face time

I'm hanging with real actual live people with faces and everything (!) through the holiday weekend, various company, meetings, parties. Things'll be quiet 'round SS@S until next week.

In the meantime, go read the latest Electric Spec. 7 cool stories, a movie review, and a conversation with our own Stuart Neville. (Gobuyhisbookgobuyhisbook.) Speaking of pervasive advertising, Patti Abbot invited me to do a book review for her Friday's Forgotten Books. You can read my thoughts on the book FEED by MT Anderson on Friday, there.

facing five

My kid played a concert with his little band tonight--just a three song set, two covers and an original. They're called Facing Five. I'll post Youtubes when we got 'em loaded. His teacher seemed astounded and called their performance "flawless." He would know. He's been wrangling these five kids all week at Rock Band Camp.

Yeah, you heard me. Rock. Band. Camp.

Youth is wasted on the young.

amendment: the link to videos of his set is here. See the top link, then Longview (and try to ignore the bastardized lyrics) and "writing a song".

queries for dummies

I'm hearing some more moaning about queries lately from more than a few quarters. Not a fun time to try to sell a book. If you read me at all you know I write my queries before I write the books, or at least in really early days. Like these working graphs from The Silver Scar:

In 2053, Trinidad took up the mantle of Archwarden at the age of twelve. Fostered by an Episcopal priest and trained by a godless armsmaster, he learned the brutal art of balancing faith and war. Now twenty-five, Trinidad is an accomplished soldier, revered by his Church and feared by his enemies: raiding Indigo clans and eco-terrorists. But the minority Christian population, living in walled parishes, are losing the battle on nearly every front, from faith to land loss. While Christians have long held the cities and wealth, the eco-terrs and clans hold something more dear in a world where civilization is breaking down: trade routes and fertile farmlands.

When a Wiccan long associated with the eco-terrs asks to treat with the Church, claiming they share a dangerous new enemy, Trinidad suspects it's a trick designed to bring the walled city of Boulder to its knees. He quickly learns he's not entirely wrong. The danger isn't just to the parishoners he swore to protect, but will shake the foundations of all faiths.

Real rough. That's okay. It's a working version, more to keep me on track with my own book. I read it... a lot.

Because this book is full of distractions. Trinidad is gay, for one, and his love interest is the Wiccan. (Not really such a big thing for me, but it might be for readers.) There are bands of roving bandits, there are Indigo clans--think communes, only with militias. There are slave gangs coming up from wealthier Mexico. There's treating Wicca with respect, and handling a centuries old emnity between Christianity and the Craft. There's eco-terrorism and rolling black outs and lack of basic goods and crumbling buildings and walled in windows, and a fair bit of sword play when the rifle ammo runs out. There's city marshals and a Church fading back into its cruel, mysanthropic roots. (Tudors, anyone?) There's an adopted little brother who figures prominently. And even more, of course. But I can't put all that into a query. I have to choose some succinct, leading words.

Like 2053. Like Wiccan (not correct or entirely polite terminology, but it shows bias on the part of the character, I hope. Also, I've learned "Witch" is not generally understood as the proper term). Fostered (his parents are dead--uh oh, what happened?), minority Christian population, and eco-terrs, and walled city. I'm trying to paint a picture of the world I've created and show there are lots of problems eclipsed by The Big Problem.

This isn't generally how I run my queries, though. This has a lot of backstory in it, but like I said, I'm painting a picture--and I hope the novel will be an atomosperic futuristic thriller. I'll likely switch it up for submissions though--depending on who I'm sending it to. In that case, an easy way to structure a query goes like this:

• Line introducing Character, job, and main feature of why S/HE's the one in the story.
• The problem (inciting incident) and his/her reaction (usually a When Statement.) I have one in the second graph.
• How Things Got Worse #1.
• How Things Got Worse #2, as long as you've still plenty of room for:
• The No Turning Back Clincher

So on that case, my selling synopsis might work more like this, without spending a lot of time cleaning it because I have a magazine to put out this weekend:

In 2053, Trinidad took up the mantle of Archwarden at the age of twelve. Fostered by an Episcopal priest and trained by a godless armsmaster, he learned the brutal art of balancing faith and war. Now twenty-five, Trinidad is an accomplished soldier, revered by his Church and feared by his enemies: raiding Indigo clans and eco-terrorists.

