Author Archives: Frank Morin

About Frank Morin

Frank Morin loves good stories in every form. When not writing or trying to keep up with his active family, he's often found hiking, camping, Scuba diving, or enjoying other outdoor activities. For updates on his sci-fi time travel Facetaker novels, his popular YA fantasy novel, Set in Stone, or other upcoming book releases, check his website: www.frankmorin.org

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Emotional Roller-Coasters

February 18, 2014

Frank Morin

Stow any loose belongings, settle in, buckle up, and hold on for a wild ride.

Great stories are emotional roller coasters that carry readers out of space and time to another place where they can be dropped into pits of despair or thrown high enough to taste glory. They hurl readers through dizzying loops and heart-stopping drops. The vicarious ride explores emotions that readers could never dare consider in real life, but that are necessary to understand nonetheless.

I am not a romance writer, nor am I a horror writer. However those genres prove so successful because they push the limits of opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Just as people flock to the wildest rides at Disney to experience the thrills they can’t get anywhere else, readers flock to stories that push the uttermost limits of the emotional journey.

Great stories are the ones that tap into our emotions. The ones that make us feel the story are the ones we love, the ones that really affect us, the ones we can’t put down. So as a writer, I need to know how to craft a story to tap into emotions of love and romance while also understanding how to drag my readers down into the shadowy catacombs of terror. Without those emotions, stories feel weak, boring, uninspiring.

The best stories are the ones we can relate to, and therefore ones we feel the emotional impact of the greatest. Since we’re talking horror and romance this month, let’s look at a few examples.

Jaws. Brilliant. Even now, when I hear two simple notes played on the piano, it triggers memories of the movie. For years after watching Jaws as a kid, I couldn’t help but think of sharks every time I entered the water, any water. Even though I knew there was no way a shark could swim inland hundreds of miles to an isolated lake where my family was swimming, I’d still catch myself looking around for fins in the water. That movie touched on universal fear of being helpless in the water and prey to a creature of the deep. Who hasn’t ever felt that fear? Because it is so universal, everyone can relate to the characters in the movie, everyone can feel their fear.

That’s why horror movies use the dark so much. That fear of the darkness and monsters hiding just out of sight is another universal fear, one that we can tap into across the entire audience.

Great love stories are a little harder, I think. People love different qualities, and love is often very complicated. Then again, some love stories have proven successful through the ages. For example, Pride & Prejudice is one of the most popular love stories of all time. Jane Austen proved she could draw in her audience and tap into their emotions better than almost anyone. Her stories have spawned an entire industry of copycat stories, most of which are set in Victorian England, although other recent successes in that genre include Downton Abbey and North & South. What makes them work?

A few of the obvious components include:

– Protagonists that the audience can relate to, who have to overcome challenges that people still recognize today. It’s their struggle to overcome those difficulties that make the audience love them and root for them.

– These stories are accurate representations of human nature. The culture and times may be different, but human nature remains consistent. We see people we know in these stories, which allows the audience to connect better.

– Happy endings. People love to claim they don’t need a happy ending, but there’s a reason happy endings work.

The most powerful stories are the wildest of the vicarious emotional roller-coaster rides. The best love stories transport the audience to another time and place, tightly connect them to protagonists whose struggles are relatable and, after torturing those poor characters almost beyond the limits of endurance, return to a happy place that allows the audience to complete the emotional cycle and climb out of the story back to normal life in a good place, coming away refreshed and uplifted.

On the other hand, the best horror stories take the characters on rides that throw them into a pit of evil where they struggle to survive as most of their companions are killed. The emotional ride drags the audience down into powerful terrors they would never face any other way and, after driving them to the breaking point, bring them home safe. That’s why most horror stories end with the one survivor destroying the evil incarnate and limping out of the darkness into the dawn of a new day. The reader arrives home safe, emotionally spent, satisfied, and newly grounded to face their normal life.

The value of those emotional rides cannot be over stated. How much easier is it to deal with mundane challenges of our everyday lives after surviving the man-eating shark or the aliens or the zombies? How difficult are the challenges we face in relationships compared with the obstacles overcome by Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy?

So get emotional. It’s the only way to make it real.

Superstars Writing Seminar – worth attending again

January 29, 2014

Frank Morin

Superstars Writing Seminar will be held February 6–8 in Colorado Springs, CO. It is the premier seminar on the business of writing, period. I attended the first seminar, held in 2010 in Pasadena, CA, and I’m eagerly anticipating attending again this year.

I’m not the only alumni of the seminar to sign up for another year, and honestly I would have loved to have gone last year. This Fictorians group was formed from alumni of the Superstars seminar, and members have begun publishing and making their mark as writers. In the near future, we’ll only see that trend increasing, thanks in part to knowledge gained through Superstars.

You may ask yourself why we’re so eager to spend the hundreds of dollars required to invest in another seminar when we learned so much the last time we went.

It’s precisely because we learned so much last time.

