AuthorQuest

Where I'm At

2009-11-13T14:53:00.000-06:00

Well, where are we at?

My time travel flash story is now up at Critters. People seem to think it's funny, which is good. I haven't seen any negative criticism so far, but I've only glanced at the critiques. One thing I was concerned about was how funny it was. Because I was concerned I was being too conservative. But it's also a situation where I could keep going and going forever, making the fish as big as a whale. Got to know when to get off the treadmill.

Old Dragonslayer story is going fine. No major structural problems, and the changes I'm making are being nice and letting me insert them flowfully. All writing should be this easy.

My biggest beef is trying to get Black Hole Son's query letter just right. I realize there's no such thing as the perfect query letter, but it seems so difficult to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that get you the form rejections. Then comes cliched things, like starting with a rhetorical question, unidentified characters, and meaningless authorial experience. Then the hard part--not giving enough of the plot, being too generic, awkward paragraphs--these are things that are so hard. Not because it's too hard to condense my plot to 250 interesting words, but because the narrative structure and storyline makes it hard to format the query into "When Character A finds himself in situation B, he must C. But D, E, and possibly F are seeking to stop him from C." Black Hole Son doesn't work like that so much. Which might be why it's not so marketable. Ah, well, I've still got plenty of agents to go.

Lie And Say You Have An Offer

2009-11-11T11:09:00.000-06:00

Okay, I have a question. I hear that you send your query letters to several agents, in hopes of getting a bite. Then you get a bite, but you're still in the queue at several other agent's palaces, maybe some you'd prefer over this one. If you tell these agents that you've procured an offer, the other agents will suddenly spring into action, reading your letter, and possibly making a counter-offer.

Now my question: What's to stop you from lying?

Why couldn't I e-mail some agents and say "Hey, you know {AGENT I LOOKED UP ON AGENTQUERY} has expressed an offer of interest. What about you? Don't you want in on this fine deal? And offer me some more cash why don't you?" Do they ask for evidence that Mr. Made-Up-Man has actually made an offer? Is there any way they could get counter-evidence that they did not send an e-mail? Or have I found a foolproof method of getting agents to look at your query quickly? I'm sure I could come up with enough details to convince the agent that this actually happened -- I am a writer after all.

I suppose there are some ways this wouldn't work. One being agents do talk to each other -- Agent X could e-mail Agent Y who would say "I have no idea what you're talking about." There's also the possibility that the agent will look and still say "Nope, not for me".

So maybe it's not a good idea to put this into practice, but it's just a flaw in the grand scheme of querying that I've found.

Heroes vs. Villains

2009-11-11T09:44:00.000-06:00

So here's some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head. Last week at In-Law dinner, we started talking about Michael Jackson. My father-in-law starts ranting, as he often does, about how people could still be worshipping him when he's a proven pedophile, a drug addict, and overall questionable person. He repeatedly brought up the example, as he often does, of what if you had a priest that was well-known for doing good deeds in the community, donating to charity, overall great guy who did so much, but he's a pedophile.

Of course, I didn't argue with him then, because he's one of those types of people who are too focused on their own point to see others. This is why he and my wife (his daughter) get into so many arguments. And I feel like there's no point in engaging him, because what does that gain me? He's not seeking knowledge, he's seeking to be heard. But if I had decided to argue, here's what I would have said.

History is littered with heroes who had questionable ethics and morals. John F. Kennedy sullied Camelot with his persistent affairs, particularly with Marilyn Monroe. Martin Luther King had mistresses too. I need not talk about Bill Clinton, one of the most beloved presidents in the last fifty years, and what he did. O.J. Simpson was on the Top 10 heroes list for years in the 70's. Tom Cruise went from heartthrob to ambiguously gay scientologist. Rosie O'Donnell. Ronald Reagan. Hillary Clinton. Bill Gates. Thomas Jefferson. Roman Polanski. Barbara Walters. Britney Spears. Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie. Milli Vanilli. Rush Limbaugh. Terrell Owens. Andre Agassi. Brett Favre. Priests. Rappers. Celebrities. Politicians. If the war had gone the other way, what would we really be saying about Adolf Hitler or Benedict Arnold or Osama Bin Laden (respective wars - I know they weren't all in the same war).

I even put Cory Doctorow into this category. He's a well-loved crusader for computer rights, creative freedom, and a kickass author -- the Superman of the Internet. No one with a computer should have a bad thing to say about him. But then he goes and has a baby out of wedlock, which I don't agree with (though he married the girl eight months later) and pulls a douchebag move with the most ridiculous baby name ever -- Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow.

How do you even define a hero? Someone who does what's right, regardless of personal consequences? Someone who doesn't give up? Someone who does what's right, instead of what's easy? And what happens when you find out your hero is not the great guy you thought he was? That he has a personal life. That he makes mistakes. That he has an addiction. That he can't keep a stable relationship. That he has kids he never sees. Or that he's simply a douche in real life. History is defined by people -- real people. Should we ignore their faults and see only the good they do? Or tear down the false idols that violate our ethics and morals? History is the fables we all agree on.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

More Agents to Come

2009-11-09T13:22:00.000-06:00

My response from the Nelson Literary Agency was very quick. I received it at 6:30 this morning Monday. It was a form rejection, of course. The first rejection is always a little disheartening, but you get used to it, and continue on. A rejection could have happened for any number of reasons, none of which you're in control over. I sent two more today, ones with allegedly longer response times. We'll see what happens.

My First Agent Query (Post 300)

2009-11-06T15:33:00.001-06:00

300 Posts! And not a single comment!

Seriously, what do I need to do to get some blog exposure? Not that I'm writing this for the purpose of getting followers, but some feedback would be nice. I can't get Technorati to work for me. I never have. It's always broken. I added some Digg/StumbleUpon/etc. links at the bottom of the posts, so maybe that'll help with the 14 readers I get per month (who I think are all me). But other than that, I'm not sure what else to do. Hardcore nudity?

Anyway, today is the day I e-mailed my first agent query. I think my query is in a good place now. I've worked a lot on it - it's gone through a lot of incarnations - but I think I'm satisfied, and I think it's at a good place for agents to view it and judge me. I sent it to the Nelson Literary Agency because A) it was the first to show up in my AgentQuery query and B) it looks pretty reputable, pretty professional.

I only have about ten or so entries on my list of agents, so hopefully one will bite. If not, not sure what other resources there are, but I'm sure there are some - there can't be that few agents looking for science-fiction works.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Broken Voicebox

2009-11-05T09:00:00.003-06:00

I have finished watching Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. Big props to those of you like me who never know what the bloggers are talking about in their posts, because they see it in the theaters, and you wait till it comes out on Netflix. This post is for you.

But anyway, I found it weird that this movie is so bad, but so popular. It's clear that the critics and fans were watching two different films. I knew about all the conflicting opinions going in. But I finally figured out what the appeal of this movie is, and the root of the dissent.

Transformers 2 is wrestling.

Well, it is. Think about it. If you breakdown the movie into events by screen time, what you get is a bunch of robots fighting. A lot of humans shooting guns and dropping bombs. A lot of shit blowing up. Second, the film plays out as the bad guy comes in, the good guy comes in, then they fight, one of them ends up lying on the mat. Usually, the camera focuses on one fight, then the next. The bad guys seem to gain an upperhand, then the good guys come right back. And as each party gets weaker, the stakes get higher. But no one's really in trouble until the script says one goes down.

For example, in Bumbleebee vs. Ravage, we see Bumblebee jump into the fray, as if from the ropes. First, it seems as if Ravage is kicking Bumblebee's ass, then it seems like Bumblebee's winning. Back and forth, back and forth, until Bumbleebee finally tears something out and Ravage is down for the count. Repeat with any number of Autobots vs. Decepticons.

