Mad Men is less about story than it is about character. Or rather, it's less obviously about story. The characters drive the action; sometimes Things Happen from external, unpredictable sources, but most of the conflict and tension and drama in the show stems from how the characters respond to things.
Don seeks that creative problem-solving place, because it makes him feel like he has an identity; Peggy wants to be treated like an equal, and wavers between obedient conformity and tough aggression; Pete wants, above all else, respect, and views events through the lens of how much he respect they gain or lose him.
In this season's premiere double-sized episode, we also learned a great deal about where Lane's psyche currently sits. His racist reaction to the black cab driver's offer to return the lost wallet stands in stark contrast to his rebellious pride at having a black girlfriend in season 4. His desire for sexual liberty, demonstrated by the aforementioned black girlfriend (and encouraged by Don when they had that night on the town, complete with hookers), has been suppressed in favor of reconciling with his wife, but Lane still held out a (slightly creepy) hope that the mysterious Delores might be interested in him.
It is hard writing characters of this depth and complexity, and any great writer should, it seems obvious, focus on the immensely difficult task of creating characters. Story and plotting are easy by comparison; great characters drive their stories.
27 March, 2012
23 March, 2012
Focusing on the Easy Stuff
What is the focus of most discussions about writing fantasy fiction?
Frankly, it's the easy stuff: historical details, magic systems, horses, swords, clothes, government. The stuff you can go read a couple of books about and get a perfectly good handle on, and because you read a couple of books about it, you're way ahead of most of the people reading the book you write as a result.
What's missing? Character. Story structure. Narrative flow. Building tension over a novel-length story.
There are very few discussions of these topics. It's not hard to see why; these are the difficult parts of writing, the elusive parts that are at the core of every great book ever written, and nobody who hasn't been pretty successful is going to be considered much of an authority on those topics.
Should we be trying to encourage more discussions about these kinds of topics? Is there any point? Will we get anything out of it, or would that time be better spent actually writing our own work? Is it even possible to discuss these things in any meaningful way without some sort of formal scholarly framework behind it?
11 March, 2012
The Best Rejection
I'm up to six short story rejections—but the most recent one came with a (short) explanation!
I do realize that it might still be a "form" rejection—maybe "external camera" is on his prefab rejection list right between "I saw the twist coming a mile away that your main character turns out to be Jesus" and "Your prose reminds me of a Chick tract written by someone having an aneurysm"—but the very presence of that second sentence tells me that I'm possibly on the right track.
I've never been so happy to be rejected in my life.
For all I know, this will mark the apogee of my efforts, but I intend to keep at it until I do succeed (by a more conventional standard).
Unfortunately, it's not quite right for us. The details felt vivid, but the tone of the narrative felt to me more like an external camera, recounting the dialog and actions of the story from afar but not taking me inside a character's head to make me feel the story through their own eyes, through their personality and attitude and mood, such that I could empathize with their goals or fears.Given the story in question, I can't argue; he's got a point. But the fact that the editor in question actually decided to give an explanation is incredibly encouraging.
I do realize that it might still be a "form" rejection—maybe "external camera" is on his prefab rejection list right between "I saw the twist coming a mile away that your main character turns out to be Jesus" and "Your prose reminds me of a Chick tract written by someone having an aneurysm"—but the very presence of that second sentence tells me that I'm possibly on the right track.
I've never been so happy to be rejected in my life.
For all I know, this will mark the apogee of my efforts, but I intend to keep at it until I do succeed (by a more conventional standard).
06 March, 2012
The Roundtable Podcast
So my good friend Dave Robison, along with his compatriot Brion Humphrey, have started a nifty new podcast called the Roundtable Podcast. Its primary focus is on bringing together an established writer as a guest host (like, say, for example, J. Daniel Sawyer) and a new, up-and-coming writer (like, say, ME!) to go over a story pitch and help flesh out some of the ideas.
And I was lucky enough to be the guest writer for the first episode, which is now available at the RTP's website. So go check it out! It's quite entertaining; I listened to it last night. I like to think that I didn't sound nearly as lame as I thought I did when we were recording it.
And I was lucky enough to be the guest writer for the first episode, which is now available at the RTP's website. So go check it out! It's quite entertaining; I listened to it last night. I like to think that I didn't sound nearly as lame as I thought I did when we were recording it.
