The Promise Made with a Series

I finished rereading a much loved book from my middle school/high school years. It's book 3 in a seven book series (and no, it's not Harry Potter, I'm not that young), and the series had been designed from the start to be exactly seven books. None of this extending the series because it's popular or because each novel is a stand alone deal. It was intended to be seven books. No more, no less.

I really liked the third book because it took the series to another level. It was the dark turning point where the stakes were raised and ancestral enemies realize they might not be enemies at all. And I fell in love with one of the periphery characters introduced in the book. He had to grow up fast and became a tragic character by the end. I think I may have cried the first time I read the ending.

After that, I was very bright-eyed and optimistic about the series, and while books 4 and 5 never quite peaked as high as book 3 with me, they were solid. Then something happened with books 6 and 7.

Without going into specifics, the spelling of my favorite character's name in book 3 was changed by one letter. Not much, but it certainly threw me off. The prophecy from book 3 never came back again (despite being a huge deal in that book) and my favorite character didn't do much of anything except act like a talking piece of furniture (and he'd been the one the prophecy was about).

There were other issues too. Some minor. Some big enough that one could drive a truck through. The implied gender of a character's child was swapped between books. And even within the same book an implausibility happens that makes sense on an initial read (while the main characters and the reader don't know better), but fails once a certain character is revealed. Astute readers will catch it on the first read and check back a few chapters to see if the events leading up to the reveal make still sense. I remember I did (and they don't).

I still appreciate the series for its characters and fine world building, but finishing it bothered me as a high school reader because I thought someone would have planned the whole thing out from start to finish, since it was known from the beginning that it would be a seven book series. I felt like the tail end of the series had been phoned in, nobody cared anymore. Or, the series really had not been planned as well as I thought it was, and so the series had been wrapped up as neatly as possible given the circumstances.

There's probably a reason behind the ending sagging that I'm not aware of. But as that high school kid, I was really disappointed. I was promised awesome sauce all the way up through the fifth book, and I got middling sauce by the end. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, and felt worse because it wasn't awesome.

When I think of the most popular seven book series of today, when I think of Harry Potter, I realize that whatever I may think of Rowling's prose, I respect her ability to write a plot. She might have added and subtracted things behind the scenes that the reader never knew, but what was laid down made sense and I didn't feel any promises betrayed.

I've never written a long book series, but this is something I want to keep in mind for when or if I do.

Listening to Feedback

I recently finished playing through the Dragon Age 2: Legacy DLC. For those a little less video game savvy, that's extra paid download content beyond what comes with the game itself, and what it exactly contains varies from game to game. It could be bonus items, levels, costumes, etc.

Legacy is like an extra adventure which story-wise takes place during the main game. It's also a bit remarkable in that the developer said they took pains to listen to player feedback in what they didn't like in the main game when they crafted the DLC and even now maintain a feedback thread on their forums to get a handle on what people liked or didn't like about this particular DLC.

The reason I find this interesting as a blog topic is because writers, particularly new writers, are often in pursuit of feedback. It's not uncommon to balance reader feedback (often in the form of a critique) with what to do in the next draft of the story. The difference here is that writers often focus on the current project they're working on and that game developers look foward just as often to the next iteration (be it patch, DLC, or sequel).

The result of feedback is quite good when it comes to Legacy. It immediately fixed common criticisms of the main game such as recycled area maps and nonsensical waves of enemies. It is also more story-based than previous Dragon Age DLCs, culminating in a very nice "lore" moment where astute followers of the series can be shocked by the complete identity of the last boss. I quite enjoyed it all.

Legacy is an example of where audience feedback was taken to heart can judging from forum comments, the result was received well. It's not possible to please everyone, but it's a good thing when people who didn't like the main game as much found the DLC to be quite enjoyable.

As writers I've heard there's a point where you want to avoid "writing by commitee." In games "designing by committee" isn't considered much better, especially since the fanbase may want conflicting things, but I think if the target audience is saying something, it's a good idea to listen. They're the ones paying the money.

And here where it gets murkier for a writer. Until we have a fanbase, and a particularly ardent one, it's not likely we'll hear from those who are paying the money.

I can't think of a solution to that, aside from making sure your critiquers are also in the target audience you want your readers to be, so what they're suggesting or asking for as a reader is more likely to match up with what potential readers who've yet to discover you want.

Solaris Rising Table of Contents Released

The table of contents for Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science-Fiction is out! This anthology, edited by Ian Whates, will be featuring my story "Mooncakes" in collaboration with Mike Resnick. I recognize several names that I'm quite happy to appear in the company of.

