I am penning this article as I have seen some blatantly ridiculous evidence of some indie authors taking something that “inspired” them and turning that inspiration into one of the following categories of books:

1) A “cash in” book on a current trend. ie. The endless vampire teen romance books aimed at targeting Twihards (No offense to Twihards, just an example). This is the least of all evils as although it can be mind numbingly similar, at least it’s not plain plagiarism

2) A “blended” book of two or more movies/books. The awesome idea of grabbing two stories of someone else’s work and combining them into a story of “their own”

3) A “shapesift” book. Taking a well known and successful story, and shapeshifting the main character into someone else, but rewriting the same story as “their own”

On top of this, a lot of these books get self published with no or minimal editing/proofreading/beta reading. As an indie author, I feel that indie books should go through the same thorough process that commercial books do, but I digress.

What happens is that the market that myself and other indie authors are publishing in, are flooded with these books… and the majority of them sell at 99 cents.

Now, don’t get me wrong as there are some amazing indie books out there. The gems that are hiding under the rubble of mediocrity are what we all want to find and read.

Staying on topic, I recently picked up a few indie books… written by what I can safely say are nice people to chat with. The opening of the books sounded promising as there were some genuinely great ideas within them.

Suddenly I found myself feeling a sense of Deja Vu… my instincts were confirmed when I read scenes that were pretty much identical to worldwide best sellers. I wanted to read more of them, but the experience was ruined.

Why do people do this? Why are writers thinking that it’s a great idea and that it’s “okay” to take someone else’s hard work and just change some details to make it their own?

If we were in the film industry and someone took Harry Potter, changed his name to “Robert Batfry”… made his character a vampire and then re-filmed similar scenes to Harry Potter, threw in some of their own scenes and then released it… I think we all know what would happen and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So, to get back on point… what should we do and what should we *not* do with inspiration?

Here are things you *should* do:

* Watch plenty of movies in your chosen genre to assist with visualisation. While watching the films, think about how you would write a scene to describe it to a reader.

* Watch plenty of movies focusing on emotionally charged stories. This helps to build your EQ, but also acts as a great way to learn from how others capture emotions and create scenes and scenarios that would make readers

* Research writing techniques and read the blogs of your favourite authors

* Read plenty of books by good authors that you admire, and stories which you find yourself sinking into. Learn from their techniques, let their chapters inspire you. Feel free to pay homage to a famous work, but tread carefully.

* If you haven’t already, enlist a team of proofreaders for your books and truly *listen* to their feedback. Let your readers inspire you.

And here are some things you should *not* do:

* Write a book solely for the purpose of the genre being popular and hoping to cash in – The story ends up having no “soul”, and the likelihood of your indie book being a “cash in” is little to none (sorry to burst your bubble)

*Plagiarise someone else’s work. There is a solid line between inspiration and plagiarism. If a scene was mostly written by someone else and you change a few details, that is plagiarism.

I am sure that you all have things that you can add to the Do’s and Don’ts, so feel free to comment

Until next time, happy writing!

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For anyone who has read my fantasy novels, they know that I like to use the element of fear in certain chapters to set my reader’s nerves off balance. How do I do this? by learning from books I read and movies I watch. What interests me is, what is fear? and what makes something scary?

As most of us see movies a lot more than we read books, I will analyse this in movies that you have most likely already seen… but the principals are the same with writing techniques.

Let’s get started with what I believe to be the cheapest of its kind:

1) The jump in your face / Disgust you fear

I will never forget the day I saw Final Destination 3D in the cinemas… well, partly because I paid top dollar for gold class seats to see it, and partly because it displayed the biggest overuse of 3D in a movie that was touted as being scary, but was just plain disgusting.

These are the worst offenders, the movies that make people scream because grey matter and guts are flying all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, gore has its place in horror and the emotion of fear, but when it’s solely about the gore (Saw series anyone?)… two things happen

1) We may initially be afraid

2) After a few “shock” moments… it’s just a “wait and see what they will do to top the last gory scene”

If you are writing a book that has something jump out and scare the reader… first of all, it’s a book… and even if they have great imaginations, it will never have the same effect as on film. Second, I strongly suggest avoiding cheap shots at the emotion of fear. It’s the same as a writer throwing in a death scene out of nowhere to try to evoke the emotion of sadness, it just doesn’t work and your readers will see through it.

