Magical Words

An ominous whistle floats on the wind, echoing down the empty streets of Misty’s imagination. A man steps out of the shadows, flicking dust off the hem of his elegant velvet coat. “I’m back,” he says.

“I won’t look at you.” Misty shivers, but keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the novel she’s finishing. “You can’t tempt me.”

He steps away from the building, letting the afternoon sun glint on the sword at his side. His hair lifts on the breeze, and he sidesteps a tumbleweed that goes rolling past. “You know you want me. You’ve wanted to write me ever since you bought The Hat. Stop denying yourself.”

“Leave me alone. I’m working.”

“You could be working on my story instead. All you have to do is open a new document.”

She does want him. His words are seductive, his story growing in her mind, becoming more layered and interesting with each passing day. She can’t help a surreptitious glance in his direction, then bites her lip. Just the sight of him thrills her. But she can’t give him all her attention until she finishes what she’s doing. It wouldn’t be fair to either novel. In the sunset-tinged sky, a purple and gold dirigible appears, floating in from behind a cloud. There’s a sharp bleat from an air horn, and a ladder drops, hanging just behind the man’s head.

He walks over the the ladder, grasps it with a sure hand, and swings himself up. “You can’t resist me forever. Pretty soon, you’ll have to finish that book. When you do, I’ll be there.”

The dirigible rises, lifting him up and away. Misty breathes a sigh. It’s getting harder to keep him out. She leans over the keyboard, determined to reach the end. He’s waiting.

*After David’s title the other day, I couldn’t help it.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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I’m supposed to blog today… About writing. Factual stuff. Stuff you guys can use. And all I can think about, all I can remember is the raven….

See, there was this raven (I blogged about in my MySpace, and LJ sites) and I’ll paste a bit about it here….

>>As I started the run [of the Nantahala, my kayak] was out front of my paddling friends, with them in a long line behind me like bobbing buoys on the water. It isn’t my favorite place in a line of paddlers, as I like being in the middle somewhere. But for a moment I was at point, feeling alone on the river, watching the sunlight light bounce off the wave-tops, glorying in the feeling of solitude though there were likely a hundred people within shouting distance. I glanced back.

And… this raven flew along the length of the river, between the boaters. Straight downstream, at me. Looking me in the eye the whole way. It passed within three feet of my boat, fluttered its feathers, and landed just in front of me on a branch. And turned and looked at me with one golden-brown eye. And stared. Time did a little twitch-and-pause. My boat seemed to slow and sit still in the rushing water. The bird and I stared. Apprehension raced down my spine like a trickle of ice water as I considered what I know of such things, and as the bird stared at me.

A portent? An omen? There are those who will think it a portent of death. I did.

In that odd, prolonged moment, I did one of those little “look at my life” things that I have done several times over the years. Okay, often over the years. And as I stared at the bird and the bird stared at me, something happened.

And I still don’t know quite what it was. If I have to say, I’d state that some, strange, nameless, fearful part of me slid away on the water, drowned, and left a more peaceful me in its wake. But that is in retrospect. At the time, I just felt a sense of dislocation.

And then… then I passed the raven, born by the water. Rod/Hubby paddled up next to me, worried. He had seen the odd interplay between bird and me. He knew how weird it was. He’d felt something happen too, between the raven and me. And he knows as much about portents and omens as I. He knows what the raven can mean. We talked about it, as the water carried us onward. And I decided that we both would be very careful for the next 24 hours, though the raven can mean death for the next moon phase. >>

Yeah…. It was one of *those* moments. Life changing. Ethereal. Mystical and spiritual and just plain wacky. How do I bring that into the blog here, about the factual things of writing, the tools and techniques that make us successful writers? How do I make it part of the act of writing?

Well, because it just is. Such moments, though they may be short and seemingly inconsequential, are full of power, filling the soul of the writer with creative juice and artistic energy and poetic might. To me, they signify much. In this instance, death and change and rebirth. New directions. Maybe a new softness. Maybe something darker – a change less gentle, less tender, less easy. Such moments become so deeply ingrained that they take over my writing in a myriad of ways, changing the tone and voice and direction of whole plots. Already, it has … invigorated my writing. Stimulated and rejuvenated my soul. Started me on a different path.

