the – House of Error

Update: Memory of the Black Sun–My NaNoWriMo 2014 Project–is Finished

Where I Wrote: At home, in the one room I always use for writing.

How I Feel About What I Wrote: Strange. The ending is a complication.

The Mood I Brought to the Table: I remember being really happy. I want to say determined, but that would imply that there was some difficulty. There wasn’t; I woke up, made coffee, and sat down with my tablet, excited to edit the bit of the ending that I had and try again to complete it.

The Experience: I’d planned a return to the New York Public Library on 42nd, but the end of Memory refused to wait for that; on Friday morning, after struggling with the last chapter and epilogue, I woke up, edited, tried another approach, and wound up finishing Memory within an hour or two.

And, yes, you read that right; I finished the novel on Friday and I’m only posting about it today, on Sunday. At this point, I’ve told exactly one person about completing it. My reason: boasting about finishing the novel feels incredibly celebratory. Which would be all kinds of silly as the book is absolutely not done.

In part because it needs to be edited. Sorely. I want to smooth out the pacing. I want to add more interesting descriptions for everything. I want to hone the world of the story. I want, more than anything else, to have the required Naming Session, during which I can finally stop calling my thief protagonist Locke, and–for the love of God–decide on a less awkward name than Memory of the Black Sun.

But also because… the ending for Memory is such a conundrum that taking one possible route with it does not feel like any cause for celebration whatsoever–I have not won yet; I have not figured it out. War of Exiles had a very clear, complete, strong ending that got unexpectedly more powerful for me every time I worked on it–every time I trimmed off excess and added another scene that needed a resolution. In contrast, I’m left staring at a handful of options for Memory, the terms of my Fantasy Story Stats buzzing around in my head endlessly; the ending can be High Spirit (emotionally comforting), or Low Spirit (emotionally challenging), I find myself thinking, only to immediately remind myself that I can find a middle ground–one of the many if’s and but’s that makes the logic puzzle of Memory’s ending a terrible little loop. I’m still weighing the matter with such honest confusion that writing this just feels… wrong.

But I still have to acknowledge that I’m on to the editing part. On to it so hard, in fact, that last night saw me whipping out the tablet on my bed at (seriously) 6AM because I had to write a scene that I knew would help the pacing and reinforce the protagonists’ relationship. I have, at least, crossed over to the phase of writing during which I can–and totally do–jump backwards in the timeline and tweak and edit absolutely everything. I’m up to the point where I can stare vacantly at a wall (or maybe at people in public) while I consider the ending for the umpteenth time, knowing as I do that there is a solution for it that I will find. Being at that phase with Memory is something I’m incredibly grateful for.

It took longer than a month; I took an extra week to put in hours at work and take care of other life things I’d been ignoring and then an extra week after that to actually write the end of the novel without rushing it. But I still, suddenly have a second novel down. If you’d asked me in mid-October of this year–just before NaNoWriMo–when I expected to finish Memory of the Black Sun, I’d have shrugged and half-asked, “2016?”

But it’s down, on paper, now–and it’s good–in a month and change, compared to the… seven years it took me to write War of Exiles?

Yep. I’ll take it.

Update: The Age of Submissions Already Sucks

I wasn’t intending to do another update immediately; last weekend was the first weekend without Saturday morning cartoons, as you may have heard. That made this past Monday the perfect time to launch my Cliché Showcase series (I’m starting with cartoony villains).

But when the time came, I just wasn’t feeling it. Although I was excited to write about Albert Wesker and the Red Skull, I was also days away from hearing back about my very first submission. And I thought, “No matter how that turns out, I’m going to have something to talk about.”

Yep. I was right.

Before I launch into this, I have to clarify that it’s more of an update on my life; I’m not trying to share any interesting thoughts here—just laying down an experience.

