May 9, 2013 · 6:50 am

When it comes to dialogue, don’t trust the word on the street

One of my earliest college writing assignments involved a little espionage.

Having spent plenty of time playacting the part of spy in my youth and, in later years, transplanting such imaginative adventures to written page, I eagerly embraced the challenge my professor put forth.

A mysterious-looking man in a trench coat and fedora...the Dialogue SpyMy mission: to choose a random conversation between two people, eavesdrop and write down every word.

Later that day, I lingered in a classroom building’s lounge where fellow students were wont to while away time between classes, catching up on reading assignments, cramming before quizzes, or just chatting with classmates.

Today, I couldn’t tell you much about my marks other than the fact that they were young women.  I recall even less about subject of their conversation.  Their gossip meant very little to me because I knew nothing about them or the people they discussed.  Nevertheless, I surreptitiously jotted down every word.

Every false start.  Every verbal crutch.  Every grammatical violation.

When reviewing my transcripts later, I came to a few conclusions. For one thing, most people are far from eloquent.  When engaged in casual conversation, we interrupt one another.  We even interrupt ourselves.  Occasionally, we use the wrong words.  And if counted how many “ums,” “ahs,” and “actuallys” sprinkled throughout our speech, we’d be amazed.

In other words, if a writer were to accurately capture human communication and translate it to the written word, he/she would end up with a string of fragments and incomplete thoughts through which a reader would inevitably struggle.  Most of the time, the result would be an incoherent mess.

Which, of course, was the point of my top-secret assignment.

This lesson was reinforced in later years when I worked as a reporter.  Oh sure, some people are capable of providing the perfect quote, a sequence of phrases that succinctly sums up their perspective on a given topic.  But most of us use far more words than we need to.  We ramble.  We utter copious pronouns because, in the context of an interview, the reporter understands what is meant by “he,” “she,” and “it.”

Yet when the reporter goes back to his/her desk to rearrange the interviewee’s answers and evaluate which quote belongs where in the article, it becomes obvious that there is often a chasm between what people mean to say and what they actually say.  It’s truly a treasure when a reporter gets that perfect, impactful quote.  More often than not, however, the phrases and clauses between quotation marks remain rough-edged, unrefined.

When I made the switch from journalism to public relations, writing press releases allowed me to do something I never dared to do as a reporter: I reworked spokespeople’s quotes.  Quite often, I was encouraged to create such quotes from scratch and later run them past my “sources,” who might add a thought here or make a word swap there.  But the finished result was almost always a clear, coherent (if, at times, clearly artificial) collection of clauses that efficiently and effectively communicated the point.

Unlike how people actually speak…

In fiction, nothing takes a reader out of story quicker than stilted, sterile, and/or sloppy dialogue.  The good news is that you have full control over the words that come out of your characters’ mouths.  Here are some tips for how to handle the infuriating idiosyncrasies of human speech and deliver effective dialogue:

1. Shorten, streamline, then slash some more

Even though people in real life prattle on and on, a writer must be mindful of his or her “word economy.”  That doesn’t mean every sentence has to be reduced to a simple, subject-predicate construction, but short and snappy does wonders for pacing.  A reader’s attention has to be earned, and once you lost it, you might not reclaim it.

Consider each situation.  If two characters are passing each other in the hall at work, they wouldn’t likely engage in a twenty-minute conversation.  But if they’re unwinding at the local waterhole after hours—while imbibed a few alcoholic beverages—then a few run-on sentences might be just what the doctor ordered.

A common error I’ve encountered in rough drafts are conversations that simply go on too long.  Not only do the characters say in three sentences what they could have said in one, but also the subject itself circles back on itself again and again.  The chances of this happening increase dramatically if these artificial people are having an argument.  Real-life bickering is repetitive, but no reader wants to endure page after page of repetitive back-and-forth.

When in doubt, err on the side of fewer words.

2. Intersperse action

Dialogue can be like swarm of locusts, hungrily devouring a scene or even an entire chapter.  That might not be the worst thing in the world, just as long as it doesn’t leave the rest of the narrative desolate and devoid of life.

When a writer really gets into a verbal exchange between two (or more) captivating characters, it’s easy to lose track of everything else.  However, if the result is several consecutive pages of pure quotations, you end up with what I like to call Voices in a Vacuum.

Readers want to experience the story through as many senses as possible.  If a long conversation is needed, remember to plant some action in between speech tags so that the reader has something to” look at.”  And don’t forget the setting.  Where are these people?  Have they really been sitting perfectly still on a couch this whole time?  Is the rest of reality on pause while they bear their souls to one another?  Not likely.

Unadulterated dialogue appeals to just one of the five senses: hearing.  And when we speak in real life, our mannerisms convey meaning as well.  Indeed, body language often says more than our mouths!

Sometimes it can be difficult to silence loquacious characters, but unless their words are moving the story forward in a significant way, get ready to press the backspace key.

3. Replace action

Bad dialogue bogs down the pace; good dialogue encourages momentum.

In an effort to smooth out transitions between straightforward action and dialogue (because dialogue actually is a kind of action), it can be helpful to replace an ordinary description of motion with a voiced reference to an action.

Take this (admittedly ridiculous) excerpt for example:

Professor Improbable laughed wildly.  “With a few minor adjustments, the Chrono Cruiser will finally be ready for its maiden voyage!”

He turned to his slump-shouldered assistant, Rogi, and asked, “Bring me the thermal calibrator at once.”

