Illustration to Tennyson's "Sleeping Beauty" by W. E. F. Britten

Fiction is such a subjective thing.  I must admit I am a bit uncomfortable giving advice to anyone about writing, but that has more to do with my own innate insecurities than it does with any accumulation of knowledge or experience I might be able to share.

Being a writer is a bit like walking down the street naked, at least for me.  Friends and family who read my work are often struck by how much they reveal about me.  I am not sure whether or not my readers recognize that until after we meet at a convention.  That is the blessing and the curse of any artistry.

I started writing this, asking myself about the problems that face writers like me, and I thought I would talk about critics, bad reviews, and how to deal with people that misunderstood something you wrote.  But the biggest problem a writer will face is him or herself.

I know a lot of writers.  You may not know this, but a writer emits an ultrasonic sound that only other writers can hear.  While that might not be true, I find it odd how often I will be in a group of strangers talking and then we suddenly realized that were all writers.  One of the things that I have learned from that is that an honest author is a good author.

Every author I have ever met that was an honest person, I later found I enjoyed their work.  Oddly enough, the same as in true in reverse.

An honest author puts their soul on the page, and their fiction benefits from it.  If you want to improve your fiction, the first place to start is by asking yourself were you honest on the page.  Look for the lies, half-truths, and equivocations.  Those places where you wrote something you thought other people would like, instead of what you really wanted to put their.  Rewrite those sections honestly.  Your fiction and your readers will thank you for it.

How honest are you in your fiction?  Do you think I am crazy for telling you to follow your vision?  Let me know what your experience has been.

Important note: this post and the video embedded here contain language some people might find objectionable.  They are just words, and us, can do no harm.

So what is an anti-fan?  Are they a troll?  An asshole?  Or are they something different?  It is sad, that in this day and age, I feel that is necessary to diagnose different types of hate.  Truth is, if you realize what kind of hater you are dealing with, you will have a better idea what to do about them.

Jeff Jarvis in a Medium post called, "Defining the Troll," cites the book, Assholes: a Theory, and uses their definition of an asshole to classify the troll as a sub species of asshole, along with "the jerk, the boor, the cad, the schmuck, the douche bag…" We have a lot of words for people who are essentially unpleasant, but each of these define a special kind of insensitive person.

Trolls, in and of themselves, are interesting creatures.  They say and do terrible things to engender a response.  They crave attention and do not differentiate between positive and negative attention.  Most of the trolls that I have encountered, actually thrived off the negative attention.

The anti-fan is a related but separate phenomena.  Like the troll, they have not learned to distinguish between positive and negative attention; but unlike the troll, they want to participate in the community.  Part of them is drawn to something in the community.  They simply do not know how to participate in a way that is constructive.

The anti-fan, unlike the troll, can be reformed.  It is not easy and requires a lot of attention, correction, and effort.  Once they learn how to engage the community within the norms it has established, they can become a productive member of that community.  There is no formula for this conversion.  It takes time, and the gradual commitment on the part of the anti-fan to start abiding by the rules of the community.

While you are thinking about that, here is a little video dedicated to the haters of every ilk.

For anybody who has followed me over the years, you know that I am always looking for ways to communicate, share, and organize all of the ideas that go through my head.  To my long time readers what I am about to say will come as no surprise:

The dashPunk blog is now Masks of the gods.  What does that mean for you, dear reader?  It means that with the surge in readership we have had from some of my recent writing posts, I am going to dedicate this blog to writing, publishing, running a business, and entertainment design, with occasional comments on the industry.

So if you like the posts you seen here over the last year, you will be seeing more of that.

If you are wondering where all of my posts on the sci-fi, fantasy, horror series, books, movies will be, either.  Go to Project: Shadow.com, or if you are on the site, just click Project: Shadow in the links above.

I want to thank everybody who has been so loyal and supportive of my work over the years, I hope these changes meet with your approval.  The decision to do this was based on your feedback, and what we think is best for the site.

The most exciting thing that we have added, if you look at the list of links above this post, you will see that every page on the all of our blogs now has an Ask Me Anything link.  Feel free to share your thoughts with me in the community in the comments, and any questions that you might have just submit your question there.

Have the fun!

WRITER comic cover. by ~ALSQUAD

I've been thinking a lot lately about my Dragons of Night site: What are some ways to make a website and experience of and extension to story?

It should be more than just a billboard or advertisement for my books and the setting I write in. If it is just an ad, why would anyone want to visit or come back?

This is a place where the Five Codes of Roland Barthes could really be a big help. In a lot of ways, his description of the ideal story resembled the hypertext novels of the 90's and early 00's.

The reader should be able to enter and leave a story from any point and have a valid experience. He also believed that the reader should be able to read the story in any order, and still have a valid experience of story.

This is a tricky thing to pull off in a novel, but a website should be able to easily fulfill these aspirations.

Here are some of the first steps I am going to try to make this theory a reality:

1) The Proairetic Code

This is the code of action. Essentially, this is the actions of the plot. Most of us have this covered on our sites already.

