I have been talking about what makes something a horror story elsewhere and considered IA stories as examples of stories with terrifying monsters, life threatening and intense scenarios, but they just are not horror. I’m trying to articulate why, and I would be interested in Ilona’s take. What makes something a horror story? Will Hugh’s next story be a horror story?
NI
A horror story’s primary function is to terrify. Horror strives to put the reader into a state of fear or helplessness. You should walk away from it deeply disturbed and relieved to be back to your normal life.
When Gordon was in boot camp, I was by myself with two small children in a ramshackle house. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to read a collection of Dean Koontz’s horror short stories. I was in a fragile state of mind and that collection had a severe effect on my mental wellbeing. I haven’t touched that book since. Well written horror should leave its mark.
Another example. I once read a very short story, and I don’t recall who the author is or what the title is, but the entire story was the author confronting this slimy, algae-dripping, small, nasty creature that crawled of the swamp. I didn’t even finish. I was like, “I’m out.”
Our work isn’t horror, because its primary function is to leave you happy. Our narrative can be very scary and gory, but there is always a happy ending, and such terrifying moments are not the focus of the narrative. The focus is usually on characters, their interactions, the conflicts related to their values, and their search for personal happiness.
When coming up with storylines or plot twist how far out/ ahead are you? Same book? One book? Two books out?
It depends on the book. Right now we are 4 books out on planning. But mostly, we don’t plan that far ahead. It’s just turned out that way with this project.
I’ve noticed that you take time and space to show characters dealing with the after effects of trauma/ ptsd. (Kate, Penelope, Sean…) You show other characters reacting suppotively and with care. Is this simply a by-product of your characters dealing with war/battle type experiences, or do you have experience/ know people who have experiences which have informed your writing/ characters?
Victoria
It’s personal experience and things we’ve seen our friends, coworkers, and family struggle with. I’m not going to talk about it in detail, because these are private issues, but to give you the mildest example. I was never in the military, but because I was Gordon’s dependent, we lived on post at Fort Sill. Fort Sill is the home of field artillery. They shell the hell out of neighboring wilderness. It becomes a soundtrack to daily life.
Not that long ago I was doing something in the kitchen, and I heard a very familiar boom followed by two smaller booms. I stopped what I was doing and thought, “Why is there artillery fire?”
It wasn’t artillery fire. A transformer blew up down the street. It’s been almost 10 years, and I went straight to Howitzers.
It stopped me cold and I had a moment of anxiety. How much worse would it have been if in my mind, the artillery fire was associated with me needing to run for my life, or hunkering down, or watching people I know die?
Sending people to war damages them. Some people like combat and the new version of themselves; some people are permanently altered by it in a terrible way; some people are able to compartmentalize that part of themselves, and some people take the Rogan route where they come back and separate themselves from the society for a while until they can cope with civilian life. And for those who are struggling with the aftermath, the symptoms are not always the “classic” PTSD.
For every conflict our nation is involved in, we need to consider whether the price of doing that to our soldiers is worth it.
Looking forward to all of it. One thing I’m wondering: if you’re now self-publishing, there’s no publisher to find nor contract to negotiate, so what does your agent do for you?
Robert
In traditional publishing, the role of literary agents is clearly defined. They serve as an author’s business representative. They submit their clients’ work to publishers, they vet the contracts, they negotiate advances and royalties, and generally vigorously advocate on the author’s behalf. For that they collect a flat fee of 15%.
For self-publishing, each literary agency’s scope of services is different. Some agencies choose to not be involved with it, some offer bare minimum, and others, like NYLA, are “full-service.”
I know a traditional and beloved author, who is enjoying a very successful career completely unagented. She parted ways with her former agent, and since she mostly works with only one publisher, she is comfortable sticking to the same terms. In self-publishing, an agent seems even less necessary. Why have one, right? There is no publisher.
It’s not that cut and dry. A good agent doesn’t just handle things project by project. They steer the author’s career, and the need for that business partnership doesn’t go away when the traditional publisher is out of the equation. Also, self-publishing generates a significant amount of extra work that has nothing to do with writing.
