These are amazing!

So I'm working on something pretty fun for you all, but it's not quiiiiite ready yet. So, in the meanwhile, I wanted to share this amazingly awesome lecture series on writing by fantasy author and pretty cool dude Brandon Sanderson.

I linked these on Twitter before, but if you're at all interested in writing fantasy (or really, writing anything) and you haven't had a chance to watch/listen to these yet, I very much suggest you take a few minutes and give them a go. Here's one of my favorites where he talks about his plotting method.


I've started working a lot of these ideas into my own plotting system. And this is just the surface, there's so so much more. If you don't want to sit down at watch a 20 minute lecture (who has the time?), these are totally great to just listen to as well. I like to put one on while I'm cooking/doing things that don't need 100% brainpower. It's like a mini-writing workshop!

It's always such a joy to listen to someone who really knows what he's talking about. I can not recommend these enough.

(Real blog post coming soon, I swear!)

- R

Eli in art form!

Lo, these many moons ago, I commissioned some Eli art to celebrate the release of my Omnibus. Well, they didn't quite make it in time, but they're just in time to fill the gap before the final novel! So, without further ado, check out this great Eli art by Razuri-chan!

First up, Eli! Observe the Daggerback cards - they rock my world!

(full size)

Next (one step behind Eli, natch) is Miranda! Love the rings, though they really should be even bigger. I always imagine her rings looking like those giant hunks of rock you see on QVC. Her hair is amazing, though!

(full size)

And here's Josef! Note the lovely Heart of War on his back, though he seems to have lost most of his other blades. Oh well <3 .="." p="p">

(full size)

And finally, Nico. This is actually the picture Razuri did for me first a while ago. Yes, her coat is the wrong color, but I still like it. Poor Nico, your life is about to get even worse in Spirit's End!

(full size)

I hope you enjoyed seeing the Eli cast in glorious color! And just as a bonus, here's a lovely review of The Spirit Thief! Looking like a good Monday for Rachel. Hope your Monday is awesome, too!

<3 p="p">

R

I, Feminist

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever read one of my books or spent more than five minutes in my company that I am a feminist. And when I say feminist, I don't mean any of the incredibly bizarre, fanatical, and unflattering definitions others (mostly men) have given that word. I mean that I think women are people who deserve equal right/pay/treatment/education/etc.

When I declare my feminism outright, like when I'm raging about how we're so far in the future we're landing robots on Mars and yet we still don't have equal pay for equal work in this country, people give me funny looks. This prompts me to give them a funny look back, because really, WTF? How can any enlightened person not be a feminist in this day and age? Can you look me straight in the eye and tell me that I'm not a full person? That I don't deserve the right to make my own choices/own land/have my own money? Are you going to tell your mother she lacks the presence of mind to vote? Right, didn't think so.

(And just for fun, the next time you see a lady backing off and saying "oh, I'm not a feminist," ask her if she wants to give up her right to vote. Because you know who got you that shit? SUFFRAGETTES, the most badass feminists ever.)

SO, feminist, not actually a very radical thing anymore thanks to a lot of brave ladies fighting fights that should never have had to be fought in the first place. And I, as a child of this enlightened age who didn't want to let her esteemed foremothers down, set about writing my books with strong female characters who defy labels and break barriers. BOO YA!

But one of the problems of being aware of things like unknowing stereotypes and sexist tropes is that you can get caught in the trap of over thinking. I'm in no way saying we shouldn't think about these things, ignorance never makes anything better, but there is such a thing as going too far in the other direction. For example, when I was writing the Eli novels, I had serious doubts about Benehime's character. Not to spoil anything for people who haven't read the series, but Benehime is... not a nice lady. She is, in fact, a horrible lady who does horrible things in the name of love.

I can't tell you how long I agonized over this. I mean, the woman becoming a villain for a man is one of those tropes I hate. I actually rewrote her parts in Spirit War and Spirit's End several times trying to get her right before I realized I was going about this all the wrong way.

