Leave Them Wanting More?

Here's an essay by Cory Doctorow about fiction, movies, and games giving audiences what they need instead of what they want, or think they want:

Against Lore

Writers hijack the reader's "empathic response. . . . A storyteller who has successfully captured the audience has done so by convincing their hindbrains to care about the tribulations of imaginary people." Part of accomplishing this trick consists of drawing the reader or viewer into collaborating with the creator, so to speak. Our minds ruminate on what might happen next, how the fictional crisis will be resolved, and how the writer will pull it off. The tension builds, to be released when the outcome fulfills, exceeds, or subverts our expectations in a satisfying way.

"Your mind wants the tension to be resolved ASAP, but the pleasure comes from having that desire thwarted. . . . You don't give the audience what it wants, you give it what it needs." What fun would a fantasy roleplaying game be if every monster could be killed in one blow? Who would want to know the killer in a murder mystery in advance (on first reading, at least -- I've read many detective novels with pleasure over and over, because the enjoyment of a well-written mystery lies in more than learning whodunit)? Readers of romance know the hero and heroine will find fulfillment in a happily-ever-after conclusion, since that's inherent in the definition of a romance, but we want to remain in suspense until the end as to how the writer will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of getting them together.

On one level, according to Doctorow, writers, stage magicians, con artists, and cult leaders are all doing the same thing. "Getting us to care about things that don't matter is how novels and movies work, but it's also how cults and cons work." They "leave blanks" for the audience (or mark) to fill in. They don't tell us everything; rather, they privide gaps for our imaginations to work. Horror mavens often note that the monster in the reader's mind usually exceeds anything the writer or filmmaker can reveal on the page or screen.

According to Doctorow, the skilled creator or performer "delights in denying something to the audience, who, in turn, delights in the denial. Don't give the audience what they want, give them what they need. What your audience needs is their own imagination." As far as that statement goes, I agree with his analysis. He makes lots of cogent points. I emphatically part ways with him, however, when he presents an argument against supplying too much "lore." Why do "series tend to go downhill"? First off, he states this alleged problem like a universal truth. To the contrary, in my view, many series just keep getting better, as the format allows for expansion and exploration of the fictional world. Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January historical mystery novels offer only one example of several I could mention. He applauds the fact that, "The first volume in any series leaves so much to the imagination" and the background elements "are all just detailed enough that your mind automatically ascribes a level of detail to them, without knowing what that detail is." No real argument there. If the author does a good job, we're eager to learn more about the setting and characters, and our minds are "churning with all the different bits of elaborate lore that will fill in those lacunae and make them all fit together." But Doctorow proposes that an author's filling in those "lacunae" is usually a bad thing.

He insists, "A story whose loose ends have been tidily snipped away seems like it would be immensely satisfying, but it's not satisfying –- it's just resolved," and "Lore is always better as something to anticipate than it is to receive. The fans demand lore, but it should be doled out sparingly. Always leave 'em wanting more." Well, a fictional work literally following this principle would leave me feeling cheated. When I start a new Barbara Hambly mystery, the first thing I do is flip to the back looking for the author's afterword and am slightly let down if there isn't one. I've reread the appendices to S. M. Stirling's alternate history PESHAWAR LANCERS more often than I've reread the novel itself. I want the monster to be numinous and enigmatic for much of the story, sure, but by the end I want a clear look at it. I want to know its origin, strengths, and weaknesses. I enjoy the detailed description of Wilbur Whateley after his death in Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." In an SF story, if there are aliens I want to know all about their biology and culture. Politics aside, my major gripe with J. K. Rowling is her failure to deliver that guidebook to the Harry Potter universe she kept promising. Her worldbuilding appears sloppily ad hoc, a problem the snippets on the Pottermore site didn't fix.

Maybe this tendency on my part comes from having begun my professional career in literary analysis rather than fiction? (I started writing, though, as an aspiring horror author. Does any teenager, no matter how bookish, aspire to be a literary critic? But I DID always want more backstory, more delving into the mind of the "monster.") Or it could be just a quirk of my personality. How do you feel about lore? Do you avidly read guidebooks to your favorite authors' series? Or do you prefer some facets of the stories to stay unexplained?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Becoming a Dark Lord/Lady

Is it possible to be a good Dark Lord (or Lady)? The term "good" in this context is ambiguous. It can mean competent, skilled at certain tasks, fit for his, her, or its purpose. Or it can mean morally and ethically virtuous. We could call Shakespeare's versions of Macbeth and Richard III "good characters," meaning they're well constructed, believable, and entertaining. But we wouldn't label them morally good. A character could be a good Dark Lord or Lady in the sense of a convincing example of a powerful villain (from the reader's viewpoint) or an expert in ruling villainously (within the fictional world). Could a dark ruler be morally good, though, or is that concept self-contradictory?

I recently read THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER, by Patricia C. Wrede. Fourteen-year-old Kayla is snatched from our world, along with her adoptive mother and brother, by a man who informs her she's the only child of the late Dark Lord of a realm reminiscent of the fantasy worlds in her brother's favorite movies and video games. To Kayla's dismay, everyone seriously expects her to deal with opposition and assert her power by exiling, torturing, or executing people on the slightest pretext. How can she hold her unwanted position (while working to learn enough magic to return herself and her family to Earth) without transforming into a villain? Surprisingly even to herself, she comes to care for some of the people under her nominal rule and can't just abandon them without trying to fix the more dysfunctional features of the lair and throne she has inherited.

THE DARK LORD'S DAUGHTER reminds me a bit of Ursula Vernon's CASTLE HANGNAIL, whose heroine, Molly, isn't drafted into her position but deliberately applies for it. She answers an ad seeking a wicked witch to take over a castle in need of a master or mistress. The minions of Castle Hangnail, desperate for someone to rule the estate so they won't lose their home, gradually warm to this twelve-year-old girl who does have magic but otherwise barely qualifies. To become the castle's permanent custodian, she has to check off a lists of achievements, including such tasks as smiting and blighting. Some people deserve a mild smiting, and blighting weeds in the herb garden qualifies as a dark action without crossing the line into true evil. Along those lines, Molly manages to fulfill the "wicked witch" role without becoming a bad person. Just when she's on the verge of approval as the official sorceress of Castle Hangnail, though, an unexpected visitor exposes the deception she perpetrated to get over the threshold in the first place -- but no more spoilers!

In case by any chance you've never read the Evil Overlord List, here's that exhaustive inventory of things a supervillain should never do:

Evil Overlord List

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Guest Author Post

This week we have a guest blog, in Q & A form, from multi-genre author Karen Hulene Bartell:

"What inspired you to begin writing?"

IMHO, reading is the inspiration for and entry into writing.

Born to rolling-stone parents who moved annually--sometimes monthly--I found my earliest playmates as fictional friends in books. Paperbacks became my portable pals. Ghost stories kept me up at night--reading feverishly. Novels offered an imaginative escape, and the paranormal was my passion.

An only child, I began writing my first novel at the age of nine, learning the joy of creating my own happy endings…However, I got four pages into my first “book” and realized I had to do a lot of living before I could finish it!

So here I am all these decades later, still creating my own happy endings…

"What genres do you work in?"

More often than not, I write paranormal romances, but I also write political-suspense thrillers and frontier romance.

"Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?"

Mostly, I “wing it.” Occasionally at the end of a day, I’ll make a brief outline of the action I want to write about the following day, but overall, I’m a “pantser.”

"What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?"

Actually, I have two books coming out this spring. Kissing Kin was released March 13, and Fox Tale will be released April 8.

Kissing Kin Overview:

Maeve Jackson is starting over after a broken engagement—and mustering out of the Army. No job and no prospects, she spins out on black ice and totals her car.

When struggling vintner Luke Kaylor stops to help, they discover they’re distantly related. On a shoestring budget to convert his vineyard into a winery, he makes her a deal: prune grapevines in exchange for room and board.

But forgotten diaries and a haunted cabin kickstart a five-generational mystery with ancestors that have bones to pick. As carnal urges propel them into each other’s arms, they wonder: Is their attraction physical…or metaphysical?

Fox Tale Overview:

Heights terrify Ava. When a stranger saves her from plunging down a mountain, he diverts her fears with tales of Japanese kitsune—shapeshifting foxes—and she begins a journey into the supernatural.

She’s attracted to Chase, both physically and metaphysically, yet primal instincts urge caution when shadows suggest more than meets the eye.

She’s torn between Chase and Rafe, her ex, when a chance reunion reignites their passion, but she struggles to overcome two years of bitter resentment. Did Rafe jilt her, or were they pawns of a larger conspiracy? Are the ancient legends true of kitsunes twisting time and events?

"What kinds of research do you do for your Western novels?"

