Thanks to Jon Gibb’s Weekly Round-up of writing links:
What are you afraid of? by Donald Maass
Brent Bowen gives you permission to suck. So do Ira Glass and Brandon Sanderson. Just scroll on down and see.
Con or Bust Auction ends Sunday. Support scholarships for PoCs to go to SF/F cons of their choice.
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Right now I’m working on Substance of Shadows, the substantial re-write. I spent about a month plotting the Klarion sagas, and I’m in book 3 for the time being. I’m doing my usual thing–shifting scenes, thinking about POV, slashing and sharpening language, but this time, I’m going beyond these things.
I’m going to dig deep.
To understand what I’m talking about, let’s talk about The Were-humans and the Vegas Retreat.
The Were-humans was going to be an arty novella that I was writing specifically to send to the Writers of the Future contest. After certain authors of my acquaintance had come back from the awards without indoctrination, I decided I too could risk one weekend with Scientology, if it should come to that. I spent my pre-Vegas time sharpening the language and the poetry and really making it a thing of artifice. Well, of course I intended to get feedback and make it better. I was particularly interested in getting help with the ending.
What did I get? Good response to the language and characters, but also a sense from the readers that the story wasn’t something I was quite willing to show them. I wasn’t going deep enough. The readers could see the potential in the darned thing, but I wasn’t hitting those buttons.
I had to ask myself what was up with that. Then, epiphany. (I kept it to myself, so I don’t think anyone else noticed.) The reason I wasn’t getting close enough to the scene was because The Were-humans is about where I come from. Some of those memories are raw and make me uncomfortable. I found myself fantasizing about writing sessions that turned into long crying jags, of deep wells of anger, of pent-up frustration.
You might think I need medication, but that’s not the point. I need to dig deep. I needed to write under the glass. Clearly, I need to write this one in private.
Go back up to the top of the post and read Donald Maass’s article again. I’ve read The Fire in Fiction and I can’t help but agree with what the man says about tension and emotion. I spend a lot of time working with artifice so I can avoid emotion, which is the very thing that would make my stories work and work well. I’m staying away from elation and despair, or my versions thereof. Why? It’s hard to open yourself up, init?
I’ve got to start writing close to the emotions. Otherwise, I’ll keep producing pretty writing that causes no particular reaction in anyone, myself, let alone characters and readers.
The Vegas people want The Were-humans to be a novel. That’s a good idea, especially after plumbing the emotional depths. There goes my brief brush with Scientology! It’ll be worth it.
I have promised myself some Klarions for a while, and the same thing applies. I shudder at how shallow the characters motivations and manipulations seem in the old version! So, first I’ll get the story into some sort of shape again. And then, my betas will look it over and flay the hell out of it, and I’ll get that into shape.
After that, I’m going to dig down there and get close to those scenes.
Because I want to write fiction that makes both me and my future readers feel.
