Inkpunks

I live with a character flaw that I cope with on a daily basis. It drags me down, sometimes to the edge of despair, like a lead weight tied around my waist. I know I’m not alone; most of my writers friends suffer from the same ailment. There is solidarity in our struggle — an empathy that we share — when we try to express ourselves as artists. Is this work we create the best that we can do? Is it good enough to share with the world? Would it be better hidden away from sight, or worse, abandoned before it’s complete?

Self-doubt: a potentially crippling shortcoming, if we allow the space to breath.

Boiled down, self-doubt is fear. That fear is different for everyone, for different reasons. For me, this is a fear of failing, of mediocrity, of disappointment. These anxieties press me every time I sit down to write words that I intend to publish, crushing me, stealing away my breath as easily as it does my confidence, and replacing it with something bitter and cruel.

I know there is a way. Through dark clouds I have seen glimpses of hope. Signs and portents, showing me what must be done so I soldier forward, one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. In the words of a very wise character, “Just keep swimming.”

Writing for yourself — the stories you would want to read —  is like cutting open a vein and bleeding onto the page. It can produce the most brilliant stories but it also opens us to rejection that feels too personal, too painful, like being rejected as a person. That’s not true, of course, but tell that to our monkey brain flooding us with the feels.

Rationalization only goes so far. I’ve heard and made the arguments. “They’re not rejecting me, they’re rejecting the story.” Absolutely true, but that doesn’t make that mountain any easier to climb. So what is there to do?

Every fear has a talisman that can destroy it. I used to think writer’s block didn’t exist because, hey, my journals are filled with words. The blocks manifest themselves in different ways, though. Figuring out your fear is just the first step.

I’ve been slogging through my first serious attempt at a novel since late 2010, when I wrote the first twenty-five thousand words and came to a screeching halt when I realized that the story was broken. I had the barest idea of what it’s structure was and what I saw in my head felt flat when I put the words on the page.

I’d worked myself up into a tightly wound ball of nerves, trying to make every word pack a punch. I wrote with an economy of words, carefully chosen, to be near perfect on the first draft. That crutch worked for short stories but I fell flat on my face in the long form.

There are tricks, once you realize what is standing in your way, of getting past the block. Simple things that seem so obvious when you realize them. Everyone’s heard Steinbeck’s famous mantra, “The first draft is always shit.” I mimicked the words but I didn’t believe it applied to me. I didn’t have what it takes, I thought, if I couldn’t get it right on the first try.

I had to figure out a deeper truth. The most important thing to writing a first draft is to get the ideas onto the page. Like working with clay, you have to start with a rough form before you can shape it into something beautiful. Revision is the potters wheel, spinning and spinning until the prose sings a song that brings tears to our eyes.

Now, I write almost every day. I tackle each challenge as it comes along, tracking my daily success and failures in a spreadsheet, using an egg timer in fifteen minute increments to push myself to write when I feel like there simply isn’t enough time in the day. Forty thousand words later, anytime I feel like I just can’t do it, I’m just not good enough, I take an honest look at myself to figure out where the doubt is coming from so I can work through it. One word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time.

Continue reading

Last year at a writer’s retreat a late-night talk with a friend turned to the the subject of authenticity, and the struggles inherent in creativity and learning our craft. She shared with me a lesson that I was only beginning to understand on my own, advice that she had been given by one of her Clarion instructors: She could keep writing what she was writing, the instructor said, and she would be a perfectly good writer. And that was fine, if good was what she wanted to be. But if she wanted to be great, she needed to start writing what was real, what mattered to her. And if she did, if she could be that brave, there would be no stopping her.

I remember the first time I put something real in a story. It was the smell of my ex-boyfriend’s leather jacket, the way it smelled at 2:00 a.m. on a park bench in a seaside college town as we watched a Jerusalem cricket slowly amble by in the sodium glow of the streetlight. I don’t remember which story it went into–something trunked long ago, I’m sure. But I remember how embarrassed I was as I wrote the words, writing this real thing that had actually happened, this moment that existed in time and perhaps in someone else’s memory, too. I felt exposed, and like I might be misunderstood–like someone might find out, and then think that the rest of the story was about that ex-boyfriend, or that time. It wasn’t–I just needed that smell, and that’s where I found it in my memory.

That was the first time I understood the phrase “write what you know” to mean something other than what I had previously thought it meant. I had only scratched the surface in that moment, and it still terrified me.

The second time I wrote something real, I hid it deep inside another story. I took the end result of an unhappy relationship and hid it in the story of two other people I made up, in a situation that bore no resemblance to mine, but had the same outcome. I was getting closer, I could tell by the personal rejections and the several times it was held for second looks, but it still wasn’t good enough. Today I wonder whether it failed because I hid what was real too deep for authenticity. Readers are smart that way.

A couple more years of collecting rejections and eventually I was able to dig a little deeper, peer into my own heart and see what mattered to me. It will probably surprise no one to learn that what I found there were books.

