Austin Scott Collins's Blog: Upside-down, Inside-out, and Backwards, page 2
April 23, 2018
Being a Novelist Sometimes Means Doing Things for No Apparent Reason
Kurt Vonnegut famously pointed out that literature should not disappear up its own asshole. Writers shouldn’t just write about being writers, which means sometimes they need to get out there and actually do stuff. To create compelling fiction and vivid prose, one must seek out authentic life experiences. Although the occasional sequester is sometimes necessary to meet a deadline, one must not retreat into permanent isolation, hunched over a keyboard, slowly disconnecting from the world, spilling out words in a torrent of unraveling sanity.
Using that justification, I recently embarked on an adventure that had no particular point other than doing something random enough to be appealing and challenging enough to be interesting: I took nine and a half days and rode my motorcycle from one end of U.S. Route 19 to the other, across 1,400 miles and seven states. I deliberately sought out unusual places to stay along the way. It was not a high season for travel, nor was I going to popular tourist destinations. In fact, every single night of the trip, at every single place I stayed—with the exception of one night at a popular motorcycle-only road house—I was the only paying guest.
This was not the biggest trip I’ve done, either in terms of days, mileage, or number of states, but it was still a moderately ambitious endeavor that I had been arranging and strategizing since last November. So when I woke up on the morning of leg four and saw that the forecast was for snow and ice all along my intended path for the day, I was deeply demoralized.
My gear is comfortable down into the 50s for a few hours in dry, sunny conditions. It’s adequate down into the 40s in damp, misty weather. But on this day it was raining, with intermittent snow flurries and temperatures hovering in the high 30s. I had about seven or eight hours of riding ahead of me. I was only about halfway through this trip that I had planned and looked forward to for so long, and now I was facing the heartbreaking possibility of seeing it all fall apart. At a moment like that, you have to ask yourself some tough questions. I decided to go for it. I’ll see how it goes, I told myself, and if I’m too miserable, too tired, or too cold, or if the road conditions get too hazardous, I’ll give up, find a place to stop, and abandon the rest of the journey.
So I rallied my nerve and embarked. And even though there were periods during which I seriously doubted that I would, I made it.
In retrospect, it is difficult not to see the whole undertaking as a fitting allegory for writing a book . . .
1. You have to
Just.
Keep.
Going.
When you are two or three hours into a cold, wet ride, the prospect of another four or five hours of the same punishment seems like too much to face. The urge to give up becomes overwhelming. But no—one more sentence, one more paragraph, one more chapter.
2. It is supremely solitary. No one can ride those miles for you. You are trapped inside your own head, locked in combat with the road (or the manuscript) in front of you. It’s an emotional battle against that voice telling you to quit. “No one is forcing you to do this,” the voice reminds you. “Why are you punishing yourself? No one will care if you ever finish or not.”
3. There is not much of a well-defined support system. Trying to write a book, especially an unusual book, is like being the one motorcyclist on a snowy highway filled with cars and trucks. People look at you like you’re insane. And they’re not wrong.
4. Life isn’t fair. And that’s encouraging. Sometimes, you spend weeks and months planning and working towards a goal, only to have it nearly torpedoed by factors absolutely beyond your control. Why is that encouraging? Two reasons. First, you made it, didn’t you? And second, since the universe is obviously meaningless and indifferent, it’s just as likely that the Law of Averages will dump some marvelous undeserved success in your lap one day.
5. The rewards of the destination are worth the temporary pain and suffering that got you there. The final goal fills you with such pride, with such a transcendent, soul-inflating sense of accomplishment, that the agony along the way is soon forgotten. And that’s why there will always be another book . . . and another ride.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Worms Uncanned
Using that justification, I recently embarked on an adventure that had no particular point other than doing something random enough to be appealing and challenging enough to be interesting: I took nine and a half days and rode my motorcycle from one end of U.S. Route 19 to the other, across 1,400 miles and seven states. I deliberately sought out unusual places to stay along the way. It was not a high season for travel, nor was I going to popular tourist destinations. In fact, every single night of the trip, at every single place I stayed—with the exception of one night at a popular motorcycle-only road house—I was the only paying guest.
This was not the biggest trip I’ve done, either in terms of days, mileage, or number of states, but it was still a moderately ambitious endeavor that I had been arranging and strategizing since last November. So when I woke up on the morning of leg four and saw that the forecast was for snow and ice all along my intended path for the day, I was deeply demoralized.
My gear is comfortable down into the 50s for a few hours in dry, sunny conditions. It’s adequate down into the 40s in damp, misty weather. But on this day it was raining, with intermittent snow flurries and temperatures hovering in the high 30s. I had about seven or eight hours of riding ahead of me. I was only about halfway through this trip that I had planned and looked forward to for so long, and now I was facing the heartbreaking possibility of seeing it all fall apart. At a moment like that, you have to ask yourself some tough questions. I decided to go for it. I’ll see how it goes, I told myself, and if I’m too miserable, too tired, or too cold, or if the road conditions get too hazardous, I’ll give up, find a place to stop, and abandon the rest of the journey.
So I rallied my nerve and embarked. And even though there were periods during which I seriously doubted that I would, I made it.
In retrospect, it is difficult not to see the whole undertaking as a fitting allegory for writing a book . . .
1. You have to
Just.
Keep.
Going.
When you are two or three hours into a cold, wet ride, the prospect of another four or five hours of the same punishment seems like too much to face. The urge to give up becomes overwhelming. But no—one more sentence, one more paragraph, one more chapter.
2. It is supremely solitary. No one can ride those miles for you. You are trapped inside your own head, locked in combat with the road (or the manuscript) in front of you. It’s an emotional battle against that voice telling you to quit. “No one is forcing you to do this,” the voice reminds you. “Why are you punishing yourself? No one will care if you ever finish or not.”
3. There is not much of a well-defined support system. Trying to write a book, especially an unusual book, is like being the one motorcyclist on a snowy highway filled with cars and trucks. People look at you like you’re insane. And they’re not wrong.
4. Life isn’t fair. And that’s encouraging. Sometimes, you spend weeks and months planning and working towards a goal, only to have it nearly torpedoed by factors absolutely beyond your control. Why is that encouraging? Two reasons. First, you made it, didn’t you? And second, since the universe is obviously meaningless and indifferent, it’s just as likely that the Law of Averages will dump some marvelous undeserved success in your lap one day.
5. The rewards of the destination are worth the temporary pain and suffering that got you there. The final goal fills you with such pride, with such a transcendent, soul-inflating sense of accomplishment, that the agony along the way is soon forgotten. And that’s why there will always be another book . . . and another ride.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Worms Uncanned
February 18, 2018
Looking Back and Cringing
Strap yourselves in, because this blog is going to wander a bit.
I never had “The College Experience,” and for a long time I was pretty resentful about that. But now I have a different perspective.
Sure, I went to college—three of them, actually—and after changing majors a few times I did eventually get a degree. (They gave me one if I promised to leave.) But I never had the kinds of adventures that all those 80s movies I grew up watching had led me to believe I would have.
There were two major things I felt like I was missing out on. First, I wanted to have the academic and intellectual immersion that I had been hoping for and wishing for throughout my public (and briefly private) elementary, middle, and high school days. I wanted to go to a place where knowledge was prized, where learning was cherished, where people went not to get trained to do a job and be “productive”—which of course is capitalist code for being a useful revenue-generating tool of the plutocracy, trading your time for a few bucks as a worker and then trading your money for frivolous material things as a consumer, all for the sake of funneling wealth upwards to the ruling class—no, not just that. To become wise, informed, enlightened citizens; that was the goal. I wanted to go to a place where people stayed up late talking about writing and philosophy. Well, long story short, it didn’t happen. It turned out to be less of a goal and more of a fantasy.