2) The “That could never happen in reality” horrors

Yes, the world has been taken over by giant killer tomatoes. Enough to make you scream and run in fear? Likely not. There are many of these movies, and books can be much the same way. They have to be believable. Obviously, a good writer can make almost anything believable… but there are limits to what we will accept.

Eight Legged Freaks for example is an entire town overrun with giant spiders. For those of us who are afraid of spiders (that would be many of us I imagine LOL), that can work quite well… but let me ask you… what if it wasn’t giant spiders? what if it was billions of lifesize spiders that eat humans alive? Which would scare you more? which would you believe?

And now we get to my favourite and what I believe to be the most scary of them all…

3) The ones that mess with your subconscious / head

There are movies that are very subtle, but slowly grow on your subconscious. They are not only the most convincing and realistic of all, but they are often gritty and end in a way that leaves you feeling uncomfortable once the credits roll… and ultimately, they are the most scary/disturbing.

Maybe it’s just me, but I had trouble sleeping when I watched The Grudge, and even more trouble sleeping when I was younger and watched Nightmare on Elm street. These movies do very well to mess with the following areas of your mind:

1) Comfort zones – Where you feel the most safe becomes the location of a frightening scene or situation

2) Expert use of music – This is impossible in a book, but you can instead make use of describing the environment and something not being “quite right”

3) Building on human nature – Most of us have a natural fear of the unexpected. A closed door with scratching on the other side, footsteps on your roof, a dark area of your house that you swear something just moved in… getting the point?

4) Using elements that stay in your mind long after the movie/book is over – When something ends and the horror wins, can you get it out of your mind? If you are watching a movie or reading a book at night, and your heart is pumping with fear… do you feel safe walking through your house in the darkness? If the movie or book is about a demon in the mirror, do you feel safe walking into your bathroom at night to wash your hands?

So tell me, what scares you the most?

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As I am sure you have all heard the news (unless you have been living under a rock, and hey, i’m sure there’s nothing at all wrong with that, but I digress), Steve Jobs recently passed away. Although there are varieties of opinions of the man himself, it is almost staggering to see how much he has achieved. To put it simply, he is a prime example of motivation and inspiration.

 

If any of you have never seen his speech at Stanford University, it is recommended viewing.

What his speech, his life and achievements have inspired me to do… is to ask myself, what will I be leaving behind? We all come into this world with a big unknown of time that we have remaining to live it, but what are we doing with our time? What are we achieving?

I have spoken with countless different personalities and what we all choose to do with our lives is each to our own, but I think that we all need to think about this question. With every waking day, we face opportunities, challenges, and choices. The scary thought is that with every day, we are getting older and one day, we will be looking back at our lives and wondering what we have to show for it.

As Steve Jobs put it, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

It is a powerful and enabling thing to be able to stop ourselves in our lives, look forward and think, “what do I want to achieve? what do I want to leave behind?”

For most, the answers are focused around family, a successful career, following a passion or a hobby, and much more.

It is a scary thought when I look back to many years that I wasted without direction, without motivation, and without an idea of where I want to be going. Life is a relatively short journey and time rolls on… whether we’re wasting 4 hours a day playing Xbox/Playstation, spending time with our families, working hard on our career/passions, and so on.

I used to be a “gamer”, not that there is nothing wrong with that LOL I still play the odd game or two, but when one defines themselves as a “gamer”, they tend to spend most of their time, playing. I was spending far, far too much of my time “playing” since my teens and for many years, to the point where if I continued down that path and never changed, that I would end up leaving behind a message consisting of “Family man who spent lots of time playing games. Achieved 120,000 gamer points and is highly skilled at first person shooters”

I came to the realization that I was wasting a horrendous amount of my life away, and when I had so many hours in a day to spend, there was so much more that I could have been doing with that time. Not only with my family, my career, but also my passions.

It’s easy to give in, easy to “waste time” or “kill time”. Let’s have a think about that for a moment… do we really want to “kill time”? After all, time is all that we have and when it runs out, it’s “Game Over”.

