Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 292

Recent Reading: Wings of Fire by Tui Sutherland

Overall rating: Awesome

All of you who commented that both you and your kids loved this series, you were so right!

This was such an interesting series. Structurally it is so simple. We have five friends, each of whom gets to be the pov protagonist in one of the five linked novels. Each of the young dragons goes through a tailored adventure in which he or she learns and grows in ways specific to his or her personality. During the upcoming Archon, I’m on a panel about writing supporting characters, and I will definitely be using this series as a wonderful choice to look at how a large cast of supporting characters can be handled so as to support the main character’s arc without distracting from it, with this added advantage of the rotating main character.

The characters are fundamentally simple, too. Clay, the nurturing MudWing. Tsunami, the impetuous, aggressive SeaWing. Glory, the sarcastic, prickly RainWing. Starflight, the insecure, timid NightWing. And Sunny, the cheerful, optimistic SandWing. I started to say that Glory is my favorite, and then that Sunny was, and then I gave up because it’s hard to choose between Glory, Sunny, and Clay.

The plot is mostly simple, but not quite. We have a prophecy about five dragonets stopping the war, we have five dragonets, and there we go. Except! I am so pleased / so annoyed because Sutherland subverts the prophecy in almost exactly the way I always wanted to subvert a prophecy! So clever, and did I mention Sunny is one of my favorites? I loved loved loved how the prophecy was handed in her story (the last one in the series). Plus I only halfway predicted the ultimate resolution of the main problem; so cool to be half wrong in an unexpected way. Better for Sunny, too. But now if I want to write a story with a prophecy and subvert The Chosen One trope, I’ll have to come up with something different.

What is not simple: the writing. Tui Sutherland is really gifted. It’s tough to handle a big cast of characters — I haven’t even mentioned the enormous number of secondary characters — Peril and all the queens and Morrowsight and Thorn and charming little Kinkajou and Smolder and on and on. Sutherland makes them all distinctive and brings them all to life. The dialogue is wonderful. The pacing and tension are wonderful. The detailing is wonderful. I’m sure Sutherland knows that Komodo dragons hunt the same way she has NightWings hunt. Ugh. But cool that she did that.

Worldbuilding: Delightful! Not altogether believable, but that would be asking a lot.

If I wanted to write MG, I would re-read this series very carefully and think hard about things like: Simple characters that learn simple lessons, but are totally believable and charming and the reader can’t help but root for them. Simple plots that build tension through action and crisis, so the reader can’t help but be drawn in and then pulled along. Bad guys and brutality, redacted just enough for younger readers — there is quite a lot of brutality and death in this series, so it’s interesting in the what’s-acceptable-for-MG context; also as an example of how to handle these things in an age-appropriate way.

And anybody could read these to take a look at excellent dialogue and description.

Moving on: I see there is a linked set of five more books that continue the story with a new set of protagonists (earlier group continues as supporting characters). I don’t plan on going on with those books this second (jeez, I already HAVE a lot of books on my TBR pile!), but I do plan on picking them up in the not-too-distant future.

It isn’t a story until something goes wrong

From a post at Kill Zone Blog, this gem:

There is another tip, though, that transcends opinion to become holy writ. I’ve seen it work wonders for writers who have struggled to move forward without ever really wrapping their head around it. With a more open mind, though (and yes, it’s a shame that we sometimes need an open mind to see that which is simply, obviously and always true, in writing and in life), it can change your writing journey the moment you see it, provided it parts the curtain of your understanding:

It isn’t a story until something goes wrong.

Not bad! I think this is (almost) universally true (but not quite). The author of the post — Larry Brooks — is thinking about real stuff actively going wrong:

… newer writers in particular get stuck writing about something — a character, a place, a time, an issue, all without plot-driven conflict or antagonism other than the hero’s inner issues — rather than writing about something happening in the context of something gone wrong for your protagonist, launching the hero on a dramatic quest that unfolds under escalating pressure from antagonistic opposition, threat, urgency and emotionally-resonant stakes.

You see? Something goes actively wrong, leading or forcing the protagonist into an active quest.

This is basically going to be true for SFF, certainly, but true universally? I’m not sure I think so. As you may have noted by now, I am not crazy about much of the literary fiction I’ve tried — I have totally, utterly hated some of the literary fiction I’ve tried — but even so I would say that something can go wrong internally for the protagonist and that counts as something going wrong and can drive a story. Possibly not a story I would want to read, but a story. I’m thinking of MADAME BOVARY here, incidentally, where what goes wrong is all internal (as I recall) and the protagonist’s “quest” is more a sinking into ennui. (As I recall! I read it twice (ugh!), but it was a long time ago). I can think of other literary titles where this was the basic idea.

