Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 230
April 3, 2012
A Game of Thrones
In the category of "late to the party," I finally finished reading my pre-publication advance copy of A Game of Thrones last night. Yep, it took me nearly 16 years to get around to reading a book I got a few months before it was published. However, I think I've figured out why it took me a few tries and the TV series to get into it. It's a dangerous mix of plot-driven writing and vivid, three-dimensional characters, and I'm a very character-driven reader.
By "character-driven" reader, I mean that in order for me to really get into a book, I need to latch onto at least one character -- someone I want to be, someone I could fall in love with or someone I just plain enjoy spending time with. Then I mostly go through the book caring what happens to those characters, and my main interest in the events is in how those events affect "my" characters. If the events don't affect "my" characters, I don't really care what happens. I think that's one reason I love first-person narration. If I like the narrator character, then that automatically means someone I care about is in every scene (if I don't like the narrator, then there's a problem). I never skip ahead in first-person books, but I have been known to skip ahead to follow "my" characters in multiple viewpoint books.
That's a big reason I have problems with epic fantasy, in general. Too many of those books seem to start with something like "The massed armies of K'varos and Dovrinki gathered on the plains of T'L'San in preparation for the invasion." And I don't care. Now, start with the stable boy preparing a horse for battle and thinking about how unfair it is that the horse is being sent to fight with no say in the matter and no interest in the outcome, much like himself -- well, then, I'll follow that stable boy through the battle and want his side to win just because it improves his chances of coming out alive.
Or else, what often happens with epic fantasy is that we're introduced to the main characters when they're all gathered in one place, and that's when I latch on to one or more, but then soon afterward the characters are scattered all over those maps at the front of the book and I find myself following the characters I like and skimming over the parts with the characters I don't care about. It's usually my luck that the ones I like are secondary and we only pop in on them from time to time while the people I don't care much about are at the center of the main plot, so skimming over their parts means missing the point. And that's what kept happening for me when I tried to read A Game of Thrones. The characters are vivid enough that I fairly quickly latched onto a few, but then they were sent off in different directions, and the bulk of the main plot centered on a character who turned out to literally be too stupid to live. That's where all the maneuvering was going on that would affect everyone else, and I just didn't care because I wanted to skip ahead to see how the people I liked were doing. I'd get halfway through a chapter with a character I found irritating and find myself flipping pages to see who the next chapter was about. If you mostly read to find out what happened, it's probably a lot easier to get through than if you're reading for just a few characters -- and you really, really love the characters you care about. I don't want to move away from them and go back to the boring political maneuvering.
However, I hadn't been planning to read the second book right away. I was going to watch the second season of the TV series first (and I'm waiting until there have been a few episodes before I start so I won't have to wait a week between them). But then the library actually had the second book in yesterday, so I checked it out, and then as soon as I finished the first book last night, I picked up the second. Then I skipped ahead, following the character whose fate I was most worried about. We'll see if I actually read the book all the way through right now or if it's something I come back to later. I just needed to reassure myself about one person. Oddly, that's not the one I like the most, just the one I was most worried about at the end of the first book.
If you've read these books and my books (or if you've been reading my blog and know my usual tastes), any guesses as to which characters caught my imagination?
By "character-driven" reader, I mean that in order for me to really get into a book, I need to latch onto at least one character -- someone I want to be, someone I could fall in love with or someone I just plain enjoy spending time with. Then I mostly go through the book caring what happens to those characters, and my main interest in the events is in how those events affect "my" characters. If the events don't affect "my" characters, I don't really care what happens. I think that's one reason I love first-person narration. If I like the narrator character, then that automatically means someone I care about is in every scene (if I don't like the narrator, then there's a problem). I never skip ahead in first-person books, but I have been known to skip ahead to follow "my" characters in multiple viewpoint books.
That's a big reason I have problems with epic fantasy, in general. Too many of those books seem to start with something like "The massed armies of K'varos and Dovrinki gathered on the plains of T'L'San in preparation for the invasion." And I don't care. Now, start with the stable boy preparing a horse for battle and thinking about how unfair it is that the horse is being sent to fight with no say in the matter and no interest in the outcome, much like himself -- well, then, I'll follow that stable boy through the battle and want his side to win just because it improves his chances of coming out alive.
Or else, what often happens with epic fantasy is that we're introduced to the main characters when they're all gathered in one place, and that's when I latch on to one or more, but then soon afterward the characters are scattered all over those maps at the front of the book and I find myself following the characters I like and skimming over the parts with the characters I don't care about. It's usually my luck that the ones I like are secondary and we only pop in on them from time to time while the people I don't care much about are at the center of the main plot, so skimming over their parts means missing the point. And that's what kept happening for me when I tried to read A Game of Thrones. The characters are vivid enough that I fairly quickly latched onto a few, but then they were sent off in different directions, and the bulk of the main plot centered on a character who turned out to literally be too stupid to live. That's where all the maneuvering was going on that would affect everyone else, and I just didn't care because I wanted to skip ahead to see how the people I liked were doing. I'd get halfway through a chapter with a character I found irritating and find myself flipping pages to see who the next chapter was about. If you mostly read to find out what happened, it's probably a lot easier to get through than if you're reading for just a few characters -- and you really, really love the characters you care about. I don't want to move away from them and go back to the boring political maneuvering.
However, I hadn't been planning to read the second book right away. I was going to watch the second season of the TV series first (and I'm waiting until there have been a few episodes before I start so I won't have to wait a week between them). But then the library actually had the second book in yesterday, so I checked it out, and then as soon as I finished the first book last night, I picked up the second. Then I skipped ahead, following the character whose fate I was most worried about. We'll see if I actually read the book all the way through right now or if it's something I come back to later. I just needed to reassure myself about one person. Oddly, that's not the one I like the most, just the one I was most worried about at the end of the first book.
If you've read these books and my books (or if you've been reading my blog and know my usual tastes), any guesses as to which characters caught my imagination?
April 2, 2012
Further Developments
I've got a crazy week ahead of me. I've sort of declared it "vacation," but that really means I'm not writing a book this week. I need to finish my taxes and clean my house, plus it's Holy Week, which means choir rehearsals and extra church services, so my week "off" is going to be busier than my usual weeks. I'm trying to do half days -- finish all the work in the morning and allow myself some afternoon free time.
It seems like those of you who responded to my last post are thinking along the same lines as I am. The doctor scenario was what I came up with initially, but I don't like to stop at my first idea because the next one could be even better, so I like to at least toy with other possibilities. I did realize upon further thought that the reporter scenario is self-limiting. If she solves a crime that the police couldn't and then publishes the story, you'd think that after doing that a couple of times she'd be able to get a better job and would be out of there, ending the series (or else it would mean forgetting that one of her main character traits that got her into investigating crime in the first place was ambition). Not to mention that once she publishes a story that even hints at revealing the town's secrets, people are going to be far less likely to talk to her in the future. On the other hand, if she decides that the secrets need to be kept and doesn't publish the story, then that removes her motivation for investigating crimes. Why stick her neck out and put herself at risk if she can't do anything with it? She might be sympathetic to their situation, but if she's ambitious, then she's going to try to find another job, even if it's a lateral move. Plus there's the fact that I'd like to structure this a lot like the current TV paranormal procedurals, Grimm and Haven, where each episode/book has a (mostly) self-contained case that's solved in that episode/book, but then there's a larger big-picture mystery that they get insight into through the investigating they do on each case. For her to understand enough about the town's secrets to not publish the story after the first book, I'd have to reveal more than I'd like to from the start.
So, my heroine will be a doctor. But don't worry about this turning into a CSI or Bones thing because she's a family physician, not a pathologist or medical examiner. She might get called to scenes of violence because she's the only doctor within about 50 square miles, but I think her crime solving will have more to do with the fact that her work gives her a lot of access and insight to people. Plus, the set-up I have in place forces her to stay in town unless she wants to pay back the cost of her medical education. And since the heroine of a paranormal mystery generally needs to discover some abilities of her own, it makes more sense if she was hand-picked to come to this town. I suppose the reporter who happens to turn out to have these abilities only being able to find a job at this one newspaper could have been arranged, but then that's getting at Haven levels of conspiracy and freakiness, and I don't quite want to go there.
