I did something fun today. Sacred Heart Academy is an old (and very $$$) local girls school. As part of a recent assignment, everyone in their freshman class picked a local writer to research, read one of their books, and wrote a paper. A girl named Katie picked me, and then she invited me to come speak to her class. Since I’m a big believer in encouraging young peoples’ interest in books, I said yes.
I don’t think I’ve ever had such an enthusiastic, interested, and just plain fun audience. The experience left me with a pleasant buzz that has lasted all day. The girls were articulate, knowledgeable, mature, and amazingly lucky to go to such a wonderful school and have such an intelligent, enthusiastic teacher. I’m not normally a fan of all girls schools (my own two girls went to Seymour College in Adelaide, a very $$$ elite girls boarding school in the eastern suburbs, and were miserable). But what I saw working in that class today was education at its best, inquisitive minds coming together with an adult who respects them and guides them toward knowledge and a love of learning.
If only that wasn’t so rare.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
Swords of Talera
Nothing quite beats the thrill of seeing your story in print. When the story in question is one you first wrote over two decades ago, the thrill must be even sweeter.
A friend of mine, Charles Gramlich, just published SWORDS OF TALERA, a swashbuckling tale in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. This is a story he first wrote in his early twenties. Since that time he’s gone on to earn a PhD in psychology, become a professor at Xavier University, and write—and publish—dozens of short stories and one horror novel, COLD IN THE LIGHT. At one time, he revised Swords of Talera and started on a more serious search for a publisher. But by then the sword and planet genre was fading. The story came out as a serial in a SF magazine, where it received the magazine’s Readers’ Choice award. Now, the recent revival of the fantasy genre means the trilogy (he has written two sequels) is finally seeing publication in book form.
Charles is a member of my Monday night writers group, so over the years I’ve read and enjoyed bits and pieces of the two sequels—WINGS OVER TALERA and WITCH OF TALERA. Anyone who reads Charles’s blog knows his glorious gifts for atmosphere and description, while a lifetime of watching people added to his professional mastery of psychology gives a rare resonance to his characters.
Congratulations, Charles!
And here’s the Amazon link.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Just When You Think Things Can’t Get Any Worse…
We’ve been having a hideous storm here in New Orleans all day. Buckets of rain, endless lightening and thunder, howling winds. You need to understand that even without a hurricane it can rain so hard in New Orleans that the streets turn into vast sheets of water deep enough to swallow unwary motorists. Which is how my daughter managed to drive my car (of course it’s my car; hers is still in the shop) into a lake deep enough to make it stall out.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says over and over again when she calls.
“That’s all right,” I say. “I’ll call Steve to come get you.”
Ten minutes later, she calls back. “Where’s Steve?”
“He’s coming. Why?”
“Well I was just sitting here in the car and I heard this huge crack and this giant tree came crashing down toward me!”
Deep breath. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Deep breath. “Did it hit the car?”
“No. But it brought down some power lines and—”
“Don’t get out of the car!”
“Right, Mama,” she says in that tone that only a teenager can manage. “I’m sitting in a car surrounded by water with live power lines bouncing around and you think I’m going to get out of the car?”
Ah, if only this were fiction…
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says over and over again when she calls.
“That’s all right,” I say. “I’ll call Steve to come get you.”
Ten minutes later, she calls back. “Where’s Steve?”
“He’s coming. Why?”
“Well I was just sitting here in the car and I heard this huge crack and this giant tree came crashing down toward me!”
Deep breath. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Deep breath. “Did it hit the car?”
“No. But it brought down some power lines and—”
“Don’t get out of the car!”
“Right, Mama,” she says in that tone that only a teenager can manage. “I’m sitting in a car surrounded by water with live power lines bouncing around and you think I’m going to get out of the car?”
Ah, if only this were fiction…
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Getting it Wrong
After writing only a handful of pages last week (I misspoke; when I counted them, there were actually eight pages), I sat down Sunday night to reread what I had produced. Two scenes, and both were unadulterated sh*t.
