Pursuit of a Decent Title: Missteps and Fails!

Normally I write an extended post that kind of explains the video so that you can get most of the value out of reading it.

This time, I'm just going to say that my incredulous reading of some of my ideas as I worked on a title for Pursuit of the Heliotrope is something mere writing would be unlikely to capture.

After I finished the book, I spent about two days fumbling over a title (despite all the thinking I had done while writing) and some of the goofy things I came up with are worth hearing about.

You can check out the book here, if you'd like:

on Amazon: https://a.co/d/csZVOO0

or elsewhere: https://books2read.com/u/bWaQQM

Made in the Edits: Lessons from My First Novel, part 3

Sometimes you actually have to finish something before you really understand the process. My first novel was a great example of this principle.

Some background: I wrote what I thought was a detailed outline and character description before I started on the first draft of Pursuit of the Heliotrope. I finished the first draft, and it just barely reached 50,000 words. And, to be honest, by the time I was working on the last third of the book, I was feeling pretty tired of it and definitely wasn't doing my best at that point. And I wasn't even really crunching to finish it! I just found it hard to maintain interest in writing the same thing for such a long period.

Lessons from my First Novel 1: Five Planks for Character-Building

One of the things that bugs me about modern science fiction is the characters... Despite often being parts of supposedly military organizations, they pull rank at the slightest provocation. Their leaders give bad orders, and their subordinates disobey reasonable ones. The Peter Principle is everywhere on display.

We see characters who can do anything and everything well, who always succeed and have no sense of their own fallibility. Headstrongness has become almost a kind of plot armor.

We see characters who turn minor disagreements into massive splinters and nursed grudges. They rarely discuss their differences and come to some kind of middle ground, not even an agreement to disagree in too many cases.

We also see fiction where the PoV character almost always knows best.

We see never-before-observed phenomena and problems solved in five minutes with the science-fiction equivalent of chewing gum and gravel.

A part of my desire is to push against this trend, and while I was creating my debut novel, Pursuit of the Heliotrope, I came up with five planks to help create characters that are balanced--capable but flawed.

The five planks are:

1. Professionalism. Characters argue but attempt to reach consensus.
   For instance, in one of the discussions, Lew comes up with an idea that makes Orland Co. look a little bad, but the company rep looks at his arguments in good faith and attempts to provide additional info to help mitigate any situations that might arise if Lew is right.
   My characters maintain professional language and tone.
   For instance, the Orland company rep is not demanding or haughty. Iggy and Wyatt have a very professional back-and-forth as Iggy searches for traps on a ship. Criticisms are done in private, when necessary and possible.
   Ranks are respected but not worshipped.
   For instance, Aric makes a point to treat his hired contractors well, at his own expense. There are occasional direct orders given, but when they happen, they are usually for the clear benefit of the subordinate. Wyatt recognizes that he's getting older, and remembers the value of youthful agility.
   
   
2. Respectability. Subordinates respect superiors and superiors respect subordinates.
   For instance, Aric recognizes Lew's expertise on repairs, and puts significant trust into his evaluations. Iggy says to Aric that he "learned from the best," but he's careful to say this so that Wyatt and Max can't hear him.
   Superiors know the strengths and weaknesses of their subordinates and give them appropriate tasks.
   For instance, Wyatt assigns two solid engineers to help Lew work on the Heliotrope. Wyatt even knows that one of his people, Wil, is a good cook--even though that has nothing to do with Wil's official duties.
   Subordinates look up to their superiors, for good reason, and understand that they can learn from them.
   For instance, Wyatt's part-time engineers both look up to Lew as they see his expertise is the real deal.
   Disagreements happen but they are usually resolved calmly; criticisms are not seen as or used for personal attacks.
   For instance, at one point Wyatt neglects to mention a possible tactic, but for good reason, which a short conversation and some reasonable questions shows.
   
