Some Story Help Please

Toying around with the sf story idea, which has as part of its premise, human experimentation. Not in an alien autopsy or locked room sort of way, but far more subtle. This is an experiment that does not appear to have an impact on your life. Why? Because you haven’t actually been aware of it. The world has changed in ways that may or may not be significant to you, but the change also alters your memory/perception of these changes so that they don’t even seem like changes at all. You may know people now that you didn’t before or suddenly be able to do something you once couldn’t, but your perception doesn’t perceive this as a change at all. Something is happening on a regular basis to you and everyone around you but it doesn’t actually feel like anything has changed at all. You don’t know who is doing it, how, or why they would be, but it is happening and will continue to keep happening. 

What is your reaction to this dilemma? 

Retweet this around at will. I’m curious how people feel this would effect them, as I’m trying to wrap my brain around the story and deciding what the world would do in such an event.

Story Opening-Something Different

I’ve been playing with a new story idea, a sf story based upon the following premise: what would happen if you discovered that humanity was involved in a global experiment, one with far-reaching potential, but lacked utter disregard for the immediate, singular consequences? This is very different in tone and feel for what I’ve done in the past, but I find the idea inspiring. Below is an opening possibility. Compelling or no?

The universe has its own voice. It doesn’t speak in any known language or have anything remotely cogent to say, but it is there if one listens. Perhaps it is the summation of all things: the energies given off by the stars and planets, the souls of all living things come and gone over milennia, the actions of untold billions of organisms dissipated into the vast expanse of space. It is a conglomeration of everything, settled into the sediment of existence, buried too deep for the minds of humanity to recognize, and beyond the reach of their awareness.
Felice Halladay was aware. She could sense the voice of all things. This is what she called it, this bone-deep whisper, the name she had given it from the moment her mind could form the words. She didn’t hear it all of the time. In fact, she often went days, weeks, or even months without being aware of it at all, but it was forever there, lingering in the shadows of her soul. The voice was a glimmer, a ghost, there but not, something one could only catch out of the corner of their eye but not if you looked directly at it.
Today, a crisp, bright September day in 2020, Felice Halladay turned her direct gaze upon the ghost and saw it for the first time.

Update

The blog has been quiet for some time now, mostly because, well, I’ve not had much to blog about, and I’m not good at just putting up random stuff to fill the pages. My work on Harbortown continues. It’s reaching 80k words now, and I’m guessing it’ll hit close to 100k by the time this second part is done. It’s a lot of fun writing a story where the boundaries are rather expanded because realism is not a complete part of the equation. Purposefully going over the top has its advantages. Making sure it isn’t absurd is another line to watch out for.  Another dilemma is the balancing act between the crime and the romance.  Deadworld had a romantic thread but it was probably only about 15% of the arc. Harbortown is much more in the 50/50 range which is new to me. Maintaining a relatively tight focus on the romance can be difficult when one is running around blowing shit up. Regardless, it’s a good time, and hopefully at some point later this year, I’ll have a product to put out there. My Urban Fantasy still remains out on submission, with 3 rejections out of 8 pubs so far. Still got fingers crossed on that one.

Given Deadworld’s hiatus at the moment, I’m also considering retooling the blog to turn the focus toward this Harbortown story and crime/noir/romance. Not sure how or when, but I’m considering it right now. Once I figure I have things I could talk about on a weekly basis at least, I’ll get it done, and actually converse with folks again. Meanwhile, the writing continues.

And the experiment begins

I have two projects in the works right now, one a UF out on submission with my agent, and the other, a hardboiled romance, I’m debating what to do with. I bounce back and forth between wanting to try self-publishing with this title or pursing more traditional options. For the past year or so, I’ve been wanting to dig into the D.I.Y. elements of publishing that are now open to authors, and you can see by a post I made a couple weeks ago, that I’ve been pondering possibilities. Well, I’ve recently begun a piece of that possibility.

What I have written on Harbortown (about 50k) words to this point, I placed on Google Docs, invited about a half dozen reader/reviewer people I’ve connected with on twitter and feel could provide me with some honest feedback, and gave them the ability to comment directly in the document, much like you do with any Word document. The goal here is to work with a continuous feedback loop, using ideas/concerns/comments to develop the story into a stronger version than what I could normally on my own. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a very objective eye with regard to my writing, unless it sits for a couple of months before I look at it. The far more immediate feedback helps not only spur ideas and keep elements on track, what works well and what doesn’t, but it’s also inspiring to write more, when you have people involved in your work.

Given the scope of this story (I’m on pt 2 of 5, and currently at 50k), I will be doing this for a while, and may add some more commenters to the loop, depending on how well this turns out. It’s not exactly crowd-sourcing, but having interested people involved in you work, who you know will give honest feedback is a fabulous thing to have when writing. I know that some writers don’t like anyone to see their work until it’s done. They have worries that it will distort their process or stress them out or whatever the case may be. My brain doesn’t work that way, for better or worse. I thrive on the interaction, so I hope that this experiment will prove fruitful and I can build upon it. We’ll see how it goes.

Bloggers are killing literature? Um, no.

Bit of a head-scratcher in the twitterverse today as I discovered a link to a well-known literary critic (in those circles at least) who complained that book bloggers are causing problems for literature. Huh? You can read what Mr. Stothard had to say here: http://ht.ly/dZy8V. His premise is basically this: the proliferation of non-professional book critics via blogging is going to drown out the voices of serious, literary critics making it more difficult for readers to discover great works of literature.

