Boris L. Slocum's Blog, page 4
April 10, 2019
One of Five Poems I Know by Heart
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B. Yeats
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
W.B. Yeats
Learned Something New
I may already have known this, because it sounded familiar, but I read today that British surgeons are not called "doctor." They are referred to as Mr./Ms./Mrs.
Apparently, to become a surgeon in UK a person has to become a doctor, but once a doctor is certified as a surgeon, s/he reverts to the more banal salutation.
It's sort of cool. And the reason has something to do with the fact that surgeons in olde tymes were actually tradesmen.
You can't make this stuff up.
Apparently, to become a surgeon in UK a person has to become a doctor, but once a doctor is certified as a surgeon, s/he reverts to the more banal salutation.
It's sort of cool. And the reason has something to do with the fact that surgeons in olde tymes were actually tradesmen.
You can't make this stuff up.
April 7, 2019
Espionage: A Writer's Guide
Being a Beginner's Took Kit for Writing Intelligently About Intelligence
Introduction
About a year ago, I spent the better part of three months gathering notes and writing up drafts for a short pamphlet on how writer's can write intelligently about this subject. The final draft gathered dust as I finished other projects, and I decided lately to serialize the contents as a number of Blog posts before finishing the manuscript and, possibly, publishing as a single volume. I hope you all enjoy the contents, which are still quite rough, but it may be beneficial to you.
With that said, amma ba'du.
This is a guide to help you be a better and, hopefully, more authentic storyteller. It won’t improve your prose style, and it won’t help you attract a broader reading base, at least not directly. But it will give you a better idea how espionage is practiced in the world and will help give you some ideas about how you might want to depict such activities in the world you’re creating, and to do so with a certain flair and some degree of authenticity.
A couple of things up front
First, if you are writing a spy novel, this tiny pamphlet alone is not going to be sufficient to get you where you’re going. Any author worth his or her salt who wants to write a spy novel, especially one set in a real-world context, will need to do some serious and in-depth research to make that novel authentic and appealing to readers. However, if you are writing a story the secondary or tertiary subject of which is espionage, this pamphlet will get you over that hump, especially if you are writing about a fictional or speculative world.
Second, don’t get too hung up on terminology. I use lots of it in this pamphlet. The technical terms I use are based on those used within the U.S. intelligence community (IC). Other countries use other terms and phraseology, and even with in the U.S. IC, terms change frequently and sometimes even vary from agency to agency. If you want to be authentic to a particular country or agency during a particular epoch (1960s Germany, 1980s Central America, etc.), you’ll have to hit the books and do the research. There’s plenty out there in libraries and on the Internet. Also, if you’re building your own fictional intelligence agency in a speculative world, don’t hesitate to apply your own terminology.
But remember, even if terminology changes, good and dependable spy-craft (tradecraft, as it’s sometimes called), changes only slowly over time. It is simply too tried and true, and most changes in the practice of espionage have occurred only in the face of changing technology. A spy plucked out of 1950s Berlin would need to learn some new terminology and technology but otherwise would have very little trouble adapting to a modern environment in the early 21st century. Such tradecraft is the meat and bones of what we’ll be discussing herein.
Finally, this little pamphlet is largely a summary of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) practices, what most people think of when the word ‘espionage’ comes to mind. I will first sketch out a few preliminary pages on the broader intelligence community and on the intelligence cycle and how it works. (HUMINT really is just one part of a larger mechanism.) Then you’ll get a few words on the other intelligence disciplines, all of which are extremely important in building a comprehensive intelligence picture. The bulk of the work will talk about HUMINT and how it is practiced.
That’s the fun part.
Introduction
About a year ago, I spent the better part of three months gathering notes and writing up drafts for a short pamphlet on how writer's can write intelligently about this subject. The final draft gathered dust as I finished other projects, and I decided lately to serialize the contents as a number of Blog posts before finishing the manuscript and, possibly, publishing as a single volume. I hope you all enjoy the contents, which are still quite rough, but it may be beneficial to you.
With that said, amma ba'du.
