Scott Warren's Blog

On several of the forums I frequent, I see new writers become embroiled in time-consuming pitfalls that are writing-adjacent, but tend to produce nothing of real value. The two largest offenders within science fiction and fantasy seem to be excessive world building, and deep, detailed magic systems of little real consequence. If world-building itself is the goal for its own sake then that’s fine, and this post probably doesn’t apply. But if the goal is to actually complete a book which you hope for people to read, but are struggling, then this might be for you.

I’ve seen multiple novice authors make the claim that they’ve spent years developing the intricacies of their world, or the deeply entwined parallels of their sorcerous systems. Such efforts are wheel-spinning at best and, more often then not, simply a form of procrastination as these authors struggle with the far more daunting prospect of writing an actual story of any extended duration. As many of these authors try and fail to form cohesive narratives within that world, they retreat deeper into its idiosyncrasies looking for a solution that simply isn’t there. You’ll very rarely find gold hidden in the bowels of something you pulled from your own ass, no matter how tightly you’ve woven the strands of bullshit. 

The simple truth is this: When a reader is presented with two books: The first with a rich, interwoven history behind it detailing the genesis of society and law which the author spent years on, versus a world that was made up and detailed in a few hours, or even on the fly? In most cases readers are not going to accurately assess which is which, nor do they particularly care about such meta information (though the most popular works sprout fandoms interested almost exclusively in such details). 

So long as a book reads well and keeps them entertained, readers will get the same benefit from both books, but one of those authors will have wasted years more effort writing it that they needed to. At the end of the day, both are completely made up anyway, and the reader’s limit in the investment is determined more by the author’s ability to suspend their disbelief through prose and story and good characterization, none of which you’ll find in building background and designing magic systems. Even worse, writers with extensive, intertwined worlds can find themselves pigeonholed and inflexible, to the point where changing any single aspect causes the whole system to collapse. Inflexibility is anathema to completing long-form fiction. 

In a guest blog I wrote for Science Fiction & Fantasy World, I mentioned that I use the concept of a three-tier world building philosophy as a way to determine what aspects of pre-conceived systems within science fiction and fantasy writing will actually affect the reader’s experience. I use the metaphor of picturing your world-building as an opaque pool in which the reader is treading water. In this metaphor, the ideal depth of the pool is just below the reach of your reader’s toes. If your reader never skims the bottom, then conceptually the pool is infinite depth.

The problem I see, is that far too many novice authors place far too much credence in the space between the reader’s toes and the actual bottom of the pool. But an author’s only interface with most of their readers will be the words printed (or digitized) on the page. The majority of my body of work (With the possible exception of the Dragon’s Banker, in which I relied a little too heavily on the existing crossover world building of the Sorcerous Crimes Division) has been praised for clever, unique, and detailed world-building. But in truth the majority of it was developed on the fly in a very ad-hoc way. I begin with the distilled concept, and then keep a rolling system of notes (in Notepad, go figure) of the story and an outline, adding to it as necessary. 

For example: my flagship science-fiction series, The Union Earth Privateers spans a trilogy of novels that cross a decent chunk of the local galaxy wherein humans find themselves embroiled in interstellar conflicts and political intrigue between numerous factions, with story threads that reach from the first novel all the way through to the conclusion. Other writers are usually shocked to learn that the entirety of the compiled notes on backstory and world building over the 5 years of writing UEP would struggle to fill as many pages. Most of what I reference is already on-page, established and codified as it became necessary. Interestingly, to a reader this fact is of generally no consequence. The work reads like a cohesive universe of depth far beyond what’s present on the page, simply because everything on the page suggests that this is the case. Again, their toes never skim the bottom of the pool.

