No Leads to Yes: Examples for Writers

I saw the Billy Crystal special on cable TV about 700 Sundays where he talks about his youth and how he wanted to be a NY Yankee or a comedian, or a very funny baseball player. I thought about my early ambitions and realized that we come to ourselves through a long series of ‘Nope, not that,’ or even ‘Been there, done that.’

I only wanted to be a writer -- a Great American Novelist. More specifically, I wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald. I didn’t want to be Zelda, the wife of a famous writer. The lifestyle was not my focus, but the stories.

I liked how Fitzgerald used anglo words and sneered at the French language that his buddy Hemingway only side-stepped.  I liked that Fitzgerald exposed the pretension of the new money classes and didn’t require a happy ending for a love story.

Later I discovered Lillian Hellman and wanted to be her, except she was so uncomfortable in her skin (when young). She told the stories from the point of view of the women, even though they were victims of the plot rather than driving the plot. Margaret Atwood does something similar, displaying the women as powerless in a stilted marriage or without funds or smarts to make a difference.

But why not a story where the female lead character drives the action?

You will suggest Sylvia Plath, I’m certain. Nope, not that.

There’s Carson McCullers, of course. Southern Gothic was her genre, and I was influenced by The Heart is a Lonely Hunter that I read at an early age. McCullers was sorta chewed up by the NYC writer’s lifestyle, though, as was Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird).

These stories are presented as confessions, a slice of life, illustrations of the era. Plots were outgrowths of situation following that axiom to write what you know.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true.

There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

– Dr. Seuess

But my life was boring – well-raised, bookish, affluent, Midwestern (not from the South where they seem to suffer more deeply). So … Nope, not that.

I liked action adventure stories like The Perils of Pauline or Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. I wanted the woman to drive a real plot. Why was that so much to ask?

So I read more stories by women in the fantasy genre like Louise Erdrich who brings in mythical elements from Native Americans, and Juliet Marillier’s series about a Daughter of the Forest. The girl protagonist was typically young and imbued with unusual powers of seeing. Other genre writers sent 14-year-old girls into battle in full armor and wielding a 24-inch battle sword. This impossible heroine makes the same choices a guy would make, except she’s gender female (often a cross-dresser like Arya in Game of Thrones). Nope, not that.

I read Robin Hobb’s many series (series-es) that start with The Assassin’s Apprentice. Hobb certainly has the chops for the fantasy genre with immediacy and surprise. (Dragon warming stations: still too funny!) I wondered why the primary character was not a girl. The female characters (in the early series) were relegated to stilted roles of a candle-maker and a misunderstood queen who wielded minimal powers through example and patience. The many lady-aunties accomplished small victories behind the scenes while presenting a benign presence at court. Nope, not that.

Is the same true for you, dear writer who is reading this blog? Do you come to goals for what you want to accomplish by what you know you don’t want to reinforce? Here are some of my standards I impose for my own stories:

·      Girl protagonist (past age 18) who drives the story

·      The protagonist isn’t isolated – knows her mother and sisters and cousins and opponents

·      Real problems that real women have to solve (without pretending to be a boy)

·      Believable obstacles such as no voice in public and no funds to achieve goals

·      A plot that has a crescendo at the end, not slice of life

·      Each character grows during the story arch (even the men)

This last goal is a pet peeve of mine that I call the Lee Remick syndrome. She played opposite Jack Lemmon in The Days of Wine and Roses. They were both drunks and he went through all the stages including getting clean but backsliding. She kicked him out so she could raise their daughter in a stable life, but he visited during his many ups-and-downs. Each time she opened the door, Remick looked the same, not a line on her face. She may have worn the same wig for the whole movie that spanned a couple of decades. Nope, not that.

List Makers' Delight

A Christmas list is like Christmas candy.  When the holiday is over, I still want some.  Luckily, January is a list maker’s delight.  I can throw away the old lists and make new ones!

My friends claim that my need for lists is a sign of a clinical depression or OCD or a need for control or some such.  So I made a list of medical conditions that people talk about wrong:

·      Lactose intolerance

·      Sudden leg-jerk syndrome

·      Facial recognition phasia – really mean she saw you but is ignoring you so you won’t ask her again to borrow money

Once I decided to stop making lists, even grocery lists.  I found I list the needed groceries anyhow, but I purposely leave the list at home to punish myself.

Many people are list makers and don’t admit it. Doctors make lists, but they call them categories to sound smart. Librarians are major players. They have lists of compendiums that list the number of specific old books still extant. There’s a cry for help.

So I made a list of list makers:

·      Starbucks employees

·      Airline pilots

·      Writers on Amazon – all want to get listed with Kindle 100 best free books

·      Efficiency experts

·      Anybody in sports (but they call the lists stats to avoid sounding domestic)

           

Website designers are list makers, trying to draw order out of chaos. “Okay, everybody talks, but one at a time and 140 characters only!”

