Music As My Muse

Music has always been a really important motivator for me. Through the more difficult times, it provided solace and a distraction from life events that befuddled any clarity of purpose; through the more enjoyable times it provided a soundtrack of emotions that could be drawn from to remind me of better times, periods of accomplishment. In both my undergrad and graduate degrees, music was a source of focus, ironically, that allowed me to do more with less time. I fondly remember placing my earphones/ear buds on in the library and spending 6 to 8 hours taking notes from textbooks, drafting outlines to papers and crafting PowerPoint presentations.

My friends, wife and colleagues find it quite the anomaly. For many, music while trying to work is anathema. For me it drowns out the background noise, the conversations and whatnot that pierce my concentration.

As an aspiring author, my writing process follows very much the same scenario. Music is my Muse, and more times than not, it provides that push to get through writer’s block, ignites the imagination. For the Ochra Cycle, certain bands and songs could easily be considered the soundtrack. The mood and the emotions they draw to the fore exemplify what I try to accomplish in the writing. As the music helps draw out the plot, it also influences the emotion and voice.

There are certain bands and songs that really stand out when I think of the Ochra Cycle, none more than Lacuna Coil. For the uninitiated, Lacuna Coil is an Italian “goth-metal” band, with the leading vocals duo of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro. The blend of heavy instrumental arrangements, Andrea’s growling vocals countered by Cristina’s soaring voice and a heavy dose of emotions make for a potent experience. Or at least they had until some of the more recent releases; to be honest, the last two or three releases left me wanting. 

The release of Delirium has completely turned that around. The instrumentals have gone heavy and dark, the lyrics heavily laced with emotion, brought to life by the more balanced weight from each of the singers. Tracks like House of Shame, Blood Tears Dust; really, every single track appeals to me.

Segueing into writing, this album has really jazzed me up. First throwing the tunes up in Youtube to review it, I immediately made the choice to go out and purchase this disc. Listening to it, the words flew onto the pages. I think these were some of the easiest chapters I’ve written, and this after a lengthy pause from writing altogether. The dark and heavy instrument arrangement synchs so well with the vocals. Possibly the best album Lacuna Coil has released, it has reinvigorated my writing in a way difficult to put into words. A succinctly as I can put it, I can’t wait to see how this album helps shape the Ochra Cycle, and I can’t wait to where it goes.

SFWA World Building Questions - Part 2

A continuation of this previous post, I decided to tackle examining the second portion of this exhaustive (daunting and exhausting if you try to answer it all) list of questions to help formulate an author's world building exercises.

SFWA World Building Questions

Part Two, Physical and Historical Features

Map of the Belgeriad & Mallorean

General:  The geography for the Ochra Cycle is fairly expansive.  It's certainly not continental spanning, like the Belgariad and Mallorean series, or quite as large as the Song of Ice and Fire series.  It covers a large enough region that travel from one side to the farthest expanse certainly takes weeks on horseback; I haven't bothered to account for precise distances, mostly because it hasn't enough of a direct impact on the story to bother.  The region is largely a fairly flat expanse, surrounded by a ridge line of mountains to the south, west and along the northern edges, while the eastern edge is dominated by the coastal line and islands.  There are certainly mountains, rivers, expansive forests and whatnot therein.  Like the map of Middle Earth, only the most pertinent locations are specified.

Map for A Song of Ice & Fire

The questions of other races has already been described herein to some degree.  The humans are largely divided into three kingdoms, for lack of a better term, while we have the orcs on their island off the coast (think of Japan, just off the Asian continent), the dwarven region of Naro nestled against the foothills of the southern mountain ranges, the ratmen in the southern reaches in the Swamps of Shenim, the goblin herds and other monsters of their ilk in the Kevian Ranges, also along the southern edge of the map.  To the west and off the map are the elven lands, purposefully left undefined; they after all vacated this entire region centuries before to allow these races, particularly humans, the chance to settle and thrive or succumb to their own devices.  This left several ruins spotted throughout the lands, ancient elven settlements and cities abandoned, nearly all of which are decayed to ruin and lost to the annals of history.  They of course remained behind with a token force, advisors to keep the peace and nudge "the new kids around the block."  This advisory role is still present, simply much more behind the scenes, much less prevalent.

Since the elves have not visited the Imperial Courts of the J'in Empire in centuries, much myth and mystery surrounds them.  The events surrounding the elven emigration out of this region of course led to the creation of a particular secondary character, a guy by the name of Masaki.  Masaki is the pre-eminent archaeologist and ruin diver of the J'in Empire; a guy with a bad attitude and ego to boot.  Since he is a character that deals with digging up corpses, let alone the remote possibility of touching dead flesh, he is a rather repulsive individual to the samurai.   He reminds me a little of the french archaeologist in Raiders of the Lost Ark, La Roche.  Of course I now need a holy grail of sorts for Masaki to go diving into, as well as a treasure worthy of his motivations.  This further led to the creation of a setting where the elven city has fallen to ruin and been buried under years of dirt and sand, yet underground ruins and basement complexes remain.  Creating challenges therein was a simple matter of thinking it like a Waterdeep scenario for AD&D; traps, monsters, baddies, treasure, etc.

Climate and Geography:  The hand drawn map I've been working from defines the major regions, revers, mountains and forests.  The climate is essentially equitable to that of the Japanese / Korean / Chinese portion of Asia; temperate warm with high humidity, colder winters with a fairly abundant snowfall in winter, much more so in the mountains and foothills.

