Tools Writers Could Use

My son Keith called me on the phone the other day when he was trying to avoid doing his homework. You are supposed to call your parents now and then when you’re away at college, right? Homework is a great incentive for keeping those communications lines open.
So Keith harked back to an old Dimitri Martin gag in which the Microsoft Word office assistant paperclip tries to help someone write a ransom note. “It looks like you’re writing a ransom note,” the paperclip says. “You should use more forceful language. You’ll get more money.”
So Keith said he wished a paperclip (or maybe a little calculator) would appear on his computer screen and say, “It looks like you’re trying to solve a quadratic equation. Would you like some help?”
I happened to be sitting in the writing den, and I got to thinking about the kinds of office assistant tools writers could use, built into their word processing programs. For example, the paperclip says:
It looks like you’re trying to resolve a major plot problem. Had you thought of hiding the townspeople in the salt mines?
Or: It looks like you’ve completely forgotten about the sidekick character you introduced in Chapter 3. Perhaps you should either give him something to do or get rid of him.
Or: It looks like your plot is getting rather bogged down in the middle. What if Alice turned out to be Jack’s long-long sister who murdered their father?
Or: It looks like 95% of your character names begin with M. Unless you are intentionally going for alliteration, you may want to change some of them to avoid confusing your readers.
Or: It looks like your main character has raked his hair out of his eyes 32 times so far and we’re only on p 163. Consider having him rub his chin or massage his temples. No more throat clearing, though.
Or: It looks like you’ve been working really hard today. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and I’ll finish off your 1666 words for NaNoWriMo.
It could happen. Writers are dreamers, after all.

Office Assistant for Fantasy Writers

World Fantasy Convention 2008

If you read this blog, you know I recently attended the World Fantasy Conference in Calgary, Ab. (October 30-November 2, 2008) The Guests of Honor included David Morrell, Barbara Hambly, Tom Doherty, and Todd Lockwood. The toastmaster was Tad Williams.
It was both my first time in Calgary and my first time at the WFC. By popular demand (well, one person), I thought I’d provide a few impressions of the WFC experience.
Most of the conferences I attend are 1) nutrition conferences and 2) conferences for people who write for children and teens. This con was different in several ways.
One happy difference is that many of the other cons I attend attract mostly women. This one seemed fairly evenly balanced between the genders. So the lines at the ladies room were much shorter than I am used to.
There were more free spirits at this con than at other meetings I attend. (I’m talking about the attendees, not the liquid refreshments, though I did spend time in the hospitality suites). Satin and velvet and sequins and glitz mingled with business casual which rubbed shoulders with torn blue jeans and tee shirts. (No costumes, though). Everyone was laid back and friendly, though I knew very few people before I came.
There was a certain good-natured confusion at the Con with regard to programming. Apparently final programming decisions were made rather late. So several panel participants didn’t realize they were scheduled to be on a panel until the very last minute. Some had conflicts, and didn’t make it at all. But most of the panelists dealt with life’s little surprises with good humor and flexibility.
Similarly, prep for panelists varied from seat of the pants and skin of the teeth to extensive. I was at the over-prepared end of the continuum, showing up to my panel with typed notes, FAQ’s and illustrative passages highlighted in several books—everything but an LCD projector. It all worked.
The dealer’s room was a clearing-house for fantasy literature, including fiction, magazines, and anthologies. It was a great overview of markets and product.
It’s important to note that the Cons are directed by an all-volunteer crew. It’s a huge undertaking, and bless ‘em for taking this on. Just the thought of it makes me want to roll under the bed. Except that’s where the monsters are.

Some Panels and Programs I Attended

Are Appendices Needed? (Tad Williams, L.B. Modesitt Jr., Julianne Lee, Susan Forest, Barb Geller Smith) – this refers to maps, glossaries, genealogical charts, and the like. The consensus seemed to be that authors themselves need maps, glossaries, etc. But if readers need them to follow the story, there’s something wrong. Many saw these features as value-added, cool stuff to entice and engage the reader.
Blind Alleys and Red Herrings: Mystery in Young Adult Fantasy (me, Brenda Cooper, Deborah Beale, Matthew Peterson, Alison Baird) This was my panel. We discussed how challenging it is to confuse and tantalize the diverse YA audience. Strategies included plot layering, pacing, chapter and title mechanics, and writerly sleight-of-hand.
The Writer’s Voice (workshop by David Morrell) Morrell spoke for an hour and a half without notes. (Whoa.) He described his challenging early life (he spent time in an orphanage and lived with a stepfather who disliked him). Morrell quoted Graham Greene in saying that an unhappy childhood is a goldmine for a writer. He says that the most important thing for a writer to do is to use his own history, to be himself, to pay attention to waking dreams.
YA Panel (Garth Nix, Linda DeMoulemeester, Sharyn November, Anne Hoppe, Kathryn Sullivan). Best take-away: Garth Nix said we should “never judge a book by its category, and never judge a category by its worst example.”
I already addressed the “Killing Off Significant Characters” panel in another post.
This con is very literature and art-focused, and many of the attendees appeared to be professionals. It was a great opportunity to connect with some marquee names of the fantasy game, including editors, agents, publishers, and authors. I spent some quality time with my agent, too.