Of course, focusing 100% on motivating yourself and pushing yourself will likely burn you out and some downtime is a very healthy thing… it can recharge our batteries. But I encourage all of you to ask yourselves the same questions on a regular basis and set yourself some goals.

What have you achieved in your life so far? What do you want to achieve moving forward? When your kids remember you, what will they say? Will you be an inspiration? Will you change the world, your world, or change their world?

Will your name be etched down in history? Will you be remembered and if so, for what?

We are empowered in the now, we have the ability to change our lives for the better and make a difference, regardless of our age and phase of our life.

So I ask you, what will you leave behind?

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My fantastic readers! I know it’s been a while since i’ve posted and I have many topics I wish to share. But first, I will share with you a guest blog.

On my twitter travels, I happened to meet someone that I found incredibly interesting. His name is “RJ“, and he is an ex Security officer that ran his own security team for Movie sets in Hollywood. He just finished writng his book, “Life After Wrap”, about his true tales of running a security team for the past 15 years.

He runs a blog called “Security Files“, which are true tales from a Security officers point of view and even though the stories may seem farfetched, they’re all true tales.

I’ve always been a sucker for true stories, and when I started reading his blog posts, I was hooked. His stories are very interesting, and I asked RJ to kindly share a related story with you all. In this case, it’s related to my post about paranormal experiences.

I can only imagine the things he has seen, and his stories give us insights into his experiences.

Have you got a story to share? Have you had an experience with a ghost?

Enjoy his story, and try not to read this one alone… it’s somewhat scary:

Ghost On Haunted Film Set

Why I agree to drive this far for the Hallmark movie I still wonder myself.

Tonight I’m far from home. I’m in between Filmore and Lake Piru off the 126 freeway.

Were filming at this ranch on this huge property. There’s 2 houses on the lot one of them belongs to a sheriff who works in the city the other is sort of run down and the officer usually rents it out to film crews.

I’m walking with the transpo captain who has me flash my light at the damage to a passenger van one of his drivers did earlier. His driver ran into a tree. (Go figure)

Apparently something spooked his driver. But the transpo Captain thinks his driver was just too exhausted.

I turn to the house where we are filming at which is pretty far from we are, and I notice there’s a light on up stairs. I do a double take and the lights were off this time.

For some reason I thought the light was on? Guess not.

ME: You know you would think this owner would have a dog or dogs to watch his property since this guy works so far away and long hours.

TRANSPO: Funny you say that. You should ask him what happened to his retired K-9 he had.

ME: Why? What happened to his dog?

TRANSPO: When you see him ask him.

The transpo Captain finally leaves after getting all the information that he needed. I’m left to watch the equipment in this dark vast area. I could see cars passing on the road down below.

I look over to base camp and I see someone standing in our trailer land. I jump out of my truck and flash my light (My 4 cell light shoots out pretty far)

I walk over there and find no one. (Okay the night shadows are playing tricks on me)

I walk back to my truck when I see headlights coming towards my truck. I start walking back when I see the person getting out of their car and looking inside my truck. I flash my light on them.

ME: Can I help you with something?

The lady turns around. I recognize her immediately. It’s the Set dresser lady.

LADY: There you are. I thought for sure you would be sleeping in your truck right about now.

(Why do people always assume that all Security guards do is sleep at night)

ME: Nope just making my rounders you know keeping the blood flowing and staying warm.

LADY: I would like to hear more about you chasing rabbits and lizards but I’m kind of in a hurry can I borrow your flashlight? I need to get some things from set.

ME: No, but I tell you what I’ll go inside with you.

LADY: Fine, whatever.

We walk inside the house. It’s my first time inside this place. The house is completely dark. The set dresser continues to walk towards what she needs in the house.

We hear this huge “THUMP” come from up stairs.

The lady walks back to me.

LADY: Was that you?

ME: No, I think it came from up stairs.

I start to flash my light up the stair case. We hear a door slam shut. I don’t know why but the Set Dresser runs up the stairs.

LADY: Who’s ever fucking up here you better not be fucking with my set, or I’m going to beat the fuck out of you!

ME: Wait! What do you think your doing? Don’t just run up there.

It was too late she was pretty much up the stairs. I run up after her. I pass one of the rooms that had an opened door.

I caught the glimpse of some kid sitting on the edge of a bed facing the wall.

