In Praise of A Formula

In my alternate life as Tate Hallaway, romance writer, I often hear non-romance readers complain that romance is all just a matter of "the formula," which they are convinced we all receive by mail from romance publishers. While, it's entirely possible those things still exist somewhere, most writers I know, romance or otherwise, make stuff up out of their heads and any "formula" that happens is purely accidental.

I've been thinking about this because my four-year old Mason is currently very into the Scooby-Doo mystery chapter books by James Gelsey. One of the things that Mason and I first noticed was the formula. For these books, it goes something like this: Chapters 1 - 4the suspects and situation are introduced. Chapter 5, the monster shows up! Chapter 6, Velma finds a clue (note: it is almost always Velma who finds the clue, as Fred and Daphne are off together somewhere "goofing off.") Chapter 6, the Mystery, Inc. gang takes the case. Chapter 7, Velma solves the case, but doesn't reveal who the monster is. Chapter 8, they set the trap Fred thinks up, which always includes Scooby and Shaggy as bait. Chapter 9, everything goes awry, but the villain is defeated anyway and mystery revealed.

Mason LIVES for this formula. In fact, part of the enjoyment for Mason is knowing, in advance, what's going to happen and when to start anticipating the excitement. I think that there's something important about this in terms of becoming a life-long reader. Knowing that books (unlike life) are, in point of fact, somewhat predictable is what makes them both comforting and exciting. But more on the exciting, because the moment we know Bob Smith hates the amusement park going in next door, Mason and I start trying to guess if he will be the villain revealed at the end, and then suddenly everything Smith does is fraught with meaning and the whole story becomes more engaging.

I don't know what I want to say about this, except that I noticed it now for the first time after having read over a dozen of these in that many days, and I think there's something here that's important to writers of all books -- not just writers of mystery or YA. Formulas aren't bad. In fact, I think they're necessary. The reader needs them to anticipate, and the writers needs to know them to write against them.

Missing Blogger

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been posting much. First came the dreaded "Holidays." Then the cold that is currently turning me into a zombie. I expect it to clear up just about the time I leave for vacation. For me, regular posting will resume about the third week of January. In the meantime. There've been a number of interesting writing things being discussed over at Jay Lake's place. First, the story of the writer who pretended to be his own publicist and discussion of same. Then, a discussion of Jay's career arc that built out of the earlier discussion. My arc is not dissimilar to Jay's. I got to publication faster and with fewer words, but not by much in either case. Finally, out of the same discussion making your own writer's luck which in turn links to some interesting stuff both by Jay and Elizabeth Bear.

Archangel LOL'ed

Jim Hines made my novel Archangel Protocol into his holiday LOL book! Check it out: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/333357.html.

Merry Happy

From all of the Wyrdsmiths to all of you out there in PC Land, we hope you're having a happy holiday season and wish you a great new year in 2008!

Quick Re-Direct: Smart Things About Cliche

Here's an interesting post about cliche from Ann Lekie's LJ called "Slushpile Musings".

Real Writer Certificate

Cross-posted from SF Novelists:

One of the hardest parts about being a writer is never getting that sense of validation other professions have. For instance, after years of medical school, you're conferred a doctorate and you get a nice certificate to hang on your office wall. What do writers get? Well, eventually, you get your name on the spine of a novel and perhaps a SFWA card you can take out and flash people at cocktail parties.

Now, you can also give yourself this: http://www.simner.com/realwriter.html *

Go ahead, get yourself one for Christmaskwanzakkah! You know you want one.

--
*Thanks to Janni Lee Simner at Fangs, Fur & Fey for this tip.

Anthology News: Shameless Self-Promotion

I may not have reported here the trouble that Lynn Jamneck has had finding a home for her orphaned science fiction lesbian erotica anthology: Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures. But, rest assured, it's been an uphill struggle for her, one which finally appears to be over. Here's what she emailed the contributors yesterday:

"Steve Berman has just emailed me to say that Lethe Press would very much like to publish Periphery. He wants to have the anthology ready end of February, in time for WisCon 2008."

Hooray! Now you may be able to buy my LINKAngel lesbian erotica story "Ishtaru" at WisCON! Whoot!

Even if you're not in it for me, there's an amazing array of other talents involved in this anthology including (but not limited to): Nicola Griffith, Catherine Lundoff, Gwyneth Jones, Marianne de Pierres, Cecilia Tan, and Melissa Scott.

Dear Feline Collective

Re: Proposed change to feline barfing schedule/cancellation of the 4:00 a.m. bathroom hallway express.

Conceded: Religious/cultural significance of barfing for feline household members. Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. Cats gotta barf.

Points of ongoing dispute unrelated to current negotiations: Comparative authority/ownership of all household assets (including human and feline members). Timing and availability of treats and other food items.

Proposed alternatives: Double barfing privileges at other times, increased snack flow, reduced death threats.

Relationship to writing: Decreased 4:00 a.m. barfing should result in increased sleeping and greater literary production.

In closing: We are eagerly awaiting your response.

Thanks,
Kelly

Utopias

A real danger with utopias is the need the author has to show the reader around his or her ideal society.

It's possible to write any kind of story, including one that is nothing except a tour of a landscape or city, if you are a good enough writer. But most readers are going to expect an action line; and if your interest in city planning or recycling overwhelms your interest in telling a story or creating a work of art, you may run into problems.

And if you are going to produce a lecture, you had better have some really interesting ideas about city planning or recycling.

