Zoë Marriott's Blog, page 57

READER QUESTIONS

Hello, dear readers - Wednesday is upon us again and it's time for another round of reader questions.

The first question this week actually came to me through Twitter. Rather strangely, it came from the person who supervises the Twitter account of High Speed trains in Kent - they followed me for about three hours, asked me this and then stopped following me immediately after. But whatever. They asked. I answer.

...do u write for your own escapism into fantasy or is it solely for the benefit of your readers? 

Neither. I think that you're confusing the act of 'fantasizing' (or daydreaming), which many people do for escapism, with the publishing genre of fantasy. The publishing genre of fantasy, which comprises a vast and varied field of novels and stories, including some of the most challenging and successful fiction ever written, is not escapist by default or by definition. As a writer it is not easier or more escapist to write fantasy than any other genre, nor does it require lesser dedication to the writing craft or the publishing business. I write fantasy because I love it, and luckily I have garnered an audience of people who like the way I write and are willing to read my books. I'm grateful to these readers, but I don't write for their benefit - I write for my own.

(You might have guessed that this question annoyed me just eeeeever so slightly).

The next question comes from long-time blog readers Isabel and Steph Su as a result of the discussion in the comments after the WAKE UP AND SMELL THE REAL WORLD post. Due to all the holes that years of copy-edits have caused in my brain, I can't actually find Steph Su's comment to quote here, so I'm just posting Isabel's:

I make up my worlds, so how can I include, say, an Asian person in my story if Asia doesn't exist in my book? I'm Brazilian-American, and I'd love to be more open in my stories, but I wonder how I might depict it. I think I'd like my readers to sometimes just imagine the characters the way they want to, instead of me always saying 'this is how my character is depicted' and expecting them to go along with that. 

The problem here is that many writers (living, as they do, in the real world, where we like to slap labels on people as soon as we meet them) think, consciously or unconsciously that you need to make characters in a fictional fantasy world somehow analogous to races in the real world. But you don't. You're making up your own lands with their own complex histories of evolution and migration. People's physical and racial characteristics might - in fact, probably should - have developed very differently than those on earth.

For example, in N.K. Jemision's THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, the dominant white race have wildly curly hair while the dark-skinned people have straight hair - very different than on earth. A lot of people also assumed that because N.K. is black her main character must be too. But actually on her blog she said that the main character probably most closely resembles someone from earth's ancient Mayan race, a race that no longer truly exists in our reality.

People are always much more individual than just a block of characteristics with a label on them like WHITE or BLACK or ASIAN. In a world that you've created, a world where everyone's skin is some shade of brown, what would 'black' even mean? In a world where there is no Asia, but 90% of people have smooth, silky dark hair, golden skin and epicanthic folds, these characteristics are just 'normal'. So have fun describing your characters! Love your characters for who they are and luxuriate in their smooth, golden brown, dark pockmocked, milky pale, scarred skin. Rejoice in their dark, round, pale, slanting, eyes. Give them frizzy golden hair, and straight black hair, and freckles and big noses and snub noses and beaky noses, and give them delicate arched brows or straight prominent ones. Don't force yourself to put a label on them like we do in this world. Just let them be who they are.

Now, Isabel also brought up quite an interesting topic in a different comment trail, with regard to her progress on her current story. She said:

Oh yes, wish me luck on Chapter Three. It's giving me grief. Chapter Two went really well, but now I have to write this scene that for some reason is really difficult for me. It's very frustrating. We writers always have that chapter that just doesn't seem to work out. I hope this is it and that my next few chapters are going to be a lot easier going. 

I responded (in an off-the-cuff sort of way) that the chapter that was giving her difficulty would probably end up being the best one in the book. Isabel, in the way of desperate, blocked writers everywhere, seized on this and asked me to explain in some useful way - and I realised that although I've discussed this idea a lot with my writer's group, I've not brought it up on the blog before.

So, just in case it's useful, here's my theory on why scenes that flow easily from your pen, as if you had the Muse of Inspiration sitting on your shoulder, often end up reading less well, and needing much more re-writing, than scenes which feel like chipping each word from stone with a blunt spoon.

