the rambles of my headspace

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

First up, the shameless pimping of reviews of my stuff… this time the most excellent Charles Tan reviews the final issue of Farrago’s Wainscot over at Bibliophile Stalker

“First up is the nonfiction, “Telling Stories in the Wake of Postmodernism” by Jonathan Wood. Wood has a concise summary of the implications of postmodernism–some of which I’m not even aware of–and eventually gets to discuss the options in telling interactive stories. It’s the latter which catches my attention, and Wood cites mediums like video games and hypertext as one of the viable forms. It’s an interesting discourse and take on the subject, with the references remaining unobtrusive.”

“”Ephemera” by Jonathan Wood can be challenging to read and it’s an interesting combination of mystery along with your horror and fantasy. Overall however, I got confused as there are two plots taking place, and while the discourse is an interesting technique, isn’t exactly the most accessible. Yet this confusion is also perfect for the story as it captures the clash and fusion of minds of its main character. While some readers might appreciate this form-function synthesis–and it takes great skill for Wood to pull it off–I’m not fond of this format.”

Which is generally nice to hear.

Next up, more excellence.  Mr Jeff Vandermeer (along with the intrepid Mr. Matt Staggs) has put together the sweetest of books: Booklife, which is launching shortly (I believe).  It is only marred in one place by a relatively stupid quote from me.  Despite this it is ful of great advice for authors, especially those just moving into the professionally creative part of their lives.  In fact it was on the strength of the book that I finally moved over onto Wordpress, which has made me very happy.

Anyhoo, for more information about this fascinating little book (I chewed through it in about3 days) you can now head over to http://booklifenow.com/ which just launched today.

Next up, for reasons of full discolsure as well as hideous self-pimpage, I have been included in another of Mr Vandermeer’s projects, the charity anthology, Last Drink Bird Head.  It’s got over 80 writers, most of whom are far more famous and talented than I, which makes it a real honor to be in their company, all donating pieces of flash fiction about the idea of “What the crap is Last Drink Bird Head?”  It’s full of really lively cool stuff, and includes authors like eter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, and Marly Youmans.  To name a few.

What’s more all the proceed go to charity. Whoot!

And while on the subject of anthologies, I think I have totally failed to mention the anthology Hatter Bones, put together by Paul Jessup.  There are several reasons for this, mostly due to my general concern that the publishers are a bunch of eejits.  This may be false, and if so I apologize.  However, you may notice Mr Jessup’s name oddly absent from the cover despite the very hard work he put in, which is but one of the oddities.  It’s a patchy antho, through no fault of his that I can tell, but there are some real gems in there.

There’s something in there by me (hence the mention) but you’ll also find stuff by Matt Cheney, Darin C. Bradley, Ekaterina Sedia, Cat Rambo, Jason Sizemore, Lavie Tidhar, Forrest Aguirre, and Becca De La Rosa, so I strongly recommend at least considering spending some of your pennies.

And that’s quite enough from me, so I shall be quiet.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

Sad days are upon us.  Old man Farrago is making his final bow–the final issue of Farrago’s Wainscot is upon us.

The Farrago team have been exceedingly good to me.  They are responsible for my first published stories and my first go at editing. Darin Bradley and his team are excellent people.  I’m sad to see the zine go.

It therefore makes me very happy to be involved in Farrago’s final send-off.  I’ve got two pieces up in this final issue.  One’s a short story titled Ephemera, and the other is my first piece of nonfiction, called “Telling stories in the wake of post-modernism.”

By a certain irony, Ephemera is one of my most aggressively postmodern stories, and the essay is much more interested in finding a way past some of the roadblocks I see postmodernism throwing up in storytelling without retreating into the naivety of modernism.

Hopefully some people will like the story.  Its experimental and postmodern and all that Farrago stuff, so I imagine the audience will be limited, but hopefully it will find a few people to love it.  I’m actually much more interested in reaction to the essay, as I suspect it will be rather antithetical some people I know.  Still it comes out of discussions at the old Broken Circles blog (which involved Darin Bradley, Paul Jessup, Mark Teppo, Ekaterina Sedia and several others) so it is near and dear to my heart.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I just discovered this writing outline at a site called Paper Dragon.  It’s written by the prolific pulp fiction author Lester Dent, best known for the “Doc Savage” stories.  It’s kind of awful and awesome at the same time.  But the idea of messing with it on a grand scale excites me greatly:

The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot

This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. It has worked on adventure, detective, western and war-air. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely just what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.

