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>"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?

>Ups and Downs of Writing

>
It has been a good news and bad news sort of week.

First, I got a renewed contract and cheque in advance for editing – that was very good.

Then I made a sale to Jean Rabe for an urban fantasy style short story in a rural setting. It will be published in a DAW anthology titled Boondocks Fantasy.

My story is called Siren Tears and it was inspired by:

“What potions have I drunk of siren tears,

Distilled from limbecks foul as hell”

Shakespeare, Sonnet 119.

The story is set in Morwenstowe, North Cornwall as seen through the eyes of a London yuppy.

The real Morwenstow coastline is shown above.

Then the BBC rejected my Friday Short Story for Radio 4. It is very specific so does not have an alternative outlet. Shame, I think it is one of the most technically competent stories I have written. But I can see why it was not very BBC.

It is called Past Lives and I post it below:

Past Lives

By

John Lambshead

Something about the scent of the invitation card dredged up memories that I thought long buried under the silt. Maybe she still used the same perfume, or soap, or perhaps I could smell the chemistry of her skin. You never forget your first, no matter how hard you try. I held the card to my nose and was transported back a decade.

#

Hello fresher. Those were the first words she ever spoke to me. She was running the Literary Society’s stall at the university freshers’ fair. I was disinterested in highbrow literature, still am for that matter, but I paused to listen because she fascinated me. Her voice was low and throaty and she said “yah” instead of “yes”.

She was like the foreign movies that the Film Society was advertising on the next stall – exotic, confusing, incomprehensible, sophisticated and so very sexy. Our heads were close together when she showed me where to sign the application form and I inhaled her scent for the first time.

I was so smitten that I attended a meeting of her society. Greater lust hath no man than he sit through an evening of modern poetry. She chaired the meeting, introducing the first poet who read a piece consisting of random words arranged on the page to form patterns. Nothing rhymed but strawberry jam and menstruation formed a recurrent and disturbing theme. It was followed by an author reading his poem illustrating the evils of masculinity and the need for a feminist economy. I disgraced myself by asking how in practice feminine finance would differ from masculine. Apparently if I was too stupid to work it out then the author could not tell me. I shrank back in my chair at his scorn. She smiled at me and winked, her eyes dancing with laughter.

There was wine and cheese afterwards. People formed groups and talked about things like the allegorism in Bradbury’s latest novel and whether silence was more important to poetry than words. I worked my way across the room and sidled up to her. Eventually, I caught her eye.

“Hello fresher,” she said, with a smile. Her attention flicked away before I could reply, back to the circle of postgrads that formed the social elite of student society. No one noticed me leave.

My student life moved on without her. Twelve months later my class sat around a table in the public bar of the Bargeman, celebrating the start of the new academic year. No one commented that some familiar faces were missing, casualties of the end of year exams. It was no more done than bomber pilots asked how old Squiffy had bought it when he failed to show up for breakfast in the mess.

Our group drank real ale. I had little taste for the brew but lacked the courage to resist peer group pressure. The conversation around the table dissolved into background noise in my head and I wondered why I sat drinking a sour liquid with people that bored me. I put down my glass and slipped out of the pub. No one noticed me leave.

The canal was dimly illuminated by light filtering through the trees from the road lights. I walked along the towpath away from the university, happy to disappear into the dark.

A muffled female cry caught my attention. I heard the word “No” and the murmur of an answering male voice. White limbs writhed under a black shadow in the bushes. I hauled the shadow off her by the scruff of his neck. He gazed at me with goggling eyes. I hit him on the bridge of the nose, breaking the cartilage with a satisfying crunch. His blood ran black in the dim light. I pushed him away and he fell heavily. He called me a rude word but he fled when I raised my fist.

I reached down to help the girl to her feet.

“Hello fresher,” she said.

We became lovers that night. I had little sexual experience but she taught me. My naivety amused her and fixed her nickname for me for ever. No, you never forget your first.

She often stayed in my room on campus during the week. Occasionally I stayed over at the old terraced house she rented with two housemates. A bewildering variety of older men passed through. She laughed at my disapproval. Her room was a disorganised mess of research papers and text books scattered amongst old tissues and takeaway containers. She was amused to find I organised my lecture notes into a cardboard filing system, all annotated and neatly cross indexed.

