Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 73

Maybe Neil DeGrasse Tyson Should Embrace The Humanities More

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Bears repeating: Creativity that satisfies & affirms your world view is Entertainment. Creativity that challenges & disrupts your world view is Art.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 6, 2018

Oh no, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Oh no.

No no no no no.

*pinches brow of nose*

*exhales slowly*

Listen, I appreciate Neil these days more than I perhaps like him — I know he’s backed away from his POP CULTURE PEDANTRY (“A TIE fighter is not made of TIES and so therefore it cannot exist, ho ho! Star Trek? You cannot literally trek upon the stars, you could burn up your feet! My my! Harry Potter is neither hairy nor a maker of pots! I got you again, pop culture! Magic is not real and lightsabers are utter nonsense!”), but I still find that piled around his feet are the corpses of all the fun he has killed, and now, here he is again.

Making proclamations about art.

Let’s rewind a little to this tweet:

In school, rarely do we learn how data become facts, how facts become knowledge, and how knowledge becomes wisdom.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) September 5, 2017

Which, you know, is literally why we have the humanities.

It’s why a liberal arts degree isn’t actually human poison and why STEM is nice but STEAM is much, much nicer, because it helps to generate people who not only understand information, but who can also contextualize it against all the other information that pushes and pulls upon it.

He’s also disregarded philosophy in the past.

And now, he’s offering comments on what exactly counts as “art.”

So, unsurprisingly, it’s not a good take.

Because, really, most takes attempting to find and thereby sequester the proper territory of art and its margins adds up to a bad take. Because art is not a thing. I mean, art exists, but it’s a squirmy, wiggly target on the best of days, and on the worst of days, the definition of art is often one that attempts to create a kind of hierarchy, where Good Art is put into Nice Boxes and all that other stuff is kicked into the trash bin. And that leads us down some troublesome roads — we pit genre fiction versus literary fiction, let’s say. Or we pit hard sci-fi (grr) against space opera (whee). High fantasy versus low fantasy. Romance versus, well, everything not romance. Marginalized creators versus non-marginalized creators. It is, simply put, a good way to make some art subterranean while other art gets to remain above ground, breathing the fresh air and staring up at the stars.

Perhaps even worse, if you take it to its natural conclusion, it often puts us into the territory of that most dangerous of myths for us creators: the myth of the Starving Artist. And it does this in a handful of ways — it suggests first that entertainment is some crass and common thing, which ends up being where the money is. Then, because we’ve all internalized the myth that art and money do not dare travel together, we put something artistic into a such rarified air that it’s balanced at the pinnacle of a tower where no one can reach it — it ascends so high, it is truly inaccessible. But but but, at the same time, by denigrating entertainment, it also gives an excuse for the peddlers of entertainment to pay the creators of entertainment less — oh, that’s just pulp, that’s just bunkum, that’s just clownpants, you’re basically a clown, so dance for us, clown, DANCE FOR US *shoots pistols at artist’s feet*

Ahem.

The tweet is so simplistic, it fails to appreciate a nuanced view of art.

If the definition of art is hung on the peg of our worldview, that’s already fucked up, because we have no single, permanent world-view. We’re not a hive-mind. We don’t all share our opinions through pheromones and antennae-rubs. It is entirely possible that he is suggesting, somewhat cheekily, that all art is subjective, but a) there are better ways to say that and b) it still pushes past the idea that something affirming our worldview cannot be art to us. Which is nonsense. I’ve read challenging books that either challenged my worldview and brought me around to that perspective or that helped me strengthen my already-existing point-of-view, and are those things less artful because of that? By his definition, yes. (By mine? Nope.)

There is an art to creating entertainment, too — the act of creating fiction, or an image, or a sound, that is beautiful and peaceful and does nothing to challenge us but does everything to make us feel something, that’s art. That’s really, seriously, definitely art. The ability for someone to create a scene (or a painting, or a song) that aims to make me sad and then makes me sad, yeah, no, that’s art. If it aims to make me happy, and I’m happy after? Art. If it’s just pretty to look at? Art. If it’s willfully ugly? Art.

Art can be about feelings, not about thoughts.

Art can also be about thoughts, and not about feelings.

Put differently:

Van Gogh does nothing to challenge my worldview.

He fails to disrupt it.

He doesn’t particularly affirm anything, either, except that the things he paints look like the things as they exist, except through the erm, “lens” of his eye and the tool of his brush.

So, is Van Gogh not an artist?

Shakespeare?

Spielberg?

Is Get Out art? Shape of Water?

If they both entertain and challenge, does that invalidate them? Does it put those films in some elusive third category?

Or maybe, just maybe, are there no categories?

Hell, maybe NDT should just settle down, stick to science, and maybe in the meantime go back to college to get his humanities degree. That’d be okay, Neil. Go learn to write some poetry. Paint a painting. Read some philosophy. Liberal arts, Neil. It’s right there in the name — arts.

