Upcoming Literary Excitement

It's fall (supposedly -- the heatpocalypse continues in Silicon Valley), and I am excited about so many literary happenings coming up this season. I've been counting the days until some amazing book releases and movie adaptations, and I'm delighted to be heading to a big book event in November. Here's what has me full of anticipation:

Book releases from favorite authors: October 6 will be the best book day of the year for me, because it's publication day for two authors I adore, Ann Leckie and Rainbow Rowell.

ANCILLARY MERCY is the third and final book in Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, an epic, universe-spanning tale with a fascinating protagonist who was once the artificial intelligence of a spaceship. Last year I enthused about the first book and then had even more praise for the second. I'm expecting more of the vivid characters, clever worldbuilding, and tense adventure in the final installment.

In 2014, I devoured everything Rainbow Rowell has published after I read and loved FANGIRL. That novel features a main character who writes fanfiction based on the Simon Snow series, a sort of Harry Potter analogue inside the world of the story. Rowell's upcoming release, CARRY ON, is about Simon Snow and his magical world, based on the imaginary book series she created while writing FANGIRL. It's a strange and meta concept, and I'll admit it wasn't something I was hoping would exist in the world, but since Rainbow Rowell is writing it, I'm sure it will be fun and unexpected and emotional and great.

Movie adaptations of books I love: On the whole, I'm pleased when good books are turned into movies, and while I have seen some terrible film adaptations, I've found many to be good or even excellent. I have high hopes for two movies coming this fall.

I really enjoyed THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir, and the book's fast-paced plot and cinematic setting scream for an on-screen depiction. I've been excited since learning that a movie was being filmed, and my anticipation has grown with each publicity video I've watched. These cleverly report on the mission to Mars as if it were real, and even Neil deGrasse Tyson got in on the act. I can't wait, and I don't have to wait much longer, because the movie opens October 2.

Emma Donoghue's ROOM blew me away, but I wouldn't have picked it as a good candidate for movie adaptation because of its extreme interiority, in two senses: the story takes place inside a single room, and much of what makes it fascinating is the five-year-old mind of the narrator. However, Donoghue wrote the screenplay and was very involved in the production of the movie, and that bodes well for the results. I'm intrigued to watch this film, which will be in released in select cities mid-October and widely in early November.

Book Riot Live!: I follow the Book Riot media empire (a site, several podcasts, and so on), and when they announced their first convention, I thought it sounded cool but didn't intend to travel to New York City for it. But months later, while planning an unrelated New York trip, I realized the dates lined up. I'll be attending Book Riot Live November 7 and 8, and I'm just thrilled.

The lineup of speakers is amazing. I'm especially excited about two of them: Margaret Atwood has long been a favorite and is coming out with another of my anticipated fall releases, THE HEART GOES LAST. N.K. Jemisin wrote the fantasy duology I read last year, THE KILLING MOON and THE SHADOWED SUN. I hope to read the work of several other participants before the con. Or maybe I'll just run around squeeing for the next six weeks.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ At Book Riot, A.J. O’Connell interviews cartographers who make fictional maps for books about their process: "For the second book in Blake Charlton's Spellwright series, Spellbound, [Rhys] Davies and the author worked together to create a map of a city, and Davies found that he needed to make the city believable; he and the author had to decide on a workable street pattern and Davies had to draw buildings that corresponded with the income of the inhabitants in certain neighborhoods."

The Hunger Games Trilogy

Over the past three weeks, I read Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy for the first time. I had watched the first two movies when they came out, and the more interesting second one made me curious enough about the world and characters that I decided I'd read the books before the next movie. I almost waited too long to carry out this plan, but I finally took the time to read this series, and I'm not sorry.

→ Presumably you know the premise of THE HUNGER GAMES: In a dystopian future, teenagers are forced to fight to the death in a televised spectacle intended to remind the people of the oppressed districts that they are powerless against the evil Capitol. I'm unconvinced that this is a logical tool to prevent rebellion (and it proves not to be), but okay, it's the premise of the series, so I'll roll with it.

When her beloved younger sister is selected for the Hunger Games, Katniss makes the deadly choice to volunteer in her place. Katniss is thrust into the spotlight of the Capitol and then into the horror of the arena, where her only hope of survival is to kill or outlast the rest of the participants, many far stronger and better equipped. Throughout this ordeal, Katniss struggles with anger at the Capitol and her situation, guilt and depression over what she must do, and constant fear.

The strength of Katniss's first person narration is what elevates this from a kind of ridiculous story to something truly gripping. The experience of being inside Katniss's head is a difficult one even in better circumstances, and that's handled well in presenting the horrific events that unfold. The story is excellently plotted to keep you reading, but Katniss's voice is the more impressive accomplishment (and the main element that had to be omitted from the movie adaptation).

