Michael J. Sullivan's Blog, page 88

September 18, 2011

Writing Advice 13 — Weaving




Weaving is a technique I love. I love to use it when I write and I love to see it when I read. I often use it as an indicator when determining how good an author is at their craft, because weaving is a true art form and not easy to do.
Weaving is exactly what it sounds like. Just like in basket or cloth making, you take one thread, wrap it around another, then let it go, only to bring it back later and wrap it again. Checkov's Gun is a famous, but extremely simple form of weaving. You show the gun early on in the story establishing it. Then you allow the reader to forget about it, and then you bring it back. In this way, the gun is not perceived as a deus ex machina event. It is instead something the reader had information on and could have figured out if they had remembered it. The problem with the Checkov Gun is that modern audiences know this technique very well and using it usually tips your hand. It is the same in movies, where the camera lingers for a second too long on a book hidden under a magazine, or a credit card that no one noticed falling from a purse, these things scream, "This is going to be important in the future so remember it!"
The challenge is to avoid the deus ex machine by planting clues, but to hide them making it possible to surprise the reader. There are two ways I've found to do this.
There is the Horton method and the Genre Bias method.
In the Dr. Seuss book Horton Hears a Who! An elephant named Horton hears the mayor of a microscopic world called Whoville speaking from a dust speck. No one else can hear the Whos and they don't believe him. In order to stop his foolish behavior other animals of the jungle take the flower and hide it in a massive field of other identical flowers. This method of hiding in plain sight is the Horton method. A writer can present Checkhov's Gun, but then also present a knife, a blow dart, a bottle of arsenic and Uncle Herby's pet alligator who has a love of human flesh. The reader will have no idea which of these will ultimately be used.
The Genre Bias method, is a bit more devious. In this technique you use a reader's expectations against them. If it is the trope of every mystery novel that the butler is the killer, then point the clues at him. Let the reader believe that you are doing the same old tired plot. They will ignore the Checkhov's Gun in the hand of the policeman because they are so certain that the author is following the same path they've been conditioned to expect. (Note: this has the unfortunate side effect of readers giving up on a story partway because they are convinced they know what will happen and that you are an unoriginal, hack writer.)
But these are only a small part of weaving which is not simply confined to hiding clues to avoid a contrived plot. True weaving is when story elements are reused repeatedly.
I've read books where whenever a scene needs a character, a new one is invented. Whenever a new place is needed, it is created. I considered this to be linear, or straight-line writing. Single straight lines of threads are useful, but they lack the abilty to draw in a reader and heighten tension. If however you reuse elements, bringing old ones back to fill the new roles you need, weaving begins. Not only is this reuse helpful in the form of not having to completely build an element from the ground up, but it causes the reader to feel a sense of familiarity that helps with the all important suspension of disbelief—this world is real because things don't just disappear never to be heard from again.
This weaving allows for the creation of twists and patterns—something you just can't do with a linear style. Twists are obviously unexpected occurrences, but patterns are what result when you take a story element and weave it so that it changes into something different. Whether a character, a place, or even an idea or motivation, these can be twisted from one pattern to another. A bad character can become good. A desire to right a wrong, can become a wrong in itself.
By causing elements to weave back across the main plot line, each intersection becomes a possible opportunity to develop something new—to build a new idea. And this building on top of an existing foundation adds depth to the story. Usually the path of a main character who grows from one type of person to another is a form of weaving. But it is much more interesting when the weaving effect is used on multiple characters, settings and plot elements.
I know this sounds a bit abstract, but we are in the advanced class now, so I expect a higher level of understanding—or at least more patience with my inability to communicate. Remember I'm only a writer. Still let me try to present an example.
Let's say your group of adventurers stop at an inn for the night, and the next day they really can't have their horses, so you decide they will be stolen that night. You're first instinct is to create a wayward theft, who will be captured later when they need the horses back and he will be forgotten. However, if instead of inventing a new character to steal the horses you could use a previous character—the squire wannabe—one who may have been a trusted friend. The advantage is that it would make logical sense for them to trust this friend with the horses making the adventures appear less inept. Of course now you have to find the motivation for this previously good guy to do this act of evil. Was he always intending to cause harm and just pretended to act nice? Is he being blackmailed? By whom? Will the adventures now need to help him? There are tons of possibilities here, and by solving this riddle, the story will gain detail and depth and rather than one more bland, backgroundless character—the horse thief—you have instead what used to be just the squire wannabe, who now just may be…the illegitimate son of the main character! (Well, hopefully something better than that.)
The more interconnections with less starting points, the tighter the weave of a story. It also helps to ensure that all loose threads are tied up. Readers don't much like it when you leave a plotline or a character unaccounted for. (I know a few people still upset with Rowlings wondering what happened with the house-elf revolution.) My goal is often to make nearly every element in a book have at least more than one use. Nothing that I take the time to introduce, and force the reader to use their time to read about, should ever be a one shot deal.
In my mind, tighter weaves, that use less characters and settings to tell the same story, are like plays in contrasts to movies. The restrictions generated by the limitations of space and cast demand greater effort, skill and creativity on the part of the writer. And writing almost always benefits from extra effort and greater challenges.
In a recent review of my latest work, a friend commented, "I was surprised to see the girl coming back into the story. I just thought she was there to establish the main character as sympathetic." This person had not read any of my other works or I would have been surprised. But it does say something about the state of reader expectations.
In what I consider a well constructed story, nearly every element is a Checkhov's Gun. If you show it, you'd better use it. Nearly every character, setting, prop, or idea, is reintroduced and used for a new purpose, a purpose that utilizes its unique history already established in the story to lock that new pattern in the bedrock of the plot. Builds upon builds, foundations lending themselves to new foundations.
What happens if now that Squire Wannabe turned Illegitimate Son, is in the end the real antagonist? How wonderfully buried would be that Gun! Weaving provides you with the freedom to take a story in new and unexpected directions, for intersections are exciting things.
That's the bell. No running. Next week: Multitasking
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Published on September 18, 2011 06:59

