Pop Goes The Writer!

I’ve been reading the biography of Robert A. Heinlein by William Patterson – whom I met at a worldcon years ago and who is a very nice man and a FINE writer – in order to blog the book for Tor.com.

The volume I’ve just finished is Learning Curve, the early years, till the marriage with Ginny.

I don’t intend to go into my impressions of the book here. I’m saving that for Tor.com, of course. I will say, in passing, that Patterson treats his subject exhaustively, unsparingly and surprisingly gently, for all that.

I am going to say, though, that one of the things that struck me about Heinlein’s early years (and probably his later years, but maybe not) is how much like me he was in how he handled the inevitable tension of a writing career: badly!

Like me, he seemed to direct his tension into illness and came – physically – crashing down so often he might have been a bungee jumper.

This surprised me, because, of course, he was ... well... good. No. Wonderful. How could he have that much tension? Didn’t he know his stuff would eventually sell and sell well?

Of course, as soon as I thought that I realized I was an idiot. (Which, you know, I’ve always been, so it shouldn’t have taken that much thought.) I mean, children, hindsight is twenty twenty. To us – to me – it’s obvious he would sell and become an icon. But it might have been obvious to someone – poor thing – out there that I would eventually sell. To me, it was navigating blind in a pea soup fog. As for “sell well” I’m still here, stuck in the darkness. If anyone sees ahead, they’re better than I.

As Dave has pointed out there are factors way beyond our control as authors that determine if our work sells, how it sells, who gets to read us. Factors we can’t guess much less control. This means we send our darlings out. And we wait. And wait. And wonder.

My dentist says that his free-lance-writers clients are the greatest sleep-teeth-grinders. I could see why. What I can’t see and don’t know, is how the h*ll I can manage tension without making myself ill with raging eczema and/or pneumonia.

I have a book out at several publishers. Haven’t heard a word. And I’m NOT obsessing on it. In fact, I’m making a point of not obsessing on it. Days go by I don’t think about it. Well... not consciously. But my arms are raw with eczema and my voice keeps disappearing which it ONLY does in times of extreme stress. (I used to go through the first week of school mute.) And I don’t know what in heck to do. I walk. A lot. I’m within ten pounds of the weight I can start distance running again. Only between the time I did marathons and now I tore my ACL, (falling down a flight of stairs with a box, while moving, twelve years ago) so this might not be possible. Ever. I seem to remember it helped. I’ve considered a punching bag, but we don’t know where to put it. It would have to be the basement, but we’ll have to try to clear space. And since I’ve never used it, I don’t know how it will work.

So, we’re back to – How do I control stress when I don’t even know I’m stressed? No pills, please. The oddest things turn off the writing.

Other than that, does anyone have ANY suggestions? All suggestions welcome.

"On the Writing of Speculative Fiction"

Last weekend, I posted Elmore Leonard's 10 rules for writing fiction. In the course of discussion, I admitted that I didn't look at them so much as rules as guidelines. In fact, most of the so-called rules of writing we see populating blogs and how-to books are, in my opinion, nothing but guidelines. When writing, you have to consider the rhythm of your prose, the type of book you're writing, your audience and, most importantly, your narrator or point of view character. You have to choose which rules to follow and which to break. That said, I came across a piece by Robert A. Heinlein last night that I highly recommend for every writer, especially those of us who write science fiction or speculative fiction.

Heinlein wrote "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction" in 1947. It was reprinted in Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction (ed. Damon Knight, Harper & Row, 19770. It's not a long essay, only about 5 pages. But those 5 pages contain a lot to think about and I highly recommend you go find it. I could spend too much time discussing everything included in the essay -- so I'm going to focus only on the last bit: his rules for writing speculative fiction. I may come back to other parts of the essay later.

These rules are, according to RAH, "a group of practical, tested rules which, if followed meticulously, will prove rewarding to any writer." He starts by assuming, rightfully so, that anyone reading the rules and considering them can type (or keyboard now), knows the standard manuscript form or can at least look it up, and that they can spell, punctuate and know enough grammar to get by.

(Before going any further, let me add my two cents worth here. Don't rely on spellcheck for spelling. It is a good tool to get you started but it won't tell you if you've used "to" or "tow" properly in a sentence because they are both words. Turn off the grammar check utility and get yourself a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and Strunk & White. A good dictionary and thesaurus are musts as well.)

Now for the rules:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you start.
3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
4. You must put it on the market.
5. You must keep it on the market until sold.
   