As another example, Devastator vs. everything. First the giant forms in a classy introdution, complete with dramatic cinematography and music. It looks like the Big Show vs. some little guy. Then it looks like one of the JiveBots is about to be eaten, and he's done for. No, wait he's not out. He manages to hang on and tears Devastator's face off. Then his brother-man gets in on the action and they tag team him, running up and down his form, punching and kicking. Then they knock themselves out and for some reason, don't come back. Then it becomes sort of Ladder match where the human and Devastator race for the top of a pyramid. It looks like the human has no chance, but then he pulls out a folding chair from under the mat while the ref isn't looking and rail-gun's his ass.

And of course, you have any number of match modifiers. Weapons, two-on-ones, multiple opponents, leaving the "ring", battle royales, becoming 're-invigorated' after a heroic sacrifice or stunning revelation, face heel turns, musical introductions, an ensemble cast, surprise interference. The whole movie is just a bunch of robots fighting. In fact, if it wasn't for the origin story, Transformers 1 was wrestling too. If you go back and watch the movie, and think about a WWE Wrestling match, you'll probably see what I mean.

The plot, such as it is, is a travesty. No one takes a single breath, it's snap-snap-snap, never stop moving, never reflect on what's happening. The pace is always rising action. There is never a plateau, and there needs to be plateaus. It's like torture. You can't keep squeezing the rack at a constant pace, or the victim will get used to it. You have to continually release and increase the pressure so the nerves don't become numb. Or in this case, blindsided. I mean, seriously. You have enough advanced technology to make giant transforming robots, and you can't fix a fucking voice box? Just use a text2speech program. Us primitive Earth-people have plenty of them.

And I want your face.

Kaiju Story Being Dropped

2009-11-04T16:11:00.002-06:00

I've made a decision to drop Kaiju Story for now. I've read the reviews. Some were favorable, some were not. There was a lot of conflicting information. But it pointed there were many fundamental problems with the plot and characters that couldn't be resolved in simple revising. It's like three stories in one - documentary, science fiction, and horror. The beginning does not match the end. And moreover, I just got annoyed with the story itself. I didn't want to waste time polishing a turd when there were more interesting things to write.

And it's not because I'm done with Black Hole Son, because I started on Old Dragonslayer Story and that one seems exciting, even if the reaction was more lukewarm. Kaiju Story was an attempt to write something marketable that I was not necessarily interested in (well the big idea I was interested in. I just had no story to go with it). The revising would be more arduous than normal. And this should be fun--I'm not getting paid for this (yet).

This marks an unprecedented move for me. I've never thrown away a short story since I started writing them (although this isn't really throwing it away--I can always come back to it). It takes one away from the stories making the magazine rounds. But even the best writers have attempts that miss the mark. I remember Gaiman once having to apologize for not delivering to a anthology because the story "crumbled to ash in his hands and couldn't be salvaged". So it's better not to dwell on fixer-uppers and move on.

RFDR Killed

2009-10-30T13:30:00.002-05:00

Well, I did something I never thought I'd do. It took some thought, because it would probably make me come off as an asshole, but there really was no way around it.

I prematurely stopped an RFDR of someone.

The simple fact was that there was too much wrong with the manuscript. The narrative meandered all over the prairie. It threw character after character after character after character at you. And I never understood who the protagonist was, what her goal was, what was at stake, what she needed to do to accomplish her goal, or who was trying to stop her. Those are fundamental problems that have to be fixed before I can start talking about plot development, characterization, pacing, and overall reader experience. No matter how much you polish a turd...

So I stopped reading. My primary reason was that I'd already said enough about the manuscript. Any more and I'd be repeating myself. The excess would not mean the author had learned anything new, and I myself wouldn't be learning anything either. Reading the novel was arduous - I knew this thing wasn't going to be any good unless it was rethought and rewritten. Why say in a hundred words what I can say in three? (I think there's a quote to go along with that, but I'm too lazy to look it up).

So I sent him a polite, professional letter, explaining my reasons and actions. I said I didn't need credit, I just wanted him to use my advice. I hope he understands, and doesn't report me. We're all in this game to improve, to better our writing. I hope I did that.

Black Hole Son - Ship It!

2009-10-29T08:43:00.000-05:00

Black Hole Son is now in the can. Absolute Final Word Count: 119,698.

I feel like I should say something profound at this point, but I guess it doesn't feel like I've really put it to bed. The Black Hole Son settings and characters are still tumbling in my head like so much laundry. There are no whistles and bells when you complete a novel, just the event of switching your eyes to the next project.

Anyway, now it's time to start shipping that query letter. I've been exhaustively researching agents, how agents work, good agents and bad agents, query letters, publishing worlds, what to look for, what to ask. I'm starting to burn out on research alone. But I keep going.

Work on the next novel starts tomorrow at 7:30 AM sharp. We'll see you there.

Critters: A Glimpse of What Editors Go Through

2009-10-26T10:45:00.001-05:00

Since I read so many books last quarter, I decided to pick a novel to critique on Critters. These usually take longer to read than a normal novel, but A) you improve your own writing by seeing what others do and B) it's fun to ~~cut other people down~~ help others.

But I thought the experience was interesting because I got a glimpse of what editors see. There were ten novels on the Critters queue at the time I was looking. They were all crappy (as first novels should be) so I needed some criteria on which to judge them. First, which ones were actually smart enough to click the actual RFDR button? You didn't? Gone. That eliminated half the candidates. Why they didn't click the button is a mystery - maybe they intentionally wanted to you just critique this chapter, maybe they forgot. But I don't care, I need reasons to fire the gun.

Next, read the first page of each. This one's got long paragraphs that are nothing but introspection on character. Critiqueing it would take forever cause I'd be saying the same thing over and over: "This is not the story". Another starts in the middle, so I'm not sure if I'd like it or not cause I can't tell what's going on. This one just doesn't seem interesting. This one looks too complex to read. Then you find the one that's the least of all evils. It says it's YA so that means it shouldn't be that complex or lengthy.

So this is probably what editors go through. They end up cutting a great deal of choices on technicalities alone. After that, its content and its rather easy to see if the book is for you in the first page. It's especially transparent in new writers that have styles that are all over the place. I just hope I know what I'm getting myself into.

Left 4 Dead, 2 Rabbits, 9 Badminton Nets, 2 Plungers, 4 Dinosaur Scales, 12 Claw-Gripper Things, and a Chia Pet

2009-10-23T08:55:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, I had the weekend to myself. I played some Half-Life 2 mods, like Minerva and Mistake of Pythagoras, but my appetite was whet and couldn't be sated. I wanted to kill things. Lots of things. Like zombies.

Enter Left 4 Dead. Well, enter Left 4 Dead about two years ago - I'm a late adopter. The concept always sounded intriguing to me but A) it had fast "28 Days Later" zombies, which I don't like and B) wasn't a game I probably had time for, since it was a collaborative online game. But despite those objections, I just bought it and downloaded it on Steam. (Aside: Steam is scary. The transaction took less than ten seconds (once I found my ID) and it felt like no money had change hands. At least with my credit card, I have to hand it over to someone, which is like handing over money. This was so efficient it was like I always owned the game).

And since I love to talk about story-telling in video games, guess what you get? And THE DOORS ARE LOCKED!

Left 4 Dead has some interesting ways of getting the story across. There's no need to talk about what happened before. We all know the story. It's a virus or a comet or nuclear radiation or demons or a radioactive comet with a demon virus. There are some messages in the safe rooms that claim to tell the story, but they're nothing more than pleasant touches. Why it happens isn't important, but what happened as a result is the interesting part - the world is over, because everyone's become a mindless, psychopathic zombie.

Except our four heroes - a black IT consultant, a biker, a grizzled Vietnam Vet, and a perky co-ed (who, according to comics, everyone wants to get with - they are the last people on earth you know). Nine times out of ten, these people would have no sound bites, but with Valve, their personalities bleed through in everything they do, from healing to riding the elevator. You can tell they're separate people, but the great part is YOU take control of them, and are allowed to inject as much of yourself into them as possible. Which is what I always say you should be doing. And the zombies have personalities too. The Boomer, the Tank, the Witch (who this author finds a little too sexy), the Smoker, and the Hunter. At first I thought this kind of defeats the point of zombies, having ones with individual quirks. But now that I've played, they're necessary to add variety of play.

