I took another pistol class last Saturday. It was taught by a friend of mine, George Hill, the Ogre of www.madogre.com.  George has teamed up with Crusader Weaponry to teach carbine, shotgun, and pistol out at the Buckskin Hills range in Vernal.  This was his basic class, but I never turn down any opportunity to take any shooting class, ever. Even the worst class I’ve ever taken I’ve still managed to learn something, even if it was, “I will never do THAT!”  Luckily, since George is an awesome instructor, it was totally worth the refresher.

My buddy/D6 co-author Nightcrawler had just gotten back from EOD school, and hadn’t hardly shot for a year. I’m rusty as heck, and the last time I’ve actually managed to touch off a round was about six months ago. (Yes, I know, I suck—but in my defense, deadlines and moving!) Hopefully, we figured we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves too badly.  To help not look like a completely ineffectual dork, I decided to take my STI Cheater Heater, i.e. the gun that makes me look like I’m better than I actually am.  This was a surprisingly easy decision, since because of the move, I’ve only kept out three handguns, one is a teensy-tiny Kahr MK9, the other is a poly Kimber 1911 but somehow I managed to pack all my spare mags for it in the wrong box, that is buried somewhere in storage.

Then, I discovered that somebody who helped me move had very helpfully put the box that held most of my holsters and gear into the wrong truck, so all my good stuff for the STI was stashed somewhere in the storage unit. (yes, building a house is a pain).  Because the STI 4.15 Tactical is an odd gun, you can’t just pick up good kydex at Sportsman’s.  I tried to get a good range holster shipped in, and managed to get one on the way (thanks, Rabbit) but it didn’t arrive in time, so I ended up sticking my $1,500 gun into a floppy, crappy, $20 Uncle Mike’s Nylon POS pancake.   Bleh. Good holsters spoil you.

On Saturday, at the absurd hour of 4:30 in the AM, Nightcrawler and I set out on the four hour drive to Vernal.  The Uintah Basin is a pretty area, and would probably do just fine if society collapsed, provided they even noticed.  I made one last ditch stop at George’s store Basin Sports in Vernal to see if they had something better than the Uncle Mike’s for my STI, but no luck. Though it was pretty awesome for my ego when I opened my pistol case and the guy at the counter saw my MHI grips and said “Holy crap! Are you Larry Correia!?” Normally, when I get that reaction it is because A. I somehow owe them money. Or B. They want me to autograph a book.  Luckily this was B.

We hit the range and class started at 9:00. The Buckskin Hill’s range is nice and has a great view. I don’t think I’d seen George in person since 2008. We got rolling, and had a great time. It took me a few mags to get warmed up, but after I got switched on, I shot surprisingly well.

Nightcrawler did extremely well. He’s an odd duck, in that he’s a young guy who shoots a revolver, and to be even weirder, he does it left handed.  This was about a 250 round class, so as you can imagine, he really had to work those speed loaders.  With me shooting my half-a-box of 9mm per mag STI, he had to reload 3 or 4 times for every one of mine. But the scary thing is, that even with all that reloading, Mike keeps up.  The two of us were the most experienced shooters amongst the students,  so it was a good thing that we actually represented, because George really talked us up to the others before we got started.  Nightcrawler also surprised everyone at one point by running his .357 dry with two targets left on a drill, but smoothly drawing his .38 snubby backup from his pocket to give each a controlled pair. He also managed to do it on video, so Mike wins the internets. 

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515183747#!/video/video.php?v=1260140233023&ref=mf

Dave Sohm and his father showed up to do some videotaping for George.  Dave was one of my old students, and it was really good to see that he’s still shooting really well.  Plus, I’m glad he brought his dad, because as they were being introduced, he stopped, and said, “Wow. You’re Larry Correia? THE Larry Correia?”  And I didn’t owe him money, either!  This novelist thing is pretty sweet.

