fangs_fur_fey [frost_light]

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jimvanpelt

[	Tags	|	writing	]
[	mood	|	chipper	]
[	music	|	"Back Into Your Head," Teagan and Sara	]

That's a pretty unwieldy title for the post!

I was thumbing through the January/February Analog this morning and read Richard A. Lovett's article, "Making Unreality Ring True: Writer's Tricks for Bringing Stories to Life." I was a little surprised at it because the article is a straightforward how-to-write piece, something I don't recall seeing in Analog much in the past.

That said, it was a darned good article for fiction writers of all sorts, not just science fiction ones. With entertaining examples, Lovett explains the basis for five writing rules that will make work stronger and more believable:
 

1. Write what you know.
2. Know what it is that you know.
3. Make good use of details.
4. Look for details in experience (yours or other people's)
5. Collect information. You never know what will someday be useful.
 

Near the end of the article, he says, "The best writers observe things. Sometimes these are details about the universe. Sometimes they are grand visions that instill the sense of wonder about which science fiction fans wax lyrical. Other times, the observations take the form of details about people or the lives we live: overlooked realities that ring true as they float across the page before us."

Lovett quotes Jane Kurtz, an award winning children's book author, who said, "Writers have good powers of observation. That's more important than imagination."

I tell writers in my classes and workshops that the skills necessary to tell believable stories are exactly congruent with the skills required of a good liar. Good liars, among other things, are masters of the specific detail, the one bit of their story that rings so specific and true that you believe there's no way they could have made it up. Their story must not be lying.

The article is a good one.  If you can get a copy of the magazine.  I recommend it.

patesden

When will I learn not to take a shower in the morning before work? Inspiration inevitably hits me and makes me late for work. Oh yeah, I’m the boss, but that doesn’t really matter, have to set a good example and all that junk.

Today’s inspiration came in the form of one short sentence: They were there after Brannockburn. OMG. It belongs in a thread I’ve already tied. But it cinches that thread so perfectly and I don’t have to change another word in the entire manuscript.

But why do I have to think of these things when I’m in a hurry?

62,000 words. Threads are tying together.  I’m starting to feel a bit sad about coming to the end. Actually, I’m on the cusp of the last big scenes, which I’ve wanted to write since July. I’m guessing I have about 10,000 words left to go, could be less.  And I have to go to work.

~couldn't resist the pix--that's how I feel right now~got to run!

http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/2009/11/randutiae-and-give-yourself-treat-today.html

frankwu

432 to 425. I won't say who won, but I will say Frank ended up with the Scrabble board playfully dumped in his lap.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

cmpriest

And now for the recent stats for the fabulous urban fantasy adventure about a neurotic vampire/thief and her wealthy blind client, now with Bonus! Cuban drag queen and military intrigue:

Project: Bloodshot
New Words Written: 2060 (meh)
Present Total Word Count: 70,032 words
Goal: 95,000 words by December 12





Things Accomplished in Fiction: Finally wrapped up that scene. It’s a good scene, and important — but it felt like it took forever to write. I’m sure I’ll get around to the revisions and decide it’s either (a). awesome, or (b). terrible and needs to be cut … but whatever. Sometimes you just have to write through these things, because there’s no pole-vaulting over them or tunneling under them.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Day-job work; housework; important official correspondences exchanged; visited B&N forums to answer questions; did more prep for tomorrow night’s event; went to post office.

Reason for Stopping: Going to grab a bite to eat before Ellen comes over to do (yet more) prep work for tomorrow’s event. Then we’re going to jaunt out to the airport to pick up our friend Avionne and her husband Gordon, for they are flying in from Scotland to stay for a few days. In advance of having these folks in town and/or having other things eating my life, I think I’ll also try to sneak in some more day-job work, to keep my head above water.

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/11/11/last-nights-event/

http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=6750

The event at Books of Wonder with Libba Bray, Kristin Cashore, Suzanne Collins, me and Scott last night was astonishing. Several people said they thought there were around 200 people there. I could not possibly guess from where I was sitting, but it did indeed appear to be many.

Here’s my bad fuzzy photo of the many:

It was pretty overwhelming to be on the bill with such popular writers, especially Suzanne Collins. For those who don’t know, her two most recent novels, Hunger Games and Catching Fire are currently, and have been for some time, numbers one and two on The New York Times bestsellers list, selling bajillions of copies a week. The Books of Wonder appearance was organised around Suzanne because it was her only signing for Catching Fire. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that Peter Glassman (the owner of BoW) thought to ask me to take part. Here’s Suzanne in action (with Libba Bray listening carefully):

I’d never met Suzanne before. She’s lovely, smart and gently funny. She, me and Libba had a fun conversation about the joys (meeting wonderful teens, booksellers, librarians) and travails (food poisoning) of touring. She’s also extraordinarily generous, giving up a big chunk of her presentation to talk in detail about how much she’d loved Liar, Fire,¹ Leviathan and Going Bovine. Thank you, Suzanne.

I’d never met Kristin either and she also turned out to be lovely. I don’t know what it is about the YA world but almost all the authors I’ve met have been fabulous.² It’s such a wonderful community to be part of.

It was only overwhelming at first then it quickly became relaxing. For most of my tour, I’ve done solo events with all the attention on me, but last night I could sit back and watch how other YA authors answer questions about how they come up with names, where they get their ideas, and which characters they like best.

Suzanne and Kristin were both so thoughtful and smart, providing little glimpses into how they work. They both have detailed maps of the imaginary worlds they’ve created. It sounds like Kristin’s world encompasses gazillions of countries and large swathes of time. Very Tolkienesque. Libba Bray remains one of the funniest people on the planet and I don’t just say that because she’s a dear friend of mine. As does Scott.³ Last night’s event made me want to stick to doing events with other people. Not just because it’s more fun for me, but also because it felt like the audience gets more out of it too.

What do you think?

One event I’m dying to do is me and Libba talking about unreliable narrators. For those of you who haven’t read Going Bovine you really should. We wrote Liar and Going Bovine at the same time and commented on each other’s early drafts. I can’t tell you how deeply eerie it was to discover we were both writing unreliable narrators and how many resemblances there were between our books even while they were also extremely different. Going Bovine is hysterically funny; Liar not so much. I think our two books work amazingly well side by side. Turns out I am not the only one to notice this.

Maybe some time next year we’ll be able to talk about our books, their unreliability, and how hard they were to write side by side. Fingers crossed!

1. As Kristin said, “Look! Our books rhyme!”
2. Another contributing factor to why I never want to write for the grown ups: I’d have to hang out with the cranky adult literature authors. Ewww.
3. Yes, I know he’s my husband but he truly is hilarious.

douglain

This episode features an interview with Jason Horsley, host of the Warty Theorems podcast, leader of the Stormy Weather Existential Detective Agency (SWEDA), and proponent of paranoid awareness. Jason and I discuss whether the Universe needs us to create social change, whether or not we can shut down the factory or tear down the wall, the story of Osho Rajneesh, John De Ruiter, and what it means to surrender. A segment from this podcast was posted as a youtube video called “A Conversation about Gurus.” Chris “Isto” White is back with a song entitled “The Incredible Shrinking Isto,” and I read from Larry Law’s chapbook “Revolutionary Self Theory.” Also there is a factoid about cold water and the Titanic from Miriam. You can download this podcast at dietsoap.podomatic.com or subscribe at iTunes.

Originally published at Diet Soap. Please leave any comments there.