Writing and publishing will be all rolled into one for this one and I am not taking criticism. 😙 I will freely admit that writing is doing a much better job of being diverse than tradpub which is part of the problem because producing all those amazing things means nothing if tradpub ignores them wholesale. 🤷♂️
Writing and books are advertised as being a choice, wide range, a free-for all. Anything goes! You just have to do it well. (And with enough practice that is a given, right?!?) (Who decides what well even is?!? 🤨)
Well, here I go. I have written a thing and also, I like reading a thing or maybe even two thing if spoons. I am very picky where my reading is concerned. This may tie into the overall issue depicted here. (I say “may” but really, I am certain it does.)
But that’s fine. I finally found my people – writers, some of them even published. And I finally get access to The Writing. And it’s like, let’s go to the fruit market!
Yay! 🥳
We go. We arrive. And every stall I see sells apples. Like, different kinds, sour, sweet, crunchy, gnarly. There’s absolutely every kind of apple you can imagine. Some are suspiciously close to pears and one looks like it’d rather be a peach.
So I wonder, where are the other fruits? Mangoes anyone? Blueberries, please? And I get those looks of incomprehension.
– Like, we’re at a fruit market.
– Yes, yes, we are, so where are the fruits?
– Look around. It’s all fruit.
– Yes, but it is all the same kind of fruit.
– It is all fruit!
And then there is this horrible dawning of maybe the “all” doesn’t mean everything in this place is fruit, but these are all the different fruits there are. This is it. You want fruit? You better like apple.
And so I stand there, clutching my raspberries to my heart until they squish because I will never have apples.
Also, I would like some non-apples to read please.
When I got Craft in the Real World (CitRW) by Matthew Salesses, I did with reservations. I have received a lot of craft advice in my life and have developed a raging rage against most of it. I have shown my whole ass ripping advice from Stephen King to shreds because, how dare?
I never found the words to express why craft advice was making me so angry. I pinned a part on it being prescriptive. One shoe doesn’t fit all, that much I knew. I just didn’t know how to argue for more diverse shoes because everybody was so set on having white sneakers.
I settled on “everything does something, you just have to decide if it is a something you want.”
A valiant attempt but falling short in so many ways. And I didn’t know how to catch the pieces and make them make sense. It was obvious to me. Why could others not see it?
Reading CitRW is like trying to chip a lion out your block of marble for years only to learn that the advice on how to do this was geared at people working clay.
The Surprise – I though I was just too stupid/bad at it/ incapable.
The Relief – I can still do this! There is a way and I am not all lost/wrong.
The Pain – Why did I try to apply the wrong approach for so long?
The ANGER – Why did nobody tell me this was wrong for me? Why did everybody insist on it being helpful and THE ONLY RIGHT WAY when it is clearly NOT? Why did I suffer through so much perceived failure and the inability to streamline my words and still keep them meaningful?
The realisation that, surrounded by white, mostly allo cishet people – who is there to notice we’re trapped in an ideology of our almost-peers making? White male supremacy is so insidious, we don’t see all its tentacles groping through our lives.
Craft advice with a clear ideology and target audience took a life of its own, pretended that it had no ideology, and was falsely accepted as a neutral thing. Just like not using Deus Ex Machina prevails in western literature because Aristotle didn’t like it and we just took his word for it being bad.
So I just took the word of other white people. I did not reflect on where they got those ideas from. I did not reflect on what the written said about who it was from and who it was for. After all, isn’t SFF a free for all? Shouldn’t the place of magic and spaceships be free from preconceptions?
I guess it should.
Doesn’t mean the readers are free of those. Readers have expectations. And those are learnt as much as writing to meet them is. And the small number of women heroines in SFF only mirrored it’s predominantly male audience, right?
The first five pages of CitRW taught me more about craft then everything else up to that point. The whole book has changed my world. Not the way I write, but how I think about it, how I judge the framework it comes from and the framework I want it to go into.
CitRW also changed the way I beta and CP. I now understand why things work for me better. I can rattle at my perception to better see where the work comes from and how that influences the way it was written. I can start to see your craft and with it your privilege – or lack thereof.
I don’t think my writing has become more palatable to an implied “general audience”. But now I know why and I can consciously think on whether I do want to change things up for them or if I want to stick with a craft that speaks to my desired audience. (My desired audience, quite shockingly, is not middle aged, able bodies allo chishet white men of fair income.)
