The Intergalactic Medicine Show has a blog, “Side Show Freaks,” where they regularly post short essays by their writers, about the stories published in the magazine. My piece about “Lost Soul” is up there right now, if you’re curious.
Normally my SF Novelists blogging day is the sixteenth, but since my topic for this month is apropos of Valentine’s Day, Daryl Gregory has agreed to let me share the honors with him. So head on over and check out his sonnet and my post about love triangles in fiction.
1686 yesterday, 5195 today, and we. are. done.
60095 words, not including the title, because this is the first time I’ve hit the end of the book without finding an acceptable name to slap on it. I blame the fact that it’s so damn short; if I had another 40K to think, maybe I would come up with something.
Not that I want another 40K, mind you.
The little niggling slave-driver in the back of my head is reluctant to count this as my ninth novel, since it’s less than half the length of some of the other ones I’ve written, and only three-quarters the length of even my shortest adult novel. But that’s YA for you. It’s a book by SFWA standards, so a book I shall call it, and it is the ninth such I have completed. And my first YA!
Time to go flop around like a landed fish and try to turn my brain off. (It hasn’t quite yet noticed that we’re done.)
That is, a debate about short fiction, not a short debate about fiction.
Jay Lake linked today to a “Mind Meld” up at SF Signal, where they had a number of people weigh in on the purpose of short fiction. The responses were thought provoking, both in the “yes, what she said” and “what crack are you smoking?” kind of way.
It starts with Gardner Dozois, whose answer reminds me of nothing so much as the “interviews” football players give after games, where they spout off the standard talking points: just focused on the game, gave 110%, couldn’t have done it without the rest of the team, etc. I’ve seen his answer again and again — but I’ve also seen things calling into question the validity of that answer, on a small or large scale. “[Short fiction is] still where the majority of readers find new writers whose work they enjoy” — really? Then why aren’t the subscription numbers higher? Or to put it differently, how are all those thousands of people who don’t read short fiction finding all the new authors busting out today — especially when many of those new authors don’t write short fiction in the first place? “For writers, short fiction is still the easiest way to break into print” — I’ve seen this one debated all over the place. Break into print, sure, given the many semi-pro and for-the-love markets out there, but there’s been evidence to suggest you have better odds of selling your first novel than getting a story into, say, Asimov’s. Ultimately it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, and finding equivalent metrics for both is harder than you think. “Even today, the best way to break in and establish a professional reputation is to write and sell lots of strong short fiction” — best? According to what measurement? It isn’t best if short fiction isn’t your natural forte, and one solid novel will establish your professional reputation pretty quickly. Sure, editors may offer novel contracts to really well-known short story writers, but they also offer them on a regular basis to people who have never sold a short story in their lives. The days when “build a rep with short fiction, then try a novel” was the standard path to a career are gone, by most evaluations I’ve seen.
Ellen Datlow repeats some of the same points, but usually with a phrasing that makes the fallacies more obvious: “Publishing short fiction is still the quickest way to recognition for a terrific short story writer.” That’s very nearly a tautology: be awesome, and people will recognize your awesomeness. Publishing a novel is the quickest way to recognition for a terrific novelist, too. She also brings up the one that always annoyed me, before I learned to write short stories: “short fiction remains the best breeding ground for new writers because the form provides a smaller canvas with which to perfect their craft.” Sure — if a smaller canvas is your thing. But if it isn’t, then you’ll be stunting your chances of development by trying to force yourself into a smaller box. And writing short fiction won’t teach you to write a novel; at their best, the two forms influence each other, teaching lessons to carry across the divide, but as Jane Yolen pithily puts it down-page: “First, what short fiction is NOT. It’s not training-wheel fiction. Authors don’t practice on short fiction, nor do readers. It is a singular writing and reading experience.” (Mike Resnick hits the same point.) I think the standard advice does a disservice to those who are naturally inclined toward longer lengths — as I myself was, for many years.
But the responses further along contained some thoughts I found very apt. First of all, as several people pointed out — Jonathan Strahan, Andrew Hedgecock, Rich Horton — the question of vitality or lack thereof needs to be split into two parts, artistic and economic. The short story market is not thriving financially. But artistically? Absolutely. I think there’s no question that our genre has matured a great deal, to the point where we’re now positioned to try all kinds of boundary-pushing experiments. And that is a way in which short fiction can be like training wheels: I wholeheartedly agree with the many people who said that it’s the perfect venue for trying out something new, whether it’s a different genre, a new setting, or an unusual voice. (Case in point: “A Mask of Flesh.” I can get away with a Mesoamerican short story much more easily than a Mesoamerican novel.)
Short fiction has a valorized position in our field, especially in SF (as opposed to fantasy). I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it gets up my nose when people then take that too far. It’s the difference between John Klima’s response and Gardner Dozois’; John presents it as “here’s what I like about it,” from which I can generalize that other people share his opinion, whereas Gardner presents it more as some kind of universal truth. But it’s not a truth for me, or for many of the writers I know, who didn’t follow the Standard Path to Success — which suggests it’s not half so standard as advertised.
Regardless, though — an interesting set of answers, and worth reading through if you’re at all involved in the field.
I’m finally getting around to the post I was going to make on Friday, except that I decided it would be better not to bump the signature contest down peoples’ flists.
So, that YA I’m working on. I wrote steadily through January, and even managed to keep it up while at VeriCon, which is little short of a miracle; it required me to be up and working at 3:30 in the morning when I had a panel in seven hours, but hey. I got the words down.
