I would like to thank the students of Melony Kempf’s classes for being so engaged and interested in my talk this morning at Pflugerville Middle School. I had fun and hope you all did too.

I talked about how I started writing when I was a little kid and wrote lots when I was in middle school and high school. I brought one of my typewritten short stories from when I was 15 years old, and told the kids they probably had never seen anything typewritten before. I also brought a selection of magazines with my short stories and of course copies of Red Gold Bridge and Gordath Wood.

I gave my writing “rules:” write every day. Commit, don’t give up. Keep everything. Get to the end. You have a writing brain and an editing brain. Don’t try to edit as you go, because you will only hurt your feelings.

I told them that all the entertainment that they enjoy — video games, books, and music — all start with the written word.

We talked about rejections, and they were suitably impressed by the 45-50 rejections I got for Gordath Wood.

And we talked about favorite books. They like Twilight, the Hunger Games, a new book called Unwind, which sounds absolutely fascinating and I must pick it up, so thanks to the kids who recommended it, and Uglies. One young lady is a fan of John Grisham. There were also the Alex Rider series, James Patterson, and Lightning Thief.

People say kids don’t read. Pshaw.

Thanks again, everyone, and read on!

Do prologues work or are they just authors marking time?

I added a prologue to GWIII and brought it to my writer’s group for their perusal. Here’s what I heard: “lacks urgency.” “Needs to start earlier at a more crucial moment.” “Characters aren’t engaged.” And my favorite — “It’s a fat guy eating whilst looking at a map.”

Fred, he of the last comment, brought three books with prologues and read from them. Two failed. They conveyed no useful information and were static. The third, from The Lies of Locke Lamora, worked (no surprise). There was action, conflict, and crucial information, and as the prologue took place years before the rest of the book, it was rightly a prologue that introduced Locke to the reader and to his world.

The thing about the prologue is, I’m not sure I want it or need it. I know there has to be some connection to our world but I’m not sure this is it. I know I want a framing device around the main story, but I’m not sure this is it either. So for now, I’ve taken that prologue out. I may try again with something different.

In general I don’t approve of prologues anyway, and this might be a case of forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do and that’s why it doesn’t work.

Salon’s Laura Miller has an excellent article about what readers look for in a compelling novel. Published writers and aspiring writers can learn much from this column. I especially liked this bit:

3. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting. Of course all these elements are interlinked, and in the best fiction they all contribute to and enhance each other. But if you were to eliminate these elements, starting at the end of the list and moving toward the beginning, you could still end up with a novel that lots of people wanted to read; the average mass-market thriller is nothing but story. If you sacrifice these elements starting from the beginning of the list, you will instead wind up with a sliver of arty experimentation that, if you’re very, very good, a handful of other people might someday read and admire. There’s honor in that, but it’s daft to write something with the deliberate intention of denying readers what they love and want and then to be heartbroken when they aren’t interested. If you want to engage with more than a tiny coterie, take storytelling seriously; if you think that’s incompatible with art, you are in the wrong line of work.

We won’t be finished arguing about art vs. commercial til the end of time, I imagine, and Miller’s argument here is a succinct and compelling case for the need for both.

One day I should scan in the rough map I’ve drawn of Aeritan. I drew it in 2005 when I was seriously deep into actual revisions of Gordath Wood, and was having trouble keeping things straight. Up in the northwest corner of the map, there’s Balancing Rock and North Salem, NY. There’s the house that exists on (the fictional) Daw Road in North Salem and simultaneously in Gordath Wood on the border of Red Gold Bridge.

From there flows the Aeritan River, and the lands arrayed out from it. There are the Temia foothills (but the foothills to what mountains?) and the many lands of Shay and Salt, Camrin and Favor. Wessen, where Lady Sarita is from.

But the map is unfinished, barely roughed out. What is on the edges of Aeritan? Besides Brythern, what are the other countries? The oceans? The people? Does this world have the same variety in people and cultures as ours does? I give tantalizing hints only, because I don’t know.

It’s not good for an author not to know. We should always know more than our readers, even if we don’t tell you everything. (Research and worldbuilding should be invisible.)  Especially if we don’t tell you everything.

So with the third book, my lack of knowledge about Aeritan is starting to wear on me. The rough map isn’t a good enough guide to the world in my head.

I need a new map so I can hint at stories that I know but that aren’t part of this story. I need to give the reader a sense that the world goes on when the book is closed. The best modern example I can give of that is Charles Coleman Finlay’s Democracy of Trolls, which first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and later was expanded into a novel. In the novella, there’s one scene that expands the simple story into a small part of a greater whole. I had such a feeling of depth, as if I was peering through a keyhole at a huge tapestry, with a sense of a greater world behind the door.

