We're shuffling back to Tuesday for the weekly post because it is the only weekday I won't be in class this upcoming quarter - oh, yes, you heard that right. It's been a great ride, but I am so ready to graduate, ladies and gentlemen.
In the first draft of Gone With The Wind, so the story goes, Margaret Mitchell had named her heroine Pansy. It wasn't until later that she changed the name to Scarlet. Now, it seems almost inconceivable that Scarlet should be named anything else. What would a Pansy be like? I picture a plain, naive, sweet girl - or maybe a frumpy governness.
For me, names are inextricably linked to character. I find that characters don't fully form in my head until they have a name, and oftentimes, the name I've chosen will influence their development. This makes renaming - the few times I've had to do so - a grueling process. How do you find a different name that feels exactly the same as the original? And that feeling is an elusive, ephemeral thing: I couldn't necessarily articulate what the names I've chosen convey to me.
For some of my fantasy novels, I've done full-blown naming languages. Some writers find this excessive, but honestly, it's something I enjoy doing. I love coming up with the basic rules of word construction - maybe this language lacks the aspirated H sound? - and lingual drift, then watching the evolution. A side bonus is this also gives me a source for naming cities, rivers, countries, and so forth, which is something I often have trouble with. (That's another post, I think.) There is a fantastic basic primer that I use for generation, plus - if I feel ambitious - a list of (I believe) the 150 most commonly used words. I'm no Tolkien: the physics of linguistics, how sounds are produced in the mouth, how to "properly" represent subtle differences in sound that are represented identically in writing - all these things are outside the scope of my creations. Maybe some day.
For other works, I've simply created an internal sense for myself about how names from a particular culture or region should feel. (Are we getting the impression I'm a very kinesthetic person yet?) Sometimes, this is a specific analogue to the real world - similar to Welsh, Greek, Native American - and sometimes not. Other times, I'll set forth particular rules for consistency. For instance, in Journal of the Dead, all female names have a silent H in them somewhere; and to avoid a typical naming disease, female names never end with an -a. Male names almost always end in consonants.
In Unnatural Causes, the desert countries in which the story takes place have a very distinct naming convention. There are no "stand-alone" internal vowels - it's always some kind of dipthong. The only exception is the letter y. Names can, however, start or end with a single vowel. This gives me names like Roendair, Iluenn, Eshaira, Nydrian ... and it also sets up a nice contrast between them and the familiars, whose names don't follow these rules (Vil, Duvalis, Koric), and the lone westerner, Davsin.
... I would just like to observe that spellcheck is flipping its lid right now.
Which brings me to the use of contemporary names. I genuinely dislike real world names in secondary world fantasy, unless there is some hidden connection to our world in the backstory. It jerks me right out of the story. Obviously, all fantasy worlds are in some way modeled after ours, if only by contrast, but to have characters named - for instance - Alice and Thomas lampshades it too much for my taste. (Go here if you're unfamiliar with Lampshade Hanging) On the other hand, names that are "real" but not recognizably evocative of our world are all right with me. For instance, Pazia (from Fatecraft) is actually a Hebrew name meaning "golden." (I seem to be drawn to names in this particular vein ...)
And what about stories set in our world? There, I find a whole new set of challenges in naming ...
About Me
- Lindsey Duncan
- I'm a professional harp performer, chef / pastry chef, and speculative fiction writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. My contemporary fantasy novel Flow is available from Double Dragon Publishing, and my science fiction novel Scylla and Charybdis is now out from Grimbold Books. I've also sold a number of short stories and a few pieces of speculative poetry. I write predominantly fantasy, usually epic and/or humorous, with some soft science fiction. I play the traditional lever harp with a specialty in Celtic music - but I also perform modern and Renaissance tunes. And yes, you read that right - I have a diploma in Baking and Pastry and an Associates in Culinary Arts and am currently working in the catering field at Kate's Catering and Personal Chef Services (Dayton, KY). I am a CPC (Certified Pastry Culinarian) and CSW (Certified Specialist of Wine).
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
Homeschooler's Perspective: the Age Gap
One of the major differences between homeschooling and conventional schooling is the fact that typically, life and learning experiences (the two are inextricably linked) do not occur with a large group of people the same age. Theater, sports, music, zoo class, and assorted field trips tend to be a family affair. You become accustomed to hanging out with people of all ages, rather than your friend automatically being the person closest to your own age, and their family members regulated to "annoying siblings" or "the mom." For me, this was often even more the case: because my family started homeschooling when the movement was novel and strange and because my mother spoke on the topic, adults wanted to talk to me as "exhibit A," while their children met me as their introduction to homeschooling.
I'm not sure whether homeschooling, happenstance or inborn preference played the greater part, but this trend only continued as I grew older. For several years, one of my closest friends was my neighbor's younger daughter. I worked at the Cincinnati Museum Center during school hours, so made friends with the adult volunteers. I was always very comfortable and at ease with them.
Then I entered the world of the traditional lever harp. Most harpers start either very young - they take lessons as children - or later in life, often towards retirement. I was sixteen and right in the middle, and in general, I've stayed there. I do meet some harpers close to my age, but most are on one side or the other.
My final encounter with the age gap came in culinary school. Once again, I was surrounded by people who were just out of highschool - given or take a few years - or people a decade or two older starting a new career. I tended to feel more kinship with the older students than with the "kids," but I've had good luck getting along with both.
Does it really matter? In the end, common interests and dedication trump age every time. If there has been any difficulty, it comes from the generation gap in terms of pop culture and common views - quite simply, we don't always get each other's jokes. For instance, in the kitchen one day, I made a "crunchy frog" joke to absolute silence. I've been the only person to laugh when my teachers made a reference. I was completely boggled to find out that many of my younger classmates never check their email. And who can live without their own printer? (All right, that may be a writer thing.)
Speaking of writers, that's another area that spans the gamut of ages, but I don't tend to notice it as often. A big part of it, I'm sure, is because there are almost no physical reminders. Another component is that if a joke does fall flat, it doesn't land in an obvious abyss of blank stares. But then, there's the fact that we writers tend to collect information and trivia, and we're more likely to get jokes that don't fit our generation, background, or chosen (non-writing) career.
... a bit like homeschoolers, really.
I'm not sure whether homeschooling, happenstance or inborn preference played the greater part, but this trend only continued as I grew older. For several years, one of my closest friends was my neighbor's younger daughter. I worked at the Cincinnati Museum Center during school hours, so made friends with the adult volunteers. I was always very comfortable and at ease with them.
Then I entered the world of the traditional lever harp. Most harpers start either very young - they take lessons as children - or later in life, often towards retirement. I was sixteen and right in the middle, and in general, I've stayed there. I do meet some harpers close to my age, but most are on one side or the other.
My final encounter with the age gap came in culinary school. Once again, I was surrounded by people who were just out of highschool - given or take a few years - or people a decade or two older starting a new career. I tended to feel more kinship with the older students than with the "kids," but I've had good luck getting along with both.
Does it really matter? In the end, common interests and dedication trump age every time. If there has been any difficulty, it comes from the generation gap in terms of pop culture and common views - quite simply, we don't always get each other's jokes. For instance, in the kitchen one day, I made a "crunchy frog" joke to absolute silence. I've been the only person to laugh when my teachers made a reference. I was completely boggled to find out that many of my younger classmates never check their email. And who can live without their own printer? (All right, that may be a writer thing.)
Speaking of writers, that's another area that spans the gamut of ages, but I don't tend to notice it as often. A big part of it, I'm sure, is because there are almost no physical reminders. Another component is that if a joke does fall flat, it doesn't land in an obvious abyss of blank stares. But then, there's the fact that we writers tend to collect information and trivia, and we're more likely to get jokes that don't fit our generation, background, or chosen (non-writing) career.
... a bit like homeschoolers, really.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
That Time of Year
It's that time of year again. No, not spring - you couldn't prove that by the weather around here, anyway - but the annual submissions period for the Sword & Sorceress anthologies. This has been a dream market of mine for years. I've managed to get stories held for second reading, but haven't broken through yet.
So this year, I have two stories selected for editing and eventual submission. They are:
The Dragon's Dinner: a recent story of mine, a short, humorous tale about a princess who goes to rescue her beloved from a dragon, only to find that things are appetizingly not what they seem.
Unblemished: a much older (and longer) story about a woman who becomes a Silver, a healer whose powers only work unless she herself is never injured ... not so much as a scratch. Family loyalties come into conflict with her profession. This story needs a lot more work than the other: descriptions added, paragraphs rearranged, language tidied up ... but the plot is strong, and I think it will be worth it.
Fingers crossed that this will be the year.
So this year, I have two stories selected for editing and eventual submission. They are:
The Dragon's Dinner: a recent story of mine, a short, humorous tale about a princess who goes to rescue her beloved from a dragon, only to find that things are appetizingly not what they seem.
Unblemished: a much older (and longer) story about a woman who becomes a Silver, a healer whose powers only work unless she herself is never injured ... not so much as a scratch. Family loyalties come into conflict with her profession. This story needs a lot more work than the other: descriptions added, paragraphs rearranged, language tidied up ... but the plot is strong, and I think it will be worth it.
Fingers crossed that this will be the year.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
Location, location, location.
