fiction

Writing Thoughts: The Story Is Just Part Of The Story

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

When you make a story of any kind, the beginning isn’t the beginning and the end isn’t the end. Any truly living story is just a slice of something much larger. I learned this lesson lately.

As I’ve begun the final edits of my novel, A Bridge To The Quiet Planet, I had decided to try writing short fiction on the side. I had many ideas, from using random stories to doing more in the setting of my novel. The idea seemed fun, interesting, different, and relaxing – and maybe profitable.

With my first attempt in draft form, I handed it off to some friends to edit, confident that if I could get such good reactions to my novel draft, this was sure to be of equal quality. However, one of my editors was extremely critical – he noted how it was constrained, limited, and it didn’t seem to be like my other work. How could I have gone so wrong?

At first annoyed, I sat down and analyzed his voluminous comments (this person is someone I’m trying to push towards pro writing and editing). Soon I realized that he had a point.

There wasn’t the sense of setting I usually created – I write on Worldbuilding but this world didn’t seem alive. There was little sense of extra details or of things going on around the characters. It was like a studio backlot.

I didn’t do much with character senses or feelings. The tale was limited and scriptlike, minimal on sensations. Even with the rather intellectual cast of my experiment, the focus was too literal.

Characters themselves seemed constrained – only when they really interacted were they characters. They also didn’t interact well with the setting. It was like actors wandering through a soundstage.

My story, in short, wasn’t alive. So I asked myself how did I get here – and the answer became very apparent.

I had taken a break from fiction for awhile, and returned to it with my novel. To do the novel I had used various plotting and outlining techniques, and I tried to do the same for the short story. I had produced a very detailed outlining system for short stories, ensuring I got to the point and didn’t overdo it.

I had built a skeleton for a story. However I’d put very little meat on the bones – the minimal at best. I had created a system, but not created much of a story, at least to my standards and that of my friend.

With this idea in mind, I examined some of my other short story ideas that had been incubating – and they felt much more alive. These were ideas that had been sitting around for some time, that were played with and thought over. Because of this imagining and re-imagining, they were more connected, more alive, more nuanced.

This story I had just attempted was the least thought-over and least nuanced. Too much of it was alienated from itself.

That’s when the lesson of all of this hit me like a thunderbolt – you don’t write a story, you write part of one.

A story should be a slice of your setting, a piece of the history of that setting, a small and interesting part of a much larger potential. It should have characters who are not sprung into being at the start, but are created and written so they feel like they have pasts and futures outside of your story. Everything should feel large, no matter how short the story is.

Now these things may not be immediately apparent – you may have a story idea and need to better realize the world and characters. You may only need so much detail. But you need enough for the story to be alive because it’s part of something larger, at least conceptually and imaginatively.

Based on this idea, I’m back at it. I can’t say what you may or may not see, but if you do see any short fiction from me, I think it’ll be much better.
– Steve

Finishing Flawed Fiction And Processing Piecemeal Prescriptions

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

As I edit A Bridge To The Quiet Planet to get it ready for my awesome professional editor, I reflected on what I went through to write the book.  I see now this could have been faster if I hadn’t spent time editing as I went, chapter by chapter until the halfway point.  In short, I actually aimed for quality too early.

At first this violated my expectations.  Being into Agile, I figured that doing it piece by piece, making chapters available to prereaders, would result in better quality.  It’s something I’ve read about authors doing before, and I’d read several articles on how instructional writing (which I’ve done for awhile) can be released in modules.  Shouldn’t a story be something you can release chapter by chapter and get good feedback?

Not entirely.

Now I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to make fiction available to prereaders in parts, but I’ve come to the conclusion that’s of very limited value.  Here’s why.

Instructional and nonfiction works are often something we can break down – and indeed, should break down – into pieces that almost anyone could edit.  Yes, some may miss context or seem borderline useless on their own, but nonfiction is often very modular.  We process instructions, history, documentation, etc. in discreet chunks – we think step-by-step.

Nonfiction works are a lot like modular software or dishes where you can sample individual ingredients and get an idea of their combined taste.

