My Struggle With Adverbs

Hello.

My name is Doug, and I am an addict.

It's been four days since my last adverb.  Already I find my fingers itchy, desperate to type that beautiful "-ly" at the end of of a word.

Adverbs are not inherently bad; I know this.  Used in moderation they are descriptive and poetic.  But I know I can never use just one.

Sure, it starts with a "softly" or a "wryly".  But before you know it the adverbs are spilling off of the screen and I wake up in a pile of my own vomit, staring at the page I have written in my stupor:

"Hi there," said Fred breezily.
"Hello," Jennifer replied flatly.
Frowning, Fred delicately inquired, "Is everything okay?"
She sighed.  "I guess," Jennifer answered despondently.

Friends don't let friends abuse adverbs.  I need your help.

It's a struggle, but if I can get through today without an adverb, I know maybe I can do the same again tomorrow.  And then the next day.  And the next.

One sentence at a time, my friends.  One sentence at a time...

Book review: "The Black Archive 6: Ghost Light"

I have decided to occasionally do some reviews of indie or small-press books on this blog.  I will probably only post positive ones, as I see no need to spread the word about bad or mediocre books.

This is Obverse Books' sixth in the series of novella-length analyses of Doctor Who stories.  All of them so far (I haven't yet read Simon Bucher-Jones' "Image of the Fendahl" since I haven't seen the TV story) have been excellent, and Jon Dennis' look at "Ghost Light" is no exception.

Now, it has been about a month or so since I read this book (my life has been busy with other things in the interim, as seen on the blog you are currently visiting) so I can't be as detailed in my review as I would like to be.  A great many of the things I would have commented on after reading have simply been forgotten.

So this review will be a rough overview rather than a blow-by-blow dissection of the book.  I really wanted to get this written sooner, but other events took priority.

My overall summation is that this is a great book that does a fabulous job at analyzing and deconstructing the final piece of 20th century Doctor Who to be shot: "Ghost Light".  However, it is somewhat less of a revelation than other books in this "Black Archive" have been, due only to the fact that so much has been written about the serial in the intervening 27 years that Jon Dennis (despite having many new things to say) must in part be treading well-traveled ground.

One of the things that pleased me about the analysis in this book is that Dennis largely avoids the most common topic of discussion these days when it comes to this serial.  The DVD release revealed that according to the writer and script editor, the exact nature of Josiah and 'Control' was supposed to be that of a biological experiment.  Josiah was the 'Survey' and 'Control' was...  Well, yeah.

Much of the debate about the confusing nature of "Ghost Light" as a televisual story revolves around exactly how clear this fact was to the audience at the time.  ('Not at all' being the correct answer.)  Wisely, Jon Dennis says little or nothing about this, because he seems to recognize that it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the story being told; it is backstory, pure and simple.

That is to say, whether one comprehends the biological or physical function of these characters is irrelevant; we understand their story function completely.  We see that Josiah evolves into what he considers to be the dominant lifeform on the planet, and we see Control (once she is let out of her captivity) follow a similar evolutionary path.

(Yes, I know this is not how evolution works,  It's a story - a metaphor - and I am merely using the terminology presented on screen.)

Because this is almost the only topic debated these days on the subject of "Ghost Light", Jon Dennis avoids it and barely if ever mentions it.  Very wise move.

Onto the first chapter, then: "I Wanted to See How it Works 1: Angels in the Architecture".

This chapter is a very insightful look at how "Ghost Light" (again, the last story to be recorded for many a year on Doctor Who) evolved (sorry) with the times, both in relation to the series itself and cinema as a whole.  Dennis shows his working in hypothesizing that this serial is an excellent piece of evidence to show that modern Doctor Who would have wound up more or less the same as it is whether or not it had been taken off the air for 16 years.

Along the way, it takes in the basic inspiration behind this particular serial - even addressing the novel "Lungbarrow" (which ardent Who fans will know is very closely related to this story).

A great introduction for the book, with some intriguing things to say.

"Talent Borrows, Genius Steals: Sampling and Remix Culture" is the second chapter, basically dedicated to exploring the inspirations behind every aspect of "Ghost Light".  It examines the way (and the reasons why) we incorporate existing ideas and works into our current creative output, and is an interesting look at the story's roots.  (Even if it can get a bit listy.)

Chapter 3 is "The Secret Origin of a Haunted House".  It discusses the history of haunted house stories in (and out of) Doctor Who and attempts to analyze what exactly makes a 'haunted house story'.

