Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Crossing the (Creative) streams

It used to be that not only every genre, but also every industry had a wall around it. If you video game writing, that was about all you did. Now creatives are jumping from fiction to tabletop RPGs to comic books, etc.

Let me introduce you to workaholic, Shanna Germain. Part owner of Monte Cook Games and full on writer/editor of ficiton and RPGs. A talented profession who knows no bounds.

Shanna Germain



Grow my little geeklings, grow!

We seen it already, from Superheroes taking over the cinema to realizing that many cosplayers were in diapers back when we were suiting up for convention.

My podcast mates and I chat with author, columnist, and mother, Genese Davis, about what it take to keep the flame alive and add new blood to our geeky passions.


Genese Davis



Monday, October 19, 2015

Crimson Peak Kryptonite - Lit Critics


As a writer, one thing that stood out to me was the times when someone wanted to hurt the heroine, they went straight for the figurative jugular. They dissed her manuscript.

Seriously, it might have been kinder to go literal instead.

Perhaps del Toro was channeling his own angst at having his off-kilter style judged or maybe I’m projecting. I’ll take either, or both, truth be told.

Western culture takes a different stance on writing than it does the visual and performing arts. The stereotypes, regardless of the reality, is that when individual artists and performers reach a true level of mastery after years of practice, there’s no true way to deny their achievement. And if you don’t see the true mastery, you’re a bumpkin (don’t point at the painting John, you’re embarrassing me) and there’s whole genres of art that only an acquired taste can appreciate (as in like improv jazz, interpretative dance, postmodern art, and etc.)*

Writing, on the other hand, surely can be done by anyone and thus surely anyone can be a valid critic. And genre fiction itself has long standing history where many "valid critics", both on the street and ivory tower, agree to not waste their time reading it.

While every type of creative needs a coach, writing is ultimately a collaborative art. Some writers need an Alpha reader, others need a few beta readers and almost everyone needs some proofreading help. This is before the publisher comes in with their own team of copy editors (who do the actual line-by-line editing) and editors (who are advocates who focus on the story with — or in spite of — the author.)

A beginning writer who hasn’t found a solid collaborator, someone is more than just a cheerleader, is lost — especially those who know the deck is stacked against them. For them, an unkind word cuts most deep. And in Crimson Peak, that effect was weaponized by the Sharpe family. (In this context, I’m debating if that surname is more pun or irony.)

The Internet has been a boon too young to writers in the recent past. Fan fiction is now considered a legitimate part of a career for writers, it allows for faster feedback and access to receptive audience that might embrace your work.

But these days we also know that the Internet’s evolved into a social weapon. This goes double since writers are constantly baring their souls when their work is read.

So what’s my call to action? Honestly, I don’t know if I have one in a time when stories are judged from multiple angles and agendas.

If you find that a book you read is new writer to you, or just new period, then take a little care when you do your review. If something didn’t work for you, tone down on the snark; but build up the case on why it worked in other novels. Expound on what you enjoyed, yet examine why that put a smile on your face.

As a final word, I’m not advocating that every new writer get a medal for their first effort. That first effort is going to be a horrible first pancake, but how you couch those can make a world a difference. It might give them just a ghost** of a chance at finishing that first novel.

*Side note: I have heard of an award-winning genre writer who left the field to enjoy dancing. She found the immediate appreciation of an audience to be much more rewarding than the years it took to sell her shorts.
**Sorry. Couldn’t resist. I’ll be leaving now.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Until next week ... the cliffhanger story lives on

One of the first tales about a professional storyteller has some pretty high stakes. Shahrazad is trying to keep her wits — and her head — by creating the first cliffhanger. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights later and history was made. The serialized story was born.

After my podcast with Mur Lafferty and Brian Francis Slattery, I realized how much today’s geeky/pop culture has its foundations in serial storytelling. From the newspapers that featured Sherlock Holmes and a whole city of Dickensian characters to the cliffhanger reels that directly inspired Star Wars and Indiana Jones, there’s a lot of that pulpy DNA going on in there.

And there’s still a bit of a class war going on when it comes to admitting love for the serialized story. For a long time, the man on the street’s reading diet came from the aforementioned newspapers and the pulpy magazines of the day, while the upper class enjoyed “true” literature that merited the cost of a hardback. The vectors that crossed that class boundary were the paperback novels given to WWII era G.I.s so they could enjoy “true” literature in the foxholes.

But that sparked a hunger for content that the paperback market had to fill, giving quite a few pulpy and serial writers got a second, healthier, career by repackaging their short or serialized stories.

That repackaging, though, hid the serialized origins of those stories. So while the obvious serialized story seemed to fade a little the mainstream, quite a few anthology magazine fans can point you to great serialized stories from the 70’s onward.

That paperback boom made some characters, like Philip Marlowe, become immortal while others, like Doc Savage, cling on to life support as cult favorites.

So at this point, you wouldn’t be the first, or the last, to think that we’re going through another content boom thanks to e publishing. And right now we’ve got talented, big names like Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear as well as Mur Lafferty and Brian Francis Slattery are tackling the format to bring us a new generation of protagonists. These writers seem hell-bent to prove that the Internet seems to be a natural medium for the serialized story.

