Go, Thief! Writing as Collaborative Piracy

 

“A thief who steals from a thief is pardoned for one hundred years”—Eli Wallach as Calvera (Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai remake soon in theaters near you)

As a grad student taking creative writing classes, I did a lot of workshopping, but received little practical advice.  Most everything learned is earned, not given.  However, the best counsel I got was as an undergraduate toiling away in my Intro to Fiction course: “If you see something you like, steal it” (the professor/novelist who uttered these words will obviously not mind my failing to attribute to him here.)

There’s not much stealing of money by novelists, short-fictioneers, playwrights, and poets going on (we leave that to the publishing houses).  On the other hand, the best and worst of us do steal material pretty liberally from each other.   Some of this is unconscionable laziness, but I think those who take their craft seriously do hold themselves to a few self-imposed rules, which I’d like to codify here by supplementing my old professor’s advice with what I call the “Rule of Three O’s”: “By all means, steal: but try not to steal too often; nor too obnoxiously; nor too obviously.  Penalties exist for each.

• Too often. No one likes to be labeled an unoriginal hack.  I mean, if you do this daily, you might as well become a television journalist and get paid well.  None of them seems to have recognized that Donald Trump has lifted most of his campaign platform from Adolf Hitler (“Make _______ Great Again,”) but you know that if one did, they’d all be parroting it.  Because there is no honor among thieves: they turn on each other.   Genre writers are in greatest danger of returning to the well too often, killing the golden goose, choose your cliché (a word-level version of this crime).
• Too obnoxiously. You wouldn’t carjack a Corvette and then drive it around the same county without at least a re-paint, would you?  That’s just not right.  A plot, for example, needs to be sufficiently re-dressed to make it palatable.  Some recognize that the story of Jason Bourne is a retelling of Frankenstein, just as Blade Runner was (and to some extent the Wolverine and Deadpool tales): Scientist manipulates human limitations; scientist gets re-visited over and over by the subject of his experiment (“Why would he come back now?”)  It’s a good story with much psychological depth and breadth, as well as moral/ethical implications, which is why it gets told every five years.  Another version of obnoxious theft is a too-clever playing with familiar phrases.  Some writers get so good at this, they’re dangerous:  “Code of Dishonor,” “Twice Bitten,” “Can’t Stand In Heat.”  Seriously, why would you even crack the cover of a book entitled “For a Few Zombies More?”  Do you expect the writing to improve after that?
• Too obviously. If last week’s marquee title is The Terminator, and you rush-premiere a B-movie called The Decimator, The De-resonator, or The Decaffeinater, even the trolls on the forums will crucify you (now there’s a story worth retelling,) without even watching it. And you deserve it.

Which leaves us with the question of how to do stealing right.  There are perhaps a hundred ways, so let’s “borrow” a few from the greats:

Allusions. Usually at the word level, these nuggets are on full display for those in your audience who may have read more than three or four books.  When John Steinbeck cribbed his novel’s title, In Dubious Battle, from the proem of John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, it was more than a pretty phrase he admired.  He wanted to signal, perhaps, that workers in contemporary America (the many and weak) were being warred upon by Satanic forces (the few and powerful).  Steinbeck, in fact, grifted several of his titles from Biblical or semi-biblical sources: The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and other writers (Of Mice and Men).

Homages/parodies. In Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks wasn’t trying to get away with piracy, but instead to rely on the audience’s familiarity with both the story and previous remakes from Hollywood.  The result is wonderful: How I did It is the title of the Baron’s journal. The great danger I see, today, is that in a semi-literate culture, exposure to 2^nd, 3^rd, and farther-removed parodies takes the place of reading the originals, rather than supplementing it.  Children, of course, will claim they can survive on candy; and so it’s no surprise to hear twenty-somethings argue they can distill the important news from The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live.

Shakespeare, yes even he of the cranium enormous, raided the Plot and trappings of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and probably Othello and Romeo and Juliet from earlier sources. Now, given what he accomplished with them, and the relative scarcity of masterplots, this is forgivable.  How many people recognize that The Terminator is a thematic retelling of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (by attempting to avoid predestined events, one can actually bring them to pass)?  Cameron simply converted prophecy to time-travel (two sides of the same coin).

