Writing fight scenes

• perspective of character that has been in a fight versus one that never has is completely different. People who experience regular combat (bouncer) have different frame of mind and see things differently
• also person not in fight can see things that those in the fight can't
• can use training sequence to describe the moves in great detail, and then keep it brief when the actual fight happens
• daily exercises or training routine can serve a similar purpose
• fight's aftermath: talk to emts and paramedics about the kinds and causes of trauma they've seen
• think of fight musically, with rhythm of blows and building to resolution in a limited amount of time
• don't forget: characters that have been in a fight are going to carry injuries with them for rest of book
• remember that fight is happening because of conflict, two or more characters that want different things, and they'll be thinking about their goals during the fight

50 years of star trek

• people knock the new movies, but even old movies were often about finding someone to fight instead of exploring; classic series had fights, but central theme was exploration and making friends
• jar jar abrams
• star trek at its best when its about discovery and making friends
• what would you want in new series? snodgrass and gerrold: shut down holodeck (or find out it causes cancer)
• no media? snodgrass: they tried, wrote episode where they showed wesley's cabin, with pinups on wall, and they were not allowed to show it
• snodgrass: in original series, their time in rec room created sense that they liked each other and hung out together; she created the poker game in next generation because she felt that was missing
• snodgrass: please ditch the bodysuits from TNG, they limited who they could cast in each role because they were not forgiving; much prefer the uniforms from the first few movies
• star trek: new voyages: fanmade series that gerrold did an episode for
• star trek: continues: finn fancy necromancy author really loves it
• could we do non starship star trek? Gerrold: yes, if about star trek academy, or federation council, etc
• house of picards

As you know, bob

• hiding the infodump: article in april 2015 analog
• tamora pierce: works in genre where extra exposition gets cut mercilessly
• "teenagers pay my bills, i don't explode them" pierce
• exposition can get too detailed because in first draft writers are figuring out what's happening as they write it. It's fine, so long as they take it out later
• know as much about your background as possible, tell as little about it as you can get away with
• know your audience: some them can really get into detailed exposition, while others will skip it
• don't load it in as a block, slip it in as part of the action, because it's fatal
• tnh: expository chunks can happen because authors with clout can be late, and rather than push book release out, editors will edit book less than they normally would because they ran out of time
• tnh: don't tell people things before they want to know it; rowling is a great example of how to do it right: she intros sorting hat as just talking hat, only later introduces other properties when they're needed
• conflict can also be a driving force of exposition
• or: new guy comes in, has to have everything explained to them
• pierce: usually starts with character at cusp of new phase of life, transition drives exposition, will drip exposition into story as it goes, have characters act it out rather than infodump
• tnh: technical master of exposition of our time is joss whedon; watch first few minutes of serenity, within ten minutes you know everything you need to know about the universe
• pierce: early stephen king, elizabeth bear
• jodi shapiro: new books, well done exposition and context
• reader can infer a lot from context, can trust them more than you think
• when chapter has ended, preferably with a hook, it's clear that something new is coming, you can get away with slipping a little omniscient viewpoint exposition in there
• tnh: get a 14-yr-old beta reader. Their brains are fully developed but they don't have any tact
• tactic: when people are angry, they'll state obvious things ("look! Water *is* wet!")
• tnh: every time you explain something to the audience, you give them a chance to argue with you; great example is time machine: don't explain how it works, because they don't, tell me how it smells, how much cargo it can carry, how much time it needs to recharge between trips