05 March, 2012
Evolution
Four short story rejections and counting.
Nine months ago, when I started writing seriously, I had this vision that I would write my novel straight through, and then self-publish it. I figured I'd be done by the end of the year.
I was wrong. But I did learn a great many things along the way, including a lot about the worlds of e-publishing and self-publishing, and I ended up becoming motivated to start self-(e-)publishing short stories as a way to begin building a name for myself. It wasn't something I could have predicted, but it turns out to be an approach that, I think, works well for me.
It is, in fact, I think an ideal example of the four stages of competence. At first, I thought, "I'll write a novel! And it'll be great!" Not realizing, of course, that I had never written a novel before, and that there are a number of skills involved in it beyond the simple ability to put one word after another. This was the unconscious incompetence phase: I didn't recognize that I didn't know what I was doing.
I think now I'm in the conscious incompetence phase. I know that I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm doing my best to keep at it, hoping that some day I'll actually be reasonably good at this. That'll be the conscious competence phase, of course, followed, some day (I hope!) by the unconscious competence phase, where I am a master author and the world is my oyster. (Actually, I hate oysters. Why can't the world be my shrimp tempura roll?)
Nine months ago, when I started writing seriously, I had this vision that I would write my novel straight through, and then self-publish it. I figured I'd be done by the end of the year.
I was wrong. But I did learn a great many things along the way, including a lot about the worlds of e-publishing and self-publishing, and I ended up becoming motivated to start self-(e-)publishing short stories as a way to begin building a name for myself. It wasn't something I could have predicted, but it turns out to be an approach that, I think, works well for me.
It is, in fact, I think an ideal example of the four stages of competence. At first, I thought, "I'll write a novel! And it'll be great!" Not realizing, of course, that I had never written a novel before, and that there are a number of skills involved in it beyond the simple ability to put one word after another. This was the unconscious incompetence phase: I didn't recognize that I didn't know what I was doing.
I think now I'm in the conscious incompetence phase. I know that I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm doing my best to keep at it, hoping that some day I'll actually be reasonably good at this. That'll be the conscious competence phase, of course, followed, some day (I hope!) by the unconscious competence phase, where I am a master author and the world is my oyster. (Actually, I hate oysters. Why can't the world be my shrimp tempura roll?)
25 February, 2012
Knowing What You Want
Well now, it seems that I've gone and gotten an article published on Mythic Scribes! Check it out, and if you feel inspired, participate in the discussion!
23 February, 2012
Jury Duty
Eleven years ago I served as jury foreman on a criminal trial here in Los Angeles. It was a short trial, a domestic abuse charge. The jury eventually hung because of two jurors who simply could not accept the fact that there was no valid reason for a man to EVER strike a woman—"Not even in self-defense?" I asked, and they shook their heads.
By coincidence I was unemployed at that time, and during lunch break one day went to a job interview for the job I still hold to this day. Before, I had always considered jury duty to be something for rubes. "Do you really want to trust your fate to twelve people who couldn't get out of jury duty?" was the old joke.
But afterward, I realized that it had actually been a really interesting process, and over time I also came to realize how important it is to have fair (or as fair as humans can reasonably get) jury trials. These days, whenever anyone complains about jury duty (especially folks who get paid time off for it), I point out that jury trials are part of the reason we don't live in a country beset by warlords, death squads, and brutal tyranny. As much as people like the rhetoric about how absolutely awful things are here in the U.S. these days (and they certainly have been better), we're a long, long way from many of the privations that other, less fortunate people have to deal with on a daily basis.
I'm serving jury service right now. Yes, it interferes with my job; but it's important, and in the long run, I'm glad to do it, I'll be glad to serve on a jury if called, and I'd be damn glad others are too if it was my ass on the line.
By coincidence I was unemployed at that time, and during lunch break one day went to a job interview for the job I still hold to this day. Before, I had always considered jury duty to be something for rubes. "Do you really want to trust your fate to twelve people who couldn't get out of jury duty?" was the old joke.
