Tim Frankovich, Author

Writing Update

On May 11, 2019

I’m at a very slow stage in the writing. I’ve completed all the revisions and editing that I mapped out, and sent the new manuscript off to a final beta reader. I’ve also printed out a new

copy and am going through it word-by-word, doing a final polish.
My next step will be commissioning a cover. I’m considering several options for this, but am open to hearing about other possibilities, if anyone has suggestions.

After that, we’re looking toward actual publication, probably using both IngramSpark and Amazon KDP Print. This is very exciting, but also intimidating. There is a lot of work to be done in the background.
I’ll blog more when I have something more to say, review, etc.

The Hero of Destiny heeds the Call to Adventure (a tabletop game review)

By Tim Frankovich

On April 23, 2019

In Games, Writing

My life truly began the day I took my vows as a squire. I worked hard, and my bravery was noted by all those around me. When the invaders came, I stood alone to defend my homestead. This act of valor won the loyalty of my bitterest rival, who from that day on followed me. He became my sidekick, if you will.

I knew, long before anyone else, that my destiny would be a great one. For I was pure of heart, enlightened even, resisting the darkness wherever I found it. That darkness is everywhere, even within corrupt officials who tried to frame me out of jealousy. I resisted their arrest and fled into the wilderness, where I encountered the monstrous wolf that had tormented our region for years.

After slaying the beast, I returned in triumph to my home, wearing the wolf’s pelt as my trophy. In time, I became a leader of men, charging into battle ahead of them all.

And then the Warlord came, with his dark forces, his innumerable minions swarming across our land. In my darkest moment, I saw our king slain and I resorted to the only means I saw of obtaining victory. I sacrificed my own troops in battle so that I could get close enough to the Warlord himself. We dueled at the very gates of the city, back and forth for over an hour as the battle stilled about us.

I emerged victorious, slaying the man who had wreaked such havoc across our land. As his dispirited armies fled, I took my place in the palace and claimed the crown. For was I not… the Hero of Destiny?

This is but one of thousands of possible stories you can create with the game Call to Adventure. It’s a simple game, but full of excitement and delight. As in the story above, you can soar to the heights of glory as a Hero of Destiny, or be driven to despair as you take the dark path of the anti-hero, perhaps even becoming a Cunning Villain yourself. Or weave a course somewhere in between.

At the beginning of the game, you choose three base cards for your story: your Origin, your Motivation, and your final Destiny. You are dealt two of each of these, so you can choose which you would like to pursue, and find interesting combos. For example, for Origin, you might be dealt Acolyte and Hunter; for Motivation, you might choose between Bound by Honor or Lone Wanderer; and your Destiny could be Paragon of Light or Hand of Vengeance. Which will you choose? That’s entirely up to you. You could note that the Hunter Origin works well with Hand of Vengeance in mechanics and will help you pursue a points victory. Or you might just decide that Bound by Honor makes so much sense, story-wise, to become a Paragon of Light, regardless of the whole “points” thing.

Because that’s part of the beauty of this game. Yes, you can “win the game” by scoring more points than your opponents. Points are awarded based on triumph and tragedy cards, experience, hero or anti-hero cards, and icon set collections. It’s fairly easy to rack up a good score, especially if you’re actively trying. For players who are all about exploiting card combinations and winning at any cost, the game may fall a little short.
But for those who are playing for the experience, the game is brilliant. Winning is desirable, but secondary to the goal of pursuing an intriguing story.

To create your story, you choose from a tableau of cards arranged in front of the players. These cards consist of either Traits or Challenges. Traits are fairly easy to obtain, but are usually based on abilities you already possess. Those abilities are also what you will use to conquer the Challenges. Dungeons & Dragons players will immediately recognize the abilities – strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence & charisma. Taking on a Challenge to Prepare for War, for example, would require strength and/or dexterity. Dealing with an attacker in a Street Fight, could require constitution and/or charisma (because you might talk your way out instead of just brawling).

(I won’t get into all the details of the mechanics. You can find those in other reviews, videos, and the updated rulebook available as a download. The original rulebook, sadly, does leave something to be desired.)

