Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 86

A post from Ilona Andrews

Here you are. You’ve survived the exciting pressure cooker of the holidays and now it’s just business as usual. The next holiday, aside from religious observances, is probably Valentine’s Day, and it’s kind phony anyway. It is all a bit sad, isn’t it?

You know what would be nice? Hanging out with some old friends, the kind you don’t have to feed, or entertain, or put up for the night. …

I bet you can see this coming:

Available January 17th

Looks like an epilogue in some ways: Kate and Curren have moved away from the Pack and everybody, off to a new town, where they plan to live peacefully and not get involved in weird events. It’s a longish novella — about half a novel, evidently. It does sound like fun, I must say! Ilona Andrews works well for me to break reading slumps.

Also interesting: They used an AI art generator to create a cover, which they’re not using:

We’ve been taking about AI art lately, and so Gordon and I commissioned a Midjourney image from an artist to illustrate Magic Tides to see what really can be done with the new AI technology. The image is absolutely stunning.

Unfortunately, we do not feel comfortable using the AI images commercially, because they are based on the work of other artists, and it’s not clear just how that process happens. The whole situation is a legal and ethical minefield, so this artwork will only appear on our site for your enjoyment. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, this image took a lot of layers and blending done by hand rather than computer. Midjourney didn’t just spit it out.

It’s a really nice cover. Click through and take a look.

This does hit a topic that I’ve been seeing here and there recently. I mean, here’s a post from the Passive Voice Blog: Children’s book created with AI sparks controversy and accusations of plagiarism

What you need to knowAn artist created a children’s book using artificial intelligence tools.The book has drawn criticism and the author has been accused of plagiarism, since AI created the content of the book.AI tools have caused controversy in other sectors as well, including when a digital art piece that was created with AI won a competition.

This is also about Midjourney, as it happens. The children’s book — Alice and Sparkle — apparently has a lot of artwork that was apparently created this way. You can click through the link and use the “Look Inside” feature to see a couple pages of artwork. It’s pretty good, I guess?

The Passive Guy says:

PG will repeat what he has said previously – this sort of thing is going to happen over and over with the written word, just like it has with images.

He will also state that plagiarism, while not a nice thing to do, is not illegal. Copyright infringement is illegal and you can be sued for damages if you engage in the practice.

I’m actually used to thinking of plagiarism as illegal, since it’ll get your paper flunked or destroy your professional reputation. But I guess it’s not actually ILLEGAL. As such.

Regardless, I think Ilona Andrews were right to pull back from using AI-generated artwork just yet.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post A post from Ilona Andrews appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Foreshadowing

From Writers Helping Writers: “No, Don’t Tell Me”: How & When Should We Use Foreshadowing?

I recently saw an author on Quora say, basically, Yuck, foreshadowing, quit giving away what’s coming next. I think this author just has no clue what foreshadowing is all about and why it’s important. That, or maybe he has his own unique definition of foreshadowing.

Now I’m curious about whether this linked post will agree with me about why and when foreshadowing is important.

Also, I’m chuckling because when Craig read Tasmakat, he put in a comment at one point, something like, “Good morning, Mr Chekov, just leave that gun anywhere.” I’m sure you recognize the reference — “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep” is one version of this famous advice about foreshadowing.

I won’t even say that foreshadowing should never be that obvious, because sometimes it’s fine. The reader gets to feel alert and perspicacious — there’s a good word, don’t you think? –anyway, Look, says the reader, I bet we see [this plot element] reappear at some important moment! There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily, even though you mostly do want the reader drawn into the story too far too make conscious notes about things like a loaded gun that someone has carried on stage. At this point, the metaphysics of the Tuyo world are sufficiently clear to the reader that the astute reader is just going to notice certain things, and that’s fine. Many other things can’t be noticed until the moment of truth.

Okay, I think I would basically say:

Foreshadowing is crucial to prevent a deus ex feel to plot twists, especially solutions to problems. It is absolutely crucial to have worldbuilding elements such as the fengol cold appear early in the story if those elements are going to be important in the action climax. Just having a reference to weird weather is not adequate. That kind of weather has to be shown, plus how it fits into the world, plus how the Ugaro think about it.

Ideally, however, when some important worldbuilding element is displayed early in the story, the reader doesn’t catch that it’s going to be important later. Or else the reader does catch that, but nevertheless doesn’t see the moment coming. Ideally, that element will later be unexpectedly, in a way or a situation that is unanticipated, but that in retrospect the reader sees makes perfect sense. That’s what you’re aiming for with this kind of foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing is often a lot more subtle than that. In the leadup to that duel close to the end of Tarashana, I had to have references to the sky, to clouds, to sunlight. That was absolutely essential, but it just looks like scenery until the moment it suddenly becomes important. This is really the same kind of thing as the above point. In this case, references to the sky and the environment were just as necessary to avoid a deus ex feel and also to show that the ending of that duel didn’t depend on pure luck.

I think this is the primary, maybe the exclusive? use of foreshadowing — to set up plot twists and avoid a feeling of heavy-handed authorial fiat when something unexpected happens at the last minute.

