Exposition versus Description

I saw the unthinkable yesterday. Someone gave my story, "Harvest of War," only 1 star. :( They quoted the first two lines and said "It doesn't get any better." Then they later referred to the writing as "boring and banal." They did, however, indicate that it was a personal preference and that if others are tempted they should have a look at the sample of the story. I appreciated that. I then found a second 1 star review, but I have the suspicion these may be by the same person since both are "jonsomething" and both indicated they like Amish themed fiction. That can't be all that common.

Honestly, I'm not very hurt by this. People have different tastes. I am, however, immensely curious. Why did this individual judge those first two lines as being so bad? I actually think they are rather good. I began to wonder if it might have to do with different preferences for level of description, exposition, and dialogue. The opening of "Harvest" has no dialogue. It depicts a battle scene to set up the story. 

But now I have a question that perhaps some of you might be able to help me with. I've quoted the opening paragraphs to "Harvest of War" below. No dialogue as you can see. However, would you consider this section to be more description or more exposition? I have to confess that I don't quite understand the difference between these two. Exposition appears to me to mean "explanation." Description gives visual and other sensory images. To me, there is some exposition below, but mostly this is description. However, I have heard this section of the story described as "classic exposition" by another reviewer, who liked the overall story very much. 

Can you help me understand this concept?

QUOTE FROM STORY BELOW:

Across a snowfield that lies red with dawn, the Orc charge comes.

And is met.

Axes shriek on shields. Swords work against armor into flesh. The tips of spears are wetted. Gore dapples the snow.

For a moment, the human line holds. Then the center wavers. In a frenzy, an Orc squad punches through. More Orc pour in. The gap widens. The human forces fold back in desperate defense to either side of the breakthrough. Victory rewards the most brutal.

Except.

Across the field of now trampled snow, a new army appears—human cavalry mounted upon chargers of black. Banners unfurl. Horns skirl. Only too late do the Orc realize they’ve been tricked.

The mounted charge comes crashing. The hooves of warhorses hammer the ground to icy slush as lances headed with black iron are couched. The rear of the Orc army falls like wheat before that scythe. 

Harvest of War, A Little Experiment

Sales of all my own Amazon titles had been decidedly low and flat for some time so I thought I'd try to shake things up with a free promotion. I made my fantasy story, "Harvest of War," free for three days, July 15-17. It's still too early to tell much probably but here's a quick synopsis of the results so far.

I gave away 87 free copies. I also gave away one PDF copy that someone on Goodreads requested from me. I had made this story free back when it was first published in 2012 and it moved a 'lot' more copies, but 87 is respectable I suppose. And maybe quite a few folks already had it. I promoted it on facebook and Goodreads. It reached its highest ranking at about 11 hours in on the giveaway, but about four hours after I started promoting it. Here are the numbers:

At 11:45: #2,745 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)

#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 45 minutes (22-32 pages) > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#13 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Anthologies & Short Stories

As of today, June 19, I've gotten one additional sale on the title, but it came at the end of the free promotion period and, quite likely, the person thought it was still free and clicked buy before seeing the .99 cent price had returned. Sorry about that. There have been no additional sales on any of my other titles so far, but many who downloaded "Harvest" have probably not read it yet. It did look like the numbers on Swords of Talera dipped so someone may have picked that up, though whether it had anything to do with the promotion I don't know. 

I was/am also hoping for some reviews on the story and the first one came in this morning from Prashant over at Chess, Comics, Crosswords. It's a very good one and I'm really happy Prashant enjoyed the tale. At the heart of why I write is to tell stories that I love and that others love too. It's gratifying when you hear that it has worked, and particularly gratifying to make that connection with someone in another part of the world. Thanks very much to Prashant for his great review!

At some point in a couple of weeks, I'll have another post on this to see if any new developments have occurred. In the meantime, happy reading. 

