Category Archives: Matt Jones

Evan Braun: Back in the winter of 2010, I was absolutely nowhere. I thought of myself as a “writer,” but I was stalled with several unfinished projects and low ambition. The publishing world seemed impenetrable. I didn’t belong to any writing groups. I didn’t have a critique partner. Really, I had almost no writer friends at all, and I had never thought to venture to a convention or seminar.

And then I saw a post on Brandon Sanderson’s blog about an upcoming seminar he was teaching at: Superstars Writing Seminar. I had been following Brandon’s progress for some time, mostly due to his Wheel of Time connection, and I respected him as a writer. The other writers represented were no less respectable: Kevin J. Anderson, David Farland, Eric Flint, and Rebecca Moesta. The promise was that this seminar was different than all the others, that it would emphasize the business of writing over the craft of writing. Craft is important beyond measure, no question about it, but the business end of things is where so many up-and-comers trip and fall.

I’m from central Canada and the conference was in Pasadena, so attending was no small investment, and yet I made a split-second decision to take a gamble, hoping this would enliven my flagging writing career.

It did, and without hesitation I can chalk up most, if not all, of my growth since, both as a writer and as a professional, to that split-second decision. Not only have I finished writing several novels since then, but I’ve mapped out a half-dozen others and even published one with a small press.

The third annual Superstars Writing Seminar is coming up this April 30-May 2 in Las Vegas, and to help promote that event, several contributors here at the Fictorian Era decided to band together and do a week of posts about our Superstars experiences. You see, the Fictorian Era only exists because of Superstars. All of us came together at that fateful 2010 seminar. So, to pay homage to the event that brought us together and changed our collective course as writers, we ask you to consider Superstars.

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Colette Vernon: I attended the 2010 Superstars Seminar in Pasadena. It exceeded all my expectations. Throughout the entire seminar, Kevin, Brandon, Dave, Rebecca, and Eric made themselves available for questions and sincerely did all they could to help us publishing wannabes. They didn’t run to their hotel rooms as I’ve noticed many other well-known writers do during conventions, but spent their time with us.

They brought in unexpected guest speakers, from Joni Labaqui with Writers of the Future to famous Hollywood script writers. Their presentations helped us understand the possibilities available through writing contests and film. They were as open, easy to talk to, and available for discussion as the writers hosting the seminar.

In the two blocks to the Authors Dinner and back I learned more than from any convention I’ve ever attended. One of the authors took time to discuss a recent partial request I’d received from an agent. He asked me questions about my manuscript and the agent, helping me analyze the situation for myself in order to make important decisions. On the way back, he answered specific craft questions, basically giving a twenty-minute, mini-writing class to our group. I believe the tips given in those few minutes jumped my writing ability to the next level.

Of course, I have to mention the connections I’ve made with my fellow Fictorians. Our friendships continued beyond the seminar into the eventual creation of this blog. Many of us have started getting our feet wet in the publishing world. I doubt I would have been remotely prepared for that experience without my attendance at Superstars. With the recent changes in publishing, I’m looking forward to learning more, and asking questions I wouldn’t have thought of two years ago, at the 2012 Las Vegas Superstars.

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Matt Jones: I’ve been going to conventions for years. I’ve been to countless panels talking about every topic under the sun. Some have been interesting, others not so much. Sometimes they would touch on the chosen topic just to drastically change course and start discussing something off the wall, never to return to the original topic. These panels helped give me confidence to write, knowing that if these people could do it, why couldn’t I?

And then I attended the Superstars Writing Seminar, and I was treated to something completely different. At Superstars, you’re treated not as a wannabe writer, but as a professional who is ready to be an author. Instead of questioning your ability to come up with a story or an original thought on your own, they prepare you to take your manuscripts and get them published. It was an entirely new direction for me. It taught me how to deal with agents and publishers, the pros and cons of each. It even touched on self-publishing.

You’re taught the secrets of pitching your work, choosing the best agent, and getting the best deals on the contract. Best of all, they make you feel like you’re not just another author who is begging for scraps, hoping someone who walks by takes pity on you. You’re an author, and the world is waiting for your novel. Superstars is there to show you how to give it to them.

