Hugo Nominees

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

March 11, 2012 -- 7:33 p.m.
I'm still feeling sick. But my scab thingy is gone, at least.

As a member of last year's worldcon, I got to nominate for this year's Hugos. I'm not going to go into all the entries, but if you're looking for a good set of stories to read, here are links to ones I nominated.

The Paper Menagerie, by Ken Liu. A short story about a Chinese mother and her Americanized son's relationship, illustrated with the help of magic origami. Made me bawl like a baby.

Younger Women, by Karen Joy Fowler. A short story that hilariously asks, "Why would a vampire fall for a teenage girl, anyway?" This one is really short so GO. READ. NOW.

The Man Who Ended History, by Ken Liu. Again. The man's a writing machine. He's already got a double-Nebula nomination in two categories, and I can't see how he doesn't get at least two nominations for the Hugo as well. How often does that happen? This novella is another WWII time-travel-ish story (there's that time-sucking nexus again...) but instead of visiting Hitler, this story is about Japanese atrocities, such as the "Asian Auschwitz". It's written in the style of a movie script, which I think is awesome.

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Mathematical Representation of a Good First Chapter

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 13, 2012 -- 2:28 p.m.

I ditched homework and went to LTUE this weekend. It might have been a mistake for my GPA (I completely failed to put together proper spider charts for my linear programming class) but it was still fun. Mostly, I listened to authors reading excerpts from their work because I thought the opportunity to network with other authors in a less-crowded format would be a better career investment than hearing more from panelists that may or may not be specific to me as an individual.

The highlight of the reading for me was, surprisingly, hearing Natalie Whipple's excerpt from her upcoming YA book, Transparent. Very good stuff. I liked the other excerpts I heard, but for some reason, this one just hit all my buttons. Maybe it was the mention of having chocolate-smelling breath as a super-powered mutation :)

I sat down afterward and tried to figure out why it engaged my interest. Usually, when I read the opening of a book I like, I've had it in front of me so I can point to specific paragraphs I like. But Transparent isn't due out until 2013, so I couldn't do that. But in a way, that makes things better, because certain things stuck out in my memory, making it VERY clear what hooked me.

Since I was also focused on my upcoming data analysis (statistics) midterm, I automatically created an interest equation that represents my own personal hook regression. In other words, this is the mathematical representation of whether the first chapter of a book hooks me or not. Pretend that I know how to make blogger do Greek letters coefficients:

B1symapthiccharacter+B2UpFrontConflict+B3CoolSettingDetails + u = Y

Where Y is a dependent variable (outcome) which equals my own personal hooked-ness. If you want, you can record it as a binary with a 1 of hooked and 0 of non-hooked, or you can just consider it a continuous number with the higher outcomes equaling greater hookedness.

OR, in less math-speak: having a high Y is good for a book. And the higher the factors inside the equation, the higher the Y.

Let's break down the independent variables one by one.

1) The sympathetic character variable. It's an index made up (roughly) of the following components. Everyone's personal sympathetic character index will assign different weights to each part of the index, but I think, in general, each person will have a significant number of the following factors involved in their unconscious enjoyment of a character:

a. Competence at something cool (in this case, robbing stuff while being invisible). Note: if the character is incompetent/unintelligent, this will end up being the only negative number in the index, since all other variables are strictly positive/zero. And what is one negative number multiplied by x positive numbers? A negative number! In non-math speak, it doesn't matter how awesome your character is in all other qualities, if she's stupid or incapable, I will have a low Y. In fact, I will end up hating the book MORE the higher the other numbers. An author will actually be worse off if an otherwise awesome character is incompetent than if a mediocre character is mediocre.

b. Character's "outsider" quotient. This includes the character's is emotional/unusual physical pain and their relationship to society and its authority figures. So, characters who don't fit in well will generate more sympathy.

c. Character's sex. While I first thought about this as a binary o=male, 1=female variable, I realized that, in reality, it's going to be an index of feminity/masculinity with characters that fall into the masculine stereotype being harder for me to sympathize with. This indicator may be reversed for male readers, esp. if they're into action novels. I strongly suspect that my own personal utility equation involves a positive interactive variable of female*competence, which means the effect of female competence is drastically higher than the components of either femaleness or competency on their own terms.

Other components of the index that weren't as present in Transparency's case (or at least not in as great quantities) but would definitely add to my enjoyment:

d. Character's sense of humor (This was minimally present in the reference of chocolate breath as a super-power).

f. Character's "sameness" w/ reader's self (i.e., how much is this character like me? Is she a bookworm? A gamer? A math geek? I guess there was a little of this going on, but it mostly is absorbed by the "outsider" variable.)

g. Some mystery about character or their history. (Again, I don't think there was much of that here, except that I wondered about the scientific rationale for turning invisible.)

So, those are the factors that go into the sympathetic character index. The variable UpfrontConflict is less complicated. In this case, the conflict was twofold:

1) The first chapter involved a robbery, which included conflict with the people being robbed.

2) The chapter hinted at future conflict w/ the character's father--a promise fulfilled later in the excerpt when the father uses his own superpower to manipulate the protagonist into doing something she didn't want to do.

Probably, the variables should be separated out into internal and external conflicts, but I don't necessarily think the coefficients would have any statistically significant difference from one other, and most of the time, a good author will layer both into the same situation. This would make it hard to detect whether one or the other would be sufficient on its own, because in books where you only have one or the other, you are also likely to have a confounder present (the dreaded variable BADWRITING). Hmm, could you strip that out with some sort of instrumental variable? I'll have to think about that.

The third and final factor going into the overall equation is Cool Setting Details. This is pretty self-explanatory. This is what draws me to genre work. Maybe other people read for the characters, but I'm all: "Give me more about the evolutionary history of that man-eating shrub you mentioned on page 41, BITCHES."

I also think this variable is what distinguishes the medium-level-novice from the expert-level-novice, both of whom are in the pre-published, larval state. People who are past the beginner-novice stage can usually create characters who tick off some of the traits on the character interest index in their first chapter, as well as produce some kind of conflict. But very frequently, they forget the setting details that make me hunger to read more. In other worlds, the intermediate novice will begin their book with a fight scene using an outsider character that has a sympathy-inducing DARK and TRAGIC past. But the focus of the scene will be on the sword-fight, which will be generic enough that it could appear in any book from Conan to Game of Thrones, with a little tweaking.

So, in other words, great sympathetic characters + conflict + good setting details=great hook.

...wow...

DO YOU SEE WHAT GRAD SCHOOL/DATA ANALYSIS HAS DONE TO MY BRAIN, PEOPLE?????

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Ten Minute Poem

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

Aug. 31, 2011 -- 6:31 p.m.

Well, grad school is more time-consuming than I expected. It's a little daunting to be surrounded by A-students who've been in the full-immersion class environment more recently than I. I'm used to competing with other slackers, not younger, more mathematically gifted versions of myself. I'm used to being at the top of the class, not the back. It doesn't help that everyone else attended BYU and so already seems to know everything about the campus while I'm stumbling around lost wondering what big hunk of brown brick I'm supposed to be going to. I wish there was a shuttle from one end of campus to the other. Getting from parking to my classes is pretty intense in the heat/humidity (yes, Utah does have a little of that.)

Anyway, first assignment due this weekend. We'll see if my writing/analysis ability is still any good. I've forgotten how to do simple things, like citations and mathematical proofs.

I'll try to post pics from Worldcon this weekend. It was awesome, but the kind of awesome that's hard to form into words. Mostly a sense of community. You can wander over to someone and strike up a conversation with people who share your loves, instead of looking at you with confusion and pity. And so many of my idols. E.G., I hung out at the Tor Party before the claustrophobia got to me and someone walked up and started talking to me and it was Lois Bujold. Lois Freaking Bujold just started talking to me like she's an ordinary person and not a goddess of awesome. In my own personal pantheon of Gods, anyone with a wheel-barrel full of literary awards is certainly able to pull a fiat lux out of nowhere and make it bright enough to blind my ass.

All the authors/editors had the same advice for breaking in. Write. Write some more. Write a lot more. Don't follow trends. I keep hoping if I collect enough chips of wisdom, I can cash in for a book deal, but it doesn't work like that. I understand, but I still can dream that someone somewhere will have the magic word that I need to hear.

The writing group with Louise Marley and N.K. Jemisin went well. Both of the pros had some hard things to say, but they were good hard things that I needed to hear. I'll take some of their advice and ignore the rest, but it was cool talking to them. Louise Marley grew up in one of the towns I used to cover with the newspaper I edited. Small world.