Back when Flow first came out, I defined why I considered it contemporary fantasy, not urban fantasy. Part of the reason is, despite the road-trip aspect of the story, it doesn't really occur in or involve a city environment. Most of the tale is spent in smaller population centers or in outlying suburban areas.
As I look at other contemporary fantasy stories I've written, this generally holds true. (Xmas Wishes occurs firmly in suburbia.) Part of it is, I'm sure, that I'm not comfortable enough with many big cities to be confident using them as story setting, but the lion's share is that urban settings really don't interest me that much. As a personal preference, I don't like the bustle and claustrophobia of big cities; I don't feel the allure or the mystique, even if I can grasp it on an intellectual level.
It is in the quieter spaces that I seem to find my modern-day stories. Some of them are even inspired, to various degrees, by experiences I've had. A Flow-verse story I'm currently trying to sell entitled "A Dose of Aconite" is set largely in an anonymous nowheresville motel that is modeled after the place I stayed outside of Oberlin when I was getting my SHSA (Scottish Harp Society of America) judging certification. And the skeleton outlet mall between Cincinnati and Columbus where confrontation occurs in Flow? That's a real place ... with some tweaks, of course.
I do think that abandoned and desolate places have appeal for me as a writer. (A while back, I mentioned that I finished a new story, then an old free-write start ... only to realize that both revolved around a mysteriously abandoned population center.) Most of the action in Flow occurs in the spaces between ...
Of course, one of the fun parts of using the real world is highlighting its oddities. A retired humorous novel of mine pokes at the fact that the Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky. Flow makes a reference to the glitzy, over-the-top McDonald's in Asheville, North Carolina. One of my unsubmitted stories, Lip Service, uses every single reference to metaphorical kisses I could find, from Kissimmee, FL, to Kissing, Germany, to Hershey's kisses, to a Glasgow Kiss ...
Back when Flow first came out, I defined why I considered it contemporary fantasy, not urban fantasy. Part of the reason is, despite the road-trip aspect of the story, it doesn't really occur in or involve a city environment. Most of the tale is spent in smaller population centers or in outlying suburban areas.
As I look at other contemporary fantasy stories I've written, this generally holds true. (Xmas Wishes occurs firmly in suburbia.) Part of it is, I'm sure, that I'm not comfortable enough with many big cities to be confident using them as story setting, but the lion's share is that urban settings really don't interest me that much. As a personal preference, I don't like the bustle and claustrophobia of big cities; I don't feel the allure or the mystique, even if I can grasp it on an intellectual level.
It is in the quieter spaces that I seem to find my modern-day stories. Some of them are even inspired, to various degrees, by experiences I've had. A Flow-verse story I'm currently trying to sell entitled "A Dose of Aconite" is set largely in an anonymous nowheresville motel that is modeled after the place I stayed outside of Oberlin when I was getting my SHSA (Scottish Harp Society of America) judging certification. And the skeleton outlet mall between Cincinnati and Columbus where confrontation occurs in Flow? That's a real place ... with some tweaks, of course.
I do think that abandoned and desolate places have appeal for me as a writer. (A while back, I mentioned that I finished a new story, then an old free-write start ... only to realize that both revolved around a mysteriously abandoned population center.) Most of the action in Flow occurs in the spaces between ...
Of course, one of the fun parts of using the real world is highlighting its oddities. A retired humorous novel of mine pokes at the fact that the Cincinnati airport is in Kentucky. Flow makes a reference to the glitzy, over-the-top McDonald's in Asheville, North Carolina. One of my unsubmitted stories, Lip Service, uses every single reference to metaphorical kisses I could find, from Kissimmee, FL, to Kissing, Germany, to Hershey's kisses, to a Glasgow Kiss ...
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
Happy National Grammar Day!
It should surprise no one that I am a big fan of this holiday. I am an unabashed grammar fanatic, and I will confess that seeing grammatical errors (with the exception, perhaps, of the most obscure) in professional documents, from announcements to job descriptions to newsletters, tends to lower my opinion of the company or individual. I try to resist it - I know that it's not as important to some! - but I can't help it.
I realize that English is a living language, and that grammar use will drift as the language does and eventually become "correct." On the other hand, the language is much more codified than it ever was in the pre-modern era, so to what extent is drift natural and acceptable, and to what extent is the application of new terms / grammar conventions an ad populum fallacy - that is, the idea that it's right because most people believe it to be true? I don't know that there's a singular answer. That said, I can tell y'all definitively that "ain't" ain't in my dictionary. (Y'all is probably a good example of all this! People will insist that it should be "ya'll" or that it's "y'all" if singular or "ya'll" if plural or ... this is not a debate I'm up on. ;-))
(This makes me think about the response to the "rule" about not ending a sentence with a preposition: "This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.")
(Yes, I have a parantheses addiction.)
To me, though, it's more than just a debate, and there are both practical and artistic reasons for it. On the practical level, grammar and punctuation are vital for clarity. The argument for putting a comma on the word before a person is addressed is easily illustrated with the difference between, "Let's eat, Grandma!" and "Let's eat grandma." As for applying it in other situations, I think it's much easier to use it consistently than to have to stop and consider clarity every time ... especially when the definition of clarity may vary from person to person.
On the artistic side, grammar and punctuation inform the music of the written word. They ask for pauses; they group phrases together like a singer following breath marks. There is a marked difference between two independent phrases separated by a period versus the same two phrases separated by a semi-colon. I confess I'm heartily addicted to ellipses and dashes, and I constantly have to edit back my use of them, but that break, that beat, is as much a part of my writer's lexicon as any word.
Some online publishing houses have moved to a trend of removing any punctuation that is not strictly necessary for clarity. This drives me batty. To me, it's taking some of the music out of the language. Please save the commas! Catch them and release them back into the wilds of prose, where they belong.
It should surprise no one that I am a big fan of this holiday. I am an unabashed grammar fanatic, and I will confess that seeing grammatical errors (with the exception, perhaps, of the most obscure) in professional documents, from announcements to job descriptions to newsletters, tends to lower my opinion of the company or individual. I try to resist it - I know that it's not as important to some! - but I can't help it.
I realize that English is a living language, and that grammar use will drift as the language does and eventually become "correct." On the other hand, the language is much more codified than it ever was in the pre-modern era, so to what extent is drift natural and acceptable, and to what extent is the application of new terms / grammar conventions an ad populum fallacy - that is, the idea that it's right because most people believe it to be true? I don't know that there's a singular answer. That said, I can tell y'all definitively that "ain't" ain't in my dictionary. (Y'all is probably a good example of all this! People will insist that it should be "ya'll" or that it's "y'all" if singular or "ya'll" if plural or ... this is not a debate I'm up on. ;-))
(This makes me think about the response to the "rule" about not ending a sentence with a preposition: "This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.")
(Yes, I have a parantheses addiction.)
To me, though, it's more than just a debate, and there are both practical and artistic reasons for it. On the practical level, grammar and punctuation are vital for clarity. The argument for putting a comma on the word before a person is addressed is easily illustrated with the difference between, "Let's eat, Grandma!" and "Let's eat grandma." As for applying it in other situations, I think it's much easier to use it consistently than to have to stop and consider clarity every time ... especially when the definition of clarity may vary from person to person.
On the artistic side, grammar and punctuation inform the music of the written word. They ask for pauses; they group phrases together like a singer following breath marks. There is a marked difference between two independent phrases separated by a period versus the same two phrases separated by a semi-colon. I confess I'm heartily addicted to ellipses and dashes, and I constantly have to edit back my use of them, but that break, that beat, is as much a part of my writer's lexicon as any word.
Some online publishing houses have moved to a trend of removing any punctuation that is not strictly necessary for clarity. This drives me batty. To me, it's taking some of the music out of the language. Please save the commas! Catch them and release them back into the wilds of prose, where they belong.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
GoodReads Review: The Golden Swan
The Golden Swan by Nancy SpringerMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
The worlds of Isle and Vale collide as crippled, lovesick prince Frain from the mainland washes up on a beach and is discovered by Dair, the wolf-form son of the King of Isle. The book follows the same format as the previous volume, three (roughly) equal first person sections, with the character who is the driving force (in this case, Frain) taking the final portion. Maybe it's because it was new in the first book but is a deliberate echo here, or maybe it's because the three characters can't freely and mutually communicate for most of the book, but it doesn't work quite as well.
The flaw that plagued the earlier volumes are also in evidence here. Prophecy and destiny are used as motivations and explanations; mysterious, inexplicable events feel less like the markers of an invisible world than randomness or convenience. (This latter is, again, a product of its time. Nowadays, fantasy readers expect more rigorous logic underpinning the worldbuilding.)
I had trouble pushing through this book because none of the main characters really seem to have solid motivations to drive the plot. They are carried along, instead, by the vision of one, to a conclusion that is equal parts sorrow and joy, and could be more poignant and affecting with stronger desires driving it. It feels more like a product of the world and its cosmic forces than the characters' efforts.
View all my reviews
Wednesday Wanderings
I think we all adopt phrases and verbal tics that in some cases started out as humorous or clever, but have become such an integral part of our daily lexicon that we no longer think much of them ... until we say something and the person next to us stares or bursts out laughing. Oh. *Oh*. Some of them simply may be "regular" sayings that have passed out of common usage.
For your (hopeful) amusement, here are some of mine:
We're off like a herd of turtles: my family says this all ... the ... time.
