Category Archives: editing

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Tor Books, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Trust Yourself. No, Really.

Rules of Ascension, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Gary Ruddell)Trust your reader.

This is editor speak for “trust yourself.” It is something I say often to many of the writers I edit.

But what does it mean?

I have had my own lesson in “trust your reader” in recent days as I have begun the long, arduous task of editing for reissue the five volumes of my Winds of the Forelands epic fantasy series, originally published by Tor Books back in the early 2000s, when I was still a relative newbie. My editor at Tor used to tell me all the time to trust my readers, and so I assumed — naïvely, it would seem — that back in the day he and I had caught all the instances where I didn’t trust my reader. But no. It seems there were so many of these moments, that he had to engage in a sort of editorial triage, catching only the most egregious and leaving the rest.

Yes, I know. I still haven’t defined the phrase.

Seeds of Betrayal, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Gary Ruddell)As I say, “trust your reader” is essentially the same as “trust yourself.” And editors use it to point out all those places where we writers tell our readers stuff that they really don’t have to be told. Writers spend a lot of time setting stuff up — arranging our plot points just so in order to steer our narratives to that grand climax we have planned; building character backgrounds and arcs of character development that carry our heroes from who they are when the story begins to who we want them to be when the story ends; building histories and magic systems and other intricacies into our world so that all the storylines and character arcs fit with the setting we have crafted with such care.

Bonds of Vengeance, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)And because we work so hard on all this stuff (and other narrative elements I haven’t even mentioned) we want to be absolutely certain that our readers get it all. We don’t want them to miss a thing, because then all our Great Work will be for naught. Because maybe, just maybe, if they don’t get it all, then our Wonderful Plot might not come across as quite so wonderful, and our Deep Characters might not come across as quite so deep, and our Spectacular Worlds might not feel quite so spectacular.

And that would be A Tragedy.

Shapers of Darkness, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Okay, yes, I’m making light, poking fun at myself and my fellow writers. But fears such as these really do lie at the heart of most “trust your reader” moments. And so we fill our stories with unnecessary explanations, with redundancies that are intended to remind, but that wind up serving no purpose, with statements of the obvious and the already-known that serve only to clutter our prose and our storytelling.

The first few hundred pages of Rules of Ascension, the first volume of Winds of the Forelands, is filled to bursting with unnecessary passages of this sort. I explain things again and again. I remind my readers of key points in scenes that took place just a dozen or so pages back. I make absolutely certain that my readers are well versed in every crucial element (“crucial” as determined by me, of course) in my world building and character backgrounds.

Weavers of War, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)As a result, the first volume of the series was originally 220,000 words long. Yes, that’s right. Book II was about 215,000, and the later volumes were each about 160,000. They are big freakin’ books. Now, to be clear, there are other things that make them too wordy, and I’m fixing those as well. And the fact is, these are big stories and even after I have edited them, the first book will still weigh in at well over 200,000 words. My point is, they are longer than they need to be. They are cluttered with stuff my readers don’t need, and all that stuff gets in the way of the many, many good things I have done with my characters and setting and plot and prose.

I have always been proud of these books. I remain so even as I work through this process. People have read and enjoyed all five volumes as originally written despite the “trust your reader” moments. I actually think most readers pass over those redundant, unnecessary passages without really noticing them. They are not horrible or glaring (except to me); they’re just annoying. They are rookie mistakes, and so I find them embarrassing, and I want to eliminate as many as possible before reissuing the books.

But our goal as writers ought to be to produce the best stories we can write, with the clearest, most concise narratives and the cleanest, most readable prose. “Trust your reader” moments are a hindrance — one among many — to the achievement of that goal, and so we should be aware of the tendency and work to eliminate these unnecessary passages from our writing.

Mostly, we should remember the translation — “trust your reader” means “trust yourself.” Chances are we have laid our groundwork effectively, establishing our worlds, developing our characters, setting up our plot points. If we haven’t, a good editor will tell us so and will recommend places where we can clarify matters a bit.

So, remember that less is usually more, that showing is almost always better than telling, that most times when we stop to explain stuff we rob our stories of momentum.

And most of all, remember to trust yourself. You’ve earned it.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Professional Wednesday: Eliminating Excess Verbiage, Part II

Last week, I revisited an old Magical Words post I’d done about eliminating excess verbiage in our writing, putting a new spin on the discussion. As promised, I would like to continue that conversation today.

Before I dive back into the topic, though, I would like to address what might seem like a basic question: Is more concise always better? To my mind, concise is ALMOST always better. I can imagine situations — perhaps when writing a period piece, or trying to do something stylistically with a particular narrative voice that we want to be stuffy and verbose, or scattered and therefore wordy — in which concision is not a desired goal. But those are pretty specific instances. For the most part verbosity is not a style, but is rather a hindrance to effective storytelling. In general — and again I will accept that there may be a few exceptions to this — wordiness gets in the way of flow, of clarity, of linguistic precision. Others might disagree, and I would be open to debating the issue over beers. But I am skeptical of any argument that presents excess verbiage as a virtue.

In last week’s post, I covered passive writing, distancing phrases, and using mannerisms of speech in our prose. Let’s move to this week’s topics.

Adverbs: Yes, there are Adverb Authoritarians out there who will tell you that every adverb is an abomination, that none of them is necessary. I disagree. Used sparingly, adverbs can add to our prose, refining the meaning of our sentences and bringing more clarity, not less. Having said that . . . . A few years ago, when I edited the three volumes of my LonTobyn Chronicle in preparation for their re-release, I found way, way too many adverbs in the text, and I eliminated ninety percent of them. For the most part, adverbs add clutter, and often wind up being redundant.

