Putting on Labels

pinterest: tempus regina

Well, I think you guys have been guessing for a sufficiently long time.  I hadn't meant to leave you dangling more than a week, but the days went and got busy again.  Phooey on them.

All in all, I think everyone did pretty well with the guesswork.  A few of you need to study some more,* but others were very nearly spot on.  A few, I admit, were harder than others; one snippet in particular you all got consistently wrong.  So consistently wrong that I almost feel compelled to move it to the story everyone insisted it was from.  Almost.  But, you know, it isn't going to happen.  No one was altogether right, though several of you did have some very good streaks in there: it was just those tricky ones that threw you off.

snippet #1

This one almost everyone got right: it's from The Running Tide.  If it's from a fellow's point-of-view and he's got blood on his hands, you're pretty safe if you bet on Tip Brighton.  As a point of interest, though, in this case it wasn't from punching anybody.

snippet #2

Another fairly straightforward one here, as the nurse rather gives the setting away.  Wordcrafter.  But I figured that since Tempus Regina is partially set in Victorian times, there was a slight chance you might go for that: I wasn't expecting any of the guesses for the Sea Fever books!

snippet #3

This bit was tricky, I'll admit, but it is in fact from The White Sail's Shaking.  It was Tip talking to Marta, even though looking at it now, I can see how you might think it was the Assassin talking to Regina.  The slight hesitation, however, is telling.  For me.  You know, being the writer and all.

snippet #4

Tempus Regina!  Very squarely Tempus Regina, and your first glimpse of the Fisherman.  

snippet #5

Only Writer got this one: it is also from Tempus Regina.  Nearly everybody guessed the Sea Fever books, which made me rather sorry to disappoint...

snippet #6

I'm sorry: I didn't give you much to go on, did I?  This is from Wordcrafter, though admittedly it could have gone many different ways.

snippet #7

Yes, I tossed you an easy one: Tempus Regina again.  You did ask for snippets from it...

snippet #8

I can't decide if it was the fact that this began with "wordlessly" or the bit about the desk, but nearly everyone went for Wordcrafter when it is actually The Running Tide.  Reading over it, I can see how you would think Justin King, but I'd still like to know if perspective was skewed due to the desk...

snippet #9

And possibly the hardest one, that only Joy got.  It's Tempus Regina once again - the only bit of the novel written from a male point-of-view.  Yes, I did do it to be mean.  I'm mildly apologetic.  I think personally I would have guessed Wordcrafter.

Well, that wasn't too bad!  I'd say you all got seventies or eighties at least.  Were there any you were particularly confident on, and have I now thrown you into confusion? 

*I'm sorry, but exams are coming up this week and I just can't help it.

What's It From?

pinterest: sea fever

I was thinking the other day that I haven't had any snippets to share with Scribbles' readers in a long time, which is a bummer - especially when people like Jenny and Mirriam are offering theirs up with pretty fair regularity.  (Never let it be said that writers aren't a petty lot!)  I think a few of you asked several months back if I would be able to show you anything from Tempus Regina. Unfortunately, as a story progresses I find myself with less and less I can share without spilling a whole lot of beans, and by the time I've reached the end of a novel I can't seem to dig up any bits at all.  This has been particularly true of Tempus Regina, as even characters' names are in many instances being kept under wraps.

So - no real snippets post.  However, after beating my brain around a little bit, I thought it might be fun to give you a sort of challenge.  Most of you have, from previous snippets and general information, at least a hazy idea of the plot and voice of each of my novels.  What I want to see is whether or not you have a good enough idea to be able to match any snippet I share with its novel.  It's something of an academic exercise for me: I want to know how much light I've shed on these books and how different the style is from one to another, or, conversely, how constant my voice is. But, too, you wanted snippets.  So I shall give you snippets.