I think Kim Stanley Robinson has a done a good job with utopias in Pacific Edge and his Martian books. You can make utopias interesting by remembering that they don't have to be perfect societies, just better ones; and it you remember that people are going to remain imperfect. Robinson shows you a working utopia in Pacific Edge, which continues to have problems such as jerks and zoning variances, and in the Mars trilogy, he shows you a utopian society -- or at least a better society -- coming into existence.

I found the Riverdell and Lothlorien truly unattractive in the Ring movies. I am pretty sure I leaned over to Patrick and said, "Elves have terrible taste." There is something about the idea of loveliness and loftiness that makes people create sentimental slush.

I am not sure we can even imagine a good society, though Robinson gives it a good try.

Quick Hit--Smart Things

David Coe saying smart things about rejection.

Quick Hit--Other things

For those of you who missed it The Hobbit and a sequel are getting made and Peter Jackson will be involved. Yay!

Quick Hit--Strange Things

This has to be one of the strangest things I've ever seen on the internet. Cool, yet disturbing. Go look.

Quick Hit--Smart Things

There are a whole herd of posts and comments about writing as work over at SFNovelists right now. It's worth a look.

The Problem of Rivendell--Or, Utopia isn't Very Interesting...Except when it is

I've been thinking about utopia scenes in F&SF and thought I'd share the process here.

One of the legacies the Lord of the Rings has left high fantasy is the trope of the sylvan utopia. Rivendell, Lothlorien, and to a lesser extent the Shire itself and the house of Bombadil are all manifestations of the beautiful rural/sylvan idyll.

As a reader and lover of the Lord of the Rings these places are dear to my heart. As a reader and writer of things not the Lord of the Rings, their legacy all too often causes me distress.

Even the most skilled of writers, a Tolkien say, has to handle moments of downtime like those in Lorien or Rivendell very carefully. This is as true of technological and other future utopias of science fiction as it is of the sylvan sort in fantasy.

One reason for this is that long descriptions of utopia have a tendency toward the boring. Another is that they all too often come at the expense of other things, like plot and character development. Finally, one person's beautiful idyll is another's trite fairy tale is a third's description of techno-naptime.

This is especially true at the front end of a story when reader interest is at its weakest. Starting out with even five pages of utopian idyll instead of conflict is very likely to result in the reader putting down the book and never picking it up again.

Now, there can be very good reasons to start out slow, most often the desire to show the reader all that the lead character is about to lose when the raiders come and destroy everything important (Piper's Space Viking), or when the protagonist shoulders a burden to protect that very idyll (Lord of the Rings), but it's something to be approached with great caution, or so it would seem to me.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on the subject? I'm still trying to formulate a general principal for dealing with F&SF utopias, and I would welcome input.

Quick Re-Direct: Whedon on Writing as Work

First, I read this great article by Marie Brennan on SF Novelists, which directed me to Whedon's take on the writers' strike, which if you haven't read it is awesome.

Handy

By the way, Kelly, gothr meaning good and gothr meaning god are two different words. One of them (good) has an accent over the o. As far as I can tell, the two words are not related.

Handgothr would mean hand-good or handy. But there is nothing about any god in the word.

Laginn means deft or skillful, and is (as far as I can tell) from the verb leggja, which means to lay or place, but also to build or set to rights, and a lot of other things. Lay has as many meanings in Old Norse as it has in English.

There is much to be said for either word.

For those of you who are not Kelly, this is an example of science fictional obsession with odd bits of fact. "God is in the details," as someone (Einstein?) said. And you can't write good SF (including good sf-fantasy) if you don't pay attention to the details.

Sagas and stories

My friend Ruth pointed out that "stories" in English tends to mean short stories. We don't have a word that includes fiction of every length.

Short story is a length category for the Science Fiction Writers of America Nebula Award. It's the shortest length. Novelette and novella are long works of short fiction. All of these are defined by word count. This leads to a problem for me. What do I call short fiction that is longer than 10,000 words?

(This is usually a problem that comes up when I am writing a short biography for some purpose. "Eleanor Arnason has published five novels and 30 short stories." Wait a minute! Many of those short stories were novelettes or novellas.)

Usually, I end by thinking, "I say they are all short stories, and I say to hell with the problem."

Because I am in an Old Norse kind of mood, I checked the Old Norse words for story and short story.

Thattr is the word for short story. It means a single strand within a rope, a section or division, and a short story.

Saga is the word for every other kind of story. Stories from novella length, and maybe novelette length, are called sagas. It comes from the verb "to say" and means what is told, a statement, a tale, story, history, the events which gave rise to a story, a report.

What I found interesting is -- thattr implies that a short story is incomplete, a strand or a section. I don't know where this leads, except it gives me another way to look at short stories.

Don't let Writing get in the way of writing

That may sound counterintuitive, but I don't believe that it is. We all get in our own way sometimes. One form of this is unfinished project syndrome. You've got a book or story that's almost complete, or that just needs one final polish before you send it off, and you are by damn going to finish it if it kills you. This can manifest as an explicit refusal to let yourself start another project till the last one is done. Or it could be less deliberate, something like, every time you try to work on something else you feel guilty about the unfinished project. In either case, the end result is not that the unfinished project gets done, it's that nothing else does.

Don't do this.

Yes, you have to finish what you start and send it out if you want to get anywhere in this business. But you don't have to finish everything that you start. Everybody has unfinished projects. I personally have hundreds. Literally, I was just looking through my unfinished story files.

It is not important that you finish this project and send it out. It is important that you write, and that as part of writing you finish some projects and submit them. Not all projects. Not this project. Some projects. Even, any projects. The only exception to this is contracted works. Those you do have to finish.

