Working Hard Not To Be Repetitious As An Author

Our topic this week is what do we find ourselves doing over and over in our writing, like the way events unfolded repeatedly in the movie “Groundhog Day.”

First, I have to take a minute to say how much I LOVE that movie and also the commercial Bill Murray did for this year’s Superbowl wherein he revisited the adventure! Great stuff.

The movie “Edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt is another terrific science fiction movie with the “repeat the day” trope and deadly stakes, by the way.

Moving on to my own writing, as others have said this week, I have a list of words I overuse in the first drafts of my books, which starts with the word “that’. That is my single most overused assembly of vowels and consonants, usually with over 200 occurrences in a manuscript. Another word on my list is “moment”, which ironically was suggested to me by my editor at Carina Press in my first book and I got so overenthusiastic about using it, my current editor now has forbidden me to use it at all. (The word does sneak in a few times each book though.)  I don’t self-edit when I’m writing the first draft because I’ve found if I do, my creativity is stifled and grinds to a halt.  First draft for me is all about letting the story spill from my mind onto the page (computer) and not the time to stop and exorcise the ‘bad’ words.

I budget three solid days for the editing pass in which I do go through and clean out and replace ‘that’ and all his or her repetitious companions on my list. It’s kind of grueling but yields so many more interesting word choices and turns of phrase so the effort is definitely worth it. I know there are programs which are supposed to assist an author in finding and changing out these types of words but I prefer to do it by hand, at ground level, myself. Sometimes during this part of the process, I find some other word I’ve formed a temporary attachment to and then I work on revising there as well. I don’t try to eliminate every instance of these words – they’re English, they appear naturally in life and in conversation. I just try to prune so there aren’t say three ‘moments’ in one paragraph.

I have a very successful, award winning scifi romance series going, the Badari Warriors, and I have a different challenge there, not to basically re-tell the same story in each book.

Here’s the high level series premise:  Genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens. 

I have read series in the past where the author basically changes the names from book to book but everything else is the same, like old TV shows which followed a pretty strict formula. (Dare I say ‘cookie cutter’???)  I want to avoid that at all costs – I never want to bore the reader!

Just last week I had a really nice note from a reader who finished my newest book in the series, LANDON, and she in fact complimented me on the fact that I’ve managed to change up the circumstances in each book and provide new challenges for each couple, while remaining within the series world building.

Here’s what I said at one time about what I did to make the second book MATEER different from the first book AYDARR: With MATEER, I wanted to keep the series arc moving forward, advancing the overall plot, but I wasn’t done with the idea of a Badari warrior trapped in a lab and the human woman who helps him. There’s such a huge story potential inherent in the situation, which seems hopeless at first glance, but the hero and heroine will find a way out (this is romance – happy endings!).  I pondered how Megan, a doctor, would react to being awakened and finding herself a prisoner under threat of really despicable alien experiments – she’d naturally want to use her medical skills to help her fellow humans survive, but not get drawn into offering the enemy even the slightest assistance. And then there’s Mateer, the chief enforcer from the Badari pack, who’s been recaptured, much to the glee of the scientist running the lab. He has plans for Mateer and Megan together.

So while the two are mutually attracted to each other, they feel they have to resist the scientist’s plot designed specifically for them…and then something happens to Megan to totally change up the situation.

I think my biggest challenge for this book in the series was to make Mateer his own man, differentiated from Aydarr, the Alpha in book one. I had to sit and ponder how growing up in the same harsh circumstances as every other Badari would result in his being a unique person, with his own take on life. I also had a bit of fun in the beginning as Mateer envies the Alpha and his mate (from AYDARR’s events), and has confusion about how the whole concept of finding and being a mate works.  Not, mind you, the physical aspects, but how to know he’s met the one woman for him and how to impress on her that he’s the one man for her.

With Megan, who is the sister of book one’s heroine, but very different – younger, a doctor rather than a soldier as Jill was - I felt her medical training and knowledge would make her much more cautious about trusting her feelings in the high pressure environment of the Khagrish lab/prison.

I’ve played with many wrinkles and scenarios since the first two books, had a lot of fun, built the readership for the series and there’s no end to the stories I have in mind to tell going forward. So I guess this is my anti-groundhog day effort. I take it as a fun challenge and it’s also allowed me to explore a number of different SFR tropes within the series.

DARIK is probably the one where I had the most SF fun, giving a nod to the movies ‘Alien’, ‘Andromeda Strain’ and ‘Puppet Masters’ (the Heinlein classic, not the horror film franchise) in the course of the book. I’ve had hurricanes, avalanches, hidden Alphas, aliens hunting the hero and hero across the plains… (The hunt is a trope that has been used successfully in movies like 2010’s ‘Predators’, one of my favorites, and also in a classic TV movie about a big game hunter turning on his guide while they were out in the desert, and hunting him. I think that one’s been remade two or three times!)….a pregnancy, kidnapping, a heroine who says no to her fated mate (temporarily – hey, this is romance after all and she had a good reason!) and many, many more plot twists and turns over the twelve books so far.

