Simon Drake – Writer

You’re here wondering, “Yes, what does it mean to be an Indy Writer in the Digital Age?” And, I have the answer! Aren’t the writer and the technology that got you here clever.

Let’s get started. Who and what is an Indy Writer?

The Indy Writer
Honesty hurts, so here goes: A good friend had heard my dilemma many times: “What am I?” I know what I am but you don’t, and why should you? I have two titles published, another title represented by an agent, a number of titles self-published using print-on-demand and eBooks, you can buy my stuff but it helps if you know who and what I am. I’m hard to explain. Do you write self-improvement, humor, science fiction or action adventure? Why do I break the rules of famous writers (stick to one genre) and confuse you? So my friend replied that the answer to my question, was of course, me. I am the package. I’m also shy.
So, I searched around and came across an interesting podcast on The Writing Cast and identified with the term Indy Writer. There was no reason why I couldn’t label myself an Indy Writer, and in this day and age, I need the easy branding.
We all know what an Indy Film Maker is, an Indy Band, so why not an Indy Writer?
So what qualifies one as an Indy Writer? I’ve made a checklist:
1. The ability to write. That’s too easy. Anyone can do that, but you really need to have some grand scheme behind the writing, enforce editorial quality control, and,
2. Be out there. I narrow this to not just ‘be out there’ exploding poetry in peoples’ faces on crowed buses in traffic jams (captive audience = loyal market share), but to be on the free market. The market is cruel yet rewarding. And to make a difference in the modern market, a sea of dumped books, over-hyped trash and fads and the occasional gem, you have to be,
3. A bit different. Let’s not dwell on creativity and focus on what works. We’re all creative, but the reward is not a pat on the back from a male psychiatric nurse, the reward is, in a culture of lessening and shallower attention spans, being read. How you get read is your business. How you get paid, likewise. But an Indy Writer, on the peripheral of the market, can’t claim to be independent without being able to show it. Be original, I say, and suffer for it: Enjoy the pain, enjoy the gain.
I hope this clears up the term ‘Indy Writer’. Now I haul in the Digital Age because this is the age in which we live, and I have to make an impact in it.

The Digital Age
The Digital Age is hard to define. Did the humble VCR evolve into YouTube? Did the hand written letter just give in to the TXT message? Did the aspiring then disgruntled novelist turn to graphomania; incessant personal blogging, rampant verbose commenting and adding witticisms and snide remarks to whatever they could. If you looked back in history, from a hundred years from now, it might look that way. There was no overnight point where we went from biros and pencils to keyboards and SMS, but it’s happened, and for a writer, you have to keep up. However, things don’t suddenly get easier, the internet is no angel, and people still like to read.
Remember the classic type of writers that non-creative romantics goad newby writers with: “Oh, you’ll never be like them”? Well, go back in history and tell that classic writer to get his/her/it’s head around installing and customising Word Processing software on a computer (explained to the classic writer as a hybrid typewriter and television), programming and configuring websites to be in touch with the ‘common man’, and understanding Web 2.0, RSS, podcasts, URLs and Social Bookmarking just to be ‘on the scene’. This is what the Digital Age means to me. Yes you can aggregate content, post blogs, web video yourself on fire to get some hits, but just because you can doesn’t mean you’re making much difference to the end goal – to be read, and seriously.
Truth be told, the Digital Age is exacting and empowering. It feels good to be alive in an age where technology rarely staggers to a stop and calls over its shoulder, “Hey Hot Shot, catch up while I have a break and enjoy a cigarette or two.” The growth in what you have to comprehend ‘to be out there’ is a hindrance, but a reminder, that we are changing, what we read is changing, platforms shift, and this time next year, who knows what we’ll be buzzing on about. For all the effort, confusion, and exhalation, it’s worth it, you’re worth it (as in, writing for) and this is our time. As a writer, it’d be a shame to let the complexities and dreariness of the modern world deviate one from transferring mediations on life, humor, the self and everything else, into a platform for intimate dialogue.

I hope I’ve explained What It Means to be an Indy Writer in the Digital Age.
In time I will add to this article, so keep me posted with your thoughts.