So often, in my own older work as well as in the stories and books that I edit for others, I have found constructions like these: “He glanced at her briefly.” “She tapped lightly on the door.” “They ran quickly across the field.” None of those adverbs (“briefly,” “lightly,” “quickly”) is necessary. A glance is always brief; that’s why it’s a glance. A tap is light by definition, as opposed to a “knock” or a “rap” or a “pound.” And running suggests relative quickness. You rarely hear anyone say, “They ran slowly” (unless they happen to be commenting on my running speed . . .). Again, I would be reluctant to say “never use adverbs.” But I would say before using them, make sure the word is needed. More often than not, I believe you’ll find they add little to your narrative.

Weakening words: I am SO guilty of this one. I constantly need to look through my work to weed out words like “somewhat” and “a bit” and “slightly.” Or else I start phrases with things like “He found that . . .” or “She tended to . . .” All of these words make my prose mealy and soft, wordy and weak. It’s not that EVERY phrase has to be definitive and strong. Of course there are times when we want to soften a statement or qualify it in some way. Words and phrases like these become problematic when they occur as crutch words, as things we throw in without thinking because we can’t find a better way to write the sentence. And all writers do this on occasion. I have a list of manneristic words and phrases that crop up in my prose. When I finish the first draft of a manuscript, I do universal searches for all the crutch words on that list and I do my best to eliminate as many of them as possible. And too many of them are weakening words like these.

Beginnings and starts: These are a bit like passives, in that they clutter up and weaken verb phrases. Instead of “He ran,” we write “He started to run,” which says essentially the same thing with less power and in twice as many words. In almost all instances, we don’t need to be told that a character “started” or “began” to so something. A few sentences ago, they weren’t doing it. Now they are. We can assume that somewhere in the interim, they started doing it. This really isn’t complicated.

Now, as with many of these other issues, some instances of “started” or “began” are necessary. There are moments when the initiation of a certain action is, in fact, significant and worth noting. But those moments are pretty rare. For the most part, in my experience editing other people’s work and revising my own, I find these phrases to be empty and unnecessary.

Dialog tags and name checking: I could devote an entire post to writing decent dialogue and tagging speakers in subtle, effective ways. Actually, I’m sure I have written such a post. Still, it’s worth repeating a few key points. We don’t need tags for every line of dialogue. I often go through early drafts of my work and take out tag after tag after tag. As with other writing “rules,” I don’t subscribe to the “never do this” approach to dialogue tags. There is a place in good writing for “She said” and “He asked.” I’m merely pointing out that we often overuse these phrases. I would suggest you read through your dialogue and remove any tags that are not needed to clarify who is speaking when. In conversations between just two characters, that will be most of the tags. In conversations involving several characters, tags become crucial clarifying tools, requiring us to keep a far higher percentage of them.

“Name checking” refers to having one character address another by name in written dialogue. In most cases, we simply should not do this. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and initiate a conversation right now with a friend or a partner or someone else in your life. And use their name in every other sentence. “How was work today, Nancy? Did you have lots of meetings? Who were they with, Nancy?” Etc. It won’t take you long to realize that you sound ridiculous.

Now try doing it every fifth sentence. That will sound ridiculous, too. Trust me. Aside from moments when we’re calling to one another from another room, or something of that sort, Nancy and I can go for days without using each other’s names. Most of us are like that. Name checking makes our characters sound weird and unrealistic. And it clutters up our prose.

Keep writing, whatever your name might be!

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: Eliminating Excess Verbiage, Part I

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeAs I mentioned in a recent post, I have been doing a tremendous amount of editing and revising these past several months. Between co-editing (with Edmund Schubert) the Artifice and Craft anthology for Zombies Need Brains, revising my upcoming Chalice War trilogy, and working on manuscripts for clients of my freelance editing business, I have been through literally half a million words of text! And that is to be expected. Books and stories require careful editing and committed revision to reach their fullest potential.

During this time I have noticed, in my own work and in the prose of others, certain phrases and verbal habits that make our writing wordier, and therefore less effective, than it needs to be. Last week, I drew upon one of my old Magical Words post for inspiration to revisit a writing issue, and I thought I would do the same thing this week. Our topic today: cutting excess verbiage.

Just about all of us use more words than we should in our initial drafts. Hence that need for editing I mentioned above. With experience comes the ability to catch at least some of our worst writing habits. And yet, I have been writing professionally for more than twenty-five years, and I still fail to see all of them on my first revision pass. Fortunately, I have a wonderful editor who catches the wordy constructions I miss. (Be forewarned: She’s not editing this, so . . . well . . . yeah.)

Still, in revising my own work, and editing that of others, I have noticed a few patterns that all of us should watch for in our prose.

Passive constructions: Passing writing takes a number of forms, but at its most basic it uses weak verb constructions that rely on forms of the verb “to be.” These include “is,” “was,” ”are,”“were,” etc. Instead of “He ran” or “she speaks,” passive writers might say, “He was running” or “She is speaking.” Yes, in these examples passive constructions add only one word, but the damage goes far beyond word counts. Passive writing can flatten our prose, making it less powerful and less impactful. Or, put in another, stronger way . . . . Passive writing flattens our prose, robbing it of power, of impact. To state the obvious, we can’t remove every “to be” verb construction from our writing, at least not without relying on tortured syntax. Sometimes there is no other way to say what we want to say. (See what I did there?) We can, however, look for every opportunity to change a weak, passive phrase into a strong, active one.

Distancing phrases: When writing fiction, we should always be in a character’s point of view. Usually I try to avoid blanket statements of hard and fast rules, but I feel strongly about this. Point of view is the greatest tool we possess as writers. We should use it. One reason why? POV makes distancing phrases “he felt,” “she heard,” “they saw,” etc. unnecessary. “She heard cannon fire booming in the distance.” “He felt the house tremble with the rumble of thunder.” Those sentences are fine, but they’re unnecessarily wordy. In each case, we’re in a character’s point of view, and so the “she heard” and the “he felt” are redundant. If she experiences the sound, we KNOW she heard it. If he experiences the movement of the house, we KNOW he felt it. So . . . . “Cannon fire boomed in the distance.” “A rumble of thunder shook the house” or “The house trembled with a rumble of thunder.” Either works. Both are better than the original construction.