I felt rusty, and my movements weren’t nearly as efficient as they should be. I’ve been neglecting my practice for too long, and have been too busy to shoot any 3gun, IPSC, or IDPA, and it showed, but I do have to admit that I’m pretty pleased with how I did overall.  I brought close to 300 rounds, fired all of them, but only missed about ten shots (and I remember Every. Single. One.)  My personal belief is that when I’m shooting a 9mm, I try to shoot twice as much as everybody else, that way they can’t give me any crap about shooting a wimpy cartridge. And I so love my STI. It really does shoot like a .22.  So my goal when I shoot a 9mm is to make that thing sound like a full auto.  For example, here Mike and I engage a target while retreating. I think I fired ten rounds on that one, all COM hits.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515183747#!/video/video.php?v=1260166553681&ref=mf

George’s class was great.  The refresher was good, and it was even better to see the new folks soaking up information. He really is a personable teacher, and has a good set of instruction.  If you are looking for some firearms instruction in the Utah area, I totally recommend giving the Mad Ogre a call. Plus, he’s running for the Utah state legislature. This is the kind of guy who needs our support. I have no doubt George would kick ass in the legislature.

I’m taking a pistol class tomorrow. I’ve not been shooting in like, forever. That’s what happens when you’re building a house and have deadlines.  Of course, I discovered that most of my gear is somewhere at the bottom of a giant pile of crap in a storage unit.  I bought a new pair of electronic ears and (fingers-crossed) I’ve got a BladeTech holster arriving today. (because Rabbit is the Man).  It is kind of ironic for the guy who used to own a gunstore to come to a class with cobbled together crap for equipment.

On that note, don’t worry. I still have my emergency zombie response kit. Nobody tried to pack it, but that’s probably because a 3X armored vest with ballistic plates and 300 rounds of 5.56 TAP in the pouches is too heavy for most people to get into a cardboard box.

I was watching the news at lunch. Apparently somebody left a cooler out in Times Square, so there was a bomb scare and every channel was tuned in for the breaking coverage… of a cooler. Sitting there.  It wasn’t even a very big cooler.  The news anchors (who are all from New York) were going on about just exactly where this cooler was in relation to the Marriot or the Best Western, or whatever the hell other useless geography factoid 99% of the country doesn’t care about. This is just further proof that the news thinks everything revolves around New York.  Meanwhile, Nashville is completely flooded, thousands of homes are destroyed, and people have died.  Zip. No coverage at all.  Ironic that.

Last week a moron made a really crappy bomb and left it in Times Square.  Luckily the bomb was a total piece of crap and failed to do anything interesting. I built better bombs than that when I was fourteen.  So once again, our Random Dutchmen defense pays off for Janet Napolitano.  As long as we are only attacked by really dumb terrorists, this strategy should continue to pay off.

Some media wizard was dissapointed when the idiot bomber turned out to be a Pakistani. Apparently they had really been hoping that it had been a “tea-bagger.”  That says a lot about the current state of affairs in our media.

On that note, tea-bagger has become a really popular term, even being used by Obama himself, which just shows what a classy guy he is.  Whatever, keep on using the term.  We don’t really mind. In fact, since you guys can’t actually win any arguments or point out where the Tea Partiers are wrong, just run with the name calling… And don’t forget to always add that we’re racist. Racism is like the cherry on top.

My wife found a new type of candy at a store the other day. Apparently they are religious themed chocolate mints called, and I’m not making this up, “TestaMints”.  This immediately caused us to start coming up with some advertising slogans. My favorites were “Baptize your mouth with Flavor! TestaMints!”  and “Call bad breath to repentance! With TestaMints!”  And despite this blog comment, I bet not a single fundamentalist baptist will threaten to saw my head off.  They’re cool like that.  

The house is coming along. We’ve now got basement walls, main line plumbing, and they’ve backfilled and put in the window wells. No floor yet. I think the county needs to approve the plumbing before they cover it up.  I’m dying to have a house again.

In writing news, with Nightcrawler back from EOD school, we can now put the finishing touches on Dead Six. I think you guys are going to really like this one.

This was posted to the comments last time.