Anyway, until I post pics of me sitting in the Iron Throne, here's a poem I wrote in ten minutes, because that's all the time for writing I've had this week. I'll try to lock myself in a closet this weekend, where considerations of calculus don't tread on my creative synapses.

TEN MINUTE POEM

The pencil of Black Moods

is scribbling in my ear.

It makes thick, jagged lines

Whispering as it carves straight into

The pink lining of my cochlea.


From above, its scratches look like

Yarn after the cat’s been in the crochet drawer.

Or maybe letters formed by a two-year-old,

Who abandons things midway to go chasing after orange Jello.


Half-formed memories flow, twisted and taunting,

Belched out by the tip of the dark lead

Pressed against my eardrum--

The next-door neighbor to my brain.


The pencil of Black Moods

is scribbling in my ear.

Scribbling, scribbling…

Good thing I have an eraser.

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Adventures in Seattle

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

June 29, 2011 -- 2:16 p.m.

Updates from the hermit.

Seattle is lovely this time of year, but full of pollen. I keep a spittoon nearby for the purposes of expactoration. Makes me feel like Gaston, or Mulan. What is it with Disney men and spitting, anyway? We had a cherry pit spitting contest back in Montana as part of Polson's cherry festival. And yet, surprisingly, spitting was not considered the height of masculine virility.

My family went to eat Chinese food to celebrate my younger brother's acceptance into UW/my other younger brother's first third of his summer law internship/my acceptance into grad school. As traditional, we ordered the weirdest things we could find on the menu. (At a previous Chinese restaurant, this led to my discovery and addiction to moss soup, which is very good). This meant 'pig ears' and something literally called 'Blood and Guts Stew' for my brother. The cook came out of the kitchen and asked him if he liked it. When he said he did, she went away shaking her head at the crazy Caucasian. We needed her to interpret what the different meats were. I thought the whole thing tasted vile and the intestines felt far too jiggly going my throat. But my brother gobbled down all the wobbly blood cubes (thickened with corn starch, maybe?) and wished there were more. I'll stick with my eggplant, thank you very much. It was quite good.

Pig ears are...well, pretty much like you'd expect. Very chewy. Like nibbling on someone's ear, only you're eating it. (Insert generic Mike Tyson joke here. *Baddabing!*)

Skin Farm is at 70,000 words and counting. It'll probably clock in around 90k. I did a good push but then wrote myself into a corner, but I think I've got a way to write myself out again. I got signed up for writers workshops at Worldcon. I need a new perspective, I can't quite decide whether my first chapter is too exposition heavy or not and I've tainted my writing group. The workshop looks at 8,000 words, so I spent time editing the first three chapters (AGAIN. I swear I've got the things memorized by now!).

I'm still toying with the idea of self-/e-publishing the book. I'm definitely feeling dubious. It seems to me that the best strategy is to wait until you have a sufficient collection to post several books at once and then hold sales trying to entire readers to get the whole series. I've been researching how authors with similar books have been doing, and the answer is pretty hit or miss. The ebook market seems to currently deal with a certain narrow demographic that I suspect will widen over time. One potential problem is categorization. Skin Farm has a young protagonist, but it seems like every other book in Y.A. is a romance first, a science fiction book second. So people looking to read books with male protagonists and limited smooching (Think James Dashner's Maze Runner) might not be shopping in that category. I might have better luck labeling it adult sci-fi. After all, Ender's Game has a young protagonist but adults love it too.

I wish Amazon had more sub-genres. Science fiction/fantasy as a category is much too broad.

Yesterday, I also wrote a 5,000 word short story, a re-write of the classic Cinderella fairy tale that came to me in a dream. Only in this version, she kills everything she touches and uses a glass knife to frame her evil stepmother for murdering Prince Charming's father. Rell's fairy godmother is a glass blower. I wasn't able to work in the step-sisters, but ah well. It's probably a better story idea in theory than in practice, but it felt good to work on something else. When I edit it enough that it makes sense, perhaps I'll post it. Whenever I write short stories, I go into 'fairy tale mode', meaning a lot of jumping around people's heads, heavy narration, and very shallow POV, so it probably isn't very salable, but it was fun to write.

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CONduit 2011 Report -- Are Vampires Hurting Our Girls?

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

June 4, 2011 -- 10:11 p.m.

It's interesting how two people can have two completely different interpretations of a story. For example, my eyes widened at CONduit last weekend when Dragonlance author Tracy Hickman referred to the old folktale Bluebeard as a 'feminist empowerment story'.

In the story, a woman ends up married to a nobleman who tells her she may go into every room in his mansion except the basement. Of course, she goes into that basement while he's away and finds his dead wives hanging on hooks. Before she can escape, the nobleman comes home and tries to kill her, but she delays him long enough that her brothers save her.

I used to love this story, probably because the key the woman uses to open the basement door turns blood red when she uses it and won't scrub clean. Because I was that kind of kid. Bloody keys are cool.

So I've known this story for a long time, and I've always thought of it as a variation on the 'pandora/eve motif' where a woman is punished for her curiosity. The moral of the story is don't disobey your husband, or he might turn into a sociopathic maniac and kill you. A quick browse on the internet reveals that this interpretation is the most prevalent among folklore scholars...or at least among students attempting to sell their papers online. (This is one thing that bugs me on essay-selling web sites--the writing/analysis is usually so poor that if you did buy one and use it, you'd get a bad grade. If you're going to make money selling essays, you ought to at least be selling quality essays.)

However, Hickman's contention is that the Bluebeard story is actually a feminist cautionary tale about abusers. Don't marry someone who's perfect except for the fact he murders people, because the beast will come out in the end.

Now arguing about the legitimacy of an interpretation is somewhat silly--after all, what's the definition of legitimacy? By who's metric do you judge? Hickman's interpretation may have more substantiation than mine, because the female isn't punished at the end for her curiosity--she escapes death and is rewarded by retaining her dead fortune's husband. And Bluebeard killed his first wife even though she couldn't have found the room with the bodies, ergo curiosity may not have been what killed her (although Bluebeard could still have been using the room for something else he didn't want discovered.) So the female character could have been in danger regardless.

But it was more interesting to me how two people could view the same story and take completely different messages away from it. In extension, Hickman served on a panel talking about the modern romantic interpretations of vampires, which basically degenerated into bashing Twilight. (Which bugs me. Not because I like Twilight, because I don't, but because bashing on Twilight is too easy/popular. I never like people who shoot fish in a barrel--that's why I stopped watching South Park. Making fun of Paris Hilton is not a difficult feat of comedy. Same with the Daily Show and it's target on stupid right-wing nutjobs. It's better when it focuses on the nutjobs within the government, instead of the nutjobs commenting on the government.)

Anyway, Hickman views the vampire romance genre as bad because it suggests the monster--the traditional vampire seducer/rapist etc.--can be tamed and loving. He believes it tells women that it's okay to live and love abusers who hunger for blood because love conquers all.

My response, on the other hand, is that the vampire romance is an extension of the traditional romance genre's 'bad boy' with a supernatural twist. That twist gives heaps of wish fulfillment because the (mostly) ordinary girl (stand-in for the reader) is special enough that she's chosen to be privy to a secret world that her peers aren't. Whether it's Sookie Stackhouse or Rachel Morgan, she has a special access to a world of wealth and magic that ordinary mortals can only dream of. Every woman wants to believe they are that special enough to have that kind of access, and every woman loves the hint of danger that comes with the bad boy motif, with werewolves instead of bikers.

Because of my worldview, I tend to look at the vampire romance genre with benign amusement, viewing it as no worse/better than any other romance genre involving a lovable rake. I used to enjoy the books, until I felt the concept got too trite and predictable. Tracy Hickman, on the other hand, views the whole paranormal subgenre as very dangerous indeed.

The point is: Two people can have different ideas about the world, and their interpretations may not touch anywhere.

I was going to segue into stories about bad con etiquette, which seems to be getting worse every year, (including someone having an actual phone conversation during the vampire panel when Tracy Hickman was speaking. A REAL CONVERSATION.), but I've decided to try to be more understanding of other people's worldviews. Even if that worldview includes changing a baby's diaper during a lecture on the carpet two feet in front of my sneakers.

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Application

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

March 1, 2011 -- 2:40 p.m.

Finished my application to grad school. Got my GRE scores, too. I got a perfect score of 6.0 on the essay writing sections and decent on the verbal and quantitative -- 720 and 710 out of a possible 800. Reading other people's scores on the internet depresses me because so many people seemed to get perfect everything.

