Thursday Thoughts

It's been a while since I've posted, and I've decided to return to Thursdays to a) preserve the alliteration and b) post on a day that is hopefully less insane.  Cue the hysterical laughter now ...

I had a very vivid dream a little over a week ago, and I've been playing with it and developing it as a possible future novel - though I have so many ideas in my folder that it may never see the reality of keystrokes.  However, the foundation of this concept is perhaps the oldest fantasy trope in the book:  the Chosen One, whom the Dark Lord (trope #2) wants to destroy because of their power / prophecized role / etc.

Of course, I've taken that and twisted it about, working with it to go in a different direction.  My Chosen One has fully accepted the mantle of her role.  In this case, the "chosen" aspect is the possession of a rare form of magic ... and, of course, the villain is the only other person who can wield it.  He's trained, she's not.  Ideally, he'd rather convert her than kill her, which means there are people on her own side that feel it would be better to remove that possibility - forcibly.

So the basic plotline is that our main character decides to stage her capture with the goal of learning from the villain and then escaping.  Obviously, this is shaping up to be a character-driven sort of story, so besides the cliche of the motive-less Dark Lord being just terrible, he needs to be fleshed out.  Part of what I've developed in my head is how he became a conqueror, and that inciting incident plays into his philosophy and the goals he's set that seem tyrannical and wrong to our heroes.  Somewhat ironically, part of what he's doing is removing the traditional fantasy system of noble inheritance ...

All this explanation is a roundabout approach to my concerns.  If I were to pitch this book to agents, how many would get past the cliche setup to the more original elements?  How many would it be a "do not pass go" no matter how well written the book is?

I've had the same worries pondering a rewrite of some old concepts.  Yeah, this is a great story, I've thought, but it opens up with an assassin ...

Clearly, these kinds of books get sold, but ... how do they do it?

Tuesday Thoughts

I both admire and am bewildered by the authors who can spend the majority of their careers writing stories in the same world.  They may span continents and periods of history, or they may concentrate on one extended family, but the underlying laws of nature and magic are the same.  This creates a great deal of depth and the ability to explore the same world through the eyes of different cultures or time periods - and the latter isn't done nearly often enough.

I just can't hold myself to writing in a single setting.  I'm too often thinking of ideas and story-sparkers that need an alteration to the underlying assumptions of the world to work.  If I tried to impose this on the same setting, well ... I'd have a cast of very cross and confused characters.

This is part of the reason why I want to get back to my Ishene and Kemel stories at some point, though they definitely lend themselves more to the episodic than to the concentrated arc of a novel.  Ishene is a time mage, allowing her to travel to different historical periods and places within her own world.  Her magic also slows down her aging drastically, so there's the potential for there to be cultural / technological shift during her lifetime.  One of the free-writes I have yet to finish is written from the POV of her apprentice, when Ishene herself is quite old, and it mentions factories and industrial technology.

Of course, another possibility would be to develop this setting from the impromptu scraps I've created in the four or five short stories I've written thus far, but I'll be honest:  I'm not sure there's enough meat in their setting to hold my attention for long enough to do that much detailed groundwork and development.  Still, fantasy time travel is a fun conceit that allows me to dip into the ebbs and flows of imaginary history.

Tuesday Thoughts

There are times, when I try to explain what I do for living - and this comes up a lot, you might imagine - that I feel rather judged.  This is probably more a reflection on my insecurities than upon the person(s) I'm talking to:  I know that realistically, no one is expending that much thought about my life.  But I can hear the mental monologue in the back of my head:  impractically artsy; scatterbrained; can't she make up her mind?

So I answer, silently, with something like this.

I have always been a writer.  From a young age, I knew I wanted to have novels in print.  From not quite such a young age, but relatively early on, I also knew I wasn't going to be a full-time writer:  not only is this very rare and difficult to pull off, but as someone who creates by incubation, I needed something else to do to get away from it and let my ideas mature.  I went through a few possibilities before at sixteen, I discovered the harp.

My adoration for the instrument was near-instantaneous.  It only took a few months of playing before I knew I wanted to do it professionally.  I had hopes at the beginning that I would be able to make a living from it ... but whether it's the opportunities in the area, my weakness as a self-promoter, or a combination of factors, that never materialized.  I took on part-time office work to stabilize my financial situation.

As this developed, I also began to experiment with cooking.  Unlike an ordinary, sane person, I started with Indian cuisine and complex recipes.  I was fearless.  I also set off the smoke alarm more than once.  But as time passed, I discovered how much I loved these culinary excursions.  I began to joke about culinary school - some day, down the road, eventually.