September 14, 2011

A Sandy Beach is No Vacation





I frequently read all kinds of interesting comments made on forums, or as comments attached to articles that I would often like to respond to, but can't. Well, I suppose I could if I really wanted to, but I don't for the same reason I tend to buy more items off Amazon using the one-button-click option than the checkout option. Most of the time I see something and feel like responding, so I click on the reply button only to discover I need to be a member, or some other requirement, and, well I reconsider realizing that I'm not that enthusiastic about the idea to go to that much bother just to make a minor point. In the end I think it is for the best as I would likely end up in a flame war due to some stupid remark I made in haste.
Recently however, I was reading someone commenting on how self-published authors can't be successful because they require word-of-mouth to make sales, and you can't do that if you don't already have readers. I've actually read this in more than one place, and the mere saturation is one of two reasons that caused me to write this post.
Word-of-mouth advertising can only work if you have fans out there spreading the word. This then is presumed to be a chicken and egg dilemma. How can you have word-of-mouth if you don't have fans, and how can you have fans without word-of-mouth? Therefore self-publishing can't work.
What I find so fascinating about this argument is that it is like a magic trick. It appears real until you're shown how the magic is done and then it is just so obvious. Until then however, the argument can be quite convincing. I remember when I was first published through AMI. I went to my first book's release party at a Barnes & Noble all excited at the expected throngs of readers who would clamor for my book. I actually thought this, even though the logical part of my brain reminded me that such a thing was impossible. No one knew I existed so how could there be fans waiting? I made the assumption that the publisher had done advertising and raised interest—maybe. So going to my grand opening I was clearly of two minds, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
In reality it was neither. There was a good crowd of some twenty-five or so people, and I sold almost as many books. The downside was that almost all were people I knew and had personally asked to attend. This was also the last crowd of that size I would see. The following months saw me standing inside bookstores feeling sleazy as I tried to coax people into buying my books. The first time I did this, I sold five. I felt awful, but the store manager invited me to return saying, "You did great! You sold more books than any other author we ever had!" This just made me feel worse.
It was about this time that I saw an episode of The West Wing. It was a rerun, but I hadn't seen it before. This was one of the later episodes where Santos is running for President. It doesn't matter if you know the show or not, the point is that this guy was running for President, and no one knew who he was. His successful and experienced campaign manager took him to New Hampshire to start his campaign. And Santos, like me, expected there would be this rally, or convention where he would address hundreds of people. And just like me that didn't happen because hundreds of people didn't know he existed. Instead he was driven to the city dump, where people were known to frequent, and he was instructed to walk up to folks as they dumped their garbage and introduce himself. Just as you might expect Santos looked at his manager incredulously. He was running for President of the United States, not city council of Concord. This was ridiculous! How can you get to be President if you can't get people to come hear your speeches? If no one knows who you are, how can you gain a following, and without a following how can people know who you are? How can you get fans if you don't have fans?
The answer is very simple, so simple it is hard to accept especially for those expecting more, and I've noticed people are always expecting more, expecting life to be easier than it is. There is this idea that when you are published, you've done the same as winning the lottery, and now all your troubles are over. You'll be able to quit your day job, and spend your time basking in the adoration of your fans. This is the fantasy, but the reality is a bit different.
The truth is—the answer to the question of how you get fans without first having word-of-mouth is…one at a time.
This sounds insane, I know. When I finally realized that I was expected to build a beach one grain of sand at a time, I was stunned. Really? Do you know how long that will take? The sheer absurdity of the size of such a task is overwhelming. I just did the impossible! I wrote a novel, and I got it published! Do you know how hard that is? And my reward is that I have to build a beach grain of sand by grain of sand? Are you nuts?
I went to my first signing like Santos went to the dump. I introduced myself and felt foolish doing so.
"Excuse me, sir. Can I tell you about my book?""You wrote it?""Yes, sir.""So you're an author?""Yes, sir.""Huh. I'm just here with my wife. She likes these romance books. Honey, you want to talk to this guy, he's an author!""No! I've got what I came for, I just need to pay for it." She had a copy of one of the Twilight books under her arm.
At this point I wanted to crawl under a desk somewhere.
"But he wrote this book—he's a real author. Tell her what your book's about."
In my mind I was imagining stabbing myself in the eye with an ice pick. Can I leave now? But I grudgingly went through the motions of explaining, knowing it is pointless and humiliating at the same time. I'd never sell any books like this. This isn't what I thought being an author would be like. I might as well give up and keep whatever shred of dignity I have left.
"Will you sign it for me?" she asks.
"Huh?" I ask. "You want to buy it?"
"Sure."
"Really?"
Afterwards I turned to my wife with a huge grin on my face and she smiled back then whispered in my ear. "Next time try not to look so shocked."
There is that old saying, "behind every great man, there's a great woman." I've never understood it. Besides the obvious sexist slant, the behind part doesn't work either. To make it more accurate I think it should be written, "It is almost impossible to succeed unless you have someone who believes in your dream, even when you no longer do."
By now you know I never could have gotten anywhere without Robin's help. Not only was she the architect of my campaign, my Josh Lyman (if you know West Wing), but she believed in me even when I no longer did. There is just no way you can build a beach one grain at a time, the idea is preposterous unless someone else looks you in the eye and says, "I'll help." An idea by itself can easily wither, but one with support can grow. Spouses are great for this, word has it Stephen King's wife rescued his first published novel, Carrie, from the trash.
Later in the West Wing series Josh had Santos going to supporters homes and giving speeches to five or six people over chips and dip. Robin had me going to book clubs, often held in people's living rooms. It still seemed hopeless, but as long as Robin believed, I could too.
But a funny thing was happening. It's called math. If I talked to fifty people, ten might read my book, of those ten, three might like it. If I got ten people to like my book, one of those ten might like it enough to suggest it to others. That person was a fan. And for every fan I made, they made two more. Word-of-mouth. One out of every hundred fans might be a super-fan, a cheerleader who imagines it is their calling to spread the word about you and your book to everyone.
After about two years of gathering grains of sand via the Internet, bookstores, book clubs, and conventions, all this unseen percolation rose to the surface, and we began to see the effects. It was a bit like sailing for the mythical new world and seeing a thin hazy line on the horizon and wondering…could it be? No, it's just a mirage. Then the next day, it is still there and wait—it's bigger. Could it really be? A week later you can make out slopes, hills and yes a beach…a beach with sand! Yes! Yes! It is! It's word-of-mouth!
So whether you are running for President, self-publishing a book, or publishing through a big New York firm, it's all the same. Everyone builds their beach one grain at a time, one sale, one reader, one fan, one super-fan. It sound ridiculous, but it works, and is the only way it works. Having a big publisher gives you a little leg-up because they made their own little beach already, but that work doesn't necessarily translate to you. Those are the publisher's grains, not yours. And your publisher may help you build your beach by giving you a pail, and a pail sure helps, but lets face it, building a beach with a pail is still a lot of hard work, and that pail is only on loan. If you don't build a big enough beach in time, they might take it back. So the problem and the solution is still the same.
Right now there is a writer, just starting out named Libby Heily. Just recently she launched herself into the self-publishing world and was hit by the same revelation I was. Really? One grain at a time? She has a collectionof short stories and a collection of flash fiction out—one for 99 cents the other for free. And I hear a novel may be forth coming. But the reason I bring her up is that she recently made a guest post at M. Pax blog entitled: MyAdventures In Self-Publishing, that reminded me of how hard things can seem at the start.
This was the other reason I made this post, because when I was gathering my grains of sand and thinking how impossible it was, I was convinced I was doing it all wrong. No one else did this. Everyone else had better techniques, better connections, maybe a better book. I had the feeling I was destined for failure because getting readers one at a time just felt so stupid, and I thought I was alone.
I just wanted to say…you're not.
Good luck Libby