They will be from my major novels: Wordcrafter, The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide (these are essentially one book, so if you want you can say Sea Fever; kudos if you can guess which!), and Tempus Regina.  I won't list any from The Soldier's Cross, partially because I believe most of you have read it, partially because I wrote it four years ago and I'm pretty sure the stylistic difference would be too obvious.  I'm not sharing one each, so there will be some overlap, but I also won't throw in anything random just to confuse you.  It's a straight matching game.

snippet #1

Instinctively [he] looked down, uncurling both fists to show the bloody palms underneath; he had been too numb since the beginning of the engagement to notice that he had ground the blunt stubs of his fingernails through the surface. He covered them again. “I’m alright,” he said, and the words came out in a dry rasp.

snippet #2

Squinting up into the face of the nurse, who had fallen from chatter into nondescript humming, [he] parted his lips and said, “I’m mad, aren’t I?”

The nurse started, and then considered him a long moment with a furrow between her freckled brows. She took him in, and weighed him, and then seemed to have a good long think before pronouncing judgment. “No,” she said simply, “I don’t think so. They would have told me if you were."

snippet #3

“Well,” he said, not very graciously, “I suppose we’ll have to keep you. But I wish—I wish you hadn’t gotten yourself into this mess.”

snippet #4

“You came in haste,” he went on, eyeing her sidelong, working back and forth, and back and forth, the great silver ring on his left hand. The fire made its inset stone shine out ragingly blue—made the flaw in it stark, and cast up a reflection on the man’s jaw. “You came in haste and now you hesitate, and so I suppose it is bad news. Eh?”

snippet #5

He lifted his narrow shoulders helplessly. “I did not mean to provoke you. Only, it struck me that you looked lonely. You looked as though you wanted company. You looked,” he added, having to raise his voice against the roar of an explosion down below, “the way I felt myself.”

“Did I?” she hummed, sidestepping. “I had no notion of that.”

snippet #6

“[He] was asking for you, you know. I think he was afraid you might come back, and what a pity! here you are.”

snippet #7

She released him, drawing herself rigid to avoid a fall. Her legs were going…going… She made it as far as the chair, sat down, had time enough to thank God it had a back, and then felt the whole of the room slide into darkness.

snippet #8

Wordlessly he crossed the room and hauled himself up on the corner of the desk, not quite able to hold back the shivering sigh that hissed out at the relief of letting his bad leg dangle, of feeling his bones ease with the creaking of an old man’s limbs.

snippet #9

But the men, the guard with the nose-ring and another [he] knew only vaguely, did not summon him. They stood a while, shoulder to shoulder, watching [him] while he put his back up against a wall and watched them in return; then they came down from the threshold together, the first man spun his javelin, and the second drove the door back into its socket. The light was cut short; the half-dark returned, warm now with the presence of two new bodies, glittering as the spear-heads turned.

“What’s this?” [he] breathed. “What are the two of you about?”

Short and Snappy

pinterest: the white sail's shaking

There is something incredibly overwhelming about being asked, "So, what's your story about?" 

On the one hand, our egos just love to be tickled by the question (if the asker actually cares; when they're only being polite, it isn't any fun at all): I don't know about you, but for me there's always a giddy burst of adrenaline that makes me grin and look altogether idiotic.  Then I bumble around for a minute or so, trying to cram a 100,000+ word story into a respectable sentence, and in the end they put on their uncomprehending face and say, "Oh!  That sounds interesting!" Which is nice of them, but I'm pretty sure my performance wouldn't garner any enthusiasm from an agent in a similar circumstance.

That reaction is, I think, fairly universal - and understandable, since if you have a particularly intricate story, it's no easy matter to convey its plot succinctly.  But if you intend to sell your story, especially in a face-to-face setting, it becomes necessary to bring the bumbling up a notch or three.  You're no longer trying to explain to your aunt what you do with your time; you're addressing an agent or a publisher who you kinda-sorta-really would like to take on your book.  (Depending on your family, the latter might actually seem less daunting.)  You have to condense your story, preferably into a pithy one-sentence summary that in film-speak is called the logline and in novel-writing the elevator-pitch.

