One Twisted Kid

I often mention on this blog and in interviews that I’ve been working on a book. But I’ve never gone into any details beyond that. While I still want to keep the subject and storyline of the book pretty close to the chest (at least for now), I’m going to shed some light on exactly where the project is at.

I first had the idea for the novel about three years ago, and I’ve been seriously working on it for the past two and a half. The first draft was completed shortly after my battle with Dumbfoundead. During my “hiatus” from battling, I’ve been proofreading, rethinking, discussing, and working on a second draft as much as I can. The original draft was 60,000 words, which is quite short for a novel. The second will probably end up being closer to 65,000.

To put that timeline into perspective, here are some other things that I did while completing the first draft: started dating my girlfriend, graduated from university, battled in the first ever KOTD event, got a job, did six other KOTD battles, went to Scribble Jam, got engaged to my girlfriend, and went to BOTB5. It’s been a long process, to say the least.

And it’s only going to get longer. Not only do I still have to finish the second draft (and then likely review, revise, and rewrite once again) finding a publisher for it will be a challenging task. One with which I have no experience at all. Fans of my battles hit me up often, asking when my book is going to be out. At this point, it could be in a year, or three years, or never. It’s a tough question to answer.

So I’ve decided to take on a new writing project in the meantime. Recently I’ve become interested in ebooks, and the possibility of self-publishing my own work in a digital format. There’s enough buzz about Amazon’s Kindle right now to convince me that it will soon become like iTunes for musicians. Letting independent artists get their shit directly to the fans and keep most of the profit.

Here’s the plan: write 5 or 6 short stories (the hard part). Put them out myself on all the ebook platforms I can. Then you guys can download them on the Kindle or Nook or Kobo or other terribly named e-reader, or onto an iPhone, or just onto your computer. And read them. For the cost of $0.99. Sound fair?

Again, I have no idea how long it will take me to do this. But certainly a lot shorter time than finishing a novel and finding a publisher. I’ll also be more inclined to share details about this project as I go, posting summaries or excerpts from the stories themselves. At least one will be given away for free on this site as a teaser when the project drops.

What do you guys think of the idea? I’m genuinely curious to know how many people would be interested in spending a buck on something like this.

And in case you haven’t heard: Kid Twist vs Eurgh. August 7th. In Toronto.

Blaow.

I’ve noticed that the “Books and Writing” link in the sidebar to your right has a low number beside it. It’s time to increase that number with another post.

The more I write, the more I realize that writing is all about clarity. This is true regardless of form. Whether I’m working on my novel, an assignment for my job, this blog, or verses for a battle, the goal is the same: communicate an idea as clearly as possible.

This is harder than it sounds. I have recently begun working on the second draft of my novel. To prepare for this revision, I forced several people to read the first draft and give me feedback. One of my friends commented that many parts of the manuscript were “overwritten.”

What he meant was that I used too many adverbs and semicolons. In retrospect, I did this to try and sound clever. The novel is supposed to be funny. I wanted everyone who read it to notice just how funny and clever and awesome I am.

The problem is that my cleverness often clutters the idea that I’m trying to communicate. After thinking about my friend’s comment, I went back through the manuscript and circled every single adverb and semicolon I could find.

I plan to cut at least 90% of them.

Let me give an example to show you why I’m planning to do this. Note that this is an extreme case that I made up for illustrative purposes. I’m not actually this bad at writing. (I hope.)

Here is a sentence that might have been in the first draft of my novel:

Suddenly, the man raised his hunting knife, and menacingly pressed its tip against my bare throat.

Here is the second draft:

The man pressed his knife to my throat.

It’s understandable why I might have written the longer sentence on my first try. I wanted the reader to grasp the danger of the situation. They needed to understand just how sudden and menacing the knife-guy’s actions are.

But strangely enough, the second sentence has more menace to it. Words don’t just communicate through their literal meaning. The arrangement of them, the rhythm, the style all communicate just as strongly.

