Thanks to all of you who have taken on the world questions and posted answers. I've read all your responses with great enjoyment and I'm going to take the weekend to put together some more specific questions for each of you. Just to give you a hint of what they will be, I'm going to try to formulate questions that will help you integrate the world knowledge of your point of view character into the 500-word excerpts that you've given me.
I'll make this clear again when I give you the questions, but I don't intend the individualized questions to be answered like the eleven you've been dealing with in the last couple of days, but instead I'd like you to use them as guides for fine-tuning your original submission pieces. Once all the revised versions are in, we'll discuss any questions or issues for going forward and that will be the end of the workshop.
My thought is to give you questions on Sunday or Monday and ask you to revise for Thursday the 18th. That would give us Friday for final discussion. I can't really go beyond that because I'm going to Chicago for Christmas.
If that time schedule sounds prohibitively tight for anyone, please let me know and I'll try to get you your questions earlier (I know K has a new baby in her schedule, for example).
Questions are welcome, as always. More soon...
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
An interesting link about plotting
I just thought you might be interested in this - a very good discussion of plot from J.A. Konrath's blog.
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
My ulterior motive (Mwa-ha-ha-hahhh)
I see I've got some comments already telling me about the larger story context for these excerpts. Thanks so much for your speed, guys.
My plan is to use this material for a devious purpose. :-)
With well-developed worlds like the ones I'm seeing, very often writers develop their own world-related notes and research at home. For a novel-length piece, it might even get its own file on the computer. A world developer will probably have worked to answer some of the following questions:
1. What is the nature of the environment? Planet? Nation? Underwater world?
2. What is the climate? What are the physical dangers?
3. What is the geography where the story takes place?
4. How do people live? In cities? In an air bubble on an inimical world? What do their homes look like/feel like?
5. What is the political layout of the area where the story takes place?
6. What do people wear? How does this reflect the climate and their social status?
7. How do people move goods around? Is it easy to obtain supplies in this environment?
8. What do people eat?
9. What kinds of objects or substances have value? Is there an economy? What kind?
10. Are there regional differences?
11. Are there religious differences?
Obviously there are many more questions that can be answered, and some questions are more relevant to a story than others. On the other hand, while you wouldn't expect regional differences between the different areas of Mars in Bill's piece, you might discover that the characters come from different regions of Earth, and that could conceivably have bearing on the plot. Which is just to say, think about all the possible ways that these world details can influence the story before ruling any of them out completely.
In this workshop, I didn't want to work with world descriptions so much as world demonstrations. So now that we've considered knowledge sets in each piece, I want to zero in on something else.
Consider how your world saturates your point of view character.
Let's take the questions above and put them differently, from the protagonist's point of view.
1. What is my home like? How do I visualize its boundaries?
2. What weather and physical conditions do I consider normal? What do I fear?
3. What kind of topography did I grow up in, and how did it influence my physical condition and my concepts of comfort?
4. In what kind of place do I feel most at home? What shapes and textures give me comfort, or discomfort?
5. Who is in charge here? Do I respect them, fear them, both?
6. How do I show who I am in the way I dress? What is comfortable? Will I endure discomfort for the sake of looking good or looking powerful?
7. Where do the things I own come from? Do I worry about getting more?
8. What is delicious to me? What do I consider unworthy of consumption?
9. What are my most prized possessions? Do I hoard anything? Do I have so much of anything that I care little if I must give it away?
10. Who do I consider to be unlike me? Are their differences charming or alarming?
11. Am I in control of my own actions and the happenings around me? What or whom do I believe in?
Changing these questions from general world questions into personal protagonist questions can deeply change the way you write about your world. This is why I have asked you to tell me about the point of view character and the main conflict. Once I have all the descriptions in hand I'm going to go off and think, but I'd like you guys to start thinking too, because I'm planning to give each of you a set of questions geared to your particular piece, and in the end I'm going to ask you to make changes to your text.
Here's the central issue:
Think about who your main character is, and what that person's goals are in this scene that you've given me. What does he or she want? Then think about how that person's goals relate to the world that you've created and the personalized questions above. Why does he or she want it? What value does it have, and why? What is standing in the way of him or her getting it?
