Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 60

Outlining, Part 2

Back in August of 2013 I discussed my new outlining approach in depth. At the time I wasn’t sure how useful I’d find it in the long run, but it seemed to be working very well. Here’s the whole article if you want a quick refresher, because it’s turned out to work even better than I might have hoped.

What it boils down to is two main points.

1. Draft a super detailed outline that may range into the tens of thousands of words for the book.

2. Once that’s in hand, begin your drafting almost like a loose play, sort of a “stagey outline.” It includes snatches of dialogue, bits of scenery description, and notes to yourself about when some element or creature or piece of information was introduced.

I’ve used that method now for Stalking the Beast and for the first novel of my new epic sword-and-sorcery series, and now I’m using it for my third Pathfinder novel… and by God, it works. It works so well that by a second read pass most of the adjustments I have to make are small ones.

Moreover, my daily rough draft word count has pretty much doubled. It’s not just that this new method works so well for me that I’m backtracking less and writing fewer scenes that I end up scrapping, it’s that I’m now routinely drafting over 4k a day. (Well, on days when the kids aren’t snowed out of school, or have two hour delays, or things like that.) Sure, it’s rough, but as my friend E.E. Knight says, give yourself permission to write badly on that rough draft. The next two passes are for making it pretty, and clear.

And something I’ve taken from a conversation with Scott Lynch about the way he works is to feel free to bounce all over the narrative. Once I have some of the parts down, I might go back and polish, say, chapter 2 a little more, then work on rough drafting chapter 15, then work on a related character arc back in chapter 13. Because I’m no longer tied to making it all get smooth in the proper order or being anal retentive about trying to make it all work perfectly the first time through, the work is getting stronger, faster.

I’m not fool enough to believe that this is all happening because I’ve finally found the perfect system. I’m not tearing out my hair and saying “Why, oh why didn’t I figure this out before?”  I know a lot of the reason this works NOW is because I’ve finally got my feet under me and know some instinctive things about pacing and plotting and how many characters are required for a scene and when conflict is necessary and a whole bunch of other stuff. I’ve  written enough long works that some of the process is getting instinctive. My guess is that it wouldn’t have worked as well for me in the past.

As I wrote the last time I discussed outlining,  dialogue always comes fairly easily for me, and dialogue is the lynch pin of this method. If the dialogue isn’t sounding right as I’m doing the “stagey outline” then I just keep massaging it until it does, without having to worry about having wasted tons of effort on description I won’t need anymore.

I should also say, though, that this method wouldn’t work if I didn’t know who my characters were. Because these characters are like a second skin to me the conversations flow fairly easily.

Your own mileage with this system may vary, depending upon your own strengths (I’m not sure how well it would work for someone who struggles with dialogue), but I offer it up in the hopes you’ll find something useful from my own experience.

My Love of Cosmos

I don’t know that I’ve been so excited about the premiere of a television show since I was a teenager waiting to see the first episode of a new Star Trek. I had such high hopes for The Next Generation… I know it has its adherents, many among them close friends who tell me that if I just watched to maybe the third, or possibly fourth, season, I’d find great stuff. But when The Next Generation premiered all I knew was that I was seeing a level of quality, script wise, that measured up to the dreadful third season of the original. You know, the season with the space hippies and the men who were half white/half black (but on opposite sides).

I digress. Get me on Star Trek, and I’ll always digress. My point is, I’m really looking forward to the debut of Cosmos. I mean really looking forward, as in approaching teenaged fanboy excitement levels.

I was twelve when the first one premiered, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it, before or since. Stunning imagery. The music of Vangelis and selections from the best work of the greatest classical composers. Brilliant re-enactments, flights of fact and fancy based on fact — like a walk through the Library of Alexandria, or the image of a spaceship the ancient Greeks might have constructed had their scientific progress never halted… stunning stuff, all delivered by the brilliant Carl Sagan with sonorous prose poetry. We loved him for his daring to hope, and his daring to face us with the truth, and part of the reason folk poked fun at his intonation and exuberance was because they were envious of his soaring language and delivery and, I think, his optimism (one tempered with caution).

Even though my wife and I never met the man, we both miss him — his eloquence, his directness, his brilliance. He was one of the finest public science figures we have ever had, and helped ignite a generation of imaginations. I would like to have met him. I can remember talking with my wife some years ago after we’d introduced our own children to Cosmos, and we agreed that if anyone were to re-host Cosmos, the only scientist alive today who could pull it off would be Neil deGrasse Tyson.