When I was a kid I had this set of books of fairy tales from the 1920s that my grandmother had given me. I read the stories in them over and over: “Gigi and the Magic Ring.” “The Girl Who Used Her Wits.” “The Romance of Hine Moa.” “Miska and the Man-With-the-Iron-Head.” “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon.” I escaped into those stories and wished I could stay there. I wanted Gigi’s ring, and Seven-League boots, and to be friends with the fairy whose hair became a waterfall. What if I could? What if I were a character from a fairy tale, and those people were my friends, living in the shared world of that book?

My first sale came from writing about those books and my childhood wish to be part of them, and how those fairy tales had written their language into me through endless rereading. It was a little abstract, maybe–just a feeling and a childhood daydream, paired with the existence of a set of books, but it was real. It mattered to me, and I guess it showed.

A year later I drew on what I knew about being a kid with a dying parent and a lot of questions, observing very early that life is not fucking fair, and having the platitudes of my elders offer no answers and bring me no peace. “The Three Feats of Agani” was a difficult story to write from a technical perspective, but I felt like I was on to something (though I wasn’t quite sure what) and that feeling was quickly validated when it sold.

Some time later I picked up Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones for the first time in years. I had never been comfortable with her suggested exercise of “filling the pages” with the memories of my life. My life makes me damned uncomfortable at times, and there are whole chunks of it I’m nowhere close to ready to revisit. But I decided to try it. One session produced a page on why I had declined to view my mother’s body after she died. That page became a story, predictably called “My Mother’s Body,” and it, too, sold quickly, most of it exactly as I wrote it in my notebook originally. I am a notoriously slow writer–some stories have taken me years to finish. But I wrote that one in two sittings, and with very little revision. I almost felt like I had cheated.

I was starting to get it. When I wrote what was real, it wasn’t just truer–it was easier, and it was better.

There are layers to “what we know.” What you know may be the smell of a lemon grove, or the sounds in the vet’s office after your dog was hit by a car. It may be the stickiness of a Florida summer, or the way neon light reflects in puddles of spilled beer at midnight on Bourbon Street. Or what it’s like to be the child of a preacher, or the grandmother of a kid with special needs. Sometimes what you know are the details, and sometimes they’re the whole story. The stuff that you know is what makes a story authentic and convincing.

It’s hard at times to tap into that stuff, and it’s scary, not knowing what we might find. But I’m starting to understand that the stories I need to tell are the ones just waiting for me to ask the question. They just want me to put pen to paper and remember, and they’ll come. For all the years I’ve put in so far (10 and counting) I’m still only at the beginning of this journey. I need to continually ask myself:

What do I know?

What’s real to me?

And what do I want to be–good, or great?

Continue reading

Carrie Cuinn is an author, editor, bibliophile, modernist, and geek. You can find her work online at www.carriecuinn.com and follow her on Twitter @carriecuinn.

A week into the new year and for some of us, the shine is already wearing off. Sure, we have a slightly higher digit at the end of the date, but our good intentions and optimistic resolutions will quickly get subsumed by the list of stories we didn’t finish last year, or the notebooks full of ideas we didn’t get to. Last year was really only a week ago, and those things we didn’t do are still just over our shoulder.

It’s easy to see where we’ve failed. It’s the simplest thing in the world to look at our mistakes and not see all of our successes.

Instead of getting frustrated with ourselves, let’s toss 2012 aside for a day. Forget the half-written tales on your hard drive, or even that blog post you’ve been considering writing for the last month. Take a moment to breathe. This is a new year, a new day, a new moment to let the past go and focus on what’s good about the now. The best way to do that is to write something new.

What I mean is this: clear your head. Forget the ideas you came up with last year. Don’t open any of the stories you haven’t finished. Get a blank piece of paper or open a new .doc file. Write something.

No, it doesn’t matter what you write. Maybe you’ll do with something with it, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Don’t aim for a certain length, or a particular market. All you need to know going into it is that you’re going to write something down, and you’re going to finish it.

Write about what you did yesterday. Write down the conversation the two older ladies at the table next to you were having about their grandchildren. Write down that vivid dream you had the other night. Open a book to any page, pick one line, and write a story that makes sense of that line.

Wherever you get your inspiration from, keep it short, keep your plot simple, and make sure that the moment you’re putting into words concludes. Your character goes to sleep, the ladies finish their desert and pay the check (or don’t), or the goldfish giving you a walking tour of Paris has to leave for his date so you settle into a crêperie for a late dinner. It doesn’t matter how you end it as long as you can look at it and think, ‘yeah, that’s done’.

The point of all of this is that you can write. You’re a better writer now than you were at the start of 2012. You did learn from your mistakes. You got something out of all that unfinished work, you grew as a writer because of every one of those scribbled down ideas, even though they haven’t yet found a home. By taking a moment to write a new thing you are starting the year fresh.

It doesn’t matter if anyone ever sees this bit of writing. Save it, put aside for at least a month, and then if you like you can come back to it. By then you’ll have a better idea of if it’s worth editing. But the important part is that by doing this you’ll be able to start 2013 knowing that you’ve already finished a piece of writing. You will have concrete proof that you are a writer. That you haven’t been wasting your time. That you had this skill already, even if you sometimes forget.