   
3. Specialization. Each character has strong and weak points.
   For instance, the different crew members are assigned to the tasks that they're best at. Lew is good at haggling for parts, but not for other goods, and he knows it.
   Characters aim at tasks that match their skills.
   For instance, the same people work with Lew multiple times on engineering tasks.
   Superiors point their subordinates in the directions that match their skills, and also the superiors recognize those skills.
   For instance, Wyatt's assignments to the Kingfisher for a particular maneuver.
   
   
4. Competence. People in certain positions are generally there for a reason.
   Everyone recognizes Wyatt's expertise in security work. Aric handles high-level planning way better than Lew or Bill. The captains of each ship command the respect of their crew because they are seen as competent, but not overcompetent.
   Problems are solved, but it takes time and materials. There are several briefings and planning sessions. Resources are finite and have limited flexibility. Sometimes things are jerry-rigged and sometimes there's a plan to get what they need. There is significant down-time when time-intensive tasks need to be completed.
   Simple ideas are thought up by multiple specialized characters. Bill and Max have a common idea at one point, and so do Aric and Lew.
   
   
5. Fallibility. This is the negative plank that ties everything together.
   Even characters with strong specializations can and do fail. There are a few examples of this in the book.
   Characters also recognize the possibility of failure and try to plan for contingencies. They check the final quality of their work, too.
   For instance, when Lew is fixing some thrusters, he not only takes time and materials and manpower to finish the repairs, but he talks about the tests he performed to ensure that the repairs are holding.
   

These are the five planks that I tried to incorporate into my character designs and interactions in order to get away from the tropes I mentioned at the beginning of this post. While these aren't a perfect silver bullet, I think they helped to make my story more fun and more believable, and give my characters more depth and reasonable interactions.

If you agree, you might want to give Pursuit of the Heliotrope a try.

You can grab a copy at Amazon.

Or at a variety of other eBook retailers.

Thus concludes Part 1 of the lessons I learned from writing my first novel. There will be more parts coming soon!

Writing Tip: Avoiding Late-Draft Tunnel Vision

Redrafting is obviously a big deal. You can add and polish enough in the later stages that you can turn a relatively weak story into something really great.

This video is from a few months ago when I was in the later stages of editing my novel, Pursuit of the Heliotrope. I found a couple of significant mistakes and managed to improve the flow of those chapters quite a bit.

Reading: More Money than Brains

Just me reading one of my short stories. This one is More Money than Brains, a story about Aric, Bill, and Lew on a little job with a real jerk of an employer. I tried to be funny but ended up being mostly sarcastic. Still, I think the story has a few good moments.

Tutorial: Making a Paperback on Amazon!

This might be helpful to other writers! I do a video tutorial, producing a paperback version of my first novella!

Finally Making my First Novella Presentable!

Honestly, I resisted doing this for a long time, but I figured that, as I was finishing up the first full-length novel in the series, that it made sense to finally get a real cover for my first novella, The Hyacinth Rescue.

Thinking About Brandon Sanderson's "Five Tips for Writing Your First Novel"

Well, I already kinda finished my first novel before I found this video, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to go back in retrospect and see how many of Sanderson's tips I found on my own, and what I thought of his tips in general.

(By the way, you can see his original video here.)

Book Trailer: Missed Contact

I created a short, 60-second trailer for my book, Missed Contact. A little bit more involved than the short teasers I made for some of my short stories, this one uses several pictures and a little bit more thought, since it's not an excerpt from the book, but a "three act" (that's what the Internet told me I should write :/ ) script about the setting, characters, and plot.

For those of you who have been kind enough to visit my blog, I'll note that even though the video says to go check it out on Amazon, it's also available at a variety of other e-book retailers, too.

I'd love to get some more feedback about this book. I really enjoy the mixture of mystery and science fiction that I created for this one. It's a quick, fun read that should be perfect for one night of reading.

Subscribe to my email newsletter:

Breakthrough!

Daft Punk Harder GIFfrom Daft Punk GIFs

Yesterday, I finally thought up an answer to a question I've been asking myself about my novel-in-progress for a while!

