Long Books: Are They Easier to Write than to Read?

Oh, yes, I can read long books, fantasy or otherwise. Case in point, Spirit Walk by Richie Tankersley Cusick. Okay, if you want to nit pick, it's two books in one volume, but I started reading it as I got bored with Great North Road. And--I don't think I finished it because it was 200 pages shorter, either.

Spirit Walk is solid Young Adult fantasy where the protagonist moves to a new town just as she's developing the talent to see and hear ghosts. 

Miranda Barnes gets relocated when a hurricane destroys her old life, and when she's moved to her mother's home town, she learns that her grandfather is the town's lunatic eccentric. Turns out his "strange spells" come when he contacts the spirit world, but he dies before he can teach and guide Miranda to control her developing abilities. Fortunately, she finds a group of friends who are more than willing to help her cope, including the local "bad boy" who provides the love interest.

Sounds like a cliche, but it's a cliche like romance books are a cliche. It's all in the writer's imagination and ability to develop a plot line. In this case, Cusick demonstrates good craft skills plus plausible depictions and explanations for the phenomena she works with. Miranda is a good kid trying to find her feet in a new world and, thanks to Cusick, does it in a logical way with only a few normal freakouts. Her sidekicks are all well differentiated and, while they are familiar types including a southern belle, have kinks that move them away from the norm. 

The ghosts? They're the best of all. They come across as characters with real problems rather than flitting balls of light.

As for being long, there are two major things that can go wrong with a story line. One you go into so much detail that you lose your reader's interest. [Like the Great North Road did for me. Though George R. R. Martin does it for me too.]

Another reason is all the writers, who are still learning their craft as their storyline meanders in and out of plot twists and extraneous scenes, who give up. If the beginning writer's lucky, they keep writing until they learn how to construct a novel. If they are luckier, they'll go back and discover a mouldering draft containing inspiration for a number of different novels.

One example of this is a recent blog by Margo Berendson about a unicorn novel she wrote when she first started writing. ... I was an early critiquer of the unfinished novel, way back, but the plot line always has stuck in the back of my mind. I'm glad she's recycling the material now that she's gained a better mastery of her skills. Check out her experience on rekindling her writing dream.

I'm doing much the same thing with some short stories I wrote way back when. Discovered that some of them could be rewritten to fit into my Andor world [There Be Demons and Noticing Jamilla]. I'm now in the process, while I wait for The Grumpy Dragon to do its thing, of converting the short stories into planks in my platform.

Have you made any other use of your trunk novels, besides making a home for dust bunnies?

Oh, Spirit Walk. I give it a five star rating because it kept me reading past my bedtime.

My Worst Writing Fear -- Nathaniel Sewell

Hi ... Welcome to my first guest blogger Nathaniel Sewell, the author of Fishing for Light, a satire. My initial topic is "My Worst Writing Fear -- with blogger's name", but this is not just a gripe session. There has to be a suggested solution to the agony. I'm now scheduling Thursdays for fiction writers. Send for Guidelines. Email is on the sidebar.

My Worst Writing Fear -- Nathaniel Sewell

As a storyteller, I don’t worry about making grammatical errors because I know, as sure as the Earth will continue to orbit the Sun, it will happen. And I know I’ll make every effort with the help from editors, who are much smarter than ‘I’, to weed out those nasty incantations that cause me to hide in naked literary shame. 

I don’t worry about the length of a novel because the story should naturally unfold at its own pace. Or that I break some sacrosanct rule that the high priest of writing has cast down to us, we the tiny brained mortal who has the audacity to think they can create a meaningful story. And I don’t worry about writing an ugly scene showing how human beings can disgustingly treat their fellow man and then justify their actions using religion or political expediency. 

I don’t worry about creating a stereotypical character that might swerve into being a cliché. And I don’t worry about writing a sex scene between a hot babe and a hairy, height-challenged dude while being filmed by three fat little pigs smoking cigars. However, what I write has to have a point and is not written to just shock the reader’s senses, because I respect the reader. 

But as you can tell, I really don’t much care what anybody else thinks, or says, or opines about my writing. I think to really write, to really devote your life to creating meaningful, art, as an artist you should be fearless. If writing is to evolve, the writer has to take risks. BUT, save for that one person, there is one person that I DO worry about, and I fear what that person thinks about from behind their eyeballs - the reader. I respect and fear only the reader because they have taken time from their life to read what I have created.