I think I’m going to start every new year this way.

Continue reading

just write, new years, resolutions

So for the last couple of years, I’ve been putting my amateur mixology skills to use for the good of the Inkpunks. For their birthdays, each Inkpunk got a custom-crafted cocktail from me, along with a card and a recipe. It was a way for me to practice my skills, of course, but more than that, it was a way for me to express my deep affection for this group of gals and guys who have been the most excellent of friends and colleagues.

I wondered what sort of cocktail I might create for myself, but I have so many favorites to chose from among the old classics (Manhattans, Negronis, and Sazeracs, oh my!) that I just couldn’t find a way to improve on them. Well, as it turns out, I didn’t have to.

My birthday was last week, and the Inkpunks honored me with a creation of their own: The InkEasy. Developed by Wendy Wagner, and tested repeatedly on John Remy, the InkEasy is a hot toddy style of cocktail, perfect on a chilly winters’ day or when battling a cold. And it’s my new favorite drink.

I was completely overwhelmed, and that was before I had a couple. Thank you, dear Inkpunks, it is the perfect gift.

I don’t really have any writing advice this time, but I do have a wish for you: May you all find your own community to love and support you not only in your writing, but in all aspects of your life. Writing is such a solitary profession, but we all get by with a little help from our friends.

Cheers to you, and may your 2013 be full of dear friends.

The Inkpunks & Friends: Unveiling the Pinkhaven (Christie’s birthday cocktail)  at WFC 2011

Galen, John, and Erika at WHC 2011

Jaym, Sandra, Andy at WHC 2011

Adam toasts with Sake!

Carrie shares essential con provisions

Wendy and Sandra’s first drink together!

Andy enjoys his first Ink Easy

Continue reading

cheers, cocktails, drinkpunks

Photo courtesy of John Remy. No Inkpunks were harmed in the making of this fight scene.

I write violent fiction.

As a kid, I loved action movies and heroic fighting fantasy novels. I read The Iliad and The Odyssey when I was eleven and told my mom I preferred The Iliad because of the fight scenes. To this day, when I sit down to watch a movie, I will always choose the movie with the explosion on its poster over any other choice.

I am not an expert fighter and I have little real world experience facing real violence–that’s probably why I enjoy the canned stuff so much. When I think about my fixation with such grim things, I feel humbled and embarrassed. But when I write, my brain turns to my roots, and I write fight scenes. Lots of them. And they’re my favorite parts of the things I write.

These are the words I keep in mind for writing fight scenes that read fast and furious.

Cinematic.

A fight scene is no good unless you can play it in your head and see it like your favorite movie. This isn’t a real fight, where action is closely packed and it’s hard to tell what’s going on over the dust and swearing. Readers demand clarity. Every pronoun and direct object needs to be clear, signaling what’s happening to who and with what. There should be a clear visual experience to your fight scene and a good sense of momentum. As you write, keep in mind why the opponents are fighting, and let that color what’s happening. Like every scene you write, the conflict needs to be set up, supported and resolved–it’s like a tiny three act play spelled out in violence. Ever watch Rocky? Every fight is its own perfect scene, building hope and fear and a solid visual resolution.

Here’s the end of a boxing match in a project I’m working on:

Billy Ray staggered away, fighting to get his air back. For a moment, he looked like he would puke, but he managed to straighten up. Pure rage crossed his face. Rani heard Black’s voice in her ear, an echo of yesterday’s training: “Don’t ever fight angry. That’s not what the game’s about.”

No one had told Billy Ray this.

He charged Black, fists flailing. Black was ready. One fast straight punch to Billy Ray’s unprotected jaw and his head whipped back, his body arched backward, all of his momentum snapping back on him like a broken rubber band. He lifted right up off his toes, clearing the ground.

For one long moment his body hung in the air. Then he landed with a thud that shook the ropes on the ring.

Pure movie theater action. There’s time for Rani, an observer, to reflect on the fight and what she’s learned from her boxing instructor. That observation only underlines our low opinion of Billy Ray’s boxing abilities. As he is hit, there’s a clear focus–we see Billy Ray flying through the air as if a camera has zoomed in on it, and we’re not distracted by the presence of the referee or Black or the crowd. We focus on that moment and watch it play out until its final denouement when he lands. Take that, villainous boxer!

Emotional.

Just because a good boxer should stay unemotional doesn’t mean a good writer ought to. Your goal as a creator is to inspire an emotional response in your audience, to make them feel what your characters are feeling. Bring in tiny details that focus on your character’s deepest emotions and sensations.  A great example of this is a moment in the movie The Hunger Games. It’s a not exactly a fight, but it’s a great example of the use of small details within action. In a scene about halfway through the movie, Katniss is attempting to shoot a net bag full of apples, hoping to spill them and cause a small explosion. She shoots and makes only a small hole in the bag. Then she nocks an arrow for a second shot. The camera zooms in on the arrow, pulled back against her cheek. Her lips form a tiny ‘o’ as she exhales. It’s a very, very small moment, but it suddenly reminds us that she’s a very skilled archer taking this shot very seriously.

