The essential Ghost F.A.Q. (12/10/2005)
This comes
from John's new "Amazon Connect" blog page. It's mostly a response to
the, many, people who were offended by Ghost. He tried to put all of
his thoughts on Ghost along with a history of it into one document.
While not comprehensive, it's got most of the major questions answered.
INTRO
This is the whole story, more or
less, of Ghost. I've posted this in plenty of places but apparently
just as many people have not seen it. For those that have issues with
my reasoning or actions, fine. If you choose not to purchase any more
of my books, also fine. But this is the history and some background.
What you take from it is yours, not mine.
THE HISTORY
This is taken primarily from an interview on another website. I'm going to expand on certain points.
I
went through a huge burst of creativity in January and February of
2004. I write outside and during a month and a half period I wrote Into
the Looking Glass (in twelve days), We Few (in fourteen days), finished
a third novel (East of the Sun, West of the Moon, IIRC) and started a
fourth (Princess of Wands). All of this in weather dropping down to the
20's. I found I wrote best between 42 and 24 degrees; below 24 no
matter what I did my fingers shook too much.
Then…it stopped.
What had happened was that the story of Ghost , lurking in the back of my head for a long time, jumped into the queue and said "WRITE ME!" And then the jerk stayed there.
I'm a professional author. I write for a living . It's what pays the rent, so to speak. I couldn't afford to spend time not writing. But I struggled against Ghost for months .
During that time it expanded, hugely, a series with multiple different
plotlines, alternate stories, alternate endings. And I couldn't write
anything else. Any time I tried to think about all the other stories I
was getting paid to write, some scene from Ghost or its sequels jumped into the picture.
This
was a huge financial problem. The way that I, and most professional
authors, make their month to month money is from advances. Generally,
when you contract on a book you get half of your advance. Then, when
you turn it in, you get the other half. Figure that a normal book takes
three months to write, you get half the advance one month, have a month
or two in between and then get the second half when you turn in. (There
is far less method to the reality than here, but it works as an
example.)
Due to Ghost locking me up, I had no "turn-in"
checks for months. And I wasn't contracting for anything. Fortunately,
I'd turned in three books at the beginning. But by summer I was
financially getting a bit strapped.
Finally, I gave up and wrote it, firmly intending to never publish it. I thought it was as bad as any review on the site. (I've changed my mind, but that was after rereading it.)
However,
when I was first writing on it I was complaining about it on Baen's
Bar. People there wanted to see what my "c**p" writing looked like. I
posted the first three thousand words and the response
was...enthusiastic.
Now, at this point I was looking for
an out to get some cash. Again, I'd been without the "normal and
customary" turn-in checks for over six months. So I decided to "shop"
it to other publishers, preferably under a pseudonym. I contacted an
agent (I don't have one at the moment), showed it to him and he was
also enthusiastic.
Jim Baen, however, became aware of it
(his site, duh) and told me I owed him at least a read of the book. I
pointed out that it wasn't SF, that it was raunchy and all the rest. He
wanted to read it anyway. And when he read it, he wanted to buy it,
offering an immediate advance, even before we signed a contract. (And
all of it up-front, since it was complete. The term for writing
something without a contract in the industry, by the way, is "spec" or
"speculative.") He also insisted on using my name. Although he got
pretty jovial about it from time to time. The worst iteration of the
discussion was "Ghost by MAX Ringo". I threatened to start punning on
Baen (homonym for Bane) if he didn't back off. I was strongly in the
"put a middle initial in there, at least, please" camp but that never
came to fruition. The sales people and a couple of buyers lobbied
against it. (And the buyers are, from the POV of the publisher, their
market. The actual readers are way down the chain.)
So
Jim bought it and published it with my name on it. The one point that I
insisted on was that he had to persuade people to place it under
General Fiction or Thriller or whatever, NOT as SF. On Amazon, of
course, there is no distinction. The internet has benefits and
weaknesses. People who had bought my books had no earthly idea that
this was so different unless they read any of the many posts I made
about it or one of the reviews that pointed it out. (This wasn't a dig,
I don't do that either. If it's by an author I've read before, I expect
more or less the same. That's why I KNEW some of my readers were going
to be torqued off to an enormous degree. I felt the same way about
Pyrates and for less justification.)