It's because you think about the stone-chipping scenes more. You yourself are struggling to figure out what's going on, how to express it. You're outside of the magnetic pull of the story's power. You're not living the scene inside your character's head where everything is rushing past in a blur of sensory detail and overwhelming emotion. You're sweating and struggling and trying to somehow make it all make sense - which puts you much, much closer to the position of the reader, who comes into each scene blind, hoping that you, the writer, will show them how it all makes sense.

Those scenes that simply write themselves, that pour out onto the page in a blinding light of joyous knowing, come from a place in your head that is so deeply sunk in the story's world and the character's viewpoint that you take everything for granted. The setting feels real and tangible to you, so you barely bother to describe it. The character's motivation seems completely obvious, so you plough ahead without any time consuming, blocky explanations. The action unfolds in your head with utter, crystalline clarity, so you barely mention what is actually going on. These scenes then quite often seem incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't actually LIVE in your head. And what's worse is that because everytime you re-read these scenes that sense of inspiration lights up again, very often you will be unable to see that the scene is incomprehensible.

I know this from bitter experience. One of the things that I learned (painfully!) from forcing myself to read less than positive reviews of my books on places like Amazon and Goodreads is that a large number of readers found the ending of The Swan Kingdom abrupt and baffling. Many of them stated that they felt as if I'd just run out of ideas and couldn't figure out how to end the book. At first I was stunned to see this because nothing - nothing - could have been further from the truth. The ending was the first scene that I ever came up with for the story. Every word I wrote, every plot event, every bit of character development, had been leading to that ending all along! How could it seem 'cobbled on', as people said?

Because of the way I wrote it. In one sitting, straight through, in a fuzzy-headed blur of inspiration. I was so overjoyed to finally reach the end of the story - this scene I'd been looking forward to nearly a year - that I felt as if the words blasted their way out of me. I had no concern for helping the reader to understand what was happening, or making the way that previous story events had lead to this ending really clear. It all seemed so blindingly obvious and RIGHT to me. And as a result, when my editor gently suggested that the scene felt a bit 'slim', I had no idea what he meant. We revised the manuscript twice, and each time I re-read the scene, I felt pleased with it, so I just added a few extra paragraphs to bulk it out and thought I was done (and unfortunately my editor at the time allowed me to get away with this).

What those negative reviews helped me to understand was that I had failed the reader in the way I ended TSK. My own inspiration blinded me. I didn't write that ending the way it should have been written, the way that would have allowed everyone who read it to see that it was the right, the perfect ending.

Conversely, other scenes in TSK and in DotF, scenes that I hated writing and which made me want to bang my head against the wall, turned out to be surprisingly good when I came to revise them weeks or months later. I even get reader letters and emails sometimes mentioning these scenes, which I feared were dead, dull and uninspired, as favourites. When working on Shadows on the Moon I found that my current editor often ripped my 'inspiration' scenes to shreds, forcing me to re-write them almost from scratch, whereas those chipped-from-rock scenes usually survived almost intact.

I'm not saying that writing in a red-hot blaze of inspiration is always bad. And I'm not saying that you should be thankful for feeling blocked and frustrated and struggling with a scene. I'm just saying that sometimes when despair is gripping you the hardest you're actually doing your best work. And all writers need to keep in mind that even scenes that 'wrote themselves' may need extensive re-writing.

Hope that was useful! Any more questions can be popped into comments or emailed to me through my profile. See you on Friday.

MONDAY MEEBLING

That's right - meebling. I said it, and I meant it. What does it mean? Well if you don't know, I can't tell you!

*Sigh*

Fine. It just means I have nothing interesting to share today, all right?

A new week has begun. I've spent my weekend productively, feverishly writing a new Plot Shape for FF, which I sent my my editor this morning. Until I've heard back from her, there's nothing else I can really do. I'm far too restless to begin any of the wonderful books in my To Be Read pile (even the ARC of Divergent that I won, which is full of enticing Post-Its from the author that promise all kinds of insights into the story). I'm far too restless to do anything useful. I'm far too restless to write an interesting blog post.

And so...I meeble.

Look, a kitten!

*Runs away*

P.S. Isabel, I think you asked me a question in the comments the other day, which I promised to answer - but I can't find the comment now. Can you remember what topic you wanted me to blog on?

P.P.S. I think someone else asked me a question too. It may have been Steph Su? If you can remember, please comment or drop me a line.

P.P.P.S. Anyone else have any topics they'd like me to blog on? Let me know.

P.P.P.P.S. STOP THE MADNESS!