The internet is list nirvana. Google is basically a list with most visited first. Goodreads has a section titled Listopia. I limit my time there from 7-9pm as an act of personal discipline.

My need for lists is satisfied with students. I list the grades I think each will get, then the final grades they actually earned with the variance and frequency. Aaahhhh, I love teaching.

 

The only group that cannot seem to make a quality list is healthcare.gov. 

So I say, list makers stand proud. There are more of us that can be counted. 

Many Thanks

Thanks to all participants of the August 2013 GoodReads giveaway for SufferStone. We had 633 entrees for 18 paperback books.

Watch this space for a new giveaway in October!

Also see:
HeartStone: Book II of the Dolvia Saga
StrikeStone: Book III -- released in July 2013
SignalStone: Book IV -- due out in January 2014
SeaStone: Book V -- under construction

SeaStone: Book V of Dolvia Saga

Prologue

Through a welter of cirrus clouds the sunlight cast blue shadows where a round yurt was nestled at the end of the path and with a shed and fowl hut. The door of the yurt, a heavy animal skin with the edges still furry, was thrown back and a bearded man dragged a girl into the snow, striping her legs with a switch. “You don’t learn, Stroenuk. We could all be killed!”

“Leave her alone, Ocliv,” a woman called from inside. “She must obey her gift.”

“Like her mother?” Ocliv said. “Huh, Opeil? Like the Stroenuk who was stoned and burned in the square? Is that what you want for her? And for us?” He held a torn page before the crying child. “No more drawings. No more dragon visions. No more images of seastone,” mockingly, “who is the liquid center of light.”

Ocliv released the girl and searched his pocket for a match to burn the page. “Light doesn’t penetrate seawater. Light bounces off water just like it bounces off snow.”

An overhead noise made Ocliv stand alert, so different from mountain thunder or the crackle of northern lights. Opeil stepped outside shielding her eyes to glimpse a streaking light that led to the craggy outcropping above them. The skyship, rosy in the angling light and with a wide con-trail, shuttered and came apart before it crashed. The nose section tumbled down the cliff, exposing the passenger compartment where puppet-like figures jerked and bounced and finally were still. 

They stared until the noise quieted. “Didn’t see that in your visions, huh, Stroenuk?” Ocliv accused. “Hitch the wagon.” He pushed the girl forward. “We must get there first.”

“Are survivors possible?” Opeil asked breathlessly.

“There’ll be supplies and shipments of jewels for their stock exchange. We must get there first.”

###

The blue and silver wreckage smelled of cold ashes and icy metal. Jagged edges were illuminated by the pitiless sun in the mountain air. Ocliv ducked out of the passenger compartment carrying rucksacks like schoolgirls carry. “These are the last of the goods,” he said. “We must go before the light fades.”

“We cannot leave the bodies,” Opeil objected. “Others will come; maybe offer a reward.”

“For us, you think? For the exiles who harbor a Stroenuk?”

“Alousha’s reward for kindness.” Opeil stepped past him into the round frozen space where the dead laid at different angles, their coats forced open and pockets emptied.

“Why do you always counter me?” Ocliv called behind her, but stopped short when a movement near the outcropping caught his eye. “You think to escape me?” He dropped the goods and hurried forward drawing his long knife just as a Chinese man in fur-lined coat and fur-trimmed cap rose in challenge. “Nu delaya!” the man shouted brandishing a rod. “Chi cylay!’

“I don’t speak your savannah gibberish,” Ocliv said. “And you know none of my words either. So if you die, who’s to say?”

“Ransom! Ransom!” another called from behind the desperate man.

Ocliv lowered his weapon. Here was a word he understood. A boy dressed much the same as his guardian stepped into the light. “They will pay a ransom for my safety,” the boy said in Striiduc, accented with sharp consonant sounds.

Ocliv squinted, noting a second guard crouching in ambush. “And who might you be?” he said to the boy who was maybe age fourteen.

 “Wan Chu, son of Ambassador Wan Su who waits in Cochin for my arrival. You will contact him now with your plan for my safe return.”

“Ha! Where do you think you landed, boy? Contact him how?”

“By Stroenuk, your dragon dreamer who can see the actions of those who dwell on the savannah as clearly as I see you.” Wan Chu actually pronounced the word correctly as strew-knock.

“Ha! If only her visions were clear,” Ocliv said.

“Others will reach out to her when they see.”

“See this?” Ocliv indicated the wreck site. “How will they see this?”

“There is one who has the song.” He stepped back a fraction, gesturing behind him. “Here, a dreamer like your daughter.”

