Living the Fictional Dream

What grips you when you sit down to write? What keeps you typing or scribbling on?

Usually, I get swept up in the story, the characters, what happens next. This is especially true when I work on one of my novels in progress, but sometimes for short stories, as well. When my muse really starts to flow, it’s like I’m channelling the lives of those characters and just trying to keep up getting everything down on paper. I usually save stuff like language and word choice for the revision.

However, I’ve noticed a slight shift in the past year or so — especially with shorter stories and flash. Sometimes, as I write, I’ve been thinking more the voice of the narrator and the language itself than I used to on the first draft.

When I wrote “The Widow and the Stranger,” Sarah’s voice sprang to mind fully formed, and I was conscious about carrying it on throughout the piece. When I wrote “Alpha,” language reflecting the canine and bestial nature of my werewolf and werecoyotes was on my mind — using “barked” instead of “yelled” or “ordered,” that sort of thing. (And the same thing happened with the new story set in this universe that I’m working on now.) I have another story out on submission at the moment with a concert pianist as a main character, and the language took on certain musical terms and (I hope) rhythms.

I’m sure this isn’t new to a lot of writers out there. I know some who’ve always focused on language and theme when they write, and I’ve admired their well-crafted stories. However, it’s not a mindset I’m used to having. I’m used to throwing myself into a story, letting it submerge me, and then worrying about perfecting the language later. But, this new mindset has been interesting. It’s not quite as passionate and spontaneous as the other, but the pieces turn out a bit more polished in the end.

It all depends on the story, I suppose. the right mindset for one, might not be the right mindset for another.

I love it when people get excited about reading stories! For the most part, it really doesn’t matter what novel, short story, etc., that they are excited about. Just the fact that people are so excited about fiction that they have to talk about it and share it with their friends is great. It helps balance out all the depressing stuff you read all the time about the horrible state of publishing today and how TV and video games have totally replaced reading in the lives of most people.

My first “midnight madness” party for a book release was for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read the first three HP novels in a row. A lot of the kids that I worked with at church were talking about it, and I wanted to see what the big deal was. I loved it, and, luckily, Goblet of Fire came out fairly soon after I was introduced to the series, so I didn’t have to wait that long for it. OotP, however, was a long, long wait.

When the big day finally approached, it seemed that all the local bookstores were trying to out-do each other by putting on the best release party for it. Even better, the release parties took place at midnight, so it felt like you were getting your copy early (a few hours early, but still… I was one of the first to have a copy in my hands!). My local Borders is my store of choice, so I signed up for an advance copy (which, of course, helps them know how many copies to order) and headed over to the party that night with such excitement that I didn’t even notice that my husband (who’d been so dead asleep on the couch when I told him I was leaving that he didn’t even respond) running out of the house and yelling for me to wait. To this day, he still talks about how I love HP more than I love him (of course, since he’d been so dead asleep, I didn’t even think to look for him in my rearview mirror and I had the radio cranked up so I didn’t hear him if he yelled, but that is apparently beside the point!).

The party was fun! People (not me, but some people) went in costume. There were exhibits of animals found in the HP books (owls, snakes, etc.). There was fortune telling, tarot card reading, and free samples of bookmarks, stickers, chapters of other new releases, and more. I had such a good time, that I went again for both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The best part of these midnight madness parties, though, is the vibe of excitement in the air. Excitement about a book! Previously, I’d only seen such excitement on opening day movie releases (like when my friends and I sat in long lines to go to the first showing of the re-release of Star Wars: a New Hope when it came out during my college days).

At the midnight parties, I got to talk to other HP fans, theorize about what might happen in the next book, relive favorite parts of the past book, debate relevant HP issues, such as who is the best Quidditch player and whether Hermione was destined to be with Harry or Ron. That was the very best part of the whole thing!

Of course, now that the HP series has come to its grand conclusion, I wondered if that was it for the midnight madness parties at Borders. It made me a little sad, honestly, but what book could fill that void enough to warrent such a shindig? If they had midnight release parties before HP, I never heard about them (though, if they had done that for a book I liked as a kid, I bet my mom would have taken me to the party — too bad we didn’t have Borders and B&N in Waco when I was young!).