I THOUGHT I COULD FLY...SO WHY DID I DROWN?

With thanks to Jason Walker for the title, which is a line from his song 'Down'.

This past week I learned something with regard to my writing. And I've been going backwards and forwards about how and if to post about it. In the end I decided that I needed to say something because I've been teasing you all for quite a long while with the details of FF (the book that I handed in to my editor earlier this month). The reason I kept quiet on specifics was that I knew one of the elements of the story was controversial and I wanted to make sure I'd done a good job and that it would go ahead before I told you all about it.

Sometimes, as a writer, you HAVE to write something. It doesn't matter how scary or hard it is. A character, a story, a scene comes to you and maybe it shocks the Hell out of you, but it must be written. It takes you over. When you hand that book in, you are ready to defend to the death the thing you've written, no matter what anyone says, because you know that character, that story, that scene, cannot be anything else. But surprisingly often those parts won't raise an eyebrow from anyone. Not because they're not shocking or controversial, but because your passion and conviction have made those elements indispensible to the book. This was the case with several parts of Shadows on the Moon (as anyone who's read one of the ARCs will probably realise).

But sometimes you will go through a slightly different process. Remember my post on Diversity a week ago? Well, I've been thinking really hard about the implications of my privilege for quite a long while, and this lead me to make a decision in writing FF not because of passion, not because I couldn't write the story any other way, not because that was the way the story was - but because I wanted to make a point.

This isn't always a bad thing. The inspiration for the multiracial world and differing religions in Daughter of the Flames came about in such a way. But in this case, my thinking caused me to take my characters and push them into actions which frequently felt slightly off to me. It caused me to take my story, which had always been meant to unfold a certain way, and change it radically. And there were definitely brief, shining moments when I was sure that it was all working together perfectly, and I think this allowed me to fool myself that my decision was right.

Editors, however, cannot be fooled by stuff like that. My editor read my story and she came back to tell me, as kindly and nicely as she could (because she is very kind and nice) that it just didn't work. Because you see, that's the way it is when you've let yourself be blinded by Big Ideas. It often takes someone else to come along and point out that you've blundered.

I set out to do something that I believed - and still believe - to be important. And I failed.

It really, really hurts to admit that. I'm always talking about taking risks, but something I hardly ever mention - something that people who encourage you to push yourself, test your talent, challenge your limits, hardly ever talk about - is that as a result YOU WILL FAIL sometimes. There are going to be occasions when you make the wrong choice or just don't have the skills yet to fulfil your ambitions. Your reach exceeds your grasp.

One of the hardest parts? Deep down in that murky, intuitive place where unpleasant truths lurk, I knew. I'm pretty sure I knew all along that it wasn't right. I'm cross with myself for ignoring that and just HOPING, somehow, that I could pull it off. That's a lesson learned. Pay attention to your gut.

And in case you're wondering what I failed at, it was writing a convincing romance between two girls. That was what I wanted to do in FF. A high fantasy gay romance.

The thing is, the book didn't want to be a high fantasy gay romance. It didn't start out that way, and I never had any blinding inspiration or subtle realisation that it should be. The characters I pushed together didn't want to be in love, I don't think. It might sound silly to talk that way, as if the characters and story have some sort of independent will of their own, but for me it really DOES feel that way. And when I force my characters and story to do things they don't want to, the results are never good, even when I'm forcing them with the very best of intentions.

I still want to write that book. I still think that book needs to be written. But I think my failure here shows that good intentions cannot take the place of passion when it comes to writing stories. If you let your desire to make a point lead you astray from serving the story and characters you have in front of you RIGHT NOW in the best and most truthful way you can, failure is inevitable.

So now the quest is to save my characters from what I've done to them. Save the story that originally presented itself to my mind from the awkward changes I forced on it. Make FF the book it probably always should have been, and hope that people like it anyway, even if it's not illuminated by the flaring brilliance of Good Intentions and Big Ideas (or, not the same good intentions and big ideas I had before).

The lesson I really wanted you guys to take from this? Maybe it's that, look - I made a big mistake. Four books into my career, as a grown-up. I made a big mistake. I failed. But the sky didn't fall.

I felt like it had for a few hours there, but it didn't.

So...take comfort from that. Take comfort from knowing that you will make mistakes and you will survive them. Get up, dust yourself off, and fix it.

