The Wrap Up (denouement)

I've recently finished reading a novel (new, fairly well-known) that I know was originally published online, and which I'm willing to guess was published online in pieces. The book really felt like three main acts: Act I was the shortest, which was the big reveal in a way and the dissonance that kept the next part going; Act II gave us the best character development and came along at a good pace, with enough jumps forward and back to give us an idea of the increasing stakes. And Act III felt quite slow at times, and then in the last few pages covered what probably could have been 50 pages of activity. Including the most crucial conflict and ideological exposition, revealed in maybe 2-3 lines of narrative text.

Now, the author is doing quite well, and I won't throw shade because 1) he had a good idea, 2) he worked the hell out of it, 3) he's at the moment VERY successful and prolific and 4) I like the way he's gone about his business overall.  But ... to me, it's a missed opportunity to really make the (inevitable) ending stronger, more logical, more cohesive ... more lasting.

I can't say I know what went into the decision, other than it sets up nicely for sequels by not spending too much time on the why (perhaps they were getting a bit long and something had to be shortened while keeping momentum for the next volume?). And I'm certainly not a stickler for details and rules, though fans of Syd Field would also see the same issue as it violates one of his core principles (or at least fast-forwards over it).

So the resolution had to happen that way, yes, no issues. The setup for how the resolution happens is also fine: a character hears a conversation between the two main sides of the struggle, that character turns out to have acted on insights and conscience stemming from the conversation and that decision completely changes how the characters' lives turn out.

However, what I've written above is actually longer than the crucial sequence in the book. The key sequence is noted in the third person, in an overhead narrative about that third person, from a distance, and summarized in a few words. Not the kind of surprise ending I was looking for.

Yes, the two characters would have followed predictable paths and predictable logical arguments with each other, yes they would have disagreed on disagreeing and not yielded (vs. the "agree to disagree" reaction) and yes, the actions taken afterwards made sense. But this is the crux of the book, idea vs. idea. This is the heart of the issue. This is the soul. This is to be shown, not told. This is the opportunity to turn phrases, speak deeply, make memorable moments. This is the courtroom scene from (choose one) Inherit the Wind, A Few Good Men, Anatomy of a Murder, To Kill a Mockingbird. THIS is where you hammer it home.

"This" was three sentences long in this case. Sigh.

Yes, I'm unpublished, and in fact unfinished as far as novels go. No, I have no idea what went into any decisions. No this isn't a momentously important book like To Kill a Mockingbird. Yes, I enjoyed it anyway.

But also (dammit), yes, I have the right to make a cogent argument about what I see and don't see in structure, even as an unpublished author talking about a NYT bestselling one. Yes, I can have a point of view here, because my point of view is not so much about taking down the other author as asking myself what can I learn from him. And I can learn a whole lot, all about how to commit to writing, to develop ideas, to refine, to market, to take ownership, to follow goals, to grow. AND I can learn what I might want to do differently when it's my turn. It's all learning.

The French word denouement is often used to talk about the wrap-up of a story (true or imagined), and it originates in various words for "knot." So in a way, tying up loose ends. So my message to my favorite new writer (me) from myself will be -- "tie the knot mindfully, and tie it choosing to make the most of the knot." Or at least hold out for four sentences when it's your time.

Whither Scifi?

"Scifi" comes and goes, in many ways ... from sitting right next to porn (literally) in the 1950s to blazing new trails in the 1960s (Star Trek) to of course massive mainstream in the 1970s and 1980s (Star Wars, every Philip K. Dick idea), back to the alley in the 90s and now once again in the limelight as we continue to look for newer and more relevant stories as the world around us keeps changing.

Often there's a discussion on what exactly constitutes Scifi, and more knowledgeable minds than mine have tried to define it without full satisfaction. I choose to see it as:

"any story where an altered reality -- usually by technology -- affects the way humans (as we currently understand them) interact."

Yes, it's kind of wide. But I think it has to be. Consider: Most of the time, our interest is not in humans taking on new characteristics, but in seeing how the humans can balance humanity in the face of a different context. We usually see a human protagonist using whatever human-ness they have in their current situation, even if that situation is them sitting in an abandoned space station, or living in a world with widespread telepathy, or moving in and out of time. They're still human; otherwise it's a lot of work by the author to help us relate to them.

So what fits into that bucket? Well, almost everything. Sure, if it's got stars and spaceships we get it; however, what about something like Jose Saramago's Blindness, which basically changes one part of the world's equation and then watches humans go to their baser instincts? Still humans being human, but against a new backdrop. Is that Scifi? What about Billy Pilgrim's travels during Slaughterhouse-Five? Or any "fantasy" story where basically it's just us, in a different world with different rules?

Or, in reverse -- couldn't we just put the crew of the Starship Enterprise onto a sailing ship in the 1790s, send them around the ocean and blur out the "planets" and turn them into islands and have it be the same? Isn't it just the saga of an adventurer and his opposite sailing around the world?

Kind of ... but then again, Star Trek is one of the few scifi constructs I can think of in my limited knowledge that specifically evolves humans past their 20th century needs. The Federation doesn't have poverty, greed, hunger or any other issues that would reside on the first or second level of the Maslow pyramid. Well, except James Tiberius Kirk does like him some kissin' ...

The point? Just that there's a lot of room for everyone here. Limiting to terms like "scifi" or "fantasy" or overly discussing it takes away from the enjoyment. If it's a new world and the same old people, then we've got the makings. And that's good enough for me.