Sometimes she talked and screamed in her sleep. I used to hold her tight until she stopped trembling. She insisted it was only a bad dream, not a bad memory, but I noticed it was always the same bad dream. When I tried to question her she would silence me with her lips until I was deflected.

Our relationship was entirely in the present. I learnt not to ask personal questions about her past because she either changed the subject or told me something fantastic that contradicted the previous answer. I had no past worth discussing. My life had revolved around school and homework to achieve my grades

We never discussed the future. She rebuked me if I called her my girlfriend. She said she was a free agent, and so was I. She was out of my league, so I never pushed the issue for fear she would dump me, but I did not want to be free.

It was one of those cold crisp London days before global warming. Bright sunlight from a startling blue sky caused the frost to sparkle like icing on a cake. The grass crunched under my weight. The air was so cold and dry that it burnt my lungs. We walked along the towpath by the icebound Grand Union Canal. The brightly coloured canal boats moored against the other bank stood out like lego bricks on a white tablecloth. Washing hung frozen and rigid in the still air.

“When I write, this is what will come out,” she said, gesturing at the scene.

She laughed in delight, eyes hidden behind fashionable pink sunglasses. Her breath condensed in the cold air as if her words were hanging in space. I photographed her, freezing the moment for all time.

Every detail of that walk is clear in my mind. It was the pinnacle of our relationship. Afterwards, we spent less time together. She disapproved of my love of shooting and photography, which she described as pseudo-art for chocolate boxes. Conversely, modern art exhibitions and experimental theatre bored me rigid and I found it hard to conceal my contempt for the posers who created it.

She had never claimed that I was her only lover, let alone that she loved me, and I chose not to ask. One night we had arranged to meet in the union bar after her seminar. I checked my watch for the twentieth time. This was not the first time that she had stood me up. The rest of her literary crowd were there so why wasn’t she? I tapped one on the shoulder to make enquires.

“She’s still with her supervisor, getting in some extra tuition,” he said with a laugh.

I stormed out and strode to her department, my anger building with every step. I ran up the stairs and threw open the door to her supervisor’s office. She was on her knees in front of him. She stared at me without expression before very deliberately turning away, resuming her performance as if I was not there.

He flapped his hand to shoo me away without opening his eyes. Something in me died that night. The greyness descended. I stopped attending lectures and dropped out of college rather than fail the year.

#

“Fresher, you came to my birthday party,” she said, throwing open her front door and giving me a hug. She smelled just the same. She had cut her hair and was thinner than I remembered. Lines radiated from her eyes when she smiled. It had been ten years but somehow I had not envisaged her changing. Life had marked me, I stroked the beard I had cultivated to hide the scars of cosmetic surgery, but in my head she had remained the girl at the freshers’ fair.

She pulled me in and thrust a glass of white wine into my hand. I was instructed to mingle. My leather jacket and jeans stood out among the fashionable suits and evening dresses. People stood in groups and discussed the latest ad campaign, Marxism, and the merits of various private schools for young Julian and Jemina.

A popular photoprint decorated the main wall – the ‘girl in pink shades’. It was my first big sale, the one that kick started my career. I had not really looked at that photo in years.

A man noticed my interest and came over to comment. He explained that his wife had known the photographer, indeed, his wife was the subject. He made a joke about how she had not aged well. I walked away, resisting the urge to break his nose again.

A woman recognised me as THE war photographer, the one who got all those awards? What was it like to be in a warzone?

I had a flashback. I felt again the hot dust of Afghanistan that penetrated everywhere.

Have you ever smelt a burning land rover? It’s a strange mixture of oily smoke from tyres and diesel, acrid chemical fumes from burning plastic and the sweet smell of roasting flesh.

I kept on snapping pictures as Terry Taliban sprung their ambush. Men fell round me and an RPG took out another car with a great whump of flame that battered my ears and seared my skin.

Brownie returned fire with the automatic grenade launcher bolted to our car. I photographed him crouched over the gun. A bullet hit him in the temple, blowing out the back of his head, and getting me another award-winning photograph.

I dropped my camera and grabbed the gun. Terry had dug themselves into pits on the hills above the track. They popped up to fire. It was so easy compared to clay pigeon shooting. Wait for Terry to give away his position. One short and one over to bracket the range then pour it in until they stop moving. I settled into a steady rhythm, changing ammunition belts as they ran out, until something exploded in my face.

