Panel Notes

In short stories, first line has to be the hook; for novels; hook may wait until close to end of first chapter (works for both first-time novelists and established ones)

Sara Canary opening – sets scene with historical facts (quirky ones), and ends chapter with fictive mystery

Each historical fact could be taken by reader as focus of story; keeps reader interested

Cinematic openings start with wide “landscape” shots and focus on character

Modern readers want dialogue and action, not description (modern readers don’t need so much description, plus have too many other things competing for attention)

Maria Doria Russell – wanted a voice that would seduce her grandmother into reading SF –voice can also hook reader

POV is only tool you have to work with

Should action and voice be considered separate, or do they work together?

Can have great voice, but still have to tell a story

In some books, action is important and voice should be invisible; in others, voice is important and critical to story

Opening starts “contract” with reader by telling them what story is about; it should match rest of story

Catch-22 introduces theme of story in first paragraph; draws readers by voice

Set up which genre it is at beginning of the story

Lots of opening material (preface, list of characters, historical background, etc.) may interest some readers but bore others

Need some setting, but not too much, particularly in opening

Prologues—

Acceptable in SF

Are they different from first chapter?

Can reduce backstory

May seem like first chapter

Some prologues start before main story or be in different setting (time gap)

Prologue and epilogue may frame story

Horror uses prologue as “teaser”

Prologue should not be a way to deal with backstory

Should be at least as good as a standard opening, if not better

May indicate slower pace of story

Prologues should be short

Stories may begin later than you think (may need a couple of pages to prime the pump)

May need to rewrite the opening after reaching end of story

May be able to get away with more in first person (the voice can carry you)

Have to make each chapter beginning a “mini-opening”

Prologues (and epilogues) can allow you to leave framework of story, or tell something in a different voice

May want to hint at great revelation instead of telling it in a prologue

Be careful about blowing up bomb before lighting fuse! (can drain energy from climax of book if it’s told too soon – allude to it instead)

Are there genre differences in openings?

Can do otherworldly things in SF

Slow openings that work may be exception to rule

Stakes are higher than they were before because there are so many other things competing for our attention

Wide variety of readers want different things

Don’t worry too much about attracting an audience while writing story

Writing Combat (WisCon 27—2003)

Discuss small-group, one-on-one, armed and unarmed

What works well in real world and not in literature? (and vice versa)

Real-life combat moves very fast, too fast for readers

Things may happen in real life that aren’t relevant to scene (each action should move scene along)

Real-life combat can be very busy

In RL, need to defeat opponent; in literature, writer’s purpose is to move story along

Can learn a lot about a character by way he/she fights

What distracts character from fight?

What do fight scenes bring to story?

Can raise tension or provide resolution

Shouldn’t be there just to have something happen (but can be there if it’s really cool)

Should set up fight scene before it comes

Plot and character are key

Can be used to move character

Fight scenes should have active language

Don’t hurt character or have them act dumb to add fight scene

What can go wrong with fight scene?

Too much detail – don’t add every little thing – combat scenes need to read quickly

Have to figure out logistics – need to know how to write it

Writer needs to know what’s happening spatially

Does character know more than he/she really would? (e.g., terms)

Writer can give too much information

Writer needs to know how proper combat works, especially since readers may know a lot about swords or martial arts

Need to know limitations of our universe before adding twists like flight or psychic abilities

Consider time, range, effort required

Extrapolate from our universe

Actions have to have real consequences (for example, when wounds cause problems)

Everyone reacts differently to combat; some fight through wounds, others panic

Pacing should be realistic

What will non-combatants do?

Good examples of combat

Mary Gentle – Ash

Paul Edwin Zimmer

Amber books--Zelanzy

Harry Turtledove – mass combat

The Princess Bride

Things can go wrong in fight scenes (e.g., losing sword)

Need to know history of weapon

Can’t block broadsword with rapier

Rapier point; broadsword sweeps

Broadswords take longer to deliver a blow, but can take a person down quickly

Rapier can pierce vital weapon, but opponent may not fall right away

Also have to consider other technologies, such as armor

Justify mis-mash of weapons

Try to set up and break patterns

Watch for weaknesses

Swords give you more time to think

(Fence like high-speed chess)

Can move out of range to think

Missile Weapons

In fantasy, tend to use hand-to-hand combat

Helps to handle gun

Guns heavy and loud

Gun may fly back over shoulder

Hard to hold gun level

Crossbows take a while to reload

Weather (wind, rain, humidity) can affect bowstrings

Slings take lots of practice

Can’t leave bow strung for combat

Knife throwing more difficult than in the movies

Blow guns have excellent range and aim (very easy to use)

When are good/bad times for combat in writing?