How about this one? “They could see dust rising from the road as a company of horsemen approached.” Here we have lots of unnecessary verbiage. Starting with the “They could see.” Again, we’re in a character’s point of view, and that character is part of the “they.” We also have the “as” phrase, which less experienced writers also tend to overuse. If we present cause and effect with clarity, words like “as” and “while” become unnecessary. So . . . “Horsemen approached, dust billowing from the road in their wake.” More concise, more powerful, more evocative. When we use words like “saw,” “felt,” “heard,” we TELL our readers what is happening. With more direct language, we SHOW them, which is always preferable.

Including mannerisms of speech in our prose: Humans are, as a species, remarkably inarticulate creatures. When giving advice on writing dialogue, I often tell writers to have their characters speak not as we do, but as we wish we did. This by way of eliminating “er”s and “um”s, “you know”s and “like”s, and all the repetitions and circularities of everyday speech. But there are other ways in which our speech patterns infect our prose. Just a moment ago, I started a sentence like this: “One thing we can do to improve our writing is . . . .” That is a TERRIBLE phrase. Just awful. I caught myself immediately and rewrote the offending sentence. Often, however, such phrases slip by our internal editors and find their way into early drafts. When we speak, we use roundabout constructions like that one to gather our thoughts, and we do it without even thinking. It’s a way of answering a question or opening a conversation with something other than a) silence, or b) inarticulate rambling. The thing is (and yes, “The thing is” is another example of the same phenomenon) when we write, we don’t need those filler phrases. Indeed, we don’t want them. They add clutter to our writing. We can’t possibly anticipate all the nonsense phrases that might slip into our prose in this way, but we can watch for them, recognize them when they crop up, and eliminate them.

Next week, I will continue this discussion of excess verbiage in our written work.

For now, keep writing!!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Professional Wednesday: When To Fight an Edit, and When To Let it Go

I know my knee-jerk response is not always my wisest response.

All of us who have gone through the editorial process are familiar with the conundrum: We want to work with our editors. We want to cultivate reputations for being easy to work with, cooperative, flexible, etc. No one WANTS to be known as a prima donna. At least almost no one. But then we find that our editor (or our copy editor, or our proofer) has altered something we didn’t want altered, killed a darling we weren’t willing to sacrifice. What do we do? Do we dig in our heels in order to keep the original wording, carving “STET” (editorial speak for “let it stand”) into the manuscript with a bloody blade? Or do we give in, though it hurts physically to do so?

Put another way, when do we as writers fight for wording we want, and when do we acquiesce?

Over the past few years, I have been both editor and writer on a number of stories and novels. I have felt the sting of having passages I have written, passages I care about, altered by an editor, and I have also had writers reject editorial feedback I have given that I know, with every fiber of my being, would make their work better. I haven’t enjoyed either experience, yet I have come to see that both are natural, even necessary, outcomes of the literary process.

At its best, the relationship between writer and editor is collaborative, cooperative. It necessitates compromise. Some of our darlings won’t survive the process. Some of the editor’s suggestions will be rejected. Early in my career, I worked with an editor who had far, far more experience than I did, and this editor expected that I would defer in most if not all cases. Our interactions often left me feeling bullied, and there were changes the editor insisted upon that I wish I had rejected. I have also, in my editorial capacity, worked with writers who refuse all suggestions. All of them. Neither extreme is likely to produce the best possible version of the story, which, of course, ought to be the entire point.

So, as writers, how do we decide how hard to push back, when to compromise, when to insist on our wording or approach? And as editors, how insistent should we be?

Let me begin by addressing that last question, because in many respects it’s the easiest to answer. In my capacity as editor, I feel it is my responsibility to point out to my writers anything and everything I can see that I believe needs to be fixed in order to improve the story or book. I will offer possible solutions — alternate wording or potential fixes for narrative issues, but none of what I suggest is meant to be the only possible approach. My purpose is to point out a problem. The author can fix it any way they choose. Or they can decide it’s not a problem. And, generally speaking, if an author decides the problem I have identified is NOT in fact a problem, I will respect that decision. Every now and then, if I believe the issue is serious enough and the author decides initially that they don’t agree, I will mention the issue again and explain why I think it matters, and how it might be addressed without changing too much. After that, I won’t say more. It’s the writer’s story, after all. Their name is on it, not mine.

And in my capacity as writer, I follow the same principle. It is my story. My name is on the byline, not the editor’s. Now, having said that, I also have to add that I accept the vast majority of my editors’ suggested fixes, and I always take seriously any problem they identify. Why? Because my editors are professionals and they know what they’re doing. Because we writers can’t possibly see every flaw in our work; we’re simply too close to it. Because I am far from perfect. And because I trust the process and I understand the editor-writer relationship is not adversarial; my editor’s goal is my goal: to make the story as good as it can be.

So how do I decide when to stick to my guns and when to give in on an issue of wording or style, plotting or character work?

1. I give the matter some time to percolate. The truth is, often when I disagree with something my editor suggests, my first impulse is to resist, to refuse, to insist on having things my way. And so, when reading through an edited manuscript, I will mark the issue as something to return to later. I essentially stick a pin in it. Because I know my knee-jerk response is not always my wisest response.

2. When I return to the issue, I try to see what it is the editor is pointing out. Remember I said earlier, in talking about editing, that editorial suggestions are just that: suggestions. They are a way of saying, “There’s a problem here.” Good editors do not add, “And you need to fix it my way.” So I try to see the issue my editor has identified, and for the moment I ignore their suggested solution. Much of the time, I can find edits that preserve the tone I want while also addressing the problem the editor has identified.

