Brandon Sanderson's writing class lectures

Just saw this link from his blog--archived lectures from his university writing course. Even if you're not aiming to write epic fantasy, he's a great guy to learn about craft from.

On aiming for the top and following your gut

Lately I've seen a number of situations where people have picked a low quality option, just because it was there--and sometimes they've regretted it. This is a writerly blog, so my focus is on the writing aspect, but it applies to anything important in life, too. So I just have to say it:

AIM HIGH.

Aiming high is not the same as having an inflated ego. Accepting something less when you know you're worth more isn't humility. It's throwing away your opportunities to do something great with your talents.

Sometimes, making good choices can be obscured by someone who means well but doesn't have a full knowledge of the situation. Or who thinks you should be grateful for even HAVING an offer. Like...an agent offer. (No, I'm not thinking of any particular situation by this. Just something I've seen happen before.) Your friends have only ever gotten rejections--heck, maybe you have only ever gotten rejections--and now someone wants to sign you! How exciting!!! They're offering, so of COURSE you have to say yes. But. A small voice at the back of your head warns you that something is not quite right.

Yeah. Suck up your courage and listen to that voice.

You wouldn't marry someone because you felt sorry for them, would you? You can be nice to everybody, but being nice isn't the same thing as committing yourself to a lifetime and beyond together. Maybe business isn't quite the same thing as marriage, but--business decisions have a way of having long term consequences. It's the sort of thing to think through before you give a yes.

I've had various helpful suggestions regarding getting published, most of them good suggestions, a few not so good. Just yesterday I heard about someone's (negative) experience with a small publisher someone once urged me to try. I'm sure they're good at what they do, but the thing is--my book was not that thing. To settle for that when I know my book can be so much more would be wrong. Even if my book never gets picked up (and I have several like that)--I would rather write a new and better book than shoot too low.

You can't know the end from the beginning. Sometimes you might make what looks like the very best choice--and then circumstances or people change, and you're still left with a mess. When that happens, it isn't your fault. But for anyone who is currently weighing the flattery of being chosen against that little voice inside warning you against it, I say: listen.

On heroic characters

I've spent the past week revising a couple of scenes, double-checking the research aspects, and rewriting and rereading and rewriting again to make sure they're totally clear. In one of them, there is an explosion that my MC tries to shield his friends from. A writer friend who read the scene suggested that he not just shield them, but get hurt a little in the process. He was already being heroic, but bumping it up a bit so that we saw him take the consequences of his choice made him more heroic in that situation. Which makes me think of something someone from my local writers' group said recently. She'd been to a conference and one talk focused on things to make your MC more approachable. Among them were these suggestions:

How is your MC heroic?
How is s/he vulnerable?
What is s/he willing to sacrifice to get what s/he wants?

I'm starting a new book now and thinking about these things from the start. I really do love heroic, vulnerable characters who sacrifice something valuable for what they want most. But I think you have to be a bit careful with the sacrifices, otherwise, you're creating a character who just lies down and lets people walk all over her. We don't want to create a co-dependent character. We want someone strong, who's willing to risk it all for something they wisely know is worth more. They've got to be heroic so you know they aren't a doormat. And they've got to be vulnerable so they don't seem too perfect for the reader to identify with. These three things really have to balance each other for it to work.

I don't think heroics have to be huge. I think they can be small things the MC does without even thinking--things that show the measure of who they really are. Like Arthur in Kevin Crossley-Holland's books. He tries to be good at his own station, but he still helps Gatty catch the bull. He worries about the people on the estate who are treated unjustly. He bucks the system a little at a time, and the reader loves him for it. Sometimes very small details can give a reader a very positive impression.

Vulnerability is showing a character's flaws and fears and failures. It's what they stand to lose if their gambles fail. It's the part that makes them human. When a reader recognizes a shared fault or fear, the character feels human to them.

And sacrifice. You can't just give up all you are and have, just because it's your duty or because someone else said so. That's weak. You have to do it because you want to. Because you know it will hurt, but you're willing to fully accept those consequences in the hopes (but not perfect knowledge--it's still a faith thing) that it will cause something you want even more to come to pass. If you have given your character a chance to develop some heroic qualities prior to this point, they will be ready when the time comes to give all.

I'm still trying to figure this out. If you have any insights, feel free to share.

The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Sometimes you reread a book as an adult that you loved as a child, and it doesn't hold up. But sometimes you reread it and you love it just as much, and you realize that not only has it weathered through stylistic changes in publishing, it's also just as enthralling for the adult mind as it was for a child. That's the case with Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, copyright 1973. It won a Newbery Honor, which, on reflection, is an award common to many books I love (more so than the actual medal).