Also, I am petty and angry. If I had to read stories for them for most of my life, it’s time for payback and for them to read stories for me for a change. If I find enough to identify with an identity so far from mine, so can you.
And, just so you know, I will judge you on your PERCEPTION of craft.
Rows and rows of headstones, I painted a grey night without stars. Maybe if you had graveyards here, this is what it would look like. Paint a moon on your sky and clouds. Gnarly-fingered trees are reaching.
It is not a well-kept place. Stones are broken and fallen. Dry leaves on the ground for the noise it makes to walk on them. The iconography of horror means nothing here. And yet I can touch the heavy taste of the air closing in. How can I read all the tombstones when it is so dark?
Because I know what they say. There is my name on all of them, each single one: me, me, me. There lies the girl that dreamt of growing up normal. Sometimes I can still hear her whisper dreams in my head.
The lies the woman that dreamt of fortune and fame and acclaim. Her words are buried beside her. In the darkest nights, the ground still moves. The headstone of the sweet one has fallen over just as easily as the dreams of marrying the first love and settling down with kids and a dog.
I am not a dog person. I am even less of a kids person. That one is forgotten, a wisp of smoke indistinguishable from the clouds. The list goes on and on. There have been so many of me.
This is what you don’t see: it is all of us.
When I see you, I know there is a graveyard like this behind your eyes. We buried many people to be where we are today. We do not talk about the dead. They haunt us. They shine through our eyes and we cannot help it.
They say the dead don’t return for an encore and it is a lie. We live them every day. It’s okay. I will not tell on the small bodies in your backyard. Knowing who you left behind makes a strong case. I will hear you out.
Beginnings are the bane of authors, it seems. They have to be Just Right™ or they will get your manuscript rejected. Or so the story goes.
Ngl, I hate it here. There’s few things I love writing as much as beginnings. It’s an enchanted moment, sacred, when I get to dip a new reader into my worlds. Yes, sometimes it is fun to dunk them head-first into the sea of sparkle but usually I want them to feel the same sense of wonder I did when I found/created/explored this world.
For me, starting a book is like opening a door. And there are few times when I want to topple and drown immediately after. Or duck out of the line of fire. I want a sense of my surroundings first. And yes, sometimes diving into the sea of glitter is great. Also, it gets boring after a while.
By now I know beginnings, how they are supposed to look and work and I hate it. Like actively NOPE. It is customary to start with some small action, something to set the scene while drawing the reader right in and also, get the plot rolling.
The number of books I start where I know that whatever the protag is about to embark on will fail is atrocious. I do not want to see my protgas fail. Truth be told, I absolutely LOVE it when the first thing goes right and that is the reason the rest of the book goes down. Chef’s kiss.
Feel free to send me SFF recs that do this. 🥺
There are lists of ways how you do NOT start a book. I read them and I shake my head because, nope, I see nothing wrong there. I like beginnings that start with somebody coming to or running away. It complements my feeling of stepping into a new world. I can slip into it slowly and get to know its wonders.
I also like people running, because usually they run away from something which can tell you so much. 🥺
So, what am I supposed to do? Action.
And yes, many people interpret that as ACTION!action. Like, shooting, fighting, explosions. I find that dull and distracting. I don’t care about any of this yet. Yes, you can signal clearly who the correct side to root for is. No, it won’t work because I’m naturally suspicious about it.
If you wonder why I will not believe you, please confer with my Show vs Tell blog post.
What do I consider successful beginnings? (Not considering prologues here)
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie. Two people ride into a city. Impending doom has not happened yet.
The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah. A magic merchant and her companion complete a deal and everything goes well.
Cambion’s Law by Erin Fulmer – The protag outs herself as half-demon getting coffee and goes for a jog where she stumbles over the plot.
Finna by Nino Cipri – The protag arrives at work to cover a shift and hates every second of it.
The prologue of Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is the kind of beginning I mean. It starts, there’s fighting. Do I care? Nope. To this day I am very sorry for the poor Hunduns. 🤷♂️
No really, please think of the poor Hunduns
I think what is important for me in a beginning is to get a feeling of my new friends, their world and the story I can expect ahead. If you start with fighting, that’s what I will expect: fighting. If you start with characters, I will expect character development on the grounds of things happening. If you have a lot of descriptions (side-eyeing you, Gideon the Ninth) I expect many more descriptions.