I enjoy researching all my novels. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the parts I like best about writing, but the research for Kissing Kin, Book II of the Trans-Pecos series, was especially complex--as well as physically demanding and a whole lot of fun!

Why do I describe Kissing Kin’s research as complex?

A big reason is that the manuscript underwent several iterations before being published. The first version was a story about two generations linked by Covid and (via journals) the Spanish Flu of 1918. However, publishers passed on it, saying readers were sick of pandemics.

Because the second version would have been part of a series set in Colorado, I changed the location, names, and family relationships. I also adapted the story to fit the series’ outline and removed the flu, but that version didn’t fly, either. My third attempt is the version being released March 13th, which required further revisions and, occasionally, restorations. Try, try, and try again…

Greed and a checkered family history shaped the property lines for Kissing Kin, where some of the characters swindled the land from its rightful owners. This aspect led me into a hornet’s nest of legal research: warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, squatters rights, and a process called adverse possession. Both Texas and Colorado are ‘notice’ states, which means that recording documents legally notify the public of property transfers. But the state laws differ, and I had to research both sets of laws, rewriting the second version with Coloradan laws, and then redrafting the third version, while reverting to the Texan laws.

Karen’s “legal” advice 101: Warranty deeds are better than quitclaim deeds, but recorded warranty deeds are rock solid--unless squatters rights and a process called adverse possession come into play. Then you have a legal fight on your hands--as well as a thickening plot…

Kissing Kin is mainly set in a vineyard. As vintners, farmers, and ranchers know, nature can be cruel. Pierce’s Disease attacks grapevines from Florida to California, where insects called sharpshooter leafhoppers spread the bacteria. I’d never heard of Pierce’s Disease. I have no background in vineyards, and I have a brown thumb. Plants would rather die than live with me. Because of my total lack of knowledge, I had to research the disease, its carriers, and the way to control it.

I learned a new, nicotine-based pesticide eradicates the leafhoppers. I also learned from my grandmother’s hand-printed recipe book, that she treated chicken lice in the 1930s by painting their roost perches with nicotine-sulfate. Apparently, nothing’s new under the sun.

PTSD was another new area of exploration. Two of Kissing Kin’s characters suffered from its symptoms, which wreaked havoc on them--as well as their relationships.

However, the most entertaining research included picking and stomping grapes in two central-Texas vineyards. (I love hands-on (and feet-on) study 😉)

Why do I describe Kissing Kin’s research as physically demanding and a whole lot of fun?

After learning how to prune the vines and harvest the grapes, I did a Lucy-and-Ethel grape stomp--which was sloshing good fun! Of course, the best research was the wine tasting that followed the stomping!

"What are you working on now?"

My WIP is Silkworm, a political-suspense thriller set in Taipei, Taiwan, that portrays a US Senator’s daughter caught between two men, two cultures, two political ideologies, and the two Chinas.

A love triangle is the metaphor for Taiwan and China (the two dragons) competing for geopolitical and technological accords with the US. As mainland China seeks to recover the third of its lost provinces–Taiwan–Rachel Moore struggles to escape the triple nightmare of impending war, a marriage of convenience, and an assassination plot against the man she loves. Silkworm weaves their stories with the trilateral events currently erupting in Southeast Asia.

"What advice would you give to aspiring authors?"

I’ve received little writing advice. However, I started life as an actor and received an immense amount of advice for that career.

The best advice I received was to keep at it--in that case, acting, but the same words apply to writing. Keep at it. Don’t quit. Keep honing your craft and, eventually, you’ll succeed.

The worst advice I’ve received was from an editor--translation: a frustrated author—who demanded I indiscriminately follow her redrafting of my manuscript in an attempt to overwrite my style with hers.

However, my advice for writers is to R E A D! Read everything that interests you. Read when you’re bored. Read when you can’t sleep. Read at the beach…in front of the fire…in bed…waiting for doctor appointments…

Then begin reading genres that are similar to the style in which you’d like to write. Analyze what works and what doesn’t. Find common denominators or rules of thumb between the characters or plots. What makes memorable characters? How does the author maintain the story’s fast pace or add to its suspense? Decide specifically what you like about each author’s style.

Next, start writing about what interests you. Express yourself as honestly as possible. Write about what you know, what you’re familiar with—even your childhood. Keep a notebook. Jot down ideas as they come to you!

Finally, start drafting a story that “grabs you.” Push through that first draft to the end, no matter how painful. (There’s a magic wand called rewrite that allows you to complete any half-baked thoughts later.) The point is to finish the first draft. See it through. Only then should you go back and develop your story.

Occasionally, you’ll find that the story--and even the characters—will seize the pen (AKA your imagination) and draft the story for you!

Sometimes, it’s good to take a vacation from your manuscript. When you return to it, you’ll find your thoughts will have gelled and expressing them comes more easily.

Then rewrite. If necessary, rewrite again and again until your story accurately expresses your message.

Finally, polish your prose. Go back and read each line out loud. The ear catches what the eye misses. Refine your words and phrases until they sparkle.

Before you know it, you’ll have found a genre, even--dare I say it?--your style!

How did I start writing? My first published books were cookbooks—now, thanks to Google, recipes appear online in milliseconds. Cookbooks may no longer be your entry into the published world, but I still recommend writing non-fiction before fiction, be it via textbooks or any form of technical writing.

"What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?"

Website – Author Website

Connect – Contact

Buy Links –

UNIVERSAL LINK: Universal Link

AMAZON: Amazon

GOODREADS: Goodreads

APPLE: Apple

BARNES & NOBLE: Barnes and Noble

Social Media Links –

Facebook: Facebook

MeWe: MeWe

Twitter: Twitter

Goodreads: Goodreads

Website: Karen Hulene Bartell

Email: info@KarenHuleneBartell.com

Amazon Author Page:Amazon

Instagram: Instagram

BookBub: BookBub

LinkedIn: LinkedIn

AUTHORSdb: AUTHORSdb

Dislikable Characters

What does it take to turn you off fictional characters so thoroughly you don't want to read about them? Even if I dislike some aspects of a protagonist, that's not necessarily a downcheck for the story as a whole if it engages me otherwise. Scarlett O'Hara is far from a nice person, yet I sympathize with her despite her flaws and have reread GONE WITH THE WIND many times. Any character who constantly and indiscriminately peppers his or her conversation with words formerly called "unprintable" (as opposed to using them for emphasis when the situation justifies them) repels me. I detest this habit in Stephen King's early novels, but I find those works so fascinating in general that I put up with the annoyance.

I just finished reading a well-written, emotionally credible ghost story in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. The protagonist, a middle-aged divorced man, sees not only the ghosts of his parents but "wraiths of the living" in the form of apparitions of his ex-wife and their son. The man's unhappiness and his increasing estrangement from the people around him make the story painfully depressing to read, although still effective in its way. The character loses my sympathy, however, when he collects his mother's personal effects from the nursing home and decides to throw away the family photograph.

One of my favorite mystery authors, best known for her dog-themed mysteries, also collaborated on a food-themed detective series. I was so disappointed in the first novel that I never gave the sequels a chance. Two reasons: The protagonist, a young, single woman, inherits money from a relative on condition that she go to graduate school. Instead of rejoicing in the opportunity, she chooses a major, not on the basis of interest—she has no apparent interest in furthering her education in any field—but on the principle of taking the easiest subject she can find in order to get the money. Also, while preparing for a first date with a man she hasn't even met yet, she seriously considers having sex with him. That strikes me as so dumb I couldn't believe in the character, much less like her. Those personal aversions of mine might not even register on the mental radar of a different reader.

Characters who display consistently negative reactions to situations and people turn me off. If the viewpoint character constantly spouts snarky insults, whether aloud or through internal monologue, the writer may intend for the reader to admire her clever wit and sympathize with her grievances. I react, instead, by assuming that if the character dislikes or disdains everybody and everything, there's something wrong with him or her, not with the other people. I once read a horror story about which I recall very little except that it began with the middle-aged, male protagonist lingering over late-night TV to avoid sex with his wife, who had recently developed a renewed zest for it. That glimpse into his mind was enough to make me loathe the character.

I don't mind reading a short story or possibly a novella focused on an unlikable protagonist, if the work has other virtues to hold my attention. I refuse to endure a whole book with such a character, though, unless the story exerts an irresistible fascination for some other reason. For instance, a certain bestselling series about a solitary, embittered man swept into an epic fantasy realm was a very hard sell for me; the protagonist struck me as so unpleasant and depressing that only the strength of the worldbuilding prevented me from giving up on him.

