Category Archives: writing

Understanding Your Material

It’s interesting and instructive to compare two bits of film, though one is television, and their approach towards the military and their depictions of military men.

In Them! military characters confront giant ants created by mutation induced from the first atomic explosions. It is simply amazing to see the nuanced actions that are correctly capture in their bearing, their methods, and in their characters. One excellent example is when attacking a nest in the open desert and they are using bazookas as part of their assault. When you load that WWII weapon there is actually a wire lead that goes from the round to a terminal on the firing tube. I know this because I’ve watched training films from the war on how to properly load and fire the weapons. The characters in the movie correctly follow the weapon system’s procedure.

Nearly 50 years later in the iconic television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer the titular character Buffy is working with an elite special forces unit hunting down demons and monster in her hometown. When these best of the best warriors are briefed by a scientist on their next target thy have no questions for her and are silently dedicated to the mission and following orders. Buffy is the outsider and non-conformist with a string of questions and concerns.

This scene entirely misses the boat about what it means to be an elite warrior in U.S. service. These men are smart and those smarts are part of why they are elites. It is simplistic and reductive to think of special forces personnel as silent followers of orders.

The difference between the two productions likely comes down to the fact that in the 1950s nearly everyone knew someone who served and that close association informed the writing and production choices. For Hollywood of the late 90s and early 2000s people will actual services records in the production pipeline are likely to be rare to non-existent. Production companies get their writers and producers and directors from college and industry training with very few coming to film production later in life with the sort of life experiences that could help avoid these sorts of mistakes. It is also unlikely that anyone in the production system knows or knew anyone that served is such a capacity. All of us lead lives that are far too insular. Having veterans among the staff and having veterans review the material to help assure accuracy would be baby steps to getting such characters correct.

And the same is true for characters beyond those with military service. It is true for characters of religion, nationality, or ethnicity.

 

Representation matters.

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Quick Hits

I’ve started outlining a new novel proposal. I have already stepped through the five acts and bullet pointed all the major beats, Now it is time to produce a prose document synopsizing the story and show that to my editor. It’s another dark cynical SF story.

Also, I am working my way, finally, through Netflix’s Marvel Limited series The Defenders but so far, and I have watched six out of eight episodes, I am far from impressed. The writing on this one fails to lock into the voice for the various characters and they instead feel like that they have the shape of the personalities but lack the depth. There has been a tendency, possibly created by time pressures, to go for the most obvious plot turn or bit of dialog. Several times I have mentally delivered the upcoming dialog before the character on screen actually utters it.

San Diego has recieve3d the go ahead from the State Government to move forward into loosening social distancing restrictions and Saturday I will be at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore to sign stock of my novel Vulcan’s Forge.

 

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Things Named Vulcan’s Forge

I titled my novel Vulcan’s Forge as a reference to the Roman god of fire and smithy because the McGuffin at the center of the sf/noir was capable of producing effects well beyond the character’s normal access. Of Course, I was aware that Star Trek had popularized Vulcan as an association with its particular alien species. In fact, I had expected that there might have been a push from the publishing house to re-title the novel and that would have been fine with me, I am generally not precious about my titles.

The book sailed through the editing and publication process without any ever suggesting or hinting that an alternative title should be explored and now I am discovering all the other things that are called Vulcan’s Forge.

Vulcan’s Forge 1998 a techno-thriller, that’s when you don’t want to be marketed as present day science-fiction a category invented by The Hunt of Red October, by Jack Du Brul.

Vulcan’s Forge a 1997 Star trek­ tie-in novel set a year after the events in the movie Star Trek: Generations.

Vulcan’s Forge a custom Jewelers located in Kansas City Missouri.

Vulcan’s Forge a thoroughbred racehorse from the 1940s.

 

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No Two Books Get Written the Same Way

Mind you that title isn’t referring to no two authors write their books the same way I am talking about that as an author myself each book follows its own unique process from concept to manuscript.

My editor recently told me that he’d like to see material that is closer in tone to Vulcan’s Forge than the military SF adventure I recently showed to him. I’m good with that, after all I did write Vulcan’s Forge and I understand the wisdom of keep a stylistic and tone consistency to help build a readership. So, I responded with a few ideas that had been bouncing around my head and he came back indicating which one at this point interested him the most.

Now, I’m drafting the outline for this book using my typical five act structure as a framework. Her, it is was good enough for old Bill Shakespeare it’s good enough for me.

