What’s wrong with the SFWA

Many of you may be aware of the recent kerfuffle in the SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) re: gender issues. If you’re not familiar, here’s an article that will give you the gist:

Old Men Yelling at Clouds: SFWA Sexism

I am an SFWA member, and until this blew up on the internet, I was blissfully unaware of the issue. Why? Because I’ve been tossing my SFWA Bulletins into a pile, unread. The organization simply isn’t very relevant. It’s the most regressive and behind-the-times of all the writing organizations. I am also a member of the RWA, so I’m in a position to compare the two organizations. The RWA is superior in every way. Not just a little bit, but by orders of magnitude.

When I compare what each organization has done for my writing career, here’s what I come up with:

SFWA: Nothing

RWA: I owe them pretty much my whole career.

The problem is that the SFWA doesn’t admit unpublished writers. Strange as it may seem, unpublished writers are the lifeblood of the RWA. Why? Because published writers don’t have the spare time needed to run the organization. They have tight deadlines and often are working an additional job or raising kids. The RWA and its individual chapters are run almost entirely by unpublished or lightly published writers. These are the people who organize meetings, put on conferences, run the contests, and set up the classes.

The RWA offers a free online class every month. I take all of them. This month we’re learning about computer-based tools for writing (e.g. backup systems, Scrivener, tools for temporarily shutting off your internet so you’re not distracted). Last month we learned how to develop a marketing plan. In previous months, we covered craft topics like internal conflict and dialogue. The SFWA has never offered me an online class, free or otherwise. They offer no local workshops or lectures, whereas my local RWA chapter has brought in speakers such as representatives from Amazon and intellectual property lawyers. And the SFWA has no equivalent to the highly prestigious Golden Heart contest for unpublished novelists. SFF has the WOTF contest for short story writers (which is not affiliated with the SFWA), but nothing for novelists. It’s no wonder SFF isn’t doing so well as a genre when new writers have so few ways of getting their work in front of agents and editors.

Another problem with the SFWA not admitting unpublished writers is that since publishers are offering fewer and fewer contracts to new SFF writers, the organization skews old. Many of the young new writers are self-published, or still querying, and are either way ineligible to join. Thus you end up with problems like this mess with the Bulletin. The more the organization excludes the new voices of the genre, the less representative of the genre it becomes, and the less relevant.

The SFWA is behind technologically. They still communicate via forums, when everybody else has switched to email loops. I would like to follow SFWA discussions, but I don’t have time to pore over forums, looking for the new posts. We’re past the Usenet days, but the SFWA seems to be still stuck there. The RWA is in my email inbox every day, informing me of industry happenings as they occur. The SFWA sends me an email maybe once every few months, usually to inform me of some business meeting happening thousands of miles away.

The sexism kerfuffle in the Bulletin is a symptom of a larger problem, namely that the SFWA has made itself too exclusive by denying membership to unpublished and self-published SFF authors. By freezing out so many voices, especially the younger voices, the SFWA is making itself irrelevant. That doesn’t just hurt the SFWA; it hurts the whole genre.

The last ten percent

One of my sons is a fairly serious piano player. Not serious as in “going to be a concert pianist someday” but as in “takes lessons from a high level instructor, practices daily, and doesn’t suck.” From observing his experience, and also observing other piano students from the same studio who are more serious (as in “might be a concert pianist someday”), I have come to understand something about music: the last 10% is 90% of the effort.

A piano player can learn a piece and master it to a 90% degree fairly quickly. But to get that last 10%–to reach that point where your performance isn’t good but great, where you can play with happy confidence and thus inspire confidence in the listener, where you play with expression and emotion–that takes months. The first 90% comes quickly. The last 10% takes far longer.

It is that last 10% that separates that great players from the merely good ones, because by the time you get to that last 10%, working on the piece is not exciting anymore. You’re starting to get tired of the piece. Your progress is slower and harder won. You figure, I pretty much know this piece; it sounds pretty good. Why spend months making it a tiny bit better when I could learn something new instead?

The great players will spend those months.

It is the same with writing. Getting a novel to 90% can happen fairly quickly, if you work consistently and are reasonably skilled at novel writing. But that last 10% is so, so hard. That last ten percent isn’t writing the ending–finishing the book was part of the first 90%. The last ten percent is deep-structure revision. It’s not wordsmithing; it’s not line editing. It’s taking a step back from the book and honestly evaluating it. It’s cataloging all its flaws–and for most of us, there will be many–then figuring out how to fix those flaws, and in most cases it will be major surgery.