I finished my fourth draft a couple of weeks ago and wanted to give myself a little time and separation to give the book a fresher look next time I go back to it. (Plus, I was traveling last week and didn't get to do much thinking about writing)

More Money than Brains

 

Cover image adapted from a photo by Usman Haider, via Unsplash

“Lew, can you keep an eye on the reactor temperature while I ramp the voltage on these capacitors?” I had my hand on the knob and was looking into a mess of conduits and tubes that were untidily jammed into a service tunnel. Down at the bottom, through the mess, I could just see the capacitors and their connections. We would need to get them charged and the heat damage inside the service tunnel had me worried that the insulation might be torched.

It was several seconds before I heard Lew say, “Okay, Aric.” He must have nodded, and then noticed I wasn’t looking at him.

“Here we go,” I said, and turned the knob slowly clockwise, a few degrees at a time.

“It should be fine,” came a gruff voice from behind me. I sighed—quietly. We should have left him in cryo. “You can go faster than that,” he barked.

“Mr. Waller—”

“Captain Waller.”

I hoped he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. In all my years as a salvager, he was the third person to insist on that title, and the way he acted, he hadn’t affected my prejudices any. Short version: He was an ass.

Thoughts About Messaging in Fiction

Morse Code GIFfrom Morse GIFs

Writing about the origins of The Derelict Project last week got me thinking about preachy fiction, and how messages work and don't work when laid out in fiction.

What is The Derelict Project?

Image by Karsten Winegeart, via Unsplash

As my first novel nears completion, I thought it would be fun to talk a little about what I call "The Derelict Project" and what I like about it.

Back when I was in the darkest days of grad school, I was spending 8-10 hours a day flailing hopelessly at a broken experiment and wasn't sure whether I was going to end up with anything after seven years in grad school.

In those dark days, I wanted something positive, maybe even hopeful, to spend a little of my time on. Something that I had always wanted to try, but never really put any time into: writing fiction. Specifically, science fiction, and, even more specifically, science fiction about people in a future, when spaceflight becomes common, dealing with search, rescue, and exploration of craft that had lost their way for one reason or another.

Editing my first novel...

Just a little bit of me editing like a goober.

 

Well, phew. About a week ago I finished the rough draft of what (I think) will be the last chapter of my first novel.

I'm writing a longer story about the Misevelin Salvage crew, an adventure where they are trying to get to the bottom of a very strange event that has everyone worried: the appearance of an empty lifeboat near the orbit of Markledge (the planet where Aric & co. are based).

Jade Cargo (about 2800 words)

"The Infestation" prompt image from Iron Age Media

“Unidentified skiff, please respond.” It was the fourth time I had hailed them. I waited a few more seconds, and then I keyed my communicator off. It looked like the ship was dead, and my patrol just got a lot more interesting. I set my autopilot to approach for docking, and I walked over to the suit compartment near the airlock. I slipped out of my magnetic shoes and put on the pressure suit instead. The helmet went on with a turn and a crunchy click. I still needed to get those damn seals changed. With a flick of my fingers, the suit started its self-tests, and I stood still as the whole suit over-pressurized a little to test for leaks. It was hard to move when it was like this, anyway.

A Fun Time Writing Bad Guys

 One of the quirks of my fiction so far is that I've deliberately avoided writing villains.  For one, I'm trying to world-build a place where aggression and banditry of all sorts are rare.  For two, I find situations of man vs. nature or man vs. himself much more interesting, personally.  I love writing about intelligent people faced with a difficult problem figuring out how to overcome and succeed, and I felt like those sorts of situations were better ways to introduce and develop characters, rather than having some obvious evil for them to rail against.

Six Chapters In...

 Just a little progress report, but I figured what the heck.  That full-length Misevelin Salvage adventure I'm working on, I've got drafts of the first six chapters, coming out at about 17000 words so far.  I'm probably only about a quarter of the way through, maybe a little less.

I just finished writing detailed outlines of the next two chapters, so those are on the way in the next few days.

Hard Enough?

So, if you've read my first short story, I have a question for you:  do you think it's hard enough to qualify as hard sci-fi?  I'm curious about what people think.  Drop me a comment or an email if you have an opinion.

