Tuesday, March 20, 2012
My thoughts on "Farewell Chapters"
I wrote a post over at my author website about how it feels to get so close to the end of a major project that takes years. I'm writing my three "farewell chapters" now, and it's a challenge. Go here for more... :)
TTYU Retro: Combating Writer's Envy
I was inspired by this post that I found through Elizabeth Craig on Twitter, a fantastic one called "When Going Green's Not So Cool: A Writer's Antidotes for Envy".
My favorite antidotes were: enjoying the things you love, and
exercising. I highly recommend those for all writers, especially since a
lot of us (including me) need to exercise more.
I personally find that I'm not immune to jealousy, but that my jealousy is rather limited in scope. My jealousy will make me feel upset at myself, but not angry with others (I feel lucky about this). Even when I notice a bestseller whose work I don't particularly like, I figure that person has found something that a lot of people like - I just may not have grasped what that thing is.
The other thing I continue to believe is that writing is not a competition. It's not about whether my writing is better than someone else's. It's not about two writers with similar styles trying to fit into the same too-small market niche. It's simply about whether I find an editor who finds that my work speaks to him/her, and whether readers then are willing to pay for what I do. Honestly - why should I worry about whether I'm similar to my favorite authors? When I read, I don't say, "Ursula LeGuin is my sf author, and there isn't room for anyone else." The more someone's work is like hers, the more likely I will enjoy it too. Reading appetite is not finite. Reading quality work does not satiate; it only makes you hungrier for more brilliance.
The last thing I hope writers will remember is that statistics only operate effectively on large numbers. The fact that 99% of submissions get rejected at a particular magazine should not deter you; whether your story succeeds is about your story, and that editor, and it has nothing to do with anyone else.
Keep up hope, and keep submitting. So long as there are readers hungry for stories, there is room for more authors.
I personally find that I'm not immune to jealousy, but that my jealousy is rather limited in scope. My jealousy will make me feel upset at myself, but not angry with others (I feel lucky about this). Even when I notice a bestseller whose work I don't particularly like, I figure that person has found something that a lot of people like - I just may not have grasped what that thing is.
The other thing I continue to believe is that writing is not a competition. It's not about whether my writing is better than someone else's. It's not about two writers with similar styles trying to fit into the same too-small market niche. It's simply about whether I find an editor who finds that my work speaks to him/her, and whether readers then are willing to pay for what I do. Honestly - why should I worry about whether I'm similar to my favorite authors? When I read, I don't say, "Ursula LeGuin is my sf author, and there isn't room for anyone else." The more someone's work is like hers, the more likely I will enjoy it too. Reading appetite is not finite. Reading quality work does not satiate; it only makes you hungrier for more brilliance.
The last thing I hope writers will remember is that statistics only operate effectively on large numbers. The fact that 99% of submissions get rejected at a particular magazine should not deter you; whether your story succeeds is about your story, and that editor, and it has nothing to do with anyone else.
Keep up hope, and keep submitting. So long as there are readers hungry for stories, there is room for more authors.
Monday, March 19, 2012
A Character-driven Approach to Kissing Scenes and Sex Scenes - Updated
The day I tried to write my first sex scene was one of the most
embarrassing moments of my life. I'd avoided it for a long time, and
then I realized that the story I was writing demanded it (not the first
time I'd changed what I felt I was capable of due to the demands of a
story). I had this idea of what had to happen, and I tried to write it.
When I got through I realized it had devolved into a succession of
meaningless generic actions and disconnected body parts.
It was awful. And, I realized, it was "sex-driven" in a bad way, the same way that stories can seem pointless and over-wrought when they are too heavily driven by plot.
Something changed for me at that point. I realized that that the point of a sex scene was not the sex.
Why do we need sex scenes? I suppose for erotica that they would be part of the point, but in my stories that's not it at all. In my stories, I have two people developing a relationship, and what is most important is what that relationship means to them, and how it changes them. I had already figured that out for kissing scenes, so that was where I went when I had to re-think the sex scenes.
As I see it, a first kiss is a form of communication between the characters. Tension may be building - and this is something I do by having the characters become more aware of one another physically, say, noticing for the first time the way the other person's throat moves when he drinks - but somebody starts it. The other person then has to decide whether to permit the kiss, and whether to return it. Internalization is critical here. Too little internalization and it will seem like I've slapped the kiss on from my position as author. More internalization may make it seem like the poor character is in agony trying to make the decision (which he or she may be!). Occasionally, since this is a big turning point in a story, I'll switch points of view and place the kiss itself at a chapter break so I can then move into the recipient's head and gauge the reaction.
What is important is not the movements. Yes, we can say "oh, this is how far they went this time." But what is important for me in a kiss is the nature of the communication - the psychological conditions that permit someone to take the chance, and the experience of the other person in response.
A sex scene is the same for me. The question is much less "how far did they go" but "what did they decide to do and why, and how did it affect the way they will interact in the future?"
I therefore place my focus on the characters. I start by asking, "What significance does this scene have for the characters, and for the story as a whole?" That will help me gauge what is necessary. If the scene is incidental, like a scene demonstrating that a character has sex as part of his everyday life and doesn't think much of it, then it will get a lot less attention. You'll see where the couple make their decision, and follow through with little detail, the critical ingredient being what the act means, and what it does for the characters, rather than what they do. I have one scene where a character makes love with his girlfriend because this is something relatively normal that they do often, and it helps him to release anxiety from the earlier part of his day.