P.S. I DON’T THINK BEARS REALLY REPEATED THAT, NEIL, I DON’T THINK YOU KNOW ANY BEARS AT ALL, STOP DRAGGING BEARS INTO THIS WHAT DID THEY EVER DO TO YOU

P.P.S. ALSO SHOW ME ON THE DOLL WHERE POP CULTURE HURT YOU

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DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound  |  Amazon  |  B&N

Macro Monday Is Back From Seattle And Back In The Saddle Again

Before I begin my recap, I’ll post this picture — not a macro, as I couldn’t get close enough in the swamp, but I’ve found a number of ootheca egg cases around these parts lately. Seven in easy sight (this being one of them), which means that I expect a MIGHTY PROLIFERATION of PRAYING MANTISES this upcoming season. We had tons of them this last year; those saw-armed motherfuckers were everywhere. They’re wonderful and weird creatures, and I’m excited to one day soon be blanketed in hungry mantids! Literally! All over me!

It’ll be like the SHAPE OF WATER. So romantic.

Anyway!

I have returned from Seattle.

Emerald City Comic Con — I went this year because I wanted to scout it out for a potential 2019 trip. (My big-ass book, Wanderers, drops around that time next year.) I love comic cons as a writer, especially when it’s a con that has a strong leaning toward a robust literary track. And ECCC does the magic with tons of panels and signings and the writer’s block area — plus the sublime University Bookstore keeping everything running like clockwork.

It was nice. It was chiller than most comic cons — not dead, not quiet, but you could move, you could breathe, you didn’t feel smothered by the sweaty press of encroaching pop culture fandom.

Thank you to all who came out!

You can find various pics on my Instagram feed.

Various good things happened.

E.K. Johnson once again sneaked contraband Canadian chocolate to me. (Sorry, America, but your chocolate can go to hell.)

Adam Rakunas and Dan Moren know the power of big pig teeth, and the seductive diarrhea stylings of Max Kiss.

Sarah Gailey and I, just by meeting, will now take over the world, it’s just how it’s gotta be, and also it may feature money laundering.

John Rogers made sure to let us know that 95% of what we see is an articulated hallucination curated by our own minds, so that’s oddly comforting.

Annalee Newitz will lead you to excellent hamburgers which is the perfect way to wind down a con of this magnitude.

I met Ricky Whittle (aka Shadow on American Gods) in the SyFy Green Room whilst there with Delilah S. Dawson and he is a pure beacon of sexy light. He’s super nice, and super hot, and my gods, give him all the money and the acting roles.

Had a great signing at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, WA — a truly wonderful bookstore, like, chef-kissing-fingers good.

I got my Piggy & Pug signed by Anne Wheaton — which we’ll pretend is for my six-year-old but don’t think I didn’t read it, too. Also managed a bonus Wil sighting, which is always a considerable pleasure.

Myke Cole hunted a basilisk that was chasing Sam Sykes down a hotel hallway. He speared it with a fountain pen and then kicked its brains out of its head, it was really something.

Seanan McGuire again reminded me that one day she will hunt me through the corn, but then she also invited me for tacos, which I now think was probably a ruse to hunt me in the corn.

Ken Lowery let me know I’m a Spooky Boy.

Chris Sebela stroked his beard at me.

I won a trivia contest.

Tee Franklin owned the shit out of that show, sold all her Bingo Love, but keeps on hustling, because that’s how she kicks ass.

Thanks too to the Pride Squadron of Seattle for having me out and giving me a tour of the 501st setup there at the con.

And, of course, I get to see some of my favoritest people in the world, some bonafide buddies like Kevin Hearne, Delilah S. Dawson, Jason Hough, Kace Alexander — people who both in and out of writing are awesome people doing awesome things.

And I think that’s it. I’m quite sure I’m missing something or someone, which is not because I don’t love you, but because my brain is like a bucket of crabs struggling for dominance, it’s just madness and claws, man, madness and claws.

Again, thanks for coming out.

I signed a bunch of books. Life is good. I’m riding high.

But I gotta get back to work, because the work abides.

Here is one more macro — this one, vanilla beans, very, very close up, smeared on the tip of a small, sharp knife.

Three Truths About Writing, And How The Writing Gets Done

Writing only gets done by getting it done.

The work is the way forward.

But what that means is…

…not chiseled in stone so much as it is swirled into pudding with an index finger. It’s in flux. Uncertain. How we do the work, and why, and when, and at what rate, is where writers really are snowflakes, each as unique as a fingerprint, or a strand of DNA, or a cat’s butthole.

(That’s true, by the way, that’s science. All cat buttholes are unique to the cat. It’s how cats catch each other at cat crimes.)

I’ve been doing this writing thing for —

Wait, hold on.

*puts on long, gray beard*

*pulls pants up so far that the waistline is hitting the nipple watermark*

*black socks and brown sandals, deployed*

I’VE BEEN DOING THIS WRITING THING SINCE YOU WERE IN YOUR SPACE DIAPERS, YOUNG PENMONKEY. I’VE WRITTEN OVER 20 BOOKS AND SOME COMICS AND SOME FAILED FILM AND TELEVISION PROJECTS AND SOME GAMES AND I’VE LEARNED A THING OR TWO ABOUT WRITING A THING OR TWO AND YOU SHOULD SIT DOWN AND STRAP IN AND LISTEN TO OLD UNCLE WENDIG BECAUSE —

Wow, sorry, I was really yelling there, huh?

*clears throat*

As I was saying, you should listen to me because I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Which is really the point of all this: the further I’ve gone down this path, the one thing I know with great resoluteness is that I know less than I did when I began. My certainties are far less certain. My knowledge has faded, and in its place has grown —

*mouth opens, rainbows and ravens shoot out*

WISDOM.

Or something like it.

