Just as one example of a dramatic reorientation of what I thought was good writing, let me mention Stackpole’s comment on the idea of having a prologue in a book of fiction: “When is it a good idea to have a prologue in your novel? Never. It’s lazy writing. You either have the prologue because you started your main book in the wrong place or because you want to do an information dump on the reader rather than layer in what they need to know skillfully in the main story.” Oops, George R.R. Martin, whose prologue in Game of Thrones I really liked. Stackpole says you are guilty of lazy writing!

If you read the prologue which I wrote as en early exercise in planning my upcoming novel (posted here in parts), suffice it to say that this is now fodder for a short story. It won’t be a prologue to the book.

Meanwhile, let me share a few things I picked up from the seminar and how I am applying them immediately.

First, I am working my way through Stackpole’s “21 Days to a Novel.” That course title doesn’t mean the novel is done in 21 days, but that it is planned. On his website, Stackpole says that he spends two hundred hours on a novel currently, spread out over a few months. The writing comes after the planning. I’ll write more about his 21-day plan in a future post.

I told a friend I was doing this (started yesterday) and she said, “So, you’re writing a method novel?” Well, I hope most writers have a method. What may look unplanned in a movie or book is highly planned (usually, except for some very bad ones and perhaps an occasional genius who free-forms something brilliant).

Second, though he is quieter and a bit less flashy, I enjoyed Aaron Allston’s contributions during the seminar. Most memorable was his diatribe against adverbs and adjectives. Get rid of all purple prose, he said. In many cases a writer’s use of an adjective is a matter of circumventing the reader’s imagination and forcing them to see it the writer’s way. Show a man chewing his nails instead of saying he is “nervous.” Instead of, “Janet had big eyes and a wide smile,” say, “Her smile suggested she found her companions amusing, even when they wished she didn’t.”

If my plans for a novel were a script, say that Stackpole and Allston threw it out completely and replaced it with a better one.

I always knew there were other writers’ workshops going on for a bit of extra money. A couple of things pushed me over the edge and into one of the workshop tracks this year. One is that I actually have ideas for a solid story. I’ve been so busy and overwhelmed in my regular field, I’ve not had the patience to develop good story elements and see a world ready to emerge on an eReader or paper.

A second reason is that I’ve been seeing Michael Stackpole’s name now for some time as an early adopter of the indie author trend. Kristine Kathryn Rusch speaks highly of him and I definitely like what she has to say about the paradigm shift in publishing.

So, I get to be in a room with Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston for 12 hours of workshops. I’m adrenalized. I’ll be taking notes. My plan is to do so by hand on a legal pad. I love an excuse to handwrite instead of type. Of course, the good Mr. Stackpole may just send us eDocuments with the notes (that would be deft and convenient).

Notes on the good stuff about writing to come. Meanwhile, the illustrious Ms. Rusch mentions Mike Stackpole in her recent post, “Odds, Ends, and More Slush Pile Truths.”

Discover “The Twilight Zone” – this is the place where you leave behind the mundane world and discover the magical world. “When you leave behind the fields we know, for the fields of what we do not know.”

I am thinking about the twighlight-zone-ness of my own world I am building (Aratz). I’m also thinking about LOTR (you know, Lord of the Rings) and George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series (better known to many via HBO as Game of Thrones). What is the twilight-zone-ness of some of your favorite novels? Here are a few of my thoughts.

LOTR - If you start with the Fellowship of the Ring, you get drawn in with the power of a ring and the dark riders who come to the Shire. Twilight-zone-ness is subdued and we see very little demonstrable magic. There is definitely a less-is-more approach, I think.

Song of Ice and Fire - I remember being desperate in the early books of the series for more twilight-zone-ness. The prologue of Game of Thrones gives a teaser that does not pay off for about 400,000 words. What is all this stuff about “the Others”? Magic is so rare and wanted in Westeros, the less-is-more approach kept me going for thousands of pages. When I read it the second time through on my Kindle, I took a note at every mention of magic, old gods, the Others, dragons, etc.

Trend - Less is more. Instead of a unicorn around every holly bush, it seems a better strategy is creating a hunger for magic suspense.

One other example - Probably the most interesting new idea for magic I have come across is Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. Does anyone have thoughts about his system and whether they liked it?

Aratz - I definitely have ideas about what could be called magic in my world. And yes, less is more.