Introduction - Ian Whates
A Smart-Mannered Uprising of the Dead - Ian McDonald
The Incredible Exploding Man - Dave Hutchinson
Sweet Spots - Paul di Filippo
Best SF of the Year Three - Ken MacLeod
The One that Got Away - Tricia Sullivan
Rock Day - Stephen Baxter
Eluna - Stephen Palmer
Shall I Tell You the Problem with Time Travel? - Adam Roberts
The Lives and Deaths of Che Guevara - Lavie Tidhar
Steel Lake - Jack Skillingstead
Mooncakes - Mike Resnick and Laurie Tom
At Play in The Fields - Steve Rasnic Tem
How We Came Back From Mars - Ian Watson
You Never Know - Pat Cadigan
Yestermorrow - Richard Salter
Dreaming Towers, Silent Mansions - Jaine Fenn
Eternity's Children - Eric Brown and Keith Brooke
For the Ages - Alastair Reynolds
Return of the Mutant Worms - Peter F. Hamilton

The book will be available in paper and ebook in November. With any luck, that means copies will be available in time for Loscon.

Shopping at Borders

I stop by the physical bookstore maybe once a month. I admit, I have a certain fondness for paper (despite my affinity for computers and video games) and there's nothing quite like adding to the stacks of books on my shelves. I wish they were better organized, but that's a different issue.

This was my first time at the bookstore since reading Kristine Kathryn Rusch's observations about bookstores. My local bookstore of choice is part of the Borders chain, which unfortunately is working through a bankruptcy at the moment. It's not in danger of being immediately shut down, but I'm concerned that a couple years from now it won't be there. There isn't a single indie bookstore that sells new books in the entire city, so when this Borders goes, I'm likely to have to do all my shopping online.

I first started shopping at this Borders as a senior in high school, which was about the same time that the B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks started to disappear from malls. At the age I was though, I didn't think much of it. As long as I could get the books I wanted, which was usually fairly often, I didn't have a problem with where I shopped.

After reading Kris's article though, and planning my most recent trip to Borders, I realized that I had a rather bizarre habit.

I dislike driving to the bookstore and not finding what I want, so I've developed a habit of checking online whether or not a potential half dozen books I'd be interested in were inventory. That way I know whether or not the trip would be a waste. I do like browsing the shelves to see if I find anything interesting just by happenstance, but I don't like leaving empty-handed.

I've actually starting picking up manga as stop-gaps if the novels I want aren't available, because a popular manga series will generally have various volumes in stock, and if one volume of a series I'm reading is missing I can probably find the next volume I need of a different one. (Sadly, I'm now facing a different problem where I'm getting far enough in various series that it's less likely the volume I want is in the store.)

I didn't used to do this. I remember in high school I could go to a bookstore and find nearly all the books from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series in stock. These days she occupies half the shelf she used to and there isn't nearly as much of the older Pern material (mostly the newer stuff with her son Todd). I imagine other authors' shelf spaces have shrunk as well. If it's not relatively new, it's not on the shelf.

I've been wanting to start reading Naomi Novik's Teremaire series, but had some trouble finding the first book in stock. How a bookseller expects to market book six without book one available I don't know, but His Majesty's Dragon had been on my "I hope to find it in stock one of these days" lists for a while.

Finally, I found it... as part of a boxed set containing the first three books. It was a score as far as I was concerned (I'd read a sample of the book already so I had a reasonable sense that I could gamble on three books and enjoy them all), but still a little annoying that the book just hadn't been there, on its own, months ago. I would have bought it months ago as well if it'd been there.

I can't really pinpoint why a bookstore's selection seems so much worse than in previous years. Borders does have a section of the store devoted to Kobo, but the science fiction and fantasy rows don't feel that much smaller. Though, I admit the tie-in portion is a lot bigger than before.

That makes me wonder, just as a wild idea, if perhaps the future of printed books will be in franchises.

Living Rooms: Now on Kindle

There's been a lot of chatter around the blogosphere and writing communities about ebooks, their relevance, and the path to success. Perhaps most telling is that at this year's Writers of the Future workshop, the judges could not agree on what the industry was going to look like in the next five years.

Some people have jumped whole-heartedly into independent publishing. Others are quite stubborn about sticking to tradition. The best way may well indeed be a mix between the New York model and the indie one. I'm not in a position with my novel manuscript to be worrying about that right now, but I figured I would begin to experiment with my previously published work, since ebooks seem to lend themselves to novelette and novella length stories, which is a hard sell in the traditional world.

"Living Rooms," my Gold Award winning story of the Writing of the Future contest, is now available for purchase on Kindle (other formats forthcoming) for just $0.99. The artwork is by my friend Denis Takara, who happens to also be the Dungeon Master for the D&D group I play with on Sundays.

That does mean we sometimes get nifty illustrations of his custom made monsters when we play. Isn't that cool?

Japanese Light Novels

Last year I started reading the Spice & Wolf series by Isuna Hasekura. It's what is called in Japan a "light novel" series. It's a short novel comes with a few illustrations up front and more or less makes for "light" reading, though I'm a little skeptical about whether that's where the name comes from.

Light novels appear to work much like comics in that they are serials marked by volume number rather than with a separate title for each installment. If Spice and Wolf is anything to judge by, each volume is a self-contained story, an episode if you will, of the larger series, with an overarching storyline running between multiple books.

It's not quite the same as a fantasy trilogy, which is why the serial analogy works.

