Posted by Chris McMahon
I would never call myself a runner - more like a plodder - but I do enjoy pushing myself across a distance. I recently went for a run with a friend of mine who does 42 km marathons. He really likes to mix up his training program. He does 3km sprints, then walks, or does a longer distance but for two kilometers he runs for 50 paces, then walks for 30 paces, that sort of thing. I just stick with the same distance, pushing myself on at the same rate.
'Hey you run too much in your grey zone,' he says, with the relics of his Dutch accent and grammar.
'What do you mean?'
'You need to mix things up. You will never improve if you keep running the same.'
The whole thing just got me thinking. What I get out of running is a kind of pay-off for my own bloody-mindedness. I love pushing myself, exercising my determination to push on through exhaustion. Yet I am so inflexible. I resist things, such as different approaches that would really improve me.
I've always had that determination to go it alone. I don't know if its the fact that my Dad was a rare breed of righteous policeman that would actually book other cops for speeding (and after the notorious Fitzgerald Inquiry was named as the only honest cop in Queensland, but that's another story - guess how many friends he had), and this has rubbed off. But I always wanted to do it myself.
At university I got incredibly angry when a friend of mine asked me to cheat in an exam. I have had much the same reaction at panels when established writers calmly state they deliberately copied the styles of other writers early in their careers, aping the structure of their prose to such a degree that they wrote it out as an exercise in absorbing it. That kind of thing horrified me. Creativity is SELF expression. I was always determined I would succeed with my 'natural' style, with my own voice, perfected through my own sweat (there I go again pushing myself the distance - alone). I wanted my ideas. My prose.
But have I been shooting myself in the foot?
I am a natural structuralist. I try to cram all my ideas in with plots and subplots. Sometimes I end up with so much complexity that the story openings get hopelessly bogged down in 'necessary' backstory. In my frustration, I have finally relented and for the first time am actually studying the openings of other books to see how other writers balanced their work, handled character etc.
This might seem so basic to everyone else, but for me its just such a different approach. Almost like - gulp - asking for help.
How much do other people study other writers?
In the development of your own style, did you make a conscious effort to absorb the styles of writers you wanted to emulate? Is this cheating or just good sense?
I would never call myself a runner - more like a plodder - but I do enjoy pushing myself across a distance. I recently went for a run with a friend of mine who does 42 km marathons. He really likes to mix up his training program. He does 3km sprints, then walks, or does a longer distance but for two kilometers he runs for 50 paces, then walks for 30 paces, that sort of thing. I just stick with the same distance, pushing myself on at the same rate.'Hey you run too much in your grey zone,' he says, with the relics of his Dutch accent and grammar.
'What do you mean?'
'You need to mix things up. You will never improve if you keep running the same.'
The whole thing just got me thinking. What I get out of running is a kind of pay-off for my own bloody-mindedness. I love pushing myself, exercising my determination to push on through exhaustion. Yet I am so inflexible. I resist things, such as different approaches that would really improve me.
I've always had that determination to go it alone. I don't know if its the fact that my Dad was a rare breed of righteous policeman that would actually book other cops for speeding (and after the notorious Fitzgerald Inquiry was named as the only honest cop in Queensland, but that's another story - guess how many friends he had), and this has rubbed off. But I always wanted to do it myself.
At university I got incredibly angry when a friend of mine asked me to cheat in an exam. I have had much the same reaction at panels when established writers calmly state they deliberately copied the styles of other writers early in their careers, aping the structure of their prose to such a degree that they wrote it out as an exercise in absorbing it. That kind of thing horrified me. Creativity is SELF expression. I was always determined I would succeed with my 'natural' style, with my own voice, perfected through my own sweat (there I go again pushing myself the distance - alone). I wanted my ideas. My prose.
But have I been shooting myself in the foot?
I am a natural structuralist. I try to cram all my ideas in with plots and subplots. Sometimes I end up with so much complexity that the story openings get hopelessly bogged down in 'necessary' backstory. In my frustration, I have finally relented and for the first time am actually studying the openings of other books to see how other writers balanced their work, handled character etc.
This might seem so basic to everyone else, but for me its just such a different approach. Almost like - gulp - asking for help.
How much do other people study other writers?
In the development of your own style, did you make a conscious effort to absorb the styles of writers you wanted to emulate? Is this cheating or just good sense?
Posted by Kate Paulk
Yes, since I tend not to do scorn without defiance, it is that finger, and here's why.
The last week or so, we've hit a clear thread of discontent with the status quo, dislike of awkward euphemisms forced on us by people who don't know what they're talking about (or mostly don't know), and generally a lot of gloom, doom and despair. When you look at the optimism of the Golden Age and at what followed, this really isn't that surprising, but still...
The mess is in our laps and on our floors and seething away in that dark unacknowledged corner in the spare room: you know the one, where all the junk you're not sure you want to throw away but don't have a clue what to do with accumulates. Worse, it breeds.
We've all seen what happens when good intentions meet naivete, especially if combined with enough of the folding stuff to have an impact on the rest of the world. It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences, and with the possible exception of the Law of Gravity, it's the only rule that's never been broken. Ever. The end result is kind of like what's left after that great big oversized dog with the tail that leaves welts has finished slobbering, wagging tail, and tracking mud everywhere. There's shattered traditions, broken cultures and just plain grotty stuff everywhere. So you put the dog out, mend what you can, toss and maybe replace what you can't mend, and hope no-one's going to notice the stains on the carpet no amount of cleaning could get rid of.
Right now, the industry seems to be standing and staring at the mess with a kind of transfixed horror in between bouts of ineffective hand-wringing and hiding the wreckage (and the dog) while hoping it will all magically go away. Think of the elderly aunt you'd swear never did a day's work in her life, expected you to do everything for her and then blamed you for not doing it right. Oh, and pulled a guilt trip on you if you should dare to complain.
I think the time has come for a change of pace. We're not little kids who have to do what the adults say, not anymore. We can give old Auntie and her fits of the vapors the finger and tell her if she's not going to do anything she can sit down and shut up while you work. It's time to clean up the mess.
It's never going to be the same: we all know that. But I do think we can, to mangle my metaphorical allegoricals, do the phoenix thing and rise from the ashes of the industry's previous incarnation. There might be some smudgy feathers, and the early stages are going to be kind of wobbly, but I think it's not only time to try, it's time to say "Bugger it! I'm going to make this work somehow," dig in, and get it bloody well done and done right (For those who are wondering, this is the Australian work ethic - do it right the first time, then go have a beer).
We need to get our optimism back - as individuals, and as societies. Let's face it, most of us don't need to be told how horrible things can be. We've all been there often enough that we don't go seeking it out as a leisure activity. If we want sermons, we go to church. If we want lectures, we go to college.
This of course raises some big questions. We don't need to go into a frenzy of cleanup without really knowing what we want - all that gets us is a rather less dire mess with nothing fixed or properly cleaned up.
So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to answer these questions:
What do we, as readers, want books to do for us? Do we want earnest slice of life, nancing elves, rollicking space opera, gritty dystopia, or some psychotic combination of all of the above? (Hi Dave! You and Pratchett are probably the only authors I know who could make that work!)
How can we, as authors and lovers of science fiction and fantasy, get from here to there?
And perhaps most of all, are you prepared for old Auntie's fits of the vapors when we defy the old bit... er, dear... - and are you ready to give her the finger and tell her to get out of the way?
Yes, since I tend not to do scorn without defiance, it is that finger, and here's why.
The last week or so, we've hit a clear thread of discontent with the status quo, dislike of awkward euphemisms forced on us by people who don't know what they're talking about (or mostly don't know), and generally a lot of gloom, doom and despair. When you look at the optimism of the Golden Age and at what followed, this really isn't that surprising, but still...
The mess is in our laps and on our floors and seething away in that dark unacknowledged corner in the spare room: you know the one, where all the junk you're not sure you want to throw away but don't have a clue what to do with accumulates. Worse, it breeds.
We've all seen what happens when good intentions meet naivete, especially if combined with enough of the folding stuff to have an impact on the rest of the world. It's called the Law of Unintended Consequences, and with the possible exception of the Law of Gravity, it's the only rule that's never been broken. Ever. The end result is kind of like what's left after that great big oversized dog with the tail that leaves welts has finished slobbering, wagging tail, and tracking mud everywhere. There's shattered traditions, broken cultures and just plain grotty stuff everywhere. So you put the dog out, mend what you can, toss and maybe replace what you can't mend, and hope no-one's going to notice the stains on the carpet no amount of cleaning could get rid of.