“She’s not my–”

Opeil came from the passenger cabin, stepping past him and past the Chinese guards. On a pallet on the snow, past the chunks of flaked ice spray from the impact, past the long shadows and glinting sunlight that indicated day was ending; Opeil found a women laying prone but moaning softly, covered with coats taken from the dead. Two Striiduc gypsies squatted at her feet, maybe forced there by the Chinese. On a nearby boulder a dark-skinned girl sat, a Putuki judging by her features, holding her arm and with an anguished look from the pain of a dislocated shoulder. “Where’s the Stroenuk?” she whispered through the pain.

“We saved the ambassador’s daughter,” Wan Chu claimed loudly, desperately. “We stopped the bleeding. Except for us, she would die.”

“The girl,” Bybiis whispered. “Bring the girl.”

Opeil turned and gestured past Ocliv and the Chinese guards. The child in boots and a heavy coat approached hesitantly, picking her footholds over the unforgiving ice shards. The two gypsies whispered together, “Stroenuk, Stroenuk.”

Bybiis gestured to draw her near. “What is you name?”

“She is Stroenuk,” Wan Chu said in a demanding tone.

“Your name?” Bybiis repeated softly.

“She is Opin,” the woman said, “daughter to my sister Opinal who was stoned and burned in the public square. Opin is hidden here due to the shame of seeing. Her night visions—”

“Her visions will save us,” Bybiis finished. “Opin, I need your strength. I need a little help to reach my friends on the savannah. Will you help me?”

“It’s forbidden,” Ocliv said.

“If she doesn’t,” Wan Chu said, “we’ll all die.”

“I won’t die today,” Ocliv told him.

“She can ransom us,” the boy returned. “You’ll be richer than a Borabean king.”

Ocliv squinted, glancing at the Chinese guards. “Richer than Rularim?”

“Richer than Daniel Chin himself.”

Ocliv stood tall and seemed to swagger a moment. “We can hide the goods and return for them tomorrow. This is for Alousha’s blessing.”

Killing off the Bad Guy: Robin Hobb Series Finale

by Stella Atrium 5/1/13
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I’m an unabashed fan of Robin Hobb and force copies her books on my friends so we can discuss the characters and inventive plot twists later.  Dragon warming stations! What a hoot!

I’ve read each series as they were published, and cried when the grey wolf died, and when the Fool and Fitz were separated in the fourth connected trilogy. I knew that Hobb had a talent for wrapping up story lines to a satisfying ending that signaled the reader that this character’s arch was finished now, as she did when Fitz settled in with his childhood sweetheart after his soul was made whole by the Fool’s most recent adventure with magic (trying not to give away the climax).

Her stories have influenced readers and other writers who use (or skim) plot ideas that were made whole in Hobb’s fertile imagination.  GRR Martin allows certain characters, designated wogs, to ride-along on the spirits of animals, for example, even though he keeps that feature in the background of his series Game of Thrones.

Martin seems a bit trapped with Daenerys’ dragons, still infants in Book VI, because communication beyond hand signals will seem to imitate Hobb’s work. I wonder how he will resolve that conundrum.

When Blood of Dragons was made available in April 2013, I had mixed emotions. I didn’t want the long-enjoyed world that leads to exploration of the fabled city of Kelsingra to end, so I actually put off the reading of  to savor the anticipation.

The first three books of this storyline presented stunted dragons and their malformed keepers who were young people just exploring girl-boy friendships.  I liked that Hobb included hard choices for the girls, and provided the girl characters with the presence of mind, prompted by queen dragons, to manage events. Too many writers for sci-fi or fantasy neglect the hunger of girl fans to engage with characters like them.

Robin Hobb has more well-drawn characters than she needs to finish the series, and only nods to Althea and Brashen (and their liveship Paragon) who readers have followed in earlier stories. She holds certain developments for the young keepers to the very end, and even brings old-world dragons Tintaglia and Icefyre back into the mix.

The richness of the stories almost invites new episodes in older storylines like the dime novels that use characters from an old Star Trek series.  Except Hobb’s endless invention for new twists would be missing from these.

If I can add one sour note…  When the bad guys are removed, mostly by dragon anger or indifference, the story sorta falls flat. Many stories are bad guy driven, of course, like any Spiderman is memorable more for who played the villain than for who played Spidey. And Hobb’s villains are often without redeeming features.  But the power of the dragons is so overwhelming that the deaths seem puny, and the humans who kowtowed to the bad guys seem parochial in their fear.  Here’s a clear warning for Martin when Daenerys’ dragons are grown, hey?


The sci-fi reader should schedule reading Hobb’s books in order from the beginning (Assassin’s Apprentice) since certain secrets about the Skill and jitzin and flame jewels are revealed in this latest episode.  I hope there are more in the works! I envy the reader her many hours of solitary enjoyment ahead.

