Taking Writing Seriously

Every writer looks at writing differently. Some do it because they love to create. Some do it to express themselves. To entertain. To become famous. To make money. Etc. Most of us write for a combination of these. With the exception of fame and money, these goals can be accomplished without too much trouble (other than, you know, the trouble of actually writing). Becoming famous, in particular, is out of most of our control, so I'll leave it alone.

So what if you want to make money by writing? In that case, you need to take your writing more seriously than most. You need to understand that this is a business. You need to consider yourself a pro.

This was the situation I found myself in a year and a half ago. If I wanted to take writing seriously, I couldn't be subject to ephemeral whims like "desire" or "inspiration" to write. I had to treat it like my job. What would my boss do if I said, "I'm not feeling it today. I'm not coming to work."? Or what if, when asked when I would finish a task, I replied, "It depends on when the muse hits me."?

(I should pause to point out that I still very much am subject to ephemeral whims. Every single day. All I'm saying is I'm not supposed to be.)

And I couldn't sacrifice my real job for writing. As many of you know, my real life is not a job I can walk away from. There will not come a day when I can quit my day job to work on writing for 8 hours a day. Because of that, I need to know that my time is being spent wisely. Of course all of my writing is worth it to help me improve, but when I start selling things, will it be enough to justify disappearing from my family for 2-4 hrs/day?

Like, I've made $7.20 on my Twitter fiction. While it was extremely cool to get paid for writing, I can't sell enough to justify the time. My BCS story got me $220 for about 30 hours of work. That's more worth it -- if I focused all my time on short stories, I could probably justify that amount of time (even if it wouldn't be enough to support my family).

Unfortunately, I want to write novels. Not having sold one, I limit my time. I look at what author's make (on average). I examine my process and keep track of production speed, constantly trying to improve until the day I can produce a novel in (what I consider) a reasonable amount of time. I'm kinda harsh, but I have to be. I want to do this, but there are some costs I'm not willing to pay, you know?

What about you? What are your goals in this writing thing (for those of you who are writing)? What are you willing to give up? Perhaps more illuminating, what aren't you willing to give up?

I've Never Been This Excited About 4,400 Words

First off, a HUGE thanks to agented author and writer of ninja fiction (among other things) Natalie Whipple for the revamped blog header you see above. She has an amazing knack for matching people to fonts. She's like the eHarmony of graphic design. Anyway, the header was the last tweak this blog needed. Now.....it's PERFECT.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it.

Ahem.

You also may recall somebody bought a short story of mine set in the Air Pirates' world. Well the date has been set, and on April 22nd you'll all be able to read "Pawn's Gambit" at Beneath Ceaseless Skies (yes, all of you -- it's free).

That's less than two weeks. I am disproportionately (though understandably) excited about this. It blows my mind that somebody liked something I wrote so much that they paid me money for it. I'm still unconvinced that anyone else will enjoy it, so I'm planning a contest to swindle all of you into reading it. Nothing big -- I'm not arm wrestling my sister or anything -- but I am going to give away a free book, so you should pay attention.

Until then, you can get a taste of the story here at the BCS website. Or you can check out the poor man's book trailer: the wordle!

Honestly, if you get anything out of this, I will be both shocked and awed.

Are you excited yet?!!?!

?!

Admirable Sacrifice (or Why Kirk's Death was Stupid)

I hope I don't have to explain who Captain Kirk is. If I do, it's possible you're on the wrong blog.

I will go into how he died a bit though. First, you should know we're talking about the old Kirk -- William "Priceline" Shatner. Shortly after retiring, Kirk is asked to attend the maiden voyage of the USS Enterprise-B (this is Star Trek Generations, btw). On that voyage, they receive a distress signal from two ships caught in a strange energy ribbon. The Enterprise is able to save them, but becomes caught itself in the ribbon. To free them, Kirk has to go engineering and alter the deflector shields.* He is successful, but just as the Enterprise escapes, the ribbon makes contact with the engineering section causing major damage. When the crew recovers, they find a gaping hole in that part of the hull, and Kirk is gone.

That was Kirk's first death. It's not bad (we'll talk about why in a second), but it wasn't his real death. See, the ribbon imprisoned Kirk in a time nexus.* Decades later, Captain Picard finds Kirk and convinces him to return to the present to help Picard stop a madman from destroying the sun of Veridian III. Kirk goes with him and together they are able to distract the villain long enough to thwart his plans. In the process, however, Kirk is wounded (or falls off a bridge -- they tried a couple versions) and dies.

* Star Trek science.


Before I go into why Kirk's death was lame, let's talk about what makes a character's sacrifice work. It's not enough that a character dies for someone (or goes to prison for them, or gives up their chance at becoming a rockstar, or lets them have the last tater tot, etc. -- sacrifice can mean a lot of things). If you want the reader to admire the character's compassion, their sacrifice has to be IMPORTANT, it has to be RIGHT, and it has to be NECESSARY.

The character has to sacrifice for something important. It has to matter, and it has to be in proportion to what the character is giving up. If Jack risks his life so that his buddy Bonzo can win the National Texas Hold 'Em Tournament, that's not very admirable. On the other hand, if Bonzo needs to win the tournament so the mob won't kill him and his family, Jack's sacrifice is a lot more worthy.

The character has to sacrifice for what's right. Readers sympathize with characters that are doing the right thing. Jack's sacrifice for Bonzo's family might be important, but if his "family" is a child prostitution racket, well... no one's going to give Jack any awards.

The character's sacrifice has to be necessary. If there was an alternative, but the character chose sacrifice anyway, no one will admire it. If all Jack had to do was loan Bonzo some money, we're going to think he's stupid, not noble.

Let's look at Kirk's deaths now and see if we can figure out what went wrong. First his death on Enterprise-B. Important? He saved the lives of many people, so yes. Right? The people he saved were (so far as we know) good people. Check. Necessary? The movie set it up such that Kirk had to be the one in engineering (at least, there wasn't time to explain it to someone else -- in any case, if he sent someone else to do it, he'd have been a jerk). Check.

It was a good death for a character as big as Captain Kirk. Later, when you find out Kirk's alive, it's kind of cool. He survived! That's just what such a great captain deserves, right? But then he died again. Was his second death important? Technically. He saved lives, though we were never really made to care about the Veridian people, so it's arguable. Was it right? Again, we were never really shown any Veridian characters. While we assume they are innocents, to the reader they are faceless. Yes it was right, but only technically. Necessary? Arguable. Kirk knew what Picard was asking was dangerous, but from a story standpoint, there's no reason Picard needed Kirk to pull it off.

Kirk's second death hit the right points (important, right, necessary), but it hit them weakly. After all the dangers he had been through, readers expect a death in proportion to the character. A minor character dying for the same reasons might have been a worthy sacrifice, but this was James T. Kirk. It was made worse by the fact that we already thought Kirk had died, and his first death was more worthy than his second.

But it's okay, because we can learn something from it. If you want a character to be admired for their sacrifice, make it important, right, and necessary. And if you bring a character back to life, make sure his second death is more important than his first.