It won’t be adding a little description to this scene, or making this other scene’s dialogue pop a little more. It will be chopping out entire scenes that you love, because they detract from the overall arc. It will be moving scenes from one place to another, changing the tone of conversations, maybe even changing the personality of your hero or heroine such that nearly every gesture, nearly every line of dialogue in the entire novel needs to be changed. It will be rewriting scenes from scratch and adding completely new ones so that the stakes are higher, the tension more palpable, the theme more consistent.

The hardest thing about this last 10% is that by the time you get to this point, you will be sick to death of the novel. You’ve already written “The End”–probably quite a while ago. You’ve wordsmithed and polished, gone over everything countless times. The last thing you want to do is rip the thing to pieces and put it back together again–especially when you have all these great ideas for other novels.

Still, I find that what makes a writer successful is that willingness to finish the last ten percent and make a good novel into a great one.

History for the fantasy buff: Roman fossil collecting

Remember the Calydonian Boar, the oversized boar of Greek mythology? The ancient Greeks possessed a pair of tusks which they claimed had belonged to the Calydonian Boar, and they kept them at the Temple of Athena in Tegea. These were said to be of enormous size for boars’ tusks. Most likely they were in reality the fossilized remains of a prehistoric elephant found in the Pleistocene beds near Tegea.

Later, Augustus, the future emperor of Rome, stole the tusks from the Temple of Athena and ultimately placed them in the Sanctuary of Dionysus in the Emperor’s Gardens in Rome.

As emperor, Augustus had an interest in “giants’ bones” and created the world’s first paleontological museum on the island of Capri. There he kept a collection of “the huge limb bones of immense monsters of land and sea popularly known as giants’ bones, along with the weapons of ancient heroes” (Suetonius). It appears the Romans had advanced the understanding of these bones beyond the ancient Greeks’ understanding, in that they recognize them as being the bones of animals and not humans.

Interestingly, it is during Roman times that con men began to create hoaxes. By mixing the bones of a human with the bones of a horse, one could create a “centaur” skeleton and then charge people admission to see it. Pliny wrote about one such exhibit that drew crowds in A.D. 47. In A.D. 180, Lucian wrote an expose of a fake human-headed serpent that a charlatan created and exhibited throughout the Roman Empire.

Both the Greeks and the Romans struggled with the idea of whether to take their mythology literally. Many naturalists in ancient Greece and Rome insisted that a creature such as a centaur was physically impossible; it could never have existed. But many people did believe in them, and that opened the door for hoaxers to make money by supplying fake “evidence” that centaurs had once walked the earth.

History for the fantasy buff: Giants’ bones in Ancient Greece

A while back, I recommended a book by Adrienne Mayor called Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs, about unconventional tactics of war in the ancient world. I’ve recently discovered another of her books, The First Fossil Hunters, about how ancient peoples’ discoveries of prehistoric fossils may have influenced their stories and mythological beliefs. I strongly recommend this book. This is a new scientific concept, and it’s profound. I always assumed that Greek (and other) myths were simply made-up stories. But what if these stories were invented at least in part to explain their discoveries of huge fossils?

From Solinus, writing in 200 A.D.:

“As for the hugeness of men in olden times, the relics of Orestes are proof. His bones were found at Tegea by the Spartans on the information from the Oracle and we are assured that they were 7 cubits long.” During the Roman war against the pirates in Crete, “rivers flooded outrageously and broke up the ground. After the water receded, among the many clefts in the ground was found a skeleton of 33 cubits.” … “At Phlegra, before there were any men there, the story goes that a battle was fought between the gods and the giants….Great proofs and tokens of that war have and continue to appear to this day. Whenever the streams rise with rainstorms, the waters overflow their banks and flood the fields, they say that through the action of the water are discovered bones like men’s carcasses but far bigger. Due to the immeasurable hugeness of the bones they are reported to have been the monstrous bodies of the army of giants.”

The Greeks believed that in the time before theirs, the world was populated with giants (also called heroes), who were like men, although sometimes monstrous in appearance, and much bigger and stronger. They were convinced of this because they found bones of monstrous size which they took to be human. In fact, these were the bones of long-extinct Ice Age animals such as mammoths and mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses (not dinosaurs because there are no dinosaur fossils in Greece). Because Greece is a tectonically active region, they tended to find single bones or just fragments, rarely a complete skeleton. Often they would have just a single enormous femur or shoulder blade.

In around 560 B.C., the Spartans found what they believed to be the bones of Orestes. They buried them in their city, believing that having the bones interred within their city would give them the military prowess to defeat their rivals.