I'm so tired. The application process really stressed me out. It seems like the schools try on purpose to make it difficult and frustrating. Proof that you really want to go there, I guess. I'm not at all confident I'll get admitted because I know I messed up one of the forms, but I'm so sick of everything that if I don't get admitted because I submitted form A instead of form B (almost identical, but B has to be signed by two people instead of one) it will almost come as a relief. Part of me would rather get a part-time job selling hot dogs than try and start another career. I'm trying to get a degree that involves more math in the hopes that, if I haven't managed to publish a novel by the time I get out of school, then my job won't make me too tired of writing to write. I wasn't capable of coming home from work as a full-time reporter and then work on a novel. Too much writing.

Days like this make me want to go move in with one of my friends, who pays no rent because that he lives in a solar-powered van parked in some random forest. He doesn't have to buy much food either because he goes dumpster diving. I went with him once and enjoyed it. It gives one a real hunter-gatherer thrill. If you ever actually do it, you'll be amazed at how much stores throw away. There's so much waste in our society! Plus, if you go to places like Trader Joe's, you get really good food that's just, say, one day past an expiration date. Eating organic for zero cost! Yay! I didn't much care for rooting through moldy produce, though.

I paid my registration fee for the fantasy convention in Reno. I'm looking forward to it. A bunch of people in Brandon Sanderson's class are carpooling up together. I'm still looking for other people to share a hotel room with.

Ugh. I have a midterm this week. If it were just one week later, my life would be so much easier.

Speaking of math, apparently someone else shares my love of turning writing into charts and trying to break it down mathematically. You can read about it here. Ancient Greek detective stories is one of those ideas I wish I had thought of.

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Top 10 Insights From LTUE 2011

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 20, 2011 -- 10:45 p.m.

Beautiful cover for Karen Mahoney's Iron Witch. It would stop me absolutely dead in the bookstores. Everything is perfect, from the curve of the arm mirroring the swirls on the background to the biggest drops of color coming from the jewels in her hand.

I thought we'd see more witch in high school stories along with the Vampire craze. I always loved Willow best of any Buffy character. It frightens me a little that Buffy the Vampire Slayer started its run 13 years ago. I'm getting old... (*weep.)

I went to LTUE and enjoyed it. I was in a cranky mood part of the time so I was more Scrooge-like than I usually am, mostly because some authors tended to drop into English teacher mode, which is "Let's define things" instead of "Let's talk about writing" (The first twenty minutes of the Dystopian panel, I'm looking at you!!!)

My joy was not assisted by questions from a certain class of writers who seem to be shouting "Look At Me! Look at ME!!!" during Q&A. IE, asking, "My book is about this, is that okay?"

My response to my fellow audience members is, "Will you stop writing your book just because I say no?" If so, you're not cut out for this life. And if you'll write it anyway, regardless of the answer, why ask the question? Why seek validation from authors who haven't actually read your work?

I practiced my pitch to the editor of a small press and got shot down, which was expected. I didn't think my story quite fit her line, and she agreed with me. Good practice. Hopefully I wasn't annoying. It really is hard to sum up a story in 15 words or less. Unfortunately, the words you say in front of a mirror aren't always the words that come out of your mouth, either. And there's the strangled, fast, sweaty tone. This was my first time ever doing it, so I'll give myself a little leeway.

My worst fears are confirmed that agents/editors are being glutted with post-apocalyptic stories like Skin Farm. I would have been able to finish and query my book much sooner if I hadn't gone back and revised my first novel, so I'm a little frustrated I may have killed a book just because of poor timing. I will make sure I try the regional presses when I query in hopes that they may be less swamped. I need to read more locally published books to see if I fit in with what they're selling. James Dashner and Brandon Mull both started in local publishing, as did Ally Condie.

My friend/fellow writing group member Stephen will be posting videos of some of the lectures and panels, so anyone who didn't get to go can still get some insight. My favorite panel was probably when author John Brown broke Hunger Games down scene-by-scene and chapter by chapter, showing us the mechanics behind why Katniss so easily grabs both our attention and our sympathy. I love working with other people to strip away the smoke and mirrors behind good books. He said he'll post his slides on his website, here. It's full of good advice for new writers.

Anyway, here are my Top 10 insights from LTUE:

10) If you want your books to do well internationally, you might want to create characters from different races/backgrounds.

9) Part of the reason urban fantasy is so popular is because of its low learning curve. It's easier for readers to get into the world because everything's the same, except for one significant change, (IE, witches are real). Not everyone has the time or desire to understand the thick, complex otherworlds of your B.A.F.S.

8) Author Paul Genesse uses the Myers-Briggs personality archetypes to help shape his characters. Too technical for me, but I've never heard that method before. Probably because I put the I in INTJ.

7) From John Brown's Hunger Games lecture. Every single book only has a small audience. Even for big-time authors like Stephen King, while millions of people pick up his books, even more people hate him/don't read him. So whenever you write a book, your audience is going to be relatively small. Ergo, you should take other people's advice with a grain of salt NOT because they're wrong but because they might be the wrong target audience. (For example, Dan Wells and Brandon Sanderson weren't fond of Hunger Games because they'd seen the story before, while the teenage audience that carried it to NYT bestseller status hadn't been exposed to The Most Dangerous Game/Battle Royale. My younger brother hates Wheel of Time and G.R.R.M.)

6) New authors are frequently advised to put their characters in pain. In response to a question, "How dark is too dark?" James Dashner said that too dark is when a character's pain is meaningless. You can torture your character, but don't do it for no reason. I asked a similar question to Brandon Sanderson in his class. I asked, "How do you create a necessary sense of progress while also making your characters face miserable amounts of set-backs?" The answer was to give your characters successes with one hand and kidney punches with the other.

5) From Dave Farland's lecture: When it comes to editing, don't try to tackle everything in the first go-around. He separates his own editing process into multiple stages. I know I waste too much time with line/syllabic editing early on, so it's advice I should listen to. The problem is, I never do.

4) To quote John Brown: "Manure is Gold. Cherish your crappy ideas." In a brainstorming session, we looked at stereotypical, boring ideas and turned them into interesting ones. We were dealing with ghosts. I think my favorite two were, "Ghost Labor Unions" and "A People-Whisperer" (ie, the only ghost in a ghost society who can talk to people). Either of these could make an interesting book. I came up with the idea of a ridiculous Pro-Wrestler's ghost. Think of Hulk Hogan's ghost haunting an arena, trying to scare people. Go on. Try not to laugh.

3) There's a reason big totalitarian governments are so common in dystopian stories. Because a) they make sense from a world-building perspective, since tyrannical govts logically arise after great economic/social stresses. b) they create easy sympathy with the character, because an all-oppressive government turns them into an instant underdog. If you want your novel to have the same sort of menace but don't want to use a government, find something else that has that same atmosphere of oppression. I like this advice because it transcends genres. Threats to your heroes should always feel oppressively, well, threatening.

2) Turning old tropes on their head can be good advice, but consider your audience. Larry Correia's wife got sick of goody-goody Tolkein rip-off elves, so he created "Trailer Park Elves" for his book, Monster Hunters International. But Dan Wells once pitched a story about vampires who were a twist on the trope because they were total, absolute losers and was told that you can't sell novels about vampires who...uh, suck...to an audience that loves vampires. So the advice is be original, but know your audience too.

1) Some babies have really big lungs. Seriously, lungs must make up half an infant's weight. I can't think of any other reason so much sound can exude from something so small.

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CONduit Report

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

June 3, 2010 -- 12:16 a.m.

Well, it's Weds. somewhere, right? I got caught up in some expected yardwork today when the sprinkler system went down, so this post's a little late. But here it is...

Ah, CONduit. The Salt Lake City Con where you can attend a writing panel on How to Get published, stay for a belly-dancing performance and learn the basics of detecting paranormal activity...all in a single night. This year's theme was space pirates. There's such an ecletic mix of gamers, artists, anime fans and writers, if you go to CONduit and don't come home with at least one new friend...it's probably your deoderant.

Of course not everyone's friends are as cool as the Dread Pirate Roberts. But hey, you can't all be as awesome as me. Relax. Don't strain yourself. We wouldn't want to be setting the bar too high now, would we?