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Published on September 14, 2011 07:07

September 12, 2011

As You Like It




As part of a promotion to get everyone excited about the up-coming release of The Riyria Revelations trilogy, Orbit has created a Facebook page for the books, but this is no ordinary fan page. 
By liking the page you can unlock the first chapter to all three books, which is great, because for those of you who have read through Wintertide, this will allow you to read the new first chapter that I added to the first book, The Crown Conspiracy.

But wait…there's more.

By liking the page you will also unlock the first chapter of Percepliquis— the long awaited last book. This is bigger than it might seem because the book starts with a bang.

But wait …there still more.

The webpage is set up so that the more people that like it, the more content Orbit will release. So right now if 100 people like the page, Orbit will post the second chapter as well. As the levels are unlocked you'll see the number required to get to the next level.
So tell your friends, tell your neighbors and spread the word—Percepliquis, or at least part of it, is here...just the way you like it.
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Published on September 12, 2011 11:27

September 11, 2011

Writing Advice 12 — Trusting the Reader





In the previous ten posts I've covered what I felt were those topics that all fiction writers should know—the basics or the common aspects that everyone needs to master. The components of a story, the tools to build one, and the rules that help new writers avoid mistakes. Now I'm going to push further into subjects that might not be so obvious, and the first of these is—Trusting the Reader. I covered this in a previous post back in 2009, and I am going to re-post most of it here for those of you have haven't read it. The post was called, not surprisingly, "Trusting the Reader."
Trusting the reader comes in many different forms and levels, but it can make the difference between a story that is lethargic, and one that comes right off the page at you. Simply put, trusting the reader makes reading a book interactive. The reader stops being a passive witness to events and becomes an active part of the story. While this sounds great, it is extremely dangerous if done incorrectly—which is why I'm putting this in the more advanced class.
What is trusting the reader? It means that as an author you don't handhold your audience, you don't explain what you want them to understand. Instead, you trust that they will grasp your meaning. The danger being—they might not.
Trusting the Reader comes in different forms. It can be applied at the sentence and paragraph level, where an author might provide a detailed description of a room, "empty bottles littered the floor, dirty clothes lay on door handles or piling in corners…" and in doing so provide the graphic scene of a messy room. All too often writers then follow this with the paragraph concluding sentence, "The room was a mess." This sentence is put there as insurance. The author doesn't want you to miss the point, but they know if they just came out and said, "the room was a mess." Their creative writing instructor would slap them for Telling instead of  Showing. So now they show and tell—just to be safe.
As with most things however, taking risks offers the greatest rewards, so long as you don't go crazy. If you have adequately described a scene, you don't have to explain it afterwards. The reader will get it and they won't feel insulted knowing that the author did not think they would. Still this is the easy stuff. It is when you take the same idea to the character and plot level that things get dicey.
Applying the idea of trusting the reader to a plot runs a huge risk. If the reader doesn't get the fact that the room is dirty, it isn't a huge deal, but if you lose a major plot point, the whole story might collapse. On the other hand, if you create a gap in the story and provide no bridge for the reader to walk across so that they have to make a leap of understanding to figure out what is happening, then they will feel included in the story. They will feel clever at having figured the secret out and the story will become something they are "doing" rather than merely "reading." Make the gap too wide, and well…splat.
In the novel "Me Talk Pretty One Day," David Sedaris provides a simple example of this technique where he speaks of a young boy thinking of all the things he did that he might be in trouble for and one of those items listed is: "…altering the word hit on a list of rules posted on the gymnasium door…" Mr. Sedaris never says how he altered it. He leaves this for the reader to figure out. The result is like a perfectly delivered punch line. There is a pause, a moment of confusion and then it dawns on the reader and that brief moment of hesitancy punches the joke delivering it with tremendous power that causes the idea to pop off the page far more than if he just explained it. Still if you don't get the joke, it won't ruin the book. For that you have to go higher still.
In Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, he takes trusting the reader to soaring heights when crucial parts of the story's plot are hinged on the assumption that the reader will guess correctly about certain aspects that are merely hinted at. Mr. Hosseini describes a common aspect of a character near the beginning of the novel in a very specific manner, then much later in the novel he describes another character using the exact same descriptive element, but never identifies the individual. He is trusting that the reader will remember the earlier reference and understand it is the same person. Creating such a leap of faith is gutsy for a writer, but the effect, when it works, is fantastic. When I connected the dots, I was thrilled like figuring out a whodunit before the sleuth explained the murder. And this was only one small part of a well constructed, reader-trusting story that puts the reader to work and makes them feel useful.
A related aspect to this same idea is "holding-back." As a novelist with a great story to tell, it is hard to stop yourself from blurting everything out right away. There is so much you want to explain, and writers can be very impatient feeling that the reader won't truly enjoy the story until they learn this crucial plot twist. Again, it is important to trust that the reader will stay with you, and if an author does the job right, the reader will be just as impatient to discover the answers, as the author is to reveal them.
This has been an issue with my own books—more so perhaps because I am writing a series of novels that is in many ways one long story. So much is unexplained and so much is intentionally misdirecting that as the author it can be frustrating to hear negative comments that are merely the result of false assumptions. It is like playing a practical joke on someone, hearing them complain, but not being able yet to reveal the joke.
Being patient, holding back, and having faith that readers will make the leaps across chasms and be happier for the exercise, is scary, but just as the reader relies on writers not to strand them with a nonsensical story, the writer must also have the courage to trust the reader.
That's the bell. No running. 
Next week: Weaving
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Published on September 11, 2011 09:02

