Cat Rambo's Blog, page 72
April 3, 2013
Some Maunderings About Rewriting a Novel
So I’m working on this novel. If you’re friend or family, you may know something about it, or even have read one of the many, many earlier drafts.
And I’m really happy with it, but holy cow, is it hard to rewrite a novel. Because you’ve got to manage it all in your head while working with smaller parts of it.
I was trying to think of a comparison to make to Wayne, who is a software developer. And actually, it’s a lot like working on a large program with pretty of submodules and pieces, because when you change one section you need to figure out how it affects all the other pieces. And there’s repeated objects, or other things, and I think a little of those like global variables, so to have to make sure they’re declared before you can start using them. (As you can tell, I spent some procrastination time on thinking this out.)
Something I’m doing, which is probably rather insane of me, is that I transferred the book, which was in a Word doc, back into Scrivener. That’s because I have been severely reordering the scenes. I printed it all out, and went through that hardcopy with pen marking up some stuff and shuffling it around until it was all in the order I wanted it in.
Part of that is the process for dealing with what I’m comparing to global variables. That’s a thing that gets referenced more than once over the course of the book. Because you want it set up right the first time it appears and then for details to unfold about it in an order that makes sense and keeps building on the thing.
For instance: Bella has five Fairies, hummingbird-sized, living in the pine tree outside her window. She’s tamed them with table scraps and candies, and listened to them enough to understand their rudimentary language and call them by the names they call themselves:
Any mention of the Fairies that uses their names needs to come after this passage, which establishes. Later on, we find out one is getting picked on by its fellows:
That in turn builds this moment:
There’s more further on down the chain, but I think that’s enough spoilering for one blog post. But you see my point: set up an object (or person, or place, or concept, or whatever) and then build with it. As part of my reordering, I’ve been making sure that all happens in the right order, and that’s let me trim out some repetitious bits as well.
The book was, at one point, chockful of different POVs, and I was (somewhat reluctantly) persuaded to pare that down. It was the right choice, though, because it made me focus on the two most important characters, Bella and Teo. I wanted to make them very distinct from each other, so I switched Bella’s POV from third person attached past tense to first person present tense. Holy CRAP did that make her come alive and let me take a character who had been unsympathetic before into one that you can (I think) really enjoy and love even when she’s at her most full of braggadocio and self-absorption.
I was sad to lose a couple of POVs, particularly three which had a nice love triangle going on, but they’ve been set aside to go into the second book (this is intended to be a trilogy). But now I’m going back to that rewrite after this short break for air, so wish me luck.
I still don’t know what the heck the title is, really. And I’m not so sure about my main character’s name.
And I’m really happy with it, but holy cow, is it hard to rewrite a novel. Because you’ve got to manage it all in your head while working with smaller parts of it.
I was trying to think of a comparison to make to Wayne, who is a software developer. And actually, it’s a lot like working on a large program with pretty of submodules and pieces, because when you change one section you need to figure out how it affects all the other pieces. And there’s repeated objects, or other things, and I think a little of those like global variables, so to have to make sure they’re declared before you can start using them. (As you can tell, I spent some procrastination time on thinking this out.)
Something I’m doing, which is probably rather insane of me, is that I transferred the book, which was in a Word doc, back into Scrivener. That’s because I have been severely reordering the scenes. I printed it all out, and went through that hardcopy with pen marking up some stuff and shuffling it around until it was all in the order I wanted it in.
Part of that is the process for dealing with what I’m comparing to global variables. That’s a thing that gets referenced more than once over the course of the book. Because you want it set up right the first time it appears and then for details to unfold about it in an order that makes sense and keeps building on the thing.
For instance: Bella has five Fairies, hummingbird-sized, living in the pine tree outside her window. She’s tamed them with table scraps and candies, and listened to them enough to understand their rudimentary language and call them by the names they call themselves:
Where another might have named them, I’ve listened long enough to know the names they have for themselves: Dust and Yellowhair, and their offspring, Finch and Flutter and Wall. They shelter in the evergreen, build nests of scraps of paper and rags. In this cold, they wrap bits of cloth around themselves in mimicry of clothing.
They like candy the best, but meat second to that, the fresher and bloodier the better. They scorn vegetables or breads, though they will take fruit, when it is at its ripest, just before it spoils.
They trust me.