The buildup for a first sex act is usually much longer. This I think is natural because, compared to kissing, the first occasion of such intimacy has far greater significance - and much greater possible disasters associated with it. Romance novels, after all, spend almost the entire book getting there! What I have found, though, is that in this case the physical act itself is far less important. I can build up the psychological conditions necessary, and once the two characters have made the decision to act, I can end the scene. The only reason I might include physical details is if there is some consequence of the act itself that must be experienced in order for readers to understand the characters as they carry forward.
All of this is to say that I recommend including only the most character-relevant details in a story, either when you're dealing with a kissing scene or with a sex scene (or anything else, for that matter!). Keep the motivations, the decisions, the justifications, whatever it is. Keep the mental states that matter in the front of your lens, and let all physical details follow directly from them. It's the best way I have found to create a scene of intimacy that actually fits the characters I'm working with, and matters to the story, without letting things fall into clichéd motions and lists of body parts.
Update:
I thought I'd revisit this post because I recently wrote a scene that demanded more than my usual amount of attention to the "sex part." Note that I didn't say "parts" - but this scene was one I had been building up to for a very long time, and it required me to go all the way through the sex for several very specific reasons. The process I'd been going through as I went through the story over the long term was making a mental list of ways that the two people were not compatible or would not consider one another, and then knocking them down one by one through the events of the story. At the point where they became intimate they had to have quite a deep discussion about it - so that was how I covered the "why," but because both characters were important, and both viewed physical intimacy in vastly different ways, how they did what they did became very important. What did each one consider "too normal" to be appropriate in intimacy with the other? What did each one consider frightening? What did they consider not worth noticing (say, whether the lights were on or off) and where did they put special attention? The other reason that I had to carry through was that the fact that they consummated the sex is actually very important to the way they will interact in the future. This is to say that the relevance questions haven't changed, but in some cases the story and relevance questions will demand the entire scene, and sometimes they will not.
It's something to think about.
Because of the subject of this post, I'm going to be moderating comments, but I am interested to hear what you think on the topic.
It was awful. And, I realized, it was "sex-driven" in a bad way, the same way that stories can seem pointless and over-wrought when they are too heavily driven by plot.
Something changed for me at that point. I realized that that the point of a sex scene was not the sex.
Why do we need sex scenes? I suppose for erotica that they would be part of the point, but in my stories that's not it at all. In my stories, I have two people developing a relationship, and what is most important is what that relationship means to them, and how it changes them. I had already figured that out for kissing scenes, so that was where I went when I had to re-think the sex scenes.
As I see it, a first kiss is a form of communication between the characters. Tension may be building - and this is something I do by having the characters become more aware of one another physically, say, noticing for the first time the way the other person's throat moves when he drinks - but somebody starts it. The other person then has to decide whether to permit the kiss, and whether to return it. Internalization is critical here. Too little internalization and it will seem like I've slapped the kiss on from my position as author. More internalization may make it seem like the poor character is in agony trying to make the decision (which he or she may be!). Occasionally, since this is a big turning point in a story, I'll switch points of view and place the kiss itself at a chapter break so I can then move into the recipient's head and gauge the reaction.
What is important is not the movements. Yes, we can say "oh, this is how far they went this time." But what is important for me in a kiss is the nature of the communication - the psychological conditions that permit someone to take the chance, and the experience of the other person in response.
A sex scene is the same for me. The question is much less "how far did they go" but "what did they decide to do and why, and how did it affect the way they will interact in the future?"
I therefore place my focus on the characters. I start by asking, "What significance does this scene have for the characters, and for the story as a whole?" That will help me gauge what is necessary. If the scene is incidental, like a scene demonstrating that a character has sex as part of his everyday life and doesn't think much of it, then it will get a lot less attention. You'll see where the couple make their decision, and follow through with little detail, the critical ingredient being what the act means, and what it does for the characters, rather than what they do. I have one scene where a character makes love with his girlfriend because this is something relatively normal that they do often, and it helps him to release anxiety from the earlier part of his day.
The buildup for a first sex act is usually much longer. This I think is natural because, compared to kissing, the first occasion of such intimacy has far greater significance - and much greater possible disasters associated with it. Romance novels, after all, spend almost the entire book getting there! What I have found, though, is that in this case the physical act itself is far less important. I can build up the psychological conditions necessary, and once the two characters have made the decision to act, I can end the scene. The only reason I might include physical details is if there is some consequence of the act itself that must be experienced in order for readers to understand the characters as they carry forward.
All of this is to say that I recommend including only the most character-relevant details in a story, either when you're dealing with a kissing scene or with a sex scene (or anything else, for that matter!). Keep the motivations, the decisions, the justifications, whatever it is. Keep the mental states that matter in the front of your lens, and let all physical details follow directly from them. It's the best way I have found to create a scene of intimacy that actually fits the characters I'm working with, and matters to the story, without letting things fall into clichéd motions and lists of body parts.