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Last Blog of 2013

Like some novels I’ve read, 2013 started out pretty good, sagged seriously in the middle, then picked up toward the end. Not the greatest year but still better in almost all ways than the years 2010 through 2012, each of which saw major family losses and serious illnesses strike. I’m glad at least the trend for health issues was up.

School was school. No great victories. No great tragedies. I’m glad for that. I do like things on an even keel. Personally, Lana and I continue to be very happy together, although Lana did have some serious back issues for several months that caused us great concern. The worst of that seems to have passed.

In writing, I mentioned before that I wrote about 80,000 professional words, which I’m confident was up from the years 2010-2012. The best thing was the completion of the fourth book in the Talera series, which should be out in 2014. I did not have any books published through Borgo/ Wildside in 2013 and much of that was because I’d decided to focus on some long term projects and some personal self-publishing concepts I had.

In early 2013 I put up the three volumes of the FictionTechniques series, “Creating Suspense,” “Characters Wanted,” and “The Twist Ending.” These actually sold pretty well, although I have not gotten many reviews on them. They also helped earn me a couple of speaking engagements, which is nice.

In the spring I put up MicroWeird: Tiny Tales of the Strange. Despite garnering 4 five star reviews, it did not sell well and ultimately has been my slowest seller of any self-published title. In the fall, though, I put up The Machineries of Mars, which also gained 4 five star reviews but which has far outsold “Micro Weird.” It’s been my best seller since Harvest of War.

The only other publishing related thing I did was putting the Louisiana Inklings anthology into print. I was glad to learn how to do this and may start doing print editions of some of my other self-published work in the days to come.

All in all, a pretty good year that reversed the trends I’d been experiencing in the three years previously. Let’s hope I can keep the momentum going into 2014. And let’s hope that all of us here in the blogosphere have a great 2014 with lots of success. 

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Graham Charleston, New Report, and Vlad Dracule!

In a recent issue of the Deerhaven Journal of Psychotherapeutic Effectiveness, Dr. C. Gramlich, a prominent local psychologist, identified three cases of a new cognitive disorder that he refers to as Bored-reader’s Syndrome, or BrS. BrS is a potentially non-fatal disorder that attacks the central nervous system, producing difficulties in concentration, loss of mental focus, and loose stools. Fortunately, Dr. Gramlich also published a simple cure for BrS in the same article.  At 99 cents, it also happens to be the cheapest cure ever for a psychological dysfunction. Simply purchase and read “Harvest of War” by Charles Allen Gramlich (no relation).   – Graham Charleston reporting, for the Deerhaven Extreme.

Barnes & Noble

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I don’t always read vampire stories.

But when I do, they’re from “Midnight in Rosary,”
By Charles Allen Gramlich!

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Free Book Overload?

Because I visit facebook  and a lot of blogs every day, I see a lot of links to free kindle books. I download quite a few.  I mean, I’m the guy who, at book sales in the old days, would fill a couple of boxes for the dollar-a-box close of the sale with stuff that I thought, perhaps, maybe, on a good day, when life was perfect and I’d read everything else in the house, I might give a try. Turns out those books are almost all still packed away in the closet waiting for that day. A few weeks ago when I had to go through some of those boxes for something, I even took out half a dozen of those ‘possibles’ and put them on bookmooch.  I know at age 53 I’m not gonna find time to read them.

So, when I first started seeing free books for Kindle, I pretty much clicked every link, and if it sounded even remotely like something I might eventually read, I downloaded it.  I actually have read some of these.  Fortunately, a lot of free downloads are short stories rather than novels so I can get through them more quickly.  But still, I’ve got, at rough estimate, about 90 of these freebies sitting on my Kindle now.  About two-thirds of those I can no longer remember why I thought I might read them. But there’s no bookmooch for Kindle books.

