A Word on the Numbers (Three)... and Originality

Words written c28000

Stories completed 2

Rejections 48

Acceptances 1

The numbers quoted here are getting less and less meaningful - except, of course, for the acceptance and rejection tallies.  On the latter count I can report a 'near miss' from Triptych Tales for 'May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door' which made it through to the final round of evaluation but fell at the last.

The main reason the numbers now don't add up to very much is that I've spent the last few weeks cutting down a 91,000 word novel to 39,000 to squeeze it into Tor.com's short novella submission window.  So, does that add up to minus 52,000 words written because I've deleted them?  Who knows?  Who cares?  I'll continue to log the new material I produce on stories going forward.

A more pressing conundrum concerns originality: originality in general, and of that cut down novel in particular.  The fact of the matter is that the first act of the original novel was workshopped on jukepop.com, some 30,000 words.  Which means that there's significant overlap between the first 9,000 to 10,000 words of what's gone to Tor.com and what appeared on Jukepop.

However, not only have huge swathes of text gone for a Burton, it's had a rewrite; the main character is now a clone whereas he wasn't before.  It's not identical, albeit identical in places.  And the latter three-quarters of the novella are absolutely new to the world.  I could have changed the names of people and places but, frankly, that would have looked like a cynical attempt to hide things.

I haven't mentioned this in my submission as I want them to love it before they discover its baggage; in pitching the novel I mentioned jukepop as a strength (it was selected as one of the opening 30 stories), but several publishers used it as a reason for not even reading it.  But I mainly haven't mentioned it to Tor.com because I regard it as original.

Meanwhile, a large chunk of the backstory that has been removed can stand on its own feet, having begun life as a short story in any case about twenty years ago.  I think it may even have gone off to Interzone in an earlier life.  But that has appeared  in its entirety on jukepop.  So I will change the names, locations - and, no doubt, in the process, give it an unrecognisable rewrite - and submit that as original because it will be by then.

Raymond Chandler, I think, quite frequently rewrote short stories into novels, virtually taking each sentence as expanding it into three or four in places.

And here's the rub.  If I were an artist I could repaint the same picture over and over and nobody would regard it as anything but original.  If I were a musician I could gig the same tracks over and over - in fact, it's what the moshpit demands.  How many sculptors or potters just turn out the same thing (hares? why hares?) week after week.  They become much loved signatures.

But, as a writer, try a variation on a theme?  A cover version?  You'll get edited out with extreme prejudice...

I Feel Dirty...

Words written c27000

Stories completed 2

Rejections 44

Acceptances 1

…but not in a good way.

With the bairns being nine and 11 I’ve managed to avoid all the fuss about the Hunger Games, other than regular sermons at the Church of Wittertainment.  But with the Boy having started on the books we sat down to watch the first film as a family, which my newspaper film guide informed me was probably the most important science-fiction story of modern times.

I have to confess that I watched in slack-jawed disbelief at the travesty being committed to celluloid (metaphorically speaking; I know it’s all ones and noughts now) and only continued to watch so that I could be aware of what the Boy was greedily absorbing.  My wife left after twenty minutes or so, as did the Girl.

Please don’t think this is some spineless reaction to the violence in general or children killing themselves in particular.  Battle Royale gave us all that and I didn’t have an issue.  Haven’t watched that for years, but remember it as a satirical classic.

It’s that the story was so… awful.  So awful that I felt physically uncomfortable watching.  Like I needed to wash.

The whole story, unsurprisingly, revolves around the Hunger Games.  Hell, society revolves around the Hunger Games.  It therefore came as a surprise that so little thought seems to have gone into what the Games mean to everybody in the Hunger Games storyverse.

We’re told that Catniss is the first person in 74 years to volunteer for the Games.  Statistically, somebody must be put in her position of seeing a younger sibling picked once every two or three years – do your own guesstimate, but you’ll agree that it’ll have happened at least a dozen times before.  But she’s the first in the best part of a century to want to save little ‘sis.  Really?

And what about the prospect of fame and fortune, even if it comes at the expense of possible death?  Is the writer saying that nobody sees – or has ever seen - the Hunger Games as a way out of their dead-end life?  Not even with that big parade and TV interviews?  Even given two per cent of us are meant to be psychopaths?  Even given the post-apocalyptic decor of District 12?

So, the Hunger Games are so awful that people’ll do anything to get away, that it’s a fate worse than death, that not even the deranged can find any upside in the prospect?  Not if you go by the mother’s reaction.  It’s all a bit ho-hum to her, having her youngest progeny chosen for certain death, having her eldest take her place.  I’ve seen village raffles with more riding on it.

