Black Gate

Lamb and the Mist

On Wednesday I got to hold two book texts with my name on them. The first was my master’s thesis. I didn’t think it would be that Earth-shattering to hold it, but, well, it’s nice. Here it is, back from the book binder, with my name and the thesis title on the spine: Subtext of the Steppes: A Critical Analysis of Harold Lamb’s Cossack Saga. Now a copy is sitting on the same shelf as the Lamb books I edited (Wolf of the Steppes, Warriors of the Steppes, Riders of the Steppes, and Swords of the Steppes).

The other book I held was the text of my unpublished novel, Daughter of the Mist, which I printed for another once-over. It was a pleasure to hold the entire thing in my hands. It’s sitting at approximately 93k, which is right where I wanted it, lengthwise, and comes in at 450 manuscript pages. I’ve sent it off to a handful of test readers and my fingers are crossed that problems they find won’t require months of adjusting. They WILL find issues — there are always issues of some kind, which is one of the reasons a writer should use test readers.

I took the entire summer to perform a lengthy revision, then took August for a polishing pass and eliminated some craptacular prose. The next step, after I make whatever corrections my test readers find, is submission to agents and editors.

Here’s the thing I thought might be of interest to vistors. While reading Leigh Brackett stories to my kids this summer I was struck by how much of Brackett’s world-building had percolated unconsciously into my own writing. When my wife first met me, in the early 90s, I was constantly trying to sound like some cross between Roger Zelazny and Fritz Leiber (as my wife will tell you, I mostly sounded like a BAD imitation of Zelazny). Those early efforts were deliberate, conscious, ham-handed attempts to imitate style. This was different. I hadn’t read a lot of these Brackett stories since I was in my mid-teens, and I discovered that place-naming conventions on the mist world sounded — quite unintentionally — very much like Brackett’s Mars. There are a lot of double k’s linked with as and es and followed by “ar.” For instance, she has Jekkara, I have Mekkara. As a matter of fact, my protagonist’s sidekick is Jekka (Jekka, Jekkara). I soaked these things up without realizing — when I was reading these tales  at 15 I wasn’t yet reading for technique, I was just reading for pleasure. While drafting my novel some twenty years later, those naming structures resurfaced without me having an inkling about where they’d come from.  I was dismayed this summer when I realized my conventions hadn’t been wholly original, then decided just to leave things as they were, in quiet homage. Does that happen to anyone else out there? How much does the work of your favorite writers creep in unconsciously?

The discovery shouldn’t really have surprised me — my friend John Hocking has told me that the mist world stuff reads like a modern Brackett/Kuttner/Planet Stories cocktail, though he seems to think I’ve got my own style, these days. Thank goodness.

Just before I printed out this version I discovered I still had one island listed as “Placeholder.” When I’m cranking away on a scene I frequently drop in “placeholder” as a name for a place or person or weird object so that I don’t have to stop the writing flow. I’d somehow left this place unnamed until the very end. I searched my memory and then my bookshelves for inspiration or a word I could twist a little into an interesting place name, and before long I had the new island name, though this time the attribution was deliberate: Kuttnaar. Brackett and Kuttner were friends, after all.

Howard

Finding Fine Fiction

Most of the speculative fiction I’ve read over the last ten years has been from the long ago. At about the time my son was born I decided that if I was serious about writing fantasy I’d better have a solid idea about its roots, its founders, and its themes. Until recently, I rarely came up from the cellar to read more modern work. I missed a whole slew of acclaimed things, and am only now starting to catch up.

I recently read Chris Willrich’s “The Lions of Karthagar,” which was one of the finest stories I pulled out of the Black Gate e-submission pile. We’re looking forward to publishing it in Black Gate. I’d heard good things about his tales of Bone and Gaunt, and Chris kindly sent those my way so I could see for myself — wow. Lyrical, brilliant, scattered with lovely imagery and imagined with haunting loveliness… it’s amazing stuff. I hope he puts a collection together soon, and I certainly hope he keeps writing. Chris’ work had appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the last few years, and so too had the work of Matthew Hughes, another author I’ve heard about but hadn’t read. 

