I tend to write high concept. Which everyone should love, right? I mean, editors are always asking for the high concept. It makes the book easier to pitch, to market, to distill down into one sentence.

But high concept doesn’t mean big story. Write or find the high concept but don’t write the sprawling story. Write the small story. Stephen King is brilliant at this. Many of his high concepts are set in the smallest rural communities. It allows the concept to be high, but the story small.

I’ve failed on this point many times. I have a tendency to aim for the epic. The challenge is getting the reader to emotionally connect to characters. It’s very difficult if the protagonist isn’t someone they can relate to, and that means dealing with losses and challenges that they can relate to.

I recently wrote a middle grade novel where the kids find a dying gnome and have to take on his gnomic or gnome-magic. Every night the gnomic, and the kids along with it, transform into the animal most in need in the area, and they have to save the animal before they can turn back into human form. That’s the high concept. But the real issue for the kids is that their parents are selling their home and they don’t want to leave the neighbourhood. That’s the small story, the one that other kids can relate to. The fear of the unknown. The desire for familiarity. Thematically, the two fit well. Deciding to take on the responsibility of the gnomic, relates to our responsibility to our communities and that that responsibility is transferable and universal. To be honest, I didn’t write the small story first. I made a mistake again and needed to weave it back in. It’s a harder lesson than it looks.

So … my rec to other writers and to myself is to find the big idea, but then write it to the smallest story possible. It’ll create an intimacy with the reader that’s sure to be successful.

The post Write the Biggest Small Story You Can appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

It’s working …

“One of the most original heroines I’ve read in a long time…” — Sandra Brown

“A mashup of the work of Gloria Steinem, Ian Fleming, and Mario Puzo, all under the editorship of Stan Lee.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL

The Black Stiletto: Stars & Stripes is the third book in a projected five novel series.

Raymond, can you set up the series for those who have not read books one and two, please?

It’s a story about a woman ahead of her time, fiercely independent in a world where women weren’t allowed to be so. She’s a feminist before that term was in our vernacular. And while it’s about a woman who puts on a costume and mask and fights crime—she has no superpowers, really. More importantly, it’s also a story about a woman with Alzheimer’s and her son and a story about a father and daughter.

Here’s the cover copy for the third book.

It’s 1960 in the third Black Stiletto book, and the Black Stiletto, in her civilian persona, Judy Cooper, volunteers to work for JFK’s presidential campaign, only to become involved in a devious behind-the-scenes plot that could change the course of history. In the present, Judy’s son, Martin, must deal with increasing mental health issues, his mother’s demise from Alzheimer’s, and a new woman in his life. And then there’s Gina, the Stiletto’s granddaughter, who is exhibiting evidence that she is more like her grandmother than Martin would like.

The heroine Black Stiletto isn’t much like the June Cleaver stereotype we picture from the era is she? What was her genesis? And what are you going for?

I wanted to tackle more of a Batman-like character that didn’t have super powers. Judy Cooper (AKA the Black Stiletto) lives on the fringe, she is not really in normal society, living way down in the East Village, in a room above a gymnasium, like one of the guys. She steps out of a traditional role of women at that time.

For the rest of the great interview, please follow this link!

The post Interview with Raymond Benson, author of the Black Stiletto series appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

ASSURED DESTRUCTION
Tech Savvy Young Adult Mystery Series
Wrestles With The Many Difficult Choices Required of Teens Who Live Life Online

http://www.janusflytrap.com

April 24, 2013 [Ottawa, ON] — The fast-paced world of social media and the vagaries of life online are explored in ASSURED DESTRUCTION, a young adult mystery written by author and father, Michael F. Stewart. The tech savvy series stretches from books to the Internet, and includes four novels, seven Twitter feeds, a Facebook page, two websites, seven graphic novel origin stories, and a blog. The first book (also titled ASSURED DESTRUCTION) is now available from major online bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes and Kobo. Driving the transmedia narrative is an open source social media puppeteer platform developed by Janak Alford of Prototype D.

In ASSURED DESTRUCTION, heroine Janus Rose wrestles with the many difficult choices required of teens who live life online. As her hacking skill improves over the series, the stakes and impact of her moral choices rise. It’s a brave new world, and the right decision is neither black nor white, but gray.

In the first novel, the real-world consequences of Janus’ online exploits threaten to bring down her mother’s computer recycling business. Helping Janus are the many identities she’s lifted from the hard drives left at her mother’s computer recycling business. Gumps, Frannie, Heckleena and more exist both online for Janus and as story extensions for the reader, providing an interactive flavor to the series.

