Tag: Prentice Pieces

Fiction, Plotting

The Disciplined Imagination (And Why You Need One)

Bruce Byfield

Anton Chekhov famously remarked that if a pistol is hanging on the wall in the first act of a play, by the time the curtain falls, it should be used. The remark advises an economy of storytelling that helps to create a sense of unity and to avoid confusing the audience with irrelevancies. Unfortunately many new writers fail to follow this sound advice, for no better reason that “it’s cool” or “it’s fantasy, so anything goes.” But in doing so, they often miss details that might enrich their stories.

For instance, in a soon to be released novel, one writer decided to throw dinosaurs into the story. Despite a reasonably advanced level of technology, they have characters being pulled about in carriages by velociraptors. In tweets, the author says they made this decision so they could have sweeping outsized staircases and have them easily navigated. The trouble is, the decision seems incompatible with the level of technology. Nor are velociraptors large enough for the stated purpose of climbing steep staircases. More importantly, no attempt is made to consider how having vicious predators on the streets might shape the culture. Worse still, neither the velociraptors nor the steep staircases play any role whatsoever in the plot — although, having started on that downhill slope, the author accelerates their descent by adding the even less purposeful dire wolfs as draft animals as well. No attempt to consider these details is made, and the only result is a meaningless and clumsy distraction.

Early on in writing my first novel, I made the same mistake repeatedly. In my case, I added atmospheric references and never stopped to consider how they might be used in the plot. For instance, my main character’s last name was Ravenpiper. It’s Gothicly evocative, at least to my ear, and I was proud of it. I even gave the family a rhyme that made a riddle of the family name. It took a while for me to realize that the origin of the name could become a major plot element, and help me tell a more interesting story (which I won’t tell, because spoilers). Since the story is all about family, especially the Ravenpipers, I found that making the surname part of the story gave a richer, more unified story.

Similarly, I imagined a mountain pass that is a nexus of gateways to other worlds. Paths can take travelers to other worlds, and can change their direction and destination. At times, the inhabitants of other worlds follow the paths to the mountain pass. Originally, it was a poetic effect — a spooky one, I hoped. Then it occurred to me that people who kept track of the changing paths might earn a living guiding merchants safely over the mountain. Then, with more thought, I decided that families would claim the right to certain paths, and jealously control the safe ones. Eventually, this background influenced the story. At one point, for example, the main characters enter one of the otherworldly paths to escape pursuit, and find themselves in a world of ghosts and forest spirits. What was originally a line tossed off for atmosphere grew to shape major elements of the story.

In both cases, my disciplined extrapolations meant I no longer had to strain for plot development. As a plot should, it began to unfold in light of what had been planted before. I soon understood what elements I wanted in the story, and, conversely what did not and what — sometimes regretfully, I had to omit, and perhaps leave for another story. I concluded that inspiration is not enough. In the end, I learned that even the most inspiring idea was only as good as its development.

General Writing, Queries, Reviews and Analysis

Better Queries Through Olivia Atwater’s Better Blurbs

Bruce Byfield

December isn’t the time to query a novel, so I am finding an outlet for my impatience by tweaking my query. By coincidence, yesterday I came across Olivia Atwater’s Better Blurb Writing for Authors, and immediately downloaded it. I’m glad I did, because it vastly improved my query letter.

Atwater’s book is a short read. Although she is mostly talking about blurbs on the back of a book, almost all that she says is valid for query letters, too. She begins with a point so obvious that many writers overlook it: a query letter is a marketing tool, and should be written accordingly. Atwater suggests that you begin by creating a list of features of your book that would encourage readers to take a closer look, including the genre and the comps – what she calls a one-click list, meaning what will make an online reader click for a closer look. From the one click list, you should then write an opening paragraph for your query that includes at least three items on the list, and a hook. Follow the opening with the pitch itself, telling the high points of the story and mentioning as many other items as possible on the list, if possible, giving a sense of the tone of the book. Only then should you descend into the comps, the length, and other materials, ending with one last pitch. Atwater gives much more detail, but that the gist.