And made me a whole hell-of-a-lot *less* worried about meeting deadlines and making other people (editors and agents—sorry guys) happy with my writing. I will write for *me* now. And pour my soul into it once again, as I did back at the beginning, back before it was a job and work and part of my income.

One concrete thing that has come from it all?

Deep breath…

Screw deadlines. I will make of them goals now. I will *damn well* smell the roses and run the rivers, and live a life that is full and joyful and intense. I vow to live my life and offer my writing as a gift to the divine. And if humans like it, well, so much the better.

Will I regret this vow? *laughing* Hell yes. Will I renege on it? I’ll try not to. I promise.

In fact, I am right now, (if you are reading this on Oct 15, 2008, between the hours of 7 am and dusk) I am traveling to and running the Green River. (Not the narrows!) I ain’t that good or that stupid.  Yet.

Faith (Who feels a little wonky right now. Spiritual moments make me feel that way.)

PS – Share moments of spiritual change and renewal that affected your writing?

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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Quicken:  It’s a verb that has several obvious modern meanings (not to mention its use as a financial software trademark).  But it also has somewhat more obscure usage:  From Merriam-Webster’s (11th edition) — “To come to life, esp. to enter into a phase of active growth and development;” or ” to reach the state of gestation at which fetal motion is felt.”  That’s the sense I’m drawing upon here.

In discussing writing and character, I’ve often mentioned that when things are going well with my books, my characters begin to do things that surprise me.  They take conversations and events in directions I hadn’t anticipated.  They bend the plot to their will, and as a result they actually change my books, sometimes subtly, other times in hugely significant ways.  It’s one of those things about writing that people don’t get unless they’ve written themselves.  “She’s your character,” people will tell me.  “She’s a creation of your imagination.  She exists only in your mind.  How can you not be in control of everything she does?”

Good points all.  She (or he) is my character, and she did come into existence as a product of my imagination.  But I would argue with the idea that she exists only in my mind.  She exists in a world that I’ve created, which might seem like a fine distinction, but it’s really not.  That world isn’t static and it’s so huge that I can’t claim to have control over it.  It’s as fluid as . . . well, as fluid as thought, as unpredictable as imagination, as real as love and anger and sadness and joy and every other emotion that has its origin in my mind.  And to that end, I’m not certain that any one of us has complete control over his or her mind.  We constantly do and say things that we didn’t intend, and then wonder “Where the hell did that come from?”  Is it any wonder that our characters should take us by surprise now and then?

I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about character a lot recently.  A couple of weeks ago, on consecutive days, I posted about character here and at sfnovelists.com.  Those posts focused on the process by which I create characters and begin to fill in their life stories.  In other words, they dealt with the way I go about drawing up a blueprint for my characters, giving them backstory, and the kind of depth they’ll need to become those free agents who surprise and delight me as I write.

But there is a gap between creating the characters on paper and having them come to life.  That’s the quickening.  I’m there right now with my shiny new toy, my new project.  I did some of the worldbuilding before and have a good deal of information about my lead character.  I’ve even written and sold a short story about him.  But he has yet to come to life.  I’m in that gap; I sense that I’m very close to that spark that will animate him, and thus breathe life into the world around him.  It can’t be forced; like the quickening of a child, it will happen when he is ready.  All I can do is make certain he has what he needs to make that leap.  I nourish him with backstory and make his surroundings as rich and full as possible.  And I wait.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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I’m working on page proofs for the mass-market ofMad Kestrel, so I hope you’ll forgive me for not knowing what day it was yesterday and completely forgetting to post anything wise or witty.

What’s a page proof? It’s a big stack of papers that look like someone took a book to a copier, laid it open on the glass and made copies of the pages (except nicer quality, and none of the squiggled words or wierd black lines in the middle that you’d get if you really did try something like that.) It’s my chance to fix anything that needs fixing, and make sure all the words are spelled correctly. Yep, it’s a bit tedious, but it’s all part of the package.