Here, then, is what I presently believe about the act of writing — these three “truths” are not about the art of narrative, not the craft of constructing stories, but simply the meat-and-potatoes of getting it done. And note, too, that when I say truths, I mean they are truths for me, and only for me at this moment in time. They might not be for you. They might not even be true for me ten years in the future, provided we’re not all hiding in the nuclear swampland eating irradiated cricket paste as the eyeless cannibal hordes hunt us for our meat.

So, here are three cough-cough, wink-wink, “truths.”

Do with them as thou wilt.

The Name Of The Game Is Incremental Progress

I come out of freelance writing, where there were hard-and-fast deadlines that necessitated vacuum-sealing your cheek-meat to the office chair and not breaking the seal until you did your time in the word-mines. I had to hit 2000 words a day or I was dead. Sometimes, that’s still true.

But I’ve also learned that stories are wiggly.

They’re like puppies. Every one is different. They have different personalities.

Just as every writer has a different personality.

So, every writer is different, and every story that a writer writes is different from the last, and to make it even more fun, every day is different, too. (I know, what a revelation.) Some mornings you wake up, fresh as a newborn baby bathed in unicorn tears. Some days are total fucking gutter balls — it’s a clunk and thunk and the ball rolls into a ditch without knocking over a single pin. You just don’t know. And some stories are stories that pour out of you like a puke out of a drunk freshman. Other stories are ones that must be extracted, like a tooth, or a tapeworm.

And that’s okay.

That’s how it is.

The trick is this:

Just make progress.

Just move forward.

I’m not saying you move forward at 2000 words every day. I’m just saying — move forward. Move forward at the rate you, and the day, and the story, demand. Incremental progress is the key. One sentence. One page. One chapter. Consistency is fine if consistency is what you require. But all you really, really need is the discipline to inch forward. Crawl if you must. Run when you can. Pause when necessary.

But set your eyes on the horizon and walk toward it. Don’t look at other writers and how fast they’re doing it. Don’t sprint when you know you need to creep. Don’t creep when it’s time to sprint. But always move forward.

Except —

Progress Is Not Always A Forward Direction

Well, shit. A new wrinkle.

I’mma repeat that, because it bears repeating:

Progress.

Is.

Not.

Always.

A.

Forward.

Direction.

But — what the fumbly fuck does that mean?

It means this: sometimes, progress is not a day of writing, but a day of thinking. Sometimes, progress is a day of writing badly, a day of writing you will throw away, or a day of writing that feels bad but ends up good. Progress can mean having a great writing day, and then later on, during editing, kicking that shit into the garbage bin because you don’t need it or it wasn’t that good. Progress is failing in some — any! — direction. Progress is taking a walk and having a revelation about the story. Progress can be outlining, it can be throwing away an outline, it can be writing 1000 words just before deleting 2000.

Progress is movement and momentum, but it’s not always forward.

Listen, I have literally written an entire second draft that ended up worse than the first. It’s not supposed to happen like that, you think. It seemed to be at the time an incredible failure — it was like aging backward, like maturing in reverse, like pissing in good whiskey. But it wasn’t that. It was progress, just not forward progress. In failing to make a better story with the second draft, I was given greater clarity as to what the story needed to really be. My writing career is built on the steaming backs of many humid failures — books that are just moist carcasses. Thing is, I view those now as necessary to progress.

Skill is not like in the role-playing games where it’s just numbers on a page that tick up, up, up. Skill is a hazy, goopy sphere. We move through it, in it, out of it, around it, and our entire writing career is like that. Sometimes, to refine who we are and what we write, we have to try a lot of things, and trying a lot of things means screwing up a lot of things.

Often, to succeed, we must first fail.

And even that doesn’t look the same every time.

Progress Does Not Always Look The Same Each Time

Like I said, I’ve written a bunch of shit. Some of it is shit I’m proud of. Some of it is… you know, let’s just leave it at “shit.” (Insert poop emoji here.)

And every time, I struggle because I want the process to be the same.

I want it to be a purely mechanical process.

Like, I dunno, building a fucking birdhouse, or making cheese. I want the muscle memory and the skill to work in such a way that, roughly every time, the process is the same — maybe even easier than the time before. A lot of things are like that.

Writing is not like that.

It’s a little like that, in that practicing writing for a long time really does make you better. You are also different writer every time you write. And that means the stories you tell are different, too. And they get harder, not easier.

Writing a book is less like building a birdhouse and more like raising a kid — as a parent you start to figure out pretty quick that every time you learn some new Parenting Skillz, the child also learns new Child Skillz and then you must compete in the Thunderdome or — okay, you know, I think I’ve lost hold of that metaphor, but more to the point, as your child grows, you must adapt your parenting, and as you grow, you must adapt your writing.

Which means that progress is never the same.

The way writing goes one time won’t be the way it goes the next time.

Not day to day.

Certainly not story to story.

But that’s okay. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing. If writing felt the same every time, if it settled into rote, comfortable patterns, it means you’ve settled into a rote, comfortable pattern. And rote comfort is ruinous to the artist. We thrive on the discomfort of evolution.

Enjoy the discomfort. Make incremental progress in whatever direction it demands, and remember that every book has its own map, its own uncharted path through the swampland.

Movement and momentum.

In any direction.

* * *

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DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound  |  Amazon  |  B&N

Macro Monday Pits The Justice League Versus Black Panther

(On a warm day last week I took some snaps, including the above, which looks like some kind of weird microscopic close-up of a virus in action, even though it’s actually just a hibernating poison ivy vine. More photos to come.)