But for the rest? Don't let the stuff you feel you have to do get in the way of writing other stuff. Write what makes you want to write. If that means picking up a new novel and running with it for a while. Do that. The unfinished project will still be there after you finish the next project, and your skills will be improved, making it that much easier to complete if that's what you want to do.

Finishing things is important, but it's not nearly as important as doing things that keep you writing. If you're stuck, let your sense of wonder wander. It'll drag you out of your funk, and getting to a place where you're having fun writing is much more likely to result in you wanting to go and finish the unfinished project than forcing yourself to do it ever could.

If you need an outside authority to release you from the geas of the unfinished project, I volunteer:

You don't have to finish it.

There. When your conscience needles you about it, tell it Kelly said it was okay.

Comments? Questions? Requests for unfinished project absolution?

The Tax Man Cometh (for Writers) an On-Line Course

Normally, I post these over at my web site, but I thought this audience might be interested in this one as well....
-------------------

The Online Campus of Hearts through History Romance Writers Present:

Class: Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Taxes
Instructor: Diane O'Brien, CPA/Attorney At Law/Writer
Dates: January 6, 2008-January 31, 2008
Registration Deadline: January 6, 2008
Fee: $10/HHRW Members, $20/others
Registration: www.heartsthroughhiRegistrat (click on HHRW Mall, then CampusFMI: _classes@heartsthrouclasses@hecla_(mailto:classes@heartsthroughhistory.com)

Class Description: Do the letters I-R-S strike fear in your heart? Are you confused about how to report your income and deductions? Have no ideas what records to keep? This class is for you! This informative yet surprisingly entertaining class will address critical tax issues for both the beginning and experienced writer, including: (1) the myth of the "Hobby Loss" rule; (2) federal income tax forms relating to your writing business and how to properly prepare the forms; (3) business expense deductions, including the options available and the pros and cons of each option; (4) self-employment taxes - what they are, how to compute them, and when they are due; (5) red flags to be aware of; (6) record keeping for your writing business; (7) whether incorporating is right for you; (8) state sales tax issues; (9) setting up a retirement for your writing business. You'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about taxes in this useful online seminar. What's more, you'll get to pick the brain of an experienced CPA/tax attorney without incurring outrageous fees! And, don't forget, the class fee is tax deductible!

BIO: Diane O'Brien Kelly is a CPA and tax attorney with almost two decades experience in federal and state taxation. She spent several years with international accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick, and has also served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas. Diane currently works asa tax attorney in Fort Worth. Diane writes humor and romantic comedies, as well as an occasional article on taxation when she's feeling exceptionally boring. Her work has been published in Writer's Digest Yearbook, the Romance Writers Report, Byline magazine, True Love magazine, the Fort Worth Business Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Northwest Family News. She is a tax columnist for Nink,the newsletter of the writers'group Novelists, Inc. Diane publishes a new short humor piece each month on the "Blarney" page ofher page of her website, , www.dianeobrien taxtips on her "Tax Tidbits" page. She distributes a quarterly newsletter, "The Blarney Blub," which is chock full of great tax advice. Diane speaks on taxation for writers and teaches a Writer's Workshop at her local rec center. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Dallas Area Romance Authors. Diane lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with her husband, two children, and enough cats and dogs to violate several city ordinances.

Format: Course is conducted via Yahoo Groups email with lessons and Q & A. FMI:mailto:classes@heartsthroughhistory.com), http://www.dianeobrienkellwebsite

Submissions and Anxiety

So, I've been corresponding this week with a writer who is about to make her very first story submission. It's something that is far enough in my past that I'd essentially forgotten how it feels, and it's been educational to see it again through fresh eyes.

There are two prototypical writer responses to the idea of submitting a story, particularly a first story.

1) OMG, OMG, OMG, does this suck? Do I suck? Should I give this all up? This story is never going to be read? What's the point? Why did I ever set out to do this? Etc.

2) I am a writing god and they would be fools not to accept my story.

Neither of these is particularly sane, but then of course neither is the average writer.

#1 is probably going to serve the writer better in the short run as it lends itself very naturally to working to improve one's craft. On the other hand, it also makes it easier to crash into depression and ruin when a rejection arrives, and lets face it, everybody gets rejected sometimes, and most of us see far more rejections than we do acceptances.

#2 has its pluses and minuses as well. It can lead to a stubborn insistence that all editors are either evil or idiots and can cause a pretty hard crash too, if the writer is forced by repeated rejection to reassess their confidence. On the other hand, belief in yourself can carry you through hard times if it is tempered with an understanding that even though you already rock, you could rock more with practice.

In the end, neither is the best frame of mind for submitting stories. That would be: This story meets my current standards as a writer. I will send it out and see if it meets editors' standards for what they are currently looking for. If it does, hooray. If it doesn't, that's simply a reflection of the wrong story for the given editor on the given day, I will send it to the next market. Of course, even the most experienced pros hit this mental state only some of the time, and spend most days much closer to 1 or 2.

Ultimately all we can do as writers is trust the process:

A-Start the story.
B-Finish the story.
C-Polish the story to a reasonable degree.
D-Send the story out.
E-Start the next story.

That's all that you control as the writer. Everything else is a roll of the dice. This is terrifying. It can also be empowering.

Look at the process again. Writing is all about the story. Your story. Publishing is the medium. Your story is the message. Remember that. Believe it. If you can do that, it will see you through all the anxieties and dark times.

In the meantime, breathe, relax, send the story in. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Comments? Questions?

