So I started reading his first, STORM FRONT. I really wasnt going to read much, as I have a lot of writing to do, but its a pretty easy read, and better yet, its in first person which is something I am attempting with my latest piece. The idea of trying it is: its supposed to be easier getting into the characters heads, and thoughts. This is something I feel is missing from my writing.

As far as the writing of the book, I dont know how I feel. He likes character description, in info dump form. Had I put it up in the forum here, I would have been crucified. And he is doing the biggest cardinal no-no. He is withholding what happened in his past. He talks about, hints about and moves on under the guise of not wanting to think about it.

I am not bringing those points up to cause an argument. The info dumps on character description do turn my stomach a little. I have long decided its easier to do, and am willing to except some. The truth is very few authors if any dont break this rule, its just rules sometimes can be so damn aggravating. If you spend a full page trying to show that your MC is tall and strong with dark hair, and blue eyes, it better have more purpose than just trying to get the physical description of him/her in. Might be better to slip just the line in.

The with-holding. I dont know-I feel cheated. Maybe its because a lot of my characters have checkered pasts, lost lifetimes and everyone says, if he knows it, then the reader needs to know it. Its easy to create suspense by withholding. As a reader I dont mind, even enjoy it. As a writer, well, thats a different story.

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As far as the writing of the book, I dont know how I feel. He likes character description, in info dump form. Had I put it up in the forum here, I would have been crucified. And he is doing the biggest cardinal no-no. He is withholding what happened in his past. He talks about, hints about and moves on under the guise of not wanting to think about it.

I am not bringing those points up to cause an argument. The info dumps on character description do turn my stomach a little. I have long decided its easier to do, and am willing to except some. The truth is very few authors if any dont break this rule, its just rules sometimes can be so damn aggravating. If you spend a full page trying to show that your MC is tall and strong with dark hair, and blue eyes, it better have more purpose than just trying to get the physical description of him/her in. Might be better to slip just the line in.

The with-holding. I dont know-I feel cheated. Maybe its because a lot of my characters have checkered pasts, lost lifetimes and everyone says, if he knows it, then the reader needs to know it. Its easy to create suspense by withholding. As a reader I dont mind, even enjoy it. As a writer, well, thats a different story.

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Not sure if this will help how you feel about the writing but he's not the first pro writer to get away with breaking rules we can't. It depends on how well you do it. Dean Wesley Smith and I believe a couple of other long time pros have stated that you can break the rules once you know them. And even that you should break them when you reach that point. It helps to stretch us as writers. When you reach that point no one not even you can know. Only by what sells. I know one writer who sold his second story after he decided to break the not waking up in the opening rule. He did it on purpose, to stretch himself, and it worked for him. But a lot of us get yelled at when we try it.

As to Butcher's writing I didn't really notice the info dumbs that much. Either he does a good job at them or I was too much into the story to see them. I do that at times.

I have seen a few writers do The Withholding Thing. I think it depends on what is with held and how it is. I think it would bog down Butcher's story too much to go into great details at the beginning. We do know he had a troubled past and why the one guy with the sword hates him even if not every detail is given. For me it was enough. I was curious and hoped that it would be revealed in time...which it does... but it wasn't enough for me to loss interest in the story.

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And like most writers Butcher improves with each book. So does Dresden. I think he's a bit whiny in the first book, almost like he's not used to pushing himself beyond what he thinks are his limits but he soon learns.

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Yeah, he is whiny, isnt he.

I just finished the book. It was a good book over all. And I will read more of his. While I didnt truly fall for the character, probably because he was whiny, even whimpy at times, I did like the world he created and the story flowed. And in the end he showed his strength.

As far as the writing: I finished the book which is more than I can say for most I have started. Some character description dumps, and some less then active sentences, and my hic-cup on withholding something under the guise of He didnt want to think of it. BUT, not enough for me to stop reading. Very few authors dont break the rules, and truth is I dont have a problem with it as long as the whole out performs the piece.

So what do I take away from the book, something I have been thinking of a lot lately. A perfect sentence doesnt make a good book, nor a perfect paragrpah, but a good story or good character does. And that is the most important part, the part I want to focus on more in my writing. Create the character, the world and let him go. I want to become less rule bound, and find my voice again.

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So what do I take away from the book, something I have been thinking of a lot lately. A perfect sentence doesnt make a good book, nor a perfect paragrpah, but a good story or good character does. And that is the most important part, the part I want to focus on more in my writing. Create the character, the world and let him go. I want to become less rule bound, and find my voice again.

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Very wise, Grasshopper.

or Wise you are Skywalker.