One trick will be to avoid the usual fish-out-of-water tropes without being dull. I don't want to do a full-on Northern Exposure thing where it's a complete culture clash and she hates being there. This is someone who planned to be a family doctor in a small town, and this deal she made just made it possible for her to do it by dictating which small town. Maybe some of the conflict comes from the fact that she's a little overly idealistic about what being the town doctor will be like rather than from her resenting having to be a small-town doctor. I also don't want her to be a big-city sophisticate type, the sort who'll spend a lot of time bitching about not being able to find sushi or complaining because the local cafe's coffee menu consists of decaf and regular, and there's a little pitcher of creamer if you're into that sort of thing. I think she's going to be a lower middle-class suburban girl -- someone who falls into that gap where she's not poor enough to qualify for financial aid but not rich enough to actually pay for medical school, and smart enough to get into medical school and do well but not so brilliant that she can rack up the merit-based scholarships (since "brilliant" is pretty much the baseline for medical school). Again, maybe the culture clash is that she's idealized small-town life from living in the suburbs full of tract houses and retail chains and then finds that people are people, wherever they live. It's not so much that she doesn't want to live in a small town as it is that she wants the small town to be the way she imagined it would be and is a little disappointed that it isn't -- and then maybe a little freaked out when it is. The idea of people looking out for their neighbors is lovely, until you realize it also means your neighbors knowing all your business.
Now I need to figure out who the romantic possibilities are, since there do seem to be at least a couple in series like this. I want to avoid the standard love triangle, where the heroine wavers back and forth between them. Maybe something more like them both being possibilities as she's getting to know them, but then as things progress she finds herself drifting toward one. I think one will be that ambitious reporter -- with him not being the hero, he doesn't have to solve the case, and that avoids the problems inherent with the reporter as heroine scenario. I may even go out on a limb and try to write him as a sexy bad-boy type. Can I do that and still have a character I like? The other one will likely be a local cop. I think there's going to be a mystery about him, that he's the kind of person you have to get to know in layers, and that will have something to do with the mystery of the town. Maybe I could play with surface vs. reality, where the guy who initially seems better is only that way on the surface but as she gets to know both of them her feelings shift. I hesitate to plan how it's going to work out before I start. After all, Owen was supposed to just be a co-worker until I started writing and he came to life. And in a book I just finished, I ended up changing allegiances mid-way through.
Of course, the real trick will be to find out if publishers actually want things that don't go with the usual tropes. They say they want something different, but they generally don't want anything too different. Oh, and I need to come up with a crime. The fun part for me is developing the characters and situation. Plot is the real challenge.
It seems like those of you who responded to my last post are thinking along the same lines as I am. The doctor scenario was what I came up with initially, but I don't like to stop at my first idea because the next one could be even better, so I like to at least toy with other possibilities. I did realize upon further thought that the reporter scenario is self-limiting. If she solves a crime that the police couldn't and then publishes the story, you'd think that after doing that a couple of times she'd be able to get a better job and would be out of there, ending the series (or else it would mean forgetting that one of her main character traits that got her into investigating crime in the first place was ambition). Not to mention that once she publishes a story that even hints at revealing the town's secrets, people are going to be far less likely to talk to her in the future. On the other hand, if she decides that the secrets need to be kept and doesn't publish the story, then that removes her motivation for investigating crimes. Why stick her neck out and put herself at risk if she can't do anything with it? She might be sympathetic to their situation, but if she's ambitious, then she's going to try to find another job, even if it's a lateral move. Plus there's the fact that I'd like to structure this a lot like the current TV paranormal procedurals, Grimm and Haven, where each episode/book has a (mostly) self-contained case that's solved in that episode/book, but then there's a larger big-picture mystery that they get insight into through the investigating they do on each case. For her to understand enough about the town's secrets to not publish the story after the first book, I'd have to reveal more than I'd like to from the start.
So, my heroine will be a doctor. But don't worry about this turning into a CSI or Bones thing because she's a family physician, not a pathologist or medical examiner. She might get called to scenes of violence because she's the only doctor within about 50 square miles, but I think her crime solving will have more to do with the fact that her work gives her a lot of access and insight to people. Plus, the set-up I have in place forces her to stay in town unless she wants to pay back the cost of her medical education. And since the heroine of a paranormal mystery generally needs to discover some abilities of her own, it makes more sense if she was hand-picked to come to this town. I suppose the reporter who happens to turn out to have these abilities only being able to find a job at this one newspaper could have been arranged, but then that's getting at Haven levels of conspiracy and freakiness, and I don't quite want to go there.
One trick will be to avoid the usual fish-out-of-water tropes without being dull. I don't want to do a full-on Northern Exposure thing where it's a complete culture clash and she hates being there. This is someone who planned to be a family doctor in a small town, and this deal she made just made it possible for her to do it by dictating which small town. Maybe some of the conflict comes from the fact that she's a little overly idealistic about what being the town doctor will be like rather than from her resenting having to be a small-town doctor. I also don't want her to be a big-city sophisticate type, the sort who'll spend a lot of time bitching about not being able to find sushi or complaining because the local cafe's coffee menu consists of decaf and regular, and there's a little pitcher of creamer if you're into that sort of thing. I think she's going to be a lower middle-class suburban girl -- someone who falls into that gap where she's not poor enough to qualify for financial aid but not rich enough to actually pay for medical school, and smart enough to get into medical school and do well but not so brilliant that she can rack up the merit-based scholarships (since "brilliant" is pretty much the baseline for medical school). Again, maybe the culture clash is that she's idealized small-town life from living in the suburbs full of tract houses and retail chains and then finds that people are people, wherever they live. It's not so much that she doesn't want to live in a small town as it is that she wants the small town to be the way she imagined it would be and is a little disappointed that it isn't -- and then maybe a little freaked out when it is. The idea of people looking out for their neighbors is lovely, until you realize it also means your neighbors knowing all your business.
Now I need to figure out who the romantic possibilities are, since there do seem to be at least a couple in series like this. I want to avoid the standard love triangle, where the heroine wavers back and forth between them. Maybe something more like them both being possibilities as she's getting to know them, but then as things progress she finds herself drifting toward one. I think one will be that ambitious reporter -- with him not being the hero, he doesn't have to solve the case, and that avoids the problems inherent with the reporter as heroine scenario. I may even go out on a limb and try to write him as a sexy bad-boy type. Can I do that and still have a character I like? The other one will likely be a local cop. I think there's going to be a mystery about him, that he's the kind of person you have to get to know in layers, and that will have something to do with the mystery of the town. Maybe I could play with surface vs. reality, where the guy who initially seems better is only that way on the surface but as she gets to know both of them her feelings shift. I hesitate to plan how it's going to work out before I start. After all, Owen was supposed to just be a co-worker until I started writing and he came to life. And in a book I just finished, I ended up changing allegiances mid-way through.
Of course, the real trick will be to find out if publishers actually want things that don't go with the usual tropes. They say they want something different, but they generally don't want anything too different. Oh, and I need to come up with a crime. The fun part for me is developing the characters and situation. Plot is the real challenge.
March 30, 2012
Starting the Creative Process
Progress continues on my spring cleaning. The downstairs "public" areas are mostly livable, and the loft is significantly improved. I have way too many books -- and yes, there is such a thing as too many books when most of them are books you aren't really interested in. I have hundreds of books obtained through conference goody bags or publisher hype mailings, and few of them are books I would have bought for myself, but I can't seem to make myself get rid of them without at least trying to read them. I have had a few times when I've started to box or bag some up to donate to the library sale, and then I read a later book by one of those authors and realize that I have that author's first book somewhere in a bag. I have, on occasion, found a gem I would have overlooked otherwise. So I can't just get rid of them, but they're on the bottom of my reading priority list. I did start tossing those books into a large shopping bag, so that I now have a to-be-read grab-bag. If I'm ever out of reading material (ha!) I can just reach into the bag, and if I don't like the book after a few chapters, I'm allowed to get rid of it. That's making a little more room on the bookcases for the books I want to keep.
Today's epic task: Cleaning the kitchen. So that I can cook dinner tonight and immediately mess it up again.
I think I'm going to declare next week "spring break." I'm between projects, with everything in someone else's hands, and my house will be mostly clean, so I can relax. I had all these requirements in place for when I got to take a "vacation," but then I decided that was silly and my weird perfectionism was creeping in -- unless everything is perfect, I won't do it at all. I may not make this the true at-home vacation with excursions and all, but I may allow myself some down time to read, watch movies, etc., before I gear up again and get back to work.
However, I'm already getting twitchy about not having a book in progress. I started brainstorming an idea yesterday. And then I thought it might be fun to share the creative process. I'm developing that possible mystery series, and since it's not a book in my existing series, it's not like there will be actual spoilers. I may or may not even get around to writing it, depending on what happens with other stuff. Feedback, comments or questions are welcome, so I guess this is sort of a focus group, but I may or may not use it. No story or character ideas, please. Just feedback on my ideas (I wouldn't be able to use any of your ideas for fear of getting into a "you stole my idea and now you owe me money" situation, and that would suck if you happened to propose an idea I'd already had).