Update:
I thought I'd revisit this post because I recently wrote a scene that demanded more than my usual amount of attention to the "sex part." Note that I didn't say "parts" - but this scene was one I had been building up to for a very long time, and it required me to go all the way through the sex for several very specific reasons. The process I'd been going through as I went through the story over the long term was making a mental list of ways that the two people were not compatible or would not consider one another, and then knocking them down one by one through the events of the story. At the point where they became intimate they had to have quite a deep discussion about it - so that was how I covered the "why," but because both characters were important, and both viewed physical intimacy in vastly different ways, how they did what they did became very important. What did each one consider "too normal" to be appropriate in intimacy with the other? What did each one consider frightening? What did they consider not worth noticing (say, whether the lights were on or off) and where did they put special attention? The other reason that I had to carry through was that the fact that they consummated the sex is actually very important to the way they will interact in the future. This is to say that the relevance questions haven't changed, but in some cases the story and relevance questions will demand the entire scene, and sometimes they will not.
It's something to think about.
Because of the subject of this post, I'm going to be moderating comments, but I am interested to hear what you think on the topic.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Link: How did Shakespeare's English sound?
I found this great article today about the sound of Shakespeare's English in his own time. You should go check it out and hear the three recordings they've put up on the site. Real fun!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Religion in Worldbuilding: A Google+ Hangout Report
This was an engaging, in-depth discussion. I was joined by Barbara Webb, Brian Dolton, Glenda Pfeiffer, Harry Markov, Jaleh Dragich, Jules Sharp, and Bryan Thomas Schmidt. As Harry drops in from Bulgaria and Jules from Australia, one of us remarked that "the sun never sets on Juliette's hangouts." I confess I loved this. Now, on to the discussion!
I began by mentioning that the first time I became aware of the possibility of using religion in fictional worlds was when I read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. With the enormous influence that religion has on culture, behavior and discourse, it's actually surprising that more secondary worlds don't feature it. Harry registers the opinion that if you're writing in a secondary world, religion should be present, at least in the background. He mentioned that magic and religion were actually seen as two sides of the same phenomenon, even in the real world, and that in fantasy it makes sense to draw a link between magical power and the priesthood. He's not actively using religion in his current writing, but does have an urban fantasy where people have magic powers that are linked to deities. In another of his worlds, religion is outlawed because of the history of persecution associated with it.
Barbara is fascinated by religion and its use in fantasy, but feels that not enough of a line is drawn in fantastical settings between faith and religion. In a world where gods are real, is there any faith? What is "faith" in such a context? Also, she mentions that churches are often taken for granted as a part of religion, when they need not necessarily be so.
Brian says that in his world, people believe in the religion and its powers as real, but readers are left to decide for themselves whether the religion is "real" or not - and the evidence is ambiguous between one conclusion and the other. He mentioned that he finds it annoying when he sees worlds where everyone follows the same religion - particularly if they all follow it the same way.
Monoculture in religion (as in any context) may be a sign of lazy worldbuilding.
But not necessarily always. I described my own development of the Varin world and its religions: the general religion of Varin is based on the stars, whereas the undercaste has its own religion based on the glowing trees and will-o'-the-wisps that are found there. The first religion is entirely faith-based, and the second is based on fact, but nobody realizes it. There was a point, however, in my development of the world, where I realized everyone except the undercaste held the same religious beliefs, and instead of diversifying them, I decided to use this as a basis for backstory. As a result, my sense of the origins of the Varini entirely changed. At this point they are former religious fugitives from lands on the other side of their planet - but their religion was shared, as was their persecution, and that was how a multinational group of people wound up populating Varin and having a single shared religion.
Jaleh told us that she feels strange using Christianity-based religion. She has a story set in something like the real world, but with a "tweaked" real-world religion. "The Church" in this context is like the Catholic church, but only loosely. It's in the background, though people use its power and authority to influence broader events in a sort of inquisition. There is a delicate balance between chaos and order which involves divine entities in combination with natural forces, and people who work to keep this balance. The bad guy, meanwhile, uses the Church's name to create chaos. She also sees it as having a Celtic influence as in Lugh and Balor.
Harry remarked that often people will have a church as the representative of organized religion and its power, but that this is very Christianity-based and not all religions in the world are like this - so similarly, not all religions in secondary worlds should be like this.
If you're designing a religion, it's good to consider whether there is a "Church," and whether there are source texts like the Bible or Koran, the Buddhist sutras, etc. Consider also where the authority lies, and who is licensed to speak for God, or channel a deity of one form or another. Is the divine force invisible, unified and everywhere? Is it linked to physical or celestial phenomena, or objects of special significance (for example, relics or natural features like trees or stones)? Are its deities patrons of particular activities in daily life? In the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, deities are relatives of the protagonist! It's also important to ask who and what organize behavior. Does the religion set out a set of ethical and moral rules? What kind of politeness behavior does it require? What kinds of taboos does it establish? Keep in mind that religion has an enormous effect on the way that people think and speak - this is a great tool for creating flavor in your world.
Barbara remarked that she doesn't often see enough variety in taboo. She feels that too often, people simply follow the Abrahamic taboos without questioning or varying them, and that there isn't enough questioning of why taboos exist. A lot of Judaic taboos were originally about cleanliness and stopping disease.