J. J. Abrams, I'm looking at you.

Jonathan Coulton, Re: Your Brains

(Re: my previous post on your ideas never (ever) getting stolen, Writer Beware has some helpful information on copyrights. Of particular note: all original expression is copyrighted the moment it is fixed in tangible form (including all your posts and comments on the internet)).

Okay, so if you already know Jonathan Coulton, just skip to the video and enjoy.

For the rest of you, Jonathan Coulton is very important in the geek world. He's a singer/songwriter in the legacy of Weird Al, but he tends toward original songs more than parodies. His songs are geeky, weird, and often hilarious. If you've been around the internet a while, you may have heard his folksy, acoustic cover of "Baby Got Back." Or the ending credits of Portal -- that was also him.

Probably better than telling you is showing you who he is. This song is about a horde of zombies trying to get at some humans in a mall. One of the zombies is a former coworker of a survivor -- the kind of coworker you want to blast in the face with a sawed-off shotgun (even before he was a zombie).

Here, just watch (lyrics below the video):



Re: Your Brains

Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall.
Good to see you buddy, how've you been?
Things have been okay for me except that I'm a zombie now.
I really wish you'd let us in.
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demands,
but here's an FYI: you're all gonna die screaming.

All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're not unreasonable. I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
if you open up the doors,
we'll all come inside and eat your brains.

I don't want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?
Spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe that's okay for now, but someday you'll be out of food and guns.
Then you'll have to make the call.
I'm not surprised to see you haven't thought it through enough.
You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff,
but, Tom, that's what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly.

I'd like to help you Tom, in any way I can.
I sure appreciate the way you're working with me.
I'm not a monster Tom, well... technically I am.
I guess I am.

Got another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap this up.
I know we'll get to common ground somehow.
Meanwhile I'll report back to my colleagues who are chewing on the doors.
I guess we'll table this for now.
I'm glad to see you take constructive criticism well.
Thank you for your time. I know we're all busy as hell.
And we'll put this thing to bed
when I bash your head open.

Your Ideas Just Aren't That Great

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -- Howard Aiken, designer of the first automatic computer.

A lot of wannabe authors out there are living in fear. They're afraid someone is going to steal their idea and hit it big before they get their shot. I understand this fear, even shared it at one point. But I am increasingly of the opinion that this is a silly thing to be afraid of.

First of all, there is no such thing as the "Killer Idea". There are great ideas, sure, but no idea is so amazing that it (a) hasn't been done before or (b) can't be done again. Child born in obscurity destined to save the world? Star Wars, Harry Potter, Eragon, Ender's Game, The Matrix. Witches and wizards secretly living among us? The Dresden Files, Witch Hunter Robin, Harry Potter again. Aliens as predatory monsters? Yes. Aliens as friends? Many times. Vampires among us? I think you get the idea.

These are all good ideas, but they've been done before. And whether you like them or not, they'll be done again (I'm doing a couple of them right now). Why can they be done again and again, each time different and many times really good? Because if you give two authors the exact same idea, they will write two completely different stories.

What that means is, even if someone did steal your idea, the novel they'd end up writing will look nothing like yours. And that's assuming they take it in the first place. Cuz you know what else? Anyone with the skill and motivation required to finish a novel already has ideas of their own. Lots of them. And they are probably more in love with their own ideas than they will ever be with yours. Finishing a novel is hard enough, but can you imagine working on an idea you weren't excited about? For a year or more?

Mind. Numbing.

Not convinced? That's fine. Let's say you actually have a killer idea. It's amazing, totally unique. It's going to blow Harry Potter, Twilight, and every James Patterson novel ever written to the clearance bin. Odds of that: 0.5% (that's really generous, guys).

Then someone sees the idea's obvious genius and steals it. Honestly, just saying that kinda makes me laugh. I mean, (a) even the professionals don't know what will and will not break out and (b) potential thieves probably won't even agree with you on what's "good". Not to mention the reasons I've already stated. But I'll be generous again. Odds: 1%.

They write the novel faster than you and better than you. We'll assume we're dealing with a pro here, so odds: 90%.

Although their novel is very different from what you were going to write, it's close enough and successful enough that it ruins the market for your novel. Again, this kinda makes me laugh. Do you know how many Twilight clones are still selling? Generous odds: 1%.

So the GENEROUS likelihood of someone stealing your idea such that you can't do it anymore is 0.000045% -- about the same as the odds of you being crushed to death. And you know what? If this hypothetical thief did all that, I think they deserve the results of their labor. Seriously, coming up with a great idea takes all of 5 minutes. Turning it into a bestselling novel takes years.

So don't be afraid of people stealing your creativity (or of being crushed to death). Publishers don't sell ideas, they sell books. While a good idea can grab a reader's interest, the best idea in the world can't hold that interest for 300 pages if it's executed poorly.

What I'm saying is: worry less about what other people might do with your idea and more about what you're going to do with it.

That Thing Where I Draw: Sunflowers

Well, the votes are in and you are looking at the new Author's Echo (unless you're in Reader, Facebook, etc., in which case everything looks exactly the same). I like this layout better (less clutter). Though I wish Blogger had more font choices for the blog title. Oh well, it's not perfect, but it's free. So who's complaining?

Not me.

Anyway, today's picture was commissioned by my wife, Cindy. It's the second largest picture I've ever drawn (about 10"x15"), which may explain the sometimes-poor attention to detail (I have a short attention span, sorry). But my wife likes it, and it's good practice for me in oil pastels.

Your Call: New Look

After God knows how many years of the same thirty-eight templates, Blogger has finally joined the 21st century with, not just new templates, but customizability (thanks to fairyhedgehog for the heads up). That means (1) I wasted my entire Saturday morning playing with it and (2) Author's Echo is about to get a new look.

But I can't decide on a background (I'll tweak fonts and colors later). I figured, since you guys will probably be looking at my blog more than I do,* you should be the ones to decide. I've narrowed it down to the four choices below; click the images for a larger version. The poll is at the end (if you're reading this in your e-mail, RSS reader, on Facebook, etc. you'll have to click through to vote).

* Most of my interaction with the blog is through the dashboard and e-mail, honestly.


Blue:

Cliff:

Ocean:

Palms:

(If you can't see the poll, click here).

Thanks for voting. Feel free to make further comments in the comments, as I reserve the right to ignore the results of the poll in favor of a really persuasive argument.

Why Bad Reviews Don't Matter

I figure I should post this before my writing gets out there. Before someone thinks this was triggered by a bad review of my own work. It's not.*

First, let's start with a given: There is not a single book, song, or piece of art that is universally loved (or hated). I think we can agree on that. The Bible? Simultaneously loved and hated. Manet? Unappreciated in his time. And believe it or not, some people hate U2 (I know!).

From this, we can assume one of two things:

1. Some people just don't understand great art.
2. Art is subjective.

If you've been around here for a while, you know where I'm going with this, but let's stick with logic. The first supposition can be true if and only if, for a given work of art, all those who love it are by some measure "educated" in what is good art, and all those who hate it are not. I don't think that's true. Unfortunately, I can't really prove it in a single blog post, so if you want to argue with me you're just going to have to provide a counter-example.**

Art is subjective. That means all reviews, good or bad, are a matter of opinion. Saying that the characters in Ghost Force were flat, dull, and indistinguishable only means that the characters didn't speak to YOU (or, in this case, me... I didn't like that book). Saying the writing in The Shack was awkward and annoying only means the writing bothered YOU (or me again, although I did like the ideas).

