Yet, I also said this: “To paraphrase the great philosopher Ali G: Is it coz Idris is black?”

If you’re attempting to solicit a reaction from an increasingly reactionary and volatile social web, it’s best to leave them both shaken and stirred.

Ian Fleming was from a different era, when MI6 agents were recruited from Oxford and Cambridge, often beginning with a polite tap on the shoulder. Those with a swathe complexion were the type most prized, since their everyman appearance allowed them to blend in almost anywhere in the world.

Times have changed, and since the SAS do not discriminate based on racial type, it’s difficult to mount a credible argument against an MI6 operative being of African descent.

Yet, this is the iconic fictional character James Bond we’re talking about, here. It isn’t the first time Idris Elba’s name has been bandied about as a replacement for the inimitable Daniel Craig, the current James Bond, and Anthony Horowitz, author of “Trigger Mortis”, the most recent antics of Mr. Bond, has an opinion on this:

“For me, Idris Elba is a bit too rough to play the part,” Horowitz told the Daily Mail. “It’s not a colour issue. I think he is probably a bit too ‘street’ for Bond. Is it a question of being suave? Yeah.”

What, you don’t like his opinion? I don’t agree with Horowitz, but I wouldn’t express to disliking his opinion, as that’s something else. Since there’s no overt racist intent to his comment, whether you might like or loathe what Horowitz said is of dwindling importance.

But the reaction on the web beggars belief. Time and again, the group think consensus appears to be: “If your thoughts are not the same as our thoughts, they are, in effect, illegal — and if not, they should be, damn it!”

What’s perhaps more ridiculous is the fact that Horowitz has been compelled to apologise for having and then expressing an opinion.

As an author, I have certain characters who would suffer were their ethnic background to change. Jo, the main protagonist in A Darkening of Fortune, is of Arabic descent, and his background relies on this, to the extent that should he be changed to — for example — Caucasian, or Afro-Caribbean, the whole novel would collapse.

So I’m able to see both sides of the argument, here. What do we take from this? The future of our suave and sophisticated secret agent James Bond, much like the character himself, is far from black and white.

I made the decision to create my own universe, or more specifically, a continuum.

“What, like the Marvel Universe?” Christy suggested.

Not quite, no. But then again, yes. I don’t pay too much attention — if any at all — to what other people are doing, as I have my own ideas.

In my universe, every novella and novel is part of a constellation of stories, each connecting with another in some way, be it a character, a technology, an event, a business, a location, or an idea.

“They won’t really care.” Christy reasoned. “The readers, I mean.”

She had a point.

“I write for myself.” I said.

Yes, I am a selfish author.

It’s the creation of these nebulous connections, and the challenge of ensuring every story is a part of the same continuum that motivates me as much as anything.

However, it does impose certain rules; certain ideas I have are out of bounds, since they do not fit within the scope of the continuum.

You’d think that there’d be plenty of room in an entire universe. No, certain genres just don’t fit.

I have made a commitment, which I intend remaining true to, come what may.

If you look at it from an external perspective — through the lens of the imaginary reader, often not anything like the real reader — it quickly becomes a series of no-win scenarios that would make even the head of John Nash spin.

So you’re writing for yourself? How vein. Are you writing to entertain? How presumptuous. What, you write to be famous? You are such an egotist. Or, are you writing in the hope that you become wealthy? How selfish.

Personally, I don’t concern myself with what people think in so far as what my reasons for writing might be. In truth, I write for all of the aforementioned reasons. But if, as a writer, you are bothered what other people think, be humble and write for respect, though I suspect that might limit your imagination.

You can’t please everyone, but it’s often easier to please yourself.

Remembrance is a mix of horror fantasy, interwoven with the tenuous threads of science fiction, and it has progressed to an advanced developmental stage. It’s a novel I’m actually quite excited about.

While that’s the story, it’s only the 1st “Act” of what I intend to be a two part treatment.

So yes, Remembrance is almost done, but Forgotten — essentially the 2nd “Act” — is only in the preliminary development stages. That said, the ideas and the main thrust of Forgotten have come together quite nicely, but require much more development.

As a web designer and developer, it’s my job to understand things like HTML, and that knowledge elevates me to a privileged by sparsely populated plateau.

So, I’m hoping I can alleviate this problem by sharing with you some advise and a template of sorts.

Editing the Goodreads Group post template

1. Firstly, go to the post by myself for A Darkening of Fortune on the Kindle Readers and Authors Group on Goodreads to see how I’ve laid things out. Like it?
2. Secondly, if you’re on a Windows PC, you’ll need to use NotePad, which you can use to open HTML files. If you’re on a Mac, I’d recommend using TextWrangler.
3. Next, download this Goodreads Group post template by right-clicking on the link and choosing the option to save or download the file, which you can then open with your chosen text editor.