When I'm not called upon to use them, I find this sort of thing enjoyable, so I was most pleased to be asked to read a slim book on the subject called Finding the Core of Your Story.  It isn't a large treatise at all, and wonderfully to the point - and it has examples.  I love examples.  The author, Jordan Smith, is a filmmaker, but the subtitle of the book pretty well encapsulates its usefulness to all forms of story-telling: How to strengthen and sell your story in one essential sentence.

Smith coaches the reader through the ins and outs of logline-writing, starting with the basics of what a logline is and its importance, then moving on to the nuts and bolts.  A second skim-through of the chapters brings out the key points - things we already know, hopefully, but which are irritatingly difficult to squeeze into a single sentence.  Protagonist and goal; antagonist and goal; conflict; setting.  There is also the usefulness of irony in conflict.  His example here was a logline for Jurassic Park (which I've never watched), wherein a scientist who hates kids has to protect two children.  I think this tends to denote humor, though that is not the case across the board: sometimes it merely emphasizes the tension.

One of the book's most helpful points, I thought, was Smith's chapter on finding the main thread of a story.  Of all the hang-ups when it comes to explaining to a stranger what my story is about, this is the most common: trying to make sense out of the confounded thing.  I've got subplots, and I've got themes, and I've got a half-dozen characters "what need keeping track of" - and it can be deuced tricky deciding what to say and what to leave unsaid.  I haven't yet begun a synopsis or query for Tempus Regina, but I fought about six different versions of a logline for it after reading Finding the Core of Your Story and still don't like what I came up with. 

"Well, bother it!  There's a woman, and there's a watch, and there's Victorian England - and then there isn't Victorian England because there's time-traveling - and there's a dude and another dude and a third dude, but the third dude is less important than this other gal, and there's the White Demon (but you don't really need to know about him, so forget I said that), and there's alchemy and some STUFF and other STUFF and LEGENDS and the first woman's younger brother and then some DOOM and GLOOM and now you're going to represent me, right?"

All right, so that wasn't a serious attempt, but it's about how I feel.  Pulling out the main thread is a difficult business, but I did feel that the process of narrowing down the loglines helped to clarify my own vision of the story.  I don't know that I would try loglining a story before writing, as Smith suggests - my stories don't usually take on a proper scope until I've written three-fourths of the plot - but I have a feeling it will be helpful, not just in the querying process, but in the nearer work of editing.  You've got to know what your story is primarily about before you can bolster the weak bits.

Of course, after you do all that you still have to memorize the logline and practice delivering it.  I haven't worked up the courage for that last bit, though I did fiddle with a preliminary pitch for The White Sail's Shaking:

A bumbling young man's good intentions land him in the U.S. Navy, where his hopes of winning glory are turned inside out by the murder of a fellow officer - and the presence of the killer on board.

It is, at least, a start.  And once you have the basic structure in mind, and the tips to help you along, it's actually quite enjoyable.  You're inserting your monocle and peering at the story until you find its core (which helps with editing), then finding out how many ways you can succinctly express that core (which helps with pitching and marketing).  It is a little daunting, but also, in an egotistical way, rather fun.  And we are an egotistical bunch, aren't we?

Elemental

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Over the past few weeks, I've been watching the TV show "The Legend of Korra" (for which I make no apologies) with Jenny and her husband.  And in our family, one does not simply "watch a TV show," any more than one simply "reads a book."  If it's good, it worms its way into our daily vocabulary; its best quotes get stored in our repertoire.  If it's bad it still gets into our vocabulary, only in more abusive terms.

But Korra has proven to be an enjoyable series thus far, not least because of the concept it presents of "bending" - the innate ability in certain people to manipulate an element.  Some are fire-benders; some water-benders; some earth-benders; and a very few, for reasons explained in a previous show, air-benders.  The Avatar, in this case Korra, is the only one able to manipulate all four elements.  Of course this means the Avatar is called upon to save the world, defeat the bad guys, etc., but that's beside the point for this blog post.

