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Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Endings

Posted in writing, tagged , , on August 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The stereotype is of the writer sitting in front of a typewriter–or computer, now–with Chapter One at the top of the page and no idea what to put next.   I usually have a pretty good idea of where the story starts before I sit down.  Of course, sometimes that beginning changes in the later drafts, but it doesn’t usually move very far on the timeline. 

Actually, for me at least, endings seem to be harder than beginnings.  Of course, I also know how the story ends before I start.  Not as precisely, though.  There’s that bit of denoument in a novel, after the main conflict is resolved.  A chapter or so that shows the characters settling into their new equilibrium.  I’m often surprised by what they decide to do with their freedom once the battle is over.

One problem I know I have is that sometimes at the end I’m just not quite hard enough on my characters.  I’ve been (hopefully) torturing them physically and/or emotionally for 100,000 words or so and I start to feel like they deserve a break.  Right at the time when it should be at its worst.  See, by the time I’ve spent a novel or two with my characters, I tend to like them and I want them to be happy.   I’ve done that in early drafts of a couple of novels and then had to fix it in the second or third draft.  Of course, as long as it gets fixed, it just becomes one of those things that I need to know I’m going to have to look for in those drafts and no harm done.

The problem has come up, differently and for different reasons, in a couple of short stories, too.  The complaint I’ve gotten there is that the protagonist isn’t doing enough to resolve the problem of the story on his or her own.  In one of those short stories, “Mage Storm” (the short story that sparked my latest novel), I think the criticism is fair.  After all, it turned out that there was a lot more to the story.   I did change the ending of the short story to make the main character more responsible for what happens to him, though.  It’s more of a choice, now.   

In my latest short story, well, that one’s more a journey than centered around an event.  The central conflict is self-discovery.  Yes, another character holds some key information that unlocks that knowledge, but it’s still the protagonist who has to learn and accept it.  I’ll have to go back and try to make that more clear.

Thing is, if you don’t have a satisfying ending, you don’t really have a story.

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Critiques–Knee-Jerk Critiques

Posted in writing, tagged , , on August 18, 2010| 4 Comments »

What I call knee-jerk critiques occur when a critiquing partner has just internalized one of the “rules” of good writing.  You can tell when this has happened because every third or fourth comment is the same.  “Avoid -ly adverbs.”  “Watch out for said bookisms.”  “You’ve used passive voice.  Make it active.” 

I put the word rules in quotation marks above because, while these guidelines represent best practices to a large extent, there isn’t one that hasn’t been broken to good effect in the right circumstances.  Barring basic grammar and spelling, of course.

It is always better to use a strong verb instead of a weaker verb and an adverb.  “Strolled”, “ambled”, or “trudged” convey more than “walked slowly”, but not all adverbs are necessarily the work of the devil.  Used sparingly, they still have a place. 

Contrary to the rule above (just to show that there always is an exception), it is almost always better to use “said” or “asked” in dialog tags, rather than the stronger verbs like “whispered”, “screamed”, “commented”, “suggested”, “whined”, etc.   In this case, you don’t want to keep the tag simple so that it doesn’t detract from the dialog.  Then again, sometimes the fact that the character is whining might be the point and more important than what they’re saying.

Passive voice is my least favorite because half the time the segment that’s marked by the critiquer isn’t even in passive voice.  It might be in, say, past perfect tense, but that’s not passive voice.  And again, while I recognize that active voice is more interesting, I might choose to subliminally emphasize my character’s helplessness in a situation by using passive voice for a short section.

The only problem with these knee-jerk critiques is that after a while they generate so much white noise that it’s hard to sort out the valuable comments.   

It’s a fine line.  Like anyone else, I’m capable of slipping back into bad habits and, say, using a said bookism when I didn’t intend to.  I appreciate having that pointed out to me.  But I guess you only need to point out the same thing just so many times in any one critique.  Too much, even of a good thing, can be distracting.

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Backstory and Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is what I’m wrestling with right now.  THE IGNORED PROPHECY is intended to be the second in a series (of four, hopefully).  However, I very much want it (and all of them) to stand on its own.  That requires a very delicate balance.  I need to give the reader enough background to understand how the characters got where they are now, how they know each other and relate to each other, and establish the milieu all over again.  All without sounding like an info dump or slowing the story down too much.  Piece of cake, right?

It was easier in THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.  I had a handful of characters, basically a nuclear family, with only one or two exceptions, to start.  All the other characters got introduced as my point-of-view character met them.  Simple.  Now, I’ve got all these characters–and I mentioned in an earlier post that there are quite a few–and I have to reintroduce them with enough information for the reader to go on with, but not so much that I stop everything every time a “new” character turns up.

Last pass, I clearly had way too many characters introduced in the first chapter.  Some of that was unnecessary.  Just because I know they’re there doesn’t mean they have to make and appearance.  I’ve cut that back.

