Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

Status
Not open for further replies.

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle
Absolute Sage
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
25,582
Reaction score
3,785
Location
New Hampshire
Website
madhousemanor.wordpress.com
Lenora Rose said:
Have you found particular pros and cons to this? Do you have specific advice for collaborating successfully, and is your usual way of collaborating (Which you suggest at in things like the intro to The Stars Asunder) much like the methods of other collaborators you know?

There are as many different ways of collaborating as there are different collaborators. All of them, however, depend on one thing: the collaborators bring different strengths to the mix, and work in their area of strength.

Some alternate chapters, each one trying with a cliffhanger ending to put the partner in a "what do I do now?" situation. It's a goad to getting the work finished, and turns the project into a game. (Eventual publication is a happy benefit.) Others hash out what will happen verbally; the writing either could do as a mechanical process afterward. I've heard of another set of collaborators wherein one person lay on a couch sending thought-waves to the other, who sat in a different room transcribing them. It may seem wacky, but they thought of themselves as collaborators, and who's to say they were wrong?

All of thes have one thing in common: They involve getting the words on paper.


How much input do you think another person should have on the final product before they stop being a first reader/draft editor/copyeditor and start counting as an actual partner? Do they have to be involved from the zero draft, or can they come in later if they end up changing the plot enough?

That's a real "let your conscience be your guide" kind of question. In my own case, all that Dr. Doyle added to one story was three linebreaks... and she got co-author credit. In another, entire chapters were hers alone, and I got co-author credit. We long ago decided that the way our partnership worked, the amount of "writing" wasn't what counted. I get final say on what happens, she gets final say on how it's said, and we continue.

I will say this: Collaboration on fiction is the closest relationship two people can have. Perhaps that will help you decide the difference between a beta reader and a collaborator. Or -- if whether to make a particular change is your decision alone, and you can make it or not without caring how the other person feels about your decision, you aren't collaborating.
 

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
43,746
Reaction score
8,652
Location
Los Angeles
Website
www.amazon.com
A few of us here on AW collaborated on a short story a few months ago (and no, it wasn't Atlanta Nights). We had three writers with different styles and different strengths. We wrote alternate scenes, giving each other prompts to continue, and turn and twist the story. Then there were some other folks who helped us do research. We had arguments, concerns, and sometimes a little bit of online fights. The result was pretty darn good (we have yet to decide on its fate as far as publishing goes). Most important, the experience was great -- fun, productive, and I think it drew us closer as friends AND fellow writers.
 

johnnycannuk

No, I'm little people now
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
169
Reaction score
28
Location
Ottawa, ON, Canada
maestrowork said:
A few of us here on AW collaborated on a short story a few months ago (and no, it wasn't Atlanta Nights). We had three writers with different styles and different strengths. We wrote alternate scenes, giving each other prompts to continue, and turn and twist the story. Then there were some other folks who helped us do research. We had arguments, concerns, and sometimes a little bit of online fights. The result was pretty darn good (we have yet to decide on its fate as far as publishing goes). Most important, the experience was great -- fun, productive, and I think it drew us closer as friends AND fellow writers.

maestro, is that story available online or have you submitted it for publication? I would love to read it.

Mike
 

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
43,746
Reaction score
8,652
Location
Los Angeles
Website
www.amazon.com
We haven't decided what to do with it. The problem is that it's about 25K -- too long for a short story, and too short for a novel. It's a novella, and there's probably not a lot of market for it. But mostly everyone just got so busy with their own lives and work... I'll raise the question and see if we can maybe post a snippet here? Well, it's not my decision to make. ;)
 

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee
Staff member
Boss Mare
Administrator
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
22,010
Reaction score
10,705
Location
Out on a limb
Website
macallisterstone.com
Heh--Ray, I STILL say we could cut another 10-12K words, and it wouldn't hurt it, any....<evil grin>
 

Matubrembrem

I feel quite the fool...

...or, perhaps, the slacker as I neglected to read every entry in this forum and my answer may very well be contained there in. Either way, I've a simple question to pose to all of you big brains here, "What is a solid word length for a Sci-Fi novel?" I'm aiming at 125K but it looks like I may be aiming high from what I've seen in this and other forums. Should I hurry up and kill the bad guy at around 100K or less? Perhaps I should just write until I feel it's done. Color me confused.

BTW, going way back in time, I listen to techno or industrial when I'm writing, I feel it fits the genre I'm trying to break into. The little banana emoticon is dancing in time with the song I'm playing. Don't you love harmonic convergence? I know I do.
 

tjwriter

Emerging Anew
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
11,983
Reaction score
3,256
Location
Out of My Mind
Website
www.kidscoffeechaos.wordpress.com
I would say to go ahead and write the story the way it needs to be told. There will be editing, and it is much easier to condense than to fall short. It would be much worse to have a story that got wrapped up too quick.

Also, a great article below on revision and that feeling of trying to make something smaller that you would like.

http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/wc2-4.html
 
Last edited:

black winged fighter

AW Addict
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
568
Reaction score
155
Location
Austin, TX
A Question

This has been bothering me for a long time, and now I finally have a community to ask:
How hard is it to get published by a USA publisher/UK publisher if you live in Saudi Arabia or Dubai? Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Insight would be incredibly welcome.
 

three seven

(Graeme Cameron)
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
3,084
Reaction score
525
Location
Norfolk, England
Website
www.facebook.com
James D. Macdonald said:
Too many people don't burn their first novels (Hemingway dropped his over the side of a ship in mid-Atlantic, which also counts). That's an excellent first step.
I held mine really close to a magnet. Does that count?
 

reph

Fig of authority
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
5,160
Reaction score
971
Location
On a fig tree, presumably
three seven said:
I held mine really close to a magnet. Does that count?
Ah, the generation gap. The revelation above confused me for a while. I kept thinking "What kind of paper was it typed on?"
 