In addition to the base game, you can also play solo versus a specific Adversary card, or even team up in cooperation against an Adversary. I’ve tried both, and while I enjoy the solo play, I much prefer the competitive over cooperative for multiplayer.

My gaming group is very eclectic in what kind of games they like. If you map each of us on the Board Games Motivation Profile, we are all very different. It’s amazing we can find games that we all enjoy, more or less. So far, Call to Adventure is one of those games. In the times we’ve played so far, I haven’t heard a single complaint about any aspect of the game. That’s about the highest praise this group can offer. That, and the fact that two of them want their own copies now, since mine won’t always be there for them.

Every game has been different so far. I do, however, concede that eventually I may get too used to these cards and it might get a little old. Fortunately, that seems to be in the distant future right now. Two expansions are on the way. One is based on Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind, and the other on Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. These will add many new cards and mechanics based on the specific storylines, magic systems, and so on of those books. While I’m excited to see what those have to offer, I must confess that after playing the game, I would actually be happier to have more “generic” cards like those in the base game. These cards are filled with fantasy tropes that are highly familiar to those of us who have read Tolkien, Jordan, and so many more, or have played other fantasy-style games, whether RPGs or tabletop. I would love to have even more of them.

As a writer myself, I love to compare the interplay of these various tropes, watching how the combine and gaining new ideas myself for future stories. It’s educational about the art of storytelling, even while it’s fun!

Maybe this is not the kind of game that appeals to you. It doesn’t have a ton of strategy. It’s definitely no Twilight Imperium (one of my favorite games of all time). But in this case, story/theme trumps strategy for me. I love it. And I can’t wait to play again.

Update – Writing & Otherwise

By Tim Frankovich

On April 12, 2019

In Real Life, Writing

I received my manuscript back from the editor. The good news is that she had high praise for the book overall. She also gave me quite a list of suggestions – revisions, editing, and so forth.

After carefully considering all of her suggestions, I made a revision plan consisting of eight steps. I’ve now completed four of those steps. Once I finish the rest, I’ll make a new printout and go over the entire thing page-by-page for the tiny details. At the same time, I’ll send it off to a final beta reader.

And then it’ll be done. Complete. Ready to move on to the publishing stage, in whatever form that now takes.

Unfortunately, I’m also now searching for a new job. It turns out that you can’t really make money before actual publication. What a shame. Anyway, this will undoubtedly take more time away from my writing until things settle down. At this point, everything is up in the air.

Brief Writing Update

By Tim Frankovich

On March 11, 2019

In Writing

Things are moving along with my current novel, Until All Curses Are Lifted. Later this week, I’ll be sending the latest revision to an editor. I’ve spent the last couple of months making some suggested changes and rewriting the first twelve chapters.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’ve really spent the last two weeks on the rewrites. Most of the rest of the time was spent in procrastination.

I’m a master at procrastination. I deserve a trophy. Or at least a ribbon. Let’s be honest here. Most writers are masters at procrastination. So we all deserve ribbons. Participation ribbons.

Procrastination Participation. Someone should design those.
I’d get right on it, but… <insert obvious joke here>

But getting back to the main topic: After I get the manuscript back from the editor toward the end of the month, I will make one final revision. The next step will be commissioning a cover. After that, we’re looking at actual publication.

The beginning is in sight.

Glass – Expectations vs. Disappointments

By Tim Frankovich

On February 13, 2019

In Movies, Writing

Every time I sit down with a story of any kind – book, movie, game, etc. – I have expectations. Everyone does. Those expectations will be based on things we heard, read, or saw about the story before beginning it.

In the case of the movie Glass, I needed no hype. Unbreakable has always been one of my favorite movies ever. The Lord of the Rings trilogy tops all, of course, but if I’m going to sit down and watch one single movie in my collection, it’s probably going to be Unbreakable. (I could write another lengthy explanation for why that is true, but that’s not the point of this blog post, so just accept it and we’ll move on.) So when I heard about the ending of Split, and then that a new movie was coming that was the long-awaited-and-dreamed-of actual sequel to Unbreakable… I needed no hype. I was ready.
I saw that the critics hated it. No big news there. Critics have hated everything Shyamalan has directed since The Sixth Sense. Even Unbreakable got mixed reviews. I ignored them and went to see for myself.