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I even introduced myself to some new authors who's advice I have been listening to for a couple years now, and found out that Larry Corriea and John Brown are every bit as nice as they seem to be. And Provo Library doesn't carry a copy of Larry Correia's book, FOR SHAME! Some regular faces were absent (I missed Howard Taylor's jokes) and some of the local authors didn't stay long, but I still went home with a belly-full of advice and a bucket-full of motivation. I chucked out about 40 pages of text on Skin Farm yesterday (and by chucked out, I mean typed out. How much is decent enough to merit staying in the book, we'll see). Brad Torguson recognized my face from previous conventions and came to talk to me and introduce himself without prompting. I also managed to avoid all Lost spoilers, miracle of miracles. I'm still a season behind, grumble.

My question of the con was: How do you deal with form rejection? And boy, these authors had experienced a lot of it. I didn't quite ask every author there, but the ones I missed I'm sure would have had the same advice. Keep your chin up. Work hard. Throw stuff at the wall. Something's bound to stick eventually.

In some ways, there were a lot of depressing moments at the con, because some of the authors haven't had much upward career movement since last year. Barbara Hambly, our guest speaker, has had a whole ton of success over the years--our library has a shelf almost dedicated to her exclusive use. But after she'd "made it", quit her day job, worked full time as an author for decades, she ended up getting chucked out by her publishers (and this time, I do mean thrown out) and forced to find a job at the time in her life when many people start contemplating retirement. So...you can make it, and still not be safe from the terrors of the 9-to-5.

The funny thing is, the community college she's teaching at wouldn't let her teach creative writing, because she didn't have a masters in English. Ha!

Anyway, a lot of advice we got was the kind of thing you've heard before...ie, don't send your query letter on perfumed paper, or dark paper...(part of me groans at people's ignorance)...but there was some new stuff too, like that sometimes the "no submissions" policy at publishers is just a shield and if you send a manuscript to someone anyway, you might get a bite with comments. Not something I'll try unless I have a few Writer's of the Future awards under my belt, but interesting nonetheless.

Barbara Hambly--who is a really interesting woman, she talked about her ghost sightings and her student's reactions to her numorous tattoos--advised me to start with character when writing a historical novel and then work outward, since I'm finding the whole historical setting bigger than I can chew. She also told me her WoW server (not mine, alas) and that she plays on Thursdays.

Another thing: One of the distinctions between M.G. and Y.A. involves spheres of influence. In a M.G. book, the biggest influence on a main character tends to be family. Often kids saving their parents or having to make due without their parents or fighting their foster parents or wishing they had parents, etc. In Y.A., that influence has shifted over to friends. It's less about family and more about that cute boy with the locker three feet left of the girl's bathroom. Friends in trouble that need rescuing instead of parents. Anyway, I'd never thought of it that way before.

I also learned there's a new subgenre called "New Adult" which is for college-aged folks. Not quite adult, not quite young adult. I'm not sure how you'd go about marketing such a thing and whether its a viable sub-genre since college kids are pretty much adults, but it'll be interesting to see if it develops. I can see how there are some unique "college" issues that would make for great reading. I haven't seen a shelf for it in bookstores, but it's been awhile since I went walkabout in a Barnes and Noble.

James Daschner also told me not to worry that I've missed the bandwagon with post-apocalyptic. They're still hot, which is good because I hope to get queries out on Skin Farm by Christmas.

Anyway, I went to readings, a Wheel of Time panel, and other events, and saw pirates and armed knights carrying signs "WILL FIGHT DRAGONS FOR FOOD." James Daschner gave me a copy of the first few chapters of the sequel to Maze Runner (signed) which made me squeal a little. I squealed a lot when Brandon Sanderson told me the first Wheel of Time signing for Towers of Midnight will be at BYU again this year. I'm picking out my sleeping bag already, you losers. That #1 signed copy is MINE!!!

But more importantly, I came home with so many story ideas, I'm not sure what to do with them all. I'm beginning to wonder if I might not actually be a secret Y.A. author in disguise. I think of myself as gritty, but Y.A.'s gotten pretty gritty of late, and most of the characters that spring into my mind are young, if not high school aged. Probably because I am trapped into a perpetual state of immaturity. There would be some advantages--Y.A. authors are less penalized for genre-romping, so I could write historical fantasy and dystopian science fiction under the same pen-name--as well as a wider audience and bigger paychecks. Sounds good to me.

Next year's COnduit will be superhero themed. The guest is Tamora Pierce. They've already got the website up for next year. I've never read anything by her, but I like some of her book titles. I find myself scratching my head and wondering where to start. Usually I study an author's career in chronilogical order but reading 26 books by the same author is a little dauting.

UP FRIDAY: Double book review! The Lies of Locke Lamora and Paper Mage.

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Status Update

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

May 31, 2010 -- 12:27 p.m.

Yeah...so...

Ever since my laptop broke, I've been really too busy to blog, but I went to the CONduit and Larry Correia inspired me to try to do a little better. We share an anti-authoritarian streak which I find delicious.

Part of the problem is my life is very boring at the moment. I spend a lot of time perched over a keyboard or perched over a book, reading and usually loving it. For example, I just finished I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells--fabulous, in a creepy way. I cannot believe it took him so long to break into the business because he is obviously very talented. Also, Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself which is a must-read for any epic fantasy writer because of his fantastic sense of humor. More on that when I do reviews.

The bottom line is I'm recommitting myself to blogging three times a week. Monday, you'll see a traditional writing prompt. Friday will be a book review. And Weds will be...whatever I feel like. The exception will be this week because this is a holiday. You'll just have to figure out what to write yourselves.

In real life, I've been looking for a part-time job and helping my grandfather out at the business from time to time, and with the yard work. My laptop is working again, but I realized that I have to bite the bullet and buy a new one. The battery is very bad and needs replacing, but my model is so old I'm having trouble finding something compatible. I've found batteries on the web that SAY they're compatible, but in my laptop, the socket is just about in the exact middle of the battery, and in all the pictures of all the others, the socket's about two inches right of center.

Also, there's the fact that I could buy a non-crummy used laptop for only about twice what it costs me to get a new battery. So I'll scrape the money out of somewhere.

I'm also planning on going back to college for a graduate degree. Journalism isn't for me--I used to be a newspaper editor and reporter, and neither will make me happy in the long term, even if I was good at the reporting part. So I need to figure out a new career, hopefully one that gives me time for writing. At the moment, I've settled on professor because I miss the ivory tower. My favorite courses in college were all about the Political Science, so I'm going to take that second major and turn it into a masters. BYU doesn't have a poli-sci masters degree, but they do have one that combines politics with statistics and economics, which sounds right up my alley. I'll study hard and actually care about my GPA for the first time EVER in hopes of one day getting a graduate degree in political economics from an ivy league school. If I can't get a professorship right out of the door, maybe I can work for the government. But I think I'll thrive in the publish-or-perish setting.

Anyway, to apply to this program, I need a better grounding in statistics and to brush up on my economics knowledge--I took micro and macro in college, loved macro so much that the professor tried to woo me to change majors to economics because he thought I'd have a big future in it, god I wished I had listened--so my tentative plan is to apply for admission to those undergrad classes during BYU's winter semester. Maybe I'll take a couple of creative writing classes, too. I've always struggled with creative writing classes because...well...usually I'm the best in the class by a large margin. I'm sure I sound arrogant, but it's the simple truth. The other students read my stuff in awe and say, "This is soooo ready for publication," and then I send it in and reap the form rejections.

But hey, there's nothing wrong with continual positive encouragement.

Coming up on Weds!: Reports from CONduit. Including a picture of me and the Dread Pirate Roberts.

PS: Trying to break into the market? Check the up-and-coming agents listed in Agent Kristen's post about her early days. One of them, Suzie Townsend, did a breakdown about what's hot in YA. It's eight months old, but I bet a lot of her advice still applies. Especially in the don'ts...

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Updates

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

May 18, 2010 -- 12:06 a.m.

Busy, busy, busy!

I know I haven't been getting to the blog lately, but I haven't been getting around to much of anything, honest. I've been taking intensive SCUBA diving lessons that run 6 hours a night (plus an hour commute) and keep me up long past my bed time.

The weird thing? I thought I was going to be claustrophobic and hate it, but by the end of the lessons, I seriously love it. I love swimming around in the bottom of the pool, seeing everything and never having to come up for air. It's so peaceful and beautiful. And I love watching other people. Especially the men and women in my class who've been married for awhile. Underwater, everything is magnified. Every gesture seems tender and romantic, even if it's not.

It's a whole new world, and I love it.

In the mean time, I have a goal to finish a first draft of Skin Farm by the time we leave for Maui (late June) but I don't think that's going to happen since I've been hovering around the halfway point for some time now. But I had a revelation today that fixes the problems I was worried about, so yay!