But the best part of the game is the camraderie as you try and get to the escape point with your online friends. Before I've always played deathmatches where your mission is to kill everyone. I've made attempts at co-op games like Capture the Flag and Team Fortress 2, but it just seems everyone goes they're own way, and we end up dying. Because we don't want to strategize, we want to shoot things. Not this case. I've never chatted with people so much, or interacted with anyone in an online game. I like to remain anonymous and kill the zombies. But here, I feel it's all right, because we're all working towards the same goal in the same way. Not like deathmatches where you've got snipers, heavy gunners, exploders, cheaters, spawn-campers, and so forth. You have to move forward, you have to stick together, and you have to blow the shit out of everything.

My beef is that while they tried their best to vary the gameplay, it's the same four levels with the same four people, with the same zombies. This makes online play necessary, because it's the only way to make the experience dynamic. For example, one time I was playing and this one girl said she was trying to get an achievement for using only the pistol and no healing. Somewhere along the line it became my mission to help her and protect her. I was giving her my pain pills and looking for them for her, keeping close to protect her from zombies. It was like an escort mission, but it didn't suck. (End result: We failed the healing, but succeeded the pistols-only).

In another game, people kept yelling at me because I kept charging through the streets like I was Leeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins, getting vomited on and attracting the horde. In another game, there was a leader shouting orders ("We'll make a stand on the roof", "Someone needs to reset the generator, we'll take on the Tank") like it was an actual zombie attack.

What I've learned is I can kill a lot of zombies but have horrible accuracy. I'm good at killing special infected, but the Tank always seems to go right for me. Then it traps me, and I'm incapacitated. But the thrill level is tops. I've seen a tank fling someone off a roof. I've followed instructions and died trying to save people. I feel like I'm part of something in this game. And it's a good feeling.

In summary, Left 4 Dead's is a game, not a story. But that's fine, because you and your friends make up your own story.

Black Hole Son Draft 3 Complete!

2009-10-22T10:45:00.000-05:00

Final count: 119,909 words. I just barely squeaked in there. I cut out all the scenes with the "villain" prior to the final confrontation, and I did a lot of rearranging in the middle and beginning to make it less preachy and more condensed (i.e., getting to the story faster). I'm glad I did the hardcore revision instead of the softcore - I don't think I would have made 120,000 words unless I did.

I started on Aug 06, and finished Oct. 20 - two two and a half months. Last time it took three months and I reduced the story by about 13%. I did the same thing here, so the time duration makes sense. I figure if I can make the next book around 90,000 words, I can write more in less time.

This doesn't mean I'm completely done. I still have to A) spell check B) check formatting C) look for words to eliminate D) possibly make a manuscript version (I hope I don't have to print that!). But after that, I can start sending it out. I wonder if I'll get feedback on my query letter by then. If I don't I might only send to a few agents at a time until then. I don't want to get axed because I had a crappy query letter. And I still have yet to compile a list of agents to send to.

But now I feel free (at least once I'm done monkeying with the mechanics). Before it felt like BHS was handcuffed to my wrist like a briefcase. Not that I minded it, it was my story. I chose to tether myself to it. But now I'm about ready to unlock the cuffs, and let it float free into the aether. So I can then handcuff myself to a fresh and new book.

It also means I can watch Scanners now (I was avoiding it because I didn't want to accidentally copy ideas/find out that I'd totally plagiarized it).

Dunesteef Is Awesome

2009-10-21T13:18:00.000-05:00

Since I'm getting published in Dunesteef, I figured I should at least listen to a few episodes (boy, I hope they're not reading this). I listened to the three most recent ones and I have this to say.

First, wow. I was blown away by the production values on this thing. I've listened to every episode of EscapePod and its brethren, but that's all straight story narration - no fluff whatsoever. This... this has SOUND EFFECTS and AMBIENCE. You can hear feet crunching the leaves and they get quicker when someone's running. You hear the bloops and beeps of the computer. You hear the crackle of fire. It's more like an audio drama than a fiction reading.

And that means MY story is going to get SOUND EFFECTS! Squee! You're going to get to hear the sword clang when avatars are fighting. You'll hear the voice of the computer. You'll hear the gurgle when someone drinks a potion. You'll hear the dragon snap its jaws! (And if swords, computers, potions, and dragons don't intrigue you yet, you're on the wrong blog)

Then after the story, you get to hear the hosts ruminate on topics sublime and gross. Meaning they talk about the story, then other stuff like why Comic-con sucks and vacations. It used to be that EscapePod ended with a small commentary on the story and feedback for the previous week's tale. But they don't do that anymore. And that sucks because it was my favorite part (another thing I should have included in my EscapePod rant). But these guys are talking like a radio show, and they're saying interesting things.

My biggest complaint is that the podcast is too long. The three I listened to were more than an hour each. I wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't have hours and hours of other stuff to listen to. I don't think the story should take less than the total time of the podcast. The color commentary overshadows it, not by anything else but sheer length.

But otherwise, listening to The Dunesteef ahs just made me more excited about getting published there. I don't know why it's not more popular than EscapePod - the stories are of just as high a quality and it has sound production, rather than some British guy with poor recording equipment reading into a mic.

P.S. I decided the call the story "Playable Character", which I like more and more each time I hear it, so look for it soon!

I Hate My Query Letter

2009-10-21T09:05:00.000-05:00

I've finished my query letter, at least the first draft. I was struck by that same sickness I get when I know my writing's not good enough, that it's amateurish and going to get eaten alive, but I can't think of how to make it better. The letter doesn't crackle, it doesn't singe. It doesn't say "Oh my god this is so exciting look at all the awesome events and cool stuff in this book". It doesn't say Psychics! Pyrokinetics! Murder! Conspiracies! Strippers! Amnesia! Social Upheaval!

I don't know how to say that in a query letter. I need some serious help. Not unexpected, given that this is my first try. My first novel was horrendous too, compared to my skill level now. I sent the whole thing to QueryShark. I don't know if it's going to take a week or a month to get posted or critiqued, if at all, but I'm certain it's going to be rejected. I just don't know what to do to improve it. My only hope is that the story itself isn't rejected.

Look for a subject line soon that says "Query Letter Becomes Chum".

Charlie Stross Hates Star Trek

2009-10-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

I just have a few things to say about this rant by Charlie Stross who says that he hates Star Trek. Why? Because they hate science. Instead of coming up with legitimate technology, they just have a consultant insert technobabble where appropriate and that drives the plots and pushes obstacles.

Stross hates this because it's poor story writing, in his opinion. His take is that first, he sets up a culture in the future. Then he creates characters that would be consequences of that culture (for example, cell phones and sexting). Star Trek is not like that - the future is background. The situation could take place in any time zone by substituting technological words. It could take place in the century of sailing ships. And the bottom line is that Star Trek (and its ilk) tells us nothing about the human condition under science fictional environments. I guess that would imply that his mission in life is to use science fiction as its own character and create a story based on the environment rather than the characters. It's a noble purpose, and I can understand why Stross wants to drive his science-fiction with exploring humanity on a reality that the author conceives.

That's great... for you.

But the last time I checked, everyone had heard of Star Trek. There are six series, eleven movies, countless spin-off novels, warehouses full of merchandise, and gobs of cash flowing, all flowing towards one man's vision of "Wagon Train to the Stars" which resulted in a small-time TV series. Star Trek is immortal - it's not going away, it's in the history books forever and it's got as much staying power as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Star Trek is going to be remembered.

