More Notes on Diction and a Bit of Pontificating

Here I am at the inn, having a little downtime between rehearsal and the bachelor's party tonight.  To be honest I'm a little distracted.  There's stuff happening and it's been a busy and chaotic day so far.

I gave a lesson about diction/word choice, but I should clarify that the two things are not equal.  Diction is all about "how" you say things (a difficult conveyance for writing) and so overlaps with word choice.  That's why I used them fairly interchangeably in my last blog post.

I mentioned that I don't write much contemporary fiction.  That's because I'm not comfortable with my knowledge of how real-world people actually talk.  I don't think I quite have my finger on the pulse of the down-to-earth and the down-and-out, nor can I spin out realistically elitist phrases like I think I should if I'm going to portray the melting pot (or garden salad, if you prefer that metaphor) of diversity that is the modern world.  I'm not spot on with rhetoric and jargon used by different political camps or even the nuances of dialect differences between a popular jock and a band geek in high school.

Some of this is just me selling myself short.  I'm afraid to try, to be honest.  There's higher stakes in writing contemporary fiction, because if you paint an inaccurate picture, people get offended (for the wrong reasons) or confused, or both.  There's also my lacking sense of tact, in that if I get talking too much about what's going on in the real world all my innate prejudices and beliefs all get born out pretty quickly, and I don't even tend to believe in all the things I have guttural reactions to.

For these reasons I've largely relegated myself to the abstracted spaces of fantasy and poetry, where I can create the whole universe and the reader has to learn from me what the words mean—what the world means.  In some ways it's lazy, and it's for that reason that I hope to do more contemporary fiction writing, but so far my fear of research and mistakes has kept me from accomplishing that.

I'm also much more versed in what makes good fantasy good than the ethereal, academia-defined notions (hey look, prejudices!) of what makes good "literary" fiction.  So what I strive for is literary fantasy, which leads me to harken back towards Tolkien, Lewis, White, Graham, LeGuin, and others rather than try to pull the popular (and perhaps less substantive) work of Salvatore, Jordan, Brooks, and Martin.  Yes, I included A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time under "less substantive" despite their being epics long enough to kill their writers before they're finished. Arguably, these extensive come from the very fact that these works are popular, but just realize I'm not knocking these guys.  I just want to do something a little different.

I aspire to write fantasy that gets put in the mainstream literary canon.  Yeah, that's a big order to fill.  To do that, I have to be twice as good as someone writing ordinary literary work, because I have to catch the eye of the mainstream audience (incidentally not the majority of readers) from my spot out in left field.  People used to do this all the time.  In my estimation some of the best writers in the last century wrote speculative fiction (fantasy or sci-fi).  Now, some of my fellow recent batch of degree-ified writers may strongly disagree with me.  But they can continue to call fantasy useless and crap and I'll continue to call Hemingway a twit who offed himself because he was too arrogant to age and die with dignity.

So yeah, there's stuff.  By the way, phrases like that one I just used are an instance of diction.  I do it because I want to relate to people, and because I like irony.  I'm a writer, and some say a rather eloquent one, but I know when you just need to relate on a vague level and not get into the boring details with people.  Sometimes I let myself go (like this blog post for example) but that's because I feel comfortable and appreciated.  And yes, I miscalculate.  My own sister checks out on me when I start talking about the fascinating etymologies of words.

I'm a language nerd.  I realize this.  No, I don't need help.  Thanks for trying.

Hearthstead, by the way, isn't one of my more "literary" attempts at fantasy fiction.  It's a bit of a superhero story wrapped in a fantasy shell, which I think makes it super awesome.  Of course, it's also not going to be intentionally subpar writing because of that.  But its themes are a little less esoteric, maybe, than "The Fairies' Game" that I wrote this spring.  Honestly I like it better.  It goes places.  To find out where it goes, of course, you'll have to read it.

Patience, young grasshopper.  Come with time, it will.  Yes, I'm aware that may have been excruciating.  Just move on with me.

By the way, the novel that I hope will be available by the end of this month is called "Ashes of Silver."  I put it in quotes because it's not published yet.  As always, I'll talk more about the book when the time is right.  Yes, I can't shut up about it.  It's my first freaking book ever that's going to come out, and I have a blog where I say whatever I want.  Of course I'm going to gush.  A little bit.  Around the finger I've got plugged in the dam for your sake.

I think that's all I have to say today.  As I said yesterday, circumstances may prevent me from blogging tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes.  Hope your weekend's chugging along nicely.

For now, though?  -shrugs-

(seriously need to think of a better ending thing)

Fantasy and My Process

Late this morning I finished (the first draft of) the novel I've been working on for Writer's Workshop.  In case you've missed a few blogs, I've been kinda pumped about it.

Part of what that means is I suddenly have a lot more time on my hands.  Time enough, maybe, to talk about what the novel is just a little bit.

It evolved out of an idea I had to bring together elements from the Iliad and Arthurian legend.  Somewhere along the line Germanic folklore came in and kind of took over.  I can't give too much away, but I will give you the basic premise:

A village in a recently annexed nation has virtually all of its women stolen away in one night.  The townspeople are bereft, but only a handful band together to seek out and rescue them.  These are the main characters of the story, which follows them on their endeavors to bring their women home.  Their adversaries, however, are not who they expect.

That's the general idea, but it gets built upon pretty heavily.  It's not a particularly long book, especially for being fantasy, but there's a lot that goes on.

I tend to write organically, building on what I've already established to create subtleties and a natural progression towards the end of a story.  Part of the struggle I run into is that I can go on and on before I get to an ending I feel is right for a story, but for the most part I think it helps me avoid endings that seem contrived.

It's too early for me to tell how this story has turned out.  A few people will read it and give me their feedback, which will help, but I won't really have a feeling I can trust about it until a few months from now when I read it over with fresh eyes.

Why am I talking about all this?  I think, mostly, because the process of writing excites me like very little else does.  I am passionate about telling stories in this way, and I want to share that passion with others.  If you could really care less about writing, I apologize for what might seem like a waste of time.

If you're a writer or an avid reader of fantasy and you want to "beta test" the story I just finished writing, get a hold of me and we'll see what we can arrange.  I can feel that my writing style has changed recently, and I'm curious as to how because I can't see it clearly for myself.

Right, that's enough time spent rambling about the esoteric.  Talk to you tomorrow.

Ciao.