The woman wanted to know how I overcame fear? How I could stand up unprotected on a Land Rover, single-handedly holding off the Afghans until our soldiers could rally. She wanted to know how I, an artist, reconciled myself to killing.

I wanted to scream the truth at her, that a dead man isn’t scared of death, that killing is easy, you just aim and pull the trigger, but I stuck to the platitudes I trotted out on daytime TV.

I let myself out, thinking no one noticed me leave, and flagged down a passing taxi.

“Fresher, wait.”

She ran down the pavement after me. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me hard on the lips. Her scent filled my nose.

“I thought we might meet up,” she said.

“Sure,” I replied, “I’ll give you a ring.”

I waved the invitation card, to show I had her phone number, and climbed into the taxi without looking back.

The taxi driver cheekily asked me if the lady was a good friend. I told him she was just someone that I’d met in a past life.

I raised the invitation to my nose but her scent had gone. I tossed the card out of the cab window.

The End

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By all means comment below.

>Past Lives in Fiction

> Ah. What a week! Apologies for being a little absent from the blogging. I had a three day short story Masterclass this week in Brisbane – part of the prize for the 2009 One Book Many Brisbanes short story competition. The Masterclass was excellent, and exhausting!

Past Lives.

Everybody has had past lives of some sort. For example, I had a past life as a pizza cook, but unfortunately used to burn way too many garlic breads. At one time I was a Shift Chemist in a sugar mill (I could not get out of town fast enough). Then I had various stints of Engineering with quite a few years spent running a Speech Pathology practice in the middle.

But there is the other type of past life. The one that many believe predates the current one. It’s a completely fascinating idea. I mean so much of what we are – and the meaning we ascribe to our lives – comes out of the examination of our past. Writer’s particularly, being very comfortable in their own headspace, often pore obsessively over the relics and flotsam of their own experience.

The idea of a past life – a prior incarnation – means that we have this whole other resource there – a whole other lifetime (or lifetimes) of experiences to draw on to put our own existence into perspective, to give it meaning, or divine some sort of path to the future. In fiction it gives a whole other dimension to the plot and the characterization. I guess in theory if you had time travel and past lives as possibilities, the very same person (or at least their ‘soul’) could be the prime mover, adversary and bystander in the story at the same time. Now that’s pretty interesting.

It seems like such a rich resource for a speculative fiction setting, but I could not for the life of me remember one story that featured it.

What are some examples of past lives in speculative fiction that really caught your interest? Who has done it best? Were you really a grasshopper in your past life or were you Napoleon? Or Cleopatra?

>Setting the Scene (Get me in the mood baby, ooh yeah!)

>Sarah’s offered quite a lot about remembering that there’s someone on the other end of the book, and way to keep that person reading. I’m going to look at one specific part of that: the scene-setting and cuing in it offers.

How many times have you read something where the author switched track on you, and the book turned into something you weren’t expecting when you started it? And how often has it irritated rather than delighted you? Yeah. I thought so. See, we’re so attuned to what a story should be, we can pick up – subconsciously at least – what a story is about from very little.

Take for instance the opening to Pratchett’s The Color of Magic – In a distant and secondhand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly. That one sentence is enough to cue readers in to several things: we’re not in Kansas anymore, and it’s not going to be reality as normal. Oh, and it’s almost for sure fantasy. Comic fantasy.

It might not register at the conscious level, but we’re primed for laughter.

Of course, this is Pratchett, and even Pratchett of nearly thirty years ago stands head, shoulders and quite a bit more over every other author alive today (although in my not at all humble opinion both Dave and Sarah are climbing that particular mountain at speed).

So how do we lesser lights set the scene? There’s a few things to consider.

First up, and possibly most important, each genre and subgenre has its own distinctive ‘feel’ and tropes. Standard practice in a cozy is utterly verboten in splatterpunk horror, and so forth. The mood we set has much the same effect as a movie soundtrack – more or less invisible (or it should be) but puts the reader’s emotions where we want them. Yes, it’s manipulative. We’re playing with people’s minds because they want us to. If they don’t like us hitting their emotional buttons, they don’t have to buy our books. Next question? Good.

