Notes on Plot (pt. 3)

More models for thinking about plot.

Model 2-Plot as conflict: One writer, (sadly, I can't remember who) said that all you need to know for plot is "things get worse." Anytime in the story when you don't know what comes next, make things worse. Done well, this is true enough. Done wrong, it becomes "hit the bird." (Disney's Alladin. Don't know what to do, hit the bird.) As I said, done right it works. Things keep getting worse for Hero-Protagonist until at the end, they get better.

I prefer to think in terms of conflict. Plot is getting from point a to point b with the maximum amount of interesting and appropriate mayhem (conflict) in between. Your character wants or needs something (internal vs. external) and chooses to try or is forced to try to get it or to get away from having to get it. How that plays out, and what he or she loses or gains along the way is plot. This is a sort of hero's journey model.

Model 3-Plot as conflict part B; internal vs. external: In most fantasy fiction you will have a protagonist and an antagonist, or hero and villain. In conflict type B, the conflict and plot are driven by the opposing needs of the hero and the villain, remembering always that the villain is the hero of his or her own story. This leads us back to internally vs. externally driven plots.

Model 4-Plot as motion: In normal life, long periods go by without anything of significance happening. In fiction everything is a significant happening or should be. If it doesn't move the story somehow, it probably shouldn't be in the text. In plot as a motion we start at a point of stasis, or immediately after a point of stasis has been destabilized. The story then revolves around getting to a new point of stasis and this involves motion through the world and through time. Attempts to halt or redirect the flow of motion create the conflict necessary to interesting story-telling.

That's all for now. At least, for my brain, but I know y'all (including my esteemed Wyrdsmith colleagues) have all sorts of insights that I've missed, and I'd love to hear them. So, models 5-10? Sub clauses to the current list? Recipes for Plot Pie or Plot Stew? Rants about the anathema of pinning your poor characters to a plot board?

Notes on Plot (pt. 2)

For the intro see part one below. Here I'll mention a few models for thinking about plot, all of which can be applied to either internal or external plot.

Model 1-Plot, what, why how: Plot is confusing in part because when writers and readers talk about it, they're talking about several different things, and we rarely differentiate explicitly.

Plot the what, plot the why, and plot the how. Very often we focus on plot the what, the sequence of events that take us from the beginning of a story to the end, and talk about it in great detail.

The what of plot can be anything and everything and is easy to worry about and to follow to distraction.

The why of plot is the most important thing for the writer to think about. And, fortunately, it's much simpler. Why do the things in a story happen? Fiction is the art of crafting stories with a purpose. That purpose can be as simple as crafting a ripping yarn, or as complex as well pretty much anything you can conceive of.

The key to a well plotted story is mapping the why onto the how. The what follows naturally after that. Why are you telling the story? What do you want out of the story? Once you have an idea of that you can move on to the how.

In my case, the why is usually built around wanting people to come see my cool world. I decide what parts of the world I want to show off. Where in the world can I place the story for maximum tourist advantage? Then I map out a loose path through the set and start thinking about what sort of character would follow that path, which leads me to conflict and another way to think about plot.

A note on cost: There is no plot without cost. If the characters in your story don't have to give anything up (cost) there is no tension, and so no story.

Okay, so it looks like I'll have to finish this up in part three tomorrow for length reasons. In the meantime the usual request for thoughts and comments applies.

What do you think?

Notes on Plot (pt 1)

I've spent a good bit of time over the years thinking about plot and I thought some of those ideas might be of interest to y'all. I'll start with a definition of terms today and then discuss four models of plot construction in the next part. As always comments and questions from readers are not only welcomed they're encouraged.

The basic equation of plot as I see it goes a bit like this:

Plot = How Conflict interacts with Cost to achieve resolution
Conflict = The difference between the way things are and the way they ought to be
Cost = Price of resolving conflict

That said, there two basic types of plots. Internally driven and externally driven.

Much of classic fantasy and most of classic science fiction revolves around externally driven plot. Sauron seeks the one ring. Either Frodo and co destroy it or are destroyed. No internal transformation has to take place in any of the characters. They have a goal. The trilogy is built around achieving that goal. In fantasy the external plot is usually driven by a BBE, or big bad evil. Sauron. The White Witch. Etc.

Most lit fic and an ever growing portion of F&SF is internally driven. Internally driven stories usually revolve around the problems of the character though many have explicit external villains as well. The protagonist is broken in some fundamental way, either some time before the action of the book begins, or very soon thereafter. They then go on a journey which either fixes them, or transforms them into someone who no longer needs to be fixed.

I personally try to write a story with both external and internal plot drivers, as I feel that a fusion of the two makes for a stronger story.

Thoughts? Comments? What am I missing here?

Home from WisCon (Party Report)

Howdy,

I think most of us are back at this point. I for one had a great time. The Wyrdsmiths party was a blowout and seriously reinforced the more-beer-less-food mantra that we've been developing. We blew through an amazing quantity between 10:00 and 12:00 and would have run dry soon thereafter had not the folks from Nightshade books and the Scribe literary agency showed up and started playing bartender. I'm not sure which of them brought the Scotch and other alcohol, (I was on the far side of the party at the time and literally couldn't get over there) but many thanks to whoever it was. Please correct me in comments if I'm missing or misnaming anyone, and I'll update.

We had a hell of a lot of publishing folks (writers, agents, editors, reviewers...) come through, including quite a number of writers who are not yet published but who I fully expect to see in print in the near future.

Industry party attendees in no particular order:

The aforementioned bar rescuers from Scribe and Nightshade.
Sam Butler,
Patrica Bray,
Jennifer Dunne,
Jennifer Stevenson,
Laurel Winter,
Barth Anderson,
Sharyn November,
Jim Frenkel,
Leah Cutter,
Alma Alexander,
Alan DeNiro,
Michael Levy,
Sandra Lindow,
Michael Merriam,
Hilary Moon Murphy,
Lori Selke,
Stephen H. Segal,
S.N. Arly,
David Hoffman-Dachelet
Stephanie Zvan
J. Simon
Greg Frost and Delia Sherman came in, but only long enough to borrow a coffee maker for the party they were throwing down the hall.

Updates:
Douglas Lain,
Rebecca Marjesdatter,
Terry Gerry,
Jeremy Lassen (Nightshade-mentioned above but not named),
Kristopher O'higgins and Jesse Vogel (Scribe-ditto),


There were more, and please add to the list (or the links) in comments and I'll update accordingly. All misspellings are my own.

"What's My Motivation?" Creating Believable Characters

Another re-un from Tate...

Creating believable characters is the essence of fiction writing. But how is it actually done?

