Ask the Author: L.C. Barlow
Answered Questions (3)
L.C. Barlow
During high school, a friend of mine was a Lutheran at that time, and she invited me to come to a special event her church was having, where an “ex-Satanist” came and spoke about her experiences to the youth group. I attended, and the experience was so strange. It was just such an eerie speech, an unsettling account of events, and it got me thinking and thinking and playing out scenarios again and again. It was an idea that didn’t leave me, even though the woman’s story was likely a fabrication. This is what inspired the Jack Harper Trilogy. Looking back on it, I doubt that the woman was an ex-Satanist and strongly suspect it was a scare tactic to make sure the youth group didn’t veer from being Lutheran. At the time, though, it sparked an idea in me, and that idea grew over a decade into something entirely different.
L.C. Barlow
I am currently working on revisions in Peak, the last book in the Jack Harper Trilogy. In addition, I am hoping to finish up a dark fantasy novel separate from the trilogy titled Seize. The main character of Seize is Beryl Portant, a seventeen-year-old seer who has just entered into her sight. In her world, there are many like her (millions of individuals) who can see potential futures, as well as the past. They are the aristocracy of Tiresia, and they rule over all those who are not clairvoyant. Though the elite of this world have obvious advantages—knowing everything that might happen before it might happen—there are downsides to visions, including the threat of knowing too much and being driven insane. Thus, seers must use a drug called Imogen to stop or limit their visions, and the government requires seers to dose regularly with it. If seers do not use Imogen, the effects are obvious—their silver eyes shift to black under the weight of too much knowledge.
Unfortunately, Beryl soon learns that Imogen does not work on her like it does with others, and after a particularly traumatic vision, one of her eyes turns black. In order to find a way to make Imogen work for her and to maybe reverse her eye’s alteration, she must seek help from an underground vigilante group who has mysteriously managed to thwart the seer dictatorship.
As Beryl seeks this group’s help, she discovers the unexpected. There are objects in her world that have no history or future, that are invisible to seers’ perception. In addition, there are people invisible to her, in that they seem to have no future and no past. As she delves deeper into who and what these individuals are, all while seeking refuge from Tiresia’s Capital, she learns that she is at the center of a threatening change in her world—the rise of those who are outside of seer sight because they exist outside of time.
Unfortunately, Beryl soon learns that Imogen does not work on her like it does with others, and after a particularly traumatic vision, one of her eyes turns black. In order to find a way to make Imogen work for her and to maybe reverse her eye’s alteration, she must seek help from an underground vigilante group who has mysteriously managed to thwart the seer dictatorship.
As Beryl seeks this group’s help, she discovers the unexpected. There are objects in her world that have no history or future, that are invisible to seers’ perception. In addition, there are people invisible to her, in that they seem to have no future and no past. As she delves deeper into who and what these individuals are, all while seeking refuge from Tiresia’s Capital, she learns that she is at the center of a threatening change in her world—the rise of those who are outside of seer sight because they exist outside of time.
L.C. Barlow
Remember that the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be written. You can’t revise something that isn’t there.
Once you have a draft, and someone suggests trying something, feel open to trying it. You can have several versions of the same story, and just because you take it a new direction doesn’t mean your old draft disappears if you need to go back to it. Be brave and take your story to foreign places. It’s not foreign, anymore, after you write it.
Do not expect professionals to be mean. Many are some of the kindest people you can meet.
You can only enter a room for the first time once. That’s why it’s important that you get your work to as optimum of a level as possible before submitting it to an agent or editor. Because once they “enter the room” (read your work) for the first time, they can’t see it nearly as objectively after. Your own objectiveness is compromised because you’ve been with the work for so long. That’s why you need workshoppers you can trust (and who know how to get you to emphasize things and back off things without being cruel or mean).
In every story there are “crunchy” and “floaty” items, also known as literal and figurative. The crunchy is the bare facts that ground the story. The floaty is the unnatural, metaphorical things. Often times, writers throw in figurative things to feel better or redeem the story. The reality, though, is that you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to “redeem” the story. The more you add trying to “redeem” the story, the more work you make for yourself when revising. Trust the reader to follow you.
Keep in mind the Hemingway Theory – that 10% of the story is what the author lets the audience see, and 90% is hidden. It’s very much like a glacier – the top 10% is visible, and the bottom 90% is below water. The amount of work you put into a novel is the 90%. When I wrote PIVOT, I wrote about five times the amount that the book ended up being. The book is around 280 pages. I definitely wrote over 1,000 pages while constructing it.
Read SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder and THE HERO’S JOURNEY by Christopher Vogler. These were books that Nancy Holder (a prolific author and one of my professors) recommended to all of her students in my MFA program. Both books have beat sheets in terms of how a story should move. When I read them, I was so incredibly impressed. Before my MFA, I had written my first novel without any plot guidance. I retroactively compared it with Snyder’s 15-point beat sheet. To my surprise, I found that 13/15 elements in my manuscript aligned. That was the Aha! moment of, “Oh, this is why it worked. I know what I did, so now I know what to do.” I regularly return to these books and always learn something new.
Once you have a draft, and someone suggests trying something, feel open to trying it. You can have several versions of the same story, and just because you take it a new direction doesn’t mean your old draft disappears if you need to go back to it. Be brave and take your story to foreign places. It’s not foreign, anymore, after you write it.
Do not expect professionals to be mean. Many are some of the kindest people you can meet.
You can only enter a room for the first time once. That’s why it’s important that you get your work to as optimum of a level as possible before submitting it to an agent or editor. Because once they “enter the room” (read your work) for the first time, they can’t see it nearly as objectively after. Your own objectiveness is compromised because you’ve been with the work for so long. That’s why you need workshoppers you can trust (and who know how to get you to emphasize things and back off things without being cruel or mean).
In every story there are “crunchy” and “floaty” items, also known as literal and figurative. The crunchy is the bare facts that ground the story. The floaty is the unnatural, metaphorical things. Often times, writers throw in figurative things to feel better or redeem the story. The reality, though, is that you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to “redeem” the story. The more you add trying to “redeem” the story, the more work you make for yourself when revising. Trust the reader to follow you.
Keep in mind the Hemingway Theory – that 10% of the story is what the author lets the audience see, and 90% is hidden. It’s very much like a glacier – the top 10% is visible, and the bottom 90% is below water. The amount of work you put into a novel is the 90%. When I wrote PIVOT, I wrote about five times the amount that the book ended up being. The book is around 280 pages. I definitely wrote over 1,000 pages while constructing it.
Read SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder and THE HERO’S JOURNEY by Christopher Vogler. These were books that Nancy Holder (a prolific author and one of my professors) recommended to all of her students in my MFA program. Both books have beat sheets in terms of how a story should move. When I read them, I was so incredibly impressed. Before my MFA, I had written my first novel without any plot guidance. I retroactively compared it with Snyder’s 15-point beat sheet. To my surprise, I found that 13/15 elements in my manuscript aligned. That was the Aha! moment of, “Oh, this is why it worked. I know what I did, so now I know what to do.” I regularly return to these books and always learn something new.
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