Author: Bruce Byfield

Characters, fantasy, Fiction, General Writing

Cracked Characters

Bruce Byfield

Increasingly, I practice a lesson taught by the late Avram Davidson. All my characters are at least a bit cracked. Most don’t know it. They think their eccentricities are completely normal.

An example from real life that sticks in my mind: In the last few years of Fritz Leiber’s life, I visited him several times. At the time, he was living with his second wife Margo on the edge of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, and if he had ever been on a farm or in the woods, it must have been decades ago, and very briefly. Yet in one cupboard, he had wedged a long, sharp axe, covered in dust. Seventy-five years ago or more, his father had told him that a man should always have a sharp axe handy, and he always had. Never mind that he never used it. To me, this little detail helps me see Leiber as a person. If I ever wrote a story with Leiber as a character, I would definitely include it.

Now, an example from fiction: In Roger Zelazny’s “This Immortal” (aka “And Call Me Conrad”), the main character, a former terrorist and currently a major bureaucrat, explains that he is late for an official function because he stopped by a party for the young daughter of a friend. The narrator adds that the excuse is true, but has nothing to do with the story. Zelazny later explained that he threw the detail in just to briefly indicate that the hard, active narrator had a gentler, more thoughtful side.

When I write a character, that’s the sort of detail I like to add.

Characters, fantasy, Fiction, General Writing, Writer's Block

When stuck in your writing

Bruce Byfield

Raymond Chandler said, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.” Obviously, the literal quote doesn’t fit every circumstance, but the basic point remains useful: when you aren’t sure where your story should go next, throw in something unexpected. As I revise my WIP, my own version of Chandler’s advice is to introduce new characters to liven things up. So far, I’ve introduced:

-The Glover, a runewife (witch) who wears a glove on her left hand. It appears to be stitched to her wrist. I took a while to figure out why.

-Bloody Eyril, a Barber Surgeon who pulls teeth and amputates from a shop front. He’s also the local crime-lord and has his own agenda, much to my horror.

-Hilaswy, a chieftain of the hill-clans, who became alcoholic in defeat. However, he has a certain dignity all his own that I had to discover.

-Crynephax, a white-raven who dislikes the tales of her kind being guides to the dead and carrion-eaters. “Of course ravens hunt,” she says, “But only when they have to.” She just came around last week, so I’m still learning about her. In all these characters, I’ve followed Avram Davidson’s assumption that everyone is just a little eccentric, if not downright mad. Exploring each of these characters has definitely keep me going, and, I think, made for a better story. Now, two-thirds of the way through my revision, I can’t wait to learn who shows up in the final third.

Characters, fantasy

Making Lists of Characters Interesting

Bruce Byfield

Epic fantasy often has so many characters that a list of characters (also known as dramatis personae) is a necessary aid to readers. The trouble is, a character list is usually as dull as dishwater. The best solution I have seen is from Lindsey Davis. Her character lists in her Roman mysteries about the Falco family have a definitely flippant tone to them. As a result, they are so entertaining that I often read them after finishing the novel they appear in, when I can fully understand the jokes. In fact, I admire them so much that I have shamelessly copied their tone for my character list in my current project The Bone Ransom:

The Ravenpiper Family

Talson Ravenpiper: A teenage boy, corrupted by stories and the training for the role of a second child.

Skulae Ravenpiper: Talson’s older sister. Nothing is her fault.

Bronwy del Caleryon: Talson’s mother, a ruler who knows she’s right.

Dyr-am-Syrans (Dhuramtsuran)

Kosky, aka Kahuin: A teenage girl, caught between two cultures and sarcastic about it.

Hilaswy: Kosky’s father, a dignified chieftain and drunk.

Guji: Kosky’s body-fluid foster brother. Disgustingly popular.

The Elite Housecarls

Ragger: Bronwy’s steward, and leader of the housecarls. A retired hero who has seen too much.

Aldleaf, Morgrim, and Eimur: Three veterans housecarls on duty in the city.

Ulfman: A housecarl not known for his polish.

Other Torsmyrians

Aglachad Torhte: Second cousin to the Ravenpipers, and not important enough.

Eshborg Torhte: Aglachad’s daughter and Talson’s ex-lover. An embarrassment.

Bloody Eyril: A Barber-Surgeon. He’ll extract your teeth for a fee, or punch them out for free.

Hindcalf, Gruce, and The Glover: Bronwy’s circle of enablers.

Lyxus: A Lawgiver with a bad memory for his oath of office.

Ivoryne: Server to Bronwy.

Borrie: Ivorne’s baby, named for Talson’s grandfather. But it’s not what you think.

Darogar: A swinging smith.

