Friday, December 30, 2022
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Friday, October 1, 2010
My Accidental Urban Fantasy
I never set out to write an urban fantasy. I'd never even heard of the term when I wrote the first sentence that began The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider. The novel had been in the works for a year and I was nearly finished with the first draft when I went to the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in April 2009.
That was the first writers conference I had ever attended and it was also the first time I learned how important "genre" is in the world of publishing. They drill into you over and over how you must "know your genre." Well, I didn't know my genre. So I started asking around.
The first question I would get is, "What's your book about?" So I would proceed to give them a summary and out of their mouths pops, "Urban fantasy."
Urban fantasy?
As I said, I'd never heard of it.
Well, I thought, if I'm writing in a genre I've never heard of, I had better start doing some research. So I did. Most writers conferences seem to cater more to commercial genre writers than to literary writers, so there were plenty of examples to choose from right there. I discovered that one of the authors at the conference was writing in the genre of urban fantasy, so I took a look at her books.
On the first page, the main character, a young woman, whips out a sword and starts slaying vampires.
Okay, I think, these people obviously did not understand me when I was describing my novel. It's absolutely nothing like this. It's about magic, not vampires. It's subtle. The magic creeps up on you.
So another year goes by. I finish the manuscript. I begin revising. All the while, I'm trying to figure out what the genre is. I come up with descriptions like, "magical realism where the speculative elements are woven into the real world."
I probably got closest to it with "occult fiction" or "contemporary literary fantasy." I wrote the novel after reading all of Dion Fortune's novels. She wrote occult fiction, but it certainly wasn't fantasy. The magic she wrote about was real, based on her knowledge of the occult.
Eventually, while searching for an agent, I discovered an author, Mike Shevdon (represented by an agent I'm interested in querying), who wrote a novel titled Sixty-One Nails. Its genre is Urban Fantasy.
Now I'm finally beginning to understand what Urban Fantasy really is. I realize now that those books I was examining at the conference were bottom-of-the-barrel books. They were crap pulp fiction published by a microscopically small press. They are not the standard that defines Urban Fantasy. In fact, true Urban Fantasy writers are so sick of teenage vampire slayers, they want to vomit.
Although I could still use terms like "occult fiction," "contemporary literary fantasy," or "contemporary speculative fiction," it turns out that "Urban Fantasy," nails it right on the head.
Wikipedia defines Urban Fantasy as such: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fantasy
Fortunately the genre is still fairly new, so its traits are defined by each new novel published in that genre. Gradually, as the genre grows, it will probably split into sub-sub genres (it's already a sub-genre of fantasy). So there will be a sub-sub genre of vampire urban fantasy.... which I will stay far away from. It's already way over-done.
Now that I understand the genre of urban fantasy, it makes sense to intentionally revise the novel to make it more urban and more fantasy, in order to get it solidly in that genre.
This is starting to feel like the endlessly-revised novel. I finished the first draft over a year ago (September 4, 2009 to be exact). I've been revising since then. Fortunately I've also been writing Journey to Artemisia at the same time and it's almost finished. Journey will probably get published before The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider, but that's okay. I've learned so much in the past few years. The trajectory of my learning curve has the same shape as the space shuttle launch.
Journey to Artemisia isn't urban fantasy because there are only minor urban settings. It is categorized as contemporary fantasy. I'm planning Journey as the first book in a series and will start the query process in mid-November.
That was the first writers conference I had ever attended and it was also the first time I learned how important "genre" is in the world of publishing. They drill into you over and over how you must "know your genre." Well, I didn't know my genre. So I started asking around.
The first question I would get is, "What's your book about?" So I would proceed to give them a summary and out of their mouths pops, "Urban fantasy."
Urban fantasy?
As I said, I'd never heard of it.
Well, I thought, if I'm writing in a genre I've never heard of, I had better start doing some research. So I did. Most writers conferences seem to cater more to commercial genre writers than to literary writers, so there were plenty of examples to choose from right there. I discovered that one of the authors at the conference was writing in the genre of urban fantasy, so I took a look at her books.
On the first page, the main character, a young woman, whips out a sword and starts slaying vampires.
