Tilting against the biggest books of all time: the Bible and Quran

I'm taking a huge chance here.

 Last week, the news media were full of the story about York University in Toronto accommodating a male student’s request not to be put in a study group with women, on religious grounds.

The identity and specific religion of the student are protected under Canada’s privacy laws. Whatever religion it is, this case points to a long-standing problem.

I fully support freedom of religion, and will defend everyone’s right to believe and practice whatever they like, as long as it is not hurting anyone else nor infringing on any else’s rights. But it’s time we all stopped using religion or philosophy to excuse inexcusable behaviour and to justify unjustifiable ideas.

That’s right. I’m telling the world that I do not believe that you can use the Bible, the Quran, Mao’s little red book, the Communist Manifesto or any other book to defend your ideas. I just don’t accept the argument “because God says so.”

You can’t prove that, and the fact that you have a book that’s called “God’s words” does not constitute proof. I can write a book called “God’s Words, too.”

 

See?

The devil is in the details

In September, 2013, sociology professor J. Paul Grayson assigned a mandatory group assignment that required students to work together in person. One student, who was taking the course online, asked Dr. Grayson to exempt him because his religious beliefs forbade him from meeting in public with a group of women.

Dr. Grayson refused the request, and after discussion, the student agreed to participate in the assignment and completed it. However, the university administration ordered Dr. Grayson to accommodate the request.

To his credit, Dr. Grayson refused the administration’s order to accommodate this religious request. “What if I said my religion frowns upon my interacting with blacks?” he wrote. This accommodate would set a precedent, he said, and make him an “accessory to sexism.”

The public reaction was telling and uplifting. I could not find a single person or opinion in the media that supported the religious accommodation. And rightfully so.

(The Dean of Arts at York University defended his action partly because the student asked to be able to complete the assignment in another way, and another online student who was situated outside the country was allowed another way to do the work.)

The media reaction

Every political leader in the country decried the university’s accommodation order. Every opinion speaker and writer I heard or read likewise sided with the professor. Every online comment also supported the professor, and pointed out that this type of religious accommodation damages women’s sexual equality rights, hard-won over the last century.

This is an example where the right of freedom to practice your religion conflicts with gender equality rights. Many Canadian schools provide prayer rooms, segregated by gender, as part of their “religious accommodation.” Canadian institutions — funded by Canadian taxpayers — accommodate religious practices that defy the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — part of the law that supposedly governs those institutions.

Religious versus human rights

I repeat, I support your right to believe and practice any religion you like. But I do not support anyone’s attempt to infringe on anyone else’s human rights. And equality of women and men is one of the most important.

I thought it was telling that CBC radio’s program, The Current, introduced this story with a clip of televangelist Pat Robertson saying that according to the Bible, men and women are not equal.

According to this logic, religion justifies unequal treatment and unequal rights between the sexes. It says so in the Bible.

I’m not trying to criticize any particular religion here, nor am I trying to open a general debate about crime and punishment. All I want to do is to point out the hypocrisy of the argument that goes: “I must do this/I cannot do that because the Bible/Quran/whatever other text I hold out as justification for every ridiculous idea that comes out of my mouth, says so.”

Crazy idea icon by mehagopijiji.
Licenced under Creative Commons.

Otherwise rational people are afraid to criticize religious beliefs and practices because they fear being branded as intolerant, racist, or xenophobic. Well, I’m none of those things, but I will say this: I don’t accept the “It’s God’s will” argument, because the people who use it don’t accept it, either.

Nobody actually follows the entire Bible, even though they say they do. Not even Pat Robertson. How many people sacrifice cattle to God? Does Pat Robertson? Yet Leviticus, the Biblical book that instructs believers in how to live every minute of their lives, tells readers to sacrifice bulls just about every day.

Have you ever seen a televangelist making that kind of sacrifice, or indeed, any kind of sacrifice of his own property?

Do religious leaders in Canada promote the death penalty for adultery? How many religious people think that’s okay? Should Canada accommodate religious sects that want to put adulterers to death?

From Leviticus, Chapter 20. Source: ReadBibleOnline.net

The Bible also tells believers to put homosexuals to death. I’m pretty sure that Canadian law does not accommodate this practice.

