Had to strip out a large chunk of chapter three--it started to read like a comic book, and I realized I'd let one of my characters go too far, too fast. So I had to go back and rewrite a long chunk. But, finished chapter three now.
Total word count: 7370
In Thailand, the TV channels are fairly heavily censored for:
a) any kind of bloody violence--stabbings, shootings, etc.
b) any nudity
c) any consumption of alcohol
d) any smoking
e) holding a gun ora knife to anyone's head, throat, body, whatever
If any of these things appear on TV or in a movie shown on satellite, it will be pixellated out. It's kind of silly and annoying in many cases. For example, there's a guy drinking a bottle of beer. Before he touches the bottle, it's in clear focus. Then he picks it up, and suddenly--PAZAAM!--the beer is a blur of pixels. Then he puts it down and PAM! it's back to clear focus. This is apparently suuposed to disguise the fact that he's (shock!) drinking the beer.
Obviously, the censors believe Thai people have less memory capacity than, say, goldfish.
But on the other hand, it is useful for things like full frontal nudity being pixellated out when I'm watching a movie with my kids. No, there's no watershed in Thailand, and no, there's no rating system, so when we sit down and watch a movie that I've never heard of, sometimes there are . . . surprises.
So: sometimes annoying, sometimes okay. Evens out.
But.
I watched a movie last night called Talladega Nights. (Jolly amusing, if you haven't seen it yet.) It's about NASCAR drivers, and the protagonist is called Ricky Bobby. He's pretty much the epitome of what you'd expect a NASCAR driver to be. The antagonist (played with panache by the chap who did Borat), whose name escapes me, is a gay French Formula One driver, who listens to jazz, sips machiattos in his car, wears black polo necks, and generally makes me howl with laughter whenever he appears.
*SPOILER*
At the end of the movie, Ricky Bobby has utterly changed (which he had to really; he was an utter ass at the beginning), and this is symbolized by him kissing the French driver. It's a very good ending for the movie: ridiculous, amusing, and touching all at the same time.
And True censored it.
Yup. Pixellation over the two actors' faces when they kissed. This didn't happen when Ricky Bobby and his wife kissed passionately at the beginning, nor did it happen when Ricky Bobby (after his wife had divorced him for his best friend) started making out with another woman in a bar. Nope, it's not the act of kissing itself that is offensive, according to True; it's just when two men do it.
According to TrueVision entertainment, two men kissing = full frontal nudity = stabbing someone in the face (also = drinking a beer = smoking a cigarette). They're all equally offensive.
So next time someone tells you how tolerant Thailand is of bisexuality/homosexuality, tell them to get stuffed.
Another 1,600 or so today. Nearing the end of Chapter Three.
Word count: 5,874.
Another 2,000 odd words today. Chapter 1 and 2 are done, and I'm at the beginning of Chapter 3.
Word count: 4, 254
Yesterday, I said I was going to work through the rest of the outline making notes on turning story-value outlined sections into actual physical action outlines--but reading through it again, I've now decided to do this as I run into the scenes in question. Same for foreshadowing and plants/payoffs. I'll do some as I work my way through the draft--but the rest can wait until revision (when I know the shape of the book).
So I started drafting today. I'm aiming for 1,000 words minimum a day, and I'm going to try for 2,000. At that rate, it'll take around three months to finish the draft (maximum), and if I crank it, I should be able to get it finished in around six weeks.
Today: first chapter finished. Just over 2,000 words. Nice start.
Realms of Fantasy have bought two stories: HALLOWEEN: COMPRISING A CAUTIONARY ACROSTIC OF BEDTIME STORIES SUITABLE FOR READING TO THE TIRESOME OR DISOBEDIENT CHILD, and HANUMAN'S BRIDGE.
I like both of them, and I'm particularly pleased the HALLOWEEN sold. It was an experimental thing (although inspired by something I read previously in Cemetery Dance), so it's nice to know trying new things can pay off.
In a previous news post, I said I had some news about Realms of Fantasy that I couldn't tell you. Well, now you know what it was, but Douglas Cohen--one of the editorial crew--asked that I add a disclaimer.
So here it is:
DISCLAIMER
Realms of Fantasy are not open for submissions yet. So please don't send them anything.
The rough draft of the outline is now done. 'Rough' here means all the basic plot threads are in place, I've got the climaxes for Acts I, II, and III set up, and all the sub-plots are tied off (more or less). In quite a few scenes, all I've got is the story values (what changes the character will move through), but as yet I have no idea how that's going to happen.
But the how is always much easier than the value part of a scene. Provided you know the purpose of a scene, the mechanics of it are often simple to arrange.
Two things left now on the outline:
A) Going through and making sure the main events are foreshadowed/mirrored earlier on in the book, and putting in all the plants and clues so that the ending will have a real impact. (Have a look here for how it works.)
B) Filling in the scenes where I only have the changes in the character and not the actual events. And although it'll be relatively easy to do, I want to make sure that the actions mean something symbolically.
According to the estimable Alexandra Sokoloff, you should be able to boil the essence of your story down to a single sentence. This sentence is your premise. For example:
When a great white shark starts attacking beachgoers in a coastal town during high tourist season, a water-phobic Sheriff must assemble a team to hunt it down before it kills again.
. . . is the premise for Jaws. We've got the protagonist (water-phobic sherrif), antagonist (great white shark), inciting incident (starts attacking beachgoers), and the conflict (Sheriff must assemble a team to hunt it down) all in one sentence.
For DYING FOR THE THIRD TIME, my working premise as of 3rd July is as follows:
In an alternate-1938 Britain, a failed suicide finds he can speak with the dead, and must use his new powers to defeat a democratically-elected facist goverment from using an ancient rite to seize totalitarian power.
