Fantasy Series: Keeping the Big Secret

I’ve mentioned before that one of the things I do when I’m struggling with a book is read nice things people have said about my stuff–it helps me get cocky, and that helps me write. This often leads me to reread Jo Walton’s stuff on Tor.com because, well, it says nice things. Today I noticed the following thing she said: “I think Brust must be the best person at keeping a secret in the world. There are revelations late in the series that it’s quite clear, on re-reading, that he knew about and was hinting at all the time.”

This gave me to think. At the time, I never considered it as, “I have to find the right moment to reveal this thing.” In fact, I don’t ever remember thinking that. For one thing, it contradicts the “burn story” rule that I have at least tried to keep as a guideline. So, how, in a long series, do you keep the Big Secret until the right moment for the reveal while simultaneously burning as much story as you have wood for? Well, here’s the thing: You don’t. It’s never about keeping anything secret, exactly. It’s simply an extreme case of that other rule, the one about the writer knowing more than the reader.

****** Spoiler for Orca ******

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, certainly, I knew all along that Kiera was one of Sethra’s disguises; it was a necessary and not terribly brilliant part of defining Sethra’s character that she would want to keep informed of what the Jhereg were up to, and, if she were to be a thief, obviously she’d be a very good one. But I never said to myself, “I will save this revelation until the right book.” For one thing, when I wrote Jhereg, I had no idea there would be any others.  What I told myself was, “This will probably never emerge, but it will have a huge effect on the relationship between Vlad and Sethra, and thus on Vlad’s entire career and development.” No one was more surprised than me when I suddenly came to a moment when it seemed right, necessary, and cool to let the reader in on that–in fact, the only thing I had to do was go back and plant a couple little things to explain how Vlad figured it out.

 

 

****** End Spoiler ******

 

 

 

James D. MacDonald, in his lecture at Viable Paradise, displays a miniature house he built and talks about how he constructed it. There is a room where there is a figure of a guy that you can’t see because it is fully enclosed. But, Jim says, he knows it is there, and that knowledge informs how he constructed the house. This is a perfect metaphor. There are many things I know about the world I’m building, and the relationships among the characters, that never make it into the stories, but that, simply because I’m aware of them, have an effect, greater or lesser, on what happens. So, then, the “reveal the big secret” moment never, to me, feels like, “Now I can finally reveal that,” but rather, “Oh, the story would be really cool if this happened right here, and, hey, look, I just happen to have that all set up; ain’t I clever?”

My point is not, in fact, that I’m especially clever. My point is that the old chestnut that speaks of knowing things about your world that you do not reveal not only gives your world additional depth, but can sometimes pay off in other ways. As long as you aren’t so cryptic about so many things that the reader is left in a fog (or you, as a writer, get so wrapped up in inventing things that you never write the story), there is no downside to knowing things you don’t reveal.

Rant: Idiocies About the American Indian

Someone on Facebook published this quote by Ayn Rand:  The Native Americans didn’t have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using…. What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.

I would like to believe no one on this blog needs an explanation about how utterly disgusting that is.  In my opinion, it flows naturally from the concept that property rights are above–or a part of–human rights.  This is what one would expect of such an ugly, reactionary philosophy.  But it was the comments of some of those attacking the quote that made me roll my eyes.

“They were one with the land,” went one predictably inane remark.  And, “they were a part of nature,” went another.

First of all, probably the most offensive thing is referring to American Indians as a monolith.  I mean, seriously?  The pastoral (in the literal sense) lifestyle of the Navajo is somehow identical to the complex agricultural life of the Powhatans or the Aztecs?  The nomadic life of the Lakota is the same thing as the settled life of the Cherokee or the Seneca? The ancestors of the Pueblo who lived in Mesa Verde had the same life as the Iroquois of the Great Lakes?  Some tribes in the Kansas Territory supported abolition, others owned slaves  But they’re all the same?  What the fuck?

Second, what is this, “one with the land,” bullshit?  Like every human being ever on the planet, the American Indian, in different ways, according to the development of productive forces and the nature of his environment, consciously altered that environment. That is what human beings do.  If we are “a part of nature” then the form that “oneness” takes is conflict.  We wrest our living from nature, in conflict, as does every other living thing right down to the microscopic parasites in the intestines of our dogs.  What makes human beings unique is our ability to planfully alter nature in accordance with our wishes–we not only build tools, but we build tools to build tools.  This activity changes nature, adapts it to our needs.

This “one with nature” crap is only one, tiny step up from the racist “noble savage” idea every serious anthropologist had abandoned by the end of the 19th Century.   And speaking of anthropologists–it is very popular today to dismiss the work of Lewis Henry Morgan, and cry racism for his use of terms like, “savagery” and “barbarism” and “civilization”  in defining cultural states.  But Morgan, who took the time to study and learn the nuances and subtleties of the different tribes with whom he lived, was far, far more respectful than the “one with nature” types we run into today.

