PNWA – Speakers

The Pacific Northwest Writers Association holds an annual writers conference down in SeaTac, Washington. Last year’s conference was great, so here’s my account of this year’s.

The first day of the conference I had the pleasant surprise of seeing Richelle Mead again. My previous post shows the last time I saw her was almost three years ago. I would attend her readings when she first started out, when maybe a dozen people would attend. Now if it’s announced that she’s doing a free book signing, she’ll be mobbed by hundreds.

Richelle Mead is on the right

A key to talking to an author like this is to say something intelligent, instead of, “I really liked what you just read.” I noticed she used to teach comparative religion at the University of Washington, so I would ask her about Greek mythology. So even though she’s met so many people during her meteoric rise, and it was so long since I last saw her, she still recognized me. I told her I was touched by that.

The main speaker that evening was James Rollins. He talked about his struggle to have his first novel, Subterranean, published. I had a copy with me for an autograph. I had fond memories of how several years ago, he volunteered to critique manuscripts that were sent to a convention. Instead of just a verbal critique, he printed out his comments, noting I had “a keen ear for dialog.”

When I went up for an autograph, he said, “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” I was quite shocked he remembered me from that one encounter.  He’s obviously trying hard to encourage new writers. 

Synopsis

There’s a lot of advice online and in books and at seminars on how to write a synopsis of your manuscript, much of it contradictory. They all agree that the synopsis must be interesting enough to grab the agent or editor, but disagree on how it’s done. How do you summarize your novel in two to three pages?

Could you summarize part of The Lord of the Rings? It’s been done.

Look at the start of The Two Towers, and you’ll find a synopsis of The Fellowship of the Ring. The start of The Return of the King repeats that and adds a synopsis for the The Two Towers. These are fine examples, so rather than coming up with a method, I’ll just say study those.

They have to be converted to present tense to pitch something new rather than summarize something already published. Also the beginnings have to be changed, so the synopsis of The Fellowship of the Ring would start with “Gandalf,” and the first paragraph of the synopsis of The Two Towers would be rewritten with active verbs, but these are the best examples I know.

With that in mind, I modified the synopsis for my vampire satire. Here is the original first sentence:

Dee is a homeschooling mother of two in a Seattle suburb who would rather teach her kids math or prepare them for a field trip to a salmon run than strangle the occasional vampire who invades their home.

And here’s the revised version:

As a homeschooling mother in a Seattle suburb, Dee would prefer to teach her kids math or prep them for a field trip to a salmon run, but right now she has to strangle another zombie-like vampire that has invaded their home.

I think that’s an improvement. Learn from the best. 

Book Review – Star Trek: No Time Like the Past

Things are going bad for Captain Kirk. He’s already had one security office vaporized, red shirt and all. Now he’s caught dead to rights by a traitor on a diplomatic mission, a rifle aimed right at him. But salvation comes from an unusual source: a woman with implants on her face takes deadly accurate aim and fries his opponent.

From Seven of Nine’s perspective, things are equally puzzling. One moment she was on a planet in the Delta Quadrant trying to save some fallen shipmates, the next moment she’s on a completely different planet, trying to save an officer in an outmoded Starfleet uniform. What possible explanation could there be?

I don’t normally read Star Trek books, ironically, because of the advantage books have over television or movies. With books, we can delve into what a character is thinking or feeling, rather than just guessing from the facial expression on a big or little screen. The problem is, the characters in the Star Trek books often think or feel differently from the way I expect.

But this novel by the highly prolific writer Greg Cox worked just fine. The coolly detached Seven of Nine was somehow a good fit with the “riding shotgun” style of the old Star Trek. Oddly enough, the best scenes involved Seven and the highly emotional Mister Scott, as they crawled through access tubes, hid underwater, and got in firefights. I’m sure Scotty is the only person to address Seven as “Lass.”

So this is a fun romp for people who like the old Star Trek, or Star Trek: Voyager, or both. Keep in mind, it’s mostly set in the old Star Trek universe. 

Book Review: 30 Days of No Gossip

Maddie is the Queen of Gossip at her middle school, and why not? No one can beat her at finding out who’s dating whom, who’s been dissed, who’s wearing what, and all other essential pieces of gossip without which, school would be a bore. And everyone pays attention to her when she gossips, except her best friend Vi, who is around her regardless.

So what could it hurt if Maddie reveals that Vi has a crush on someone, even though Vi would die if word got out? The answer is plenty. The only way Maddie can regain Vi’s friendship is if she goes thirty days without gossiping. At all.

Things get worse when it looks like a reality show is coming to their middle school, and Vi would be perfect for it. Should Maddie blab about it? Does that count as gossip, and is it worth risking what’s left of the friendship?

Writers are told to read outside of their field to be more well-rounded, and I can’t get much farther out of my field than a middle school novel centered on girls gossiping. But 30 Days of No Gossip by Stephanie Faris is a middle school novel I actually enjoyed reading. The writing style flows smoothly, and the dialog is—dare I say it—fun.

Maddie does more than keep her lips shut. She has to make split second decisions: What’s the difference between reporting news and gossip? If she says something positive with good intentions, does that count? If her friends who have relied on her for gossip take her silence to mean she’s affirming some wild story they’ve come up with, how can she correct them without gossiping?

And Vi turns out to be a little complicated, gossiping herself a couple times. Is it really the gossip in Maddie’s life that she’s concerned about, or something else?

30 Days of No Gossip is a good novel, whether you’re looking for something in that age range or not. And it won’t hurt to leave a copy lying around for middle school girls with a certain problem to read. 