Rogi reached for one of the many tools scattered on the table and handed a gadget to the scientist, who curtly informed him that he asked for a thermal calibrator, not an infrared coupler.

Rogi tried again and, luckily, got it right.

“Thank you, Rogi.  I don’t know what I’d have done without you these past five years…”

Here’s an alternate approach:

 “Mwahahaha!  With a few minor adjustments, the Chrono Cruiser will finally be ready for its maiden voyage!”  Professor Improbable turned to his slump-shouldered assistant.  “Rogi, bring me the thermal calibrator at once.  No, no, no!  That’s the infrared coupler.  Ah, yes, that’s the one.  Thank you.  I don’t know what I’d have done without you these past five years…”

The action is implied in the dialogue, and Professor Improbable—whom we suspect always monopolizes the conversation—can recap his master plan without needless interruptions.  Just make sure you don’t waste the reader’s time by having the dialogue and the narration convey redundant information.

4. Develop voice

Dialogue is perhaps the most intuitive element through which one can execute characterization.  A person’s vocabulary and delivery say an awful lot about him or her.  Casual chats, heart-to-hearts, quarrels, exchanges with random strangers—all of these present opportunities to add dimension to a character.

The goal is to give each character an individual voice, a strong voice that will inform the reader who is speaking even before they get to speech tag (e.g., “said Professor Improbable”).  Consider your character’s culture, education level, disposition, etc. when determining which words ought to come out of his or her mouth.

Just don’t get carried away.  Even if Rogi ends up having a speech impediment, a reader isn’t going to w-w-w-w-want to h-h-h-h-h-have t-t-t-t-t-t-to n-n-n-n-n-n-n-navigate a-a-a-around too m-m-m-m-m-many v-v-v-v-v-v-v-visual h-h-h-h-h-hurdles.  The same goes for representing accents.  Put in an affectation here and a native word there.  Please don’t pump each paragraph full of apostrophes to imply clipped sounds or otherwise butcher perfectly good words.  Subtlety is key.

Dialogue should round out your characters, but rarely can talk-heavy scenes exist solely for character development.  Every word needs to move the story forward, including quotes.

5. Read it out loud

The best way to gauge whether your dialogue rings true is to read it out loud.  Better yet, have someone else read it to you.  Listen for tongue-twisting syntax and garbled semantics.  Listen for flow.  Are the transitions logical?

Listen for sentences that are just too tidy.  Unless your protagonist is a grammar teacher, he or she is going to end a sentence with a preposition now and then.  For that matter, the rules of proper grammar don’t apply within quotation marks.  Awkward, unconventional sentence structure in dialogue won’t reflect poorly on you as a writer (if the rest of your sentences are grammatically sound), though it will send a message about the character in question.

Every good spy knows the best lies contain at least an ounce of truth.  The trick with dialogue, as with any aspect of fiction, is making something artificial come off as natural.  To become adept at writing dialogue, listen to how the people around you really talk and then make it better.

But not too perfect.

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April 24, 2013 · 6:00 am

Writers just wanna get lucky

If one believes those crass, comedic movies aimed at teenaged and twenty-something males, the world’s population is divided into two categories: the popular guys who have gone all the way and the lowly virgins who can’t score to save their lives.

The audience follows the reluctant hero as he faces such formidable forces as his own awkwardness and insecurity; hormones; confounding signals sent by the opposite sex, and—always—the disdain of those bigger, stronger, and better-looking “players” who have already rounded home plate.

pen and condom

In case you couldn’t tell, that’s a condom behind the pen, not a packet of Ramen noodle flavoring.

(There’s a metaphor here, so bear with me.)

In those films, a stark line divides pubescent society, separating the men from the boys, the big dawgs from the underdogs, the studs from the duds.

While I’m sure plenty of young men identify with the protagonist—particularly if they belong to that lower, not-yet-blossomed caste—most mature adults just shrug their shoulders and think, “Dude, quit trying so hard.  It’ll happen naturally.”

Bullies and beguiling females aside, more often than not the knight errant (or “knight aberrant,” in the case of the American Pie series) is his own worst enemy. He wants to complete his quest so badly that he’s blind to not only the many faux pas he performs in those ninety-plus minutes, but also to a greater truth that permeates most aspects of life: The journey is as important, if not more important, than the destination.

A similar syndrome can afflict unpublished writers—those literary (if not literal) virgins.

When you’re waiting for approval from an agent, editor or publisher, it’s all too easy to fixate on the difference between those who have “made it” and yourself, an amateur, up-and-coming, not-yet-published, sort-of author who has been waiting for his/her big moment for so long.

Sometimes, we even act like mopey teenagers.

But here’s what I think: We, the unpublished, can be our own worst enemies.  Don’t get me wrong, an aspiring author needs to get his/her crap together.  Proper hygiene in the form of a well-groomed manuscript is important, as is a positive, professional attitude.  An up-and-coming novelist needs to put his/her best foot—and fiction—forward.

Like those pathetic protagonists in the movies, we dabblers battle the insecurities inherent in putting ourselves out there through our work.  Creativity rages through us like hormones, and we can’t help but crave the attention of those we admire.  Not so unlike gossip, there’s no shortage of confusing advice out there.  We read a hundred conflicting how-to articles in search of a surefire way to achieve our shared dream.