Let’s see what the linked post has to say about that.

While most aspects of writing contribute to readers’ sense of whether our writing is “strong,” foreshadowing helps create readers’ sense of whether we and/or our story have a plan, whether we’re going to take them on a worthwhile journey. In other words, foreshadowing can help create the sense that every element of the story has a purpose, that it’s all leading to a purposeful destination.

Hints of future story elements—even ones that just register with readers subconsciously—make story events fit into a sense of a bigger picture. While unexpected twists can make a story fun and avoid the feeling of being too predictable, foreshadowing can help a story hit the sweet spot of feeling inevitable-yet-surprising.

This is actually a point that suggests that allowing the reader to feel alert and perspicacious is one of the main goals of foreshadowing. It’s also another way of saying that foreshadowing avoids a deus ex feel. That’s the “inevitable” part of “inevitable yet surprising.” I agree that “inevitable yet surprising” is exactly what the author is going for.

Oh, this post is doing something I didn’t think of at all: it’s distinguishing between direct and indirect foreshadowing, like this:

Examples of Direct Foreshadowing — Direct foreshadowing tells readers the what, but readers still read to learn the how.mention of a future eventshow characters worrying about what might happena character declares that something won’t be a problem, which often hints to readers that the character will be proven wrong later

There are more examples, but I stopped there because I’m laughing. Wow, is there an example of that last kind of direct foreshadowing in Tasmakat! Except that the character is proven wrong almost immediately, so while this is going to ratchet up the tension through that scene, it’s so short a time between “foreshadowing” and “proven wrong” that I’m not sure it counts as foreshadowing. You are all going to recognize this moment when you see it. This isn’t a spoiler. It’s very, very obvious. It’s not meant to be subtle.

How about indirect? I think this must be much more like what I was thinking of. Let’s see:

Examples of Indirect Foreshadowing — Indirect foreshadowing uses subtlety, subtext, and/or misdirection to hide the story’s future, with the truth becoming clear only in hindsight.show a prop earlier that will be important for the success of the final conflict show a threatening object, hinting that it will eventually be used (i.e., Chekhov’s Gun) allude to something in a throwaway phrase, often burying the detail in the middle of a sentence and/or paragraph, letting readers skim over and forget about the hinttoss out a seemingly normal statement that will resonate with more meaning in future events latershow a suspicious event, but have the viewpoint character believably decide there’s an innocuous reason, so readers don’t know the character assumed incorrectly until later

And again, more examples at the linked post.

I would not say “prop.” I mean, maybe. I would say object or environmental feature or worldbuilding element. I’m thinking of the weather in my example above, obviously. Also the thing Craig commented about is not a prop or an object, it’s a worldbuilding element. I expect worldbuilding elements are much more likely to be used this way in fantasy rather than anything with a contemporary setting.

There are lots and lots of foreshadowing elements in a normal book. That’s because if something turns out to be unimportant, the author may well remove that thing. And they should. Because Chekov is right: if you’re not going to fire that gun, most of the time, you should move it off the stage.

I really like the “seemingly normal statement that will resonate later.” Well, I like foreshadowing in general. If you now open Tasmakat planning to keep an eye out for foreshadowing, that’s fine, and you will notice plenty.

Let me see, what else? Oh, these are quite good lists: Direct foreshadowing can be most useful when … And then, indirect freshadowing can be most beneficial when …

Here’s the point I was making earlier, rephrased. Both of these are included in benefits of well-used indirect foreshadowing:

—creates a sense of the story being deliberately woven together with a surprising-yet-inevitable ending

and again:

—gives readers the satisfying feeling of “Wow! I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming” rather than the angry or betrayed feeling of “WTF? That came out of nowhere”

Bold in the original. These are, I think, by far the most important reasons to use foreshadowing. But I agree with basically all the other points in these lists. Here’s one I didn’t think of, but I love this point:

—gives repeat readers something new to enjoy, as they put together new connections on a reread

I love this point for two reasons: When I’m re-reading, I really do love seeing the connections I might have missed the first time through, and when YOU are re-reading, I hope that YOU will enjoy seeing the connections you might have missed the first time you read MY books.

This is a really good post. It made me think about foreshadowing in a different way, which is great! By all means click through and read the whole thing.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Foreshadowing appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Everything is a Liquid

It’s astonished me, from time to time, how gases act like fluids, and rock acts like a fluid, and everything, basically, acts like a fluid if you look at it the right way.

Here is a post that shows some really stunning cloud formations that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in real life. They are called Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds, and if I heard about this kind of cloud formation when I took Earth Science, I don’t remember it. I would remember, so I don’t think this was included in the chapter on the atmosphere and clouds and stuff.

They looks like waves breaking because – they’re waves, breaking. Much the same fluid dynamics equations are at work as in our seas, giving a slightly unsettling reminder than we all live at the bottom of an ‘ocean’, except it’s made of air, not water. …

If I ever see this now, I’ll certainly notice — and I’ll understand the clouds look just like breaking waves because the air is acting like a fluid. Or mayby the air actually is a fluid, I guess, if you define terms the right way.