For me to willingly spend an entire novel, trilogy, or series in the mind of a person I would avoid in real life, the work needs to have other enthralling qualities to make up for the unpleasantness. Where do you draw the line with unlikable characters?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Shadow of the Beast

My first published novel, SHADOW OF THE BEAST, a werewolf urban fantasy with romantic elements, is back in print after a few years of dormancy, being recently re-released by Writers Exchange E-Publishing:

Shadow of the Beast

This wasn't the first novel I completed. That was the true book of my heart, vampire romantic urban fantasy DARK CHANGELING, first published not long after SHADOW OF THE BEAST and currently available in an e-book duology called TWILIGHT'S CHANGELINGS:

Twilight's Changelings

And as a Kindle e-book here:

Amazon Page

SHADOW OF THE BEAST was originally published by a small horror press that produced numerous attractive trade paperbacks for several years before closing down. My novel was later picked up by Amber Quill Press, which had a fairly long run before it, too, went out of business. I was lucky to find Writers Exchange, which sells its products in both electronic and trade paperback formats, to adopt most of my Amber Quill books. (It's somewhat disheartening to contemplate how many of my works have been "orphaned" by the disappearances of publishers over the years. Fortunately, we now have self-publishing as an alternative in case switching to a new publisher doesn't work out.)

I lightly revised SHADOW OF THE BEAST before the Amber Quill edition was published. The text of this latest version hasn't changed from that one; only the cover is different. The story follows the template of one of my favorite tropes, the Ugly Duckling. The heroine discovers she isn't what she always believed herself to be, and traits that first seem like flaws turn out to be gifts. I've retold that basic story multiple times over the years. My first professionally published work of fiction, "Her Own Blood" in FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER, fits that pattern, as does DARK CHANGELING.

Because SHADOW OF THE BEAST retains the text from the previous edition, it features technology that has become obsolete. Since only one scene is affected (where the characters use a VHS camcorder and tape player), the editor decided it wouldn't be a problem and didn't need a disclaimer at the beginning. As far as the plot goes, SHADOW OF THE BEAST has some undeniable flaws. The editing for Amber Quill corrected some of the original version's problems but didn't amount to a major rewrite. The "because line" is weak in places; back then, I didn't realize I was sometimes making characters do things for my convenience as author, rather than from solidly established motives. I've learned better since then, I hope!

What's your philosophy on rewriting older books for re-release or leaving them alone?"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Current Events in Fiction

One of my e-mail lists recently had a discussion about the wisdom of referring to the COVID-19 crisis in fictional works. One concern was that including the pandemic would "date" a story. That is, more so than all pieces of fiction are inherently dated merely because fashions and technology change. One author's editor asked her to remove the references for that reason. Personally, I don't plan to include the pandemic in my fiction, because all my stories contain supernatural or paranormal elements, and it seems that having the pandemic as part of the background would add an unnecessarily complicated extra layer. Also, setting a story in a version of the current real world, I think, would result in having the pandemic "take over" the story. If a work were explicitly set in the present year as it actually is, it would be almost impossible to keep the story from being at least partially "about" the pandemic. So, because of the genre of my writing, I've decided to keep locating my works-in-progress in an indefinite present where COVID-19 doesn't exist.

It will be a different matter when the acute crisis ends and the "new normal" (whatever that may turn out to be) becomes established. In that case, whatever social changes have become permanent should be included for verisimilitude, in my opinion. For instance, if in the future all store clerks continue to wear masks, that custom should be mentioned in passing when appropriate, just as we would show characters going through airport security lines. (Remember when friends and relatives of departing passengers could walk with them right up to the gate? Or am I the only person here who's that old?) Diane Duane subtly alludes to the September 11 attacks in a couple of her novels. In one of the Young Wizards installments, the teenage characters' mentor says they must have noticed how the world situation has deteriorated recently. The young heroine agrees, thinking of the Manhattan skyline. Her adult friend corrects her; he means within the past hundred years or so. In Duane's STEALING THE ELF KING'S ROSES, whose characters inhabit an alternate Earth, at one point the protagonist and an ally travel the multiverse through several versions of New York. In a world obviously meant to be ours, she asks, "Where's the World Trade Center?" Her companion hastily moves her along, suggesting that maybe it was never built in that continuum.

The TV series TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL featured two very effective episodes in reaction to 9-11, but alluding to the event in retrospect, months after the attacks. In one, a small community can't get past the loss of a favorite teacher who was visiting New York on the fateful day; the other takes place on New Year's Eve in an old-fashioned watch repair shop about to close forever, as the staff labors to repair a timepiece found in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Another way of dealing with current events in fiction, as mentioned by a few authors on that e-mail list, is to write about a setting with analogies to the present crisis, yet not literally portraying those real events. For example, one might create an imaginary world suffering an epidemic with medical and social effects similar to those we're experiencing. An alternate-universe novel published several years ago portrays a world politically dominated by Muslim Arab states. In the recent past of that Earth, where Christianity is a minor sect, a November 11 attack on a major Middle Eastern landmark by Christian fundamentalist fanatics has shaped politics and culture.

Artistic works can allude to current events even more obliquely. I once got a surprised response when I labeled the country song "Beer for My Horses" a 9-11 song. No, it doesn't mention the attacks. But its theme of bringing frontier justice upon the bad guys, in the context of the time of its release, unmistakably calls to mind that event and the U.S. military response. How do you deal with real-world crises in your writing, if at all?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Accessible Writing

The April 2020 issue of RWR (magazine of the Romance Writers of America) contains an article titled "The Literary Craft of Accessibility," by Rebecca Hunter. She begins by analyzing the difference between literary fiction and genre fiction, for which she focuses on level of accessibility: "Literary fiction expects the reader to come to the book, while genre fiction books come to the reader." To put it simply, literary fiction expects the reader to work harder. It would be easy to conclude that denser novels are therefore of higher quality than less "difficult" works, a "false—and harmful—hierarchy" the author warns against. I readily agree that a "literary" novel may be difficult and dense for the sheer sake of difficulty, putting unnecessary roadblocks in the reader's path from the mistaken notion that lucid prose and a clear narrative thread equate to "dumbing down." And a genre novel can include deep themes that make a reader think and challenge her established assumptions.

Hunter undercuts her cautionary reference to false hierarchies, in my opinion, by contrasting "lyrical" and "thoughtful" with "fast-paced" and "light," the latter suggesting a "more accessible style." A genre novel can be accessible, yet sedately paced and deeply emotional. Some factors she lists as contributing to degree of accessibility include length of sentences, breadth of vocabulary, balance among action, atmosphere, and ideas, moral clarity or ambiguity, how clearly the characters and plot fulfill "expectations set in the beginning of the story," and "use of cliches, idioms, and other familiarities." I have reservations about some items on the list. For example, I don't think a novel has to lean heavily toward "action" to be accessible. Many romance novels don't, nor do many vintage favorites in other genres. GONE WITH THE WIND is one perennial bestseller that has many more reflective and emotional scenes than action scenes in the popular sense of the word. I find the mention of "cliches" off-putting; while familiar tropes, handled well, can be welcome, an outright "cliche" is another matter. Another feature, "amount of emotional complexity spelled out for readers," sounds as if excessive telling over showing is being recommended. Every writer must balance all these elements in her own way, of course, and Hunter does address the shortcomings of cliches and "telling." She points out that "frankly, there are lots of readers who like this familiarity and clarity." So an author needs to know her target audience well. "Each reader's preferences are different. . . .there are readers for all accessibility levels." Hunter also discusses theme, which she defines as "an open-ended question our story asks" and briefly covers the possibility of increasing a work's complexity by adding additional thematic layers.

Personally, I enjoy a book with a varied, challenging vocabulary and complex characters and emotions. What make me impatient are works that appear to be confusing for the sake of confusion, such as failing to clearly distinguish characters from each other or coming to a conclusion that leaves the reader with literally no way to be sure what happened—by which I mean, not an ambiguous ending deliberately designed to allow multiple interpretations, but one in which it's impossible to puzzle out the plain sense of what transpires on the page. As Marion Zimmer Bradley used to say in her submission guidelines, "If I can't figure out what happened, I assume my readers won't care." Levels of acceptable "accessibility," of course, vary over the decades and centuries according to the fashions of the times. Long descriptive and expository passages, common in nineteenth-century novels, would get disapproved by most editors nowadays, no matter how well written. Something similar to the opening paragraphs of Dickens' A TALE OF TWO CITIES ("It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. . . ."), although accessible in the sense of easily understandable, probably wouldn't be accepted by most contemporary publishers. It also used to be common for authors to include untranslated passages in foreign languages, especially in nonfiction but sometimes even in fiction. Most nonfiction writers up through the early twentieth century assumed all educated readers understood Latin and Greek. Dorothy Sayers inserted a long letter in French into her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery CLOUDS OF WITNESS; the publisher insisted on having a translation added. On the other hand, to cite a contemporary example, in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries, set in Louisiana of the 1830s, January's erudite friend Hannibal often includes Greek and Latin quotations in his speech. They add flavor to the story's atmosphere, but understanding them is rarely necessary for following the story; when it is, Hambly clues us in as needed. Readers who'd be put off by this kind of linguistic play simply don't form part of her target audience, but then, such people probably aren't fans of historical mysteries in general, which require openness to navigating an unfamiliar time and place.