The Quran tells a husband to beat his wife — mildly, yes, but definitely to use force — if she defies his authority. Would Canadian law accommodate this? Would US law? I hope not.

No one follows any scriptures absolutely. No one in Canada can put adulterers or homosexuals to death. If they do, the law will punish them.

The point is that even the most religious choose among obligations to follow, adhering to some and ignoring others. It’s a human decision.

Not a divine one.

Basing all your life actions on an ancient book is an unsupportable idea. Every religious person chooses the scriptures he or she will follow, because no one follows all of them. No one can.

I won’t argue whether the Bible and Quran were divinely inspired, because I cannot change anyone’s belief on that point in a blog. But how about if I add this: God told me to write this post.

Prove to me that He (or She, or Whatever) did not.

The whole story and nothing but the story

Photo: Satiray in Flickr. Creative Commons License

While I post book reviews regularly on this blog, I decided years ago not to publish a negative review of a book by an independent author. I also promised never to publish a positive review unless I really meant it. My reviews are candid, and while I hope to promote independent authors, I won’t lie about a book’s quality. I just will not review a book I don’t think is good. I don’t see the point in tearing down a book by an author who is probably struggling as hard as I am to sell books. I would rather spend my time promoting deserving authors.

While I have read many excellent author-published books, the one I’m currently reading, which I will call “the book” for the rest of this post, disappoints me. It was written by a best-selling, independent author who has done a lot to promote the credibility self-published authors.

I expected an engaging story, but instead, I found a frustrating one. Getting through this story is like wading knee-deep through adjectival phrases, similes and adverbs.

Take this example (with key words changed to disguise the identity):

Bernard von Bauben saw her before he was halfway across the lobby. Mary Lynn was sitting in an overstuffed lavender chair beside the Baby Grand Piano, dressed in mauve and lace, smiling at him. Von Bauben walked immediately to her, and she stood and kissed his cheek. Her lips were warm, and von Bauben saw a fire burning deep within the coloration of her eyes.

Or this one:

The Elite Apartments were cloaked in peace and solitude as they were advertised to be. From the outside, only a dozen or so lights were visible in the windows, and the faint sound of a radio playing Scott Joplin’s ragtime disrupted the stilted silence of a day fading into night. 

As he climbed out of the car, Brent Haymire thought he glimpsed a nervous rustle of curtains on the third floor, and he wondered if someone was up there watching him. In his line of work, there were eyes everywhere. General Tom Regan often accused him of being stricken with an acute case of paranoia. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe not. The mind did have a habit of playing tricks sometimes. But the subconscious was also the best warning system that man possessed, and Haymire knew that, thus far, his paranoia, real or imagined, had managed to keep him clear of those sordid things, legal and ominous, that go bump in the night.

 Good grief! Anyone with the slimmest grasp of English could cut those passages in half without losing any information.

Combine that with the number of times the author dedicates two paragraphs to describing a scene or a feeling, then does it again three pages later, and you can imagine my reaction:

“Get on with the story!”

Coincidentally, I watched Cloud Atlas on DVD last night. (Okay, so I still use obsolete technology. I also listen to a transistor radio when I work out.) That movie disappointed me, too, for a similar reason: the writers were more focused on their own writing cleverness than on telling the story.

Cloud Atlas banner by CochiseMFC

Cloud Atlas was based on a novel with a great reputation (I haven’t read it, and I don’t think I will, now) and had a strong cast, but failed to tell the story. The novel features six “nested” stories that begin in the south Pacific in 1850, move through the 20^th century to a dystopian and post-apocalyptic future, then goes back to the beginning. Each story is interrupted at a crucial point by the next story, which picks up a character or an object from the previous one. It was a clever idea that earned the author a lot of praise for his writing skills.

I think that the movie’s writers tried to be as clever, and ended up creating something so complex as to be baffling. Instead of nesting six different stories, the movie jumps around from story to story quickly, with no apparent reason and no apparent pattern, other than beginning and ending with the post-apocalyptic story of Zachry — in effect, turning the novel’s structure inside-out.