Kage Baker: Make a Satisfying Ending
by Stella Atrium 2/27/13
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Genre writers are encouraged to build a brand by writing a series of books instead of stand-alone books. The nature of cliff-hangers means some characters have unresolved story lines at the end of Book I, like Darth Vadar who survives when the death star is destroyed. Why waste a well-drawn bad guy in a single catastrophe?

Today’s trend is to leave unresolved story lines over several books like GRR Martin’s Game of Thrones that gives the reader episodic morsels following four related main characters (after he killed off the hero types). I like to think writers today are experimenting with stereotypes and resisting the expected ending with surprises and anti-heroes.

Some series writers provide an ending twist where characters struggle against the armies of the undead over 300-pages toward a deserted island, but come up empty-handed for the needed talisman to save the empire, as in Abercrombie’s Before They are Hanged. Somehow I felt betrayed. I had invested a whole afternoon but had no denouement for my time spent.

So when the story in The Anvil of the World neatly tied up all concerns into a hopeful package at the end, I had this odd sense of satisfaction, a feature that was once a prerequisite to securing a publishing deal. Hurrah for self-publishing!

Kage Baker’s story is targeted for younger readers and rides along on jeopardy and humor while an unseen bad influence pursues the extended family of Smiths. The caravan colleagues flee danger to open a hotel in a seedy part of town while characters discover they are really blood relatives. Even the demons are siblings. It seems that survivors of armed conflicts from decades ago hid babies in brothels, only to find the current kitchen waif is that very child grown into a malleable girl. Vapors of Charles Dickens.

So the third episode means the (now related) humans serve a squabble that has erupted among the demons, and our hero Smith provides the key that erases the troublesome human race, but refuses to use it, cutting off his own arm. The friends (human and demon) repair back to the hotel where, lo and behold, the kitchen waif gives birth to a child destined to redeem the race.

If this storyline seems forced, it was. The characters are well-drawn, though, with humor and surprise to provide enough entertainment along the way that I can recommend Kage Baker’s story to the YA audience who aren’t as jaded on archetypal fantasy as this reader.

Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
by Stella Atrium 2/12/13
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I love castle stories. What could be better than a 350-page fantasy novel that starts with three companions on horseback carrying swords and Radly bows crossing a frigid field to escape the bad guy or to rescue the princess?

I celebrate that there’s no end to these horse-and-castle stories, and I investigate whatever’s new. Some novels like A Quest for Heroes by Morgan Rice are calibrated for a juvenile audience and the heroine is too young for insights I would seek. Some stories follow the new trend of heaps of gore and lists of knightly heraldry like The Wilding by CS Freidman.  For some stories I don’t buy the second book in the series because not enough surprises held my attention during the first outing, like Blood of the Falcon by Court Ellyn.


I picked up Luck in the Shadows because I had enjoyed all three Bone Doll’s Twin stories, and especially the gender-bending twist.  The witch who lived in the forest and the young magician who she trained were diverting enough for use of magic.  Though the three stories lagged in places, a whimsical holy man arrived like a breath of fresh air to resolve some plot difficulties.  A 15-year-old girl in full armor and long sword at the head of an army to save the empire was a bit of a stretch, but at least she was a girl, and she had female relatives who had roles in the plot (more than decorative).

But…  I would call Flewelling’s Luck in the Shadows a lighter version of The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb.  Over the past two decades, Hobb wrote four series (series-es) around the enduring friendship between a fool with a mysterious background and an apprentice to a wizard.  There are same-sex undertones, but each becomes the beloved to the other through their many adventures.


Flewelling’s Book I of her Nightrunner series presents a watcher with a longer life than many, a wizard who commands spells for shape-shifting and message bubbles, and an orphan (why is it always an orphan?) who is a quick learner (why is he always more gifted at picking up dark skills?). Without a girl/boy love story to carry the reader through the MANY discussions of the heroics of former queens, and more discussions of the dead wizards who helped the dead queens, getting to the end was a struggle.

I don’t care about those old queens.  I have no context for those old queens. More living female characters who have roles in the plot -- other than decorative -- please.


Flewelling presents a bad guy (why do they always have no redeeming value?) who pursues our watcher and apprentice, but she drops this story line in the middle of the book in favor of describing the needed lessons in swordplay for the apprentice (why are long descriptions of training with swords required for fantasy writers?).

The struggle in the final act means the watcher and apprentice fight on the side of the current royal family for whom only three scenes were spared, and vanquish a long-simmering blood feud for which only two scenes were constructed.