The story: It's 1558, and Kate Sutton and her sister Alicia are maids in the service of Princess Elizabeth, whose sister Queen Mary (as in Bloody Mary) has put Elizabeth under house arrest. Alicia writes to the queen to complain, and in punishment, she is taken to be a servant to the queen, where she can keep an eye on her, and Kate, who is truly innocent in the matter, is banished to a remote manor called Elvenwood Hall, where she will also be under house arrest. When she arrives, she hears of strange stories about the Wardens (the family the current lord, Geoffrey Heron, inherited it from)--stories of the Fairy Folk. Also, she learns that Sir Geoffrey's daughter disappeared down the holy well on the property, and that Geoffrey's younger brother Christopher believes it's his fault that she drowned, for he was supposed to be watching her that day. But then it is discovered that she didn't fall--she was taken, by none other than the People in the Well, to pay a teind, or in other words, to be a human sacrifice in their druidic rites. Christopher offers himself in Cicely's place, and Kate is taken captive and given to the Fairy Folk as well, to remove her as the sole witness to what is really going on in the caves and abandoned mines below the Elvenwood.

What's so excellent about this book: Firstly, even though it's historical fiction, there is a very modern sense to aboveground 1558. These are the reasonable people, these are the ones we feel we have most in common with. It's very matter of fact and real. Part of this is possibly because of the contrast between the modern people of the book and the people who live underground who still, 1600 years later, are still practicing Druids. It's not anachonistic at all--I admit I find those books that stick a pushy, modern girl into the past rather irritating. This feels right for the time, but it makes the time very accessible and "normal" for the reader.

Secondly, the main character herself. She's very matter-of-fact and practical; not given to hysterics or unsupportable imagination. When she does have strong emotions, they mean something. Having been accused of this in both life and writing, I can personally relate. But even if that is not you, just her being like this is good for the book, because she contrasts nicely with other characters who ARE prone to superstition and mystical ideas. And it becomes important to the plot and ultimate solution.

Third, I had to smile, because when they capture her and send her below, the manor steward cooks up the story that she's fallen in love with and run after Christopher Heron. Her indignant objection (even if you know he is significant to the story) is that she can't possibly be in love with Christopher Heron--she's only spoken to him twice in her life! Such a realistic and refreshing change from all those YAs where the heroine instantly and inexplicably falls in love with a guy because of some irresistable spark or compulsion she can neither explain nor fight off.

Fourth, I felt the story invested significant buildup at the beginning, and as a result, the rest of the book meant something and had sticking power. You've got to put in this investment. Yes, things need to be happening--but you've got to make us care about the character and her world if we're going to feel the stakes. Book to movie adaptations tend to be places where this falls apart the worst. But even in books, this is important. Start with action and have things continually happening, yes--but you've got to develop your characters and make us care, or the action will be meaningless.

So, really excellent book. I just wish she had written more!

On tension and stakes and history

I've been reading Lora Innes's fabulous web comic The Dreamer for a while. It's about a modern girl who starts turning up in the Revolutionary War when she goes to sleep. At first she thinks it's just a dream, but then...well, it just seems way. too. real. Could she have really dreamed up that hot guy, Alan Warren, who seems to know her so well? How could she know about Thomas Knowlton, head of Knowlton's Rangers (forerunner of any and all US spy networks) if she doesn't pay attention in history class? When she sees The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumball at an art exhibit, she freaks. These people she's dreaming about? They're real.

There are a lot of great things about this comic. The art quality is one of the very best out there--just fabulous storytelling with small gestures and expressions. Add great dialogue, funny punchlines in the midst of heart-hitting tragedies, and some excellent pacing. Just really well done. But one of the things that gets me most as a writer is Lora's ability to tell a story we all know the ending to--and do it in a way that suspends our disbelief and makes us hope that somehow, some of these tragedies can be averted. And I think she does this by being specific.

A history textbook gives you the facts, the statistics, and the very broad, sweeping picture, in a very 20-20 hindsight point of view. The difference between that and fiction is that in a story, you have to be in the moment. Inside one person's head, not twenty thousand. It's not enough that her characters can't wait to fight back against the British. No--some of them don't really care about the "sides"--they just want the people they love to be safe. Some of them have already lost family members and are suddenly realizing that this could turn out to be much more than a game. That "sacrificing all" is more than lip service, and that "all" is considerably more than they had imagined. Mothers who support the American side are terrified that their vocal sons will be captured and hung half a world away. We might know how it all turns out--but they don't. And just because the Americans won doesn't mean everyone came home, either. From a textbook viewpoint, the Battle of Harlem Heights was a fabulous victory--the first win under George Washington, a victory to give heart to all. But Col. Knowlton was killed. Lora does a great job of making you love Knowlton as a leader, a dad, a friend--so that even though you know this battle was a good thing for America, it is a devasting scene on the page. Likewise, our fictional male lead is just realizing that he has a LOT to lose in this war. Because we know all the people he loves, and so we're scared along with him. (That guy in the painting, General Warren? That's his cousin...)