Glenda pointed out that some taboos are explicitly targeted at competing religions, such as the way the First Commandment states "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
Commandments are an excellent example of how behavior can be regulated by a religion, but it isn't always necessary to have them put in such a fixed format. A lot of religions function on the basis of traditional daily practices that aren't written down.
Harry said that he felt the commandments were a way for people to exercise control over society in ancient times, thus creating and contributing to a healthy and functioning society. Tying an ethical and moral code and to something beyond the self with implied punishment for transgression probably made a lot of sense in societies that didn't yet have laws and a legal system.
In fact, there can be an inherent conflict between the ethical and moral codes of behavior based on a particular religion, and those of a secular legal system - we can see that in the conflict between the Roman laws and the Christian tenets which is recounted in the Bible (not to mention that we can see it happening around us right now).
Are there rewards or punishments? Barbara asked. As you work to create your religions, consider what those might be. Are there Heaven and Hell? Is there shunning and ostracism (Jaleh)? How about karma (Harry)?
Next we turned to the question of religion's influence on language. Taboo is a salient example, but metaphor is also heavily influenced. I read a fantastic article recently in National Geographic talking about the way the King James Bible influences the way we speak today (read it here). This is the basis for what I call "secular religion," the way that religious imagery is retained in language for emotional and metaphorical use even if the beliefs themselves are not held by the people using the expressions.
Brian noted that most religions have names for their god or gods, but that Christianity does not (or at least not one that can be used), something which he called a "huge linguistic coup" because it allowed them to claim other deities as instances of their own. Harry noted that it can be difficult to use the singular word god without appearing to refer to the Christian God, and that people go out of their way to specify "gods" or "the divine" when trying to describe this without confusion.
Of course, we then got the question of swearing by gods. This was so much fun that we decided to do Swearing generally at (today's) hangout. There are a thousand examples. "Goodness gracious me!" "Oh God" "For the love of God" People invoke gods often, and often without even thinking about it. Jaleh says she knows a bunch of old English curses because her husband is involved in the reenactment of an ancient battle. Jules commented on books that feature religion and swearing, in that it can be difficult to attain the visceral effect of swearing when all of your words are essentially translated. One way to counteract this is to give your swear words a lot of surrounding grammatical support that resembles how such words are used in our own world. "Holy ____" is pretty darn generic, though, so don't stop there. "____'s bones" or "____'s boots" can work, and so can "___'s balls" or "as ____ is my witness." It's important to have a diversity of these constructions, and to think about how they might relate to class.
I did a bit of explaining about how people swear in Varin. Since they have nine different deities, each of which is patron of a different thing, they swear by the deity most relevant to what they are thinking of at the time. Romantic love it will be Sirin and Eyn, mercy it will be Heile, anger it will be Varin or Plis, justice it will be Mai. Because people swear without thinking, often which god they choose to swear by will divulge something about what they are feeling that they may not be consciously willing to divulge, as when one of my characters involuntarily swears by the Twins (who are patrons of homosexual love as well as other things like balance and loyalty) in an awkward circumstance.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt stopped in at the very end to talk about his book The Worker Prince, which is a retelling of the story of Moses and deals with questions of ideological bigotry. He said it's important to deal with faith, even if it's not necessarily actual real-world religion.
Thanks to everyone who participated. I'm now going to have to shift straight over into discussing Swearing at the hangout. I hope to see you there!
I began by mentioning that the first time I became aware of the possibility of using religion in fictional worlds was when I read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. With the enormous influence that religion has on culture, behavior and discourse, it's actually surprising that more secondary worlds don't feature it. Harry registers the opinion that if you're writing in a secondary world, religion should be present, at least in the background. He mentioned that magic and religion were actually seen as two sides of the same phenomenon, even in the real world, and that in fantasy it makes sense to draw a link between magical power and the priesthood. He's not actively using religion in his current writing, but does have an urban fantasy where people have magic powers that are linked to deities. In another of his worlds, religion is outlawed because of the history of persecution associated with it.
Barbara is fascinated by religion and its use in fantasy, but feels that not enough of a line is drawn in fantastical settings between faith and religion. In a world where gods are real, is there any faith? What is "faith" in such a context? Also, she mentions that churches are often taken for granted as a part of religion, when they need not necessarily be so.
Brian says that in his world, people believe in the religion and its powers as real, but readers are left to decide for themselves whether the religion is "real" or not - and the evidence is ambiguous between one conclusion and the other. He mentioned that he finds it annoying when he sees worlds where everyone follows the same religion - particularly if they all follow it the same way.
Monoculture in religion (as in any context) may be a sign of lazy worldbuilding.
But not necessarily always. I described my own development of the Varin world and its religions: the general religion of Varin is based on the stars, whereas the undercaste has its own religion based on the glowing trees and will-o'-the-wisps that are found there. The first religion is entirely faith-based, and the second is based on fact, but nobody realizes it. There was a point, however, in my development of the world, where I realized everyone except the undercaste held the same religious beliefs, and instead of diversifying them, I decided to use this as a basis for backstory. As a result, my sense of the origins of the Varini entirely changed. At this point they are former religious fugitives from lands on the other side of their planet - but their religion was shared, as was their persecution, and that was how a multinational group of people wound up populating Varin and having a single shared religion.