3. If, after some time and some careful consideration, I still find myself disagreeing with the edit, I ask myself how much it matters to the book. Is this issue worth an argument? Quite often, they’re not. I take pride in my writing and I craft each word, because I want my books and stories to read a certain way. But I know many of my readers don’t take the same care in reading a book that I take in writing it. That’s natural. So, are readers likely to notice if I change this in some way? If the answer is no, the issue is probably not worth fighting over. It’s just up to me to get over myself.

It’s worth noting here that, generally speaking, issues related to style and wording are important but not crucial. Questions touching on narrative issues — plotting, pacing, character — are fundamental, and so I am far, far more likely to insist on having my way in these instances. A few series back, I rejected a number of edits suggested by an editor because I knew they were wrong and I felt certain the edits they suggested would ruin the book. I got my way. And I never worked with that editor again.

4. Finally, if I have given myself time to settle down, if I have decided the issue is one I care about, if I have decided that making a change is going to impact materially my readers’ experience, I will insist on keeping the wording or narrative point as I originally wrote it. STET that sucker.

But as you can see, even with my conviction that we authors should always have the final word (It’s. Our. Book.) I do all I can to respect and take seriously the work done by my editors. It’s worth saying again: Editors and writers are allies. We work together to make a manuscript as good as it can be. Editors who push too hard, and authors who are too resistant to changing anything, undermine the editorial process. They may think they are scoring points in some ridiculous battle of ego and control. But all they are doing is hurting the manuscript, which benefits no one.

Keep writing.

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Winds of the Forelands, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: 2023 Is 1/4 Gone — What Have You Done?

Spring is here. April is knocking on the door. 2023 is just about one quarter gone (a thought that sends me into a frenzied panic) and with the first three months of the year nearly over, I felt this would be a good time to pause and take stock of my goals and accomplishments so far. Care to join me?

The end of March is significant for me, because my convention season is about to begin. Yes, I sometimes have an event or two early in the year, but most years my professional travel begins in earnest with the onset of spring. 2023 promises to be no different in this regard, and the truth is I feel like I have been stuck in second gear since the beginning of the calendar year.

I keep a day book, a sort of diary, using my Sierra Club Engagement Calendar. I write down key events of each day, important conversations I might have had, and, most notably for the purposes of this post, an accounting of the work I have gotten done daily. I do this for myself (although it is also helpful occasionally in settling arguments about the timing of certain things . . . .) for moments like the one I’m having right now, when I wonder if I have actually accomplished anything at all.

I HAVE gotten work done this year. A lot of it has involved editing — the Artifice and Craft anthology I’m editing for Zombies Need Brains, edits on my upcoming Celtic urban fantasy series, and editing I do for clients. This is all important work, but it doesn’t leave me much to show for my efforts. When I’m writing a book, I can point to my page count or word count. With editing . . . my track-changes count? It just isn’t as satisfying.

Add to that the week-plus that I lost to Covid, and some travel I’ve done, and I can account for all the time that has passed since New Year’s. But aside from my short story for another ZNB anthology, Dragonesque, and a couple of dozen blog posts, I haven’t written much of anything this year. I think that is what’s bothering me. I get grumpy when I don’t write enough, and I’m feeling grumpy.

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeI also know that what has been a quiet year thus far is about to get very, very busy. Starting in May, we (Bell Bridge Books and I) will be releasing The Chalice War trilogy, the aforementioned Celtic urban fantasy. The first book, The Chalice War: Stone, will be out that month, followed closely by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and, sometime in the summer, The Chalice War: Sword. I can’t wait. Sword will be my thirtieth (yes, 30th) published book.

Also this summer, Zombies Need Brains will release Artifice and Craft, my 5th edited anthology, and Dragonesque, which will include “Reenactment,” my 30th published short story.

In April, I will attend JordanCon (Atlanta). In early June, I will attend ConCarolinas (Charlotte), and later that same month I will be at LibertyCon (Chattanooga).

I have recently been accepted into the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, which is taught in late May at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Launch Pad is a week-long workshop on all things related to space and space travel taught specifically for writers and editors. It offers an amazing opportunity to learn about these fascinating topics from professional scholars who also happen to have backgrounds in SF. I have been considering a new science fiction project, one that would be a dramatic departure from anything I’ve written before. Launch Pad will be invaluable in preparing me to write those stories.

We have family travel on the schedule for July, following an important professional transition for Nancy at the end of June. And then I will be attending DragonCon (Atlanta) in late August/early September.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)I have two other projects underway as well. A nonfiction thing that I am not ready to discuss in detail, and, at long last, the editing of the Winds of the Forelands books for re-release in late 2023 or early 2024. And I have another writing project — a collaborative undertaking — that I also cannot describe in detail, simply because I am not the organizing force behind the project, so it is not mine to reveal. But I am excited about it.

And I have a possible tie-in project looming, which is not certain enough to reveal at this time.

I know: There’s a lot of secrecy in this post. My apologies. There is also a mixed message. On the one hand, I feel a bit stuck and dissatisfied with what I have done so far this year. But I am also excited about what is about to come and a bit overwhelmed with all that looms on my professional calendar.

At the beginning of the year, I had a sense of things I wanted to get done in 2023. My life has been filled with enough uncertainty over the past few years, that I knew better than to fill out a work schedule in ink. But I had goals; I still do, and they remain much the same. The busier calendar on my work horizon won’t make it any easier to get work done. Or will it? I work better when my deadlines are immutable, and once I have revised the third Chalice War book, I will be finished  with most of my editing duties for the year. More time for writing — yay!!

So, that’s where I am at the 1/4 mark. Where are you?

Keep writing!

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Writing

Creative Friday: About That Celtic Urban Fantasy . . .

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeRight around the holidays, I was shouting from the virtual rooftops about my new Celtic urban fantasy trilogy, The Chalice War, which would be coming out early in 2023. The first book, I bellowed (virtually), would be coming out in February, and it would be called The Chalice War: Stone. It would be followed, a month or so later, by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and then a couple of months after that by the finale, The Chalice War: Sword.