Combat should flow from story

Can be used for world-building

How do we get the details right?

Work out in head, act out, or work it out with friends

Do homework, read about it, study people who write it well

Describe movement – see Kushiel’s Dart

Block out where movement will happen, when characters will get wounded

Can use action figures to lay out scene

If you can’t do actual research, work with subject matter experts or look for approximate substitute (weapons will be better balanced and extend out)

Sketch out choreography and locations

Stabs are very quick

Quarterstaffs are basic, cheap, easy weapons (can use broom as substitute)

Things will slide along weapon when you block – will hit knuckles if you don’t have a hilt

Can use pommels to smash someone’s face

Can smash someone with flat of sword if you’re wearing glove (grab sword and bend back)

Can use pommels to catch other weapons

Martial arts weapons developed from farm implements

Weapons are very functional

Untrained group will break up into small groups

Anything can be used as a weapon

There may be times when characters can’t use their fighting expertise, but just because they’ve lost one tool, it doesn’t mean they don’t have other techniques as well

“Your sword is never empty.”

Handguns can be hard to aim

Weapons can malfunction (have you cleaned/maintained it)

Ambush

Ambushers shouldn’t give ambushees time to react

Science Fiction

Physic shouldn’t change

Ray weapons are cool, but conventional weapons are efficient

Take zero gravity into account

Why Are Fight Scenes so Cheesy? (WisCon 28—2004)

Hong Kong cinema unrealistic

Writers who know too much add so much detail it’s boring

Inexperienced writers don’t get details right

“cheesiness” may be appealing in TV shows

characters should be able to defend themselves if they have the right experience (especially females)

Females would fight differently than males

Characters in media never miss

How much punishment does character take?

One-punch knockout is luck

Real people go into shock with pain

Fight scenes can be gratuitous, but can also kill off characters, advance plot, can be cantharis, can add action and speed pace,

If fight scenes used to build up weak plot, scenes can feel contrived or misplaced

Fight scenes show what character will do in time of crisis, can push character past limits

Can show character’s physical characteristics and background

Are there differences between male and female characters?

Should be internal differences

Fighting itself should be different (depends on strength, center of gravity, etc.)

Men use weapons to intimidate; women pick up weapons with intent to use them

Are fight scenes always the best way to resolve situation?

(should characters talk their way out of problems?)

What can go wrong with fight scene?

Doing too much or too little research

Letting fight scene go on too long

Need to deal with aftermath

Too much detail slows pace

Use beta readers

In real life, people lose bladder/bowel control during fights, but people may avoid describing them in fiction

Bujold handles combat well (so does Mary Gentle and Elizabeth Moon)

High kicks impractical in street fighting (opponent can catch foot)

Characters ought to have scars from previous fights

Don’t build up to fight scene and then skip it

Watch SCA or martial arts tournaments to learn about fighting (can also talk to fighter)

Find out what books and movies are good (need to learn how to make scenes visually interesting)

Make sure combat style is appropriate for culture

Avoid anything that breaks continuity or pulls reader out of story

Characters don’t have time to think about moves during combat

Don’t use tracers or lights to show where bullet will hit

Don’t make character too sadistic when beating up another character

Don’t have characters fall in love with torturers as in Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)

Go for simple solutions

Fight scenes should be entertaining but realistic

Characters should have good reason to fight (self-defense or protecting loved ones)

Fight scene should resolve something

The fight scenes in The Princess Bride (the movie) give lot of information about characters

Real violence is extremely ugly—characters may lose sympathy when they become bullies

Suffering can redeem characters

Fight scenes are more common in SF than in mainstream books

“video game” culture requires lots of attacking

decide if fight scene is entertaining or realistic—determines approach

don’t go into blow-by-blow detail; choose detail with care

important antagonists may require longer fight scenes

Don’t use a lot of technical detail

Switch-Hitting a Home Run: Writing Credible Characters of the Opposite Sex (WisCon 28—2004)

Children have some traits of their sex from the start, but some can act like members of the other sex

