Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums - Blogs - Epistles from a Goblin Princess by Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/ Friendly science fiction and fantasy forums, discussing science fiction and fantasy books, film, media, writing, conventions, and related subjects such as science and history. en Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:24:27 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums - Blogs - Epistles from a Goblin Princess by Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/ Privacy and the Female Writer -- or -- A Room of My Own (Part Two) http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1798-privacy-and-the-female-writer-or-a-room.html Thu, 09 May 2013 00:51:41 GMT If you haven't read the previous post, you might want to before you read this one.

Writing, Privacy -- and A Room of My Own

Part Two

The room, clearly, had to be painted. Yellow is almost my least favorite color, but I have found it a cheerful and uplifting color for walls. It always seems to reflect and augment sunshine, so yellow the walls were painted. Megan and my husband, our resident carpenters, filled a large closet with book shelves, we moved in a cabinet that had once belonged to my parents -- a little dark for the prevailing theme, but of considerable sentimental value -- and a long counter was added to my desk to provide enough room to spread out my papers.

There followed a number of visits to office supply stores (if not restrained, I go wild in office supply stores, because once I’m inside I fall prey to the delusion that I can buy organization) and expeditions to various department stores, searching for attractive boxes in which to stash the papers and spiral notebooks belonging to the work-in-progress. While whole chapters defeat me, I will sometimes generate great multitudes of notes and almost as many fragmentary scenes, that may or may not end up in the actual book, but at least remind me that I am a writer and can occasionally put together a rather nice sentence. Also, I needed file boxes to replace a hideous and far too large file cabinet. After that, various decorative objects which had been living in exile were pulled out of boxes, sheds, and cabinets, and repatriated.

And then I transferred my books, desk, and computer, and I moved in.

I have sunshine and air, shelves for office supplies and almost all of my research books -- along with particularly inspiring fiction, that I keep close just in case its influences should magically rub off -- the rest are in a bookcase in the hall, just outside my door. I have organization, African violets, whimsical artwork, a mirror to reflect more light, and beautiful, beautiful colored file folders. (I did mention my love of office supplies, didn’t I?)

It is proving to be a very good work space. So far I have only used it for editing, writing one 300 word story, composing this article, and the huge task of organizing my notes (and also -- I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad one -- adding to their number). Well, it’s a start. Best of all, I think, this room attracts me, drawing me toward my desk and computer. I actually like to be here, unlike my recent dungeon, hereby christened the Black Hole of Calcutta (although it is actually lavender).

Now that editing and writing have provided a little independent income, now that I have a room of my own, it’s time to discover if Virginia Woolf was right.

Pictures of my new office below:
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]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1798-privacy-and-the-female-writer-or-a-room.html Privacy and the Female Writer -- or -- A Room of My Own (Part One) http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1797-privacy-and-the-female-writer-or-a-room.html Thu, 09 May 2013 00:43:58 GMT This starts out being general and perhaps a little polemic, but it becomes personal and rather happy, so please stick with me. Writing, Privacy -- and A Room of My Own _Part One_ In her famous essay Virginia Woolf (famously) said that in order to produce fiction the female writer should... This starts out being general and perhaps a little polemic, but it becomes personal and rather happy, so please stick with me.

Writing, Privacy -- and A Room of My Own

Part One

In her famous essay Virginia Woolf (famously) said that in order to produce fiction the female writer should have a little money -- that is, an independent income -- and a room of her own.

She then went on to explain at length why this is so, offering many examples of the desperate anger and bitterness that crept into the works of writers like Charlotte Brontë -- at the expense of otherwise brilliant storytelling -- because, along with all of the other crushing social pressures discouraging the woman writer, there was also a lack of privacy. Even if a man was forced to write in a miserable garret, he at least had a room to himself.

Jane Austen (also famously) was able to write her brilliant novels and “shapely sentences” in the family sitting room where her large family gathered, creating constant distractions. What I didn’t know until I read Woolf’s essay was that Austen hid her writing from everyone but her family, and when somebody else came into the room she would quickly cover up the paper, so that no one could catch her at her unwomanly pastime. Imagine being ashamed of writing a Pride and Prejudice, an Emma, or Persuasion! (Although Mansfield Park ... but no, there are many people who think more highly of that novel than I do.) Austen, however, possessed what Woolf called “an incandescent mind,” that allowed her to put aside every other consideration but the story. Her inclinations were such that she was suited to her circumstances and her circumstances suited her. The only other example Woolf offered of an incandescent mind was Shakespeare, who had the good fortune to be a man. If Shakespeare had had an equally brilliant sister, there would have been absolutely no possibility of her becoming a playwright, and had she attempted to make use of the opportunities available to her brother, suggested Woolf (waxing fanciful), what else could she become but a fallen woman, give birth to Nick Greene’s child, and end a suicide?

There were, down through the ages, women who had the leisure or enjoyed a station in life that permitted them to write poetry -- in a woman generally regarded as a sign of dementia, an eccentricity only to be tolerated in those of high rank. The middle class woman had no chance. Of course there was Aphra Behn, who actually made a living by her writing, but she began approximately where Shakespeare’s imaginary sister left off, already a fallen woman who could hardly sink any lower. Even in the nineteenth century, George Eliot only began to write her novels after she left home to live in sin with a married man. (And did she revel in her own inquity? No. According to her letters she felt her pariah status deeply. Still, I can’t help but think that being an outcast at least provided some peace and quiet.)

Things have changed, writing is now a respectable occupation for a woman, and even the male aspiring writer is often to be seen typing away on his laptop in a public setting.

Now we all know that when the flame of inspiration burns fierce and bright (and if we are lucky, our minds reach a state of incandescence) it is possible to write almost anywhere. In the kitchen, on a bus, in a coffee shop, or at work -- hiding the evidence, like Austen, whenever a supervisor wanders into our cubicle. But when we are struggling for words, when it is most difficult to concentrate, solitude is often an effective remedy.

Over the years I have performed the scandalous act of writing -- or spent countless hours trying and failing to write, largely due to the depression mentioned in a previous article, which can make it a labor even to read a book, much less produce one -- let us say, then, that my writing and I have been consigned at one time or another to practically every room of the house, as children grew older or more numerous, as family members and friends have arrived to live with us for months or years and then departed. When this happens, everyone rotates bedrooms, home offices, and any other spaces necessary to their creative enterprises. At our last house, I worked in the dining room, a space that was simultaneously used as our oldest daughter’s bedroom and the walk-through from the living room to the kitchen and the back of the house. I have worked in my bedroom, once with my desk in a closet, another time with it next to a window -- which made the room appalling cramped, but my husband and I were younger then, and more nimble at dodging the furniture. I have worked in a converted storage shed -- this was actually quite nice after we were inspired to decorate it like a Hobbit hole, and it had three windows, but it was cold and almost impossible to heat during the winter. And I have shared my office with my youngest daughter, whose slightly more than half was used as a sewing and craft room, stuffed with fabric, yarn, sewing machine, and ironing board. Twice, in the past, I have possessed that much coveted room of my own, in the little bedroom at the back of this house, very small for a bedroom, but an excellent size for a home office.

This happened first when we moved into the house, and our four children were young enough and small enough that they could be crammed into— I beg your pardon, I mean that they were each able to share a bedroom with an older or younger sibling. I was allowed this luxury principally because it was the sale of my first novel that allowed us to move into this house at all, from a far less roomy and pleasant house in another city. Another time I was allotted the room after three of our children, now full-grown adults and difficult to cram anywhere, had departed for their own houses and apartments. This ended when my mother broke her arm and moved in, and stayed to the end of her life because of her rapidly deteriorating health. Then it was that I went into the storage shed, before the days of Hobbit chic, and it was fearfully hot during the summer.

After my mother’s long illness and death -- one of the causes of the most debilitating depression I have ever experienced, the one that still plagues me now -- the failing economy began driving my children (and their children, too) back home. That was the epoch of the office/craft room, spacious enough, but noisy when Megan was running her sewing machine. It was a room with two doors but no windows. Then my oldest daughter’s fiancé died -- really, was murdered before her eyes -- and naturally we made room for her in an already crowded house, with another rotation of bedrooms. I ended up in a dark corner of my own bedroom, crowded and cramped, with almost no natural light. If privacy is an aid to inspiration, clutter and poor light are the friends of depression and writers block. So far as fiction was concerned, I hardly wrote a word, except for the miniscule epics of the writing Challenges. That was the period when wherever I went in the house I felt pressed and confined, stifled and choked by depression, my inspiration ground into dust. Meanwhile, the furniture -- taking advantage of my advanced years and decreased agility -- began to lunge at me and bite me with its sharp corners, leaving dark bruises.

Finally, recently, when Gwyneth had recovered enough from her trauma and had also completed a degree by taking online classes, the smallest room once more became available. I immediately claimed it, and was allowed to do so, in part because I am editing now and producing a small and more or less steady income -- which lends my activities a certain legitmacy that was missing during the period when my writing produced income in smaller, irregular increments, or not at all -- and in part because the resulting rotation would be advantageous to two other members of the family.

I was craving light and air, more than ever before. The room has a window and a southern exposure, but the walls were blue and had become dingy. Blue is a nice color, a soothing color, but soothing is hardly what one needs to recover from the apathy and lethargy of depression.