Update/Remake for a modern audience. Emerson said that every generation had to reinvent its stories (here I’m paraphrasing—at least I’m giving the guy credit!)  Especially the out-of-copyright ones (wink to the publishers and movie studios there.)     I suspect 2016’s Birth of a Nation will not much resemble the original.  You did know that was first made by D.W. Griffiths in 1915, adapted from Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansmen (1905,) didn’t you?  Film and literary critics fascinate themselves with analyzing how remakes tell us much about the culture that produced them, by emphasizing and deemphasizing certain elements of the ur-story.

Recasting from a different perspective. Euripides is perhaps the most prolific of western writers here.  He recast much of Greek mythology from the point-of-view of “the other,” the marginalized characters: Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae.  A very neat and risky trick.  How many Americans do you know that would enjoy a film about how the Russians sacrificed twenty million souls to defeat the Nazis in World War II?  And yeah, that did happen.

Which brings us to pseudo-history. Spielberg’s Amistad, Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans, Stone’s JFK, anything by Michael Moore in a more documentary mode, are all masterful narratives.  They are not history, by any serious definition.  BUT, they weren’t meant to be: they ARE meant to raise the spirit of inquiry in the audience, to challenge them to learn more and seek the truth themselves.  Poe did this with his unreliable narrators, but the solutions lay within his stories themselves.  Here, the facts lie outside the story, in other accounts one would have to research.  Sadly, this is all too infrequently done, and the pseudo-history stands as the somewhat-removed Truth.

So writers, don’t worry so much about books getting stolen, in either analog or digital form.  One way or another, it’s all in the public domain, there for the taking–isn’t it?  Put it this way–no one ever promised to pay you, anyway.  Given the choice, you’d rather give it away than keep it to yourself.

 

 

Issues For Indie Writers: Complicating the Plot Structure of Your Story / Novel

 

By Shawn StJean

Shakespeare inherited from the Greek tragedians a 5-part plot structure, which functions to keep the writer on track concerning the overall trajectory of the work, and from getting lost in the details.  English teachers know this structure as Freytag’s Triangle or Pyramid: Act I—Exposition, II-Complication, II—Climax, IV—Catastrophe (Reversal), and V—Denouement (“Unraveling”).  In today’s faster paced, Hollywood-aligned writing environment, the formula is often shortened to the left half of the pyramid, or simply three components: Exposition, Complication, and Climax.  Credits roll.  And although crucial elements can be lost in this truncation (reducing the pyramid to a two dimensional line, as it were), that’s a concern for another time.  More important for the moment, is that in its short form, the Complication (often oversimplified in diagrams as “rising action”) assumes even greater importance—in fact, it can truthfully be called the “guts of the story.”

Even so, not enough modern writers understand the pivotal function of Act II.

Reviewing briefly:

Act I—Exposition.  The best narratives begin “in media res,” (in the midst of things)—at an interesting point in the overall action.  This requires that the audience be briefed, by means of flashbacks or dialogue, on the conflict that brought the characters to this high pass, and quickly introduced to the individual characters themselves.  In a film, this act consumes the initial 30-40 minutes of viewing time.

Act II—Complication.  30-40 more minutes.  Many folks intuit that, here, we’ll “get to know the characters better.”  They’ll make friends and/or develop antagonisms, either against each other, themselves, or the environment (in the case of Hamlet, all of these).  But a complication only deepens plot, by mixing the element of characterization with it, so to speak.  Think of it this way: Things go from bad to worse.  Example: A soldier’s gash on the foot at first causes a mere limp, but left untreated, induces sepsis.  How do the characters react?  How does action lead to reaction?  What ironies and motifs and themes begin to emerge?  Does the narrative take on a tone of inevitability, or are choices still available?

Act III–Climax.  Second hour.  A sad truth about contemporary storytelling, whether oral, filmic, written, or graphic, is that Act II gets short-circuited and far too much attention gets lavished upon the action of climax (recall how much of the finest elements of Tolkien’s work have been jettisoned by Peter Jackson in service of gory spectacle).  People say “it picks up,” as if this equates to “gets better.”  True, this presents a mighty problem for the chronicleer: how to present a high significance of action, and not just a high and unsustainable level.  But the truth is, a finely wrought set of complications will dictate the climax to a large extent, and no artificial resolution should be needed (such as a deus ex machina, aka miracle ending).