Right now, the industry seems to be standing and staring at the mess with a kind of transfixed horror in between bouts of ineffective hand-wringing and hiding the wreckage (and the dog) while hoping it will all magically go away. Think of the elderly aunt you'd swear never did a day's work in her life, expected you to do everything for her and then blamed you for not doing it right. Oh, and pulled a guilt trip on you if you should dare to complain.
I think the time has come for a change of pace. We're not little kids who have to do what the adults say, not anymore. We can give old Auntie and her fits of the vapors the finger and tell her if she's not going to do anything she can sit down and shut up while you work. It's time to clean up the mess.
It's never going to be the same: we all know that. But I do think we can, to mangle my metaphorical allegoricals, do the phoenix thing and rise from the ashes of the industry's previous incarnation. There might be some smudgy feathers, and the early stages are going to be kind of wobbly, but I think it's not only time to try, it's time to say "Bugger it! I'm going to make this work somehow," dig in, and get it bloody well done and done right (For those who are wondering, this is the Australian work ethic - do it right the first time, then go have a beer).We need to get our optimism back - as individuals, and as societies. Let's face it, most of us don't need to be told how horrible things can be. We've all been there often enough that we don't go seeking it out as a leisure activity. If we want sermons, we go to church. If we want lectures, we go to college.
This of course raises some big questions. We don't need to go into a frenzy of cleanup without really knowing what we want - all that gets us is a rather less dire mess with nothing fixed or properly cleaned up.
So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to answer these questions:
What do we, as readers, want books to do for us? Do we want earnest slice of life, nancing elves, rollicking space opera, gritty dystopia, or some psychotic combination of all of the above? (Hi Dave! You and Pratchett are probably the only authors I know who could make that work!)
How can we, as authors and lovers of science fiction and fantasy, get from here to there?
And perhaps most of all, are you prepared for old Auntie's fits of the vapors when we defy the old bit... er, dear... - and are you ready to give her the finger and tell her to get out of the way?
There might be a war between men and women, between rich and poor, between right and left, between children and adults. (At least I’m told that by Leonard Cohen in a song.)
It does not compare – in injustice, massacre, blood letting and sheer irrational fury – to the war between humans and language. The English language in particular has taken some heavy hits, is bleeding profusely and needs reinforcements, or at least a pat on the back and a swat on the face of its attackers.
It pains me to say it, but the most egregious attackers are my own gender. In my last year of college, my American Lit Teacher was a Fullbright scholar. While teaching us something he started apologizing and we all (a class of women) stared at him blankly. He explained that he’d said he, not he/she and was apologizing for not including us. We explained – thank heavens, disdainfully – that “he” included the female gender. He laughed nervously. It wasn’t till I got here that I found the reason for the nerves.
Having found out there are bands of roving female guerrillas who take potshots at the English language when an opportunity offers, I am still not impressed. He/she – really? Seriously? People are driven so horribly insecure by the fact they have a vagina that they must hysterically demand their gender be made a note of? I thought we wanted equality...
Yes, yes, the male was always a portmanteau word. My dear children, until the pill established real equality – so sorry if you thought it was obtained shoulder to shoulder. It wasn’t. The pill just changed the game fundamentally – women were mothers, daughters or wives, or not worth mentioning. Unless of course they were members of the nobility. “He” made a convenient short hand. To be offended by this is to be offended by history. And to refuse to be integrated in the one term is to exclaim loudly and often that women are in fact different. Also insecure children who must be appeased. Do you imagine that once we get the whole world to do he/she we’ll have earned respect? Do you not see the condescension inherent in the “how to write politically correct prose” instructions. IS this where we should have our laser-like focus? And don’t tell me we have to start somewhere. He/she is not going to stop female circumcision or female stoning which still goes on merrily in lands where they can point to our attacks on language and say “see, that’s what giving women power does. They’re all irrational children.”
And if I could tolerate the he/she, I couldn’t tolerate the other abominations that proceed from that toddler-like tantrum and rolling on the floor. The non concordance of phrases for instance. To avoid saying “If one wants to do that, he” we are now forced – and copy editors correct to – “If one wants to do that, they.” I find myself doing it, and it’s wrong, silly and stupid.
And please, don’t get me started on herstory and womyn, two constructions of such mountainous philological stupidity they remind me of that white supremacist cult who refused to use human because it referred only to people of color (hue-man.)
I’d like to remind all womyn trying to rewrite herstory that English was NOT – contrary to certain books – the primeval language spoken in Eden and that if one’s entire being is devoted to keeping the language from oppressing us, perhaps there isn’t much THERE to oppress anyway.
Not that we are the only offenders. No, the offenses are multitudinous – though few of them, save perhaps that of the white supremacists (and I’m sure black supremacists and, for all I know, purple supremacists) DIRECTED and intentional.
I can hear you right now, telling me I’m fuddy duddy. Grammar is no longer prescriptive, just descriptive. And language has always evolved. Oh, sure. Note I’m not railing about online abbreviations, even as they creep into our speech. That is an innovation brought into existence to suit a new technology and creeping into mainstream. That’s how languages change. It’s the mechanics of progress that gin up the next phase of a tongue, if they’re not sabotaged. ;)
Yeah, some of it changes through ignorance. When doing my first musketeer book, the only reason I was allowed to leave in my subjunctive was because it was an historical. Because the subjunctive was too difficult for people to grasp. Of course, if we’re going to be forced to sing “If I was a rich man” it sounds plain stupid, but this, like one/they doesn’t seem to bother the powers that be.
And right now you’re saying “But Sarah, you said female equality was the result of the pill. So. There. Technological advance. We’re now entitled to our language change.” Uh. No. A female who is equal to the males shouldn’t feel a need to change an abstract he to he/she. A female who believes that equality was won shoulder-to-shoulder and ever vigilant, might. The thing is such changes proceed from the inside, and from the bottom down or not at all. Language, like the economy, is a chaotic system. You can’t change it from the top down. At least not in ways that make it more functional. It will at best shrug you off and at worst perform less well than it was doing before. (Oh, and by the way, you’re not entitled to anything other than respect as a human being.) At best he/she is a temporary distortion of the language. And an excuse for those of us who are perpetually insecure to jump up and down on the males and thus call ourselves feminists while achieving nothing of substance. If that’s what you want to do, go right ahead. But not in my name.
Articles are a very fundamental part of the language. Changing them can make sentences difficult, stupid or agrammatical. It can make things hard to read. It can prickle like a bur in your shoe and make reading less than fun. It costs me money. How many readers are lost to the butchering of language? How much ammunition are we giving those people who say women are infantile?
You want to fight? You’re spoiling mad? Oh, good. Go forth and fight against real injustices done to women. Leave-the-language alone. I warn you, I’m not in a good mood. Leave my tools of the trade alone.
If every interest group keeps pecking at what we use to communicate, soon enough communication will be impossible. Telling stories will be fraught with peril. And much too soon we’ll get to the place where liberty is serfdom, joy is sadness and every man – and woman, note how correct I am – is an island with no boats to reach any other island.
It does not compare – in injustice, massacre, blood letting and sheer irrational fury – to the war between humans and language. The English language in particular has taken some heavy hits, is bleeding profusely and needs reinforcements, or at least a pat on the back and a swat on the face of its attackers.
It pains me to say it, but the most egregious attackers are my own gender. In my last year of college, my American Lit Teacher was a Fullbright scholar. While teaching us something he started apologizing and we all (a class of women) stared at him blankly. He explained that he’d said he, not he/she and was apologizing for not including us. We explained – thank heavens, disdainfully – that “he” included the female gender. He laughed nervously. It wasn’t till I got here that I found the reason for the nerves.
Having found out there are bands of roving female guerrillas who take potshots at the English language when an opportunity offers, I am still not impressed. He/she – really? Seriously? People are driven so horribly insecure by the fact they have a vagina that they must hysterically demand their gender be made a note of? I thought we wanted equality...