And they’re probably right. So that begs some questions:

Out of the new generation of serialized protagonist we see and fall in love with, which ones are destined to become permanent fixtures on our pop culture wall while others crumble away?

Will we be able, thanks to the interwebs, to finally ascertain what gives a heroine/hero lasting appeal? Or will it all still turn out to be the same gamble on being the right voice with the right story at the right time?

Thursday, July 16, 2015

What is this "TV" you speak of ...

TVs aren't going to go anywhere, but the content delivery for them has radically changed in the last 20 years. My 'Ganza co-hosts and I go on a binge (see what I did there) as we look over streaming, TV recaps and the hope that some channels can get back to their original programming.

Because wrestling on SyFy and Ice Truckers on History make perfect sense for reasons.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

And because this is the Internets, we'll wrap up July 4th with this bit of silly cuteness.


Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Internet, well it's here to stay, for at least a little while. Is it forever, or is it like a Palm Pilot?

My co-hosts and I dig into all that and figure out that talking toilets maybe in your future.



Friday, June 5, 2015

Is it too soon to say Genre Snobbery is dying?

When Kazuo Ishiguro wrote The Buried Giant, he claims that he discovered a prejudiced to orges (genre snobbery) existed.

Which seems a bit odd to me when the man has been writing for over 33 years, but it does make for a good sound byte as he promotes his book.

Better yet, it means that Ishiguro has teamed up with Neil Gaiman a man who has successfully jumped from comics (sorry, I meant graphic novels) urban fantasy to children's books, to talk about the inherent marketing con/need for respectability of the concept of genre.

One part of that public discussion happened over at the New Statesman, read it and enjoy. I do get a kick out how both writers had to wait for over a decade before their publishers felt that the new literary climate was safe enough for certain stories.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

You don't want to know what your gym shorts are saying to the Internet ...

The fun of being a genre writer is the playing of "what if's" of technology and future trends.

My co-hosts and I over at Nerstravganza look into wearable technology. Where it is and where it's going.



All I'm saying is that the last thing I need is a data stream direct from my running shoes to Facebook.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The fantasy book doorstop. Please just stop.

This is an example of when I read something out in the wild forums of the Internet and my two cents sort of became a buck-fifty.

The subject? Why most current fantasy novels are fat door-stoppers made of paper and pulp as the saga goes on for thousands of pages.

My reply (edited into a less rambling format.)

Don't blame the genre, blame the business.

Back in the 70s novels were a lot smaller. The two volume set for Chronicles of Amber, was a total of 772 pages for a collection of 5 stories. Yep, 150 pages a piece. (The entire run was 10 stories at 1,500 page maintaining that average.) And finishing a series like Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" ( about 1,200 pages )  was a commitment.  

But then Wolfe was always a bit indulgent.

Then some time in the late 80s, publishers convinced themselves (because noon of them used research to shore up their wack-a-doodle ideas) that if a reader at a Waldenbooks mall store (or at the airport) didn't know Writer A from Writer B, then the reader would pick a thicker book. They assumed that the reader hoped they'd be getting more story for the buck with the thicker forest-killing  tome.

Perhaps because the fantasy genre had long already been in DTOGO mode (Do a Trilogy Or Go Home) that it slid easily into making bigger books and rambling stories. It doesn't help that once an author gets popular, editors seem loath to trim their tales. (I think the Yiddish Policeman's Union is about 100 pages too long.)

So if you want lighter, tighter fare  I suggest going back and discovering the old Sword and Sorcery/New Age stuff like Zelazny, Moorecock, Butler, and last - but never least - Le Guin. All of them have tighter, shorter reads that all buck the Tolkien template.

And for some of us, the "Fantasy novels are too padded" ranks right up there with "Why doesn't MTV show music videos anymore?" i.e., a meme that's old enough to drive a car and probably buy its own drinks.


----------
My inspiration for digging up this reply up was finding a publisher who wanted LESS than 60,000 for a submitted novel. That, right there, felt like a breath of fresh air.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Your book, your dreams ...

Recently two things happened.

The first was that a young writer has gotten back in touch with me. He had taken an unintended sabbatical from writing because he thought he was stuck in a rut. 

He loves writing Urban Fantasy, but felt like he couldn't add anything new to the genre -- that everything had been done before. Frustrated that he couldn't come up with a story idea free of cliche or tropes, he eventually stopped writing.

Now he's aiming to be back in the saddle with the goal getting up at 5 am and try to write something every day. Bless him, he's an early riser. For me, it's much more likely that I'll get a thousand words written than get up at that verboten hour. So what's gotten him writing again?

Pretty much a forgettabout attitude. 

For most writers that discover something new, two things happen. Either they catch lighting in a bottle; or they've found a great peanut butter/chocolate mix of ideas and imagery. (The current marketing shorthand for such things is "X"-punk.) So either you need luck or you need time to mix and match things to find that right combo. Your odds of doing so improve greatly by actually writing. So start writing.