Any mention of the Fairies that uses their names needs to come after this passage, which establishes. Later on, we find out one is getting picked on by its fellows:
Yellow-hair hangs in the air, watching me. But it’s not till I step back from the sill that she advances, dives to seize a candy, a ball of amber sugar as big as her head. As though she’s emboldened them, the rest come in turn. I try to see which of them might be looking more bedraggled than the others, but I can see little difference.
Jolietta kept chickens. There you’d see it. One more miserable than the rest, pecked and sat upon, with ragged bald patches. Animals have no patience for the weak, nor do Beasts. Is one of the Fairies ailing, perhaps? It seems to me there are fewer than usual. When they’ve taken their candies, I go back to the window, lean out despite the cold wind, and peer into the boughs. There, that little shape, is that a huddled Fairy? Snowflakes whirl, obscuring the sight.
That in turn builds this moment:
I go to the window and look into the whirling snow. There’s a limp little form in the corner of the window. Wind and snow greet me when I slide the window up, but I manage to gather the half-frozen little Fairy. Finch.
He’s fought with his fellows. They must have tried to drive him away.
There’s more further on down the chain, but I think that’s enough spoilering for one blog post. But you see my point: set up an object (or person, or place, or concept, or whatever) and then build with it. As part of my reordering, I’ve been making sure that all happens in the right order, and that’s let me trim out some repetitious bits as well.
The book was, at one point, chockful of different POVs, and I was (somewhat reluctantly) persuaded to pare that down. It was the right choice, though, because it made me focus on the two most important characters, Bella and Teo. I wanted to make them very distinct from each other, so I switched Bella’s POV from third person attached past tense to first person present tense. Holy CRAP did that make her come alive and let me take a character who had been unsympathetic before into one that you can (I think) really enjoy and love even when she’s at her most full of braggadocio and self-absorption.
I was sad to lose a couple of POVs, particularly three which had a nice love triangle going on, but they’ve been set aside to go into the second book (this is intended to be a trilogy). But now I’m going back to that rewrite after this short break for air, so wish me luck.
I still don’t know what the heck the title is, really. And I’m not so sure about my main character’s name.
March 17, 2013
What Exactly Do We Do in the Editing 101 Class?
I'm glad I've got enough students for the Editing 101 online class that starts tonight, but I'd love a couple more. Mention reading this when you mail me about the class and I'll give you a special deal. ;)
So what do we do and who is the class aimed at?
The class is aimed both at writers who want to learn to edit their work better as well as editors who want to hone their skills and learn about it as a career path.
Here's what the three two-hour sessions cover. They're spaced two weeks apart.
Developmental edit. I describe my revision process and how people can adapt it to their own. We look at examples of developmental edits, work through a checklist of items to look for, and talk about developing your own theory and process of editing.
Line and copyediting. I look at things on the sentence and paragraph level and supply a number of examples as well as working through an in-class exercise. Again, I try to provide a checklist that you can take away and use in your writing and editing.
Editors. I talk about working as an editor, and what resources are available to people who are looking for such work, as well as where people looking for slush-reading positions can find them. I also discuss the writer-editor relationship in a way that should clarify it for both sides of the equation and provide tips on making that process work more smoothly. A class exercise is designed to help you figure out story order for collections, chapbooks, anthologies, and magazine issues.
Got questions? I'd be happy to answer them.
So what do we do and who is the class aimed at?
The class is aimed both at writers who want to learn to edit their work better as well as editors who want to hone their skills and learn about it as a career path.
Here's what the three two-hour sessions cover. They're spaced two weeks apart.
Developmental edit. I describe my revision process and how people can adapt it to their own. We look at examples of developmental edits, work through a checklist of items to look for, and talk about developing your own theory and process of editing.
Line and copyediting. I look at things on the sentence and paragraph level and supply a number of examples as well as working through an in-class exercise. Again, I try to provide a checklist that you can take away and use in your writing and editing.
Editors. I talk about working as an editor, and what resources are available to people who are looking for such work, as well as where people looking for slush-reading positions can find them. I also discuss the writer-editor relationship in a way that should clarify it for both sides of the equation and provide tips on making that process work more smoothly. A class exercise is designed to help you figure out story order for collections, chapbooks, anthologies, and magazine issues.
Got questions? I'd be happy to answer them.
February 23, 2013
What is the First Pages Class?
This is the online class that more people have enthused about afterwards than any other, in my experience. It’s team-taught. You give us the first 500 words of your novel. One of the instructors reads it aloud, then both discuss it.