So.

Recently I saw two films in close proximity:

Justice League.

And —

Black Panther.

(Note: mild spoilers for both.)

Now, let’s just get this out of the way — Black Panther is the superior film, and it’s the superior film in the way that a high-five is superior to a punch to the neck. Justice League isn’t a bad movie, exactly, but the best I can really say for it is that it is a movie that exists. It is a more palatable filmgoing experience than Batman V. Superman, though it is a worse overall film — at least BvS had a point-of-view, dire and overlong as it was. I actively despised that movie, but despised it because I didn’t agree with it — I didn’t despise Justice League, I didn’t even dislike it, but I certainly didn’t like it. My feeling for it are equal to my feelings for saltine crackers or Swedish fish: I know they exist, and I can summon no opinion about them beyond that.

Justice League is a film with no point-of-view. It has literally nothing to say. It’s just — here are some costumed weirdos, and now here is a sludgy computer-generated menace, now let’s mash them together like a bunch of action figures, mash mash mash, fight fight fight, tap the X button, tap it, now the right trigger, now Y and B in a combo, aaaaaand, yay, it’s done, please to enjoy one more shot with Superman’s CGI mouth-bits, since apparently they had to digitally erase Henry Cavill’s mustache? I dunno.

Justice League is a film with a lot of whizz and bang but not a lot of reason for it. It’s got some humor, but no heart. It’s got some heroes, but no real heroism. It’s not thoughtful in any way, and it has nothing to tell us, and that comes down to the fact that the characters possess, by and large, character arcs that are shaped less like arcs and more like a garden hose laying haphazardly across a driveway. No one has changed fundamentally by the end, if at all. Batman growls, “I gotta gather the team,” and then he gathers them. Aquaman is the only holdout, and even he comes along about six minutes later, somehow, and then it’s a red-tinted digital punch-fest after that, a series of perfectly serviceable PS4 cutscenes. Then they win. There’s never really any danger. Nobody sacrifices anything. Nobody learns anything. It’s the worst kind of story — introduce problem, then beat the problem. “I wanted a sandwich, so I got one, the end,” is not a good shape, but that’s more or less what’s on display, here.

It has no beauty, it has no aesthetic.

It has no mind, it has no heart.

And then we come to Black Panther.

It is a film that is almost the polar opposite of JL, isn’t it?

It’s a solo film, not a team film, but even in that, T’Challa has a capable team — most of them being strong women, and strong women not just in the “I CAN KICK YOUR FACE” way, but in the “strongly-rendered, lushly-imagined characters-with-agency.” They are not merely support players but vital players on the stage. Okoye, Nakia, Shuri! They have beliefs and attitudes and they do not shove them aside just because T’Challa (or the plot) demands — they push on the plot more than it pushes on them. T’Challa, in fact, is shaped by them as much as they are shaped by him. And I can tell you more about most of the side characters in Black Panther than I can about any of the main heroes in Justice League.

It’s also a film with a great deal of beauty — the Marvel films have done a lot of good in making their worlds really pop, but none have popped quite as much as Wakanda — or hell, even the Busan sequence, which is one helluva sphincter-clenching action-and-then-chase sequence.

Best of all, it’s a film with both a heart and a mind — it’s a movie with a point of view, a thing to say, and the entire film serves as a discussion of those themes, themes that arise from questions of colonization and supremacy, that are bound up with what it means to have responsibility. There is no simple good versus evil struggle here — Erik Stevens (Killmonger) is an antagonist, but not so much a villain; he opposes the protagonist, T’Challa, but is himself the hero in his own story. Erik is a liberator and a conqueror, and intends to use Wakanda to restore his idea of justice and balance. He’s not — shit, what was the bad guy’s name in Justice League again? Steppenwolf? What the hell did that asshole want again? Just… badness, right? He just wanted global apocalyptic badness, and the reason he wanted it was… *whistles* *snaps fingers* *shuffles feet nervously* … because he’s evil? I dunno. I got nothing.

What’s fascinating is, at the core of it, save the world is one of the most boring problem/goal combinations you can have in a story, and yet, both JL and BP have it. JL has the version of it we’ve seen a hundred thousand times — oh no, big bad guy, he wants to blow up the world, let’s stop him, punch punch punch, yaaaaay. But BP has a way more nuanced version of it — Killmonger wants to destabilize the world and he wants to destroy the social order of it, and arguably he wants to do so for reasons we totally understand and can empathize with. And T’Challa decides to commit to Erik’s goal, but in a better, more heroic, more open way. He chooses not to destabilize the world but rather, to stabilize it — he helps to save a world that doesn’t even know it’s in danger. And the heart of it is Killmonger versus T’Challa.

In Damn Fine Story I talk about how some characters run parallel to each other, and others are perpendicular — they crash into one another, and that’s Killmonger and T’Challa. Two characters coming at roughly the same goal from two different, competing angles. Their intersection is not gentle, but calamitous. These are characters who are not shaped by the plot, but are the plot. They are not architecture, but rather, they are architects.

And they carry both the heart and the mind of the work.

Black Panther will make you think.

And it will make you feel.

Those are the storyteller’s goals.