Pictures at the link. By all means click through.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Everything is a Liquid appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Update: Developing ideas and moving forward

Developing Ideas:

I actually was thinking a bit more about the potential novel with the bodyguard, the stab-stab-story — maybe the working title will be STAB, who knows. Anyway, I thought I would tell you a little bit more about that one, even though I don’t expect to write it for a while.

a) I now know how to get into that scene with the stab-stab-stab speech. I know why the young woman has to fight, whom she has to fight, and how she winds up unexpectedly winning this fight. She doesn’t have to come out of it unscathed because I’ve established that medical care can be quite good, so if she gets hurt, that’s fine. It seems like it would be difficult to avoid injury in a fight like this.

Anyway, I’ve got some of the stab-stab-stab speech in my head. It’s a fun scene! I’m looking forward to it.

b) I also now know how Aras cuts that particular Gordian knot. I think! I won’t actually know for sure until I get there, but I think I know how that COULD work.

c) Now that I’ve got all these plot points in order, how about the characters?

“A young Lau woman” is all very well, but she can’t be a clone of Keraunani or Lalani. Ideally, she shouldn’t be too much like any of my female characters in any of my other books, although I have now written a lot of female characters, with personalities ranging from … hmm … let me think about this range.

Okay, on one end of the normal curve of personalities, we have Lalani, say, who is friendly and cheerful and accepting. Then we range through good-hearted responsible young women such as Kehara and Keri; to clever and perhaps rather manipulative, like Oressa and Leilis; to Keziah in the Black Dog world, who is a killer by inclination AND avocation; and then Tenai, who is, or can be, terrifyingly distant and cold.

So, how to come up with a woman who is different from all of those characters? Not necessarily totally different in every possible way, but different enough?

Naturally, I pause to consider other female characters I’ve recently loved. Oh, I said to myself. El! Of course El Higgins is very specifically set into that particular world, and she is the way that she is because she’s born to be The Ultimate Dark Queen. Also, her voice is unique. I don’t think I could write a character with that voice even if I tried, and if I could, that voice would be seriously out of place in the Tuyo world. But now that I’ve though of her, who else does she remind me of?

Tremaine! The voice is totally different, and in fact everything is different, but I still thought of her immediately. She’s much colder and more ruthless than El, though of course that’s not super obvious to the people who surround them. As a matter of fact, “cold and ruthless” would suit my Lau young woman very well. But maybe not really. Maybe what would really work for my young woman would be a cold and ruthless façade developed as a layer of self-protection — terrible family, remember — and you know what, maybe my character is a savant of some kind. That would explain why she was useful to her terrible family, and once she was useful, that explains why she was used in some terrible way. And how and why she broke away, and why her family might be after her, if I could use another source of tension in this story.

You remember Tehre in the Griffin Mage series. Oh, look, Hatchette has once more dropped the price of the complete Griffin mage omnibus to $1.99 on Amazon. They do that rather often, and that’s the price right now. Just saying.

Anyway, Tehre is of course a genius. She was incredible fun to write. Maybe this young Lau woman is also a genius, though not the same kind. This new character couldn’t be nearly as distractible. She would be dead or worse if she hadn’t kept her head. She’s probably furious and bitter about that, not to mention terrified if her family is actively hunting her.

So that’s what I’m kind of thinking right now. A young woman, very intelligent, with unusual genius of some kind, exploited by a terrible family. A young woman who is extremely self-protective and has developed a hard, cold aura. Probably she feels deep guilt over things she’s done and she’s certainly very angry with people in her family.

And that may not be how she turns out, but that is more than enough to start with.

I know something about the male lead, but not as much. I think I know his background in enough detail to justify making him competent as a bodyguard and also to put him in the way of a young woman who needs a bodyguard. But I don’t know a lot about his personality.

Although “can’t let her hire that thug” is a pretty decent starting point.

However, this potential story is, as you know, not what I’m moving ahead with. I’m hereby going to stop thinking about this for the present.

Moving ahead:

Okay, so, for right now, I’m moving ahead with the Tano novella. When I’ve got something on the page there, OR if I get stuck, then I’ll switch to one of the SF revisions that are also waiting for attention.

I don’t think I’ll get (badly) stuck. I think I have the plot clear enough. I was actually slightly stuck yesterday afternoon, but I started typing hesitant notes about what might happen next and boom! A great idea occurred to me. Now I think I know what scene I’ll be working on today.

I think now I have sorted out the tricky part in the middle. The situation there was tactically difficult. Tano is, as you know, intelligent, so it would not be sensible to have him walk into a situation without realizing it was going to be tactically challenging. He really needed to think ahead. I think now I have come up with reasonable alternatives as far as the action goes. Then other things can go wrong, but not anything that should reasonably have been anticipated. The thing to go wrong was where I was mildly stuck. As I say, I am now unstuck, I think.

I do see a terrible dilemma in his relatively near future. I’m not really sure how to resolve that. I don’t think I’ll know what happens there until it happens. That won’t be until the end of the week at least.