The goals of the protagonist, and the worldview that lies behind him or her, including any specialized knowledge or experience in his or her untold backstory, will influence the protagonist's judgment of everything.
So to summarize what happens next: once I have a sense of the main character and the main conflict from everyone, I'll post a set of questions for each of you that relates specifically to your own piece, and we'll see where we can go from there.
My plan is to use this material for a devious purpose. :-)
With well-developed worlds like the ones I'm seeing, very often writers develop their own world-related notes and research at home. For a novel-length piece, it might even get its own file on the computer. A world developer will probably have worked to answer some of the following questions:
1. What is the nature of the environment? Planet? Nation? Underwater world?
2. What is the climate? What are the physical dangers?
3. What is the geography where the story takes place?
4. How do people live? In cities? In an air bubble on an inimical world? What do their homes look like/feel like?
5. What is the political layout of the area where the story takes place?
6. What do people wear? How does this reflect the climate and their social status?
7. How do people move goods around? Is it easy to obtain supplies in this environment?
8. What do people eat?
9. What kinds of objects or substances have value? Is there an economy? What kind?
10. Are there regional differences?
11. Are there religious differences?
Obviously there are many more questions that can be answered, and some questions are more relevant to a story than others. On the other hand, while you wouldn't expect regional differences between the different areas of Mars in Bill's piece, you might discover that the characters come from different regions of Earth, and that could conceivably have bearing on the plot. Which is just to say, think about all the possible ways that these world details can influence the story before ruling any of them out completely.
In this workshop, I didn't want to work with world descriptions so much as world demonstrations. So now that we've considered knowledge sets in each piece, I want to zero in on something else.
Consider how your world saturates your point of view character.
Let's take the questions above and put them differently, from the protagonist's point of view.
1. What is my home like? How do I visualize its boundaries?
2. What weather and physical conditions do I consider normal? What do I fear?
3. What kind of topography did I grow up in, and how did it influence my physical condition and my concepts of comfort?
4. In what kind of place do I feel most at home? What shapes and textures give me comfort, or discomfort?
5. Who is in charge here? Do I respect them, fear them, both?
6. How do I show who I am in the way I dress? What is comfortable? Will I endure discomfort for the sake of looking good or looking powerful?
7. Where do the things I own come from? Do I worry about getting more?
8. What is delicious to me? What do I consider unworthy of consumption?
9. What are my most prized possessions? Do I hoard anything? Do I have so much of anything that I care little if I must give it away?
10. Who do I consider to be unlike me? Are their differences charming or alarming?
11. Am I in control of my own actions and the happenings around me? What or whom do I believe in?
Changing these questions from general world questions into personal protagonist questions can deeply change the way you write about your world. This is why I have asked you to tell me about the point of view character and the main conflict. Once I have all the descriptions in hand I'm going to go off and think, but I'd like you guys to start thinking too, because I'm planning to give each of you a set of questions geared to your particular piece, and in the end I'm going to ask you to make changes to your text.
Here's the central issue:
Think about who your main character is, and what that person's goals are in this scene that you've given me. What does he or she want? Then think about how that person's goals relate to the world that you've created and the personalized questions above. Why does he or she want it? What value does it have, and why? What is standing in the way of him or her getting it?
The goals of the protagonist, and the worldview that lies behind him or her, including any specialized knowledge or experience in his or her untold backstory, will influence the protagonist's judgment of everything.
So to summarize what happens next: once I have a sense of the main character and the main conflict from everyone, I'll post a set of questions for each of you that relates specifically to your own piece, and we'll see where we can go from there.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Knowledge Sets - advantages and disadvantages
Thank you to the participants who have responded about posting their work. I'm putting the pieces up in the comment section of the Workshop Participants area, for those who would like to see them.
I want to talk a little about using knowledge sets, by which I mean using words in your manuscript to access interrelated pieces of knowledge in a reader's mind. Knowledge sets are powerful tools for setting expectations, and because of that, they can be a really big advantage - or a really big disadvantage - to the writer who uses them.
In this workshop group the person with the most easily and completely accessed knowledge set is Bill Moonroe, with his mars explorer piece. The minute we hear the "giant leap for mankind," we're set. We can imagine the moon lander, the astronauts and their gear - let's face it, the entirety of human history up to this point. This lets us feel grounded immediately with a sense of "I know where I am," and it also frees us up to stop paying attention to certain things.
