Category Archives: writing

One Year Without an Agent

It was a little more than a year ago when my literary agency made it official and dropped me from their list.

I won’t lie, that hurt.

I won’t lie, I saw it coming. Emails went unanswered manuscripts went unread and in general I seemed to be more and more of an afterthought so the eventual move was hardly surprising. I am not naming names and I am not here to trash talk anyone or make a big public angry rant. The Author/Agent relations is a relation and now all of them work out, people have the be compatible just as with romantic entanglements there comes a time when it is better to walk away than to stay in one that is unhealthy and counter-productive. For those who are still with that agent and that agency I wish you all the best.

So, what has happened to me in the intervening twelve months?

I mentioned that ‘manuscripts went unread’ well that referred to a strange little novel I wrote where I combined Science-Fiction with Film Noir. I am certainly not the first person to that, there a plenty of novels exploring that blending of genres but what is different in mine are the exact sub-genres I braided together. Noir has two major branches, the ‘Hard Boiled’ school of police and private detectives and the ‘dark underbelly’ of society. That second branch is represented by works such as ‘Double Indemnity’ and ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ and it is the flavor I wanted to work with, merging it with colonial science-fiction about humanity as it struggles to survive on alien worlds.

I took that SF/Noir manuscript that had languished unread and found a publisher that produced books of both SF and crime narrative and submitted it. The book sold. First time, first publisher I submitted it to. I just completed the edits to the manuscript and my editor has submitted to the house’s production department. Vulcan’s Forge is expected to hit the shelves next March.

The manuscript that started the relationship with my former agent is showing promise as well. A major house that specializes in military SF, which is what that manuscript is, just alerted me that the work had been pulled of ‘closer examination.’ Of course they may still pass on the book but it’s more activity that it had been getting.

On the short story front I made it to ‘Finalist’ for the Writers of the Future Contest. That’s in the top eight slots out of thousands that had entered. I did not win, but it felt good that my odd little AI/Ghost story made it so far.

The point of all this?

If you’re queries are bouncing off agencies, do not despair. There are more paths in that just that one. Keep writing, keep plugging, and remember never ever self-reject

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Are they Alternative Histories?

The following post has spoilers for Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood so proceed at your own discretion.

 

In the film Inglorious Basterds the heroes in a bloody and suicidal action murder the inner circle of the Nazi party including Hitler himself, presumably bring World War II to a premature close while in the current movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood the cult followers of Charles Manson instead of murdering Sharon Tate and her houseguests attack her neighbors presumably launching Hollywood into a utterly novel sociological path.

Are these films with their fantastic premises and fairy tale ending popular examples of Alternative History fiction? Alternative History is that genre of speculative fiction which imagines how the world might have been different had history taken a different track than the one we know. For example what if the USA had lost its war of independence, or if WWI had not started? Harry Turtledove is today’s best practitioner of this art.

One the face of it this answer seems obvious, both of Tarantino’s film wildly diverge from actual history making those cinematic excursions truly an alternative to our own. However I think it require more than that. After Braveheart has loads of things wildly different from actual history and yet I have not heard anyone argue that it is an ‘alternative history.’

I believe an essential component of alternative history is an examination of what those differences mean to our understanding of the world. It is an examination of the consequencesof the change not just the change itself. In both films the story ends with the change, we never see what that means for the wider world. How does Hitler dying in 1944 change the Cold War, with Tate’s brutal murder how does film making change? We have no answer from the filmmaker, not even the hint of one. These are fairy tales, not alternative histories.

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When You Stare Into The Art The Art Stares Back Into You

Obviously this post’s title is a play on the famous statement about staring into the void and how that changes you what I am speaking about is not so much about change as revelation.

With the release of Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood his largest box-office opening to date, there have been a slew of reviews with interesting takes on what the themes and cultural significance of this cinematic fairytale. Given the subject matter, 1969, the Manson Murders, the transition from ‘Old Hollywood’ to a new star system, and the failure of the ‘Hippie’ movement as the idealistic 60s gave way to the cynical and dark 70s Once  quickly became a mirror that reflected the philosophies, politics, and morals of those critiquing the film.

It is an interesting and I think often forgotten aspect of critique that what once comments upon, compliments, or derides in any work of art but particularly with narrative pieces, says as much about the reviewer as it does about the art itself.

In my writers circle I often say ‘No honest review can be wrong,’ as a truthful critique, one that if reflected of the person’s sincere thoughts and reactions, paints the art as it impacted and moved, or failed to move, that person.

It has been fascinating watching the political chatterers liberal and conservative react to Once  revealing their internal biases, talking past each other, and illuminating the very real differences between those world-views. It could be an interesting experiment for some writers to write phony reviews in their characters’ voices.

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Story Construction in Two Rules

There are a lot of factors in good stories and good writing so it goes without saying that you need more than two ‘rules’ but I do think that keeping this pair of elements in mind you will be well set on a path for making tighter stronger stories.

Rule 1: The character must want something that is difficult to obtain.