So that's the
history. For good and ill. I hope you liked the book. For those who
did, the explanation is probably pointless (or maybe interesting, I
dunno.) For those who hated the book, I'm sure they won't care an iota.
But "that's the way it is."
COMMENTARY
I've
read many books over time that I thought were bad. Some of them by
authors I rather like or liked. Depending on whether it was a trend
(length and boredom quotient in Tom Clancy, just plain weirdness in
Stephen King) or an aberration (Road to Gandolpho by Robert Ludlum) I
either decided to forego them or took it as an aberration and continued
reading.
I never "blamed" the author. In the case of
books that simply shouldn't have been published, (K-9 Corps comes to
mind) I blamed the publisher. But authors I never blame. Why?
Because
even before I started writing, I recognized that books are not like
building a widget. With a widget, someone gives the builder a design
and the builder puts the parts together. Even with things with more
"skull sweat", very rarely is inspiration the be-all and end-all.
In
writing, that is all there is. It's not "1% inspiration and 99% work."
It is, from beginning to end, inspiration. (And one hell of alot of
work, for values of work. I'm not one of those who whines about the
work of writing, mind you. Digging ditches is a hell of alot
harder.) If computers could write reasonable dialogue, I'd be the first
person to buy the program. "The two military characters there are
discussing entering this building. Come up with the plan and then write
the dialogue." But they don't. It has to come from what Algys Budris
called "the idea bucket."
And the big ideas ("I've got a
great idea for a story...") aren't the hard part. As Dave Drake pointed
out, they're a dime a dozen. The hard part is the day in day out
struggle for the next line of description, action, dialogue. You have
to have the fire in your gut for that. And if you're not interested in
the story, your readers will feel that. Even if you can manage to write
it at all.
Writers can only write what inspires them.
For better or worse, the story of Ghost (and Megan's Tale in Emerald
Sea and the opening of Cally's War, which was to my basic outline) all
caught me. The dialogue, the scenes, the violence, the sex came from
_my_ fount. From my "idea bucket."
I won't cop to Mike
Harmon being "misogynistic". Mike is something else, somethign more
subtle. His treatment of Amy vs Brittany in the first book points that
out. To Mike, Amy deserves respect, Brittany does not. And the two
girls in the Keys deserve respect, although less than Amy and maybe
even less than Brittany. (Note, of the forty-eight girls functional in
the room, Bambi, Thumper, Amy and Babe were the only ones that
volunteered to help.) Mike even respects, more than is obvious,
Magdelena. He probably respects her more than he respected most of the
girls he rescued in Book One. The reason for his actions, and for where
he places his respect, I leave as an exercise for the reader.
:-)
A
writer can choose to _not_ publish something. Perhaps I should have
chosen to not publish Ghost, despite having a very sizeable advance
waved under my nose. However, I was strapped and had a mortgage to
make. And the advance was contingent on it being a book by "John
Ringo."
There is a philosophical argument here, one that
I've had with other writers, regarding what a writer "owes" his
readers. Many writers state that readers are owed nothing. They can
read the books or not and the writer should not consider then when
writing at all. I fall on the other side. I try to write things that my
readers will enjoy. What's the point otherwise. But some things just
ask to be written and, as described above, will interfere with other
projects to the point of needing to be written. Whether they are
published... Ah, that's where it gets sticky.
The flip
side to the, many, people who did not like Ghost is that there were
many people who liked it very much. Not publishing the book would have
been a disservice to _those_ readers. Not an easy call either way.
Ghost
is not an easy book; it raises many troubling issues. Those that have
trashed the book or hated it would be amazed how many e-mails I've
gotten saying, in essence, "you nailed it. Thanks for finally writing
about it." There are many people who live every day with the demons of
Mike Harmon and Herzer Herrick. They "grokked" the book very well.
