Review: The Hollow City by Dan Wells

The Hollow City by Dan Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Dan Wells certainly had his work cut out for him in writing this. It's not just any writer who can write a book about a person with schizophrenia and therefore questions reality and everything he sees, and yet give it a strong narrative thread most of his readers can understand. And yet, he rises to the task, to give us this thoroughly engrossing tale.

The Hollow City is about Michael Shipman, who wakes in the hospital with the last two weeks of his memory gone. He's wary of all of the technology around him. He's convinced it's being used to monitor him, because a mysterious Them has a Plan for him. The things he tells the doctor makes everyone think of the Red Line Killer, who's been murdering people and removing their faces. It also makes them think he's had a psychotic break, and they hospitalize him involuntarily.

A lot of the narrative takes place in the mental hospital, as Michael is prescribed one medication or another to make the hallucinations and delusions stop. There are signs, though, that some of what he experiences is real.

There are perhaps more words devoted to Michael's speculation about what's real and what isn't than necessary, though it's probably more for the reader's benefit than for Michael's. It could've been a lot more confusing, and I was able to follow it where I was supposed to, and left wondering where it was left a mystery. By the end, the book does explain what's real and what isn't, and rather explicitly at that, without infodumping.

I don't know about the average layperson's understanding of schizophrenia and its treatment, but there was a bit too much expositionary dialogue to explain it. I thought the doctor treating Michael was explaining a bit too much, especially considering his later surprise at Michael's lucidity. That, too, was entirely for the reader's benefit, but I didn't find it necessary. It made the dialogue seem stilted, more than anything else. But then, maybe the average reader who didn't study psychology needs those explanations.

In the end, I found the ending quite satisfying, the whole book rather enjoyable. It reads fast, and grabs you from the first page.

I got a free copy of this book through Far Beyond Reality, but I'd be just as pleased if I'd paid full hardcover price for it. I greatly enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it. There aren't a lot of well-written, accurate stories about people with mental illness from their perspectives. This is definitely a good one for setting the bar.



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Review: Death Masks by Jim Butcher

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I don't know why I read these.

Okay, I know why I read them. James Marsters narrates the audio books, and he manages to turn the unlikable narrator into something less of a jerk. Still, after five installments, it feels like the books are going in circles. The same things happen, often in the same words, and nothing really changes.

In this book, Harry Dresden starts off in a TV studio, on a Springer-esque talk show. He's there to meet a contact, who doesn't want to be seen with him, except on TV, apparently. While he's there, Harry gets threatened by a vampire, and hired to retrieve the Shroud of Turin.

Up to this point, Harry has been painted as agnostic, though there's been a strong thread of the power of the Christian faith equaling the darker forces he taps into. Faced with a Russian atheist who wields one of the holy swords, though, Harry immediately starts proselytizing. Having just braced himself to defend his own lack of faith, it came as a rather curious about-face.

Harry meets another holy warrior, or whatever they're supposed to be called, an Asian stereotype named Shiro. Shiro talks like Mr. Miyagi, and has the same blinding competency for fighting that he doesn't want to use. He's also a mentor, both to Michael Carpenter, a character we were introduced to a couple of books ago, and to Harry. If this is what diversity looks like in the Dresden universe, I'd rather other ethnicities were left out of it.

And, of course, there's the casual sexism in Harry's "chivalry," which these nasty women-substitutes (they're not real women, just shadow puppets written by someone who doesn't seem to like women) then take advantage of to thicken the plot.

The tension I found in earlier books wasn't even there. I felt like Harry spent half the book watching other people fight and kill one another. There were very few moments when I felt like Harry, himself, was in danger. Other people kept showing up to pull him out of whatever scrape he'd gotten himself into, and I knew they would, every time. The ending felt needlessly drawn out.

A lot of my friends like these books, and I'm often reluctant to share my full opinion, because I don't like upsetting my friends. But I just don't think they're the be-all, end-all of urban fantasy. (Or, if they are, urban fantasy is in trouble.) I think they're a drawn-out concept spread too thin, with geeky references tossed in to appease the fanboys. Harry kept alluding to comic books in this volume, and I was rather surprised he had time to read them, considering how many pages he spends whining about how little time he has to sleep.

I don't know if I'll pick up the next book. I'm told they improve after this, and that I haven't hit the peak, yet. I also heard that about Grave Peril, and I wasn't impressed with that one.

We'll see if my friend will lend me the audio book for the next one, knowing how I feel about them, I guess.



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Bending Tropes

I mentioned, way back in my post on narrative kinks, that I liked it when tropes are bent or broken. I thought I'd discuss that today in more depth.

A trope is a convention of a genre. It skirts the edge of cliché, though sometimes it tips over into the realm of cliché through overuse, or misuse.