My expectations were not met. The movie had two big flaws – one excusable, and one… not. The first one is a movie problem. But the second is a storytelling problem. Without delving into deep spoilers, here are my problems:

The music. James Newton Howard’s original score for Unbreakable is beautiful. I listen to it all the time. When the familiar theme started playing at the end of Split, I got excited. I love the music almost as much as I love the story itself. Sadly, Howard did not compose the music for Glass. Was he not available? Does he cost too much now? Instead, the music was done by West Dylan Thordson, completely unknown to me. And after reviewing his credits on IMDB… he remains completely unknown to me. The Unbreakable music did show up in the movie a couple of times, but only in flashback scenes (which were actually deleted scenes from the first movie).Howard’s score for Unbreakable is moody, yet quietly uplifting. In the climax, it swells to triumphant, yet still maintaining an element of melancholy. It’s brilliant. The Glass score is… not. It’s filled with standard horror music tropes in a misguided attempt to build tension and sound creepy. When the Unbreakable music slips in, it’s so, so much better.
Ultimately, I can forgive the music if the story is brilliant. But that brings me to the second problem.
The missing character arc. I’m talking about David Dunn. You know, the hero of Unbreakable? The protagonist? The new movie seems to be primarily about him at first. (In fact, it’s kind of odd that a movie titled Glass doesn’t give its title character a single line of dialogue until at least halfway through!) It seems to be setting him up for a big, important thing at the end… and then it doesn’t. Without giving away the ending, let’s just say that David doesn’t get a satisfying conclusion to his character arc. He really doesn’t even have a character arc. He’s just there to look confused and fight the bad guys. Bruce Willis may have had more acting to do in his cameo appearance in The Lego Movie 2. Since I so loved his character development in Unbreakable, I was very disappointed in this.
Now to be clear – character arcs are not always necessary, despite what Peter Jackson says. Some characters are intended to be icons, unchanging. And that’s okay, when done right. But this movie repeatedly hints at a character arc for David, then never follows up on it.

By necessity, David is much older in this movie. His son Joseph is all grown up. So he’s been sort of a hidden superhero for many, many years. And we didn’t get to see any of that. There are some brief references to it, but that’s all. Going from Unbreakable to Glass is like reading the first issue of a comic book series, and then the final issue of that same series… without reading anything in between! Or imagine reading the first few chapters of Harry Potter… and then skipping to the last few chapters of the seventh book, without reading anything in between. A lot has changed, but you don’t know why. Glass tries to throw in explanations of those changes, but they feel forced.

They’re forced because ultimately, it seems that the continuation of David Dunn’s story isn’t the story that M. Night Shyamalan wanted to tell. He wanted to conclude the story he began in Split, drag in the connection to Unbreakable, and point out the brilliance of mastermind Mr. Glass. He accomplished all of that. But for those of us who wanted a real sequel to the original story of Unbreakable, it feels less than acceptable.

I could be wrong. I’ll watch it again when it’s finished its theatrical run. Maybe it’s better than I’m thinking right now. We’ll see whether I end up being satisfied at this conclusion to one of my favorite stories, or whether I decide to stick with my own head canon and ignore this movie altogether.

When a Story Isn't Enough – Filling in the Gaps

By Tim Frankovich

On January 22, 2019

In Movies, Writing

Most of the time, when a book is adapted into a movie, time is “sped up.” In other words, what takes a long time in the book takes a very short time in the movie, so as to keep things moving for an impatient visual audience. Action scene jumps to action scene as rapidly as possible.

As a storyteller, my mind usually works in the opposite direction. I fill in the gaps, expanding the story in my head. Obviously, this doesn’t happen all at once, but I’ve found that the longer something remains in my mind, the lengthier it gets.