There are some things about each gender that authors of the other sex get wrong

Each person has female/male characteristics

Society has huge impact on how we perceive gender

Society is “straight white male,” so it’s easier to write up to the top level than to write down to the lower levels

Can live in sub-cultures of American society (may make pyramid irrelevant)

Can get rid of two-gender system in SF

Some authors can change character’s gender more successfully than others: Chalker vs. Varley

Writers start with what they know, then stretch out to experiment

Most novels have more than one character with different genders

Women are more used to reading male characters than vice versa (boys don’t want to read about girls when they’re in middle grades, may feel they’d give up power by reading down)

Men think women characters are too whiny (men don’t want to read about internal emotions, while women find lack of emotion dry)

Younger generations may be less stringent about gender boundaries

People are more willing to talk about gender issues with children these days

More role models for women/minorities these days

Need to focus on character and how he/she would be affected by environment

May be offended by character

Need to address raging hormones of teenage males (even if story isn’t about sex)

Focus on what you and character have in common, then address subtle differences

(women are constantly on guard; men aren’t)

Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand gets many of the differences right

Find a reader who is of the same group as you’re writing about

Get the differences between the genders right (a woman guard would use different techniques to do what a male guard would do)

Women do “risk assessment” as they walk down street

Female characters written by men don’t have same internal dialogue as those written by women

All characters may not be credible to all audiences, so make sure characters work for the audience you’re addressing

Female authors may provide more context for events and more relationships

Slash stories are written for women by women (a female way of writing)

Men consume more written erotica than women

Easier for women to write to male erotica

Genre sections may make it harder for mainstream reader to find stories with SF, gay, Jewish, etc characters

Men don’t read works by female authors

Women take sex more seriously (in general) than men

Women have more crosstalk between hemispheres than men do

Women and men may be eventually be equal, but they will still be different

Men write women as drag queens; women are more aware of their bodies

Men may not pick up on nuances the way women do (or may think of something as being “sexy” instead of identifying what it really is)

Competence in women may be intimidating

Men may react without analyzing something

Native Japanese speakers have the thickest connections between brains

Would future societies have same social dynamic?

Continuum of behaviors in single gender

Men have no need to write utopia stories

Would a single-sex society give up joy of reproduction?

Male animals may mate with lots of females

Don’t make genders just opposite of what they normally are; make the characters real

Men may be more likely to write about switching genders

Characters who switch genders don’t change which sex they’re attracted to

Characters who switch genders don’t change their emotional thinking

Readers may focus on characters as whole instead of what gender the character is

Fantasy societies may not allow females to have adventures (women have to dress as men to have adventures)

Men would write more about young characters

Authors need to learn how to write about other sex

Have more than one male make comments on characters

Make sure characters are fully-developed

Make sure characters have something to do in plot besides be sex fantasy for other character

Writing opposite sex challenging but rewarding—can teach readers some nuance you’ve noticed

Research other sex before starting story

Read and experience other cultures

Power and Tension in Fiction (WisCon 28—2004)

Stories tend to be about people in positions of power

Many examples of stories dealing with disempowered people

Two traditions: Hero vs. Everyman

Need to have power difference in story to give it “energy”

Person who changes in story will have power over own life

People may not be conscious of their own power

Person who cares the least in a relationship has the most power (can hurt the other)

Person who cares most is protagonist; the one who cares least is antagonist

SF/fantasy about power and about the world changing

Magic and technology forms of power

How do people use power?

Example: Frodo has to choose not to use ring

Earthsea: only use magic (power) when necessary

In Shakespeare’s day, idea of power as chain of being: if there was a problem with royalty, then it would “trickle down” to affect everyone else

Every leader (king, queen, president, rock star, etc) depends on pyramid of support people to keep them in their position of power

We are all interconnected and depend on other people

A great act of evil like 9/11 can be counterbalanced by many little acts of good

In SF, readers might expect a “great good” to counteract “big bad”

Stories have power authors never expect

Have to be aware of consequences and learn from experiences

Situation can become worse when a character refuses to wield the power he/she is meant to

Feminism teaches women to take the power that is theirs; men have to learn to release power that they didn’t realize they had

Power isn’t bad; it depends on how you use it

We all exercise power every day

Characters need to express their power relationships in convincing ways

Characters who start as wimps and grow into heroes need to act convincingly no matter at what stage they’re at