So, what is it about submitting a story that really sucks? There are many, many answers:

At first, it’s the insanely tense need to make sure it’s completely perfect. Not just the story—the submission itself. There’s proper formatting to worry about, of course. But there’s also your cover letter—the need to write a single, short line about yourself that’s both unobtrusive and interesting. There’s (for me at least) the magic of repeatedly comparing submission guidelines to the email / submission portal you’ve already filled out, combing for mistakes—something I did until my eyes glazed over, looking at the two windows on my computer monitor without actually seeing them anymore. There’s hitting “Send” and immediately checking your submission again, unrealistically expecting to find an error despite the countless rechecks… Maybe I’m being way, way too open about my own neurosis here, but I think these are things that will nag any writer who’s being careful with their submissions.

The post-Send waiting is fine. The hardest part about it is being honest with yourself—knowing that the story probably won’t get picked up.

The worst part, despite all of that prep for rejection, is being rejected. Opening a reply and letting your eyes shoot straight to the familiar shapes of “Thank you,” and, “not what we’re looking for.”

Because, despite what you’ve told others and yourself, you can’t stop wondering if you’re doing it again; I came from a background of cringe-worthy writing that I was too young to second-guess, so the first question I asked myself when I got my rejection was, “Is everything I write still horrible and I just don’t know it?” If you’re like me, chances are you’ll do the same.

And you might go on to ask yourself, “Or is it just not a right fit for them?” And, “But what if it’s too weird? What if it’s not a good fit for anyone?” “It’s Fantasy/Horror. Did I mess up by not submitting this in time for Halloween?” “Is anyone even going to accept a story like this outside of Halloween?” “Is it even actually scary enough for next Halloween?” And it goes on and on…

… Until you get a hold of yourself.

Somehow, despite everything that sucks about submissions, the best feeling is finding another magazine and continuing to submit your work. Cover letters and emails will always suck for me, but sending a story to someone else, sighing out the worry and accepting that everything’s fine (understanding that this is another hurdle to jump over—another part of the impossible process you’ve chosen) is oddly grounding. You don’t give up because you’ve already passed other points where anyone else would have given up.

You’re a writer. You get back to work.

I’ve already submitted “The Drowned God of the Silent Realm” again. I will continue to do so until someone bites or until I move on to a different story. Either way, I’m pulling it’s Progress Bar—it is adequately “Sent!” after all.

And now, onto the next grind. The last edit of War of Exiles. And, in the near distance, a much tougher breed of submissions.

George Lucas and Your Editing Process

There’s a really good chance a ton of people navigated away the moment they read the title of this post. Of course, you didn’t and that’s probably because you’re curious. “What does George Lucas have to do with my editing process?” you may be asking yourself.

Well, before I get into that, let me specify that I’m not a huge, totally forgiving fan of everything George has done; this article definitely won’t be forgiving the Star Wars prequel trilogy or trying explain that you should totally watch those movies (because, first, who cares, and second, no you shouldn’t, if you can get away with it).

Unless… of course, you’re watching the prequel trilogy to fully understand how bad it is before watching a professional grade edit of all three movies… like Double Digit’s Star Wars: Turn to the Dark Side. Because then you’d be engaging in a solid look at what editing can do for a story.

Of course, unfortunately, someone had to pull Star Wars: Turn to the Dark Side from Vimeo because it made the prequel trilogy cohesive (and we couldn’t have that [the universe was slowly imploding, I imagine]), but I’ll sum it up while sharing two important ideas that I took from watching Turn to the Dark Side.

First, No Matter How Difficult, Get Rid of the Distracting Glitz

Here’s a summary of what Star Wars: Turn to the Dark Side cut.

From Episode I: Nearly everything. Seriously, everything but maybe four minutes worth of Obi Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn fighting Darth Maul. This winds up being a prologue, ending with Qui-Gon using his last breath to tell Obi Wan to train Anakin. We also get Yoda giving Obi Wan permission to train Anakin, specifying, of course, that the Jedi Council doesn’t like it.

