“Okay, okay.” I accept the plastic two-liter bottle signifying my turn to tell a story. I need to think about it, size up my audience a bit. I close my eyes and go ‘round the fire:
Beth – who I have always wanted to go to bed with – is to my right. I want to startle her. Give her the chance to reach out to me instead of George, her boyfriend and an acquaintance of mine for nearly twenty years.
Todd was next, a friend of Holly. Yeah, she’ll be the most frightened if I tell the story right. She said that Todd was just along for the ride because he had the pot.
Directly opposite is an empty rock where Noah had been, but he was out gathering wood for the fire. We’ve been friends almost as long as I’ve known George.
Janice, Noah’s wife. A true stick in the mud.
Carla is next to her and always game for a good story. She’ll heighten the mood at the right time.
Mike is off to my left. He’s sullen tonight and drinking too much.
On my left is Willow, my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. This trip had been planned for a while, and I don’t want to break up with her before I’d given our relationship – if you could call it that – one last chance.
“Are you finally ready, o master storyteller?” Todd is trying to be funny and already high as a kite. His pot is pretty good, and everyone except Janice and Willow have taken a toke.
“Yeah,” I say, opening my eyes. “This -” I hold out my hands over the fire and draw them apart, “- state park we’re in has a long history and there are lots of things out in the woods that’ll take you to hell in a heartbeat if you’re unwary. But there’s nothing more terrifying than -” I wait for effect, “The Death Ranger.”
Spies use mailboxes, don’t they? Photo at Wikipedia.
Back when I was trying to break into comics as a writer, I submitted several pitches. This was back in the day before the Big Two (that’s Marvel and DC for those who don’t know) closed down their slushpiles. I got very nice rejection letters from DC and I have them around here somewhere. One from another smaller publisher even offered some feedback that was very helpful.
I had a relationship with one small publisher and one editor (each at different places) and got very nice emails that were terribly encouraging though both passed on the projects. I was encouraged. I should give them credit for me still wanting to be creative even though I had put my heart and soul into the projects I submitted. They told me I was good enough but the stories weren’t what they published. Sigh.
Us writerly-types like to hole up with a keyboard and bang away at a story. It’s the rare genius who can do only that and be successful.
It’s my experience that a number of writerly-types aren’t terribly social people, either. This isn’t necessarily good or bad nor is it something that should be worried about. Some of the best writers all over the world aren’t really social, don’t understand how best to interact in real life but can write about relationships like no one’s business.
Observation is the key, I think.
Having just watched HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn (which may be my favorite role of Nicole Kidman’s and one of my least favorite of Clive Owen’s) it can be unequivocally said that getting out of the house is the best way to inform your writing.
I get out of the limousine at the hotel’s side door. This is a private affair, very exclusive one of a kind evening. Of everyone invited, I’m the least – the very least – of any of them. I don’t have any kind of standing and yet they asked me to be here. I’m still not sure why but maybe I’ll be enlightened during the appetizer course.
It’s not a service entrance I’m shown to, it’s the private entrance, the one the punters never get to see. There are two goons on the door and the concierge meets me with a slight smile of recognition. “Good evening, sir,” he says, “if you’ll follow me?” I nod and walk past the goons. I stick my finger in my collar and loosen it a bit.
The elevator ride up is quick, the car itself opulent, like something out of a dream that Winsor McCay constructed from Scheherezade’s notes for tales not told. I’m let out on the penthouse floor and follow the concierge to the right. He leads me through a double door, across a foyer that has a single painting in it but I don’t have time to properly take it in. It appears to be a Maxfield Parrish, but it’s a fleeting impression. M’sieu Concierge is holding open another door, waiting for me to enter The Room.
“Let’s not be too rough on our own ignorance,” someone was saying as I entered, “it’s what makes America great!”
I couldn’t believe who it was. Moreover, I couldn’t believe who he was talking to.
She pointed at me and he turned to look. Both of them welcomed me.
“Frank,” I said. “I mean, Mr. Zappa.” I shake his hand and he sips from his cocktail. I’m bewildered and it shows. I’m stunned to be in the same room with Frank Zappa and Mata Hari. “Miss Margreet.” She holds out her hand and I bow over it unsure whether to press my lips to her delicate fingers or not. I do and she smiles at me when our eyes meet. “A pleasure,” I say, “to meet you.”