Regardless of the action, the relationships in this story are going to be both the fun part and the difficult part. How does Tano feel about people and about situations, given his background? How is he going to move toward Raga and Arayo and the other young man, the ex-inTasiyo, whose name is Vayu, by the way. Of course Tano spent time with Raga and Arayo in the starlit lands. But I didn’t show that interaction, or almost not at all. So, what was that like?

So, yes, I have had to step into Tano’s head. As I said, that’s both the fun part and the difficult part.

It’s not actually tricky separating Tano’s voice from Ryo’s voice. There are syntactical similarities in how they phrase things because they’re both thinking in taksu, but they are nothing alike. I don’t want to be too specific, but I will say that Tano has already surprised me in how he thinks about various things compared to how Ryo thinks about the same things. Just this morning, he looked at a particular situation and the moment I looked through his eyes, it was obvious how different his view would be.

Anyway, moving ahead with this novella. Or whatever length story it turns out to be. If I write 5000 words a day, I may be close to wrapping it up by Christmas, or at least before New Years. That’s startling to realize. But I’m hoping for 75,000 words or so, and that’s how the math works out.

Either way, busy week ahead!

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Update: Developing ideas and moving forward appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Final exams —

Well, those final exams were more painful to grade than I’d hoped. Cumulative, of course. I think the high grade was a midrange C, overall. On the other hand — I can’t remember, did I mention I decided to break the final into sections corresponding to prior tests? And replace terrible test grades any time a section on the final was 80% or above? So, doing well on a particular section could be dramatically helpful even if the overall grade on the final exam wasn’t great.

And that did indeed help a handful of students. Not as many as I would have liked, but at least half a dozen students got a small to moderate boost that way. One young woman appears to have very sensibly studied hard to get a better grade on a particular section. The original test was worth 100 pts, and she replaced a quite terrible grade with a perfectly decent grade on that one.

After grading the final exam and entering the grades, I considered the grades on the gradebook page. THEN I assigned a value to the final extra-credit project, which had been to write 25 exam questions over the semester’s material. (Obviously I was pulling out all the stops to get students to study.) I gave students who did that project from 10 to 20 points or so depending on the quality of the questions and (I must admit) on whether just a tiny little boost might get them from a D to a C. Which it did, in a couple cases.

So … I’d have liked to hand out a couple more B’s than I did. But overall, the final grades are in line with what I think is reasonable.

`1 A, 6 Bs, 7 Cs, 1 D, 2 Fs, and I can offer this advice to all students everywhere, if you decide not to go to class, you REALLY should make sure to drop the class before it’s too late. A handful of students did drop, including, I will add, two students who probably did not need to. I think they would have done all right eventually. Second piece of advice: talk to the instructor before dropping the class. Third piece of advice: if you’re determined to stay in the class, don’t blow it off.

But overall, I’m not too unhappy with these grades. I think they’re higher than would have been reasonable 15 years ago and I think some students are going to find out with some shock that classes can be much, much harder than my class. But … overall, I’m not unhappy.

Also, I read more of At the Feet of the Sun while the students took the exam. I have one snippet to share with you. This line absolutely delighted me:

Sardeet laughed. Cliopher was slightly surprised that flowers did not start blooming at the sound.

Really, that may be one of the most delightful lines I’ve ever encountered.

While on this topic, I also liked this tidbit, which occurs almost immediately after His Radiancy / Fitzroy / Antorin turns up, (and thank you so much for telling me when that would happen, Elise, because that was really helpful in managing my expectations). But here, but be aware THIS CONTAINS A SPOILER, fair warning:

***

***

***

***

“I am, as you see, quite recovered,” [said Cliopher]. “It was not all that serious, really.”

“Certainly not,” Rhodin agreed, “if you consider the entire government to go into the protocol for the unexpected of its acting head of state not all that serious.”

“I beg your pardon?” his Radiancy snapped, wheeling around to stare at Cliopher even as a wind out of nowhere whipped through the room and scattered all his careful piles of papers.

This is a great scene. I am indeed much happier not that His Radiancy has turned up. Also, I love Basil. And I like the thing about Ludvic’s background.

I didn’t ever read Pali’s story and I really dislike her, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Final exams — appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Space pirates!

From James Davis Nicoll : Five Swashbuckling SF Stories About Space Pirates

We’ve all been there: short of change to feed a vending machine, struggling to make a car payment, or even unjustly convicted of treason for unwittingly providing medical assistance to an enemy of King James II. For all these challenges, there is a simple, easy solution: acquire a heavily armed ship and begin preying on less well-armed merchantmen. This is as true in space as on the high seas. You might be interested in the following five novels about SPACE PIRATES!!

Hard to beat that opening paragraph — and hey, pirates! Seems a bit odd to have this post in December, when as we all know, especially if we just looked it up, Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19th. Nevertheless, great topic and a great opening! Sure, James, what are some swashbuckling SF stories about space pirates?

Space Viking  by H. Beam Piper (1962)

Well, I guess so! But I fear I haven’t read it.

Merchanter’s Luck  by C. J. Cherryh (1982)

Hey, now. I don’t remember pirates in Merchanter’s Luck. Merchanters, yes. Pirates, no. What is Nicoll talking about? Ah, pirates in the backstory: the Mazianni. That’s true! I had sort of forgotten that’s how the important backstory element got created. I remembered the backstory tragedy, but not how the tragedy occurred. Pirates, right.