For example, when I was a child in the 1980s, I saw Transformers, the movie (the animated one, AKA the good one). I did not see it again for decades.
Transformers had some truly epic moments – the death of Optimus Prime, Starscream’s final betrayal of Megatron, the coming of Unicron, and of course, “Light our darkest hour!” But when I watched the movie for only the second time, decades after the first… I was shocked to discover that these epic moments came quickly, with almost no downtime between them, connected only by more rapid-fire action scenes.

I was confused. This wasn’t how I remembered it. I remembered a sprawling epic story that contained soaring emotional moments. Had the movie been edited heavily before its release on home video? No. My memories were wrong. Or, rather, my mind had been adding to them over the years.

As best as I can tell, my story-loving and story-telling mind loved the great moments of the movie, and loved even more the greater types of story moments that the animated movie was attempting to replicate. So over the years, my memory of the movie became expanded, as I “remembered” how I wanted the movie to be.

What does this mean? I believe that deep down, we all long for epic stories. We all want to read/see stories that move us, that inspire us, that thrill our hearts. Some of us just take it a step further – by coming up with those stories ourselves. Or, when an existing story isn’t quite good enough… expanding it in our imaginations, making it become the story we wanted all along.

2018 Writing Accomplishments

By Tim Frankovich

On January 3, 2019

In Writing

I found it difficult to look back all the way to last January. A lot has happened since then, and yet almost all of it is focused on one specific task.

As the year began, I found myself around 2/3 of the way through the first draft of my epic fantasy novel (my second novel). After some struggles in January, I picked up the pace and finished it off in February.

Then began the massive revision process. I re-wrote and re-wrote, listened to beta readers, and re-wrote some more. By mid-summer, I was finally satisfied with the current draft (third or fourth?). I then set about the tasks of writing a query letter and synopsis.

Then came the dark times. Also known as Form Rejection City. I’m told every writer visits this city on a regular basis, but I do not enjoy its ambiance. I did finally get a partial manuscript request from one agent, but it was followed by a rejection only a few days later.

Looking toward possibly self-publishing, I scraped up enough money to hire an editor for the first quarter of the novel. As documented in the last post, I received some very encouraging feedback and advice. I’m now back to re-writing again. This time, I actually have something to help guide me.

I only wrote twelve blog posts in 2018. That’s pathetic and I need to work on that.

I wrote a very, very rough draft of a short story that ties in to the novel. It’s not really even complete and needs major revision. It’s funny how the short story is taking far longer than huge portions of the novel.

I brainstormed multiple other books. I outlined the rest of the epic fantasy series, and I even wrote some opening pages of a separate novel.

Honestly, this is a disappointing output. I know 2018 had its difficulties in other ways, but I feel like I could have done much, much more.

2019 is here, and while I haven’t made resolutions, per se, I am determined to substantially increase my writing output. The revisions to my novel’s opening chapters are making me reconsider my earlier decision to move toward self-publishing. I’m still leaning that way, but I may send out a few more queries once this revision is done, just to test the waters.

In the meantime, I will continue to educate myself further on all aspects of the publishing business. I will revise, re-write, and revise some more until this novel is as perfect as I can make it. If I can afford it, I will get the rest of it professionally edited, as well. I will finish that short story. And I will start on at least one other novel, either the second in the epic fantasy series, or another standalone. At the latest, I’ll work on that during NaNoWriMo.

2019 holds many possibilities. If I’m up to the challenges, it should be very rewarding.

A Tale of Two Protagonists

By Tim Frankovich

On December 14, 2018

In Writing

Recently, I received some very constructive criticism from my editor. The central problem she experienced with the first few chapters of my novel was difficulty liking/identifying with one of the protagonists.

The novel has two protagonists – one male, one female. During beta reader feedback, readers told me multiple times how much they liked the female protagonist. None of them complained about the male protagonist, but they didn’t have much to say about him, either. Combine that with the editor’s feedback, and I clearly have an issue.

I already have a plan outlined for dealing with this issue, and might write more about that later. But this blog post is concerned with something different: the writing process that led to this issue.