Sounds pretty simple, no? Sure. It’s that simplicity that lets the instructors range across a wide array of tools and strategies, providing starting points for all sorts of valuable and useful discussion. Here’s some of what it allows us to provide you:
We talk about what’s built into the beginning of a book, how the contract between reader and writer is set up, and how effectively you’re doing it.
We discuss ways of engaging readers: with language, with detail, with appeal to the senses, with emotion, as well as other techniquese.
We reiterate the importance of titles and tinker (or not) with your wording.
We dip into sentence level stuff when we notice persistent patterns such as passive voice or purple prose, and more importantly, we tell you how to remedy the issue.
We discuss genre conventions and even the submission process.
And we answer the questions you have about all of those and more.
It’s as informative to listen to pieces from the other participants as it is to have your own examined. Some students have mentioned coming away with pages and pages of notes.
The next First Pages workshop is:
February 24, 9:30-11:30 AM PST
April 14, 9:30-11:30 AM PST
More details.
Sounds pretty simple, no? Sure. It’s that simplicity that lets the instructors range across a wide array of tools and strategies, providing starting points for all sorts of valuable and useful discussion. Here’s some of what it allows us to provide you:
We talk about what’s built into the beginning of a book, how the contract between reader and writer is set up, and how effectively you’re doing it.
We discuss ways of engaging readers: with language, with detail, with appeal to the senses, with emotion, as well as other techniquese.
We reiterate the importance of titles and tinker (or not) with your wording.
We dip into sentence level stuff when we notice persistent patterns such as passive voice or purple prose, and more importantly, we tell you how to remedy the issue.
We discuss genre conventions and even the submission process.
And we answer the questions you have about all of those and more.
It’s as informative to listen to pieces from the other participants as it is to have your own examined. Some students have mentioned coming away with pages and pages of notes.
The next First Pages workshop is:
February 24, 9:30-11:30 AM PST
April 14, 9:30-11:30 AM PST
More details.
February 20, 2013
March/April Online Classes
Sign up by February 28 for a special deal!
Classes include:
Writing F&SF Stories
Everything You Need to Know about E-Publishing
Flash Fiction Workshop
Literary Techniques for Speculative Fiction
The Art of the Book Review
Building an Online Presence for Writers
Editing 101
See here for more details and to sign up for my mailing list - http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/upcom...
Classes include:
Writing F&SF Stories
Everything You Need to Know about E-Publishing
Flash Fiction Workshop
Literary Techniques for Speculative Fiction
The Art of the Book Review
Building an Online Presence for Writers
Editing 101
See here for more details and to sign up for my mailing list - http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/upcom...
November 26, 2012
New Classes
Please pass this along to anyone who might be interested!
Right now I'm running a special on the online Writing F&SF Stories class that's starting this Saturday, December 1. It is six Saturday mornings, 9:30-11:30 AM PST.
I'm also offering an early sign-up rate on January and February classes. Pay by December 15 and get the early rate. It's been fun planning this round and trying to come up with some new and interesting stuff as well as repeating the successful classes. So here's the list:
Writing F&SF Short Stories
Editing 101
Flash Fiction Workshop
Literary Techniques in Speculative Fiction
Building an Online Presence for Writers
First Pages Workshop
The Art of the Book Review
What You Need to Need About Electronic Publishing
Want more details about the classes? You can find descriptions, dates, and costs on the Upcoming Classes page, where you can also sign-up to be on the mailing list!
Right now I'm running a special on the online Writing F&SF Stories class that's starting this Saturday, December 1. It is six Saturday mornings, 9:30-11:30 AM PST.
I'm also offering an early sign-up rate on January and February classes. Pay by December 15 and get the early rate. It's been fun planning this round and trying to come up with some new and interesting stuff as well as repeating the successful classes. So here's the list:
Writing F&SF Short Stories
Editing 101
Flash Fiction Workshop
Literary Techniques in Speculative Fiction
Building an Online Presence for Writers
First Pages Workshop
The Art of the Book Review
What You Need to Need About Electronic Publishing
Want more details about the classes? You can find descriptions, dates, and costs on the Upcoming Classes page, where you can also sign-up to be on the mailing list!
October 11, 2012
Shaping Stories With Characters: How Characters Affect Your Plot
We’re currently covering characters in the Writing F&SF class, so I thought I’d pull out a little from my notes.