And lo, it has come to pass, and through curious means all of you who’re into this kind of thing already know. Seth McFarlane. Fox. National Geographic Channel. Carl Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, who wrote the original series with Sagan and Steven Soter, who, according to some reports, is also involved. Wikipedia actually seems to have the most succinct and accurate lowdown, here.

I might write historical fiction and fantasy, but I grew up on Star Trek, which led me straight into Cosmos. Back then, in between dreaming of being a writer or a rock star or a starship captain I sometimes thought  I might one day be a scientist. Sagan had an amazing ability to speak directly to you, personally, even as he was speaking to billions of us. And he spoke movingly and powerfully about humanity and the universe, our past and our present and our possible futures. To this day there are moments of Cosmos that bring a tear to my eye.

Perhaps I am hoping for too much from the new Cosmos. After all, it’s hard to go home again, to rekindle that wonder. But perhaps, in these hands, I will experience it once more. I hope some of you will be watching it with me. In case you’ve somehow missed it, here’s the trailer.

Day of Discovery

As most of my regular visitors probably know, I released an e-book that collected many of my Dabir and Asim stories a couple of years ago. E-books don’t generally receive the same level of interest, promotion, or reviews as printed books (unless lightning strikes) so I was surprised and pleased when I discovered a new review of The Waters of Eternity had gone up over at Dear Author.

I’ve been hard at work on other books and other tales, but Dabir and Asim are near and dear to my heart, as you could probably guess. It’s been a real pleasure to see a new story about them become available in Kaiju Rising, and between that and this new review (and the fact that I’m often thinking about their further adventures even while in the midst of some other writing), I was inspired to dig through my Dabir and Asim folder this morning and look at a few odds and ends.

About a year and a half ago I’d written a  Dabir and Asim story and then promptly shelved it, thinking it terrible. I opened “The Black Lion” for the first time since and discovered that, while rough, it wasn’t terrible at all. I had recalled thinking the tale was too predictable but when I neared the end it twisted in a way I myself hadn’t remembered. It was a pleasant discovery.

I think most authors end up with odds and ends and even finished stories that don’t quite work. You have only to look through the Robert E. Howard Del Rey collections to unearth any number of unfinished tales or stories that never found a market in his lifetime, a handful of which are quite promising. With most, though, you can see why they were abandoned. Something wasn’t working, or the narrative petered out, or the characters weren’t coming to life.

I’d thought “The Black Lion” was like that, or that it was like “The Dream Horn,” another Dabir and Asim tale that almost went to print… and one I’m pleased hasn’t been seen by many eyes. I’m not quite sure how to fix its multiple flaws, or those of  another early Dabir and Asim outing, “An Audience with the King,” which is just plain goofy.

But “The Black Lion” might be pretty spiffy once I polish it up, and between that and a shorter story with Asim but not Dabir I think I have the beginnings of a new collection. I may not have one ready every year as I had once hoped, but perhaps every few years. Or maybe, with my newly improved writing super powers, it will happen sooner. In any case, it was a pleasant discovery.

Speaking of pleasant discoveries, I just read the second tale in an e-collection by  Richard Lee Byers titled The Plague Knight and Other Tales. The first,  ”The Plague Knight” was a wonderful adventure tale set in the real world in the times of questing knights. There was a great deal of realistic detail, but magic lurked at the world’s edges. Pacing, action, character arcs — all marvelous. This morning I read the second story featuring the same knight, and danged if he didn’t end up joining forces with a certain famed albino swordsman. It was another great rollicking read with plenty of action, good character development, and loads of surprises. I’m wondering now why I hadn’t ever read the work of Richard Lee Byers. Don’t wait as long as I did — go check it out.

Oh, and please don’t forget to look at the Crossing the Streams contest, where you can win the chance to win books from scads of authors!

Link Day

Copyright Darian Jones

I’m hard at work on several not-so-secret writing things, so I will use today to simply point you to some other cool stuff on the Internet.

Fellow original Star Trek fans should see what Alex Bledsoe has to say after re-watching the first season.

Fellow writers ought to see some words of wisdom the aforementioned Alex has about writing action scenes.