I’ve always been fascinated by the writing process. That’s why I’ve always loved Christopher Tolkien’s History of Middle-Earth volumes that showed his father’s decades-long process for writing The Lord of the Rings and his other books. I also read and listen to numerous blogs and podcasts about writing. In this case, to my delight, I was able to study myself and learn from my own process.

When I began this novel, I had an overarching basic plot in mind, and a fairly specific plot arc related to the male protagonist. I knew exactly where he needed to be at different points in the book and where he would end up and so on.

But the female protagonist was still somewhat of a mystery to me. I had a vague idea of what would happen with her, but very few specifics. Her side of the story would ultimately come more from discovery writing. Her story did come to me as I was writing, more and more as the process developed. (See, for example, this blog post.)

(As an aside, for my non-writer readers, “discovery writing” could also be called seat-of-the-pants or “pantser” style writing, where the writer “discovers” the story while actually writing it. This is generally considered the opposite of “plotter” style writing, where the writer has a definite outlined plot before actually beginning to write. Both of these are wide designations, with much cross-over.)

It’s not so much the plot in question here, however. It’s the actual characters. Readers have no trouble identifying with and loving the female protagonist, but they seem to have difficulty with the male protagonist’s character (or lack thereof).

Does this mean I shouldn’t ever outline again and write everything by the seat of my pants? Probably not. Does it mean my discovery writing is stronger than my plotted writing? Maybe.

More than that, I think the primary writing lesson I can learn from this is: Be careful not to be so locked into the plot that you forget the actual characters. In my focus on moving the male protagonist from plot point A to plot point B and so on, I failed to make him an engaging character on his own.

Considering how much junk I put this guy through, it’s kind of important that people care about him…

Where do I go next?

By Tim Frankovich

On November 20, 2018

In Writing

Over the past two years, I have been embarked on a voyage to publication. It’s been a voyage of discovery, of learning and excitement. Unfortunately, it’s also been a voyage of disillusionment and rejection, and I’ve grown tired of it. I’m now mostly convinced that it’s time for the voyage to swerve in a different direction.
During this time, I have written two books, a YA fantasy/sci-fi hybrid, and an adult epic fantasy. I’m proud of both of them, and my readers so far seem impressed. Both have series potential.
But this has not translated to any type of success in the traditional publishing realm. Between the two books, I have now received over one hundred rejections from literary agents. Of those one hundred, NINETY-FIVE were nothing more than form letters. Four had a couple of extra sentences added. One, just a month ago, requested a partial manuscript, then rejected it two days later. None of them offered any real advice for improvement. None offered any solid reasons for the rejection beyond vague subjective things like the standard “I’m not the right fit for this one.”
Do I believe the books could be improved? Absolutely. In fact, virtually all books could be improved, even after publication. But lacking any substantive advice, I have no basis for tampering further with my books. However, I am beginning to work with an editor, so we’ll see what comes of that.
I have followed all the rules. Every week, I see a new article from an agent with a list of “what not to do” or something like that. Since my earliest attempts at querying, none of those lists have applied to me. I’ve done nothing on any of their lists that would immediately lead to rejection. I’ve even kept my public social media banal and avoided any subject matter (politics, etc.) that would offend anyone at all.
Is it the subject matter of the books themselves? One agent did hint on my first book that it seemed dystopian and the market had become pretty full of that lately. That’s fair, I suppose, but it’s not really a dystopian novel. And that’s not the issue with the epic fantasy, but it’s been rejected in the same way, from many of the same agents.
I have three choices:

Give up. Abandon writing.
Set yet another book aside. Write another new one and start the process all over again.
Consider independent publishing.