Natural Resources:  Aside from that, flora and fauna are the same, providing at least some semblance of familiarity for the reader.  Of course there are a number of beasts and nasties that are unique (this is a fantasy environment after all).  Since this is a fantasy setting, magic has largely displaced any advances into sciences and engineering to a scale reminiscent of Renaissance Europe, and we certainly won't see any steampunk / diesel punk in the Ochra series.  The style of the architecture for the primary kingdom involved is based on the Sengoku Period of Japan, so the 15th to 17th centuries.  Given the scale and scope of the region, natural resources for construction (timber and stone) are relatively common enough, methods of extraction and refinement advanced enough to allow for the architecture you would expect to see in 16th century Japan or so, castles included.  There is an abundance of farmland; essentially a breadbasket region.

Certain regions certainly play host to more abundant resources than others.  The dwarves of Naro obviously have a mountain range at their back, providing for massive stone works and mining (oh, the cliche).  Not far from them, the Swamps of Shenim, a region teeming with life and unique natural remedies, yet otherwise fairly agrarian.  The Plainsfolk are essentially the stewards for the massive herds of wild beasts that resemble a buffalo, which serve as a primary source of meat and food, while defining their way of life and customs.  The J'in Empire is as closely akin to the Japanese / Korean / Chinese of the Sengoku period as one could imagine; they've settled in their regions, replete with arable farmland, cities and castles built up and developed to protect and support their way of life.  The orcs rely on piracy and slavery to maintain their holdings on the islands off the continental coast, while the Free States, the closest human kingdom and the most victimized by these attacks, is a military power in their own right, their mercenary companies the best available.

World History:  Not much of the ancient history is directly dealt with.  Tidbits of pertinent info are provided, largely to avoid info dumps.  In a nutshell, there was a war between the two pantheons, with the eldest and their creations (goblins, giants, leviathans, orcs, etc) against the younger and their creations (elves, dwarves, dragons, fairies, etc).  In the end the elves led the younger pantheons' forces to victory as the gods stalemated themselves; the elves remain the dominant superpower.  Humans were created thereafter as a neutral party, a buffer species to keep things honest, so to speak.  This ancient history is known and recorded in detail by the elves, remembered by most other races of the times through oral tradition.  Humans know only of this era by way of myth and legend; Masaki, of course, has some further insights through his journeys.

I won't go into any of the specifics for the World History and the Kingdom-specific histories.  There simply isn't enough room for that massive a wall of text, nor much motivation to reveal it all.

In the next instalment, the SFWA World Building questions tackle the magic system.

2014 - The Year of the Hardcover Book

One of the conclusion I had at the turn of the New Year was to start collecting the hardbound copies of the classic works from science fiction and fantasy.  Part of the reasoning was my simply voracious appetite for reading when I was younger, single and not a father of two.  This left me with an astounding collection of softbound and paperback novels that really only served the purpose of filling shelf space and boxes in storage.  I needed to get rid of them, so I did.  My wife had bought me a Kobo a few years back and since then I've been nearly exclusively reading ebooks on that platform. I like the Kobo and the experience of the e-Readers.  That said, there is something to be said for the tangible element of reading.  So spring forth my desire to collect the classics.

There are a few definitive beginning points: the Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1984 and the like.  There are only too numerous a list of classic works from either science fiction or fantasy or those that combine both.  A few examples (of hundreds):

NPR List of 100 Top Science Fiction & Fantasy Books

Flavorwire's Top 50 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels That Everyone Should Read

Top 100 Fantasy Books

Top 25 Fantasy Books

Top 25 Science Fiction Books

I'm currently finishing up the Lord of the Rings trilogy that I borrowed from my father-in-law.  I received 1984, by George Orwell, for Christmas and I plan on getting around ten classics this year, reading them all and providing a review of each.  My short list of purchases for 2014 are the following, in no particular order:

1.  Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card:  Politics aside, I was completely enthralled by this novel when I first read it.  I read the entire Ender series in paperback, finding the following works delving into harder science fiction than I was used to at the time.  There were a few parts of his later works that don't strike well with me either, but this was before the days of pervasive Internet and some of OSC's more recent and infamous statements.  That said, this the first in the series is a definite for my collection.



2.  Dune, by Frank Herbert:  Another classic I read in my youth, I vaguely remember the details.  I do recall watching the movie shortly thereafter and grudgingly accepting it as a 'decent' rendition of the novel.  I fully understood the limitations that Hollywood had in regards to production and special effects.  Regardless, I am fully committed to adding this one to my collection.


3.  The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle:  I have never read this book, yet from everything I have heard and read it is something of a masterpiece of english fantasy.  My only connection to this work is the animated version, something of a psychadelic tale that involved a little unicorn, a small group of friends and a flaming bull.  I laugh as I try to recall the details, only to find myself truly wondering how far some interpretations can sometimes differ from the written work.



4. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin:  Another I have not read but continuously appears on must-read lists.

5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick:  I've been a huge fan of Bladerunner since I saw the film for the first time.  The film resonates still, through various re-releases and different renditions (original score, Director's cut, etc).  When I found out this was adapted from a novel, I immediately bought it for my Kobo.  I enjoyed it so much I know it must be one of the first half-dozen for my collection.



6.  Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein:  After having seen the cinematic version, I suppose it could be forgiven that it took me over a decade to get to the novel.  I actually did it because of a challenge someone posted on a message board; that passionate refusal to accept the cheesy film as anything related to the book drew my attention, and I was stunned at just how much I had missed in those intervening years!  A definite addition.