Here’s how it starts:

1. A DIFFERENT MURDER METHOD FOR VILLAIN TO USE
2. A DIFFERENT THING FOR VILLAIN TO BE SEEKING
3. A DIFFERENT LOCALE
4. A MENACE WHICH IS TO HANG LIKE A CLOUD OVER HERO

One of these DIFFERENT things would be nice, two better, three swell. It may help if they are fully in mind before tackling the rest.

A different murder method could be–different. Thinking of shooting, knifing, hydrocyanic, garroting, poison needles, scorpions, a few others, and writing them on paper gets them where they may suggest something. Scorpions and their poison bite? Maybe mosquitos or flies treated with deadly germs?

If the victims are killed by ordinary methods, but found under strange and identical circumstances each time, it might serve, the reader of course not knowing until the end, that the method of murder is ordinary.

Scribes who have their villain’s victims found with butterflies, spiders or bats stamped on them could conceivably be flirting with this gag.

Probably it won’t do a lot of good to be too odd, fanciful or grotesque with murder methods.

The different thing for the villain to be after might be something other than jewels, the stolen bank loot, the pearls, or some other old ones.

Here, again one might get too bizarre.

Unique locale? Easy. Selecting one that fits in with the murder method and the treasure–thing that villain wants–makes it simpler, and it’s also nice to use a familiar one, a place where you’ve lived or worked. So many pulpateers don’t. It sometimes saves embarrassment to know nearly as much about the locale as the editor, or enough to fool him.

Here’s a nifty much used in faking local color. For a story laid in Egypt, say, author finds a book titled “Conversational Egyptian Easily Learned,” or something like that. He wants a character to ask in Egyptian, “What’s the matter?” He looks in the book and finds, “El khabar, eyh?” To keep the reader from getting dizzy, it’s perhaps wise to make it clear in some fashion, just what that means. Occasionally the text will tell this, or someone can repeat it in English. But it’s a doubtful move to stop and tell the reader in so many words the English translation.

The writer learns they have palm trees in Egypt. He looks in the book, finds the Egyptian for palm trees, and uses that. This kids editors and readers into thinking he knows something about Egypt.

Here’s the second installment of the master plot.

Divide the 6000 word yarn into four 1500 word parts. In each 1500 word part, put the following:

FIRST 1500 WORDS

1–First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved–something the hero has to cope with.

2–The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)

3–Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.

4–Hero’s endevours land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words.

5–Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.

SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE?
Is there a MENACE to the hero?
Does everything happen logically?

At this point, it might help to recall that action should do something besides advance the hero over the scenery. Suppose the hero has learned the dastards of villains have seized somebody named Eloise, who can explain the secret of what is behind all these sinister events. The hero corners villains, they fight, and villains get away. Not so hot.

Hero should accomplish something with his tearing around, if only to rescue Eloise, and surprise! Eloise is a ring-tailed monkey. The hero counts the rings on Eloise’s tail, if nothing better comes to mind. They’re not real. The rings are painted there. Why?

SECOND 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel more grief onto the hero.

2–Hero, being heroic, struggles, and his struggles lead up to:

3–Another physical conflict.

4–A surprising plot twist to end the 1500 words.

NOW: Does second part have SUSPENSE?
Does the MENACE grow like a black cloud?
Is the hero getting it in the neck?
Is the second part logical?

DON’T TELL ABOUT IT***Show how the thing looked. This is one of the secrets of writing; never tell the reader–show him. (He trembles, roving eyes, slackened jaw, and such.) MAKE THE READER SEE HIM.

When writing, it helps to get at least one minor surprise to the printed page. It is reasonable to to expect these minor surprises to sort of  inveigle the reader into keeping on. They need not be such profound efforts. One method of accomplishing one now and then is to be gently misleading. Hero is examining the murder room. The door behind him begins slowly to open. He does not see it. He conducts his examination blissfully. Door eases open, wider and wider, until–surprise! The glass pane falls out of the big window across the room. It must have fallen slowly, and air blowing into the room caused the door to open. Then what the heck made the pane fall so slowly? More mystery.

Characterizing a story actor consists of giving him some things which make him stick in the reader’s mind. TAG HIM.