Again, the reader doesn’t feel invested in solving the problem at hand, especially since the resolution was a matter of home invasion and a fire contained in a single room. A comparison to Hobb’s white queen in Fool’s Fate comes to mind, wherein the queen lost her captain, her familiar, her ice castle, and her hands before her suffering ended.

The bad guys in Flewelling’s story had not shown their faces again by the end of Book I, but the homoerotic undertones were coming to light. If there were more surprises, fewer long-winded stories about dead queens, less description, more jeopardy, more hetero romance – then I could overlook the disjointed plot.  I doubt that I pick up Book II.

Among Others by Jo Walton: A Review
by Stella Atrium 2/9/13
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As my next review for the WWE 2013 Women in Sci-fi Genre Reading Challenge, I chose Jo Walton’s Among Others, which I assumed was written in the 1980s since the main character discussed at length classic sci-fi stories available in Britain during that decade. I’m glad I finished the story before I read the press about Jo Walton and how she edged out GRR Martin for the Hugo Award last year for this work.

Her Hugo win is only logical considering that the story is more about engagement with classic sci-fi books than any other theme. The reviewers for the Nebula and Hugo awards must have thought Among Others was a smorgasbord!

I’m equally glad I didn’t know the story was called a ‘reverse Harry Potter’ because I would not have started it for that very label.  Derivative works are not my cup of tea. The story is written in the voice of a Welsh girl named Mori who doesn’t know her father and hates her witch mother and is sent to an English boarding school that harbors NO magic – no possibility of magic since objects are held in common. I can see how that plotline gained the label.

**spoiler alert here**

Mori and her twin Mor spend a rich childhood communing with Welsh fairies and avoiding the cruel acts of a demented mother. The fairies enlist them to diminish the powers of the mother, but along the way Mor is killed and Mori is crippled.

Two facets of the story make it a classic. First is the unfolding explanation of the magic of English fairies and how ‘it’s so deniable’, expounded through the filter of a sheltered 15-year-old who reads too much and is overly concerned with ethics. The second is the genuine responses to sci-fi stories Mori reads that are placed ahead of friendships among school chums, or reconciliation with a distant father, or a budding romance with a town boy.
I had read many of the sci-fi stories Mori claims to love (and at that same age), so I was in on the in-jokes. Defining the events of her life through examples from the stories – looking to Asimov and Zelazny for direction in a crisis – was unique, funny and delicious.

I liked that Walton choose the decade of the 1980s for her setting, ignoring world events but celebrating the gift of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, newly published. The world of Wales and Britain seemed quaint (County as Walton called it) and confined without the internet or a true connection with America that was the center of sci-fi publishing. The discovery of local fan conventions seems like finding Nirvani to Mori.

Sci-fi fans and would-be writers today discuss systems of magic all the time on Reddit – who got it right and who was copying from the other – high and low fantasy; soft and hard magic. Walton takes a respect-for-magic approach, and Mori worries that changing one event means so many events in the past and future must also change. Mostly, Mori uses magic, of which she seems strongly imbued, only when asked by the fairies and then only if the act does no harm. The one time Mori uses magic on her own as protection against her mother, and also requesting a karass, she worries later that all friendly gestures toward her are magic-bound.

This is a coming-of-age story, though, with no save-the-world tropes and few insights beyond what a perspicacious 15-year-old can glean from family and books.  The book is brill, wholly charming and worth the investment of a rainy afternoon. And I ordered out-of-print Zelazny books for my next read.

Remnant Population: A Look at First-Person Narration

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Stella Atrium

 
Elizabeth Moon is a controversial writer both for her writings and for her stance on social issues.  She’s a favorite of the feminists in science fiction crowd and broke ground for women writers competing for awards in a genre that was claimed for many decades as men-only. Because of her notoriety, many female writers received a fairer hearing from agents, publishers, readers, and award groups. Kudos!

Characters in the works of Elizabeth Moon are often women past the age of romance and child-bearing who struggle to find voice in a repressive family or community – one of my favorite themes. I will mention specific plot points in this review, so **spoiler alert**.

Remnant Population is narrated by a solitary 80-year-old woman named Ofelia who secretly stayed behind when the failing colony was evacuated offworld. She resisted decisions made for her by her son, by the corporation that owned the colony, and (implicitly) by her long-dead husband.  When a rescue team arrives years later, she must find her voice to resist deportation, but also to negotiate the relative rights to technological advances for the indigenous and intelligent creatures.


Ofelia reminds me of Grandma in Edward Albee’s An American Dream who has no voice within family. She is constantly shipping out boxes, and eventually follows her shipments to escape a repressive domestic fight.

This archetype follows the idea of the “affirmative no”, meaning that to realize her complete self, she must say no to loved ones. This concept was articulated in Martin Esslin’s Theatre of the Absurd where he discusses the plays by Albee along with Brecht, Beckett and even Sam Shepard.

