Science Fiction Overload

I enjoy science fiction.

Mostly.

The parts I don't like is when the fiction is merely a thin veneer for overblown science.

I like science alright. I mean, blowing up chunks of sodium in Mr. Bigelow's class was pretty awesome. But if I want to get all science-robot-technical I can just wander around Wikipedia's quantum vacuum page for a few hours.

So for the past few weeks you can imagine my misery as I edit and re-edit and chop and rewrite and cut into the sci-fi horror novella I've promised to an editor.

Hey look! A Feynman diagram, don't put this in your book.

I put too much science in, and now I gotta cut it out. Or else the story isn't as cool. (Not cool enough for me to send to the editor... not yet)

I mean, I don't really need to convince the reader that quantum foam conditions theoretically could really honestly create wormholes... I can just tell you that the character magically did it with some new particle accelerator, wow suspend your disbelief!

Le sigh.

What about you? Have you ever found that your epic worldbuilding sometimes leaks a bit too much onto the page?

Take the I out of 1st person

Ok, firstly, there is nothing wrong with novels or stories written in 1^st person.

But recently I read a book in 1^st person that made me feel the whole time as if the action was in slow-motion as I waited for the main character to narrate what was happening.

The cool premise of the book was killed by removing me from the immediacy of the action through an effect I oh-so-recently called “telescoping”*. (I’m sure some literary professor type knows the real word for it, but I stick to “telescoping”)

* In fact we had a rescue from Hollan, who is said literary professor type, who corrected my totally subjective term "telescoping". The correct term is FILTERING folks, filtering. This post has been edited to remove my egregious misuse of astronomical terminology.

Action should be IN YOUR FACE!

Filtering is when the action happening RIGHT NOW is filtered through the narrator needlessly distancing me, the reader, from the action. (Author intrusion also can fall into the realm of filtering)

Sure sometimes you may deliberately want distance in 1^st person. It can lend a certain cold detachment to certain scenes, or even allow the character to show their bias or coloration of events.

But regardless whether it’s 1^st person, 3^rd person close, or even 3^rd person omniscient, I personally want to feel like the events are happing right here, right now. Not over there to some guy who keeps getting in the way of the narrative. (There’s nothing worse than a narrator who gets in the way of the actual narration!)

Here is my totally heavy-handed and off the top of my head example of filtering.

Filtered 1st person	Immediate 1st person
As I ran down Ventura Boulevard, I could tell that things had gone from bad to worse. I noticed that my stitches had come undone and felt the blood run down my back. I could hear guns roaring all around me and when I looked back I saw the zombies at the far end of the street still coming. Why’d the world have to end in zombies? I thought to myself. I kept running.	As I ran down Ventura Boulevard, things went from bad to worse. My stitches came undone and the blood ran down my back. Guns were roaring all around me yet the zombies far down at the east end of the street kept coming. Why’d the world have to end in zombies? I kept running.

When an author is filtering in 1^st person, the narrator creates distance by “feeling, or noticing, or perceiving that the action is happening” instead of the action just happening.

Am I right here, or am I crazy-cakes?

Fraternity of Flash

Fellow human beings and other life-forms (or undead forms) who read this blog: allow me to direct you to the grand opening of the Fraternity of Flash hosted by the irrepressible Misty Dahl.

As I mentioned before, the Fraternity of Flash is Misty's crazy idea to throw a bunch of writers together (award-winning, published pros and up-and-comers and fresh-from-the-bakery writers) with a little writer's challenge: Write a flash fiction story that has to include certain key phrases and/or words.

Sound fun? Sound interesting? Sound wild? Yes. Yes, to all.

I'm lucky enough to not only be a contributor, but am the official Editator... not that these stories need much editing, still us writers let slip a typo now and then no matter how careful. Each of the writers have come up with wildly divergent stories which will be featured over on Misty's blog (which you should follow) in the coming weeks.

I'll be attempting to give some brief reviews as they go up on her blog, so stay tuned.