Now I don't think a blog post in my obscure corner of the verse will help reviewers express things as their opinion (though they should), but I say this for you writers out there, and everyone else involved in art of any kind. Bad reviews can't hurt you. At best, a bad review is something you can learn from. At worst, it just means someone didn't get what you created.

And that's okay.

Art moves people, but everybody is moved by different things. A friend of mine hates (HATES!) Finding Nemo, while I consider it a powerful movie. Is my friend wrong? Uneducated? Totally blind to the genius that is Pixar? (Yes.) No! My friend just isn't moved by themes of fatherhood like I am. And why should he be? It's not his heart. There's nothing wrong with my friend, with me, or with the movie. It is what it is. It moves whomever it moves.

You hear this all the time: you can't please everybody. We use it to dismiss a critique that makes us upset, but think about it. If you can't please everybody, it means you don't have to. This is freedom, folks. It's the freedom to write what you love. The difficulty lies, not in making people understand, but in finding those people who already do.

Of course you will continue to work on your craft. Of course you will strive to write something that many, many people can identify with and enjoy. To me, that's the fun of growing in this art. But in the end, you'll write what you write. You'll move whomever you'll move.

And if that jerk on Amazon doesn't get it, that's okay.


* It's actually a preemptive attack on FUTURE bad reviews. How's that for passive-aggression?

** HA! Passive-aggression again!***

*** You know, these footnotes are getting kind of passive-aggressive.

Show vs. Tell, in Which My Son Teaches Me About Writing

Writers are always told, "Show, don't tell." The other day, one of my 3-year-old boys gave me an object lesson on why that is:

DADDY: Nathan, that was naughty. You're on a timeout.

NATHAN sits on the step and cries for like an hour.*

N: Timeout over?

D: Your timeout will be over when you're quiet.

Nathan stops screaming for an entire breath.

N: Nathan's quiet already!

D: If you have to tell me you're quiet, you're not quiet.

But you know, sometimes it's okay to tell too.

DADDY: What are you eating, Nathan?

Nathan opens his mouth as wide as he can.

D (holding stomach): Thanks.

* Not actually an hour.

Books I Read: Catching Fire

Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Published: 2009
Content Rating: PG-13 for violence

After barely surviving the Hunger Games, Katniss finds herself in even worse trouble. The Capitol blames her for uprisings in the Districts, and they want her to fix things on her Victory Tour. She has no love for the Capitol, but the last thing she wants is for anyone to die because of her, least of all her friends and family back home. But when a simple show of respect for a Hunger Games' ally triggers a minor rebellion, she doesn't know what to do. Can she make things right? Could she run away with those she loves? Or could she become the leader the Districts are aching for?

I was worried about this book at first. I thought the Games themselves were what I loved about the first one, and I wondered if any political tension would be as compelling. About the end of chapter 3, though, I was just as hooked. Turns out it's also the Big Brother-esque Capitol that I like -- the realization that the only happy ending would be if the Capitol was overthrown, while chapter after chapter the Capitol proves that will never happen.

So I really liked it. Every time I thought the story was slow or predictable (which was rare, but it happened), something occurred to make me sit up and go, "No way!"

With one caveat: I felt like Katniss was kinda thick-headed towards the end. It's not that she should've seen the end coming (I didn't see most of it coming either), but once it came Katniss just didn't seem to get it, even after it was explained to her. I guess it's her character -- she never figured out about Peeta until the end of the first one either -- but it felt overdone to me in this one. It didn't ruin the book for me, but if she doesn't pick up on things quicker in the third one, I might be upset.

Azrael's Curse

Cindy and Anica are home now, which is totally awesome. It also means I'm alternately busier than ever and totally bored/napping (much more the former). And for whatever reason, I don't feel like blogging much about writing. Life just feels a lot bigger right now. Don't worry, I'll get over it.

So I'm cheating today and pasting my query for Air Pirates, also known as Azrael's Curse. Feel free to fill the comments with criticism or praise if you like. Just don't be a meanie head.

Dear Agent:

For Hagai’s twenty-first birthday, his mother sends him a stone that gives visions of the future. But why did she send it, and how, since she was killed eighteen years ago? Hagai’s not exactly a hero -- the bravest thing he’s ever done is put peppers in his stew -- yet when the stone shows his mother alive and in danger, he sets out to find her.

Air pirates and sky sailors are also after the stone, and Hagai soon loses it to a wanted sky’ler named Sam. Sam wants the stone to help him avenge his father, but it only shows him one thing: his own death. Hagai, he learns, receives many visions. So when Hagai tracks Sam down and demands he give the stone back -- politely, of course, because Sam has a knife -- Sam offers him a job instead.

Now Hagai, who grew up wanting nothing to do with sky’lers, is crew to one and fugitive from both pirates and police. He’s not sure he can trust Sam, and the stone haunts Hagai with visions of his own death. Nonetheless, he’s determined to change the future and find his mother, if it’s not already too late.

AZRAEL'S CURSE is a 90,000-word science fantasy novel, available on request. It's written to stand alone but has series potential. My short story, “Pawn's Gambit” -- set in the same world as AZRAEL'S CURSE -- is due to be published in BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Adam Heine

I noticed at least one agent wanted the story described in one single paragraph. So here's the super-condensed version. I think I might like it better, but I'm still too close to it to tell (what with having written this version like 20 minutes ago):

For Hagai’s twenty-first birthday, his mother sends him a stone that gives visions of the future. But why did she send it, and how, since she was killed eighteen years ago? Hagai’s not exactly a hero -- the bravest thing he’s ever done is put peppers in his stew -- yet when the stone shows his mother alive and in danger, he sets out to find her. Hagai joins a crew of wanted sky sailors, becoming fugitive from both pirates and police. He's not sure who he can trust, and the stone haunts him with visions of his own death. Nonetheless, he's determined to change the future and find his mother, if it's not already too late.

My New Distraction

You may notice I missed a post yesterday. That's the first post I've missed since I decided to have a schedule, but I have a really good reason:

Also without the crying:

Her name is Anica Joy Heine, and she's going to ensure I never get anything productive done again.

And actually, I'm okay with that.

Seriously though, this space will be quiet until Friday, when I will attempt to present the appearance of normality once more. I'll be online, I just won't be writing anything new or witty. Which I guess is the same as always, but...

You know what? Whatever. I have a baby girl!

Goals, Dreams, and Settling

Dreams (as I'm defining them today) are what you want to have happen. Goals are what you make happen.

Dreams are as big as you're imagination. Goals are what you can accomplish today.

Dreams come first. Goals are how you get there.

Say your dream is to own a big house on the ocean. How do you get there? You can't say, "I'm going to own a big house on the ocean by the time I'm 30." Not without a plan.

Your goals are the plan. Get a good job -- one that leads to better jobs, better salaries. Save money. Make a budget. These are goals. They can get you from where you are now to where you want to be.

