Why I want this book review to be my epitaph. (#SFWAPro)

My main aim in writing this blog is to reach other writers and would-be writers with hints and tips and reassurance I have collected in my many years as a pro writer. Though I do talk here about my own work, most of the time it's with the aim of  demonstrating something I have learned about the craft of writing.

Today, however, I just want to  share  the great news that my new book, Pandora's Promise, recently received a glowing review from Analog Science Fiction and Fact. I can't exaggerate how much this means to me. I've been a science fiction fan since grade school, when I began reading novels from the public library in Flagstaff, AZ, where my family spent a few summers. I also began around that time to read the great sf magazines, including Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Astounding, which later morphed into Analog. The names of the writers and editors of the stories I read were as familiar to me as those of my family and friends. I had always wanted to be a writer, and I couldn't think of anything better, more perfect, than being a writer of science fiction. I can still clearly remember many of those early stories, and the excitement I always felt whenever I started reading a new one.

In the roughly sixty years since grade school, I did become a professional writer and editor. My main success was in the fields of fitness and health, but in the mid 1980's I published my first adult science fiction novel, Pandora's Genes. Though it didn't become a runaway hit, it sold well and received the accolade "Best New Science Fiction" of 1986, awarded by Romance Times, which I had previously never heard of. I loved that novel. It meant everything to me just to have published it and to have finally qualified for one of the main goals in my life: to become a pro member of Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA). I published the sequel the following year, and then my imprint folded. Thirty years later I went back to the world I had created and wrote a third book, completing the trilogy (see How I accidentally wrote a 300,000 word trilogy).

I self-published the resulting book, Pandora's Promise, last year, and received nearly thirty very positive reviews on Amazon. Imagine my delight and surprise when last week I discovered by accident that Analog had published a review of the book in December, by long-time reviewer Don Sakers. Here it is. This review is truly the culmination of what I have worked for all these years as a writer. And I seriously want the last two lines to serve as my epitaph.These lines affirm that my book is good, that I am a good writer, and most importantly that I am a good writer of science fiction. 

Pandora’s Promise

Kathryn Lance

         Genre: Post-apocalyptic, SF Romance

Here’s one that will appeal to those who like post-apocalyptic fiction, and also readers of romances. Pandora’s Promise is the concluding book in the Pandora Trilogy (following Pandora’s Genes, 2011, and Pandora’s Children, 2011).A century ago, a recombinant-DNA disaster wiped out all oil-based technology and caused the fall of civilization. Mutations abounded, and a mutagenic plague has seemingly doomed humanity to extinction.The two previous books followed the adventures of Evvy, a young geneticist on the track of a cure for the plague. Along with her soul mate Zach, a soldier-poet, Evvy moves through a world of nightmares and wonders in search of the final solution that will revitalize humankind.In Pandora’s Promise, the two are separated but both working toward the same goal. They encounter strange politics, odd religions, and a host of intelligent animals (including the Dream Tasters, a delightful society of empathic elephants). The love triangle begun in the earlier books gets settled, and all the loose ends wrap up as Evvy and Zach come together to find the enigmatic Eye. And I’m not going to tell you what happens next.Kathryn Lance paints beautiful word-pictures and has a fantastic sense for emotional truth. This is one trilogy that starts good and gets better with each book; Pandora’s Promise is the best.

How Reviews Can Improve Your Writing

Some writers claim that they never look at reviews. Others, like me, read them obsessively, whether they are professional reviews in a magazine, reader reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, or even feedback from friends and acquaintances on Facebook or in emails.

I don’t know if this is true for all or even most writers, but my writing is very much tied in with my ego. When a book I have written (or helped to write) is praised, I feel validated. When it is panned, I feel personally judged. I can’t NOT take reviews seriously, and I continue to ask for them and to read them. I have come to believe from years of leading writing groups that we can grow as writers by understanding how our work is received by the outside world.

For example, once when I was leading a fiction writing group at NYU, I gave the group a section from a story in progress. I was stunned that four of the six group members thought my main character was a self-centered, immature twit, when I’d pictured him in my mind as a free spirit who marched to a different drummer. I swallowed my anger and hurt, thanked everyone for the feedback, and after the group meeting gave it some thought. I eventually realized that those who didn’t like the character had been right, which brought to mind a maxim from my old friend, the late novelist Richard Brickner: “When three people tell you you’re drunk, lie down.” I ultimately abandoned that project, but I had learned a bit about creating character along the way, and I do believe that no writing is ever wasted, whether it sees print or not.

