Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 81

Researching Fiction

Some of the ideas and insights I got during yesterday’s round of research reading reminded me of one of the few points I was allowed to make in last weekend’s Panel From Hell. If you want to create a vivid world that doesn’t perpetuate tropes and stereotypes, you can’t use other fiction as your reference or source material. You need to do actual non-fiction research.

You can see what happens when people use fiction as a source in a lot of the fantasy from the 1970s and early 80s that’s essentially just a take on The Lord of the Rings, or the 1970s and 1980s space opera that’s heavily inspired by Star Trek or Star Wars.

But since magical lands with wizards and elves and great space empires don’t really exist, how else are you supposed to research them?

Everything we humans write is based on human experience, one way or another, so you find analogues in our world that you want to base your fantasy worlds and cultures on. That’s what Tolkien did in the first place. You’re more likely to get something interesting and original by going to the sources he read than you are by going to what he wrote. Read about the history of the era you’re basing your world on, read about the culture. Read world history to see how various things came together to make certain conditions happen. If you’re writing about a space empire, look at how some of the empires on earth have worked.

That doesn’t mean that you have to (or even should) write The British Empire — In Space! But studying the British Empire would probably give you a lot of ideas for what might happen in an empire with far-flung territories and no real-time communication, and the result would be more unique and interesting than yet another thinly veiled retelling of Star Wars.

When it comes to fantasy worlds, you’re better off using your research to generate ideas rather than trying to be meticulous about re-creating our cultures in that world. You probably shouldn’t have an obvious Magical Asia, Magical Europe, and Magical Africa, but studying the ways cultures intersected and interacted might give you ideas for creating your own cultures.

The one area where fiction might serve as a reference is if you read novels written in the time and place you’re basing your story on. That can give you a sense of how they used language and what was going on with the culture in that time. If you’re writing a world based on Regency England (or an alternate history in that time), you really should read the works of Jane Austen. But you can’t just read those works, or else you’ll end up with yet another take on Jane Austen rather than something original. Period novels are part of your research, not all of it.

I do try to read whatever’s been written in the general area of my story idea, but not to get ideas. I want to know what’s been done so that I don’t inadvertently copy it. I can choose to go my own way once I know what others have done. It’s also good market research to know what’s been done and how well it worked.

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Research Serendipity

I keep thinking that I’m getting to the end of my research process, but then I keep finding new stuff. I was reading a book that I thought I probably didn’t need but that I thought might be interesting and I discovered something that helps me set up the main part of the story. Then I was reading another book that I suspected would probably be overkill, since it was about what would happen if the characters didn’t take the action they take — and it ended up having a key bit of information I hadn’t been able to find elsewhere. So maybe I need to keep digging.

I think a secondary benefit to the research phase is the additional time spent thinking before I start writing. That gives me a chance to mentally flesh out the characters and their world before I start committing to actual words. I’m seeing lots of the “movie” of the story in my head, and it’s gradually filling in details. As much as I have figured out, I’m realizing how much I don’t know. Like, I don’t have a lot about my villain and I don’t have a secondary cast. I know a lot about what one part of my world looks like, but the part where the bulk of the story takes place is a bit of a blank.

So there’s work to be done. Unfortunately, some of the information I need is kind of scarce. I’m having trouble tracking down exactly what I’m looking for. I guess I’ll just have to hope for more research serendipity. Maybe I’ll stumble on exactly what I need while I’m looking up something that initially seems to be extraneous.

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Awkward Convention Moments

My weekend was something of a mixed bag. It was good to catch up with some friends at the convention, and I actually learned something and got a lot out of some of the panels I went to. But I also had some rather negative panel experiences.

One wasn’t too bad, just a That Guy panelist who thinks that because he’s self published a book, he’s an authority on everything, but I was the moderator, and he wasn’t too difficult to hold back. I’ve seen far worse, and I think he was more on the enthusiasm end of things than the arrogance end of things.

But then there was the Panel From Hell. I was generally planning to hold back on that one because while I have thoughts on the topic, I’m less of an authority than most of the other people on the panel, and I was going to defer to them. But then there was a panelist who wasn’t going to defer to anyone. If she had a thought, she expressed it, even if someone was already talking about something. If she figured out where someone was going with a thought, she’d jump in to complete their thought, and then talk some more. I tend to just shut down in those circumstances. You can’t win when you can’t get a word in edgewise, and you only end up looking like a jerk if you try to shout over them. The other panelists could barely get their say, and I didn’t want to take time away from them, so I just sat there and let it wash over me. Then the moderator specifically asked me for input, I started to say something, and the rest of the panel picked it up and ran with it, so I sat there some more. Near the end, the moderator came to me again, mentioned that I hadn’t had the chance to say much, and asked me for any thoughts. I started to say something, and that panelist jumped in on me again, talking over me and picking up my thought to go on and say her piece on it. That was when I lost it. I raised my voice over hers and said, “May I please be allowed to complete my thought?” It got quiet, and I was finally allowed a complete sentence. It was very awkward and uncomfortable.

