Tag: Books

Throw Up My Skirts

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

A recurring complaint from my Alpha Readers — and now one of my Beta Readers, is that I don’t tell them enough. They want more details about the world, more about the history of the characters.

I have two main characters, and I sort of summarily dump them into the plot together. They both have Dark Pasts and Important Backstories [tm], but…and this is the crux, their backstory doesn’t have anything to do with the plot du jour.  The amorphous goals that I am moving Spell/Sword towards are pace, energy, and involvement. I don’t want to put any woolgathering or world history navel gazing — just accept the tropes and characters as presented, and show me a little trust.   Epic fantasy tends to frontload all of the exposition and world detail, I just want the reader to strap in and go along for the ride. This is episodic structure, not an epic trilogy.

A good example of this would be the pilot episode of Firefly. Admittedly, not a perfect example — that’s a vast ensemble. You’re only shown enough about the world and the character to serve the plot of the episode.

Okay, it’s in space. Mal was in a battle, his side lost. Okay, time passed. Oh, it’s the Civil War. I get it. Hmmm, Asian influences have become culturally dominant. Evil Empire, band of mercenaries and thieves. Okay, Mal’s a rogue with a conscience, Zoe’s a devoted soldier, Wash is comic-relief — oh hey, he and Zoe are married. Jane’s a thug, Kaylee’s an innocent mechanic, Inara’s a diplomatic courtesan, Book’s a priest, Simon is a rich kid doctor on the run, and River’s nuts. Oh, she’s super powerful/insane/government project — the empire is going to hunt her the entire show, hook set for the arc of the first season. Ooh, Reapers are nasty. 

You don’t get the description of every major location in the ‘Verse. You don’t learn anything about the actual setup of the Alliance government, or the name of it’s ruling body. You don’t know how Mal got from being a defeated solider to captain of Serenity, you don’t know anything about Zoe and Wash’s courtship. Book has about eighteen arrows pointing towards him that say MYSTERIOUS SECRET — but, none of that resolves in the first episode. Whedon throws all these tropes into a ship, lets them rattle around a little, then unmasks the sleeper agent who tries to capture River. The character and world exposition always takes a backseat to the action of each scene — and more importantly, the character relationships. The family dynamic of the crew and the budding connections between the new passengers — and their reaction to the imminent danger at hand is what makes that episode work.

We all know right off the bat that Book used to be an assassin. That’s a trope, the holy man who put down the sword. It appears again and again. Whedon could have spent 10 minutes explaining about the Alliance Death Squad and their memorable exploits, but that’s now what makes a work of fiction interesting or memorable. What makes Book more than a trope is his relationships — his seeking out of wisdom from Inara, his antagonistic mentoring of Mal, his almost paternal relationship with Jane.

That’s how I’m trying to view this first book. It’s the first episode. Here’s my wacky duo, here’s their powers, here’s a little sniff of their past, here’s some action, here’s some villains, here’s some crazy, there’s some weird, and hey, book’s over.

One of my favorite episodic novels. The Dresden Files is a good example. I almost stopped reading after the first one, because so many pages were devoted to explaining exactly who Harry was, the various supernatural forces around Chicago, how magic worked, how making potions worked, the backstory of his cat, the backstory of his car,etc. etc. — only when I picked up book two, and all of those details were read did the kick-assery truly begin.

So — to sum up. My goal is to write my very first book and have it be just as good as Firefly and Book Two of The Dresden Files. And I’m going to self-publish. And this doesn’t sound very likely does it?

I have been listening to my Alpha Readers — there was a significant increase/clarification of world and character information in the Beta Draft. But, there’s got to be a line. There is an argument to be made that leaving my readers wanting to know more is a good thing — but I’m a little terrified of leaving them annoyed, instead of motivated.

I am courting my readers, dammit. And I’m just not the sort of girl to throw up my skirts on the first date.