Editing the body copy

Scared? Don’t worry! For the most part, HTML is self explanatory, at least for the simpler things. So long as you don’t disturb the code “tags”, you’ll be fine.

1. In the first line, you’ll see a sentence inside two “strong” tags, which instruct the web browser to display the text within them as bold. You can replace the text within the tags with your own blurb.
2. Inside the “blockquote” tags is where you place your synopsis, which should also appear within the opening (“) and the closing (”) curly double quotes. If you don’t want the double quotes, you can delete them, but be sure to delete both.
3. Okay, see the two Amazon links? Don’t worry about the code they’re inside, just replace those links with your own, making sure you don’t remove any of the code, or the two containing double quotes.

Editing the book, cover illustration and author references

Now, go to the Goodreads page for your book.

1. First, copy the link for the page in the URL bar at the top of the web browser page, and then paste and replace the similar text that’s for A Darkening of Fortune.
2. Secondly, return to your book page and right-click on the cover illustration (assuming you have one, which I strongly recommend you do). You’ll see an option to copy the image URL or link. Do that and then paste and replace the similar text that’s inside the double quotes with the “img” tag, for the “src” attribute.
3. Finally, you need to include references to your book and yourself on Goodreads. So replace the references to my book and my name (by deleting them), and use the “add book/author” button just above the big text box for the post itself.

Once you’re done, select everything and paste your code inside the big text box and press the hardly visible “preview” link next to the “post” button, to make sure everything works. Doing this should help you avoid making a mess.

If you’ve done everything correctly, you’ll have a book announcement post that looks more presentable and professional.

If you’re stuck, don’t panic! reply in the comments and explain where you think you’ve gone wrong. I’m sure we can fix it.

BeetleJack-ScissorMan by ~heckthor on deviantART

So, what’s Wayne’s writing style?

I don’t write for genres. A genre is something I only consider once I’ve written the story. If you begin to think of a genre as a means of beginning the writing process, you’re immediately compartmentalising your efforts — narrowly defining to the point of constriction.

If you’re a genre writer, that’s perfectly fine. But for someone like me, a genre is like a toolbox that contains only a hammer, and in the eyes of the builder, everything would then look like a nail.

I write whatever is necessary to transform an idea into a story.

Character driven. People buy into people before they buy from people. Once the reader believes in a character, they’re far more able to suspend their disbelief when that same character finds themselves in an unbelievable situation.

Cerebral, with a twist. Invariably, there’s a twist to everything that I write. I don’t write light entertainment. Dark themes hang like an autumnal fog, punctuated by acts of violence, occasionally breaking to reveal the light of love and the usual emotional suspects, lingering at the fringes.

I delve deeply into the themes that are shaping the world around us, such as: how science and technology interface with society; minor and major socio-political issues, using them as backdrops to the main events.

The fact is, escapism isn’t synonymous with optimism, which isn’t automatically pessimism, either. The world around us is far richer and infinitely more nuanced than it appears at first glance.

Apparently, I don’t write science fiction. Earth Day ought to be science fiction, but it’s more akin to a fable. Lucidity deals with identity, espionage and dreams. A Darkening of Fortune is a crime thriller and action adventure, but grabs racism and prejudice with both hands.

When you the reader encounter the science fiction elements, they may not even be immediately obvious to you, but that’s often a good thing.

If the science obscures the fiction — confusing the reader with jargon — then the author probably got something wrong, or they’re extremely sure of their target audience.

Incidentally, I have several out-and-out science fiction novels in the planning stages, but they’re possibly not due for several years yet.

I don’t fear writing a female protagonist. In fact, both Earth Day and Lucidity have female protagonists.

Fantasy. Fantasy? Kind of. At this point, I’d rather not explain too much, because in doing so, I’d be completely undermining the very effect I’m attempting to create, once the whole meaning is revealed. Suffice it so say, everything is connected.

Everything is connected? So many questions. Just imagine, a universe running in parallel to our own, one sewn together by sinuous threads of interconnectedness — binding characters, events, places, corporations, and technologies together.

Imagine one novel flowing into another, not as part of a series, but as a continuum. Imagine one major novel as a star, and surrounding it, a nebulous array of novellas.

Yes, it’s ambitious, of course it is. But if I make it work, it’ll be spectacular. It’s a far better thing to aim hight and come up short, than to make mediocrity your goal.

