Influences
I'm reading way too much Regency romance, apparently; suddenly my story's dealing with characters dressing correctly and acting like proper nobles. I need some grit here!
Off to resume the latest by George R.R. Martin as an antidote…
(Now watch all my characters die off. Heh.)
Explosions and kisses
Taking a gasp of air from all the stuff that's been keeping me busy–
I've read somewhere that when a story's stalled, the writer can insert a sudden explosion or a kiss to jump-start the plot. Instant action! (Of possibly either sort.) With romance, you probably lean toward the latter.
I don't usually insert random kisses right at the stuck point. But one of the problems I have with my preference for a single point of view* is that I have a firm handle on the POV character…and in romances, you obviously need to have a good feel on both members of the couple. So I might be in a Vulcan mind-meld with the heroine from the first paragraph, but since I never explore the thought-space of the hero, he's a cardboard cut-out, and it's hard to summon chemistry with one of those. I don't have any motivation to get the two together.
What I'll do is skip forward to the scene of the first kiss. There'll be emotional overtones to this kiss, of course, and I can reverse-engineer those feelings to figure out how the pair got into such a compromising situation. And knowing the shape of the developing relationship will usually offer insight into what kind of people are involved in it.
I love non-linear drafting.
When I get around to my next science fiction work, though, I'm going to try writing a future boom! scene and see where that takes me in a backwards fashion…
* I think this preference may stem from reading too many epic fantasy series that visit various characters' heads.
Slip Point released
My first science fiction romance! Complete with another gorgeous cover from the astonishingly talented Frauke, who perfectly captured Shay and Jayce's relationship. I must also thank Rhonda Helms for making the book both prettier and stronger on the inside, and Alissa Davis for prompting me to finish this story. Also my brother, for not collapsing in laughter when I called this one "science fiction."
I was a little nervous about my foray into this genre, but the key ended up being to treat this story like any other, one I would write for fun. I had to consciously back away from worrying about valid science and just enjoy being able to use words like "capsids." And, as for any romance, the characters led the way.
Here's an excerpt showing how Shayalin becomes a pirate:
Interview and a new story
Heather Massey, science fiction writer and reader extraordinaire, interviewed me at The Galaxy Express about Slip Point (which is coming out tomorrow). Even if you don't read the interview, take a look around her site; she has a hound's nose for genre news and a ton of thoughtful posts about the industry and her experiences on both sides of it. Also a burning love for space pirates, which we all should have.
Edited to add: I totally forgot to mention that there's a giveaway of a copy of Slip Point over at The Galaxy Express. But you were going there anyway to check out the cool articles, right?
I've also added a free read to my site, which is science fiction with a hint of romance: "On the Eve of War."
Permalink Comments Off
Still nibbling at sf ideas
My mental prompt was "big stompy robots," although I ease my way into it.
Permalink Comments Off
Rereading
I used to reread books out of necessity — English-language spec fic was hard to come by at the time, and I read fast. New books would get acquired, then finished: ding! Next! Nothing? So I reread each book on about an average of once a year.
Now in the land of plenty, I have books on my shelves that I haven't read even once. (The culprit: library book sales, where a quarter will garner me with that title someone recommended but I never bothered to track down, and this way I can pick it up whenever I want…except that I never really wanted to read it in the first place. Someday I will learn and properly hoard my quarters for laundry.) I don't actually own a TV, and the focal point of my living room is a lovely wide bookcase which is devoted to hardcovers and trade paperbacks.
My mass markets have been exiled to quarantine until I'm positive the silverfish manifestation is forever vanquished. This may take a while, as my local farmers market includes a fabulous sorbet stand which constantly stocks my freezer, and I'm hesitant to introduce silverfish to the same habitat as this delight. The sorbet is mine! All mine!
Result: I reread my hardcovers more often than my paperbacks, even though I usually read while holding the book in one hand, and this is slightly more straining with a hardcover. It's the same reason particular items get stocked on eye-level shelves. If you notice something more, there's more chance for you to actually pick it up.
The real consequence I've noticed is that I practically never reread my ebooks. Generally I read them when I buy them, and it's never a problem to acquire more. (Or rather, it's a problem that I can acquire more so easily. Certain online bookstores are very friendly with my credit card. Downright intimate, even.) And I don't have them organized at all: they're scattered across four devices, five formats, and countless download folders. So there's nowhere for me to go to just browse through them and rekindle that fond feeling I once felt for certain ones.