(to be continued -- with pictures!) ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1797-privacy-and-the-female-writer-or-a-room.html My visit with St. Francis of Assisi http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1778-my-visit-with-st-francis-of-assisi.html Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:27:22 GMT Not the saint himself, naturally. John and I visited the mission named after him yesterday. There are few buildings in California where you feel like you can reach out and touch the distant past, but Misión San Francisco de Asís is one of them. (It is also called Mission Dolores, because there... Not the saint himself, naturally. John and I visited the mission named after him yesterday.

There are few buildings in California where you feel like you can reach out and touch the distant past, but Misión San Francisco de Asís is one of them. (It is also called Mission Dolores, because there was a stream nearby which had already been named by a scouting party Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, the Brook of Our Lady of Sorrows.) A building that is over 200 years old will hardly be impressive to those of you who live in Europe, surrounded by Medieval churches and ancient monuments, but for me, I had never been in a building nearly that old.

Inside, it was far more beautiful than I imagined. John took more than a hundred pictures of the Mission and the Basilica (comparatively modern, since it was built in 1918), but they all look muddy so I won't share them with you because they will tell you nothing about the experience of being there. He brought the wrong camera because "I didn't know it would be so dark." (Um, it was a church, John.)

So I'll have to describe it, which is what TJ wanted me to do anyway.

Of all the California missions, this is the only one that is still intact, although parts of it have had to be carefully restored. It is also the oldest building in San Francisco. It survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, although the parish church attached to it was not so fortunate. It is a building with a lot of history, but that would only be meaningful to those who grew up in California like I did. (And sold endless craft supplies to fourth graders, when I worked in retail, so that they could make their own little models of the missions as part of a state-wide assignment.)

The exterior of the Mission is simple and not prepossessing, all white-washed adobe brick -- the real thing, and very lumpy. (In the museum, there is a section of exposed brick and you can see all the rocks and the dried grass sticking out, and how irregular the bricks are.) Because the other missions were reduced to ruins and had to be rebuilt almost from the ground up much later, the walls don't have the same appearance, so this took me by surprise. The original redwood logs supporting the roof were lashed together with rawhide -- you can see some of those in the museum, too.

Inside, it is very different.

The beams of the ceiling, which are quite striking, are painted with a pattern in subtle shades of green, reddish brown, orange, and tan. It is a restoration, but it depicts an original Ohlone Indian design painted with vegetable dyes. There is glowing old wood in the sanctuary and the side altars, and wonderful wooden statues. In some of them, you can see that the paint has aged -- only by the colors, I didn't see any cracks -- in others the colors are brighter, but still soft, so that from a distance you might almost mistake them for real people. There were any number of saints that I didn't know, but there was a delightful one of St. Joseph holding baby Jesus, several of St. Francis, not surprisingly,and one of St. Clare of Assisi. (There was a statue that I was drawn to in the Basilica later that I also thought was her, but it is an active church and naturally there were no plaques identifying the statues there.) The altars came from Mexico in 1796 and 1810, and the gold leaf is "basically the same as when it arrived." You would not think that it was 200 years old.

There was a guided tour being conducted when we first arrived, but after they left and we had the building to ourselves the coolness and the silence had a quality that I can't describe. It was lovely.

Outside, there was a little courtyard with a diorama in a glass case, one that depicted the original buildings, with many tiny figures of monks and Ohlone indians. It was made for the 1939 World's Fair on Treasure Island (which has it's own history) but I was not impressed.

Then we went into the Basilica. It is far more embellished on the outside than the mission, but still in the Spanish California style so comparatively simple. It was the largest and most beautiful church I had ever been in. Not ornate like a cathedral but large and airy and glorious in its own way. There were fewer statues, but there were stained glass windows all along the walls, depicting each of the 21 California Missions (small) with figures of the saints they were named for (large). I thought these were quite beautiful, but John was so busy composing his shots that he wasn't paying attention to the pictures and I had to tell him later what he was seeing! One thing that struck me was that the name of each of the missions was also a city or town I knew at least by name. I had never realized that so many places were still named for their nearest missions. (Although some of the names are abbreviated, and how I wish that they weren't, because the originals were far more beautiful. If I lived in San Rafael, I am sure I would be telling people -- much to their confusion -- that I lived in San Rafael Archangel.)

There was a gorgeous sanctuary, but situated above the altar was a garish blue semi-partition-backdrop-thing with equally garish golden beams of light, that looked like a committee with very bad taste had put it there in the 1980's. John -- who likes to say that his artistic sensibilities are practically non-existant and claims that he can't tell one shade of a color from another -- was even more offended than I was by how discordant it was with its surroundings.

The side chapels were much nicer, exactly what you would expect to find in a large Catholic church.

In spite of the glaring blue object by the altar, the whole time I was there I felt an incredible feeling of peace and serenity. I am not Catholic (although I used to attend Mass with my cousins sometimes when I was a teenager), but I felt happy in a way that I haven't felt in a long, long time. The feeling lasted after I left, through the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1778-my-visit-with-st-francis-of-assisi.html Depression http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1758-depression.html Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:43:37 GMT This post is not about writing, except that it is about something that affects everything I do (or don't do) including my writing. It's prompted by a visit to my therapist today.

I don't speak often or very much about my severe clinical depression, because I think that the topic is boring. It bores me. It's not a dramatic stick-your-head-in-the-oven sort of depression. (Anyway, suicide would take more initiative than I have most days.) It's ... drab ... and it feels so trivial. People suffer from much, much worse conditions. But it goes on and on and on, and saps me of even the desire to do the things I used to enjoy. Because I don't enjoy them. If I do them, I am only going through the motions, in an attempt to pretend my way out of my depression. But it never works. It's called anhedonia. It sucks the joy and beauty out of life. So it's not a trapped-at-the-bottom-of-a-black-pit-of-despair depression. It's all in shades of grey, like Kansas before Dorothy left it.

And I used to live in Oz. I did creative things, colorful things. We never had much money, so I had to use my ingenuity (and, in those days, had ingenuity to use). I wrote, I planted gardens, had tea parties, did mystical things with crystals and tarot cards, made costumes and went to SCA events, did knitting and embroidery, made puppets, and tried out all sorts of different arts and crafts. I can't tell you how many times we repainted the living room and moved the furniture around. We'd dig out our collection of knick-knacks, buy a few more, throw in odds and ends from my cottage at the Renaissance Fair or my Victorian parlor for the Dickens Fair, and make it look like a brand new room. I bought cheap fabric and sewed up curtains. I decorated for Christmas and every few years came up with new themes -- for two years we had Narnia in the dining room. (I still get moderately excited about Christmas, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. If I ever lose the will to decorate at Christmas, it will be time to take me to the vet and put me down.) Because I had a sense of humor in those days, I think I was an amusing person to be around. Now I feel old and stern, like a crabbéd and cross old woman.

It is hard to get out of bed, I feel so heavy and inert. When I do get up (usually to go to the bathroom), I begin to feel relatively normal. I'll eat, bathe, check my messages on the computer, respond to posts here (but sometimes I'll see something that ought to interest me and think, "why bother?"), but somehow, though I don't plan it, I end up back at the bed. I think I am only out of bed three or four hours a day. The rest of my waking hours are spent semi-recumbant, watching videos or playing solitaire on my Kindle. I used to spend the day in bed reading book after book, and I thought that was bad, but now reading seems like so much work I hardly get any pleasure out of it.

And sometimes I will spend that time editing, when someone sends me a manuscript.
Because I can edit ... though sometimes I get heavy and dull and skip a day or two. Like the posts that I respond to here, the manuscripts stimulate something in my brain that doesn't seem to be present otherwise. I don't love doing it -- which makes sense because I don't love doing anything. Whether I like it or not depends on how good the book is, or could be. I don't charge much, because I want people who could use help to be able to afford it. Considering how much work I put into it, my hourly wage works out to less than I would make doing ... well, anything, anything short of being enslaved in a sweatshop like an illegal worker brought into this country as part of a human trafficking ring.

But I feel useful, which is something I don't feel the rest of the time. I think that I have a specific skill set, background, and knowledge that makes me particularly suited to editing speculative fiction. I think that I do good work and help people -- and am not such a drag on society at those times. But I do feel a pang from time to time because I miss my own writing. I feel guilty because that's not what I am doing.

So why don't I set time aside to write? I do. But mostly during those times I don't write. I think I will, but somehow I end up back in the bed. It's not even a conscious choice. My own writing doesn't give me that mental push that somebody else's writing does. My book is there in my head, but I lack the words to tell it. Yes, there are scraps of paper where I scribbled down fragments years ago, when I did have a period of creativity. But there is not enough to make a book. So I don't write, and again I feel guilty. When I do find the energy to get started again, I find that it's been so long that I can't remember for sure exactly what I've written (or added, or subtracted), so I have to read it from the beginning to remind myself. But I get distracted and I don't get very far. I've been through the first two or three chapters so many times, and I still don't remember them well.

