Marie Brennan's Blog, page 186
April 13, 2013
1560 words
I've apparently figured out how to get myself to write short stories again: they just have to be the guilty pleasure I sneak in when I'm almost done with something that's on a deadline, when I really shouldn't spare the time and mental energy but dammit I feel like writing something new.
In related news, the Ada Lovelace Onyx Court story now has a title ("To Rise No More") and 1641 words, all but 81 of which were written tonight.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/583602.html. Comment here or there.
In related news, the Ada Lovelace Onyx Court story now has a title ("To Rise No More") and 1641 words, all but 81 of which were written tonight.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/583602.html. Comment here or there.
April 12, 2013
Ladies and gentlemen, my karate instructor
I may have mentioned before that the man who runs our dojo (though he doesn't teach all the classes anymore) is ninth dan in Shorin-ryu karate and eighth dan in Yamanni-ryu kobudo, which is our weapons style. I don't know what rank Shihan was when this video was filmed, but, well, just watch:
Shihan performs a bo kata
He didn't hit anything there. He just moved the bo that fast.
Yah. This is the guy I study under.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/583393.html. Comment here or there.
Shihan performs a bo kata
He didn't hit anything there. He just moved the bo that fast.
Yah. This is the guy I study under.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/583393.html. Comment here or there.
April 11, 2013
two upcoming appearances
These almost slipped my mind. (When revision has turned your brain into Swiss cheese, there are lots of holes for things to fall through.)
First up, I will be at Writers With Drinks this Saturday evening. Doors open at 6:30, but the event itself doesn't start until 7:30. I am currently slated to be the first one reading, so if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hope to see you there.
Second, for SoCal folks, I have details now for my participation in the L.A. Times Festival of Books. I am on the panel "There Be Dragons!" on Sunday the 21st, at 11 a.m., with Robin Hobb and Raymond E. Feist. That runs for an hour, and then afterward my fellow panelists and I will be signing books for a little bit. I will also be signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth at 2 p.m. If you're there, please stop by and say hi!
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582928.html. Comment here or there.
First up, I will be at Writers With Drinks this Saturday evening. Doors open at 6:30, but the event itself doesn't start until 7:30. I am currently slated to be the first one reading, so if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hope to see you there.
Second, for SoCal folks, I have details now for my participation in the L.A. Times Festival of Books. I am on the panel "There Be Dragons!" on Sunday the 21st, at 11 a.m., with Robin Hobb and Raymond E. Feist. That runs for an hour, and then afterward my fellow panelists and I will be signing books for a little bit. I will also be signing at the Mysterious Galaxy booth at 2 p.m. If you're there, please stop by and say hi!
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582928.html. Comment here or there.
April 10, 2013
news, posts, ets ceteras, I HAVE A TITLE
I'm drowning in revisions right now (due Monday; I'm almost done; I just need my brain to keep working a few days more), but I'm surfacing long enough to share a few things.
First: YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I FINALLY HAVE A TITLE. The sequel to A Natural History of Dragons will be called The Tropic of Serpents.
(Now I just need to go put that phrase in the book somewhere.)
Next, story sale! To the charity anthology Neverland's Library , which will be funded through Kickstarter, and 50% of whose profits will go to First Book. The story in question is "Centuries of Kings," based on several Chinese and Japanese folktales.
Finally, I have a couple of posts up in different places, that I hadn't yet linked here. One is over at Darkeva's blog, talking about how I developed the habit of choosing music for a story while working on the original draft of Lies and Prophecy . The other is my biweekly post at BVC, talking about how folklore adds another later to the world around you.
Time for me to go work some more on revising The Tropic of Serpents. (I am going to be using the title incessantly for a little while, now that I have it to use.)
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582815.html. Comment here or there.
First: YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I FINALLY HAVE A TITLE. The sequel to A Natural History of Dragons will be called The Tropic of Serpents.
(Now I just need to go put that phrase in the book somewhere.)
Next, story sale! To the charity anthology Neverland's Library , which will be funded through Kickstarter, and 50% of whose profits will go to First Book. The story in question is "Centuries of Kings," based on several Chinese and Japanese folktales.
