My husband has a gift, probably from a previous lifetime, and honed, this lifetime, with thousands of hours of practice: he knows when the time is right for an action.
I was aiming at one of those moments, an auspicious time, to publish Seeking Sirius (self-publish, because I want to control that very moment of publishing). June 11. Way close.
Too close, I have decided. Auspicious or not.
Luckily, another time. About as good. Better in some ways. Is available. And the really good part, I get more time to make this story something you, and many other people, will hopefully be sorry is over, when you get to The End.
Now is the time for taking the prose to heights I hope to attain.
By Laure Edwards Reminick
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Beats, Telling, and Point of View
Okay, my beta readers are sounding happy. No snoring from behind the screen, er, page.
But, I think I'm gonna have to do some changing.
Beats in dialogue: A beat in dialogue is that short or long pause that allows the reader's brain to keep up with the action. It avoids the machine-gun feeling of one line of dialogue after another, after another, after another.
Actually, I think I may generally get this into my dialogue.
Perhaps I learned about beats as a high school flute player. Keeping time with the tubas and the drums -- even when marching around on the football field in a too-big uniform -- may have stuck with me during the decades after. The ballet teacher in the loft at Broadway and 74th Street in NYC thought so. I was abysmal at doing the right steps at the right time. But I kept on the beat, every time, with SOME kind of step. The teacher's comment that I must have played an instrument (since I was hitting the beat) was small consolation for the looks of pity from the experienced dancers around me (since I was missing almost every type of step).
Anyway. Beats in dialogue: got it.
Telling vs. Showing: Now, I thought I was doing pretty well with this. But from reading "The First 50 Pages," by publisher Jeff Gerke, I'm thinking I'm gonna need to do some revising. Dang.
In particular, Gerke recommends absolutely no flashbacks in the first 50 pages. Agents and editors, supposedly, are likely to fling said manuscript across the room and then go over and jump up and down on it. And then, of course, reject it.
I'm guilty: The story has at least two flashbacks (Chapters 2 and 3), to a scene when the item that brings onto my heroine all the story's trouble is handed to her. Oy. Not sure what to do about this.
Point of View: In this second draft, I am introducing and fleshing out an important character much sooner. Essentially, the romance. This adds much-needed drama early on in the story.
I wrote the scene where the heroine meets the romance interest in alternating Points of View. I thought I got each part of the scene clearly separate. Actually, I was kind of proud of my cleverness.
But, supposedly the rule of thumb is: One Point of View per scene. All my pretty efforts, slashed and changed. Again, dang.
But this is the Writer's Way.
By Laure Edwards Reminick
But, I think I'm gonna have to do some changing.
Beats in dialogue: A beat in dialogue is that short or long pause that allows the reader's brain to keep up with the action. It avoids the machine-gun feeling of one line of dialogue after another, after another, after another.
Actually, I think I may generally get this into my dialogue.
Perhaps I learned about beats as a high school flute player. Keeping time with the tubas and the drums -- even when marching around on the football field in a too-big uniform -- may have stuck with me during the decades after. The ballet teacher in the loft at Broadway and 74th Street in NYC thought so. I was abysmal at doing the right steps at the right time. But I kept on the beat, every time, with SOME kind of step. The teacher's comment that I must have played an instrument (since I was hitting the beat) was small consolation for the looks of pity from the experienced dancers around me (since I was missing almost every type of step).
Anyway. Beats in dialogue: got it.
Telling vs. Showing: Now, I thought I was doing pretty well with this. But from reading "The First 50 Pages," by publisher Jeff Gerke, I'm thinking I'm gonna need to do some revising. Dang.
In particular, Gerke recommends absolutely no flashbacks in the first 50 pages. Agents and editors, supposedly, are likely to fling said manuscript across the room and then go over and jump up and down on it. And then, of course, reject it.
I'm guilty: The story has at least two flashbacks (Chapters 2 and 3), to a scene when the item that brings onto my heroine all the story's trouble is handed to her. Oy. Not sure what to do about this.