Here is a new writing question for you. What is the best way for a writer to include guns in his/her novel convincingly if he/she has little experience with them? I have ideas for novels involving a lot of firepower, but having lived in mostly gun-unfriendly states (NJ, MA) I don’t have enough experience (ok virtually none) to be able to write about them in a realistic manner. Thanks. – Scott

That’s a great question, and one that I am actually qualified to help with.  For those of you just joining us,  before I was a professional writer, I was a merchant of death (sometimes called a gun dealer in areas outside of Jersey) and a crazy-militia-extremist-terrorist training camp leader (usually known as a Firearms Instructor in places other than Massachusetts).

Guns are great in fiction. If you write anything even vaguely contemporary, and there is an element of danger in it, then there will probably be guns.  Thrillers need guns. Horror is much better with guns. I’m a huge fan of guns in fantasy. Sensitive Oprah book club selections… they definitely need more guns.  

So how do you write good gun stuff?

Guns & Character

You thought I was going to start with technical esoteric factoids, didn’t you?  (pistols have magazines, not clips, there).  Nope. Well written characters are the basis for having good gun stuff in your fiction.

Keep in mind the background of your PoV character. Guns are an everyday part of life for a giant chunk of America.  To us, they are not some weird, scary, mystical item, they’re another cool tool, like a cordless drill, or the George Foreman Grill.  I hate Hate HATE when I read a thriller, where the hero (usually a former Navy SEAL/Ranger/Commando/CIA Ninja) will have some bizarre disdain for firearms, usually from the author’s own personal bias creeping in.  That does not fit the character at all. People who make their living with guns won’t have a psychological dislike for their guns anymore than a NASCAR driver will have a pathological distaste for driving.  Remember the idiotic Lethal Weapon (3? 4?) movie where the director suddenly got on an anti-gun kick, and all of a sudden Mel Gibson’s vet/ninja/assassin/super-cop character, who’s shot 4,000 people with a Beretta in the previous movies, got all sorts of snooty and disdainful about the evil scourge of guns on the street?   Hell, Lethal Weapon 1 was the reason most of us bought Berettas to begin with back then.

If your PoV character falls into the “gun culture” then he will respect his weapons and probably enjoy them.  Now, not all characters with guns need to be a member of the gun culture though.  If the person is an excellent shot under stress (like all thriller heroes) then odds are they are in the gun culture. Cops carry guns, but most of them are relatively clueless about them, and only carry one because it is a job requirement.  If your PoV character falls into that category, then don’t expect them to have buckets of knowledge (and also don’t expect them to shoot very well either). 

Shooting is a skill. Any moron can pick up a gun and shoot it, but it actually takes practice to become good with one.  The insane level of skill demonstrated by most fictional protagonists would only come from somebody who actually enjoys shooting enough to go out and do it on their own time.  Keep that in mind for your characters. Combative shooting is a martial art.  For the love of St. Browning, don’t do that horrible Kung Fu Panda crap where you can defeat somebody who’s trained their entire life because you “believe in yourself”. 

Is your character somebody who is new to guns, but got one because of the events of your plot?  Maybe they will be awkward. They won’t know the details. They will use the wrong terminology. They will probably be clumsy and slow.  Maybe they grew up on a farm and have to think back to the marksmanship lessons their grandfather gave them.  Maybe they are a clueless lefty suburbanite who has to get out of their comfort zone and associate with an evil right-wing death monger instructor (hey, I know that guy) in order to actually learn to defend themselves from the zombies.  They may have psychological hang ups.  How should I know, it’s your character. Make them interesting.

Now as a gun nut, who has had success writing about the adventures of a gun nut, my character will be the kind of person who will spout off all sorts of interesting factoids and jargon. (don’t overdue it, Yes, I am guilty, but I’ll get to that).  If your character is not a gun nut, then they probably won’t pontificate on muzzle velocity and bullet drop of their rifle.  It’ll more likely be “This thing is heavy” or “Oww! My ears!” Stay faithful to your character.

