Going Back to DragonCon...

This time last year, I was starting a new job and needed to focus on learning how to do that properly. The year before that, I was a graduate student at Georgia State paying for my M.A. by working as a graduate research assistant and didn't want to spend the money.

Things are a little different this year, so I'm going back to DragonCon! For those of you who aren't in the know, DragonCon is the big science fiction, fantasy, horror, comics, etc. convention in Atlanta every Labor Day weekend.

In 2008 I went to DragonCon and met representatives of the company holding the rights to the BattleTech science-fiction franchise. I spent the next year (I probably could have finished it faster) writing "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge," which tells the tale of the Clan Wolf invasion of the Oberon Confederation, and told them in person in 2009 that I'd submitted it.

(I also got a good reference from established BattleTech writer Loren Coleman, who vouched for me that unlike some other fan-fic writers, I wasn't insane and actually did believe in the rights of copyright holders.)

They ultimately accepted the story and it's now considered part of the BattleTech canon alongside books written by established authors like Michael Stackpole, Mr. Coleman, Blaine Lee Pardoe, etc.

This time around, I've got two completed novels--the post-apocalyptic steampunk Western Battle for the Wastelands and the Lovecraftian science-fiction/horror The Thing in the Woods--to pitch. I've got got two more incomplete projects, the horror/dark comedy/bizarro Little People, Big Guns (which I've blogged about under its original title Badgers vs. Midgets) and the science fiction Bloody Talons: An Oral History of the Avian War, that I can pitch as well. Even if they're not done now, I can get permission to submit them once they're done.

(Bloody Talons is the secret project I've been referencing in posts tagged with "aliens" and "alien invasion." It can be described as a cross between World War Z and Independence Day. I'm still going to keep the details close to the chest though, since it's maybe 1/3 finished.)

When I was at DragonCon in 2011 and 2012, I made contacts with publishers and pitched Battle. Although neither pitch panned out (I did get a "this is good" rejection from one publisher though), meeting representatives of publishers at conventions is a good way to get around the "no unsolicited submissions" bar. If you get permission, it's not an unsolicited submission anymore. Just be sure to reference that in the e-mail to be safe.

Furthermore, even if I don't sell anything as a result of my visit, it's a good way to network and learn. I've interacted with Michael Stackpole and Stephen Michael Stirling, both of whom are really cool guys, and learned about the craft of writing. I might acquire some interesting new books (which I could get signed, considering how many authors are there) and collectibles. And I just learned from my friend James R. Tuck that the Fire of Brazil near the hotel has a $10-12 lunch. Considering how those Brazilian steakhouses are typically $50+ I think I'll hit that up pronto.

It's going to be a fun weekend. :)

Book Review: "The Royal Sorceress"

The Royal Sorceress by Chris Nuttall takes place in Britain in the 1830s, but not the Britain of our world. In the previous century, magic was discovered and scientifically categorized, allowing for Great Britain to crush the American Revolution and grow even more powerful than it did historically. Airships have begun to fill the sky, but the industrializing cities teem with millions ground underfoot by poverty and an indifferent if not abusive ruling class.

It's in this environment that young Gwendolyn Crichton, frustrated with the limitations imposed on her by her gender, is given the extraordinarily rare opportunity to be apprenticed to Britain's royal sorcerer. But at the same time, a renegade magician bent on revolution is returning to Britain...

Full disclosure: Chris and I were both longtime members of the alternate-history message-board I've referenced here before and we agreed on a review-for-review swap, his novel for my Kindle-published short stories. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to go any easier on him than I go on the fellow members of my writing groups. Here goes...

For starters, it's a quick, fun read. The story is well-plotted and tied together nicely. Things start out fast--within the first seven pages, Gwen becomes the sorcerer's apprentice. Chris has a particular talent for chapter endings--they either serve as suspense-building cliffhangers or as means to speed the story along. There are a lot of scenes that are pure fun to read, including a food fight between Gwen and some male apprentices who resent Gwen's presence and several revolutionary happenings in the last half of the book that I'm not even going to hint at lest I spoil them.