But fictional works?  They’re different.

Fictional works are much more of a whole.  They’re intellectual and emotional and literary, requiring many modes of thought and feeling to appreciate them.  They often have mysteries and callbacks and references – indeed, deception is part of some some fiction writing.  Fiction is hard to evaluate apart from the whole of the work – to truly “get” it you need the whole experience a complete work.  Finally, as fiction involves imagination, you often discover your work as you write it.

Fictional works are like software that requires a lot of code to be done before it functions or a crude alpha before it can be evaluated.  They’re like a dish that you can’t appreciate until it’s done, or ones requiring careful tweaking to get “just right.”

I now realize that I could be delivering A Bridge To The Quiet Planet to you quicker if I’d decided, as opposed to editing chapter by chapter, I’d just run on and pushed myself to finish the thing and accepted it wasn’t perfect – maybe put out one or two chapters to get my groove.  Now that I have a complete work, all the edits are far more richer, far more revealing, far more coherent – and much of my best edits were made when it was done and I could see the whole thing.

When I write fiction in the future, I think I need to accept that my initial effort is basically going to be like a piece of alpha software.  Good planning and thought can make it a very good alpha, but my focus should be to get it done so I have enough to work from.  Many things in fiction writing only become apparent once you have the whole picture.

Again, I don’t think this means you can’t put unfinished fiction up for review.  I just think people need to accept the limits of such things – and ask what delivers the most value for them and the audience.

I also find this very satisfying to think of.  I can accept that fiction starts imperfect because of all its factors and charge ahead, admitting it won’t be perfect.  It’s just that when the imperfect version is done, the perfect version follows more easily.

(By the way that title took me forever to come up with so I hope you appreciate the attention to alliteration.)

– Steve

A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: What It’s About

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

I’ve been posting about my writing here a lot.  So, with intermittent updates, I’m going to talk about my fiction writing project, “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet.”

First of all, yes, fiction.  I’ve not done public fiction in awhile – but I did side projects, edited, coached, and did stuff for the Sanctum.  I figure it was time – and it’s fun.  If this works, I plan to split my time between fiction and non-fiction.

And what’s it all about?  To sum it up in one sentence:

A sorceress, an engineer, and a priest on a planet-hopping road trip with the owner of a mysterious collection of holy books.

The idea came together when I got inspired to write, contemplated a few past projects and some recent anime, and came up with a simple idea – what happens when you take a world of magic and monsters, gods and spirits, and technology evolves as well?  Welcome to the world of Telvaren and it’s planetary colonies, a nation of science and sorcery, where the gods use the internet and interplanetary travel is done via techno-wizardry.  Politics is driven by a mixture of gigantic cities, assorted guilds and unions, and divine interests – but don’t let the present distract you, because there’s a past of mysterious artifacts, demons, dragons, and more waiting to be discovered . . .

Into this comes Marigold and Scintilla, a sorceress and a “technic” who act as a freelance techno-magical hazmat and research team for the wizardly guild Phoenix Ascendant.  They have “A Plan” for their careers, which requires them to get into a lot of weird situations to gain influence with the guild.  They’re good at getting into and out of trouble – until someone wants to hire them not to find something mysterious, but to help him carry a set of holy books to Godsgrave, the world where deities go to die.

Also, it’s a lot of money.

Soon they’re outrunning a special branch of the Military consisting only of people who’ve lost loved ones, what may or may not be a demon escaped from the prison-world of Pandemonium, and some mysterious individuals spreading stories on the Network that connects people.  No one is what they seem, no one is quiet telling the truth, and the dumbest things can be done by people who are very smart . . .

So it’s up to Marigold and Scintilla to punch, talk, shoot, conjure, run, lie, and plan their way out of trouble.  They’re going to get their client to Godsgrave by hook or by crook, because as crazy as things get, the two people they are sure they can trust is each other.

I hope you’ll all enjoy it, and I plan to post more on my blog – I think what I’ll do is alternate posts on the story with posts on my writing findings, give or take.

– Steve