So, ten minutes or so in and I’m getting confused: are these people alien to us?  Am I meant to conclude that the fact that they look like us is a red herring, and that emotionally they’re a different species?  There are plenty of stories out there that fit that model, but what they have, what makes them work is a bridging character through whom we see their world.  Somebody to shout ‘you’re all wrong’ at them, somebody to try to change the world on our behalf because we’re not there.  I’m waiting for them to show up, or for Catniss to be that character…

But, instead, we’re presented with a bunch of ciphers.  Where’s the character who fights the system, not just other characters (should have been Catniss)?  Where the character who falls apart because he doesn’t want to be there?  Where’s the character who thinks he wants to kill, but does so and learns how horrible it really is?  Where’s the character who doesn’t want to kill but is made to (which is sort of Catniss, although not enough is made of it)?

As a writer one of my mantras is that a story has to be about a character who wants something (anything!) but needs to overcome hurdles to get there.  Put that in and you automatically create empathy; we all know what it’s like to want something.  Hell, even The Very Hungry Caterpillar fits that mould.

Yes, Catniss has an aim in trying to save her sister, but she achieves that by volunteering.  I’m amazed that this wasn’t changed to her needing to win the Games to save her sister in the second draft of the outline.  Or amended on the napkin.  And, yes, trying to stay alive is a big aim, but in the grand guignol of the movie I need something, anything, riding on it.  I’m quite happy with stories that are emotionally shallow, but this one was beached.  And without a sense of purpose your character arc flatlines - the Catniss at the end is no different from the girl at the beginning.  And after all that she's been through?!  That's almost an achievement.

Not having read the books I really don’t know how faithful the film is (the Boy says it is), so these comments apply wholly to the movie.  And there’s still a lot to admire: Jennifer Lawrence herself, the cinematography of the forest, the effects.  But if the story doesn’t engage then you find yourself disconnected and nothing can ever draw you back in.  It ends up looking like something silly that should be on a cable channel at 3am.  Or something that looks like a satire but isn't sure what it's satirising.

And, if they can make big cats rise from the forest floor, holograms brought to life, why haven’t they invented the autocue for Stanley Tucci?

Lakeside Circus

Words written c27000

Stories completed 2

Rejections 43

Acceptances 1

Signed, scanned, and sent my contract to Lakeside Circus for 'The Root Canals of Mars', which should be read by anybody who's ever had dental work.  So, probably didn't want to read this blog by Rati Mehrotra straight afterwards.

I'll work on the basis of trust that Lakeside Circus won't unpitch their tents and run off in the night without paying until proven otherwise...

Miri

Words written c26000

Stories completed 2

Rejections 35

Acceptances 1

Watched the Star Trek episode Miri last night.  It's the one in which the Enterprise stumbles across a doppelganger of Earth (with no explanation or investigation as to why apart from a throwaway "But there you are" - genius) on which children age slowly but die shortly after reaching puberty.  What would Freud say?

Amongst the jaw-dropping events that would have Matt intoning 'Different times!' were James Tiberius:

1. repeatedly punching a man who promptly died, and absolutely no suggestion of any kind of investigation or review or even causal link is suggested; and
2. going doe-eyed over a child and adopting behaviour best described as grooming.  That he had the decency to do it to her face, and it was a girl were small saving graces.  Oh, and the bloke who died wasn't black, which would have given him some crassly weird full house. 

But, most alien of all, the plot relied on all members of the landing party leaving their communicators behind to be taken by the gang of artful dodgers.  Putting aside that they're quasi-military and would probably have protocols covering such an eventuality, the very idea in 2015 that an entire project team could just walk away from their phones is baffling.

But, to the makers of Star Trek the communicator was just another tool.  When I'm doing DIY I'm constantly wondering where I left that hammer, spanner, screwdriver...  That's all they saw the communicator being.

I was taken by the idea on the radio documentary about 2001 referred to in my last post that Kubrick was well aware of the coming miniaturisation of technology but felt that a room full of HAL9000 would be more dramatic.  So, maybe the Star Trek writers knew it would never happen, but needed it to to move the plot on.

More likely, they never even contemplated our addiction to information.  Because that's exactly what it is.  When I grew up post fell through our front door six mornings a week.  The phone rang occasionally.  And you spoke to people you met.