Marque and Reprisal  by Elizabeth Moon (2004)

With a name like that, you know you’re looking at Space Pirates for real. In this series, the pirates are the bad guys and cause all kinds of trouble for Ky Vatta and her family. This is a good series — I like it a lot better than various others of hers.

Bodacious Space Pirates directed by Tatsuo Sato (based on the light novels by Yūichi Sasamoto) (2012)

That’s anime, apparently.

Red Scholar’s Wake  by Aliette de Bodard (2022)

Oh, are there pirates in that one? I haven’t read it. I must say, de Bodard has the best covers:

Not my favorite cover of hers, but I do like it.

Here’s what Nicoll says about this one:

To fall into the hands of space pirates is a disaster, at least for poor wretches like Xích Si. The best she can expect from the pirates is involuntary indenture. The worst is much, much worse. Xích Si also loses hope of ever seeing her daughter again, for should Xích Si even try to contact her child, the An O Empire would execute the child as an accessory to piracy.

To Xích Si’s astonishment, she is not immediately enslaved or murdered by her pirate captors. She is saved by the recently widowed mindship Rice Fish, who needs an ally with Xích Si’s technical skills. Therefore, the sentient Rice Fish proposes a trade: if Xích Si agrees to use her abilities to expose the traitor within the pirate council, Rice Fish will marry Xích Si and provide her with exalted status and safety…at least, safety compared to the lot of a lowly slave. Death is still very much a possibility.

This does sound really interesting and potentially really good. I just love the idea that Xich Si could marry the mindship! That’s certainly an unexpected twist.

Now, who has some good SF space pirates? I prefer the space pirates to be the good guys, so not exactly real pirates, although books with real pirates as bad guys are also acceptable. So are privateers, on either side of a conflict. I can think of a handful:

Rissa and Tregare. Has anybody read this series by FM Busby? I liked it a lot and read it several times, but I haven’t read it for a while. But I can certainly tell you that there’s a terribly oppressive government, that Rissa Kergulan and Bran Tregare are both victims of the government oppression, escape, team up, return, tear down the terrible government, free the world, and actually do deal with many of the problems having to do with destroying a governing system and setting up a different governing system in its place. There’s a lot of family and found family and a difficult slow romance and really, this is a very good space opera series.

But the point that matters here is that Rissa and Tregare take over a lot of ships. They’re totally space pirates, even though they’re the good guys.

Here’s another, just as obvious, but the pirates are the bad guys:

Honor Harrington. I had to poke around a bit to figure out which book to link, but the link goes to Honor Among Enemies. That’s the one where Honor winds up commanding a Q ship (why are they called that?) to ambush and destroy pirates.

These aren’t my favorite space opera series because (sorry, Dave Webber fans!) Webber isn’t that great a writer at the sentence level. He is, however, pretty great at exciting space battles, and in this book, the battles are mostly with pirates.

Corsair by James Cambias. I mean, look at the title! In this case, one of the pov protagonists is a space pirate, though with fewer guns blazing and more clever computer work. This is near-future SF, not my favorite, but in fact Cambias made it work for me and I liked it a lot. There’s a slow, rather subtle redemption character arc in this story, which is something I like a lot.

Heart of Vengeance by Glenn Stewart. I haven’t read this. I’ve read only Admiral’s Oath, which I sort of liked? The writing isn’t all that, and the characterization is perhaps not all that either, but even so, I rather liked the story and would read the second one if it came out. And there are sort of pirates in that one, but in poking around, I see that actually in Heart of Vengeance, the pirates are really a thing.

A pirate attack with only one survivor
A conspiracy woven across the planets
A vengeance that will not be denied

When pirates seize the inter-planetary freighter owned by Brad Mantruso’s family, he is dumped into space. Saved from death by a passing Fleet ship, he is left with nothing but his skills, a gun, and a burning desire for vengeance. Acquiring a ship, he reinvents himself as the mercenary Captain Brad Madrid. Before he can pursue his enemies, however, he finds himself dragged into an unexpected conflict when his ship’s history draws new enemies to him. Beset by pirates, slavers, and a woman who might be his savior—but definitely is a spy—it will take all of his skill, cunning, and new friends to claim his revenge!

See? Pirates for sure.

Here’s one I certainly have read, more than once:

The Truth of Valor by Tanya Huff. This is the one where Torin Kerr’s lover — are they married? Can’t remember — gets abducted by pirates. Torin goes to get him back. This is a wonderful space opera series. Tanya Huff is much better at the sentence level than Weber, and her characterization is better too. Here’s a post where I compared my impressions of the writing in the Honor Harrington vs Valor series.

Oh, hey, here’s a collection of Valor short stories! I didn’t know this existed! I don’t much like short stories EXCEPT, big except, when they are set in a world I’m familiar with and preferably involve familiar characters. These fit the bill and the reviews look good, so I’m snapping up the collection.