I’m no exception.  With a novel up for editorial consideration at a major publisher and a short story I’m shopping around, I oscillate between cautiously confident and incredibly frustrated.  In the past year, I’ve even pouted a bit in this blog (“I should be thankful, but…” “Art vs. entertainment” and “In defense of the dabbler…or…why getting published might not be all it’s cracked up to be”).

In those moments of negativity, exasperation, and loneliness, an undiscovered writer can get a little desperate.  Once upon a time, stooping to a vanity press was about as low as…well…paying for it.  Today, self-publishing in the form of e-books has become commonplace, but even if some are finding a modicum of success in this self-service option, it’s not the “true love” most of us yearn for.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big—except when single-minded obsession makes it seem more like a nightmare.

The problem with tying one’s happiness or self-worth to a manuscript is that a writer can do everything right and still fall short.  Art is subjective, so any given story or style of writing or theme might work for some and not others.  Furthermore, when one or two individuals serve as gatekeepers, it can become a matter of personal preferences.  The right manuscript has to be in front of the right set of eyes at the right time.  Kind of like fate.

See how this starts to sound like a parent giving the “Your time will come” speech?

But the metaphor goes only so far.  Even if kids can be cruel, most successful novelists aren’t looking down their noses at those who have yet to get a book deal.  In fact, the rest of the class isn’t whispering behind your back about how long it’s taking for you to get published.  You’re just being oversensitive and perhaps a little paranoid.

Getting back to that advice for over-enthusiastic virgins: Take a deep breath, stop psyching yourself out, and keep on putting yourself out there.  Because it’s only a matter of time before you get lucky.

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April 5, 2013 · 7:09 am

Why writers groups still matter

Anyone who has studied literature surely has stumbled upon them: a group of extremely talented writers who came together to exchange ideas, encourage one another, and, sometimes, to form a movement.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were members of both the Coalbiters and the Inklings.  Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others were known to gather at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.  The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood included painters and poets.

These super groups are the stuff of legend and, one might assume, an endangered species in this age of do-it-yourself writing, editing, and publishing.  After all, why waste your time talking with other writers—face to face, no less—when one guy with a computer can do it all these days?

I recently read several blog posts ragging on writers groups, claiming they are, at best, an old-fashioned waste of time and, at worst, a detriment to one’s writing because they implicitly suggest another’s opinion should have an impact on one’s Art (note the capital A). 

I beg to differ.

Setting aside the sad notion that writing can often be a lonely pursuit (more on that in “The ‘cons’ of writing collaborations”), there are many ways an author can benefit from writers groups.  But before I expound on that, full disclosure: I am a member of the Allied Authors of Wisconsin, one of the oldest writing collectives in the state and, arguably, one of its best kept secrets.  My view on this matter is biased because of this group of outstanding and supportive writers—and friends.

Yet I realize that not all writers groups are created equal.  So consider these dynamics when selecting—or starting—a writers group. 

Education

Have you heard the saying “Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you?”  There’s plenty of truth to that, though I would amend it to this: Surround yourself with people who are smarter, more experienced, and more successful than you. 

If you are going to subject your story to a critique, make sure those readers have a fair measure of expertise.  Learn from their missteps as well as their accomplishments.  If you typically struggle with the structure of story, you’ll want someone who has a keen understanding on the craft of storytelling, perhaps an English professor.  And if syntax is your weakness, there’s nothing like a copyeditor to help conquer those grammar gaffes and/or a bibliophile to ferret out pesky clichés.

Whenever possible, find people who have been published and can lend some insight into the business aspects of writing.  And if you can get your hands on an editor or agent, hold on tight and don’t let go!

In short, find yourself a flock of mentors to take you under wing. 

Inspiration

When I leave an Allied Authors meeting, all I want to do is go home, plant myself in front of the keyboard, and type away into the wee hours of the morning.  Great writers groups should do that. 

I’ve heard horror stories of writers groups that achieve the opposite.  Two friends of mine were members of an organization that sounded more like a sect of sadists than a support group.  Apparently, members took turns mercilessly tearing down one another’s hard work.  My friends eventually quit because they grew tired of hearing how inept they were by people who thought their own work was better than it was.

While every writer needs to grow a layer (or two) of very thick skin, there’s no excuse for tactlessness.  Critiquing should not equate to kicking someone when they’re most vulnerable; on the contrary, constructive criticism mixes praise with opportunities for improvement.

At the end of the day, a writers group grants a writer objective perspectives.  The reader doesn’t know what you know, and getting feedback midway through a novel allows the author to glimpse what a particular reader is thinking and feeling at that precise moment of the story—invaluable insight to be sure!

You don’t have to agree with everything that is said.  Neither do you need to explain every literary decision you make.  Listen, learn, and then decide how to apply what was said (if at all).  If the point of a writers group is to make you a better writer, then your peers’ comments should inspire you to jump back into your narrative and trim, tweak, and/or tread forward with confidence.

If your group instead discourages you, it’s time to move on. 

Motivation

When my son was a newborn, I had a great idea for a novel but felt I had no time to dedicate to writing it.  Since I was a part of a writers group, I felt obligated to bring something to the table.  Oh sure, I could have slacked off and missed a meeting here and there, but because I had the opportunity to get feedback from a fantastic group of writers, I just couldn’t stand to squander it.

And so every month, I wrote one new chapter.  Some passages were arguably better prepared than others, but if nothing else, those monthly meetings provided me with deadlines, impetus, and momentum on a project that resulted in a novel that is now represented by an agent.

