Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

On sites that offer writing advice one sometimes reads instruction that confuses “passive writing” with “passive voice”. We see this among critiquers in writing groups as well, and it’s a source not just of confusion but also of misinformation.

I think there are two sources for this confusion. We often read that a writer needs to develop his or her own “Voice”. (I’ll capitalise this hereafter, to distinguish it from the other meaning of the word, which I’ll deal with farther down.)

“Voice” in this context really refers to those distinctive elements of a writer’s style that remind us of who is writing. If we look at authors of bygone days, Voice is not hard to see. Charles Dickens, for instance, had a distinctive Voice. So did Rudyard Kipling and DH Lawrence. In fact, pick up a work by any well-known author active before about 1980 and if you’ve read a few of that author’s books you will probably recognise the Voice straight away, because it did not vary much from book to book within that author’s oeuvre.

Few authors today have that kind of truly distinctive Voice. This is, I think, because of the popularity of the so-called “deep third” (AKA tight third or close third) Point-of-View (POV). It is currently fashionable for authors to hide behind their characters, giving the reader a seamless experience in which the author almost “channels” the POV character. In speculative fiction, two authors who demonstrate remarkable mastery of the deep third are Joe Abercrombie and Margo Lanagan. It is easy to lose oneself in their characters; to feel the character’s sensations and emotions and even to feel as if one is thinking that character’s thoughts. The author’s Voice and the voice of the POV character become one.

Some other authors use the close third only for moments of high tension and drama, retaining their own voice for narrative passages. Guy Gavriel Kay’s work is largely written in this style.

That more obvious, capital-V voice found in authors of past decades is easily confused with another sense of voice – passive writing. If a writer employs a lot of unnecessary auxiliary verbs (forms of “to be” and “to have” as part of an action, such as “He was running”) and constantly uses weak verbs such as walk and go (or went) people say the writing is passive. It’s only a short step from here to thinking that the writer has a “passive” Voice, and here’s where the trouble really starts, because the expression “passive voice” has a clearly defined grammatical meaning.

The “passive voice” as opposed to the “active voice” means using a verb without close reference to the doer of the action, as in, for example, “The ball was thrown by John” instead of “John threw the ball”. The giveaway is that little word “by”. A verb in the passive voice is followed by a preposition, most commonly “by” or “to” (as in “The award was given to Jenny”).

Let’s look at examples of the three matters under discussion here – authorial voice, passive writing and the passive voice:

1. An author’s voice (I’ll stop capitalising it now you ‘ve got the picture!)
Here is Dickens’s famous opening of A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The opening gives us an excellent feel for Dickens’s very distinctive (authorial) voice.

2. Passive writing
Here’s a passage I’ve just made up:

I was walking along the road, having just been to the dentist, when I was hit from behind by a cricket ball that had been thrown by a schoolboy. I had been intending to go to visit my mother, but the blow to my head gave me such a migraine that I found myself thinking that perhaps I should be going straight home to lie down.

That is passive writing. We don’t get any feel for the action or for the character’s feelings and sensations because we are separated from them by wases and –ing words – and one example of the passive voice! Can you see where it is?

3. The passive voice
Yup, that’s right: “I was hit from behind by a cricket ball” is in the passive voice, grammatically speaking. The passive voice is best avoided in fiction writing because it is frequently found as an element of passive writing.

But don’t get the terms mixed up. Passive writing is not always in the passive voice. Passive writing, as I’ve said above, is characterised by too many auxiliary verbs, weak verbs and probably weak nouns as well. It may or may not include use of the passive voice.

And not all writing that uses auxiliary verbs is passive, either. For instance “The pretty girl was dancing when I first saw her” uses the auxiliary “was” to indicate the past continuous tense. Some critiquers might try to persuade you to replace it with the simple past – “The pretty girl danced when I first saw her”. They would be wrong, because the simple past tense in that case would be incorrect and somewhat ambiguous. It might suggest, for example, that the pretty girl started to dance because I saw her!