As is typical for me the very act of outlining, in even the basic form, expands and deepens my concepts turning vague ideas into concrete story and plot elements.

But, it’s not the same process I used on other books. Sometimes I just write out a long prose document telling the basic story from front to back, leaving spots that I know are too thin that I will have to work out later. Sometimes I craft careful character studies and maps first and then start the outlining, and this time it’s numbered bulleted points for act of the five acts with a separate character files that grows as I explore the story and structure.

The point is when you attend a con or a writing workshop and someone tells you from on high that this is the ‘one way’ to write a story know that what they are passing is bunk. There isn’t one way for different writers and not even for the same writer. Experiment, investigate, and discover the way that works for you for the project at hand.

 

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Revisiting Previous Works

For various reason I pulled out of duty digital storage a novel that I had written ten years ago back in the distant annals of 2010.

This novel was the first attempt to set a story in the fictional universe where Vulcan’s Forge takes place. In fact, without that previous setting creation I doubt that there would ever have been a Vulcan’s Forge as the setting gave me the answer as to what the McGuffin and core plot elements I had been searching for.

However, that manuscript when presented to the first batch of beta readers fell flat and I determined that the flaws were so deeply seated it would require a complete re-write from the ground up and place it aside.

Thinking it might be worth revisiting that story I loaded the manuscript up on my iPad and began my re-read.

The flaws from 2010 are still there and the book would have to be written over again from page 1 to be salvageable. Moreover, I can see where I rushed through sentences and scenes hastily putting things down without taking the time to let them breathe and create the tone that would have been required to sustain the tale. Still, the core conflict, characters, and plot elements all work. This is a book I can make work and now with a decade’s more experience I can see how to do that.

I am also in the middle of craft a new outline for a new story. The couple of sentence description interested my editor and so I have at least two worthy projects to chase.

 

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A Prolog and Chapter One Are Not Interchangeable

I’ve started reading a new novel, no I am not going to name the book because as this is not a review site I only name titles when I love the work, and I am concerned about how the whole thing has started.

This novel opened with Chapter One and spent about 12,000 words on a set of characters that I realize we are unlikely to ever see again. The event of those pages clearly was important to the plot that unfolds in the rest of the story and set up many crucial details that I can see the author intends to use through the adventure. However, since none of our principal characters are around in these scenes this feel terribly like a prolog to me and not the opening chapter of a story.

I may have spent 12,000 words getting to know characters, understanding their emotional lives, and concerned about the troubles they face, but now all that emotional investment feels wasted.

This is related to the troubles with stories that end with ‘it was all a dream’ an its variations or sequels that undo all the emotional stakes from previous installments. (I’m looking at your Alien 3.)

Ideally when people engage with your fiction, by reading, listening, or viewing, they should become emotionally invested in the characters and the outcomes of their struggles. The resolution of the story and the plot and the return on that investment with catharsis or pathos being the final reward. When it ends as a dream then it’s like that check bounced and we’re left with nothing for the emotional currency we’ve spent. The check has bounced. In the case of Alien 3 after we’ve come to really care about Newt and Hicks in Aliens and desperately wanting for Ripley to save them both the sequel comes along and repossesses out victory making us into suckers for caring.

This novel has pulled me into these characters lives and now has waved a hand and said, ‘Don’t think about them anymore. Here’s new people to get emotional about.’ But I’m now burned and I am more likely to keep my emotional distance wary of the author is going to again steal characters away. Had this been labeled a prolog I would have been emotionally ready to learn things but not become attached. The poor doomed rangers at the start of A Song of Fire and Iceare not our main characters and telling us that it is a prolog allowed us as the readers to learn the vital information their story needed to tell us without playing us for suckers.

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The First Negative Review Has Arrived

Wednesday evening just before I slipped off to bed, I got a Google alert of a new review of Vulcan’s Forge. Yes, I have an alert set up over at Google to keep me informed of when people post things about my debut novel. The review came from a person in the United Kingdom which makes sense as the publisher is a UK entity.

It was my first unqualified negative review.

I say ‘negative’ and not ‘bad’ because I do not want there to be the slightest suggestion that I imply that the review itself is poor. As I have said often in my writers group meetings no honest critique or review can be wrong. It is how that person reacted to that piece on that day. It is the underlying assumption upon which is build the critique phrase ‘Your mileage may vary.’ What is wonderful for one person is terrible to another.

How did I react to my first truly ‘I did not like this book’ review?

Shrug.