Use POV to portray character from his/her perspective (omniscient POV can be annoying to reader when it gives away too much information)

Don’t use clichés (eg., character stays in original role but has an effect on something else)

SF/Fantasy stories tend to be big, but can be used to tell little story

Writers’ own power relationships may be transferred to story

If fiction works well, it acquires a certain reality

Can take your own experiences and “translate it to side” or make it bigger story

Don’t demonize villains (make them well-rounded characters)

Revenge writing doesn’t work (too easy to see through)

Powerful characters still have to deal with everyday issues

Fiction may not deal with transition characters have to make when they acquire power

When ending of story doesn’t work, may have to rewrite begin (show through everyday actions that the person has the right characteristics to become king)

When you have power, small actions have larger effects, so character has more pressure/responsibility

Standard types of stories are standard for a reason (have to be interested in the journey)

Need to consider prose and sentence structure when writing

More stylists in genres these days

Big things can happen off-stage, but have powerful emotional story occurring in the little gaps

Stories can also be about powerful person giving up or losing power

Political Correctness and Responsibility of Writers (WisCon 29—2005)

Writers don’t have to stick with just “what they know”

How do you write about other cultures while being respectful?

Don’t need to preach

Some readers will always disagree with you

It is possible to write about other sex, class, race, etc., but it’s not easy to do

Writer is responsible for getting things right

“special” characters may be treated differently from other characters

need to know enough to know what you don’t know

what you need to know depends on what the audience knows

people write what they think the culture is based on the media

TV reinforces people’s stereotypes instead of challenging them

Need to appreciate “good-faith” efforts to portray others in positive light

Honor complexity (harder to do if there’s only one “other” character)

Tokens bear weight of entire group

You don’t make characters from a dominate group become tokens

Writers need to write about the ugly side of relationships, not just positive

Not every decision a writer makes is a conscious one

Need to strike a delicate balance when writing about historical characters (they have to be true to their context)

Writers get praised when they stretch to write about “other” characters

If the only people writing/discussing a subculture belong to that subculture, ghettoization occurs

Should characters from a particular subculture always be portrayed as heroes, or can they be shown as normal human beings?

Need to have emotional reality to stories

Stereotypes exist because they are useful or sometimes even true

Do writers even need to worry about political correctness?

Need to get some issues out on the table before they can be addressed

Art has social effects and changes behavior, so writers need to be responsible

Authors need to self-censor to some degree

Some cultures and nationalities are considered “OK” villains by dominant culture (frex, Germans during WW2)

Readers will always interpret text differently or in multiple versions

Writers sometimes make something attractive (like a rape) during writing even if they don’t personally believe in it

Keep the action and violence offstage and show the effects on other people’s lives

Small presses and the Internet give more people the chance to express themselves

Authors are more likely to hear negative feedback than positive stuff

Parents may want to keep kids from learning about other cultures

(status quo is comfortable)

schools may present certain beliefs (such as religion) as facts

Believable Evil (WisCon 29—2005)

Evil characters can be more interesting than good characters; seems like there’s more to them

Writers may become too focused on protagonists to develop villains

Are villains credible? (can be flip side of Mary Sue)

Don’t give villains every evil trait—becomes exaggeration

Every one is the hero of his/her own story—person may be doing wrong thing for right reasons

Do villains need to have understandable motivations?

Reader needs to see how villain made choice and feel that if they were in a similar situation, they could make the same choice

In fantasy, you may have inherently evil characters like orcs (can twist to make bad guys the protagonists)

Can let go with villains and have them wreak havoc

Layered villains make more interesting characters

When interesting villains are defeated, readers feel both triumph and pity

Telling of the story makes a big difference in how engaged you are

Most villains aren’t all evil—many little things can happen before they realize they’ve gone too far

World domination is a clichéd motivation

Most villains may have personal goals and motivations

Only fantasy and science fiction have pure good and pure evil characters

What about female villains?

