Servant of a Dark God

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Live in Utah or western Wyoming? Get the best deal at select Smith’s grocery stores while limited supplies last. 

Dungeon Crawlers Radio interviews The Man Monday, March 8th at 10:30 PM MTN. You can listen live or to the archive they’ll post to their site. All brought to you by UtahFM. Malak and Revan are great guys. I had a blast with them.

Cool facts on breaking in, advances, etc. for writers

New page on writing facts & figures in the On Writing section.

Novel update

CURSE OF A DARK GOD is moving along. You should see the progress bar move along quite a bit this week.

Initial Schedule for American Fork Arts Council Conference for Writers

This is a cheap day-long writers conference and looks like it’s going to be another great one.  I’ve highlighted what I’ll be doing in red. I’ll be making adjustments to the HOW TO WRITE A STORY THAT ROCKS presentation for things learned at LTUE.

Here’s their website. That night I’ll probably be attending the Whitney Awards Gala which is also being held down in Happy Valley, Utah.

DATE: Saturday April 24 2010

8-9 a.m. Registration
9-9:10 Welcome (Plenary)

KEYNOTES
9:10-9:40 Keynote #1 Ginger Churchill, “What I Wish I had Known as a Beginning Writer”
9:40-10:10 Keynote #2 Ally Condie, “My Journey to National Publication”
10:10-10:40 John D. Brown, “Aiming for National Publication”

INTRODUCTIONS of editors and authors
10:40-11:05 EDITORS: Derk Koldewyn, Granite NAME
AUTHORS: Caleb Warnock, Linda Jefferies, Shannon Guymon

11:05-11:20 15-minute break

11:20-noon BREAKOUT ONE
Upstairs room “Crafting the Novel” with Shannon Guymon, John D. Brown
Downstairs One “Finding and Working With an Agent” with Ginger Churchill, Ally Condie, Caleb Warnock
Downstairs Two “Taking Your Questions about Publishing” with Deseret Book and Granite Publishing

noon-1 LUNCH “Mix and Mingle with Authors and Editors”

1-1:40 BREAKOUT TWO
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “What Deseret Book is looking for now”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to Write and Publish Picture Books”
Upstairs room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 1: First Principles & Story Concept”
Office room Caleb Warnock “10 Things Every Writer Should Know about Copyright”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “What Granite is looking for now”
Downstairs Two Ally Condie “Writing Young Adult Fiction”

1:40-1:50 Ten-minute break

1:50-2:30 BREAKOUT THREE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 2: Character”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Genres of Children’s Books, from Board Books to YA Novels”
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “National Publication with Shadow Mountain”
Office room Caleb Warnock “How to Write the Query Letter”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “Publishing Options with Granite”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “How to Write Romance”

2:30-2:40 Ten-minute break

2:40-3:20 BREAKOUT FOUR
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 3: Plot”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to be a Writer and a Mother Too”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Writing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Write a Synopsis? I’d Rather Gouge My Eyes Out!”
Downstairs One Ally Condie “Succeeding as an LDS author”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Writing Nonfiction”

3:20-3:30 Ten-minute break

3:30-4:10 BREAKOUT FIVE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Querying Agents and Publishers”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Publishing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Okay, You Were Rejected – Why, and What to Do Now”
Downstairs One “How to form a critique group that works”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Succeeding as an LDS Author”

4:10-4:20 PRIZE GIVEAWAYS, GOODBYE

REVISED (MAY CHANGE)

Living out in the boonies we don’t get good radio or TV reception (no I don’t subscribe to satellite). Which is why the internet is so wonderful.

You can listen and watch almost anything when you want from almost any location–yes, even in Laketown, UT, Boonie Central. Millions listen to music, conservative talk, or libral talk (NPR) via the internet. I enjoy all three depending on my mood. But there’s so much more out there than music and blah blah blah, as much as I love it. For example, you can listen to the British BBC. You can listen to the Dutch. See what’s going on in Australia. Doesn’t matter that they are a number time zones away and all asleep when I’m working. I love the internet.  

One of the best programs I’ve heard in the last six months is the three-part “Parasites” presented by Radiolab. In a fascinating hour they address the following questions:

• Parasites: are they evil, or are they awesome?
• Should you get infected with hookworms?
• Can parasites exercise mind control over their hosts?

Along the way they tell a number of amazing stories. Listen now. You won’t be able to stop.

Get zinged, Baby!

Two quotes that in no way can do justice to the whole thing.

