On Ecology, Women and Science Fiction: Part 1, Gnosis

April 3, 2016July 13, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 4 Comments

Montreux, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

I’m an ecologist. We look at why things happen and work, and—perhaps most importantly—how they affect one another. Ecology is the science of relationships and consequence. I taught at the University of Victoria for several years then conducted environmental assessments as a limnologist (aquatic ecologist) for environmental consulting firms in British Columbia.

Nina next to giant Douglas fir, Vancouver (photo by Margaret Ross)

My short stories and novels are—no big surprise—mostly eco-fiction. It’s been that way since I started high school in Quebec, in fact. That first year, when I fervently expressed exhortations for global environmental action, a well-meaning, but myopic teacher chided me for my extravagant worldview. “Stick to little things and your community—like recycling,” he’d suggested patronizingly.

I remember the shock of realizing that not everyone felt the planet like I did. Perhaps it was a teenage-thing, or a girl-thing, or a nina-thing. I prayed it wasn’t just a nina-thing…

For the past few years I’ve been teaching writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College in Ontario. I teach a workshop-style class that involves students bringing in and working on their current Work-In-Progress (WIP). And I’ve been noticing an interesting trend. Something cool is happening in my classes. More and more students are bringing in WIPs on ecological and global environmental issues. Many of the stories involve a premise of environmental calamity, but not in the same vain as previous environmental disasters that depict “man” against Nature. These works give the Earth, Nature or Water an actual voice (as a character). And a protagonist who learns to interact with it cooperatively.

For me this represents a palpable and gestalt cultural awakening in the realm of the “feminine archetype”.

The history of storytelling and of humanity’s evolution—how we relate to each other and our environment—are inextricably tied. The stories we tell—whether fiction or non-fiction—reflect who we are, what we value, and what we will become. Good stories are about relationships and their consequences.

Our capacity—and need—to share stories is as old as our ancient beginnings. From the Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux to our blogs on the Internet, humanity has left a grand legacy of ‘story’ sharing. Evolutionary biologist and futurist Elisabet Sahtouris tells us that, “whether we create our stories from the revelations of religions or the researches of science, or the inspirations of great artists and writers or the experiences of our own lives, we live by the stories we believe and tell to ourselves and others.”

I mentioned that the majority of my stories are science fiction (SF). SF is a literature of allegory and metaphor and deeply embedded in culture. It draws me because it is the literature of consequence exploring large issues faced by humankind. In a February 2013 interview in The Globe and Mail I described how by its very nature SF is a symbolic meditation on history itself and ultimately a literature of great vision: “Speaking for myself, and for the other women I know who read science fiction, the need is for good stories featuring intelligent women who are directed in some way to make a difference in the world…The heroism [of women] may manifest itself through co-operation and leadership in community, which is [often] different from their die-hard male counterparts who want to tackle the world on their own. Science fiction provides a new paradigm for heroism and a new definition of hero as it balances technology and science with human issues and needs.”

Author Marie Bilodeau in the same interview added that, “the best part about writing science fiction is showing different ways of being without having your characters struggle to gain rights. Invented worlds can host a social landscape where debated rights in this world – such as gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia – are just a fact of life.”

Once the almost exclusive domain of male writers and readers, SF has been steadily changing, attracting more women writers and women readers. It is no coincidence that mainstream literary fiction writer Margaret Atwood began to write science fiction (which she still calls speculative fiction) in the 1980s with Handmaid’s Tale, and that her last five books are pure science fiction, mostly dystopias that explore the evolution of humanity.

Science fiction is maturing.

We’ve progressed from the biological to the mechanical to the purely mental, from the natural world to a manufactured world to a virtual world, writes philosopher and writer Charles Eisenstein. According to Carolyn Merchant, professor at UC Berkley, early scientists of the 1600s used metaphor, rhetoric, and myth to develop a new method of interrogating nature as “part of a larger project to create a new method that would allow humanity to control and dominate the natural world.”

“The modern self,” writes Eisenstein, has become, “a discrete and separate subject in a universe that is other [something SF writers know and write about]. It is the economic man of Adam Smith; it is the skin-encapsulated ego of Alan Watts; it is the embodied soul of religion; it is the selfish gene [of Richard Dawkins].”

Competition is a natural reaction based on distrust—of both the environment and of the “other”—both aspects of “self” (as part) separated from “self” (as whole). The greed for more than is sustainable reflects an urgent fear of failure and a sense of being separate. It ultimately perpetuates actions dominated by self-interest and is the harbinger of “the Tragedy of the Commons”.

According to Elisabet Sahtoutis, humanity is currently poised on a tipping point. Thousands of years of national and corporate empire-building have reached a tipping point in planetary exploitation, says Sahtouris, “where enmities are more expensive in all respects than friendly collaboration.”

Competition naturally gives way to creative cooperation as trust in both “self” and the “other” develops and is encouraged. “Communities with many cooperators and altruists do better than groups dominated by narrow and selfish thinking,” writes Alain Ruche, strategist for the Secretary General of the EU External Service. Ruche adds that a biological predisposition to cooperate appears to be independent of culture.