(I'll be back in) two shakes of a lamb's tail: I have no idea where I picked this one up, but I say it a lot.
Easy breezy lemon squeezy: blame my pastry instructor.
Good enough for government work: same.
I have two brains - one's lost, and the other's out looking for it: this has become one of my stock responses when I do something dim-witted.
The wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead: about the same.
It takes me two pages to say hello: I'm long-winded / wordy. At least in writing.
Hello, Department of Redundancy Department, Hello: another family standard.
It's good to be the king: ... if you haven't seen Mel Brook's History of the World Pt 1, this one won't make much sense. (See also: "The streets are crawling with Romans!" and "Walk this way.")
For your (hopeful) amusement, here are some of mine:
We're off like a herd of turtles: my family says this all ... the ... time.
(I'll be back in) two shakes of a lamb's tail: I have no idea where I picked this one up, but I say it a lot.
Easy breezy lemon squeezy: blame my pastry instructor.
Good enough for government work: same.
I have two brains - one's lost, and the other's out looking for it: this has become one of my stock responses when I do something dim-witted.
The wheel's spinning, but the hamster's dead: about the same.
It takes me two pages to say hello: I'm long-winded / wordy. At least in writing.
Hello, Department of Redundancy Department, Hello: another family standard.
It's good to be the king: ... if you haven't seen Mel Brook's History of the World Pt 1, this one won't make much sense. (See also: "The streets are crawling with Romans!" and "Walk this way.")
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
I've run into an interesting situation with Unnatural Causes as I wind towards the revelation of the murderer: though the main characters are able to piece together his/her identity, he/she has hidden their tracks too well - my heroes know whodunnit, but they have no way to prove it to the authorities. The body is gone; simply going to the guard would result in a he said / she said scenario, and neither of my investigators have a lot of political capital. (Politics, influence and power are an integral part of the storyline, much to the dismay of my extraplanar narrator, who has no patience for this kind of thing.)
I have no idea how I'm going to resolve this; however, I also know I'm an incubator and ideas develop on my mental backburner. So, I'm continuing to write - there are a few more major scenes before the confrontation - and hoping that something will come to me. If worst comes to worst, I can go back and edit in some weak link that the investigators can use. Or maybe ... just maybe ... the solution will be that there is no solution.
When I started writing this novel, my motivation for choosing it over other projects was two-fold. First, fantasy mystery - in the sense of a mystery / detective style story set in a secondary world, rather than a mystery / detective story in our world with fantasy elements added - is something I've always wanted to write. It fits very neatly into the "mannerpunk" style that I like writing, where social status, politicking and battles of wits are more important than armies.
Second, this concept flexes my writer muscles with some challenges: I've never written a novel-length mystery story before; and my first person narrator is an extraplanar being who I was very determined to make FEEL alien to the reader, not just a human in a funny suit. (And it is a very funny suit: familiars materialize in this world as a blend of human and two or more animals.)
I initially set out with the goal that I wouldn't know whodunnit until shortly before the investigators did, but I found that untenable for laying out the storyline, so I stopped and worked out the motivation and nature of the crime. I did, however (and this is a slight spoiler), make myself promise one thing: I wouldn't go with the easy out of "everyone dunnit," where multiple people were in some way responsible.
The idea of multiple attempts on the same life does fascinate me, I'll admit, because of some of the opportunities it presents. The classic example is of three men in a desert. Two of them independently decide to kill the third. The first man poisons his water canteen. The second man pokes a hole in the canteen so the water drips out and he dies of thirst. So ... who actually killed him? I love thought experiments like this.
But since I have done it before, it felt like a cop-out in this case. I still couldn't resist having multiple components to the murder, but ... you would have to read it for details. What I've enjoyed with this book is that when I started it, I deliberately made the choice to write slowly. I'm an incubator, so I wanted the time to let it ferment in my head (now I'm mixing my culinary metaphors) and not reach for the most obvious tool in my toolbox.
The title Unnatural Causes, by the way, is a bit of occult geekery. In pre-modern magical thought, the natural was the realm of things that behaved as they were in nature: birds fly, leaves, and so forth. The supernatural was the realm of God, demons, spirits, and so forth. Between that was the unnatural: things that behaved in ways that were against the natural order. So, for instance, a rock fired from a sling was as unnatural as a magical spell! Science and magic dovetailed. In many ways, this liminal view of the world was what kept magical thought alive.
Besides being an obvious play on "death by natural causes," Unnatural Causes is also particularly appropriate because the magic in the setting is essentially technology: enchanters build "thought machines" to execute their spells.
So in the end, rather than be anxious about this problem in my novel I haven't yet solved, I'm excited to see where it takes me.
I have no idea how I'm going to resolve this; however, I also know I'm an incubator and ideas develop on my mental backburner. So, I'm continuing to write - there are a few more major scenes before the confrontation - and hoping that something will come to me. If worst comes to worst, I can go back and edit in some weak link that the investigators can use. Or maybe ... just maybe ... the solution will be that there is no solution.
When I started writing this novel, my motivation for choosing it over other projects was two-fold. First, fantasy mystery - in the sense of a mystery / detective style story set in a secondary world, rather than a mystery / detective story in our world with fantasy elements added - is something I've always wanted to write. It fits very neatly into the "mannerpunk" style that I like writing, where social status, politicking and battles of wits are more important than armies.
Second, this concept flexes my writer muscles with some challenges: I've never written a novel-length mystery story before; and my first person narrator is an extraplanar being who I was very determined to make FEEL alien to the reader, not just a human in a funny suit. (And it is a very funny suit: familiars materialize in this world as a blend of human and two or more animals.)
I initially set out with the goal that I wouldn't know whodunnit until shortly before the investigators did, but I found that untenable for laying out the storyline, so I stopped and worked out the motivation and nature of the crime. I did, however (and this is a slight spoiler), make myself promise one thing: I wouldn't go with the easy out of "everyone dunnit," where multiple people were in some way responsible.
The idea of multiple attempts on the same life does fascinate me, I'll admit, because of some of the opportunities it presents. The classic example is of three men in a desert. Two of them independently decide to kill the third. The first man poisons his water canteen. The second man pokes a hole in the canteen so the water drips out and he dies of thirst. So ... who actually killed him? I love thought experiments like this.
But since I have done it before, it felt like a cop-out in this case. I still couldn't resist having multiple components to the murder, but ... you would have to read it for details. What I've enjoyed with this book is that when I started it, I deliberately made the choice to write slowly. I'm an incubator, so I wanted the time to let it ferment in my head (now I'm mixing my culinary metaphors) and not reach for the most obvious tool in my toolbox.
The title Unnatural Causes, by the way, is a bit of occult geekery. In pre-modern magical thought, the natural was the realm of things that behaved as they were in nature: birds fly, leaves, and so forth. The supernatural was the realm of God, demons, spirits, and so forth. Between that was the unnatural: things that behaved in ways that were against the natural order. So, for instance, a rock fired from a sling was as unnatural as a magical spell! Science and magic dovetailed. In many ways, this liminal view of the world was what kept magical thought alive.
Besides being an obvious play on "death by natural causes," Unnatural Causes is also particularly appropriate because the magic in the setting is essentially technology: enchanters build "thought machines" to execute their spells.
So in the end, rather than be anxious about this problem in my novel I haven't yet solved, I'm excited to see where it takes me.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
The more you know, the funnier life is.
So much of humor is based in juxtaposition or the inversion of expectations. Obviously, you have to have expectations to invert them! Other times, what will tickle your funny bone is a bad pun or a literal, absurd translation of a common phrase / information / fact / etc. You have to "be there" to get these jokes. Pop culture jokes become irrelevant and obscure with surprising speed.
Many jokes rely on common knowledge, whether it be of history or a public figure. For instance, there's a great Far Side cartoon, which sadly I couldn't find online, which depicts the Great Sphinx in Egypt with two workers peering over the head and the following dialogue:
"'That's fine,' I said. 'Good nose,' I said. 'But no, you had to hit the hammer on the chisel one more time.'"
This isn't particularly funny unless you're already aware of the fact that Sphinx is missing its nose.
When knowledge gets a bit more obscure, the opportunity for humor continues to expand. Recently, there was a very fun discussion on my Facebook feed when I noted a typo in my textbook: "tart-eating apples." So ... what ... small pastries chewing on Granny Smiths? My geeky writer friends and I had a blast rewriting this phrase with different punctuation. None of this would be funny if you didn't know the applicable grammatical rules. (Now that I think about it, technically, "Eating, tart apples" would be correct, because "eating" and "tart" are two independent adjectives describing the same noun - apple - but it definitely doesn't pass the clarity test ...)
I had a bit too much fun with this in Who Wants To Be A Hero? - a lot of jokes aimed to various levels of mythological knowledge. Zeus gets parodied; there's some snide commentary about divine family trees; and I mock Beowulf. A lot.
Sometimes, knowing a little more gives you the ability to laugh at others - be kind, please! I was in a fantasy writer's session when a panelist admitted that, when she drew her first world map of an island, "There was a river running straight from one side to the other," and most of the room laughed: either they knew the geographic likelihood of this (extremely unlikely), or had probably done the same thing as a young writer, or both. So really, we were laughing with her.
I think most of us would like to keep learning all of our lives. Isn't it a great benefit that it gives us more opportunity to laugh?