And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

. . . 

Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.

This is a recording of “How to Write a Story that Rocks,” a two-hour seminar Larry Correia and I just put on at the annual BYU’s Life, The Universe, & Everything symposium. I think we had 130-140 people attend. This symposium is focused on writing fiction. And while the panels and presentations do include things specific to the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres (both adult and young adult), a lot of time is also spent on story writing fundamentals that apply to ALL genres. So when I developed this workshop, I made sure I took the fundamental approach.

The two-hour seminar has been broken down into 12 segments. To switch between the segments:

• Hover your mouse pointer over the YouTube below
• Click the forward and back arrows that appear on the right and left sides to move to the next or previous segment, OR 
• Scroll through all 12 segments and select the one you want using the playlist control at the bottom

If you prefer, you can watch all 12 on the How to Write a Story that Rocks YouTube playlist page.

I’ve found whenever I develop any presentation or training that it takes a few iterations and revisions before it’s the best it can be. This is the first iteration of this seminar. And so below this video I’ve provided additional comments on each segment explaining key concepts, principles, and techniques that we might have failed to discuss or convey as clearly as we’d hoped. Enjoy!

Handout

How to Write a Story That Rocks – Handout

Segment 1

It’s documented–right-wing gun nut Larry Correia sang “Kumbaya.” What’s next? The hugging of small trees? Oh, Larry, the disilluion. The disillusion.

The reason why I had Larry sing was not for his mellifluous performance, but to demonstrate the difference in reactions between him and our happy volunteer (“Country Road” by John Denver–this really was a love fest). The volunteer balked because he hadn’t taken any thought to know what to sing before he was commanded to do so. On the other hand, Larry and I had spoken before the seminar. So Larry had something to sing BEFORE he sang it. It’s a simple demonstration, but it illustrates a principle a lot of new writers forget. Writing is a performance. It helps to know what it is you’re going to perform before you perform it.

It’s one thing for you to tell yourself to write. It’s much easier to tell yourself to write the scene where the rancher finds out one of his illegal ranch hands has been kidnapped.

Now this doesn’t mean that you have to know everything. Or that you can’t write exploratory drafts to figure out what it is you want to write. But it does illustrate that whatever techniques you use, you’ll be a lot more effective in your writing when you have something to say first.

But what do you develop? What are the things that bring the story to life? How do you go about getting those things to say? That’s precisely what I wanted to address in the seminar. In the segments that follow, I try to:

1. Explain what I’ve found are the most important things to develop, the things that define the essence of story, that make the story come alive in the writer’s mind–the things that really matter
2. Demonstrate techniques to develop those things so you have something to say

Segment 2

I think this segment went fairly well. What rocks will different from person to person, even though there will often be a huge overlap between people. So it’s important for authors to seek to develop the kinds of stories that rouse their passion. Watch this interview with best seller Debbie Macomber to see what I mean. So I can’t tell you what to write about. Or if whath you think rocks will resonate with a large number of people. However, what I can do is share the techniques I use that have been most productive in helping me develop initial ideas into something that has much more power.

You can use the techniques to juice up any of the four parts of story. However, I will say that I find that the most productive, the most important parts, are character and problem. Plot and setting are important. I love them and work to juice them up. But when I get a good character and problem, that’s when the writing seems to flow the easiest.

And no, I don’t list theme as a part of story. Everyone talks about theme, but when I read what they have to say or press them for examples, it seems that it always either boils down to (1) a story element or topic that’s repeated, (2) a story problem/issue stated in an abstract manner, or (3) some moral situation. Les Miserables is about the “theme” of mercy versus justice. But saying justice versus mercy is just an abstraction of the story problem and dilemmas the story deals with. So, no theme. 

Segment 3

I’ll be adding my comments to the rest of these segments over the next few days.

Segment 4

Segment 5

Segment 6

Segment 7

Segment 8

Segment 9

Segment 10

Segment 11

Segment 12

Dan Wells on Story Structure

Check it out: Dan Wells on How to Build a Story (story structure). I find Dan’s “start with the ending” technique helpful as well as thinking about a worst fears realized moment. Watch the videos and see if there isn’t something there that can help you develop your story idea.

You can get the PowerPoint of How to Build a Story on Dan’s site.

If you find this approach useful, you might want to check out what novelist Larry Brooks has written about the same material on StoryFix.com.

Here are the parts of his speech.

“The Art of Suspense” by Ken Follett–enjoy!