Before I slide into repeating myself here, time to end the Groundhog Day and get back to work on my next book in the series which, yes, will have some new and different plot twists!

Happy reading!

Note: Graphics from DepositPhoto, book covers by Fiona Jayde

A Writer's Groundhog Day

In Groundhog Day, the 1993 movie with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell (and given a short sequel with a super bowl Jeep commercial) follows a man learning to be a decent human being by living the same day over and over and over again. Until he finally gets it right for all the right reasons.

I wish I could tell you that's what happened with my books. It's not that simple. Bill Murray's character Phil has to overcome self-interest and selfishness. My books have to overcome a multi-layered set of handicaps.

1. Thematic repetition - I write about finding your place in the world, so all my stories have that theme running through them somewhere. I keep hoping I'll move on, but it hasn't happened yet.
2. Characters having to learn to accept themselves - I suppose this is common stuff. It's part of the character arc, right? If we accepted ourselves fully, we'd have no impetus for change and then there'd be no character arc. But still. So far, every book has this running through it, too.
3. Repetitive phrases/gestures - this is purely a relic of my brain and my writing process. I'm trying to write fast, to get a really crappy draft down asap. That means I don't stop to think about how else I could have said something. Apparently, this is how you end up with 300+ exclamation points in a manuscript. Who knew.
4. Dark night of this writer's soul. Every book, there comes a point where I stop dead and stare at the carcass of my draft with all the bones sticking out and the sinews attached in places that make no sense and I boggle at it wondering what the hell I was thinking. We're there now. I'll get through it, usually by rearranging points of view and raising stakes. 

But there you have it. The terrible thing about Groundhog Day, the first half of the actual movie, in fact, is the despair of realizing you have to keep repeating your mistakes and missteps over and over again, hoping to heaven you can figure out what you're supposed to learn from it all. The wonderful thing about Groundhog Day (for Phil in the movie and for me in RL) is that you learn the patterns. Once you figure those out, you know what to expect and you can start twisting them. Maybe not to your advantage right away, but eventually. 

I'm looking forward to that part.

Groundhog Day writing...good or bad?

 (photo from the author's own monopoly fail)

It’s inevitable.

It’s gonna happen, you just know it.

Sometimes you don’t see it coming because you’re focused. Eyes on the board. Head in the game. But most of the time you know, because you know it happens every time…the fed-up-with-this-monopoly-game—board-flip. Boom. It happened.

Yes, you’re right, the topic of the blog this week is what Groundhog Day thing do you keep doing in your own writing. And I am getting to that, promise! But I wanted to point out that there’s Groundhog Day tendencies everywhere.

If you’re a creative, they’re not always bad. It could be your signature, that it factor that everyone recognizes as you. But more often than not we think of the repetitive in the negative, right?

My first thought was that I Groundhog the hell out of glancing eyes, but then realized that’s because I just finished re-reading a manuscript. Thinking back to the first book I wrote, and I had an overabundant use of was and just. My second book had the case of the glancing gazes. By the third book, I’d moved onto using too many sensory descriptions and not enough environmental ones.

Now in my fourth book, well, I’m only a handful of chapters in so it’s hard to say what will end up being my Groundhog Day for this one. But isn’t that great?! It means I’m learning with each book I write. No, I’m not perfect at what I’ve picked up, but I am aware of those writing pitfalls and take strides to not repeat them, I take strides to improve my writing.

So I guess I’ll go with that, my writing Groundhog Day thing is learning something new. Give me another five books or so and I’m sure I’ll have a new answer. ;)

‘Till then, I really, really want to go watch my favorite, cynical weatherman kidnap Punxsutawney and try win over the heart of the beautiful Andie MacDowell!

How about you? What stage are you at in your writing? Do you have any things you keep doing, good or bad? Or…maybe you just need to find a spot on the couch and turn on Groundhog Day too!

The eternal rut of authorial assumption

I think to some extent all of an author's books are the same. At least, mine are. My stories are all about found family and identifying your home base in a chaotic world. Considering I've been writing this theme my whole life, that probably isn't going to change.

Another thing that won't change: overuse of the words still and just. Sorry, those words. I hate to love you  -- and search-and-destroy you -- so much.

But the one thing that I keep doing over and over in stories and that does frustrate me and must be killed with fire is assumption. I keep assuming that the majority of readers have my brain, that they're going to share my weird sense of humor or my probably naive sense of wonder, that they'll get and appreciate the in-jokes and pop culture references, that they'll be charmed by the things that I'm charmed by, that they're going to appreciate big words and not being talked down to.