The most important part of being a feminist author is treating your women like real people. This doesn't mean always making them admirable. When I actually stopped and looked back at my books, I realized that in trying to keep Benehime from being a woman brought down by love, I'd hobbled her character.  Once I stopped worrying about whether or not I was being a "good feminist" with her and just let the crazy lady do what she was going to do, the book got so, so, so much better. Because the truth of Benehime's fall is far more subtle and complex than her relationship with Eli, and she had to be free to be every bit as awful as she really was.

As a lifelong feminist and a former English Major who thinks about story a LOT, trying to make sure I'm aware of and avoid common feminine stereotypes is a huge part of every book I write. But recently, I've started to realize that I was trying so hard not to write hookers, victims, or doormats, I was completely cutting out the character possibilities of those spheres. The truth is, characters come in all flavors, and putting something completely out of bounds just because others have done it badly before is just another way of limiting women, and limiting my own stories.

What I'm trying to say is that while it's great, even necessary, to keep my feminism in mind while writing, sometimes you just have to stop worrying about what message you're sending and let the characters be themselves. Just as I define my feminism by saying that I am a person and deserve to be treated as such, so do I show myself as a feminist writer by letting my female characters be themselves, flaws and all. The most important thing is not that they are female, but that they are fully realized characters capable of being whatever they need to be.

In the end, my main goal remains unchanged. I'm a working woman writer trying as hard as I can to tell the best stories possible, all filled with amazing ladies. I do this not because such writing is my duty as a feminist, but because I like amazing ladies. I think they're awesome and inspiring and I want more of them in the world, so I'll do my best to put them there.

And that's all there is to it.

An Early Preview of SPIRIT'S END!

It's that time....

YES! Time for me to put out a four chapter preview of SPIRIT'S END! You got a taste of the prologue at the end of THE SPIRIT WAR, but this should really let you sink your teeth into what's in store for our favorite thief! Oh Eli, you didn't sign up for this, did you?

Blogging will pick back up now that I'm done with edits for a bit, and as we get closer to November, I'll be doing all kinds of give aways for copies of the full book! In the meanwhile, enjoy the sample and let me know what you think!

DISCLAIMER: The sample text was taken from my copy edit of the final manuscript. Any errors you see are mine and will not appear in the final version!

EDIT: So I just realized that the conversion to HTML stripped out all of Benehime's italics! These have been fixed! Sorry for any confusion. Now you should be able to read all the horrible things she says just fine.

CHANGE OF PLANS - Not actually going to DragonCon

Well, after hearing that a bunch of my fans aren't going AND I'm not on any panels, I've decided to just throw in the towel on DragonCon this year. If you were coming and planning on seeing me, I'm very sorry to flake, but I just can't justify the expense. T__T Contact me here and I'll make sure you get something to make it up to you!

Again, NOT going to DragonCon. So sorry for the last second change. I kept trying to make it work, but it clearly just wasn't meant to be.

I promise to do more cons in the future! Thanks everyone!

-R

Writing Relationships

Sorry about the lack of updates. I have been wholly and delightfully eaten by edits (and if you think the blog's been neglected, you should see my house. We're going to be eating off paper plates by tomorrow.)

Last night, however, I hit a block. The pivotal emotional scene of my novel was just not working, and nothing I could do seemed to make it work. So, I did what I always do when I am despairing over scenes, I messaged fellow writer Kalayna Price, author of the fantastic Grave Witch series and all around best person. (This is one of the unsung amazing perks of being a writer, you get to be friends with other really freaking good writers!)

Now, one thing you have to understand about Kalayna if you haven't read her stuff yet is that she writes some of the best emotional knots and you will ever read (also, the sexiest, sweetest, absolute best love scenes). The scene in question was a confrontation between my hero and heroine who are having, shall we say, a bit of a rocky turn in their relationship, and since Kalayna is one of the best relationship writers I know, I turned to her for some expert advice on how to make the scene gripping and emotional without being overwrought.

Okay, so I'm paraphrasing. My actual question involved way more swear words and T__T emoticons. But, as usual, Kalayna came through with brilliance.

Kalayna: Just close your eyes and imagine what needs to happen until you have the right sized grin is on your face.

And this, folks, is why I bug her all the time. Just like that, I realized what was wrong. I couldn't make the scene work because I'd gotten so caught up in getting things right I'd forgotten what the scene was about. The most important part of this exchange wasn't the details or the plot or even the revelation of information. It was the people. Two people who love each other a lot but who are having a really hard time. Two people I love, and love to write, and it took another writer to remind me of that.