1. Knew what she liked and followed HER passions (she knew what rocked her).
2. Took 4 books she loved and broke them down to look for patterns she could use. This is exactly what Bernard Cornwell did (link at bottom).
3. Identified what it was she wanted to deliver to her readers. I believe her four words were “Provocative,” “Relevant,” “Creative,” and “Honest” (form follows function).
4. Notice also how much she loves plot turns (story cycle–surprise and conflict).

What a delightful interview. I’m going to pick up a Macomber and give her a go. Anyone have a recommendation on a title?

• Heber, UT
• Jackson Hole, WY
• Park City, UT
• Provo, UT (by the library)
• Orem, UT (State and Center)
• Sandy, UT (benches, Bengal Blvd.)
• West Jordan, UT
• I’m sure there are other Smith stores that I’ve missed. You can check your local store to see. Let me know here if you spot it.  

The good news for those who couldn’t attend is that we have a recording and will be posting probably next week. Everyone should thank Stephen Nelson!

We ran out of handouts. I printed 80. Then Mark Holt generously had 30 more printed. We still didn’t have enough. For those of you who didn’t get one or who want an electronic copy, here it is.

How to Write a Story That Rocks – Handout

The short version is that I would find it very difficult to contract with any type of service provider if they either couldn’t or wouldn’t clearly communicate what they would deliver. Can you imagine contracting with a lawn care company, builder, tax accountant, lawyer, or doctor who charged you but wouldn’t tell you what they were going to do or had done for the money? Yet this is precisely the situation we find ourselves in with our public education. People call for testing and accountability, but how can we have any accountability when there’s nothing clear to account for?

I know many teachers and administrators and have full confidence in their intentions and smarts. However, it appears we’re dealing with a fundamental flaw in our education service. A service that could not survive with such a flaw in the private sector and only exists in the public sector because the state has a monopoly on education. I’m not arguing for school choice. However, I am asking that this flaw be fixed.

I hope the arguments I’ve made below will resonate with your experience and prove useful to you as you discuss this topic.

Psst, I’ve Got a Bridge

Is there anyone reading this article who regularly goes to the movie theatre, pays for a ticket, sits down, and then DOESN’T expect to see the movie? And if the theater fails to play the movie, is there anyone out there who wouldn’t demand the money back?

Anyone, anyone?

If you answered yes to both of those questions, please contact me using the link on the left—I’ve got a bridge I think you’ll be interested in.

The fact is that when we contract with someone to provide a good or service, the provider is obligated to provide that good or service to us. If they regularly fail to provide what they promised, then common sense dictates we find another provider (as well as use all legal means to recover our payment or enforce delivery). Nowhere is this basic principle more applicable than it is with the service of public education.

My wife and I both firmly believe schools and teachers must be held accountable. But it must be done in a way that recognizes the fundamental nature of the public education service.

We have seen both sides of this matter. A number of years ago when we lived in Ohio, my wife and I ran into issues with teachers who weren’t delivering quality education. After many attempts to work with the schools, we realized there was no way to ensure they would deliver. So we took our girls out of school and homeschooled them for a few years until we could get them into a school that could deliver. On the other hand, my wife is now teaching the 7^th and 8^th grade language arts program at Rich Middle School in Laketown and knows that despite her best efforts some kids still struggle. So we have strong feelings for arguments on both sides of this issue. As for myself, I have twenty years teaching experience in the private sector and have learned, sometimes the hard way, about what happens when you fail to recognize the nature of education and account properly for results.

Slackers and Shared Responsibility

While thinking about the movie theater example above we must keep in mind that any contract for a service requires both parties to meet certain conditions. For example, when I purchase a movie ticket, all parties understand that Stadium 8 Movies is responsible to show a film at the time and location specified. However, all parties also understand that I’m required to show up, and, if I’ve got the vision of Mr. Magoo, wear my glasses. We BOTH have responsibility.

This shared responsibility applies to all contracted services. Alas, many people seem to forget that when talking about public education. On the one side, you have people clamoring for school accountability, testing, and rolling heads if objectives aren’t met. And this is reasonable—not only have we paid good money for the service, but it’s for our most precious possessions! On the other side, you have teachers pointing out that they can’t force people to learn. An obvious, but seemingly often forgotten fact.

It’s true that some schools and teachers have used shared responsibility as an excuse and cover for inferior instruction. On the other hand, even the best teachers will deliver lackluster results in some situations because you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. It’s also true that some parents have used shared responsibility as a cover for their own unwillingness to accept responsibility for their children’s behavior. On the other hand, if a program is ineffective, it doesn’t matter how diligently students follow its steps—they still fail.