How to write a mystery

• clues can be great, but if characters aren't three-d, will feel hollow
• misdirection: all clues have to be there, but distract reader at same time
• mystery great tool for other genres, can reveal aspects of world for spec fic using mystery tools
• why is it important that characters solve this?
• would this mystery have happened in any other world? What does this crime reveal about the greater society and the people that live in it?
• harris: beat, beat, beat; explication, explication, boom! Follow the rhythm of the book
• try/fail cycle: characters try something, fail, try something else, fail, etc
• harris: have to provide false suspects, but not so many that you wonder why the victim didn't get killed earlier
• harris: when you have something that you think is too mean to do to your characters, you should do it!
• small mystery and large mystery: can add texture to the book; small mystery small stakes, answer can be humorous; can also tie the two mysteries together, link the two mysteries
• thematic echo: guinea pig squealing in the night out of fear; person had murdered another because they thought (wrongly) that they were being threatened
• turn tropes on their head to try to get something new (no more detectives with tortured pasts)
• harris: people love to talk about what they do. Undertakers? Don't nobody ask them what they do.
• amateur detective: has to have compelling reason to get involved and not leave it to the police
• randall garreth; darcy series
• the last policeman
• nora roberts' detective novels set in the future
• do you read mysteries? Yes, all the time; new j d robb; anne bishops's written in blood series; expanse series by james a corey; mike connolly; steven hunter; stewart mcbride; ben aaronovich rivers of london series

Crafting and Editing the Short Story

• how involved are you in the process?
• datlow: will buy imperfect stories, but will dig in and ask for changes, work with author to make it better; harder with new writers that may not take editing well
• clarke: take everything from slush, always open to submissions, often working with new authors more; will work with author if they believe in the story
• uncanny: usually buy more fully-cooked stories; there are enough submissions that they just don't take the story if they don't think it's ready
• swartzmann: often buy ready stories, but will sometimes pluck out a rough diamond and polish it, which makes him very very happy
• williams: will work more with authors she hasn't seen before; still rare though
• what stops you from reading?
• datlow: bad writing
• swartzmann: pacing
• uncanny: has to care about the characters
• clarke: zombies...really anything that indicates they haven't read the market guidelines
• datlow: have to want to spend time with the character; don't make them boring
• what about problem endings?
• datlow: usually means 3/4 of the way through they took a wrong turn
• clarke: very frustrating for good story to have bad ending
• uncanny: the sigh of having given up on a story
• williams: wait to send stories out; your subconscious can come up with things to improve it if you give it a chance
• uncanny: problem she often sees is the tendency to describe everything instead of only the things relevant to plot and characters
• datlow: not supposed to do talking head stories, but can use descriptions of events around them to prevent it from being boring
• clarke: seek out slush reading opportunities; good way to see what's out there and what mistakes people make
• williams: buys 6 stories a month; receives around 1,000 submissions a month
• swartzmann: in humor, don't try too hard, and make sure reader can enjoy story even if they don't find it funny
• uncanny: take chances, don't reproduce what you see out there
• datlow: humor a harder sell for her because she usually doesn't find it funny
• uncanny: many stories are bittersweet, so will look for whimsy to lighten the mood

Mind of villains

• psychopaths are born not made
• reactive attachment disorder comes from environment, inconsistent caregiving before age of 2
• not good or bad caregiving, just inconsistent
• passed around from caregiver to caregiver, start to view people as providers of services, not worthwhile as individuals
• pdf from doj on problems with criminal justice in the united states
• most psychopaths choose to follow the rules of society for their own benefit
• if you have a psychopath as your villain, you need something to kick them out of their natural rule-following
• don't know what fear is or what love is
• but can have long-term relationships or get married, just don't feel love
• 10% of murders in US are committed by children (under 18)
• kids released at 21 have no higher incidence of crime as adults than anyone else
• children kill for different reasons than adults; when take them out of that environment, they stop (take them out of abuse, teach them anger control, etc)
• in court cases, often someone sitting in the back crying; usually the mother; "why are they picking on my child?"
• hitler attached to his dog, attached to his cousin; would he have had anyone killed if he'd gotten into art school?
• there's a way to raise a psychopath: reward good behavior immediately and punish bad behavior immediately; give them the praise that they crave
• BTK killer was church leader, good husband, good father
• tend to see people that do evil as "really" evil: he was a good father but really he was a serial killer. It's not but really, it's *and*.
• most people that do evil are people, with good and bad that they do
• bones is a great example (in early seasons) of a successful psychopath
• psychopaths are normal: 1 out of 100 people is one
• psychopaths can empathize with other people
• if you call psychopaths on their bs, they'll try to spin it with them as victims or play it off as an accident
• psychopathy and high intelligence are not correlated, but intelligence and being in prison is: prison population of us is more intelligent than general pop (though with lower education level)

Wife and I are heading off to WorldCon today!