I’ve added a little reflection by the main character to hopefully give the reader some understanding of how he got where he is now.  I’ve tried not to make it too long or an info dump, but only a reader will be able to tell me that for sure.

Now, I’ve still got to work in how the main character is related to various groups in the story and show a little more depth of the world-building.   Oh, and there are still several characters I need to do a better job introducing. 

This is nowhere near as easy as it sounds–and it never sounded easy.

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Critiques:Not Your Kind of Story

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on August 11, 2010| 1 Comment »

I’ve blogged about the importance of critiques before–both giving and receiving.  Some recent experiences have brought the subject up again.  I’ll probably have more than one blog on this topic.

The first subtopic of critiques is “Not Your Kind of Story”.  Sometimes, you read a story and know that it’s just not one you would have continued reading if you’d picked it up in a magazine or anthology.  If it’s a novel, it’s one you would have put back on the bookstore shelf or stopped after the first few pages.  It’s just not your kind of story.

In that situation, if I’ve agreed to do a critique, I will go ahead and read the piece.  I try to be up front about it in my critique and say right at the beginning that it’s not a story that appeals to me.  That doesn’t make it a bad story.  Very few stories are going to be universally liked.  And I appreciate it when a critiquer does the same for me.  Let me know right at the start that this just isn’t your cup of tea. 

With that out of the way, well, there are certain things a critiquer can still help you with, points of clarity or occasionally style that apply to all types of stories.  Things that can be hard to spot in your own work.  And I will still mention, if applicable, the parts of the story that just didn’t quite work for me–getting from point A to point B didn’t quite make sense or the ending didn’t feel satisfactory.  I could be wrong on some of those points because I’m not as familiar with the conventions of a subgenre I don’t read, so stating that up front is important.

It’s nice if you can include one or two things you like about the story anyway.  Usually there is something–a particular bit of imagery or an original bit of worldbuilding.  Something.  I’ve been reminded recently that I’m not always as good as I should be about remembering to do that.

What a critiquer shouldn’t do however, in my opinion anyway, is tell you that you should have written an completely different story.  Someone else should be the main character or the story should be about something else entirely.  Those aren’t helpful critiques.  They don’t apply to the story at hand.  Worse, those comments tend to cloud the critique and make it difficult to respond to the parts that might be helpful.  That really makes the whole process a waste of everybody’s time.

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Epilogues

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on August 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

I think I’ve posted before about my distaste for (and inability to write) prologues.  I usually don’t like epilogues much better.  However, I just finished writing the epilogue for MAGE STORM.  It’s an epilogue because it takes place almost a year after the end of the story, with really nothing filled in in between.

In this story, I just felt that the characters, all of whom had left some kind of trouble behind them at home, deserved a chance to go back and show everyone that they were okay, that they’d found, if not what they were looking for in all cases, what they needed.  And to discover that home wasn’t back there any more, but in the new place they were carving out for themselves.  So, I wrote an epilogue.

I tried not to rush it, which is usually one of my biggest complaints about epilogues.  They feel like the author is in such a hurry to finish up and tie up those last loose ends, a lot of important things get told instead of shown.  Hopefully, I didn’t do that.

Now, of course, I worry that I’ve gone on too long after the resolution of the main conflict.  Well, in a week or so I’ll start the second draft.  There’s always the chance the whole epilogue will end up on the cutting room floor, but I don’t think so in this case.

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Number of Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on August 4, 2010| 1 Comment »

Another thing I’ve noticed as I’ve written more novels, (finishing up the first draft of my fifth, now), is that I have fewer important characters.

My first novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE didn’t quite have a cast of thousands.  Not quite.  But there are a lot of characters and a fair few of them get at least a scene in their very own point of view.  Now part of this is probably inevitable.  There are six separate cultures in this world that interact to a greater or lesser extent.  And the main character ends up having something to do with all but one of them.  Now, if there are only three important characters from each culture (and some have more), that’s already eighteen important characters.  It’s bad enough that I had to draw up a genealogical chart for the main character’s family relationships when I started finding readers for the sequel, THE IGNORED PROPHECY. 

Not all of those characters have a significant part in THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  Some of the ones that were very important in the SHAMAN’S CURSE are barely supporting characters in THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  It makes me start to wonder if I need to try to reduce and combine characters in the eventual revision/rewrite of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.

THE IGNORED PROPHECY has fewer important characters, but still quite a few because, well, because they were already there from THE SHAMAN’S CURSE

BLOOD WILL TELL really only has five important characters and about as many more supporting characters.  It also takes place over a much shorter period of time.  (THE SHAMAN’S CURSE covers eight years and even THE IGNORED PROPHECY covers almost three years.  BLOOD WILL TELL takes place in a little over six months.)

DREAMER’S ROSE also has only five important characters.  Come to think of it, they’re almost the only named characters in the story.  Not quite, but close.

MAGE STORM again has five important characters.  (I’m starting to see a pattern, here.)