It’s also important to bring in elements of your character, little things that you’ve introduced at other points in the narrative, to tie your action into your character’s larger character arc. Fight scenes need to matter. There are a lot of movies that have fight scenes that make me yawn. They play out as brainless action, not matters of heart, and do nothing to advance the bigger story. The Hunger Games (both the book and the movie) does a great job using action scenes to advance character relationships. For example, in the film’s final fight scene, the last tribute antagonist, Cato, attacks Katniss and Peeta while they are sheltering from muttations. (There’s a lovely arc to this battle, BTW.) Cato grabs Peeta and holds a knife to his throat. Katniss has her bow ready, but can’t think of a way to shoot Cato without causing Peeta injury or death. But Peeta signals a perfect solution: to shoot Cato in the hand that’s gripping the knife at Peeta’s throat. An inch off, and Peeta will be killed. We’ve seen Peeta brag about Katniss’s shooting ability before. We’ve seen his ironclad belief in her. And now we see it at its unflinching strongest. It’s the perfect resolution to this scene, great action tying into real character relationships.

Enactable.

I wiggle when I read fight scenes. I catch myself moving around, internally blocking the fight choreography. If I can’t figure out how I’d perform an action, I have to go back and re-read and re-enact the moment. I’m angry if I can’t! I believe that every fight scene should be enact-able. Sure, not everyone can manage the super-heroics of your best fighter’s fights, but we should be able to figure out how we’d do it if we had that character’s abilities.

For this reason, I really believe in avoiding jargon as much as possible. It’s important to research your weapons and your martial arts styles, but don’t let that research dominate your story. Talk about body parts moving, not the kata you learned in your latest karate class. Here’s an example from my story “Mother Bears,” a Pathfinder Web Fiction from last April:

The jolly roger seemed to laugh as her knuckles connected with Gorg’s face, splitting the skin over his cheekbone with the force of the blow. He screamed and dropped to his knees—not incapacitated, but going for his boot knife. Jendara lashed out with her heel, launching the man backward across the room.

Anybody could act out that scene–it’s just that easy to read and envision.

Readable.

In the end, your fight scene has to bring all these elements together and have language that sings. As you’re reading over your fight scene, pay attention to your sentence lengths. I find that in most fights, when my protagonist knows what she’s doing and she’s feeling in control of her actions, short sentences with a strong punch underline the action. Fragments can strengthen this feeling, or spin the fight in a new direction. A fragment can underline a mistake or a power shift. It’s like a sharp exhalation when you throw a punch–or take one. When things really fall apart, long tumbling sentences can give the dreamy sensation of action that’s moving fast while your POV character’s brain is stalled out and scrambling to catch up (and trust me, in real life, there are definitely moments when the hormones and adrenaline are hitting the body but the brain is out of touch).

Here’s an example from my novel, Dark Depths (forthcoming from Dagan Books):

Fury colored Lohra’s vision red. On the ground, short sword swinging, she ran. The toe of her boot connected with the white wolf’s muzzle and sent it flying with a sharp bark. Paws hit Lohra’s back, driving her to the ground. She felt hot breath on her neck, a spattering of carrion-scented saliva. She twisted her arm up, wedged it between her body and a furry neck. Pushed. With a grunt, she flipped the second wolf onto its back, her forearm braced against its throat. She snarled at it, catching its own rage.

For an instant, their eyes met. They shone clear blue in a strangely orange-furred face. They were intensely human.

Man, I still get the shivers when I read that fight scene, but of course, I know what happens next! I hope it gave you a hint of what I meant about using sentence length to give your fight scene a good sense of action.

I’m writing a new novel right now, another Pathfinder project. And trust, me there’s a lot of fight scenes going into it. I’m enjoying writing each and every scene–and I hope that when I finish this book, I’ve learned a few more tricks for making those scenes sizzle. If you have any other pointers or recommendations for favorite fight scenes in books, short stories, or movies, please let me know!

Continue reading

fight scenes

Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Merriam Webster defines an antagonist as, “one that contends with or opposes another,” and lists “adversary” and “opponent” as synonyms.

Oxford defines the term as, “a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary.”

Of course in a literary context, an antagonist doesn’t have to be a person. I recall learning in high school English that there are six possible types: character, nature, society, self, machine, and supernatural. And within a story or novel there doesn’t just have to be one type. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi*, for example, protagonist Pi Patel arguably has to contend with all six.

But I’m not going to talk about the weather.

For the purposes of this post I’m focusing on the antagonist as a character (which, in SFF works, could involve elements of society, machines, or the supernatural) and, in particular, the type of antagonist that appeals most to me.

What’s notable about the definitions above is the lack of a defining moral disposition. An antagonist isn’t necessarily evil or the “bad guy,” but at the most basic level is a simply character who opposes another character, usually the protagonist.