Lastly, I have just placed an order for a book written by an old friend, Marta Pelrine-Bacon. I can hardly wait to see what she’s concocted!

 

Welcome

Judging by the numbers, I’m getting a big influx of new visitors here. My blog’s been running for a number of years at this point, and it might be a challenge to get the lay of the land without a whole lot of poking around. Even frequent visitors might not have dug deep enough to find some of my favorite posts.

That’s why I thought I’d take most of today’s post space to show you around.

My writer friend Paul Kemp recently put up a post on his own site defining sword-and-sorcery, which you should definitely go read (along with the comments section). It put me in mind of one of my own favorite posts on this site, located here, which is my  take on what makes a story sword-and-sorcery rather than other sorts of fantasy.

Here’s one of my favorite posts on a great non-fiction text better than many a fantasy novel, an ancient Arabian Memoir.

I spent years getting Harold Lamb’s great historical fiction into print, and I think everyone who loves a great fantasy adventure should try him out. Here’s why.

This particular post, about The War of Art and a prayer to the muses, seems especially popular.

Here’s two posts showing most of my work space (part 1 and part 2).

Yesterday I talked about how much I love the work of Fritz Leiber, and I’ve already included a link, above, about why I love the work of Harold Lamb. Here’s why I love the fiction of Roger Zelazny, and Leigh Brackett. I’d think it was a given that I loved the work of Robert E. Howard, but here’s several posts on him as well. (Under the Hood with Robert E. Howard, Howard and the Role of Women, the perfect Robert E. Howard collection.)

While researching the historicals of Harold Lamb I read somewhat widely amongst other old pulps, and found some treasures, which I talk about here and here.

You want something completely different? One of the ways I kept sane through grad school was by reading the jungle tales of Ki-Gor from the old pulp Jungle Stories. Here’s why.

I’ve spent years reading and re-reading fantasy and speculative fiction and have only come recently to an appreciation of some other genres. For instance, I’ve been reading a lot of noir lately, as I discuss here, here, here… and lots of other places, really.

Before my friend Chris Hocking got me reading noir, though, he pointed me towards the westerns of Ben Haas. Westerns, I asked? Why would I want to read a western? Hah! Because Ben Haas was a master writer. And here’s where to find them more easily than I ever did.

If you’re a writer, I’m pretty honest about my own struggles with the craft and how I work to overcome them. Mixed in with news about what I’m working on are a whole lot of essays about various tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years. Here’s a page link to all my posts that had something to do with the art of writing. Or the struggle of writing, or… you get the picture.

Finally, something new. I’ve started work on my next Paizo Pathfinder book, which is set in the tropical lands of Sargava. One of the things I do before I sit down to draft a Pathfinder novel is  read a couple of Ben Haas adventure or western novels so I can really absorb some of that clean, lean, hard driving prose and pace. This time I decided to re-read  Panama Gold.

Panama Gold  happens to be the first of Haas’s (writing as John Benteen) books I ever read, and I recall now why I didn’t understand how fine it was on first blush. Genre conventions. In each of these books Fargo has to be introduced to the reader, who was assumed to have picked up this book from a book rack in the 1970s. And the publisher seemed to think it necessary that the character’s background had to be established so that we understand exactly what kind of hero we’re dealing with. Thus, the first chapter is a little stagey, as are parts of the second, as Fargo talks about his past and carefully checks over his weapons. In Panama Gold he happens to be talking to Teddy Roosevelt, which ups the cool factor by an untold number of degrees, but it’s still clearly an info dump.

After that, though, it’s pretty much a non-stop thrill ride. What I didn’t get until I read more of Haas (Benteen) was just how exceptionally good he was at bringing the adventure every single time, varying the formula even as he dependably handed over the climactic battles and the beautiful dames and the dangerous villains. Haas wrote how most adventure writers wished they could when they grew up. But a reader DOES have to adjust to genre conventions. Some of the info dumps about “this is my past” are more skillful than others, but the paragraphs where he looks over his weapons get a little tiresome, especially if you read a couple Fargos in a row.

 

 

 

Fafhrd in the Mail

It’s been a busy, productive week, with some nice surprises.

First, I wanted to point everyone to the new contest on my site to win a free copy of one of my books, and, potentially, a free copy of books by many other authors. Go take a look!

