Rasslin’ In The Mud…

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…Because, after all, pigs, from whence the porkiest of all bacon comes, wallow in mud puddles, right? (Trust me, they do. I grew up on a farm.)

So, anyway, as to this “rasslin’ in the mud” thing…

Once upon a time I found myself in a very public disagreement with Laurell K. Hamilton. I don’t regret this, mind you. I mean, it pretty much seems that any time I’ve ended up on a panel with Laurell at an SF/Fantasy Convention, we have disagreed about something. Fact is, any time we have ever talked we have disagreed. I suppose that makes us both the disagreeable sort. This is not a commentary on her, mind you. Nor is it a commentary on me. It’s just a simple fact that we don’t see eye-to-eye on some things…

But anyway, back to the rasslin’. You see, the disagreement in question occurred in front of 12.7 billion of her fans, as they are pretty much the only people who show up at a panel where she is appearing. In fact, I even had one of her fans tell me that she, “had no idea what I was even doing up there on the panel, because she was there to see Laurell, not the rest of us people sitting up there, and who the hell was I anyway?”

Well… I was scheduled to be there. After all, it wasn’t the “Laurell K. Hamilton” panel, it was a How To Write Convincing Detectives Panel.

Duh.

Apparently some of her fans are unaware that other people get paid to write, too. Not all of them, just some. I don’t want anyone to think I am handing out a wholesale diss here, because I’m not. Nope, it’s definitely targeted, and they know who they are. Unfortunately, they probably won’t see this because they have no idea that anyone else writes for a living. See how that works?

But anyway, back we go to the rasslin’. The disagreement in this case was on the subject of “fight scenes.” It wasn’t a “bad disagreement” by any stretch. No actual fighting. No cross words. No hair pulling. Although Laurell did raise her voice. Not sure why. In any case, it was just a major difference of opinion, based largely on a major difference of genres.

Here’s the thing – anybody who has ever been in an actual fight can tell you that they aren’t pretty. Fighting – actual hand-to-hand combat – is an ugly jumble of thumping, kicking, biting, gouging, and all around dirty pool. It might – and I heavily stress might – start out as a pugilistic endeavor, with hands being thrown and noses being broken. However, in a down and dirty street fight (and yes, I’ve been in a few. In my misspent youth I was a bit of scrapper) after a punch or two, someone goes down, and unless that person is unconscious or incapacitated all hell breaks loose and the fight then turns into a fucked up wrestling match.

THAT is how to write a convincing fight scene. Sure, you can line out the punches, kicks, bites, gouges, grunts, groans, and cussing, so that it is writable in such a fashion as to be readable – but at the end of the day, the fight should be a crazed mess of desperation – on both sides – and a struggle to come out on top.

Laurell disagreed. Her writing of a fight scene involved all manner of choreography to get everything just right. She’s not the only writer who does this, so I’m not throwing rocks at her by any stretch. I am, however, chucking a few stones at the concept. To me it sounded pretty much like Jackie Chan rehearsing for a scene in one of his movies. A fight that would be entertaining to a degree, but pretty damned unlikely. Even a boxing match, or mixed martial arts match, isn’t a pretty dance and they have rules to follow.

When you throw out the rules, everything goes to hell…

So here’s my advice – save the elegant, wang chung foo, choreographed, ballet dance of a fight for your Epic Zombie Vampire Were-Ninja Fantasy novel. That’s where “everybody was Kung-Fu fighting” belongs. If you are writing something with any sense of realism whatsoever, and you want readers to actually believe the fight could happen, tap into your memories of when you were rolling in the dirt with the school bully in the fifth grade. THAT’S how it really happens…

As always see the very first post on this blog which states up front: My advice is my opinion. You can disagree with it all you want and I don’t care. Welcome to America…

MRS

It’s Like Candy, Baby…

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Let’s all start on the same page, shall we?

Once upon a time I was told that I should blog about writing, what with me being a writer and all. To that I responded, “Not happening.” Why? Because I am not qualified to advise anyone on the subject of writing. Truth be told, in my opinion at least, nobody is. Sure, you can be taught the mechanics of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, but nobody can teach you to write – even if they tell you they can.

Of course, that’s just MY opinion, and that’s where we need to be on the same page, so to speak.

I’m giving in. Yes, I am going to write about writing, but not exactly like one would think. I have no intention of trying to teach or advise anyone on the subject. It would be ludicrous for me to do something I think is ludicrous for other people to do. So, no, I won’t be trying to school anyone on the subject of writing. I might throw a few “tips” out there, those being much like the random offerings in the Bacon Header above – tongue in cheek. If they aren’t tongue in cheek then they are going to be common sense and you probably should have learned them by the fifth grade. If you haven’t yet, then no amount of me telling them to you is going to make any real difference.

In effect, that means they are just a reminder, for all of us. Either that or I just couldn’t think of anything else to say and I am trying to prove to you that I still have a few smarticles left in my head.

And so… Everything I blog about here is going to be my experiences interwoven with my personal opinion on the subject at hand. What this means, in a nutshell, is that I don’t give a flying rat’s ass if you agree with me, disagree with me, implement my tips, borrow a page from my playbook, ignore me, laugh along with me, or otherwise prattle on endlessly about what a strange person I am. But you’d best not step on my wife’s shoes – blue suede, black patent, or anything in between. I’m here to tell you that’s simply a bad idea and even I don’t know where she buries the bodies after she is finished desecrating them.

Consider yourself forewarned.

And so… You may – or may not – be wondering why this blog is called “Literary Bacon.” Well, that’s simple enough – Stephen King once called himself the literary equivalent of “A Burger and Fries.” He might have actually said Big Mac, not sure. However, I’m not going to look up the quote because this isn’t about him. It’s about me. Sort of…

At any rate, I’ve decided that I would like to be the literary equivalent of Bacon. Why? Because bacon is the candy of all meats. Be it beef bacon, turkey bacon, vegetarian bacon, or the almighty pork belly - bacon is the thing. Why else would there be expressions like, “Bringing home the bacon,” and “Dammit, that’s MY bacon!”

Okay… So that last one was mine, but you have to admit we’ve all probably said it at one time or another.

The thing is, I’ve been writing for more than 30 years, and I have been published for just as long in one form or another. And for the last 15, my novels have been seeing publication.

But, speaking of publishing… As trends in publishing – and marketing – have shifted, so have book sales and even other innocuous things, such as the very definition of “writer.” Some writers out there have found what seems to be a magic formula to bump up sales and keep a decent paycheck rolling in. Some of them are even raking in a good amount of cash self-publishing – J. A. Konrath, anyone? Well, good on him and them. I think that’s great, and I’m all about it.

However, others of us are still working on upping our numbers – either into a respectable range, or even back into a respectable range where they once were prior to all of these bizarre tremors in the industry.

I’m not complaining, mind you. NOT at all… I’m simply offering up the facts.

And so… This blog is about that odyssey. My odyssey, actually. This is where I will yammer about different things I am doing to market my novels, where I will talk about writing, and where I will bend ears about my new projects. Furthermore, it will be a lab where I will work on and tinker with ideas that will hopefully allow me to bring home a thicker slice of the proverbial bacon.

After all, I have to keep my wife rolling in new shoes, now don’t I…

MRS