(Geeking out, non-history buffs can skip this section).

Your grandfather was in North Africa???? Please email me! My grandfather was with the 320th Glider Division of the 82nd Airborne! I’d love the compare notes and share stories!

(Okay I’m done.)

So… in all seriousness… That’s admittedly a tough one. I can certainly understand your concern. The problem with who knew what/where/when and who participated in what is still a subject of heated debate even to this day.

So honestly, full disclaimer to my readers, I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of what happened. My grandfather (as stated above) not only fought in the war, but also aided in the liberation of Wobbelin, which was a concentration camp that housed roughly 5,000 victims at its height. He never spoke about it, but I dug up as much information as I could find. The Holocaust was a terrible tragedy that can never, and should never be denied.

That being said… the first thing you want to do is go through your book and see if, in your opinion, you’re glorifying anything or anyone that shouldn’t be glorified, in your opinion. If yes, my advice would be to consider a rewrite. If not, then I would say go ahead and publish it. Without actually seeing your book, or knowing your grandfather’s specific history, I can’t tell you either way.

There is a difference between telling a story and glorifying a certain group of people. The problem is that where that line is drawn is constantly being skewed. So where does the line fall? Where should it fall? Well… that’s extremely arbitrary.

One school of thought says that glorification is painting a person or event in any positive light, or even just making said subject sympathetic.

Another school of thought is that glorification is as simple as making a person or event the central focus of your story, regardless of whether they’re portrayed positively or objectively.

The final school is probably the most obvious one… where said person or event is blatantly heralded as a hero and portrayed as the moral ‘right’ in the story.

Honestly, IMO the line should be drawn somewhere between that first and third schools of thought. The people who fall into the third category would just assume that these people never be written about at all… which is the antithesis of everything the subjects of history and literature should be.

If you just want to tell the story of what your grandfather did/saw that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not saying you won’t get blowback, you might. So you’ll want to be ready for that.

Personally… I don’t think it should be a problem though. The commander of the Afrika Korps was Irwin Rommel and they were never accused of war crimes (At least not based on any of the research I’ve done. If there have been new developments, please let me know). The people who would likely read your book would be able to put that into context.

I hope this advice helps in some way. The best thing to do in this case is do a little soul searching and ask yourself a couple of questions;

1. Who was my grandfather?
2. Do I know everything I can possibly know about where he was and what he did?
3. Why do I want to publish this book about him? What is my goal here?

Regardless of your answer, legally (At least in the U.S.) no one can stop you from publishing it if you want to. However, there is also the line between legal and ethical.

So I apologize if this is all over the place, but I’m really struggling to give the best answer I can on this one. I guess in summation, all I can tell you is that as long as you’ve documented everything as historically accurate as possible, and are putting it out there for the right reasons, then I would go ahead and publish it. There’s always going to be detractors and people who are looking for controversy where none exists. That’s just how it goes.

Please let me know when it’s published. I’d love to look into it a little and definitley shoot me an email as I’d love to get your insight into your grandfather’s experiences from the other side.

Readers… this was a fairly touchy subject. What do you all think? Should stories be out there where the central focus or “Hero” is a German Soldier from WW2 or should that be left for the history textbooks? As always, I’m very interested in your thoughts, let me know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

So this isn’t going to be one of my typical Q&A posts. I’ll get back to those later. This is likely about to be little more than an editorial rant, if anything. Let’s get started…

So I just finished playing Mass Effect 3.

… and already half of my readers probably know what this is going to be about. I love the series. I love the characters, I love the emersion, I love how the side quests actually contribute to the main story, and I love the multi-aspect of the games.

The first game, as expected, was a complete story. I think BioWare and EA were being cautious to give everyone a complete story surrounding the characters and crew of the Normandy with room for a sequel but weren’t really banking on one.

The second game destroyed the original Normandy… kay… and landed the main character in a two-year restoration program to bring him back to life. I actually liked this one the best. Why? Well right off the bat, you find yourself working for the bad guy. That’s right, Cerberus saved your life, rebuilt your ship, and reassembled your crew. Right away, you know these people have their own agenda, but they have the survival of humanity at the top of their list and there are bigger fish to fry, so you have little choice but to go along with it. It’s also in this game where the romance options really start to come into play.

