One of China Mieville's tricks

I'm building up to trying to say something interesting about Embassytown [2011] and China Mieville. That's going to be difficult for me. The temptation is just to gush uncritically. While I'm working on that, I thought I'd allow myself a very little gush over a world-building trick that Mieville uses, which I just adore. 

Every now and again, Mieville mentions names for things -- pieces of technology, or types of magic, or places -- that have nothing to do directly with the story. They often don't ever appear again. They're rarely explained or clarified. They just exist, as far as I can tell, to hint at a world outside the story. Here's an example from Embassytown:

Those who serve on exot vessels, who learn to withstand the strange strains of their propulsion -- of swallowdrives, overlight foldings, bansheetech -- go even farther with less predictable trajectories, and become even more lost.

That bit I've highlighted, that's what I'm talking about. Sentences like that make me kind of giddy. What are swallowdrives? How might they work? Who might use them? But -- deliciously -- we never hear about them again.

It's quite possible that everyone does this in their science fiction and fantasy, and I just don't notice. If that's the case, then it's probably because there's an art to the way Mieville does it. It's not just a random combination of words, but one carefully chosen to provoke exactly my response. 

Names matter. And China Mieville is very good at naming things.

Backstory, and Vast by Linda Nagata

Hi! Long time, no post. I'm sorry about that. I'll try not to let it happen again. Let me get back in the swing of things with something long, rambling, and lacking in concrete conclusions, eh?

I just finished reading Vast [1998] by Linda Nagata. It's the fourth book in a series called The Nanotech Succession. It's also the first book in the series that I've read. I chose to start with that book for three reasons*. The most relevant is that I was interested to see what it was like reading a sequel without any knowledge of its forerunners.

I should say that Vast isn't a sequel in the strictest sense, since it is intended to stand on its own. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that it shares at least one major character with earlier novels in the series, and that it heavily references events and places from them.

Nagata has done a wonderful job -- I really enjoyed the book. I never felt lost or confused, and I was always clear on the characters' motivations. The science fictional ideas that underpin the book were introduced naturally. There's a lot of looking backwards, but I think that's a deliberate choice, not an unintended consequence of being the fourth book in a series.

All the same, I never quite managed to shake the feeling that events in Vast would have had more impact if I'd read the earlier books in the series. That got me thinking about worldbuilding. A while ago I read a quote by M. John Harrison (via China Mieville and Warren Ellis), in which he laid into the whole endeavour. You can read the whole (short) thing here, but I'm going to repeat part of it:

"Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done."

I love complex, rich worldbuilding -- it's part of the reason that I'm such a fan of Ian McDonald, China Mieville and Neal Stephenson**. But I wonder if the act of trying to write it all down and codify everything somehow deadens it a little. Could that perhaps be what I was picking up in Vast? 

I think I believe that worldbuilding and backstory should exist solely to serve the present narrative, but how can they do that with complete freedom if they're already set in stone? Is some quality of Vast smoothed over by the existence of the earlier books in the series? I have no idea. Probably I'm just imagining that there's something there (or not there) because I know those other books exist.

But still, it does make me want to experiment. Build a world, and then write stories in it. Write stories in a world I haven't built yet. See if they feel different.


* The second reason was that Vast is the book set farthest in the future, and I particularly like far future SF. The third reason is that Alastair Reynolds spoke highly of it, mentioning specifically that it stood on its own merits. Call it a best case for my experiment.

** Maybe what I love about the worlds those authors build is that there's so much in them that I don't understand, or that isn't fully, laboriously, explained? Maybe that's also why epic fantasy isn't really my favourite thing?

You, ma'am, are an inspiration

Sometimes I get this itchy, unsettled feeling. I have trouble sleeping, and I find it difficult to focus on any task that requires my full attention (in other words: I suck at my job for a little while). This is a sure-fire sign that I've been neglecting my imagination, and I need to make something, as soon as possible. Playing around with Lego helps, but something more substantial -- a comic or a story -- is much better.

I also sometimes get this feeling when I'm reading. Particular books bring it on. It's happening right now, with Chill [2010] by Elizabeth Bear. Which isn't a big surprise; I got the feeling when I was reading Dust [2007], the previous book in the series, too. This time, though, I've been thinking about what it is specifically that Chill is doing that inspires me to want to make something.

Maybe you haven't read Chill, so here are some other books that did the same thing for me, in the hope that you'll be familiar with one or two of them: The Dervish House [2010] by Ian McDonald, The Scar [2002] by China Mieville, Singularity Sky [2003] by Charles Stross, The Diamond Age [1995] by Neal Stephenson, and METAtropolis [2008] edited by John Scalzi, with stories by Scalzi, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder and Tobias Buckell.