→ At the start of CATCHING FIRE, Katniss has survived the Hunger Games, so she ought to be living a happy life of wealth and safety. Instead, the memories and consequences of her time in the arena plague her. And even worse, the choices she made to win the Games have angered the Capitol and put everyone she loves in danger. There are reports of rebellion in the districts, and it seems Katniss has unintentionally become a hero of the revolution.

I found this a more interesting and nuanced story than the first book, which focuses mostly on the action of the Games. This book still had plenty of action, but the rumors and realities of the uprising are the more important element of the plot and appealed more to my reading tastes. We remain in Katniss's viewpoint, and it's as well-developed as ever. Since she's both concerned with the wider world and unable to learn what's happening there, it adds tension and mystery to the perspective.

→ In MOCKINGJAY, the districts are in full revolt against the Capitol, and Katniss is being forced into the role of leader. It's not that she doesn't believe in the cause, but she's already been through so much and continues to suffer from the trauma of the arena. All she wants to do now is hide under the covers. Reluctantly, she becomes the public face of the rebellion, but she fears this is only making the situation worse for the people she loves.

I liked that the revolution is presented as a complex, morally ambiguous situation, not a simple question of good and evil. This leads to an interesting range of conflicts for Katniss, both with others and in her own mind. I also enjoyed that after two books spent mostly in the wilderness or in Katniss's poverty-stricken district, this one presents a high-tech setting that gave the story more of a science fiction feel. While much of the story was compelling, I grew frustrated by the plot as it got closer to the end, and ultimately, I didn't like this book as much as the second one.

While I didn't adore this series, I found it worthwhile to read. Collins is a solid writer, and though I have some complaints about the books, I feel they've earned their success.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Andrea Blythe visits the Tate Modern and ponders what makes a story a story: "For example, in taking a note from minimalist art, could I put a single word on a page and call it a novel, in the same way an artist can take a single color and fill a canvas and it's a painting?"

→ Jennifer R. Hubbard considers the imaginary worlds that budding storytellers construct: "Like Martin Wilson, I created an imaginary tennis tournament with fictional players and results. I also had imaginary schools full of fictional students (for which I even created yearbooks), imaginary towns (for which I drew maps and created directories), and my own imaginary soap opera for which I outlined ten years' worth of episodes."

The Giver Quartet and the Movie

I reread Lois Lowry's THE GIVER back in April because I knew it was being adapted into a movie. I initially read this dystopian kids' book soon after its 1993 release and liked it enough to read multiple times (though I was already well past the target age), so I was curious how it would stand up to my memories. After rereading and discovering that the story is still thought-provoking and affecting, I decided to check out its sequels, which I'd heard were only loosely connected to the original.

My reactions to the followup books were less enthusiastic. None of them are as powerful as THE GIVER, and fans only looking to find out what happened after that story's ambiguous ending will be disappointed by the switch to a new setting and characters. However, the sequels do get better as they go along, and the traditional sequel function also increases in that direction. It's possible to skip any of the books without becoming confused, so my recommendation for non-completists wishing to continue is to go directly to the final book.

The new movie, released last week, was another disappointment. Some critics have reviewed it well, but I'm with the majority in finding it unworthy of the source material.

Here's my take on each of the books, followed by more thoughts on the film:

→ THE GIVER: Life in Jonas's community is pleasant and safe. Every citizen is provided for, children are well cared for by the family units to which they are entrusted, and each twelve-year-old is assigned to a carefully chosen career that will lead to a satisfying adult life. But when Jonas receives his assignment during the Ceremony of Twelve, it's a bewildering one, and what he learns as he starts his training is even more confusing. He's never thought to ask questions about his life before, and now he's questioning everything.

This is a strong, if simple, story of a world that seems like a utopia to the inhabitants but isn't quite so perfect from a reader's perspective. It's written to be accessible to pre-teens, and so at times I would have preferred to have things less spelled out, but in general it's a pretty sophisticated story for the age group, relying on the reader to grasp the limits of Jonas's understanding. It stood up well to what I remembered, and I'd recommend it to both kids and adults.

→ GATHERING BLUE is also set in a far-future world, but in a completely different type of society, a primitive village where life is based around superstition and fear, women and children aren't respected, and nobody is particularly happy.

The plot is very similar to that of the first book: A young person is chosen to fill a special, mysterious role in their community, and this leads to discovering that their world is not what they've always been told. This repeated formula makes the story somewhat dull. More importantly, the second book lacks the element that gave the first one its impact. The society of THE GIVER is arguably better than ours in many ways, and you can contemplate whether what they gave up was worth it. GATHERING BLUE leads to no such philosophical questions. It might keep younger readers interested, but it has nothing special to offer adults.