So my therapist has said I should go out on the walks and expeditions like the ones I've been writing about on Facebook. I enjoy them, and usually come back feeling refreshed ... but tired. And the initiative to keep up the habit isn't there. We've tried every antidepressant there is, so the only option remaining (if I can't make the walking work) is electric shock therapy. And that scares me, not because of the shock (which she says I won't feel) but because of the anesthetic. I've had several operations for one thing or another, and I'm always afraid that I'll die when they put me under. So I am reluctant to take this option, but I don't want to live the rest of my life like this. She said I could join therapy sessions that would help me learn how to cope, to live with my depression. But I don't want to cope; I want to get better. My life is slipping away and I can't seem to find a way to make it mean anything. It's all so "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable."

Now comes the part where I wallow in self-pity, so be warned about that and don't read on if you find that sort of thing annoying: I don't feel like my family notices how sick I am, or if they notice they don't care. Out of all the other people who live here (of whom six are adults), you might think there would be someone who was supportive. No. I think it's because when they see me I am out of bed and acting like a normal person. It doesn't occur to them that there is something very wrong about the fact that on an ordinary day I spend twenty hours a day in bed. When I try to explain to them, their eyes glaze over. That makes sense, since I told you the whole topic is boring, and my problems seem trivial. Maybe I was always trivial -- my activities were never such as to rock the world -- but at least I didn't used to be so boring that even I find myself wearisome.

So that's my tedious screed on the subject, for anyone who is still reading.



. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1758-depression.html <![CDATA[World-building for novelists -- No, your characters *aren't* in a play. Part II]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1140-world-building-for-novelists-no-your-characters-arent.html Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:28:10 GMT *Part II* _Context_ Without the context of a story, the conflict, the tensions, and the emotions can fall absolutely flat, confuse the reader, or create the wrong impression. The closer the setting is to the world we and our readers personally inhabit, the more the society that surrounds...
Part II


Context

Without the context of a story, the conflict, the tensions, and the emotions can fall absolutely flat, confuse the reader, or create the wrong impression. The closer the setting is to the world we and our readers personally inhabit, the more the society that surrounds the story is like our own in time or space, the more we can depend on the reader to know the context and the more things both the writer and the reader can safely take for granted. BUT once we leave that zone of comfortable familiarity, we simply have to start providing context or readers will fail to understand the tensions and emotions.

To give an example of why context matters: Imagine a scene where five men are playing cards. Suddenly, one of the men announces that he knows that one of the others has been cheating. The protagonist (we'll call him X) starts to sweat, he feels a knot in his stomach, his hands begin to shake. The reader rightly concludes from this that X is the cheater. But what happens next, if X is exposed, depends entirely on the context, and it is the context that tells the readers how worried they should be on X's account, depending on the penalties the society he inhabits imposes on cheaters. These could be minor and good-natured, or they could be severe.

So ... should the readers be sweating along with him? Should they hope he gets caught? Should they hope he doesn't get caught? Should they consider the whole situation so trivial that it doesn't really matter whether he is exposed or not, but wonder what all of this sweating and trembling says about him?

Depending on the context, what the readers will be feeling could be any of these.

Maps

Although maps are not as necessary to fantasy novels as some readers and writers think, there are good reasons why drawing a map may be helpful, and not just because the author thinks it would make a nice finishing detail to the published book. It has been said that "geography is destiny." The physical conditions under which any group of people live will have a huge impact on their culture. The natural resources that are easily within their reach, where and how they get those things that are desirable but not readily available (obviously the society that obtains these things by way of trade agreements is going to be radically different than the one that gets by on piracy or border raids) the degree of isolation in which they live and their culture has developed, whether travel is difficult or easy for them and whether they are on the direct route to other, more important places, all of these things influence how people live and what they think -- and should, in a work of fiction, also influence how characters think, the challenges they face, and how they meet them as the plot progresses

So a map, although not vital, is useful for determining much more than how characters who are travelling get from point A to point B, or which obstacles they will meet and need to overcome along the way. It is useful for working out details that might not otherwise have occurred while outlining the plot, and can save a writer from making thoughtless blunders.

* * * * *

A fantasy world need not be analogous to any real world time or place. It is your invention, and as such, it is to be presumed that you know best what belongs there. However, when a writer mixes things up, it should be apparent that he or she is doing so deliberately and with forethought. There are various ways that authors can create this impression. One is to come up with some explanation why all of these unrelated things come together -- for instance, the story is set near the nexus of several dimensions, where different influences either bleed over accidentally or pass through freely. Another is to create some sort of pattern to show how all the pieces fit together and stick to it. Still another is to create worlds and cultures so offbeat, so peculiar, so distinct from our own, that readers do not expect them to operate in any way that is familiar to them.

The best world-building permeates a story and influences all its parts. The better it is done, the less necessity there may be for explanations. And it can be done very simply and consistently by taking one or two premises that make the imaginary world different from our own, building on them and their natural consequences, and adhering to them throughout. Once the author strays from what he or she has established in the beginning, reasons, excuses, justifications (usually in the form of back story) begin to appear in great profusion in order to cover the plot holes. Because good world-building need not be complex, it only needs to be consistent and ideally revealed through specific details (so that there is less chance of being misunderstood). And if it is consistent, the reader is less likely to be thrown out of the story by those "what the heck?" moments, that detract from the storytelling.

Most of all, the best world-building does not create an impression that the characters are acting against a backdrop of scenery. It should not leave readers with the impression that characters are simply wearing costumes (as I said in a recent interview, the characters should live in their clothes) or handling props. If a character picks up a sword, he should feel the weight of it, be aware at all times of the deadly cutting edge. He may not ever think of this directly, but he should never do anything that he would not do having that awareness. It is the same if a character straps on a blaster; she should be always cognizant that it is a lethal weapon, that there may be times when it is not set on stun. Moreover, readers should feel as though life continues when the point-of-view characters aren't looking. They should not feel as though the environment in which your characters play out their lives only exists for the sake of the story (although of course, if it is an imaginary world, it does). They should feel as if the context was there already, and that it is still going to be there when the story is over.

Some writers do all of their world-building in advance, some discover the world as they write -- they begin with one or two basic premises, and the logic and the consequences of those ideas just carry them along. You might call that second method world-growing instead of world-building. As long as the end result is sufficiently textured and consistent, it doesn’t make a difference.


Always keep in mind that the environment your characters inhabit is far more than the physical setting. It includes the cultural background, the manners, morals, and ethics of the society or societies within your novel -- against which your characters react, either in opposition to it, or in their efforts to maintain a position within it, or to protect it when it is threatened. This background ought not to be there merely as an extension of the scenery, it should contain within it some of the sources of tension at the heart of the story. The environment is also the emotional atmosphere in which the characters move, by which readers should also be affected. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1140-world-building-for-novelists-no-your-characters-arent.html <![CDATA[World-building for novelists -- No, your characters *aren't* in a play.]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1139-world-building-for-novelists-no-your-characters-arent.html Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:19:26 GMT Some of you may recognize parts of what follows from things I have said in discussions on the forums here, or from critiques I have given here or elsewhere, but I am, I think, bringing all of it together for the first time. Though it is principally addressed to fantasy writers, it applies to... Some of you may recognize parts of what follows from things I have said in discussions on the forums here, or from critiques I have given here or elsewhere, but I am, I think, bringing all of it together for the first time. Though it is principally addressed to fantasy writers, it applies to science fiction, too.

On World-building


Back in the days of my youth, I used to spend a good deal of my time in costume: because I was involved in my local Renaissance and Christmas fairs, because I was active in the SCA, and because ... well, because I was just the kind of person who liked to run around in costume. I rather wish I was that kind of person still, because it was good, harmless fun. A common question in those days was, "Are you in a play?" It was with a great deal of weariness (because the question had been asked and answered so many times already) that I would say, "No, I'm not in a play." But though I was not in a play, I was play-acting, and one of the things I had to learn when I started writing seriously was that my characters were not acting in a play, neither were they play-acting. I had to learn the difference between a backdrop and an invented world with depth and texture. Here is a distillation of what I've learned on the subject.

Part I

Some writers seem to skip over the world-building entirely and content themselves with an odd amalgam of our modern era and the Middle Ages or a future world that is oddly similar to our own (everyone wears jeans and leather jackets). On the other hand, some spend so long building their worlds, they never get around to writing their stories. There is a middle ground, and it is an extensive one, where each writer may find a place that is comfortable, yet give readers all that they need to visualize the invented world.

Much of this article will concentrate on description: not only how it reveals your world to your readers, but how you can use it to generate insights that may help you add depth and texture to the world you are in the process of building.

Rule number one (and you will find this mentioned again and again in this article) is make the details specific. In general, a few specific, concrete, or tangible details sprinkled in along the way will allow readers to build up their own picture of a person, a place, or a culture. If characters are invited into a cottage for a meal and the cottagers offer “goat cheese and a coarse brown bread sprinkled with flaxseed” -- rather than simply “bread and cheese” -- not only does it create a more complete picture of the meal, but it suggests herds of goats and fields of flax growing nearby. “Dates and oranges” suggest a warm climate. “Fine white bread and delicate spiced meats,” suggest wealth and luxury. Longer descriptions, if the writer does them well, can add context, texture, and color, but selectivity, discrimination in choosing your words may allow you to describe briefly and more effectively what would otherwise require many words.

