Author Introduction: Anton Strout

As part of the promo for the After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar release, I figured I’d highlight all of the contributors to the anthology individually. And while we’re at it, run a contest as well! So here’s the deal, to enter the contest you have to either friend the afterhoursurbar community here on LiveJournal OR you have to like the After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar Facebook page (search for the title of the anthology to find the page). If you do both, you’re entered into the contest twice! The contest will end March 31st, 2011. Prizes will include copies of the contributors books (sometimes entire trilogies), After Hours: Tales From the Ur-bar M&Ms, and perhaps other prizes. They will be awarded by random drawing from those who’ve liked or friended the appropriate pages. If you’ve already friended or liked the pages, then you’re already entered into the contest! Find out more about the anthology at its website!





And now for the fifteenth contributor: Anton Strout (antonstrout)! Anton’s contribution to the anthology is the short story Izdu-Bar, which sets the Ur-bar in a possible, post-apocalyptic zombie future. Here’s the official description:

"Idzu-Bar" by Anton Strout: In a future world terrorized by zombies, one bouncer discovers that letting someone in after hours may be the worst mistake of his life.

I hadn’t met Anton in person until we did a signing together, when his first book came out. Turns out, he also works at Penguin, the company that distributes my own books, as part of the sales division. Suddenly he’s my best friend! *grin* Here’s his author bio from the anthology:

Anton Strout remembers his early days of barhopping in New York City, making The Slaughtered Lamb an old favorite of his thanks to the drinks, dungeon, life-sized werewolves and fake lightning storms. He is best known as the author of the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series including Dead To Me, Deader Still, Dead Matter, and Dead Waters. He has also appeared in a variety of anthologies. In his scant spare time, he is an always writer, sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the world’s most casual and controller-smashing video gamer. He can be found lurking the darkened hallways of www.antonstrout.com.

We’ll be giving away the first three books in his Simon Canderous series as prizes in the contest.

Writing: When It Just Isn't Working

I'm not having a very good writing week. Oh, it started off great on Monday. I produced 3000 words and then finished off the chapter on Tuesday. I then immediately started the next chapter and I thought I knew what was supposed to happen in that chapter. I wrote on it Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday and finished it off. I was excited. I'm nearing the end of the book and this was one of the exciting scenes at the end, full of drama, death, some real good "cool" factor. I formatted it and sent it off to my beta readers, happy with how it turned out. . . .

And then I started writing the next chapter, and guess what? That previous chapter, for all of its goodness and fun and creativity, isn't going to work. I mean, it works as a chapter, and there's nothing wrong with the plot elements (these things need to happen) and there's nothing wrong with the characters or their motivations (they need to do these things), but as I sat down to work on the next chapter and tried to envision the ending of the novel . . . it doesn't work. After some careful thought and not a little bit of depression, I've figured out that what's wrong is the STRUCTURE.

The ending of a novel has to have a structure. There has to be an ultimate moment, where the characters go and do what needs to be done to resolve the issues of the book, or at least deal with them as best they can, and I think what happened here is that I tried to resolve the issues a little too early. In chapter 18, I had the ultimate "Oh, shit!" moment of the book, where everything that's been building suddenly hits the fan and the characters are in the "I'm screwed" position. This is the end of part 3 of the novel. In the fourth part, they're supposed to deal with the situation. Chapter 19 was a recovery, "pick ourselves out of the rubble" chapter. There's no problem with that. But then in chapter 20 I moved directly into "dealing with the problem." And if the characters do that immediately, then the structure is screwed. I think it's all about the high points and lows of any novel. I had a high point (the ultimate high point really) of the novel in chapter 18. Chapter 19 was a lull, but it wasn't much of a breather overall. I think there needs to be a more significant "resting" period, where the characters deal with what's happened emotionally, before they can come up with a plan, charge in, and try to fix things. I think I had them charge in too early.

So today, I'm ripping chapter 20 apart. Everything in here I can pretty much keep for a later chapter, because as I said, it needs to be in the book, but I need to give the reader--and the characters--a moment alone, so to speak. They need to deal with the disaster, come to terms with it, and THEN I can send them racing in to fix it.

And in the process, I think I'll have an ending.