Others, including close friends who are also veterans, did not. They
don't carry those demons. (And I disagree with the people who say that
the demons are a result of the stress of his training. Mike had them
from way before he was a SEAL. I would venture to guess that they were
part of his motivation for joining the SEALs.)
Nothing
in Ghost is easy to describe in black and white. Even the scene with
Magdelena has some gray to it (albeit not much.) Mike Harmon is not
Simon Pureheart. The reality is that many MANY members of the military,
even great heroes, are not Simon Pureheart. There have been serial
rapists found amongst the ranks of Delta and the SEALs not to mention
other less elite groups. Several of the women I've talked with over the
last few years who were in abusive relationships, the abuser was a
military member. (This is not to say that members of the military are
more likely to be abusive; the sample is skewed due to the nature of my
fans.) Rape rates near military bases are invariably higher per capita
than in areas that do NOT have military bases.
"Single men in barracks don't turn into plaster saints."
The
point is that just because someone is a hero, it doesn't make them a
nice guy. In fact, generally, the opposite is the case. Audie Murphy
was a nasty person in person, very bullying, very violent and an abuser
of his various spouses. Alvin York, on the other hand, was considered
the Gentleman's Gentleman. Wade McCluskey was brusque to the point of
rudeness. John Mullins is a great guy to sit down and shoot the bull
with and very much a gentleman. But you invariably come away from an
evening of talking with him with the vague sense that you got away
alive and are happy about it. (The guy, despite being in his 70's,
scares the bejeezus out of me.)
I'm pretty much done here. But to clarify some things:
Yes,
I'm a heterosexual dom. (Wow! I'm out of the closet! Seriously, that's
the first time I've written that on the internet. I suspect, like when
Boy George came out, that it will mean a fall-off in sales. Oh, well.)
I
also have done research for writing about it with rape counsellors, a
former Harvard professor of abnormal psychology and victims of rape and
abusive relationships. Most of the hard research was done for the
Dragons series primarily intended to accurately cover Daneh's rape and
recovery. I've used it since for Megan's Tale and Ghost. (Waste not,
want not.)
I strongly support counselling (by good
counsellors, mind you, there are some out there that do far more harm
than good) for victims of abusive relationships and especially rape.
I've tried to make that a subtext of my books that have those sorts of
things happen. Among other things, if I can help one person recover
then all the carping is worth it. And "you get over it" (a line from a
Steve Stirling book) is the one stupidest thing ever written in the
English language. I said that to Steve, personally. He disagrees but
we're civil about it. We trade books prior to publication. His Fall
series has some good stuff in it. Dies the Fire is awfully grim, but
Protectors War is easier and both are damned good.
I've never been a member of the BDSM "scene" nor do I intend to become one.
I have had dom/sub relationships.
I've
never comitted rape or "stalked" anyone. I've never had sex with anyone
under the age of 16 nor have I had sex with anyone under the age of 18
since I've been over that age. (When you're seventeen and she's
seventeen, and she's your first, the concept of "statutory rape" gets
tricky. Does she get charged? Do you get charged? Let's call the whole
thing off.)
I have had sex with prostitutes in countries
in which it was legal and in third world countries where I'm not sure
if it was legal or not but nobody cared. At least one of those
prostitutes stated that she was brought into the industry against her
will. (Colombian girl in Panama. All of this was pre-1986 or so.)
I've never enacted the scene in the third book.
I
was a sexually active bachelor from the age of 17 until 28 when I got
married. During that time I had sex with approximately 38 females.
Three of those were mild BDSM relationships. (Bondage only.) One of
them could be construed as abusive. I'm still in contact with that
person and we've discussed it at length. I construe it as abusive, she
does not. That is what makes the entire discussion tricky.
IOW:
I've never done anything sexually that was illegal and only one thing
that still troubles me. And it troubles me more than the female who was
involved.
Just thought I'd get some of the more idle speculation out of the way.