Jaleh told us that she feels strange using Christianity-based religion. She has a story set in something like the real world, but with a "tweaked" real-world religion. "The Church" in this context is like the Catholic church, but only loosely. It's in the background, though people use its power and authority to influence broader events in a sort of inquisition. There is a delicate balance between chaos and order which involves divine entities in combination with natural forces, and people who work to keep this balance. The bad guy, meanwhile, uses the Church's name to create chaos. She also sees it as having a Celtic influence as in Lugh and Balor.
Harry remarked that often people will have a church as the representative of organized religion and its power, but that this is very Christianity-based and not all religions in the world are like this - so similarly, not all religions in secondary worlds should be like this.
If you're designing a religion, it's good to consider whether there is a "Church," and whether there are source texts like the Bible or Koran, the Buddhist sutras, etc. Consider also where the authority lies, and who is licensed to speak for God, or channel a deity of one form or another. Is the divine force invisible, unified and everywhere? Is it linked to physical or celestial phenomena, or objects of special significance (for example, relics or natural features like trees or stones)? Are its deities patrons of particular activities in daily life? In the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, deities are relatives of the protagonist! It's also important to ask who and what organize behavior. Does the religion set out a set of ethical and moral rules? What kind of politeness behavior does it require? What kinds of taboos does it establish? Keep in mind that religion has an enormous effect on the way that people think and speak - this is a great tool for creating flavor in your world.
Barbara remarked that she doesn't often see enough variety in taboo. She feels that too often, people simply follow the Abrahamic taboos without questioning or varying them, and that there isn't enough questioning of why taboos exist. A lot of Judaic taboos were originally about cleanliness and stopping disease.
Glenda pointed out that some taboos are explicitly targeted at competing religions, such as the way the First Commandment states "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
Commandments are an excellent example of how behavior can be regulated by a religion, but it isn't always necessary to have them put in such a fixed format. A lot of religions function on the basis of traditional daily practices that aren't written down.
Harry said that he felt the commandments were a way for people to exercise control over society in ancient times, thus creating and contributing to a healthy and functioning society. Tying an ethical and moral code and to something beyond the self with implied punishment for transgression probably made a lot of sense in societies that didn't yet have laws and a legal system.
In fact, there can be an inherent conflict between the ethical and moral codes of behavior based on a particular religion, and those of a secular legal system - we can see that in the conflict between the Roman laws and the Christian tenets which is recounted in the Bible (not to mention that we can see it happening around us right now).
Are there rewards or punishments? Barbara asked. As you work to create your religions, consider what those might be. Are there Heaven and Hell? Is there shunning and ostracism (Jaleh)? How about karma (Harry)?
Next we turned to the question of religion's influence on language. Taboo is a salient example, but metaphor is also heavily influenced. I read a fantastic article recently in National Geographic talking about the way the King James Bible influences the way we speak today (read it here). This is the basis for what I call "secular religion," the way that religious imagery is retained in language for emotional and metaphorical use even if the beliefs themselves are not held by the people using the expressions.
Brian noted that most religions have names for their god or gods, but that Christianity does not (or at least not one that can be used), something which he called a "huge linguistic coup" because it allowed them to claim other deities as instances of their own. Harry noted that it can be difficult to use the singular word god without appearing to refer to the Christian God, and that people go out of their way to specify "gods" or "the divine" when trying to describe this without confusion.
Of course, we then got the question of swearing by gods. This was so much fun that we decided to do Swearing generally at (today's) hangout. There are a thousand examples. "Goodness gracious me!" "Oh God" "For the love of God" People invoke gods often, and often without even thinking about it. Jaleh says she knows a bunch of old English curses because her husband is involved in the reenactment of an ancient battle. Jules commented on books that feature religion and swearing, in that it can be difficult to attain the visceral effect of swearing when all of your words are essentially translated. One way to counteract this is to give your swear words a lot of surrounding grammatical support that resembles how such words are used in our own world. "Holy ____" is pretty darn generic, though, so don't stop there. "____'s bones" or "____'s boots" can work, and so can "___'s balls" or "as ____ is my witness." It's important to have a diversity of these constructions, and to think about how they might relate to class.
I did a bit of explaining about how people swear in Varin. Since they have nine different deities, each of which is patron of a different thing, they swear by the deity most relevant to what they are thinking of at the time. Romantic love it will be Sirin and Eyn, mercy it will be Heile, anger it will be Varin or Plis, justice it will be Mai. Because people swear without thinking, often which god they choose to swear by will divulge something about what they are feeling that they may not be consciously willing to divulge, as when one of my characters involuntarily swears by the Twins (who are patrons of homosexual love as well as other things like balance and loyalty) in an awkward circumstance.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt stopped in at the very end to talk about his book The Worker Prince, which is a retelling of the story of Moses and deals with questions of ideological bigotry. He said it's important to deal with faith, even if it's not necessarily actual real-world religion.
Thanks to everyone who participated. I'm now going to have to shift straight over into discussing Swearing at the hangout. I hope to see you there!
Today's worldbuilding hangout - and Twitter Chat!