Two examples that come to mind are of romance tropes. The alpha male trope is where the male lead is someone any woman would want for herself. He's strong, he's confident, he's quite handsome, usually rich, and it's apparent from page one that the heroine wants him. The conflict comes in because there's something else standing in their way, or she's just too willful to give in.

In response, another trope has risen up, that of the beta male. The best examples I've read lately of the beta male trope are Vicki Lewis Thompson's Nerds series. The male leads are lovable and squishy and generally in touch with their feelings, but they lack confidence, and tend to get overlooked. The main conflict getting in the way of their romantic success is that they don't believe that the awesome women they're in love with could possibly want them.

Another romance trope is that of the happily ever after, or happy for now. By the end of a romance novel, your perspective character is glad to be attached to a partner. Some romance novels imply a marriage in the near future, while some indicate this is a temporary arrangement, good while it lasts. The happily ever after is one of the tropes that defines a romance novel, and, as such, isn't bent within the genre. I play with it in my trilogy, but the trilogy isn't romance.

In order to bend a trope, you first have to know what it is. Some studying of the TV Tropes wiki (warning, link can keep you distracted for HOURS if you're not paying attention) can highlight some tropes, or you can just pick out patterns within your chosen genre. Usually, you'll notice it because it irritates you. The epic fantasy parody I've been mentally plotting for ages came about as a response to the multi-volume doorstoppers I was tired of dragging my way through, though I have since identified several other tropes I want to poke at, along the way.

Once you've identified the trope, you want to make sure someone else didn't beat you to your chosen method of bending it. Vampires that don't kill people is taken, and most "evil" monsters have gotten a chance to show they're just misunderstood. That doesn't mean you can't do it in the same way, but it does mean that your idea isn't stunningly original. If you want to bend the trope the same way someone already has, you'll have to study how they did it, and at least address what that writer established. And don't expect your reader to be impressed with you for coming up with something another writer did.

From there, you'll have to figure out how far you want to take it. You can exaggerate a trope to comedic effect, or you can hang a lampshade on it. That means you call attention to it to show how silly it is. You can contradict a trope, or just alter it slightly.

The beautiful part about trope-bending is, if you've been irritated about a trope, probably your potential readers are, too. You have a built-in audience, there. You just have to tap it.

Editing: Taking that Tone

I've posted about editing before, and hinted it's a sometime series. This is the third in the series, on preserving the tone when you're editing your story.

The tone is the overall feel of a story. A story can be funny, gritty, light, dark, satiric or earnest, pessimistic, optimistic, fun, sad, or some shade in between. Many tones blend those elements.

The tone isn't necessarily in the individual words, though the words you choose to employ can affect the tone. Tone is an overall picture within the book, the lens you're showing your world through.

In your early drafts, you're probably not even aware of the tone you're writing in, especially if you're a pantster. If you don't know whether the ending is going to be uplifting, bittersweet, or sad, you don't know which details to highlight or how well the words need to trip across the page.

At some point in your macro edits, though, you do need to figure out what tone the story needs. Don't settle on a tone before you've figured out an ending. Everything about the story will have to lead to that ending, but the tone will make the ending inevitable, so that it's the only ending that works for the story.

Once you've figured out how light or dark, humorous or serious, hopeful or cranky your story is, then you need to tweak the story to reflect that tone. Pick details that support the tone. Pick language that implies the tone you're writing toward. Weather, the colors your perspective character notices, the events you highlight in depth, all lend themselves to the tone.

You'll probably find that a lot of scenes don't need much work, because you knew all along what tone you were writing. Those scenes are fine to leave as they are. It's the ones where you lost the thread, maybe thought too much about what you were writing, that you'll need to fix the tone.

Tone can tie together a whole story, connecting even seemingly disjointed vignettes. A reader can be carried through a rather confusing start if they feel it's all part of the same picture.

Similarly, though, if you switch the tone around, indicating carefree happiness in one scene, then following that up with a grisly murder, for instance, no matter how good your transition, you're likely to lose the reader.

Review: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I already had this book marked as read, but I couldn't remember a single detail about it, which is why I decided to read it for the Austen in August event hosted at Roof Beam Reader. Nothing rang familiar while I was reading, so I have to conclude I marked it as read in error. It's certainly not an unmemorable book.

Sense and Sensibility is about the Dashwood sisters, mainly Elinor and Marianne, though they also have a little sister named Margaret who gets forgotten through most of the narrative. After their father dies, the sisters and their mother move away to rent a cottage from a distant cousin. Elinor thinks she has the interest of Edward Ferrars, while Marianne falls hard for John Willoughby, who she meets when she twists her ankle and he helps her. When their new friends Mrs. Jennings invites the two older sisters to London, Marianne jumps at the chance to run into her Willoughby again. Elinor, meanwhile, has to contend with a woman who says she's engaged to Edward Ferrars.