Sadly, I'm not particularly motivated to go back through them all, either. Because buying an ebook is often cheap and easy, I have quite a few that I wish I hadn't read once, never mind multiple times. But because I bought them and storage space is bountiful, I never deleted them. So these lumps of coal continue to dwell in my ebook mines.
I'm curious as to how others keep track of their ebooks and whether it differs greatly from how their physical books are treated. My print books are divided by size and nonfiction/fiction, then alphabetized by author; my ebooks are scattered about in approximately the same pattern you'd get after a squirrel learned to operate a BB gun. (At the same time, I'm utterly horrified by people who keep documents on their computer desktops. Go figure.)
Permalink Comments Off
Researching by doing
I read once about a fantasy author who traveled to foreign countries and lived there while he wrote novels based on the history of those locales. Even with centuries separating him from his target time period, no amount of library or interview research would have imparted the same flavor as being on location surely did. People notice different things about the same experience, and those unique little details are often what are most convincing.
Since I write a lot of traditional medievalesque fantasy, my characters engage in archery, sword-fighting, and horse-riding. So far I've managed to write about these activities because I've read so many other fantasy novels with characters who did these things — but since some of those authors were likely faking it themselves, this inevitably leads to the writing of scenes that probably cause Judith Tarr to despair. (She raises horses and blogs about the reality of dealing with them.)
So when I was offered the opportunity to take some free fencing classes, I leapt at it. Would it be anything like actual sword-fighting back in the day? No, but it would be closer than, say, tennis, which was the only one-on-one competitive sport I'd played where you held an instrument.
Next up: a Groupon for indoor archery instruction. And then horse-riding lessons, I think.
I'm not looking to become an expert in any of these things — don't expect me to start galloping around with a bow slung over my shoulder and a foil in my hand, performing martial feats. But even brief experiences will let me observe with five senses, and hopefully bring those observations to the page with a ring of authenticity.
Permalink Comments Off
Relationships that rock in sf
Science fiction couples this time:
- Theodora and Ran in Doris Egan's Ivory trilogy. She's an anthropology student stranded on his planet; he's the heir to a powerful noble house who wants her to read his fortune. Cultural hijinks ensue. I particularly loved the long wedding period, which required certain rituals to take place at specific intervals, something made difficult whilst the two are off having unexpected adventures.
- Cordelia and Aral in Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. Two remarkably capable people on opposing sides open each other's eyes: she discovers that under his horrifying reputation is a man of honor, while he comes to admire her competence and compassion.
- Kerk and Jalci in "Blood" by Sharon Shinn (find it in her Quatrain). He's calm, she's confrontational; they live in nearly separate cultures, and yet his search for family and her stalwart defense of her people cause their paths to intersect. I loved how Shinn brought them inevitably closer and closer despite their differences.
Sadly, this was a harder list to compile, mostly because I've read less science fiction than fantasy. I must work on that.
Character descriptions
Like most writers who started young, I went through a phase of giving my characters eyes and hair of dramatic hues. Gems and precious metals were particularly common: "amethyst" or "silver" or the ever-popular color-changing gaze.
Clearly this tendency toward rainbows isn't limited to folks who grow up in homogeneous populations, but as someone raised in Korea, I might have been trying to escape the straight black hair and brown eyes that pretty much everyone had.
Now I hate providing physical descriptions, perhaps after reading a few too many tales where the heroine wakes up in the morning and looks at herself in the mirror, providing a tidy catalogue of all her features. Also, I'm horrible at visualizing from text; as a reader, I never play the casting game (where you pick actors and actresses you think would fit characters' appearances).
These days I reckon that the most important traits actually give a clue as to the person's livelihood or personality: callused hands, prematurely graying hair, that sort of thing. Let's say all your characters do have the same colored hair and same colored eyes. What would you fall back on? Their mannerisms, perhaps. If the first time I encounter a character, all I hear is that she has a wicked smile, I know so much more about her that matters than I would if you gave me her driver's license.
Brought to you by the letter K and curiosity as to whether the tiny scraps of physical description I provide to my cover artists is freeing or frustrating. (That said, they do incredible work! I can't wait to share my next cover.)
Unedited excerpt from Let Slip Glory: An unexpected journey
This is the tale about a girl who strikes up an unlikely companionship with a half-breed hellhound, set in the same world as Demon's Fall.
Permalink Comments Off