We’ve all heard that moustache-twirling, evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil, villains are the most boring and trite types of antagonists, and I have to agree.  I think this is because they are simple plot devices inserted to thwart the protagonist at every turn, unwavering in this pursuit, and lack relatable human depth. Real people have complex motivations for their actions, and a multitude of competing concerns, and the same should be true of fictional characters if they are to be believable. If an antagonist’s sole preoccupation in life is to take down the protagonist, there’d better be a good reason for this vendetta.

There are probably hundreds or thousands of examples of well-written antagonists, and it’s not easy to categorize them. Nevertheless, I’ve lumped them into a few major groups, below.

What I’ll call “rational antagonists” act on well thought out agendas and believe they’re in the right. Indeed, if we were given the benefit of their point-of-view, we would likely agree (sometimes both sides can be right). They’re oppositional but not evil. In “10 Movie Villains Who Really Weren’t Really Bad,” WHATCULTURE! cites the replicants in Blade Runner as an example, pointing out that these newly sentient beings seek merely to survive. Who can fault them for that? Arguably it is the humans who are the real villains in that story. A more amusing example is the principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, who’s just trying to enforce school rules and ensure a student’s attendance, after all.

Another common type of antagonist is the sociopath. They can be amoral or persistently immoral (i.e. villainous) but are still interesting, often because of their high intellect and/or grossly antisocial behavior or strange codes. There’s a certain morbid curiosity about their doings. Thomas Harris’s Dr. Hannibal Lecter or the “Tooth Fairy” (Francis Dolarhyde) are examples of this type.

But here’s the thing: rational antagonists and sociopaths are, to some degree, predictable. Once you understand their underlying motivations, you can see their endgame. They’re unlikely to change (not that a rational antagonist can’t change her mind, but she will do so when convinced of facts that contradict her view, which is entirely within character—think Pamela Landy in the Bourne movies). Tension in stories featuring these types of antagonists will often be achieved through plot, rather than character development.

The type of antagonist that I’m most drawn to, and that just might steal the story out from under a bland protagonist, is the conflicted antagonist. This type of antagonist may or may not be rational, but definitely does bad things—sometimes very bad things—but, unlike a sociopath, experiences at least some small measure of angst.

These are complex, fully rounded characters, with often tragic backstories.  There is a seed of good in them, or an echo of former innocence, or a smattering of heroic qualities existing beside the darker ones. Sometimes they act in pursuit of their misguided agenda; sometimes not. There are moments of guilt, hints of compassion, and times when their interests or sympathies or align with those of the protagonist. They are not all bad.

This inevitably ignites in me a sense of hope, that they will veer away from the path they’ve chosen, will do the right thing, or will end up helping the protagonist in some way. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t; in a way the outcome doesn’t matter. Their internal struggle is the stuff of high conflict, giving rise to significant tension that keeps me reading until the last page.

Examples of conflicted antagonists that I find compelling are Gollum (a pitiful being corrupted and enslaved by a powerful ring—an antagonist itself—but also showing glimmers of Sméagol, his former river hobbit self), Prince Zuko (an angry young man seeking his father’s love and approval, and also a sense of identity, while having to contend with persistent doubts fuelled by his uncle and mentor, Iroh**), and Jaime and Cersei Lannister (incestuous lovers, and brilliant and ruthless schemers who lust after power and push children from windows, yet who are capable of love, compassion, and heroism).

These antagonists are repellent and infuriating, yet riveting. They are unpredictable and capable of change and that, to me, makes them the most compelling opponents.

What about you? Do you agree? Who are your favorite antagonists and why?

* Yes, I had to get a plug in for my favorite book and movie!

** Making him more interesting than his single-minded sister and fellow antagonist, Princess Azula.

Continue reading

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

This is the opening line to the Hobbit. According to Wikipedia, it came to Tolkien while he was grading papers. Not only should this bring hope to teachers and grad students everywhere, it’s the first step on an epic journey that many of us have since taken, culminating in billions of dollars of motion pictures starring John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Magneto, and Agent Smith, with Queen Elizabeth as Galadriel.

Sauron, getting ready to party with the elves.

It’s the lines that follow that determine the course of the journey:

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

 

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors.

By paragraph three, we are introduced to the hobbit who is so fond of visitors, and by the fifth, to a particularly meddling, wizardly visitor.

All of that from “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” But think of the other places you could go with this. Where would China Mieville have run with that opening sentence? Octavia Butler? Neil Gaiman? Karen Joy Fowler?

Also lives in a hole in the ground.

So, I have a challenge to you all: Come up with 3-5 sentences to follow “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”, that take the story in a completely different direction, and post them in the comments below. There’s a prize in it for you–I’m going to ask my fellow inkpunks to help judge, and the winner will receive a kindle version of Fungi, not only because mushrooms also live in holes in the ground, but because our very own Andy Romine has a story in it!

You have until 9pm Pacific Time on Sunday, December 16th to submit your entry. I’ll post the winning entry before the end of the world, or at least the end of the Mayan calendar. Good luck!

Fungi anthology: not just for fun guys.

“Well, I’m back.”

Continue reading

New Year’s is coming soon, and it’s a time when a lot of people think about how they’re going to improve themselves in the following year. Sometimes the lists have really nebulous goals, like “go to the gym more often” and sometimes they’re really concrete and specific like “run a marathon.”

