Mary Sisson's Blog, page 66

This is nice to see

This is a great piece (from PV) on editing. Importantly, it points out how little editing tradpub editors actually do--editing is time-intensive, and from a tradpub perspective, time spent educating writers is time wasted. Anyway, it pleases me to see that people who actually care about producing good books are finding satisfying work in this new era.

POV, editing, and family fun

I mentioned a while back that my sister wrote a Sherlock fanfic. It was good, but it was a script, so Fanfiction.net pulled it (it turns out that they don't take scripts).

She liked the feedback of that site and wanted to keep her work there, so she decided to take her script and turn it into a narrative story.

I liked the script very much, but the story she first gave me was just unreadable. It was a kind of half-script/half-narration, where the writer took:

SHERLOCK: Where's my violin?

MOLLY: Where you left it!

And turned it into:

Sherlock looked around. The urge was upon him--he needed his violin. Was it there? No. There? No! What was there was just stupid, stupid Molly, oblivious to his need.

"Where's my violin?" he asked her.

She looked up, annoyed by his brusque tone. He always treated her like a servant--like it was her fault he was so disorganized. "Where you left it!" she snapped.

I'm making that up, but that's what it was like--at every freaking line of dialogue, the point-of-view shifted. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was unreadable: I gave up a couple of pages in.

Then I was in a pretty pickle, wasn't I? She's my sister, people, and I love her very much. In addition, we really count on each other--I don't take our harmony lightly.

On the other hand--she asked for an edit, didn't she? In addition, she's a good writer. The script she produced was very good (so, you know, good plot, good dialogue, properly-motivated characters), she's written good stories before, and she clearly was willing to put in the work to extensively revise it. Given all that, would I be doing her any favors if I told her, "This is fine!" when it wasn't?

She knows how I feel about editing, so I very carefully gave it to her straight--this was great, now it's bad, here's why and what you can do to fix it. Please don't hate me.

Later on, she gave me a revised version, but I was just in no hurry to read it. What if it still sucked? Finally, last night I read it--and it's great!

Of course I am proud of my sister--it's not easy to take a harsh edit, and I'm impressed by how she went from not appearing to understand point-of-view at all to really wielding it quite handily.

But I'm even more impressed by how much consciously choosing a point-of-view improves a story. This thing went from just unreadable to a proper story, which is already a big leap. In addition, in some ways the story is better than the script, because by using point-of-view, my sister was able to give the reader insight into the inner lives of characters in a way you really can't with a script.

I should note that one of the keys to her using point-of-view was to let go of some of the dialogue. Think about it: When you're Sherlock, do you even listen to what anyone else says? Half the time, it's just a kind of yapping....

Cutting self slack

If you look on my home page, I've just deleted the dates on the third and fourth novels of the Trang series. I'm still planning on writing them (in fact, I had some great ideas for Trials today during my walk), but having deadlines was freaking me out. Grief is proving to be a hard emotion for me to work with; attaining the level of focus I need to do novel-length writing is tough. Yes, I can crank out blog posts, but kicking out 800 words for a stand-alone piece is an order of magnitude easier than kicking out 800 words as part of a 100,000-word novel.

Another value in free

This is interesting (via PV): Netflix looks at piracy sites to figure out what shows are popular and worth carrying.

Yeah, I love it--I've never BitTorrented anything because it's a hassle. Not shockingly, I subscribe to Netflix. As with Amazon and iTunes, the main value of Netflix is convenience, and I'm happy to pay for that. It's not like BitTorrent doesn't have costs--costs in your time, costs in risks to your computer. If people are downloading from there, they're motivated to get over that hump--they want the work.

And I can completely see doing something similar with books--do a couple of freebie short stories/novellas in different genres or series, and see what catches on before deciding which one to pursue.

My Other Blog

I've decided to start a blog that's just going to be completely self-indulgent--it's called My Other Blog. Partly, this was because I want to have a place to post about things that I can't manage to force into this blog (surprise, surprise, today's post is about Korean rappers). And partly it's because I feel like I have less to say about self-publishing--you know, do it, don't get ripped off, is there anything else? I'll still post about what I'm doing, of course.

Uh, that's work, too

A few days ago I read an oldish article on b-boying (that's breakdancing to ancients like me) in Korea, and it really stuck in my craw, so I thought I'd vent.

This is what bothers me (emphasis added):

At events or clubs in Seoul, Chon regularly spots unknown b-boys taking out experienced pros. “What happens is they practice on the lowdown until they’re up at a level where they can actually come out and shock somebody,” he says. “They practice in the shadow.”

Cho “C4″ Chung-woon of Rivers says through a translator, “We’ve been praised for our technical skills, but that’s because we would practice head spinning all day long. That’s what sets us apart.”

Still, the old “Asian work ethic” explanation is just part of the story. When Koreans first emerged, Americans praised them for their power moves — the highflying crowd-pleasing spins, freezes and gymnastics moves — but criticized the Seoul b-boys for lacking soul. They were thought to be mechanical, unable to rock with the beat, and lacking in “foundation skills,” such as the top-rock and footwork moves that form the historical roots of the dance.

