[Caelum's Scrapbook] Use Your Words.

[Bolden Denusk]

It's a perfect gift for my baseball obsessed brother Katie--thanks!

[Tabarnac]

I'm totally getting a signed one for my dad for Father's Day, and one for myself. Do you think I can get Brian drunk enough to sign it "To the only man I've ever loved" and then show it to him whenever I see him? I am the awkward turtle.

[Caelum]

Glad to be of service, Lisa. And, Dani, I suggest Jaeger and vodka, throw in some poker and be sure to let him win while he still remembers. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L’Engle.

[Caelum]

This is astonishingly relevant. Body of text of below. For years I’ve been thinking and writing about the future of the book, calling the e-book a stopgap measure at best. More than 100 years ago the first movie cameras were used to film theatrical performances, but it took visionary directors like Sergei Eisenstein and Fritz Lang to untether the camera from tradition and lead the way to a new art form: cinema. With the convergence of technology, media and social platforms, and greater interconnectedness, I see a similar dynamic today occurring with books. I see kindred spirits in author Michael Grant and Alex LeMay, a TV and film producer who runs a Chicago-based company that creates multimedia for books. Grant may be the biggest-selling author you never heard of. Author (and co-author with his wife) of 150 books that have sold more than 35 million copies worldwide, Grant pens paranoid thrillers set in dystopian worlds, characterized by mass delirium, conspiracies, cults, phobias, plagues, shadowy guerrilla groups, and war--kind of like high school. Which may account for his audience: mostly teenagers. Half a dozen years ago Grant, now 57, was feeling hemmed in by the limitations of print when he, too, had a vision. Physical books’ days were numbered, he realized, and when digital came it would completely upend publishing. Not just the business--which would be decimated by big-name authors bypassing traditional publishers in favor of doing it themselves and keeping the lion’s share of revenue for themselves--but the art form. Merely porting text on a page to a screen wouldn’t make full use of the media. Instead, he saw it as a way to unlock narrative from the constraints of a text-only canvas, and this offered glorious possibilities. Rather than dickering over the rights to a song to include in a book, why not offer the actual song as an audio clip, and layer in video and photos? While he was at it, he could create separate platforms with teeming communities built around a story and create a universe where readers become characters. Suddenly the book becomes a living, breathing, mutable endeavor where each audience member chooses his or her own path through multiple narratives. But it’s hard to be a visionary without acolytes, and Grant says his publisher viewed his entreaties as just “another crazy note from Michael.” At the time the technology simply wasn’t there to make multiple platform storytelling a reality, and e-books comprised only a sliver of trade book sales. Then he watched as his son scrolled through the text of one of the father’s entire 500-page manuscripts on a mobile phone and Grant took it as a sign that the great transformation was near. He swore he would get ahead of the curve. But unless he was willing to fork over a million bucks of his own money and “have twenty code monkeys writing software” he couldn’t do it alone. He knew he would have to adopt a television production company model to succeed. The result is an interactive “transmedia” prequel to his forthcoming novel, BZRK. Six months before its February 2012 publication date, Grant, teaming with Alex LeMay, a TV and film director who doubles as CEO of The Shadow Gang, a multimedia production company based in Chicago, launched the first salvo in the form of an alternate reality game (ARG) involving a cult. Over the next several months the story of a guerrilla group of the near future intent on toppling a repressive utopian society, with both sides armed with weapons-grade nanotechnology, will continue to unfold over multiple websites and platforms. In addition to the cult, an online role-playing game that ended in October, there are more videos like the one above, web comics, a complex weave of plots, sub-plots, and sub-sub-plots, character blogs, social media, and apps (for both Android and iOS devices)--a pastiche of material that can be ingested as a whole or in parts. A core value in this form of storytelling is that readers become characters tasked with decoding parts of a mystery that may hold the key to saving humanity. These reader-characters can jump into everything or just a few things, although the more they engage with the story, the more they can level up through the material. The author simply acts as a guide but it is up to each participant--each character--to determine his own fate. While the book remains central to the main story, Grant says that transmedia enables readers to create a much more vivid and complete world: “The whole idea is to let people design their own experience. They want to play the [alternate reality game], don't want to get the app? Cool. Want to get the app, but don't want to play the ARG? We're fine with that, too. Just want to read the book? Any combination of the things that we lay out there, we're happy, [although] we'd like every single person to enjoy the entire breadth of the experience.” The print book (we're already at the point I have to label it with a retronym) led to a traditional publishing deal with an advance and typical royalty structure, while Grant, LeMay, and BZRK’s British publisher Egmont, all share in any revenue generated from the transmedia, which cost about $1.5 million to create. (In addition, Grant recently optioned the movie rights to Sony Pictures.) They have adopted a freemium model for the apps, which a user can download free but then has to pay for additional content, and ad sponsorships for the rest. Ideal sponsors might be fashion and apparel companies, tech and gadget manufacturers, stores, and insurance companies targeting teen drivers. Over the first 75 days more than 80,000 unique visitors engaged with the material, resulting in 355,074 page views and 53,000 video views. Grant’s coconspirator, Alex LeMay, plans to create other transmedia experiences, and says the approach could be applied to much more than fiction. It could be incorporated into business and tech books, history, biographies, any work that can engender a large and intricate enough landscape for readers to explore. All it needs is “a puzzle that is too big for any one person to solve, so it forces a community of people to talk to one another to solve the issues and the problems,” he says. It’s a compelling vision. While most authors don’t have Grant’s reach or LeMay’s resources or skill, you’ll likely see other authors experiment across multiple platforms, many teaming with TV production companies or documentarians. Ultimately, as the cost of these tools come down and the software catches up to the hardware, authors will be able to conjure up worlds far beyond mere text on a screen.