Examples of creative cooperatives exist throughout the world, offering an alternative to the traditional model of competition. Cultural creatives are changing the world, Ruche tells us. These creatives, while being community-oriented with an awareness of planet-wide issues, honor and embody feminine values, such as empathy, solidarity, spiritual and personal development, and relationships. Mechanisms include reciprocity, trust, communication, fairness, and a group-sense of belonging. I give examples in my upcoming book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press, due in Spring 2016.

In the September 2009 Peace Summit in Vancouver B.C., the Dalai Lama shared that “the world will be saved by the western woman.” This “call to adventure” by His Holiness reflects the hero’s journey steps suggested by Richard Tarnas in the epilogue of his book The Passion of the Western Mind: “the driving impulse of the West’s masculine consciousness has been its dialectical quest not only to realize itself, to forge its own autonomy, but also, finally, to recover its connection with the whole, to come to terms with the great feminine principle in life…to reunite with the mystery of life, of nature, of soul.”

Deas park, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Poised and ready, rising from its previous dualistic perception, the soul finds Home in Wholeness, and returns to the intrinsic truth of the world. The world realizes itself within and through the human mind, projecting a fractal vision of a holonomic universe.

To return to science fiction, my point is that the stories I’m seeing more and more—whether by established writers or by my own students—are reflecting this emerging worldview. It is the worldview of Jung and synchronicity; of David Bohm and “implicate order”; of Rudolf Steiner and “cosmic intelligence”, of biochemist Mae-Wan Ho and “quantum entanglement”, of Frans de Waal and “empathy”, and of Matt Ridley and “altruism”.

In Part 2 (Praxis), I provide examples and interviews with other writers.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.

How to Write Science Fiction at George Brown College April 2016

March 20, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

This April, I will teach my 12-week long writing course on how to write science fiction. The 12-week course “Creating Science Fiction” runs TUESDAY nights from 6:15 to 9:15 starting April 5th through to June 21st at George Brown College on King Street in Toronto and costs $285.

“Creating Science Fiction” is now part of George Brown’s Creative Writing Certificate.

See the description below:

Meant for both beginning writers and those already published, the 12-week course is run like a workshop with student input and feedback on student’s WIPs.

I explore with students the essential tools used in the SF genre (including world building, research and plot approaches). Students will work toward a publishable original piece by learning to generate and follow through with premise, idea and theme.

You can register for the course here:

George Brown College is located on 200 King Street, Toronto, Canada.

What Genre Are You Writing … And Marketing?

March 5, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 4 Comments

Our multiplex world of discerning consumers is getting used to having what they consume laid out clearly and categorized. Literature is no different. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, when Aristotle proclaimed in his Poetics that poetry could be categorized into many “species”, critics have endeavored to label art to help the “commoner” interpret it.

Defining Genre

The word “genre” comes from the French word for “kind” or “gender” and provides a loose set of criteria for a category of composition. People in the book industry often use it to categorize literature.

“Genre” is notoriously difficult to define. For instance, what kinds of literary form should properly be called genres? Poetry is generally thought of as a literary “mode”, being too broad and too varied to be called a “genre”. The various types and forms of poetry are more properly called genres, such as the epic or the lyric.

A genre can be defined either by the formal properties of the work, or by its subject matter. A poem can be called a sonnet if it is 14 lines long, or described as an elegy if it speaks of the death of a loved or admired person.

Although genres are not precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Some people think that books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre are likely to be less successful commercially. They’re probably right. And this is why we do it.

So, if you haven’t figured out what “genre” your writing falls under, start figuring it out now; your future publisher and marketer will want to know because they, in turn, have to tell their distributor and bookseller where to shelve the book. This is why you need to do this; the alternative is leaving it to Jack in the marketing department who may not have even read your book, but used the cover picture to figure it out. Yikes!

Genre Categories

Today’s Teacher provides the following list for genres in literature:

Biography/autobiography
Fantasy
Historical Fiction
Myths & Legends
Poetry
Science Fiction
Fairy Tales
Folk Tales
Mystery
Realistic Fiction
Non-Fiction
Short stories

They were pretty good in identifying the major genres but they missed Romance, Westerns, Horror, Erotica, Literary Fiction, Humor, and Young Adult (if you want to call that a genre). The point I’m making is that each person is bound to come up with a different list of genre categories. Go to five of your favorite bookstores (not just the chain stores, but the independent bookstores) and see for yourself how the professionals do it. It’s a miserable confusing mess. I’ve seen science fiction thrown in with fantasy and the whole category called “fantasy”. I’ve seen Diana Gabaldon’s historical time traveler series shelved under romance, mainstream and science fiction or fantasy depending on the bookstore. In truth, it’s all of these. Which brings us to cross-genre literature.

Crossing the Genre Lines

“Cross-genre”, also called “slipstream” or “interstitial fiction” or “fabulation”, is most commonly defined as fiction that crosses genre boundaries. Unless you’re Bruce Sterling, that is, who defines slipstream as:

A contemporary kind of writing which has set its face against consensus reality. It is fantastic, surreal sometimes, speculative on occasion, but not rigorously so. It does not aim to provoke a ‘sense of wonder’ or to systematically extrapolate in the manner of classic science fiction. Instead, this is a kind of writing that simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility. We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books ‘slipstream.’