As soon as I started reading, I started seeing the flaws in my query. To start with, I hadn’t figured out my selling points. Actually, I had overlooked the selling points altogether, giving a mediocre query:

Talson Ravenpiper’s ancestors were heroes, but he is doomed to become a clerk. Overnight, tht changes as he becomes his mother’s heir and the keeper of the family tradition – to say nothing of unwillingly betrothed, accused of murder, and on the run from his sister and her pet monster. Worse, in his struggle to survive, his only ally is a hereditary enemy. Before long, he is questioning not only everything he believes, but whether the family tradition should be preserved at all. And what if enemies become lovers?

Not the worst query I’ve seen floating around the internet, but not a good one, either.
Following Atwood’s advice, I started my revision with my list of selling points:

  • heroic fantasy
  • mis-matched lovers
  • pursuit
  • post-colonialism
  • the nature of heroes and heroism
  • comps: Merciful Crow, Realm of Ash

Technically, Margaret Owen’s Merciful Crow is Young Adult, and Atwater suggests never to comp a genre other than your own, but I would argue that Merciful Crow is a cross-over book, and popular with adults as well. At any rate, it is better than Patricia Finney’s Robert Carey mysteries, which were an influence, but less likely to work in a pitch for a heroic fantasy like mine.

Armed with my list, I wrote:

Not long ago, Talson Ravenpiper’s greatest worry was how to live up to his family’s heroic reputation. That was before he met Kosky of the GreaseMakers and her sarcastic tongue.

Talson learned early to honor the deeds of his ancestors and to shun its traditional enemies the hill-clans. But that was before his sister Skulae framed him for murder and started hunting him with her pet monster. Now, Kosky, a woman of the hill-clans, is the only person he can depend on. Yet amid their struggle to survive, Kosky forces Talson question everything he once believed – even whom he should love.

If this is heroism, it does not feel like it. And unless he finds answers to his questions, the best that his family stands for could be swept away by war.

The improvements are many. My query now has a hook: Talson’s life has changed, and with luck readers will want to know how. The names, and the obvious importance of heroism signal that the book is a heroic fantasy, and the mis-matched lover trope is introduced, as well as both main characters, instead of just the one mentioned in the original draft. Also, mention of Kosky’s “sarcastic tongue” provides just a hint of the occasional flippancy in the book. Just mentioning her “sarcasm” wouldn’t have quite the same effect.

The next paragraphs develops the list points first, with luck giving just enough additional detail that readers want to learn more. For example, they suggest that the novel is not just a heroic fantasy, but one that explores the idea of the hero, and make the mis-matched lover theme explicit. In addition, they add the pursuit theme. Perhaps most important of all, Talson’s dilemmas are no longer played out in his head, but among Talson and two other characters. Now, the stakes are clearer; the first draft query might summarize a philosophical study of heroism.

My last two paragraphs needed only the change in comps that I mentioned. Otherwise, they were more or less in keeping with Atwater’s suggestions. However, for anyone who might be interested in the whole query, here they are:

The Bone Ransom is a 102,000 word adult fantasy with series potential about a young man and woman thrown into the great events of their times and learning to overcome their cultural divide. Like Margaret Owen’s Merciful Crow, it is a story of pursuit and mis-matched lovers, but with a post-colonial background like Tash Suris’s Realm of Ash.

A recovering academic, I have written two books on open source software and a third on fantasy writer Fritz Leiber, as well as over 2200 articles on open source computing. Although my family is English-Canadian, I am a long-time supporter of emerging First Nations artists, and I offer a scholarship at the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Carving. Sitting in the workshops of First Nations teachers and students at the school has been a major influence on The Bone Ransom’s characters and settings, although I write strictly from an outsider’s point of view.

Besides my choice of blurbs, the only way in which I did not follow her advice was to end with an action item, such as “Buy this book!” While I believe in looking your best, an blatant hard sell is distasteful to me, and seems unnecessary. After all, a query is all about offering something for sale, and everybody knows that. Still, I was glad to compare my efforts to a more expert opinion, and perhaps I will reconsider my position later on. As Atwater says, a blurb should be revisited from time to time after you’ve got a satisfactory one.
Meanwhile, I can’t wait to try my fortune with my new blurb.