My worst, worst writing fear is that the reader will stop, reading. If my number one goal is to keep the reader reading, then I know all my effort should focus on writing that is well crafted, entertains, and informs. It is an odd tight rope that we have to navigate. If the story is almost pornographic that would seem to cater to our base impulses, but then again, some guy named, Vladimir Nabokov wrote - Lolita. Or another guy wrote using the ‘N-word’, that guy was named, Mark Twain. I think we all know there are numerous other examples of writers sharing an entertaining story that pushes our collective readerships – buttons. Right? Otherwise governments and school boards would have nothing left to do.

So my worst fear is that I stop the reader from reading something true, authentic and unfiltered. That I did not share with them my inner most thoughts, and take them on a short journey into a world they might not understand. Or a world that they secretly might want to investigate, but they just need to have the available literary transport to take them there. So, in the end, what I fear the most is a ‘shrug’ from the reader. If that happens, I know I have failed.

 Blub: Fishing for Light

Ms Prosperina is a genetic monster trying to take over the world by spiking the coffee at her Starry Eyed Coffee Hut chain … and she’ll stop at nothing.

It’s up to her unwitting creator, the geneticist Professor Quan, to stop her. In an attempt to correct his mistake, Professor Quan creates a network of people with the power of true love genetically coded within them.

Everything hangs in the balance when Eddie, altered at birth by Quan’s genetic mutation powder, fails to follow his pre-ordained destiny. The trauma of his father’s death has caused him to stray from Quan’s master plan.

Will Quan succeed in helping Eddie regain the light behind his eyes and will they succeed in foiling Ms Prosperina’s evil plans?

Giveaway

Economical World Building: Can Your Readers See Action or Do Your Characters Act in the Dark?

One fact of the writing life: all writers build worlds ... whether in the past, present, and future. Some bloggers even think the setting or world of a story is the equivalent of a character, something your protagonist, antagonist, and secondary characters must react to. Adding depth to my settings is one of my main chores when I revise.

Got a good demonstration on why I write fantasy rather than science-fiction when I read Peter F. Hamilton's gut-busting Great North Road. I don't much participate in the world around me ... and that include futuristic extrapolations. I'd never make a Millennial except for politics. I really don't want to be connected with the world around me. Hamilton's detailed extrapolation of your current mess makes me want to bury my head deeper.

Had another bone to pick with the book. I can't imagine holding the 900 page, gorilla-sized, thumb-busting hard back up to read. My thumbs would be catatonic. Even the paperback made them sore. Yeah, I could of used an e-reader, but the battery would of probably expired, not to be revived.

Yeah, you got it in one. I think the book is waaaaaaay too long. Remove the extra padding, and I think there's a great 4-500 page futuristic mystery in there with multiple plot lines and well-fleshed characters with vendettas rather than grievances. The tech is also an inventive extrapolation of current cyber connectivity, political oligarchies, and government surveillance. I also loved the way he solved the problem of space travel.

Short summary:  Set in Britain of the future, the story begins with the murder of one of a world-class oligarch's several hundred clones [all of which are involved in his business empire]. Detective Sidney Hurst gets the unwelcome task of solving the mystery which is soon linked to plots to the control of bio-oil produced on a distant planet which is transported via a type of space-portal. The source of bio-oil is plant-based from a planet that had no animal life until humans arrive. Evidence soon suggests that an alien being from that planet might have been responsible for the earth-side murder, which calls in the interference of governmental agencies.

The plot soon entwines with the mystery of whether or not Angela Trammel actually murdered another North clone years earlier, a crime for which she was imprisoned but released when the second murder occurred. Trammel claims an alien being killed North and members of his entourage. She is included in the expedition to find evidence of the alien on the bio-oil planet. Then, more mysterious deaths occur with lots of hints that Trammel isn't what she claims to be, including innocent. 

By this time, I'm around page 400 and skimming. Soon I'm skimming so fast, I'm losing track of the storyline. I'm giving the book three stars *** because it didn't hold my interest,  and I didn't finish the book though I did peek at the ending.

Granted monster books are an acquired taste like monster trucks. In my defense I say: I read the Lord of the Rings at least once a year. It keeps my interest though I've been reading the book since the 1960s. Guess I'm not a candidate for marketers of time travel.

