David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 9642 Hit a big milestone on Sunday: the end of the third chapter. Now I have first drafts of the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter A. (Chapter 2 is next, then Chapter B, and so on.) This point is important because 1) it establishes the major characters and conflicts for the first half of the book in both plot threads, 2) it gives me the three-chapters-and-synopsis that is the basis for selling a spec novel (though I’m not going to shop it around until finishing the first draft, this makes it feel more “real”), and 3) it gives me a solid <10,000 word chunk to critique at the Wiscon writers’ workshop (deadline April 1). I formatted and printed out that chunk on Sunday and Kate put it in the mail on Tuesday. And then I didn’t do a lick of writing for the rest of the week. Bad me! But then I wrote 500 words tonight. Yay! I do plan to get a bunch written this weekend. (He says.)

I just re-read the novel “sketch” I wrote in the Outline A Novel In An Hour workshop at OryCon. The Jason described in that sketch is a lot harder, a lot more evil, than the Jason I’m thinking about now. That Jason combines the current Jason’s computer skills with Sienna’s motivations and priorities. That Jason is a more interesting character, but not as sympathetic. Which would be better for the novel? I admit I like Sienna better as a character than the current Jason. Even if Jason is fighting against his privileged background, as I considered yesterday, he’s still a bit of a nebish, a nonentity — not a good central character for a “near-future medical thriller with aliens.” But the Jason I outlined at OryCon is so harsh I wonder if the reader will identify with him, and for him to turn around at the end and work to save the aliens might not be believable. What if he doesn’t turn around? What if he remains committed to the cause? That makes him a villain — makes him Sienna. The challenge then is that the reader has to overcome his/her initial prejudices to consider the heroic human freedom fighter as the villain and the evil alien overlord as the hero. I could structure the whole book that way, with Clarity as the main character and hero and Jason as the villain (this new Jason would basically be the current Sienna with Jason’s skills). This book would start with Remembrance Day and be entirely about the plague. (Long pause for thought.) No, I think not. Jason must at least start out as a sympathetic guy. Once the reader is attached to him I can drag him deeper and deeper into the resistance, let him lose his conscience, but in the end when he turns on Sienna and saves the aliens it is in keeping with his earlier personality. So what is it that drives him into the resistance in the first place? It can’t just be that he gets involved with Sienna; he has to have a personal reason to want to bring the aliens down. But it still has to be plausible for him to turn around later, when he learns more about the aliens and who’s really responsible for the repression. Ponder ponder ponder…

In the last month I’ve been doing a lot of reading. How to write a damn good novel by James Frey — much of the same stuff I’ve already heard many times about how to write a damn good story. Not much new, still worth hearing again. Hacker culture by DouglasThomas — see 1/10 entry above. Raj: a scrapbook of British India by Charles Allen — the heat! The boredom! The numbers of servants! The unmitigated gall! The British were completely alien to the country they ruled (100,000 of them to 3 million Indians) and, for most of them, it was pretty unpleasant and not particularly rewarding financially. Lots of good imagery, though. The tossing of the pith helmets overboard as the homeward boat leaves. The fleeing to the hills during the Hot Weather. The enormous ratio of servants to served (for the upper classes). I think I want my aliens to be kinder than the British were. Writing the breakout novel by Donald Maass — this is a book that tries to define the difference between a merely adequate novel and one that “breaks out” to the bestseller list and critical acclaim. Lots of specific advice here, but the keyword, I think, is bigger. Everything should be bigger and richer and more powerful. Some key quotes: “A breakout premise has plausibility, inherent conflict, originality, and gut emotional appeal.” “High stakes yield high success; to test stakes, ask ‘so what?’ Breakout novels combine high public stakes with high personal stakes.” “Larger-than-life characters say what we cannot say, do what we cannot do, change in ways that we cannot change; they have conflicting sides and are conscious of self. Build a cast for contrast.” “Conflict in the breakout novel is meaningful, immediate, large scale, surprising, not easily resolved, and happens to people for whom we feel sympathy. Bridging conflict carries the reader from the opening line to the moment when the central conflict is set.” “The secret to breakout plotting is tension on every page.” “Multiple points of view and subplots enrich a novel. Connect subplots quickly; subplots must afect overall story outcome. Interweave character relationships.” “Great stories go in unpredictable directoins; breakout novels tend to sprawl.” “Many breakout authors… box their characters into a situation with inescapable moral choices and dilemmas. Moments of outward change… plot turning points… are probably also inward turning points. The time when things are darkest and most dire is also the time when a character’s inner convictions are most sorely tested.” Re-read “Writing the Breakout Novel” in July! (See also 1/23 entry above about theme and politics.) The fugitive game: online with Kevin Mitnick by Jonathan Littman — key concepts here are some details of Kevin’s background (his whole family and mileu growing up were white trash petty crooks) and the concept of social engineering. Kevin was not a brilliant programmer; he combined passion, curiosity, a keen memory, and a powerful ability to get people to tell him what he needs. I’m thinking that Jason comes into the novel with the technical skill and the passion, and Sienna brings the social engineering (she uses social engineering techniques on Kevin to get him to do what she wants). The complete handbook of novel writing from Writer’s Digest Books — a mixed bag, and like Damn Good Novel it contains a lot of basics about “story” that I already know but don’t mind being reminded of. One thing I hadn’t heard before: using plot points to get through the middle of the novel. These are 3-6 scenes that change the direction of the plot and characters (vertices of K.W. Jeter’s “W-shaped plot”). To increase suspense and tension surrounding these scenes: name the big scene, to alert the reader to the event’s impending arrival; provide a preview that mirrors or reflects the upcoming big scene; provide a short contrasting scene immediately before the big scene to increase its impact; use lots of sensory and emotional detail to make the big scene pay off; and at the end of the scene have a disaster and revelation that changes the characters’ understanding of the situation (perepeteia). The British Raj by Denis Judd — more detail than I’d had before on what happened before the Great Mutiny, and lots of examples of British inhumanity. Example: when Victoria (who never visited India) was proclaimed Empress of India, the 21-gun salute (or however many it was — it was all codified) stampeded the elephants and killed several of the natives. This book has numerous first-hand accounts and I own it, so I’m not going to write notes on it right now. At the moment I’m just starting Shoot the women first by Eileen MacDonald. Female terrorists are apparently the more deadly of the species. After all that reading, in the last couple of days something went spung in my head and I had to write something. So the day before yesterday, at work, I whipped out a Shitty First Draft of the outline. I outlined the events in strict chronological order, just as a first pass… and, you know, if Sienna goes off and starts infecting aliens without telling Jason, it might just work that way. Jason, and the reader, don’t know that Jason is the cause of the plague or that the plague is really a computer virus until after the Remembrance Day scene which is the big pivot point a the middle of the book. Mind you, I think the more complex interleaved structure might still be good for the book, but I will at least consider a chronological structure. Yesterday I found a Character Worksheet on the web and filled out about half of it for Sienna. I’m starting with her because I know more about her, and because she’s a more interesting character than Jason who is, so far, a bit of a nonentity. I’m going to read more about terrorists to try to get a handle on Jason — what is the thing he wants more than anything, and why can’t he get it? Much thinking about the background of the novel. Wrote 1700 words of notes on the state of the world in 2051 and the aliens’ technology, biology, reproduction, sexuality, and sociology.