Athens, not wanting to left out, went searching for heroes’ bones of their own. They recovered some giant bones from the island of Sykros, which they believed were the hero Theseus, and interred them within their own city.

This set off the ancient bone rush, in which every Greek city sought to acquire its own set of heroes’ bones and bury them with honor in their city.

What were they actually burying? Probably the fossilized skeletons of enormous Ice Age mammals.

 

Author interview: Laura Lee Nutt

I met Laura Lee Nutt through our mutual critique partner, Jessi Gage. Laura writes painstakingly researched historical fantasy romance. Her debut novel RED AND THE WOLF, recently published by Lyrical, features a fractured fairy tale version of Little Red Riding Hood involving werewolves. I invited Laura to visit my blog for an interview about her writing. Please welcome her.

Amy, thanks so much for having me. I’ve been a big fan of your blog for some time now, and it’s an honor to be on it.

Q: Tell us a little about RED AND THE WOLF.

RED AND THE WOLF is a fantasy romance about what might have happened had Little Red Riding Hood not really lived happily every after. What if she responded more realistically to the events of her childhood? What if, rather than bouncing immediately back from the wolf attack, she instead struggled with severe phobias? How might she find a true happy ending then?

This tale begins when Blanchette, Little Red Riding Hood, is grown and her grandmother, the one stable point of her life, falls dangerously ill. Pair this with a string of murders by what looks like a werewolf, and a man come to town to destroy all dangerous elements of fairy tales, and she can no longer hide from the world. Fortunately for Blanchette, Heinrich, her huntsman rescuer, will stop at nothing to help her if only, just once, she can truly trust him. To save his life and her own, she must face and conquer her fears and, perhaps along the way, find true happiness after all.

Q: What inspired you to write this story?

I consumed fairy tales like candy as a child. Even as an adult, I still have several collections from Irish folklore to Grimm’s and Andersen. They hold a special place amidst my book treasure. However, once grown, I always wondered what happened after the “The End” or “They lived happily ever after.” I constructed possible story lines in my mind to fill gaps in the tales.

As to what exactly truly inspired me to choose Little Red Riding Hood when I did, I cannot honestly recall, but it was certainly something that naturally came from years of reading and fantasizing about those old tales. Pairing Red with a werewolf was a natural fit for paranormal romance. In fact, in some of the old stories, the wolf is described as a werewolf.

Q: What sort of research did you do for RED AND THE WOLF?

I love research and learning new things when I write stories. For RED AND THE WOLF, I began by researching different versions of the fairy tale so I could combine elements into a version that suited the story I had in mind.

I also did a lot of research into wolves, especially courtship and mating behavior. In RED AND THE WOLF, there are scenes from human and wolf perspective, and I wanted to give those wolf scenes as realistic a slant as I could.

Additionally, I needed another villain, so I combed through monsters found in German folklore and came upon the nix, a sort of freshwater merman. He and Heinrich the huntsman-werewolf have a rivalry that spills over into a string of murders in RED AND THE WOLF. He was a fun villain to write.

Q: Which character did you enjoy writing the most, and why?

My favorite character to write was Herr Karl Kaismann. He so endeared himself to me because he was entirely my own invention. He is an imperial agent of the Holy Roman Empire who comes to the village in search of dangerous elements that inspired fairy tales. His commission demands that he destroy them, even if they are good, honorable protectors of the people. He is a tragic character torn between doing what is right and following orders, between good and evil, and because he falls hard and fast for Blanchette, aching to shelter her from all that frightens and threatens her, which is just about everything. I love writing complex, tormented characters.

Q: What kind of writer are you? Plotter or pantser? What does your typical writing day look like?

I’m on the pantser end, but I have some plotter in me. My writing day usually involves sitting down with the laptop once the kids are off to school and diving into whatever I have to work on for the week. Each week, I have goals that often cover two or, occasionally, three projects. However, I far prefer the creative energy of first drafts to editing, so I usually always have to resist the temptation to wander when I need to focus on edits. Once the kids are in bed, if my husband has things he is working on, I head back to the laptop for more work. I am one who writes pretty much every day and believes that hard work is one of the biggest requirements for success.

Q: What genres do you prefer to read? Any types of books you think authors should write more of?

I love anything with fantasy elements: plain and simple fantasy, some science fiction, paranormal romance, urban fantasy. I do also enjoy plain romance too, particularly historical.

One sub-genre I explore as a writer and would like to see other writers explore more is fantasy, especially with romantic elements, set in historical periods. RED AND THE WOLF, for example, is set in the real world. In a way, it is historical urban fantasy romance. My publisher, Lyrical Press, Inc., calls it simply fantasy romance. I have many other stories in mind for this cross-section of fantasy, romance, and history. I hope there are other authors who pioneer the way with me.