I tracked down a copy of Hughes’ The Gist Hunter & Other Stories and sat down to read a few tales last night. It too is layered with brilliant imagery. The first stories are detective fiction, albeit through a whimsical Vancian lens, and I’m very much looking forward to reading more. This is clever, entertaining, inventive work. And I am extremely pleased that, for once, I’m not coming late to the party, because Night Shade is releasing a series of Hughes’ books very shortly. 

For more information about Hughes, and a way to obtain free Hughes books (follow the link and see just how timely I truly am!)  visit his site by following this link.

Howard

CAS and Robert Jordan

We almost never discuss them here on the blog, but I wanted to point everyone once more to the weekly web articles at the Black Gate site. Every week there’s something of interest going up.

Last week Leo Grin uploaded the final installment of Ryan Harvey’s survey of Clark Ashton Smith. Ryan always writes with great skill and insight, and these four articles are likely to establish him as an acknowledged expert on CAS. He’s currently working away on an essay about Leigh Bracketts Eric John Stark, that I’m very much looking forward to reading.

This week, Black Gate’s Leo Grin posts his own work for the first time, a fine essay on the death and legacy of Robert Jordan. Like Ryan, Leo writes extremely well; both men have an excellent command of the language. They are critical but fair, scholarly but eminently readable. Frequently those sets of poles are unrelated.

You can find both articles, as well as other reviews, essays, and interviews, at www.blackgate.com. New web content appears every Sunday.

If you get a chance to read them, I hope you’ll drop by one of the Black Gate forums and discuss them:

SFReader Black Gate Forum

SFF.Net Black Gate Newsgroup

Editing

My friend Eric and I are both in the midst of novel-length edits, so when he posted the other day about things to keep in mind while editing, I was all ears. Boy, some of the issues he mentioned are familiar to me! Take a look at his helpful hints by following this link.

That’s all for now. I hope everyone’s having a good weekend.

Howard

Today I wrote the final e-submission response for the final batch of e-submissions. By now, if you’ve sent an e-sub to Black Gate, there are five possible results:

1. 1. I’ve let you know that I’ve forwarded the story on to John O’Neill for serious consideration and he’s purchased your story.
2. 2. I’ve let you know that I’ve forwarded the story on to John O’Neill for serious consideration and he’s passed on your story.
3. 3. I’ve passed the story on to John but you haven’t heard from him yet. John’s steaming along and should get to your tale soon. I apologize for his delay — we had to send his nephew to Tijuana to pull John out of the gutter, so he’s a week or so behind yet. He didn’t have any manuscripts with him, though, so nothing important got soiled.
4. 4. I’ve rejected the story and sent you a note.
5. 5. I’ve sent a rejection but you haven’t received it because your spam filter blocked me or because your address changed. 

If you’ve sent me something and haven’t heard back yet, drop me a line. Do remember that when I came on board John took the physical slush and I took the electronic slush, so I can’t answer any physical slush questions, other than that I know John is still working his way through some, alternating between reading those and reading the stories I forwarded on to him for serious consideration.

When we re-open for submissions again we are likely to employ reading periods to help keep things under control. Those reading periods will, naturally, be announced both here and on the web site.

To celebrate, this weekend I will unload some 160 bales of hay into my barn, grade a bunch of papers, and, hopefully, finish the polishing pass on my novel.

My best to all! Have a great weekend.

Howard

Eric Knight’s posted an excellent article on working backstory into one’s plot. Lord knows, I see a lot of ham-handed back story creation and have written some myself; it’s a subject that all world builders need to consider carefully. Just because you know all the names of everyone in Ravenclaw House doesn’t mean that you need to tell us those names. J. K. Rowling, incidentally, DOES know the names of everyone in Harry Potter’s year. But the action doesn’t stop so that we KNOW that she knows all the names. The information just gets used.

Anyway, here’s the article. Writers out there, take note.