So what is the solution to a bloated setting so detailed and reliant on itself that it prevents flexible storytelling within it? Well, the pulling-off-the-bandaid approach is to simply delete everything and spend about an hour coming up with something new and fresh. Trash the genealogies, throw out the careful layers of geological strata that lay beneath your capital city, ditch the origin story of how your pantheon came to be, and erase the lineage of generals whose myriad campaigns lead to the current political boundaries. If it’s not present in the outline or represented on the page, and it’s not simple enough to hold in your head, chances are it’s not something that will ultimately benefit the end user. If, in the course of writing a book, you need those extraneous details? Fill them in as you go, and develop some background information then if you like. But the key to breaking these progress-halting bad habits is to not touch that which does not touch the reader. Focus on your main interface: What you strictly need to stuff a story between the two covers of a book.

Give it a try, you might find find that the only thing standing in your way is a prison of your own self-imposed rules.

I am somewhat terrible at keeping this blog updated. The Dragon's Banker has been out for almost a year now, and as with my previous releases I thought I'd do a breakdown of Dragon's Banker and talk about some of my goals, struggles, failures, and successes both in the writing and in the business side.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD 
To Stand Alone in a shared world.
I've made no secret of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld as well as Dungeons and Dragons being major influences in my fantasy work. From the beginning of the Sorcerous Crimes Division I envisioned that world as a vehicle for many stories, small and large, where any type of adventure could unfold sequentially, concurrently, or in disparate time periods. I had already finished two volumes of the Sorcerous Crimes Division when I began to write The Dragon's Banker, and so had the world already established. I assumed going in that most readers for Dragon's Banker would be followup readers from SCD. I skimped on some of the world building and relied on prior reader knowledge perhaps more than I should have. Of course Dragon's Banker ended up being my most successful self-published title to date, selling more in one year than Devilbone has sold since it's initial release in 2014.

One of the chief complaints about Dragon's Banker is the shy world-building, as it mentions many locations in passing that were explained or explored in the Sorcerous Crimes Division, and new readers didn't have the benefit of two novels worth of details to draw from. I'm keeping this in mind as I work on my next novel-length work in this shared world, another stand-alone with the focus on travel to different locales and interactions with fantastic settings and creatures.

I'll talk a bit more on why the amount of new readers subverted my expectations later on.

(Non)Epic FantasyI've talked at length about my goal in writing Dragon's Banker being to write a true-pacifist protagonist who could not and would not solve his problems through violence. Part of this was a challenge to myself to deviate from the typical action-packed science fiction and fantasy books in my catalogue, and part of it was a desire to explore the slice-of-life aspect of living in a fantasy world without being involved in the grand machinations of its workings. Sorcerous Crimes Division was originally supposed to be something more along these lines, exploring what it would be like to work for the secret police and masked enforcers of an authoritative city government. But the scope got away from me a little bit in Devilbone and half-way through it turned into a more typical epic fantasy story. The Servant's Tower leaned into both sides of the coin again, but struck a stronger balance.

In Dragon's Banker I managed to finally nail the formula of what it would be like to be an ordinary person living and working in a fantasy world and facing extraordinary challenges. And I did it without writing a single sword fight. In fact, Dragon's Banker contains a total of two physical action scenes. The rest of the action is cerebral, and generally involves some combination of planning, plotting, negotiation, and barter. A year after writing it, the accomplishment of shifting gears from an action story writer to create a financial drama is still one of my proudest feats as a fantasy author. In the foreword I mention that Dragon's Banker was my favorite novel that I have written, and I think that will be true for some time. I cannot understate how in-love with the story of Sailor, Arkelai, and the rest of the cast I remain to this day. It's a story about good intentions paying off in unexpected ways. I crafted multiple layers, side plots that happen almost entirely off page but still pay off, and curated reader experience for each of these twists through foreshadowing and reveals almost exactly the way I intended. Certain types of readers pick up details very early on, which I love, while others need a second reading to catch every detail, which I also love. The book isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but from a narrative goal-meeting standpoint I fucking nailed it.

To Pub or not to PubLet's talk about the publishing history of Dragon's Banker, the nitty gritty details.

Originally, following the conclusion and submission of Where Vultures Dare to Parvus Press (the small-press publisher who handles my science-fiction catalogue) they offered me another two-book deal for a new military science-fiction book and an as-yet undetermined fantasy novel.