BUILD YOUR PLOTS SO THAT ACTION CAN BE CONTINUOUS.

THIRD 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel the grief onto the hero.

2–Hero makes some headway, and corners the villain or somebody in:

3–A physical conflict.

4–A surprising plot twist, in which the hero preferably gets it in the neck bad, to end the 1500 words.

DOES: It still have SUSPENSE?
The MENACE getting blacker?
The hero finds himself in a hell of a fix?
It all happens logically?

These outlines or master formulas are only something to make you certain of inserting some physical conflict, and some genuine plot twists, with a little suspense and menace thrown in. Without them, there is no pulp story.

These physical conflicts in each part might be DIFFERENT, too. If one fight is with fists, that can take care of the pugilism until next the next yarn. Same for poison gas and swords. There may, naturally, be exceptions. A hero with a peculiar punch, or a quick draw, might use it more than once.

The idea is to avoid monotony.

ACTION:
Vivid, swift, no words wasted. Create suspense, make the reader see and feel the action.

ATMOSPHERE:
Hear, smell, see, feel and taste.

DESCRIPTION:
Trees, wind, scenery and water.

THE SECRET OF ALL WRITING IS TO MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.

FOURTH 1500 WORDS

1–Shovel the difficulties more thickly upon the hero.

2–Get the hero almost buried in his troubles. (Figuratively, the villain has him prisoner and has him framed for a murder rap; the girl is presumably dead, everything is lost, and the DIFFERENT murder method is about to dispose of the suffering protagonist.)

3–The hero extricates himself using HIS OWN SKILL, training or brawn.

4–The mysteries remaining–one big one held over to this point will help grip interest–are cleared up in course of final conflict as hero takes
the situation in hand.

5–Final twist, a big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to be the unexpected person, having the “Treasure” be a dud, etc.)

6–The snapper, the punch line to end it.

HAS: The SUSPENSE held out to the last line?
The MENACE held out to the last?
Everything been explained?
It all happen logically?
Is the Punch Line enough to leave the reader with that WARM FEELING?
Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I have a new story, The Mathematics of Faith up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which is still one of my favorite ‘zines.  And not just because this is the second of my stories they’ve published.  Though… well, partly that’s why.  But they have some wonderfully weird and exciting stories, and have also allowed my penchant off-beat Steampunk to flourish a little.

It should be noted that there is no actual steam in the story and neither are there punks, but apparently that isn’t necessary for the genre.  I could call it faux-Victoriana, but I suspect that makes me sound like an asshole.

Anyhoo, it’s up, it’s my wife’s favorite of all my stories, which makes it near and dear to my heart if not yours.

Here’s the opener so anyone who clicks through knows what they’re getting into:

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

Yes, there’s another story up at Daily Cabal.  By me.

I did it.  It’s my fault.

And I’m not sorry.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

Thank god for Google Alerts, otherwise I couldn’t spam the interwebs with more story news.  But I just discovered that my short story “The Queen of Clockwork” is now up at Steampod.  An actual proper short story sale and everything so there it has passed through an editorial gateway and everything.

So, should you be in the mood for audio fiction, clockpunk, non-linear storytelling, family sagas, and/or a murder mystery then this might be a story for you.  If you’re not, then it’s probably not, but you can listen to it for free, so what the hell.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I always feel a bit bad popping on here only to plug a Daily Cabal story, but there is a new one up.  I’m pleased with this one. I’ve been in a bit of a flash fiction funk lately, reprising a couple of old stories when inspiration failed to strike.  Not often a problem for me–not bragging, it’s just I usually figure I’ll need one 1 hour commute to write one of these and I usually don’t think much about them prior to that and I usually get something after 1 or 2 false starts.  This started off as an adaptation of a piece of twitter-fic, and sort of mutated into it’s own thing.

Also, this is one where I think the title actually helps.  Titles usually kill me slowly so I sort of throw tack on the first piece of crap that sticks to the wall, but here I hope it actually adds something to the story and gives a hint at what I was trying to write about.

But it’s got me back to working hard on the novel outline I’m doing at the moment, so if that’s the only upshot, then I’m still pleased.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

The weekly trawl through the forums over at conceptart.org was particularly rewarding this week.  Lots of awesome all over the place.  However, what REALLY caught my eye was some gorgeous steampunk by a chap called Andrew Chase.  There’s some nice individual sculptures, but he’s gone further than that and posed them in some totally amazing settings.

