The Good, the Bad and the Barbaric
Some criticisms regarding my decision to keep human sacrifice in my One World universe has come up, but rather than sit and pout in the corner, I think it’s a good opportunity to reexamine my choices and why I made them (and whether or not it was the right choice to make them). I’m not going to quote anyone, but several readers have been bothered by the fact that in this alternate world human sacrifice is still going on next to space travel and genetic engineering and artificial intelligences. I think it’s a valid concern worthy of discussion and contemplation, particularly since it makes this future civilization appear “barbaric” to some readers. And the last thing I want to do is paint a minority population with broad generalizations or make them seem backwards. If I’m unwittingly being racist, I want to change that.
Warning! Spoilers for other published stories in the One World series.
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October 19, 2011 1 Comment
The Lives Our Stories Lead
I’ve been following a fascinating discussion of my story “Night Bird Soaring” over at the Escape Pod forums, which has gotten me thinking a lot about some of the editorial choices I made with this story and about how stories take on a life of their own after publication.
The ending is a point of argument among the commenters who think it brings the story around into the realm of fantasy, and early in this discussion, I was really kind of kicking myself for a decision I made during the final edit with my editor at GUD; it had been suggested that I cut two lines at the end because she thought what I meant was clear enough without it (I’m not going to say what these two lines were, for reasons I’ll go into a little later.). I hedged on it a bit before finally deciding “Well, if she thinks it’s clear, then it must be,” and so chopped the lines and didn’t think about it anymore.
Until Rich Horton’s review came out in Locus a couple months later, and I realized he’d read the ending in a way I completely didn’t intend it to read. I was kind of grinding my teeth about it, but not many others mentioned the same issue with the ending, and then the award nominations/recommendations started rolling in. Obviously the ending as it was reading wasn’t killing the story, so why worry?
Fast forward to earlier this week and immediately commenters started expressing dissatisfaction with the “fantasy-feel” of the ending. Not at all surprising to me when I saw it, but still I was a bit angry at myself for that editorial decision I made 4 years ago. I had considered reinserting the original cut lines when I submitted to Escape Pod, so the ending would read the way I’d intended, but I couldn’t get past the whole idea that I would be altering it significantly. I’ve never been fond of alternate endings on movies or reissues of books with all the material that was cut in the original edition put back in. It’s kind of like insisting on determining your kid’s life path after they’ve reached adulthood. I thought about posting to the thread to tell everyone “well, this is what I’d originally intended, but such and such got cut, blah, blah.”
But then the conversation started getting really interesting as folks started picking apart what the whole fantasy angle at the end might mean in the largest context of the story’s universe, and I suddenly realized: Who gives a shit what I’d intended? I was told long ago when I first started writing that no one cares what I intended, only what the story tells them, and I’m not going to be there to hold the reader’s hand while they read and explain everything to them. This was in context to clear writing and plotline, but I think it applies in a broader sense too. Once you publish a story, it aught to stand on its own, and whatever you intended doesn’t matter anymore; all that matters is the story as the reader will understand it. It’s no longer your baby to mold and direct and it now has it’s own life and will make its own way.
And quite honestly, I don’t feel so angry at myself anymore about that choice I made 4 years ago (and yes, it was my choice to cut the lines. There was no pressure from my editor). My story is living a fascinating life thanks to that choice, undoubtedly more fascinating than the one I’d intended for it, and I think it’s rather cool. Whatever I’d intended, it just doesn’t matter anymore.
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October 5, 2011 1 Comment
When Someone New Comes Along
So, I’ve taken a little break from writing to read a dissertation that I think will help clarify some historical aspects of my current project, since my limited knowledge of Apaches was failing me, and so far the work I’m reading has been really interesting and I’m absorbing a lot of good information. Where the last third of this novel is going, I’m still not sure, but my normal method is to just wait it out and eventually the block will clear itself. So long as I’m doing research, that’s perfectly okay. When I start wandering off to video games, then it’s not okay.
But yesterday I was reading again and a passing thought about what I was reading developed into a smidgen of an idea, and suddenly it was blossoming into something even larger, large enough that I felt it necessary to go write it down. I did a little research, to make sure I got something right in my note, and doing that opened up even more ideas, and next thing you know, I’m contemplating what the speculative element could be in this new interesting world that was developing in my head. Soon I had two characters and the circumstances that would bring them together. The story itself is still a mystery, but this idea keeps crawling back into my head over and over since yesterday; I even started thinking about it as soon as I woke up this morning. I haven’t given any thought at all to the current project in a least a week now. This new one is exciting, and it’s both alternate history and fantasy, even better since my enthusiasm for science fiction has waned with the years. I think this most likely is epic fantasy; I’ll just have to wait and see what the story’s really about.
And now I see my interest in the current project waving goodbye while the current project wails and gnashes its teeth, begging me not to let it go so soon. I’m not going to; I need to finish it so I don’t forget what I was trying to do at the end, but I just might take some time to get to know this new project a bit better, in preparation for taking a stab at it once I’m done with this novel.
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September 20, 2011 4 Comments
Back to Work, Ye Scurvy Dog!
So the last month or so hasn’t been particularly productive for me, but now that the kids are back in school and I have no more vacations and conventions ahead of me until next summer, I’m determined to get back to work and finish this novel. I’ve finished the first two parts out of three and have spent the last week trying to find the motivation to outline the last third, without much success. It’s obvious that I can’t wait around for inspiration to strike, so to hell with the muse. He’s being lazy, so the hard-knuckled editor is now here to beat him with a stick. I will write 3k today even if it means having to stay up late to get it done. No excuses, no laziness. Ass in chair, fingers on the keyboard, and no internet until at least 1k is gone. The editor is pissed and he doesn’t take kindly to whining. The work day will not end until I reach 70k, at minimum.
Tally-ho!
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September 7, 2011 No Comments
Struggling to Regain the Pace
So I’ve been struggling to regain that uber awesome pace I had prior to the 4th of July holiday weekend, but pretty much I’ve gotten maybe 5k done since then. Vacations are hard to recover from, plus there’s been the normal distractions of kids’ practices and games. I did have a really great writing day last Saturday, almost 3k words. I also put a huge stopper in my progress when I realized that the story would be better off told in 3rd person rather than 1st and so spent all of Monday working to convert the 200 pages I have so far. I’m still not done (I lost yesterday to having to recover from a minor surgical procedure I had in the morning. Spent most of the day on Vicadin and trying to find something my stomach would keep down.). It’s back to it today, hopefully to finish the conversion and get back to work where I left off. I’m starting the story earlier than previously, so while I technically am rewriting, I’m still keeping my previous beginning; it’s just now somewhere closer to the middle. And interesting things I hadn’t anticipated are happening, and deepening the thematic elements of the story. And I have a new character (she’s a character from the other books, but she’s playing a minor role here; important, but minor.). So while I’m disappointed at my rate of progress, I am terribly excited about where things are moving with the book.
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July 20, 2011 3 Comments
