Author Profile - Terry Pratchett

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

By now, many of you know that Terry Pratchett is a major influence on my writing.  To take it a step further, he is also my favorite writer.  Right now, Americans are saying "Terry who?".  It can be said that Americans have a difficult time with British humor.  Maybe it's a little dry, I don't know?  I love it!  My television defaults to BBC America, what can I say?

Terry Pratchett writes with some of the most complex sentence structure I've ever read.  At times, I'll have to re-read a sentence just to make sure it said what I thought it said.  It wasn't until I tried out a little experiment which really gave me that moment of clarity.  I read the sentence aloud.  My mind had been trained through the education system to expect sentences to be structured a certain way, but when I read Terry Pratchett aloud, I was surprised.  This is how I speak.  Granted, the Brits use slang which takes some getting used to for an American, but it really struck me as the easiest way to understand him completely.  I took that idea to a Star Wars novel and it was a disaster.  Once my mind was prepared for reading a Terry Pratchett novel, he standing as an author, in my mind, shot right to the top.  It was amazing!

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
― Terry Pratchett

I started writing Alorya with a bunch of Terry Pratchett novels under my belt, but continued writing as I had been taught.  When I was a fan of John Elway, I emulated him as a quarterback.  I watched Clyde Drexler and immediately went outside to see how high I could glide.  Why not emulate Terry Pratchett as a writer?  In America?!?  Are you crazy?!?  Yes and Yes.  I think he deserves it.  I think anyone who takes a "standard" and turns it on it's head is worth a second look.  If it comes to them as second nature and they're really good at it, then you are watching a genius of your time at work.  It is because humans are so brilliant that we were able to appreciate genius when the genius is still alive, right?

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

As you read that passage from Good Omens, your brain is begging and screaming for a period.  When you reach the end of the sentence though, it became a worthwhile journey (if you understand the humor).  When I read it the first time, I had to read it one more time just to make sure.  I did not laugh.  I smiled and said, "Very interesting, Mr. Pratchett."

At times, people would come to me and tell me my sentence structure is a bit weird.  At first glance, they say it's a run-on sentence.  Inside, I smile and say, I know.  I admittedly wrote a run-on sentence in a published book against the wishes of my editors.  Why?  To say 'thank you' to Mr. Pratchett!!!!!

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”
― Terry Pratchett

Top Five - My favorite characters from Sci-Fi / fantasy novels

I've read a bunch of Sci-Fi / Fantasy novels, but obviously not all of them. There are some characters which are so clearly defined in there stories that they can come alive in our imaginations. Other times, you'll find writers digging into our own psyche to create a character to which we are already familiar, without needing strong character development. Prince Charming and the Big Bad Wolf are examples of those characters. Even without the aid of Disney, we already know who these characters are because they've been in our psyche since the our childhood.

I prefer my favorite characters to have a fatal flaw that they must overcome. Here are my top five:

5 - King Theoden - What do you do when your people show more allegiance to a ranger from the north than to you, their king? As if that wasn't bad enough, you are already known for being the king who fell under the spell of Sauruman the White. On top of that, your son and only heir had been killed in battle.

What he did was ride.... ride now... ride for ruin... death... and the worlds ending.

4 - Boromir son of Denethor - Everybody remembers Aragorn, Legolas and the hobbits, but who remembers Boromir? He was played in the movie by Sean Bean, which is a spoiler in itself as to what will happen to him. Boromir was the oldest and favorite son of Gondor. In Fellowship of the Ring, he was akin to a wet blanket who was constantly bringing everybody down with comments of doom. "One does not simply walk into Mordor..." he said. When the time came, he tried to take the ring from Frodo.

In his darkest hour though, he heroically battled the uruk-hai to help Frodo escape. His story is what I loved most about the first book. His moment of redemption was my favorite part.

3 - Ganner Rhysode - Introduced in the New Jedi Order, Ganner and the Jedi found themselves fighting an enemy that could not be seen in the Force. The Yuuzhan Vong were mighty warriors immune to the Jedi's greatest weapon/gift. Ganner was introduced as a privileged pretty-boy. He accompanied the Solo children on the fateful mission that claimed one Solo's life, while another Solo took his first steps down a dark path. Ganner was given a livid scar on his face which proved to be a life changing event for the vain Jedi.

After over a year of contemplation in the force, Ganner realized that he was not going to be the hero of this war. In a moment of clarity, Ganner saw that it was Jacen Solo who would be the end of the Yuuzhan Vong. He also saw that Jacen Solo would not make it out of a dangerous mission without his help.

While Jacen Solo was occupied with a strategy to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong, Ganner needed to just buy Jacen some time. The worshippers of death saw Ganner in a new light that day. They saw him as the Gate Keeper of Death. "None shall pass."