So much of humor is based in juxtaposition or the inversion of expectations. Obviously, you have to have expectations to invert them! Other times, what will tickle your funny bone is a bad pun or a literal, absurd translation of a common phrase / information / fact / etc. You have to "be there" to get these jokes. Pop culture jokes become irrelevant and obscure with surprising speed.
Many jokes rely on common knowledge, whether it be of history or a public figure. For instance, there's a great Far Side cartoon, which sadly I couldn't find online, which depicts the Great Sphinx in Egypt with two workers peering over the head and the following dialogue:
"'That's fine,' I said. 'Good nose,' I said. 'But no, you had to hit the hammer on the chisel one more time.'"
This isn't particularly funny unless you're already aware of the fact that Sphinx is missing its nose.
When knowledge gets a bit more obscure, the opportunity for humor continues to expand. Recently, there was a very fun discussion on my Facebook feed when I noted a typo in my textbook: "tart-eating apples." So ... what ... small pastries chewing on Granny Smiths? My geeky writer friends and I had a blast rewriting this phrase with different punctuation. None of this would be funny if you didn't know the applicable grammatical rules. (Now that I think about it, technically, "Eating, tart apples" would be correct, because "eating" and "tart" are two independent adjectives describing the same noun - apple - but it definitely doesn't pass the clarity test ...)
I had a bit too much fun with this in Who Wants To Be A Hero? - a lot of jokes aimed to various levels of mythological knowledge. Zeus gets parodied; there's some snide commentary about divine family trees; and I mock Beowulf. A lot.
Sometimes, knowing a little more gives you the ability to laugh at others - be kind, please! I was in a fantasy writer's session when a panelist admitted that, when she drew her first world map of an island, "There was a river running straight from one side to the other," and most of the room laughed: either they knew the geographic likelihood of this (extremely unlikely), or had probably done the same thing as a young writer, or both. So really, we were laughing with her.
I think most of us would like to keep learning all of our lives. Isn't it a great benefit that it gives us more opportunity to laugh?
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
Recently, Nyki Blatchley put up a post about the kind of characters he likes to write about, with a fair amount of attention for the age of his protagonists, and that got me thinking about my own patterns.
I think most of us fantasy writers who started out young began writing about teenagers, both because of the appeal of the coming-of-age story and due to some degree of wish fulfillment. That's not to say this is a "newbie choice" - there are deep themes, both mythic and personal, that these characters make possible. People never stop discovering who they are, I think, so reading about a character who is undergoing that same journey in a world with very different possibilities than ours has a powerful draw.
If those of us who started writing these characters when we were knee-high make any mistakes, it may be that we make our protagonists a little too young, because it seems plenty old to us. I wrote or rewrote one of my early novels about three times; throughout, Nelia changed from being 17 to being 19 to being 21, and each time, that seemed like a massive leap to me as a writer (along with the thought of, "What was I thinking? She's too young."). Now, looking back on all those ages (never you mind how far), 21 seems the most reasonable. I wouldn't want to make her much older for the storyline I'd developed, but on the other hand, she needs time for her warrior training and other background.
In any case, when I started writing older, more established characters, it was a revelation. Characters who are embedded in their society, who have a stake in their own identities and what they've built, present a whole different set of challenges. It was ideal for Butterfly's Poison, my intrigue novel, because the resources of the characters - and most particularly, what they had to lose - were key to the plot. In many ways, I think I generally prefer this kind of character. On a personal level, I never really had that teenaged identity crisis of, "Who am I?" - I always was very centered in my sense of self. So it's hard for me as a writer to get into the mindset of that flux, and there's a degree to which I think I subconsciously believe it's not actually possible. ;-)
I find a lot of fertile ground in the idea of someone who has lost everything, who has start to over and reinvent themselves at a point when they thought they had the world figured out.
I have gone back to the teenager and the young adult. Anaea in Scylla and Charybdis discovers herself even as she discovers the rest of the universe. (She is also profoundly a misfit: her "calling" in life doesn't even exist in what she initially thinks is the full sum of human existence.)
Obviously, there are older and younger characters than this. I am fascinated by immortality and its ramifications, so I often write about immortals, especially gods. I think my childhood obsession with Greek myths has something to do with this: I never get tired of the juxtaposition between divinity and human pettiness.
... which probably explains the entire existence of Who Wants To Be A Hero?
I do touch upon the "merely" old, though not as frequently. One of my favorite characters in Who Wants To Be A Hero? is a contestant who happens to be the grandmatriarch of a pseudo-Norse clan. Still, if I were to make some conscious choices, this is an age demographic I'd like to pay more attention to.
I'm also fascinated by what I think of as the "eerie child" - the youngster who is far more poised and mature than their years would suggest. Humans develop cultural filters as they mature, and most of these are important for survival (at least until you move), but children who haven't developed these filters yet can see things the rest of us can't. Verdant from Taming The Weald is one of my best examples of this. (Shameless plug ... you knew there had to be at least one.)
If there's one thing all this brings to mind, it's that life is not always a straight line. We've reached the end and we're just starting out in unexpected places.
I think most of us fantasy writers who started out young began writing about teenagers, both because of the appeal of the coming-of-age story and due to some degree of wish fulfillment. That's not to say this is a "newbie choice" - there are deep themes, both mythic and personal, that these characters make possible. People never stop discovering who they are, I think, so reading about a character who is undergoing that same journey in a world with very different possibilities than ours has a powerful draw.
If those of us who started writing these characters when we were knee-high make any mistakes, it may be that we make our protagonists a little too young, because it seems plenty old to us. I wrote or rewrote one of my early novels about three times; throughout, Nelia changed from being 17 to being 19 to being 21, and each time, that seemed like a massive leap to me as a writer (along with the thought of, "What was I thinking? She's too young."). Now, looking back on all those ages (never you mind how far), 21 seems the most reasonable. I wouldn't want to make her much older for the storyline I'd developed, but on the other hand, she needs time for her warrior training and other background.
In any case, when I started writing older, more established characters, it was a revelation. Characters who are embedded in their society, who have a stake in their own identities and what they've built, present a whole different set of challenges. It was ideal for Butterfly's Poison, my intrigue novel, because the resources of the characters - and most particularly, what they had to lose - were key to the plot. In many ways, I think I generally prefer this kind of character. On a personal level, I never really had that teenaged identity crisis of, "Who am I?" - I always was very centered in my sense of self. So it's hard for me as a writer to get into the mindset of that flux, and there's a degree to which I think I subconsciously believe it's not actually possible. ;-)
I find a lot of fertile ground in the idea of someone who has lost everything, who has start to over and reinvent themselves at a point when they thought they had the world figured out.
I have gone back to the teenager and the young adult. Anaea in Scylla and Charybdis discovers herself even as she discovers the rest of the universe. (She is also profoundly a misfit: her "calling" in life doesn't even exist in what she initially thinks is the full sum of human existence.)
Obviously, there are older and younger characters than this. I am fascinated by immortality and its ramifications, so I often write about immortals, especially gods. I think my childhood obsession with Greek myths has something to do with this: I never get tired of the juxtaposition between divinity and human pettiness.
... which probably explains the entire existence of Who Wants To Be A Hero?
I do touch upon the "merely" old, though not as frequently. One of my favorite characters in Who Wants To Be A Hero? is a contestant who happens to be the grandmatriarch of a pseudo-Norse clan. Still, if I were to make some conscious choices, this is an age demographic I'd like to pay more attention to.
I'm also fascinated by what I think of as the "eerie child" - the youngster who is far more poised and mature than their years would suggest. Humans develop cultural filters as they mature, and most of these are important for survival (at least until you move), but children who haven't developed these filters yet can see things the rest of us can't. Verdant from Taming The Weald is one of my best examples of this. (Shameless plug ... you knew there had to be at least one.)
If there's one thing all this brings to mind, it's that life is not always a straight line. We've reached the end and we're just starting out in unexpected places.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
I am not one of those writers who feels her characters are "real" and is subject to their whims. (I do experience that sensation of "this action isn't right for this character," but I don't anthropomorphize it. I have my theories about the source of this, but that's for another blog post.) However, I do have some sense of story and world as independent entities - that they are, to some degree, outside of me.
Mostly, this tends to arise when an editor or reader makes a suggestion for a significant change to the story. I'm human, of course: I'll admit that occasionally, my initial reaction is due to laziness, "But I don't want to!" However, other times I balk and can't even, necessarily, articulate why the alteration doesn't work for me.
But it boils down to certainty, a voice inside me that says: "That's not how the story goes." To me, the stories I've written have an existence of their own. I can't change them any more than I could go out and add Elvis to Mount Rushmore. Perhaps it's a subconscious sense of everything that doesn't reach the page, the words between the words. Perhaps those lines are telling me things that an editor / reader can't see. Perhaps it's something else.
I always feel a bit guilty when I turn down a rewrite request, as if I'm being a diva - that I don't have the status to contradict an editor, particularly when my reasoning is no more concrete than, "I don't think this is right for the story." Sometimes it's as simple as, "That might be a valid interpretation, but it's not the story I want to tell." Other times ... I can't even imagine that as the story's reality.
Sometimes, fiction is almost as much about finding as it is about creating.
Mostly, this tends to arise when an editor or reader makes a suggestion for a significant change to the story. I'm human, of course: I'll admit that occasionally, my initial reaction is due to laziness, "But I don't want to!" However, other times I balk and can't even, necessarily, articulate why the alteration doesn't work for me.
