by Clarke, Neil
“I [enjoy] the thrill of finding the story and painting it with words,” said Scholes. “In novels, I like having the space to explore the story from different angles, experience different characters. I write by ear and listen for words that sound right. I do like to capture people and then move them forward with the scenes and characters and words. I particularly like writing to a challenge — some of my best stories came from challenges.”
As Scholes explains below, The Psalms of Isaak started with a challenge (in the form of a dare presented by his friend and his wife) and continues to challenge him personally and professionally. Scholes is currently working on the draft of Antiphon, the third volume of The Psalms of Isaak.
Legend has it that you made the jump from short stories to novels on a dare? How is writing novels different than writing short fiction? Do you feel more or less at home in the novel form?
Yes. It was a dare from my close pal Jay [Lake] and my wife Jen. They convinced me to write Lamentation on September 11, 2006 and I went home that night to start the book. Until then, I envisioned a series of four connected short stories. Jay promised that if I had a rough draft, he’d help me get introduced around at World Fantasy at the end of October. Jen told me she’d cover my share of the household responsibilities if I’d write the book in that seven weeks.
It took a dare because, frankly, I was afraid of the long form and pretty sure I would need to take a long stretch of time and write several novels before I had anything publishable. Until Lamentation, my longest completed piece was 15,000 words. I underestimated how well my short story writing skills would transfer over.
Jay suspected that if I wrote fast, I’d keep ahead of that fear and get out of my own way. He was right. I don’t know that any of us suspected that the first novel would do so well.
The biggest difference in novels for me is scope. It takes far more time and energy and the story is so big it can’t be held completely in my head. With short stories, I can knock something out in three or four days and have them to market in under a week. Novels take a bit longer for the first draft — about five months if I’m writing at a comfortable clip of 1k per day — plus revision, copyedits, galley proofs.
I wouldn’t say I’m at home in novels yet. I’m getting there. I think I’ll know more about that after I finish the series and get on to the next project.
The Psalms of Isaak grew out of the short story, “Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise”. What was it about that particular story that begged (or allowed) for more?
At the time that I wrote it, nothing really stood out. I had some working notes I ran across later that said I’d like to come back to Rudolfo and write more about him. But really, I didn’t see more to “Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise” until I saw Allen Douglas’s art for the story. When I saw that image of the metal man weeping in the impact crater, I realized there was much more to Isaak than I’d known and much more to his story.
Your fiction, long and short, is rich with dark humor. What role does humor play in your fiction? How does it affect pacing, character development, world-building, etc.?
Humor plays an important role in my life — the dark kind as well as the lighter. Sometimes it carries over into the fiction but when it does, it shows up organically and I really don’t think about it much. It just becomes a part of the point-of-view of whoever my narrator is in that particular story. It colors their observation of events in their world and becomes a part of their voice, usually effortlessly.
What does a post-apocalyptic setting allow you to do that a non-apocalyptic fantasy setting doesn’t?
Looking back over my body of work, surviving apocalypse is a recurring theme. Certainly, there are some personal reasons for that buried in my somewhat dark childhood. In The Psalms of Isaak particularly, I wanted to try something a little different. A lot of fantasies are about saving the world from a coming apocalypse; I wanted to write one about the descendent survivors of one and what their society would be like. This lets me explore how the world was broken, what the forces were that broke it, what it takes to rebuild it and how that rebuilding can go awry. And it lets me explore what right and wrong look like in a society of survivors.
Can you map the creation and development of one of your characters?
That largely happens organically. I really don’t think about specifics initially. I start with a person. I think about what they are afraid of and what they hope for, then I introduce them into circumstances that force them to face what they’re afraid of in order to attain what they hope for. Sometimes along the way, they get what they want and then threatening what they’ve attained becomes the springboard for their next bit of growth as they then face new fears (or old ones) and stand or fall based on how they handle that new conflict. Sometimes, they lose what they have and are changed by that.
If I’m outlining, I’ll often start with the fears and hopes and then as I write, introduce them to circumstances and conflict to see how their hopes and fears play out through it. As I write the characters, how they face things — and how other characters either help or hinder them — will often advise me on what’s coming next in their development. I always try to have external conflict prompting internal growth. I actually think that’s how life works, too.
Do you usually write from an outline or by the seat of your pants?
I write both ways. Lamentation was by the seat of my pants. I had the first short story at the front end and the second short story at the other end. I had a handful of characters — Rudolfo, Sethbert, Jin Li Tam, Isaak and Petronus — with little detail of what happened between the two stories other than a war that Rudolfo somehow won.
When I wrote Canticle I had an outline but truth-be-told, I never looked at it after I wrote it and closed the file. I just distilled down the story to a size that fit in my head and then took off though I did have the structure of the story — how many chapters, how many scenes per character, what they feared and hoped for and sometimes, I’d lay down a sentence about what needed to happen in a future scene if I knew it.