So, if you're writing historical fiction or battle scenes or even just a book where the reader knows the end from the beginning--you still have to suspend your reader's disbelief. Make them think/hope/beg that the outcome can be different than they know it is. And you do it by being specific. It doesn't matter what the whole country is doing. What matters is what your main character stands to lose on a personal level. Once you get that focus right, everything else comes in clear.

Recent reads

I've been reading a lot, as usual, and these are two that stood out for me this month. One YA and one MG:

The Explosionist, Jenny Davidson. YA. Wow, that was a very unusual book! Alternate history (Napoleon won Waterloo), Scotland + northern countries = Hanseatic League vs. England + Europe. Dynamite and terrorism, government conspiracies, and…spiritualism?? Very, very different. When I picked it up, I thought from the cover and title that it would be about Irish terrorist bombings, but it's not. I will say, though, that Davidson appears to know an awful lot about explosives. Or at least, knows how to write so that it seems so. I understand there is a sequel?

Cosmic, Frank Cottrell Boyce. MG. Hysterical and heart-filled book about a boy who looks like an adult, even though he’s 12. He convinces a classmate to play his daughter and wins a trip to space from a secret thrill-ride park in China. Only they lose contact with earth and have to fly themselves. I laughed to tears in several spots, and found it heartwarming in others. A great dad book!

Three recent YA books I really loved

A Long, Long Sleep, by Anna Sheehan
YA futuristic fiction

The first book I've finished this year, and really excellent. And also somewhat undefinable. It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty--sort of. But it's not a fairytaleish sort of telling. Sixteen-year-old Rose Fitzroy wakes up from her stasis chamber after 62 years. It's not the first time she's been put under--but never for this long! For the first time, her parents aren't there, Xavier, the boy next door, isn't there...everyone she knew is long dead, and the world is a different place. Suddenly she's the heir (or ward, depending on who you ask) of Unicorps, her parents' worldwide--no, make that solar system wide--business. She's got to start a new school (again), try to figure out how to make friends (something she was never very good at), and deal with the permanent loss of Xavier, who was always there for her before. And oh yeah--there's this plastine robot out to assassinate her. Bren, the boy who found her in the dusty apartment building basement, and his family are trying to help her physically, but only gradually, with the help of a strange alien boy named Otto who's a friend of Bren's does she realize she needs help in other ways, too. Ways that make her deal with things in her past...

Other reviewers have said this, but I was just so angry at the parents in this story. And even though Rose starts out sort of distant at the beginning (for understandable reasons!), there was a spot in the middle that made me cry. Really excellent worldbuilding with a very human story at its heart. I really hope there's a sequel, because while this story is finished, there is more to be told, if that makes sense. Definitely recommended!

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater
Irish-mythology-based

The story, for those who just want to read a book: every fall, horses come out of the sea onto Thisby Island. People catch them and train them for a year, and then race them the next. (Or however long it takes to train such a horse.) They are extremely fast, and they are also deadly. They have a tendency to run back into the sea, thus drowning the rider, or more likely, they see people, sheep, even regular horses, as food. It's extremely dangerous. Seventeen-year-old Puck Connelly is racing so she and her orphaned brothers don't lose their house to the richest man on the island (who also owns a racing stable and whose horses participate in this yearly event). Nineteen-year-old Sean Kendrick is racing because he wants to own the killer horse he trained, he's won on, and who he loves. Except that that's the hold his employer (and technical owner of the horse) has over him. (The employer is Puck's landlord.) Both have to win--but only one can.

The writing in this book is all kinds of gorgeous. It feels very natural (ie not too flowery), it's very nice to read aloud, but it's very specific to the characters in question as well. Take this from page 334: "I wasn't prepared for it to be Sean, and so my stomach does a neat little trick that feels like either hunger or escaping." Or this: somewhere (I can't find the page now), I think it's Puck who tells her brother he "looks like homemade sin." I could go on--but between the writing and the fact that you're very much inside the heads of two otherwise very private individuals, and the tension the plot sets up between them, there is no way to go wrong. And the Printz committee recognized that this year. Yay!

Ultraviolet, by RJ Anderson
genre-bending YA mystery SF

I loved this book! I read the first third of a rough draft a number of years ago, and have been waiting rather anxiously for it to sell and then for it to come out. And the rest of the story did not disappoint.

Alison's always been extra-sensitive, something she keeps quiet about, ever since she told her mother about seeing sounds, and her mother thought she was going crazy and freaked out. But when she wakes up in a mental institution and everyone thinks she killed a girl in her class after a fight, she is terrified that she IS crazy--and guilty. But really? Even though she saw it happen--how could Tori have disintegrated? Then a neuroscientist comes to the hospital and Alison learns she's a synthesete. Dr. Faraday says she's not crazy. And, he believes her story.

The book is science fiction (you should pick up on that by the whole I-saw-her-disintegrate thing at the beginning), but that aspect unfolds gradually. It's a warm *people* story, as opposed to hard scifi, and carries wisps of L'Engle and Dr. Who--except that it's really different from anything you've read, too. I highly recommend it!