What I’m trying to get across here is don’t confuse authorial voice with the passive voice and especially don’t confuse passive writing with the passive voice. “The pretty girl was dancing when I first saw her”, and, for instance, “The pretty girl will be dancing next time I see her” are certainly not in the passive voice, and, used correctly, are not necessarily examples of passive writing, either. They are perfectly legitimate uses of continuous forms of the verb “to dance”.

We are fortunate in having so many ways to express things in English, and the continuous tenses have their place. The skill lies in knowing when you can get away without using them, rather than making blanket statements about “passive writing” or worse, confusing them with the passive voice.

I have just added a post to the Egoboo blog on the topic of why a writer should engage an editor. Click your way across – and while you’re there, read some of the other recent excellent posts too, including Sarah Parker’s contribution on how to use Wordle to identify overused words in your writing.

Compliments of the season to you all!

This blog has somehow found its way into the Top Fifty Astrological Blogs as ascertained by the number of followers on Networked Blogs! This was a big surprise, because I had not thought of it as an astrology blog particularly, but as a writing and editing one. However, I guess at least some of you, dear followers, must be interested in astrology, and I know most of you are interested in writing. So let’s knock off two asteroids with one comet and have a look at how astrology can help writers.

Authors have often used astrology in their stories; it’s an important part, for instance, of Kim Falconer’s Quantum Enchantment science fantasy series. Kim, an astrologer herself, has devised an astrological system for her characters to use, and it certainly adds an interesting twist to both plot and characterisation. If you’re going to use astrology in your stories, you need to have more than a superficial knowledge of it. I was amused to read in one of my favourite historical novels set in medieval times that one of the characters had Venus and Neptune conjunct in her horoscope. Now this may well be true, but the character and her astrologer would not have been aware of the fact. Neptune was not discovered until 1846!

If you’re a writer, your own chart will undoubtedly show a bent towards verbal expression and some kind of artistic talent. Those among you who have horoscopes will know this already, and those of you who have not might enjoy a new voyage of self-discovery if you take the time to learn more about the subject. It might also show you the appropriate times to submit manuscripts to give yourself the best chance of success! Perhaps I’ll write a whole post on these topics sometime, but for today, let’s have a look at how astrology can help you develop and understand your characters.

I know some of you are cynics about astrology, and so you should be – there’s a lot of crap flying around out there on the subject. But even cynics can use this tool with useful results. There are lots of websites to help you and rather than reinvent the wheel I’ll provide links to a couple of good ones.

The Metaphysical Zone investigates various psychological and metaphysical tools for character development, including astrology, the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In regard to astrology, it suggests going into considerable depth by ascertaining your character’s date, place and time of birth and setting up a complete horoscope. This is certainly the most thorough and legitimate way to use astrology – it’s what I do, and every time, I am amazed to find that by reading the chart in depth I can learn more about that character’s deep fears and desires, which add dimensions I was not aware of and explain why the character sometimes goes off on tangents that seem contrary to the way I want the story to go!

The problem with this method is that most writers are not astrologers, and while it’s easy enough to find sites that offer free charts and even free basic readings, to get to those depths in your characters, the bits that make them truly interesting, we need an in-depth reading. Here’s where the next website comes in. Over at Suite 101 Jo Lamb-White has written a series of articles on characterisation based on the Sun sign. That’s the bit of our horoscope that we all know – I’m a Pisces; she’s a Scorpio, he’s a Leo and so on. But the Sun sign is only a tiny part of the horoscope – a very important part, but pretty meaningless on its own, which is why the predictions you read in newspapers and magazines are so often way off the mark.

But once you’ve ascertained the main features of your character’s chart (they would include the positions of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Midheaven and ruling planet) you can use Lamb-White’s articles to learn more about the characteristics of the signs involved. It won’t give you an in-depth reading, but it will help you on the way. And who knows, you might become fascinated enough to learn more – and pretty soon, if you don’t watch out, you’ll be buying astrological software, casting charts for yourself and learning how to read them.

‘But,’ I hear you ask, ‘how do I find out my character’s place, date and time of birth?’