My focus at the time was on Dragon's Banker, theirs was on the Military Science Fiction novel. I leapt at the deal at first, seeing it as a sure avenue to get The Dragon's Banker out to readers, but after the fact I had second thoughts. Ultimately I didn't think Parvus was as in-love with Dragon's Banker as I was, and asked them to invoke their right of first refusal to allow me to self-publish Dragon's Banker, and eventually asked to be released from that two-book contract entirely, vowing never again to sell a book before it was written. Part of this, I'll readily admit, is because as I struggled with that new Military Science Fiction. I realized I was writing it to market, rather than writing it for myself. This conclusion I reached after two iterations of a manuscript, approximately 20,000 words each, that I absolutely despised. I forced myself to put each word on page, and I could feel myself burning out. For some time after being unofficially released from that deal (the actual legal contract cancellation came at a later date) I seriously considered quitting writing all together. During this period I also took a new career path that essentially tripled my yearly salary, which in turn made my leisure time that much more valuable. If I was spending it writing things I didn't enjoy for money I really didn't need, then logically speaking, I shouldn't be spending it that way. I took a break to enjoy some alternate creative pursuits.

Please understand I don't hold any of this against Parvus. It was my decision alone to sign the deal and then later to request its nullification. Parvus was both fair and understanding at all junctures.

After a few months of downtime, I'm of course back at it with another fantasy work, and meanwhile on the back burner I've been puzzling through some of the issues with the new Military Sci-fi work so that I can take another crack at it my way, no contract or deadline this time. There were some really unique concepts and ideas for that story that I still want to explore. But I'll do as I've done in the past, show up with a complete and polished manuscript of my own design without market influence or publisher interference. Making a deal with any publisher is ultimately still surrendering some amount of control over your work. Making a deal for a book you haven't even written yet is surrendering too much control to be palatable.

I do sometimes worry that my attitude of only writing when I am not writing to contract/market is anathema to future publishing prospects. But fuck it.

One-Man Marketing
Devilbone had a poor launch. My fantasy debut suffered from poor editing (my fault), poor marketing, (my fault), and really every other self-publishing problem you can imagine. Except, oddly enough, poor writing. Those that did read it, by and large, really enjoyed it in spite of its obscurity and lack of editorial standards. That above all else

Still, the damage was done. Devilbone was doomed to obscurity, and even though I corrected the majority of those mistakes and slowly gained readership over the next few years, when it came time to release The Servant's Tower, it simply didn't have enough steam to succeed as a sequel. This, more than anything, is what makes a third installment of the Sorcerous Crimes Division so unlikely. I don't expect it would ever make up its initial investment of time and monetary resources. The damage is done.

Going into Dragon's Banker was different. This time I had a fresh start, a (mostly) standalone work, and both a plan and budget. I won't be shy about the fact that the public aspect of self-publishing is my least favorite. I abhor networking, detest social media, voraciously hate spam and mailing lists of any kind, and as it turns out, get near anxiety attacks asking other authors for cover quotes.

What I'm trying to say, is that I'm not what you'd call a self-publishing guru.

Still, despite those challenges I had a budget somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 earmarked for the release of Dragon's Banker and the patience to set a release date several months in the future. That second bit is much harder and more important than you might think when you have a finished book and the publish button staring you in the face. About half of that was dedicated to Netgalley (and half of that just to get the copyright in order to be eligible for Netgalley) to get the book in front of motivated reviewers. It paid dividends when I was able to add pre-release buzz and quotes from positive reviews directly to the product page on Amazon, and also to gauge whether or not a book I wrote with an extremely niche subject matter -fantasy finances- could garner general appeal. The other half was split between independent promotion sites (generally worthless) and Kindle and Facebook ads with middling success. It's difficult for me to judge the effectiveness of Amazon ads in particular. All of my books launch on Kindle Unlimited (Since I like making some cash for effectively 'giving away' my stories) so it's impossible to tell whether or not that high click-thru rate and high average cost of sale was at all influencing the high amount of page-reads through Kindle Unlimited. To date, the Kindle Unlimited Lending Library constitutes -by far- the highest source of royalties for my self-published books. Reviews don't ever mention whether they bought the book or borrowed it. I also spent a good deal of time sending review copies and requests out to many review blogs and publications, but even contacting reviewers that fit your niche results in a response maybe 1/10 times. It's not disdain for indie works, reputable reviewers are just plain slammed. The fact is, there are just too many books for too few reviewers. This is one of the reasons legitimate Amazon reviews are so critical to self-publishing success.