Yes, yes, the male was always a portmanteau word. My dear children, until the pill established real equality – so sorry if you thought it was obtained shoulder to shoulder. It wasn’t. The pill just changed the game fundamentally – women were mothers, daughters or wives, or not worth mentioning. Unless of course they were members of the nobility. “He” made a convenient short hand. To be offended by this is to be offended by history. And to refuse to be integrated in the one term is to exclaim loudly and often that women are in fact different. Also insecure children who must be appeased. Do you imagine that once we get the whole world to do he/she we’ll have earned respect? Do you not see the condescension inherent in the “how to write politically correct prose” instructions. IS this where we should have our laser-like focus? And don’t tell me we have to start somewhere. He/she is not going to stop female circumcision or female stoning which still goes on merrily in lands where they can point to our attacks on language and say “see, that’s what giving women power does. They’re all irrational children.”
And if I could tolerate the he/she, I couldn’t tolerate the other abominations that proceed from that toddler-like tantrum and rolling on the floor. The non concordance of phrases for instance. To avoid saying “If one wants to do that, he” we are now forced – and copy editors correct to – “If one wants to do that, they.” I find myself doing it, and it’s wrong, silly and stupid.
And please, don’t get me started on herstory and womyn, two constructions of such mountainous philological stupidity they remind me of that white supremacist cult who refused to use human because it referred only to people of color (hue-man.)
I’d like to remind all womyn trying to rewrite herstory that English was NOT – contrary to certain books – the primeval language spoken in Eden and that if one’s entire being is devoted to keeping the language from oppressing us, perhaps there isn’t much THERE to oppress anyway.
Not that we are the only offenders. No, the offenses are multitudinous – though few of them, save perhaps that of the white supremacists (and I’m sure black supremacists and, for all I know, purple supremacists) DIRECTED and intentional.
I can hear you right now, telling me I’m fuddy duddy. Grammar is no longer prescriptive, just descriptive. And language has always evolved. Oh, sure. Note I’m not railing about online abbreviations, even as they creep into our speech. That is an innovation brought into existence to suit a new technology and creeping into mainstream. That’s how languages change. It’s the mechanics of progress that gin up the next phase of a tongue, if they’re not sabotaged. ;)
Yeah, some of it changes through ignorance. When doing my first musketeer book, the only reason I was allowed to leave in my subjunctive was because it was an historical. Because the subjunctive was too difficult for people to grasp. Of course, if we’re going to be forced to sing “If I was a rich man” it sounds plain stupid, but this, like one/they doesn’t seem to bother the powers that be.
And right now you’re saying “But Sarah, you said female equality was the result of the pill. So. There. Technological advance. We’re now entitled to our language change.” Uh. No. A female who is equal to the males shouldn’t feel a need to change an abstract he to he/she. A female who believes that equality was won shoulder-to-shoulder and ever vigilant, might. The thing is such changes proceed from the inside, and from the bottom down or not at all. Language, like the economy, is a chaotic system. You can’t change it from the top down. At least not in ways that make it more functional. It will at best shrug you off and at worst perform less well than it was doing before. (Oh, and by the way, you’re not entitled to anything other than respect as a human being.) At best he/she is a temporary distortion of the language. And an excuse for those of us who are perpetually insecure to jump up and down on the males and thus call ourselves feminists while achieving nothing of substance. If that’s what you want to do, go right ahead. But not in my name.
Articles are a very fundamental part of the language. Changing them can make sentences difficult, stupid or agrammatical. It can make things hard to read. It can prickle like a bur in your shoe and make reading less than fun. It costs me money. How many readers are lost to the butchering of language? How much ammunition are we giving those people who say women are infantile?
You want to fight? You’re spoiling mad? Oh, good. Go forth and fight against real injustices done to women. Leave-the-language alone. I warn you, I’m not in a good mood. Leave my tools of the trade alone.
If every interest group keeps pecking at what we use to communicate, soon enough communication will be impossible. Telling stories will be fraught with peril. And much too soon we’ll get to the place where liberty is serfdom, joy is sadness and every man – and woman, note how correct I am – is an island with no boats to reach any other island.
This 'Fantastic' cover dates from the 'Hush, I hear a white woman scream' era.
But seriously, Amanda brought up the 1960s Space Exploration and books like Heinlein's 'Podkayne of Mars', about settling our solar system.
Here we are forty years later and where are the tourism trips to the moon station? Those books of the 50s and 60s were full of excitement, no challenge was too big, anything seemed possible. Terraform Mars? Mine the asteroids? A colony ship to Andromeda?
Space Opera.Those were positive days, now SF is very dystopic unless it is Space Opera.
What's your favourite classic SF book and what have you read recently that inspired you?
Posted by Amanda S. Green
Yesterday's blog about the masters of SF and their enduring importance to the field started me thinking about what inspired me to become a writer in this particular genre. I'm a child of the '60's. I grew up with Lost in Space and Star Trek (the original). I loved the B movies of the '50's that played on Friday and Saturday nights on the local independent station. Day of the Triffids terrified me and, to this day, I still have to remind myself that looking at a meteor shower won't cause me to go blind and be eaten by walking Joshua trees. TANSTAAFL and "Klaatu barada nikto" were phrases as familiar as my own name. Still, while all of that had an influence on me, it was just the seed, the germ of an idea that had yet to sprout.
What brought that germ of an idea to light was the space program. NASA. Project Mercury and the space race against the Soviets. Would we land a man on the moon before they did? It was the stuff of dreams and daydreams and it sent my imagination soaring.
It seems hard to believe that, come July 20th, it will be 40 years since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. Forty years since he uttered those words literally heard around the world thanks to technology that hadn't existed 20 years before: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
I was 11 years old that day. That's the day I knew science fiction could become science reality. It was also the day my imagination took flight, rarely to land for long. Even though I did the "responsible" thing and finished school, went to college, had a career -- or three -- my imagination never stopped flying. I hope it never does.
So, what is that one moment, that one image that inspires you to this day to do what you love?
Yesterday's blog about the masters of SF and their enduring importance to the field started me thinking about what inspired me to become a writer in this particular genre. I'm a child of the '60's. I grew up with Lost in Space and Star Trek (the original). I loved the B movies of the '50's that played on Friday and Saturday nights on the local independent station. Day of the Triffids terrified me and, to this day, I still have to remind myself that looking at a meteor shower won't cause me to go blind and be eaten by walking Joshua trees. TANSTAAFL and "Klaatu barada nikto" were phrases as familiar as my own name. Still, while all of that had an influence on me, it was just the seed, the germ of an idea that had yet to sprout.
What brought that germ of an idea to light was the space program. NASA. Project Mercury and the space race against the Soviets. Would we land a man on the moon before they did? It was the stuff of dreams and daydreams and it sent my imagination soaring.
It seems hard to believe that, come July 20th, it will be 40 years since Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. Forty years since he uttered those words literally heard around the world thanks to technology that hadn't existed 20 years before: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."I was 11 years old that day. That's the day I knew science fiction could become science reality. It was also the day my imagination took flight, rarely to land for long. Even though I did the "responsible" thing and finished school, went to college, had a career -- or three -- my imagination never stopped flying. I hope it never does.
So, what is that one moment, that one image that inspires you to this day to do what you love?
Posted by Amanda S. Green
Kate and I were talking yesterday -- well, to be honest, we were IM'ing -- about possible topics for today's post. We discussed a number of things, everything from how we are both being hit by new books wanting to be written to how nervous we are as we wait to hear from publishers/agents/etc to the panels being presented at Libertycon this weekend. The one thing we kept going back to is something Dave touched on in his last post -- how the older authors, such as Schmitz, have seen a new generation of readers come to know and love them through re-issues of their work.
But there is a different side of the issue I want to discuss today, one the name of a panel at Libertycon brought back to mind. I say "back to mind" because this discussion cropped up on Baen's Bar a year or so ago and has also made the rounds on several LJs in the past. But it's an important issue, at least in my mind as a writer, and one I'd like to get your opinions on.
What is the name of the panel that got all this started you ask? "Shell Worlds: Why Space Opera Has It Wrong". In particular, what stuck in my mind is the last of the title: Why space opera has it wrong.
I've had discussions bordering on knock-down, drag-out arguments with others about the validity of the old space operas. They claim Heinlein is no longer important because his technology is either too old fashioned or impossible. They diss Asimov because he based his Foundation series on historical narratives and faulty assumptions. John W. Campbell is nothing more than a name in a list of greats who has no importance today beyond the fact he helped make SF what it is today.
These readers eat up the technical aspects of books similar to David Weber's Honor Harrington series. They hold on-line discussions dissecting every possible equation to prove or disprove what Weber writes. They discuss the specifications of the different ships and munitions used in each and every assault.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of David Weber. But my eyes glaze over after the first couple of paragraphs of technical data. I want the guts of the story -- the characters and the conflict. I can forgive an author if his science doesn't quite work today, especially if he wrote 50 years ago. It's the story that grabs me, not the tech.