September 7, 2011

Drip




T he water droplet hung from the end of the faucet dangling precariously like a potbellied acrobat trying a new trick, but not certain if it was a good idea after all. It quivered hanging on for dear life, shimmering brightly, reflecting the chrome spigot on its glassy surface. Water was everywhere, but no one really watched it, no one stared. No one cared about water—but it was deadly. Water destroyed mountains, slashed coasts, devoured ships, and consumed villages. It even made the Grand Canyon, and that too started with nothing more than this same tiny little potbellied acrobat clinging with all its might, trying not to fall.           The droplet was doing surprisingly well; it had a good strong hold despite its obvious weight. All things small seemed oddly strong. This little bit of water could be the star of a National Geographic special, it was every bit as impressive in its power and tenacity as a cutter ant. Who cared if they could carry a leaf twice their body weight, this little bit of H20 was dangling the equivalent of a thousand feet above the ground and it did not even have hands, arms or legs!          If it were alive, might it be frightened of the fall? Would it look down at the broad sweep of the white porcelain sink below and think Geronimo! Or pray to its liquid god for evaporation? Was there solace in numbers, did it think of those who went before? Did it see the drain as salvation, as an adventure? Had it heard rumors of an afterlife where those that fell went to the sea—a place where all of them came together and merged as one being of perfect union. Did it believe in reincarnation? Would it make its fall easier if it knew there was life after splat? Could it help to know that it would disappear, cease to be as it was, but that a part of it, the best part, the purest part, would rise up into the air ascending into the heavens? White fluff flying, looking back down over all the world as it was now looking at the sink, but without fear. Then one day, when it was tired of watching, when it was time, it would return, diving back to earth in a fantastic, insane, screamingly long dive slamming into the ground. Fast and furious and laughing with an army of friends, it would ride joyously downhill, casting caution aside, no thoughts of the future, not a care, ahead nor behind, as it played through days of sun and clouds. Frothing, rolling, leaping, bubbling it would run, bouncing and flowing for a lifetime seeing more than it could remember, more than it could comprehend. Downhill into lakes, into damns where it would catch its breath, then down again into culverts of metal, tubes of copper, tunnels of plastic, until at last there it is once more dangling at the end of the faucet and wondering inexplicably—how the hell did this happen again?           As I watch—it falls.           Plip!          It adds to the wet stain around the silver ring of the drain, then slowly, silently, it dribbles away.           I look up.          Another drop is forming.           Really have to fix this sink.  
(If you're wondering why I posted this, see the end of the previous post on Description.)
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Published on September 07, 2011 13:52

September 4, 2011

Writing Advice 11 — Description





(I am making this post on the road, which for me is like building a boat in a bottle. I can't use italics or any other formatting features so I am using stars to indicate such. I'll fix this when I get home.)

I was doing a signing once with another author where we both got up behind a microphone and talked about our books. His was about a man in ancient China who was cursed with immortality and spent centuries learning how to lift the curse. Turns out the author was an expert on Chinese history and I thought, wow! This sounded great. He went on to describe how the man lived through the various regime changes, the rebellions, the invasions of the Mongols and so on. He went on to say how the main character left China and went abroad to various other countries, and how he returned for the Western invasion. The story went on to present day and covered several wives and the birth of many children, and the many adventures this guy had as he tried to lift his curse. It sounded like a really cool story. Then he held the book up. It was a standalone novel and about as thick as Hemingway's *Old Man and the Sea.* I thought—really?

When I first began writing, I was thirteen and plodding my way through eighth grade. I gave my stories to my brother and after reading them he mentioned that he liked the story and the characters, but that everything else was missing. He didn't know how exactly to articulate the problem but described it like seeing a play with no scenery. "Other books have all this other stuff but all your stuff is missing."

He was talking about descriptions. Like most writers I wrote the way I would tell a story. "So yesterday I went to the store and bought a gallon of milk and brought it home." I never once considered describing the trip, or the store, or the guy behind the counter, or even the dialog that was exchanged along with the money. People don't do that when telling a story, so it is natural to skip that when writing one. It takes effort and training to remember that the reader isn't you and has no idea what you are seeing, hearing, smelling or feeling. So if you are encountering the problem of writing novels that are filled with events and characters, but which are oddly novella length—it's most likely a lack of description.