Usually making lists and goal-setting are pretty helpful things to do. They help you focus on what you want out of life, and help you on the path to becoming a better version of you. But sometimes, if the things you want to achieve are too far out of your reach, those lists can be destructive. And when I say “too far out of your reach” I don’t mean writing down that you’re going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro when you have a hard time making it up a hill. I mean the things that are literally beyond your reach, beyond your control.

For my writing career, I have lists of things I want to have happen. You know, the usual: land a seven-figure contract, write a novel series, cross one thousand followers on twitter, et cetera. And you might think, career goals, that’s one list, right? But no. There’s two.

My two lists are “Things I Want That Are Wholly Within My Control” and “Things I Want That Are Not Wholly Within My Control.” (Well actually they’re “career goal things” and “career squee things” but you don’t need to know the sordid details of my doc filing system.) If there’s something I want to do or have happen, I note it on one of these lists. Then, when that thing does happen, I get to write down a date next to it, of when I actually pulled it off.

The thing is, the two lists are important. Obviously one of the list items is “sell a novel.” That would be pretty sweet. And if I were just casually making a list of stuff I want to have happen, I’d write that one down on the list and leave it there. Staring at me. Accusingly.

The problem with writing something like “sell a novel” on your list of goals is that it implies you can sell a novel if you just try hard enough. Unfortunately, that’s simply not true. There are so many factors that play into selling a novel that are completely beyond your control and speak nothing to the quality of your book. Maybe an editor just acquired another book just like yours and can’t have two competing books in their catalogue right now. Maybe you’re too late on a trend, or too early, or something’s just not clicking right, or your book is great but they don’t know where to put it. A lot of things stand between you as an author and that contract and they can’t simply be overcome by sheer force of determination.

And the thing is, if you think “sell a novel” is something you should be able to do and something that’s in your control, you’re just setting yourself up for madness. You need to look at exactly what goes into your goal, and exactly how many parts of that process you can directly control. You cannot control how or when or if someone will read your work, but you can control having a work for them to read in the first place. Hold on to the things you can control, and the things you can’t control, well, just let them go.

So. “Write a novel”? That goes on the career-goal-list. I can write a novel. I can write another one, and another one, and another one. I have no shortage of novel ideas. But “sell a novel”? That goes on career-squee-things. And if that day comes, you can be sure I will squee about it!

Continue reading

One of the most helpful writing panels I’ve ever been to was at VCon in 2008, called Writing About Fighting. I learned so much from the panelists, got inspired to finally start taking martial arts and have had since had the honour of joining this annual panel at VCon. I’ve asked two of the panelists who had the most impact on me to share their wisdom in this Inkpunks blog post. If you’ve ever worried about getting a fight scene right, read on to gain insights into how it should and shouldn’t be done.

Now, just to be sure you know why you should listen to these artists please allow me to introduce you to Devon Boorman and T. G. Shepherd. I have included their full bios at the end of the post.

Devon is the co-founder and director of Academie Duello, a centre for swordplay with over 200 active students, a store, and an arms and armour museum and is currently the largest Western Martial Arts centre in the world. Devon has been practicing martial arts for more than 20 years and has worked on stage and screen as a stunt person and choreographer.

T.G. Shepherd is a martial artist with over twenty years of experience in eight different arts, currently training in Kali, JKD Concepts, boxing, kick boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. She writes sword and sorcery, high fantasy and stuff involving monsters.

Pencils sharpened? En Garde!

1.      What are the biggest mistakes you see when reading hand to hand fight scenes?

Devon: I think the biggest general mistake that authors make when writing fight scenes is getting overly specific with their technical details. Unless you’re an expert martial artist in the discipline you’re writing about, I’ll be able to imagine something far cooler and more coherent than you can write. Focus on important details for the story, maybe a notable move here or there but leave the rest up to the imagination of the reader.

T. G. Shepherd: The mistakes in hand to hand fights fall into two categories for me:
– Too much technical detail: this manifests as murky prose. I can remember reading a fight in a hotel room (written by an author lauded for their action skills) that was so jumbled I had to stop and work out the blocking of it before I could continue. Needless to say, this wrecked the narrative flow. So, if you are an experienced fighter, beware of over-explaining your fights.
– Lack of visceral detail: it’s not difficult to tell when someone who has never been hit writes a fight. There is generally a total lack of sensual connection to the violence: the greasy feel of sweat, the slime of blood, the smell of skin, the kinetic impact on flesh and bone.  

2.      What about common mistakes in fight scenes using weapons?

Devon: Armour weighing 100 lbs, swords weighing 20 lbs, fantasy swords with three blades that would be more dangerous to the wielder than the foe.  Spend some time with real weapons (museum pieces or genuinely good replicas) to understand what qualities people truly looked for in a good blade.  Full suits of plate were between 30 and 60 lbs, most swords were between 2 and 4 lbs with the heaviest getting up to about 8 lbs.

Living history groups that spend days or weeks in a full recreation environment are also invaluable resources for getting a better understanding of the realities of historical arms and armour. Though I love the SCA, they don’t count in this regard.