How about you? Any thoughts on magic systems and twighlight-zone-ness in your fave fantasy fiction?

Just as I am looking to break into fiction, guess what? Advice that was good last year (or at least two years ago) is not good anymore.

Step one in my journey to realizing this came two years ago at DragonCon in Atlanta. A panel of editors at major sci-fi and fantasy publishing houses admitted to the gathered crowd: none had heard of a novel coming from the “slush” pile in years. (The slush pile is the pile of unasked for manuscripts sent to publishers).

Step two came a few months ago when I started looking for blogs by sci-fi and fantasy authors discussing the business. I will share some links next time. For now, let me jut say that I was startled by the advice they were giving. Do not get an agent. Do not send your work to a traditional publisher. If you get an opportunity with a traditional publisher consider it, but get the right kind of help and beware of being taken advantage of. Things have changed. Things will change even more. Traditional publishing is losing some business and not adjusting well to market changes. Agents have no advantage for most authors anymore (and they know it). Wow.

Traditional publishing will find its place. Indie publishing will grow. The market will shift and settle. We are in the change now and it is a good time to forget old advice.

When I started reading Story Engineering by Larry Brooks, I was enthused but not overwhelmed at first. What got my attention from the beginning was the author’s experience as a screenwriter. Who better to teach the craft of creating drama?

It was when I picked Brooks up about two weeks ago and skipped to the part I was really interested in, the part about plotting, that ideas started to surface in my muddled, mixed-up fiction-creating segment of brain. I’ll share some of his ideas (without giving away too much of his book, since I think it is a great one for writers to buy) and how these are helping me with plotting. By the way, what I referred to as plotting, he calls “Story Structure” (remember, he used the engineering analogy).

If nothing else, he got me completely over any indecision I had about whether to write with minimal advance planning or to plan and then write. Planning is clearly the way for me.

I even have an early draft for a back-cover synopsis of the book:

Shepho knows the secrets are out there. Can he discover lost wisdom and help his king build an ideal kingdom? And maybe there are other reasons to find them, dark events looming beyond the knowledge of Aratz’s rulers and peoples. Maybe the wisdom of Varis is salvation from a coming doom.

I just edited the prologue. In case you find typos and occasional awkward constructions, hopefully I have fixed them all. But I’m not going back to edit them all in the posts. If you’d like a cleaned up copy, feel free to email me at derek4messiah at gmail.

Also, posting all of my novel here (or even too much more of it) might compromise any possibility of publishing in print. So, I will likely find other things to post, tidbits about the book, characters, places, and so on. Maybe a good discussion: what do you think about authors posting their fiction on blogs? Does this cause publishers to say “forget it”? Should it?

Rubbing his eyes he found his bow and looked across the square. Zomaya stood tall and imposing in his father’s armor. His sword was one of the long ones, the kind some men would hold with two hands. In his left hand he carried a bronze and wood shield that touched the ground and rose to his chest.

Madso tried to find the wolves Zomaya was shouting about. He strained to look around. He did hear them now, yelping and howling in the night. Some of them were close.

Boys were crawling out of their sleeping spots now. Zomaya was joined by the boys from his village. Barsin and Hano were positioned on the east side. Madso looked north at the ways down into the square. Where were the wolves?

“There!” Hano pointed to the west, to Madso’s left.

Madso could see two of them now, slinking in the shadows. He nocked an arrow and took aim, sleepy and shaky from the night. Trying to stay hidden beneath his column, Madso shot and watched his arrow skitter harmlessly off the stone to the left of a black and large wolf.

The missed shot seemed to launch the two wolves forward at once, straight toward Zomaya. Looking around, Madso could now see that five more were coming from various directions.

Zomaya and his six companions formed a wall against the charging wolves. It seemed to Madso the wolves were doomed. Zomaya and the others had shields up in a smart defense and sharp swords and spears at the ready.

Then Madso saw something which made his blood run cold. From the roof of the building behind Zomaya, four more wolves leapt down, catching the boys completely unprepared. They launched right into the boys tearing and clawing.

Madso now saw more coming right across the square from the north. He had a dozen more arrows and wanted to make them count. Taking aim he prepared to fire.

The noise of fighting and boys screaming was horrific. Madso was sure that some of Zomaya’s friends were being torn up. As he took aim, he heard a wolf whining in mortal pain. Madso knew if he aimed well he could hit two of the pack before they crossed the square.