A lot of people have problems with description. Dialog can be easier because you can imagine a conversation, you have them all the time, but people don't make a habit out of describing their surroundings, or the people they meet, and if they do it is in a very utilitarian manner that doesn't play well in a novel.

I read sample chapters of an aspiring novelist book that introduced the main character as being six foot two inches, Caucasian, having black hair, brown eyes, and wearing a blue suit. This isn't a description so much as it is a police report. And writers are always doing this. Consider for a moment how often you notice the exact height of a person, or the color of their eyes. Writers love to tell you the color of a character's eyes. But let me ask you something, do you know the eye color of your four closest friends. Assuming all your friends are not of a ethnic background that makes this more of a logic puzzle than a memory thing, you might find this surprisingly hard. I would be hard pressed to tell you the eye color, or the exact height of my own children much less a stranger I just met. Eye color just isn't a priority upon first meeting, but in most written descriptions, writers feel the need to list it, and not just tell you that they have brown, blue, or hazel eyes either. They are always something bizarre like cerulean, azure, emerald, sapphire, etc. When you have noticed a person's eye color, how often have you described it as cerulean? If a cop asked you to describe the mugger who snatched your purse, would you say he had azure eyes, or blue eyes? How many of you could identify the color cerulean if you saw it?

Not only does this kind of list form of description not reflect reality, it is also one dimensional. All it is telling you is the physical stats of the individual. When most people see something, be it a person, place or thing, they don't register it by mere visual stats, but rather they get an "impression" of it, and often that impression has little to do with the visual.

*The man was a granite cliff.*

This sentence tells you nothing literal about the character, except his sex, but it presents an impression. Only six words but you can already see him in your mind's eye, can't you? Think a second. Is the man young or old? Pale or tanned? Baby-faced or wrinkled? Tall or short? Dressed in fancy clothes or old clothes? Does he wear glasses? Is he friendly? Talkative? Does he drink margaritas, Scotch, or beer? You might not know, but you likely feel you could venture a good guess, right? With six words that simple description told you more about the character than all those statistics because it gave you an emotional impression rather than a literal visual.

This technique is what I call Non-Description, or describing something without directly describing it. John Updike was a master of this. He could describe something far for accurately and vividly without ever using a word that would be literally associated with it. After noticing how he did this, I spent time walking around mentally writing impressionistic descriptions of the most mundane things, avoiding any reference that might be remotely literal. I'm not suggesting that you form all your descriptions this way, but realizing that you can often say more with an idea than with stats is important.

The challenge with descriptions is that when it is well done it reads a bit like poetry, and writing good poetry forces a writer to labor over tiny things. Each word is important, and when you just want to describe a simple room where some cool stuff is about to take place, it seems stupid to spend hours finding the right word to describe the quality of the light. You might figure that most readers are going to skip this stuff anyway. Who really cares if there is a sofa against the wall or not? And you'd be right. If that is your attitude when writing it, readers will feel the same way. This is often the difference between good description and poor description. Poor description acts like stage cues in a script—a necessary element. Good description is as compelling and fun to read as the action and dialog.

One way of doing this is employing the afore mentioned mini-stories technique where you try and employ relationships between the character and how they view their surroundings or people.

*Bob was leaning against the wall, another pair of cerulean eyes glaring at me—what was with all the cerulean eyes? The girl next to him at least had a scenery breaking pair of azure eyes. Taken together they formed the variety pack. *

This paragraph is drawing on my earlier comments about eye color in order to engage you in the description. You might find reading it more fun because I am sharing sort of an inside joke with you. This sort of mini-story is like that spoonful of sugar that helps the description go down.

Looking at things differently and taking the time to develop interesting metaphors can also be intriguing:

*Autumn is near its peak and despite the rain, trees blaze. Falling leaves — brilliant parachutes of a million tiny paratroopers — invade the road sides, lawns, and sidewalks where they lay like stains of paint. *

And this brings us to perhaps the most important rule of description. Consider that you were supposed to go to the store and get a gallon of milk (yeah I use this a lot.) But let's say you forgot and came home empty handed, and your wife, or mother, or roommate asked what happened and you decided to lie. You could say:

*"I went there and they were all out." *

Or you could say:

*"Oh don't get me started. I went to Seven Eleven down on 8th. The traffic was incredible, some guy in a blue Toyota Camry plowed into the side of a commuter bus—can you believe it? There must have been twenty people standing around blocking lanes. Anyway I got to the store and there was a line. It wasn't a long line mind you, only three people, okay? But the checkout girl is this tiny thing that could barely speak English—she was Asian—Korean or Taiwanese maybe, and the two people ahead of me were this couple wearing matching his and her, blue and gold rugby shirts. They were from Columbia—I know because they could only speak Spanish, and the word Columbia, was the one word I could understand because they said it over and over. Anyway they have this argument that goes on forever about the Superball 8 lottery tickets. Long story short, by the time I get to the counter I'm already late and I find they are out of milk! So I was just fed up and came home. Forgive me?"*

Which lie do you think is more likely to be believed?

Not only is the later more elaborate, but it has more detail. Someone lying to you isn't as likely to bother mentioning the color of the couple's shirts ahead of them in line, but that is the kind of detail you might remember if it really happened. As a result you are more inclined to accept it as truth.

Writing fiction is no different. You are telling lies, known falsehoods and you are trying to make the reader believe you. This is especially hard because they already know what you're saying isn't true. So instead of trying to convince them that something actually happened, you are trying to do something called suspending disbelief. If you write something well enough, the reader can pretend it is true. They can suspend the knowledge that it isn't real. They want to do this, because it makes the story fun to read. You help them by making your fictional world as real as possible and you can do this with details just like it was done in the failure to get a gallon of milk story.

This is particularly important in fantasy because you can't rely on readers to know what the interior of Hogwarts Castle looks like the way you can assume they know what a the interior of a suburban home might look like. And just as you don't use stats to describe a person, a laundry list approach doesn't work well for settings.