Here are some of the things our agency does:
- cover design, ebook, print, and audio
- book summaries for retailers
- editorial input
- formatting ebooks
- formatting print
- upload to various retailers in ebook
- upload to print distributors
- maintenance (correction of typos, etc. in published works)
- finding and vetting artists
- negotiating contracts with artists
- finding and vetting audio readers
- quality control of audio recordings
- negotiating contracts with audio readers
- selecting audio distributors and negotiating terms
- finding and vetting editors
- actively seeking and screening promotional opportunities
- negotiating contracts with collector edition publishers
- marketing to foreign publishers through the foreign agency partners
- maintaining brag sheets*
- generating 1099s and reporting taxes
- monitoring compliance with US tax laws via filing foreign exemption forms
- career planning (how many units sold for each title, where, when, what panned out, what didn’t, which series would be advantageous to continue, etc.)
*Brag sheet is a record of the author’s professional accomplishments and sales, listing website statistics, units sold, foreign rights sold, bestseller list placement, awards, and so on.
Some of it we could do ourselves. But some of it we couldn’t. For example, the post about Hoopla which you read on our blog happened because the distributor that NYLA found for the audiobooks happened to be running a promotional ad there. We didn’t know what Hoopla was until that point. We didn’t know we could distribute to it.
Other things that out poor agency handles.
Reviews Glitch
They researched and fixed it.
Copyright Infringement on Amazon
They have their own Amazon rep, so it was taken down in record time.
GA extras, from agent
As you can see, House Andrews generates a massive amount of work. We also generate income, don’t get me wrong, but in the end keeping the self-publishing machine rolling is very much a team effort. Once I’m done writing this, I’m going to go right back to our current project instead of sorting through mountain of admin matters and I think we all benefit from this arrangement.
Great questions and answers. I found the question about having an agent especially interesting. It helps remind me about the great amount of work that goes into your books far above and beyond the fabulous writing part. It helps hold me back when I am in a BDH mood.
Very interesting insights , my Mom was in the Military during WW2
So often reading your books I feel I am getting direct insight via you or from Gordon ..it enriches the writing…
Regarding horror: My son (in his late 20’s, living across the country working in DC) and I were working our way through Stephen King’s books. We would read and then discuss on the phone. Until I got to “Pet Sematary”. That was the one that really bothered me and left me unsettled for quite a while. So from then on, my question was always to my son “Is it worse than “Pet Sematary”? And that was my guide as to whether I read it or not. And then I got to the point of why am I doing this to myself. I wasn’t enjoying reading horror. So I stopped. I guess I thought I should be a well-rounded reader. Eh, well-rounded is over rated.
You guys are awesome. Thank you for sharing. Me, I’m just grateful that you two write such fabulous books. I don’t know how you do it, but the background of the Kate books seems so real.
Mod R, I super enjoyed the link to the brag sheet link that had the “becoming a writer journey” story in it. I thought that I’d suggest that a blog with the brag sheet (with it’s story) would be muchly enjoyed by all the people who don’t (silly them) read the comments. My friend who enjoys the blog e mail gets her mail on her phone which doesn’t (alas) have a “open in browser” function and so has no way to get the comments (and any oh so interesting links) when I tell her about the brag sheet’s story she will be SO jealous! *Hint, hint Thanks Mod R, you’re the best!
PS: This comment also exists as a reply to ANOTHER comment about the brag sheet, I just wanted to insure that you see it. Sorry if you already have seen the other one (I know, I’m a terrible pest)
Mod R Hello, it’s me again (yes, I know, I’m a pest) after begging (in two different places no less) for you to put the brag sheet in the blog, I used my brain, and the hints you provided and went to the website and with relative ease figured out how to find the brag sheet without using the handy dandy link that you provided for someone else in the comments. So I can now provide my friend who can’t access the comments (and the oh so handy link) an easy and simple way to access the brag sheet so that she can also enjoy the journey to becoming a writer story on her own. I STILL think that you’re the best for hitting me with the clue stick. ????