LOCUS Bestseller List

Hey, I just found out through the vampire underground, that the anthology I'm involved in made the LOCUS bestseller list for December (hardback). Cool Yule! Apparently, the book will also be translated into Polish and German (and a large print edition).

Quick Hit–Kindle Concerns II

Here's a dark take on the Kindle from a reader's point of view. Some Big Brother, plus the DMCA--interesting reading.

Thoughts on Exposition, 1

I am cross-posting the following from my LiveJournal page, since it seems like it should be posted here as well. I am hoping to write part 2, on writing exposition itself, fairly soon.

Enjoy!

-----

I've known for a while that being a writer has changed how I read, but every once in a while it really comes home to me. Last night was a perfect example.

I needed a new something to read before bed, so I grabbed a book off the shelf that Jamie had already read but I hadn't gotten to yet. It's a fairly thick adventure/epic fantasy novel, first in a series (pretty standard these days, series), by an author with four or five books already under their belt, but who I haven't read before. And before you ask, no, I am not going to name the author or book. :)

Anyhow, I cracked said book and started reading. Right off the bat, I could feel my writer antenna going up as it usually does with a new book and unfamiliar author. I noted the opening sentence and paragraph (quick, nice hook, gets you rolling), the narrative method (3rd person multiple, with occasion POV shifts between paragraphs, but well enough done that it doesn't throw me out), interesting setting/world building, good hints at overall plot, and so on. Pretty standard stuff for me to pick up on, and the kind of things that usually shift to the background if the book is well written and engaging. That is to say, my awareness of these kind of things fade as I get drawn into the book. (Exceptions being exceptionally well or poorly written bits that cause the writer in me to go "Oooh, nice!" or "Arrgh, get me a drink and a large 2x4!") This time around, though, something else started my antennae to quivering a few more pages in. At first, I hadn't noticed it, because it is a fairly standard technique for some writers; but over several pages, it began to grow on me more and more until I had to take actual, conscious note of it: exposition.

For those not familiar with the term, exposition is essentially a sizable chunk of information presented for the reader's edification. Call it back-story, call it world building, cal it info dump, it is the writer telling the reader something about the plot, character or world outside the immediate narrative or action. It can be done well, it can be done poorly, it can be done as dialog or as prose, but just about every story you are going to read has some exposition in it somewhere. Exposition itself is not a bad thing, and can present important parts of the story, world, etc. in a very economical and useful way.

Anyhow, back to last night: I noticed several pages in that this writer liked exposition - a lot. Large, honking gobs of it. For several pages, the formula was basically: Line or two of dialog, paragraph of exposition; line or two of dialog, two paragraphs of exposition. And these were big paragraphs. In other words, lots and lots of back story, character history, and world building, all in the first pages of chapter one.

Now, while this isn't to my personal taste, I had to admit that this writer had done a decent job of it. The information was interesting overall, there were enough intriguing hints and clues to keep me hooked, and the world - while not off the scale original - sounded like a pretty interesting place. I mean, it DID take me a number of pages to realize I was being hit by exposition bombs right and left, which speaks well to the writing, IMO. But notice it I finally did, and that caused me to physically stop and pause. And then I had to decide: do I really *want* to read this book if there is this much front-loading? Will the story pay off? If you are telling me this much right away, what are you going to have left to surprise me with down the line? And so on.

Let me tell you, as a writer, you DO NOT want your reader stopping on page twelve and asking themselves these questions. As soon as the reader starts to doubt you, you are in trouble, because it becomes that much easier for them to put down the book and walk away. Worse, it becomes easier for them to see your next book on the shelf at the bookstore and say, "Oh, yeah, I remember them - they info dump like crazy. I think I'll pass."

Do some people like this kind of front-loading? Absolutely. And for some kinds of books, it is even a good idea (although I do not think the book I was reading last night is that kind of book). Will the average, non-writing reader even be aware of all of the exposition? Hard to say. Some will, some won't; some will react, some won't. And like I said, simply having it in there is not a bad thing. Hell, I'm a fan of exposition and use it in my own writing quite a bit. But you have to watch out how you do it, and how often. Putting it in by the page-full early on can be tempting (there's this whole cool world to talk about, and all this back story, and the reader needs to know X for Y to make sense, and...and...), but you have to make sure 1) it serves an immediate purpose to your story, 2) it works on the page, and 3) there is enough forward momentum surrounding it that the story (and the reader's interest) won't flag. It is very easy for a reader to get confused or not pick up on the hints and foreshadowing you are so carefully laying in their lap. This early on in the book, there is no emotional investment on the reader's part, so there is no compelling reason for them to care about what happened ten years ago, who killed whom when, when Gizmo X was invented, and so on. And that makes it easier for them to walk away.

As writers, it is easy to become enamored of our creations. There is so much cool stuff we develop for a story that never makes it on to the page, it is sorely tempting to toss bits and pieces of it out there. Sometimes, this is perfectly reasonable; other times, it is largely us indulging ourselves. The key is to be aware of when we are doing it, and try to make it so that our readers do NOT become aware of it.

As for the book I started reading last night? Like I said, the author did a good enough job that it took me a while to catch on, and it was farily interesting stuff overall. Plus, the writing is good, which excuses a lot. I think I will give them a couple more chapters to see how it pans out. If the chewy chunks of data ease off and the writing stays strong, they will have me; but if I have to regularly wade through half a page to a page of information just to see something happen on the page, then I'll move on. And that's something no writer wants to see.