I’ll leave you with a ghost story: Dawson’s Christian, appearing from the dead to rescue an honest merchant ship from pirates.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Space pirates! appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Do you like public readings?

Here’s a post at Writer Unboxed: 7 Ways Public Readings Can Help Your Writing

And that made me wonder, from two different directions.

a) Do you like to read aloud? Your own work or at all?

b) Do you like to go to author readings?

I really do not. I hate doing a reading of my own work and never, ever sign up to do a reading at conventions. The only times I’ve ever done this was when the convention organizers put a reading in every author’s schedule without asking. After the convention, I said please don’t do that again, but I did do the reading.

I also don’t much like to go to readings when other authors are reading their own work. There are exceptions, however: When I’m very familiar with the author’s work, I may decide to go to a reading. In that case, perhaps oddly, I really prefer if the work is one I’m already familiar with. If the author has a particularly lyrical style, or is particularly excellent at giving a reading. But in general, I really do not like to go to readings.

I suspect I’m in the minority both ways, probably a small minority. I suspect that since I never had kids and never read out loud to children, I’m probably much more uncomfortable giving a reading than authors who are much more accustomed to reading books out loud. I’m quite certain my reluctance and discomfort with readings is a kind of performance anxiety — I would absolutely never do anything remotely resembling acting, and reading out loud does involve acting. That has nothing to do with public speaking, which is fine. It’s explicitly anything like acting that makes me recoil.

But I’ve never actually asked a bunch of people, Hey, how do you feel about readings? Do you enjoy doing them? Do you feel that you do a good job when reading a snippet of your own work? Do you like going to other people’s readings? So I don’t know. Maybe not really liking readings is fairly common.

Anyway: Seven ways public readings can help your writing. It doesn’t matter what those seven ways might be because I’m not going to sign up to do readings anyway, but I’m mildly curious to see what this post thinks I might be missing out on. The sound of the language? I don’t miss out on that. I subvocalize and hear the language in my head, complete with dramatic pauses and the other stuff you might put in when doing a reading. But let’s see …

Then she reads:

“The bed was unmade, empty and cold to the touch, the suitcases gone. At the foot of the bed the rug was rolled up, and spread-eagled on the bare wooden boards lay the coveralls, neatly buttoned, arms and legs stretched wide, like an empty person. Only when he knelt to pick them up did Zeke discover the three-inch nails that skewered the collar, pinned the cuffs and ankles to the floor.“

What??? Judging by the audible gasp—followed by groans when Livesey then closed her folder—I wasn’t the only one in the room who had questions.

Conclusion #1: Don’t sate the audience; readings that raise questions earn readers.

I have to agree that I too would wonder what comes next. That doesn’t make me want to do a reading, but it does sound like good advice — I mean to leave the audience with important questions.

What else?

Conclusion #2: A memorable reading can result in sales—even if the author hasn’t yet finished writing the book.

Conclusion #3: Exposure to a wide variety of public readings can help a writer identify what kind of novels they aspire to write.

Conclusion #4: Through public readings, even pre-published writers have something to offer their community, all while helping to raise that all-important awareness of their work called “platform.”

Conclusion #5: Public readings can create camaraderie and help feedback recipients focus on big story issues.

Conclusion #6: Public readings can help you get to know local bookstore owners and open doors that could advance your career—and published or not, you can organize them yourself.

Conclusion # 7: Public readings can extend a writer’s network and be a great source of insider tips. They are also awesome photo ops for social media. Mad PR skill: If you’re reading to a big audience, be sure to take a photo of them, and if applicable, holding up your book. If there are only a few people there, have a photo taken of yourself.

Okay, my basic reactions: I would be scared to do a reading from an unfinished work. What if something went wrong and I couldn’t finish it?

Reading tells you what kind of books you’d like to write.

Because I don’t usually really want to go to readings myself, #4 would never occurred to me. I’m not sure I think many people would be keen on going to readings by as-yet-unpublished authors, though.

I’m not sure what #5 means. Oh, okay, going back to the post and reading the comments, I have to say, this is a good point. The author of the post is pointing out that in a workshop or critique group, it’s easy for critiques to focus on commas and so on, while when a story or fragment of a novel is read out loud, the audience has to focus on the story itself. That really is a good point.

I don’t think readings in bookstores are likely to attract a lot of people unless you’re already famous, and if that’s the case, you don’t need to do readings. As for #7, the expectation that only a few people will show up is undoubtedly another reason I don’t want to do readings. I don’t care very much about social media, and the idea of taking a picture of myself at a reading does not appeal to me one bit.

Well, of course I didn’t expect anything here to change my mind because this is all about the emotional response (I don’t want to do readings) without regard for logic (even though they might be useful in these ways).

But I am curious. Have you done readings yourself, and if so, did you enjoy the experience? Would you want to do readings, if you were an author? Do you generally enjoy readings that other people do?

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Do you like public readings? appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

Update: Finished! For now.

Okay, I’ve done something shocking: I’ve closed Tasmakat. I’m declaring it finished for now.