As a reader, I can’t complain about getting books for free.  In fact, I could pretty easily fill my whole TBR list with freebies. If I actually “tried” I might be able to essentially read for free for years to come. I don’t do that, for several reasons.  1) my reading tastes are mercurial and when I want to read something I want to read it now.  That means not waiting for it to be offered free at some point.  2) I have a lot of friends who write and I like to buy their works and support them, although if they are giving away something for free I’m not above taking advantage of that offer.  3) as a writer I feel like I should give back with money to other writers, both for the pleasure they have given me with their work, and because I want people to buy my stuff too.

As a writer, I have to wonder how effective the free giveaways are, and maybe others can answer this question from their experience.  I’ve tried one giveaway, for “Harvest of War.”  It was free for five days, ending April 8, and I gave away 466 copies.  I was happy with that.  What the writer hopes for with such a giveaway is that readers will read the free work, enjoy it, and then spread that by word of mouth, and maybe even put up a review on Amazon, and maybe purchase other titles that the writer has to offer.  As near as I can tell, only one of these things happened in my case. Here’s the outcomes for me, near as I can tell.

Reviews: I got about half a dozen reviews in the wake of the free giveaway period and I’m pretty sure some of these were from folks who took advantage of the free download. I appreciated it very much, of course, but these were also folks who knew my writing from before.  They were not newcomers to my work, and quite likely would have bought the book and reviewed it anyway. I only got one review from someone who I think downloaded a free copy and had not previously commented on any of my work.  

Sales of other titles: I can’t be sure whether reading “Harvest of War” brought people to my other work. My Cold in the Light sales went up dramatically, but I’m sure the reason for that was that it was introduced in ebook format finally.  For the stuff I’ve self published, though, Killing Trail, Harmland, Days of Beer, I’ve seen no measurable increase.  In fact, prior to the free giveaway for “Harvest,” I’d been selling about 8 to 10 copies a month of Killing Trail. That has dropped to one or two since.  I hope they aren’t related, but, if anything, it looks like giving away “Harvest” hurt my sales of Killing Trail. That could mean that a lot of people really hated “Harvest of War” and don’t want anything else from me, or it could be that such folks have something by me, “Harvest,” that they haven’t read yet and won’t buy anything else until they do read it.  Or it could mean that if they decide to buy something from me they’re gonna spend the 99 cents for “Harvest” instead of the $2.99 for Killing Trail.  Or it could be any number of other things, I suppose. 

Word of Mouth sales of “Harvest of War”:  Immediately before and after the giveaway there were some sales for “Harvest.”  Since April, however, it’s sold fourteen copies.  Some of that may be word of mouth, although I do post about the book fairly frequently on facebook so I can’t be sure whether these are word of mouth from readers or word of mouth from me.  It’s certainly not had a huge impact.

I have to wonder about what happened to those free downloads of “Harvest.”  Did folks read them, or, like me, do they have a glut of freebies sitting on their kindles and the stuff they downloaded yesterday keeps getting pushed further down on the list by the free stuff they are downloading today. If the story isn’t being read, then the free download would appear to be useless to the writer.

Just a few more thoughts from someone trying to make sense of this crazy new world of publishing we are living in. Your thoughts are equally welcome.

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A Drought Breaks

Well, a drought that has lasted over two months finally broke a little yesterday. For the first time since mid-March I actually wrote a new piece of fiction. It was short, a prose poem I'm calling "The Hiss of Angels," and it came with a lot of effort, but it was new and it went down officially on a page. It's not that I haven't had ideas. In fact, the idea for this poem came to me several weeks ago. I've had lots of ideas, have tossed them around in my head, but in the end I just didn't have the drive to get them down. Sometimes it's impossible to escape the thought of, "What's the use?" In the end, of course, there is no "use," other than that I want to do it.