Our reader antennae, which have been reaching out for clues, start to focus in and look for what is new about this situation. Bill then has the job of making sure that what is new is fully in focus. The space suits, for example - he says the woman's suit accentuates her figure. This makes a reader pause momentarily and revise the worldview established by the existing set. He also talks about the Second Space Age. This changes the game considerably, but there's not much sense of what it means in the current piece. Yes, we'll learn more as we read more, but I think even in a short beginning bit like this one there are great opportunities to demonstrate what it means. More on that later.
Along with the responsibility to make clear what is new, there is another thing to watch out for with a very complete knowledge set, and that is, not everyone who reads the piece may be in possession of every part of the set. This is an issue that has to do with how broad the appeal of the story will be. Because I am not well versed in space history, the name Squyreston doesn't ring any bells for me (also, could "pulling a Ford" be related to this?). Without the expert background knowledge of Bill and Ryan, a reader might become confused.
On the other end of the set spectrum we've got David Marshall's underwater piece. There isn't much of a comfortable set to be had here - and in fact, that discomfort is probably intentional. I personally love to create an alien point of view that really makes people rethink what they know. But it has the disadvantage that it may create confusion. It may be a testament to my lack of sleep, but it took me several readings to figure out what the "Lesser Void" and "Greater Void" were, and what the protagonist was actually doing.
Yes, this is great stuff: creating a mind that labels things we find familiar in an unfamiliar way. But the job of the author then becomes that of dropping hints of orientation that will allow us to comprehend the analog being used. I'm thinking that in this case the addition of directions, up and down in particular, would be informative. A sense of the size of the "veil" might also help to orient a reader. When most of the terms are unfamiliar, people will jump more slowly to accept a very complete set. It is important to include as much of the familiar as you can to evoke the set you want.
Even a very few words can be enough to evoke a set. Kerry Thompson expressed some surprise that I would pick a Victorian English knowledge set for her sailing piece. For me it wasn't the sailing that evoked that set for me, but the names of the two men, and the way that they spoke to one another. By the time I got to "my dear fellow," the set was in place, and this was one reason why I guessed fantasy for her piece rather than science fiction.
If you ever end up with a set that is doing something you don't want it to (as in this example, evoking fantasy and not sf), you've got two options: either ground the set, i.e. talk about the planet Nova Britannia and how it was settled by Englishmen; or break the set intentionally. Breaking the set involves choosing and integrating some distinct differences that will stand out and change the reader's expectations, much as with Bill and his slimline space suits.
I'll give a little example from my own work. My Varin world has a complex caste system which is not at all feudal, but which can appear to be so at first glance. So though Varin is a high-technology world, I've had many test readers say the technology took them by surprise. So what I have to do is every time I start a Varin piece, I have to make sure to place the setting and technology in plain view as early as possible. I break, or defeat, the set. If I don't, the set will continue to work against me.
In Ryan's piece, I find myself suspecting a set - the Andean set - because of the people's names and the scenery description - but I don't feel certain. This is in part due to the use of the fantasy bird, pharu. It puts me on my guard for differences, and makes me want just a little bit more information to justify or defeat my suspicions. As the story goes on we may get more information to sway us one way or another, but we'll still be looking out for pieces of the Andean set, and for differences.
In K's piece we've got layered sets. The technology she mentions will cause us to anticipate other types of related technologies - all good. We've got enough unfamiliar information that we don't assume this is earth, and the relation between it and earth can remain a mystery. It's not critical to know the relation precisely at this point. Yes, K has chosen to use words like car and ComBud, which use familiar concepts, but this works to our advantage in visualizing them. There's no point in labeling them in an unfamiliar way simply because they are not earth-related; we can consider them translated for our purposes. Because the technology is not critically in question here, it's fine to leave those things under the radar. More intriguing is the question of the words "linked" and "psychic." Those words evoke some very strong associations, both in our world, and in the history of fantasy and science fiction writing. If this world has a unique combination of mental abilities, and if it impacts on the plot (which it already does here, in the form of the distinction between regular people and Corpa, and in people's behavior and morals), then this is probably a context where defeating the typical sets is recommended. Giving details and specifics about the way the linked affect works, for example; even possibly staying away from the most commonly used words to describe mental powers.