Hunter's article also doesn't discuss accessibility in relation to genre conventions. For instance, Regency romance authors probably assume their target audience has some familiarity with the period, if only from reading lots of prior novels in that setting. Science fiction, in particular, expects a certain level of background knowledge from its readers. We should know about hyperdrive and other forms of FTL travel, if only enough to suspend disbelief and move on with the story. Some SF stories expect more acquaintance with the genre than others. Any viewer with a willing imagination can follow the original STAR TREK, designed to appeal to a mass audience. Near the other end of the accessibility spectrum, the new posthumous Heinlein novel, THE PURSUIT OF THE PANKERA (the previously unpublished original version of his 1980 NUMBER OF THE BEAST), envisions a reader with a considerable fannish background. The ideal reader knows or at least has some acquaintance with Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books and E. E. Smith's Lensman series. That reader also has a high tolerance for dialogue about the intricacies of alternate universes and the heroes' device for transiting among them, on which the text goes into considerable detail at some points. Optimally, that fan will also have read Heinlein's own previous work, at least his best-known books. This novel is not the way to introduce a new reader to Heinlein, much less to SF in general.

It seems to me that "accessibility" forms a subset of the larger topic of reader expectations. So the question of how accessible our work is (or needs to be) comes back to knowing the expectations of the target audience.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Science in SF, Continued

The second part of Kelly Lagor's LOCUS article on "Putting the 'Science' in Science Fiction" is here:

Putting the Science in SF

As in the previous essay, she quotes opinions from various authors and editors, including Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Pinsker, Lee Harris (editor at Tor.com), and Sheila Williams (editor of ASIMOV'S), among others. Some bits of advice on the "delicate tightrope walk" of "getting the level of detail just right so as to not be so technical you alienate your readers, while avoiding being needlessly inaccurate":

An SF author should keep up her "baseline knowledge of popular science" (in Elizabeth Bear's phrase) at a level sufficient to make her aware of what's going on in the scientific world and where she needs to seek out deeper research into any particular topic or sub-field. Academic journals and popular science books and articles each provide useful resources, which should be consumed in the proper balance. Other comments logically point out that the amount and kind of research needed will depend on how much the author already knows about the field. The level of scientific detail required to make a story plausible also depends on the subgenre. Readers of different types of SF have different expectations; as Lee Harris observes, "we’re much less critical of the science in the latest superhero epic than we would be in a hard science fiction story." Another observation states that "with great familiarity can come great reluctance"—a writer might hesitate to delve into the technical details because he or she finds it hard to resist including excessive exposition that might turn off the reader. Some other suggestions: Don't hesitate to consult experts firsthand. The kind and degree of technical specificity varies depending on the viewpoint character—what would he or she notice and care about? And getting the depth and scope of detail correct ultimately grows out of knowing how much the reader needs to understand to enjoy the story. "Sometimes, when it comes to details, less is more."

By the way, Lagor's phrase "needlessly inaccurate" seems to imply the existence of conditions under which inaccuracy is needed, a position I'd find hard to agree with. Whether the density of detail is heavy or light, surely whatever IS on the page should be accurate, within the limits of how technical the particular text gets. Even in fantasy, I find a story more interesting and entertaining if the writer gives the impression of accuracy in mundane matters such as architecture, food, travel times, etc., as well as basing the biology of imaginary creatures (for example) on a plausible analogy with real ones. The more incredible the central premise a reader has to accept, the more plausible the supporting details ought to be.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Going Deeper

A few weeks ago, the associate rector of our church delivered a sermon sparked by the question, "What do you want?" Beyond and beneath the superficial needs and wishes, what do you REALLY want out of life? As a recurring motif in the talk, she repeated several times, "Go deeper." The admonition to "go deeper" applies to writing, too.

In the January 2020 RWR (the magazine of the Romance Writers of America), Shirley Jump's regular column "Your Writing Coach" dealt with the topic, "Creating deeper motivation: The rule of six." What does your protagonist want and why? We have more than one motivation for almost everything we do, and in creating a believable protagonist, the writer should delve deeper. Jump recommends digging down for six layers of motivation, hence the title of the article. By the time the writer gets to number six, she says, the process should become hard. She also notes that the character's true, deepest motivation is not the one he or she recognizes on the surface. The first motivations that come to mind are likely to be external factors, while the last layers uncovered tend to be "the deeper internal motivations." One of her examples imagines a character who wants to save her grandmother's farm because that's the wellspring of her happy childhood memories. The deeper motivation not recognized by the character herself, however, is that the farm serves as her "security blanket" because she doesn't want to leave her familiar community.

Jump demonstrates the technique by analyzing the character of Shrek from the first movie in his series. First, he wants to get the intruders out of his swamp. To accomplish that purpose, he has to confront Lord Farquaad. Shrek is angry and "helpless to fix this himself." He's angry because he wants his sanctuary (the swamp) back. The root cause of this desire, according to Jump, is that he withdraws from other people and creatures to avoid pain (as demonstrated by his preemptive rejection of Donkey). She refers to "layering in" the characters' deeper feelings and motivations and also recommends making sure each scene conveys some aspect of those motivations.

Her "saving the farm" example brings to mind GONE WITH THE WIND. In the beginning, teenage Scarlett thinks she'll attain complete happiness if she marries Ashley. She barely hears her Irish father's passionate speech about the importance of land, the only thing that lasts. Her obsession with Ashley lingers until the very end, when she wakes up to the realization that her alleged love for him has been only a girlish fantasy all along. Meanwhile, though, a newly discovered motivation dominates her actual behavior and decisions—saving Tara. All her major choices (except marrying Rhett, and she admits she does even that partly for the money), such as tricking Frank into marriage and becoming a hardheaded businesswoman, are motivated by the need to support Tara and her family. The deeper motivation for that need is the role of Tara as a symbol of stability and material security. The deepest motivation breaks out in the iconic mid-point scene when she fiercely vows, "I'll never be hungry again."

The "layering" image strongly resonates with me, because that's how I tend to revise my fiction. Many writing experts advise that proper revision consists of cutting, that later drafts should be shorter than the first draft because rewriting should trim extraneous material. Well, not my revisions; my second drafts are almost always longer than the first. That's because I start with dialogue, action, and necessary description and exposition. The emotional, sensory, and to some extent descriptive elements of scenes are always on the "thin" side the first time around. I need to expand and enhance those elements to make scenes and characters come to life. Sure, I often cut on the micro level, since my sentences are often unnecessarily convoluted or wordy (maybe a side effect of having produced so much academic nonfiction over the years). On the macro level, though, the total word count nevertheless increases more often than it decreases. In my current WIP, the heroine faces the certainty of losing her job in six months because the business (an independent bookstore) is going to close. Therefore, it becomes vital, not just a pleasant prospect, to sell the graphic novel series she and the hero have created to a major publisher, so she'll have a financial cushion. Digging to the next layer down, getting that cushion is important to her not only for practical reasons but for emotional ones. Because her father's gambling addiction almost destroyed her parents' marriage in her teens and young adult years, she's obsessed with financial security. Her unhappy memories of those years also make it hard for her to trust the hero and lead her to leap to negative assumptions whenever it seems he might let her down. Those don't quite add up to six motivations, but the general idea is the same.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Science in SF

A LOCUS article by Kelly Lagor discusses how accurate the science in science fiction needs to be:

Putting the Science in Science Fiction

She distinguishes two aspects of the use of science in stories, "how science plays a role in a story’s message" and "how it is portrayed within the story itself." She quotes numerous SF writers on the issues of factual accuracy of the science in fiction, the author's responsibility to the reader, and how the reader's trust can be won and kept. Elizabeth Bear, for instance, "distinguishes between how different types of stories require different types of accuracy."

Personally, I lean strongly toward the "accuracy required" end of the opinion spectrum. If, as one author quoted mentions, the science in the story is based on present-day facts and theories, it's particularly important not to violate that present-day knowledge, because some readers will certainly notice and object. In a more speculative, futuristic story, the writer has more scope for imaginative variation. And then there are the familiar tropes with no solid basis in contemporary science, such as FTL drives and time travel, which can be accepted as fictional premises for the sake of setting up the background for the plot.

In works that use science fiction tropes for purposes of allegory or satire rather than quasi-realistic extrapolation from real-world facts and theories, I concede that accuracy doesn't hold the highest priority.