Also, Chris manages to do exposition without boring the reader. Although exposition through dialogue is frowned on (the infamous "As You Know, Bob" from the Turkey City Lexicon), Gwen's session with a tutor does a good job explaining just how magic was used to defeat the American Revolution.

There are also some shout-outs to other books I enjoyed. One of the supporting characters is none other than Mycroft Holmes and his more famous younger brother and his brother's assistant appear but aren't named. We also meet Irene Adler at one point. There's also a reference to the Draka novels, in particular an early model breech-loading rifle that went largely unused in our history but was used by the proto-Draka to defeat and enslave the native Africans in the Draka timeline.

However, the book does have its flaws. Some of his sentences are a bit too wordy, although it might be my journalism training and consequent disdain for semicolons coming through. Some of the issues I have come up late in the book and I can't really go into detail without risking spoilers, but one character commits a terrorist act without concern for some innocents who would be killed when earlier he'd gone to the trouble of rescuing some children being prostituted. I thought that was out-of-character and even if he couldn't avoid doing what he did, at the very least he should have expressed some misgivings at the time as opposed to later on. Also, a character is revealed to have a magical talent so rare that it's not even confirmed to exist until halfway through the book. That risks the character turning into a Mary Sue, although given the way the scene it's revealed turned out, it wasn't even necessary.

(I've talked with Chris about this and he said there are storyline reasons for this. Hopefully we'll get into this more in later books. After all, according to a talk I had once with Michael Stackpole, flaws in one book can be an opportunity for later stories if the explanation is good enough.)

Furthermore, one reason Britain is ahead of the other powers in terms of magic is because in some other countries, the Inquisition persecutes those with magical talents with a vengeance. In our history, the Inquisition played a large role fighting witch-hysteria and Scotland saw a great deal of witch-hunting. One could argue that the Inquisition might change its tune when faced with real witchcraft, but that doesn't necessarily mean the situation in Britain would be any better.

(Hmm...an idea for a sequel)

Finally, there's a minor character named Bruno Lombardi who is a rather shy younger son of an aristocrat and a fellow pupil of Gwen. I'd have liked some more of his back-story, considering his distinctly non-Anglo-Saxon name. Of course, that's something that can go in a sequel.

Overall, I'd give it an 8 out of 10. Those interested in an excerpt or some behind-the-scenes material can find it here.

DragonCon 2011: Talks with Michael Stackpole

During this year's DragonCon, I attended two panels featuring Michael A. Stackpole, a science fiction writer noted for the Rogue Squadron series of Star Wars novels and the Blood of Kerensky BattleTech novels covering the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.

The first panel, I did not originally plan on attending because it was part of a series of writing workshops that one had to pay for.  However, Gary Henderson told me that one could attend individual sessions for $10 and since characterization is one of my weak points, I figured this would be a good idea.

The first panel I attended was about characterization.  Stackpole gave a presentation on the different types of characters out there, starting with roman a clef (based on real events and people, like Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics) before moving onto archetypes (stock characters), composite archetypes, and organic development of characters.

"You're going to use all of these techniques," he said.

One easy way to create a character is to combine a composite character is to take a real-world character and add--the example he gave was General Patton if he were a motorcycle-riding bad boy like the sort typically played by the young Marlon Brando.

However, one advantage of organic character development is that there's going to be character growth.

Another technique is deliberate design--Stackpole said it was like a composite characterization on steroids and said role-playing gamers do this a lot.

However, he warned against rigid adherence to a model because it would kill character growth.  "George Patton would never do that" is something one shouldn't ever say.

He also warned against complications--he said many roman a clef novels are written about students getting their master of fine arts in literature who sleep with their professors by master of fine arts in literature students sleeping with their professors and this leads to alienation-of-affection lawsuits and divorces when the professors' spouses read the novels and recognize the scenario.