Before he could release the first arrow, a bright light flashed. A burst of flame erupted in the middle of the square and in its light Madso now something far more terrible than wolves.

A man was there, but not a normal man. He was naked, large, and impossibly sinewy and muscular. His skin, as Madso could see in the brief light of the fire, was tattooed with strange, purple designs. His lips and ears and nose were all pierced with great bronze rings. His head was shaved. He carried no weapon, but beside him was the largest wolf Madso could possibly imagine.

Like the man, the wolf seemed different. As large as a pony, its fur was stripped off in patterns, some round and some like runes. The eyes shone red in the moonlight, but as if lit by some inner fire. About its neck and head the wolf was wet, but not with water, Madso could see, but rather with blood. The maw of the wolf was slathered with froth and the hair on his spine stood straight up like a boar.

Hano and Barsin came to meet the challenge while Zomaya and his companions were hard set by the wolves.

Where was Demeil? It seemed that running would need to start soon. Madso pulled back into the shadow under the column.

The other wolves coming from the north were now on both sides of the man and the wolf-monster. Hano and Barsin walked up bravely.

Madso took aim at one of the smaller wolves. Just as he released his shaft, the mammoth wolf leapt as lightly and easily as a deer at Hano, bypassing his spear and fastening his bloodied maw about the young leader’s throat. Barsin swung at the monster’s back, but two other wolves were on him before he could even connect.

The strange pierced, purple man stood still and watched. Madso pulled back into the shadows even more. The arrow he had released wound up hitting the purple man in the leg as the wolves leapt away. It looked like a terrible wound, but the man barely flinched and did not even look for the source of his wound. He was fixated on the monstrous wolf who was now shaking Hano’s corpse back and forth on the ground.

The other two wolves had completely finished off Barsin now. And the wolves remaining with the purple man were licking the blood on his leg wound.

Madso could not believe what was happening. Demeil was nowhere to be seen. Zomaya and his band were now quiet and wolves were tearing at their bodies. Hano and Barsin were dead.

Turning behind him, Madso could see a track leading uphill between two buildings. He thanked the One he had not brought any armor to make noise. He looked back one last time before slinking off into the night. Now he could see something else, another body, lying just to the other side of the purple man, who was now walking forward.

Madso would recognize that armor anywhere and the good looking youth who wore it. Demeil had already had his throat torn out by the wolf demon.

Falling to his knees, Madso wondered how he would find the strength to run. Was life so cruel? Had Demeil truly fallen, such a good life ended with no warning, so quickly and terribly? How could Madso live after this? What point was there in running?

As he looked up, the purple man’s eyes were fixed on him. The impossibly muscled purple arm raised and pointed. Madso saw the brute wolf turn to him now and fix him with those horrible red eyes.

The columns all around them were large and so pure and white. They were in a forest of limestone and marble.

The moon was coming up above the hills to the east and though the night was now dark, the stones were so white in the full moon, it seemed almost daylight.

The nights this time of year were cold and up in the forests and hills snow was not unknown. This night the air was cold, but calm, not a wind stirring. Without trying to, it seemed as if the boys’ steps fell into a rhythm, so that they sounded like a company marching. Their footfalls sounded echoing through empty streets.

From one side of the city to the other they marched, looking for any obvious place to find treasure. On their return trip, Hano stopped them suddenly. He looked to his left and motioned them to remain still.

“Where is he going?” Demeil whispered.

As they watched, Hano climbed down a set of stairs into a lower level of the city. They remained together watching and waiting.

Hano did not return. After a long wait, their worry growing as each minute passed, Zomaya said, “Let’s find him.”

Madso wanted to object. But how could they not follow and find out if Hano was safe? Madso was surprised to find he didn’t want to go off in search of the one who led them here to this fearful place. Hano had been forceful, manipulative. The whole adventure now seemed a disaster. Madso prepared to grab Demeil by the arm and drag him on a run flat out all the way to the walls of safety.

They walked down a broad set of limestone stairs and around a right angle into a huge building. Many of the houses or shops, or whatever these buildings were, still stood intact. The path they walked wound right and left and down. It was dark among these walls.

Soon they heard some metal clanging repeatedly and some scraping.

Zomaya ran ahead, his sword thrust out in front. The others strained to keep up. Madso took out his bow as he ran from rear of the group.