Then, finally, I hit a turning point.  My part-time work was stressing and overwhelming me; I felt stuck in a rut.  I met with a career counselor and floated the culinary school idea past her just to feel it out.  She helped me map out that option, but also focused me on several ways to improve my current situation.  Yet the more I came up with ways to increase my satisfaction with where I was, the more I felt the pull towards the culinary.

I finally decided to pull the trigger.  I'm at a point in my life where I have the freedom and circumstances to take on new adventures.  Let's do this thing.

Tuesday Thoughts

"The streets are crawling with Romans!"

Humor is a funny thing.  (Pun intended.)  Sometimes, jokes that are perfectly constructed just glance off us ... but other times, a particular line, scene or situation strikes us as hilarious and continues to amuse through innumerable repetitions.  Sometimes, that bit of "perfect" humor isn't all that funny, objectively speaking - but it always makes us grin.

Here are a few of mine.

Since I couldn't find the above bit - from History of the World Part 1 - I include another classic snippet of Mel Brooks visual punnery:

Comb the Desert!

Also on the classical movie front, saying "Surely you jest" or anything of that ilk in my family is only at your peril:  the inevitable response is, "I am, and don't call me Shirley."  Back to History of the World Part I, my family also says, "It's good to be the king" at random times ...

This cartoon, from the Far Side, comes to mind almost every time a nasty storm starts to blow in:

Then, of course, there's my favorite response to any discussion of the grammatical importance of commas:

I go to look at this picture when I'm in a bad mood, that's how hard it makes me laugh.

I risk losing part of my audience here, so skip over this one if you're not a watcher of AMC's The Walking Dead.  This definitely falls into the category of "I'm not even sure why this is so funny to me."  It's from the Bad Lip Reading take on the show, which is so-so until you hit this.  Should anyone venture to listen without context, let me preface by saying that in the show, this is an extremely tense face-to-face negotiation:

The Governor's Song

More generally, something that never fails to make me smile, from the wonderful folks over at Improv Anywhere.  Imagine going to your local mall and encountering this:

Food Court Musical

Finally, my favorite one-liner joke:

Q:  What do you get when a midget psychic escapes from prison?

A:  A small medium at large.

If any of these tickled your funny bone, enjoy!  If none of these strike you, well ... humor is a funny thing.

Tuesday Thoughts

I'd like to take a break from writerly musings to share some of the most frequent conversations I have as a player of the traditional lever harp.  These come up again and again at gigs, and I've developed rehearsed responses to them:

Them:  So you're a harpist, right?

Me:  Actually, I'm a harper.  Harpist refers to the pedal harp - the big golden thing with the pillar.  Harp-player works, too.

(This distinction is important to me.  I'd prefer not to be called a harpist.)

Them:  Is this is a Celtic harp?  (Sometimes they pronounce the C like an S.)

Me:  Yes; to be more accurate, it's a traditional lever harp because it has these levers (Vanna White gesture here) instead of the pedals on an orchestral harp.

Them:  Are you Irish?

Me:  Nope.  I'm Scottish and Welsh, though.

Them:  Is this a small harp?

Me (what I'd like to say):  You try carrying it.

Me (what I actually say):  This is a traditional harp.  It's the predecessor of the big harp you see in orchestras.

Them:  How long have you been playing?

Oh, how much easier it became when I could just say "over a decade" and stop counting every time.

I work through a fair number of misconceptions.  It seems to confuse people that I don't also play with an orchestra; similarly, they seem a bit taken aback when I tell them I studied privately (instead at a university, presumably).  Then there's this conversation:

Them:  Can I help you carry something?

Me:  Could you carry my chair?

They look at me, probably a bit like I'm crazy.  They look at the massive instrument. 

Me:  I'm balanced, but I have to carry the chair in a way that makes it hard to walk.  It would really help.

I have gotten "such a little thing with such a big instrument!" more than once, which always makes me laugh:  I'm about 5'7" with strong shoulders.  Besides the Scots, I've got German and Italian in me.  I'm not heavy - thank you, 20+ hours of running around a kitchen this past quarter - but I am not a delicate flower.

I think possibly my favorite question, though, came from a guitarist.  First of all, some background:  my harp has 36 strings, one for every note.  Each individual string has to be tuned.  When a string breaks, the replacement has to "settle" before it will hold.  This usually involves, as a ballpark, 50 - 60 retunings.  So the following ensued:

Him:  How often do you change the strings?  Every few weeks?