Without a reason to pursue those one-chapter-per-month milestones, the completion of that novel would have been much delayed or perhaps postponed indefinitely.

On the other hand, beware of writers groups that require too much responsibility.  Your network of writers should function as a support system that makes your writing better, not as a “time suck” that detracts from your fiction in the form of excessive, outside-of-class exercises.  If you’re spending hours reading massive manuscripts, preparing a dissertation for each chapter another member submits, and/or running out to the copy shop for copious printouts prior to meetings, then maybe your writers group needs you more than you need it.

Reciprocation

Even if you joined a writers group for mostly selfish reasons—so that you can become a better writer—you do have a responsibility to return the favor.  The best writers groups are those comprised of people who genuinely want one another to succeed.  Sure, there might be some friendly competition and good-natured banter/bashing, but at the end of the day, you owe it to the group to be a giver as much as a taker.

That means attending meetings even though your work isn’t on the agenda, paying attention even if a particular genre or style doesn’t appeal to you, and always giving honest and genuine feedback (even if So-and-So didn’t give your most recent submission a raving review).

The quickest way to destroy the integrity of a writers group is to adopt a me-versus-them approach.  If you want to be supported, you must support others.  If you expect others to cheer you on, then you have to congratulate them on their successes.  And because you (hopefully) played a part in making their writing stronger, their successes become your successes.  Even as you were mentored, mentor those with less experience.

Any writers group is an investment; you can only hope to gain what you are willing to give.

Harmonization

I suspect that the folks who condemn writers groups have had unfortunate experiences with them.  In addition to the aspects addressed above, there is another angle: the “X factor.”

Here’s one example.  If you write romance novels, and no one in the group appreciates that genre at all, then you probably need to find a different group.  But having said that, I urge writers to surround themselves with readers and writers of fiction outside of their preferred genre, too.  The uninitiated tend to catch things others take for granted.

And what about the tone of the meetings?  Is it all business?  Or is everyone OK with an hour of socializing prior to critiquing?  Make sure everyone is on the same page (so to speak) when it comes to the rules, expectations, and goals.

At the end of day, a group is comprised of people.  Sometimes personalities mesh; sometimes they don’t.  Positive attitudes can sweeten the deal, while strong egos inevitably sour the bunch.  If you are willingly opting to spend time with these people, then you should genuinely enjoy their company.

I’m sure J.R.R. and C.S. connected because of common interests, but I have to believe it was more than just business (and their penchant for using initials).  There’s no law that says a writer has to join a writers group to become successful, but I personally have benefited from writers groups both while in college and as a member of the Allied Authors of Wisconsin.  I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without them.

And if some of the literary greats also saw merit in gathering together and exchanging ideas, who am I to disagree?

Do you disagree?  Tell me what you think of writers groups below…

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March 19, 2013 · 9:57 pm

Choose your own adventure (please!)

Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books?  The ones where you controlled a character’s destiny and guided the direction of the narrative?

I’m conducting an experiment that brings that old series of children’s books to mind.  Below you will find the beginning of three short stories.  Please read them all and then vote for the one you’d want to read in its entirety.

Pick your favorite, and just maybe it will get enough votes to earn an ending.

* * *

Option 1: “The Villain”

Quentin E. Donovan—the Quentin E. Donovan—sidestepped into an alley, closed his eyes, and did something he hadn’t done in a decade or more: He went into ghost mode.

A deliberate twitch of his left thumb, and the twin IRIS mods went offline.  A whispered password triggered the auto-transcript program that fueled half a dozen different Lifefeeds to quit.  Finally, he removed the sleek, pearlescent PAM—an eighth-generation iCoin Pro—from his pocket and thumbed the command to repel incoming V-captures.

No feeds, no casts, no signals whatsoever.  He was officially grid-locked.

Without the translucent menus and scrolling text in his periphery, the world seemed impossibly simple.  And slightly pink.  It took him a moment to realize his eyes were compensating for the absence of the green tinge that always coated the corner of his vision, notifying him that the ocular implants were successfully uploading his sensory data to the Sphere.

He shivered, as though losing the subtle, soothing tingle of info-exchange between his bioware and the local hotspots had reduced his body’s temperature.  The air around him even tasted dead.

No wonder they call it “ghost mode,” he thought.

Quentin turned back to the street and saw a woman approaching.  He smiled politely—no, eagerly—but she never acknowledged him, her blank stare undoubtedly combing through a number of feeds only she could see.  He just stood there for several heart-pounding seconds after she passed, until finally he identified the foreign, long-forgotten feeling called loneliness.

He pressed his palm against smooth surface of the iCoin and flirted with the idea of rebooting all of his AR apps.  But he found courage, then, in the thought of what glory lay ahead.  A shame, he thought, that his millions of fans wouldn’t be able to enjoy the thrill of this clandestine meeting he had arranged only hours before on the Darknet.

Releasing his hold on the offline PAM and rubbing his eyes (though that did nothing to restore the reassuring green glow of the IRISes), Quentin stepped onto the street, walked into a FaceCafe, and—without the aid of any tech—scanned the place for someone who looked out of place.

Closest to the door, a middle-aged woman fished a wire out of her purse and connected one end to the table’s powerport and the other end to an oversized, blaze-orange PAM.  The infant in the highchair beside her wailed until the woman returned to the device to his eager little hands.

Across the room, a guy talked to an invisible partner across the table, laughing suggestively as he adjusted the crotch of his trousers.