So there you are, I am spreading Kalayna's trade secrets all over the internet. Use them for awesome! And read her books, they're bestsellers for a reason.

Back to editing!

The only one who can hold you back is you

Answering my emails this morning, I came across a letter from an aspiring writing asking for advice and encouragement for making the jump from hobby writer to pro-writer. This is no small order for anyone, but once you add in kids and a job, it can seem impossible. She was already writing most days, so I told her that was the absolute best thing she could do. But thinking about her question reminded me of the days when I was in the same boat (though minus the kid).

The number one bit of advice every writer repeats is "Write!" I do this too. Every time someone asks me how to become a writer or what to do, I say "Write! Write every day you can. Don't give up! Keep writing!"  It's gotten to the point where the word Write! is starting to lose its meaning because I've repeated it so much.  But that doesn't matter, because writing is the fundamental act that makes you a writer.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but years ago, when I would wake up very early to write in the mornings before work, I used to talk myself out of bed by telling myself "Writing is your great dream. If you can't even get out of bed for it, you don't want it." This is a pretty cruel thing to say to yourself at 5 in the morning, and I'm not recommending guilt as motivation, but I will say it worked for me.

Here's a secret, though. When I was starting out, I didn't write every day. There were times when I quit writing for months at a time, or days when I got up to write and ended up wasting my entire two hours reading web comic archives. It took me a year and a half to finish my first book, and another year to finish my second. But there, friends, is the kicker. Though there were days I didn't write, days I flubbed, sometimes even months when I walked away from the computer, I never stayed away. I always came back.

The difference between the writers who make it and those who don't is that the writers who win are the writers who never quit. This is the secret to all writing: You only fail when you stop. So long as you are writing, even if you're not writing as much or as fast or as well as you'd like to be, so long as you do not quit, you have not failed.

In the end, the only thing that will ever determine whether or not you become a successful writer is you. Not publishers or agents or luck or even readers. You. You are the only person who can write your books, and you are the only person who decides when to give up or keep going. This is the writer's greatest power, and no one can ever take it from you.

And now, from one person who didn't give up to another: it's absolutely worth every second. You can make it. Never quit writing.

Teaching Your Reader Magic

The other day while I waiting in line for my delicious burrito, and the chatty lady struck up a conversation with me. It quickly came out that I was a fantasy writer (because come on, I didn't work this hard to not tell people), and the lady honest-to-god clutched her pearls and said, "My goodness! Isn't it hard having to make everything up?!"

My answer at the time was of course not. I love not being held down by the real world. But her question stuck with me, rattling around in my head, and I realized I'd like to change my answer. It's not hard having to make everything up, what's hard is making sure your reader understands it all.

Every time you make a new world, you undertake the burden of exposition. In order for your reader to appreciate the story you're trying to tell, they have to understand all the circumstances surrounding it - the world, the rules, the powers at play. This burden is most pronounced in fantasy and scifi, which have the fewest crutches, but even the lady writing cozy mysteries set in Cape Cod has to do a certain amount of set up so people understand why the character's actions matter.

I like to look at this problem as a matter of teaching. When I introduce a new fantasy world to the reader, my first job is to teach them how things work - the magic, the world dynamics, all that good stuff. But I can't just dump all this information on people, because I'm also an entertainer, which means if I don't keep the audience enthralled, they leave and I fail.

Teaching your audience about your world is one of the most subtle and easiest to screw up aspects of writing. Too much and people get bored with all the overexplaining, too little and people don't know what's going on. Explain your magical system in a giant lecture and people's eyes glaze over, just like in real lectures! But if you don't explain how the magic works, people won't understand why it's important. 

Since this sort of thing is so easy to muck up, I like to watch when people do it right. To this end, I will now employ a visual aid.

The Portal video games do the best job of explaining a new world I've ever seen. They tell you almost nothing in dialogue, instead relying on ambiance, inference, and your own curiosity to expand the world. But even better is how they teach you to use your portal gun. The entire first Portal game is really just an extended tutorial teaching you how to use this very unique mechanic, but you never feel like you're being lectured. The learning is the game, and by the time you finish Portal you can give a lecture on the subject yourself, and all without a single info dump.