For instance, in volume 1 of Spice and Wolf, the characters of Lawrence and Holo begin traveling together, with the goal of returning Holo to her long forgotten home in the distant north. That's the overarching story. But the climax of volume 1 has nothing to do with her homeland, so much as to what lengths do Lawrence and Holo want to remain traveling companions when they have the opportunity to part ways.

Volume 2 covers a deal gone wrong where Holo has to bail Lawrence out of a mess of his own creation, which of course is at a city that's a stopover on their travel north.

Volume 3 looks to further the relationship between Lawrence and Holo as their journey continues (since there's definitely some unresolved sexual tension between the both of them), with of course another wrench thrown in the plan.

Persumably the series, which has gone up to sixteen volumes as of this writing, continues in this way until Lawrence and Holo inevitably find Yoitsu. Or, perhaps, there will be a different reason for them to keep traveling.

Spice and Wolf is a fresh and breezy read. It's a very minimalist sort of narration with short paragraphs, lots of dialogue, and the pages turn fast.

I don't think we really have an analog to the light novel in the US, save the ones that are translated from the Japanese, and that's too bad. I feel like we're missing some sort of marketing niche.

WotF Workshop Week and Catch-up

The day job was demanding a lot of me, right up to the point where I departed for this year's Writers of the Future workshop, which took place last week. This is the first weekend I've had to myself in nine weeks. Not that I stopped writing, even during the business. I kept writing even during the WotF workshop, and that was a blast to attend.

One of the things that isn't widely talked about (and I had no idea happened prior to my own win) is that recent winners of previous years will often come back and sit in the back of the workshop. A few of them, the more successful ones, may give a talk about how they made it.

When I won for WotF 26, Ken Scholes, Steve Savile, Eric James Stone, and Jordan Lapp were our recent winners and mentors.

Until you're in the position of a brand new winner, you have no idea why it's so helpful to have previous winners at the workshop. For many winners, the judges are childhood idols, the people who they've wanted to be. Talking to them is difficult, especially those first few conversations. I was so nervous the first night I met most of the judges that I was afraid Kevin J. Anderson would only remember me as the "giggling girl" because I couldn't stop. I was still in disbelief that people like them could actually enjoy my writing.

Me, who'd received a grand total of 372 rejections before landing my Gold Award winning story!

But the previous winners were able to take me by the arm and introduce me to the judges, get conversations going, and make me feel welcome.

This year, I was privileged enough to return as a previous winner and continue the favor for this year's crop of winners, maybe of whom were in the same state of disbelief I was last year. It's funny how much of a difference a year makes.

I came in middle of their week, right after they'd done their meeting a stranger exercise, so they were about to embark on their 24-hour story exercise. I never worried about whether or not I'd finish mine, since I'd done a story start-to-finish in a single evening before, but I knew the exercise was an eye-opener for some.

The workshop week was an adventure in an entirely different manner now that I no longer had the pressure of the workshop or the grand prize hanging above my head. (I don't know how the illustrators stand it, since all of them are up their Gold Award.) While the winners worked on their 24-hour stories I got to tour inside a co-op garden closed to the public due to an intrepid conversation started by Tim Powers and his wife Serena with a gardener who was able to tell us tales about the Hollywood area and its history with the garden. It was the meet a stranger exercise magnified to something ten times better than what I'd experienced.

This year I was able to speak with the judges without stumbling over my words, no longer the giggling girl too nervous to talk, and I could talk with the new winners with the confidence that all would be fine. Most of them had made their first professional sale with their win, and are simply drowning in information. The workshop keeps tough hours too, with events often starting at 8am and unofficial hanging out in the lobby not ending until midnight or 1am.

The award ceremony was particularly enjoyable for me this year, since I honestly don't remember a whole lot of last year's. I was so nervous that I spent the entire time between my first place award and the Gold Award announcement mentally rehearsing my second acceptance speech just in case I won. I was terrified I would forget and end up not being able to say a word.

I take that back.

I remember just before they made the announcement for the Gold Award I was so nervous I turned to my dad, who was in the audience with me, and said, "I think I need to go to the bathroom."

And he, leaning towards me for an entirely different reason, said, "Good luck!"

After the award ceremony I had the pleasure of collecting autographs from the new winners, who were overwhelmed by all the fuss. We had an after party as well, during which I found out that my collaboration with Mike Resnick, had sold to the New Book of Solaris Science Fiction anthology. (The editor's in the UK, so the news had come in at about 1am.)

All in all, it was a very good week. I can see why Tim Powers and Eric Flint have said they like going to conventions so much.

Going back to WotF was like a reunion, seeing people who I would never get to see otherwise. These people: the judges, the previous winners, and now the current group, are all part of a greater writing community that I'm now a part of.

Writing is so often a solitary pursuit, and I'm not sure when I'll see all of these people again. A few of them I know I'll see again at this year's World Fantasy in San Diego. Others I might catch at LosCon, our local L.A. convention. The rest, I really don't know.

But we'll keep in touch, and by next year I hope to have more stories published and coming down the pipeline.