The second thing I was looking forward to was the party scene. Having spent my childhood and early adolescence watching HBO and Cinemax, I was expecting college to be a non-stop riot of naughty, bawdy fun. I did not find this to be the case. For one thing, I never drank in college. (I didn’t start drinking until I was almost 30.) So a lot of the binge culture sort of failed to connect. Also, I had no friends. (That’s not exactly true, but if you round to the nearest ten, I had no friends. If you round to the nearest five, I had five, but just barely.)
Looking back, I’m really glad I wasn’t a part of that world, because now I understand that what I was seeing in those cheesy movies wasn’t harmless fun, it was misogynistic violence. Breaking into sorority houses to steal underwear? Spying on women in the shower? Secretly filming sexual encounters? Tricking women into having sex through elaborate plots involving mistaken identity? Using water-soluble material to leave women naked in the ocean? Those are not harmless youthful high jinks, that’s criminal behavior. The fact that Hollywood normalized it is horrifying in retrospect.
Sexual discrimination and assault stand out as persistent recurring themes in the Victoria da Vinci series. The main characters are accosted, molested, threatened, harrassed, terrorized, and marginalized in a multitude of ways that any modern-day female reader would find familiar and plausible. (Not much has changed.)
Indeed, being unfairly pushed out of the scientific community came to be the central, defining struggle of Victoria’s life. The unwillingness of male academics to accept her and take her seriously forced her down the path of secrecy and subterfuge.
In 2010, when I first started working on this story, long before it began to expand into a full-length novel and then eventually into three novels, I did not know that when I finished the trilogy at the end of 2017 there would be such a watershed moment happening. It was the year of rising awareness, with #MeToo trending and a group of “Silence Breakers” on the cover of Time magazine — a term I don’t actually care for, since there was never any real silence. Women have been screaming about this problem publicly for decades, and men have been downplaying and dismissing it.
Now that I’m an adult, I have on numerous occasions gone to parties where things do sometimes get quite out of hand (in a good way), and plenty of crazy stuff happens. But there is an important difference: empowered consent . The key word is “empowered.” In a situation where the dynamic is wildly lopsided, sex is always problematic, even when it is technically consensual. It is questionable whether a woman can truly consent to sex when she is under arrest and a police officer is propositioning her. It is questionable whether a woman can truly consent to sex when she is a low-level employee who desperately needs her job and a senior executive is propositioning her.
I am in no way anti-sex. To be clear, I am pro-sex. I am super-pro. But not without stipulations. When a young woman gets naked and/or performs a sex act in a swimming pool at a party at her friend’s house, for example, and it’s not because she particularly wants to but mostly because she is afraid that she will be rejected or ridiculed by her peers unless she does it, that is absolutely not cool. It’s just another form of subjugation; in that scenario she is being involuntarily commodified, and she is likely to deeply internalize that for a long time. If she does it when she’s 47 and married and her partner is standing nearby holding a beer and enjoying the show, on the other hand, it’s not only cool, it’s awesome. She’s having a good time for her own reasons and in her own way, not because she feels obligated but because she freely, willingly chooses to do it and thinks it’s fun. Nobody is pressuring anybody to do anything. Everybody is having a good time. Even more importantly, if another woman at the same party chooses not to do that, it’s also fine and no one is judging her for it.
To summarize: it’s OK to regard a woman as a sex object under two—and only two—circumstances:
(1) when she is in a position that enables her to grant empowered consent;
(2) when she makes it abundantly, enthusiastically clear that she wants to be regarded as a sex object . . . right now. It doesn’t mean it will be OK tomorrow. Or even ten minutes from now. This is a moment.
The VdV series is about burlesque dancers, so I'll use that as an example, When she is up on stage dancing for you, by all means, go ahead and look at her. (And don’t forget to tip her.) Hoot, clap, and whistle. She wants you to. But understand that it's her job. And once she's standing outside in the parking lot in her civilian attire waiting for her Uber, it is no longer all right to lurk in close proximity, ogling and leering. That will rightly make her feel nervous and uncomfortable. To summarize: on stage during the show=OK. Parking lot after the show=not OK. It's really not a difficult concept.
I do not blame cable TV for my college social failings—just for the false expectations. I was never a very outgoing or extraverted kind of guy. I was always socially inept. Not shy, just incompetent. I don’t lack confidence, I have just always lacked the ability to interact with other human beings in any normal way. (I have come to know that this is called “being a writer.”)
These days, I’m still socially inept, but now the Internet exists. So I can surround myself with other interesting people who are also mostly socially inept, and it’s all good. (Hi, everybody!)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Worms Uncanned
I never had “The College Experience,” and for a long time I was pretty resentful about that. But now I have a different perspective.
Sure, I went to college—three of them, actually—and after changing majors a few times I did eventually get a degree. (They gave me one if I promised to leave.) But I never had the kinds of adventures that all those 80s movies I grew up watching had led me to believe I would have.
There were two major things I felt like I was missing out on. First, I wanted to have the academic and intellectual immersion that I had been hoping for and wishing for throughout my public (and briefly private) elementary, middle, and high school days. I wanted to go to a place where knowledge was prized, where learning was cherished, where people went not to get trained to do a job and be “productive”—which of course is capitalist code for being a useful revenue-generating tool of the plutocracy, trading your time for a few bucks as a worker and then trading your money for frivolous material things as a consumer, all for the sake of funneling wealth upwards to the ruling class—no, not just that. To become wise, informed, enlightened citizens; that was the goal. I wanted to go to a place where people stayed up late talking about writing and philosophy. Well, long story short, it didn’t happen. It turned out to be less of a goal and more of a fantasy.
The second thing I was looking forward to was the party scene. Having spent my childhood and early adolescence watching HBO and Cinemax, I was expecting college to be a non-stop riot of naughty, bawdy fun. I did not find this to be the case. For one thing, I never drank in college. (I didn’t start drinking until I was almost 30.) So a lot of the binge culture sort of failed to connect. Also, I had no friends. (That’s not exactly true, but if you round to the nearest ten, I had no friends. If you round to the nearest five, I had five, but just barely.)
Looking back, I’m really glad I wasn’t a part of that world, because now I understand that what I was seeing in those cheesy movies wasn’t harmless fun, it was misogynistic violence. Breaking into sorority houses to steal underwear? Spying on women in the shower? Secretly filming sexual encounters? Tricking women into having sex through elaborate plots involving mistaken identity? Using water-soluble material to leave women naked in the ocean? Those are not harmless youthful high jinks, that’s criminal behavior. The fact that Hollywood normalized it is horrifying in retrospect.
Sexual discrimination and assault stand out as persistent recurring themes in the Victoria da Vinci series. The main characters are accosted, molested, threatened, harrassed, terrorized, and marginalized in a multitude of ways that any modern-day female reader would find familiar and plausible. (Not much has changed.)
Indeed, being unfairly pushed out of the scientific community came to be the central, defining struggle of Victoria’s life. The unwillingness of male academics to accept her and take her seriously forced her down the path of secrecy and subterfuge.
In 2010, when I first started working on this story, long before it began to expand into a full-length novel and then eventually into three novels, I did not know that when I finished the trilogy at the end of 2017 there would be such a watershed moment happening. It was the year of rising awareness, with #MeToo trending and a group of “Silence Breakers” on the cover of Time magazine — a term I don’t actually care for, since there was never any real silence. Women have been screaming about this problem publicly for decades, and men have been downplaying and dismissing it.