But it boils down to certainty, a voice inside me that says: "That's not how the story goes." To me, the stories I've written have an existence of their own. I can't change them any more than I could go out and add Elvis to Mount Rushmore. Perhaps it's a subconscious sense of everything that doesn't reach the page, the words between the words. Perhaps those lines are telling me things that an editor / reader can't see. Perhaps it's something else.
I always feel a bit guilty when I turn down a rewrite request, as if I'm being a diva - that I don't have the status to contradict an editor, particularly when my reasoning is no more concrete than, "I don't think this is right for the story." Sometimes it's as simple as, "That might be a valid interpretation, but it's not the story I want to tell." Other times ... I can't even imagine that as the story's reality.
Sometimes, fiction is almost as much about finding as it is about creating.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
GoodReads Review: The Black Beast by Nancy Springer
The Black Beast by Nancy SpringerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Prince Tirell, heir to a legacy of madness and death, has his life torn apart when his true love is slain, and his younger brother, Frain, finds himself swept along. The story plays on multiple levels: the personal, where the most important value is family devotion; the global, where Tirell plans rebellion; and the divine, with a goddess, dragons, and a trip through the realm of the dead.
This volume is stronger than the last, for a few reasons. It relies less on the burden of prophecy to carry its plot and motivations. The goddess Shamarra claims that destiny connects her to Tirell, but is that really true? The worldbuilding is deeper, with a few particularly interesting quirks, such as the natives' deep and abiding fear of water - not just oceans, but rivers and streams. (As a side note, though the back of the last book makes it clear that story does occur in the same world, this book has no direct connection and stands alone.)
Another interesting aspect of the book is that it is told in first person perspective - not just one character but three, following in succession. Though it's well handled, I wasn't sure there was any point to using the perspective of Fabron, the smith-king; I would have been just as, if not more, happy with a fifty-fifty split between Frain and Tirell. And although leaving Tirell's perspective until last does a nice job of building a question in the reader's mind - why does he act the way he does? - the answer doesn't feel strong enough to be a valid payoff.
Still, we start the book with Frain, and that's the journey that matters: Frain's. The Black Beast ends with a tantalizing glimpse of his future ...
View all my reviews
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Wednesday Wanderings
Let's kick off 2015 (on my blog, at least) with the first edition of Wednesday Wanderings! All right, so it's just my weekly post, renamed because my Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be whacky for the next few months, but it feels like there ought to be some kind of symbolic ... symbolism to the whole thing, so just go with me on this one.
No entrance into a new year would be complete without a quick look back into the last one, so here's mine:
Writing: all was pretty quiet on the writing front for 2014. I feel a bit stagnant, with no real milestones to report. I'm currently working on editing one novel and about two-thirds of the way through another. My present goal is to finish both processes by my birthday. I also finished the following short stories:
Wanderlust
Regret the Rain
Pollination
She's Unable to Lunch Today
Wine and Chocolate
Chains
Untitled (... I know, I know, but I'm terrible with titles)
Harp: gained a student, said farewell to another, and had my busiest holiday season in years. Undertook a project to revive / practice / polish tunes in my repertoire that I had let fall into dust, disuse and ... dis-playable-ness ... and made a lot of progress with it. I think I'm about saturated, though, so early 2015, at least, will be more focused upon finding new, shiny music to play.
Culinary: most of life's changes have happened in this arena. This time last year, I was a "Skills baby" (what the more senior students call those in the Fundamentals class). Now, I'm a Baking & Pastry graduate with my diploma in hand and working on finishing up my Associates. I've also been working at a local catering company since the beginning of August and growing by leaps and bounds.
Personal: nothing to see here, folks. Move along!
No entrance into a new year would be complete without a quick look back into the last one, so here's mine:
Writing: all was pretty quiet on the writing front for 2014. I feel a bit stagnant, with no real milestones to report. I'm currently working on editing one novel and about two-thirds of the way through another. My present goal is to finish both processes by my birthday. I also finished the following short stories:
Wanderlust
Regret the Rain
Pollination
She's Unable to Lunch Today
Wine and Chocolate
Chains
Untitled (... I know, I know, but I'm terrible with titles)
Harp: gained a student, said farewell to another, and had my busiest holiday season in years. Undertook a project to revive / practice / polish tunes in my repertoire that I had let fall into dust, disuse and ... dis-playable-ness ... and made a lot of progress with it. I think I'm about saturated, though, so early 2015, at least, will be more focused upon finding new, shiny music to play.
Culinary: most of life's changes have happened in this arena. This time last year, I was a "Skills baby" (what the more senior students call those in the Fundamentals class). Now, I'm a Baking & Pastry graduate with my diploma in hand and working on finishing up my Associates. I've also been working at a local catering company since the beginning of August and growing by leaps and bounds.
Personal: nothing to see here, folks. Move along!
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Keeping Up With The Introvert
During this holiday season, when we visit with friends and family, I want to provide a glimpse into the brain of that introvert who isn't quite in sync (or in the pictures) with everyone else. I can't speak for all introverts, of course, but before assuming you're being ignored or slighted, consider this:
When they don't initiate contact ...
The introvert is probably startled and even overwhelmed by the number of friends you have. They don't want to "bug" you, and can't help feeling that they are, even if they intellectually know better. Since they are just one of many friends, they don't want to hog your time. This goes especially for a time of year traditionally reserved for family. They may also feel like they need to come up with something clever or interesting to do on an outing.
On a personal note, I hate phone calls. Calling someone I don't know, even a company or sales department, is a source of anxiety, and I will do anything I can to avoid it ... but even speaking to a friend is difficult. Because I can't see you and "feel you out," pauses or silences feel insurmountable. I put up with it because I want to talk to you, but I would much rather meet face to face.
When they're "too tired" ...
They're not blowing you off. Introverts need energy for social interaction. If they're worn out or depressed, nine times out of ten, they genuinely need to be alone. That tenth time, though, they will drag themselves out and be glad they did.
When they don't ask about your problems ...
The introvert is trying to give you the thing they often value the most: space and privacy. They show concern for you by not prying, by not forcing you to discuss something you may not want to share. They may ask open-ended questions, tiptoeing around the issue - this is an invitation.
When they don't talk about their lives ...
The introvert instinctively feels that their life is boring. Who wants to hear about that - especially when there are problems? They don't place value on exchange of personal information as a measure of closeness. Again, they recognize that they're one of many friends you have. They don't want to burden you.
And that Christmas card ...
Don't expect a gushy note, but if you got a Christmas card from an introvert, you are one of an extremely select group. And since the introvert didn't use their own words, they probably took care with the card they did select.
However ...
The introvert (specifically, this introvert) wishes you all the warmth of the holidays, whoever you share it with.
When they don't initiate contact ...
The introvert is probably startled and even overwhelmed by the number of friends you have. They don't want to "bug" you, and can't help feeling that they are, even if they intellectually know better. Since they are just one of many friends, they don't want to hog your time. This goes especially for a time of year traditionally reserved for family. They may also feel like they need to come up with something clever or interesting to do on an outing.
On a personal note, I hate phone calls. Calling someone I don't know, even a company or sales department, is a source of anxiety, and I will do anything I can to avoid it ... but even speaking to a friend is difficult. Because I can't see you and "feel you out," pauses or silences feel insurmountable. I put up with it because I want to talk to you, but I would much rather meet face to face.
When they're "too tired" ...
They're not blowing you off. Introverts need energy for social interaction. If they're worn out or depressed, nine times out of ten, they genuinely need to be alone. That tenth time, though, they will drag themselves out and be glad they did.
When they don't ask about your problems ...
The introvert is trying to give you the thing they often value the most: space and privacy. They show concern for you by not prying, by not forcing you to discuss something you may not want to share. They may ask open-ended questions, tiptoeing around the issue - this is an invitation.
When they don't talk about their lives ...
The introvert instinctively feels that their life is boring. Who wants to hear about that - especially when there are problems? They don't place value on exchange of personal information as a measure of closeness. Again, they recognize that they're one of many friends you have. They don't want to burden you.
And that Christmas card ...
Don't expect a gushy note, but if you got a Christmas card from an introvert, you are one of an extremely select group. And since the introvert didn't use their own words, they probably took care with the card they did select.
However ...
The introvert (specifically, this introvert) wishes you all the warmth of the holidays, whoever you share it with.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Tuesday Thoughts
A bit of random housekeeping first: both my Tuesdays and Thursdays are shaping up to be insane with coursework in the Winter quarter (if I hadn't done four on-ground courses for the end of my pastry degree, I'd be petrified), so I think my weekly post is going to shift to Wednesday. To appease my addiction to alliteration, I will likely entitle them Wednesday Wanderings.
If you would like to help me, or someone else you know, overcome the terrible disease that is compulsive alliteration, donations are always welcome. Please send cash.
Yes, I did have a topic in mind, not just a shameless grab for money, and it's appropriate to the season. I've been thinking about holidays in fantasy worlds. Most writers, I think, have some kind of seasonal festivals - it's something that's been ingrained into our consciousness, and it has a long, historical tradition. Sometimes, though, it's intriguing to go beyond the universal and consider how specific beliefs may have developed into customs or other holidays.
