Sideshow Links- September 1, 2010

Creating Language:  Interview with the gentleman creating the Dothraki language for HBO's take on George R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series. 

Save the Words:Neat little site with thousands of strange words.  Get to know a word; adopt it!

Pennsylvania Graves:Irish ghosts, cholera, violent murder, Pennsylvania, forensic science, geophysics...disturbing and intriguing all at once.

Star Trek Meets Farmville

Mystery of Miranda—David A. Simons

Like most science fiction fans, I'm fascinated by exploration. Unmapped islands, hidden caves, lost continents, and of course, uncharted class M planets. I decided to write a story about a man obsessed with exploration, living in a near future where there was little available to explore.

I worked out the setting and the plot quickly. The story would take place on Miranda, a mysterious, fractured moon in the outer solar system. My narrator--the explorer--would rappel down a deep canyon, with several contrarian companions. A mystery would build about the canyon's nature, which would be solved at the bottom. I figured I was ready to write, and that the story would go smoothly.

I wasn't, and it didn't. This story was a major struggle for me. I nearly abandoned it several times, including after submission.

In the first draft, there was no Shelley. The narrator's foil was a scientist named de Marco, who argued with Lance about the purpose of exploration. The story was pedantic, and Lance's decision at the end seemed petty, rather than resonant or cathartic. I trashed it and started over.

In v2, I replaced de Marco with Shelley, the ex girlfriend, hoping to give Lance more internal conflict. The second draft was better, but I still did not have a feel for the narrator's voice, and his actions still felt forced. I sent the draft to some of my Clarion West classmates and a few others for critiques. All of them told me the story had some good elements (mainly the setting), but they weren't buying the character's decisions, and suggested various revisions. Radical revisions.

At this point, I was tired of the story and anxious to move on to something new. So I convinced myself that the good outweighed the flaws, patched it up a bit, added more symbolic imagery (always a bad sign), and sent it off.

In March, I got an email from Edmund saying that one of his assistant editors had recommended the story, and that he was interested in publishing it, but felt that the main character's motivation needed more development. (Well, if you've ever received comments from Edmund, they were a bit more colorful than that. For example, in his redline, he wrote: "Why Why Why is Lance so blessedly obsessed with being first???")

I re-read the story with fresh eyes. I not only agreed with Edmund, I was embarrassed that I'd let the story out the door. I could see clearly now that I'd committed a cardinal Scribner's sin--I'd let idea and outline dictate the action, rather than conflict and character.

Edmund waited patiently for several months while I reworked the story. I made Lance's relationship with Shelley the focus, rather than the subplot. I added all of the back-story from Mars, tightened the pacing, and gave the minor characters (Wil and Catherine) a bit more to do and say. I also completely rewrote the dialogue and the ending.

Does the story work now? I hope it does for some. As a writer, I learned a valuable lesson: don't force a story. No doubt, I'll re-learn that lesson over and over again.

--David A. Simons

Sideshow Arcade: Arkham Horror

Summer has ended.  Not the season, of course, but the frantic days of vacation and adventure.  Stow the tents; cover the grill.  Take out a second mortgage to purchase school supplies for the rising generation of Einsteins, Shakespeares, and Churchills.  A return to school means a return to a schedule.  For me and my friends, a schedule means that we can reliably forsake homes and loved ones one night a month, abscond to a darkened basement and satisfy our craving for…board games.

Arkham Horror is on of my current favorites.  Not for the faint of heart, it finds its inspiration in the Cthulhu mythos of HP Lovecraft and his literary descendants.  It is a cooperative game of investigation, and otherworldly terror—you and your teammates play a group of intrepid investigators, bent on uncovering the dark creature behind ongoing weirdly happenings in the town of Arkham, Mass. 

It’s a bit like an role-playing game in that players choose characters with different abilities.  One character may be a sharp shooting mob boss; another a mentally resilient nun.  Victory over the forces of darkness doesn’t increase your stats, but you can use the victories to purchase limited upgrades for your character.  While it is constrained by typical boardgame considerations  (play is fairly linear, and there’s not a lot of incentive to deviate or innovate), it succeeds in setting a frantic pace for survival.  Within the first few rounds, even novice players get the feeling that this ain’t no Chutes-n-Ladders.  Maybe if the Ladders led to a dark forest lair, inhabited by Shubb-Niggurath, Goat of a Thousand Young.   Or if the chutes dropped you into Hibbs roadhouse, where the thugs may be as more than unwelcoming…they may be downright predatory.  Monsters are generated quickly, and the locales in Arkham are decidedly non-urbane.  The overall goal of the game is to keep the Ancient Horror that slumbers beneath, above, or within Arkham asleep; failing that, it is to defeat the Abomination when it awakens. 