Now that I’m an adult, I have on numerous occasions gone to parties where things do sometimes get quite out of hand (in a good way), and plenty of crazy stuff happens. But there is an important difference: empowered consent . The key word is “empowered.” In a situation where the dynamic is wildly lopsided, sex is always problematic, even when it is technically consensual. It is questionable whether a woman can truly consent to sex when she is under arrest and a police officer is propositioning her. It is questionable whether a woman can truly consent to sex when she is a low-level employee who desperately needs her job and a senior executive is propositioning her.
I am in no way anti-sex. To be clear, I am pro-sex. I am super-pro. But not without stipulations. When a young woman gets naked and/or performs a sex act in a swimming pool at a party at her friend’s house, for example, and it’s not because she particularly wants to but mostly because she is afraid that she will be rejected or ridiculed by her peers unless she does it, that is absolutely not cool. It’s just another form of subjugation; in that scenario she is being involuntarily commodified, and she is likely to deeply internalize that for a long time. If she does it when she’s 47 and married and her partner is standing nearby holding a beer and enjoying the show, on the other hand, it’s not only cool, it’s awesome. She’s having a good time for her own reasons and in her own way, not because she feels obligated but because she freely, willingly chooses to do it and thinks it’s fun. Nobody is pressuring anybody to do anything. Everybody is having a good time. Even more importantly, if another woman at the same party chooses not to do that, it’s also fine and no one is judging her for it.
To summarize: it’s OK to regard a woman as a sex object under two—and only two—circumstances:
(1) when she is in a position that enables her to grant empowered consent;
(2) when she makes it abundantly, enthusiastically clear that she wants to be regarded as a sex object . . . right now. It doesn’t mean it will be OK tomorrow. Or even ten minutes from now. This is a moment.
The VdV series is about burlesque dancers, so I'll use that as an example, When she is up on stage dancing for you, by all means, go ahead and look at her. (And don’t forget to tip her.) Hoot, clap, and whistle. She wants you to. But understand that it's her job. And once she's standing outside in the parking lot in her civilian attire waiting for her Uber, it is no longer all right to lurk in close proximity, ogling and leering. That will rightly make her feel nervous and uncomfortable. To summarize: on stage during the show=OK. Parking lot after the show=not OK. It's really not a difficult concept.
I do not blame cable TV for my college social failings—just for the false expectations. I was never a very outgoing or extraverted kind of guy. I was always socially inept. Not shy, just incompetent. I don’t lack confidence, I have just always lacked the ability to interact with other human beings in any normal way. (I have come to know that this is called “being a writer.”)
These days, I’m still socially inept, but now the Internet exists. So I can surround myself with other interesting people who are also mostly socially inept, and it’s all good. (Hi, everybody!)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Worms Uncanned
January 15, 2018
Worms Uncanned
On Monday, January the 8th, 2018, exactly seven years and ten months — that’s 2,857 days — after I started working on the story that would eventually expand into a three-book series (you can read about the origin of the idea
HERE
if you are interested), Hate’s Profiting, the third novel in the Victoria da Vinci trilogy, was released for sale to the public. That was seven days ago, but I am still in the midst of a long, slow, decompressing, uncoiling sigh of relief.
When I embarked on this project, I had no idea what I was getting into. Let’s do the numbers:
Book I (Dicing Time for Gladness) - 59,933 words.
Book II (Crass Casualty) - 62,697 words.
Book III (Hate’s Profiting) - 57,523 words.
Grand total for the trilogy: 180,153 words.
So if you divide the total number of words by the total amount of time from inception to release, you get 63 words per day. And there you have it: the most meaningless and irrelevant figure ever derived.
When I finished the final, final, final, final draft of the manuscript for book III and it was time to start thinking about the cover design, I realized it would be nice to create new covers for Dicing Time for Gladness (book I) and Crass Casualty (book II) as well, with some consistent unifying visual elements.
Well, as long as I was going to go back and fiddle with the covers (I reasoned), I may as well seize the opportunity to fix a few shortcomings in the text that had been bothering me. One writes a book, time goes by, and as one continues to read and write and just generally be alive, hopefully one’s style improves and matures. One gains confidence in one’s voice and trust in one’s reader. Lines that I used to find acceptable now sounded forced and clunky; descriptions that I used to think were vivid now felt overwrought.
I realized almost immediately that I was accidentally embarking on a major rewrite. But it was too late. I was already down the wormhole.
I am not alone in this dilemma. Late in 2017, Trish and I were having drinks with a journalist friend and her husband after one of her public appearances. We were talking about a non-fiction hardcover project she had finished a while ago. She confided to us the mortification she felt when she noticed a factually significant spelling error that had slipped past multiple copy editors — and she noticed it after the book was released. That’s one of the hazards of working to a publisher’s deadline.
So yes, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword having a looming business entity involved in your creative effort. On one hand, you do have extra resources — everything from research support to professional proofreading. But you’re also under pressure to rush things to completion, when maybe an additional year or two would have yielded a superior product. Some stories need time to ripen in the author’s mind, and age slowly over the span of many drafts, perhaps with long reflective intervals in between.
Ever read a book that was really good until the last ten pages or so, and then you got the impression that the writer either just got sick of it and gave up, or else was told by the publisher that there would be no further extensions to the deadline?
That’s one of several reasons why I’m glad to publish independently: I have the luxury of going back to make these tweaks and adjustments. I’m not stuck with years of regret over an awkwardly constructed sentence.
Also, it’s nice to have total, final, and absolute control over all aspects of the novel, from the fonts and layouts of the interior to the art design of the exterior. Having to argue and compromise over all those things with a publisher whose vision might differ seems exhausting and potentially heartbreaking.
So I go in to add a comma here, break up a run-on sentence there, delete an adverb, tidy up an expository passage, remove an extraneous detail. But every author is familiar with the cascade that comes next: you change one word, and that changes the meaning of the sentence. So you rework the sentence. But that changes the meaning of the paragraph, so you rework the paragraph. But that changes the flow of the chapter etc.
Ultimately, the changes were (comparatively) minor; there were just a lot of them, and the cumulative effect, I think (I hope), is a significant improvement.
Honestly, I was a little afraid to go back and re-read what I had started in 2010. But I was deeply gratified to discover that the story itself — the characters, the dialogue, the plot — still felt strong to me. I was not disappointed by the narrative decisions I had made in the beginning. That would have been deeply demoralizing. Instead, I walked away feeling validated.
Now that I’m done with this trilogy, I’m going to keep a promise to myself and to my long-suffering wife: I will not write any novels in 2018. (I swear!)
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Sleeping With My Editor
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
August 4, 2017
Desperate Times Call for Drastic Measures
Sometimes, you just have to lock yourself in a room and write.
Excuse the hyperbolic title. I’m spending the entire weekend alone in a hotel with my trusty Toshiba. I’ll be having pizza and Chinese food delivered and will probably spend a lot of time pants-free, pacing around and lost in thought. There may be some between-chapter napping.
The manuscript for Hate’s Profiting, the third and final novel in the Victoria da Vinci trilogy, is now 237 pages long. I call this Middle Draft Version A. I don’t anticipate the page count going up much, but I have plenty of dots to connect, dialogue to clean up, transitions to smooth out, incongruities and discontinuities to fix, descriptions to expand, exposition to trim, adverbs to purge, links to build, and extraneous verbiage and gratuitous details to expunge.
This will require many hours of editing and revising, for which I require long periods of quiet, distraction-free solitude. So I have removed myself from my floating sanctuary, where I am likely to be sidetracked by things like laundry that needs to be put away, dishes that need to be washed, topside teak that needs to be varnished, and mail that needs to be answered . . . not to mention the adorable, funny, sexy girl I live with, who is literally impossible to ignore.