The only science fiction I've written consists of stories in the Darkover anthologies. Hard-SF people might not consider Darkover true science fiction because of the unproven status of psychic powers in real life. Although my vampire fiction features naturally evolved, not supernatural, vampires, I don't venture to call it SF because the biology of my vampire species isn't worked out in depth. I include just enough of a biological rationale for their traits to (I hope) suspend the reader's disbelief. So it's more like "science fantasy."

Regardless of faithfulness to current factual knowledge, the writers surveyed in Lagor's article agree that authors must consistently follow the established rules of their fictional worlds. This precept applies to both science fiction and fantasy (not to mention all kinds of "realism" as well). That's one reason I prefer to write fantasy; one can invent one's own rules as long as they make internally consistent sense.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Worlds with Depth

The Fall/Winter issue of MYTHLORE includes an article by Katherine Sas on creating the "impression of depth" in a work of fiction (specifically, in this case, in the backstory of the Marauders in the Harry Potter series), a term coined by Tolkien in his classic essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." One of my favorite themes in fiction is the overshadowing of the present by the deep past. That's one reason I find Stephen King's IT enthralling, a feature that the new movie tries to present a bit better than the old miniseries, but still not adequately. So I'm glad to have an official name for this theme. Sas herself paraphrases this effect as "a sense of antiquity and historical reality."

The essence of the "impression of depth" consists of a feeling that the author "knows more than he [or she] is telling." Tolkien refers to the creation of "an illusion of surveying a past...that itself had depth and reached backward into a dark antiquity." He mentions the crafting of this effect in BEOWULF by "allusions to old tales." In his own work, Tolkien uses invented languages, frame narratives, references to ancient tales and lost texts, and "hypertextual layering" (i.e., metafictional features that draw attention to the text as an artifact). Such techniques produce the illusion of a world that has existed for a vast expanse of time before the present action and contains places, peoples, and events glimpsed at the edges of the main story.

Within a more limited physical setting, King's IT creates an illusion of deep time by the gradual revelation of how the monster originally introduced as merely a supernatural killer clown has haunted Derry since the town's founding—revealed by Mike's research into the generational cycle of the entity's periodic return and hibernation—and, eons before human settlement, came through interstellar space from an alien dimension. Likewise, the TV series SUPERNATURAL begins on a small-scale, personal level and expands to encompass an entire cosmology. At the beginning of the series, all we know about the background of Sam and Dean Winchester is that their father is a "Hunter" (of demons and other monsters) and that their mother died in a horrific supernatural attack when Sam was a baby. The brothers themselves know little more. We, and they, soon learn that their father made a deal with a demon. Eventually it's revealed that Sam and Dean were destined from infancy, not to save the world, but to serve as "vessels" for divine and diabolical entities. As they strive to assert their free will against this destiny, they uncover secrets of their family's past and the worldwide organization of Hunters (along with its research auxiliary branch, the Men of Letters), they clash (and sometimes ally) with demons, angels, pagan deities, and Death incarnate, and, incidentally, they do save the world and visit Hell and Purgatory several times. They learn the real nature and purposes of Heaven, Hell, and God Himself. The hypertextual (metafictional) aspect of the series is highlighted in episodes such as a visit to an alternate universe where the brothers are characters in a TV show and their discovery that a comic-book artist who turns out to be a prophet (as they believe until he's revealed as the very incarnation of God) has published a series that chronicles their adventures.

Tolkien's colleague and close friend C. S. Lewis reflects on the literary impression of depth in two articles reprinted in his collection SELECTED LITERARY ESSAYS, "Psycho-Analysis and Literary Criticism" and "The Anthropological Approach." In both pieces, he concludes that the ideas of hidden, half-forgotten, multi-layered dimensions in place or time and disguised remnants preserved from the ancient past are alluring in themselves. We're fascinated by the suggestion of "the far-borne echo, the last surviving trace, the tantalizing glimpse, the veiled presence, of something else. And the something else is always located in a remote region, 'dim-discovered,' hard of access." We're thrilled to enter "a world where everything may, and most things do, have a deeper meaning and a longer history" than expected. Many readers (although admittedly not all) enjoy the idea "that they have surprised a long-kept secret, that there are depths below the surface." Tolkien's exposition of this effect, as well as the creation of it by him and other authors who use similar strategies, offers valuable hints to writers who want to produce that kind of impression.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Sequels, Prequels, and Reading Order

Should the audience for a sequel be able to understand it completely without having read the previous book(s)? The EPIC e-book contest allowed judges to subtract points if a novel required familiarity with a prior book to be fully understood. I thought that criterion was unfair; in many fiction series, a story arc continues from one volume to the next, so that each installment legitimately depends on the previous ones. The Harry Potter series and Stephen King's Dark Tower saga are obvious examples. And some trilogies or series are actually single stories divided into multiple volumes, such as the Lord of the Rings. I recently read the final volume in Theodora Goss's delightful "Athena Club" trilogy, starring the daughters (born or created) of the classic 19th-century mad scientists. A reader might be able to understand and enjoy the second novel, EUROPEAN TRAVEL FOR THE MONSTROUS GENTLEWOMAN, without having read the first, although a lot of nuance would be lost. The third, THE SINISTER MYSTERY OF THE MESMERIZING GIRL, however, depends too heavily on the others to stand alone.

On the other hand, with most mystery series the reading order doesn't matter so much. Although the detective's character may develop from book to book, so that taking the volumes in order enriches appreciation of them, it's not necessary. Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey stories fall into this category, mostly, except for the ones involving Harriet Vane. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple novels, on the other hand, can be read in any order with no loss of appreciation.

C. S. Lewis fans disagree on the proper order in which to read the Narnia books. Lewis didn't commit himself on that point. He agreed with a child reader who preferred the internal chronological order, but the context suggest he was just being polite. At first sight, chronological order within the universe looks logical. Most fans, however, seem to support publication order. They reasonably point out that many details in THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW don't have their full impact if one hasn't read THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE first. Although LION... takes place later in the timeline, it was published first, when Lewis had no idea of writing further books in that setting. Marion Zimmer Bradley encouraged new readers to approach Darkover in publication order rather than internal chronological order, because doing it the second way meant they would encounter the earlier-published novels (which she considered inferior to the later-published ones) before books written when her craft had matured.

When my husband (Les Carter) and I started plotting LEGACY OF MAGIC, the previous-generation prequel to our Wild Sorceress trilogy, I planned it so that it could be read either before or after the trilogy. Someone who picks it up first will find that it works as a stand-alone fantasy romance. For someone already familiar with the trilogy, LEGACY OF MAGIC answers some questions about the background of the characters in the other three novels and contains "Easter eggs" that will be meaningful to those readers. For people new to that world, I painstakingly tried to avoid including spoilers in LEGACY OF MAGIC that would reveal secrets meant to come as a surprise in WILD SORCERESS and its two sequels.

I'm currently working on a sequel to my recent light paranormal romance novella, YOKAI MAGIC. It might more accurately be called a spin-off, though, because the hero and heroine of YOKAI MAGIC appear only as minor characters in the new story. Prior acquaintance with them isn't necessary for understanding or enjoyment of the sequel/spin-off. Most of Mary Jo Putney's Regency-era romances work this way. Recurring characters (protagonists from previous novels) pop up from book to book, but nobody needs to read the earlier novels to enjoy the newer ones. Recognizing the established characters, however, enhances the pleasure. That's how I've structured my Vanishing Breed vampire universe. Aside from CHILD OF TWILIGHT, the immediate sequel to DARK CHANGELING (the first one published), the novels, novellas, and short stories can stand alone, with almost any one of them serving as a viable entry to the series. Similarly, readers can enter Bradley's Darkover or Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar at almost any point, as long as they read the individual books in the various sub-series in the proper order. For marketing purposes, that would be the ideal way to arrange a series. But most series with long-term story arcs building steadily from one book to the next just don't work like that.

And then there's the question of how much background information to include in a sequel. How much effort do you make to accommodate a new reader who might pick up a book in a series out of order? Or do you assume (as is more often than not the case) that a person reading a sequel is familiar with the earlier book(s)?

How do you handle sequels, prequels, the risk of spoilers, and the chance that readers might feel lost if they start in the middle?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Why Does Writing Get Harder?

Kameron Hurley's latest column tackles the question of why writing fiction gets harder instead of easier with experience:

Why Does Writing Get Tougher?

Some reasons she suggests: With greater experience, we can more easily identify the flaws in our works. With this realization, we recognize the need to edit more meticulously. "There was a time when I could burn through a writing session on full steam without pausing to review." Now, though, she explains that aspiring to create novels with more complex structures makes it impossible for her to write that way. "Leveling up" in writing skill also becomes harder the longer we've been doing it for a reason that's obvious once it's pointed out: The first improvements can be made in giant leaps. As one's skills grow, one runs out of large, obvious ways to improve them. Later stages of growth come in smaller increments. The closer one gets to the ever-retreating goal of perfection, the smaller those increments become. So of course the process feels more arduous. "Holding oneself to a high standard makes each subsequent book more difficult." Hurley connects the craft of writing to the ability to recognize patterns. As we get better at that task, we can have confidence that even if the work gets harder, producing a better book is possible, because we've done it before.