Fewer important characters certainly makes for a tighter story.  And it’s a lot easier to write the synopsis.

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Single Point of View

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on August 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

MAGE STORM is the first novel I’ve attempted from a single point of view.  I’ve written short stories from a single point of view, of course, but never a novel.  It’s an interesting exercise.

There are so many places where I’m dying to let what another character feels or thinks into the narrative, and I can’t.  It’s strictly from the main character’s point of view.  If he doesn’t know it, I can’t write it. 

I’ve been kind of moving in this direction gradually.  THE SHAMAN’S CURSE had several point of view characters, not all of them actually important to the story.  Of course, I did need to let the reader know certain things that the main character couldn’t know about.  Then again, I wonder now how much of that I really needed and how much the reader could gather from events.  It couldn’t be told from a single point of view, but it could be reduced, I think.

THE IGNORED PROPHECY has fewer viewpoint characters and all of them are important in some way.  Again, some of them are needed or the subplots simply will not work.

BLOOD WILL TELL has six viewpoint characters, but probably three-quarters of the book is told from the viewpoint of either the main character or a second very important character.

DREAMER’S ROSE is probably eighty percent from the viewpoint of either Rose or Lerian. 

This is the first time I’ve ever attempted to tell a story this long from a single point of view, however.  It’s occasionally frustrating, but hopefully it also leads to a deeper connection with the main character.

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Short

Posted in writing, tagged , , on July 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It’s beginning to look like my first draft of MAGE STORM will be on the short side.  I’m probably about two-thirds done and less than 30000 words.  That makes the projected first draft about 45000 words.  A young adult novel should be between 50000 and 75000 words.

That’s fine.  I prefer the first draft to be short rather than long.  I’d much rather have the task of adding words than cutting them.

Especially when the first draft, like this one, is being written at almost NaNo speed,  I know there will be places where I need to add description.  I know that there are places where I put in something like “And then this happened”, where I will need to go back and create a scene to SHOW that happening.  I also know that I need to spend more time developing the friendships.  There will also be places where I want to get deeper into the main character’s point of view.  All of those things tend to add to the word count. 

So, short is good.  It gives me room in the second draft to add the things I didn’t have time for in a speedy first draft.  But, when the story is rolling out like this, I just fasten my seat belt and ride the roller coaster.  They don’t all come this easy.  You just have to enjoy the ones that do.

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Quite a Week

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2010| 2 Comments »

Well, it’s been quite a week.  I ended up being late blogging, too.

For three days this week, I had no running water due to a water main leak.  Kind of upset the entire apple cart as far as my schedule goes.

Meanwhile, I’m wrapping up a Synopsis Challenge on Hatrack River Writers Workshop, which I hope will be a good learning experience for all concerned.  As I’ve said before, synopses are the very devil to write, so hopefully getting several opinions on our attempts will help all of us see what works and what doesn’t.

In spite of all that, I’m making great progress on MAGE STORM.  I love it when a story just sort of rolls out like this.  I’m approaching the half-way point in my first draft.

To make up for a very poor post, I’ve added The Modgud (still another culture from the world of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE and THE IGNORED PROPHECY) under Worlds.  Enjoy.

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Young Adult Fiction . . .

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on July 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

. . . may be habit forming.

I’m beginning to make good progress on MAGE STORM (about 5000 words since Saturday).  And, as I’m writing a first draft, ideas are flowing again, some of them for MAGE STORM, some for the abandoned SEVEN STARS.  With the new ideas, it’s starting to look like SEVEN STARS might turn out to by young adult, too.  Or maybe what one publisher calls “new adult”, as in those people who’ve outgrown young adult, but haven’t quite started in on the regular adult fiction, yet.  (There’s not really a set of shelves for that in the book stores, yet.)  It all depends on the age of my protagonist when I start the story.  I could swing it either way.

The original version of SEVEN STARS was a long way from young adult, but I like these ideas better.  My protagonist won’t have to be quite so hardened.  That’ll make him a little more accessible, hopefully.

Oddly, I find myself reassessing some of my other works to see if they could work as young adult.  THE SHAMAN’S CURSE definitely could, as written.  It starts with the protagonist at fifteen.  Of course, he’s about twenty-three at the end, but he does face a number of young adult issues along the way.  The difficulty there is that it’s the first of a series.  When THE IGNORED PROPHECY starts, the protagonist is twenty-three.  At the end of the last book, he should be about thirty and have six kids, which doesn’t quite feel young adult to me anymore.

BLOOD WILL TELL probably comfortably fits into that “new adult” classification, with a protagonist who’s twenty-five.  It wouldn’t work if she were much younger.

DREAMER’S ROSE would have to change significantly if I wanted to reframe it as young adult, I think.  There’s definitely a subplot I would want to leave out.  And at least one scene–no two–that would have to change markedly, if not be deleted.  And I’m not sure I can do without one of those scenes.

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