First of all, I don't think anyone really knows. So much of writing is magic, after all. (I mean that quite seriously, but maybe that's a post for another day.) Even so, it is also a craft. There are tricks of the trade that help flat words on the page blossom into vivid, living imaginary creatures.

One such trick is what is called narrative voice.

I searched desperately for a good definition of what is meant by narrative voice and I didn't come up with much of any use. So, I’ll have to stumble through an explanation of my own. The narrative is comprised of the parts of the story that is not dialogue. That would include all of the description, the internal dialogue (if there is any), the action, and everything (except the bits in quotations). The narrative voice, therefore, is the way – the tone, if you will – in which those parts are written.

Your narrative will be in a
point of view (the usual suspects: first or third). It will be in a verb tense of some sort (past or present).

The voice, on the other hand, will convey a certain kind of personality, such as chatty, sarcastic, militaristic, hesitant, or angry. Since your story is being told, in essence, by the main character, the narrative voice (remember: the bits in between) should reflect their personality as much as the character's dialogue and actions. It will be consistent throughout the text, ie. your chick-lit heroine will still be chatty even during the scary scenes or the sad scenes. She'll just be chatty in a scared way or a sad way. Though not necessarily when she's talking (dialogue), but when she's explaining things to us, the readers.

One of the big mistakes beginning writers often make is to underutilize the narrative voice. I don't know why, but a lot of people seem to approach those parts of the story as if they're the boring bits. He walked into the room, yada, yada.

No, no, no. The narrative is where your character LIVES. If your critique group is telling you that your characters feel flat, this may be part of your problem.

The narrative voice is the reader's main window into the mind, the emotional state, and the... well, character of your main character. So he walked into a room. Is it a room he's been in before? Does the room make him feel instantly at ease? Why? What about it? Is it the dried flower arrangement collecting dust in the sunlight that reminds him of his mother's house? Is the room warm? And, how does this reflect the plot (or the theme)? Is this room a place in which he's going to take shelter after having his world-view shaken after discovering his lover is a werewolf? If so, what about this familiar place suddenly feels wrong?

Plus, as I've said many times before I think one of the reasons readers read is to get a sense of what it’s like to be someone else. We want someone else's take on the familiar. So he walked into a room, is there something there I might understand, relate to? Okay, so I've never discovered my lover is a werewolf, but what is it about walking into a room you've been in a million times before after hearing some world-altering news that is universal to the human experience? Or maybe it's not even that close. Maybe it's like the feeling of wrong familiarness that you get once you’ve been overseas and come home, and you look at all the houses in the Midwest with their expansive lawns that you've grown up with all your life, and suddenly they seem far too far apart.

That's part of using narrative voice to its full potential.

The other part is word choice. Part of keeping your narrative voice consistent is remembering to always use the kinds of words your main character would know when describing people, places, and things. For example, a nuclear physicist would describe a garden in a different way than a ten-year old girl.

One of the more difficult parts of writing is remembering to always stay in your main character’s head – to think like they do. One of the reasons I don't like to read much horror, particularly the kinds of horror novels where there’s a serial killer who has p.o.v. chapters, is that I hate getting into the mindset of someone so damaged. And, when a writer does it well, that's exactly what happens. It can be kind freaky, actually. See my nephew's blog
(Sunday, January 29) where he talks about reading American Psycho.

Conception to Completion (pt 3)

The Final Installment--in which the book gets finished and a party is thrown.

Further Chapters: This happens concurrent with the following section. In essence it's very simple, put in-scene the narrative you've developed. In practice it's messy. You may find out that one of your clever ideas doesn't work. Or, if you're fortunate enough to find a good critic to read your working draft they may point out things that need to be changed to make a better story. For one novel not all that long ago, I scrapped two chapters worth of working outline and started over. I kept some of the same events, but shifted the emphasis and removed the supporting characters entirely to emphasize the central role of the protagonist.

Advanced Blocking: This may or may not be necessary depending on your own individual process. I find that when I'm having trouble with a scene it means that I need to take a step back from the actual writing and figure out what I'm trying to achieve with a scene and how best to achieve it. So I might put together something like "Chapter 12, Scene one" with a description of what I want to happen and why, then follow with "scene two," etc. until I've fully blocked out the chapter.

Finish/Clean-up/Ongoing Rewrite: Once the first draft is finished (if you haven't already) it's time to go back and clean up any messes made by the changes that will inevitably have drifted in from the initial conception and do things like throwing in foreshadowing for a scene not originally anticipated. A person can also do all of this as they go, going back and inserting whatever adjustments that need to be made as soon as they occur, and this is actually the model I follow though I don't necessarily recommend it. For many writers what it leads to is a dead stall where they are continually rewriting their first chapters and never actually moving forward.

Celebrate: This is key. If you've finished a book you owe yourself a dinner out at the very least, and possibly a blow-out party.

A Final Note: I can't emphasize enough that this is only one way to reach the goal of a finished book. I know writers who have no idea what's going to happen with the story from day-to-day and who just "follow my characters around and see what happens" and who write excellent novels. I know writers who would be paralyzed by my model, sinking hundred of hours into blocking and outlines and not working on the text at all. Think of this as one possible starting point. Use the parts of it that make sense or help you move forward, discard those that don't.

The End. Comments? Questions? Flames?

Conception to Completion (pt 2)

Part 2--in which I talk about actually starting work on the book. Okay so this is a bit of cheat because I do do some of the initial writing in tandem with the earlier stuff.

Three Chapters: At some point in the process, beginning as early as halfway through basic blocking or anywhere thereafter, I need to actually start writing the book so that I can get a handle on who my characters are and the style I'm going to use to write the story. I find that I am often surprised about some of the details of the story and characters both here and later, despite the fact that I have a very good idea of what the story will look like in overview. I typically start these chapters during the blocking process and finish them in tandem with the basic narrative outline as the two inform each other.

Note: Three is not entirely an arbitrary number, because the basic book proposal format is three chapters (~50 pages) and a detailed narrative plot outline. As a writing tool, three chapters is purely a suggestion as it may well take longer than this to really figure out where the story is going to go and how it will get there. In an adult-length novel ~100,000 words, I will usually nail this down somewhere between 15-20,000. First time authors would be advised to have a completed manuscript before submitting the proposal version in any case.