What about you? Which is more important to you -- accurate tech (or at least believable according to today's standards) or character and conflict? Do you see the inaccuracies of the science of the old masters as a problem today and why?
Kate and I were talking yesterday -- well, to be honest, we were IM'ing -- about possible topics for today's post. We discussed a number of things, everything from how we are both being hit by new books wanting to be written to how nervous we are as we wait to hear from publishers/agents/etc to the panels being presented at Libertycon this weekend. The one thing we kept going back to is something Dave touched on in his last post -- how the older authors, such as Schmitz, have seen a new generation of readers come to know and love them through re-issues of their work.But there is a different side of the issue I want to discuss today, one the name of a panel at Libertycon brought back to mind. I say "back to mind" because this discussion cropped up on Baen's Bar a year or so ago and has also made the rounds on several LJs in the past. But it's an important issue, at least in my mind as a writer, and one I'd like to get your opinions on.
What is the name of the panel that got all this started you ask? "Shell Worlds: Why Space Opera Has It Wrong". In particular, what stuck in my mind is the last of the title: Why space opera has it wrong.
I've had discussions bordering on knock-down, drag-out arguments with others about the validity of the old space operas. They claim Heinlein is no longer important because his technology is either too old fashioned or impossible. They diss Asimov because he based his Foundation series on historical narratives and faulty assumptions. John W. Campbell is nothing more than a name in a list of greats who has no importance today beyond the fact he helped make SF what it is today.
These readers eat up the technical aspects of books similar to David Weber's Honor Harrington series. They hold on-line discussions dissecting every possible equation to prove or disprove what Weber writes. They discuss the specifications of the different ships and munitions used in each and every assault.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of David Weber. But my eyes glaze over after the first couple of paragraphs of technical data. I want the guts of the story -- the characters and the conflict. I can forgive an author if his science doesn't quite work today, especially if he wrote 50 years ago. It's the story that grabs me, not the tech.
What about you? Which is more important to you -- accurate tech (or at least believable according to today's standards) or character and conflict? Do you see the inaccuracies of the science of the old masters as a problem today and why?
Emotions. We all have them, and our characters all have them (well apart from the scaled Zeomoth from Betelgeuse 7, but since the collapse of their stellar empire due to lack of interest, thank goodness we don't have to worry about them). Describing them in a character can be a challenge. I find describing my own emotions a challenge and there are no layers of prose between Me and Me.
There are plenty of words for emotion, but when its all said and done they all seem to boil down to four or five basic states. I can't help but thinking its a bit like how the Eskimos have so many words for snow. Are we now limited by our own language in expressing reality? Are we now dealing with the legacy of the stoic British with their endemic Stiff Upper Lip? Perhaps like people in equatorial New Guinea had no need for snow description, were our mostly bloody-minded and warlike [linguistic] ancestors not in need of emotional description? Was there a little known tribe of expressive Keltoi wiped out by Caesar's advance into Gaul that had twenty basic words for emotion? Or are we losing them even now as languages go extinct?
You have some basic states:
Angry, Sad, Happy, Fearful
Which come with flavors i.e. Happy => Delight, Ecstasy, Excitement etc
Then others that seem to be a combination of various elements of this basic emotional spectrum:
Apathy, Loneliness, Hate, Confusion, Bewilderment, Shame, Annoyance, Grief, Depression, Apprehension, Disappointment, Irritation, Horror, Jealousy - the list goes on.
I'm not trying to start an exercise in semantics, and I realize some Psychologists probably spend there lives studying this exact thing, just trying to express my frustration at grappling with it. Despite the bewildering array of words that you might get from a thesaurus, I often end up dissatisfied, falling back on a combination of the two. i.e.
"Yolinda looked at Finn, both pleased by the off-hand compliment and yet annoyed at the reference to her betrayal of him on Fraser Island. "
In this line above, isn't Yolinda actually feeling just one thing? A weird admixture of the two emotions? If so what the hell is the name for it!
Is this just me or do we need new words in the English language? Does it take us as writers to push the boundaries and invent new words and expressions, much as the Elizabethan Poets did way back when the language was in its infancy?
Yours Bemused/Hopeful/Anxious/Determined/Paine
Chris Mc
There are plenty of words for emotion, but when its all said and done they all seem to boil down to four or five basic states. I can't help but thinking its a bit like how the Eskimos have so many words for snow. Are we now limited by our own language in expressing reality? Are we now dealing with the legacy of the stoic British with their endemic Stiff Upper Lip? Perhaps like people in equatorial New Guinea had no need for snow description, were our mostly bloody-minded and warlike [linguistic] ancestors not in need of emotional description? Was there a little known tribe of expressive Keltoi wiped out by Caesar's advance into Gaul that had twenty basic words for emotion? Or are we losing them even now as languages go extinct?
You have some basic states:
Angry, Sad, Happy, Fearful
Which come with flavors i.e. Happy => Delight, Ecstasy, Excitement etc
Then others that seem to be a combination of various elements of this basic emotional spectrum:
Apathy, Loneliness, Hate, Confusion, Bewilderment, Shame, Annoyance, Grief, Depression, Apprehension, Disappointment, Irritation, Horror, Jealousy - the list goes on.
I'm not trying to start an exercise in semantics, and I realize some Psychologists probably spend there lives studying this exact thing, just trying to express my frustration at grappling with it. Despite the bewildering array of words that you might get from a thesaurus, I often end up dissatisfied, falling back on a combination of the two. i.e.
"Yolinda looked at Finn, both pleased by the off-hand compliment and yet annoyed at the reference to her betrayal of him on Fraser Island. "
In this line above, isn't Yolinda actually feeling just one thing? A weird admixture of the two emotions? If so what the hell is the name for it!
Is this just me or do we need new words in the English language? Does it take us as writers to push the boundaries and invent new words and expressions, much as the Elizabethan Poets did way back when the language was in its infancy?
Yours Bemused/Hopeful/Anxious/Determined/Paine
Chris Mc
Posted by Kate Paulk
So Dave has talked about the way forward for the industry as a whole - and boy did he open the floodgates with that one - Rowena about what we use for inspiration, and Sarah about plotting and pantsing. This leaves me wondering what on earth I should be talking about, since, gee, I'm the itty bitty minnow in this pond of writers.
Scootching back a bit, Amanda's posted some interesting commentary on ebook, advances and royalties, John's talked about cheesy, bad taste headlines spawning stories, and Chris about crit groups vs going it alone. I'm not going any further back, but...
Is it my imagination or do I see the signs of a huge unmet need hanging around out there waiting for something to show up and provide it? We're living in what might charitably be described as interesting times for any number of reasons, but in a lot of ways we (meaning humanity in general and this subset of it in particular) have never been better off. Just thirty years ago the notion that someone would be able to type something, click a few buttons, and make it available to anyone in the world who wanted to see it wasn't merely insane, it was unthinkable. Literally unthinkable - there was no framework for the idea. Science fiction of the time has, assuming my often wonky memory hasn't jetted off to the Bahamas without me again (and it never sends post cards, either. sniff.), improved communications like video phones and often instant connection across vast distances. I don't recall anything I read that included anything like the ability for anyone to say anything and hang it out for anyone to see.
And yet... There's something missing. It shows in the responses to Dave's question about old-fashioned adventure stories and to a lesser extent elsewhere.
So I ask, what are we missing? Here we are with all this stuff we never dreamed of as kids, with friends from all around the world that we can more or less talk to, more or less free, any time we want. New books are flooding out at an unprecedented rate (aka title churn) but we writers aren't satisfied - and probably more to the point, we readers aren't satisfied.
I have my theories about why, and they tie into Dave's post from Monday, with the usual erratic segues all over the entire cognitive realm, but right now I'd like to know what you think is missing.
So Dave has talked about the way forward for the industry as a whole - and boy did he open the floodgates with that one - Rowena about what we use for inspiration, and Sarah about plotting and pantsing. This leaves me wondering what on earth I should be talking about, since, gee, I'm the itty bitty minnow in this pond of writers.
Scootching back a bit, Amanda's posted some interesting commentary on ebook, advances and royalties, John's talked about cheesy, bad taste headlines spawning stories, and Chris about crit groups vs going it alone. I'm not going any further back, but...