Riot Nerd Weapon Speak

One of my first proof readers, John Shirley (also a gun nut), used the term “Riot Nerd Weapon Speak” to describe my needless info dumps that would cause most reader’s eyes to glaze over.  (believe it or not, the version of MHI you read was actually cleaned up quite a bit) So don’t make it boring.  That’s a fine line for some of us, because trust me, I could easily write six paragraphs describing how awesome a particular weapon is, but 92% of my readers will skim it.  Elmore Leonard (I think it was him, but I paid no attention in English) once said “don’t write the parts people are going to skip.”

Now, if you are posting fiction on the excellent creative writing section over on www.wethearmed.com or you got started like me posting an online serial at www.thehighroad.org then you can write for your audience, and put in every juicy gun detail you feel like. Just be aware that outside of the gun culture, some people are going to fall asleep.  This makes actually getting published kind of difficult.

Avoid info dumps whenever possible, unless you are Tom Clancy, and that’s what you’re getting paid for.  You don’t need to do a complete inventory of a character’s equipment before they enter the fight scene. This is not a role playing game.  And yes, I’ve violated this one, too. So if you’re going to do it, at least try to make it interesting.  Give the equipment information in little bits, interspaced with the rest of the story.  Don’t just hammer the reader over the head with a giant equipment list…

…Unless it is really awesome.  I’m not one of those people who gets hung up on “rules of writing”. That is crap for college professors and people on the internet who’ve never actually written anything.  If it is awesome, and your readers like it, write it.  I info-dumped the hell out of one gun in MHI, but Abomination is borderline a character. (and strangely enough, a really popular one). 

Details

Now this is the part that may require a bit of research. Some writers love research, some of us hate it.  I fall into the love it camp.  I read a four foot stack of history books before I wrote Grimnoir, and I probably still screwed stuff up. If guns are going to be an integral part of your story, then you may have to do some research.  The two webpages I linked to above are filled with great discussion and is mostly technically correct. (remember, advice on the internet is worth what you paid for it). 

Terminology needs to be as correct as possible, but keep in mind the character.  If the character is a hard core shooter, then they will never refer to a pistol’s magazine as a clip. They are magazines.  If they’re Sally Soccermom who just picked up a gun off a partially devoured cop and is fighting off hordes of suddenly (and mysteriously) ravenous squirrels, then she may very well need another “clip” . 

But that’s perception. Now let’s get to reality, and the things that regardless of character, fiction usually manages to get wrong.  Bullet impacts do not lift people up and throw them.  Any weapon that had enough energy to hurl the target backwards, would have so much recoil that it would launch the shooter in the opposite direction. When you shoot somebody with a pistol, you poke a hole in them. That’s it. They will not fly backwards through the air, through a window, do a flip, and catch on fire. (despite how awesome Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis was…)

Rifles and shotguns do more damage than handguns.  Anybody who has a clue, if given the option in a gun fight, will take a long gun or a handgun.  Anything with a stock is easier to aim than something without.  Cop shows where the cop shows he means serious business by opening up a case and strapping on ten different handguns… Crap.  Realistically, the case would open and there would be a rifle inside of it.

Most of the things people hide behind in movies will not stop a properly motivated bullet. Car door. Nope. Sheet rock. Nope.  That said, every little bit helps, but bullets penetrate. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

There are more than one kind of “bulletproof” vests.  The kinds that can be hidden under a shirt will only stop pistol rounds.  The kind capable of stopping rifle bullets have big ceramic plates in them and are very bulky.  Despite what you see on TV, there is no such thing as a cop-killer bullet.  Spraying your bullets with Teflon will not suddenly make them go through vests, but Teflon will make it so that your scrambled eggs do not stick to the pan as much.

Shotguns do not throw a boulder of death so big that you don’t need to aim. A shotgun still needs to be aimed.  Pattern size varies depending on a lot of factors, but across the largest room of your house, a buckshot pattern is probably only the size of a softball, unless you have a really big house, then it might be the size of a basketball. 