Personally, I want to go gently into my new world. I want to get invested. And if I am getting dunked in a sea of glitter, I at least want to know that the details of this romp are irrelevant for what is coming.
So, what does a pantser like me do once they finished their first draft?
Well, after typing “The End” I bundle it up an yeet it at agents, naturally. Joking. I only yeet it at agents I have beef with. OK, still joking.
How does post-production look like?
Well, my first draft usually is the first version of the finished book. Sava had 70k in her first draft and got beefed to 96k in post because descriptions are just not a thing I do.
Horny WIP finished at 77k. It’s contemporary, so I hope I don’t have to add that much description.
Anyway, step one: letting the manuscript sleep. (I am SO bad at this and may skip it even.) At least 4 weeks of not touching it. I hope to forget a few things that I just know during that time and realise I forgot to put them on paper when I re-read.
The next step is soft edits. I already wrote the best version of the book I know how to. So at this point I just tweak small things. Put in some foreshadowing or weaving in things and characters that I came up with later.
I try to make notes about what needs to be done later while I write instead of going back and doing it right then. That way, I will remember later and it’s not disturbing my flow.
For Salma, this will be pointing out her autistic traits. I’m not going to make a big issue of it, but she’ll get her stimming and stuff. Not to mention that her LI gets her at first sight and helps her cope however he can.
Salma also needs some nice trauma. Not sure where to go with that except maybe undiagnosed autism in the real world. But CPs are part of post production and they do amazing work. (ILYSM 😭) This is where my manuscript goes after I edited out all mistakes I could find and put in all things I have to retroactively.
Then I sit on my hands and chew on my nails until the feedback rolls in.
Honestly, CPs are the best thing that can happen to a writer. I love mine with the ferocity of a million suns. They are willing to put in some work for quid in return and I am just so happy and grateful to know them. 🥺
Then I read the feedback, throw a few hissy fits and take some time to cool down again. I need time to digest feedback and hammer home the point that it is meant to help me and not an insult. (Note to self: feedback is really, really I helpful and in no way an insult.)
At this point a skill authors are not always told about becomes relevant: parsing the feedback. It is on ME to know who my target audience is and what my vision for the story is. On those grounds I have to decide whether feedback I get is helpful or not.
Ngl, it’s difficult in the beginning. What do I want?!? It’s also difficult when it comes form people you perceive to be further along/better with authoring than you are. Soul-searching commences and the horrible question of who I want to be as an author.
The realisation that who I want to be may not be (at all) what is sellable, doesn’t help. I cried so many times thinking about how my ideas and style and pace and voice are not, in combination, a thing that is likely to sell. 😭
Back to post-production. After realising what the vision of the manuscript is, I apply the feedback. I will always apply “descriptions needed here” feedback, because I know I don’t do descriptions. The rest I will compare with my vision for the character arc, the setting, the emotional oomph I want and apply accordingly.
Note: I take into account hints that things don’t work more than offered solutions. Things not working is usually on me. But then, so are the solution because it is my vision. If the suggestions align with my vision? All the better.
When all that is done, it is time for another editing pass. This is where I read my manuscript aloud to myself, even if I did that already for the soft edits. Reading out loud was The Horror™. I don’t like my voice. I really do not. But reading out loud makes me catch all the spelling mistakes and the bits where the prose doesn’t flow. Mind you, this is from my little nd perspective. My flow might be way off your flow. I LOVE my filler words because of the ensuing cadence. Priorities may differ.
After this I write my synopsis. Yes, this late. Maybe the synopsis-writing-demons possessed me before this, but usually they do not. So this is when I sit down and write the synopsis. I start by telling the plot as if I was telling it to another person. Then I condense and clarify. I aim for a synopsis of 2 pages double-spaced. That is also 1 page single-spaced. I just pray I don’t wanna sub to a place with 1 page double-spaced again. 🤷♀️
I also write my query. It is pain. It is crying on the floor. It is bad when it is finished. But at least I have a thing to throw at my writing community. And this, I cannot stress it enough, is where you you will find all the help and support you need. (Note: you also have to give back whenever you can however much you can.)
When all this is done, I try to give the manuscript another sleep (difficult because I am IMPATIENT bint) and polish everything once more. Maybe ask for help once more. (ngl 100% the hardest part of writing for me is asking for help.)
And that’s it. Now I yeet at agents for real.