The other day, I found out what series has replaced HP in the midnight madness release party queue — Breaking Dawn, the newest book in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. My friend Sandra and I are going to go to the party this Friday night, and I’m looking forward to it quite a bit. I really enjoy Meyer’s novels. Are they as good as HP? I don’t know… I find it hard to think the crowd will be as big as it was for HP, if only because the book series is really more girl-oriented. I don’t know that the series has quite the broad appeal to male readers as HP did.

But, you know, I don’t care. A midnight madness party is people who are excited about reading. They are so excited about a new book, that they will forgo sleep and stand in line for a few hours just to get their hands on a new, hardback book. They defy all those people who think that reading is going out of style. So, I say yay to Borders and yay to Meyer — thanks for bringing us all together.

Let’s get excited about reading. And, you know, even if the book you are excited about reading isn’t big enough for Borders to give it a midnight madness party, that’s OK. Be excited anyway. Blog about it. Talk about it. Tell other people that they need to read it to (and buy their own copy if they like it). Let’s all be excited about reading fiction! C’mon… it’s fun!

Today has been a day for movies with that lush feel of glamorous old-school Hollywood — Indiscrete, A Touch of Mink… Men in tails, women in full-skirted velvet and satin evening gowns and luxurious fur coats, perfectly furnished apartments with hand-carved mantles and plush upholstery, dramatic vistas made even more vivid with that touch of Technicolor.

These settings are slightly familiar to me, but enough unfamiliar that the details stand out. And that’s how it should be in stories, too, I think. Especially speculative fiction stories where you have to do world building. When a fictional world is rife with rich and textured details, you can fall right into that fictional dream, feel like you’re really there.

Nothing new, I suppose, but I’ve been thinking about it today, anyway.

Strangely, when I’m creating a world, one of the things that makes me feel like I know the world intimately is when I know how the characters are going to dress for a given situation. It’s always been that way for me. My first “books” — eight or ten page stories scribbled on notebook paper in junior high — had little to no description of the scene, but every character’s outfit was immortalized in print from shoes to hat or hair bow.

This obsession with clothing is one that I’ve had to force myself to temper in my current writing. The outfits are always there in the first draft (though, not quite so detailed as they were when I was in junior high). I have to make myself cut them out during that pesky revision stage (or at least some of them, enough not to have clothing ad nauseam).

It’s a careful balance really — leave enough details in to make the world lush and real, but don’t overwhelm the reader with unnecessary facts that are irrelevant to the plot. Just another ball for the writer to juggle in the air, another one of the tricks from our bags.

And with that thought, I’ll leave off yammering for tonight. G’night all!

The more stories you get out there, the more chances you have of getting published. A real “duh” statement, huh? But… I don’t know… sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

It can take so long to hear back on a story, it feels like they fall into a void for a while, even as I am obsessively checking my email to see if I’ve gotten any responses. Sometimes I need to think about tossing more stories into the void to see if they hit solid ground instead of waiting around for the stories to come back.

I read a thread on the Every Day Fiction forums about some of the regular contributors. There are authors at EDF who get stories published with as much regularity as every month. It was nice to hear some of those regulars say on the forum that to get that many stories into EDF, they max out their submission opportunities.

EDF allows an author to have three stories in their slush pile at a time (which is pretty unusual), and some of these repeat authors have three stories in the slush constantly. Talk about a dedicated approach! And yet, those authors have the credits at EDF to prove that it works.

It seems a method that one could apply to one’s writing in general. It’s simple, right? Get those stories out there, and keep them going.

Of course… that means I need to actually write some new stories! Luckily, tomorrow is my writing group’s monthly write-in. Two hours of writing with friends. There is something great about a write-in for getting the creative energy flowing. I have a werewolf story that is almost finished — my goal for tomorrow is to complete the revisions on that sucker, and then maybe I’ll even see if I can find a likely market or two for it!

In other news, I found this article about unstoppable rules for writing short stories interesting.

This post on novel writing on Y/A novelist Libba Bray’s Live Journal cracked me up. Maybe I’ll have to check out some of her books. I’ve seen them around at the bookstore. They have lovely covers. Of course, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but a lot of good books do also have pretty covers.

One of the things I really love about a writer is when their supporting characters have just as much spark, as much life as the main characters. Without good supporting cast to round out a story, the story can feel flat or limited.

I think really fleshing out the supporting cast is a skill that can take a while to master, too. I know when I’m writing, I get involved in the main plot and with the main characters. The other characters aren’t always a high priority.