But now, I check my phone many times a day, it plans my day, sends me work, educates, informs and entertains.  And, yes, I do sometimes forget where I've put it, but take it away for any length of time and I'll show all the symptoms of a crack addict without his fix.  It's an addiction.  And one that's crept up on us where the addicted barely acknowledge that's the case.

But, maybe, if Spock and Bones had been playing Angry Birds they wouldn't have found the antidote and saved everybody.  Like I say, sometimes you just need something unbelievable to move the plot on.

2001: A Vintage Year?

Words written 24568

Stories completed 1

Rejections 27

Acceptances 1

Watched Kubrick's 2001 yesterday, mainly for the kids' benefit, to show them what a film that is as much art experience as popcorn movie looks like.  As a precursor, I played them a podcast of a BBC Radio 4 Film Programme special on 2001, telling them that, in the case of 2001, it didn't matter that much if there were any plot spoilers.

The nine-year old didn't last an hour; the eleven year old declared it the worst movie he'd ever seen, worse even than the original David Niven Casino Royale.  A bit harsh.

It was somehow both shorter and longer than I remembered.  Having been to a previous cinematic revival my recollection was that the intermission was very much required and I would have guessed that it was at least 3 hours rather than 140-odd minutes.  I seem to remember ageing visibly during the ape section in particular.

What struck me was how little story there was.  Okay, the Dawn of Man section is necessarily mood music, but the nine-year old turned to me after the space travelogue section that immediately follows it and said (direct quote) 'What did that tell us?'  The Moon section works for me far more than the voyage to Jupiter that is the core of the film - the slow build up to the screeching radio transmission - but even this is just the 'quiet, quiet, quiet, loud' school of horror in arthouse clothes.

Which brings me to my starter for ten: a radio signal aimed at Jupiter.  Is that possible?  Isn't radio, by definition, broadcast?

And (consider these all your bonuses in one) what, exactly, are Poole and Bowman doing to jeopardise the mission?  They're all going to Jupiter; it's not as if anybody is pulling in a different direction.  Nobody suggests aborting or changing the goal.  What happens approaching Jupiter would have happened anyway, even if HAL hadn't tried to change things.  Isn't that what he wants?  Is HAL part of the monolithic culture, or has he been corrupted by them?  When?  How?  Why is better for the mission for Bowman to be on his own, rather than part of a team? 

Putting aside the fact the story is nonsense, I have a bigger issue with how it's told.  I'm a great believer in the rule of three.  One error by HAL is curious, two is a coincidence, three means something and that is when your characters act.  But Poole and Bowman panic (yes, panic, although they're very languid about it) after the first incident, concluding its better to be without a sentient computer at all, reducing HAL's functionality to the automatic and vital, than carrying on.

It's not as though Kubrick was trying to squeeze events in to a ten-minute short; and, even then, you allude to the previous two occurrences and start your drama with the third.  Never has there been so little story or drama spread so thin.

Ah, no, you say.  Story comes from character; it doesn't follow some prescribed 'rule of three' framework.  But Poole and Bowman are meant to be unflappable; the actors & Kubrick developed backstories for the two double-doctorates, part of their psychology being that they would merely raise a bored eyebrow in situations which would have us mere mortals screaming.  So, even stranger that they decide to take such radical action after one glitch.  It's like abandoning your car on the side of the M5 because of a slight rattle.  

Curious, also, that proto-humans clubbing each other to death rates a U-certificate, whereas Paddington shutting himself in a fridge garners a PG.

The DVD will be going back to the charity shop from whence it came.

A Word on the Numbers (Two)

Words written 24568

Stories completed 1

Rejections 23

Acceptances 1

I'll take it as read that you've all gone out and bought my book 127a - what's that? it's not really sci-fi? hell, it's a broad church.  Well, to make use of the bookshelf you bought specially, why not double your reading list by buying Christina Escamilla's Welcome to the Future?  It's got a story by little ol' me in it, and another nineteen crackers, I'm sure.  My two copies arrived this week - thanks, Christina.

I digress.  What I wanted to blog about was a couple of postscripts to my last missive.  I'm not sure that my wordcount is going to make much sense going forward.  Reason being (and this made Wednesday a bit of a red letter day), I finished the first draft of my YA sci-fi yarn, About Time, Billy Hudson (81,100 words).  So what do I do now for the word count as I rewrite and edit?  There's real scope for the number to go down.

Plus I've set myself the task of welding together two old stories where I realise one provides a great twist to the ending of the other.  Do I automatically award myself another, oh, six thousand words to my year's output?