Not amuse or entertain — those goals are secondary. A film can’t just be fireworks. A story has to be fireworks that like, kill your Dad, or that set fire to an old-growth forest; the fireworks can’t just be for the light and the sound, for the clamor and the flash, but the fireworks have to be fired into your fucking heart. The fireworks should pop and sizzle in the sky and spell out a message, a message that challenges the ways you think about things, that demands you investigate your own ideas. Which, needless to say, Black Panther does.

Justice League is… you know, like a kid in homeroom, it’s present? It’s raising its hand to let you know it’s there, and then it’s going to lay its head back down on its desk and go to sleep.

So there you go.

What else is going on?

Not much, really — just a reminder that, HEY, I’m off to Emerald City ComicCon this week. You can nab my schedule here, and a reminder that even if you’re not going to ECCC, you can catch me, Fonda Lee, and Alex Marshall doing a panel at Brick & Mortar books this Thursday from 6-7pm (details here). And Friday night at 7pm is the Worldbuilders Party — donate to charity, come play games with creative weirdos!

Hope to see you there.

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Except you in the back.

You know what you did.

*stares*

Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose A Title And Go

An easy one. I’m giving you ten random titles chosen from various random generators about ye olde internet — pick one, let that be the title of your new story. Any genre will do, list at the bottom of the post.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, March 2nd, 2018

Post at your online space, link back here.

(Note: I’ll be at ECCC next week, and so there won’t be a flash fic challenge.)

The Titles

1. The Laughing Man

2. Voyagers in Flame

3. The History of Courage

4. Blue Serpent

5. Smooth Silk

6. The Princess’ Game

7. Ten Circuses

8. The Frozen Rat’s Foot

9. Into the Raw

10. The Leviathan in the Fog

Alan Baxter: Five Things I Learned Writing Hidden City

 

When the city is sick, everyone suffers.

Steven Hines listened to the city and the city spoke. Cleveport told him she was sick. With his unnatural connection to her, that meant Hines was sick too. But when his friend, Detective Abby Jones, comes to him for help investigating a series of deaths with no discernible cause, Hines can’t say no. Then strange fungal growths begin to appear in the streets, affecting anyone who gets too close, turning them into violent lunatics. As the mayhem escalates and officials start to seal Cleveport off from the rest of the world, Hines knows the trouble has only just begun.

The idea is not the story

Some of the things I’m going to relate here I seem to learn anew with every book. For example, for me a book comes together not from a single idea, but when two or more ideas clash in a kind of mental pile-up. I’ll have all these things swimming around my brain all the time, making me stare at walls and not hear my wife calling me. That’s just being a writer. But then something will happen. One idea about a character will stroll through my thinkmeat just as another idea about a cool scene is trying to make out with a third idea about “what if this was that”, then something greater than all those parts happens and boom! There’s a book. My brain is a strange place. HIDDEN CITY grew from just such a collision of cool ideas: parasitic fungus, magic out of control, a harmless drug turned deadly, a broken-down, grief-stricken citymage… But even then, once the idea collision had occurred and I saw a bigger picture in the shape of a novel, I still needed the story. This is the thing I learned again. The ideas were cool, but they’re not the story. As people wiser than me have said, plot is what happens, but story is why we care.

Story is characters

And this leads to another thing that I seem to re-learn with every book. You’d think I’d know by now and start here, but my story-brain just doesn’t fire like that. It needs strange fuel at strange hours, often assisted by whisky. While plot is happening, you care because of the story, and the story is the characters. In the case of HIDDEN CITY, two primary characters drove the story together for me. One is the (fictional) city of Cleveport. In the noir style, place is always a character. In HIDDEN CITY, I take that to the max because Cleveport is a sentient city. Cities are all sentient, of course. You knew that, right? And most of them are assholes, but some are cool. Except Cleveport is more aware than most, which makes her dangerous. The other character to put this book into shape for me was Steven Hines, the aforementioned citymage. He has a kind of more-than-psychic connection to Cleveport. I’ll be honest, their relationship is fucking unhealthy, and Hines knows that, but it’s what he is, you know? What’s he gonna do? Then we throw in Hines’s best friend, Cleveport PD Detective Sergeant Abby Jones, and a spate of mysterious deaths, and now we have a story to care about because we care about these people. I hope.

Don’t worry what it is, just write the damn thing

I got a bit hung up at the start of HIDDEN CITY trying to figure out what it was. I felt like I should get a grip on the genre before I began. But I should have known better, from previous experience. Genre is what bookstores insist on, so they know where to shelve something. Readers tend to just want a good story. And you know what? I never met a genre I didn’t like, so I cram ’em all in to my books if I can. HIDDEN CITY is supernatural noir, it’s urban horror, it’s dark fantasy, it’s a crime thriller, it’s cosmic horror. Hell, you tell me what it is so I can let people know if they insist on shelving it.

The lifecycle of an invented parasitic fungus is tricky to get right.

I’ve got this notebook… well, I have dozens, it’s a common writer affliction, but I have this one in particular where I was working out how things happen in HIDDEN CITY. One of the primary drivers of events in the novel is the sudden appearance of a deadly fungal outburst throughout Cleveport. If people get too close they’re turned into violent psychopaths. They’re actually turned into something far worse, but I won’t spoil the story here. But to make this work, I needed to have a plausible lifecycle of this horrendous and virulent thing. So I started sketching in that notebook. I have these little drawings of fungal growths, then arrows and stick figures and notes. And it had to make sense. I mean, it’s horror and fantasy fiction, not real life, so it’s gotta make sense, you know? Turns out that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I’m pleased with how it came together in the end.