Wow. It’s been a long, long time since I picked it up on June 14th. Almost exactly six months! That’s a astoundingly long time for a first final draft. Of course, Tasmakat is astoundingly huge first final draft. I got it down to … ready? … 312,000 words. But that was its low point. Over the weekend, I —

(a) extensively revised the final chapter for the third time,

(b) revised the penultimate chapter in order to clarify where various people are, since they’re not present, thus providing a little better closure,

(c) had a thought about future possibilities and went back to chapter 29 or 30 or somewhere in there and added an additional scene,

(d) revised, let me see, I think it’s chapter 42, fairly heavily. Nothing important changed, but the … scenery, I guess … and thus the feel of the chapter changed a fair bit.

(e) rechaptinated the whole thing twice, and I’ll probably reconsider the chapter breaks one more time before Tasmakat drops, because, and I know this is stupid, but I don’t like to end on an odd number of chapters. Rather than 49 or 51, I’d prefer to end on 50. It’s a peculiar quirk, but there it is. I think there are 51 chapters now and I don’t like that, so, as I say, I will most likely rechaptinate as part of the very final revision process. I have tentatively cut the last chapter into three pieces and that’s how it stands now, as three chapters, but I might re-combine two pieces, or possibly all of them. I will have to think about that, and maybe ask first readers what they think.

Anyway, what with all the above, the final first draft length is 318,000 words. That is roughly equivalent to 950 pp, though the page number will drop when I put it into a 6×9 binding, so it won’t look quite as insane as it actually is.

I will just mention here that I cut slightly over 110,000 words during the revision process. I am acutely aware that this would be enough words to make a whole ‘nother novel, except that they were almost entirely individual sentences and scattered paragraphs, not scenes. Even so, that is remarkable. But, I normally do cut about 30,000 for a normal-length book, so three times that for a book that’s three times as long is basically reasonable. For certain definitions of “reasonable.”

I sent it to first readers this morning.

SO: What now?

Well, first, I started At the Feet of the Sun this weekend. I’m sorry, because I know some of you are curious about my reaction, but I do not yet know what I think of this book. My feeling right at this moment is: Impatient.

I’m maybe, I don’t know, let me check … okay, I’m 20% of the way through, and I know one commenter here said they felt too much of the story was two characters trying to define their relationship and that got too angsty and tedious. Well, I’m assuming the two characters in question are Cliopher and His Radiancy, so where the heck is His Radiancy? Fine, Fitzroy, Antorin, whoever, I don’t care, where the heck IS he? Right now Cliopher is on a SIDE QUEST and I am NOT INTERESTED in side quests.

If someone would care to tell me roughly when Fitzroy actually turns up, I would really like to know!

What else?

Well, since I ordered the cover for Tano, honestly, I think I had better write that, and the sooner the better. I am not comfortable with the cover being scheduled for early February and only 30 pages written. I will be aiming to bring this one in at no more than 300 pages, or about 90,000 words at the outside. If it’s shorter, fine. I guess I should say, I’m aiming for between 60,000 and 90,000. Anything in that range. Since I was writing about 64,000 words per month WHILE TEACHING GENERAL BIOLOGY, I sure ought to be about to write the whole thing over Christmas Break plus have time for other things. If I have both a reasonable draft AND a cover in February, I will probably schedule this for release in March. Or maybe April, given the need for repeated proofreading.

Then what else?

I need to revise my SF novel No Foreign Sky. I wrote the first final draft (let’s call it version (a) some years ago. Wow, the file called “No Foreign Sky Original” has a date on it from back in 2016; that WAS a few years ago! Anyway, I then revised it on advice from my agent (version (b)). I think (b) was pretty decent, a decided improvement in terms of smooth plotting.

But then I cut it again because of further advice (version c), and I think that went too far (thanks, Kim, for your feedback! I think a brand-new eye was very useful for this project because by that time I really had a hard time looking at this story.)

NFS(a) is 174,000 words

NFS(b) is 124,000 words.

NFS(c) is 114,000 words.

But then (c) feels too stripped down. I re-read it myself and it really does. Wow, I said to myself, reading through the manuscript. Talk about a fast pace! And while a fast pace is all very well, I do think I lost too much of the worldbuilding. Although I did put in a relationship I like a lot. Anyway, I think what I clearly need to do at this point is open all three versions side by side and re-build the story, keeping the improved plot and the good relationship, but putting back in more extensive worldbuilding.

This is all going to be ENORMOUSLY TEDIOUS and to be honest I do not want to do it. So I had better plan to do it and get it done. I keep putting off ordering a cover, but I should probably go ahead and do that, in order to give myself one more more reason to GET THIS DONE.

And what else?

I’m not sure whether to prioritize this before No Foreign Sky or not, but I think Invictus, the other SF novel, will not be as tedious to finish. And it might be faster. Possibly substantially faster. AND A LOT LESS ANNOYING. So I don’t know! Maybe I should do it first! And I need to get eyes on it. I mean, eyes other than mine. I can’t do final revisions until I’ve seen first reader reactions. Maybe I should even do it before Tano!

I will be picking up a new project today, or if not, then for sure this week.

Also, probably finishing At the Feet of the Sun. Seriously, WHEN does Fitzroy/Antrin/His Radiancy turn up?