When a Wiccan long associated with the eco-terrs asks to treat with the Church, claiming they share a dangerous new enemy from a Silver World filled with sand that heals, Trinidad suspects it's a trick designed to bring the walled city of Boulder to its knees. He grows even more convinced as the Wiccan's actions takes the life of his best friend. But he soon learns the Silver World is long coveted by the Church, as well as other ill-intentioned peoples, and it's protected by fierce creatures. He kills one of them in strained battle and the creatures seek vengeance against his people. Trinidad must face a terrible danger, not just to the people he swore to protect, but to the foundations of all faiths. To protect his own crumbling world, he must befriend his enemies and watch as walls between cities, people, and his own past and future, fall.

Ok, I wrote that in about ten seconds. It needs a lot of clean up. But it gives me a good basis to show the extent of the problems in the book--to Trinidad and to the world I've created.

• Who Trin is
• An odd request from an enemy to see the Silver Sand. (inciting incident)
• His best friend dies--suspicion grows (problem # 1 that drags him deeper)
• Everyone wants the sand--it's a valuable commodity--complication that shows the extent of the new world I've created--lots of infighting and factions. (problem #2--this isn't just going to go away if he ignores it)
• Creatures make war in his world (No Turning Back Moment) and Trinidad must face what all this means, emotionally, spiritually and physically, to win. He must do things in New Ways (indicating the all-essential character growth and change).

I tried to allude to the complications--it is a complicated book (hense some of my current trouble with it), but also I tried to present clean, clear-cut central problems (granted, the graph needs some work to bring it down to size.)

But that formula makes a neat little package and is easy to write, providing your book has these elements. If you can't write this format based on your book, then the problem is not with your query writing skills. It's with the book.

And, though I'm not going into details here, this type of query has sold projects for me. I've also had a ton of partial requests for books with queries based on this format. It works, and the greatest thing about it: it lays plot flaws on the table before you send out the query--which is the best time to find out about them.

cohesive creative

I live in a fairly creative house, creative being a codeword for messy. It actually was my dream and I have it. The more I write, the more scattered things become. Missed phone calls. Piles of laundry. Undone errands. Things start to stack up on my desk, and I start to read three books at once. (Okay, actually I'm always reading three books at once.) My husband is creative in business and management. (I know it sounds weird to purists, but he really is.) The more involved and thoughtful he becomes, especially when he's in the throws of building an organization as he is now, the tougher it is for him to keep anything else in mind. My daughter's art room--what would be a formal living room in most houses-- is filled with half-done pieces of art, strung beads and drawings turning into collages. My son's room has a massive, ongoing Star Wars battle and framed, unhung Beatles albums surround his drumset. Even my mom, who's visiting, keeps a cross-stitch project going on my dining room table. My car carries all sorts of items for play and creative camps: horseback riding helmet, foam noodles, paint shirts, and goggles. Every time I turn a corner, drumsticks roll and click beneath the seats. There're sketchings by my daughter and a notebook of music belonging to my son.

Messy.

And unfortunately, I'm messy within the process as well. Sketched-out plots with scribbles. A book full of random character notes. Printed pages of a labeled diagram of a church and the history of the Ruger. Untested threads and questions rambling through my head. THE SILVER SCAR is the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thought as I go to sleep. I'm on the verge of dreaming of it--when I know I've reached creative obsession. I wish I were more procedural in my creativity--I'm just not.

And yet there is some cohesion there, too, which is The Story. I suppose it will all come together at some point. It always does.

What does your process look like?

visitors! visitors!!