Right now, Dragon's banker is both my best-reviewed fantasy work (Currently 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon) and has the greatest amount of reviews for my self-published titles, despite being only a year out from release. The majority of which were new readers, and as far as I know not carry-overs from my much better-known and higher-selling Union Earth Privateers series. I was honestly surprised at how well-received Dragon's Banker was by new readers. Self-Published Financial Fantasy is about as niche and risky a genre as you can get, despite Orcanomics winning the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off.

I'm not, and will likely never be, a big name in Fantasy. My attitudes towards the business aspects are too antithetical to what makes a self-published author truly successful

Still, I'm proud of what I've accomplished with Dragon's Banker. 

A Hot MinuteWell it's been some time since I've made a blog post, and the good news is that it's because I've been extremely busy!

Both my personal, professional, and in between (where writing lies) have been absolutely swamped! In short, I went to Iraq for 6 months, came home, got married, went Back to Iraq, and now I've got two books that will release before I find my way home again.

The Dragon's BankerMy next book, and my favorite that I've written so far, is releasing September 25th. This is my take on a slice-of-life adventure about a hero that would be in the background of any other fantasy novel. He doesn't know magic, he can't swing a sword, but he has a great handle on numbers. I worried a lot while writing it that it was too technical, too wordy, and had too many meetings. I worried the theme was too niche, that it wouldn't appeal to a wider fantasy audience. But pre-release reviews have assuaged that fear and then some. Most of the reviewers have said that the book is an incredible amount of fun, with a very fresh take on the fantasy genre in a story they'd never imagined with unusual characters they genuinely enjoyed getting to know.

Where Vultures DareThis is a big one. Where Vultures Dare is the culmination of a series I first put pencil to paper for in Christmas 2013. When Vick's Vultures hit the indie sci-fi scene in 2015 I was blown away by the reception and it has since gone on to sell more than 10,000 copies. I wrote it as a stand-alone novel but it wasn't hard to convince me to follow up by writing two additional installments. Now with Where Vultures Dare, I'm tying off the thread of my first three book trilogy. In the first book, Victoria took readers on an adventure across the Orion Spur. In the second book readers were exposed to some of the in-fighting within Union Earth factions. I still consider To Fall Among Vultures to be the best book I've written, though it came at the cost of making some readers unhappy. In Where Vultures Dare readers can expect to explore the ramifications from the second book, and see Victoria fight tooth and nail for humanity's future.

So What Gives?Both books came about with some measure of turbulence. I agonized on whether I should self-publish or traditionally publish Dragon's Banker, and eventually decided to self-publish it though it meant more work and likely less profit for me. I'm OK with that, money isn't the primary reason that I write. Where Vultures Dare ended up a bit rushed in the first draft, a result of long hours and hot days in the Yuma desert. It required a lot of work in the editing process, much more than any of my others. But all the love and care from the people who had a hand in its trimming helped make Where Vultures Dare a leaner, meaner entry in the Union Earth Saga.

I'm not sure what the future will bring. Standing on the precipice of two back-to-back launches I'm well aware that the next few weeks and months will play a major role in defining who I am as an author. Whether people love them, hate them, or something in between I have always told nothing more or less than the stories I wanted to tell. Will there be more? Probably. I make no promises. I have a few unfinished manuscripts on the back burner that I'll tackle once I'm home with my new wife. But for now, I'm watching to see how these next two novels are received.