But afterward, I realized that it had actually been a really interesting process, and over time I also came to realize how important it is to have fair (or as fair as humans can reasonably get) jury trials. These days, whenever anyone complains about jury duty (especially folks who get paid time off for it), I point out that jury trials are part of the reason we don't live in a country beset by warlords, death squads, and brutal tyranny. As much as people like the rhetoric about how absolutely awful things are here in the U.S. these days (and they certainly have been better), we're a long, long way from many of the privations that other, less fortunate people have to deal with on a daily basis.
I'm serving jury service right now. Yes, it interferes with my job; but it's important, and in the long run, I'm glad to do it, I'll be glad to serve on a jury if called, and I'd be damn glad others are too if it was my ass on the line.
17 February, 2012
The Woes of Technology
So, a week or so ago the power supply on my desktop started whining--this high-pitched, barely audible squeal. I should have known to replace the power supply, but alas, when we had a power surge yesterday--ZAP! The power supply died, along with my motherboard and hard drive, at the very least.
Thankfully I have pretty recent backups of the most important things (that is, my writing) so nothing truly important was lost. Just some recent data, and nothing critical. But it's still a pain in the arse. I've ordered new parts from NewEgg, which are winging their way to me now--but this couldn't have happened on a less-convenient day: Thursday night. Meaning that even if I ordered with overnight shipping, the earliest it could possibly get to me is Monday--no wait, Tuesday, because it's a holiday weekend.
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU--
Then, of course, while I was troubleshooting my computer -- my wife suggested that I try the power supply from her computer in mind, which didn't work -- somehow HER monitor died, and then for entirely unrelated reasons, the boot sector on her hard drive got corrupted and had to be repaired. So now she's using my monitor, I'm using her laptop, and for the next four or five days I'm basically stuck using Windows.
This makes writing a problem, so I'm probably not going to get much of it done for the next several days. A pox on you, technology.
Thankfully I have pretty recent backups of the most important things (that is, my writing) so nothing truly important was lost. Just some recent data, and nothing critical. But it's still a pain in the arse. I've ordered new parts from NewEgg, which are winging their way to me now--but this couldn't have happened on a less-convenient day: Thursday night. Meaning that even if I ordered with overnight shipping, the earliest it could possibly get to me is Monday--no wait, Tuesday, because it's a holiday weekend.
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU--
Then, of course, while I was troubleshooting my computer -- my wife suggested that I try the power supply from her computer in mind, which didn't work -- somehow HER monitor died, and then for entirely unrelated reasons, the boot sector on her hard drive got corrupted and had to be repaired. So now she's using my monitor, I'm using her laptop, and for the next four or five days I'm basically stuck using Windows.
This makes writing a problem, so I'm probably not going to get much of it done for the next several days. A pox on you, technology.
11 February, 2012
Rejection
Two short story rejections and counting. Three more pending. Stephen King lost count of how many rejections he got before he finally sold a short story, but it was at least a hundred.
Although my primary concern is finishing my novel, Mindfire, it's difficult for me to monomaniacally focus on it when I have other unrelated ideas floating about in me 'ead. So I've been writing a number of short stories lately, in the 1k-3k word range—flash fiction seems to be quite popular these days, and a lot of paying markets are seeking stories in that length range (or even shorter!).
So I alternate between writing the novel and writing short stories. Some of these I'll post for free on the blog (such as The Destiny of Kajiyama Shen), some of these I'll self-publish (such as The Demons of Lashtë and Chalice and Knives), and others I will put through the rigors of submitting to paying markets.
It's this last that is the simplest approach, and yet the most difficult. For an unknown author, the editors of these markets (short fiction magazines and so on) have to really like the submission in order to publish it. Even if you do a lot of research—reading all the back issues to find out what kinds of things they publish, and tailoring stories for the individual market—a story that most folks would enjoy reading, if they had a chance to, might get rejected because that particular editor just didn't happen to get grabbed by it.
That doesn't mean it's not good enough to get published anywhere; maybe the twentieth market you submit the story to will accept it, and you'll never know unless you keep trying. Since the list of (e.g.) SWFA paying markets is both finite and relatively short (about 30 markets currently), it would be reasonable and feasible to submit a given story to every market on the list (or at least the appropriate ones; some only accept SF or fantasy, not both).