My final note for today has to do with knowing too much. The more time you spend in your world, the more it will tend to resolve into sets for you - which is to say, that words and phrases local to your world will evoke other aspects of that world for you. The trick is, it won't necessarily do the same thing for a reader who doesn't share your extensive knowledge base. I have this problem all the time. This is partly why it's so important to me to have "naive" readers who are unfamiliar with the world I'm using. They have a unique perspective on the issue of world entry, and whether I've made it reasonably easy, or unreasonably difficult.
In the earliest parts of a piece, the knowledge sets you rest on are either real-world sets, or sets that come from a reader's previous experience in the genre. What I've been talking about here is how to tune those so they start to become the sets you need for your own world. Pay special attention to the sets that will be directly applicable to the main conflict of your story, beause a reader's understanding of the whole story may rest on how the relevant set is established.
Participants, by Friday can you please give me a brief description of the main conflict of your story, what your protagonist's role will be in it and where this scene stands relative to it. Please also tell me the approximate length of the story, i.e. short, novella, or novel.
Thank you so much! Questions and comments are always encouraged. More soon...
I want to talk a little about using knowledge sets, by which I mean using words in your manuscript to access interrelated pieces of knowledge in a reader's mind. Knowledge sets are powerful tools for setting expectations, and because of that, they can be a really big advantage - or a really big disadvantage - to the writer who uses them.
In this workshop group the person with the most easily and completely accessed knowledge set is Bill Moonroe, with his mars explorer piece. The minute we hear the "giant leap for mankind," we're set. We can imagine the moon lander, the astronauts and their gear - let's face it, the entirety of human history up to this point. This lets us feel grounded immediately with a sense of "I know where I am," and it also frees us up to stop paying attention to certain things.
Our reader antennae, which have been reaching out for clues, start to focus in and look for what is new about this situation. Bill then has the job of making sure that what is new is fully in focus. The space suits, for example - he says the woman's suit accentuates her figure. This makes a reader pause momentarily and revise the worldview established by the existing set. He also talks about the Second Space Age. This changes the game considerably, but there's not much sense of what it means in the current piece. Yes, we'll learn more as we read more, but I think even in a short beginning bit like this one there are great opportunities to demonstrate what it means. More on that later.
Along with the responsibility to make clear what is new, there is another thing to watch out for with a very complete knowledge set, and that is, not everyone who reads the piece may be in possession of every part of the set. This is an issue that has to do with how broad the appeal of the story will be. Because I am not well versed in space history, the name Squyreston doesn't ring any bells for me (also, could "pulling a Ford" be related to this?). Without the expert background knowledge of Bill and Ryan, a reader might become confused.
On the other end of the set spectrum we've got David Marshall's underwater piece. There isn't much of a comfortable set to be had here - and in fact, that discomfort is probably intentional. I personally love to create an alien point of view that really makes people rethink what they know. But it has the disadvantage that it may create confusion. It may be a testament to my lack of sleep, but it took me several readings to figure out what the "Lesser Void" and "Greater Void" were, and what the protagonist was actually doing.
Yes, this is great stuff: creating a mind that labels things we find familiar in an unfamiliar way. But the job of the author then becomes that of dropping hints of orientation that will allow us to comprehend the analog being used. I'm thinking that in this case the addition of directions, up and down in particular, would be informative. A sense of the size of the "veil" might also help to orient a reader. When most of the terms are unfamiliar, people will jump more slowly to accept a very complete set. It is important to include as much of the familiar as you can to evoke the set you want.
Even a very few words can be enough to evoke a set. Kerry Thompson expressed some surprise that I would pick a Victorian English knowledge set for her sailing piece. For me it wasn't the sailing that evoked that set for me, but the names of the two men, and the way that they spoke to one another. By the time I got to "my dear fellow," the set was in place, and this was one reason why I guessed fantasy for her piece rather than science fiction.
If you ever end up with a set that is doing something you don't want it to (as in this example, evoking fantasy and not sf), you've got two options: either ground the set, i.e. talk about the planet Nova Britannia and how it was settled by Englishmen; or break the set intentionally. Breaking the set involves choosing and integrating some distinct differences that will stand out and change the reader's expectations, much as with Bill and his slimline space suits.