Her answers to the question, "Why does writing get harder instead of easier the more we do it?" can be collectively summarized in her concluding statement, "Writing books gets tougher because we become better at it."

My own feeling about this problem roughly corresponds to Hurley's answer, although she doesn't frame it in quite the same way. I think writing has become harder for me than in my teens and early twenties because then I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't notice when my characters behaved unrealistically or the plot fell off the "because line." My story ideas excited me (it probably helped that I didn't realize how not-original most of them were), and words flowed as fast as I could get them onto the page, whether by typing or handwriting. (Now I shudder at the thought of the latter; my fingers and wrist cramp with pain after scrawling a page or two.) Now that I have a computer to minimize the physical labor and make it easy to correct typos and insert changes, my writing should have become even more fluent, shouldn't it? Alas, no.

I do think my writing has improved over the years, not only from practice and passage of time but because the word processor enables me to make revisions, including very minor ones, without no worries about whether they're significant enough to justify retyping a page. The whole process has become slower and more painstaking, though, rather than easier, as Hurley says she's heard from every writer she has discussed this issue with. Like the centipede who's paralyzed when he stops to think about which leg to move first, I now know too much to compose with the "first fine, careless rapture" of my teens. I can't escape noticing my errors and weaknesses or recognizing the problems in plotting and characterization that need to be solved. It's a bit like hearing from my physical therapist that, since I'm doing all right with the current exercises, she plans to add harder ones in the next session. "Leveling up" does make creative work tougher.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Bait-and-Switch Book Beginnings

Stephen King's latest novel (which I consider one of his best recent works), THE INSTITUTE, starts with a long section from the viewpoint of a secondary character (who doesn't reenter the story until close to the end). It then switches to the protagonist, a 12-year-old boy with a slight degree of psi power who gets kidnapped by the titular Institute. Both characters are deeply engaging, and their separate stories end up skillfully meshed. It's Stephen King, so it works! Nevertheless, spending that much space at the beginning of a novel on a secondary character before even introducing the protagonist is definitely not what most readers expect.

What I think of as "bait-and-switch" narrative is common enough, in a modest way, with suspense and horror fiction. Such novels often start with a brief introduction of a character whose main purpose is to get killed. (A regular reviewer of the SUPERNATURAL TV series used to call this type of victim "doomed teaser guy.") Even in those novels, however, I feel sort of cheated if the author allots too much wordage (more than a few paragraphs or at most a couple of pages) to a doomed character. The writer has fooled us into mistaking this short-lived person for the protagonist, luring us into an emotional investment in her or him, after which we have to start all over getting engaged with a new character.

The sense of being "baited and switched" can pose a difficulty with prologues. If the prologue focuses on a character other than the protagonist of the main text, we may feel as if the author has started the book twice. We get all excited about the prologue's main character and may feel let down when he or she disappears or fades into the background in favor of a different focal character for the story as a whole.

Some readers may feel "baited and switched" by the entire opening volume of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. While I wouldn't say I felt cheated, I was certainly shocked by that first exposure to his "anyone can die" authorial strategy, when the man I assumed to be the protagonist of the entire series didn't survive to the end of the first book.

Assuming this kind of shift at the beginning of a book is sometimes justified, how can an author pull it off so the reader won't feel tricked? Or lose interest when the focus switches to a different viewpoint character after the opening scenes have lured us into caring about the character first introduced? It's a little different, although still potentially tricky, when a narrative repeatedly switches perspectives throughout, presenting scenes through the eyes of two or more equally important viewpoint characters, as Martin's series does. In reading such a text, I sometimes have trouble getting back up to speed, emotionally, after each switch.

This let-down feeling doesn't have to result from a change in viewpoint characters. Long ago, I read a book intriguingly set in an alternate present where supernatural creatures exist openly, and social and economic structures are accordingly different from those in our primary world. The protagonist is a private detective who works with supernatural-related cases. (At that time, this worldbuilding concept was new and uncommon, not a familiar trope as it is nowadays.) In the first chapter, the protagonist deals with a vampire in a very funny scene. "Oh, goody, a cool vampire novel," I thought. Alas, nary another vampire in the entire book, although it wasn't a bad story on its own terms. Granted, this kind of problem isn't necessarily the author's fault. Other readers less vampire-focused than I might not assume from the first chapter that the point was to launch a vampire plot rather than (as it actually was) to introduce the protagonist's profession. Still, in my own case, I approached the rest of the story with a negative bias as soon as I realized my initial assumption had been mistaken.

Then there was the bait-and-switch of a successful chick-lit novel called MUST LOVE DOGS, whose inciting incident has a friend persuading the protagonist to place a personal ad in a dating venue. The friend gets her to include "Must love dogs" as a way of attracting nice guys, although the heroine doesn't have a dog and knows almost nothing about the species. Between the title and the inciting incident, I was expecting a romance with, you know, lots of dog content. Nope. The story soon leaves that premise behind. Maybe I would have felt less cheated by the plot if the inciting incident hadn't been combined with the title and a dog-centered cover (neither of which might have been the author's fault, admittedly, especially the cover illustration).

Do you feel "baited and switched" by these kinds of abrupt turns in a novel? And, as an author, how do you handle them if you have reason to write them?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Hard and Soft SF

The September-October 2019 MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION contains an article that indirectly addresses the perennial question of defining science fiction,"Science: Net Up or Net Down?" by Jerry Oltion. He asks, "How scientifically accurate does a story have to be?" How far from scientific rigor can a work drift before it ceases to be "science fiction"? Is STAR WARS science fantasy, space opera, or science fiction? Many hard-science readers wouldn't consider Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series SF, because they don't believe in the scientific possibility of psychic powers. (Personally, I classify "space opera" as a subset of SF. And if a story claims a scientific rationale for its content, I'm prepared to accept it as science fiction. Did Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter series, which includes several wild implausibilities, such as a fertile union between a Terran male and an oviparous Martian female, cease to be SF when it was discovered that Mars holds no advanced life?) Oltion begins his essay by analyzing the book and movie THE MARTIAN, demonstrating that the wind forces possible on Mars couldn't endanger the lander and force the crew to evacuate, stranding the protagonist. Oltion admires the story anyway, willing to give the author a pass on this one point for the sake of setting up the plot.

As he puts it, "the author gets one porcupine," meaning the reader will swallow one factually problematic element but seldom more than one. The greater the deviation from possibility, the more suspension of disbelief is required. Faster-than-light travel, for instance, is a convention we accept for the sake of moving stories along, provided everything else in the work is "rigorously scientific." Or not, such as STAR WARS. If we find the tale captivating enough, we can overlook numerous factual implausibilities. Going too far, though, resembles "playing tennis with the net down." Oltion declares, "I'll read anything that hangs together internally, unless some wild howler knocks me out of the story." It also matters whether the writer appears to know when he or she is bending the rules and shows evidence of doing it deliberately for sound reasons.

So is internal consistency the minimum requirement? Oltion thinks so, but he cites students in a writing workshop he taught, who didn't even seem to care about that. He appears to throw up his hands in surrender at this point, declaring, "You can write anything you want as long as you can pull it off with enough panache to satisfy your readers" (starting with the editor who has to like the piece enough to publish it). Of course, a story composed with this philosophy will attract different readers from those who favor hard SF and insist on scientific rigor. In my opinion, internal consistency can't be jettisoned. In the type of fiction I write, fantasy and supernatural, it's even more important than in SF. If a writer expects readers to swallow the "porcupine" of magic, psychic powers, supernatural creatures, or other fantastic elements, nothing must throw the reader out of the fictional world. Everything has to hang together, and if (for example) the hero rides an ordinary horse, it better behave like a real horse.

I have a strong preference for playing with some sort of net. Inconsistencies do throw me out of a fictional world. And yet I can't deny that an exciting story populated by engaging characters—the latter being, for me, the most important factor in a story's appeal—may cover a multitude of authorial sins. Still, in my opinion a writer risks losing a large segment of the potential readership by ignoring consistency and solid world-building. It's not as if such attention to detail is likely to repel other kinds of readers!