So, I'm planning to set this series in a fictional small town, in part for practical reasons, as I can make everything up instead of having to stick to reality, and in a mystery I don't have to use specific policies or procedures of any particular police department. There's a lot that can be swept under "this is how we do things here." Also, since this is going to be a paranormal series, it's going to be a town where Things Aren't Quite Right. I've always been a sucker for the odd little town story (thus my Haven obsession). I think it's something of a survival mechanism when you are stuck in a small town. Even normal small towns have real secrets and open "secrets" that everyone knows but no one talks about, and imagining that there's something truly odd about those secrets makes a boring little town a lot more interesting. Plus, the Things Aren't Quite Right angle explains a per capita murder rate that's higher than that of any big city (which happens when you have to kill at least once person per book) and it provides motivation for an amateur sleuth to get into the investigation, if she thinks the police are in on the Things That Aren't Quite Right and therefore justice won't be served if she doesn't get involved.
My heroine the amateur sleuth will be an outsider, a newcomer to this town who's there for career desperation reasons. But I can't quite decide on her actual role. One possibility is that she's come to work for the small town newspaper (or possibly the chain of newspapers covering small towns in the region, which opens up more crime possibilities -- one of my former bosses is running a chain of small-town papers like that). With journalism being one of those dying career fields, a young reporter may not have a lot of job options and will be fighting to make the most of this job. Figuring out that Things Aren't Quite Right in this town and trying to uncover that while solving the crimes might be her chance at getting a better job at a big paper or maybe even her own TV show. It would certainly be easier for me to write, since I know about journalism and have dealt with small-town papers. But I'm not entirely sure I would like that character enough to make her my heroine. In books, I tend to dislike the "ambitious journalist who'll do anything to get her story" character. Then again, if I write her, she may come out a different way, where maybe her initial motivation starts to change once she learns a few of the secrets and she might even start helping protect those secrets (like Vince and Dave on Haven).
My other idea was that she's a young doctor, just finished with her residency, and she's done a kind of "Northern Exposure" thing where the local doctor paid her way through medical school in exchange for her agreeing to come take over his practice when she finished her training. She's supposed to have spent a few years working with him and gradually taking over from him, but he dies soon after she comes to town, and his death could be the thing that gets her accused of murder so she has to clear her own name, which sets her on the amateur sleuth path. Then as the doctor in a small, fairly isolated town, she'd be the one called when there was someone dying or dead, even if she isn't officially a medical examiner, which gets her into other cases. In this scenario, the reporter for the chain of small-town papers who's determined to uncover the Things That Aren't Quite Right is a potential love interest who may also become an antagonist (though not the villain) or irritant. This one would require more research, though I do have a lot of medical background from working at a medical school. I'd probably need to find a small-town doctor to interview about what her life is like, and I'd need to be more specific in detailing things like wounds or cause of death, since it would be from an expert's perspective. But I also think this would be a more sympathetic character who'd get woven into the life of the town, and I like that idea of a fish out of water who finds herself getting a lot more than she bargained for when she's essentially had the training wheels yanked off before she's ready (mixing metaphors -- now I'm picturing a bicycling fish). Plus, I have this sense that she was hand-picked by the doctor for certain reasons that relate to the Things That Aren't Quite Right, so maybe she's not entirely Right herself (since usually the heroine of these paranormal mysteries has some abilities).
Any thoughts on these possibilities? Which would you rather read?
Today's epic task: Cleaning the kitchen. So that I can cook dinner tonight and immediately mess it up again.
I think I'm going to declare next week "spring break." I'm between projects, with everything in someone else's hands, and my house will be mostly clean, so I can relax. I had all these requirements in place for when I got to take a "vacation," but then I decided that was silly and my weird perfectionism was creeping in -- unless everything is perfect, I won't do it at all. I may not make this the true at-home vacation with excursions and all, but I may allow myself some down time to read, watch movies, etc., before I gear up again and get back to work.
However, I'm already getting twitchy about not having a book in progress. I started brainstorming an idea yesterday. And then I thought it might be fun to share the creative process. I'm developing that possible mystery series, and since it's not a book in my existing series, it's not like there will be actual spoilers. I may or may not even get around to writing it, depending on what happens with other stuff. Feedback, comments or questions are welcome, so I guess this is sort of a focus group, but I may or may not use it. No story or character ideas, please. Just feedback on my ideas (I wouldn't be able to use any of your ideas for fear of getting into a "you stole my idea and now you owe me money" situation, and that would suck if you happened to propose an idea I'd already had).
So, I'm planning to set this series in a fictional small town, in part for practical reasons, as I can make everything up instead of having to stick to reality, and in a mystery I don't have to use specific policies or procedures of any particular police department. There's a lot that can be swept under "this is how we do things here." Also, since this is going to be a paranormal series, it's going to be a town where Things Aren't Quite Right. I've always been a sucker for the odd little town story (thus my Haven obsession). I think it's something of a survival mechanism when you are stuck in a small town. Even normal small towns have real secrets and open "secrets" that everyone knows but no one talks about, and imagining that there's something truly odd about those secrets makes a boring little town a lot more interesting. Plus, the Things Aren't Quite Right angle explains a per capita murder rate that's higher than that of any big city (which happens when you have to kill at least once person per book) and it provides motivation for an amateur sleuth to get into the investigation, if she thinks the police are in on the Things That Aren't Quite Right and therefore justice won't be served if she doesn't get involved.
My heroine the amateur sleuth will be an outsider, a newcomer to this town who's there for career desperation reasons. But I can't quite decide on her actual role. One possibility is that she's come to work for the small town newspaper (or possibly the chain of newspapers covering small towns in the region, which opens up more crime possibilities -- one of my former bosses is running a chain of small-town papers like that). With journalism being one of those dying career fields, a young reporter may not have a lot of job options and will be fighting to make the most of this job. Figuring out that Things Aren't Quite Right in this town and trying to uncover that while solving the crimes might be her chance at getting a better job at a big paper or maybe even her own TV show. It would certainly be easier for me to write, since I know about journalism and have dealt with small-town papers. But I'm not entirely sure I would like that character enough to make her my heroine. In books, I tend to dislike the "ambitious journalist who'll do anything to get her story" character. Then again, if I write her, she may come out a different way, where maybe her initial motivation starts to change once she learns a few of the secrets and she might even start helping protect those secrets (like Vince and Dave on Haven).
My other idea was that she's a young doctor, just finished with her residency, and she's done a kind of "Northern Exposure" thing where the local doctor paid her way through medical school in exchange for her agreeing to come take over his practice when she finished her training. She's supposed to have spent a few years working with him and gradually taking over from him, but he dies soon after she comes to town, and his death could be the thing that gets her accused of murder so she has to clear her own name, which sets her on the amateur sleuth path. Then as the doctor in a small, fairly isolated town, she'd be the one called when there was someone dying or dead, even if she isn't officially a medical examiner, which gets her into other cases. In this scenario, the reporter for the chain of small-town papers who's determined to uncover the Things That Aren't Quite Right is a potential love interest who may also become an antagonist (though not the villain) or irritant. This one would require more research, though I do have a lot of medical background from working at a medical school. I'd probably need to find a small-town doctor to interview about what her life is like, and I'd need to be more specific in detailing things like wounds or cause of death, since it would be from an expert's perspective. But I also think this would be a more sympathetic character who'd get woven into the life of the town, and I like that idea of a fish out of water who finds herself getting a lot more than she bargained for when she's essentially had the training wheels yanked off before she's ready (mixing metaphors -- now I'm picturing a bicycling fish). Plus, I have this sense that she was hand-picked by the doctor for certain reasons that relate to the Things That Aren't Quite Right, so maybe she's not entirely Right herself (since usually the heroine of these paranormal mysteries has some abilities).
Any thoughts on these possibilities? Which would you rather read?
March 29, 2012
The Brave New Publishing World
My huge accomplishment yesterday was cleaning my desk. I found actual desk surface. I even made enough room to put out the nifty desk blotter I bought at the end of last year, which has a calendar and all kinds of spaces for making notes. There's still work to be done to totally declutter and organize it and then set it up in the way that will be most conducive to the way I work, but for now there is space. It only took me a little more than half an hour, which rather blows up a lot of my excuses for my terrible housekeeping. I keep telling myself I don't have time to clean my house, but in just half an hour I can accomplish a lot.
Today's task will be the loft, where my "library" is. Most of the clutter there comes from the last time I decided to purge the bookshelves of the books I know I'm never going to re-read or refer to again. And then while those books were still sitting in a box to be taken either to a used bookstore or the library book sale, I suddenly wanted to refer to or re-read some of those books and dug through the box, scattering books everywhere. Then there's the fallout from my using loose-leaf paper to do plotting/planning as I write. Some of those notes I may need to save, but I think a lot of them can go.
