Here’s my take on the issue. Far too many beginning writers fall in love with first person. It’s popular, especially with best-selling genres (YA, paranormal romance, etc.), so chances are we’ve read it, alas in our formative years. First person gives the illusion of the three i’s, whether it genuinely creates them or not. It’s a trap that’s especially deadly for beginners. All they see is that first allows them inside the head of the protagonist, so the reader gets to experience the character’s emotions at a raw, gut level that is not achievable any other way. I think this is nonsense. (Actually, I was about to type a stronger word, one syllable, but got polite at the last instant.) If I find myself thinking I have to use first, that I can’t use third, then I am in danger of being complacent and superficial.
First person carries with it a temptation to writerly arrogance. I might venture to suggest it creates writerly arrogance because of the splash and ease of angsty melodrama. We don’t have to consider all the nuances of a character’s behavior, movement, speech pacing, posture, vocal tone, word choice, what details he notices and which he ignores, not to mention those he doesn’t see but which are important, in order to know what he’s feeling. He tells us in so many words, and we get lazy.
Writing in first person is like walking a tightrope with blinders on. It’s far, far harder to do well than it looks. There’s so much we can’t do, and so much we can and should do but don’t because of this illusion of emotional accessibility. Well and appropriately done, it’s a marvelous feat of skill and control. It’s just too dratted easy to do poorly.
As writers, we have an immense amount to learn from actors, not to mention screenplay writers. Because they tell a story only from the outside, they pay close attention to all the ways humans communicate. In many ways, third person, whether tight or distant, encourages us to incorporate these dimensions.
I’m as guilty as the next one of indulging in first person, thinking I was making the story more vivid and immediate. Through many missteps and some very sage feedback, I began to question my choice of POV. Rewriting in third was an eye-opener. It revealed all the places I’d skimmed over crucial material, all the lazy assumptions . . . in other words, sloppy writing hidden under overemotional first person POV. I set aside first person, with considerable respect for its power and seductiveness, and worked on craft issues. I do sometimes write in first person now, but only when it is the best way to tell the story, when the strengths of this POV are assets, not smoke-screens for poor writing.
This may not be true for every writer. I certainly hope it isn’t. I’m happy to admit that we each have our temperamental preferences, and perhaps I am leery of first person for reasons peculiar to myself. I’m even more suspicious of wedding myself to only one POV—first, tight third, flexible third, omniscient (I won’t even discuss second; I’ve never been able to contemplate writing it.) One of the tasks of a beginning writer, as I see it, is developing as broad a range of skills as possible, as big and varied a tool chest. First person POV certainly belongs there, but if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As glitzy as first person is these days, I think it should be handled with great care.
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Why Write Short?
The facile answer is, “That’s the length of the stories that the Idea Fairy leaves under my pillow.” The question is a whole lot more complex than that, for both writers and readers.
The perennial conventional wisdom is that a new writer ought to learn to write short stories before tackling a novel. The theory goes that working on shorter lengths will allow you to master various aspects of prose and storytelling craft while giving you the satisfaction of actually completing a story in a reasonable amount of time. We all need those gold stars, right? the more so when we’re struggling to learn something new.
Another argument for “short first, then novel” is that you can establish your professional chops by selling to magazines and anthologies, and thereby achieve the name recognition that will help get your novel read or represented. When your novel does come out, you’ll have a reader base.
This strategy has certainly worked for many writers in the past, and undoubtedly will work for many more in the future. That’s because most—but not all—writers are creatively-wired to work at different lengths. It was and still is easier for most—but not all—writers to sell a short story than a novel. Let me elaborate:
The theory of learning to construct stories by writing shorter lengths (if we extend the category to include novelette, up to 12,500 words or about 50 manuscript pages) presupposes that we can thereby focus on only a few elements at a time. There will be one major plot line and relatively few characters, and the setting will not require great elaboration. This is an overgeneralization, of course. Short stories don’t often feature an array of subplots and cast of thousands (unless they’re nameless hordes).
What’s wrong with this argument is that short stories by their very nature are compact, as opposed to the expansiveness of a novel. Every detail, every element must do double or triple duty (for example, a line of dialog might reveal character, advance plot, and evoke the world or society or family relationships at the same time). While it requires concentration to juggle multiple subplots, it is not proportionately more difficult than depicting a single line of action. Characters still need to be well done; settings still need to be specific rather than generic; dialog still needs to have certain characteristics, etc. The difference is that you have to do all that in, say, 5,000 words instead of 100,000 words.
Another problem with the conventional wisdom is that the print market for short stories has shrunk dramatically in recent decades. Dramatically is too tame a word. Very few anthologies are being published nowadays compared to a decade or two ago, and of those, even fewer are open to unsolicited submissions. Instead of 20 or 30 paying magazine markets, we have a handful. So the new writer who thinks it’s easier to sell a short story may be sadly mistaken when he finds himself in competition with multiple award-winning authors for the same few slots.