So, about all that . . . .

Life happens. Lately it’s been happening to me. A lot. In this case, though, it happened to my editor/publisher at Bell Bridge Books, through no fault of hers, or really anyone’s.

The books are still coming. Really. Stone will be out in May. That’s the current plan. It will be followed a month or so later by Cauldron. Sword should be out by midsummer. The first book is ready to go. We have art; the manuscript has been revised, copy edited, polished to a high shine. We’re just scheduling it in a way that allows us to follow it quickly with Book II, which has now been through revisions and will soon be copy edited.

I apologize for the delay, but I assure you the books are on their way. And, as a way of thanking you for your patience, I offer another teaser from Book I. Enjoy!!

*****
While the woman’s heels still clicked on her walkway, Marti sensed a second source of power. The energy from this one was as turbid as the woman’s was clear, as tied to darkness as hers was wild. It took Marti several moments to spot this second presence, and when she did, she had to bite back a shouted warning.

A large animal—a cat of some sort from the look of it—crouched by the side of the woman’s house, partially concealed by the bushes growing there. It followed the woman with its eyes and the gentle swivel of its massive head, but it made no move to attack her.

Marti watched them both, motionless, holding her breath. The cat had to be a conduit, bound to a Fomhoire sorcerer. She swept the street with her eyes, not daring to turn her head, wondering if the sorcerer was close by or had sent the cat to scout. Or to hunt. If that last, was it after the woman or Marti herself?

After watching the cat for another few seconds, Marti convinced herself the creature was intent on her neighbor, not her.

For now, Marti had no access to her magic, and the stone was shielded. Power called to power, Alistar used to say. That cat—a panther by the look of it—would be drawn to a conduit as potent as itself, not to an unbound Sidhe sorcerer.

Marti stood smoothly, taking care not to make any sharp movements. She picked up the bottle and cup, tiptoed into the house, and locked and bolted the door. She lingered by the window, eyes on the cat. Her neighbor had made it inside; lights went on downstairs and, minutes later, on the second floor. Marti didn’t think the woman was in danger, at least not this night. But she had drawn someone’s interest, which promised to make Marti’s life even more complicated than it was.

After some time, the panther emerged from the bushes, padded out into the street, and with one last backward glance at the house next door, prowled off into the night. Marti remained at the window until the creature had reached the corner and trotted off of Fairlea.

Then she retrieved her protective herbs and stones, and went after it.

She understood the risks, but she wanted to find out who the cat belonged to. Having no conduit herself, and carrying the sachet and crystals, she didn’t think another sorcerer, even a Fomhoire, would sense her. Of course, having no conduit, if she was wrong about this, she would die.

She slipped back outside, locked the door behind her, and eased down the road. She made not a sound, kept to shadows, avoided the light that pooled beneath streetlamps the way she would patches of quicksand. At the corner, she caught a glimpse of the panther loping off the road into what appeared to be another yard.

Marti followed, and soon realized the cat had led her to the community playground she’d passed when driving in earlier. It was darker here; there were no streetlights or houses near the play area. But by the light of a half moon, she spotted two figures standing near the swings, one a good deal taller than the other.

The panther trotted to the shorter of the two, lay down at this person’s feet, and began to lick one of its paws. Marti crept closer, hoping to overhear something of value. She placed each foot with care, eyeing the ground in front of her for dry leaves, twigs, children’s toys—anything that might give her away. With fewer shadows here, she had to follow a line of trees—a less direct route than she would have liked. At one point, the cat raised its massive head and stared in her direction. She froze, deciding she had gotten close enough.

She couldn’t hear their conversation, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was able to see the two figures in greater detail. The cat had lain at the feet of a man. He had dark hair and wore dark slacks and a pale dress shirt. The other figure was murkier, as if obscured by a black veil. She couldn’t imagine why, at least not until it raised an elongated arm to point at something above them. Marti suppressed a cry.

The moonlight revealed a translucent membrane of flesh underneath its arm, broadest at the shoulder, tapering to the wrist. No wonder it appeared to swallow light; no wonder it was so freaking tall. A Sluagh.

With nightfall, the air had grown stagnant, but in that moment, the smell reached her and her stomach heaved. Decay, disease, death. Smells, she’d read somewhere, could kindle memories that transported a person to different times, different places. This stench carried her to the old house, to Alistar’s brutalized corpse in the garden, to Burl’s blood-matted carcass in the kitchen.

Marti searched the sky and street for more of the demons—they rarely traveled alone. She saw none, but that did nothing to put her mind at ease. She resisted the urge to run—if the demon didn’t hear her, the cat would. Either would kill her.

Indeed, if not for the Fomhoire and his cat, the demon would have found her already. The panther couldn’t sense her talent for magic because she didn’t have a conduit, but the Sluagh could. It hadn’t because—only because—the Fomhoire stood beside it, no doubt reeking of magic. She shuddered.

A moment later, matters grew far, far worse. The Sluagh pointed skyward again and let out a rasping screech that made Marti flinch. From above came two answering cries, as harsh and chilling as the first. Two more Sluagh circled over the playground, their wings luminous with moon glow, the webbing between their long legs making them look like huge swallows. They wheeled, swooped toward the ground, and pulled out of the dive at the last instant, cupping their wings like billowing sails and landing near the other Sluagh.

The cat scrambled to its feet and bared its teeth. The Fomhoire caressed his conduit’s head and said something to the creature. The panther nuzzled the side of his leg, but it kept its bright eyes on the Sluagh and remained standing. For his part, the sorcerer had shifted his stance so that he could watch all three of the demons. He had also edged away from them; he would be no more immune to the fetor than Marti was. Likely he had a spell at the ready, just in case. Sluagh might serve the Fomhoire, but they would prey on any magical creature.