For the most part, I agree with everything he says. I also submit that these rules apply to any form of writing, be it speculative fiction or romance or westerns or non-fic. I wholeheartedly agree with rules 1, 4 and 5. To be a writer, you must write. But you must also put what you write on the market. It doesn't do any good sitting in a drawer or under your bed or as bonfire fodder (No, Sarah, I swear. I haven't had a bonfire recently.) That said, I'm not sure everything I have is marketable so, no, things don't always stay out there. Although, at the moment, I have three short stories making the rounds, looking for the right fit.

Where I do disagree, at least on a very minor scale, with RAH are rules 2 and 3. I'm not sure everything can be written to conclusion. I admit I haven't always finished what I've started. Yes, a lot of the time it's because I've lost interest in it or haven't had the discipline to continue. Other reasons are because the piece was nothing but fanfic or so close as not to be distinguishable. That said, I do try to finish everything now -- except for that one, on-going and never to be ended fluff that I do for decompression and is never to be seen by anyone else but me. In fact, I must figure out a way that it will self-destruct upon my death so no one sees it then. Hmmmm.

I also have issues with not rewriting except to editorial order. What I wish is that RAH had explained this a bit more. Does he mean only when an editor tells you to, or does he mean to clean up the manuscript to make it marketable? Sarah, you're our resident RAH expert. Any thoughts?

So, what are your thoughts? Does Heinlein have it right with these general "rules"? Do these rules still hold true 60 years after they were first written? Why or why not?

Vorpal swords and derivation

'And his vorpal sword went snicker-snack...' - we all know where it comes from and the derivation automatically carries us to a certain mental setting for any story it is used in. Sort of instant setting-gel. Now this is a valuable tool (shared associations) for writers - but it is also a very dangerous beast because it is so infectious. Books - particularly when the author has a distinctive style and voice creep in to my own writing like memes-in-the-night. I try to work with this if possible - When I was writing the Karres books I read only Schmitz to try and be influenced by it (and in the last one I slipped and read an Andre Norton - I can SEE the influence). I use combinations of other writers to 'set' myself for other kinds of books. CS Lewis, Michael Scott Rohan, Peter Beagle, and McKillip, and a dash of Heyer for Dragon's Ring for eg. Or for Slow Train to Arcturus, Heinlein, Niven, Hal Clement. For Rats Bats and Vats - Tom Sharpe, Terry Pratchett, Niven.

So: am I alone in this, or do others find themselves writing derivative style and voice? And if so, how do you control it and who do you use?
I have fairly limited access BTW, so commenting is difficult for me right now.

Head Down In The Bone Marrow Pie*

Lately I’ve been studying the elders of our faith. Not religious faith. The other one. The one that says you must write, write everyday and improve in our craft.

I started with Heinlein, which is usually where I start. Over the next few weeks I’ll probably move to Bradbury and Pratchett, with a few detours through minor prophets as the mood strikes. (If no one has read Simon Hawke’s time war series , do, now. Massive fun. Also, read Simak’s Way Station and City and perhaps Our Children’s Children – all of them crying out for a rewrite to modern standards, and I don’t mean an edit, but a recast.)

Anyway, all of you of the female persuasion who are convinced Heinlein is anti-woman – the feminists who proclaimed that gospel never actually READ Heinlein, or not without being sure of what they would find. Yeah, he had – some – different expectations of female behavior. He was a man of his time. As we are women of ours. And if you don’t think the pendulum will swing back again, sister, I have a bridge in NYC I’d like to sell you. So take it easy and read for what’s there, and for what you can learn. (I had a friend who was furious at Heinlein for having Friday raped. She thought he was doing it because he liked the idea. Mind you, if a woman had written it, she would have thought it was because she wanted to show how oppressed women are. This type of semiotic understanding is wrong. Also the D word – Dumb. You should never allow your mind to be sequestered by an ideology. Any ideology. The rape of Friday shows us several things – besides being plausible. Rape IS a weapon used against women over most of the world – including the inner consequences of her not considering herself QUITE human.)

What I learned in reading what I consider his first work with true voice, Double Star, is the subject for another post. But what I learned in just starting Starship Troopers is the "advantage of effective beginnings." He starts ST just before a combat drop, even though he goes back to the spoiled-rich-kid-joins-the-army story afterwards. This is called starting in media-res, or in the middle of the action. (Not, as one of my character thinks "The media rests.") and it is a tricky thing to handle but very effective, particularly for coming of age novels where your character isn’t very effective at the beginning.