*The room was small and square with two chairs, a single bed, a window with long drapes, a closets and a dresser. *

Or...

*The first thing I noticed was the giant poster of Justin Bieber on the wall of the bedroom, under which was the pink quilted bed with a row of Barbie dolls all sitting in a neat row, each in a different dress.*

Which room can you picture more easily? The first description mentions six items, the second only three, and yet you are likely to get a much stronger impression not only of the room but of its owner. This is another technique that works wonders. Don't try and describe everything, for one it would be very hard to do and second it would be boring. Instead focus on two or three significant things that can define a person, place or thing. In this case, the poster, bed and dolls speak volumes about this room and conveys an impression that is larger and more fully formed than the more informative laundry listing. As a writer you need to understand that the reader's imagination is more powerful than your ability to illustrate anything. As a result, you will gain better results by igniting that imagination and then getting out of the way. Good descriptions are made up of carefully planted seeds that you then let grow in the reader's mind.

Another thing that new writers fail to take into account is that we have more than one sense. As humans were are very sight oriented and tend to forget the others. Some aspiring authors, those who took classes usually, keep a checklist of the senses and endeavor to account for each in every scene. I find this overkill. Most of the time, like with eye color, you just aren't aware of your other senses. So the usage needs to be tempered by the situation. If the character is in a room temperature environment, it isn't necessary to mention the temperature, but if you step off a plane into the Sahara, okay, you had better include a description of a blast of hot air. If you are in a kitchen, or walking by a street vendor selling hotdogs, you need to describe the smell. And if your character just entered a sewer, then describe the smell, and clammy damp and the sound of dripping water. You want to bring the scenes of your story alive and engaging all the senses is the way to do it.

Something else I've found lacking in books is a sense of time and weather. All too often authors fail to mention what time of year it is, and oddly the weather is always clear and sometimes it is always day. Throwing in references to the seasons can add all kinds of depth to a setting, and help anchor the reader into your world. Throwing in the occasional storm, rain shower, or snowfall, also helps to remind the reader that your story takes place in a real world. And a reference to the time of day and a varying of scenes from daylight to night to morning helps keep the scenes from feeling like they were staged on a budget.

This concludes the Basics of Writing. Next week I'll get into more advanced stuff starting with—*The Why. *

For homework, in order to discipline you to stretching your descriptive muscles, try writing no less than 500 words (about two pages) describing nothing more than a drop of water falling from a spigot into a sink. You don't need to restrict yourself to sheer physical description but can use elaborate metaphors, and any PoV you like, so be creative. Grading will be on how interesting and captivating the description is. See if you can do it, and on Wednesday I will post my solution to this problem.

That's the bell. No running.
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Published on September 04, 2011 08:14

August 30, 2011

It All Began With An Earthquake, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation


Robin, my son James, and I were on our way out of the house, on our way to the airport, when the house started to shake. At first it was just a rattle of a lamp shade, just like it always did when my son ran up and down the stairs like an elephant. Only it continued to shake for longer than it usually took him to bound down the stairs. Then there was a faint roar like a big truck on the main road outside. Then the floor began to shake. Earthquake.

I went downstairs and we stepped outside the house even as the walls were threatening to shake off mirrors and paintings. By the time we hit the grass, it was over. The dog was shaking and neighbors were coming out asking what just happened.

Little did we know that this was just the start of our adventure. All we would be missing was an Indian friend for my son named named Hadji and a dog named Bandit. (figure it out.)

As much fun as it might have been to hang around to share stories of the quake, we had to go. We barely caught the bus to the airport, flagging it down at the last second, this too was the start of a pattern.

The bus was filled with people leaving work early due to the quake. Those in high-rise buildings had the best stories and everyone was eager to share. We raced to the airport only to find our flight delayed. This was bad as it meant we would miss our connecting flight in Denver. As we touched down in Colorado, I received a delayed voice mail saying due to the delay, we had been re-booked onto a new flight--one leaving in thirty minutes and we were trapped in the back of the plane.

We raced out and surprisingly reached the gate with a full fifteen minutes to spare. Only this was a new airline, and they didn't have proper notification of our joining them. The gate steward struggled to get us on. They processed my son and checked him through but due to a glitch in the system they couldn't get us on board. At the last minute, as the door were literally closing, they threw our identification back at us and told us to just run for it. We raced up the gangway and on to the plane entering like Indiana Jones slipping under a stone door.

We arrived in Vegas at midnight. The temperature was still one hundred degrees. If you've never been to Las Vegas, the first thing you notice are the slot machines waiting in the airport, at the gate, as you exit the plane like a friendly family welcoming you. As it turns out there are slot machines everywhere. I was actually surprised they hadn't invaded the restrooms.





Vegas and I aren't meant for each other. Vegas, I determined, is for people who want to party in a serious way. I found it to be a cross between a dive-bar and a carnival midway with bright lights, the smell of urine, cigarettes, car exhaust, and fellas coaxing you to try games, that while they might not be rigged, aren't exactly fair either. Some of the casinos were nicer than others of course, but over all the best thing I saw there was the fountain at the Bellagio. The most annoying thing was the strange lack of WiFi. Nearly everything in Nevada is contained in casinos, Starbucks included, and the casinos (at least the one we were at) only had wired connection, and ours was broken. We were forced to travel to the outskirts of the city in order to find a coffee shop with free WiFi. As it turned out the WiFi access was consistently inverse to what one would think. We could get free WiFi at a remote cabin deep in the mountains of Yosemite Valley, but not in Vegas or at the Marriott near Fresno, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The good news was that we weren't planning to stay long in Vegas. We were heading out to Death Valley the next morning. The bad news was that the area was experiencing record high temperatures--record high temps in the hottest, driest place in the world. We loaded a cooler with ice, bottled water, a few snacks and cold cuts--we didn't want to end up eating lizard and drinking the sap from cactus--and headed in.