“…Simply makes you feel strange”? Although lots of writing may do that to me (of course, I’m strange already), I’m not sure that I would define “slipstream” as writing that “makes you feel strange”. This is because I don’t think you can pin it down; it’s too slippery a “creature”. However, I think that this form (or is it a movement?) is promising to be one of the most exciting things occurring in literature today.

Patrick Kelly, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, wrote:

Today, we have literally many dozens of writers in both mainstream and genre who are working from these influences and creating new forms of cross-pollination. The problem with talking about cross-genre is that it’s not a single movement–it’s a bunch of individual writers pursuing individual visions that tend to simply share some of the same diverse influences. So it’s difficult to pin down and say ‘this is what it is and what it isn’t.’ That’s what is exciting to me about it–that it is difficult to categorize. In a sense, that means it’s a complex, organic creature.

Some popular “cross-genre” mixes include:

Action comedy = action + comedy
Black comedy (tragicomedy) = tragedy + comedy
Comedy-drama (dramedy) = comedy + drama
Romantic comedy = romance + comedy

Science fiction Western = science fiction + western

A friend of mine who is part Cree writes “slipstream” or “cross-genre” works that are essentially unclassifiable. Although she is a great writer, she has yet to find a publisher. I know why; they don’t know how to market her books to the booksellers. Where do you put them on the bookshelf? What a conundrum for the publisher and bookseller alike.

But, things are changing and hopefully my friend will see the results of that change. The irony of “slipstream” defying categorization is that it may be the next bestseller.

“From the ‘Lord of the Rings’ box-office smashes in the theaters to adults reading ‘Harry Potter’ books on their commute, it seems that the fantasy genre has permeated the mainstream,” notes Alana Abott, with Thomson Gale (an e-research and educational publishing firm). “The publishing industry has noticed, and new books combining familiar mainstream forms such as historical fiction, romance, and chick-lit are beginning to see an influx of magic.” Cross-pollination is cool. Cross-genre is “in”.

What genre are you writing?

Steveston, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Creating Great Characters in Fiction

February 21, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

Fiction characters have a dramatic function and a role in advancing the plot and theme of your story. They need a reason to be there.

Your characters need to appear real without being real. Characters in fiction fulfill a dramatic function in the story for the reader and are, therefore, more logically laid out. They may, as a result, be more coherent, consistent and clear in their actions and qualities than a person in real life.

In his 1995 article in SF Writer called “On Writing: Constructing Characters”, Hugo and Nebula award winning SF author Robert J. Sawyer reminds us that “story-people are made-to-order to do a specific job.” This notion goes back “twenty-five hundred years to the classical playwrights,” says Sawyer. “In Greek tragedy, the main character was always specifically designed to fit the particular plot. Indeed, each protagonist was constructed with an intrinsic hamartia, or tragic flaw, keyed directly to the story’s theme.”

When we begin to tell stories, our characters can often suffer from lack of distinction or purpose; they will clutter and dilute a story’s promise. You may wish to focus on fewer rather than many characters. One way to tell if major and minor characters are fulfilling their role in story is to assign one or more archetypes to them (see my earlier article on archetypes in the Hero’s Journey). If you can’t come up with an archetype for that character, he or she may simply be there, filling up unneeded space. You might need to merge two characters into one or nix a few altogether. This is especially important in short story. The most common thing new writers do is clutter a short story with too many characters and associated sub-plots. These stories are actually novel-wanna-be’s.

You achieve distinction in characters, including minor characters through a number of ways. One is “voice”. A character’s “voice” must be unique. Give your character distinctive body movements, dress, speech, facial features and expressions that reveal his inner feelings, emotions, fears, motivations, etc. Then keep them consistent.

It may also be useful to create character dossiers on major characters to help keep track of their distinctive traits and keep these consistent. Dialogue is an excellent tool to reveal a person’s education, philosophy, biases, culture and history. A character’s inflections and common vernacular can be used to identify them from a particular region or culture.

Fictional characters come to life by giving them individual traits, real weaknesses and heroic qualities that readers can recognize and empathize with. You play these against each other to achieve drama. For instance, a man who is afraid of heights but who must climb a mountain to save his love is far more compelling than one who is not afraid; same for a military man who fears responsibility but must lead his team into battle; a shy scientist impelled to discovery; etc.—the hamartia that Sawyer talked about.

Highland Creek, Ontario (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Make your character bleed, hurt, cry, and laugh. This needs to be clear to the reader, who wants to empathize with some of them and hate others. How characters interact with their surroundings and with each other creates tension, a key element to good storytelling.

“The lesson is simple,” Sawyer tells us. “Your main character should illuminate the fundamental conflict suggested by your premise.”

Write a Story Title That Arouses

February 8, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

Think of the title to your story as the ultimate headline. It’s the first thing an editor reads of your work. Titles are often used by one reader to describe the story to another reader. According to Kathryn Bohnhoff, author of The Crystal Rose, “titles can determine whether a story is read, in what spirit it’s read, and whether it’s remembered by name or forgotten.” Choose it wisely.

Three Cardinal Rules for Title Selection

When choosing a title for your story it should be: 1) original; 2) easy to read; and 3) appropriate to your story.