Have others used this? Sure. But Heinlein uses just enough... er... heinleining – i.e. burying of the worldbuilding details – to make the pay off extraordinary.

As everyone here knows by now, I devote an extraordinary amount of time to beginnings. Often a good half of the time I give any novel. And when they’re not going well, I bitch, moan, behave like a bear with two mad heads, and generally make myself a pain until it clicks. Normally, I advise everyone to start at the beginning and I rarely break that advice. So, for those who write – and read – in your experience, what are the pitfalls and side-benefits of beginning in media-res? As readers, does it bother you? Does it feel like bait-and-switch?

*Face Down In The Bone Marrow Pie is the title of a very decent mystery. The title just seemed appropriate to this post.

The Empty Room Versus The Filigreed Flourishes

Sarah talked yesterday about a tendency to genericise, to reduce the details of our imagined worlds to the bare bones and let readers put their own filigree and flourishes into the story.

There is a certain amount of validity to this, since the world inside our heads is always much richer than anything on paper. But at the same time, if we strip down too far, we run the risk of talking heads in empty rooms (guilty, yeronner).

Heinlein was a master of putting in just enough to make the scene spring to life - and choosing the perfect detail to do it, usually something that implied a whole bunch more and built the world in our heads for us. Pratchett does the same in his fantasies, building on the more or less common heritage of fairytales to layer the details in a way that the more you know about history in general, mythology and the just plain weird, the richer his books become. As a quickie example, in Making Money, the parrot's squawk of "Twelve and a half percent!" has at least four layers of meaning that I've identified. There are probably more.

Who do you think gets it just right? If you feel like some examples where the author's gone too spare and left you with the talking heads, or too lush and given you way too much description instead of plot, feel free to mention those as well.

Antique Futures -- Dude, where's my flying car?

This 'Fantastic' cover dates from the 'Hush, I hear a white woman scream' era.

But seriously, Amanda brought up the 1960s Space Exploration and books like Heinlein's 'Podkayne of Mars', about settling our solar system.

Here we are forty years later and where are the tourism trips to the moon station? Those books of the 50s and 60s were full of excitement, no challenge was too big, anything seemed possible. Terraform Mars? Mine the asteroids? A colony ship to Andromeda?

Space Opera.Those were positive days, now SF is very dystopic unless it is Space Opera.

What's your favourite classic SF book and what have you read recently that inspired you?

A Step Back in Time

Kate and I were talking yesterday -- well, to be honest, we were IM'ing -- about possible topics for today's post. We discussed a number of things, everything from how we are both being hit by new books wanting to be written to how nervous we are as we wait to hear from publishers/agents/etc to the panels being presented at Libertycon this weekend. The one thing we kept going back to is something Dave touched on in his last post -- how the older authors, such as Schmitz, have seen a new generation of readers come to know and love them through re-issues of their work.

But there is a different side of the issue I want to discuss today, one the name of a panel at Libertycon brought back to mind. I say "back to mind" because this discussion cropped up on Baen's Bar a year or so ago and has also made the rounds on several LJs in the past. But it's an important issue, at least in my mind as a writer, and one I'd like to get your opinions on.

What is the name of the panel that got all this started you ask? "Shell Worlds: Why Space Opera Has It Wrong". In particular, what stuck in my mind is the last of the title: Why space opera has it wrong.

I've had discussions bordering on knock-down, drag-out arguments with others about the validity of the old space operas. They claim Heinlein is no longer important because his technology is either too old fashioned or impossible. They diss Asimov because he based his Foundation series on historical narratives and faulty assumptions. John W. Campbell is nothing more than a name in a list of greats who has no importance today beyond the fact he helped make SF what it is today.

These readers eat up the technical aspects of books similar to David Weber's Honor Harrington series. They hold on-line discussions dissecting every possible equation to prove or disprove what Weber writes. They discuss the specifications of the different ships and munitions used in each and every assault.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of David Weber. But my eyes glaze over after the first couple of paragraphs of technical data. I want the guts of the story -- the characters and the conflict. I can forgive an author if his science doesn't quite work today, especially if he wrote 50 years ago. It's the story that grabs me, not the tech.

What about you? Which is more important to you -- accurate tech (or at least believable according to today's standards) or character and conflict? Do you see the inaccuracies of the science of the old masters as a problem today and why?