It is part of the gig. Now, I am not suggesting that anyone else is wrong is they feeling more strongly when that get a negative review. Authors are people and people differ wildly but for me I can accept that someone really did not like by work and not feel any real emotional distress. If fact I read the review and then went off to bed and slept quite well.

If it didn’t matter to me then why did I read the review? why seek them out?

Well, taking criticism is a skill and it requires practice. It’s good to get hit and learnt that you do survive it.

I’m also curious. It is fascinating to see the wildly different interpretations people have about the work. This applies to positive reviews as well as negative ones. Everyone bring their own lenses to their reading and so the exact same text will never be interpreted the same way by any two people. I love seeing the various internal codebooks through which this is deciphered. (Of course, I bring my own to the reading of these reviews and not matter how diligently I try I can never fully escape them, but still I do try.)

Perhaps for other it is very good advice to never read reviews but for me it is a fascinating glimpse into the inner working of another person’s mind.

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Accessible Science Fiction

From Hugo Gernsback in the mid 1920s to today modern science-fiction has grown encompassing a number of fields, styles, and literary approaches that in some case are rather inaccessible to readers who are not extensively read in the genre. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The field, any field, grows at the bleeding vanguard edges not in the safety and comfort of what has been well established and explored. Stories that challenge notions about reality itself and what it means to be human are exciting frontiers for SF and we need them to expand our horizons.

Science Fiction also needs new blood, new readers and we can rarely entice them into the genre if the only selection available require a deep experience in the field. There must also be science-fiction stories that are inviting to new readers. Stories that people without experience in the genre can relate to and enjoy.

One of the persons who read my novel Vulcan’s Forge wrote me to share that she rarely reads SF. It is not her genre but she thoroughly enjoyed by book and found it difficult to put down. As an author that of course is very pleasing to hear but it has also made me realize that I want to write accessible science-fiction. I know my limitations both in imagination and in literary devices means I would do poorly trying to be the vanguard of the genre. There are many authors I admire and enjoy who are so much better at it that myself that I can leave that area of the genre to them. I’d be happy to be the sort of writer that can invite and introduce new people to this style of literature that I adore.

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Quick Hit

Automobile emergencies have stolen some of my morning posting time away from me so today’s posting will be brief.

I have decided as an experiment and practice to do something I have not done in quite a while, write a screenplay.

I used to primarily think of myself as a screenplay writer. Films are a passion of mine and if you have read Vulcan’s Forge you can see that passion represented in the plotting of the novel. While I haven’t sold a screenplay, I have written and co-written a few and I find the form to fun to work with. For the last several months I have been listening to the podcast Scriptnotes and I am exciting to incorporate some of the things I have learned about screen writing.

So, this week I started a screenplay with no intention of selling it. To keep from spinning wheels, I decided that the best form of this experiment is to adapt my novel Vulcan’s Forge. It should be fun.

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The Weird Ways I Dream

With the recent passing of actor Brian Dennehy, I got to thinking about the weird way I sometimes dream. Don’t worry those two disparate concepts do eventually tie together.

People when they are asleep dream in sorts of manners. My sister has told me that her dreams are in black and white and only in two dimensions like something from an old television show. Personally, I dream in full color three-dimensional glory in absolute fidelity. In fact, when I awaken from a dream there may be several moments when I have to sort out what is reality and what was dream. We’re not talking delusional things like nightmarish monster and the like but if I dreamt of eating an apple then I will wake up with the taste still lingering in my mouth and I have to take note that I was not actually having one. But full realism is not where I find that my dreams are the oddest.

Sometimes I dream movies.

I don’t mean that I dream about movies, though that has happened but rather my dreams become films. Occasionally I will be in one of the film dreams as a character but there have also been instances where I never appear in the story at all and I’m observing it like any other movie.

Dennehy appeared in one of my nightmares. This is one of those movie dreams where I watched and did not find myself inside of it as a doomed character. Dennehy, Anthony Perkins (of Psycho, though he had already passed when I had this nightmare) and a woman whom I did not recognize take a small boat into icy waters to retrieve cannisters of toxic waste that they had illegally dumped. They have to move the barrels before authorities discover the crime. The woman really really hates Dennehy’s character but the backstory reasons are never revealed. Diving for the waste they are attacked by eel-like monsters. Perkins is killed and the two survivors end up stranded on a rock jutting from the sea trapped by the eel/monsters.

I used the nightmare as inspiration for a short story “Araceli” that appeared in my collection Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Tales of Technology and Terror. I have always felt that nightmares are gifts for my creativity.

 

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