Or I have heard pros say almost exactly the same thing. Don't try for the prefect sentence. It's almost impossible to write and if you do, more than likely you will lose the story. It has happened. Beautifully written prose has been rejected because the story is almost nonexistent. Of course I think there is a place for beautiful prose but not with the stuff we write. Which doesn't mean we write lousy sentences either.

Jim Butcher for me is like Dean Koontz -- the kind of author I pick up when I want a story that I know will entertain me through and will allow me to read when my mind is distracted.

I think the same is true for Seanan McGuire and her "October Daye" series. I haven't rad it yet but her latest haas been reported-by more than one person- to be her best yet...not only with the writing but the story also.

BTW, I love her name I wish I could use it in a story.

an addition here.

On the first page of this thread, the second post, you will see someone who doesn't like Butcher's writing at all.

They already have even though I haven't heard of that one,

But there's one on his main web site. I'll get the link tomorrow, its late right now.

And there are now maybe five anthologies with his shorts stories. Most are edited by P.N. Elrod with various titles. Like "A Dark Stormy Knight", "My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding"

I call this one the official site JB it has all types of interesting information. Inluding a forum with a writing section but last two times I tried I couldn't get on it. Wish I could play that role playing game they have. Wish he would be open to inviting other writers to write in his universe, of course that doesn't mean he would invite me.

But there is also this site. Its the one I first found a few years ago and the one I used to send Jim a few E-mails. He answered some of them. Evidently his sister runs it.

http://www.wizardsharry.com/dresden.html

Hmm, an addition here but Low and behold there's "Side Jobs" on the front page of his web site. So I had seen it there but not in person. Now I recall I thought it was his next one but that is "Ghost Stories".

But I wanted to say that I just finished a short story by him. A humorous tale about Dresden wanting a Day Off . It must have been written before "Turn Coat".

Anyway, it has one of the longest sentences I have seen a very long time. I wish I could post the thing here, it just goes on and on. I could see how someone could use it as an example of Butcher's awful writing but since its a humorous story I think he did it on purpose.

BTW Butcher has a Spiderman novel out.

You might recall last month I mentioned watching the old TV series "Ellery Queen." Well, in the course of the watching, I dug out some old books by Ellery Queen and reread them. My copies are brown with age, mostly from sitting in a box in my roasting-hot garage for over twenty years. (I didn't find all of them...nor could I obtain brand-new copies, these books all being out of print since the mid-1990s.)

"Ellery Queen" was the pseudonym of Fred Dannay and Manfred Lee, with the conceit that their pseudonym was also the lead character in their third-person mysteries. For a time, they were the most popular mysteries in America. (The character in the books doesn't have much in common with the character on the TV series, though.)

One of the books I read was The Adventures of Ellery Queen. This was a collection of Queen short works. I enjoyed them, like a visit with old friends, and in all but one I'd forgotten "whodunit," but two things struck me in particular. (1) One of them had a character named Harry Potter, of all things. And (2), you might have seen me complain about the current status of "the 'N' word," as it's called...it doesn't come up here, but a number of other, er, "racial descriptions" do...and, despite my attitude, I found these descriptions disconcerting in the extreme.

The other Ellery Queen book I wanted to bring up was The Player on the Other Side. This is something of a mystery (more than that within the story), because I'm informed it wasn't written by the team of Dannay and Lee, but ghostwritten by well-known science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon---which gives it an unusual, Sturgeon-y flavor. (Why Sturgeon was ghostwriting an Ellery Queen book is something I've never figured out...others in that immediate era (the 1960s) were also ghostwritten by at least one other SF writer (and I've gotten two different names at two different times.))

Three that aren't listed, written by Jack Vance:

The Four Johns (1964), as "Ellery Queen" (also titled Four Men Called John, UK 1976)
A Room to Die In (1965), as "Ellery Queen"
The Madman Theory (1966), as "Ellery Queen"

Barb has out a book by herself that I am also still reading.

This is the start of a second series by the two writers. I said a new series but it's like a part two of The Noble Dead series. I still think its the wrong name both because the series are about fighting the Noble Dead when they show up, and because they aren't Noble. But in this case Noble is an elitist or snobbish term.

In this one like the first series there seems to be a character who is helping but is actually a bad guy. In this one he shows up immediately while in the first series he shows up later.

If you like dark worlds you will like both series. I think the writing is better in this book but its not bad in the first few.

This is more a fantasy than UF even though there are vampires and such. Even though there are made up cities, I think the tech level is about 1700s maybe 1800s. They have wagons, carriages, crossbows, streetlamps, nice restaurants.

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Whenever I am at a used book sale, it never fails that there is someone grabbing every Cussler novel they can find.