On the whole, however, I can support the general principle with which Oltion sums up: "So as readers, and as writers, decide what kind of story you like and plan accordingly."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

In Defense of Unsuspicious Immersion

The May 2018 issue of PMLA (the journal of the Modern Language Association) contains an article by Faye Halpern titled "Beyond Contempt: Ways to Read UNCLE TOM'S CABIN." The author describes how a beta reader of her dissertation remarked on the "contempt" with which Halpern obviously regarded the "sentimental" aspects of the novel. Halpern confesses that she somewhat took pride in her disdain for the work she was studying, because this reaction proved her qualifications as an academic critic, one who isn't taken in by the overt plot and seduced by the novelist's attempt at evoking emotion from the reader. A proper critic rejects "what we perceive as the surface meaning for a deeper meaning," a technique that has been labeled the "school of suspicion" and "paranoid reading." Halpern notes the response of another critic whose approach to UNCLE TOM'S CABIN she found "fascinating and appalling" because it dared to mention the real-world background for the novel's scene of the death of Little Eva—the actual rate of infant and child mortality in the nineteenth century, hence the frequent motif of innocent children's deaths in Victorian fiction. What Halpern found "appalling" at that earlier stage in her career was the other critic's "strong and sympathetic reaction to the text."

Now, I've written academic criticism myself, and I can rejoice in a keen, multi-layered analysis of a literary work. I endorse the principle that a work may hold dimensions and meanings of which the author is unconscious, maybe even contrary to the author's stated ideas and purposes. I believe, however, that a proper critic can (and should) begin with what Halpern calls "unsuspicious immersion" in the narrative. If you don't understand, preferably from personal engagement with the story, what the author claims to be doing, how can you answer the fundamental critical questions: What is the author trying to do in this text? Does the author succeed in this aim? And is it worth doing?

As Halpern says, a novel such as UNCLE TOM'S CABIN "does something to many of its readers, and what that something is depends on how a reader reads." One feature of this novel in particular is that it functions as a "literacy manual"; containing many scenes of characters reading and interpreting books, it apparently "takes pains to teach its readers to read properly." Yet, in Halpern's opinion, the novel is also in some sense an "illiteracy manual." Her reason for this label: "It teaches its readers to think of it as real, to think of its characters as real people."

That's the point where I gasped in disbelief and mild horror. How ELSE is one supposed to read a novel? Isn't that type of immersion ("unsuspicious" openness to the story) exactly what fiction invites? Granted, that's not how we teach English students to read and how professional critics are supposed to approach texts. Those kinds of reading, however, should build upon an initial receptivity to the story. How can we critique a work intelligently if we don't give it a fair chance in the first place?

According to C. S. Lewis in AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM, "We can find a book bad only by reading it as if it might, after all, be very good. We must empty our minds and lay ourselves open." At another point in the same book, he discusses the reading tastes of the "unliterary." Such people don't care about style, theme, or depth of characterization. If anything, those elements distract them from what they want in stories—excitement, suspense, and vicarious pleasure. Their reading is "unliterary," though, not because they enjoy excitement, suspense, etc., but because they're oblivious to anything else in fiction. "These things ought they to have done and not left others undone. For all these enjoyments are shared by good readers reading good books."

Likewise, Tolkien refers to what we're calling "unsuspicious immersion" in his essay "On Fairy Stories," where he discusses the concept of willing suspension of disbelief. In his view, that's not enough. Rather, he says, "But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside." He calls this "enchanted" state of mind Secondary Belief.

If Tolkien and Lewis don't qualify as academic authorities on the proper way to read a story, who on Earth does?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Fictional Chronology Versus Real-Life Time

How do you handle the problem when the timeline of a fictional series slides out of sync with the real passage of time? The novels in my vampire universe were written and published over a span of many years, but the characters all exist in pretty much the same time frame although the technology of each book reflects the decade when it was written. Mostly, I don't worry about this situation, since the novels and stories can each be read independently (although some characters recur), aside from the novel that's a direct sequel to DARK CHANGELING, the first one published.

Now, however, my urban fantasy/horror novel FROM THE DARK PLACES is soon to be re-released, and I'm faced with a difficulty caused by the late-1970s setting. I've written a next-generation sequel set in the not-strictly-defined present, with cell phones, electric cars, and the Internet. The heroine, born at the end of the first book, is twenty-one. If time has passed in the books as in the primary world, she'd be about forty. What changes should I make in the new edition of FROM THE DARK PLACES to reconcile this inconsistency?

Some creators avoid the problem by aging characters more or less in real time, maybe a little slower but not slowly enough for their environment to fall out of sync with the reader's world. For example, the comic strips FOR BETTER OR WORSE and GASOLINE ALLEY do this. Another strategy is to ignore the discrepancy by changing the technology and cultural references to fit the time of publication while keeping characters the same age or letting them age very slowly, sometimes only a few years over several decades. The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary does it that way. On TVTropes, this phenomenon is called Comic-Book Time:

Comic-Book Time

In the James Bond novels, Bond's background was tacitly updated over the series, as the setting advanced with dates of publication. Therefore, as one critic noted, according to his age in the later books, he would have been a teenager in the first one, CASINO ROYALE. The TV program MASH famously lasted over twice as long as the actual Korean War, and there isn't much if any attempt to maintain consistency in the internal timeline, much less factual correspondence to the historical progression of the war. For a show produced before it was expected that fans would be able to buy all the seasons and repeatedly re-watch them, the discrepancies probably weren't obvious at the time.

Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (beginning with SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD) spans only a few years in the characters' lives, although the novels have been published over several decades. Duane has addressed the problem by issuing "Millennium Editions" of the earlier books, updating the years of the action and the associated technology, so that the characters now age roughly in real time.

As for my current quandary: The editor has agreed to go with my suggestion of locating FROM THE DARK PLACES in the indefinite past, by removing all explicit references to the 1970s but leaving the technology of the story pretty much as is. To avoid confusing readers, I plan to add a note stating that the book takes place before cell phones and widespread home computer ownership.

What do you do about a series whose internal chronology becomes disconnected from real time? Authors of historical fiction, futuristic SF, and secondary-world fantasy are lucky in this respect; they never need to worry about their stories becoming outdated. Although the Star Trek universe does have a peculiar problem along this line—some of the technology in the original series has been overtaken by present-day tech!

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Writing and Storytelling

Kameron Hurley's column in the current LOCUS discusses the difference between stringing together a succession of events and actually telling a story:

Story Isn't Just "Stuff Happens"

The principles she highlights apply not only to books but to films, comics, games, all sorts of media. She asks, "Why do we teach people how to write instead of how to tell stories?" Do we think storytelling comes naturally? On the contrary, doing it well is a skill that must be learned. In mundane conversation, we've all suffered through rambling anecdotes riddled with backtracking, digressions, and gaps. Hurley reminds us "there are always two stories that make up a good piece of fiction. There is the external story, the thing we would call ‘plot.’ These are the explosions and sex scenes and betrayals. Then there is the internal emotional story, the ‘so what?’" Like Tolkien, she maintains that stories are far from merely devices for escape (although Tolkien also argued in favor of the right kind of escape). "We seek out stories because they help us make sense of the world and societies we live in today, which is the real reason we grasp for them most during dark times. We seek out stories to learn how to be better humans."

Hurley urges us to remember that "readers are far more interested in exploring what it means to be human than how gram­matically correct our sentences are. Pretty writing does not equal explosive story." Her argument reminds me of Marion Zimmer Bradley's famous caveat, "Editors do not buy stories because they are well written." They publish stories that offer the kind of Satisfying Reading Experience their particular audience wants. Here's the classic essay in which Bradley explains why editors DO buy stories (or reject them):

Why Did My Story Get Rejected?

Bradley, of course, is quick to add that nobody OBJECTS to good writing. Good storytelling, however, has priority. I do have reservations about taking this advice too much to heart, though. Aspiring authors shouldn't skim over the part about "good writing" and assume style, grammar, syntax, word choice, etc., don't matter.

To draw an analogy, I'm not at all musical. While I enjoy lots of music, I listen to songs mainly for the lyrics. Where the tune is concerned, I react to it on the basis of whether it seems to me to fit the words. On any more technical points, I'm at the "I don't understand it, but I know what I like" level. I might have a vague perception that a certain tune sounds "folky." A real musician could point out exactly what features of its mode, tempo, chords, or whatever make that tune sound like a folk song. Similarly, most non-writers probably couldn't explain in technical terms why a piece of writing doesn't "work." They might say vaguely, "it's boring" or "it's confusing." A professional writer or editor can analyze the story with remarks such as, "There's too much exposition" or "We aren't given a reason to care about the protagonist" or "The point of view jumps around too much" or "Many sentences contain dangling participles." Likewise, a reader not familiar with all the rules of grammar, usage, and spelling may not be able to pick out the specific errors in a work, but if there are too many of them, it will probably still feel "wrong" to that reader.

Fortunately, it's possible to learn at least the basics of "good writing," what Bradley summarizes as how to write "a literate English sentence." Techniques of pacing, plotting, point of view, etc., can also be taught. Storytelling, however, is to some extent a gift, which may or may not appear in tandem with a talent for "good writing." For instance, nobody would describe Edgar Rice Burroughs as a master of literary style. Yet Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Barsoom are immortal.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

AN OFFICER AND...