Some simplistic stories have characters that seem like placeholders, as though any individual could fit into that slot. Fairy tales, for instance, tend to have generic characters: the princess, the prince, the witch. One delightful strategy for working with them, in fact, is to pick a character and flesh them out to the point where they shape the story.
Characters need to do this. They need to influence the story and make it one that could only happen to them.
Let’s take a simple plot: a character must escape zombies. Our first character, a survivalist, keeps two shotguns in her apartment and is steel willed to the point where she is capable of cutting off a limb to avoid infection by zombie bite. The second is a meek-mannered scientist who faints at the sight of blood but is capable of building marvelous devices. The story and what happens in it is very different depending on which character gets put into the situation.
What happens in the story should be the result of what your character does, and her/his actions are dependent on both their personality and what they want. Vonnegut tells us every character in a story needs to have something they want, even if it’s just a glass of water. Because what they want dictates what they will do while their personality decides how they will go about doing it.
Look at your favorite characters and see how the writer communicates their nuances. Some of my favorites:
Richard St. Vier in Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint
Isyllt Iskaldur in Amanda Downum’s The Drowning City
Mapp and Lucia in E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series (and you can get all of the books in one delicious heap for $1.99 on the Kindle, which is a great deal)
Phillip and Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett’s marvelous Lymond Chronicles
Who are your favorite characters and why?
Some simplistic stories have characters that seem like placeholders, as though any individual could fit into that slot. Fairy tales, for instance, tend to have generic characters: the princess, the prince, the witch. One delightful strategy for working with them, in fact, is to pick a character and flesh them out to the point where they shape the story.
Characters need to do this. They need to influence the story and make it one that could only happen to them.
Let’s take a simple plot: a character must escape zombies. Our first character, a survivalist, keeps two shotguns in her apartment and is steel willed to the point where she is capable of cutting off a limb to avoid infection by zombie bite. The second is a meek-mannered scientist who faints at the sight of blood but is capable of building marvelous devices. The story and what happens in it is very different depending on which character gets put into the situation.
What happens in the story should be the result of what your character does, and her/his actions are dependent on both their personality and what they want. Vonnegut tells us every character in a story needs to have something they want, even if it’s just a glass of water. Because what they want dictates what they will do while their personality decides how they will go about doing it.
Look at your favorite characters and see how the writer communicates their nuances. Some of my favorites:
Richard St. Vier in Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint
Isyllt Iskaldur in Amanda Downum’s The Drowning City
Mapp and Lucia in E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series (and you can get all of the books in one delicious heap for $1.99 on the Kindle, which is a great deal)
Phillip and Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett’s marvelous Lymond Chronicles
Who are your favorite characters and why?
September 18, 2012
10 Reasons I'm So Happy with Near + Far
I’m prepping for tomorrow's official release of the book. I’ve been doing some blog posts about the interior art over the next few days as well as trying to tie up a lot of loose ends. (And I’m prepping for the next round of classes – plenty of time to sign up still if you’re interested.) And at the end of the month, I’m off to Baltimore for a few days for the Baltimore Book Festival, yay!
The party at WorldCon was so! great! And it helps to have such a nifty book to show off. So I wanted to enthuse a bit more about it and why I’m so happy with it.
1. It’s the old Ace double format. I used to love those whenever I found them in the used bookstores.
2. Vicki Saunders did an amazing job with the book design, including using elements from the interior art to create printer’s ornaments to denote section breaks. In a move I consider above and beyond, they differ between the two books.
3. I have been admiring Mark Tripp’s art for over a decade now. He’s a good friend and I can’t begin to say how much it means to me to use his art, so we’ve got a collaboration other than the game we’ve both worked on for a bajillion years, Armageddon MUD.
4. I found out I had more than enough SF for a collection. In fact, we had to cut some of it. A surprising amount.
5. A favorite editor from Microsoft, Jo Molnar, agreed to do the copy-editing. I’d worked with Jo before and knew he was meticulous and careful, and that he’d bravely face the demands of a spec fic collection, including questions like how one formats telepathic communications.
6. I got plenty of input in how the book looked, the order, the editing and so forth. It’s more than just a collection of my work, it’s an expression of my philosophy regarding books.
7. Publisher and friend Tod McCoy has become one of my favorite people to work with. He solved problem after problem, came up with clever ideas, and was always enthusiastic, knowledgeable and supportive. And fun as hell.
8. The awesome blurbs, including a somehow very Norman-ish note from Norman Spinrad and an unconventional list for an unconventional book by Karen Joy Fowler.
