Deby Fredericks's Blog, page 70

Journeys, Part 3

Quests are widely recognized as part of the fantasy genre. In fact, they’re SO widely recognized that I find it difficult to base a story on them. It’s like flogging a dead horse.

For some genres, having your characters stay put can benefit the story. In a dark fantasy, your story gains suspense if the characters are trapped and cannot escape a horrific menace. Military SF isn’t my thing, but I could see a lot of tension if a group of soldiers were pinned down in a location where they could neither advance nor retreat.

Travel across lands and cultures involves a certain amount of work as far as world-building goes. Some of that creative energy might be better spent on deeper characterization or tighter plotting.

For me, personally, having my characters travel has become redundant. Of my 11 books and novellas, 8 of them involve a journey for at least part of the story. That includes my current WIP. I really feel that I’m repeating myself, and that doesn’t make for an exciting tale.

The irony is, my current series, The Minstrels of Skaythe, involves a group of mages who scattered for their own safety. Each one of them has to travel away from where they were. This means I’m going to have to be creative in how I show them dispersing. Which is fine — if nothing else, authors should be creative.

What do you think? Are quests still cool, or are they more meh?

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Journeys, Part 2

Ever since Lord of the Rings, it seems like every fantasy novel has to include a journey or quest. Why do we do this?

One advantage of having your characters go on a journey is that it takes them out of their comfort zone. They’re in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by strangers. They can’t anticipate what people will do. No more comfy house to return to, either.

They might have gear if the trip was planned, but if they left suddenly, they have to spend time on survival tasks such as searching for water and shelter. If your story is more humorous in tone, there’s lots of opportunity for fish-out-of-water episodes. For darker stories, you can emphasize heat or cold, adverse weather, thirst or hunger, wild animals, and other hazards of hitting the road unprepared.

Journeys allow the writer to vary the setting and introduce new wonders or dangers. Travel can imply a wider world around the story events. Reactions to these new vistas may deepen the characterization of people in the story. You can add more conflict if the characters get lost or argue about where to go next.

It’s also very folkloric. Many of the great epics and story cycles involve heroes who go somewhere and fight a monster or achieve some other great feat. If the characters need to learn a lesson of some sort, inspiration can come with the travel.

What about drawbacks? I’ll look at those on Saturday.

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Journeys

Something I’ve noticed recently is how often the stories I write involve someone going on a journey. In Too Many Princes, the title characters went on a quest. In The Seven Exalted Orders, two of the characters were running away from the others. In the sequel, The Eighth Order, which the publisher has been sitting on forever, they also chase someone across the countryside. In The Grimhold Wolf, a character was abducted and the other ones went to rescue him. In Masters of Air & Fire, the characters’ home was destroyed and they had to search for another one. In The Weight of Their Souls, the characters were traveling home after a war. In The Tower in the Mist, soldiers are taking their prisoner to a special prison — on the other side of a haunted forest. In The Grove of Ghosts, the MC is traveling to break a curse.

Only in The Magister’s Mask, The Necromancer’s Bones, and The Gellboar did everyone basically stay at home and do stuff there. That’s three out of eleven tales involving some sort of travel.

I must confess, I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself with the journeys. My current WIP, Fang Marsh, starts with the main character on a journey. Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m going to have her arrive at a destination and stay there. This will make some other parts of the plot easier. For one thing, the villain and her henchmen will be able to find her!

What do you guys think — am I worrying too much about this?

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How It Went, Part 2

I did have a great weekend at MosCon Revival, just as I hoped. For one thing, we drove down Saturday and stayed until Sunday afternoon, so we didn’t have that all-day-in-the-car experience. We got to spend time with a lot of old friends, which was a big reason for going down there. It was especially good to spend a few minutes with my dear old mentor, M. J. Engh. That’s a thing money can’t buy.

The featured speakers were Cat Rambo and Richard Kadrey. They were excellent, friendly, and always on topic. I enjoyed their panels a lot. One of my highlights was getting a first-page reading from them that was on my next novella, The Ghostly Grove. They had nice things to say and were very encouraging.

The panel I was on was about whether women look for different experiences in games and got off more into harassment in online venues. But that is a real issue, so I felt it was productive panel.

Because the event was small, we got a lot of great exposure for SpoCon. We talked about our best programming and passed out flyers to convince people to come. We even got questions from the wait staff at the place where we went for lunch and gave them flyers, too.

We had fun and the response was great. But next weekend? Next weekend, I’M STAYING HOME!

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MosCon Revival, Part 2

By the time you read this, I’ll be in Pullman, WA for the MosCon Revival. It’s going to be a fun weekend of panels, stumping for SpoCon, and feeling nostalgic for days gone by.

My panel is Do Women Game Differently? Our first task, I assume, will be to define what KIND of gaming — tabletop role-playing, video gaming, or something else? Then we’ll talk about the intersection of plot goals and play goals and how some of these may be more oriented to men’s interests than women’s. Which doesn’t mean the gals don’t play, just that we have to head-canon things like conversation with NPCs that may not be built into the game. It should be a fun discussion, anyhow.

My other main interest is in a First Pages panel that will be led by Cat Rambo. They don’t give much direction on their web site, but usually it means you bring your first page and the moderator reads it, then the panelists give critiques. I’m going to bring the first page for The Ghostly Grove, the next novella in my Minstrels of Skaythe series. The feedback should be valuable as I prepare for a fall publication.