Thus, I’ll be investing this entire evening (minus this short break to post this blog), then all day Saturday and all day Sunday right here, hacking away at this. My mission objective is to have a new stack of paper ready for one final ruthless read-through before I get back to the boat on Monday. I will call it Middle Draft Version B. That lovely and elusive creature, the Final Draft, drifts in the haze somewhere just over the ridge. But I still have to tunnel through a lot of rock before I can catch a clear glimpse of it.
All right, enough of this procrastination! We’ll call this a warm-up exercise. It’s time to set aside doubt and dread, put on my miner’s helmet, grab my pickaxe, and descend into the shadowy caverns of this unfinished book. I’ll see you on the other side.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
Excuse the hyperbolic title. I’m spending the entire weekend alone in a hotel with my trusty Toshiba. I’ll be having pizza and Chinese food delivered and will probably spend a lot of time pants-free, pacing around and lost in thought. There may be some between-chapter napping.
The manuscript for Hate’s Profiting, the third and final novel in the Victoria da Vinci trilogy, is now 237 pages long. I call this Middle Draft Version A. I don’t anticipate the page count going up much, but I have plenty of dots to connect, dialogue to clean up, transitions to smooth out, incongruities and discontinuities to fix, descriptions to expand, exposition to trim, adverbs to purge, links to build, and extraneous verbiage and gratuitous details to expunge.
This will require many hours of editing and revising, for which I require long periods of quiet, distraction-free solitude. So I have removed myself from my floating sanctuary, where I am likely to be sidetracked by things like laundry that needs to be put away, dishes that need to be washed, topside teak that needs to be varnished, and mail that needs to be answered . . . not to mention the adorable, funny, sexy girl I live with, who is literally impossible to ignore.
Thus, I’ll be investing this entire evening (minus this short break to post this blog), then all day Saturday and all day Sunday right here, hacking away at this. My mission objective is to have a new stack of paper ready for one final ruthless read-through before I get back to the boat on Monday. I will call it Middle Draft Version B. That lovely and elusive creature, the Final Draft, drifts in the haze somewhere just over the ridge. But I still have to tunnel through a lot of rock before I can catch a clear glimpse of it.
All right, enough of this procrastination! We’ll call this a warm-up exercise. It’s time to set aside doubt and dread, put on my miner’s helmet, grab my pickaxe, and descend into the shadowy caverns of this unfinished book. I’ll see you on the other side.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
January 8, 2017
The Power of the Narrative
Way back in my flight instructor days, I often found myself frustrated in my search to find really effective methods to convey important overarching concepts during classroom lectures. Simple facts are easy: the regulation says this, the operating handbook says that. The laws of physics are constant. The hard part was always trying to push the “shoulds.” It's wise to use this procedure. It's prudent to avoid that shortcut. But sanity, maturity, responsibility, and good judgment are not things you can instruct people to have. You can't tell a person, “be a good pilot.” You can require them to memorize a rule, but you can't require them to be the kind of person who will choose to follow it when the moment comes. That's a matter of personality and attitude. Once solidified, those things resist all outside influences and become damn-near impossible to drastically change.
Saying, “always use your checklist,” “don’t take unnecessary chances,” and “don't let yourself become complacent or over-confident” is useless. Repeating it often is simply annoying. So I quickly abandoned that approach. Instead, I started to rely on storytelling. A story is a powerful tool.
The stories I used were accident reports, usually taken directly from the NTSB. I would give them copies and then we would go through them together in class, with me reading selected passages and pausing to offer my own remarks or ask questions to keep everyone engaged. The most effective reports were the ones that involved pilots just like them, doing a job just like the one they were training to do, flying the same type of airplane under the same kinds of circumstances. That gets your attention.
After sharing a story with them, I’d ask, “now what could this pilot have done to avoid this outcome?” And then suddenly my students are telling me things like, “he should have used his checklist,” “he shouldn’t have taken unnecessary chances,” and “he shouldn’t have let himself become complacent and over-confident.”
Likewise, you can't just tell people, “social justice is a good thing,” or “excessive economic inequality creates an unhealthy society,” or “vast concentrations of wealth are antithetical to democracy” or “every citizen ought to have access to adequate housing, education, employment, health care, clean air, and safe food and water,” or “treating everyone with respect and compassion is a good thing to do.” It's too big. It’s too abstract. It's also obnoxiously didactic. But you can reach people with stories.
Let me interrupt myself here to clarify that I am not talking about the most hardcore, dyed-in-the-wool racists, sexists, homophobes, islamophobes and so forth. There is no point trying to get through to those people. With rare and notable exceptions, they tend not to change. I'm talking about people who are basically kind and decent when you interact with them on a personal and individual level, but who somehow have absorbed and internalized repeated stereotypes and propaganda as truth with regard to “Other” people . . . “Them.”
These are the folks who are capable of being friendly and polite to a gay black woman they work with or meet at the store, yet don't think that she should be allowed to marry her committed life partner with whom she has been in a loving and devoted exclusive romantic relationship for years, and deny that African-Americans face prejudice and unfair treatment wherever they go. These are the folks who are capable of being perfectly civil to a Mexican migrant worker or Filipina housekeeper, but who vocally express the belief that all undocumented immigrants should be rounded up and forcefully deported, regardless of their circumstances. These are the folks who remain outwardly friendly to their cousin, whose future was salvaged by the fact that she was able to get an abortion at 16, but are emphatic that the procedure should be illegal.
The key to unlocking empathy and changing someone’s mind about a social issue is engaging with the stories of those “Other” people—to get to know “Them.” Aside from the worst of the bullies, megalomaniacs, opportunists, sadists, and narcissists who have their own deeply ingrained reasons for pushing an agenda that denies basic rights to others—they are thankfully a tiny minority—most Americans are good, decent people who want the world to be a better place for everybody. When they support policies promulgated by that first group, it’s mostly because they don’t actually know who “They” really are. All they know about “Them” is what they hear on AM talk radio, and they have no inclination to question it.
The burden, therefore, lies with the storytellers. Our challenge is to create tales that are appealing enough, accessible enough, and universal enough to draw someone in despite the fact that it’s about “Them.” Then it’s no longer about some monolithic, homogeneous, demonized bloc of people who deserve to be marginalized or even punished. Then it’s about one interesting and sympathetic character, a character the reader cares about. The power to tell a story is the power to humanize. It’s a slow, perhaps even multi-generational process, but every mind and heart changed, every life made better, is a victory to be proud of.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
Saying, “always use your checklist,” “don’t take unnecessary chances,” and “don't let yourself become complacent or over-confident” is useless. Repeating it often is simply annoying. So I quickly abandoned that approach. Instead, I started to rely on storytelling. A story is a powerful tool.
The stories I used were accident reports, usually taken directly from the NTSB. I would give them copies and then we would go through them together in class, with me reading selected passages and pausing to offer my own remarks or ask questions to keep everyone engaged. The most effective reports were the ones that involved pilots just like them, doing a job just like the one they were training to do, flying the same type of airplane under the same kinds of circumstances. That gets your attention.
After sharing a story with them, I’d ask, “now what could this pilot have done to avoid this outcome?” And then suddenly my students are telling me things like, “he should have used his checklist,” “he shouldn’t have taken unnecessary chances,” and “he shouldn’t have let himself become complacent and over-confident.”
