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Former TOR editor still longs to gatekeep the field

It depends on your point of view

The story goes that old bloke gets the final call, and there he arrives at the gates… and says to the gate-man. “Before I go in, is this heaven or hell?”

And the gate-man says “It depends on your point of view.”

The old geezer says “Huh?” (you know, one of those deep meaningful philosophical comments I make all the time. Because my mind is too highly trained).

And the gate-man opens the gate a crack, and there is his old mate Jim, who was in the car with him when they crashed, and must have got here before him, sitting next to the river, with a full bottle of their favorite bourbon in his hand and a gorgeous naked curvy blond woman on his knee. “Are you coming in?” says the gate-man.

Now Fred’s about to surge forward to join Jim, when the point of view thing comes back to him. “Just what do you mean by ‘the point of view’?”

“Well,” says the gate-man. “He thinks he’s in heaven, she thinks she’s in hell.”
Fred says… “So what do I get?”

And the gate-man says “I thought you preferred brunettes.” And a luscious one, dressed the same way as Jim’s blond comes in view as the gate-man holds out a full bottle of Bourbon. “It’s yours and it will never be empty.”

And Fred’s in through the gate faster than you can say ‘Gollum attenuatus‘.

And the devil closes the gate, and says: “Of course from my point of view, which neither of those fellows could know, is that the bottle stays full because there’s no way into it or the woman being punished.”

Now I’ve been editing CHANGELING’S ISLAND this last week, (In general, I’d think I’d prefer brimstone.)and it’s been hard going. The reason was very simple. The editor wanted more detail on the hero’s parents and why they’re doing what they’re doing. This makes sense, and seems a particularly easy thing to do.

Except of course that neither parent is a point of view character, and they not on scene, so we can’t have the point of view character seeing or hearing or even being told just what is going on in their lives. We can only know just what the POV character knows. Well. I could do ‘omniscient’ point of view, but I find that weakens the tension considerably. It’s fair to say that many relationship dramas in writing stem from point of view issues. Of course being omniscient, and knowing Judy is not thinking about sex but shoes, or that Henry’s deep deep brooding expression is not mourning for his long lost Susie, but for the Green Bay Packers would cause more and bloodier and different issues, but generally the unreliable narrator/s giving the situation from their point of view makes for nicer story, with less corpses. I think I worked through the issues, at least as far as possible without adding more than 3000 words I did, but it reminded me again just how vital that point of view is. And that the devil is in the details.

Speaking of points of view, I wanted to add something to Brad’s Torgersen very gentle point of view on the pushback against the Sad Puppies 3. I think it is fairly important when writing a point of view to establish where it comes from, and what could motivate that point of view, and of course how reliable that narrator is known to be on the subject. Let’s start by saying a lot of the outrage and smear is coming from Making Light and commenters thereon, the mouthpiece of an editor at Tor, and a major force in Tor.com. Now, at the moment I’m busy putting together a database of the Hugo history. Tor and indeed in shorter works Tor.com are very, very extensively represented. Out of proportion to their share of new publications. As a large, powerful publisher with influence and with a considerable camp following, suggesting they ‘check their privilege’ before whining and bad-mouthing is not a joke, even if it is hilarious goose-sause. Of course, depending on your point of view, they may just be able to find better books or have better editors. If it’s better books they’ll have stood the test of time… Hmmm. Well, check the sales rankings. If it’s better editors… well, check sales rankings. How embarrassing. I do understand why they would be very angry about the status quo being disturbed though.

The other thing is just how familiar those bad-mouth slanders and slurs and campaign seemed. It’s a technique we’ve encountered before… Someone called ‘Requires Hate’ who was much beloved by many of the crowd who hang out with the Anti-puppies and, it seems by the evidence, a darling (for no reason whatsoever) of a couple of the major figures on Tor.com. That’s the crowd that nourished this viper, and used her for a role model. The pattern seems to have endured, even if she’s not doing it.

From my point of view it’s really funny. Especially the projection.