In some cases, adjectives may be the least part of a description. Use verbs, nouns (this goes back to what I said about specific details), adverbs, present and past participles used as adjectives, and do not rely too heavily on adjectives.

Descriptions should appeal to the senses. A long description might appeal to all five senses; a shorter description might only appeal to one or two. The sense of smell is particularly tied to emotional memory, and most of all to childhood memories. Description should appeal to the reader’s imagination, and not simply be a list of what is to be seen, heard, smelled, etc.

Characters

As for the characters that inhabit your world, descriptions of them, if handled correctly, show more than how each one looks, it provides insights into age, social status, and much more. A character who sweeps into a room as though he owns the place, though he is wearing a tunic five years out of date, scuffed boots, and a cloak of rubbed and stained velvet is either someone who has come down in the world, or a mountebank -- the other world equivalent of that man in Nigeria who wants to send you all his money. You need not recount his history. After this first impression, the next words out of his mouth should establish which one it is.

Such details, in turn, add insights into the world: Is there a class system? How does it work? How can members of each class recognize members of another at a glance, or according to the way they speak (accent, evidence of education, forms of address, etc.)? If someone has either elevated his status or lowered it, what are the clues and how do people respond to them? Is an individual of decayed gentility still more highly regarded than a useful and prosperous member of the middle class? Or are those who are upwardly mobile admired for their energy and their efforts to better themselves? (Unlikely, since any class is jealous of its privileges and reluctant to admit new members. To use a broad generalization, it is only where money and the ability to make it speaks louder than anything else that this is possible.)

World-building is also shown through dialogue. If the characters really match their setting -- if they are people who could believably exist within that invented world -- then the thoughts they express and the words they use to express them can also tell much about the world they inhabit. A perfect line of dialogue inserted at the perfect moment can be deeply revealing as to character, at the same time bringing to life the thought patterns of an entire society.

One of the best ways to reveal an invented world is how the characters act within it -- how does it mold them, how do things like social standing and custom limit them, what impact do they have on their world, to what extent are their present actions and their present situation ruled by their historical context.

It can be fairly said that world-building and characterization are so closely linked, it is almost impossible to do well at the one without paying close attention to the other. For writers who are stuck in the world-building stage and can’t progress, instead of concentrating on the characters you have outlined and then stalled on, consider what kind of people must live in your world and what the inherent challenges must be. Those are the characters and that is the story you should be telling.

Landscape

When describing landscape, again be specific. When describing a hill it is better to say, “the lower slopes were purple with heather, and dark pines grew on the summit” than to say, “trees and shrubs grew on the hill.” Note that the first one paints a vivid picture in one sentence, while the other uses seven words to create only a vague impression -- which, as a result, may read like seven words too many. Shorter is not always ... shorter. If describing places where people live (village, cities, even solitary houses) try to give each place a personality of its own. Descriptions of towns and cities should provide clues to the kind of people who live there, their habits, their religion, the economy, etc. Rather than “merchants hawked their wares from booths around the square,” a better description of a marketplace might be something like this, “From hide tents and hastily erected wooden booths men hawked their bone-handled knives, leather pouches, and crudely painted pottery. The women told fortunes and sold packets of dried herbs.” The first is generic, and the second provides clues to their society and available natural resources.

continued in next post ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1139-world-building-for-novelists-no-your-characters-arent.html GUNPOWDER and ALCHEMY http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1041-gunpowder-and-alchemy.html Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:56:26 GMT And now a break from my usual type of post for a little self-promotion: *When the Goblin Moon rises, strange things happen ...* Coffins float down the river, hobgoblins emerge from their dens, alchemists pore over ancient texts in search of the secret of creating life, and the gentleman... And now a break from my usual type of post for a little self-promotion:

When the Goblin Moon rises, strange things happen ...

Coffins float down the river, hobgoblins emerge from their dens, alchemists pore over ancient texts in search of the secret of creating life, and the gentleman blackguards known as the Knights of Mezztopholezz practice rituals far exceeding the worst excesses of the Hellfire Club.

Meanwhile one man fights a secret battle against cruelty and injustice, with wit, ingenuity, and a lethal lack of compunction.



"In an era of dross, when most fantasy novels seem to be only role playing games writ large, Ms. Edgerton has set out in search of the true Philosopher's Stone — her genuine writer's voice."
—Tad Williams

"Everything I wished for and more ... Excellent, excellent, excellent!"
—Kate Elliott

"As satisfying a modern novel as one could wish for. Stylish and inventive, with a unique flavor interweaving the best of the romantical reality of a particular period in history with a highly original use of fantasy elements."
— Baird Searles, Asimov's Science Fiction

Practically unique. The only thing I've read that might sit comfortably alongside it is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
— sffchronicles

I am happy to announce that the GOBLIN MOON reprint is now available in trade paperback through amazon.com — amazon.co.uk, and by following this link. LINK.

It is also available in a Kindle edition, amazon—US, amazon—UK on sale through the month of January.
]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1041-gunpowder-and-alchemy.html <![CDATA[It's All in the Execution (So Beware) Part 2]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1037-its-all-in-the-execution-so-beware-part.html Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:20:10 GMT

Part II
We all know that most fantasy and science fiction stories owe their origins to the question “What if ____?” Yet we shouldn’t be content to leave it at that, because it’s a very good question to ask at every single stage of the writing process. “What if, instead of what I had originally planned, my character decided to do this?” “What if, instead of following the obvious course, I choose to examine one of the other possible consequences of this particular set of circumstances?”

I’ll give an example of how this might work:

Say that your main character is born blind, deaf, or otherwise disabled and has the additional misfortune of a face so ugly that others shudder at the sight of it. Now most writers would take this premise and write a predictable story: He would go through life being viciously persecuted by the ignorant and the wicked, while all the truly good people would instinctively recognize his inner beauty and treat him accordingly. Ultimately it would be revealed that he has some special gift or talent, is of high birth, or has been born to some high destiny. In any case, he would discover that he is not only different but special, and end up living happily ever after, among people who love and respect him for who he truly is.

But is this the only possible scenario? What if instead of being the source of his every misfortune, his face and his disability lead to great good fortune? What if, in combination with whatever prodigious gifts or talents he happens to possess, they bring him at a very early age to the attention of a powerful and generous patron, who originally treats him as a novelty but comes to respect him for his talents. He grows up rich, admired, wealthy, and conceited, until some entirely unrelated circumstance comes along and wipes out his comfortable existence. Everything that happens to him afterward gradually wears away at his inflated self-opinion, and he learns that he is not, after all, immune to the trials and heartaches that are our common lot. Unlike the other story, this one is not a journey toward self-acceptance, but toward humility.

You can see that both of these tales have their origins in the same basic premise — an individual is born disabled, ugly, and gifted — but because the writer chooses an equally plausible but less obvious series of consequences, the story takes the reader (and probably the writer, too) into unexpected territory.

And this is why I think it’s less important to start out with a unique premise (if such a thing is even possible) than it is to start with something that excites us so much, that moves us on so many different levels, that we’re willing to live with it, work with it, dream it, for the time it will take us to develop it into something extraordinary. I believe that originality is less a matter of an unusual premise than of deep thought, leading step-by-step to a series of revelations, whose impact will be far greater than any single inspiration could ever be, And if, throughout the writing process, we are continually surprising ourselves, how can we fail to surprise the reader?

There are two other things that I think are important. The idea that we can avoid or reject all outside influences is unrealistic. I don’t believe it would be a good thing if we could. “The proper study of man is mankind,” said Alexander Pope. As science fiction and fantasy writers we are also writing about alien-kind, and supernatural-kind, and who-knows-what-else-kind — but in the end it really comes down to a study of human nature, of our hopes, aspirations, and fears, seen from the sort of fresh perspectives that only speculative fiction can offer. Since we are each one of us only privileged to see and experience a small part of everything there is to be seen and experienced, it only makes sense that we would wish to broaden our understanding by collecting some other viewpoints. And because we are, inevitably, going to be influenced, we should make every effort to gather those influences from as many different places as possible. We need to read widely, inside and outside our chosen genre. We need to get our ideas (ah, the ancient question!) not only from fiction but from nonfiction as well. Ideas meet, mate, and give birth to other ideas; aside from personal experience, this is the only way that new ideas are generated. If we get all of our ideas from a narrow and limited range of stories, there are only so many different combinations that we can make from them — and all of those are going to be inbred and predictable. On the other hand, ideas that come from a wide variety of sources and a wide variety of perspectives will produce offspring with singular and unexpected qualities.


The other thing I want to say is that even while we are keeping our readers in mind — that is, trying to choose the words that will draw other people into our created worlds, trying to write clearly enough that they will see what we want them to see, feel what we want them to feel, to share the experience — we also need to add something of our own personality to what we are writing. This, of course, can be an uneasy balance. As we polish our writing mechanics and our storytelling skills, we should still allow our own voices and styles to develop.