Perhaps the most powerful objection to the short-first-then-novel dictum is that one size does not fit all. Some writers are natural novelists and struggle painfully to learn to write at the same time as trying to master a length that doesn’t make intuitive sense to them. Once they’re seasoned professionals, most of them can write short if they have to, but without the ease of their preferred length. Other writers naturally think short; it’s how their minds work, and I’ve always thought it a shame to waste that brilliance forcing it longer and longer until all the joy has been stretched out of the story.
The explosion in epublishing promises to bring some interesting changes to the field. Now we have magazines that are entirely online or downloadable, without any print versions at all, and others that offer both. Established authors can bring out not only their novel backlists but their out-of-print short fiction in electronic form. Original works at both lengths are widespread. Short fiction is especially attractive to people who prefer reading their stories on handheld devices; short stories are perfect for airports and waiting rooms, offering the satisfaction of being able to finish the story in a single sitting. The low prices of short stories add to their appeal. Being able to purchase and download stories individually allows the buyer to tailor-make her own anthologies. It’s entirely possible that these developments in publishing technology will lead to a renaissance in short fiction as an art form. I hope so, but I wouldn’t count on it to pay the rent. At least, not yet.
Harry Turtledove once said that novels teach you what to put in a story and short stories teach you what to take out. What’s left, at its best, is a jewel whose every facet is precise and clean-edged, a thing of glory to read and wonder to write. A great short story packs a different kind of punch than does a great novel, and one does not substitute for another.
So why write short? For me, there’s only one good reason (aside from being powerless over what the Idea Fairy leaves
me). That’s because I love the form. I love writing it, how it makes all the parts of my creative brain go into hyperdrive, that zing! when everything I’ve set up crystallizes, and the high wire act of having to get it exactly right. I love reading it because I’m in awe of a story that excels in doing so much in so few words.
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Why Write Long?
Why slave over the completion of 100,000 words, a year-long project for many of us, when you could be done in a month’s mere 5,000?
The obvious answer is that novels and short stories aren’t interchangeable.
Most of the authors I know, myself including, have misjudged the “weight” of a story idea from time to time. Occasionally, I’ll start work on a novel only to have it fizzle in a chapter or three when I realized I’ve already said everything there was to say, and in far too many words. That central-core idea simply wouldn’t support chapter after chapter, no matter how many secondary characters, narrative descriptions, or turns-of-fortune I stuck in. Likewise, I’ve found myself in the middle of what I believed to be a short story, when it felt like someone exploded the walls of my house and I’m floating in the middle of a galaxy—the world got suddenly much, much bigger.
A novel isn’t a short story that goes on longer. It took me a long time to learn this, and in the end, I needed someone to explain it in words of one syllable. Even “episodic” novels have an underlying (or maybe it’s over-arching) structure that distinguish them from a series of short stories thrown together like pearls on a string. Decades ago, I tried to write a novel that way (the pearl-stringing way), beginning with a short story (published) and then a sequel to that story (also published). I loved every new adventure that I put my characters through. The problem was just that: each was a new adventure. Having the same characters and a loosely-woven ultimate quest did not weave these stories into a whole. Perhaps a more skillful writer could have done it, but not me. The result lacked what you might call “shape.” It was a series of equal-sized humps, not a single mountain.
So why would I want to do that, anyway, besides the obvious dictum that career is spelled n-o-v-e-l? Once I had several true-novels (of publishable quality) under my belt, I came to appreciate what novels do so well: generosity. Generosity to the reader, but also to the writer. A novel is to a short story what a marriage is to a one-night stand, however glorious that might be. Novels offer us the space and time to savor, to return, to create interconnections, layer upon layer of them. The visit to Pemberley might be accomplished in a short story, but breakfast with the Bennett family, chatting about the Netherfield ball, listening to Mary’s awful piano playing, and analyzing the letter from Mr. Collins . . . those are possible only in a novel.
The expansiveness of a novel is not a justification for an indigestible expository lump (writerspeak for “way too much information for its own sake presented all at once”). As in a short story, every part of a novel must do a job, but there is more time and space in which to work. If I’ve fallen in love with a character, a family, a world, I want to share my delight in their company. I want to explore Middle Earth a bit, sing with Tom Bombadil, walk the twilit paths of Lothlorien, and sit on a sunny bank in the Shire before I go storming off to Mt. Doom.
If I’ve done my work as a novelist, all those moments, all those nuances and subtle connections all come together in a seamless whole. The thrill of getting it right is one of the best there is.
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Sexuality in Fiction
A few years ago, I had the privilege of editing a new fantasy anthology series, Lace and Blade, from Norilana Books. The concept was a certain flavor of elegant, romantic sword and sorcery, witty and stylized, sensual yet with plenty of swashbuckling action (think The Scarlet Pimpernel with magic). Because we wanted to release the first volume for Valentine’s Day, I contacted a group of seasoned professional authors, people I could depend on to understand what I was looking for and to deliver top quality stories to deadline. For various reasons, the publisher insisted that the second volume be open to submissions. If I had any idea what I was getting myself into, I would have refused. Insulated in the world of competent fantasy writers and readers who are versed in the grandeur of everyone from J.R.R. Tolkien to Tanith Lee, I was ill-prepared for what mundanes think of when they hear “fantasy.”