The story starts with an establishment that the sisters are close. Marianne mourns that Elinor will wind up with Edward, assuming that means Marianne will have to spend time with him, too. I took the sentiment to just be selfishness on Marianne's part, because she can't imagine anyone wanting something she doesn't. It takes her some time within the narrative to show she's actually attached to her sister, and not just reliant on her steadfast, calm nature.

I had taken the story to be more in Elinor's perspective, but the character who goes through the most change within the narrative is Marianne. While she does start out with the most room for improvement, it makes Elinor seem a little too perfect, by comparison. No wonder Marianne was such a brat, sometimes, with an older sister she couldn't possibly live up to. Elinor, herself, was hardly stodgy or stuck-up, but her unwavering certainty made her hard to sympathize with.

The story contains a few themes, among them the danger of marrying for money. One character cautions of the misery caused by not having enough money, but another suffers dearly for choosing a rich wife. That it's women being sought after for money in the book is an interesting reversal from what modern readers may expect. There's a strong thread of wealthy people consolidating that wealth by marrying one another, but the solution, at least in this book, is to seek a comfortable living with the one you love.

I listened to this on audio, read by Flo Gibson. The narrator has one of those husky voices, like she smokes too much, which made her a strange narrator for soft, feminine speakers. She sounded less odd reading the men's lines of dialogue, which I suppose is a plus. But the worst part was the piercing whistle she made periodically. It wasn't just when she pronounced the letter S, either, and it made the version I listened to sometimes painful. Surely the audio could've been cleaned up to reduce the effect.

Sense and Sensibility was the first book of Jane Austen's to be published, though it wasn't the first she wrote. It doesn't read like a debut novel; it contains all the polish and depth of her later work. It's also enjoyable to read, and not just by comparison to the rest of the classics. The language isn't indecipherable, and, despite the different social classes and mores of Austen's time, it's easy to follow.



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Progress Post: Grinding Gears

I posted about how I'd started a new project last month. As you can imagine, it's not going quickly.

Part of the problem is that it's been so long since I've thought about anything other than my trilogy. When my mind wanders, I'm used to thinking about my characters from the trilogy, working out a future plot point, or assessing the ones I have. Switching gears to a new project is good practice for when I'm done and it's out of my hands, but I'm still gaining that practice.

There's also the problem I mentioned in that last post, where I'm relating something that scared me, and writing about it involves revisiting an upsetting time. I've had to deliberately push it out of my head so that I can walk to the basement to do my laundry, wash my face in the shower, and get to sleep with the light off. I also scared myself half to death by letting my mind wander to my story when I heard a noise on the other end of the building. I went to say hi to what was apparently the only other person on my floor, and found all empty offices.

Eek.

There's also the standard process of getting into characters' heads, establishing their motivations, cementing their voices in my head, and all that initial groundwork outliners take care of ahead of time. I've been figuring it out as I go, which makes for a more slowly constructed story.

My pace, therefore, has been glacial. There has been progress, but not nearly as much as I'd like. I'm dissatisfied with myself. I can't give you a number, because what I have is on handwritten pages, but I have seven of them I haven't typed up yet.

I'm also taking part in a walking challenge for work, which is taking away time I could be writing. It's refreshing me enough that I do plan to continue doing some walking after the challenge is over, though not an hour and a half of it every evening.

This has not been my most productive summer, thus far. Still, with everything going on right now, I'm glad to have accomplished what I have. I'll keep plugging away at it.

Review: Home Improvement: Undead Edition anthology

Home Improvement: Undead Edition by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I always have a hard time rating anthologies, because my enjoyment varies so widely from one to the next that my rating rarely reflects my enjoyment as a whole. It took me a while to get through this, because most of the stories I really liked were sandwiched between ones I really didn't, and that made me pause before I moved on to each new story.

And so, here is my assessment of each story within this anthology:

"If I Had a Hammer" by Charlaine Harris is a Sookie short story about her helping her friend Tara fix up her new house. I realize such short stories can't affect the narrative of the novels, because it's unfair to those who don't want to track down the short stories, but the story lacked substance. It introduced a "magical negro" in Tara's black nanny, who's psychic and leads to the resolution of the haunting, and includes a gay character who committed suicide. Maybe the story was fine around those elements, but I had trouble stomaching it.

"Wizard Home Security" by Victor Gischler is about a magical security system, and what happens when it turns against you. Not a lot of substance to this story, either, but at least it was amusing, and the inclusion of a zombie bear wins it points.

"Gray" by Patricia Briggs is about a vampire making amends to the man she loved as a human, and killed when she became undead. This was an unexpected high point of the anthology. It was sweet and self-contained, and it made me want to look into Patricia Briggs' books.