Post-Post-Production:
The inevitable tweaks that accumulate during querying because you have the nagging feeling there is something fundamentally wrong with your manuscript. 🤷♂️
I think we have all come across it. I think we have all written it. There’s exercises in writing only dialogue to make it stronger. There’s also plays but those are a different bunny entirely. I am not talking about plays here.
I must admit that I didn’t always notice free floating dialogue (FFD). My background is in fanfic where you can write as you please and it pleases a surprising (?) number of people to have FFD. I never thought to take note because as long as I am not losing sight of who says what, I’m good.
In a recent workshop, I commented on the phenomenon.
Why?
Because I have now been trained to notice and avoid it. (It doesn’t always work, ok?) And while I typed out my comment that the dialogue was rather free floating I started wondering why commented on that? Why did I take the time to comment? Because I don’t care. I only noticed because I trained to notice.
In the workshop the subject came up with my dialogue as well. (What did I say above? 😭?) The explanation was also a good one. It is like a camera in a stationary close up. Nothing moves, nothing happens! Just talking faces!!!
Have you seen the music video for Proof by I am Kloot? Because it is just that (with the extremely ogleable face of Christopher Eccleston, too!). You get to see his face for three minutes straight. Nothing happens. Well, almost. In the end, he smiles. And boy, does that have an impact.
FFD is similar for me. The scope is a little bigger – face and shoulders (for the Shrugging™). And that is all I need really. People have expressions. And there is nothing to distract from this intense and intimate observation of two (or more) people lost in conversation. The smallest gestures carry weight and meaning. (Think of the hand-brushing in period dramas).
To you this may be heads floating in space. To me this is the experience of pure conversation, undistracted and served on the silver platter of (hyper)focus.
I don’t want to be grounded in the bloody world. I want to be grounded in the dialogue!
I do not want to hear about sunshine reflecting somewhere or the sound of feet going by or the scent of lost love wafting on a gentle breeze. Those are all intruders on a perfect conversation. Take those distractions away and let me focus on what is important here.
But Mel, what if I need the surrounds for the dialogue to work for me? That, my friend, sounds like a you-problem. And one you don’t have to worry about because we’re currently all being trained to write like that.
I have said it for some time now, and I’ll say it again: I do not care if stories make logical sense. I want them to make emotional sense. Reading Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses makes want to write so many essays that I might as well start here. (His words make a lot of things click into place and make sense after simmering in a soup of useless craft advice for decades. Meta-language and recognition are important.)
The assumption is that stories make sense. The assumption is that this sense is logical (aka adheres to the laws to logic, time, and space) and develops inevitably from the actions and events in the story. The assumption is that I care about a logically infallible structure.
I do not.
I care about characters and their emotional journeys. I want to see them develop and grow into being more themself. I want to see their connections with other characters and how that moves them and , by proxy, the world.
Logic has little to do with that. (Like with wisdom, logic is the beginning of storytelling, not the end…)
Now I have to understand that an emotionally satisfying arc is many different things to many different people. And most of those people are not like me and want something else than I do. Valid.
On the other hand I have always known there is also people like me. Who want the same arc as me, who will bloody well write it if needs be. (Yes, yes I am talking fanfic here, the one place I got what I wanted for the longest time.)
So, if it existed, and people wanted it – why was it not in publishing?
I think there are many answers and most tie back in to what is considered Good Craft and how it perpetuates itself with little regard of anything outside it’s narrow cone. We learn how to correctly read a story early on and are taught by reverse conclusion, the right way to tell a story. If it doesn’t resonate with me, that has to be an me-problem, yes?
It is not.
The wrong preconception is that to be good, a story must mirror the world and it’s laws as we know them. The idea that only thorough research and a carefully and completely logically knit net of world-building will make a story palatable. We talk about stories making sense in-universe.
We keep forgetting that sometimes it does make sense in-universe that the laws of physics bend to the needs of the emotional character arcs.
Think of the dance scene in the first episode of The Umbrella Academy where they all dance on their own in this big empty house. Does it make logical sense? No. Is it likely? Also no.
But is makes emotional sense and tells a story on a level I crave. Characters. Who they are and how they relate. And how, by wanting to act on and change those relationships, they change the world.
Another great example is Our Flag Means Death which follows this doctrine to the T.
Everything, and that includes absolutely everything, is secondary to the emotional character arcs. Time and space may exist, but in case of doubt, they have no power. The ocean can be navigated in a rowboat with nothing but the clothes on your back and a gaydar to find your destination.