I also have a goal set up to revise the first thirty pages of God's Play by the time we go down to Maui. I think it can make it even more awesome. But completing new book is top priority over revising old, at least for now. I don't want to lose the Skin Farm mojo.

I'm really disappointed I didn't get to go to Children's Book Day at the Provo library. Rick Walton was there. He was in my mother's critique group. I used to sit by their knees when I was a wee thing, listening, and sometimes bringing my own children's stories into read. I had a story about a little girl who has an invisible monster at her side who keeps eating cookies and she gets blamed for it. In the end, she learns to love the monster for who he is, not scold him for who he isn't. It was cute and quite good-- I have an entire box devoted to the stuff I wrote when I was twelve, including my first novel. Which was about a girl with magical powers. Go figure. One day, when I'm a rich and famous author, I'll publish it.

Writing dream from last night: I'm at CONduit, the sci-fi/fan writing con at Salt Lake. There's a workshop that I think is on the writing. Actually, when I get there, I find out it's INTERPRETIVE DANCE. We're going to be acting out a summary of the first part of our novel in front of a panel of Utah writers, which includes Brandon Sanderson.

I get up, wondering how the heck I'm going to explain the world of Skin Farm through dance. When I ask, Brandon says it's okay to read parts. So I figure, I have a killer first page, I'll start with that...and then I look down and find that I've dropped the pages, they're all out of order, and I'm starting in the middle. Then one of the members of my writing group (Stephen) tells me he's sorted everything and hands me a stack of papers. But when I start reading, I realize: THIS IS NOT MY BOOK. Not only that, but our old inkjet printer has smeared the ink around so I can't read anything in the first paragraph. I start reading anyway, and end up mumbling all the words but "starfish" and "arena" before my time expires and I have to sit down.

The worst thing is, through this all, Sanderson watches me with this expression of total patience and sympathy. It made me want to cry. He starts giving a critique about "hackeneyed dialogue" and I wake up. Thank goddess.

Keep in mind that I slept through the dream I'd had right before about my uncle fighting off a werewolf and failing. So apparently, being asked to do interpretive dances representing my work in front of a panel of authors is a worse fate than being eaten alive.

Brandon Sanderson is in my dreams because I finished Warbreaker two days ago. Very awesome. I love authors who incorporate humor into their work, since it's something I struggle with. I would have liked it to focus more on the class differences between the Pahn-whatev and the Hallandren, but everyone knows I'm more interested in building cultures than plots. I think that's my main problem. I get so excited about cultures and characters (ooh, they worship earthworms!) that I forget about everything else.

I wonder what's up with him and female perspectives, anyway? His only book where the main character is male (other than WoT) is Alcatraz. Or am I missing one?

BOOK I'M READING NOW: Green, by Jay Lake

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Way of Kings Cover

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist


March 1, 2010 -- 5:40 p.m.

The cover art for local author Brandon Sanderson's new epic fantasy series Way of Kings is up on Tor's website. It's by Michael Whalen so it's, of course, beautiful. Sanderson read us excerpts from the book at LTUE, and the parts I heard sounded like good writing. Unfortunately, of course all the ideas I had while listening were blatant copies so I hard to discard them, which was too bad. Some of the ideas were quite good, I thought.

Still not sure whether I'll read the book, because it sounds like the formatting is weird and I hate books I can't finish in a single setting. He said this new puppy's over 400,000 words long, which is freaking ridiculous. Longer than the Gathering Storm. I like reading epic fantasy as must as the next nerd, but I don't like the carpal tunnel that is going to come with it if I try and pick up the hardback monster. Wheel of Time is bad enough for that.

There's also a second choice on the Tor web page. I like the composition better, because it has that classic s-curve which so delights the eye, but it doesn't work so well with the lettering. It surprises me that the lettering is done separately BEFORE. I always figured they decided on the lettering after they saw the cover art. When I decided newspaper layout, I did them both at once, and it's hard for me to imagine developing headline lettering without seeing the image I'm going to use first.

My favorite part of this cover is the sky. Which is incredibly gorgeous.

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So...

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 15, 2010 -- 5:08 a.m.

Well, I was planning to cover the rest of the panels too, but my laptop decided to finally breathe its last gasp and die. I'm glad that it waited until my novel was done to do that.

I'll take it to a shop for repairs. Hopefully they can make it work again or at least get the data off. Most of my stuff is backed up, but some of it isn't.

Hope love, and laptop malfunctions. Naturally this will cut down on my blogging for awhile.

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The Bob and Howard Show!

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

And we're back!

I spent the past hour listening to Brandon Sanderson. Random trivia--he writes on beanbag chairs. Ooh, and I think he might have remembered my name, which is super-cool. But I'm not sure because I interrupted him. (Damn it! Whenever I'm around famous authors I seem to lose all my social skills...)

Any mistakes in transcription are mine, not the speakers. Don't blame them! There are undoubtedly errors, and I apologize and kiss your feet asking forgiveness.

We're with Bob Defendi and Howard Taylor (shclock mercaenary)! Both have only had four hours of sleep, but are inebriated on caffeine. Ah...caffeine. I'm on the nightshift at the moment, so I'm used to being in bed by now. So I'm in the same place.

Topic: Interesting side characters.

HT: I suggested: Building interest in side characters through improvisational theater.

Inspired by a couple reasons: 1)Said-character: Ranger named Lucas not right in the head. He loves killing demons. Loves teaching small children to mortal. 2) A role-playing game. Starts in a jail where the last thing we remember was the tavern. We'd gotten real dwarven ale...three days ago. At some point and time, I cleric, was I set the out house on fire three days ago. The Jailer and him had a conversation "It had it coming!" Holy fire would not have worked on that outhouse if it had been pure!

BD: There was a bidet joke in there somweher too.

HT: Now it;'s coming back to me!

BD: And we were playing with an impressionistic twelve-year-old too.

HT: So we had to hide the poop jokes.

... he goes on to recommend the Rifftrax to Twilight.

Anyway, what I was going to suggest is what we get from you a couple of suggestions--in just barest forms--a side character from your novel. And we'll figure out what's wrong with them. Not what's wrong with them in the novel, but why you wouldn't want to meet them in real life.

Suggestions: Xenobiologist who has unknowingly picked up a parasite.

Poop jokes ensue.

Xenobiologist Meet: 70yrold circus performer.

More poop jokes. Laughter.

Setting: Central Park after Dark.

BD is the circus performer, HT is the xenobiologist.

BD: What you're doing there at the book is illegal.
HT: What city am I in?
BD: New York. Or that's where I am.
HT: Uh, what planet am I on?
BD: Uh...earth...I don't know what planet you're on...
HT: Oh yes, yes, central park, New York. I'm testing the water solluble quality of the soil behind this bush.
BD: Usually you do this with pants on.
HT: I do have my pants on, they're those things around my ankles.
BD: No, you're supposed to wear them up.
HT: Like you?
BD: Yes. But maybe a little lower.
.......stuff I missed...
BD: Well, I'm out of poop jokes.
.....
BD: Nice boots.
HT: Yes they are. (Makes lightsaber voices) See, this is how I get back to my bus.
BD: I might have some work to do.
HT: Do you have creatures who need studying?
BD: Yes. And we follow them around and train them.
HT: Do you have bushes? Soluble bushes?
BD: Well, this time--
HT:The bush is very absorbant, but not very soluble. It doesn't dissolve in water.

Something about clowns and vegetables....? Can't hear for laughter.

HT: I was under the impressiont hat would dissolve them and then re-exrude them in a more soluble form.
BD: No, we just do it as a warning to the others.
HT: Clowns breed quickly, then?
BD: I've heard they're pretty quick...

HT: Should we pause to learn what we've learned about these horrible people. I have no idea what your grandfather did at the circus, but I hope he was better than Bob at it. So...I'm an alien, because that fascinated m.

BD: My grandfather and his mind went to WWI and WWII and only one of them came back.

HT: So what do you like to see in a good side character?
BD: Good dialogue.
HT: Well, we didn't have much of that.
BD: Well what do you like in a side character?
HT: Good dialogue.
BD: What's good dialogue?
HT: It's unexpected.
BD: Well, there was that.

HT: Improvisional theater is never no. It's never cutting people off. It's yes, AND. If you have a piece of dialogue and you say, 'no, you can't do that,' then you don't delete it. You take that piece of dialogue and you expand on it.