Now, to be fair, I tried to think of a book with little in the way of active stuff happening that I actually really loved. For example, a story like IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE by Rumer Godden, which is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. It is a quiet novel about a woman who becomes a nun. Everything that matters is internal there, too.

That whole thing about opposition, threat and urgency is not the point of books like this. Can one say that stuff goes wrong for the protagonist? Maybe, sort of, but quietly wrong, and the external problems are not the point of the book. I think it would be stretching a point to say this kind of novel fits the rule above.

On the other hand, for SFF, it seems to me it is pretty much always true that you don’t have a story until something goes wrong.

Somebody on a panel … Sarah Beth Durst maybe? … I’m not sure, but whoever it was said, You start your story where things change irrevocably for your protagonist. That’s not quite the same thing, but it’s close, and it stuck with me because I think it’s pretty much true as well. I will say, I’ve started books at a different point than that and done the moment-when-things-irrevocably-changed in the backstory. (THE FLOATING ISLANDS.) Still, I think that’s a useful way of looking at where to start a story. And then generally the story moves forward because of things that go wrong — more and more wrong till the protagonist & co. finally win out over whatever antagonist or circumstances.

Books That Should be TV Shows / Books That Are TV Shows

Continuing the “media empire” idea a bit, two complementary posts:

Ten books that should be TV shows, from Chachic, and

Ten favorite TV shows based on books, from Maureen.

I thought it was kind of fun how I happened to encounter these two posts right after each other.

Chachic lists ten books / series, of which I have read and loved eight, have one on my TBR pile, and (ahem) wrote one. Of these, the one I’d most like to see made into a TV series (besides mine, obviously) is … hard to choose. Maybe Andrea Host’s Touchstone trilogy? I don’t know! Maybe MWT’s series starting with The Thief? Really very difficult to pick just one off this list.

I haven’t seen many of the shows Maureen picks, but “North and South” was spectacularly good. Also, I’m having trouble imagining anybody boiling Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell down into a few hours in any form. Huh. That’s certainly an ambitious thing to attempt.

Black Dog Short Stories II

The second collection of stories is coming right along, finally. I’ve finished that prequel novella that focuses on Keziah’s childhood. Finally. That was really difficult to write — intrinsically difficult, not just because I have also been trying to work on other things over the past couple of months.

Well, well, it’s finished at last. The collection is not quite ready to leave the nest, though — I need to get comments about Keziah’s novella from a couple people and probably revise and do a tiny bit of formatting and nudge the cover artist. But I should think it’ll be available later this month. “Short stories” is actually kinda misleading, as in fact the collection includes two novellas (18,000 words or so each) and two novelettes (12,000 words or so each). I don’t know why the lengths came out in pairs that way. It just happened.

Anyway, here is my first stab at the table of contents for Black Dog Stories II:

1. Mothers and Sisters

Before the failure of the miasma that hid all supernatural darkness from the sight of ordinary humans, brutal black dogs sometimes ruled as kings – sometimes for generations. In a country where black dogs rule and the Pure are despised, even a girl as fierce and determined as Keziah finds life a precarious struggle. But after her little sister is born, she has so much to fight for…

This is a prequel novella, set well before the beginning of Black Dog.

2. Unlikely Allies

Ezekiel is on his own when he discovers an entrenched enemy with a particularly unpleasant plan to supplant and destroy Dimilioc. To defeat this enemy, Ezekiel needs an ally…even a man who might turn on him as well before the end.

This novelette is set after the events of Pure Magic.

3. Bank Job

Living and working with a lot of stray black dogs is a real trial for Ethan Lanning, especially since not even the proper bloodlines and best training gave him the kind of strength a Lanning ought to possess. But when a mission gets complicated, maybe Thaddeus is just the right guy to have at his back after all…

This novelette is set after the events of Pure Magic.

4. A Family Visit

Just an ordinary Christmas with his grandmother, that’s all Justin has in mind. Sure, it’s a little awkward that Grayson insisted Keziah keep him company on the trip, but surely everything will be fine once they all get to know one another. Only Justin never expected to discover his grandmother has just vanished from her home…

This novella is set after the events of Pure Magic, directly before the opening of Shadow Twin (forthcoming).

How do those descriptions work for you? Inviting, intriguing, thumbs up? Or confusing, boring, thumbs down? I’m still tweaking. These one- or two-sentence descriptions are kinda tricky to write.