Ultimately, I’m in the weird position of being beholden to no one as a self-publisher. I don’t have an agent or a publishing house demanding that I add more romantic tension between the main characters, or insisting that I cut out the Steam-Skating Frogs as nonsensical. But I also don’t have the advantage of their experience either. I can write it however I want, and no one can stop me from spending a few days on Amazon putting it into print.

Man, it must be relaxing to have an editor.

I’m just starting to get weary of eighteenth-guessing everything in the book. I have a legitimate fear of totally abandoning my own judgement and just cramming in every possible thing into the book that anyone could ever want to see. And winding up with a big ungainly, craven mess. OR not doing that, and putting out an austere, confusing desert.

On Witches

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment
Alleb – Robot Pencil/Anthony Jones

“a Witch is born out of the true hungers of her time (…) I am a child of the poisonous wind that copulated with the River on an oil-slick, garbage infested midnight. I turn about on my own parentage. I inoculate against those very biles that brought me to light. I am a serum born of venoms. I am the antibody of all Time.”

― Long After Midnight, Ray Bradbury

 

Doesn’t that just make you sick? I have a witch in Spell/Sword, and several of my early readers have asked ‘What’s the deal with this witch?’. I’ve tried several times to explain with rambling and halting description. Then I came across this quote on Tumblr — perfectly summed it up. Freaking Bradbury.

 

Book of Teon V

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My left arm is moving. Every time I blink, it inches forward. I do not have the strength to kill this evil.

I must speak faster.

Days passed, and weeks. I slept and ate and healed and learned to speak the strange tongue of Jalyx

Confession Tower by Piotr Gadja

and his people. He was my savior, my first friend on Aufero – and I swore that his kindness would be repaid tenfold.

My left hand…it moves.

So much that happened, so many years. Must speak faster. We found the survivors of the crash and the wreckage. Both my parents were dead. I found myself made Captain of a shattered craft.

Must speak faster.

With time and skill we repaired the music hall in our ship, and called the fleet to the planet. We faced many dangers and complications, but I was determined to make Jalyx’s home a paradise — a place where we could share our knowledge with any who desired it. I should have guarded our knowledge more carefully, there were many who sought to abuse it. But the years were golden, and the songs we sang knew nothing of doubt.

Inside me the flower of evil slowly bloomed.

That was the curse, the horror of it all. I can see it now. The shining cities, the bridges of purest white, the towers of glass rose again — but everything we built, everything I built had in it a flaw. A shadow. Twisted lines carefully placed by my left hand.  Note by note we sang, but each verse hid a darker chord.

And then my greatest achievement. The Machine. My left hand’s glory.

As I grew in power and fame, my people began to look to me for wisdom. In their grief the Lost could find no satisfaction in the things we built here, nor in the friends we gained. I tried to show them the wonder of our new home, but they would not listen. Their hearts grew hollow and sere — and they begged me. My own people begged me. ‘Oh, Teon – First Singer! Use your skill to take us back Home.”

‘But I cannot. The Dark One waits there, covering an entire galaxy with his malice.’

‘Then build us a weapon. A weapon of Light that can strike him down!’

I knew it was folly, but my hand itched to build it. A colossus, a pure warrior of light.  I could not see…

——

I fell asleep. How long have I been asleep? My hand.

No. No. It is gone. My left hand is gone.

The blue flower blooms.

It isn’t over.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Jalyx, I’m sorry.

 

Book of Teon IV

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Andy Kehoe

The sun moved above me, I saw the three strange moons again and again.  Days passed, and I was alone.

Blood drained out of my heart and I waited for the end. A bud formed on the root piercing my chest, it opened slowly, its petals a deep blue.

And then he came to me. Jalyx was his name. So strange, as my name echoes throughout the pages of history, that no one remembers his name, his beautiful name. Much later he told me that his name meant something ridiculous, an odd waterfowl with bright red plumage.  I was appalled and insisted that we give his name a new meaning — like moonlight, or the smell of autumn leaves. He laughed and said his name could mean anything I wished.

Anything I wished. Such power so casually tossed at my feet.

I wander again.