Meanwhile, I could ask any one of my family members if they heard of Charlie Stross, and they'll say "who?" Hugo nominations? Sure, you have them. And I've never been published, so I'm hardly one to talk. But just because you're the "best" doesn't get you success. How many authors do you hear about who were never successful in their lifetime? Will you even get that much recognition? The fact is you can rant and rant about your art form and what blah, blah, blah should be doing and "YOUR VISION", but unless you're, at some level, writing commercially, you may as well shout into the wind. (BTW, for being so concerned about science and tech, your website sure doesn't have a lot, especially given your history as a programmer).

Bottom line - Star Trek did something right, and I'm still waiting for you to achieve that level of success. Star Trek may not care much about the science behind its science fiction, but people don't care about that. I think you have a skewed view of what the audience wants. How else do you explain Twilight? (although I'd rather die obscure than be known for writing Twilight) Storytelling is not about byproducts of culture, and I'd hate to read a story that's in so far removed a universe from me that I can't relate. The best stories are driven by character, not environment or situation. Maybe by getting it wrong, they're getting it right... in a way.

P.S. In your defense, the more I hear about Ron Moore, the less I like him.

The Books I Read: Jul. - Sept. 09

2009-10-15T14:55:00.001-05:00

Tokyo Zero by Mark Horne (unfinished)

This was the last of my free ones I gleaned from, I think, Scribd. I searched for top 10 free eBooks. I'm not sure if I ever finished any of them. You get what you pay for.

This one was no different. It never gets to the plot. It has no characters, no motivations, no clear objective. I think it was supposed to be a cyberpunk/spy novel, but it felt like, if they were playing football, the characters would be running around in a circle instead of heading towards the goal post (and not in a good way).

It was self-published, no one's heard of it, it has no ISBN number. It doesn't show up on searches for GoodReads or LibraryThing, so I thought, why should I bother reading it. The writing is nice, but if not for the placement in Japan, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

Mr. Westerfeld is the creator of the immortal "Uglies" trilogy - a sharp, science-fiction YA about a dystopia centered around plastic surgery and the rebels who are living natural "ugly" lives. This novel is not about that. This is about vampires. Sort of.

It's more about parasites. Well, let me explain this way. Half the book is facts about parasites that read like those tidbit sections you might see in a Biology textbook or Highlights magazine with the title "Did You Know?" The other half is some teenager who's been infected with a parasite that gives him all the benefits of being a vampire, and none of the weaknesses, except being horny all the time, which doesn't really figure into the plot (and is par for the course for any teenager). He works for a secret underground organization, and his mission is to find all his old girlfriends who he accidentally gave the parasite to and have become ghouls. Then he's given the mission to find his first girlfriend, the one who gave him the curse in the first place (whoops, tripped over the allegory in the doorway. Silly me). Then he does a lot of exploring, and revelations, and he ends up realizing the kindly secret conspiratorial undeground organization who took him in has been hiding information and manipulating him all the time. Didn't see that coming.

This book was full of meh. There was too much description, too much trying to create dread. And you can't do that in a YA book that's full of slang and goofy teenagers. And there was a severe lack of vampires for a story about vampires. Lots of parasites, cats, and rats, but no vampires being vampires. And the whole MIBs in an underground war has been done to death, and it's no better here. I found myself looking forward to the educational sections about gross parasites and how they help and hurt nature. It's an adult story dumbed down to a YA level, and leaves you unsatisfied. If I was an editor, I would have passed on this novel. But I can see why someone would have accepted it.

The only reason I picked it up was because I'm in love with the Uglies trilogy, but I guess in Westerfeld's case, we must look forward, not back. Good thing that includes Leviathan. Metal vs. Meat. Can't wait for the war to begin.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Public domain book. I added this to my queue when The Graveyard Book was coming out, because I realized how little I know about The Jungle Book. It's been a long time since I saw the movie, and I've never read the novel. There's not actually a lot of The Jungle Book in this. Two, maybe three stories. And Shere Kahn is killed in the beginning. The rest are some stories about elephants and seals that involve a lot of "not things happening".

It's not dissimilar from "Just So Stories", and thus my review is not dissimilar. The stories just don't hold up well. They were meant for another time. Except Rikki Tiki Tavi, which could take place in space with aliens if you switched some characters and settings around. I started skipping towards the end, because I just didn't feel like the stories mattered. If you want a Jungle Book fix, see the movie.

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

An excellent crime novel. I don't read many of these, and I don't remember when this one dropped in my folder (probably courtesy of Boing Boing). It's one of those "wrong place at wrong time" capers that involve fifty different parties trying to get the Maltese Falcon, and the main character has no idea what's going on, but in the end, he successfully screws everyone. There's corrupt cops, mafia, gangs, car chases, and gym bags full of money. Every trope that makes this genre great.

What you don't expect is how sharp and clean the writing is. Short sentences. Short words, but popping with description and energy. It's a fast read, it's satisfying, and there's no element that goes past your head. Everything is well understood and there isn't a trace of purple prose. My only beef is that sometimes you feel like characters are running in circles just to fill words. The bad guys beat him up. Then some different bad guys beat him up. But I think that's a crutch of this type of mystery-crime novel. I rarely read fiction that doesn't have some surreal element to it, but this is one of the best I read this quarter.

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

This was a nice small read for times when I'm waiting for my wife to get out of the bathroom. A page or two at a time, kind of like "365 Tips for Being a Better Writer". The nice thing about Orson Scott Card, the same thing I liked about Characters & Viewpoint, is that he uses good examples. Real life examples. Examples you can utilize in your own pre-writing. It might not work for you, might not fit your style, but it worked for someone and it might work for you. That's why I hate writers who say "Well, everyone's different, I can't give you any advice, it might not fit you, everyone has they're own way". Yeah, I know that. Tell me your way, I'll see if it works for me.

The problem is the book is outdated. It talks about magazines and sources that are either dead or no longer relevant. It has no Internet resources. The ways to submit works has changed, culturally. He advises mass submissions and unagented queries. If I was writing a writing help book, I wouldn't include anything that might become obsolete in the future - it just would make me look stupid.

I'm not 100% sure this book helped me a great deal, but I think it was more important I was able to look into a professional writer's head, and see how it works. Then I can at least try and incorporate it subconsciously. Creativity doesn't just happen, it must be made to happen.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This is the best book I read all quarter. Two thumbs up! Highly recommended. Why? Combine Battle Royale with teen dramas on the WB (with a little The Running Man thrown in) and watch the awesome. I've never seen a novel with a stronger beginning - the environment and backstory is established immediately, there's tension from page one, and the story has started before the end of the chapter. You've got a doomsday clock going, high stakes, and not much thinking. And the whole story is totally relatable to high school - I'd almost call it as allegorical.

The story's composed in three parts. The first part is where we see our main character, a teen called Katniss living life in the slummy District 13, where starvation and poverty is standard fare. Part two occurs after she's chosen to participate in the District Games, which is essentially Battle Royale minus the backpack & collars and plus the rivalry, because whoever wins gets set for life (although evidence suggests you never live down the scars). This part is where my "The Running Man" reference comes from, because we see the pre-interviews, the training, and the media circus surrounding this young girl. It's where the high school allegory shines brightest.

First people judge you on your appearnace. Then you're judged on your chance for survival and given a score, but not told the criteria on which they judge you (may this be like the elite clique giving you your place in the world?). Then you give an interview, but its Hollywood hype - it's giving people an identity, a personality that they want to see. Some play the psycho tough, others place the cunning fox. You see, the purpose of this media circus is to get people to like you, and if they like you, they might buy you something during the games - food or weapons or medicine. So you've got to get yourself a personality, an image, and suck up to those fans. And it tears Katniss up because it's the opposite of what she is, a hard-working, bitter hunter from the coal-mining district. Now she has to be a dizzy damsel in unrequited love with her district partner. You can never be yourself in this game.