There are so many clichés about villainesses that it’s hard to make them credible (bad mothers, Morgan le Fay)

Some characters like hurting people

Some villains may feel that their future has been taken away from them

Tricksters may be inbetween good and evil

Humor may be used to humanize characters

To Whom is the Writer Responsible? (WisCon 29—2005)

Historical accuracy

Moral responsibility

Need to make sure facts are accurate

Responsible to reality

Writing nonfiction requires more accuracy than imaginative fiction

Fiction should make culture better

Writer may feel responsible to historical figures to tell their stories accurately

Real people aren’t fiction; shouldn’t make their lives fictional

Real people have right to privacy

Reflect real people as accurately as possible

History can’t be completely objective

Writers are responsible to own set of ethics

All art that wants to change society is avant-guard art

Real-person fiction should be done as accurately as possible

Blurry line between fiction and nonfiction

“memoirs”—writers writing about ancestors in the ancestor’s own voice

need to start with facts as accurate as possible, even if impossible to get everything right

some writers make up “facts” and present them as true, even making up citations

can you write a book that is based on or supporting a lie? (even if it’s fiction)

can’t control what the reader understands

The Jungle, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and other books have had a big effect on history

Write to both tell a story and to impact reader’s life

Writers may choose to use exotic cultures to show readers different worlds

Science fiction is for changing the world

Make up own worlds and cultures so you have more freedom than you would with historical figures

If you’re going to use false resources (frex, for an alien planet), make sure it’s obvious that they’re fake

Always taking existing myths and revising them to make them more current

Make characters their own people

Can make people question their own assumptions

How can you include others without going into tokenism?

Need a gallery of characters to show all sides

Get involved with the people you’re writing about

Should a writer tell every story they come up with?

(a matter of personal conscience)

don’t want to stereotype villains

corporations are sociopaths

Rewriting (WisCon 29—2005)

Revising is suspending completion, but completion can be a sad experience

Tips for revising

Read it aloud

Can hear yourself getting bored when you read

Give writer global comments on first drafts

No general statement about writing is accurate 100% of the time

Some writers don’t know what will happen in the middle of the first draft

Different levels of rewriting

Rewriting—blank page ground up (replace every word)

Revision—intermediate

Editing—sentence, punctuation, etc.

Stories aren’t made out of words

Very few people can write a polished first draft

Rewriting is where you can develop themes and motifs

Very rarely use discarded bits

When story reaches certain point, it’s hard to add new bits

With experience, you learn not to force story and can tell when you’re heading in the wrong direction

“flow” occurs when challenge equals your abilities

can use characters to explain to yourself where the stories are going (this stuff can be taken out)

first readers tend to “specialize” in what they point out

rewrite for both editors and colleagues as well as for yourself

have to know when not to take editorial advice

try to listen to reviewers with gratitude and skepticism

need to develop editorial voice

should be better writer by the end of the draft

revision process of self-improvement

have to learn how to write each novel

a book is never done, but you reach a point where you say it’s the best that you can do at that time (or that you get done with the book)

when the book is finished, it’s no longer alive to author (need distance from book)

More tips

Mark problems, not fixes (some people have to fix problem ASAP)

Revising should be separate process from reading/thinking

Allow yourself to let words come out wrong

Revision issues can be life issues

The novel you write isn’t the novel you dream of: it’s never perfect, but it’s not as awful as you think it is

If stories turn out to be long, consider finding a point to split it

Don’t finesse too much

Revise at least one draft backwards (try to give all parts of story full attention, even if first chapter is most critical)

Only use strategies that work for you

The way you write will change as you do

Try to avoid reusing words too much

Fire and passion can come through in any draft

If critiquers suggest something that goes against your vision, ask yourself what they see in the story that lead them to suggest that

Try advice and see if it works

Advice on how to fix something can be wrong, but look at where they said it

Specific advice is always wrong (?)

Problem may be in a different part of the story than where they’re commenting on

Take reader’s background into account as much as possible

If readers fall over something, that’s legitimate

Sometimes bugs are features

Taking distance, even time to sleep, can help give you distance

Early in the process, you’re telling the story to yourself; later on, you decide who your audience is

Feminist Romance (WisCon 2006)

Romances don’t satisify, but they provide something the readers crave

Even lesbians read straight romance

May need to break the rules of romance to make a romance series work (e.g., keep couple separate)

Woman must resolve an issue unrelated to the guy for a feminist romance

Need balance of emotional power—both people will prop the other up when needed

Paranormal romance—one character can enable the other to do supernatural things

Time travel—alpha female travels back to meet a primordial alpha male

Romance is becoming more feminist but still lags behind WisCon

Sex is always better for women in romance (multiple O, guy goes down on her)

In 70’s, women were routinely raped by the alpha male. Even though she tames him in the end, she gives up control.

