Over on Facebook, a friend asked “is it always poor writing to tell and not show?” Here’s my reply:
If you had an entire story that was nothing but “show” it would be overlong and tediously detailed. I interpret the maxim of “show, don’t tell” as applying to the most important parts of the story: the characters’ motivations and emotions, the key bits of worldbuilding, the pivotal moments of the plot. When the character is only driving across town? It’s okay to just tell us that part.
Last weekend I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, it was the same weekend as my local con, OryCon, and I’d had a tough time deciding between them. But, as it shook out, I made exactly the right choice.
You might think that the difference between the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and World Fantasy Convention (WFC) is obvious from their names, but it actually isn’t. It is true that WFC focuses on fantasy rather than science fiction, but it doesn’t exclude SF and the Worldcon doesn’t exclude fantasy. The real difference between the two is that the Worldcon is a large (5000 people or so) convention by and for the fans, whereas WFC is a smaller (1000 people) professional conference for writers, publishers, editors, and agents. WFC generally has excellent programming, a dynamite art show, and a dealer’s room focused on books, but the real reason most of the attendees are there is to schmooze. There is a hospitality suite, but the real heart of WFC is the bar where everyone hangs out.
My first WFC was one in Seattle back in the 20th century, when Kate and I helped out our friend Debbie who was running the hospitality suite. We thought it was a great con, but it seemed that there was this invisible web across the con of deals being made, and spending time with our writer friends felt as though we were keeping them from important business. Although fans are welcome at WFC, the con isn’t really about them, and we didn’t go to another WFC for years after that. But WFC changed substantially for me when I started selling my fiction professionally, and became one of my favorite conventions.
This WFC was a whole different animal for me, now that I’m a cog in the publishing machine. I met with my editor (my editor!) Moshe Feder, Tor’s art director and head of tor.com Irene Gallo, and Tor’s head of publicity Patty Garcia (she was bartending at the Tor party at the time, but very generously took some time to chat with me as well). I also bent the ears of many of my writer friends, who offered congratulations and sage advice. Several people commented that I was adorable with my puppy-like enthusiasm, and I have to own that.
I did hang out in the bar, a lot, and had many professional breakfasts and lunches in the hotel restaurant. I think I had five meals outside the hotel in six days, all within walking distance, and otherwise didn’t leave the hotel at all.
I came out of the con feeling like my brain was rattling around in my skull, and I’m still on East Coast time. I have an enormous list of things to do for Arabella of Mars, and #1 on that list is to write the sequel. (I did manage to write every day of the con, even if it was less than a hundred words some days, but I missed a day after coming home when I found myself asleep at the keyboard.)
Publishing is a machine, yes, but it’s a machine made of people, and WFC is where the gears are lubricated. I had a blast and I’m already looking forward to next year’s WFC in Saratoga Springs.
If you are at World Fantasy Con right now, you have an iHome clock radio in your room. It looks like this:
The iHome clock radio is very popular with hotels all over the world. It features an iPhone dock (with the now-obsolete 30-pin connector) and easy-to-use controls with instructions printed right on the top. Unfortunately, one of the things that is NOT covered by these instructions is how to change the time. Very few people, including hotel staff, know how to change the time setting on this clock, which means that — especially in the days and weeks following a change to or from Daylight Savings Time — the time shown is incorrect and it is frustratingly difficult to change it.
I have figured out how to do it, and I’m going to share it with you now.
Turn the clock radio around and look at the back:
You’ll see a horizontal bar of plastic with a knurled knob at the right end (it’s just to the left of the white wires in the photo above). This knob is actually a thumbscrew. Twist it counterclockwise to unfasten it.
When you have unfastened the thumbscrew, the whole horizontal bar comes off (it hooks in at the left end), revealing buttons labeled TIME ZONE and CLOCK ADJ and (on some models) a switch labeled DST.
If your clock has a DST switch, it has three positions: AUTO, OFF, and +1. The AUTO position is supposed to select the appropriate Daylight Savings Time setting automatically. (But if that were working, we wouldn’t be here.) The +1 setting advances the clock by one hour. (In my case, that changed it from being off by an hour to being off by TWO hours.) And the OFF setting gives up on the whole idea and lets you set the time yourself.