My parents were in northern Italy during WWII. They moved to CANADA and eventually they bought the house I still live in in Toronto, which is in the western end where Pearson Airport is. Every once in a while, the drone of the planes on the flight paths to the airport still caused myMother to start/look up.
It wasn’t called PTSD but that WAS PTSD still interfering with her life 70 years later.
Still a tough cookie, though. Gone for 5 years but I still hear her giving me her quiet but on the spot opinions about something I’m doing. Love ya, Ma
Thank you for being so organized. To someone who one day hopes to publish this was very informative. I love your work. Keep it up!
Scariest horror stories for me was Cthulhu. Got stuck on a car trip as a teenager where I ran out of books, so I read one of my brother’s. Luckily it was short stories. I did not finish the book.
I the 80’s I worked for a defence manufacturer. One day a transformer blew in the manufacturing area. All the combat veterans were immediately identifiable because they hit the floor and got under cover. Really telling for the vets that fibbed about combat experience.
Sorry, I stopped reading on “….4 books out in planning”! Yeehaa! will need to revisit that post later for the rest 🙂
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post.
Regarding PTSD discussion— when I had the ischemic stroke the other year, the hospital counselor told me it was common problem post strokes. He was correct as I did have symptoms of PT SD and therapy did help.
“For every conflict our nation is involved in, we need to consider whether the price of doing that to our soldiers is worth it.”
THIS!
PS I’m a 12 year USAF vet
RE horror: Interesting discussion! When I opened Magic Bites for the first time, I almost didn’t continue past the first couple of pages because I thought it was horror: “icy wave of fear and revulsion”, “something bad was in my house”, “something large crawled along the hallway ceiling”, the protagonist sitting at the kitchen table with a “nude and hairless” monster behind her — I was like, I don’t think I can go there. (I had already read the Edge books, and they’re as close to horror as I ever want to go. I guess I thought Magic Bites was going to start out scary and get worse…)
I’m so glad I read just a bit further and found out that the girl was totally prepared to deal with the monster behind her!! And then I got to the super-fun parts, e.g., “Here kitty kitty”, and turning the tables on the shapeshifters by using power words on Derek, etc, etc. Kate Daniels became my favorite series ever, and I’ve read it multiple times. I still shudder to think that I might’ve closed that book and missed out on all the fun!
We live within hearing of Quantico. They have facebook page, and numerous other outlets that let us know when ‘Sounds of Freedom’ are going to happen.
Man am I happy for you that you have such a good full service agency. Your work is precious to me and all the necessary associated efforts, administrative and legal, would cripple a lesser being. So glad someone follows the IRS stuff for you and fights for the integrity of your work and intellectual property. Thank you for putting up with it all. If you only knew how happy it makes me to read your stuff. And I am an avid audiobook reader and the narration is soooo important. If audio is available I get it but will do ebook if its not. I am grateful for all you guys do.
A supporting point for PTSD. I spent all of my service working with squadrons or at air stations. Basically I lived at airports all my time in the service.
Sometime last summer the hospital around the corner moved their emergency helicopter landing space to the parking lot behind my house.
First copter to land there (and several since) have flipped me back in time to Marines landing their copters in the field across the street from the baracks.
40 years younger… and 100 lbs less weight and joints that aren’t broken?
nah, doesn’t work. But I called my friend from back then (who used to work on those beasts) and held the phone out the window so he could hear too.
My dogs are even used to the big bird coming out of the sky now.
Thank you for bringing Kate back. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her, and that world. Then I was reading it and it was like visiting family I hadn’t seen in a while. Exactly what I needed! Thank you so much! I am so looking forward to seeing the next adventures of everyone- be it the Wilmington, Hugh, or Julie stories. Whenever and whichever are written, I will appreciate whatever glimpses you share with us.
I LOVE reading about Kate, Curran, Conlan and Julie, more please!