The cat's out of the bag. Stuart's coming to the US on tour next fall and coming to visit us, too; we get to go to a convention together (and I'm going to try to pull strings so we can land on some of the same panels) and then we're going to sight-see and go visit this nice blogger-cougar, Aerin, who lives nearby. So. Excited. We've been talking about catching up with each other for quite awhile, but now tix are actually bought. Yea!

In other news, I'm laying out in the sun reading more of the CHANGE novels, thinking over my own futuristic WIP (note in moleskin: the effects of the ecoterr war should be severe, immediate, and permanent), and driving kids to various camps. Kid one is at Rock Band Camp. Kid Two is at Art Camp. Mommy's laying in the sun. Daddy's off working but will probably ride the motorcycle tonight. Oh, happy day.

my last word

Why I think the short form and novel form are similar:

This morning NPR hosted a Broadway composer interviewing two other Broadway composers about their process and experience with creating, music, and collaboration. One of the composers spoke of his experience playing piano from the age of four. He said he had a classical background, and then at about 12 or so he started to add in current pop music and jazz. He said all that gave him a wonderful foundation to draw on.

I feel, via a little research and deductive thinking, that within the short form lies the foundation of all storytelling. Poetry, fables, fairy tales, and even Bible stories a length conducive to telling a tale fireside. Obviously there are exceptions to this, but even longer tales were broken down into what has become our modern day chapter, for ease of telling.

Modern cases in point: most films are, if converted to prose, short story length. (One of the more noble reasons the final Harry Potter novel will be cut into two films--if rumor can be believed.) Ditto with stage plays. Interestingly, I once had someone argue with me about subplots in those forms, and I argued that really great short stories carry subplots, if you look hard enough.

But they are simpler, and that's the point. Mastering a three-act plot, or the five-part plot, or whatever you like to call it, hasn't been easy for this writer. In fact, I'm struggling with it in the WIP right now. But at least I recognize that there's an issue. Have I mentioned it's my FIFTH novel? By some arguments, I've written enough novels to be an expert at novel writing, and yet, I didn't really catch onto it until I started writing short fiction.

Short stories put all that into a manageable form for me, something I could complete in days or hours, making the rise and fall of tension and plot events easier to discern.

I'd never say this is what it takes for every writer to become a successful novelist. But it's worked pretty well for this one, and I really don't count myself as anything particularly special.

short stories series

My short story series is being analyzed here. It's seems like it's generally a friendly thread with some smart folks, so you might want to take a look.

I do take issue with people claiming I say always or claim there are rules to writing. I'm not sure what I did to cause such defensiveness. I think people who really know me recognize I have some (not all!) strong opinions, but I'm not a person who sees absolutes in writing, or hell, in life. While there are people who will prove my opinions wrong, I wrote the posts to benefit the thousands (and I count myself among them!) of writers who are not finding the success they desire.

Short stories are a valid, time-tested path to novel writing success...

Stephen King
Kelly Link
Paulo Bacigalupi
Stuart Neville
Neil Gaiman
Isaac Asimov
L. Ron Hubbard
Barth Anderson
Kurt Vonnegut
Arthur C. Clark
Edgar Allen Poe

I just can't ignore all the wonderful, successful writers, especially in SF/F, who not only got their start in short fiction but still write it. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all sell 3 short stories and proceed into a best selling novel writing career?

I actually don't know how great that would be.

Thing is, short story writing took me by surprise. I really quite like it; to some degree I prefer it over novel writing. That's just me. But let me tell you, I loathed it at one time. Novelists write novels, I always thought. And then I started really studying the form and I realized it's a great way to shorten the novel writing learning curve. A means to an end, if that's what you're after, though I tend to be about the journey.

One thing has intrigued me. I'd like more thoughts on why people think short story writing and novel writing are so different, and especially why one can't inform the other. People like to spout off that they're so different, but I never hear why.

To my mind, they are closely linked. And of course, you're going to wonder why I think they're linked. I haven't ever really put it into words, so I suppose it's time I did. I'll think on it and post about it later this week. :)