She almost hoped they would turn on the man and his conduit. Almost. The problem was, when they finished with him, they would sense her magic, and have her for dessert.

The Sluagh didn’t linger for long. The Fomhoire and the first demon spoke for another few seconds before the three demons leapt skyward and soared off.

The sorcerer watched them go, absently petting the panther’s head. When the Sluagh had vanished from sight, he glanced around and left the playground.

He headed straight toward Marti.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, LonTobyn Chronicle, Tor Books, Writing

Monday Musings: The Story of the Storyteller On My Desk

In May of 1994, Nancy and I took our first trip to New Mexico. (We have been back several times since, and we’re always looking forward to our next visit; it is one of our favorite places in the world.) By that time, we had been married for three years, and we had been talking about visiting the state since the beginning of our relationship. Early in that year, Nancy told me it was time to plan our visit, because she was ready to start a family, and, she said, “this time next year, I expect to be pregnant.”

Yes, ma’am. She was more than right, by the way. Our older daughter was born in May 1995.

At the time, I was still in the dreaming stage of my career. I had started work on the book that would become my first published novel, Children of Amarid, and an editor from Tor Books had expressed interest in the series. My agent at the time was negotiating terms with Tor, and already I was learning an early, nerve-wracking lesson about the slow pace of New York publishing. We had yet to sign a contract, and I despaired of ever doing so.

One of the many joys of visiting New Mexico is experiencing the artistry of the native peoples there. The various Pueblo communities produce their own styles of jewelry, pottery, wood carving, and other forms of visual art. During that first visit, I was drawn in particular to ceramic representations of the Storyteller, the embodiment of oral tradition, a symbol of shared history and community lore. Storyteller figures are typical rendered as open-mouthed (in the midst of relating some tale) with smaller figures — children, ostensibly — perched around and/or on them. The Storyteller can be of any gender. They can also take the form of an animal or bird, and they can support any number of smaller figures on their lap, their limbs, their shoulders.

I saw the figures as a symbol of my dream of being a professional writer, and I wanted desperately to find one to take home with me. Unfortunately, the figures are intricately crafted, and their price reflected that. I couldn’t find one that both spoke to me and was affordable.

As part of our visit to New Mexico that spring, Nancy and I made our way out to the Acoma Pueblo. Acoma is known as Sky City, because it is perched on a gorgeous, craggy mesa in the desert west of Albuquerque. It is one of the oldest communities in all of North America, and it is known for, among other things, its exquisite pottery. You can’t drive to the top of the mesa, but rather must park below and walk up. And you can’t just wander the community on your own. You can only access it by taking a tour.

The StorytellerDuring our tour, we encountered many people selling pottery in front of their homes. And at one table, a mother displayed her wares beside those of her young daughter. I think the girl must have been around 7 or 8, give or take a year, and she had made a few small bowls, seed pots, and dishes. And she had made a tiny storyteller. As one would expect, it was quite crude compared to those we had seen for sale back in Albuquerque (we hadn’t yet been to Santa Fe or Taos), but something about the figure spoke to me. Maybe is was just that the storyteller was so cute. Or maybe it was that the girl herself was so proud of it. Or maybe I saw in this child’s early effort to follow in her mother’s footsteps something akin to my dream of becoming a professional writer. Whatever the reason, I asked the girl how much it cost.

She looked at her mom, seeming surprised that she might actually sell something. Her mom said, “Five dollars.”

“I’ll take it.”

I handed the girl the money. She wrapped up the storyteller she’d made and gave it to me. And Nancy and I followed our tour to another part of Sky City.

Acoma Kiva, by David B. CoeThat was a magical day in many ways. Acoma was as beautiful as we had been told, the pale red stone of the Pueblo seeming to glow beneath a deep azure sky, wooden kiva ladders rising above their structures and reaching toward the clouds. At one point, I spotted a rainbow in the clouds overhead — there was no rain, just the prismatic color, which appeared for a moment and then vanished. I think I was the only one on the tour who saw it. I believed that, together, the rainbow and my little storyteller were omens, signs that my dream would, in fact, come to pass.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Two months later, I got my first contract from Tor Books. Children of Amarid wasn’t published for another three years — that first book needed a lot of editorial work. But I was on my way.

Nearly twenty-nine years later, the storyteller I bought that day in Acoma still sits on my desk, right beside my computer screen. I look at it every day, and it still represents for me the dream that launched my career.

I wish you a wonderful week.

 

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Invasives, LonTobyn Chronicle, Tor Books, Writing

Professional Wednesday (On Thursday): About Deadlines

Yes, this is a Professional Wednesday post, going up on a Thursday morning. And it’s about dealing with deadlines and professional obligations, which should give you some hint as to where this essay is going . . . .

I apologize for not getting my Wednesday post up on Wednesday. I would say it won’t happen again, but that would be dishonest. It’s rather likely to happen again at some point. Read on . . . .

Deadlines and obligations are part of any profession, but they seem to loom larger in the literary world than in most others. We writers tend to work in isolation. We don’t go to offices to ply our trade. We have few meetings. We don’t wind up on committees or task forces or action groups or anything of the sort. We have, essentially, one professional duty: We are expected to turn shit in on time. That’s a slight oversimplification. Yes, we have to compose lovely prose. We have to construct narratives, develop characters, create settings, tease out themes and moods and emotions and the like.

But in presenting our work to the outside world, in moving from the creative process to the marketing of our work, our responsibilities come down, largely, to deadlines. Deadlines for submission, for revisions, for copyedits, for proofs. And I don’t mean to downplay the challenges deadlines can present. Being able to create on demand is THE defining attribute of a professional artist. We don’t wait for the muse. We don’t create when the mood strikes us. We produce regularly, and often we do so on someone else’s schedule.