Those of us writing in the brave new world of indy (independent) self-publishing are fortunate that we have the opportunity to take reader feedback to a new level, and make changes in work that has already been published. My current consuming project is my Pandora’s Trilogy, which consists of two books traditionally published in the 1980’s, and Pandora’s Promise, the third book in the series. The first two were digitized several years ago, while the third was finished and published online a few months ago, with a more recent paperback version now available.

While I was deeply involved with finishing the book I re-read some negative reviews of the first two books, which had otherwise received glowing notices. A few readers had been deeply offended by the behavior of one of the three main characters, and I could see now that his behavior was beyond the pale when seen in the light of a 21st century sensibility. I could not go back and change books that had been published thirty years prior, but what I could and did do was change my originally-conceived ending so that the character was punished in a way that guaranteed he would never achieve the goals that meant the most to him. I considered, and tried writing, some scenes in which he was killed, but none of them worked so well as the solution I had come up with.

The bottom line:

• Keep in mind that it is after all YOUR book
• Appreciate good reviews
• Don’t automatically dismiss bad reviews
• If more than one reader has similar objections to a character or a section of your book, consider revising it even after it’s been published. It’s easy enough and not expensive to make the changes that will make your book the best it can be.

I’d like to end by quoting a new review of Pandora’s Promise by someone I do not know personally He not only enjoyed the book, he GOT the story, and by extension, he GOT me. This is the sort of feedback authors dream of, and that makes all the work worthwhile  

Just finished reading the Pandora books and enjoyed them very much. I enjoyed your take on football with the Pros; very inventive. However, I think the Dream Taster section is absolutely brilliant!! That section deserves some sort of award on its own. Thank you for writing it.

Pandora's Promise is Now a Physical Book!

I am very excited to announce that I finally have a paperback edition of  Pandora's Promise, the third novel in my Pandora's trilogy. The book is for sale here on the store at Create Space, an arm of Amazon that creates Print-On-Demand books, and also--already!--on Amazon, at this link.

The book is a big, 6x9 trade paperback, containing more than 110,000 words of crunchy post-apocalyptic goodness, with a heaping helping of romance. It is priced competitively with other books of its type, at $13.99.
 
I'm planning to have a bigger Official Launch later on, but for now wanted to let everyone know that the paperback is out. So if you have been waiting for printed letters to read instead of pixels, now's your chance.

Stay tuned for more info about the book, including a list of the people for whom I left Easter Eggs, and a contest or two. 

 

What Makes Science Fiction Different from Other Literary Genres? #SFWApro

I don’t think science fiction is what you think it is. I have adored science fiction since I was a child. It is interesting and exciting because it answers questions that begin “What if?” Though the genre has a reputation for being less-well-written than some other genres, that is not true. As with any fiction, some is good, some is bad, some is ordinary. Still, there are several major differences between sf and other genres, and I believe it is these differences that persuade many people that they don’t like or won’t like anything labeled sf.

1. Science fiction stories often begin in the middle

In the early eighties I took a graduate seminar in literary analysis. On the first day of class, the professor gave us a sheet of paper with the beginning lines of several novels. Most of them were enigmatic, and, as the woman sitting next to me noted, seemed to come from the middle rather than the first part of a book. The other participants too seemed baffled, sure that this was some sort of trick. I, on the other hand, had no problem at all: “These all seem to be the opening lines of science fiction stories,” I said.

The professor was impressed, and began a discussion pointing out that more than in other genres, science fiction stories start in media res, simply plunging into the world where the story takes place. This adds to the verisimilitude of sf stories; after all, how likely would you be to read further in a mainstream novel that began by explaining that the story takes place in the twenty-first century, in a mid-sized city in a nation called the United States? That unremarkable information is assumed in mainstream fiction, and similar facts are assumed in science fiction also; any background material that is needed for understanding is filled in as needed later in the narrative.

2. Science fiction makes demands on the reader

A science fiction story is, in a way, a compact between the knowledgeable reader and the author. Part of the fun of reading an sf story or novel is trying to orient yourself and figure out what is going on. The best sf writers can be trusted to eventually give you enough information that you will be able to fill in the background for yourself. In this way, science fiction is like detective fiction, in which you trust the author to feed you all the clues needed to solve the mystery.

3. Sometimes science fiction stories can’t be figured out

A few science fiction stories, like many mainstream stories, leave some answers unresolved, but the remaining questions themselves become part of the story. The best example I can think of is Roadside Picnic, the award-winning short novel by Soviet writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which tells about a future earth in which mysterious, never-identified aliens have left contaminated zones filled with dangerous but valuable artifacts. We never find out who the aliens were, nor why they visited, but the story itself is fascinating and gripping, and the fact that we never find out what is really going on tells us even more about the world of the story.