“With ASSURED DESTRUCTION I wanted it to include transmedia elements right from the outset,” says Michael F. Stewart. “This desire to connect across different mediums is what drew me to PrototypeD. Their platform combined with the stellar graphic art of Don Dimanlig brings ASSURED DESTRUCTION to life, blending reality and storytelling, much like the Internet itself.”

The open source Twitter management platform allows a database of tweets to be uploaded, enabling inter-character storytelling. Specific characters can interact with followers, delivering answers to questions, or in the case of Heckleena, heckles tailored to a Twitter user’s number of followers, location, or device used. Tweets are prepped by scraping sites important to the personalities of the characters, allowing the author to curate the content further and deliver authentic, fresh content. Following each character earns the new follower a hidden graphic novel origin story.

About Michael F. Stewart:
Father to four girls, Michael F. Stewart is a member of the International Thriller Writers and SF Canada, and the author of the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon, Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for young adults. Michael has always been passionate about the intersection of media, technology and story. His middle grade graphic novels have been published through Oxford University Press Canada and his anti-cyber bullying narrative through Scholastic Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Narrative Links:
http://janusflytrap.com/
http://www.assured-destruction.com/
http://www.darkslinger.net/

https://twitter.com/Paradise57says
https://twitter.com/tulesays
https://twitter.com/FrannieMouth
https://twitter.com/JFlyTrap
https://twitter.com/HairySays
https://twitter.com/gumpssays
https://twitter.com/Heckleena

Links:
Website — http://michaelfstewart.com
Facebook — http://www.facebook.com/AssuredDestructionSeries
Twitter — https://twitter.com/AssuredD

Tags:
#assureddestruction, #janusflytrap, #mikestewart, #youngadult, #yalit

Book Details:
Print ISBN: 9780981269948
Price: $8.99
eBook ISBN: 9780981269931
Pages: 185
Publisher: Non Sequitur Press
Publication Date: March 22, 2013
Author: Michael F. Stewart
Genre: Young Adult Mystery

- END -

Julie Giles, GreenHAT Digital
Cell: +1 (416) 878-5328
Email: julie@greenhatdigital.com

Please visit our press room at http://michaelfstewart.com/press-room/ to download hi-res images, a sample chapter and other goodies.

The post Assured Destruction: A Tech Savvy Young Adult Mystery appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

Over the last ten years I’ve noted that Narrative Distance has closed in genre fiction. More often we’re reading in first person, or third person limited but well inside the head of the point of view character.

24 BONES is written somewhere between omniscient and third limited. Part of the reason is because the set up is so epic. When you have many threads to tie together, first person is impossible. You’re constricted to one view point and would have to make massive and ridiculous changes in plotting to ensure the reader understood all they needed. Omniscient also allows the author to set the scene. You can start the reader in space, zoom into Cairo, to the revolution, to the neighborhood and alleys of Coptic Cairo, and then closer into a service at the church of Abu Sarga before finally introducing your protagonist. In my novel, the prologue is strongly omniscient. 24 BONES has several protagonists, and that too is helped by my choice of viewpoint. But you don’t see a lot of omniscient storytelling these days.

The problem with omniscience is that many readers are not used to it and it’s more difficult to have the reader engage and invest, to care in the protagonist. When you do not enter a character’s thoughts, or do not spend significant time with characters, the author must work much harder to develop the reader’s connection.

I have a real affection for omniscient as I feel it creates an epic feel. So even when I write in third person, I tend not to enter the thoughts of the characters. Maybe entering heads feels like I’m cheating, that it breaks the rule of ‘show don’t tell.’ Whatever the reason, it means I have more distance between the reader and the characters, less interiority. Sometimes, to fix this—because it needs to be fixed—I’ll actually write the scene in first person ‘I’ and then switch it back to third limited. First person seems to give me the right to get deeper into the psyche of the character.

So before you start writing your novel, consider the point of view you wish to take. It’s an important decision. If you have readers who say they never really invested in a character, try rewriting the story in 1st person and then switch it back and see if that helps.

The post What’s Your Point of View appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

I have seven of my book characters currently on Twitter and I’ll be adding two more this summer. Janus has her own blog as well and then there’s the series Facebook page, which I don’t want to be a simple reposting of what goes up on the JanusFlyTrap.com site. That’s a lot of material to create, especially when I plan for the series to run for a year minimum. It takes a lot of awareness to collect that content.