There are two ways. Both require that you first decide the year of birth, which should be easy because you probably already know how old your character is. You probably also know the place.

Having got at least the year of birth, do one of the following:

*Ask the character! Just sit quietly and imagine the character has come to join you, and simply ask him or her for the data you need. It will probably pop into your head immediately, but if it doesn’t, thank the character anyway and accept that the information will come to you later, perhaps in a dream. It nearly always does.

*The second method, which I use more than the first (because I’m the Author and therefore the Boss) demands some knowledge of astrology. I look at what I know about the character already and hazard a guess as to possible dominant signs. (Sometimes something else leaps out at me, too, such as a possible aspect between two planets.) I follow my intuition as to which is the Sun sign. That gives me the Zodiacal month. Then I pick what I think should be the Moon sign – that will narrow it down to about three days. Then I look up those days and again just following my nose, I pick one of them to be the birthdate. Then I pick the possible rising sign to get the time to within a couple of hours. A bit of fine tuning and I can sit down and learn my character’s innermost secrets at my leisure!

But of course, it doesn’t matter how well I think I know my characters – if I can’t write them well the knowledge does me no good. Blending characters and plot is the essence of fiction writing and in that regard, I still have along way to go, despite my Air (intellectual ability, verbal reasoning) grand trine (a generally fortunate combination) of Mercury (verbal skill) Neptune (creativity, imagination) and Saturn conjunct Uranus (hard work + sudden breakthroughs and changes).

Ah well, plod on! And that’s Saturn talking.

Together with four fellow writers – Carol Ryles, Helen Venn, Joanna Fay and Sarah Parker – I have started another blog – my fourth! My first post to Egoboo is up, and it’s all about how I got started in writing.

Do check it out: http://egoboo-wa.blogspot.com/2009/12/words-words-glorious-words.html

While I’m taking a break from the WIP I though I’d revamp a longish short story I wrote a couple of years ago. It doesn’t quite work as a short story, and I’m planning on lengthening it into a novella or a novelette.

The trouble is that it is very difficult to sell works that are longer than 5,000ww but shorter than 90,000, unless they are intended for the Children’s or Young Adults’ markets. Some short story markets accept works up to 7,500ww, although many of them express a preference for shorter pieces. Stories between 7,500 and 15,000 words are especially hard to find homes for.

Occasionally, however, one does see markets advertising that they are seeking novellas or novelettes. But what is a novella? What is a novelette? How long is too long? How short is too short?

Seven and a half thousand words is the cut off point for most short story anthologies, although occasionally one sees this extended to 15,000ww. Most people today would, I think, call anything in between those two lengths a “novelette”, but really, the definitions depend on who’s writing them. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America web site defines a novel as a work of 40,000 words or more; a novella as a work of at least 17,500 words but under 40,000 words; a novelette as a work of at least 7,500 words but under 17,500 words and short story as a work of under 7,500 words. These are the definitions they use for their annual Nebula awards, undoubtedly one of the most prestigious awards in the industry, so perhaps these lengths can be considered “correct” for the speculative genres. However, a speculative fiction writer would be hard put to find a publisher willing to buy an adult work of 40,000ww. Most novels today, not counting the ubiquitous “fat fantasies” that sometimes run well over the 200,000ww mark, are between 95,000-150,000ww.

But outside the speculative genres there is great variance in opinion. Over at Google books , The Book of Literary Terms by Lewis Turco suggests that while the term novelette (or novelet) is a synonym for novella in most dictionaries, experts make a distinction between them: the novelette is a sort of romantic formula story while the novella is a serious work of fiction. This distinction is maintained elsewhere, one site declaring that novelettes are more likely to be termed “frothy”, “trite” or “sentimental”. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary online defines a novelette as “a short novel, typically a light romantic one”, while a novella is “a short novel or a long short story”, without any reference to length as a determining factor.