So those are the defines that I have on my radar.  I've already read the Wheel of Time series but have no interest in collecting it hardbound.  I also have George R.R. Martin's series, A Song of Ice and Fire, sitting in my Kobo; I'll read those willingly in e-format and get the completed set once complete, desperately hoping it doen't go the way of Wheel of Time.  

Other than that, does anything seem out of place or significantly overlooked?  I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.  I've got four more spots to round out the ten that I'd like to start with this year.

SFWA World Building Questions

I’ve stumbled onto this particular site a few times over the years, typically anytime someone on the Absolute Write forums starts asking about worldbuilding; it’s a staple link that always gets brought up.  Albeit not an exhaustive link, it can truly be a daunting link for authors just starting out and looking for a place to start.  It truly does ask a daunting amount of questions, not all of which apply, which may or may not initially occur.  That said, I’ve taken it upon myself to review the list and see how it applies to my fantasy ms, as well as the remainder of the Ochra series books.

A review of these questions may seem like an exercise in futility; I mean, after one novel written, you’d think these questions would have been answered already, right?  More to the point, it’s a chance to do some worldbuilding detail-work that may have gone unnoticed, yet it also provides the opportunity to draw on your second- and third-order effect answers and develop story ideas.  Case in point: in the Ochra series, the J’in Empire is a caste society.  Mages/sorcerers, which are considered samurai caste, were born with their abilities, able to tap into a sub-current of energy they use to shape their spells.  Not everyone born with the ability develops the potential to tap into this energy.  If they are born into the ability though, what if a peasant-class child was born with this spark?  This led to the development of a secondary character, a samurai bounty hunter of sorts that sniffs out these waifs born with the ability.  This leads to other questions:  how does he sniff them out?  What does he do when he finds one?  Does he pay the family for the child?  If so, does this create a sort of lottery system?  How would that impact the society?  How would that be interpreted by the samurai?

SFWA World Building Questions

Part One, The World

The Basics:  Largely an Earth-like world, most questions like gravity, basic flora and fauna and the like are already assumed to be the same (no need to recreate a pine tree, or call a maple something new).  Then we get into the specifics of races.  An epic fantasy, the Ochra series includes a gamut of other races like elves, dwarves, dragons, ratmen, orcs, goblins, et cetera.  The realms of Ihr’Vessen are currently in a post-cataclysmic era, the two pantheons of gods having fought a war that was finally brought to an end.  The elves are the sole remaining superpower among mortal beings.

Humanity is actually in a relatively nascent stage.  The tribes scattered across a region of the continent ‘recently’ vacated by the elves; recently is something like 1000 years or more.  The three major human kingdoms have diverged into their own specialties, their cultures developed to reflect different worldviews.  The primary human kingdom the Ochra series follows in the J’in Empire, a samurai culture that is based heavily on Sengoku period Japan, with Chinese and Korean myth and culture woven in as well.  As this differs radically from the Euro-centric standard for most epic-high fantasy, it brings with it some unique idiosyncrasies: names are particularly foreign, yet this poses the problem of keeping names straight, particularly when most Asian cultures speak family name prior to given name.  Most readers are likely to also visualise against the backdrop of popular films or anime.  Films like The Last Samurai and 13 Assassins are actually rather good pieces to draw from, in that they at least tried to make things as culturally and historically accurate as possible; films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a plethora of anime tend to stray a little too far into the fantastical for my taste (I must admit I absolutely adore the imagery and action sequences from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Population:  These numbers are something I’ve had to put some research into.  Taking a cue into the middle ages of Europe, a continental region the size in question for my manuscript could handle a population of several millions.  The actual figures are neither directly pertinent not required for the storyline.  That said, as background information it provides a baseline to work from.  I found this site, which boils down demography in a fantasy setting into a rather intuitive system that works for me.  It is geared towards a Game Master developing his Role-Playing Game setting, yet the parallels remain – author or GM, you’re both telling a story.

In the European Middle Ages, the population was curbed for some time by Viking, Arab and Slavic or Magyar expansions.  In my case, the elves vacated the lands but oversaw the ‘lesser’ species development.  This over watch would also have to include some form of protection from the predations of the surviving rival factions of the elves, namely the goblins and orcs.  I’ve used this as a bit of a cheat to help along the development of humanity in a slightly compressed time span.  Once the human tribes had diverged into their own distinct paths with regions of their own, the elves withdrew to a supervisory role of sorts.

Source of Magic:  Another issue worthy of thought, particularly if it plays a significant role in your story.  In my case I’ve both mages/sorcerers, as well as clerics/priests.  The former draw their powers from the underlying current of energy that they alone are able to recognize, tap into and mold to their spell forms and abilities.  Mages use spell forms and rituals to carefully construct the conduit that the power gets siphoned through with predictable results.  Sorcerers on the other hand draw the power into themselves, their instinctual drive the conduit for the power, which makes their magic less predictable but easier to access.  Priests and clerics are largely the exact same thing, just a question of title, yet both draw their powers from the grace of their gods.  Since the cataclysm ended, the gods were limited in their direct influence.  Their latent power could be drawn upon if a cleric met the phantom presence’s.... entry requirements, for lack of a better term.

Again, none of this is essential to the actual story, yet it creates a good baseline and reference point for the plot whenever things seem to be drawing off course and into territory I’ve not explored.  A quick reference back to my notes and more times than not, I’ve got a place to go from, or a new plot point to exploit.