Killing Off Significant Characters

I am driven to write on this topic in answer to the many readers who have finished The Dragon Heir, the last novel in the Heir Trilogy. Some have written to take me to task for killing off one of the major characters.
One reader wrote and said,
I will admit that when ___ died, I started crying. I actually had to put the book down for several minutes, because I was crying so hard.
Another wrote and said, You did NOT have to do that.
Some readers said they were totally blind-sided, and others that it was totally predictable. Several questioned whether the character’s death was faked and suggested there might be another book coming in which he/she might be resurrected.
To be fair, not everyone agreed that the death was a mistake. One reader described the ending as absolutely perfect. Another wrote to say that I had not killed off ENOUGH characters and had a list of a few more I could have offed. (Should I worry about this reader?)
It’s fairly common that characters are killed in books and movies—but they’re usually minor characters. There’s even a term for dispensable characters that came from the science fiction series, Star Trek—“red shirts.” According to Wikipedia, “A redshirt is a stock character, used frequently in Star Trek, whose primary purpose in the plot of a story is to die soon after being introduced, thus demonstrating the dangerous circumstances faced by the main characters.” The security officers wore red shirts, you see, and generally didn’t survive planetary landings. The main characters—Kirk, Spock, Scotty—survive major battles time and time again.
In the westerns of my childhood, main characters always ended up with their arms in a sling, to demonstrate that they had not escaped completely unscathed.
Killing off major characters is not a new thing. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously killed off Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Final Problem, published in The Strand magazine. According to The Chronicles of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (http://www.siracd.com/work_h_death.shtml) more than twenty thousand enraged fans cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine. After considerable pressure from readers, Conan Doyle eventually brought his detective back to life in The Adventure of the Empty House.
Supposedly, J.K. Rowling wept when a character died in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Neither did she enjoy killing one of her favorite characters who died at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. More deaths followed in Deathly Hallows. So it seems reasonable to ask—why did she do it? Why does any author kill off the characters they brought to life on the page?
I recently attended the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary. There was actually a panel on killing significant characters, including authors Tad Williams, George R.R. Martin, and Steven Erikson. Martin, especially is known for the ever-expanding body count of main characters in his most recent fantasy series.

TAD WILLIAMS AND GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

World Fantasy Convention, Calgary

Martin makes no apologies. In fact, he says, Gandalf should have stayed dead in Lord of the Rings, because he was the man with all the answers, and the Fellowship should have been left on its own. Erikson argued that it’s all right if dead characters come back, if they come back as different people—transformed by their death experiences.
Williams surmises that you’re seeing more deaths of significant characters these days because modern speculative fiction seeks to be more realistic. But, he said, the death has to have some impact on the story. Erikson agreed. “If it’s a random death, people tend to get really pissed.” Martin argues that it’s unreasonable to think that in a story filled with violence and clashes of arms that no named character would die.
During the Q&A at the WFC panel, I asked the panelists how they respond to reader complaints about the deaths of significant characters. “I tell them to quit complaining,” Tad Williams said, “or I’ll kill them all off.”
He was joking. Really.
So—about Dragon Heir. It’s hard for me to explain my rationale for the choice I made in DH without major spoilers, so—spoiler alert!! Read further at your peril!
* * * * * * * *SPOILERS BELOW* * * * * * * * *
Many of the reasons cited by the WFC panel underlaid my decision to have a major character die near the end of DH. Death is what happens in wartime, and the Weirguilds are involved in a war. I knew it was going to happen, and to whom, from the beginning. That is one reason it was important to have two viewpoint characters throughout the book.
About Jason—Readers don’t seem to believe me when I say that Jason Haley is one of my favorite characters. He was so flawed, so human, so edgy and full of self doubt. Jason’s fate had a lot to do with his personality and his desires—it wasn’t random. He was reckless and careless and had a kind of death wish in him. He took chances—life for him was a series of dares. He could never see how important he was to the other characters in the story.
What Jason wanted most in life was to make a difference. And he did. He saved everyone by letting go of the Dragonheart and getting Madison where she needed to be. He was the only one who understood that Madison was the key. And he saved Jack and Ellen by killing D’Orsay. It was revenge, but there was an inevitability about it that made sense to me.
Do I have any regrets? I wish that Jason and Leesha had had a final scene together—some kind of resolution. On the other hand, it seemed to me that Leesha had to pay a price for all the terrible things she’d done. And she did pay a price. It was life-changing.
I also wish I’d spent more time on the denouement. The grief scene in The Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf was killed recognizes and highlights the importance of the loss. The ending of DH seemed abrupt, my readers tell me.
* * * * * * * * *END OF SPOILERS* * * * * * * * * *
That said, any rationale for killing off a character seems like an excuse for a cold-blooded decision. You killed him off to prove a point, didn’t you? To teach a lesson. To raise the stakes. To tug at the reader’s heart strings.
You killed him off because that is what the story demanded.
That last is the only reason that matters. And the argument can go on forever about whether that applies here.