But here the initial inertia fades as the anticipation of the battle seeps through every word. Flashbacks to her life in District 13 try to build her character and romantic tension between her friend and her District partner (who she may have to kill at some point). There's a great deal of her thinking on this, on the consequences of her actions, and what this means to her survival and future relationships. It's not really a problem, because you always want to see what happens next, but it feels like padding.

Then we get to part three - the battle. Here it gets really introspective, because Katniss is on her own, clinging to the trees and looking for food, as she tries to play both the battle game and the media game (the audience is watching her every move, and could decide whether she lives or dies). It unfolds realistically, which is sort of the trapping of this story. Katniss does a lot of wandering, a lot of thinking, a lot of worrying. That's what you'd expect, but it doesn't move the plot much. You find youself hoping to get to the end of the chapter, where you know something interesting is going to happen. But something interesting always happens. And you watch her alliances and enemies and actions have dire consequences as the plot moves along, and all Katniss wants to do is get out alive, compromising her values and hurting people as she does it.

Then some mutant dogs made out of the dead competitors attack them.

Ahem.

All in all, this is a definite must-read. I'm sure someday we'll recognize Suzanne Collins and Scott Westerfeld as the mother and father of modern YA science-fiction.

The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay

Tedious. Imagine if the there were witches in the Revolutionary War, and those witches were on both sides, controlling things through subtle magic - debilitating spells, artifacts of protection, and conspiracies with leaders. This book has three parts - the Shot Heard Round the World, exile at a farm full of witches, and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The problem is that it's filled with descriptions of the battle, through the eyes of the main character. You can tell the author is a historian with a lot of junk knowledge he/she wants to take out and demonstrate. It reminds me of when I read Testament: A Civil War Soldier's Story. There's a lot of people moving around, getting shot, and I don't care about anyone. I just can't work with descriptions of war battles. I need single character moving through plots and revelations.

The other problem is that the witchcraft works when it wants to - there are no rules, and no flash. It's nothing special. I was looking forward to this book. I was imagining witches on broomsticks flying over the Lexington and Concord, shooting spells at British witches, while a battle of mortals raged on below them. But it's nothing like that. It's more like some poor schmoe finds out he's magical, has to go join some other bitchy witches, bonds with them, mentor dies, and he must go into battle and redeem himself.

Black as Snow by Jonathan Munn (unfinished)

A freebie offered by the author under creative commons because he couldn't find a publisher for it. Meaning it's not a real book. As Johnnie Cochran said, "If there's no ISBN, you must not begin".

It's not interesting at all. No tension, no rise and fall, no pushing the goal posts back. I think it's supposed to be like Watership Down, because it's got talking bunnies that are trying to stop builders demolishing their home. And all the time, I was thinking how cool Watership Down was and how lame this is. The bunnies don't act like bunnies. They keep diaries. They're into Bruce Lee and Kung Fu. And the Extraordinarily Empowered Girl who can talk to animals is so unsympathetic I wanted a horse to clock her with his hooves. Not worth reading.

Wild Wives by Charles Willeford

Damn, this thing is short. It's one of those pulp novels that were all the rage during the depresssion - hastily written, cheaply produced. I'm glad I got the opportunity to read one, but I'm really surprised how short it is, not more than 50,000 words. These days you can't get a contract for anything less than 90,000. But we're also not in a dust bowl.

This one's about a private detective who gets involved with a woman trying to elude the bodyguards her husband's set on her. Meanwhile, there's a subplot about some beatnick chick trying to become his apprentice, and he blows her off sending her on some wild goose chase. Then there's some murder, and some escaping, while he realizes the hot piece of ass he's been hitting is really psycho and unreliable, saying what she wants to get what she wants. She's set him up to think he murdered her husband, when she's really the one who did it. At the end, he's killed the bitch, managed to make it look like she was psycho, gets the evidence so the courts won't be able to touch him, and he's won the day. Then the subplot comes back and he goes off to jail. Reminds me a little bit of McTeague by Frank Norris. Ending a la "Tales from the Crypt".

It's a short read and a bit of history. It's not boring, and it's not spectacular. It's pulp. I recommend it.

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Swedish people are long-winded.

Good, now that that's off my chest, let's continue. I added the movie to my Netflix queue when I saw it was A) on a lot of "Top Ten Films of the Year" lists and B) could be watched online. The movie was good, but quite slow in some places. I love the story, and I love the concept, but there were a lot of places where I could have pressed fast-forward. But I liked it enough to see how the book compared.

The reason to read a book after the movie is to see what you missed - what "really" happened. "Let the Right One In" is pretty much the same, but much, much longer. Every detail is explored, every thought, every idea, every conversation is brought out into long detail. You lose what the author is trying to say, because there are so many storylines. And if you stop reading, you're going to forget what happened. It was like Lindqvist just kept writing and writing and writing, then he had to pee, came back, and realized he had written 40,000 pages.

Maybe this is just a case of liking the first version you see (like sometimes you hear the remix or cover first, and you like that better than the original song), but I recommend the movie over the book. You don't miss anything, and the movie makes a little more sense. Plus, I like Eli as a girl better than a castrated boy. And the visuals work better in film than in the book.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Why did I read this? I'm not a girl. I'm not eight years old. I'm not living in the turn of the century.

Well, I decided to read a little young adult fiction aimed at females, just to see what it was like. I'd read "Jungle Book" and "Just So Stories", so I wanted to see how the other half lives. It apparently lives in a great deal of warm and fluffy feelings. Burnett must have been a genius to stretch this story out as long as he did. Talk about your Mary Sues. The "little princess" in question is a precocious girl from a colorful background traveling in mysterious India, who's dropped off at a girl's school. Everyone loves her, except for the trunchbull Miss Minchin. She spends half the time being the Jesus-figure for her obnoxious spoiled classmates, and the other half being a poor ragamuffin once her dad dies and her fortune's lost, and she's relegated to scullery-maid (what is a scullery? And are they so dirty they need maids?). Then she uses her *imagination* (sparklies!) to rise above her seeming poverty and remain a "princess".

Anyway, I got an interesting glimpse of female characters during this time, and what they were into. Good thing we got out of that era. Now, where's my sandwich, woman?

Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede by Bradley Denton

There was an article on Boing Boing about this book being made into a movie (starring Jon Heder). Cory Doctorow cited it as one of the great books he was handing out in his early days in the bookstore. It sounded interesting, and luckily, a few days later, it was released under a CC license. I'm glad it was - it's a good read. At some point during the late eighties, every television is America is hijacked by Buddy Holly, apparently broadcasting from some sort of biodome on Ganymede meant to look like the Ed Sullivan Show. No one knows why this is happening, how, or what it means, but when Buddy Holly reads one of the signs in the studio "Call Oliver Vale for assistance", our main character who shares the same name knows he's in a heap of trouble.

My beef with the book is that it's not science-fiction. Humor, yes. Sci-fi, no. There's a strange broadcast, yes, but its existence is simply a macguffin to get characters moving. There are aliens, yes, but they never figure into the main plot. They don't act like aliens or do alien things (and yes, they started this whole thing as a little "prove you are worthy" test for humans). There are robots, yes, but its a robot dog, who no one seems to care much about, especially when it regurgitates a beer can as a gift. There are no spaceships, lasers, xenobiotic life forms, or different planets. So why call this science-fiction? This is a chase novel with a science-fictiony like thing at the beginning. It could be the same story without it.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Second in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy (and I still don't know whose dark materials they are, or why they're so dark. You can turn on the lights if you want), and the first where I don't have the help of a movie. The story is interesting, but it suffers from the trappings of the second part of a trilogy - all set up for the ending, resting on the laurels of an exciting beginning.