Such as this:

More of his awesome can be found here and here

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I recently made a drastic life change.

Yes, that’s right, I’ve gone from collecting X-Men comics to Batman ones.  Marvel to DC.  I risk the wrath of fanboys everywhere.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  I came onboard with X-Men (and comics in general) about 5 years ago.  There was a big cross-over event going on written by Brian Michael Bendis.  It was thoroughly entertaining and I was hooked.  And I loved the big splashy-ness of X-men, the unrepentant afternoon soap qualities combined with fantastic action.  X-Men provide big stupid drama of all kinds in a completely loveable form.

And the line-up!  Wolverine is just frickin’ awesome no matter how many bad movies you put him in (I haven’t seen the Origins movie.  Yet…).  Cyclops is a perfect foil.  Beast (always my favorite) is just always cool, the total Mary-Jane character for every high-school nerd.  The ever-returning Jean Grey.  It goes on and on.

I read the Essential Collections, with Chris Claremont’s initial run on the book, which is magnificent.  Though now, for whatever reason, his stuff comes across as the rantings of a dribbling maniac, back then it was powerful stuff.  The original Dark Phoenix saga is powerful stuff.

The problem is, I don’t think it’s really been topped.  In over 20 years.  It stands there clearly marking–”this is about as good as it gets.”  The X-Men constantly teeter on the edge of greatness, they have the potential for greatness, but they seem mired in mediocrity.  Astonishing X-Men (currently penned by the genius Warren Ellis, previously by Joss Whedon) manages it from time to time, but that only comes out every 2 months.  6 issues a year.  That’s not enough to buy my loyalty.

So, I started two-timing the X-Men, and now the dumping procedure is complete.  Make mine DC.

I’ve gone for Batman for a couple of reasons.  Partly it’s due to the recent Batman reboot, with Bruce Wayne gone and a newbie stepping into the Dark Knight’s shoes.  It’s a good starting point to come in, and I love the new guy’s insecurities, the weaknesses, the flaws.  They’re fresh, and you can feel the freshness.

There’s also the fact the flagship title is written by Grant Morrison who was responsible for the best run of the X-Men this decade.  If he was still working on the X-Men I’d probably still be reading it.  Another writer is Paul Dini–one of the masterminds behind the original Batman cartoon which still ranks as some of the best TV around.

And I’ve always loved that Batman is a self-made man.  His only superpower is mega-wealth.  He wasn’t born with any abilities you and I don’t have.  Now, obviously, it is impossible to become Batman, but the fanboy part of me can pretend that it is theoretically possible, and I love that message.  Anybody, if they try, could be Batman.  How fucking empowering is that?

And finally, and probably, mostly, there is Gotham City.  How can you not love Gotham City?  New York seen through the fractured lens of madness.  More noir than any depiction of L.A. could ever be.  Home to more psychotics than you could shake a stick at,and shaking a stick ain’t that hard.  A city of endless shadows, of fathomless darkness.  It’s brilliant, and brutal, and it feels just like the sort of place heroes should be, down in the pits being damaged and damaging things right back.

So, yeah, I’m a convert.  Cape and cowl, people.  Cape and cowl.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I went and saw Transformers.  That’s right, I read the reviews and I went to see it anyway.

This is not because I was completely obsessed with the Transformers between the formative years of 5 and 11.  That’s why I saw the first one.  I wasn’t making that mistake again.

I went because I don’t get the opportunity to go to the movies very often any more so when I do go I want the movie to take full advantage of the fact that it’s going to be playing on an enormous screen with an absurd sound system at its beck and call.  I like to sit in the 2^nd or 3^rd row so that the screen fills my field of vision.  I want explosions and action and sensory overload.

That doesn’t tell you much about Transformers, but I wanted to give context behind why I go because I hope it will lead to fewer beatings from the next sentence:

I didn’t think it was that bad.

It certainly wasn’t that good either.  But it really wasn’t that bad.  I’d give it 3/5 probably.

Now why would I make such a patently absurd statement?  Did it make sense?  No.  Did the plot hold water for longer the five seconds?  No.  Were there supremely bad continuity errors?  No.  Was there anything resembling characterization?  No.  Was there really any substance other than a slow-building cacophony of noise and ’splosion pr0n?  No, not really.