Me (horrified look):  Only when I have to.

Harps are notoriously finicky for responding to every shift in temperature and pressure.  In fact, that leads to one of my favorite harp jokes, which I got from the Welsh triple harpist (he is a harpist - the Welsh harp is much closer to the classic instrument) Robin Huw Bowen:

Q:  How long does it take to tune a harp?

A:  No one knows.

Tuesday Thoughts

One of the most important facets of my writing process is that I'm an incubator.  I don't usually tackle ideas right away:  instead, I put them on the backburner of my brain to simmer, develop, resolve problems and fuse with other thoughts.  This process occurs under the surface - occasionally, something will occur in the front of my brain and I'll drop it in the pot, as it were, but most of the time, it's neither active nor conscious.

I think this is part of the reason why I tend to do extensive world and character building before I start writing:  it gives my mind time to turn over possibilities and permutations and actively brings them to the fore.  It also explains why I often have trouble simply diving into a story as soon as the idea strikes me - I can't develop it on the fly, nor can I rush the process.  Oddly (or not?), this also applies to me and arranging music on the harp.

So I've learned to listen to my writer brain and determine when reluctance is laziness or procrastination, and when it's my subconscious telling me the idea hasn't had enough time to brew.  I've learned to be kind to myself when I fall down on my writing goals - within reason - because my brain never stops.  It's all there, waiting for me.

Anatomy of an Idea: Polestar

Polestar is now available in the current issue of Plasma Frequency - check it out!  Here's an account of how it came about, as spoiler-free as I can make it.

This story was written as a several-years-later sequel to First Contact, which was published in the now-defunct Golden Visions.  It is in First Contact that many of the elements in Polestar were developed, so a flashback to that story is in order.  

First Contact was written for a Fantasy-Writers.org monthly challenge on the subject of first contact.  When I take on these challenges, I always like to add an additional interpretation or twist on the topic.  In this case, I decided to take "first contact" in two ways:  both in the traditional sense of the meeting of two peoples, and in the sense of physical touch.  I decided to make my main character a girl who was being kept "pure" by being forbidden to touch anything for herself.  I also had a quote from Much Ado About Nothing rattling about my head:  but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

It was this line that inspired the idea of the Lthieryn, the living stars, and the character of Eridanus.  Eridanus is the being with whom Adiarwen makes her first contact, in both senses ... and in Polestar (remember the story we were talking about originally?  Here we are again), he becomes the narrator.  He has been her fast friend and traveling companion over the intervening years, but yearns for more.  At the time of writing this story, I was full of myself enough to want to use another Shakespeare quote, and I chose Sonnet 116 ("Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds").  The later line, "It is the star to every wandering bark," inspired the title, Polestar.

And when someone becomes the center of your life, your guiding light, the consequences can be terrible ...

Tuesday Thoughts

Still working on editing marks for Who Wants To Be A Hero? so I have humor on the brain.  Lately, I've been chewing on another aspect of how humor manifests in stories:  who finds it funny?

First, there are the elements that both the reader and the characters find humorous.  This is the kind of humor you find almost everywhere:  even (especially) in the most tense of situations, people throw off quips and one-liners.  It's probably the most appropriate to stories that aren't intended to be comedic, a moment of tension release.  Personally, for me the tricky part is balancing the reactions of the other characters - to have them ignore such humor seems peculiar, but on the other hand, I don't want their reactions to be too broad.  That ends up somewhere between self-congratulatory and a sitcom laugh track.

Second, there are elements that the reader finds funny, but the characters do not - whether because it references an anachronism / bit of modern culture, it involves in-story knowledge that the reader has but the character does not, or simply that it's something you can only laugh at with distance.  I do a lot of this in Hero - though I'm always cautious with the pop culture references, because I know they may be incomprehensible a few years down the road.  Still, there's a mild dig at creationism that I think has some life yet to it ...

Third, there are elements that the characters find funny, but the reader does not.  This is probably not really humor so much as worldbuilding:  it points to ingrained stereotypes and shorthand in the characters' culture(s).  And it can be built up into the other kinds of humor:  if character X makes cracks about culture Y's love for beer, you can already anticipate what's about to happen when a native from that land shows up ...

It's this last that I haven't played with much - about the closest I've come is that there's a certain understanding that songs from Evinnen are very much like classic Celtic tunes:  depressing and full of woe.  That leads to the following exchange, which also touches upon the second kind of humor in drawing a parallel to another genre of music in our contemporary world:

“Matheus, Matheus!”  The inventor Valchem’s face lit with a child’s enthusiasm.  “What happens if you take a traditional Evinneni song and play it backwards?”