Of course, this fascination with word count is entirely artificial but, as the cliche goes, I'm (firstly) trying to get it written, not get it right.  Getting it right helps, of course, and may help to increase that last metric.  Maybe I should re-prioritise.  But short stories are often paid by the word, and I don't think I quite got across last time the slight mystification that, whilst I'm trying to concentrate on the long form it's my shortest work that (eventually) sells.  My one acceptance?  708 words.  What's that as a fraction of the big number up top?

Talking of stories, you'll see the rejections continue to rise.  As a pre-holiday task last night I managed to dispatch all of my unpublished stories, all twenty-one, to various pro- and semi-pro markets.  Sounds easy, but by the time I've matched a market to a story another's normally been slung back at me.  So this is like keeping twenty-one plates spinning, or the planets all lining up.

Last time that happened didn't Turkey have an earthquake?

A Word on the Numbers

Words written 20977

Stories completed 1

Rejections 21

Acceptances 1

'Why do you write?' is one of those dumb questions asked by mercifully normal people who just don't, and never will, get, as in understand, the creative urge.

'Why do you write when you're obviously so crap at it?', is a far better, well-thought out question.

Let's have a look at the clues, to quote Lloyd Grossman.

Twenty-one thousand words written so far this year, many even spelled right.  Only one story completed, but mainly because I'm a chapter and a half away from completing the first draft of my third novel.  One acceptance, a story called 'The Root Canals of Mars', a humorous little piece, the brilliance of which has been spotted by Lakeside Circus.  God bless 'em and all who sail under their big top.

I hasten to add that that one acceptance is not the same story as sole one completed this year.  Like many writers I'm still trying to place many stories, in my case around twenty tales of various lengths from a few hundred to circa ten thousand words.  Some were written maybe ten years ago, most in the last two or three.  To me, they're my team, going out into the wilds to do battle with slush-pile readers, pushing their way towards the nirvana of publication*.  In reality, they're probably more like hard-to-house problem teens, but, hey, I'm welcome to my own delusions.

It's absolutely amazing how the world has changed in the last twenty years, from printing out hard copy and covering letters and filling envelopes and hauling the down the post office.  I can now at zero cost, either carbon or monetary, submit my stories 24/7 to presses small and large across the globe.  To be honest, I don't know where, geographically, I've been published - I should check - but certainly the UK, Australia, and various apparently united states.  It's slightly awe-inspiring.

But, and its a big but, the flip side of this is that marketing has become a full-time occupation.  My target list of magazines and small presses is seventy-odd in length, and when I look I find more and more.  There is a tendency for them to say - and I'm well aware that editors who are looking at my work may be looking at this blog - 'if you want to know what we publish, read our magazine!', but, at the same time, surprise us!

I'd like to read what you've already published.  It's not the money.  It's the time.  This is what happens in reality: I look at aforementioned website.  I check there's a fundamental overlap of our Venn diagrams - that you're more William Gibson and JG Ballard than JRR Tolkein - if not through explicit submission guidelines then more through your artwork than example stories.  I do pay strict attention to your online guidelines, amending a story of the correct wordcount I think may fit (no courier; must be courier; rtf only!; no underlining for italics: word count in top left hand, not right hand corner; argghhh!!) and I submit.  (NB: maybe this marks me out as utterly naive, but if it says no simultaneous submissions I only send off team-members not otherwise engaged).

What I rarely do is go out of my way to read the publication because, if you want me to surprise you, the last thing you want me to do is reproduce what was in your last issue.  And if I'm reading it to make sure that I'm not submitting something too similar (am I meant to read every issue?) then I very much doubt there's another tale about the Jewish ragtrade in a parallel 1970s downtime New York in which Frankenstein's monsters are a real, albeit unreliable, innovation.  I can't claim to be the world's best writer, but I think it would take the XXXL box of infinite monkeys with typewriters to cook up stuff that's like my stuff.

Time.  It's what drives all of this.  I barely have time to work, do stuff around the house, interact with children and wife, and write - let alone read as well.  Today was mainly spent sending off five stories and chasing on two (Tor.com have had a story for 18 months which augers well), amending files according to publishers' detailed requirements.  I don't think I got a single creative word written, although my mss was open on my desktop all day, just waiting for me to get past other priorities.

Time.  There'll be more of it tomorrow.  Even if I have a video-conference to attend and a near total eclipse of the sun to observe.  Watch the numbers, see how they run...

*On re-reading this, this makes them sound like Islamist suicide bombers - it's an unintended analogy I'm mulling over...