I don’t think there was malice involved. It was just a degree of self-absorption that spiraled out of control. She did later apologize, which was even more awkward because I think she expected me to say it was okay, but it wasn’t, and I didn’t entirely buy her excuses (if you know you have that tendency, then you either come up with coping mechanisms to curb yourself, or you decide that paneling isn’t for you because it’s probably doing her more harm than good).

Needless to say, I came home utterly exhausted. But now my next convention is the Nebula Awards weekend conference, and that’s more of a professional conference than a convention. And then I don’t have another fan convention until September.

But I did get a good idea for something new I want to try, so stay tuned for news.

Now to get myself back in gear and back to work. Mondays after conventions are always tough because I feel like I didn’t get a weekend, but I really need to treat today like a work day.

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Conventions

I’ll be at ConDFW in Fort Worth this Saturday, if anyone in the north Texas area is interested in stopping by. I’ve struggled with this convention in the past because it falls at a time of year when I really don’t feel too social. It’s hibernation season, and being around large groups of people is jarring. Plus, it seems like either the weather is awful (there was the year we had record snowfall the day before) or the weather is nice but spring allergy season has hit (like this year — I’ll have to carry a box of tissues with me). Last year, I said I’d skip it this year, but now this year is going to be the last year, so I figured I’d go one more time. I’m only doing Saturday since the crowd is so light on Friday that it’s not worth the drive, and I have obligations on Sunday.

But I will be reading a bit from the upcoming Enchanted, Inc. book.

I am leaning away from conventions for the time being, in part because I need to be focusing on writing right now and in part because I need to figure out a new way to make them work for me. I’m at the awkward in-between stage in which the people who are at the conventions I can easily get to already know who I am, so I don’t get much of a boost out of being there, but I’m not well enough known to get invited as a guest of honor to conventions farther away, and I’m not sure that attending a convention that I have to pay travel expenses for would pay off if I’m just there as a panelist. So maybe I need to get a little more famous some other way or have a few more books before I dive in again. At the very least, I need to let people miss me, though I guess there’s also the risk of them forgetting about me.

It is a little depressing when people who haven’t been around as long as I have and who have fewer books than I have are getting invited as special guests and workshop instructors. I’ve been a guest of honor at one convention, but there are also conventions where I can’t even seem to get accepted as a panelist. So, back into my cave to plot my triumphant return.

I’d thought I’d done most of the research I needed to build this world, but I picked up a book at the library yesterday on a whim, supposedly to research an aspect of this world, though it wasn’t something that I thought needed to be developed any further because it’s a minor part of the story — and then that book gave me the solution I needed to a plot problem I’d been wrestling with. So maybe I need a bit more research.

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Happy Valentine’s Meh

Happy Valentine’s Day, to those who celebrate. I don’t, really. It’s not a militant Single’s Awareness thing. It’s more of a cynical apathy. If you need a multimillion dollar marketing campaign to tell you that you should be romantic on a particular day that may or may not actually be meaningful to you or your relationship, then you’ve got bigger problems than a box of chocolates is likely to be able to fix. I’m actually rather happy being single and suffer no pangs of envy when I see happy couples. I don’t really want a relationship and wouldn’t want to trade places with them.

What I celebrate is Discount Chocolate Day on Feb. 15. I may see if I can also score some cheap flowers so I can have fresh flowers in the house.

I do find it ironic that my books are seen as very romantic and fantasy publishers keep rejecting my books and suggesting that they might be better suited to romance when I’m not really a very romantic person. But I think it’s the hint of romance, the very slow burn, that makes the people who like them like them. There’s not much actual romance, more the hope of future romance. And that’s why the fantasy publishers are showing their lack of market knowledge because that’s definitely not something that flies in the romance genre. I guess you could say I write romance for people who don’t actually want full-blown Romance.

I’m the weirdo who considers The Terminator one of the most romantic movies ever made. I thought Aliens was also pretty romantic (and I have had my view validated by Michael Biehn, who said he played it as though Hicks was falling in love with Ripley).