You see, from my point of view I don’t have a darling I’d like to see get a Hugo. I couldn’t care less. Given the award’s present status it’s not going to do them a lot of good. Authors I like are populist, not literary, and getting the same award as Politically Correct ‘literary’ garbage (from my point of view), isn’t going to sell extra copies to their audience. If anything it might sell the literary garbage, or revive the value of the award. I would however derive a lot of satisfaction from their angry frothing at the mouth, and being proved right about the ‘elitist’ clique thrashing about viciously trying to keep their hold on power. I don’t want that power – I think it is a terrible idea that anyone has it. I’m all for it being a real people’s choice. Then it’d point me to books and stories I might want to read.

Defenders of the nail house

My Own Little Slice of Pi

So I got a new toy tool a few days ago. Actually, a couple of them, and the first precipitated the second. You see, I acquired a new keyboard. The keyboard I had was … less than awesome. Keys were pressed, strokes registered, but it all felt … well, lackluster is putting it tactfully. The keystrokes were short, the action blunted, the sound muffled. It felt as though I was trying to type through sand. I was always pulled out of what I was doing to make sure I was still doing it. Yes, those are my fingers pounding plodding away. Gosh, I sure hope those electrons know where to go.

Anyway, it was … uncomfortable. Not a state in which to try to write. Enter Das Keyboard. It’s a little spendy- okay, it’s more than a little spendy. At $160, it’s more expensive than the second acquisition, but the keys are a dream. It utilizes mechanical keys. They have substance. They have haptic response! They strike like the very hammer of Thor! (Also, it’s Germish. (Is it German? Not really, but it’s kinda like German: it’s Germ-ish.) Actually, it’s made in China and sold by a company in Texas.)

That last may be an exaggeration, but you do know you’re typing. You know when every key strikes home, and all the while you hear a delightful clickclickclickclick of rattling keys. Well, it’s delightful, assuming you go in for such things. I might just be weird. One “downside,” if you want to consider it such: the Das Keyboard is heavy, at something around three solid pounds. Personally, I appreciate the mass, as it means my furious digits aren’t going to scoot the thing around on my desk. That makes me happy, though it will affect the second of my new tools.

So I have my new keyboard, I’ve typed on it. I love it with all the loves. But it’s not portable, exactly. I mean, I could start carrying my laptop around again, but the things old. And heavy. And cranky. And heavy. And needs a new battery. And heavy. (Did I mention it’s heavy?) I have zero interest in deliberately increasing the mass I carry around when I leave the house to write (no’gonna happen for a while, admittedly, what with the infant in the house) or when I travel. It’s this last that is the issue. I want to take my new keyboard with me when I go places that are farrish away (road trips, flights, cons, etc.), and that requires something to do the heavy lifting of electrons in a useable format.

Enter Raspberry Pi. The RPi, as it’s known among aficionados, is a single board computer designed in Great Britain as an educational tool to enable school children cheap access to programming tools. The original Raspberry Pi rocked a hefty 256MB of RAM stacked on top of it’s blistering 700MHz processor. It carried no onboard storage memory (still doesn’t, in any configuration), but read from a SD card slot on the credit card sized circuit board. The power is through a 5V microUSB port, which acts as the on/off switch. That was a few years ago, and the RPi has gone through a few iterations.

My slice of Pi (I never get tired of that. Never.) is the newest version, released just last month, the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. Gone is the single core processor. Now we’ve got a quad-core 900MHz beast, with a full gigabyte of RAM, and not one, but four USB ports. The 10/100 ethernet port is still there, but we now have a microSD card slot, and the 3.5mm jack can carry video, though I’d much rather use the HDMI port for video. All in something the size of a credit card. Well, sort of. You see, the it’s got chips, and pins, and port and such. I’d say it’s the size of a deck of cards. Maybe two, depending on the case you put it in. Also, it’s still $35.

Of course, that’s for the card, without any “accessories,” like input devices, or, I dunno, a monitor. Regardless, many people have such things lying about. Heck, most televisions these days have at least two HDMI ports.

The RPi is designed to run Linux, so it’s a little different in feel than Windows or OS X, and a little more hands on. Fortunately, the RPi community is … robust. The Raspberry Pi is doing its job of providing a low cost platform in an education setting. On the other hand, it’s also used to run robotics projects. Heck, the RPi has been to space, and that’s more than I’ve done. It’s tiny, it’s light, it’s cheap, and it’s all kinda of versatile.