Steve said, “They can’t be that bad. Let me see them.” He read them, handed them back, and manfully said, “Well, they are a little weak.”
“Weak? They’re unadulterated sh*t!”
Some writers, I know, have the ability to charge onward without reworking or even rereading what they’ve written. Not me. I feel as if I’m building a house on shaky foundations. I couldn’t continue writing until I fixed what was wrong with those two scenes.
For one full day I was paralyzed. You must remember, this is a book I haven’t touched since I submitted the proposal last November 1. All the standard fears raised their heads. Oh, God; what if I just can’t DO this? I retreated into an old Georgette Heyer book (I haven’t read GH in ten or fifteen years) and spent the day chuckling. On Tuesday, I took a deep breath and started rewriting.
So what was wrong with my two scenes? They were boring. Why were they boring? Well, the first scene introduces a character named Jules Calhoun, Sebastian’s valet. Those who read the series know that Sebastian has valet problems, due largely to his habit of sometimes dressing like a beggar and at other times having his expensive coats and waistcoats ruined by would-be assassins. Calhoun arrives at the end of WHY MERMAIDS SING. He’s a colorful character (his mother runs the most notorious flash house in London), and just what Sebastian needs. So what is he doing when we’re introduced to him in this book? Sewing a button on a shirt.
I know, I know. Where was my head? Not only is the scene hopelessly static, but it gives us no sense of Calhoun’s character at all. I also realized that, despite the fact that this is the first time (in this book) we see Sebastian’s house and meet his household, I provided no description of his house or his household or why he lives the way he does. All that is now integrated into the new scene, which includes the major-domo’s hostility to Calhoun (for conflict), and introduces Calhoun in the midst of concocting his secret boot polish in the kitchen and carrying on a light flirtation with Sebastian’s French cook. The scene is so much better. Last week’s scene was written by an incompetent idiot. This week’s scene isn’t the best I’ve ever produced, but it more than holds its own weight.
In the next scene, Sebastian visits a brothel. How can a visit to a brothel be boring? It was a tough feat, but I pulled it off. How? I left out virtually all description. There was no description of the neighborhood or even an awareness of the time of day. The girls were described but not their clothes. The house itself was described, but badly. It was like a cake without frosting. Now it’s iced and decorated, and it is much, much better. I was able then to move smoothly into writing the next scene, where Sebastian tangles with the brothel’s bouncer. I now have 14 pages (counting the reworked scenes, not counting the 38 pages written last fall for the proposal). Not a great total, but I’m back in the story, and it’s flowing.
It’s funny that after all these years I can still get it so horribly, horribly wrong. I guess what the years have taught me is how to recognize when it’s going wrong, how to understand why it’s going wrong, and how to fix it.
Steve said, “They can’t be that bad. Let me see them.” He read them, handed them back, and manfully said, “Well, they are a little weak.”
“Weak? They’re unadulterated sh*t!”
Some writers, I know, have the ability to charge onward without reworking or even rereading what they’ve written. Not me. I feel as if I’m building a house on shaky foundations. I couldn’t continue writing until I fixed what was wrong with those two scenes.
For one full day I was paralyzed. You must remember, this is a book I haven’t touched since I submitted the proposal last November 1. All the standard fears raised their heads. Oh, God; what if I just can’t DO this? I retreated into an old Georgette Heyer book (I haven’t read GH in ten or fifteen years) and spent the day chuckling. On Tuesday, I took a deep breath and started rewriting.
So what was wrong with my two scenes? They were boring. Why were they boring? Well, the first scene introduces a character named Jules Calhoun, Sebastian’s valet. Those who read the series know that Sebastian has valet problems, due largely to his habit of sometimes dressing like a beggar and at other times having his expensive coats and waistcoats ruined by would-be assassins. Calhoun arrives at the end of WHY MERMAIDS SING. He’s a colorful character (his mother runs the most notorious flash house in London), and just what Sebastian needs. So what is he doing when we’re introduced to him in this book? Sewing a button on a shirt.