None of these assumptions has proven true in practice. Readers often say I lose them with jargon, that they just didn't get what I was trying to do there, that the pacing was bogged down by too much or too little exposition, or that the authorial structures I considered so fun and unexpected were, to them, boring and confusing.

So, like Bill Murray, I'm iterating. Learning. And someday, I'll write something sans assumptions. At that point, I'll consider sharing it with readers, crossing my fingers, and hoping to wake up, well, tomorrow. 

Bad Habits of Writing: The Beloved Words

What, oh what, had babits do I have in my writing? What things do I do over, and over, and over in my books, regardless of genre?

Dear reader, I have a list of Beloved Words that I overuse. It's a long list. During the drafting phase, my focus is on getting the story told; very "put words on page" versus getting hung up on selecting unique actions that demonstrate emotions. I can get lost in the weeds in an instant, massaging a single sentence for weeks as deadlines shoot past me. It's not something of which I am proud.

Then again, I'm not proud of the 142 occurrences of eye rolls, arm pats, growls, chuckles, or really any of the hundred+ go-to phrases I flog. Really bad is when those beloved words appear on the same page...more than twice. ~cringe~

Policing my beloved words is 100% my least favorite part of editing. I do it; otherwise, I'd have to retitle my works to "The Book of Batted Lashes, Volume 16."

To those readers who catch beloved phrases I don't realize I have: Sorry. I'm trying to be less annoying.

Writing Through the Cycle of Despair

Happy Groundhog Day! In celebration of this (dubious) holiday, we here at the SFF Seven will be discussing that THING we find ourselves doing over and over in our books. If that's not scary, I don't know what is.

Just last weekend I did a video chat with an author friend, because I asked for her help with some brainstorming. We also chatted about our current projects and deadlines. Now, she's had multiple books on the NYT Bestseller list and commands enviable advances. She has a large and passionate fandom. But she was at the phase of her current book where she doubted *everything* about it.

I said, "the phase where you're certain the book is not only TERRIBLE, but the one that will destroy your career forever?"

And she said, "YES!"

This is an inevitable Groundhog Day cycle for me. (For those who don't know, this metaphor comes from the 1993 Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell movie, Groundhog Day, where he is trapped reliving the same day in an infinite loop. If you haven't seen it, it's both entertaining and a terrific analogy for working through the same issues repeatedly until we find our way out of them.)

My Groundhog Day writing cycle goes like this:

Baby love -> potty training -> school years -> horrible teen that smells bad and begs you to kill them -> off to college -> adult reconciliation

I know that's a metaphor within a metaphor, but I feel that's on brand for me.

Basically, when I start a draft, everything is joy, cuddles and sweet-smelling new everything. Then there's a bit of wrestling to get it to behave - the potty training phase - but then I settle into helping the book grow up, get smarter, stronger, bigger.

And then we hit the teen years. The teenage phase for the book is when it totally rebels. It drags bad company home. It smells terrible and is generally filthy in every way. It's recalcitrant, miserable to be around, and you begin to wonder if you should kill it and bury it in the back yard to spare society.

That's when I'm utterly convinced that the book is not only TERRIBLE, but the one that will destroy my career forever.

It's funny because, even though this crisis occurs with every book, it's no less a black moment for that. Even though I *know* this is part of the writing cycle - that I've gone through it before and emerged with a good book - each time I hit that crisis it feels new and especially true. I'll actually think (and my friends will point out) that I've gone through this before, that it's a natural part of the cycle and to just keep going - and then the panicked voice will take over and shout:

NOT THIS TIME! THIS TIME IS REALLY IT! THIS BOOK IS SO EXECRABLE THAT IT WILL NOT ONLY FLOP, IT WILL CONTAMINATE EVERYTHING ELSE I'VE EVER WRITTEN OR WILL WRITE AND DESTROY MY CAREER FOREVER.

It even shouts in all caps like that.

I don't know why this is. It's a deeply emotional, even existential doubt that overpowers all rational sense. Sometimes I think it's a test from the universe, a chasm of despair that must be crossed to prove that you want to create the thing badly enough to keep going.

And eventually, if I keep going, the teenager gets their hormones under control and leaves home. Later we can reestablish our relationship as adults, with mutual respect and understanding.

Speaking of which, I have the copy edits in hand for THE FATE OF THE TALA. Barring disaster, I should be able to finish those today, which means the book will be live on the website store by Wednesday at the latest, and then going live on the retailers after that!!

My copy editor called it "A triumph!" Just saying. :D

Talking About the New Coronavirus

DepositPhoto

Our subject this week is a favorite feel better recipe for the flu or other bugs. I can’t help you much because I favor sleep, a cup of hot sweet tea and chicken soup. Simple stuff with no recipe! I also get the flu shot without fail every year and have had all the various pneumonia shots.