[Caelum]

As per request. A Note On Collaborative Plotting If Goal + Conflict = Plot Then what if Character 1 Goal ≠ Character 2 Goal And you’re trying to Thread Goal + Thread Conflict = Thread Plot Or even Collaborative Plot Goal + Collaborative Plot Conflict = Collaborative Plot Plot for PC x 3, Consisting of Multiple Threads How can you make CPG + CPC = Characters 1, 2, & 3 Goals + Characters 1, 2, & 3 Conflicts Without a < ? The answer is a PC Collaborative Plot Notes Forum. Among other things I will get into later when I feel like not being useless. Thread grading = tiring. I am aware that I just made no sense. Probably.

[Caelum]

Below is a thing I wrote in a different corner of the intertubes some while ago. I am repeating it here because I had a similar incident recently. And my spite sometimes makes me happy. - - - Dear Mr. Shun-the-Non-Believer, It was Jorge Luis Borges I was attempting to channel last night when confronted with your incredible pigheadedness. He said, “God must not engage in theology. The writer must not destroy by human reasonings the faith that art requires of us,” a sentiment with which I whole heartedly agree. I cannot fathom what prompted you to ask me with what authority I dared to be composing a novel whose central character is an angel (of sorts). You were the instigator of our conversation, having discovered from a mutual friend that I, too, enjoy writing; and when you asked me what I write about, I answered, “Everything.”. “Fair enough,” you said, and laughed. This made me inclined to like you, which just goes to show how poor my judgement is three whiskeys under. “But really,” you persisted, “What are you writing about now?” This is where I erred. I dared to actually tell the truth, thinking fortune had stumbled me pleasantly into the path of a kindred soul. “An angel,” I told you, warming to the subject, “An archon. She’s the central character and - “ That was as far as I got. The expression on your face stopped my words, caused me to replay them in my head in an attempt to ascertain what I had said was so psychotic as to earn that look of yours. I was still trying to figure this out when your face shifted yet again, features flickering out from beneath the tumult of angry bewilderment and onto the shores of patronizing intensity. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” you said this very, very slowly, “But what makes you think you’re an authority on divinity?” “Oh, no. I’m writing a work of fiction,” I hastily reassured you, thinking of the book in question and really not wanting anyone to imagine that it was even remotely based on my actual religious beliefs. That ought to have cleared the air. You and I should have been able to go on from there to happy discussions about writing techniques, writer’s block and even self-righteous expressions of indignation over some so-called author who can hardly write themselves out of a paper bag becoming a national bestseller and why, God, why? But no. You, you ridiculous man, you opted to berate me instead for my daring, for my ignorance, for my supposed promotion of false ideologies to corrupt a soul-hungry populace in need of guidance rather than trash talking prophets. What. The. Hell? Fiction. Fake. Not real. Make believe. Hell, if you like, I’ll tack a disclaimer of this nature to the front of my book. Trust me, sir, I have even searched my pockets and checked under my couch cushions since our conversation just to make sure I’d not received and then accidentally misplaced the holy spirit or even the mandate of heaven and have a care lest my misuse becomes despotic and some new emperor of the ink should rise. This is not the Gospel According to Katie. This is a story, made up out of my head, with little bits of brain and bio matter undoubtedly still clinging to every syllable. Yet maybe like Warren Ellis, tongue-in-cheek, claims, when I write I am Holy. I can’t be touched. I can destroy your faith from my chair. If that’s the case, sir, maybe your faith was not so very “faithful” to begin with. Maybe you are one of the soul-hungry denizens, desperately reaching in your subconscious not for something new in which to believe, but for something with which to assure yourself what you do believe in is right. What, if in your opinion I’ve no authority to write even fictional stories with angels in them, do I possess the authority to write? An autobiography? Are you not familiar with the writing theory that all good writers ultimately are writing about themselves? Do you mean to tell me that Shakespeare ought not to have written Henry V because he was not a king nor had fought in a war? That Orson Scott Card should have ignored ideas of future societies and that, God forbid, Hemingway should have only written about drunks? You, sir, have left me flabbergasted. I remain, Sincerely, a believer. post script: But please remember me fondly I heard from someone you’re still pretty and then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates had some eloquent graffiti like ‘We’ll meet again’ and ‘Fuck the man’ and ‘Tell my mother not to worry’ and angels with their great handshakes but always done in such a hurry. So please remember me finally and all my uphill clawing, my dear, but if I make the Pearly Gates, I’ll do my best to make a drawing of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl, an angel kissin’ on a sinner, a monkey and a man, a marching band all around the frightened trapeze swinger. - The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine.

[Tabarnac]

Love that song. Also, this is still a good story. Also... Ethan is... drinking Hennessy and booty-shaking. Angels cannot dance. It is known.

[Caelum]

It is known. Worst part about being a writer: everyone thinks they can do your job. Best part: they can’t. - Josh Friedman.

[Caelum]

Behold the awesome that Lazlo made for me. For this I might even consider giving him back his "s".

[Bolden Denusk]

He's hot. Nuff said.