Likewise, you can't just tell people, “social justice is a good thing,” or “excessive economic inequality creates an unhealthy society,” or “vast concentrations of wealth are antithetical to democracy” or “every citizen ought to have access to adequate housing, education, employment, health care, clean air, and safe food and water,” or “treating everyone with respect and compassion is a good thing to do.” It's too big. It’s too abstract. It's also obnoxiously didactic. But you can reach people with stories.
Let me interrupt myself here to clarify that I am not talking about the most hardcore, dyed-in-the-wool racists, sexists, homophobes, islamophobes and so forth. There is no point trying to get through to those people. With rare and notable exceptions, they tend not to change. I'm talking about people who are basically kind and decent when you interact with them on a personal and individual level, but who somehow have absorbed and internalized repeated stereotypes and propaganda as truth with regard to “Other” people . . . “Them.”
These are the folks who are capable of being friendly and polite to a gay black woman they work with or meet at the store, yet don't think that she should be allowed to marry her committed life partner with whom she has been in a loving and devoted exclusive romantic relationship for years, and deny that African-Americans face prejudice and unfair treatment wherever they go. These are the folks who are capable of being perfectly civil to a Mexican migrant worker or Filipina housekeeper, but who vocally express the belief that all undocumented immigrants should be rounded up and forcefully deported, regardless of their circumstances. These are the folks who remain outwardly friendly to their cousin, whose future was salvaged by the fact that she was able to get an abortion at 16, but are emphatic that the procedure should be illegal.
The key to unlocking empathy and changing someone’s mind about a social issue is engaging with the stories of those “Other” people—to get to know “Them.” Aside from the worst of the bullies, megalomaniacs, opportunists, sadists, and narcissists who have their own deeply ingrained reasons for pushing an agenda that denies basic rights to others—they are thankfully a tiny minority—most Americans are good, decent people who want the world to be a better place for everybody. When they support policies promulgated by that first group, it’s mostly because they don’t actually know who “They” really are. All they know about “Them” is what they hear on AM talk radio, and they have no inclination to question it.
The burden, therefore, lies with the storytellers. Our challenge is to create tales that are appealing enough, accessible enough, and universal enough to draw someone in despite the fact that it’s about “Them.” Then it’s no longer about some monolithic, homogeneous, demonized bloc of people who deserve to be marginalized or even punished. Then it’s about one interesting and sympathetic character, a character the reader cares about. The power to tell a story is the power to humanize. It’s a slow, perhaps even multi-generational process, but every mind and heart changed, every life made better, is a victory to be proud of.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
November 20, 2016
The Challenges and Advantages of Writing a Novel Out of Order
Now that the first draft of the concluding installment of
the Victoria da Vinci trilogy
is
finally
done, I am inclined to reflect upon the unique challenges and advantages of writing a novel out of order.
I’m not talking about writing book three first and book one second and book two third. I didn’t do that. (The full explanation of how the entire Victoria da Vinci trilogy began as a concept for a complete short story and expanded into three novels can be found HERE for anyone who is interested.) No, I’m talking about having the whole outline finished from beginning to end, and then fleshing it out here and there over time, like hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree over the span of several months.
For example, I will already know from the beginning that chapter six will take place in Victoria’s hotel suite in downtown Chicago in the year 1923, and that it will involve Victoria, Constance, Pearl, and Lillian. I know that Pearl and Lillian won’t arrive until a little later in the scene, because they are out conducting reconnaissance, and I have a list of specific events that need to happen during those interactions (mostly character development and plot advancement that unfold through conversation). I also have a pretty good general idea of each character’s mood, attitude and motivation at the time. I just don’t yet know precisely what they’re going to say or do, and how the events will roll and unfold.
So then as time passes and I think about the story, I randomly get ideas. (Sometimes very randomly, like while buying a tomato.) The ideas are usually quite specific: of course Victoria would say this to Constance in that situation or here’s a great little detail I could throw in to help establish a fact without coming right out and saying it. So every time that happens, I will pull out my phone and text it to myself. Later, when I’m at home aboard our sailboat and in front of the computer with some time to write, I’ll download all those texts, compile them, and import them into the appropriate chapters. (That is definitely something neither Dickens nor Melville ever did. Although they might have, given the opportunity.)
I’m doing this with all the chapters all the time, and the inevitable problem is that I ultimately find myself dealing with paragraphs of description and dialogue that were written weeks or months apart, and they don’t flow. Sometimes I repeat or contradict myself, or things happen out of sequence, or a character has a line even though she isn’t actually in the room yet. Also, I have to find plausible, organic, non-jarring segues from one topic to another.
So while that technique is very handy for keeping the project alive even during all the times when I can’t actively sit down and focus on the manuscript, it also forces me to do a great deal of extensive re-writing to weld, button, glue and hammer all the pieces together.
One thing that’s quite gratifying and delightful, however, is when I have a brilliant idea for a tiny but important detail that I could throw in somewhere — only to discover that I already put that in there eight months ago. Yay, past self! Well done, sir!
The biggest plus to writing this way is that the effort is always rght there in front of me, like a partially finished puzzle on the dining room table. (Not that I have a dining room, but you get the idea.) It’s in the way, so it’s constantly on my mind and never far from my immediate awareness. It’s almost impossible to forget or ignore. And at any time, day or night, no matter what else is going on in your life, you can always take just a moment to pick up a piece and put it where it belongs.
So now comes the final step — taking this first draft and turning it into a completed book. It’s always those last few percentage points, taking it from 91% to 98%, that are the most agonizing and tedious. (No manuscript is ever more than 98% complete. Those last two percentage points are like the seawater in the bilge: you’ll never get rid of them.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
The Intersection of Grammar and Philosophy
Sleeping With My Editor
The Unique Challenge of Writing Sequels
The Perfect Ending
I’m not talking about writing book three first and book one second and book two third. I didn’t do that. (The full explanation of how the entire Victoria da Vinci trilogy began as a concept for a complete short story and expanded into three novels can be found HERE for anyone who is interested.) No, I’m talking about having the whole outline finished from beginning to end, and then fleshing it out here and there over time, like hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree over the span of several months.
For example, I will already know from the beginning that chapter six will take place in Victoria’s hotel suite in downtown Chicago in the year 1923, and that it will involve Victoria, Constance, Pearl, and Lillian. I know that Pearl and Lillian won’t arrive until a little later in the scene, because they are out conducting reconnaissance, and I have a list of specific events that need to happen during those interactions (mostly character development and plot advancement that unfold through conversation). I also have a pretty good general idea of each character’s mood, attitude and motivation at the time. I just don’t yet know precisely what they’re going to say or do, and how the events will roll and unfold.
So then as time passes and I think about the story, I randomly get ideas. (Sometimes very randomly, like while buying a tomato.) The ideas are usually quite specific: of course Victoria would say this to Constance in that situation or here’s a great little detail I could throw in to help establish a fact without coming right out and saying it. So every time that happens, I will pull out my phone and text it to myself. Later, when I’m at home aboard our sailboat and in front of the computer with some time to write, I’ll download all those texts, compile them, and import them into the appropriate chapters. (That is definitely something neither Dickens nor Melville ever did. Although they might have, given the opportunity.)
I’m doing this with all the chapters all the time, and the inevitable problem is that I ultimately find myself dealing with paragraphs of description and dialogue that were written weeks or months apart, and they don’t flow. Sometimes I repeat or contradict myself, or things happen out of sequence, or a character has a line even though she isn’t actually in the room yet. Also, I have to find plausible, organic, non-jarring segues from one topic to another.
So while that technique is very handy for keeping the project alive even during all the times when I can’t actively sit down and focus on the manuscript, it also forces me to do a great deal of extensive re-writing to weld, button, glue and hammer all the pieces together.