This is the rule that will drive the plot. What the character wants can change as the plot evolve and situations force the character onto new paths, but there must be something that the characters wants so badly that it becomes a need.

Rule 2: The character wants the wrong thing.

This is the rule that drives the character arc, the emotional heart of the transformation that will force the character into new growth or their final destruction. What I mean by ‘the wrong thing’ is that the character at the start of the story has a worldview that is going to be challenged and found false or wanting and by the end of the story the character will have transformed by taking on a new world view. What the character wanted at the start of the story is driven by that old worldview and what they achieve at the end is a synthesis of their growth and new worldview at the story’s end.

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A Strange Dry Period

When it comes to my writing productivity this year has been curious. Earlier I sold my first novel to Flame Tree Press and that was exciting, thrilling, and informative. I look forward to the stages and processes yet to come, the cover reveals, and ultimately the book’s release early next year.

Now, you would think having achieved something that has been long sought after, fought for, and dreamt about would be a vitalizing incident spurring an explosion of creativity and output but it’s been rather the opposite. Every short story I attempted for months following the contract stalled and crashed. It seemed that I could start a story but following through to completion seemed impossible.

Last moth as we hurtled towards the deadline for the quarter for the Writers of the Future contest, something I will remain eligible to enter and win until early next year when the novel is published, it seemed I was going to have to skip entering as none of those accursed shorts would land instead of crashing. Then, with less than six days before the deadline a new idea burst in my skull. At first I had thought to rewrite an idea from many years ago but sudden inspiration transformed it into a new concept with wholly new themes. A furious several days passed and the story, this time, behaved, coming to a dark and hopefully satisfying conclusion.

Since that submission my creative energies have been growing and I have begun work on a new novel, tacking for the first time in a novel length work an alien as a central character. It would seem that the strange and mystifying dry period that followed signing the contract has ended.

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Terrific Art, Terrible Person

As a consumer what do you do when the artist is a terrible person?

In this day and age when less and less of what was once considered ‘private’ become public and common knowledge more and more anyone who is idealized and lionized is revealed to have not just feet of clay but dark black hearts as well.

I am not speaking of just the abrasive personality, the demanding and tyrannical nature of their relations with coworkers and assistants but deeds that are criminal and often unforgivable. I need not give a detailed listing of the recent and distant scandals that reveals some artists, performers, and creators to be truly reprehensible people.

What should you do?

There are no easy or one-size fits all answers. To each of us lies our individual moral duty and obligations and as shepherds of our own consciences we have to find the answers alone, but I can share some of what guides me and perhaps that might illuminate for myself and other how to approach the difficult and fraught choices.

I have to ask myself does the art endorse, reflect, promote, or otherwise give support to the actions that I found reprehensible?

Kevin Spacey is a talented actor and apparently, yet to be proven in a court of law, a terrible person when it comes his behavior. Does his art endorse the sort of actions he has been credibly accused of? It doesn’t seem so to me.

It is easier separate the artist and the art when the art lies completely apart from the artist’s reprehensible actions, Polanski’s Macbeth is my favorite film adaptation of the classic play and has nothing to do with the man’s criminal actions. I can enjoy the filmmaking, the artistry, and still support the position that he deserves the jail time he escaped.

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Frameworks for Fiction

In my opinion there are two critical frameworks for constructing fiction in a western tradition, on deals with the plotting and the other with the story but ideally they are used in a complementary fashion.

The plot is a simple ‘If … Then’ construction focused on the character’s objective, the IF portion of the statement is the goal the character must achieve and the THEN is the consequence of failure of success.

A simple example”

IF I do not make it to work on time, THEN I will get fired.

Knowing just this must a writer could craft a story about the troubles for getting to work. If the obstacles in the characters are too easily overcome then the story will lack tension, while if the consequence of failure is too slight then story will feel pointless. IF I am late to work THEN I will not get any of the donuts is a conflict but scarcely one that people will invest much time or emotion into. The relationship between then objective and the cost of failure is the heart of tension and reader engagement. This framework applies to the larger story and to individual scenes and when you’re thinking about larger works like novels it is important to not backslide from serious consequences to lesser ones. If an individual scene has a slight consequence compared to others that have come before it then it is vitally important that a larger goal with a more serious consequence remain unresolved.

Story is about change and can be reduced to the concept ‘I was/believed X and now I am or believe Y.’

The essence of a powerful story is that the reader can identify with the character’s transformation. This works in the positive mold as character grow and become better person, or in the negative when characters are consumed by their baser nature. What is important that that the character is not the same at the end of their journey as they were at the start.

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Down to the Wire

As many of you know I enter regularly in the Writers of the Future Contest. Winning the contest has launched quite a few careers in the SF and Fantasy genres but for me the biggest prize isn’t the money, or the entry on my CV but rather the weeklong seminar that the winners attended that is led by one of my favorite writers, Tim Powers.

The contest is open to authors who do not have profession grade publication credits and after checking with the contest administrator I confirmed that I remain eligible until Flame Tree Press publishes my novel. Given that it is my plan to enter every quarter that I remain eligible.

