Spring Fiction and Writing on the Air

I've been instructed to write a "spring themed flash fiction" for today's SFFSeven, and as we all know, flash fiction is my bane.  However, instead, I dug up a long trunked project that will otherwise never see the light of day, and it's sort of got a spring theme.  Spring is mentioned.  Anyhow, it's the beginning (the first 500ish words) of something that didn't work, and it's rough as all get out, but: wouldn't flash be as well?  It certainly would be from me.

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            Watch duty on the high towers of the Imperial Palace was something of a formality. None of the Imperial Guard minded doing the duty, as it involved little more than staying in the tower for a few hours. Most slept. Rumor had it that in the tenth century the paranoid Emperor Luciex VII had ordered that the guards watch from the towers at all time, and since the order had never been revoked, the towers were still watched seven centuries later. But there was never anything to see.

            Never anything to see, that is, in the most classic sense of what one watches in a tower for—no invading armies, no trouble on the far horizon. Vedix, the capital of the Kieran Empire, had never actually had an enemy army approach it in the entire history of the Empire. And even if an enemy came, word would arrive long before they would be seen. But yet in the towers the Imperial Guard held watch at all times. As a formality.

This New Spring would be unique, or so the Emperor had been told, because on that night both moons would be full, and furthermore the Imperial Astronomers had told him that according to their calculations, on this night the Blood Moon (as they called the smaller red one) would eclipse the Ice Moon (the larger white one), creating a previously unseen spectacle in the Vedix sky. Such a sight was one to be seen, and therefore, the banquet. One in which anyone of any name at all in the Empire would wish to attend. The entire Imperial family, the Archdukes of the greater houses of the Empire, as well as the Nobles of the lesser houses of the Protectorates, the whole body of the Senate and Generals of the Imperial Army. This event was to be unprecedented. So the Emperor had ordered.  

            Today all the Imperial Guard was watching was large numbers of Kieran aristocracy coming into the palace and milling about. Tonight, by imperial order, was to be one of the greatest banquets ever known in Kieran history. This would be the one for the history books, the Emperor had decided, and so he had invited every person of note within the entirety of the Kieran Empire to attend. And by invite, he meant a command. Ignoring the invitation would be an act of political suicide.

            People had been traveling for weeks to arrive in time for the event. The entire Imperial family, the Archdukes of the greater houses of the Empire, as well as the Nobles of the lesser houses of the Protectorates, the whole body of the Senate and Generals of the Imperial Army came at the request of Emperor Gelmin V.

            While the festivities were hours away from officially beginning, several of the guests had already begun gathering in one of the gardens of the imperial palace. For them, it was a casual, relaxing time before the actual banquet, unaware of the busy rush of the palace staff to put all things in order.

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Also, last month I appeared on Writing On The Air, and now you can listen to the podcast of that interview.  Check it out!

Flash Fiction: Rites of Spring

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where the dragons is?
No snow to mark their prints
No ice to frost their flames
How are we to know from whence the dragons cames?

They say the horde will ride
Demanding tithes of gold
Taxes in the season of rain and mud and cold

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz
Do the dragons wonder where their hatchlings is?
Wrapped and tucked in blankets
Buried in the well
When they burn my village, I'll see them all in hell




*A riff on the original "Spring in the Bronx" by Anonymous

Flash Fiction: Rites of Spring

Our mission this week? Flash Fiction on "The Rites of Spring.: I went new school on the rituals. This time around, it's the prom.



There were four of them to take out one little girl. Seemed a bit like overkill, but as I worked for her grandfather, Dmitrius, I knew how much she was worth.

The kid just wanted her prom. I just wanted to be at home sleeping. I hate bodyguard work, especially when no one is supposed to know about it.

She was down on the dance floor, swaying to a soft song with her date, and I have to saw she looked beautiful. Perfect dress, hair pulled up and then cascading down.

I had a nice view from the windows on the roof and she was easy to separate from the rest of the crowd because we'd met a few times over the years. Mostly the only time I see kids is when I'm teaching classes.