Making Lemonade From Lemons

So, as any parent will attest to, Halloween has come and gone.  The build up for this event for smaller children is, in some cases, just shy of that for Christmas.  In my case, my two girls, princesses both (in real life and by virtue of their costumes), were ramped up to the max, to the point of near intolerance from my wife and I.  That said, they were promised a good go, so off went my wife to escort them, while I stayed at home handing out the candy.

Not my child, but a pros pos

Part of the tradition of Halloween is getting dressed up for school, or in the case of my youngest, daycare.  On the way to daycare, she snapped her plastic wand in two.  In the midst of traffic, I’m sure every car within throwing distance heard the commotion.  For my part, I tried consoling the child for a couple of minutes and then simply turned up the radio volume.  After about five minutes of screeching (no simple crying for this child), she suddenly stops.  I’m adjusting my rear view mirror to ensure she didn’t go and decide to try and choke herself on a piece of plastic, or some other silliness.

With the two pieces of plastic in her hands, tears still rolling down her cheeks, she’s smiling and staring wonder at the two pieces and gives me this: “Daddy, now I have TWO magic wands!”

And despite how frustrating they can be at times, it is at moments like these that you have to smile and think everything is good and right in life.

Edit:  Same child, after 90 minutes of door-to-door candy-grabbing, she enters the house, plops down and says, “Daddy, I’m tired!”

NaNoWriMo

So, I decided to take the plunge this year and registered for NaNoWriMo.  It’s two days into the month and neither my mustache for Movember nor my novel for NaNoWriMo have seen much progress.  I’ve got some sketched out chapters and outline plots to flesh out, but nothing on paper due to some fangled illness.

Given the previous anecdote of my daughter, I can’t help but realize that 4 weeks is actually a decent amount of time to get things done.  The target of 50k words is daunting enough, but something I’m going to try my damndest to complete.  Not wuite a ‘two magic wands’ kind of statement, but a commitment nonetheless.

Elven Hauteur: Tropes Given Definition

One of the many (many) tropes a reader can expect from any high/epic fantasy is the inclusion of a variety of mystical and mythical races; dragons, elves, dwarves, just to name a few.  If the novel includes elves (I suppose more a question of when), there is almost certainly an element of cultural hauteur involved.  Elves are portrayed to have chip on their shoulder, a sense that even speaking with humans is beneath them, somehow a chore.  Like humanity was a stray dog quietly pacing around a picnic table, accepted as being there but not really accepted for being there.

 

When I was scratching notes during my world building phase, one of the many things I needed to work was, of course, where and how the elves would fit into the story.  What relevant parts of their history could I weave into the narrative without containing some dreaded info-dump?  Would they have this seemingly ubiquitous stigma against the other races?  If so, two questions that I assured myself I would answer were: “How?” and “Why?”

 

World building can quickly become a rabbit hole that you can find yourself too deeply dug into.  Thankfully, this wasn’t one of them, partly because of a previous effort to determine the pantheon of gods and their conflict.  This conflict occurred millennia ago, and a single piece of scribble seemed to answer most of my questions:

 

“the elves were created by and were the primary fighting force of the Second Pantheon.”

 

Someone or a group from amongst the Second Pantheon of gods created the elves as part of the feye races, imbuing them with abilities, intellect and characteristics that made them particularly powerful as a race – not individually the most powerful, but collectively they produced the greatest synergies amongst the feye.  They were the most intelligent of generals, the most powerful of the mages, etc.  They fought this war alongside the other feye (dragons, treants, nymphs, etc) and their gods, against the First Pantheon who used and led their creations, the less refined but more physically powerful races (leviathans, orks, goblins, etc).

 

“All this occurred before humans were even conceived as a race.”

 

This note, along with the previous one provided the perspective I needed.  The cultural hauteur exists in context to their experiences in those god-wars and watching the humans crawl into existence, collect into tribes and eventually form the kingdoms/collectives in the current setting for my manuscript.  For all intents and purposes, the elves in Ihr’Vessen are the only super-power in existence, and they recently had to make room for the humans.  They still see the humans as lesser beings that have yet to live up their potential and possibly vie for overall stewardship of the realms.  Are the humans of the J’in Empire prepared for the task?  Can the clans of the Plainsfolk assume the mantle of responsibility?  Would the barons of the Free States suffice?

 

For all interaction between elf and human, a certain paradigm had to occur, one where humanity was at a distinctly perceived disadvantage (from both perspectives); the same would need to occur with the other races, in some cases much less so than others.  Humans would be viewed as inferior, not yet worthy of respect; humans conversely have a minority complex, always viewing themselves as less capable and less powerful.  They may be approaching parity, but not as of yet.  And so, I was left wondering how this arc would or could play out into the narrative.  I had some fun at my characters’ expense when humans started interacting with elves, but the progression of this worthiness was something I wanted to explore.  Humans start at about a mongrel level of expectation and acceptance.  Slowly, I want to see how that could be altered or changed.

 

For now, the elves remain the haughty, cool and indifferent bunch they always seem to be.  They are so much better at things and so much more powerful, long-lived and capable than the flash-in the-pan accumulation of knowledge and power the humans are limited to.  Would many of the elves consider it beneath them to interact with humans?  Likely.  Would they see any military intervention as simply “saving the humans from themselves, yet again?”  Very likely.  Hopefully this is a two-dimensional trope I’ll be able to somehow twist and bend a little, provide the reader with the context they need to accept the elven perspective, as opposed to simply slapping the reader with the ‘elves are l33t!’