The cast, which included Tom Hanks, David Broadbent, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon, had roles in most, if not all of the stories. This was more of a distraction than an addition, especially with actors changing gender or race — Halle Berry as a Jewish refugee in 1935, or Doona Bae as a Korean clone in 2144 as well  the daughter of an American slaver in 1850. I found myself saying “Oh, that’s Tom Hanks with a skin wig and a beard and heavy makeup!” or “Hey, that’s no lady! That’s Hugo Weaving in drag and a blond wig!” Worst, I had to look up the cast on my iPad. “Is that Roger Daltrey? No, it’s Hugh Grant with a curly wig and old-guy makeup!”

Nearly three hours later, I could not see the movie’s point. I think the directors and writers tried to make a statement with the actors playing different roles in different stories, but what that statement was, I cannot tell.

The most important part of any story: the audience

The filmmakers behind Cloud Atlas and the author of the book that disappoints me spent far too much time admiring their own abilities, and not enough asking whether they’ve connected with their audience.

Image courtesy Creative Commons

What do you think? Did you watch Cloud Atlas? Did you read the novel? Have you ever read a book that seemed to have more to do with showing off the writer’s abilities than telling a story to a reader? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Book launch: The Darkness Comes by Bruce Blake

Am I ready to kill?

A cloud of swirling mist sighed out between Kuneprius’ lips, rising into the night to smear the glow of the winter moon. He watched it dissipate, then exhaled another long plume, blowing it out the way he’d seen the Brothers do when they smoked their pipes filled with sweetweed. Instead of swirling the wreaths he’d watched them create, his breath came out a ragged column. 

“Shh.” 

Kuneprius cocked his head toward the urgent sound, an apology teetering on the tip of his tongue. At the last instant, he remembered himself and said nothing, pressing himself flatter against the side of the hill. Fildrian lay less than ten man-lengths away, but the Brother’s black hood and robe hid him in the darkness; despite his proximity, empty loneliness ached in Kuneprius’ chest. 

The lad grasped the short sword’s hilt tighter, testing its uncomfortable weight. Though he’d seen the seasons turn but twelve times, he’d trained with this very sword for six of them. The temple blacksmith formed it with him in mind, the grip molded to the shape of his fingers. Its length and weight had proved too much for him when he first held it, but he’d grown into it, its size ideal for a boy of his age. He shifted minutely, searching for comfort and understanding that the prospect of swinging the weapon to wound rather than in practice caused his unease, not the sword itself. 

Will I be able to wield it when the time comes? Can I kill if I need to? 

He’d never been sent on a hunt, so the sword’s edge hadn’t tasted blood other than his own when he got clumsy or distracted while sharpening the blade. He shifted his grip on the leather-wrapped hilt, hand slipping with the slickness of the sweat on his palm. For so many seasons, he’d trained for this moment; he knew he’d kill if the need arose. 

I hope it doesn’t. 

The rattle-clunk of wooden wheels on dirt track rolled along the shallow valley and up the hill to Kuneprius’ ears. Soon, he’d need wonder no more. 

The apprentice angled his head to peer down the weed-clogged road, squinting as he attempted to pick out the wagons in the darkness. The lanterns hanging at the front of each, bobbing and swinging with the horses’ gaits, made it easy. He counted them silently. 

One, two, three…four? 

His heart lurched. Brother Fildrian had said to expect three—two carts and a covered wagon. Kuneprius’ gaze flickered to the spot where he expected to find the expedition leader’s dark shape, but he saw nothing. He glanced back to the track, the horse-drawn vehicles drawing closer and, in the glow of their lanterns, he counted two covered wagons. 

Which one?

The second volume in Bruce Blake's Small Gods series is now out. The Darkness Comes picks up where When Shadows Fall leaves off. 

What's it about?

When shadows fall, the darkness comes...

 A disgraced Goddess Mother wanders blind and alone, praying for her agony to end. When a helpful apostle finds her, could it truly by salvation, or does worse torment lie ahead? A sister struggles to understand a prophecy that may not be meant for her while her brother fights for his life. If the firstborn child of the rightful king dies, will it spell the end for everyone? Darkness and shadow creep across the land in the form of a fierce clay golem animated by its sculptor's blood. It seeks a mythical creature who's sacrifice portends the return of ancient evil banished from the world long ago. With its return will come the fall of man. As the game unfolds, the Small Gods watch from the sky, waiting for their time to come and their chance to rise again. They wait for the fall of shadows, the coming of the darkness. They wait for night to descend.