Okay. I got bitten by this not long ago, in a crit group looking at the opening of my current work in progress. The piece is typically Kate-weird, meaning it doesn’t quite fit into any nice, neat slots. It’s more or less space opera, but it’s also got elements of erotica, in that quite a bit of the plot is carried by and depends on sex. Specifically, somewhat kinky sexual practices that aren’t so much as hinted at in the start of the book. The advice I got, not suprisingly, was that I need to have the sex up front so that it’s not picked up by someone who reads the opening and thinks it’s okay for young teens. Or, for that matter, so editor X doesn’t start reading thinking “light-hearted space opera, a bit of a romp”, get to the sex, and have his, her, or its brain explode.

Attractive as the notion of making peoples’ heads explode might be, it’s really not a good idea to do that to people you want to give you money, so… I need to put sex up front, preferably in a way that foreshadows the kind of sex that happens later on (especially since said sex is emphatically not garden variety vanilla). What I start with now says “lightweight space opera, with humor”.

As to how you do it, it’s all in the power of words. English has a phenomenal number of synonyms, most of them with very different emotional/atmospheric connotations. Let’s take, for the sake of example, sex. We all know what’s involved. Call it making love, and it becomes a much more intimate act. Or take desire, longing, yen, urge, obsession, need – they all mean more or less the same thing, but the flavor varies. A lounge, a sofa, a Chesterfield… Curtains, drapes. And I haven’t even gotten out of the common words.

For science fiction, probably the most common trick is faux tech-ese and using technical terms instead of the normal “earthbound” words. Epic fantasy and sword and sorcery often go the other way, using archaic forms of common words – sparingly. Urban fantasy generally maintains a conversational, smartass tone and uses a lot of not-quite-slang, enough to make it sound cool (or whatever the designated word for that is these days) without being so cutting edge it dates the book between the time it’s written and the time it’s published (For an example that dates a book, read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and then tell me you don’t see late 70s written all over it). Horror of course pulls all the stops out: cognitive dissonance, bleak or grim descriptors, and every possible trick in the writer’s vocabulary to make the whole thing bode. An excellent guide to the process is Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, containing the famous quote about terror, horror, and gross-out. A good thumbnail distinction here is that terror is being in an iffy situation and realizing your buddy is missing. Horror is finding your buddy in a closet – and he’s not alive. Gross-out is when the alien or monster comes out of his chest, usually featuring loving description of the effects. The word ‘glistening’ gets used a lot, even when there shouldn’t be enough light for anything to glisten. As a general rule, if you’re wanting to scare your readers, aim for terror. Drop to horror only if you can’t manage terror. And gross-out is the last resort. (Yes, Stephen King said approximately that, and yes, he will go for the gross-out if he can’t make terror or horror happen).

Let’s have a few samples of story openings that do a good job of setting the scene. Short or long, yours or someone else’s (if it’s someone else’s, please acknowledge the author). No more than a couple of lines – most of the good ones don’t need more than that.

Here’s one or two of mine, just to kick things off:

There are times when being a Quality Assurance Mage sucks. The silvery gray spell-ball on my desk told me today was one of them. Fantasy, rather whimsical, may or may not be urban. From my short story A Spell of Quality in Misspelled. This sale was an invitation, so I didn’t need to have the higher standards that anything going through regular slush has to have.

The great looms stood silent, strands of Scylla-silk glimmering in semi-darkness above the completed weaves. Air heavy with the acrid tension of electrical discharge sparked and crackled with each of my cautious steps. Science fiction, fairly dark. The use of words like “heavy” and “silent” suggests that this isn’t going to be a particularly fluffy piece (accurately, as it happens). This is the opening of my short story Choice of the Oracles in Fate Fantastic – another sale by invitation.

Another convention, another con hotel. After a while, they blur together into an indistinguishable mass of faux-elegance and bizarrely costumed fans. This is the opening of ConVent a novel which – alas – remains homeless. The setting is pretty obvious, and the tone suggests urban fantasy. Anyone who’s ever seen photos of a busy science fiction convention can see the scene. So, for that matter can a heck of a lot of people who haven’t been to one – because I’ve played on the stereotypes of science fiction fans with this opening.

What are some of your examples?

>Watching Yourself Go By

>

>Commas and me.

>

I spent the last few days going through book one of King Rolen’s Kin, doing the edits my UK editor had asked for.