Writer Sandra M. Ulbrich uses the following definitions:
Vignette Less than 500 words
Short-Short 500-2000
Short Story 2,500-5,000
Novelette 5,000-14,000
Novella 15,000-40,000
Novel 40,000+
while over at Blurtit.com, Louise Gorman offers the following:
Flash fiction: 2,000 words or less, or sometimes 1,000 words or less
Short story: no less than 2,000 words, but no more than 7,500 words
Novelette: a work that is much shorter than a novel, usually around 7,500 to 17,500
Novella: a piece of work that is shorter than a novel, but longer than a novelette, usually 20,000 to 40,000 words long
Novel: a work that consists of 60,000 words or more
Epic: a work that consists of 200,000 words or more

In other words, there is no agreement on just how fiction works should be defined in terms of length, and the writer must consider the guidelines of each publisher before submitting work. But do we try to tailor works to a specific market, or simply write the story and then look for someone who wants works of that length? I think most writers would say the latter: a story can only be as long as it needs to be: extraneous “padding” will quickly bore the reader, and exposition that tells without showing in the interests of saving wordage is just as bad. Even so, some compromise is possible: I have seen 8,000ww stories cut by a thousand words or more with skilful editing.

Which leaves me where, exactly? Plugging along, trying to write an interesting tale with a very slight plot and trying to put tension into a froth and bubble story.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

After nearly a week of solid work, The Specusphere Webzine #05 is ready for you to read here! Just look at all the goodies on offer:

Editorial
The English Curriculum by Stephen Thompson
Editorial afterthought—The elephant in the room by Stephen Thompson

Features
The quintessential speculative fiction album by Stephen Thompson
3 questions for The Specusphere by Stephen Thompson
Cyborg by Brendan David Carson
The Serendipity of Publishing by Astrid Cooper

Up and Coming
New Books from Gollancz for November-December 2008
New Releases from Orbit

People
Jaine Fenn in conversation with Maurie Breust
Juliet Marillier revisits Sevenwaters by Satima Flavell

Book Reviews
HEIR TO SEVENWATERS by Juliet Marillier reviewed by Carol Neist
AWAKENING by Lara Morgan reviewed by Carol Neist
THE BEAST WITHIN edited by Matt Hults reviewed by Maurie Breust, Brendan Carson, Felicity Dowker, Ross Murray and Simon Petrie
INFECTED by Scott Sigler reviewed by Felicity Dowker
THE NINTH CIRCLE by Alex Bell reviewed by Ross Murray
PRINCIPLES OF ANGELS by Jaine Fenn reviewed by Maurie Breust
THE BRIDE OF TIME by Dawn Thompson reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey
THE LAST THEOREM by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl reviewed by Ross Murray
NIGHT SHIFT by Lilith Saintcrow reviewed by Ross Murray
FLOOD by Stephen Baxter reviwed by Maurie Breust
ALL-STAR SUPERMAN Volume One (Comic) by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely reviewed by Brendan Carson
GHOST WALK by Brian Keene reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey
BEFORE I WAKE by Kathryn Smith reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey
A DISTANT MAGIC by Mary Jo Putney reviewed by Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Fiction
Nigel’s Evening by David Schembri
Call Waiting by Bill Youatt-Pine
The forever-green by Ashley Hibbert

I would especially like to thank my lovely team of reviewers – they’ve really excelled themselves this time! And as usual, special thanks to webmistress Amanda Greenslade for all her hard work.

Time, I think, to set the WIP aside for a few weeks. It’s all down except the two sex scenes, which have got to be so special I really don’t want to tackle them without adequate thought and preparation. You can see that I’m already over my projected first draft target, and I suspect that the book will eventually come in at about 130-odd thousand words. In the meantime, I’ll start outlining book two.

But not just yet! This next couple of weeks are going to be busy. I have loads of critting to catch up on, including half a Fat Fantasy I’m beta reading (more on that another time: for now, just be assured it’s a great read!) and there’s a Specusphere deadline looming on the first of November, which means there are books to review and reviews to edit. What’s more, it’s tax time, so there’s a busy fortnight ahead of me.