Publishing, like any other industry, has its own language and habits, most of which are a complete mystery to those on the outside. I don’t expect anyone to know the intricacies of publishing any more than I understand what my sister, the engineer, does every day. It’s enough for me to know that she builds roads; I don’t really care how she gets it done. I’m occasionally faced with comments from so far out of left field that I can’t think of a thing to say. For example, yesterday I was trying to explain page proofs to a non-writer, and not succeeding at all. After a while, she looked at me quizzically and said, “So if you don’t get it right this time, do they do a recall and take all the books back from people who bought them?”

Goodness, I sure hope not.

Anyway, I know it has to happen to people in all industries, not just publishing. So entertain me…tell me something someone has said to you that made your head spin right off your neck or made you laugh so hard your belly hurt later.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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Sorry it’s so late…weather in the mountains is rainy and it took this long to get online!

David talked about authors’ and characters’ time-conscious voice this week, and it got me to thinking about the way I revise in terms of macro revisions and micro revisions. A macro rewrite, also called a textual rewrite, is a big heavy duty revision of major proportions where the plot line, character development, and other big stuff gets needed attention and revision. I do one of these for a book at about the ¾ mark, or page 250 in a 114,000 word mscpt.

When working out a book (or building a book) things change. A character may have suddenly revealed something about himself that needs to be added into the plot. A subplot line that looked good in outline may have fizzled, and another one may have found strength and taken over. Or I may have gotten irritated and killed off a character who was annoying me. BTW – it’s okay to kill off a character, and in fact, it’s my favorite thing to do when I am stuck on a plot point. At any rate, to keep the big picture fresh and clear, at about the ¾ point in a novel, I need to interweave the new and unexpected into the planned and programmed.  Not that this is the only macro revision… Oh no.  More on that later.

Micro revisions take place all along and at specific times.  When I start my day of writing, the very first thing I do – after emails and such – is a micro rewrite on the pages from the previous day’s writing. By going over it again, I can re-familiarize myself with the character’s voice, my author’s voice, and get on track for a day’s work. I may also add in a couple pages as I see things that were missed in the down dirty rough writing. (Yeah. This is a small-scale macro rewrite. *grins*) Then, after the big ¾-of-the-way-through macro rewrite, I follow up with a cover-to-(so far)-cover micro rewrite. This is where I catch (I hope) the language errors, time and setting errors, voice errors, and clarify characters’ voices.

I missed something in my last Gwen Hunter novel (suspense novel set on whitewater  rivers of Tennessee.)  It was a small but vital part of the voice clarity. In the novel, there are 5 secondary characters who flow through the entire novel – river-rats, rafting guides, kayaking paddlers. Because they were secondary characters, whom I thought of as a group rather than individuals, I failed to give each character an individual voice or dialogue cant. My editor called me on it, in her macro revision letter to me. (This is the rewrite letter that a writer might shed a few tears over, maybe cuss a bit – the big five page [or so] single spaced, rewrite letter.)

My editor liked the characters. She wanted each of them to have his own voice, history, and identity. The rewrite was actually fun. I took the time to more fully explore each character, allowing them all to grow and change and develop. The novel improved because of my editor’s great eye and the trust she had in me. She knew I could do what she was asking, though it meant having a more sizeable cast, more characters to follow around, and more…um…umph. No, it isn’t a writing term, but it kinda says what I want to say.

There were three more micro rewrites after that.

The book is grand (IMHO *laughing*). The novel drove my editor to say, “I want to take up whitewater kayaking!” Even though she is pregnant and too busy take the time.

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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I either have the attention span of a gnat or a…thing which is opposite of a gnat, depending on how I want to look at it. On one hand, I am profoundly enamored and excited by new projects. On the other, when I get my teeth in something, I am exceedingly unwilling to let it go. To wit:

About five and a half years ago, Marvel Comics announced it was beginning a creator-owned line and invited writers and artists to submit their material. It happened that at the time I was about to start on a comic book project to work on my own sequential art (ie, comic book) art skills. Instead, I wrote a script, got artist Ursula Vernon to draw the first five pages, and submitted it. After about five months, Marvel gave up on their idea, but I didn’t.

The result is that my first comic book, “Take A Chance”, a superhero comic about an ordinary woman who turns vigilante after her son is killed in the crossfire of gang warfare, is launching this December. I’m incredibly proud and excited about this, and I’m going to discuss behind the cut, in great detail, how it came to be.