 

 

Star Wars Screen Crawl as a Query Letter?

Opinion of original series is undaunted as one of the best sci-fi trilogies made to date.  It was such a significant contributor the genre and film making in general that it was one of the first movies the United States Congress decided to preserve in their Congressional National Film Registry.  This trilogy is particularly important when realizing the technology of the day compared to how well they (Lucas, et al) pulled it off; even today the special effects largely hold up to modern day expectations.  The only exception I could think to include would be all those additional, extra scenes that Lucas added, as well as most of the ‘enhancements’ add years later.  Many current sci-fi movies suffer from an over-reliance on CGI, to the point where it seems the story revolves around what a computer programmer could accomplish, the script written thereafter to include said scene.  I personally believe that Lucas drank a little too much of the Kool-Aid and became a victim of his own success.  The prequel trilogy (shudders) would be an ideal example of this problem, my opinion on those films clearly demonstrated here.

 

The key thing I noted was how the opening paragraphs (screen crawl) seemed to equate the elements of a great query letter:

 

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

 

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

 

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy….

 

Originally a six paragraph text, Brian de Palma helped edit it down to the current, concise introduction.  As a query letter, it would fall extremely short on length (only 83 words), yet it answers the three basic elements:  What does the protagonist want?  What must they do to accomplish it?  What happens should they fail?

 

It serves as a great introduction to the film.  In this case, viewers already paid their tickets, so there was no purchase-wall to break through.  Query letters must gain the attention of the agent or publisher to continue into the opening scene, or request that partial.  Without knowing much about the plot, the screen crawl sets up one of the best opening scenes in cinematic history, patrons immediately drawn into the conflict.

 

Albeit a different craft altogether, that of writing and movie making, the concept of targeting emotional investment is identical. As the screen crawl skims down to a shot of the orbit around the planet of Tatooine, we suddenly have a space craft fly over, followed by a sudden flurry of laser bolts and an even bigger ship chasing them.  We are thereafter just launched into the story that the screen crawl developed.  Princess Leia is fleeing, in a much smaller ship, while the weighty bulk of the Empire chases her down.  We know that Princess Leia has the stolen plans and is fleeing the Empire’s agents, her goal nothing short of the galaxy’s freedom (I’m sure some would call this overly ambitious). She must return with the plans, the fate of worlds (literally) at stake should she fail.

 

In what is ultimately an ensemble cast, it struck me that the opening teaser and what I am essentially equating to a query letter should center on Leia.  Knowing the way the film works out, from a query letter perspective it would almost seem to make more sense targeting Luke’s point-of-view.  From what I’ve been gathering from various sources and websites, that may not be the case, particularly given the way the film starts; the opening chapter is of Leia’s flight from the Empire.  We don’t even see Luke until perhaps 30 minutes into the film!

 

When I compare my epic fantasy manuscript to the Star Wars screen crawl and the opening scene (Chapter 1, so to speak), I’m left with likely the same problem Lucas had before Brian de Palma came in and tightened the text.  My query letter currently centers on the two primary characters, each with an equal weight in space and impact on the overall plot; there are several reasons for this, centered on future events I hope I’m able to get to.  I’m still curious whether this is an obstacle with agents and/or publishers.  The temptation is to reduce the query letter to one central character, be it Soki and her issues at the Imperial Courts through to her escape of a coup and the aftermath, or Tagaretsu who must escape from the goblin invasion and grasp at even the possibility of an item that may save the empire from complete collapse.

 

At this point, the efforts are centered on the second book.  Is my query letter polished enough to go out?  Maybe.  It’s had a go through the AbsoluteWrite forums before, with varying degrees of response (and success depending on who you listen to).

I Saw a Bug

An interesting event happened recently; I categorize it as interesting, because otherwise I’d have to call it a near crap-my-pants-in-abject-fear-in-front-of-my family event.  I’m a big enough guy and I am an infantry officer of the Canadian Forces.  A little macho masculine bravado is a stock standard expectation for guys in uniform.  Short of a life or death scenario, it’s somewhat bad form to be seen quivering in fear of something relatively benign, particularly if your rational brain knows better.  Such was the crux of this event.

 

I saw a bug on my deck.

 

A little history would seem apropos.  As a young boy, I lived in Arizona for two years and loved every minute of it.  I played with lizards (Gila Monsters and otherwise), used long sticks to poke and prod tarantulas, scorpions and black widow spiders.  I rode my dirt bike in washes and had no issues with insects of any kind.  Then we moved back to Canada and eventually found ourselves living in Kingston, Ontario.  I can trace the trigger to my issues to with bugs to two events.

 

The first was while playing guns in a wooded area.  I found the largest praying mantis I had ever seen sitting atop a boulder.  With my toy gun in hand, I moved within two meters to get a closer look.  It unfolded its arms, hissed at me and suddenly jumped on my face, like the Facehuggers from Aliens.  Throwing the damned thing off my face, it landed on the boulder.  Not to be outdone, I but stroked it.  Its thorax took the hit and juices squirted back up into my face.  My world goes black and apparently I run screaming for near two kilometers, my friends chasing after me the best they could.