Both sides are right. Teachers have significant responsibility, but they don’t have full responsibility for student outcomes because a huge part of scholastic success depends on the child, his or her parents, and the home situation. The solution is to hold both parties responsible for the part they’re accountable for.

The Conditional Guarantee

So how do we do this?

We do it the same way we do it with piano teachers and personal trainers. The same way we do it with vacuums and washing machines. In all of these and hundreds of other situations, the provider is making a CONDITIONAL promise: “If you follow the steps I outline, you will get the promised result. If you don’t follow the steps, the guarantee is null and void.”

In education, teachers and schools should be held accountable for providing effective programs for getting from point A to point B. These programs should ensure that every student who completes the required steps will learn X, Y, and Z.

So if Billy completes the program, but doesn’t know his stuff, or if the teacher didn’t provide the promised service, then the teacher and school should be held accountable. However, when Billy fails to complete the work, then the responsibility for the failure falls squarely on the shoulders of Billy and his parents.

These same principles apply to students who work hard but are challenged in various ways—English as a second language, dyslexia, etc. Teachers should be held accountable for helping these students. But if such students only complete part of the program, parents and the State cannot hold the schools and teachers accountable for delivering the promised results of the full program.

Schools promise effective learning programs. The only time we should expect them to guarantee results is when their program is followed.

This means the way you hold teachers and schools accountable is NOT with a general performance test because some students might not have completed the required steps, i.e. they might not have shown up to the movie theatre. No, what you do is test based on completion. If students who have completed the steps don’t know their stuff, then the method is flawed, the service a sham, and we call in the cavalry–Get Gephardt on Channel 2 News! If the school or teacher doesn’t make the changes necessary to be able to deliver an effective program, they must be replaced with providers who can.

How HJR3 Opens the Door to Waste and Underachievement

Recently, our Utah legislative House Education Committee unanimously approved a resolution that would recommend that “the goal of any future efforts to develop performance pay or differentiated pay plans for public school teachers should be to ensure that there is a quality teacher in every classroom.” Such pay plans should also “promote student achievement and support quality instruction.”

All worthy goals. However, “Utah Legislature: Testing teachers — Educators could soon receive pay based on student test scores,” a February 8, 2010 article in the Deseret News article, reveals that having such goals without recognizing the conditional nature of teaching, can quickly lead parents and educators astray. For example, the article reports that Midway Elementary School is currently piloting a performance pay program that would determine a teacher’s pay in the following way: 40% based on how well students performed on annual tests, 40% on whether the teacher took teacher training courses during the year, and 20% based on parent satisfaction surveys. According to the article, “After the two-year pilot, state education officials aim to eventually create a statewide proposal.”

Such an incentive pay program demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of the conditional promise at the heart of the education service. Furthermore, it proposes measurements that will not only fail to reward results, but may end up undermining achievement.

First, as discussed above, tests for conditional services only have meaning when the student has completed the required steps. You cannot hold teachers accountable for results when students fail to follow the program. If you do, you will give teachers and schools incentives to find ways to ensure student test performance that have little to do with mastery of a subject. Furthermore, you will obfuscate the critical responsibility parents and students have. As students and parents begin to shift their responsibility onto the schools, achievement will decline. Finally, holding teachers accountable for more than delivering an effective service is likely to penalize teachers who are doing an incredible job, but are working with children who face many challenges that prevent them from moving through the program as quickly as others. Rewards based on one-size-fits-all annual tests will not improve results.

Second, teacher training may or may not translate into effective methods. Rewards should be given to those teachers who develop effective systems, regardless of how many classes they do or don’t take. Don’t reward teachers for taking classes, reward them for results. Strike two!

Finally, while customer satisfaction surveys can help a provider assess how well it is delivering its promised service, such surveys have severe limitations for public education. For example, to be a valid measurement, the survey has to gather responses from the people who received the service. The problem with parent surveys is that the parents aren’t the ones in the classroom—how do they know what kind of service the teacher has provided? Oh, that’s right, the kids will report it accurately. Yeah, do you remember that bridge I have?

Furthermore, the survey needs to focus on the elements promised in the service. However, parents usually don’t know what’s been promised (often from no fault of their own). Not knowing what’s expected, they will base their satisfaction on things that may or may not matter, things that may or may not be part of the bargain. There’s no provision to base the survey on the promises made by the schools. Strike three!