This forced awareness is becoming less forced and more fun over time. Now when I’m going about my daily life I see things that Janus might like, or that could make Paradise57 shout, oh cool! Or that Heckleena would mock. I jot it down.

Not only has it made me more aware as a person, which is part of the whole ‘living in the moment’ thing everyone tells us is good to do, but more importantly, I’m living in the heads of my characters. As I cross the ‘t’s and dot ‘i’s of book 2 and start draft 1 of book 3, this is important and has begun to layer a complexity on my characters that hadn’t previously existed.

So what’s the unintended benefit of transmedia? A richer storyworld, and better storytelling. There can’t be a better reason to do it.

The post The Unintended Benefits of Transmedia appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

Here’s an excerpt but be sure to check out the whole thing for tips!

Do you want to separate your writing from the pack? To rise above the noise? Why not employ a methodology used by major Hollywood Studios, from the creators of SUPERNATURALS to HEROES, to many major films and gaming franchises like Assassin’s Creed? It’s called transmedia!

So … Transmedia … WTF is it? The best definition I’ve ever seen is, Transmedia=Storyworld.

It’s every entry point for your readers to your story. I’m not talking where they can buy your book, or your Facebook fan page, those are marketing channels, not story … channels. Are your characters on twitter? Do they Facebook or create videos on Vimeo or YouTube? Maybe there’s a puzzle in your novel that readers can solve on an iPad app which unlocks back story? These are story extensions. Transmedia creates opportunities for readers to discover your book, to continue the story, and creates a feedback loop between fan and author.

Here’s an example, this is the Storyverse for my novel ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

The company in the book has a website, the protagonist has a blog, there’s a secret website to discover, a Facebook page and every character has a Twitter feed that reflects their personalities.

So, for example, if you follow @Heckleena, you’ll gain access to her graphic novel origin story. If you tweet at her, she’ll identify something about you to make fun of. She knows your location, whether you used an iPhone to tweet, what time of day you’re tweeting, where you live, and how many followers you have. All things she can mock, just like her character in the book. I also personally monitor all the Twitter feeds and respond where appropriate.

The post Adding Transmedia to Your Writing appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

Raymond Benson knows something about superheroes. He’s been writing larger than life franchises and tie-ins for METAL GEAR SOLID, HITMAN, and JAMES BOND for decades. It makes him the perfect author to reinvent the genre. Or perhaps, just like the Prog Rock (Jethro Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant) he loves returns to vogue every generation, it’s time for a return to a fresh, humanized hero, even if she is still super.

It’s working …

“One of the most original heroines I’ve read in a long time…” — Sandra Brown

“A mashup of the work of Gloria Steinem, Ian Fleming, and Mario Puzo, all under the editorship of Stan Lee.” — LIBRARY JOURNAL

THE BLACK STILETTO: STARS & STRIPES is the third book in a projected five novel series.

Raymond, can you set up the series for those who have not read books one and two, please?

It’s a story about a woman ahead of her time, fiercely independent in a world where women weren’t allowed to be so. She’s a feminist before that term was in our vernacular. And while it’s about a woman who puts on a costume and mask and fights crime—she has no superpowers, really. More importantly, it’s also a story about a woman with Alzheimer’s and her son and a story about a father and daughter.

Here’s the cover copy for the third book.

It’s 1960 in the third Black Stiletto book, and the Black Stiletto, in her civilian persona, Judy Cooper, volunteers to work for JFK’s presidential campaign, only to become involved in a devious behind-the-scenes plot that could change the course of history. In the present, Judy’s son, Martin, must deal with increasing mental health issues, his mother’s demise from Alzheimer’s, and a new woman in his life. And then there’s Gina, the Stiletto’s granddaughter, who is exhibiting evidence that she is more like her grandmother than Martin would like.

The heroine Black Stiletto isn’t much like the June Cleaver stereotype we picture from the era is she? What was her genesis? And what are you going for?

I wanted to tackle more of a Batman-like character that didn’t have super powers. Judy Cooper (AKA the Black Stiletto) lives on the fringe, she is not really in normal society, living way down in the East Village, in a room above a gymnasium, like one of the guys. She steps out of a traditional role of women at that time.

Why set her story in the past?

Given the fact that the Black Stiletto series consists of two parallel stories–one in the present and one in the past–it made sense chronologically for Judy’s story to be told in that time period. I also envisioned her as something of a “female version of the Shadow.” Her vigilantism works best in an era before cell phones and computers.

