More on Using Personas

In today’s Journal

* Quote of the Day
* I Make Mistakes
* More on Using Personas
* One More Major Revision to Writing Better Fiction
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quote of the Day

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” Max Depree

I Make Mistakes

I know. News flash, huh? Who knew?

But yesterday a reader and writer who bought the Soleada Garcia subseries of Blackwell Ops wrote to say he hadn’t received Blackwell Ops 20.

I had sent him the series before 20 was published, and then I forgot.

If you bought the subseries and if you don’t have Blackwell Ops 20, please email to let me know. I’ll send it right out. And my apologies if I missed anyone else.

More on Using Personas

I got a great question in the comments yesterday. Phil “Big Philly” Smith wrote,

“I’m curious, if we let our characters lead the way, and don’t interfere as The Almighty Writer, how does that work when you’re also using a persona as writer?”

My Response

EXACTLY the same way. Using a persona to write a story is exactly like a different person (albeit with the same good and bad “baggage”) writing the story.

Again, the characters are LIVING the story, so nothing changes on that end. But the writer (you, me, et al) is responsible for putting the story on the page. How you do that or I do that or Eric Stringer or Gervasio Arrancado does that will be different.

But the writer (you, me, a persona, whomever) presents the story on the page.

Given the same set of characters and the same story starter or story idea, you, I, and everyone else would write the story differently. Just as inside the story one POV character would notice different things about a setting and have different opinions of it.

His Response

“That’s very cool. Sounds like an advanced method for someone who’s already cleared out the myths.”

My Response

Maybe, but when I wrote through my personas, I was also still struggling with the myths, especially as presented by my conscious, critical mind. You just have to “decide” and then fight the battle whenever CCM shows up. It really is that simple.

Also, I didn’t mention this yesterday, but a persona does not also have to be a pen name, meaning you don’t have to put the persona’s name on the cover as author. I still write under my personas on occasion, but my name goes on the cover.

But as I did mention yesterday, when I write magic realism, that’s all through the persona (personality) of Gervasio Arrancado. He is a kinder, gentler guy who’s deeply in touch with the magical, mystical things that go on mostly unnoticed around us all pretty much every day.

Big Philly’s question caused me to add a new chapter to Writing Better Fiction. That earned him status as a contributor and a free PDF of the final version of the book.

One More Major Revision to Writing Better Fiction

As it turned out, I spent a few hours yesterday morning on a major revision of Writing Better Fiction.

I added a chapter on “The Persona vs. the Pseudonym (Pen Name).” Then I decided to combine two former appendices into another new chapter titled, “A Grammar Refresher and Notes on Punctuation and Dialogue.”

So the book now has two new chapters and only six appendices.

I was going to add the new simple TOC here, but those of you who either bought it or are contributors or donors will see it when I send you the final version.

UPDATE: Writing Better Fiction is now OUT! I uploaded the mss to Amazon and D2D this morning. All donors, contributors, and purchasers who took advantage of the sale should have received their PDF copy at about 6 p.m. Arizona time last night.

If you did not receive it and you are due one, please let me know.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to Amazon’s strongarm tactic of offering only a 35% royalty on books priced over $9.99, I begrudgingly priced the ebook version of Writing Better Fiction at $9.99.

I was going to price it at $14.99. At least those who purchased it directly from me in ebook got it for a dollar less than the new regular price.

My royalties will suffer, which only pushes me more toward selling my books direct from my website. I’ll undercut the price you would pay for ANY of my books at any retailer.

More on that will be forthcoming very soon. I only want to finish my current fiction work first. Then I’ll be updating every book at StoneThread Publishing with new buy links. Now THAT is drudgery.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

The Subterranean ‘Lake’ Home to a Phantom

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 790
New words written in WBF……… 5,000
The book is now at 52,918 words (done)

Writing of Blackwell Ops 21: Johnny Mercer

Day 1…… 4190 words. To date…… 4190
Day 2…… 2599 words. To date…… 6789
Day 3…… 3380 words. To date…… 10169
Day 4…… 2812 words. To date…… 12981
Day 5…… 1726 words. To date…… 14707
Day 6…… 1866 words. To date…… 16573

Fiction for March…………………….…. 9784
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 174376
Fiction since October 1………………… 477431
Nonfiction for March…………………… 10790
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 109980
2024 consumable words……………… 284356

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 4
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 86
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 239
Short story collections………………… 31

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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