Before I sent off the manuscript I read and re-read it. I had my husband read it, then I corrected it. I had my son, the mad-keen fantasy reader, read it and then I corrected it. Then I printed it up and read it and corrected it again.

It is amazing the silly little things that get past you. And then there are things you could just kick yourself for doing. For instance, all these years I’ve been writing about oriole windows. Not oriel windows. The first one is a type of bird.

And I had everyone drinking burgundy. I thought that was a type of wine, not specific brand, named after a place in France. Well, I knew it was a place in France but I thought it was also a type of red wine. Sigh.

A big thank you to my editor for spotting these things!

Then there are commas. You might gather from the title of this post that I am rather fond of commas. I know grammatically, there are places where it is optional whether you use them or not. And I guess I was one of those people who opted in, rather than out.

I find myself mentally putting commas into the pages of printed books. I also find myself reading happily away then, when I come across something that just looks wrong, I feel like I’ve tripped over it. It throws me out of the story.

We’ve been having a discussion on the VISION list about tricky words like ‘affect and effect’ or ‘that and which’. Here’s a web site. If you scroll down, you’ll see explanations for their use.

For instance I have a thing about ‘lay and lie’. I keep seeing it used in books and it sounds wrong to me. Chickens lay eggs, people lie down.

Then there’s the thing with apostrophes. I see them used where they shouldn’t be — on building signs, where people should know better. I get the urge to go around and correct the grammar on signs. It’s really rather sad. And don’t get me started on ‘it’s and its’.

Are there words that trip you up repeatedly? Do you have a thing about commas?

>One hell of a night out… the Pizza-man’s tale

>It was a dark and stormy night, which was about normal in these parts, when suddenly all hell broke loose! At least, part of hell broke loose, cheering and running. Gwaarg, the dog-headed demon in charge of the western perimiter hell-fence maintenance growled “F’kit!” furiously, as he saw the damned souls streaming out of the nether regions toward Taki O’Loughlin’s Irish Bar and Grill, Belly-Dancing Tuesday. He groaned as he set out after them. This would be another all-nighter. The only way of separating them from the rest of the patrons would be to listen to the accents, because merely looking for half-naked flayed-alive souls with white-hot scorpions clinging to their genitals was hopeless in that crowd once the Irish-Greek dancing started. Worse, he could hear the escapees practicing. “Begorrah!”, “Nancy-Wuskey!”, “Banshee!” Whuskey yee’r th’divil!” they bellowed eagerly in chorus, except for the one who was yelling “Mazeltov!” You always got one. No, that wasn’t true. There’d be at least three in the pub, and while it might seem perfectly justified, he’d get yowls of outrage from human resources and a ream of paperwork if he took anyone too soon, or, as unlikely as it might seem, someone who wasn’t heading for hell at all, but was just delivering pizza. And in a pub with shamrock-covered plastic tablecloths, delivering in pizza (even with anchovies)was considered a penance, as Gwaarg had found out last time.

Heh. Ok so I was taking a few moments to write a prologue to poke fun at Elmore Leonard’s ‘rules’- except for being Margret Atwood, which, as I am perfectly happy to write science fiction (with or without conversational cosmic calamari) I cannot imitate. They’re actually not bad guidelines, just not ‘rules’. Before I was so distracted the thing I was going to write about was food. Now, as we sort-of-I-hope proved up there, one man’s terrible and boring and another’s entertainment vary. One of my own pet entertainments is putting food into my books. It’s such fun prising the pages apart later, trying to work out the squished splotches might once have been. It’s also a good way of getting roaches to edit out paragraphs that you wish you’d never written or even read.

Actually, on that charming, appetising note… what I meant writing was about food. Now, as the sort of person who reads recipe books for light entertainment, I will admit to being a little biased here. The landscapes of my worlds are colored by food (and occassionally drink. I have come across red wine that permanently stained concrete, let alone the worlds of my imagination). They’re a window to fill in on some of that descriptive guff I am (thank you Mr Leonard) generally quite sparse on. I have this odd idea that they appeal to different set of senses than ones involved in looking at scenery – But I could be wrong. What is your take, folks? Do you like food in books to be described, and had you noticed that I do so? (So does Sarah, for what it is worth).