She hooks her arm in mine and Frank leads us to the table. The two men sitting there are not who I expected, even with Frank and Margreet flanking me.
“Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones.” Papa Hemingway was sitting on one corner of the table with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in another.
“Being privileged to work hard for long hours at something you think is worth doing is the best kind of play,” Robert Heinlein said. He smiled and sipped his drink. It appeared that he and Hemingway were getting along famously.
I accepted a drink from Mata Hari (she preferred to be called Margreet) and sat next to her and across from Heinlein. Zappa sat next to him and of course Hemingway sat at the head of the table. Margreet leaned in close and said, “He’s used to life in the fast lane, travels all over the world, already risks his life racing at over 300km/h and seems to be handy with a gun.”
“I see that,” I say and that’s all I say when a door opens and a parade of waiters came through all carrying plates filled with food. They took positions on Heinlein’s side and the platters floated over our heads and landed on the table.
“Tapas for appetizers,” a voice said from the door. He looked familiar, the chef: wavy brown hair, a goatee and an impish smile. He nodded at me and he waved his hands and smaller plates whirled in a circle overhead while an army of wine bottles marched from the far end of the table. Hemingway’s smile was as big as the ocean and Zappa looked bored. The chef twisted his hands at the wrists and the wines were poured, a red and white for each of us.
Hemingway tore into the tapas with gusto and Heinlein reached over for the plate near Margreet. She demurred and the meal was on. There wasn’t a lot of talking as the soup course came next, then a light salad. It was when we were about half way through the fish when I finally asked the question.
“Why am I here?”
Heinlein glared at me. Heminway snorted. Zappa leaned forward and said, “There’s no reason to assume that my idea of what‘s better would really be better.”
Hemingway drained his red wine, picked up his whiskey. “That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.”
The old man, Heinlein, was stoic and staring me down. He was daring me to ask the question again. I didn’t. Finally, he said: “You live and learn. Or you don’t live long.”
The chef came back in with the waiters, bearing dessert. It was a cake of some kind that was on fire. Margreet clapped her hands. I looked at her, expecting a response. She sighed at last and said, “I am a woman who enjoys herself very much; sometimes I lose, sometimes I win.”
They’d all said something, I’d spent the entire evening with them, all influential people in their times, and had no idea why they’d assembled for me. The chef walked around the table while the others all stared at me.
“You’re here,” he said, “because
A final note: Each of the quotes ascribed to the real people in the story is something they said while alive. Hemingway, Heinlein, and Zappa’s came from Wikiquotes and Margreet/Mata Hari’s come from her page at thinkexist.com. Finally, the story is printed accurately above. It ends just like that, like a lot of dreams do, in the middle of a sentence. Thanks for reading!
“I need to write tonight,” I say. I just got home from an extra-long day at work. “I didn’t get anything done this morning.”
Well, that’s not strictly true. I did get a lot done: I exercised for forty minutes; put one load of laundry in the dryer, washed another and got it into the dryer, too; ate breakfast; washed the dishes from breakfast along with the cat bowls; started the dishwasher; and watered the plants outside. Oh, yeah, I took out the trash and recycling, too.
Then my work cell phone rang. I had just opened my work in progress and the cursor was flashing at me. Ignore it, the screen says to me. Don’t answer.
I have to, of course. There’s a problem and I have to go in earlier than I’m supposed to. I close Scrivener, log out of the computer and saddle up. Off to my work day.
Michael Moorcock was one of my favorite authors after I read this in my junior high school years. I read everything of his I could find.
Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, places or things are unintentional or used fictionally.
I’m telling you a true story, but I’ve changed things around to make it more believable.
All these I’ve read or heard or seen in some form or fashion across books, magazines, films and television shows. You have, too. This is a writer’s attempt to say: “Hey, I wrote this thing that you may recognize yourself in, but I’m trying to reassure you that it’s not really you. Not really. I promise. Please don’t sue me. I don’t make enough money to make it worth your while, okay?”