This seminar is different than any other writer’s seminar I know of. It’s taught by bestselling authors, top editors, and publishers, but more than that what makes this seminar stand apart is the content. This is a crash course in the business of writing, where successful writing professionals share what they do and how they manage their career. For writers who are serious about their writing career, be they newbie authors who have yet to complete their first novel, or published writers looking to reach the next level, this seminar imparts a wealth of information that I have not found anywhere else.

You can view a high level description of the curriculum here which includes contracts, agents, indie publishing, traditional publishing, intellectual properties, and much more.

The seminar in 2010 was a career-changing experience for me. I arrived as an eager, wannabe writer with lots of enthusiasm and one manuscript completed. I left even more energized and armed with the knowledge I needed to move into the next stage of my career as a writer. Given the constantly moving target which is publishing these days, the specifics of what is taught each year is adjusted accordingly, so I expect this year’s content to be different from what I saw just four years ago.

What I learned four years ago is still fresh in my mind. Some favorite memories include Brandon Sanderson relating how he landed his first agent; Kevin J. Anderson’s popcorn theory; Eric Flint’s detailed discussion of contracts; and the discussion of how prolific an author really needs to be to succeed.

On top of the top-rate content, this seminar provides other fantastic benefits. Not only did we form the Fictorians from alumni of the seminars, but the instructors have remained available and engaged with the group. We have a private Facebook group where we can all post questions and comments and get advice or feedback from each other and from the instructors. The networking benefits of the seminar are proving an invaluable long-term benefit.

This year I approach the seminar from a slightly different point. I have four novels completed, with four more in various stages of outlining, one novel e-published and an agent working on deals with others. This time I have different needs, and I fully expect to gain the knowledge I need to make even greater strides forward in my career.

So is Superstars worth attending again?

Absolutely.

If you’ve never heard of Superstars, check it out. I guarantee it’s worth the investment.

Finding Critical Mass

January 13, 2014

Frank Morin

Frank Morin Motivation The Writing Life 1 Comment

I love this time of year. For good or bad, 2013 is behind us and, although the holidays can be hectic and stressful, we all usually get at least a little down time. The beginning of a new year is a time of renewal, of focus, and energy. A time of self-reflection and setting goals.

For those who may not know how to set meaningful goals, I discussed the topic in great detail here.

The problem isn’t always the setting of goals though. We usually start the year well prepared with lists and plans ready to go. But sometimes we’re like the novice golfer who shows up to play with top-of-the line equipment but who hasn’t bothered to take a lesson. Limited by lack of knowledge or expertise, we may need to take a detour to educate or build those skills so we can reach the next level of craft (see posts from September of 2013 for more on that)

Other times, we just find ourselves no longer inspired by those goals. It’s not that they weren’t laudable or appropriate. The energy just sort of deflates.

It’s kind of like Wile E Coyote who, despite working on his goal tirelessly, never seems to find success.

In personal goals, we might have committed to trimming down until we fit into our middle-school clothing, or working out 9 days a week. But after a month or two, it becomes harder and harder to say no to the cookies or chocolate, or there are too many interruptions to the regular workout schedule so we just give up.

In writing, we may say, “I’m going to write every single day, no matter what.” But then the kids
get sick or we go on vacation, and the perfect record of 18 consecutive days is cracked, and then suddenly there’s no way to get it back and missing days becomes so much easier.

As I’ve considered this, and reviewed everything I did manage to accomplish in 2013, and what I’m determined to complete in 2014, I realized that the goals that work are the ones that inspire.

These are goals that I term as having reached Critical Mass.

Critical mass is the amount or level needed for a new action to occur.

In writing, projects that reach critical mass are the ones that take on a life of their own and begin pushing us forward until we can’t keep the genie in the bottle, no matter how much we want to get lazy or just give up.

So how do we find such a goal?

Each of us are motivated by different things, but there are some commonalities. And the great thing is that as we reach critical mass in a project and feel that rush of awesomeness typing those magic little words, “The End” it becomes easier to find the next project that has a chance to reach critical mass.

Here are a few examples of my critical mass projects:

– Completing that first novel. Although it took more than two years and the goal dragged through the middle and almost collapsed under its own weight, I persevered until the momentum began to roll. Once I knew the ending and could see myself getting there, churning out those last chapters proved easier and easier.

– Completing that first short story. A lot of people are smart enough to do this before the first novel, but not me. I set the goal of submitting a story to Writers of the Future (which I recommend everyone do). I’m not a short fiction writer, so this proved daunting, but I still pushed through, and again once I reached a certain point in the process, I couldn’t NOT finish.

– Attending that first con. As Sherry just mentioned in her recent post, a lot of us writers wait way too long to go to cons. It took me years to finally do it. I was too busy writing, but eventually realized the need. And my first World Fantasy Con is where I met the man who later became my agent.

– Completing that first full novel outline. I started as a pantser, but over time got tired of so much re-writing, so I’ve moved more toward outlining to help speed up the process. Of course, my first outline turned out to be completely wrong so I had to re-write that novel again anyway, but I still feel I got to the final draft faster.

