tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-322880752024-02-20T13:33:21.957-05:00Unicorn RamblingsQuotes, musings, tidbits and news from speculative fiction author Lindsey Duncan - click over to <a href="http://www.LindseyDuncan.com">This Site</a> for her website.Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.comBlogger1400125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-76463403517144036602021-12-31T14:28:00.001-05:002021-12-31T14:28:21.224-05:00GoodReads Review: Between The Lines - Master The Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing by Jessica Page Morrell<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137677.Between_the_Lines" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387730776l/1137677._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137677.Between_the_Lines">Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/558599.Jessica_Page_Morrell">Jessica Page Morrell</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3950205060">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This book has a lot of insight to offer for editing fiction and filling in the blanks that we sometimes take for granted. It's great in particular about pacing, tension, and how to handle that on a micro and plot-based level. However, overall, the quality of the advice is uneven. Some of it is sharp and clear; some bits were (to me!) too basic or too generic / unexplained to be very helpful. The author also clearly doesn't have much experience with SF/F; some of the recommendations she makes to genre writers are actually don'ts for those of who know the field. I also found that a lot of the example excerpts don't necessarily do a good job illustrating what they're intended to.<br /><br />Overall, I think this book is excellent as food for thought, a starting point, but it won't give you a blueprint for editing.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3167691-lindsey-duncan">View all my reviews</a>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-55858371630973894482021-05-12T13:39:00.002-04:002021-05-12T13:39:43.991-04:00<p> </p>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49464.Save_the_Cat" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1411952887l/49464._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49464.Save_the_Cat">Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/27856.Blake_Snyder">Blake Snyder</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3945383487">2 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
So ... I feel as if I should preface this by stating I'm not really the audience for this book. I am a novelist, not a screenwriter, but I've heard novelists sing the praises of this book's ability to translate into written fiction, so I thought I would give it a try. (I'm also not really an outliner - I do heavy planning, but in other arenas.)<br /><br />All that said ... I was kind of let down by this book. The first section, the discussion of how to distill the logline, was excellent, and then ... all I could think was following this method would be a) frustrating; and b) consistently produce formulaic, same-ish works ... good, but never great, and always predictable. Then when it comes to the final chapter and how to sell what you've written, Snyder doesn't seem to have much concrete or helpful to say.<br /><br />That said, there are interesting tricks and trips I could cherry-pick, and it's an easy, entertaining read. It's also instructional to see him pick apart films and the devices used in particular spots. Not enough to convince me I want to do it, but it's good craft critique.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3167691-lindsey-duncan">View all my reviews</a>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-91616843774318977262021-05-10T06:29:00.001-04:002021-05-10T06:29:24.088-04:00GoodReads Review: The Spirit Ring -- Lois McMaster Bujold<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1118379.The_Spirit_Ring" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="The Spirit Ring" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387705050l/1118379._SY160_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1118379.The_Spirit_Ring">The Spirit Ring</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16094.Lois_McMaster_Bujold">Lois McMaster Bujold</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3753568462">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Set in a small Italian town in the Renaissance era (there are references to Lorenzo de Medici, so let's call it late 1400s), but a version where magic and metallurgy run together, The Spirit Ring follows Fiametta, the rebellious daughter of a mage, and Thur, the good-hearted miner who would be the mage's apprentice ... before their small world falls apart.<br /><br />This novel is intimate - it's a story intricately bound to its place and people, where the acceleration of events grows naturally from those before, and where the two main characters get drawn up into the affairs of politics and war ... but always with a tight focus on the place where Fiametta grew up. The first forty or fifty pages are fairly low on conflict but still interesting enough to hold the attention, and the pay-off is more than worth it: the unraveling is all the more horrifying for how deeply I experienced Fiametta's world, and a lot of the little elements that seemed simply like worldbuilding or character introduction prove unexpectedly relevant later.<br /><br />The stakes are visceral and personal here, and the two narrators both intensely likeable and very different. If I have any critique, I'm not really satisfied by the way the love story plays out. I'm glad that they don't waste time mooning or being distracted at inappropriate moments (ohhh, I hate that in SFF/romance crosses), but this goes a bit far in the other direction to make it feel a bit pragmatic and not wholly convincing. There's also a few confusing turns in the denouement that felt a bit like, "one more thing, really?"