The Midway pilot should be rejected for something that actually focuses on the conditional nature of the public education service. I don’t know how resolutions guide education policy, but I’m against any that allow such a wasteful use of our scarce dollars.

A Better Way

There’s no doubt we need better accountability in schools. But it doesn’t start with tests and surveys.

It starts with defining the intended results in a more practical and simple way. How can you hold someone accountable when you don’t even know what it is they’re supposed to provide?!

The vast majority of parents have NO idea what they’ve contracted the school to do, only a vague “educate my children.” Press them, you’ll see. Even the ones that go to parent teacher conferences. They don’t know because we don’t make it easy for them to know.

My wife and I have both tried to understand the State objectives for our daughters. I have a master’s degree, she has a bachelor’s, and we both have a hard time understanding the documents. In fact, we had a devil of a time finding them in the first place.

But even more telling is the fact that most teachers don’t quite know what they’re supposed to teach. If you don’t believe me, ask any teacher to explain the key things tested on the Utah annual core tests or on the state list of objectives. Of course, some may not be able to answer because there are no objectives for their subject. We spend quite a bit of money on services where the schools make no promises at all (history, PE, current events, drama, music, etc.). No wonder many parents are frustrated!

These objectives need to be practical, which means they’ll be influenced by the input of professionals who actually work in the subject domain. For example, the State objectives for language arts should be informed by a wide variety of people who actually write at the highest levels, including professional authors, technical writers, journalists, and editors. State objectives for art or music, would be informed by graphic artists and professional musicians with an eye towards what’s relevant for the students and their goals.

Everything starts with reasonable and simple objectives.

Second, make it very easy for parents and students to see what they’re responsible for and what the teachers promise to deliver. One key component of this would be a very easy to understand checklist that would allow students and parents to quickly see the steps or milestones in the program for a certain topic. Another tool would be a short document that explains exactly what services the teacher promises to provide, e.g. learning environment, student access, prepared lessons, etc.

Next, spend time and money developing programs that are proven to actually deliver on the results when followed. But don’t mandate a one-size-fits-all approach. Let each school use whatever works. This way the schools have the flexibility to test new ideas and continuously improve their service.

Finally, create tests that measure the promised results and nothing else.

It’s true that some outcomes might resist quantitative measurement. But that doesn’t mean objectives can’t be set and measured qualitatively. Furthermore, some people worry about teachers teaching to a test because they fear teachers will forget to teach the real stuff. But teaching to a test only becomes a problem when tests are divorced from the desired outcomes.

For example, let’s say I want to learn how to shoot a gun with accuracy at fifty yards. How would you test to see if I’d learned that? Easy. You have me shoot a gun at fifty yards and check how many shots made it inside the prescribed area. And how would you teach that? You’d have me shooting a gun at fifty yards. In this situation there is no difference between the test, the teaching, and the promised learning. Yes, shooting with accuracy is a motor skill, but the principle applies to cognitive skills as well. When outcomes and tests are aligned, teaching to the test = teaching the right stuff.

What the state needs first is a resolution to get the fundamentals right. Once we have those down we can create resolutions that reward quality service because we’ll be able to measure that service appropriately. Until then, incentive reward systems are likely to do more harm than good.

Conclusion

To sum up, only a numskull would claim Stadium 8 Movies owed me a refund if I decided to dink around at the park instead of showing up at the contracted time and place and watching the movie they played. On the other hand, only swindlers would take money for a service and feel they shouldn’t be held accountable for providing what they promised to their customer.

For such a contract to work, both parties must understand what the other will do. When we provide clear expectations and appropriate tests, we can begin to leverage all the human capital we have in all the schools around the state. One elementary school in Price might develop techniques that prove, through rigorous testing and their own field study, to speed the learning of a certain subject. If they do, reward them. Other schools throughout the state can then try to replicate results, verifying or improving on the methods. If they improve their processes, even by copying someone else, reward them. This can happen over and over with hundreds of classrooms and teachers. In such a way, schools can continually improve their ability to deliver.

But none of that is possible when we don’t recognize the fundamental nature of public education. And especially when we develop incentive systems like those included in the Midway pilot that reward the wrong behaviors.

Schools provide a service that comes with a conditional promise. We need to find effective ways to hold schools and individual teachers accountable for developing and delivering effective programs. And we need to help parents and students clearly see the steps they must take to lay claim to the promises made by those programs. This is what we should be focusing on.