“You get your life back, you get your health back, you get your true love back?” the hero hazarded.

In any case, it's definitely something I want to work with more.  Obviously, characters laughing at something the reader doesn't "get" can become tiresome fast, but it's a nice level for worldbuilding.  Anyone have any nice examples of this?

GoodReads Review: Unsympathetic Magic

Unsympathetic Magic by Laura Resnick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Struggling actress Esther Diamond is back as the calamities of her everyday life collide headlong with the rising of the dead. This book does an excellent job of introducing new threads and interweaving old ones, all with a riotous humor that had me laughing out loud - and I'm a tough sell for audible laughter. Esther's escapades pile atop each other and play out in a convincing and engaging fashion, and it all feels like the inevitable - if hilarious - result of what came before.

Only two things kept me from giving this book full stars. First, Resnick's research is showing: the story grinds to a halt to discuss the finer points of vodou (and similar spellings, etc), the associated religion, the spirits ... it's interesting information, but it stops the plot dead with its bulk. Second, three books in, the barriers between Esther and Lopez are beginning to feel well-worn, the same clichés I hate in romantic comedies. There's still much to enjoy in their relationship, but my patience with the contrivances is wearing thin.

Overall, though, this book comes highly recommended. It was quite simply a blast to read.

View all my reviews

Tuesday Thoughts

This will be roughly two parts life rant, one part writing rant.  So you have been warned.

I've watched a number of reality shows where the contestants are vying for the opportunity to start their own businesses, and one thing that has always annoyed me about popular media seems to come to the fore in these shows:  if you have passion, you have to wear it on your sleeve.  If you are devoted, you have to be visibly emotional.  If you are controlled and collected, then the judges seem to think you are apathetic.

In some way, this makes sense:  not being in someone else's head, we can only judge by what they demonstrate, and that goes doubly for the home viewer, who is only seeing selectively edited clips.  But to me, the assumption that people who are less emotive, or uncomfortable with loud displays, somehow have less fire than the rest of us ... it grates on my nerves.  There is a type of person for whom these outbursts are unnatural.  Trying to force it would be farce.

As you might have guessed, I am this type of person.  Under stress and pressure, things may bubble up, but otherwise, I keep quiet and internalize my emotions.  And that's all right with me.  I don't enjoy when the moment gets the best of me.  I prefer to stay composed.  The people around me don't need to be burdened with my emotional minutiae.  Does that mean I don't feel as much as someone who is more vocal?  Definitely not.  The inside of my head can be a powder keg.

I promised there would be writing talk in this post, so here it is:  I sometimes (though not exclusively) write characters whose reactions come from that same, reserved place, and I find that reviewers will pick upon certain character reactions as being too mild or detached.  Sometimes, this is because I haven't properly illuminated the thoughts bottled up behind the outward calm, which I then set about correcting, but other times, it's simply the reaction itself that provokes this critique.

So I strengthen the mental underpinnings, but I'm not budging on the outward quality of reserve.  Because even if this sort of person is unusual, they do exist.  Hi!  I'm pleased to meet you.

Tuesday Thoughts

As a writer, I think of the lyrics in music as a specific kind of form poetry.  Beyond the requirements of rhyme, lyrics have to follow melodic flow, with emphasis and syllables laid out appropriately to the rhythm and beat.  That's the challenge and reward of lyrics:  to bring out the message in a very specific structure.  I have little patience for musicians whose lyrics either don't rhyme (I'm old-school:  songs are supposed to rhyme!) or whose later verses make a hash of the melody / rhythm to smash a certain amount of syllables into a line.

Ideally, lyrics tell a story.  Within these limits, it's a story implied or even written the listener, but there is a sense, not just of the "now" moment of the song, but things coming before and/or after.  To be successful, lyrics usually have to be universal; to be interesting, they have to strike an unusual chord (all musical pun intended).  For me, certain song lines jump out and stick with me.  I've been on a bit of a self-improvement kick of late, so my current picks tend to show that:

No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from -- "Life Uncommon" by Jewel

As if my luck and hope had found each other -- "I Believe" by Sophie-Ellis Bextor

I'm dealing with the changes, this complicated strangeness of seeing life this way -- "This Is Me" by Faith Hill

The things I write are only light extemporanea.  I won't put politics on paper, it's a mania!  So I refuse to use the pen in Pennsylvania.  -- "But Mr. Adams" from the 1776 soundtrack   (This whole soundtrack is filled with brilliance.  It's particularly awesome that some direct quotes from the historical figures are actually *woven into the songs.*  "Is Anybody There?" includes the line, "Through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory" which was actually written by John Adams in a letter to his wife.)