I think it might be density of ideas. Reading each of those books (well, I listened to METAtropolis) I felt like I was running to keep up with a huge array of concepts, or characters, and all of their implications and connections and complex interactions. I like that feeling. It's a sort of breathless excitement, like the whole edifice requires my focussed attention, otherwise it will rush ahead without me and I'll stop understanding what's happening. Or maybe it isn't that, maybe it's that those books are so crammed full of ideas that I want to chase after every one of them, even when the narrative is driving me in a particular direction.

There is joy in a tightly focussed story, which explores a small number (one?) of characters, or a situation, or a single idea in depth. But those aren't the stories that make me want to rush out and write. I wonder if this sort of idea-dense writing is a carefully cultivated style for those writers, or if it just seems natural to them to throw so much stuff in? How hard is it to keep everything under control? I remember the first Ian McDonald novel I read, Necroville [1994], just left me confused, and no other book by Charles Stross has excited me quite the same way as Singularity Sky did (although I've liked a number of them a lot).

So have you read any of the books in my little list up there? Can you see connections that I've completely missed? And (this is my favourite question) can you recommend books that you think might give me this feeling again?

Is fun good enough?

Let me draw you a diagram:

That's basically how I see literature. Three (overlapping) categories: the Good, the Fun, and the Bad. Simple, eh?

The Bad is pretty obvious: that's the crappy stuff that really don't want to read. It might be terribly written, or horrendously derivative, or maybe just boring. Ending up in the (tiny) overlap between the Bad and the Fun is pretty much always an accident -- I don't think you can really aim to fall into that bit.

I'm going to struggle to describe what should go in the Good circle, but I'm sure you know it when you see it. This is the circle in which (I think) authors of literary fiction try to land. For me, lots of different types of books fall into this category. Things I actively enjoyed (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close [2005] by Jonathan Safran Foer). Things I admired, even if I found them difficult (The Road [2006] by Cormac McCarthy). Even things I disliked, but recognise as objectively Good, or at least important (I'm looking at you, Moby Dick [1851] by Herman Melville).

Fun books are something else again. These are books that aren't going to win any great literary acclaim, but which you really enjoy reading. I think a lot of  people's favourite books fall into this category. I also think this is where a lot of genre fiction lives. Alastair Reynolds is an excellent example -- I really love his stuff, but I'm (probably) never going to suggest we should be giving him the Man Booker Prize.

Which books end up in the Good/Fun overlap is, I suspect, even more subjective than the other categories. I'd put most of Charles Dickens' stuff in there, but I doubt there are heaps of people these days who would agree that Dickens is fun. Some examples of genre fiction I'd include here are The Dervish House [2010] by Ian McDonald, The Scar [2002] by China Mieville, and The Quantum Thief [2010] by Hannu Rajaniemi. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if other people shunted them out of the Good/Fun overlap into one category or the other (although I'd get punchy if you tried to shift them over into the Bad category!).

So why am I going on about this? Well, I really want to believe that the Good and the Fun categories are both (equally?) valuable. I'm pretty sure I believe it when I'm reading -- I loved The Dervish House, but its good-ness didn't make me enjoy the very fun Dust [2007] by Elizabeth Bear any less. I have real difficulty internalising it, though, when I sit down to write.

Obviously I'm not expecting the things I'm writing now to be worthy of the Good circle. It's far too early for that -- I've got a lot to learn, and lots of practice to do. The problem is I have difficulty believing that anything I ever write will be worthy of the Good circle. That makes it difficult to get motivated; no matter how hard I try, I will never, ever be Ted Chiang. And if I can't ever write anything Good, why bother writing at all?

I have to keep reminding myself that there's that big circle in the middle, filled with many of my favourite books, that is just as worthy as the scary circle on the left. There is nothing at all wrong with writing things that are fun. If I concentrate on doing that, maybe I'll be lucky enough to occasionally sneak something into the Good/Fun overlap. But even if that never happens, that doesn't (necessarily) mean that I am a bad writer. That, after all, is what the circle on the right is for.

I want to finish up by saying that there's another reason, aside from the navel-gazing, that I decided to talk about this here. I think the little Good-Fun-Bad Venn diagram provides some useful insight into the reviews I write. I'm really scoring on two different, but overlapping, things: how Good a book is, and how Fun it is. Which category you consider most important is, I think, a matter of taste. And, importantly, I don't consider books that fall into the overlap between Good and Fun to necessarily be superior than books that end up in one category or the other.

(Also, I just wanted to draw you a diagram.)

That thing I read once on the internet

I'm a citizen of the networked world. Or something. I read stuff on the internet all the time, think 'man, I really must remember that', and then immediately forget it. Sometimes I send myself an email, or save a text file somewhere, or star an article in my RSS reader, but those things never work. So I'm going to try something new: I'm going to make a list of internet-writings I want to remember here on the blog.