Frith’s Osgerd, Dallader, Slorm, and Fyrwulf: Members of the Fox age-group of the Hearth Guards. Veterans and still trying to forget the fact.

Off Stage

Karllaron (Lawbench) Hringesthorn: An elderly but still active rival of the Ravenpipers, fond of practical music.

Osbolt IV: The Margram of Torsmyr, the Ravenpiper’s titular overlord. A religious reformer.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Elzymer Ravenpiper: Talson’s father. A reluctant hero with a roving eye.

Borogrim Ravenpiper: Talson’s grandfather. The upstart who conquered the province of Ilvarness and freed the serfs.

Rungest “Dicer” Ravenpiper: Talson’s ancestor, who ended a civil war and died the obligatory heroic death. Pure ballad-bait.

Kermane Ravenpiper: Founder of the Ravenpiper family. An intimidating ancestor.

Purcirm Ravenpiper: Talson’s ancestor, who disappeared while exploring the Silvorn River, making himself romantic.

Skordis: An ancient runewife whose name is still used to frighten children.

Leel, Runger, Timple, Varchild and Ashnborg: Female housecarls who have let themselves go.

Uncategorized

The Half-Truth of Shitty First Drafts

Bruce Byfield

Wannabe writers are fond of repeating Ernest Hemingway’s apocryphal quote, “The first draft of anything is shit.” That can be useful advice for those perfectionists who get lost in an endless cycle of revision. However, it can easily result in a first draft so off course that revising it is a waste of time, an illusion of progress with no actual progress.

In my experience, if a first draft is to have any value, it must at least be heading in the right direction. It does not need to be perfect, but it needs to be somewhat polished. Parts of it should survive to reach the final draft. Of course, even this modest goal takes more time than spewing your guts out, but the advantage is that each draft becomes less painful than the last one. In the end, it probably takes no longer than any method; in fact, it can often be quicker because you have more direction.

Yes, a warning against over-perfection should be taken seriously. (Although quoting Hemingway’s comment in this way is ironic, because if anyone was a perfectionist, he was. He claimed that The Old Man and The Sea had fifty drafts). But in listening to the comment as a warning against perfectionism, be sure you don’t go to the opposite extreme, and relax standards altogether.

Characters, fantasy, Plotting, Uncategorized, World Building

Role-players and Writing

Bruce Byfield

Role-players need to change their perspectives when they turn to writing. In role-playing, you create your own characters. The DM creates the story outline, and the group of players fill in the details.

When you write, though, the creation of all these elements is usually done by a single person, and changing one changes the other. For instance, Shakespeare’s Othello center on jealousy. The story exists because the lead character is not only jealous, but acts without stopping to think. Replace Othello with Hamlet, who thinks before he acts, and there’s no story. Similarly, replace Hamlet with Othello, and Claudius is killed in the first scene with a minimum of drama. Ignore the inter-connection, and you wind up with a flat story at best or a disjointed story at worst.

Characters, Dialog, General Writing

Dialog Is Punctuation

Bruce Byfield

From writing media releases, I learned that quotes are a form of punctuation. When readers see a quote, they refocus. For this reason, a release should place important points after the initial sentence in a quote, and have at least one about halfway through.

Something similar is true in fiction. Readers’ attention is apt to wander if too many paragraphs past without dialog. Typically, I’d suggest no more than two pages, and preferably half a page.

And, yes, this means that in a scene in which a character is alone, you really have to work hard to prevent attention from straying.

Queries

The Signs of Vanity Publishing

Bruce Byfield

Last week, I reached another milestone in the querying of my novel: a vanity publisher made me an offer. Oh, it called itself a hybrid publisher, to cloak itself in respectability, but it was clear enough what it was. For several thousand dollars, it would publish my novel. What it would do in return was vague. The letter I received talked about how the publisher had distributed previous books, and about various rights, but never explicitly said what it would do for me.

Naturally, I refused.

I might have considered a hybrid publisher. A hybrid publisher can be a publisher too small to give advances and royalties, but that is still willing to take the risk of publishing your work. So long as you are willing to accept these limitations, nothing is inevitably wrong with hybrid publication. By contrast, a vanity house makes you assume all the risk. As soon as you sign and pay, it has made its profit. Chances are, you will never make any, although you are encouraged to think you will. There is no mutual risk, as there is in legitimate publishing.

It was not difficult to see the sort of offer that was being made. To start with, the publisher’s priorities were clear when this business letter included adds for the publisher’s other publications.