Anyway, can someone please tell me that they get better than this novel? It was pretty bad. I felt like I was watching an episode of Scooby Doo with a big reveal of information that there is no way Dirk Pitt would have known it.

Also, I like a macho character in a novel -- you know, a man's man -- but in this novel it was ridiculous. Pitt meets a strange woman on a beach (she thought he was dead, but he was really just sleeping). He finds out she is a widow and when she starts to cry, he slaps her in the face. Then she sleeps with him on the beach.

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Anyway, can someone please tell me that they get better than this novel? It was pretty bad. I felt like I was watching an episode of Scooby Doo with a big reveal of information that there is no way Dirk Pitt would have known it.

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You have heard of ROFL, Rolling on Floor Laughing, yeah, I am.

Well first off, I am a big fan of the Dirk Pitt novels. Yes they get better, for a few, then worse.

I would say this, Clive Cussler can tell an entertaining story but, since joining this site, I have yet to finish one of his books, I am constantly finding myself editing it, or skipping large sections.

I just started Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

One thing occured to me. I remember from his website that Rothfuss teaches at a college or university. I wonder if that's why he's so fond of s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out the sections where Kvothe is in that $(#)@ University and then cramming all the interesting stuff (when he's not at the University) together.

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I want to get WWW: Wake by Robert J Sawyer. Anyone ever read this?

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Right now it works out good for me, as I am writing Upper MG so is always good to see what the market has.

"The Ranger's Apprentice" sounds interesting I need to keep my eye out for it.

But right now I'm reading two books

The first one is "The Secret Miracle" edited by Daniel Alarcon. It the Novelist's Handbook. Kind alike a panel discussion on writing novels. There's about 15 to 20 different novelists in this discussion though. The two most famous are Stephen King and Amy Tan but there are a couple other well known writers. Some of the others have done only one novel. Basically it is just question like you would get at a panel discussion and a bunch of the writers answer each question. I say a bunch because not every writer answers every question. So far, about half way through, Amy Tan only responses to a few. King does a bit better.

It isn't what I thought it might be but I will read on. Another question was what they expected from the first chapter. I didn't read every response but it sounded like they basically said the same thing for that one. It has to hook the reader. One writer said it has to punch the reader in the stomach and have him on the floor howling in pain but when he gets up he asks for it again.

I played the PC game too. What's interesting though is that over here, after the fourth or fifth printing of the book they started putting "The book which inspired the famous video game" on the cover. I got it back in 2008 or so and they are still selling like hotcakes at my local bookstore.

Margaret Ronald's "Soul Hunt". One great example of storytelling. One day soon I may start a post on the writing section about the difference between writing and storytelling but she is good at both.

Just finished a scene where the MC has to swim in a reservoir to find a memory town. You have to read it to see what I mean, even though that's my term so as not to give away too much.

Its her third book in a dark, darker than some, Urban Fantasy world. The MC is a Hound, she can smell out anything or anyone. There's a reason for that even if she doesn't know it at first. Magic smells like gunpowder.

Anyway, I recommend the series. There's more about her on the Great Authors thread.

I forgot KayTi, I have seen "Clockwork Angel" and looked it over. And seems like I have seen the other title somewhere recently,

But it reminds me of that cult short film that was popular quite a few years ago. Something about a boy and his dog. Or come to think of it another book. Rats, can't think of the title now.

Worth reading but I preferred the Farseer Trilogy and the Liveship Traders.

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So just finished The Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm. It's strange this one;

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"Painless Grammar' By Rebecca Elliot, Ph.D

She wrote it for younger students. and that is evident how she speaks and the examples she uses, but she also explains certain things better than even the "Idiot's Guide To Grammar". And she points out that even though certain sentences are technically Okay, there might be better way to say it. I think that is helpful for a writer.

So if you are having problems with grammar try it. I don't know if it will do me very much good, nothing seems to, even though I have read the comma section twice and the "Wacky Words We Love To Misuse" section once. I will be reading both a lot of times as well as other sections.

It's a character study of an autistic individual told from a first person PoV. I found it to be very slow paced and rather dull at times, but that could be that the subject matter simply didn't fully draw me in. I also found the science-fiction aspects of it barely there - it was treated in a very cursory manner, as if an afterthought.

I'm currently reading Scalzi's sequel The Last Colony. Pretty good, but not quite as interesting as the first novel, at least not yet. I'm only 70 pages in, but Old Man's War had me hooked much sooner. Time will tell, I suppose.

The Ghost Brigades is actually Old Man's War's sequel, so if you're not too into The Lost Colony, could be that you are missing a bit of the connection to the previous story and might like it better after reading Ghost. Zoe's Tale (or whatever the title actually is) is The Lost Colony told from the teenage daughter's POV, which was a good read (better than lost Colony for me, at least, because I write YA sci fi.)