Why do I care, Dave, you may ask. Well, I’ve loaded mine with LibreOffice, GIMP, Icedove (the open source version of Mozilla Thunderbird), and Calibre. I can write, manipulate images, format ebooks and check my email. I can do everything I need to do on the RPi. Just as much as I can on my desktop, or tablet, but with fewer distractions. All for about $60. I splurged a bit and picked up a 2TB USB drive for external storage, but that still gives me a computer for about $150, as I had all the other parts already.

Now, a caveat. When I said it’s a little more hands-on, you may have to learn a little bit about Linux and how to navigate around the guts of the thing using the command prompt. While the GUI would mount my external drive just fine when I plugged it in, I was unable to write to it. At first. I didn’t have permission, and that took a couple of commands in a terminal window. I also had to set the RPi to send more power to the USB ports, so the drive would actually initialize. That required I dive into the /boot/config.txt file (again, from the terminal) and add a line of code. While none of this was difficult, it did require some time to find the correct commands. Not much, but some. This is not an effortless project, though I’d call it low effort.

And, right now at least, I’m dependent on my location possessing a monitor with a HDMI port. I may in the future (likely will: this thing’s fun to tinker with) pick up a smallish tablet screen so I can take this with me anywhere. I’ve also seen reports of folks running their RPi from a device battery charger, though I’m wary of that without further research. While I don’t intend my slice of Pi to replace my desktop, it’s going to see a lot of duty as a writing box. In fact, I may get another in the near future for use as a media server on my home network.

It’s astonishing. This setup is better – by leaps, if not by bounds – than the one I took to college as a freshman. And far, far more portable. I’m excited.

Documentary madness

So the thing right now, in the endless state of convalescence –

Yes, I know, it’s getting a little better everyday, but I didn’t finish the books or the other house before getting the surgery, mostly due to pre-op stuff and my younger son trying to destroy his foot (he’s better now), which means I’m champing at the bit and very impatient with the slow rate at which I’m becoming more capable of doing things. Among the things that annoy me are the need for naps, because I get extremely tired, but I still suffer insomnia.

So, as I was saying in the endlessly gradual convalescence, I need something to rest when I can’t sleep and can’t write. I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries.

Watching is, of course, sort of true. What I normally do is watch the first ten minutes, then start laughing and turn it off, and put another one on. Sometimes, once in a long time, I actually watch the whole documentary.

Why documentaries? You say. Well, I figure it’s because of mental illness. Unless you have a better explanation for why watching something with plot right now makes me physical nauseated. I think, honestly, though I am reducing the pain killers, it’s because the opiates turn my brain into mush and trying to concentrate makes me ill.

But what kind of documentaries, you say.

Well, mostly stuff on animals and history. The kind of stuff that Animal Planet and History Channel used to show, when the kids were little and I let them watch something with me for a treat. (Dan had a traveling job and Marsh had trouble sleeping, so we’d cuddle on the sofa and watch stuff like Al the alosaurus.)

The other restriction is that I’m watching the free ones on Amazon prime, because honestly … well, why not.

Now I realize these are not the crème de la crème, but a lot of them are produced by names like the bbc.

And documentaries would seem to me to be a fairly easy genre. In the end, what are you looking at but a kind of lecture, on a subject?

So, you show whatever the subject is, then you show the drawing/cgi – whichever – of how it got that way, then you show the subject doing interesting things.

Right.

Except that… most of these documentaries fail. Take the one on the petrified forest. I expected at least some drawings and explanation of what happened in visuals. No. I mean, they told us how minerals replaced the wood, and all, but what they showed us was random panning over petrified trees while this reassuringly paternal voice droned on.

Next came – it said – a documentary on the natural history of chickens. This interested me, since chickens are either descended from or a relative of the T-rex. I expected long explanations of how the bone became this bone, and how… etc. Etc.

Only… only the people making the documentary had other ideas.