9. Getting to throw a book launch party at WorldCon, the biggest of the SF conventions.
10. It’s appearing in time for World Fantasy Convention, and I know Tod will make sure there’s copies there so I may actually sign more than a couple books at the con.
The party at WorldCon was so! great! And it helps to have such a nifty book to show off. So I wanted to enthuse a bit more about it and why I’m so happy with it.
1. It’s the old Ace double format. I used to love those whenever I found them in the used bookstores.
2. Vicki Saunders did an amazing job with the book design, including using elements from the interior art to create printer’s ornaments to denote section breaks. In a move I consider above and beyond, they differ between the two books.
3. I have been admiring Mark Tripp’s art for over a decade now. He’s a good friend and I can’t begin to say how much it means to me to use his art, so we’ve got a collaboration other than the game we’ve both worked on for a bajillion years, Armageddon MUD.
4. I found out I had more than enough SF for a collection. In fact, we had to cut some of it. A surprising amount.
5. A favorite editor from Microsoft, Jo Molnar, agreed to do the copy-editing. I’d worked with Jo before and knew he was meticulous and careful, and that he’d bravely face the demands of a spec fic collection, including questions like how one formats telepathic communications.
6. I got plenty of input in how the book looked, the order, the editing and so forth. It’s more than just a collection of my work, it’s an expression of my philosophy regarding books.
7. Publisher and friend Tod McCoy has become one of my favorite people to work with. He solved problem after problem, came up with clever ideas, and was always enthusiastic, knowledgeable and supportive. And fun as hell.
8. The awesome blurbs, including a somehow very Norman-ish note from Norman Spinrad and an unconventional list for an unconventional book by Karen Joy Fowler.
9. Getting to throw a book launch party at WorldCon, the biggest of the SF conventions.
10. It’s appearing in time for World Fantasy Convention, and I know Tod will make sure there’s copies there so I may actually sign more than a couple books at the con.
February 19, 2011
January 17, 2011
Urban Fantasy #1: Laurell K. Hamilton
As a hardcore F&SF addict, I love the fact that nowadays I can go into the grocery store, look at the rack that used to hold nothing but Regency and Harlequin romances, and see covers with vampires and were-wolves and djinn and selkies and goddess knows what else. It makes me happy. I've spent a lot of time reading urban fantasy and paranormal romance over the past couple of years, and I wanted to provide a reading map of sorts for fellow genre lovers. So I'll be posting about my favorites (and some not-so-favorites) over the next couple of months.
You can argue about where it all started (or even what it is) but I'd rather take the tack of looking at the authors that shaped the genre. Let's begin, accordingly, with Laurell K. Hamilton, who started so much with her heroine, Anita Blake. Necromancer and private investigator, Blake kicks ass and takes names, at least early on in the series, which begins with Guilty Pleasures. (did Hamilton know the direction she'd go in from the first? The title seems to hint in that direction.) In the early books, Anita is tough as nails and prone to smartassery. She's got two love interests: Richard the werewolf and Jean-Claude the vampire and, unlike a lot of romances, you don't know what will end up happening. It's great stuff.
Certainly Hamilton wasn't the first person to write about vampires. The writer who had moved them into popularity was Anne Rice with her vampire series, which began a couple of decades earlier with Interview with the Vampire. On one level a sexy, intriguing story, the series also spoke to an anxiety floating around in the American zeitgeist at that point: sex and blood had become problematic with the arrival of AIDs. Its popularity rose as did media mentions of the disease.
But Hamilton came along and created a very specific vampire mix. She added Anita Blake, a tough but reader-identifiable character who was a smart-ass, had love-life problems, and tried to solve mysteries. Honestly, how could the series not be a hit? Blake first appeared in 1993, while four years later the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer would teach vampire lore to a new generation of readers who would soon discover Anita and her rapidly increasing ilk.
Somewhere along the line, though, the Anita Blake series...turned. Was that Hamilton discovered that sex sells or that with success she was freer to write the sort of thing she wanted to? Soft core porn began to get sifted in with a heavy hand, and none of it was vanilla. I don't mind that, though. It's fascinating to get a well thought out take on what sex with supernatural beings would be like. There are, unfortunately, some moments where it overshadows everything else. I'm thinking of Micah in particular, and if she stuck to the pattern of that book, I'd be about done. Luckily, she doesn't. I like the fact that Anita has multiple lovers, that she's in control, and that she changes her attitudes over time. But the books have become a guilty pleasure - although still, let's admit, pleasurable when she maintains the balance between sex and storyline, and I'm certainly still buying them and, on occasion, re-reading them too.