Also see: Interview with Simon Drake on the Writing Cast>

It is time to apply the hypothesis of technological singularity to storytelling; that age old art of spinning a yarn, now perfected into template film script Hollywood blockbusters, pure genre books (i.e. Mills and Boon romance) and good old, quality, creative novels.  The Story Singularity is this: two stories, created by two different authors, and unknown to each other, are writing the one story. Does this mean both authors are using a standard base storyline, they’ve run out of ideas or/and are plagiarising a well known story? Or is that in the behemoth of entertainment, a wave and long tail of infinite supply (infinite? The Long Tail is a bit of a fable, to be discussed in another article), that there are so many stories available to the public, there are circumstances where The Story Singularity occurs. There’s a Hollywood saying, “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ.” If something makes some bucks, then someone will come out demanding their share. Sure it happens, writers do get ripped off, but sometimes there’s no plagiarism, it is what I call The Story Singularity.
The Story Singularity happened to me like this: Three weeks ago I read about the upcoming movie, 10,000 BC. I thought, wow, great setting for a story. Expect great direction by Roland Emmerich.
Like most writers I’ve studied the classic structure of film scripts, and once you know the rules, can break the rules, and incorporate structural elements into novels. After all, unless you’re on acid and your audience is on acid, there has to be intelligent design to a story, or it falls to bits. People demand quality. Good writers deliver it. Then comes the creative fluff. Where Hollywood, who can’t always be blamed, miss the point is that their audience is so large they have to flatten out the peculiarities of a story and make it a bit simple for all the simpletons out there. Big Market Share = Keep it Simple.

 
When I read the synopsis for 10,000 BC I had a cold shiver – Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy rescues girl. How original? How tried and tested? How could you not go wrong with a story like that? Yes, yes and yes. However, I was annoyed: I’d written a novel called the First Geniuses, set in the same time, about a genius boy who meets girl, invents the concept of zero, loses girl to the local witch doctor, and must rescue girl from sacrificial alter. I’d written my story in 2004, and the movie 10,000BC was to be released in the UK (where I live) on π day – 3.14 – 14th March 2008. The First Geniuses, as a novel, was hard to place with publishers and agents. It wasn’t science fiction, it wasn’t romance, it wasn’t historical (historical as a genre tends to concentrate on period pieces, the heyday of a nation or it prime time of misery, e.g. British Empire, Irish Potato Famine, rise of Nazism, obliteration of Dresden, Holocaust). Maybe my story was is a bit Clan of the Cave Bears, 1 Million BC and The Flintstones – just jokes. I’d pushed it into the bottom draw, cunningly biding my time…
Faced with The Story Singularity I had to do something, and rather than ranting in blogs about the un-originality of 10,000 BC, I decided to get my story to the market, because after the movie 10,000 BC is released, and I shop my novel The First Geniuses to publishers and agents, they could always say, “Oh this genre and story has been done” or “This genre and story is great! Let’s roll out a rip-off” at which point I’d feel like an idiot.
Now here’s where the Technological Singularity helps. Faced with The Story Singularity I had to act. I contacted the ebook publisher who had released my previous SF title Love Data and put it to him to release my novel as an eBook, slightly renaming it and cosily sliding it alongside the upcoming movie, as much as possible and as soon as possible. The traditional publishing industry is an archaic dinosaur, stumbling along like the music industry did; gaping in horror as their merry-go-round of captive audience and mega market share was shot to bits by bytes – uploading and downloading, naughty file sharing, and general digital buccaneering. Argh hargh me lads, Pirates we be, plug in thee broadband connection and pour me a rum.
So, with weeks to go, and an agreement from the publisher, I was now enforcing The Story Singularity, after all, it doesn’t exist unless the public has access or knowledge of both stories.
Now that the movies 10,000BC is out, and my eBook 10,000BC – The First Geniuses is available (as of 13th March 2008) The Story Singularity is alive.
Remember, in the Technological Singularity, something has to take over – Man or Machine.
In The Story Singularity, two (or multiple) stories sharing many elements (setting, characters, structure, turning points, untidy hair-styles etc) one story may be of a higher quality – that’s for you to decide.
But alas, one story has millions of dollars for a marketing budget to throw at advertisement on buses and in newspapers and online social networking sites, and the other has one writer, two laptops, coffee, and single malt scotch for when the sun goes down.
The Story Singularity is decided by the market, not agents, publishers and reviewers. The audience is the judge, so I have decided to be judged.