I’ll admit the beginning, showing this woman living alone on a farm with her chickens and her dog was interesting. And by interesting I mean that in my early fifties I have twenty years to get that completely mad. It culminated in a scene in which the chicken freezes during a Nor’ester, so she brings the chicken inside and thaws her out, and gives her mouth to mou– er, mouth to beak ressusciation.

But then it devolved into this screed on the inequities of factory farming chicken and how we should all be vegetarians. Look, guys, whatever you think of factory farming, I grew up with chickens. First, with rare exceptions, they are the closest walking thing to plants. Second, most small farm operations are actually crueler than a well run factory farm. In fact, a lot of what they were going on about was based on the idea that chickens were the same as kids. Or something.

I don’t disagree with their right to say this (duh) but they were having a grand bathos orgy that would only convince those who already agreed with them (And who’d never seen a significant number of chickens raised.)

So… I tried one about this guy and whales. Oy. That one didn’t last long. It was about the inequities of the whaling industry.

Again, nothing against it, except you can’t start your argument by treating it as though the whales were human. The only people you’re going to convince are those who already agree with you. Also, you have your hook baited wrong, sir. The major whale harvesting right now is not in the US and I failed to see Japanese subtitles on your screeds and mini-fits.

Then I found a quite nice documentary on the Galapagos. Oh, it talked about tourists destroying it, but in the end it said “but of course, it is always changing, so…”

And then I tried to find a documentary on sea turtles. Uh… guys… yeah. The voice was this weird droning, and it took the same approach as the petrified forest one.

Anyway, we ended up watching one on the Terracotta army, but on the way there (and has anyone checked their heads for chems, or would they have rotted? Also Apropos nothing, if you haven’t read Barry Hughart’s delightful China trilogy, find it and read it now) my husband did the bad voice simulation on computer and I realized half of these “documentaries” are stock photos with voice over of “mechanical reading.”

So, why am I inflicting this on you?

Because it occurred to me how much this experience is like when I try to read indie books. Now, I read a lot of indie books and like them (duh) but I also have a high percentage of discards. Higher than in traditional? Well, not really but for different reasons.

The traditional discards tend to “impress” me a lot like the natural history of chickens or the rants about whale hunting (Btw, all whales are gentle creatures and the tales of its being dangerous to hunt them were made up to appear macho. No, seriously, he said that. Head>desk.) They are great if what you’re looking for is affirmation for some “correct” belief you already have. I.e. the belief your friends, your teachers and all your gatekeepers told you was true.

Look, you don’t even have to show any beliefs. The chicken thing could have made its case more effectively by being all about her crazy lady and her love of her chickens. At least I’d have hesitated before diving in to fried chicken because I’d think how important these silly muggings were to that old woman.

Likewise most traditional books could capture me by giving me people to care about and a story to follow. They might not convince me, but I’d be interested enough to read. However, when it turns to reciting the rosary of politically correct woes, I’m both bored and annoyed, and discard either documentary or book. (One of the indies that did this was pride and prejudice from an Evangelical pov. I’m sorry, the religion they depicted the Bennets having didn’t even exist in that time, in that place, and for people who didn’t already share your precise set of beliefs both characters and plot were risible. So, I suppose the political correctness of NYC gatekeepers is very much an evangelical religion.)

However, when it comes to Indie, though there is always some number I discard because the author assumed the world outside his head is exactly the same as inside his head, be that in politics, religion or just the way people act, most of what I discard is due to carelessness.

I have infinite tolerance with the cover, but if your character is Joe in the second chapter make sure he’s not Bob in the first. Also, try to make sure your style doesn’t read like voice-emulating programs. Also, plot – you should have one.

My second most likely reason to discard a book, is the strong feeling it’s not aimed at me, though it claims to be aimed at me. What I mean, is, particularly with science fiction, if you don’t read the genre, please, dear bog, don’t say you write it. If what you’re writing is hot girl gets it on with aliens, tag it as erotica and futuristic and romance, but DO NOT tag it as science fiction. Because when all your aliens are star treck aliens, enrolled in the forehead of the month and when it turns out that not only does Mars need women but so does every other planet, I’m going to return your book mostly unread.

On the other hand I will read things I shouldn’t have any interest in, and forgive a multitude of sins if you do two things: entertain me, and treat me as an equal.

