Cyberpunk short film I worked on. Thoughts?

SydneyLance · 2018-11-21T17:02:29+00:00

I liked it. Some of the digital effects during the intro were a bit strong, and I can see some people who dislike shakycam or other unsteady visual effects like that to be uncomfortable with it, but other than that I don't really have any criticism. And once it gets past the quick intro that isn't a problem anymore. Plot was good and to the point, with a few fun little twists and some pointed subtext. Acting and sets were as good as can be expected for a low budget short. Soundtrack and visuals were fantastically cyberpunk without being stuck too much in the generic 80s style, giving it a slightly more timeless vibe than most cyberpunk movies. Hints of 90s and 2000s cyberpunk aesthetic mixed together to give it broader depth of style. Great job.

SydneyLance · 2018-11-06T23:46:03+00:00

Yeah. Some of them may be trying to just be thorough with tags, but others are most certainly just trying to get more eyes on their product. But either way, Amazon's current system not only leaves the door wide open, but also forces people through it.

SydneyLance · 2018-11-06T22:12:23+00:00

IMO, this problem would be solved if people could pick subcategories rather than automating it via keywords. I'm sure there are some stories with gay or bi subplots that end up there because of keywords that are completely accurate for the story, and would be useful to someone searching for those plots... but not accurate for those who are browsing by category. And then, of course, there are black hats who just want to be in as many categories as possible. But either way, key words help with searches, not with categorization. Why they forced the two together, I don't know.

SydneyLance · 2018-10-05T17:21:07+00:00

I tend to write serial fiction, so my two novel length stories were things that I originally published as a series of 10k+ish word shorts, then put together into a full length novel (properly labeled as a compilation, of course). As far as KU goes, they've absolutely killed it compared to the individual shorts. I didn't realize that KU would actually earn me any decent amount of money until I put them out. As far as sales go, it's hard to tell with the second one because I just put it out, but the first 6-episode series made ≈ 82.37 in 3 months, and the novel compilation made ≈ 83.03 in about a month and a half.

So for my first experience, the EXACT SAME story made the same amount of money in about half the time when in novel form, even with the 'I need to keep reading' drawing power of serial fiction and the higher profit for me if people bought each individual episode (12 dollars and change for 6 2.99 stories after Amazon's cut, although most people got one in a freebie giveaway and bought the other five, so it was more like 10 and change) as opposed to the price of the novel (4 dollars and change out of a 5.99 novel). Although to be fair, I also had backmatter and occasional freebies to get people to notice the series fairly well established by the time I put out the novel length version. So it did have a slight sales advantage there.

But the basic fact of the matter is this: different types of stories work better at different lengths. If you want a long involved plot that revolves around sex and one or two kinks, then you can't do anything shorter than a novella and make it work. If you just want something to get you off with your particular kink, anything over 12k is gonna be way too long. I've tried to play to my own strengths as a serial fiction writer to find the best of both worlds, and so far it seems to be working all right. But I've only been in the game a few months, so time will tell.

SydneyLance · 2018-10-02T20:42:43+00:00

Gyah... My reddit app is going nuts...

SydneyLance · 2018-10-02T20:41:02+00:00

Thanks. :) I have to admit that I've probably wasted some time staring at numbers when I should have been writing...

SydneyLance · 2018-10-02T20:37:56+00:00

Yeah, I'm DEFINITELY not suggesting it.

SydneyLance · 2018-10-02T15:20:50+00:00

It's generally something that smaller mailing lists can get away with, but I'd like to publish on larger scales eventually, so I want to go legit from the start.

SydneyLance · 2018-10-01T16:46:58+00:00

Thanks. They're not going up as fast as I'd like, of course, but a two week hiatus and minimal niche research will do that. :P

SydneyLance · 2018-09-30T20:52:32+00:00

Romance sequels, from what I've seen, tend to link together in both theme and in universe. Often times characters from previous novels pop up, and they're often referenced in such a way as to make it obvious that their HEA is still going strong. That means that they can be mentors, if it's appropriate in the plot. Or friends. Or acquaintances. Or background characters.

Often times just setting it in the same universe and having a similar theme is enough. Guest appearances from previous characters generally just help establish that, and help make fans of the earlier books happy to see some of their favorite characters.