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How it Went

As mentioned, my husband and I went to Sandemonium last weekend. How did it go? First, you need to know that Sandemonium is very small. Maybe 100 people were there. We were surprised by how young the demographic was. For mostly high-schoolers, their cosplay was amazing. Several fur suits were walking around, which is a feat on its own considering it was 88 degrees out. Props to those cosplayers for their dedication!

We sat at a fan table and raised awareness for SpoCon by giving away old paperbacks. That was fabulous. While between guests, we taught another friend to play a game called Tsuro. I didn’t win any of the matches. Oh well.

For my panel, though? Nobody came. The organizers were apologetic, but I think I chose the wrong topic for that event. Mostly white kids in a mostly white town are not worried about harmful stereotypes. They just don’t feel it. Other panels were well attended. I think if I’d done one about magic systems or something for beginning writers, I would have drawn a crowd.

Next weekend is the MosCon Revival. I am scheduled for one panel and may jump in on others if I see an opening. You might wonder why I’m doing so many conventions in a row? Partly, it just worked out that way. Partly, I’m fulfilling one of my resolutions. The resolution was to make more appearances in support of my books. Usually I do two or three, so I doubled my goal to six appearances in 2019. With these two, I’m on track to make that goal.

Did I actually sell books at Sandemonium? No, but I got a lot of interested looks and gave people my book marks. Maybe some of them will follow up.

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I Won!

Yes, I won a tiny contest on Aethereal Engines, the blog of author Jason H. Abbott. It’s one of those things where the blogger posts an image, and entrants post a 100-word snippet in response. Eventually there’s a prize based on how many “likes” each winner receives. However, I’m not going to beg you all to “like” it. I’m just happy that I won. Here’s my text:

A lone soldier, walking on patrol, confronted the monstrous guardian across a stretch of no-man’s-land. To be sure, it was impossible to miss the hulking form with a furnace blazing behind its one eye.

Who had created this monstrous, ancient guardian? What was it protecting, as it made its endless round? Nobody now living remembered. They only knew it was death to cross the barrier ridge.

Fortunately, he had no need to cross. Like the guardian, he kept to his assigned watch. On impulse, he raised his weapon in salute to a fellow watchman bound by duty.

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Sandemonium

As I’ve been mentioning, Sandemonium is coming up this weekend. This is my first time there, but they’ve been going on for at least seven years. I’m excited to know what it will be like.

My presentation is at noon, and it’s on “Ugly Tropes.” This is a topic I’ve blogged about (relatively) recently, and I just plan to cover that in a more interactive way. It’s also an opportunity for me and my husband to sit at a fan table for our own convention, SpoCon, which is coming up in August.

Finally, Daron’s mother lives in Sandpoint, so I imagine we’ll work some family time in, too. I expect that we’ll have fun no matter what.

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MosCon Revival

After talking with my husband, I will indeed be attending the MosCon Revival convention. The dates are June 21-23, although I will be there Saturday and Sunday only. My topic is “Do Women Game Differently?” I’m hoping they will put a man on the panel with me, so we can have some back-and-forth to compare our experiences. This is even more on-the-fly than Sandemonium, the week before. I’m really not worried, though. I can talk and be entertaining for an hour, no problem.

For those not familiar with Inland Northwest conventions, MosCon holds a special place in many hearts. When they started in 1979, it was the only SF event in the region. The next closest were in Seattle, WA or Portland, OR. One of the two founders was the late Jon Gustafson, an expert in SF art. At his urging, MosCon became the first SF convention in the nation to have an Artist Guest of Honor. They may also have been the first to invite a Science Guest of Honor, but I won’t swear to that.

The conventions continued for 20 years. Although time took its toll in concom burnout or having to leave for career opportunities, they were excellent for many years. I’m thrilled to be part of this revival. If you’re in the region, I urge you to come up and join us.

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Feeling Frazzled

A lot of things have stacked up for me in the past few weeks. I feel like I’m juggling time bombs!

The major one is that SpoCon, our local SF Convention, is just two months away and I’ve started laying out the programs. This is always a combination of great excitement, because of so many wonderful ideas for panels and presentations, with frustration because there are 150 ideas and only about 75 spots. Now is when I have to cut back, and it’s always a special agony.

I also have a group yard sale this weekend that I haven’t gotten my donations ready for. Time is short to get on with that.

Next thing is, the end of the school year. I’m madly trying to get the last bit of teaching that I can. Next year I’m assigned to a different school, so I’ll spend the remaining few days packing up my things and making sure the teachers who are left get all the right data from my students.

In two weeks, I’m at Sandemonium, a small one-day convention in Sandpoint, ID. I’m presenting on “Ugly Tropes and How to Destroy Them.” I haven’t really prepared for that one, either, although at least I have done the pre-thinking part. Actually writing the presentation should go pretty quickly.

The weekend after, there’s an event in Moscow, ID that commemorates the MosCon Science Fiction Convention. I’d love to go, even though I’m not on any panels, because I have such fond memories of MosCon. We’ll have to see how the money holds up for that.

And hopefully I’ll get a chance to write on my novella during all this!

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