Bruce Blake continues his incredible productivity, releasing the second volume in this brilliantly executed only a couple of months after the first volume, and he promises the third book soon. I don't doubt it for a second.

Now that you've read the sample, get the book from your choice of vendors.

The Darkness Comes: 

Kindle: http://viewBook.at/darknesscomes 

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/391730

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-darkness-comes-bruce-blake/1117886146

But before you read the second book in the Small Gods series, you have to read the first. When Shadows Fall is on sale for 99 cents for the rest of the week. 

Kindle: http://viewBook.at/shadows 

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362347

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-shadows-fall-bruce-blake/1117001229

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/when-shadows-fall-2

Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/story/8483067-when-shadows-fall-the-first-book-of-the-small-gods

"... this is some great storytelling. .. It’s positively addicting!" — Ms. Nose in a Book, reviewer

New Year’s Day, 2014

The new year came to Ottawa with a high, clear sky, a pale winter sun refracting off smooth expanses of pristine white snow. With the temperature around minus 30 C in the morning, the packed snow on the pavements squeaked. 

By afternoon, the temperature has warmed to the minus 20 C range. The radio meteorologists say the wind chill is even colder, but I haven’t noticed much wind. To me, this is ideal, the perfect temperature for enjoying the world. You have to be dressed for it, of course, but I love the look of dark green spruce trees against a pale blue sky and pure white snow, the feeling of cold air on my face and in my nose while my body is warm inside my clothes.

A perfect Canadian New Year’s Day! Welcome, 2014!

Photo credit: nimAdestiny, Flickr, Creative Commons

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My best wishes to all for a healthy, safe, peaceful, productive and prosperous 2014.

Scott Bury

The Written Word

Book launch: Tube Riders 2 — Exile

Book 2 in Chris Ward's original and excellent Tube Riders trilogy has just launched.

Earlier this year, I gave five stars to Ward's stand-alone novel, Head of Words. It's a deep and dark psychological story that shows Ward's talent and professionalism as a writer.

Now, I'm telling everyone I can to pay attention to this original writer's steampunk-inspired Tube Riders series, which achieves the same standard of excellence.

What are Tube Riders?

Set in Britain in 2075, the Tube Riders are a gang of young people who defy a brutal dictatorship by playing a dangerous game of riding on the outside of London's Underground trains.

Book 2, Exile: 

Having narrowly escaped the Governor's savage Huntsmen, Marta Banks and the other surviving Tube Riders are on the run in northern France. Trapped inside a government-assigned quarantine zone, they search for a way out of a bleak countryside littered with abandoned worker robots and haunted by sinister monks, while at the same time a far deadlier threat than any they have faced before is searching for a way in ... 

From the towering spires of Mont St Michel through the dark horrors of the Paris Catacombs to the treacherous peaks of the French Alps, The Tube Riders: Exile is an epic continuation of Chris Ward's Tube Riders series. 

Chris Ward is from the UK but currently lives and works in Japan. In addition to the Tube Riders Trilogy, his work includes a number of short stories (available on Amazon) and the stand alone novel The Man Who Built the World as well as Head of Words.

What inspired the story?

"For the whole of my novel-writing life, I always wanted to write in different genres, try different styles and push myself as a writer and an artist. I had a rule that no two novels could be the same. In around 2009 I decided I wanted to write a big sci-fi dystopia. While my novels had always ranged from horror to comedy, my short stories had usually been in the speculative fiction vein, because they were easy to write and relatively easy to sell to magazines. Looking for ideas, I came across an old story I wrote in 2002 about a group of kids who hung off the sides of trains for fun getting into trouble with a rival gang. And hour and two sheets of A3 paper later, the Huntsmen, Dreggo, the Governor and the dark world of Mega Britain was born.

"I once promised myself to never write a sequel, but by the time I had written all 165,000 words of the first draft of the Tube Riders, I realised that it was really just the first part of one long story. Now, with Revenge, that story has reached its end.