4. Science fiction helps us adjust to a changing world

I was once fortunate enough to interview Isaac Asimov for a magazine I worked for. My editor wanted his opinion on “What is the purpose of science fiction?” The great man thought for a moment, then said, “Science fiction accustoms us to the future.”

No matter what happens in our often-scary new world, I’ve seen it before in science fiction, and often in works published or produced long before the present day. Suicide bombers and random assassins? These were the “muckers” in Stand on Zanzibar. Genetic manipulation of humans? Brave New World (published in 1931!).  iPhones and the Internet? Star Trek and Speaker for the Dead. Deadly climate change? Mother of Storms.

In my newest novel, Pandora’s Promise, I write about a dangerous world 100 years after modern technology is wiped out by a recombinant-DNA disaster. But my story ends on a note of hope--for the human race and the remaining creatures on earth. I can’t reveal here what that hope is (the “Promise” of the title), but I can tell you that my wish is for it to come true, as so many other science fiction predictions have done. 

Five Techniques for Effective Flashbacks

In a long work of fiction, what’s the best way to insert crucial background information without boring or confusing your readers? This common writing problem is especially acute when you are writing a sequel or a series. There is no one right answer for every scene, but each of the following techniques can be effective.

1. Use a straightforward flashback. In old movies, flashbacks were fairly common, and were usually introduced with a musical crescendo and a wavy dissolve to the scene being revisited. In fiction, the transition is often made with a character musing about something that happened in the past: “Jeb couldn’t help thinking about his brother, and how the two of them had often arm-wrestled to decide who would go first in a game of Risk….” [Seque to flashback scene.] The problem here is making the introduction to the flashback seem natural. I have found that a straightforward flashback works best if the transition itself has emotional resonance that the reader is aware of. For example, in my latest novel, Pandora’s Promise, Zach has been conscripted to fight a battle, and he doesn’t know what to expect. As he waits nervously in the pre-dawn with his fellow warriors,

Zach had a few bites of the porridge. He knew from experience that he fought better on an empty belly. After eating he sat on a rock just outside the tent, drawing on a pipe of newsmoke as he watched the early morning sky and thought of the battles he had fought.

The fights against the President’s men had been the easiest, in a sense, because he and Will had been so certain they were in the right. He still remembered his first battle—a skirmish, really—a carefully-planned assault by Will on one of the President’s more remote, but strategically located, outposts to the west by the river.

The plan had been for Will’s men to surround the installation before dawn, then storm it before the defenders were fully awake…. [Seque to the scene, which is crucial to understanding Zach’s attitude toward fighting as well as his relationship with his brother Will.]

    This simple technique can work well, as long as it isn’t overused.

2. Reveal crucial information in a conversation. This technique is very common, both in printed fiction and in movies and television, and the temptation to use it is often overwhelming. However… and it’s a big however, it must be used with care. If you want to impart background information by having two (or more) characters talk about it, don’t have one character tell another something they both know. Ever. Under any circumstances. This elementary rule of good writing technique is frequently violated,  especially in television shows, and especially in soap operas, to often ludicrous effect. For more on what I call “The Soap Opera Rule,” see How to insert background information in dialogue.

If you want to reveal information in a conversation, it’s essential to have one character remind or reveal information that he and we, the readers, know is new to the other character.

3. Write a prologue. A lot of writers use prologues, and I have done so myself, most notably in Pandora’s Children, the second novel in my Pandora’s Trilogy. At first glance, a prologue--incorporating a summary of what came before the new book begins--seems like the perfect way to join the previous book with the new one. Soon after Pandora’s Children was published, however, I read that most readers do not like prologues and simply skip them. (You mean to tell me that all the care I lavished on that prologue was wasted?) With some distance, I re-read the beginning of the novel and realized that the prologue hadn’t been necessary after all; that the bits of crucial info were few and could have been done another way that was more organic to the story.

I wrote a prologue to my new novel, Pandora’s Promise, but no matter how carefully I tried to craft it, I realized that it was simply slowing the story down. Yet the information--an event that takes place between the end of the previous book and the beginning of the new one--was crucial to the entire plot and had to be imparted somehow. But how?