One thing that’s quite gratifying and delightful, however, is when I have a brilliant idea for a tiny but important detail that I could throw in somewhere — only to discover that I already put that in there eight months ago. Yay, past self! Well done, sir!
The biggest plus to writing this way is that the effort is always rght there in front of me, like a partially finished puzzle on the dining room table. (Not that I have a dining room, but you get the idea.) It’s in the way, so it’s constantly on my mind and never far from my immediate awareness. It’s almost impossible to forget or ignore. And at any time, day or night, no matter what else is going on in your life, you can always take just a moment to pick up a piece and put it where it belongs.
So now comes the final step — taking this first draft and turning it into a completed book. It’s always those last few percentage points, taking it from 91% to 98%, that are the most agonizing and tedious. (No manuscript is ever more than 98% complete. Those last two percentage points are like the seawater in the bilge: you’ll never get rid of them.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
The Intersection of Grammar and Philosophy
Sleeping With My Editor
The Unique Challenge of Writing Sequels
The Perfect Ending
August 28, 2016
It's Time to Get Serious.
All right, enough fooling around. The line must be drawn somewhere. It's time to get serious. Seriously serious.
The problem, of course, is that I have that most coveted and dreaded of blessed afflictions, the Full-Time Real Job. The problem is the solution. The solution is the problem. Never before so desired and despised, so cherished and detested, so central to the Grand Plan and yet at once detrimental to it has a thing been. Double-edged, this sword is. Inverted, these sentences are. Awkwardly stilted, this blog has become.
The point is that people have been giving me shit—and rightfully so—for taking so long to finish the third book in the series.
Hate's Profiting has been mostly finished for a long time. Novelists will recognize the problematic phrase “mostly finished” as the state a manuscript occupies for most of its life:
Stage 1- The Idea
(Of all the notions for stories you have swirling around in your head all the time, you select the one premise that just won't leave you alone.)
Stage 2 - The Outline
(You transform this idea into the framework of a plot.)
Stage 3 - The Real Work
(You pummel, thrash, stack, shovel, and stitch together several hundred pages based on the outline from Stage 2.)
Stage 4 - Finishing
(This part usually takes 80% or more of the total amount of time from conception to publication, and has no clear end.)
Here's the trouble. You're never really finished.
You. Are. Never. Finished. No matter how many times you re-read, revisit, revise, review and revamp your project, you will always find one more thing to fix or adjust. It's a process that has no satisfying termination.
. . . But that's not my excuse. I have no excuse. I just need to prioritize. This third and final book in the VdV trilogy has been sitting here in front of me like a neglected science fair stand-up pasteboard tri-fold for far too long.
SO, this is my resolution: I am finishing Hate's Profiting in September.
There, I said it. I have created an aggressive daily writing schedule for myself, and I intend to stick to it. This whole, “when I get around to it” strategy has obviously not been effective.
Then, in October, I am going to go back to DTfG and CC, and put in a couple of minor but long-overdue repairs that have been nagging at me for months.
The fully completed trilogy, including Volume III, will be released/re-released in November.
I'm counting on you all to keep me honest here.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
The problem, of course, is that I have that most coveted and dreaded of blessed afflictions, the Full-Time Real Job. The problem is the solution. The solution is the problem. Never before so desired and despised, so cherished and detested, so central to the Grand Plan and yet at once detrimental to it has a thing been. Double-edged, this sword is. Inverted, these sentences are. Awkwardly stilted, this blog has become.
The point is that people have been giving me shit—and rightfully so—for taking so long to finish the third book in the series.
Hate's Profiting has been mostly finished for a long time. Novelists will recognize the problematic phrase “mostly finished” as the state a manuscript occupies for most of its life:
Stage 1- The Idea
(Of all the notions for stories you have swirling around in your head all the time, you select the one premise that just won't leave you alone.)
Stage 2 - The Outline
(You transform this idea into the framework of a plot.)
Stage 3 - The Real Work
(You pummel, thrash, stack, shovel, and stitch together several hundred pages based on the outline from Stage 2.)
Stage 4 - Finishing
(This part usually takes 80% or more of the total amount of time from conception to publication, and has no clear end.)
Here's the trouble. You're never really finished.
You. Are. Never. Finished. No matter how many times you re-read, revisit, revise, review and revamp your project, you will always find one more thing to fix or adjust. It's a process that has no satisfying termination.
. . . But that's not my excuse. I have no excuse. I just need to prioritize. This third and final book in the VdV trilogy has been sitting here in front of me like a neglected science fair stand-up pasteboard tri-fold for far too long.
SO, this is my resolution: I am finishing Hate's Profiting in September.
There, I said it. I have created an aggressive daily writing schedule for myself, and I intend to stick to it. This whole, “when I get around to it” strategy has obviously not been effective.
Then, in October, I am going to go back to DTfG and CC, and put in a couple of minor but long-overdue repairs that have been nagging at me for months.
The fully completed trilogy, including Volume III, will be released/re-released in November.
I'm counting on you all to keep me honest here.
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
June 21, 2016
Afloat
Well, it’s official: I am now—at last—a liveaboard novelist.
This represents the culmination of a lifetime of a vaguely defined aspiration, at least a decade of generalized planning and preparations, and five years of serious, focused effort. In fact, it was five years almost precisely to the day from our first real sailing lesson (as opposed to the informal sailing experiences we had been enjoying together prior to that point) and signing the transfer of ownership papers on our own sailboat.
Trish and I had a long and demanding list of picky requirements and preferences, and this boat met all of them, so we pounced. No vessel is perfect, but this one was as close as we were going to get. We had expected (and were ready) to make some sacrifices and accept some compromises, but ultimately we didn't have to; she's just exactly what we were looking for.
So we are now living aboard a lovely Island Packet 31. We have named her Salacia, as in the wife of Neptune. And yes, that is the root of the word “salacious.” There was, naturally, a period of adjustment, marked by getting moved in, getting organized, finding places for everything, and adapting to all the unique aspects of life on a boat, major and minor. Plus there was a mountain of official documentation and a lengthy spreadsheet of legal, financial, and practical arrangements to make. But now we're settled in, and I'm at a point where I can sit at my computer and just write. It's wonderful.
It would be appropriate to acknowledge the broker who enabled us to find our new home, and she just happens to be a Goodreads author herself. It's Melanie Neale, who wrote Boat Girl: A Memoir of Youth, Love & Fiberglass and who also happens to sell boats. Thanks, Melanie! (If anyone reading this is looking for a boat, she can hook you up. Also, read her book. It's good. Read my review here if you're interested.)
Yes, this is still a writing blog, not a sailing blog. I will endeavor to restrain myself from delving into excessive nautical terminology or rambling endlessly about life on the water—although I cannot guarantee I won’t digress into that territory occasionally.*
In many ways, a shipboard existence is ideal for writing. Whether tied up securely in a harbor or bouncing across an ocean, a sailor finds himself with lots of time on his hands. When not navigating, repairing something, or actively engaged in work on deck such as sail changes, there are hours free to contemplate the sea and indulge the creative and philosophical impulses. Or drink rum.** Whatever.
Indeed, there is an ancient tradition of great stories about sea voyages, and a closely related legacy of authors who do their best work while far from the mundane distractions of land.
I know: boat people are notorious for being insufferably long-winded about their vessels and the joys and agonies of life aboard. So I promise*** to stick closely to the primary subject of this blog . . . most of the time.
*Like now, for example.