(But I digress.)

I've been down and for too long forgotten; on occasion, I'll stay there for days.  And I'll act like a clown, and I'll tear myself down, just for someone to fill me with praise -- "I'd Rather Be Alone" by Helen Reddy

Of course, musicals have a bit of an advantage in that the story context has already been provided, so their lyrics can fill in the specifics.  That said, my favorite lyrics probably do come from musicals:  1776, Wicked, Camelot, Into The Woods.

Of course, the music is not only equally important, the mood and instrumentation should augment the lyrics, increasing their power.  Some examples:

He Never Mentioned Love by Kirsty MacColl -- I have loved this song for a long time, and I can still put it on loop with great pleasure.  The beauty of it is the first listen (or a casual listen) tells one story, and a deeper listen to the lyrics brings the realization that the story is actually the opposite of the singer's claims.  The bouncy, chipper instrumentation and melody are something of a contrast, which works beautifully here.  Kirsty tends to do a fair amount of this - another one to check out is "Children of the Revolution," which sounds so happy until you pay attention to the words ...

What Is This Feeling? from Wicked -- I adore these lyrics.  The whole song is a near-parody of upbeat, triumphant love songs, and the lush, overwrought Disney-esque ensemble arrangement is the icing on the cake.  (Please excuse some of the typos in this version - I grabbed the first one I could find with the words.)

Chasing The Sun by Sara Bareilles - all right, so I know Bareilles is very mainstream, so I'm not exactly saying anything unique, but for my money, this song is the standout of The Blessed Unrest.  It blows the continuously clipped "Brave" out of the water.  Just the line "Skyscrapers' little tombstone brothers" sticks in my mind and won't leave.  Here there is some of the "cramming in syllables," but it's done in such a consistent way that it creates a rhythm of its own.  I also love that unusual pitch she hits on the word "sun" - it brings your awareness back to the gorgeous melody with that moment of surprise.

So that's my (way more than) two cents on the writing of lyrics.

Tuesday Thoughts

In working on my editing marks for Who Wants To Be A Hero? I've been reminded that humor has distinct pacing.  For me, I'm seeing three separate speeds, dependent on the type of humor ... and of course, timing is everything.  A mismatch drains the funny out of even the most clever setup.

1.  Quick hit.  A snappy remark, terrible pun, etc.  Setup for this needs to be subtle; it loses punch if one can see it coming.  On the other side, if the characters respond too much or drag out the logical conclusions of the joke, it becomes diluted - unless the follow-up is also comic in nature, of course.  This is probably the one I have the most trouble with, and a lot of my editing marks involve paring away the ungainly train behind the joke.

2.  Continuous buildup.  One quip or moment of humor builds on another, builds on the next, builds on the next ... in this kind of sequence, the length adds to the humor.  This kind of back-and-forth can still be ruined by going on too long, and if it's too short, it may never get off the ground.  The "level" of the jokes needs to move upwards - save the best for last.  I like to do this with pun sequences or a barrage of phrases in the same vein; the first one or two, you may not even notice.

3.  Anticipation.  This is usually character-based humor, but not always.  Here, it's all about the setup and laying out the joke in such a way that the reader knows what is coming and looks forward to it - and their expectations are met perfectly or even exceeded.

I certainly don't claim to be a master humorist, but I enjoy writing humor, and I've published a few stories in a comedic vein.  This is actually the second humorous novel I've written:  the first, Miss Understanding, involved a group of female adventurers from a fantasy world being dropped into our reality and having to participate in a beauty pageant to win their means home - maybe I'll rewrite it some day.  I've learned a lot from Who Wants To Be A Hero? and hopefully, the pay-out of that joke will be publication.

Tuesday Thoughts

I meant to write this post on Mother's Day, but since I was working, I only had enough free time to call my mother, watch Game of Thrones, and then pass out.  Still, I definitely feel the need to discuss what my mother gave me as a writer.

Despite having devoured The Lord of the Rings books so voraciously that my father (reputedly) said he'd have to grow hair on his hands and feet to get any attention, my mother is not generally a fantasy reader.  She tried to help me out with critiquing some of my early fiction, but about the time she wondered, "Why are all their names so strange?" I realized she might not be my best choice of first reader.