<br /><br />All that said, this is a wonderful book. The details are absorbing and the cross between history and magic perfect.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3167691-lindsey-duncan">View all my reviews</a>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-42190387456874386472021-02-28T20:01:00.002-05:002021-02-28T20:01:44.534-05:00Anatomy Of An Idea: Hunting Fire<p> <span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Grimbold anthology "Lost Gods" comes out tomorrow - order it <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08V23ZL9H/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TVheGb0RNCXRX?fbclid=IwAR1LlXavty5cfnuSl5Nw2AO_GMxDWMHUJVDoSCpNTOg8oNXmCbYYR4G6Ruo&pldnSite=1">here!</a> - and contains one of my rare reprints, Hunting Fire. This began as a writing prompt / freewrite on the theme of unseasonable weather. As is my usual habit, I decided to tackle it a bit backwards: I wrote about a warm spell in cold terrain, but from the perspective that this was a bad thing, even catastrophic. I love to write about hospitable wintry environments, places where the cold is a refuge, not an enemy.</span></p><p>Of course, such environments can still be challenging for humanity, so I created a nonhuman race - the Glaciads - to live there. With that decision came a few nonhuman mores and social structure, not enough to render them truly alien, but to separate them from humanity. The choice to give the main character a daughter was a bit of a whim, but it turned out to be integral to the resolution.</p><p>As to the lost god ... you'll have to read the story and find out.</p>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-40675383494427583872020-04-11T19:24:00.001-04:002020-04-11T19:24:01.224-04:00Anatomy of an Idea: Waterways<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My story Waterways was recently published in Storyhack, Issue 6, available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086MKRY3W" target="_blank">here</a>. The catalyst of the story is a sacred pool that bestows upon the people the skills of ancestors. When the city is conquered, the youngest of those who were immersed in the pool have no opportunity to train and hone their abilities. The result? A truly random skill set.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the brainstorming phases for the story, I decided to choose the skills quite literally at random, so I went for an old resource: GURPS Compendium. GURPS is the Generic Universal RolePlaying System, a detail-heavy roleplaying system that is designed to encompass everything from space cowboys to time travelers to high fantasy. It has its flaws, but having that exhaustive skill list was perfect purposes. I rolled randomly to pick a page, then a column, then a specific entry. I had to discard some results, of course, as I couldn't really work Starship Navigation into my story ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I ended up with a list of skills for each of the secondary characters that were a deliberate mismatch. I then had the fun of working these skills into the plot without shoehorning the characters into far-fetched situations. It was particularly fun because my narrator was the new girl in this group, so some of those skills came out of nowhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is not the first place where I've used deliberate randomness to generate a character, but I really enjoyed using the conceit of the pool to justify the strange combinations. It let me range more widely. Who knows, maybe I'll return to this city and setting with another skillset gone wrong.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-59235329462592030362019-11-07T20:56:00.002-05:002019-11-07T20:56:54.692-05:00Goodreads Review: Shades of Milk and Honey - by Mary Robinette Kowal<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7295501-shades-of-milk-and-honey" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Shades of Milk and Honey (Glamourist Histories, #1)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312059646l/7295501._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7295501-shades-of-milk-and-honey">Shades of Milk and Honey</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2868678.Mary_Robinette_Kowal">Mary Robinette Kowal</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2993478729">4 of 5 stars</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a setting that pays homage to Jane Austen, young women of quality weave glamour, the delicate powers of illusion. This is the gift of the plain narrator, her only hope at finding a husband ... though she often finds herself in the shadow of her beautiful sister Melody. This is a beautiful book, deliberately written and both intricate and sparse. The lean prose carries the atmosphere perfectly, while leaving enough room for the reader to picture even those things not described. For instance, there's never any indication what Mr. Dunkirk, the love interest, even looks like. (I thought this was a particularly odd omission, but let that pass.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The plot is strong and well paced, though I felt some of the antagonist's actions came unraveled near the end, and a few ends were left loose - such as the fate of Beth - that I would have rather seen tied up. Sometimes, the plot twists were predictable because of the faithfulness to the specific style of story, but to be honest, I'm not sure whether that detracts or adds to the appeal. Overall, it's a delightful read.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3167691-lindsey-duncan"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">View all my reviews</span></a>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-58023754545371258952019-09-04T21:09:00.001-04:002019-09-04T21:09:03.082-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I've just started submissions on a story entitled "Different Drummer," and I know - I just know - that this one is going to give me trouble with editors. It was written for a challenge to write about a character who isn't a hero, which I interpreted as someone who has neither the talent nor the inclination for adventure ... but since he's well-meaning, with a good heart, his actions end up having consequences that propel the story along. It was a fine balance to walk, to make him resistant to heroics without making him passive. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think I achieved that, and I'm very satisfied with the story overall, but it's not a popular way to shape a narrative. Editors have little patience for characters who don't know what they want. To me, though, that's sometimes the appeal of a short story: it's possible to encapsulate that discovery of self, that flash of understanding, of realizing what path one needs to take, within those few pages - in a way that would be tired and overly drawn out in a novel.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-86593136066451739402019-08-07T20:58:00.003-04:002019-08-07T20:58:59.138-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Like many others, I've been sucked into the phenomenon that is <i>Stranger Things.</i> Not everyone is a fan, and I've heard complaints both from people who find the horror elements dull and would rather just watch the kids interact, and people who are sick of the budding young love and want the plot to get a move on. For me, it is the intersection of the two that makes the show tick ...</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(It's been over a month since S3 aired, so possible spoilers implicit, certainly for the first two seasons.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The setting certainly isn't particularly unique, a mashup of familiar horror and urban fantasy tropes. (The psionic children imprisoned and experimented upon is a prime example of the latter.) The broad strokes are well-worn enough that even I, who doesn't read or even watch horror, recognize them. Some of the small details are rather clever and intriguing, especially in the visual design arena. I was charmed by the life cycle of the baby demogorgon in S2.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not even that charmed by the '80s setting. I think I'm just a bit too young to really remember much of it, and since I was homeschooled, I didn't have a lot of the context the central characters do, anyhow. (Though there are a few things that I recognize here and there.) What I do appreciate as a worldbuilder, however, is how immersive this setting is. It bolsters and strengthens the supernatural aspects. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As an aside, I was pretty shocked by the newspaper office in S3. Wait, are you sure this isn't the '50s?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The strength of <i>Stranger Things</i> is the characters, taking familiar stereotypes - the king of high school, the prim older sister, the obnoxious journalist - and turning them on their ear. Each of these stereotypes has a stereotypical arc, an expected direction, and it's very satisfying to see them turn over, revealing another side. The reveal about Robin near the end of the season is another great example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's that subversion of the expected character which makes the standard setting so effective. Introduce an unfamiliar or unexpected setting, character and plot all at once, and the viewer / reader becomes unmoored. There is no context, nothing to compare and contrast. We all need some grounding in the familiar to appreciate the unfamiliar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I also appreciate that the series has been able to build genuine suspense without knocking off main characters. (Game of Thrones, I'm looking at you.) This is probably much to account for by the decisions in the first season: if you watched it without any spoilers, you spent most of the season guessing about Will, and they made the good choice *not* to let Barbara off the hook. If she had come back, we wouldn't have trusted any death. Not even a certain one in this most recent season ...</span></div>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-70280384671606631902019-07-14T19:56:00.002-04:002019-07-14T19:56:11.387-04:00Idea Anatomy<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've had two stories published lately, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T9J5TH2" target="_blank">Traveling By Starlight: A Journey of Two Ways</a>, and <a href="https://www.irbstore.co/product-page/outposts-of-beyond-july-2019?fbclid=IwAR1viUx97VEqc5YCj0JGLShfDsfc-5jeyDoXZBTYadflp8LtNot_CPg3VYE" target="_blank">Before Their Time</a>, and I wanted to talk about where the ideas came from. Since the respective magazines are both for-purchase, and Outposts of Beyond - where the latter story can be found - is in print and it would take a few days to get to you, I'll keep this post spoiler-free.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So Traveling By Starlight: A Journey of Two Ways was originally written for a fantasy-writers.org monthly challenge. The prompt was one I suggested, to write a story with alternate endings, so of course I felt obliged to jump in. Just because I'm me, I always feel obliged to add an additional challenge. In this case, I wanted to design the endings so they changed elements of the preceding story. That meant including details which could be interpreted in two different ways ... and led to me Googling "foods aliens eat." Which wasn't terribly helpful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Before Their Time was also written from a prompt on a different site, though I no longer remember what it was. I'm sure, though, that I interpreted it in the most convoluted way possible. The story follows a time mage and her bodyguard who travel back in time to find the cure for a plague and end up in the wrong era. I took a bit to mull over what kind of magic her companion specialized in, settling on fire and light. Flame is perhaps a cliche choice for a battle mage, but the possibilities of light gave me some more unusual options.