Category Archives: Writing

The Difference Between Fantasy and Sci-Fi

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I loved this distiction/definition from The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature by Brian Attebery.

Any narrative which includes as a significant part of its make-up some violation of that which the author clearly believes is natural law– that is fantasy….

And fantasy treats these impossibilities without hesitation, without doubt, without any attempt to reconcile them with our intellectual understanding of the workings of the world or to make us believe that such things could under any circumstances come true.

I like this definition very much, and even more so when Attebery places it in contrast to science fiction (so frequently lumped with fantasy as a matter of course):

Science fiction spends much of its time convincing the reader that its seeming impossibilities are in fact explainable if we extrapolate from the world and science that we know.

This distinction is very good for the way my mind works. By giving myself “permision” to accept that the fantastic needs no explanation, I free up all sorts of brain cells to focus on what I’m actually interested in.

Making the Most of My Time

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If Chapter After Chapter (a book I’ve been reading) has a major flaw it is the author’s assumption that if writing a book is really important to you, it should consume your life, your thoughts, all your creative energy.

This is how you will be able to write a book.

She says that those who think you can fit writing a book around the edges of a full life either have never tried or are very good at compartmentalizing.

I don’t think I’m that great at compartmentalizing (in fact, I think this is what makes me an imaginative writer), but my whole life, it seems, I’ve always loved doing more than one thing.

As a result I’ve always been bouncing from one love to another, eager to visit the next thing but always expecting to return, and (this is the important part) preparing before I leave for that return.

My best example of this is of my quilting or beading. Each of my projects (I have several in each “genre”) is at a different stage, and if the mood struck me (ouch!) I could walk across the hall and pick any one of them up with nothing more than a flat clear surface.

Setting aside for the moment that flat surfaces rarely remain clear in my home, this is how I organize. I still don’t have a system for keeping my home clean (working on that) but I have a system to indulge the way I know my creativity works.

This is why getting my novel organized tonight was so exciting to me.

Because of this stretch of work, I can now sit down in those spare half-hours when all three kids are playing nicely (and I’m ignoring those un-clear flat surfaces) to do whichever type of writing I’m interested in at that moment.

And the neat thing is that this one project is big enough that (at least for now) I can conclude/revise/create from scratch some section, all without starting something new.

This was my habit with quilts. I have 4 or 5 at various stages of completion.

In my own defense I also have a good half-dozen I’ve finished.

I am far too sensible (or, at least, have too many loves) to allow writing this book to consume the majority of my time, but the book is important enough to me that I do keep writing, in the “edges” I can find.

So… is this compartmentalizing?

Spending Time to Save Time

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Well, I’m hoping that my latest “organizing” work has functioned as time-saving rather than writing-avoidance.

Actually, I’m quite tickled. (There’s another word I wonder if anyone else uses.)

I’ve gone through my story, and while I haven’t outlined subplots or motivations (beyond a shadow), I have gotten from beginning to end.

As a result I now have four categories (and assignments) for my manuscript/writing-time:

  • Started (Finish.)
  • Finished (Edit.)
  • Changed (Revise.)
  • Need (Write.)

There are 6-15 “headlines” under each.

In everything I do, this has always been my challenge: finding the next-step. Looking at the mess that is my bedroom and saying, “What do I do now?”

I now have two pieces of paper hanging from the shelf next to my writing desk, one with all the headlines in order, and one with them grouped as writing prompts within their category.

I’m looking forward to my next noveling corner. :oD

Novel to-do list and update

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I find that putting things on paper helps me focus my efforts. Chrisd, whom I met during NaNo has been nudging me to think more about my novel, and we’ve been exchanging plot points and revealing spoilers in an effort to create a pair of coherent narratives.

My initial plan for working with my NaNo novel, and, come to that, my original idea for the novel have all evolved to my current place which actually involves my first edit, even before the story is completely written down.

Three months ago I would have called this unwise, but today, as I told Chris, it seems merely practical. I’ve never worked with a 95-page (single-spaced!) manuscript before, and since I’ve already cut seven pages (written early in the month before my vision had evolved very far), I decided to learn now what is worth keeping.

The image I presented to Chris was that of wanting to unpack before I started buying things for my new house.

In this way I won’t waste time writing transitions or making elements fit that are no longer important.

Did I mention here my husband read the manuscript last weekend?

He gave me some good things to think about, like the need to add some description to slow things down a little.

I was hauling all through November and it reads that way, so now I need to marble my stake a little.

Though, to pull that meat analogy just a bit further, I’m not sure how much I will add. I’ve always preferred moose to beef– there seems to be less waste. Moose is much more accessible too. You just go to the freezer and pull as much as you want– zero mulling over whether one can afford good cuts of meat.

Okay, enough with the Alaskan metaphors.

My other organizing project is to re-frame an outline with my new vision of conflict etc. I think this will help with the editing project and staying focussed on where I want to go.

*This concludes my self-serving announcement. I now retun you to the regularly scheduled program of whatever else I feel like writing.*

Practice as Service

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Writing to this blog does take time that could be spent on other, theoretically, productive things, and I have occasionally returned to the question of whether maintaining this site, basically for my own entertainment, it worth that time.

With all my commitments and desires and interests, everything I do continually comes back under scrutiny.

I look at things over and over again, determining why they’re in my life, and whether they are performing their intended function (it’s really easy to throw away magazines in this mood).

Several times this week I’ve used the analogy of a musician practicing scales, when I try to explain my writing, or why I write.

In themselves scales are not particularly beautiful music, and doing them isn’t even for anyone but the musician. But it is those daily exercises that provide the necessary familiarity with the instrument that enables him/her to be an accomplished musician.

