Exigent – The Fae Liaison Initiative

On Reddit.com, the fantasy writers’ subreddit began a monthly short story writing competition in December 2011.  I thought I’d give it a shot and entered with a new piece called ‘Exigent’.

‘Exigent’ ended up becoming the inaugural winner of the competition but I was intrigued by the setting that I had put together.  It seemed such a waste to leave only 6000 words in there — the setting deserved more.

For the past few weeks, I continued work on further stories – these will form the background of ‘Exigent’.  There are going to be 12 episodes in total for the first season, including ‘Exigent’.  If my outlining has been consistent, the 12 episodes will form enough material for a novel-length work.  I’m writing these as fast as I can.

In  the meantime, the ‘Exigent’ is available on Amazon for Kindle.  It’s fairly similar to the version that won the short story competition on Reddit but I intend to revisit it (the Kindle version) at some stage.

Team Fortress screenplay

I reached the 50% milestone of my current manuscript in September.  To celebrate, I thought I’d indulge myself with a project that had been kicking around for the previous six months.

I’m a fairly avid gamer and I cut my online-gaming teeth with Team Fortress Classic (and Counter-Strike).  When Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007, I was instantly hooked.  The problem with online-only games is that there’s no inherent story or plot – it’s all about gameplay.  There’s nothing wrong with that but Valve created such a rich art style and distinctive characters that it was a shame that there was no single-player campaign.

In the past few years, Valve has been more forthcoming with canon stories and information.  With this in mind, I thought I’d take a shot at creating a full-length story.  Since my main project was prose, and the Team Fortress brand is so visual, I opted for the screenplay format.

I have only written two screenplays before in my life, so this was a strange exercise in re-education – not just the mechanics in formatting but also the plot structure, adapting another medium and extrapolating character personalities.  I’m happy with the result.

You can read the Team Fortress spec screenplay here.  Enjoy.

More on Kindle

City of Stone and Her Human Shadow are now available to purchase on Kindle.  Check out the Library for the links.

Free samples from this website as well as Scribd will remain.  Enjoy!

 

 

Premise vs Plausibility (The Suspension of Disbelief)

One of the most common, and sometimes infuriating, comments or critiques of fantasy/sci-fi – whether it’s a book, movie or tv show – is the plausibility.  The argument for suspension of disbelief can be used and misused by supporters and critics of the piece in question, so I’d thought I’d write a quick post to lay things out, at least from a writing point of view.  I’ll refer to books or movies from here on but this post applies to all forms of fiction.

Premise

Every piece of fiction, regardless of the genre, relies on a premise.  Writing theory and guides/how-tos sometimes define the premise as something different from what I intend here.  For the purposes of this post, I’ll define the premise as being the “gimme”, the initial suspension of disbelief that allows the reader to go along with the story in the beginning.  For fantasy, it’s often the existence of a specific magic system or the fantasy world.  In sci-fi, it’s a futuristic technology or society.  In hard sci-fi, it’s the existence of a near-future technology or the resolution of a contemporary research that gives rise to this.  In mysteries, it’s the initial crime and the wherewithal of the protagonist to solve it.

Some examples in popular fiction:

• Elantris by Brandon Sanderson: the existence of the Aon magic system
• Batman:  the motivation, the money, the physical and mental capabilities all belong to one man (it might as well be a superpower)
• Star Wars: the Force (pretty much a fantasy series, not sci-fi, but this is a whole other issue)
• Breaking Bad: the chemistry teacher getting cancer, creating his motivation to become involved with the drug underworld.

Plausibility

Once the “gimme” has been established, the story must continue under its own steam, as per the world/setting, the characters and the themes and message that the writer wants to convey.  This means that the characters will act and behave as anyone else would, under the same circumstances.  Even if magic exists, and the rules have been established, the rest of the physical world should be plausible – at least as far as the magic system/world specifics would change it.

Continuing from that – if magic exists, its existence must also have an effect on the world and its development.  There must be logical consequences for the characters, for the culture, for the environment, for the relations and perceptions of everyone involved.  For example, if a magic system relies on the sacrifice of toads and frogs, there must be consequences for this: are toads going extinct?  Or are there efforts to farm them?  Are toads sold?  Are they expensive?  Is there a blackmarket for them?  If someone sees a toad in the wild, they will not have the same reaction as we would.