But, let’s look at to examples that illustrate how important the supporting cast is. First, look at the Batman movies in the 80s and 90s. They were all about the comic book stereotypes and the flashy action. Big names, too. But character depth? Not so much. Especially for the supporting cast. With Keaton’s Batman, some. Jack’s Joker, too, a bit. But Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl? Why was she even there? Commissioner Gordon? I don’t even remember who played him, he was on screen so little. Harvy Dent was played by someone completely different than Two Face, and you had to really listen to even realize they were the same character.

Now, look at the new Batman movies — Batman Begins and the recently released Dark Knight. These movies know how to use all the characters to create a world that feels incredibly real. Part of it is the writing, that we get to know all of these characters. And part of it is the incredible acting that allows the characters to make the most of every small moment, every glance, every movement. Alfred, Lucius, Gordon, Dent… they were all amazing. The Joker, of course, was blow-away, but in some ways you knew he would be going in. The Joker is one of Batman’s biggest rivals, if not the biggest. He had to be great. But the awesome thing is, none of the characters in these movies are wasted.

Return to Me is a move that does the same thing (though light years away from the subject matter of Batman). Bonnie Hunt wrote an incredible love story between two unusual people, but what really makes the movies pop are the people the hero and heroine surround themselves with. The quartet of old guys playing poker in the back of the restaurant. The loyal, obnoxious, ladies’ man vet. The pseudo-sister, her husband, and their passel of kids. This movie could have been just another hum-drum romantic comedy, enjoyed and then forgotten, but the memorable cast of characters sets it apart from the pack and makes it something special.

So, that is the lesson that we must take to heart today. Don’t just use those supporting characters as plot points — give them personality, give them uniqueness, love them!

P.S. In other news, I want to give a quick shout out to Jens. Congrats on finishing that novel! Way to go!

If you haven’t seen this, you really need to. You really, really need to.

The world’s first super-villain musical. If you like the stories at A Thousand Faces, you’ll like this. If you like any of the shows in the Joss Whedon universe (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly), you’ll like this (Joss does great stuff with lyrics — just think of “Once More With Feeling”).

I think humor is the most difficult thing to write successfully, and Joss is great at it. And what always blows my mind, both as a writer and a fan, is how he can lace the humor through the drama and get this whole complete story, but with amazing layers.

So, musings on writing and a viewing recommendation in one blog entry. Bonus, huh? Enjoy!

Agent Kristen over at Pubrants has an interesting blog post out on titles. I will have to marshal my thoughts on the subject and post about titles at some point. I find writing a good title very challenging…

My writing group mate, Stephanie, has a new story out at The Cynic. Naked Confusion is the title, and its short and surreally funny. You should check it out!

The eternal question of a writer trying to get published, right?

The thing is, it’s so hard to tell. I doubt there’s any way to really answer that question. Perhaps if one knew an editor (publishing company, magazine, etc.)… Interviews, such as D.L. Snell’s, might give some clues, but even that is based on how the editor was feeling on that particular day.

I’ve been reading and listening to stories in more of the professional publications lately, and sometimes it’s hard to tell why those stories got accepted and mine didn’t. Now, some of the stories there are blow-away, and that’s obviously why they were picked. But others… not as much. And I’ve read stories that blew me away in smaller publications, too. “Junk Drawer” in the previous issue of Allegory (the issue before the one in which “The Widow and the Stranger” appeared) had me thinking about it for days. Some stories I’ve read at EDF have amazed me, too. So the professional publications don’t corner the market on the best fiction. Far from it!

In the end, I guess reading is just too subjective to quantify. And if my reading is that subjective, editors’ reading must be as well. My first writing prof (taught undergrad fiction writing) said that publishing was 10% the work of writing a finely crafted story and 90% the luck of getting that story on the right editor’s desk at the right time (i.e., when they were in the right mood for the story to appeal to them). I don’t remember the exact percentages, but it was something quite lopsided like that.

Of course, reading the stories or books published by a market will give you some insight into what the editors want. But the stories can vary so wildly in quality, style, subject, etc., that it really seems to become more of a crapshoot.

I suppose there is no secret to this (though if you’ve found it, please share in the comments!). The best thing to do is to focus on honing one’s craft and making each story the best it can possibly be, then sifting through the multitude of markets out there and submitting repeatedly until you find one that sticks.