"It felt strange to leave the Tube Riders behind, but while the main story is done there is a likelihood that there will be prequels or possible novels set within the three years between Exile and Revenge, mostly focusing on side or minor characters."

Exile launched on December 16, and book 3, Revenge, will appear in January. Watch Written Words for a cover preview!

Where to get it:

Amazon: Tube Riders: Exile
Tube Riders: London

Visit Chris Ward's Amazon author page to see all his published work.

Visit Chris Ward's blog, A Million Miles from Anywhere.

Merry Christmas to all

I wish all a peaceful, healthy and happy Christmas season.

Scott Bury

The Written Word

Drawing by HIKINGARTIST.COM via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons attribution.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/

What makes a good read? Two best-sellers join the debate

Photo by Documentally / Christian Payne, found on Flickr, licensed through Creative Commons.
 

Writers are always struggling with advice from disparate sources on how to improve their writing. That’s why I turned to some best-selling authors and asked them what made certain books their favourites. What makes a good read? 

Weighing in this week are DelSheree Gladden, best-selling author of the Destroyer trilogy (Inquest, Secret of Betrayal and Darkening Chaos) and the Twin Souls saga, and Bruce Blake, the prolific author of the Icarus Fell series (On Unfaithful Wings, All Who Wander are Lost and Secrets of the Hanged Man), Khirro’s Journey trilogy (Blood of the King, Spirit of the King and Heart of the King) and the new Small Gods series (When Shadows Fall). With his wife, Rosie Bitts, he is the co-author of the Lady Corsairs series. 

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them?

DelSheree Gladden: 

Strong characters, well thought out storyline, and an emotional element to the story readers can connect with. What makes me keep reading a book is the characters. I have to connect with the characters and care about them and their struggles. It can be a fascinating storyline, but if the characters are only so-so, I’m not going to be hooked.  

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson is one of my all-time favourites. I was absolutely riveted by his books. The complexity of the storyline was amazing, yet it never seemed overcomplicated or convoluted. His characters came alive from the first page and he did what is sometimes the hardest thing for a writer to do. He let the story go where it needed to go even if that meant losing characters and writing what I can imagine he didn’t want to write. 

Bruce Blake:

Three things that I look for in a good book are writing style, engaging characters, and originality. It can be difficult to find the combination of all three in the same book, but when I do, I can't stop reading. 

The most recent example for me is Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. The voices of each character are so distinct and he has an interesting way of turning a phrase. Vicious Circle by Mike Carey, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and many of Stephen King's early books make my list, too.

What other books have these characteristics?

DelSheree Gladden

Some of the other books that I will always love are books like The Dresden Files and Aleran Codex from Jim Butcher, The Wheel of Time series by Jordan and Sanderson, The Dalemark Quartet by Dianna Wynne Jones, and pretty much any of Raymond E. Feist’s books. 

Bruce Blake

Anything by Stephen King up to “It." George Martin's first two books in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? If so, what form does that take: plot, structure, characters, settings, author's voice and word choice?

DelSheree Gladden

There are aspects of all my favourite books that I try to emulate. Sanderson’s plots are always flawless. I can never find even the tiniest hole. I will debate, rewrite, outline, make a dozen sticky notes, whatever it takes to try and make sure I’m not leaving unanswered questions for my readers. What I’ve tried most to emulate is creating good characters my readers will fall in love with. Butcher’s characters always have a great deal of depth. You can’t help but get sucked into their lives, even those characters who are only briefly in the book. His characters always have a defining inner struggle that impacts every aspect of their story. I want my characters to be that unique and real when I write as well.

Bruce Blake

Sometimes, but not always. I mean, Joe Abercrombie's use of unique

voices for each character definitely inspired my conscious choice to try something similar in my latest book, When Shadows Fall. On the other hand, without me really thinking about it, any good writing style challenges me to keep a close eye on my word choices. Stephen King’s depth of characterization gave me something to strive for and George Martin's detailed world and cultures were another inspiration.

Thank you, DelSheree and Bruce!

Visit DelSheree Gladden's website
Visit Bruce A. Blake's website

Good reading: Two best-selling authors tell what they like to read

Creative Commons

What makes a book a good read? Three more independent authors give me their perspective: 

Mohana Rajakumar is author of So You Want to Sell a Million Copies?, Love Comes Later and a number of other books. Her latest is An Unlikely Goddess.