A few tables away, a woman furiously swiped the air with her fingers and frowned at what Quentin could only assume was bad news.

Nope, nothing out of the ordinary, he lamented.

Disappointed, he sat down and keyed in his order for a plain-taste, half-stim coffee.  He would just have to trust that the Darknet stranger he pinged—the professional Villain he had promised to pay half a million Cs to make his life more interesting—would recognize him.

No worries there, he thought.  After all, he was the Quentin E. Donovan.

* * *

Option 2: “The End”

’Twas no secret a sinister shadow had fallen o’er the realm.  Matthias had been warning neighbors and sojourners alike for as far back as he could remember.  So often had he spoken of the myriad harbingers of The End—the rising number of refugees from faraway kingdoms, the tales of war they brought with them, and other rumors of unnatural creatures roaming the countryside—that his discourse on dire omens had a practiced elegance.

He would daresay none could make the encroaching cataclysm sound as poetic as he.

Then, one day, he realized something truly was amiss.  No, an army of demon warriors had not arrived to ransack his favorite inn.  Much to the contrary, the Satyr’s Horn was empty but for Old Llew, the stout barkeep, and two patrons Matthias saw most every day but whose names he had never chanced to learn.

There were no travelers to bequeath a coin for courtly verse or bawdy ballad.  Nary an adventurer in whom to confide ominous words in hushed tones.

Nay, the room was frightfully quiet.  Though it was his custom to take up his lute hitherto the midday meal, he could not.  Likewise, the three other men in the common room exchanged no pleasantries with one another.  Matthias might have stood there, a scarcely breathing statue, forever had Rosalyn, the barmaid, not entered from the kitchen door.  She seemed not at all disturbed by the alarming lack of patrons as she made her rounds, distributing foamy flagons of mead to unoccupied tables.

Matthias took a single step away from his spot by the fireplace and trembled.  Surely his eyes betrayed him, for his clothes—aye, his very skin!—seemed to crawl in a most uncanny way.  He might have attributed the abnormality to having imbibed too much of Old Llew’s bitterbrew, except the day was still young, and any gleeman of good repute knew better than to partake in intoxicating drink afore his day’s work was done.

Judging by the sparse state of the common room, he’d not have cause to sing a single verse of “Sir Ceridwyn the Clever” nor the melancholy chorus of “Lady Winter’s Lament.”

His legs felt as stiff as broadswords as he quickly crossed the common room, the cadence of his boots against the floorboards the only sound in the place.  Rosalyn seemed not to notice him as she unburdened her tray at another empty table.  Forsooth, she walked past by him without a greeting or a hint of the saucy grin that had sent many a man to bed with impure musings!

He reached for her but thought better of it.  When he called out, the syllables tasted strange on his tongue, as though he had never spoken the lass’s name before.  Despite the room’s grave silence, Rosalyn surely hadn’t heard him.  She disappeared into the kitchen once more.

And was it his imagination making a dupe of him once more?  He would have sworn to the Benevolent Lords above that the kitchen door had opened and closed without Rosalyn’s touching it.  Aye, he would have wagered two and twenty golds on the truth of it!

He hasted to the bar, his hurried steps sounding like thunder.

“What goes on here?” he demanded.  “Has the curse come at last to the Glens?”

Though Old Llew looked up from the cup he was forever drying, he seemed to stare through the bard rather than at him.  “Dark times call for dark beer, stranger.  If ye will hear gossip, speak with Matthias Manyroads.”

“I am Matthias Manyroads, and well you know it, Llew!  What—?”

The barkeep’s vacant eyes blinked.  “Dark times call for dark beer, stranger.  If ye will hear gossip, speak with Matthias Manyroads.”

* * *

Option 3: “The Anthropologist”

Godspeed.

The word surfaced amid her whirling thoughts and the nervous energy that tickled her skin like an invisible feather.  Godspeed.  An expression of good fortune in a new venture.  Like a journey.

No one at Indigo Academy had used that word while saying farewell to her and the other two discovery team members.  She supposed no one in Settled Space would have seriously employed such a clearly superstitious expression.  Idioms that evoked any deity had surely died off millennia ago.

The capsule-shaped stasis chamber shuddered as some subroutine or another powered up.  In a matter of minutes, the vessel’s atmosphere would adjust for the long voyage and trigger the nanites in her blood to put her body in a suspended state.  It was a painless process, but she always dreaded it.

Spaceflight was a rare delight for most but an even rarer distress for her.  She might have stayed on Indigo for the rest of her life—which, if the other scholars’ tenures were any indicator, would be another four hundred and fifty years at least—and forever eschewed the discomfort of maximum velocity if this had been any other mission.

But how can one say no to the chance to pioneer the only other planet in the universe known to harbor intelligent life?

Godspeed.  Somehow the antiquated notion seemed absolutely appropriate in light of the undeveloped and arguably barbaric planet that was their destination.  The societal and technological advances the three emissaries brought with them mimicked and even rivaled the supposedly supernatural abilities of the aliens’ sundry deities.  Yet despite her mere two hundred thirty-seven years, she wasn’t so naïve as to believe the aliens would revere them as gods.

More likely, the New People would defy them precisely because of their superiority, which threatened not only many long-established religions, but also the aliens’ egocentric belief that they lived at the center of the universe, metaphorically speaking.

A sentiment she herself had held until the day a wayward drone revealed the existence of a second sentient species on the far end of the galaxy.