Each of us have different things that motivate us, we’re on different steps in the path toward our ultimate goals of publishing or full-time writing. No matter where you stand, or what your specific goals are this year, focus your energies on the project that will reach critical mass.

Then it’s more a matter of keeping up than pushing on.

Cannot Publish in Ignorance

December 27, 2013

Frank Morin

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Motivation The Writing Life No Comments

I love the theme this month and the stories that have been shared. It reminds me that we all struggle in life and in our chosen profession. I do wonder if any non-writers reading these posts might assume we’re all lunatics sharing our stories in an online Writers Anonymous meeting. We’ve proven it’s a tough, crazy journey on the road toward publication, but we keep plugging away, pursuing the dream, chanting, “Keep at it, and we’ll get there.”

Well, we’ll get there as long as we’re open to learning and growing. As they say, “Continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.”

So we’re either on our way, or we’re nuts.

Growing up I always dreamed of being a writer and I hand-wrote hundreds of pages of drafts as a teen-ager. But life got in the way and I pretended to be normal and pursued other interests through college and the first years of family and career. Then through a series of events in 2004 the desire – the need – to write reignited, and I embraced all those imaginary friends I’d been pretending not to listen to for so long.

I remembered some cool ideas I had worked on all those years ago and thought, “Yeah, I’ll just write that. I read a lot, so how hard could it be?”

Now almost ten years and millions of words later, I laugh every time I think of that naïve wannabe writer sitting down and typing out those first words, “It was a dark and stormy night. . .”

Actually, those weren’t the first words, but they might as well have been for how terrible they were. But I didn’t know better so I wrote, and then I re-wrote. For almost four years I worked on that monstrous first novel that stood at about 300,000 words despite multiple re-drafts. I confidently sent out query letter after query letter to agents, and accumulated scores of rejection letters.

A wiser man might have quit at that point.

Actually, a wise man would have quit after his wife read the first frantically written 80 pages the very first weekend. With love in her eyes, she said as kindly as she could manage, “This stinks.”

But real writers are slaves to the Muse, or we are tired of people looking at us funny when we talk to ourselves. Or maybe we’re just a lot more stubborn than most people, so I kept writing. The problem was I had no idea why the book wasn’t selling. I had no clue what was wrong with it. I mean, my mom loved it, so it had to be ready.

I didn’t even understand enough about writing to work on other projects on the side. I was blind, stuck in a place I could not get out of, but didn’t realize it. Think Maxwell Smart, but without Agent 99 to bail him out.

Thankfully I found a way out of that rut of insanity. I took the Professional Writers Workshop from David Farland.

Amazing. What a revelation. They actually train people to write! I’d been doing it all by pure gut instinct for years, and proving why there was a better way. In that writing workshop, Dave took the time to meet with me over dinner and discuss my project. Using small words, he explained some of the reasons why the book would never work – like it was waaaay too long. I learned many things in that class and some of my blind spots were revealed.

What a milestone! I finally understood some of the reasons why I was not yet successful.

If I were really humble, I would have appreciated that much honest insight into my many writing flaws. What really slapped me in the face though was the magnitude of the challenge I faced: Either walk away from the entire writing gig, angry that the industry didn’t understand a brilliant talent like mine – walk away offended and console my wounded pride by thinking “they’re just not ready for so much pure awesomeness.”

Or I could admit that first attempt amounted to the scribblings of an uneducated beginner not even smart enough to take a class for four years, and all the hard work I’d poured into that novel counted as practice. I’d written enough to qualify a couple times over for ‘the half million words of crap’ we’re told new writers need to complete prior to writing anything good. Over-achiever all the way.

So I had that going for me, which I took to mean everything I write now will be awesome.

Bottom line, the goal remained: I will be a professional writer. So I had to choke down my pride and, after surviving that, I took my first major step wearing big boy writer pants. I acknowledged that first epic fantasy story could be treated as an Epic Fail.

Then I threw it away. All 1000+ pages of blood, sweat and tears.

And I started again from scratch.

Out of pure stubbornness, I didn’t even start an entirely different story. There was a little more blood to squeeze out of that first stone. I loved the core of that original idea, so I salvaged some of the world building, some of the characters, and the nucleus of the conflict. Then I redesigned the plot from the ground up.

Like building modern-day Rome on top of the ancient catacombs.

The resulting story is infinitely better than the original, and I’m now working with an agent to try to find it a home. And instead of waiting forever for that sale to happen, I’ve actually moved on and since written three other novels and e-published one of them. Four others are in various stages of outlining, all of which I plan to complete next year.

Still plenty of blind spots, but I try to identify them one at a time. It’s more satisfying that way and a lot less painful – like lancing a single blister instead of performing open heart surgery on yourself.

Still, it was that first major awakening that salvaged my writing career. I’ll always be grateful to David Farland for beating me down so thoroughly (in a nice way). Now that I can walk again, I’m a better writer for the experience.

And now I’m looking forward to paying forward the favor. You may find me roaming the halls at conventions and workshops, looking for blind spots to destroy.

It’s for your own good. Some day you’ll thank me.