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From now until Wednesday, come back to read more about the seminar and the specific ways it has helped each of us Fictorians-and, more importantly, how it can help you-take your fledgling career to the next level. Starting on Thursday, we’ll be hearing from a couple of the Superstars themselves in a pair of Q&A guest posts. You won’t want to miss what they have to say.

Programmers, Hackers, and Technology

February 8, 2012

Matt Jones

Character Craft & Skills Matt Jones World-building 4 Comments

As a Software Engineer and Security Analyst, one of the things that always bothers me in modern media is how programmers and hackers are portrayed. There seems to be a common belief that they have almost magical powers to pull usernames and passwords out of the air or complete complex tasks in seconds. I know my complaint is common and that anyone in a specialized profession can share my angst, but I thought I would write a little bit on how it actually works. In order to maintain the tempo of your novel, you may be inclined to skip all my advice and use HollywoodOS (the fake Hollywood systems) but at least you’ll be more informed. I’ll try to talk about where we are and where I believe we’re going in the future.

Starting with programmers, we’re a group very similar to writers. All of our work is creative in one way or another. Most of us are given (or help create) a specification that defines what the finished project will be like. Consider this your outline that talks about each chapter and how the characters move around in it. And much like writing the pages of the novel takes time, writing a full application takes a while to code. This is changing even in our lifetimes, however. Frameworks exist that give the developer the ability to create fully functional applications in a short time. Consider this like having a library of plot snippets that you can freely take and insert into your novel. All that is left is to customize the look and flow between the parts. As this advances, I can easily see a future where “programmers’ just tell a system what they want, how they want it to look, and the resulting application is built for them.

Next we have the hackers. I will say that the term “hacker’ has many connotations and many of them are negative when they shouldn’t be. The word hacker itself is used to describe a group that enjoys the challenge of building new things. This can be that kid down the road that turned his wagon and lawnmower into an awesome go-cart, or even you as a writer. It also commonly talks about people who break software or computer security. Technically, this group should be called a cracker, but since using the term hacker to refer to this group is so common, I’ll bear it and follow suit.

Hackers have many different subsets and it’s hard to classify them as a group. I’ll touch on a couple of the subsets here, but I can’t touch on all of them. First, I’ll talk about the lower class members commonly (and usually derogatorily) called script kiddies. This group attacks using software or scripts obtained from various sources. While their methods are effective, they often do not understand the full mechanics of the attacks they are carrying out. They are quick to take advantage of systems that are out of date and not very well maintained, but are unable to penetrate well maintained systems that may not have any vulnerability already exploited. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a well organized group that gathered and used these scripts as a form of cyber-warfare.

The other side of that coin, and in my eyes the elite group, are the security experts. These are the members who write the code and find the exploits that the other groups use. This group looks the systems and start prodding them to try to figure out how they work. The simple way of looking at this group is like a spy attempting to enter an enemy’s base. They first scout it to determine how it’s configured and look at all the entrances. With enough information they can pretend to be someone else and walk through the front door, or learn the weak points and attack there. Most commonly, unlike the movies would have you believe, this process does not involve the user sitting at the login screen trying to guess the password. They involve lots of surveillance, analysis, and a great deal of luck.

There is one final group that should probably be included and that’s the social engineer. This is probably the most common type of hacker in television and tv. The social engineer doesn’t look at exploiting the computers, but rather the people who work on them. A social engineer attempts to deceive the users to give them information that can then be used to access the system. This information can be usernames, passwords, secret information concerning the infrastructure, or even just access to the secure systems themselves.

While this only briefly touches on these technological roles, I hope you find them useful in building your characters and perhaps making them a little more realistic. If you have any questions or comments, please ask them below!

Fictional Holidays

December 26, 2011

Matt Jones

Craft & Skills Matt Jones The Writing Life World-building 2 Comments

With the holiday season passing us, I think it is a good time to look around us and figure out how we can put this in a fiction world. Looking at our own holidays is a great way to help world-build and create believable celebrations in your own world. A well designed world that includes holidays may also provide a look into the history and cultures that exist in the world.