"Squatters' Rights" by Rochelle Krich is about a young Jewish couple moving into their first home, where the previous wife killed her husband and herself. The wife is affected by the same forces. I liked how the first-person narrative showed plainly that she was losing her mind, and the conclusion made me shiver.

"Blood on the Wall" by Heather Graham was about a PI in New Orleans tracking down a werewolf who seems determined to pin its crimes on the local cult leader. The cult leader's conversion from a power-hungry manipulator to a productive member of society with a healthy dose of humility made this deeper than I'd come to expect from this anthology.

"The Mansion of Imperatives" by James Grady was my least favorite of the stories. It tells of two couples going out to the middle of nowhere to fix up a house, and the owner who's eager to be rid of it. The story is told in a detached, tell-y style that made me wish I'd skipped it entirely.

"The Strength Inside" by Melissa Marr is about two supernatural sisters trying to pretend they're human, until the head of the Homeowner's Association comes by. Intriguing worldbuilding and a creepy ending, but I couldn't help but feel there was something missing from the narrative.

"Woolsey's Kitchen Nightmare" by E.E. Knight presents a world in which vampires, werewolves and zombies live outside society's notice, but they have a mainstream society of their own. Woolsey goes to a restaurant catering to supernatural clientele in Wisconsin, just in time for the famous would-be entrée to escape. The ending made me chuckle.

"Through This House" by Seanan McGuire is the whole reason I bought the anthology, and it didn't disappoint. Toby Daye has her own knowe, but other creatures have set up house in it during its vacancy. With the help of her friends, she's ready to make it ready for habitation. But first, she has to turn on the lights. This story has some serious spoilers for Late Eclipses, so I'd advise you read that before you pick up the short story. The story, itself, doesn't disappoint. There's no Tybalt, but we all know Toby can carry a story all on her own.

"The Path" by S.J. Rozan is about the ghost of a timid Buddhist monk trekking to NYC to retrieve the head of the statue that was stolen from his cave. It, too, is told in a detached style, and the description of a mountain's expressions being its weather patterns and rock slides quickly grew tiresome. I don't know a lot about the author, but it sounded like she was trying really hard to sound Asian.

"Rick the Brave" by Stacia Kane is about a contractor who goes to fix up a house that's infested with aggressive ghosts. He's never seen a ghost face-to-face, but he has to face a room filled with them, along with a witch named Chess. His ignorance about the process of banishing ghosts proved a good point of entry for those of us who haven't read any of Kane's other books. I can see myself picking her stuff up, on the strength of this short story.

"Full-Scale Demolition" by Suzanne McLeod wasn't terrible, but, in a market saturated with urban fantasy, her London UF about a faerie with no magic didn't stand out. I gathered there was supposed to be tension between her and the kelpie guy, but I just didn't feel it. The story is about a sidhe who catches pixies, and who's lured into a cannibalistic ritual by a lamia.

"It's All in the Rendering" by Simon R. Green is about a house that sits on the boundary between worlds, when inspectors from both worlds come by on the same day. The whole point of the story seemed to be to introduce the reader to the house and its premise, and therefore the plot was thin. The dialogue consisted mostly of "as you know, Bob . . .", which I detest. The story had potential, but wasted it on showing off its cutesy gimmicks.

"In Brightest Day" by Toni L.P. Kelner is about a voudou practitioner who raises a well-known architect to finish his final project, and solves the mystery of his death, along the way. The story amused me, and played with the tropes, though I wish the main character hadn't been the only exception to the personality types of houngans. Also, the description of a typical houngan clung too closely to that of a traditional Romani for me to give it a pass. That the main character darkened her skin and wore a black, curly wig to fit the expected role made me squirm.

I think this collection does have its high points, but, overall, most of the stories were disappointing, or they were a slog. Based on this must-read of their anthologies, I have to take the rest of the Harris/Kelner anthologies off my to-read list. If this is what I can expect, well, never mind.



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Rereading

I always have such high hopes for my future reading plans. My to-read shelf on Goodreads is 486 items long, and hasn't shrunk since I joined the site. I just keep adding to it, and I always forget to add the books I actually own.

If I keep a book once I've read it, it's either because I want my husband to read it, or because I want to reread it. Rereading is part of my high hopes for reading, but then I look at that list of 486, and I renew my hope to make a dent in it, and I toss rereading by the wayside.

That's changed a bit this year. So far, I've reread the first three Toby Daye books by Seanan McGuire (reviews for books 1, 2, and 3), and my participation in Austen in August means I'm rereading Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, neither of which I remember reading the first time around.