Finally, I have a couple of posts up in different places, that I hadn't yet linked here. One is over at Darkeva's blog, talking about how I developed the habit of choosing music for a story while working on the original draft of Lies and Prophecy . The other is my biweekly post at BVC, talking about how folklore adds another later to the world around you.
Time for me to go work some more on revising The Tropic of Serpents. (I am going to be using the title incessantly for a little while, now that I have it to use.)
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582815.html. Comment here or there.
April 9, 2013
Not Prime Time
Just a quick heads-up, for those of you who like this kind of thing: Not Prime Time, a fanfic exchange for medium-sized fandoms, is open for nominations until Friday. The exchange itself will give you about two months to write, starting around the end of April.
(Medium-sized fandom: too big for Yuletide, too small to be ENORMOUS.)
The timing of this coincides nicely with my revision, which is to say, I'll be sending that off next Monday and then looking to kick back with something fluffy for a little while. So yes, I intend to participate.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582639.html. Comment here or there.
(Medium-sized fandom: too big for Yuletide, too small to be ENORMOUS.)
The timing of this coincides nicely with my revision, which is to say, I'll be sending that off next Monday and then looking to kick back with something fluffy for a little while. So yes, I intend to participate.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582639.html. Comment here or there.
April 8, 2013
Writing Fight Scenes: Dialogue
[This is a post in my series on how to write fight scenes. Other installments may be found under the tag.]
This is something I should have touched on before, but it only occurred to me now: what about speech in a fight scene?
In reality, it doesn't work very well. Have you ever tried to talk while running? Now imagine that in addition to being out of breath, every second or so you encounter a jarring, unexpected impact that threatens to break you off mid-sentence. And remember that you aren't running -- a nice, repetitive activity that requires only a fraction of your attention -- instead you're making split-second decisions the whole time, and distraction could be fatal. Speech is luxury you mostly can't afford.
Does that mean you can't have dialogue in a fight? No, of course not. Short things that don't take much thought, like profanity or insults, are just fine. Longer dialogue can happen in between passes; contrary to what movies would have you believe, very few fights consist of long, unbroken stretches of violence. Real combat is more likely to go in short bursts, and your characters can converse during the pauses. If one or both of them are out of breath, or trying to distract their opponent, or praying that the cavalry will show up soon, this kind of delay becomes entirely plausible.
You can, of course, go further than that. Comedies do this all the time, as do certain kinds of action movie, with the combatants tossing off witty quips right after being punched in the face. Superhero comics are notorious for the heroes and villains monologuing mid-fight. Just be aware that if you do this, you're signaling a certain kind of unreality to the reader, and violating that expectation may be jarring to them. If the characters are talking like Errol Flynn, brutal injury isn't really on the docket. If your story has been gritty realism up until that point, a monologue will break the mood. I won't say you can't get away with that -- you can get away with anything, if you do it well enough -- but some things are harder to pull off than others.
Sliding deliberately from one mode to another during the course of the fight is a different matter. Going back to our recurrent examples, The Princess Bride does this, and so does Dorothy Dunnett, with the duel in The Game of Kings. When Inigo and the man in black are fighting atop the Cliffs of Insanity, they start off with casual banter ("You are using Bonetti's defense against me, eh?") -- but as the fight wears on, notice that the conversation falls away. Dunnett breaks Lymond off mid-snark, the narration saying "It was one quotation he never did finish," as his opponent interrupts him with an attack. Later he gets out another line, but "then retired into silence." After that, save when something briefly interrupts the fight, there is no conversation: it hammers home to us the scale of challenge Lymond is facing, that he, who barely shuts up for anything, has to save his breath for the fight.
The flow there is a natural one. The longer a fight goes on, the less energy the characters have to spare for talking, and the less attention. When you're tired, a single mistake can be your last. Furthermore, the struggle can make people angry, build them up to the point where they're more willing to do horrible things to one another. It's possible for the arc to go the other direction, but I think it's harder; off the top of my head I can't come up with any examples, though I'm sure they exist. Fights which start out grim and end up lighter-hearted require the characters to back off for some reason -- maybe because they realize the absurdity of their situation. There, the dialogue can actually be a driving force; if they get to talking between passes, they can talk each other out of fighting.