He moved cautiously into my little glade, morning sunlight behind him.  His skin was dark, long green hair threaded through beads of bone and glass. A native, his eyes wide with wonder and horror. Finding me dying, impaled on the root of the black tree. I cried out in surprise and relief, alien words to his ears.

But Jalyx was not afraid. He stepped into the glade, and looked me over with severe caution. He gripped my shoulders and pulled me off the root in one quick motion.

Relief mixed with fresh pain, I cried out. He picked me up and carried me out of the glade.

My last view of the dark tree was of the blood stained earth around an empty spike. The blue flower was gone, disappeared somewhere inside my chest.

It is important to say – the tree had no flowers. Not before, nor after. The malevolent blue flower bloomed from a seed that I brought with me, all the way from Home.

Book of Teon III

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Did my left hand just move? Did my eyes shut a little too long?

I must stay awake. Awake until the end.

I fell. Through the skies of the blue planet, my body tumbling and burning with heat.

The Lost are stronger than we appear. It was always a wonder to the creatures of Aufero that such frail, golden-skin things as we could hide such might. I fell through the atmosphere, clouds fleeing from my descent.

I was young then and I was afraid. I cried out for my father to save me, for my mother to save me. But the clouds gave way to empty air and I rushed faster and faster towards the earth below.

A saw an ocean, larger than any from Home. A desert, a range of mountains, then finally a dark forest.

I spun in the air, my eyes toward the skies – hoping to catch a glimpse of the silver ship. Nothing.

The Lament of the Heartless by HFFK

The forest wrapped itself around me, and there was pain. Pain like I had never known.

Did my left hand just move? Or is it just a memory?

I do not know how long I abandoned the seat of my mind to the God of Pain. Hours, days, the lifetime of a stone. But at last I crawled back to sanity and looked out of my own eyes again.

I wished then I had not.  To return to the abyss and drift away.  Better if I had. Perhaps, some part of me would like to still say — but I look at my left hand and I know. It would have been better if I had died then.

My body lay at the base of a vast tree.  The bark was black and the leaves were gray, edged with blue ash. And through my left side pushed a great root, right through my heart.

In horror I pulled away the cloth from the stinking bloody thing. It was gnarled and vicious, ending in a sharp point. In my pain I glimpsed the truth, even then. This root had been waiting for me. The tree had grown just so, in this exact spot – patient and vile.

Feeble, I tried to push myself up off the evil spike. But I could not, it had me by the heart. I would die before I was free.

As I have said, the Lost are stronger than we appear. Even a mortal wound can take quite some time to claim us. But without food or aid the end marched closer.

I wept.  I was young and alone. My people had fled the Dark One, thrown themselves into the unknown to escape and I had fallen immediately into another trap. How strange I must have appeared, a small golden child at the foot of a dark tree. A spike of wood through my chest, tears spilling down my face.

But there was no one to see. At least not right away.

Book of Teon II

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What can I tell you about Home? I have tried many times to describe it to the people of this world, but something is always lost in the telling. Home is a feeling, a knowledge — and no matter how many times I described the towers of glass, the river bank where I learned to swim, the smell of my grandmother’s library — I could not catch it.

It was a place not much different than this world. The sun rose, the wind blew. We only had one moon instead of the three that dance in this world’s sky. Such a greedy world, this Aufero, how could it have less than three moons?

I wander. It is what I do, in speech as well as deed. Even now, even as I wait for the end. There is something to that. Something mundane and comforting.

Our world shone. That is all I can say. It gleamed more brightly in the heavens than any other star, every one of the Lost can point to it in their sleep — even though it shines no more. It was our Home, and we knew as we left it that we would never return. And we knew that we would never stop grieving the loss of it.

Desert by ~thefireis

The Dark swallowed it whole, and we fled. The entirety of my race crammed on half-a-hundred silver ships, flung into the sea of stars. But that is not the true beginning of my story.

My story begins with falling.

The fastest ships were chosen, to seek out a place to land – a place to begin again. My father was the captain and he slept not at all as our ship plunged ever forward into the dark. The far-singers hummed as we approached barren planets and balls of molten fire — every one was discordant.  Ugly noise and static.