Hamilton's other series, the Merry Gentry books, which begins with A Kiss of Shadows, follows the same pattern. It's a fascinating world, but sometimes we don't get to see it because we've spent so much time in the bedroom. The overarching story line is that of a Faerie princess who must get pregnant. In case you don't understand the implications, here's a hint: Fairies do not reproduce through mitosis, but rather through lots of hot sex.
Again, a fascinating world, with a rich mythology and a premise that paves the way for plenty of nifty little jokes and eyeball kicks. Sometimes we don't see as much of it as we'd like because we're watching Merry get merry between the sheets, but it's well-written and steamy sex that sometimes transcends space and time and/or summons ancient elemental forces. I found the most recent one I read, Divine Misdemeanors, which featured a serial killer of demi-fay who was using the tiny bodies of the victims to stage elaborate tableaus, nicely creepy and memorable.
So tell me what you think. Is Hamilton a guilty pleasure for you too or are you on some other terms with her books?
(This post originally appeared on Cat's blog on kittywumpus.net.)
You can argue about where it all started (or even what it is) but I'd rather take the tack of looking at the authors that shaped the genre. Let's begin, accordingly, with Laurell K. Hamilton, who started so much with her heroine, Anita Blake. Necromancer and private investigator, Blake kicks ass and takes names, at least early on in the series, which begins with Guilty Pleasures. (did Hamilton know the direction she'd go in from the first? The title seems to hint in that direction.) In the early books, Anita is tough as nails and prone to smartassery. She's got two love interests: Richard the werewolf and Jean-Claude the vampire and, unlike a lot of romances, you don't know what will end up happening. It's great stuff.
Certainly Hamilton wasn't the first person to write about vampires. The writer who had moved them into popularity was Anne Rice with her vampire series, which began a couple of decades earlier with Interview with the Vampire. On one level a sexy, intriguing story, the series also spoke to an anxiety floating around in the American zeitgeist at that point: sex and blood had become problematic with the arrival of AIDs. Its popularity rose as did media mentions of the disease.
But Hamilton came along and created a very specific vampire mix. She added Anita Blake, a tough but reader-identifiable character who was a smart-ass, had love-life problems, and tried to solve mysteries. Honestly, how could the series not be a hit? Blake first appeared in 1993, while four years later the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer would teach vampire lore to a new generation of readers who would soon discover Anita and her rapidly increasing ilk.
Somewhere along the line, though, the Anita Blake series...turned. Was that Hamilton discovered that sex sells or that with success she was freer to write the sort of thing she wanted to? Soft core porn began to get sifted in with a heavy hand, and none of it was vanilla. I don't mind that, though. It's fascinating to get a well thought out take on what sex with supernatural beings would be like. There are, unfortunately, some moments where it overshadows everything else. I'm thinking of Micah in particular, and if she stuck to the pattern of that book, I'd be about done. Luckily, she doesn't. I like the fact that Anita has multiple lovers, that she's in control, and that she changes her attitudes over time. But the books have become a guilty pleasure - although still, let's admit, pleasurable when she maintains the balance between sex and storyline, and I'm certainly still buying them and, on occasion, re-reading them too.
Hamilton's other series, the Merry Gentry books, which begins with A Kiss of Shadows, follows the same pattern. It's a fascinating world, but sometimes we don't get to see it because we've spent so much time in the bedroom. The overarching story line is that of a Faerie princess who must get pregnant. In case you don't understand the implications, here's a hint: Fairies do not reproduce through mitosis, but rather through lots of hot sex.
Again, a fascinating world, with a rich mythology and a premise that paves the way for plenty of nifty little jokes and eyeball kicks. Sometimes we don't see as much of it as we'd like because we're watching Merry get merry between the sheets, but it's well-written and steamy sex that sometimes transcends space and time and/or summons ancient elemental forces. I found the most recent one I read, Divine Misdemeanors, which featured a serial killer of demi-fay who was using the tiny bodies of the victims to stage elaborate tableaus, nicely creepy and memorable.
So tell me what you think. Is Hamilton a guilty pleasure for you too or are you on some other terms with her books?
(This post originally appeared on Cat's blog on kittywumpus.net.)
