@JonSparks@writing.exchange
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

JonSparks

@JonSparks@writing.exchange

Had a long career as a photographer & writer about the outdoors, but now much more focused on fiction, especially SF. Author website is https://www.jonsparksauthor.com.
Lots of photos and quite a lot of words at https://jonsparks.zenfolio.com.
Still very much into the #outdoors, especially #cycling #gravelbikes (I’ve written about that too).

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

JonSparks, to books
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

3/6: Who is your most creative character?
Define ‘creative’. Conventional associations with art, music, etc, seem too narrow to me. Consider the early pages of ‘Vows and Watersheds’, where Jerya and Hedric bond over the idea of measuring the distance to the moons; is that creative? Why not?
I don’t yet have a character in print who is seriously into art, but if you can hang around for Books 5 and 6…

JonSparks, to books
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

3/6: Should books include a content warning?
I haven’t included content warnings in any of my books. I would do so if they included graphic violence or explicit sex, but I don’t tend to do that anyway. The question, of course, is where you draw the line. I do have same-sex (FF) intimacy, and if someone is offended by that, I feed that’s their problem. I’m not inclined to pander to prejudice.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

#wordweavers 30/5: Are you comfortable writing from the POV of a child? Written any?
I haven’t published anything with POV younger than about 19, but I have unpublished work that takes in considerably younger characters. One who is about ten, for example. It doesn’t feel too hard. I used to be ten, after all.
The risk, I think, is making the character too ‘childish’, not too grown up.
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth #TheSunderingWall #VowsAndWatersheds #writing #books

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

30/5: How do you achieve a sense of wonder in your stories?
Like everything else, it happens (if it does!) because I feel it myself first. There is no recipe or formula.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

29/5: How would your MC handle finding a spider in their home?
Jerya grew up living in caves. She wouldn’t have a problem in the slightest. (Fortunately the biology of the Known Lands is more like Britain than Australia, so there aren’t any venomous spiders to worry about.)

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

27/5: What's the ideal story length?
Isn’t this the ultimate beginner question? To which the only answer is:
Not too long, not too short. Probably somewhere between five words and half a million.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

27/5: What would your ideal writing group be like?
I am a Life Member of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild and have benefitted greatly from that, but I have never come across anything even remotely equivalent in the world of fiction.
https://www.owpg.org.uk

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

25/5: Do you use a cover artist or design your own covers? Share your cover art.
My non-fiction covers have been done by the publishers, often using my photos.
For my novels, I’ve done my own, again based on my own photos, using Lightroom and Photoshop. Below is the potential cover for Book 4, due in August.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

23/5: Are your MCs picky about where they sleep?
Both Jerya and Rodal grew up in a village where they slept on platforms carved from solid rock with only a thin pad stuffed with goat-hair for a mattress. And crossing the mountains they (and Railu) slept under a tarpaulin on whatever bit of vaguely smooth and level ground they could find. so, no, they’re not picky.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 23/5: What gets in the way of your writing?
Life.
Riding bikes, and cleaning them afterward. Going to coffee shops (but we have some great conversations about writing, so maybe that’s a help not a hindrance). General household chores.
And more life. How do people with full-time jobs and kids manage it?
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth #TheSunderingWall #VowsAndWatersheds #writing #books

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

22/5: Is your antagonist more a dragon or a dragon rider?
Once you’ve explained what a dragon is…
Ask Perriad and she’ll probably see herself as a dragon rider (or else as a slayer of dragons!).
Ask Jerya, or anyone else who‘s butted heads with Perriad, and they’ll see her as a dragon—and they won’t mean it as a compliment.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

#writerscoffeeclub 22/5: If someone were to write your autobiography, who would you want to write it?
Pardon?
Who else but myself?
The question is, who would want to read it?
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth #TheSunderingWall #VowsAndWatersheds #writing #books

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 21/5: Format as you write or at the end?
I format my WIP solely to suit myself—preferred font, spacing, etc. It looks nothing like Standard Manuscript Format, or like my finished books, but that’s cool. The one trick is to make consistent use of Paragraph Styles so that when needed I can change all the parameters in a few clicks.
My other essential for happy writing is never to use Word.
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth #TheSunderingWall #VowsAndWatersheds #writing #books

Uair, to bookstodon
@Uair@autistics.life avatar

@bookstodon

Idea:

Bookstores should group fantasy with horror instead of scifi. Both fantasy and horror are purely creations of the author's mind; scifi is tethered to factual information.

If you need to group scifi, I'd put it with mysteries and thrillers.