Now, once you’ve beaten the second game, you find yourself under house arrest for working with Cerberus, while the Reaper fleets are moving closer and closer to Earth. The game actually starts off with the kick-off of the Battle of Earth. You’re forced to evacuate, and the Normandy (now an Alliance ship), is returned to you. You go through the galaxy, building Alliances, bringing other fleets into the fold and attempting to get the galaxy up to a military strength rating of 5000… which isn’t the easiest thing to do.

Spoiler Alert: Though the games have been out for years now.

If you either don’t gain enough military strength or make the wrong decisions in the game, the main character dies…

Okay, I’m not a huge fan of that, but whatever. I’m not the writer, so if that’s the logical outcome to the people who created the story, then so be it. This is why I started writing my own stories because I too often find the endings of other peoples, disappointing.

My main gripe comes with ‘Good’ ending. If you get that 5000 EMS, and make the right choice, you go through the typical ending, but after the Admiral gives his speech and we see everyone go their separate ways… you’re then taken to a massive debris field where you see a familiar suit of armor and a dog tag with the letters N7 on them. The suit of armor moves as its wearer takes in a deep breath, signifying that Shepherd is still alive.

I anxiously awaited what was to come next. Was someone going to find him? Where was he? Would he be reunited with the crew and his love interest (in my case, Tali’Zorah)?

Was any of this going to be answered?

NOPE!!!! That’s where the game ends. It’s supposed to give you hope that Shepherd lives, but given how badly he was hurt, given that he’s been beaten up, shot, survived a massive explosion, survived mind control, and then survived whatever happened with the Crucible… for all we know, he could be brain dead, he could be badly injured and not survive long, etc. There is any number of things that could happen here. Just because we see him breathing, doesn’t mean he’s going to survive or if he does, they may not find him.

This wouldn’t be so bad if there was a fourth game (No Andromeda doesn’t count!), but it doesn’t seem like there are any plans to make another one following this cast.

Writers in all formats, I’m begging you now… PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!!! Open endings at the end of series or the end of a story is a good way to piss your audience off. If they’ve devoted the time and energy to get through your story (in the case of Mass Effect, 150 hours of gameplay to effectively do everything), they’re not going to appreciate being left hanging.

This is especially dangerous as a bad ending can break a good story, whereas a good ending can absolutely save a bad story. The wrap up is arguably one of the most important aspects of your work because that’s the note people are going to be left on. If you build everything up and then the ending lets them down, it will leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. You want people to remember your stories fondly because you want them to reread those stories or even look into more of your work. Even if they loved your story throughout the entire thing, a lousy ending can suddenly unravel everything you’ve built.

This is why so many people say that a bad sequel turned them off to a story, or they simply pretend it doesn’t exist. Well, that’s great, but you don’t have that luxury when the part you don’t like is an integral part of the main story.

My advice honestly when it comes to things like this… if you don’t intend to write a sequel, or you’re goal isn’t really to make people think philosophically on a topic… then don’t write an open ending. Don’t leave things up in the air or open to speculation, because if you do, the specter of doubt will always be there, and most people will not like it. Wrap everything up, finalize everything and leave it.

Fortunately, gamers these days “suffer” from a condition known as ‘Weaponized Autism’. Apparently, a few people who felt the same way I did, took it upon themselves to do something about it. With several game developers leaving their code open so that gamers can modify aspects they don’t like (See Skyrim and Dragon Age on Nexusmods), a final fix for this ending was put in place. 

This anal-retentive attention to detail cleaned up the problem areas of the original ending that made no sense and still respected the original ending while expanding on Shepherd’s survival. If you haven’t played the game, but plan to… do yourself a favor, DOWNLOAD THIS MOD!!! Do it before you finish the game.

Okay, not that we’re past that, is there a place/time where an open ending is a good thing? I’d like to think so.

Spoiler Alert!!!

In my book, Damnation, General Xaphan has committed horrible atrocities. First by helping Lucifer wage war against the Most High, then by helping him build a new army in the Underworld, and even after that by attempting to murder her own sister. However, out of love she developed for a human, she turned on Lucifer, foiled his plans to launch a second attack on the Celestial World, and sacrificed her own life in an attempt to save the human she loved.