Some covers have two men going at each other

External plot, internal relationship plot, and two individual plot arcs showing character development (characters grow to develop marriage potential)

Feminist romance—person evolves and needs change (relationships don’t last forever, allows for failed relationship)

Divorced women find the right guy the next time around

Romance novels cure depression (because women always win)

More diversity in appearance and race of characters

Used to be line of older heroines

Heroine no long needs to be perfect

Rape is more acceptable in historical or fantasy romance (since women are less powerful); contemporary heroines have more ways to protect themselves

Abusive men in historical novels have to atone by abasing themselves in front of the female at the end of the book

Smartness as superpower? (social engineering in action)

Romances headhop, and that’s acceptable in the genre

Lesbian romance doesn’t have traditional male-female roles and different power structures in the relationship

Does a woman have to have a man to be a success? Does romance go against this?

Do all women need to have the HEA to be happy?

Romances now having women going back and forth with multiple men

Romances can now start with dealing with the problems of an ongoing relationship

Relationships with other women important to the story

Medicine for Writers (World Fantasy 2005)

Movies (and books) may not show real results of injuries

Not many injured animals in fantasy

Errors interrupt the “fictional dream”

Can’t move arm if your shoulder is dislocated; arm gets “stuck”

For serious head injuries that keep a person unconscious for several hours, the person would vomit and experience increased intercranial pressure; may even lose consciousness again

The longer you’re unconscious, the longer your recovery, may suffer from headaches or memory loss afterwards

Humans have Coma Scale

Brain “sloshes” around inside skull, so hitting one part of head may damage another part of the brain

Cats can survive an eighteen-story fall; for humans, it depends on what you land on (ground), what part of your body you land on, etc. Humans could survive a one to two story fall, but can get injured falling out of bed

Hard to reduce the weight of a human while keeping them looking normal

Biggest birds only weigh 20-25 pounds

References?

Internet (Google Scholar, search peer-reviewed journals)

May need to ask a doctor about dialogue

Anatomy book

The Red Book—info on infectious diseases

Can cause wounds of different degrees of severity with swords

Any wound can get infected if skin is broken

Opening up the gut will cause infections (long, slow death)

Can poison a sword with feces

Tetnaus requires a deep wound (anaerobic environment)

Burns

1st—turns red but doesn’t blister

2nd—blisters, takes two weeks or so to heal, can become infected

Can cause any reasonable effect you need via injury or infection, given the various circumstances

Read up or interview people who have experienced what you want to do to your character

“truth is stranger than fiction”

Writing: How Do You Know If You’re Evolving? (World Fantasy 2005)

You don’t have to pay attention to certain things, like punctuation

Don’t pay attention to the people who want you to keep doing the same thing over and over

Does external feedback help you?

It can be

Need to learn how to and when to trust your subconscious

Other people may help you figure out what to you when you get stuck, even if their solutions are wrong

Editors can see symptoms of problems but may not identify the right problem

You need to figure out how you work

Need to write the book for yourself, even if you are taking criticism

Criticism reflects more of the critics than of you as a writer

Any publicity is good publicity, even if it’s bad

For some writers, writing every book is a different process

Although a book can always be improved, at some point you have to let it go

Look for ways to stretch yourself

Watch if you’re repeating the same tropes over and over

Look for subjects that make you research new topics

Try not to write the same characters over and over, write character-driven stories

All characters need determination, intelligence, and persistence to succeed

Characters need to be true to their environment

Characters have to be interesting enough to keep readers going

Once you master the basics, you’re free to experiment with other aspects of writing

Are rules made to be broken, or are they in place for a reason?

(example, romance genre expects a happy ending where the heroine gets everything, not where she dies)

You may gamble with your career if you break too many genre conventions (readers are trained to expect the conventions)

Both beginning and experienced writers can get “full of it”

Some big-name writers become uneditable and don’t take any suggestions from editors

Need to be able to remember the pleasure of being a reader

Becoming a best-selling author can be hazardous to a writer’s ego

The only way to fix a mistake in a published book is to write a better one

Good and Evil (World Fantasy 2005)

Building an ethic for your characters is part of world building

Philosophers as far back as Plato were fantasists and used fantasies to make their points

It’s harder, almost impossible, to settle a question in philosophy, unlike in science

There are no absolutes in philosophy (or is that an absolute?)

