Magical Words

Those of you who have read any of my books know that I like to tell a story from the perspective of several different point of view characters.  (A point of view — POV – character, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is simply the character whose head we’re inside as we write or read a book.  For the Harry Potter books the POV character is always Harry.  For a book like Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, or with my Winds of the Forelands books, the POV shifts from character to character with each new chapter or chapter section.  The alternative to writing with POV characters is writing with an omniscient narrative voice, which I just hate.  Why?  Because I find, as a reader, that it distances me from the characters, and it’s just not as interesting.  I read — and write — because I like to get inside people’s minds, to see what makes them tick.  An omniscient voice doesn’t really allow that.)

Writing in multiple points of view has many advantages.  It allows an author to piece together a complex story without requiring a single character to know and see everything.  It makes it possible to give more information to your reader than you’ve given to your main character, which in turn makes it possible to rachet up the tension and the sense that your beloved protagonist is in danger.  And finally, as my comments about omniscient voice imply, it helps with character development, by putting your reader inside the thoughts and emotions of several characters.

And yet, with my new project I’ve chosen to limit myself to a single POV, and I’m finding it challenging.  Why would I do this?  After all the things I just said about how much I like writing in multiple POV, why would I choose to write from the viewpoint of a single character?  Well, because this has certain advantages, too.  With a single POV character, readers tend to grow quite attached to that character, and since this new project revolves around this one character, this is a good thing.  Also, this new series has a strong mystery component, and by writing from a single POV, and keeping that character in the dark about certain things, I heighten the sense of mystery and perhaps make the implied but unseen threats faced by my character seem that much more frightening.  So again, my POV choice is designed to increase the narrative tension.

The challenges I’m encountering relate back to the benefits of multiple POV.  From the standpoint of narrative, giving my readers necessary information is complicated by the fact that I’m writing from the viewpoint of only the one character.  I don’t want him to know too much, because I need to preserve certain aspects of the mystery.  And logistically I simply can’t have him everywhere my readers might need him to be.  So I have to keep my readers in the dark about certain things.  I have to balance the need to maintain the sense of mystery with my desire not to tick readers off by telling them too little.

From the standpoint of character development, the challenge is in making the characters around my protagonist come to life.  I can’t be in their heads, so I have to rely upon my POV character to “tell” my readers about them through his observations and the interactions he has with them.

Clearly, these challenges can be overcome, and I think that what I’ve written thus far works quite well.  But this is new for me, and I’m finding that I’m having to learn some of the basics of good storytelling all over again.  That’s not a complaint; not at all.  I think I decided to go with single character POV, in part, because after writing eleven books in multiple POV, I was looking for new challenges.

But I’d be interested in hearing from readers and writers alike.  Which do you prefer:  multiple character point of view or single character POV?  Why?  What do you get from one that you miss in the other?

Tags: David B. Coe // 16 Comments »

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m always a little weepy saying goodbye to the old year, and hello to the new.  Especially this past year, which saw the release of my first book.  I know there were a lot of rough spots along 2008’s path, but it will always be a memorable year for me.  Now we’re standing at the threshold of a shiny new year, full of possibilities.  And like my partners, I have goals I hope to achieve.

[Read more →]

Tags: Misty Massey // 3 Comments »

David’s post got me thinking, but not in ways that I might have expected. David wrote about New Year’s Res—Goals. Sorry, David. New Year’s Goals. And if you read back, David’s were most intensely about writing. And mine weren’t. Not. At. All. Heck, I wrote about cleaning my carpet! What was I thinking? Well…not about writing, obviously, which for a professional writer of the last 19 years, is just way strange…

But David’s post and my own reply have made me introspective.

Why do I write? Why do I write *what* I write? And what *do* I have as goals for 2009? [Read more →]

Tags: Faith Hunter // 4 Comments »

New Year’s Day is just around the corner, and while I’m not one to make a formal list of New Year’s resolutions, I have found it helpful to look forward to a new year with some goals in mind.  Some of these goals are achievement oriented — for this year, for instance, I’d like to sell a couple of short stories, I’d like to sell my new book project (for oodles of money, but we won’t go there), and I’d like to see The Horsemen’s Gambit, which comes out in January, sell well and continue to garner good reviews.  Clearly, I only have limited control over these things — and almost none over the last one — but I can hope and dream, right?

There are other goals I set out each year that are more related to my process as a writer.  These are things over which I have total control, and they are very much along the lines of resolutions.  Last year I decided that I wanted to increase my daily production so that I was writing between 1,500 and 2,000 words every work day.  I managed to do it, and as a result I completed the third book of Blood of the Southlands well before my deadline.  Still, while I wrote it quickly (for me) I didn’t use my time as well as I would have liked.  This was due in part to my obsession with the election, something I won’t have to deal with this year.  So for this year I’d like to build up my writing speed a bit more — say 2,000-2,500 words per day.  But I’d also like to avoid wasting time surfing the web or playing the occasional game of solitaire, so that when I’m done writing for the day I can devote more time to other things — family, photography, exercise.  I’d also like to focus on some other professional projects that I haven’t taken on before because I haven’t had the time.  As much as I’d like a Time Turner, like the one Hermione Granger used in the third Harry Potter book, I didn’t get one for Hanukkah this year, so I need to make better use of the time I’ve got. 