Question
Where are the Keldara from? (NEW March 2006)
Answer
John
says: I do not believe that any such group exists in present day. But
Caucasus (and Afghanistan and the Anatolian mountain ranges) are host
to a wild polyglot of cultures left over from others that passed
through the area. The Ghurkas, for example, are ethnic Mongols. There
is a tribe in Afghanistan (I believe they're still around) that appear
to be descended from Alexander's Greeks. And so on and so forth. So the
basic premise is sound.
So
I found this link from a reader fascinating. For anyone who is
interested in the ethnology of the Keldara, this is an example of such
a tribe: http://www.swordhistory.com/excerpts/crusaders.html
Note
that the Caucasus are also the probable origin of the original
Indo-Europeans, which is why they are called "Caucasians." The
interesting thing about that is that linguists have pieced together
"original" Indo-European and found that it has a huge multiple of names
for rivers and mountains. Yeah, they're from the Caucasus... :-)
John
Question
In response to a post from Gerald re: Section 2 and 3 of Ghost
Answer
John says: Book Two, Thunder Island , is about 30k words long. About
20k is a combination of somewhat Hemingwayish deep see fishing story
and explicit bondage porn. The other 10k is Mike Killing Bad Guys and
Getting Shot Up In The Process. (Hereafter MKBGGSUP.)
:-)
Book Three, On The Dark Side expresses that Mike
has one hell of a dark side. Many
many people have been turned off by that dark side. But he keeps pointing out that he's
not a nice guy. Why people thought he really
was one is puzzling me. Admittedly, he's got a conscience. But it's a flexible one. And his "honor" is hidden in a very odd spot.
Question
A warning about Ghost from John
Answer
John says: Ghost is part of a series. Books Two and Three are complete
and scheduled. Book Two is sort of a primer on Civil Affairs in Hostile
Territory. Book Three gets back to MKBGGSUP although this time with the
prerequisite Agent Battle in the background. Well, foreground. Anyway,
going on... And both books include more explicit sex, language, nudity
and violence. And this time, the girls are younger.
:->
As I said at LibertyCon. If you have ANY reservations about reading about explicit, kinky and often frankly
wrong sexual encounters, DON'T READ THE BOOKS.
Question
Another warning about Ghost from John
Answer
John says: The actual warning should be:
If you have any problems with reading books in which:
Islamic terrorists are bad guys with very few redeeming features who should be killed like rabid dogs...
Women are all good looking and young, because that's what's fun to look at...
Sex is graphic, kinky and in some cases frankly wrong...
Violence is presented as a pretty damned good solution to most of the terrorism in the world...
PC is represented as being fuzzy-headed, idiotic, ignorant and a useless appendage upon the body of humanity...
Red meat is eaten in quantities with no moral qualms whatsoever...
The "good guy" who does really good _things_ is really not a nice
person, not a nice person _at all_ in so many ways you'll agree by the
end of the book...
THEN DON'T PICK UP THIS BOOK!
Question
From the Bar John says:
Has anyone seen this? Was I thrashed? No, "how badly was I thrashed?" (PW review)
Answer
July 25, 2005
SECTION: REVIEWS; Fiction; Pg. 53
LENGTH: 172 words
HEADLINE: Ghost
BYLINE: Staff
BODY:
Ghost, John Ringo . Baen, $25 (416p) ISBN 0-7434-0905-4
Fans of Ringo's military SF epics (Into the Looking Glass ) may at
first think Mike Harmon, the hero of this unusual novel, is cut from
the same cloth as Mike O'Neal from the Posleen War series (Watch on the
Rhine , etc.). Like O'Neal, Harmon is a former Navy SEAL trying to
adjust to civilian life who gets sucked back into action by
circumstances, in particular by his witnessing the kidnaping of a
college coed by jihadists. It becomes clear, though, that Harmon has a
darker side, to which, by late in the book, as illustrated by a
shocking scene in a Bosnian brothel, Harmon has almost completely
surrendered. More techno-thriller than SF, this is a picaresque tale
about a modern Barry Lyndon who resists, with equivocal results, baser
instincts brought out by extreme stress. It's refreshing to find a
successful popular writer who's not afraid to try something different,
and the adventurous reader will find Ringo's latest insightful,
exciting and outrageously funny. (Oct.) (James B)
Question
From
the Bar Wayne asks: Where in the HELL did you get that description of a
helicopter autorotation? When I got over being indignant, I had to
laugh, it was SO wrong...