Number one is not really an option. Number two is one that I know many writers have taken, and experienced success eventually. However, the thought of doing that right now feels incredibly depressing. Number three is the choice I’m leaning toward. I know other people who have had great success in self-publishing, and I’m hoping that I can do even a fraction as well as they have done.
This is not a process that I will undertake lightly. It’s going to require a lot of work. I already mentioned that I’m beginning work with an editor. At the same time, I’m writing a short story that will be available as a giveaway on this website and through a mailing list I’ll be starting soon. I will be looking into other marketing methods and deciding on the exact best course moving forward.
The voyage is changing courses, but the ultimate goal remains the same. Actual publication is now closer than it’s ever been, though not in the original fashion I desired. Please continue to follow me on this journey. I can promise some excitement to come…

Agents of SHIELD and Fulfilling Your Promises

By Tim Frankovich

On October 17, 2018

In TV, Writing

One strong bit of writing advice I’ve seen repeatedly over the past few years is: fulfill the promises you make to the readers. By “promises,” what is meant is an indication within the story that something will happen or be explored. Writers make many promises to their readers throughout a story, sometimes without even realizing it. This ties in strongly with the “Chekhov’s Gun” concept or trope (look it up). This is not quite the same as foreshadowing, though the two concepts are linked.
For example, in the opening pages of my current novel, a surprising character wields a very expensive looking sword. A few pages later, that sword is missing. If I never mentioned the sword again in the book, that would be a pretty flagrant breaking of a promise to the readers. Obviously, the sword must be important somehow, and I need to bring it back up again later. That’s a clear promise to the reader.
This whole concept has really come home to me the last couple of weeks. I’ve been rewatching the TV series Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD with my son (it’s his first time seeing it). I had vague memories of season one, which started back in 2013. Mainly what I remembered is that much of the first season wasn’t very good, as if the series was kind of just spinning its wheels until Captain America: Winter Soldier came out and changed everything. After that, it took off, got steadily better season-after-season, and never slowed down again.
As I rewatched it, I was reminded of the promises concept. Many times in the first season, the show threw out names and concepts familiar to long-time comic book readers, and then never followed up on them. It was a classic example of not fulfilling what was promised.
Before I go any further, I’m giving a spoiler warning. I’m going to discuss some very specific plot elements from multiple seasons of the show, including the most recent (five). If you don’t want that, stop reading now, go watch them all, then come back. I’ll wait.
Actually, no. I won’t wait. That’s a lot of TV for you to binge through. I’ll just keep going now.
Here’s the big surprise in all of this: Agents of SHIELD DID fulfill some of their biggest promises – but not until season five! I have no idea if this was planned all along or not.
In some of the very first episodes of season one, the agents uncover this strange element called “gravitonium” (stop laughing; still better than “unobtanium”). They also meet the scientist studying it: Dr. Franklin Hall. All of that added up to one thing to comic book readers: Graviton! In Marvel Comics, Graviton is a massively powerful super-villain, with the power to manipulate gravity itself. And he started out as an ordinary scientist named… Franklin Hall. In the show, when Dr. Hall is absorbed into the gravitonium itself, and one final stinger scene shows his hand reaching back out of it… it’s a clear set-up. It’s a promise to the viewer: Graviton is coming!
Except he didn’t. The gravitonium showed up briefly in a couple more episodes late in the season… and then was never mentioned again. It was a huge disappointment. So why did the TV show do this? Budgetary concerns? Marvel telling them they couldn’t use that character after all? A change in the direction of the show? We may never know.
But then something happened early in season five that made long-time viewers sit up and pay attention. Someone name-dropped gravitonium again. It became an important plot element all of a sudden. Wow.
And then: shock of all shocks. In the final storyline of season five, Graviton arrives. Yes, it was totally different from the comic book in the way that it happened, but it made perfect sense for the show. One major element had me kicking myself for not guessing it ahead of time.
The promise from early season one was finally fulfilled in late season five. Amazing.
That’s not the only example. Multiple other plot elements that seemed to be tossed aside or forgotten came back at least briefly in season five. I have no idea if any of this had been planned ahead of time. More likely, the writers group for the show looked back and asked something like, “what can we bring back here during what might be our final season, that will reward our long-time viewers?”
Either way, it was immensely satisfying. And that’s what writers should be aiming to do for their readers.
But hopefully, it happens sooner than five books into a series…