I have been on both sides of deadlines: I have written to them, and I have imposed them on writers sending material to me for editing. And so, I feel confident in discussing how to manage them and how to handle the conversation when we know we’re going to miss them.

The Outlanders, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)The first deadline I missed was on my second novel, The Outlanders, the middle book of the LonTobyn Chronicles trilogy. And I had good excuses. Between the time I started writing the book, and the day the first draft of the manuscript was due to Tor, our first child was born, my mother died, my father died, and my siblings and I had to settle my father’s estate.

Being a first-time parent was glorious, but it consumed my days and disrupted my nights. Losing both my parents in quick succession was brutal, and the loss of my father hit me particularly hard. HIS father was still alive (my grandfather was over 100 at the time), and his mother had died in her nineties. We thought he would live forever. His death devastated us all.

With the deadline for The Outlanders approaching, I reached out to my editor at Tor Books and told him the book would be late. How late? I had no idea. I was stuck, an emotional wreck, and I didn’t know how to get unstuck. But I promised him I would get it done, if he could just be patient with me. He was, and I did.

That conversation was hard, but it was the right one to have. Looking back, however, I realize I should have initiated it months earlier. The first lesson of dealing with deadlines is this: As soon as we understand that we are going to miss a deadline, we need to alert our editors (and our agents, if we have representation). Missed deadlines impact our publishers as well as the other authors in the publishing queue with us and behind us. A deadline is an obligation with consequences beyond our own lives, and we owe it to the people doing business with us to be as honest and forward-looking as possible.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)Yes, sometimes we think we’re going to miss a deadline, and then we make it. And if we alert our publisher prematurely, we could lose our spot in the queue. So be it. That’s the price of acting professionally. When our older daughter first was diagnosed with cancer, I told my editor and my agent what had happened, and let them know I was probably going to be late with the novel I was writing. As it turned out, writing that book — Invasives, the second Radiants novel — was a wonderful escape, and I met my deadline. But I had given up my publishing spot and so the book was released later than I had hoped. It wasn’t that big a deal. As I say, the most important thing is be up front about the situation with those who need to know.

Sometimes, we fall behind on our writing not because of life events, but simply because we’re struggling with the story, with the writing itself. Again, communication is the key. In that case, we should reach out to our editor. Let them know we’re having trouble. It may be that a conversation with someone who knows the story, who understands what we’re trying to do with the characters, who might even have already published previous books in the series, will help us clarify our thinking and get us back on track and on schedule. At the very least, it will alert our editor to a potential problem with the upcoming deadline.

And sometimes we just bump up against the realities of the creative process: It doesn’t always conform to our scheduling and planning. Art can be messy and inefficient. In making our commitments, in accepting deadlines in the first place — and usually we have the opportunity to agree to a deadline or to ask for more (or less) time — we have to keep this reality in mind. We have to plan well. We have to avoid setting ourselves up for failure by agreeing to a more ambitious timeline than we are capable of meeting. Once we have have made our commitment, we have to budget our time and then stick to the calendar we’ve set.

In the end, there is really no secret or magic formula to any of this. We must be honest — with ourselves and with our colleagues. We have to do the work. And we have to anticipate problems before they arise.

Easy-peasy. Usually. Every once a while, missing a deadline can’t be helped. And then a Wednesday post goes up on a Thursday.

Keep writing.

D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Matters Professionally, part II

If you follow my blog at all, you know that in this month’s posts I have been asking the question “What matters?” in a number of personal and professional contexts. Last week, in my first Professional Wednesday post of the year, I focused on the big things that matter to us as professionals and aspiring professionals — our ambitions, our favorite projects, our goals, both immediate and longer term. This week, I would like to address the question from a different perspective.

When we’re working on a project, we tend to concern ourselves with different things at different times. Some of those things matter more than others, and I have noticed when working with new writers, that those with somewhat less experience often wind up worrying unnecessarily about issues that really don’t matter all that much in the greater scheme of things. And at the same time, they will often not give much thought to things that really ought to be foremost in their minds.

So I thought I would look at a few common issues and give some sense of how much, in my opinion, these things matter.

For instance . . . .

New writers tend to worry a great deal about being “scooped,” about having someone — in the worst instance, someone more famous and accomplished than they are — come up with the same concept for a story or novel, rendering their idea unmarketable. Does this sound familiar?

Stop worrying. This is, to my mind, a definite “doesn’t matter.” You will not be scooped. Some thirty-plus years ago, when I was in graduate school, my dissertation advisor told me something that has stuck with me ever since. I expressed to him my fear that someone else would publish a dissertation on my topic before I had a chance to finish. (This is a fear that plagues grad students even more than it does fiction writers.) And he said to me, “If you think you can be scooped, you’re thinking of your dissertation topic too narrowly,” meaning, essentially, that all good dissertations operate on multiple levels. They are works of complexity and personal creativity and thus cannot be duplicated by someone else.

Stories are the same. I edit themed anthologies. For our latest collection, Artifice and Craft, Edmund Schubert and I have received over 530 submissions, all of them born of the same prompt. And no two are the same. You and I could start with the exact same story premise, and within ten pages our books would diverge, because we all write from personal experience, from idiosyncratic emotions, from unique imaginations. You will not be scooped.

New writers also tend to worry a lot about genre and marketing, and I understand why. Certainly I have been guilty of telling young writers to come up with elevator pitches for their projects. “Know how to sell it,” I often say. “Know who your audience is going to be.” And I believe this is sound advice as one is revising their novel and getting ready to send it off to publishers and/or agents. Early on, though, as we are conceiving the novel and diving into that first draft, I would argue that marketing and audience identification are secondary to the creative process. Write your book. Write the story that makes your heart sing, that stirs your creative passion. The marketing stuff will wait — and ultimately will be easier if you write the book or story you love. Commercial imperatives should not guide your imagination. You’ll have plenty of time later to figure out how to sell the thing to readers. At the start, our greatest concerns should be character, plotting, setting, pacing, prose. Those are what matter.