 

The second incident occurred while mowing the grass.  I saw a massive queen hornet go into the siding of our house.  I thought, “I’ll be damned if I let this thing build a nest there.”  With a full can of Lysol spray, I place the nozel at the opening and start spraying.  I use near the whole can.  She comes out, wriggling and out of whack, flying directly onto my face.  She lands on my cheeks and twists a turn before zooming off. <shudder>  All this occurred while my arm is zooming to protect my face.

 

These two events lead to further incidents.  I once dreamed I was asleep in bed and a wasp crept up the foot of my bed under the blankets.  It made its way to my foot and stung my heel.  My leg jerks so hard I knee myself square in the mouth.  Yeah, loose teeth, blood and wounded pride.  In high school, my sister took to putting my mail over the mother’s National Geographic, the pages open to a macro shot of some insect’s head or some such.  She also once placed one of those paperclip butterflies with an elastic to make the wings spin into a card for my birthday.  When I opened the card, the twisted wings spun and launched the fake bug at me.  I nearly flip the table onto my mother sitting across from me.

 

When I was still dating my wife, we went to a zoo and I thought I’d face my fears and suffer the Insectarium.  I could not have put on a more desperate display of gut-reaction fear if I tried.  After 18 aquariums of stomach turning displays, we reach the Big Daddy; some kind of Brazilian tree-bird eating spider.  Big, angular armour looking bastard, completely tucked against the rear pane of glass.  I lean into catch a better view – in retrospect, a rather naive move.  All of a sudden, it scurries forward against the front pane, hissing loud enough my wife jumps a bit.  I “lose it.”  The door is right there, and I bolt.  I find myself flipping over the wheelchair ramp onto the path outside, hyperventilating in front of a family of four.  My wife exits, rather embarrassedly excusing my behaviour.

 

So we return to the scene on my deck.  I’ve made a conscious effort not to relay my fear of insects to my two kids.  On this day, I think I fail.  I sat down on a chair and turned my head to see something no less than four inches long, something that resembled a frikkin’ giant earwig with wings folded over its body.  It’s hiding maybe two feet from my head.  Before I even settle into the chair, I am in the house, ready to puke before my wife realizes what’s going on.  The kids are ushered in and I boil a full kettle of water.  I’m in full-kill-mode.  I toss the water and hit this thing square on.  It flops to the floor, sounding more like an overripe tomato than a creature with an exoskeleton.  I retreat back into the house.  Not until two hours later do I make it back out on to the deck.  The bug is gone.

 

Now, I have no idea what this thing was, nor will I Google it to find out.  Ignorance is bliss and I know for a fact I would not last 5 seconds skimming through Google images.

 

To wrap this all up, I can’t help but acknowledge the obvious, that a person’s point of view will determine their reaction to what they read.  For many, a scene involving bugs will likely not evoke the same emotions as I would experience; even a poorly written one.  Written well, most would be able to imagine themselves in the scenario, or at least empathize with the character and feel the emotions the author sought to induce; the concept of ‘show’ versus ‘tell’ kicks into refrain.  Telling a scene would not be nearly as powerful as showing – lace the emotions and reactions as opposed to a clinical observation of the action.  This is something that I often have to come to grips with when revising a scene – how do a ‘show’ more of what I want the reader to grasp?  No easy thing, or at least easier said than done.

 

I purposefully used a race of giant bugs in my fantasy manuscript, the kind that measure in size to a cow.  The scene involved a fair amount of squirming in my seat as I tried to create the atmosphere and emotions I would have faced (ahem, do face) when encountering a ridiculously over-sized insect.  The bug on my deck might as well have been cow-sized, given the reaction I had.  My rational-brain lost handily to my emotional-brain.  Maybe that’s the key to getting this ‘show’ versus ‘tell’ thing down?  If the emotional side of the brain can’t connect with the scene, maybe it’s time for a revision?  I’m sure that’s an oversimplification, but hey, my wife seems to be all for oversimplifications; she insists I get my head checked out.

 

 

Languages in Fantasy

One of the more intricate parts of world building, the use of language has always been something of a bugbear for me.  When first crafting the races and cultures that populated the realms of Ihr’Vessen, the obvious character differentials popped up:  elves are lithe, weapon masters; dwarves are stockier and hardier; orcs were bulkier and brutish but had an intricate culture based on slavery, et cetera.  The humans were largely divided between the nomadic Plainsfolk, the more stereotypical samurai J’in Empire, and finally the mercenary barons of the Free States.  There are, of course, the outliers of humanity, such as a Romani-inspired gypsy clan culture and the independent colonies and settlements throughout the wilderness.  That said, everything was largely based on the elven language.

This basis, and the fact that humanity took centuries to get away from the hunter/gatherer stages, meant that there had to be some significant differences even among the human powers.  The differences between elven and dwarvish was easy enough to encapsulate; it’s a trope, but one that works with readers and is readily accepted.  But what about the Plainsfolk vice the J’in Empire vice the Free States?  I’ve established the elven language as the baseline for all other languages, so where do I go from there?

The real kicker was when I realized that humans were a much shorter-lived species than the others, particularly the elves.  Humans would have a much clearer and dramatic divergence, simply because they go through so many more generations.  This would imply a more vivid change from the other races.  It also meant that between them, there must be enough differences to demonstrate this fact.  Expressions and idioms needed to be distinct and relevant to how I envisioned the culture’s development.  As such, the J’in Empire’s generally cold view of the Plainsfolk would include derisive expressions that centered on their nomadic lifestyle, their lack of settlement, the differences in how they treat their women, and on.  The Plainsfolk on the other hand would be aghast at anything that meant they were too weak or infirm to roam the plains, fight in close combat or have to build a hut to find any kind of comfort.  The truly frustrating part is having to go back and ensure that the interactions between different cultures and races are depicted with enough clarity; there is only so much a bilingual character can translate phrase for phrase.