For this reason, I think it is important when you first begin a project, and especially when you are first learning to write, that you not show your story to other writers or aspiring writers too early. If you show your work to others while it is still malleable, they will leave their fingerprints all over it. If you ask for advice while your work is too rough, the temptation to start rewriting your sentences for you is one that very few of the people you ask for advice will be able to resist. Wait until you know where the story is going and the style in which you want to tell it. Then, don’t let other people correct your mistakes for you. They may point them out; you should be open to criticism and willing to listen to suggestions, but correct all your mistakes yourself. If somebody else does it, it won’t match what you have already done. If you let a number of other people (perhaps a whole writers group) do it for you, you will end up with a patchwork of styles instead of developing a distinctive and personal style of your own.

Which bring us to this (and it is hardly an original conclusion): Originality in writing comes from being yourself. Not, I hasten to add, your ordinary, everyday, come-as-you-are self. I mean your most thoughtful, intellectually and artistically adventurous, skilled and knowledgeable self. Originality does not come from rushing to embrace the newest trends (unless they genuinely inspire you), nor by rejecting them without sufficient thought, nor from casting off too hastily all that has come before. It comes from writing with passion, writing the story that you must tell because you will never be satisfied until you do. In this way, and no other, can you write the story that nobody else but you can tell.

And if you do this with sincerity and conviction, then someday when you are looking back at the story you are writing now — looking back with the perspective that only time can give you — behind all the disguises, beyond all the wonders and marvels, you will see your own face gazing back at you. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1037-its-all-in-the-execution-so-beware-part.html <![CDATA[It's All In the Execution (So Beware) Part 1]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1036-its-all-in-the-execution-so-beware-part.html Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:16:57 GMT In spite of the artfully sinister title, this was originally written to encourage new writers. (Of course, old writers need encouraging, too.) I've put it through quite a bit of revision since. I hope that it will be inspiring.

However that might be, this is another one of my long-winded articles that contains more characters than the software allows, and so, perforce, must appear in two parts.

ON ORIGINALITY (WITH SOME ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE SUBJECT OF STYLE)


Part I
Over the years, I’ve been in a position to read a considerable number of unpublished manuscripts, and to hear (or read) a considerable number of new writers discussing their ideas. And one thing I’ve noticed is how very, very often the writer who is straining every nerve to write something that will redefine the fantasy genre ends up writing something that looks amazingly similar to most of the work being produced by other writers attempting to redefine the genre, too. (Meanwhile, somebody else, without even trying, produces original and distinctive work as a matter of course, and seemingly without much effort.)

There are a number of different reasons, I believe, why this occurs.

— The writer who tries and fails to achieve originality doesn’t read very much in the way of speculative fiction, or if they do, it’s all of the same kind, usually heavily inspired by role-playing games. They have a very narrow idea of what the genre already encompasses and, as a result, they think that something quite commonplace constitutes a major revolution. “I have this crazy idea: I’ll write a fantasy without any elves or orcs.” or ”I’m going to write something completely different: fantasy without any farm boys or wizard mentors.” Clearly they have managed to miss about 95% of the fantasy novels written over the last forty years.

— They decide to intentionally curtail their reading within the genre because they don’t want to be “influenced.” This leads to the unfortunate side effect that they’re overly influenced by books they’ve already read.

— They never read anything except fantasy (perhaps with occasional forays into science fiction), and they have no other influences to draw on; their minds are strait-jacketed by genre conventions. Or worse, what they think are genre conventions. “You can’t have a fantasy world with both magic and technology.” “Fantasy always involves castles and kings and medieval settings.”

—They’ve been tremendously impressed by a book they consider tremendously original (and it may well be), and have decided that this book, besides being unique in itself is the font of all originality ... and they consciously or unconsciously copy it.


But none of these, not even any combination of these, provides a complete explanation. I’ve also seen instances where a writer starts out with a wonderfully unusual and intriguing concept — something that leaves me wondering “why can’t I come up with ideas like that?” — and then they leave that fabulous premise just lying there flat on the page, and go on to tell an otherwise stereotypical tale with stereotypical characters. I don’t know whether these missed opportunities signal a creative lapse or a failure of nerve. (They may think they have a better chance of selling a story about an evil wizard and a talisman — but their heart isn’t in that one, and it shows.) On the other hand, I’ve also seen writers take what looks at first glance to be a familiar premise, develop it in unexpected directions, place their own personal imprint on the material, and come up with something that is very distinctive indeed.

So often, new writers will visit our Aspiring Writers forum, give a list of their characters and a brief idea of their plot, and ask, “Do you think this is original enough?” But it is not enough to come up with an extraordinary idea. What matters most is what we do with it once we’ve got it, because originality is the result of how well we develop our ideas, and in the end it comes down to this: It’s all in the execution.

Unfortunately, even when we start out with something new, there is too often an unconscious urge to begin developing it along conventional lines. We haven’t yet filtered out all of the influences and ideas so deeply engrained that we tend to take them for granted. But the longer we are willing to look at a plot, a set of characters, and a setting, the more we are prepared to examine them from different angles, and work out all the possibilities in terms of plot and character development — to allow our initial idea to take us where we never expected to go, down crooked lanes, through small weedy courts, and sinister back alleys; along ill-lit corridors and up secret staircases; into basements and attics hitherto unexplored (all right, I think we have had quite enough of that metaphor) — instead of just dashing off the story as it first occurs to us, the more likely we are to come up with ideas that are out of the ordinary.

(continued in next post)
 ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1036-its-all-in-the-execution-so-beware-part.html Cynicism, Realism, Sensationalism — and Where DID I Misplace that Sense of Wonder? 2 http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1020-cynicism-realism-sensationalism-and-where-did-i-misplace.html Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:33:01 GMT *Part II* Now I don’t believe that any one work of fiction, all by itself, ever did or ever would drastically alter the way that readers think. What I do believe is that a book can reinforce and encourage ideas that we already have or already feel inclined to adopt. When somebody reads a book,...
Part II

Now I don’t believe that any one work of fiction, all by itself, ever did or ever would drastically alter the way that readers think. What I do believe is that a book can reinforce and encourage ideas that we already have or already feel inclined to adopt. When somebody reads a book, they are most likely to take away something very similar to what they brought with them.

But do we read fantasy to confirm what we think we already know? Or is the best fantasy transformative, showing us more than one way of seeing the world, and in that way broadening our perspectives? Should fantasy not only show us the human experience, in all its variety, but also what could be, what might be?

No book, no series, no writer, will radically change the way we see our world, but many books by many writers, all saying essentially the same thing, may in time shape our thinking, either by appealing to what is strong and whole in us, or to what is weak and broken. I believe that we can already see this at work, as more and more people equate "reality" solely with what is ugly, hopeless, and cruel.

I am reminded of something else Tolkien said, which was that he found it very strange that anyone regarded factories as more “real” than horses. Yet even today, the creature is not quite mythical — and I have known many people of undeniable veracity who attest to the existence of horses. Could somebody please explain to me how things that do exist, that are done, that have been experienced, could possibly be less real than others? We don’t read about rape, floggings, and torture because they are realistic. (I mean, seriously, do we pick up a fantasy novel the size of a brick, in order to better acquaint ourselves with reality?) We read about these things because they are thrilling, because we may be briefly shocked or saddened, but it’s all at a safe remove and our comfort, or discomfort, with the real world remains unimpaired. Let us at least be honest about that. If we want reality, there are newspapers and works of nonfiction readily available We can read the biographies of people who have lived through horrific experiences, books that describe those experiences honestly and accurately in minute detail. But an honest and accurate account rarely produces the same thrill ... and can be decidedly uncomfortable.

Yes, human history is a long record of war and hardship — but how could we have survived so long as a species if that were all there ever was, if there were no people helping each other, standing by their principles, or making such sacrifices that they left behind something of worth that endured? How could we have survived without poets, novelists, painters, and musicians capable of seeing and communicating their own poignant and heart-lifting perceptions of beauty? Wouldn’t any genuinely realistic depiction of the human experience tell of these things, too?

And what about that sense of wonder we used to hear so much about? In reading the latest fantasy novel have you seen the world painted in fresher colors? When was the last time you picked up a book and walked right into a “luminous setting?” Because I tell you quite frankly that such experiences are becoming less and less frequent for me. Have we replaced our taste for the fabulous, the extraordinary, with one for mere sensationalism, which more often than not leaves us afterward with a sense that the world is an even duller place than it was before? Are we seeding our imaginary gardens solely with weeds,and already forgetting the taste of strawberries, the brilliance of sunflowers, the fragrance of orange blossom?

If writers like Tolkien and LeGuin could tell stories of pain and loss, and still write passages that make our hearts soar, then why can’t we? Are our minds so closed, our hearts squeezed down so small, that we are no longer capable of receiving fresh impressions, or imagining wider perspectives?

Above all, are we forgetting how to grow into true adults, at the same time we are losing our childhood curiosity and capacity for wonder? Are we stuck in a perpetual sullen adolescence, meeting all the ills of the world with, “It’s not fair.” “It’s too hard.” “It’s not my fault.” I sincerely hope not.


As always, I welcome your thoughts. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1020-cynicism-realism-sensationalism-and-where-did-i-misplace.html Is fantasy becoming more realistic, or simply more cynical? http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1019-is-fantasy-becoming-more-realistic-or-simply-more.html Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:18:07 GMT This is a revised version of something I posted in my forum a few years ago. I hope it might provoke some lively discussion. Because it's longer than the software will allow for one blog entry, I will have to post it in two parts.