Working Outline: This is a very different critter from the narrative outline. Here my goal is not to tell the story to a third party reader, but rather to blueprint it for myself. It will include both the events of the story and the structural reasons for those events. So, it might include something like "Draft student into. Establish teachers, also the student TAs." This tells me that at this point in this chapter I need to write several short scenes showing my lead character in his classes. One of the purposes of these scenes is to establish some of my other characters and make them distinct. The depth of description in a working outline will vary widely from author to author and should include everything that you think is important in the scene at the minimum level of detail necessary for you to remember it. This isn't the story itself and all the time I spend here is time that I don't have to work on the actual finished product. Generally, the more inexperienced the writer, the greater the detail they should put into this sort of outline.

A working outline should at the very least lay out all the major events. In my case, I like to lay it out chapter by chapter. For Black School what I did was looked at my first three chapters to get an idea of what my chapter length was going to be (this can vary wildly depending on the story) and then mapped it against the max number of words. YA is short: 30,000 at the low end up to 75,000 at the extreme high end. I chose to shoot for 60,000 as a ceiling and to bring it in shorter if possible. That meant 16-20 chapters. Just getting in all the events listed in the narrative outline took about 14 chapters leaving me 2-6 chapters for unexpected surprises. I determined this by looking at the events in the narrative outline and seeing how much space they had taken up in my three demonstration chapters. This is an extremely inexact science, as one event might be a paragraph in narrative because of its importance, but only a short scene in text, while another might be a sentence in narrative, but a chapter and a half in text.

To Be Continued As always YMMV, and comments questions and anything else you might want to throw in the ring is welcome.

Conception to Completion (pt. 1)

How do you put together a novel? There are 1,001 and one ways, every one of them right. I thought I'd talk about how I do it in hopes that it might be of some use to others, or at least a good place to have a discussion of ways and means. So here's the first part of my process using the book Black School as my model.

Before I start writing the actual book.

Conception of idea: What do you want to write about? This is question one. In my case I usually start with a world or magic system. Starting with a character or a scene or a situation all work too. It helps if you can articulate the idea in a sentence--I want to write about ___________. Or a pitch "World War II with sacrifice magic and dark fey Nazis" for example. That's a gross oversimplification, but when I say it, my listeners will have an instant sense of where I'm going, and so do I.

Basic blocking: Write out the idea in some detail. Shoot for at least two to five single spaced pages. Put flesh on the bones of the one-sentence description above. Try and think through the ramifications of the ideas, i.e. How would a military magic school work when the magic is built around sacrifice? How big a school? How many students? How many teachers? Where is the school? What is its relationship with the local military? Etc.

By the time I reached the end of this process for The Black School I knew the number of buildings on the campus and what their purpose and design was, my total student body, student rank in relation to general military, class schedule, dorm arrangements, etc. That let me open the first day of the book knowing where my lead character had to be and when, if he followed his schedule. This is not an exhaustive list of everything I needed to know, but it gives the flavor. I come back to this and add to it all through the writing of the novel as more details become clear.

Narrative Outline: What is my actual story? In my case I started with a solid idea of where I wanted the story to start, where I wanted it to end, what kind of general transformation I wanted in my main character, and who that character was. That's a good start for this model. Other models can work just as well and may mean knowing a lot less about the overall story.

For the narrative outline I typically end with a five page overview (standard length in 12pt Courier). In this case, a page on the school, magic system, and main character, to set the scene. Then I started with my opening scene and wrote a very loose description of events over the next four pages, introducing new characters as they came into the story.

The outline had to answer the following questions: What does the main character want? What do they need? What are they going to get? What obstacles do they have to overcome to get there? What do they have to give up to get what they need? How are they going to fail on the way? Failure is key to plot. If the main character doesn't fail from time to time, then there's no dramatic tension or payoff when they succeed.

The final version of the narrative outline should tell the main points of the story in a voice as close to the actual fiction as possible.

That's all for now. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Clever woodchuck escape schemes?

Does Blood Pool in Zero-G and Other Writing Woes

More re-runs from my earlier Tate blog... I suspect my colleagues are all getting ready for WisCON. So, think of these as summer reruns...

One of the things that can scare nascent writers about science fiction is, well, the science. Even professional SF/F writers, like my mentor Eleanor Arnason, have been known to choke when it comes to the nuts and bolts part of the story.

First of all, don’t let "getting it right" stop you. Remember – William Gibson wrote his groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Nueromancer on a typewriter, and while having almost no experience with a computer. All you really need from the science is the spark for the idea.

Story elements -- like character and plot and theme -- are far more important to most editors than the preciseness of the physics (or chemistry or biology or math). Now, that’s not to say you have a license to not TRY to get the science as right as possible, because SF/F fans (your readers) will notice egregious errors and be more than happy to corner you at a convention and explain the way gravitational physics REALLY works.

I think the key to writing successful science fiction stories is to be enthusiastic about the science you're writing about. I don't think about science every day, though I'd like to. One of the ways I keep myself open and receptive to the seed of a science fiction story is to hang out where ideas germinate.

If you're struggling to find SF ideas, (or if, like me, you just like to hang out where the smart people are,) I'm going to suggest that after you read the New York Times in the morning (or whatever your post-coffee gathering ritual is) you check out some scientific web sites – or, like I do, keep a few of these magazines in their print form in the bathroom for quick perusal.

Popular Science
Popular Mechanics
National Geographic
Science News

There are many, many more I could list, but the articles in these magazines are written in such a way to make you the kind of vaguely informed dangerous that really promotes a good science fiction idea. That's to say, they aren't terribly technical and they leave out the details that would probably send your idea down in a flaming wreck.

Half-assed ideas are the ones with the most wriggle room. Go for it. Make your characters real and the situation believable and the science won’t matter. Get it close enough, and then find an expert to fix what needs fixing. Or just pray that with enough hand waving, the editor will be so charmed by your work that s/he won’t give a crap that your science is wonky.

What about you? Do you have stories that you've stalled out on because of the science? How important do you think "getting it right" is?

Where the Heck is Schenectady? Finding SF/F Ideas – Part I: [Bleeping!] Read.

Since Kelly posted his answer to “where do you get your crazy ideas,” I though I’d cross-post this, which originally appeared on my Tate Hallaway blog:

The title of this blog comes from an old skiffy joke. Writers often get asked the question, “Where do you get your crazy ideas?” According to legend, Ray Bradbury replied that all science fiction ideas originated in an idea factory in Schenectady, New York, and any one could get one for only three dollars a piece.

It’s an easy, flip answer for a question that is, particularly for the nascent writer, a difficult one.
Neil Gaiman [http://www.neilgaiman.com/exculsive/essays/essaysbyneil/ideaessay] has a wonderful essay that is his answer to this question.

My answer builds on Neil’s. I think that beyond imagination and asking questions, which are, in fact, the key components in getting story ideas, a science fiction and fantasy writer has to hang out in the places where they can become exposed to the raw material for ideas.