Ofelia achieves her “affirmative no” when she hides to avoid the shuttle flight. She enjoys the solitude of the abandoned village even though she worries about her age and failing health.  The pacing is good. The number and difficulty of obstacles Ofelia overcomes is engaging for the reader (similar to Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood).

Additionally, Elizabeth Moon deftly handles a classic problem of how to report plot events that are beyond the sightline of the first-person narrator. Ofelia hears the struggle over an abandoned “weathersat” when a colony ship 200 kilometers distant has to abort the landing mission because the indigenes mount a successful attack. Ofelia is sorry for the offworlders who she identifies with, and is afraid of the indigenes who she eventually befriends. The reader quickly sees that later in the story Ofelia will serve as an ombudsman between these groups.

Herein lies the problem. How does the writer present the worldview of the indigenes? How does the writer present the group dynamics of the rescue team before they step off the shuttle? A solitary narrator can only assess what is in her sightline and from her POV.

Moon resolves this writerly problem by inserting scenes from the group-think of the indigenes using a specific vocabulary, and scenes from the POV of one member of the rescue crew named Kira. These scenes are not separate sections, but presented as the next paragraphs within a chapter. But then, I read the story on Kindle where standards for section breaks are still evolving.

I found the group-think scenes charming and valuable for increasing the nuance of later encounters with the indigenes. I found the POV scenes for Kira wholly unnecessary. The crew was stereotypical for arrogant scientists, and their gestures after landing told the story of tensions in the group.  In fact, Moon includes a well-written scene between Ofelia and the “enforcers” of the crew who are not included in the expedient exposition of Kira’s POV scenes.

For overall balance, though, if the Kira POV scenes were deleted, what justification remains for the occasional group-think scenes from the indigenes? Both or neither may have been the final (editor/publisher) decision.

Aspiring writers who struggle with the temptation to pause the first-person narration and present an alternative POV within the story can take a lesson from how Moon resolved that need in Remnant Population.

My Love/Hate Relation with Gene Wolfe
by Stella Atrium 12/8/12
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Gene Wolfe inspired me to write when I was younger, and by example expanded my courage to take chances for breaking the rules and following my characters into new territory. But his stories also make me pull my hair out, like he betrays the reader after so carefully gaining her trust. Do you have a similar frustration with Wolfe or with a favorite author?

Below are examples of my ongoing love/hate relationship with Gene Wolfe: only a taste, I could talk about this frustration all day long.

Language:

 

Love – Wolfe has no fear of made up words, mostly based on Latin such as dimarchi for soldiers. In the combined four books of Shadow & Claw, I viewed the peppering of strange words like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Hate – He carries this habit too far in The Urth of the New Sun where sunset is nightshade and sunrise is shadeup, along with many other simple word changes. The one-to-one transposing is only irritating and slows the reader who recognizes the device. Less is more.

 Narrator:

Love – The narrator is identified as writing from a place of long experience, injecting his later-gained wisdom into the story of a young man’s adventures.

The narrator often starts a new section within a chapter with a sidebar about his present visceral responses – left to answer a summons, but returned after dark –  without explaining the gap between where he sits and how he got there.

Hate – The narrator changes voices! I hate that! At the end of Book I of Shadow & Claw, he adds an appendix that tries to explain the use of Latin words as substitutes for translations of a dead language, thus casting himself as a translator rather than the writer of the memoir/adventure story.

Hate – In On Blue Waters, the narrator who again is an older version of the protagonist starts with a remorseful description of how he lost his wife, but never mentions her again after he rescues a mermaid who he maimed (naked, of course). The reader suspects the short piece of remorse, written separately maybe as a short story, utilized as impetus for starting the adventure, was inserted to get the reader going without a connection to the ultimate outcomes.

 Characters:

Love – Gene Wolfe is a great favorite among guys who are sci-fi fans because the point of view is from a soldier or executioner. The brooding philosophy adds moments of considering life on a larger scale and his place in the stream of events.

In Shadow & Claw, again, the protagonist named Severian has executioner skills and delivers a sucker punch better than Jason Bourne. He wins all fights, and women all want to bed him, stripping at a moment’s notice, even those women who are about to betray him.

Hate – Minor and long-term characters are often underdeveloped, only in the scene to help Severian unravel the present mystery. His nemesis Racho comes and goes posing as any convenient character and seems a paranoid delusion much like Moriarty to Sherlock Homes.

Hate – Characters are varied and described for personal quirks that are endearing but not revealing of motivation. Coincidences that force paradigm shifts are taken in stride. Female characters have no occupation and never wield decision-making power, only there to hold his sword.

