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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)

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Seriously, [novelist’s name redacted],

I get that you were writing a romance with a post-apocalyptic setting and plot, and not a post-apocalyptic novel with romantic elements. I get that the pacing and structure is significantly different between those two categories.

gas mask lovers-small

BUT, I don’t care which one you’re writing: you don’t get to leave out the middle of the third act! It would only have been a couple scenes; they could have been done in as little as 4 or 5 pages (though 8-10 would have been better), but they were important scenes. You can’t just toss the events off in a couple of graphs of narrative summary in the scene you jump to.

You had built that villain into a bad mo-fo: you can’t cheat us out of the meat of their encounter!

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The Amazing Authentically Authentic Latina Author!

The Amazing Authentically Authentic Latina Author!

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Certain-Dark-Things Silvia Moreno-Garcia-smallCategorization is a funny thing when you’re Latin American. Everything I write, people want to call it magic realism.

And then, when I write science fiction, sometimes people have no idea it’s science fiction because they don’t have enough cultural info to figure it out. When you’re writing a dystopia or an alternate history set in the USA, it’s pretty easy to figure out it’s dystopia or an alternate history. Everyone knows the USA! Hey, I knew your president cut a cherry tree and you had a Civil War when I was like seven years old and couldn’t speak English.

But is it fact or fiction that in Mexico when you apply for a job people can ask you to state your age, marriage status, and religion, and affix your photo? Sure! That’s not a dystopia. So sometimes I write a story and outsiders think, “That’s too fantastical,” or they confuse an ordinary detail with the fantastic.

More than once I’ve been told something is not “science fiction” or not “science fiction enough.” Needs more hyperdrive. There’s also the dreaded “doesn’t ring true.”

Doesn’t ring true generally means people expect you to bring in the exotic. They’ll be like “I once went to Acapulco so this gives me super great knowledge about your country and therefore this is not exotic enough.” Awesome. They want you to show a sarape, bring out the donkey. Check out the rooster in The Three Caballeros. That’s the sense of place you should aim for.

Someone once wanted me to change a name because it looked weird. It was a real name used in Mexico.

In Mexico City there are women-only designated subway cars so you won’t get groped. There are subway gangs with youths, hair combed back with too much gel who go to reggaeton shows, and like a story I read online, if you encounter a bunch of them it looks like you’re living in a “Spanish-language remake of The Warriors.”

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Taos Toolbox, a Two Week Master Class in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Taos Toolbox, a Two Week Master Class in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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My project this month was to put together a promo video for Taos Toolbox, which is run by my longtime friend, Walter Jon Williams, and Nancy Kress. It will run from July 10-23rd this year. I remember when Walter put the first session of this workshop together, and right from the start, it has helped authors turn rough draft manuscripts into traditionally published novels.

A non-exhaustive list of Toolbox novels includes:

Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon
Alan Smale’s Clash of Eagles Trilogy
Gail Strickland’s Night of Pan, the Oracle of Delphi Trilogy

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Matthew David Surridge on The Great Hugo Wars of 2015

Matthew David Surridge on The Great Hugo Wars of 2015

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Rabid Puppies logo-smallOver at culture site Splice Today BG blogger Matthew David Surridge, who declined a Hugo nomination last year for Best Fan Writer, looks back at his involvement in Puppygate.

It was difficult to keep up with everything that was happening; when a controversy strikes the literary world, writers are affected, meaning much will be written. And I was out of it. Appreciative reaction to my post continued to come in at Black Gate, but as what Martin called “Puppygate” sprawled on, I was watching from the sidelines. I saw calls for boycotts of publishers, I saw counter-calls to buy books from the same publishers, I saw reports that the number of people buying memberships to Worldcon had hit record numbers. I saw satires and arguments. I saw proposals to change the Hugo voting rules to limit the impact of future slates. I kept track of as much as I could, partly because it was fascinating to watch, and partly because I never knew if my name would come up. Mostly, it didn’t, which suited me fine. If for no other reason than that the culture-war overtones that Breitbart had highlighted in the Puppies became increasingly front and center…

In the end the Hugo voters opted for “No Award” over the Puppy nominees in almost every category. The Best Novel Award went to Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, which made it onto the ballot when Marko Kloos, whose book Lines of Departure was on Beale’s slate, declined the nomination after learning about the Rabid Puppy actions. Beale, ironically, ended up urging his Puppies to vote for The Three Body Problem; the Rabid vote seems to have given it the margin of victory. Meanwhile, Best Fan Writer was won by the lone non-Puppy, Laura J. Mixon. Later, the final nomination data confirmed a rumour I’d heard that Mixon had gotten the nomination when I declined it.

See Matthew’s complete comments here.

Fellowship of the Pathfinders: The Importance of Party Dynamic in Fantasy Adventure

Fellowship of the Pathfinders: The Importance of Party Dynamic in Fantasy Adventure

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illustration by Eric Belisle
illustration by Eric Belisle

I bought my first Pathfinder novel after reading about it here in a New Treasures post. Howard Andrew Jones’s Stalking the Beast just looked like a lot of fun. Hunting down a big scary monster? Okay, cool. And I’m a sucker for half-orcs. The potential dynamic of a half-elven ranger and a half-orc barbarian working together grabbed me — in fact, I don’t think I ever ran a D&D campaign that didn’t have something like that combination in the mix.

As I described in my review here at Black Gate, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun the book was — I found myself not wanting to put it down: an experience I was not primed to expect from previous RPG adaptations I’ve read. It delivered the sort of entertainment I am hoping for when I crack open an RPG-themed book, and it was very well written just in general terms as a fantasy novel. Well plotted; good world building; but most importantly, great characters. The dialogue was just as entertaining to read as the action set-pieces.