I stop and look back in the room and see nothing. The lady walks towards me.

LADY: There’s nothing in those rooms. Is there anything in that room?

ME: I thought I saw something.

We both search the room and nothing anywhere, we even search the closets in all rooms. We start walking down the stairs.

LADY: You heard the noise right?

ME: I did, maybe it’s just the house settling in.

LADY: Are you fucking stupid. It was something else.

This lady was starting to get on my nerves. We reach down stairs when we see Red paint on the floor.

LADY: (shouts) What the fuck happened here! What the fuck! Where were you?

ME: Dude, shut the fuck up already. Who’s stupid now? I was just upstairs with you.

I flash my light on the ground looking for more red paint. Drops seem to lead to a door.

LADY: There in the basement.

ME: What?

LADY: That door leads to the basement, shit they got past us and ran down there.

I don’t remember hearing anything or seeing anyone. We both walk towards the door. I open the door flashing my light inside.

Something child like painted red and wrapped in plastic leaps at us.

I jump back swinging my flashlight in the direction of whatever it was. I swing so hard that I lose grip of my flashlight and it flies down into the basement as I fall on my ass.

In just a matter of seconds whatever it was that leaped out at us wasn’t there anymore.

The Set dresser screams her head off and runs out the door screaming. I stand up right away. Ever since Linda Vista hospital (more in book), I always keep another mini flashlight attached to my belt.

I take out my light and look around the house very quickly. I look down the stairs in the basement I see my flashlight is still on, then it shuts off.

ME: Keep the fucking flashlight!

I shut the basement doors, and run out of the house.

I don’t even shut the front doors. By the time I make it near my truck the Set Dresser is already on the 126 freeway.

(Yeah thanks for making sure I made it out of the house okay. Bitch!)

I get inside my truck and drive and post myself near the road. I look at the house and I see lights going on and off through out the night.

I wanted to leave that spot so badly.

The caterer shows up a few hours later, but I still stay posted near the road. I wait til most of the crew arrives. The Line Producer gets mad that I wasn’t near my post when he arrived in the morning.

(Fuck that!)

Now that the sun is shinning more this morning and majority of the crew have arrived and getting breakfast. I talk to the sheriff who owns this property. I don’t say anything about what happened that night but I do ask him why he doesn’t have any dogs guarding this lot.

SHERIFF: I used to have a dog that watched my lot while I was away at work.

ME: Died from old age? I heard he was an retired K-9.

The officer stops eating his breakfast and looks at me.

SHERIFF: You really want to know what happened to my dog?

ME: Yes.

SHERIFF: One night on my off day, the dog started barking and kept on barking. I opened the door and the dog ran off towards the other house. I knew someone had to be breaking in the house if my dog was so worked up. I grabbed my shotgun and ran over to the house. My dog growled and barked at the front door. I shouted “I have a gun, If you don’t want to get shot or chewed up by my dog you better get the fuck out here now. I’m sending in my dog if your not coming out”.

No one came out so I opened the door and told my dog to “KILL!” The dog took off upstairs. I heard growling and shuffling, but before I decided to walk inside the house I heard my dog whimper then fall from the second floor outside.

ME: Wait someone threw the dog out the window?

SHERIFF: I don’t know. I ran upstairs to blast the Mother Fucker but never found anyone. One thing about me is I don’t believe in ghost or anything of that spirit shit. But I’ve seen stuff here at that house and property that I can’t explain. Now I don’t enter that house after dark and only if I have too.

I stay quiet.

SHERIFF: You seen something didn’t you?

ME: What makes you say that?

SHERIFF: By the way you look this morning. (He starts to laugh)

ME: You wouldn’t believe me if I told ya.

SHERIFF: Well your not the only crew person who’s been freaked out from there. I try to warn people not to go inside after dark alone, but no one seems to listen.

ME: So, then, you do believe in something’s wrong with that house?

SHERIFF: I told you. I don’t believe in ghost. But there’s something not right with that house.

I leave for home and hear the story of why the Driver crashed the shuttle van that night. He supposedly saw someone with red eyes sitting in the back seat after dropping off the last crew member to crew parking.

Why people don’t tell you their property is haunted before you work on their site still amazes me to this day.