2010 is going to be the start of a rather busy on-line workshop year for me. I’m starting by co-teaching a workshop on building space/fantasy militaries with a beta-reader of mine, Michael L. Helfstein. USNR (retired). You can find a complete list on my website in NEWS . But I want to talk about—and, yes, promo a bit—the upcoming class on building militaries and military characters.

First, I have absolutely no military experience. That’s what Mikey’s for. But I am and have been a consumer of military stories, from romance to SF to action-adventure, from Weber to Brockmann to Dees, and more. I think that in order to write a good military character it takes both parts: a knowledge of the “world” you’re building, and a knowledge of reader expectations.

Thanks to my new nook, I received as a freebie download a copy of David Sherman’s and Dan Cragg’s first book in their STARFIST series—essentially, the Marine Corps in space. I’ve only read book #1—just downloaded book #2 this morning—but as an avid Suzanne Brockmann fan I related to the military descriptions and authenticity, but the plotting and, oy, head-hopping didn’t work for me. The characters did, eventually, enough that I ordered book #2 and likely will read more in the series because I definitely respect Sherman’s and Cragg’s street creds as former military. And if I was simply a purist SF reader and had never read more character-driven genres, I wouldn’t have felt cheated by the way the book was crafted. Or rather, my reader expectations would have been different and, likely, satisfied.

You see, it’s all about reader expectations and that’s something I don’t think we’ve touched on as much when we talk about world building here.

And it’s not just the romance angle, so please don’t bring that out as the only tune a female can dance to. My expectations have been met by Huff’s VALOR series, Moon’s VATTA’S WAR series, Weber’s HONOR HARRINGTON series. Not one is romance. I’ve also had fun reading David Drake’s LT LEARY series. Again, no romance, though definitely lighter in tone than STARFIST.

The difference between the books is the emphasis on character vs. world building. Not that Sherman and Cragg don’t have some memorable characters: Charlie Bass is a terrific hero. But I kept looking for a key central protagonist to latch on to and by book’s end, realized there really wasn’t one. There was Dean, there was Bass, there were other characters I thought might be central who then—yikes!—ended up getting killed off.

Surrounding all that was a lot of military structure, some neat tech stuff, and some interesting song lyrics. There were lots of words spent on the authors telling the reader about military structure and why the characters were doing or doing to do something or the other. There was, sadly to my way of thinking, far less showing the characters doing those things.

That perhaps can be chalked up to reader expectations. The ubiquitous (and I do believe this is changing) sixteen-year-old male SF reader is more attuned to reading manuals than fiction. Character development is dropped in favor of technical detail.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. As long as that’s what your readership wants.

And that’s why I think reader expectations must be inexorably a part of whatever world building you do. But to do that, you need to know your readership; you need to know the likes and dislikes of the readers who would pick up your book.

Writing cross-genre, that’s not always an easy thing to suss out. I would love to have Sherman’s and Bragg’s knowledge to integrate into my books, mostly for the verisimilitude but also to draw in the wider range of readers. But I know I’d risk losing some readers as well. While I eagerly soaked up much of the military techs and specs and routines early in the first STARFIST book, I found by mid-book I wanted, now, more of the characters. I wanted to see them arguing about mission strategy rather than being told that certain strategy launched an argument, with emphasis being on mission details rather than on character action.

Sherman and Bragg had built the world for me. Now I wanted to see and feel the characters moving around in it (and yes, the ending chapters were ones where they did, and they were great fun!).

On the other side of the spectrum has been the charge that many futuristics and SFRs fail in their depiction and execution of technical and military details. “Sloppy science” is the criticism I’ve often seen, but also a failure in accuracy in military elements. While it can be maintained that the average romance reader doesn’t care about such things (and I do believe this too is changing), I think failure in those areas does weaken world building. When I read a romance set in Victorian England, I want to hear, feel, smell, and taste Victorian England. When I read a romance set on a military battleship in some distant galaxy, I want to hear, feel, smell, and taste life on board that battleship.

So my upcoming workshop in January with Lt. Commander Helfstein will strive to hit that middle ground. Mikey will provide the Sherman- and Bragg-like details. I’ll do my best to help students turn that detail into page-turning, character-based action.

And then I’ll reward myself by reading the second STARFIST book.
~Linnea

REBELS AND LOVERS, March 2010: Book 4 in the Dock Five Universe, from Bantam Books and Linnea Sinclair—www.linneasinclair.com

Kaidee hated when her ship didn’t work. Dead in space was not a place she liked to be. Especially with an unknown bogie on her tail, closing at a disturbingly fast rate of speed that made her heart pound in her chest and her throat go dry.


PS: Yes, I love my nook but then, I’ve long been an e-book fan and was previously reading on a small Dell Axim X50.

PPS: More info on the workshop HERE.

WORKSHOP! Sharpen Thy Keyboard...

Since I'm once again in deadline hell (with a short story for a Gardner Dozois and George RR Martin anthology...), I'm going to use my blog space to promote the RWA Fantasy Futuristic & Paranormal chapter's upcoming writing workshops. THESE ARE OPEN TO ALL and conducted online, so you can learn whilst wearing your jammies! Check out these upcoming offerings and stay tuned throughout 2010, when your truly will be teaching as well:


\\*****Permission to Forward Granted and Encouraged******//

The Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Special Interest Chapter of RWA Presents:

"Building Blocks of Fiction: Entwining Characterization and Plotting" Led by Author Tambra Kendall

November 9, 2009 through November 23, 2009

What: Learn how characterization and plotting weave together to make your story come alive. Knowing how to blend together characterization and plotting is essential. Being weak in either area can keep you from obtaining the contract you seek. This course will cover character development using GMC which in turn leads us to plotting. Other areas such as scene and sequel and the architecture of a novel are discussed. Please join me as we journey through the development of characters, archetypes plus more. More class material may be added. Discussion/questions throughout class

Who: Tambra Kendall loves writing paranormal romance. She is published with Red Rose Publishing, Aspen Mountain Press and Whiskey Creek Press Torrid. Over the years, she's taught online classes for various RWA chapters, other online writing organizations and has been an adjunct professor at San Jacinto College. Her most recent publication is "Cowboy of the Night" in "Legends of Loving Texas" series from Red Rose Publishing.

Where: This workshop will be conducted via a Yahoo! email loop. Email invitations will be sent 48 hours prior to the beginning of the workshop. Just register for the workshop and complete the payment process via PayPal. The cost is $10.00 for FFnP members and $20.00 for non-FFnP members.

http://www.romance-ffp.com/event.cfm?EventID=68



\\*****Permission to Forward Granted and Encouraged******//

The Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Special Interest Chapter of RWA Presents
How to Write Power Sentences Presented by June Diehl

November 2, 2009 through November 16, 2009

Description: Power Writing will focus on multiple elements needed to build powerful sentences and paragraphs. From strong word choices, varying sentence structure, to putting sentences together to create dynamic paragraphs, the workshop uses examples, including some from published novels, and from the participants' own work, in strengthening the words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs on the page.

NOTE: This is not a grammar / punctuation workshop.

Outline:
The workshop will cover the following:
Strong word choices (use of powerful, active verbs and specific nouns),
Phrasing and sentence structures, including cumulative sentences,
Using the sentence fragment in narrative and dialog,
Paragraphs (rhythm of sentences, combinations of long, medium, and short sentences, using one and two word sentences)

NOTE: There will be assignments for the various subjects covered during the workshop. The participant will be using his/her own writing for some of the assignments.

Instructor Bio: P. June Diehl is the Editorial and Senior Editor for Virtual Tales, the Senior SF Editor for ePress-Online, and also coaches authors. Author of THE MAGIC & THE MUNDANE: A Guide for the Writer's Journey, she teaches/mentors writing classes online at Writer's Village University and for Pearls of Writing as well as having conducted workshops on various elements of creative writing. She is enrolled in UCLA's Writing Program, focusing on long and short fiction. Ms. Diehl has published poetry, short stories, and articles online and in print. She's finalizing a novel and working on four others. The author lives in Virginia with three cats and a dog.

Where: This workshop will be conducted via a Yahoo! email loop. Email invitations will be sent 48 hours prior to the beginning of the workshop. Just register for the workshop and complete the payment process via PayPal. The cost is $10.00 for FFnP members and $25.00 for non-FFnP members.

http://www.romance-ffp.com/event.cfm?EventID=92

For more information contact: workshops@romance-ffp.com


~Linnea

Linnea Sinclair
// Interstellar Adventure Infused with Romance//
Available Now from Bantam: Hope's Folly, Book 3 in the Dock Five Universe
Coming March 2010: Rebels and Lovers (Book 4)
http://www.linneasinclair.com/