I haven't done as much of this as I would like - another thing that goes on my to-do list! - but my most recent story with Abyss and Apex, Dancing Day, does explore this concept. While it is loosely themed around Christmas, the activities of the Dancing Day are very different and have magical consequences. Indeed, that's an unique opportunity we have in fantasy. When you celebrate the gods ... do they acknowledge? What about holidays and observations that mark supernatural events?
This also brings me to fantasy calendars. This is something that I always devote some attention to, even if the reader doesn't see more than a glimpse of it. It's tricky to build a fantasy calendar, too ... do you take the easy route and simply rename our months and days? That's already 19 potential new fantasy words your reader has to deal with. Do you rearrange our 365 days into a different shape? There's no reason that a fantasy year has to have 365 days, but to my mind, you want it close. If your fantasy year is 400 days, for instance, your character who is 25 by their reckoning is actually 27 by ours (yes, I did the math) ...
To me, coming up with a scheme that isn't recognizably based in our Earth but it is still easy to follow is a work of art. I'm not sure if I've accomplished this yet. The calendar I use in Unnatural Causes is a bit peculiar in that the rest-day - Pinnacle - is smack-dab in the center of their week. The days on either side count up or down to it, as the case may be. I've made sure that all my references to what day it is are supported with clarifying statements. Hopefully, it won't drive people nuts!
So as the year winds down ... writers, how do your characters celebrate?
If you would like to help me, or someone else you know, overcome the terrible disease that is compulsive alliteration, donations are always welcome. Please send cash.
Yes, I did have a topic in mind, not just a shameless grab for money, and it's appropriate to the season. I've been thinking about holidays in fantasy worlds. Most writers, I think, have some kind of seasonal festivals - it's something that's been ingrained into our consciousness, and it has a long, historical tradition. Sometimes, though, it's intriguing to go beyond the universal and consider how specific beliefs may have developed into customs or other holidays.
I haven't done as much of this as I would like - another thing that goes on my to-do list! - but my most recent story with Abyss and Apex, Dancing Day, does explore this concept. While it is loosely themed around Christmas, the activities of the Dancing Day are very different and have magical consequences. Indeed, that's an unique opportunity we have in fantasy. When you celebrate the gods ... do they acknowledge? What about holidays and observations that mark supernatural events?
This also brings me to fantasy calendars. This is something that I always devote some attention to, even if the reader doesn't see more than a glimpse of it. It's tricky to build a fantasy calendar, too ... do you take the easy route and simply rename our months and days? That's already 19 potential new fantasy words your reader has to deal with. Do you rearrange our 365 days into a different shape? There's no reason that a fantasy year has to have 365 days, but to my mind, you want it close. If your fantasy year is 400 days, for instance, your character who is 25 by their reckoning is actually 27 by ours (yes, I did the math) ...
To me, coming up with a scheme that isn't recognizably based in our Earth but it is still easy to follow is a work of art. I'm not sure if I've accomplished this yet. The calendar I use in Unnatural Causes is a bit peculiar in that the rest-day - Pinnacle - is smack-dab in the center of their week. The days on either side count up or down to it, as the case may be. I've made sure that all my references to what day it is are supported with clarifying statements. Hopefully, it won't drive people nuts!
So as the year winds down ... writers, how do your characters celebrate?
Sunday, December 21, 2014
GoodReads Review: The Sable Moon
The Sable Moon by Nancy SpringerMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I'm not done yet, GoodReads!
All right, now about the book itself. This, the third volume of Nancy Springer's Isle series, follows the next generation after The Silver Sun - Trevyn, the headstrong son of Alan and Lysse, part elf, someday king, and all-round pain in the neck. Trevyn's pride is a driving force of the first section of the novel, causing him to reject his blood-brother and walk away from his true love. My favorite part of the book is his arrival in Welas, where his pride both defeats him ... and at the same time, is the thing that defines and sustains him.
(Younger readers may feel differently, but through a lot of this volume, I had trouble liking Trevyn as a character. It is perhaps telling that I inadvertently stole the name, years and years later, for an RPG char's psychotic ex-boyfriend ...)
The main problem with The Sable Moon is that it relies even heavily on the deep, mysterious mythos of Isle - but here, perhaps in part because the fantasy field has now been inundated with similar tales, it wears thin. Instead of complementing the lyricism of the prose, the magical world feels like a deus ex machina, reducing motivations to, "Because I said so."
Still, as a romantic interest, Meg is positively delightful, a spunky heroine in a vein that has become perhaps just a touch too familiar ... but perhaps because she's original rather than imitative, she comes off very true and likeable. It's just a shame we don't get a bit more of her perspective. Hmm, so I've changed my mind - Meg is my favorite part of the novel.
View all my reviews
Sunday Snippets
Been a while since I've posted one of these! Here's a piece from the short story I'm working on. It started as a free write from January of 2010. Three children (Niall, Tobin and Sarika) have just awakened Malin from a hospital bed in a government complex. As she struggles to remember how she got there, she convinces them to help her escape:
Niall charged the door and bulled it open; Tobin squirmed under her other arm to steady her. They entered the corridor together. The antiseptic light stunned Malin. She squinted to block it out, her feet slipping on the tiled floor.
“We snuck in through the break room,” Sarika said hurriedly, leaning to guide her in that direction.
The painful spear of approaching thoughts sliced into Malin’s consciousness. “Not that way,” she said. “They’re coming.”
Sarika hesitated. “But …”
Niall took charge. “There must be stairs,” he said.
They reversed direction, harried skidding. Malin would have laughed if claustrophobia and confusion hadn’t held her in their grip. She needed to get away from here. She had been held prisoner by people she could almost recall, pieces of names and glimpses of faces – but if it had been three hundred years, as Sarika said, they would all be dead. It was their descendants who guarded her now, and they had made her – the Dreamer – into a legend.
Between them and the stairs stood an imposing security door. The three children halted in dismay. Malin was forced to stop with them.
“It will only take voice commands,” Sarika said, tone dull. “We’re trapped. And now we’re all going to get into trouble. We’ve gotten the Dreamer into trouble!”
Clarity touched her, a cooling wind. “No,” Malin said, “you haven’t.” She reached out to the thoughts of their pursuers, picking up amber and brown. The color and pattern had everything she needed to know: timbre, pitch and words.
“Command – open door,” she said in a gruff alto. The pair supporting her jumped in surprise.
The door parted like a curtain. Malin leaned forward, reclaiming her balance. She still felt a traitorous quiver in her ankles, but she had to ignore it. “Let’s go.”
Niall charged the door and bulled it open; Tobin squirmed under her other arm to steady her. They entered the corridor together. The antiseptic light stunned Malin. She squinted to block it out, her feet slipping on the tiled floor.
“We snuck in through the break room,” Sarika said hurriedly, leaning to guide her in that direction.
The painful spear of approaching thoughts sliced into Malin’s consciousness. “Not that way,” she said. “They’re coming.”
Sarika hesitated. “But …”
Niall took charge. “There must be stairs,” he said.
They reversed direction, harried skidding. Malin would have laughed if claustrophobia and confusion hadn’t held her in their grip. She needed to get away from here. She had been held prisoner by people she could almost recall, pieces of names and glimpses of faces – but if it had been three hundred years, as Sarika said, they would all be dead. It was their descendants who guarded her now, and they had made her – the Dreamer – into a legend.
Between them and the stairs stood an imposing security door. The three children halted in dismay. Malin was forced to stop with them.
“It will only take voice commands,” Sarika said, tone dull. “We’re trapped. And now we’re all going to get into trouble. We’ve gotten the Dreamer into trouble!”
Clarity touched her, a cooling wind. “No,” Malin said, “you haven’t.” She reached out to the thoughts of their pursuers, picking up amber and brown. The color and pattern had everything she needed to know: timbre, pitch and words.
“Command – open door,” she said in a gruff alto. The pair supporting her jumped in surprise.
The door parted like a curtain. Malin leaned forward, reclaiming her balance. She still felt a traitorous quiver in her ankles, but she had to ignore it. “Let’s go.”
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Tuesday Thoughts
Today, I want to talk about NLP.
Given my various topics of conversation, you may be forgiven for thinking this stands for Naughty Little Phoenix, Nummy Lindsey Pastries, or even No Loud Plucking.
In fact, NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a fancy term for using language in a manner that primes the recipient to accept and act upon what you have to say. It has innumerable uses, from teaching, to corrective feedback / critique, to diplomacy, to debate, to simply being sneaky and getting what you want.
A simple example that falls under the umbrella of NLP is this: the brain doesn't process negatives. When you use words like, "don't" or "not," your brain omits them and focuses on what it perceives as the underlying message. ("Don't think of a white elephant." All right, what just crossed your mind? I won't tell.) So by phrasing advice, directives, etc, in the form of the positive - "Take deep breaths and stay calm" vs "Don't panic" - you make the message more effective.
Writers use NLP a lot, whether they would recognize it or not. It is an invaluable tool for critiquing: frame your advice to another writer in a way that gets them thinking rather than defensive. And, of course, the story itself uses NLP. We writers often want to make a reader feel a certain way without directly revealing it. This can be as simple as using aggressive words to describe a neutral action. The reader feels the tension / conflict, even if the actions themselves are innocent in nature.