Okay, I think, these people obviously did not understand me when I was describing my novel. It's absolutely nothing like this. It's about magic, not vampires. It's subtle. The magic creeps up on you.
So another year goes by. I finish the manuscript. I begin revising. All the while, I'm trying to figure out what the genre is. I come up with descriptions like, "magical realism where the speculative elements are woven into the real world."
I probably got closest to it with "occult fiction" or "contemporary literary fantasy." I wrote the novel after reading all of Dion Fortune's novels. She wrote occult fiction, but it certainly wasn't fantasy. The magic she wrote about was real, based on her knowledge of the occult.
Eventually, while searching for an agent, I discovered an author, Mike Shevdon (represented by an agent I'm interested in querying), who wrote a novel titled Sixty-One Nails. Its genre is Urban Fantasy.
Now I'm finally beginning to understand what Urban Fantasy really is. I realize now that those books I was examining at the conference were bottom-of-the-barrel books. They were crap pulp fiction published by a microscopically small press. They are not the standard that defines Urban Fantasy. In fact, true Urban Fantasy writers are so sick of teenage vampire slayers, they want to vomit.
Although I could still use terms like "occult fiction," "contemporary literary fantasy," or "contemporary speculative fiction," it turns out that "Urban Fantasy," nails it right on the head.
Wikipedia defines Urban Fantasy as such: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fantasy
Fortunately the genre is still fairly new, so its traits are defined by each new novel published in that genre. Gradually, as the genre grows, it will probably split into sub-sub genres (it's already a sub-genre of fantasy). So there will be a sub-sub genre of vampire urban fantasy.... which I will stay far away from. It's already way over-done.
Now that I understand the genre of urban fantasy, it makes sense to intentionally revise the novel to make it more urban and more fantasy, in order to get it solidly in that genre.
This is starting to feel like the endlessly-revised novel. I finished the first draft over a year ago (September 4, 2009 to be exact). I've been revising since then. Fortunately I've also been writing Journey to Artemisia at the same time and it's almost finished. Journey will probably get published before The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider, but that's okay. I've learned so much in the past few years. The trajectory of my learning curve has the same shape as the space shuttle launch.
Journey to Artemisia isn't urban fantasy because there are only minor urban settings. It is categorized as contemporary fantasy. I'm planning Journey as the first book in a series and will start the query process in mid-November.
I don't know yet if Magical Diaries will be a series, but there is definitely potential for it, and it seems now-a-days publishers of sci-fi & fantasy are looking to publish series because they gain a following and that increases sales.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Revising The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider
I love attending writers' conferences because I always have such a powerful experience and learn so much. I got a chance to discuss the changes I was planning to make to Magical Diaries with Amanda Bergeron on Saturday.
She clarified what she thought the novel needed and this time I really got it. I understand now why readers need to empathize with Lilith's attraction to Adam and feel her pain when he leaves. Amanda said that just because they're soul mates doesn't mean they have to end up together, but we have to feel their attraction and how painful the separation is.
She gave me the example of Buffy and Angel. They're soul mates, but they can't be together because Buffy is a vampire slayer and Angel is a vampire.
Plus, I reconsidered the psychological issues and realized that I had pushed it too far. I don't want Lilith to be neurotic, obsessive, and delusional. She will deal with this stuff in the latter half of the novel when she makes a foray into black magic. A little obsessiveness I could probably get away with in the beginning of the novel, but too much of it and she begins to appear delusional, which doesn't work at the beginning because she's not delusional... and Adam's not a jerk.
I think I've got it sorted out now so I can do the revision and get the characters right so I evoke the emotions I want to evoke in my readers.
Also, one of the workshops I took at the conference was called Revising Fiction, taught by Kirt Hickman. It was so good that I bought his book, Revising Fiction. I was impressed enough with it to mention it here. For writers needing guidance on the revision process, this is a good one.
She clarified what she thought the novel needed and this time I really got it. I understand now why readers need to empathize with Lilith's attraction to Adam and feel her pain when he leaves. Amanda said that just because they're soul mates doesn't mean they have to end up together, but we have to feel their attraction and how painful the separation is.
