Joe Abercrombie: Blade Itself Re-Read

Joe Abercrombie has done a re-read of his first novel The Blade Itself, and his conclusions are both interesting and relevant to my interests:

The writing’s a little lumpy, sometimes trying a bit too hard – why use one adjective when five are available?  Then you can repeat a couple of them later in the paragraph!  Hmmm.  A tendency towards providing pairs of nouns or adjectives when one, or perhaps none, would do.  A bit of dead-horse beating, you could say.  Sometimes it’s a bit foursquare, dwelling on who did what when, some unnecessary repetition and too much focus on technical aspects of positioning in a scene that really don’t matter at all.  He turned, then he turned back, then he turned again.  He could probably have turned less.  Or indeed simply looked forwards and delivered his dialogue.  But actually the writing was generally less embarrassing than I’d feared it might be.  Some of the descriptive bits are a little, I don’t know, lacking in sparkle, prone to become a bit listy and unimaginative, and sometimes there’s a slightly trying, breathless, ‘Ooh, I can’t wait to tell you how ace this is,’ sense to things, but the dialogue is largely there, there are some really nice exchanges I’d forgotten about.  If there’s one relative strength that I’d identify it is the dialogue.  The different ‘voices’ for the different points of view generally work but haven’t totally settled down at this stage.  I actually found the prose-style with Ferro’s chapters worked really well although I was trying a bit hard for an emotional payoff there, and the Dogman just always worked right off, but Glokta’s internal voice I actually found rather surprisingly disappointing – works in some of the more reflective sequences where he’s just thinking, but comes across as trying too hard when it’s working as a commentary on action and conversation – sometimes a bit obvious and lacking in subtlety, I’d say.  It improved as things went on, though and undoubtedly had its moments.  Perhaps overused?

Full Story: HERE

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Abercrombie: Red Country

Joe Abercrombie writes here about progress he's been making on the first draft of his latest novel, Red Country:

At that point I’d normally turn my attention to more detailed character and setting type stuff but this time around the process is having to shift about due to the availability of the copy editor, who needs to start in early June, which means my editor is already  marking up the manuscript as it stands and I’m going to be responding to her input first.  Probably no bad thing as I’m getting a little jaded and could do with an outside kick in the pants.  I want to do a re-read of all my other books while it’s away with the copy editor, soak up anything necessary for returning characters, and then do a character pass trying to get all the secondary characters as differentiated and vibrant as possible – replacing bland dialogue with more personalised, bland description with more specific, and so on.  Then after the copy edit comes back and I respond, there’ll probably be a setting pass where I try and get a bit more pop into the descriptive sections, an eye on the weather and the feel of the surroundings.  Which means hopefully towards the end of July I’ll be doing my final run-through trying to get the detail of the language as good as wot I is able to do.  Then proof read.

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Joe Abercrombie on Readers

Over on his blog, Joe Abercrombie has written up some thoughts on the importance and value of early readers; what some authors call Beta Readers:

When I first started writing I did it in extreme secrecy, scared to lay bare my sensitive innermost ramblings to the world.  But after maybe six months working on the loose collection of drivel that would later become sharpened into the modern masterpiece that is The Blade Itself, I felt the need to consult some kind of outside authority, to get some guidance as to whether what I was doing was utterly worthless or not quiteutterly worthless.  My mother worked as an English teacher, an educational publisher, is widely read and possessed of razor-edged critical faculties, particularly where her own children are concerned.  My father was an academic and university administrator, also widely read though in somewhat different areas, perhaps.  My brother is like an older, less handsome version of me, also widely read and with a more than passing familiarity with genre.  I knew they’d tell it to me straight.  And they have, ever since.  I can’t articulate how vital discussing my writing with them has been, especially in those early days before landing a deal.  They helped me work out where I was going right and wrong, both at the micro and macro levels, and in giving me the confidence to continue, as well as just convincing me that there was actually something there worth working on.  Hey, even if I never got published, it was a fun point of conversation within the family.  Mum tended to look at the detail of the way I was writing, Dad tended to look more at the plotting and development, Brother gave a less detailed summing up.  Usually I’d write blocks of four or five chapters, revise them carefully to my own satisfaction, present, discuss, revise.

Full Story: HERE

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Foz Meadows: The Problem of R. Scott Bakker

People were on at me for years to read the R. Scott Bakker trilogy The Darkness That Comes Before, and it looked very interesting to me so I picked it up and gave it a try.  I found the books mostly to be dry and plodding, ponderous and pretentious and in their portrayal and treatment of women, to be vile.  And now author Foz Meadows, prompted by some comments Bakker made about his work, has crafted an article breaking down exactly where Mr. Bakker's analysis falls apart:

The level of doublethink here is staggering, and yet I can just about parse his (incredibly twisted) logic. Seemingly, Bakker thinks that male violence, and particularly sexual violence, is both innate and inevitable. His aim, at least in part, is to convince his male readers likewise, showing them their own dark side in order to make them uncomfortably aware of its dangers. As entities, women who triumph over, alter or otherwise subvert this reality are completely unrealistic, because no amount of hope or belief will ever change man’s bestial nature, and therefore women will always be oppressed. Any story or statement to the contrary is damaging to feminism, because it gives women an unrealistic view of their prospects in life. Instead, it’s better to focus on making men aware of their innate capacity for evil, so that they can try and rein it in.

The full article is HERE and Mr. Bakker has arrived to address the article, so the comments are blowing up a bit.

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May Releases In Urban Fantasy

There are 22 urban fantasy novels arriving in May and Tor has the full rundown:

Full Story: HERE

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10 Books Every Fantasy Author Should Read

Over at iO9.com, Charlie Jane Anders has compiled a list of 10 books every fantasy author should read and there are some surprising entries.

" I think Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy should be required reading for anybody in this genre. It might seem like dense academic language for some, but I actually found it clear and accessible as it broke down all fantasy into four broad taxonomic categories, then examined the commonalities — and exceptions — for each. For those writers who really want to understand the literary footsteps they're walking, and who find our current marketing-driven genre structure restrictive and confusing (e.g., is it URBAN fantasy or is it urban FANTASY?), this is helpful." — Jemisin, who also wrote the Inheritance Trilogy, beginning with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.

Naturally, it's all totally subjective, but lists should provoke a conversation, not end one.

Full Article: HERE

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Author Post: What I've Learned

Over at the Orbit website, author Ian Irvine has written up some thoughts on the lessons he's learned about storytelling:

1. The driving force behind any story is conflict – two dogs, one bone, as James Scott Bell puts it. Every interaction, between every character (even friends and allies) should contain conflict. But not meaningless or random conflict, or bickering. The conflict needs to be related to the character’s goal – either furthering it or blocking it.

Interesting stuff.

Full Article: HERE

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