My writing may, as I say, be solely for my own entertainment, but everything I do is honing my craft, and preparing me for my next piece.

I no longer question if this writing has value, because I am convinced it does.

Doubtless it was hours and days of David’s “diddly-dorking around” with a sling and stones that prepared him first for the lion and the bear, and ultimately for Goliath.

Practice is a form of faithful service.

It assumes that there is something worth preparing for (a word in season, for example), and rises to that call.

I’ve been writing stories for a long time…

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Here are a few tags I thought might sound interesting. I’ve been cruising through old files tonight (yes, avoiding my current novel– telling myself I’m too distracted/tired to work on it just now…)

Oh, help! Marika thought desperately. Will no one rescue me?

She huddled absurdly under her bed in the darkness, she, nearly 13, and almost too big to fit. She’d played at this game before. The memory seemed obscene now.

She’d played at losing her parents and being alone in the house when robbers came– just for the safely contained thrill of fear.

And now it was coming true. She stuffed the fabric of her skirt into her mouth to muffle the choking sobs. She was not a coward, but this was too much for her.

The snuffling sounds of dogs came into the large bedchamber, and Marika wished she could faint, certain she’d be quieter if unconscious.

~ ~ ~

Then this, like my current work, is from a fairytale:

Two young men, born on the same day into very different families and circumstances, both expect to marry the same young woman.

It just so happens the girl they both want is under a curse from a slighted fairy (aren’t all the good ones?), and because of that something bad will happen if she ever is touched by the light of day. She just doesn’t know what.

Only because she doesn’t have the advantage of having read the title of the story, of course. It’s from The Orange Fairy Book, if I remember correctly, and is called The White Doe.

~ ~ ~ Continue reading »

The Reading List has Changed Again

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And I won’t inflict this one on you, because it’s far too long.

A book review over at Writer…Interrupted prompted me to buy the book. It is a sequel, and I enjoyed the style of the original.

(And Jay was buying himself a camera, so you could call it a kickback.)

Like the review said, this author recommends reading 100 works in your genre/field (source/inspiration works are allowed to be counted) before you begin.

She acknowledges you are not likely to be able to finish all 100 before you are impelled to begin your own work, but to continue hammering away until you know your niche cold.

So I started making a list of all the books I have, and have loved, and have drawn from (my folktale collections, for example), that are related to what I’m writing (Novelized fairy/folk-tale/YA fantasy).

Then I added the books I’d read that I hadn’t liked, and new books from authors I’d read only one book from, where the additional works were of the same pocket. I am currently at 67 titles.

This is somehow a surprise to me (to come in so far under the mark).

If anyone has some suggestions to round out my list, I’m open to hearing them.

So far I have more than one work (some read, some to read) on the list from Robin McKinley, Jo Napoli, Shannon Hale, Jeri Massi, Cornelia Funke, P.B. Kerr, and Gail Levine and Patricia Wrede. I also have J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullman, but I think I added them for padding because I was trying to make count.

Pullman (I only got through the first 1 ½-2 of his Dark Materials set) was one of those on my list I don’t recomend, but was probably worth reading as a genre guide.

The first genre-specific reading I’ve started for this marathon (and I already am hooked) is The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope.

This was a natural beginning, as I’m mentioned many times before that I adore her Perilous Gard. This was the only other book she wrote, and that nearly 20-years before.

Gives me a bit of perspective, certainly.

Changing Habits

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From Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, originally published 1934.

Old habits are strong and jealous. They will not be displaced easily if they get any warning that such plans are afoot; they will fight for their existence with subtlety and persuasiveness.

If they are too radically attacked they will revenge themselves; you will find, after a day or two of extraordinarily virtuous effort, all sorts of reasons why the new method is not good for you, why you should alter it in line with this or that old habit, or actually abandon it entirely.

In the end you will have had no good from the new advice; but you will almost certainly feel you have given it a fair trial and it has failed.

Your mistake will have been that you tired yourself out and exhausted your good intentions before you had a chance to see whether or not the program was the right one for you.

This resonated with me– as few “motivational” essays or calls for “visualization” have:

This is not a plea to abandon the will. There will be times and occasions when only the whole weight of the will brought to bear on the matter in hand will prove effective.

But the imagination plays a far greater role in our lives than we customarily acknowledge, though any teacher can tell you how great an advocate the imagination is when a child is to be led into a changed course.

Juggling Villains

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My current problem with organizing my story is that I have two villains. And they are by no means equal. There is this hope, once the protagonist vanquishes the larger foe, that the lesser one will hold no more terror.

What is a Lizard compared with a stallion?

But this would then mean the terrifically poetic ending I have found for the lesser would be something like overkill.

~ ~ ~

I think there is a tendency in some genres to consider lesser foes as nothing, once larger obstacles (or evils) have been overcome… but this isn’t very true-to-life, is it?

Unless one was very confused or dishonest to begin with, a mere revelation or lucky streak at the climax isn’t going to remove previously insurmountable difficulties.

Writing is good for me. I’m beginning to know what to do with this.

~ ~ ~

(And on a side note, I may be posting less than in the last month or two– I’ve been doing nearly daily posts– as I knuckle down to ironing this project. I have a real opportunity coming up in September, and I think I’d be a poor steward if I didn’t do what I can to make the most of it.)

Just put me in Bloglines or something, if you’re afraid of wasting your time. I thought I was going to swear off blogging in November too– and it’s obvious that didn’t happen.

What I’ve Learned in a Year of Blogging (pt. 2)

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Some highlights (October 2006 to January 2007):