Quick Hit-Sideblogging

I'm blogging about video games and story over at SFNovelists today, if anyone's interested in taking a look.

Making Light Indices Update May-Aug 2006

Making Light Indices Update May-Aug 2006.

Writers Index:

Conventions

"How to throw a large room party at a science fiction convention." Teresa's manual for same. Indispensable tool for the pro or fan looking to run a room party. 253 comments Aug, 2006.

F&SF As A Genre

The tension between the fantastic and the quantifiable in F&SF. 232 comments.

John M. Ford on the non-predictive nature of SF. 113 comments Aug, 2006.

Grammar, Punctuation and the Copyeditor

"Phonetic near-misses" a long list of things like "passed history not with standing." 464 comments May, 2006.

Literary Scams

Absolute Write, a leading site for information on writing and publishing, is temporarily shut down by complaints from Barbara Bauer about her place on the 20 worst agents list–see posts above for details on BB and the 20 worst. 898 comments May, 2006. With follow up on salvaging data from the old site for the new one. 239 comments May, 2006.

Publishing Industry

F&SF models and the ever changing world of style. From the Tor art department, don't forget to update your models. 106 comments Jul, 2006.

Vanity Press

Author House guilty of publishing libelous material. This is what comes of not actually reading your vanity press material before publishing. 22 comments Aug, 2006.

General Index:

Backups Through History

It's not just mummies, bog psalms. 1,000 year old psalter shows up in Irish Bog. 47 comments Jul, 2006.

Civil Rights and Liberties

Obama plays into right wing dominionist trope in speech, screws up big time. Co-incidentally does it as a Jewish family is driven from their home in Southern Delaware. 784 comments Jul, 2006.

Conventions

"How to throw a large room party at a science fiction convention." Teresa's manual for same. Indispensable tool for the pro or fan looking to run a room party. 253 comments Aug, 2006.

F&SF History and Culture

John M. Ford on the non-predictive nature of SF. 113 comments Aug, 2006.

Bad reporting. Patrick takes exception to Salon's reporting on the Tiptree biography. 64 comments Aug, 2006.

Tiptree bio on the cover of NY Times book review without any slighting comments abouts SF. Sign of the apocalypse? 58 comments Aug, 2006.

List of titles edited by Patrick and Teresa. 32 comments Aug, 2006.

Grammar Geeking

"Phonetic near-misses" a long list of things like "passed history not with standing." 464 comments May, 2006.

Immigration

An anti-catholic anti-immigrant article that reads like it's straight out of the 1880s. 147 comments May, 2006.

Teresa has words for those who suggest militarization of the border. It's a bad bad idea. 122 comments May, 2006.

New York City does just fine with immigrants and, guess what, they've got lots. The melting pot still works. 349 comments May, 2006.

Internet Discourse

Astroturf blog comments, propaganda up close and personal. 18 comments Aug, 2006. More on blogs astroturf. 37 comments Aug, 2006.

IOKIYAR (It OK if You're a Republican)

Limbaugh busted again, drug charges, again. 130 comments Jun, 2006. And, for comparison how you get treated if you're not Limbaugh. Who says you can't buy Justice...buy, tilt, what's the dif? 158 comments Jun, 2006.

Iraq/Afghanistan Wars

Center for war-related brain injury funding cut. 32 comments Aug, 2006.

Rumsfeld accuses detractors of being confused. Jim notes that we're not confused. We are opposed to the security threat posed to America by Rumsfeld, his boss, and their cronies. 124 comments Aug, 2006.

Medicine/Emergency Response

Jim Macdonald on Heat Stress. 2000 comments Jul, 2006.

Jim Macdonald on consciousness levels and emergency medicine. 100 comments Aug, 2006.

Mourning

Jim Baen. 69 comments Jun, 2006. And an earlier thread when Jim Baen went into the hospital. 101 comments Jun, 2006.

Music

English Football Rouser, Vindaloo (ironic), or song to be song while drunk with a crowd. 176 comments Jul, 2006.

Total Eclipse of the Heart. The Norwegian reimagining video by Hurra Torpedo. Musical strangeness compounded over several post. 54 comment Aug, 2006. Teresa gives a horror author take on the original video. 84 comments Aug, 2006. More Total Eclipse. 26 comments Aug, 2006.

40th anniversary of the Beatles Revolver. Patrick on musical historical significance. 50 comments Aug, 2006.

Poetry

"Quatrains on American history" Teresa finds another site playing clever poetry games. 79 comments Jun, 2006.

I iz on ur busses making u listn poetry. Minneapolis/St. Paul Transit does a project in which poets read their work aloud to a captive audience of bus rider. What a bad idea. 226 comments Jun, 2006.

Politics

No, not winning at least one house of congress for the Democrats is not a good idea as "some Democrats" are claimed to be arguing. 150 comments May, 2006.

Political reporting in America, a pinion on the right wing? The Right Wing Noise Machine. 118 comments May, 2006.

Common Cause outs bunch of "unaffiliated" think tanks and astroturf "grassroots" organizations. Industrialized lying. 39 comments Aug, 2006.

Ralph Nader's stock portfolio and what it says about his commitment to consumer protection. Just when I thought my respect for Ralph couldn't drop any further... 73 comments Aug, 2006.

Macho conservative "hunters". Hunting farmed animals=slaughter not hunting. Just another aspect of the whole chickenhawk mentality. 162 comments Aug, 2006.

Bush disaster response = photo ops and exploitation. New Orleans, September 11th, etc. 85 comments Aug, 2006.

The Senate and the very real differences between Democrats and Republican. Graphical charts showing votes. 40 comments Aug, 2006.