There are good reasons for rereading, beyond simply that it's fun. Repeat readings allow you to read in more depth, to look for foreshadowing, to better analyze the text. When you reread a book, you're not just absorbing the story, anymore. You know what happens next. You're seeing how it was done, and you can pay a lot more attention to the craft while you read.

That doesn't mean that you should only reread books that are perfectly crafted. I would advise, at least if you're trying to read as a writer, that you read books that do something you want to learn. If you greatly admire one writer's dialogue, and that's what you want to know more about, read and reread that writer's books. If another does worldbuilding in a way you admire, that's who you want to read in depth. Any book that's made you say to yourself, "I'll never be this good" is a tool at your disposal.

There is a line between emulation and learning from those who have come before, though, and I would caution you not to cross it. Your voice should still be yours, and you should still use your own style and unique way of looking at the world. Use other writers' tools, but not their products.

Like most things in my life, which books I choose to reread or read for the first time are a matter of which I feel like. I don't make lists, I don't schedule books (unless someone's asked me to review one or I take it out from the library, which bumps it up in the queue), and I certainly don't plan when I'm reading what. My reading priorities, too, are by the seat of my pants.

But, I'm glad I was able to learn the value of rereading, all on my own. It's one of the things that's helped me learn to be a better writer. Anything that helps with that is well worth the time.

Review: An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I had already read this book, back when it first came out. I've been trying to reread all of the books in the October Daye series before the next, Ashes of Honor, comes out in September. I don't think I'll make it. I do, however, think that I'm enjoying my rereads.

This is the third in Toby's series, and, while it's just as good as I remember, I couldn't help but compare it to the later books and the successive game-changing developments. Still, it was fun to catch the foreshadowing and breadcrumbs Seanan McGuire left in this book, and to predict what we might see in future installments.

In this book, Toby goes to a 4-year-old's birthday party, then gets a frantic call the next morning. The little boy in question is missing, as is his sister, and another sister isn't waking up. She can't make sense of the clues left behind, but the Luidaeg points her to Blind Michael's realm, where children are being harvested for the once-a-century Hunt.

Blind Michael is a Firstborn, which leads Toby to the unique situation of facing off against someone she hasn't a chance against. In the previous two books, it was only that she hadn't figured it out, yet. But Blind Michael isn't hiding. He's right there in his realm. The trick is getting there (by a candle's light), and getting back out again. There are three roads, and Toby needs them all to free the children she's vowed to rescue.

This book introduces May Daye, Toby's Fetch. A Fetch is a physical double sent to accompany people on the occasions of their deaths. However, May is no passive herald of death. She's bright and sunny and cheerful, and winds up saving Toby's life, or at least sparing her a painful death. One might think that's against the rules, but no one knows what the rules are. Not even May, who's mad at herself for possibly wrecking the reason she's there.

I originally read this book in paperback format, but my reread was of the audio edition. Mary Robinette Kowal does an excellent job with narration. She has subtle pitch changes that separate out the characters. I needed an adjustment period to get used to how she voices Tybalt, my favorite secondary character and the source of my kitten's name. But, now that I'm adjusted, I hear all of his dialogue, even when I'm reading, the way she reads him.



The audio edition does highlight one thing several other readers have complained about: the repetition. Several phrases crop up more than once, Toby relates how she performs actions in the same words, and the "hero" concept is fairly well hammered home. This being a fairy tale with strong song elements, I felt the repetition served the story well. It was like a refrain. But, some of the repetition sounded like it might be a mistake.

If you've read the first book, or the first and second, and you're hesitant about picking this one up, I would advise that you stop hesitating. It only gets better from here. There's so much that's being set up in these books, and you are in for such a treat.

However, if you haven't read the earlier books, I strongly advise you do. You're missing out on a lot of story and previous worldbuilding. You can pick this one up without preamble, but I don't advise you do.



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Review: No Need to Ask by Margo Candela

No Need to Ask by Margo Candela

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Did you ever get the feeling a book was written for you? Not that the author sat down with you in mind, but that you said to yourself one day that you'd like to read a book with this type of character and this kind of pacing and this resolution? And then, you picked up a book, and read it, and got the funny feeling the Universe had granted you a request?

If I'd known I'd get that wish, I probably would've wished for something different. But still, a book that hit all my tastes at once, well, I'll take it.

This book, which is novella length, follows Jillian Winters, a set designer for a TV show which shares several elements with a few TV shows I recognize, though not so many Maisy York, the spoiled star of the show, could be matched up to an existing actress.

Then, while Jillian is hunting for the perfect lamp, she meets Ethan Marshall, who asks her to decorate his spacious loft. He's handsome and successful and recently divorced. Her love life consists of the leftovers her jerk ex-husband, Owen, is willing to share, so she's ready to entertain romantic notions.