Come join me today at 11am PDT on Google+ for my worldbuilding hangout, during which we will be discussing Swearing. It should be fun (and likely funny too)!
Also, this evening at 9pmEDT/6pmPDT I'll be joining the Twitter chat hosted by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, #sffwrtcht . So stop by and talk more worldbuilding if you're interested!
Here's also a wonderful link I just discovered from NPR about a Dictionary of Americanisms - and not just those marketing phrases that invade the world, but local dialectal gems from our history. It looks like wonderful stuff!
Also, this evening at 9pmEDT/6pmPDT I'll be joining the Twitter chat hosted by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, #sffwrtcht . So stop by and talk more worldbuilding if you're interested!
Here's also a wonderful link I just discovered from NPR about a Dictionary of Americanisms - and not just those marketing phrases that invade the world, but local dialectal gems from our history. It looks like wonderful stuff!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Writing Action Sequences: a process of layering and research
I find action sequences to be challenging. It's not that I can't write them well, I just don't find that they come together spontaneously in my mind. I need to break it down. The action sequence is built by a process...and that's why I thought it might be interesting to blog about the process.
I have some issues with the idea of extended fight scenes rendered in words, and these issues form a basis for a lot of the decisions I make in putting together an action scene. First is the boredom issue, and second is the plausibility issue.
What makes a fight boring? When I watch a martial arts movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I'm visually entertained enough to put up with flailing arms and legs and flying bodies for quite lengthy periods of time. Not so when I'm dealing with text. I can appreciate the fact that a fight has changing dynamics of one person over another, and I find the psychology of the participants interesting - what they want, what weakness they think they are going to exploit, etc. - but extended descriptions of one fight move after another start feeling like they're all the same, and I start skimming.
What makes a fight implausible? Well, mostly when the fight seems to be the whole point of an action sequence, and the reasons behind the fight, or the context surrounding the fight, get neglected.
So now that I'm through the caveats, let's get on to specifics. As an example, I'll be using the sequence that I just wrote for For Love, For Power (which is now almost finished). I came into the writing of the sequence knowing several key things: the identities (and thus the basic fighting prowess) and main goals of the two opponents, the general location, and the starting positions of the two opponents.
Identities/skills:
The two fighters are both members of the Imbati servant caste, and their names are Aloran and Sorn. These two guys have been at odds through most of the book, and I came into this knowing that people would expect them to have a fight. Possibly a big fight. They are both trained bodyguards and martial artists, and their martial art is somewhat inspired by Kung Fu but differs from it in specific moves.
Goals:
Sorn has two goals: first, to deliver a vote to a group of people below the stage, and second, to receive an inquiry letter from someone on the stage. This might not sound like much of a big deal, but the delivery of the vote was his master's final charge, and thus he has to carry it out first; by contrast the receipt of the inquiry letter is actually close to a life-or-death matter for him. Essentially Sorn is wanted for crimes by "the wardens" and the only time they can actually nab him is 1. when he has no master, and 2. when he is out of sight of the nobility. The minute he receives the inquiry letter, their chance at him is gone. If they get him, they will take away all his honor and imprison him for life, so he's pretty motivated to carry out these two tasks.
Aloran has the following goals: to intercept Sorn before he can receive the inquiry letter, and to get him to step into a place where he will be out of view of nobles (thus making him vulnerable to the wardens). I knew coming in that Aloran would realize that Sorn had to deliver the vote first, and that he would try to steal it to force Sorn to pursue him.
General location and starting positions:
The confrontation occurs in and around the Hall of the Eminence, where a major event is about to take place (the vote is intended to be used during this event). It's a long hall with high arched ceilings and a raised stage at one end. Aloran enters the room through a door at the back of the stage, which puts him behind a number of people who are onstage waiting for the event to begin. Sorn enters the room through an archway from another room, which is located on Aloran's left at the base of the stairs to the stage. They're maybe fifty feet from each other.
At this point you may notice something. I've got a lot of information about the surrounding circumstances but no idea what kind of moves these guys will be putting on each other. So I started writing by just getting the two balls rolling toward each other, so to speak. Aloran makes a move and gets close to Sorn, realizes he's delivering the vote and that the vote is his chance to get his attention. Grabs the vote when Sorn isn't expecting it, and runs. Part of me thought that at this point they would have a really dramatic martial arts battle here in front of everybody. But then I ran afoul of my plausibility guideline. Letting two experienced fighters battle it out in front of the entire nobility, with important leaders present, when they have to pass through security just to get into that room? Are you kidding?
This was the point when I called my friends Janice Hardy and Lillian Csernica to talk through things, and over the course of a couple of conversations I came to the conclusion that Aloran was going to try to make a run for it, and Sorn was going to come after him, and then they would both be apprehended by the guards who are there to guard the audience members. Bystanders are actually really critical, and they were the deciding factor in this change for me. This was actually good for me, because I realized that Aloran and Sorn would have a verbal argument trying to get the guards to let one or the other of them have his way. I can handle arguments. Neither one of them wins this one, and the guard has them expelled from the event.