First, you HAVE to read.

I know, it seems fundamental, but the truth is, you really have no business writing if you don’t read. You really ought to read the genre you want to publish in, though, admittedly that’s not always necessary. It’s not just a matter of professional courtesy. Asking new writers to read is more than a clever marketing strategy to get them to buy my books. In science fiction and fantasy, in particular, there’s a lot that has gone before. What may seem like a new idea to you might actually be number one on the list of over-used science fiction clichés. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use it. You should just go into writing it, knowing what you’re writing against. After all, Orson Scott Card did quite well revisiting “the game turned out to be real,” when he wrote the original novella for “Ender’s Game,” which later became a best-selling and award-winning novel.

Also, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Science fiction and fantasy readers have short-handed a lot of your work for you. You can just say “jump ship” and we know you have some kind of tesseract engine that works as your FTL. If you didn’t understand what I just wrote, you need to read more science fiction, starting with Madeline L’Engle’s WIND IN THE DOOR.

But, perhaps more importantly, reading is a great cauldron for ideas.

I know that a lot of people worry unnecessarily about their ideas getting stolen, or accidentally stealing someone else’s idea. You must remember that ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted. And, frankly, no matter how brilliant your idea, there isn’t anything new under the sun. Besides, even if six writers sat down to write, “the game turned out to be real,” not one of them would write the exact same story. All of them could be beautiful and publishable. In fact, they could all end up in the same themed anthology, and no one would be in violation of the copyright law. As Neil says, really, the idea itself is not REALLY the important part so much as the writing down of it.

“Can I steal that idea?” is a phrase heard a lot in my writer’s critique group. All of us know that writers borrow, build-on, expand… other writer’s ideas all the time. It’s what Virgil did for Homer. Also, it’s called being part of the science fiction continuum. All published writing is in conversation with what has gone before and what will come after.

Reading someone else’s ideas SHOULD inspire you.

That’s not to suggest you can write a story about Miles Verkosegan and expect it to be published. That’s just fan fiction (fan fic), and it can get you into legal trouble. But, it’s perfectly okay to think about what it is about that character that interest you so much and try to put those qualities (or that situation or whatever it was that turned you on) into a character (or situation or whatever) of your own making.

For example: a very good friend of mine, Lyda Morehouse claims to have been inspired to write her the first novel in her AngeLINK series by an episode of X-Files.

Obviously, there’s more to it, but you have to look for that spark of inspiration anywhere – and seize it.

Quick Hit-Sad News

Miss Snark is retiring her blog, though the archives will remain.

Quick Hit: Tooting My Own Horn

My editor, Anne Sowards, had this news to share about Dead Sexy... [I'd told her that I'd noticed DS was #9 on the B&N contemporary paranormal romance bestseller list on-line]....

"Thanks for passing it on! DEAD SEXY is also doing nicely at the B&N physical stores--it debuted at #7 on their romance trade bestseller list, and moved to #8 the second week. It's #11 on Bookscan's Romance trade bestseller list."

Horray! Time to pop some bubbly!

Quick Hit-Congratulations!

Laura Rede, one of my former writing students and mentees just won 2nd place in the first quarter of the Writers of the Future contest, and I'm very pleased for her and proud of her. Way to go Laura! You rock!

Where do I get my ideas?

I build them.

I can't say how tempting it is to end there, but I won't.

This is one of those perennial questions that all writers get and it's surprisingly hard to answer in a way that satisfies both the person who asked and yourself. But here goes.

The intial fragment of an idea for one of my stories or novels could come from anywhere, old research, a dream, a conversation at a con, two apparently unrelated words clicking together in my head. But that's not a story, that's a starting point. The real work happens when I take that moment, whatever it is, and start sticking bits onto it and asking, "well yes, but then what happens?" Or, "all right, that's cool, what else can I throw into the stew?"

Goblin + laptop isn't a story, but it popped up in my head as interesting combination of concepts. Make it a laptop that becomes a goblin and is the familiar of a sorcerer and you start to get there. Add that the sorcerer is a hacker who uses code to cast spells and combine it with a parallel worlds story where the worlds are accessed as you would webpages using the medium of the goblin/laptop and you have the seed of the WebMage books.

Where do you get your ideas? The idea of the month club? Burbank? Dreams and portents?

WTF: Technorati

I was reading John Scalzi's list of the fifty top individual author blogs, as rated by Technorati, and I got curious: Where does Wyrdsmiths rank, according that web-running Wunderkind?

Guess what? It doesn't. Even though I've seen at least a dozen blogs and sites with links back to here, it wasn't plugged in to their spidey.net.

So, I signed us up. And pinged us. And embedded the do-hickey in the sidebar.

And clicked "release the spiders!"

It still says we have no links to our blog.

Hmm. Seems like my blog links here. As does Lyda's and Tate's, and Eleanor's, and... hey, wait... so do several blogs of our readers, too!

What is Technorati smoking?

Or, how feeble are my skillz that I can't get this thing to update properly?

Anyway, if you belong to the Tech-no-raters, check out this link:



See you in the rankings!

Don't'cha Hate it When.../In Defense of FanFic

One of the hazards of being in a writers group is that sometimes you read things that you love LONG before anyone picks them up for publication. There are stories of Eleanor's, for instance, that I'm always surprised to remember haven't been bought yet, and when I bring them up at conventions or in conversation with other writers or readers I have to stop and say, "Oh, yeah, never mind."

Then there's Kelly's Urbana novel. Of all the things I've read over the years, that one haunts me the most... not because I think it's his best written book (that would be Black School, IMHO,) but because the magical system in it seems so... tantalizingly plausible. If you meet Kelly at a convention, ask him about it. If I tried to explain it here, I'm sure I'd get something wrong, but basically there are fey/fairy creatures who have adapted to urban life and whose magical influence can be found in things like graffiti, swirling garbage, and traffic accidents (among other things.) Anyway, I often find myself noticing things as I drive around town that make me think of these critters and I really, REALLY want Kelly's agent to hurry up and sell not only that book, but also the rights to a shared world anthology so I can go and play in his world for a while.

It's funny because what I want to do is almost like writing fanfic for a novel that's never been written. The only reason what I'd like to do _isn't_ consider fanfic is because 1) the book isn't published yet, and 2) I'd only do it if Kelly said it was okay and if we had some kind of share world anthology happening. I know that there's a lot of strong feelings about fanfic out there, but I for one have always found it a huge flattery. If someone loves my world enough that they don't want it to end, but want to write more and more and more stories in it... well, that's awesome.