There must have been something in the air because the Tor.com blog had a post on the same thing I talked about yesterday, that blurry line between fan fiction and original fiction, only they got more into the culture of "sampling" and "mashups." I really don't think that's what's going on. Fan fiction has been happening forever (a lot of mythology could be considered "fan fiction" based on other myths). The difference is that the Internet gives writers a much larger audience for it, and writers can then take that audience with them to published books -- and in today's publishing climate, that huge a built-in audience, even if it comes on the coattails of some other work that's hugely popular, is very appealing. If you can't get JK Rowling/Stephenie Meyer to write a book for you, then the next best thing may be to get a writer who's gained a following and some buzz among her legions of fans. That's more of a sure thing than taking a chance on something entirely new that could be the next big thing (or that could tank), and these days, "sure thing" is the name of the game. That's also why they seem to be using the self-published e-book market as a slush pile. Instead of taking a chance on a new author who's an unknown quantity, they can scoop up the authors whose self-published books are selling well.
It may reach the point where the only people being traditionally published by the major publishers are the lower-tier bestsellers -- the people who made a splash in self-publishing and now want to move up a notch with print distribution in bookstores but who don't have quite the name recognition to earn at that level going it entirely alone. The newcomers will have to self-publish to get their feet in the door, the niche midlisters will have to self-publish to stay published (and will find that they earn a lot more money that way, especially since their books already aren't getting a lot of bookstore distribution) and the mega bestsellers can go into business entirely for themselves and reap all the profits without it being a huge risk. But then that puts readers in the position of being slush pile readers. They'll have to be the ones to sift through all those newbie and midlist books and decide which ones to buy.
It's enough to make your head hurt, especially if you're the kind of author who would prefer to hide in a cave and write, occasionally emerging to hand a book over to a publisher. On the bright side, it means readers have more to choose from and aren't limited to the books that a few Ivy League graduates and publishing marketing department formulas decide should be published, and they have a much greater say in who makes it and who doesn't.
Today's task will be the loft, where my "library" is. Most of the clutter there comes from the last time I decided to purge the bookshelves of the books I know I'm never going to re-read or refer to again. And then while those books were still sitting in a box to be taken either to a used bookstore or the library book sale, I suddenly wanted to refer to or re-read some of those books and dug through the box, scattering books everywhere. Then there's the fallout from my using loose-leaf paper to do plotting/planning as I write. Some of those notes I may need to save, but I think a lot of them can go.
There must have been something in the air because the Tor.com blog had a post on the same thing I talked about yesterday, that blurry line between fan fiction and original fiction, only they got more into the culture of "sampling" and "mashups." I really don't think that's what's going on. Fan fiction has been happening forever (a lot of mythology could be considered "fan fiction" based on other myths). The difference is that the Internet gives writers a much larger audience for it, and writers can then take that audience with them to published books -- and in today's publishing climate, that huge a built-in audience, even if it comes on the coattails of some other work that's hugely popular, is very appealing. If you can't get JK Rowling/Stephenie Meyer to write a book for you, then the next best thing may be to get a writer who's gained a following and some buzz among her legions of fans. That's more of a sure thing than taking a chance on something entirely new that could be the next big thing (or that could tank), and these days, "sure thing" is the name of the game. That's also why they seem to be using the self-published e-book market as a slush pile. Instead of taking a chance on a new author who's an unknown quantity, they can scoop up the authors whose self-published books are selling well.
It may reach the point where the only people being traditionally published by the major publishers are the lower-tier bestsellers -- the people who made a splash in self-publishing and now want to move up a notch with print distribution in bookstores but who don't have quite the name recognition to earn at that level going it entirely alone. The newcomers will have to self-publish to get their feet in the door, the niche midlisters will have to self-publish to stay published (and will find that they earn a lot more money that way, especially since their books already aren't getting a lot of bookstore distribution) and the mega bestsellers can go into business entirely for themselves and reap all the profits without it being a huge risk. But then that puts readers in the position of being slush pile readers. They'll have to be the ones to sift through all those newbie and midlist books and decide which ones to buy.
It's enough to make your head hurt, especially if you're the kind of author who would prefer to hide in a cave and write, occasionally emerging to hand a book over to a publisher. On the bright side, it means readers have more to choose from and aren't limited to the books that a few Ivy League graduates and publishing marketing department formulas decide should be published, and they have a much greater say in who makes it and who doesn't.
March 28, 2012
From Fanfic to Book
I am feeling oh so very accomplished today. Yesterday, I procrastinated a bit on errands, eventually taking care of the ones in easy walking distance in the afternoon (though buying four pounds of rice on a walking errand may not have been the best idea -- but that was the smallest package they had). Today, though, I was up and at 'em early enough to renew my car registration and get groceries and still be home shortly after 11. I even got one of my favorite checkers at the grocery store. They were playing old Motown stuff on the sound system, and he and I were both grooving to it. Now I wish I had a turntable I could play all my 45s from the 70s on (or I guess I could see if I can download the same songs and have them electronically). My main accomplishment yesterday was vacuuming the staircase, which doesn't get done nearly as often as it should because it's a real pain. I think I'm starting to get twitchy about writing, though. It feels weird not to have a book in progress. I may have to start brainstorming something.
There's been a lot of fuss in the book world lately about a self-published book that's become such a sensation that it got picked up by a major publisher in a huge deal and the fact that this book turns out to have been initially written as a fan fiction for a popular book series that the author then "filed off the serial numbers" and published as original fiction. I'm not going to name the book or the series that inspired it because I don't want to get into the specific case, but it has brought out a lot of discussion on the relationship between fan fiction and original fiction.
I think most authors, if they're honest with you, will admit that there is some fan fiction in their history, even if it's purely mental and was never written down. The spark to start writing tends to come from some story that inspired us to the point that we found ourselves imagining further adventures of those characters or perhaps the kind of adventures we might have had in that world. Some people do actually write these stories and share them with others. Others may just imagine these things, and then along the way the story grows and changes until it has nothing in common with the source, and that's when it may get written down.
That's kind of what happened with me. I was a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, and in the long years between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, I imagined all kinds of sequels in my head. In those mental sequels, I added new characters to the cast, and then those characters became more interesting to me than the originals were. I started creating backstory for those characters, and that meant worlds and societies that weren't in the known Star Wars universe (which was very, very limited at that time -- pretty much just Tatooine and the Death Star). Then I realized it was no longer a Star Wars story, and if I wrote it down, it would be a book. I never did finish it, which is probably for the best, as it was something I started coming up with when I was nine, but that was the first story I started writing down and the first time I considered that I wanted to be a writer.
These days, I mostly use my mental fan fiction as a testing ground for story ideas. If I play with an element in the context of someone else's characters and it works, then I can apply it to my characters. If I test it in my head with my characters, then it seems to stick whether or not it works, but if I test it with other characters it doesn't affect the way I see my characters. It's weird, but it works. I may be inspired to use an element or a character trait in a story because of something that intrigues me or frustrates me from some other source. I tend to like the characters who get shoved to the background or passed over, so I may take the things I like about those characters and create that kind of character to make the main character in my story. However, I can't think of any mental fanfic origins behind anything in my Enchanted, Inc. series beyond maybe some character traits. I don't remember anything that really went through my mental fanfic testing ground. I do have some ideas for potential future books that contain elements that started as mental fanfic, but I can't think of any in the published books. The entire series was kind of inspired by the Harry Potter universe, but only in the sense that I read those books and thought that I'd like something like that, but for/about adults. It was never anything that could even remotely have been considered Harry Potter fan fiction. I guess my most successful stuff has been my original stuff, and the mental fanfic stuff is less likely to sell. Go figure.
There are authors who are fairly open about the fanfic origins or inspiration behind their books. Lois McMaster Bujold talks about how Shards of Honor started as a Star Trek fanfic about a Klingon and a Federation officer stranded together on an inhospitable world. They were original characters, not characters who'd appeared in the series, and at that time the Klingon and Federation cultures hadn't been that developed (that came in the Next Generation era), so she extrapolated and ended up creating her own cultures. All she really needed to do was change the names of the cultures and she had an entirely original novel. There was a romance novel published last year that the author openly admitted was inspired by the characters of House and Cuddy on House -- sort of those characters, but what they'd be like in a historical romance setting. She got a nice write-up in TV Guide for it. That doesn't sound too different from that current bestseller, other than the fact that it wasn't originally written and published online as an alternate universe fanfic in which House and Cuddy were in a historical setting before she changed the characters' names and published it as original fiction.
I think some of the controversy around this current book is that it's essentially telling the same story as in the original novel, just in a different setting, as opposed to putting the same characters in a different setting and then telling a different story. And there's probably some outrage over building a fanfic following and then pulling the story, changing the names and making a fortune. I'm really not sure where the ethical lines are. Most authors turn a somewhat blind eye to fanfic based on their books. I know some exists for mine (there's a category for my series on fanfiction.net), but I refuse to even look at it because it creeps me out a little even while it's flattering to know I inspired someone that way (they're my people, so I'm not entirely comfortable with other people making them do things I didn't make them do). I think I would be angry if someone write an Enchanted, Inc. fanfic, changed the characters' names and a few key details of the world, then made a fortune publishing it, mostly because if it made a fortune it would be more successful than the original book. I would generally say, based on my experience, that you'll have more success writing original stories, but recent events (and some other cases) would prove me wrong.