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I had so much fun with these characters, I went on to write other stories about them. In grand tradition of time travel, I wrote them out of sequence, everything from the moment they met to later adventures. I made a point of establishing the two as firm friends with no sexual tension; one or the other is usually in a relationship. I also set up some of the rules of time travel, including the fact that any time spent in the past is "lost" - a week in the past becomes a week in the future - and that the future can't be changed, or the consequences could unmake the world ... or is that true?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hopefully, more of these tales will see print.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-54219709523770825442019-07-10T20:26:00.003-04:002019-07-10T20:26:40.534-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I've been working on the query and synopsis for <i>Unnatural Causes,</i> which I've asked a few folks to read and critique, and that's made me realize that one of my natural tendencies as a person causes problems when it comes to my writing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've mentioned before on this blog that, while some people label with words or visuals - for instance, "my house" or visualizing that building - I tend to store and access information by feel. My memory hooks are visceral.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How that plays into my writing is that I often have a clear sense of character behavior, plot arc, or story mood, and can maintain it consistently throughout. This serves me in good stead when I'm editing, too, as even if I can't put my finger on why I should change something, I can feel that it's necessary and it works. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ask me to describe what I've created, though, and I dissolve into gibbering. It's not a matter of distilling thousands of words into a few; it's a matter of translating a physical murmur into a completely different language. It's one of the things, I think, that makes me particularly frustrated by the querying process. Many of the tools I use for writing stories are useless for queries. So why should one depend on the other?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Familiar complaints for any writer, of course. I can take some consolation in knowing a source of difficulty for me personally, though. ... some.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-13150230281241482062019-07-09T06:29:00.002-04:002019-07-09T06:29:44.643-04:00Traveling By Starlight: A Journey of Two Ways ... now available!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's out! The Summer issue of The Colored Lens is now available, containing my "Traveling By Starlight: A Journey of Two Ways." <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T9J5TH2" target="_blank">Check it out</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This story involves alternate endings. Watch closely ...</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-68974706055846586362019-06-19T20:42:00.002-04:002019-06-19T20:42:12.946-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I recently watched the Amazon Prime series Good Omens, an adaptation of the brilliantly funny book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I very much enjoyed it, but I felt as if it would be much less enjoyable if I weren't familiar with the book. It is very faithful, even to the point of sometimes missing some of the advantages of television translation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For instance, I think the series would have been stronger if they had removed the "God" narration and interwoven scenes to fill in the same information with less voice-over info-dump and more character interaction. Some of the jokes probably would have been lost, but others could have been placed into the mouths of characters and been the better for timing and facial expression. This might have required some change in the beats and pacing, but making the series an episode longer wouldn't have outlived its welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I would also have loved to see a bit more of the Four Horsemen, though I know that none of their scenes advanced the plot as such. It would have strengthened the scene where they faced off with the four children (which could have played out a little longer). I also feel as if there might have been a way to better integrate Shadwell's presence. It was kooky even in the novel, but in the TV series, it feels somewhat off-sides and random, not fully part of the main narrative.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The show also may represent a taxing entry point for a mainstream viewer, someone who doesn't have the suspension of disbelief required by regular SF/F consumption. That bit, though, I wouldn't change in the slightest. Good Omens is delightfully wacky, and diluting that craziness would have been a crime.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-15786387059838767372019-06-05T20:11:00.001-04:002019-06-05T20:11:30.859-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's no secret that I have problems with brevity. The sweet spot lengthwise for short stories, for me, is usually between six to eight thousand words, over the word count limit for many markets. I do well with flash fiction, but that's a different way of thinking. If anything, I expand one liners into a story. Jokes where the punchline isn't necessarily funny.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If I want to keep a short story in a more limited word count, I have a specific strategy. I conceptualize around a single scene: one point of view, a specific unit of time and either the same setting or a continuous progression - for instance, someone walking around a city. If I narrow my focus to that range, I find it much easier to kept the story succinct.