What I really love about it is how nobody even questions it. Take a rowboat to the Republic of Pirates? No biggie. Invitation to a party on a boat? In the middle of the ocean? So what? We will find it no problem.
This holds true until the very end where Stede just boards his own rowboat and finds his crew stranded on a tiny island which could be anywhere. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Also no.
But once again, it makes sense emotionally. The story is making very different promises to its audience and we understand them. (And in this case, trust them. It’s the reason nobody actually believes Lucius is dead. Why we a certain that little piece of red silk will find its way back to Ed.)
For once I look at a piece of media and see my own ideas of story logic mirrored there.
I understand that this method is more hit-and-miss finding its readers than copying the laws of logic. IMO, it is also a lot more rewarding when it hits home.
There seems to be a fundamental difference in how I write stories and how many people think I should write them.
There is much to say about immersion and forgetting that you are reading a story. I get that. I think where things drift apart is how one can achieve this.
I am always very aware that I am writing a story and that on the other end, in the best possible scenario, is a person who reads that story. My job is to make this experience as enjoyable and accessible as possible.
It may not be transactional per se, but it is intentional.
So the question is, do I write from the head of the character or for the head of the reader?
I understand that while people in my fantasy world may not know what a “Tuesday” is, my reader will. And I am certain the people in my fantasy world have names for their days which, if I wanted everybody involved to do that work, I could use.
There is the discussion of “translating” from the secondary world. And if I go hardline on this, the probability that any secondary world uses English is zero. There is always the component of implicitly knowing that. Even if it’s just, let’s say a movie set in the little German village of Großheubach because why not. Even if the movie is produced completely in English there is the understanding that, in reality the people there would be speaking German.
Having them actually do that would work counter to the target audience of English-speaking people. And yet, I do not see the “translation” being an issue here. A Tuesday will be a Tuesday even if it is a Dienstag and people will be herding cats instead of “babysitting a bag of fleas.”
It is understood.
Yet, when I apply this to my fantasy, it is wrong and too much of a stretch? Like, yeah maybe my knight doesn’t know what a disco-ball is but there is certainly an in-world expression of saying his new armour is ridiculously shiny. One we may not get.
Here we get back to me writing for the person who reads it. I want them to know what the connotations are without having to work for it. That means liberally using all the contemporary language I have at my disposal.
(Discourse: But Mel, won’t that date you book? Yes, yes it will, and I am sure historians of the future will thank me for it. Next question.)
I understand that this is not a thing that works for everybody. But it works. And I will take an easily accessible, understandable, if modern turn of phrase over having to read half a page of background to get the in-world expression substituting for Tuesdays.
I think it is a great way to connect to others. Unfortunately, I am not great at doing that so I do not get as much from this as you could.
I like the idea to have a workshop in person I’ll never be able to afford it, though. I coasted on enough money for the online version by pure luck.
Your brain is with you all the time. If your group tells you your writing is doing okay, it is up to you to make your brainsoup believe it. *kicks soup with a ten foot toad*
There is no guarantee you will get to work with the faculty you ogled (respectfully).
I do not regret a single thing or buck. I always regret things I didn’t do more, so this is fine. I know now and certainty can’t be outweighed in gold. (Maybe in offers for my ms, but who’d ever do that?!?)
Would I have fallen apart if I had gotten to work with my top choice? For sure. But I learnt how to function while in pieces. One thing nd life has taught me. By now it is more awkward for those around me. I made my peace with it. I would have worked through it. It would have been one “what if” less on my plate.
Am I still sad I didn’t get to work with my top choice? You betcha. I would have loved nothing more than to know what they think of my pages.
On the other hand, I will soon-ish finish my Horny WIP and then I can go back to Sava 2. Once I finish that, nothing can keep me from thrusting it at all agents ever again. SHRUG EMOJI
I have definitely learned A Thing or maybe even 2 Thing. It helps to know that I can chill out and just keep writing my stories and yeet them at agents. The stories I want told and the style I want them told it may never make it over the gates of tradpub. It feels like a necessary step at the moment though. A thing that needs to be done unless I want to add to the Regret Eternal pile.
May I be granted the strength and resources to self-pub one day.
And this is it from me on Futurescapes 2022. Please remember this is a very subjective experience and your mileage will vary. I’m just a smol angy nd flipping over in their hamster wheel.