When you write, you re-enact what happened

Fantasy can cut deeper than philosophy

In fantasy, good and evil, which are abstractions, can become real characters or objects

How can we do this and do it well (unlike Pullman)?

In Star Trek, evil stems from ignorance

In Bablyon 5, there are evil entities

In past, good and evil were portrayed as black and white; these days, the choices are worldshattering but less clear

Need to direct young readers even though ethics are relative these days

Readers find relative ethics confusing, but writers want to help readers learn to make their own choices

Fantasy has been dealing with ethics for a very longs

Evil can be beautiful and seductive

Need to learn how to tell good from evil

Have to make choices for good or evil

Fantasy can do a disservice to people if it convinces them that it’s easy to tell good from evil

All fiction is a subset of philosophy

Don’t let facts get in the way of truth

Using different viewpoints in a book can show various perspectives on a question

Fantasy is prescientific, brings us back to a time when philosophy was useful in solving questions

RPG allow beings to be classified as good, neutral, or evil; lawful or chaotic

Can respect an argument but not a diatribe

Skill of author can make a big difference in how his/her philosophy is received

In fantasy world, the characters know their places in life

Fantasy shows what we’ve lost in our modern society

Images of Women in Fantasy Literature (World Fantasy 2005)

Focus on role models

The role of women has changed much in the last century

Martial women becoming popular image these days, but can harm women as a sterotype

Usurping male role

Manipulating, crafty woman can also be nurturing and focusing on relationships

Martial women appeal to girls because they make it OK to be athletic

Women need to be shown in wide range of roles

Women once were shown either as victim in need of saviour or warrior, man-hating woman

Fairy tales show women being clever

Tamora Pierce—Protector of the Small—shows a female knight who has a protective side

Brainy women are the wise women and the Wicca (Granny Weatherwax and Nancy Ogg)

Brainy woman asked questions

Witches can be good without being “too good”

Assumptions about what women did in the past may limit our choices as writers and readers

Women did everything, but our understanding of what they did may be limited

Women shown talking to men but not often talking to each other and advancing the plot

Can male writers write a female friendship?

(women may not know how men talk among themselves)

Authors provide role models for readers

You never know who will take a character as a role model and how someone will latch onto it

Characters take on symbolic roles

In real life, women may have the economic power in the household

Original iconic figures for women were virgin and whole, along with the maiden, mother, crone

People may try to shoehorn themselves into the role of a specific icon instead of allowing themselves to blossom and look at other roles

Think of characters first, then gender next

Do characters need a diversity of weaknesses in addition to a diversity of strengths?

Let characters be human beings and have weaknesses

Need to make flaws part of story

Fairy Tales (World Fantasy 2005)

What makes fairy tales so important?

They tell the tales people need to hear.

They provide a built-in structure for your story.

They have a special resonance that goes deeper than an original story.

Need to refer back to original source

Do fairy tales always have morals? (sometimes have questionable morals)

Be bold, be bold, be bold but not too bold

Fairy tales are read by multiple generations, gives them weight

Fairy tales have weight because we read them at an early impressionable age

Fairy tales can be cruel

Morals are a Victorian addition to fairy tales

Fairy tales passed down by women storytellers

Fairy tales were subversive stories that gave power to the powerless classes

Only a few fairy tales are suitable for young children

Fairy tales can be “us vs. them.”

Modern retellings may fill in gaps in the original fairy tale

Theme of obedience appears in many fairy tales; is this still relevant?

Adventure begins at point of disobedience

Authority figure shifts from parent to wise woman

Rules may not apply to some heroes.

Girls tend to solve problems with cleverness; even clever boys resort to violence at the end

Significance of numbers: three, seven, nine, eleven

Stories from other cultures may hit “high points” at times we’re not used to (frex, climax first, then you lead up to it)

Art is about selection

World-building and story-building are two different things

Grimm Fairy Tales were Germanized (took out feminist subtext)

Really Good Really Bad Guys (World Fantasy 2005)

Is evil just a motivation for the heroes to do something?

Villains put their needs above others

Can change readers’ minds about what people are capable of doing

Serial killers make easy villains

Does evil have to be stupid and banal?