The other aspect of this is trying to create these expressions and idioms without drawing on our own world.  The realms of Ihr’Vessen is a secondary world, thus there is no place for some of the more common expressions.  In a world where worship is divided amongst a pantheon of gods, the various Fortunes and even a family’s ancestors, something as simple as “Oh my god” or “bloody hell” wouldn’t work – aside from the extremely devout, cursing some other god has little import, while the concept of hell is typically associated with Christianity.  Since most curses are derived from religious terms and crude references to copulation and bodily functions, this seemed to be a good starting point.  It took a little more than a cut-and-paste exercise, but the expressions I’ve developed seem more in line with the source culture, while enabling the reader to understand the intent.

The two links below provide a great précis on how to address the issue of language within the SF/F genres.  I’m certainly not expecting to accomplish anything near the integration of language development that Tolkein presented in his books; that level of realization is simply an unrealistic goal for most.  It does, however, present both a significant challenge to how characters interact with persons from another race or culture, and an opportunity to weave some world building into the text without relying on another bugbear of authors and readers alike, the info dump.

Part 1: http://fantasy-faction.com/2013/the-fantasy-language-problem

Part 2: http://fantasy-faction.com/2013/the-fantaasy-language-problem-continued

Can a Guy Have Too Many Hobbies?

I’ve spoken a number of times about some of my hobbies: Warhammer 40k (both painting the miniatures and playing), writing speculative fiction, science fiction and fantasy movies and television (well, good television of all stripes really), among others. A short while back, I was having a discussion with some colleagues and the topic somehow turned to television shows, who was watching what and whether a series was worth continuing or not, to be replaced by an interesting newcomer.  This got me to thinking about hobbies in general.

We all recognize that we can only watch so much television per week; there simply isn’t enough time to watch **every** program that interests us.  So we prioritize our time based on whatever arcane or heuristic methods we convince ourselves of using.  The advent of PVR certainly makes things easier, but it can lead to a steady and daunting accumulation of shows to watch.  You have to make time somewhere to watch them.  So, if we extend this to all hobbies, creative writing included, at one point you just reach a critical mass where something takes a hit – we reduce or replace a hobby to make room for another, or we start permeating our hobbies into other parts of our lives.

My life includes a number of roles and duties: officer and employee for the Army, husband, father of two children, son to my parents, and brother to my sister.  I must sleep, I must eat, I must work to support my family, I watch television and movies to relax, write to express myself, play games to enjoy my time off, et cetera.  All of these come with an elemental requirement of my time.  Could I sacrifice some family time to devote more to my hobbies?  What about sleep?  Maybe I could sneak some writing time in at work?  Those certainly are options, yet at what cost?  Spending more time writing means more chances to complete the works, get those submitted more often, thereby increasing my possibility of success and recognition.  Less sleep makes me more creative anyways…. Unfortunately it affects my family time, my productivity at work, makes my appetite go out of whack.

I say all this because I spent some considerable time re-editing my fantasy manuscript and started getting it vetted over at the Absolute Write forums.  What a great venue.  Then I started hearing things about a couple of games from the local gaming store.  I checked out both EveOnline and Warmachine.  Let me tell you, these stoked my curiosity enough that I completely ignored the writing aspects of my life for about a week.

EveOnline is a futuristic, sandbox, real-time strategy game; the science fiction version of World of Warcraft.  The irony that I would be more interested in a science fiction game versus fantasy is not lost on me.  But it wasn’t the space combat, or even the levelling up and commanding great fleets that caught my eye.  It was the option to be the economic and industrial powerhouse, working the in-game economy and markets to your favour.  It is the function as the facilitator that appealed to me, the guy who moves the pieces from the background.

Warmachine is a steam punk tabletop miniature game whereby two armies fight against each other.  The differences between it and Warhammer 40k are relatively extensive and the models are, in some ranges, top notch and really support the steam punk genre.  That the objective is to ultimately kill the opponent’s warcaster and/or complete the mission objectives is a new and refreshing twist.  That it follows a streamlined system and is from a fledgling company that, to be honest does not have GW’s previous history of “questionable” decisions, is a significant point.

When I look back on it, there are a number of hobbies and other activities that I have simply given up for newer ones.  Just like TV programs, a number simply weren’t interesting enough to maintain my interest, while others went by the wayside for other reasons; the life of a bachelor is certainly different than when married, more so after you have children.

Examining the cloud of activities above, I can honestly say that time management is almost an activity in and of itself.  To say that creative writing will remain one of the primary activities is an understatement.  In fact, I’d say it has become the newest and primary of my hobbies.  With the fantasy manuscript finished and now under review, I’ve the follow-on novels and a few new projects I’ve committed with verve and enthusiasm.
 

DeviantArt Spotlight - Inetgrafx

The artwork below is copyrighted to inetgrafx. I make no claim to this work as my own.

One of the many things I do to stem writer’s block and keep the creative juices flowing is surfing (insert link) deviantART. Just by checking out the most popular submissions over the last eight hours every couple of days is more than enough to give some flash of insight into a story arc that may be waiting to burst, or un-stall one waiting to carry on. It may not be a full-fledged story, but a component on one I’m currently working on – scenery scenes are spectacular for this. In my own way, I’d like to recognize these artists for truly amazing artwork, be it photography, ink on canvas, or manipulated photons in digital form.