Is it my imagination or do I see the signs of a huge unmet need hanging around out there waiting for something to show up and provide it? We're living in what might charitably be described as interesting times for any number of reasons, but in a lot of ways we (meaning humanity in general and this subset of it in particular) have never been better off. Just thirty years ago the notion that someone would be able to type something, click a few buttons, and make it available to anyone in the world who wanted to see it wasn't merely insane, it was unthinkable. Literally unthinkable - there was no framework for the idea. Science fiction of the time has, assuming my often wonky memory hasn't jetted off to the Bahamas without me again (and it never sends post cards, either. sniff.), improved communications like video phones and often instant connection across vast distances. I don't recall anything I read that included anything like the ability for anyone to say anything and hang it out for anyone to see.
And yet... There's something missing. It shows in the responses to Dave's question about old-fashioned adventure stories and to a lesser extent elsewhere.
So I ask, what are we missing? Here we are with all this stuff we never dreamed of as kids, with friends from all around the world that we can more or less talk to, more or less free, any time we want. New books are flooding out at an unprecedented rate (aka title churn) but we writers aren't satisfied - and probably more to the point, we readers aren't satisfied.
I have my theories about why, and they tie into Dave's post from Monday, with the usual erratic segues all over the entire cognitive realm, but right now I'd like to know what you think is missing.
Posted by Sarah A. Hoyt
Almost exactly a year ago today I found myself at a cocktail party at RWA. In case you wonder what professional writers talk about when they get together, it goes like this: Money; taxes; weird contracts; how do you do *this*; books. More or less in that order.
The first time I heard this from a pro writer, when I was a wanna be I thought “Taxes?” but of course, if you assume that everyone has already made it in, and if you know that taxes for any creative artist are a mess not likely to be covered by accountants, you see the importance of this.
However, since this party was with total strangers – you don’t normally plunge into the money on introduction – it became the second to last topic. I.e., “how do you work.” Or in this case “Are you a plotter or a pantser?”
Since – pace Robert A. Heinlein – only a fool or a sadist tells the unvarnished truth on social occasions, I normally answer that with whatever I think will let me off easier. If it’s a working crowd, I say “Plotter” while if it’s a more sensitive, literary crowd, I say “pantser.”
However this day I had been drinking for something like 10 hours straight, and when I drink I don’t play around. It started with whiskey at nine in the morning... (It was my agent’s fault, I swear. The woman did tempt me and I did drink, Lord.) So by seven in the afternoon, I had reached that place of terrible and compulsive honesty where I tell the truth. In this case, “Both.”
Unfortunately this is not something that lets you off easy, so you have to explain. I do bizarrely detailed outlines to begin with. But it’s sort of like doing an exact road map of an eight hour trip. Once you get under way, you find there’s construction blocking a road you planned to use; another area the road has washed out in floods and yet another the map has nothing to do with what’s on the ground. So there is this tendency to get ten chapters in, discard my outline and make a new one. If I am under pressure, then I often end up with the beginning of a book, the middle of another, and the end of yet another, which I then have to change into a cohesive whole.
By the time I was done explaining, I swear people were edging away from me and contemplating calling the men in white coats on their cell phones. But to me it’s the only thing that works.
And while I would like to tell you that all my plotting is absolutely rational... well, a lot isn’t. Something comes alive. Or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, usually it means I’ve done something wrong. The book goes silent. The plot I have doesn’t work, but I don’t know what to do. This is when I start drawing. Or listening to the right music. Or playing with the directions and seeing where it goes. It’s rather like trying all the little back roads looking for a way back to the highway.
I just had a book go silent like that, and it took me a month to realize the “fork” I’d taken led to a lot of “business meeting” situations, instead of developing the plot through things people DO. So I’ve eliminated eighty pages and taken a different fork. And now the book is talking and flowing.
So, how do you do it? How do you think it should be done, and why? Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you have guesses about your favorite authors? Do you work differently for different stories? And does anyone out there discard as vast an amount of text as I do?
Almost exactly a year ago today I found myself at a cocktail party at RWA. In case you wonder what professional writers talk about when they get together, it goes like this: Money; taxes; weird contracts; how do you do *this*; books. More or less in that order.
The first time I heard this from a pro writer, when I was a wanna be I thought “Taxes?” but of course, if you assume that everyone has already made it in, and if you know that taxes for any creative artist are a mess not likely to be covered by accountants, you see the importance of this.
However, since this party was with total strangers – you don’t normally plunge into the money on introduction – it became the second to last topic. I.e., “how do you work.” Or in this case “Are you a plotter or a pantser?”
Since – pace Robert A. Heinlein – only a fool or a sadist tells the unvarnished truth on social occasions, I normally answer that with whatever I think will let me off easier. If it’s a working crowd, I say “Plotter” while if it’s a more sensitive, literary crowd, I say “pantser.”
However this day I had been drinking for something like 10 hours straight, and when I drink I don’t play around. It started with whiskey at nine in the morning... (It was my agent’s fault, I swear. The woman did tempt me and I did drink, Lord.) So by seven in the afternoon, I had reached that place of terrible and compulsive honesty where I tell the truth. In this case, “Both.”
Unfortunately this is not something that lets you off easy, so you have to explain. I do bizarrely detailed outlines to begin with. But it’s sort of like doing an exact road map of an eight hour trip. Once you get under way, you find there’s construction blocking a road you planned to use; another area the road has washed out in floods and yet another the map has nothing to do with what’s on the ground. So there is this tendency to get ten chapters in, discard my outline and make a new one. If I am under pressure, then I often end up with the beginning of a book, the middle of another, and the end of yet another, which I then have to change into a cohesive whole.
By the time I was done explaining, I swear people were edging away from me and contemplating calling the men in white coats on their cell phones. But to me it’s the only thing that works.
And while I would like to tell you that all my plotting is absolutely rational... well, a lot isn’t. Something comes alive. Or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, usually it means I’ve done something wrong. The book goes silent. The plot I have doesn’t work, but I don’t know what to do. This is when I start drawing. Or listening to the right music. Or playing with the directions and seeing where it goes. It’s rather like trying all the little back roads looking for a way back to the highway.
I just had a book go silent like that, and it took me a month to realize the “fork” I’d taken led to a lot of “business meeting” situations, instead of developing the plot through things people DO. So I’ve eliminated eighty pages and taken a different fork. And now the book is talking and flowing.
So, how do you do it? How do you think it should be done, and why? Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you have guesses about your favorite authors? Do you work differently for different stories? And does anyone out there discard as vast an amount of text as I do?
Posted by Dave Freer
My opinion - Based on the surprising success of the re-issue of the James H Schmitz books that there is a huge appetite for good old-fashioned space opera, with clearly defined bad guys and heroes we can identify with. And yes, that does mean alien villains who are not just misunderstood, now that you mention it :-)
You know, I've been involved in mountain rescue over the years... and so many disasters happen when bright sparks (like yours monkily) take the wrong trail (because it looks better) and then don't have the common sense - or sometimes the self-confidence, to look at the 75 degree scree-slope with the cliff at the base in the dusk, and the mist swirling in on a freezing gale, to say "Okay, I was a plonker. We're staying RIGHT HERE until morning and then we'll walk back and take the other path. You were right, Fred, Mary and the dog." No, we press on, even as the scree gets steeper and more slippery.
Occasionally it doesn't all end horribly.
Humans (me neither, and I'm only distantly related) are not great at admitting we're wrong. At least not at the time or from close up. I was re-reading SHADOW OF THE LION as homework for the latest book, and I wanted take that Dave Freer outside and give him a good kicking. Because... If I was writing that book now, I'd chop a few bits I wrote (not to mention bits the others wrote) get rid of a few subplots entirely, and write it whole lot better. There are still bits (Benito diving for Kat's grey goods, the scene at the Red Cat, the mess that Marco gets himself into marrying Angelina to pay off an imagined debt of honor etc.) that are pretty well done and memorable. At the time it seemed a good scree slope, with the place we were trying to get to not far off. Now... heh. Well THIS ROUGH MAGIC was better written anyway.
Increasingly, however I have come to suspect that whole of publishing is on a steep, steep scree. It's getting steeper, and darker and wetter ahead. I think the industry is determinedly plunging forward even as it loses parts of the party into the abyss. And, actually, I don't think it's going to get better in that direction. There are a few people (Baen Books to name one) trying other routes but mostly it seems relentlessly the same imagined path.