What happens when bad guys win? (see 1984)

Can be done if you have something to say about evil

You can write a story about anything if it’s done well

You can let evil win if it’s weak in the beginning, so it’s more of a surprise (strong evil may decrease tension)

Group of bad guys might quarrel amongst themselves

Overall evil might make normal people be evil (Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery)

Perfect characters feel unreal; people have flaws

Viewpoint makes the difference in how effective villains are (Flashman)

There are no bad ideas; there are only people who don’t know how to carry them out

Everyone is the hero of their own story (people who know their methods are destructive believe that the ends justify the means)

There are people who will act according to their own natures even if it goes against their own interests

Absolute evil and absolute good are both boring, though good may be more boring

Writing as an Evolving Process (World Fantasy 2005)

Find the right markets for your stories

Novel writing isn’t all about art

Read a lot, look for something you admire, and figure out how it’s done

Include cover letter

Write at the length that’s natural for you

Feel free to write a shitty first draft

Characterization is easy, but everyone thinks it’s hard

Don’t have characters that are too much alike

Don’t write a character that’s too much like you

Character needs to develop over the story

Character has to be dynamic and respond to issues

Characters can drive plot

Some characters resist change

Novel characters have to be different from each other, have to be like people

The more characters become unique, the more interesting they are

Writing is about rewriting, need to critique what you’ve written

Allowing yourself to be messy in the first draft lets you come up with surprises

Draw characters from real life, not from books or TV

Don’t judge your own writing; you’re too self-critical

When you’re improving, you finish things (need to have idea for ending of a story)

Put your work aside for a while and pull it out. If you’re surprised by it, you’re getting there.

As you develop as a writer, you reach for higher standards (you need to if you don’t want to repeat yourself)

The magic is in the second (or later draft)

You can’t teach people who feel that they don’t need to learn

Craft can be internalized

Mining Other Cultures (World Fantasy 2005)

Celtic/English cultures may have strong gravitational pull; need to set something else as default to keep from being drawn back to it

Using one culture may require you to pull into other cultures (frex, using China may lead to using India or Japan as well)

The further you go back (less travel), the more you find instances of a sacred place

Stories are linked to landscape

Writing mythological history

Can find obscure fairy tales that still resonate

Upperclass and lowerclass have different stories to tell

Different cultures may interpret the same story differently (frex, Hamlet in the Bush)

If you go too far afield, you may lose their audience (frex, setting something in a mindset where human sacrifice is OK)

When writing in real world, need to be respect individuals

Need to do research (may be more research than the book)

Swantower.com—list of books in atypical settings

Even if two cultures have the same mythical beings (frex, elves), they may have different traits

Food gives flavor of culture

The Reader (World Fantasy 2005)

Without the reader, there’s no point to writing

Don’t think about reader while writing

Once the story is published, it belongs to the readers

Fiction is shared between reader and writer, which makes it stronger

Writing is a form of communication

At what point is the writer also the reader?

Editor serves as stand-in for reader, helps make story clear for reader

Readers bring their own skills and attitudes to the work

You can’t write for your readers because you have so many of them, but they will participate in the final form of the story anyway

Community of SF readers provides feedback to authors

Writing can still be a work of art even without readers

If you intend to share your work, you’re a writer, no matter whether anyone reads it or not

Writers can see their work as art but be paralyzed by the idea of sharing it with the outside world

If a reader gets it wrong, whose fault is it?

Misapphrensions may be good or bad

Not all readers will “get” your work

You can’t be clear with every reader, but you should still make it as accessible as possible without destroying the story

Not everyone has the reading protocols (eg, understanding of terms and tropes) of the genre

Does it take a particular skill to read properly? If so, how do you acquire it?

Need to learn how to read any particular work.

Can read the language without reading the literature

Not everyone stretches for reading

Some books teach you how to read them (like Faulkner)

Some books make the reader feel superior and smarter (like Harry Potter)

What responsibilities do the reader and writer owe to each other?

Do your job as best as you can and make the story as clear and accessible as you can

Make every attempt to let the writer teach me how to read the story

No writer wants to write a shitty novel

Publishers may be best judge of who will be best reader of a particular work

Writer owes the story his/her best work

Writers have to write what matters to them

Readers bring their own biases to work as they read

What should readers bring to the work?

Tolerance, patience, love of words, curiosity

No one writes because it’s a good idea

How can we make entry into SF easier for new readers?

Still have accessible material in the genre

Everyone thinks that their work is good

What role do critters have?

Depends on what you need

Don’t focus on making the story work for individuals in your group (lose control of story)

Depends on how well you know and trust critters