The story is sweet, though not the most complicated one I've ever read. I did believe that these two people genuinely liked and were attracted to one another, and that the obstacles in their paths were truly obstacles and not anyone being stupid. The romance is sexy without ever getting explicit, leaving it to the reader's imagination why Jillian is grinning like that.

Once again, Margo Candela uses elements that I liked in the last book of hers I read, Just Like That. Jillian is smart and successful, and she has a strong friendship that never takes a back seat to her relationship. Her banter with Trudy, her best friend, makes for some of the best lines in the story.

I understand this book is getting a repackage from the release I originally read, including a new cover. It was a good investment even before the repackage. If you like fun stories about wonderful women getting what they deserve, I'd strongly recommend you pick this up.



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A Pantster on Top Ten Tuesday

I decided, on the spur of the moment, to participate in The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday. Being a pantster, when else would I decide to participate? I'd glanced at topics before, but struggled to come up with more than two or three responses, which makes for a weak top 10. I feel like I'm cheating a bit, because my blog isn't exclusively reviews. Ah, well.

The topic is, Top Ten Posts I Think Give You the Best Glimpse of Me

1. Plotting by the Seat of Your Pants explains the blog title better than any of my earlier posts on the topic. I write by the seat of my pants, and that post explains why that's my approach, in the face of lots of writers who'll tell you an outline is necessary.

2. Turning Negatives Into Positives wrapped up an impromptu series about my weak points as a writer. So, not only can you read about the things that get in my way, you can read the links to see how I deal with them.

3. Rules to Review by lists the standards I hold myself to with my reviews, and therefore what people can expect from them. It's a short list, but I've been consistent on those points.

4. Reading for Pleasure is my reaction to being told there are books that are good for me, and that I should, therefore, read. If it's not fun, I won't read it. There are books that are both good for you and a pleasant read (precisely why I'm taking part in Roof Beam Reader's Austen in August event), but talking about literary value isn't how you talk me into reading a book.

5. Bad Grammar Makes Me [Sic] discusses how I feel about grammar, and why I post about grammar mistakes or how to properly punctuate. I'm no Grammar Girl, but I don't think there's such a thing as overdoing information about how to use grammar correctly on the internet.

6. Narrative Kinks lists the things in stories that turn me on. If I see those elements in a story, movie, or TV show, I'm apt to love it, unless it does one of the other things very, very badly.

7. Care and Feeding of Authors is a how-to guide on approaching authors to spend time with them without leaving them with a bad impression of you. The post leads into the stories of the times I had dinner with Peter S. Beagle and Seanan McGuire. I love telling those stories. I get so warm and fuzzy thinking about them.

8. Perpetual Rewrites reveals how I got into a particular habit I have, and why it's made it easier to edit earlier drafts. It's a story of a younger, less intrepid pantster.

9. Learning to Write discusses the ways a young writer-in-training can learn how to be better. I talk about how I think college actually got in my way, and less expensive alternatives.

10. Insurmountable Obstacles to Writing is generally about recognizing when you're in over your head, but it reveals a major problem I struggle with. I have a manageable form of depression, but I have to watch for the signs and prioritize, sometimes. That's the most personal entry in my entire blog.

There. In ten posts, I think that's the most complete picture you'll have of me. Now you don't have to read the other 303 posts. (Though, feel free to poke around, and let me know if there's something you'd like to see me post about, or if there's a post label that would make some things easier to find.)

Harvesting Writing Ideas from Real Life

Photo of harvest time obtained here

One of the best places to get writing ideas is in one's own life. That doesn't mean to only write about things you've experienced, though, or your books will get repetitive and boring pretty quickly. Still, if there's something you have done that's exciting or interesting or heart-wrenching, and you want the reader excited or interested or heart-wrenched, those experiences are good to tap into.

However, there is a way to go about it, for maximum effect.

Give it space. If it just happened yesterday, and you're still upset, you're going to have a hard time presenting any perspective but your own. Some of my most embarrassing writing is when I was frustrated about student loans and working two jobs and not getting ahead, and I wrote about it. Now, I think I might be able to write a story on that theme, but then, it was too much of a Message.

Mix and match. You don't have to write out the event verbatim. Take the most interesting things from one thing you remember, combine it with the funniest part of a whole other encounter, pare down the boring parts, and voila, you've made yourself a funny story. Later, you can take that same story, play up the less exciting parts and combine them with something sad, and elicit a feeling of heartache.

Add detail. Chances are good you don't remember the event exactly as it happened. Or, you're fuzzy on the exact play-by-play. Have you ever listened to someone relate a story, but get hung up on who was standing where, and it turns out it doesn't even matter? Don't be that guy. Instead, make up the parts that are important. Fill in sensory details, add people who need to be there for the story to work, add enough lighting for the characters to see what's going on, or add dialogue that never happened. Detail will make it seem more real.