Despite all the cop shows that indicate otherwise, most states do not have any sort of gun registration.  This week on Crime Scene Undercover Special Prosecutors Unit. “The victim was shot with this bullet.” “Don’t worry, our giant super computer says that bullet was registered to Drake Del Fuego.” Dum DUM DUH!!!!!   Also, that whole thing with matching the fired bullets up to some giant database… It doesn’t work the vast majority of the time either.  But all the stuff that CSI gets wrong would fill a really big book, like frozen meat bullets… That’s just idiotic. Don’t get me started.

Most professionals keep a round in the chamber of their weapon while they are carrying it. Only in the movies does the hero pause to dramatically rack the slide of his pistol before heading into to the climactic battle scene.  “Wow! He means business now!” 

Some guns have manual safeties. Some do not. The vast majority of revolvers don’t. 

 Techniques for the Advanced Writer

Shoot guns.  I know that is kind of crazy, but if you’re going to write about them, you may want to actually try them. You might actually find that they are fun.  Plus, no matter how much somebody tells you about doing something, nothing will hit home like doing it yourself.  I promise that your scenes will be more realistic and visceral once you’ve actually done it yourself.

Techniques for the Super Advanced Best Selling Writer with a closet full of awards

Once you become an actual gun nut, you’ll find that you’ll be able to just look at a gun, and that gun will just want to tell you the story of the fascinating character that used it.  Rusty Winchester 30-30 with the stock held on by black electrical tape… The old man that used that gun has seen some things.   I see an old .38 Super Colt, and I think of a tough P.I.  chasing down leads in a seedy back alley. I see a beat up Inglis High-Power, and there’s an African mercenary who crossed a diamond exchange.  This only works with guns that have character of course.  Sorry, but when I see an HK Mk.23, I see some guy who drives a Hummer, who spends too much time on the internet, and has more money than sense.  And when I see a Desert Eagle, I see somebody who has played way too many videogames (probably calls it a Deagle), and if it is gold plated, I can’t see anything through the tears of sadness.   See?  The gun culture people got that, everybody else skimmed it.

Picking a particular gun for a character

In Hard Magic, (I’ll stick with the free sample chapters, because most of you have read those I’m guessing) I’ve got one character who buys her first gun.  She isn’t an expert. She knows zip about terminology. Her experience is using her Grandpa’s shotgun on crows around the farm. She buys a crappy little Iver Johnson .32 revolver because it will fit in her pocket, and it and a box of 50 cartridges is only ten whole dollars!  Her experience is limited, but she’s a very practical country girl, so she goes behind the store and shoots two cylinders worth of ammo at a stump to make sure it works. Faye is proud that she hit the stump. Mostly.

Then I’ve got another character who is a veteran and gunman. This guy is tough, practical, no BS, and has made his living by his ability to kick ass.  He’s not flashy, but he does appreciate, care for, and respect his hardware. Sullivan would be dangerous with any gun you put in his hands.  At one point his Colt 1911 is broken. He is bothered because the 1911 was expensive, and he is inherently cheap, but he immediately starts carrying a .38 Smith because it was available.  He’s not the emotional type.  The man loses a Lewis gun and doesn’t freak out. I’d still be depressed.

The kind of gun a character shows up with can tell you about them. From Dirty Harry’s  .44 Mag model 29, to James Bond’s PPK,  a signature weapon can say a lot about a character’s nature.

When I was last on tour with John Brown, he had just finished a thriller where the main character was an assassin who carried a Glock. John is not a gunnie, and he asked if that was appropriate, since the Glock is kind of the plain vanilla of the gun world.  In this case, you’ve got a guy who is all business, who is going to whack somebody, and then maybe have to ditch the weapon, and then go with another one that is exactly the same later. That actually sounds like a perfect character match to me.

The proper gun can flesh out a character.

