Sally Was No Longer Certain

  • k-avatarHow observant the females
  • slipping cautiously into the mist
  • wrong end first, only compounded the confusion
  • letting her own need flower
  • exclamations crowded her brain
  • overhanging the poop deck
  • a rumbling chuckle ruffled her curls

Sally was no longer certain she should have come on the voyage, and the sight of Alphonse’s vessel slipping cautiously into the mist, wrong end first, only compounded the confusion in her mind. She raised the spyglass, leaning far out over the railing overhanging the poop deck, but the heavy mist made the instrument useless. Alphonse and his ship had vanished.

A rumbling chuckle ruffled her curls, and she cursed the rat-sneak who styled himself captain of this tub, but not aloud. He had an eerie way of sneaking up behind her. “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“How observant the females, and still, ah, vot is the word…” the grizzled Russian stared off into the ice-choked distance. “Stupid. Yes.”

Exclamations crowded her brain, and Sally’s eyes widened, but she checked her indignant reply.

“I brought you nice coat. Sealskin and arctic fox.”

Sally hadn’t felt cold, too intent on Alphonse’s fate, but now realized she was shivering violently. Hating herself for accepting anything from the vile captain, she reached for the garment and greedily shrugged into it. The captain chuckled again.

Sally hid her tears in fox fur. Alphonse had been content back home on the farm, but she had needed an adventurous man. And now she stood here, freezing, alone, sorry for letting her own need flower into her beloved’s doom.

 

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Inez Claims to be Spanish

  • by jenhis Austrian cannon
  • lights a small cheroot for herself
  • sexuality is the key
  • that should relieve her boredom
  • Inez claims to be Spanish
  • so many homosexuals of both kinds

Inez claims to be Spanish, but no one believes her, even when she lights a small cheroot for herself and affects a heavy accent.

Inez is bored. She has spent the day surrounded by so many homosexuals of both kinds. Heterosexuality is the key that should relieve her boredom.

Luckily Hans enters the dance club just then. Inez smiles, thinking of his Austrian cannon.

 

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Nomenclature By Any Other Name

r-avatarAs we’re fond of mentioning, one of our characters is an author. Samples of “her” work are included as epigraphs throughout the novel. This presented an interesting challenge for us. We needed to make sure that her voice is distinct from ours. In addition to changing up the style, we also wanted to have an entirely separate nomenclature for her story world.

Our fictional author writes heavier science fiction than we do. This necessitated the development of technical terms for machines and processes in her story world. Jen and Kent worked together to create a new vocabulary to express our character’s characters’ scientific achievements.

But we didn’t stop there. The fictional fiction world’s inhabitants needed both a unique personal naming scheme, and method of address. To enhance the otherness we wanted to avoid using terms like Mr or Dr, or even Comrade. After a lengthy brainstorming session and several walks around the neighborhood, we made a decision.

Then Jen had fun with naming the individuals. She developed a pattern for the names to follow, a theme for them to fit. For a “real” novel it would probably be too much, too stilted, along the lines of every character being named for a color. But that matchy-matchy quality works very well for our meta-story because it ties the characters together at the same time that it sets the names apart from those in the real story.

One final way we set the story-within-a-story apart has less to do with nomenclature. We always use the characters’ full names, including their title. Doctor Rune Skelley found this a very effective way to add to our author character’s unique voice.

Harry Would Always Try Like Hell

  • k-avatartry like hell to tailor
  • it would look like a slump
  • theoretical mathematical inherent possibility
  • flight only smaller cats
  • $2000

Harry would always try like hell to tailor his advice to the particular needs of the recipient.

“Fight only smaller cats,” he recommended to the scratched and bedraggled dachshund. Not fighting at all would generally be better advice, but a weiner-dog has to think about the standings. It would look like a slump if he didn’t notch any victories.

“Go for it,” he called up to the woman on the ledge. To the aghast bystanders all around, he said, “She might float down slowly and be fine. It’s a theoretical mathematical inherent possibility.”

Every time Harry’s prescription ran out, he enjoyed at least a day of such lucidity and wisdom. And to think, he thought, I spent $2000 on those pills!

 

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The Fee For Government Burial

  • by jenas smoking tears poured from his eyes
  • my mother was alive then
  • one extraterrestrial humanoid
  • furtive-faced little man in an oversize raincoat
  • The fee for government burial is ten dollars
  • with cars, refrigerators, a castle in Scotland

“The fee for government burial is ten dollars,” said the furtive-faced little man in an oversize raincoat as smoking tears poured from his eyes and he exposed himself.

“Let me give you some advice,” Carlo said, “one extraterrestrial humanoid to another. Keep that thing covered or the earthmen will know that you’re not just an eccentric rich man with cars, refrigerators, a castle in Scotland, and all the rest.”

“Sorry,” said the furtive-faced little man. “In my grief I forget myself.”