If a new “gimme” is thrown into the mix, say, in the second act, it ruins the drama of the story.  It’s arguably a form of deus ex machina and it’s a narrative cheat, a sign of weak storytelling.  It is, however, acceptable for the original “gimme” to develop, for its history to become known, for new uses to be discovered etc.  This is a normal part of plot development and escalation.

In other words, once the premise has been established and accepted, the story must have internal consistency and continuity.  Without this, we are left with what are commonly known as plot-holes.

In Closing

So, when a fellow viewer is complaining that something is not plausible, it is incorrect to reply with something along the lines of, “Stop complaining.  You’re watching a movie about a person with telekinesis/shoots lasers from his eyes/about aliens.”

The fellow viewer has no problem with the initial premise, it’s the implausibility of the current situation or more likely, the implausible behaviour of the characters in the later development of the story.   It could also be an illogical situation – eg. we might accept the premise of aliens being deathly allergic to water but why would the same aliens choose to land on a planet consisting of 75% ocean, with water vapour in the air, clouds, fog and rain – not to mention being capable of interstellar travel but have no concept of clothing or doorknobs.

Using these guidelines, we can also determine if a criticism of the plot or the use of the magic system/technology should be taken seriously.  There might be instances where things might need to be made more concise or explained more clearly.  There might be instances where the reader/viewer has a legitimate point and these are the most important.  Always be prepared to rework elements of the story to make it better.

ps.

Non-Fiction

The advantage of non-fiction is that all of the above does not apply.  The disadvantage is that if it’s ever found out to be falsified, well… ask James Frey.

Still alive…

Still alive and kicking…. Currently 60k words into the new manuscript.  Planning and outlining took roughly 3 months earlier this year (not counting the previous 3 years where the idea has been simmering in my brain).

Progress is admittedly slow and as mentioned in a previous post, it’s the biggest piece of writing I’ve attempted so far – a wide range of characters and two major settings.   That said, it also incorporates a lot of stuff that I’ve learned (and relearned) since my last manuscript.

It’s a long road ahead but it will be good to get the first draft out.  After that, I’ll be able to start on another idea, which will be a lot more modest and accessible – at least, that’s the plan.

 

On Amazon’s Kindle

I’ve finally jumped onto the Kindle bandwagon by uploading Stoneguard (Book One of the Iacean).  It’s available for the princely sum of $1.49 right here (.com) or here (.uk)

And yes, the same text is available free of charge here.  I didn’t say this would make any sense.

I’ll be uploading City of Stone and Her Human Shadow at some point in the future too.

 

Scribd

I’ve added Stoneguard, City of Stone and Her Human Shadow to Scribd – check out the links from the Library.

 

Her Human Shadow (updated!)

It has been slow-going as far as writing is concerned, however, I have uploaded a slightly updated version of Her Human Shadow to the Library.  This version will likely be the final version barring any major rewrites.  Since the search for an agent using this manuscript has been unsuccessful, this version of Her Human Shadow will remain available in the Library for the foreseeable future.

I liked Her Human Shadow – it contains a lot prose and scenes that I’ll probably end up stealing.  With a couple years of hindsight and separation, however, it’s easy to pick up the faults and weaknesses that likely explain why no agent or publisher has opted to read the full work.  The big question is how to fix it, or perhaps write another story that doesn’t suffer from the same mistakes.

I’m currently working on a new story and hope to have a draft finished this year (don’t call it a New Year’s resolution).  It’s more ambitious than any previous work, even the lengthy Stoneguard, so we’ll see how it goes.

 

More submission stuff

Well, the submission to Agent 1 was not successful.  Made a submission to agent 2, which was then rejected in a world-record 7 business days.  I’m somewhat impressed!

Now, off to find another agent

Submission

Well, the query to the agent – let’s call her Agent 1 – was successful.  I’ve sent off a sample and synopsis, so we’ll see how that goes.