Hmm, another morning, and not so sure what to write about. I suppose, I could crap all over the book I finished yesterday Apocalypse by Kyle West. Kyle is another author from the writers cafe forum that I follow, that has recieved a bit of success lately with his writing. He’s actually written about 5 books now in his series the Wasteland Chronicles and has decided to go full time with writing due to the success of the series. I read the first book. It was free, and it was sort of an exercise once again, in convincing myself that you didn’t have to be a great writer to be successful with this. And Kyle managed to prove that to me. He does some things pretty good, and some things horribly, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that he’s now selling between 50 and 100 books a day. Certainly, enough to live on. Especially, if he decides to continue writing. Which, I’m sure he does. I was constantly comparing his work, to the writing I’ve done so far, and came up with a few observations. He’s more descriptive about the environment his characters in then I am. I generally, seem to be more concerned about the action, or series of events that are taking place, then I am about the environment. Kyle doesn’t go into a lot of depth about the environment, but enough to give the reader a sense of where they are. I think, that’s something that I need to do more of in my story. I do believe, that I have an idea of where my characters are when I’m writing, but I’m just not sharing that with my readers. Something to think about. A few things about Kyles writing that is pretty bad though came to mind. One, his dialogue is horribly stilted and stiff. And, it wouldn’t be that hard for him to fix it. The one thing, he keeps doing, is random use of contractions in his writing (it’s vs it is). Most of the time his characters don’t use them, and it’s incredibly annoying to read. Mainly, because nobody talks that way in real life, unless their doing so for very specific emphasis. Every once in a while his characters use them, but that just ends up reminding you how bad they sound once they start using them again. Secondly, the conflicts his characters come across, are all that difficult to overcome. It’s just a bit too easy for them to get what they want. They really need to outright fail some of the times, or when they do succeed, to pay a heavier price for those successes. The conflict resolution, is all a bit rushed. And finally, I know he wanted to leave a cliff hanger, to get people to buy his next book, but he really screwed up the ending in this book. It’s not even really a cliff hanger. I couldn’t think of any real compelling reason to buy the next book. It sort of just stops at at the end of a regular scene. There is no resolution to the story. There is no character arc. There is no “story question” that is answered. It’s really a pretty weak ending. Now, to be fair, this is Kyles first book, and I have to assume he’s getting better. There was a teaser excerpt for his second book at the end of the first one, and starting to read it, I got the sense that his writing had improved, but, there was one section where his characters were refusing to use contractions again. Someone must have pointed that out to him by now. Some of the reviews did that I read on Amazon. Not sure he took them to heart. Any ways, my overall conclusion after reading the book was well, I can certainly do as well or better then that. My dialogue at the very least is much easier to read then Kyles. And, with the studying I’ve been doing on the 7point structure and Jim Butchers blog articles on scene’s and sequels should give my story much better structure at the very least. One other thing to mention, was that Kyle has great covers for his books. That’s got to be a part of the reason for his success, and yes, I have bookmarked his cover artist. The other really big thing, that Kyle has over me, is that he as finished and published a number of books. He actually did the work, and got the shit out there. For better or for worse, he’s published, and people are buying his stuff. That’s a bridge, I have yet to cross.

TIGERBLOOD: yes … lots of nervous energy through out the day DAILYMOOD: nuetral LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: 0 PUSHUPS: 2:00 plank TODO: write, edit, workout TV: the tomorrow people BOOK: Apocalypse (finished) GAME: Grid 2 EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 175 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: singapore beef SNACKS: orange, grapes, apple, mixed nuts ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 1:00 AWAKE: 7:30