Howard

I’ve finished reading all the Black Gate e-submissions. I have a dozen or so responses left to write and a few decisions to make; everyone awaiting e-sub information should know the fate of their story within the next few days.

Howard

John and I are making big strides into the submission pile. John still has some older physical subs to get to before he can get to the (relatively) newer e-subs I set aside for him. I think, however, that things will soon be under control. When I came on board we split the subs down the middle, with me taking the e-subs and John taking the physical subs. The one was a lot easier to send me than the other.

I’m almost to the end of the e-subs, and have begun to send forth responses. I have about a dozen left to read, and one or two I’m considering as I sort through these rest. A few of those left to read are longish and well-written, so they alone will take several hours.

Lest you think that you’re alone out there with your rejection pile, I’ve been accumulating some rejects lately myself. A while back I fashioned a new protagonist and a new setting, but despite my own sense that I’m making new strides and charting new ground — and despite an excellent reception from one of my most trusted first readers — the market has not been interested. Frustrated genius? Bitter hack? I’m more puzzled than bitter. I hope I’m not a hack; I’m danged sure I’m not a genius. Anyway. As I did with Dabir and Asim, I will continue to write these stories from time to time, just because they please me. Maybe a market will open up. My focus right now, though, is on novel writing.

I think I mentioned that I was working on a polishing pass of my mist world novel, which is sitting now at about 93 thousand words. I was shooting for between 90 and 95k, so I’m pretty happy with that. I’m trying something new with this pass, which is to focus on getting ten pages revised a day. Some days I’m doing more, but most days I’m just combing back and forth over the ten pages, slowly. I think the prose is getting stronger for it. I’m currently about a third of the way in, and should be done around the first of next month. And here my goal was to get it done by mid summer! Ah well. Better a late strong draft than a cruddy one on time.

Two other folks I regularly direct vistors to have posted some interesting writing tips lately. Eric Knight has one on a Jackie Collins novel he stumbled across — rather than rolling his eyes he points out some strengths to learn from, and James Van Pelt is teaching some creative writing to high schoolers. I think it’s important to go back and revisit basics — they’re far too easy to forget.

Howard

I mentioned taverns in the last post, particularly stories that start in them. I want to expand on that. It’s not that BG has solemnly declared that a good fantasy story can’t start in a tavern. I’m no fan of those kind of absolute declarations, as though we or anyone else speaks from on high, so I thought I should make myself clear. I spoke to John Hocking about this tavern issue the other day and he summarized my ramblings into some succinct statements; together we managed a coherence I’ll do my best to paraphrase.

In many, many hands, the character type and location are a shorthand way to describe a thing without bothering to fashion any originality. When John O’Neill and I complain about stories starting in taverns, what we mean is a tavern that’s just a cardboard movie set. Here’s the tavern. Here’s the ranger. Here’s the elf. Here’s the wizard. There’s no real invention going on here, no innovation. The tavern and the characers from central casting who’ve walked inside are just ciphers for original work.

Can you start a story in a tavern? Sure! One of the greatest of all sword-and-sorcery stories begins with a scene in a tavern. Well, truthfully it begins with a cinematic overview of what’s going on in the area outside the tavern; the action, though, begins within a tavern… hey, I’ll shut up and let Robert E. Howard work his magic:

Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings. Torchlight licked luridly from broken windows and wide-thrown doors, and out of those doors, stale smells of wine and rank sweaty bodies, clamor of drinking-jacks and fists hammered on rough tables, snatches of obscene songs, rushed like a blow in the face.

In one of these dens merriment thundered to the low smoke-stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters — furtive cutpurses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery. Native rogues were the dominant element — dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame — for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman — a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated arm. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jestes were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain.

That’s “Tower of the Elephant,” in case you didn’t recognize it, text courtesy of the Del Rey The Coming of Conan collection.