But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.

That realization is the essence of Transformers and I think crucial to its enjoyment.  Whatever you saw on the screen five seconds ago – it doesn’t matter.  What’s to come doesn’t matter.  All that matters is what’s happening on screen now, this instant, no forget that instant, this instant, no now, now, now.  In  the same way China Mieville suggests a surrender to the weird, this movie insists a surrender to the now.  The movie’s only interest is in making what’s on screen at this exact moment in time as awesome as possible.

I think this can be neatly summed up from one scene towards the end of the movie:  John Turturro is on-screen.  Awesome.  He’s at the pyramids.  Awesome.  Above him is a giant robot.  Awesome.  The giant robot is actually made up on other robots.  Awesome.  Those robots were the truly enormous construction vehicles they use in mines, the ones the size of city blocks.  Awesome.  The giant conglomerate robot is destroying the pyramids.  Awesome.  Inside the pyramid is hidden a laser that’ll blow up the sun.  Awesome.  John Turturro is on a satellite phone telling the navy to shoot some experimental rail gun at the giant robot.  Awesome.

Now, how could this scene be possibly made more awesome?  Think about it.  What could you possibly do?

You could give that robot some testicles made of giant wrecking balls and have them clank about above John Turturro’s head.  That’s what you could do.  Fucking AWESOME.

Now, does the robot need testicles?  No.  Did it have them in any prior scene?  No.  Will it have them in any others?  No.  Does it make any sense whatsoever?  YES!!! It adds more awesome!!!  That’s all that you could ever want.

Now, obviously there is a very specific definition of awesome being used here.  It is, I suspect, Michael Bay’s sense of awesome.  Or, to give him some credit he may or may not deserve – it is what he thinks we think is awesome.  And he’d be justified.  Because we, as a populace, have thrown our money at movies trying to be this movie.  And they have.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is the most complete realization of the summer blockbuster I have ever seen.  Everything is subjugated to the one decision to make whatever is happening on screen right now as awesome as possible, as popcorn friendly as possible.¹

The long-term outcome of this decision is predictabe–5 or 6 seconds after I left the theatre, then I no longer cared about Transformers.  It no longer existed in the now.  It was past, and it had effectively destroyed the relevance of such a time.  But, while it lasted, much as my popcorn was, the movie was entertaining.

¹Whether the fact that the ultimate realization of Hollywood’s blockbuster vision comes in at a solid 3/5 is shockingly good or shockingly bad I think depends on your level of cynicism.  Personally I’m rather impressed.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

One of my great internet pleasures is browsing for random art files.  I keep a folder of random clippings that help provide inspiration for novels and short stories.  Generally I forget to keep track of the artist, for I am a fool.  Anyhoo, I just came across some really beautiful tentacle art by the clearly talented Michelle Farran.  Her gallery is definitely worth checking out.

My personal favorite would be this:

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

There’s an ad out at the moment, I’m pretty sure it’s by Heineken, that states “You are who you are when no one’s around.”

I am not sure how this is meant to detract from the fact that Heineken tastes like horse urine, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

It strikes me that this is a massively poisonous statement.

There’s a great movie named Roger Dodger in which Campbell Scott plays a copywriter.  He states that an ads first job is to make people unhappy, to make them thing they need something.  The line “You are who you are when no one’s around” purely exists to make people unhappy.  It gives the sense that you are pretending, a walking shell, you are surrounded by people, and your life is a lie.

It’s a line that taps into the powerful modernist myth of dualism, into the idea that there is a true self, a soul perhaps, that lurks beneath the facade of our daily lives.  It ties into this idea that if we could just do something, achieve something then we could push through to this better realm.  Religion uses the myth as the proverbial carrot to encourage “moral” behavior (I leave it up to you as to whether institutionalized hatred of certain groups is moral or not)–do this and you will be rewarded in the afterlife, the true life once the skein of this world is torn away.  In this case, the manufacturers are trying to use the myth to shift beer.  Own beer, and you will achieve some sort of fucking nirvana or something.

Now, of course, Heineken beer ads, all beer ads, pretty much all ads, are crap, are up to the same cheap psychological trick.  But here the baldness of the line clearly pushes me over the edge.

You are who you are all the damned time.