>Sunday Round-up

>Most of you have already figured out that I’m a geek and the resident internet expert (tongue firmly planted in cheek). In other words, I have good google-fu and follow more blogs than is probably wise. Part of that is because I believe in being prepared and knowing all I can about any endeavor I’m undertaking. That means, as a writer, following agent and editor blogs, reading and trying to make sense out of thing like the Amazon – Macmillan ebook pricing war as well as reading blogs by other writers.. Then there’s the research necessary for whatever my current wip might be. As a result, I spend a lot of time online and have to be careful not to let it become an all-too-convenient excuse not to write.

That said, two blogs/articles caught my eye this week. The first is the always informative Writer Beware Blog. The last three entries are of particular interest for those of us looking for ways to get our work noticed. The first, Beware of Fake Awards, lists several of these so-called awards and how to make sure you aren’t being scammed. The next entry is Inspired Living Publishing: Another Vanity Anthology Scheme. This isn’t the first vanity antho out there, and it won’t be the last. But it is something to be aware of before signing on the dotted line and then realizing you are cutting the check and not the other way around.

The final Writer Beware entry of interest this week , MyFreeRead.com: Not Quite What It Appears, is a good reminder for all of us to be careful where we put out work online and how much of it up post. I’ve written about the perils of posting work online before. I’m not talking about someone stealing your idea and getting it published before you do. Nor am I talking about the comments — some good and some very hurtful — that can come and be counterproductive to your creative process. What is of concern is that there are a number of publishers out there who look at posting on the internet as publishing. That includes posting your work in places like the slush piles on Baen’s Bar or online critique groups. Putting it up on a sight like MyFreeRead.com or Authonomy can take you right out of contention with a publisher, so be sure before you post on sites like this that you aren’t shooting yourself in the foot. Check the guidelines and blogs of the publishers you are interested in and then think twice before hitting the send button.

The article that caught my eye — and the eye of a number of other bloggers this week — is Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The readers are apt to leaf ahead looking for people. . .
2. Avoid prologues: they can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreward. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want . . .
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”. . .
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words. . .
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”. . .
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. . .
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. . .
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things, unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don’ want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. . . thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.

Mr. Leonard concludes with: My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Sarah and some of the other MGCers have already talked about prologues and when you should or should not have one. But what about Mr. Elmore’s other rules? Any thoughts or comments? How about any other rules you have when writing? The floor’s yours. I’m off to find some more coffee.

>Something Borrowed, Something Blue

>

Elizabeth Bennet climbed the stairs, the sounds of rejoicing from her mother and younger sisters ringing in her ears. She was filled with trepidation. How would she tell Jane the news? How could she? Oh, it was all very distressing and Jane, the kindest, sweetest sister in the whole world was so far from deserving the dreadful curse she suffered.

She opened the door to Jane’s room and found her sister sitting by the window, a notebook in her lap, a pen in her hand. Jane was the most beautiful of the five daughters: curls like spun gold, classical features, porcelain complexion and an elegant figure. Sitting by the window in the small, dark room, she looked like an angel and very far above her setting — the simple country house of impoverished gentry. Jane deserved to be enshrined in a stately mansion and showered with all the riches of the world — but that was never to be — and all because of the terrible accident of her birth.

Jane looked up from her notebook and at Lizzy. Her sweet face held an expression of fear that made Lizzy’s heart shrink in her chest.

“What is it, Lizzy?” she said, putting her pen back into the inkwell she’d rested on the windowsill. “Why is mama so happy?”

“Netherfield,” Lizzy said, and had to swallow to build up the courage to continue. She knew what a blow her next words would be to her beloved sister. “Is let at last.”

Jane gave a small shriek and her beautiful, pale hand went up to cover her mouth. “Oh, no.” She moaned. She hunched against the window embrasure, trembling, filtering moonlight casting ghostly shadows upon her stricken face.

Elizabeth hurried to relay the rest of the news. “Kitty and Lydia say that it was rented to a rich gentleman from the North. His name is Bingley. He’s said to be very handsome and they find it most impressive that he has a blue jacket. He’s due to arrive soon, with a large party. Seven ladies and five gentlemen.” She paused and then continued ruefully, “Too many ladies and gentlemen.”