Really, this post is for me. I'll come back to it (probably) and update it in the future, but I'm unlikely to call out the fact that I'm updating it. Maybe you'll find something that interests you here too, but I'm just going to call that a bonus. You cool with that?

So here's the list:

• Jeremiah Tolbert, conflicted about whether what he writes matters.
• Janice Hardy with practical notes on showing-not-telling.
• Janice Hardy on making your descriptions help your story.
• Janice Hardy on the rule of three. 
• Warren Ellis on the links between crime fiction and science fiction.
• Erica Holt with basic tips on standing out in the slush pile.
• The Intern with ten reasons why a scene should be rewritten.
• Janice Hardy on scenes needing three reasons to exist.
• China Mieville (and M John Harrison) get punchy about world-building. In a good way.
• Janice Hardy again! On raising tension!
• Rick Spilman on anthropomorphisatoring ships. 
• Courtney Schafer's ode to joy. 
• Stina Leicht with some simple, just-enjoy-it comments. 
• Sherwood Smith, on the connections between space opera and epic fantasy.
• Janice Hardy, on interesting people, problems and solutions.
• Dave Trowbridge on a connection between space opera and the Siege of Vienna.
• I should just bookmark Janice Hardy (on fleshing out plots).
• Paul Guthrie on a new look at magic as science. Less for the content than the idea.
• Teresa Frohock on writing children, Guillermo del Toro style.
• Bradley P. Beaulieu with ten bits of advice for writers. 
• T. N. Tobias talks about writing action (which I suck at).
• Standard manuscript format.
• It's that Janice Hardy again, with advice on protagonists and choices.
• Oh look, more Janice Hardy! She's internalising.
• Chuck Wendig, with a "25 Things..." entry on plot.
• Some (possibly useful?) advice on avoiding viewpoint mistakes. 
• James Sutter, via Inkpunks, arguing that it's okay to be a hack.
• Chuck Wendig, with 25 bits of advice on dialogue. 
• Terry Bisson's 60 (slightly distressing) rules for short SF. 
• Nayad Monroe, with five possibly useful things she learnt from reading slush. 
• Wendy Wagner on balancing scope. Interesting because I love the large-scale stuff.
• Juliette Wade gives some advice on endings.
• Aliette de Bodard on simplicity and SF. 
• Chuck Wendig on messing with your characters (I should really just link to Chuck Wendig's blog and Janice Hardy's blog and be done with it.)
• Jaym Gates and assorted editors on avoiding self-rejection. 
• T. N. Tobias with lists of ways to come up with character names.
• Janice Hardy, on conflicts that don't involve throwing punches.
• Juliette Wade on layering plots. 
• Janice Hardy with 10 tips on revising.
• Hal Duncan on how to write a sentence.
• io9 (Charlie Jane Anders) on creating interesting supporting characters.
• Jeff Vandermeer on story openings teaching you how to read what follows. 
• Cory Doctorow on why sci-fi movies drive him crazy (portrayal of science and scientists, mostly).
• The Intern on keeping conflict interesting. 
• Jeff Ford on being profound (basically: don't. Or, at least, don't force it.)
• How not to open a short story by Philip Athans.
• Seven craft lessons every writer should learn. Apparently.

It's holding me back, man.

It's been almost two months since SSWriMo ended, and I think it is fair to say that my writing progress since then has been less than stellar. Partly that's the season, sure, and partly it's finishing up a job and preparing to move cities. Mostly, though, I think it's the need to edit the stories I wrote last November that's stopped me from carrying on. Whenever I think I'd like to do some writing, I think that first I need to edit those stories. Since I'm not super excited about doing that, I end up picking up a book or watching some television instead.

I've decided, therefore, to give myself permission to leave those stories unedited for now. I will come back to them, but at the moment I think it is more important to just keep putting words on the page.

I am very keen for feedback on what I wrote, though. If you're at all interested in reading my SSWriMo stories -- "Beacons", "Arteries" and "Dreams of Flying" -- drop me an email or leave a comment on this post. I'd sure appreciate it!

My old foe

I'm attempting to edit the first of my SSWriMo stories, "Beacons", and an old enemy of mine has once again reared its infuriating head: tense. I have this horrible habit of switching tense without realising I'm doing it. This used to be a problem when I was writing history essays at university, and it has enthusiastically carried itself over to my short stories.

It's frustrating, because I seem incapable of getting it right the first time, and have to read pretty closely to pick it up in editing. And then a whole lot of verbs end up changing.

Grumble, grumbled, grumble. 

Single villain seeks devious plan

12,939 words written (target: 16,000)

Good day today. I wrote 1756 words on a fantasy story that currently has no name. It seems to be flowing well, but I've already identified a problem that I'm going to need to fix when I come back to edit: I don't know what the villain is doing. Or, I suppose, I know what he's doing but I don't know why he's doing it.