Recipes

Lenticular formation. Lentils dish. 55 comments May, 2006.

Steamed Clams 79 comments Jul, 2006.

Jim Macdonald's Pasta with sausage. 64 comments Aug, 2006.

Republican war on science

Heat deaths and the Republican Us vs. Them mentality. California heatwave is a killer and things are only going to get worse as this old globe keeps warming. 136 comments Jul, 2006.

Scams

Author House guilty of publishing libelous material. This is what comes of not actually reading your vanity press material before publishing. 22 comments Aug, 2006.

Security Theater

Patrick links to George R.R. Martin onTSA as Security Theater. 245 comments Aug, 2006.

Schwarzenegger does security theater to the tune of 300 National Guard troops cooling their heels at a number of airports due to vague threats. 50 comments Aug, 2006.

Why banning liquids doesn't do much beyond security theater when the folks who want to make bombs are willing to die. People are containers for liquids. 50 comments Aug, 2006.

The "exploding shampoo plot" and the liquids ban. Feasibility? Not so much. 56 comments Aug, 2006. What the media missed while hyperventilating over same. 31 comments Aug, 2006. "The exploding shampoo plot"–source of the name. 52 comments Aug, 2006. Careful disposal of banned liquids...not so much. John M. Ford on "TSA Gumbo Surprise." 68 comments Aug, 2006.

Superheroes

Super-heroines and their "Styrofoam tits". I'll admit it would explain a lot. 363 comments May, 2006.

War on Terra

Pentagon refuse to explicitly limit humiliating and degrading treatment. Torture? Oh my, yes. 292 comments Jun, 2006.

New York has zero national monuments or icons, likely to be targeted by terrorists. Really. That's the official count from Bush & Co for purposes of grants to the states. 123 comments Jun, 2006. And this is how DHS came to that conclusion. 62 comments Jun, 2006. And continuing the fun It's NYC's fault that they lost anti-terrorist funds. 30 comments Jun, 2006.

Social Control and Propaganda. 136 comments Jun, 2006.

What is the real threat level from terrorism? Maybe, not so much. 65 comments Aug, 2006.

When we change our way of life and allow our leader to spread fear we're doing what the terrorist want us to do. What does that make Fox News and the Republican fear machine? 62 comments Aug, 2006.

Uncategorized (Thus Far, and yes, deliberately out of order)

Teresa smells a funny smell...her recently deceased neighbor, as it turns out. 135 comments Nov, 2005. Her recently deceased, murdered neighbor, actually. 510 comments Nov, 2005. Another update: "The guy who (reportedly) shot my next-door neighbor" 40 comments May, 2006. And another, the very next day: "I’m a little more dubious than I was yesterday" 81 comments May, 2006.

No, glass doesn't slowly flow downward. 161 comments May, 2006.

Dangerous science experiments. 72 comments May, 2006.

Patrick on Gore's An Inconvenient Truth" 71 comments May, 2006.

A huge thread about a Livejournal decision to ban breast-feeding icons. 586 comments May, 2006.

Monthly budgets of the rich and clueless, an example. 348 comments Jul, 2006.

The traditional pin-tumbler lock cracked. A master solution to the problem of picking the standard lock. 67 comments Aug, 2006.

Much silliness from Scalzi, Westerfeld, etc. in Pluto planet? controversy. 198 comments Aug, 2006.

Ode to a typewriter. Teresa waxes nostalgic on the IBM Selectric and the passing of the typewriter. 111 comments Aig, 2006.

Teresa talks about 1491, a survey of pre-Columbian America. 206 comments Aug, 2006.

Smart Things--Plot and Pants

In which my friend Jackie Kessler says smart things about not letting the plot outline tie you up. Since I was talking about the same things a couple of days ago, I thought y'all might like to see another take on it.

Suspension of Disbelief or Lack Thereof

This follows on the preceding post...

What makes a reader lose belief in a book?

My friend Ellen give up on Red Mars after an error in physics or engineering. I sort of dimly remember what the problem was. I didn't notice it till it was pointed out to me, and then it didn't bother me especially. Robinson got technical help from Charles Sheffield, which meant he tried to get things right. He -- and maybe Sheffield -- slipped up. Everyone is human.

On the other hand, when I got to the point in R.A. MacAvoy's Damiano series when she mentioned the Jesuits existing in the 14th century, I had Ellen's response of shock and rage. Everyone knows the Jesuits are a Counter-Reformation Order and did not come into existence till the 16th century. I mean, really!

I've had people from SCA tell me I got the sword smithing in my first novel entirely wrong, but they enjoyed the book none the less.

I asked Ellen to check the science in one of my stories. After she finished reading the story, she said, "Is your science bullshit? Yes. But most of the science in science fiction is bullshit. The question is, is it irritating bullshit? The answer is no."

We then had an argument about the alien geometry I had in a footnote and reached a compromise that Ellen could sort of tolerate.

I don't have a good rule for when I will tolerate mistakes and when I will not. Or when I enjoy an author playing games with facts and reality, and when I get angry.

Whatever happened to R.A. MacAvoy? She did some fine writing and then vanished, as far as I can tell.

When not to listen to members of your writing group

Wyrdsmiths had an interesting meeting last time. Three members got ticked by stories by other members. I won't talk about the two other people, but I was one. In my case the problem was, the story in question is about the Norse gods. Most of what we know about Norse mythology comes from medieval Icelandic texts; and being Icelandic descent, I tend to get possessive.