BD: Oh, you mean real characterization, not random crap. (Laughter) Orson Scott Card talks about how its more realistic to have people jump to conclusions without the full explanation.

HT: Talks about in late, out early. Prunes the dialogue from the front.

BD: It's easier to prune dialogue than art.

HT: Writers of graphic novels can re-write and re-write and re-write but webcomix don't have the luxury.

Introduces Jake Black of Writing excuses fame, BD's boyfriend. JB: "I called him a man-mountain of love ONE TIME five years ago in this very room and I can't live it down."

HT: Recommends more in-late-out-early.

BD: The problem with side characters is that there's so little you can do with them. I mean how much was Elf doing in the beginning?

HT: HAd to write it in early, then keep it around.

BD: You don't have time to make the character three dimensional. Make them two-dimensional. The problem is, the authors use the WRONG two dimensions. Side characters are unexpected and memorable. For example, BD is a side character in waitresses lives. They always remember him because he makes the waitresses pick his salad dressing for him because someone once prophesied the world would end if he picked his own salad dressing.

HT: I'll have ranch.

BD: I don't believe the world will end...but you never know.

HT: You are one of the most i nteresting side characters in my life.

Something about salad dressing and concealed weapons?

Q: How long does it take me to decide which side characters I'm going to focus on in a story?

HT: About three strips. If a side character does something interesting enough that it feels like it needs to be resolved, I feel like I've made a promise to his readers.

BD: Something about the kissing curse--(Read Schlock Merc )

HT: I can't fulfill it too soon. Minor arc-ties into a main arc.

JB: Where's the line in your view between a side character and a main character? Do you ever create chars with the intent of spinoff?

HT: Up until the point I hired a colorist, the idea of spinoff was one of those entertaining fantasies that I had no hope of fulfilling. But now I realized that the franchise still has a lot of legs on it. All of my minor characters are main characters in their own stories. If their story is driving the plot, they become the main character. That's what I love about my gig: I'm not leasing this from anywhere else. For the next five issues, I can say Spidermen isn't the main char, Mary Jane is! Because SM is boring. All he does is shoot webs and ret-con himself every six years.

BD: Game design--whether or not they have three dimensions. The extra dimension makes the difference. They're the main character in my head when I'm writing. Anyone who had a significant part in the plot, I know them in my head. Side Keepers are usually "Inn Keeper #7".

HT: There was the odd realization that my character in Bob's game, a barbarian keeps picking up pets. The day I realized Bob was plotting out plot arcs for my pets, I got a little disturbed. They were actual side characters with actual debt.

BD: Cat is a prophet prophecied to see all cat-kind. And he hates the dog.

Cat poop jokes ensue.

BD: Just because you put something in there for a reason doesn't mean it has to STAY in there for the same reason. The reason can change. Had a watchman who ranted about money. Everybody in my writing group loved him so much, he had to have a plot. Howard's cat was a morality test. Rescued the kitten from a hole in a rain storm. I wanted to see if he'd rescued it.

HT: It's a kitten? What would I do, kill it? There's no XP in killing kittens!

BD: Howard said to me after the game session, I thought this cat would mean for.

HT: Oh, crap. This is my fault.

BD: Got out an author board and came up a cat. He's the cat of darkness, going to save all-cat time.

HT: Okay, so we hd the obligatory Lolcats joke.

BD: Writing group...listen to them. A critique group said "she's the bad guy." No, BD said, "she's the main character." No, says the groupie--she's only programmed to BELIEVE she's a main character. Every time the writing group thought she was good, he tossed in hints to the bad, and every time they thought she was bad, he'd throw in hints she was good.

HT: Elephants can be taught to paint pornography. Go ahead. google that.

BD: Not on BYU's network!

HT: African elephants are nasty-tempered. They are not petting zoo or friendly animals. They will stomp you dead. I was talking about uplifting a species--moral gag after moral gag. The one thing everything agreed on was uplifting african elephants was a mistake. Intelligent = ten tons of bad temper that's smart enough to go shopping. But a bunch of people responded WANTING to see the elephants. No, I don't want to draw an elephant! The eye level...the size...the panels are so small! Went and whined to Sandra. The comic this summer was the elephant-kind masochism,--don't take that phrase out of context--elephants stomped the people in the logical combination. The head of great big robot also came out of HT's laziness.

Q: When do you know when you should assign a story task to a side char vs. a main char.

BD: When you're going to kill them. There's a follow-up--is it supposed to matter? If you're going to kill someone, there needs to be enough investment making them poignant. I have a problem with game design because I want a side plot/b plot in every adventure. But I can't control what they do. For example, can't make chars fall in love.

HT: And he just can't depend on it. Lucas is not going to tell a love story.

BD: Well, a love of killing.

Well...to answer the question...I think it has to do with logic. I hated space above and beyond because you spent 10 mil training to shoot. He shoots better. Story fulfillment...is it more satisfying? Sometimes, I find it really satisfying to have some cabby come and save the world. Some guy comes in and turns the light switch off and that just de-powers the bomb.

HT: Like Return of the Jedi. Lots of stuff got rendered irrelevent when Lando blew up the deathstar. I mean, the Emperor would have died anyway. We're feeling happy because Luke redeemed his father--which is really impossible when you think about the sheer amount of evil vadar has under his belt--when the real hero was Lando and that funny-faced guy.

BD: That's because the original sapped all the tension out of blowing the death star. It happened once before, so this time, you can leave it to the side character. Empire's Luke's story is really boring. See Eldest. Eragon = Star Wars. Eldest = Empire Strikes Back. But the thing that the script doctor did is he did all that exciting stuff when Han and Leia, and then he mirrored it with Luke. Han's cave w/ space slug. Luke's cave...see it borrows tension.

HT: You can get away with having the side character perform about any plot point as long as your plot structure supports it.

JB: You take a side char like Lando, and he has to fit in the parameters. He can't be a jedi. If you're creating your own world, it's okay, but in someone else's world, like Star Wars, you have to play by other's rules.

HT: For instance, limited char growth.

JB: References Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan.

BD: Yeah, I think there are going to be a lot of heads on the floor by the time he's done.

Those rules apply to the writer as well. Look at Ender's Shadow. BD likes it more than the original Ender's Game (HERESY!!!!) Since the ending couldn't be a surprise, the secret allows a different prospective because Bean has to do the emotional processing.

JB: Hey! I wrote stuff in the Ender universe! I got to play with Peter and Valentine! (He's been doing story consulting for the Ender comics, by-da-by)

Howard pimps Jake.

Q: How well do you need to know their backstory to write it effectively.

HT: If you don't need dialogue tags, you're good. If not, you don't have his voice yet and you may need to meet his dad. If the dialogue is interchangeable, then he's one dimensional, not two.

BD: Argument has to be coherent. Minor characters, side characters, if they have a quirk that's memorable, that's all they need.

HT: Like not ordering their own salad dressing.

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Wizardly Goodness

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

Non-Cliche Wizards (Wyzzzardz)

We're a little late coming into this one because my computer takes freaking 15 mintues to log on.

Panelists: Julie Clegg, Paul Gilette, Brandon Sanderson, Scott Parkin (sp?)

Q: How do we depart from the Gandalf archetype? Especially since stories reuqire a wise mentor?

BS: Taditional story focusses on someone young who doesn't know much about the world. Thus, they need the mentor as a rock, something to latch onto, the hang to. "It fulfills a great story function." Novel is a young form of literature...depending if you count the tale of Genji or not...scholars point to the birth of the novel in modern form in 1700s. Now, we're more mature. We want knowable protagonists instead of unknowable characters who stand above. We write the wizard's POV, make him fallible, instead of having the young mentor-needing presence.

SP: Keep him if you need 'em, lose him if you don't. No need to jettison him if it works for your story. Other side of ancient mentor is evil mentor. Wise crone can be good or evil.

BS: Jafar.

JC: Evil has a bigger evil.

PG: Subverted in my Iron Dragon series by filling different roles--religious priests, warriors. In the second, use a young mentor. Martial artist. Mentor doesn't need to be as weak as Raistlin. He can be stronger than a warrior. The wizard is the tough guy. Studying since a small child, got knowledge. No beard. Twist the wizard!