General Writing

Making Character Lists More Interesting

Bruce Byfield

Fantasy novels tend to have a lot of characters. The Bone Ransom, the novel I am currently querying, has thirty-two, if you count off-stage and historical figures with names, although that number plunges to twenty if I only include those who actually appear. That’s far from the largest cast I’ve come across, but big enough that a list of characters seems to be called for. But character lists are boring to raead, even if useful as an occasional reference. How, I wondered, could they be made more interesting?

I found my answer in Lindsey Davis’ mystery novels set in ancient Rome. Davis plays it safe, titling her lists “Principal Characters” – a wise precaution, since unless you keep track as you write, it’s easy to miss a few. More to the point, her list is not just a dry description of each character, but often includes wry comments. Often, these comments can only be fully appreciated after you have finished the book. For example, her list in Two for the Lions, the first of her books I found on the shelves, includes “Maia: Falco’s younger sister, looking for her chance,” followed by “Famia: Maia’s husband, looking for a drink.” The same list includes “Pompius Urtica: a praetor who never did anything illegal” and “Iddibal: a far from beastly bestiarius.” With entries like these, Davis’ Principle Characters are always fun to read just for themselves.

In the same spirit, my list now contains entries like “Talson: a teenage boy corrupted by stories” and “Skulae: Talson’s sister. Nothing is her fault.” Other entries I am fond of include “Aglachad Torhte: Second Cousin to the Ravenpipers and not important enough” and (for a member of the undead) “Leel: A housecarl who has let herself go.” Whether readers will appreciate these remarks remains to be seen, but they definitely made compiling the list more enjoyable for me.

Queries

My First Lessons From Querying

Bruce Byfield

Your first queries, I’ve been told, are for practice. Your first choices of an agent or publishers should wait until you’ve made mistakes and learned from them. Usually, I’m skeptical about conventional wisdom, but I followed this advice, and I’m glad I did. After half a dozen queries, I have not received any personal rejections I could learn from, but I have learned a lesson or two about querying, and found reason to revise the start of my novel.

The first lesson should have been obvious: the smaller the sample of the manuscript requested, the quicker the response. This tendency matters, because for all everyone knows about the importance of a hook, a small sample and quick response may mean that a submission was not taken seriously. I worry that, rather than looking for quality or a story that will seller, agents with such criteria are most interesting in clearing their desks. So, unless someone proves otherwise, such agents will go to the bottom of my preferences.

My second lesson is more of a suspicion. My manuscript contains snippets of four to twelve lines of poetry. I believe that those snippets are a useful way to convey backstory and atmosphere. However, when I stop to think, mentioning poetry in my query might cause agents to believe I was offering an overly literary manuscript. What agents want, of course, is a saleable manuscript, and seventy years after Tolkien, many readers shy away from poetry. Because of this likelihood, I revised my query letter to omit any mention of poetry. Let the agents actually encounter my scattered bits of poetry, and I believe they will find that it works. At the very least, my manuscript will not risk being rejected out of a blind preference or prejudice.

However, it was when I looked at my novel from the perspective of trying to sell it that my first queries helped me the most. The story begins with a pivotal event in the past, and how it effects the protagonist, his mother, and his sister. I have always worried about the prologue, mainly because it starts with the mother, which might make readers think she is the main character. But I kept it because a professional writer who was a trusted friend suggested I keep it. But it was only when I started to query that I decided to change it. The prologue wasn’t the best sample I could offer, and meant less of the much stronger opening chapters could be included. At first, I wondered if there was a way to start with the main character, but, I was unable to find a way to give the necessary backstory.

Then a revelation struck: why mention his mother and sister at all in the prologue? Both are introduced later, so their inclusion in the prologue is unnecessary. I re-wrote the prologue entirely from the main character’s perspective, and the result is a much stronger story, and one which shows my writing to greater perspective, since I use the limited understanding of a child to reveal things of which he is not wholly aware. And, as an added bonus, I cut two thousand words. As a result, I believe that the manuscript now presents me much more strongly.

These improvements are largely assumption, but they show how querying can focus your mind and give you a new perspective on your own work. I look forward to further insights, both into querying and my writing as I plunge back into the maelstrom of submission.

General Writing, Queries

Debunking Three Fallacies About Querying

Bruce Byfield

I’ve barely started to query. Yet already, I have found three cases where the conventional wisdom of aspiring writers is incorrect, or a half truth at best.