I have other professional goals, but some of them aren’t as easily discussed, and some of them I prefer to keep private.  The point is, just as New Year’s is a time when many of us take stock of our personal lives and come up with goals for the coming year, it can also serve a similar purpose for writers, be they established professionals or hopeful beginners.

So how about you?  What are your goals for 2009?  What are you going to do to help yourself achieve them?  Share your answers with us if you’d like, or, if you prefer, keep them to yourself.  But do yourself a favor and give the questions some thought.

Happy New Year to all of you.  Thanks for making the first year of MagicalWords.net such a success.  We look forward to hearing from you throughout the coming year.

Tags: David B. Coe // 6 Comments »

Okay, so I missed my day. I was a little busy unwrapping presents at my parents’ house, so I hope I’m forgiven. Since it’s still holiday time, and everyone’s off having fun, I decided to share a nifty basket of links for your enjoyment. We’ll be back to the regular fun next week.

The Gift of the Zombie!
Four nonfiction books science fiction readers might like.
Alien Versus Predator Saves Christmas!
The world is ending in 2012…look busy!
Need a cool name for your short story?

Tags: Misty Massey // Add Comment »

It is my day to post…and all I can think about is how *not* ready I am for this season.

Between deadlines (which is a horrible word, you know? Brings to mind hanging nooses) and health issues (I promise to *not* bore you with the details like an 80 yr. old) and family stuff, I am just nowhere near ready. No gifts are wrapped, half aren’t even finished, no food is cooked, and frankly I have already told my family that they get IOUs for the holidays and will get presents in a week or so. No longer bah-humbugging it, but just so far behind! Fortunately, my family knows me and they think it’s funny, even the kiddies, who already mimic the adults by shaking their heads, because it happens every year this time. Not the IOUs but the behinder part. So I thought I’d share something about meeting deadlines and still finding time to write—like my schedule for one Wednesday this past month, which was a pretty typical (not today, as today included breakfast at Mom’s with the entire family and gift and IOU openings.) [Read more →]

Tags: Faith Hunter // 2 Comments »

Greetings from The Road, and Happy Hanukkah to all of you.  I’m going to keep this (relatively) short because I’m on vacation, but I did want to post.  (We’re in Virginia today, visiting friends; tomorrow we drive to upstate New York to see family.)  And since I’m on the road at vacation time, I thought I’d post about how I handle vacations from a writing standpoint.

As I’ve written here before, I do my best to keep my writing time limited to work hours, to not allow work to intrude on personal time.  Yes, I’m an author.  But I’m also a husband and a dad, and I have things I like to do that have nothing to do with writing.  Well, when I’m traveling, particularly for the holidays, I like to focus on family, on the people I’m visiting (or, in other years, the people who are visiting us), and on having some down time to recharge the creative batteries.

By the same token, I’ve also written before that I’m a momentum writer.  I do best when I write every day, building on the previous day’s work and energy.  So if I’m traveling for an extended period — anything more than a long weekend — I try to bring some work with me.  I’ll bring my notes, my maps, any computer files that I’ve worked on, and any other materials that I might need should I find time to work.

But more importantly, I bring realistic expectations.  I don’t bring my writing stuff on a one-week trip and think, “Hmmm.  Maybe I can get a chapter written.”  That’s just not going to happen.  Writing outside of my usual environment slows me down, so expecting myself to churn out as many pages at a friend’s house as I would at home makes no sense at all.  I’m just setting myself up for failure.  Instead I look for small tasks that can be completed in limited amounts of time in between meals and snowball fights and fun time with people I love.  For this trip my expectations are very simple.  I have a book coming out in January — The Horsemen’s Gambit, book II of Blood of the Southlands, will be out on January 20th.  So I have some promotional stuff that I need to write.  None of it is very long, it shouldn’t be difficult to write.  But it will take some time.

The point is, it’s a discreet task that I can fit in to a holiday trip.  I can expect myself to do this without setting myself up for disappointment.  I can do a little work and still enjoy the holidays.  As with so much else, this is one of those “Your approach might be different” moments.  But if you are traveling this holiday, or if you’re entertaining, or if you just enjoy relaxing during the holidays and feel like taking time off between now and New Year’s, by all means do so.  Yes, you can bring work along, or sit down at your desk to get a few pages written.  But make certain that whatever you set out to do in the next week or so is manageable under holiday circumstances.  We’re about to start a New Year.  This is a great time to set new goals for yourself and tap into fresh energy.  (More on that next week.)  The last thing you want to do is start the New Year feeling that you failed to meet your goals for the last week of this year.