Answer
John
says: What was wrong about it? I thought that portion had been vetted.
By an AF helicopter pilot. Actually, the pilot the character was based
on.
Question
From the Bar Chuck asks:
John,
are 'they' going to let you get away with your character names?
Chapter 27: Assadolah Shaath, a'hole'a ??
Answer
John says:
Came from a random name of actual Arabic names.
Question
From the bar Gordon asks: What is a Kildar?
Answer
John says: Long term, "Ghost" is going to end up as sort of "Alois
Hammer" in charge of a regiment of light infantry and a tiddly little
spec-ops group that goes around saving the world from the evil of...
well humans.
All of them, of course, from various countries, mostly in the Caucasus.
Kildar is sort of "Baron." The term is for a feudal leader in a
particular area, traditionally a foreign mercenary given the post by
whoever is in charge of the area at the time.
Completely made up and having (truthfully) no connection to anything in the real world.
Question
From the Bar: What are the best safe words
Answer
John says: The easiest safe words are simply "yellow" and "red."
As discussed in the second story of Ghost.
Feel free to point the novel out to anyone you care in the "community."
With the note that there is some _bad_ BDSM in it. Both "poorly
written" (in fact, more of a very unsubtle joke) and some scenes that
are "beyond" good BDSM.
Question
From outside the Bar: John Ringo is destroying Science Fiction!
Answer
John says: What I loved about the thread was the logic, such as it was:
"I work in a book store and stock many John Ringo books, more books than those by good science fiction authors."
"Our ordering system works on the basis of ordering books based upon previous sales."
"John Ringo writes bad science fiction books."
" Bad science fiction books will drive away people from science fiction."
"Therefore fewer science fiction books will be sold."
Can anyone see the really obvious flaw in this argument?
:-)
(Hint, look at how the ordering system works.)
Question
From the Bar Erkum asks: About the Magdelena side story and her bad treatment by Mike
Answer
John
says: There's a reason that the series is called "Paladin of Shadows."
Sometimes he slips over to what even he acknowledges as the "Dark
Side."
I never indicated that he was a nice guy. He's not. He just plays one.
Question
From
the Bar Chris asks: This is part of a series -- suppose this [Magdelena
side story] is one of those things that's going to Come Back To Haunt
Him [TM]?
Answer
John
says: It will "come back" but not so much to haunt him as to remind him
peripherally. Perhaps as early as book IV, which is on my "to start
writing" list.
Question
From the Bar Arnold asks: [Paladin of Shadows] Is that the official series name now? We've been using Kildar series.
Answer
John says: It was supposed to be.
Question
From the Bar: John replies to the collated nitpicks...
Answer
John rants:
YOU GUYS DON'T HAVE A CLUE!!!!!!!!
THERE
IS NO RUMRUNNERS ON AN ISLAND ! THERE HASN'T BEEN SINCE THE SIXTIES!
THERE IS NO "ISLAMORADA MARINA " AND THE MARINAS IN THE AREA DON'T NUMBER
THAT WAY.
ANYWHERE IN THE AREA!!!
THERE
ARE NO ISLANDS IN THAT PART OF THE BAHAMAS !
THE CITY DESCRIBED DOESN'T EXIST IN BOSNIA AND THE CLOSEST ONE DESCRIBED
ISN'T WHERE EAGLE BASE IS!
There is no semblance of reality in this book. I deliberately wrote it
ignoring any reality that got in the way of the story. That's not how I
normally write, but I did so in this story and will continue to do so
in the rest of the books in this series. As I put it in one
conversation on this subject, " Peachtree Street runs north and south.
