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Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why)

Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why)

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The Sword is Mightier-small
“Brilliant, an excuse to play online warrior all day!” — NOT

I’ve been spending time on writing forums — a substitute for actual work while convalescing from an operation  — and… well, I’ve noticed embedded in the culture are several pieces of advice that aren’t very useful for novice writers.

Rather than stringing them out into a series, I’m going to blast through them here:

“Work on Your Motivation” — Mostly Useless

Listen. I had a gig writing novels tieing into video games.

Great games. Great gig. But rather than going, “Brilliant, an excuse to play online warrior all day!“, I had a go at them, then handed each off to my son for a thorough exploration (a chore he greatly enjoyed, though being something of a sniper, he got regularly kicked from servers).

I like video games — I’m playing through Mass Effect at the moment — but I like writing better.

See where I’m going with this?

Nobody ever posts online, “How do I motivate myself to complete Halo 3?”

Video games are automatically fun out-of-the-box, because the challenge is the game itself, not the business of getting around inside the virtual world; most games even have similar key bindings (e.g. awsd). So if writing is not as much fun as gaming, then it’s probably because you’re still struggling with the basics of writing rather than wrestling with storytelling.

Therefore  if motivation is a problem for you, work on your craft. Success breeds success.

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Dear Prudentia: Please Help Me with Questing Etiquette

Dear Prudentia: Please Help Me with Questing Etiquette

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Prudentia Cosplay group-small

DEAR PRUDENTIA

I have unfortunately suffered from a motivational affliction (as you so expertly listed on your recent post). I now find myself needing to bear sword and head off in pursuit of revenge. I’m lucky enough to find myself traveling with a group of experienced warriors, but fear an accidental faux-pas or wearing out their kind welcome. Please help me with some questing etiquette tips.

Unhappy Avenger

 

DEAR UNHAPPY,

I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve found yourself on the receiving end of some traditional motivation. But I’m very glad to hear of your willingness to make the best of it and, even more excitingly, that you find yourself in the presence of men who can help you accomplish your task! I’m glad you’ve come to me for advice. As you know, I’m quite fond of etiquette, and although I sometimes question young ladies’ initiatives, I also try to lend a hand where I can.

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The Summer Prince

The Summer Prince

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summerprinceI have made my love of the mashup abundantly clear. Still, if you had told me four months ago that my favorite new book this year would be a Young Adult Brazillian-set post-apocalyptic retelling of Gilgamesh?

I would have stared at you blankly for some time before walking away. If nothing else, this just shows you how treacherous the blurb can be.

Nevertheless, after I had the privilege of hearing Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Guest of Honor speech at this year’s WisCon (something which is worthy of its own post), I was eager to read her work. I’m wholly glad I did.

The Summer King’s main protagonist and narrator is June, a young artist who lives in the city of Palmares Tres,which rose after a worldwide cataclysm, part nuclear and part climate change, which rendered most of the surface of the planet uninhabitable. Palmares Tres is a fully enclosed city with a political structure that is both familiar and utterly strange. Its day to day life is governed by a council of elders in a manner that closely resembles a large modern city, even as it stands out for its exclusively female roster. But there familiarity ends. Palmares Tres is also ruled by a queen who serves in five year terms. That queen is chosen by the Summer King, who is elected by the people at large. The manner of that choice? He rules for one year, to be sacrificed at the end of his term. With his blood, he marks his choice as the next queen. As the book opens, June is pushing for the election of Enki, a young man from the slums of Palmares Tres, for Summer King. Her own crush on the new celebrity is complicated when he becomes involved with her best friend, Gil, and she is nominated for a prestigious scholarship.

What follows is an examination of youth, family, love, class and power, and above all, the nature of art. This last is a particular preoccupation of June: the value of art, the cost of its production and its impact on the surrounding world. That Johnson is able to convey this preoccupation without pretension is a feat in and of itself.

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A Tour of the National Museum of Iraq

A Tour of the National Museum of Iraq

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DSC_0107
A bas-relief showing an Assyrian king with various symbols of deities around his head. The renovated museum has improved lighting for key pieces such as this one, and has added more detailed signs in Arabic and English.