Q: What’s next for you after RED AND THE WOLF?

First of all, I’m finishing work on the sequel to RED AND THE WOLF. It’s called GRETEL AND HER GHOST, and you guessed it, it’s about what happens after the Hansel and Gretel story. Now grown, Gretel is determined to marry and have a normal life, but nearly getting eaten as a child still haunts her and her brother. Hansel is determined not to lose is little sister and does everything he can to keep her, including driving away all her suitors. When a mysterious man comes to the village begging Gretel’s aid in rescuing more children, she has to make the most difficult decisions of her life, but ones that might ultimately set her free and satisfy her desire for a loving husband. I should finish edits on this one this month and have it off to Piper Denna, my editor, immediately after that.

Additionally, I so loved writing Karl Kaismann from RED AND THE WOLF, that I’ve given him his own story. It has all those elements I mentioned I would like to see more of, the combination of history, fantasy, and romance. In this novel, I drew upon the haunting legends of the Lorelei Rock on the Rhine River in Germany about a beautiful maiden deprived of her true love and a nixie, a sort of nymph-like creature, who causes ships to crash beneath the rock’s deadly foot. Karl naturally gets caught up in the legend and must save a town that despises him, choose between his heart’s desire and the lives of thousands, and come to terms with his destiny. Once I finish edits on this one, probably in June, it too will get shipped off in queries.

Then I get to go back to the fun first drafts. Next up is an epic fantasy currently titled AT THE END OF INNOCENCE and a novella for an anthology of time travel romance that I’m involved in currently titled IN TIME FOR LOVE. For that one, I get to research the tribes of ancient Germany. My hero, Carloman, will be of the Harii, a tribe that people think inspired the myths of The Wild Hunt and the einherjar, the greatest warriors the Valkyries take to Valhalla.

You can find RED AND THE WOLF at Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and iTunes.

You can find Laura on Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, her blog, or her website. Thanks for stopping by.

Promo round-up 5/6/13

This past week, Assassin’s Gambit was reviewed by Dear Author! I am thrilled with this since Dear Author is a high-profile site with a lot of readers, and the review was long, positive, and thoughtful. Here it is.

Also, I found the list of Fantasy Romance novels on Goodreads, so that I could add my own books to it, and discovered that the list is pretty much all paranormals (e.g., vampire & werewolf novels). There wasn’t a fantasy novel to be found. So I created a new list called Epic Fantasy Romance and made it clear in the description that it’s only for novels set in a fantasy world (not novels set on Earth). I’d like to get the list populated with all epic fantasy romances, not just my own. Here is the list if you’d like to contribute to it. And if you want to vote for Assassin’s Gambit, I won’t complain.

I did a guest blog for Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs, about Writing the Flawed Hero.

And here is a nice review from Little Bookish.

Also, I have another giveaway active on Goodreads! It’s open to the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the UK. Enter here.

History for the fantasy buff: werewolves and vampires

There are some interesting ideas about monsters in history in Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters, by Matt Kaplan.

Monsters from the ancient and medieval eras were primarily large pedators. Think the Nemean Lion or the Calydonian Boar, both extra-large, extra-powerful versions of frightening wild beasts. Or the Minotaur, half man, half beast. Or the fire-breathing dragon of the Middle Ages.

But as we enter the Renaissance, stories about large predators begin to take a back seat to stories about human-like monsters infected with a deadly contagion. Think the vampire, the werewolf, the zombie. As the wild areas of Europe began to be conquered and predators driven extinct, human populations grew more dense and there was a lot more danger from contagious disease than from lions or boars.

The author makes an interesting case that stories of vampirism or lycanthropy may have originated from the disease rabies. Today, rabies is controlled, but in the 1700′s, there was a rabies epidemic among wolves and dogs. The rabies virus, in humans, causes patients to wander restlessly. They drool bloody saliva, retract their lips, and cough and gasp. They can be highly aggressive, and the disease is spread by being bitten. The animals most likely to spread rabies to people are, notably, the dog, the wolf, and the bat.

Tuberculosis was also epidemic during the same time period and may have influenced myths as well. It had a long incubation period and caused people to waste away.

Nowadays, vampires and werewolves are more likely to appear as the protagonists in romance novels than the villains in horror stories. This may suggest that contagion-based monsters have largely run their course. Rabies and tuberculosis are well controlled in the western world, and the concept of contagion is well understood. So now we have sparkly vampires.