I knew at once that Finlay knew everything he needed to about his world, and chose to tell us only this story, at this time.

That’s what I want. There are a thousand tales of Aeritan waiting to be told. I just need a map of the world so I can get to them.

Welcome to 2010! It feels so weird to write that. This is a rather science fictional year, of course, due to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey 2. I noticed one mundane effect of living in the future: I rarely write paper checks anymore, living in a world of electronic cash, so I have not misdated a check (yet). Usually I write the previous year for at least the month of January. It’s the little things, you know…

The past year was full of writing advice, and I decided to take a look back at what I told you in 2009. I am relieved that in looking over the writing lessons, I haven’t steered you wrong. To summarize:

Last January, I advised you to expand, not shrink, your goals. This is important; so often we start writing by saying, “hey, I can do that.” But writers only grow by aspiring not to some minimal level of competence but by striving for excellence. Really study the authors who make you read their books in great gulps or savor every word. How do they do that?! is a perfectly valid response to an author you love and it can help make you a better writer. A little despair is good for the soul. Really.

In February, I told you how to tame your muse with a regular, consistent writing schedule. This is something like the way the prince tamed the fox in The Little Prince. Consistency and gentleness is the key. Or consistency at least.

During the summer, I gave you advice on avoiding the action catalog, in which you state, step by step, how your character gets out of the car and into the next plot point. Action must be accompanied  by some kind of emotional resonance or consequence or it is nothing but a pileup of trivial detail. I also provided tips on showing, not telling, the hoary old truism from writing workshops since time immemorial.

In November, I advised against doing NaNoWriMo. My question to those of you who went ahead: so, have you written since? Did you feel that you “won?” What do you think of the result?

To find writing lessons for 2009, you can search on writing lessons from the categories in the sidebar. And I would be happy to answer any questions you have on the craft.

Now go forth and write! Here’s to a successful writing year in 2010!

A little serendipity is good for the soul.

In my new favorite book on writing, Misery, King has his protagonist Paul Sheldon wake up out of a pain-riddled stupor screaming for a pencil. When Annie Wilkes comes running in, he scribbles down the plot point that is essential to making the new Misery Chastain book the best he has ever written, and he falls back, exhausted.

There’s so much going on in this scene. At this point in the book, Annie is Sheldon’s jailer and muse, and she terrorizes him but also, when she hears him bellow, she fears for him. But it’s also a look into the mind of a writer and how much of the process is out of our conscious control.

These plot revelations come when writers are deep into the writing process and they require a certain amount of acceptance. Some writers control every facet of their books and characters, but I can’t and won’t write that way.  I wait for the serendipitous moment, when an idea hits that makes me understand the whole story. It can’t be forced and it can’t be expected. But it can be invited. How do you invite the writing epiphany?

• Write on a schedule.
• Commit to your story.
• Let your characters tell you who they are and listen to them.
• Read widely. Newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books — all of this is fodder for the writer. If you are a notetaking person, take notes, but otherwise, let it all mix together. You never know what you might need.
• If you are dreading a plot point because it means rewriting, then it means that you probably need to rewrite. Don’t try to work a plot into your existing framework.

Twinkie says, I am my own Mary Sue

Gather round, children, for the legend of Mary Sue.

Once there was a fan-fic author, whose name has been lost in the mists of time. Some say she, for it’s always a she, wrote Star Trek fan-fic. Others say no, that she wrote Lord of the Rings fan-fic. Regardless of which universe, in her story, a lovely young woman nurses a hero back to health and in return he professes his undying love. Aragorn, Spock, it doesn’t matter — according to this legend, the young lady’s name was Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue is a thinly disguised version of the author. In fan fiction, the author places their avatar inside a well-loved universe for all the characters to interact with, be impressed by, and fall in love with. Before you go all, “I’ve never written that,” yes you have. We all have. Everyone does. It’s part of the learning process. And it’s not just a part of writing fan fiction. Some of the best-loved characters in literary history are Mary Sues.

Case in point: Jane Eyre is a total Mary Sue.

Most writers mock Mary Sues, but they have their place. Your protagonist is going to have a piece of you inside them anyway, and Mary Sues are just that process writ (hah!) large. We write for ourselves, first and foremost, so putting ourselves in the story is a natural step.

Trying to move away from writing a Mary Sue  to creating a full-fledged character takes more than changing the hair color or sex or handedness. You have to dig deeper for motivation, which in turn drives plot. How to do that is where the magic happens but a few rules are in order for any character-driven storyline.