Dennis then shows the ways "Ghost Light" uses, abuses, and eschews the conventions of the haunted house tale, and what effect the serial appears to be going for.  In general it is a very thought-provoking chapter that might make you look at certain Doctor Who serials in a different way.

Where would fiction be without the old 'mind control' device?  That is the subject of Chapter 4: "Where is My Mind?: Moral Culpability and Mind Control".

It's a nice examination of the reasons why fiction writers (and Doctor Who writers in particular) choose to include the element of mind control in their stories - and the problems that arise in general and in "Ghost Light" specifically.  But it is the research and explanation about real-life mind control that I found most illuminating.

That's not to denigrate the point of the chapter, however, where Jon Dennis has some great insights about the mind control trope which anyone who has an interest in either writing or literary analysis ought to find intriguing.

Chapter 5 ("I Wanted to See How It Works 2: "So Where Precisely is Java?") is basically an examination of one particular plot inconsistency in the serial.  There's nowhere near enough here to justify filling out a whole chapter (and indeed it is a very short one) but it requires enough explanation that it couldn't really be just an aside elsewhere in the text.

(I would have made it an Appendix myself, but it could be argued that an appendix is just a chapter put in an unusual place and therefore the distinction here is a moot one.)

The real meat of this book is in Chapter 6: "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Gabriel Chase: Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and Religion".  It is the longest, most detailed, most political, and most meaty chapter in the book.

It is also the most difficult for me to discuss and summarize - not only because of its complexity and the breadth of its topic, but because the details are more hazy at this distance and I don't wish to misrepresent the book by getting any of its ideas or details wrong.

Dennis in this chapter presents the ideas and history of evolution, and of so-called 'social Darwinism', and the ways they are incorporated and represented by the serial "Ghost Light".  It is a fascinating chapter, and a great look at the main subject of this story that for some reason never really gets the attention and analysis it deserves (in favor of nit-picking the presentation of the story instead).

Finishing up with a chapter called "I Wanted to See How it Works 3: God's Away on Business", the writer basically sums up his experiences researching and writing this work, as well as a final thought on audience reaction to the TV serial.

Jon Dennis is a great fiction writer, and his clever brain and witty asides really make this book a success.  Though I would rate the book 4 stars - rather than the 5 stars many feel it deserves - this really is the side effect of "Ghost Light" being a topic discussed to death over the years, giving it none of the freshness that a monograph on "Rose", "The Massacre" or "The Ambassadors of Death" inherently has.

Strongly recommended for anyone with the slightest intellectual interest in Doctor Who and critical analysis.

Buy the book here

Plotters vs Pantsers: why you shouldn't choose

You shouldn't choose because, of course, "Plotter" is the obviously correct selection.

I kid, but let me back up a bit:  What are these terms?

Writers tend to use these words to describe the two basic types that make up their group.  "Plotters" plan the story out in advance, and write to an outline.  "Pantsers" make it all up on the fly.

So which is better?  This is what I came here to explain: there is no choice.  You don't decide which path to follow; you learn which group you are already in.

It's not about technique, it's about the way you naturally write.

Some will say that Plotters leave no room for inspiration to hit, or that Pantsers hit writer's block and give up too easily.  Neither of these are necessarily (or even often) true.

Let me lay my cards on the table: I'm a Plotter.  And how.  I can't even start writing until I have every last beat of the story figured out.  I just can't do it.  (Or rather, I can't do it well, which is kind of the point.)  If I try to write without a very sophisticated outline, the story just veers off into nowhere and I have to delete vast swathes of text and start again.

For me, a story needs to have a shape.  I don't just put finger to keyboard and see what comes out.  I know what comes out: nonsense.  A story is about progression, about characters following their nature but encountering hiccups and overcoming them and developing in certain precise and entertaining ways.  If you just let them bumble about doing whatever they feel like, it might be believable but it sure as hell won't be entertaining.

Ah, you may well cry, that is what rewriting is for.  And this is true.  Many writers find the story in the redraft stage and get everything into shape then.  Me?  I'd rather do all that pesky rewriting before the writing has actually started.

It's much easier to redraft a "beat sheet", or treatment, than a 90,000 word document.

But have I abandoned all artistic integrity by sticking to an outline?  Have I hamstrung myself, leaving out all sense of inspiration and become a slave to a blueprint that I have bound myself to?