Put simply: Monstress is the type of dark fantasy story I wish I could tell, and the type of art I wish I could draw.As an author and and artist, both of those statements in regards to one single work offers the highest of praise. While not without its faults, Monstress packs so much character, beauty, pain, and terror into its pages that I would put it squarely as my favorite original work that I've read in the past year. Seeing as the first issue was published in 2015 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda this praise may be late, but I felt compelled to give it all the same.

Set in a world that blends Victorian, Asian, and Art Deco aesthetics, Monstress follows the story of Maika Halfwolf (a half-breed with wolf blood who can pass for human) as she attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding her mother, a city-shattering war crime, and the tentacled creature inhabiting her body that infuses her with endless hunger.

The story is unrelentingly oppressive at times, with the weight of a looming world war and threat of constant pursuit stacked against Maika and her companions. It's a violent story of a war between humans and half-breeds with animal traits. Magic, mutilation, betrayal, and and worse are common in the world of Monstress and yet the artist never fails to capture the austere and sometimes brutal beauty. That darkness is juxtaposed by periods of light and characters with genuine charm and noble intent. There is love here, all the more vivid because of the evil and pain it endures. This is dark fantasy in its purest form, and each new deadly trial and harrowing stop on the journey peels back the mystery layer by layer while adding depth and new characters to the world. Progress is made only at great cost and by the inner strength of Maika and her companions.

All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend Monstress to anyone who would describe themselves as a fan of contemporary dark fantasy. Fans of dismal, oppressive worlds like Dark Souls and the Broken Empire trilogy who also like a side of bad-ass monster fighting a'la Hellboy will find themselves at home here.

Those with squeamish stomachs who are negatively affected by graphic depictions of violence and dismemberment should consider passing this one up.

Thanks for stopping by
-Scott Warren

Now that my second entry in the Union Earth Privateers universe has had a couple months of release to stew it's time to take a look back and peel back the veil. Following are some of my thoughts and plans for the book, the goals I set out with and some behind the scenes workings.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD Sequel to a Solo ActVick’s Vultures was intended and works well as a standalone book. I had not planned additional installments when I first wrote it, but I made sure to plant seeds and lay groundwork for future stories within the universe. Conversely, To Fall Among Vultures and its follow-up later this year, Where Vultures Dare, are two halves of a matched set. Each is a self-contained 3-act story that directly plays off the other and rewards the reader for tackling the whole set. There’s another popular work of science fiction that follows the same format. You might be familiar with a little series called Star Wars.
Linking the second and third book in such a way was a departure from my original intention of only loosely-related serialized installments, but I think the series is stronger for it. It allowed me to explore the concept of decision-based consequences where characters are forced to confront the way their choices cause ripples in the world around them.
Divine IntrospectionBoth Vick’s Vultures and The Sorcerous Crimes Division both delved into religious themes and biblical subversions in some ways, namely the hazards of blindly following faith without critical thought. But never are those themes as front and center as in To Fall Among Vultures. I worried that they would be a little too on-the-nose, but so far it’s received far fewer comments than the parallels to modern day government shenanigans.
Right from the start of the book I started throwing religion at the reader with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which in a very real way draws Victoria into the primary conflict of the book. In fact, the original name for the novel was To Fall Among Robbers, almost a direct biblical quote that perfectly captured the themes and tone of the book. Unfortunately, the name is only perfect in retrospect afterreading the book, and after much back and forth and head scratching with the publisher we eventually compromised on To Fall Among Vultures.
Much of the remaining story is a loose subversion of Exodus in which Moses led the Israelites to the promised land. The Gavisar are a race of dogmatic xenos following what they believe is the divine instructions of gods. But when granted a view from the outside looking in, Victoria is shocked at the absurdity of attributing god-like status to aliens and recognizes that the tenants and history of the Gavisar religion are manufactured by the Gavisar themselves. This story is somewhat unique in the role-reversal that the protagonists are forced into the role of Philistines. Neither the Maeyar or the Gavisar are truly villains, they are opposing forces forced to pay for the sins of their forebears. I think a conflict where the lines of good and evil are blurred is more interesting to read, especially when the protagonist struggles to decide which side they should throw their weight behind and realizes only far too late that getting involved at all was quite possibly a moral misstep. And do right and wrong have any place in interstellar politics at all? After all, what’s best for the Maeyar or Gavisar might not be what’s best for humanity.  
The Galactic Face-Heel TurnSurprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly), most of the reviews eschewed the vaguely religious themes and critiques in favor of the plot twist in the last act of the book. Up until this point in the novel Victoria, and by extension humanity, was the front and center hero. While the conflict between the Maeyar and the Gavisar painted neither as the clear villain, Union Earth was more than happy to assume the mantle when they arrived at Pedres to break the line of the Maeyar blockade. In a strategic and politically expedient decision that prevented a genocide and secured future colonization opportunities, the Union Earth Navy betrayed a budding alliance, undid nearly all Victoria’s work, and murdered the spouse of a main character in the process.
Both Vick’s Vultures and To Fall Among Vultures placed heavy POV emphasis on alien characters because I wanted to convey how the rest of the Orion Spur perceived these savage upstarts. But that emphasis also allowed empathy, and so when the Zumwalts begin to fire on the carrier line, the reader feels as though the humans are the hostile xenos. Victoria is helpless in this scene, her agency is stripped by military direction, and so too does the reader feel helpless as they look on in horror while they ponder the outcome. To date, this twist is the most divisive scene I’ve written. Readers are split half and half between loving it and hating it, and unfortunately not all of the latter were kind in their reviews. But all of them felt it like a punch in the gut, in fact several have described it like a physical blow.
And that sensation was exactly what I set out to produce. Whatever the reception, I consider it a complete success as a writer to evoke such a strong reaction. I would consider it a disservice to shoot for anything less.
Feel free to let me know what you thought. As always you can reach me on twitter @scottwarrenscd or on facebook.com/scottwarrenscd