It may seem odd for me to bring up dance in this context, but the movie Center Stage actually illustrates the other point I want to make. The people behind that film made what I consider to be a good decision, namely casting dancers who can more or less act, rather than actors who can more or less dance. Because of that, the emotional climax of the movie -- the point at which the heroine comes into her own and figures out what she wants -- is the final performance of her summer program. I don't mean the characters are whispering to one another onstage, or having conversations in the wings; I mean the climax is the performance. The arc of it, and the behavior of the characters as they dance, tells you everything you need to know.
Done right, a fight can be the same way. The action speaks for itself: we don't need Inigo to tell the man in black how happy he is to have finally met someone who can challenge him, nor to say that he is first startled, then afraid, when he discovers the challenge is too much. In fact, it would weaken the scene for him to say that out loud. So if you find yourself wanting to put a lot of dialogue into your fight, ask yourself: what purpose does it serve? Is it just repeating something we already know from the narration and the characters' behavior? Is it shoring up some weakness in the scene, that you really ought to fix elsewhere? And does it make sense under the circumstances? Dialogue can work in and even contribute to a fight, but give it a good long look before you decide.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582267.html. Comment here or there.
This is something I should have touched on before, but it only occurred to me now: what about speech in a fight scene?
In reality, it doesn't work very well. Have you ever tried to talk while running? Now imagine that in addition to being out of breath, every second or so you encounter a jarring, unexpected impact that threatens to break you off mid-sentence. And remember that you aren't running -- a nice, repetitive activity that requires only a fraction of your attention -- instead you're making split-second decisions the whole time, and distraction could be fatal. Speech is luxury you mostly can't afford.
Does that mean you can't have dialogue in a fight? No, of course not. Short things that don't take much thought, like profanity or insults, are just fine. Longer dialogue can happen in between passes; contrary to what movies would have you believe, very few fights consist of long, unbroken stretches of violence. Real combat is more likely to go in short bursts, and your characters can converse during the pauses. If one or both of them are out of breath, or trying to distract their opponent, or praying that the cavalry will show up soon, this kind of delay becomes entirely plausible.
You can, of course, go further than that. Comedies do this all the time, as do certain kinds of action movie, with the combatants tossing off witty quips right after being punched in the face. Superhero comics are notorious for the heroes and villains monologuing mid-fight. Just be aware that if you do this, you're signaling a certain kind of unreality to the reader, and violating that expectation may be jarring to them. If the characters are talking like Errol Flynn, brutal injury isn't really on the docket. If your story has been gritty realism up until that point, a monologue will break the mood. I won't say you can't get away with that -- you can get away with anything, if you do it well enough -- but some things are harder to pull off than others.
Sliding deliberately from one mode to another during the course of the fight is a different matter. Going back to our recurrent examples, The Princess Bride does this, and so does Dorothy Dunnett, with the duel in The Game of Kings. When Inigo and the man in black are fighting atop the Cliffs of Insanity, they start off with casual banter ("You are using Bonetti's defense against me, eh?") -- but as the fight wears on, notice that the conversation falls away. Dunnett breaks Lymond off mid-snark, the narration saying "It was one quotation he never did finish," as his opponent interrupts him with an attack. Later he gets out another line, but "then retired into silence." After that, save when something briefly interrupts the fight, there is no conversation: it hammers home to us the scale of challenge Lymond is facing, that he, who barely shuts up for anything, has to save his breath for the fight.
The flow there is a natural one. The longer a fight goes on, the less energy the characters have to spare for talking, and the less attention. When you're tired, a single mistake can be your last. Furthermore, the struggle can make people angry, build them up to the point where they're more willing to do horrible things to one another. It's possible for the arc to go the other direction, but I think it's harder; off the top of my head I can't come up with any examples, though I'm sure they exist. Fights which start out grim and end up lighter-hearted require the characters to back off for some reason -- maybe because they realize the absurdity of their situation. There, the dialogue can actually be a driving force; if they get to talking between passes, they can talk each other out of fighting.