Cory Doctorow had a column in Locus last month in praise of fanfic (it's actually reprinted on the site right now, if you want to read it use the link above). His feelings were much the same of mine. Fanfic is a big fat compliment. SF/F authors should be flattered and not shut these folks down for expressing their love for the genre this way. I actually feel the same way about slash, though I can more understand people's objections to that... though for me the same rules apply -- if you love my characters so much you want to imagine tawdry sex between them, well, have fun, kids!

What do you think? Is this a pixel stained techno-peasants kind of issue? Are there people out there under a certain age who can even imagine why anyone would object to this sort of Internet tom-foolery, or is it all in good fun with no consequences for the author and his/her copyright?

More Numbers Games

I find myself in a strange position with the publication of my second Tate Hallaway book Dead Sexy. My publisher, in all their wisdom, decided not to print galleys/ARCs (Advance Review Copies). Galleys go to reviewers early -- usually several months before the book is scheduled to be published. It seems to me that this was an "interesting" (Minnesotan for "stupid") move, if only because it seems to me that many libraries decide what to buy based on reviews they read in places like Library Journal, Booklist, and Publishers' Weekly. Libraries, if you weren't aware, often make up the bulk of book sales.

My editor told me that the decision wasn't meant as some kind of vote of no confidence (which I was inclined to take it as), but a function of having switched genres to "series romances." I have no reason to disbelieve her, except that my local Romance Writers' of America chapter often asks its authors for ARCs/galleys for review in its newsletter "Midwest Muse." However, to be fair, she said this was a new policy.

She said that a larger number of books go out to reviewers post-production, and I've heard from at least one place that is planning to run a review now (even though most people like to time it so the review comes out about a month BEFORE the book). I was lucky, too, in that Romantic Times/Bookclub asked for an early copy and I got a very nice review from them. (Go me.) I believe (if only because its true for me) a lot of romance readers make their shopping lists from reviews in RT.

Okay, that's all the background, here's the weird predicament I find myself in... one of the only places a reader can find reviews of my newest book is on Amazon.com. Right now, I'm getting a lot of mixed reviews, and I'm totally willing to accept that these are the opinions of my readers... however, it does make me concerned. If there are few other reviews out there, my guess is how I rate on Amazon becomes more important, right?

So my question is -- how much stock do you put in the reviews you find on commercial sites like Amazon or Barnes & Noble? Are there on-line (or paper) reviewers whose opinions you absolutely trust? Or do you distrust reviews generally, whether they be professional or not?

And, just out of curiosity, do you, as a reader, ever look at the Amazon.com sales ranking? Does it ever influence your decision to buy?

More on Self-Promotion, Some Numbers

I'm unconvinced that anything besides writing more and better books has much of significant impact on career/sales, and the more I learn about the business, the more that I feel that way.

Self-promotion can have a sales spike effect. Of that I have no doubt. But how big a spike? And how important is that spike in relation to the kinds of numbers involved in a successful book or, more importantly, a successful career? Take my first book. In the first six months I sold an average of 75 copies* a day every day. That earned out my advance plus ten percent.

This is fabulous and I'm delighted. But in order to have any real impact on sales (the kind of impact that would really change advances or earnings) I'd need to find something that would improve that by a minimum of something like ten books per day every day for a similar period. To have a career that will allow me to survive without a second job (which most writers have) or a spouse who is the primary source of income and insurance (my case) I would need to sell at least 150 books a day every day for the rest of my life +inflation. To make a decent living I'd need to make that something more like 300 books a day. To crack six figures it'd have to be ~800 books a day.

I would love to believe that I could come up with a self-promotional effort that would have a several hundred books per day kind of impact on my sales and that wouldn't eat up so much time that it would counterproductive in terms of producing the next book (or preferably the next several books).

However, I'm pretty sure that if I take the same amount of effort that kind of promotion-driven sales bump would require and apply it to writing, I can produce a complete extra book (or even two). Given that the best promotion that I know of is to have another book come out, one that's as good or better than the last one, that seems like a simple bet. Especially when you consider that in addition to a new book's impact on backlist a new book generates its own sales to add to that per day number, and it will hopefully help me build a personal brand as a fast reliable author (both with publishers and readers).

So currently that's where I'm focusing my main effort--writing spec books in the gaps between contract books. Will it work better than all the other self-promo stuff? I don't know for sure, but I personally find writing more books both more rewarding and more quantifiable than any other promotional effort I could engage in--I love writing, that's why I do this.

Of course, that's not going to be everybody's answer and I completely respect people who've chosen to do more self-promotion than I have, but it's just not my thing.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

--------------------------------------------

*all numbers in this post are for mass market paperbacks.

Quickie: Fun New Market

I loved the title so much, I wanted to share!

From Gila Queen's Guide to Markets:

Bound for Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad—Dead Letter Press, See Web site. Editor: Tom English. "Dead Letter Press is now soliciting story submissions for a hardcover anthology of weird fiction featuring both classic and new tales about ‘books gone bad.’ Bound for Evil will be limited to not more than 500 copies."

"Stories should be about books that do not belong in a sane person's library; books that wreak havoc in the lives of their owners; books that are no damn good! The ‘bad’ book in your story should be central to the plot. The book should exert a weird emotional, or physical, or supernatural effect on the characters, or on reality, time, or space. The book should be the villain of your story. Perhaps a sympathetic villain, or an unwitting accomplice to evil—but nevertheless, the book should be a ‘character’ in your story, play a major role, and be ‘on stage’ for a good part of the tale. You can think of this as ‘the secret lives and evil times of diabolical books.’ In fact, that's the tag line."

"Consider these classic examples: Lovecraft's "The Book" (the ancient tome transports the reader to strange vistas); Fred Chappell's "The Adder" (the book feeds on other texts in a bookstore); M.R. James's "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook" (the book comes complete with a demon)."

"Further illustrations: How about a book that steals time? (All books do in a way.) Or money? (A whimsical idea, yes, but one I continually have to deal with!) How about a book that supernaturally forces a man to spend his last dollar on it? Poor guy goes home and dies of starvation. The authorities later find his emaciated corpse lying in a house with the walls covered floor to ceiling with expensive volumes! (That would be laughable—if it hadn't really happened to one poor bibliomaniac.)"

"Suggestions: Stories about books used to conjure a curse or call forth a demon have been overdone. Unless you can put an original spin on the idea, then don’t try it. Please limit violence and profanity to the absolute minimum necessary to tell your story. Keep sex ‘off camera.’ Sometimes suggestion is far more powerful than detailed description."

3000–10,000 words preferred; pays 1¢/word + 2 copies; $25–100 (reprints). "Send your tale of ‘books gone bad’ as an E-mail attachment." [E-mail: DeadLetterPress@cox.net; http://www.deadletterpress.com/ ]. Deadline: September 30, 2007.