The sentence that is shorter and clutter-free communicates the immediacy of the situation. The quickness of the action. The original version mentions that the knife was raised “menacingly”, but the revision gives the reader a sense of that menace by getting straight to the point. (Pun intended? You decide!)

This same principle can be applied to battle verses as well. Many people complain that needlessly complex, multi-syllabic rhyme schemes are “corny” and “biting TheSaurus”. Which might be true, but it’s not the real problem.

The worst thing about this approach  is that it does not communicate clearly. Battle rappers will often twist the English language to fit a scheme, to the point where their meaning is lost.

Who is the “X-men monster name that’s Logan”? I can figure out what you meant to say, I guess. But why not go with “Wolverine”? Everyone will immediately know what you’re talking about. Which gives it impact. Which makes it a better punchline.

I understand why battlers do this. They want you to know how smart and good at rhyming they are. Unfortunately, spitting silly nonsensical rhymes has the opposite effect. Just like trying to be too clever when writing a story.

I’m not saying this is a hard and fast rule. Multi-syllabic schemes have their place, as do adverbs and semicolons. The key is knowing how and (most importantly) when to use them.

You should ask yourself: does this “menacingly” or seven-syllable rhyme give my sentence more impact? Does it make my meaning more clear?

If it does, well, good for you. But I would suspect that it does not.

First off, thanks for the response to my first post. I got a lot of thoughtful comments and feedback, which I greatly appreciate. Keep being awesome.

Since I’ve now written about the “battles” subject, this post will be on “books”, to even things out.

Last week, I finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (I’m still catching up on things I should have read a long time ago). I now need to rewatch the movie, since I saw it as a very bad quality download on my computer when I was 17. But reading the book after seeing the movie brought up an interesting point.

It’s what I’m going to call the Voiceover Phenomenon ©.

(Legal disclaimer: I stole the idea of using the © symbol like that from Marvwon. Is that ironic?)

“We had two bags of grass …”

If you’ve seen the movie, you know that Johnny Depp (who plays Raoul Duke or, if you prefer, Hunter S. Thompson) narrates in voiceover. Most of his lines are straight from the book. While I was reading the book myself, these lines would spark my memory of the movie, and I would actually hear Depp’s narration in my head while I read them.

I was expecting this in the first chapter. The famous opening line, the laundry list of drugs that Duke and Gonzo have procured, and “There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge” could not have been the work of a Hollywood screenwriter. I expected to see them in the book.

What I found strange was when I would hit a voiceover line in the middle of a passage. Such as, “Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten french fries?” Without warning, I would be hearing Johnny Depp in my head. It was quite disconcerting.

That being said, it did not ruin the book for me. The lines that the filmmakers picked for voiceover were the most memorable. But the rest of the writing was just as great and wild and unhinged. The book as a whole lived up to its best lines.

When The Phenomenon Backfires

There is one other instance where I saw the movie before reading the book, and was frequently reminded of voiced over lines. But in this instance the book did not live up to the voiceover.

This instance was Fight Club.

As with Fear and Loathing, there were many stand-out lines from the movie that I heard in my head while reading. The problem was that they stood out too much. The prose that surrounded them was less … good. It did not live up to the expectations set by the narration in the movie.

For me as an author, this raises some interesting questions. Do memorable quotes make a good writer? Or are you only as good as your worst sentence?

And also: did Hunter S. know which lines of his were going to be remembered? Obviously he did not write his prose with the intention of it being turned into voiceover narration in a movie 25 years later (and if he did, we should all start taking more drugs). But while he was writing, were those the lines that stood out to him? Is there any way to predict what will stand the test of time?

Probably not. Although I’m sure it won’t stop writers from trying.

I’m wondering what experiences you guys have had when reading a book after seeing the movie. Did it live up to the expectation? Does hearing lines from a movie I watched six years ago in my head make me bat shit insane? (Bat-related pun possibly intended.) Let’s talk.