Yes, I know. You can quit your snorts of laughter now. I’ll be the first to say that the vast majority of book bloggers do not provide critical analysis of literary fiction. A few do, I’m sure, and if you are actually looking to find them, I’ll bet it’s not too hard to find. The fact is, if you are looking for great, literary fiction, it’s not hard to find sources that discuss/critique those stories. There are bloggers out there who are not professionally paid literary critics, but have the background, interest, and where-with-all to tackle literary fiction. Most readers, however, are not. The general reading public reads for entertainment mostly. Do these stories require deep, critical analysis? Probably not. They do require thoughtful opinion though, and that is within the purview of most readers.

Book bloggers offer their opinions on books because of one thing, they love books. They want people to know about them. Let’s face it, there are way more good stories out there for you to read than you’ll ever be able to get to. Finding good ones can be difficult.  Are you going to find them among the literary critics? No. Popular fiction isn’t something they examine, which is fine. Honestly, it doesn’t matter if they look down on popular fiction or have the pretentious attitude that they aren’t worth reading. We all know they are. Literary works are too. Some books are works of art when it comes to language and/or expressing the human condition. Literary critics can continue to work in those circles. It’s worthwhile and useful. Will they be drowned out by the rest of the book blogosphere? No.

The thing is, people talk about books. A lot. People who read popular fiction also read literary fiction. Word gets passed around. Bloggers are interconnected. If anything , a proliferation of book bloggers will only enhance the ability for an artful piece of fiction to get notice. It will also get more good popular fiction noticed.  To those literary critics out there pretentious enough to think so, readers read more than one type of story. We read romances, mysteries, biographies, fantasies, and hey, even literary fiction. Why? probably because a trusted blogger resource heard from another blogger who heard from a blogger who read some lit critics analysis and decided to give the book a shot and then spread the word.  It happens.

So, lit critics, get off your high horse, if you’re currently on one. Not every book out there is or needs to be worthy of the Booker Prize or  Pulitzer. Nor are we immune or ignorant of your analysis and critique of said books. We hear about them. Word gets around. Just because your pond has become an ocean, doesn’t mean we don’t know where to go looking for the beautiful fish.

The Ways We Can Tell Stories Are Changing

Much has changed in the past five years in publishing, which kind of goes without saying. It has allowed us writers to think a bit outside the box when it comes to the content we produce and how it’s put out there to readers. I have yet to do much with self-publishing, but it is readily apparent that the boundaries of the playing field for authors has greatly expanded. We can put out short stories, novellas, and such to go along with novels that come out, whether legacy or self published. It’s an ability to go beyond the norm for the readers as well as a method to help ourselves with things like discoverability and extra income. Things like this, of course, get me to thinking on the possibilities.

I have two projects going at the moment, and one of them is a something of a hard-boiled/noir/romance mashup called Harbortown. It follows the rollercoaster ride of Detective Rachel “Rehab” Rollins and the guy she must train to replace her after she’s been forced to retire.  The story arc takes place over these final six months of her job. Now, I may end up writing this all as one, full length book. If my agent likes it and sells it, I’m more than likely to go that route, but it’s also spurred on some other ideas.

Like, what if I wrote it as a series of novellas, released over the course of that actual six month time frame, on the actual days that each novella begins, sort of like reading it in real time? There could be short stories during the in between times. Then the whole thing could be compiled at the end in one volume. I could have a blog that follows the goings on in the town during the entire six months, also played along in real time, bits of news, things about the town and characters, kind of like a daily/weekly news update. The whole idea here would be to have readers experience the story along the same six month time frame that the characters and town do.

Might be fun, yes? Might be colossal, epic fail. Who knows, but regardless, it is very, very cool that publishing is such now that it allows for this kind of pondering. The ways in which we bring our stories to the reader have expanded quite a bit in the past few years, and likely will even more in the future. It’s an exciting time to be a writer.

Music and Story: Setting the Tone

There are a number of authors out there who like to build music soundtracks for particular books they’re writing. I personally have yet to do this, until now. My (other) current work in progress is a crime fiction story, a rather dark, unapologetic tale of love, violence, and how personal demons can destroy. The heroine likes music. She has a secret thing for singing that nobody knows about. It’s not a big element in the story far as that goes, but it’s a character thing I like a lot, and due to the emotional makeup of this character, she likes to play music that represents how she’s feeling at any given time. If this isn’t a story to build a soundtrack to, I don’t know what is.

Like the story, this aspect is a work in progress. I keep my ear out now for things that tie back into the story or characters. I think music can be a powerful addition to story, much like in movies. As a writer, if you have something that plays to what’s in the story, it can actually effect your writing. It can be quite powerful, honestly, and I wish I had the where-with-all to do it for every book, but it’s also a fair bit of work, and I”m not one of those folks with an ipod full of music to search through. Anyway, if you’ve not tried writing to music or find it distracting, the trick is not necessarily to pick things you normally love to listen to, but to tailor them to what you’re currently writing.  Got a love song that encapsulates what’s going on between your two protags? Play it while you write. It will have an impact. Even purely instrumental works can do this.

When this story finally sees the light of day, I’ll build an actual soundtrack for it just for fun and for readers to enjoy if they so desire. In the meantime, here are two, the first being what the heroine, Rachel, plays on the way to an incident (she’s a cop) and the second speaks almost perfectly to the romance in the story, from the hero’s pov. Enjoy, and happy reading/writing everyone!