C.J. Henderson's Writing Advice: A KotoriCon Anime Festival Highlight

Very early in the gathering Henderson said something that I thought was probably the best advice any writer could ever receive: Never turn down an opportunity.

If someone invites you to do anything, try it, he told the group.

This is absolutely essential advice for anyone who is trying to make his living as a writer. In the 1990s, I spent four years as a freelancer in Chile, taking just about any assignment I could get. One time, shortly after I arrived, I agreed to write a review of a play. Only after the play began did I realize my Spanish wasn't good enough to keep up with what was happening on stage!

So the review I handed in focused a lot on the scenery, the costumes, even the lighting, and no one was the wiser. I never heard a single complaint.

You know, when you think about it, never turn down an opportunity isn't just good advice for writers, or the writing life. It's just good advice.

Self-publishing is much more available today than when Henderson began writing 35 years ago, and the access to publishing your own work is making agents superfluous, he said.

''They won't take you unless you are already published,'' he told the gathering. And ``if you are one of the 110 or 115 clients that the agent has, how much time is he going to spend on you? Not much unless you are making the big bucks. It's a business, remember.''

I've seen this attitude before in articles and heard it from other writers, and perhaps there's some truth to it. I do think that there's a use for agents (Henderson did say they can help with contracts) and I am sure that most would-be writers still want to have their book put out by a big-time publisher. Still, strong medicine from a veteran.

One of the reasons I sat in on Henderson's talk was that he had written some tales starring The Spider, a 1930s crimefighter that had appeared in the pulps. I have always enjoyed reprints of the old Spider pulps whenever I could find them (and The Shadow and Doc Savage stories as well).

I bought this collection of Spider short stories The Spider: Judge, Jury and Executioner at his table in KotoriCon's dealers row, so I thought it would be interesting to see what he had to say about writing.

Also, someone was clever enough to label his talk ''Abuse the Author,'' which was enticing enough for a dad walking around by himself because his daughter and friend didn't want any of the old folks around.

During the meeting I asked Henderson what it was like to write stories starring a character that someone else had created. He said he tried to stay true to the original author's vision and that while he was writing a new novel of The Spider for Moonstone he made what sounds like an awesome discovery: an unpublished Spider story from the pulp era!

The newly found novel will be published this year, followed a few months later by Henderson's own story of the crimefighter!

Henderson's new novel starring The Spider highlights what he means when he said you have to retain the original creator's essence of the character when writing a story starring someone you haven't created.

During his research of The Spider novels, Henderson realized that one of the main things that made The Spider unique was the reason he fought evil. The Spider was different from crimefighters like Batman who were after revenge.

For The Spider it was a higher calling. He felt he had an obligation to society.

Henderson says that's what drives his story of The Spider, and he gave us the setup of the tale.

In the upcoming novel, Richard Wentworth (The Spider's real identity) is turning 40, and he is pondering his self-proclaimed mission. Should he retire with his longtime fiancée Nita van Sloan? Could the world survive without The Spider?

But then the Green Death returns. The next day another old villain resurfaces, then another! And Wentworth realizes that the world can't live without the Spider.

This sounds like it'll be a really good tale!

I bought this collection of six adventures by the 1930s crimefighter at Henderson's table, so I thought I'd update this lens with a review of the book. I think the stories capture the flavor of the pulps, in which the bad guys were truly bad and the good guys did what was necessary to exact justice. The stories are very straightforward, with the action barreling ahead at high speed.

Most of the stories are illustrated in what the publisher calls ''widevision,'' where the next on each page is bisected by a black & white image that stretches across the two-page spread. The illustrations add to the tone of the story, and make each tale zoom along even faster.

If you are interested you can buy a copy on Amazon today!

The Shadow, who debuted before The Spider in the 1930s, was probably pulp fiction's most famous crimefighter, mainly because of his popular weekly radio (which for a time starred Orson Welles).

A number of The Shadow pulps have been reprinted over the decades, and a new series from Sanctum Books collects two classic Shadow tales in each volume.

Here is my review of one of those volumes.

The Shadow Unmasks + The Yellow Band: A Pulp Book Review!
The Shadow, that mysterious crime-fighter from the 1930s pulps, is back in regular publication, with a series of books from Nostalgia Ventures. Each volume c...

C.J. Henderson mentioned writing comic books several times, and later I looked him up on the Internet and among those that he's written are stories about Archie, Batman, the Punisher and Neil Gaiman's Lady Justice. He has also written comic books starring Kolchak: the Night Stalker, according to his Wikipedia entry.

In response to a question, he describes the physical writing of a comic book and makes it sound so basic. The first page is a full panel (called a 'splash' panel in the business).

``After that, take a piece of paper and make six boxes, three over three,'' he said. ''In the top half of each box write what should be in the scene. In the bottom half write what words will appear in each panel.''

There you have it. He makes it sound so easy!

ABCs of Writing by ClioBluestocking
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One of the more interesting pieces of advice that C.J. Henderson kept returning to during the meeting's hour was simply, go ahead and write the story.

Someone asked about the best way to introduce a new world in a sci-fi or fantasy story: all at once up front or in bits and pieces. Either way can work, he said. Just go ahead and start the story.

Having trouble creating a character? Watch your favorite movie or television show, then take the main character and use him to start your own story. ''Envision him in your mind,'' Henderson said. But don't call him by his right name. Then go ahead and write the story.

Another person asked about the length of a chapter, and how do you know when to end one. Simply, Henderson said. ''End chapters with something nifty.'' It'll stay in the reader's mind.

All in all, the hour went by fairly quickly, with a lot of discussion and many of the attendees asking questions. It was well worth the time spent.

C.J. Henderson's panel was only one small part of the KotoriCon anime festival in January. There were dozens of panels and videos, and hundreds of people walking around in costumes. It was blast, and here is our review of it.

KotoriCon Anime Festival: Reviewing the New Jersey Convention
Hundreds of anime fans, role-playing participants, and cosplayers converged in southern New Jersey for KotoriCon 2012, held Jan. 6-7 at Gloucester County Col...

Our visit to the KorotiCon anime festival led to tickets for an advanced showing of ''The Secret World of Arrietty,'' an English-language version of the Japanese anime movie. The film, distributed by Disney, arrived in theaters in February.

The movie is based on ``The Borrowers,'' which won the 1952 Carnegie Medal, which in Britain is the book of the year award for children's and young adults.

Please check out our review of the film!

''The Secret World of Arrietty'' Comes to America: Movie Review
The classic story of ''The Borrowers,'' the little people who live beneath the floorboards who only take what they need to survive and things that won't be m...

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I first started writing on Squidoo with my daughter because I thought it would be a good way to spend some time with her. We started with reviews of the comic books that I read growing up, and here are a few for you to check out.

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