BS: I like to dig at the roots of these sorts of questions. One of the things that's bothered me is when people use Hero of a Thousand Faces as a guidebook. Even Lucas didn't work...shoe-horned it into the prequel triology. For example, the virgin birth. It was meant as a checkbox. NOT FOR THE STORY OF ITSELF. It didn't fit the story, it was shoe-horned it. Don't do that. If you're going to use the Campbellian characters, use it to make it a greater story, not just because "you have to have one." This mono-myth is what happens when people tell stories. They told the story that came naturally. They did not shoe-horn this stuff in. Look at the roots of the story--why do people like the wise mentor? What does it reprensent? Wonder Mystery Magic--he's the symbol of this. Where he works--the main characters aren't using magic in the same way. Dumbledore/Gandalf says: hey, hero, go do this and then he wanders off. It strains disbelief a little--why doesn't Dumbledore do it himself? Why not remove the character?

SP: What are you trying to accomplish with this character? Simple wisdom, power, magic. Common filler techniques--ancient prophecy. Serves the place of the quest-giver. (I hate ancient prophecy. I think it's overused.) Don't paint by numbers. Tell the story you want to tell. That's the problem with these panels, we're not going to hand you a script of a story that works without these wizards. Come up with the great story first.

BS: These are tools, not rules. Know what the wise mentor does and why people like them. He's part of your toolbox, but do them your own way if you need that where you told.

Survey: Are we trying to fing alternatives to the wise mentors (quarter of audience raise hands) fresh look at the genre (about the same amount)

BS: I think the same ppl raised their hands twice.

JC: You have to know the rules to break the rules. Talks about how you start with the stereotypes, write them, understand them, then once you know, you break it. So the next fantasy I'm going to write has the "old squirrel mentor" and as long as he has a nice long wells.

Dan Willis walks into the room and joins the panel...15 minutes late. Go Dan!

BS: Maybe we should talk about the fact that fantasy as a genre has gotten very tired of the same kind of stories. Then heard in fantasy genre that people are tired of vampires. He was wrong. Read Rob Newcomb--who flopped for reasons the publishers don't understand. Sanderson thinks he fails because telling the same story fails in comparison to Tolkein/Robert Jordan. But then again, Eragon worked. You never can tell what's going to be really big. Advice: stay away from architypes. This is a large genre that is largely unexplored.

JC: Is it ever okay to write it? Yes, if you're beginning. Try to twist them, after you've written and learned.

BS: Even before I was teaching beginning writers, I grew very tired of people saying "My Elves are different." My response: I've read lots and lots and lots of elves. Tad Williams has elves. Really good elves. But I, personally, am sick of them. (Note: there are a lot of people who will not read books with elves.) Same thing with wise old mentors. You can subvert it. For example, Wheel of Time: Gandalf shows up and Gandalf is a girl. Thom Merilin is Merlin with a mustache. And no magic. (I totally did not catch that until now.) Don't think you're being fresh and original just because your orcs do red skin.

SP: Look at American Gods--well known archetypes but made fresh. For example, make powerful but stupid. But they;re not what a novel is built on--they're things to help a story, not the story yourself.

Hands up on who's read American Gods. (SERIOUSLY?????? You guys need to broaden your literary horizons. There's like five of us.)

DW: (Dan Willis) The problem is with any story unless your protagonist sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus, your hero needs some training up. Someone needs to do that, and that's usually the mentor. But then the mentor needs a fatal flaw so the hero still has a role. Wizard replaces Google, as a world of knowledge. You can, of course, skip that part of the story, but then you have that. You still need the world's wikipedia (Hermoine) and that's what the mono-myth wizard does. (That's why mentors often die! Because the heroes lose the crutch). The best thing is to make the character a character with a capital C. Say...Yoda. We meet him, the goofy flake, we know he's powerful, but he doesn't show that face. "If you can make that guardian threshhold character interesting, you'll go much further than just taking the beard off."

JC: But Yoda's disguise was also a archetype, the fairy crone who hides in the forest and tests heroes to decide if they're worthy of their gifts. The old woman at the well. Yoda at the well.

BS: Roots of storytelling--two roots, told to people who weren't educated, so educated people represent something different, because there are more educated people. A weird thing happened right after Tolkein--wizard/science is hard to understand. We're not interested in him, we're interested in the mortal man who's like us. Not the godly people. Cinderella, not the fairy godmother. But after Tolkein, we become educated and we empathize more with Gandalf. Then you see the apprentice stories...the wizard. David Eddings, Terry Brooks. The young apprentice becomes Gandalf rather than Gandalf gives the quest and we go on it. But where is it going now? What's the next step? Start with the character already learned. We're going to start with the character right now. Because we're in the society where we have access to so much information.

SP: Once upon a time, the mentor character was the substitute for god. Not interested in local politics, relies upon the lesser creatures to make the world better. Now, we're not replacing god or seeking power from god. Do you require god to be an external power, or not? Does god have a speaking role in your stories?

PG: Actually, in the mythology, he's an angel. He's there to inspire men and elves. I didn't know that for years--I just thought he was an old man. When I understood what he was, that kind of blew my mind. He's the mouthpiece of a god as a why.

DW: I remember when I first read lord of the rings I was 12 or 13, I was struck by the fact Gandalf didn't do much. He never really did much magic. It's the difference you talk about--in the old tales, you have the guardian character who won't do what needs to be done because it needs to be done by the hero. In the modern series, its the guardian can't do the great thing because he can't. Dumbledore dies because of his own fatal flaw.

SP: Harry Potter--transcended the world of Voldemort and Dumbledore at the end, turning things into something more mundane.

BS: Another convention in MG is that you remove the authority figure so kids can have adventures. So there were extra constraints on Harry Potter--the kids have to have the adventure. Dumbledore usually has no good reason not to solve things but its a kid's book so Harry has to do it.

JC: Can you all think of some classic novels or recent stuff that breaks the boundaries well? The Riddlemaster Triology is the one he likes. As you go through the series, you're revealing more and more. He isn't a stereotype.

DW: Lloyd Alexander -- he does a great thing where he makes the wizard character a pig.

BS: Liked Robert Jordan's Moiraine. She was really interesting, followed some of the new paradigms later in the series, but in the first she was the weird, wise unknowable mentor. (I liked her better as the weird and wise). Part of the archetype: THE WIZARD ALREADY DIES. Told his sister Gandalf was going to die in book five or six.

JC: At least Lloyd Alexander's wizard made good bacon.

BS: All the wise archetypes kick the buckets during the climax. One thing I've tried to do with characters like this is I like getting into his head. I always wanted to get into Gandalf's POV. It changes the story if you do the POV because you have to make them flawed and interesting. We have these people in our lives--parents and scout masters and that--and their stories are interesting. At least to me.

You see a lot of Merlin stories in post-modern. That's kind of doing the same thing. (I loved MAry Stewart!)

SP: Alternative--look at eastern myth, or Greek And Roman, where the gods are advanced men but not advanced morally.

BS: But watch out for the "wise negro" / minority characters.

PG: Harry Dresden. He's broke. He's pretty interesting. Yet he should be the CEO of some major company or something. He's got skills, people, but he's the bottom of the barrel. He's got to survive.

BS: Yep, Harry Dresden is an awesome wizard but not Gandalf.

Comment: Dragonriders of Pern. The bard! He was very human, although he was a mentor. (He was my favorite character.)

SP: Human-driven power versus god-driven power.

DW: But when you have a protagonist as the magical character, you must develop the rules of magic well. Dresden--rules, like technology doesn't work around him. If you get into the Asian stuff, resist the temptation to end the books where the Asian books end. Your American audience will not be happy.

Shameless promotion! They do it!

Hey, Brandon knows what he's doing this time. He's doing two different readings from Way of Kings. Neato! He's doing the Superstars workshop. See more about it on his blog. Too pricey for me...

And yet ends another interesting episodes of Jennifer's blog.

DW blames the parking gods for his lateness. The parking is pretty difficult here--I got here a half-hour early to make sure I had a seat.

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Back in Black

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

Thursday February 11, 2009 -- 9:33 a.m.

Or pink. Whatever.

Anyway, I'm finally back from my excessive vacation and am kicking off by blogging the BYU Life The Universe And Everything conference/seminar/thingy. Anyway, it's directed to those of us who are aspiring science fiction writers.

We'll start the morning off with "Fantasies without Magic." The panelists are: Larry Correia (Monsters Hunter International) Robert Defendi (game designer, works for people, Death by Cliche), Paul Genesse (Moderater--The Golden Cord --Iron Dragon series) and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn and Gathering Storm, Elantris, etc.)

Forgive the typos, no time to clean up and I'm typing perched on my purse. Not the stablest of positions! Brandon's a little late. The other panelists joke about how we're all here for Brandon...but he'll be here in ten minutes.