July 10, 2010
Stories as Arrangements of Patterns
(crossposted from Livejournal)
One of the things I like about teaching is that it makes you think about the things you're trying to teach. In the first Writing F&SF class, I asked the class what makes a story a good one - how do we know it's good? Answers included a world so well constructed you can sense it; immersion in the text to the point you forget you're reading; something you can identify with.
All of those are fine and true answers, but it occurred to me they point to something beyond that: a story must consist of a pleasing set of patterns, ones that fill it out and create its shape. For example, tension must rise and end in a climactic moment. The point of view must not change or at least do it in a meaningful way. What's allowable in the world of the story is usually set up in the first few paragraphs and they usually echo or foreshadow the main source of conflict in the story. For me, thinking about patterns and the shape of the story is a crucial component of my writing process.
Everyone's writing process is different. Mine varies from story to story somewhat. Stories have been known to arrive in my head complete. "Pippa's Smiles," a fantasy story I wrote a couple of months ago, is a good example. I was in bed, waking up and thinking about the story, and letting my unconscious mind help assemble the pieces. When I got up, I sat down at the computer and wrote it in the course of a morning. That's more typical of flash or at least short pieces.
More commonly, a story begins with an idea or a character. If it's an idea, a character soon follows, because it's a crucial part of the mulling process. Here's some of what went into "Long Enough And Just So Long," which will appear in Lightspeed Magazine.
I was thinking about heroines in YA literature as a result of a Wiscon panel I'd been on, and some of the stories that had been mentioned. At the same time, I'd noticed an announcement from Redstone Science Fiction about a contest called "Towards the Accessible Future".
One of my all-time favorite stories as a teen was Heinlein's "The Menace of Earth," and I decided I wanted to riff on that. A number of my stories are sparked by stories I hold particularly dear - The Mermaids Singing Each to Each takes Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as its inspiration. I also wanted to nod to a favorite Heinlein YA heroine: Podkayne of Mars.
So with all of that swimming around in my head, I was just about ready to write. I had a name for my heroine and I knew that she was missing limbs, which helped her in her career as a pilot. I wanted her to have a friend to play off of, and I knew that friend's name, taken from another girls' literary figure: Pippi Longstocking. It irritates me that we don't see many good female friendships in speculative fiction, so I wanted to make that friendship the overall arc of the story.
"The Menace from Earth" has an uncomplicated plot. Two Lunar teens, one male and one female, are friends. A visiting woman from Earth snags the boy's attention and the girl is jealous. Then she does something stupid and learns that the boy really loves her. Yeah, I know, it's got gender issues out the wazoo. At any rate, because its plot hinges on romance, I wanted something dealing with that to move things along in the story. A sentient sexbot was called for, and led to some of my favorite comic moments in the story.
Most of this was clear in my head when I sat down to write, and it was at that that I let the story flow out as it wanted to, which is always a weird process where you feel like Lucille Ball trying to keep up with a candy assembly line in that you're throwing words at the page in a desperate attempt to keep things flowing. Then you finish up, look back at what emerged in that spurt, and it informs the next one. Usually I go stretch and then sit on the balcony for a little while thinking about the story before starting the next chunk, which is usually anywhere from 300-1000 words, depending on how well I'm keeping up with the word assembly line.
I often don't know what will emerge. I didn't know the ending to Podkayne's story until I was nearly halfway through. My unconscious mind, which is much smarter than I am, is a vital partner in the writing process. The best way for me to access it is on a regular basis. If the pump is primed, the words flow better. Somedays the flow is smooth and effortless -- other days it's like grinding up your own guts to make sausage.
Pattern making enters into this. As I'm writing, I'm trying to construct patterns from the flow. Certain rules are ingrained: the more attention you give a character, the more important they should be to the plot; significant moments or motifs are pleasing in clusters of threes; bringing back something from the beginning at the end will make the story feel more complete; the resolution occurs near the end; a sentence or two that pulls out an ending and extends it provides a reader with the chance to savor and understand it; moments of tension should be spread out, rather than all clumped together; if anyone says something can't be done, it probably should be accomplished or in process by the story's end.
The important thing, though, is to get the story out. Then in editing, you can rearrange, reinforce, amplify, eliminate, and so forth to make the pattern more appealing. That's my first edit pass. After that things get nit-picky and labor intensive.
Everyone's process, though, is different, and any writing teacher who preaches the One and Only Way should be shunned. Figure out your process, experiment with it, find out what works, and then do that. Lots.