So who?

If you’re here, reading this closing paragraph, there’s every chance you are interested in my writing style, and you’re my ideal reader! Buy a book and read on…

Octane, the business through which I publish my works, is the same business I’ve been at the helm of since its inception in June 1999. I’m a designer, programmer, an occasional writer for a variety of business publications, a marketeer of sorts (a duty thrust upon many a reluctant entrepreneur) and now — finally, after many years of formulating ideas — a self-published author.

So where are these parallels of which I speak of?

Trust, and the management of expectations

Clients, much like the reader, have expectations, which I, as a businessman and a writer, must meet with. A brief may — and often does — contain promises, which are either implicitly understood, or laid out as a series of actionable tasks. By comparison, as a writer, a synopsis may merely hint at or explicitly detail what lies within a novel.

Be they a reader or a client, the synopsis or brief must not contain falsehoods, or anything else you might fail to deliver, or deliver incorrectly. Managing expectations is paramount, because if you do not, you don’t just damage trust, you risk loosing it entirely.

Always be realistic about your goal, but then strive to over deliver. I cannot express how important it is, and hugely rewarding, to exceed the expectations of a client, delivering to them not just what they were seeking, but then exceeding with things that might otherwise have been unachievable.

As a writer, the over delivery is something that you, the author, must build towards in some way that rewards the senses of the reader, to manipulate their emotions such that they feel the triumph and the tragedy as if it were real.

Accuracy, as always

As a task, reading requires concentration, and the capacity to retain certain pertinent facts, like the names of characters, events, places and such. Whereas using a website or a web application (subject to user training) has a certain mindlessness to it, whereby the visitor must not find anything too challenging such that it interrupts that passage from point of entry to achieving their expected goal.

However, in either instance, if something isn’t correct, or where the reader or the visitor expected it to be, their motion is broken and they then have to stop to think. Stop and think? Making someone think isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when they’re thinking about why something they’re doing isn’t the way it should be, or where they expected it to be, then yes, thinking becomes a bad thing.

In many ways, accuracy is an extension of trust and expectation, but it is wholly large enough to separate out and discuss in isolation. As a writer, your accuracy manifests itself in a bewildering variety. Spelling, yes. Grammar, too. Continuity — now there’s a beast with potential to make anyone look like an idiot. Readers expect these things. Visitors, too.

Accuracy, therefore, must be habitual and not some likeable, aspirational goal that we choose to explore later, when we have the time.

Being unbelievably believable

You may, on occasion, hear me say or write certain things, such as that people must first buy into people before they buy from people. Of course, you may substitute people for businesses, but in essence, the thrust of the statement remains intact.

“My name’s Wayne Smallman and I sell ideas that change the way companies do business, usually in the form of novel web applications.”

An extract from the Octane website. The key statement here is that I sell ideas. Be that while I wear the hat of a businessman, or that of an author, I’m selling ideas that, to many people, are just unbelievable. Often, a client might lack the abstract eye to see what it is that I see so clearly, which limits the extent to which I’m able to communicate any given idea, so I must employ other techniques to win their trust, which typically involves providing demonstrable evidence that I’m able to produce those unbelievable things I speak of.

Again, we’re in the realms of trust — as always. But here we veer deeply into the actual minutia of writing itself, or at least the intricacies of story telling. Think of those notable characters of cinema and book, those that you really, truly believe in. Think of the journey you either enjoyed or endured, as the protagonist fought their way from one crisis to another.

Often, the believability of the situation arises entirely as a result of your belief in that character. Because of this belief, you are then only too prepared to then suspend in situ your sense of disbelief if the situation, where you then accept the implausibility of their plight.

Of course, in writing, the genre plays a very important part. Should you shove scavenging aliens or a zombie horde into the sumptuously decadent Palai de Versailles, during the romantic times of the great kings of France, your reader might not be entirely receptive to your ideas, or appreciative.

A fundamental aspect of success — and one that is particularly difficult to control — is word-of-mouth marketing. Once people have been enriched by your works, they often strive to convince others just how unbelievable you really are. However, for me personally, this journey is one I must start afresh, as an author, since the trust I’ve amassed as a businessman is neither readily nor readily transferrable.

Final thoughts…

So, you thought being a writer was a purely creative endeavour? Yes, but only so far. But because writing is a formulaic (if you pardon the pun) process, as an activity, there are several predictable and well-defined components that you can manage either in isolation, or as a whole.

Ultimately, the end product is one borne of almost indefinable creativity. But the process by which you manage that product, once an habitual process, it is transformed into something you can, over time, come to rely on.