Having finished my Freddie-minding for now (although I hope to do more of it next year) I’m back with my son in Mount Lawley for this week. Next weekend I shall move to Subiaco to house sit for friends who are off to India for a month. I’ll probably be doing quite a bit of socialising over the next few weeks as I won’t see my Perth friends again for several months after I head back to Mount Gambier on 23 November.

I’ll be taking some super memories back, though. Today I was at the Wastelands Convention, which was organised by fannish friends John Parker and Sarah Parker. Helen Venn and I were on a panel with John and Sarah about running a small convention. We all agreed that it’s hard work but very, very rewarding. Carol Ryles, a very talented lady who plays a mean game of Scrabble, read a paper on Steampunk (the theme of the con) which she is researching for her PhD thesis. Sadly, I couldn’t get there yesterday but I’m told Carol was right on form.

I’m really pleased to see that there are at least two genre writers, including Juliet Marillier and Anthony Eaton , short-listed for this year’s Western Australia’s Premier’s Award for Literature. I’d like to think that attitudes towards genre writing are slowly changing as people realise that genre and excellence in writing can often be found within the same covers. Certainly this is true of Juliet Marillier’s Cybele’s Secret, a historical fantasy full of intrigue and mystery that appeals to real grown up readers, not just its target audience of Young Adults. I haven’t yet read Anthony Eaton’s offering, but I do plan on rectifying that asap.

There is little doubt that we are spoilt for talent here in the West. I feel privileged to know so many gifted and enthusiastic people.

Sunday’s mini-con went off without a hitch, thank heavens. Panellists, readers, and audience all seemed to have a good time, and many compliments have come in, some asking when the next one will be! This was the second mini-con the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre’s Speculative Fiction Group has held, and although neither one has been hard to organise, the many little jobs that have to be done – mainly in the realms of telephone and email – do take time. I spent at least two days last week doing little but fire off emails, answer the replies, pass information on to others, going back and forth with Qs and As. I know my co-convenor Helen Venn was also rushed off her feet during what was a busy enough period for her without the mini-con!

Readings from Adrian Bedford, Juliet Marillier, and Laney Cairo were especially well received and there is little doubt that the favourite panels were “How to Handle Rejections”, with Adrian Bedford, Russell Farr, Simon Haynes and Bevan McGuiness and “How to get out of the Slushpile”, with Lyn Battersby, Janet Blagg, Stephen Dedman, Alisa Krasnostein and Tehani Wessely.

Helen and I were more than ably assisted by a wonderful team including Annette Backshall, Toby Coulstock, Dorathy Duperouzel, James and Margaret Hansen, Sonia Helbig, Karen Laneaux, Yvonne Lewis, Joanne Mills and Carol Ryles. Lots of others, some of them unknown to me, pitched in and helped on the day, too, helping to create a really worthwhile event. Hugs and thanks to you all!

Lee Battersby, among others, got some great pics. Check ‘em out and see what a great day we had!

Update: More pics, these being from Toby Coulstock, can be seen here!

One of the best trilogies I’ve read in a long time is Jo Abercrombie’s very first effort, entitled The First Law. I am so impressed with this man’s writing I just can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. Add to this the fact that the guy is drop-dead gorgeous and you quickly realise he has a Future with a capital Fu. Juliet Marillier has done an indepth interview with him at Writer Unboxed, and you can read part one here. Part two will go up this Friday and part three the Friday after that, to coincide with the US release of the trilogy’s finale, Last Argument of Kings. I hope Mr Abercrombie reveals the secret of his magic, because I want to write like him!

As well as interviewing the wonderful Joe Abercrombie and doing guest spots at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre here in Perth (see under the KSP Mini-con entry below for one of them, coming up this Sunday) Juliet Marillier is busy with books of her own. Soon to be released is another in her famous Sevenwaters series, the first in several years. It’s called Heir to Sevenwaters and having had the privilege of beta reading it, I can tell you in advance that it’s brilliant. It’s a beautiful love story centred around an epic journey and involving one of the most unusual characters you’re ever likely to meet: a very special baby. And late next year will see another Marillier treasure in print, an atmospheric gothic-style romance called Heart’s Blood.