Also, it starts to become heady and scientific, talking about dark matter and molecules, getting my science-fiction in my fantasy. This is what I was talking about with Peeps in trying to be epic and melodramatic by making it "oh my god, this shit just got real". Some people can do it well, but I don't think you can have metaphysics and talking animals in the same book (and not have the metaphysics explaining the talking animals), unless you dedicate your science to explaining everything in your fantasy. Michael Crichton did that with time travel in Timeline, but it took a third of the book to do it. Still, I will be reading the last book.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I read this in anticipation of Wicked, the revisionist sequel which tells the untold true story of the Wicked Witch of the West. I read it many, many, many times in my youth, and it's still just as wonderful as I remember. But I knew I needed to catch up on the Oz when I saw the map in the front of Wicked and there's Quadling Country marked and where the Yellow Brick Road goes, and a whole bunch of stuff I barely remembered, and I thought, "Oh, shit, this uses the whole thing, and I don't remember any of it". So I did a quick catch-up, which was quite an enjoyable blast from the past. Still holds up well.

The Adventures of Pinocchio by C. Collodi

This is book is awesome. In the first 13 pages, Gepetto gets into a fist fight, Pinnocchio gets Gepetto sent to prison, then he kills Jiminy Cricket with a hammer. This is great!

As you can tell this book is far removed from the Disney version. Everybody's a jerk. Must be an Italian thing. I'm not sure who this book was audienced to -- little boys maybe? -- but the language still holds up. The culture does not. It's super easy to read, but the plot is not terribly coherent, and there's no unifying force. It seems like 65% of the book is just Pinnochio being bad, then, when he realizes he's about to get burnt or hanged or shot, he suddenly cries, "oh no, I'll never be bad again", and he repents and is saved. Then he goes and does it again. Reminds me of the American prison system. Must be required reading for lawyers.

The storytelling is terribly unpolished and incohesive. There's no unifying story, just Pinocchio running around getting into trouble. After about halfway, it starts getting obnoxious, because he has no real goal. He has nothing he wants.

I'm really on the fence about the value of this book in terms of today. Would I recommend it for anyone? Would they get anything out of it? Maybe, since the chapters are short and the characters dynamic, they'd get more out of it than I did.

So that's it. Fifteen books this quarter, although a lot of them were super short, or unfinished. Next time, I gotta read less, or shorten the span between booklists. It took half a month to write this entry.

The Ultimate Update OF ALL TIME!

2009-10-14T10:04:00.000-05:00

I'm now in the homestretch of finished Black Hole Son. After I'm done revising, I'm going to turn on formatting, and check for the spaces between periods. This will also give me a chance to give it a fast lookover and final polish before it's sent out into etherspace. And it's looking good for me to finish under 120,000 words, if I haven't already.

I've also given permission for myself to start working on my query letter. I've already made a rough outline, thanks to a Query Letter questionnaire I found online (I forget where I found it, sorry. Try Nathan Bradsford's site). It's really a handy little tool, and it's helped me shape my query letter in an acceptable format. Plus given me a reference for future storytelling - I had no idea all stories should include some kind of ticking clock, but now I see that in just about everything.

Sorry this took a while, but I discovered a fun little game called "Left 4 Dead" over the weekend. More on that later.

Why I Don't Care For Short Stories

2009-10-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about ~~Stephen King~~ short stories. Sherwood Smith linked to an interesting video about where Stephen King attempts to explain why the world has "fallen out of love with the short story". First, I'm not entirely sure the world has been in love with the short story for a long time, except for maybe the 1950s with the rise of science fiction. It seems to me that novels have dominated since they first came on the scene. But I'm not a historian, and I'm not here to talk about the past.

One of the big problems with King's argument is that he says humans are feeding at the trough of comfortable, reliable, repetitive "American Idol", rather than the short story trough. That's a false comparison. Why are you pitting "short stories vs. reality TV"? You should be either saying "reading vs. reality TV" or "short stories vs. novels". Why not compare Northwest Airlines to the Toyota Matrix? Both are used for transportation.

Now I agree with King's premise, but not his reasons for arriving at it. Let's look at them. (At this point, if you want to leave and visit YouPorn instead, I don't blame you.)

King says people have forgotten how to read short stories. They've fallen out of love with them. Why? One reason is that you have to restart in a new environment each time. Yep, that makes sense to me. But that's a fundamental problem with short stories (more on that later). Each time, you've got to set up environment, characters, and how they all relate to each other (exposition, in other words). Each time. That means you've got to dedicate a significant portion of your story to setup. And by the time you're done, you've don't have many words left. You only get so much time to interject a plot into a mountain of exposition - it's probably easier in literary fiction, but not in sci-fi where it's a vastly different place each time. And then you have to forget it all and restart. New rules, new places, new story to get used to.

Besides exposition, there's also the oversaturation of the market. You may like one story in an anthology, but the next might suck. And the next might suck. And the next might be okay, but forgettable. It's always a crap shoot. I agree with King (and by syllogy, Forrest Gump) - you never know what you're gonna get.

Except then, King says people would rather return to "American Idol" each week for the same comfortable level of mediocrity they're used to. This is where the sense of the argument breaks down. If what he said was true, then novels would be suffering more. It takes more effort to read a novel - they're so much longer, they cost more, and they're a bigger investment of time. I think people are dropping reading altogether, which is a more fundamental problem, but beyond the scope of his thesis.

But people are reading way more novels than the so-called digestable, time-efficient short stories. And the short story medium is suffering, if not dying. Magazines are shutting down, paying declined rates (or none at all), and losing subscribers. But it's because of the nature of the short story vs. the changing life of the average person. It's nice that even King admits that he doesn't feel much inclined to pick up a short story anymore. The horror genre and the short story are like peanut butter and jelly. But when I hear the words "here, read this short story", I think two things. One: waste of time. Two: diminished return on investment.

Why is it a waste of time? Because for one, there's only so many hours (minutes) in the day to dedicate to reading. And I'd rather spend them on what I either want to read or feel I should read. And those are novels. I never hear about short stories that I need to read. And if I do, I just read them online. I always read the Hugo and Nebula nominated works, and even those are sometimes arduous. Why? Because its a grab-bag. Each time you go to the trough, you don't know if you're going to like the story you're reading. There's no self-policing audience to tell you which short stories are good and which ones aren't. For novels, the cream rises to the top.

And what does 'diminished return on investment' mean? It means I get more satisfaction reading a novel than reading a bunch of short stories. It probably sounds weird - it takes one sitting to read through a short story, but a month to read a novel. And I can stop reading if I want, and not lose as much. But you feel obligated to read an entire short story to the end, because its short. Then you're like "why did I read that? I wasted the precious time I have to read."

I've even been losing interest in EscapePod. I've been skipping through more and more stories in recent weeks. Well, first I yell at the story for being stupid, then I skip it. This might be another reason short stories suffer - you get frustrated reading junk. You're not a slush reader, and whoever selects the stories may not have tastes that match yours. Lately, the stories are too whiny, too filled with fluttery prose, or I can't track the plot at all, I drift off, can't follow it, then join back in and have no idea what's going on, nor do I care. And you have to go at the reader's pace, which can take around 45 minutes for him to read something I could have done in twenty. And even after two hundred episodes, they still have audio production problems - they can't even get the volume at a decent level.

I don't know what changed. Maybe I've been finding more interesting things to listen to during the commute - comedy albums, Adam Carolla podcasts, music, Dungeons and Dragons podcasts. Maybe when they split PodCastle off, the story selections became diluted. Maybe it was Stephen Eley's breakdown that forced him to give over the reins, and too many cooks are spoiling the soup. I don't know. But I do know the stories don't have the same level of fun as they used to. 43 Antaerean Dynasties, The Great Old Pumpkin, Union Dues, Those Eyes, Just Do It. These are the fun ones. I never hear the fun ones anymore, unless it's read by Stephen Eley. Otherwise, it's going to be a flip of the coin (and seriously, Jeremiah Tolbert - you have the worst recording equipment in the world. If you're going to take this seriously, get a microphone that doesn't hiss every 'S' and pop every 'P'.)

Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be a rant on EscapePod. But it illustrates a big problem with short stories. Everything I hear or read sounds like it's being picked by someone too in love with their own opinion - people who want "good" stories, stories with literary merit, with original plots, by people who says "we don't want to be lumped into a genre". They're pretentious, complicated, flourished, and overwhelmingly overwritten (I should talk, how long is this entry now?) They're the stories the slush readers want to read, not what the listeners want to hear, because they read much more than we do. Here's the problem - good stories do not necessarily equal fun stories. Star Wars is not good, it's fun. Transformers is not good, it's fun. Batman and Spider-man and the X-men are not good, they're fun.

And that exemplifies the problem. They're serving us filet mignon, when I'd rather have a pizza. They're giving us 80% cocoa chocolate bars, when I really want a Butterfinger. I don't have time for a fancy meal, and I don't care about one. With novels, the market filters itself, pretty much. With short stories, you're fed what the editor wants to give you - what fits their "vision" of what they want the magazine to be. They're vision includes whining, proverb-spouting armenians, sentient hotels, and people with masks & honey & do strange, incoherent things. I want dragons and swords goddammit. I want hapless space jocks in clunky starships. I want gooey monsters fighting chicks in chainmail. I want superheroes, and robots, and ninjas, and swords, and pirates, and ghosts. Maybe I'm just a backward thinking plebian. Maybe I'm retreating to my comfort zone. But the heart wants what it wants.

A short story anthology is like a jelly bean jar - it contains some you like and some you don't, but you still had to pay for the whole jar. And you're not satisfied when you finish one, so you have more and more, until you're sick of them. A novel is like a pizza - all one thing and its all tasty, and if you need to, you can pick off the parts you don't like (i.e., skip ahead) and still eat the whole thing, leaving you satisfied.

So if I don't like reading or listening to them, why would I like making them? That's why the quality degrades, and I stick to the novel in both reading and writing.

And nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger.

Avatar's Contract

2009-10-01T09:43:00.002-05:00

Dunesteef has now sent me a contract for Avatar. Instead of something to print and sign and all that, they are sending me an email with some contract verbiage, and I'm to respond in the affirmative. This raised some red flags to me, but it's not a large market, so it's doubtful they'd try to rook me. I don't want to get into a Todd MacFarlane lawsuit. But it's for audio rights only, so I'm not going to worry too much about it. But let the record show that if history proves me wrong, this was the moment I was an idiot.

However, they also brought up a point that there's a movie coming out in a few months, probably around the time my story will be coming out. I think it's called "Avatar: The Last Airbender"? Yeah, it's kind of a big deal, I hear. That one guy - James What's-His-Face - is directing. He made that one with the killer robot, and the one where the ship sinks. I guess they were a big deal too.

So that means I should (read: have to) change my story's name. Any other story and it wouldn't be hard, but "Avatar" has always been "Avatar". Nearly, all my other stories didn't get a title until I submitted it to Critters. And most of the time, I ask the populace to suggest a different title. White Mage Story didn't have one until the very end, because I had to have one. I just came up with "Defender", but that's lame to me, and it doesn't illustrate what the story's about.

My story's aren't so serious that they need a serious title, and they're not so complex and hi-falutin' that they need an intriguing, ambiguous title like "Even a Monkey Will Wash Its Black Hands". The story's title should encompass what its about - its theme. Avatar doesn't really have a theme. It's a bunch of characters doing silly things in video game world. Of course, I can't call it "Silly Video Game World".

Scarface

2009-09-29T11:16:00.002-05:00

Saw Scarface for the first time last night. I don't why I'm talking about it, it has nothing to do with writing. I was just struck by how much was lifted into Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The camera pans over a salmon and cream building and I go "hey, I've been in that building! That's my save point." Then they pan to the street and it looks exactly like in Vice City - the palm trees the oceans, the buildings, the cars, the bikini-clad women. Every song was something I'd heard repeatedly driving around in my Banshee or Idaho. Push it to the limit, indeed. Walk along the razor's edge.

Then they have the scene in the dance club. It looked exactly like the one in Vice City - the same round shape, colors, and dance floor. I was like "hey, I know that club. I shot all those people. Yeah, I got a mini-gun and just spun in a circle. Best body count I ever got." The best part was I'd go to the stairs, come back, the dance floor's full again, hopping up and down on the bodies like the night of Bacchus. Gives a new meaning to blood on the dance floor. Anyway, thought it was funny.

It also might have something to do with the three rum & cokes I had that night.

Interpersonal Relationships in SF Writing

2009-09-24T15:10:00.002-05:00

Let's talk about this article by SFWA's infamous Andrew Burt. Now, I don't much like promoting this guy, but he presents some food for thought. The basic premise is that the best books have a good deal of their text dedicated to interpersonal relationships, and little science fiction focuses on interpersonal relationships. The ones that do are often the considered the best.

Burt took a random sampling of books and did a very loose statistical analysis. The results are interesting but I feel that his method of randomly sampling pages for sentences involving relationships was iffy to say the least.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the top science fiction "musts" for books (at least the ones I've read) and movies and see if they pass the test.

Dune

Verdict: Yes

We're dealing with a sprawling dynastic epic, and that always involves relationships. Maybe not romantic relationships, but we're talking about a young prince's rise to power, after his father dies and his kingdom is devastated. His mom is there, his little sister, his dad, and an evil baron. They're all tangled in a relationship web.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Verdict: No

Some cosmic shit happening here. Origin of the species. Space travel. Alien technology. Crazy AIs. 2001 happens on a global scale, and the only memorable character is the computer villain.

Ender's Game

Verdict: Yes

It might not look like it on the surface, but Ender's Game is all about his relationship to his two siblings, which represent the angel and devil on his shoulder. His overarcing struggle is to become more like his kind sister while being forced into actions which make him more like his sadistic, power-hungry brother.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Verdict: No

It's a comedy novel. So interpersonal relationships are out the window in lieu of fourth-wall jokes and Monty Python-esque humor: Vogon poetry, improbability drives, 42. No one interacts with each other. Certainly there's potential - Arthur who likes Trillian who's "dating" self-absorbed Zaphod Beeblebrox who's cousins with Ford who's been deceiving his friend Arthur who likes Trillian who's "dating" self-absorbed Zaphod... well, you get it. The later novels try and explore this in some ways, but they aren't very good. Likewise the movie expands the potential, but that's not what Hitchhiker is about.

American Gods

Verdict: Maybe

This is a toughie. On one hand, Shadow's got significant relationships with father figure Wednesday, ex-girlfriend Laura, and former prison buddy Low-key. On the other hand, the story's about becoming involved in a far-reaching scheme, an empty war, and a sacrifice. It's about meeting fantastic people, and a lot of them are throwaway gods a la Alice in Wonderland. So use your judgement.

Neuromancer & Snow Crash

Verdict: Nope

I lumped these together because they're both fountainheads of the cyberpunk genre. Burt mentions several times in his article how William Gibson fails the relationship test. But that's just how cyberpunk is written - metal over meat. It's a characteristic of the genre and I think it's unfair to fail these books based on criteria they were never looking for.

The Time Machine

Verdict: I'll say no

It's hard to judge anything written before the baby boom by modern standards. The Time Machine is more than a hundred years old and it was written in a totally different style - the framed narrative. Framed by letters or hearsay or narrators within narrators. Heart of Darkness did the same thing. I have no idea why they wrote like this. Maybe they were trying to replicate a familiar style. Maybe they were trying to keep distance between the reader and the subject material, maybe to provide intrigue or mystery. Maybe it was the style at the time, like an onion in the belt. But seriously, the main character doesn't even have a name.

Anyway, where was I? Interpersonal relationships? I don't see it. The Eloi are macguffins. It's a science fiction adventure. They don't have any more significant a relationship than Indiana Jones has with whatever that girl's name was.