It’s in Kansas City this year, which is only a 4.5 hour drive for us. For once, no plane tickets to buy :)

This’ll be our first WorldCon, so I’m both excited and nervous. A lot of our friends will be there, but so will many – ye gods, so many – of the authors I admire. I’m going to try to keep my squee to an acceptable level.

Also, thanks to the efforts of Tanya Washburn and the Accessibility Committee, there’s going to be multiple ASL-interpreted events! The Masquerade, all Business Meetings, the Hugo Awards Ceremony, and the Paul and Storm Concert will all be accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing.

They’ve even arranged for a personal interpreter for my wife for one day of the Con, so she can enjoy that day’s panels as much as anyone else.

It’s going to make a huge difference in my wife’s independence during, and participation in, the Con. The Accessibility Committee has been very responsive and welcoming, and I’m quite thankful for their efforts.

Allons-y!

Eye-opening. Brings two hundred years of Central Asian history to life through a series of vignettes, describing individual lives spent among the cities and caravans of the Silk Road. That technique lets the author pack of a lot of detail into a slim book.

Three of the many things I learned:

• 9th century Buddhist monks would setup stalls in the monastery, offering spells for healing or insight into the future or advice for what to do
• Chinese histories of the time portray surrounding empires as vassal states, when in truth China often paid tribute to those empires to stave off war.
• Even in the eighth century, you could come across ruins and abandoned towns in the Tarim Basin. People had been living there for 2,000 years, and with water so precarious, often had to pick up and move as the climate shifted

Biggest three flaws in the novel are fixed!

Or, at least, I think they are? Hard to tell without getting another round of beta reader feedback.

In any case, I’ve made edits to fix the largest plot holes. 

Moving on to problems with world-building. Those range from big things like: does the background for the two main characters make sense? Is it treated consistently? Does the behavior of the villain at the start of the book hold with what we learn about them by the end? To smaller pieces, like making sure the monetary system used holds up and the curses the characters utter fit the world.

It’s a little more scattershot than the first editing pass. Almost wish I’d made notes as I wrote the first draft, breadcrumbs for me to follow back so I’d know exactly which sections of the text would need to be checked later. Maybe something to try with my next novel?

Disappointing. Starts out strong, with several good chapters covering how the replicator enables Star Trek’s cashless society, and what could motivate competition and work in such a society.

Starting with the middle of the book, though, the author indulges in multiple digressions, ranging from a chapter covering how Isaac Asimov’s work influenced Star Trek (true, but way off-topic) to one listing all the ways the Ferengi represent 20th-century humanity (also true, but obvious). 

Ends with a chapter claiming that interstellar travel is an economic dead-end, a fantasy, and the only way to get there will be to enable a Star Trek-like society beforehand. Not exactly a perspective to inspire exploration and discovery.

Still, I did learn a few things:

• Currency-less society wasn't part of original Star Trek; the idea was introduced in Star Trek IV, and fleshed out in Star Trek: The Next Generation (and later series, like Deep Space 9)
• President Reagan opened up GPS to the public because the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner in 1983
• In the US, from 1970 to 2012, GDP per capita doubled, while energy use dropped from 2,700 gallons of gasoline (equivalent) to 2,500

Fantastic. Many of the essays are very, very personal – sometimes painfully so – but that only makes the advice they contain more powerful.

Her writing is both clear and funny, making this book both a quick read and a fun one.

Three things I learned:

• Jeremy Renner got his start as a make-up artist (!)
• It's ok to ask for help when something happens in your life (your career, your marriage, etc) that you don't know how to deal with
• Writing fan mail isn't cool, but that's ok: if you like something someone else has created, let them know!

The major flaw in the novel is almost fixed. I’ve been editing around it, working my way from the scenes where the initial cracks in the story start showing through, down to where the plot hole opens up a mile wide.

I’ve started building a bridge across that chasm, a way to connect what happens on both sides so that it’s no longer an abrupt fall.

Today I made it up to the turning point itself, the central event at the heart of the flaw. I’ve finished editing that scene, and will continue on past it, smoothing things over until I feel the problem is fixed.

Once that’s done, it’ll be on to the next issue, and the next. Those are much smaller, so I’m hoping their edits go faster.