Oh, I’ll add: Ethan’s story sets up a not-very-important point, and Justin’s story sets up a really-very-important situation, for Shadow Twin. You don’t NEED to have read these stories before the third novel, but it’ll help.

However! If you do not like ebooks, that’s fine! All the short stories from the first collection plus all these stories plus “nonfiction” essays will be put together in a paper version. All together like that it’ll be eight stories and two essays, over 100,000 words, so it seems reasonable to issue a physical copy at this point.

Anyway, in the next week or so, I hope to be about ready to hit Go on this little project.

Special thanks to Laura Florand, who has provided invaluable feedback on the stories as I completed them.

Why do some MG stories read “young” to me?

Why do some Middle Grade novels read “too young” for me? I am asking myself that question because recently I’ve been reading quite a few MG novels that work just fine for me.

I’ve spent *years* thinking that basically I don’t like Middle Grade — that the books mostly don’t appeal to me — that the exceptions are rare.

Well, I’m having to rethink that, because I somehow keep finding exceptions, and I think they’re adding up enough that I have to stop thinking “this is an exception” and start thinking “so what actual characteristics don’t work for me, that are perhaps somewhat more common in MG fiction than YA or adult?

You see how different that is.

MG fiction I have really enjoyed — here are some recent examples (“recent” defined as, oh, the last five years or so):

Everything by Merrie Haskell

The JINX trilogy by Sage Blackwood was great fun

I only recently discovered Frances Hardinge and some of hers are definitely MG

I enjoyed Kenneth Oppel’s AIRBORN trilogy

And I’m currently three books into the MG WINGS OF FIRE series by Tui Sutherland, which I like a lot.

So you see these are starting to add up. I’m definitely more willing than I used to be to pick up a MG novel on the same basis as YA or adult — eg, one glowing review from someone whose taste I trust to match mine pretty well.

MG fiction that doesn’t work for me . . . I don’t actually want to name specific titles. But there truly are quite a few MG stories I’ve tried and not finished, or barely finished, which is obviously why I pegged MG initially as not-really-for-me.

So, why? When I say that a MG reads “too young” for me, what does that actually mean? I was trying to figure that out, and I think there are actually only two components that matter. (Sheer quality of the writing matters, but it matters for all fiction about equally and doesn’t count here.)

A) The worldbuilding is too silly and the writing is not enough to my taste to make me not notice or not care. The worldbuilding can be pretty ridiculous and the book can still work for me. Harry Potter comes to mind. Hardly anything about that world actually makes the least sense. But Rowling is good enough at writing, at the detail level, and at dialogue that the implausibility of the world doesn’t actually bother me. I can think of a handful of MG titles where the worldbuilding did not work for me, so what I think is going on there is that the author’s actual writing did not provide enough distraction from the implausibility.

B) The protagonist is impulsive to the point of blinding stupidity. I think this is actually far more commonly the problem. I think a lot of writers — and a lot of younger readers, I suppose — read “impulsive” as just plain immaturity and nothing to get too wound up about. I can’t (or at least don’t) feel that way. I simply can’t stand a protagonist who is constantly doing ridiculously stupid things because he or she is just too impulsive and can’t control himself or herself. Note that making bad choices is not the same thing. Certainly making important decisions that seem perfectly reasonable but turn out to have been wrong is totally not the same thing. By “Impulsive stupidity,” I specifically mean anybody the least bit competent should have seen that this was a stupid thing to do, but the protagonist does it anyway. (“Hey, guys, let’s split up to explore this haunted house!”)

Other forms of stupidity also turn me right off, often permanently, even if seen in a secondary character. In EON / EONA, the utter stupidity of the politically savvy older mentor character accepting a bitter-tasting glass of fruit juice from an unknown source when he has every reason to fear assassination . . . yeah. For me, that duology never actually recovered from that moment. I did finish the duology, but I eventually gave the books away. I can easily think of adult fantasy novels where the same kind of thing made me toss the book on the give-away pile.

But in MG more than books aimed at older readers, I think we *often* see an impulsive protagonist — impulsive to the point of real foolishness — and I suspect that this kind of protagonist is more often than not the cause of the too-young-for-me feeling.

So. I’m guessing that if Tui Sutherland had *started* her series with the Seawing Tsunami as the pov protagonist, rather than with the Mudwing Clay, I might not have gotten into the series. It might not have been an issue, because the plot pushes back against Tsunami’s impulsiveness right away and Tsunami rapidly outgrows that characteristic. Still, Clay is a much, much more appealing character for me.