And if you can't take comfort from that, then take it from this article by award-winning author Nicola Morgan, which really helped me to put things in perspective when I read it yesterday morning.

Have a great weekend, peeps. I'll be here, with my edit letter - illuminated by the flaring brilliance of knowing that this time, I'm going to get this book RIGHT.

GROUNDHOG (BOOK)DAY

Road Trip Wednesday is a 'Blog Carnival,' where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing - or reading - related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! 

I think I've actually managed to find out the REAL question for this week's Road Trip Wednesday in time this week - one of the advantages of Twitter. And the topic is:

It's Groundhog Day! Pretend you're Bill Murray in the 1993 movie-- what book would you read over & over forever?

Frankly, the idea of never being allowed to read a new book again would probably make me spend the first few hundred endless repeating days curled up in a corner crying (shut up, I love new books, okay?).

But following that, presuming I could chose just one book, I would spend some serious time in contemplation. As long-time blog readers know, I am a champion of re-reading. I re-read pretty much every book that I liked. So it's tough for me to isolate just one re-readable book. Should I pick a really loooong one? I probably shouldn't pick one that makes me cry every time, right? Argh, choices, choices!

After much thought, my shortlist goes like this:
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I've already re-read this book about twenty times, I think. Although it is a story full of suffering, tragedy and darkness, it is also about the power of love, faith and redemption, and I can't express how deep down HAPPY it makes me. Problem: I practically already know it by heart.Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Again, I must have read this book twenty or more times. It is a riddle within a puzzle within an enigma, and people's theories on the plot and characters are endless. It still makes me think deeply each time I read it, and it still makes me laugh. A good choice. Problem: it's so short!NightWatch by Terry Pratchett. I've re-read this book a lot less times than the ones above, because it is a HARD read. It's multilayered, twisty and in many places, downright grim. It's also funny, as is PTerry's trademark, but the humour is black, black, black. I love and admire this book in every way. Problem: Blubbing. Every. Single. Time.Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. What can I say? It's one of the best books ever written. It's moving. It's funny. It's impeccably written. It's reasonably long. It features probably the most memorable characters ever written. Problem: Um...there isn't one.So there you have it. If I had to read one book over and over for the rest of my life, it would be Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. But don't blame me if I start wearing bonnets and addressing people as 'Sir' and 'Ma'am', after a bit...Still, if I'm stuck in the same day, they'll never get around to putting me in the psychiatric ward, right?

Darcy and Elizabeth FTW! And the the way, if you've not yet read one of more of the books on the shortlist, I urge you to run to your local library or bookshop and do so at once! After all, YOU'RE not stuck in Groundhog (Book)Day.

TEN ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR PUBLICATION

Happy Monday, everyone! Today, I thought it was time to look at some essential writing tools - or, actually, I should say PUBLICATION tools. Of course, all anyone needs in order to write is a pencil and a scrap of paper. That's how shopping lists are made. But if you want to write something good and get published, you need to make an effort to aquire all of the following items. I really, honestly think that they are essential, and I will now tell you why.

     1) A notebook which you carry with you at all times

Why this is important: Because your brain, like the brains of all humans, is a sponge. Just as the liquid of inspiration can flood it at any moment, it can equally easily drain out again, leaving your mind dry and slightly crunchy with the bitterness of lost opportunity. Trust me. Unless you intend to take up muttering your ideas to yourself over and over again until you reach home and your computer (which I have done on occasion, and trust me, it doesn't win you any friends) you need a notebook.

     2) Pens and pencils. Lots of 'em

Why this is important: Your notebook is just a hunk of dried out tree pulp without them, and they are surprisingly easy to forget. And even if you remember your one favourite pen that you carry everywhere - it's bound to run out or get lost at the crucial moment. Fill your bag and pocket with the little suckers. I prefer propelling pencils because they're not going to leak and ruin my trousers/bag, but whatever your perferred writing tool, stock up and keep them handy.

     3) A computer

Why this is important:  I know I was just banging on about notebooks and pens, but publishers will not accept handwritten manuscripts. Ever. And they're pretty dubious about typed ones too - not to mention that revising a typed manuscript means re-typing the entire thing every single time. You need access to a computer. Enough access to be able to type up and format your book - eg. a LOT of access. Save up for your own, bargain for extra time on your family model, whatever. This is not optional.