4. Use a physical object to connect two points in time. The more I thought about the information I had to get across, the more I realized that Zach didn’t need to be present for its revelation. The information, that an important character from the previous two books, had committed suicide, rocks Zach and sends him on what turns out to be a life-changing quest. But though we readers know that something emotionally wrenching has happened to Zach, we don’t find out what until a scene that takes place six months later, between the other two lead protagonists, Will and Evvy. The physical object that ties the two points in time together is the suicide note the dead man left for Zach, which is reproduced in full in this scene. In the note, he talks about a “trinket” he had found that he left for Zach. That trinket proves to be key to the book’s most important plot point.

Toward the end of the book I used another, more startling, physical object to lead to an important flashback. In this scene, the Principal (Will) is sitting alone in his office, awaiting an important meeting:

On his lap, where he could easily drop it into a desk drawer in the unlikely event that someone should enter without knocking, was a long, soft coil of hair... Evvy’s hair, which was all that remained of her.

This hank of hair, which (erroneously) has convinced him that Evvy is dead, is the gateway for a lengthy flashback that ties up all the plot points that are not directly connected with the ultimate conclusion of the story.

5. Find a unique way to bring the past into your story.

Since Pandora’s Promise is the third of three novels, there was a great deal of earlier information that I felt had to be included sooner or later in the new book. But I didn’t want to stupefy my readers with flashback after flashback. And then I hit upon the idea of the empathic elephants, who are able to read the “sense-images” in Zach’s mind and project them to other humans who are present. This perfectly solved my problem, because not only was I able to incorporate several scenes that would otherwise have seemed out of place, but because the elephants themselves turned out to be warm and believable companions--several readers have told me their chapters are their favorite parts of the book. Here’s an example of how I used this technique. In this scene, [Rushing River], the elephant, expresses curiosity about how Zach and Evvy first met.

Zach had never before shared the story with anyone. He paused to set his thoughts in order, then began to tell [Rushing River] how the Principal had sent him to procure Evvy from her parents, nearly seven years ago, when Evvy had still been a very young girl. At first Zach simply spoke aloud, so that Jonna and Billy could hear him too, but as soon as he formed words, [Rushing River]’s curiosity opened a series of vivid sense-memories, as if his words had created a library of images for [Rushing River] to peer into. Though he had participated in the events, he was shocked at how detailed the memories were; not only could he see all that had happened, he could hear and taste and smell as he had done at the time. He realized that his memories must have been formed in far more detail than he was consciously aware of. Next to him Jonna gasped. “I can see it, Zach! I can see everything you remember!”

Throughout the rest of the elephant scenes, the humans and elephants continue to exchange thoughts and memories and even philosophical musings.

As for what the elephants are doing on the Great Plains and how they became empathic, you will have to read Pandora’s Promise to find out.

Five Ways to Know When You’re Finished Writing

On Friday, February 20th, my new novel, Pandora’s Promise, will be officially published: available for download from Kindle and other venues. Unlike the first two novels in the Pandora’s series, I am self-publishing this one, which means I didn’t have an official editor to tell me when it was ready to show the world. (I did have two excellent editors, but they were not paid by a publishing company.)

So, how did I know when my book was finished? How does any writer know when any piece of writing is finished? The truth is, it’s very hard to be certain, especially when you have written something very long (108,000 words) and complicated, like Pandora’s Promise (four separate sections, three protagonists). With a short story or novella, it's easier to tell--when you can't cut anymore, it's done. With a long novel, though, there is always more you can cut, but SHOULD you? Have you already cut too much? Does continuity suffer? Should you rearrange chapters? Divide some of the longer chapters? At some point, you may be tempted to throw up your hands and write "The End."

I’m afraid there is no easy way to know when to stop writing, but I’ve found that answering the following questions can be very helpful:

1. Can you cut anything longer than a paragraph without hurting the continuity or flow? In a long work like a novel, you can usually lop off a paragraph here and there to tighten--and thereby improve--the book. But if in re-reading you discover that a whole scene or even chapter could go without disturbing the structure of the book--then go ahead and cut it. If you find you’re keeping something in just to make sure your novel is long enough, you aren’t finished.
2. Do you have repetitive sections? This seems obvious, but it usually isn’t until you are very close to done with the book and have some distance between your original writing and what will be the final product. For example, in Pandora’s Promise, I had a scene I liked between Zach, the main protagonist, and a fellow-mercenary in a fighting contest. The scene had been fun to write, and imparted a piece of information that would be important later. But on re-reading it after I had finished the first draft of the book, I discovered that the scene was repetitious of a previous scene between the two men. My choices were to combine the scenes, putting the important information in the previous scene, or write something new. I chose the latter course, creating a scene between Zach and a camp follower, which not only included the wanted information but gave me a chance to add some humor and flesh out a bit player.
3. Do all your plot points make sense? If you have an uncomfortable feeling about anything in your novel, pay special attention to it during your final revision process. An important section of Pandora’s Promise takes place in a large wilderness area, where Evvy is trying to find a comrade who has disappeared. While writing that section I’d had a nagging feeling that Evvy’s wanderings weren’t quite logical--there was too much reliance on luck and coincidence to get her where she was going. My main editor emphatically agreed and pointed out that Evvy’s trip made no sense at all. Though it took a lot of effort, I completely reworked that section, adding a clearly-marked trail that had been left by the missing comrade and reducing the area that needed to be traversed.
4. Have you tied up all the plot points? Although I always know where a novel is heading, I’m often surprised by how it gets there. In a large novel with many characters, it can be easy to forget to explain exactly what happened to so and so, or how such and such an event was resolved. In Pandora’s Promise, I used one of the last two chapters not only to bring a conclusion to a protagonist’s story, I also tied up and explained the lingering questions about other characters that readers might experience. (How I did that is a subject for a future post.)
5. Do you have anything else to say about your characters or the situations they are in? If so, you are not finished with the book. Tell the complete story before you write “The End.” I generally do not have this problem, because I write the ending in my head when I’m about three-quarters through with the book. But in the case of the Pandora’s novels, I found out--as I detailed in a previous post--that I had two more novels’ worth of things to say about my characters and their lives.

How I accidentally wrote a 300,000 word trilogy

When I first started writing PANDORA’S GENES, back in the early eighties, I had no idea that the book would consume not the year that it took me to write, nor the three more years it would take till publication, but rather--off and on--a chunk of the following thirty years.

I have written previously about how the book began as a mysterious dream, in which I had a hazy vision of a good man who was about to do something very bad for what he thought were good reasons. When I started writing I really had no idea where I was heading, and let the characters take me where they wanted to go. My original ending, which seemed logical to me, had the three main characters, Zach, Will, and Evvy, marrying each other in a triad, which was the most common form of marriage in the society I wrote about.

This is the first original cover for the paperback; at the insistence of a major bookbuyer it was withdrawn and another cover was made.

After I turned in my manuscript, I was shocked when my editor--who had bought the story as I had written it-- told me that the reading public was not ready for a marriage between two men and a woman, and I would have to change the ending accordingly.

So I changed the ending as requested, having Evvy agree to marry Will for the good of civilization, though we readers all knew that Zach was her true love. My editor pointed out that there was plenty of room for a sequel, so I wrote PANDORA’S CHILDREN, in which I detailed, through "artful" flashback, much of the story that occurred before the start of the first book. When  I turned this manuscript in, my editor made me take out almost all of the prequel material, which my subconscious and I continued to chew on.

Thirty years later, my editor was long since retired, the imprint I’d published with had disappeared, the entire publishing industry had changed, and I still couldn’t get the Pandora’s story out of my mind. I decided finally to write the story I wanted to write, PANDORA’S PROMISE. It starts a few hours after the close of the second book. Though Evvy and Will are still planning to marry, nothing has happened yet, and events propel a new story, following Zach in new adventures, while Evvy and Will become involved in quests of their own.

An entire section of this new book (about 1/4 of the whole thing) is devoted to the prequel--how the Change happened, and the ultimate connection of our characters with its early days. This time I wrote it in a way that is organic to the story, rather than as a traditional flashback. In the main story, Evvy sets off on a dangerous quest with Baby, her empathic fox-cat; while Zach meets some new animal characters, including  the River Clan of elephants, who now freely roam portions of the Great Plains. Along the way I got to explore some new societies, including one organized around a brutal futuristic form of football, and another that is connected with the mysterious Eye, which may or may not be a myth. And nobody made me to take these plot elements out!

For the record, I did have an excellent editor, who suggested many, many changes, most of which I incorporated. 

I feel that this book is by far my best, and that it encapsulates all the things I have most cared about in my life. It has turned out to be a more intense love story than I imagined, and I realize now that its seeds were sown more than thirty years ago when I imagined that unknown man riding into the yard of a poverty-stricken family, where he meets Evvy, the extraordinary young woman who becomes the heroine of the series. *


* (The original book, Pandora’s Genes, won an award from Romance Times in the year it was published, as “Best new Science Fiction of the Year.” I had not realized until I was notified of the award that I had also written a romance story.)