“What the Americans said really influenced them,” says Charlie Shin, Chon’s business partner and a Korean b-boy advocate. “They went back in the lab. It changed them.”

They mastered routines, the choreographed ensemble moves that are essential parts of a showdown. They immersed themselves in the music and the rhythms. They studied the history of b-boying and hip-hop culture. Three members of the Rivers crew — Born, C4 and Red Foot — are now affiliates of Mighty Zulu Kings, a crew whose lineage can be traced back to hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa’s Bronx River Project dances in the early 1970s. Even their crew name, Rivers, was chosen to capture an aspect of the hip-hop aesthetic.

“You know how rivers flow? Rivers flow swiftly, and that’s also how we move and how we think,” C4 says. “B-boys in other countries do it as a hobby, but to the Korean b-boys, our life is b-boying.”

Yeah, wow! It sure sounds like they abandoned that pesky work ethic there!

What really annoys me about this article (even more than the implication that a work ethic is some kind of racial attribute) is the underlying assumption that creative work is not hard work--that talent cannot be learned or improved upon.

I mean, look at what that story says: The b-boys were able to able to become gymnasts by dint of hard labor. But their b-boying lacked soul--that artistic element that separates real dancers from mere athletes.

How did they get soul? Did they and the Americans all drop groovy acid together until the Koreans' consciousness was expanded and soul could enter? Did they sit around and wait for the Muse of Soul to descend?

Um, no. They worked at it. There's not really any difference between what took these b-boys to the level of acrobats and what took them to the level of world-champion dancers.

The fact that the article can say It Wasn't a Work Ethic! while at the same time pointing out how these guys worked day and night to quite successfully obtain soul just demonstrates how deeply ingrained this whole belief is that the Muse just kind of grants higher-level artistic skills upon this or that lucky individual.

That's bullshit. Do you know why I analyze humor? Because I want my books to be funny. Why do I pick apart dialog? Because I want my books to have good dialog.

Why do I re-work and re-work the openings of my book? Why do I go to the trouble of dumping a third of my copy? Why?

Because I want my books to be good. I want them to operate at a high level. I'm not interested in being a hack.

The article is deeply wrong on another level as well: Without good foundation in acrobatics, the Korean b-boys never would have become good dancers. NEVER. What makes b-boying a distinctive form of dance is its heavy reliance on gymnastics--you can't just wave your arms around prettily and become a champion. Likewise, you can't just ignore the "technicalities" of spelling and grammar, because you think your "higher" literary skills are so fucking awesome.

Good writing, like good dancing, gives the audience an impression of effortlessness. It makes it seem like the story was there all along, simply waiting to be told. But if you're the one doing the writing, it takes a hell of a lot of work.

Good limits, bad limits

After thoughtful consideration yesterday, I decided that the best way to deal with my story problems was to have a raging bout of insomnia that would leave me unable to so much as read a book. (Although, granted, my current book is John McPhee's Annals of the Former World. Guys, this may be the lack of sleep talking, or it may be because The New Yorker has so thoroughly adopted his prose style that I feel like I could finish his every sentence, but I am getting to be of the opinion that McPhee is overrated as a writer. At one point he lists a bunch of different geological ages because he thinks the names are kind of cool. I'm looking forward to the page where he just starts listing names out of the phone book--you know, because they're kind of cool. And his stories just never seem to climax. I get the feeling he was probably a pretty boring person.)

Anyway, today I read Kris Rusch's post on how nowadays she can write what she wants, YEAH! Screw publishers and their schedules and their little minds!

And on the one hand, I am delighted that e-books mean that short stories and novellas and little genres can flourish once again, and Rusch certainly brings up some examples of publishers being really arbitrary about stuff.

On the other hand--well, I also read this today. It's about a Web site I happen to enjoy called Eat Your Kimchi, which is by two Canadians living in Korea. Initially they started making videos about life in Korea so that their families could see what was going on with them, but then they started getting traffic from people who were curious about Korea.

And then they started getting traffic from really oversensitive Koreans who HATED them and wanted them deported! Things got extremely unpleasant, especially when they would criticize K-Pop groups, because Korean pop fans are notoriously insane.

The thing is, as awful as it got and as unfair as it certainly was, I've watched a lot of the old videos, and I have to say that their newer ones are much better. Why? It's not the production values (although those have improved), it's the fact that they no longer offer up knee-jerk negative reactions to things that they don't know anything about ("ERMAHGERD, this food has TENTACLES in it!"--uh, you've never had calamari?).

You could say that they've become more careful, but I would argue that they've become more thoughtful--and that's a good thing. It prevents them from falling into the whole Ugly American (Ugly Canadian?) rut, where they just run around shrieking, "ERMAHGERD! Why are things DIFFERENT here? It's like we're in some kind of foreign country or something!"