Looking at Christmas, we can see different elements coming from different cultures with different priorities, the two that jump to the front being religion and harvest. Religion has been with us since the first cognizant person witnessed the first lightning storm or felt his first earthquake. To their primitive culture, such acts could only be accomplished via a supreme being. It’s not surprising then that many of the holidays surround the worship or appeasement of a god. Even the name holidays comes from Holy Days.

The date is centered around the Winter Solstace, or December 21st. The Norse celebrated Yule, which focused on the return of the sun. If you watched the sun in the sky, each day it would drop lower and lower as the days got shorter. On solstice, the sun would stop its movement and start rising as the days got longer. To celebrate, they would get large logs and light them on fire and feast until the flames went out. The Norse believed that each spark from these Yule logs, which could burn for around 12 days, symbolized a new life that would be born in the forthcoming year.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of Agriculture. Since farming and agriculture paused for the passing of winter, it provided time for celebration and feasts. Saturnalia also centered on the rebirth of the sun and the hopes of a good new year. One big part of the celebration was the day of Gift-giving on December 23rd. On this day, people gathered to give gifts to friends, family, and patrons.

Finally, with the coming of Christianity, many of these celebrations were converted in an effort to bring more people into the religion. As society progressed and became industrialized, the rebirth of the sun and the worry about growing crops for the next year subsided. Despite this, the history and concerns of our people in the past is still evident in how we celebrate now.

Looking back at fiction, you can put these same ideas into your holidays. If the people of your world never had to worry about food or the loss of the sun, then having them celebrate a Christmas like celebration wouldn’t make sense. Also, in a world where Gods are not only worshiped but actively walk and affect the lives of their followers, certain requirements may be demanded upon them. Think of how these requirements would change through the years. Perhaps a past god required one thing and was replaced with the current god who actively protested the celebrations. How would this effect the world and those living in it?

Even if you don’t tell the world of all the history, it can help give ideas and really give color to the world. If nothing else, it will give you, the author, a deeper understanding of your world and the people who live there. And that can only help improve a novel.

NaNoWriMo: Writing for the goal.

November 13, 2011

Matt Jones

Matt Jones The Writing Life 3 Comments

Following in the line of writers who are giving encouragement to the millions who are taking part in National Novel Writing Month, I would like to throw my encouragement at you. I understand the rigors of life are time consuming, even on the best days, but the greater the challenge the sweeter the reward, right? Take a moment to envision this: You’ve given up time to play the new epic video games that were released this month. You’ve ignored the new Brandon Sanderson novel that everyone is raving about. You woke up early on thanksgiving to write before succumbing to the food induced coma. You apologized profusely to friends and family for ignoring or flat out hiding from them. But the end is near. On that last day, you find a secluded place and write. You’re focused on the scene, not even looking at the word count. All the hints and threads you wove throughout the book are coming together to form an awesome conclusion. The battle rages and the protagonist, against all odds, succeeds! You look at your word count and, like a second victory, it’s over 50,000 words! Success is yours!

It may seem far away, but it’s within your grasp. The friends and family you abandoned will welcome you back and will be proud of you. Most will probably be jealous at your ability to do something so amazing as writing your own novel. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t even have to be coherent, it just has to be 50,000 words. Simple as that. Once you reach that goal, the rest will be easy. It’s the proof that you have it within you to write. Afterwards you can edit or even start on your next project. You’ll be able to take your time and make a masterpiece.

For those of you who are finding they’re behind, look at this as an opportunity. I’ve talked to people who went on mad rushes to finish before the deadline. They start writing down anything that comes into their mind. Random scenes. Conversations that they’re half hearing around them. Anything at all. In these moments, they seem to tap into their inner muse and pure magic flows out of them. I’ve heard a few say that during the last mad rush, some of the scenes they wrote became their favorite pieces they’ve ever written. A couple say that the scenes written during that last week were what made their novel great.

Just remember that you have it within you to be great! Just being one of our readers guarantees that. 🙂

Best of luck and I’ll see you at the finish line!