Next, I wanted to share a surprise that appeared in my mail the other day. I think I mentioned that I have been greedily reading through a long list of hardboiled fiction recommended by my friend John Chris Hocking. I sold off a parcel of comics and books via e-bay and my friend Wayne of Wayne’s Books to fund my hard boiled exploration. (A lot of this stuff can’t be found in libraries, and has been out of print since the ’40s or ’50s. It’s hard to come by except through used book sites like AddAll).

So I wasn’t startled Tuesday when I had packages in the mail. I opened each one, eager to see what lay lie within, and lo and behold, out of the blue Scott Lynch had sent me a stack of DC Fafhrd and  Gray Mouser comics. For those of you not in the know, DC had a brief run of these in the early ’70s. Being the huge Lankhmar fan that I am, I have been curious about them for ages, but never thought to see one, much less hold or own one. Now, thanks to Scott’s generous gift, I’ve got almost the whole series. Have I mentioned he’s just a cool cat and one of my favorite people?

Comic fans might immediately wonder if I’m aware of the excellent Mike Mignola Lankhmar adaptions from the ’90s, and I very much am. I have them in several editions. But I never had these, which came out when I was five. These are different beasts, with art by Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson, and Jim Starlin.

I suppose it’s possible you’re reading my work and have NO idea who Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are, so I’ll say what I tell everyone new to the pair. It’s some of the finest sword-and-sorcery ever written. It (mostly) consists of short stories that are more-or-less standalone, although some do follow in sequence. Opinions vary, but to my mind the best run comes from earlier in Fritz Leiber’s career, and that makes things confusing, for Leiber wrote stories that were chronologically earlier for his characters when he himself was chronologically older. So to speak. Anyone trying to read the stories “in order” is going to find the style uneven.

The first sword and sorcery paperback I ever read.

Here, then, is my list of  favorite Fritz Leiber Lankhmar tales:

The collection that got me hooked was Swords Against Death, and I still think it’s the most consistently entertaining of all the volumes. In case you have a later compilation, all the stories but the first in the book (“The Circle Curse”) are on my best list:

“The Jewels in the Forest” (novelette 1939  Unknown , as “Two Sought Adventure”)
“Thieves’ House” (novelette 1943 Unknown)
“The Bleak Shore” (1940 Unknown)
“The Howling Tower” (1941 Unknown)
“The Sunken Land” (1942 Unknown)
“The Seven Black Priests” (novelette 1953 Other Worlds)
“Claws from the Night” (novelette 1951 Suspense as “Dark Vengeance”)
“The Price of Pain-Ease” (1970, first publication)
“Bazaar of the Bizarre” (novelette 1963 Fantastic)

Swords in the Mist has a pretty good ratio as well. “Adept’s Gambit” always felt a little patched together and hasty to me, but I liked all of these:

“The Cloud of Hate” (1963 Fantastic)
“Lean Times in Lankhmar” (novelette 1959 Fantastic)
“When the Sea-King’s Away” (novelette 1960 Fantastic)

Swords Against Wizardry is pretty strong. There’s two, short throw away tales, but it’s anchored by two long novellas:

 ”Star Dock”
“The Lords of Quarmall”

Finally, the novel The Swords of Lankhmar is a rollicking good time, even if it reads more like two tightly connected novellas than a true novel. Who am I to quibble? I liked it very much.

There endeth  everything that I revisit as far as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. True fans might be aghast that I don’t mention the award winning  ”Ill Met in Lankhmar.” It has its moments, but it’s the only story in all of Swords Against Deviltry that I  truly enjoy. Unfortunately, Swords Against Deviltry is usually the first collection people  encounter, as it contains the earliest adventures featuring either Fafhrd or the Mouser. I’ve known many people who’ve stopped there, thinking the stories within are an indication of quality for the rest of the series. It isn’t so!

Right. Well, I’m going to go be productive. Or maybe I’ll settle back and read the first issue of Sword of Sorcery and see what’s going to befall Fafhrd and the Mouser!

Thanks again, Scott! Oh — and if you’re not reading the brilliant, swashbuckling work of Scott Lynch, get thee to a bookstore and pick up Lies of Locke Lamora, or his latest, The Republic of Thieves!

Fargo Returns

Or, at least, continues to receive some of the attention he deserves courtesy of a new line of e-reprints. A new review went live the other day at The Post Modern Pulp Blog (maintained by the talented Jack Badelaire, who uses his film degree about as well as I use mine).

