Monthly Archives: October 2015

The Notorious B. T.

Today’s post comes from author, blogger, programmer, gentleman, scholar, professional fractalist, amateur Twitterer, coffee-drinker, book collector, Trekkie, canine enthusiast, graphic novel connoisseur, co-conspirator, and very good friend Ben Trube. His latest work is the mystery novel Surreality, which he was brave enough to offer to me in my very first attempt at copyediting.

Writing a rough draft is actually pretty easy. It basically involves typing until you hit a certain word count. But revising and editing that draft into something that won’t make someone’s eyes bleed, that’s the tricky part.

During the many revisions of Surreality I tried just about every editing technique I could think of, and enlisted the help of two invaluable compatriots, my wife and my copy-editor, Brian. I think he writes a blog or something.

I had an algebra teacher who believed in something he called “Calculator Dependency Syndrome”. Basically, he thought that you needed to be able to work out a reasonable answer in your head or on paper before you should rely on technology. I think the same is true for revising your first novel, sometimes you have to go back to the basics of pen and paper. My first year of revising Surreality involved taking a double-spaced, 40 page section of my book out with me to Barnes and Noble, buying a cup of coffee, and marking those pages up with pen. This creates a very satisfying artifact, and actually meant that I revised my work at least twice, since I had to type all my changes back in. It was also very slow, since once again I’d had the brilliant idea of writing the first draft without chapters. Never again.

My wife and I collaborated on the second edit, a process that taught me how much an author can miss even when they’re trying to slow down and see everything. She questioned details I thought were well presented, and often employed the word “constipated” to certain sentences (in part because she knew of my fondness for the movie Finding Forrester, one of the few decent writing movies that actually has something to teach about writing). She was and is a real partner in the planning of the book, later being largely responsible for the cover design and a lot of the advertising. And, as I’ve written before, she’s the one who suggested the book be moved to Columbus, a city I actually know a little better than a place I’ve visited only once.

This kicked off the third and final edit. Well, that’s almost right, since there were actually two more after it. A year of writing a new draft with the original sitting on a Kindle beside me, or side by side on the computer. Now I had something I actually thought was worth sharing with people, after a vigorous copy edit from the aforementioned Brian.

After a few months of writing blog posts, ideas for other stories, and serial novellas about gravity behaving in completely illogical ways I got Brian’s edits back. Brian and I have a great friendship, meaning that he can tell me if something is working or not without much worry of my getting upset about it. And when he mentioned that he wanted to set one of my characters on fire, a character the reader is supposed to like and who had been one of my favorites to write, I knew there was still some work to be done. After all, Brian isn’t a man who tends to set many people on fire. Well … that one time, but that was years ago. [Ed. note: We said we weren’t going to talk about that!]

Revision at this stage involved me evaluating Brian’s comments, committing his changes and writing new material, then sending those sections back off for comments and final edits. Most chapters went through at least one cycle of back and forth, sometimes more. Working with Brian is probably the closest I’ll come to collaborating on writing. I’m not sure how two authors can get together and write a novel together, but the back and forth of discussing all of the little minutiae, the techniques and plot points, was probably the most fun I’ve had working as a writer, period. We traded comments, bad jokes, puns, and links to YouTube videos of auto-tuned Jon Hamm (there was a legitimate point we were discussing). We discussed whether a brothel or a bordello were actually different things (they aren’t). And it was especially gratifying when Brian said he now liked the character he was supposed to like and didn’t want to set her on fire even a little bit.

Writing a book is not a solitary activity, and revision is one of those things that feels really good when you’re doing it, until you realize you need to do it again. But that doesn’t mean that the next draft you write won’t be the best one yet. Writing is a process, one that takes time, collaboration, and honesty from others and with yourself.

Intrigued? You can learn more about Surreality and show it some love by nominating it on Kindle Scout. Play your cards right, and you could even win an autographed copy. Thanks for the post, Ben!

Also: arson is a felony in the state of Ohio, and, I suspect, a lot of other places too. Just FYI.

Last night I got to have dinner with an old friend, Pat, who I hadn’t seen in far too long. We’ve known each other since elementary school, but since he moved out of Ohio, keeping in touch has been harder. Pat’s brain and mine operate on the same wavelength to an almost frightening degree.

Well, usually.

Here’s an actual exchange from halfway through dinner. We were talking about my copyediting.

Me: Can you believe I’m now paying for an annual subscription to the online Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary?

Pat: Seriously? (in disbelief) What do you do with all the extras?

Me: The extras?

(we stare at each other in confusion)

Me: I said an online subscription.

(we both die laughing)

So, for those wondering: no, I do not receive a new, very slightly updated unabridged physical dictionary once a month in the mail. Although now I’m just thinking there has to be at least one person who would sign up for that, and I want to meet that person. Briefly.

I told Pat I was going to make this the blog post the next day. So here we are. If you’re reading this, buddy, it was good to see you!

And I should know. I’ve wielded plenty of snootiness in my time.

See, to be a proper snoot (a.k.a. snob), it’s not enough to dislike a book, movie, show, or whatever. Everyone has preferences, everybody dislikes things. No, to really snoot it up, you must believe that certain works – even certain categories of art – are utterly worthless, completely undeserving of any attention whatsoever.