Thoughts on this? Hey, tell me. I'd like to know what you think.
More on outlining. A sub plot is taking shape involving treachery. I'm thinking I can use one of the characters as a mirror for Alfred, and ends up being presented with the same choice--only he chooses the opposite of what the MC does.
I know what has to happen, but now I have to think of what would make someone betray his only friends.
This is my outline so far for DYING FOR THE THIRD TIME. Basic structure is okay: I've got a climax in mind (which involves a zeppelin so it's got to be good), the Act II climax is settled (near enough), and there's a lot of scenes that I think will work well.
Now I look at the photograph, of course, it seems like it's all blank--but that's just the thin pen not showing up. Trust me, there's actually a lot there.
Of course, there's also a lot of gaps. But that's okay. As I start working through what needs to happen for each scene to work, those will go.Next thing is to start color coding this. My brain can't hold sub-plots without colors, and I've now got about four (one for the main antagonist, one for the love interest, a rivalry plot, and a redemption subplot).
Putting the outline into visual form like this is working far better than any other way I've tried. It just seems more physical like this, and I don't feel bad about moving things around.
I've been writing fiction since 2004. It took me three years and a whole lot of rejections (around 250) before I sold anything. I've sold a few short stories since, several to what SFWA laughably calls 'pro' markets.
The first novel I wrote was called KUKRIT'S HONOR, and the kindest thing I can say about it now was that it wasn't entirely crap. The second one I finished (after several false starts) was WOTAN'S BLOODY SPEAR, about werewolves in medieval Europe. WOTAN'S BLOODY SPEAR was way better, and after some time querying, got me an offer of representation from William Reiss at JHA Literary. Surely, I thought, that must mean the book's going to sell.
Alas no. After a long time, the book had gone round practically every publisher offering decent advances, and although it got within inches of being taken, it didn't sell.
I wrote and finished a bunch of different novels. None of them were very good.
Recently, I found this blog by Alexandra Sokoloff. After reading through several entries, it was like things that had been whirling around my head like jigsaw pieces in a tornado suddenly fell into place and formed something whole. A lot of material I've read in other places started to make sense.
And most importantly, I realized what I was doing wrong when writing novels.
So now I'm going to write one right. And this one's going to sell. Trust me.
The title? DYING FOR THE THIRD TIME.
I'm writing this on July 1st, 2009. By July 1st, 2010, I hope to be holding a published book in my hands.
Well, it's been a long time since I posted here. Work and writing have been overpowering me, but really, that's no excuse, is it?
For writing, I have a new project going--more on that in the next post--and I've managed to sell/reprint some stories:
1) I have some news about Realms of Fantasy . . . but I'm not allowed to tell you. Yet. I will soon. (Because who can resist blowing their own trumpet? Even if it does give you backache and make you go blind?)
2) Ellen Datlow picked HARRY AND THE MONKEY for her upcoming anthology Best Horror of the Year, from Night Shade Books. (Also on Amazon.) This is quite a big deal for me, seeing as how I have been buying her anthologies for a while and not ever thinking I'd get in one.
It's also kind of worrying, however, as I really have no idea how I wrote that story or why it came out the way it did.
3) I've finished a bunch of short fiction . . . but most of it just makes me go meh. Of the ten or so stories I've finished, I reckon there's probably one good story, one that's worth saving, and eight that range from weak to instantly forgettable. Still, a 10% hit rate isn't all that bad. Roald Dahl published around two shorts per year, so I read somewhere.
My goal at the beginning of this year was to try to submit one short story per month. As it turns out, that entails a whole crap load of work. It's not just drafting one short per month (which isn't that hard, really); it's the revision, rewriting, editing and whatnot that take up the time. Of the stories I've written this academic year (running from September 2008), two have been sold (but I can't tell you about them yet, shhh!), and the rest are circulating dismally.
Looking back on it, I think one short per month is too much--at least for me. I don't have the number of ideas necessary for a decent short fiction output. And let's be honest, it's not as if short fiction is really paying very well these days. (Which leads me on to my next post.)
Via Bangkok Pundit.
"Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Wednesday dismissed a report issued by France’s Credit Lyonnais that Thailand’s economy could contract by as much as nine per cent in 2009. "
Well, he would, wouldn't he? The fact remains, though, that Thailand's economy is driven by tourism and exporting, with domestic demand coming in some way behind. Tourism has been seriously damaged first by the PAD airport occupation and then by the recession(s) in the developed world. And exports are dropping off a cliff; who exactly are Thai companies going to export to, now that the entire world seems to be heading into recession?
Of course, last time the Thai economy went into a tailspin (the '97 crash), the college where I work saw enrollments double as students were pulled back from abroad to study in an English-medium program in Thailand. So it's not all bad news. (For me.)
Some jolly decent chap has gone and bought Realms of Fantasy from Sovereign Media, which means the magazine will not be going bust, which means that my story THE DEMON OF HOCHGARTEN will indeed be appearing.
All very nice, I must say. It's good to hear of a magazine coming back from the dead--but having said that, I think RoF is going to have to think about shifting its focus away from print and more toward the web. It seems to me that more and more short fiction is becoming an internet-only medium (witness the recent growth in pro-rates e-zines such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Clarkesworld). Even if the print version of the magazine continues for a long time, eventually I believe it's going to be a web-only deal.
On a side-note: this might have interesting linguistic effects on the stories published. There's probably a decent paper somewhere in applying systemic functional grammatical analysis to a comparison of fiction in online and print venues. Something to think about.
See the pic here: View this photo
(h/t Aeon)