As ever, pop culture provides a ready resource for illustration.  As a contained–hopefully visual and entertaining–example of structure and the energizing role of Complication, I’d like to use an unusual text–a performance of the Rolling Stones’ iconic song “Gimme Shelter.”  Lyrics, naturally, form our primary, but not exclusive, focus here.  To simplify matters even further, we need only examine the chorus (a term aptly take from Greek drama,) of the song, which not coincidentally divides itself into three, similar couplets:

 

1-War, children,

It’s just a shot away.

 

3-Love, sister,

It’s just a kiss away.

I’ve intentionally left out Act II here, to dramatize its effect later.  Taking the first and third parts, we see the speaker has created a parallel structure, at both the local/grammatical-sentence level, and the overall plot level.  And while technically speaking, it’s hard to say this is “plot,” so much as allegory, it certainly becomes one when we add the aural and visual elements of a performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrC9FtkmYA

If you’ll invest five minutes watching the video, you’ll see not only a great song performed by its creators, but even its flaw serves a wonderful purpose.  Dividing it roughly into thirds, we initially see Mick Jagger and the boys doing professional, if run-of-the-mill, work—not exactly phoning it in, but doing what’s proven, in a fairly uninspired way.  But what follows changes everything (Act II): an unfamiliar element, Lisa Fischer, for whom the term “back-up singer” would be a gross injustice, descends from the background, takes center stage, and electrifies the performance, raising not only the audience’s interest level, but galvanizing the other band members: Watts’ drums, Richards’ and Woods’ guitars, and Jagger’s vocals.  And now we’re in a position to hear those lyrics Fischer is responsible for:

2-Rape, murder,

They’re just a shot away.

These lines complicate the basic conflict: that we’re all living, in the late 20^th/early 21^st centuries, under the delicate balance and precarious threat of war—just a simple misstep from Armageddon (recall the Cuban Missile Crisis of ’62.)  But there’s a choice—peace, too, that can be embraced, through an act of love, not fear and hatred.  If we ask ourselves, what structurally ought to come between the black and white, the right and left, we’ve confronted one of the most basic intellectual challenges in life.  It isn’t always as simple as “Grey,” when the choice lies between wrong and right.

Instead, the Stones have chosen another route.  Because “war” is such an abstract, monolithic concept, the 2^nd stage of the chorus both amplifies and specifies what it entails: not just bloodless “killing” in defense of ideals, but the vicious and selfish ending of human life–murder–always a by-product of war, as well as the brutal stripping of the precious: land, children, women.  Rape.  These lines give the song flesh and blood, in the same way Fischer’s blood-curdling ability to hit the high notes thrill the spine and appall the senses.  In terms of the performance in the video (enhanced by the camerawork, lighting, and editing) Fischer adds an important female presence, and more than a hint of controlled sexuality, which makes her repetition of the word “rape” very resonant.

To return to Hollywood terms, then, the Complication amplifies the basic conflict, by doubling or tripling it, by raising or personalizing the level of threat, by adding a previously unseen dimension.  In Oedipus Rex, a plague has descended upon the city of Thebes, and a soothsayer reveals the gods have brought it on because a murderer roams free in the city.  The king vows to find and punish the culprit: basic conflict established.  However, we in the audience slowly come to realize, through layered ironies, that the murderer is Oedipus himself.  Thus, a complication can often be expressed through a question:  How can a man administer justice for the community and himself at the same time?  Today’s films, even comedies, as simple as they often are, are no different.  Take Jack Black’s School of Rock, for example.  In Act one, we find a N’er-do-well ejected from his band, his job, and his apartment all in the same day.  Basic conflict.  He falsely assumes the identity of a middle-school substitute music teacher in order to make ends meet.  Thus, complication: How can a man who knows plenty about music, and nothing about teaching, inspire a motley bunch of youngsters to play, appreciate, and love music?

The Complication, if well done, will rise above the Climax in its interest level.  It’s here, after all, that protagonists struggle with the details of their challenges, suffer setback and defeat, and prepare to (potentially) grow, or devolve, in the final act.  When you’ve seen enough Hollywood films, in fact, Climaxes begin to bore you, with their gunfire and car chases, somehow contriving to sell you on the dubious idea that violence always solves complex problems (try Divergent for a recent, disappointing example.)