In addition, when they do get critical (which they still do), they are either very thoughtful about it (like this) or they come up with something hilariously funny. Remember those crazy K-Pop fans? Instead of just bitching about these lunatics who desperately need to get a life, they came up with the immortal character of Fangurilla.

The line between being true to your vision and just being self-indulgent is a fine one, and I think it's harder to draw a lot of times because 1. criticism is never pleasant, and 2. sometimes it is delivered in an entirely malicious and dishonest fashion. But even the worst form of criticism can have some value--at least if you take the right lesson from it.

Progress report

Wrote about 500 words today, plus some editing. I kind of need to figure out what precisely is happening next....

Sorting out a Web audience

So BlockB.com has been chugging along, which has been interesting for me. I've been a firm believer in half-assing my own online marketing, but while this blog serves multiple purposes (and marketing myself isn't really one of them), that Web site was created for the sole purpose of marketing. So stuff like checking Web stats, which is just an amusing diversion on this site, is actually important there.

Originally, when I made the Web site, I had a certain audience in mind: Myself, when I first discovered the group. There were a lot of Web sites catering to obsessed fans, but I wanted to serve people like me: American native-English speakers who didn't know much about Block B and wanted to find out more.

Well, one of the first things I realized was that, duh, the people who go looking for a Web site called BlockB.com already know quite a bit about Block B. What got me hits was adding to the free mixtape songs available on the Music page. It can be kind of a pain to find those songs, so the more of them I put in one place, the more helpful the site was. (And I probably should keep adding songs, but OMFG THERE ARE SO MANY that editing that page is a major hassle.)

The other thing that I've noticed is that I get hits from people all around the world--Asia, Europe, you name it. That's been the cause of some reflection: If I'm writing for native English speakers, I should feel free to use more-sophisticated language (especially because I don't want to reflect poorly on Block B by sounding like an idiot). But if I'm writing for people who speak or read only a little English as a second language, well, then, I should make things easy on them, right?

I haven't changed the language, but what I have done is to list fan sites that translate the group's Korean Tweets into any other language, not just into English. I didn't do that before, because how the hell would I know if someone is doing a good job translating Korean into Chinese or Arabic or Hungarian or whatever? But given who is coming to the Web site and the response to that particular expansion, clearly it's needed.

Some of the cultural stuff isn't going to change--you'll notice that there is absolutely no mention of how handsome/cute/attractive the guys are (except for Jaehyo, because he was pretty much Miss Korea for a while there, and that's a lot to leave off a resume). This is very uncommon when people talk about Korean music, because looks are considered extremely important in that industry. But 1. I'm 43 years old, for Christ's sake, and 2. as the above statement implies, I'm American, and I know that to Americans it's a huge turn-off when people start talking about how musicians look instead of how they sound. "He's soooo cuuuute!" is basically taken to mean, "I'm 14 years old, horny, stupid, or otherwise entirely without critical judgement!" The American market is really big and really worth aiming for, so I'm not going to cater to the teeny-boppers (who have eyes and can decide that a particular young man is soooo dreamy!!! all on their own) because that will alienate everyone else.

Goat humor

The other night, I watched Tere Bin Laden, a Bollywood comedy about Osama Bin Laden (it came out before he was killed) and the war on terror. It was quite funny in the ways I expected--a lot of dark, absurdist political humor--but it was also funny in a way I didn't expect: namely, there was a lot of goat humor.

What do I mean by goat humor? Well, in that movie there's a TV news report on a peace agreement between the Afghan warlords and the American military. The peace is formalized when a delighted Afghan warlord VERY proudly puts a goat he is carrying into the arms of a somewhat-baffled American general.

The movie is full of this sort of thing--one of the major characters is a chicken farmer who has a genuinely touching emotional connection to his prize rooster. It's a riff on modernization--sure, we Bollywood South Asians fly around the world and are modern media junkies, but we're not too far removed from being dirt farmers whose main source of pride is their livestock.

You see something similar in Stephen Chow's movies--he's from Hong Kong, which is an expensive big city and can seem like a very glamorous place. But Chow's characters are almost always comically poor: In one movie he lives in a literal dump; in another, he lives in a stairwell; in a third, his bed is a piece of cheap lawn furniture (and yes, he does wind up having to romance the girl of his dreams there). There's always that idea that if you scratch a sophisticated and urbane Hong Konger, you'll find someone who used to live in a closet with eight other people and knows full well how to kill a chicken. 

It's interesting to me because it's a type of humor that is largely absent from American comedy nowadays--but that didn't used to be the case. Shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, characters like Ma and Pa Kettle, all of that rube humor dates from a time when urbanization and modernization weren't simply big words but actual experiences in many American lives. Now we're so past it that we think of rural poverty as a Serious Social Problem rather than as the way we used to live--and the way our grandparents, embarrassingly, pretty much still do.

I guess the modern American equivalent are comedies about celebrities and slacker comedies: We might seem glamorous and perfect, but really all we do is sit around on our couches, smoking weed and eating Doritos.