And this quarter has turned into a bit of race.

Every short story I started this quarter has sputtered and died in the middle and with the deadline for entering this Sunday evening I truly thought I was going to have to skip this submission.

And then an idea came together as I as falling asleep last Sunday. It’s all there, a strong narrative, an SF idea, and a character with a terrible choice before them.

I am nearly done with the first draft and I think I can complete it today, which leaves just Saturday and Sunday for polish and edits.

It’s a race.

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Further Thoughts on Aladdin 2019

So my mind keeps circling this year’s release of Disney’s Live-Action version of Aladdin.It feels to me that the movie just didn’t quite work and as a writer I want to dissect the corpse and find out why. I may not have found the primary cause but I think at the very least I diagnosed a serious complication and contributing factor.

In the 1992 release the character of Jasmine, Aladdin’s love interest, is principally a human McGuffin. The set-up of the story is that Jasmine, by law, must marry before she turns sixteen, as the only offspring of the ruling Sultan, Jasmine becomes the route to power. Her husband will rule and Jafar, the scheming adviser/sorcerer, wants to marry her for that power while Aladdin, the good hearted ‘diamond in the rough’ wants to marry her for love and thus will wield that power more justly. Jasmine simply wants to choose for herself and not be ordered to marry someone she doesn’t love. Jafar and Aladdin have opposed goals, only one can achieve their desired end and as such the plot has conflict between its two poles of good and evil. Jasmine has no song in the 1992 version because there is very little she is trying to achieve and very little character beneath her surface motivations.

The 2019 release of the story has made critical changes to the plot. Jasmine is no longer forced to marry on any timeline, removing the ticking clock that helped drive the earlier version. Jafar, with somewhat deeper motivations, has plots to seize power without the requirements of a royal marriage, which removes the conflicting goal between him and Aladdin. The two characters are no long directly opposed ceasing to be well-defined protagonist and antagonist.

Complicating matter from a structural standpoint Jasmine has now been given her own goals and motivations and a song. She is presented as smart, capable, and with a burning desire to serve her people as a leader, but thwarted in this because of her sex. She wants the throne not for vain glory or to make the Kingdom a great power but because she wants what is best for the populace, placing her in direct conflict with Jafar. It terms of the plot Jasmine and Jafar are now our respective protagonist and antagonist.

This would be perfectly fine if  the script had been re-written with the dynamic had formed the spine of the story but the movie insists that Aladdin is the hero, he is the protagonist in a story in which his stakes are secondary when compared to other characters.

Look at the stakes for each character.

Jafar, failure means loss of position, imprisonment, or death because if you move against the Sultan and fail it will end badly.

Jasmine, failure means the people loss her leadership, her empathy, and she is consigned to a lifetime of watching an evil man ground the populace in the war plans.

Aladdin, failure means he continues his life of poverty. Aladdin’s stakes are improvement of his life or stasis; he stays where he is. No ticking clock, no disaster befalls him, not the sort of things the Jasmine and Jafar are facing.

To fix this they needed to either give Aladdin stakes that mattered as much as Jasmine’s or Jafar’s or they need to re-conceive the story with Jasmine as the lead, the protagonist, the hero.

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More Thoughts on Noir

Recently I have been re-reading my SF/Noir novel Vulcan’s Forge  in anticipation of editor’s notes as we proceed towards our early 2020 publication date and, along with watching classic noirson streaming while reading some of the classic works in their original forms, I have been thinking about the nature of the genre and what really makes up this beloved form.

In previous posts I have discussed how one of the principal driving factor of noiris to me is how characters are consumed by their appetites and I still hold that this is an essential elements in noir  fiction, be it film or literature, but I am now thinking there is an additional element, beyond the stylized ones, that feels central to the genre and that is the conflict between the character and their culture.

In noir  fiction characters are often immoral and that immorality is judged against the larger culture that character comes from.  Murder, theft, and unsanctioned sexual activity are the hallmarks of noir  movies and from the classic period running through the 1940s and 1950s acting on these desires places a person firmly beyond the boundaries of ‘polite society.’ Even when the heroes of noir fiction aren’t murderous insurance salesmen but rather the hard-bitten border-line alcoholic private detective they still transgress far beyond anything accept my society at large. Sam Spade before being entangled in a hunt for the ‘black bird’ and temptation of great wealth it represents is betraying both his partner and societies morals by his affair with Archer’s wife. Time and time again the main characters in noir  reject society’s conformity, sometimes they do so with an internal code such as Spade or Jeff Bailey in Out of the Past  or in other instances they simply violate society’s rules out of greed and lust such as Walter Neff in Double Indemnity.

All of this prompts the idea, that I am sure is far from original with myself, that a close reading of noir, either in a film or prose piece, can also been seen as a commentary on the society surrounding those characters. This is doubly so when the noiris combine with another genre such as fantasy or science fiction where the society is likely to be as fictional as the protagonists leveling an additional responsibility on the creator to be detailed and thoughtful about their narrative and what it says about human nature both at the individual and societal levels.

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