 I also finally got up the energy to check my amazon sales for April and May. One rather strange thing is that "Killing Trail" had been selling a few copies every month since it was published almost two years ago now. But in May that has come to a stop and only "Harvest of War" is still selling anything. I would have thought the audiences for those two books were different. I can understand why "Days of Beer" dropped to zero, since folks buying that would have been only buying something 'from me' essentially. I was hoping "Killing Trail" would continue to have legs. Alas, it looks like not. Of course, I've been doing no promoting for the past couple of months either so that probably had an impact. For some reason, I don't seem to get many word of mouth sales. I could try to figure out why bu the answer might just depress me so I'll leave it be for now.

One thing I have done a lot of is play my Skyrim video game. It's a fantasy quest type game, and I like it a whole lot. It has some interesting writing in it. All throughout the game world you find "books" of various kinds that can be read or used. That's cool. The thing about a video game like this is that it consumes your whole mind while you're playing it, and that keeps you from thinking about other, less pleasant, kinds of things. Writing requires thought, and as soon as you start thinking, the scary stuff can start to creep in. Well enough rambling. Time to visit blogs.

Bits and Pieces of News

A couple of interesting bits, at least for me.

1. My first novel, Cold in the Light, is finally available as a Kindle ebook. It's $4.99, but that is for something like 140 thousand words. If you're interested, it's HERE. It's not up on Nook yet. Not sure when the publisher will put it up. The back cover blurb is below:

Where the beings known as the Whoun came from, only a few know....
What they're going to do next is anyone's guess....

But in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, where a decades old conspiracy has started to unravel, a cop and a doctor are about to find out. Against an enemy from their nightmares, the two will have to fight, to save the life of an unborn child who isn't human, a child that will change their world forever.

In the brooding forest, they'll learn what it means to fear the dark.
...And the light.

It's a darn good book if I do say so myself.

2. Paul R. McNamee has reviewed some of the latest Orc short stories released as ebooks, including my own "Harvest of War." Check out what he has to say. (Thanks, Paul.)

"Harvest of War" is just .99 cents on Amazon, HERE.

3. I got word that my space opera, "Under the Ember Star," will be released soon. Not up yet, though. I'll let folks know. I'm excited about it, though.

4. Finals are beginning here. I get my final papers today and am giving multiple tests over the next week. May not be around all that much. Wish me luck.
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Self Publishing Report:

Well, “Harvest of War” was free for five days and there were 466 downloads in that time. Seems like a respectable number, but I’ve never done this before so I’m not sure how it ranks. I picked up some very nice five star reviews on Amazon, as well as mentions around the blogosphere, including Ty Johnston’s kind comments, here. Thanks, Ty.

In order to make it free, I signed up with Amazon select, which means it can be offered only at Amazon for 90 days, about 82 more days, I guess. After that I’ll put it up on Nook too. It’s way too early to see if this had any effect on the sales of any of my other books. The Talera trilogy is also fantasy and folks who liked “Harvest” might like those books. Closest to it in mood, though, are the stories in Bitter Steel.

This makes three items I’ve self-published for ebook:
1. Killing Trail, Summer 2010 – Has been a relatively steady seller each month, although in small numbers.

2. Days of Beer, December 2011 – Sold respectably the first couple of months and then has dropped to zero.

3. Harvest of War, April 2012 – remains to be seen, although I’ve sold one more copy since the free period ran out.

My experience has been that self-publishing is a useful outlet for stories and novella length material and collections. I don’t believe it replaces the need for or the pleasures of mainstream publishing, even at the small press level, and it appears to me that you have to have some kind of name, or you have to promote your ass off to make any headway with it. Certainly there are some amazing success stories. I’m not one of them.

I’ll continue to offer an occasional work this way. One of the pleasures is having complete control over every aspect, from content to cover. And it’s nice to be able to see sales results almost in “real time.”
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Red Dead and Harvest

I've done too much mindless stuff on my break, or maybe just enough. I've played a lot of my video game, Red Dead Redemption, and actually completed it. The ending was rather bittersweet but I suspect it had to end the way it did. It was memorable at least. I almost immediately started over again from the beginning and this time I'll do all the challenges and side missions I skipped last time. Lana is helping me. I've already found three treasures I wouldn't have found without her.