There's been a lot of fuss in the book world lately about a self-published book that's become such a sensation that it got picked up by a major publisher in a huge deal and the fact that this book turns out to have been initially written as a fan fiction for a popular book series that the author then "filed off the serial numbers" and published as original fiction. I'm not going to name the book or the series that inspired it because I don't want to get into the specific case, but it has brought out a lot of discussion on the relationship between fan fiction and original fiction.
I think most authors, if they're honest with you, will admit that there is some fan fiction in their history, even if it's purely mental and was never written down. The spark to start writing tends to come from some story that inspired us to the point that we found ourselves imagining further adventures of those characters or perhaps the kind of adventures we might have had in that world. Some people do actually write these stories and share them with others. Others may just imagine these things, and then along the way the story grows and changes until it has nothing in common with the source, and that's when it may get written down.
That's kind of what happened with me. I was a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, and in the long years between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, I imagined all kinds of sequels in my head. In those mental sequels, I added new characters to the cast, and then those characters became more interesting to me than the originals were. I started creating backstory for those characters, and that meant worlds and societies that weren't in the known Star Wars universe (which was very, very limited at that time -- pretty much just Tatooine and the Death Star). Then I realized it was no longer a Star Wars story, and if I wrote it down, it would be a book. I never did finish it, which is probably for the best, as it was something I started coming up with when I was nine, but that was the first story I started writing down and the first time I considered that I wanted to be a writer.
These days, I mostly use my mental fan fiction as a testing ground for story ideas. If I play with an element in the context of someone else's characters and it works, then I can apply it to my characters. If I test it in my head with my characters, then it seems to stick whether or not it works, but if I test it with other characters it doesn't affect the way I see my characters. It's weird, but it works. I may be inspired to use an element or a character trait in a story because of something that intrigues me or frustrates me from some other source. I tend to like the characters who get shoved to the background or passed over, so I may take the things I like about those characters and create that kind of character to make the main character in my story. However, I can't think of any mental fanfic origins behind anything in my Enchanted, Inc. series beyond maybe some character traits. I don't remember anything that really went through my mental fanfic testing ground. I do have some ideas for potential future books that contain elements that started as mental fanfic, but I can't think of any in the published books. The entire series was kind of inspired by the Harry Potter universe, but only in the sense that I read those books and thought that I'd like something like that, but for/about adults. It was never anything that could even remotely have been considered Harry Potter fan fiction. I guess my most successful stuff has been my original stuff, and the mental fanfic stuff is less likely to sell. Go figure.
There are authors who are fairly open about the fanfic origins or inspiration behind their books. Lois McMaster Bujold talks about how Shards of Honor started as a Star Trek fanfic about a Klingon and a Federation officer stranded together on an inhospitable world. They were original characters, not characters who'd appeared in the series, and at that time the Klingon and Federation cultures hadn't been that developed (that came in the Next Generation era), so she extrapolated and ended up creating her own cultures. All she really needed to do was change the names of the cultures and she had an entirely original novel. There was a romance novel published last year that the author openly admitted was inspired by the characters of House and Cuddy on House -- sort of those characters, but what they'd be like in a historical romance setting. She got a nice write-up in TV Guide for it. That doesn't sound too different from that current bestseller, other than the fact that it wasn't originally written and published online as an alternate universe fanfic in which House and Cuddy were in a historical setting before she changed the characters' names and published it as original fiction.
I think some of the controversy around this current book is that it's essentially telling the same story as in the original novel, just in a different setting, as opposed to putting the same characters in a different setting and then telling a different story. And there's probably some outrage over building a fanfic following and then pulling the story, changing the names and making a fortune. I'm really not sure where the ethical lines are. Most authors turn a somewhat blind eye to fanfic based on their books. I know some exists for mine (there's a category for my series on fanfiction.net), but I refuse to even look at it because it creeps me out a little even while it's flattering to know I inspired someone that way (they're my people, so I'm not entirely comfortable with other people making them do things I didn't make them do). I think I would be angry if someone write an Enchanted, Inc. fanfic, changed the characters' names and a few key details of the world, then made a fortune publishing it, mostly because if it made a fortune it would be more successful than the original book. I would generally say, based on my experience, that you'll have more success writing original stories, but recent events (and some other cases) would prove me wrong.
March 27, 2012
Book Report: Otherworldly YA
Very soon, just about everything I've been working on for the past year or so will be off in someone else's hands (at least for the time being). That means today will be errand day after lunch, and then I think I'm going to do some housework. There's something about the quality of light in the spring that makes messes look messier, so what felt comfortably cluttered in the winter now feels like a depressing, unbearable mess.
I've been doing a lot of reading, trying to get through the books on the Nebula ballot (I made a stab at the short stories, but I don't see that happening in the time I have left, unless I put everything else aside). I've discovered that I like the historical or otherworld YA books a lot better than the contemporary-set YA books, perhaps because without stuff like high school, prom, etc., I can relate more to the characters. Or else without that stuff the story focuses on the higher-stakes issues. In fact, the line between adult and YA gets really hazy without high school being an issue. As an adult, I have no desire to relive high school.
There were a couple of books that I really enjoyed. One was The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. It's about a princess who, on her 16th birthday, is married to the young king of an allied country in a political arranged marriage. Then she finds herself caught up in all sorts of intrigue because this kingdom is under attack and there are various factions all dealing with the enemy in different ways. It seems at first as though there will be the Standard YA Love Triangle, but then things veer wildly in different directions, which was rather refreshing. This is very much a coming-of-age story, in which a fat, spoiled princess has to grow up fast and get a lot stronger (physically and emotionally) to deal with everything she has to face. One thing I really liked about this book was the treatment of religion. This is an "other world" fantasy that seems to have a lot of analogues to our world, and the core faith reads a lot like the way Christianity might have developed in a different place. The scriptures are similar but just different enough to be different, and the rituals are different but still work in a thematic way. Usually in fantasy, faith is either ignored entirely or demonized (the bad guys are the religious people), but in this world, prayer has some real power -- that can also be misused. This is apparently the first in a trilogy, and I'm curious to see what happens next (the sequel is coming in September).
Then there was Chime by Franny Billingsley, which I don't think I would have picked up if it hadn't been on an award ballot, mostly because of the cover. The cover shows an overly made-up woman lounging in a black lace dress, and it gives the impression that it's some quasi-goth vampire romance, which couldn't be further from the truth. I noticed that the upcoming paperback release has a very different cover that seems to fit the book better. The book is set in the early 1900s in a remote English village on the edge of a bog, where the nature spirits from British folklore are still a very real thing. This village still has witch trials, and our heroine is on trial for being a witch. The book is her account of everything that happened to get her to that point. She admits to being a witch -- how else could she hear and communicate with those beings who live in the bog? She's even done some horrible things -- at least, she's sure she did, since she is a witch, and who else could have done those things, but her memory is pretty hazy. In the name of progress, the bogs are being drained, and that has led one of the beings to curse the town with a terrible illness. Our heroine's twin sister (who's probably autistic, but of course that term wasn't really used by this sort of people at that time) is ill, and she has to decide how she can possibly let people know how to stop the illness without letting on that she can communicate with these beings and revealing that she's a witch. It's all very atmospheric and a little spooky.
I admit to some minor frustration near the middle when I figured out what was really going on (thanks to some characters telling the heroine what was going on) while the heroine didn't/couldn't see it, but then as you get deeper into the book you can see what a tangled web she's caught up in. I think the thing I liked most, though, was the romantic relationship because it was so differently refreshing for a YA book. The guy refers to himself as a "bad boy," but really that just means he's not living up to his father's expectations of him. He's been kicked out of university for goofing off, and he really doesn't have the patience to be a scholar. He's boarding in the heroine's house so he can be tutored by someone in town, but he blows off his studies. Still, he's about as far from "bad" as you can get because he's incredibly kind, is very caring, jumps in to help when there's a crisis and is a loyal friend. Watching the friendship and love grow between him and the rather prickly, closed-off heroine is really enjoyable. It's one of the few YA relationships that actually seems healthy to me, something I'd want for my daughter (if I had one). He's also proof that a nice guy who doesn't have to be healed with the heroine's love or who doesn't act like a controlling jerk can still be interesting.