Let it go, let it go, my darlings never bothered me anyway

Okay, so my son has recently discovered Frozen and that’s a special torture, but pity me and let’s move along. The point here is that I have amazing first readers (we read for each other so our agents and publishers don’t have to suffer our early drafts). There was one thread through HIDDEN CITY that I loved, I thought it was clever as fuck. One reader was all Meh about it, but another had a real problem with it. She used words like “shoehorned” and “distracting”. But I loved it! It was amazing, you know? Reader, it was not amazing. Sure it was a cool idea on its own, but not for this book. I finally accepted her words as Damned Good Advice, and I killed that darling, and HIDDEN CITY came together so much more tight and punchy. I would have been an idiot to ignore her. If you trust people to be first readers for you, learn to trust what they tell you too. It made HIDDEN CITY a much better book, and that’s all I ever want to do – put out the best book I can.

* * *

ALAN BAXTER is a multi-award-winning author of supernatural thrillers, dark fantasy, and horror. He lives on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, with his wife, son, two dogs, and a cranky old cat.

Alan Baxter: Website

HIDDEN CITY: Excerpt | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks

Dan Koboldt: Nine Years A Penmonkey, And Nine Lessons

I’m pretty sure Dan is a Kobold, and just isn’t telling us — I mean, it’s right there in his name. I keep asking, “Are you a kobold? and he keeps saying, “Stop asking me that, I’m a human being,” and then I wink at him because I know what he means. (Whisper: he’s a kobold.) Anyway! Here Dan is, offering up a bevy of lessons — nine, in fact — to match his nine years of penmonkeying around.  Please to enjoy, fellow kobolds and non-kobolds.

* * *

When Chuck generously agreed to host another guest post from me on his blog, he suggested something other than a FIVE THINGS post. Which is fine with me. I’ve told you ten things about my books already, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with more. Instead, as I wrap up my series with Harper Voyager, I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned since I started writing fiction.

In other words, these are the lessons from my nine years as a penmonkey. Nine years, nine lessons. Let’s do this.

1. Write the damn book.

Most people fancy the idea of writing a book. I have a few friends and relatives – people I’ve known for years – who are pretty fired up about it. They come up with great new ideas for stories on a regular basis. They buy special pens and notebooks (or a Macbook Air). They try new outline formulas and write-or-die apps. But they fail to do the single most important thing for someone who wants to become an author, which is to write the damn book.

If you want to be an author, you have to write (and finish) an entire book. Until you do that, you can’t query agents, pitch editors, or ask celebrities for blurbs. You have nothing to offer these people until you have a completed manuscript. And yet, so many people can’t seem to do that. Sometimes, it’s because they’re trying to get everything perfect. Perfect characters, perfect setting, perfect storyline. But perfect is the enemy of done, my friends. If you want to get anywhere, you need to be done.

Another reason many people don’t write the book is simply that writing is hard. There are lots of reasons not to do it. You work a lot. You have kids. You need to go to the gym. You can’t find your laptop’s power cord. These are all perfectly legitimate reasons not to write. If one of them works for you and you’re happy not writing, you shouldn’t. God bless. This game isn’t for everyone.

People generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to writing a book: those who talk about it, and those who do it. Over time, I can usually figure out which category someone’s in, and it rarely changes.

I can’t make you write a book. Only you can do that.

2. Double your eyeballs.

When I first dabbled in fiction in 2008, I considered myself a competent writer. I’d been writing nonfiction for several years for my day job, and I was a voracious reader. I thought I’d be good, or at least decent, when I switched to fiction.

Nope. I was pretty bad. Even worse, I didn’t know it yet. Luckily, I was in an “Introduction to Fiction Writing” class that included peer critique. My classmates gently helped me realize how terrible my writing was. Their feedback told me some of the things that I could improve.

Like most writers, I have blinders on when it comes to my own writing. We need more eyeballs on it to ferret out the weak points. Not our mom’s eyeballs, either, but the eyeballs of someone who reads in your genre. Or better yet, writes in your genre. (Always ask before using someone’s eyeballs). I refer you to my recent guest post on the NaNoWriMo blog, How and Why to Use Critique Partners.

3. The Zombie Gauntlet of Rejection

A nice side benefit of peer critique is that it helps prepare you for the pain associated with the publishing journey. As you progress in your career, criticism and rejection will be constant companions.

Think of it as trying to get past a gauntlet of rejection-zombies to the safety of your home. When you begin querying, each rejection is like an undead hand slapping you in the face. It stings, but you keep moving. When your manuscript goes on submission to editors, the rejections have more weight to them. Each one is like a punch to the guts. Sometimes, it’ll knock the wind right out of you. It helps to have an agent and writer friends who will pick you up from the dirt so you can keep going.

If you manage to get past the editor zombies, you’ve reached the door. But the acquisitions board has locked it from the other side. Many author dreams die on this threshold. Maybe you do better, and kick down that door to get published. That’s why they call it breaking in.

Even after you break in, your problems aren’t over. You simply trade them for a set of new ones. If you want to survive, you have to be mentally tough enough to take these knocks and keep going. And you need a support network of good friends to help you stay sane.