Not at all.  In those cases where things start developing in ways that contradict my outline (and yet seem potentially more interesting than my outline) I see where that takes me and develop a new outline where necessary.  (Or else realize I was right the first time and return to an earlier file which I conveniently saved when I began to deviate.)

Similarly, Pantsers are not necessarily more prone to giving up due to writer's block than Plotters.  We Plotters have the same writer's block - we just experience it earlier (in the planning stages).  Pantsers, in some ways, have a better reason to just plow ahead and see where the story takes them; if a plotter becomes stuck on how to implement his or her outline then it becomes harder to just power through the blockage.

So neither is necessarily beneficial.  There is no reason to choose between the two, based on merit.  What is important is to find out which of the two you are and do so quickly.  The more time you waste following the wrong technique, the harder it will be to write anything half-way decent.

I legitimately do not understand Pantsers.  How is it possible to craft a comprehensible and entertaining story without knowing where everything is leading?  There are so many strands to a novel that I do not see how a writer can cause them to artistically convene and converge in any kind of believable and satisfying manner by doing it on the fly.

And yet it is done.  Again and again, every single day, by artists whose talent is far above my own.  I couldn't do it, that is for sure.  It's not about choosing, it's about discovering.  And I discovered very early in my life that I can only produce a satisfactory story by doing all the donkey work up front.

You may be the opposite.  You may find that any outlining you do results in a mundane and predictable story that satisfies no-one, and the only way to create something of worth is to sit at the keyboard and figure it all out as you go.

It's not a choice; it's an identity.

Twitter account

Hey all.

Just a quick post to say that I have officially joined Twitter!

Yeah, I'm a newb at this, but follow me on the Twits @jdouglasburton for all the news, and whatever random thoughts pop into my head that can be expressed in 140 characters or fewer.

I have a few ideas for blog posts in the coming days, so keep your eyes on this page as well.

Paperback now available!

That's right, Book 1 of The Sleepwar Saga is now available in genuine Dead Tree form!

It's 6"x9" and 264 pages of awesomeness.  And you should buy it today!

$8.99+shipping from Amazon US

£6.99+shipping if you're in the UK

Or, of course, the Kindle e-book version is still available for $2.99 or £2.49 from the links elsewhere on this blog.

Character diversity in fiction

Diversity is important.

Now, I don't believe in tokenism, but I do believe in representation.  As a straight white male, it is all too easy for me to be blind to the way my 'type' is over-represented in fiction.  That most fiction seems to be directly catered to me, to appeal to me, to feature me.

But having diversity among your characters is not only about representation; it's also just good drama.  What your characters look like might not seem superficially important (in text there is no color) but even if all of the characters are white (or black, or Hispanic, or desi) it is important to make each distinct.

Basically, the less variation the characters' cultural and developmental backgrounds, the less inherent drama there is in their interactions.  Why limit yourself?  No matter how well you define your individual characters, if they all share so many of the same characteristics then there is much less scope for clashes.

For me, as a function of where I live, it is easy for me to create a naturally diverse cast.  I simply look at my friends and co-workers and draw from them - as they are from various backgrounds and ethnicities, so will my own characters be.

Especially the teenagers I work with, since the Sleepwar Saga leads are all teens as well.  As I look to real young people I know from which I can extrapolate brand new fictional versions, I naturally will create a diverse group as that is the culture that surrounds me.  Were I still living in some of the more overwhelmingly white areas I have lived in before, perhaps I would have to work that much harder to ensure I created a realistically and entertainingly diverse cast of characters.

That's not to say I always succeed in my efforts.  Only after the fact did I realize that all six of my leads (and the supporting cast of "Straw Soldiers" as well) are cisgendered hetereosexual able-bodied people.  Clearly this is an area I will need to deliberately focus on if I want to be representative (and to mine all resources for inherent drama).

Actually, one of the characters in "Straw Soldiers" is gay, but as it never came up in the text no one will ever know.

What about gender?  More than half of the world's population is female, so why are so few fictional characters female?  Especially in movies and on TV, but books can be just as guilty.

I want to be diverse.  I want to be representative.  Not just to ensure that straight white men are not the only (or even primary) type that gets stories written for them, but because when drama is all about the way characters clash and interact, why would any writer remove potential for this by limiting the variation among the core cast?