Immersed in Setting

Immersion in Setting

There is a reason writers, like artists, gravitate to the beautiful parts of the world. The English poets had the Lake District, Hardy had his wild and desolate moors, Edward Abbey had the unspoiled American west, and Annie Dillard had Tinkers Creek in the Blue Ridge.
And, though I am not comparing myself to any of the above, here I am in Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, where I’m spending a few days before heading down to the World Fantasy Conference in Calgary.
This place is astonishing. I’ve spent two days with my mouth hanging open, saying Wow! And Whoa! And Sheesh! Would you look at that? (Words are my business, after all). We hiked through Johnston Canyon and took the gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain, and walked over the Columbia Ice Fields on Athabasca Glacier. We hiked around Lake Louise and saw the sun bloody itself on Victoria Peak before sliding down behind.
In a place like this, you begin to realize the limitations of photography (especially as a tool in my hands). Focus on the Bow River snaking around sandbars, and the mountains disappear into the brilliant horizon. Focus on the mountains, and the river slides into shadow.
I worry that I can’t write well enough to capture this. I can’t even look hard enough to see it all. I wish I had better eyes. I wish I were a better writer. I wish I had more time and stamina so I could get at every secret place.
But the point is, this kind of natural beauty makes you flex and reflex your writing muscle, in order to get down what you can. I’ve been grabbing onto images—the light and shadow playing over the peaks as the sun moves across the sky, the unforgiving, translucent blue of glacier ice, the rippling shadow of a hawk as it crosses an alpine meadow. I breathe in the scent of pine in cold, clear air, hear the thunder of waterfalls and the creaking and complaining ice at the borders of streams. I feel the instability of wet clay and pebbles under my boots as I cross a moraine. I’m scratching notes, and trying to use all my senses, and remember what this place is like.
Art capture a truth that goes beyond the senses. It allows others to experience the emotion of being there, each in her own way.
I’m writing a series of fantasies set in the mountain queendom of the Fells, one of the fictional Seven Realms. The Seven Realms is a made up place. The books are not set in the Canadian Rockies, or Yellowstone, or any particular place I’ve been. But as Tolkien said, we write stories out of the leafmold of the mind. We need the raw materials, the convincing details, to tell lies that readers will believe. Sometimes it seems I have a memory like a sieve, yet experiences from long ago resurface in my fiction. The glitter and chatter of aspen leaves. The stink of sulphur from a hot spring. Nothing is wasted.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Writing Den lately, hammering out the first draft of Exiled Queen, and working on the revisions of Demon King. As Jane Yolen says, nothing happens until we get our butts in our chairs and write. There’s a guilty part of me that says I should be sitting in that chair, pounding out prose. You’ll sit there until you write a thousand words, Missy.
But a writer also has to keep a linkage to whatever reality she writes about. Reading and web-surfing are not enough. Sometimes our writing voice hoarsens from rebreathing the same air. It’s not enough to attend writing conferences, even those that focus on craft. Writing conferences are wonderful, but we writers risk becoming enthralled with our own cleverness. We are not each other’s audiences, after all. We need to get out into the real world and let the wind sling our hair around and get our hands dirty.

Meet Me at Anderson's Downers Grove IL!

Author Appearance and Signing

Anderson’s Books

Downer's Grove, IL

Thursday, October 23, 7 p.m.

5112 Main St. Downer’s Grove, IL 60515

630-963-2665

Notes from the Literary Ghetto

Writing Goddesses in Happier Times

So I’m in Park City, Utah, at a writing retreat with my fellow writing goddesses, Martha, Mary Beth, Kate, and Debby. We took the afternoon off to shop the tantalizing wares in Old Town Park City and encourage each other to spend money.
We were in a jewelry store, browsing the showcases, when the woman behind the counter pointed to my pin and said, “What’s that?”
“This?” I said, fingering my brooch. “This is the cover of my book.” (I’d had a pin made with the image of The Wizard Heir cover on it.)
“Your book?” she said, showing a spark of interest. “You’re a writer?”
“Well, yes,” I said. I fished in my purse and pulled out a bookmark and handed it to her. “I write young adult fantasy.”