What does this mean for writers, as a practical issue?  First, Aristotle’s famous remark that “plot is the soul of tragedy” still holds true, especially if you take a generous definition of tragedy: a struggle (often failure, but an occasional success) of human beings to reach their potential.  Western culture’s first critic insisted that events and our responses to them define who we are—we do not shape events.  This may create an uncomfortable view of free will for the modern viewer, but it helps in storytelling immensely.  Ask yourself: how is my protagonist both a representative of, and an amplified example of, humankind?  What trials will represent and dramatize this best?  How will s/he have it worse than the average person?  What bits of key dialogue will support this plot?  Which elements are worth repeating–with variations–to clarify my theme?  Most importantly, what actions will the protagonist(s) take, or fail to take, when adversity arises?

A lot gets lost in those parentheses, but “Rising Action” or Complication provides the real enjoyment of a story or novel.

Book Review: Write the Body–Post Rock Limestone Caryatids by Rachel Creager Ireland

By Shawn StJean

Surely for not the first time in history, modern feminists proposed, forty years ago, that genuine women’s writing follows patterns that would seem alien to male readers: perhaps circular or spiral–or at least non-linear, non-phallic, and non-formulaic (this lack the greatest source of readerly anxiety: a defeat, though not a disappointment, of expectations).

Beginning with its title, one clearly not designed to enhance marketability (what genre is this?  Sci-Fi? Chick-Lit?  Naturalism?,) Ms. Ireland’s debut novel fits the non-pattern.  Although the setting eases us in–human beings living on the eve of the 22nd century, insulated, born into robotic nurseries and raised into cubicles and having contact only through computerized avatars via sanitized social networking and virtual sex, their bodies slowly falling to atrophy while the world outside slowly recovers from the human virus, in remission.  Meanwhile, privileged children are genetically modded and sponsored into Matrix-like docility/productivity as adults. Fans of political allegory and films like Neill Blomcamp’s Elysium or District 9, or anyone who’s ever simply slaved away in the human ice-cube-tray of an office building, should find plenty to satisfy their sense of satire here.

The plot, however, spreads its legs, so to speak: between a wealthy runaway escaping a controlling father to seek a free birth for her child, and a woman who abandons the cubicle life, following the death of her sister and loss of her infant niece to the state “corporocracy,” to go into the wilderness with an attractive, seductive politico-religious zealot.  One of the defamiliarizing aspects of the book is the consistent splitting of our attention back-and-forth, toward an eventual convergence in the great yonic center of our country, the Kansas prairie, the culmination simultaneously the most common and most miraculous of events.  Écriture féminine, indeed.

Male readers, especially, or any conditioned in the mode of phallogocentric writing, should not expect to find chase-and-gunfire narrative lurches and jerks, progressing hurriedly to an all-too-predictable climax.  As one of the protagonists learns in the company of natural childbirthers, patience, and release of control, form much of non-technological existence.

And the writing, at the paragraph and sentence level, frequently bares its beauty in a range from scatological to sublime, though in the least pretentious of ways.  One could read many passages as the journal of a writer who has herself plumbed both the mysteries and fears of homo sapiens childbirth, and the macro-birthing process of Mother Earth. Ireland could become one of the few legitimate woman naturalists–though this is only one of the book’s several modes–a tradition dominated by males in America since the 1870s.  (A scan through her author’s blog, http://veronicasgarden.wordpress.com/, will confirm this.)  “If Maeve were the only human alive, the only tragedy would be human, that is, that Maeve would be the last to witness to such immense beauty; yet this world would go on being beautiful, to itself, for itself, without suffering any loss.  It was somewhat reassuring to Maeve to know that the world was really that big, that her little human sufferings, meaningful as they might be to her, were really a very small part of the whole.”  Norris or Crane or Dreiser–all appreciative of the ironic scope of androcentrism that defines our species among the animal kingdom, would agree.

Buy it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Post-Rock-Limestone-Caryatids-ebook/dp/B00AWE6B8O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366041370&sr=8-1&keywords=post+rock+limestone+caryatids

Clotho’s Loom Full Cinematic Novel Trailer by Shawn StJean

I originally wanted to add some voiceover dialogue to this–perhaps one of these days. If you look, you can spot elements from different sections of the book: Flood (Water), Firmament (Air), and Forge (Fire–desert), as well as some bits borrowed from some popular Hollywood films.  Enjoy!