     4) A laser printer

Why this is important: Have you ever tried to print out a four hundred page manuscript on an old fashioned ink-jet printer? Have you ever tried to print out a four hundred page manuscript at the library with people standing in line, muttering and tapping their feet, behind you? If so, I need say no more. If not, count yourself lucky. Back when I first got my first laser printer (a secondhand model which my father had liberated from an office, and which was given to me for my twentieth birthday) they and their toner cartridges were ridiculously expensive. Nowadays they're cheap, reliable and readily available from eBay. Get one You can thank me later.

     5) A copy of The Writer's and Artist's Yearbook (or your country's equivalent)

Why this is important: Because if you read it carefully it will answer around 80% of your questions on how to get published, and if you follow its instructions your chances of getting published go up by about 75%. Yes, I'm seriously. About half of the emails I get ask me to answer basic questions, the answers to which are found in this book, along with the addresses of all UK publishers and agents (or US, or whichever country you come from - and believe me, there is a version of this book in pretty much every country with a publishing industry). You won't understand how vital this book is until you have your own copy.

     6) A library card

Why this is important: I'm astonished by the number of people who don't have them! Chances are if you want to write you're going to have to do various kinds of research and because non-fiction and reference books are generally the most expensive, you can spend hundreds on books which will often only have one chapter or even one page which is helpful. But your library will supply you with these books FOR FREE. Plus, it is everyone's duty to support their local library, especially writers.

     7) Internet access

Why this is important: Most of my younger readers are now asking themselves - isn't that too obvious to be mentioned? But bear in mind that up until a few years ago most people didn't have internet access at home. Agents and publishers only accepted manuscripts via post. Editors and agents were mysterious and shadowy people that you only got to learn about once you'd actually broken through and found one. This is no longer true. Nowadays you can follow an agent or editor's blog and learn incredibly valuable information on their personality, tastes and preferences which hugely increases your chance of making successful submissions. You can save substantially on postage costs by sending queries and manuscripts via email. You can develop personal relationships with agents and editors and benefit from their insights online. You can also - and this is really important - find groups of like-minded writers who are at the same stage of the writing/publishing process as you, and make friends who will not only keep you sane, but maybe even become beta-readers or critique partners. The internet has lifted much of the painful solitude of the writing profession. Take advantage of that.

     8) The ability to accept criticism

Why this is important: Because you'll get criticism whether you want it or not. When you write anything - a book, a book review, fanfic, a blog post - and send it out into the world, you will soon find that eeeeveryone's a critic. A lot of writers don't read reviews and try to shield themselves from this, and I applaud their self control. But personally I think that giving into the temptation to read bad as well as good reviews can help you to understand other people's perceptions of your work, and eventually improve your skills as a writer. Plus, you WILL have to take criticism from agents and editors - you might as well get used to winnowing the helpful comments from the not-so-helpful comments, and to taking both with a smile.

     9) The ability to reject criticism

Why this is important: Because otherwise you'll go (even more) nuts. You can't please all the people all the time. You're lucky if you can please some of them some of the time. If you get published, people you've never met will say inevitably outrageous things, make unfair assumptions, and come to incorrect conclusions about you and your work, whether that's in a respected review journal or on Amazon or Goodreads. Even before you get published, you will on occasion need to argue your point with an agent or editor who has their own opinion on what you have written. Without being aggressive or defensive, make sure that you have a core of self belief in your writing and do not let anyone impinge upon this. That way lies madness (the unproductive kind).

     10) An enduring passion for books and stories

Why this is important: I have never met or heard of a published author who didn't love books. Simple as that. I have recently been noticing a surge in unpublished authors on various writing sites who state that since they want to be a writer and not a librarian, they see no need to read. They say that if they read the work of other authors, their unique voice could be compromised. They say they don't like reading. They say they are dedicated to their writing and have no time to read. They say that they don't want to absorb cliches. They say, frankly, all kinds of cr*p. To which I say: Hahahahahahahahahah. Ha. Haha. Ha. Ha. Those guys are never, ever going to get published. They're never even going to write anything that remotely resembles a book. I mean, maybe once every three or four generations a genius is born who can master an artform simply through sheer talent, like Mozart picking up a violin for the first time and playing a concerto. But guess what? YOU ARE NOT THAT PERSON. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read some more. If you don't like it, keep on doing it until you do. And if you can't fall in love with other people's words and stories and characters and worlds, no matter how much you read? Then just take up stamp collecting or something. Writers are readers. The end.