Iraq gets a lot of bad press. As usual with far-off countries, we only hear about them on the news when something goes wrong, and a lot has been going wrong in Iraq for the past few decades.

As usual, though, the news doesn’t tell the whole story. Iraq may be home to the 21st century’s most psychotic religious group and countless warring factions, but you can also find decent people and bastions of culture. The Iraqi intelligentsia fights a peaceful daily struggle to keep the nation’s culture and history alive.

Nowhere is this more clear than at the National Museum of Iraq. Like the Iraqi people, it’s a survivor, having withstood sanctions, invasion, and looting. That it’s survived at all shows just how dedicated its staff is to preserving humanity’s past.

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Dear Prudentia: How Do I Learn to Quest?

Dear Prudentia: How Do I Learn to Quest?

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How Do I Learn to Quest

DEAR PRUDENTIA,

I would like to go on quests, but I’m told that’s not lady-like. Still, there must be someone who can help me become a warrior, because I don’t like dolls and I’m not a fan of the color pink. Can you help me become a hero?

Dress Hater

DEAR MS. HATER,

Now, I almost didn’t answer your question because I felt it was rather abrupt. I mean, you don’t like dolls? Perhaps you don’t like your dolls. But dolls are like tiny babies, so I’m sure that, as a woman-in-training (the most important education ever!), you love them. And as for pink, it is the color of newborns and I know you must love those.

But, I can certainly understand the allure of adventure. I myself have enjoyed quite a few sinister walks in the nearby forests (only during daylight, of course, as is proper). Since you’re obviously not up to speed on my posts and I’ve already chatted about ambition, I feel that I can perhaps redirect your naïve request toward more feasible career options for a young lady.

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Dear Prudentia: How Do I Find Motivation as a Female?

Dear Prudentia: How Do I Find Motivation as a Female?

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Cinderella the Barbarian-small

DEAR PRUDENTIA,

I find I’m really unmotivated. Like, I want to pick up a sword and maybe learn to fight like my brothers did, but I don’t really have the motivation to do anything except look pretty and wash dishes. But I’m single, and I hear quests can be a great way to meet men. So, can you help me find a reason to be as badass as my male relatives? Everyone knows that self-motivation and ambition in a woman is both tiring and unattractive, two things that can make it harder to secure a man. I’m hoping you know ways around that.

Sincerely,

Wanna GripASword

DEAR WANNA:

I completely understand you. And yes, questing is a great way to meet men, but you must first find the right motivation. I’m here to offer you great motivation that relies on no personal strength or ambition, to spare you looking indeed tired and unattractive. BUT, I do so only with the promise that, when you find your eventual mate, you’ll settle down and raise multiple children while waiting for your man to return home from his long quest abroad so that you may wash his feet and tend to his needs, as a proper woman should. Now, onward to motivation!

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Death Angel’s Shadow by Karl Edward Wagner

Death Angel’s Shadow by Karl Edward Wagner

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Best Kane cover ever – by Stan Zagorski
Best Kane cover ever – by Stan Zagorski

I’ve read  Karl Edward Wagner‘s Death Angel’s Shadow (1973), with its three stories of Kane, the Mystic Swordsman, numerous times since first finding it in my attic in the 1970s. Before Conan’s or Elric’s, Kane’s adventures sparked my interest in swords & sorcery. Only a few years ago, I wrote a long piece about Wagner and this book over at my site, Swords & Sorcery: A Blog. I figured it was time to give it a reread and review here at Black Gate.

For the uninitiated, Kane is, in Wagner’s own words, a villain-hero. Cursed with immortality, over the course of his career he’s been an evil wizard, a crime lord, a bandit, and the general of a demon cult’s army. Sometimes he’s up against someone more diabolical than he is, but he’s never the good guy, never the hero.

This description of him gives you a sense of the wrongness that clings to him even when he’s not embarked on some nefarious plan:

It was his eyes that bothered Troylin. He had noticed them from the first. It was to be expected, for Kane’s eyes were the eyes of Death! They were blue eyes, but eyes that glowed with their own light. In those cold blue gems blazed the fires of blood madness, of the lust to kill and destroy. They poured forth infinite hatred of life and promised violent ruin to those who sought to meet them. Troylin caught an image of that powerful body striding over a battlefield, killer’s eyes blazing and red sword dealing carnage to all before it.