Needless to say, when I talk about sexuality or eroticism or sensuality or gender issues in fantasy, I do not mean pornography. It seems that for far too many people, sexuality is such an emotionally difficult subject that instead of facing it honestly, discussing it openly, they shroud it in prurience and embarrassment, or else turn it into something salacious or forbidden. Yet just about every human being over the age of puberty has had sexual feelings (notice my delicate use of qualifiers). So if sexuality in fantasy does not mean “your most lascivious and pornographic imaginings, regardless of whether you’d really like to do these things, because how would you know what you enjoy if you’ve never been permitted to experiment,” what is the role of sexuality in fantasy? Does it even have one? Should we keep sex out of fantasy literature, restrict the love stories to a chaste kiss now and again, and keep the hero/ine’s mind firmly fixed on nobler causes?
I believe that sex is such a powerful force in human lives that it is impossible to portray the full scope of emotions and motivations without it. People might not, for a whole panoply of reasons, act on their sexual desires, but they have them. They have them in wildly inappropriate situations, as well as those times and places that nurture genuine emotional intimacy. The feelings are ignored or fulfilled, misdirected or frustrated, overly indulged or denied utterly. Freud had a few things to say about what happens when such a basic drive does not find healthy expression, and although his theories were dead wrong on many counts, he was not mistaken about the fact that sex will not go away simply because society (aka The Authorities, secular or clerical) disapprove.
There are at least two ways in which considerations of sexuality are important to any story: character development and world-building.
What are the attitudes and practices regarding sexuality in this culture? Is it permissive, repressive, or a combination? Is marriage life-long or fixed-term? Monogamous, polygamous, polyandrous? Do different cultures in your world treat love, sexuality, and marriage in the same way? How are sexual fidelity and jealousy regarded? Is marriage a personal or a business relationship? Who determines what is acceptable in sexual behavior? Have norms changed over time and if so, why? What are the social, moral, or legal consequences of transgressions? How can these be fulfilled or avoided? Are there times, places, or partners for whom “anything goes”? How does the culture deal with such activities—conscious forgetting, ignoring, teasing, or do these experiences form a special, perhaps a blessed, bond?
Where does a specific character naturally fall within the norms of his/her culture? How does he deal with the conflict between desire (or abhorrence) and expectation? Are other options (secrecy, emigration to a more compatible culture, open defiance) possible for him or her? Not all characters experience the same degree of sexual energy, and most will vary in their interest, depending on circumstances. Some will react to stress by becoming more sexual, while others will respond with diminished desire, even becoming asexual. Some interpret every personal interaction in sexual terms, and others are extremely private or compartmentalized. Interesting characters, like interesting cultures, are not monolithic in their sexuality.
Sexuality has a special role in fantasy stories because of its universality in human experience and its power. It’s fairly common to use sexual energy as the basis for magic, but it’s all too easy for a writer to fall into stereotypes. In some systems, magicians create power by channeling the sexual energy either of themselves or of someone else, making sex a necessary part of magical use.
But in other systems, sexual energy and magic are incompatible, leading to painful choices for characters and societies. This is the “vi
rgin priest/ess” model of magical use, with the rather tired strategy of separating a witch/wizard from said magical powers by the expedient of rape. One of the problems with this model is that it takes most people considerable trial-and-error experimentation to figure out what works for them sexually, so I’m always puzzled how an inexperienced person is supposed to channel unfamiliar energies. More importantly, rape is not about sexual desire, it’s about violence and violation. Sexual potency resides in the mind, not in the hymen. So if your world calls for a cult of virginal priests, it’s better to come up with a more original scheme for relating lack of sexual expression to generation of magical power.
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The Magic Notebook
No, it’s not the title of my next novel. It’s one of my most important writing tools. Maybe it will become yours, too.
I began keeping a writing journal after I’d made a few short story sales. Beginning in high school, I had been a fanatical diarist, not just to record the daily events of my life (how boring!) but as a file of story ideas, letters (all copied out), attempts at poetry and the like.
Once I was attempting to write fiction, my journals turned into magnets for other material: quotations, membership lists and schedules for my critique group, contact information for people met at conventions. But none of this proved as important as learning how to problem-solve on paper.
When I began writing professionally, I never outlined or planned my stories. I wrote whatever came into my head. If something didn’t work or the story had no shape, I had no diagnostic tools to show me what went wrong (let alone how to fix it). I used my journal for the intermediate step of turning ideas into a sequence of scenes. In order to make this different from an outline (I was adamantly opposed to outlines for many years), I used flow charts and colored diagrams. I made charts of characters and graphs of rising and falling tension, marking scenes with arrows until the graphs looked like pincushions. I wrote out character sketches. I never drew portraits of my characters (although I know some writers who do) but I stuck in lots of maps and floor diagrams.
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