“Oh!” She looked at me like I’d handed her a live serpent. “Here,” she said, thrusting my bookmark back at me. “I’m going to give this back to you. I don’t do fantasy, and I don’t do YA.”
I was speechless for a moment. “OK,” I said finally, sliding the bookmark back into my purse. “So you don’t do fantasy.”
“No,” she said, practically shuddering. “You can probably tell I have a master’s in library science.” When I looked blank, she added, “I know the jargon. YA, for instance.”
“I see,” I said.
I could have said that some of my best friends are librarians, and many of them fantasy fans and lovers of YA books. I could have said, glancing around the store, “So I guess the library gig didn’t work out.”
I should have just walked away.
Instead, I said, “Well, um, maybe you just haven’t read any good fantasy.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, I’ve read fantasy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We were forced to read it in school.”
Like the entire genre of fantasy had its chance and she was not amused.
She reached under the counter, pulled out a paperback literary novel and slapped it down on the counter. “This is what I like to read,” she said. “Have you read it?”
“No,” I said. “Um, I’ve heard of it, though. Is it good?”
“He’s a Pulitzer prize winner,” she said, thoroughly nailing me in my place.
My friend Martha had drifted over during this conversation. “Well,” she said, “Cinda is a best-selling author, you know.”
The clerk stared at me like she didn’t quite believe it. “Really?”
Martha nodded. “New York Times.”
“Oh,” the clerk said, eying me like she might be missing an opportunity to score something she could sell on E-Bay. “Well, maybe I will take a bookmark.”
Sigh.
I could cite other examples of this kind of literary snobbery—for instance, the workshop leader who said to me, as if she couldn’t quite believe it, “You know your writing is really quite good.” She went on to say that my stories could be quite literary if I took the magic out.
And I thought, Why would I want to take the magic out? And what is it about magic that makes them non-literary?
Here’s my point: I have my preferences in my pleasure reading, like everybody else. I read widely, but I know that I’m more likely to like certain kinds of books than others. But I’m not talking about preferences. I’m talking about a clear and visceral disdain for the heart’s work of others. Some people look down on those who write for children and teens. Others sneer at writers of women’s fiction or mysteries or science fiction. As for picture books: how hard could it be?
Nobody should be made to feel like a second class citizen of the writing universe.
If a story is formulaic, predictable, boring, pompous, or confusing—it doesn’t work. What makes a story successful is the same in every genre: engaging characters, compelling plots, and vivid settings. If those pieces aren’t there, nothing works. That’s where the magic comes from—in fantasy and in every other literary category.
Book lovers have more commonalities than differences in a world where many people don’t read a single book in a year. We should celebrate that.

Why I Write for Teens

Recently, a reviewer said I was adept with teen culture. I laughed quick to drown out my husband and two sons, who were snickering and elbowing each other. “Okaay,” they said. “Uh-huh. Ri-ight.”

I’m not up to date on current music, TV shows, video games, etc.—I never have time to get on YouTube unless I’m on a mission of some kind. The social networking sites are a moving target. I’m on Blogger when everyone else is moving to Facebook. As soon as I’m up on Facebook I’m getting invitations to Twitter (!).

My MP3 player is loaded with the music that I loved when I was a teen, with a few latter-day additions. When I mentioned developing a music playlist to go with my books, (something the cool authors are doing) my husband got this pained expression and said, “Maybe you should ask Eric and Keith to do it.” The subtext was: nobody in your target audience wants to listen to what you listen to.

So sometimes I wonder if I should be writing for teens at all. I feel like I’m totally unqualified except for the fact that I once was one.

But maybe the key to writing YA stories is remembering what it was like. All I have to do is walk into a school building, and it all comes rushing back: those nasty black bathing suits we had to wear in swimming class, the humiliation of phys ed, the bad boys I used to lust after.

I remember a boy who broke my heart. He drove an orange Mustang convertible. For years, my pulse accelerated whenever I saw a Mustang.

I remember the stricken look on another boy’s face when I told him I just wanted to be friends. “That’s not how I see us,” he said, and walked away, his back very straight. He was a poet, and so was I, but it wasn’t enough.

I have notebooks full of stories, poems, songs, and essays I wrote in junior high, high school, and college. Anyone who reads that stuff wouldn’t say adolescence is carefree. I think pain was my muse for writing back then. Either that or I was always in pain.

When I was a teen, I read like a fiend. Books were a refuge for me. I remember the time I was reading Valley of the Dolls in Problems of Democracy class and the teacher confiscated it. It belonged to a friend of my mother’s so I had to go beg for it back. Books are still important in my life, but they will never be as important as they were then.

So maybe knowledge of the specifics of popular culture isn’t important. It’s not the particular band member or TV star you’re in love with—it’s the emotional memory of how it felt. You cannot write for teens from an adult perspective. You can’t condescend. They get enough of that in real life.

If I want to remember what it felt like to be a teen, maybe listening to the music I loved when I was that age might be the way to go.

I tell myself that, anyway.