Cynicism, Realism, Sensationalism — and Where DID I Misplace that Sense of Wonder?


Part I

After using The Lord of the Rings as a convenient reference point in earlier entries, I’m going to begin this one by allowing the author to speak for himself.

Fantasy, said Tolkien, “certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of scientific verity. On the contrary, the keener and clearer is the reason, the better Fantasy it will make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not know or could not perceive truth (fact or evidence) then Fantasy would languish until they were cured.

“[Recovery] is a regaining — regaining of a clear view. I do not say ‘seeing things as they are’ and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say ‘seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them’ — as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows, so that things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness and familiarity — from possessiveness. Of all faces, those of our familiares are the ones most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult to really see with fresh attention.

“We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep and dogs and horses — and wolves ... By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed, by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory ... and actually, fairy-stories deal largely or (the better ones) mainly, with simple fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting.”

What is the use of Fantasy? Ursula K. LeGuin posed the question and then answered it herself: the use of it is to give us “pleasure and delight.” She went on to say:

“Those who refuse to listen to dragons are probably doomed to spend the rest of their lives acting out the nightmares of politicians ... A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you.

“Now I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. Like all our evil propensities, the imagination will out. But if it is rejected and despised, it will grow into wild and weedy shapes; it will be deformed ... I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing but a growing up; that an adult is not a dead child but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that if these faculties are encouraged in youth, they will act well and wisely in the adult, but if they are repressed and denied in the child they will stunt and cripple the adult personality. And finally, I believe that one of the most deeply human and humane of these faculties is the power of the imagination.”

With all this in mind, the first question I would like to ask is: Do we, who are now reading and writing fantasy, agree with Tolkien that this power of recovery is one of the principle aims of fantastic literature? And if we do agree, then the next question follows naturally: Are those of us writing in that genre today coming providing that kind of experience for our readers? Is the fantasy we write, in LeGuin’s words, deeply humane? (And I do include my own writing in this question, because even though I’m generally regarded as an optimistic writer, I can see very well that my present work is darker and more violent than anything I wrote fifteen years ago.)

Do the books being written today encourage us to look at the world with fresh eyes — or do they merely present, over and over, the same cynical and dreary worldview? Are we so locked-in to a single interpretation of the past, present, and future as endless repetitions of the brutal, remorseless, and futile that we are now unable to imagine anything better? And if we, readers and writers of speculative fiction, the literature of the imagination, are no longer able to conceive of any other possibilities — then who will, who can?

I know there are those who regard optimism as a refuge of the weak, of people too cowardly or too lazy to step out of their “comfort zone.” But in my own experience optimism takes effort and an applied concentration of will. Like so many other things of value — love, loyalty, forgiveness, integrity — it’s not for the faint (or hard) of heart. Idealism demands much of us; it acknowledges that we can be more than we are, and challenges us to become so. Cynicism, on the other hand, is hardly an exhausting exercise. In fact, it seems to be the refuge of the already exhausted. And it is comfortable — for all its pretended discomfort — because it desensitizes us to future pain and asks of us exactly nothing. It is simply surrender.

Now I am not proposing that we should eliminate all battle, pain, and heartache from our stories (in fact, it would be nice if more characters had hearts capable of aching). But what seems to be disappearing is fantasy that gives a more balanced view, that shows us, along with all the characters who are sooo romantically broken, a few that are actually whole. My friend Katharine Kerr, an excellent writer, once said something to the effect that great deeds shine brighter in a dark world, and I believe this is true. But are we creating imaginary worlds where there are no bright deeds, no great-hearted people, where there is nothing but pettiness, cruelty, compromise, and self-interest? Do we place our characters in settings so harsh, situations so convoluted (and sometimes so psychologically improbable), that the individual is relieved of all responsibility for his own actions. Are we simply revisiting our political nightmares, over and over and over?

We seem, as a community of readers and writers to be deeply mired in a collective depression. (This would also explain a lot of missed deadlines, padded series, and bloated, repetitive writing, because even though creative people seem to be particularly susceptible, depression can do a very good job of stifling creative impulses.) And depression — whether that of an individual, a community, or an entire society — does not lend itself toward obtaining or maintaining a clear and accurate view of life.

How could it, when those in a state of depression are unable to experience life as fully as they did before? Depression doesn’t clear the windows of our perceptions, it only adds further smudges, smears, and obtructions, so that our view of the world grows steadily narrower. I would hate to think that this boxing-in, this fatigue of the mental faculties, is a communicable disease, and that I had any part in spreading it to others. Worse still, that I might be tempted to simulate this condition in my future writing merely as an artistic affectation or for marketing purposes.


I have often heard that certain authors are expanding the boundaries of the genre, because their books are somehow “different” — but when I read these books I see only another variation on the familiar faux-medieval setting, and the much-vaunted difference seems only to consist of a darker worldview and more sensational plot lines. The Victorian “sensation novel” is alive and well in the twenty-first century, though we think ourselves so modern. In discussions where readers express their distaste for scenes of particularly graphic violence, others usually dismiss such concerns with a glib, “but that’s the way the world is.” Indeed, it all too often is that way, but every day there are also acts of heroism, kindness, generosity, and stories of personal triumph over adversity. Why, then, in the name of realism, must we focus so much of our attention on the darker aspects of human nature? Do such stories cause us to look at our world and the people around us with “fresh attention,” or do we merely nod our heads wisely and say, “Yes, it’s all just as I thought it was. I’ll sit here and do nothing, because nothing can be done.”


(continued in next post) ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1019-is-fantasy-becoming-more-realistic-or-simply-more.html The RULES — Can you ignore them? http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1013-the-rules-can-you-ignore-them.html Sat, 03 Sep 2011 03:39:45 GMT The following was written essentially to let off steam, and is not to be taken as an attempt to bring others around to share my opinions — excellent and worthy as those opinions may be. I look forward to discussion, even if that discussion should include violent (but civil, for we are always civil... The following was written essentially to let off steam, and is not to be taken as an attempt to bring others around to share my opinions — excellent and worthy as those opinions may be. I look forward to discussion, even if that discussion should include violent (but civil, for we are always civil here) disagreement with the opinions expressed below.


THE RULES — Love them? Or leave them?


When it comes to the rules of good writing, there are three different ideas that are likely to trip up the inexperienced writer.

1. You must learn the rules and religiously adhere to them.
2. Once you learn the rules you can throw them away and do whatever you want.
3. A true artist never pays any attention to rules.

Each of these is wrong. The first rule, the only rule that is truly a rule rather than a guideline, the only one you can never afford to ignore is, “Does it work? If not, you must do whatever is necessary to make it work.” If it does work, you can safely push all of the other rules to the back of your mind, right up to the time when something doesn’t.

This, in the end, is what agents and editors care about. They don’t go through a manuscript looking for excessive use of adverbs, adjectives, saidbookisms, passive verbs, head-hopping. If the writing grabs them, pulls them in, doesn’t let them go until the end, none of these things will matter.

Please bear with me, those of you who know what I am going to say next (because I’ve said it so many times before): The purpose of the guidelines that are sometimes known as rules is that when something doesn’t work they can help you identify the reason why. This is where passive verbs, saidbookisms, head-hopping, and the rest may come in. Once you have identified the problem, you have two options. You can change what you have already written to conform to the rules, or figure out what you can do to compensate for what you’ve lost by breaking them. This is why it is not enough to memorize the rules and be able to parrot them back. I would even venture to say that it is more important to understand the rules than to follow them.

The truth is, they are not much use even as guidelines unless you first comprehend the reasoning behind them. What is it that you are supposed to accomplish by following a particular rule? What are the problems that may arise when you don’t, and how can you compensate for them? This is what will free you from a too rigid adherence to the rules. It will also, if you have already elected not to follow one or more of them and it is not working out quite as you expected, help you to figure out what you need to do next to a) restore whatever it is you have sacrificed*, b) get creative and find alternative ways to make it all work, and/or c) drag yourself out of whatever mess you have created for yourself.

As an example I am going to use a book we have already been discussing, and I bet you can guess which one. There is a "rule" that major characters must change and grow. It has been noted (usually by those who don’t like the book) that in The Lord of the Rings — one of the most influential and highly regarded books of the twentieth century — some of the most important characters don’t do this. Aragorn is the one usually singled out. And it is is true that Aragorn is very much the same at the end of the book as he is at the beginning, yet he doesn’t come across as a static character. The reason is that while the character doesn’t change, our knowledge of him does. Throughout the book there is a gradual revelation of his identity, his character, his destiny, and his abilities. Tolkien did not follow this often quoted guideline, but the result is much the same as if he had.

Did Tolkien figure this out and do it exactly that way on purpose? Probably not. He never regarded himself as a professional writer. But the story went through numerous drafts and the character of Aragorn emerged through draft after draft, as Tolkien was constantly making changes to the characters and the story. Whether he hit on the right combination by constant experimentation, or because he had the rule in mind and figured out a way around it, doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he stayed with it until he made it work.