I'll give a little example from my own work. My Varin world has a complex caste system which is not at all feudal, but which can appear to be so at first glance. So though Varin is a high-technology world, I've had many test readers say the technology took them by surprise. So what I have to do is every time I start a Varin piece, I have to make sure to place the setting and technology in plain view as early as possible. I break, or defeat, the set. If I don't, the set will continue to work against me.
In Ryan's piece, I find myself suspecting a set - the Andean set - because of the people's names and the scenery description - but I don't feel certain. This is in part due to the use of the fantasy bird, pharu. It puts me on my guard for differences, and makes me want just a little bit more information to justify or defeat my suspicions. As the story goes on we may get more information to sway us one way or another, but we'll still be looking out for pieces of the Andean set, and for differences.
In K's piece we've got layered sets. The technology she mentions will cause us to anticipate other types of related technologies - all good. We've got enough unfamiliar information that we don't assume this is earth, and the relation between it and earth can remain a mystery. It's not critical to know the relation precisely at this point. Yes, K has chosen to use words like car and ComBud, which use familiar concepts, but this works to our advantage in visualizing them. There's no point in labeling them in an unfamiliar way simply because they are not earth-related; we can consider them translated for our purposes. Because the technology is not critically in question here, it's fine to leave those things under the radar. More intriguing is the question of the words "linked" and "psychic." Those words evoke some very strong associations, both in our world, and in the history of fantasy and science fiction writing. If this world has a unique combination of mental abilities, and if it impacts on the plot (which it already does here, in the form of the distinction between regular people and Corpa, and in people's behavior and morals), then this is probably a context where defeating the typical sets is recommended. Giving details and specifics about the way the linked affect works, for example; even possibly staying away from the most commonly used words to describe mental powers.
My final note for today has to do with knowing too much. The more time you spend in your world, the more it will tend to resolve into sets for you - which is to say, that words and phrases local to your world will evoke other aspects of that world for you. The trick is, it won't necessarily do the same thing for a reader who doesn't share your extensive knowledge base. I have this problem all the time. This is partly why it's so important to me to have "naive" readers who are unfamiliar with the world I'm using. They have a unique perspective on the issue of world entry, and whether I've made it reasonably easy, or unreasonably difficult.
In the earliest parts of a piece, the knowledge sets you rest on are either real-world sets, or sets that come from a reader's previous experience in the genre. What I've been talking about here is how to tune those so they start to become the sets you need for your own world. Pay special attention to the sets that will be directly applicable to the main conflict of your story, beause a reader's understanding of the whole story may rest on how the relevant set is established.
Participants, by Friday can you please give me a brief description of the main conflict of your story, what your protagonist's role will be in it and where this scene stands relative to it. Please also tell me the approximate length of the story, i.e. short, novella, or novel.
Thank you so much! Questions and comments are always encouraged. More soon...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sets Engaged, Questions in Focus
I've got five very interesting pieces in front of me, and since I'm waiting to hear back from the writers about sharing their work, I'm going to start by talking about initial impressions and the expectations that are set up for me in each piece.
From K Richardson we have a high-technology world with shielded vehicles and telephones (ComBuds), microphones and surveillance. It's not earth, though, because it everyone is expected to be psychic and have "linked affect." My sense is that the two are not linked in this universe at all (tell me if I'm wrong!), and that familiar technologies on this world are not related in any way to their analogues on our own world. I'm seeing politics, with the Presidi; I'm seeing higher power, with the Collective. I'm seeing something like police, with the Corpa. As yet these terms are used unquestioningly, as terms known to the protagonist, Lison. This is consistent with an insider point of view, but I would expect to learn more going onward. I'm curious, though, as to what the structure of dwellings is - this will tell me some things about how people organize themselves and what expectations of privacy are. In a world of psychics, this seems highly relevant.