T. G. Shepherd: The most common mistake is probably the one that cannot really be corrected. Most fight scenes with weapons go on too long. The saying in the Filipino arts that I do is there are only three good stick fights: thud; click, thud; click, click, thud. Anything else means you don’t really know how to fight. Since most of the time, stories are about extraordinary people with extreme skills, fights that last minutes–even a minute–are unrealistic.

3.      How can you use a character’s fighting style and/or choice of weapon to assist in world building and character revelations?

Devon: Certainly different types of weapons carry a certain impression in our common cultural mythology. Knives and daggers tend to seem sneakier and more roguish, larger heavier swords are bolder and warrior like, longer thinner weapons carry the cavalier attitude in their steel. You can certainly use these common ideas to fit your character or tell part of the story around them, their weapon choice showing evidence of their broader life choices.  If you want to avoid cliche then its important to make sure that the weapon your character wields makes sense within your world and its common attitudes. A cat burglar with a two handed sword on their back may buck cliche but it also bucks common sense.

T. G. Shepherd: Weapon skills have always had socio-economic sub sets. In the Western tradition noblemen were mounted knights and swordsman (often the only people legally allowed to carry long blades). Peasant levee were pikemen or (one step up) archers. Knives and ‘stealth’ weapons were generally the mark of a thief or assassin. Clubs were used by crude thugs. Many Eastern societies also had extremely codified rules for who could carry/wield what weapons, generally on pain of death.  So it pays to think about where your character comes from, what they would have access too, and letting that make some decisions about where their skills lie.

There are cultural artifacts that will automatically signal character traits for many readers: a character employing a garrote or a stiletto or throwing knife will be seen as (best case) subtle, tricksy or (worst case) underhanded, treacherous. I personally find it interesting to note that archers are often portrayed as jovial smart alecks (Robin Hood, several characters in the Song of Ice and Fire, Hawkeye from Marvel comics and there are more) and stick/staff fighters as big dumb brutes.

Becoming just a competent weapon fighter (the sword being default for most fantasy stories) takes a very long time. I have been training as a stick and stick/knife fighter for over a decade myself and barely consider my skills “journeyman” level. Some of the time factor can be over come with natural talent, of course, but otherwise the need for the access and time to train must be dealt with as part of your character development.  

4.      The purpose of a fight scene should be more than just to have a “cool fight scene.” How can a writer make sure it has a purpose in the story?

Devon: Don’t write a fight scene unless it has a purpose in the story.  Sure I love fighting but if I want just a fight scene I’ll read a book on fighting or go and do some sparring or watch UFC. In a novel I have to care about the characters and I have to feel the tension in the scene and care about both the potential benefit and the possible loss for those involved. Make sure you know why its compelling for your character to be in a fight, what they sacrifice for being there, and make sure it’s suspenseful.

T. G. Shepherd: I am actually not opposed to the inclusion of the occasional ‘pure cool’ fight, but yes, the best fight scenes will always have a deeper narrative purpose. To take two examples from cinema (oddly, both involving Daniel Craig) I would argue that the ‘freerunner chase fight’ from the beginning of Casino Royale was not only very very cool but essentially a declaration of war: Craig running through the dry wall is a shout of  ‘I will not be stopped by little things’– so when something does manage to stop him, you automatically register it as a ‘big deal.  The opening fight of  Cowboys versus Aliens is fast and fun but served a multitude of purposes:  it addressed the then nameless hero’s character (he didn’t like the mistreatment of the dog), it established his physical skills (bad-ass) and showed a wide streak of ruthless. It takes more time and effort to do that in print but it can be done.

The manner in which someone starts and ends a fight is a huge indicator of character. Did they provoke the fight or attack someone else for no reason? Do they fight in defense of others or only  themselves? Do they embody and rules about ‘honorable’ combat or do they seek to win by any means necessary?  How do they react to killing people? To maiming or wounding? The emotional reaction to even a ‘friendly’ fight can be crippling to an inexperienced person: to have deliberately and purposefully caused pain and fear to another human can wreck people emotionally — or reveal aspects of themselves they would rather not have known.  Imagine going through your life thinking yourself a rational and peaceful person and then finding out you rather enjoy hurting others.

A fight scene can serve a purpose as simple as being an obstacle in the protagonist’s path (the random monster encounter) or it can be a defining character moment.  But try to make it cool too.

5.      How do you balance out being realistic in your fight scenes, with still being entertaining? (one punch and it’s over isn’t really fun to read)

Devon: Armour, terrain, parrying. All those things can certainly make a scene more protracted without your character having to be Rocky. Historically we have accounts of many people making their way through duels with several serious wounds before succumbing to injuries and certainly many superficial wounds can add drama without putting your character down.

T. G. Shepherd: A fight involving three strikes thrown on each side can take pages to describe and still be exciting. At least I hope so, I just wrote one like that.

All kidding aside, I believe in poetic license. The most realistic fight in any given situation might end in seconds but perhaps there is a very plausible fight that lasts much longer you can write. Frankly, a very realistic fight will be boring or confusing.