They should pass out pamphlets letting you know the warnings of “Ghost may be roaming this area” I mean come on people, even though I had my experience with ghost, I still get scared just like everyone else.

So, please warn your Security officers of the dangers when they work at your Film site.  I didn’t go back to that job site.

Instead I sent someone else, but no one seems to last. I end up sending different guards every other night each one with the same story of lights going on and off and seeing someone walking around the trailers. As long as it wasn’t me anymore I didn’t really care. I had my fun of ghost to last me a lifetime.

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I have had this experience countless times; A new movie is coming out based on a video game, awesome! I get excited and head to the cinema to see it only to come out wishing that I could ask for a refund of my ticket and 2 odd hours of my life back.

If anyone mentions the director’s name “Uwe Boll” in a positive light, they need to get their head read. He has butchered enough video game licenses to be able to open his own cattle farm.

As a gamer/nerd (yes, I admit that I am very much a nerd), I have experienced horrid disappointment many times at what I thought would make fantastic movies.

Most video games last for far longer than any movies do. Even the epic Lord Of The Rings runs for approximately 3 hours per movie. A role playing game can last you for months. I have played fantastic games in my time that have epic storylines very much worthy of book or movie adaptation.

Studios and directors know this, and they are aware that there is a large demographic of gamers out there who will spend their hard earned cash on a movie ticket based on a game license alone.

Why do movie studios and directors ignore great storylines in the games and “creatively” adapt a screenplay that is laden with terrible dialogue, usually badly acted, and not really representing the game it was attempting to?

Does anyone remember the epically horrible movie, Street Fighter?

The once great Jean Claude VanDamme who starred in great martial arts movies such as Bloodsport and No Retreat, No Surrender, Kickboxer, etc… could not save this turkey from being terrible. There was a great manga version of Street Fighter and I highly recommend watching that instead.

Speaking of martial arts movies, we did get to experience the semi-decent Mortal Kombat back in 1995. I saw this in the movies and enjoyed it thanks to the decent choreographed fight scenes and a director that actually managed to follow the game’s storyline.

Mortal Kombat was one of the very few exceptions to the “crap adaptation” rule, but did happen to be followed by a much anticipated pile of dung known as “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation”. They not only annihilated the possibilities of a great sequel, they nuked it.

There is hope for those of us that loved the characters and story of Mortal Kombat, thanks to Mortal Kombat Legacy which is a web based live action series.

There was almost nothing more anticipated and disappointing than the movie release of Doom. Sarge being played by “The Rock” was not an issue, it was the fact that they turned the movie into some bizarre alien virus infection with sarge turning bad. It almost made no sense, and although the first person sequence with Karl Urban was entertaining… it did not save a huge fail on what the movie could have been.

There have been many movies that have done an “okay” job of a game license. Tomb Raider comes to mind, but I would dare say that the reason it was so successful was due to the fact that they employed the lovely Angelina Jolie to play the part of Lara Croft.

Angelina Jolie + Guns = box office success

We have had a lot of flops and a lot of them were due to Boll’s horrid directing, but the list of horrid adaptations include House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Postal, Double Dragon, and In the name of the king: A dungeon siege tale.

It appears that having a smoking hot heroine in the movie (AKA Tomb Raider) means more success, I wonder why…?

Possibly the most commercially successful game-to-movie adaptations is the Resident Evil franchise which is up to its fourth (3D) installment.

The majority of gamers happen to be nerds who appreciate that sort of thing, but it does help that both Tomb Raider and Resident Evil franchises tend to make semi-decent movies.

Some of the more recent attempts at game licenses were Max Payne, Prince of Persia, and Hitman, which were all laden with hollywood special effects, but for various reasons… they failed to hit their marks.

If you want to see what I think was a decent, recent game adaptation, check out Tekken.

Personally, I am still waiting for Halo… and please, for the love of all that is good… make Uwe Boll stop making trash.

There are many games that would make for great movie adaptations, which one would you like to see adapted? and who would you want to direct it?

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The world, as we know it, is about to enter the next digital age.

Why is this happening, why do I think that? and why am I talking about this? I’m glad you asked.

Many people are talking about 2012 as the “end of the world”, but the Mayans actually described it as the “end of an age”, and I believe that the new age will be digital connectivity.