As another example, I’ll mention a book that is not so highly regarded: The Da Vinci Code. Plot holes abound; characterization is poor; the prose is uninspired. Yet the book is wildly popular, and even among those who are aware of its faults many say that they found it entertaining. So what did Dan Brown do to make up for these flaws? He played to his strengths, which is something every writer should do. (Only make sure that they really are your strengths, rather than your inclinations.) After a relatively slow beginning, the pace is relentless and the tension is high. Most readers race through the book eager to find out what happens next — they are at the end before they even have time to notice its faults. I know many people who dislike the book, but I have never heard anyone say that they didn’t finish reading it. Even I, who rarely read a book all the way to the end if I don’t like it, read this one to the last word.

Again, whether this was all done by design or whether the writer stumbled onto a winning formula, the fact is that he found it and made use of it.

Of course there are those who have no wish to be successful. They wish to create “high art” and to win accolades for doing so. Despite what some people like to think, it is neither clever nor creative simply to break the rules. Anyone can do that. If a writer does so, it is absurd to expect to get credit merely for trying something risky. That’s where the risk part comes in. If the result is an unfortunate one, others will criticize it. They will say that the work looks amateurish. And they will be right. If you want to be daring and break all the rules, you must do whatever you have to do to make it work, otherwise it’s just posturing. True artists are not content to stop with the job half done.


There remains the question of how to acquire an intimate understanding of the rules. Instinct and experience may carry you a long way. It is possible to teach oneself the rules by trial and error, and internalize them to the point where you know something is wrong without being able to cite the exact rule, though if called on to explain what is wrong and why it’s not working you would have no trouble doing so. But once you know the rules — however it was that you learned them, whether you are entirely self-taught or have honed your skills through participation in many workshops and writers groups — you ignore the rules at your peril. There is a difference between ignoring a rule out of inexperience or a mistaken idea of one’s own genius and deciding not to follow it in order to achieve a particular effect.

Yet those who follow the rules too closely are mistaken, too. There must be room for that spark of creativity, or your writing will only ever be competent. You can get by being merely competent if you have ideas that have wide appeal — there are writers who have made millions writing mediocre prose because they have the gift or good fortune to come up with ideas that are exactly what the public is looking for at the moment — but you will never do those ideas full justice. You may also become successful by doing two or three things exceptionally well (see The Da Vinci Code above), but this can also depend on passing trends and fads in writing, because those things you do so well may be seen as dated and quaint to a later generation. (Think of all the reasons that a writer like Bulwer-Lytton was popular in his own day, yet in the twentieth century his name became a byword for tortured prose.) In both of these cases, the appeal may be relatively short-lived — which may not matter in the least if the writer’s primary goal is transitory fame and a permanently healthy bank account. Twenty years, thirty years down the line, the books may be largely forgotten, or remembered only so that people may shake their heads at the questionable taste of their parents or grandparents.

But if you can join talent to a clear understanding of what you are doing — why, how, and when to do it, and when and how you can get away with not doing it — then mix in a good portion of creativity, you may, just possibly, write something for the ages.

________

*A good question to ask yourself at this time is, “Was it worth it?” ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/1013-the-rules-can-you-ignore-them.html <![CDATA[REVISIONS <Cue the Spooky Music> Continued]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/996-revisions-cue-the-spooky-music-continued.html Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:54:26 GMT . . . *Part II* _Plot Holes_ You can’t fix plot holes by patching them; you do so by weaving loose threads back in. A plot hole occurs when there is something you haven’t thought out sufficiently, usually something much earlier in the story. Patching on new characters or situations to fix... .
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Part II

Plot Holes

You can’t fix plot holes by patching them; you do so by weaving loose threads back in. A plot hole occurs when there is something you haven’t thought out sufficiently, usually something much earlier in the story. Patching on new characters or situations to fix it rarely works, as the hole in the fabric of the story is still there under the patch, and discerning readers will detect it despite your best efforts at disguise. It’s better to take a hard look at your story, pinpoint the exact place where things went wrong, fix the problem at its source rather than the point where you first became aware of it, and rewrite everything that comes between. This may seem like a lot of work, but in the long run it usually involves less work because it fixes the problem for good. Otherwise, the loose threads continue to unravel, requiring more and more patches. As above, whenever possible look for a solution within the story. Very often it’s already there; you just haven’t seen it yet.


Tightening

Tightening, you may be surprised to learn, doesn’t always mean making things shorter. It means taking out all the boring and irrelevant bits and replacing them with material that engages, that adds interest to what you already have. Often this substitution does make the word count shorter, but sometimes it ends up being longer but seems to read much faster. A gripping novel of 120,000 words may whisk right by, while a shorter but less involving novel seems to inch along. Tightening means that everything in the story should serve a purpose, perhaps two or more purposes. For instance: advancing the plot, providing background, illuminating character.

Information that seems irrelevant in one chapter may become of vital interest to readers in another, when they understand its importance, or when you’ve brought them to the point where they are dying to know all about it. Under these circumstances, the solution is simply to move it rather than cut it. This is especially true where there are expository lumps or infodumps. Information that seems too much when readers are expected to swallow it all in one gulp, may be just the right amount when fed to them slowly, a bite at a time. However, don’t take this as an excuse to be self-indulgent.


Missed Opportunities

These consist of unexplored avenues, failing to make use of all the dramatic possibilities in a given scene (you’ve decided to focus on an ongoing argument between your characters instead of on their frantic efforts to bail out their sinking lifeboat), and places where you’ve unconsciously set up your story so that something much more interesting could have happened instead of what actually does.

As an example, we’ll return to LOTR., since we discussed it last week, and almost everyone knows it. In an alternate reality, it has fallen to you to produce this masterpiece. Now you're writing The Fellowship of the Ring and you need to get your characters from Bree to Rivendell. Obviously the journey can’t be accomplished in a few pages, and obviously you need to make it as exciting as possible. You decide to send your characters through a dangerous bog. Sam falls into quicksand and has to be hauled out; Frodo catches marsh fever. The Black Riders have already appeared in the story, you know that they are following the Hobbits, but instead of writing an amazing scene at Weathertop where the wraiths attack and Frodo is wounded ... you’ve chosen the bog. This was a missed opportunity. We’ll have to hope that on mature reflection you’ll bring on the Black Riders.

*****

It will probably take two or three drafts to wrestle your plot and characters into submission. But once you’ve done it, then the time has come to go through and start polishing, looking for passages that don’t quite work, sentences that are a little awkward. Pruning a word here. Adding a little description there. Asking yourself: Could I have chosen a better word? Is this line of dialogue written as that character would naturally phrase it?

Enjoy this part of the process. It’s the part where you can bring your story closer to what you envisioned in the first place. Yes, it can include some small fiddly bits that you have to do over and over until you are satisfied, but the greater satisfaction you’ll feel every time you get some small part exactly right will be more than worth it. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/996-revisions-cue-the-spooky-music-continued.html <![CDATA[REVISIONS <Cue the Spooky Music>]]> http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/995-revisions-cue-the-spooky-music.html Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:46:11 GMT Instead of the entry I was planning to post this time, I've decided to post this one instead because it seems more timely in terms of discussions taking place on the forums. (Weekly posts are beginning to be too much, so I'll probably be adding something every 10-14 days.)


REVISIONS
How to Handle them and Still Retain Your Sanity

Part I

Some writers love doing revisions. Now that they have taken care of the basics they can have fun filling in the details. Others regard the process as sheer drudgery, after the purely creative phase where ideas flowed freely. Most are intimidated by the amount of work ahead. It doesn’t have to be that way.

One way to avoid being intimidated is to remind yourself that you don’t have to fix everything at once; you can do this over successive drafts. See this as an opportunity to deepen your connection with your world and characters. Also remember that whenever you look back on your most recent draft and think to yourself, “This will never do” it means you have learned something that you didn’t know before you began: maybe something you can apply to the next draft, maybe something you can apply to the next book. People without the capacity to learn always believe that everything they write is perfect, without editing, without revision. If you can see your mistakes, you can learn to fix them.

On the first pass you should concentrate most of your attention on the most serious problems. Look for places where you went completely off -track in terms of the plot and/or characters. Do your characters act in a manner consistent with their own needs and desires, or do you think that readers will see your hand manipulating them? Does the dialogue sound natural? Do all of the characters, regardless of their age or condition in life, sound exactly alike? Are there flaws in your worldbuilding? Have you created a society that is simply untenable, located vast woodlands in the rainshadow of the mountains, and established your landlocked nation as a great power at sea? This is also the time when you may have to rewrite the beginning to incorporate all of the new things you learned — in terms of your craft, in terms of your story — by the time you were writing the final chapters. This can be one of the most enjoyable parts, because you can actually see your progress. Look for plot holes, but also for missed opportunities.

You should make the most drastic revisions first, because they might require more substantial cuts, more sweeping changes, than you anticipate. There is no use polishing a scene or chapter to perfection if it going to be cut or largely rewritten, and not least because it will make it that much harder to find the gumption to cut them out.