She gave me the example of Buffy and Angel. They're soul mates, but they can't be together because Buffy is a vampire slayer and Angel is a vampire.
Plus, I reconsidered the psychological issues and realized that I had pushed it too far. I don't want Lilith to be neurotic, obsessive, and delusional. She will deal with this stuff in the latter half of the novel when she makes a foray into black magic. A little obsessiveness I could probably get away with in the beginning of the novel, but too much of it and she begins to appear delusional, which doesn't work at the beginning because she's not delusional... and Adam's not a jerk.
I think I've got it sorted out now so I can do the revision and get the characters right so I evoke the emotions I want to evoke in my readers.
Also, one of the workshops I took at the conference was called Revising Fiction, taught by Kirt Hickman. It was so good that I bought his book, Revising Fiction. I was impressed enough with it to mention it here. For writers needing guidance on the revision process, this is a good one.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Decompressing After the Conference
I wish I could do a better job of adding to this blog on a regular basis, but honestly, when in the midst of writing one novel and revising another, some things must take precendence. Blogging tends to fall lower on my list of priorities.
However, I just got home from the first day of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Conference and my mind is buzzing so much, I need to write about everything that happened, and everything I learned. (It might also have something to do with the fact that I drank coffee after dinner.)
Okay, here's the first thing: I signed up for a workshop led by an agent or editor. Amanda Bergeron from Avon (HarperCollins) led the workshop I was in. I'm really glad I took it because I learned quite a bit from it. The most important thing I learned -- which I already sort of knew was a problem -- is that readers have a difficult time understanding why Lilith Fyerider (the main character in The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider) is in love with Adam. They understand why she loves the Adam in her dreams (she's dreaming of their past lives together), but not why she loves him in the current lifetime. I admit, the present-day Adam is kind of a jerk.
Since I already sort of knew this was a problem (and thought I had fixed it, but obviously hadn't), I was a bit dismayed. The only positive side to that kind of response is that everyone had the same complaint. There was consensus. That's actually good news for a writer.
So, at first I thought, "I'm going to have to completely rewrite Adam's character."
In the afternoon, I went to a workshop called "Pitch 101." Writing a pitch for a novel is incredibly helpful to writers because it forces you to get focused. Here's what I came up with for The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider:
Lilith Fyerider, a modern pagan mystic who is haunted by an obsessions based on dreams of a past life with her former lover, must battle her inner demons as they come to life outside of her, in order to fulfill her destiny as a High Priestess and earth healer.
There are two reasons this exercise of boiling a 94,000-word novel down to one sentence is so helpful. The first is because it allows you to "pitch" your novel to an agent or editor within a few minutes, which sometimes is all you have. The second reason is because, in all honesty, sometimes even the author doesn't really know what their own novel is about. It forces you to get clear on who and what your story is about.
The real benefit of this clarity comes either in the writing or in the revision process (depending how far along you are when you finally write the pitch). Actually KNOWING what your story is about is so incredibly helpful to writing a compelling novel.
If the author knows, it will come through to the reader, no matter how complex the story is. After all, we writers have such overactive imaginations, we absolutely love tangled webs. But we also want the reader to feel, at least on an intuitive level, like they really "got it"; they got the core essence of the character's struggle.
So as the workshops came to an end for the day, we began seating ourselves for dinner. I was on a mission to sit next to Eddie Schneider from JABerwocky Literary Agency because what I had read about him, I thought my novel would appeal to him more than anyone else at the conference, but my pitch appointment is with Amanda Bergeron.
Mission accomplished. I got the seat next to him at dinner. I told him about both of my novels. He gave me his business card and said to send a query letter and sample pages. YES!!!!
Okay... but I've got a problem with the novel, remember? So I tell him I need to fix the problem with Adam first and he says, "Maybe not. Sometimes in workshops if there's a problem in the novel, the readers try to figure out what it is and point to something that seems obvious on the surface, but that's not really it."
Hmmmm.....
After dinner, I rush home and tell my roommate, David, all about what happened. The only other person on the planet who knows the story as well as I do is David. He knew me before I wrote the first sentence that became The Magical Diaries. So he "gets it." He knows what the story is about even if I sometimes forget or get confused.