It may seem odd for me to bring up dance in this context, but the movie Center Stage actually illustrates the other point I want to make. The people behind that film made what I consider to be a good decision, namely casting dancers who can more or less act, rather than actors who can more or less dance. Because of that, the emotional climax of the movie -- the point at which the heroine comes into her own and figures out what she wants -- is the final performance of her summer program. I don't mean the characters are whispering to one another onstage, or having conversations in the wings; I mean the climax is the performance. The arc of it, and the behavior of the characters as they dance, tells you everything you need to know.
Done right, a fight can be the same way. The action speaks for itself: we don't need Inigo to tell the man in black how happy he is to have finally met someone who can challenge him, nor to say that he is first startled, then afraid, when he discovers the challenge is too much. In fact, it would weaken the scene for him to say that out loud. So if you find yourself wanting to put a lot of dialogue into your fight, ask yourself: what purpose does it serve? Is it just repeating something we already know from the narration and the characters' behavior? Is it shoring up some weakness in the scene, that you really ought to fix elsewhere? And does it make sense under the circumstances? Dialogue can work in and even contribute to a fight, but give it a good long look before you decide.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582267.html. Comment here or there.
April 5, 2013
a long shot
Does your university library have a copy of Victorian Colonial Women's Travelogues: Early British Colonial Rule in East Africa, by Benjamin M.O. Odhoji?
Are you willing to take a brief look at it for me and report back?
If so, ping me. Here or at marie {dot} brennan {at} gmail {dot} com. Stanford's library has for once failed me.
EDIT: I've now heard from two people that the book isn't even listed in Worldcat, so, um, nevermind. <sigh>
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582014.html. Comment here or there.
Are you willing to take a brief look at it for me and report back?
If so, ping me. Here or at marie {dot} brennan {at} gmail {dot} com. Stanford's library has for once failed me.
EDIT: I've now heard from two people that the book isn't even listed in Worldcat, so, um, nevermind. <sigh>
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/582014.html. Comment here or there.
April 4, 2013
Dear Brain, WTF.
The revised draft of this novel is due in to my editor in about a week and a half. Plus, due to problems with my financial institution, I'm going to have to do all my tax-related work in the same span of time.
So, naturally, my brain is trying to write three short stories at once.
Argh.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581839.html. Comment here or there.
So, naturally, my brain is trying to write three short stories at once.
Argh.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581839.html. Comment here or there.
I guess this is better?
Season five of Eureka is up on Netflix now, so I've finally gotten to resolve that bloody cliffhanger from last season. Not before a detour through a random Christmas episode (who do they think they are, Doctor Who?) that I pretty much could have done without, but hey, one episode, then we're back to actual continuity.
Spoiler-cut for my thoughts on a pair of tropes.
So, the "you were gone for four years" thing, and specifically the "Jo and Carter are hooked up now" thing. It isn't quite as bad as Alias, which I stopped watching after the second season precisely because of that trope: Sydney was gone for two years, and in that time, her handler managed to get over her, meet someone else, fall in love, and get married. Um, okay? I mean, yeah, I guess that can happen in reality, but as a storytelling device it was so blatantly an attempt to inject tension back into a relationship that had settled into HEA that I lost interest in the story entirely. Here at least it was four years, and Jo and Carter had known each other for a long time, and weren't married, so it wasn't as egregious, but . . . c'mon, Jo and Carter? It had a whiff of "we've tried every other pairing this show has to offer; what's left?"
Ergo, a part of me was quite glad to find the entire thing was a simulation to deceive the Astraeus crew. (Though really, couldn't they find a more plausible pairing than Jo and Carter?) On the other hand, it wanders off into something else I'm not fond of, which probably has a name on TV Tropes, but I call it The Gift That Keeps on Giving. I gave it that name when complaining about later Elfquest storylines: yes, Winnowill is a fantastic villain. For a while. But when she keeps on coming back and causing trouble yet again, I find her appeal rapidly fades. She was fan-freaking-tastic in the original quest, okay in the Blue Mountain story, wearing thin during Kings of the Broken Wheel, and then I just get completely bored with her after that. In a similar vein, Beverly and her subversive crew just made me roll my eyes when they showed up. Couldn't it have been something new? Why can't we be done with these people?
(I am apparently a terrible audience for the concept of an arch-nemesis.)