Yes, there have been some major changes in the planet, and countless disasters… but when hasn’t there been? The earth has done just fine for millions of years, whether we are on the planet or not.

So, let’s take a step back in my shiny Delorean (I love taking a ride in this thing), to the days of when the world began to change with the invention of the internet.

Back in the day when we used our 56K modems (Insert handshake noises here) to dial into this great new highway of technology, everything took a very, very long time.

Some of you will remember that days of Netscape internet browsing, I sure do.

(buffering…)

In those days, the internet was mostly used for companies, basic game sites, and other forms of “entertainment” (I don’t think that I need to elaborate) that suited the masses.

Sites were fairly basic, considering the constraints of most user’s bandwidths, and downloading a game generally took anywhere from 1MB-50MB tops (and at that time, that was HUGE)

This was the beginning of the end, in today’s context, for many things including DVDs, cable TV, sending personal letters in the mail, and real books.

Let’s jump back to the year 2011. Most of us are using broadband, which transmits at a frighteningly fast rate and delivers us everything from staying in touch (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN), eBooks, Youtube (awesome), Movies on demand, Foxtel on demand, games, and so much more.

These days, just an internet connection or even a smart phone with a decent 3G connection will suffice for most of your entertainment needs, as well as your personal and business needs.

We are more connected to each other, and the world, than ever before.

As an author, that can be a little scary to come to terms with the truth when we write books intended for print, unless we are prepared to adapt.

Some of us *love* having real books to read, and an eBook reader does not honestly compare. Real books look nice, make for great collections, and feel good to read. But these days, I see more people reading eBooks than real books on buses and trains. I could carry a collection of 10,000 books to read on my iPhone, with ease.

I would love to see someone try to carry 10-20 real books around with them to read… but please, don’t try that at home.

It is quite frightening to think of how hungry we are for digital entertainment, and also how much data we actually use. As quality of our digital use increases, so do our needs.

These days, every bus I see is packed with most people on phones or ebook readers, and it makes me wonder what our society will look like in 5-10 years.

2012, in my belief will be a profound year of marking the worldwide success of digital technology and digital connectivity. We are more connected to our friends and family than ever before, although sometimes we are far too connected for our liking

Already we are seeing closures in Australia of major stores like Video Ezy (Movies), and Borders (Books), and unfortunately, unless those industries somehow move with the times, we will so more of the same. Game stores will likely be next in the firing line. Platforms like Steam for the PC deliver games quickly, and usually at a fraction of the cost of buying them in store.

It is a sign of change when the humble video store cannot make enough of a profit to stay in business, and a bookstore like Borders goes under.

Sure, people will still buy real books, because a lot of us still love them, but the likelihood is that eventually it will all turn digital.

Retail stores do have costs to pay that online stores do not, and local sales helps local jobs, but in some cases the differences in pricing can be a big gap.

Much like when many factory workers were replaced with computers and machines, this change is inevitable. Nobody likes it when it happens, but our society evolves as a result.

I recently attended a course on management, and was recommended a book called “Primal Leadership”. A bookshop in the city told me that it wasn’t even in print in Australia, and I could order it through them from the USA for $49 AUD with a week’s wait. One quick look on Kindle, and I bought it for $8.95 AUD, downloaded within 2 minutes to my phone.

Of course, you don’t have the real thing in your hands, and that will always be the benefit of buying from a bricks and mortar.

Personally, I love real books, and would prefer one over eBook if possible. The feeling of holding a book just can’t be replicated by an eReader.

Although, as writers, we need to adjust to this new digital age. In my opinion, if you don’t have a book available as an eBook, you will start to miss out on reaching the majority of your market.

Book stores will likely stock real books, as well as eBook readers (if they don’t already), and maybe the next step is offering a package of the real book + a code to download the eBook version for your reader.

People want to get something faster, easier. It’s all about the “convenience” factor.

I’m not saying that we will end up like the humans in the Wall-E ships, but it’s not too much of a stretch to think that it is a possibility.

What is your experience with current tech? Where do you think we are headed? Do you read real books, ebooks, or a combination? And how do these changes effect you?

Awesome related post:

Working Together to Renovate Publishing–The WANA Plan – By Kristen Lamb

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