From Episode II: The entire intro remains intact with all of the (what I call) reminder dialogue (“It has been ten years since you’ve seen Padme. As you and I both know, but still, I said it. Ha ha!”) actually setting up the full plot of the movie. The cuts start after that with scenes devoted entirely to Obi Wan’s relationship with Anakin, Anakin’s relationship with Padme, Anakin’s relationship with Senator Palpatine, Anakin’s political views, Anakin’s attempt to save his mother from the Sand People and Obi Wan’s hunt for Jango Fett, because there still needs to be action, after all. However, all of the clone nonsense (including Obi Wan’s fight with Jango Fett on Kamino) is cut, the remainder of the action given entirely to the stadium battle on Geonosis. But even that act is trimmed with no follow up battle between Count Dooku and Yoda.

From Episode III: The intro is cut and so is almost everything else that doesn’t have to do with Anakin’s relationships with Senator Palpatine, Padme, and Obi Wan. Most of Obi Wan’s scenes are also cut (meaning that General Greivous is only briefly mentioned and we only get clips of Obi Wan participating in the battle on Utapau (and even these are just to sell Obi Wan’s friendship with Cody and the rest of the Clone Troopers). I’m not sure how much more of the movie is cut (I watched it the one time when it came out), but Anakin being worried about Padme’s death, the Jedi being suspicious of Palpatine, Palpatine’s playing Anakin, Anakin turning, Palpatine becoming the Emperor, the Emperor’s fight with Yoda, and Anakin’s fight with Obi Wan are all there. The very last shot of the entire edit is Darth Vader taking his first breath (aka the best moment in the entire prequel trilogy).

So, what is there to take from this? Clearly, a very, very minimal amount of Jar Jar. No kid Boba Fett. No oddly disappointing, anti-climatic battle with Count Dooku at the beginning of Episode III. Seriously, I could be here all day talking about the bad things that were cut out.

But, instead, let’s talk about the good things that were cut out. To the general public, the pod racing scene from Episode I was the best part of that entire movie. When I saw Episode II in theaters, everyone went nuts when Yoda pulled out his lightsaber and started fighting Count Dooku at the very end (and, take it or leave it, a Fett versus a Jedi was also a really big selling point). In Episode III, I think General Grievous was the most interesting and likeable of Lucas’ prequel “Bond villains” (Darth Maul, Jango Fett, and General Grievous show up and die in the same movie, like Bond villains always do). These are big, flashy elements that I enjoyed a lot when I first saw these movies. And, to be perfectly honest, a lot of these elements were what I considered the best parts of the prequel trilogy.

And yet, cutting them all out to emphasize what I thought were the worst parts (Anakin’s sappy relationship with Padme and the galactic politics)… actually made for a compelling, interesting, complete story. Because there was an overarching plot present through all three movies and, without Double Digit’s edit, that plot is very, very slowly developed across the three films, easily getting lost under the piles and piles of flashy, distracting CGI we didn’t actually need.

The lesson to take from this is to just get to the point; to not pad your story with nonsense elements, of course… but also to not pad it with awesome elements if they don’t help either. Because distracting is distracting.

And flashy bits and action are always better in controlled moderation; yes, Turn to the Dark Side did cut a lot of action from the prequel trilogy, but it just took the majesty and weight from those scenes… and shifted them to other scenes that had no problem carrying the weight. The best example of that was how Episode III was cut; the only action happened at the very, very end, but it was the culmination of two hours and thirty minutes’ worth of recut drama and felt incredibly fulfilling.

So, if you like to write grand, flashy scenes, moments, characters and events, just remember to always take a step back from the glamour to make sure your simple, tragic love story (or redemption story or revenge plot or whatever) doesn’t get lost along the way.

Second, the Failure Paradox

The other interesting thing about the cuts Double Digit made was how consistently the nonsense they trimmed off… was full of easter eggs. Obi Wan tosses a blaster aside distastefully and says, “So uncivilized.” C-3PO was made by Anakin. Young Boba Fett. These are all concepts that were cut for Turn to the Dark Side.