JonSparks,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@aprilfollies @alexlubertozzi @Uair @bookstodon @_L1vY_ @elysegrasso @deirdrebeth @jpaskaruk @stephenwhq You can always find examples of SF being predictively accurate. You can equally easily find examples where it’s dead wrong. Prediction isn’t what it’s really for, at least for me. It’s the exploration of possibilities.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

11/4: How effective are your newsletters in creating sales?
Not as much as I would like. I really need to do more on the promotional side, but I’m alway being drawn back to actual writing/editing and other creative stuff.
But here’s a link (with a free short story) if anyone’s interested:

https://tinyurl.com/3msanync

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

11. How much power does your antagonist have?
In the timeframe of Three Kinds of North, Perriad is Senior Tutor of the Guild of Dawnsingers, which is already a position of real power, but she isn’t satisfied. If you’ve read Vows and Watersheds, you’ll know how far she rises… and for how long she stays at the top.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

10. How much power does your MC have?
Depends where in the timeline you find her. At the opening of Three kinds of North, the answer is essentially none. By Book 4 she’ll be in a position which, if not actually powerful, is at least influential. But she’s still figuring out what to do with it.

Firlefanz, to random
@Firlefanz@writing.exchange avatar

4/10. Do you have favourite words you like to use? What are they?

I'm sure I do, and I'm just as sure I'm not aware of several of them.

However, I know that my characters sigh and smile a lot.

Maybe that's not a bad thing.

JonSparks,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@Firlefanz Ah, yes. I think mine do a lot of nodding… but what’s the alternative? The only synonyms I can think of are clunky phrases. Maybe ‘sigh’, ‘smile’ and ‘nod’ do their job so unobtrusively it’s OK. In the same way you can have ‘said’ a dozen times on one page.

NickEast, to books
@NickEast@geekdom.social avatar

I think I might prefer some of these nonspecific editions, I like my fiction a bit unspecified 😂

@fantasybookstodon
@reading @bookstodon @litstudies @books



JonSparks,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@litstudies @fantasybookstodon @bookstodon @books @NickEast @reading A Tale of Urban Areas.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

4/4: Do you feature real-world political and social issues in your work?
Yes and no. None of what I’m currently working on is contemporary, so I’m not referencing current issues directly. However, the main premise is post-apocalyptic, and the Guild of Dawnsingers basically exists, in a 21st century phrase, to ‘build back better’. The issues are there, but viewed obliquely.

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

#WordWeavers 4. Is there writing advice you used to follow but changed your mind?
I learned a very practical lesson from my very first published article, 37 years ago, about sticking to word counts. Now, as a self-published fiction writer, I have more freedom, but I hope the discipline of concision has stayed with me. Blog entry about it here: https://www.jonsparksauthor.com/post/take-it-to-the-limit
#writingCommunity #ThreeKindsofNorth #TheSunderingWall #VowsAndWatersheds #writing #books

JonSparks, to random
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

If you're remotely interested in mountains and/or mountaineering, check out my friend Ronald Turnbull's excellent Substack.Here's his latest. https://open.substack.com/pub/aboutmountains/p/meru-2015-is-this-the-best-mountain?r=jh5v5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&comments=true

JonSparks, to random
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

3/4: Do you use semicolons? Correctly?
I really don’t like the current disdain for semicolons, and I’m absolutely not going to stop using them.
My reading of Kate Atkinson’s Shrines of Gaiety (usually an author I love) was seriously spoiled because someone had obviously been through replacing semicolons with commas. Er, guys, if you’re going to do that, you need to rewrite the whole sentence. Or better, leave well alone.
Semicolons for ever!

JonSparks, to writing
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

1/4: Do you keep a journal? Would you?
No. And why?
I have a newsletter, a blog, and a Substack. If anyone wants to collect these various maunderings for posterity (ha ha) feel free.

anderlandbooks, to random German

Apr 2 What books/resources have you used to improve your writing? Which ones do you recommend?

I read some blogs, etc, but nothing that stuck to mind.
Tbh, the only thing I can truly recommend is to write, write, write. And read books of authors whose style you like. You won't copy, but you'll learn a lot when looking at them from a writer's perspective.

JonSparks,
@JonSparks@writing.exchange avatar

@anderlandbooks Agreed. I find an awful lot of writing advice boils down to “this is how I do it so it must be the right way.”
It’s like Ansel Adams (whom I revere as a photographer) said in that context: “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • mdbf
  • ngwrru68w68
  • modclub
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • JUstTest
  • normalnudes
  • osvaldo12
  • tester
  • GTA5RPClips
  • cubers
  • everett
  • tacticalgear
  • ethstaker
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • cisconetworking
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •