a quick note…
I’ve posted a small piece of my second draft under the ‘excerpt’ page of my blog. Anyone who wants to read the very beginning of what I’ve been prattling on about can now do so.
I’ve also just posted my query letter to Janet at Query Shark, a blog that takes query letters and critiques them. I spent fifteen minutes nit-picking my already nit-picked letter, and it took pure force of will just to hit the ’send’ button while I could feel my heart tightening with every beat. My hands are shaking, I can barely type, and I’m having difficulty breathing. This isn’t even a real query. How the heck do professional writers do this?
characterization of a city
While I was building my fantasy city, it occurred to me that settings need as much, if not more, characterization as characters. Think about it. Outward appearance? Of course. Strengths and weaknesses? So to speak, though it might differ a little from how we think of character traits. History? Far more than any singular character I’ve ever made. Cities live longer, and its history is a fuzzy mirror of the people who have lived there.
As long as people are going to fill out those long character sheets for people, they might want to start doing the same for the places their books cover.
art, writing, and a 3d update
I had, when I started this journal, decided to share this space with some of my interests other than writing– namely my interests in various forms of art, music, out-of-date weaponry, and the other hundred hobbies I turn to periodically. One of Orson Scott Card’s books on writing contained a passage that said that it is the duty of a writer to know everything about everything, which could justify this deviance of topic… but I think it goes beyond that.
Studying music gives a sense of rhythm and pacing, tension and mood. Learning to draw teaches a person to really look at people and places, to understand color, proportion, and shadow. Animation, martial arts, dance all focus what the body can and can’t do, the physical limits of a person and how far they can realistically be pushed. 3d and the study of film that accompanies it enforces what my media teachers called ‘the fine art of faking it’, to focus on what’s in the camera view and use scenery for maximum effect.
Expect me to start branching out and writing articles on random topics on occasion. Perhaps I’ll also share a few short non-fiction stories. This weekend I took a break from Blue Crystal altogether.
I did this instead (Click here for a large view). It’s not quite finished yet, and I want to draw two more versions of her on the sheet with different outfits and finish the head side view.
For those of you not familiar with 3d modeling, this is a character reference sheet. After I’m finished with this, I’m going to crop out pieces of the character and import them into a 3d program, paste them onto flat planes, and so when I model the girl I’ll have a visual guide to go by. They’ll line up in the front and side viewports. This is standard practice in modeling; any complicated figure that needs some amount of accuracy will get a reference sheet, including people, cars, planes, and sometimes even buildings. The more accurate the reference, the better equipped the 3d artist is to add realistic detail.
Once the reference is finished, I’ll model the girl, skin her (adding materials). I’ll then be ready to insert a biped skeleton into her and bind her to it, allowing her to be posed and animated.
by implication (the use of subtlety in prose)
The first post of a series, studying the writing techniques that I’m lacking.
Someday I’ll write about the similarities between the different forms of art. This is not that day, but I’d like to point out something. The premise of animation is that when a person is shown similar drawings quickly in sequence, their mind will connect the events and perceive movement. One could write a trip in the car from one place to another, and follow it by having the character get out of their vehicle, go to the door, let him/herself in, have a snack, watch the tv. Or you could cut from the car to the tv, and discover that by implication nothing is lost.
Possibly the best writer I know of to use subtlety is Patrick O’Brian, author of ‘Master and Commander’ and its sequels (also known as the Aubrey-Maturin novels). This is also one of the reasons I highly encourage people to read other genres– O’Brian wrote in historical fiction, and is one of the masters I greatly admire. His books are written in a very old-fashioned style that makes for heavy reading, but they’re rich in description, believability, characterization, world-building, and subtlety.
I first noticed this subtlety on entering and exiting doors. A character within a room will be speaking. Instead of narrating that they were interrupted by a knock on the door, the character will give permission to enter mid-paragraph, and finish his thought. By the end of the (almost poetic) speech, someone new will be in the room, ready to change the subject or inform the POV characters of something. In the same vein, the characters once were having a discussion while preparing to practice (one plays a violin, the other a cello), and in the middle of the cello player’s speech he says something along the lines of, ‘when you have finished with my rosin- my rosin, I say-’ and I can just picture the other holding the rosin between his thick, square fingers, running it along his tightened bow and nodding to his prickly friend. Or there’s a dinner where a character will announce, ‘the wine stands before you’ to a dining companion, and the next thing you know, he’s refilling his own glass.
Of course, O’Brian has his own drawbacks. Sometimes it’s daunting to start his books, because in order to fully enjoy them, one needs a dictionary on one side and an atlas on the other. Some things he explains about the ships by informing the doctor, who can’t retain anything about sailing, and some things just aren’t mentioned. ‘Firing grape’, for instance, by which it is assumed that the reader knows about grape shot, or they are intellectual enough to go look it up. The target audience consists of educated, bright people, and he doesn’t lower standards.
This is coupled with a strong recommendation. Go read the Aubrey-Maturin series.
If O’Brian is the master of subtlety in logistics and world-building, I think that my next favorite is the infamous George R. R. Martin, not in setting or action, but in his characterization. Martin’s characters are incredible in their diversity and their depth, and I think that his secret is the depth in which he develops them, then proceeds to reveal only pieces relevant to the story at the time. We can see that there’s more that he’s not telling us, we can tell through the multiple narratives that things don’t quite line up with what we know, and the difference is intriguing.
Any other tricks that I’ve missed? Authors strong in this trait that I should read?
weaknesses… (darn critiques)
Last night was time for our monthly local writing group to get together and… well, talk about writing. We talked, I shared a little of my book, reinforced the fact that I have no life by offering the daily word count of my collaborative for-fun-only project, and plugged google documents as a great resource for keeping an up-to-date backup online.
After the meeting had ended, one of the women had taken the time to critique the first thousand words of my first chapter. Any one of these would be a good topic to cover later, so for now I’ll give an overview, then start writing on some of these in detail. This is what she found.
Pronouns. I dislike using names over and over in sentences. I also like long sentences with lots of commas, often with two characters involved, interchanging ‘he’ and ‘him’ without discrimination. Most of my test readers weren’t confused, but she’s right. It’s all technically incorrect.
Research. The sweet older lady has a lot more experience in killing things than I do. Apparently if you’re a cannibal chopping off a leg, you really want to do it at the knee, because the tendons are easier to cut than the muscle and bone. Also, the body’s legs would be straight, not twisted, because it’s easier to strip that way. Obviously, I should kill things more often.
Redundancy. I have got to stop saying things like ‘dead body’ and ‘living man’. Obviously, if the living man is protesting, we’re not going to confuse him with the body. It’s not that kind of fantasy.
Subtlety in all the Wrong Places. I’d put too much space between the discovery of something new and my character’s reaction in attempting to describe the symbol in detail. It made my hero look strange, and his sudden panic became confusing instead of effective.
Blah Words. As Mark Twain forcibly restrained himself from writing the word ‘very’, I have found myself still unable to completely escape the mire of somewhat, almost, actual, and their equally deplorable cousins.
Which isn’t to say that everything was bad. The setting and descriptions interested her (despite that it was just a freezing stone cave with a dead guy), she liked the pacing, thought the story was interesting, and wanted to read more. I also saw approving marks around my dialog, which I’m particularly proud of. My test readers in general say that vocal interaction is a particular strength of mine.
Overall, I’m pleased with the feedback, even after the routine humbling. I’m always more concerned with pacing and plot-holes; most of the work I need to do now are serious, but cosmetic changes.
dancing in e-prime
I have a confession to make. E-prime fascinates me.
Some haven’t heard of the style before, so allow me to give a quick explanation. Those who write in e-prime eschew all forms of the verb ‘to be’, allowing the restrictiveness of the style to force them to find other, more interesting (and often more accurate) verbs. This list includes was, is, are, am, be, been. ‘The house was blue’ becomes ‘The blue house’ or ‘The house looked blue’, ‘I was angry’ transforms into ‘I felt angry’. While the style requires work, patience, and creativity, I find that it also challenges me to consider the language I use carefully. Often I remove entire passages, rewrite paragraphs to fit with the style, but the effort shows. Readers don’t typically notice the extra work, but sometimes they can see that something in the prose differs from what they have grown used to.
Try it. See if you can find independence from easy verbs.
on rewriting
David Gerrold wrote a book called ‘Worlds of Wonder’, focused on fantasy and science fiction writing. I enjoyed reading it– he had a very friendly style, and it was easy to empathize with him… especially once he started out by telling a story about how a terrible writing professor told him he wouldn’t amount to anything in the field, and his first published works were inspired out of rage. This isn’t of course to say that I agreed with everything in his book, but two of the points he made stuck with me, which is fairly good considering I’m an overly critical skeptic.
I’ll paraphrase his sentiment.
The first million words are for practice. Don’t worry. It doesn’t count. Practice writing your book. Practice editing it. Practice sending it out. Don’t worry. You’re just practicing. Practice receiving rejection letters. And if someone is foolish enough to publish one of your practice novels, that doesn’t mean anything either. Practice cashing that check. After those first million words, then you can start taking yourself seriously.
Perhaps this is something personal, perhaps not. I found this passage extraordinarily liberating, probably because I get anxious before I start writing or drawing. Am I starting in the right place? Is this really the way I want to present this? I have such a hard time shutting my inner editor up. NaNoWriMo was one of the best things I’ve done– it let me finish the 0-draft of my book, with the knowledge that I would be going back and rewriting everything. Like doing small thumbnail sketches in art, the terrible, rushed version still told me where I was going, what elements I would be using. I got out a blank sheet of paper for the second version and rewrote it more concisely, longer, emphasizing some of the right details. And I’m planning on starting almost entirely from scratch a second time before I get into editing the prose itself. I need to get all the elements correct first before I start polishing my piece. And I might be overly optimistic, but I think my writing is getting stronger with each pass.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t count. It’s just for practice.
I’m going to make this book shine.
ramifications of plot and temper
Chapter Six: Bloody Hands
I’ve managed to dig my protagonist into a great deal of trouble. I might, might be able to pull him out again if I can keep the king from rigging his trial. Which would be out of character. King Kanichende leaves nothing to chance, and Rylan has just handed me a very good reason to kill him at at my 30% mark.
Here’s the problem.
Rylan has a temper. Announce that you’re going to hurt or soil his lady in any way, and if he believes what you’re saying he will almost certainly try to kill you. The response isn’t that out of place in his environment; it’s ruthless, brutal, and courtiers really are going out of their way to manipulate his mistress, or stop their rivals from doing the same.
Partway through the chapter, Rylan visited a mercenary leader who hated nobility and just completed a job for them. The mercenary found out that he served nobility. Rylan was let go, only because the last job worked against the secret police. The mercenaries now know the lady’s family crest and have threatened/promised to find her identity. On the way back, one of the king’s favorites provokes Rylan’s temper. There’s a fight, and the king’s lackey escapes. When Rylan gets back into his mistress’ apartments, he finds a common guard has broken into his lady’s bedroom, rummaging through her desk. The lackey tells the king that his hostage’s slave attacked him, and king, lackey, and troupe walk in on Rylan just after he’s killed the intruding guardsman. Who also served the king. Rylan is lead to a prison cell to await a trial.
Sometimes I feel as if my villains aren’t harsh enough, that my heroes are getting away with too much. How far can an important hostage get away with? How much is the king willing to bend the rules to get what he wants?
Does it ever feel as if the villains and their agendas are only present when it’s convenient, and how do you avoid that?