But she always challenged me to think of things in a different way.  My earliest stories involved a flock of rainbow sheep (... I don't even know where that came from), and when my second story had the same plotline as the first, she encouraged me to think of something new.  She always modeled for me the ideal of marching to the tune of your own drummer, including homeschooling me at a time when this was a radical notion and most people had no idea what homeschooling even was.  I can't even begin to estimate the impact this had on my ability, freedom and inclination to explore new ideas.

My mother never tried to fit a dodecahedral peg into a round hole.  She let me practice cursive by writing a guide to a medieval castle, the surrounding town, and its people.  And I learned parts of speech in a way I think provided me with a solid foundation:  she put together cards with sequins, each shape / color representing a different part of speech, and had me invent sentences that matched the pattern.  It was fun, it was concrete, and it got my imagination turning.

Then there was the word graveyard.  "Here Lies (X) - Died of Overuse," the paper headstones read, with X being a bland, simple word, "Replaced by ..."  It was my job to list as many synonyms, alternatives and replacements as I could think of.

As I grew older, she was (and still is) my cheerleader, even if my subject matter seemed foreign and bizarre to her.  She's had confidence in me even when I don't (which, if I'm being honest, is more often than not).  Then, of course, there was the moment when she read "Precious Cargo" from Space Sirens and raved about the story.  But that was really just a bonus, a final footnote to the foundation and secure footing she gave me.

Tuesday Thoughts

I have a peculiar quirk as a reader:  except in the case of nail-biting, gasp-worthy cliff-hangers, when I finish a book in a series, I don't immediately reach for the next.  Instead, I reach for another author, often something as different as possible.  It may be (in fact, usually is) months before I meander back for book #2 or #3.  This is nothing against the books:  I do this even with authors I adore.  After deep immersion and acquaintance with a world and group of characters, I feel the need for new fictional surroundings.

This tendency filters into my writing as well.  While most of my novels leave threads untied and possibilities open for future volumes, I typically don't feel the need to start working on those.  I don't have many story sets, where multiple short stories involve the same world or characters - probably my longest arc is the Ishene and Kemel stories, and those were written out of sequence.  The new path to a major publisher which has sometimes been touted - write short stories in the setting, get them published in pro magazines / anthologies, then write a novel - pretty much seems like a nightmare to me.   I feel for every author who's said they're tired of writing "another X novel."

I need variety - I need to periodically switch it up and do something different.  It's why I'm typically working on two or three projects at once, but of different sorts or in different stages.  Right now, that's writing Unnatural Causes - a high fantasy mystery / intrigue novel with a sometimes snarky non-human first person narrator - and editing Who Wants To Be A Hero? - a humorous fantasy novel involving multiple narrator viewpoints and a mix of third person and first.  I'm also pondering tackling my zombie novella.  I have what I hope is an unusual take on the idea, and it's so athwart what I usually do that I thought it would be a fun escape.

And isn't that what reading and writing are about - escape from the normal?

Tuesday Thoughts

My ambition to make this Anthology April, alas, didn't appear, but I did want to acknowledge the alliteration with a list of some recommended anthologies:

This Is My Funniest (Mike Resnick):  I'm a sucker for humor, but what distinguishes this anthology is that the stories are chosen by what the author deems is their funniest - and it includes offerings from writers that aren't traditionally thought of as humorists.  I think this anthology starts off weak, so stick with it:  the stories get steadily better as the pages progress.

I, Alien (Mike Resnick):  Alien encounter stories from the first-person perspective of the alien.  There are a few truly moving tales in this one, and the closing piece is just delightfully clever.

Murder By Magic (Rosemary Edghill):  The requirements for this anthology were that the story had to have a murder and a fantastic element, and the writers are chosen from both the fantasy camp and the mystery camp.  The results are wonderful, and surprisingly, some of the worldbuilding comes from the mystery writers.  If you are planning on reading Laura Resnick's novel Doppelgangster, skip her short story herein:  it's the basis from which the novel was fleshed out.

Sword & Sorceress XVII (Marion Zimmer Bradley):  It may take some searching to find this particular older volume, but it's probably the strongest in the series.  Full review here.

The Book of Kings (Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg):  A thought-provoking, imaginative anthology of kings based in both history and fantasy.  Full review here. 

Fantastic Companions (Julie E. Czerneda):  This anthology frames itself as being about the animal companions of humans, and this isn't really accurate - but ignoring the drift from theme, this is full of entertaining, varied and surprising stories.  From cats and dragons to more imaginative creatures, well worth the read.  Full review here.