Then there was a book that was published as an adult book and that's on the "adult" ballot but that I couldn't distinguish from the YA books, Among Others by Jo Walton. This book is set in the late 70s and is about a girl who fled her abusive witch mother and ended up with her estranged father, who lives with his three hyper-controlling half-sisters. Her aunts send her to boarding school. Her lifeline has always been science fiction and fantasy books, and her love of these books provides the first connection to the father she's never known and to her chances of friendship in this new place. But meanwhile, her mother is out there and out to get her, and opening herself up could lead to disaster. It's kind of a fantasy novel about science fiction. In ways, it reminds me of Tam Lin, in that there's a very real, relatable story about school life with a fantasy world woven in the background. You could get a really comprehensive reading list from this book, with the titles and authors that are name-dropped throughout. I found myself keeping score: "Read it, know him, sat on a convention panel with him, read that." For that reason alone, it's practically a must-read for science fiction and fantasy fans. I need to go back through the book and make a reading list because there were a few I missed that sound interesting.
Meanwhile, I've finally started reading my pre-publication advance copy of A Game of Thrones. I figure that would be a good idea before the second season of the TV series starts. Thanks to the TV series, it's a lot easier for me to get into than it was the previous time I tried, back before the book was released.
I've been doing a lot of reading, trying to get through the books on the Nebula ballot (I made a stab at the short stories, but I don't see that happening in the time I have left, unless I put everything else aside). I've discovered that I like the historical or otherworld YA books a lot better than the contemporary-set YA books, perhaps because without stuff like high school, prom, etc., I can relate more to the characters. Or else without that stuff the story focuses on the higher-stakes issues. In fact, the line between adult and YA gets really hazy without high school being an issue. As an adult, I have no desire to relive high school.
There were a couple of books that I really enjoyed. One was The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. It's about a princess who, on her 16th birthday, is married to the young king of an allied country in a political arranged marriage. Then she finds herself caught up in all sorts of intrigue because this kingdom is under attack and there are various factions all dealing with the enemy in different ways. It seems at first as though there will be the Standard YA Love Triangle, but then things veer wildly in different directions, which was rather refreshing. This is very much a coming-of-age story, in which a fat, spoiled princess has to grow up fast and get a lot stronger (physically and emotionally) to deal with everything she has to face. One thing I really liked about this book was the treatment of religion. This is an "other world" fantasy that seems to have a lot of analogues to our world, and the core faith reads a lot like the way Christianity might have developed in a different place. The scriptures are similar but just different enough to be different, and the rituals are different but still work in a thematic way. Usually in fantasy, faith is either ignored entirely or demonized (the bad guys are the religious people), but in this world, prayer has some real power -- that can also be misused. This is apparently the first in a trilogy, and I'm curious to see what happens next (the sequel is coming in September).
Then there was Chime by Franny Billingsley, which I don't think I would have picked up if it hadn't been on an award ballot, mostly because of the cover. The cover shows an overly made-up woman lounging in a black lace dress, and it gives the impression that it's some quasi-goth vampire romance, which couldn't be further from the truth. I noticed that the upcoming paperback release has a very different cover that seems to fit the book better. The book is set in the early 1900s in a remote English village on the edge of a bog, where the nature spirits from British folklore are still a very real thing. This village still has witch trials, and our heroine is on trial for being a witch. The book is her account of everything that happened to get her to that point. She admits to being a witch -- how else could she hear and communicate with those beings who live in the bog? She's even done some horrible things -- at least, she's sure she did, since she is a witch, and who else could have done those things, but her memory is pretty hazy. In the name of progress, the bogs are being drained, and that has led one of the beings to curse the town with a terrible illness. Our heroine's twin sister (who's probably autistic, but of course that term wasn't really used by this sort of people at that time) is ill, and she has to decide how she can possibly let people know how to stop the illness without letting on that she can communicate with these beings and revealing that she's a witch. It's all very atmospheric and a little spooky.
I admit to some minor frustration near the middle when I figured out what was really going on (thanks to some characters telling the heroine what was going on) while the heroine didn't/couldn't see it, but then as you get deeper into the book you can see what a tangled web she's caught up in. I think the thing I liked most, though, was the romantic relationship because it was so differently refreshing for a YA book. The guy refers to himself as a "bad boy," but really that just means he's not living up to his father's expectations of him. He's been kicked out of university for goofing off, and he really doesn't have the patience to be a scholar. He's boarding in the heroine's house so he can be tutored by someone in town, but he blows off his studies. Still, he's about as far from "bad" as you can get because he's incredibly kind, is very caring, jumps in to help when there's a crisis and is a loyal friend. Watching the friendship and love grow between him and the rather prickly, closed-off heroine is really enjoyable. It's one of the few YA relationships that actually seems healthy to me, something I'd want for my daughter (if I had one). He's also proof that a nice guy who doesn't have to be healed with the heroine's love or who doesn't act like a controlling jerk can still be interesting.
Then there was a book that was published as an adult book and that's on the "adult" ballot but that I couldn't distinguish from the YA books, Among Others by Jo Walton. This book is set in the late 70s and is about a girl who fled her abusive witch mother and ended up with her estranged father, who lives with his three hyper-controlling half-sisters. Her aunts send her to boarding school. Her lifeline has always been science fiction and fantasy books, and her love of these books provides the first connection to the father she's never known and to her chances of friendship in this new place. But meanwhile, her mother is out there and out to get her, and opening herself up could lead to disaster. It's kind of a fantasy novel about science fiction. In ways, it reminds me of Tam Lin, in that there's a very real, relatable story about school life with a fantasy world woven in the background. You could get a really comprehensive reading list from this book, with the titles and authors that are name-dropped throughout. I found myself keeping score: "Read it, know him, sat on a convention panel with him, read that." For that reason alone, it's practically a must-read for science fiction and fantasy fans. I need to go back through the book and make a reading list because there were a few I missed that sound interesting.
Meanwhile, I've finally started reading my pre-publication advance copy of A Game of Thrones. I figure that would be a good idea before the second season of the TV series starts. Thanks to the TV series, it's a lot easier for me to get into than it was the previous time I tried, back before the book was released.
March 26, 2012
What Lies Below
I had one of those mornings where I woke up not entirely sure what day it was, probably because I worked most of the weekend. I'm proofreading, which means reading the book out loud to myself to make sure I'm reading every word and not just skimming and to see if there are any awkward phrasings. That's also where it becomes really obvious if I use a word or phrasing too many times. I can only do it about a chapter at a time because otherwise it's a strain on my voice. I also need breaks so I can stay fresh instead of zoning out. But then that limits the amount I get done each day, and thus doing a little every day. I need to get the rest done today, though.
And then I have something to tweak in another project before sending it to a beta reader. And then my slate will be clear for the moment. I may get back to researching mysteries while I do some spring cleaning and finish doing my taxes. I may even allow myself a spring break of sorts before I plunge into a new project. I'm getting kind of itchy to start something new, since I've spent the past six months or so revising various things.
I did take a break from the work to take a walk yesterday. As I've mentioned, my neighborhood has a system of canals running through it, with landscaped walking paths beside them, little bridges crossing them, etc. I was enjoying walking along by the water yesterday and seeing all the signs of spring -- the turtles sunning themselves on rocks, the baby ducklings (including one all by itself that had me worried), people out fishing. I'd always wondered why people would bother fishing in these canals because the most I've seen have been tiny little fish. Well, yesterday I was walking past when a guy got something serious on his line. He was having to play it out before he could reel it in, and when I was there, he had it almost up to the surface. It was a catfish that was probably longer than my arm and much wider. I had no idea we had behemoths lurking at the bottom. Now I think I'm a little creeped out. There are probably sea monsters down there, too. I think I'm also a little glad my house doesn't directly overlook a canal. The canal's about a block away, so it's close enough for convenience, but I won't have to worry about Nessie crawling out of the depths and sunning herself on my porch.
And then I have something to tweak in another project before sending it to a beta reader. And then my slate will be clear for the moment. I may get back to researching mysteries while I do some spring cleaning and finish doing my taxes. I may even allow myself a spring break of sorts before I plunge into a new project. I'm getting kind of itchy to start something new, since I've spent the past six months or so revising various things.
I did take a break from the work to take a walk yesterday. As I've mentioned, my neighborhood has a system of canals running through it, with landscaped walking paths beside them, little bridges crossing them, etc. I was enjoying walking along by the water yesterday and seeing all the signs of spring -- the turtles sunning themselves on rocks, the baby ducklings (including one all by itself that had me worried), people out fishing. I'd always wondered why people would bother fishing in these canals because the most I've seen have been tiny little fish. Well, yesterday I was walking past when a guy got something serious on his line. He was having to play it out before he could reel it in, and when I was there, he had it almost up to the surface. It was a catfish that was probably longer than my arm and much wider. I had no idea we had behemoths lurking at the bottom. Now I think I'm a little creeped out. There are probably sea monsters down there, too. I think I'm also a little glad my house doesn't directly overlook a canal. The canal's about a block away, so it's close enough for convenience, but I won't have to worry about Nessie crawling out of the depths and sunning herself on my porch.