Antiphon went more like Lamentation with no outline, just a few scribbled notes.
This project was originally just a standalone short story. Then, after seeing the artwork, I conceived of four short stories, interconnected and spread out over a period of time. But when the second story didn’t stand alone well enough for Realms of Fantasy (and when the editor, Shawna McCarthy, suggested I go write a novel) I started thinking maybe this was a novel. Still, because of that fear I mentioned before, I didn’t think I could pull it off until I finally took Jay and Jen’s dare that night over tater-tots. At that point, I thought I had a trilogy but after finishing Lamentation and letting it sit, I realized it was five volumes.
The most important thing I’ve learned from Lamentation is that whether or not I’m conscious of it, I can write an effective novel. I’m still not clear exactly on how I do it or what makes it all work. But the process has taught me to follow my instinctive ear for story even when I’m uncertain.
And with Canticle and Antiphon I learned a lot about how life can intersect and interfere. Losing my parents (one during each book) was a painful experience but I learned how grief impacts my writing process. And writing Antiphon through Jen’s rather challenging pregnancy taught me a bit about fortitude. Next up, learning to write with infant twins!
The Psalms of Isaak definitely evolved and will continue evolving. And I’m laying the groundwork to spend a lot more time in this world both in the mythology and history of its past and in its future.
What part of a novel takes the longest and/or presents you with the most challenges?
Drafting the novel takes the longest for me though “long” is relative — I think the last two books took about six months of actual writing time. My biggest challenge is the lack of trust in myself. Those days when the right words feel wrong. I lean heavily on my first readers and some of them even pace me by r
eading along as I write, chapter by chapter, so that I’m getting a constant stream of reassurance that the story is on track and moving in the right direction at the right speed. My best cheerleader is a co-worker in my day job, Jerry, who devours each chapter and even charts my productivity on his wall calendar.
I think the second greatest challenge is not knowing what to do next. Every once in a while, I’ll hit a wall and I won’t know it until I’ve written a thousand or so words in the wrong direction. If I can’t figure it out within a day or two, I’ll brainstorm it out or verbally process it with Jerry or my other close friend, John.
The middle chapters of Lamentation seem to accelerate an already fast-paced story. How do you go beyond simply keeping the middle from dragging and, instead, making them exceed what comes before?
I honestly don’t know how I do it. I just lay down the words that seem right at the time. But I do think the structure I’ve chosen helps this — keeping the scenes short and like snapshots from my character’s lives was intended to keep the reader moving forward quickly.
As for the endgame… what isn’t the end of a novel? What doesn’t a novel’s conclusion do? And how do you balance an individual novel’s ending with the needs of the series as a whole?
This is a tricky question because I think different people will have different answers. For me, I want to see that the characters have changed as a result of the external and internal conflicts they’ve faced and that they’ve gained or lost something as a result of it all. I want to give readers enough that they feel they have some answers but I want those answers to raise more questions — sorta like how life works. With the series, because it’s truly one big story and not five smaller ones, I try to find a good ledge to stop on for a little breather. There’s a balance between offering satisfaction and creating a strong desire to see what happens next.
During revision, are you an adder or a cutter?
I’m an adder mostly apart from cutting a few sentences or changing words here and there. With Lamentation, I needed to add two chapters. With Canticle, I needed to add a scene. I’m not sure yet on Antiphon, but this may be the first one where I don’t need to add other than bits of clarification along the way.
My process is pretty simple. I take the comments from my first readers and my editor, I merge it into one document and then I go through it, reading it myself, and either accepting or rejecting their changes, tweaking and polishing as I go. I take one pass through at that stage and then a second pass during the copyedit stage. If there’s time, I read the book and take my own notes but these days, there isn’t time and I’m finding that I can read and revise as I go just as effectively.
What’s next?
Well, after Requiem and Hymn [the final volumes of The Psalms of Isaak], I have a small but fun project I can’t quite announce yet but I’m eager to tackle it. Beyond that, I’m hoping Tor will want to let me tackle a short series based on my short story “Invisible Empire of Ascending Light.” I’m also planning to propose a new series and some standalones set in the world of The Psalms of Isaak. I have high hopes of tackling a YA trilogy with Jay at some point and I want to tackle a more traditional epic fantasy without the robots and science fictional elements.
And more important than all of that: I want to enjoy my new daughters. Ideally, the hard work now — and the popularity of the series so far — will eventually lead to me writing full time so that I can have a bit more balance in my life and more time with my family while increasing my writing output.
About the Author
Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and part-time professor living in his wife’s hometown. He is on the board of the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the Hub City Writers Project, and is the interview editor for the Southern Nature Project. In July of 2008, he and Jeff VanderMeer launched Shared Worlds at Wofford College, a creative writing and world-building sumer program for high school students.