Let me try to make a quick check list:

• Plot synopses for novels and stories.
  
• Backstory elements that could enhance the reader's experience.
  
• Highlight cliffhangers, unresolved elements of the story.
  
• Anything that will cause the reader to ask, "What happens next?"

2) The Hermeneutic Code

This is the code of enigmas and puzzles.  This is the aspect of the story that digs deeper.  It deals with mystery and the pursuit of truth.

The elements that make up the Hermeneutic Code could be used to inspire additional web content, most of which we should be able to derive from our pre-writing notes:

• What is the enigma?
• What in the story begs the question the enigma poses?
• What in the story confirms the enigma?  What clues open the mystery for the reader and make them want to answer it?
• What promises an answer to the enigma?
• What clues and information can you reveal about the enigma?
• What snares will pull the characters and readers further away from the truth?
• What equivocations will mix truth and falsehood to muddy the water?
• What blocks seem insurmountable that might prevent the character from solving the enigma?

You may be thinking to yourself, "I'm not writing a mystery."  Look carefully at your story, nearly all stories present a question to be answered, an enigma to be solved, or truth that must be uncovered.  Think about ways you can tantalize the readers with that question, enigma, or truth.

It is important for entertainment designers to realize that making your readers interested in the hermeneutics of your work is the best way to generate buzz and fans

3) The Connotative Code.

This may be the hardest code to discuss and adapt for our purposes.  It deals with semiotics, symbols, traits, actions, names, anything that grants a connotation to a character, or place, or to the overall story.

The easiest way to talk about it, is to think of the story, characters, and settings, and ask yourself, "what makes that unique or what it is?"  These elements are called signifiers, because they create or suggest something about the story, characters, or setting.

The characters and settings are themselves signifiers, in that they give meaning to your story.  This story would be different if these elements were changed.  Each character, objects, and setting has its own signifiers.

Some ways we could use this on our sites might be:

• Create a bio page for the main characters
  
• Create a page for the important groups.
  
• Create a page for important places.
  
• Create a page for any important words, phrases, arts, crafts, unique world or setting elements.

Don't forget to interlink these with what you've written about the enigma and the story.

4) The Cultural Code.

Depending on the type of story you wrote, this code may be more or less relevant to you.  The cultural code or referential code is the aspect of the story that pulls from our cultural heritage to give meaning to the story.

For example: if I tell you a character is Goth, you immediately dye their hair black, add eyeliner to their face, and dress them in black.  You probably also made other assumptions about them based on your experience with Goth culture.  That is the cultural code.

In my latest story, In the Light of the Moon, the main character is an Amores.  Fans of Greco-Roman mythology would immediately know that she is in erotes or Cupid.  My reference would've been clearer if I had called her a Cupid, but I didn't want to have to refute in the story the baggage that comes with that word.  In choosing to call her an amores, I hoped that readers the didn't even know what that was, would see the word amor and think of love.  That's how I chose to use the cultural code, for better or worse.  Maybe that would make an interesting blog post, or a comment to add to my page on the amores on the site.

When I wrote, The Chain, I made references to bands and songs that I felt enriched the characters.  The problem is I'm relying on my readers knowing those songs and bands.  So maybe I should make a Spotify playlist, and use the iTunes and Amazon affiliate program to create a soundtrack for the book.  That gives me another level of monetization, and even if no one buys them, gives my readers a chance to hear the music.

The reason I'm going into detail with my own work is that each of us is going to have to look at the references we individually made and try to figure out a plan to open those aspects of our story up for our readers to discover, explore, and play in

5) The Symbolic Code.

The symbolic code is similar to the connotative code, but deals with larger organizing elements, some of which you may start to see as you look at the referential code.

Whereas in the connotative code we were examining individual traits and elements, in the symbolic code, we are looking at the links and connections between them to expose a wider level of meaning.

Before we were talking about the characters, now were talking about the cliques.  How the characters interact, feel about each other, and the conflicts they have.  It's easy to uncover these interactions if we look at who is opposing who for what and why.

Some things we may want to discuss here:

• The contention between characters and groups.
  
• The motifs we wove throughout the story.
  
• The symbols and MacGuffin's in the story and their meaning.
  
• The themes we were exploring through the narrative.

The Open Story.

As we deepen our craft, we learn there is more to a good story than a lot of action, snappy dialogue, and interesting characters.  We've learned to make better stories by making the stories more meaningful and richer experiences for our readers.  Now is the time for us to open up our writer's notebooks and share more with our readers.

I spend a lot of time at events talking about the elements of story and mythos from the reader's experience.  Some are interested in the process, but so many more are looking for ways to get more out of the works they read.  It's time that we give them a helping hand.

Open your story up, invite people to play in it, and develop a deeper relationship with your readers.

As I implement each code on my site, Dragons of Night, I'll share more about what I learned with you.  If you give this a try, please share your experience with me.