• Know what your character wants.
• Don’t let them be buffeted about by the action. Your character must act on their own behalf. When they act, they let you see even more of their character than you previously knew.
• Serendipity. Stay open to the unexpected. Allow your character to do something, well,  out of character, and all of a sudden you get new insight.
• Provide your secondary characters with motivations that have nothing to do with the main character. Instantly, in the world you have created, the main character is no longer the center of attention. Once that happens, she or he loses some of that Mary Sue sheen.

These are just some of the ways you can go from writing thinly veiled LotR fan-fic to creating your own worlds. Then the magic really happens — that’s when people start writing fan-fic about your books, and not the other way around!

Good luck, Merry Christmas, and may 2010 be full of high word counts and many writing epiphanies!

Saoirse Ronin -- don't you think she would be be great as Kate Mossland?

Progress on what I have been calling GWIII is continuing apace. In fact, I only hit a glitch last night when after writing a 1,500 word scene I went to bed, only to realize that the scene is probably redundant. This happens. I may cut it or rewrite, but I’m not too concerned. While writing Red Gold Bridge, I wrote so fast and furiously that I went off in too many wrong directions. In fact caromed is not too strong a word. I have a delete file of some 50,000 words, which is more than half the finished book.

That’s not happening this time, or at least not to as great an extent.

But going back to GWIII — it’s not the third book in a trilogy. This book is set in the same story-verse as its predecessors but I have taken a different tack. It’s the first book in what is likely to be a new duology. Gordath Wood and Red Gold Bridge are a complete series. This one restarts with some of the same characters.

It’s fun. It’s different. I’m enjoying it. And for now, during first draft time, that’s all that counts.

As for the blog fixes — there are still some 404s out there, leading to a This Site Are Closed message. Ugh. That hurts to read — thanks WordPress for your excellent grammar! — but please note I didn’t write it. Anyway, if you get that link, let me know. And just hit Home in the top bar nav and it will take you to the actual working part of the site. Thanks for your patience.

Over on JK Cheney’s blog, the discussion continues apace. Now she tackles The One, The Predestined Mate, The Soul Mate.

Even in this day and age, usually the One is the female character’s first one, while the male character has more experience. When writing a historical romance, that certainly makes sense. But a contemporary? Not so much (unless it’s a Christian category romance, a large and growing genre).

So what is it about the One that still makes us a sucker for it? JK Cheney casts a skeptical eye over the whole soul mate schtick. Is there really such a thing as a Glittery Hooha?

Fantasy short story writer JK Cheney and I have been discussing that which is Romance and what makes it good (or bad, depending upon your point of view). Specifically, what makes Christine Feehan such a successful paranormal romance writer?

She’s posted her analysis on her blog, and I’ve got my opinions here. We’re hoping to get a dialog going and invite you to join in with your ideas and comments. We’ll be commenting on each other’s blogs as well.

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Thanks for sending me the Christine Feehan books. I wasn’t able to read them through but I thought they had some good solid points in their favor.

She has a recurring set of characters in a single town where shoot, if it weren’t for the big bad, I’d like to live there. Each sister has a dream job and a dream talent. She has taken the elements of a cozy mystery, a paranormal, and a romance and melded them quite well. It’s like Cabot Cove if Angela Lansbury were still a young lass. So if you can get past some stilted writing she gives pretty good plot. And for all that her characters are cliched, from what I read, they are all really strong characters. They don’t need men, and the guys are rewards.

Gotta give her props.

Some of the stuff that irked me was the writing. Now, I think romance gets an unfair bad rap for pedestrian prose. I also think that writers tend to read as writers, not readers, and most readers don’t care about POV shifts, telling not showing, etc. This isn’t necessarily a lack of sophistication on the part of romance readership either, which I think may also get a bad rap. People read escapist literature to escape, and writing that disappears – i.e., doesn’t get in the way of the experience – is good writing. Feehan’s writing transports her fans to Sea Haven.

But I think she could do better. For one thing, in the one book I read, or kind of read, she describes each sister by her hair. Each one has a glorious mane of some variation. Dialog is often used to convey information to the reader and it can be clumsy, especially when characters tell each other things they already know. There was a scene where two of the sisters talk over tea, and after filling the reader in on mundane stuff, they get around to wondering if the big bad they sensed was a danger in any way. This is kind of a rookie mistake.

I’m far from being a best-selling author (yet, I’d like to add), so I am studying how they do it. And I think that what people want, and what Feehan provides, is a sense of place and a fully realized fantasy world. Sea Haven is no different than Stephen King’s Derry or Castle Rock. Add appealing characters and a supernatural plot and — do we have a winner? Well, no. If it were that easy, then everyone could do it. But I think that it’s important to see what’s done right rather than nitpick about what’s done badly. And Feehan gets a lot right.

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