Reviews and an interview

This morning brought a flood of good reviews.  First, Andrew Wheeler, former editor of The Science Fiction Book Club, blogged a review of The Other, calling it “a sparkling, wonderfully amusing novel, full of great dialogue, odd situations, and quirky characters; it's a lovely, masterful souffle of a book, and I can think of no reason why any reader wouldn't love it.”

Then something I’ve been awaiting with great anticipation:  Stephen Theaker, doyen of the British Fantasy Society, interviewed me a while back for his Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction and Paperbacks.  Now the magazine is out (meaning it’s available free in pdf, Kindle, Epub, and Feedbooks formats, or as a paperback from Lulu).  Just follow the link and scroll down.

In the same issue, Stephen also reviews all three Henghis Hapthorn novels – Majestrum, The Spiral Labyrinth, and Hespira – and says, “Reading all three together like this was one of the most pleasurable reading experiences of my life.”

Outlining

I let this blog slip because for a couple of months I was without a reliable internet connection, deep in rural southern Italy where I'm housesitting.  But things seem to have stabilized so I thought I'd go back to giving advice to writers.

The Canadian novelist Russell Smith has a piece in today's Globe and Mail about how to write your first novel.  All of it good advice, I thought, except for the bit about outlining.  I added a comment to the article, which I've reproduced below:

I have fourteen novels in print and have done some teaching and mentoring, too.  I agree with all of what Russell is saying except for the point about outlining.  For some people, it's an absolute necessity;  for others, it's a potential book-killer.

I've only outlined a book once, and that was a for-hire job under a pseudonym, writing a novel about the X-Man, Wolverine. The rights owners, Marvel, required a full beginning-middle-and-end outline before they would approve the project.  It was the most difficult part of the assignment.

In every other case, I've started with a character, a situation, and the event that triggers the conflict that will form the heart of the story.  I also have a general idea, which becomes sharper as the work proceeds, as to what the story is about. 

"What the story is about" is different from "what happens in it."  Dumbo, for example, is about a hero who can't accept his own heroic nature, until he is brought to a climactic choice where he must be a hero in order to save the only person whom he loves and who loves him.  The first Star Wars movie is essentially the same story.

If you know what your story is about at that basic a level, beneath the happenings of flying elephants and feuding droids, you'll know what has to happen in it to make it work out all right.

One last bit of advice.  Writing a first draft is like hitting the beach on D-Day.  You don't stop to tend the wounded or mourn the dead.  If you don't get off the beach, you'll die there.  Which means:  the point of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.  Don't  go back and rewrite the first chapter until you've finished the last.  Get off the beach.  Otherwise, you may never get past page twenty.