It is a timely topic with the 'novel coronavirus' on the news right now, and everyone waiting to see if the relatively few cases (so far) outside China will turn into the great pandemic we’ve all been dreading for so long. On the one hand I feel like we’re living in the early pages of an End of the World As We Know It scifi novel (a genre I enjoy but have no desire to encounter in real life or to have anyone anywhere have to deal with)…and on the other hand, I’m clinging to Mark Twain’s old saying about most of the things he worried about never happening.

This outbreak seems to resemble the opening scenes in the 2011 movie “Contagion,” right down to the way the Patient Zero in that one caught the virus. “The wrong bat met the wrong pig...” as a CDC scientist says in the film. CNN published a list of movies with this kind of plot, should you be in the mood to see how the world fares in fictional mode, some plots being more realistic than others. Lucky for us there won’t be zombies or vampires rising from the after effects of the virus. I’m pretty confident of this.

DepositPhoto

(I‘d skip the scenes involving bone saws – just a word to the squeamish like me.)

I’d also add the TV series “Containment,” which only lasted one season but which dealt pretty effectively with the results of a deadly outbreak in Atlanta. Of course there were all kinds of conspiracy theory level shenanigans going on too in that one, which I don’t believe are happening here. As another scientist says in “Contagion”, “The birds are weaponizing the flu,” in answer to a question from the Homeland Security official as to whether someone intentionally set the virus loose in the world. All the wild animals and birds passing viruses back and forth are Mother Nature’s toxic laboratory at work.

DepositPhoto

I’ve been watching the excellent Netflix documentary “Pandemic,” which is not about the current coronavirus but everything the doctors and scientists are discussing is quite applicable to the situation we’re watching unfold today. (There was also a made-for-TV series with the same title in 2007 and there’s no connection.) The documentary “Pandemic” shows the amazing lengths to which scientists all over the world are going to try to study the evolving viruses in the nonhuman sector. It also shows what steep odds doctors are up against in developing countries and those with less than robust health care infrastructure.

 

These outbreaks have patterns, going back thousands of years. There’s a good article on Health24.com detailing what they consider to be the Top 10 epidemics in history.

Yes, I’m kind of a geek on this stuff, but I think it’s good to know as much as a layperson can without getting utterly terrified, and to consider different scenarios.

I even wrote a scifi novel about a deadly epidemic breaking out on an interstellar luxury liner, STAR CRUISE: OUTBREAK. I did a lot of research into various viruses and other medical conditions which can seem similiar and created my own nightmare scenario for these travelers of the future.

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Here’s the website for the US Government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is a good source for updates. Here are the CDC’s tips for what a person can do to protect themselves, bearing in mind as yet there’s no vaccination for the novel coronavirus, nor is there a specific medication to cure it:

There is currently no vaccine to prevent 2019-nCoV infection. The best way to prevent infection is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.

Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

Stay home when you are sick.

Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.

Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.

Personally I think one of the most important things to remember is to avoid touching your face if you possibly can. The opening minutes of the movie “Contagion” are pretty chilling and true to life about how easily these viruses are transmitted  just by touching a cup, a credit card, or anything an infected person has recently handled and then touching you mouth, nose or eyes.

Additionally, some people are contagious with this new virus before they run a fever or show any symptoms at all, so the hand washing component of self-care is very important.

Wishing you good health!

Anti-Flu Strategy

I live with elderly parents. Or maybe they live with me. I'm not sure how that should be phrased. What can't be denied is that my father (whose birthday is today: Happy Birthday, Dad!) is medically vulnerable at this point in his life. So for handling flu season, I turn to a strange blend of science and magic. 

Modern science provides this entire household with flu shots as soon as they are available. A single flu at this stage could take Dad out. I refuse to be the one who brings into the house. All four adults in the household get those shots every year. 

We do our best to keep the house reasonably humid which sounds funny in Florida, but this winter has been unusually dry with repeated cold air invasions from the north. Dry air allows viral particles to remain airborne longer. In higher humidity, they get weighed down and pulled to the floor or other surfaces. In dry air, we breathe the little bastages and all hell breaks loose. So in really dry weather, we'll do our best to bring up humidity in the house a little. And we step up the house-keeping routine so our food prep surfaces and the surfaces we all touch are cleaned often.

From there, I spend the entirety of the winter taking a nightly hit from a bottle of Sambucol. 10ml to prevent viral infection, and up to 40 ml per day to treat in acute situations. For years, science went back and forth about whether or not this stuff worked. First is was no. Then yes. Then pff, of course not, it's wishful thinking. Then a series of articles published the mechanism by which black elderberry worked: By blocking viral insertion into cells so the viruses can't replicate. Y'all, this stuff is basically contraception for viruses. That's some serious magic.

Articles on the effectiveness of Black Elderberry:

Mercola

Nutrition Review