What about those things that DO matter, but that tend to get short shrift from too many authors? I would encourage every author, regardless of experience level, to think about a few questions as they begin work on their novels and short stories. First, we should consider who we ought to use as our point of view characters. I like to ask myself, “Whose story is this?” and base my choice of POV character on the answer to that question. If I decide to use multiple points of view — a question closely related to “Who?” is “How many?” — I will ask myself at the beginning of each new chapter or section, “Who is the key person in this scene?” More often than not, that person will be my POV character for the passage. I have run across many scenes that are written from the perspective of someone who is, in my opinion, the wrong character to tell that part of the story. As a result, I, as a reader, don’t have access to the thoughts and emotions I want to read at a particular moment, which can be incredibly frustrating.

We should also ask ourselves,“Are we starting our story in the right place?” So often, I read manuscripts that open way too early in the narrative. For page after page, we get background information and little-to-no important action or emotional content. Or, less commonly, I see manuscripts that begin too late, AFTER what really ought to be the inciting event. Be sure you know where to begin your story — and consider the possibility that what SEEMS like the right spot early in the writing process, might ultimately prove to be less than optimal once you have a better sense of your story. Be willing and prepared to revise accordingly

Finally, we should constantly ask ourselves if the scene we’re writing — if every scene we write — serves the larger narrative. It’s not that we can’t pursue subplots and secondary narratives. Of course we can. They enrich and deepen our stories. But they should also serve the whole. We should strive for coherence, for interconnection among our various plot threads. A secondary story for its own sake will only confuse and annoy our readers, distracting them from the narratives that are most important.

More on “what matters” next week.

For now, keep writing!!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: Three Ways To Help Your Short Fiction Submission, and Three Ways To Doom It

The deadline for submissions to Artifice and Craft, the anthology I’m co-editing with Edmund Schubert for Zombies Need Brains, is ten days away. December 31. As of this writing, we are closing in on 400 submissions. The anthology will have a total of fourteen stories, seven of them from anchor authors. Meaning we can accept seven stories from all those submissions. We will likely wind up with about 500 subs — maybe more. They just pour in during the last week.

Noir, edited by David B. Coe and John Zakour, an anthology from Zombies Need BrainsSo far, we have received some very good stories. We have also received far, far more that won’t make the first cut. And so I thought I would go over again, briefly, the things that can make or break a story submission, at least for this editor.

To start, here are three things an author can do that might well doom their chances of having their story accepted.

1) Fail to follow the guidelines. I have said this before and will continue to say it until I’m blue in the face, because it sometimes seems I’m shouting into the wind. Every market for stories (and novels, too) has guidelines — GLs for short — that they want authors to follow. These are basics: acceptable fonts, line spacing, margins, etc., as well as presentation instructions, such as what information should appear on the first page and what a cover letter ought to say. Following GLs could not be easier. All one has to do is read them and then follow them. That’s it. And yet, you would be amazed at the number of submissions that don’t do this.

GALACTIC STEW, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua PalmatierWill I reject a story simply because it is single-spaced instead of double-spaced? No, I’m not quite that mean. But when reading a story, knowing I have literally dozens more waiting in the queue, I will only tolerate so many flaws before I reject it. Remember, I have 500 stories to choose from. I can and will find what I’m looking for. No story is ever perfect, so ask yourself, do you want to expend one of your flaws on formatting? Or do you want to present your story correctly so that I can judge it on its artistic merits? The answer seems self-evident to me.

2) Fail to write a story that’s on theme. Again, this would seem so obvious as to be silly. And yet . . . . ZNB anthologies are themed. All of them. And those themes are not suggestions, they’re requirements. The anthology’s theme is written out plainly in the call for submissions (along with the GLs). And yes, if a story isn’t right on theme I WILL reject it. It can be the best story ever, but if it’s not on theme, it will not be in the anthology. Period. Full stop.

3) Fail to write a full story. This one is a little less self-evident. The word limit for each submission is 7,500 words. The GLs don’t give a word minimum. But this is my fifth time editing an anthology and never have I given a top rating to any story that was shorter than, say, 2,500 to 3,000 words. It’s not that I’m imposing a minimum of my own. It’s just that these anthologies are not venues for flash fiction. That upper word limit of 7,500 words is sort of a hint telling you that we want to see story depth, character development and arc, narrative complexity. We want to see excellent ideas that are fully realized, and it is very hard to do that with flash fiction. Over the past couple of months, I have read too many pieces of fiction that offered great ideas, but didn’t do nearly enough with them.

Okay, so what three things can authors do to give themselves the best chance of having a story accepted?

DERELICT, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier1) I abhor the cliché, but think outside the box. As Joshua Palmatier, owner and publisher of Zombies Need Brains, has said, don’t assume your first idea is your best idea. The most obvious ideas often come to us first, and if they’re obvious to us, they’re likely to be obvious to everyone. Make your story stand out by exploring the second or third idea, by looking for an idea that isn’t obvious but is rich with narrative possibility.

2) Write with emotion and passion. Too many of the stories I’ve read consist of dialogue and almost nothing else. Others take a kind of epistolary approach, by telling the story in the form of documents — court transcripts or product descriptions or something similar. Clever, but devoid of character development, and, as such, often devoid of emotion and tension as well. Stories need to touch our hearts. Clever is fun, but in the absence of passion, it’s probably not enough to gain acceptance to such a selective anthology. Delve into the emotions of your characters, because that is how you will reach the emotions of your readers.

3) Give us a twist or two. Just as your first idea might not be the most original, your most obvious narrative path might not be the most fruitful. Beware writing the pat ending, the contrived plot, the convenient “surprise.” Take your story in directions that make sense without being predictable. Yes, that can take work, but no one ever said this was going to be easy.

Best of luck with your submissions! And keep writing!