Soon they came out into an open square. Buildings rose up on three sides from this low place in the city. On the southern side, ivy vines covered many columns and a building of marble. A large, dried up fountain stood in front of a small but wide garden that was no longer, but which nonetheless continued to support several large cedars and from which the vines spread out.

Zomaya had run in this direction and soon they saw Hano using his spear and shield to dig and pry away stones. “I found coins!” he shouted. “There may be more hidden down under the pavement here.”

He turned to them excitedly holding out half a dozen golden coins. They glinted in the moonlight which now penetrated this open square. Madso could see the gold as bright as any he could imagine. It was a rare sight. He had heard about gold more so than having ever seen any. Even brass and polished bronze could not compare.

Zomaya began prying up stones. Barsin joined him quickly. Some of the other boys began laughing. Everyone was relieved, Madso could see.

For a short while they all worked together and soon found a rotted oilcloth sack buried beneath the pavement, no doubt hidden here hundreds of years ago. Inside were more coins than Madso could ever have imagined.

There were many bronze coins, irregular and only vaguely round. They were encrusted and looked almost like stone.

There were also much finer coins of silver and gold. These retained their shine, the gold more so than the silver. There enough gold coins for each boy to have several and Madso’s share was three, with a dozen silver coins, and two large handfuls of bronze coins. He took his spare shirt from his pack and made it into a makeshift pouch.

The boys were laughing and exultant. Who’d have imagined they would find such success so early.

“Imagine how much treasure there must be in this city,” Hano said wide-eyed.

“Should we build a fire and stay in this place?” Barsin asked.

“Let’s get up these cedar branches,” Demeil suggested. “There’s enough to go all night.”

“I hear fires keep away the wolves,” Hano laughed.

“Good,” Barsin said, “because we brought mead and beer for tonight.”

Madso’s heart was lightened as the boys set up camp. The fire was soon roaring and a survey party quickly rounded up a giant mound of dead branches, enough to keep a fire going all night. In this low place, surrounded by buildings, Madso could see they could easily see any trouble coming. This place was secure.

The moon was halfway across the sky when Madso crawled under a giant fallen column to sleep. Zomaya was on watch, though mostly drunk. Madso had not been chosen for any guard duty and he looked forward to spending the night sleeping off his beer in his little hiding place under stone in the colossal city.

“How could it be . . .” Demeil began.

“It’s bigger than all the vineyards of Katnah put together,” Barsin said quietly, quite obviously with awe.

From a mile ahead and across a valley several miles wide the ruins stretched. The central north-south road through the city was straight ahead. Along both sides were thousands of tall, white columns and great slabs and pavements of marble and limestone. A large hill to the west side of the city held a massive temple of marble. Many columns were tipped over and buildings cracked and in ruins, but the sheer size of the city was stunning.

“What kind of people lived here?” Barsin was still amazed. “How could this city have fallen? How could any army defeat a people like this?”

For a minute they all stared in silence. “The stories say they grew weak,” Hano explained. “They got rich and soft and forgot how to be strong. Others who were hungry for riches, who wanted the power that Varis had, were willing to risk everything, to be stronger, to put all they had into a campaign to take all this wealth.”

“But where are they, then?” Barsin interrupted.

“There was no clear leader,” Hano continued. “The invaders fought amongst themselves. They did not know how to administer such a big government. And in time the evil came. People starved. They died. And wolves became the owners of this city.”

Demeil looked visibly pale to Madso, “But you were so confident. You didn’t seem to think the wolves or the evil mattered. Why did you . . .”

Hano began walking and did not answer. For his first hundred yards no one moved. He seemed the only one eager to walk into this place of evil.

“Come,” he turned back to face them, “treasure waits for those who dare to walk into the face of evil. There is a place of glory for a man in the army of the Supreme Monarch who has brought treasures of Varis out, who has walked with the demons and lived.”

Madso’s legs were weak under him. He wanted nothing more than a chance to talk to Demeil now. They should run all the way to the walled town. They could be back there shortly after dark, not too late for the guards to let them in.

Zomaya was the first to follow, and the boys from his village. Barsin hurried after. Last, Demeil looked to him and pointed his head questioningly toward the valley. Madso wanted to talk to him. But Demeil started to walk.

It was too late. Madso had to go now. There was no way to talk to his friend. And Madso would not leave him.