Jesi Lea Ryan is author of Arcadia’s Gift, Arcadia’s Curse and Four Thousand Miles.

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? 

Mohanda Rajakumar: I love the characters or at least want to know what happens next. Books where the writer takes me into a world totally other than my own and I learn something new. And I talk to other people about what's happening in the world of the story — it's that compelling.

Jesi Lea Ryan: I like books with unique characters who don't irritate the crap out of me.

Plot is important, but it is becoming emotionally invested in the characters

that keep me interested. Richelle Mead's books (yes, all of them) are my

best example of this. Her books are action packed and filled with intrigue

and adventure, but she has such an amazing way of tying me in emotionally

that I feel like I am in the book. It's amazing! 

I also like books that run at a faster pace. I don't like a lot of pointless

musing. I'm a firm believer in what doesn't add to your story should be cut.

I can give you about fifty bad examples of this, but where I find it most is

in erotica. Good erotica uses sex scenes to further the character or plot.

Bad erotica has little plot or character and things it can survive on

gratuitous sex. It's annoying. 

What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them? 

Mohana Rajakumar

Mohana Rajakumar: Gone Girl, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, and The Night Circus.

Jesi Lea Ryan: Stacia Kane's Downside series have really unique characters, beautifully flawed.

  

What makes you keep reading a book? 

Mohana Rajakumar: To see what happens next and how we get where we are going.

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? 

Mohana Rajakumar: I do try to take readers into worlds they don't know because that's what drew me into reading as a child. And into writing as an adult. There were so many things to think about, I wanted to get out and share them with others. In terms of keeping the reading guessing, suspense I struggle with as a writer but character development I have much more confidence in my ability to deliver. 

Jesi Lea Ryan: I don't consciously emulate other books, but I'm sure they influence me to some extent. I read over 250 novels a year, and I don't have a stellar

memory.  I can't quote even from my favorite books. Part of this is because

I rarely read the same book more than once. I can tell you that I

consciously try not to write the things that irritate me. For example, I

detest indecisive heroines. And god, there is so much of that in YA and NA

romance.  Makes me want to hurl books across the room.  Indecisiveness does

not create plot tension, it creates reader tension, and that's not a good

thing!  So I don't drag things out too much in my books.  If the heroine

needs to make a decision, she's generally quick to act on it. 

What do great writers like to read?

Creative Commons

What makes a good read? Is it characterization, plot, style? A unique idea, or the rules of your favourite genre?

I’ve asked some of the best independent authors I know what they like to read — what makes a good read for them. Today, here are the first three to answer: 

• RS Guthrie, author of the Bobby Mac paranormal-thriller series and the James Pruett mystery series
• Karen Wodke, author of James Willlis Makes a Million and half of the Wodke Hawkinson writing duo, authors of Betrayed, Zeke, Sue, Tangerine and other books
• Scott Morgan, author of Stories My Evil Twin Made Up, Character Development from the Inside Out, and How to Be a Whiny Beeyotch: 71 Writing Excuses Meet the Back of My Hand

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? 

RS Guthrie: I personally love great, literary writing and deep characters. Of course, like everyone, my initial buy many times depends on the cover, or especially the first part of chapter one sampling. I usually know by one to three paragraphs in whether I will like the book. Actually, that's a pretty good indicator of the books I won't like. You can never know for sure about liking/loving a book until it ends; sometimes writers give up two-thirds of the way through and that's a HUGE disappointment you can't see coming.

Rob Guthrie

Karen Wodke: Three characteristics of books I like: 

• being drawn into the story right from the start

• when a story is handled in a unique way or deals with unusual material

• when a book is so well-written, it takes me away.

Scott Morgan: Good books need a strong storyteller's voice; to be true  to its internal universe; and to take chances. I don't want to read the same thing someone else wrote, I want to read a new idea, new way of seeing, new world.

What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them? 

RS Guthrie: The last book I read I could not put down was Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. I can never put any of his books down. Gun, With Occasional Music rocked my world! Dissident Gardens is just out and I have not read it yet.