Zane Curtis

Dried Frog Pill Dispenser
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
136
Reaction score
27
Location
Sydney Australia
reph said:
Ah, the generation gap. The revelation above confused me for a while. I kept thinking "What kind of paper was it typed on?"

Ah, never mind. I was once chatting with a young woman who told me she'd just burned a CD of something or other. And I, imagining some Hendrix-inspired conflagration with a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches, said, "Burnt it? That's a bit extreme, isn't it?" But, minor embarrassments aside, I've always found it better to keep up to the century rather than up to the minute. I've leapfrogged over entire technological cycles whose lasting impact was so slight that I haven't suffered one little bit.

Too many people don't burn their first novels...

Too true. I wrote three novels, two novellas, and a dozen short stories before I felt I could write prose that even approached publishable. I can't quite bring myself to burn or throw out these early attempts, but if they found their way into print, I would be mortified.
 

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle
Absolute Sage
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
25,582
Reaction score
3,785
Location
New Hampshire
Website
madhousemanor.wordpress.com
black winged fighter said:
This has been bothering me for a long time, and now I finally have a community to ask:
How hard is it to get published by a USA publisher/UK publisher if you live in Saudi Arabia or Dubai? Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Insight would be incredibly welcome.


Sold my first short story and two novels while active duty deployed in the Republic of Panama. All you need for this business is a mailbox.

(Oh, yes, and a story that grabs on and won't let go.)
 

katiemac

Five by Five
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
11,521
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Yesterday
Wow, Jim. That should really encourage more students to sign up for Creative Writing.
 

tjwriter

Emerging Anew
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
11,983
Reaction score
3,256
Location
Out of My Mind
Website
www.kidscoffeechaos.wordpress.com
I can feel the 1st amendment dissipating as I breathe the air around me. I am close, and I mean close to Kentucky. I have relatives there, as my dad grew up in the great KY. That is just awful. I can't believe a judge would let that go to court, and I hope the kid gets a good lawyer.

But really, what person in their right mind, would discourage a kid from creativity? School is somthing kids know about, and what do we always hear about? Write what you know. It's a natural response. Zombies=terrorists? I think that's actually a good analogy. :Thumbs:

Now that I am finished with one of my two major pet peeves about the way children are being raised today, I will shut up. :crazy:
 
Last edited:

ashnistrike

Re: Outside links

Wow. When I was in high school, I was in the Writer's Club. It consisted entirely of alienated kids making up stories about assassins. We had long, loud debates on the school bus about the best techniques (of assassination, not writing). The girls all went for the subtle, nobody-knows-you-were-there, methods; the boys prefered big explosions. It never bothered our teachers--we were all high achievers, and as far as I know none of us even owned a weapon. I was widely considered to be a goody-two-shoes, and never got detention a day in my life. When I watched what happened to schools after Columbine, I was disturbed to think that we all might have gotten expelled if we had been going to school a few years later.

It never occurred to me that it could get worse than that. I am a science fiction writer, and ought to know better, but really, this never occurred to me.

Properly speaking, couldn't they apply this law to any young adult book in which a confrontation takes place at a school?
 

Denis Castellan

Excuse my French...
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
76
Reaction score
3
Location
Near Marseille, France
Website
www.majorden.com
"Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky"

Does that mean that just for carrying a book dealing with such matters you could be arrested, even if you're not the author ? Or am I getting something wrong ?
 

WVWriterGirl

Inked Mom
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
930
Reaction score
188
Location
West Virginia
I don't think I should mention my ties to Kentucky State Penal Code...I may get stoned to death. Let's just say a close member of my family writes Ky criminal law and leave it at that, shall we?

WVWG
 

katiemac

Five by Five
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
11,521
Reaction score
1,661
Location
Yesterday
Jim, you seem to be a fan of internet gadgets. Have you seen Gizoogle?

My anthropology notes will never be the same.
 

Eowen

Registered
Joined
Feb 22, 2005
Messages
18
Reaction score
5
Kate Nepveu said:
James D. Macdonald said:
Leaving the copyright/permissions question entirely aside, most poetry is bad. Even if no lyrics are used, most references to popular music only serve to date the story more quickly.
I find this is particularly true with quoted lyrics, because far more often than not they only work when set to music; they don't work at all as poetry.

I have a few questions regarding song lyrics/poetry when used in the body of a novel. Some things I already understand; as with anything else, they have to contribute something to the story (foreshadowing, emphasis of past events, character revelation, etc.), and anything with a copyright held by someone other than the novel's author comes with it's very own set of legal hoops to jump through before you can use it.

Given all that, I was wondering if Uncle Jim would be willing to answer some questions about some very specific instances where he has used song lyrics in some of his novels. First, how did you come up with the lyrics used in the Mageworlds novels? Are they in any way inspired by specific real folk songs, or are they wholy original? Second, do any of the songs have verses that were not used in the novels? And for the non-musically inclined, do you have a better explanation than mine for why the song lyrics were more appropriate than a section of prose in the places where they were used? (My explanation is something along the lines of, It Just Fits.) Finally, did you have any particular melodies in mind for any of the lyrics you used? I ask because I can half hear certain folk songs in the back of my mind when I read the lyrics.

Eowen
 
Status
Not open for further replies.