What other essential tools do you guys think a would-be published writer needs? Or do you disagree with me on any of these? Let me know in the comments!

FIVE THINGS ON FRIDAY

Well, that post on Wednesday certainly got a lot of attention! I'm still a little overwhelmed but I'm so glad that we had that great discussion in the comments and (so far!) no trolls ruined it.

However, after all that Important Grownup Discussion, I feel like returning to my normal madcap randomness today, hence FIVE THINGS ON FRIDAY!

1. This notebook. It is so pretty. But so expensive. But it has different coloured pages with illustrations. But I already have over seventy blank notebooks in my Writing Cave. But it has a Japanese woman on the front. But I don't need anymore notebooks. But SO PRETTY. Ach.

2. This post from author Marie Brennan on why people seriously need to stop tossing the term 'Mary-Sue' around when what they actually mean is 'I don't like this character' and why they should also stop and think a little about WHY they don't like the character, if the reason is that she's a) female and b) not useless. People have, in several reviews, called Alex from TSK a Mary Sue. I think even Zira got called a Mary-Sue once or twice. I may be flattering myself here, but I'm pretty sure I know what a Sue is, and I'm pretty sure I didn't write one in either case. If people don't connect with or believe in the character, that's fine, but I can't take them seriously if they just say 'Mary-Sue!' without having any understanding of what that actually means.

3. I am currently reading Paranormalcy by Kiersten White. I luffs it. Go get a copy.

4. Another awesome post by N.K. Jemisin on how/why to write disability in SF or fantasy. Very useful, this - but comes with an Adult Language Warning.

5.  Unexpected dog picture is unexpected! Ha ha. This is Finn kindly checking my work. Don't know what I'd do without him.

6. Yeah, that's right - random extra number! I'm just that crazy. Interesting article by author Malinda Lo on not judging books by their covers, and how our drive to encourage diversity ought not to result in being too harsh on writers and publishers.

Ah, that feels better. Have a great weekend everyone!

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE REAL WORLD: DIVERSITY IN FANTASY

This post started out one way, and kind of ended up becoming something else. I sat down with the intention of writing a How To article on the topic of world building, with the bullet points and all that. But I started thinking about a discussion I've been having with some writing friends lately, and some really interesting blog posts that I've recently seen from other writers, and instead, it sort of turned into an essay. No, not an essay. A plea.

I don't know if my little essay on my little rinky-dink blog can actually make any difference. In fact, alone, I'm pretty sure it can't. But fear about not being able to make a difference keeps a lot of people silent, and I don't want to be one of them.

So first, I need to make a confession. I'm white. And I am straight. And I'm pretty much able bodied, although I've got a couple of chronic health conditions. Therefore, I have what is called privilege. This term encompasses a lot, but for the purposes of this essay it means that when I turn on the TV, go to see a film or pick up a book, the overwhelming number of characters will be people 'like me'. There are so many characters 'like me' being depicted that it would be extremely easy for me to unconsciously feel that people 'like me' are the majority of the world, that only the stories of people 'like me' are interesting or important. That stories about people 'like me' are somehow universal, archetypal, the default.

It would also be very easy for me to argue that I simply don't have the experience of being in any kind of repressed minority which is required to write about people who aren't like me. I've seen this one a lot. I've also seen writers who have made that arduous effort to include the odd gay or non-white or not-able bodied character talk about how difficult it is to correctly portray someone who is not like them. And I've seen other writers say that they can't be expected to make 'all their characters' non-white or non-straight or non-able bodied, or you know, not just like them because it would be too tough and too artificial.


But here's the thing. White people are not the majority of the world. 100% straight arrow people who have no gender issues are not the majority of the world. Able bodied people are not the majority of the world. We just think they are because the vast majority of the time, people who are NOT white and straight and able bodied only show up in the media in token roles. Look, we included a sassy gay boy who can give the heroine advice on clothes! Aren't we tolerant? Look! We included a sassy black/Chinese/Indian best friend to give the heroine advice on being true to herself! Aren't we racially aware! Look, we included a boy in a wheelchair to give the heroine advice on understanding what is important in life! Aren't we broadminded!

No, I'm afraid you aren't.