Recently I’ve gotten a bunch of questions via e-mail, blog comments, and Facebook. Apparently I have a reputation of like, knowing stuff, or something. It must be because I now, like all really important people, have my own Wikipedia entry. Not surprisingly the questions are mostly related to guns or writing, two things which I know more about than say, crocheting or racquetball.  I usually just stammer some answer, embarrassed that I snookered somebody into thinking I’ve got a clue, but I got a really good one yesterday that I had to think about, and I thought it might make a good blog post.

Dear Correia, should I use 1^st person or 3^rd person for my book?

Great question. Got this one on FB yesterday from an aspiring writer, (paraphrased obviously), and I told him that I’d have to think about it some.

I’ve written books in 1^st and 3^rd. I like them both, but for different reasons.  For those of you who didn’t pay any attention in high school English (don’t feel bad, neither did I, and now I get paid to make crap up) 1^st person would be a story told where the narrator is a character, and everything is from their perspective.  This is like when you’re telling your friends a story. “So then I punched the grizzly bear in the face!”.  3^rd person is an outside narrator talking about other characters. “Jim punched the grizzly bear in the face!”  You get the picture.

Either way Jim gets eaten by a bear, but the difference is what kind of story you want to tell.

In Monster Hunter International, Owen Pitt is the point of view character and everything is told through his eyes. The major plus side of 1^st person is that you can tell a very detailed story and really get into one person’s head.  Internal dialog is easy, and you can get the reader into the narrator’s shoes.  The downside is that you are limited in that you can really only see what one character can see, so you can’t tell as big of a story.  (some people asked why MHI had the magical elements of jumping around and reliving another character’s memory, well, dirty little secret, it is because it allowed me to write in 1^st person and tell a bigger story, because cheating is totally cool if you can get away with it, see below on cheating).   

The greatest trap of 1^st person is doing the really boring – “I walked into the room. I saw Jim’s body. I saw the bear. I smelled the blood. I saw the bear smiling at me. I decided that Jim’s bear punching idea was bad.”   Please don’t do that. That is a boring travelogue. You can talk about how things are without directly running it through your narrator.  Things just are, so tell the story.  This is not a slide show, mix it up to keep your reader interested.  “There was Jim’s body, hopelessly mangled. Blood coated the walls. The bear smiled. Apparently Jim’s bear punching plan hadn’t worked out.”

MHI and MHV are written in 1^st person, mostly because Owen Zastava Pitt is one really funny dude, and therefore it was more fun for me to write that way. And if it isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong.

3^rd person lets you tell a bigger story because you’re not limited to just one character’s perspective. You can still get into people’s heads, but it tends to be harder to make it feel immediate.  The vast majority of fiction is in the 3^rd person for this reason.  It is strategically hard to place one character at every single event of importance.  Hard Magic is written in the 3^rd person because I wanted to write an epic fantasy (well, believe it or not, that is actually how it started).  I could still get into the character’s heads, but now my primary point of view characters were Jake Sullivan and Sally Faye Vierra, who get about half the scenes, then I’ve got Madi, Cornelius, Travelin’ Joe, Francis, Dan, Harkeness, Black Jack Pershing, and John Moses Browning who each get some scenes told from their perspective. There are even a few individual scenes told from a really minor person’s POV who you never really get to know, just because for that one second they had the most interesting take on the action. Like the minor gangster getting tossed out a window by a Heavy or a random guard who loses his head to a teleporting magic ninja.

The downside of this is that some people don’t like the jumping around.  Well, you can’t please everybody.  I think most of the airport-bookstore bestsellers are garbage too, so shows what I know.  With 3^rd person, try to stay interesting.  A challenge is that it is harder to get inside all those other heads as convincingly, and it really does help if you tie everything together.

Now there are hybrids too, which can be considered cheating. Which I personally think is awesome, because if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying hard enough.  Dead Six is written in 1^st person, but it has two narrators, which allows us to tell a much bigger story, because we’re not limited to just one person through all the events.  As a plus, because I’m co-writing this with Mike Kupari, and each of us has taken one PoV character as our own, the two have very distinct voices.  