As a part of an action sequence, I like this, because it gives them an unexpected setback. The setback is, of course, bigger for Sorn than for Aloran at first glance, because it takes him farther away from the place where he must deliver his vote, and the person from whom he must receive the inquiry. I immediately decided that it had to be something of a setback for Aloran, too. So essentially I worked with what I knew of the architecture of this building and decided that it's a lot harder to access places that are out of noble view when you're in this section of the place. Aloran has to leave the foyer through a very heavy bronze door, cross a waiting room full of chairs, and then there's a hidden door on the other side of the room into the servants' halls (which is where we know the wardens are waiting).
So by this point I knew that they were going to have it out in the waiting room, in relative privacy. I had to ask myself whether either one would possess any weapons or armor. The answer in both cases was "no": Aloran has just run out of his home with zero notice to try to intervene, and Sorn has been spending the last several days at the hospital with his dying master, unwilling to leave for any reason because if for some reason he's not present when his master dies, he might be apprehended before he knows it has happened. So while Sorn is a pretty unscrupulous guy, it's not plausible for him to have weapons or armor on him.
Unscrupulous had to enter into the fight somehow, however. This was the point when I decided I needed some actual fighting moves, and my major sources for these were my friend and fellow Analog author Brad Torgersen, who is also a Chief Warrant Officer in the US Army Reserve, and my friend Deborah J. Ross, a fabulous author and heir to the worlds of Marion Zimmer Bradley, who is a black belt in Kung Fu.
Brad's major - and awesome - contribution was to introduce me to the Army Combatives choke out. It gave me some serious heebie-jeebies to do so, but I went at his suggestion and watched some videos of the technique. This was actually an enormous help to me, because it not only gave me a sense of how the move was accomplished, but what it would look like if it were done voluntarily vs. involuntarily (some of the videos show "example" applications and others show fighting). I realized that I could use this move in two different spots in the novel, one where it was done voluntarily, and one involuntarily. I immediately hopped in and changed the place where I had written something lame like "she jumped on him and he collapsed" to incorporate the move.
At that point I needed to have a sense of realistic response to this move. Given that my fighters are martial artists, I wasn't sure whether I'd be getting a martial arts response to the choke move through the army fighting videos, and my only other visualization of this was the battle between the Man in Black and Fezzik from "The Princess Bride." So that was where Deborah's major awesome contribution to the fight came in. She talked to me about possible responses to a choke, including tucking your chin down as far as possible, grabbing backwards and twisting flesh (preferably tender flesh), stomping backwards on feet, flinging oneself backward against walls or obstacles. We discussed not only what these moves were, but how they could go wrong.
In the end, the way it played out took me by surprise, and I hope it will take my readers by surprise as well. If I'd had the kind of initial engagement that one sees in an Old West duel, with the two fighters facing off down an empty stretch of road, then this whole fight would have turned out differently and would probably have been a lot longer, as they both used all their skills to keep from direct engagement while hurting one another as much as possible, looking around for things to throw, etc. However, the fact that Aloran has stolen the vote and is making a run for a place where they won't be seen completely changes the dynamic and weakens his position as a prepared fighter.
So at this point I'll conclude with a summary list of the things I needed to think through to write this sequence:
It's something to think about.
I have some issues with the idea of extended fight scenes rendered in words, and these issues form a basis for a lot of the decisions I make in putting together an action scene. First is the boredom issue, and second is the plausibility issue.
What makes a fight boring? When I watch a martial arts movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I'm visually entertained enough to put up with flailing arms and legs and flying bodies for quite lengthy periods of time. Not so when I'm dealing with text. I can appreciate the fact that a fight has changing dynamics of one person over another, and I find the psychology of the participants interesting - what they want, what weakness they think they are going to exploit, etc. - but extended descriptions of one fight move after another start feeling like they're all the same, and I start skimming.
What makes a fight implausible? Well, mostly when the fight seems to be the whole point of an action sequence, and the reasons behind the fight, or the context surrounding the fight, get neglected.
So now that I'm through the caveats, let's get on to specifics. As an example, I'll be using the sequence that I just wrote for For Love, For Power (which is now almost finished). I came into the writing of the sequence knowing several key things: the identities (and thus the basic fighting prowess) and main goals of the two opponents, the general location, and the starting positions of the two opponents.
Identities/skills:
The two fighters are both members of the Imbati servant caste, and their names are Aloran and Sorn. These two guys have been at odds through most of the book, and I came into this knowing that people would expect them to have a fight. Possibly a big fight. They are both trained bodyguards and martial artists, and their martial art is somewhat inspired by Kung Fu but differs from it in specific moves.
Goals:
Sorn has two goals: first, to deliver a vote to a group of people below the stage, and second, to receive an inquiry letter from someone on the stage. This might not sound like much of a big deal, but the delivery of the vote was his master's final charge, and thus he has to carry it out first; by contrast the receipt of the inquiry letter is actually close to a life-or-death matter for him. Essentially Sorn is wanted for crimes by "the wardens" and the only time they can actually nab him is 1. when he has no master, and 2. when he is out of sight of the nobility. The minute he receives the inquiry letter, their chance at him is gone. If they get him, they will take away all his honor and imprison him for life, so he's pretty motivated to carry out these two tasks.
Aloran has the following goals: to intercept Sorn before he can receive the inquiry letter, and to get him to step into a place where he will be out of view of nobles (thus making him vulnerable to the wardens). I knew coming in that Aloran would realize that Sorn had to deliver the vote first, and that he would try to steal it to force Sorn to pursue him.