In fantasy - or in a modern political thriller, I suppose - the diplomat or politician would be well-served to use some of these principles, even if they aren't a conscious or scientific choice. Obviously, the term Neuro-Linguistic Programming is so modern as to shock a reader senseless in most secondary fantasy worlds, but the principles are sound, and many of them don't require a chemical understanding of the brain - simply long-term observation and analysis of how human beings process and retain information. I could see this becoming pseudo-scientific in certain fantasy realms ...
Of course, it's slightly ironic that I think about this now, considering that the narrator of Unnatural Causes is about as anti-NLP as it's possible to get. She fundamentally doesn't grasp the concept of diplomacy and believes that, if it's the truth, people should accept it, no matter how it's presented. Obviously, that gets her into trouble ...
Given my various topics of conversation, you may be forgiven for thinking this stands for Naughty Little Phoenix, Nummy Lindsey Pastries, or even No Loud Plucking.
In fact, NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a fancy term for using language in a manner that primes the recipient to accept and act upon what you have to say. It has innumerable uses, from teaching, to corrective feedback / critique, to diplomacy, to debate, to simply being sneaky and getting what you want.
A simple example that falls under the umbrella of NLP is this: the brain doesn't process negatives. When you use words like, "don't" or "not," your brain omits them and focuses on what it perceives as the underlying message. ("Don't think of a white elephant." All right, what just crossed your mind? I won't tell.) So by phrasing advice, directives, etc, in the form of the positive - "Take deep breaths and stay calm" vs "Don't panic" - you make the message more effective.
Writers use NLP a lot, whether they would recognize it or not. It is an invaluable tool for critiquing: frame your advice to another writer in a way that gets them thinking rather than defensive. And, of course, the story itself uses NLP. We writers often want to make a reader feel a certain way without directly revealing it. This can be as simple as using aggressive words to describe a neutral action. The reader feels the tension / conflict, even if the actions themselves are innocent in nature.
In fantasy - or in a modern political thriller, I suppose - the diplomat or politician would be well-served to use some of these principles, even if they aren't a conscious or scientific choice. Obviously, the term Neuro-Linguistic Programming is so modern as to shock a reader senseless in most secondary fantasy worlds, but the principles are sound, and many of them don't require a chemical understanding of the brain - simply long-term observation and analysis of how human beings process and retain information. I could see this becoming pseudo-scientific in certain fantasy realms ...
Of course, it's slightly ironic that I think about this now, considering that the narrator of Unnatural Causes is about as anti-NLP as it's possible to get. She fundamentally doesn't grasp the concept of diplomacy and believes that, if it's the truth, people should accept it, no matter how it's presented. Obviously, that gets her into trouble ...
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Tuesday Thoughts
I've always been particular about proper grammar, to the point where, if I see a grammatical error in an advertisement, company paperwork, etc, my opinion of the entity in question plummets. I know this is irrational (or at least excessive), but I can't help it. I even get a bit nervous about making a commitment - for instance, signing a contract. It's been a bit of a shock to deal with email communication from my instructors at school and realize that - shock, horror - not everyone cares that much about grammatical detail.
Still, for me, I can't help it. I've made a conscious choice to use "they" as gender-neutral singular, even though this is not technically correct ... and I still feel guilty about it.
In some ways, I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I still "double-tap" at the beginning of a sentence and have no intentions of stopping. I am also even pickier about the proper use of commas, not just for clarity, but for the rhythm and flow of sentences. (So says the musician.) Many publishers seem to be abolishing the comma for anything but clarity. And oh, it sets my teeth on edge, even though I recognize that language is an evolving beast.
That said, it will never be okay to start a sentence with "but" and a comma. That's not how it works!
Still, for me, I can't help it. I've made a conscious choice to use "they" as gender-neutral singular, even though this is not technically correct ... and I still feel guilty about it.
In some ways, I'm a bit of a dinosaur. I still "double-tap" at the beginning of a sentence and have no intentions of stopping. I am also even pickier about the proper use of commas, not just for clarity, but for the rhythm and flow of sentences. (So says the musician.) Many publishers seem to be abolishing the comma for anything but clarity. And oh, it sets my teeth on edge, even though I recognize that language is an evolving beast.
That said, it will never be okay to start a sentence with "but" and a comma. That's not how it works!
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Sunday Shameless (Advertising)
Tis the season, and as an author with works for sale, I feel contractually obligated to point out that the following can make great Christmas presents ...
Please do check out my contemporary fantasy novel, Flow! Available as both an ebook and in print, it was the collision of a long-time love of fairy-folk with a few favorite characters allowed to run wild. (And per the sample in this link, Kit really does say "Holy schnitzel" as one of her pet phrases - it's not me trying to clean up the language. ;-))
For a shorter sample of the world of the novel, and a taste of the holidays, try out Xmas Wishes.
Gypsy Shadow Publishing also has (at the same bargain of only a dollar!) Taming The Weald, a science fantasy story where space stations and wild growth co-exist ... at least, until one invades the other.
A few anthologies in which I have stories, all of which come highly recommended:
Unburied Treasures
Trespass
The Light of the Last Day (I have both a flash fiction piece and a poem in this one)
Last, but certainly not least, mosey over to my site and consider giving someone the gift of music: my Celtic harp CD, Rolling of the Stone, is also available. You'll find Welsh (my personal obsession), Scottish and Irish music, along with selections from the Breton tradition, German / Bavarian, and Latin sacred music. It's mostly instrumental, but there are a handful of vocals.
If you're interested, please buy direct from me - I get a very small cut from Amazon. Due to their shipping requirements, it barely covers the cost of sending CDs to their distribution center.
Please do check out my contemporary fantasy novel, Flow! Available as both an ebook and in print, it was the collision of a long-time love of fairy-folk with a few favorite characters allowed to run wild. (And per the sample in this link, Kit really does say "Holy schnitzel" as one of her pet phrases - it's not me trying to clean up the language. ;-))
For a shorter sample of the world of the novel, and a taste of the holidays, try out Xmas Wishes.
Gypsy Shadow Publishing also has (at the same bargain of only a dollar!) Taming The Weald, a science fantasy story where space stations and wild growth co-exist ... at least, until one invades the other.
A few anthologies in which I have stories, all of which come highly recommended:
Unburied Treasures
Trespass
The Light of the Last Day (I have both a flash fiction piece and a poem in this one)
Last, but certainly not least, mosey over to my site and consider giving someone the gift of music: my Celtic harp CD, Rolling of the Stone, is also available. You'll find Welsh (my personal obsession), Scottish and Irish music, along with selections from the Breton tradition, German / Bavarian, and Latin sacred music. It's mostly instrumental, but there are a handful of vocals.
If you're interested, please buy direct from me - I get a very small cut from Amazon. Due to their shipping requirements, it barely covers the cost of sending CDs to their distribution center.
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Tuesday Thoughts
It's been a while since I've blogged with any regularity - though balancing coursework and multiple forms of work-work (and writing, of course) has proved more manageable this quarter, it has required a lot of brain space, and I haven't felt much like posting here.
Although all the organizational work is handled and I'm comfortably ahead in my coursework, the rest of this week and the next two are going to be pure insanity on all fronts. Harp-wise, this will be my best Christmas in a while. I have multiple gigs happening over this span of time, so I will be able to show off my seasonal repertoire. It's also busy season for catering work and - of course! - prepping for the final buffet project at school.
All this is to say, in my usual convoluted fashion, that I thought now was a good time for some commentary, before I vanish permanently into the ethers of insanity.
One of the odd side effects of being a writer - specifically a speculative fiction writer, where much of the brainstorming involves premises that aren't possible in our modern day world - is that there are times when my deductive brain doesn't work quite the way it should. This makes me lousy at word jumbles, mysteries - I tend to joke that if I can guess the killer, it's too easy, though reading more mystery novels has made me better at it - and logic puzzles.
Now, when I say logic puzzles, I don't mean the kind that require (effectively) symbolic logic: for instance, the knights-and-knaves puzzles of Raymond Smullyan where knights always tell the truth, knaves always lie, and the goal of the puzzle is to decipher which the speaker(s) is/are. I tend to be pretty good at that kind of deduction, though I will confess to skimming over the puzzles so I could read the embedded story the first time around.
I mean the kind that require you to make common sense / reasonable decisions about human behavior and the world. One example that sticks out is a visual puzzle that shows two checks and asks which one is forged - the $5.00 check or the $5000. The answer is, of course, the $5000, because no one would bother to forge a $5.00 check.
But that's not how my brain likes to work. Instead, my gears are busily turning to figure out under what circumstances one would forge a $5.00 check. I can't help but take the basic underlying assumptions apart and ask ... when would this nonsensical thing make sense?
(Among its many other writerly inaccuracies, the main character of the show Castle thinks more like a fantasy writer than a mystery writer. I mean ... time travelers? Zombies? Vampires?)
This is connected to why I'm (usually) hopeless with word jumbles: instead of seeing that "garaman" is anagram mixed about, I think, "Oh, that would make a cool name." This is probably a very specific problem to secondary world fantasy.
Come to think of it, that whole "knights and knaves" thing would be an interesting basis for a fantasy society. It has doubtless been done, but there's nothing new under the sun. Hmm ...
Although all the organizational work is handled and I'm comfortably ahead in my coursework, the rest of this week and the next two are going to be pure insanity on all fronts. Harp-wise, this will be my best Christmas in a while. I have multiple gigs happening over this span of time, so I will be able to show off my seasonal repertoire. It's also busy season for catering work and - of course! - prepping for the final buffet project at school.
