Adventures in Writing

If you are writing fantasy, you can do things that won't work in the real world. A person can levitate or fly, change shape and mass, or anything else as long as you stay within the rules you've created for that fantasy world.

However, some real world rules apply. Magic use should take a physical toll on the human wizard since it uses physical and mental energy. You can decide just how much energy is needed in your world, but you'll have to make sure your user has to eat and rest at a certain point.

Many recent novels with vampires, werewolves, and other creatures have presented these creatures as real, not magic. They are genetic mutations, or victims of a virus, or something like that.

If your creatures are real, not magic, then you have to think carefully about their special abilities, their energy requirements, etc., because you can no longer get away with saying that it's magic and doesn't have to make sense.

I'll talk more about that next week.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Links of Interest

PUBLISHING: Abbreviations used in publishing.

http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2010/03/terms-to-know-abbreviations.html

ASSUMPTIONS VERSUS REALITIES OF THE WRITING LIFE.

http://www.genreality.net/expectations-looking-back

HOW TO TRACK PAPER BOOK SALES

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2010/04/writers-obsessions-with-amazon-sales.html

PUBLISHING TERMS DEFINED: Another good explanation of royalties, earning out, and advances.

http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2010/04/definitions-for-perplexed-royalties.html

QUERIES: Comparing your book to others.

http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-comparisons.html

MARKET: SF and fantasy stories wanted. Longer length. Decent payment.

http://giganotosaurus.org/submission-guidelines/

MARKETS: A listing of short story and fiction venues for ethnic fiction. Sign up for the email version of this market site while you are at it. It's an excellent resource, particularly for romance markets.

http://cindimyersmarketnews.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/more-unexpected-short-fiction-markets-family-circle-contest/

AGENT INTERVIEW: Jenny Bent.

http://www.ninc.com/blog/index.php/archives/agent-jenny-bent

BUSINESS OF WRITING: Succeeding rather than surviving.

http://www.genreality.net/what-chef-ramsay-can-teach-writers

~*~

WORKSHOPS: I now have two workshops scheduled with another TBA.

The Big Question: How to Create a Powerful Novel from a Few Ideas and One Big Question, April 11-May 8, 2010 at SavvyAuthors.com

http://www.savvyauthors.com/event.cfm?EventID=172

Have you ever read a story then felt dissatisfied by it as you put it down? All the story elements--plot, characters, romance, and suspense--were there, but something was missing. That something is often called depth or resonance, and it's that element that turns an ordinary story into one you couldn't put down.

How do you create a story like that? It starts with the creation of the story. I’ll show you how to take a simple plot idea, premise, or character and turn it into a novel with resonance.

Magic, Monsters and Amour: Creating a Believable Paranormal, Fantasy, or SF World. October 4-31, 2010 at SavvyAuthors.com October 4-31, 2010 at SavvyAuthors.com

http://www.savvyauthors.com/event.cfm?EventID=173

Are vampires, fairies, and space aliens real? If you create the right background for your paranormal romance, they will be to a reader. I'll show you how to create a fantasy or paranormal background from scratch and how to make it utterly believable.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Fantasy Creatures in the Real World, CRAFT

Werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings have become a staple in current genre fiction.  One problem I've seen in many of the fight scenes involving these creatures is created by a flaw in worldbuilding.

Consider this scene from a contemporary novel: The vampire protagonist is in a dangerous part of a major city, and he's attacked by a large pack of demon-possessed humans.  He fights them off until some of his vampire friends arrive, and all the demon-possessed humans are murdered.  Fortunately, no normal humans saw the fight so the vampires' existence remains a secret.  They stalk away into the night.

What's the problem?  Simple.  How can a race remain a secret for long with widespread killings and the sheer number of combatants on both sides?  Wouldn't the police become a tad suspicious if the murders kept building up?  Wouldn't a medical examiner suggest that someone with superhuman strength ripped these guys apart?  And what about that weird DNA found on the ripped throat of one of the victims?

The fight itself can be perfectly choreographed and written, but at its end, when all the bodies are lying there, and the vampires are leaving the scene, some readers will go, "Wait a minute.  What about the police?  What about...."  If you leave that kind of question, the fight scene has failed.

In a recent urban fantasy novel, the human-shaped demons spent the novel taking human prey while the vampires were killing the demons and the vampire hunters were killing the vampires, yet the humans and the police were apparently totally clueless about the existence of any of these creatures and unconcerned at a body count that fit a war zone, not an American city.  

For a race like vampires or werewolves to remain secret, they must have very small numbers, a large number of anything can't be kept secret, or the race rarely makes contact with humans.  

If they take prey, they must dispose of the bodies so no evidence of the death will ever be found.  Their prey must also be on the edges of human society so that their loss won't be obvious.   In other words, vampires should attack a homeless person, not the beautiful young Countess surrounded by friends, retainers, and family.  

Vampires definitely shouldn't attack tourists in a town which supports itself with tourism.  Considering the incredible national coverage and outrage caused by just a few tourist deaths in places like Miami and New Orleans in recent years, it's highly unlikely that dozens of tourists becoming monster chow wouldn't cause a similar outcry and intense scrutiny.  

Real world logic applies even to supernatural characters.  Make the fight and its outcome logical, or you've failed.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Links of Interest

MARKETS: Part 3 of Jim Hines' survey on how authors made their first sale. This looks at what these authors did to improve their odds of being published.

http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/novel-survey-results-part-iii/

WORLDBUILDING: Making the world more specific for your story needs.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-building-out-rooms.html

Making each scene specific according to your worldbuilding.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-painting.html

Keeping the characters and plot in the front of your neat new world.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/world-building-week-showing-it-off.html

MARKETS: How to give a winning verbal pitch to an agent or editor.

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2010/03/29/insider-tips-for-preparing-and-delivering-a-winning-pitch/

CRAFT/QUERIES: Using the query to figure out what your book is about before you write it.

http://storyflip.blogspot.com/2010/03/testingtestingis-this-query-on.html

MARKET: Anthology seeking urban fantasy set during the Roaring Twenties.

http://twelfthplanet.livejournal.com/11064.html

FIRST SALE DATA: Jim Hines has put up the complete data about novel first sales.

http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/

CRAFT AND MARKET: Learning through helping others learn. (As a teacher, I really agree with this.)

http://www.ninc.com/blog/index.php/archives/doing-the-other-guys-job

THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING: An article on where big publishing should go and why it won't. Really smart and thought provoking.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/my-advice-is-not-alwayseasy-to-follow-but-sometimes-it-proves-right-anyway

HISTORICAL RESOURCES: Slavery records, court records

http://library.uncg.edu/slavery

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Special Problems of a Wizard's Duel, CRAFT

When I think of a wizard's duel, I think of the Disney movie, THE SWORD IN THE STONE, where Merlin and Mim are taking turns throwing spells at each other and themselves. If one becomes an elephant, the other becomes a mouse which frightens the elephant, or they change the other into a mouse so they can become a cat.

Or the duel between the Death Eaters and the good wizards in HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX where the wands are used almost as swords to parry and thrust spells and counter spells.

Or the final confrontation between the hero and heroine and the dark powers in Andre Norton's WITCHWORLD fantasy novels where the viewpoint character's emotions are more clear than what is actually happening from a magical perspective, and the fight is more about emotional strength than magical spells.

The trick in creating a wizard's duel without pushing it into a caricature of those I mention above is to personalize the duel. It's not the spells that are important, but the characters themselves. At the same time, you have to give better detail than the Norton novels' duels which often made me scratch my head and reread them several times before I figured out exactly what has happened.