“A large party,” Jane said, nodding forlornly, as though unable to command thought for more than repeating Lizzy’s words. She looked at the notebook, which lay open on her lap, and then up towards the moon, which was waxing towards its greatest fullness. “Oh, Lizzy, what shall I do? I’ve been used to having the liberty of Netherfield’s preserves and parks. Now I shall be forced to go towards Merryton.” She paled at such a terrible idea.

Lizzy could do no more than nod. She watched Jane visibly pull herself together. “And yet,” Jane said, smiling wanly, “Mama is so happy.”

Lizzy sighed. “With five daughters to marry, any gentleman taking a house in the neighborhood must seem a godsend. For you know that any gentleman in possession of a large fortune must be in need of a wife.”

“Oh,” Jane said. She jerked out of her hunched position to sit tall and defiant. “I hope she doesn’t plan on his marrying me.”

“I’m sure she does,” Lizzy said. “Since she has five dowerless daughters, and you are easily five times as pretty as the rest of us. I know exactly how her mind works – she plans on you marrying Mr. Bingley, thereby throwing the rest of us girls into the path of other rich men.”

“But… Lizzy,” Jane said in some agitation. “You know it can never be.”

“Yes,” Lizzy said, nodding slightly. “But Mama doesn’t.”

“Oh,” Jane said, putting her head down in her hands. “Mama shall push me at him, shamelessly.”

“Indeed.”

“Oh, Lizzy.” Jane’s lovely eyes were moist with tears. “What shall I do?”

“When Mama is set upon a course of action, there is not much anyone can do, however I shall do my utmost to protect you,” she said.

“As you always have,” Jane said, gratefully.

“What else could I do?” Lizzy asked. “Your affliction is not of your making. How it pains me that you have to suffer and hide away in obscurity as you do. You have the heart of an angel, Jane. No one could wish for a better sister. You do not deserve this.”

“Oh, Lizzy. It is you who are the angel, always kind and willing to protect me as no one else would do.”

“What else would you have me do?” Lizzy asked. “Turn you in to the authorities?” She patted her sister on the shoulder. “Now don’t worry too much about Netherfield. We will survive this, as we’ve survived other adversity in the past. I will do everything in my power to ensure that nothing will happen to you.”

“I am very lucky to have you as a sister,” Jane said, tears again moistening her lovely dark brown eyes.

The sisters embraced and then Elizabeth departed from the room. She knew that Jane wished to be alone. Jane hated for anyone to see her distress. Lizzy, not feeling equal to sharing the nonsensical jubilation downstairs, repaired to her own bedchamber. Even from the privacy of her room, she could hear her mother shrieking with glee, “And Lydia, you shall dance with Mister Bingley.”

Lizzy sat upon her bed, unable to shake the melancholy that was overpowering her. She removed her day clothes and put on her nightgown. True, she could have called on the maid to do this, but she preferred her solitude and had long ago learned to take care of herself — and Jane — in these small ways.

After undressing and putting her clothes away, she slipped into her nightgown and dressing gown, got her silver brush from the dresser and started brushing her hair. While doing so, she walked to the window, threw it open, and gazed out at the devious moon.

It was very close to being full now. People with less internal fortitude than Jane would already be feeling its relentless pull. She looked at the brilliant satellite in the dark sky with near hatred. What problems the moon caused! She wished there were no moon.

At that moment something dark and looming interposed between herself and the moon. Lizzy blinked to refocus, and realized it was a dragon, huge and a luminous green. She blinked again, and the beast had flown closer.

>Cheat Post – Beginnings

> Yes, that really is a picture of me (without the mustache).

I’m cheating today, and following on from Kate’s post, which certainly hit the mark at the moment. I am in the middle of trying to resurrect a few short stories that have not been sent out in an embarrassingly long time, and yes – you guessed it – struggling to put together first paragraphs that actually manage to snatch someone’s attention.

This is part of my all out effort to get all my stories onto the market (thanks to Sarah’s pointy shoes). I actually have four out there (and written two new ones!), but have three more to go.

I don’t have any intro scenes featuring changes in the weather, but I do have someone narrowly dodging a bucket full of nano-bacteria (does that count, Sarah?).

Recent intro paragraph suggestions include:

• Sex scenes
• Protagonists being attacked on awakening by Freudian monster
• Protagonists being attacked in the shower (Freudian monster optional)
• Character killing someone (reluctantly)
• Kinky mud-wrestling.

So what really grabs you as an opening of a short story?