You are who you are when you lie to your boss, when you laugh at a joke you don’t think is funny, when you dance self-consciously, when you’re embarrassed because you laughed so loudly, when you dress to impress, when you take the cigarette you don’t want, when you don’t light the cigarette you really want to light.  Everything little thing you do, is you.

If we deny these things, bad things, good things, indifferent stupid damned things, then we deny ourselves more  than half the time.  This world is it.  This is what we have.  These moments when we’re around others are what we have.  When we look back on our work day, our whatever day, we can’t say half of it wasn’t us.  Who the hell was it?

Living divided, in denial of half ourselves is unhealthy.  It’s a psychological trauma done to society by Descartes and exacerbated beyond all belief by crass commercialism.

Seriously–it’s almost as bad as Heineken tastes.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

Another new story up at Daily Cabal today.  The few long-time followers of this blog may recognize it from the old LJ, and yes it is a reprise, which usually I try to avoid.  But the flu had me at a disadvantage this week and rather killed my creativity.  So, the best [imho] of the old ones is what’s gone up.  So apologies if it doesn’t have that new car smell, but hopefully you’ll enjoy anyway.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

[I'm on my fifth and (hopefully) final day of flue, so if any of this makes even less sense than usual, then that's my excuse]

Back when I was in college I was able to take a theater course.  As well of seeing many excellent off-broadway shows (the joys of taking such a course in NYC) I also got to learn a bunch of interesting theories and terms.  The one thing which has prooved itself most useful to my writing is the Brechtian “Alienation Effect.”

This generally sounds absurdly pompous, but it’s really quite simple.  It simply means that part of the performance (or story) reminds the audience (reader) that this is a performance, not reality.  It resists the suspension of disbelief.  The audience/reader is shocked out of the story for a moment, and intentionally.

Why would you want to do this?  You’ve worked so hard to make your story grab and immerse the reader, why then ruin it all by throwing them out of the story (alienating them - hence the name)?

Because, a story doesn’t just entertain.  It should entertain.  It has to enteain.  But it doesn’t just entertain.  It can also carry a message, have some political import.  But swept along in the tide of things, readers may miss the message.  And so you give them a quick jolt, you remind them, this is a story, and allow them to think more analytically about the events of the story as they occur.

It’s probably not a tactic to use in every story, or even to use often in a story its appropriate for, but it can be quite effective.  One way I’ve found to deploy it is to write in the 2nd-person, to use the word “you” so that the text abruptly addresses the reader.  (My attempt, is over at Farrago’s Wainscot–I’ll leave it to you to judge if it’s successful or not).

---

(As an aside on the word “you” I’d also say that this is why a lot of interactive fiction, and choose-your-own adventure fails.  They’re texts which should work to involve you more in the fiction, but the reader is constantly thrown out by the odd 2nd-person format.  I think one of the reasons the outstanding story/game “Slouching Towards Bedlam” works so well is its fastidious eschewing of the word “you”)

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

So I picked up Mieville’s latest, The City and The City, last week and chewed through it in about a week (it always startles me when I realize how much I could read in a year if I didn’t write).

I’m a huge Mieville fan.  The reading of Perdido Street Station was a watershed moment for me, and while it is not the only book to have strongly influenced my writing, it is the first one I can identify and the one that led me to seek out the others.  I had been biting my nails over The City and The City.  I went to the reading in NYC and got my hardcover signed.  I participated in the online chat hosted by Suvudo.

Despite every review I’d read, the first fifty pages or so pages of The City and The City through me.  This is not a fantasy book.  I knew that.  I’d read that.  But I still expected it.  And it’s just not.

This, I should point out clearly now, is not a flaw in the book, but in me.

But I definitely wrestled with the absence of the sense of wonder.  There is wonder here of course, but a very muted version, as opposed to Mieville’s normal, in-your-face oddities that tickle my brain just so.  But compared to The Weaver, to Slake Moths, to Raft Cities, to Mosquito Men… the relationship of the cities Bezel and Ul Qoma, which is an unusual and inventive one, leading to much narrative excitement, seems relatively mundane.

However, after a little perseverance, and an adjustment of my own views, I was finally able to appreciate the book on its own terms.  It is, as I’ve said, a fantasy novel.  It’s a mystery novel.  It’s a police procedural (which all the interviews/reviews have pointed out, and I should have known, I know, and yet…).  What’s more it’s a very good police procedural.