The big question is, well, which direction SHOULD we be going? Well, in my opinion, toward books that have real appeal to massive numbers of readers. They exit. Harry Potter et al proved it. Just what are the kind of books that would get a lot of people reading? Where did the industry go off track?
My opinion - Based on the surprising success of the re-issue of the James H Schmitz books that there is a huge appetite for good old-fashioned space opera, with clearly defined bad guys and heroes we can identify with. And yes, that does mean alien villains who are not just misunderstood, now that you mention it :-)So let's have some feedback: what authors style/type of story from the dark ages/golden years do you think would work well now in sf/ fantasy?
Posted by Amanda S. Green
I apologize for being a little late posting this morning, but I am recovering from the Fourth. And no, not THAT sort of recovering. The strongest thing I had to drink yesterday was a Coke. No, I'm recovering from 10 1/2 hours in a parking lot in the Texas heat selling parking just down from our community's Fourth Fest. Considering we had our first car arrive at 0930 and we were starting our fourth row on the adjoining grass field when I left last night, I'm hoping we exceeded our goal.
However, because of that, and because I think I think I sweated a good portion of my brain out yesterday, I'm going to leave you with some links to check out.
From our own Monkey, a very interesting and informative post on e-books and royalties. Be sure to read the link he includes in his post. --
http://davefreer.livejournal.com/99217.h
Here is agent Lucienne Diver's take on RWA's decision regarding e-books and advances --
http://espan-rwa.com/my-two-cents/
Courtesy of Smart Bitches comes this link for Tips for Writers choosing names for your characters. Now, in the interest of full disclosure [G], Smart Bitches does take exception to the third rule - that exotic names are for romance novels, soap operas and strippers.
Your mission, this morning, should you decide to accept it is to tell me your thoughts about e-books -- are they a valid form of publishing even in the absence of a dead tree version of the book? Any other thoughts you might have about e-books, including authors offering them a chapter at a time for donations or subscription fee.
Also, how do you choose names for your characters -- assuming they let you name them. Some of mine come complete with names and refuse to play nice until I agree they know best.
Have a great Sunday. I'm off to search for more coffee.
I apologize for being a little late posting this morning, but I am recovering from the Fourth. And no, not THAT sort of recovering. The strongest thing I had to drink yesterday was a Coke. No, I'm recovering from 10 1/2 hours in a parking lot in the Texas heat selling parking just down from our community's Fourth Fest. Considering we had our first car arrive at 0930 and we were starting our fourth row on the adjoining grass field when I left last night, I'm hoping we exceeded our goal.
However, because of that, and because I think I think I sweated a good portion of my brain out yesterday, I'm going to leave you with some links to check out.
From our own Monkey, a very interesting and informative post on e-books and royalties. Be sure to read the link he includes in his post. --
http://davefreer.livejournal.com/99217.h
Here is agent Lucienne Diver's take on RWA's decision regarding e-books and advances --
http://espan-rwa.com/my-two-cents/
Courtesy of Smart Bitches comes this link for Tips for Writers choosing names for your characters. Now, in the interest of full disclosure [G], Smart Bitches does take exception to the third rule - that exotic names are for romance novels, soap operas and strippers.
Your mission, this morning, should you decide to accept it is to tell me your thoughts about e-books -- are they a valid form of publishing even in the absence of a dead tree version of the book? Any other thoughts you might have about e-books, including authors offering them a chapter at a time for donations or subscription fee.
Also, how do you choose names for your characters -- assuming they let you name them. Some of mine come complete with names and refuse to play nice until I agree they know best.
Have a great Sunday. I'm off to search for more coffee.
Posted by John Lambshead
I was very taken with Kate's post and the follow up comments. I then saw a British Newspaper headline that amused me.
The headline was: Girl Gang Kills Midget Wrestlers
How would you start a story that had this as a synopsis?
I have written a first page of a possible book - your turn next.
----------------------------------------
The Beagles were already on the scent when I arrived at Flat 4439. I waited in the doorway, reluctant to interrupt. The single room was like a hundred thousand others in the low zone, sixty four cubic feet of space filled with domestic appliances that dropped flat, lifted to the ceiling or folded up against the walls. The bodies were tastefully arranged on their backs in the centre of the floor.
“Officer present,” Serjeant Ruff said, noticing me.
He and his fellow Beagles stiffened to attention, standing rather unsteadily on their rear legs.
I waved a hand, “As you were.”
They went back to searching and sniffing, except for Ruff who hung around waiting to give his report. I ignored him; I liked to form my own first impressions. There had been a retro fad a few years ago for midgets dressed up as gnomes and suchlike. It hadn’t lasted, they never do, but we were still stuck with the midgets. From a poster ripped off the wall, these two had made a doubtful living as novelty wrestlers, billing themselves as Mighty Mouse and Little Dynamite.
“Ruff!” I said.
“Conciliator,” he replied, stiffening to attention.
“You were about to report that the victims were killed by a girl-gang using a drug-induced orgasmic heart overload, I imagine.”
“Yes, Conciliator.”
He looked puzzled as if I had done something clever but the erect nature of the bodies told its own story - that and the crimson lipstick logo scrawled in on the door. Now all we had to work out was why PROBLARM , the Provisional Brownies Liberation Army, was killing midgets.
John Lambshead
I was very taken with Kate's post and the follow up comments. I then saw a British Newspaper headline that amused me.
The headline was: Girl Gang Kills Midget Wrestlers
How would you start a story that had this as a synopsis?
I have written a first page of a possible book - your turn next.
----------------------------------------
The Beagles were already on the scent when I arrived at Flat 4439. I waited in the doorway, reluctant to interrupt. The single room was like a hundred thousand others in the low zone, sixty four cubic feet of space filled with domestic appliances that dropped flat, lifted to the ceiling or folded up against the walls. The bodies were tastefully arranged on their backs in the centre of the floor.
“Officer present,” Serjeant Ruff said, noticing me.
He and his fellow Beagles stiffened to attention, standing rather unsteadily on their rear legs.
I waved a hand, “As you were.”
They went back to searching and sniffing, except for Ruff who hung around waiting to give his report. I ignored him; I liked to form my own first impressions. There had been a retro fad a few years ago for midgets dressed up as gnomes and suchlike. It hadn’t lasted, they never do, but we were still stuck with the midgets. From a poster ripped off the wall, these two had made a doubtful living as novelty wrestlers, billing themselves as Mighty Mouse and Little Dynamite.
“Ruff!” I said.
“Conciliator,” he replied, stiffening to attention.
“You were about to report that the victims were killed by a girl-gang using a drug-induced orgasmic heart overload, I imagine.”
“Yes, Conciliator.”
He looked puzzled as if I had done something clever but the erect nature of the bodies told its own story - that and the crimson lipstick logo scrawled in on the door. Now all we had to work out was why PROBLARM , the Provisional Brownies Liberation Army, was killing midgets.
John Lambshead
Posted by Chris McMahon
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hv-iujn
<div>So what's your critiquing style? How do you milk those nuggets of wisdom about your work from the minds of other writers?
There is the ever-popular critique group.
Advantages include the ability to bitch over coffee, or for late-night varieties, dinner and few choice glasses of wine. Networking is a bonus, and in the right company can be lots of laughs. Also on the upside, there is usually no shortage of opinions. In fact many groups bloat to such a size they are in danger of becoming dysfunctional. By the time you have reached the stage where you have a chairperson with a stop watch and you start talking in abbreviated code with words like 'Ditto' and 'Anti-Ditto' its probably time to lead a revolution or form a splinter group (or both!)
One disadvantage of the critique group is that they can fall into a rut.
The first species of rut is of the safe & predicable kind, where everyone is well known and overly careful of other peoples feelings (or just downright hedging/holding back and favoring potential networking over critique). Everyone enjoys a nice coffee and perhaps may leave with an glow of satisfaction, but key problems with work go unremarked.
Another species of rut is where a skewed dynamic takes hold. Perhaps most of the writers favor certain types of writing, genres, or characters. Over time a small 'click' emerges that dominates the tone and direction of critique - limiting the range of feedback as other opinions are squashed, or are expected to be so out of favor they are not mentioned in the first place. Perhaps people whose work is on the 'out' of the norm will be regularly targeted - and they find themselves in vehement finger-pointing territory. This doesn't mean that the 'click' are wrong, sometimes you get the most useful crits from the Hostiles, but if its so demoralizing that the writer's work ends up grinding to a halt - that's time to bail out.