When I have my rare moments of wanting romantic warm fuzzies, I tend to turn to Stardust, either the book or the movie (though the adventure and transformation are what I love about that story).

I think in general I like my romances to involve a lot of development of the non-romantic relationship, with just a dash of a hint of something more.

I’m afraid this is going to be a very non-romantic Valentine’s Day for me, since I’ll be watching documentaries instead of a romantic comedy. I’m researching a book.

I did get some valentines this year from my kindergarteners. Hand-drawn kid valentines are the best.

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If I Weren’t Writing …

The housework thing worked! I realized as I was cleaning the kitchen and later folding laundry that my original plan for the plot was the right one and I didn’t need to downgrade it. Instead, I managed to come up with something even bigger that I could do in later books. Since what I want to do with this book is make something too good to ignore, that will make publishers sit up and beg and then remember that they’re publishing me, I don’t want to leave anything in reserve. I need to go as big as possible in book 1, then top it in book 2

So, now I have a plot and a moderately clean kitchen and lots of clean laundry.

There’s still a bit more subject matter research to do to fine-tune the plot, and then a bit of hands-on research. And my living room needs a bit more tidying.

Someone asked the question on Twitter yesterday, what would you do if money was no object and you had six months without needing to write? I figured I’d spend the first month getting my house in order — finishing all the decluttering and organizing and tackling all the home improvement projects I’ve been putting off so I could have my environment just right. Then I think I’d spend the next five months alternating between travel and digging into various arts/crafts activities. I don’t like being away from home for extended periods, so I probably wouldn’t have a trip longer than two weeks, and then I’d want a few weeks at home before traveling again. During those home times I’d sew, dig into music, maybe do some local exploring, and spend a lot of time reading. Writing would still probably happen, but it would be nice to be able to just write when I wanted to and when an idea struck me rather than spending all my time feeling like I should be writing. It’s like being in school and always feeling like I should be studying.

If I wasn’t allowed to write at all during this sabbatical, I suspect I’d be eager to dive back into it when the time was up because I’d be drowning in ideas.

But since a six-month sabbatical isn’t in the cards for me anytime soon, off to write I go.

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In Search of a Plot

I’ve reached the less fun part of story development, when I have to figure out what actually happens. It’s fun to create/discover characters and their world and to do research, but then comes the time when I actually need a plot. I would be perfectly happy just writing these people going about their daily lives in this setting, and while I know there are some readers who’d be okay with that, too, there’s no chance of it selling. I am contemplating a self-published experiment in “low-conflict fiction” for people who are so stressed-out that they just want to escape and read stories about people having adventures, seeing new things, discovering stuff, and maybe helping other people without being in mortal danger or without being put through the emotional wringer. However, this is not that book. I would like to sell this book to a publisher, so something plot-like needs to happen. I’ve got all the setup figured out — the ordinary world, call to adventure, crossing the threshold, tests, enemies and allies. But I’ve hit the part where things get serious, heading into the inmost cave for an ordeal, and I have no idea what needs to happen next now that the plot is really kicking in.

I’ve done things backwards in that I’ve figured out all the character conflicts, both within the characters and between the characters, and I know the arc the heroine needs to be on. I just can’t seem to figure out what the external plot should be that will drive that arc and force the heroine to make those choices. I have a vague sense of one possibility, but it may be too big for this book because this story has series potential and the plot I have in mind is more of a series climax thing. There’s not really anywhere to go after that story. So I need something that’s the right level of conflict, something that affects the heroine’s immediate world but doesn’t alter their society (the big one I have in mind is society-altering). At the same time, I don’t really want to present this as book one in a trilogy, but rather a standalone story with series potential, so it needs to be big enough to fix an obvious wrong in the first book so that it feels like the heroine has accomplished something.

Actually, I guess it depends on who you talk to whether I’ve really done things backwards. There are those who say you need to figure out what your protagonist needs to learn and then fit that into an external plot, but I tend to come up with the external plot and then figure out how it affects my characters, doing some tweaking to make it fit. Usually, for my easiest books, it all just sort of clicks together.

I think today is going to be a brainstorming day, which means it’s going to be a big housework day. Staring at a screen/page, trying to think of a plot, tends to get me nowhere. The best ideas come when I’m doing something else. We’re having our first sunny day after days of rain, and a house that felt cozy on a dark, rainy day just looks cluttered in bright sunlight. So I’m going to put iTunes on shuffle (because sometimes music sparks ideas) and clean my house, and maybe the answer will come to me while I’m dusting.