Tuesday Thoughts

... and they all lived unhappily ever after.

There was a time in my writing career when, by both choice and compulsion, I wasn't capable of writing anything but a happy ending.  I killed off a character in a novel, only to suddenly find myself stumbling across a way to resurrect him.  I took a short story class and was asked to write a story with an unhappy ending.  When the instructor read it, he commented that the characters weren't very sympathetic.

Well, of course, I thought.  Who would want to read about sympathetic characters failing?

Over the years, I've slowly relaxed my position on unhappy endings, though I'm more prone to bittersweet, and the "yes, but ..." is still my favorite ending.  I suppose in most cases, my bittersweet *is* a "yes, but ...":  the character gets what they want, but at a high price, or they find that it wasn't what they wanted, after all.  I can't give examples without spoilers, of course.

For me, there's an emotional toll quota in a story.  I don't want to read a depressing story with a depressing ending - I just feel wrung out and unsatisfied.  To "earn" an unhappy ending, the story has to have enough hope and levity that the reader doesn't enter the last paragraphs already exhausted.  Conversely, you can batter the character with unrelenting darkness ... if there's light at the end of the tunnel.

I think the first time I wrote what I'd call a bittersweet element in an ending was in The Sintellyn Medallion.  There were multiple romantic attractions in the story; some of them were mutually exclusive as far as happy endings might go.  One of them was a mutual attraction that broke off because one character had to choose between career and romance - that's another theme and strongly held belief of mine.  In any case, it doesn't end well for everyone, and there's several wistful notes in the concluding chapter.

Since then, I've dabbled further ... but I still find that my instinct is for a happy ending.  I can't remember which story it was any more, but I'd planned a hope-is-lost sort of ending ... and as I approached writing it, I realized that it wanted to keep going, and that another half page completely changed the tone of the ending.  So I suppose I'm still resurrecting the dead, moving heaven and earth to give my characters success ...

... but at what cost?

GoodReads Review: Sword & Sorceress XIII

Sword and Sorceress XIII by Marion Zimmer Bradley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A solid anthology of stories featuring female protagonists who conquer the odds, this volume didn't strike me as being as strong as some of the others ... it had some weaker stories, and fewer "wow" moments. That said, there were some strong tales, in particular Leslie Ann Miller's "Sun Dancer" - and both Marella Sand's "Tortoise Weeps" and Diana L. Paxson's "Twilight" came to life with their well-researched, deftly incorporated historical settings.

I think what struck me about this anthology is that, in contrast to later volumes - even XVII, only four years later - it had a particular emphasis on the idea of women facing barriers because inferior men wouldn't listen to them, or men traditionally inherit, etc ... and the male side of it comes off as something of a straw-man. Nowadays, if fiction portrays this scenario as so black and white, we're prone to respond with skepticism or, "Now tell me something new." Gender inequality is still very real, but (in most cases) it's somewhat subtler, and readers want more variation and nuance when the idea is explored.

This anthology is certainly worth reading, but not as strong as some other volumes.

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Thursday Thoughts

First lines!  I'm fairly sure I've blogged about this before, but it's been long enough that I figure the topic is due another inspection.

I spend a lot of energy on my first lines, even for novels - the leaping-off point is very important to me.  As a general rule of thumb, the hook for a short story needs to be snappier and more immediate than for a novel, simply because you have less room to run.

For me, even the most slow-burn opening sentence of a novel has to fulfill one criteria:  it has to make the reader ask at least one question.  It may be an immediate punch of a question or simply something that catches the attention.  There can be more than one implicit question; one is simply the entry requirement.  One fun way to do this is with something that seems contradictory on the surface - it provokes a, "What do you mean XYZ?  That makes no sense!" reaction from a reader.  These tend to need to be explained quickly, though.

If this bears some similarity to my discussion of book titles, it's no accident:  there is definitely some overlap in tactics and purpose.

I've mentioned before that my favorite first line from a published novel is in Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, which is:  

My father had a father that could stop a clock.

What's beautiful about this line, of course, is the answer to this inverts expectations:  you expect "stop a clock" to be a figurative expression, of ugliness or maybe a stern expression ... and it turns out to be literal.

Another question I like to pose is to use a term or description that makes a reader wonder, "What is that?"  I'm sure there are punchier, more interesting lines, but my personal favorite from my works is:

The Houseless were drunk on the veranda.