March 23, 2012
Out of the Mainstream (again)
Well, no one has arrested me or served me legal papers or even called back to see if I'm going to bite on the scam, so it looks like I'm in the clear. They probably don't waste time on people who don't respond. I'm a little disappointed because if they had called me back, I was planning to act like I was talking to someone in the room with me and say, "It's them! How long do you need me to keep him talking so you can get a trace on the physical location?" and then see how fast they got off the phone. In fact, I may use that for all suspected scam callers in the future.
But it looks like I'll have to get my entertainment elsewhere. Alas, I've hit another totally out of the mainstream phase with all the Hunger Games hype. I haven't read the books and have no plans to see the movie. I'm not saying that the books are bad, that the people who like them are wrong or even that I don't understand why people like them. I'm just saying that this is one thing where absolutely nothing about it rings my particular chimes, and the more I hear about it, the less I think I'd like it.
For one thing, there's the dystopian future. I don't necessarily want the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek: The Next Generation future where humanity has solved all those pesky problems so we have no more conflict with each other and have nothing to do but explore space and teach barbaric alien races about our cultural superiority. But I also would prefer to hope that the future will be better than the present. Yeah, humans are humans, and a lot of us are awful, and solving one problem (or trying to solve it) tends to create a dozen new ones, but still, for my entertainment, I'd rather read about a positive future. That's why I love this year's FenCon theme: The Future's So Bright.
I'm not totally opposed to depictions of a bleak society. I read Dickens for fun. And I suppose there have been a few dystopian books I've enjoyed. I really liked Logan's Run, though to be honest, I first liked the TV show because Gregory Harrison was really, really cute, then I read the book, then I saw the movie. I'm surprised that there hasn't been more movement lately on a new movie that's actually based on the book (which the movie really, really wasn't), since in the book they die at 21, and that would fit in with the Hunger Games hype. There was talk about it a few years ago, and now would seem to be the time to jump on it.
But then there's the reality TV angle in The Hunger Games, which is a huge turnoff for me. I think reality TV is a scourge on the television landscape, and while it sounds like these books are making that point, that doesn't mean I want to read about it. I refuse to let reality TV have that much room in my head (well, unless it involves cute show jumpers learning to joust). I have to admit that the heroine sounds pretty awesome, but the things I've read about the other characters and the relationships don't generate any, "Ooh, I must read that!" urges.
I do have a past/alternate world dystopia growing in the back of my mind. That may be a way to fit the trend in a way I can deal with. Otherwise, there are too many books that sound like something I'd like for me to force myself to read something that doesn't appeal to me. The movie opening this weekend that sounds more like my idea of fun is Trout Fishing in the Yemen, but it's only at a few theaters and would involve going downtown. Then next weekend is Mirror, Mirror, which sounds like just my thing. This weekend's entertainment is most likely going to involve seeing the church youth musical revue.
But it looks like I'll have to get my entertainment elsewhere. Alas, I've hit another totally out of the mainstream phase with all the Hunger Games hype. I haven't read the books and have no plans to see the movie. I'm not saying that the books are bad, that the people who like them are wrong or even that I don't understand why people like them. I'm just saying that this is one thing where absolutely nothing about it rings my particular chimes, and the more I hear about it, the less I think I'd like it.
For one thing, there's the dystopian future. I don't necessarily want the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek: The Next Generation future where humanity has solved all those pesky problems so we have no more conflict with each other and have nothing to do but explore space and teach barbaric alien races about our cultural superiority. But I also would prefer to hope that the future will be better than the present. Yeah, humans are humans, and a lot of us are awful, and solving one problem (or trying to solve it) tends to create a dozen new ones, but still, for my entertainment, I'd rather read about a positive future. That's why I love this year's FenCon theme: The Future's So Bright.
I'm not totally opposed to depictions of a bleak society. I read Dickens for fun. And I suppose there have been a few dystopian books I've enjoyed. I really liked Logan's Run, though to be honest, I first liked the TV show because Gregory Harrison was really, really cute, then I read the book, then I saw the movie. I'm surprised that there hasn't been more movement lately on a new movie that's actually based on the book (which the movie really, really wasn't), since in the book they die at 21, and that would fit in with the Hunger Games hype. There was talk about it a few years ago, and now would seem to be the time to jump on it.
But then there's the reality TV angle in The Hunger Games, which is a huge turnoff for me. I think reality TV is a scourge on the television landscape, and while it sounds like these books are making that point, that doesn't mean I want to read about it. I refuse to let reality TV have that much room in my head (well, unless it involves cute show jumpers learning to joust). I have to admit that the heroine sounds pretty awesome, but the things I've read about the other characters and the relationships don't generate any, "Ooh, I must read that!" urges.
I do have a past/alternate world dystopia growing in the back of my mind. That may be a way to fit the trend in a way I can deal with. Otherwise, there are too many books that sound like something I'd like for me to force myself to read something that doesn't appeal to me. The movie opening this weekend that sounds more like my idea of fun is Trout Fishing in the Yemen, but it's only at a few theaters and would involve going downtown. Then next weekend is Mirror, Mirror, which sounds like just my thing. This weekend's entertainment is most likely going to involve seeing the church youth musical revue.
March 22, 2012
Living Dangerously
I think the preschoolers infected me again last night, but this time with energy. They were insanely hyper, literally (and I'm using the word properly here) bouncing off walls. I kept having to intervene before they hurt themselves or punched a hole in the sheetrock. Then I came home from choir, finished proofreading a book, then stayed up until 1:30 reading a book because I was so close to finishing it and I wasn't really all that sleepy. Now, though, I'm sleepy. And it's cool and rainy. Maybe I should have saved the book to read today, since now I'm all out of library books. Crisis!
We also had a floor show to go with the usual fellowship hall dinner last night. The teens are doing their musical revue this weekend, and they were getting ready for their dress rehearsal, so they came in and performed a number for us while we ate. Man, I wish we'd had something like that when I was a teenager, but at my church, we barely had a youth choir. The youth director, who didn't even read music, would use those tapes where on one side they have the song with a generic choir singing the song and then on the other there would just be the accompaniment. We'd sing along with the choir a few times, then sing it with the accompaniment, and that was it for any music program for the teens. We definitely didn't do musicals.
And now I'm waiting for the end of my 48-hour countdown. A couple of days ago, I got a rather alarming phone call telling me that there was about to be a restraining order put out on me, and I needed to call a certain number and give this case number within 48 hours if I wanted to take care of it before they put out the restraining order. I know that's not how that works, so I figured it was a scam, but it was still rather alarming to hear. I took down the info so I could look it up, and I was still reading the Google results on the company name (yep, scam) when my parents called to say they got a call looking for me, with the same info. Which was consistent with the reports I found in my search. I got the same results searching the company name and the phone number they gave me.
What seems to be happening is that they call people, threatening some kind of legal action (it varies), but saying they can resolve it if you call this number. Then two things seem to happen. A lot of people who do call say they get put on hold for a long time or never get an answer. Someone reported that they contacted their phone carrier about these calls and the carrier said it's one of those things where they want you to call back that number so it then gets forwarded to one of those off-shore numbers where they can charge you huge amounts for the call -- thus the long hold times. But then other people report that they offer to settle the issue for a certain amount -- usually big enough to be worthwhile but small enough that people will be willing to pay to make a potentially big problem go away. And then they either want all your credit card info or they want you to wire money. Then once you bite on the scam, they never go away. You keep getting "legal problems." A lot of this seems to involve fake debt collection on payday loans, but I've taken out two loans in my entire life -- a car loan that's been paid off for twenty years and my mortgage, which is current. I've never even carried a credit card balance. I pay them off in full each month. I also can't see why anyone would want a restraining order against someone who never leaves the house and who barely calls family members and barely e-mails friends. But I can see where people who might be in some difficulties might react in fear and fall for this, especially when they're doing stuff like calling family members to make it look more real. For me, the calling the family members was a clue that it was a scam because the timing worked out that they were calling my parents at the same time as they were talking to me, and I know that in the real world they aren't supposed to call family members unless they can't reach the primary person. If they're talking to me in person, then there's no need for them to call anyone else.
So, now the countdown on that 48 hours is coming down to the wire. Will someone actually file a restraining order on me? Will they figure I'm onto them when I don't respond and move on to another victim? Will they try me again (and this time I'll tell them that I've researched them and I know exactly what they're up to)? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I've spent the last couple of days re-reading a book I wrote nearly three years ago. Although I've noticed some writing tics I had at the time (oh, the pet words) and wanted to tweak a few things, I think I like this book more than ever. It was a real roller-coaster ride to read, and by the end my heart was racing and I was breathless -- and I wrote it. Now to do something with it. That's another stay tuned thing.