General location and starting positions:
The confrontation occurs in and around the Hall of the Eminence, where a major event is about to take place (the vote is intended to be used during this event). It's a long hall with high arched ceilings and a raised stage at one end. Aloran enters the room through a door at the back of the stage, which puts him behind a number of people who are onstage waiting for the event to begin. Sorn enters the room through an archway from another room, which is located on Aloran's left at the base of the stairs to the stage. They're maybe fifty feet from each other.
At this point you may notice something. I've got a lot of information about the surrounding circumstances but no idea what kind of moves these guys will be putting on each other. So I started writing by just getting the two balls rolling toward each other, so to speak. Aloran makes a move and gets close to Sorn, realizes he's delivering the vote and that the vote is his chance to get his attention. Grabs the vote when Sorn isn't expecting it, and runs. Part of me thought that at this point they would have a really dramatic martial arts battle here in front of everybody. But then I ran afoul of my plausibility guideline. Letting two experienced fighters battle it out in front of the entire nobility, with important leaders present, when they have to pass through security just to get into that room? Are you kidding?
This was the point when I called my friends Janice Hardy and Lillian Csernica to talk through things, and over the course of a couple of conversations I came to the conclusion that Aloran was going to try to make a run for it, and Sorn was going to come after him, and then they would both be apprehended by the guards who are there to guard the audience members. Bystanders are actually really critical, and they were the deciding factor in this change for me. This was actually good for me, because I realized that Aloran and Sorn would have a verbal argument trying to get the guards to let one or the other of them have his way. I can handle arguments. Neither one of them wins this one, and the guard has them expelled from the event.
As a part of an action sequence, I like this, because it gives them an unexpected setback. The setback is, of course, bigger for Sorn than for Aloran at first glance, because it takes him farther away from the place where he must deliver his vote, and the person from whom he must receive the inquiry. I immediately decided that it had to be something of a setback for Aloran, too. So essentially I worked with what I knew of the architecture of this building and decided that it's a lot harder to access places that are out of noble view when you're in this section of the place. Aloran has to leave the foyer through a very heavy bronze door, cross a waiting room full of chairs, and then there's a hidden door on the other side of the room into the servants' halls (which is where we know the wardens are waiting).
So by this point I knew that they were going to have it out in the waiting room, in relative privacy. I had to ask myself whether either one would possess any weapons or armor. The answer in both cases was "no": Aloran has just run out of his home with zero notice to try to intervene, and Sorn has been spending the last several days at the hospital with his dying master, unwilling to leave for any reason because if for some reason he's not present when his master dies, he might be apprehended before he knows it has happened. So while Sorn is a pretty unscrupulous guy, it's not plausible for him to have weapons or armor on him.
Unscrupulous had to enter into the fight somehow, however. This was the point when I decided I needed some actual fighting moves, and my major sources for these were my friend and fellow Analog author Brad Torgersen, who is also a Chief Warrant Officer in the US Army Reserve, and my friend Deborah J. Ross, a fabulous author and heir to the worlds of Marion Zimmer Bradley, who is a black belt in Kung Fu.
Brad's major - and awesome - contribution was to introduce me to the Army Combatives choke out. It gave me some serious heebie-jeebies to do so, but I went at his suggestion and watched some videos of the technique. This was actually an enormous help to me, because it not only gave me a sense of how the move was accomplished, but what it would look like if it were done voluntarily vs. involuntarily (some of the videos show "example" applications and others show fighting). I realized that I could use this move in two different spots in the novel, one where it was done voluntarily, and one involuntarily. I immediately hopped in and changed the place where I had written something lame like "she jumped on him and he collapsed" to incorporate the move.
At that point I needed to have a sense of realistic response to this move. Given that my fighters are martial artists, I wasn't sure whether I'd be getting a martial arts response to the choke move through the army fighting videos, and my only other visualization of this was the battle between the Man in Black and Fezzik from "The Princess Bride." So that was where Deborah's major awesome contribution to the fight came in. She talked to me about possible responses to a choke, including tucking your chin down as far as possible, grabbing backwards and twisting flesh (preferably tender flesh), stomping backwards on feet, flinging oneself backward against walls or obstacles. We discussed not only what these moves were, but how they could go wrong.
In the end, the way it played out took me by surprise, and I hope it will take my readers by surprise as well. If I'd had the kind of initial engagement that one sees in an Old West duel, with the two fighters facing off down an empty stretch of road, then this whole fight would have turned out differently and would probably have been a lot longer, as they both used all their skills to keep from direct engagement while hurting one another as much as possible, looking around for things to throw, etc. However, the fact that Aloran has stolen the vote and is making a run for a place where they won't be seen completely changes the dynamic and weakens his position as a prepared fighter.
So at this point I'll conclude with a summary list of the things I needed to think through to write this sequence:
- identities of the fighters
- martial skills of the fighters
- goals of the fighters
- physical location of the fight
- positions of the fighters as they begin the fight
- presence of bystanders
- interference of bystanders
- conditions for the resumption of the fight (physical location, position, bystanders)
- attack moves
- response moves
It's something to think about.
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