4. Luck versus persistence.

Luck matters a lot more than it should in this game. You can write a fantastic book that lands a great agent. The agent knows the perfect editor for it. Maybe that editor loves it and makes you a great offer. Or, maybe that editor signed a similar book last month, so the answer is no. Your fate, hanging in the balance, and it all comes down to luck. Nothing you can do about it.

But there’s another factor at play. Persistence. This is something you DO control, and it’s also what separates published authors from failed ones. If an agent rejects your query, send it to five more. If your first book doesn’t get a book deal, write a second one (but not a sequel). If your first novel doesn’t garner the sales or reviews or awards that you’d like, try again.

You can’t control luck, but you can be stubbornly persistent. Most successful authors are.

5. Publishing is dead! Long live publishing!

Bloggers and podcasters love to discuss the state of the publishing industry. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either stronger than ever or plunging toward certain death. Generally it’s the latter, because bad/shocking news gets more attention. That’s why you hear more about teenagers dying in car crashes than elderly people going in their sleep. When I was a new author trying to break in, I gave these “publishing pundits” too much stock. I was genuinely concerned that by the time my debut was published, physical bookstores would no longer exist.

The truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Yes, the publishing industry has undergone some major changes, especially in the past two decades. Major publishers have been consolidated into five big entities. More recently, the introduction of e-readers like the Kindle fueled the rapid growth of e-books. Brick-and-mortar booksellers like Barnes & Noble are struggling to adapt to a world in which more and more consumers shop online. So are most physical retailers, by the way. Google “holiday sales 2017” if you need convincing.

The publishing industry is not dying. It is evolving. People still buy books. They just do it online because you don’t need pants to shop online. People still visit libraries, but now they can use their library cards to borrow e-books and audiobooks. People still read, but they do it on their phones.

Change is the way of the world. Smart authors, agents, and publishers adapt and survive. Those who don’t adapt will eventually fade away. It’s that simple.

6. Obscurity is the enemy

This is not to say that the success of any author (or book) is guaranteed. There has never been more competition for readers or attention, especially because consolidation has happened on the retail side as well. Thanks to e-books, most titles will never go out of print, at least digitally. The challenge is ensuring that they continue to reach new readers.

There is a form of peculiar, unknowable black magic called Sales Rank. No one truly understands the meaning of this number, but its job is to make you feel the sting of obscurity. It will spike. It will fade. It will do little dances that make authors begin to question their sanity. Ignore this dark sorcery, and you’ll be much happier.

There are two powerful weapons that aid authors in the fight against obscurity. The first is your own personal hustle: your ability to hand-sell your book to a co-worker or con-goer or the guy next to you on an airplane. This is a subtle art that takes time and practice, but ultimately can keep your book selling. The fact that you’ve written and published a book is no small achievement. Many people will read it just because of that.

The other powerful weapon is your membership in the guild of penmonkeys. You didn’t know there was a guild? Well, welcome aboard. Please send your membership fees to Chuck. Acceptable forms of payment include beaver skins, undead souls, and bees.

The guild means that you, as an author, have great power to support the work of other penmonkeys. Hand-sell their books. Review their books. Give them a voice on your platform. Others will do the same for you when it’s your turn.

7. There’s a lot you can’t change

There are many things that affect an author’s career (for better or worse) that we simply can’t change. Some of the things authors don’t control include:

The economy
Market trends and forces
Reviews
Awards
Any company they don’t own, such as Twitter

It’s frustrating, because as humans we like the idea that our fate is on our own hands. In many cases, it’s not. The sooner you accept that – and worry about the things that you CAN control – the happier you’ll be.

8. Comparison is the thief of joy

One of the easiest ways to become unhappy is to compare yourself to others. There will always be authors who write faster than you, get bigger advances, sell more books, and win more awards than you. You might think that some of those authors aren’t as good as you, and maybe you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Pointing it out, complaining about it, or letting the unfairness of the world bother you will not accomplish anything.

Comparison will steal your joy away. Don’t let it. Grab onto your joy, squeeze it tightly, and hit anyone who tries to take it with an axe. If you accomplish anything as a writer in these difficult times, you should celebrate. You’ll be much happier if you do.

9. Don’t be a dick

I recently joined a private discussion forum for authors where there’s one rule: don’t be a dick. Basically, that means don’t criticize when it’s not your place. Don’t marginalize or insult people because of their gender, race, orientation, or appearance. Don’t be rude. Don’t take advantage of people. It’s a simple rule for life, but some people still have trouble with it.

No one likes it when you’re a dick. YOU might feel better, but that feeling will dissipate rather quickly. However, the people who have seen you be a dick, or worse, been the target of your dick-ness, will remember it for a long time. Probably forever.

If you don’t believe in karma or doing the right thing, let me appeal to your sense of ambition. It’s a small world and an even smaller industry. When you’re a dick, word gets around. Sometimes it gets around very publicly. Odds are, you will offend someone who (either now or someday) can influence your career. Maybe they’re a book reviewer. Maybe they read slush for a magazine. Maybe they sit on an acquisitions board for a publisher that’s considering your next book. If you’re a dick to people, it will come back to bite you. Guaranteed.

You might not even know that it’s come back to bite you. No editor will end a rejection e-mail with “I was ready to buy this, until I remembered that you’re a dick.” No convention will tell you that you have not been selected as a guest of honor due to your history of dick behavior. Instead, these things just won’t happen for you. They will happen for other authors who follow the golden rule. Don’t be a dick.