Nebulas!

The winners of this year's Nebula Awards were announced on Saturday. Here's the Locus page.

Jack McDevitt's Seeker won in the novel category. I haven't read Seeker, and realized after some reflection that I couldn't remember who won last year, which eventually led me to look at the Locus list of past winners to see when I'd last read a novel that won SFFWA's most prestigious award.

What I discovered gave me a small shock: Nicola Griffith's Slow River--in 1997. Ten years ago.

So now I'm curious: How about you? What (and when) was the last Nebula Award winner you read?

The Numbers Game

There’s a discussion going on in a group of science fiction/fantasy authors that I belong to about whether or not the group should buy a membership to Bookscan. Nielson Bookscan (http://www.bookscan.com/about.html) tracks the numbers of actual books leaving bookstores that have signed up to be part of this service -- the majority of those being, to my understanding, big box chains. Right now the only people who have access to this information are publishers, who buy subscriptions.

As a lot of people have pointed out, there’s not much use in knowing these numbers. They’re not something that a writer has much power over changing. However, there is so much information that our publishers keep from us – not necessarily on purpose, but knowledge is power. Most authors, for instance, won’t talk openly about money – i.e., how much they got for an advance, how much they made in royalities – and so when one’s agent says, “Well, they’re offering $-,---“ you have no idea if blank is the fair going rate or not. You can ask your agent if the price is any good, but she’s likely to say something like, “Well, it’s what they’re offering,” and not say that she sold a similar book for twice (or half) the amount last week.

For the record, I’ve always been willing to share actual dollar figures when asked. I tell my students what I got on my first book (if only to watch their hopeful faces crumble as they ask, “Is that ALL?”)

Money is considered such a private affair that I don’t see that suddenly changing. It’s considered rude to talk about how much you made (even though lots of other professions have ways of tracking what’s a standard salary in their field). So, my feeling is if we, as authors, can get our hands on other comparative information – such as how book stores are reporting sales for books in our genre (Bookscan breaks up genre books pretty specifically – I only know because Tate’s first book, Tall, Dark & Dead made a best seller list in the sub-sub category of paranormal romance on Bookscan last year – previous to that I’d never even heard of them.) Though the numbers may be flawed (see: this Salon article: http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2002/06/25/bestsellers/index.html) it’s at least some indication as to how your book did in comparison to others in its genre.

Yeah, okay, this information is likely to be pretty depressing for the average mid-list author like myself, but I also think it can be helpful when it comes time to hit the negotiation table (especially, if you share the information with your agent.) It might mean that some authors who were expecting to make more, find the numbers indicating they should make less, but there are other factors to consider, such as how long someone’s been writing (one’s advances should always go up a little per book) and how lucky the publishers think they might be (see article below on how publishing is just one big crap shoot.)

Keep in mind, too, that most authors don’t have a clue how their book is doing. Royalty statements tend to only come when there’s money owed the author (though they’re supposed to come regardless) and not every book earns out. And, you don’t see these except quarterly, and even then usually months after the quarter has ended. People always ask me, “How’s the book doing?” and I inevitably have to reply, “I have no idea.” The other thing access to Bookscan would give authors is a sense of how a book is doing as the publishers know…. instead of months and months later, possibly even after the publisher has decided to pull the plug on a book and remainder it.

What do you think? Would you want to know how well you’re selling?

Quick Hit: Bestseller Article

This morning, the New York Times money section has an interesting article called The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller which discusses something I've always believed and that is that publishers don't actually have a clue why some books sell and others done. (Oh, and I'm thinking about writing whatever this woman writes -- check out her advance: $40,000? I've never known anyone to get that on what sounds like a first book.)

Them Bones

The Wyrdsmiths had a meeting last night, and one of the things we talked about was the novel that I am starting in on. Since I'm just beginning this novel, there are a fair number of things up in the air, and the conversation included a fair number of questions about what parts of the story are necessary to tell, and where the telling of that story should begin.

The story, being a murder mystery, has an outline from the get-go; I have to know what happens and who did what. And the feel of the book will certainly rely in part on the pacing of when I get to the body and what other details are included--setting, character background, etc.

This is the point where I'm deciding what the dinosaur would look like by repositioning the bones.

Some suggestions were made last nigt that will significantly impact the overall feel of the novel, which seems strange, since there isn't a novel yet. But I have to say that I'd rather get the skeleton built properly before I start layering in meat and muscle, organs and skin. For all the work that it is to organize the plot before I even start writing it, I'd rather get rid of major problems ahead of time that I can find before I take the novel down the wrong path and get stuck.

So, as a writer or as a reader (of any genre or of a specific one), what are the bones of the story for you? What details do you find essential to the structure, and which ones can change without having a big impact on the story for you? And how does feedback/critique play into you reorganizing them bones?

Generic Universal Blog Post

Clever title

Paragraph describing brilliant idea/latest (your area here) slap fight/cool new internet meme.*

Paragraph explaining relevance of same.

Paragraph relating topic to personal experience or expertise.

Pithy summation.

Appeal to readers to do the rest of your work for you.

*or insider joke for regular readers...like this footnote.

Quick Hit:Agent Blog

If you want to be depressed about publishing, check out this post: http://agentinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

Judging a Book's Cover

Reading Eleanor’s post at Aqueduct made me want to write a little bit about my own experience with cover art.

Thanks to having known Eleanor before I broke into publishing, I understood that authors don’t often get a lot (or any) input into the cover design. Even so, I was very, very surprised when the second email I got from my editor after having sold Archangel Protocol (the first being the standard “welcome to Penguin”) was the completed cover art image. Unlike Eleanor, I was absolutely thrilled. The cover art is cooler than anything I could have imagined or suggested, and Bruce Jensen is a superb artist. The image, too, if not precisely in the text of the novel, absolutely reflects the spirit and theme of the book.

I was lucky.

I also actually got asked to suggest a scene that might be good for the cover of the second book. The question took me so off guard that I hardly knew how to respond other than, “You’re asking ME??” After pulling myself together, I suggested the scene in which Mouse and Dragon have tea on/in the LINK. They ended up just showing the dragon on her own (and, technically, the wrong color), but I was happy if only because I always wanted to write a science fiction book with a dragon on the cover. By the fourth AngeLINK book, I actually emailed Bruce Jensen a copy of the novel. I have no idea if he read it before he drew his interpretation of the main character, Amariah, but he’s awfully accurate IMHO. But I’m cranky about the fact that for some unknown reason (trying to boost sales?) the publisher completely changed the format of the book in terms of font and those little details that tie a series together. In fact, after the book came out, a lot of readers asked me of Apocalypse Array was part of the series or something new.