I will add a third potential pitfall:

C) Predictability. I’m not talking about being able to predict that the good guys win. Of course the good guys win. But one step down from there, I think the ultimate outcome to the main problem in the WINGS OF FIRE series is completely obvious from the very first description of Sunny. (I’m just starting the 4th book, so I may be wrong, but . . . yeah, no, I’m positive I’m right. The worldbuilding will actually make less sense if so, but I will pretend not to notice.)

I imagine predictability could be a problem for older readers who are experienced enough to see the broader shape of the story, but actually predictability isn’t such an issue for me. I’m not reading the WINGS OF FIRE series to see how it comes out. I’m reading it to enjoy watching the characters get there. I can imagine other readers might have more of an issue with obvious plot points, though, and that might be something that pushes some readers away from MG stories. If I met someone whose main complaint about MG was predictability, I’d offer them … what? CUCKOO SONG by Hardinge? Maybe one of Merrie Haskell’s books.

What universe should become a media empire?

Here’s a “mind meld” post at Barnes and Noble in which a whole lot of authors answer that question. What book or series would they most like to see explode into a bunch of other media — games, tv series, movies, whatever?

Cassandra Rose Clarke suggests The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which I think would give rise to a delightful Star-Trek-y type of tv series. Tons of room in that universe for sure, plus just a fun attitude and a high energy level. I’d love to see that.

Foz Meadows suggests Tamora Pierce’s Alanna universe — that would certainly be entirely different from the above, but I could definitely see those books spinning off into charming kids’ programming and games, can’t you?

David Annandale suggests the Pern series. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but wow, with today’s special effects, those dragons would be FABULOUS on the screen. I admit that I hate, hate, hate the time-travel aspect of that world and would hope very much for that to vanish quietly away from a tv series, but ymmv.

While we’re on the subject of today’s special effects, Rene Sears makes a wonderful suggestion: The Raksura world. YES PLEASE. Moon is the perfect protagonist to anchor a tv series — or for this, I could see a series of movies. Bigger than Game of Thrones! I would LOVE to see that.

And to my mind, Paul Weimer makes the very best suggestion: Larry Nivan’s Ringworld. Talk about scope, right?

Novels though are just the beginning. Think of it. Ringworld the Roleplaying Game, a new edition with good mechanics and story options. Ringworld the CCG. Ringworld the coffee table map book, with gorgeous detail of the explored and known regions, and get some artist types to unleash themselves on the project. There’s room enough for anything, and it could plausibly be there. There is an ocean on the Ringworld which has life size models of the continents of Earth and a bunch of other planets sitting in it. And that ocean, tens of thousands of miles in size, is just a small portion of the Ringworld. (And there is an ocean of the same size on the opposite side of the ring). So you can have all sorts of societies. High tech civilizations looking for a way to get off the ring. Primitive, fallen areas where sword and sorcery (without the sorcery) are the rule of the day. And everything in between.

You could make an endless number of video games about adventures in various regions of the gigantic ring. I can imagine a Borderlands or Halo like game set in various parts of the Ringworld. (The Ringworld, by the way, is so large that you could drop the 10,000 km diameter Halo into it and never find it again). You could do a No Man’s Sky style game and just have the players explore various parts of the Ringworld, procedurally generating stuff for them to find and do.

And then there is the visual media. You could have multiple television series, movies and more set here. Every so often there are rumors and intimations that a series is going to happen, but nothing has come of it. At this point, CGI is good enough to show us the Ringworld, and it’s high time we did see it. It’s a property whose time has come to be known by all and sundry.

I would love that coffee table book! And I wouldn’t mind seeing the rest of this, either.

Writing advice I actually like …

Found in a post titled: Five Pieces of Writing Advice You Should Ignore.

What I like:

The author of the post provides examples. When he says you can ignore not to open with the weather, he references BLEAK HOUSE and points out that there’s a difference between flat descriptions of the weather and describing weather in a way that adds dimension and tone to the opening.

And so on.

This is my favorite bit:

Rule to Ignore: No backstory in the first 50 pages.

Response: If backstory is defined as a flashback segment, then this advice has merit. Readers will wait a long time for backstory information if something compelling is happening in front of them. But if you stop the forward momentum of your opening with a longish flashback, you’ve dropped the narrative ball.

However, when backstory refers to bits of a character’s history, then this advice is unsound. Backstory bits are actually essential for bonding us with a character. If we don’t know anything about the characters in conflict, we are less involved in their trouble. (Read Koontz and King, who weave backstory masterfully into their opening pages.)