Above the cut, though, I’m going to add that the first issue is a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and that 50% of any profit I make on the issue will go to them, as will 10% of the proceeds from the graphic novel it’ll eventually be in. I’d therefore like to encourage people to dash out and pre-order the comic. If you don’t have a pull list at your comic shop already, you can use this order form to order it.

[Read more →]

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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I wanted to post this earlier, but I had some trouble logging in today.  Problem seems to be fixied now, so here’s today’s post.  Better late than never, right?

I’m currently reading Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay.  Kay is one of my favorite authors, and Ysabel may be his finest work yet.  One aspect of the story that makes it so effective is the constant tension between ancient and modern, past and present.  The story itself is an anachronism in its modern setting.  This is a difficult thing to do, and, of course, Kay does it brilliantly.

Reading the book got me thinking about how we as fantasy authors blend setting and character and plot:  a delicate balance that is so elemental in our genre.  Specifically, it reminded me that while Kay uses anachronism as a storytelling tool, most authors need to avoid anachronism in all its forms.

What is anachronism?  It’s defined as “a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.” Basically, for the purposes of this discussion, it’s anything in a story that does not belong, that jars your reader out of setting and narrative and character.

How does it manifest itself in fantasy writing?  For the sake of simplicity, I’ll say that the anachronistic mistakes I’ve seen made by beginning writers fall into one of three categories:  worldbuilding, language, and dialogue, both internal and external.

In terms of worldbuilding, authors need to be careful that they don’t establish a level of technology for one aspect of their story, and then undermine that decision by establishing a different level of technology for another.  For instance, I’ve read stories (excellent in most other ways) that have characters using medieval weaponry, but then taking hot showers.  I’ve seen authors write about preindustrial societies that have electricity or steam power.  Sorry, folks, but you just can’t do that.  Or rather, if you’re really determined to do it, you’d better have a REALLY good explanation for why it makes sense.  These types of problems are simple to avoid, but they require some research and some logical thought.  One book I’ve found useful is called Ancient Inventions.  It’s by Peter James and Nick Thorpe, and it offers some basic discussion of when a wide variety of technological innovations came into use.

Anachronistic language is a bit trickier to deal with, but again care and research can help.  The issue here is that most of our writing is done from a certain character’s point of view.  This is true even if you’re writing in third person.  You are still letting your readers view the world and the story through one person’s eyes (or, if you’re like me, many people’s eyes).  These people are limited in what they can know by their experiences and by their cultures.  So a medieval knight shouldn’t say that something is “as big as a bus” since he doesn’t know what a bus is.  He shouldn’t say that someone is being “paranoid,” because paranoia is a nineteenth century psychological term that he couldn’t possibly know.  And unless his world has the same Judeo-Christian traditions and cultural touchstones as ours, he shouldn’t curse by saying, “Oh Hell!” or using the name of Christ.  A couple of other sources:  for the sake of straight chronology — knowing when words entered the lexicon — I use Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition, hardcover) which gives a date for every word, and another book called English Through the Ages, by William Brohaugh.  Technically for my books, I shouldn’t use any word that entered the language after, say, 1400.  But that gets VERY tricky.  I limit myself to words that entered the language before 1600, and even that can be tough.  But it keeps my worlds feeling real.

Finally, dialogue.  Some of the same points that apply to prose apply to dialogue as well.  You don’t want your lead character in a medieval fantasy calling his best friend “Dude” or “Dawg”.  But here I tend to fudge a bit, because you also don’t want your characters talking to each other in stilted or obscure language, even if that language is entirely appropriate for a thirteenth century setting.  So I have my characters speak using contractions and somewhat colloquial language.  I love Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but I find the dialogue tiresome because it is so authentic.  In the end, I’ve decided that in the interest of keeping my books flowing and easy to read, I’ll sacrifice this small bit of authenticity.

