Creating Silver Part 6 – Reflections

This is part 6 of my series called, “Creating Silver.” This blog and its posts will talk about the troubles I went through brainstorming, writing, and publishing The Silver Ninja. I will talk about user reviews, sales, editing, marketing and any other miscellaneous obstacles I encountered along the way. I’m also going to talk about what went wrong.

 

What went horribly wrong…

 

(IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This post will contain minor spoilers about my book The Silver Ninja. I’ll do my best to keep it at a minimum and will mark any particular spots as SPOILERS.)

Now that I’ve spent some time away from my book, I’ve been able to sit back and really process how I feel about my decade long project; how I felt about the reviews; and even how I feel about my writing. This will probably be one of my more emotionally charged blogposts. Not that I’m going to go off on some tirade or rant, but because I’m going to share about something that I keep close to my chest, my own personal feelings and thoughts.

I… hmm, how can I say this. You know how a mother could love their child no matter what wrong they’ve done?

I…

love my book.

I love the characters, I l love writing about them. But just because I love it, doesn’t mean I’m incapable of seeing its flaws. In fact, I’m probably going to be haunted by the words “chocolate banana” if I do decide to continue writing more stories about Silver and her adventures.

As much as I harped on the editor for not pointing out the logic flaws that were in my book, in the end, it was my responsibility to make sure those errors weren’t in there in the first place. Not only that, but the writing was a different obstacle in and of itself. It’s one thing to expect an editor to correct typos and point out plot holes, it’s another issue entirely, when the writing is overly descriptive or is using too many similes. Also, as I have discovered from reading books from best selling authors and from my instructional books, I may have had a lot of descriptions, but they weren’t “quality” descriptions.

It’s one thing to say, “Her silver suit shone brightly under the pale moonlight.”

and another to say, “Her suit reflected the stars and the moon within its chrome plating.”

-Did your imagination see the difference? I hope so, I’m still learning how to improve my descriptions.

My book suffered from the former descriptions rather than the latter. In addition, the plot holes that I let slip by ended up hurting the reading experience for some readers. For instance, why was a total of 4 criminals used to mug 1 person? Well, the original reason was for Cindy’s multiple attackers was to portray the incident in which -I- was mugged. I saw a guy on a bike riding slowly ahead of me on the dimly lit street. When I turned my head to look behind me, I saw two young men walking behind me. I turned forward and immediately knew what was going to happen next. Crack! I go tumbling down but I’m still conscious. I yell, “Guys what are you doing?” Before they kick me in the face and knock me out cold.

3 people were involved in that incident, and you know what they got? Twenty bucks, a crappy cell phone, keys, and a beat up wallet.

***SPOILER***

To me, it didn’t seem unreasonable for Cindy to have been accosted by 4 muggers. I was wrong, a lot of people felt that it was unrealistic. In this case, the truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps if I made the muggers into young kids, people would have been able to swallow the situation more easily. I was originally going to have Cindy go through the same steps I did, but there was one major problem. Cindy was an ex cop trained in martial arts and kicking ass. What ended up with me on the floor would not have been the same for Cindy. She could have beaten my assailants with both hands tied behind her back. She’s THAT good and I needed to find a way to catch her off guard. I probably should have tried a different distraction but, that was the best I could come up with at the time.

***END SPOILER***

Another big issue that came up was that people felt the characters lacked depth, and that Cindy’s decisions didn’t make any sense. Some folks pointed out that the characters were very selfish and only interested in themselves. In this instance, I believe that this was due to poor writing on my part. I didn’t clearly establish that Cindy’s husband Jonas was under an extreme amount of pressure, and that Jadie was the type of girl to hold a grudge. Michael was also thrown under this umbrella, but in his particular situation, he was doing things on the side that would not allow him to give Cindy a ride home.

What happened in my book was that it was lacking in the precepts stated in “Techniques for the Selling Writer” and “Advance Fiction Writing.com” I did not explain their motivation as to why they reacted and acted the way they did. I did not remind the readers that Jadie was angry with Cindy for yelling at her in front of the class. I did not emphasize to the audience that Jonas was scrambling to get his project done before the deadline. I did not give the reader enough reason to understand why the characters behaved the way they did.

***SPOILER***

So when it came to the matter of Cindy taking on assassination contracts from a mysterious operator. That’s when a few readers gave up on the book entirely. They could not accept or understand why Cindy was willingly killing all these targets for someone she didn’t know. They wondered why she didn’t save her “sister” at the galvanizing plant and questioned why she wasn’t suspicious of the unknown contact. In this instance, I struggled with explaining what was going through Cindy’s mind. I wanted to tell the reader that yes, the suit was influencing all of her decisions in a negative way. But I wasn’t sure if this would ruin the surprise or make the reader feel like they’re being patronized. So I was intentionally vague about its influence and failed to really emphasize how strong of an effect the suit had on her.