Make your title original (like your story) and preferably unusual in some way. It’s best to use something that is different enough to stand out but not so different that it will be difficult to remember. It should “role” off the tongue with ease. Titles are best if they are short and not difficult to pronounce. One way to check this is to read it out loud. Some publicists have suggested that a title should be short enough (and therefore large enough) to be read from across a room. One or two word titles are often chosen for that reason. Lastly, your title should reflect the subject or heart of your story, but without giving it away. A title should be the ultimate tease, the ultimate promise. Titles, says Bohnhoff “can be like store windows that offer a tantalizing glimpse of what’s inside, or they can give away the entire inventory.”

Types of Titles

The best titles are those that grow naturally out of the subject matter and capture the emotion and heart of the story. A title can be a play on words (e.g., You Only Live Twice) or convey several meanings at once (e.g., Darwin’s Paradox). A title could be the name of a place, thing of person (e.g., Doctor Zhivago). Titles can be metaphors or provide contradiction or irony (e.g., Calculating God). They can be a popular expression or harbor a hidden meaning that unfolds in the story (e.g., Pale Fire). They can also be a portion of a famous line (e.g., Brave New World).

Some Titles Are Better Than Others

I chose the title, Collision with Paradise for my 2005 science fiction romantic thriller to convey the paradox of conflict and action in collision with the quest for well-being (paradise) that reflected my lead character’s own conflict. The two juxtaposed as oxymoron made the title provocative and readers became naturally curious. What made it particularly tantalizing—and me somewhat smug—was that the cover and the setting and premise/plot all resonated with the abstract theme. The plot involved the real collision of a spaceship with hotshot pilot on a planet with a jungle paradise. So, even though the title very accurately conveyed the overall theme, it didn’t give it away; the reader still had to tease it out through the subtext and subplots of the story.

Highland Creek, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Whatever title you select, remember the three rules and keep it simple and relevant. Think of some titles of your favorite stories. Think of what the title conveys and what it quietly implies, given your knowledge of the story. Here are some to ponder: A Tale of Two Cities; Gone With the Wind; White Oleander; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; The Blue Sword; Return of the Native; Lord of the Flies.

Our Deepest Fear

January 24, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Mountains in Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

It’s not what you think it is…

There’s a poignant scene near the end of the 2005 movie “Coach Carter” where a student finally responds to Carter’s insistent question of “what is your deepest fear?”. It is a quote often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela but originally written by Marianne Williamson (“A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles”). And it speaks to the artist in all of us:

Mountain cabin, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Let me tell you a story… I’ve been writing stories since I was ten years old. I used to stay up until late at night with my sister, when our parents were snoring in their bed. We told stories: fantastical stories with a cast of thousands and spanning the entire universe. When I was in my teens, I began to write a book, inspired by several dystopian movies and my own passion for saving the planet. It was called “Caged in World”. By the time I was married and had my son, I had written three entire books, none of which I’d published. I had by then sold several short stories and essays and articles to mainstream, travel and science fiction magazines. I started to become known as a reviewer and critic of movies and books. And my short stories were gaining good reputation with stellar reviews and invitations to appear in anthologies.

I began to market my first book—a medical ecological thriller—to agents and publishers. Although I got many bites for partials and even full manuscripts, none came to fruition.

Then something strange happened.

Driven by something inside me, I wrote over the space of a few months a book entitled “Collision with Paradise” based on some research I’d done on Atlantis, the bible and the Great Flood. The book was important to me on a number of fronts: in its ecological message of cooperation and its exploration of new paradigms of existence. I wrote it fast and well and it hardly needed editing. Without thinking and without hesitation, I submitted it for publication. As quickly as I’d written it, I had an offer from a publisher. My first published book! My first reaction was elation. My second reaction was: What have I done? I was proud of my book and its story, but it also contained erotica. My first thought was: how are my family and friends going to react? What about my parents? OMG! Fear, not of failure but of success came crashing down on me and I felt so exposed. If I could have retracted it, I might have several times. Thankfully, I didn’t. While some friends and family did in fact shake their heads and look askance at my work (and labeled it variously), the book was very well received by mainstream critics and readers alike. It was, in fact, a hit. Faced with success, I bowed to its consequences and embraced what it brought: the good, the bad and the ugly. I was, in fact, relieved. I have many times since contemplated my actions in submitting this subversive novel that exposed me incredibly. Was it brave intuition or bold recklessness that propelled me? The point is, I’d stepped out into the light, crossed the line into another paradigm. There was no way back into the shadows. And that’s good.

Ralph Keyes, author of The Courage to Write, tells us “any writing lays the writer open to judgment about the quality of his work and thought. The closer he gets to painful personal truths, the more fear mounts—not just about what he might reveal, but about what he might discover [about himself] should he venture too deeply inside. But to write well, that’s exactly where we must venture.” If you’re emotionally or psychologically not ready for the consequences of getting published, then you will falter, procrastinate, forever fuss over your creation and convince yourself that it isn’t ready. In truth it’s you who aren’t ready. It’s you who aren’t ready to shine.

Author’s friend in Zermatt, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Just remember that while we are born artists, it is still our choice to live as artists. Until we embrace that which is within us, we will not find our voice to give to the world. That is our gift to the world. Laurance Gartel says “to be an artist is to take responsibility for the world’s destiny. You shape it by your vision.”