If you mix up dreams and goals, you're in trouble. Dreams are sometimes out of your control. If your goal is to be married by the time you're 35, then on your 35th birthday you might find yourself settling for someone less than ideal. You can't control who you meet, whether or not you fall in love, whether or not they're the perfect person for you.

But you can make goals -- small, accomplishable things that are under your control, that will make that dream more likely. Don't date jerks. Don't kiss on a first date. Don't marry anyone who hates Star Wars. Stuff like that.

Like my dream is to get published. It's a dream, not a goal, because it is largely out of my control. What I can control is how much I write, how well I write, how much time I take with my query letter, how many stories and novels I send out. So my goals are along those lines: write X words a day/month/year. Revise my query letter at least Y times. Query N agents within M months. Write Z short stories this year. Find Q more letters for variables. These goals won't ensure I get published, but they will improve my odds. More importantly, they are entirely within my control.

And I don't put a timeline on my dream. If I said, "I will get an agent before my third novel" or "I will be published before I'm 40" then I set myself up for disappointment. It's entirely possible I will never be published, simply because it's out of my control. If I put a timeline on it then, just like marriage, I'll end up settling.

So I won't. I'll keep trying, making new goals and hitting them, as long as it takes. But I'm not going to settle on my dream. Hopefully you won't either.

So I'm curious: what are your dreams (as much as you want to talk about them here, of course)? How are you planning to get there?

Books I Read: Kindred

Title: Kindred
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Genre: Science Fiction
First Published: 1979
Content Rating: R for beatings, whippings, and attempted rape

Dana, an African-American writer from the 20th century, is transported to pre-Civil War Maryland to save the life of a white boy named Rufus -- the son of a slave owner and Dana's ancestor. As Rufus grows older, Dana is called back again and again. Each time, her stay is longer and more dangerous. She refuses to be treated as a slave, but she has no rights and no help -- quiet submission is often less painful than the whip. But as Rufus grows meaner and more possessive, Dana must decide if slavery is worth her life, or his.

This is a dark book, but really powerful. It's an amazing look at slavery through the eyes of a woman born free in 1979 California. Dana is forced to decide what she really believes about slavery and herself. There are many times when she thinks she would do anything rather than be enslaved, whipped, or even raped, but when it comes down to it, the choices are much harder to make in reality. Rufus is an interesting character too. Alternately generous and vicious -- totally racist but less so than many others of his time -- it was difficult to hate him even when he did terrible things.

There's one scene in particular I want to share with you. Dana (the narrator) is talking with a mute named Carrie, another slave. Dana feels guilty for saving Rufus after all the terrible things he does to her and other people. Carrie reminds her that if Rufus died, things would be much worse; all the slaves might be sold off, families would be separated.

Carrie stood looking down at the crib as though she had read my thought.

"I was beginning to feel like a traitor," I said. "Guilty for saving him. Now . . . I don't know what to feel. Somehow, I always seem to forgive him for what he does to me. I can't hate him the way I should until I see him doing things to other people." I shook my head. "I guess I can see why there are those here who think I'm more white than black."

Carrie made quick waving-aside gestures, her expression annoyed. She came over to me and wiped one side of my face with her fingers--wiped hard. I drew back, and she held her fingers in front of me, showed me both sides. But for once, I didn't understand.

Frustrated, she took me by the hand and led me out to where her husband Nigel was chopping firewood. There, before him, she repeated the face-rubbing gesture, and he nodded.

"She means it doesn't come off, Dana," he said quietly. "The black. She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are."

I hugged her and got away from her quickly so that she wouldn't see that I was close to tears.

---

Content ratings based on what I think a movie might be rated, if the things shown in the book were shown in the movie. Ratings are very subjective, and I don't always remember/notice things. If you're unsure whether the book is right for you, do some research so you can make your own decision.

That Thing Where I Draw: We Do Hard Things

A few months ago, I wrote a post about how I don't like the word "talent". It's a post about how I learned that I shouldn't quit something just because I'm not good at it right away, or because it's too hard. Natalie told me she had framed the saying "We Do Hard Things". I loved the idea: we don't quit when something gets hard -- hard things are what we do!

I wanted a picture like that in my house, but I didn't want just the words. It was five months before I figured out what I did want:

"We shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo... I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for... But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually...

"But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten."

It's Not You, Wilhelm. It's Me.

I remember the first time we met, Wilhelm. It was in this HyperCard game back in the 80's. You were the sound that played when I did something stupid and died. This sound.

Back then, I liked you for who you were -- I had no idea you were famous. To me, you were just "that scream I assigned as my computer's shutdown sound."

Then one day I was watching Star Wars. A stormtrooper got shot, and I heard you as he fell down a shaft. When I asked you about it, you told me everything. "I'm an old joke," you said. "They call me the Wilhelm Scream." You mentioned some old movies you were in -- the kind I'd have seen on MST3K -- before George Lucas found you. "And you know how GEORGE is about inside jokes."

It was kind of awesome. You were a big deal, and I was in on it. I'd be watching a movie with my friends and be all like, "Hey, I know that scream! That's the sound from when the bad guy died in Temple of Doom." My friends thought I was cool.*

* You have to know my friends.


That was twenty years ago. Now...

See, it's not your fault, Wilhelm. You haven't changed a bit in 58 years. It's me. I just... Sometimes I want to watch a movie in peace, yeah? Without you opening your mouth. I know, I know. It's your job. But it's like. Every. Single. Movie. You scream in Fifth Element, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tears of the Sun, Kingdom of Heaven, Sin City, all three Lord of the Rings movies...

I can understand some of them, I guess -- Indiana Jones, Avatar, Tropic Thunder. But New Moon? Anchorman? The Pacifier? You were even in an episode of Mythbusters for crying out loud!

And it's not just my movies; you're in all my kids' movies too. Even when I'm not watching, I hear you in Kung Fu Panda, Cars, even Up and Bolt. Heck, my daughters were watching Prince Caspian the other day IN THAI, and I heard you from the other room!

So, it's too much. You were cool and all, 20 years ago. But I think it's time we saw other people, or movies, or... If you could just not be in movies at all anymore. Ever. That would be great. Maybe we could talk then.

In another 20 years.

The Board Game Post

A long time ago, I said I'd do a post on board games. Unfortunately (for you, I guess) I could talk about board games for weeks without even trying. I LOVE board games. There's so much I could cover, I hardly know where to start. Consider this a broad overview for the uninitiated (with hopefully-helpful recommendations for fellow board game geeks). If you think Monopoly or Milton Bradley are representative of board games, this post is for you.

We'll start with the basics. Two board games you need to know: Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan.

Ticket to Ride is our gateway game. We teach it to our friends before introducing the harder stuff. You play as competing railroad tycoons claiming railway routes between large cities (American cities, but there's versions for Europe, Germany, and Scandinavia), earning more points for longer routes and connecting distant cities. Gameplay is a constant tension between purchasing routes (before someone else does) or grabbing more cards (so you can purchase said routes). You can learn this game in 5 minutes and still be playing 5 years later (we are).

Settlers is a bit more complicated, but even more addictive. Players compete to settle an unexplored land. They must collect and trade their resources in order to build roads, settlements, and cities before someone else does. With a board that changes every game and multiple expansions, this one hasn't gotten old since we learned it 12 years ago.