I've been a big fan of Frontlines since about a month after Terms of Enlistment was published. The battle between rival Earth factions and the Lankies, and especially Andrew and Halley's struggle to be together reminds me a lot of the themes and tone of The Forever War, and has clear influences on aspects of my own work.

Unfortunately, while Points of Impact was entertaining and delves into the psychological strain long-term war is having on the main character, it doesn't measure up to the other entries in the series. Having read other reviews of the book I've seen that the major gripes people have echo my own. About 200 of the book's 300 pages can be summed up as 'Andrew talks about how tedious his current assignment is then transfers to a new command'. The book treads very little new ground, and no new locations are introduced to expand the scope of the storyline. After the Frontlines high point that was Fields of Fire, the latest iteration doesn't quite impress as much as I'd have liked.

I could only recommend Points of Impact to the fellow diehard Frontlines fans, but in all honesty this is the first entry that I feel could be skipped without missing any important details. I'm hoping the next entry will be a return to form.
The Frontlines series begins with Terms of Enlistment, and you should check it out if you enjoy hardcore, realistic military sci-fi with a classic sci-fi feel, well developed martial characters with complex motivations, and first-person perspective writing that takes its time describing the rich detail as seen by the main character.
You should avoid Frontlines if you dislike books written in present-tense prose and series which have no defined end.

All Systems Red is a short, but sweet, story that perfectly executes the themes it sets out to explore.

A secretly rogue security robot explores its place in the universe as it comes to terms with it's complete absence of desire for human interaction, even as it sacrifices and struggles to protect a group of humans it would rather not speak to. Add in a dash of sarcasm in the first person narration and you have a great way to kill an evening or two. Absent any dense technobabble to keep things accessible, this feels like a classically written novella accessible even to those who don't ordinarily enjoy science fiction.

Simply put, Martha Wells nails it, and you're missing out by skipping this book.

Now as a writer...I'm hesitant to speak badly about the work of other writers. As a writer myself I know all too well how badly the bite of criticism can scar. But perhaps being a writer has made me more critical of lazy mistakes and shortcuts that I myself have recognized in my own work, and in turn made me less forgiving when I see them in such high-profile environment as a movie that grosses 200 million dollars on its opening weekend.