Anyway, I'm only one (real) episode in so far, so no spoilers beyond that. But feel free to discuss the tropes in the comments.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581584.html. Comment here or there.
Spoiler-cut for my thoughts on a pair of tropes.
So, the "you were gone for four years" thing, and specifically the "Jo and Carter are hooked up now" thing. It isn't quite as bad as Alias, which I stopped watching after the second season precisely because of that trope: Sydney was gone for two years, and in that time, her handler managed to get over her, meet someone else, fall in love, and get married. Um, okay? I mean, yeah, I guess that can happen in reality, but as a storytelling device it was so blatantly an attempt to inject tension back into a relationship that had settled into HEA that I lost interest in the story entirely. Here at least it was four years, and Jo and Carter had known each other for a long time, and weren't married, so it wasn't as egregious, but . . . c'mon, Jo and Carter? It had a whiff of "we've tried every other pairing this show has to offer; what's left?"
Ergo, a part of me was quite glad to find the entire thing was a simulation to deceive the Astraeus crew. (Though really, couldn't they find a more plausible pairing than Jo and Carter?) On the other hand, it wanders off into something else I'm not fond of, which probably has a name on TV Tropes, but I call it The Gift That Keeps on Giving. I gave it that name when complaining about later Elfquest storylines: yes, Winnowill is a fantastic villain. For a while. But when she keeps on coming back and causing trouble yet again, I find her appeal rapidly fades. She was fan-freaking-tastic in the original quest, okay in the Blue Mountain story, wearing thin during Kings of the Broken Wheel, and then I just get completely bored with her after that. In a similar vein, Beverly and her subversive crew just made me roll my eyes when they showed up. Couldn't it have been something new? Why can't we be done with these people?
(I am apparently a terrible audience for the concept of an arch-nemesis.)
Anyway, I'm only one (real) episode in so far, so no spoilers beyond that. But feel free to discuss the tropes in the comments.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581584.html. Comment here or there.
April 2, 2013
Books read, March 2013
I almost posted this yesterday, because really, as such posts go, this one is a joke. I did many things in March, but reading books? Not really one of them.
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett. Returning to my leisurely saunter through![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380840198i/3130798.png)
swan_tower
Finally Reads Discworld. I have now been properly introduced to Sam Vimes, previously encountered as a minor character in Monstrous Regiment (before I started reading things in order). I like him, though not as passionately as some people seem to -- possibly I will grow more attached in time? I liked Sybil quite a lot, and the reflections on how her brand of confidence is both personal and class-based. I was mostly meh about the bad guy's scheme, but on the whole, much fun.
the memoir that is still untitled Re-reading the second book of the series preparatory to revising it (which is what I'm in the middle of doing now). It still needs a title. I will have to fix this soon.
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, David Gaider. Read for research, as
kniedzw
and I have begun running a Dragon Age game. Not really worth your time, unless you are a rabid completist for that franchise. It offered little in the way of worldbuilding information I didn't already know, and, well. This is David Gaider's first novel, and boy howdy does it show. Hopefully he improves with the later ones, since I need to read those, too.
This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581287.html. Comment here or there.
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett. Returning to my leisurely saunter through
swan_tower
Finally Reads Discworld. I have now been properly introduced to Sam Vimes, previously encountered as a minor character in Monstrous Regiment (before I started reading things in order). I like him, though not as passionately as some people seem to -- possibly I will grow more attached in time? I liked Sybil quite a lot, and the reflections on how her brand of confidence is both personal and class-based. I was mostly meh about the bad guy's scheme, but on the whole, much fun.the memoir that is still untitled Re-reading the second book of the series preparatory to revising it (which is what I'm in the middle of doing now). It still needs a title. I will have to fix this soon.
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, David Gaider. Read for research, as
kniedzw
and I have begun running a Dragon Age game. Not really worth your time, unless you are a rabid completist for that franchise. It offered little in the way of worldbuilding information I didn't already know, and, well. This is David Gaider's first novel, and boy howdy does it show. Hopefully he improves with the later ones, since I need to read those, too.This entry was also posted at http://swan-tower.dreamwidth.org/581287.html. Comment here or there.