Storyline:

Love – The worlds are complex and the gods are kept at arm’s length. The powers-that-be seem about to arrive with punishment for infractions. The hero’s impetus is well-drawn and his daily motivation is steady.

Love – Often a side adventure while the protagonist is trying to retrace his steps while lost in the city, or an engaging dream while the hero is healing from a fight, add to the reader’s enjoyment of myth and otherworldliness.

Hate – Plot developments are dependent on coincidence, and change-ups happen out of the blue. The characters shrug and drift in a new direction without anger or worry about where to gain tomorrow’s meal.

In Lathro in the Mist, for example, the writer covers this habit of disjointed plotlines because Lathro is brain-damaged and doesn’t remember yesterday without the help of his diary. However, the denouement of the plot is so general and poorly connection to characters (Lathro is rescued by the Roman soldiers – deus ex machina  –  who think he’s a great warrior) that the reader, once again, feels cheated after the investment of time to read 600 pages.
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Of course I will continue to read, and re-read, Gene Wolfe in order to feed my soul. But I may soon be bald from pulling my hair out from frustration. Feel free to add your ideas about his genius and bad habits, or mention an author who has a similar effect on you.

Self-Publishers: Managing Process Frustration

So I finished a sustained writing effort and felt euphoria from working consistently with characters and scenes. (200 pages! Yeah!) I wanted to share my elation and found my artist friend to explain what I had accomplished. He said, “I’m glad you finished your piece.” And that was it.Later he caught up with me and wanted to expand his response. “It’s just that I have not read the book, and I don’t know what you mean.” I told him my theory about process frustration that all artists feel, but novelists feel in spades.

Signs of Process Frustration:

1)    Did you ever talk for hours about your characters or themes to complete strangers?
2)    After expressing you ideas about where you are in the project, did you find that you no longer have the creative energy to write?
3)    Did you ever wear out family members describing the fresh scenes so they wonder what’s in your head and why didn’t you make dinner?
4)    Did you become silent and selfish about the project or characters or themes because you believe expressing the ideas dilutes them?
5)    Conversely, did you ever lend chapters to a friend only to get the critique “It needs work?”

How to Manage Process Frustration:

1)    Recognize it for what it is. You are engaged with characters who your friends don’t know. Why mix the two?
2)    Enjoy to euphoria of completion without tying it to the work – try a walk along the beach
3)    Avoid visiting the emotive quotient on friends and family.
I had a good friend once who was a big sports fan. If his team won, we went out for a meal and batting practice. If his team lost, we left him alone in the man-cave rather than try to cheer him up.  During play-offs, Sunday nights could be grim.

As a writer, I have found that this kind of spill-over makes even less sense because your family cannot engage with your characters.
Another choice is to find friends among writers and trade stories and chapters for critique. One recommended source is the fantasy writers group on Reddit.  Some people swear by this process, but I have always found that my critiques are too detailed and poorly received. New writers, especially, are too sensitive for ideas for improvement.
So, what’s the solution? Tolerate the solitude and learn to treasure good reviews on GoodReads and LibraryThing?

I have found that discussing craftsmanship with fellow artists, some from tangent disciplines, helps with articulating method, constraints, signals for poor choices, finding satisfaction, learning from finished products, avoiding bad critiques.  The chats about craft are often conceptual rather than practical, but serve as an area where we can at least admit the pressures and face the long stretches of time spent alone.
Your turn to participate… How do you manage process frustration?

The Self-Styled Reviewer

By Stella Atrium
7/23/12
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In this age of self-published writers, we also have the self-styled reviewer.

Review opportunities are circulated for many products – Consumer Reports on cars, Angie’s List for home repairs, comparisons of cellphones or ereaders when deciding which to buy.

We also review work in many stages of development – plans for remodeling the house, a change of direction in the middle of travel, the first draft of a short story on Reddit, peer editing before marketing, focus groups to test how key phrases play in the public discourse.

For this blog, though, I want to look at the reviews from readers for self-published books. I have a friend who manages a blog and is seeking to become a reviewer of romance stories or chick lit or adventures for kids. She asked me what writers are looking for so she can build a fan base for her reviews.

I believe her instincts are good. Write a review that each audience can use – the writer, the reader, the publisher, the fellow reviewer, the client who may re-publish your review on a digest blog.

Here are some basics:

1)  Work in a genre you prefer – I met a fan of romance who read my fantasy novel and complained there weren’t enough fairies or kissing.

2)  Get the facts straight – What genre, length, style, and appeal?  By appeal I mean is the book targeted to the GLBT audience, or does the story include erotica? Mention who may want to avoid the book as well as who may find the read rewarding.

3)  Include a two-sentence overview of the story – pithy and descriptive. NO SPOILERS.

4)  Mention where this book resides in a series or in the arch of the writer’s career, if applicable. Relate the story to previous work, such as  “more geared to a younger audience”, or “scarier even than his last novel”.

