Good News and Bad News

First, the bad news. I got a response from Flash Fiction Online which I've been anxiously anticipating. Rejection! I'm extremely bummed, but it's still a somewhat positive note. It made it to the winnowing stage, the third and final stage of reading at that venue, which supposedly only 3-10% of stories make it to.

The good news: I got a response from JW Schnarr, the editor of a Wizard of Oz horror anthology that I submitted a story to. It sounded like he really liked the story and wanted to hold it for consideration which he'll determine later this summer (the deadline for the antho is at the end of July). If I got in, it wouldn't pay a lot, but the idea of the antho is so awesome that I would love to be a contributor! I'll keep you all posted.

Story Recommendation: "Snatch Me Another" by Mercurio D. Rivera

http://www.abyssandapex.com/200801-snatch.html

I highly recommend this story from Abyss & Apex: "Snatch Me Another" by Mercurio D. Rivera. It's a well-told highly emotional tale exploring what the world could be like where we could have pretty much everything we wanted for free, by a new black market invention called The Snatcher.

This is a case where I didn't particularly like the protagonist, which is usually something I insist on for a story I like, but the premise was interesting enough to carry me through.

Novel Recommendation: The Runelords by David Farland

I'm currently reading The Runelords, novel 1 of the fantasy series of the same name written by David Farland (aka David Wolverton).

Some of you may know the author from his "Kick in the Pants!" email-blog. He periodically sends out emails that give tips on writing, getting published, and dealing with the industry. They're very informative and well worth the time. If you are interested, just email dwolvert xmission.com (with the replaced with an @ sign, and say "Kick me!"

Anyway, since I started writing 2 years ago, I haven't come across a single novel I enjoyed. I'd been starting to think that by learning to pick apart my own stories critically that I'd rendered myself unable to enjoy other people's novels.

So I was very glad to realize that I was thoroughly enjoying this one. I'm about halfway through--I'll try to write up a full review when I've finished the book--and it's been great every step of the way. Some of the early chapters have some passages approaching info-dumps that may be a little bit out of character POV, but the information they provide is interesting and pertinent enough that it didn't really bother me. There's also occasional head-hopping, but again, it was done in such a way that it didn't bother me.

The most interesting thing for me in those early pages was to hear about the magical endowment system--this isn't a spoiler, you learn of this very early on. Through this, any person can endow another with their own attributes, such as wit, brawn, grace, sight, etc... The giver of the attribute finds themselves completely without that quality, while the receiver finds their attributes increased by that much. So a wise man can give his wits to another, the giver becomes a drooling husk, unable to even control his own bowel movements, while the receiver becomes that much smarter, able to remember more things and puzzle out difficult problems. The link lasts only as long as the two people live--if the giver dies, the receiver loses that endowment. If the receiver dies, the giver returns to normal. In this way, the people who have received many endowments must protect their Dedicates (the ones who gave them endowments) in order to protect their own abilities.

The implications of the Endowment system are major plot points that help keep every twist and turn interesting. At times, the story seems like it follows a common fantasy style, but just as I settle in to get comfortable, Farland takes a common idea and twists it to make it his own. The writing and plot are excellent and I would recommend this book to anyone.

What is The Race?

For those of you who aren't familiar with The Race that I referred to this morning, it's a system concocted by Dean Wesley Smith as one way to help motivate writing.

Check out a post from back in September '08 for more details:
http://steffenwolf.blogspot.com/2008/09/race.html

I am currently at 21 points:
3 points for a novel synopsis+3 chapters to Elder Signs Press.
18 short stories at various magazines.

I don't see the points as a goal, but a means to an end. A high score, by itself, doesn't imply skill nor does it imply imminent publication. You still have to put your best work in and strive to make each story the best thing you've ever written. But I do like some of the behaviors it encourages, and so I see it more as one metric among many that helps me determine progress. Unlike most other metrics, this is easily quantifiable, which makes it easy to judge at a glance.