Asking for Help

One of the most difficult things for a lot of us to do is to actually reach out to another human being and not only tell them we're in need -- no, we don't have it all perfectly together, yes, we are fallible -- but also to ask them to do something about it to help. In essence, calling in some of the credit of the relationship.

I'm not a huge fan of Amanda Palmer -- and yes, some of it is my own personal issues, I know -- but as I get past that, some of her message recently has been resonating, especially in an interview on the very fantastic Brain Pickings site. That message is one of connecting with people and allowing them to help, allowing them to be involved in your life.

That's a message that is tough for me to integrate, but one I will need to integrate to make the things I want to happen happen. I can maybe attribute it to family models, or what I was told, or what I thought I picked up from one too many spy/western/space opera stories, but there's some belief inside me that I have to have the resources from within to finish all of this, well, stuff that's lying dormant waiting to be done, and that I need to do all of that myself.

Which, considering the fact that this method over the past 30 years hasn't yielded all that much, might be more than a little misguided. But that's how psychology and memory work sometimes.

So over the next week, I'll be asking for more help. Some tangible, some specific, some just general. All important and all scary for me -- I'm giving up control. I'm giving up space in my life. I'm giving up on the Lone Ranger approach (hey, wait, even he had help now that I think about it). I'm giving up on it not working this way.

In return, I'm getting back ... well, let's see. Hopefully a lot more ... but whatever it is, it will be different. And that's a start.

Pace and Space ...

A favored aphorism of my favorite basketball team (Miami Heat) and its coach. Essentially, it means control the pace of the game and create enough space for the players on the floor (on offense) so that they can have enough room to do their best.

Likewise, I'm watching -- rather than reading exactly -- stories and books to see how they do this. One, a big ol' recent bestseller, did a great job of this at the start but now feels like it's giving too much space and not enough pace (action). Other, smaller-scale fiction I've seen has too much pace and no space, so I don't care about the actors.

So as always, it's a balance. The question I have for myself it, will I be able to see that in my own work, and make space for the pace? Time will tell.

Style Points Matter

One thing still not quite finalised is what style we're going for with all of this. It's a weird thing, style -- it's hard to truly define without actually doing. I do have already (to me) a very distinctive writing style, replete with my usual parentheticals (like above) and also a certain friendly tone.

It's a style I use in most of my "normal" correspondence, though it flexes a bit depending on the situation -- in business I will be careful not to seem too much like I'm asking for permission, so much less of the "I think" and "I guess" and "it's probably" and instead more certainty. I do get a bit more playful if it's less serious, and I have my little tricks I love ... manufactured words that really are more like everything-I-could-hyphenate-together-to-make-a-point-and-which-function-as-nouns, strange alliteration (don't worry, I won't demonstrate that one), certain ways of analogizing and certain types of sentence construction.

And in my first 2,000 words of The Manuscript committed to paper (or whatever this is), I used them all. ALL. Sigh. Because, well, this is new to me -- not expression through typing on a screen, but telling a story in a progressive fashion over at least an hour and perhaps a number of days, depending upon the reader.

This is where I think book support groups come in, able to help you see things in your writing that you yourself may not.  So let's see if I end up there when the time comes (when 2,000 words turns to 20,000 and maybe 100,000).  In the meantime, I'll work with new ways to say and shape my thoughts, even ones that are foreign and strange to me.  Because not doing so, staying-in-the-same-place-forever-ness, is going to be worse, and harder on the reader.  And ultimately, it's about using the right tool to get the right point across, meaning the more tools I have, the better.  Quoting (correctly! hopefully ...) an old fave, Abraham Maslow: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." (The Psychology of Science, 1966).  So, yes to more hammers!  Even if some of them are alliteration ...

Guess Who?

As part of the writing shift, I'm spending a lot more time researching channels and mechanisms, especially publishing and distribution online. Recently I signed up for a new scifi distribution site* that was promoted on io9, and with that got an e-mail and offer to download a free e-book. Great, I thought.

I started to click on summaries of each of the nine books I could take, and there were some space colony ones, zombie virus ones and the like. All fine, I like those genres too. And then there was one that looked a bit different, so I clicked on it. And saw the author. And that clicked too ...

Because the book was actually written by a former colleague of mine -- the global IT director at my previous PR agency. His name of course rang a bell thanks to numerous IT policy memos. And with a few quick searches I realized yes, it was him, the agency even had a blog post about his moonlighting writing career. Small world.

So, if I had been in need of motivation to keep going on this journey, problem solved. Happy for your success, Michael, and I hope to join you soon in that rare club of Textie scifi scribes. And of course, yours was the book I chose for my free download, so I look forward to reading it and seeing what you've been up to.

*discoverscifi.com, which will give anyone a free e-book, actually, so those interested should sign up ...

Waiting for Writing ... and Percolating those Ideas

So one of the things I'm doing is keeping a specific hour for writing, or at least for looking at and thinking about what I'm doing. There's some chatter in the online writing world about how saving up for that one hour (or 15 minutes, or whatever slot people use) yields fresher, more distilled, better stuff ... rather than putting it down the minute it hits your brain. I can see the logic -- you're ready to write, you're excited and you're putting down (hopefully) your best. On the other side -- you're losing ideas if you don't write them down, you're forcing energy where it may not want to go, you're striking while the iron has perhaps gotten less hot.

For now, my answer is make very rough stabs as fast as possible when they hit and then still maintain that excitement for refining it when the Golden Time arrives. So hopefully ideas are outlined, percolated and improved. Though as percolators have gone the way of the Oldsmobile and the typewriter, maybe I need a new word ...