“The true artist is not interested in having a nice life, being comfy or fitting in, but rather sees himself as a benefactor. His goal is to make a contribution to life, and to this end there are no barriers, doors or blocks, but only wide open spaces.”—Brian Simons

Dreaming of Writing a Bestseller

January 18, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Jungfrau, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

This is a valid desire. It is, after all, why most of us write—to share our stories and messages with as many people as possible. Most writers dream of writing a bestseller although only a handful of authors achieve this status. The irony and the big secret of achieving “bestseller” stature and becoming wildly popular is not what you think.

You thought I was going to send you to the bookstore to research the market, weren’t you? Or go to Amazon and find out what’s selling? Or see who and what is currently on the Bestseller list?

While these are all valid quests, writing to the market will not ensure that your work becomes a bestseller. In fact, it will likely do the opposite. When a writer is writing to the market, she is following the market, not leading it. Here lies the rub; a book becomes a bestseller because it provides something new and refreshing to a wide readership, eager for a story that resonates with originality. This isn’t necessarily something eclectic and strange; but it is most certainly a new voice and/or new way of looking at something familiar. When a unique voice intersects with a popular thought, a bestseller emerges. That is precisely what happened with Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling didn’t invent wizards or fantasy or even a school for wizards; but she did provide a fresh look at the potentially popular subject of an outsider who finds that he is special. And let’s not forget that before her book became a bestseller, it was rejected many times by less visionary publishers unwilling to take a risk.

So, what am I advising? Find your own voice, the one that belongs only to you. Cultivate your unique voice and write with passion. Write about something that means a lot to you or excites you or intrigues you. Be genuine. Be specific. Put yourself out there. Take risks. And be patient. Chances are, your writing will resonate with many.

Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, recommended that you “develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”

Stop chasing success; instead create it.

Auschwitz survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl wisely said: “the more you aim at success and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it … Success , like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as a by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

Bottom line: don’t chase it and don’t sweat it; enjoy the journey.

Nina’s latest book “Water Is…” (Pixl Press) is currently a bestseller on Amazon and was top pick for Booker Prize author Margaret Atwood ‘s 2016 ‘The Year in Reading” list in the New York Times.

On the Successful Anatomy of a Short Story

January 6, 2016April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

Some time ago, I was invited by writer and editor Jennifer D. Foster to participate in an interview on how to create a successful short story. Jennifer knew my work as a short story writer and had heard me speak at the Editors Association of Canada. She also knew that I teach the short story form as part of my science fiction course at George Brown College.

Writer’s Digest had asked Jennifer to write two “writing tips” chapters in its highly popular “Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market” (34^th Annual Edition, 2015). Years ago I got my start as an author using this helpful market guidebook. Not only did the guide provide hundreds of listings with submission guidelines and current contact information; the guide’s writing tips section was also very helpful. So, I was both pleased and thrilled to be inside the 2015 edition!

As with previous editions, the 2015 edition contained—in addition to current market listings—articles on “Craft and Technique”, “Getting Published”, and “Marketing and Promotion”.

Below, I provide some excerpts of the 8-page chapter in the Craft & Technique Section, entitled “Anatomy of a Successful Short Story.” You can read the whole thing if you get your own copy of the guide, which is very decently priced. While it’s a year old, the advice remains as germane now as it was then. And many of the markets remain relevant too. You can also find the guide in most libraries, which tend to carry the entire Writer’s Digest series of market guides for writers.

Defining the Short Story

“Short stories are perhaps one of the best places for novice writers to start their careers,” wrote Foster in the opening to her article. “They’re not too long and complicated, and they offer the writer a chance to intimately explore a plot, a character, and a theme. Short stories also offer writers the opportunity to hone their craft and actually finish a piece of fiction—a great confidence booster!” Foster was quick to add that you shouldn’t be fooled by their short length compared with a novel—or their assumed simplicity: “Short stories are not necessarily any easier to write than novels or novellas.” I talk more about the significance of short story length in a previous article on this blog: “Know What You’re Writing: Short Story or Long Story?”

Madison Davis at the University of Oklahoma suggested that short stories are “more concentrated … and notable for what they leave out.”

I mentioned that the short story is “a metaphoric event, a moment in time. It’s a single place—a crossroad—compared with the landscape of a novel. Short stories are more about awareness … and have the potential to be far more memorable and disturbing, with the power to enlighten.” Best-selling Canadian author Andrew Pyper suggested that, “a novel is the result of lengthy mulling, while a short story is the rising of an event out of the subconscious.”

Starting the short story in the middle of things “is crucial,” said Davis. “The reader must be thrown into the water immediately. There simply isn’t time or space to wind up.” Steve Woodward, associate editor of Graywolf Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota argued that good first lines are vital: “they can tell you everything you need to know in an instant. Find that right first line, even if it means cutting several pages to get to it, and build outward from there.”

Theme

The message—or theme—of the short story is its raison d’être. In How to Write Short Stories, 4th Edition, Sharon Sorenson wrote that, “if you have no message, you have no story.”