But you want to bring something unique, something awesome to the table. Well, they say there are no new ideas, that even scifi concepts -- like robots -- can trace their mythical roots to the golem and living statues that date back to the first pages of recorded history. If that's true, what can you bring that's new?

Stories are a lot like people. The great ones have heart and brains, but they also a voice. And each voice is different. That's what you bring, so bring it! 

There is a time for writer to put their ego to the side. The first draft ain't the place for that, pardner. 

Oh, there was a second thing, wasn't there?

Yep. Lately, I've been noticing that my FB  and forum posts have been getting longer and longer. I've taken that as a sign that maybe my thoughts need a bigger space to stretch their legs. So you might see me blogging a bit more in the past. 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Hugos ... what a mess.

This year the Intertubes were a blaze with issues about tolerance -- or the lack of it -- in all types of media and it may not be a surprise that the Hugos are in the middle of it this year when a group decided to make a statement by gaming the Hugo Awards to prove that the Hugo nomination system could be gamed.. I'd say that was proven when Doctor Who won the Short Dramatic Feature for like three years in a row. All good stuff, but that was a bit much.

For those who might want to know -- or care -- the Hugos are basically the People's Choice Award for literary and dramatic genre fiction. So right off the bat, take that for what you will. (The genre Oscar is called the Nebulas and usually gets less press since it's more of a SWFA pow wow than a con.)

You can vote in the Hugos for two years if you like, by getting an associate membership to World Con, which is $40. In a time that's the same price as one-day pass to a local con where you can talk to people about the cool stuff you saw this year, that seems steep. And to be in person is bit steeper than PAX, a show with 70,000 guests is $95. A World Con can be between $150-$200 depending on how long you wait to get tickets. (You can get some discounts with early bird specials, attending last year, etc.)

So people voting on the Hugos can claim they are serious about their fandom in a time when the paperback novel that sparked genre explosion over half a century ago is dying. to ebooks. Serious enough that fans stump for their favorites more out of love than of merit. Some even claim that reached a tipping point the early 70s, when Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama beat out Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. "There," they say. "Is when the Hugos became more about the popular vote  than literary one."

That particular argument to the side, every major award has that bent to it. It's the irony of such enterprises to showcase the best, but not necessarily the best of that particular year or even the best of us. It's like a warped mirror that gets close some times, but you should still be turning around to check your ass to see if it's really that wide.

My advice, if you're a voting member, is to not sit on your Laurels, or Hardys, this year and make an effort to check out each nominee. Don't vote as a fan or as a political activist. Just vote as a reader and don't worry about what someone will say about that vote. Because the pranksters will claim a win no matter what you do, they rigged ballot for that very purpose in mind.

If you vote true, the truth will bear out in the end.

There's been talk lately that World Con's gotten a bit small and bit grey in it's own sampling of fandom. Who knows, maybe this ruckus has a silver lining and the attention will get new blood in. Of course you know what means, the new blood always wants to make its mark and show the status quo how it's done. 

I'm sure that'll be a whole new bit of drama if that happens. At least the rest of us can watch on the sidelines. Care for some popcorn?

Friday, February 6, 2015

Broaden your horizons

Virginia Hamilton
N.K. Jemsisn
Octavia E. Butler
Samuel R.Delany
Walter Mosely
Nalo Hopkins


If these writer's aren't on your To Read List, pick a couple and enjoy. One of the great things about SciFi is the invitation to explore beyond your boundaries and these writers still have a lot to teach us about the human condition and about ourselves. 


Thursday, January 15, 2015

Gaming your writer's block away

I don't usually have writer's block, per se, as you see it in fiction,* where it's the crippling type that has the writer seemingly blank on ideas, like he's living in a white blank-paged wasteland of imagination.

It's a popular image that's (ironically) inspired different systems and techniques to beat the block. Over the past couple of years I found a few that might do the trick or they're at least fun enough to make your writing breaks a bit more creative.

The latest is a Kickstarted game by Dejobaan Games.

 Elegy for a Dead World





In this recently released PC game, you are the lone survivor of an expedition to an abandoned planet. You aren't the pilot -- or the archaeologist -- you are the poet. Your character roams the beautiful scenery and writes about what they see. You can either write free from or pick a theme, like You Realize The Whole Planet Is Artificial, that prompts your story. Players can also share, read and rate their stories on the cloud.

Roy's Story cubes






You've got  nine dice with pictures, you've got game rules on how two or more players can make a game of storytelling or play solo and see if the mental exercise can loosen up your brain blockage.


 Once Upon an Time




OUaT is a card game that lets people empty their hand as they tell a story, but other's can interrupt the flow with their tale to tell. The game ends when a player ties in their story with a unique "Happy Every After" card, which also has to be their last discard.


Not only is it an award-winning game that's been around for decades (not that I would personally know ... stop looking at me like that.) But there's also a book that turns the cards into fun writing exercises.



So there you go. More ways to incorporate storytelling into your life and fight writer's block.

Or at least a way to tell your internal editor that you're "brainstorming" for a story  when you've got dice and cards in hand.


*The things that stump me are how to express my ideas ... and the willpower to stick with an idea long enough to get it finished.