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not to say that it always works. Occasionally, I've formed the broad outlines of a tale, only to find that it spins deeper and wider, even within that snapshot of a moment. My brain thinks in big tangents and tangles, and I can't always rein them in ... at least not and end up with a complete story.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-85637192073886097402019-05-15T20:58:00.001-04:002019-05-15T20:58:04.291-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've been debating if I want to start writing a new short story, to flex those muscles while I'm working up to my next novel project. From a business standpoint, I'm not sure if it makes sense; I currently have a sizable backlog of unsold stories, and the markets seem to be closed more often, overbooked, on indefinite hiatus, or running brief submissions periods throughout the year. On the other hand, I'm in a headspace right now where a bit of "play" might be welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So here are some tidbits I've been tossing around:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Two women whose minds are trapped in the same body return to seek revenge on the monarch who banished them. This whole one-body-many-minds trope is something of an obsession of mine; I've approached it numerous times from different angles. My retired novel <i>Journal of the Dead</i> used the concept that whenever someone killed another person, the victim's mind leapt into their body.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Listening to the Sophie Ellis-Bextor song "The Walls Keep Saying Your Name," I thought about taking this literally. There are two ways this could go; they're mutually exclusive, but I could always write both takes. The first is a woman who can speak to residences, shops, any building, but the walls have no sense of time: they may speak from the perspective of the present, or the past, or even the distant future. The second is a city of sentient buildings, bound together in a hive mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And not so much a concept as two little sparks bouncing around, courtesy of the stock-needed whiteboard at work: red dragon and rice wine vinegar.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-38374971663191738282019-05-12T19:51:00.001-04:002019-05-12T19:51:25.443-04:00End of a Chapter<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yesterday, I finished my final editing pass on <i>Unnatural Causes,</i> my fantasy novel. Just a few days ago, a memory came up in my Facebook feed announcing I had finished the first draft ... four years ago. There's been a lot of water under the bridge in that time, and as far as the book, multiple passes and a beta read. I wasn't planning on doing this final pass, but after an illuminating edit on a short story, I felt I had some new tools for tightening my prose. I also wanted to smooth out any rough edges on the new material I added on the advice of (wonderful, lovely, sagely wise) beta readers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was actually my first time having beta readers for the whole book (though I've had people critique sections before), and I thought I would be a lot more nervous than I was. Not to say I was chill, but something about considering the book as a whole was much easier for me. I think <i>Unnatural Causes </i>is a much stronger book for their comments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The first draft was 86 thousand words - shorter than I wanted, putting me in the unusual position of wanting to add content, and more particularly *not* to cut words. This is much of why I ended up doing the final pass. I typically write in an exceedingly verbose fashion and end up trimming quite a bit. Since the original low word count of this novel discouraged cutting, I didn't do much of it until that point.\</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next step is the torture of the query letter and synopsis, and then ... <i>Unnatural Causes</i> is off to see if my next victim is an unsuspecting agent.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-21589646147166108712019-05-11T12:20:00.003-04:002019-05-11T12:20:38.014-04:00GoodReads Review: The Dragon's Touchstone - by Irene Radford<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/434188.The_Dragon_s_Touchstone" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Dragon's Touchstone" border="0" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1230499127m/434188.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/434188.The_Dragon_s_Touchstone">The Dragon's Touchstone</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/154081.Irene_Radford">Irene Radford</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2415909574">2 of 5 stars</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">War dominates Coronnan, trampling the common folk under the feet of its lords, and fueled by the service of Battlemages. Racked by grief and guilt after he is forced to slay a former student in combat, Battlemage Nimbulan sets out to find a better way (with middling success until it drops into his lap - more on that later). The secondary protagonist, Myrilandel, is a witchwoman with amnesia, tossed into events by her need to heal and a mysterious compulsion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This book is dated in many of the ways you would expect, and it hasn't aged well. There's a lot of reliance on fate, prophecy and - as just mentioned - inexplicable forces nudging the characters along. Myrilandel in particular doesn't seem to have much agency or motivation of her own; she just obeys the plot machine, thinly disguised as voices in her head. When she finally discovers the reason she was being compelled, it solves much of the story's problems, but it feels too convenient. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There follows, in the last pages of the book, a fast succession of revelations that feel as if they came out of nowhere. These come across as mysteries I should have been able to solve, but wasn't given enough evidence for. Maybe it wouldn't if I had read the "first" series (this is the beginning of a prequel series), but coming at it as a new reader, I was nonplussed by a lot of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are some enjoyable aspects to this book. The state of the kingdom is nicely drawn, and many of the background events and the motivation of secondary characters feels grounded and realistic. The attitude towards sex, in particular, is refreshing in its pragmatism. In a lot of ways, I liked the movement of secondary characters such as Quinnalt and Kalen better than the main narrative. Apart from the grand forces that give this book its main arc, so much of what shapes the individual scenes is human pettiness and the smallness of fear, greed and jealousy. Those are the most compelling parts of The Dragon's Touchstone.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3167691-lindsey-duncan"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">View all my reviews</span></a>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-31982874348590648002019-05-01T19:13:00.001-04:002019-05-01T19:13:35.425-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Brace yourselves: like so many others, I'm going to talk about Game of Thrones (the show) - the most recent episode and beyond into this final season.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">People have complained that after all the buildup about the Night King and the armies of the dead, he was defeated in a single episode. I don't have a problem with this or feel it was anticlimactic. The buildup to this most recent episode made it clear that there was no retreat. Lose one battle, and the armies of the dead would swell past the point of no return. As in the greater game of thrones, you win or you die.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Could they have the battle multiple episodes? I don't think so, for two reasons. First of all, it's only possible to maintain that kind of intense tension for so long before the viewer becomes fatigued. The viewer becomes worn out, even bored, and future moments lose their impact. Second, an episode break would have killed the momentum.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What did bother me in the episode was Theon's death. Not the fact of it, but the manner. Sacrificing himself was fitting to his arc, but I would have preferred if there was some kind of combat between him and the Night King / his lieutenants. That specific choice have at least bought time. As it was, it seemed meaningless; he delayed the Night King only long enough for that notable to wipe blood off his weapon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So who sits on the Iron Throne at the end of this? I hope ... it's not who we expect. Tyrion, perhaps - his intellect would make him a formidable king. (And if we put stock in certain glimmers, with Sansa by his side?) Perhaps Gendry will seize the day. Or in the tradition of war not determining who is right, but rather who is left, what if Jaime is left to rise above his family's twisted legacy?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Or picture this: next episode, Daenerys announces her intention to march on Cersei. Arya's all, "I just have to go do a thing." Dany arrives, demands an audience with the queen, who ... pulls off her own face to reveal everyone's favorite assassin. Story's over, folks, two whole episodes of follow-up and epilogue. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You might detect from the thread of these musings that I'm not that fond of Jon Snow. I don't dislike him, but as a character, he's such a bundle of well-worn tropes: honorable to a fault, plain spoken, doesn't like politics, illegitimate son who turns out to be heir to the throne ... he's very much the expected winner of this saga, and that's a good part of why I hope it turns out otherwise. Game of Thrones has succeeded in part by (sometimes) taking the unexpected turn. Let's not end on the oldest plot in the book.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-17983085770291273172019-04-24T21:27:00.001-04:002019-04-24T21:27:28.082-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So as I continue to do planning for my next novel, I've come to realize I will probably need to build a glossary for both point of view characters. The magic system involves synesthesia, and both characters are magic-users. Their forms of synesthesia, however, are very different, which means that given the same scene, both would perceive it with unique aspects. That said, synesthesia is consistent within the individual, which means that to save my sanity, I have to keep track of the links I create without constantly having to search back through the manuscript. I also have a couple other magic using characters in the storyline, which may mean making notes on how they "see" (or otherwise) things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am planning to have a few conversations revolving around the narrators seeing another character through different lenses. I also might make a point of describing a significant landmark or two, but I haven't decided yet. Certainly I want to make sure that I do pay attention to the synesthesia and not just brush it off as an intermittent special effect, and I think setting up a glossary will help keep me focused.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-60462267523178614112019-04-20T10:56:00.002-04:002019-04-20T10:56:23.824-04:00Story sale!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">I've just sold my fantasy story "Waterways" (which has a particularly entertaining backstory that I'll share ... some day</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">) to <a href="https://www.storyhack.com/" target="_blank">StoryHack Action and Adventure</a>, due out in Issue #6 (probably near the end of the year).