No one else has mentioned trying for it.

I thought it would have some good stories and a good chance to see what JJA likes. The first two stories are not the usual wizardry fare. Well, they are and they aren't. The basic plots are very well established but there are "ingredients" that gives them something of a twist. The second one has a very interesting tree. When it's writer mentioned a treehouse, in his remarks, I thought of Kathleen and here. A very interesting treehouse. Sorry I don't have the book handy so I can't give his name but he's not as well known as many in the book. He has gotten quite a few stories published even one in Lifepod or was it Castle pod. Another one that succeeds with all of the ones I fail at. But he is good.

And I had to come back to add something I forgot...From the second story we know about Meredith's little secret.

And JJA seems to like darker tales with dark endings...so far anyway.

I will add though that a couple stories I sent had that bit of a twist I mentioned but that probably was all I could say about them.

It's sort of like THE SIXTH SENSE (movie) in that now I know What's Really Going On, I have to go back and see if the author did it right.

It's the latest in his Remy Chandler series. Remy is an angel who has battle fatigue. After helping to put down the Rebellion of The Morningstar he decided he had had enough of war and came to earth to live as a human. Thousands of years later he is a PI who helps with strange happenings. It's rather dark and sometimes bloody but good writing and basically good stories.

Was disappointed to find out it wasnt really a stand alone novel. I knew there were other in the series, but didnt like where it was ended. I felt the need to buy the 2nd book immediately to keep the story going on. I still havent bought it yet though, and started another book I already had, so will have to see if I make it back there.

Talk about breaking conventions. It's like looking at a huge medieval tapestry that spreads the length of an old castle hall, eyes jumping from one depiction and set of figures to another. The story just keeps going even when the book ends, multiple threads of the story left open, and some supposed major threads twisitng unexpectedly and cut short. A history, and equallly amoral and unpredictable.

I just finished the second book, A CLASH OF KINGS, this evening at over 720 pages. Still no resolution. Just history marching on; and per the introduction to A STORM OF SWORDS, history will back-track in its opening chapters. This book is over 900 pages long!

I'll read the next two on Kindle if I can stay with it.
(And this is making havoc with my own writing time--but it is joy to read something so well-written and surprisingly different for being superficially so commonplace: knights, knaves, kings and courtly intrigues).

I also read his three novellas in the same universe but which take place 100 years earlier. The first, THE HEDGE KNIGHT, I found to be a masterpiece.

As for Jim Butcher and his THE DRESDEN FILES, I read the first seven but got bogged down on number eight. Admittedly, I found my own novel THE KABBALIST greatly influenced by the concept of urban magician that I did not read any of his books after the first, STORM FRONT, until I'd finished writing the novel. I found them great fun, but the magic system unclear.

Respectfully,
Dr. Bob

Hmm, Dr. Bob, I hadn't really thought about Butcher's magic system being unclear but I think you have a point. It seems like he lets it out in piecemeal, there's no one place that really explains it all. There are some partial explanations in the first couple of books if I recall correctly. But at one point Harry gathers magic energy while riding on a motorcycle... I forget what number book that is in. And in another he "gathers" kinetic energy from a busy highway a few blocks away. I think that was Harry anyway, it could have been the MC in another writer's world. But as he did that I remember thinking good it looks like he may have taken a step upward to another level of magic use because he figured out something new. But no mention of any advancement. Or even if he can.

I've said this before but I still want to use that name as a character.

Anyway, I started reading this more because of circumstances but I kept reading it because it's hard to put down. I finally finish the last book I was reading, The Remy Chandler book... it wasn't bad at all except for two things I really wish the writer hadn't put in. One was back store but the other was put of the ending.

But back to "Late Eclipses" . Good story, GOOD Story. Funny thing was that after the first two or so chapters I ended up thinking "the writing isn't the best, but the storytelling is" Whoa, where did that come from? I can't point to why I think the writing isn't great. It's not bad, but it may have something to do with the opening. The MC is in a grocery store shopping. She just got paid big time and is looow on food so she, her room mate and a friend, are shopping. Not sure why the friend is there. He just shows up now and then. The room mate is... well you have to read the last book in the series and maybe the one before it. She is very unusual.

But I'm probably wrong about the writing, Seanan won the John W. Campbell award for best new writer.

I said the writing might not be the best but this series is my top number three or number four of all the UF books I read. The writer better not decide to halt the series like two or three others have done. One of those was my number two top UF series.