I know, I know. Where was my head? Not only is the scene hopelessly static, but it gives us no sense of Calhoun’s character at all. I also realized that, despite the fact that this is the first time (in this book) we see Sebastian’s house and meet his household, I provided no description of his house or his household or why he lives the way he does. All that is now integrated into the new scene, which includes the major-domo’s hostility to Calhoun (for conflict), and introduces Calhoun in the midst of concocting his secret boot polish in the kitchen and carrying on a light flirtation with Sebastian’s French cook. The scene is so much better. Last week’s scene was written by an incompetent idiot. This week’s scene isn’t the best I’ve ever produced, but it more than holds its own weight.
In the next scene, Sebastian visits a brothel. How can a visit to a brothel be boring? It was a tough feat, but I pulled it off. How? I left out virtually all description. There was no description of the neighborhood or even an awareness of the time of day. The girls were described but not their clothes. The house itself was described, but badly. It was like a cake without frosting. Now it’s iced and decorated, and it is much, much better. I was able then to move smoothly into writing the next scene, where Sebastian tangles with the brothel’s bouncer. I now have 14 pages (counting the reworked scenes, not counting the 38 pages written last fall for the proposal). Not a great total, but I’m back in the story, and it’s flowing.
It’s funny that after all these years I can still get it so horribly, horribly wrong. I guess what the years have taught me is how to recognize when it’s going wrong, how to understand why it’s going wrong, and how to fix it.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Meet Fabio’s Darker Cousin, aka All-Infidels-Must-Die!
I had a revelation of sorts this week. After reading three wonderful books in a row by three very talented authors (Martin Cruz Smith, Len Deighton, Charles McCarry), I resisted the urge to read another of their books and instead picked up the newest release by a very successful thriller writer. Sometimes, market research can be very illuminating.
The book’s premise sounds promising. The problem is, within a page or so of being introduced to our writer’s first villain (an Arab, of course) I started laughing. Here is his first bit of dialogue: “Infidels! The Jews are the enemies of Islam. Jews are the source of all conflicts! They are liars. MURDERERS. If I am defending my home, no one can call me a terrorist. All infidels must die!”
Now, I’ve met many Arabs in my life. Some were Moslems, some were Christians of various denominations, a few were Druze, some were secularists. Many are refugees, having lost homes, businesses, and/or farms to the Israelis both in 48 and 67. A few of them could be labeled “terrorists.” Some were members of the PLO at a time before Hamas when we thought the PLO was really scary. Some spent several years in Israeli prisons, some have been tortured. One even hijacked a few airplanes and blew them up (minus the passengers) in the deserts of Jordan. Now, because I’m always interested in getting to understand people, we talk politics. We talk history. We talk philosophy. We talk religion. Yet never once have I heard anyone spew any of the above venom. The only people who talk like this come out of the minds of American writers. They are clichés. Actually, they’re worse than clichés, they’re cartoons. And cartoons are (usually) funny. Funny is not something you want your villain to be unless you’re writing a comedy.
But what, you’re probably saying, does this have to do with Fabio? I’m getting to that.
As bad as the “All infidels must die!” line is, the book quickly gets worse. That memorable bit of dialogue is delivered in the Prologue, which is set in 1985. Picture the scene: the bridge between East and West Berlin. Of course it’s dark, cold and snowing (isn’t it always?). The Russians are releasing someone they really don’t want to release in exchange for our infidel-hating cliché. Why? Because his parents offered them 1 ½ million dollars. Right. But wait. It gets better. We’re told that after he’s released, our cliché—described as a “Muslim militant”—is going back to Damascus. At this point I’m screaming, “No, no, no, no!” Evidently no one told our thriller writer that any Muslim militant with any sense steered well clear of Damascus in 1985 unless he wanted to end up in prison being tortured (basically by the same guys the CIA now uses in their “renditions” program). But Damascus is scary—it’s part of the axis of evil, after all. So who cares if the scenario makes sense?