</span></span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-64004716998339735592019-04-17T20:31:00.006-04:002019-04-17T20:31:41.536-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Happy (slightly belated) book birthday to <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1911497529/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_yn8TCb3VSC5XA" target="_blank">Scylla and Charybdis</a>! My sprawling, epic science fiction novel came out in April of 2018. It garnered some lovely reviews, and I'm still terribly proud of it ... especially as I never thought of scifi as my wheelhouse. It was a book I didn't really want to write at first: it started as a short story which editors kept saying needed to be a novel, and oh, I fought that. I also never expected, when I started writing, how important the homebase of the story would be. When I started writing <i>Scylla and Charybdis</i> (as a book), I envisioned it as a milieu novel, an exploration of a universe undertaken by an outsider. But as I wrote the opening sequences, I realized how important Anaea's home was to her, and how it would inform the whole rest of the story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So much happened in the writing of that book I never pictured. I had no idea the character of Flick would pop into existence, all but fully formed from the first sentences. I didn't realize how deeply I would end up delving into the politics of the warlords and the matriarchs. I didn't know where Anaea would finally find her place, only that we would discover it together.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-42036750802927869732019-04-14T20:02:00.001-04:002019-04-14T20:02:16.909-04:00New Coat of Paint<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So with my life settling out a little - for now - I've had some mental bandwidth to devote to other things. I've decided to try out a few experiments with upgrading my social media presence. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On Twitter - <a href="https://twitter.com/LindseyCDuncan" target="_blank">@lindseycduncan</a> - and my Facebook author page - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LindseyDuncanWriter/" target="_blank">LindseyDuncanWriter</a> - I'm going to be sharing images and links of the fantastic and the funny under the hashtag #UnicornIsle. I've always had an affinity for unicorns, and Unicorn Isle is the "imprint" name of my harp CD, Rolling of the Stone, so it seemed fitting.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This won't affect this blog too much, though I may write a few articles or share intriguing links, and of course, I'll continue to put up my SF/F Goodreads reviews, as well as nonfiction / other books I think might interest readers and writers of speculative fiction.</span></div>
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Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-34712226327288517532019-04-03T19:55:00.001-04:002019-04-03T19:55:20.817-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having finished my draft of <i>Surgeburnt,</i> my fiction writing dance card has some free space, and I thought writing some short stories would be a nice change of pace. I had a couple of ideas at the front of my brain, but they promised to be lengthy, intense, or both, and in my state of mind, I wanted something lighter and easier. So I decided to write a short story about my Sniffer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I mentioned this character a while back: I came up with her as an alternate way to review my wine studies, by incorporating wine knowledge into a loose narrative. I never wrote much of it and it was never intended to be a "real" story (too much infodumping), but I came up with the framework of an interesting setting and her backstory, and I thought ... why not use it for a short story?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The why-not, of course, is that I never named her ... and now, at the part in a stand-alone short story where I usually just pick a name and roll along, I've tumbled to a halt because I know I'm going to do more with the character, so the name is particularly important. I'm sure some writers would say, "Just pick a name and change it later," but I can't do that. As soon as I select a name, it and the character begin to adjust to each other. Unnaming is nearly impossible for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can imagine the headaches I've had when (ever so rarely) I have had to change a name ...</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-60644076174963001442019-03-20T21:26:00.002-04:002019-03-20T21:26:54.247-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So this past weekend, I finally finished the first draft of <i>Surgeburnt,</i> my post-apocalyptic science fantasy novel. The setting was out of my wheelhouse, a stretch for my skills, and the plot required some delicate handling, because it involved two threads: one, the present storyline, and the second, an out-of-order retelling of the events and people who got my narrator to that point. They both came to a climax at the same moment. However, the main plotline had threads that needed additional resolution, so I wrote a final action sequence t</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">o cap off the novel.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Because I hadn't planned on the continuation - and because of the chaos in my non-fantasy life - the end of the novel felt like wandering to a halt, rather than a resolute jaunt across the finish line. But it is done, and I'm satisfied with the conclusion ... and oh my stars, there's a lot of editing to be done. The book is enormous, coming in over the 150k mark ... which is at least shorter than the first draft of <i>Scylla and Charybdis</i>, and I'd like to think I have more tricks in my bag now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So for now, <i>Surgeburnt </i>goes onto the shelf, for an editing eye after I polish off (or give up on) <i>Undertaking Chances,</i> my quirky little for-fun zombie project that turned out to have more potential than I expected.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To end, here's two songs I associate with <i>Surgeburnt</i> narrator, Maren - the first song I chose for, and the most recent:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so8V5dAli-Q" target="_blank">Control - Halsey</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mltal-jxoGI" target="_blank">Baby Outlaw - Elle King</a></span></div>
Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-43962021514257774932019-03-13T20:56:00.005-04:002019-03-13T20:56:35.383-04:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know it's been radio silence on this blog for a while. It's been a crazy few months. I've been studying for the CSW (Certified Specialist of Wine) which exam I just passed - a huge feather in my cap. Work has taken a lot of my emotional energy, so I've spent most of my non-studying time zoning out in front of the television. I've come up for air enough that I really miss writing, and when I have the focus for it, the blog hasn't been the center of my attention.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But enough of that. I wanted to talk a bit about sequel-itis, the impulse authors have to continue one book (or sometimes, one short story) with another. It's not a disease I suffer much from. (And yes, I use the term "disease" tongue in cheek.) This might surprise you. I've talked before about how I like to write stories with, "Yes, but ..." endings, which naturally lend themselves to the next chapter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But for me, I'm content with leaving things open-ended, with a tale tied off in frayed knots. When it comes to short fiction, I'm hyperactive: I'd rather be on to something brand new and shiny. When it comes to novels, on the other hand, whenever I reach the end, I already have possibilities and potential for a sequel, but I'm also a pragmatist. As a professional writer, I'm not willing to put the time and energy into a second book until I know there's a chance it will see the light of day, which means selling the first ... and I'm not there yet. Plus, by the time a book gets through the process of editing, submission, and potential acceptance ... you guessed it. My hyperactive mind has moved on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Does that mean there might be a sequel to <i>Scylla and Charybdis</i>? I don't know yet. I had two distinct possibilities for the direction, but there's a lot of water under the bridge between then and now. There's also so much new on the horizon, different worlds for me to explore just as Anaea did.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32288075.post-83604279058439592772019-02-06T18:25:00.003-05:002019-02-06T18:25:27.674-05:00Wednesday Wanderings<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anatomy of an edit, different story: second (thousandth) verse, same as the first.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm working through short story of mine now, Written In Stone ... and I use the term "short story" loosely, because it originally clocked in a bit over 10k words. I remember this very clearly because it was written for a monthly challenge on fantasy-writers.org, back in ye olde days when the challenge was capped at ten thousand words. The first draft of Written in Stone was significantly larger than that, and I went about a crusade of sneaky word cutting. I finally got it just under the mark at around 11:15pm on the last day of entries ... and then my computer crashed, meaning I lost the last three hours of trims. At that point, I threw up my hands and gave up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">(The challenge, by the way, was to write a story inspired by a specific song - the song left up to the writer. I started with "Writing On The Wall" by Blackmore's Night, which is very much a fantasy sort of song to start with, but then something very incongruous crept in: Miami Sound Machine's "Orange Express." Of such unlikely collisions are my best ideas made, so I went along with it.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the story went into my files until ... well, now. Approaching the process of editing, I decided to print it and do a paper read-through / mark-up. I usually only do this for novels; I choose to do it with short fiction when I feel I need a stronger grasp on the big picture. Why the printed word does this better for me than words on a screen, I couldn't tell you, but that means my first pass is effectively a 1.5: as I go back over my suggestions in my terrible, scrawled handwriting, I sometimes rethink them, change them ... or can't read my own writing and have to stop and recreate what in the world I was trying to say. (More so in a novel where it took me longer to get through the manuscript, granted.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In any case, there were a number of overall concerns I had. First of all, the worldbuilding was very oblique, with a steep learning curve for the reader. It needed puzzling out and for the reader to hold onto pieces of information until they were clarified. Fine for a novel, maybe, but a tough road to hoe in a shorter (... relatively) piece. Second, it's a story of intrigue, but one very tightly focused on the narrator. I had to make sure those aspects came through clearly. Less urgently, but still important, the dratted thing was/is still much too long. Surprisingly (to me, at least), I've found the paper edit very effective for finding places to cut.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thwarting that need to cut is the fact that I think I need to add one more scene, or at least a fragment of scene, at the end, to truly tie up both the plot and the main character's emotional arc. Still, when it comes to balancing the two, the story needs to be as long as it needs to be; I'm not going to leave necessary pieces out (or hack them free, pirate-style) to fit into a set word count.</span>Lindsey Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06544943749349803429noreply@blogger.com0