I told him about how the readers in the workshop liked the Adam in her past-life dreams, but not the Adam in her current life. They couldn't understand why Lilith, a priestess of Avalon in a past life, who is destined to become a High Priestess in this lifetime, could possibly want anything to do with "that jerk, Adam."
"So I should change Adam, right? Make him more like the Adam in her past-life dreams."
"Not so fast," he said. "I understand why Lilith is drawn to Adam the way you've written him."
We went back and forth like that, discussing the novel, until I remembered why it works better that Adam isn't perfect. So the key isn't to change Adam into a character that any woman would obviously fall in love with, but instead to find a way to communicate to the reader how it is that Lilith, a woman who was, in a past life, a priestess of Avalon, could be so broken in this lifetime that she displays neurotic, co-dependent behavior.
This is her journey in the novel. At the beginning of her journey, she is broken... and there are reasons why she is broken. She is at crossroads. Two paths lie in front of her. One is a path of compulsion. But her reasons for being drawn to Adam are not just psychological; they are also karmic. Their lives are karmically tied together, but that does not mean that they are meant to spend their entire lives together. In fact, her destiny in this lifetime is to be a High Priestess and earth healer, not to be Adam's wife.
So her "sacred contract" with Adam unfolds. He is in her life for a reason, but not the reason she thinks. Although they are soul mates, karmically bound together, the role he has agreed to play in her life before they were born was to crack her open in order to expose her wounds (the only way they can truly be healed), then reject her in order to force her out of the protective womb of a relationship and onto the path of her true destiny.
As you can see, it is a complex story, a deep exploration of the character's pysche (both her soul and her psychological makeup). The novel reveals the depths of her psyche until both the reader and Lilith finally understand the underlying truth.
The complexity makes it more profound, but also more difficult to write. Ironically, after brainstorming with David, it turns out that fixing the problem (which is that the readers said they don't understand Lilith's obsession with the present -day Adam) won't be as difficult to fix as I had originally thought.
Whew!
Okay... the clock's telling me I need to get to bed. Have to get up early tomorrow and head back to the conference. I hope this coffee buzz won't keep me up all night.... argh... I hate that. The upside is that I got the thoughts written down while they are fresh in my mind. That way, when I go back to revise, I won't have to reconstruct it all. I can just read this blog.
I love being a writer.
However, I just got home from the first day of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Conference and my mind is buzzing so much, I need to write about everything that happened, and everything I learned. (It might also have something to do with the fact that I drank coffee after dinner.)
Okay, here's the first thing: I signed up for a workshop led by an agent or editor. Amanda Bergeron from Avon (HarperCollins) led the workshop I was in. I'm really glad I took it because I learned quite a bit from it. The most important thing I learned -- which I already sort of knew was a problem -- is that readers have a difficult time understanding why Lilith Fyerider (the main character in The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider) is in love with Adam. They understand why she loves the Adam in her dreams (she's dreaming of their past lives together), but not why she loves him in the current lifetime. I admit, the present-day Adam is kind of a jerk.
Since I already sort of knew this was a problem (and thought I had fixed it, but obviously hadn't), I was a bit dismayed. The only positive side to that kind of response is that everyone had the same complaint. There was consensus. That's actually good news for a writer.
So, at first I thought, "I'm going to have to completely rewrite Adam's character."
In the afternoon, I went to a workshop called "Pitch 101." Writing a pitch for a novel is incredibly helpful to writers because it forces you to get focused. Here's what I came up with for The Magical Diaries of Lilith Fyerider:
Lilith Fyerider, a modern pagan mystic who is haunted by an obsessions based on dreams of a past life with her former lover, must battle her inner demons as they come to life outside of her, in order to fulfill her destiny as a High Priestess and earth healer.
There are two reasons this exercise of boiling a 94,000-word novel down to one sentence is so helpful. The first is because it allows you to "pitch" your novel to an agent or editor within a few minutes, which sometimes is all you have. The second reason is because, in all honesty, sometimes even the author doesn't really know what their own novel is about. It forces you to get clear on who and what your story is about.