“Forevermore: The Iconic Poe of the 21st Century” by G.A. Buchholz
“To be thoroughly conversant with a man’s heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.” — Edgar A. Poe
“Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors … on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.” — Edgar A. Poe
Imagine Edgar A. Poe’s wonder and bewilderment if he were given an opportunity to walk the earth in the 21st century, during the bicentennial year of his birth. Wandering through New York City, Richmond, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, all of his old haunts, he would come across visible evidence of people honoring his life and his work. Books, films, lectures, readings, exhibitions, a re-enactment of his funeral, and even musical theater! If someone were kind enough to show him the Internet, he would see hundreds of websites around the world that commemorate him and celebrate his writings. In a truly Poe-esque irony, the man whose writing romanticized death and mournful remembrance in the 19th century has truly become far more successful post-mortem than he ever dreamed he would become in his short life span of 40 years.
Alas for Poe, his golden road to immortality has been more like running a gauntlet of critics for the last 200 years. As a merciless (and sometimes mercenary) literary critic himself, Poe was a master at writing excoriating reviews, so perhaps it is poetic justice or karma that he has been getting his proverbial hind end kicked for two centuries. From the first defamatory obituary notice written by his self-appointed literary executor, Rufus W. Griswold, right up to more recent Poe-ographies by Kenneth Silverman (Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance) and Peter Ackroyd (Poe: A Life Cut Short), many have derided Poe as a alcoholic, a drug addict, an egomaniac, a plagiarist who accused other writers of plagiarism, a philanderer, and above all, a hack. Poet James Russell Lowell referred to Poe as “three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge.” And the extant photographic images of Poe have ingrained the popular notion of the author as a brooding, depressive, crazed and almost ghost-like figure in American literature. One such image has been copied and parodied to death.
Yet Poe’s works have remained popular even though he has always divided critics and readers. In spite of suffering much of his adult life through abject poverty, being cheated out of royalties for works that were pirated, being mocked by the literary elite of his day, and even being turned down for mundane jobs, Poe’s writing has been incredibly influential and persistent, not only in literature but in contemporary culture. Many writers such as Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft and W.H. Auden have been proponents of his work, as well as being influenced by it. He has been called the first and foremost American poet of the 19th century, an influence on European romanticism, a seminal force in Surrealism and Symbolism and, unexpectedly, he has also become one of the best-known of the “dead white authors” of the 19th century.
Poe was arguably America’s first full-time fiction and poetry writer. Most other authors of the day couldn’t make a living from their works (international copyright conventions didn’t exist until the Berne Convention in 1886), but that dubious distinction also meant a lifelong struggle to earn enough money to support himself, his young wife Virginia, his aunt/mother-in-law Maria Clemm, and his often foundering writing career. Although he was arguably one of the leading literary critics of his day, he was continually begging for opportunities for paid work, seeking sponsors or patrons for his work, and trying to secure paid speaking engagements once he became more well-known with his publication of his signature work, “The Raven”, although overall he had more commercial success with his short fiction than his poetry.
Not only did Poe pioneer the short story as an artform in its own right — partly because poverty led him his from his vocation as a poet to his career as a writer of short magazine pieces in periodicals such as the Southern Literary Messenger — but he also developed the sensational style of writing a story as if it were a true account, or at least that t
he narrator of the story believed to be true. In The Tell-tale Heart, the narrator convinces us of his sincerity even as we increasingly begin to believe that he is mad. Poe developed this style of “reality writing,” hoaxes with verisimilitude, for a very practical reason — to help create a sensation among readers and sell copies of magazines. These stories were, in Poe’s own words, “the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.” This approach has since become a convention for horror writers from H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King.
In his lifetime, Poe was the victim of a piteous number of rejections, failures and missteps, including attempts to gain employment as a teacher, a government bureaucrat and even an officer in the Polish army, not to mention failed attempts to start his own magazine, The Stylus. Yet his determination to make a living as a writer, and his extreme poverty through most of his adult life, may also have helped him become a literary innovator. Poe wrote a series of stories that were about what he called “ratiocination” (using creative intuition combined with facts to solve a problem). Tales such as “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” or “The Gold Bug” were the artistic forebears of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Poe invented the term “cryptograph” and tried to establish a popular reputation as a master code-breaker. Even his many detractors have admitted that he was the originator of the modern detective or mystery story. Today The Mystery Writers of America even names its annual literary prizes, The Edgar ® Awards, after Poe, and the little statuettes bear his visage.
Poe’s early influences were works of European Romanticism from authors such as E.T.A. Hoffmann, yet Poe maintained in his preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque that “If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.” His tales of dark fantasy influenced by European romanticism included classics such as “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”, both of which are gripping accounts of revenge and torture that take place, not in his contemporary America, but in historical Europe.