If I needed the sun setting down Peachtree in downtown Atlanta , THAT'S
HOW I'D WRITE IT!"
I'm, frankly, laughing about these nitpicks. They're so minor...
YOU CAN'T CATCH SAILFISH THAT WAY AND THEY DON'T RUN DURING THAT SEASON!
THE DESCRIPTION OF AMSTERDAM 'S RED LIGHT DISTRICT IS ALL WRONG!!!
(SHOUTING LOUDER, THANK YOU!!!!)
THE LAYOUT OF NOTRE DAME IS ALLLLLLLL WROOOOOOOONGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!
Sheesh...
Question
From the Bar: In response to more nitpicks...
Answer
John rants: In the case of this series, and this series only,
I've more or less ignored any reality that wasn't universally known that got in the way of the story.
I generally don't do that, working sometimes very hard to get what I
want to fit reality (Orcs in Space is a great example of that). But in
this story, I just ignored reality when it didn't fit my desires.
Why? Well, a. I wasn't originally planning on having this story
published and b. it fits very well with the genre I'm writing in. Why
do I say that?
There's a writer that's been writing in this genre for years called
David Morell. (Man on Fire, Brotherhood of the Rose, etc.) Now, Morell
has alot of strong points. For one thing, he's a frickin' page turner.
I used to have a meeting I had to attend that was at 8am in a different
city than where I was living. (Was in Orlando , I lived in Melbourne
about two hours away.) Instead of getting up at O Dark Thirty and
driving, I'd go over to a friend's house in Orlando and stay the night.
We'd talk for a while then about 11 I'd head to bed. And there's always
be the newest Morell sitting around somewhere. And I'd look at it and
say to myself, sternly, "I will not pick up that book!" But I always
did. Then at 4AM I'd throw it across the room with a cry of "What
CRAP!"
But, then again, he has some weak points.
Morell told BOSS stories that had very little or no connection to any
reality you could name. There are dozens of examples in the books, but
I'll hit just one, the "dogs" scene in Brotherhood of the Rose. The
Brotherhood of the Rose is one hell of a book but it has so little
connection to any reality you'd care to name, it can't see it from
several light years.
Herewith the "dogs" example: At one point the main character and a
female Mossad agent are running away from some American spec-ops guys
that are hunting them (for "Yeah. Right!" reasons central to the
otherwise very good plot). And they can see the dogs that are tracking
them but not the men.
American former CIA contractor who has gone straight and is now in
danger from his former employers (hereafter, Standard Character One or
SCO): "I can see the dogs. Alsatians. It's Special Forces."
Beautiful Female Mossad Agent in mental aside to herself:
Yes, Special Forces. SF used Alsatians, Force Recon used Dobermans and SEALs used poodles...
:-)
Now, this is a good and bad example of Morell. The good
is that the guy slips in dry humor (or wet in this case) such as SEALs
using poodles. (And don't start with the "well, poodles have a bad
rap." I know that. But the rap is part of the humor and quibbling on it
simply points out that you overthink humor. My kids have a
"full-standard" thank you very much.) But the bad part is that:
SPECIAL OPERATIONS GROUPS DON'T USE DOGS AT ALLLLLLLLL!!!!!!
Dogs are handled by specific dog handler teams that are part of the MPS.
The thing about a Morell book is that, even with all the ignoring
reality, they're like Lays Potato Chips: you just have to eat one more.
I'd simply like people to feel the same way about the Ghost books. If
you want "reality" and "careful research" then I'll try on the rest of
the books. But NOT in Ghost. I'm just gonna tell the story and ignore
any reality that gets in the way*.
Deal.
*The one that really gets me is the island in the Bahamas
that the terrs were using for a transshipment point. THERE ARE NO
ISLANDS IN THAT AREA. It's a gigantic shoal that rarely gets above
water level and doesn't have "island" one, much less channels you can
get a 40ft Bertram through.
Sheesh...