As I was writing the ending, I was stuck on whether or not the Choirs of Angels would overturn her exile and permit her return to the Celestial World. Were her sins too great to be redeemed? I couldn’t decide. I alluded to the outcome I wanted for her but decided to leave her with two possible outcomes. At the end of the story, she’s resurrected and given a human form. The angels tell her that, in order to earn her place in the Celestial World and thus, a chance to be with the one she loved again, she would need to linger on Earth for an average human lifespan. She was given two options;

1. Live a righteous life, a life of charity, celibacy, and selflessness. If she could do that, she would be allowed to return.
2. Refuse the offer or fail to live that way, and she would be returned to the Underworld to linger forever in darkness.

She took the offer, but that’s where I ended the story. Did she redeem herself or not? Well… that really depends on the reader in each case. If the reader thought that she’d done enough and deserved to live out eternity in happiness, the reader would grant her that, if not, her banishment to the Underworld would be on them. It depends on the philosophical question of what it takes for a person to be redeemed.

Anyway, that’s my opinion regarding the problem of open endings. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hi Jim,

I’ve been following your blog for a little while now and was hoping I could get some advice from you. I was wondering if you could tell me what kind of character you like more, a dynamic or static character. I’m creating one right now for my story and am having trouble coming up with ideas.

Thanks,
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I’m afraid you’ve got me there because both types have their advantages and can hit the various pitfalls. Whether or not a character is good varies greatly and inevitably depends on how they’re used, portrayed, and what circumstances you place them in.

Let’s start with the static character. Arguably, this is the harder one to get right. I know a lot of people say that static characters are a lot more simplistic, and that’s true. However, this does not mean that they are easier to write. Simplistic characters can turn readers off very easily, especially if they’re center stage. Usually, most people advise against making them center stage unless they’re just a simple villain used as an adversary when a writer is too busy with hero development to bother with their backstory. Which, don’t get me wrong, may sound lazy, but can actually be done well…

The best way I’ve seen to do a main static character right is to start the character off with very little detail. The readers are likely going to hate him/her early on and that’s fine. When I wrote Mary Kelly, I fully expected that she’d be hated and actually wanted it that way.

Over the rest of the story, you find out more and more about why that character is the way he or she is. Suddenly your reader’s view of them changes as they begin to be able to empathize with him/her. In other words… the character doesn’t change, but the audience’s attitude towards the character does. In essence, the character’s portrayal is what becomes dynamic over time, but the character itself remains static.

So what about a dynamic character? You also have to be careful here. Change doesn’t take place overnight… unless you’re Anakin Skywalker…

However, even for all the criticism he received, he still had the seeds of doubt planted in him by Palpatine over the years, we simply didn’t see it. This is where we run into problems with dynamic characters. Too often, they change personality traits, opinions, and long-held beliefs at the drop of a nail. It’s unrealistic and hard to really empathize with a character who does this. The development of this kind of character really needs to take place over time. It may even take until the end of your book for them to fully embrace the dynamics of their personality.

On the other side, people do tend to gravitate much easier to a character that can change and become more over time.

So in the end, it really depends on you and your perceived level of skill with character creation. Don’t start writing until you’ve got your characters fleshed out. That’s the best advice I can give you. I know some people will just start with a couple of leads who are blank slates and then build them using the outside stimulus to work at character development, but doing so can very easily lead to disaster. Without having a personality pre-created, your character can do things that may make sense to you, but going back later will seem very out of character. This is something an audience will pick up on and typically reject.

Readers, what do you think? Which character is the stronger of the two? Let me know down in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hello,

A good question. Well honestly, I have to admit that my initial reasons were not as altruistic as one might think. I’d gone through site after site looking for good ways to advertise your writing. My books weren’t getting much traction with what I’d already had set up. Then I contacted another writer to see what he recommended. One of the main things was maintaining an online presence through a blog or other social media. He said the best thing you can do is give back some of that success you earned.