I, Robot

Verdict: No

No. In fact, they play off this trope by having the female interest be a cold, calculating, computer-like scientist (the joke is that she's the chief of robot personality development) to play off the wise-cracking, heart-of-gold detective. This I, Robot is an action/mystery.

Harry Potter and the Something of Something

Verdict: Most definitely

Harry Potter is much like Dune in this respect - a chosen one with naught but a few friends, must fight against an empire of evil. Along the way he makes allies and enemies. He goes through ups and downs of relationships - pissing off Ron and Hermione several times throughout the seven books. Plus he has leaders (Dumbledore, Snape) and underlings (Neville, Dobby) who are either manipulaters or manipulatees.

Star Wars

Verdict: Your mileage may vary

I guess it depends on what angle you want to take. There's Han Solo + Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker + Darth Vader, Chewbacca + Han Solo, C3P0 + R2D2. But these relationships seem superficial. They never get beyond the scope of the action. They're all in the 'save the world, get the girl' trope, except for Darth Vader. And as far as that arc is concerned, I'd hardly call that an interpersonal relationship along the lines of Dune or Ender's Game.

A Wrinkle in Time

Verdict: Yes, with a 'but'

The book is about Meg's journey to find her father, and on the way, she realizes that she goes through some character development. She gives up her desire to fit in, learns that she cannot know everything, and finds a happy medium. The story is about the triumph of love, and clearly, there are interpersonal relationships here. But, the journey is so unfocused on those relationships that they don't really come across. It's more about the battle between good and evil.

The War of the Worlds

Verdict: No

It's a war novel. War is a fascinating subject, and it's home to many fascinating stories about stressful relationships - those with the people back home, with your fellow soldiers, with the enemy. But in this case, the book is about the devastation of total war. It's not about the "narrator" (did Wells name anyone? No wonder he went by his initials) finding anything, but showing us stuff. Like a museum of alien invasion.

Frankenstein

Verdict: No

It's a gothic/horror story. When are those ever about relationships? It's about a guy trying to play god. Not about a guy's relationship with his father.

The Matrix

Verdict: No

Please. How shallow is Neo and Trinity's relationship? Out of nowhere she declares her love and that "resurrects" him. Then there's some hot nodule-on-nodule sex, the cycle repeats, genders reversed, then we all die. It's an action movie.

I could go on - Alien/Aliens, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes. But the answer would be "no" each time. Maybe it's not fair to include movies here, since the article was really about the book medium. But screw that, it's my blog.

A Call to Arms (Reaching for Cell Phones)

2009-09-21T09:07:00.000-05:00

People. This is an announcement. If you have a cell phone, YOU MUST HAVE IT WITH YOU AND TURNED ON. That is what it's there for. If you don't have it on you, or it's off, then its just a plastic brick in your pocket. Its useless. And you're useless. For god's sake, this is what you bought a cell phone for - so people could contact you whenever they need to. You didn't buy it so you could call people whenever you wanted, you bought it so people can contact you when they need to. Do you think people see a cell phone and think "gee, now I can contact him any time, so I will! I'll call him before breakfast, and when he's getting out of the bath. I'll call him after he takes a shit to see how it went."

You have a cell phone so people can get a hold of you when it's necessary. For example, if your wife gets a wasp sting, and you have no idea if she's having an allergic reaction, because it's the first time she's been stung, but she's feeling nauseous, dizzy, and she's seven months pregnant. And you can't get a hold of mom, dad, or your doctor brother whose had multiple stings and knows what to do - at either their home or cell numbers. Where the fuck are you people? Why don't you have goddamn phone on you?

So, people. We're living in an age of portable phones. They're meant to be turned on and carried on your person at all times. It's not just another line - it's instant communication, and it's meant to be used. Fucking use them already.

Video Game Memories: The Complete Set

2009-09-16T14:08:00.001-05:00

Now that my series of Video Game memories is complete, here is the final tally of all the games I reviewed.

#1: Dungeons of Kroz
#2: Frogger/Spider-Man/Dig-Dug/Rampage
#3: Leisure Suit Larry
#4: RBI Baseball/Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball
#5: Mega Man 3
#6: Super Mario Bros. 3
#7: Mega Man 2
#8: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II/III/IV
#9: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
#10: Mortal Kombat II
#11: Mega Man X
#12: Donkey Kong Country
#13: Super Mario RPG
#14: Super Metroid
#15: Quake
#16: Blood
#17: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
#18: Carmageddon
#19: Resident Evil 2
#20: Final Fantasy VII
#21: Parasite Eve
#22: Final Fantasy VIII
#23: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
#24: Galerians
#25: Vagrant Story
#26: Perfect Dark
#27: Half-Life
#28: Kingdom Hearts
#29: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
#30: Portal

My First Sale!

2009-09-15T09:03:00.004-05:00

Avatar has sold!

My first publishment! Me! I sold a story! I'm a published author (or I will be, as soon as I sign the contract -- never count your chickens until you can link to them).

Avatar's going to go up at Dunesteef - an audio fiction magazine not dissimilar from EscapePod. I'm not sure when it'll be up, but they said they have two months worth of stories in the hopper. So probably around November/December, just in time for the yearly Christmas letter.

Last night, I checked my e-mail and saw an email from Dunesteef. I thought I was about due to get a rejection notice, so I clicked it. At first I thought it looked awfully long -- maybe they were giving me some feedback? Then I saw the words "we have decided to run it". Squee!

Then I ran around the house telling everyone. The only person in my house was my wife though (and the sleeping baby would not have appreciated it on my level). I'm doing tap dances in my head, writing my acceptance speech.

So they're going to send me a contract in a few days, and they want me to write an intro (basic credits) and an outro about the story (why I wrote it, what inspired me, etc.) That should be interesting, but I love writing about my works. "The Big Idea" on Whatever is one of my favorite features. But they also would like me to record it myself (although they give me the option to decline, but they like it because the audience feel closer to the author). This is fine by me, although I have crappy recording equipment -- I think my microphone was manufactured in the mid-nineties. I rarely use it, and I have no idea what it sounds like.

But this doesn't mean Avatar's done making the rounds. I think they only offer audio rights, so that means I can still tout it to print mags. But this time, it'll have a publishing credit behind it.

I'm really surprised this made it to the gold bar. I can see why it works as an audio fiction -- I was listening to a lot of EscapePod at the time. But this story went through two Critters submissions, multiple dropped characters, and massive restructuring, and it doesn't even resemble my original idea of the piece. But you know what they say about gift horses and mouths.

Not to sound like a Lisa Frank-adorned diary, but finally, my dream is coming true. The first step is the hardest. And finally, I've been validated that I'm a competent author.

Death to Two Spaces

2009-09-14T14:47:00.000-05:00

I have a new mission in life. Grammar Girl solidified it. I have to start putting one space after the end of a sentence and not two. This sucks. I haven't written a single sentence in this paragraph so far without doing it (I've corrected it each time). I've been hearing this in various places, but I never really followed it. I hadn't gotten enough of a consensus on whether it was proper or not.

Grammar Girl says that two spaces was the way cavemen wrote on their typewriters. They included two spaces because the fonts were monospaced, and they needed enough space to distinguish when a new sentence started. Otherwise the mammoths would get them. Now we don't need that because computers and the like, brought to us by those helpful aliens, make type easier to read and two spaces unnecessary. Although, personally, I prefer seeing two spaces after a period. Not just because it means I won't have to change, but it still makes things easier to read.

I've been taught to use two spaces after a sentence since I was a junior in high school, when I took keyboarding. It's served me well all through college, when two spaces added a little more length to my essays. Woe to the student who did not know this secret. So basically, let's say about eleven years of using two spaces and never being told otherwise. Flash to where I'm trying to get stories published and the slightest mistake could cost me a place.

What this does do is give me a better reason to scan Black Hole Son for punctuation and formatting errors. Turn on formatting in Word and look through all the pretty dots. That will be quite an arduous task.

It's going to be a hard habit to break.