Other warning signs included:

  • A rush to sign me, although my novel is not tied to any recent events. The hope, I suspect, was that I would rush to sign with taking some thought or consulting anybody.
  • Extravagant praise. Obviously, a publisher making an offer must like my book, but the tone was exaggerated. I am as vain about my writing as any other author, but I just couldn’t believe what I read was genuine, especially when the publisher showed no willingness to negotiate or modify the contract. Instead, all I got was an explanation of why the contract had to be that way.
  • The contract gave me no control over editorial changes. I would be foolish not to listen to an editor’s suggestions, but I would likely want to discuss and explain some points, even if the final decision were not mine.
  • The payment was based on the medium I wanted, with different costs for just an ebook, and higher ones for hardcopy and audio books. Besides the fact that I was expected to pay, the media for publication is set by the expected market, not the authors preference.
  • A promise of high royalties. A first book rarely receives royalties over ten percent. But a high royalty is easy to promise when sales are negligible.
  • A discussion of how profits from other rights would be divided, such as foreign or film rights, but no undertaking by the publisher to pursue these rights. A promise of splitting these rights is easy to make when they are not pursued.
  • A promise not to publicly criticize the publisher. Why insist on that promise if the publisher did not expect criticism?

In short, this contract was as far from the SFWA’s model contract as it is possible to get — and clearly not negotiable. Should you receive a similar offer of publication, you can safely assume that it is not made in good faith.

General Writing

Stylistic Notes on Gandalf’s Meeting with the Nazgûl

Bruce Byfield

J. R. R. Tolkien is rarely discussed as a stylist. Sometimes, he is dismissed outright. And it is fair to say that his writing’s quality varies wildly. Yet at his best, Tolkien shows a control that is so unassuming that it can be easy to miss. One of his most outstanding passages comes at the end of the siege of Minas Tirith, when the gate is breached and Gandalf comes face to face with the Nazgûl King:

In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.

“You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!”

The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing.

Rohan had come at last.

– J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s manipulation of language in this passage is masterful. A few points worthy of mention:

  • The use of inversion in sentences about the Nazgul, like “never yet had passed” and “yet upon no head visible was it set,” adds to the sense of the uncanny In contrast, Gandalf and Shadowfax are described in simple yet effective words — mostly, words straight out of Old English. So is the crowing of the cock. The atmospheric contrast is reinforced by the stylistic one.
  • The onomatopoeia of the cock crowing (“shrill and clear he crowed”), and the compound sentence that suggests the echoing of his crows. Even greater onomatopoeia is achieved with the simple repetition of “horns, horns, horns,” followed by the careful alternating of vowels in “in dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed” — read it aloud, and the phrase sounds like an echo.
  • The alliteration of phrases like “silent and still in the space before the Gate” or “recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning.” As a modern writer of thousands of lines of modern alliterative verse based on Old English and Norse models, probably Tolkien fell naturally into alliteration.
  • The use of compound sentences with three phrases throughout gives an almost poetic rhythm. They are accompanied by simpler sentences grouped with others of a similar size, especially in the dialog.
  • The control of the tension in the scene by alternating between long and short sentences, ending with the simply, “Rohan had come at last,” which breaks the mood of despair that has grown throughout the chapter. I don’t know of any other five words in literature that achieve such an overwhelming effect.
  • The illustration of how to use sentence fragments successfully in,”Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing.” The fragments almost reduce the meaning of the sentences into pure sound — and completely appropriately.

In this passage, Tolkien is very nearly using poetic techniques, rather than prosaic ones. I have no idea how conscious a writer Tolkien was, or how many drafts he needed for this passage to satisfy him, yet his success is undeniable, especially if you read it aloud. It is one of the greatest passages in 20th Century English, and I would not hesitate to compare it with any other passage from its era, whether mainstream or fantasy.

fantasy, General Writing, Language

Apostrophes in Names

Bruce Byfield

Fantasy writers love apostrophes in names. They have done so at least since the pulps of the 1930s, although their use was probably popularized by Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series. On Pern, a person’s name is shortened when they become a dragon-rider, so the series includes characters with names like F’lar and F’nor. It seems an unlikely custom to me, but at least McCaffrey uses apostrophes in an immediately recognized way. By contrast, the only answers I have coaxed from imitators is “it’s cool” — never a good reason for background details — or that the apostrophe indicates a pause — which is not a standard reason for using an apostrophe. Few have any idea why the apostrophe is there.

In English and French, an apostrophe indicates that some letters are left out. For instance, in French, “d’Erlon” is short for “de Erlon,” and reflects the oral habit of dropping a duplicated sound. In English, an apostrophe by extension indicates possession, because in Old English, the possessive ending was “es” and Modern English does not pronounce the “e.” In addition, an apostrophe is used in attempts to render non-European pronunciations using Latin characters. For instance, in the Haida language of the Pacific Northwest l and l’ are separate sounds. So are k and k’. However, only experts in a given language can be expected to know the conventions, so if you do decide on an unorthodox use, at the very least you should provide a pronunciation guide at the start of the book. If you don’t, you risk readers settling on an embarrassingly inappropriate one, as Ursula Le Guin found out when she learned that her wizard Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea was called Jed by some of her readers, making him sound like a hillbilly from an 1960s TV show..