Other writers go the Lone Wolf. Writing mostly alone, self-editing then getting critique only from one or two other writers they know and trust.
One example that springs to mind Louise Cousak. She told me once that she just <em>cannot</em> do the crit group thing. For the first draft she pretends she is the best writer in the world and does it all without external input. Only after the masterpiece is finished does she fish it out. There is an echo there with Stephen King from On Writing. In the book he says, 'Write first for yourself, then for everyone else'. Another version of this is: Write the first draft with the door closed and the second draft with the door open. I think I also recall that Kim Wilkins also tends to go the lone wolf. So there are a couple of very successful Australian writers who don't favor critique groups, but produce good quality work regardless.
I guess I howled in the wilderness for a long time before I found my first critique group. Now I tend to gravitate toward groups, although I also have a few writers I will shoot material off to on the run. Now days I do find it hard to physically get to a meeting, although that's the time factor more than anything else.
What works for you? Got any traps for the unwary to share?</div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hv-iujn
<div>So what's your critiquing style? How do you milk those nuggets of wisdom about your work from the minds of other writers?
There is the ever-popular critique group.
Advantages include the ability to bitch over coffee, or for late-night varieties, dinner and few choice glasses of wine. Networking is a bonus, and in the right company can be lots of laughs. Also on the upside, there is usually no shortage of opinions. In fact many groups bloat to such a size they are in danger of becoming dysfunctional. By the time you have reached the stage where you have a chairperson with a stop watch and you start talking in abbreviated code with words like 'Ditto' and 'Anti-Ditto' its probably time to lead a revolution or form a splinter group (or both!)
One disadvantage of the critique group is that they can fall into a rut.
The first species of rut is of the safe & predicable kind, where everyone is well known and overly careful of other peoples feelings (or just downright hedging/holding back and favoring potential networking over critique). Everyone enjoys a nice coffee and perhaps may leave with an glow of satisfaction, but key problems with work go unremarked.
Another species of rut is where a skewed dynamic takes hold. Perhaps most of the writers favor certain types of writing, genres, or characters. Over time a small 'click' emerges that dominates the tone and direction of critique - limiting the range of feedback as other opinions are squashed, or are expected to be so out of favor they are not mentioned in the first place. Perhaps people whose work is on the 'out' of the norm will be regularly targeted - and they find themselves in vehement finger-pointing territory. This doesn't mean that the 'click' are wrong, sometimes you get the most useful crits from the Hostiles, but if its so demoralizing that the writer's work ends up grinding to a halt - that's time to bail out.
Other writers go the Lone Wolf. Writing mostly alone, self-editing then getting critique only from one or two other writers they know and trust.
One example that springs to mind Louise Cousak. She told me once that she just <em>cannot</em> do the crit group thing. For the first draft she pretends she is the best writer in the world and does it all without external input. Only after the masterpiece is finished does she fish it out. There is an echo there with Stephen King from On Writing. In the book he says, 'Write first for yourself, then for everyone else'. Another version of this is: Write the first draft with the door closed and the second draft with the door open. I think I also recall that Kim Wilkins also tends to go the lone wolf. So there are a couple of very successful Australian writers who don't favor critique groups, but produce good quality work regardless.
I guess I howled in the wilderness for a long time before I found my first critique group. Now I tend to gravitate toward groups, although I also have a few writers I will shoot material off to on the run. Now days I do find it hard to physically get to a meeting, although that's the time factor more than anything else.
What works for you? Got any traps for the unwary to share?</div>
Posted by Kate Paulk
Thus began <span style="font-style: italic;">Paul Clifford</span>, a novel almost no-one remembers - but that opening is one that everyone recognizes. Edward Bulwer-Lytton is spinning fast enough to power a small city after what's been made of a novel that is not really that bad when you consider that it was published in 1830, and preferences have changed a lot since then.
Of course, that's not what I'm posting about. No, I'm posting about the "winners" of the <a href="http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.h
The bad can be as instructive as the good, and here we have the gloriously appalling, with plunges into bathos that rival the cleavage of an EE cup, puns that would make even Dave Freer blush, and run on sentences that meander around for a while before finally getting lost, or in at least one case, disappearing up its own virtual fundamental orifice.
So, go take a look at the winners, then come back here, and add your own Bulwer-Lytton-esque offerings.
To start the fun:
<span style="font-style: italic;">The circumstances of my birth are shrouded in mystery even to me, for though I may assume I have, or had, a mother and a father, I have never known either, nor wished to, for I was abandoned outside a Copenhagen perfumery, left in a discarded crate still heavily scented with the oil it had once held, thus forever sealing my fate as the little myrrh maid of Copenhagen</span>.
Thus began <span style="font-style: italic;">Paul Clifford</span>, a novel almost no-one remembers - but that opening is one that everyone recognizes. Edward Bulwer-Lytton is spinning fast enough to power a small city after what's been made of a novel that is not really that bad when you consider that it was published in 1830, and preferences have changed a lot since then.
Of course, that's not what I'm posting about. No, I'm posting about the "winners" of the <a href="http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.h
The bad can be as instructive as the good, and here we have the gloriously appalling, with plunges into bathos that rival the cleavage of an EE cup, puns that would make even Dave Freer blush, and run on sentences that meander around for a while before finally getting lost, or in at least one case, disappearing up its own virtual fundamental orifice.
So, go take a look at the winners, then come back here, and add your own Bulwer-Lytton-esque offerings.
To start the fun:
<span style="font-style: italic;">The circumstances of my birth are shrouded in mystery even to me, for though I may assume I have, or had, a mother and a father, I have never known either, nor wished to, for I was abandoned outside a Copenhagen perfumery, left in a discarded crate still heavily scented with the oil it had once held, thus forever sealing my fate as the little myrrh maid of Copenhagen</span>.
*Doctor Tedd Roberts has agreed to let me do these every now and then. He would also like our readers to come up with questions. He has plans of writing a guide on the brain for writers in the future, and would like to know what our unique questions are. :) So, go ahead, comment and be unique.*
Science for the Mad Genius Writer
By Tedd Roberts
"Mrs. Smith?"
"Yes Doctor?"
"Your husband suffered a terrible head injury. He's in a coma."
"Oh, Doctor, will he be all right?"
"We'll only know once he wakes up."
…
"Ashley? It's me, Melissa!"
"Where am I? Who are you? What happened? Who am I?"
"Oh, no!"
…
It's a familiar theme, amnesia as a plot device. Overused, trite, cliché, yes; but also terribly *mis*-used.
Hi, the bloggers of the Mad Genius Club have asked me to contribute a series on the science behind science fiction/fantasy. I don't claim to be a Mad Genius, nor am I necessarily a Mad Scientist – a bit upset at times, but not truly Mad! Bwahahahaha! (I think we can safely save that label for Dr. Freer.) However, I am a writer, and I have over 70 "stories" in print, although they are all scientific articles in professional journals. My field is neuroscience, the physiology and pharmacology (mechanics and chemicals) of the brain, and I am currently employed as a faculty member at a medical school.
( Read more... )
Posted by Rowena Cory Daniells
(Thanks to Dave for an entertaining blog post -- a round robin story about goblins and hooligan juice. We'll have to see if we can put it up somewhere).
Thanks to John Singer Sargent for his painting of children.
Something that came up during the week's blogging was the subject of children and how they are (or in some cases are not) portrayed in books for adults. Are the child characters treated realistically? What purpose do they serve in the narrative? etc.
I write for children as well as adults so I'm comfortable writing child characters but do adult readers want child characters in their books when there are holiday destinations that ban children? Fantasy books often have a young (15-17 year old) protagonist. I tried googling this topic and didn't find much on it. (Perhaps it is just me!)
Here is a list of classic books with child characters. ( Read more... )
Thanks to John Singer Sargent for his painting of children.
Something that came up during the week's blogging was the subject of children and how they are (or in some cases are not) portrayed in books for adults. Are the child characters treated realistically? What purpose do they serve in the narrative? etc.
I write for children as well as adults so I'm comfortable writing child characters but do adult readers want child characters in their books when there are holiday destinations that ban children? Fantasy books often have a young (15-17 year old) protagonist. I tried googling this topic and didn't find much on it. (Perhaps it is just me!)
Here is a list of classic books with child characters. ( Read more... )
but, due to the interactive nature of his post, it will be only up at http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/ .
Go take a look and have fun with the post.
Go take a look and have fun with the post.