Now, novels aren't video games, but as Uncle Iroh says, "It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place, it become rigid and stale."

Pixar's WALL-E is another amazing example of how an entire world, complete with history, rules, and conflict, can be explained without saying a word. Contrast this to the stop action movie 9. I was pretty excited about this movie when it came out and dragged several friends to see it. Despite its stunning visuals, though, the movie was ultimately a dud. This happened for many reasons - bad plot, terrible pacing, etc. But what really got me was the movie's terrible habit of overexplaining everything. The movie would show you this cool, mysterious thing, and then, just when you were starting to appreciate it, they would explain every. Damn. Thing. Characters would actually stop what they were doing to lecture each other on what had just happened.

To say this was boring is a disservice to the concept of boredom. It was excruciating. I hate nothing more than wasted potential, and 9 was painful for me. There was so much there, so much potential for a beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, interesting world, but the writers seemed to be going out of their way to kill it at every turn.

Nothing kills wonder faster than dry explanation, and nothing kills a book faster than sloppy info dumping. It's not easy to explain a complicated magical system through good writing, but being good is never easy, or everyone would be awesome all the time. But really good books, especially really good fantasy books, let the reader discover the magic for themselves. They teach and cajole, pulling the reader in with wonder and the promise of knowing more.

This balance a matter of practice and craft, of paying attention to what you're doing and listening to your beta readers, asking where they got confused or slowed down. It's a lot of work and tinkering and delicate, subtle changes, which means it is hard as hell to get right. BUT, once you manage to pull it off, it will seem effortless, natural, like magic, and that is the sign of a well done book indeed.

A new look at plotting

I've been having a bit of trouble with plotting recently. It's not that I can't think up plots, I can plot all day, it's just that the plots I'm coming up with aren't working. Or, rather, they work as a plot, as in one thing leads to another leads to a conclusion, but they don't do what I want. And that lack has caused me to take another look at how I plot novels.

I've talked before about how I plot a novel. I still use this approach, but I'm thinking I might need to add a new step. Because while this method is great for coming up with the plot, it's not so great at mapping out the story.

Story and plot are not the same thing. Plot refers to the order of events, the way information is revealed to the reader, and the management of tension through out the book. The plot is the doing part of a book, and it is amazingly important. Nothing kills a story faster than a lame, limp plot. Story, on the other hand, is a book's soul. It's what the novel is really about, and as such it's very easy to get wrong.

If you've read my blog for a while, it should come as no surprise that I'm a nuts and bolts sort of writer. One of my friends recently called me a story architect, and I'm still glowing with pride from the complement. I plan my books meticulously, building them up like a tower, but until recently, I gave very little thought to story. After all, if I did the plot right, the story would follow. I plotted with my head, but left the story to my gut instincts. So long as the book felt right, I didn't give it much more thought.

Now that I write it out, I can see how stupid that way of thinking is. I'm actually pretty embarrassed to admit I left such a hugely important thing to instincts, but honestly story makes me very nervous. Unlike plot, which only gets tighter and smarter the more attention to pay it, story is easy to over do.

For example, let's look at the Eli novels. At its most basic level, the plot is "wizard thief gets in over his head." But the story of the Eli is about an abused boy with a good heart who finally stops running from his problems and takes a stand. It's about becoming a hero despite your character, about doing the right thing even if it costs you dearly, and there you can see my problem, because that sort of thing can get REALLY cheesy if you're not careful with it.

This is why I tend to shy away from digging too deep into story. I'm afraid if I give it the same analytic treatment I give everything else, it will start coming on too strong. The last thing I want to do is write cheesy, preachy books. But ignoring it is even worse, because when you ignore an aspect of your book, you relinquish control over it, and that will never do. An author is god in the story they create, and what kind of god leaves such an important thing to chance?

And this brings me back to plotting. I think one of the reasons I had such a huge problem on book #10 was because I wasn't taking story into account. I'd plotted a pretty thrilling novel, but when I sat down to write it, I knew it wasn't right. All my exciting battles and huge set pieces felt flat because they weren't personal, they weren't part of my main character's story. All I had was plot, a body with no soul, and it took me almost three months of hair pulling before I figured out how to wed plot and story back together.