When you’re writing, keep in mind the person in your head, the person you aim the book at, and treat that person with respect. Think of them as your equals in intelligence. Try to do your best for them.

Then if you have something interesting to say or an interesting story to tell, you’ll be all right.

The older hero

I’ve spent most of my life doing… stupid things. I was going to say energetic, adventurous, exciting, bizarre, and, um, stupid. But only the last is really universally true. For someone, somewhere anyway. But as I flopped into my chair this evening, to try and write a post, having 1)got through my word count (just), 2)Written a blog post, 3)worked on the farm fencing(AKA earning some money) 4)Worked on my container-cum-workshop-in-the-future’s roof, 5)done some minimal gardening – or we do not eat (yes, I still grow catch or raise most everything but the basic food groups of coffee and chocolate. It’s cheap but also time consuming and hard work.), 6)cooked supper, 7) writing this. 8) going to shoot and butcher some more wallaby -we’re low on dog tucker) fitting it in basically by cutting back on sleep, that maybe stupid is the only right word. When I was the other side of 50 I thought it was intelligent and the only way worth being. Now that I have finally grown up a tiny bit, and I hurt a lot more after a long hard day… well, I am not so sure. On the other hand, I am too obstinate to quit.

But I was, in my ample spare time reading a few books for homework for the next Karres novel (I read very fast to make up for writing slowly) and it stuck how young all the heroes were. So I started looking at other books, scanning my mind… There are exceptions (PEBBLE IN THE SKY springs to mind), but heroes have a median age of about 28, I’ll swear. And the female ones are younger. Now in real terms this is a good idea. Get rid of the meat-heads young before they breed. Think of it as evolution in action, encouraged largely by writers who avoid that sort of dangerous sh1t. And I suspect we all have a finite cup of courage, and if you’ve been quaffing liberally at it as a young snot, and you’re still alive by 40, there’s not much left. (While some of you have expressed doubts about this I really am a very quiet tame sort of bloke these days. Just still fairly stupid about getting involved in odd things.) Still… I wondered. SF is supposed to be greying. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the heroes. Do we fancy ourselves as 28 in our daydreams? I’ve written, deliberately, heroes of younger ages for those target markets. Is there a market for targeting the older hero. Or is he a boring old fart, who likes a little snooze at lunchtime? (yes, I know, there’s PI Bolg 1728 years old and still counting, but Bolg is a Pict, and written by Freer so it’s no use expecting him to be typical)

And if it is generally applicable to sf/fantasy… in Romance I swear they all die at 35. But this isn’t true, surely? And what is their median reader age?

Okay, I’m brain-dead, and tired too, and still need to go shooting. Short post this week. But tell me, why do all the PC darlings whine like deranged mosquitoes with no volume control about PoCLGBTalphabet-soup characters, but nary a word about older ones (who, boringly, are tired, hurt a bit, and think warm dry socks are really exiting?).

Revising Old Writing Part Two: The Betas are Circling – Alma Boykin

Revising Old Writing Part Two: The Betas are Circling – Alma Boykin

So, when we last left the Dissertation/Draft (DDraft), the old work had been cleaned up, improved, had material added and some deleted, and in general was a bit tighter than when I started, thanks to the passage of time and two Alpha Readers suggestions. Much like revising old fiction, I found things that needed to be polished, language tics that really did not improve the book, excessive detail here and not enough backstory there. My Alpha Readers had advised some pretty major changes, which I made some of. Others I thought hard about and decided not to try and do, because they would, in essence, change an epic fantasy into a steampunk novel. OK, not quite, but the changes would have been pretty major. So it was time to look at the Beta Reader comments.

(Quick aside. I call the second and third commenters Beta Readers, even though they had some comments closer to Alphas. In general, their suggestions were closer to what fiction beta readers look for, so I consider them the equivalent. Carry on.)