I don’t really read enough mystery to judge the novel against the convetions of the genre.  When I do read mysteries I tend towards noirs, and a noir this is not.  But I doubt this breaks down genre boundaries in the same way that the Bas-Lag triology did.  But on the basis of what is simply a good read and what is not: this is a good read.

Tyador Borlu is an rye, entertaining narrator; the mystery clicks along and an ever increasing pace; the stakes rise; the twists and reversals are all appropriate, all feel right.  Nothing is cheap here, nothing forced.  The one element of the not-quite-fantastic–the relationship between the cities of  Bezel and Ul Qoma, which I won’t spoil here–is never tacked on, but an important, integral part of the novel and the mystery.  This, as all mysteries should be, is a well-oiled machine, every part in its place, performing its task.

Is The City and The City as innovative as the Bas-Lag, series?  No.  Is it as wondrous?  No.  But it’s not trying to be.  It doesn’t need to be.  On it’s own terms, it is a very good read.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

This was snagged from Warren Ellis’ site today.

1. The BNP winning European parliament seats means they have a budget to employ staff and various sub-contractors.
2. These budgets and staff positions are subject to anti-discrimination laws, as they come from public funds.
3. Watch out for when these positions are advertised. If anyone sees them advertised, chuck the ads about on as many social networks, blogs etc as possible.
4. Man the Harpoons - If you fall outside of the BNP’s discriminatory membership criteria, due to being black, Jewish, whatever, apply. If you are white British and want to help out this plan anyway, just spread the idea about.
5. When you/they don’t get the job, take it to an employment tribunal.
6. ????
7. Profit.

Even if you’re not especially bothered about taking the BNP to an employment tribunal, spreading this idea about, and forcing them to consider it and raaage over how unfair to the poor ickle racialists it is, it’s still funny.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

When I was a teenager I was an enthusiastic roleplayer. I even once rolled a hundred-sided dice. (It was awesome - giant ball of failed percentage rolls). I loved it. I still do. The only reason I am no longer a roleplayer is a lack of time and opportunity.

The system of choice for my friends and I was Shadowrun 2^nd edition, and great blend of Gibson-inspired cyberpunk and old-school fantasy themes. I GM’d more often than not though I’m not convinced I was that good at it. I lack the ruthlessness of the true GM. But I did enjoy the storytelling, the act of creation that being a GM required.

Most of my early adventures followed a pretty familiar mold. Players are hired to complete random task. Players roll dice to get requisite info. Then we go through the act of breaking in somewhere (or whatever) security inevitably shows. Repeat with a few twists and turns, end in cataclysmic gunfight. They were tales of mounting violence, ending in orgies of bullets and fireballs.

Man, Shadowrun was awesome…

Then one day I used an adventure published by FASA (then owners of the Shadowrun franchise). I forget the name but it was written by Tom Dowd, who seemed to do most of the good Shadowrun supplements. Hopefully he is still writing things. The adventure centered around the kidnapping of a boy, the players forcing the kid into the role of pawn in a corporate game. The kidnapping itself was fraught with the usual dangers, and had a high excitement value. The adventure, I remember, was shockingly complete in the information it provided, everything a player could wish to know was covered, and the planning was tense, the execution thrilling.

Then the players entered a protracted period of waiting, of roleplaying, of getting to know this kid. And all the time they’re waiting for the final firefight, for the men to bust down the door and the guns to blaze.

And it never happened.

The game ends with the kids being discarded. No longer wanted. The players are left with this kid on their hands that no one (including his parents) wants any more. It ends with a moral dilemma. What to do? And it was the most powerful game I ever played using the Shadowrun system.

But the revelation of that game, that forcing someone into a moral dilemma, to make them choose from an array of bad choices, is more powerful than any action scene.

It’s a truth that made for a great Vampire: The Masquerade game when I was in college. It’s a truth that’s slowly seeping into video games–Fallout 3 and Mass Effect are powerful, powerful games, and they achieve their power, by forcing the player into those awkward situations. (I still regret some of the choices I’ve made in Fallout 3, but I wouldn’t go back to an earlier save and change them for the world).

It’s a truth I’m trying to put into my writing. Action scenes are fun and easy, and they will carry a story so far, but they’ll never quite match the power of watching a character that you have come to identify with wrestle with the simple question of, “what the hell do I do now?”