And now since I have no library books to read today, and since the Television Without Pity forums seem to be down (I will begin twitching very soon), I suppose I'll get to work on the final proofread of The Current Project. If I don't get arrested or something.
We also had a floor show to go with the usual fellowship hall dinner last night. The teens are doing their musical revue this weekend, and they were getting ready for their dress rehearsal, so they came in and performed a number for us while we ate. Man, I wish we'd had something like that when I was a teenager, but at my church, we barely had a youth choir. The youth director, who didn't even read music, would use those tapes where on one side they have the song with a generic choir singing the song and then on the other there would just be the accompaniment. We'd sing along with the choir a few times, then sing it with the accompaniment, and that was it for any music program for the teens. We definitely didn't do musicals.
And now I'm waiting for the end of my 48-hour countdown. A couple of days ago, I got a rather alarming phone call telling me that there was about to be a restraining order put out on me, and I needed to call a certain number and give this case number within 48 hours if I wanted to take care of it before they put out the restraining order. I know that's not how that works, so I figured it was a scam, but it was still rather alarming to hear. I took down the info so I could look it up, and I was still reading the Google results on the company name (yep, scam) when my parents called to say they got a call looking for me, with the same info. Which was consistent with the reports I found in my search. I got the same results searching the company name and the phone number they gave me.
What seems to be happening is that they call people, threatening some kind of legal action (it varies), but saying they can resolve it if you call this number. Then two things seem to happen. A lot of people who do call say they get put on hold for a long time or never get an answer. Someone reported that they contacted their phone carrier about these calls and the carrier said it's one of those things where they want you to call back that number so it then gets forwarded to one of those off-shore numbers where they can charge you huge amounts for the call -- thus the long hold times. But then other people report that they offer to settle the issue for a certain amount -- usually big enough to be worthwhile but small enough that people will be willing to pay to make a potentially big problem go away. And then they either want all your credit card info or they want you to wire money. Then once you bite on the scam, they never go away. You keep getting "legal problems." A lot of this seems to involve fake debt collection on payday loans, but I've taken out two loans in my entire life -- a car loan that's been paid off for twenty years and my mortgage, which is current. I've never even carried a credit card balance. I pay them off in full each month. I also can't see why anyone would want a restraining order against someone who never leaves the house and who barely calls family members and barely e-mails friends. But I can see where people who might be in some difficulties might react in fear and fall for this, especially when they're doing stuff like calling family members to make it look more real. For me, the calling the family members was a clue that it was a scam because the timing worked out that they were calling my parents at the same time as they were talking to me, and I know that in the real world they aren't supposed to call family members unless they can't reach the primary person. If they're talking to me in person, then there's no need for them to call anyone else.
So, now the countdown on that 48 hours is coming down to the wire. Will someone actually file a restraining order on me? Will they figure I'm onto them when I don't respond and move on to another victim? Will they try me again (and this time I'll tell them that I've researched them and I know exactly what they're up to)? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I've spent the last couple of days re-reading a book I wrote nearly three years ago. Although I've noticed some writing tics I had at the time (oh, the pet words) and wanted to tweak a few things, I think I like this book more than ever. It was a real roller-coaster ride to read, and by the end my heart was racing and I was breathless -- and I wrote it. Now to do something with it. That's another stay tuned thing.
And now since I have no library books to read today, and since the Television Without Pity forums seem to be down (I will begin twitching very soon), I suppose I'll get to work on the final proofread of The Current Project. If I don't get arrested or something.
March 21, 2012
Wishing Upon a Dream
I've posted a lot about The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, which is one of my favorite writing books and the one that finally helped me learn to plot. I was good at coming up with characters and situations, but actually getting them to do things in a way that made for an interesting story was a real challenge before I read this book and started understanding how the structure works. I was in the library recently and saw that they had the latest edition, which is twice the size of the edition I have, so I checked it out to see what was different. There's a whole new section in the back that's mostly personal essays about these principles and how they've changed his perspective on writing and life since he first wrote the book. One that I found particularly interesting was on the power of wishing.
Vogler points out that in a lot of the old fairy tales, the character gets supernatural help by wishing. It may not be a verbalized wish, just a deep inner longing, but that still seems to be enough to summon the supernatural. And that wishing is actually a major part of storytelling. You get a more powerful, emotionally gripping story when the hero expresses or implies some strong desire -- or wish -- near the beginning. This may or may not even be related to the story goal, but it shows us that this person is somehow incomplete and needs something to change, even before the story kicks off.
Once I read that, I started thinking about how true that is. Look at just about every Disney musical ever made. The main character's introductory musical number usually has something to do with wishing or dreaming. We have Snow White's "I'm Wishing," Cinderella's "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," Sleeping Beauty's "Once Upon a Dream," "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio, the Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World," The Lion King's "I Just Can't Wait to Be King." All of these introduce the main character as someone who wants something she/he doesn't have yet -- a yearning. Sometimes it's more directly related to the story goal, like in The Lion King. Sometimes the story goal grows out of it. Ariel in The Little Mermaid sings "Part of Your World" after seeing the prince and deciding she wants him, but she already has a vast collection of human artifacts, so really the prince just becomes the concrete embodiment of a long-term wish. Sometimes it's just a general longing that then translates into a more specific story goal when that comes along, like Cinderella mostly just believing in dreams and wishes (and probably wanting her life to change somehow), and then that gets firmed up once she learns about the ball. And then sometimes it's more of a negative wish, not wanting something, just not wanting what she has, like Belle in Beauty and the Beast griping about the "poor provincial town" where she's treated like an oddball. She doesn't really know what she wants, just that she doesn't want that.
It's not just Disney. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz wishes to go "Over the Rainbow." Luke Skywalker wants to get away from the farm to be a space pilot. Harry Potter wishes he had a real home and family instead of sleeping under the stairs and being practically a servant in his aunt and uncle's home.
I think part of the reason this is so powerful is that it makes us identify with these characters. We can relate to that sense of yearning. It also hooks us into the story even before the story goal comes up because right from the start we're hoping that these characters will get what they want. And it provides motivation once the story goal comes up. A totally content character is probably less likely to do something drastic unless his contentment is threatened. A character who feels some need for something to be different is more likely to take a chance and leap at the opportunity to do something a little crazy that might allow them to find what they've been wishing for. The Call to Adventure forces them to put action behind their wishes and dreams.
So, what is it that your characters desperately want before your story even begins?
Vogler points out that in a lot of the old fairy tales, the character gets supernatural help by wishing. It may not be a verbalized wish, just a deep inner longing, but that still seems to be enough to summon the supernatural. And that wishing is actually a major part of storytelling. You get a more powerful, emotionally gripping story when the hero expresses or implies some strong desire -- or wish -- near the beginning. This may or may not even be related to the story goal, but it shows us that this person is somehow incomplete and needs something to change, even before the story kicks off.
Once I read that, I started thinking about how true that is. Look at just about every Disney musical ever made. The main character's introductory musical number usually has something to do with wishing or dreaming. We have Snow White's "I'm Wishing," Cinderella's "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," Sleeping Beauty's "Once Upon a Dream," "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio, the Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World," The Lion King's "I Just Can't Wait to Be King." All of these introduce the main character as someone who wants something she/he doesn't have yet -- a yearning. Sometimes it's more directly related to the story goal, like in The Lion King. Sometimes the story goal grows out of it. Ariel in The Little Mermaid sings "Part of Your World" after seeing the prince and deciding she wants him, but she already has a vast collection of human artifacts, so really the prince just becomes the concrete embodiment of a long-term wish. Sometimes it's just a general longing that then translates into a more specific story goal when that comes along, like Cinderella mostly just believing in dreams and wishes (and probably wanting her life to change somehow), and then that gets firmed up once she learns about the ball. And then sometimes it's more of a negative wish, not wanting something, just not wanting what she has, like Belle in Beauty and the Beast griping about the "poor provincial town" where she's treated like an oddball. She doesn't really know what she wants, just that she doesn't want that.
It's not just Disney. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz wishes to go "Over the Rainbow." Luke Skywalker wants to get away from the farm to be a space pilot. Harry Potter wishes he had a real home and family instead of sleeping under the stairs and being practically a servant in his aunt and uncle's home.
I think part of the reason this is so powerful is that it makes us identify with these characters. We can relate to that sense of yearning. It also hooks us into the story even before the story goal comes up because right from the start we're hoping that these characters will get what they want. And it provides motivation once the story goal comes up. A totally content character is probably less likely to do something drastic unless his contentment is threatened. A character who feels some need for something to be different is more likely to take a chance and leap at the opportunity to do something a little crazy that might allow them to find what they've been wishing for. The Call to Adventure forces them to put action behind their wishes and dreams.
So, what is it that your characters desperately want before your story even begins?
