David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 17141 Since the last entry I attended my 20th(!) college reunion, spent a relaxing week driving through picturesque countryside from St. Louis to Madison (including a visit to the amazing House on the Rock, as seen in American Gods), and attended Wiscon, one of the best SF conventions for writers. To give you some idea of the flavor of the convention, one night I wound up going to dinner with some folks I had just met that day; of the 8 people at the table, at least 5 were published writers. The quality and intensity of the hall conversations, as well as the formal program, were outstanding. Spent a lot of time with old friends (some of whom I hadn’t seen in years) and made some excellent new ones. At Wiscon I also had the first 3 chapters and synopsis critiqued. The reaction was… interesting. The critiques were generally quite positive, though not outstandingly so, but the thing that makes me scratch my head is that there was absolutely no consensus about where the problem areas were. For every person who said they thought Sienna was the best character and Jason was flat, there was another who loved Clarity but found Sienna unoriginal. There were a few small details that several people mentioned (for example, why do the aliens consider Earth’s moon to be God’s Eye? This is something to which I knew the answer, but it wasn’t in this draft of these chapters), but those are easily fixed. I think this lack of consensus is, on the whole, a positive sign. It indicates that no single area or character stands out as desperately in need of help. (Now, just because critiquers disagree about which is the weakest character is not the same as saying they are all strong. But this is a first draft.) So I’ve decided to leave the characters fundamentally as they are (though I’m still waffling over Clarity’s attitude towards power — one of the people who critiqued me had some good suggestions about changing her) until I finish the first draft. When I reach the end of the story I hope to have a better understanding of the characters, including where they should have started, and I can go back to the beginning and rework them based on that understanding. With all this travel, plus a heavy dose of work and other Real Life upon returning, I didn’t write a lick in weeks. Bad writer. But in the last two days, in part thanks to nudging from Kate, I’ve gotten back to work. So far I’ve been incorporating the simpler review comments, which explains the slight decrease in word count, but I do plan to get back to generating new text this week. To keep myself on track I have decided to begin sending the novel through my critique group on a meeting-by-meeting basis. I had originally intended to finish the first draft and revise it once before showing any of it to them (so they can comment on it as a whole, which is how the readers will see it). But I seem to need regular deadlines to keep producing. So I have made myself a deal: if I don’t have at least 3000 new words at each tri-weekly meeting, I will buy everyone a drink or equivalent. This is derived from the “external pressure biscuit technique” related by Delia Sherman at Wiscon. Yoickth, and away!

Word count: 17219 Just got back from a weekend at the Oregon Writers Colony’s Colonyhouse at the Oregon Coast. Spent the whole time writing, apart from meals and one walk on the beach. Finished Chapter 2 and wrote the entirety of Chapter B (I think… it feels a little short, but it does cover everything in the outline) for a total of over 4000 new words! I had been hoping for 5000 words but I think that was unrealistic. New material includes the death of Vigor, a breakthrough by Jason, a shooting scene using info from my shoot-out a couple weeks ago, and a really steamy seduction scene. Interesting note: on Saturday, between lunch and dinner (3 hours) I wrote 1000 words. Between dinner and bed (also 3 hours) I wrote over 2000 words. Also, the 2000 words were more fun to write and feel like much better writing than the 1000 words. The difference? The 2000 words included a key scene that I have been reviewing in my head for months; the 1000 words I wrote in the afternoon were all material I hadn’t thought through in detail and I was making it up as I went along. This puts me in mind of a favorite Shoe cartoon, in which little Skyler says to his uncle Cosmo “You’re a writer. Shouldn’t you be pounding the keyboard instead of staring out the window?” Cosmo responds: “Typists pound keyboards. Writers stare out windows.” I think I need to spend a little more time staring out the window. (Of course, when I tried this at the coast I fell asleep. But the principle is sound.)

Word count: 13179 Only 900 words in the last week. Clarity’s father still not dead. But I’m going to the coast Friday for a weekend of nothing but writing. Right now I’m just massively frustrated. I have a couple of stories I feel very strongly are some of my best work, and both of them have now bounced from every major market. The rejections have been incredibly positive — Gardner Dozois called one of them “nicely crafted and nicely felt”; Ellen Datlow said it was “moving and disturbing”; Gordon Van Gelder called it “audacious” — but they all turned it down anyway. Grr; argh. I’d rather have a half-hearted acceptance than even the most complimentary rejection. On the other hand, people’s responses to “The Tale of the Golden Eagle” have been outstanding.

Word count: 12326 I came home from Minicon with a mild sore throat, which lasted only a day or so, but I’ve been feeling “faintly blug” ever since. Not sick enough to stay home from work, but too sick to go to the gym and too tired to do much writing. It’s been a week and I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. Nonetheless, somehow I have written almost 1000 words since Monday. Not bad, considering. Might even get some more done tomorrow. In some ways I feel the plot is moving much too quickly for a novel — I have a short-story writer’s instincts, and I can definitely feel myself trying to wrap things up in 10,000 words or less. On the other hand, the death of Clarity’s father is the incident that kicks the whole plot in motion, and the old coot hasn’t even died yet. (Though he’s not at all a well cat… he’ll be gone by the end of this chapter, probably less than 2000 words away.)

Word count: 11365 It took longer than I hoped to get that story revised, but I got it in the mail to F&SF before leaving for Minicon. I hate revisions… it feels like taking one of my children apart in hopes of putting her back together in a more pleasing shape. This may explain why I have 7 stories critiqued and awaiting revision (but at least it’s down from 8). I did get almost 900 words written on the plane to Minicon, and critiqued some stuff on the plane home. But looking back on those 900 words I think I need to revise some of them (there’s that word again, ick) before proceeding… my main character isn’t taking nearly enough action. At the moment I’m a bit sick (just a mild sore throat and lack of energy, not SARS) so I’m going to bed early. Oh, and one more teeny little thing: I’m on the Hugo ballot! I’m one of the nominees for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Go me!!

Word count: 10499 Well, the PseuDoNaNoWriMo is over and I did not get 30,000 words written. But I did get over 10,000 words written, and that’s not chopped liver. Well begun is half done. Et cetera. I’m going to take a brief break from the novel to do some critiques and whip a short story or two into shape (I have a bunch that have been critiqued but not yet rewritten) and into the submission pipeline.

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.