The issue of anachronism in books is one that I could write about at greater length, but this is at least the beginning of a discussion.  As I indicated at the outset in regard to Kay’s book, anachronism can be used as a literary device.  But you’d better know what you’re doing before you try it.  Otherwise, if you’re trying to build a coherent fantasy world and set your story in it, anachronistic writing is something to be avoided.  You’ve worked hard to submerge your reader in your world; the last thing you want to do is jar him or her out of it.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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As a writer, I’ve always ever had one true hope for my work, and that was that it might someday make a reader feel the way my favorite author’s books always made me feel. I wanted my readers to come away from my stories breathing a satisfied sigh of time well spent.

When I was a child, I used to write letters to authors whose work impressed me, people like E L Konigsberg, Elizabeth Enright (and was broken-hearted to learn she had died some years before my letter arrived), and Marguerite Henry. Most of the time the only response was a form letter of some kind from the publisher, thanking me for my interest. When I was 10 or 11, I wrote a letter to my favorite author (at the time), Alexander Key. I’d just finished his fantastic novel Flight to the Lonesome Place, and I had a question about one of the characters. Everyone told me not to expect a personal response, since he was a famous author and I was just a kid who read his book. Imagine my excitement when a letter arrived a few weeks later, with “A. Key” in the return address corner. I read his charming, thoughtful, personal response to my question at least one hundred times. My favorite author had taken the time to write to me, a mere reader. How amazing was that?

These days I’m the one getting correspondence from readers. It’s a good deal easier here in the 21st century, what with email and blog lines. No one has to search very diligently before they find a way to contact me, which is nice for both of us. Yesterday, for example, I opened my email and found a delightful note from a young woman who had just finished reading Mad Kestrel, and wanted to tell me how she felt about it. As I read her gushing email, I began to cry, because I realized that I’d done what I wanted to do. I had given at least one person a story that became real, a cast of characters she could care about, and a world she didn’t want to leave behind. As writers, we all hope for award nominations and bestseller status and seven figure advances, but honestly, when it all comes down, what we really want is to touch someone else’s soul with our work. That’s what being an artist is all about.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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The friend I wrote about a couple weeks ago when I shared the poster-board and crayon method of scene writing, has made another milestone. First, she must have finished that pesky battle scene that was making her so nuts. Because this week she wrote and shared another milestone. I thought I’d take it and share the progression of thoughts with you guys. Anonymously, of course, for her.

Her letter…

Ok, so here’s the thing. I THINK I just finished my book. Does that
make sense?
I had planned on writing a few more scenes, but it feels like this is
the end. I’ve got the tears (mine and hopefully the readers’), the
emotion, the hope for survival. Will another scene ruin that? I think it will.
OK, I think I just convinced myself, but feel free to respond with
your thoughts.
So … I finished it! Now I really am crying!
Anonymous Writer

My reply…

OMG!
Yes! Cry and whoop and jump and dance!
You have now become a writer.
A *real* writer. You finished a project. A whole book!
Might you eventually add another scene?
Maybe. Who knows. But savor this now. The first time only happens once.

Me

So, why am I choosing to write about this today? Simple. It is a huge milestone. *Really huge.*

General numbers (made up but oft quoted) about writers go:

One in a 100 people want to write a book.

For every 100 people who want to write a book, one will start.

For every 100 who start, one will finish.

For every 100 who finish, one will be commercially published.

Anonymous just became one of a very small percentage of people on this earth. She should celebrate – dance, laugh, go out to dinner, run in circles barking. No, wait. That’s my dog. *grins*

But then I felt like running in circles when I finished my first book. And barking and wagging my tail too. I felt lighter than air, full of joy, as if angel wings were beating all around me. I sat on the couch for a moment, taking it all in. And I celebrated by, well, working some more. Which pattern of behavior became my reaction to milestones ever after.

As it turns out, that was really dumb, and the result of the stress I put myself under was dangerous to my health. It is long-lasting and very negative. So every time you pass a milestone, celebrate. Rest. Enjoy the moment. There are so few moments of true accomplishment in life. Remember to savor each.

No one is a writer until they finish a work, be it short story, article, or novel, just like no one is a bricklayer until they cap off that first wall. It takes accomplishment to don the cap and robe and cross the stage. Anonymous did it. She finished a book. She should celebrate.

Cheers, girl!

My question to the other writers here (are there any folk here who are not writers?)

How did you celebrate on that first big milestone? And any other memorable ones thereafter?

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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