See, all you have to do is create cinematic imagery in an original setting with brilliant prose. Okay, maybe it’s not that easy. Here’s how Lin Carter advised his friend Poke Runyon to bring a tavern scene to life:

The scene in the inn: low rafters, a-dangle with hams and dried onions; roaring fire in huge stone fireplace with roast moofobar turning on creaking spit; sailors with bristling beards and told rings in ears sprawling on low benches wrapped in black cloaks stiff with dry salt; roar of son, scuffle of argument, rich smells of hot steaming meat and spilled grog, etc; wavering orange light splashing over everything, casting huge black flapping shadows on the walls.

(from a letter of Lin Carter to Poke Runyon, published in Poke Runyon’s novel Drell Master.)

This seems excellent advice to me. In short, if you’re going to take your readers somewhere, take them somewhere interesting. Bring the place to life. Even some place as ordinary as a tavern.

Black Gate 11 and Back Issues

Black Gate 11 continues to find its way to mailboxes and bookstores scattered across the globe. If you folks like what you’re seeing, I sure hope you’ll spread the word and tell your friends to subscribe. Send ’em to the Black Gate site. We’re growing in strength, but we still need your support!  Right now Black Gate is running a HUGE back issue sale with ridiculous discounts, so now’s your time to catch up on any issues you’ve missed. The zombies are getting tired of tripping over the boxes of old issues, so we’re clearing the warehouse. Follow the link for details!

Submissions

John and I are back to reading submissions. Interesting peculiarities pop up while you’re working your way through — John encountered a knot of almost a dozen stories that ALL began either IN a tavern or with characters on their way TO a tavern. I think at this point for either one of us to like a story that starts like that it’s going to have to be written by REH, Leiber, Moore, Vance, or some new lass or bloke with those kinds of chops. Odds are that if you’re submitting your first or second story and it starts in a tavern, you don’t yet have those kinds of chops…

My submission peculiarity popped up yesterday as I suddenly realized the next half dozen stories were all more than 9k words long, and that each of them seemed well enough written that I’d probably be reading my way to the end. It’s probably not fair to the authors, but I think, for my own sanity and for the sake of some feeling of progress, I’ll have to intersperse these long stories with shorter ones that were sent in a little later.

Writing

Some months ago I mentioned I was back to the drawing board as to novel revising. Well, on August the 33rd (so declared by my wife, so that I might hit my goal of revising before the end of August) I hammered out a final new 2000 words and completed the new draft. Out with 20 thousand bad, horrible, evil words, and in with 9 thousand completely wonderful brilliant words. Sure. 

Anyway, in the process of writing I tried out a new technique. Regular visitors may recall that one of the things I was on about the last time I brought up my writing was POV threads — because I’d started from a less-than-thorough outline I ended up with a number of issues that have been dogging every revision. One of those was ending up with POVs that started with promise and then… poof! went nowhere. I found myself inventing scenes to justfy the previous POV choices, which led to novel bloat and, well, boring scenes. So I ruthlessly killed entire plot threads, and as  a result ended up revising in a way I’d never done before. For instance, I finished a new pass of the novel’s final scenes long before August 33rd. What I’d been doing since was strengthening a worthwile point of view thread that needed some added scenes. Rather than revising A to Z, start to finish, this time I’ve been thinking more about plucking out threads, be they POV threads, plot or character development revealed by dialogue, or unfolding dialogue, and working on these as they progressed, shifting from thread to thread as needed — one day I’d be working on one of the mysteries that gets slowly unveiled, the next time I’d be working on a character’s voice and backstory that comes out slowly through dialogue over the course of the book. Every writer’s different, but I think that this method really helped me. Maybe it will help you. Heck, maybe you were already using that method and didn’t mention it to me. Shame on you.

Next I’m going to make another pass that will hopefully be more about honing the language, then pass the thing again to a circle of trusted readers and then, fingers crossed, back out to the wider world. I am eager to get started on a number of other writing projects, including penning some more Dabir and Asim stories, writing some more stories featuring some other characters, drafting another book in a different setting, but most importantly revising and then finding a home for a sword-and-sandal piece I wrote with one of my best friends.

That’s all for now!

Howard Andrew Jones