The movie was exactly what I expected.To make this as clear as possible: This is not about the movie being 'not what I expected' as so many complaints have been about. This isn't even about the movie's over-reliance on tired tropes (the latter of which is used by both Poe and Vice Admiral Whatshername at the same time, against each other). This is about the movie telling me "Don't think about it" as each successive story beat is revealed to be more ridiculous than the last.

I went into the theater expecting space battles, light sabers, mysticism, and all things Star Wars. I got them. And they were great. If you look at each scene individually it's one of the most compelling and spectacular Star Wars movies to date. but then you look at the whole and the entire thing falls apart. The movie is less than the sum of its parts.

The problem with the Last Jedi is that it takes every shortcut and path of least resistance that it can. Every character action, every decision made, every 11th hour escape feels like Rian Johnson taking the laziest approach to hand-wave away any semblance of inconvenient logic or human behavior that might interfere with reaching the end credits. It feels like it was written over a weekend, submitted as a first draft, and sent directly to principal photography. Any editor should have been able to tell him "None of this is OK, try harder", but none did and now audiences are starting to tell him instead. Was it luck that these issues made it all the way through production? In my experience there's no such thing as luck.

Warp factor plotRather than break down every single example in the movie, let's isolate one particular plot point central to the film: The Chase. If you are looking to avoid spoilers, this is where you should be cautious, because you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I choose the Chase in particular, because my first Sci-Fi book, Vick's Vultures was completely centered around a similar chase, and so the problems with the chase in the Last Jedi were especially egregious to me because many of them were the same mistakes I made, or almost made in Vick's Vultures before taking the time to avoid or correct them in what I hoped were logically consistent ways.

In case you need a reminder, in this particular subplot the surviving Resistance ships are being harried by Supreme Overlord Snoke and his formation of Star Destroyers. There are two fundamental rules that drive the Resistance side of this plot:

The Resistance ships are faster than the First Order ships, but not fast enough to escape their extreme weapons range.The Resistance ships are running out of fuel, and have only the ability to make one (1) light speed jump.    Luke, I am your logical fallacyBut where does it all fall apart? Well, let's start with the fact that the chase lasts longer than 5 minutes when both sides had the ability and every reason to end it immediately. In order to draw it out, the movie establishes only 1 rule that defines the entirety of the First Order's behavior during the chase:The First Order is allowed to take no action which will bring them closer to their goal of destroying the Resistance, even if that action is shown to be demonstrably possible by the Resistance.  If they are playing a board game, this is the equivalent to the First Order only ever landing on lose your turn spaces. Let's look at how this manifests in the movie.
1. The Resistance is barred from making additional light speed maneuvers. The First Order is under no such restriction, and yet acts as if they are.The issue of weapons range is waved away as "The rebel ships are faster". The only issue is that they're not. Not only are they not limited by a single light speed jump, but there are multiple ships in the chase. At no point does it occur for one of the pursuing ships to make a short jump ahead to cut off the resistance. The logical action is disregarded because it's inconvenient. It would be harder to write, would have required thought as to how the Resistance would overcome it, and would result in an actual space battle and plot resolution too early in the film, instead of the slow-speed car chase we got instead.
2. For all intents and purposes, no other First Order ships exist in the entire galaxy.In order for the chase to make sense within the movie, we are asked to disregard the fact that two technologies exist: Faster than light communication, and faster than light travel. Conveniently, the First Order forgets about both, even though the Resistance first uses instantaneous 2-way FTL communication to contact Maz for help, and then dispatches Finn in a shuttle, who has time to travel to a planet an unknown distance away, get arrested, break out, and return to a battle in which no significant changes have developed.

The chase is predicated by the first rule of of the resistance ships, that they are faster than the star destroyers. But it's proven that a ship can make a round trip to another planet after gaining information from faster than light communication. If this is the case, it is an inexcusable logical jump that the First Order would not add lighter, faster ships to their flotilla using instantaneous 2-way communication to join the chase by jumping in at light speed. There is clearly enough time. The Resistance demonstrates that there is enough time.