The city of Vegas vanishes quickly and all there is is desert. Our car had an outside thermostat and we watched it rise as we cruised along in air conditioned comfort. We exceeded 100 early on, but not much more than 106. Then as we entered the park, as we began descending into the valley my son noted it was 108. This would have been a new high for us, except that he was looking at the radio frequency and not the temperature gauge. It was actually 118. The temperature had risen ten degrees in as many minutes.

All around us was dirt and rock. It was like being on the surface of the moon--at least what I imagine it would be like--the sunny side perhaps. We pulled off at the park sign and for the first time opened the doors.

Taking a trip to Death Valley in August feels a bit like space travel. Our car was our ship and we took "space walks" outside that had to be limited by time because of exposure. Everyone was required to carry water and wear a hat and sunglasses.

We unsealed the car doors and were hit by the blast of heat. Yeah, it was hot alright. We did a little rock climbing noticing the tremendous difference between shade and sun. We were only outside about twenty minutes but it was enough to break a solid sweat. Something that I didn't even notice until returning to the car because the hot, dry wind hid the fact.



 Robin at Zabriskie Peak

We continued onward, and as we descended deeper, the temperature continued to rise. 119, 120, 122. The heat had reached 123 when we arrived at Furnace Creek, the destination and the location of the park headquarters. 123 degrees does interesting things to you. The skin of your fingertips prickles like your being stuck with pins and since the ground is about 200 degrees, it's like standing on a skillet. You feel the hot burn coming up through the soles of your shoes.






We entered the gift shop were I got a proper cowboy hat, I know why they wore them now, then we had lunch at the saloon. We were not at the lowest point yet, but we were at the location I needed. So while Robin made plans to press on deeper into the park, I took notes with my iPad and snapped photos. I took mundane photos, photos of things that I might need for my book. Other tourists looked at me oddly. They were snapping shots of the mountains and covered wagons. I was taking photos of their car, and the other tourists, the bar menu, and the gift shop.

After lunch we drove deeper. Long stretches of nothing but rock and dirt and forbidding mountains. I got the very real sense this was a dangerous place. We stopped at some dunes and then left the paved road and headed up a dirt road toward a remote canyon that Robin had a hankering to explore. By now the temperature was 124 degrees.

Because the road was rough and we had the potential of sliding off and getting stuck, something that would definitely would have been a problem, I was stupid and concentrated on the road and not my gauges. As I was gunning it up a steep slope the air conditioning stopped. The vents were just blowing hot air. I looked down and saw the temp gauge was pegged. The car was about to overheat.

Recalling my younger days of driving a rattletrap Dodge Dart, I shut off the air conditioning and threw on the heat. This immediately dropped the car's engine temperature, but of course the car's interior suffered. Just imagine driving in 124 temperatures and not just without air conditioning, but with the heat blowing full blast like it was the height of  a New England winter.

We made it to the top, parked the car, and shut it off. We needed to give it a rest, so we went hiking up into the canyon. We darted from shadow to shade like kangaroo rats scurrying through a 1950s western.You could just see the cowboys and Indians.


 Robin in Mosaic Canyon

We followed what was clearly the carved path of an old river with smooth curved stones. When we went through our water we turned back.

Going down was easy. We ran into another car who was coming up and I flagged them down to explain they ought to watch their temp gauge only their English wasn't very good and I'm not certain they understood.

This was a common throughout our trip. Just as American youth have been known to visit Europe in summer, it turns out that July and August is the time when foreigners visit the American west. There were mostly French, Italian, and Japanese and all in-park restaurants had instated "tipping included policies" as apparently Europeans don't tip.

Lastly we went to Badwater. This is the bottom, the lowest place in Death Valley, and the hottest. It is a giant salt flat that looks just like a lake from a distance and like muddy snow up close. It is the sun's anvil, a reflecting mirror that when you walk out on it you feel as if you just entered into a convection oven.



 Robin and James on the salt flats of Badwater

This was incredible insofar as heat goes. Heat came from above, burning down, and heat came from below as it bounced up off the white surface of the flats, and the heat swirled around you in the form of burning gusts of desert winds. Here we were around 300 feet below sea level, and despite the scorching heat a small pool of water was there and had been for years. Full of salt, this "bad water" is what gave the place it's name.

We headed out of the park after that, but stopped in the desert after dark and spent an hour just staring at the stars and listening to the only radio station we could pick up that was a call-in talk show about UFOs. Disturbingly interesting as we weren't far from Area 51. If this was a Johnny Quest episode, you just know we would have seen a saucer that night. (yes that's the answer if you couldn't figure it out.)

News of the hurricane was everywhere. It was made very clear that the eastern seaboard was about to be blown out to sea and never seen again. Given this we felt the odds of returning to Virginia on Saturday was unlikely. Unable to even contact the airlines due to the high volume of calls, and our discontent with Vegas, we decided to do something radical. Envisioning a day or two of being trapped in an airport, we said screw it, and turning our round trip car rental into a one way to San Francisco, we went exploring.



 Statues at Hoover Dam

After visiting the Hoover Dam and swimming in Lake Mead we crossed the Mojave desert. With the intention of reaching Sequoia National Park, we took this nice little gray line on a state map. We later dubbed it Bob's Road. Robin called it other things--things I shouldn't repeat.

Bob's road was a tiny road that went up into the mountains. It switch backed it's way along the edges of cliff, cliffs with no guardrails. Robin, in the passenger seat, and being afraid of heights, clutched the arm rest and...let's just say she wasn't a happy camper. After reaching the top I noticed we were getting a bit light on gas. Anxious to find gas and a place to stay for the night before it got dark, we became concerned as the road narrowed, turned to dirt, and then as the sun began to set, the road just ended.


 Me...somewhere along the road

We spoke to some locals and learned that to get gas we had to go back down. Robin was shaking her head before the guy finished speaking. To her credit she climbed in the backseat and read her Kindle as we went back. It was a good thing, because at the very worst bend, where the road narrowed to near one lane we met another car coming up. When i think of that moment, I imagine little rocks breaking free as our tires crept around that edge. Outside of that we were fine.