But wait. It gets better. After they make the exchange, the evil Commies—perfidious like all villains—have a sniper shoot and kill the man they’ve just released. I almost hurled the book across the room. Right. I’m to believe the Soviets would risk having everyone on their side of the bridge immediately machine-gunned, plus destroy forever this very professional and mutually beneficial exchange system, simply to kill a 70-year-old doctor they agreed to release just to get their money-grubbing hands on 1 ½ million? Pul-eeze.
Why did our writer do this? (This is where we get to the Fabio Revelation part.) Ignorance doubtless played a part, but I suspect she wrote this stuff because All-Infidels-Must-Die Arab terrorists, Damascus, and perfidious Commies are shorthand for Bad Guys. Why create real characters and situations when you can evoke emotional reactions by leaning on clichés?
In the interests of market research, I’m still wading through this book. We’ve met two more villains, one American, one described as cosmopolitan, both as hopelessly clichéd as All Infidels Must Die. The more I read, the more I find I’m reminded of the collection of Mills and Boons romances I once plowed through in an effort to help a couple of Aussie friends aiming at that market understand why their books kept being rejected. I’m sure our thriller writer would faint if she knew I was comparing her to romance writers, of all things. Actually, it’s the romance writers I’m insulting here. (And to them I apologize. There are some wonderful, talented writers working in the romance genre.)
Why the comparison? Because our thriller writer has fallen into the romance-like shortcut of using symbols, images, and allusions to provoke emotional responses. Consider this passage of literary criticism: “The author…and her audience enter into a pact with one another. The reader trusts the writer to create and recreate for her a vision of a fictional world that is free of moral ambiguity, a larger-than-life domain in which such ideals as courage, justice, honor, loyalty…are challenged and upheld. It is an active, dynamic realm of conflict and resolution, evil and goodness, darkness and light…and it is a familiar world in which the roads are well traveled and the rules are clear. The…writer gives form and substance to this vision by locking it in language, and the…reader yields to this alternative world in the act of reading, allowing the narrative to engage her mind and emotions and provide her with a certain intensity of experience. She knows that certain expectations will be met and that certain conventions will not be violated.”
That’s Jayne Ann Krentz, explaining why romance writers use clichéd plot elements and language—a language that “most effectively carries and reinforces the essential messages that [the writers] are endeavoring to convey….Stock phrases and literary figures are regularly used to evoke emotion.” But Krentz could just as easily be describing all too many of today’s thriller writers. Krentz was writing a defense for some of the worst excesses of the romance genre. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it when it’s applied to thrillers, either. This is lazy writing. Unfortunately, it’s also very, very successful. Since most thrillers are written by men rather than women, I doubt they’ll receive the kind of scorn that is so-often heaped on romances. But that doesn’t alter the fact that another genre is being hijacked. Move over Fabio.
The book’s premise sounds promising. The problem is, within a page or so of being introduced to our writer’s first villain (an Arab, of course) I started laughing. Here is his first bit of dialogue: “Infidels! The Jews are the enemies of Islam. Jews are the source of all conflicts! They are liars. MURDERERS. If I am defending my home, no one can call me a terrorist. All infidels must die!”
Now, I’ve met many Arabs in my life. Some were Moslems, some were Christians of various denominations, a few were Druze, some were secularists. Many are refugees, having lost homes, businesses, and/or farms to the Israelis both in 48 and 67. A few of them could be labeled “terrorists.” Some were members of the PLO at a time before Hamas when we thought the PLO was really scary. Some spent several years in Israeli prisons, some have been tortured. One even hijacked a few airplanes and blew them up (minus the passengers) in the deserts of Jordan. Now, because I’m always interested in getting to understand people, we talk politics. We talk history. We talk philosophy. We talk religion. Yet never once have I heard anyone spew any of the above venom. The only people who talk like this come out of the minds of American writers. They are clichés. Actually, they’re worse than clichés, they’re cartoons. And cartoons are (usually) funny. Funny is not something you want your villain to be unless you’re writing a comedy.