For instance, the popular assumption is that an agent is a necessity. This belief is so ingrained that several people say they will sign with an agent no matter what. Considering that your agent is important to your career, that is a rash position. However, more to the point, that belief is not true. No doubt an agent, with a knowledge of publishing that you lack, can ease a new writer’s way. Yet early in my planning, I discovered that both DAW Books and Tor accept submissions without an agent. Almost certainly, others do as well. Of course, if a publisher does make you an offer, the first thing you might do is find an agent, although you might get along with the SFWA’s model contract as a guide to negotiation. But going directly to the publisher does have the advantage of removing one obstacle in your journey towards publication.

Another common fallacy is that 95 thousand words is the required length for an adult work of fantasy or science fiction. It seems a good average and target to aim at, yet requirements vary. To use the same examples, DAW Books has only a minimum length of 80 thousand, while Tor will consider works of up to 130 thousand. Unless you have a work in progress whose hardcopy would break your big toe if dropped on it, there is far more flexibility than new writers believe – in which case, you can try the more difficult task of pitching a series instead of a single book.

A third mistaken assumption is that your manuscript must be in MS Word format (.doc or .docx). That may have been true a decade or two ago. Yet today many agents and publishers are a lot more flexible, especially if they use Submittable. .Pdf, .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .wpf, .odt (LibreOffice and Open Office), and .wpd may all be acceptable. Personally, I prefer .pdf, because it sidesteps the problem of font substitution, assuring that people will see your work as you intended. However, you may not have a choice, because, to avoid the possibility of viruses, many agents and publishers require the manuscript be added to an email in plain text, which is a nuisance if you use styles and have to find a simple way to add spaces between paragraphs (Using LibreOffice, I used the Alternative Find and Replace extension, saving myself hours of dull manual labor).

I expect to find even more to debunk as I get deeper into querying. For now, one thing is clear: don’t make any assumptions – especially about issues that everybody thinks they know. Each agent and publisher posts their submission guidelines, which can usually be found quickly. The lack of uniformity may sometimes seem like a form of literary hazing, but you are hopping to be accepted into a fraternity of sorts, and the first step to acceptance is to follow the guidelines.

Announcement, General Writing, Poetry

Just Released: The Raven Ballads

Bruce Byfield

As of September 23, 2021, I am releasing as a free download Raven Ballads, a collection of fantasy poems mentioned in my recently completed novel The Bone Ransom. In a perfect world, the poems would be given in full in the novel, but it is over eighty years since Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings, and modern audiences no longer tolerate that. Some readers even go so far as to say that they never read poetry, which causes problems for writers who want to use poems and songs as part of their world-building. I have compromised by including only snippets, most under six lines and all under twelve. However, having written a snippet, I always find myself compelled to write the complete poem, which explains this collection.

Perhaps, though, I lie. I say I wrote Raven Ballads, but the truth is that my main character Talson Ravenpiper wrote — or, at least, at the start of the novel, he is collecting the material for a book of the same name. Talson’s Raven Ballads are about his family, and he hid his when he had to flee a series of unfortunate events. By contrast, my Raven Ballad carries a wider variety of songs and poems, only some of which are about the upstart Ravenpipers. So maybe I am a plagiarist, or at least an imitator, and Talson should be given the writer’s credit, as he insists in the small hours of the night. He’s quite persistent, in his polite way.

It’s all very confusing, but since no one will make one silver pence from the publication, perhaps I shouldn’t worry.

I hope to see The Bone Ransom published soon, and in a couple of years the rest of its trilogy. Meanwhile, for those who wonder how I (or maybe Talson) has spent the last few years, or for those who want a foretaste of the novel, you can download my Raven Ballads from:

Downloads
Fiction, General Writing

Why I Don’t Plan to Hire an Editor

Bruce Byfield

When I announced that I had finished writing my novel, several friends immediately suggested that I hire an editor. I thought about this advice, but in the end decided not to. I already have the necessary resources on hand, and, as my critique partner points out, doing so may not be the best tactic when I query.