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post Update: Finished! For now. appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

New Ideas Are continuing to Distract Me

So you know I said I had that idea about a story from the pov of a Lau young woman?

Every time I turn around, I trip over some other aspect of that potential story that has just unfolded. Now this story includes:

A young Lau woman …

whose family is involved in something thoroughly nefarious …

so she takes highly illegal action to put a stop to something especially awful …

and then flees, disguised as a young man, intending to travel to Gaur and try to get Aras to take broader, more effective action to stop the rest of this nefarious activity …

so of course she has to hire a bodyguard …

who has a specific and dire problem in his background [redacted because it constitutes a spoiler for Tasmakat, but I know exactly what it is] …

and he had been thinking of going to Gaur himself because of this problem …

and obviously he can’t let her hire the thug she almost hires, so he steps in and gets her to hire him instead …

and she can’t possibly get romantically involved with anyone because of the highly illegal thing she did plus her terrible family …

and he can’t possibly get romantically involved with anyone because of the dire problem in his background …

And this story is most certainly a romance now, isn’t it? That’s exactly the sort of problem you expect in a romance. Both the female and male leads have this insoluble problem that absolutely prevents them from being with the other person. Then that problem is solved in some unexpected way and boom! the way is clear for them to live happily ever after. In this case, the unexpected solution can’t be THAT unexpected, as the reader will of course assume that once Aras gets a look at the knotty problem in the way of true love, he will cut through that knot with one quick swish of a metaphorical sword. And so he will, of course. It may be a bit tricky, but I’m sure he’ll come up with something.

Also, speaking of swords, you know what is absolutely certain to happen in this story? This young woman has to fight with a sword with five minutes to prepare and gets advice from the bodyguard: STAB STAB STAB. I am determined to get that scene into this story. And yes, I’m now very likely to write it. I’ve got so much of it now, practically everything left is details that would fall into place once I started writing it.

You know, plots used to be just impossible for me, but I may have to stop saying that I can never work out the plot ahead of time, because ever since Tuyo, plots have been been outlining themselves in roughly the above amount of detail. Which is, for me, a lot of detail. Saying “Some kind of nefarious activity” and “Then they get into trouble on the way to Gaur” and “I’m sure Aras will come up with something” isn’t vague. In this context, it’s plenty to work with.

Also, I can now see that this story would have to have two alternating pov, just like a lot of romances. Both the female and the male leads would have pov sections. But this would be one story told straight through, probably a short novel length (for me that means from about 80,000 to about 120,000 words, and yes, it’s mildly ridiculous that I’ve started to think of anything less than 140,000 as “short,” but here we are).

Also, the backstory of the bodyguard tells me when this story is set: after Tasmakat.

As a side note: I’m glad so many readers enjoy the Tuyo world, because it doesn’t seem likely that I’m going to run out of ideas for stories set in this world any time soon.

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post New Ideas Are continuing to Distract Me appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.

A new word for me!

Surely you’re all pleased to discover new words, right? How many of you already knew this one:

inenarrable (comparative more inenarrable, superlative most inenarrable)

(formal, literary) That cannot be told; indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable. ▲Synonyms: unnarratable; see also Thesaurus: indescribable

Sherwood Smith used “inenarrable” in the last part of the last book of her Norsunder War series. From context, I thought I might have used ineffable in that sentence. I immediately looked up “inenarrable” vs “ineffable,” and sure enough, they are apparently basically synonymous. Look:

ineffable (not comparable)

Beyond expression in words; unspeakable. [from 1450 ▲Synonyms: indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable; see also Thesaurus: indescribable.

Interesting that “ineffable” doesn’t get (formal, literary) in front of the definition. It’s certainly a formal, literary sort of word. It can’t be a whole lot more widely known that “inenarrable,” I’d think, even though I don’t remember ever encountering the latter before in my life.

I would say that these two words are very close together in meaning, but the “unnarratable” quality of “inenarrable” may make it a little different.

I’d also say that “unspeakable” is barely okay as a synonym for either one. That’s because the implication of “ineffable” is highly positive, while the implication of “unspeakable” is highly negative. They aren’t exactly antonyms because I can imagine using “unspeakable” as in “a feeling of grace too great to be put into words,” which would make it into a more synonymous word. But that would usually be “unspoken,” not “unspeakable.”

I will add, Sherwood ALSO used the world “chatoyant,” which has been one of my favorite words since CJ Cherryh taught it to me by using it in her Foreigner series. Does anybody know if the 22nd book in that series is expected in 2023?

chatoyant (comparative more chatoyant, superlative most chatoyant)

( jewelry ) Having a certain optical reflectance effect, which can be likened to the sheen of a spool of silk. ▼chatoyant effect

I’ve used “chatoyant” myself now and then since learning the word, most particularly in The Floating Islands, to describe the eyes of the wind dragons.

If you’ve got a favorite obscure word, by all means drop it in the comments! We can all see if anybody’s got one more obscure than “inenarrable.”

Please Feel Free to Share:

The post A new word for me! appeared first on Rachel Neumeier.