But what, you’re probably saying, does this have to do with Fabio? I’m getting to that.
As bad as the “All infidels must die!” line is, the book quickly gets worse. That memorable bit of dialogue is delivered in the Prologue, which is set in 1985. Picture the scene: the bridge between East and West Berlin. Of course it’s dark, cold and snowing (isn’t it always?). The Russians are releasing someone they really don’t want to release in exchange for our infidel-hating cliché. Why? Because his parents offered them 1 ½ million dollars. Right. But wait. It gets better. We’re told that after he’s released, our cliché—described as a “Muslim militant”—is going back to Damascus. At this point I’m screaming, “No, no, no, no!” Evidently no one told our thriller writer that any Muslim militant with any sense steered well clear of Damascus in 1985 unless he wanted to end up in prison being tortured (basically by the same guys the CIA now uses in their “renditions” program). But Damascus is scary—it’s part of the axis of evil, after all. So who cares if the scenario makes sense?
But wait. It gets better. After they make the exchange, the evil Commies—perfidious like all villains—have a sniper shoot and kill the man they’ve just released. I almost hurled the book across the room. Right. I’m to believe the Soviets would risk having everyone on their side of the bridge immediately machine-gunned, plus destroy forever this very professional and mutually beneficial exchange system, simply to kill a 70-year-old doctor they agreed to release just to get their money-grubbing hands on 1 ½ million? Pul-eeze.
Why did our writer do this? (This is where we get to the Fabio Revelation part.) Ignorance doubtless played a part, but I suspect she wrote this stuff because All-Infidels-Must-Die Arab terrorists, Damascus, and perfidious Commies are shorthand for Bad Guys. Why create real characters and situations when you can evoke emotional reactions by leaning on clichés?
In the interests of market research, I’m still wading through this book. We’ve met two more villains, one American, one described as cosmopolitan, both as hopelessly clichéd as All Infidels Must Die. The more I read, the more I find I’m reminded of the collection of Mills and Boons romances I once plowed through in an effort to help a couple of Aussie friends aiming at that market understand why their books kept being rejected. I’m sure our thriller writer would faint if she knew I was comparing her to romance writers, of all things. Actually, it’s the romance writers I’m insulting here. (And to them I apologize. There are some wonderful, talented writers working in the romance genre.)
Why the comparison? Because our thriller writer has fallen into the romance-like shortcut of using symbols, images, and allusions to provoke emotional responses. Consider this passage of literary criticism: “The author…and her audience enter into a pact with one another. The reader trusts the writer to create and recreate for her a vision of a fictional world that is free of moral ambiguity, a larger-than-life domain in which such ideals as courage, justice, honor, loyalty…are challenged and upheld. It is an active, dynamic realm of conflict and resolution, evil and goodness, darkness and light…and it is a familiar world in which the roads are well traveled and the rules are clear. The…writer gives form and substance to this vision by locking it in language, and the…reader yields to this alternative world in the act of reading, allowing the narrative to engage her mind and emotions and provide her with a certain intensity of experience. She knows that certain expectations will be met and that certain conventions will not be violated.”
That’s Jayne Ann Krentz, explaining why romance writers use clichéd plot elements and language—a language that “most effectively carries and reinforces the essential messages that [the writers] are endeavoring to convey….Stock phrases and literary figures are regularly used to evoke emotion.” But Krentz could just as easily be describing all too many of today’s thriller writers. Krentz was writing a defense for some of the worst excesses of the romance genre. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it when it’s applied to thrillers, either. This is lazy writing. Unfortunately, it’s also very, very successful. Since most thrillers are written by men rather than women, I doubt they’ll receive the kind of scorn that is so-often heaped on romances. But that doesn’t alter the fact that another genre is being hijacked. Move over Fabio.
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