I subsequently read two of Tim Pratt’s books for Paizo Publishing, and then I went back to Jones’s first contribution to the series. All four of the books impressed me, which left me wondering: is it just because I’m a fan of Jones and Pratt? I mean, these are good writers (a critic more dismissive of “tie-in” literature might have uncharitably suggested they were just “slumming,” writing for a game publisher’s bi-monthly novel line). Were these books the exception, or are Pathfinder novels routinely this level of quality?

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Nancy Kilpatrick

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Nancy Kilpatrick

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Nancy Kilpatrick-smallOur Pro-Tip author this week is the multiple award-winning writer and editor Nancy Kilpatrick. She writes dark fantasy, horror, mysteries, and erotica. Her publishing credits include 18 novels, over 220 short stories, 7 collections, and 1 non-fiction book. She has edited 15 anthologies.

I Can’t Seem to Get the Ending Right. What Should I Keep in Mind?

A short story is a slice of time in the life of the protagonist. What happens has to have a beginning, middle and end, even though most of the time the protagonist had a life before the events of the story and will (hopefully) have a life after. A short story should read from the beginning as if the reader does not know where the story will end–that’s suspense. But once the story is finished, the reader should feel that Yes!, this is how it had to end. That makes a satisfying read.

Your protagonist has a problem, aka ‘conflict.’ If he/she doesn’t, you don’t have a story. That conflict is an either/or conflict. The protagonist is torn between two basics. Base line example: live or die. The reader reading the story knows this because they see the conflict and the obvious solutions to that conflict. If the story ends with either of these obvious endings: the protagonist lives/the protagonist dies — the reader will feel let down. The writer’s job is to find either an alternative ending or a variation on one of the two obvious endings so that the story has an intriguing and unanticipated conclusion.

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I Need a Job

I Need a Job

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Moon PaksHave you noticed how some characters come with their own jobs, and some need to find one? Some of them, like Sherlock Holmes, even invent their own jobs. There was no such thing as a “consulting detective” until Holmes became one. The job is the character, and the character is the job.

Or, to put it another way, sometimes the type of story you want to tell dictates what kind of job your protagonist needs.

And, sometimes, the type of job your character has dictates the story you’re going to tell about them. There are quite a few jobs that can bring a story with them, at least if you’re a genre writer. Detective. Queen. Knight. Wizard. Thief. Soldier. Then there are those whose story potential doesn’t seem quite so obvious. Servant. Miller. Potter. Cook. Farmer.

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Fool’s Assassin: How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring

Fool’s Assassin: How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring

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FoolsAssassin
This is a dissection, not a review, and it’s full of (slightly obfuscated) spoilers.

If you’re looking for a review of Robin Hobb’s Fool’s Assassin, please go away. This is a dissection, not a review, and it’s full of (slightly obfuscated) spoilers.

If you are wondering how Hobb works her magic, but haven’t read this book, then your probably want to do that first. However, if that means starting from the beginning of the Assassin series, then you can safely read on because by the time you reach Fool’s Assassin you’ll have forgotten.

It is a good book. It’s as if Mary Renault or Rosemary Sutcliff wrote Fantasy, or if Tolkien channeled Thomas Hardy with more magic ninjas. It’s also a very rare bird; a country house Gothic from the point of view of the moody denizens.

From a writerly point of view, it’s interesting because she makes two things work that are often the comeuppance of lesser writers: a first person narrative in a slow burn thriller, and rich description.

Here’s how I think she does it.

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Congratulations to the Dell Award Winners, including Courtney Gilmore of Columbia College

Congratulations to the Dell Award Winners, including Courtney Gilmore of Columbia College

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Dell Award Winners-small

I am proud to announce that my student Courtney Gilmore received an Honorable Mention ranking in the prestigious 2016 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, for her story, “The Numbers Queen of Harlem,” which she wrote in the Columbia College-Chicago Advanced Fantasy Writing Workshop (which I taught) last semester.

The judges are pleased to announce the winner, runners-up and honorable mentions for the 2016 Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing.

Dell Award Winner, Runners-up and Honorable Mentions for 2016

Winner: “Lullabies in Arabic,” by Rani Banjarian of Vanderbilt University
First Runner-up: “Nostos,” by Eleanor Griggs of Grinnell College
Second Runner-up: “Get Out of Here,” by Laura Davia of Vanderbilt University
Third Runner-up: “Wags,” by Eleanor Griggs of Grinnell College

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Carlos Hernandez

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Carlos Hernandez

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Carlos Hernandez-smallOur Pro-Tip author this week is Carlos Hernandez. Full disclosure: I got an uncorrected proof reading copy of his short story collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, (which has been described as 12 stories of fantasy, science fiction, interstitial weirdness, and a few boldface lies), this past summer at the Nebula Awards weekend.

I gobbled that book down, and promptly made one of the stories, “More Than Pigs and Rosaries Can Give” part of the reading curriculum for the Advanced Fantasy Writing course I teach at Columbia College – Chicago. The story, synopsized by Carlos thusly: “A Cuban expatriate travels to Cuba and hires a local historian to suck the ghost of his mother out of the bullet hole where she was shot at the dawn of the Revolution,” is part history, part magical realism, and in equal parts an admonishment to be brave and dare to step off into that adventure, no matter how scary that first step may be.

Columbia College is very diverse economically, socially, ethnically, and in gender/sexuality identities. I encourage /p/u/s/h/ my students to explore stories, settings, characters, and themes beyond white knight in a generic Medieval European land rescues princess from dragon. We’ve all read that, wrote our own fan-fic, bought the “knights are crunchy and good with ketchup” T-shirt and wore it out. It’s past time for new kinds of fantasy stories.

And that is exactly what Carlos gives us in his first collection. That marvelous title, once again, is The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, and it’s due out at the end of January 2016 from Rosarium.

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