The three Kane novels, Darkness Weaves, Bloodstone, and Dark Crusade, are decent enough, but it’s in the short stories that Wagner’s immense talents shine most brightly. Two years ago I reviewed the collection, Night Winds (1978) at Black Gate. That book contains some of the best and darkest S&S stories ever set to paper. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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Review of Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

Review of Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

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Pathfinder Tales Plague of Shadows-smallI just read my second Howard Andrew Jones novel: Plague of Shadows (2011), which was the first of his two Pathfinder novels (I read them out of order). In my review of Stalking the Beast (2013) for Black Gate, I raved that it delivered everything I crave from such a tale. It did so with skill and panache, introducing me to characters who have stayed with me. So I was pleased to go back and read the true introduction to Elyana, the Forlorn elven ranger raised by humans, and Drelm, the half-orc who values honor and loyalty more than most humans (let alone most orcs) do.

Knowing that it was a first outing, I went in expecting it to be not quite as good — not as polished or assured, maybe — as its follow-up (indeed, I gave Stalking the Beast a perfect 5-star rating, arguing that sword-and-sorcery RPG tie-in novels just don’t get any better than that).

But then I finished the book: And I felt that peculiar sense that only certain works of art engender, as the last sentence echoes away or the curtain falls or the credits roll. It has impressed itself upon you, and you feel enriched but tinged with a bittersweet sadness — the characters have left, and you miss them. The characters have, in some sense, become more real; they have joined your own personal pantheon. With this second visit, Elyana and Drelm grew from being fun, engaging characters in a standalone book into characters about whom I want to read many books!

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Adventures In Shape-Shifting: Robert Stallman’s The Orphan

Adventures In Shape-Shifting: Robert Stallman’s The Orphan

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The Orphan Robert Stallman-smallI write this on an emotional high, a plateau from which I never wish to descend, for I’ve just managed the impossible: I’ve gone back in time. The vehicle employed? A book, prose, a worn paperback. It’s Robert Stallman’s The Orphan.

I first encountered this title somewhere in the Dark Ages, probably around 1980. I re-read it perhaps two years later, along with its two sequels, The Captive and The Beast. Even though large swaths of plot have faded from my mind over the years, I have never, ever forgotten the book’s opening lines.

I am and will be. There is no time when I am not.

This is the first lesson.

My need creates myself.

This is the second lesson.

Alone is safe.

This is the third lesson.

I’ve spent the last thirty-five years considering those quotes (and the ideas behind them), polishing each like a gem-cutter finishing off a jewel. I’ve road-tested them, too, as a survival mechanism when, in my earliest teens, I tried out (as actors might try a cape) the attitude of Kipling’s cat, the one that walked by himself. It was necessary, in a way, but also foppish, affected. Even so, I found in The Orphan echoes of that chilly, solo stance — the same adopted in Westerns by virtually every gunslinger known, from Joel McRae to John Wayne and back again.

So once upon a time, my time, these lines held great personal weight. They were talismans, of a sort, and in picking up this gorgeous, dangerous title afresh, I was face to face with my past and the self I have since become.

For a moment, I had to look away.

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Dear Prudentia: Why Should I Include a She-Babe?

Dear Prudentia: Why Should I Include a She-Babe?

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Dear PrudentiaThere are so many questions around inclusivity lately that I’ve opened up my very own inbox to questions from the community on how to deal with females. The initial response was so big that Black Gate has allowed me to have my letters run for an entire week! I’m very excited and look forward to providing advice in these rather difficult times, to both warlords and young ladies.

Always properly yours,

Prudentia

DEAR PRUDENTIA,

New political allegiances with lesser beings lead me to necessitate including more She-Babes in my conquest, regardless of the fact that I have a full harem AND my serving staff is composed entirely of She-Babes. Plus, I always replenish staff by adding more She-Babes from conquered nations, and I’m quick with my blade when I behead the Non-Babe-She-Babes. Despite all of this, I’m informed that I’m not up to “code.” Should I simply murder all the heathens?

Signed,

Incensed in Bloodbath

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