This is a guide to help you be a better and, hopefully, more authentic storyteller. It won’t improve your prose style, and it won’t help you attract a broader reading base, at least not directly. But it will give you a better idea how espionage is practiced in the world and will help give you some ideas about how you might want to depict such activities in the world you’re creating, and to do so with a certain flair and some degree of authenticity.
A couple of things up front
First, if you are writing a spy novel, this tiny pamphlet alone is not going to be sufficient to get you where you’re going. Any author worth his or her salt who wants to write a spy novel, especially one set in a real-world context, will need to do some serious and in-depth research to make that novel authentic and appealing to readers. However, if you are writing a story the secondary or tertiary subject of which is espionage, this pamphlet will get you over that hump, especially if you are writing about a fictional or speculative world.
Second, don’t get too hung up on terminology. I use lots of it in this pamphlet. The technical terms I use are based on those used within the U.S. intelligence community (IC). Other countries use other terms and phraseology, and even with in the U.S. IC, terms change frequently and sometimes even vary from agency to agency. If you want to be authentic to a particular country or agency during a particular epoch (1960s Germany, 1980s Central America, etc.), you’ll have to hit the books and do the research. There’s plenty out there in libraries and on the Internet. Also, if you’re building your own fictional intelligence agency in a speculative world, don’t hesitate to apply your own terminology.
But remember, even if terminology changes, good and dependable spy-craft (tradecraft, as it’s sometimes called), changes only slowly over time. It is simply too tried and true, and most changes in the practice of espionage have occurred only in the face of changing technology. A spy plucked out of 1950s Berlin would need to learn some new terminology and technology but otherwise would have very little trouble adapting to a modern environment in the early 21st century. Such tradecraft is the meat and bones of what we’ll be discussing herein.
Finally, this little pamphlet is largely a summary of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) practices, what most people think of when the word ‘espionage’ comes to mind. I will first sketch out a few preliminary pages on the broader intelligence community and on the intelligence cycle and how it works. (HUMINT really is just one part of a larger mechanism.) Then you’ll get a few words on the other intelligence disciplines, all of which are extremely important in building a comprehensive intelligence picture. The bulk of the work will talk about HUMINT and how it is practiced.
That’s the fun part.
Wergild Kindle Giveaway
Comrades,
The Wergild Kindle giveaway is now a thing of the past, and what a great trip!
Thanks all for participating, and I hope everyone here is happy with the results. Either way, Wergild is available on Amazon for a paltry 3 ducats (Kindle) or $5.99 (paperback).
It's a great gift for the friend who has everything.
And I have I mentioned my upcoming science fiction novel, "Skiathos"? Available iin 2019.
Thanks all for participating.
v/r
Boris
The Wergild Kindle giveaway is now a thing of the past, and what a great trip!
Thanks all for participating, and I hope everyone here is happy with the results. Either way, Wergild is available on Amazon for a paltry 3 ducats (Kindle) or $5.99 (paperback).
It's a great gift for the friend who has everything.
And I have I mentioned my upcoming science fiction novel, "Skiathos"? Available iin 2019.
Thanks all for participating.
v/r
Boris
April 4, 2019
Writing a Good Action Sequence
This subject came up not long ago on another site, but I think it is worth posting again. I hope you readers out there benefit from it in a small way.
My general advice about any sort of fight scene is to learn as much as you can about the weapons and styles of fighting your characters use. If you’ve studied martial arts or have wrestled, boxed, fenced, you are in a good position to begin sketching out your scene. Even a few hours perusing Youtube (one of God’s great gifts to humanity) might give you some great ideas.
Second, sit down with a piece of paper a pencil and sketch out the fight space you intend to use. Then place your characters where you intend to have them. Try to keep the whole thing as close to scale as possible. And then work out who is where and who is doing what to whom. Now, you can’t graph an entire 20 or 30 minute battle that way, but folks generally don’t write entire battles blow-by-blow. Just sketch out the parts you intend on writing about. For longer fight scenes, you might even use multiple sheets of paper to represent different periods of the fight.