I’ve given writing students a simple guideline: three sentences of backstory in the first ten pages. You may use them together or space them apart. Then three paragraphs of backstory in the next ten pages, together or apart.

You see: A very brief, clear description of what doesn’t work versus what does, plus specific examples given (Koontz and King), plus an interestingly specific piece of advice.

THE WHITE ROAD OF THE MOON has backstory worked into the opening. I’m curious about whether it’s got more than three sentences in ten pages. Probably. I think it works, but it’s kind of a special case because I was determined to use that particular opening sentence and that required starting and then adding backstory. But I may open one of my other books and just look. How much backstory in the first ten pages, and the next ten. It’ll be interesting to see.

The post is also a bit meta, considering it ends with a rule to ignore: Don’t Ever Follow Any Writing Advice.

That did make me laugh. I’m a big proponent of this related rule: Don’t Follow Writing Advice That Doesn’t Work For You. But even I wouldn’t go as far as Don’t Follow Any Writing Advice Ever.

Anyway, good post, not too long, click through if you’re interested.

Extinction in fantasy and SF

Here at Fantasy Faction is a post about extinction of species in SFF.

My initial reaction: Does this really happen that often?

After being reminded about ALL THE BOOKS where dragons, once common, have been reduced in number until just a few or no dragons remain, I’m like, Oh, right, I guess it does. From Tolkien on (the poor Ents!), extinction and imminent extinction is everywhere in fantasy.

This post goes beyond extinction to talk about natural or genocidal loss of human cultures, too. Which, come to think of it, is also EVERYWHERE in fantasy. You trip over the giant, impressive ruins of lost civilizations every time you turn around. As I suppose it is in the real world, too, sometimes with giant, impressive ruins included. Indus River civilization, anyone?

And then the post also points out how often Earth (and other worlds) get destroyed in SF. You know, in my space opera, I destroyed Earth in the backstory too. I didn’t realize this was kind of typical until a reader said basically, “Oh, Earth gets destroyed AGAIN, yawn.”

Anyway. Watching a species slowly die out is not my favorite thing in fantasy, far less a genocidal campaign like we see in The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I have to admit that the giant ruins of long-lost civilizations are wonderful for adding a sense of deeper history to a fantasy world.

And sometimes you just have to destroy Earth in the backstory to have your plot work out in the present day…

We live in a science fiction world

You remember Dolly the sheep? Who had old-age issues when she was young, thus raising concerns about the utility of cloning? Well, it turns out there are several sister clones from that exact batch of cells who aren’t having any trouble at all.

‘Sister Clones’ Of Dolly The Sheep Are Alive And Kicking

How about that? Of course it doesn’t much matter to SF writers. If you want clones, put ’em in your book. That’s far more realistic than wormholes or whatever. But in the real world, well, very interesting! I have no desire to see any society base itself around azi labor (say). On the other hand, I have no problem with the idea of cloning in general. As far as I’m concerned, a clone is just a twin of a different age. Speaking as a twin, I find that concept profoundly non-disturbing.

Anyway, I was just interested to see this update on Dolly and her “sisters.”

I still don’t like being called by my first name by total strangers

Here is a post at Book View Cafe about names versus titles in historical novels:

A friend mentioned the other day that she’d run into a novel set in the mid-19th century in which everyone addressed each other by their first names. All the time. Under every circumstance. It was driving her nuts; her interior historian kept being thrown out of the story.

No kidding. That’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder: Does the author actually read historical novels? Did she (or he) never actually read anything by Jane Austen? How could anybody think this first-name-only thing would work in that setting?

In this context, I will add: I routinely click to close advertisements on Twitter, and when they ask to check the reason why, I always select “Tweet is not relevant.” Because it never is relevant. I’m not interested in buying a new car this year or whatever. But the one time I choose “Tweet is offensive,” it was because the tweet addressed me by my first name. Probably someone somewhere goes through those tweet-dismissals and probably that person wondered what could possibly have been offensive about that tweet. Well, in the highly unlikely chance they happen across this blog post, now they know.

If I *were* buying a new car this year, I wouldn’t like it when the salesperson addressed me by my first name, either. Ugh. I just hate that kind of fake familiarity, most particularly in a salesmanship kind of context.

Anyway, back to historical novels. I can hardly think of anything else more obtrusively, obviously wrong than that particular mistake. One plus to writing secondary world fantasy: you can come up with whatever name and title conventions you want. But if you’re going to write a historical, yeah, you don’t get to choose.

At least not without turning off plenty of readers.