5)  Act as a confidant to the reader. What will she like if you pass along the book to her? “Don’t read this story on Sunday because you’ll be up all night and miss work the next day.”

6)  Think about the ways the review is used later. Include a few shorter sentences that can be quoted by the writer, or by Amazon, or by a blog that re-publishes reviews.

What to avoid:

1)  Some reviewers embrace the need to be critical. Suggestions for improvement are fine, but avoid the “this is how I would do it” tone. Include sugar with the vinegar.

2)  Mention your qualifications, but don’t make the review about you. Your emotive responses are a good way to connect with the reader who looks to you for advice. Your ideas for where you met the writer once at a sci-fi convention belong in a profile article, not a review.

3)  It’s okay to show your smarts by comparing the story to Homer or JK Rowlings. However, don’t speak in that complaining voice. “It wasn’t what I expected,” or “it took too long to get started.” Nobody knows your expectations, or cares.

4)  Avoid a blow-by-blow analysis. Readers want to know if they should invest time and money, not how Part II opens in a different voice. A book review for your 8th grade teacher had to show that you read the whole book.  We aren’t in school anymore.

5)  It’s great to list what was irritating or inconvenient such as too many character names or sudden time changes. Personal attacks, however, don’t serve anybody. “I was looking forward to this book, but was so disappointed” can be damning to the writer, but also damages your ability to find the next writer willing to solicit a review.

6)  Remember that readers spend about 60 seconds on your review, so provide a strong opening and write sparingly. Edit the sentences for any ideas that don’t serve the theme or the constructive criticism.

You will know you have succeeded when readers become fans and when writers solicit you for a review of a new work.

Self-Publishers: The Problems with Statistics

by Stella Atrium
6/5/12
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I had a screaming fight one time with my brother about which brought in the most money – Chicago sports franchises or Chicago museums.  My stubborn stance was that museums had long hours and no off-season.  He insisted that one need only look at the stadiums and know sports fans live here.  

Chicago is home to great sport franchises – Chicago Cubs (go Cubs!), White Sox, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawk and more.  Then we have the college teams including DePaul Blue Demons (yeah, Demons!).

Chicago is also home to world-class museums – The Art Institute (of which I am a graduate), The Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium, The Planetarium, The Museum of Science and Industry – and those are just the ones along Lake Shore Drive. 

So… which brings in the most money? Care to vote?

Of course, I wouldn’t blog about a fight that I lost – dead giveaway.  The museums bring in half again as much money as sports in Chicago.

Statistics can be surprising.  Before computers were ubiquitous enough to compile cross-platform statistics, information was gathered in a more casual manner.  An urban legend holds that for music lists, compilers called their favorite stores along the East Coast and asked the store owner what was selling.  Of course, the music store owner named his favorite artists as best-selling – in rock, funk, classical, rap, or easy listening genres.  When the real statistics were published for the first time in the late 1980s – Garth Brooks outsold them all.

Here’s a caution for self-publishers.

Statistics that include all ebooks for a quick look at what’s selling are impacted by the fact the romance novels outsell all other genres.  The most successful indie ebook writers/marketers are women, because the biggest fan base is women who read romance.

For non-fiction writers, maybe with a story about the struggles of raising a child with cancer, do you really want to follow the methods used to sell romance? Racy cover, short paragraphs, paced story with few surprises, long backlist for branding.

For fantasy writers, do you really want to follow the methods used for selling Hunger Games?  If you have read the hype, but not the story, it’s about teenagers killing each other for sport.

My publisher tried to sell me a module where my new release HeartStone sits on THEIR website in a colorful page with bells and whistles about searching for favorite characters and tweeting friends for which page you’re currently on.  The sales person – selling me – said more than once: “This is how Hunger Games did it.”

Yes, and Nicole Kidman and I have the same color hair.  So why aren’t I married to a country-western star?

Here’s an alternative method of developing a fan base.  Look at what books are successful in your genre.  Non-fiction is especially treacherous for follow-the-leader because books for marketing that reach out to confused self-publishers sell almost as well as romance.

Fantasy writers should look at the successful marketing strategies of Robin Hobb (Farseer Trilogy and more) and Lois MacMaster Bujold (Curse of Chalion and more), for example.  Brandon Sanderson used this method, in part.  He’s from Australia but joins the conversations on Reddit where Hobb and Bujold are certain to appear.  He piggy-backs on their fan base to promote his similar works.

I like Mistborn by Sanderson. I like Theft of Swords by Sullivan.  I watch them for marketing techniques and to puzzle out what might work for me.

I’m not making my hair black, though, to fit into that group.  It’s me and Nicole Kidman all the way on that score…