The Stand Writers Take

By Shawn StJean

Many people of artistic temperament are born into the world with a mixture of native ability and an egomania that insulates them from the criticisms that come the way of everyone who dares appear in public.  The suffering that produces actual artists—painters who regularly paint, musicians who dutifully practice and play, and writers who really write—is not their portion, and they often end by retreating into the safe cocoon of their unrealized potential: “I could have if I wanted to. . .”

In American Beauty, middle-aged Kevin Spacey is asked, by a bodybuilding trainer, which muscle groups he’s trying to target.  His reply—“I just want to look good naked”—is only human.  But inasmuch as other artists all must run their gauntlets, it falls to writers to strip themselves naked and stand on the rocks and in the sun, where all gazes, deserving and otherwise, may fall.  They know they’ve done the reps, reformed their diets, put in the sweat and the time, and done their best.  And yet, they also know that the extra pounds from drink or age, the stretch marks, the tattoos and scars of youth, the genetic abnormalities, or simple, forgivable imperfections may still glare out.  And any writer sensitive to the human condition cannot hide behind the mirror forever: the plain fact is, some folks will not only not praise what they see, they’ll be positively repelled by it for their own reasons, and they will spit toxin.

This is why, above all things, writers must trust.  Trust themselves, of course, but trust someone close, another set of eyes—the sharper and more secure the better—belonging to one who has stood on that same shore, shivering in the wind, and yet whose scrutiny of one’s limitations is unaccompanied by the instinct to point and laugh, and gain a cheap personal warmth at the expense of the exposed initiate.  Why must this other person(s) be sought for help? Can’t it be done alone?  No.  Your partner lives, not without those same scars, but with them—and such healing from them as the Fates allow.  She has survived all-too-easy-to-meet rejection, and refused to run from the stage, to wrap herself tightly in the cloak of invisibility of the failure-turned-critic, “mind tainted,” as Hamlet’s ghost warns, and hurl that bile back at those who have met some measure of public acceptance, or might.

Writers who write stand not only looked at, but looking back.  Search, seek, and you will find the others.  There are those on shore admiring, though their voices may not always carry well on the wind, what they behold– however flawed–among the rough cacaphony of the crowd.

Tetherbird by Emily McDaid FREE for Memorial Day

Fellow novelist and friend of the blog Emily McDaid has launched her new novel with a generous e-book giveaway to honor this important holiday.  LINK: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D0GI7VA

From the description:

A Duke squares off with a damaged, dangerous war veteran in TETHERBIRD, a novel called “amazingly powerful and beautifully written.”

***
Former sniper Benjamin Cane’s life is ripped apart after his version of the Bin Laden assassination is disavowed by the Marines, written off as a conspiracy theory. Displaying symptoms that could be PTSD, the man who returns from war is an entity his wife Mackey struggles to comprehend. Following an accident with his twin boys that never should have happened, Benjamin leaves the service, his life in a tailspin.

A Duke in the stately Gloucestershire countryside offers Benjamin a job in security. Surrounded by characters as eccentric as they are paranoid, Benjamin tries to navigate an environment rife with guns and outdated class structures, feeling like flotsam as a new civilian without his family.

Grisly and emotional twists surprise in this poignant tale narrated by cynical war crimes journalist Stanley Tern, who enters Benjamin’s life to offer redemption and to pursue his own hidden agenda. Through layered, textured prose, TETHERBIRD asks whether our modern-day, gun-toting homelands may be more treacherous than any battlefield.

FINALISTS for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013! Cast Your Vote!

 

LINK: http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011

You can have a say in who takes home all the marbles!  Download an excerpt and vote (Note that this requires an Amazon.com Customer account to participate.)  Heartfelt congrats to Ken Moraff for It Happened in Wisconsin, Jo Chumas for The Hidden, Evelyn Pryce for A Man Above Reproach, J. Lincoln Fenn for Poe, and Rysa Walker for TimeBound.

My personal pat on the back to Ken, who defeated me (and 1998 others) in the General Fiction category!  Go Ken!

 

Only a Few Days Left to Win a PAPERBACK Copy of Clotho’s Loom on Goodreads!