On the whole, though, it’s best to stick to the standard English purposes when writing for an English-speaking audience. Mysterious apostrophes are almost always an exotica too far, like names without vowels or ones full of Qs and Xs. Many readers will simply substitute a blank in their mind for a name that is too exotic, which estranges them from the story, especially when several names are replaced by blanks. If you must use exotic punctuation, accents and diacriticals are available from your keyboard and are easy to look up.

Apostrophes in fantasy names are a rookie’s mistake, and make the writer appear illiterate. In A Tough Guide to Fantasyland, a humorous dictionary of clichés, Diane Wynne Jones said it all:

"Few NAMES in Fantasyland are considered complete unless they are interrupted by an apostrophe somewhere in the middle (as in Gna’ash). The only names usually exempt from apostrophes, apart from those of most WIZARDS, heroes, and COMPANIONS on the Tour, are those of some COUNTRIES. No one knows the reasons for this."

Including, more often than not, the writers themselves.

Diversity, fantasy, Fiction, General Writing, World Building

The New Sword and Sorcery

Bruce Byfield

As a teen, I read every Sword and Sorcery novel I could find. Even then, I knew much of it was poorly written. Worse, Robert E. Howard and many others could be downright racist. Yet I retain a sneaking affection for the adventure and magic of the best of the genre, particularly for Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series. However, when I sat down to write my own fiction, it took several years before I realized that I was trying to write S&S for adults of the modern era. Recently, I’ve taken to calling what I was doing New Sword and Sorcery as I queried my novel The Bone Ransom.

My affection has a long history, some of it embarrassing. I would just as soon forget how as a teen I struggled to write the first act of a verse play called The Lion At Bay that stole the plot of Conan the Conqueror. The same goes for many of the role-playing games I organized as a young adult, whose source books borrowed the racism and sexism of the pulps without question.

However, I remain proud of Witches of the Mind, my Master’s thesis on Fritz Leiber. It was inspired in part by Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series. From the start, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser had irony and wit that most S&S lacked. More importantly,Leiber’s social views evolved with the times, and in its final form showed the two heroes growing into responsible middle age and settling down with two feminist women in a culture inspired early Iceland. To this day, there is no question in my mind that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is the most literate S&S ever written, and proof that the genre can be more than it usually is. And it was only by being inspired by Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser that I ever finished The Bone Ransom. When I tried to write classic S&S, I never got past the first few chapters.

So what do I mean by the New Sword and Sorcery? Basically, I mean a purging of outdated social outlooks. To start with, the stock figure of the stoic barbarian has to go. As a character, the barbarian is an uneasy mixture of Rousseau’s Noble Savage and obsolete sociological models, with all the racism those sources imply. Allegedly primitive cultures are much more complex than S&S depict. They may be illiterate, but they have a wealth of oral culture. Often, they have rich cultures in which art is part of everyday life, and elaborate ceremonies and dances. Historically, they tend to meet technological cultures as a group, not as individuals, and often manage to preserve their cultures and become enriched by trade. Simply by eliminating the stereotype of the barbarian, writers gain access to a wealth of untold stories and plot points.

The same is true of the standard female characters. Usually, in S&S, they are either pliant slave girls or strong women who come to a bad end. Either way, they are usually viewed as the prize for success — never as permanent partners or fellow parents. Such depictions may be fine for boys new to puberty, but are as limited and as repetitive as they are misogynist. Complex women characters add an adult complexity, especially if matrilineal societies are depicted, in which property and status come through the female line, and the male parental figures are uncles.

But perhaps the most restrictive aspect of classic Sword and Sorcery is that the story lines are usually power fantasies. The barbarian hero shows the decadence of other cultures by becoming a king. At best, an obscure farm-hand becomes the Chosen One. In either case, the hero gives nothing back, and takes only for themselves.These stories have their source in the nationalism and imperialism of the early 20th century. They do not even begin to touch on the post-colonialism of the last seventy years: of the struggle of colonies for independence and their generally troubled relationships with the colonizers. The stories that classic S&S tell have become irrelevant and obsolete.

Yet despite everything, adventure stories have their lasting appeal. George Orwell said that there is no reason that there could not be socialist adventure stories that featured activists fighting and outwitting the police. In the same way, there is no reason Sword and Sorcery could not feature realistic oral cultures and realistic women, and depict modern politics. So, presented for your consideration: New Sword and Sorcery.

Anybody with me?