Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing on 24 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Main production on Beneath a Wounded Sky is now complete!
That’s right. The last swoosh from my fountain pen is on the pad, and the first draft is officially done. This weekend will be busy, as I transcribe the last few chapters from longhand to disk, and start working on all those <?> items scattered in there.
And then begins the painful process of editing.
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, Characters, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 23 Aug 2012| 2 Comments »
The end of any writing project is an emotional time for me, and the level of that emotion marches in lockstep with the amount of time I’ve invested. Be it poem, short story, or novel, there is a point at which it’s time to say “goodbye.”
With novels, it can be a tough period to get through. As a kid, I was always labeled as “too sensitive.” I was the easy target for gibes and teasing. I’ve grown a tougher hide in recent years, but it’s just a façade. I still feel things deeply, and goodbyes are never easy. (more…)
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, Characters, cherryh, creative writing, eddings, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing on 22 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Folks, we are literally days away from completion of the first draft. It’s been a looooong time coming, I know. My readers have been exceedingly patient and very encouraging. My thanks and appreciation to you all.
In the last days of any project, I get rather manic. Okay, “testy” is probably a better word. “Obsessed” probably fits in there, too. All right, go ahead and add “hard to live with.”
I want to do nothing more than call in sick, stay home, sip whisky, and finish the damned thing. (more…)
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, blogging, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, Writing on 13 Aug 2012| 1 Comment »
Another chapter down.
For the professionals out there, this may not seem like much, but for me, especially after the last two weeks I’ve had at the day-job, it’s very good progress.
More to the point, for my patient readers, I have completed a major group of “character” chapters (see post on Pacing), and those are always the hardest to write.
Now comes a group of “action” chapters, which tend to go much more quickly.
k
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, blogging, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 13 Aug 2012| 3 Comments »
A word about pacing.
In my books, chapters tend to fall into two categories: chapters that deal primarily with characters, and chapters that have a lot of action. When I outline my book (yes, way back at the beginning), I think about these two types. Do I have the mix of action/character chapters that I want? Are they interspersed the way I want them to be?
The answers to these questions dramatically change the result. The extremes explain it. Go all-action chapters and you get “The Bourne Ultimatum” where if you go with all-character chapters, you get “Little Women.” Of course, each of these (especially in novel form), you have some of the other type of chapter. You might not think of it as such, but a chapter with Jo and a meeting of the Pickwick Society is an action chapter; important things happen, and the characters do not resolve major internal conflicts. Character chapters in a “Bourne” novel are easier to spot, mostly because nothing blows up and speeding cars aren’t involved.
And, naturally, each chapter has a soupçon of its counterpart. Nothing in writing is Boolean.
Then, once I’ve determined the mix of chapters in my outline, I look at how they’re arranged and see the “rhythm” of the pacing. Consider these two examples:
Which of these seems like the more interesting? Which one looks like the pacing of the action “beats” will better drive the story? I vote for the second.
Of course, there’s no hard and fast rule, but most successful stories have a rising level of action as the plot unfolds. Tension rises, and partially relaxes, rises some more, and relaxes, rises more and more, to the climactic moments, and the story resolves. Action, in its various degrees, helps drive the tension. Action provides the pace of the conflict.
k
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged creative writing, Dreams of the Desert Wind, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, novels, Ploughman Chronicles, publishing, Unraveling Time, Writing, writing tips on 01 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Are there “rules” for genre fiction?
I’ve been called out by die-hard Alternate History readers for having “broken the rules” of the genre with my Fallen Cloud Saga. Charges that I “changed too much” or that “that’s not the way it was back then” were among the most common complaints. In response, I can only shrug. There are rules? I didn’t get any rulebook. What part of “alternate world history” is confusing these people?
When I sat down to outline the The Year the Cloud Fell (FC:I), I didn’t check to see what genre label it would sport. I had an idea, I worked on it, and I wrote the story I wanted to tell. My standalone novels, Dreams of the Desert Wind and Unraveling Time, are also good examples. Each one of those books blends elements of several genres: suspense, thriller, romance, time travel, adventure, historical fiction, etc. But I never set out to write a genre-bender. I set out to write a novel.
That’s because “genre,” as it’s used today, has nothing to do with writing, but it has everything to do with marketing.
Publishers want to make money; I can’t blame them for that, but in order to ensure the best return on their investment, they want to stack the odds in their favor. One way they do that is by giving books specific “genre” labels. Humor, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, plus sub-categories like Alternate History, Steampunk, Police Procedural…these are all genre labels and yes, the fans of these genres have expectations about what will be inside a book that bears a specific label. That’s what makes the product predictable, and helps the publisher maximize profits by targeting their budget where it will do the best work.
But it has nothing to do with writing.
The book you have in mind might tick all the boxes for one of these labels. Many books do, and publishers (and agents) love that type of book because it makes their job easier. Unfortunately, none of my books fit so neatly into one category. So, should I change what I write? Should I “write to the market”?
Writing to the market is like setting out to write a blockbuster. You’re aiming at a sly, wily, restlessly moving target. You’re having to guess, months in advance, what will pique the public’s interest, what will go viral, what will be trending upward on Twitter. In short, it’s a nearly impossible task, and if you succeed, it’ll be more luck than skill.
I write what I want to write. I build my characters, my worlds, my storylines specific to my needs, not the unwritten rules of bean-counters in marketing departments. Writing a novel is hard enough, without burdening myself with writing a book I’m not in love with.
k
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, novels, Writing, writing tips on 31 Jul 2012| Leave a Comment »
Today was a good writing day.
Ilene and I have gotten into the habit of taking “rehearsing for retirement” mini-vacations. This weekend we took another, centered around our 29th wedding anniversary. We had plans of doing all sorts of things, going places, trying new restaurants, seeing a movie or two to see, but we ended up pretty much sticking around the house, reading, watching the Olympics, and (in my case) writing. I can barely wait until retirement.
I’ve been working on a critical section of FC:V (aka Beneath a Wounded Sky), and today I finally punched through to the other side. I know the Faithful Readers over on my Facebook page are sick of hearing about this “critical section” of the novel, but hey. It’s critical. It’s the difference between crying “Checkmate” in move 25 and making sure you have all the pieces in place so that it means something. That means a lot of work, and a lot of re-work. And then some re-re-work.
But it’s also been rewarding. Any time, in writing Book V, you can make a serious call-back to a scene in Book I, that’s a hell of a lot of fun. Challenging, too, though, primarily because nearly everyone in the chapter has conflicting emotions, and my POV character shifts emotional focus a couple/three times in the last scene alone. While it’s a simple matter to map the “top note” of each character’s main emotion, it’s a different kettle to ensure that all the underlying emotional content is logical as you move through the shifts each character experiences.
I feel particularly free, though, after today’s work. While this isn’t the emotional climax or the action climax, it’s the pivot. For those keeping count, I’m about 75% done. About another 100 pages to go in the main product, and the production work will be complete. Then I go into “post-production,” editing, reader feedback, re-editing, and then…well, you get the idea.
Believe me, though, “production” is the hardest part. When I get that done, pop the champers.
k
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 