One last thing for those who have read any of my Bright Lights novel, this is the inspiration for it. I changed a bunch: Daye has been a PI and a Knight for years, she was married once and has a grown daughter who so far isn't doing much in the stories.. .to my disappointment..., Daye has a very powerful Fey Queen who doesn't like her much at all, she grew up with her mother who is now crazy... I'm still not sure what happened to her father but he isn't around at all. There are other differences. There is an Author in here but you might not recognize him especially since there seems to be a romance growing between these two. Plus she tends to be short on money.

The cover is great except I'm not sure about the expression on her face. But the artist knew what was in the book. And I just saw something in the background that makes it even better.

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But at one point Harry gathers magic energy while riding on a motorcycle... I forget what number book that is in. And in another he "gathers" kinetic energy from a busy highway a few blocks away. I think that was Harry anyway, it could have been the MC in another writer's world. But as he did that I remember thinking good it looks like he may have taken a step upward to another level of magic use because he figured out something new. But no mention of any advancement. Or even if he can.

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Although I haven't read all of the Dresden short stories, I think you're mixing up Harry with a character in another series. Harry does use kinetic energy, but I remember it coming from his own motions rather than those of distant objects--with the exception of...let's call it ambient energy. Like all witches and wizards, he can give his power a boost by pulling from the energy around him, if he can focus on that energy well enough. That's the big trick for him, even as he develops his magical skills--he can't do much at all unless he can concentrate enough to exert his will.

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of The Dresden Files is that there isn't one magical system--there appears to be several that interact with each other. This might contain spoilers, so be warned...
Harry learns about different types as magic as he learns about the relationships between humans, the fae, and the various gods (plus some unnerving god-like beings that the no one wants to admit are real). In his universe, there appears to be soul magic (which may or may not be manipulated by gods and might include "faith magic"), wizarding magic (which might have descended from soul magic)) and fae magic (which might be dependent on the existence of souls in our world). Due to the limitations of first-person POV, however, we as readers aren't able to experience much more than Harry does--and he seems at least as confused as other witches and wizards do in regards to the nature of their powers.

Each witch and wizard in the Dresden universe uses magic without understanding exactly why or how it works, forcing each to develop a personal philosophy around its use.

This works for me. Can anyone here describe gravity without contradicting some physicist's belief of why and how it exists? What exactly allows one person to compose a complete symphony in his head while most of us struggle to accurately remember the chords to our favorite songs? Can you explain the physical differences between that musical genius and the average person? I don't think so; we all contemplate only as much as we feel we need to, and I wouldn't expect a decades-old human in an urban fantasy to possess a complete, scientific understanding of how the organic systems of magic functions. He should figure out what he needs to know to move on with his life.

As to how magic works. Dresden does know how some of it works... he has explained it every now and then. Sympathetic magic - that scale model of the city he had, plus finding things. is just one. He has a charm on his bracelet that gathers his kinetic energy. I want to steal that idea. I know who could make good use of it.

Started another book...

This one is on my Color Nook.

"Spell Games" by T. A. Pratt.

It's the fourth (I think) in a UF series about Marla Mason. Marla is the head sorcerer of a Felport. In other words she is the secret dictator of the city. She can be a real B... but only when attacked. She usually leaves her people alone and mostly minds her own business- she takes a small cut from most disputable businesses-unless she has to defend the city. She doesn't mind using dirty tricks or sneaking around if that is what it takes to win. Her passion is learning.

"Dead Waters" by Anton Strout

Fourth in a UF series. (Seems to be a pattern forming here)

But it might be more paranormal since they deal with ghosts, vampires, zombies and such.

In either case it's the lighthearted story of Simon Canerous. SFRevu says its "detectives working the night shift in the Twilight Zone". Yeah, they work for the city even though in their own department not connected to the police.

I won't say much else except that those chapters are kinda short. It's been over a year since I last read a Dresden novel but they seem shorter than usual.

If they really are and it's not a trick of my memory, it lights a fire under a part of my brain. A certain ghost writer I know seems to like short chapters.

And Bob??? Almost forgot to miss him. Has he been in the last two books? Seems like it's been quite a while since he was used.

Funny how that is.

And yeah, Uglies, etc. is so compelling you can't stop reading the other books. I have read a few others of his, too - So Yesterday (loved it), then I forget the titles but two in the vampires in NYC series (not Midnighters, I don't think...it's the other series... Oh, I remember - the first is called Peeps. I don't recall the name of the second but it has one of the best openings ever involving a stratocaster being flung out a window.) He's such a phenomenal writer. Leviathan is great, too, but totally different angle - steampunk, very interesting. Have Behemouth out from the library but haven't read it (Leviathan's sequel.)