At the same time I had a different story brewing in my head about a grown son taking care of his mother with Alzheimer’s, and he discovers some dramatic secret about her past. So I combined the two ideas and it clicked. And women do seem to like it, and men, too!

Writing a novel with much of it set in 1960, from a woman’s point of view, must require a great deal of research. What have you done to put yourself in the, um … stilettos of a woman in 1960?

For more, follow this link!

The post The Black Stiletto: Stars & Stripes by Raymond Benson appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

One in every seven minutes online is spent on Facebook. Eighty percent of people watching television do so while multitasking on a second screen.

More than ever it’s difficult to engage an audience; content is everywhere. The solution for television has been to go where the audience is. To provide value added content on the second screen to keep an audience within the story, companion websites, in-show shopping, fan interaction, etc.

Why can’t this be done for books? Is reading too solitary? Too standalone a medium? Should a story’s characters have Facebook accounts? Is it too much effort?

As an author, more and more of my young adult audience is on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, so it behooves me to put the story there too. Right? And I’m not talking about marketing on the platforms. Story. But will it work? Books are different. People don’t like to be pulled away from their novels to view video. CSI creator Anthony Zuiker did this with LEVEL 26 by adding high quality video interstitials. Let’s just say he didn’t pull it off, and I think this had a lot to do with requiring the user to switch media formats within the story in order to get the story.

Another example we can learn from is the AMANDA PROJECT by HarperTeen. This was probably ahead of its time. It was a book series with a massive blog/forum where new material was shared with fans and the audience maintained between novels. It didn’t really catch on, and again, perhaps because the market it targeted wasn’t ready for the social components. Or maybe they were thinking too big. Should transmedia help sell millions of books or just thousands? I think it also made one critical mistake. The social elements were not on Facebook or Twitter, but a blog community. This increased the marketing challenge dramatically. It required fans to sign up, worse—to find them.

So what are we doing?

It’s called ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

It’s an experiment. A pretty big one. We’re creating a storyworld that will stretch across four books, seven Twitter feeds, one blog, two websites, and Facebook.

In the book, Jan Rose doesn’t destroy all the hard drives that she’s supposed to while working for her mom’s computer recycling company. Instead, she creates virtual identities using the data she scours from the hard drives, complete with Twitter accounts, avatars, and blogs.

If you want to read the rest of the post check it out at Woven Myst!

The post Transmedia: Extending Storyworlds in ASSURED DESTRUCTION appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

This series is about teen Janus Rose, who has a penchant for exploring the discarded hard drives of other people and then recreating their profiles online.

This is a book, but one cool feature of the series is that you can interact with the characters on Twitter. Seriously, if you can handle the abuse, try tweeting @Heckleena. Have a burning question? Ask @gumpssays! All the characters interact with each other too and if you follow certain hashtags you can learn more about why Jan created this network of identities. Better yet, follow them and you’ll be able to see their origin stories in graphic novel format!

Reviews for the book are pouring in and they are awesome. Check them out on @Goodreads

You can buy the book for just $2.99; click any of the links below.

Be sure to keep stopping back to Jan’s blog too. www.janusflytrap.com

Do you want to ask any questions of me? Contact me! I love hearing from readers. Better yet, join us on @Facebook!

@Amazon
@iTunes
@Kobo

The post LAUNCH DAY! ASSURED DESTRUCTION appeared first on Michael F Stewart.

Not for some major markets.

March 22nd is the date I’ve set to go live (just 14 more sleeps!). But Amazon Kindle takes anywhere between a few hours and a couple of days from the time you hit submit. Publishing to Amazon via CreateSpace takes five to seven days. Using Smashwords isn’t any faster as approval to it’s Premium Catalogue can take one two weeks in and of itself, which is time that must be added on to the lead time required by the respective channel it distributes to. Unfortunately, if you’re attempting to time a release, it’s just not possible to do so on a specific day.

The iBookstore wins for longest lead time required; however, they allow you to set a publication date, so provided you have your work ready soon enough, this isn’t a problem. I’m two to three weeks into the approval process. Next time I’ll give myself a month.

Kobo wins for most seamless process. It publishes immediately AND it allows you to set a publication date. Assured Destruction is already loaded in both Kobo and the iBookstore.

If you wish to access all of these channels to market, be sure to give yourself adequate time to set each up. They all have quirks, whether it’s tax IDs or banking SWIFT codes, or a lengthy quality control process. Go through the steps, just don’t hit publish until you’re ready!

The post Timing Publication appeared first on Michael F Stewart.