Karen Wodke: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn; The Mothers by Vardis Fisher (about the doomed Donner party crossing); Evening News by Marly Swick; The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien; Life-Size by Jenefer Schute.

What other books have these characteristics?

RS Guthrie: Anything by James lee Burke. In fact, he's the master of melding both elements (literary style with great characters). All of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series (21 books). Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, If I Die In A Combat Zone, and Going After Cacciato.

Karen Wodke: The books I mentioned are very different in style from each other. What they have in common is a compelling story. It would be impossible to list all the other books that share this characteristic. I like Dean Koontz, JA Konrath, earlier Stephen King, earlier James Patterson, Wally Lamb, Robert Heinlein, and a number of indie authors. The books I most enjoy reading share the following characteristics: interesting plot, descriptions that are appropriate to the story, a unique style of writing, and a steady pace.

Scott Morgan: All good books have these characteristics (a strong storyteller's voice; true  to its internal universe; and to take chances). Best examples for me are (fiction) Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg and (nonfiction) The Trouble with Tom by Paul Collins.

Scott Morgan

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? 

RS Guthrie: When I first read James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series, I knew I had found my voice. Until then I kept flip-flopping between a more literary style versus deep, engaging characters and a lot of great dialogue (something you don't find in "literary" books). Burke showed me that the two can not only coexist but enhance each other and make for a compelling read. Primarily that affects my characters, dialogue, and definitely word choice. You need to be sparsely descriptive. Yes, describe the surrounding stage so the reader can smell it, see it, feel it, but don't take thirteen pages to do so. And dialogue, for me, is key. Good, engaging dialogue is the best way I know to show your character rather than tell him/her to the reader.

Karen Wodke: I don’t think I consciously try to emulate any other book. That said, a good book inspires me to work on improving particular elements in my own writing. For instance, reading Gillian Flynn has made me want to come up with

Karen Wodke

better similes and metaphors; she’s brilliant at both. She also has a very distinctive voice. A skill I admire in Stephen King is the ease with which he tells a story. Opening one of his books is like settling into a favorite chair. I admire the way Koontz pulls a reader in from the first page. And some thriller authors write such clean, tight plots; I can’t help but be impressed. There are important things to be learned from any well-written book.

You know what they say: easy reading is damn hard writing.

Scott Morgan: I try to emulate the writers more so than the books. writers like Brian Hodge always come up with incredible ways to tell stories that are not limited to single books. If I'm borrowing from books, it's usually inn how the writer constructs his/her universe with as little detail as possible. Great writers can put you in their heads but let you keep your own eyes.

Book launch: Binder

David Vinjamuri, fellow member of Best-Selling Reads and a columnist with Forbes magazine, has released his second novel, Binder.

What's it about? 

In the mountains of West Virginia, hooded men ambush and beat a group of environmental protestors. An Army colonel’s daughter goes missing, and ex-operator Michael Herne travels to West Virginia to find her.  But the girl wasn’t with the protestors and as Herne tracks her he encounters cults, communes and supremacists on the path to unraveling a deadly conspiracy. 

Binder is the sequel to the best-selling thriller, Operator.

Advance praise

"A terrific, fast-paced read.  It’s not just technically accurate but really gets into the mindset of the Tier 1 operator." 

– Master Sergeant Rodney Cox,  Instructor, SWCS (U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC)

After a brief stint as an intelligence analyst, David spent nearly 20 years working with corporate brands. He writes for Forbes, teaches at New York University and loves reading and the outdoors. He is an active member in Best-Selling Reads, as well.

Check out his book on Amazon.

Hootsuite, mistakes and crisis communications

The wrong way to communicate during a crisis is to not communicate at all.

Hootsuite demonstrated this last month. I think it’s an opportunity for all of us professional communicators to learn how to communicate during a crisis — especially when it’s a crisis that most observers will blame on you.

Hootsuite is a service that allows users to manage their Twitter feeds. One of its best features — the reason that I subscribe to it — is the ability to create a spreadsheet to schedule a day (or more) of Tweets in advance. Into the spreadsheet, you put the date and time for the tweet, the message, and any links. Then you save the spreadsheet in .csv format and upload it. Hootsuite will send up to 350 tweets at the time you specify.