The Race isn't for everybody. Using the system encourages you to behave in a certain way, which is only good if you believe that behavior is beneficial to you. In particular, in can help if you believe:
1. The more stories you write, the better you'll be at writing. That is not to say that you should send a story out before it's ready--far from it. But I believe the more stories you write, the more point-of-view characters you write as, the more plots you construct, the more versatile you'll become. Some people don't agree with this, preferring to continually revise the same story many times, trying to approach the best the story can be. There's nothing wrong with that, but that approach doesn't work well for me. If I revised the same story over and over trying to make it perfect, at best it would an asymptotical approach, always getting closer but never quite making it. At worst I would over-analyze it and edit the life right out of the story. By using the score, you're encouraged to write more stories, because you can only increase your score by writing more stories.

2. It's best not to overanalyze form rejections. If I get a form rejection, I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out why it got rejected. I just send it right back out again. The reason is simple--there's not enough data to come to a sound conclusion about why it was rejected. Maybe they didn't like your writing. Maybe they don't like stories about dragons. Maybe their magazine was overbooked already. Maybe they had a bad taco for lunch and now your story has an unfortunate association in their mind with food poisoning. By keeping a Race score, it encourages you to send it right back out again.
Now, if I get a personal rejection or critique from someone, listing specific reasons why they didn't like it, such as "the beginning was too slow" "I never felt close to the POV" or "The ending left me unsatisfied", then of course I consider carefully what's been said and whether I want to change anything.

3. You don't want to put anything in the trunk yet. So far I haven't really felt comfortable putting stories away in "the trunk" and taking them out of submission. Even my earliest stories have some merit, though my skill has definitely grown beyond those days or I wouldn't have written them. By using the Race, it encourages me to keep these stories in submission.


What do you think of The Race? I'd be interested in discussing what flaws advantages you see in it. :)

21 points!

Well, I pushed my DWS Race score up to 21 points for the first time yesterday with a Wizard of Oz horror story sent off to the Shadows of the Emerald City anthology (an Oz horror antho). That makes my 20th story to enter circulation (including the novel).

I've had an unusual number of story ideas lately, despite not being able to spend much time with them (or perhaps because of it). I have a few stories that I need to revise, which always takes longer than I expect, and then I'll be back to writing new stuff. :)

Story Recommendation: "Deep Moves" by William Highsmith

Abyss and Apex has a story I particularly liked this month by William Highsmith. I tried to give this one a critique before it was published, but I enjoyed it so much that I really just enjoyed it the way it is. It's a quick read, chock full of emotion and story, and it's also free! I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think. :)
,Dave

http://www.abyssandapex.com/200904-deep.html

Wicked or Oppressed: Bimodal distribution of humanity, ala Sweeney Todd

Hi everybody! Sorry for the longer than usual delay since my last post, it's the end of the semester and I've been very busy with school and work.

For those of you who haven't seen Sweeney Todd, as either the movie or the play, be warned that there will be plenty of spoilers following. FULL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

First, it's kind of funny how I first heard of Sweeney Todd. I first saw it in the Ben Affleck/Liv Tyler movie Jersey Girl. In that movie there was a parent/child talent show where each pair was asked to choose a song to perform and act out for the school. Everyone but Ben Affleck and his daughter performed "Memories" from Cats. So after hours and hours of replays of the same song, these two go on stage and perform "God, That's Good!". On the upper tier of the stage, the barber Sweeney Todd cuts the throats of customers, who then fall through a hole in the floor and are served as meat pies to unsuspecting customers in Mrs. Lovett's restaurant to dispose of the evidence.
If you want to see that video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkLSFdvrhq0


Anyway, the details of the story FULL SPOILERS AHEAD are this:

I'm assuming that you all have seen the story. If you want to remember the details, here's a link to a Wikipedia synopsis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_todd

In the song "Epiphany", Sweeney states his view of mankind:
"They all deserve to die. Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why. Because in all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two. There's the one stays put in his proper place and the one with his foot in the other one's face. Look at me, Mrs. Lovett, look at you. We all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovett, even I. Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief. For the rest of us death will be a relief."