2 - Sam Vimes - I only read The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett because it was Terry Pratchett. Sometimes, you don't know what a book is about, but because you like the author, you buy it. Up to that point, I had only read about the witches and wizards of discworld. I found it funny, yet utterly confusing. I needed to go back to the beginning and read the Watch books in order. Sam Vimes was Captain of the Night Watch and had progressed all the way up to Duke of Ankh. Sam was a police officer in the midst of a battle against alcoholism, the City of Ankh Morpork and a Dragon. Sarcastic and crude, Sam had ticked off the entire city from the bottom to the top. With all this in mind, the city, the Patrician, the guards and even the dragon knew one thing about Sam Vimes: He had integrity.

Throughout each of the books, it became clear that good things were happening to Sam, but he was always asking "why?". Why were good things happening to him? While he waited for the world to come tumbling down around him, he simply continued to do his duty.

Sam Vimes is a personal favorite of mine. He is not the flashiest, but he reminded me of me once.

1 - Anakin Solo - Oh, I love Star Wars too! Darth Vader! Yeah, I like Darth Vader too. He was once Anakin.... wait, Anakin who?

Yes, this is Anakin Solo. Son of Leia Organa Solo. Grandson of Anakin Skywalker, a.k.a. Darth Vader. Here on earth, that's like naming your baby Adolf.

While still in his mother's womb, he was touched by the dark side of the force. Many times while growing up, he was reminded about the legacy of his grandfather. The youngest of the Solo children, he was also the most tragic. Anakin Solo had the most powerful enemy in the Star Wars universe. George Lucas. Lucas felt that Anakin Solo's trajectory followed too closely to Anakin Skywalkers. This wouldn't have been so bad if Lucas wasn't making the Star Wars prequels at the time. From birth, it seems Anakin Solo was destined for failure.

In the New Jedi Order, Anakin Solo was the first to figure out why the Yuuzhan Vong could not be felt in the force. The Jedi had become soft and relied too heavily on the force. Mara Jade Skywalker taught Anakin to use the force only when necessary. Solo became more self reliant. As a child, he became one of the first to best a Yuzhaan Vong in combat. After many victories, he became the hero his grandfather and famous uncle had become. In Star by Star by Troy Denning, Anakin Solo was killed. Much like Ganner, Boromir and Theoden, Anakin went out in a blaze of glory. Many of us in the Star Wars universe felt robbed, but it was then that I learned the power of the writer. The storyteller is the most powerful person in the story.

Marketing - What makes sense to me?

I definitely can't be confused with a marketing expert, but recently when two friends released their first album I thought they might not be reaching their entire audience.  I wrote to them a facebook message from my iPhone and I thought my fingers were going to fall off.  The following day, I had some things come to mind that I forgot to mention.  Keeping in mind that I am a writer and they are musicians, we naturally have different methods for marketing, but I came up with a few ideas which can be useful for most of us.

• Know your audience - What do they want to hear, read or watch?
• Know your competition - What are they doing to reach their fans?
• Know your material - Is there some facet of your work that differs from or is similar to anything?

Whether you're in the stone age or the information age, you need to address these points.  The following part has to do with timing, location and current trends.

• Don't wait until your book is published, album is released, openning night at your play (whatever) to begin marketing.  You want to think about these things at most a year before publication.

I finished the first few edits of my book in 2008 and felt that it was ready for an agent.  Before I did that however, I registered the domain Alorya.com.  I joined MySpace to get into the social media movement. I even did the unthinkable and became sociable around the office.  I expect to be published in the next few months.  Get something... anything... on every form of social media and interface you can (afford) and begin talking to people about your work.  If you're not proud enough to talk about it, who will be?

• Your competion should be the established greats of the current era in your genre.  If you're a musician, Mozart is not your competition.  If you're a writer, Frank Herbert is not your comptetion.  Find out how your competition is reaching their audience and then adopt/improve on it.  Do they use the web?  Do they use PodCast? 

I looked at Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Troy Denning to see how they reached their audience.  I obviously don't have the budget to compete with them from a marketing stand-point, but it was a great place to find some ideas.  (Hint:  Follow them on Twitter).

• Try to set yourself apart from everyone else.  Find something unique about your work and put a neon sign around it.

"Buy my book", "Check out my book" can really be annoying.  Don't turn yourself into a salesman, just try to spread the word that you are a member of the industry and you can contribute. (Kind of like this article, right?).  The unique part of my book is that I took real life events and exaggerated the hell out of them.  What's unique about that?  Well, they're MY life events.  That's pretty unique.  I never expected to write the first or best of anything.  I'm just trying to tell the story I started writing when I borrowed a few sheets of paper from a nurse, when my son was still in the hospital after he was born.

Special Thanks to Matthew Ashdown for helping clear these points up for me.