Onward!

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, vol 2: Still hilarious, easily one of my favorite comics. The characters are fantastic, the art is clear and pops, even the fan letters are great.

Thor, vol 1: Hail the Goddess of Thunder! Great voice for the new Thor. The art is generally good, but sometimes confusing in action sequences. The villain’s plot is just ok; it’s the layers of mystery around Thor (old and new) that made these issues interesting to me.

D4ve: Maybe too juvenile? Overall good, though the plot was generally cliché. Still, funny in parts.

Pretty Deadly, vol 1: Took two reads for me to get into it. The panels are cramped and hard to read for first few issues, but I stuck with it and things clicked into place. Turned into a fantastic story by the end.

Masterful.

Jemisin’s mentioned in several interviews that this was a hard book for her to write, one that she almost deleted and quit on several times. Given the difficulty of what she’s achieved – weaving second-person narration together with multiple storylines that take place entirely in flashback – I can understand. I’m glad she persevered, though, because this is a wonderful book.

Three things I learned about writing:

• Using second person can be useful for handling certain situations: when a character has amnesia, for example, or when they're shifting from one identity to another. Saying 'you' eliminated the need to juggle multiple names, or even care about them.
• Sadly, prejudice and cruelty in characters can make them seem more, not less, human.
• When introducing new terms -- as one often does in sci-fi or fantasy -- it helps to have different characters use them, each in their own way. The repetition with slight variation colors in the definition for readers.

With the first draft of the children’s book done, I can at last turn to editing my first novel, the one I started as part of NaNoWriMo 2014.

The problem, of course, is that I have no idea how to edit a novel.

A short story, sure. A blog post, definitely. Those are small things, though, easy to hold in my head and thus easy to find contradictions in, easy to re-read and catch typos, easy to control.

I read in The Kick-Ass Writer that you shouldn’t go into editing without a plan, and that you should make several passes: a pass for grammar, a pass for plot, a pass for descriptions.

So I made one plan, and threw it away, because it was too detailed and intimidating.

I made a second plan, and then threw it away, because it was too vague.

I made a third plan, and then decided I needed to stop being afraid of diving in and fixing things. So I re-read all the alpha-reader feedback I had, picked the most glaring flaw they all mentioned, and decided to start there.

Granted, it’s two-thirds of the way through the book. But it’s something that worried me when I wrote it, and if they also had issues with it, it’s something I should take care of.

Once that’s fixed, I’ll move onto the next biggest issue, and then the next, and the next. Along the way, I’ll tweak wording here and there, fix typos, etc, so that hopefully I’ll have caught them all before I do my “official” re-read for those kinds of mistakes.

Practically perfect. Preserves a fairy-tale feel while subverting fairy tale tropes; I can easily see why it was nominated for a Hugo this year.

Three things I learned about writing:

• First person with naive narrator learning about the world still a great way to introduce that world to the reader
• Can show evil influence on thoughts by transitioning those thoughts from normal to wicked slowly, taking the reader along with you
• Short descriptions can (and should) be opinionated descriptions

First draft of the children’s book is done!

I’m way over the target word count, but at least I’ve got the story beats and page layouts done. And I did manage to hold it to 28 pages, so revisions can focus on cutting words from individual scenes (hopefully).

Now to send it out to some alpha readers, see what they think. 

In the meantime, I’ve gotta get started on editing my first novel. It’s been almost a year since I finished that draft, so I should have enough distance from the text to fix what needs fixing.

Making good progress on the children’s book. Taking each page as a single scene, a single beat in the story, is helping, as is thinking of the image I want on the page and using that to substitute for most of the description I would normally put in text.

But man, is it hard to be that brief.

I read that children’s books – the ones made for the age group I’m targeting, anyway – are usually somewhere between 400 and 500 words. For a 28-page story (again, typical target length), that’s only 17 words per page!

I’ve found it’s really, really hard for me to say anything significant in so few words. With each page, as I write it, I keep an eye on my word count, but several times now I’ve blown right by it.

It’s one more thing I’m telling myself that I’ll fix “in post”; that is, in the next draft. I imagine I’ll be cutting every scene down to the bone to fit within the limits. 