Gameplay is complex at first.  I’m afraid to say that it took me a couple gaming sessions to really understand the game.  The payoff, in my opinion is worth it.  Each game turn is divided into phases, which each player takes his turn with.  There are 5 phases which can be tiresome until the process is understood by all the players.  Once learned, the flow becomes much more natural.  There are a billion little pieces to keep track of; one wonders if the manufacturers owns stock in Cardboards-R-Us.

Another ding against the game: its manual qualifies as a tome.  The art is nice, and it’s written clearly and well, but there’s no escaping the fact that its a manuscript.  It can be daunting for new players.  I highly suggest that when you start out, get the PDF of the rules and keep a laptop nearby so that you can search for rules more quickly.

My final criticism of the game is this: the build-up to the Ancient One’s awakening is tough.  I mean, this is a game with the ability to make you worry about its outcome.  It’s emotionally perilous, even, and so successful.  You’ve been playing this character for an hour or two; you’re invested in his or her success, but the game is a beast.  Monsters and bad guys patrol the streets, and you’ve only barely scraped by with your health and sanity in check.  Then comes the Big Bad; you’ve failed in your attempt to keep it asleep, to safeguard reality from the onslaught of Cthulhu or Hastur, or Nyarlanthotep… the only thing to do is to mount a desperate attempt to beat back its influence.  Paltry hope!  Deadly foe!

Except…not.  To date, the Big Bad has been pathetically easy for my group to beat.  The rest of the game is a gauntlet; the Ancient One is a cakewalk by comparison.

Those things said, it’s still a successful implementation.  I’ll also note that there are a number of house rules and help available on the internet to mitigate all these problems.

So what are you waiting for?  Arkham and her horrors await…

--Scott M. Roberts

Fnagh! Eo waghet!  Cthulhu p’nang ano!

Sideshow Links: August 25, 2010

Minneapolis Will Pay Zombies: Oh, crap. The lawyers are working for the undead. The possibilities are gut-wrenching.

Coca-cola camouflage: This outfit may work against drunk men intent on harassing you. I question its utility against anyone else. Especially zombies.

Mural: The Game: An interesting experiment in physics and art. Mona Lisa go splodey! Perhaps the one sure-fire way to distract zombies in their march toward city hall: they love to slowly take off her skull and put it back, and take it off again…

The Truth About Bacon: Well…the truth as I’d like it to be. I wonder if brains taste like bacon to a zombie?

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Shambler

How About It, Roomie?

Every time I'm reminded of this story I feel like it's a requirement to have a poster slapped on my chest disclaiming that I'm not a psychopath. But you do have to delve a bit into insanity to be a successful writer. When I began writing "How about it, Roomie?" I had a few roommates in the past and from what I'd experienced as well as others I had previously joked with, roommates can be disastrous. But it couldn't be all that bad. Roommates come and go. It could be worse. Then I thought, "It could be MUCH worse." You never look at a roommate and think they're completely bananas after the first meeting. Then they begin walking around in their underwear. In "How about it, Roomie?" I thought that the subtle interview maybe wasn't so subtle this time around. How would it be if your interview went horribly wrong. I mean horribly!

In the first draft I had it so that the interviewee was already in power and that the interviewer no longer had a choice in the matter, being tied up - so the question "How about it?" was rhetorical. My inspiration came from looking at movies like Psycho and chuckling under my breath. From enjoying Zombie movies because zombies are not scary, but silly. I think that's how this story was written. Let's be afraid of the dark truths of reality - but laugh a little while doing it. But, when you look at it - roommates are crazy, but never this bad. Read it however you like, gain whatever message you see in this short tale of strange. I hope you enjoy it. After all, who doesn't enjoy a bit of twisted dark humor every now and again?

--Chase Guymon

The Anatomy of Melancholyanisaurus…

(There’s no such thing as a Melancholyanisaurus)

However, this article on dinosaur anatomy and all the cool details paleontologists are learning was soo freaking cool I had to share it. 

Claws, Jaws, and Spikes: The Science of the Dinosaur Arsenal

Not just words…but pictures! 

Dinosaurs, the science of defending oneself, an examination of precise meat-eating techniques…It’s like Man Day at wired.com!

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Stegosaurus

Adam Colston—The Quanta of Art

The Quanta of Art was first imagined during the security-check at Bristol Airport, prior to boarding a flight to Turkey last year. I don’t think it was the act of shoe-removal or the uncomfortably intimate pat-down by a large, humorless guy that triggered the idea, but the x-ray devices and the scanners themselves.
I am not asserting, by the way, that particles leaked from these devices, then crashed into the soggy grey mush inside my skull and fired the appropriate neurons -- et voila -- The Quanta of Art was born.

No -- it was simpler than that.

As I bent down to re-tie my shoelaces, a character occurred to me: a guy who’d had radical surgery to implant all manner of weird and wonderful technology on and himself--scanners, etc. He looked horrific, but he’d be someone we’d pity, not fear.

So, he was a beast…so what about a beauty? Why did he do this to himself ? As a matter of fact, who is telling the story and why? Questions, questions and more questions hit me as I stood and grabbed my freshly irradiated stuff from the x-ray machines conveyor belt…

As I sat in the departure lounge, and later on the plane, I typed up a simplified version of the story and sent it to my buddy, Frank. By the end of my week in Turkey, the story had been enhanced, layered, motivations defined and the ending completed.

I subbed the story to the Writers of the Future contest, but it was removed from consideration when I won the previous quarter. I was later told by the judge, K.D. Wentworth, that she’d loved the story and had selected it as a finalist before getting the message to pull it.

Next, it went to straight to InterGalactic Medicine Show and my thanks to Eric and Edmund for enjoying enough to pick it from the slush.

Best,

Adam

IGMS #18 Preview

Intergalactic Medicine Show #18 is LIVE, featuring the following stories:

Peter S. Beagle returns to IGMS with a rip-roaring tale of two dragon control officers in Trinity County, CA.

Be prepared to get surreal in Willam T. Vandemark’s  Forcing Coin. What’s life without a little mystery, the protagonist asks.

 

Stultifying, comes the answer from another story on the opposite end of the genre spectrum. Every square inch of old Earth is known, measured, mapped—but there’s a great big solar system out there, if Lance can just get there. Places to go, mysteries to see—and none more startling than David Simon’s The Mystery of Miranda.

 

Change your venue, change your mind (literally) with British author Adam Colston’s The Quanta of Art. Ah, modern art! You might be skeptical at first—the story’s hapless gallery owner, Mr. Whistler is. But, like I said…you’ll change your mind once you behold Violix’s latest work. Careful not to stare too long…

Think you’ve got roommate troubles? Could be worse. Could be much, much worse, according to Chase Guymon’s How about it, Roomie?

 

And finally, someone named Orson Scott Card considers bioelectrical energy, family ties, love, Biblical-style vengeance, religion, race, and bad makeup in part two of Eye for Eye.

 

All this plus interviews, audio recordings, fantastic artwork, and more in Intergalactic Medicine Show #18!

Now Live at the InterGalactic Medicine Show - IGMS Issue 18

Issue 18 - August 2010
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Trinity County, CA - by Peter S. Beagle (100-mile-an-hour fun dragon story)
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The Mystery of Miranda - by David Simons (planetary exploration)
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The Quanta of Art - by Adam Colston (art is life (or vice versa))
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Forcing Coin - by William T. Vandemark (too strange, you'll just have to read it for yourself)
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How About It Roomie - by Chase Guyman (one of Orson's writing students at SVU, where the boss occasionally teaches)

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Part Two of Orson Scott Card's novella, An Eye For An Eye
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Forcing Coin is also our audio story for the month

Darrell Schweitzer interviews Richard Lupoff

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...and a guest editorial by Mark Van Name, whose novel was just released and the profits from the hardcover go to support a very worthwhile charity

By The Numbers—A Brief Look at IGMS Submissions

I thought this might be interesting to some people. 

Some disclaimers:

1) I am one of four assistant editors in IGMS.  (Sara and Eric’s numbers are likely to be MUCH higher)

2) I don’t keep track of their numbers.

3) Edmund Schubert is a slave-driving werewolf vampire android.  The arithmetic he employs is unrecognizable to anyone in this dimension.  I urge you, on peril of your sanity, to not consider it.

A sample of 386 submissions reveals the following:

64 submissions passed to the slavering, hairy, fanged robot.

161 submissions recommended for form rejection

187 submissions recommended for personal rejection

NOW.  Of those 64 accepted:

21 were Science Fiction

1 was horror

23 were Fantasy

19 untracked

“Untracked” because I wasn’t keeping details when I started slushing.  I paid dearly for my lack of diligence; those months in Edmund Schubert’s Asylum/Salt Mine for the Clinically Non-Precognizant have taught me a valuable lesson. 

Let’s assume that the genre percentages remain the same for those 19.  My math gives me +9 stories for science fiction, +10 stories for Fantasy, and +1 story for Horror. 

“AHA!” you cry.  “Witness the failure of the American educational system!  YOU HAVE ADDED A STORY, YOU FIEND!”

I’m rounding up for simplicity’s sake.  The real numbers are something like 8.7 for SF, 9.6 for F, and .95 for H.  I guarantee you—if I get .5 of a story, I am not going to pass it along to Edmund.  Nossir.  Like I said, I’ve learned my lesson.

So, it’s about a half-n-half split between science fiction and fantasy, with Horror looking really underrepresented.  Which disturbed me at first, because I write things that a lot of people might call horror.  But looking back at my list of submissions…I don’t think that I’ve read lots of Horror in the slush pile.  There have been zombies; there have been ghosts.  But horror is more than monsters; it’s a sense of dread or foreboding that prevails through the story.  Dread or threat is the principal emotion in horror writing, in my opinion; which is why Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot can be classified as Horror,  but his collaboration with Peter Straub, Talisman, cannot.  (And we shan’t mention Black House.)  A lot of the stories I read that others might call Horror (because of the m-m-m-monsters) I call contemporary fantasy. 

I’m sure I’ve offended someone with my crass generalizations.  And my math.  I’ve probably offended Steven King and Peter Straub.  I invite you all to slander me on the IGMS forums.  Go ahead.  I can take it.  I’ve been to a Salt Mine/Asylum run by Edmund Schubert.  There’s no horror like that horror, lemmetellewe.

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor, IGMS

Dedd and Gohn is No More

It is with great regret that I write this, but unfortunately Dedd & Gohn is being discontinued, effective immediately. I have had a great time writing it and hope you had as much fun reading it. Sadly, the artist, Tom Barker, has found himself with multiple personal and professional conflicts and can not draw Dedd & Gohn on a regular basis. I will miss working with him and I will especially miss all the wonderful strips he never got to draw.

Thanks to all the readers who came along for the ride. It was fun, but way too brief.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

IGMS in Gardener Dozois’ Year’s Best in SF

From IGMS reader, Jaime Rubin, some kind words from SF Editor-Extraordinaire, Gardener Dozois in his 2010 Year’s Best Science Fiction collection:

The flamboyantly titled Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, edited by Edmund R. Schubert under the direction of Card himself, had good work by Peter S. Beagle, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ian Creasey, Tim Pratt, Aliette de Bodard, Eugie Foster, Tony Pi, and others, including a number of stories, both reprint and original by Card. Although they publish both SF and fantasy (rarely slipstream) they tend to lean toward fantasy, which tends to be of generally higher quality than their SF.

Six IGMS stories were selected as honorable mentions:

“Vanishing” (Peter Beagle, #11)

"The Report of a Dubious Creature" (Ian Creasey, #15)

"The Urn of Ravalos" (Rebecca Day, #11)

"Body Language" (Mary Robinette Kowal, #15)

"Aim for the Stars" (Tom Pendergrass, #15)

"Tekkai Exhales His Avatar" (Tony Pi, #11)

--Scott M. Roberts

Asst. Editor, IGMS

The Freak Filter Redux

A while back, some of the assistant editors for IGMS elaborated on what it takes to make it through the slush pile.  You can find those ruminations here. 

Our standards haven’t changed, but after 8 months of slushing, I thought I would take a moment to reiterate my point of view when it comes to reading short stories.

Mo’ Shorter is Mo’ Better

One author called novelettes the perfect form for speculative fiction—long enough for truly creative world-building and characterization, but short enough to demand some textual snappiness.  As a writer, I completely agree—I love the novelette form. 

As an assistant editor, though, my feelings toward the longer form are drastically reversed.  I admit it—long stories got no reason. 

Well…not quite.  But who can pass up a Randy Newman reference?

IGMS of course accepts longer works.  But let me tell you—I despair at seeing word counts above 7000.  It’s been my experience that for all the strength of the form, most writers who think they need a novelette  to contain their story are just blabbermouths.  Most of the novelettes I see can be and should be reduced; rarely do I encounter a novelette that is lean.  

And lean is what you need to make a novelette successful.  Justify the word count—trim your submission until it is svelte.  Selling to pro markets is hard enough; a novelette has to be exceptional to make it through. 

Go For the Funny Bone

I’ve said it before: if you want to stand out in the slush pile, be funny.  When John Joseph Adams was reading slush for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, he made a similar comment.

Sturm und drang is easy, and so I see a lot of it.  I cherish the funny stories I get.  I love the quirk, the sarcasm, the quick wit. 

Heaven help me, I also love the puns. 

Bring It When You Begin It

Let me quote Sara Ellis, the long-time slush reader for IGMS:

I love captivating first paragraphs, and dislike impotent last lines. For most short stories, you have two pages to capture my attention. Do not waste these on exposition. Do not throw away first paragraphs with exposition.

Are you paying attention?  You have two (2) pages to prove your story’s worth. Make them count.

Accentuate the Positive; Eliminate the Negative

Sort of.

Your protagonist doesn’t necessarily have to be likeable.  He doesn’t have to be a saint; she doesn’t have to walk around petting kittens and saving puppies.  I appreciate anti-heroes; I have a fondness for the rapscallion, the brigand, the hard-bitten and cynical protagonist. 

But don’t make them defeatist.  I’m afraid I have no patience for nihilistic characters.  The story can make the point that life is absurd, capricious, or meaningless; but the character had better be an active participant in her own story, or it’s going to be an exceptionally hard sell.  He’d better be striving for meaning, or for conquest, or for something.   

Grande Finale

I’ve read some great stories recently.  Some really great concepts, excellently executed.  Powerful characters, moving conflict, fantastic story-telling…that in the last pages of the story seemed to morph into textual goop.  Or worse, textual sap.

Maybe you know how frustrating that is.  Maybe you saw A.I.  Or caught the finale of Lost, or Battlestar Galactica.  Terrible endings, all—because they didn’t live up to the promise of excellence that the bulk of the story made. 

A lot of these stories have the feeling of just ending too quickly—like the author was in a contest or something, and wrote an ending that felt slapdash and hurried.  Or that they tacked a standard, cliche ending on in order to just get it out the door.

Excise that impulse, authors.  Take your time with the ending; make sure it is worthy of the rest of your story.  As much as I love a good beginning, I love a good ending more because it means the author hasn’t wasted my time.

--Scott M. Roberts

Assistant Editor

Another Day in Paradise

I thought I’d chronicle my day (Tues., July 6, 2010), to give you an idea of what an average day in the life of an editor looks like. Well, an average day in my life as an editor, anyway. I can’t vouch for anyone else.

Be on the look-out for random moments of high glamour and pizzazz, because they crop up at every turn. Really.


9:00 a.m. -- Turn on laptop computer. Start by checking emails.

Email from author. Read his final revisions of short story for next issue of IGMS (author is vacationing in England right now, so process going slowly). Forward final draft of said story to IGMS managing editor (M.E.) for formatting.

Email from Tom, my artist partner on the comic, Dedd and Gohn. Discuss artwork/final draft of next three comics. After a few tweaks, forward final draft of comics to IGMS M.E. for immediate publication (they should have gone up Monday, but with the 4th of July holiday, we had an extra day).

9:35 -- Remember that there is still work to be done on business magazine, which has to be done on a different computer. Go turn on other computer and start program (which takes a while to be ready to use because it is such a large program and is installed on a somewhat outdated computer).

Phone IGMS M.E. to discuss other issues. No answer, leave voice mail.

Back to laptop. Send email to Peter Beagle’s business manager about status of story Peter is writing for IGMS (deadline looming large). Get down on both knees and pray for prompt response.

Send email to IGMS web designer about problems on one of the Hatrack pages (several of the people who work for OSC fill multiple roles), make sure he’s aware of problem.

Read and respond to email from an editor friend pointing out details of a certain book deal for a novel that is similar to one I am writing

Reply to query from author who subbed story to IGMS.

9:55 -- Seem to be caught up on emails and phone calls. Time to go check the other computer to see if it’s ready for work on business mag.

10 -- IGMS M.E. just called; she’s working from home this week, proofing Orson Scott Card’s next novel before it goes to his publisher (again, many of his people filling multiple roles). She and I talked for about 20 minutes, making sure everyone was on the same page so all the necessary work could continue moving forward.

10:20 -- Back to main computer. Recvd email from proofreader about business magazine pages I sent her last week. Open pdfs on laptop so I can work with her pages side-by-side with other computer that has my magazine editing program.

Check email on laptop while waiting for something to load on other computer. Reply to email from author friend about marketing idea she had.

Reply to email from voice actor doing the audio story for the next issue of IGMS; confirm deadline for final recording.

Send email to Tom containing next five scripts for Dedd and Gohn. Then call him on phone and discuss ways to streamline our process. (So much for being done with phone calls and emails. I think maybe this time I really am.)

10:35 -- Back to business mag. Currently editing a section called ‘UpFront,’ which is 6 - 8 pages filled with short snippets, each snippet anywhere from 1/3 to a full page long. Everything from entrepreneur profiles to business etiquette to how to write a press release. Lots of tedious detail-work. Details, details, details…

11:15 -- Curse at crappy computer. The monitor goes blank for no apparent reason, third time it’s happened today, and it’s not even lunch time yet.

12.55 – It’s over an hour and a half later. I finally broke down, went out, and bought a new computer monitor. It’s been acting up for weeks now and really affecting my productivity. It’s early afternoon now and I’ve got to make up lost time, so this little diary of a day in paradise is going to get cut short. I no longer have the luxury of stopping to record my every action. Gotta go install the new monitor, covert my edited pages for the business magazine into a pdf, forward pdf to my proofreader, and then settle in to read a few IGMS submissions.

Maybe I’ll try this again later in the week. Maybe…

An Early Ford Mustang—Eric James Stone

For many years I have been a member of the Codex Writers, an online writing forum. One of the things we do on Codex is hold writing contests to encourage the writing of new stories.  (IGMS has actually published several stories that came out of Codex contests: James Maxey's "To Know All Things That Are in the Earth" and "Silent as Dust," Tom Pendergrass's "Aim for the Stars," Scott M. Roberts's "The End of the World Pool," and my own "Like Diamond Tears from Emerald Eyes.")

One of our traditional contests is the Weekend Warrior Contest, which involves writing a flash fiction story each weekend for several weeks.  The story prompts are given out Saturday morning and the story is due Sunday night.

The prompt that inspired this particular story was this: "Write about a magical vehicle (boat, jet, palanquin, etc) with a secret curse."

I'm afraid I don't remember the exact though process that led me to the idea of a car that could never be late, but once I had that, the "curse" was a logical consequence of how the magic worked.  I called the story "Early" and submitted it for the contest that weekend.  It did not place in the top three, but I did get some useful comments from the people who read it.

I revised and expanded the story (it's about 60% longer than it was originally) and took it to my writing groups for feedback. Finally, I submitted it to IGMS, and Edmund bought it, although he wanted a couple more changes that strengthened the story.

--Eric James Stone

Act of Will - by A.J. Hartley

If you've read this blog before, you know I'm fascinated by different writers' processes and the story behind the creation of their stories. Usually I ask the authors of the stories in IGMS to talk about this, but today I've got something slightly different. A.J. Hartley is the author of several novels, including Act of Will, which was released yesterday in paperback, and I got him to talk a bit about the creation of this novel.



Edmund: The book has a first person narrator, which is an unusual choice for fantasy. Why did you choose this?

A.J.: I sometimes say that I think of myself as a novelist who happens to write fantasy sometimes, and has written in other genres too. What draws me to stories is often about the characters and the way they respond to their predicament, and nothing does this more than a first person narration. I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye and being thrilled by how much the voice became the story. It wasn't just about seeing what happened from the protagonist's perspective: it was about being the protagonist. I love that, love even the challenge of telling a tonally varied story from that same, consistent perspective.



Edmund: Tell us something about where the impulse for this story came?

A.J.: A long time ago (more than 20 years) I outlined the core story for a role playing game I was playing with my brother. I was living in Japan at the time and hadn't seen him for over a year, so I wanted to build something rich and complex for us to do when we met up again. I planned out a lot of the basic plot but tweaked its specifics based loosely on places I visited during my long trip back to the UK. After we played the game I wrote up some scenes as short stories, but they lacked interest value to anyone but us. It wasn't until I hit on the idea of the first person voice, and complicated the hero's origins by making him an actor that the story came into focus as a viable novel.



Edmund: Your previous novels are all mystery/thrillers. How does experience with those genres inform WILL?

A.J.: Well, I hope that readers will find that in spite of the sometimes flippant playfulness of the voice, there's a sense of real danger which grows out of my experience with those other genres. I learned a lot about large scale pacing as a thriller writer, as well as about writing combat in ways that stay rooted in reality. I'm writing fantasy, but I'm trying to stay close to the real world in terms of what it feels like to be running from someone who wants to kill you. My protagonist is no heroic weapons master, so that sense of panic so common in thrillers was really useful to me here.



Edmund: What kind of research went into devising the world of the story?

A.J.: Gloriously, (though I hesitate to admit it) almost none. My thrillers are very research heavy, and I'm a publishing academic, so I was delighted to give the library a miss for once and draw largely on stuff I either already knew or could just make up. I'm a Shakespearean scholar so I had a good sense of the theatre in which Will works (suitably modified for my world and story) but even that really only shaped the character's attitude and skills. Within a few pages he's out of that environment and living on his wits with a group of principled adventurers.



Edmund: This book was almost 20 years in the making. What did you learn from this drawn out development that might be helpful for unpublished writers?

A.J.: Some general things and some specific. The specifics: pay attention to the market but don't copy it. When I wrote the first draft of the book I had (for reasons I can no longer remember) stripped it of magic entirely. Agents and publishers told me that they thought magic was integral to fantasy as they conceived it then, and if this wasn't fantasy they didn't know what it was. That's always bad, because they can't sell something they can't first identify. I then worked some of the magic back in, but did so in a tentative way that made it feel like an after thought. I had to figure out the logic of the power I was playing with and make it work consistently, adjusting plot and character accordingly. All of this would have happened much faster if I'd been more attentive to what was being published at the time. Throughout this period I was working on other things, different books and screenplays, from which I learned a lot about overall structure and repeating ideas about hero journeys (archetypes, I guess, though I'm wary of the word). Periodically I would go back and apply what I was learning to a new draft of the book, and from time to time I would show it to other people. (I even started work on a sequel, though I wouldn't advise that till you have a home for the first!) The point, I suppose, is that I never thought of the book as done. It was always in progress, though that progress really did take 20 years, and didn't reach its current form until I had started having success in the mystery/thriller area. That leads to my most general (and obvious point): if you think something about your novel has merit, figure out what that merit is, then be prepared to change everything else, and keep tinkering till you get it right, even if it takes decades. Indeed, I'd say the time that passed was essential to my figuring out what the book had to become. Funny how helpful failure and rejection can be in hindsight, isn't it?

Ten Winks to Forever—Bud Sparhawk

I wrote this story to convey a sense of the immense distances between the stars and the time it would take, given our relativistic universe, to travel among them.  This immensity was brought  home to me when I wondered what starlight now reaching us had started out when various geologic layers were formed.  I threw in a few ideas about human development and differentiation due to science and environment to indicate the passage of time and then tried to personalize the ideas by focusing on a few individuals affected by winking. 

--Bud Sparhawk

Ed Schubert on Dedd & Gohn

I’ve loved comic strips for a long time, going back to the early days of Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side. These days it’s Pearls Before Swine, Zits, Over The Hedge, Dilbert, and Frazz (which is brilliant, but often hard to find). Absurd and insightful, my favorite comics are always that perfect blend of what is true and what is truly ridiculous.

I’d wanted to write one for a long time, but the tragic reality is that I possess slightly less than zero artistic talent. Okay, okay… significantly less than zero artistic talent. Lacking any way around that stumbling block, I set the dream aside and moved on to pursue others. One thing I’ve never lacked for is pipe dreams to chase after.

Then several years ago, I read an early draft of a YA novel written by Tom Barker. The thing that impressed me most about Tom’s novel was the artwork. Tom had illustrated his own novel, and done an amazing job of it. Not that the story wasn’t good (it was), but the art was fantastic.

But, as with so many other things in life, that moment came and went. I loved Tom’s art, but didn’t think any further about it.

Flash forward to the beginning of 2010 -- maybe January, maybe February; I don’t recall. What I do recall was sitting on a heating pad, trying to assuage an ailing back, all the while reading a book about ghost hunting. With all due respect to ghost hunters everywhere, this book struck me as particularly funny. I think I reacted that way because the author was trying sooo hard to be serious about the subject. Every page I turned just felt like more fodder for comedy.

I’m not sure why, but suddenly a lot of previously unrelated pieces began clicking into place. This wasn’t just fodder for comedy, this was ideal material for a comic strip. And Tom Barker would be the perfect person to do the artwork. And because the strip would be about paranormal investigators, InterGalactic Medicine Show would be the perfect place to showcase it. And because IGMS was about to relaunch with a new look and new features, this was the perfect time for it. Bang, bang, bang -- it was all there.

See? Never a shortage of pipe dreams.

And to make things challenging, this one depended on my getting other people on board the pipedream express with me. But what fun is a pipe dream if it’s not challenging? All I had to do was talk Tom Barker and Orson Scott Card into it.

Piece of cake. This was an idea whose time had arrived. And even if it wasn’t, I was going to make it arrive.

Tom was on board pretty quickly. The minute I pitched him the idea, he was excited (always a good sign). It turned out that just as I had always been interested in writing a strip, but knew I needed help with the illustrations, Tom said he had always been interested in drawing one, but wasn’t sure he could sustain the comedy on the writing side. It was like peanut butter meeting jelly for the first time: two parts that were meant to be together.

Orson was another matter. Not that he was negative on the idea; I just knew I needed solid samples to show him before I even brought the idea up. He wasn’t going to let me put something new in his magazine just because I was editing it; I was going to have to prove to him that I could do this, and do it well.

So I stated writing, and Tom started doodling. We’d meet for lunch; I would show him sample scripts, and he would show me character designs. I suggested tweaks for his art, he suggested tweaks for my dialogue (I was too wordy at first, and Tom struggled to make the characters look like the same person when he changed views from head-on to profile). We got better. We created rough drafts. Tom further tightened my dialogue, and I told him to “draw better” (really, I wasn’t much help there; I’m not kidding when I say I have no artistic ability).

For a time, I made a concerted study of what made comics funny. True, I had wanted to do this for a long time, but wanting to do something and knowing how to do it are not the same. So I studied strips I thought were funny, trying to find patterns. I read creator’s websites, trying to glean tips and tricks. I wrote bad scripts and tried to turn them into something serviceable. It was an enjoyable time. I like the process of learning new things, and this fit that bill nicely. And of course you never resent working hard when you’re working on something of your own choosing.

Within a few weeks we had samples of Dedd & Gohn that I thought were ready to show people. We started with friends and family, and worked our way up from there. Feedback was positive. I was happy to receive Orson’s blessing on the project, but I knew I had something good when my fourteen year old daughter asked for copies of the samples to show her friends at school. She’s a tough critic, and is at a tough age to impress; if it was good enough for a troop of fourteen year olds, it was good enough.

So that’s how it all began. Today, three comics strips per week in InterGalactic Medicine Show; tomorrow, the world.

--Ed Schubert

Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain—Von Carr

This story is entirely a product of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and all the demented inspiration, hard work, and cheerful collaborative insanity the workshop entails.

"Sister Jasmine" began as a Week One writing exercise: John Kessel asked us to write a scene that incorporated as many random words as possible. "Sister," "habit" and "crucifix" were on Kessel's list, as were "Einstein" and "Wal-Mart," so clearly a scene involving a nun, a Wal-Mart expedition, and a zombie-hunting robotic dog were in order. I've always loved post-apocalyptic SF, and so my scene rapidly expanded into a tribute to all the triffid-infested, boy-and-dog, monks-saving-humanity stories I've read.

I really enjoyed writing about Sister Jasmine, and by the end of the workshop, I'd decided that she deserved a story of her own. "Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain" is a version of that Week 6 story, albeit a version improved by the feedback of my classmates. It's thanks to them that you have the story you do.

Speaking of my classmates, I understand that the very talented William T. Vandemark has a story coming out in IGMS soon. I had a chance to read a version of "Forcing Coin" at Clarion West, and I thought it was wonderful: a dark tale, but with a real sense of heart to it. I can't wait to read it again in IGMS.

Cheers,

Von Carr

Writing Workshop, Part 4—Fortune cookies

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

We wrapped up the group exercise, and moved into the individual exercise.  I explained that this exercise worked the same as the group exercise (except solo), and the story would be generated by a story seed.  I’ve seen other workshop teachers use the contents of their purse (KD Wentworth/Tim Powers at the Writers of the Future workshop use this method); some use story seeds generated by earlier sessions in the workshop (Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp has an almost traumatizing exercise in which participants leave the classroom with the specific purpose of going and talking to strangers to pick up story seeds for use later)

I don’t own a purse, and even if I did, I doubt I could find enough items to distribute to the number of kids that were in my workshop.  And while I’m sure the kids would enjoy being released from school at my request, I think school administrators would have a conniption.  I came up with the idea of using fortune cookies as seeds; I was able to get a good deal on them from a local Chinese take-out place (~250 for $10.00). 

Here’s how it worked: I passed out the cookies along with a 3x5 index card and explained that they were going to use the cookie to come up with a story.  They’d plot the story out on the index card.  There was a time limit on the exercise; I gave them 15 minutes.

I explained that the time limit was meant to get them working quickly, and to instill a sense of urgency in their creative process.  It’s been my experience that urgency tends to force the mind to be more productive.  The index card, I explained, was to help them restrict their outline to the important high-level details.  (I did not realize, however, that 6th graders can write incredibly teeny script.  I believe some of those kids could cram the Encyclopedia Britanica  into a couple 3x5s…)

The cookies were a tremendous hit.  I’m not really sure if the enthusiasm had more to do with the story creation process, or if it was just the opportunity to eat in class that got them fired up, but everyone seemed happy, and they all worked pretty diligently at plotting their stories.  A couple kids needed some help figuring out how to move from the seed to a story idea, but on the whole, they got it.  

That took us to the last five minutes of class where I talked about work ethic and the Muse.  I’m not a fan of the Muse, or inspiration; I think too often, young writers wait until the lightning bolt moment to put pen to paper.  For me, writing is a discipline.  Like distance running—you don’t wait to feel like it in order to start training to run a marathon.  You go out there in the heat or rain, or whatever, and you get those muscles working.  Eventually, you train enough, and you can run 30 miles all at once.  Same with writing—don’t wait for inspiration to strike.  Inspiration is a crutch that weakens writers who become dependent on it, because they feel they can’t write without it.

And that was pretty much it for the workshop.  I repeated this workshop three times during the day that I was at the middle school; and it was pretty successful.  And for those of you keeping score: I did not, in fact, embarrass my daughter in front of all her friends. 

I call that a win.