Point of View: In this second draft, I am introducing and fleshing out an important character much sooner. Essentially, the romance. This adds much-needed drama early on in the story.
I wrote the scene where the heroine meets the romance interest in alternating Points of View. I thought I got each part of the scene clearly separate. Actually, I was kind of proud of my cleverness.
But, supposedly the rule of thumb is: One Point of View per scene. All my pretty efforts, slashed and changed. Again, dang.
But this is the Writer's Way.
By Laure Edwards Reminick
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Fully Into the Chase; On Alexa's way back to Earth
Alexa Jane just took off from the space station, above Earth, barely in time to avoid the bad guys. And she's finally about to return to her home planet, though 950 years after she left it.
The story is now fully into the Chase Scene, rushing toward the climax, and finally finding out why the heck the tiny little crystal is so important.
As part of the process of writing for the first time a book-length story, getting to this point is truly exciting. (I still avoid defining this as a book, until it's at least through the second draft.) In addition to reading to my husband each new scene that rushes onto the page, I have also taken to getting certain friends on the cell phone and reading to them. Sometimes they are appreciative, sometimes not.
One sticking point that had to be solved; where on Earth should she go? I mean, as the writer I can give her any clue/indication I want. I just have to decide where to put her.
This involves:
Are some candidate cities under water, at this point, because of global warming?
What countries/cities would be important enough, 950 years from now, to harbor the people involved?
Where could a so-called space-port be located?
How far from the landing pad, to the action, do I settle this space-port?
It probably shouldn't be in the middle of a metropolitan area -- of now or the likely future.
But I've got to get her into action PDQ
I have some ideas, on each point. And if the rest of the story is any indication, more details will present themselves as they appear on the page.
The story is now fully into the Chase Scene, rushing toward the climax, and finally finding out why the heck the tiny little crystal is so important.
As part of the process of writing for the first time a book-length story, getting to this point is truly exciting. (I still avoid defining this as a book, until it's at least through the second draft.) In addition to reading to my husband each new scene that rushes onto the page, I have also taken to getting certain friends on the cell phone and reading to them. Sometimes they are appreciative, sometimes not.
One sticking point that had to be solved; where on Earth should she go? I mean, as the writer I can give her any clue/indication I want. I just have to decide where to put her.
This involves:
Are some candidate cities under water, at this point, because of global warming?
What countries/cities would be important enough, 950 years from now, to harbor the people involved?
Where could a so-called space-port be located?
How far from the landing pad, to the action, do I settle this space-port?
It probably shouldn't be in the middle of a metropolitan area -- of now or the likely future.
But I've got to get her into action PDQ
I have some ideas, on each point. And if the rest of the story is any indication, more details will present themselves as they appear on the page.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
How the heck to make "Enlightenment" engaging?
The title of this blog starts with the word "Enlightenment."
But I, as of yet, have not really referred to that concept, or even something related to that concept. I have, instead, been concentrating on the more traditional aspects of adventure fiction.
In the story, Alexa was brought up in a family that understood and valued the concept and the experience of growing in that direction. But at age 16, she lost her mother to a fast-acting cancer and just six months later she lost her father to a freak storm that capsized his boat in the Caribbean. The daily activities within this lifestyle continued for her, as much as they could considering she was no longer living within a supportive cocoon. But even for children whose lives have not been so catastrophically altered, it is not uncommon for them to develop a certain amount of rejection of all that goes with a concious growth toward Enlightenment.
Thus, in this first part of the trilogy, Alexa meditates, because it generally feels good -- or at least, not bad. And it certainly helps with handling the stress of her life.
But the bliss she remembers from her years before losing her parents hasn't been available since that loss. So, an unconscious yearning for that bliss is the basis for the Numero Uno story line.
Searching for a story about the growth of consciousness is, actually, the very reason I decided to try my hand at fiction. I just can't find what I'd like to read.