Chinese Monestary by Daniel Kvasznicza

Chinese Monestary by Daniel Kvasznicza (inetgrafx on DeviantArt), really emotes and epic scale, a scope to the structure and its position in the mountains, overlooking and protecting the valley below.  The multiple pagodas and towers hint at a series of structures built upon the next, demonstrating the structures age.  The lower levels show smaller sub-structures for logistical functions, storage and for the peasant caste.  The high ridges on either side protect the structure from the flanks, the only real approach hinted at from the far side, under the watchful eye of the parapets and upper pagodas.  You may not have noticed how deep the structure is; truly near city sized.  If you look hard enough at the smaller structures dead center you catch glimpses of people moving about, providing a reference for just how massive this castle truly is.

The emotional connection with this picture is quick and deep.  My fantasy manuscript is set in a quasi-Japanese setting with heavy influences from Chinese and Korean culture and history.  The samurai that rule the J’in Empire would very likely have constructed something like this in a crucial mountain pass, or a high feature overlooking a key valley.  A structure such as this was the inspiration for a castle that was attacked by a goblin invasion force, the results entirely lop-sided and favouring the goblins.  The result of this begged the question:  How would a herd-like race typically favouring stampeding charges en masse have the capability to destroy such a formidable structure?  The answer to this question is the subversive and driving force behind the antagonists and their agenda.

The inspiration this piece provides is just spectacular.  The majesty and detail of the work takes you right into it.

Check out the other works, professional and personal on his website, linked in the comments below the DeviantArt piece.  He also has quite a varied and impressive list of credits!  Working with a company out of Montreal, Quebec, Meduzarts has a series of works that will inspire and impress, with a client list and project files that will equally raise your eyebrows.  If I were ever to translate my fantasy setting into a book or role-playing game, I’d love to see this artist’s artwork play a major part in it.  The fact he’s also from Canada doesn’t hurt either....

Get Your Geek On! Oh, And Write Too.

One of my favourite past-times, aside from writing speculative fiction, is playing table-top war games.  Warhammer 40k was the first one that caught my attention, back in grade 7 when one of my classmates brought in his older brother’s White Dwarf magazines.  White Dwarf is a Games Workshop publication for all their games, Warhammer 40k inclusive.  I saw the pictures and read the army descriptors and the various units and fell in love.

 

Not until years later did I get into the game.  Other game systems joined my repertoire of table-top gaming, now dwindled back down to just my 40k armies.  The cost of the game in terms of cash for the models and time to paint the miniatures certainly curtails how much I get to play, but I still game as much as I can.

 

 

 

The odd thing is how much my wife accuses me of being a closet gamer.  Frankly I consider myself a closet geek.  Being an officer in the military certainly doesn’t lend itself to bragging rights over playing games involving little painted plastic models, or writing thus far unpublished speculative fiction for that matter (aren’t I the optimist).  On that vein, it seems that a lot of writers keep their passion a secret, tucked away and reduced to when their friends or colleagues aren’t around.  Described as such, it almost sounds like an addiction.

 

Getting together with other gamers certainly lets me get my geek on; no pressure, same interests, etc.  The people certainly vary, in age, employment, income, you name it.  Great, now I’ve made my gaming group sound like a rehab session; group therapy for the gaming afflicted.  Living with a major military base nearby does draw more than its fair share of military personnel into the hobby.  There is a gaming club on base, primarily for tabletop gaming, which I unfortunately can’t participate in due to timings and distance.  The local gaming store is the only real venue, which includes a number of the base club players as well; I can say with certainty that I am one of the few officers that shows up to play.

 

I was more than a little surprised by the recent email and phone call from another captain that used to work in my Branch, asking whether I played Warhammer 40k.  The cryptic email was worded almost in code, or certainly would have looked that way to the uninitiated.  We talked and I discovered someone else with the same passion for tabletop gaming.

 

Then I wondered about how this reflects on my writing hobby.  Not everyone is open about this little part of their lives, almost embarrassed or afraid how others would react – especially so when you ask them to read your work, or they themselves ask.  What will be their reaction?  Will they enjoy it?  Will they hate it?  Agents and publishers are strangers, phantoms unknown at the other end of an email address that make a yes or (typically) no judgement.  When dealing with friends and family, things somehow seem more personal. 

 

I’ve never allowed anyone to read my fantasy manuscript, largely because it was far from finished, let alone polished.  Now that I’ve completed the final draft, I’ve started sending bits and pieces off to be reviewed, to see where it stands.  It’s soon off to either finding a beta reader or through the rounds with agents and publishers.  This leads me to wonder, how many others out there have closeted their ambitions to being a published author from friends and family?  Is it something you keep hushed away?

 

NB:  For the sake of clarity, I don’t want anyone to think I have minimized the trials of those with addiction.  In my position I am privy to the sometimes sordid and wretched results this may cause.  I would also like to applaud those who have beaten their particular ‘dragon’ or continue to fight their personal battles.

NB 2:  I feel I must make a statement about the recent and, in my personal opinion, atrocious handling of the whole 'Space Marine' is a trademarked term for book and e-book publications.  As you can imagine, most any reasonable person, typically a concept used in the basis for legal decisions, would find any credence to GW's claim.  I don't think they have a leg to stand on and am absolutely thrilled to see Amazon re-offer the book that caused the kerfuffle.