Again they were a mixed bag. Both encouraged more trimming of jargon and trying to tighten things to make the story flow faster, to grip the reader better. Beta Reader 2 loved what Alpha Reader 2 had hated, so I rolled my eyes and decided to let the editor decide which version of that chunk she liked better. I was still too in love with the original to want to change. One of the suggested changes left me a bit flummoxed, because the Beta Reader suggested that I try to change my writing style in order to make the book more like a very famous and incredibly readable history. Sort of as if someone had suggested that I re-write the next Cat Among Dragons novel into the style of Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Sterling’s Prince of Sparta. I took the suggestion to mean “tighten up, get rid of jargon, and focus on story here and here.” And my transitions needed work still.

You are looking at the screen and saying, “OK, at this point, why are you bothering? Just how much work are you going to put into this beast, Alma, and why don’t you just self publish?” Good points, and if this were fiction, I would. And if this were an independent project and not the DDraft, I’d seriously think about it. But in the world of academia, you really should not do that. And the publisher still wanted/wants the book, just revised and polished. We are now looking at a far better, more readable, smoother, and probably about 90% improved version of the original. Large repetitious chunks are gone, the story flows better, the title reflects the contents, some things have been brought to the front of the book, and a lot of undergrowth has been trimmed. And keep in mind that I’m still reading lots of non-fiction and writing fiction, so I’m trying to work in what I’m learning as I re-write.

At this point a style editor got involved. You probably do not need this sort of service, but after four or five (it seems like twenty-four or twenty-five) pretty major re-workings, I can’t see all the problems of flow and other things anymore. Think of this as having an advanced Beta Reader look over DDraft. Some of my fiction style had leaked into the non-fiction and not in a good way, another reason for a cold pair of eyes. And this individual can also flag problems that have crept in. He’s caught some things I missed, recommended some things I’m still mulling over, and generally helped smooth the wrinkles. The DDRaft is now about to go back to the publisher for an up/down decision.

How is this all like re-writing fiction, old fiction? Some thoughts.

First, you will probably find that some of what you wrote stinks. Some was good even then, but other portions will leave you cringing and wondering how it ever escaped your pen/keyboard.

Second, you may need to be a little ruthless about killing your deathless prose, if the situation warrants it. This is especially true if you are going back into a universe where you have been writing since then. Re-writing the Cat novel feels a whole lot like re-writing the DDRaft in places. I loved that scene, I really did, but it no longer fits. There’s been new developments since I wrote it, and I need to incorporate them, which means taking out Lovely Scene.

Third, your Alpha Readers may knock you sideways. One certainly did to me, and it took a while before I could go back and sift the useful bits from the frustrating bits.

Fourth, do not be afraid to chop and change if necessary. I’ve created new chapters (fleshed out backstory as it were), plumped up others, turned overly long sections into shorter ones. Let’s face it: no one is going to read a 300-page book of only four chapters, unless you are releasing a set of novellas.

And it may be that you discover that bits of Ye Olde Work can be saved, expanded, or used elsewhere, but the guts are dead. You may have 150 pages of description and no plot. The characters may refuse to cooperate and you realize that the tale of a modern liberated woman as wife in early Imperial Rome absolutely will not work, not even if you hold your nose and try to pretend. Or the magic system you cobbled together has collapsed now that you’ve read more and learned how to and how not to arrange such things. If rewriting the beast means taking the character names, a little of the setting, and the McGuffin into a different book, you might be better off holding a lovely memorial service for Ye Olde Work and writing the new book. Take the good bits as you need them and leave the rest to decay. I ended up doing that with part of the Cat novel. Even after major rewriting for continuity and flow and to eliminate a major authorial pity party, the chapter still went thud to the point of detracting from the book. So out it came. I had something similar happen with a different history book, because the material dragged the story in an out-of-the-way direction, literally. I’ll probably use the excised chunk for an academic article some time.

In conclusion, rewriting can be a little painful. It can also be very educational, especially if you have good Alpha and Beta readers who are willing to point out the oopsies and continuity problems. Yeah, that stream does not reverse flow and go east, then west out of the state. It flows north and only north. Big oops. If all goes well, between how you have developed as a writer since you started the Olde Project, and some helpful suggestions, you can rework what was rough into something much better. You will learn a great deal in the process, some good, some bad, and possibly some “things not to do to people I read for.”

Some of what I described is exactly what Amanda talked about earlier. Some is different. Re-writing is personal and varies from author to author. But I hope you find my experience helpful (or cautionary).