Which I guess will be good practice for me: can I hold on to some form of my writing voice, even in so few words?

Uneven. The publication stories from the first half of the book are very depressing, and made me think going indie would be the best way to get my novels published. Stories in the second half pick up a bit, but still have the air of persistence in the face of repeated abuse.

Three things I learned:

• One author's book was published 6 years after receiving an initial rejection, but only after the editor that rejected it died (!) and the person going through his office found the manuscript and liked it.
• Many authors at one point took a break from writing -- for 5, 8, 10 years -- and eventually came back to it, then stuck with it long enough to be published.
• Even after you sell your book to an editor, that book might not be published. The editor might get fired, or the publisher could close shop, or they could get bought out, and then your book is "orphaned" until you can get the rights back to it.

Spent the week working through the rough outline, filling in details as I go.

I’m writing up each page like a comic panel, describing the image that should be there and what’s happening in each scene.

This next week I’ll do another pass and add the text. I’ll try to keep my vocabulary simple and the words brief, but I won’t worry about actual word counts until the first draft is done.

After working on two novels, it’s a bit of relief to have something this small to write. I feel like I can hold the whole story in my head, and more easily see its structure and how everything plays out.

Moving. Robinson conveys both the triumphs and the horrors of interstellar colonization, covering hundreds of years in a single book. Almost cried at the end of the penultimate chapter.

Three things I learned about writing:

• The experience of agoraphobia (possibly all phobias) is something the written word is much more suited to portray than film, allowing us to think what the sufferer thinks, feel what they feel, better than other media.
• In a longer work, you can structure chapters as stories of their own, with a cold open, development, slow crisis, resolution, and a reveal
• When narrating long periods of time, zoom out to establish rhythms or patterns, zoom in on unusual or unique happenings (or things that have an impact on the larger patterns)

Had a realization this week that’s guiding how I outline the children’s book I’m working on: it’s a comic!

…in a way. Instead of multiple panels per page, there’s just one. But it’s got a similar interaction between words and images that a comic does (with the images doing a lot of the descriptive work), and a two-page spread in a children’s book is similar to a splash page in a comic, a chance to break out of one-page-one-scene and do something sprawling and dynamic.

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at a comic for a while now, so I’m thinking of this as a kind of warm-up, a practice run. I’ll think of the book in terms of layout, of how the words and the pictures will work to tell the story, rather than relying on just the words themselves.

It’s good timing, because I’ve got the basic outline done, and now I’ve got to drill down into each scene (page/panel) and work out the details of what should be in it. With a little luck, I should have a draft ready by next week.

Intimidating. Martinez mixes bits of Cthulhu Mythos with Norse mythology while maintaining a comedic slant throughout. How does he do it?

Three writing techniques that I think helped him pull it off:

• Use the mundane to ground bizarre events. That could be the relationship between two characters, or the rhythms of work, or the ubiquity of bureaucracy.
• When describing weird things happening, a deadpan tone with a bit of sarcasm can both help the reader sympathize with the characters and help them see the humor in the situation.
• Voice goes a long way in defining a character. If each character has a very distinct voice, then the reader doesn't need as many vocal tags, they don't need as much description of the character, they can build it in their mind from the dialog.

This week I’ve started outlining a children’s book my wife and I came up with last month.

Which means I’m back to not knowing what I’m doing, as I’ve never written a children’s book before.

So I’m looking up average word counts, learning about vocabulary levels for the age group we’re targeting, and trying to wrap my head around thinking in terms of pages instead of chapters.

But hey, at least kid’s books are short, right?

Here we go again.

Fantastic. It’s Robinson Crusoe in space, executed so well that what should have been boring and cliche is instead full of tension and humor. I sped through this book, consuming the whole thing in two days.

Looking forward to watching the movie. Oddly enough, since I know Matt Damon plays the title role, I heard his voice for all of Mark’s journal entries. Felt like a good fit.

Three things I learned about writing:

• You can mix regular narrative with journal entries, but it's best to introduce it gradually, and only once the main storytelling mode has been established.
• Relative dates will do just fine. Most of the time, they don't really matter.
• Humor (in the characters or the narration) makes a bleak or depressing situation much more palatable.