Not a review of Transformers

Since this is not a negative blog, I won’t review the movie Transformers: Age of Extinction. I’ll just say that people are a lot more forgiving of a plot inconsistency than they are of inconsistencies in characters.

To my surprise, I recognized a bridge in Chicago that the humans jump off of to board an alien ship. Worldcon 2012 was held there, and the bridge was near the hotel. This bas relief was at one end of the bridge, though the movie did not show it.

I had a chance to take the picture with the sun shining directly on it, but I realized anyone could do that. I waited until early next morning, when the sunlight at an angle would show the depth of the sculpture.

The reason I recognized the bridge so easily (including the part that was just a grating underfoot) was I spent some time on it, trying to get the best picture of the Chicago River. To get the scale of the buildings, I waited until a ferry was in view.

Also, a character in the movie approached Anish Kapoor’s “The Bean” from the same angle I did. You can see pictures of it at my Worldcon post.

So I definitely enjoyed that part of the movie. 

Tips on Fixing Chapter One

The accomplished writer Patricia Wrede is giving tips on her blog on fixing chapter one of your manuscript. These are very helpful.

I think you’ll see why from the post titles:

    Fixing Chapter One, part one

    Fixing Chapter One: Why

    Fixing Chapter One: Character

    Fixing Chapter One: Plot

    Fixing Chapter One: Background, setting, backstory

    Fixing Chapter One: Putting it all together

    Moving on (chapters 2 and 3)

In my own (unpublished) experience, it is best if the first sentence tells the reader something personal about the character, has some action, and gives some idea of the physical background. 

Posting at Misha Gericke’s today

Hello, everyone. I’m doing a guest post at Misha Gericke’s blog today. Her blog has the ambitious title The Five Year Plan. You can find out more about that and my post by heading over there.

Please feel free to leave a comment there. 

Movie Novel: How not to handle

My previous post showed how much I liked the movie Edge of Tomorrow. But the people in charge have bungled the novel to go with it. When you see this cover, you would expect a novelization of the movie, wouldn’t you?

But it’s no such thing. Edge of Tomorrow was based on the Japanese novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Instead of a vast military force flying in from Great Britain to fight aliens on the European continent, the force is from Japan, fighting in China. Instead of Major Cage (played by Tom Cruise), the main character is a Japanese kid named Keiji Kiriya.

Since this is not a negative blog, I’ll just say the novel didn’t really seem to be my style. But it could be interesting to others, if the packaging were different. And there’s the rub.

When the 2001 Planet of the Apes movie came out, it was only loosely based on the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle. A novelization of the movie was written, and both books were sold in bookstores. But they were packaged so a reader could tell the difference between the original novel and the novelization of the movie.

And that’s how to do it. Spend the money to make a true novelization, instead of just throwing (in this case) an Americanized cover on a significantly different foreign work. Science fiction readers are open enough that they could get interested in the original Japanese version. As it is, some fans will get deeply disappointed when they realize they’ve picked up something different from what the cover advertised.

Of course, if the publishers want to contact me to do a quick hack writing job based on the script, I’m available.   

Review of Edge of Tomorrow

Drafted into combat, William Cage, a self-centered coward, finds himself in a desperate battle against grotesque aliens who have overrun Europe. Although the humans are wearing armored jackets with built-in weapons, they get slaughtered. He spots Sergeant Vrataski, a woman who has killed over a hundred aliens, but they both get killed.

Cage (Tom Cruise) wakes up on the eve of the invasion and is forced to go into the same battle. This time he momentarily saves Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who tells him to find her when he wakes up. They both die again.

On the eve of battle again, she tells him the same thing happened to her—the aliens can see the future, and he has accidentally tapped their ability so that he relives the battle each time he’s killed. She went through it herself three hundred times. Now she will train him to help win the war.

As Cage relives the battle over and over again, he becomes a super soldier himself. But can these two individuals turn the tide?

photo by MTV Live 

Edge of Tomorrow has done it. They actually show an army of live actors marching off to war in what in Japan would be called mecha suits. The close ups show the intricate details of the armored jackets: servos that give extra power to the limbs, straps to keep them attached to the bodies, clips for fast reloading, and multi-language displays.

Also, the military details are bell-ringing: When Cage frantically asks regarding his weapons, “Where’s the safety?” the cynical reply is, “Exactly.” When Cage blabs too much about how they’ll all get killed, Sergeant Major Farell (Bill Paxton) has his mouth duct-taped. And Paxton is a delight as the Kentuckian who gives his harangue on combat as “the great equalizer.”

Comparisons have been made to the movie Groundhog Day, but Edge of Tomorrow is really more like gaming, with the player getting killed while trying to achieve more difficult levels. For instance, Cage directs Vrataski to advance thirty yards beyond a trench, then face to the right and fire, even though she won’t see the alien yet. And in a pivotal scene, she asks him, “What do we do now?” He replies, “I don’t know. We’ve never gotten this far.”

photo by gdcgraphics

But this movie is not just for gamer guys who have emerged from their man caves. Women will also enjoy watching Emily Blunt, she of the steel triceps, as she never lets up on being a soldier. She is able to whack aliens to death with what looks like a club/sorority paddle. And Tom Cruise still delivers when it comes to action movies.

It’s not all dreary battle—some of the first times that Cage wakes up again are quite funny. But the title made me think it was a soap opera when I first saw it. The phrase developed for the marketing campaign, “Live Die Repeat,” would have been much better.