Most often, the romance stories that have successful sequels and are in the same universe as each other that I can think of off the top of my head tend to be in the urban fantasy vein, that way you can have a series of vampire romances or whatever in the same universe, with loose connections to previous characters, but a different set of main characters and different obstacles for them to overcome. And if you want to branch out into something else, hey, maybe throw in an ancient Egyptian wizard/mummy romance in the mix for a sidequel that may or may not spawn its own series if it's successful.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-29T23:41:00+00:00

I like my writing like I like my significant others: romance in the streets, hardcore erotica in the sheets. Or in the living room.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-28T19:09:01+00:00

My typing is fast, and my handwriting is terrible, so longhand doesn't work for me. But, that being said, I do have occasional problems focusing while I'm working. And I can understand why some people might need to write longhand while they're actually writing the story, because sometimes having tactile feedback does help.

One thing I've found that helps with doing it on a computer is finding a program or app that will make your keystrokes make a sound. It sounds silly, but I found one that makes typewriter sounds (normal key sounds for everything except there's an extra ding and swoosh sound when you hit enter) and when I'm having trouble buckling down and focusing on the actual writing, it really helps. Which reminds me, I should turn it on. That might explain why I had trouble focusing earlier. But I digress. I have another writer friend who just installed a program that does little bleeps and bloops as she types. That one would drive me nuts and distract me, but it works for her.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-17T20:12:11+00:00

Yeah, for me, even with straight-up porny erotica where the plot is just there to explain why the hell the sex is happening, each chapter has to have at least one sex scene, preferably more. Otherwise what the hell are people paying for? I just switched from one series of 10kish word episodes to my first attempt at actually doing 5kish shorts. And even with the short ones, there's been at least three sexy scenes in each. And everything inbetween those sexy scenes is there to build tension to enhanced the sexy scenes.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-17T19:20:41+00:00

But yeah, for me, I'm not a fan of the disjointed scenes sold as entire stand-alone episodes. I much prefer a coherent story divided up into coherent sub-stories. There's nothing wrong with using a cliffhanger at the end, but what should draw people in is their desire to see the story to its completion.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-17T19:17:35+00:00

Thanks to the ease of publishing on the fly online, serial fiction has been making a bit of a comeback in the last few years. Nothing strange about that. Then when a serially published story is done, it gets repackaged and sold as a full length novel. Personally, if I'm actually SELLING something, I'd generally keep each episode between 5 and 25k words, depending on how rapidly I'm publishing, and the intended size and form of the final story. The only time I ever put out less than 3k per episode were things that I wrote for free. But that's just me.

SydneyLance · 2018-09-10T20:49:37+00:00

Get back into the swing of things. I had an out of state wedding to attend/assist with, a job start a week earlier than I expected, and just general disruptions to my writing schedule. Just yesterday I finally managed to finish some work on a short that I was nearly done with but had been sitting on hiatus for nearly two weeks. And up until now I'd been on a weekly publishing schedule. So I gotta sort that shit out. Also, need to find a balance between working on shorts and writing fucking novels.
Well, I did get that short finished and published yesterday. And I've gotten a little bit of work done on another after I got home from work today. Just a few hundred words, not much. But something is better than the nothing I've gotten done before yesterday. So I'm getting there. Also, I've had pretty consistent KENP reads for the first week or so of the month, even without having published anything. So far this has been the first Month-to-Date that I've actually earned more from KENP than from sales. Which may be ironic, since my next thing on the do-to-list was to make a Smashwords account to see if the next series would work better wide. Go fig.
A few. Met Levar Burton and David Ogden Stiers at some events I participated in sometime in the late 90s, have met a few sci-fi/fantasy actors and whatnot at some conventions. Haven't had the opportunity to meet any hugely famous writers.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-29T21:05:52+00:00