Currently, the media is showing a horribly skewed picture of the real world. Fiction writers, with our limitless power to reinvent the world, to hold a mirror up to it or subvert it, are showing a horribly skewed picture of the world. If you are not white, if you are not straight, if you are not physically perfect (and to some extent, if you are one of the slightly more than 50% of the population who is female) you know how it feels to wonder why no one wants to write about people LIKE YOU for a freaking change.

Why isn't everyone - even the straight white (male) people - bored with straight white (male) characters yet?

The more I force my mind to open, the stranger it seems to write about characters that resemble me in any way. Straight white physically perfect people are such a tiny minority in the real world that when you're attempting to create any kind of a realistic fantasy world it's quite *un*realistic to keep putting characters with those traits in the majority of the major roles. Unless you're deliberately writing historical Eurocentric fantasy (because you want to re-tell a European fairytale in a European setting, for example) or you're deliberately writing characters that are familiar to you because you want to use your own life experience in your story, why would you LIMIT yourself that way?

I mean, that's not to say that writers with blonde hair can never write blonde heroines. It's not to say that sraight white able bodied people don't deserve to be in books and films. But...come on. With such a startling variety of colours and races, cultures, physical traits, sexual identities and preferences available for writers to extrapolate from, I think it's sad that so many writers do unconsciously chose to write about characters 'just like them'.

For example. I love Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments Books. I do. I think they're fabulous page turners and I own them all and recommend them to my friends. These books are favourites with a lot of people because they depict a gay couple and people from different ethnicities. They are set in modern day NYC, and Ms Clare makes a point of saying that her Shadowhunters don't have any racial prejudices because Shadowhunters randomly spring from all countries in the world.

But ALL her main cast are white.

That's hardly an accurate depiction of modern NYC, let alone a small group of people who apparently come from all nations of the world and have supposedly been breeding mostly within their culture for hundreds of years (logically, waaaay more of them would be mixed race). The one major character who is mixed race is Magnus, and he's an immortal warlock, an outsider. A book that embraced the real NYC and all the varied nationalities and races therein would have been even richer and even more interesting. And I think that Ms Clare knows this, because she has given a main role to a mixed race character in her new series The Infernal Devices. This character also struggles with a long-term, dibilitating illness. This character, for me = LOVE.


So this is my plea to you, my blog readers, writers of the future. Even though it might sound strange, when you're creating fantasy worlds you need to look at the real world first. The REAL world as it really is. Overcoming our own unconscious assumptions and prejudices is an ongoing process for all of us, and no one is going to get it right first time or probably all the time, even if they're truly making an effort. But the first step to changing the world of fiction so that it reflects everyone instead of just a tiny, privileged portion, is to think about it and realise that things DO need to change.

What do you guys think?

MAGIC WORDLE IS MAGIC

Hi everyone - Monday again. Where the heck did the weekend go? Oh, that's right, I didn't have one because I was locked in my study for twenty hours living on coffee and Quavers, writing seven thousand words in two days. Never mind. *Insane Cackle*

Ahem. Anyway, I fully intended to do you a big, long writing post today but once again the demands of writing Big Secret Project interfered. I swear, this project is going to devour my soul before I'm finished. However, I'm hoping to complete the sample chapters this week, so with any luck the blog will return to its normal schedule soon.

In the meantime, if there are any topics you'd like me to cover - any particular aspects of writing, publishing, being a writer, or any other random subjects that you'd like me to blog on, please comment or email and I'll do my best to accomodate you.

To tide us over until I'm back in the land of the living, I thought I'd once again tease and taunt you with all the stuff about Big Secret Projec that I can't actually tell you. Hence: Wordle!


http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3029189/WIP

I used my synopsis here, since I haven't written enough of the book for it to represent the story fairly. Once again, magic Wordle is scarily accurate in the way it presents the story, with all the dramatic words slicing into each other and the way it links up certain words. How does it know? Mio, by the way, is the heroine's name. But that's all I'm saying. Google is your friend on the other stuff.

Read you on Wednesday. If you'd like an actual post instead of me just rambing, tell me what to write about in the comments!

BIG SECRET PROJECT TEASER

Happy Friday, everyone. Congratulations on surviving another week. It was tough one for me, and probably for many of you as well. Give yourself a friendly pat on the back (if you can reach).