“Are you ready, Anthropologist?”

She flinched at the sudden voice in her ear, and her heart rate spiked.  But then the nanites synthesized whichever hormone neutralized unnecessary anxiety—well, more of it, considering how long she had fretted earlier about the astronomically small probability her stasis protocols would fail, causing her to lie awake in the capsule for the months-long voyage.

“Anthropologist?”

Ysa never called her by her real name.  Maybe the title amused her.  Or maybe Ysa, who ranked among the most gifted physio-biologists in Settled Space, thought learning the name of such a young scholar was beneath her.

“I am,” she replied at last, though she wondered if anyone could be fully prepared for the first face-to-face contact with a new race.  Yet she knew better than to express any doubts to Ysa, who had never made a secret of her cynicism for the New People or the mission.

“Your attitude might change when they begin studying you in return, Anthropologist.”

“We will see.”

She was thinking about how good it would feel when Ysa saw how wrong she was about the aliens when the vessel began its countdown to the unprecedented journey to Earth.

* * *

Editor’s note: As of 11:59 p.m. April 3, “The Anthropologist” had the most votes and will, therefore, get an ending…which is not to say I won’t circle back to one or both of the other contestants at some point.  Thanks to all who helped with this experiment, which has indeed taught me a few things, including this: once you give others a choice, you suddenly realize which option you really favor.

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March 4, 2013 · 9:57 pm

The ‘cons’ of writing collaborations

Whenever I imagine my future novels sitting on a bookshelf, I see my full name on the spine.

Mine and mine alone.

Ever since I decided to stop being a mere dabbler and strategically strive to write publishable stories—so many years ago—one thing has remained true: I’ve been on my own.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do have a support system, which includes friends and family members who have been fans since before anyone had any right to be, fellow writers who help me to steer clear of plot pitfalls and characterization crises, and casual acquaintances who express (feign?) interest when I wax enthusiastic about my literary life.

I also have an agent to help and advise me on the business side of things.  Someday, I hope to count an editor and other publishing professionals within my circle of assistance.

But as far as weaving a strong narrative from the first word to the final phrase, that burden falls entirely to me.

Most of the time, I prefer it that way.  I work at my own pace, focus on whichever priority ranks highest at the moment, and deal with each and every consequence as I choose.  When I fail, I have no one else to blame; when I succeed, there are no other egos with which to share the boost.  For good or for ill, it’s my story.

I answer to no one.  In these subsets of reality, I get to play god.

All that changed unexpectedly when was still in college and met a fellow English major at a pizza joint near campus.  We both had a penchant for sword-and-sorcery fantasy.  Each of us had our own novels in the works.  Yet we thought it would be fun to try to build a new world together.  We came to that lunch meeting with a few notes from a prior conversation and decided to map out a few storylines, the magic system, some mythology, and our central characters.

The plan was for each of us to develop his own plot that would eventually intertwine with the other’s before the book was through.  Bouncing ideas off of another writer and commiserating about obstacles that have tripped up in the past was a breath of fresh air to someone who had spent so much of his writing time sitting squarely in front of a computer screen.

There I was—away from keyboard, out in the real world, creating something with the help of a second brain.

Sadly, the project fizzled almost immediately thereafter.  I went back to my apartment to crank out the beginnings of a complicated, half-immortal anti-hero.  I even wrote a chapter that introduced a group of odd (obligatory?) traveling companions.  But I haven’t touched that project since then because, in the end, it was only half mine.  I had no interest in writing the other guy’s side of the story, which left me with a partial, underdeveloped plot.  The magical realm of Elkinra was ruined ’ere it ever truly lived.

Fortunately, I still had a solo work-in-progress on which to focus.  So I returned to a book that was one hundred percent mine.  The experience left me feeling a little annoyed and completely convinced that writing collaborations were for suckers.  I didn’t need anyone tripping me up or distracting me from a world that would exist as long as I wanted it to.

Onward.  Full speed ahead.  Alone.

At least until my wife offhandedly broached the notion of our writing a children’s book together.

Back when we had two small children, it was easy to put her off.  Later, I half-heartedly committed to it—but on the condition that we wait until after I got to a good place in my current (real?) writing project.  Years passed, and I finally ran out of excuses.  Harboring more than a little skepticism, I was ready to get it over with—prepared for a repeat trip down the sad, short cul-de-sac that is collaborative writing.

I won’t lie: There were some growing pains.  When you’re used to playing god, it’s not easy to invite another person into the pantheon.  Our approaches were very different, in no small part because I had a pre-established approach.  Whereas she had dabbled in writing on and off throughout the years, I was the novelist in the family.

Of course, neither of us knew much about writing a children’s novel.

The first lesson I had to learn was to let go.  Even though I prefer to create an outline before jumping into the first draft, we had only a couple of chats in the way of preparation before starting Chapter 1.  Likewise, I resisted the urge to create character profiles.  In short, this chronic planner took a turn for the spontaneous.

What started out as a one-sided war for control—from major plot points to minor word choices—eventually became a smattering of sporadic battles for bigger-picture issues.  I didn’t really have a choice except to tone it down.  Without compromise, we never would have gotten anywhere.

Co-writing the first draft of The Pajamazon Amazon vs. The Goofers Twofers forced me to reevaluate what I knew about writing—and what I thought I knew about collaborating.  The chapter book started out as a side project, at best a diversion from my more “serious writing.”

If nothing ever comes of it, so be it, I had thought.  At least we can say we tried…

Now as we embark on the editing phase of the project—and as the collaboration takes on new facets with our seven-year-old daughter assigned as illustrator and our five-year-old son serving as a “beta reader”—I realize that not only has sharing the reigns with another writer made this manuscript better, but also it has made writing itself a lot more fun.

I expect I’ll always work alone on most of my novels, but there is something undeniably liberating about having the chance to share success and blame alike with someone else.  This collaboration also means I have more time to share one of my favorite pastimes with someone I care deeply about, transcending beyond our former reader/writer relationship.

What started as a dubious experiment—from my pessimistic perspective, anyway—has become a worthwhile writing exercise that might prove to be a publishable work in its own right.  Now when I think of my future books on the shelf, I wouldn’t be the least bit disappointed if I saw another name—my wife’s name—next to mine.

And even if The Pajamazon Amazon doesn’t become the Harry Potter of chapter books, I’m confident this writing collaboration will have a happy ending.

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February 14, 2013 · 6:52 am

My first attempt at writing a love story

It all started with a boy, a girl, and a valentine.

Well, technically it was the absence of a Valentine’s Day card that triggered the friendship that—after years of being good friends, then better friends, a summer fling, “just friends” again, then (for all of a couple of days) not friends at all, following by years of if-not-best-friends-then-the-next-best-thing-to-it—eventually evolved into a real romance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  And that’s not how these kinds of stories—love stories—are supposed to start.  Let’s try again…

Once upon a time, there were two teenagers who had met through mutual friends and who happened to have a conversation at school on Valentine’s Day.  The male…OK, you know what, let’s name these characters: David and Stephanie.  There.  Not the most whimsical of names, I’ll admit, but this fairy tale has its roots in reality.  Anyway, look at Jack from Jack and Beanstalk.  A common name to be sure.  We can’t all be Rapunzels or Rumplestiltskins.

Where was I?  Oh yes…

On that fateful (and hateful) holiday, David learned Stephanie had given a mutual friend of theirs a valentine.  So David, who didn’t have a romantic bone in his body but did so enjoy teasing people (especially those of the female variety), affected hurt feelings at having been snubbed.

two paper fastener ringsAt the time, David and Stephanie shared an inside joke about a ring.  Not a piece of jewelry, but one of those rings you use to keep hole-punched sheets of paper together.  Technically, I could have written, “It all started with a boy, a girl, and a ring” to be intentionally misleading, but that ship has sailed.

The origin of the ring reference is unimportant; the details surrounding that particular inside joke are recorded in a series of notes—some in folders, some in notebooks—safely stored in a waterproof tote in someone’s basement closet.  (More on that later.)  What is important about the ring is that it made an appearance in a belated valentine Stephanie eventually delivered to David, perhaps out of guilt or perhaps out of amusement.  It wasn’t so much a card as it was a folded-up pencil sketch of a boy who looked suspiciously like David holding the aforementioned ring.

Not to be outdone, David drew a comic strip about ninjas battling over the ring—now a mystical artifact, not a mundane office supply.  The sad excuse for a valentine he handed back to Stephanie was less sophisticated in its artistry and certainly less personal in its subject matter, but it was the best that the boy—hopelessly unromantic, remember—could muster.

Apparently, it was enough to pique Stephanie’s interest because those two untraditional valentines led to two-and-a-half years of exchanging notes…notes that first went into a folder and, later, filled single-, three-, and finally five-subject notebooks from sophomore to senior year of high school.  These notebooks—called The Notebook by their mutual friends—were looked upon with suspicion and scorn.  Nevertheless, the two friends-who-were-a-boy-and-a-girl-but-not-boyfriend-and-girlfriend-(except-for-one-summer) continued their clandestine correspondences undaunted.

The subject of those notebooks are myriad and miscellaneous, covering the mundane and often melodramatic happenings of high school life, philosophical debates about just about everything, and some of the first samples of David’s fiction.  The fact that Stephanie not only tolerated those early stories, but also encouraged him to write more is a testament to the true nature of her feelings for her perpetual pen-pal.

She like liked him.

The Notebook served as a chronicle of their friendship—an increasingly complicated arrangement, given Stephanie’s not-so-secret interest in taking the next step—but when the two of them were tragically separated because they opted to attend two different colleges, novella-length emails took the place of hand-delivered missives.  The emails were supplemented by many phone calls and visits.

Despite a series/cycle of ups and downs—which is perhaps inevitable when unrequited love enters the equation—the two remained quite close.  Then there came the day when Stephanie made it clear that she was over David and that she was completely OK with the platonic nature of their relationship.  She was dating other people, and he was trying to the same (though less successfully).

And that was the end of that.

Just kidding.  This is a love story, remember?

Shortly after the two came to this mutual agreement, David started having second thoughts.  I know what you’re thinking: “Oh sure, now that he can’t have her, he wants to date her.”  There’s some truth to that, I’m sure.  If nothing else, it forced him to think about the future—their future.  She would find someone else.  That was a given.  She’d get married and have a family, and his only chance of dating her again would be if she got a divorce.  “Yeah,” he thought.  “We’ll probably connect again at some distant point in time, and we’ll start dating, and it’ll all work out…”

“…unless it doesn’t.”