His simple bimodal distribution of humanity is very apt for the play. Only a few characters violate this description, and those are the most remarkable characters. Here's an analysis of all the named characters in the play, classifying them as the Wicked and the Oppressed:

First, the clean cut ones:

Mrs. Lovett (played by Helena Bonham Carter in the movie):
Definitely Wicked. She's the one who suggests putting human meat in her pies. She also deceives Sweeney, leading him to believe that Lucy is dead so that she can seek Todd's love for herself. You can't get much more wicked than that.
Dies by Sweeney's hands for her crimes.

Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman in the movie):
Definitely Wicked. He wrongfully imprisons Barker to get at his wife. He exploits Lucy to the point that she attempts suicide. He imprisons Johanna and tries to force her into marriage. Rich man, and civil officer, taking advantage of decent people--definitely wicked.
Dies at Sweeney's hands.

Beadle Bamford (played by Jamie Campbell Bower in the movie--you may know him as Wormtail/Peter Pettigrew in the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Wicked. He seems to have a pretty good life. Though he lives under the command of Judge Turpin, he doesn't really seem to suffer for it. He's well-dressed and happy enough. He helps Judge Turpin in his unethical actions. He's wicked, though not to the extreme of his employer.
Dies at Sweeney's hands.

Signor Pirelli (played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie)
Wicked, though he's the least wicked of the wicked. A rich man, very well dressed, who exploits the general populace by pretending to be Italian and selling them overpriced barber services as well as selling them "miracle elixir" that's supposed to grow hair, but is really just a mix of urine and ink. Tries to blackmail Sweeney.
Dies at Sweeney's hands.

Lucy Barker
Definitely oppressed. Her husband is wrongfully imprisoned, then she's relentlessly pursued by a man in power, then exploited, then takes poison, but doesn't die. She ends up brain damaged and begging on the streets.
Dies at Sweeney's hands.

Now for the dual case:

Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd (played by Johnny Depp in the movie)
These two sort of follow the rules, if you consider multiple personalities to be different people. I think that Barker/Todd really believe their statement that there are only two kind of men. Benjamin Barker is the oppressed man who lost his wife and child. Desperate for revenge, but unable to bring himself to it, he creates another persona: Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd is more than capable of enacting revenge on the judge, but he's incapable of compassion and more than willing to commit mass-murder.
dies at Toby's hands


And the really strange cases. Interestingly, the strange cases are the ONLY people who survive:

Toby:
Transitions from neutral to Wicked. His life at the beginning isn't particularly terrible. He has a home and a job being a crier for Signor Pirelli. If I remember right, he's a rescued orphan so his life is looking up. After that he's taken in by Mrs. Lovett who treats him like a son. He's suspicious of Sweeney, but they manage to coexist until near the end when Toby discovers what Todd and Lovett have been up to. He's lurking in the sewers beneath the basement when Mrs. Lovett is killed. After that, he creeps up and kills Todd while Todd is cradling Lucy's dead body. Murder at such a young age seems like it will make him wicked for sure.
She is still alive at the end!

Johanna:
Transitions from Oppressed to Neutral. Her life at the beginning is terrible, forced to live with Turpin as he tries to force her to marry him. But Anthony comes along and rescues her. In the end they run away together. You could argue that she'll be Oppressed for the rest of her life because of childhood trauma, but I like to think there's a happy ending there.
She is still alive at the end!

Anthony:
He is the most unique character, arguably the hero of the story. He is neither Wicked nor Oppressed at any point in the play. He does not perform any actions to hurt other characters, but he does not allow himself to be pushed down by other characters either. His actions only have good effects, allowing Johanna to be free, and absolving Todd's guilt to know that his daughter will be in good hands.


Judging by all of these things, I think the story is told from Barker's point of view (hence why most everyone fits so neatly into the two categories). In this story, Anthony is the hero because he saves Todd's daughter.

If anyone has any thoughts on this analysis, I'd be glad to hear them! :)