When we write dialogue, we have to smooth it out from the purely realistic. Humans don’t speak as coherently or directly as is often necessary to have them speak in fiction. By that same token, smoothing out a fight scene from from holycrapwhat’shappeningcrappunchcrapthathurtwhatthehellishappening into clean strikes, counters and moves is merely a necessary technical task.

6.      What advice do you have for a writer who doesn’t have fighting experience but wants to write about it?

Devon: Get some fighting experience, go take a martial arts intro, consult with an instructor. I recommend also physically blocking out fight scenes before writing them to make sure all the action makes sense in time and space. I have worked with several authours in this area, consulting with someone like me or a stage combat expert can really help with both the accuracy and the action.

T. G. Shepherd: I would recommend trying to take a least a class or two in some martial art, obviously.
If you lack any experience in fighting and cannot acquire any, you need to do the following:

– Don’t try to sound like an expert unless you’re willing to do a lot of reading in research. I mean technical manuals from the “Sports” section of the library, not The Art of War or The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. I have read exceptional fencing scenes that were the product of that type of research alone; that author however is Tim Powers, the modern master of dark fantasy. Unless you’re that skilled, you might not pull it off.

– Be vague. Don’t spout of names of techniques without knowing what they actually are from the inside.  This also has the advantage of acknowledging that 90% and more of your readers don’t know how to fight either. Saying ‘She punched him with a straight jab’ is going to be more forgiving than ‘She put him in a standing  oma plata’.

– Try to see the fight in your head, and then block it out slowly yourself, even just to settle proportions and distances and turns.

– Watch some boxing or UFC matches. Not WWE or martial arts movies. You can learn a surprising amount from studying mixed martial arts. In the recent UFC 154, note how fighters who’ve been punched near the eye get tagged so easily on that side afterwards or how they start to flinch and retreat because their peripheral vision is damaged.

– For the love of the gods, stop saying ‘he moved like a cat.’ Just…just don’t.

7.      What are some examples of novels or stories where they get it right?

Devon:  Dorothy Dunnet in A Game of Kings does a beautiful job of poetically describing a duel with the main character. The technical details are largely exempted but the prose gives the reader a lot of room to fill in the details and truly conveys the attitudes and feelings of the characters.

Robert Jordan in the Wheel of Time series does a good job of using fanciful guard and action names indicative of Eastern Martial Arts to give the reader a sense of action without having to describe any specific sword moves.

T. G. Shepherd: I cannot recommend the following authors highly enough:

Adrian Tchaikovsky, “The Shadows of the Apt” series (Eight books and counting) — a perfect blend of ‘cinematic’ and realistic fighting. Possibly the best modern fantasy for fight scenes. I am deeply jealous.

Bernard Cornwell,  The “Sharpe” series. This is historical military fiction but the namesake character, Richard Sharpe, is magnificently drawn as a fighter both for the way he thinks and the way he fights.

Terry Pratchett, any of the Discworld novels involving Sam Vimes. Despite the jokey tone, Vimes thinks and acts like both a true copper and a true street fighter.

Lois McMaster Bujold, the Vorkosigan Saga,  the “Chalion” books and the “Wide Green World” series. Less for the fight scenes than the mentally of the soldier.

Elizabeth Moon for the same reason as Bujold, particularly the “Deed of Paksenarrion” stories.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Devon Boorman

Devon Boorman has practicing martial arts for more than 20 years. Starting first with Asian martial arts, including Kung Fu and Arnis, Devon discovered western swordplay through the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) which connected him with a burgeoning community of martial artists and scholars studying Historical European Marital Arts throughout the world.

Devon has travelled extensively, first as a student, then as a competitor, teacher, and researcher. He has won more than 40 European martial arts competitions, and worked on both stage and screen as a stunt person and choreographer. Devon is actively involved in the translation, interpretation, and revival of Western Martial Arts from surviving historical manuals, some of which are on display at his school.

Devon’s expertise centres on the Italian swordplay tradition including the arts of the renaissance Italian rapier, sidesword, and longsword, as well as knife and unarmed techniques. He has taught workshops and seminars throughout the world on both the study and practice of historical techniques and on practical combat implementation.

Devon is the co-founder and director of Academie Duello, which has been active in the Vancouver area since 2004. Under his leadership the school has become a centre for swordplay with over 200 active students, a store, and an arms and armour museum. The Academie is; a model that Devon hopes to help others achieve as the Western arts grow in popularity. currently the largest WMA centre in the world.

T. G. Shepherd is a member of the small but growing geek/jock community. A martial artist with over twenty years of experience in eight different arts (currently training in Kali, JKD Concepts, boxing, kick boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), she writes sword and sorcery, high fantasy and stuff involving monsters.  After having taken about a decade off from writing to pursue a career in film and then policing, Shepherd is back in the writing ring and intends to come out swinging with a high fantasy horror serial killer mystery novel, because if one genre is good, more is better. Her published works (short stories, a play and some non-fiction) are so far out of print they should spontaneously reappear any day now.  

Continue reading