From Ryan Anderson we have a lower-technology world, where goods are carried up mountains on llama-back, and people travel on foot or on large birds called pharu. The presence of the pharu points me toward identifying this as a fantasy world (tell me if I'm wrong!). The protagonist, Curo, appears to be heading into a political plot with the Choque, who may be invaders or may simply have annexed Curo's native territory. We have terrace agriculture carried out by peasants, and the Emperor's tower, so a good view of the social structure in the infrastructure. Another view out to the Flatlands is less clear in its significance. I'm curious as to what Curo's social position is precisely, and what exactly his goals are relative to the Emperor. The names and places suggest an Andes-analogue location. As yet I see no indication of belief in a greater power. I'm curious about about what the people are wearing, which might show climate and also hint their social status.
From Bill Moonroe we have an earth future, as indicated clearly in the first paragraph with a reference to Armstrong's "one giant leap for mankind." This has some advantages, as the technology set is generally well-known. Elements of this technology can be anticipated, and they're also expected to have advanced - so we see images on the face-plates of the space suits that can fade in and out, and suits that are light enough to accentuate a woman's figure. These particular people are landing oan Mars. There is much reference to light gravity and to red dust. The characters refer to the Second Space Age, and to someone called Squyreston, who perhaps has been there before and less successfully. The protagonist, Perry, tries to protect his female colleague from falling but doesn't want to offend her dignity. I'm curious as to what happened in the First Space Age and how that might resonate in the goals of this crew; also as to how much time has passed, and how that might have affected gender relationships like those demonstrated by Perry.
From Kerry Thompson we have a world with islands and travel by ship, clearly indicated by the word "astern" in the first sentence. I conclude that it is a fantasy world based on the combination of unfamiliar place names like "Falibar" and "Splangliborn" co-occurring with very English-sounding personal names like "Morrow," "Shepherd," and "Miss Emma." I'm assuming this juxtaposition is intentional (tell me if I'm wrong!). This appears to be an English, possibly Victorian, cultural set which brings an array of expectations with it for behavior, belief systems, etc. although divorced from the typical geographical considerations. I'm curious where the story starts, because it was hard for me to tease apart the shipboard location and the grain-merchant's office location (a switch indicated only by tense change with "had" instead of plain past tense). I'm also curious about Shepherd's background. He could always have worked as a sailor and that may have influenced his worldview; or it could be that everyone in this world sails from an early age and so he has an entirely different source of income and a much easier life story. There's little indication here of politics on a larger scale, though some is hinted in the tension between the sailor and the grain merchant.
Finally from David Marshall we have a non-human protagonist with a head and shoulders but "anemone gills" and "hearts," who lives in a watery place where a veil lies between her home in the Great Reef and a place called the "Lesser Void." This one comes with an submarine climate set, implying certain types of ocean inhabitants - these include "bloodrays," "kraken," and "sandlurkers." I'm curious about the general physiology of the arcati race, particularly in the tail end. Coughing implies lungs, and I'm not sure whether she has both lungs and gills or not. There's a belief system here, in the form of a tentacled Eater of all Life who eats the Sun every night. I'm curious whether this entity is merely legendary or at least partly real; this could be an issue in the story. I'm also curious about the nature of the veil and the precise relationship between the livable water world, the veil, the Lesser Void, and the sun. I'm also curious about why our protagonist would be interested in peeking into the unlivable water on the other side of the veil.
I'm enjoying all of these, and we've got some great stuff to work with and explore. Again, please ping me to tell me "okay" or "not okay" on posting the content of your piece (I'd probably do it in the comments area). These are my first impressions; feel free to comment or ask me any questions you have about what I've said here. Seeing these has got me thinking about knowledge sets: above we've already got some climate sets, technology sets, and cultural sets.
More soon...
From K Richardson we have a high-technology world with shielded vehicles and telephones (ComBuds), microphones and surveillance. It's not earth, though, because it everyone is expected to be psychic and have "linked affect." My sense is that the two are not linked in this universe at all (tell me if I'm wrong!), and that familiar technologies on this world are not related in any way to their analogues on our own world. I'm seeing politics, with the Presidi; I'm seeing higher power, with the Collective. I'm seeing something like police, with the Corpa. As yet these terms are used unquestioningly, as terms known to the protagonist, Lison. This is consistent with an insider point of view, but I would expect to learn more going onward. I'm curious, though, as to what the structure of dwellings is - this will tell me some things about how people organize themselves and what expectations of privacy are. In a world of psychics, this seems highly relevant.