I concurred: “Every good story explores a theme. In a short story, it is a single theme told as a ‘statement’ rather than a novel’s ‘argument.’ It’s a ‘close-up’ rather than a novel’s landscape. All story elements reflect the theme.” Susan Hesemeier, instructor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, added that the theme must be “limited to one subject or overall message rather than [the] multiple, interconnected themes [found] in a novel.” Margot Livesey, fiction editor of Emerson College’s Ploughshares magazine in Boston, Massachusetts summed it up eloquently: “theme is probably the hardest element to define, but we recognize its absence when we call something an anecdote.”

Conflict

According to author Louise Boggess, conflict “is the heartbeat of a story.” Conflict expresses internally or externally. Hesemeier wrote that in a short story, “there are fewer conflicts that lead to one climax; in a novel, a series of smaller conflicts and climaxes lead to or connect with a larger overall conflict and climax.”

Plot

Publisher Kevin Watson suggested that a great short story, much like a novel, “is presented to the reader in layers, delivered using setting, character, conflict, and dialogue.” At the center of those layers, said Watson, lay the plot, the theme, and the heart of everything that was presented.

Award-winning author Kevin Barry cited William Trevor: “a short story doesn’t need a plot, it just needs a point.” Toronto-based editor and author Andrew J. Borkaowski agreed: “it’s usually a matter of a single word, gesture, or incident and a handful of actions leading up to it.”

Character

Sorenson wrote that, “Believable, motivated characters make or break a story. If readers cannot understand or accept them, nothing else you do matters.” This is because the actions of your characters convey theme.

Novelist and writing instructor at Western University, Terence M. Green concurred. “Character is most important. Make the long chord of understanding and involvement with a character the goal. This is the emotional resonance, the epiphany that is the goal of the best long-lasting fiction.”

Setting

river in Nova Scotia (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Characters and action should interact with the setting,” said Borkowski. She suggested that, “Setting is important as a conveyor of mood or atmosphere, and … has to be rendered succinctly, poetically almost.” Hesemeier added that, “Setting is usually limited to essentials that are necessary to describe the particular moment or that have symbolic significance for the reader’s understanding of the story.”

I further clarified: “A short story’s plot, setting, and character are often portrayed through strong metaphor, the short story writer’s major tool. Metaphor conveys so much more than the surface narrative might suggest; this is because metaphor by its very nature resonates with deeper truths, interpreted individually by members of a culture.”

Point of View

Foster wrote that for Borkowski, it was all about picking a side and sticking with it: “Once you start wanting to explore the inner lives of multiple characters, you’re on your way to something bigger than a short story.” Be mindful how many characters you provide agency and viewpoints to!

Woodward believed that once voice was established, everything else followed. Woodward preferred a solo voice in short story. “Stories are wonderful when concise and focused, often confined to a single narrative voice and to a single moment in time.”

Winter in The Beach (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Andrew J. Borkowski suggested that an exceptional short story arose from the intensity of emotion that resonated with the reader: “A great short story leaves you feeling you’ve experienced ten times more than what’s actually described on the page.” I shared a similar view: “The best short story is an elegant thing. It draws you into a singular experience that resonates at a visceral level, like an arrow through the heart; no time to think—just feel. A bad short story misses the heart … and this is why writers who master the short story form are some of the very best authors in the world.”

Excerpted from “Anatomy of a Successful Short Story” by Jennifer D. Foster. In: “Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market” Writer’s Digest Books; 34^th Edition (Rachel Randall, editor), 2015. 569 pp.

Available at: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Writer’s Digest Shop.

Douglas Smith’s “Playing the Short Game” is also valuable with great advice for those wishing to market their short stories.

Natural Selection, my short story collection published by Pixl Press in 2013 is available at several bookstores.

“Written with flare and a conscience…Munteanu shines a light on human evolution and how the choices we do or don’t make today, may impact our planet and future generations.”—J.P. McLean, author of The Gift Legacy

“Nina Munteanu is a gifted writer. Each story surprises and delights.”—Allan Stanleigh, co-author of USNA and The Caretakers

Summoning the Slow Train To Find “The Last Summoner”

December 28, 2015April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

In her book The Art of Slow Writing, Louise DeSalvo tells the story of how Ian McEwan composed his book Atonement.

McEwan had shared that the novel “grew out of many months of sketches and doodling.” Then one morning, he wrote “six hundred words or so describing a young woman entering a drawing room with some wild flowers in her hand, searching for a vase,” and “aware of a young man outside gardening whom she wishes both to see and avoid.”

He knew he had at last started a novel, says DeSalvo. But beyond that, he knew nothing. Slowly, McEwan pieced together a chapter, the one in which “Cecilia and Robbie go to the fountain, the vase breaks, she strips off and plunges into the water to retrieve the pieces, she walks away from him without a word.”

McEwan then languished for six weeks with questions: who was the woman? Who was the young man? What was their relationship? When and where did this event take place? And what was its significance to the story? What was the story about?

McEwan went on to write the chapter in which Briony attempts to put on a play with her cousins. Upon completing that chapter, he finally realized what the story was about. He realized that he would write about Dunkirk and St. Thomas’s hospital. He also knew that Briony was the main protagonist and POV character; that “she was going to commit a terrible error, and that writing…throughout her life would be her form of atonement.” Briony is in fact, what we call a displaced narrator. While the focus of the story is on the tragic journeys of Ceclia and Robbie—resulting largely from Briony’s eventful action—the deeper tragedy is Briony’s who must live the remainder of her life with what she has done.