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My own writing isn't doing much new. I'm cleaning up stuff in my computer ... and groaning because the computer store when I bought my lapstop did NOT transfer ALL my files.  I've discovered I'm missing several short stories, and yeah, I shouted.

Did get a festering short story, revised to be set in Andor of the There Be Demons world, expanded. I'll be offering it free when I get it all set up. Need something different for the marketing lures. Use the free story links on Twitter to lure people to my author website.

Then, it's back to drafting the end of Crossings from the scattered thoughts currently hanging from the draft. And, did I say I've got revisions that must be transfered for The Ghost in the Closet so it can get copyedited and formatted? 

Then it's back to my Half-Elven revisions and writing.  Wheeww. Give me a moment while I stop panting.

Now I'm wondering if you can concentrate on one writing project at a time or do you take the shotgun approach?

Historical Fiction Writers, Do Your Characters Live in Their World or Yours?

Fantasy writers get dissed a lot for creating massive info dumps as they create worlds for their characters to act in. I'm no different. My critique partners often say I don't have enough action in my stories.

To my mind, historical writers as a group handle the problem worse. Seems like more of them either write fluff or lead. One bunch hasn't done enough historical research or don't understand the facts they wrote down. Others layer on so many facts that their characters get lost. 

Oh, for the writer who creates a living, breathing world.

I just hit it lucky again with Vicky Alvear Shecter's young adult historical novel, Cleopatra's Moon. Yes, that Cleopatra, the seventh of her name, figures large in the book, but this novel's main character is Cleopatra Selene, her daughter. Set during the civil war that changed ancient Rome from a Republic to an Empire under Octavian, the novel is laced with politics as Cleopatra Selene and her two brothers struggle to survive after their loving home in Egypt is destroyed, but it's never dull.

Yeah, the book is well researched and draws wonderful comparisons between the civilized Egyptians with their animal-headed gods and the uncouth Romans who stole so much of their culture from the ancient Greeks. [Okay, I know the Etruscans were part of ancient Greek civilization, if not the actual refugees from the Trojan Wars lead by Aeneas, but the Romans conquered them too.] 

After their parents and older brother die, Cleopatra VII's three younger children must then navigate the corruption of Octavian's rule to survive, especially Selene who hopes to return to Egypt as queen with the help of the worshipers of Isis. Selene tries to protect her younger brothers as she tries to choose which member of Octavian's household will best help her reach her goal of becoming queen.

Shecter builds well-rounded characters. A passage from the scene where Cleopatra offers her own life for her oldest son, fathered by Julius Caesar, shows how deftly she weaves historical facts to draw a three-dimensional secondary character. "Octavianus stood and crossed his arms, a cold grin on his face. 'Very noble of you, but I need you for my Triumph. And I cannot let any blood-son of my adopted father live to contest my legacy, can I? Two Caesars are simply one too many.'"

The motivation for Octavian's actions are neatly tied up in one bit of dialog. Add to that the light airy descriptions of Alexandria and the fetid depictions of Rome, Selene's headstrong maneuvers to return to Egypt as queen, and a choice between two attractive men. You end up with a plot that twists and turns enough to create suspense even though the historical facts are well known. [Cleopatra Selene survived to become the client queen of what's now northwest Africa.]

Think I have an advantage in knowing the era over most readers since I took three years of Latin in high school as well as reading a lot of hard history over the years. Maybe more important, I've re-read I, Claudius by Robert Graves several times. Shecter's writing is awesome and well worth five stars for the way she motivates her characters, though I think she let Livia off easy.

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Question. What do you write first 

I tend to set up dialog first and then fill in the setting, descriptions, and motivations. Then, I have to go back and add my character's doing something.

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Got a surprise from the Grumpy Dragon. They've given my stories set in my alternative California worlds a tag line: "The Andor Chronicles". This is my editor/publisher's reaction when I told her that my short story, Crossings, is threatening to become a novella, which I might self-publish if she didn't mind.

I'm still waiting for the final edits for There Be Demons, but they have been promised by the end of this week. When they arrive, she's going to get another story to glance at, The Noticed One, also set in my alternate California. Even though it's darker and deals with emotional vampires, it's set in the territory and wouldn't take much revision to fit into Andor.