Tags: David B. Coe // 5 Comments »

I just finished reading a book by a well-known (though not very prolific) author of … I guess you’d call his work ‘police procedural’. His genre was a bit new and unusual, something no one had tried before; luckily for him, it worked. Oh man, did it ever work! I’d read the first two books and loved them, and I’d been eagerly awaiting the third. At last, the library called. The copy I’d reserved was in! I started reading and realized something was very wrong. The first books, while definitely strange and a bit disturbing, had been firmly based in reality, the mysteries being solved through the use of deduction and forensic science. In this third book, with every page I turned, it became clearer to me that the author had left his chosen genre behind, in favor of a more horror/supernatural genre that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Bringing the woo-woo factor into a story like that ruined it for me.

Sometimes that happens, I suppose. Maybe he meant to do that all along, and I just missed the signs. Maybe the signs had been too lowkey, too subtle for me. Whatever it was, I finished the book with a deep sense of dissatisfaction. The author had pushed his story into a genre I’m far more familiar with, yet it didn’t feel comfortable or correct for those characters to have to function in a world like that. I almost wonder if the author had always intended to write urban horror, and just didn’t know how to start. I’m all about experimenting across genre lines, but not when the experiment grabs the character, holds a gun to his head and forces him to do and say things he never would have considered prior to this book. Right now, I find myself torn between hoping the next book explains it all in rational, real-world terms, and not wanting to bother reading it at all.

Have you ever read something that took a wild left-turn in the middle, changing into something new and different that you weren’t expecting? If it worked for you, tell me why. If it didn’t work, you can tell me about that, too. But please don’t list the title/author of books that disappointed you. I’m not in favor of dissing anyone publicly.

Tags: Misty Massey // 4 Comments »

First, before I get started on writing tips, ideas, etc., I want to thank our readers for making us so popular. Thanks to you, www.magicalwords.net is very high in the overall listing of all existing websites. Because you come here and read, send others here to read, mention the name on your own blogs, and share our posts with other blog and informational sites, we are in the top 5% of all websites. We thank you for making us so popular! And yes, we totally know that *you* have done this! Whoowhoo!  

Ahem… Okay, back to work. David spoke, on Monday, about there being no right way to write a book.  I commented back and now want to expand on it. I have always believed that *everyone* is driven to tell stories, that the need to do so is hardwired into our genetic structure, because early survival depended on keeping the past and the knowledge gained through pain and suffering available to future generations.  Hence, humans stored knowledge in stories, which were easy to remember and offered wisdom, information, tactics, and strategy on many levels at once. Therefore, when someone tells me that he *wants to, needs to, must* write a book, I totally believe him.  I completely understand that natural, deeply driven desire.

My usual reply to the quest for writing a book is: the only way to learn to write a book is to write a book. That said, I there are things a published writer can share that can make a difference. First, very basic stuff… [Read more →]

Tags: Faith Hunter // 5 Comments »

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked here before about having a game plan beyond “sell a book”. (If I haven’t, I should.) I was just chatting with a friend and fellow writer, Tamara Siler Jones, about some of the goals I’ve had as a writer. Things that I have *wanted* as a writer for nearly as long as I can remember: my guiding lights, as it were.

One of the things I’ve wanted to do since–oh, the late 80s, anyway: a good solid 20 years, at this point–is write for DAW Books. Why? Because I noticed when I was a teenager that DAW published a great deal of big fat fantasy and science fiction by women writers. I want to be a part of that legacy, and I want to write for them because it is my perception that they have given something of importance to me and to the industry, and I want to give something back to them. It’s a goal. It’s a really specifically shaped goal, and whether I’ll achieve it or not remains to be seen, but it’s something that’s defined what I want to do as a writer for more than half my life.

Another thing I’ve wanted is to work with editor Betsy Mitchell. I remember the first time I was actively *told* by another writer that she was a brilliant editor, and that was in 1998, years after I’d first heard of her through acknowledgments pages in books by authors I loved. As it happens, through incredibly fortuitous circumstances, I *am* working with Betsy, and have been for (mind-blowingly) most of my career. This is something that I would have considered a huge triumph if I’d managed it ten years from now: working with her from this early on is a gift beyond imagination.

*Lots* of writers have award-based goals. In our industry, that tends to mean the Nebulas and the Hugos, ranging out of field into some romance-based awards and the occasional, say, Edgar Award. I have one award that I want more than I want my eye teeth, and although a number of people know what it is, I actually want it so badly I don’t like telling people what it is. I’m afraid I’ll jinx it, or something. (Writers, as my mother says, are weird.)

I’m sure there are other things I’m not coming up with right now, but off the top of my head, those are some of my guiding lights, as a writer looking down the career path. What are some of yours?

Tags: C E Murphy // 6 Comments »