Not Making the Cut

Getting writing advice is a tricky thing. I hired a freelance editor to go over my fairy version of The War of the Worlds, tentatively called Fairy War. She gave a lot of interesting advice. Of course, it’s up to me to decide what to accept or decline.

Fairy War mainly takes place in the London area, but I had some side chapters take place in Seattle. The freelance editor thought my story was too long, so she advised me to cut the Seattle chapters.

public domain

I did so, keeping the Seattle chapters in a separate file. After that, I made other cuts that shortened the story by about 10,000 words. But then one of my beta readers said it dragged in the middle. That was where my Seattle chapters had been the most dramatic. Also, a former agent who gives online advice I really trust says agents and editors expect fantasy to be a little longer than I had thought. (The addition of fairies makes my story more on the fantasy side.) Although beginning writers should not push the limits, I’ve decided to add the Seattle chapters back in.

However, when going over these chapters I realized there were too many minor characters. I’ll have to eliminate one of them. So it turns out a pixie named Mona will not make the cut. Here’s the scene where she’s introduced.

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Wycliffe was about to inquire what more he could do to help when a barmaid came over, smelling of rose water, holding a tankard they hadn’t ordered.

She set it down gently. “I apologize for interrupting.”

They stared at her in curiosity. Then Portia reached out and glided her hand down the barmaid’s arm. “Fellow pixie.”

“I heard what you’re planning. They’ll probably attack tomorrow, right? I want to help.”

Tingo looked at her skeptically. “I don’t know what fighting skill you have. And it’s not clear what us women will do. Perhaps you should stay here.”

#

Now we’ll never know what Mona would have done. So sad.

Contest Coming Up Fairy Soon

A contest is coming up for aspiring writers. We are to write a short synopsis of a finished novel, then add the first two sentences. The winner will get a free critique from a professional editor of the first ten pages of the story. So here’s the synopsis, then the first two sentences will be below the picture. Let me know what you think.

Ashley, a fairy, grows to human size and helps out in the war of the worlds when Martian cylinders land. Steam-powered war machines emerge, wielding heat-rays in their metallic tentacles. Although Ashley comports herself as a lady, she gathers her courage and flies near the head of one of the machines to help guide the artillery. But the resulting explosion separates her from her friends, leading to a lonely odyssey in war-torn England.  

On midsummer’s eve I stood on the central toadstool, gripping the bumpy surface with my toes. The moist air from the humus below clung to my bare skin, the warm mugginess attacking the elaborate curls I had styled for the occasion.

Book in a Box

Some agents and editors want the first five, ten, or fifty pages of an aspiring author’s manuscript. And they usually want that as part of an e-mail—they won’t open an attachment from some unknown person.

But then there is one particular entity that wants the entire manuscript—printed out.

My address and their address are covered by napkins

To give you the scale: This box I bought for a little over $3.00 can snugly fit an 8½ x 11 manuscript. The manuscript, which is over 400 pages and took me all evening to print, turned out to be a surprising 1½ inches tall. (It took all evening because I printed 50 pages at a time, and I looked through the pages to make sure they had printed out okay.) So the box is about 2 inches tall.

I showed it to a few people at work before mailing it. They were suitably impressed. One woman wanted to hold it to see how much it weighed.

I went to the Post Office on Tuesday evening. The inner part where the clerks are had closed about ten minutes before I got there, so those doors were locked. So I used the automated machine in the lobby.

First class would cost over $18.00. (As to why I didn’t consider something cheaper will be revealed below). But their two-day express would cost about $20.00. So I chose that. If the Post Office is doing its job, it’ll get there right after Thanksgiving.

Why the rush? November is NaNoWriMo. Aspiring writers are challenged to write 50,000 words, or the equivalent of a small novel, during the 30 days of November. What then happens is agents and editors are then flooded with lousy novels in December, because many of these writers don’t take the time to improve their manuscripts before sending them off. 

I know my box may just end up being in the bottom of a bin. But I like to think that my willingness to spend the money to get it there before the rush of hastily-written manuscripts, and the quality of my 85,000 word manuscript will make it stand out. But it’s out of my hands now.

What is the story? Fairy War. Read an excerpt. 

Word Length – Cut, Cut, Cut

I’ve had more than one freelance editor go over my manuscript for The War of the Worlds and Fairies, but the more recent once gave me some inside baseball on word length. But first, let’s go over the starting figures.