I’ve been thinking about how I wrote this last novel, and what I might need to change about my writing process.

It felt a lot harder to write this one than the last one, and took longer, too. Maybe there are sone things I need to beware of, danger signs I should watch out for, when starting my third?

I think my first mistake was not writing a short story set in the world of the novel. I did this – accidentally – for my first book. Didn’t know it was an actual technique until I saw an interview with N K Jemisin (an amazing writer whose most recent book is up for a Hugo!)  where she mentioned that she always – deliberately – writes a short story in a new world before starting a novel set there. Her reasons lined up exactly with my experience: writing the story gave her a sense of the world and the kinds of characters and conflicts that might happen there. Even if she doesn’t use the characters from the short story in the novel, all the world-building she’s done helps.

My second problem was trying my hand at science fiction. My degree is in physics, so my Inner Editor gets all fired up when I’m writing something set in “the real world,” rejecting ideas left and right because “it doesn’t work that way.” It’s something I’m working on, because it blocks my writing flow, constricting my choices and making me doubt that I can write anything that maintains consistency.

Third mistake: writing through trauma. I mentioned this at the time, but trying to write through the events of the latter half of last year was almost impossible. I was distracted, I was angry and frustrated and scared, I was in no way ready to push through a novel like this. I’m glad I did, in the end, but without my wife and my friends to lean on, I don’t think I would have.

So, lessons learned:

• Write a short story version first.
• Don't worry about matching current scientific understanding in the first draft. Save consistency for the edits.
• Don't force myself to write through a traumatic event. No extra pressure needed.

More a series of biographies than a proper narrative history. Still well-written and interesting, though.

Holmes' use of language and choice of examples illustrates the Romantic belief that science and poetry were not opposed, but complementary disciplines, both seeking to understand and explain the world around them.

Three things I learned:

• Caroline Herschel, William Herschel's sister, was a great astronomer in her own right, discovering numerous comets and nebulae, as well as compiling the most comprehensive star catalogues of the 19th century.
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, written in 1816, can be considered the first science fiction novel, as it took curent theories of biology and chemistry and extrapolated them into the future, then constructed a narrative around the consequences.
• William Herschel was originally an organist in Bath; astronomy was a hobby he indulged in on the side. It just so happened that his homemade telescopes were more powerful than anything any one else had constructed before (!)

Taken the last few days off from writing. That’ll likely extend into the weekend, when my wife and I go out to celebrate completing the draft.

But I’m feeling a little listless, like I don’t know what to do with myself. So I’m already thinking of what to work on next, what project to use to keep the writing part of my brain busy.

There’s a children’s book idea I’ve had recently that I’d like to take a swing at. Should be very different from writing a novel, and something I can hopefully complete a draft of fairly quickly.

I’ve also got a draft of my first novel (working title: The Hungry Cold. don’t judge me) that needs editing. Gotten lots of feedback from first readers about it, including several spots that need fixing.

Those two projects should keep me pretty busy for a few months (at least). I’m thinking of starting the children’s book next week, as way to clear my head before starting in on some edits. I’ll be traveling, though, so probably won’t be able to do much more than outline.

New novel’s done!

Topped out at 111,733 words yesterday morning.

I feel proud, relieved, and confused all at the same time. Proud for getting it done, relieved that I can move on to the next project, confused that I might actually be done with the first draft. There’s a part of my brain that’s circling the last few chapters, going “are you sure we’re finished?”

But I am, thank goodness.

Next it’ll be on to editing the draft of my previous novel, whipping that into a shape I can send out to agents.

But that’s later. For now, the order of the day (of the week?) is to relax, recharge, and regroup.

Novel’s at 103,532 words…and it’s still not finished.

Wrote about 10,000 words in the last five days, pushing to uncover the ending. But there’s more story left to tell than I thought. Blew right past 90,000 words, then 100,000, and it’s not done.

My revised outline – yes, I’m still revising it, thank you – points to five more chapters, and then I’ll be finished. That means somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 words to go.

So I’m pushing my deadline to July 1st, and setting a target of 1,000 words per day until it’s done.

One way or another, I will finish this draft.