But oh my gosh, guys. That's just a cubic meter of ice on the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Carcassonne. Claim cities, roads, and fields. Bigger cities (etc.) means bigger points. The gameplay is simple (draw a tile, place a tile). The real trick is figuring out how to encourage other players to complete your cities with their tiles.

Agricola. Plow fields, raise animals, renovate your home, all while making sure your family stays fed. Way more fun and complicated than it sounds. A simpler game ("simple" here is a relative term) with similar gameplay is Puerto Rico, wherein you build a colony and plantations in the New World.

Wait, what about pirates? Plunder the islands and blow each other to smithereens in Pirate's Cove (what the heck is a smithereen?). Or bust out of prison in the simple-but-fun Cartagena, which somehow took Candy Land's game mechanics and made them interesting.

Like the party game Mafia? Try Bang! Kill the sheriff (if you're an outlaw) or the outlaws (if you're the sheriff) or everybody (if you're a renegade). But make sure you know who you're shooting at before you pull the trigger; they might be on your side.

Yahtzee fans might enjoy To Court the King. Roll the right dice combinations to attract members of the royal court. Each court member gives you new dice and abilities to help you attract more important nobles, until one of you manages to court the king himself.

Think that's it? We're still WAY above the waterline here. There's like ten games in our cabinet I haven't even mentioned, a bunch more I've played or heard about, and that's not even counting cooperative games!

I should stop before I lose more readers than I have already... But wait! I haven't told you about new versions of Risk yet. Or Lost Cities! Or Citadels! Or Formula De!! Or --

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The content of this post has exceeded Blogger's safety limitations. To protect the author from over-excitement, Blogger has ended this post prematurely. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you, and safe blogging.

Books I Read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter 7)
Author: J.K. Rowling
Genre: YA Fantasy
Published: 2007
Content Rating: PG-13 for violence

It's the 7th book in one of the most famous fantasy series of our time. I can't talk about it without spoiling it (not that it matters), but who cares? If you've read the first six, you're going to read it.* And if you haven't, you'll read the other six first and have a pretty good idea of what happens in this installment.

All I can say is this: despite the ponderous camping chapters, the sometimes-awkward writing (that I would never have noticed before trying to be an author myself), and the occasional magical rule-bending for the sake of the plot... at the end I was moved, I was sad, and I didn't want to say goodbye.

Yeah, for all its flaws, the whole series is well worth reading. Happy to talk more in the comments (assuming I'm around; baby coming and all that).

 * Or really, you've already read it. I'm certain I'm the last Harry Potter fan to get to this installment.

---

Content ratings based on what I think a movie might be rated, if the things shown in the book were shown in the movie. Ratings are very subjective, and I don't always remember/notice things. If you're unsure whether the book is right for you, do some research so you can make your own decision.

Air Pirates Postmortem: What Went Right

On Wednesday, I talked about how I could improve my process. If you read only that post, you might think I get down on myself a lot. I do, but not in that post. The truth is I like my process a lot, and there were a lot of things that went right with Air Pirates. Here are some that stuck out to me.

1) FINDING MY VOICE
Air Pirates was originally a story about Sam (big surprise there), and Hagai was just the reader's guide into the world. I always knew Sam's voice, but writing from Hagai's POV was more difficult for me. Until one day Cindy finished reading chapter 4 and said, "I like Hagai. He's really funny."

Funny? I wrote something funny? I had no idea. I didn't even know that was possible. Humor was one of those things I figured I'd never be able to write. Like romance or contemporary fiction. After Cindy told me, suddenly I could see it for myself. Hagai really was funny.

Then I screwed it all up in chapter 6 by trying too hard, but that's beside the point. The point is, when Cindy said that, I realized I had a voice. I mean, I always had a voice, but now I knew what it was. I could see it, refine it, and most of all take pride in it.

2) WROTE THE QUERY EARLY
Somewhere around chapter 8, I realized I was unclear on the focus of the story. So I spent some time writing and refining my query letter. This was the best decision I could have made for three reasons:

1. It gave me months to refine the query in small doses, rather than trying to perfect it all at once while fighting the urge to "Send it right now and see what happens!"
2. It forced me to figure out what the story was really about and consequently kept me from getting off-track while I was drafting.
3. Because I'd written less than half the novel at that point, writing the query was easier; I didn't try to force superfluous details into the query because I didn't know any details!

3) DEDICATED WRITING TIME
So, my wife is awesome. One of the myriad ways in which she is awesome is that she gives me 2 hours a day, most days, to disappear and write. Not only does it help keep me free from distraction, but it motivates me. It feels like I'm leaving for my job, and I know if I waste my two hours, I can't make it up later.


4) BETA READERS WHO KNOW THE BUSINESS BETTER THAN I DO
All my beta readers were awesome. I used at least 95% of everyone's comments, and Air Pirates is much better for it.

But a few of my beta readers had that extra level of skill and experience I didn't. They were harsher critics than I even knew how to be. They not only stretched this novel, but they stretched me as a writer.

Until a year and a half ago, I knew hardly any writers. The best thing that has come out of this blog has been my relationship with many of you: writers on the same path, many of whom know more than I do. I'd still be doing this without you guys, but I couldn't do it nearly as well or as well-encouraged. Beta or not, you are all awesome.

Air Pirates Postmortem: What Could've Been Better

In my previous jobs, I was trained to treat even a creative process as something to be examined and refined, so as to repeat successes and minimize failures. In my writing process, that takes the form of statistics and post-mortems -- to learn as much as possible about my own process, to make it better, and (by putting it up here) to maybe edify other writers as well. If this stuff bores you, don't worry. Next week I'm going to talk about board games (whee!).

Today I'm going to look at what could have been done better (on the assumption that I can actually change these things in the future; in the business we call this "wishful thinking"). But first, an overview of the process:

STAGE	TIME (months)	TIME (hours)	WORD COUNT	DESCRIPTION
Thinking	4 years	n/a	0	Ideas that came to me while I was writing Travelers.
First Draft	19 months	n/a	100,000	I talked about this part of the process here.
1st Edit	2 months	95 hours	94,000	My own edit and plot fixes before anyone else saw it.
1st Beta	3 months			14 beta readers. 4.6 critiques returned from 6 people (some critiqued only part of it). Meanwhile I wrote "Pawn's Gambit" and outlined The Cunning.
2nd Edit	1.8 months	79 hours	86,000	Based on critiques from the betas.
2nd Beta	1.5 months			2 beta readers; while I worked on the query, synopsis, and wrote the beginning of The Cunning.
3rd Edit	1.5 months	58 hours	91,000	Based on critiques of 2nd Beta. Added about 200 words per chapter (mostly description).

That's sort of a broad view. For one thing, each edit consisted of me going over the draft like 3-6 times looking at different things. Now to identify what went wrong.

1) TOO MANY BETAS
I think this is the most obvious flaw from the table above: 14 betas, 4.6 critiques.

Okay, first of all, please know that I'm not judging any of my betas. None of them. Beta reading a whole novel is a LOT of work, and many of my betas were non-writer friends and family who maybe didn't know that. But -- and this is important -- just the fact that they offered made me feel really, really good. It showed me a special level of support, and I'm grateful for everyone who asked to help.

That said, a lot of this is outside of my control. For one thing, sometimes beta readers DO stop reading partway through and then tell the author why. One of my most important and valued betas did exactly that, and Air Pirates is way, way better for her input. My most important changes were directly due to that partial critique, so: The purpose of beta readers is not to catch every typo and misplaced comma, but to get you thinking about your manuscript in a different way. That can be done even if they don't finish it.

But what about the folks who didn't give me any feedback? As much as I love them (and I do), I can't fix something if nobody tells me what's broken. I think the fact that I announced an open beta may have had something to do with it; my betas knew there were lots of other betas. It's a psychology thing: people are more likely to fulfill commitments if they know they are the only ones responsible for them. So in the future, I will ask about 2 people per beta phase, and I will ask them directly. It's far from a guarantee, but it's fixing what is in my control to fix.

2) SLOW FIRST DRAFT
I try really hard not to stress about how fast or slow I write. Really, really hard. At the same time, I'm thinking about doing this long term, and finishing a novel every 2 to 2.5 years just doesn't seem like a maintainable speed for a career, you know?

So what can I do about it? Not stress about it, first of all. I know from experience that speed at anything is gained with practice. I trust that I will get faster as I get better. Also I know that towards the end of the draft I was pushing out over 10,000 words per month, which is a lot better if I can maintain it.

So my goal here, in addition to not stressing, is to focus on self-discipline and daily, weekly, or monthly word count goals. They don't have to be huge, but they should stretch me a little. Or at least keep me from getting distracted.

3) LAZY ABOUT FIXING PROBLEMS I WAS AWARE OF
If you think something might be a problem with your manuscript, chances are good someone else will too. That means if you're aware of a problem, you should fix it before someone else sees it, rather than hoping nobody will notice.

I did this with description, among other things, and both readers in the 2nd beta phase called me on it. Repeatedly. I knew I was lazy with descriptions, but I was more interested in getting the manuscript out then in sitting down and thinking, "What IS in this room? What DOES that rug look like?" (and so on). It's a problem I could've fixed on my own, but I didn't.

Why is that a problem? Because if I had fixed it, those two beta readers could've spent their time identifying problems I WASN'T aware of, instead of telling me things I already knew. Beta reading is really hard. If the novel you're critiquing is full of plot holes and annoying characters, you're not going to notice all the little things that are wrong with it too. On the other hand, if the novel is near-perfect, you're going to get really nit-picky, catching things you would otherwise have glazed right by.

Put simply: beta readers can't catch everything. If you remove problems you're aware of before they read your work, they'll thank you by catching things you didn't know about.

You still with me? That's amazing. I would've quit reading right around when I started pretending I knew anything about psychology.*


* That's not true. I would've stopped reading at the table because I'd still be looking at it. Statistics ENTHRALL me.

What If?

What if it's not ready?
What if this is my last chance
to have my favorite agent
give it more than just a glance?

What if, just like last go,
I'm rejected forty ways?
Am I forever doomed to
tired prose and dead cliches?

What if something's wrong with me,
and I'm not meant to write more
than the newsletters and blogs
I've been doing since '04?

If that's the case I'm sure
to be more than just depressed.
I'll have wasted seven years
on a hobby no one gets.

Writing asks more time than
I can possibly commit.
I probably should quit, but then...
what if this is it?

Only one way to find out.

The Cindy Heine Novel Challenge

(In which you learn two Important Things you might not have otherwise known).

Important Thing #1: I am very close to querying Air Pirates.

Honestly if you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably knew that. I estimate I'm within 1-2 weeks of sending out my first queries. To speed me toward that end, my wife has issued me this challenge: "Send out your first batch of queries before I give birth, and I'll buy you a steak."

And therein you have learned Important Thing #2: I haven't eaten a real steak in years.

No, wait. That's not it. Ah, right. Important Thing #2: My wife is about to give birth. Our second biological child is due on February 25th. So I've got about 0-3 weeks to finish my read-aloud polish, do a couple global searches for consistency, and re-research my agents (I did this research a long time ago, but things change, besides which I know a lot more what to look for in an agent).

So if I disappear from the internet for a while... Sorry, I thought I could finish that with a straight face. Like I could ever leave the internet.

Anyway, it's the deadline without a deadline. God only knows what day we'll meet our latest progeny. Cindy's on a walk with the boys right now. For all I know, I could be losing the challenge just because I wanted to tell you guys about it! What are you doing here? You have a book to finish!

No, wait. That's me.

Paying It Forward, as Requested

This unscheduled post is a shameless method to improve my chances at winning Elana Johnson's Pay It Forward Query Critique Contest.

Shameless, but worth it. Elana's offering the query critique services of five fabulous agents (plus a bunch of other prizes, including some super-size Post-Its that I couldn't get in Thailand if I wanted to).

Books I Read: Boneshaker

Title: Boneshaker
Author: Cherie Priest
Genre: Science Fiction (Steampunk)
Published: 2009
Content Rating: R for violence*

Seattle, 1863. Inventor Leviticus Blue tests a powerful drilling machine, nicknamed the Boneshaker. In the process, he destroys several city blocks and releases a poisonous gas called the Blight, which kills, and often reanimates, anyone who breathes it. Soon the entire city is destroyed.

Sixteen years later. A giant wall has been erected to contain the Blight and the ever-hungry rotters it has created. Blue's widow, Briar Wilkes, lives outside, struggling against poverty and her husband's reputation. When Briar's boy goes behind the wall to try and clear his father's name, Briar is the only one who can save him. She must face her past as well as the Blight when she finds something worse than rotters behind the wall.

I worried this would be a horror book -- and it is, but only a little. This is an adventure story, and to that end it does very well. I got annoyed with the main characters at first; I felt they did dumb things or were too stubborn or (in the case of the teenage son) just talked too much. But it didn't ruin the action for me, and a lot of Briar's stubbornness was even explained in the end. Overall, Boneshaker was a lot of fun to read. If you like steampunk, zombies, or even airships (which play a big part too), I'd recommend it.

And for the record, I would totally play an RPG set in this world.

UPDATE: Looks like Boneshaker was just nominated for a Nebula Award.



* Content ratings based on what I think a movie might be rated, if the things shown in the book were shown in the movie. Ratings are very subjective, and I don't always remember/notice things. If you're unsure whether the book is right for you, do some research so you can make your own decision.

Google Mini-Rant and Follow-Up Language Tips

I normally love Google, but this Google Buzz thing is bugging me. The problem, as I see it, is that Google signed me up for a social network and started sending my updates to people (that I may or may not actually know, but whom I've e-mailed at some point) without my permission. That's a Bad Thing.

Now I'm not a big privacy nut or anything. But I am a simplify-my-life nut.* I get requests for random social networks all the time, and I refuse them for a reason. Google just skirted around that by not asking me, and then making it ridiculously hard to opt-out of. Thanks a lot, Google. Screw you, too.

* Which is to say I'm a supporter of it. It doesn't mean I'm good at it.


*deep breath*

Okay, enough of that. How about some random tips on fictional languages that didn't fit in last week's post? Sound good? (I swear this will be the last post on foreign languages. At least for a while. Maybe...