So I started my blog. At first, it got almost no traction because I was mostly advertising myself and my writing. I decided that, at that point, if I was going to get any traction, I needed to actually become part of the community. So I began looking at other blogs on WordPress and … sigh… tumblr… and a few other places. As I began commenting on and sharing what other’s had written, I began to notice a recurrent problem; There was plenty of talent, but not much in the way of experience. Too many skilled writers were having problems.

I started handing out advice in the comments section of a couple of the blogs that I frequented. I started getting a lot of compliments and gratitude. At that point, I really found my niche and started writing pieces about how to write and how to get published. Before I knew it, I started getting questions in my comments field.

My books got more traction and I set up an email for both fan mail and advice questions. Before long, I was inundated with emails from both. Unfortunately, I made a promise to myself to personally respond to each of these… and have since been paying the price for that.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love getting messages and will continue to respond. It has become a labor of love for me and I really enjoy doing it.

So that’s it really. What started off as a way to advertise my book, became an advice and geek culture page.

Hope this helps!

Thanks!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

I’m actually in the process of writing a novel, but I’m having a hard time getting the characters together. At times, it seems like the storyline kind of interferes with any chance to get them together. Do you have any advice on how to write a story with a romantic element?

Thanks,
Marylou

Hi Marylou,

It’s not always the easiest thing in the world, admittedly. In my books, I kind of like to leave the romance either to the beginning or middle of the story and just kind of allude to it through the body of the book. What I mean is, have the two characters forge a relationship before or in the middle of the main adventure. If your novel is fast-paced where there is no downtime, it may be a good idea for them to start off together and then have their relationship grow throughout the story.

This is more personal preference, but I don’t typically like stories where the relationship begins at the end. There is an old anecdote… that’s been mocked in several action movies; “Relationships based on intense experiences never work.”
Again, it’s an anecdote, but a pretty accurate one from what I’ve observed. This is just my opinion, but if you want a romantic element, don’t end on that note. It’s contrived, cheesy, and really doesn’t draw an audience in.

Since I’ve given you some do’s and don’ts, there’s another one I feel like I should bring up. This is something I see all the time in modern literature, tv, and movies and it really drives me insane. Do not write a story where the obvious ‘breeding pair’ has several close calls where the almost get together, but either one of them backs off or has second thoughts… more than once, and then another character comes in and interferes, only to disappear once his purpose has been served.

This is relationship drama and, while a little bit of it is okay, prolonging your story this way will annoy readers very quickly. This can be considered a form of baiting and readers don’t tend to like that very much.

Create a Dramatic Relationship, not Relationship Drama. What’s the difference? Well the opposed to what I wrote above, a dramatic relationship is one that responds and evolves due to outside stimulus, but remains strong. That’s really what you want if you’re going to draw people in.

So I went off on a bit of a tangeant there, and I apologize for that. Really all you need to do is create two likeable characters and let them work through things together. Create two characters who either compliment each other or work well off each other. Do that, and you’ll be just fine.

Hope this helps!

Readers,  do you have any advice for Marylou about adding a romantic element into a fast-paced story? Let her know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

So I’m published and like you, I have a blog with a fairly decent following. Over the past few months, I’ve gotten a number of friend requests to my personal facebook page. I’ve ignored them, but they keep coming and I don’t want to seem unprofessional. Do you have any advice on how to handle this?

Thanks,
Lindsey

Hi Lindsey,

I think it’s absolutely important to keep your personal and Professional space separate. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong by rejecting or ignoring these requests. My advice to you would be to create a separate account of author’s page on Facebook. You can take a look at mine on the left, for reference if you like.

I would link it to your WordPress and other social media accounts. Once done, I would lock your private Facebook page with the highest security settings and then make adjust your page so that you’re unsearchable. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more secure that way. I’ve had the same issue from time to time and it’s really the best way to handle it. I love interacting with my readers and fans, it’s what I really enjoy about releasing books.

However, my Facebook page has personal interactions with close friends and family and I prefer to keep that separate.

So anything you want to keep out of the public eye, you need to secure as best you can. It won’t be perfect, but that’s really the best thing you can do.

I hope this helps. Authors and readers, how do you handle issues like this? Do you interact with the people who send you friends requests?

Thanks,
Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim