A Little Solstice Gift

Summer solstice greetings! It is a beautiful day here in northern Colorado - mild, a gentle breeze, and the glorious smell of much-needed rain after a small shower this afternoon. I am not one to venerate the seasons' changes - only revel in the seasons themselves. But in honor of some who do mark the changes, albeit they are beings of my own creation, I'm offering you a scene I wrote when I was trying to get a handle on a very particular form of magic in Flesh and Spirit. Timewise, the scene would precede the opening of Flesh and Spirit by a day or two. There may be slight discrepancies with the final history/magic.

WARNING: this scene could be considered a very mild spoiler for Flesh and Spirit or Breath and Bone. Some would also rate it PG13.

Enjoy!

Prelude

“Kol!”

His name glided through the moon shade like a hunting owl to settle in gentle urgency on Kol's bare shoulder. Rare to hear it spoken by any voice but his own in this long parched season of disaffection. Since those who ruled in Aeginea had silenced his sister Clyste, he had walked and danced and celebrated his waking seasons alone. Only in the Canon, at seasons’ change, did he dance with the others.

No matter the rare occasion; he could not attend the call. The grove suffered, and his kiran was yet steps shy of its completion. His sinistre leg held firm in the center of the grove, knee bent, thigh muscle warming quickly with the strain. He swept the same-side arm low, gathering the scents of shy violet and foxglove and hairy-stemmed campion, resistant in its deadness, and grasping the sounds of clicking beetles and the dry stalks rustling in the night breeze. He stretched his opposed arm skyward and let the rill of moonlight travel the arc of his length, caressing arm and hip, thigh, and extended leg, all the way to his toe that touched the unhealthy earth beneath the grass.

Refine the position - the hand’s curve, the toe’s point - lower the sinistre knee yet again, until the thigh heats like midsummer’s sun. He shifted and stretched, deeper, farther, as if his old vayar, Rafael, yet lived, goading him beyond his limits. Now, a full breath. Pause and hold. A perfection of stillness to settle the spirit.

Reaching deep for strength honed over seasons of practice, he drew in his limbs, sharp and sudden as a frighted doe bursts through the brake. Whipping out the dexter leg, he spun on his set foot, opening heart and mind and flesh to the ebbed life of the grove.

Oak and ash, wax-leaved hawthorn…as his own thoughts he knew them. Coaxing their faint music to life, he flexed his dexter leg to spin again, and again, and thrice ten more before leaping into the air, legs full extended fore and behind, in the exaltation of the grove. His will and his straining limbs…the movements…whatever perfection and grace he could bring to the kiran…drew the songs from trees and grass and moonlight and wove them together into a single pattern that infused the grove with life and power. He dropped softly onto his toes, coiled tight, knees bent, his arms raised in sinuous unity above his head.

“Sweetly done.” Moth perched in an oak split down its bole, her long, lean shadow reaching across the grass almost to his feet. She swung one leg idly, the snake sigils that wound from hip to ankle lacing her shadow with streaks of sapphire. "Thy kirani are the most exquisite of anyone’s, Kol. Could we but breed a thousand of thee to dance such patterns, we might repair the Canon and reclaim our rightful territories before the moon grows old.”

He dipped one knee, stretching the other leg behind to make a straight line with his inclined back, and swept hands from head to earth in a quiet allavé to relinquish his bond to the grove. Moth’s interruption, so close upon the end of the kiran, annoyed him. He preferred to relinquish slowly, allowing the last energies of the dance steps to pass from his body into the kiran-hai - tonight, the grove - so that no energies would be wasted. His purpose was not to savor the lingering pleasure for himself, but to quicken the kiran-hai so that it might be sooner reconnected to the Canon, the living pattern of the world.

“What brings thee here, Sentinel? Not to discuss my kiran postures or this sad little grove.” He released his position and sat cross-legged on the grass, pleased to feel the faint beat of life beneath his groin. Before he’d begun the dance at sunset, this patch of earth and trees had existed season upon season without pulse or vigor. Surely no guardian had danced here for longer than his own lifetime.

Moth stretched her dexter leg up the tree, exposing herself to him, knowing he would be aroused from the kiran, the more so with its abrupt ending. She fluttered her lashes. “I would discuss postures with thee, Kol, in any season.”

Her body was indeed lovely and smelled of woodrush and willow and ripe female. But she had never seemed to grasp that he found her cold, biting manner unpleasing and her narrow thinking ungenerous. “Why hast thou come, Moth?”

“The watchwards at Clyste’s well have wakened.”

“Breached? By whom? Tell me it was not some blighted human!” Though Clyste’s indefinable spirit yet lived radiantly in the fields and forest nourished by her well, the mind and will that had shaped her singular being had long since lost cohesion. Any quickening of the barriers that confined her to her resting place must signal an intrusion and no act of hers. A breach could mean her death.

“Not a breach, graceful one. The disturbance was but a certain…awareness…roused in Clyste’s sianou lands, as if she stirred in her dreams. Hardly anything at all. But you made me promise to tell thee of the smallest change.” Moth traced one finger along the fine-drawn vine that encircled the swell of her breast. “I hoped for thy gratitude.”

Kol considered possibilities. Such awareness as Moth described signified nothing with regard to Clyste’s fate. That had been sealed many seasons ago with bindings of myrtle, hyssop, and hatred, and could not be reversed. But anything that sparked his sister’s lingering essence enough to trigger the watchwards was worth investigating. He had promised both his lost sister and his dead foster brother to mind the lands watered by the Well, as they had believed the place a nexus for the world’s change.

“Didst thou report this to the archon, Sentinel?”

Even in the dark he felt her smile. “Tuari would forbid you to act on it. So…not yet.”

The lie tainted the air like fen gas. Moth did not understand subtlety.

“Report the incident as thou wilt.” He phrased his speech as carefully as he designed a kiran. “It was a likely a bull elk’s bugling or a wolf’s howl that caused the quickening thread. My sister dearly loved autumn song. But I can chase lost dreams no longer. With so few of us left here in the hills, I’ve too much work undone to hare after rumors, even for Clyste’s sake. And I’ve had too little time for pleasure out here so long alone…”

He joined Moth by the tree, reached up, and twined his fingers in hers that yet teased at her breast. Then he pulled her down to the living grass and in explosive fury yielded her the unspent energies that by right and need belonged to the grove.

Only after she had sauntered into the night, smug in her small victory and most certainly bearing a report of his long-awaited submission straight to those who ruled in Aeginea, did Kol set out for the Well. He held little hope for the world’s change. But no treacherous human would sully the waning seasons of Clyste’s gentle life, and no dull-sighted archon such as Tuari would prevent him seeing to it.


A relaxing and joyous solstice to all!
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Me, Myself, and I

For the first time in forever, I posted on the Deep Genre blog.

The post is an answer to a question about whether one can overuse the words I and myself when writing in first person.

The short answer is: Yes, of course! The post talks about some techniques to minimize the problem. Read more of this post!

I Love It When That Happens

OK, hopping back into the saddle after another six days of family fun...

I assumed it would take me another two days or so to start moving forward, but I guess I did just enough in those few days between my mom's move and this latest digression to fuel some clear thinking. As I might have said before, a little distance gives perspective. First off, I realized that I had left a huge wrong turn in the plot.

PLOTTING RULE: Always consider alternatives to your characters' choices. Is what you plan for them to do next what they would really do next?

Case in point: Portier and Ilario had discovered that a young sorceress had been imprisoned by some nefarious individuals and used for nefarious purposes. The only name she spoke before she died was that of a man missing for almost a year. Her clues hint that he is held by the same captors. And what did my intrepid fellows do?

Went off to an afternoon "salon" to investigate another piece of the puzzle, because that's what I needed them to do: meet some people and discover that their critical deadline (and I mean DEADline) had just been moved up. Very tense. I was focused on the steps in unraveling the puzzle of the royal assassination attempt, rather than this parallel plot layer of the missing conte. DOH!

It was clear the girl had been held in the very palace where my investigators were staying. She had escaped her captors only three days previous. Of COURSE they would do their best to see if the missing man might still be held there! Which took them into the royal crypt and uncovered new artifacts, new evidence, and allowed Portier to get some insights into Ilario and his relationship to his half sister, Queen Eugenie, and get his own first view of this woman who is a crux of the conspiracy. Is she or isn't she trying to kill her husband?

That is, a good, spooky, revelatory action scene inserted itself. I love it when that happens!
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Some Common Questions

Inspired by a comment on my last post, here are a few questions I get asked frequently.

Will you read and/or critique my manuscript?

Sorry, I won't. Between my own writing, critiquing work of my critique group partners, and reading manuscripts for the various workshops, blurbs, and such that I "sign up" for, I have no time to read other manuscripts. I believe all writers need to establish their own group of first readers - people who are serious readers, serious writers, and who will be honest about their reactions to your work. Family members or personal friends tend to give support (which we all need, as well) rather than detailed feedback. I enjoy the give and take of an excellent critique group, and have learned as much by reading other people's work critically as I do by their critiquing mine.

For a few more questions and answers...



I have an idea for a story. Will you write it and split the profit?

Nope. Ideas are everywhere. I have more ideas than I could possibly write in my lifetime. And to be blunt, an "idea" is far less than half the work of producing a book!

Where do you get your ideas?

Everywhere. The Lighthouse Duet came to be from a feature story I heard on NPR, in combination with a remembered scene from a YA novel about Roman Britain, and some stuff I knew about monks preserving classical literature during the Dark Ages. The Rai-kirah books resulted from an attempt to turn the concept of a fantasy hero from the cliched "naive, noble-hearted young boy or girl with a kindly wizard mentor, elf and dwarf companions, and a noble destiny awaiting him or her at the end of a quest" on its head. And so was Aleksander born. Song of the Beast came about when I decided to pick another unlikely hero - a musician who lacked and was unlikely to acquire any skills of war. Etc. Etc.

Has anyone ever stolen one of your ideas?

I sincerely doubt it. Just as I do, most writers have more ideas than they can possibly use. And it is in the execution...the writing...that a book comes to life. Ten writers could set out with the same premise and come up with ten wildly different stories. Example? How many stories have been written about cruel slaveowners and their mysterious slave? I like to think I did something unique with that idea. If my books stand up well, then anyone who lifts one of my characters or some particular worldbuilding idea will be shown up as a cheat. I love the concept of Amber...the essential core of a world and an endless variety of reflection worlds that one family can travel. But why would I want to write a story based on that idea and pretend it's my own?

Now if someone is stealing your actual words, whole passages...well, plagiarism is another matter altogether.

Is anyone ever going to make a movie of your books?

I would likely have to sell a whole lot more of them! (Notice the ones that get made with any success at all have sold a few billion copies. Word of mouth. Word of mouth. Word of mouth.)

How do I get started writing fantasy (or any kind of fiction)?

This is fodder for an entirely new post. But in short: Read. Write. Learn the craft. Constantly and interchangeably.

I'll do more questions in another post.
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Long Time, No Post

Well, it wasn't exactly a vacation - helping my mom move to Denver after spending her entire life in Texas. But it was different. Isn't that the definition of vacation? She is pretty game, taking on this interstate adventure after so long. A lot of the family (two daughters, four grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren) are clustered in the Denver area, and none of us are living back in Fort Worth where she's lived since 1938. Three cheers for my mom, who is a great lady!

As for me - not a word did I write for three weeks. Neither website update, nor newsletter, nor blog post has crossed my fingers. Yes, I kept up on email. Barely. Now things are settling down until the next family event in a couple of weeks. (More on that another time.)

It was probably a good time to get a little distance on Portier, Dante, and Ilario. I was enjoying their investigation, but somehow the words coming out on paper didn't seem as punchy as I like. This is known as the "It's All Crap Stage" in the writing journey. Yesterday, I sat down alone. House quiet. A misty, rainy May Colorado day - perfect writing weather. And what did I do?

First, I wrote a new opening scene. Is it better than the original? Slightly. It contains more dramatization than character introduction. [You might remember I was worried about that.] I'm still not hearing the spooky music playing, which must happen. There was some key info that I was able to slip into my first version that vanished from this version. After spending several [happy!] hours playing with it, I decided to leave it go for the time being. What I come up with later will likely be an amalgam of the two attempts. Or perhaps an entirely new version, skipping the prologue altogether and somehow meshing our introduction to Portier and his mission into the action of the first scene. This is the "ideal," but it would mean a LOT of digression as Portier and Ilario meet Dante. I don't want to spoil the dynamic of their partnering.

Today - Day 2 of my return - I spent revising the last two chapters I wrote. Not bad, as I look at them. [The doubting Carol says "maybe you weren't gone long enough."] And then I picked up a stack of comments from my critique partners spanning several earlier chapters. This gives me a quick review, as well as some needed improvements. [You mean not everyone understood that Gruchin was a dead man?]

In any case, I felt as if I accomplished something. Moved forward. Which is the critical piece for me after time away. Tomorrow, I've business away. But Thursday, I'm hoping to lay down new story. Woo-hoo!!! Read more of this post!

In the Valley of Elah

Though this is as sad a film as I've seen in a long time, and the unfolding story of a young soldier's murder in his first week home from Iraq has no happy resolution, I found this not half so bleak as No Country For Old Men. The acting is supurb - especially Tommie Lee Jones again, as a father determined to discover the truth, and Charlize Theron as a civilian policewoman suffering the indignities of a female whose male colleagues believe she has slept her way into the detective division. This is a suspenseful and moving story of how "modern" warfare can affect the young people we send into combat, as well as the people back home.


A retired Army sergeant, who has already lost one son in modern war,gets a report that his younger son has gone AWOL on his first day back from his Iraq tour. When the young man doesn't show, the father drives down to the base to find him. It doesn't take long to learn that no one has seen the young man, and when a report comes into the police that a body has been found in a field, it is no surprise to the viewer that the worst has happened. Pushing, nudging, questioning, Jones's sergeant won't let the Army stonewall him or the civilian police drop a young man's death because of a "jurisdictional dispute." Theron's detective transforms her own depression into pity into action into indignation, as the father's determination shames her into action. As the higher-ups try to sweep the ugliness under the rug, the two follow the evidence - credit card receipts, disturbing clips from the dead man's cell phone, photos, flags... This is one that won't leave your consciousness for a long time. And it shouldn't.
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Defining the Undefinable

Ghost hunting - did I mention that? My intrepid investigator Portier questions a soldier about the dire events of the past. As the unfortunate fellow spills his guts, he mentions that he sees a dead man's face every hour of every day. "In your dreams?" asks Portier - a rhetorical question. But the answer is unsettling.

Dreaming, I see him. Waking, I see him. I see him in alleys, in courtyards, on the walls, in the trees, inside my eyelids. That bloodless, battered wreck of a face...

Even in a society where people believe their ancestors struggle through seven gates to reach heaven, Portier doesn't believe in ghosts. "Dead is dead," he says several times. But somehow as he is leaving the beleaguered fellow in the dark alley, he gets the creeps and runs back to lights and civilization.

So I write these things, and Portier tells the story to Dante, the mage, and Dante insists that they go back and investigate "what makes Calvino de Santo wail." And now I have to write the scene where they see what Calvino sees...which means I have to figure it out myself.

What is truth in the world I have created? It doesn't matter what I believe about ghosts in my own life, what matters is the truth in Portier's world. There are certain metaphysical boundaries that every fantasy writer must define for a fictional world...


These are the boundaries between

• magic


• myth


• superstition


• religious practice


• science


• divine truth

That is, we have to decide what is the divine truth for our world and what our characters believe. If these are different, as Seyonne discovers in Revelation or Aidan learns in Song of the Beast, it creates tension and story possibilities. Valen does not learn which of his world's great religions holds the truth of the god's/gods' identity, but he learns the truth behind a myth that makes up a part of each god story. In fact, both religions may hold some aspect of divine truth.

When we are designing magic as an integral part of a world, we have to know whether magic can intrude upon or impact divine truth. Is Calvino de Santo's ghost a refugee from beyond the Sabrian Veil, or is the Veil a myth and he but a spirit hanging around where he has no right to be, or is he but some odd refraction of light combined with a guilty conscience? Portier will have his opinion. Dante will have his opinion. But I'd better know the truth or the story falls apart. Work, work, work... Read more of this post!

Gap Filling

Many writers, even non-outliners, purposefully move forward with the story, leaving all expansion, clarification, and enhancement of plot points for another draft or revision cycle. Sometimes I'll do that, too, but mostly my peculiar muse requires me to stop and add in those little "discovery bits" that crop up along the way. Yes, this slows me down, but as I have said many times, for me the very act of putting words on paper spurs new ideas. And this is not limited to forward writing, but encompasses these small rewrites, as well. As the insights that spur them often occur when I've just completed a scene and I'm assessing Where To Go Next, this is another way of kick-starting myself into the next scene.

Here are a couple of today's examples.


As I was glancing over my worldbuilding notes on magic, wondering if I made any mention of ghosts, [Did I mention we were going ghost hunting?] I reviewed my glossary of magical terms. When I was sketching out Sabria's magic, I made a distinction between a spell and a ritual. Spells are individual enchantments, worked according to a formula with certain particles (objects). Spells have a focus--the thing or person to be acted upon, a sphere of influence, a nexus or center of potency, and they are often attached to some receptacle - a carrier, so to speak. Ritual, on the other hand, is a combination of spells, often with multiple practitioners, bound together by an enclosure and designed for some great work: caelomancy or weather ritual, terromancy or earth ritual such as planting or harvest magic, or vitomancy - a healing ritual.

I had forgotten this (spell/ritual) distinction, and decided that the magical occurrence I wrote last week [yeah, that agonizing harbor scene] would certainly qualify as ritual and not a single enchantment. I had tried to complicate the magic so it could not be easily dissected by my investigators, but by recasting it as a ritual, its complications were inherent and needed less explanation. By rewriting two small paragraphs, I was able to simplify my aftermath, plus reveal more about the world. To make the scene work, I had to rechoreograph, which caused me to rework the emotional context of one character and eventually will allow me to throw suspicion on a character I want to be falsely accused of Bad Stuff. I don't have to devise yet another scene to do those things. Yes, yes, yes.

The second small rewrite occurred as I considered motivations and the old who-knew-what list. Early in the story I introduced a magical artifact, a spyglass which caused a fairly spooky reaction in those who looked through it. I'm not sure where this fits into my villains' plot - I just liked it. It was a prime mover in getting this secret investigation plot moving. In essence I am investigating this spyglass right alongside my fearless trio. Because I know so little, this is a plot device that insists that new material be written in as I go. What would a sorcerer do with this glass that shows him very ugly things?

He looks through it. He examines it carefully and discovers that it is not expertly made. And then he takes it apart. Inside he discovers a lensmaker's mark. And Portier intends to find out who made it. This, of course, forces me to think about who made it, and I realize that it was not the people I thought. It forces me to ask a question - "why aren't the villains tearing the place apart looking for this thing?" - a question which my investigative team had never asked. Ooops! And the thing is, once I went back and inserted the question, it had to instill doubt - which is a twisty plotter's reliable right hand. And once knowing who had truly made this thing gave me motives. Every scene is stronger if the participant's motivations are clear.

Now, back to ghost hunting...and now I know what we're going to find!

Making a stronger case - unraveling the spyglass mystery
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Critical Mass

Astonishing how a week can change things. Has it already been a week? How time does fly when one is immersed in the Work. After almost a week of floundering, researching, consulting, analyzing, and cracking skull on keyboard, I got moving on the harbor scene. It flowed. I love it when I've gathered enough information, motivation, world building details, and plot elements that I can immerse myself in the scene without stopping to look things up. The worst thing I have to worry about is communicating how the tall, carved posts with the bird capitals form a great rectangle on the pleasure barge and that silk draperies and canopies are hung from them. I would like to make the posts curve outward so that when they fix new ropes between them to hang the celebration banners brought on board, the banners will obscure some of the silk draperies, but still leave space between. But I need to describe all this in a matter of a few words so we don't interrupt the action. Well, ok, I won't worry about the outward curve (though it would look really cool.)

As I write I do find myself changing some details as I go. Halfway through the scene I move the oarsmen from "belowdecks," when I realize from looking at every pleasure barge picture I can find, that yes, some barges have decks, but these are really shallow draught vessels and you can't necessarily fit men and oars underneath. All the pictures show them on the "main level." But this doesn't mean they are on the deck. They can be in an open hull part of the barge. OK. That works. I put them in the stern, because that seems like the "back of the bus" and the guests would be in the bow, but pictures show that lots of rowing barges put the rowers in the bow - facing backward for rowing, of course, with the bargemaster facing forward. I like the look of the picture I found. So I adjust the words and put them in the bow and the main "gallery" is in the stern. Move everyone around. It works. And then comes the disaster...

...in the story, not the writing (I hope!)...and then comes the magic
that was the reason for all this research and setup. And the magic doesn't come from the place Portier thought it would. And people die. And Portier's expectations, illusions, and hopes are crushed. Action only has meaning in the reactions of the characters.

Did you know that there are Naval Field Medical Manuals online, that tell about phosphorus burns and treatment? [I am smiling here.] Which leads into the "aftermath" chapter. Because when everything goes wrong/blows up/turns south, our heroes have to regroup. Which is another whole chapter!!

Portier is wounded - not something a librarian is accustomed to. It's only small, but leads to interesting revelations about our sorcerer. The character interaction is the most fun - I really have to be careful about too much talking heads in this story. With a mystery, there are clues and interconnections to be analyzed, especially when everything you think you've figured out is proved wrong. I'm going to have to figure out some different way to do this...

And so it goes. I know several things that have to happen next. A visit to Collegia Magica Seravain is one of the big ones. But I think...we may have to go ghost hunting first. Now where did that come from??????

Stay tuned...

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Sometimes It Takes a Village

It really chaps me when I hear an aspiring writer say,

I write fantasy because you can make your world be whatever you want. If you write science fiction, you have to learn all that science; if you write a historical or contemporary or mystery, you have to do so much research. Fantasy is so much easier.

Bite your tongue! It's no wonder so many readers (and other writers!) don't take fantasy seriously! So why does this strike me so hard at this point?

This has been a tough week. I am writing the culminating scene of my first arc, where the spooky music [I hope!!] we've been hearing bursts into action and leads us onward. I was delighted when I got the idea to merge this bit of excitement with the idea of a world on the brink of great discoveries--the launch of the Destinne, a ship of exploration. But after enjoying writing several little incidents and encounters that lead us to think Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, I had to actually write the big scene. And instantly, I got into trouble.

First, I woke up Monday morning with the realization that I was going to launch a ship of exploration, but the city where I've been working is in the middle of Sabria! Duh. Well, it does sit on a river. [World-building reminder: cities grow up in places where there are resources. Castles are built where there is something worth defending or someone you need to keep in or keep out.] I did not want to move Merona to the seaside, so I needed to learn something about river ports and ocean-going ships. Most rivers can't support that large a vessel. So count a day for hunting the internet for examples of inland ports - London is a great example. Hmmm...tidal influences on rivers...how far inland?

And then, of course, I needed to know what kind of ship this was. Fortunately a friend had given me a book called The History of Ships. This is a pretty dense little book that tells me a lot more about ships than I really want to know. My characters aren't going to sail on one...or are they? Where will we be as the Destinne sets sail...?

Anyway, I settle on a Portugese caravel as the model of the Destinne. Caravels were the ships most often used in voyages of exploration, as it happens. The Nina and the Pinta were caravels, as were Vasco da Gama's and Bartholomew Diaz's ships--the names take shape out of fourth grade history... But if Portier is going to be an eyewitness to this ship's launch as well as the Events surrounding it, then I need to know what he sees. It is time to call in help.

I am fortunate to know a small group of fellow writers, some published, some un-, who enjoy sharing information and expertise. One of these lovely people happens to have just done a lot of ship research for her own book. And another happens to be an expert on sailing, as well as a history major and Anglophile and avid reader of novels set in the Age of Sail. What is "warping" a ship? What is different about dealing with a river as opposed to a seaport? [Thank you, thank you, Susan and Di.]

And I learn that Elizabethan era river ports are not necessarily what we think of as harbors today, so I go online and find resources that tell me a lot about the history of the port of London. [Oh my gosh, there is so much! You can see maps of the port listing whose wharves were whose or you can read letters from American businessmen in the 1700s who come to London to buy stuff to ship home... Astonishing the resources that are out there!] OK, merchants' wharves exist. And when I need to place my characters somewhere not on the ship of exploration itself, but to watch it go, I start reading about pleasure barges that have been used on the Thames since before Elizabeth's day. Which also tells me something about what kind of river Sabria's River Ley must be - not rough and tumble, but wide and deep and placid.

If fantasy is so easy and needs no research, then how the heck am I going to put my reader vividly at Portier's side as he sees events unfold? And how am I going to devise a magical event to awe and surprise both spectators and readers, while feeling right? For as soon as I get a few nautical details on the page (not too much, even after several days of research, I want only just enough to make it real) I have to figure out the Event itself.

Two days of speculating, theorizing, woodling, rearranging, investigating motives, trolling through a book called Ancient Inventions [Did you know that hand grenades were used during the Crusades or that Aristotle wrote about divers using underwater breathing apparatus?] and the like lead me to the conclusion that I need science first, maybe science that looks like magic. That means I call in my primary scientific consultant, the Spouse. [He is worth an entire series of posts of his own, but let us say that this is a person of wide-ranging interests in all things mechanical, electrical, automotive, anatomical, and scientific - especially the odd.]

I present my problem. I need this under these constraints. I sort of thought maybe something like... An hour's discussion came up with a great way to cause the highly visible attack that I want.

Now it is Saturday and after tweaking the "gathering of all the people scene" yet again, I am ready to warp the Destinne, and unfurl the jib to bring her around, while Portier stands right under the artifact that will threaten to annihilate King Phillipe yet again. And then my broody sorcerer will... No, I'm not telling.

Thanks, everyone. I want my fantasy to feel real and I can't do it without you.

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Slitting Open Your Chest

No, this post is not a how-to for the darker aspects of fantasy fiction. This has to do with one of the writer's hardest tasks. Two weeks ago I handed out the prologue and first two chapters of Unholy Alliance to my critique group. And yesterday was D-day - the meeting where I would hear their first critique. Putting your work--your vision--your beloved characters and passionate prose--in front of others for the first time is a tough, but necessary part of the writing life.


Perhaps some writers' brains are capable of distinguishing the prose/characters/story the they intended to put down from the prose/characters/story they actually put down. Mine is not. I can write,

"He took chance on love"

and read it over fifty times never missing the "a" because my brain believes I wrote it. In the same way, I can write an action scene that plays perfectly in my head, but a reader will say, "Where the heck did those fifty cavalry men come from?" or "Weren't his eyes still closed when he shot that arrow?"

I need fresh eyes to look at my work and tell me what's confusing. What's missing. What they believe they have learned about the characters, the mystery, the world. I make the judgment as to whether they've learned what I want or experienced what I intend. Critique is a list of symptoms. The writer must diagnose the disease. It is not even the task of the critiquer to offer solutions, though sometimes I'll ask what might have worked better.

I am fortunate to have six excellent writers who read my work (and I read theirs as well, because you can learn just as much about writing from critiquing as from being critiqued.) I was a bit nervous about handing out these first chapters. When I handed out the first chapter of Flesh and Spirit, which I thought was much more polished than these, they hammered me for a number of problems - nicely, of course. So what was the verdict?
Overall, a great reception. Whew! Best: they enjoyed Portier's voice as narrator, and the developing relationship between my three investigators. They liked the magic, and the background of the conflict between science and magic, though there were clearly some places where I had left ambiguity. Does "blood-borne magic" imply that you have to prick your finger every time you work magic? No, no! It means "genetic" - inherited! And using actual blood in spellmaking is actually an important nastiness, because it can (and does) lead to all sorts of terrible crimes.

The biggest negative? Yes, I knew the short prologue, which is an introduction to our narrator and how he got involved in the mystery, would garner some negative reactions. It violates a couple of accepted standards for "openings." Will I change it? Not yet. I still think it might work. I'm anxious to hear from a member who was not there yesterday, to see if any comment jars me out of thinking I want to leave it as is.

Some authors disdain critique groups, saying that they don't believe in "writing by committee," and yet they will swear by their "first readers" who might be a wife or a good friend. Yet a first reader who does nothing but tell you how great a writer you are is just as useless as having a critique group that believes you should rewrite your story to please any or all of its members or accept 100% of their suggested line edits. A good first reader will give meaningful, useful critique. And a good critique group is just a set of good first readers. I value mine enormously.
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Enchanted

I was hoping for more from Enchanted, as it had gotten some decent reviews. The premise - a Disney cartoon happily-ever-after-wedding gone wrong so that the cheery bride climbs out of a manhole into live-action New York - was great, but they could have cut the saccharine by half and still had something kid-friendly. It felt as if someone was afraid they were going to come up with something original (pronounce that "unproven") and started picking "fantasy" elements off a shelf to throw them in: gloomy practical father, unworthy girlfriend, egotistical prince, cute motherless child, brave forest creature, wicked queen...come ON! And instead of using those things to give a truly different spin on the story - as that WAS the point - all they did was blunt the sharpest edges and make all the characters less interesting with less to actually DO. I liked the message that love needs to be based on more than one perfect kiss, but...ok, let's go behind the veil for spoilers...

...it would have been nice if they had given the heroine a MIND to go along with the message. Saying "oooh, I'm angry" and then giggling about it, does not equate with depth of character in my book - even in my fairy tale children's book!

Other beefs: I found the animated opening cute, but it went on way too long, as if the people lampooning the Cinderella bluebirds and instant true love secretly preferred the "old ways." I saw no basis for the attraction between the (now) ex-girlfriend and the prince, except that they were both leftovers. I couldn't decide what Nancy (isn't that always the name of the ex-girlfriend?) was supposed to be except Not Right for the hero - she liked museums, I think, and she liked it when Robert seemed spontaneous and romantic. The child was never used - except to "not like" Nancy and "like" Giselle. And to demonstrate that her father was an idiot - he gave her a book of strong women (like Madame Curie) instead of fairy tales. Now what message are we trying to get across here? How fun if the kid had wanted BOTH books!! Sigh. I love fairy tales, but the bits of danger and darkness make them richer - and just a FEW bits of intelligence can make them great.

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