It's not a problem that is stopping me from writing the story, but I'm guessing that when the whole thing is done the villain is probably not going to be very compelling. 

Hero (anguished): why are you doing this, you dastardly fiendishly evil monster?!

Villain (smug): because I'm dastardly, fiendish and evil! Also, a monster! Also, behold my death trap!

Yeah, not ideal.

As you can tell by the word count above, I'm still behind. It's going to be a crunch to get this done by the end of November -- 1267 words a day, for the next 6 days -- but I'm going to give it my best. You probably won't hear from me again until it is done and dusted.

And then, hopefully, I'll have some time for some more interesting content!

I finished a story!

8203 words written (target: 12,000)

I just now finished the first of my SSWriMo stories. It's called 'Beacons'. I'm pretty pleased with how it ended. When I first came up with this story idea, I had the ending pretty clear in my head. I didn't plan how to get there, just wrote, and I finished up basically where I hoped I'd be. That's cool.

It feels alright, finishing one of these stories. Better than alright, actually. Now it gets shelved, at least until the end of the month, and I go on to something else. I've got 11,797 words to write if I'm going to meet my goal, so that means my new daily target is 983 words.
 
You know what? This is pretty fun!

(Probably boring to anyone reading this blog, though. Sorry about that!)

SSWriMo Day 12

5801 words written (target: 8000)

Has it really been nine days since I last posted here? Sorry about that.

I'm behind. About three and a half days worth of words behind. I'm beginning to suspect that November isn't the best time of the year for us southern hemisphere-types to do something like NaNoWriMo. It's Spring here, and Spring is busy. Mostly because there's sunshine again. If this were a northern hemisphere Autumn, I'm sure my social life would be getting ready to hibernate, rather than exploding. 

That isn't an excuse, though. It's about making time, and I haven't given up yet. I've had a bit of success writing in my lunch hours; the last three days I've managed to hit my targets using that time and a few stolen minutes before bed. I'm confident that when I can find a few days with nothing else on, I'll be able to catch up those missing 2199 words.

The not-a-neutron-star story is still rolling along. I'm working my way towards a conclusion. I suspect by the time it's done it will be novelette length (more than 7500 words, less than 17500), but there's a lot of fat that will need to be trimmed. A whole lot. The discovery writing has been fun, but I suspect the tone isn't particularly consistent, and there are probably characters wandering in and out without much underlying logic. I've only just now got an inkling of how to work my way from the middle bit to the end bit.

I said last time that I was looking forward to the prospect of editing, and I still feel that way. I'm taking that as a good sign, but I'm not letting myself stop and do any of that this month. The goal remains to get 20,000 words worth of stories finished, no matter how crappy they are. Fixing them up can come later.

Anyway, enough about me. What have you been doing?

(Also, I'm saving up some content for non-SSWriMo blog posts for when I've got more time. Remind me to talk to you about Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief, Jay Lake's Green (a fantasy novel -- ooooh!) and the TV show Stargate Universe.)

The postman is my friend

This arrived in the post a few days ago:

No idea yet if it is likely to be of any use. Normally I'd shy away from Complete Idiot's Guides to anything, but this one was written by Cory Doctorow (who seems like a pretty smart guy) and Karl Schroeder (whose work on Sun of Suns and Metatropolis blew my mind). 

SSWriMo

Maybe you know that November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The NaNoWriMo goal is to write a 50,000 word novel, from scratch, in a month. The idea, as I understand it, is to encourage people to write without worrying about what they're writing. It's for all those people who don't finish things because they spend too long tweaking, or too much time worrying that their writing is crap. The only way that 50,000 words in a month is even remotely possible, I gather, is if you don't stop to think about it.

I'm not going to take part in NaNoWriMo. I don't want to write a novel at the moment, and I think that 50,000 words in a month is an impossible target for me. But I like the idea; I've lost count of the number of times I've started to write something, and ended up stopping because I'm afraid I'm writing rubbish. I'm sick of doing that. I want to finish something. It will be rubbish, but hopefully I'll gain some insight into why.

So, I give you SSWriMo: Short Story Writing Month. My goal is to write 20,000 words worth of short stories in the month of November. That's probably something like four stories, at a very satisfying rate of 666 words a day. 

Now 20,000 words is probably just as unreachable as 50,000. It's job season for astronomers, so I've got about a million job applications to write. They're obviously going to take priority. But I'm going to give it a shot. I'll try to keep you updated on my progress here, although there's a good chance it'll devolve into posts about word count and not much else. Every word written for this blog is a word that isn't going into a short story, after all!

Some ideas that are currently percolating in my brain: the first close-up look at a neutron star, a dangerous criminal loose aboard the World Train, and a dream I had that co-starred William Shatner.

Seriously, William Shatner. Awesome.