If you are feeling especially bold, find yourself a place that matches the dimensions of your fight location, and take your sketches and a group of your friends (cardboard and wooden swords only, I urge you), and then block out the sections of the fight you intend to write about, the same way stage actors would. You do not have to run through fight at full speed, just fast enough to get a sense of who is standing where and how feasible it would be for, say, A to strike at B? Or, does C actually have the line of sight to throw a dagger and hit D? Can E cover the distance to attack F without G getting in the way? Is H in a position s/he could tell whether I has something in his/her hand? That kind of stuff.
Not only will blocking tell you what is realistic and feasible (adding to the authenticity of your account), but seeing it with your own eyes will help it come to life in your mind. You’ll be able to write clearer and cleaner prose about something you’ve seen with your own eyes.
That’s my suggestion. I hope it works out for you.
v/r
BLS
My general advice about any sort of fight scene is to learn as much as you can about the weapons and styles of fighting your characters use. If you’ve studied martial arts or have wrestled, boxed, fenced, you are in a good position to begin sketching out your scene. Even a few hours perusing Youtube (one of God’s great gifts to humanity) might give you some great ideas.
Second, sit down with a piece of paper a pencil and sketch out the fight space you intend to use. Then place your characters where you intend to have them. Try to keep the whole thing as close to scale as possible. And then work out who is where and who is doing what to whom. Now, you can’t graph an entire 20 or 30 minute battle that way, but folks generally don’t write entire battles blow-by-blow. Just sketch out the parts you intend on writing about. For longer fight scenes, you might even use multiple sheets of paper to represent different periods of the fight.
If you are feeling especially bold, find yourself a place that matches the dimensions of your fight location, and take your sketches and a group of your friends (cardboard and wooden swords only, I urge you), and then block out the sections of the fight you intend to write about, the same way stage actors would. You do not have to run through fight at full speed, just fast enough to get a sense of who is standing where and how feasible it would be for, say, A to strike at B? Or, does C actually have the line of sight to throw a dagger and hit D? Can E cover the distance to attack F without G getting in the way? Is H in a position s/he could tell whether I has something in his/her hand? That kind of stuff.
Not only will blocking tell you what is realistic and feasible (adding to the authenticity of your account), but seeing it with your own eyes will help it come to life in your mind. You’ll be able to write clearer and cleaner prose about something you’ve seen with your own eyes.
That’s my suggestion. I hope it works out for you.
v/r
BLS
April 3, 2019
Wergild Giveaway
Comrades and friends,
If I haven't mentioned before, there is a Goodreads Giveaway for Wergild: A Heartwarming Tale of Coldblooded Vengeance.
You still have three days, but if you want one of 100 free copies of the best novella you'll read this year, don't walk ... run!
Put your name in today!
And good luck with the giveaway.
v/r
Boris
https://t.co/6qqQ7P2Z3K
If I haven't mentioned before, there is a Goodreads Giveaway for Wergild: A Heartwarming Tale of Coldblooded Vengeance.
You still have three days, but if you want one of 100 free copies of the best novella you'll read this year, don't walk ... run!
Put your name in today!
And good luck with the giveaway.
v/r
Boris
https://t.co/6qqQ7P2Z3K
My New Home
I've broken with a long Luddite tradition and opted to launch a website.
You can find me at www.boriswrites.com
The place is still very much a work in progress, but it portends to be a lot of fun.
Swing by sometime.
v/r
Boris
You can find me at www.boriswrites.com
The place is still very much a work in progress, but it portends to be a lot of fun.
Swing by sometime.
v/r
Boris
March 22, 2019
My First Blog Post
I just answered a question about writer's block by claiming I never get it.
Now I have it.
I've recently published my first work, a dark fantasy novella entitled "Wergild." You should take a look. You'll like.
Wergild: A Heartwarming Tale of Coldblooded Vengeance
Thanks for reading!
Boris
Now I have it.
I've recently published my first work, a dark fantasy novella entitled "Wergild." You should take a look. You'll like.
Wergild: A Heartwarming Tale of Coldblooded Vengeance
Thanks for reading!
Boris