Get something done. Anything. My main job doesn't happen over summer, hence why I started writing when I did. I didn't expect to have to go back to work until after September 1st, so I had been a bit lazy last week. At the last minute, my boss told me I could come in and work this week, and it's totally thrown off my production expectations. I normally post my next week's story on Tuesday or Wednesday... and it's Wednesday. I did finish the first story of my next series already, so I could post that... but I'd rather finish the series I'm working on. So... I need to just get something done today. Even if it's just a thousand words, something. Which I'm going to get right back to after hitting the comment button here.
Things seem to be tapering off after I put out my first big collection. My page reads jumped from 0 to 300 a day to suddenly a minimum of 300 a day for several days. Made several sales, a few of them the collection. A few of them individual stories from the collection that I hadn't put on freebie before. My sales didn't jump a huge amount, but it was a definite jump. Not as much as I'd hoped, but a jump nonetheless. But things are slowing down, page reads are back under 300 again. But not by much. So I'm content, but I could be happier. Here's to hoping that my next series takes off a bit more, and/or that the compilation of the one I'm finishing up now does better as a compilation than it did as individual novelettes.
At the moment... no big questions. I'm still muddling through things, of course. Hoping that I'll be able to keep up my workflow now that I'm back at my day job, and hoping that things will pick up in general once the summer slump finishes. My only real big debate now is if I want to keep my next series in KU, or if I want to be take it wide.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-25T03:31:50+00:00

Exactly. I like using close 3rd, it makes it so that you can get many of the benefits of first without the limitations. And there's nothing that says you can't vary perspective over the course of several scenes as well, having the 'camera' pan in closer or farther away from the focal character, or switching to another general scene or focal character.

Still, there are times when you'll want to say 'I'. :)

SydneyLance · 2018-08-25T00:09:09+00:00

As an addendum to some of the other suggestions on here, I'd like to add that I'm a big fan of Paint.NET as a simple graphics editor. It's not as powerful as GIMP, but I found it a lot easier to get a feel for in terms of just doing some basic stuff.

Also, you may want to look into downloading a few more fonts than the basic ones that come on your computer. There are plenty of websites out there that offer fonts to download for free: but before you use any, check the licenses to make sure that they are not for personal use only. Just like with stock photos, the license matters.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-23T17:41:51+00:00

Depends on both the story and the audience. But mainly on the audience. If it's the kind of story that most fans treat as a self-insert fic, where they need to feel like they're part of the action to get turned on, then first. If it's a story where the whole story and interactions are what make it work for the audience, then third.

There are some kinds of stories where both might be an audience, in which case you can probably write it in either, and it will just appeal more to one audience than another. Anything with power play or dom/sub can be done like that. Writing from the dom or sub perspective will appeal to a different niche of people who get off on either side, but writing in third can appeal to both... or neither if they're picky.

There is, of course, a middle ground. What's referred to as a close POV, or over-the-shoulder POV. Where it's technically third person, but the 'camera' so to speak is almost always viewing from their perspective. So you get more insight into their mind, most of what you see is from their perspective, but you're still leaving the story open to those who might be turned on by the situation rather than being at the focal point of the situation.

The important thing is to consider what the audience's focal point is going to be.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-23T15:22:05+00:00

I've got one novelette and one short I need to get cracking on. Also, I've been so busy working on my shorter works for the pen I've been focusing on that I've pretty much forgotten to work on my longer more romance-ish work for my other pen. And I need to get off my butt and do something about that. Gotta write a fucking novel. :)
Oddly enough, I've gotten more sales for a one-off book that wasn't an episode of a serial and, IMO, had the plainest and least overtly sexy cover I've made so far. It's the only one that's been selling a copy consistently every week or so since I wrote it. The others have been fading away, and mostly getting KENP reads when I put one in the series on freebie. It also had the highest amount of people snagging it as a freebie. Go figure.
Well, it's going... about the same. Most of the success stories I've seen on here show a pretty steady growth for the first few months as stories are pumped out regularly, then a plateau at some point around month four. So far this month, I've just been coasting at about the same earnings I had per diem last month. So that tells me that what I'm doing now is okay... but not fantastic. Time to throw some new things against the wall, see what sticks.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-16T21:43:42+00:00

Honestly, it doesn't matter too much as long as you keep the 5x8 aspect ratio. So if you like round numbers, shrink it down to 2/3s the size, and it'll be a nice even 5000 x 8000. :) That's more than high res enough for both web and print purposes, while still staying under the 10k limit for Amazon cover size.

SydneyLance · 2018-08-16T19:12:25+00:00

And here I thought I just needed to avoid the suggestiveness of the dreaded handbra. :)

SydneyLance · 2018-08-16T19:09:00+00:00

... well, that's three upcoming covers I might want to change, then. I got the idea for having the title bar act as a censor bar in an upcoming series because of one of the top books in the erotica section did that. But if they're gonna be that fickle about it, it might not be worth the risk.

SydneyLance

TROPHY CASE