“Surely you can afford the ten dollar fee,” said Carlo.

“I used to wealthy, years ago,” said the man, “but my mother was alive then. When she died, our money was cremated along with her body. And now I cannot even afford the government fee to bury my monkey.”

Feeling sympathy, Carlo slipped the man a tenner.

 

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Synergistic Tag-Team

r-avatarWe’ve been beavering away on the revisions for the music novel, and we’re getting close to done with this pass. The ending has gotten a major overhaul and now kicks total ass.

The original ending is something we were happy with when we wrote it. Our critiquers mostly thought it was okay, but not awesome. They made some good points, which we were able to acknowledge once we had a bit of critical distance. So, as we turned the rest of the novel inside out we pondered the ending. Certain outcomes were nonnegotiable. The details of how they came about had quite a lot of flex.

Jen had the idea to work in one of the heroine’s character traits which had been underused in the old draft. It’s a pretty significant detail and we had just completely ignored certain implications of it. When Jen suggested we utilize it in the finale, we both had a “how long has that been there?” reaction. We’re obviously not going to spoil the ending, but imagine something along the lines of a character having a knife in her pocket and just not thinking to use it to cut herself free. Only it was us who forgot she even had the knife. We won’t put any of this on her, because she’s actually quite smart.

Something else that influenced — and complicated — the flow of concluding events was the inclusion of a different POV character. As we mentioned before, the rewrite gave point of view to a character who had not previously had it. Kent adopted this guy as his pet character, writing pretty much all of his new scenes. When it came to the ending, he had some great insights into what this guy would say and do, and the new stuff crackles with tension.

Kent wrote some great action and then Jen went through and beefed up the emotional content (yes, we’re back to our stereotypical gender roles). There’s been a lot of nitty-gritty back and forth on this pass, which is the whole reason to have a writing partner. They see things you don’t, and vice versa.

“Rude Drivers. They Kill People.”

  • k-avatara man in a white spacesuit
  • the greedy bastards
  • workers washing their boots
  • the pilots had been drinking
  • They kill people
  • code word to alert the bodyguard

“Rude drivers. They kill people.”

Steve returned to his magazine, hoping to read in peace until take-off. A man in a white spacesuit had the seat beside him, and seemed determined to pry into Steve’s reasons for everything, up to and including his choice of air travel over the highway.

As he read an article about workers washing their boots as part of a work stoppage, the greedy bastards striking for more pay and more days off, Steve heard a commotion in first class. Some celebrity and his whole entourage were trying to leave the cabin, the spoiled celeb calling out “guacamole!” over and over.

It must have been a code word to alert the bodyguard that the pilots had been drinking.

 

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The Latest Album From My Favorite Band

  • by jenthe Danish East Asia Company
  • emitted a ghostly hiss
  • suicides and bankruptcies
  • the rain poured down
  • with Mussolini making speeches

The latest album from my favorite band, The Danish East Asia Company, emitted a ghostly hiss as it started to play through my headphones. The hiss built into a lush, haunting melody and the lyrics told a story of suicides and bankruptcies as the rain poured down in my ears. The next track was angrier, with Mussolini making speeches in Italian in the samples they had chosen to construct the complex beat.

 

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Method Acting

r-avatar

A character in Novel #5 is a novelist. Her works take place in a harder-scifi story world, more disconnected from consensus reality than Rune Skelley likes to have things. Excerpts appear as epigraphs with each of our chapters. It gives us a way to sneak in thematic messages and accentuate events going on in the main narrative, as well as helping to flesh out the character who “wrote” them.

The person who actually wrote them is a character, all right, and he got into character to do it.

Our fictional novelist, for reasons too complicated to go into here, prefers not to see her output. To emulate her process, Kent put his wireless keyboard in his lap and turned his chair to face away from his monitor. Not seeing the words made it easier to resist tampering with each sentence too much, and promoted a more deliberate style of composition. It did slow him down, though. The impact on productivity might be too severe to apply this trick for an entire novel, but when focusing on short passages it is a simple way to alter the way you relate to the words.

We wanted the epigraphs to sound like they were written by someone else. Changing the work conditions helped ensure that the output was distinctive. Matching the conditions faced by our character made it easier to think like her.

“Abigail! Bad Dog!”

  • k-avatarthe seven battalions of the Lepracaun
  • rent all her needlework asunder
  • made a merry, scornful sound
  • the princess’s spaniel
  • “Hop! Hop!” he cried

“Abigail! Bad dog!” exclaimed Princess Flamisham after Abigail, the princess’s spaniel, made a merry, scornful sound and rent all her needlework asunder.

But soon the princess marveled at her pet’s alertness, for revealed beneath the ruined coverlet were the tiny General Shamrock and the seven battalions of the Lepracaun.

“Good dog, Abigail! Sic ’em!”

Shamrock issued commands in a frenzy, hoping to avoid a total massacre. “Hop! Hop!” he cried.

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