Like many Americans over a certain age, my fascination with vampires and werewolves began with the Dan Curtis soap opera Dark Shadows. I'm talking the original series that ran every afternoon from 1966 - 1971. Looking back on it now, it probably set into motion my quest for good novels that place these mythical creatures in every day situations where their special abilities became both a boon and a bane.And that brings me to the eternal question: What is the difference between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance?
On the surface, the answer seems simple enough, especially with regard to paranormal romances. To fall into that category, your heroine falls into lust, and then love, with either a vampire, a shapeshifter of some sort, maybe even a ghost. There's sex, romance, more sex. A book for women, in other words (don't throw anything yet. I'm not through.) Urban fantasy, on the other hand, has a smart ass narrator who is usually involved in solving some sort of crime with a supernatural bent to it. He, or she, is either assisted by a supernatural creature or the bad guy is the evil vamp, shifter, etc.
Like I said, simple. Right?
Wrong, with a capital WRONG!
So, how do you know if you're writing, or reading, a paranormal romance or an urban fantasy? Agent Nathan Bransford has written a blog post about genre distinctions. He recommends going to your local bookstore and checking out where books similar to what you are writing are shelved to help determine how to classify the book when marketing it. That is sound advice for most genres and even most sub-genres. But it doesn't really work in the case of urban fantasy and paranormal romance.
Take Laurell K. Hamilton's books for example. Her Anita Blake series is nominally Urban Fantasy. I say nominally because it started out firmly in the UF corner before Anita's sex drive took center stage for a number of books. I've seen that series shelved in Horror as well as in SF/F. The latter makes sense, especially because UF is a sub-genre of SF/F. But horror? Then there's the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. I've seen them in SF/F and Mystery. See my dilemma?
Laura Miller has an excellent article about this at Salon.Com. One observation she makes in the article is one I've heard discussed, and have discussed myself, over and over again: that the fan reaction to the increase in Anita's sexual escapades in direct correlation to the decrease in her kick ass, mystery solving activities "exemplifies a perennial argument in urban fantasy: the ratio of crime to sex, or more broadly, of mystery to relationships."
So, where do we draw the line? Or do we draw the line?
Miller goes on to write that the best urban fantasies don't "just set a detective story in an alternate world where vampires, werewolves, demons and fairies are real. Like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," it also uses the supernatural material to reimagine the challenges of young adulthood...Class as much as sex is an urban fantasy preoccupation...Where working-class characters in literary fiction are often depicted as tragic and helpless, the urban fantasy heroine gets to surprise everyone by using her talents to save the world...."
While this definition fits a number of books that are classified as UF, it also fits those classed as paranormal romance. And it causes confusion when a reader picks up a book termed UF, expecting these factors and finds something else.
For example, Nocturnal Origins, a book I shopped around as UF (and which I'm waiting to see if it is picked up by a certain editor), brought about a comment from one reader who wanted to know if my main character, a female cop who is, to her horror, a shapeshifter, liked guys. The reason for the question -- there was no sex in the book. Sure, she enjoyed looking at a good looking guy here and there. But, because it is UF, this reader thought it had to have sex in it. Forget that it followed the kick ass, smart assed female lead. Forget the crime/mystery that had to be solved, all the while Mac was having to accept and adjust to the fact that she sometimes shifted into a jaguar.
Another example of how wide open the genre is, is Kate's ConVent. It is filled with mystery, humor -- lots of humor -- and a cast of supernatural creatures ranging from angels to vampires to succubi to werewolves to demons. Oh, and let's not forget the human fen. But no sex. At least none on-screen, so to speak. Oh yeah, one more little thing. Her narrator is male.
I think John Levitt said it best in a Genreville post last November:
...defining UF is an exercise in futility. Everyone has their own particular take. Mine is simple – it’s like the old quote about pornography from Justice Potter Stewart, where he admitted he’d be hard pressed to define pornography, but nonetheless, “I know it when I see it.” Jim Butcher is classic UF. Neal Gaiman, who also sets his fantasies in contemporary society, is not. Rob Thurman is. Sean Stewart is not.
Now there’s another line of UF that owes much to Romance. Rachel Caine, Charlaine Harris, and early Laurel Hamilton come out of that tradition – smart mouthed, kick ass heroines who owe a lot to Buffy, and are not to be trifled with. But the romance tradition is clear – no matter how complex the world building is, no matter how convoluted and surprising the plot, an essential element always remains about whether or not it’s a good idea to do the vampire, werewolf, or both.
So, is there a clear line demarking the difference between UF and PR? No. Just like Justice Potter Stewart and pornography, I'll now it when I see it. The only thing is, what I see and what you see may be two very different things.
Now that I've thoroughly muddied the waters, what is your favorite UF novel? How about PR novel? Do you see any difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Finally, and from a writer's standpoint, WHERE SHOULD THEY BE SHELVED AT THE BOOKSTORE?
Posted by John Lambshead
Erotic Review has been relaunched and the new owner, Kate Copstick, has started something of a controversy in a BBC Radio 4 Today programme with Kathy Lette. Kate is reluctant to put too many female authors in the Review because women write bad sex scenes because they “have an agenda, they complicate sex, they make layers, it’s conditional. And they lie as well.”
For years, the politically correct Guardian newspaper had a motoring correspondent who could not drive. So are sex scenes written by women concocted by people without a license?
Kathy Lette admits that most married women's idea of an erotic fantasy is their husband picking up his underwear off the bedroom floor and that she always want to write 'if possible not' when filling those forms with a box marked 'sex' but is the comment fair?
The Literary Review prsents a bad sex award every year in London but the only person to win a Liftetime Achievement Award was John Updike last year. Admittedly, Rachael Johnston won the 2008 Award with Shire Hell but a quick look through previous winners suggests that the literary male is a far bigger offender. Working backwards: Norman Mailer (2207), Iain Hollingshead (2006), Giles Coren (2005), Tom Wolfe (2004), Aniruddha Bahal (2003).... Indeed, Wendy Perriam is the only other female winner since the award started in 1993.
For my money, it is the layers of complexity and conditions that women attach to sex that make the whole thing interesting. Left to men, it is about as erotic as a game of bar billiards - all wam, bam, thank you mam.
I hate dumb metaphors in sex scenes, but I also hate mechanistic descriptions. I know, there is just no pleasing me.
Hollingshead deserved his award for this paragraph alone:
'She's wearing a short, floaty skirt that's more suited to July than February. She leans forward to peck me on the cheek, which feels weird, as she's never kissed me on the cheek before. We'd kissed properly the first time we met. And that was over three years ago.
But the peck on the cheek turns into a quick peck on the lips. She hugs me tight. I can feel her breasts against her chest. I cup my hands round her face and start to kiss her properly, She slides one of her slender legs in between mine. Oh Jack, she was moaning now, her curves pushed up against me, her crotch taut against my bulging trousers, her hands gripping fistfuls of my hair. She reaches for my belt. I groan too, in expectation. And then I'm inside her, and everything is pure white as we're lost in a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles.'
It starts OK with floaty skirts and slim legs but women who start moaning as soon as you touch them????? I must be doing something wrong. And as for 'bulging trousers' and 'grunts and squeeks'........................
OK, so, what would you nominate as the worst sex scene in a story ever - and why?
No, its not a post about heroic fantasy. I'm in the middle of doing a yet another edit on my Science Fantasy manuscript, Warriors of the Blessed Realms. As is typical for me, the thing had bloated up 10,000 words from the earlier edits -- up to a shocking 160,000 words. That word total is like some sort of a magnet for me unfortunately.
So, my challenge has been to get this down to 120,000 words or less. Can I jump now?
I've managed to get the total down to 131,00o words so far, which seems to me something of a miracle. I have not been able to do this without removing a few incidental characters and some other scenes which I guess weren't that important to the story. It still hurt losing them!
Having said that, it is surprising how much I managed to remove by just trimming and condensing the text - at least a good 10,000 words - which is sort of embarrassing. Do I really write that sloppily? I guess its part of the process. Maybe the writing gods have seen fit to increase my skills since I did the last draft.
The thing that concerns me now is how I have started to really get into this. Chop. Chop. Slash. Slash. Everything must go. In my mania (and I do tend to extremes) a little voice in the back of my head is asking 'am I losing some essential essence from the story?'
What do people think? Can you chop too far? Make the story too spare? Too mechanical? Or is all-out war on the adjective and metaphor a Holy Cause? Clarity is King?
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