From Ryan Anderson we have a lower-technology world, where goods are carried up mountains on llama-back, and people travel on foot or on large birds called pharu. The presence of the pharu points me toward identifying this as a fantasy world (tell me if I'm wrong!). The protagonist, Curo, appears to be heading into a political plot with the Choque, who may be invaders or may simply have annexed Curo's native territory. We have terrace agriculture carried out by peasants, and the Emperor's tower, so a good view of the social structure in the infrastructure. Another view out to the Flatlands is less clear in its significance. I'm curious as to what Curo's social position is precisely, and what exactly his goals are relative to the Emperor. The names and places suggest an Andes-analogue location. As yet I see no indication of belief in a greater power. I'm curious about about what the people are wearing, which might show climate and also hint their social status.
From Bill Moonroe we have an earth future, as indicated clearly in the first paragraph with a reference to Armstrong's "one giant leap for mankind." This has some advantages, as the technology set is generally well-known. Elements of this technology can be anticipated, and they're also expected to have advanced - so we see images on the face-plates of the space suits that can fade in and out, and suits that are light enough to accentuate a woman's figure. These particular people are landing oan Mars. There is much reference to light gravity and to red dust. The characters refer to the Second Space Age, and to someone called Squyreston, who perhaps has been there before and less successfully. The protagonist, Perry, tries to protect his female colleague from falling but doesn't want to offend her dignity. I'm curious as to what happened in the First Space Age and how that might resonate in the goals of this crew; also as to how much time has passed, and how that might have affected gender relationships like those demonstrated by Perry.
From Kerry Thompson we have a world with islands and travel by ship, clearly indicated by the word "astern" in the first sentence. I conclude that it is a fantasy world based on the combination of unfamiliar place names like "Falibar" and "Splangliborn" co-occurring with very English-sounding personal names like "Morrow," "Shepherd," and "Miss Emma." I'm assuming this juxtaposition is intentional (tell me if I'm wrong!). This appears to be an English, possibly Victorian, cultural set which brings an array of expectations with it for behavior, belief systems, etc. although divorced from the typical geographical considerations. I'm curious where the story starts, because it was hard for me to tease apart the shipboard location and the grain-merchant's office location (a switch indicated only by tense change with "had" instead of plain past tense). I'm also curious about Shepherd's background. He could always have worked as a sailor and that may have influenced his worldview; or it could be that everyone in this world sails from an early age and so he has an entirely different source of income and a much easier life story. There's little indication here of politics on a larger scale, though some is hinted in the tension between the sailor and the grain merchant.
Finally from David Marshall we have a non-human protagonist with a head and shoulders but "anemone gills" and "hearts," who lives in a watery place where a veil lies between her home in the Great Reef and a place called the "Lesser Void." This one comes with an submarine climate set, implying certain types of ocean inhabitants - these include "bloodrays," "kraken," and "sandlurkers." I'm curious about the general physiology of the arcati race, particularly in the tail end. Coughing implies lungs, and I'm not sure whether she has both lungs and gills or not. There's a belief system here, in the form of a tentacled Eater of all Life who eats the Sun every night. I'm curious whether this entity is merely legendary or at least partly real; this could be an issue in the story. I'm also curious about the nature of the veil and the precise relationship between the livable water world, the veil, the Lesser Void, and the sun. I'm also curious about why our protagonist would be interested in peeking into the unlivable water on the other side of the veil.
I'm enjoying all of these, and we've got some great stuff to work with and explore. Again, please ping me to tell me "okay" or "not okay" on posting the content of your piece (I'd probably do it in the comments area). These are my first impressions; feel free to comment or ask me any questions you have about what I've said here. Seeing these has got me thinking about knowledge sets: above we've already got some climate sets, technology sets, and cultural sets.
More soon...
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Workshop Participants
Thank you to everyone who submitted story excerpts. I will be working with the following people this time:
1. David Marshall
2. Bill Moonroe
3. Kerry Thompson
4. Ryan Anderson
5. K Richardson
I hope all of you are okay with me posting parts of your work on the blog. If you're not, please let me know right away.
More soon...
1. David Marshall
2. Bill Moonroe
3. Kerry Thompson
4. Ryan Anderson
5. K Richardson
I hope all of you are okay with me posting parts of your work on the blog. If you're not, please let me know right away.
More soon...
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