At science fiction conventions and writers conventions, I’ve been told that adult fiction should be between 80,000 and 120,000 words, depending on the genre. My manuscript came out at 121,000 words. So before I let this editor see it, I cut 2,000 words from the first three chapters. (This isn’t as radical as it sounds—for some reason, I had people just standing around too much). You know how those studies show that if one product is offered for $100.00, and the same thing is offered for $99.99, people think the second one is a much better deal? I was hoping that 119,000 would look a lot better than 121,000.

Public domain

Well, it didn’t. This editor let me know that publishers have contracts with bookbinders that actually include a page limit. In practical terms, a novel from a new writer needs to be less than 100,000 words. It takes extra money to go beyond that, which they will for an established writer. We all know they sometimes do that for a new writer who has written something brilliant, but the odds are against you being the one.  

She pointed out chapters totaling 27,000 words that could be cut. She didn’t think they were bad—they were chapters with another group of characters battling the Martian invaders elsewhere, outside England. I was kind of afraid she would say that. But it was the logical choice. I followed her advice and cut them.

(Never get rid of material like that. Those chapters are set aside for a sequel.)

She also pointed out I had to emphasize a minor character more. I had assumed ahead of time that would be good news for a writer: write more. But this was extremely difficult. I had to insert scenes that not only fit into the timeline for this current work, but also the timeline for the sequel.

(The timeline was so complicated, I used an Excel spreadsheet for the first time while writing a novel. See my entry here.)

So I cut more words and added the new scenes The current word count is about 93,800.

And that’s how it’s done.

H.G. Wells and Copyright

When reimagining a novel, such as my The War of theWorlds and Fairies, it’s important to make sure the older work is copyright free.  This is true even though over 95% of the words are mine, and very few words are from the original. Knowing that a novel was written before 1900 is not enough.  Since I didn’t want to do all the work of writing a novel and then have it turn out to be illegal, I consulted the H.G. Wells Society in England. 

Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science

H.G. Wells around 1890 

They are authoritative, and they say that any works of Wells printed before December 31, 1922 is public domain in the U.S.  The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, so it’s free to use. 

(In the United Kingdom, his works remain under copyright until December 31, 2016, but it would take incredible speed to have my work accepted, published, and then distributed in the U.K. before then, so that’s not a problem.) 

While on this subject, I believed the rumor that Star Trek: The Next Generation got in big trouble for using the Sherlock Holmes characters without permission.  The Arthur Conan Doyle estate still owns the rights until 2023, so don’t touch. 

public domain

Yes, Arthur Conan Doyle looked like Watson

but that is another story

But the wacko website io9 has revealed there was no trouble.  Paramount had permission from the Conan Doyle estate, for lotsa lotsa money. 

Back to H.G. Wells.  The only novel of his published after 1922 that I have some knowledge of is Things to Come.  I never read the book, but I watched the movie that was made back in 1936.  It predicted a Second World War that would last for decades and leave the world in a kind of feudalism.  Then it would be up to the scientists to lead us to a kind of utopia.  It’s the sort of movie whose predictions of the future were amazingly wrong, and the special effects were not special, but which still fascinates. 

The movie is in glorious black and white

Finished my Manuscript

On Saturday, I finished writing my novel manuscript, and I can now reveal the title:  The War of the Worlds and Fairies. 

Instead of a simple mashup, it's a true reimagining of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds with over 95% of it my own original writing. The manuscript is 400 pages long, so it would be about 330 pages if it was printed up in a typical paperback fashion. 

The story is set in 1898, the same year as Well’s original, and it’s told from the point of view of Ashley, a fairy who has grown to human size.  While doing research, I discovered that Victorian ladies put their boots on before their petticoats. Why? Because corsets went on before petticoats, and no one woman could bend over to put on her boots while in a corset. Isn't history fascinating? 

Norwescon I

I went to Norwescon in Seattle again this year.   A lot of people dress up in costume, like so: 

The most interesting discussion panel was on viewpoint in a story.  For some reason, when Young Adult first became a hot category, many people thought the stories had to all be written in first person (“I did,” as opposed to “he did” or “she did”).  But unless the main character has a strong voice, this becomes a problem.  (“Voice” is the term writers use to describe a character’s distinctive dialog, thoughts, and way of describing surroundings.)  Without a strong voice, authors tend to use third person. 

These writers were skeptical of using both first person and third person in a novel.  Of course, H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds used both first and third person, in different parts of the book.  My reimagining of that novel will do the same. Hopefully it will be published so you can read it someday. 

 

[Permission granted to use any photo on this post, so long as it is labeled “Photo by Mark Murata”] 

Faerie

In my current work, The War of the Worlds and Fairies, fairies cross over from their realm to ours pretty much at will. 