Subtract irrelevance. As I mentioned in the last tip, the minutiae that didn't matter are irksome to hear in painstaking detail. Maybe all of this interesting tale happened when you were on your way to your favorite aunt's funeral, but the story is a funny one. Maybe it was midnight and you'd just closed up the store where you worked and it was an okay day, except for this one weird customer stayed fifteen minutes after closing and talked your ear off the whole time, but you want to tell about the cat you helped out of your tree and adopted when you got home. Those events may be tied together, and very skillful writers can blend two disparate events to serve a theme, but, if you're not doing that, leave it out.

Remember you're not writing nonfiction. If you are writing nonfiction, you'll want to interview people who were there, read written accounts, look through photographs, and dig up news articles. But, with fiction, you get to make it up as you go along.

Change names. People will see themselves in your fiction regardless of whether you put them there or not. I've listened to several authors talk about family and friends approaching them to say, "Y was me, wasn't he?" or "I see a lot of myself in Z." And, inevitably, they're wrong about which character was based on them. Don't make it a giveaway, unless that's the idea. Most people will not react well to a fictionalized version of themselves. People don't see themselves the way others do. Also, if you write anything really insulting, they may sue you. Obfuscate the use of real people as much as you can. With place names, think optimistically. If your story were to become immensely successful, would you want people visiting this place? If not, fictionalize it.

If you want to use real life to enhance your fiction, remember, truth is stranger than fiction. That's because fiction is supposed to have a theme and cohesion. Life has no such restrictions.

Review: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I read this as part of Roof Beam Reader's Austen in August event. I'd been planning to read it for some time, but the literary event gave me an excuse to.

This was Jane Austen's last completed novel, and, some say, gave her own story a happy ending. I can't comment on that part, because I didn't hire a medium before writing my review, and I think it's problematic to assume books are closely tied to an author's personal life.

The book tells the story of Anne Elliot, 27 years old and unmarried. She's quiet and kind and reserved, which is why her selfish sister and father basically ignore her. Eight years before, she was engaged to Frederick Wentworth, but let herself be persuaded by her friend, Lady Russell, to break off the engagement because Frederick had no money or family connections.

At the story's start, their positions are reversed. He's a Captain in the Royal Navy, and has won a lot of money for his naval success. Her father, meanwhile, has frittered away his money, and has to rent out his family home to make ends meet, which he'd rather do than live frugally for the next 8 years.

Anne stays with her sister, Mary, for a while, before heading out to join her father and sister in Bath. This gives her a chance to reacquaint herself with Frederick Wentworth, and for him to realize she's still worthy of loving. When he follows her to Bath, it can be only for one reason, but first social dictates of politeness and proper channels stand in their way.

The climax of the book comes with Anne talking to one of Frederick's friends about women remaining constantly in love moreso than men (and dismissing books written by men about woman's inconstancy, in a speech that made me grin), which Frederick overhears. His hope is renewed, and he sends her a letter confessing he still loves her, and will find a way to get her answer. She frets, but ultimately bumps into him, and they're able to discuss their feelings openly for the first time all book.

Supposedly, Austen didn't have as much time to polish this manuscript as she did others, because she came down with the illness that killed her while she was writing this. Still, I didn't see that the book suffered much for it. I thought the narrative tension was tighter in this book, and the plot moved faster. The ending takes place over a couple of days. Anne keeps trying to talk to people about important things, but keeps missing her chance, for one reason or another. Just when she thinks it's safe to bring up sensitive matters, her younger sister and her whole family shows up to complicate everything.

The stakes are also higher in this book. One young woman sustains head trauma, another is crippled and financially ruined thanks to another character, and the family estate stands to risk demolishing, if one selfish, two-faced cousin gets his way. Anne is sweet and even-tempered, but it's her calmness in the face of crisis that serves her best in this narrative, because there's regularly something to panic about. Austen makes the events noteworthy not by sending her protagonist into a tizzy, but by riling up everyone around her.

There is, of course, the signature Austen wit, the comments on manners and society, and the subtle digs throughout. Most of them are about vanity and hypochondria, but there's also some very subtle hints of what Austen thinks of Bath, which is sort of a resort spa, at least in Austen's time.

I read this book on audio, narrated by Juliet Stevenson. Stevenson has a lovely voice, and she reads clearly with a consistent volume. I kept up my motivation on long walks listening to this, and it was Stevenson's lively narration as much as Austen's words that kept me going.

I think this is my favorite Jane Austen book. If you're thinking of reading Jane Austen (and this August is a great time to hop on board), you could do well to pick this one up. The first couple of chapters are a bit info-dumpy, but the story that follows makes it perfectly forgivable.