I’ve been using it for more than a year. Then, around about mid-November this year, I started to get error messages when I tried updating a day’s worth of tweets. 

Any computer user with my level of training and knowledge of computers (very little) is used to error messages. Hootsuite gives you an error message if you try to schedule the same message twice in one day, or if any message is more than 140 characters long (Twitter’s maximum). 

In mid-November, however, when I tried to upload a file of daily tweets, I got an error message that had no specific errors. Just the message “No further tweets will be uploaded until the errors are resolved.”

I thought, naturally, that I had done something wrong. I checked my file to make sure no message, including links, was more than 135 characters long (a time-consuming process). I made sure that there were no repeated messages. 

Everything seemed to check out. But Hootsuite would still not accept the file.

I tried uploading a smaller file, breaking a day into two, then three, then four smaller files. Eventually, the smaller files would upload, but not consistently. There seemed to be no logic, no consistency to the way that Hootsuite would upload a spreadsheet. 

Finally, I Googled the problem. I found a forum for Hootsuite customer questions, and it seemed that a lot of people were having the same problem I was: they could not upload spreadsheets.

Hootsuite technicians, to their credit, were monitoring the blog, and left messages along the lines of “We are aware of the problem and are working on a solution.”

This continued for over a week — to no one’s satisfaction.

Crisis communications

This is an excellent example of crisis communications — how an organization communicates with its publics when something is going wrong. It can be very challenging in this kind of situation, because users naturally blame the company, the originators of the technology, for causing the problem in the first place.

There were several messages on the forum about how people were going to take their business to a Hootsuite competitor. “We’re paying for this service!” is how more than one customer put it.

Some of Hootsuite’s competitors started to take advantage of the problem by sending out the message that their services were working fine at the time.

The problem was that, while Hootsuite’s techs were working flat out on resolving the problem, they were not communicating that. Users had no idea what the problem was, how long it would be until it was resolved, or whether there were any workarounds. Doubtlessly, there were alternatives, and some customers probably changed horses. 

Eventually, around November 21 or so, they seem to have solved the problem. But they didn’t explain what the problem was, what had caused it or what customers should do the next time something like it happens.

Obviously, this is not good for credibility. Most people who use computers and web services expect there to be technical problems from time to time. We’re all familiar with that little program built into the deepest, most basic level of every operating system that causes random errors to pop up. We get that that’s how programmers ensure they’ll all have jobs, even after they build the perfect computer.

But we still want to know that the company we pay for a service we come to rely on is working on, and making progress with problems we encounter.

After the problem was fixed, Hootsuite announced they had solved the issue. I tried uploading a file of tweets, and it worked, no problem. I then sent Hootsuite’s customer service department an email with some questions about the experience. I explained that, as a journalist and blogger, I wanted to do a story about this issue, and gave them an opportunity to present their side.

I got no answer. Big mistake on Hootsuite’s part.

What Hootsuite should have done

• Admit publicly and prominently that they were aware of the problem — on their Home page, and with an email to all customers who use the bulk uploader service
• Communicate their plans — how long did they anticipate they would take to fix the problem?
• Suggest work-arounds  
• Communicate their progress 
• what kind of resources (meaning skilled people and their tools) they had dedicated to the problem
• when they had identified the problem
• how long they anticipated taking to solve it.

I know that it can be scary for any organization to admit that it has a problem, but it’s better than the alternative: to let your market know that you can’t handle problems. Even if they took longer to fix the problem than they indicated, they could have announced that the solution was taking longer than they anticipated, and set another honest solution horizon.

The alternative, not communicating, leaves the impression of an uncaring corporation. It leaves users wondering if anything at all is happening behind the scenes, which in turn prompts them to turn to the competition.

Communicating during a crisis is one of the biggest challenges for any communications professional. However, the best strategy is the same as in most situations: keep communicating, be honest and tell your audience as much as you can.

More communication = more information, and today, people LIKE information.

What do you gain by not admitting your shortcomings? In the age of instant, constant and ubiquitous communication, you don’t hide anything. 

An organization is much further ahead by keeping the connections with its customers alive and open. Just as in a personal relationship, being honest about your problems  builds trust, which helps cement long-term relationships with customers.