**Just kidding. No drinking while underway.
***Please take this promise in the spirit of the current election campaign season.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Answering the Inevitable Questions
This represents the culmination of a lifetime of a vaguely defined aspiration, at least a decade of generalized planning and preparations, and five years of serious, focused effort. In fact, it was five years almost precisely to the day from our first real sailing lesson (as opposed to the informal sailing experiences we had been enjoying together prior to that point) and signing the transfer of ownership papers on our own sailboat.
Trish and I had a long and demanding list of picky requirements and preferences, and this boat met all of them, so we pounced. No vessel is perfect, but this one was as close as we were going to get. We had expected (and were ready) to make some sacrifices and accept some compromises, but ultimately we didn't have to; she's just exactly what we were looking for.
So we are now living aboard a lovely Island Packet 31. We have named her Salacia, as in the wife of Neptune. And yes, that is the root of the word “salacious.” There was, naturally, a period of adjustment, marked by getting moved in, getting organized, finding places for everything, and adapting to all the unique aspects of life on a boat, major and minor. Plus there was a mountain of official documentation and a lengthy spreadsheet of legal, financial, and practical arrangements to make. But now we're settled in, and I'm at a point where I can sit at my computer and just write. It's wonderful.
It would be appropriate to acknowledge the broker who enabled us to find our new home, and she just happens to be a Goodreads author herself. It's Melanie Neale, who wrote Boat Girl: A Memoir of Youth, Love & Fiberglass and who also happens to sell boats. Thanks, Melanie! (If anyone reading this is looking for a boat, she can hook you up. Also, read her book. It's good. Read my review here if you're interested.)
Yes, this is still a writing blog, not a sailing blog. I will endeavor to restrain myself from delving into excessive nautical terminology or rambling endlessly about life on the water—although I cannot guarantee I won’t digress into that territory occasionally.*
In many ways, a shipboard existence is ideal for writing. Whether tied up securely in a harbor or bouncing across an ocean, a sailor finds himself with lots of time on his hands. When not navigating, repairing something, or actively engaged in work on deck such as sail changes, there are hours free to contemplate the sea and indulge the creative and philosophical impulses. Or drink rum.** Whatever.
Indeed, there is an ancient tradition of great stories about sea voyages, and a closely related legacy of authors who do their best work while far from the mundane distractions of land.
I know: boat people are notorious for being insufferably long-winded about their vessels and the joys and agonies of life aboard. So I promise*** to stick closely to the primary subject of this blog . . . most of the time.
*Like now, for example.
**Just kidding. No drinking while underway.
***Please take this promise in the spirit of the current election campaign season.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
Crazy People in History #1
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Martinus or Martino?
Answering the Inevitable Questions
June 5, 2016
Writing a Useful Review (Seven Suggestions)
I’m tired of reading bad novel reviews. And I don’t mean “bad” in the sense of “negative.” Unfavorable reviews are important—vital, in fact—in an open and honest marketplace of ideas and opinions. No, I mean unhelpful reviews.
Happens all the time: I’ll be looking at a new work of fiction that potentially interests me (even though, like most of you reading this, I already have a daunting and ever-growing to-read stack going) and naturally I check the ratings and reviews. Many of the critiques are insightful and thoughtful, and a truly well-constructed summary, evaluation, and commentary will help me make a purchase decision even if I don’t agree with the reviewer’s ultimate conclusion. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. That’s what I always strive to provide in my own reviews as well.
But too often, instead of a review, I read a rant or a rhapsody. E.g., it’s terrible and I hate it / it’s wonderful and I love it. This does not help me make a choice. Nor does it help the writer improve his or her work. Nor does it contribute to the quality of the culture of our extended literary community. It’s just noise.
I already wrote this blog (called “The Seven Things Challenge”) about pushing yourself, as a reviewer, to find very specific things that you liked about a piece of writing. What worked, and more importantly, why. It’s a helpful service to readers and writers, and a useful intellectual and literary exercise as well.
Of course there is always plenty of room for personal, subjective reactions . . . as long as they are presented that way. It’s absolutely fine to say, for example, “I like books with lots of talking animals in them, and I was disappointed that there weren’t more talking animals in this story.” That’s valid. Dumb, but valid. It’s both dumb and unfair, on the other hand, to say, “this book is awful. It hardly has any talking animals in it.”
Now I’d like to veer in a slightly different direction and propose a few guidelines for putting together a good review. The format and layout, tone and style, sensibility and approach are all, of course, totally up to the reviewer, but I believe that a good review should include answers to at least some of the following seven questions:
A good review is not necessarily positive or negative; nor should it try too hard to clad itself in a mantle of false neutrality. A good review doesn't decree that a book belongs on every bedside table; it simply tells you whether or not it deserves a slot in that pile on yours.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
The Three Kinds of Book Clubs
This Is How It's Done, Folks
The Importance of Character Backstories
Happens all the time: I’ll be looking at a new work of fiction that potentially interests me (even though, like most of you reading this, I already have a daunting and ever-growing to-read stack going) and naturally I check the ratings and reviews. Many of the critiques are insightful and thoughtful, and a truly well-constructed summary, evaluation, and commentary will help me make a purchase decision even if I don’t agree with the reviewer’s ultimate conclusion. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. That’s what I always strive to provide in my own reviews as well.
But too often, instead of a review, I read a rant or a rhapsody. E.g., it’s terrible and I hate it / it’s wonderful and I love it. This does not help me make a choice. Nor does it help the writer improve his or her work. Nor does it contribute to the quality of the culture of our extended literary community. It’s just noise.
I already wrote this blog (called “The Seven Things Challenge”) about pushing yourself, as a reviewer, to find very specific things that you liked about a piece of writing. What worked, and more importantly, why. It’s a helpful service to readers and writers, and a useful intellectual and literary exercise as well.
Of course there is always plenty of room for personal, subjective reactions . . . as long as they are presented that way. It’s absolutely fine to say, for example, “I like books with lots of talking animals in them, and I was disappointed that there weren’t more talking animals in this story.” That’s valid. Dumb, but valid. It’s both dumb and unfair, on the other hand, to say, “this book is awful. It hardly has any talking animals in it.”
Now I’d like to veer in a slightly different direction and propose a few guidelines for putting together a good review. The format and layout, tone and style, sensibility and approach are all, of course, totally up to the reviewer, but I believe that a good review should include answers to at least some of the following seven questions:
(1) Overall, how well does the author accomplish what he or she was apparently trying to accomplish?
I added emphasis to the words “apparently trying” because this is a guess, but it ought to be a guess based on evidence found through a careful and attentive study of the text. What sort of book did the author seem to be attempting to write? And was the author successful? This is where the critic should try to stick to observations such as, “Mr. Smith seemed to be trying to write a supernatural detective thriller that melded the classic noir tradition with monster-centric horror, but it ended up being more of a quasi-autobiographical essay with an off-putting element of magical realism.” It’s tempting, but unhelpful, to make elitist pronouncements like, “all westerns are bad,” or “high fantasy is better than dieselpunk.”
(2) Is the writing clean, tight, and effective?
Does the prose convey ideas clearly and brightly? Does it make the abstract concrete? Is it striking, vivid, and original? Does the author vary the sentence structure and paragraph length to create musical rhythms that appropriately accentuate and highlight the subjects and themes? Are all five senses evoked? Does the author choose the right words, and use them at the right times? Does the text flow? Does the dialogue crackle?
(3) Is the author a good storyteller?
Does the author resist the urge to explain? Do the characters’ actions reveal their thoughts, emotions, and motivations? Do the images and symbols contribute to the story without being overwrought?
(4) Does the story make sense?
Are there glaring inconsistencies or egregious logical gaps that exceed a reader’s willingness and ability to suspend disbelief? Is the plot plausible?
(5) Are the characters complicitous in their fates?