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Weekend Cooking

We had a cold, rainy weekend, and it was glorious. I did some cooking and read, did a little book brainstorming, and was delightfully lazy. It was just the kind of time to spend snuggled up under a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book. Lately, it’s seemed like every time we have a cold, rainy weekend, it’s a weekend when I have to go somewhere or do something, and for once I didn’t have to.

I was even so lazy that I decided not to do any baking, as I’d planned, aside from the biscuits I made for breakfast. Not that I needed to bake, given that I have a freezer full of stuff from past baking binges. I have a couple of bags of blueberry mini muffins and a bag of pumpkin mini muffins, plus some shortbread cookies, and I found some chocolate mini cakes in the back of the freezer when I was looking for something else.

I’ve discovered that the whey I get from draining my homemade yogurt can be substituted for buttermilk in baking, and I think the results are even better. It makes for fluffy, flaky biscuits and really fluffy waffles. I didn’t really need to know this. It’s dangerous knowledge.

But I did do some Instant Pot experimentation. I wasn’t totally crazy with my initial attempt at using it to make a pot roast — the meat wasn’t as tender as it is when I make stew, and the vegetables were mushy. I did some more research and tried pressure cooking it for less time (about half an hour less than most of the recipes, since I was using a smaller roast) but letting the pressure release naturally. I roasted the potatoes (white and sweet) in the oven. The meat was just right, fork tender and juicy. But then for Sunday lunch, I thought I’d try something else I’d seen for the vegetables. I scraped the fat off the liquid, put it in the pot and let it heat up on saute, then put in some potatoes, carrots, and green beans (not traditional with this, but I had them, and they were good cooked this way) and cooked for four minutes, then did a quick pressure release and put the roast in with it all to warm up. The vegetables were just right, soft but not mushy, and they tasted like they’d been cooking all day with the roast. So I will have to fine tune this recipe and cook it again. For science.

Oh, and I also made pizza this weekend. I won’t have to cook a meal until later this week, I did so much cooking this weekend.

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Thinking Time

One of the things I really enjoy about not having a day job is my ability to have my “thinking time.” For about an hour after I wake up, I like to lie in bed (especially in the winter) and think, usually about whatever I’m writing. This is when I daydream and brainstorm. I may see the movie of scenes playing out. Some of these scenes may end up in the book, while others are about getting to know the characters. I imagine the world and how it works. I may even dig into the history or backstory, all the stuff that happened before the story starts that won’t make it into the story itself but that shapes the situation. Sometimes I pick at plot details. Usually, by the time I get out of bed, I’ve come up with some good things I can use.

The great thing about thinking time is that I’m not entirely awake yet, so I’m much more creative than I’ll be at any other point in the day. Random ideas come and go, sometimes coming from something that has nothing to do with the current story. The critical side of my brain is still mostly asleep, so I can explore these random things without getting critical and telling myself to stop because that doesn’t belong in this book. If I sat down with pen and paper to work these things out, I’d never be as free-flowing as I am first thing in the morning.

But sometimes this lack of criticism means I go down some odd paths and get stuck there. This morning, I was thinking about my heroine’s background. She’s from a clan that makes woolen textiles — they raise the sheep, spin the wool, and knit or weave it into cloth. Their abilities in this area are somewhat supernaturally enhanced, so the cloth they make is particularly fine and in high demand. There are auctions for this cloth, since the supply is so limited. When the heroine gets the opportunity to go study in an elite institution, they make things for her to send her off. Most of it isn’t the super-fine stuff, since they can’t afford to use that for themselves instead of selling it, but since she’ll have to ride and wear riding breeches, her aunt the super knitter makes her some drawers (basically leggings) out of the super-fine yarn her mother spins. This comes into play in the story when the other girls are treating the heroine like she’s a hick, but then they discover that she has this super nice underwear even they can’t get, made from this incredibly soft and fine wool, and knit as one piece, with no seams to chafe. Then the other girls are torn on how to treat her because on the one hand, she’s working class, with her family actually working and making stuff, but on the other hand, they’re the source for this cloth everyone is dying to have, and maybe sucking up to her will give them an inside track.

But then I spent at least half an hour mentally trying to figure out how you’d knit leggings in one piece. There would have to be some grafting, but that would feel different than a seam. I was figuring how to knit the legs separately from the ankle up knitting in the round, then you’d join the legs on a circular needle, but there would be some increases and keeping the crotch area on stitch holders and knitting that separately before grafting it together. I finally snapped out of it as I woke up further and realized that I didn’t have to provide the knitting pattern and the whole point was that there was a magical level of talent involved, so I shouldn’t be able to figure out how to do this. All I needed was to have some really special underwear for the other girls to envy. But just the existence of the underwear and the role it plays in the way the heroine interacts with other girls was a good result from a brainstorming session.