Since I was a big old meanie on Wednesday and didn't keep my world building post promise, and since the reason for that was Big Secret Project, and since everyone wants to know more about Big Secret Project but I can't really give you any details yet...

That's right - today I offer a special, exclusive sneak peek of Big Secret Project, just for you faithful blog readers. And this really is a teaser, because I'm literally on chapter three of the first draft and every single word I post here is likely to change later on. But the response to the FF teaser was so amazing that I thought you'd probably like to see this anyway, so here goes. Let me know what you think. 
     I'd been up in the attic a few times since Sofu brought me there, helping mum fetch down decorations or bits of furniture. It wasn't spooky, even if it was dusty. I knew what everything was. The twisty shape on the left was an old hat wrack that used to be in the waiting room in the basement, the grey jumble under the window was my crib, filled with old toys that I'd grown out of early.
     I edged carefully between the cobwebby leftovers of Yamato family life and went to what looked like an empty space in the corner where the roof sloped down.
    Crouching carefully – because despite what I'd said to Jack, I didn't want to have to spend twenty minutes getting dust off me – I reached out into the shadows, my fingers searching for the shape of a metal box with a broken latch hanging off it.
    "Got it," I whispered. I didn't stop to ask myself why I was whispering.
    I pulled the box out and opened it, ignoring rattle as the broken padlock fell off, ignoring the fine tremble in my fingers. Carefully I peeled back layers and layers of yellowing silk, covered in stiff embroidery, to reveal Shinobu.
    He was just like I remembered. In a way that seemed wrong, as if I was meeting a friend that I'd known years ago, and they hadn't aged a day. His saya – sheath – was black lacquer, with delicate golden cherry blossoms drifting across the surface. The grip was black, with black silk wrappings. Golden cherry blossom menuki, designed to create a better grip, peeked through the intricately folded diamond-shapes of the silk. The guard was circular, chased with more of the golden flowers, as was the hilt cap. I stared at him for a long, breathless moment, shivers of excitement tightening my skin. Then I lifted Shinobu from the box and drew him from the sheath.
    The cutting edge of the blade was shining silver, almost too bright to look at. Long, flame-shaped ripples marked the many folds in the metal, shading up to deep black on the blunt edge. Both sides of the katana were marked by a long grove. People called it the blood-letting grove, but its purpose was to make the sword both light and strong. When a warrior struck with perfect precision, he would hear three whistles from the blade. One from the cutting edge slicing through the air, and two from the air moving along the groves.
    I lay down the saya and put both hands on the grip, taking hold of the katana as if to strike. I drew in a deep, awed breath that felt endless. Under my fingers I Shinobu breathed in as well, a gentle shudder of life, like a dog stirring under a stroking hand. The grip heated until it felt the same temperature as my skin.
    The single bulb overhead winked off, on, then off again, and died with a tinkling noise, leaving me in pitch blackness.

NOT THE WORLD BUILDING POST YOU WERE LOOKING FOR

Sorry guys! I know I'm a bad blogging author, but things got away from me and I didn't end up writing the world building post I promised.

Quick run-down: I was in the middle of a really fun and intense world building spree for book #5 (the Giant Killer Clockwork Praying Mantis Death Robot Book) and was going places I'd never gone before, setting up twin moons that cause super high and super low tides, plus doing all the normal stuff I enjoy like creating a complex multi-racial society. I was having such fun that I thought I'd take you on a little journey with me through the process.

But then Super Agent Nancy got back to me about Big Secret Project and asked me to write two more sample chapters for her, ASAP. This meant that I needed to drop the Giant Killer Clockwork Praying Mantis Death Robot Book (and its fantasy setting) and dive straight back into Big Secret Project (with its contemporary setting). I'm currently doing some very quick research with the help of some friends, since it's set in a city where I don't actually live, and trying to disconnect my brain from the third person historical fantasy voice and reconnect it to the first person contemporary one.

So all in all, I've been a tad busy and stressed since Tuesday, and I don't really dare to think about book #5 too much because I'm already having a hard enough time getting my head back into the Big Secret Project. I'll have a look at world building when a) I've completed the sample chapters or b) I feel like I'm stuck into them enough that I can spare the attention.

And now my stomach is rumbling. Apparently it's picky and doesn't recognise coffee as food. *Sigh*

Take care, everyone! And wish me luck...