***END SPOILER***

The readers who pushed onward through Cindy’s horrendous struggle were rewarded with some entertaining action scenes. In fact, even from the negative reviews, a few people had given praise to my writing of the actions scenes. But you know what the irony is? The action scenes ended up being the longest chapter in my book, and I was concerned people were going to get bored or confused. In fact, those readers who continued all the way to the end, seemed to really enjoy how I wrapped the story up.

But, now that I mentioned negative reviews, I need to get something off my chest.

Remember that blog post I made about user reviews last week? Well there have been two instances where I really got pissed off at a reviewer. The reviewer decided to post a public thread stating, “What should I do if I don’t want to finish a book I’m reviewing? I signed up and received a free copy of the book and am resenting having to finish it. I don’t like this book at all, and I’m asking you all what I should do.”

What a dick move! I couldn’t believe the reviewer thought it was appropriate to post something like that on a public forum rather than private messaging me. It was just… insulting. I took more offense to him complaining about having to finish a FREE book than I did reading a review that went off on a crazy train tirade as to why the science in my book doesn’t work. (His is one of the few reviews I am choosing to ignore, because it clearly wasn’t for him. If you’re questioning the science in a super hero story, then you clearly misunderstood what you were reading. That’s not to say the review was useless, it did touch off on a few points that I needed to improve upon.)

But wow, I just could not believe it. I wrote a post explaining to him why he should finish the book and it wasn’t long before other reviewers chimed in with their 2 cents. I didn’t follow my own rule of not posting while angry, but I was just so offended by his lack of manners. After receiving a bit of backlash against my post, I promptly edited it, and quietly excused myself from the discussion. Eventually the reviewer finished the book, but I’ll never forget the whiny entitlement issues the reviewer expressed in that thread.

Wow, did I get carried away there? *Cough, cough* why don’t we talk about the writing itself?

*Sigh* The writing. There’s a lot of things I would have done differently in this book, since you know, hindsight is 20/20. But the writing, the writing is one of those areas where I just didn’t know how I was supposed to write my novel. I mean it went from screenplay, to 3rd person, to 1st person, back to 3rd person, should I be surprised that the writing came out flawed? My overuse of similes, low quality descriptions, vague metaphors, and stilted writing really hurt the book. It was my lack of experience and knowledge that created the plot holes and logic issues that litter the book. I was aware that these problems existed, but some of them were because I didn’t have time to fix it, and others were because I didn’t know how to fix it.

So why not revise the book? In the digital age, it is totally feasible for me to update my book with massive corrections and changes, so why not do it?

The reason I’m not going to do it, is because it reminds me of what I need to change.

It reminds me of the endless nights I spent combing through 80,000 words, looking for errors.

It reminds me of that feeling I got when I received my first physical copy of the book.

It reminds me of the amount of time I spent with my girlfriend arguing and editing the changes in the book.

It reminds me to keep learning and improving my craft, never settle, always strive to do better.

 

and in the end, if I decide to continue writing more books about The Silver Ninja and possible horror genres.

 

It will remind me of where I came from.

If I manage to complete my lofty goals for The Silver Ninja, I will strongly consider re-releasing a special edition of the book that will correct all the mistakes I made as a first time writer. But I am far from achieving that goal, so Silver will have to stay the way she is for now, flaws and all.

I will say this though, and it’s been pretty universal with all readers, including the ones who didn’t like the book.

I’m really happy with how Cindy, The Silver Ninja came out. My goal was to create a complex, believable, female heroine for a modern era. A woman who is flawed, but strong, and can kick a lot of ass when the situation calls for it. I succeeded in creating a heroine that female readers could take seriously, and am ecstatic as to how well received she was. Of course there are varying opinions of her amongst readers, but the consensus is that they liked her and wanted to see her grow and develop. They also wanted to learn more about her supporting characters, which was refreshing to hear.

Though, a few people did comment that the “nanosuit” was very revealing for a character who wasn’t supposed to be objectified. I disagree, if I put Silver side by side with Wonder Woman, Star Fire, and Emma Frost, Silver would be over dressed compared to the other heroines. In fact, why don’t we see what it looks like in context.

Superheroine comparison

https://www.thesilverninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ldcomparison.jpg

Yeah, the nanosuit may be “skin tight” but it’s certainly not revealing. It’s amazing what a little bit of context can bring to the table, don’t you think?

Wow, what page am I on? I told you this was going to be long! This is why I don’t talk about my feelings, I have a tendency to get carried away. But! I will say that I feel much, much better. I was going to talk about what I’ve learned from advanced fiction writing and Techniques for the Selling Writer, but I’ll leave that for…

 

The sequel.

 

Next week will be the conclusion of my blog, and where I talk about how I’m going to improve my writing for The Silver Ninja II.

Wilmar Luna

Wilmar Luna

Couldn't be a superhero in real life so he decided to write his own. When he's not creating empowered female characters he can be found watching films, reading books, and playing lots of video games. Buy his books here: https://www.thesilverninja.com/purchase/