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The Importance of Good Grammar

Back in January, I posted about why I consider grammar to be important. Since then, I've learned that there's a term for me (well, a nicer one than the usual). I'm a grammar prescriptivist. That takes away the implication that I go around berating people about their grammar mistakes (I don't), while making me sound all smart and stuff.

There was a recent post on the Harvard Business Review, written by the CEO of iFixit. He won't hire people with poor grammar, and his reasoning is sound, to me. In today's employer's market, he could have any justification he wanted for refusing to hire the people he doesn't want working for him, within legally protected limits. But I can't find fault in his assumption that those who pay attention to grammar also pay attention to other small details. Detail-oriented people are the ones he wants working for him.

At work, I'm the detail person. I'm the one who proofreads emails and cover letters, looks over monthly billing for errors (which I used to do more formally), is in charge of the most exacting paperwork, and who people snag for some picky little error in one of the computer programs we have to use.

Outside of work, my detail orientation isn't appreciated. My family and friends throw up their hands in exasperation if I correct them, and I read regular screeds online about how "GRAMUR DUSNT MATER."

I do recognize the value of descriptivism (basically, the notion that it doesn't matter, so long as the intent was communicated). I also think attention to grammar and spelling show a level of respect I prefer in those I wish to communicate with. I don't expect my friends to speak in full, grammatically correct sentences, but I do expect their posts to contain the right version of "its" in enough of their posts that I know they know the difference (and they can blame autocorrect for the rest). If I think they don't, I'll try to gently point it out.

With writing, all you have is your words. You don't know my expression right now, or in what tone I'd speak this post, or how much sleep I got last night. (Not a lot; thanks for asking.) The words are devoid of context.  They're your only link to the person reading those words.

And call it snobbish, call it elitist, call me full of myself, but bad spelling and consistently poor grammar say a lot about your education and intelligence. If a person can see at a glance that you lack the ability to learn a set of rules and follow it, why should they trust anything you have to say?

The importance of grammar applies whether you're typing comments on a blog post or submitting to an agent's slush pile. If you honestly don't care how others perceive you, then you can feel free to ignore any and all rules. But, if you want to come across as well-educated or publishable, I recommend you read up on the rules.

Review: Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Carl Hiaasen started out writing for newspapers, then he wrote some gritty tales with dark humor, and now he's writing YA. It seemed like an odd transition to me then, and his previous attempts (Hoot, Flush, and Scat) have seemed a bit cutesy. With this one, though, it feels like he's finally comfortable writing for a preteen audience, and he winds up with an entertaining tale about the illusion of reality TV, and how nature is pretty but mean.

In Chomp, Mickey Cray takes a job, through his son, Wahoo, working for a reality nature show with a Steve Irwin wannabe. Derek Badger (not his real name) is stupid and clumsy, and his impressive survivalist stunts are entirely staged. The Crays own a property with a lot of tamed wildlife, the showcase of which is a 12-foot alligator named Alice.

I've read a lot of books with characters who share my name, by the way. This is the first literary Alice I've liked without reservation.

Derek Badger gets it into his head that he wants to go out into the Everglades and meet wild animals to add a level of realism to the show, after Alice nearly drowns him for trying to ride her like a pony. (That is not a euphemism. This is YA.)

Of course, this goes disastrously, and the TV crew is transformed into a search party in due time. Meanwhile, Wahoo brings with him a friend named Tuna, whose drunkard father slogs out with a gun to collect his daughter.

The book moves at a good clip, and there are several plot threads running throughout that tighten the tension. I cared what happened to these characters, even the doofuses, and I wondered if Hiaasen was dark enough to kill off good guys in a YA.

This is the first YA I've read in a while that felt like it was set today, with real characters. The cultural references were current, and they sounded natural coming out of the characters' mouths. Adults are clueless about the utility of cellphones, but the kids text like crazy, use Skype, and google up the scientific names for animals. Maybe it'll seem dated in another few years, but it added a touch of realism I really enjoyed.

The characters are all unique to this book, but they're still Carl Hiaasen staples. Mickey Cray plays the heroic nutcase, Derek Badger plays the big dope who's in over his head, Jared Gordon plays the dangerous lunatic, and Wahoo Cray and Tuna Gordon play the plucky kids necessary to call this YA. They're all interesting characters, for the most part, and most of them have a back story and motivations beyond making people's lives more complicated. The scenes where Mickey Cray undermines Derek Badger while barely lifting a finger are some of the most amusing.

Overall, I felt like Hiaasen finally has this whole YA thing figured out, with this book.

A note about the edition: I listened to this on audio, with James Van Der Beek narrating. While there were places I found his delivery a little strange, for the most part, I found his voice soothing and melodic. He should read more audio books.



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