I’ve talked about Fargo several times on my own blog, probably most prominently in this post, if you want the lowdown on why I hold the character in such high regard. But if you don’t have time for a long essay or for link hopping, I’ll give you the summary. Ben Haas, writing as John Benteen, created a men’s adventure series in the ’70s about a globe-trotting mercenary, earning his trade in the days before the Great War. It’s high octane, lean and muscular, and packs more power than you’d think formula fiction ever capable of. And it IS formula, but as my friend Chris Hocking says re: Haas,  there’s cheeseburgers, and then there’s cheeseburgers whipped up by a master chef.

Haas was a brilliant writer, and anyone who likes adventure stories needs to check him out and see how it’s done. The more you read of him, the more you’ll be astonished by how often he still manages to pull surprises, power, and even pathos out of very similar situations.

I’ll put it another way — until I got introduced to Haas, I never read a western in my life. I was strictly an (ancient) historical fiction guy, or a fantasy guy, or a science fiction guy. But Haas was so good it blew my notions of genre convention wide open. He’s now one of my very favorite writers, up there with Leigh Brackett, Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and all the other suspects you’ve heard me gas on about.

Seriously, check him out. Here’s the Amazon page with a number of his (cheap!) books available on Kindle. You’ll note that some are Sundance titles, which are also excellent.

Kaiju, Dabir and Asim

The anthology Kaiju Rising is now available as an e-book (for $4.99), with physical copies to be made available soon. It’s chock full of stories about giant monsters drafted by some talented writers, many of whom are my friends. But even if you’re not typically interested in giant monsters, this anthology features the newest Dabir and Asim story, “The Serpent’s Heart.” I hope you’ll try it out, and spread the word!

Here on the home front I’m putting the finishing touches on the rough draft of part IV of my big fantasy book, the one I’ve been referring to as the Hearthstones novel, although I’ve got a better title picked out. With a little luck I should have the final scene of part IV fleshed out today and then I’ll give it a polish.

I’ve continued to write this book in a different way than I’ve written any before it, but then it’s a different sort of book, and far longer, than anything else I’ve ever written. It may turn out to be 160 thousand words by the time I’m through.

I’ve never written a book out of order like this before, but of the 7 parts, 1 and 7 were the first that were completely drafted. Then came part 2 and 3, then part 5, and now part 4. Part 6 is the only one that still mostly has just the framework in place. It reads  sort of like the summary of a stage play, although some of the scenes are already scripted. It’s the shortest section, apart from part 7, and I think I should be able to finish it up and polish the whole thing while I’m working on my next two Pathfinder novels.

 

 

Link Day!

While I am proud to have earned a black belt in karate, my first real schooling in manly fight moves came from Captain James T. Kirk. Most of his best are cataloged here. Get thee over there and soak up some storied wisdom.

Have you heard about Viking sunstones, and how they might have been used to navigate across vast distances even when the sun wasn’t visible? Well, I hadn’t. Check out this cool link.

Notwithstanding that a fox broke into our hen house a couple of years ago and killed almost two dozen chickens, I still think this fox video is adorable.

Primeval Thule

I haven’t signed up for as many kickstarters in the last few months, primarily because I haven’t had any big book checks in the last few months. (That’s the nature of publishing — feast or famine, usually with emphasis on the latter.) But one of the ones I DID sign on for was Primeval Thule, and I drop by the web site every now and then to see how it’s coming along.

It sounds like exactly the kind of campaign world I’d want to set a game in or write a story about. This morning I visited the work-in-progress to see if there were any new updates and discovered the tentative TOC. Check out the titles of the city’s alone, which just breathes of evocative world building: “Kal-Zinan, City of the Iron Gate” or “Lands of the Long Shadow.” That’s the stuff. I’m really looking forward to this one.

There’s likely to be some radio silence here as I bear down and get some serious writing done. I’m making huge strides in my word count every day, but not as much as I’d be making without this winter weather. When there are two hour school delays (or early pick-up) it means my kids both have to be dropped off (an hour apart, due to different drop-off times) and a later start to the work day, dang it. Tomorrow the weather should be clear, but I’m having some workmen come and manage some repairs that are a little too specialized for me to take a crack at.