That was frustrating and I think it backfired in terms of boosting sales. (But there were other problems, like the fact that publisher decided not to promote the book at all.) And now there are readers of my work who have to contend with the fact that the last book doesn’t look the same when spine-to-spine with the rest of the series. A little annoyance, perhaps, but the kind of thing that makes us bibliophiles insane.

With my new pseudonym, I’ve been happy with my cover art although I think it’s more misleading than the covers of my SF books. The style of art they’ve chosen is very light and fluffy. The books are meant to be humorous, but they’re not as light as some of the other books with these kinds of covers. I’ve heard some complaints from people who looked at the cover and expected one thing and got another.

Covers are very important for getting readers. I know that you’re not supposed judge a book by its cover, but I do – and I believe the average readers do, too. In a way, it’s frustrating that the two big things that attract readers – the cover and the back cover copy -- are both things that a writer has almost no control over. I’ve lucked out in both regards, and I’ve noticed, too, that if I write a good synopsis/book proposal some of the copy from that will find its way onto the back jacket.

How do you decide to read a book? Is it the cover art that attracts you? Have you ever been “tricked” by cover art into thinking you’re getting one kind of book only to discover the text didn’t match at all? Or, do you use a better method, like recommendations from friends or reviewers?

Quickie: Eleanor at Aqueduct

Our very own Eleanor posts here at Aqueduct's new blog about her experience with book covers.

Critiquing the Critique: Effectiveness and Honesty

From amid the aeromantic poetics of Barth Anderson's blog:

When you take your car to a mechanic and ask why it's making that funny pinging noise, the mechanic doesn't say, "You know, I really don't like this car."

Take an oath with me, writers wokshops attendees, critiquers, and facilitators? Let's vow to scrutinize and challenge phrases such as "I really liked.." and "I didn't enjoy..." when critiquing our colleagues' work. Relative enjoyment is important for readers, but it should be tertiary or quaternary for writers in a critique circle. Enjoyment isn't irrelevant, obviously - it does speak to the aesthetic experience that a writer is trying to create. But describing how a story operates under its own rules is far more important and may speak to the gear works of that aesthetic experience, and, as a writer-critiquer, you may be short-changing yourself by relying on language that stands in the way of a closer examination ("I didn't like...") because your ability to create a vocabulary for such examinations is key if you want to see your own work effectively.

Kelly had a few points of clarification that he made over on Barth's blog, but since all of us in Wyrdsmiths regularly engage in critique, and without doubt have occasionally uttered the words "I liked this," or "I didn't like this," I thought I would open up the conversation here.

Does "liking" something matter to the critique? Should we omit that bit of info?

Quick Hit: Held Captive by Woodchucks

Hi all,

I'll be posting less frequently while I free myself from the clutches of the diabolically clever rodents. Back in a week or three.

Kelly

Yeah, But It’ll Never Sell

So I’m writing something right now that could be called paranormal chick-lit messianic fiction, which I’m finding absolutely a kick to write. But, every time I talk about it, either I, or the other writer I’m talking to will say, “Yeah, but it’ll never sell.”

We’re probably right.

Am I going to let that stop me from writing it? Nah, luckily it’s too much fun. I could see me not pursuing this particular venture with the same amount of drive that I would something I know might sell or, obviously, which has already (as in under contract). But, it’s going to be my fall-back project for a while. That thing I diddle with when no one’s looking. Where I go off to play.

If I finish it, will the idea that it’ll never sell stop me from sending it out to market? It probably should, but it won’t. You know that rat that keeps pushing the button because sometimes food pellets come and sometimes they don’t? That’s me when it comes to writing. I’ve hit the jackpot by sending out a book that should never have sold. It was cyberpunk, when cyberpunk was supposed to be dead. It was religious fiction (but not enough to qualify for the Christian market) when Clinton was president. It was strongly romantic and somewhat too frivolous given its subject matter in a field that likes its SF hard and intense and manly. But, it was the first novel I sold.

Yet, it didn’t last. And so I also know what is to write to market, in a way. I don’t consider my newest career venture any kind of sell-out, because I’m writing the sort of thing I read. I couldn’t, for instance, actually write an “inspirational romance” (mainstream Christian, where the woman is “saved” by her man in two senses of that word). I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously long enough to finish it. I also couldn’t write a movie novelization -- which, admittedly, no one has ever offered me, but which is the kind of venture authors like to fantasize about. I wouldn’t say yes to a project like that because I’d never make deadline. I’ve found that the thing that fuels my writing is my own excitement about the subject, the characters, the theme… what have you. If I’m not into it, I can’t write.

So, like the pellet seeking rat, all I can do it write what I’m into and hope like hell there’s a market for it. I think one of the hardest parts of this business is that the answer is sometimes, “no, that’s too risky” or too weird or too whatever. Yet, the best part of this business is that sometimes you find the editor willing to take the risk on the weirdo (my agent actually used to pitch me to editors as “weird, but compelling.”) So, when students say to me, “Yeah, but it’ll never sell,” I always tell them that you never know, and you’re the one who has to sit on your butt for several months in a row writing the damn thing, at least you need to be into it. I once heard Patrick Nielson Hayden say that good books will eventually sell (to an editor.) At first, I thought he was off his rocker. I knew way too many people who hadn’t broken in yet, but I’ve come to believe that he’s right. There has to be a confluence of events – the right agent, the right editor, and, probably most importantly but the thing over which you have the least control, the right time. If it stokes your fire, it’s likely that it will interest someone else too. Maybe not a lot of someones, maybe not right now, but I believe that every story has a market somewhere.

Plus, it’s a bad idea to make these sorts of decisions for the editor. There’s a member of this group who I was standing next to when s/he was talking to Dr. Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog. He asked her/him for his/her next story, and s/he said, “Oh, but it isn’t really an Analog story.” Without missing a beat, Dr. Schmidt said, “I’ll be the judge of that.” The point is you don’t really know what will excite an editor until you send it to them. They may not be able to convince their marketing department you’re a good bet, but if they’re passionate enough about it, they might. You really never know. Anyway, those things are all other people’s decision. The only one we can really make is to write what turns our cranks.

And send it out.

Writing Games

Sean's Fiction Sandwich post a while back got me to thinking about a tengental subject I tend to call "Writing Games."

These are the "Answer these five/ten/twenty questions about your character/hero/villain" lists you see in books, on the web, and elsewhere. The questions can run the gammut from "What is their favorite color?" and "Who was their best childhood friend?" to "Name a traumatic early-life experience that has shaped your character's world view" and "How would they react to X situation?"

