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    Anti Rule: Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing
    Anti Rule: Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing
    Anti Rule: Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Anti Rule: Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing

    By Christian Francis

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Are you tired of hearing the same old tired writing advice? In this bold and controversial new book, author and literary rebel Christian Francis sets out to tear down the walls of conventional wisdom and guide new authors to their true potential. Drawing on his years of experience as a writer, teacher, and publisher, Francis arg

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEcho On Publications
    Release dateJun 13, 2023
    ISBN9781916582019
    Anti Rule: Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing

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      Book preview

      Anti Rule - Christian Francis

      Anti Rule

      Anti Rule

      Navigating The Lies About Fiction Writing

      Christian Francis

      Echo On Publications

      E-book: 978-1-916582-01-9

      Paperback: 978-1-916582-05-7

      Copyright © 2023 Christian Francis.

      All Rights Reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      Encyclopocalypse

      echohorror.com

      Contents

      Prologue

      Foreword

      Calling Mr Leonard

      The Junk Rules

      Write what you know

      Show, Don’t Tell

      Dialogue Tags

      Balances

      Head-Hopping

      Active vs passive voice

      Avoid Cliché

      Avoid repetition

      The Inciting Incident

      The Writing Process

      When, where and how long to write

      Research

      Planning, Plotting and Pantsers

      Three Act Structures

      The Hero’s Journey

      Writer’s block

      Imposter Syndrome

      Drafting

      Transitional scenes

      The Narrator

      Where to start and end

      Writing for Market

      Writing for Market 2: Smaller Genre Marketability

      Some positivity…

      About all the ‘rules’

      What comes next…

      Editing

      What kind of publisher?

      Literary agent or no literary agent

      Queries and rejections

      Self-Publishing Pointers

      eBooks - To flow or be fixed?

      Book Covers

      Licenses

      Book Titles

      Pull quotes

      Blurbs

      Going Wide

      KDP vs Ingram vs Createspace vs Draft2Digital vs vs vs vs

      Paper

      ISBNs

      Book Pricing

      Marketing Mania

      ARCs

      Reviews

      Influencers

      Piracy

      Community

      Afterword

      Prologue

      It was a dark and stormy night. The clouds billowed with fury as they unleashed their almost biblical torrents upon the sleepy hamlet of Alcester that lay far below.

      I can’t go out in that, Jacob mused loudly to himself as he stared out of the church’s stained-glass window. Each word he spoke echoed throughout the hollowness of the building, reverberating against each of the centuries-old stone-clad walls. Walls that had witnessed many a passing storm, metaphorically and figuratively.

      Then… A silence.

      The rain stopped.

      The thunder faded into the distance.

      The wind quelled to nothing.

      A chill ran up Jacob’s spine as a feeling of unease flooded his blood.

      He barely had time to catch his breath when suddenly, and literally, all hell broke loose.

      If you are confused about why there is a prologue, do not fret, you have not bought the wrong book. You will soon understand its purpose after you finish Chapter 1.

      Foreword

      Why I Wrote This Book

      I know what you are thinking; why on earth should you read yet ANOTHER how to write fiction book? Well, this is unlike all those others you will have read. This is less of a ‘guide’ and more of a slap across your face.

      This is a wake-up call with the intention of telling you that most of what you have been taught is wrong.

      _This book intends to illustrate how what has been taught by most writing teachers, authors, and editors is detrimental to the aspiring author’s potential career. Plain and simple. I want to illustrate that what has been parroted by people in authority has forced the written art to become more tedious and homogenised. A tsunami of ‘rules’ and ‘tips’ now floods our existence. Little soundbites may seem at face value to be based in common sense and logic—especially if you are told this by a self-proclaimed ‘expert’—but I am here to tell you that these teachings are, in the end, very damaging.

      I seem overly dramatic by saying ‘damaging’, but I don’t use that word lightly. I have spoken to many novice authors over the years who had quit their dreams before they had a chance to even start their stories, all because of what they were told regarding these ‘rules’ and ‘tips’. It would not be an issue if it was just in one book or taught by one writing teacher, but these ‘rules’ and ‘tips’ are plastered on the pages of lauded writing guides and spoken by ‘experts’ all over social media. Each one of these arethe same. They all speak in a strict absolutist way and talk down on any notion that what they teach isn’t the gospel truth and the only good way. A way that forces doubt into the creative method that all authors have, and if they feel they cannot follow these rules, they give up the dream. It’s this kind of exclusionary behaviour I cannot stand.

      You see, authors are an easy mark. We are, in general, a fragile bunch. We take reviews to heart. We take negativity personally. Why? Because what we produce is highly personal to us. It’s a creation of our own making. And because we are like this, we are easy to make money from if you are a shyster salesman of the rhetoric that promises the world… ‘Do you want to sell a million copies of your book? Here is how you do it! Do you want to know how to make your writing more marketable? Sign up for my course, and I’ll teach you the secrets. Do you want to be a famous author? Let me tell you how! Now give me money.’ You’ve heard all this kind of stuff before. And it would be all well and good if they actually had any answers that could help you. But none ever do. They all regurgitate the exact words. The same ‘rules’ and ‘tips’. But in the end, they don’t know a thing. They just know how to take your money.

      The genesis of all these teachings I am talking about came from long ago, made by those who wanted consistency in their product lines: Publishers. You see, writing used to be a closed profession, only accessible to a few. Self-publishing did not exist to the masses, so the landscape of authors was much smaller than it is today. So much so that it was considered that only the best could get an agent, only the best could get a publisher, and only the best could get a book deal. This was before the advent of the internet and the digital age, when book publishing was all print, and book publishing was a moneymaking goliath of an industry. Authors back then were even paid enough to live a very comfortable life. This kind of power meant that the publishers themselves were very, very influential. They controlled the written word. And each of these companies, like any company with a product line, demanded consistency Consistency is reliable.

      Consistency means repeat business. Consistency means money.

      This consistency ensured that all books they output were consistent in tone and voice. Soon all books began to feel the same to the reader. Not in terms of the actual story itself but in phrasing. The layout. The word usage. The structure. I get why they wanted all their books to read the same, as they wanted their customers to have a reliable experience and wanted their books to be understood and consumed by every person who had a wallet. A noble inclusive idea, sure, but in this, one crucial thing was lost: the author’s unique voice.

      Over time, editors, teachers, and authors adopted these rules as the only way for a person to write fiction. The proper way to write fiction. But none of them… None of those teaching these ‘rules’ and ‘tips’ were truly understanding what writing was. Instead, they taught writing as a business model instead of an actual art form.

      Nowadays, a lot has changed. As self-publishing becomes accessible to all and the number of authors out there increases exponentially, no one is beholden to a publisher anymore; thus, no one should be beholden to their archaic rules for consistency.

      Things, though, have taken a turn for the worse. People have not seen through the ‘rules’ and ‘tips’. Instead, just more and more people are out there saying the same old stuff and teaching the same old tired lessons. Social media is packed full of people hawking the same words. Nothing changed with the market becoming bigger, nothing except more people wanting to know the truth and being fed the same lies.

      We are in the age of the influencer, where an infinite number of people are preying on those desperate to

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