“McEwan’s remarks illustrate how a successful writer sometimes begins without knowing the work’s subject,” writes DeSalvo. This process of creative problem solving can take on many forms. McEwan sketched and wrote what Diana Gabaldon calls “kernel scenes”, muse-inspired scenes—usually character-based—that represent major emotional turning points or events: important moments in forming a larger set piece toward a larger story. McEwan wrote a scene that required for him to solve some creative problems. Each solution provided him with another piece to the creative puzzle and the blurry meaning of the story slowly came into focus.

According to DeSalvo, McEwan swapped his first two chapters and rewrote them several times before he realized that the novel should begin with Briony. Once that watershed moment came to him, the rest of the process fell into place and practically wrote itself.

This type of “organic” writing can be very exciting and revealing to an author; it can also be chaotic and time-consuming. That’s OK. You need the time for the story to reveal itself to you. As DeSalvo says, “we can’t force a resolution too quickly.” She adds that “creative solutions often take us into unexpected territory—the introduction of Briony’s narrative, for example—and often these swerves take us into exciting solutions we hadn’t anticipated—Briony as narrator, for example—and push our work in an altogether different direction.”

If McEwan had kept the first narrative that emerged—Cecilia and Robbie at the fountain—and if he hadn’t been open to the potential in Briony’s narrative, he would no doubt have written a less complex but still successful novel about love, class, and war. But in deciding to give Briony a voice and combine both narratives, McEwan introduced another more metaphoric layer of meaning to the more literal one—that of personal betrayal and the impact of knowing you have destroyed two people’s lives.

The Last Summoner … Summoned

cover art by Tomislav Tikulin

My historical fantasy The Last Summoner came to me in a single image. I’d run across a spectacular image by Croation artist Tomislav Tikulin (he’d done the cover art for Darwin’s Paradox, my previous book published by Dragon Moon Press). When I checked his website, there it was: this incredibly evocative image of a knight, standing in the war-littered mire of a drowned cathedral. The knight gazed up, questioning, at the vaulted ceiling from which shone streams of white gold. It sent my imagination soaring with thoughts of chivalry, adventure and intrigue.

Who was this knight? Where was he and why? What were the circumstances?

At that point I only had an image and many questions. I knew I wanted to write about this knight and this setting. Since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by Europe during the medieval ages and I had been thinking of writing outside the science fiction genre for a while.

The image remained imprinted inside me for weeks, months, until the next nexus moment came. I stumbled across a significant but little-known battle in the medieval Baltic, the Battle of Grunwald. It would turn out to be the defining battle for what are now the countries of Poland and Lithuania. On June 14th 1410, they were still part of Prussia and tyrannized by the Teutonic Order, who were Christianizing the pagan Baltic on behalf of the Pope. In truth, the Order had been for centuries gathering wealth and land for colonizing Germans in their drang nach osten; they built sturdy castles (many of which still stand today) and a force of monk warriors, feared for their cunning strategy and treacherous combat abilities.

Chilean castle, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

The Battle of Grunwald was, in fact, an upset in history. The Teutonic Order was powerful, intimidating and extremely capable. They should have won; but the peasant armies of Prussia slaughtered the Order, killing most of its knights. Historians debate that the hochmeister’s arrogance—indeed, the arrogance of the entire Order—precipitated their downfall. They underestimated their adversaries and got sloppy. After the Polish and Lithuanian armies outsmarted the Order and slayed their hochmeister, along with most of their knights, the Order’s own peasant slaves finished the job using clubs, pitchforks and stones.

Courtyard at Chillon Castle, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Intrigued by this lessor known order of religious crusaders, I pursued the premise of an alternative consequence: what if the Teutonic Knights had NOT underestimated their enemy and won the Battle of Grunwald? Would they have continued their catastrophic sweep of Northeast Europe into Russia and beyond? Would they have claimed the whole for Germany’s expansionist lebensraum movement, fueled by its sonderweg, a dialectic that would ultimately lead to the killing fields of the Holocaust? What if the success of the Teutonic Order helped consolidate a united fascist elite, ambitious to conquer the world?

And what if, as a result, Nazism sprang up 100 years earlier? The Last Summoner, arose from this premise.

I’d already conceived a heroine: a self-centered romantic noblewoman who has a vision of a knight in a drowned cathedral. Fourteen-year old Vivianne Schoen, Baroness von Grunwald, dreams that her ritter will rescue her from the drudgeries of her duties and an arranged marriage to some foreign warrior. When she discovers that her intended is a cruel and abusive mercenary, Vivianne makes a bold and impetuous choice that results in a startling discovery that she can alter history—but not before she’s branded a witch and must flee through a time-space tear into a alternate present-day Paris, now ruled by fascists. There, in present-day Paris she learns that every choice has its price. She meets François, a self-serving street kid who tries to monetize her and her gear but then falls for her anachronistic charm.