All this is to say, in my usual convoluted fashion, that I thought now was a good time for some commentary, before I vanish permanently into the ethers of insanity.
One of the odd side effects of being a writer - specifically a speculative fiction writer, where much of the brainstorming involves premises that aren't possible in our modern day world - is that there are times when my deductive brain doesn't work quite the way it should. This makes me lousy at word jumbles, mysteries - I tend to joke that if I can guess the killer, it's too easy, though reading more mystery novels has made me better at it - and logic puzzles.
Now, when I say logic puzzles, I don't mean the kind that require (effectively) symbolic logic: for instance, the knights-and-knaves puzzles of Raymond Smullyan where knights always tell the truth, knaves always lie, and the goal of the puzzle is to decipher which the speaker(s) is/are. I tend to be pretty good at that kind of deduction, though I will confess to skimming over the puzzles so I could read the embedded story the first time around.
I mean the kind that require you to make common sense / reasonable decisions about human behavior and the world. One example that sticks out is a visual puzzle that shows two checks and asks which one is forged - the $5.00 check or the $5000. The answer is, of course, the $5000, because no one would bother to forge a $5.00 check.
But that's not how my brain likes to work. Instead, my gears are busily turning to figure out under what circumstances one would forge a $5.00 check. I can't help but take the basic underlying assumptions apart and ask ... when would this nonsensical thing make sense?
(Among its many other writerly inaccuracies, the main character of the show Castle thinks more like a fantasy writer than a mystery writer. I mean ... time travelers? Zombies? Vampires?)
This is connected to why I'm (usually) hopeless with word jumbles: instead of seeing that "garaman" is anagram mixed about, I think, "Oh, that would make a cool name." This is probably a very specific problem to secondary world fantasy.
Come to think of it, that whole "knights and knaves" thing would be an interesting basis for a fantasy society. It has doubtless been done, but there's nothing new under the sun. Hmm ...
Tuesday, November 04, 2014
GoodReads Review: The Silver Sun by Nancy Springer
The Silver Sun by Nancy SpringerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is the second volume of a series written some decades ago, when all the familiar tropes of fantasy were young ... and it reads as such, with poetic, formal language and a deep authenticity in subject that makes it obvious why these elements became cliche in the years that followed. It is still difficult, as a modern reader, to separate one's self from that familiarity, but it is still possible to recognize that freshness.
The tone of the language, combined with the casual use of floating omniscience - what modern writers would condemn as head-hopping - makes it difficult to connect with the characters. Whereas in the first book, it comes off as mythic and appropriate, this sequel doesn't convey the same feeling. Maybe it's because this is a longer book; maybe it is because many of the adventures are more personal; maybe it is because gods and destiny are less clearly written on Hal from the start.
Whatever the case, this is still an enjoyable book, but one that more clearly shows its age.
View all my reviews
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Thursday Thoughts
So both the last story I finished - Wine & Chocolate - and the current one I'm working on - an untitled, unfinished free write - both involve a mysteriously deserted city as seen through the eyes of a first person. There is no connection between these two tales, not even in their conception: the story fragment was written a little over five years ago and just happened to be the next one, chronologically, that I hadn't finished. The explanations, plot and motivations are entirely different.
Even so, as I started to work on this new tale, my brain nagged at me with a sense of deja vu and finally the thought, "Wait, didn't we just write this?" I stopped myself, puzzled, then realized what had happened.
On the other hand, I have written another story with a deserted city at its core - Sleepwalking - so it may be simply that it's a theme that interests me. Perhaps it's that I'm antisocial and the idea of a city with no people in it appeals to me.
Just another episode in the life of a writer.
Even so, as I started to work on this new tale, my brain nagged at me with a sense of deja vu and finally the thought, "Wait, didn't we just write this?" I stopped myself, puzzled, then realized what had happened.
On the other hand, I have written another story with a deserted city at its core - Sleepwalking - so it may be simply that it's a theme that interests me. Perhaps it's that I'm antisocial and the idea of a city with no people in it appeals to me.
Just another episode in the life of a writer.
Sunday, October 05, 2014
GoodReads Review: The White Hart
The White Hart by Nancy SpringerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's hard to judge a novel like this, decades after its time, when the archetypes upon which it draws have become cliché and the style has become something most modern readers don't appreciate. To me, I love the lyricism, the flow, the stylized language - it is one part novel, one part poem / ballad / ode. It feels mythical, even though the land in which events occur is invented. This book draws deeply upon Celtic, specifically Welsh, mythic sensibilities. (I read this first as a child - in hindsight, it's easy to see why I adored it, coming out of The Prydain Chronicles, which are themselves a loose retelling of Welsh mythology. It's certainly part of my lifelong affinity for all things Welsh.)
This novel relies heavily upon destiny, fate, and the motion of powers beyond ourselves - powers against which even gods have trouble standing. For the most part, the power of the language carries these elements and makes the reader (or at least me-as-reader) feel the mystery and inevitability. However, there are other places where, with more modern fantasy sensibilities, I'm just not sold on the inescapable nature of events. As a child, I was wholly swept away; as an adult, there are places where I can only say, "Bevan is a jerk."
I also have to say that the prophecy, written as all such things are, about the future line ending with a character named Hal ... that made me giggle. Because when I hear the name Hal, I picture a balding plumber. (This would actually be a great story, but I'm sure the like has been written.)
That said, this is a lovely work, as long as you treat it as half story and half poetry; there is a kind of fairytale logic to it. It shows its age, but it is based on some of the elements that give fantasy its power, and those are timeless.
View all my reviews
Thursday, October 02, 2014
Thursday Thoughts
Those of you who know me will be aware that, as an author, I am strongly against the idea of stories having a constructed message - that is, the story was written to illustrate a specific viewpoint or philosophy or to explore a certain issue under the guise of fiction. Of course, all stories inevitably make some kind of statement about the world they reflect, but to me, that should be secondary - incidental, if you will - to the story itself. To me, a good story has a life and existence of its own, which needs to be respected.
All of this is to preface why it might be surprising when I say that my problem trying to figure out the exact ending of Wine and Chocolate was solved by looking at the story question. To me, the story question isn't one of underlying theme or meaning: it's the core of where plot and character meet, the reason the reader keeps turning pages (we hope - both in that they turn pages, and that they're doing it for the same reason the author intended!), and the question that must be answered for the story to satisfy. The resolution of the story question is arguably what separates a standalone story from a chapter in a novel.
(... although some editors who have read my short stories may disagree with me on this point ...)
Most often, for me, the answer to the story question is a, "Yes, but ..." The main character is successful, but in achieving their desire, new complications arise, leaving the sensation - which is crucial in fiction, to me - that life goes on.
In any case, back to Wine and Chocolate: the story starts with a specific problem and a mystery; the latter is resolved in what I hope is a pretty dramatic reveal late in the story, and then ... and then I halted. When I had started the story, I had a very clear image of the arc to this point: it was my goal in writing. But I had no idea how to move from there to a conclusion. I played with two or three possible resolutions, all of which felt unnecessarily drawn out and labored. I couldn't quite put my finger on what wasn't working.
Then I realized that I was trying to "solve" the new issues raised by the reveal; to go back to my own terminology, I was trying to resolve everything after the "but," which was outside the scope of this story. I need to pull back on my ending, reveal less, but lay groundwork for the reader to assume the eventual resolution.
So that's the direction I'm going. It may be quite a while before Wine and Chocolate sees my submissions queue - I have about forty finished stories right now that haven't even seen the light of day; even considering some never will, that's a lot "ahead" of it - but I hope it will satisfy.
Yes, but ...
All of this is to preface why it might be surprising when I say that my problem trying to figure out the exact ending of Wine and Chocolate was solved by looking at the story question. To me, the story question isn't one of underlying theme or meaning: it's the core of where plot and character meet, the reason the reader keeps turning pages (we hope - both in that they turn pages, and that they're doing it for the same reason the author intended!), and the question that must be answered for the story to satisfy. The resolution of the story question is arguably what separates a standalone story from a chapter in a novel.
(... although some editors who have read my short stories may disagree with me on this point ...)
Most often, for me, the answer to the story question is a, "Yes, but ..." The main character is successful, but in achieving their desire, new complications arise, leaving the sensation - which is crucial in fiction, to me - that life goes on.
In any case, back to Wine and Chocolate: the story starts with a specific problem and a mystery; the latter is resolved in what I hope is a pretty dramatic reveal late in the story, and then ... and then I halted. When I had started the story, I had a very clear image of the arc to this point: it was my goal in writing. But I had no idea how to move from there to a conclusion. I played with two or three possible resolutions, all of which felt unnecessarily drawn out and labored. I couldn't quite put my finger on what wasn't working.
Then I realized that I was trying to "solve" the new issues raised by the reveal; to go back to my own terminology, I was trying to resolve everything after the "but," which was outside the scope of this story. I need to pull back on my ending, reveal less, but lay groundwork for the reader to assume the eventual resolution.
So that's the direction I'm going. It may be quite a while before Wine and Chocolate sees my submissions queue - I have about forty finished stories right now that haven't even seen the light of day; even considering some never will, that's a lot "ahead" of it - but I hope it will satisfy.
Yes, but ...
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