More on Novel Research

On Wednesday, I wrote about the different stages of novel research. Today I have a few more research tips to pass on, based on what I've figured out through many drafts of many manuscripts.

The single most important thing I've learned about research is to record every piece of information the first time I discover it. While revising THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE, I wasted untold hours looking up facts that I almost certainly verified two drafts ago but couldn't be sure of. Now everything I research, I immediately type or copy into a file, along with a reference to where the information came from, whether it's a URL or a page in a book. Treat your research as though you're going to have to provide footnotes to your story, and you'll be ready when you doubt yourself later or you get questions from a critique partner or editor.

Be organized with all these research notes you're diligently keeping. For DAMAGE, my computer has one folder of files divided up by major topic, including "earthquakes", "aerospace industry", and "babies". Additionally, in my SuperNotecard story notes, each chapter has a card with references for specific facts in that chapter. This slightly obsessive method of documentation is what works for me, but you'll have your own personal record-keeping strategy.

As with any research, when you're acquiring information for a novel, you need to consider all the types of sources that are available to you. Primary sources from within a time, place, or culture are extremely valuable but sometimes easy to forget about. A cool but tricky thing about fiction research is that other fiction can often be used as a source. A novel by an author with firsthand experience may be even more revealing than a work of nonfiction if you're looking for everyday details of an experience you can't have yourself. Novels, movies, and TV shows that are about a certain era, location, or industry but were written from outside may also be useful, but tread carefully and consider the work's reputation and biases.

In general, be thoughtful about sources. Not everything on the internet is true, and the same goes for books. If a fact seems questionable to me, I try to verify it against a second, independent source. Because part of DAMAGE takes place in the 1960s, I'm always eager to watch movies made during that time to notice details like a washing machine in a family's kitchen or people smoking, well, everywhere. But movies aren't a pure reflection of reality, and I have to keep that in mind. Similarly, while the television series MAD MEN has a reputation for extreme accuracy in its 60s-era period details, I recognize that it's a work of fiction by writers with a twenty-first century perspective, and I only trust it up to a point.

Finally, remember that the research you invest in a novel is to improve your story, not to insert directly into your story. When you become intimately familiar with the world of your novel, that will show in how well and seamlessly you bring it to life. Rarely is this accomplished with paragraphs of dry explanation or awkward dialogue in which characters tell each other facts about their setting. Resist any urges in that direction, and keep your meticulously organized research notes to yourself. (Or maybe you can share them online as background information or bonus material for your readers.)

That's the end of my novel research advice, at least for now. I still have a whole stack of library books to get through.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ At io9, Charlie Jane Anders offers 10 Can't Miss, Surefire Secrets Of Torturing Fictional People: "Suffering that happens because of your characters' decisions is way more interesting -- and often more painful, because of remorse. A lot of the most powerful fictional torment comes as a result of people's terrible decisions, but it's also really poignant to see someone stick his or her neck out for justice, and get dinged."

Talk About Random

Earlier this week, I made a vague resolution to go through my blog idea files and turn some of these notes into posts. As I mentioned, many of the ideas don't lend themselves to any further elaboration beyond the brief note I made, but I found some of these still interesting enough to share. So, miscellaneously:

→ For a while now, it's been the case that when I think of some detail or bit of dialogue I should add to one of the storylines I've already revised, more often than not I discover it's already in there. This seems like a good sign.

→ A while ago, I was talking to a friend who teaches music. She said many of her students don't like having to repeatedly practice the same section of a piece. They're only interested in playing the whole piece through. She has to explain that in order to improve, it's necessary to keep working on a section until it's right. "It's just like revising!" I said. (I say that a lot. Also, as a piano student I never had any patience for practicing either.)

→ In other analogies, writing a first draft is like packing for a trip in a station wagon: There's plenty of room, so you can throw in everything you might possibly want. Revising is like packing for a backpacking trip: You'd better make sure you're only carrying stuff you really need.

→ Recently I saw a movie that had a tense conversation between two characters before one drove away, accompanied by overdone music. "We really didn't need those dramatic strings to know that was a dramatic scene," I said aloud. (I'm annoying when I watch movies at home.) I've noticed I have a bad habit of doing the equivalent thing in my writing: My narrators frequently have a moment of emotional reflection about what's just happened. In trying to underscore the significance, I'm accidentally weakening the scene. Time to get rid of those dramatic strings.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Alicia Rasley at edittorrent looks at the difference between subtle and obscure exposition: "The more sophisticated the writing and plotting, the less obvious the exposition. But that doesn't mean there's no exposition, only that it's done subtly and carefully through the characters in a way that is consistent with the way they think, speak, and interact."