By Shawn StJean

Over 300 folks have already put this 540-page tome on their “To Read” Shelves!

The giveaway link is in the left hand column of the blog, toward the bottom, or here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/44808-clotho-s-loom-a-novel-of-literary-romance-and-realism, or search for “Clotho’s Loom” on Goodreads!

Issues for Indie Authors: What’s in a Title? Your Novel’s Future. . .

By Shawn StJean

As I’m doing the pre-writing on my next novel, I’m consistently struck dumb by the apparent lack of thought that has gone into 90% of the novel titles on the shelves.  Or perhaps, authors get so used to their working titles that they eventually begin to feel right, or at least familiar.  What’s apparently forgotten is that they will feel 100% UNfamiliar to new readers seeking their next vicarious adventure, love story, or escape. This overlooking of THE privileged position in all the thousands of words you’ll write and revise seems especially astonishing, given that if YOU don’t have a well-known name (or publisher) already, it’s up to those few words to carry your reputation.  So don’t be like the big corporate bean-counters, with their stables of mediocrity–distinguish yourself as a craftsman, right from the start.  A thinker, planner, and doer.

I don’t wish to pick on anyone’s work in particular.  A scan of the Best Sellers lists on any given day will confirm my complaint.  So I’ll attempt to offer something constructive instead, which are my three or four humble thoughts on how to devise a title that makes potential readers say “I want to read that!” WITHOUT seeing a cover (your cover being an entire, arcane art in itself).

Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance, and Half-Rhyme

Poets (unlike songwriters) know that a full rhyme scheme will often seem archaic or juvenile, if not downright childish–which may be what you’re going for.  But if not, half-ryhme, with the dominant vowel sound, will often sound fluid to readers without their necessarily knowing why.  Ditto with repetition of consonant sounds.  Compare these:

Wild, Wild, West

[        ] Hornet’s Nest

Gone Girl

Star Wars

Or these twentieth-century classics:

The Cat in the Hat

The Grapes of Wrath

Of course, the latter is not even half-rhyme (perhaps a quarter,) but it has the additional advantage of what, in its day, was a Well Known Allusion.  Others of this type:

In Dubious Battle  (refers to Milton’s Paradise Lost)

East of Eden  (biblical–Genesis)

Ulysses (Homer’s Odyssey)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (Shakespeare’s Macbeth–really hard to miss with the Bard)

Third, there are certain Key Words or Phrases that, as cliched as they may have become, seem to make readers comfortable, or intrigued, such as:

The Last of. . .

Murder

The Day of. . .

Girl (or a girl’s or woman’s name, like Carrie, Rebecca, etc.)  Personally, I find this a cop-out, but it’s hard to argue with success.  Go Ask Alice, an allusion to Lewis Carroll by way of Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit,” seems so much more daring to me.

And, there’s the ever-popular subtitle, “A Novel.” (bonus hint–if your title and cover are doing their jobs, you should not need to say this)

Finally, there are some great titles that don’t have much going for them other than the Thought That Went Into Them, such as:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Jaws

The Exorcist

Apocalypse Now

You Only Live Twice

Cosmos

Leaves of Grass

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Nightmare on Elm Street

Cabin in the Woods

(Okay, so I snuck a few non-novel titles in there.  Those last two are so utterly generic that they seem universal, like genre meta-commentary.)

So authors, work those titles!  As a great filmmaker once said. . .

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award: Semi-Finalists Announced for 2013

By Shawn StJean

And then there were twenty-five. . .

We began with 10,000 applicants (I say “we” because I fell by the way between the second and third rounds).  It’s safe to say that when one comes this far–and remember that there are five categories, so only five books and authors remain in each–that everyone is a viable candidate for the Grand Prize, and the books that are not chosen next month are still well worth everyone’s attention.  It’s like being nominated for the Oscars.

I’d like to extend a special congratulations to the semi-finalist-survivors in the General Fiction category:

Danielle Fifer    The Great Wall
Ian Flitcroft        The Reluctant Cannibals
James Brakken The Treasure of Namakagon
Ken Moraff         It Happened in Wisconsin
Scott Cairns       Silver

Good luck, authors–you’ve achieved great visibility already!  Everyone else, there are twenty-five new books for you to put on your must-check-out list: http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011