Now in the sequel to D6, Swords of Exodus, the plot got even more complicated.  We had a few elements that there was absolutely no way either of our PoV characters could have known when we needed them to be known. So we cheated. We took one of the supporting characters (a really popular one) who was not even around for the events of SoE, and we gave his journals to one of our PoV characters. Problem solved. We stuck with our same format, but cheated and added in what was almost a third 1^st person. (plus it turns out that Bob Lorenzo is a hard core conspiracy theorist/vigilante/bad ass, so that made for some damn good journal).

Like I said before, I cheated in MHI by using magic. I do so again in Monster Hunter Vendetta.  Why? Because I wanted to mix stuff up. I cheat, so you guys can be entertained.  Not everybody likes those parts, but then again, there were people that reviewed MHI who thought it would have been better with less action, fewer monsters, or not as many guns… so once again, you can’t make everybody happy, and some reviewers are just smoking crack.

There is a downside to cheating though.  You’ve got to be smooth to get away with it. If it is your first book, and you break the format away from tradition, it becomes that much harder to sell to an editor.  Nobody knows you. You are not famous. So don’t go nuts.

When originally asked on FB, I suggested that he should check out Dan Simmons’ Endymion.  It is written in 1^st person and 3^rd person in a very creative manner. He does something similar in the earlier Hyperion where it is seven stories retold in different ways by different narrators, and then gets even weirder in Illium. I’m talking 1^st, 3^rd, poetry, memory, journals, dreams, hell, for all I know there might be some 2^nd in there, and I don’t even know what that means. But then I thought about it. That might not be the best example of how to do stuff, because he’s Dan Friggin’ Simmons, who I happen to think is probably the single most badass writer alive. Dan Simmons can do stuff like that, but most of the rest of us can’t, because he’s like the Michael Jordan of writing.  You can ask Michael Jordan how to play basketball, and he’ll just tell you to leap from half court through five defenders and dunk it backwards, because he’s just that awesome.

On that note, how would it be, to be Dan Simmons’ editor, and he comes to you and says, “Yeah, I want to write a book about the Trojan War, on Mars, only in the future/past, and there are space Jews on Earth, and killer Muslim robots, but it’s okay, because the space Jews teleport, but then they walk under the ocean to Peru, and there’s dinosaurs, and the giant heads from Easter Island, only they’re actually put there by characters from the Tempest, and the narrator is a dead college professor who gets it on with Helen of Troy and two robots from Jupiter, one of whom loves to quote Proust, and Odysseus, and this one narrator gets eaten by a Tyrannosaurs Rex on his first page, but he gets resurrected on a space station, and shit, did I mention the dinosaurs? Yeah, well, see the real bad guy is a giant space brain that devours everything, but it has to fight Zeus!“ and then, God bless him, that editor answered “Dan! F*** yeah! That’s awesome! I bet we win like twelve Hugos! Here’s a giant check full of money!”

I want to be Dan Simmons when I grow up, but then again, I did just sell a book featuring a teleporting magic ninja fight on top of a flaming pirate dirigible in a world with bear cavalry, gangsters, wizards, and John Browning fighting the magic samurai of Imperial Japan with Tesla super weapons, so I’m working on it.

So really, I guess it comes down to what kind of story do you want to tell?  Does it have a plot that can be told by one person, that is more immediate, with a PoV that the reader will enjoy?  Then  do 1^st person.  Is it bigger, and needs lots more PoV to get the story across? Then do 3^rd.  And if you’re brilliant and everything you write sells 100,000 copies, screw the rules and do whatever you feel like… Or really, the big question is, which one do you like better?  That is the right answer for you. Go for it.

On a recent comment here on MHN, somebody said that I should have a Wikipedia entry.  I thought to myself, naw, I’m not that famous of an author yet.  Wikipedia is for like, really important type stuff, like a complete listing of every episode of the A-Team, or the history of the Post-It.

But then I got to looking, and pretty much every other author I know is on there already. It seems like most of the Baen people are on there.  The guys that I went on book tour with have entries.  So now I feel left out while the cool kids are having all the fun. 