Does slang count?)

MAKE IT READABLE. Even if the reader doesn't understand a word, they will still try to mentally pronounce it. It's frustrating if they can't. Wykkh'ztqaff may look very alien and fantastic, but it'll drive the reader nuts trying to say it -- even in their mind. This is especially true for names!

USE LATIN WITH CAUTION. My method last week involved stealing words from real-life languages and mashing them to hide the source. If you use this method, you should know that Latin and some of its siblings (Spanish, French, and Italian, for example) are so familiar to English speakers that it's very difficult to hide them as a source. (Assuming you want to. See parenthetical below for a counterexample to this tip.)

Take the magical words and phrases from Harry Potter, for example. Their origins are obvious (flagrante enchants objects to burn, gemino duplicates objects, lumos makes light, etc, etc, etc). It works in Harry Potter because it's set in the real world, more specifically Europe. It makes sense that their magical language has the same roots as their spoken language (it also makes it easier to remember what each magic word does). But can you imagine Gandalf the Grey using these same words and claiming they were the ancient language of the Valar?

"The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor... Incendio!"

(Matt Heppe noted in last week's comments that he intentionally used Romanian (a Latin-based language) to give the language a sense of familiarity for English readers. That's definitely a good reason to use Latin. I think, as with anything in writing, intentionality is key.)

WHAT ABOUT ALIEN LANGUAGES IN SCI-FI? It would be a little odd if an alien language sounded like one or more of our Earth languages, wouldn't it? Aliens could be their own post, but off the top of my head I'd say don't use language as we understand it at all. Aliens can speak in hisses, purrs, scents, flashes of color, x-rays, gamma rays, frequencies too low for the human ear to hear... Get creative. Though if you do use a spoken alien language, see the first tip at the top. (There's nothing wrong with spoken alien languages, even if they do sound like ours. I just want to encourage genre writers to stretch their creativity and be intentional about their choices.)

Anyone got any other tips on made-up languages? Do you know any fantasy languages done particularly well? Particularly poorly?

Making Up Words (Without Sounding Like a Dork)

On Wednesday, we talked about using foreign languages in fiction without (a) sounding like a dork or (b) confusing/boring the reader. The bottom line was:

1. Don't do it just to show off.
2. Be intentional; think like the character.
3. Be subtle.

Today I want to talk about a related fantasy topic: making up your own language.

It's impossible (perhaps illegal, and certainly blasphemous) to talk about fantasy languages without mentioning the Godfather of Fantasy Language: Mr. John Tolkien. The guy was a language nut. He invented languages for fun since he was thirteen years old. If this is you, you probably don't need to read the rest of this post. You're fine.

Most of us, however, did not specialize in graduate-level English philology. Most of us speak only one or two languages with any kind of fluency. So most of us don't really understand how language evolves or what it takes to create an artificial language that has the feel and depth of a real one. That's why a lot of amateur fantasy languages sound silly or made-up; it's obvious that they are (made-up, that is).

So how do you create a language that FEELS real, without spending years determining phonology, grammar, or how the presence of two palatal fricative dates back to the Second Age when the Atpians still had two tongues? I'll show you what I do. It's the same thing I do with most of my ideas: steal from real life, then obscure your sources.

Let's take the phrase "thank you." It's a common phrase, often borrowed between languages (e.g. the Japanese say "sankyu" as borrowed English; in California we say "gracias" as borrowed Spanish, etc.).

STEAL FROM REAL LIFE. First I need a source -- some existing, real-world language I can base my fantasy language on. I want it to be somewhat obscure, and I want to show you how you can do this without even knowing the source language (which means no Thai), so I'll pick Malay.

There's lots of ways to find foreign words in a chosen language. If I wanted to be accurate, I'd use 2-3 sites to verify, but I'm making up a language, so Google Translate it is. It translates "thank you" as "terima kasih."

Now that's pretty cool on its own. It's pretty, easy to read, and sounds totally foreign. But despite the odds, somebody who speaks Malay will probably read my novel at some point and scoff. So it's time to obscure. Two ways I typically obscure source languages are: (1) alter the letters/sounds/word order of the existing phrase and (2) mix it with some other language. I'll do both.

OBSCURE YOUR SOURCES. For my second source language, I'll pick something from the same family in the hopes it will make my made-up language sound more real. A little Wikipediage tells me Malay is an Austronesian language, and lists the major languages of that branch. I'll use Filipino (just because it's also in Google Translate) and get "salamat."

Then I mish-mash for prettiness and obfuscation. Salamat + terima = salima or salama or, slightly more obscure, sarama. For kasih, I already used the "sala" part of salamat, so I'll take mat + kasih = matak. "Sarama matak." But that feels a bit long for a thank you phrase, so I'll shorten it to "Sarama tak."

And there you go. It was a little work, but a lot less work than it took to invent Quenya, I'll tell you that. If I'm really serious about this fantasy culture/language, I'll keep a glossary of the phrases I make up in my notes, along with a note of what the source languages are (so I can repeat the process to create more phrases that sound like they could be from the same language) and links to the translation sites I used.

If the glossary gets big enough, I might (because I am a bit of a language geek) start converting the phrases into their constituent parts: individual words, verbs, maybe even conjugations. But that's breaching into Tolkien territory where I said I wouldn't go. Besides which, that would tempt me to break the rules I set forth at the top of this post; they still apply even to made up languages.

So now you know my secret. Now go forth and make cool-sounding languages. Sarama tak.

Being Foreign Without Sounding Like a Dork

Foreign languages are hard to use in fiction. Probably because most of us don't use them in real life (really, we don't). So here I present some tips for helping the reader get that foreignness is happening, without feeling hit over the head by it.

USE LANGUAGE TO BE UNDERSTOOD. First and foremost, the purpose of speaking is to communicate ideas. If a character is fluent in both English and Thai, but her listeners understand only English, she will not toss in a Thai word here and there. If someone did that in real life, we'd think they were just showing off their knowledge. And here's a big surprise: that's how it comes off to the reader too -- like the author is showing off some language they picked up on their trip around the world.

THINK LIKE THE CHARACTER. What if the character ISN'T fluent in English? In that case, there will be words for which the Thai (or other language) comes to her mind first. Speaking fast, she may correct herself, which not only sounds natural, but gives you a natural way to translate what she says:

"Come on! We have to hurry to catch the rotfai. The train."

If her listeners are also bilingual, even only a little, she may not correct herself at all. In this case, you'll have to provide the translation some other way, either through direct telling or (better yet) through context. (Assuming you need the translation at all. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.)

She clapped her hands. "Children, our guests will be here soon. Gep your toys. Reoreo!"

DON'T MAKE THE READER READ UNINTELLIGIBLE GIBBERISH. I once read a novel in which the villains occasionally spoke in Vietnamese. It was cool except when the author strung together a long sentence of Vietnamese phonetics. It was pronounceable I guess, but pointless; I don't understand Vietnamese nor did any of the other characters. It felt like the author was just showing off how much Vietnamese they knew. Take a look at these two examples (with Thai, of course):

The door flew open with a bang. Four masked men ran in, guns pointed at Bernice and her family. "Lukkheun!" one of them shouted. "Lukkheun diawnii!" She didn't know what they were saying, just put her hands on her head and sobbed. "Tah mai lukkheun diaw ja ying kah man. Ow mai! OW MAI!"