If you ever read David’s entries in The Notebook (which you haven’t, and you won’t), you would know that he always prided himself on being incredible logical and unfailingly rational.  How, then, could someone so allegedly self-actualized have been blind to what so many others clearly saw: that they belonged together?  And how could he have missed the fact—up until then—that if he didn’t act in the present, he might not have the chance in the future?

He had always cared for her.  Ever since those non-valentines of 1995.  Stubbornness, immaturity, the delusional belief that love always strikes suddenly and passionately as in the movies (or romance novels)—whatever the reason for his reluctance to give them a second chance as a couple, David finally got his head out of his hindquarters in 2001 and asked her out on a date.  And one absolutely ordinary day (not Valentine’s Day, mind you), he was riding a bus and realized out of the blue that he loved her.

What happened next (like what happened before) isn’t really the stuff of fairy tales.  They graduated college, moved in together, and then moved to China, where they taught English for a year.  Remember when I described David as “hopelessly unromantic”?  That’s not quite true.  He must have learned something along the way because when they visited Beijing, he surprised Stephanie by proposing at the Great Wall.  And she said yes (though they had to review the video footage to make sure an affirmative answer was given between the tears).

When they got back to the U.S., they got married.  They found jobs, bought a house, had a couple of kids, and bought a new house when the first one got to small…one with a basement closet to store the many iterations of The Notebook.

Their relationship isn’t perfect (whose is?), but they have an extremely good life together, even if their love—built on a foundation of friendship, respect, and mutual interests—won’t inspire any Hollywood blockbusters or bodice-rippers.

Their love must be pretty powerful, though, because even though David has…you know what?  I’m done with referring to myself in the third person.  It’s creepy.  Let’s try that last part again:

Our love must be pretty powerful, actually, because even though I have always hated the way Valentine’s Day mandates that members of a couplehood must demonstrate their love on a specific date in culturally acceptable (and predictable) ways, I forced myself to come up with a way to show Stephanie just how much I care for her, deciding to combine my passion for her with my passion for writing.

It’s not a traditional valentine, but you have to admit, that’s fitting given how this all began.

OK, I’m going to end this before I give into the temptation to spout such platitudes as “You make me a better man” and “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you” or “I don’t know how/why you put up with me” (though all are true).  Even though our story isn’t over, I think it’s safe to prescribe an optimistic ending.  So if you’ll indulge me one final cliché:

And they lived happily ever after.

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January 29, 2013 · 9:28 pm

Anyone can write a short story (except me)

It’s a piece of advice I’ve heard on many occasions:  At writing workshops in college.  In an enrichment session with book editors at Gen Con.  During conversations with accomplished authors.  While perusing countless website articles on the ever-popular topic of how to get published:

Short stories first, then novels.

There’s an undeniable logic to this “start small” progression.  Agents and book publishers are bound to take a writer more seriously after he or she has writing credits from journals and magazines under his or her belt.  Anyway, perfecting a story of a few thousand words must be easier than whipping a full-fledged novel into shape…right?

Unfortunately for me, I’ve never been much of a short story guy, not as a reader or a writer.  In both instances, I prefer the extended opportunity to get invested in a group of characters (make that “people”) and to become infatuated with a wide-scale world, as opposed to sampling a bit-sized plot.

Call me ambitious—or maybe naïve—because I decided early on that I was going to skip the short story phase of my fiction-writing enterprise and jump right into a novel.  No, make that a trilogy.  Better yet, an epic series that could spawn ten or more volumes!

When Book 1 didn’t get picked up, however, that brought me back to the drawing board.

But did it stop me from pursuing book-length fiction?  Nope.  Even as the first installment of a new series was (and still is) being considered by a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy fiction, I began work on the sequel.  Meanwhile, I created a website (even though I hated blogs), started following other writers’ blogs, and made  Facebook and Twitter accounts for David Michael Williams, the author.  In short, I did everything I could think of to give myself a leg up in my quest to become a published writer of fiction.

Everything except for writing short stories.

To be honest, a lack of interest in short fiction is only half of the reason why I seldom dabble in the medium.  The fact is I’m not very good at it—in part because of a lack of practice and in part because it’s difficult for me to think small.  My stories are seldom self-contained.  The conflict is consistently complicated; the stakes, always higher.  Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself I couldn’t write a good short story because of my penchant for complexity.

However, at a serendipitous meeting with the very editor who has expressed interest in my novel If Souls Can Sleep, I heard the familiar refrain: If you want to break into the business, try to get some short fiction published.  And this time, for whatever reason, it struck a chord.

Instead of continuing to try to be the exception to the so-called rule, it was time for me to do as I’d been told time and time again…

Last week, I made my final edits to a sci-fi short story I had written just for fun a while back, a tale I’ve found myself tinkereing with and updating every year or so.  “Going Viral” is the best of my handful of attempts to write a simple, straightforward story.  Therefore, it was the prime candidate to accomplish my ongoing mission of getting something—anything—published in the fiction arena.

In up to eight weeks, I’ll know whether the good folks at Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine will be the ones to give me my first break.  If not, it’s on to the next publication.

Ironically, even as I’ve been researching possible publications to submit my short story to, I’ve come to enjoy reading short fiction more than ever before.  Maybe it’s because my leisure reading time is sporadic at best, and indulging in a handful of pages in a single sitting is more satisfying than letting days pass in between chapters.  Or maybe I’ve come to appreciate the unique and creative challenge these writers face when stripping a story down to its essential parts.

And just maybe I’ll find the inspiration to further hone my skills at writing short fiction.

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