That's a different job and filed under a a different name. When I'm doing this stuff, I go by Buddy Fisk. It serves me well enough.

Any way, they weren't exactly subtle. Most of Dmitrius's enemies aren't. They lack the class of the old school gangsters,

Four of them in one big van that might as well have said "Kidnappers R Us" on the side. First one climbed out, I was already halfway down the side of the building. By the time he'd headed for the front doors of the community center they'd rented for the prom I was waiting.

Want to know what I mean about the class of the old school gangsters? These jackoffs were ready to go in and shoot as many kids as they had to to get to their target. The old guard believed in doing things quietly when they could. You might get a little collateral damage but that was the exception.

I reminded them about what class is.  First guy coming up was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt advertising his favorite beer. I tossed a throwing knife and nailed him in the jugular. Three steps forward and hands reaching for his throat while he died. Before he hit the ground I pumped three rounds from my Sig into the next two. Suppressors are great. They don't really make a weapon completely silent, but there was a lot of background noise inside that place and that helped.

The fourth one tried to retreat. I saw his eyes go wide and he stepped back, shaking his head. It's easy to be brave when you have three other goons with guns to hold you up.

Me? I work alone.

I didn't have to interrogate them or any of that shit. So I just ended him. Two to the back of the head.

Remember how I said I work alone? Not completely. I had to do bodyguard duty. There might be more attempts to ruin the kid's prom. So I dragged the bodies to the sides of the building and into the the shadows and then I texted one of the guys who works for Dmitrius full time to do the actual clean up.

Back to where I could see the roads leading to the club. When the prom was over, I was going to make sure that his little granddaughter got home in one piece. Then, I was going to pay a visit to a man who thought he could take out Dmitrius by hurting his family. The details of what I was going to do to him were very graphic.

It was going to be a long night.

Only Me Myself and I For Plotting

The topic this week is who helps us develop the plot in the early stages. Um, I would have said  "I walk alone" on that but James beat me to it on Monday!

I don't consult with anyone. I get an idea, usually based on a situation like ooh Titanic in space! (Which became Wreck of the Nebula Dream and by the way the 105th anniversary of the tragic sinking is next week.)  And then quickly thereafter I know who my hero and heroine are going to be, the beginning and the ending appear in my head, and 2-3 scenes that will be along the way. Then I write. If my plot gets thorny at some point, which does happen, I have a technique where I sit down and draw myself a diagram of the possibilities, pick the one that seems best for the book, and resume writing.

This all undoubtedly traces back to my childhood and reasons. But hey, I'm not going to bore you with ANY of that LOL. It's me, it's how I write. No beta readers either. Just the developmental editor and the copy editor (who kindly weighs in on much more than comma placement). Well, I do have one sometime beta reader - Michael, the wonderful actor who narrates my audiobooks. He occasionally reads the scifi romance manuscripts and offers terrific insights on the heroes especially. But I don't brainstorm plots with him.

I'm distracted today - finally got Danger in the Stars released last week! SQUEE!

She’s a powerful empath. He’s an interstellar mob enforcer whose ruthless boss is holding her prisoner.

Miriell, a powerful empathic priestess, has been kidnapped from her own primitive planet along with a number of her people, and sold to the evil Amarotu Combine, largest organized crime syndicate in the Sectors. When she and her handler are sent to use her power to commit an assassination, she must leave behind her own sister as hostage to ensure her compliance. Miriell cannot ask for aid without endangering herself and others.

Despite his best efforts, Combine enforcer Conor Stewart is entranced by Miriell, and helps her evade the worst of brutal treatment from the rest of the mob. But Conor must keep his distance, before the lovely empath learns that he has secrets of his own–secrets that could get them both killed.

The situation becomes dire when Conor and Miriell come to the attention of both the Combine overlords and the deadly Mawreg, aliens who threaten the Sectors. Can she save herself and the Mawreg’s next victims? And will Conor help her, or remain loyal to his evil bosses?

