subconscious to supply the answer you’re looking for. It really works.

BONUS:

I’ve had several requests from potential freelancers. If you want to be a freelancer, read Jenna Glatzer’s How to Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer. It’s solid advice. There are a ton of these books out there but it’s certainly one of the better ones.

WORD of the DAY UPDATE:

Hagiographic:

A study of the lives of saints or idealizing biographical books.

To paraphrase Steve Martin:

Latin. They’ve got a word for everything.

Filed under: Books, writing tips

06/07/2010 • 11:03 PM 0

Writing Tip

Don’t use the word “epiphany.”

Bolts from the blue should be big enough on their own without the announcement: “Hey, Ted had an epiphany!” It’s the show, don’t tell rule applied to the e-word.

And that’s my epiphany, coming straight at you from the wonderful (if snarky little book) How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman.

Pick it up and read read read.

Filed under: Books, writing tips, epiphany, writing tip

06/07/2010 • 3:31 PM 0

Breaking Bad & Surprise Twists

Last night Breaking Bad’s ending exemplified one of the best aspects of a well-crafted story: surprise.

William Goldman (author of The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, All the President’s Men among many others) is the master of the twisted plot. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, he suckerpunches you. In my favorite novel, The Color of Light, Goldman surprises the reader in the last few words, just when you thought you were safe from any more surprises. I love that.

And, for the same reasons, I love Breaking Bad, Sunday nights on AMC. Watch it.

BONUS: Read Ken Levine’s blog about the surprise ending of Newhart (and how they pulled it off.)

Filed under: Books, Writers, writing tips, Breaking Bad, Newhart, plot twists, The Princess Bride, William Goldman

05/21/2010 • 6:39 PM 0

The Best Book Ever. It’s harder than it looks.

I just stumbled across this courtesy of YouTube and Lev at Ingredientx.com. Isn’t it great to run across the unexpected and there you are suddenly delighted to be alive?

Filed under: Books

05/20/2010 • 11:59 PM 1

Make Your Life Literary

Books on writing abound and at a certain point, there’s a lot of overlap. I’ve bought so many that I’m beginning to recognize the reflex for what it is: procrastination disguised as education. My shelves are groaning for me to stop, but that’s just crazy talk. (As with all addicts, I say I can quit any time I want…just not now.)

However, Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See is different. This isn’t a day in the life of somebody camping out at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This is somebody who teaches writing, applies for grants and has faced literary difficulty.She’s in the trenches. You’ll like her. You don’t have staff and neither does she.

There’s a lot of advice here you won’t see elsewhere. She’s a great advocate of building relationships with people in the business. You can protest and lament that it’s about who you know, or you can get out there with a campaign of “charming notes” to get to know people.

My favorite book on writing is Stephen King’s On Writing (if you haven’t got that already, you now have two books to go out and buy.) However, King’s a bit removed from the struggles of the mid-list from his perch up there in the stratosphere. See has a wry wit. She’s naked and vivisected on the buffet table so writers and would-be writers can learn from the exposed anatomy of her striving. She talks about mechanics and this insane and improbable business in an accessible way you’ll love. No wonder her charming notes worked.

The author makes an interesting argument for a non-query approach to editors. She’s also against authors buying their own books from their publisher at a discount to sell them. (That’s a pretty radical assertion in the current publishing climate where many authors are turning to their own resources to sell outside the box.)

Instead See suggests you buy your own books in bookstores, write off the expense and use the purchase to boost your tracked sales numbers while making the book a gift to bookstore staff. (I think she has a great point there. Authors doing a signing often make the mistake of thinking it’s about how many people show up to the event. It’s actually your chance to suck up to form an alliance with the bookstore staff so they’ll make an extra effort to sell for you into the future. Be nice to bookstore staff! Also, be nice generally.)

Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I agreed with her because it was brilliant advice or simply because she’s a bit of a contrarian and so am I. She lays out her publishing strategy and cheerfully acknowledges it hasn’t all been cherries and bouquets. It’s a realistic take on the literary life–several romantic moments and toasts with champagne flutes spread out amidst a lot of hard slogging.

And in what other writers’ guide are you going to find advice–and detailed advice at that–on the hows and whys of making the trip to New York to sell your work? Nowhere. Carolyn See balances the wry and practical in a book on writing unlike all the others.

I finished it the other night and I’m going to do something I never do. I’m going to read it again. The rest of the books on writing can wait.