In between those two we’ll have another book or two from Karen Miller, and about the same time as Juliet Marillier’s Heart’s Blood is released we’ll finally get to read book one of Glenda Larke’s Random Rain trilogy, which is going to be published by HarperCollins Voyager Australia. This one will be out in September 2009, with the other two books scheduled to follow in 2010. I’ve been dying to read this series ever since Glenda read a bit of a very early draft at Swancon 2004! Good things, it seems, eventually come to those who wait for publishers to stop dithering and start publishing.

I’ve always wanted to read Glenda Larke’s ill-fated first novel, Havenstar. You’ve probably read the story of how it was one of the novels chosen to launch Virgin Publishing, only to die a premature death when the company folded after only a few months. Copies are as rare as chooks’ teeth, changing hands on Amazon for three figure sums! However, my good e-buddy Hrugaar has tracked down an ex-library copy and sent it to me all the way from the UK! And not only Havenstar: Ru was also able to send me another out-of-print book I’ve been wanting; Marcus Herniman’s The Seige of Arrandin, book one of his Arrandin Trilogy. I have started to read both of these gems and will really get stuck into them once the mini-con is over.

Even though I’ve been flat out with preps for the mini-con, the Specusphere deadline and the five spoilt chookies these three weeks past, I have actually been writing regularly. When I was last in Adelaide, my friend Annalou Larsen lent me a book called From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler. Butler is an academic but also a fine writer, and he has devised a system to help writers contact the unconscious depths where the creative energy lurks. He recommends writing first thing in the morning, before breakfast. And guess what – it works! I’ve been getting up at 6.30am, making myself a drink of hot water with grated ginger and lemon juice and then sitting down to write until 8.30 or 9.00am. The progress I’ve made in three weeks of this regime is amazing. Barely awake, and not taking my usual two cups of coffee, I find that I’m still partly in the dream space, where Butler says you have to be in order to write successfully. It works for me. You might like to give at a go as well if you have trouble getting the flow going.

I think I’ve caught up on all my blogging news now. Next time, I’ll have a report on the mini-con. Help me pray for a fine day on Sunday, will you?

Another reason I’ve been so utterly flat out of late is my involvement in preparations for the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre Mini-con. It’s been hectic, but we’re nearly there now. Here’s a run down of the goodies you’ll find – or miss, if you don’t live in Perth!

10.00 am: “How to Handle Rejections”
Panellists: Adrian Bedford, Russell Farr, Simon Haynes and Bevan McGuiness
followed by readings from Sonia Helbig and Helen Venn

11.00 am: “Clarions; gains and losses”:
Panellists: Lee Battersby, Lyn Battersby, Carol Ryles, Helen Venn and Jessica Vivien
followed by readings from Jo Mills and Elaine Kemp

12.00 noon: “What’s Hot and What’s Not – trends in Speculative Fiction”:
Panellists: Elaine Kemp, Alisa Krasnostein, Ian Nichols and Grant Stone
followed by readings from Juliet Marillier and Ian Nichols

1.00 pm: “Lies, Damned Lies and Research”:
Panellists: Dave Luckett, Hal Colebatch, Satima Flavell and Juliet Marillier
followed by readings from Hal Colebatch and Dave Luckett

2.00 pm: “Hooks and Sinkers – writing a killer first line”
Panellists: Adrian Bedford, Stephen Dedman, Russell Farr and Bevan McGuiness
followed by readings from Adrian Bedford and Stephen Dedman

3.00 pm: “Steampunk”
Panellists: Toby Coulstock; John Parker; Carol Ryles and Grant Stone
followed by readings from Deb Ratcliffe and Carol Ryles

4.00 pm:”How to get out of the Slushpile”:
Panellists: Lyn Battersby, Janet Blagg, Stephen Dedman; Alisa Krasnostein; Tehani Wessely
followed by Q&A and wind-up.

I’m proud and happy to be involved an event with so many of my friends, mentors and favourite writers. It should be a wonderful day. Do come if you can!