Buy Links:

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Brainstorming, Plotting and Characters, Oh My.

Brainstorming: The process of idea generation, generally done as quickly as possible, often in a team so members can broaden their perspectives by feeding off of the ideas presented within the team.

Plotting: Figuring out how a story gets from beginning to end.

Where did these definitions come from? The crowded, noisy insides of my own head. Meaning that yes. I made them up. I did that because I wanted to drive home that these two activities are not the same thing. Nor are they interchangeable. I suspect for most writers (I know I'm one of them) brainstorming precedes plotting. That said, I believe the question was when should someone else help you brainstorm.

My answer: Any time. All the time. So long as it's someone else's work we're brainstorming. Leave my story out of it. Don't get me wrong. I love What-if-ing. I love asking questions about stories, finding the places that intrigue me about it and I love to start lobbing thoughts and ideas around. For anyone but me. Like James, I don't want to examine my ideas too closely when they are newly hatched and still fledging. They're too fragile for examination at that point. I want to sit with them in silence and see what develops. If I'm going to ask for brainstorming for me, it's going to be when I'm at least halfway through the book and 'stuck'. Then all I want is get out of whatever corner I've written myself into.

But plotting. Ah, plotting. If we're going to talk about that, it is important to impress upon you my theory that there are two types of plotters in the world. Possibly more. Regardless. The  two types break upon a single point of procedure: Do you decide what happens first? Or do you come up with characters first? (I'm that last one.)

Plot-driven writers seize upon an idea for a thing or a situation. Something like "what if Supreme Court Justices were being murdered to clear the way for new nominees?" (Not that this story idea occurred to me today or anything.) A plot driven writer could lay out the major story points without ever knowing who his or her protagonist was. Characters are slotted in somewhere, but they definitely show up after the plot has started taking shape. These folks usually benefit from brainstorming sessions more easily than their character-driven counterparts because the plot can be anything. It's freer form when you don't pin the plot to the foibles of your characters.

Character-driven writers might get an idea for a situation or for something that happens, but usually, there are characters already attached to the situation or event. Half the time, the characters show up and announce that you'll be writing their story thank you very much. For character-driven writers, brainstorming isn't very useful because these writers require that the plot come from the characters. These are the people who need to know what someone's inner wound is (a question Jeffe mentioned annoys her). These writers have to know what makes their characters tick because it's the places where the characters get stuck that the story starts. For that reason, these writers have to know their characters intimately. Everything that then happens in the story is designed specifically to hammer these characters at their weakest points so they either shatter or they strengthen. Character-driven writers end up elbow deep in the emotional lives of their characters - in fact, they require that - before they can begin plotting. That means that brainstorming with a group of people who don't have the same level of character knowledge just isn't going to work. It'll be an exercise in frustration for everyone involved. Most character-driven writers I know avoid brainstorming entirely, unless they are brainstorming for someone else.

So yeah. That was a really long way of saying, "It depends" in answer to the when should someone help you brainstorm or plot question.

Perils of the Writer: The Process of Planning

I've made no secret of the fact that there is a Big, Crazy Plan to all of the Maradaine books.  I don't get too specific about it, as I don't like talking too much about books that aren't finished or contracted, if not both.  As much as I believe I am capable of accomplishing my goals (and doing it in a relatively efficient manner), I prefer not to say THIS BOOK IS COMING OUT SOON until I know that it's actually true-- or as true as it can be within my power.  This is part of why I talk about Other Things vaguely.  Because too often you can say This Is  A Thing I'm Doing and then there's an Amazon or Goodreads page for a thing that you've decided to shelve.  

But I digress, because I wanted to talk more about the process of putting together the plan-- both for individual books and long term.  I'm, as I said, a big fan of outlines for both things, and working out where things need to go to reach the place I want it to in the long term, while maintaining compelling storytelling and plot in the individual novel.  

This is a pretty personal process for me, that involves a fair amount of sitting in front of a large work area and scrawling notes by hand, which then form a skeleton of the plot.  This is largely solitary, but sometimes I need to talk something out, or hack out the bigger points and that's where Dan comes in.