He also said although archetypal stories are familiar and make readers comfortable, archetypal characters are often shallow and a sign of writers who don't challenge themselves.  Stackpole said he uses archetypes as place-holders and then elaborates on them to create real characters.

"Every character is the hero of their own story," he said.

Although I've most often heard this in regards with the characterization of villains, he said this can be used to generate additional material.  For example, what story would a fantasy hero's loyal retainer tell his children about his adventures?  Many short stories and novellas begin this way.

He then said that organic characterization has a big drawback--it takes up a lot of space/page-count and a lot might end up cut.

He also provided some more concrete advice.  He said if a secondary character begins taking over a story, one should give them their own story later.  He also said if killing off a character hurts you, it will probably hurt the reader.

I remember reading that George R.R. Martin wrote the infamous "Red Wedding" (in which the Freys and Boltons murder Robb and Catelyn Stark at Edmure Tully's wedding to Rosilin Frey, held in the Freys' castle) last of all the parts of A Storm of Swords.  Furthermore, many fans apparently reacted very strongly to the scene, including crying or throwing the book across the room.  I guess this proves Stackpole's point.

Stackpole also said writers need to be able to rationalize anything.  He said in his Age of Discovery novels, he said one race had nine gods in one book and ten in the second.  He fixed this by throwing in that members of said race didn't talk about the tenth god and this became a big deal in the third book.

"I had totally, totally blown that," Stackpole said.

However, he managed to turn it around so a flub looked like something that was planned ahead.

"That happens more than you care to remember and it's wonderful," he said. "It makes you look brilliant."

He then suggested something called "blitzkrieg characterization," a technique he said Stephen King used in From a Buick 8.  Basically, one lists two character traits and then a trait that flatly contradicts them.  The example he used was that of a well-dressed man who attended church on Sunday and Wednesday but should not be trusted with the collection plate.

"What this means is that you as the writer have them," he said.  People will want to read to find out more.

Stackpole ended his presentation with a character growth arc--have the character ask why they are, what they want to be, and what do others they think are.  The first two are connected, while the third can provide pressure on the characters.  I've read some discussion on the Song of Ice and Fire message-boards and they described Jaime Lannister's redemption arc in somewhat similar terms--he wants to be a great, honorable knight (and be perceived as such), but people think him an honorless king-slayer and suspect him of incest with his sister.  The fact his family has a rather bad reputation at this point doesn't help.  Reading the White Book chronicling the Kingsguard throughout history shows him how he's come up rather short. 

This supposedly drives his behavior later on the story, when he ends the siege of Riverrun without storming the castle or killing any rebels, rescues the female knight Brienne of Tarth from a bad situation (before, he was in the habit of calling her "wench" and was generally rude to her) and later dispatches her to find and rescue Sansa Stark, beats a man senseless with his golden artificial hand for insulting Brienne, rescues his brother from being unjustly executed, etc.

The second panel with Stackpole was about Robert E. Howard's Conan and Howard as a writer.  Something I found particularly notable was that Stackpole had written Conan the Barbarian, a novelization of the 2011 movie.  Stackpole is a man after my own heart--like me, he believes the 2011 film is a much better representation of Howard's mythos than the Arnold film.

He discussed how one novelizes a film and how he expanded on Conan's life story between Zym's destruction of his village and when we see Conan again as an adult.  This included consolidating the scene where Zym's minions chase Tamara on horseback--one simply can't write that shot-for-shot in a novel.  To write it, Stackpole wrote in the morning and read Howard's Conan stories and commentaries on them later in the day.  He finished the novel, which was contracted to be 80,000 words but came in after editing at 79,500, in 17 days, writing three chapters per day.  Much of the book is based on material not in the film--if it was solely based on the movie, it would only be 50,000 words long.

Unfortunately, the Fulton County library system doesn't seem to have it.  I'm going to have to order it off Amazon.com.