I realize there is probably a very good reason for this. It ain't easy to write engagingly about such a quiet and intimate experience and process -- particularly within an Adventure.
But I persevere: inserting small references along the way, moving that story line along with the adventure part and trying to keep them relevant to each other. All the while trying to avoid off-putting jargon.
For Alexa, at first the silence that once was so available, and has been so NOT available for so long, is missed. Incrementally, as she draws closer and closer to the climax, she begins to find herself and her depths more easily, step by step.
Which, is pretty much how I experience life. No surprise I'm writing about it, eh?
But I, as of yet, have not really referred to that concept, or even something related to that concept. I have, instead, been concentrating on the more traditional aspects of adventure fiction.
In the story, Alexa was brought up in a family that understood and valued the concept and the experience of growing in that direction. But at age 16, she lost her mother to a fast-acting cancer and just six months later she lost her father to a freak storm that capsized his boat in the Caribbean. The daily activities within this lifestyle continued for her, as much as they could considering she was no longer living within a supportive cocoon. But even for children whose lives have not been so catastrophically altered, it is not uncommon for them to develop a certain amount of rejection of all that goes with a concious growth toward Enlightenment.
Thus, in this first part of the trilogy, Alexa meditates, because it generally feels good -- or at least, not bad. And it certainly helps with handling the stress of her life.
But the bliss she remembers from her years before losing her parents hasn't been available since that loss. So, an unconscious yearning for that bliss is the basis for the Numero Uno story line.
Searching for a story about the growth of consciousness is, actually, the very reason I decided to try my hand at fiction. I just can't find what I'd like to read.
I realize there is probably a very good reason for this. It ain't easy to write engagingly about such a quiet and intimate experience and process -- particularly within an Adventure.
But I persevere: inserting small references along the way, moving that story line along with the adventure part and trying to keep them relevant to each other. All the while trying to avoid off-putting jargon.
For Alexa, at first the silence that once was so available, and has been so NOT available for so long, is missed. Incrementally, as she draws closer and closer to the climax, she begins to find herself and her depths more easily, step by step.
Which, is pretty much how I experience life. No surprise I'm writing about it, eh?
Monday, August 6, 2012
Into the Fire
Alexa, the heroine of my story, may have thought life on the space cruiser was like a frying pan. But that was nothing compared with how things are shaping up for her on the space station above Earth.
To keep the reader's interest, it makes sense to me to ramp up the action -- or suspense, in that kind of story -- as you near the climax, which will take place on Earth in this instance.
Before Alexa gets off this station, she will be running -- maybe while floating -- for her life.
She has pinballed from one suitor, to a bad guy, to a bad guy masquerading as a suitor, to yet another suitor. Or is he also a bad guy? That's not clear to her yet. (I know who/what he is, but she will still be wondering at moments even in the third part of this trilogy.)
I have a general plan for her on the station, with some details I'd like to include. It is delightful to see how including a detail at one point sometimes sets up another detail -- previously thought to be unrelated -- at a later time in the story.
It really does feel like the story seems to be writing itself, almost. So different from reporting on the movement of equities or the fine points of the latest corporate tax law.
More like in the Flow, than into the Fire.
To keep the reader's interest, it makes sense to me to ramp up the action -- or suspense, in that kind of story -- as you near the climax, which will take place on Earth in this instance.
Before Alexa gets off this station, she will be running -- maybe while floating -- for her life.
She has pinballed from one suitor, to a bad guy, to a bad guy masquerading as a suitor, to yet another suitor. Or is he also a bad guy? That's not clear to her yet. (I know who/what he is, but she will still be wondering at moments even in the third part of this trilogy.)
I have a general plan for her on the station, with some details I'd like to include. It is delightful to see how including a detail at one point sometimes sets up another detail -- previously thought to be unrelated -- at a later time in the story.
It really does feel like the story seems to be writing itself, almost. So different from reporting on the movement of equities or the fine points of the latest corporate tax law.
More like in the Flow, than into the Fire.
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