The real benefit of this clarity comes either in the writing or in the revision process (depending how far along you are when you finally write the pitch). Actually KNOWING what your story is about is so incredibly helpful to writing a compelling novel.
If the author knows, it will come through to the reader, no matter how complex the story is. After all, we writers have such overactive imaginations, we absolutely love tangled webs. But we also want the reader to feel, at least on an intuitive level, like they really "got it"; they got the core essence of the character's struggle.
So as the workshops came to an end for the day, we began seating ourselves for dinner. I was on a mission to sit next to Eddie Schneider from JABerwocky Literary Agency because what I had read about him, I thought my novel would appeal to him more than anyone else at the conference, but my pitch appointment is with Amanda Bergeron.
Mission accomplished. I got the seat next to him at dinner. I told him about both of my novels. He gave me his business card and said to send a query letter and sample pages. YES!!!!
Okay... but I've got a problem with the novel, remember? So I tell him I need to fix the problem with Adam first and he says, "Maybe not. Sometimes in workshops if there's a problem in the novel, the readers try to figure out what it is and point to something that seems obvious on the surface, but that's not really it."
Hmmmm.....
After dinner, I rush home and tell my roommate, David, all about what happened. The only other person on the planet who knows the story as well as I do is David. He knew me before I wrote the first sentence that became The Magical Diaries. So he "gets it." He knows what the story is about even if I sometimes forget or get confused.
I told him about how the readers in the workshop liked the Adam in her past-life dreams, but not the Adam in her current life. They couldn't understand why Lilith, a priestess of Avalon in a past life, who is destined to become a High Priestess in this lifetime, could possibly want anything to do with "that jerk, Adam."
"So I should change Adam, right? Make him more like the Adam in her past-life dreams."
"Not so fast," he said. "I understand why Lilith is drawn to Adam the way you've written him."
We went back and forth like that, discussing the novel, until I remembered why it works better that Adam isn't perfect. So the key isn't to change Adam into a character that any woman would obviously fall in love with, but instead to find a way to communicate to the reader how it is that Lilith, a woman who was, in a past life, a priestess of Avalon, could be so broken in this lifetime that she displays neurotic, co-dependent behavior.
This is her journey in the novel. At the beginning of her journey, she is broken... and there are reasons why she is broken. She is at crossroads. Two paths lie in front of her. One is a path of compulsion. But her reasons for being drawn to Adam are not just psychological; they are also karmic. Their lives are karmically tied together, but that does not mean that they are meant to spend their entire lives together. In fact, her destiny in this lifetime is to be a High Priestess and earth healer, not to be Adam's wife.
So her "sacred contract" with Adam unfolds. He is in her life for a reason, but not the reason she thinks. Although they are soul mates, karmically bound together, the role he has agreed to play in her life before they were born was to crack her open in order to expose her wounds (the only way they can truly be healed), then reject her in order to force her out of the protective womb of a relationship and onto the path of her true destiny.
As you can see, it is a complex story, a deep exploration of the character's pysche (both her soul and her psychological makeup). The novel reveals the depths of her psyche until both the reader and Lilith finally understand the underlying truth.
The complexity makes it more profound, but also more difficult to write. Ironically, after brainstorming with David, it turns out that fixing the problem (which is that the readers said they don't understand Lilith's obsession with the present -day Adam) won't be as difficult to fix as I had originally thought.
Whew!
Okay... the clock's telling me I need to get to bed. Have to get up early tomorrow and head back to the conference. I hope this coffee buzz won't keep me up all night.... argh... I hate that. The upside is that I got the thoughts written down while they are fresh in my mind. That way, when I go back to revise, I won't have to reconstruct it all. I can just read this blog.
I love being a writer.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tricks to get the words flowing
1) just come up with a list of words, preferably concrete words and action verbs
2) do a mind map
3) write down some bits of dialogue
4) read a passage in a book, like Castaneda and jot down some ideas
5) watch a movie to get ideas
6) take an old draft and circle the words I want to keep
7) scribble out some ideas for first and last sentences
8) type it all into a document
9) write six word sentences, a What If poem, or any kind of poem
10) begin to move the pieces around into some kind of intelligible order until a story begins to emerge.