This isn't bad, but by that last sentence probably most of you aren't actually reading it anymore. Even if you did read it, you might wonder why since you gained no meaning from it (unless you speak Thai of course, in which case I kindly refer you to this post). But we can change it so it still conveys foreignness and Bernice's terror, without forcing the reader to slog through a bunch of meaningless phonetics:

The door flew open with a bang. Four masked men ran in, guns pointed at Bernice and her family. "Lukkheun!" One put a gun barrel to her mouth, shouting in a language she didn't understand. She didn't know what to do. She put her hands on her head and sobbed, but it only made him scream louder. What did he want from her?

PUT FOREIGN WORDS IN ITALICS. This goes along with not making the reader work. Italics signal the reader that these are words they don't necessarily have to know (also that they're not typos). This even goes for words that you think everybody should know.* A good rule of thumb is if it's not in the English dictionary, italicize it. For example:

"You're hungry? No problema, I'll pick up some burritos."

* I've noticed this problem especially with Californians (like me) who assume everyone took Spanish in high school (like me). Also with British authors and French. I'm American, I don't speak French!


USE FOREIGN ACCENTS SPARINGLY. If English is someone's second language, they may have an accent. You've probably read stories where a character's accent was annoying or really hard to read. It's hard to do right, but the general rule is: be subtle. Imply the accent rather than hit the reader over the head with it.

Also, think like the character. If the character's first language does not have definite articles, they may drop them when speaking English. A common Thai mistake is to get 'he' and 'she' mixed up (although that could be confusing for the reader -- it is for us). When I'm playing a game with my daughter, she sometimes says, "You're going to win me," because that's how the word for 'win' is used in Thai (they have no separate word for 'beat').

It helps to know an ESL speaker, or to know a foreign language so you can work out how the character might process English. If you're not sure though, then don't do it. The character can just use simple words and sentences, with the occasional foreign word tossed in where appropriate.


So to sum up. If you're using foreign languages in your fiction:

1. Don't do it just to show off.
2. Be intentional; think like the character.
3. Be subtle.

Got any other tips? Annoyances with how some authors handle it? Tell us about it in the comments.

That Thing Where I Draw: Ninja Girl

I drew this for a friend of mine. I've said it before, but I put WAY more effort into drawings for other people. I should work on commission all the time. The only thing keeping from doing it is the stress.

I don't know much about this girl. She's some kind of ninja, but beyond that her story changes every time I talk to my friend (he's sort of in the throes of a story brainstorm). Halfway through this drawing, he told me her eyes should be "burning," but I'd already inked them in. Ah, well.

Books I Read: The Hunger Games

Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Published: 2008
Content Rating: PG-13 for violence*

Growing up in District 12 is hard for Katniss. She has to hunt, illegally, just to feed her family, and every year two children are chosen from their district to fight in the tyrannical Hunger Games. This year, it's Katniss' turn. She must fight for her life against 23 other teenagers put in the same position -- all for the amusement of the citizens of Panem.

No joke, this book reached into my chest, gripped me by the ventricles, and didn't let go. Katniss is an awesome character: tough, often heartless, yet willing to do anything to protect the people she loves. The characters she meets are awesome: the boy who may or may not secretly like her; her surprisingly-sympathetic stylist; her mentor, a previous winner of the Games driven to drunkness, but who makes himself (basically) sober when he sees Katniss has a fighting chance.

The world is awesome: a post-apocalyptic America where the majority does hard labor for the few. And the games... Geez, it's like Survivor had a baby with Lord of the Flies and then gave it steroids. It's that cool. Before I read this, my favorite book was easily Ender's Game. Now... I'm not so sure.

One warning though: it leaves you hanging. I mean, the games end and everything, but the end of the book is not The End, strictly speaking. Fortunately there's a sequel (and more fortunately, I have it on my shelf).


* Content ratings based on what I think a movie might be rated, if the things shown in the book were shown in the movie. Ratings are very subjective, and I don't always remember/notice things. If you're unsure whether the book is right for you, do some research so you can make your own decision.

The Problem With Quidditch

One totally optional, but (in my opinion) totally fun aspect of world building is making up fictional games for your world. Like made-up holidays and festivals, games unique to your world can give it a deeper feel and provide an endless source of subplots, conflicts, and climactic settings.

For a lot of fictional games, the rules don't actually matter. Nobody knows how to play that chess game R2-D2 plays against Chewbacca, but the scene gives the world a deeper feel and gives us a taste of Chewbacca's character (also Han's and C-3P0's). Avatar: the Last Airbender frequently uses a game called Pai Sho to reveal things about one of the characters, but the rules are never explained.

But sometimes you want more than that. A critical event might turn on the outcome of a bet, like in Pirates 2 or Phantom Menace. You might have climactic events that center on the playing field, like Harry Potter's Quidditch. Or your entire plot might center on a game, like Ender's Battle Room. In these cases, the reader needs to understand and care about what's going on. They need to know the rules, which means there need to BE rules.

The easiest way to make a fictional game is to take a real-world game and change it slightly. Take chess and give the pieces fantasy names. Take soccer* and give it two goals instead of one, or play with three teams at once on a circular field. But whatever you do -- whether you vary a real game or invent one of your own -- it needs to be a game that, for the most part, would make sense in the real world.

Here's where Quidditch fails. The made-up game starts okay: basically basketball with broomsticks, three goals per team instead of one, extra balls that hurt/distract the players, and a snitch to determine the end of the game. None of these variations break the game, and they all make it more interesting. If we had flying broomsticks and semi-sentient balls, this is a game we could play in the real world.

The problem is the point value of the snitch. Every goal in Quidditch is worth 10 points, but whoever grabs the snitch simultaneously ends the game and earns 150 points -- 15 goals. The overall effect is that regular goals don't matter. Ever. Unless the score reaches 15-0,** the rest of the game has exactly the same tension as if both teams just sat around and waited for the snitch to show up (which, really, why don't they?).

The only reason we don't notice is because the protagonist is the one who gets the snitch. Can you imagine if Harry was the one making meaningless goals, while some minor character caught the snitch and won the game? We also don't notice because usually something else is going on during the match -- like someone's trying to kill Harry or something -- so we don't actually have to pay attention to the match. But to me, all the wizards who go crazy over every goal seem silly and short-sighted.

So by all means, include made-up games in your world. But give them some thought. They don't have to win Game of the Year or anything, but they should at least make real-world sense.

Though I guess if you really are writing the next Harry Potter, it doesn't matter.

UPDATE: As I mention in the comments, I do like Harry Potter. A lot. It has it's flaws, but there's a reason I own all seven.


* A term I use, not because it's correct, but because it's the least ambiguous. They call it football in Thailand too.

** Which is ridiculous. When was the last time you saw a soccer team up 15-0? Or an American football game at 105 to nothing? Unless you were watching Big Leagues Beat Up on Tiny Tots Day, these scores just don't happen. Not at a professional level anyway.