This one is admittedly a major personal peeve. Do the characters bring about their own destinies—downfalls or redemptions—through their decisions, or does the author resort to turgid melodrama? Glory or disgrace, ruin or triumph, it should be, in some narrative sense, their fault.
(6) Are the characters distinct?
Does each character have recognizable, consistent, interesting personality traits expressed through their clothes, behavior, speech patterns, attitudes, and mannerisms? Do they feel like real, authentic, complex, three-dimensional human beings (or robots, or aliens, or goblins, or whatever)? Do these details meaningfully support the story? Some writers only seem capable of creating the same two or three characters over and over again. (The worst offenders are the authors with an agenda or a grudge, who always create one character as a proxy, a paragon of virtue to function as a mouthpiece for their own views, and then others to serve only as representatives of their enemies and critics, to be easily and repeatedly defeated in one-sided conflicts that vindicate one point of view and crush the other.)
(7) Is the ending both satisfying and proper?
This is another peeve of mine. Ever get the feeling that the author just got tired of writing? I wrote an entire blog called The Perfect Ending last year, so I won’t dwell on this too much here, but when you reach the last page and look back at the whole story from the beginning, does it now seem like everything that happened was leading inevitably to this unavoidable and fitting outcome?
A good review is not necessarily positive or negative; nor should it try too hard to clad itself in a mantle of false neutrality. A good review doesn't decree that a book belongs on every bedside table; it simply tells you whether or not it deserves a slot in that pile on yours.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
The Three Kinds of Book Clubs
This Is How It's Done, Folks
The Importance of Character Backstories
March 22, 2016
Deciding to Do It
Does this sound familiar? You have a friend, relative, or co-worker who often mentions how much he or she wants to write a book / go skydiving / sail around the world (etc.) but whenever you offer a word of support and encouragement, he or she starts to explain why it’s impossible and will never happen.
Where does this brand of self-defeatism come from? I see it often, and I have a theory.
There is something truly scary about contemplating the actualization of a fond daydream, because the choice to make it happen is also the choice to yank it out of the sweet, soft, glowing perfection of idealized fantasy and thrust it into the harsh light of reality. Under this unflattering illumination, defects glare. Out here in the world of corporeal, temporal experience, things are messy. They’re dirty. They have pits, cracks, and stains. While the idle wish consists of only the good parts, the fulfillment of that wish includes all the rest of it—the awkward moments, the embarrassments, the failures, the boredom. Everything.
For some, it’s preferable to cling to a cherished fiction rather than be disappointed by a mixed truth. It’s not hopelessness; it’s a defense mechanism. They’re protecting themselves from the inevitable disappointment of a dream coming true and not measuring up to the hype.
Is this grim view justified? Depends on how you look at it. When you satisfy your ambition, will the result be everything you imagined? Of course not. Nothing ever is. Life doesn’t work that way. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. And who knows? In some ways, it might be better than you expected.
To my way of thinking, the flaws and blemishes are not just an inevitable component of any worthwhile undertaking, they are part of the richness of human experience, and should be embraced.
So given the choice to wallow in visions of frosty cocktails and hammocks strung between swaying palm trees while chained eternally to the dull safety and comfort of a land-bound life vs. maybe being a little cold, a little wet, a little inconvenienced, a little sleep-deprived, and yes, sometimes even a little annoyed while making an unexpected repair during an ocean crossing, I will still choose to cross the ocean. It’s fun to imagine receiving a literary award or being interviewed by Terry Gross, but being a writer is not about those things; it’s about spending eight hours revising a single paragraph until you’re so sick of it you never want to see it again. Sure, the abstract concept of skydiving is an adrenalized blur of excitement, but as a seasoned jumper who spends weekends at the drop zone, you might have a day where a poorly executed formation attempt culminates with an ungraceful landing in front of your friends. Everyone has one of those days from time to time, whether you’re a bestselling novelist, a parachutist with a thousand jumps in your logbook, or a sailor who has crossed every ocean on the planet.
Psychologists talk about a phenomenon called “effort aversion.” We don’t like the idea of work. It’s not appealing. We dread it. Anyone who has ever tried to write anything, even a short assignment for freshman English, knows that it’s hard. And it never gets any easier. We love the notion of having written a book; we’re not necessarily crazy about the prospect of writing it. That reluctance is rationally founded; as anyone who has ever written a book knows, it ain’t exactly a walk in the park—not for the author, certainly not for the author’s friends and family. But most things worth doing aren’t easy, and there is some solace in every writer’s true goal: no, not the royalty check, not the good review, not the prizes and recognition—just being finished, dammit!
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
Where does this brand of self-defeatism come from? I see it often, and I have a theory.
There is something truly scary about contemplating the actualization of a fond daydream, because the choice to make it happen is also the choice to yank it out of the sweet, soft, glowing perfection of idealized fantasy and thrust it into the harsh light of reality. Under this unflattering illumination, defects glare. Out here in the world of corporeal, temporal experience, things are messy. They’re dirty. They have pits, cracks, and stains. While the idle wish consists of only the good parts, the fulfillment of that wish includes all the rest of it—the awkward moments, the embarrassments, the failures, the boredom. Everything.
For some, it’s preferable to cling to a cherished fiction rather than be disappointed by a mixed truth. It’s not hopelessness; it’s a defense mechanism. They’re protecting themselves from the inevitable disappointment of a dream coming true and not measuring up to the hype.
Is this grim view justified? Depends on how you look at it. When you satisfy your ambition, will the result be everything you imagined? Of course not. Nothing ever is. Life doesn’t work that way. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. And who knows? In some ways, it might be better than you expected.
To my way of thinking, the flaws and blemishes are not just an inevitable component of any worthwhile undertaking, they are part of the richness of human experience, and should be embraced.
So given the choice to wallow in visions of frosty cocktails and hammocks strung between swaying palm trees while chained eternally to the dull safety and comfort of a land-bound life vs. maybe being a little cold, a little wet, a little inconvenienced, a little sleep-deprived, and yes, sometimes even a little annoyed while making an unexpected repair during an ocean crossing, I will still choose to cross the ocean. It’s fun to imagine receiving a literary award or being interviewed by Terry Gross, but being a writer is not about those things; it’s about spending eight hours revising a single paragraph until you’re so sick of it you never want to see it again. Sure, the abstract concept of skydiving is an adrenalized blur of excitement, but as a seasoned jumper who spends weekends at the drop zone, you might have a day where a poorly executed formation attempt culminates with an ungraceful landing in front of your friends. Everyone has one of those days from time to time, whether you’re a bestselling novelist, a parachutist with a thousand jumps in your logbook, or a sailor who has crossed every ocean on the planet.
Psychologists talk about a phenomenon called “effort aversion.” We don’t like the idea of work. It’s not appealing. We dread it. Anyone who has ever tried to write anything, even a short assignment for freshman English, knows that it’s hard. And it never gets any easier. We love the notion of having written a book; we’re not necessarily crazy about the prospect of writing it. That reluctance is rationally founded; as anyone who has ever written a book knows, it ain’t exactly a walk in the park—not for the author, certainly not for the author’s friends and family. But most things worth doing aren’t easy, and there is some solace in every writer’s true goal: no, not the royalty check, not the good review, not the prizes and recognition—just being finished, dammit!
My author page:
www.AustinScottCollins.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Recent popular posts:
So, What Do You Do?
A Brief Guide to Writing Terrible Fiction
Crazy People in History #1
Jerks: Some Observations
Upside-down, Inside-out, and Backwards
My blog about books, writing, and the creative process.
- Austin Scott Collins's profile
- 28 followers