I've thought about it and decided, I am going to go with my feelings -- within limits. I won't be abusive, and I won't keep telling the author his idea of the Norse gods is wrong, because SF writers do have the right to a little creative flex. But I will double check his Old Norse, if only because it's interesting to dig around in Old Norse dictionaries.

I've got him on one word, though it took some digging, and a flash of insight on the edge of sleep, when I realized what the root to the word he used was. It's always great when you get a blinding flash of light and say, "Aha! Leggja!"

Granted, a scholar would have realized what the word's root was at once. But I am not a scholar.

Anyway, I have decided that this is a situation where the author should not listen to criticism. My reaction to the work is completely individual and not useful.

Even good critics have blind spots and hobby horses.

Kindle Concerns

There's been a bit of on-going discussion about Amazon.com's new e-book reader "Kindle." I discovered my book Tall, Dark & Dead is available in Kindle format. When I expressed some concern about this on BroadUniverse, I got a lot of confused looks, electronically speaking. When I asked if I was going to "get any money" for this, people patiently explained to me that Kindle was new technology and that OBVIOUSLY I wouldn't know if I was going to make a profit on it until I got my royalty statement.

Here's my reply: That's not how things normally work. When SF BookClub, for instance, wants to change the format of my book, i.e. publish its own version, they pay Penguin USA a fee UP FRONT -- an advance -- for the rights to do this. A percent of this advance is credited to my royalties. Any time anyone changes the format of my book (audio, book club, e-book), Penguin should get an advance BEFORE they make that new format available.

Of course, I may see royalties from the sale of my books on Amazon.com the same way I see royalties from any bookseller. But, think about it. If Uncle Hugo's decided to make an audio book of Tall, Dark & Dead available to their customers, Penguin USA would sue their a**es. Uncle Hugo's, though they have copies of the book laying around that they paid for, doesn't have the right to do anything but sell them in the format they bought them in. Can you imagine if SF Bookclub (or, let's say, I) said to themselves, "Hey, I know let's make an e-book of this book I bought at the store today. I'll just scan the pages here and I'm golden. I'll put it up on the web. Anyone can buy it."

That is exactly what Amazon.com did.

Penguin owns the right to all formats that my book could potentially appear in (book club, audio, e-book, brainwaves*, etc.), in order to stop people from just randomly making their own versions available. Amazon.com, as far as I understand it, certainly never paid Penguin an advance, because I'd have heard about it from my agent. This is the money I'm talking about.

It's not greed that makes me concerned, although I would expect to see some profit from any format change. If Bob Smith wants to sit down with Audacity and make a audio version of my book, I think he'd get sued for copyright infringement, which this is. Bob Smith doesn't have the right to SELL my book in any format other than the one Penguin Putnam produced (or any other publisher who bought those rights from Penguin.) And, Penguin doesn't have to wait for Bob Smith to make a profit. They should be paid in advance of publication of the new format. Period.

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* I'm not kidding. My contract stipulates that Penguin owns the rights to all "future technologies" as well. If my agent crossed that out on the contract, which she may have, then Amazon.com damn well better pay ME for this "future technology." Because then those rights belong to me.

Real, Really Real, Realesque

Sometimes I think that we as writers get too hung up on making things real. By that, I mean really real, or in near perfect correspondence with the way a thing is in outside reality.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a stickler for things like physicality and staying within the laws of physics (or at least having a good in-story explanation of why something behaves outside our reality). Anyone who's ever been in a writers group with me will vouch for that.

The reason for that is that people have a really thorough grounding in our physical reality. A reader may not spend much time thinking about the way stuff falls, but they will sure as hell notice if things fall wrong and this will distance the reader from the story.

However, I don't believe that this grounding in physical reality always carries over to social, economic, or psychological realities. In fact, we often have impressions of these things that are distorted or simply wrong, due to any number of cultural or personal factors. This is so strong that sometimes, making something really real actually takes you away from the way that the reader understands things to such a degree that getting it right produces much the same distancing effect that getting a physical detail wrong will have.

This makes for a tricky balancing act between getting it right (making it really real) which most writers want to do most of the time and getting it to feel right (making it realesque, or story real).

If the really real thing is something that is central to the story or to the writer then, of course, it will often off to make it so, and to give the reader the context they need to understand that this is the way it really and truly works. If however, the really real detail is peripheral, or too far from reader understanding of how it works, then it is often simpler and a stronger choice to go with realesque.

I come at this from the point of view of someone who started out by trying to put some really real stuff into stories about dealing with someone with a mental illness. I grew up in a house with a paranoid schizophrenic, and have spent 40 years dealing with the really real of being forever tied to someone who is mentally ill. It's a topic that is important to me.

It's also one where I have found that really real doesn't work nearly as well as realesque. I can't tell you how many times I have had a reader simply flat out disbelieve something that actually happened and I have had to go back and reshape the really real into a significantly fictionalized but much more reader believable realesque. Importantly, very importantly, I think that I have given more people a better understanding of the actual situation that way than I would have if I'd stuck to my guns and insisted on going for the really real.

Because of this, I tend to pick up a grain or two of salt whenever I read someone–usually another writer, but occasionally a reader–obsessing about writers who don't make the details of their pet obsession really real. In fiction at least, the really real is sometimes less true and less effective than the realesque.

Thoughts? Comments? Violent disagreement?

Smart Things--Bad Deals

Scalzi on why it's an astonishingly bad idea to sell your work to Dragon Magazine at the moment.

Funny Things

Elizabeth Bear has two recent posts which both made me laugh last night.