Faerie

Their realm is called Faerie, pronounced FAY-uh-ree.  What surprises me is a lot of contemporary fantasy writers use the word in an archaic sense, where it denotes an individual fairy.  But I’m pretty sure that men like Tolkien and Lewis used Faerie to mean the realm itself. 

Which brings us to the main characteristic about fairies:  Whether they have wings or not, whether they are our size or not, they must be from a different realm.  This realm may be far off geographically, or as in my story, it coexists with ours.  

Here is how Ashley, my main character, describes it (our realm is the Mundane): 

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The Faerie a realm of silver webs and golden pixie dust, the Mundane a realm of steam engines and cold iron.  

Trailer for Mortal Instruments

The trailer for Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is out, and it is a beaut! 

Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Fairies may be the next big thing.  Vampires and werewolves have had an astonishing run, and will continue to have respectable chunks of the market, but fairies are coming on strong. 

So this is a strategic time to reveal the nature of Ashley, the main character in my reimagining of The War of the Worlds that I’m currently writing.  I’ve been somewhat coy, revealing that Ashley has wings, without saying what she is.  The reimagining will be The War of the Worlds and Fairies, and Ashley is a fairy who has crossed over into our Mundane realm and become human-sized.   

I’ll have more on the nature of fairies in future posts.  

Excel in Writing

Get the pun in this entry’s title?  For the first time, I’m using an Excel workbook as part of my writing.  In my reimagining of The War of the Worlds, I have the cylinders from Mars landing near different cities around the world, not just London, so their invasion has to advance consistently on each day. 

This sheet goes on for several days 

I also have three groups of characters in three locations.  Their actions have to be coordinated, so I need to track who is doing what on each day. 

What each viewpoint character experiences 

I’ll also have to track the positions of Mars and Venus, as well as phases of the moon.  J.R.R. Tolkien once remarked something to the effect that he could not have Aragorn look up one night and see a full moon, then have Gimli look up a couple nights later and also see a full moon.  He kept charts on phases of the moon, and also the speed of Gandalf’s horse Shadowfax. 

Learn from the greatest.  

War of the Worlds -- Two Drafts

I’m going to show an earlier and a later draft of a new chapter for my reimagining of The War of the Worlds .  Something has smashed into the house Ashley has fled to.  Try not to laugh at the early draft: 

***

It was several hours later when I woke up, since it was broad daylight.  Or, it would have been if we hadn’t been covered with plaster and no light came in from the windows.  In what the dim light we had, I brushed myself off gingerly, since along with the plaster were sharp pieces of crockery and even shards of glass.  One shard had embedded itself in the upper arm of the men’s jacket I wore.  If this had been my peaceful life back in Maybury, I would have called for Mr. Jonesworthy to remove it.  Or, if left to my own devices, I would stare at it for five minutes, seeing how the fabric was distorted around the impact point before getting the courage to pull it out from the weave. 

Here, I grabbed it and plucked it out.  It skittered among the other wreckage on the floor. 

***

Looking at this, I realized I didn’t need the “Several hours later” because the previous chapter had ended at midnight, so the daylight implied it.  So I then added some sensory detail in the first sentence—in this case, taste.  Also, the description of the distortion in the sleeve was awkward, and “grabbed it” is redundant for “plucked it.”  After tinkering with other parts, the chapter now begins this way: 

***

I woke up with a mouth full of plaster.  I spit out bitter dust and saw it was broad daylight—or it would have been if we hadn’t been covered with wreckage and no light came in from the window.  In the broken daylight I brushed myself off gingerly, the plaster accompanied by pieces of crockery and even shards of glass—a sharp one embedding itself in the upper arm of the men’s jacket I wore.  If this had been my peaceful life back in Maybury, I would have called for Mr. Jonesworthy to remove it.  Or, if left to my own devices, I would have stared at it for five minutes, seeing how the cruel glass had distorted the fabric around the point before getting the courage to pull it from the weave. 

Here, I plucked it out.  It skittered among the other wreckage on the floor. 

***

You might ask, “Are your first drafts always so lousy?”  No comment.  

Hangers

Falling4Fiction is hosting a Hangers blogfest.  Choose three chapters from one of your writing projects and post the last sentence from each.  Then enter the link on their website.  Winners will get a 10 page critique. 

I’ll choose my work in progress, which is a reimagining of The War of the Worlds.  Here are three sentences designed to leave you hanging: 

Chapter 11  No opportunity to unlock the door without being seen or heard, so I flattened myself against the wall of the house, trembling violently. 

Chapter 15  My senses were overwhelmed as I lay there, head lolling on hard wood, and I couldn’t differentiate between the steam and the smoke obscuring my vision as I blacked out. 

Chapter 18  “Poison gas.”