By claiming that those who lived on the North American continent didn’t planfully change their environment, and by lumping them together, you are, in essence, denying them humanity, every bit much as Ayn Rand does.

 

The Police in NYC: Stating the Obvious

The mayor of New York City is no working class hero. He is a representative of the exploiters–just, perhaps, a different flavor of exploitation than some others. So why is NYPD so down on him? Why are they publicly insulting him? Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious, but it’s not and never was about De Blasio, or his mealy-mouthed admission that just maybe when unarmed people are being murdered by the police, not everything is exactly perfect. No, what this is about is the cops using the pretext of the death of two officers to assert their power over the civilian authority. They are being militarized, they are being let off the leash, and now they are saying that they are willing to show the world that no one has any authority over them. “Civilians are not in charge of us, we dictate to them, both as individuals (‘Obey police orders or get hurt’) and now on the level of government.” The frayed, tattered–though still in some ways noble–remnant of democracy that has been chipped away at for years is now being assaulted with dynamite. This is another movement toward a police state. We need to not lie to ourselves about it.

Cats Laughing Reunion

I love playing songs. I pick up the guitar or banjo and sing something, and when everyone is enjoying it, it just sort of lights me up. I love being the center of attention, and the feeling that those who are giving me their attention are finding it worthwhile.

But music. Music is different. I first discovered that with a band called the Albany Free Traders–the pleasure of sublimating myself into a music machine, where the pleasure coming back from the audience was multiplied by each one of us in the band, and sent back out again. AFT gave me a taste for it. And then came Cats Laughing.

Emma Bull, Bill Colsher, Lojo Russo, Adam Stemple, and me. We played a sort of Grateful-Dead-influenced improvisational rock with folk elements, and with a lot of blues because Lojo and Adam. All of my efforts to describe what it was like–magical, amazing, all that stuff–sound weak and stupid. But the thing is, people seemed to like us. We had a kind of following. We made a couple of tapes/CDs that were fairly well received, and, well, like that. I can still recall being lost in the playing–the sensation I called “an ear and a grin,” because it felt like that was all I was.

I miss that band painfully. I have since we stopped playing together.

Thanks to my son Corwin, my amazing daughter-in-law Dee, and David Dyer-Bennet, there’s a good chance of us getting together at this years’ Minicon, Easter Weekend, and doing an acoustic show from which we hope to produce a CD, and maybe even some sort of video thing. We’ve launched a Kickstarter, and, as I write these lines, we made our tier 1 goal, and are on the way to the next.

If you’re interested in being a part of it, here’s the link.

Reviews and Criticism: Some Things to Think About

This post is aimed at writers.  As we in the science fiction community deal with some ugliness that has taken a quasi-political form and had a powerful negative effect on many writers, here are some things you may want to consider.

I will sometimes read reviews of my work. I will go to Amazon and click the 5-star ones, and read others that are full of lavish praise. I do this because sometimes I need cheering up–I need to remind myself, “Yeah, I can do this.”  I mean, in my more cynical moments I believe that the way to tell if you’re a “real writer” is that you sometimes think you’re not a real writer.  It’s good to have ways of pulling yourself out of that, especially if it has a bad effect on the quantity or quality of your work; if you’re lucky enough to have reviews out there that will help you do that, hey, what the hell.

With a few exceptions, I do not read negative reviews of my work, or even pay attention to the negative comments (“My only complaint is….”) within a positive review.  The book is done.  Moreover, if there is something someone hates about it, it is a gimme that it is the same thing that someone else likes, so I’m not “learning” anything from it.  I have a list of people for whom I have a great deal of respect, and to whom I listen when they speak about what needs improvement, either in a particular work or in my writing in general; nothing good can come of listening to anyone else.  The exceptions, with reviewers, are people who, over the years, I have determined are smart, perceptive, know what I’m trying to do, and can articulate where I failed to do it (yes, Jo, I’m looking at you).  These reviews can, in fact, give me useful information.

I can see you nodding along with me.  Good.  We agree.  I’m glad to hear it.

Now consider, for a moment, reviews or criticism that call you, for example,  a racist, because you didn’t include anyone of some particular race, or you did but someone thinks you were stereotyping, or being insensitive, or whatever.  These comments are every bit as legitimate, in my opinion, as any other sort of criticism, and deserve exactly the same consideration.  To wit: if you’re getting the comment from someone you know and trust, take it the way you would any other comment, give it due consideration, and decide.

I mention this because one of the things I see going on around me, is that reviews and criticism that focus on these things are treated as if these comments are special–particularly if aspects of the personal identity of the reviewer (race, sex, disability, sexual preference, &c) is a factor in the review.

I beg to submit that these sorts of reviews are no different from others, and deserve no special status.  If it is coming from a reviewer or critic you trust, then it should get the same consideration as any other sort of criticism; and if it is not, by making an exception, you are, in my opinion, doing yourself and your writing no good whatsoever, and are granting people you have no reason to trust, far, far too much power over the work you produce.