The point of all this rambling is that I need to change my process. I can't leave story to my gut anymore, not if I want to write the sort of books I know I'm capable of. To this end, I'm completely tossing the plot I wrote out for my next book and starting over, but this time, I'm not just going to start with what I know, I'm going to start with what I want. I'm going to write the story out first - how I want the characters to develop, what kind of story I want to tell. And then, once I have that, I'll plot from there. I'll make the plot serve the story, not just hope they meet up.

The longer I write, the more I realize that writing is a constant evolution. There is no magic process, no perfect solution. It's an artisan profession, you're always advancing, improving your skills. Every time I think, ah, I've got it now, I discover some huge gap in my knowledge. Sometimes I think I'll still feel like a newbie writer when I'm eighty. But then, where's the fun in something easily mastered?

Sometimes writing feels like pushing a boulder up an endless hill. No matter how far you go, you're never even a tenth of the way to the top. I'll probably be dead before I master all the aspects of writing. But hey, at least I'll never be bored.

And with that, back to work!

Bonus: Sarah Monette Writing Links! 
I've been a Sarah Monette fan for years. I think she's absolutely brilliant and if I ever met her I would probably melt into a puddle. While I struggling with this story issue, I went back and reread some of her old posts, and I've marked a few of my favorites for ya'll to enjoy.

• Five Things I Know About World-Building
• Finding the Story in the Story
• The Importance of Maps
• Still Seeking Chloe and Olivia: How to Write Strong Female Characters

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people are jerks on the internet

So my attention over the last few hours has been drawn to Stop the GR Bullies. For those of you who've managed to dodge this internet oddity, GR stands for GoodReads, which apparently has bullies or something.

Now, when I first heard of this site, I thought it was an author blog complaining about reviewers, which lead to RAGE, but then I read a little deeper, and I discovered I was wrong. Stop the GR Bullies appears to be a site cataloging the wrongs of certain GoodReads posters who team up to "take down" badly behaving authors through scathing forum posts. Stop the GR Bullies aims to stop these "bullies" by, wait for it, engaging in similar types of personal attacks under the flag of righteous defense, complete with twitter stalking of the proclaimed "bullies," personal attacks, real life pictures, and other general creepiness.

Annnnnnnnd this is about where my palm hit my face.

Okay, people, I realize it's 2012, and a decade and a half might not have been enough time for you to properly realize the truth of the internet. For sake of clarity, allow me to employ a (crude) visual aid from the ever helpful Penny Arcade:

People on the internet are jerks. Not all people, but enough that you're sure to find them anywhere opinions can be expressed. Jerks say terrible things without regard for the feelings of others, often for attention. Arguing with these people, pleading with them, or attempting to shame them into better behavior is fruitless because the same wall of distance combined with the megaphone of the internet that gave them the power to make you so mad in the first place protects them from any real retaliation. It's all one giant shouting match, and anyone who's watched a political debate can tell you just how effective those are at changing people's minds.

Honestly, I have a lot of sympathy for victims of internet trolling. It can make you feel powerless and desperate, which is not a fun way to be. But, for the love of little green apples, surely, surely you can see the irony of "fighting online bullying" by becoming bullies yourself.  I mean, that's some Nietzsche "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster" shit right there.

GoodReads is an internet community frequented by thousands of vistors every day. 99% of those are perfectly lovely people who rate books, leave reviews, and generally use the site as intended. The remaining 1% are the crazies. You can't stop people from being jerks. It's the part of human condition. But you can stop feeding the trolls, and you can refrain from becoming a troll yourself.

Haters gonna hate, y'all. But unlike in Elementary school, these bullies can't actually shove you in a locker. So just let them be, don't give them attention, and they'll go away. Even if they don't, it doesn't matter. The only real defeat comes when you let them win. Never do that, and you can never lose. 

It's just the internet, guys. Go have a coffee and cool off. And lay off the twitter stalking, that's creepy.

This has been a friendly message from you nosy neighborhood author,

Rachel