But before you make those drastic revisions, consider this:

When a major problem first comes to your attention, the task ahead may seem overwhelming, as you imagine that the only way to fix it will involve ripping out large sections and rewriting them from scratch. It could mean that, yes, and it often does, but sometimes small changes can achieve much. A sentence here, a paragraph there, sometimes a rewritten scene or chapter, may throw an entirely new light on what you already have. As all parts of a novel should work together to tell the story, so subtle changes in one area may impact others in surprisingly effective ways. It's like the ripple effect when you throw a stone into a pool of water.

If an agent or an editor asks you to make a specific change, take a few days to think things over before convincing yourself that it goes against absolutely everything you mean the book to be. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve*often found the idea I utterly reject one day may look much better the next, because all of the time my conscious mind was saying, “No, no, no,” my subconscious was busily at work transforming that idea and fitting it into my original scheme. Almost invariably this meant the changes involved were fewer and smaller than I originally thought. In such cases, what it usually amounts to is altering the reader’s perceptions rather than altering the plot or characters.

How does this work? In the first chapters of a book readers are forming impressions, of people, places, invented societies, impressions that might prove indelible — like hating a character you want them to like. In the absence of other information, they may take the only details they've seen as representative of the whole. So suppose that your protagonist makes two or three cutting, sarcastic remarks in the first chapter. All through the rest of the book, he is kind, understanding, sympathetic, but readers have already made up their minds that he has a sharp tongue and a malicous sense of humor. They are looking for sarcasm in everything he says, and because they are expecting it, of course they find it. You love the dialogue in the first chapter: it’s clever, snappy, your writing group applauds it. But it gives a false impression of your main character. Change those three lines and you alter readers’ perceptions. With no false impression at the beginning, they can see that character for who he is; instead of sarcasm, they read sincerity into everything he says. Yes, sometimes it can be just that easy.

So the first thing you should do when faced with a problem is determine whether you can fix it with such small, subtle changes, or if major surgery is required. The catch, of course, is that even when you know in your heart that surgery is indicated, the sheer amount of work involved may send you scuttling for a box of bandaids instead. You need to be honest with yourself, never leave things as they are only because it is the easiest way, and don’t keep scenes, subplots, or characters that no longer work simply because you have developed a sentimental attachment. Learn to be ruthless. You may be pleasantly surprised by the result. I once had to throw out and rewrite an entire third of a book. I've never regretted doing so, because in completely rethinking that part of the book I came up with something I liked much, much more. (In addition, it gave me an incredible sense of virtue because I was willing to sacrifice so many chapters for the greater good. Enjoy your triumphs. You can fix the things that still aren’t quite right in the next draft.)

The second thing to do is try to think of changes that will be organic to the story.

Before you attempt to invent your way out of a problem, look to see if the solution is already there. Frequently it is. Suppose that you are writing a mystery novel. You have devised a fiendishly clever way for the murderer to poison his victim, and he pulls it off. But when revising the novel you suddenly realize that he has made a serious mistake, one that will inevitably lead to another character putting the evidence together and accusing him of the crime — long before you want anyone to so much as suspect him. To avoid this happening, the murderer must claim another victim, but without the meticulous planning that went into his previous crime, and with the first weapon that comes to hand. There is absolutely no reason for you to invent an antique dagger of oriental design (and then explain why it’s there), if you have already put a loaded revolver on the mantlepiece in an earlier chapter.

Your job, when this kind of problem comes up, is to search through your book for that loaded revolver. If it isn't there, then, yes, it may be necessary to introduce something new, but look for the revolver first.


(Continued in next post because the whole article contains too many characters.) ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/995-revisions-cue-the-spooky-music.html Taming the Wild Synopsis http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/985-taming-the-wild-synopsis.html Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:34:03 GMT And as promised, this week's topic is how to write an amazing synopsis. Some of this will be familiar to those of who have read my comments elsewhere on this same topic, some of this may be new to you.


Taming the Wild Synopsis


For many new writers in the process of preparing to submit a first novel to agents or editors, the very idea of writing a synopsis sends them into a panic. They have been told so many times how much depends on it, how difficult it is to do right, that the challenges it presents are nearly insuperable, it is no wonder they become stressed and confused. But, in fact, the mechanics of writing a good synopsis are not mysterious at all.

These days, most agents ask for a one page synopsis (single-spaced). This may seem unreasonable when you have a particularly long and complicated book. Yes, modern SFF readers want a story set in a vivid, well-realized world and they want great characters in a compelling plot. It seems unfair. How can you hope to squeeze all of that into a page or less? The answer is not that you need more words, it's that you need to choose exactly the right ones. Consider it a test of your skill as a writer. Can you be succinct when you have to be? Do you know your story well enough to boil it down to a few paragraphs — or will your book, like your synopsis, ramble about with no clear sense of direction?

Here are a few pointers:

Many books on writing tell you to write the synopsis in the present tense. No, I have never been told why this is so. Here is my best guess: because most synopses are written that way, I believe it helps the agent or editor slip into another mind-set: one programmed to evaluate the synopsis as a synopsis, and not as they will evaluate your manuscript or sample chapters.

You have to pack as much eloquence and meaning as you can into as few words as possible, so don’t be afraid to use colorful, dramatic phrasing — so long as you don’t lapse into purple prose. Be specific wherever possible rather than relying on sweeping generalizations, but know that there are some things you will have to describe briefly or not at all. Remember that the right details can suggest a character’s entire history. For instance, suppose that your character was an abused child and grew up to be exactly like his father. Stated baldly that way it falls a little flat, yet you can’t list every instance of violence that occurs in the story: when he was five his father knocked out one of his teeth, when he was ten his father whipped him one night for arriving late for dinner, when he was fifteen, etc. However, you could say something like this: “Whenever his father came home drunk, David would go to bed with bruises or a bloody nose. As an adult, he found himself repeating the same pattern with his own children.”

If you can, include a few short bits of dialogue — not a whole speech or conversation — a small amount of description. For instance, instead of simply saying, “she refuses his offer,” you put in an abbreviated version of what she actually does say.* This brings the character to life and conveys some of the flavor of the novel. But be sure that all such dialogue or description is meaningful. Dialogue should be that of a central character at some pivotal moment, and be expressed in a way that reveals something about the person speaking. The best description makes the setting tangible with a word here and a few words there, perhaps a sentence or two at the beginning. Yes, you can do it. The key is to give specific, well-chosen details that are so evocative, anyone reading them will fill in the rest.

The form of the synopsis should go something like this:

Set the scene (briefly). Don’t begin with philosophical ramblings about the nature of evil, don’t declare your theme or your reasons for writing the story, and don’t start with a question or a series of questions.

Introduce, in a few sentences, your main characters and the most important conflicts and difficulties they face at or near the beginning of the story. But don't say "the most important conflicts and difficulties ... etc." Leave the circumstances to speak for themselves. In fact, never instruct the person reading the synopsis on the significance of anything.

Describe the major movements of the main plot line, including any important plot twists, setbacks, or sudden reverses of fortune (so that the agent or editor can see that the plot is not one that simply plods along from incident to incident). Tell your story in a linear fashion, even if that is not how the plot unfolds in the book. Make sure it is clear how nuch hinges on your protagonist’s success or failure. What is at stake, and for whom? What does the protagonist, specifically, have to lose? If the synopsis is an effective one, it should be clear why readers would be invested in the outcome.

Leave out (or, if you must, briefly summarize) everything else, including all the subplots. Be selective in what you choose to tell. Sometimes the answer is not to explain more, but to simplify and/or be more exact. If you try to tell too much, you run the risk of becoming tangled up in increasingly convoluted explanations. Concentrate on what matters. Remember that the synopsis is not the book, and you don't need to explain things that don't impact the plot. The most important thing that you need to convey, is that your book has engaging characters caught up in a compelling story line.

DO give a clear idea of how the book ends, and don't annoy the agent or editor with sly hints. This doesn't mean that you have to give away all your secrets — if your main character finds a surprising entry in an old diary, making it possible for him to clear the family name and marry the girl he loves, you don’t have to reveal that this interesting document was hidden behind the wainscotting in the library, though the diary itself better make an appearance — but agents and editors alike will want to see that you are able to bring your story to a logical conclusion, or at least (if it’s the first book in a saga spanning several volumes) to a logical stopping place.

If it’s part of a multi-volume series, you may want to include a very brief summary of the other books, but on a separate page.

And that’s it. Learning how to write a great synopsis is one of the most important skills you can learn as a writer, but there is nothing arcane or mysterious about it. It may take a little practice and a lot of thought to get it right, but compared to writing the work of staggering genius that is your book, it’s not difficult at all.

Do remember, however, that no matter how excellent your synopsis, if agents don’t feel confident they can sell the book to a publisher, the synopsis will not convince them otherwise.

_______________

*But this part depends on where you are and what the agent asks for. In the UK, agents often read the synopsis after the sample chapters, in which case they will already know something about the characters and the style of the novel, and you should concentrate on telling the story. On my side of the Atlantic, many agents will read the synopsis first, or ask for the synopsis before they ask for sample chapters, or ask for the synopsis and five pages. Under these circumstances, bringing the agent into the story with the characters through dialogue and description becomes more important.

It is a good idea to have more than one version of the synopsis written in advance, so that you are ready with the right synopsis when you need it. ]]> Teresa Edgerton http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/teresa-edgerton/985-taming-the-wild-synopsis.html