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

For the (so far 2) people who care, I just fixed it so comments should appear instantly without me having to approve them.  I’m fairly sure I am not in any way significant enough to attract spammers.

Knowing my luck, that has just thrown down the gauntlet to about 3000 spammers…

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

I’ve become a big fan of flash fiction.  Pieces of around 400 words (the Daily Cabal limit) are a great way to learn structure, to strengthen basic narrative skills, and to experiment with new ideas.

One thing I’ve been seeing more and more of, however, are pieces of 140 characters or less.  Now that, it seems, is a challenge.  So, having not tried it before, but due to the awesome-ness of @thaumatrope (people on twitter really should follow) I thought I’d stick a couple of first attempts up here, for the joys of public humiliation.

As ever with fiction on the blog, if it sucks, please let me know.

Attempt 1:

Werewolf howls at full moon - the night’s blind eye.  Thrown shoe catches her behind ear.  City life, she thinks, is a bitch.

Attempt 2:

I wake spewing paper.  Pages and pages of dense text regurgitated.  When I recover, I read.  All that’s printable–140 characters.

Attempt 3:

There are no fairies we’re told.  Yet they beckon us and we think ourselves wiser.  We follow and their goblin teeth teach us we are not.

Attempt 4:

Flight–a sudden gift.  She sails from the tower, from the witch’s clutches.  Free.  But what bravery has gifted her, gravity soon steals.

Originally published at Cogs & Neurons. You can comment here or there.

As usual it takes me about two weeks after reading something to come up with an original thought, so I have completely lost the link to the article that caused all the subsequent thoughts, so I apologize for that.

Having lost the link I can’t go point by point, and I’m not sure even if I could.  I think there were some good points in the arguments as well as bad, and I don’t want this to turn into a swipe at someone behind there back.  But one point that was definitely made and that I definitely take issue with was that the assertion it was OK for books to be purely escapist, and that tackling politics in novels was not necessarily a good thing, and could even spoil a book (the advocate for politics in fantasy novels in question was China Mieville, whose particular brand of politics is more contentious than most).

And the vast hole in the argument for pure escapism over political content was the author’s failure to realize that escapism is political too.

This, I think, can manifest in a couple of ways.  Firstly, the politics of the author can be so closely aligned with the readers that the reader simply doesn’t notice them.  So while the book may be political, it doesn’t challenge that particular readers worldview, doesn’t cause them to ask themselves any questions, and the politics passes them by.  These books, I suspect, as in the minority,

More difficult to spot, perhaps, are the books which do not directly deal with political matters.  Because the subject is not directly tackled it appears to be left alone.  But any novel supports a particular worldview.  Even the innocent phrases slipped into paragraphs can be loaded with political content–for example”men and women” is gender biased, with its assumption that men go first, yet it’s such a common phrase that few are going to see it and think about it (I’m not claiming to be unnaturally aware of political biases in text here, btw, anyone who knows me knows I blunder as much as the next woman or man).  But the politics is there in every text.  It’s whether we acknowledge it or not.

And that comes to the intent with which we read books.  It is certainly possible to read with the intent of escaping from our daily lives, to read with the intent of ignoring the political content of any book.  And those readers are likely to pick books that naturally fit their worldview most closely, that challenge them the least, that draw attention to their politics the least.  But again, this doesn’t mean that the books are apolitical.

And, of course, reading with the intent of ignoring the political content of a book, is a political decision too.  It’s essentially an acquiescence, an acknowledgment of a particular worldview, a decision to uphold it, to do nothing.  And that’s a legitimate decision, but it’s a political one.

And I probably should let things lie there, but one last thing bother me, which is, the feeling that one needs to escape seems to imply a dissatisfaction with the status quo.  The reader feels the need to escape something.  But rather than engage with whatever the problem is, they’re choosing to disengage, they’re acquiescing to the situation, allowing it to continue.  This is the conciliatory role Tolkein argued for fantasy (whether his own works are conciliatory or not I would debate, but he certainly argued that fantasy should fulfill that function) and it is the weakest position fiction can take.  It is to say that the sole purpose of fiction is to entertain.

Yes, fiction to be successful by ANY measure, must entertain, but that is also the least it must do.  That is the price of entry.  But it can do more much more.  And just because fiction challenges us, doesn’t mean that it cannot be entertaining as well.