One of the books of my youth presented itself as a true story of time travel. Michael Moorcock presented The Land Leviathan as a true account from a distant relation, one Oswald Bastable. I was young and didn’t believe it or at least I didn’t believe it much. It lent the story an air of gravitas that certainly made quite an impression on my teenage mind.
Looking back through the fog of decades, I believe that Moorcock based Bastable on someone he knew. He likely changed things like physical details, perhaps speech patterns and even little things like nervous habits. It’s entirely possible that Bastable was unrecognizable to the person who he was based on.
Or maybe Bastable was real and so was the tale. I like to think it was real and that Moorcock cleverly disguised it as fiction to keep everyone guessing. A sort of double-blind, as it were.
In my own work, I have used names of people I know as a kind of tribute. My comic book friends were in cryogenic sleep on a deep space mission to colonize a new world. A couple of my Twitter friends showed up as monster hunters in a chapter of the book I serialized on my website a couple of years ago. Some of the Confabulators will show up in a future work that I’m near to completing right now. In each case, I did it with no subterfuge and without doing anything that would damage them in any way. It’s fun to do.
Even though there are people in my stories named after friends, they’re not real. They can’t be. Flesh and blood are not the same thing as words and phrases.
As far as my own experiences, of course they inform my stories. When I travel I look for settings to use in stories, local color to include in them somewhere. Without fail I will change them to suit the tale because a shopkeeper is a shopkeeper whether in Colorado three years ago or on a distant planet in the far future. I will endeavor to make the story more true by changing everything I can to ensure the internal logic is solid, that it makes for a good read.
So if you see your name in one of my stories, it’s not necessarily you. Maybe I thought of you when I was writing, but maybe not. Maybe I just lifted your name because I was struggling to come up with something. If that character is dressed like you, acts like you and seems to be you, relax: it’s not you. I promise.
It’s not a true story. It’s a work of fiction. Names and places were changed. I don’t write biographies. Don’t sue me, okay?
Bad Signal by Warren Ellis; cover by Jacen Burrows
I graduated high school in the mid-1980s, went to college and dropped out because girls and booze were way more interesting and I thought I was going to be a rock star.
The rock star thing didn’t work out but I had a helluva lotta fun making music and playing shows. I wish I’d never left college, though. Having a degree would have been helpful in a couple of situations in my day job/career. That said, I never stopped trying to improve my knowledge base. I never stopped learning.
I read a wide variety of science texts and followed politics and though I don’t have any aptitude for math, I learned how to be pretty good at the things I need to know to run a business.
You get that information so that when I tell you that I learn from everything I read, you understand that’s exactly what I mean. I read for enjoyment as much as for how a writer does what he or she does. Sentence structures and word choices are the obvious things. Any author that can increase my vocabulary is one that I will never forget and will likely read again. China Mieville is a current favorite; Elmore Leonard is another one who I’ve learned a great deal from; Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman all top the list of writers I’ve learned from.
Mieville made it okay for me to use the word ‘and’ to connect ideas. (He also taught me to think about everything that can possibly be connected to what I’m writing about.) Leonard taught me how to streamline my thoughts. Burroughs renewed my sense that it was okay to go for high adventure. King’s insights, in particular throughout his spectacular On Writing, taught me that it was just fine to reach for the heights and that it’s ultimately okay if you don’t reach them every time, but that shouldn’t stop one from trying again and this time going higher. Gaiman brought me back to fiction after spending a long time away from it and I was encouraged to take what I loved about comic books and start writing stories that encompassed all my interests.
But the the writer who’s taught me the most is Warren Ellis. He’s only got one novel out, Crooked Little Vein, but it wasn’t from his novel that I learned so much. It was from his Bad Signal emails (which he began sending out in 2001 but that I didn’t pick up until 2003). In those emails, he talked about everything that interested him and how he could apply it to his writing or if someone else liked the idea to go with it themselves.
I did just that. Ellis is halfway responsible for me starting up my serialized novel The Long Range. He mentioned in one email (forgive me I don’t have time to look up the date, but it was around 2004 I think) the idea of creating stories in the same way that bands create songs. (I’m probably remembering it wrong, but this is how I remember it. Sorry if it’s wrong.) I took that idea, rolled it around in my head and decided that what I wanted to do was write a series of seemingly disparate stories of at least 6000 words each that would interconnect to tell a larger work. Something that mashed up comics, music, TV and anything even vaguely episodic. There were thirteen stories there and I only missed my deadline once in the entire year I did it.