We reached the Sequoias the next day, and wandered around a grove of the largest trees in the world, many about 2,500 years old. Then we moved north to Robin's favorite place...Yosemite.We'd been there about sixteen years before, but our son was only an infant then, so we took him back.

If you've never been there, you likely can't imagine it. You travel over hills and mountains with great views then you crest the ridge and start down into this isolated valley. You pass through a tunnel or two and then, wham! There it is--this vision that is too perfect to be real.





The largest single piece of bare granite cliff called El Captain, and the famous bald granite cliff Half Dome. Waterfalls, mountains and a river running between all of it. At the bottom of the valley there are lush meadows of flowers walled in by towering rock walls spilling waterfalls like some Jurassic Park movie.





Normally there is never any lodging available here due to the high demand, but that day there was also a fire. Yes, a forest fire started by an exploded propane tank that burned down a hillside and torched four thousand acres in twenty-four hours. It had closed one of of the three roads into the valley. It also (along with an earthquake a few days earlier in the park--can you believe that?) scared a number of people away. As a result we managed to land a "cabin-tent"



 Our tent is the one on the left with the door open

and spent the night in Yosemite beneath a starry sky, sitting in a log built lodge that had 20oz dark draft Mammoth beer and free WiFi of all things.

The next day it was on to San Fransico and our flight home. So we faced, dealt with, or benefited from two earthquakes, record high temps, a hurricane, and a forest fire.





Our four day trip turned into a week, I'm rather sore from rock climbing learning I am getting too old to keep up with my seventeen-year-old son, and I took to buying souvenir T-shirts just to have clean clothes. Still, it was very fun. The only problem is that tomorrow I will have to fly out again to Atlanta for DragonCon.

No rest for the weary, as my mother always said. Hope to see you there. I'll be the tired looking one.
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Published on August 30, 2011 21:42

August 29, 2011

Still Wandering





Okay so I've found new apps that made this attempt far easier.

Just a quick update. Robin found us a new return flight after spending all day on the phone while I drove--yes AT&T has cell access in the deserts. The flight isn't until Tuesday, and will be leaving from San Francisco so we crossed the Sierra Nevada, climbing out of the moonscape deserts and up into Sequoia National Park and wandered around the giants. Then yesterday we pushed north and entered Yosemite, where we climbed waterfalls, went biking, and spent the night in a one of the tent-cabins they have here.




This morning I am sitting in the lodge as it is surprisingly, one of the first places we've found with wifi in days and I'm writing this post as a squirrel runs about the couches and stone fireplace.

Hope everything is better on the east coast, and that if you are reading this that you have power and aren't just at a coffee shop.
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Published on August 29, 2011 08:11

August 27, 2011

Still Alive

We survived Death Valley, and the earthquake, but the hurricane is playing havoc with air travel, so instead of flying home today, Robin, my son James and I are wandering aimlessly in the American Southwest.

We crossed the Mojave desert yesterday and had an "exciting" adventure last night where we took a wrong turn and found ourselves low on gas on a treacherous mountain road as the sun was setting. The road was one of these twisting no guardrail, sheer drops that nearly gave Robin a heart attack and prompted my son to declare it to be the highlight of the trip so far.

I am now making this post from the lobby of a Comfort Inn somewhere near Edwards Air Force Base.





I am writing this post on my iPad, which is near impossible to do. Jamie Rubin does this all the time, but I was unable to upload a photo without the help of Robin's computer. So be even more forgiving of errors.

Sorry but I won't be able to make my usual Writing Advice post tomorrow. Wifi has been sketchy out here, and today we will be heading up into the mountains so I doubt I will be able to broadcast.
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Published on August 27, 2011 09:13

August 22, 2011

The Research Trip

Heading off for my first research trip tomorrow.
When I used to write realistic novels, I never had the opportunity, or resources to invest in first hand research—going there. I also didn't have the Internet, or a nearby library, so this made writing accurately rather difficult. I remember avoiding scenes that would require detailed descriptions of anything I had no means of finding out about, but which readers might know. Then I began writing Invented World Fantasy stories and research was never such a crucial aspect of the writing process. With my new book that has changed.
The bulk of the new novel is set in the DC area, but there is a scene in New York and another in Death Valley. The trip to New York was easy. I just tagged along with Robin when she went to the BEA, and while she was at the convention I wandered the Upper East Side taking notes and photos.
Tomorrow will mark the first purely novel-research-based trip. While I am taking Robin and my son with me, this is not a vacation. If I were planning a vacation, Death Valley in August would not be it. Known to be the hottest, driest and lowest place in North America, the forecasted temperature there is expected to be 120 degree highs and 85 lows. The ground—the rocks and sand—can easily reach 200 degrees—hot enough to melt sneakers. It's like planning a recon mission to a distant planet.
Robin has her heart set on staying out there until after dark to see the stars, and at the moment we are planning on spending the night—not in a hotel, not in a cabin, not even in a tent as I've learned that in the heat no one wants to sleep in a tent. No the plan is to just sleep outside. Hopefully we can commandeer a blanket or something. I'll put my son on scorpion, black widow, and rattlesnake watch.  
So after landing in Vegas, we'll need to rent a car, buy a cooler, fill it with ice and bring a minimum of a gallon of water per person per day. The car will be air-conditioned of course, and there is a store and gas station in Furnace Creek, (our primary destination), but cars have broken down before, and cell phones won't work out there.
So we have our wide-brim hats, LED flashlights, sunscreen and map, and will disappear into the desert and should emerge Saturday. So if I don't make my routine Sunday post…something might have gone wrong.
It's not as dire as all that. I've heard they get crowds of tourists even this time of year. Still I suppose it is good for you to know that Orbit has all the manuscripts for the series and my tragic disappearance won't affect the release of the books.    
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Published on August 22, 2011 16:23