3. The Mon Calamari Killshot should have been plan A  "That's Snoke's Star Destroyer" should have been immediately answered with "Let's ram it at light speed!"
Probably the single most divisive scene in the entire movie (second only to Leia's spacewalk) is the Mon Calamari Killshot. Cornered and broken, the enigmatic Vice Admiral sends the Resistance flagship on a hyperdrive collision course with the seat of First Order power in the galaxy, effectively crippling all ships in the pursuit formation and leaving them with a handful of ties and walkers, barely enough to mount an offensive on the planet. It was a beautiful shot, breathtaking from a cinematic perspective, equaled only by the firing of the first Death Star.
It was also an hour and a half of screen-time too late.
Ignoring the obvious can of worms this opens as to how weaponized light-speed kinetic weapons just made every offensive technology in Star Wars completely obsolete, the problem this poses in the narrative is this: Nothing developed plot-wise over the course of the movie that enabled the ability to use the Mon Calamari in this way. As soon as it was shown as possible in-universe, it retroactively became the the best and most logical opening move available to the Resistance. It also became a progressively worse option the longer the film went on, until it was finally used as a last-ditch maneuver.
Sure, hindsight is 20-20. But it's just too much of a logical leap for the Resistance to weigh the facts, and not immediately take the opportunity to evacuate personnel to the smaller ships and then sacrifice their cruiser to A) Cripple the enemy formation, decapitate their entire leadership command structure, and prevent pursuit. And B) allow the two smaller frigates to escape with all hands. Best of both worlds. The Vice Admiral didn't even have to do the flying, they could have left a droid pilot. As a viewer, I'm expected to ignore that Leia, General Leia, who has been leading rebel guerrilla fleets and fighters for decades is not familiar with the concept of acceptable losses. Sacrificing a single ship (even if it is the most important ship) for the entire enemy command structure? Easy choice. and we're asked to forget that she already applied this tactic in the same damn movie when the Resistance bombers destroyed the dreadnought. Why? Because "We don't kill what we hate, we save what we love"? No. Because it's inconvenient, because applying logic makes the plot harder to resolve, or in this case absurdly easy when they needed to drag it out long enough for Finn and Rey to have their plots. Bad or illogical narrative choices for the sake pacing are lazy narrative choices. It's a writer looking at obvious flaws in his work and saying "Meh, good enough." 
And that's really what the Last Jedi is doing. It's saying we should be happy with "Meh, good enough." It compromises, it settles, it excuses itself. It expects you to play dumb, and hand waves glaring internal logic inconsistencies with nonsensical restrictions so that every little mistake can be wrapped up part and parcel in the most dissatisfying package possible.
Did you think the Last Jedi was Good Enough?
Let me know your thoughts.
-SW-

We're 2 days out from release, and SFF World has been kind enough to host me for a blog post. Here you can read my latest rant on the topic of worldbuilding. Check it out!

It's been some time since I've made a blog post. The primary reason for this is that every time I sit down to write a blog, the feeling nags me that the time would be better spent writing actual books. Go figure. The spring and summer have been busy with activity, and in the interim since my last rant I've made significant progress towards my writing goals.

The sequel to Vick's Vultures is nearly complete, only a few final edits are left before it goes to Layout, and then to reviewers and the general public. To Fall Among Vultures will be released later this year and if you were a fan of Vick's Vultures, the second book continues on with more of Victoria's interstellar adventures. If you have not yet read Vick's Vultures, please consider checking it out. In the mean time, I am already hard at work on book 3. Parvus Press has been extremely good to me in their handling of the Union Earth Privateers series.

If Fantasy is more your jam, the second book of the Sorcerous Crimes Division has been completed for some time, but I have held off on self-publishing until I can secure an editor to do it the justice I believe it deserves. If you are a freelance editor, feel free to contact me to discuss rates. I am also working on an as-yet undisclosed Fantasy title that I think is sure to excite fans of unconventional Fantasy.

Until next time,

-Scott Warren