One of the things I like about teaching is that it makes you think about the things you're trying to teach. In the first Writing F&SF class, I asked the class what makes a story a good one - how do we know it's good? Answers included a world so well constructed you can sense it; immersion in the text to the point you forget you're reading; something you can identify with.
All of those are fine and true answers, but it occurred to me they point to something beyond that: a story must consist of a pleasing set of patterns, ones that fill it out and create its shape. For example, tension must rise and end in a climactic moment. The point of view must not change or at least do it in a meaningful way. What's allowable in the world of the story is usually set up in the first few paragraphs and they usually echo or foreshadow the main source of conflict in the story. For me, thinking about patterns and the shape of the story is a crucial component of my writing process.
Everyone's writing process is different. Mine varies from story to story somewhat. Stories have been known to arrive in my head complete. "Pippa's Smiles," a fantasy story I wrote a couple of months ago, is a good example. I was in bed, waking up and thinking about the story, and letting my unconscious mind help assemble the pieces. When I got up, I sat down at the computer and wrote it in the course of a morning. That's more typical of flash or at least short pieces.
More commonly, a story begins with an idea or a character. If it's an idea, a character soon follows, because it's a crucial part of the mulling process. Here's some of what went into "Long Enough And Just So Long," which will appear in Lightspeed Magazine.
I was thinking about heroines in YA literature as a result of a Wiscon panel I'd been on, and some of the stories that had been mentioned. At the same time, I'd noticed an announcement from Redstone Science Fiction about a contest called "Towards the Accessible Future".
One of my all-time favorite stories as a teen was Heinlein's "The Menace of Earth," and I decided I wanted to riff on that. A number of my stories are sparked by stories I hold particularly dear - The Mermaids Singing Each to Each takes Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as its inspiration. I also wanted to nod to a favorite Heinlein YA heroine: Podkayne of Mars.
So with all of that swimming around in my head, I was just about ready to write. I had a name for my heroine and I knew that she was missing limbs, which helped her in her career as a pilot. I wanted her to have a friend to play off of, and I knew that friend's name, taken from another girls' literary figure: Pippi Longstocking. It irritates me that we don't see many good female friendships in speculative fiction, so I wanted to make that friendship the overall arc of the story.
"The Menace from Earth" has an uncomplicated plot. Two Lunar teens, one male and one female, are friends. A visiting woman from Earth snags the boy's attention and the girl is jealous. Then she does something stupid and learns that the boy really loves her. Yeah, I know, it's got gender issues out the wazoo. At any rate, because its plot hinges on romance, I wanted something dealing with that to move things along in the story. A sentient sexbot was called for, and led to some of my favorite comic moments in the story.
Most of this was clear in my head when I sat down to write, and it was at that that I let the story flow out as it wanted to, which is always a weird process where you feel like Lucille Ball trying to keep up with a candy assembly line in that you're throwing words at the page in a desperate attempt to keep things flowing. Then you finish up, look back at what emerged in that spurt, and it informs the next one. Usually I go stretch and then sit on the balcony for a little while thinking about the story before starting the next chunk, which is usually anywhere from 300-1000 words, depending on how well I'm keeping up with the word assembly line.
I often don't know what will emerge. I didn't know the ending to Podkayne's story until I was nearly halfway through. My unconscious mind, which is much smarter than I am, is a vital partner in the writing process. The best way for me to access it is on a regular basis. If the pump is primed, the words flow better. Somedays the flow is smooth and effortless -- other days it's like grinding up your own guts to make sausage.
Pattern making enters into this. As I'm writing, I'm trying to construct patterns from the flow. Certain rules are ingrained: the more attention you give a character, the more important they should be to the plot; significant moments or motifs are pleasing in clusters of threes; bringing back something from the beginning at the end will make the story feel more complete; the resolution occurs near the end; a sentence or two that pulls out an ending and extends it provides a reader with the chance to savor and understand it; moments of tension should be spread out, rather than all clumped together; if anyone says something can't be done, it probably should be accomplished or in process by the story's end.
The important thing, though, is to get the story out. Then in editing, you can rearrange, reinforce, amplify, eliminate, and so forth to make the pattern more appealing. That's my first edit pass. After that things get nit-picky and labor intensive.
Everyone's process, though, is different, and any writing teacher who preaches the One and Only Way should be shunned. Figure out your process, experiment with it, find out what works, and then do that. Lots.