They do their intros. Buy these guys books! They're awesome! [Note on my style--direct quotes are marked by "quote marks" and everything else is paraphrase. Parenthesis are my own comments.]

Q: Is it really fantasy if it doesn't have magic?
LC: Sure. Mine has monsters. My magic is in the background. "The real question is 'Can you have fantasy without ninjas?'" (Apparently Brandon Sanderson is going to buy the 300-people crowd doughnuts...or at least so LC promises on his behalf.)
BD: The line between fantasy and sci-fi is so blurred anyway. When it comes right down to it, what is magic? Gods? Fantastic elements versus traditional magic.
RD: George R.R. MArtin--very little magic. Apparently none. (He asks the crowd who's read GRRM and there's surprisingly little. Shame on you! SHAME!) As long as the world is different...
LC: Anne McCafferey--fantasy (kindof) without magic. Bioengerneered dragons are still dragons!

(I'm surprised no one's brought up Guy Gavriel Kay.) Description of GRRM-- "It's like getting punched in the face for 700 pages" (--LC?)

RD mentions that he was inspired to write a child-torture scene because of GRRM. Without dragons or magic, books become less escapist.

Q: How do you create a sense of wonder in the reader w/o magic?

BD: Character still confronting the impossible, overcoming that obsticle can create the sense of wonder.

Brandon Sanderson walks in and comments on Bob Defendi's beard.

"This is what ten a.m. looks like" says BS. "This is the only time of the year that I get up this early." He brags about his A parking pass.

This is Brandon's first panel ever as a guest of honor. Says he's on the wrong panel because he doesn't do this.

BS: Looking at the history of fantasy, fantasy started without magic. Conan/Tarzan are the earliest predecessors of fantasy. Gemmell, GRRM are the spiritual successors. "It's gritty, it's dirty and if there's magic, it's not understood." Setting can be sense of wonder. Tarzan had the dark continent. Conan had pre-history. John Carter of Mars, Disney's doing a film of...even though they don't have clothes on. Mars is like that.

LC: I got bashed on, compared to Conan's writer.
BS: Notes that guys in loinclothes hitting people with big swords were actually pretty eloquent.
etc., etc., etc., eloquence and nudity! Woohoo! Recommends reading it because it's better than it's expecting. "If you're going to use magic, use the place to give a sense of mystery." The far east may seem normal to us, but it can be very exotic to the characters, making it exotic to us.

LC: Doing an alternate history series coming out next year. Magic isn't wonder for the main character because she's used to it. Indoor Plumbing causes wonder. Skyscrapers become wonder.
Magic is not.

Q: At what point does magic become science?
BD: When you're Brandon Sanderson!

BS: Admits he's built his career on this. Time travel turns science into magic. Bring science back from the past and it becomes magic. Joel Rosenburg, Dragon and the George sort of thing. The same thing works in reverse--wizards can be scientists.

BD: Anytime your magic is so well understood, like the laws of physics, I think you blur the line.

(I disagree on this point. A well-defined magic system is still magic. No way it'll ever be science. Approaching something scientifically doesn't mean that the object approached is science.)

Argued with Dave Wolverton/Farland about speed runes versus endurance runes for horses, loves the nuts and bolts. The more you give me that, the more you enjoy it.

BS: Making magic a science sacrifices the wonder but gives more credance to plot. Gandalf and the vagueness of magic is okay. I have to find my sense of wonder somewhere else...usually settings. "That's one of the core ideas of fantasy: immersion." Realism, even with magic.

BD: Says he's now going to put a 'theoretical magician' in his book.

Q: When does science become magic.

PG: Speaks about an Egypt series, first book is 'Warlock' and everything he does seems like magic, but it's really not. (Sounds like a cool series! I wish I'd heard the name).

BS: Talks about GRRM. (That's what you get for coming in late, Brandon.) Calls it "proof you can do great, epic fantasy without this." His history is his strength. Brutal, but genius. Admits he couldn't read past the first book. Martin barely uses any.

(Martin does this because he has a great world. Note how many books he'd already written! I'd advise beginning authors to not expect themselves to do so well without the magic.)

Joe Abercrombie -- some magic, but heir to GRRM.

PG: Disappointed when GRRM started using more magic.
LC: Did a magic Deus ex Machina halfway through my book just because people told me I couldn't.
PG: Yes, and you swallow it because its built up.

BS: Dark urban. Fantasy gobbled up horror. Dark urban is its revision--low magic elements, like Twilight. Magical talents of vampires. "A lot of Vampire books aren't approaching it at all." Vampirism as science--STDs, blood disease. (I do like it when they talk about the science of vampires/werewolves/zombies. If the science has depth, its pretty cool.) Obviously Dresden files and those involve a lot of magic. Look at it: what do the readers enjoy. If it's not the magic,what is it?

LC: The sparkles?

BS: Wonder can come on events--what weird things would happen next.

Comment: Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell does have the theoretical magician.

BS: Obviously, stole the idea.
LC: Is the epic quest for grant money?
BD: No, I want a magician who's like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. (Audience shows love for Sheldon...I'm a Leonard girl, myself.).

Q: About Slipstream--

PG: Defines it. (Look it up, people.)
BS: Almost hallucinagenic, dreamlike qualities--sense of wonder and "sense of this person is stoned." Not magical, but a sense of stoned.

Other slipstream authors listed, included convention attendee L.E. Modisett.

Q: How do you define magic (Q from magic). (I always wonder why anyone asks this question. Who cares, really? Does it matter? It's like trying to define poetry...)

BS: Hard fight. Between science/magic. Star Wars gets tugged to pieces by both camps. "The line for me is someone breaks the line of physics as we understand them." Science fiction at least gives nod to what could exist.

(Odd, how this puts faster than light travel into the magic category.)

Other panelists agree.

LC: In a business sense, magic is whatever your publisher says it is. Pitched a book as epic fantasy with detailed rules, editor calls it "superheroes."
BS: Genre is a convention for booksellers, publishers and librarians. "It's a necessary evil in most people's eyes." Except the marketers... Familiar and strange balance act. Genre helds with the familiarity.
BD: Video Game marketing. It's an RPG because that's the marketing angle.

Comments: (Not sure where he's going...GRRM is an awesome writer, no duh)...GRRM has good characters, makes sympathy.

BD: Analysis on forums of GRRM...Magic is more ritual/religious than magical. Takes the place of the moral center? Ammoral characters.
BS: He makes my point about how GRRM has been doing this forever. "I think if people COULD figure out how GRRM writes, they would do it." Master of show, master of dialogue, master of characterize someone sharply, quickly, powerfully. Brilliantly brutal to his readers, but if he wasn't so good at characterization doesn't happen. Magic is not his strength. Characters were. Follow your skills! "That doesn't mean you have to do it GRRM or BS or LC or whoever's out there. Do it your own way!"

BD: Gem of wisdom: he's brutal to his readers because his characterization is so good.

(Wow...this is like the GRRM panel.)

Q: Did that Eqyptian dude believe he was a scientist or a magician?

PG: (Wilbur was the author's name). He thought the gods helped him, but he thought of himself as a man of knowledge rather than a man of magic. He thought his knowledge was a connection to the divine.

Q: How far should you take explaining the magic system before it becomes repetitious, obscure, annoying? (Good rule!)

LC: When the reader becomes bored. No hard and fast rule. Look at Mistborn
BD: I was just going to go there!
BS: I love you guys...
LC: Note, he uses the appendixes.
BS: Balance--have more information to give to those who want it, but not so much that they depend on it. BS relates it to a learning curve, how steep a learning curve--all depends on different elements. Erik Stephenson--learning curve punches you in the face. No right answer. Some people want no answers, some people want tables. Brandon tries to cater to both.

(I definitely am a reader who likes less detail in terms of magic, though more in terms of culture and creature evolution.)

BD: I remember how things worked in Mistborn, but not why. BS told us what mattered. The theory versus the practical stuff--practical stuff is more important.
BS: Establish a rule and stick to it. As long you stick to the rule, then you won't need to do why if you're not doing rule-based magic.

Final thoughts. Is it fantasy w/o magic.
LC: Yes. (Talks about signing, workshop.)
BD: It's fantasy if I say it's fantasy. (Shills for next panel).
BS: Fantasy - Alternative. Has his personal assistant tell his schedule. (HA!)
PG: Shills GRRM.

Wow, my back really hurts after that. I doubt I'll keep up that level of detail. Next is a keynote address from an artist in a room with no plugs, so no coverage for you! HAAHAHA

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