After all, the more you admit that a work you dislike has merit, the more you erode your essential snooty nature.

That’s tricky, though. Because as a snoot, you probably aren’t intimately familiar with the work you disdain. And that, in turn, leaves you open to snoot-derailing stealth attacks (SDSAs). You can pronounce that “sodas,” or really, any other way you want, because I only made up the name just now.

I love SDSAs. Here’s how they work:

1. Find something the snoot thinks is worthless (let’s say Family Guy).
2. Pick a quote or scene from it you know the snoot will like. Tailor it to your audience. (“I read a book about this sort of thing once.” “Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn’t … nothing?” “Oh yeah.”)
3. Tell the quote to the snoot, but don’t give the source. If done correctly, the snoot will laugh (if it’s a joke) or otherwise acknowledge its quality.
4. Tell the snoot where the quote comes from. An abrupt change in subject may follow.

Is it petty of me to do this? Probably. But it’s just so much fun.

I was thinking yesterday about genres of fiction: romance, horror, mystery, etc. It’s easy to think of genres as being like ice cream flavors – just different varieties of the same thing, no more than a matter of taste. But in fact, genres differ in more fundamental ways.

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) look at how various genres stack up.

Romance is the most restrictive of the major genres, enforcing both a plot and a reader emotion. The plot is that two people are attracted to each other, go through a rocky courting process, and finally end up together. The emotion is a happy ending (and a general warm-fuzzy throughout, despite some turbulence). It doesn’t matter how much romance a novel may contain – if it doesn’t have both of those things, the plot and the emotion, then it is by definition not a romance novel.

Mystery is also restrictive, but not as much as romance. Mystery enforces a plot – a crime happens, usually a murder, someone spends the book gathering clues, and finally solves it – but not an emotion. A mystery can feel any way the author likes and still be a mystery.

By contrast, horror enforces an emotion (fear) but not a plot, which I would argue is even less restrictive. You can write about anything you want as long as it produces that feeling.

Science fiction has no restrictions on plot or feeling. A sci fi story can be any type of story at all, as long as it contains the right elements: advanced technology, aliens, futuristic stuff, whatever. If that sounds broad and vague, well, it is. Stories as wildly divergent in tone and structure and theme as Dune and Doctor Who and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are all considered sci fi, just because they have the right elements.

Then you’ve got historical fiction, which doesn’t enforce plot, feeling or particular elements, but only setting: it has to evoke a distinct sense of time and place. The Western is a curious animal, a proper subset of historical fiction which likewise has a setting requirement.

Finally, you’ve got fantasy, which vies with mainstream (non-genre?) fiction as the most inclusive branch in existence. Fantasy makes no demands on plot, emotion, particular story elements, or even setting. The only thing fantasy requires – the only thing – is that you think outside the box of what’s physically possible. In effect, the restriction is that you’re not allowed to restrict yourself. (The subgenre of sword-and-sorcery fantasy – which is what many people think about when they hear “fantasy” – is more restrictive.)

Obviously, most of these genres can and do overlap.

You can like or hate any genre you want. That’s fine. But you should understand that saying “I like mysteries” is fundamentally different from saying “I like fantasy.” The former is saying “I like to hear a particular story type retold in a new way.” The latter is saying “Let’s see what kind of crazy this author has cooked up.” The sky is not even close to the limit.

And I do like me some crazy.

You’ve only to say “I fear I cannot accept your kind invitation, because of the Norman Conquest,” I shall quite understand: shan’t be offended a bit.

-Lewis Carroll, letter to a friend, 1884

Who could argue with that?

I’ve been blogging for over four years now, and I’ve discovered something curious: there’s essentially no relationship between how much work I put into a post, and how popular it is.

For instance, my most popular post – more popular than all others put together – is this little list of words to use instead of “awesome.” It’s gotten 87 comments (and counting). I probably cranked it out in about half an hour.

Meanwhile, my story “The Witch and the Dragon” took two weeks of feverish work to write, and is 28,000 words long, spread over sixteen posts. It’s the best long fiction I ever wrote in my life – and I’d honestly be surprised if any single person actually read it, much less gave feedback.

I understand why this happened, of course: the “awesome” article is quick, clickable, and (hopefully) useful, whereas the story is long, requires an investment of time and energy, and has a niche audience.

And I’m not complaining. Because, you see, I do the same thing with other people’s work. Robert Frost, for instance, cranked out “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” in a few minutes, as a break from working all night on the long poem “New Hampshire.” And now, “Snowy Evening”? A rock star. That second one? Never heard of it till I looked it up just now.

Of course, it can go the other way. Tolkien spent over a decade on Lord of the Rings, and now it’s sold upward of 150 million copies. I’m not saying that writing effort is useless, or that it’s never rewarded. But the connection between effort and reader acclaim is … tenuous.

But that’s okay. To paraphrase Marcus Cole from Babylon 5:

You know, I used to think it was awful that readers were so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if readers were fair, and all the terrible sales of my books were because they actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the public.

Amen, Marcus.