But I came back from the con and that Monday got handed a stack of student stories to grade, which came as something of a rude awakening; I’d seriously underestimated the time each one would demand from me. That might have been fine, except that the sudden increase in workload happened to coincide with a realization about the story: that I was about to step into the endgame, and I was very much not ready. I could have kept plunging ahead, but after eight books I’m developing a sense of when delay is the better part of valor; I needed to step back and get my ducks in a row, or whatever I wrote was just going to be useless crap anyway.
That turned, unfortunately, into a week and a half long hiatus. Which tends to be a bad thing, right before the end of a book. I ultimately had to go back and re-read everything I had so far, but at least it had the salutary effect of convincing me the entire thing doesn’t suck; certainly it has its weak points, but the middle is decently solid. Then I embarked on an incredibly tedious task, namely, plotting the book out scene by scene, one per index card — from multiple points of view. Val’s the only narrator the book has, but it’s long occurred to me that I could probably make my plots more well-knitted if I took the time to think through the story as it’s seen by different characters. What do they think is going on in particular scenes? What are they doing when they’re off-stage? I ended up cheesing out and only noting four other characters on the cards (it should have been six), but that was enough. The last one gave me the reason I needed for why the next thing was going to happen, and that was what had been stalling me.
I’ve gotten nearly six thousand words in the last three days, and at this point, quotas are going out the window. It’s a dead push; I’ll be writing everything I know every day that I can, because I think I can only figure out the next bits by putting down the ones I have. I’m near the end, certainly — 53K on the ms so far, and I’m aiming for something just over the 60K line. I just need to figure out what kind of confrontation we’re going to end with, then work back from there to get the next few paragraphs after where I stopped last night. If I can get that some time today, I should be clear to the end.
It’s tough going. Maybe I shouldn’t novel at this time of year. But having gotten myself into it, the only way out is through.
And then the editor suggests one last line to go after the one you thought was the last line, and you say “yes, that’s it exactly,” and after the most ridiculously niggly revision process I’ve ever been through — a revision process possibly more niggly than all my other story revisions put together — I’ve sold “A Mask of Flesh” to Clockwork Phoenix.
Let it be known to all the world that Mike Allen is a saint among editors, for putting up with me. He made the ending of the story much better, however much I occasionally wanted to light the last page on fire.
Anyway, those of you from the Changeling game may be interested to know that this is the use to which I put all that research I did into Central American folklore, back in the day. My odd little quest to publish some Mayan/Aztec fantasy has begun.
There is nothing more irritating to me, in the writing life, than beating my head against the final line of a story over and over again, arranging and rearranging the most insignificant details in an attempt to get it in tune. “A” or “the”? “Ghosted” or “ghosting”? Comma or no comma?
At least I figured out fairly quickly that the reason I didn’t like any of my ending lines was because I’d passed the right one already. Now I just need to get it to sing.
If you were one of the entrants to the signature contest, please check your e-mail. We have a winner, but I’m waiting to hear back from everyone before I announce it here.
My publicist is making noises about providing prizes for more than just the winner of the signature contest, so if you were waffling about entering, that’s an added encouragement to toss your pen into the ring.
Now I need someone with calligraphy skills.
The challenge is this: e-mail me an image of Invidiana’s signature. Think sixteenth-century handwriting (see icon) as done by a cold, heartless, Machiavellian faerie queen.
I’ll pick my favorite and send it to my publicist. In return, you’ll receive a copy of Midnight Never Come, plus (if I can wangle it out of him) a contract written in period language, on parchment paper, sealed in wax, possibly with a raven feather, with that signature and Elizabeth’s written at the bottom. (It’s a promotional doohickey they’re putting together for the book, and if it turns out the way we’ve been describing it to each other, it’s going to look awesome.)
Deadline is 10 p.m EST tomorrow (Saturday). Sorry for the short notice, but this whole thing is happening very abruptly; they need to print these things on Sunday. You can send me a scan or a digital photo (if it’s steady and clear enough), or create it directly in a graphics program; whatever works for you. Address for submissions is marie dot brennan at gmail dot com.
I don’t know if there are enough calligraphy/good handwriting types here to make this work — turned out I know too few artists for the “Baby Got Back” contest to happen — but I’m hoping so.
My brain has melted into goo, my spellinges maye neuer recouer, and I’ll be speaking in run-on sentences for the next seventeen years, by which time I may hope by the grace of God to have finished one . . . but I have a draft.
And if I never have to see the phrase “the said X” EVER AGAIN, it’ll be too soon.
I just wish I could see my publicist’s face when he tries to read this thing. He told me to get as Elizabethan as I could; I don’t know if he realized that meant using twenty-seven words where five would do, all of them spelled with extraneous e’s and y’s and a total disregard for the distinction between u and v.
There may need to be a revision of this tomorrow.
But that can wait for tomorrow.
Two libraries, one incredibly helpful law reference librarian, and the Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII later, I have the text of two mid-century secret treaties, and also a collection of Elizabeth’s writings.
Which is not to say people shouldn’t keep making suggestions in the comments to the previous post. More help is always good.
I know this will only confirm my geekery, but — there’s something deeply satisfying about the intensive research slog that suddenly produces the perfect resource or bit of information. It isn’t just the payoff; it’s the effort that goes into it. Of course, you can’t tell from inside the slog whether there are any gems waiting at the end, so you just keep trudging through the mire of English property law, wanting to hit Bracton over the head with his own writings and hoping you’ll get a payoff eventually. When you don’t, it sucks. But when you do . . . .
That’s fun.
Can anybody provide me with or point me toward sources for Elizabethan-era legal contracts or treaties? I need to see the style in which they were written.
And then try to mimic it.
By close of play tomorrow, if I can manage it.