If you've read the acknowledgements on any of my books, you'll see a big one always goes to Dan Fawcett, who's been my friend and sounding board for about thirty years now.  While there are plenty of people who know Maradaine and understand what my goals for it are (including my editor, the once-again nominated for Best Editor Sheila GIlbert), Dan knows it in a way no one else does.  He knows about the long-term story, about characters you all haven't even met yet, and the deep secrets being threaded throughout.  I've written out about 20K words of Long Term Plan that was essentially for his eyes only.  (My agent has seen this too, but he decided not to read it, because: spoilers.)

However, if with his help, it's still 95% me, sitting down at the table, and hashing it out.

And now: time to get to work.  

Building A Plot Fire

Interesting timing, this post topic. Last weekend I gathered with a few friends to talk about the plotting of upcoming stories. It was me, another author, and a voracious reader. There was food and adult beverages of course.

I have plotted alone too much. When there is no one to bounce the ideas off of, no one else to poke at the notion with their sticks, then my options are limited. I write on my white board, I pace, and I talk out loud. I can get it done, but the result will not shine as bright.

Interaction with other creative people is intensely satisfying to me. Its like I'm looking through a telescope, trying to see this world that is light years away. The details my eyes percieve are my version of basic. Then someone else takes a peek through that lens. Their eyes might be better or worse, and their life experience is uniquely their own, so their initial assessment is drenched with their version of basic which has little in common with my own.

Suddenly, that world comes into greater focus in my own eyes. The addition of their thoughts is, in part, a validation of my own which gives me confidence to move forward, and the other part is fuel on the idea spark I started with. Before much time has passed, there is a bright flame.


It is important (to me) at this point to keep feeding that fire. To hammer out some details, to consider the tropes, the stereotypes and the current trends, and then to take a hard look at this idea before me and identify what is 'normal' and certain to be anticipated. I follow that up by actively asking myself what emotional appeal can be found in altering the plot or characters to avoid that ground which has already been explored.

You wouldn't dig for gold in an old mine, right? You and I both know that endeavor would most likely be a complete waste of time and effort.

So it is vital to push onward, to stumble past the lines of my comfort zone and stand on new territory. Adding the influence of even a few thoughts, connected only by the words of someone whose life experience differs from mine, is an invaluable part of the process. Like a relay...I know how, when and where to run, but I'm all anticipation and no distance until I'm passed the baton.

Then...because that spark has become a blaze, my passion is burning bright for the project, and the momentum has built and is hurlting me onward...there's no stopping me.

At What Point Is Brainstorming Most Useful?

When do I solicit the ideas and/or opinions of other people for the sake of plotting? Uhm...I tend to do that after the draft is done, usually when a CP has returned it to me with notes of "Yawn" or "DUMPSTER FIRE" in the margins. At that point, the brainstorming is solving a specific problem. Too soon in the process and I'm paralyzed by the abundance of choice, the internal struggle to make it uniquely mine, plus all the fun of hatching evil plans as I write the draft is gone. I do plot, I do outline, and I do end up with a product that isn't similar to where I thought the story was going.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE brainstorming. Letting my imagination run wild with "what if" is a blast. You give me "nuclear physics" and I can get us to "were-chickens in outer-space." It's the best drinking game ever. Hell, I like so much, I'll do it sober with very little prompting.

However, when it comes to a story I'm actually going to write/am writing; that's me and my special weird having a grand old time before we expose it to anyone. Once we have, should my Dev Editor or CP make notes of "this is what I think you're trying to accomplish, this is how it reads, maybe try something like this," I'm all Gabrial Iglesias with the giggles, "Yassss, yasss!"

Every creative person has a different point in their process where brainstorming is most beneficial. There is no "right" answer just as there is no requirement that you take any of the suggestions hatched during a session. It's all about when and how you need your leeetle gray cells stimulated. (What? I know that's Poirot not Iglesias!)