From a probability standpoint, having a lot of stories to submit helps, because prose fiction markets don't tolerate simultaneous submissions. Each story can only be submitted to one market at a time, and it might be weeks before you hear back. In the meantime, that story can't be submitted to anyone else. So if you write another one, you can be shopping that one around as well. Each story in the pipeline increases your chance of selling one.
Do the math: If each story has a (let's be generous) 1% chance of being accepted on each submission, and there's 30 paying markets, then a given story will have a (1 - 0.9930) ~= 26% chance of being sold, if you were to submit it to all the markets. (For a given story, this might take a year or two, if each market takes a couple of weeks to respond.) Shop enough stories around to all the markets, and one of them might get sold.
You could get lucky and sell a story on your third or fourth submission. Or it might take hundreds, like Stephen King. The only thing you can do is not let yourself get discouraged, and keep at it: "Never give up. Never surrender."
Although my primary concern is finishing my novel, Mindfire, it's difficult for me to monomaniacally focus on it when I have other unrelated ideas floating about in me 'ead. So I've been writing a number of short stories lately, in the 1k-3k word range—flash fiction seems to be quite popular these days, and a lot of paying markets are seeking stories in that length range (or even shorter!).
So I alternate between writing the novel and writing short stories. Some of these I'll post for free on the blog (such as The Destiny of Kajiyama Shen), some of these I'll self-publish (such as The Demons of Lashtë and Chalice and Knives), and others I will put through the rigors of submitting to paying markets.
It's this last that is the simplest approach, and yet the most difficult. For an unknown author, the editors of these markets (short fiction magazines and so on) have to really like the submission in order to publish it. Even if you do a lot of research—reading all the back issues to find out what kinds of things they publish, and tailoring stories for the individual market—a story that most folks would enjoy reading, if they had a chance to, might get rejected because that particular editor just didn't happen to get grabbed by it.
That doesn't mean it's not good enough to get published anywhere; maybe the twentieth market you submit the story to will accept it, and you'll never know unless you keep trying. Since the list of (e.g.) SWFA paying markets is both finite and relatively short (about 30 markets currently), it would be reasonable and feasible to submit a given story to every market on the list (or at least the appropriate ones; some only accept SF or fantasy, not both).
From a probability standpoint, having a lot of stories to submit helps, because prose fiction markets don't tolerate simultaneous submissions. Each story can only be submitted to one market at a time, and it might be weeks before you hear back. In the meantime, that story can't be submitted to anyone else. So if you write another one, you can be shopping that one around as well. Each story in the pipeline increases your chance of selling one.
Do the math: If each story has a (let's be generous) 1% chance of being accepted on each submission, and there's 30 paying markets, then a given story will have a (1 - 0.9930) ~= 26% chance of being sold, if you were to submit it to all the markets. (For a given story, this might take a year or two, if each market takes a couple of weeks to respond.) Shop enough stories around to all the markets, and one of them might get sold.
You could get lucky and sell a story on your third or fourth submission. Or it might take hundreds, like Stephen King. The only thing you can do is not let yourself get discouraged, and keep at it: "Never give up. Never surrender."
05 February, 2012
Inspiration observed
I was at my son's school yesterday, helping build a garden. Shovel in hand, I was waiting to dig a hole when I realized that the conversation I was hearing out of the corner of my ear was very one-sided. It was pitched in a way that made me think it was someone talking on the phone, and when I glanced over, sure enough, there I saw a dad with his cellphone at his ear.
I looked away from this unremarkable occurrence, and then a moment later noticed that something had just changed in the tenor of his speech. I instinctively felt sympathy, and then realized that it was because I knew he had just been rejected in some way. Maybe he had offered to meet up with someone, and they said no. I tuned in a little better and replayed the overheard words in my head: "Oh. Okay. Well, maybe another time, then."
It probably wasn't a big deal, whatever it was, but I instinctively felt sorry for him. We all know how it is to make a suggestion that we'd like to see accepted, only to have it shot down. It's invariably an awful feeling.
But it was also a moment that I filed away, something that could be used in writing a scene, that particular shift in tone and posture and expression that someone makes when they get rejected in some way. I don't know if it'll come up soon, or at all, but it was an interesting exercise in writerly observation of the human condition, squirrelling away fragments of life for later incorporation into a narrative.
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