I am what I like to call a recovering academic. I’m an ex-university instructor, whose teaching duties included composition, and I must have marked several thousand essays for both content and grammar. So long as I wait a few days in order to get some distance from my work, I have faith in my ability to edit my own work. And that is not a false conceit, either: for twenty years, the editors to whom I have sold non-fiction – over 2200, before I lost count – have remarked on my clean copy. Besides, if I miss something, my critique partner, who is another teacher and successful seller of her own non-fiction, is bound to catch it. She also has the added advantage of being more familiar with my work than anybody other than me. So I think I more or less have editing covered.

In addition, my critique partner points out that in traditional publishing, hiring an editor is generally frowned on. For one thing, it’s an extra expense. For another, publishers generally have their own in-house editors, so an outsider can be a needless complication. Even more importantly, agents and publishers often prefer to see what you can do on your own, so they can see your level of skill. Anyway, on the road to publication, there are likely to be countless changes, so that the best time for editing is usually near the end of the process. Edit too soon, and you are likely to have to do it twice.

Perhaps if I eventually decide to self-publish, I would reconsider and hire an editor. In that circumstance, the editor I hired would take the place of a publisher’s in-house editor. However, despite the conventional wisdom among aspiring writers, hiring an editor is by no means a required step for any form of publication. It depends on your level of skill and your available resources.

General Writing

Finishing a Novel

Bruce Byfield

Ever since I was twelve, I wanted to write a novel. Over the years, I tried several times, but I never got very far in my efforts. Usually, I never got past the first chapter. Somewhere, though, I gained the necessary knowledge and persistence, and on July 23, 2021, at 3:20 pm, I wrote the last words of a fantasy called The Bone Ransom. The fact that I noted the time so exactly indicates how important the milestone is to me.

I have written three non-fiction books: a critical study of the fantasy writer Fritz Leiber, and a how-to about LibreOffice and another about making ebooks with open source applications. They are satisfying accomplishments in their own way, but definitely consolation prizes. For me, the first prize has always been a novel.

So how do I feel? I am still struggling to understand, but my first reaction is that I feel like I can rest. I struggled with the last few chapters, seeming to have a block against finishing. Months ago, I settled into the routine of drafting, and part of me wanted to stay in the safety of that familiar territory. One day, my anxiety about moving on became so extremely that I literally was unable to touch-type. Now, I feel that I can take some time off, or maybe try a short story or two that I can finish in a few weeks.

More importantly, I feel justified. Not many people, I suspect, manage to fulfill their lifelong ambitions. I have achieved my self-chosen, existential goals. Fiction, I believe, is what I have chosen to do, and my life has not been wasted. The result is a quiet, but definite satisfaction, accompanied by a paranoid obsession with backups so that I don’t lose the manuscript. Backup glitches were disturbing enough when the work was incomplete. Now, I don’t want to lose any of the 95,000 odds words, except through editing.

Both these reactions, of course, are tempered by the fact that, as satisfying as completion of the manuscript might be, it is only just a start. Ahead of me lie final edits, and after that the process of querying agents and publishers. I may not know for several years whether my novel will be picked up by a traditional publisher, or if I will self-publish. For this reason, as I contemplate my accomplishment, my strongest feeling is simply: Good start.

General Writing, Uncategorized

Story conflict without violence: Victoria Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor

Bruce Byfield

Writers often talk about conflict, but much of what they say is wrong. Too often, they are likely to see the word “conflict” and assume it means violence, especially in their opening hook. This assumption can quickly become a problem, because –let’s face it — many writers have no experience of violence. Moreover, if you start with a sword fight or a chase, you create the additional problem of making readers care about a character they know nothing about. Even more importantly, if you identify conflict with violence, you risk a crude and unsubtle story.

So what’s the alternative? In The Hands of the Emperor, a long self-published novel that is currently attracting widespread attention, Victoria Goddard offers one alternative: instead of external conflict, try internal conflict instead. Here’s how she does it:

Her main character, Cliopher Mdang, is the only member of his family to seek a career abroad. He has become personal secretary to the Emperor, the manager of the imperial bureaucracy, and a byword for efficiency. He rarely has time to return home, where everybody in his extended family knows him simply as Kip. Cliopher is proud of his accomplishments, but he is unmarried and sees few friends or family as he goes about his work. He needs balance in his life.