I originally wrote the Paris section in Vivianne’s point of view, but it seemed flat with too obvious fish-out-of-water observations. I let the book sit, while I conducted more research on Paris, and then it came to me: give the narrative to François. This part of the book was his story. By giving François the only POV, I also gave his character agency to react and change to Vivianne’s role as “catalyst hero.” I rewrote this section, starting with François fleeing from a street crime he’d committed, when Vivianne literally appears and knocks him down. She then sweeps him up in a high-stakes chase that will change his worldview. When Vivianne returns to 1410 Poland in the last section of the book, her great journey of self-discovery and atonement begins.

Spanning from medieval Poland to present day Paris, France, The Last Summoner explores the sweeping consequences of our “subtle” choices. From the smallest grab to the most sweeping gesture, we are accountable for the world we’ve made. During her 600-year journey to save the world and undo the history she authored, Vivianne learns wisdom and humility. Through the paradox of history, she learns that what might have seemed the right choice for an immediate future, turns out to be disastrous for a distant future. To win is also to lose; to save oneself one must surrender oneself; and to save the world one need only save a single soul.

The knight standing in the drowned cathedral is Vivianne.

The Last Summoner, published by Starfire World Syndicate, was released in 2012 and remained a Canadian bestseller on Amazon for several months. It represents my first historical fantasy in an otherwise repertoire of hard science fiction. The cover of the book is indeed the original image that had inspired the book in the first place; and was kindly acquired by my publisher. The Polish and Lithuanians celebrate June 14th with pride, erecting mock-ups of the battle annually. Some day I hope to participate.

References:

DeSalvo, Louise. 2014.”The Art of Slow Writing”. St. Martin’s Griffin. New York, NY. 306pp.

Munteanu, Nina. 2012. “The Last Summoner”. Starfire World Syndicate.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.

Revising: Improve Your Story Using Paragraphs

December 8, 2015April 4, 2020 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

Enhance Reader Ease by Addressing Paragraphs in Your Revision.

patterns-Spalting log and blu-green stain fungus LR

Spalted maple log (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Ever so often I get a story from a student that reads like one long run-on sentence… A James Joyce special of stream-of-conscious… In fact, what the writer had done is write many sentences without breaking up the narrative into paragraphs. You might be laughing at this point. “I don’t do that,” you might be saying to yourself. “I haven’t done that since high school!” But go take a look at that first draft you’re working on; there it will be: a page-long paragraph. Oops.

We can’t help ourselves. When immersed in the creative process, we often don’t think about structure. That’s OK; that kind of thinking is more appropriate during the second draft revision process, when you are more objectively assessing the “storytelling”. That’s when you want to pay attention to storytelling devices like paragraph breaks.

Paragraphs are defined by a main point or expression or an idea, not by any specific length. Strong paragraphs contain a sentence or several sentences that are unified around one central, controlling idea. A paragraph may be a single sentence or occupy half a page of sentences.

What a Paragraph Does

Paragraphs do several jobs in stories. They: 1) provide a break from long stretches of text both in content and in space on the page, and 2) they help clue the reader in to key changes in your story. The second point is often subtle and can be assigned almost arbitrarily if the need of the first point must be met. This is because the rules are not hard and fast and, ultimately in fiction, an author can “break” them according to their judgment of style and flavor.

Before you start “breaking” rules, you need to understand what paragraphs are meant to do. They:

Introduce something new
Define a shift in something already there
Mark a movement in a sequence

Each of the above is definable and interpretable in many ways from very subtle alterations to very obvious changes. Because of this, it is important to pay attention to the visual role of paragraphs; that is, how they create a more attractive and easeful text for readers. There’s nothing more “slowing” than seeing a page of narrative without any breaks.

Fiction writers use paragraphs much like punctuation to create a visual flow of narrative that varies in cadence, tone and flavor for readers. This is accomplished in several ways.

Vary Paragraph Lengths

Varying paragraph lengths in text provides diversity in the narrative that adds interest for the reader. Long paragraphs unify a more ponderous and serious mood in a reader. Interspersing these with short paragraphs will break up the reader’s tendency for complacent reading and livens the narrative. The short paragraphs, by default, provide areas of emphasis within a sea of longer text. The fiction writer may use these to make a subtle point.

Using Dialogue

Dialogue effectively breaks up paragraphs and provides a lot of open white space that is attractive to readers and increases pace of narrative. However, even dialogue requires variation. Variation can take on the form of 1) dialogue interspersed with descriptive narrative vs. the use of straight back and forth dialogue, and 2) one-line dialogue vs. dialogue containing several sentences (the one line dialogue serves to punctuate).

Paragraph Checklist

In their 2008 book, The Little Brown Handbook by Pearson Longman (Toronto), H. Ramsey Fowler, Jane E. Aaron, Murray McArthur, Deane E.D. Downey, and Barbara H. Pell provide a general checklist for revising paragraphs that is adapted here for fiction writing. This consists of asking the following questions:

Is the paragraph unified? Is it tied to one general idea or narrative direction?
Is the paragraph coherent? Are the sentences linked and do they follow a clear and consistent sequence?
Is the paragraph developed? Is there a logical beginning and end that “frames” a whole idea or thought?

Hope this helps. Don’t forget the one line paragraph.

Very effective.

Nina Munteanu Writing Coach

writing craft