First is one beautiful sentence: "The incidence of melodramatic bad behavior by artists is directly proportional to the competence and tolerance levels of their spouses."

Second is a new episode of cat and monkey. I stop by Bear's blog for a number of reasons, but you could take all the rest away and cat and monkey would be reason enough.

Don't Be Afraid to Change Your Mind

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm an outliner. I tend to know how the whole book is going to go by the time I start writing. I write an outline, fill in the details and then follow it.

Except...when I don't.

Yesterday I got almost nothing done because I didn't like the way a scene I'd written the day before tasted. It felt like there was something structurally wrong. So, before going to sleep I spent some time mentally going over the scene and looking for different ways to deal with it.

I ended up completely removing a major character from the scene and that has a series of cascading ramifications for the next two chapters. The new version is better. So, I changed the outline for those chapters and everything else that hinges off them. Then I went in and reset the foreshadowing to give the new stuff a better lead in.

If something isn't working, don't be afraid to change your mind and do something else that does. An outline is just a tool. So is any method used to envision the story in advance. Don't get too tied to your tools.

Ghostwriting Contracts

Howdy,

Updated Below

I just had a friend drop me a question about finding or making a contract for a ghostwriting project. I've never done, but I immediately thought of things that I would want spelled out very clearly. Here's my list of questions that would need clauses. If anyone else has any suggestions, or knows where a model contract might be obtained, please leave a comment.

Rate of pay?
Fiction or non-fiction?
Book length or short?
Bragging rights? Or NDA (non-disclosure agreement)?
in terms of being able to point to the project in agent queries.
Credited on the cover, in acknowledgments, or uncredited?
Who holds the copyright?
Share of royalties or work for hire?
Is the project already sold to a publisher?
When do you get paid and by whom?
Who determines whether you've fulfilled the contract and if you get paid?
Writing from notes? From interviews? From an idea?
Who has final approval over the text?

So, what am I missing?

Update: In a thread where I asked the contracts question on one of my lists, it was pointed out that the contract should also spell out everything a normal contract does. To which my response was essentially "doh!" because I should have thought of that myself.

Good Writing Trumps Everything

The purpose of this blog is to share what we as writers have learned with those who are interested and might benefit. Since we've got a pretty good publishing record collectively it's safe to assume that we've learned a bit that's worth sharing.

This often takes the form of things that sound a lot like rules or commandments, and at some time I'm even going to write a Kelly's rules of writing post. But an important note from that is that rule one is to do whatever it takes to get you writing. If that means violating every single bit of advice we give, do it, without hesitation or concern. The writing is what it's all about, everything else is garnish.

This includes the things we have to say about what will and won't sell. Collectively, we've learned quite a lot about the business of writing. The F&SF community is a small world and one where agents and editors mingle pretty freely with writers. The tropes and conventions of the genre are often discussed (go figure).

I can say with some authority that a present tense book is going to be a harder sell than a past tense book. That in-scene POV switches will be an issue. That 150,000 words is much harder to sell than 95,000. That a book with seven protagonists will be tougher sledding than one with a single protagonist. That its easier for someone with a big name to get away with any of the above. But none of that matters as much as A) getting words on paper, and B) the quality of those words.

If writing a 150,000 word, 7 protagonist, present tense, in-scene POV switching, time-travel, cyborg, political, Southern Gothic is what really gets you to put words on the page, then get out there and start writing it. Will it be hell to sell? Absolutely. Will it sell anyway if it's good enough? Likewise, absolutely.

Good writing trumps every marketing rule. And it trumps every other writing rule but one: Write.

Write. Write well. The rest will follow.

Quick Hit--Smart Things

Kelly Swails (X) saying smart things about alpha and beta readers.

Quick Hit--Smart Things

Elizabeth Bear saying smart things about revision, collaboration, and most of all about using techniques that work and discarding those that don't.

I don't revise in quite the same way Bear does and I don't collaborate in quite the same way, but that's fine because I'm one hundred percent with her that it's all about what works for you and that everything else is more or less a side issue.

I was in fact going to post something along those lines today. Since Bear did it for me, I'm going to play hooky from the blog a little bit longer. I'm still behind my personal timeline on the 4th WebMage book, and I'm still going to be sparse about posting for a bit.

WebMage Cover LOLed

By Jim Hines go look.

YA Market

This from BroadUniverse:

Last year, Zumaya Publications launched three new genre imprints to keep company with our SF/F line, Zumaya Otherworlds. Next summer, we'll be adding another--a YA/middle reader line called Zumaya Thresholds. I have three titles prepared for the launch of Thresholds and another dozen or so in the submissions queue, but I'm insecure when I don't have something in the production queue at least a year and preferably two years ahead so I can adequately plan marketing. Sadly, to date my experience has been that really good YA/middle grade work is rather thin on the ground.

So, I'm announcing that I am specifically seeking novels in all genres suitable for young people ages 8 and up. These should be chapter books NOT picture books, and a minimum length of 30K words is preferred. I'm particularly interested in mysteries and SF/F, but coming-of-age and literary are also welcome. Just be aware that, as several people here can tell you, I'm extremely fussy. ;-) I'm not interested in Harry Potter clones or standard rehashes of overused plots such as lost magic-wielding princesses. The key words are "unique" and "original."

Submission guidelines are on our website; please read and follow them carefully, as doing so saves me much work and saving me work tends to make me easier to get along with.

Liz Elizabeth Burton, Executive Editor
Zumaya Publications LLC
Opening Doors to the Creative Mind
http://www.zumayapublications.com