To change the time, press and hold the CLOCK ADJ button until the clock beeps and the time display blinks, then rotate the right-hand disc on the top of the clock to adjust the time backward or forward. Once you have the correct time, press the CLOCK ADJ button repeatedly until the time is displayed again. You’re done!
To replace the horizontal bar, hook it into the hole at the left end, swing it back into place, and refasten the thumbscrew.
Please link to this web page using the words iHome, clock, radio, and hotel in the link so that people can find it and change the time on their hotel clocks. Future hotel guests will thank you.
The long-awaited Wild Cards mosaic novel Lowball, including my story “Cry Wolf,” is out today! Look for it at a book or ebook store near you, including Powell’s.
Also, the December 2014 issue of Analog includes my story “Mammals.” It is on the newsstands (remember them?) right now, and you can buy an ebook of the issue in a variety of formats from Magzter.
I am extremely pleased to report that my “Regency Interplanetary Airship Adventure” novel Arabella of Mars has sold to prominent SF publisher Tor in a three-book deal. The first volume will be published in late 2015 or early 2016, with two sequels to follow at yearly intervals.
Arabella Ashby is a Patrick O’Brian girl in a Jane Austen world — born and raised on Mars, she was hauled back home by her mother, where she’s stifled by England’s gravity, climate, and attitudes toward women. When she learns that her evil cousin plans to kill her brother and inherit the family fortune, she joins the crew of an interplanetary clipper ship in order to beat him to Mars. But privateers, mutiny, and insurrection stand in her way. Will she arrive in time?
Arabella of Mars will appeal to fans of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books, Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy, and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories, all of which are fast-paced adventures combining a historical setting with a fantasy/SF twist. A novelette in the same universe, “The Wreck of the Mars Adventure,” appeared in Locus Award winning anthology Old Mars, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois; another related novelette, “The End of the Silk Road,” appeared in F&SF.
As for the author, I have published over fifty short stories in major markets. My stories have won the Hugo, have been nominated for the Nebula, and have appeared in five Year’s Best anthologies, among many other honors, and my collection Space Magic won the Endeavour Award for the year’s best F/SF book by a Pacific Northwest writer. I also wrote one of three new stories in the revised edition of George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards 1. In 2010 I spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in Utah, and have presented a highly-regarded slide show about the trip at many science fiction conventions and other venues. A video I made of my short story “Dr. Talon’s Letter to the Editor” was a finalist for the 2013 Parsec Award.
Getting to this point has been a real emotional rollercoaster, with many years of hard work, long waits, and near misses. Arabella of Mars, my first sale, is my fourth completed novel; I started outlining the first one at the beginning of 2003, so this moment is the culmination of more than ten years of effort. And yet, of course, this is also only the beginning of an equally long strange journey to publication and beyond. I have a lot to do in the next year, including soliciting blurbs, writing blog posts, assembling a street team, and scheduling readings and interviews, as well as shepherding the book through production, not to mention writing book 2 (which currently exists as a solid outline and 4000 words of text). It’s going to be a heck of a ride, and I plan to keep you informed along the way.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email them or leave them as comments here. I can use topics for forthcoming blog posts! :-)
This weekend (October 18-19, 2014) I will be appearing at two events for readers in Portland, Oregon: Story Con and Stumptown Lit.
Story Con is a one-day readers’ convention, “laser-focused on helping book lovers find their next great book.” It features over 30 local authors doing readings, signings, and panels, and will be held at the Vancouver Community Library from 10:30 to 4:30 on October 18. I will be doing a reading at 10:30, a signing at 11:30, and will otherwise be hanging out most of the day.
Stumptown Lit is Oregon Writers Colony’s fall festival for readers and writers. It features workshops, readings by Oregon authors, a book fair, and a reception honoring Jean Auel, and will be held at the World Forestry Center on October 19. I won’t be presenting, but I have books in the book fair (noon to 5:00) and will generally be hanging around.
Hope to see you there!
“Room Escape” is a genre of casual online game, originating in Japan, in which you wake up in a room and must search for clues and solve puzzles in order to escape it. Kate’s a big fan of this type of game, so when I found out that a live-action version was launching in Portland I snagged tickets as soon as I could.