Cloud Atlas, the Book and the Movie

The most striking thing about David Mitchell's CLOUD ATLAS is that it doesn't behave the way a story is supposed to. Normally when you read a novel, within a few pages you start to get a sense of what the story is. You understand why you're following the main character, and you can probably guess at the general sort of arc the story will take. If this information isn't apparent within a few pages, you'll certainly have a handle on it within a few chapters.

CLOUD ATLAS isn't like that. I was a quarter through the book and still unclear who these characters were and why I was reading about them. But this experience wasn't frustrating, because the problem wasn't a fault with the writing but rather a deliberately mysterious structure that Mitchell was building and playing with. I found this book fascinating, fun, and only rarely boring (the first 25 pages in particular are a bit of a difficult slog but well worth pushing through).

If you're willing to dive into CLOUD ATLAS based on that description alone, and you've managed to avoid learning anything else about the book, I suggest that you stop reading this review now and give the book a try. I enjoyed my relatively uncontaminated reading experience.

On the other hand, if you're not likely to pick up the book without some idea of what you're getting into, read on for an explanation that will still leave you with plenty of surprises.

The Significant Scenes I Didn't Write

As I work through revising the latest chunk of manuscript, I've been noticing that often the parts I leave out of the story are very important events to the characters, if I consider them as real people. But since they're fictional creations of a sadistic author, these significant scenes sometimes take place off the page. And it's not because in a moment of kindness I'm giving the characters some privacy for their big moments. The reason these events occur during the chapter breaks or in summary is that sometimes, the important episodes are repetitive or boring on the page.

You've probably seen a movie in which something tragic happens, or a character does something terrible, and when the bad news has to be broken to another character, the camera pulls back and the soundtrack covers the conversation, so all we get is the initial tears or expression of horror before the scene cuts away. The rest of the breaking-the-bad-news scene so often occurs offscreen for a couple of reasons. First, if the audience already saw the event in question, another scene in which the same event is described would only be a weaker rehashing. Second, unless the character is going to react to the news in an unusual manner, the audience can accurately imagine the grief or anger that's sure to occur, and leaving it to the imagination may be more powerful than what the script and acting could portray.

Along similar lines, I was recently trying to figure out how much to include of the fallout from my narrator's bad behavior. He did something stupid that was going to upset his wife, and I'd planned on a scene where she confronts him about it, but then I started having second thoughts. As in the breaking-the-bad-news example, a scene in which characters discuss the events of the previous scene is dangerously repetitive. I'd already given readers enough information about the characters that they could imagine how this conversation would go. So maybe it was better to leave it out.

That felt kind of strange, though, especially when I started thinking about how for the characters as people, this conversation and its impact on their relationship would be a lot more significant than the event that prompted the conversation. But I realized that's okay. Throughout the story, I gloss over important moments for this couple, such as their wedding, while dwelling on conflicts they might later forget about. Crafting a good story is all about deciding what to leave out, and it's not only the mundane occurrences that fail to move the plot forward.

As it turned out, I did give my characters a chance to deal with the narrator's actions on the page. After a bit of summary in which I established that there was a week of unproductive arguing during the chapter break, and then hinted that maybe things were improving, somebody got drunk and finally said what they'd really wanted to say. Things are in motion now, both for the relationship and the plot. And I'm not entirely certain it's going to end up where I need it to, but that's a topic for another time.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Christopher Gronlund advises writers, Don't Answer Every Question: "There's often a tendency to answer everything as we write in an effort to ensure we get our points across. If the question isn't a big thing, though, it’s usually best to leave the smaller questions unanswered."

Thickening the Plot

I write a monthly column for WritersTalk, the newsletter of the South Bay Writers branch of the California Writers Club. Today I'm busy working on my column for next month's issue, so in lieu of a regular post, here's my July Writecraft column.

 

The first novel I wrote is packed with events. Throughout the lengthy manuscript, my protagonist goes places, meets people, and encounters challenging situations. What's it about? Well, there's this guy, and after high school he stays at home while his friends go off to college, and then . . . some stuff happens. The story contains well-developed characters in realistic scenarios, but it wasn't until several years and novels later that I recognized it has no plot.

Plot isn't just a series of events. This is far from obvious. Even though I'd read countless novels before writing one of my own, I hadn't taken much notice of the way a sequence of linked episodes propels a story forward. I set out to capture an important year in a character's life (a reasonable topic for a novel), but I wrote it too much like reality, in which incidents occur mostly at random and with little connection or reason. That doesn’t make good fiction.

A plot is a structured progression of selected events that build to a resolution. Goal-oriented characters struggle against increasing complications until they succeed or fail, usually changing in the process. In retrospect, a tipoff to the plot trouble in my first novel is my uncertainty over when the story should end. My poor hero doesn't have any particular desires or avenues for change, the conflict doesn't intensify, and there's no conclusion to reach. Why would anyone keep reading if it's arbitrary what happens next?