But while sometimes this comes easily, at other times I realize how far I still have to go if I want to meet my goals.  It's so easy to surround yourself with people like yourself - to write about people like yourself - that you just don't notice how insufficient this representation actually is.

What is 'Young Adult' fiction, exactly?

And why write it?

This is just a question I was thinking about lately, and figured I'd jot down some thoughts.  You see, 'genre' is an interesting concept which so many people seem to get wrong.

Genre doesn't define content; content defines genre.

In other words, no good 'Young Adult' book (since that's the category I'm discussing today) began with the author thinking: "I'd like to write a YA novel.  What elements do I need to put in to make it YA?"

Many writers do, indeed, think like that.  But not the good ones.

Writing YA isn't about taking some of the staples of the genre (dystopian future, strong female protagonist, vampires) and figuring out a plot you can build around them.  This only leads to inferior fiction.  No, instead 'Young Adult' fiction is merely fiction that is about being a young adult.

It's about writing your story in such a way that it is defined by the experience of being a teen (or person of similar age).  Not about featuring teenagers; rather, it is about being a teenager.  The entire subjective experience should be the way an actual young person views and chooses in the world.  This is what makes a YA story, not the plot elements.

So why write YA?  Why is the young adult experience such a popular topic for authors and readers alike?  My guess is that the experience of 'coming of age', of being right at the point in one's life where one is transitioning from dependency to autonomy, is simply the most inherently dramatically rich period to form a story around.

This is a time when emotions are at their height, when the weight of the future first begins to burden a young mind, when the person they will be for the duration of their lives begins to fully take form.  Obviously, this makes for a vast well of story potential to be mined.

And adults - who are actually the main consumers of YA fiction - will connect with the material every bit as powerfully as those who are going through the same experience depicted in the story.  We have all been that age, and any story that properly conjures up the reality of having been that age will bring us older folks back to when we felt the exact same way.

One of my favorite movies is Where the Wild Things Are.  It is based on a young children's book, and is about the experience of being a young child.  But is not for young children.

Oh, there is nothing there that is unsuitable for kids.  I just don't think it caters to them particularly.  It doesn't speak to them in any strong way, because its purpose is to remind us who have left that period behind of exactly what it felt like to be a kid.  What we went through, the way the world treated us.  It reminds us of that time, and helps us relate to those who are currently children.

Kids don't need that.  They're already living it.  It's the rest of us that sometimes need to be reminded of just what a fearsome and difficult time childhood actually is (or can be).

That's what I like about YA, and why I choose to write it.  It is, in a basic way, about being at a time in our lives that defined us, that we struggled through, that we sometimes find it all too easy to forget.

And sometimes it has vampires in it.

Meet Kaz Harper

KASSANDRA "KAZ" HARPER

A 17-year-old high school student from Northern California.

Loves video games, has her own guild in an online MMORPG.  Keeps her head down in school, lucked into some popular friends.  Home life a bit unsteady.

A fairly normal life, all things considered.

Until the night she went to sleep and found herself in a strange forest, with five other kids she had never met before in her life.

It couldn't be real, of course.  Could it?  Especially when a living scarecrow attacked the group from out of nowhere.  Almost like something from one of her video games...

With all Kaz has to deal with at school, at home - in life - the last thing she wants is to become embroiled in some fight against evil for some higher being she never sees.

But then, we can't always get what we want.  And as she learns to work with the other teens, to forge a team of six very different people plunged into this bizarre scenario together, she may just come to understand that if you try, sometimes you might find you get what you need...

Available now for the Kindle at $2.99

Paperback coming soon...

New YA series: The Sleepwar Saga!

Hi guys!

I've been busy for a while, but I'm back!  I decided to revamp the blog and use it for all of my stuff, not just "The Star Travels of Dr. Jeremiah Fothering-Smythe".

Out now is my new YA novel - the first in "The Sleepwar Saga".

It's called "Straw Soldiers", and it is about Kaz Harper, a teenage girl who argues with her family, plays video games, and struggles through school.  Until one night she goes to sleep and finds herself in another part of the country surrounded by five other teens in the same predicament.

Forced to band together to fight against evil, these six strangers will come together as friends, as colleagues, as soldiers in this Sleepwar.

As of now it's only available as a Kindle e-book (the paperback will be out soon) but that's okay!  The Kindle app is free even if you don't own an actual Kindle, and it can be downloaded on most mobile devices - and even your home computer!

$2.99 from Amazon US

£2.49 from Amazon UK

Buy it today!