11) at that point, I can put it aside for another day.
2) do a mind map
3) write down some bits of dialogue
4) read a passage in a book, like Castaneda and jot down some ideas
5) watch a movie to get ideas
6) take an old draft and circle the words I want to keep
7) scribble out some ideas for first and last sentences
8) type it all into a document
9) write six word sentences, a What If poem, or any kind of poem
10) begin to move the pieces around into some kind of intelligible order until a story begins to emerge.
11) at that point, I can put it aside for another day.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
What do they mean by "commercial and genre fiction"?
A genre is a category like romance, mystery, suspense, thriller, science-fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal. You'd be amazed if you knew how many genres and subgenres there are.
Commercial is the opposite of "literary." Commercial means it's fast paced, lots of conflict, plot-driven, lots of dialogue and action, mystery, suspense, cliff-hangers, a "page-turner". I'm still trying to figure it out myself.
I woke up this morning and I had a powerful realization about my life. Aside from the givens, such as health, happiness, and raising a healthy, well-adjusted child, what I want more than anything else is to get published by a standard publisher and become a best-selling author.
For me, it's not about money. Owning things is nice, but eventually they suffocate me and I want to shed them. I'm not motivated to build a nest, find a marriage partner, secure a steady job.
I can't even say why I want to get published so badly. People say (it always seems to be published authors saying this) that you should love writing for its own sake, and I do. But I want my writing to be validated. It's like I'm searching for an elusive key and when I find it, I'll unlock the door.
To me, writing is the most magical thing in the world because it frees my mind from the Matrix. That, in itself, is incredibly liberating and empowering. But I want to know, what makes someone want to read a piece of writing, particularly a novel or a memoir?
Why is it that some authors or books can enchant me and hold me captive, while others can't get me past the first chapter? I want to learn that magic of enchantment.
How did the books on the shelves at the bookstore get there? Why were those manuscripts chosen instead of the other 100 they were competing against? And why is it that I have no interest in reading most of those books on the shelves? Does this mean I'm supposed to write my novel like those novels, even though I don't want to read them, just because they are in the bookstores?
Most of the stuff I like is old or something new by an old author. The modern stuff does nothing for me. But on the other hand, Avatar blew my mind. How do I get Avatar magic on the page?
Well, at the moment, I seem to have lots of questions, but few answers.
Until next time, love to all~
Commercial is the opposite of "literary." Commercial means it's fast paced, lots of conflict, plot-driven, lots of dialogue and action, mystery, suspense, cliff-hangers, a "page-turner". I'm still trying to figure it out myself.
I woke up this morning and I had a powerful realization about my life. Aside from the givens, such as health, happiness, and raising a healthy, well-adjusted child, what I want more than anything else is to get published by a standard publisher and become a best-selling author.
For me, it's not about money. Owning things is nice, but eventually they suffocate me and I want to shed them. I'm not motivated to build a nest, find a marriage partner, secure a steady job.
I can't even say why I want to get published so badly. People say (it always seems to be published authors saying this) that you should love writing for its own sake, and I do. But I want my writing to be validated. It's like I'm searching for an elusive key and when I find it, I'll unlock the door.
To me, writing is the most magical thing in the world because it frees my mind from the Matrix. That, in itself, is incredibly liberating and empowering. But I want to know, what makes someone want to read a piece of writing, particularly a novel or a memoir?
Why is it that some authors or books can enchant me and hold me captive, while others can't get me past the first chapter? I want to learn that magic of enchantment.
How did the books on the shelves at the bookstore get there? Why were those manuscripts chosen instead of the other 100 they were competing against? And why is it that I have no interest in reading most of those books on the shelves? Does this mean I'm supposed to write my novel like those novels, even though I don't want to read them, just because they are in the bookstores?
Most of the stuff I like is old or something new by an old author. The modern stuff does nothing for me. But on the other hand, Avatar blew my mind. How do I get Avatar magic on the page?
Well, at the moment, I seem to have lots of questions, but few answers.
Until next time, love to all~
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