We flew on and on, day after day. Hoping to find a place that the Dark had not touched. A whole universe of empty rock and death. In desperation we returned to the fleet and found the same answer in the weary faces of the other captains.

I remember how my father took my mother’s hands and laid his forehead on hers. They looked into each other’s eyes and she nodded. They knew what must be done, and the risks. The other ships would wait, and ours would risk Beyond.

My mother sang the Song of Away.

The universe grew thin and we slipped through the walls as she sang. I stood next to my father and listened hard for the tune of another place, any place that we could go.

I think I heard it before my father, but maybe a heartbeat before. I still remember the joy in his eyes when he heard the faint melody.

And then the melody was a march — Aufero, the greedy – Aufero, the thief — reached out and pulled us in.

We erupted into that universe like a comet being born. The silver ship bucked and spun, the songs of my people becoming screams. Through the windows I caught my first glimpse of the planet.

It was blue. I fell in love.

Then the glass shattered, and I fell towards the greedy planet.

My story had begun.

Book of Teon I

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My name is Teon.

There was a time, and there was a place where and when that name meant something.  A bright name, a fell name. East of the Sun, and West of the Moon in the place we once called home. A place that is lost, a time that will never come again.

Now my name is rubble. My name is a relic. Here in the shattered foundations of Kythera it echoes and lingers, the voices

the nick of time
-guan-yu chen.

of my people scream out my name in pain and despair. I want to tell them that it wasn’t me, that it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t bring the Machine.

It was my left hand.

It lies quiet now, folded on my stomach.  Black blood whimpers out of  a dozen small wounds, inflicted by the sharp instrument I hold in my right hand. It is a delicate instrument, best suited for aligning tiny wires or adjusting the fine components on a word-board. It served this purpose ably, plunging again and again into my skin. There was pain, but distant — not my pain. My left hand mimics true feeling but it is always false, the pain is no different.

I will die soon. At least, that is my hope. I fear that if I fall unconscious before my heart ceases to beat, that my left hand will rise and repair my wounds. I must stay awake until the Dark One comes. I have fled him all my life, running further and faster than any others of my kin. But now I welcome him as my boon companion.

To stay awake, I will tell my story. This sound crystal is fully powered, it shall last longer than I will.  I will speak the story of my name. How we, who the people of this world call the Lost, came here trying to escape the dark, on our silver ships made of song and steel.

But we brought it with us.

I brought it with us.

Light help me, I brought it with us.

Spackle

G. Derek Adams2 Comments
Mr. Poirot is unimpressed with my narrative structure.

Okay — finished with all of the individual edits from my reporting Alpha readers. I wrote some new stuff, cut a bunch of stuff [mostly chintzy dialogue] that wasn’t working.

Now it’s time to see how the spackle dries.

Now to read the whole book with subtractions and deletions to see how it holds together — I think I’ll record it again, and listen to it while I edit further, that was super helpful the first time around.

Oh Noetry Day

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Jonas Burgert. Deed Marked / Tat markiert, 2009.

The Ritual of Tears

Druid-born and wild-blood meet
In roots of stone beneath the feet
of Six-Branch tree and seal the pact
made in love at Eld World wrack.
Last of all, a true-hearted knight
Breaks sword of green, ends winter’s blight.
Now weep and wail, and keep the Word
Sorrow-song forgotten, but always heard.

 

[ Some flavor-text from my current Pathfinder campaign, Titan’s Wake. I’ll try to do some more substantive blogging soon — but, I’m editing, intrinsically lazy, and tearing my way through Homestuck…so….yeah…. and it’s National Poetry Day!]

 

 

 

Too Much Pepper in the Soup

G. Derek Adams1 Comment

How much detail is too much? I’m trying to flesh out some sections of Spell/Sword with some more detail, world description, etc. – but I never want it to weigh down the forward momentum. Got to just dab a sentence here, a short paragraph there — keep it lean, but still reward the readers who want more information about the world.

Good problem to have. Tough problem to solve.