What is a Houseless?  The word would imply some kind of dispossession, which perhaps explains why they are on the narrator's veranda ... there's actually two or three questions here, elaborated upon in the sentences that follow.

There's one more aspect to a first sentence that is important:  it should be the first building block to establishing tone.  A comic story shouldn't start with a weighty paragraph (unless the sudden inversion is part of the humor).  A serious, sober story shouldn't start with slapstick.  (Usually.  There are exceptions to everything.)  Who Wants To Be A Hero? starts thusly:


Ioweyn stood in the Waiting Chamber of the Gods and tried not to fidget.   

Which I'll grant is not immediately funny, but it has some quirk of humor to it.

A few other random beginnings:

Being shipwrecked, the thought rose to the surface of Miayde’s mind, had a dismaying impact on her dignity.  (Butterfly's Poison)

Time is more important to me than it is to anyone else.   (Stolen Moments)

Every soldier in the Pitharian army waited on the command of their captain – but every soldier also kept half an eye out for the sorceress, watching her wend across the battlefield even if they could not see her.  (The Heat of Battle)

Rosh always wore the shoes when she killed.  (In These Shoes)

The dragon’s harsh breath beat down on my face, with the decaying sweetness of fear and anxiety.  (Nesting Instinct)

Anyone got any favorite lines - their own or another writer's - they want to share?

Thursday Thoughts

Breaking news!  Since I have two 4.5 hour lab classes on Thursday next quarter, this may become Tuesday Thoughts for the interim.

Now that everyone has recovered from the shock ...

And the sarcasm ...

I've finally taken some action towards editing Who Wants To Be A Hero? - a novel which I like to describe as, "What if a pantheon of Greco-Roman deities invented reality television competitions?"  For me, it was a fun project, combining my shameful enjoyment of shows like Top Chef, Project Runway and America's Next Top Model (... yes ... really ... I've admitted it ...) with my lifelong love of mythology.  The challenges for becoming a hero are inspired both by the traditional Greek hero arc and by more modern ideas like roleplaying games - for instance, there's a challenge that can only be described as a dungeon-crawl.

The fun part for me was that the results of the episodes were quasi-random.  I gave each character a score in various aptitudes (1-10) and decided which aptitude(s) each challenge used.  If a challenge had multiple aptitudes that might apply, the contestant could "choose" to focus on one or the other.  They could also potentially use an unsuitable aptitude at a penalty.  Then I rolled a die (a ten-sided die, to be specific) and added the two numbers together to determine how well the character was going to do.  The three highest would be up to win; the three lowest would be up for elimination.

... none of this actually showed up in the manuscript, mind.  Instead, it informed the way I wrote the episode and the characters' attempts.  I let my feeling of how the scene had played out influence which of the top three won ... and tried to stick with the numbers as to who had the lowest score and would go home.  This was intended to imitate that moment in a reality show where someone you really expected to go all the way slips up and has a bad moment.  I didn't want my preconceptions to create the straightest, most obvious route.  I also hope that if I genuinely didn't know who was going to win until very near the end, that the reader won't, either ...

So editing this book is going to have some advantages - the plot structure is built in - and some disadvantages - there's going to be some untidiness where I set up elements with characters who then were eliminated.  On the whole, I don't think I'll totally cut out the latter.  A bit of red herring can be good for a story ...

GoodReads Review: The Dragon Done It

The Dragon Done It by Mike Resnick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fantasy-mystery crossovers have enjoyed increasing popularity, and I had high hopes for this anthology of short stories, advertised as humorous in nature. This is a solid but not remarkable anthology; there aren't any real duds, but none of the stories stand out in my mind as especially memorable, though Esther Friesner, as ever, delivers a highlight with twists upon twists ("Gunsel and Gretel").

There is definitely a bias towards noir here, especially in the first half of the book, which is specific enough that the stories start to feel a bit repetitive. I wonder why the noir offerings weren't spread out more evenly, because we also get some entertaining Sherlock Holmes takes - I'm particularly fond of "The Adventure of the Pearly Gates" by Mike Resnick, which is set in heaven - and some well-realized historical tales. Another unusual offering is "Fox Tails" by Richard Park, which features an eastern setting.

Overall, this collection was decent, but not exceptional. Some of the stories, I wouldn't classify as mysteries. Some of the humor was of the broad, silly type I have trouble with - it takes me out of any tension. Other examples were quite clever, though, but this isn't a humorous anthology as a whole. Worth reading, but don't run out to get it.

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