At the start of the novel, Cliopher has a distant relationship with the Emperor. The Emperor is ringed with tabus, and Cliopher is not one to presume, and avoids any familiarity. Then, tentatively, alarmed at his own daring, he suggests that the Emperor take a holiday. To his surprise, the Emperor accepts the invitation, taking Cliopher and several other leading members of the court with him. During the holiday, the Emperor learns to relax and Cliopher sees someone as isolated as himself. Slowly, a friendship develops between two lonely men who barely know what friendship even means.

As Cliopher assists the Emperor, he starts to think about his own retirement. The trouble is, home and family irritate him. His friends and family do not realize that he is the second most important person in the empire. They seem him as an amiable mediocrity, and he is too modest to correct them. Just as his pride in his accomplishments is tempered by a wish for a life of his own, so his love of home is tempered by irritation. The story is about he struggles with this ambivalence and —

–And that’s it. The violence is next to non-existent, and the magic is largely ceremonial, or a display at festivals. Yet those who rank their reading by the body counts –the higher the better — may be surprised to learn that result is fascinating. Cliopher is an intelligent, quietly humorous man who is impossible to dislike, and his journey from the stiff and lonely Cliopher back to plain Kip is quietly moving and impossible to put down.

This is not the first time I have heard that conflict does not imply violence. In the early 1990s, Ursula Le Guin discussed “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” championing narrative over conflict. However, Le Guin never altogether managed to make her narratives as interesting as stories of conflict, and, without saying anything, slowly returned to a more conventional, if broader perspective.

By contrast, The Hands of the Emperor shows that at least one successful alternative to our traditional ideas of conflict and story structure actually exists. Based on this example, I am no longer thinking in terms of conflict, let alone violence, in structuring a story. Instead, I am thinking of story structure in terms of a lack of harmony, or perhaps an imbalance that the main characters struggle against. This re-framing, I believe, can only deepen our understanding of story.

Language

What would Robert Graves Do?

Bruce Byfield

On a writing forum, a poster proposed to call his novel Maelstrom Burning. I had the lack of sense to ask how a maelstrom could burn, and greatly offended him. If I couldn’t be constructive, he told me, I shouldn’t say anything at all. But I was being constructive, or so I thought. Ever since I was a teen, I have believed that, no matter how poetic a phrase might sound, it must also make literal sense.

I caught this conviction by being exposed to the critical lectures of Robert Graves while still a teen. Graves also debunked Ezra Pound’s pretensions as a translator so thoroughly that, decades later, I still can’t read Pound without laughing – but that’s another story, and a less important one.

To understand Graves’ comments about poetry and literal sense, have a look at Tennyson’s often reprinted fragment “The Eagle.” You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t name the lecture; the collection it appeared in did not make it on to the Internet, and even if a library was open during the pandemic, it’s too dark and cold as I write to brave the outdoors.

Still, I remember the gist well-enough to re-create the important bits,
or at least their spirit.

“The Eagle” begins with the impressive-sounding line, “He clasps the crag with crooked hands.” Graves’ response? To ask if the eagle is doing a handstand. After all, the limbs an eagle stands on is its legs. The verse ends with the eagle standing, so either Tennyson knows this basic bit of biology, or has the eagle doing a back flip, so that it is now standing on its wings.

And the eagle is close to the sun? Sure, give or take 150 million kilometers.

Graves has more to say, mostly about the fact that, while Tennyson preserved the fragment, it says almost nothing. Three times, we are told that the eagle perches, with a different word choice each time. Then the eagle dives, but for what? We are not never told what the bird’s dinner might be. Despite all the times the fragment has been reprinted, it is illogical and trivial.

That’s a cruel, unsympathetic verdict, but Graves was a prominent poet and critic, so he had more of a right than most to offer it. Possibly, too, he was being satirical; Graves did enjoy going against academic orthodoxy. Yet he has a point. It is all too easy for writers and readers alike to forgive triviality because they are seduced by the poetry of a line. A writer should know better.

I am sometimes known to commit poetry myself, or poetic metaphors in my prose . Moreover, just after finishing, I am often besotted by my own cleverness. But in more sober afterthought, I am apt to ask myself what Graves might think of my alleged brilliance – and, at least two thirds of the time, I end by deleting what I wrote and laughing at how I was lost to common sense because of the sound. Then I re-write in plain English, as I should have had the sense do from the first.