And they were all fan service. Of course, lots and lots was cut that didn’t have fan service, but the point is, a ton of fan service got axed and it didn’t negatively impact the edit at all.

Now… I don’t want to suggest that a huge series like Star Wars shouldn’t have its fan service, because, come on—that would be kind of silly. However, I do want to stress that the prequels were actually way better… without all of these ideas and scenes; however you chalk it up, the story was more powerful, more focused, and more unique and assertive without the fan service. And whether or not fan service is essential overall…

… it’s definitely never essential in your first novel.

Maybe this sounds really weird and obvious, but, for fantasy writers, there’s an intense urge to add what I always think of as Reread Craft to our first novels. It can be as tiny as a character meeting someone who will be important in a future book or as complicated as them doing or saying something that will come back to haunt them later in your series. To get even more honest and direct about it, it can be as tiny as a character saying a bit of cheeky foreshadowing that, you rationalize, readers will catch when they reread your entire series.

To be brutally honest about it, there’s probably nothing worse we can do as amateur writers than writing easter eggs into our very first books. There is an obvious degree of (for lack of a better word and to continue being honest) conceit there where there shouldn’t be for an amateur writing. But, on top of that, adding invasive Reread Craft creates a strange, writing-specific paradox that we often don’t see (I didn’t for a long time). This paradox is… actually something I learned from George Lucas. I call it the Failure Paradox.

One of the DVD’s of Star Wars featured Lucas talking about a scene he cut from A New Hope. It was the (then) famous scene where Jabba the Hutt meets Han Solo in Mos Eisley. According to Lucas, he cut the scene because it was hurting the flow of A New Hope and ultimately wouldn’t matter if A New Hope didn’t do well (or something like that; I’m paraphrasing).

Now, if you take that point and apply it to the incredibly difficult task of writing a complete novel with a specific word count… it means that easter egg scenes like the meeting with Jabba the Hutt… could actually stop your novel from happening at all; there’s no question of “will it do good” for us because, for amateur writers, the question is (and always should be) “Will my work get published in the first place?” And, honestly, it probably won’t if it doesn’t meet a certain set of very friendly, enticing criteria for publishers (especially in terms of length; publishers don’t want to gamble on a longer book because it’ll cost more to print).

So, in the end, all of this means that stubbornly holding on to fan service in your first novel creates a paradox of failure; you don’t want to let go of fan service to make your book better, thus it’s never released and has no fans.

The goal here is not to make anyone upset, but to be extremely clear and open about this because it’s a writing habit that’s really hard to spot and stop doing. There is, of course, nothing wrong with adding Reread Craft if it’s very subtle and non-invasive; if it’s shorter than a scene or if it’s a bit of dialogue that won’t seem out of place to a first time reader, then by all means, go for it. However, if you’re struggling to stay under your word goal and contemplating what to cut out, Reread Craft is always the first thing that should go. And if you’re ever being stubborn about it, just remember two words:

Failure Paradox.

~~~

Man. Whodathunk there’d be all of that to learn from the Star Wars prequels? At any rate, I hope this helped you out. If it did, help me out with a Like or Subscription; I’d definitely appreciate it. Regardless though, thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you. Always.

Very Comfortably Insane

Not to be a downer, but at the time of this posting, I still don’t feel it.

It’s been a week now. A week since I finished my rewrite of my first novel. And somehow, I still don’t really feel it. There were moments when I almost did–moments when I wrote to a friend about finishing the book and perked up, excited at the thought of moving on to the sequel and other, shorter projects. But every time, the near rush always cut short with a monotone, “Nope. That didn’t do it either–still not excited.”

I don’t want this to sound super dramatic; I’m not numb or in shock. I’m just… unfazed. It’s disappointing, really, because the first time I finished this book, I was out of my mind with joy; I’d finished a book and, oh man, I still had to edit it, but, oh geez–oh man–it was done!

This time, I typed the last sentence. Stared at it. Smirked… And then immediately admitted that I hated the last sentence. I changed it quickly to something I really liked and backed up the finished first (technically sixth) draft. And then I just sat at my computer for a while, aware that now, not only could I do something else with my day… but I had to do something else–even though, this time, I knew the story wasn’t actually done–because it was the next step in my writing plan. In the slow, determinedly celebratory and lazy way of humans, I wound up convincing myself to do all of the things I usually do when I achieve a solid milestone–I played some video games without caring about how much time I wasted that day (ultimately a few hours that felt like far, far too long without the banter of a friend over Xbox Live). I also had a decent lunch. I may have actually bought myself a cookie.

The thing is… I’m much, much different from the 20-something year old who blissfully typed, “The End,” and spent a month celebrating afterward (a month of down time that turned into months of carelessness). Past-Louis thought he was almost done–that the Content Edit and Line Edit would be easy. That he’d finished something great.

Present-Louis, however, has already moved on to another story because he kind of had to. Because Present-Louis knows now that it’s time for the Big Push. The Long Halloween. The Whatever You Want to Call It. This is the year where I keep going and move on to another story with my insane, custom-made, self-taught, monster outlines and try to refine them while learning more about writing; about establishing a flow of projects and trying out my approach for Growing Outlines.

Essentially, now is the time when I actually level up as a writer, again. And it’s terrifying! Maybe because I’ve already finished this same book once without knowing it was terrible. Or maybe it’s because I have almost no outside opinions on my extremely personal techniques–no other writer to look in and say, “Do you really need to list the clothing your characters are wearing?” or “You should make an extra part in your outlines for [this]. [This] is super important and you’re missing it.”

Or maybe it’s because of that moment in front of my computer, staring at the monitor–at that last line–and realizing that I was nothing without the ability to tell stories. I’ve moved on to a new outline of a standalone idea, deeply revised from the super vague, over-excited concept I had in high school (forged from listening to the heartsick intro music from Chrono Cross), and I’m clinging to that outline for dear life. Because I’m not the kind of writer who can take breaks anymore. I’m the kind of writer that’s too far gone, who’s only real fear is the imagined point when I have no more stories to tell.

Well, that and the impending rejection letters. You hear that, slight inkling of victory? Reality’s a-comin’ for ye!

To put all drama and preemptive bitterness aside though, I am… content. Yes, everything is a challenge right now. But, for writers, toiling away, constructing worlds that may never, ever reach readers, everything is a challenge. I’m glad to have found new ones, but they’re still challenges and they’re still daunting.

Regardless, and because I want even this post to be somewhat constructive, the attack plan is as follows:

Spend March away from War of Exiles before beginning my Content Edit. In that time, I’ll take the month to work on a sparse Chapter Outline for the new story I mentioned, The Hand and the Tempest (expect to see it temporarily replace War of Exiles in my Project Progress bar at the top of the page [although its bar will be stranger, as the goal is to progressively build on the outline until it goes from ‘Short Story’ to ‘Novella’ to (maybe) ‘Full Length, Stand-Alone Novel’–this being the purpose of my “Growing Outline”)]).
When April hits, all outlining for The Hand and the Tempest stops as I return to WoE for the Content Edit and, after using The Hand and the Tempest for practice, begin writing a Chapter Outline for War of Masks, the sequel to War of Exiles.
From there, it’s moving on to a Line Edit for WoE while Chapter Outlining the third book in the series (currently unnamed).
After that, when my submission packet is finished, I’ll review the outline for The Hand and the Tempest, and write it as I submit WoE.
And after that, it’s off to work on an outline for another standalone story–I have another in mind.
And all while, I’ll be staring at the intimidating mountain of information that is my actual, main series–my magnum opus that terrifies me as much as it excites me.

This, it turns out, is what being a devoted, aspiring novelist is like; poor and terrified. Unrealistically devoted and absolutely proud of it (if you’re here with me on this obnoxiously lonely, writers’ path, hi there. Let’s revel in our wildly unstable, conflicting emotions together).

To put it simply, being an aspiring author means that you’re very comfortably insane.