Frankly, I've never had much use for these kinds of exercises. In theory, they are supposed to help flesh out the people in your story; but to me, they are more about building clutter than character.

This is part of the reason I've never liked the "Here are X number of questions about your character/protagonist/hero/villain" games some writers play. Yes, it can be helpful, but it can also weigh you down with a lot of useless, unnecessary trivia bits about your characters that you then feel you need to somehow fit into your writing. Honestly, I don't care if your protagonist had a crush on his 5th grade teacher, prefers peppermint to spearmint, and wears orange sock on the third Monday of every month in memory of his late Aunt Emmeline. If it isn't pertinent to the story or his overall character, I don't care. And you shouldn't either, unless it tells you something truly important about your character.

Now, that isn't to say you shouldn't know more about your character than you will ever put down on the page. Knowing more than you tell is good, and it helps give a sense of breadth and depth and a sense of their having life beyond the story. However, there is a difference between important, revealing, character-defining bits of knowledge, and the trivial, unimportant pieces of data that don't make one bit of difference in the final resolution of the story.

Fiction Sandwich

I was over reading on Ellen Tevault's Blog, and was intrigued by this book reference she mentioned. It's from Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure by Jesse Lee Kercheval. He says:

"I find it helpful to think of the layers of a character's mind as a consciousness sandwich. First comes the bread, usually physical action. Granny leaned forward to whisper in Mrs. Mortonson's ear, or dialogue, 'Is that piano in tune?' Then comes the lettuce, interior monologue: Why do I bother to talk to Mary Mortonson? she thought. Everybody knew she was deaf as an andiron. Next comes the tomato, summary general feelings: She didn't like sitting with all the other useless old widows. Then we reach the meat, translated unconscious thought: She felt like an old rag doll tossed to one side, her head all cotton batting, her sawdust soul leaking away little by little. Finally we come back out to the bread, action and dialogue: She sneezed hard and reached for her handkerchief. 'Damn,' she said." (Kercheval, 33-34)

And I thought, how interesting a metaphor. I'm not sure it's a great one, because it seems to be talking about a style rather than an overall approach to form, and about a rather limited window of text, rather than a whole story or a novel, but it still intrigues me. I think, since so much of what moves a plot forward is the action pacing/dialogue, that it's not inappropriate to think if the connective tissue of a story as being that external movement.

How does Kercheval's outline hit you? Other metaphors that work for you in how you perceive the structure of a story?

Quick Hit: New Blog

Aqueduct Press, a small feminist speculative fiction press, now has its own blog at http://aqueductpress.blogspot.com/.

Seven Deadly Sins and Writing: Sloth

There are several things that a nascent writer hears over and over: write what you know; show don’t tell; and write every day. I think we can argue about the validity of the first two, but I’ve found that the last one actually stuck with me… even now, several published books later.

Stephen King in his book On Writing talks about how if you sit down at the same time every day, your Muse knows where to look for you. I think he’s right. The habit of writing, though often hard to establish, is worth the effort.

When I wrote my first novel (still unpublished) I set myself a goal, very arbitrarily, of 425 words a day. Some days, with a full time job, a family, and whatnot – it was hard to make that paragraph. Still, if I did it, I was that much closer to THE END. And, more often than not, if I started 425, I’d end up with 600 or 1,000.

Unlike some, I didn’t tell myself WHEN I needed to write those words each day, just that I needed to write them. For me, I found that if I could be flexible, I would find the time to write. I would write during lunch, during downtime on the job, after dinner, late at night, early in the morning, or scribble notes on a napkin while out somewhere. As long as I wrote 425 words at some point during the day, I considered myself meeting my goal.

I have always found – and continue to find – that the more I wrote, the easier it was to write the next day. If something interrupted me, say, like life, the next time I picked up the proverbial pen, it was a lot harder to start.

Even so, I have always taken the weekends off. This is a strange personal quirk of mine, but for me, treating writing like a job was what I needed to commit to the career. So, I take weekends off (except during crunch time.) But, what that means for me is that Monday writing is always the hardest.

If I take time off after having finished a big project (say, like a novel,) which I often do… starting up again is a pain. It’s like I’ve forgotten basic sentence structure. Or my writing muscles have atrophied. So, even after all this time, I try to write at least something on my fiction projects every day.

Do you?

Admitting to Writing

A few weeks ago Miss Snark had this to say Don't ever talk about your novel socially until it's published. Ever. here. She followed it up with this post in which she expanded upon her thesis.

In general I'm in complete agreement with Miss Snark, but I just don't buy this one for a number of reasons, some of which may be genre specific.

1. I'm an F&SF author, and making the rounds of cons and talking about your work in progress is a big part of career development.

2. I wrote full time for a while before selling a novel. If I hadn't talked about the novels I was writing I'd have had an awfully hard time explaining what I did during those years, since most people you meet will at some point ask you what you do.

3. Much of my social circle is now made up of professional and aspiring novelists and English professors. Talking about unpublished novels is a huge part of the normal conversation. It was not always this way, but developed in part because of a willingness on my part to both talk about my work and to welcome other writers into my life.

My life wouldn't be nearly as rich if I hadn't always been willing to talk about my writing. Further, those aspiring novelist connections really helped me get through some rough times on the way to publication.

On the other hand, I don't think I talked about my first novel socially before it was finished, and that I would highly recommend.

It's an interesting topic, and one made more so by the massive amounts of support her pronouncement generated in the comments thread. I'm wondering whether that's about her audience, genre, or what.

So, if you're a writer, are you open about it? Do you hide it? Or perhaps only discuss it with friends? If you're not a writer, are you interested in knowing whether other people are? If not, do you attach a social stigma to such an admission? Or, do you simply not care?

Slow Going

I don't think there's a writer alive who doesn't find themselves wishing they wrote faster. If not in general, then on this or that day or project. It doesn't matter whether you're a slow writer or, as in my case, a relatively fast one, you always wish you could go a little faster. That's how the third WebMage book has been going for me.

Last week and much of the week before that I was sick.

The week before was a travel week with three days eaten up on the road.

The week before that I was getting the final draft of my previous novel off to my agent.

The week before that was spring break and Laura was home instead of teaching. Even after 18 years, having her around distracts me from writing--I tend to spend a lot of time just being happily aware of her when she's around.

And that's a month of slow production, and there was another slow month before that. I'm just under half way through the novel after 3 months which is a bit over half the rate I'd hoped for and a third of my max production rate. It's very frustrating.

So, what do you do when you hit a slow patch? Besides whine about it on a blog that is;-)