So are any of you guys Wikipedia writers?

I guess that I’m not supposed to create my own, because I would be obviously biased.  For example, this was my first draft attempt at an entry:

Larry Correia is the greatest writer of his generation. He keeps all his many awards in the same room as his giant Scrooge McDuck style pile of money. He won the Noble Prize for literature three times in one year. Larry Correia is tough but fair. Larry Correia can bench press seven times his body weight (citation needed).  Women love Larry Correia, and men want to be Larry Correia.  In addition to punching out former president Jimmy Carter during a no-holds barred cage match, Larry Correia invented cold fusion, salami, and vinyl siding. Larry Correia founded the country of Suriname. Larry Correia was played by James Gandolfini in the movie SUDDEN VIOLENCE: THE LARRY CORREIA STORY.

Okay, so maybe a teensy bit of bias might creep in.  So, anybody want to volunteer?  I can give any factoids you need, (actual factoids, like the thing about Jimmy Carter. So there I was, twenty seconds into the first round, BAM! Have fun digesting those teeth, old man!)

EDIT:  Somebody actually posted the following. I figured I better save it here for posterity before Wikipedia takes it down for lack of “citations”.

LARRY CORREIA is an international man of mystery. This unique human is infact the illegitimate son of “Odin” who, when offered a place at his fathers side in Valhalla he declined as he would consider it slumming, Larry then kicked Odin in the testicles for such an insult Clearly, one could see that this is no mere mortal man, for example his many exploits include the following.

1. He tore down the Berlin Wall.

2. He once used a live Jaguar as a condom and then visited all the woman in a small Guatemalan village. It forever became known as ” La noche de los gatos sodomizar ” or ” Night of the sodomizing cat “

3. Larry is known to demands the sacrifice of a 1st born male once every 10 years in a small village located outside of Glasgow Ireland. The last time he did not receive his sacrifice was in 1845 and his wrath lasted to 1852. History recalls these years as ” The Great Potato Famine “

4. Russel Crowe spent a week with Larry in an ill advised attempt to learn the secret ways of combat for his film ” Gladiator ” Larry’s retribution for Russel’s impudence was a daily regiment of beatings, torture, and verbally berated him to the point that Russel ran off and screwed Meg Ryan as a means to regain his lost manhood. Larry still holds his manhood in a manson jar under his kitchen sink.

5. Former President Bush took the term ” Shock and Awe ” from when Larry gave him a small demonstration of what he would do in Iraq if given full unilateral freedom. This demonstration involved 3 hookers, a jar of mayonnaise, a dead pig, and a toilet scrubber.

6. In 2007 Larry wrote of his life story of adventure, love, and insanity…it was later published under the title of ” Monster Hunter International “

Located in Utah, Larry now spends his time as a writer and accountant, as well a part time firearm instructor. His latest novels are the following

Monster Hunter International (available now), Monster Hunter Vendetta (available September 28th), Monster Hunter Alpha (2011), and The Grimnoir Chronicles: Hard Magic (2011) all of which are available from Baen Books.

Thank you, anonymous wiki author, but I’m afraid that this article is simply riddled with errors.  Monster Hunter Alpha will be out in 2010 not 2011 as stated.  EDIT 2: Crap. I read that MHA as MHV.  I take back what I said. That article is 100% accurate.  EDIT 3: Except I don’t think that Glasgow is in Ireland…

EDIT 4: Okay, looks like there is an actual realistic one posted on Wikipedia now that isn’t flagged to be deleted. (because obvoiusly, if I made a best seller list, then that is way more important than founding Suriname).  I think we should just call this one good.

EDIT 5:  Mrs. Correia was not at all pleased when she found out about ” La noche de los gatos sodomizar”. Thanks a lot, guys.

EDIT 6: Looks like somebody did start a TV Tropes Wiki for MHI.  Myers and Franks are “Those two guys” and “My Orcs are different”.  Sweet. 🙂