“Spark of Resistance” (http://www.60minutes.to/) is an interactive game, or possibly a theatrical experience, which takes place in a small room in an industrial space on the Portland riverfront. Up to 8 players at a time are locked into this room, with a 60-minute clock to figure a way out. It was tons of fun and I’d recommend it for anyone who enjoys a challenging puzzle.
One thing that I don’t like about room escape games online is the arbitrary nature of the puzzle. It’s never clear to me why you are in this room or why, if someone wanted to provide clues to help you get out of it, they would be so ridiculously obscure about it. Also, puzzle escape games often devolve into “pixel hunting,” in which you have to click on absolutely everything in hopes of locating the one click point that reveals a hidden clue or tool.
“Spark of Resistance” isn’t arbitrary. You are given a clear plot (involving espionage and paranoia in an oppressive fictional country) and, as you are in a real room made of real things, there’s no pixel-hunting… you use your actual eyes and hands to search the walls and drawers for actual hidden objects. This made it a lot more fun than any online game. The props and devices in the room were well-constructed, engaging, and thematically appropriate.
The puzzles in “Spark of Resistance” are challenging, but not impossible (especially if you are familiar with the conventions of the genre, e.g. no clue applies to more than one puzzle), and the game masters are watching and will provide timely hints if you get stuck. Even with hints, though, we didn’t manage to finish the last puzzle before the 60-minute timer ran out. However, as we came so close, they let us back in and we finished in about ten more minutes. We were told that so far no paying players, and only one team of beta testers, has actually escaped in time — we came the closest of any paying team so far. (The game hasn’t been running very long.)
“Spark of Resistance” is a game for up to 8 players. If you have fewer than that, the remaining tickets for your time slot are available and may be purchased by other people, so if you don’t have a full team of 8 you might wind up playing with strangers. We found that with 8 people in the room we did get in each other’s way a bit, but on the other hand with 8 people we had more eyes on each puzzle, more people looking for clues and objects, and more parallel processing on independent puzzles. I think 6 would be ideal… I don’t think 2 people would have a chance of solving the entire room in time.
If you’re in Portland and enjoy logic puzzles, I’d definitely recommend “Spark of Resistance.”
As you may have heard, Seattle SF author Greg Bear recently had emergency cardiac surgery and spent a week in the hospital. The surgery went well and he is home and recovering, but he will not be able to tour or do other promotion for his brand new book War Dogs. Also, because of the ongoing Amazon-Hachette dispute, War Dogs cannot be pre-ordered from Amazon. However, it can be pre-ordered from Powell’s (http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780316072830-0) as well as Seattle’s University Bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy, and Barnes and Noble.
Greg is a fabulous writer and has always been friendly and extremely generous to other authors and Clarion West students. Please help support him by pre-ordering War Dogs, reviewing it, mentioning it in a blog, talking about it with friends, asking your library to order it, etc.
Spread the word!
Holy cow, I have been incredibly remiss in sharing my good writing news. I’ve made the following sales in the past couple of months:
When I visited video training company lynda.com in April to record AWK Essential Training, the producer noticed that I was using the vi text editor and mentioned that they didn’t currently have a course on that… would I be interested in creating one? I was, and I did, and it is now available to all lynda.com members: Up and Running with VI. If you aren’t a member, you can watch five of the videos in the course for free at http://www.lynda.com/vi-tutorials/Up-Running-vi/170336-2.html.
Here’s Lynda’s description of the course: “Although other text editors may be easier to use, vi is built into all Unix systems (including Linux and Mac OS). Knowing a few basic vi commands guarantees you’ll be able to work with these systems when no other editor is installed. In this course, David D. Levine shows you how to get in and out of vi, switch modes, and start editing files in place. Learn how to change text within a file, use commands like undo and yank, find and replace text, and invoke more advanced Unix commands. Although it may be arcane, vi is still the standard text editor for all Unix systems. Start learning it now and run your systems more smoothly in the future.”
Topics covered in the course include:
If you are interested in doing something like this yourself, please contact Mark Niemann-Ross at mnr@lynda.com. He is especially interested in finding authors who are women or people of color. If you have expertise in any technical or business field, have good English writing and speaking skills, and enjoy helping people learn how to do things, I encourage you to give it a try.
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