I finished some school work but didn't do any writing. I tried one day and quit after about a half hour of spinning my wheels. The emotional energy required for writing is considerable, and I'm not to the point of being able to, or perhaps needing to commit it.

Harvest of War is still free, and will be for two more days. The icon below will take you there if you haven't gotten your copy. It's been downloaded 365 times as of now. I hope that's a good sign. It's garnered very good reviews so far, including a great one over at James Reasoner's blog. Thanks James. I'm glad people are enjoying it.


Well, that's about it. I think I'm gonna try and get out and enjoy some sun today. Happy Easter Weekend to those who celebrate.
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Much News: Even Some About Writing

We left the house a little after 8:00 this morning and got back a little before 7:00 in the evening. Lana had an appointment with another doctor about her cancer and they ended up doing another needle biopsy. Before they could do that, though, I had to run to a couple of other hospitals to pick up some of the scans she's already had. It made for a nice little 200 mile or so round trip, but the news was generally encouraging in that we are being told the cancer cells appear to be encapsulated, which is a good sign. We celebrated, if that is the right word, with dinner at Red Lobster before coming home.

A couple of nice things happened in the blogosphere today too that I want to mention. Over at Adventures Fantastic, Keith has a very nice review of "Harvest of War." He picked up on some of the elements I was particularly happy with in the story. Thanks, Keith. I appreciate it.

Then, out of the blue, Jess, over at Praise, Prayers and Observations did a post called "C is for Charles." I'm pretty humbled by that, and very appreciative. Thanks for the kind words, Jess.

Lastly, Harvest of War is now FREE for Amazon Kindle. This should run for about four more days so if you have any interest in the story, or think you might at some point in the future, now is the time to get it. Since the story is dedicated to my niece, Tammy Kalb, who died of brain cancer only a few days ago, I wanted to make sure the piece was free at some point so her family could download it if they wanted to.

Thanks again to Keith and Jess, and also to Scott, Tom, and Randy, who also did reviews of "Harvest of War." I'm lucky to have all of you as friends, and everyone else in the blogosphere who has been so supportive of me.
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Tammy, and a Story Dedication

I’ve been planning for about a month to dedicate my next published work to my niece, Tammy Kalb, who has been suffering from brain cancer for a while now. Her father, my brother Jimmy, called this morning to say she was in a coma and that the doctors say she could pass on at any minute. They’ve been saying that for a couple of days now so we’ve all been bracing ourselves.

Jimmy, who is twenty years older than me, was already married and gone by the time I was born. But in my first fifteen years or so he used to come home at least once a year with his family. Tammy was his firstborn and was only about a year and a half younger than me. We played together a lot and got along very well. We were good friends and steady companions when she visited. After Jimmy and his family moved to England for many years, I didn’t see Tammy very often. I’ll always remember our days wandering across the farm, though, and that she was the first person to ever ride on the back of my old Suzuki motorcycle.

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a collection of noir tales, and I’d intended to dedicate that to Tammy. However, a couple of days ago I found out that an anthology I had submitted a story to hadn’t panned out and so I decided to epub that piece through Razored Zen Press and dedicate it to Tammy. The young girl in the story, Ehma, isn’t that much different from the Tammy I remember hanging out with. Both were tough girls, and Tammy is a very tough woman.

The story is called “Harvest of War,” and is a little over 5,000 words long. I uploaded it to Kindle last night and was surprised to see it had already been posted as of this morning. It’s on Kindle-only for the next 90 days. It’s a heroic fantasy story involving Orcs, the first such tale I’ve ever written. I owe a major debt of thanks to Scott Oden. Without his prompting I never would have written the piece. And many people owe a debt to Tammy Kalb, for all of her caring over the years. She is, and will be, remembered.

NOTE: Harvest of War is HERE if you want to take a look.
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