I encourage you to leave comments on any story you read, as all us writers secretly fear that "no one cares" about the words we pull kicking and screaming from within the well of our hearts and souls.

And through all the noise and chaos of the electric world around us, maybe in the static words we write there will be found something that matters, something that is true. How many of us can remember a time when we were CHANGED by something we read?

When It Rains It Gets Wet

So, my posts have been sparse lately, forgive me. I've been crazy busy.

I know I meant to share more info on my adventures as a ghostwriter, but MORE has happened!

A few of you might have heard of the SOUL SURFER movie coming out about Bethany Hamilton, a young surfer girl who was mauled by a shark, lost her arm, and not only returned to surfing, but became a champion surfer.
Well,

See, my dad's name right there in small letters!

I got a chance to work with my dad on the book "Raising a Soul Surfer" which he wrote with Bethany's mother, Cheri Hamilton. (Actually, my dad is the "with", it's Cheri's book)

It's a movie tie-in book. An "Inspirational Autobiography."

And I got to earn some industry cred... or maybe crud... by helping my dad to crank out the manuscript in record time. I edited, fact-checked, and occasionally rewrote chapters at Cheri's and my dad's direction.

It wasn't quite as legendary of ghostwriting 50k words in 50 hours, but it was close! haha.

Also it was an interesting glimpse into the professional world of writing.

Those of us who write take for granted that the written word is our milieu. Words are our spirit's limbs, moving them, arranging them, crafting them to convey and emote.

We forget that many many people who can communicate in person, on screen, etc, etc, etc, aren't as comfortable with words. They can say it, speak it to huge crowds with passion and clarity, but when they sit down to write a book it just doesn't come across like they want.

I suppose it's like people who are photogenic, and those who look normal until you take a picture of them and they seem to look goofy no matter what.

Or like otherwise accomplished people who can't sing in tune even with training. (I've met these people, they baffle me!)

It has been exciting to help a woman who has a pretty amazing story share it with the world...

But MAN it was a lot of work. I had to sort through a half dozen insertions and notes and possible scenes--and the deadline was like a bear gnawing on my shoulder.

It was new realms of intensity, frustration, and validation.
Sending it off to the editor on the last day before DEADline felt sooooo good.

Now I can actually spend time wroking on my book! sheesh. :)

Turning the WIP into a Real Draft!

I did it!

For all of you wondering where I've been (yeah, all three of you) it's been an awesomely crazy end of the summer.

There was the coolness of WriteOnCon, as far as I know the only online writing conference. I met loads of interesting people there, even if a server glitch kept me off the site for part of the time! (That's part of life on the interweb, folks.)

And then a blitzkrieg business trip to Fort Collins, CO, land flowing with beer and more beer, where I got locked out of the pilot's quarters at 2am and had to sleep on a couch in a strange house full of 10 dogs. 10. I'm a cat person. One was one of those wooly mammoth sized great danes who kept coming up and whuffing in my face as if to say, "Dude, you are so in my spot."

But then came more awesome in the form of daughter #2, aka, the Ravager, aka Cinnabun. She's a cute little bundle of joy and sleeping and pooping and eating. Daughter #2, Lil'bun, loves being a sister. Besides lack of solid sleep, all things are well on the home front.

Last is the news you've been waiting for. (again, all three of you.)
I finished the rough draft of my sci-fi novel!

Yay! Now it's time for typing the second half into the computer (did I mention I write everything out LONGHAND?) and filling in any of the spotty parts. (makes it sound like my book has the measles)

The sad truth is that a large percentage of people who want to be writers NEVER finish a manuscript. (and then there are those who finish them but never go back and revise. It's the same as.)

What about you?

You always hear people say it, but I repeat it again: turn off the internal editor and just write.

Once you get to "The End" you should do nothing but write everything that you can think of. Go on the bunny trails, write the whole backstory of each character into the narrative. Go ahead, write.

So, as I adventure through making the first draft I'll share my adventures with you. (yes, I'm benevolent)

Now, time to turn off the computer and get back to typing!