I wouldn’t be able to do thinking time like this with a regular job because I’d need to get up and get to work. In my current situation, this is part of my work and is valuable time. It just happens to take place snuggled in bed rather than sitting at a desk.

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More About Quitting the Day Job

After writing yesterday’s post, I had more thoughts about the do/don’t quit your day job argument and why I have such mixed feelings.

One big thing that I don’t think most people dreaming of being a full-time writer realize is that having more time to write probably won’t result in making more money from writing (with some exceptions). That’s because you’ll be fortunate to get one publishing slot a year, which means that if you can write one book a year while having a full-time job, you’ll be able to write as fast as they can publish you, so writing more won’t do you much good. Maybe, if you’re really lucky/good/successful, you might get two slots a year, like if you do a spinoff series (which requires the initial books to be successful), or if you write two different kinds of books, like adult and YA. The big exception is category romance, where the top writers can get four or more books a year published. And, of course, with self publishing you can publish whatever you write. Otherwise, don’t count on being able to boost your writing income by all that much by quitting your day job and having more time to write.

The main reason to quit your day job is for physical, mental, and emotional health. You may be able to keep up with the publishing pace while having a day job, but once you’re writing for publication, writing-related activities will eat up more time, and that time will have to come out of either your free time or time you previously used for writing. There are editorial revisions, copyedits, galley proofs, reviewing cover copy, researching ideas for covers. When the book comes out, you may be asked to write guest columns or blog posts and do interviews. You may be asked to read books to provide promotional blurbs. At some point, when you’re having to devote most of your waking hours to either your day job or your writing job and you’re even using your vacation days for writing conferences, conventions, travel to booksignings, or writing when you’re on deadline, something’s going to give. Your relationships may suffer. Your health may suffer if you’re not getting enough exercise or sleep.

And your work may suffer. That, I think, is the main argument for quitting a day job. You can’t write well when you’re burned out. If you’re not able to live life, if you don’t get to read for pleasure or do anything that isn’t work-related in some way, your creative well may empty and not be refilled. When you’re pressed for time, it’s harder to dig in as deeply as you probably should. For instance, right now I’m reading an entire book to research the backstory for the heroine of the book I’m plotting. Most of what I learn may not even show up in the book other than in the first few pages (the “ordinary world” part of the story), but I think it will help me get into that mindset and flesh out the character. Writing full time, I can get through this book in two days while also doing other work. If I were fitting this in around a day job, it would be a week’s worth of reading. It probably wouldn’t be worth a week of writing time to read this book. That might not make a huge difference in the finished book, but I think it will be richer from having done this.

Leaving the day job means that you have time for a life in addition to work, and you aren’t as pressed for time to work, so you can dig into your work to make it even better. You can also deal with more of the business stuff without sacrificing writing time.

But you can’t relax and enjoy the benefits of not having a day job if you’re worried about finances, which is why it’s not a step to take lightly. It’s also not an all-or-nothing situation. My last two years of my day job, I worked out a deal with my boss to telecommute and work semi-full time (I still counted as a full-time employee for benefits, but I was working 30 hours a week, and being paid part-time meant I had a hard stop on the number of hours I could work, so it drastically cut my working time). I had reached the point of burnout because my job had become something like 60 hours a week with a lot of travel, and I wasn’t able to get any writing at all done even though I had publishers asking to see something from me. I broke down in tears in a staff meeting when we were allocating client work and it came down to me being scheduled for more than 200 billable hours in a month. I actually tried to quit then, but my boss talked me into staying and worked out a way for me to stay but also have time to write. Something like that is worth a shot. Depending on your commute, just getting to telecommute a few days a week could free up hours of time. If you’re making money from publishing, you may be able to afford to take a pay cut in exchange for cutting a day of work a week or going to part time. There’s also freelancing, temping, and contract work.

Mostly, it boils down to what allows you to be both sane and reasonably financially secure. I guess my measure of when to quit the day job would be when you’ve got at least two years of living expenses saved up and when you feel like something has to give — when either your day job doesn’t allow you the time you need to write or you have no life other than work and writing. It’s a very individual thing and will depend on your family situation, your degree of introversion, how much you love (or hate) the day job, whether continuing that career is a viable thing, etc. Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to quit to have a career, but don’t let anyone scare you away from making a move that might save your sanity.

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