* * *

Dan Koboldt is a genetics researcher and fantasy/science fiction author from the Midwest. He is the author of the Gateway to Alissia series (Harper Voyager) about a Las Vegas magician who infiltrates a medieval world. He is currently editing Putting the Science in Fiction, (Writers Digest), a reference for writers slated for release in Fall 2018.

By day, Dan is a genetics researcher at a major children’s hospital. He has co-authored more than 70 publications in Nature, Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and other scientific journals. He lives with his wife, daughter, and twin boys in Ohio.

Dan Koboldt: Website | Twitter

The World Awakening: Books2Read

 

In Which I Appear On Launch, John August’s Bookish Podcast!

PSST.

So, John August — screenwriter extraordinaire and also novelist behind the middle grade book, Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire — has a shiny new podcast called Launch, which is about, well, launching a book, and it’s a snazzy snout-to-tail examination of the many processes behind writing and publishing a book. Well, John invited me onto the most recent podcast — have I mentioned that I am a fortunate soul? — to answer some of his listener questions about those many processes. So go right now and give a listen.

Thanks to John for having me!

Go listen, or I will stare at you very crossly.

*stares*

*waits*

*stares harder*

Macro Monday Soon Heads West, Young Man

We had a very nice snow this weekend, in that it dropped six inches on the ground, two on paved surfaces, was good for snowballs and snowmen, and hot chocolate and sledding, and then the day got warm and a lot of it went away.

I took a shot of a snowflake, seen above — it looked like a tiny little person hanging for dear life. I snapped the shot, and then my breath melted the icy tether holding it to the larger snowclump, and the little snowflake tumbled to the earth, where it was eaten by sharks.

Ice sharks.

Okay, I don’t know if there were ice sharks down there, I didn’t look.

WHATEVER.

Don’t @ me.

Anyway! What else is up.

I have a cold. So that’s nice. I mean, almost literally, it’s nice, because I guess it could’ve been the flu? I suspect I caught it from my six-year-old, who during dinner a few nights ago basically coughed on my food. He’s usually pretty good about controlling his aerosolized illness, but I dunno if the cough was a surprise or he was just like, “Fuck it, I’m sick, so you’re sick, *hackptoo*” but here we are, and now I’m sick.

So, to remind you, I’ll be at EMERALD CITY COMICCON starting next week. And that means it is time to reveal my schedule!

*pulls back curtain*

*blood and locusts*

Ha ha wrong curtain hold on

*pulls back different curtain*

*schedule is revealed!*

You can find a schedule for me here, but I don’t think it’s complete.

Here is a much better, more intimate look at my schedule.

*bats eyelashes*

*plays sex jazz*

Thursday, March 1

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

SIGNING

Location: PRH Booth #1610 (Level 4)

6:00 PM – 7:00? PM

OFF-SITE — signing and panel at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, WA, with Fonda Lee and Alex Marshall

Location: Brick & Mortar Books, 7430 164th Ave NE suite B105, Redmond, WA

Friday, March 2

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM

PANEL: Pop Culture Throwdown

Me! Marko Kloos! Kevin Hearne! Cherie Priest! Mia Garcia! Django Wexler! Amy Bartol!

Location: WSCC 603

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM

SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

5:15 PM – 6:15 PM

PANEL: The Universe of Star Wars

Me! Delilah S. Dawson! Amanda Cherry! EK Johnston! Kevin J. Anderson! And more.

Location: WSCC 611

7:00 PM – 11:00 PM

WorldBuilders Party

Location: WSCC Room 3AB

(You should totally come to this! Pay in to charity, play games with a bunch of authors and creators. I’ll be running a game of Balderdash, baby. Old-school liary liar-faced game! Also because I’m way way behind on playing any modern board games! Shut up!)

Saturday, March 3

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

PANEL: Star Wars Books

Me! Delilah Dawson! John Jackson Miller!

Location: WSCC 611

5:15 PM – 6:00 PM

POST-PANEL SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

Sunday March 4

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

SIGNING

Location: PRH Booth #1610 (Level 4)

1:15 PM – 2:15 PM

PANEL: Writing the Future

Me! Jason Hough! Annalee Newitz! AdriAnne Strickland! Sylvain Neuvel! Michael Miller!

Location: WSCC 603

2:30 PM – 3:45 PM

POST-PANEL SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

So, there you go. That’s my schedule.

After that’s over, I will be running a writing workshop for the Austin Romance Writers of America (ARWA!) on Saturday, the 24th.

Then it’s Raven Con and PHX Comic Fest and, you know, some other fun stuff.

See you on the flipswitch, booty-scooters. Is that the hip lingo? Are the kids saying that to one another? No? Shit.

Flash Fiction Challenge: A World Without Guns

Tough challenge after this week’s news — but I’ve seen some folks talk about what fiction can do or say about the (yet another) school shooting, and I think genre fiction has a chance to do something or say something interesting regarding it. Science-fiction, for instance, pretends to be about our future but it’s nearly always about our present.

So, your job is to compose a piece of flash fiction where guns are gone — for whatever reason, made illegal, never been invented, use your imagination. This is primed for sci-fi, but feel free to find a way to make it work as fantasy or horror or XYZ genre, too.

Length: You have ~1500 words.

Due by: Friday, Feb 23rd, noon EST

Post at your online space.

Drop a link to the story in the comments below.