That project led me to try my hand at writing a novel and then trying to do it in 30 days. I’m talking, of course, about NaNoWriMo and from there I’ve written more and more and even been published since then. Ellis discontinued the Bad Signal in January 2010 but I’ve got every one of them I received. I can go back and read them at my leisure. Ellis has been a huge influence on me in terms of my writing (and even my love of whiskey), but is he my favorite writer? No. He’s just my favorite teacher.
Writing is a skill. Anyone who tells you that writing is just putting together a string of words to make a coherent story is fooling himself. It’s a lot more than that and that fool who’s putting on airs is just looking for attention.
We know that. Intelligent readers know that, too. Everyone who reads has picked up at least one book, one magazine, one newspaper story and seen bad writing. We identify it in our filmed entertainments, too.
So, writing is a skill and skills can be learned. Some folks have a natural predisposition to write and write well, others really have to work at it. Regardless of the level one is at, the writer has learned something from another writer. This week we’re asking the Confabulators who they’ve learned from, what they’ve learned and how have they applied it to their writing? We’re also wondering if the person they’ve learned the most from is their favorite author.
The stories you’re going to read this week are fascinating and revealing at the same time. Come back every day and see who’s saying what and how each individual process differs (or maybe doesn’t) from another’s. The coffee is hot, the conversation is stimulating and we hope you’ll stick around all week long.
I’m a fan of rules. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing have been invaluable to me as I’ve made progress towards being a better storyteller. Now that I’m in the realm of having to actually edit the things that I’m writing before I share them with anyone, I have a new set of rules to learn.
The two biggest influences on me as far as editing goes are Self-Editing for the Fiction Writer by Browne & King and David Mamet’s Three Uses of the Knife.
Both books are terrific primers for the writer who needs to take his writing to another level, the next level, whatever. I won’t go into them because, really, if you’re interested you’ll go find both books, flip through them and see what you think. You may have to go to a library to be able to look at them first (or maybe Amazon) but you definitely should.
What I want to talk about this week is what I’m doing with my current work in progress because I’m trying something different.
Instead of reading the story from start to finish, making notes and changing the little things that bug me in the draft, I’m working backwards. At least, I’m reading each chapter, noting what happens and also noting what changes I think should be made, jotting down things like “foreshadow this”. I’m doing this on paper with a red pen, which is terribly satisfying.
What I’m looking for are several things:
Is the POV consistent? I mean: am I head-hopping from one character to another? This is probably the biggest thing that I need to keep working on. If I’m jumping from one point of view to another, is there a reason for it? If not, fix it.
I also look for actions that keep getting repeated. For instance everyone ‘turns’ to someone or something else in every Zero Draft I’ve ever written. Along the same lines, actions have to be realistic and possible. It’s usually in the actions of a character that I’ve made some horrible mistake, like having them walk across a room to the glass they set down in the paragraph before.
Working backwards, I’m looking for things that are important to the ending in the beginning, so I’m making notes about foreshadowing things or mentioning things that are important at least twice before they become important later. I’ve read that is called The Rule of Three. It works for me, but it isn’t original.
Typos. Yeah, I look for typos and obvious mistakes like using ‘she’ when I meant ‘he’ and all the other things that get dropped or glossed over in the Zero Draft.
By the time I’ve gotten through the entire manuscript, I’ve got a legitimate First Draft. Not necessarily one that I want to show my Beta Readers, but one that I can be proud of and decide whether or not I want to go back through and ensure that the plot makes sense and the story is told. It’s in the First Draft status that I start actually refining the story into something readable.
This is all very mechanical and these are the rules that work for me. They’re becoming more ingrained as I go along, and I’m afraid it’s not very entertaining at this point. Make no mistake, readers, editing your work is Work. It has to be done. It’s that rare genius who can write a near-complete book in one pass. I’m not that genius.
I’m just the guy who has to have rules to work with.