The Hyacinth Rescue is up!

Well, I finished my first story, "The Hyacinth Rescue."  It's currently available on Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/324908

I'm using their innovative "reader decides price" feature. You can get it for free, or you can pay whatever you like!

Here's my idea: go ahead and pick up a free copy. Don't mind the hand-drawn cover, it's all I could afford when I wrote it.

Then, once you've read it, if you think it's worth something, pick up another copy at whatever price you want and send that one to a friend!

If you'd like, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!

Project Derelict First Sample

So, a brief post on the subject of what I'm writing.

I've had a vision for a long time of writing somewhat-believable science fiction, specifically about a distant future in which space travel becomes largely mundane, yet still remains dangerous.  Small and large groups of people travel routinely over many light years, jumping from planet to planet, some inhabited, some newly inhabited, and some uninhabited.

But I'm planning on focusing on the few that don't make it.  Rather, those who find themselves in that danger, and those who risk their lives to rescue them.  But, of course, the Salvagers, as they're called, come from many different backgrounds--everything from government agents to de facto pirates.

I'm currently working on a short story (it looks like it's going to end up somewhere in the vicinity of 25 pages of 8.5x11 paper, as I see in my word processor) which I will eventually post on Smashwords.

Here's a sample from my first draft:

I was a bit surprised when, around four in the afternoon, a sharp two knocks rang out on the front door of the office. Not that I jumped or anything, but I did stop flipping through files and, after a moment's thought, rolled my eyes. Unexpected visitors usually meant scams or particularly rough jobs. Maybe if I wait a minute, they'll go away.

No luck. Three more knocks, about the same as the first two. So I put down the files and went to answer the door.

Great. A kid. He couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen. Blond-haired and trim, but with a more refined look than you usually see on kids his age. Hair parted off on the right, and wearing a shirt and slacks that seemed to look like what “business casual” looks like to people who have no business using the word “casual.” He had an oval face, and a small nose, and looked up at me as I opened the door. Light green eyes. If he was a scammer, he was an elaborate one.

I decided to try to discourage him a bit.

“Yeah?” I tried to make it sound as curt as possible. I think it wasn't what he was expecting, because he seemed to flinch as I said it.

“My name is Colton Trauvent. You are Mr. Misevelin?”

I paused for a moment and admitted it. “Yeah. Aric Misevelin, of Misevelin Salvage.”

“May I come in? I have a job for you.”

Well, damn. I guess I wasn't going to scare him off. And I had a vague feeling as though I had heard his name before. “Sure. Come in and have a seat.”

He followed me over to my desk, an old oak relic that I picked up for a song at a garage sale. I stepped behind and sat as he dusted off the red leather number I keep for clients. Not that it needed dusting, but it looked like some kind of habit to me.

“You said your name is Colton Trauvent? What's this job?”

He had a very textbook-proper way of sitting, slightly forward with his fists resting just behind his knees. But it didn't seem natural, more like how someone trying to look polite overcompensates. Not a good sign.

“My father's ship... we... I...” he stopped, gulping visibly. “We lost contact with them, suddenly, a few hours ago. We've been unable to reach them, and I want you to go find them before something happens.”

“You were in constant communication?”

“No, but they were cut off in the middle of a message, and it sounded like something happened, right at the end. I'm not going to waste any time.”

Probably a quarter of the really desperate-sounding people that visit me leave unhappy. Not that I don't care, but I've seen enough scams and hopeless missions to know them. So it wasn't looking good for young Colton, who had already made me suspicious enough that I was going to need some pretty good proof that he was who he said and had a real job for me.

I decided to break it to him. “Look. I get a lot of people coming to me, wanting swift and decisive action, and they're usually disappointed. I'm not like a lot of salvagers, and I'm not going to run out to the middle of nowhere on a desperate plea from a stranger.”

“I know you're not. You're probably the most experienced private salvager in this system.”

Great. A wheedler.

 I'll post again when I have it done.  Thanks for reading.