Word count: 7602 Wrote 400 words tonight, but I’m tired… the characters are muttering about technical details and the plot feels stalled. I’m setting it down for tonight; I’ll pick up tomorrow, hand the biocomputer to Jason, and get back to Clarity’s PoV for a while.

Word count: 7210 No writing since Sunday, but I have had an excellent email exchange (still ongoing) with my friend Pam the nurse on the symptoms and progress of the alien disease. As part of this exchange, wrote a one-page synopsis of the novel, which I wanted to do anyway, and which points out that there are a lot of hints that need to be dropped earlier to make the climax work.

Word count: 7210 Much writing this weekend! Got Jason set up with his initial puzzle and introduced his lover Chris. Satisfaction. Off to watch Children of Dune now.

Word count: 4787 Two hours of writing tonight, over a thousand words. Wrote the first scene of Chapter A, in which we meet Jason and Jason meets Sienna. That’s all the main characters on stage (though we don’t yet know who some of them are). Lots more to do before the end of this chapter, but it’s almost midnight and time for bed. Early start tomorrow!!

Word count: 3603 I’ve been a bad boy, haven’t written a thing since Sunday. But I sat down tonight and wrote about 800 words. Huzzah. Probably not going to make 30,000 words in March for the sff.writing.novel-dare PseudoNaNoWriMo, but I still mean to try! With Kate out of town until Monday, I plan to spend tomorrow night and all this weekend writing. Got Clarity out of the potato field and on the road to New York… not sure if that’s the end of the chapter, but it’s an end to the chapter. The chapter so far has not gone exactly the way I had planned. This is perhaps a good thing. In other writing news, received a contract and check in the mail (for a story accepted last year), reviewed the galleys from Phobos, and read “Charlie the Purple Giraffe” at the Tugboat Brewpub downtown. Go me!

Word count: 2873 A very productive weekend for getting chores done. Not very productive for writing. Did have a nice long chat with Pam Davis, an old friend who is a nurse, on medical stuff. The best human analogy for the alien disease seems to be graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD), in which transplanted bone marrow begins attacking the patient. Treatment for graft-vs.-host involves suppressing the immune system, which opens the patient to opportunistic infections — it’s a no-win situation. Pam suggests that increased dramatic tension can be obtained by having an initial visible symptom (e.g. smallpox blister or KS lesion) which provides an unambiguous signal that “you are infected with this untreatable fatal disease, and everyone you’ve had any contact with has already been exposed.” If the symptom is one that can be hidden, that provides opportunities for duplicity and self-deception on top of that. I don’t think a visible “pox” makes sense for this disease, but some kind of patchy rash or “ick” is a possibility. (I still haven’t nailed down what the Taurans have for integument.) OK, maybe this is an AIDS metaphor after all. Pam also asked some interesting questions such as “What keeps this resistance fighter from just sharing the aliens’ vulnerability through some public mechanism such as the internet?” and “Are there no alien medicos?” I came up with an outline of a solution to these and other issues she raised, and it is a really scary situation for the characters. Mwah hah hah.

Word count: 2525 Got a little writing done at the square dance tonight. After thinking about the “Dalek” problem for a while I think I’ve figured out a way around it… using the same transmission method, but slower and more subtle so it’s not as easily spotted. Also changing the characters’ attitude toward aspects of the disease to make it harder for them to implement the block. This is not an AIDS metaphor, I swear.