What started me thinking was the influence a character's personality has on his or her element, or vice versa, or whatever.  Because of course my mind naturally went from there to, "What element would my characters be?"  Running through the lists of my characters, I had, in general, an easy job pegging each with the element that best fitted their personality.  I think we all associate certain traits with each element right off the cuff.  For instance:

fire: impulsiveness; quick temper; passion; magnetism; ambition

earth: stability; strength; stubbornness; dignity; pessimism

water: constancy; loyalty; sensitivity; idealism; discretion

air: imagination; humor; optimism; spontaneity; enthusiasm

As I am doing some rewriting of Wordcrafter at the moment, the characters I first started thinking about were from this cast.  Here's the run down.

Ethan Prince - fire, through and through.  He's got all of the things mentioned, and a manipulative streak thrown in besides.  He has a charisma lacking in others; hence his natural magnetism.

Justin King - water, although I considered earth as well.  But Justin has the constancy and loyalty that springs to mind when I think of "water," plus discretion and sensitivity.  Idealism, I'm not so sure.  Like earth, however, Justin is stable, often stubborn, and given to pessimism.

Jamie Fairbairn - fire.  This is part of what makes her clash so horribly with Ethan, and what attracts Justin to her.  (Jenny and I were discussing the other day how "water" characters seem to gravitate toward "fire" characters.  Seems a risky combination for the fire, to me...)

Copper, the Jackal's daughter - water again.  You could hardly get more constant than Copper, and she is certainly idealistic.

So there's the major cast of Wordcrafter.  What about that of White Sail's, which is even fresher in my mind?  Off the topmost part of my head, this is how I would categorize these people.

Tip Brighton - earth.  I don't know about the dignity, but Tip has strength of character and of body, he's a pessimist, and he is both stable and stubborn.  He can be summed up in the image of a brick wall.

Marta Rais - water, I think, though she's a bit hard to pin down (as water generally is).  She is sensitive and constant, and perhaps a little too discrete.

Charlie Bent - fire.  When I picture him I think of water, but his character tends more toward the explosive and impressive qualities of fire.  He's passionate, ambitious, and competitive, as well as arrogant.  He does not, however, have the magnetism of an Ethan.

Jo Darkwood - water.  Quiet, constant Jo, always there to put out Charlie's fire when necessary - no other element fits him so well.

William Lewis - fire.  He combines a quick temper with ambition and a calculating mind, but unfortunately for himself, he has none of the hard-working tendencies of earth to make him succeed.

Here are a few of my characters, then, as summed up by an element.  I never seem to have any air characters, at least not at the forefront; one background character in Wordcrafter definitely has all the characteristics of air, however.

What elements summarize your characters?  Do tell!

Snippets of September

pinterest: tempus regina

I come a little late to the party, as usual, but it's time for Katie's monthly Snippets post!  I have done little actual writing this month; I've left off Tempus Regina until November and NaNoWriMo, so my work has been confined to edits.  But here are a smattering of earlier Tempus Regina bits, and a clip or two from recently revised sections of The Running Tide.  (Somebody commented that it sounds strange to hear The White Sail's Shaking become The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide; I heartily agree, but I'm forcing myself to get used to it.)  I'm hoping to pull out Wordcrafter and make some major revisions this month and next, so October's snippets should see some of Justin and Ethan and the rest of that lovely gang, whom I've not dealt with in quite some time.  Most exciting!

september snippets

[He] was saying something, but Tip could not hear what it was for the rattling of the man’s chest and the flow of Heerman’s shapeless talk, and the flare of lamplight that seemed loud in the quarters. 

- the running tide 

There was blood on Decatur’s face, Tip noted, spattered like ghastly freckles across his cheekbones. 

- the running tide 

Her voice drifted into inarticulate fussing as, gesturing with both crabbed hands, she drew Regina in—like the witch with Gretel. If she saw any ovens, Regina thought she might panic. 

- tempus regina 

Something crashed like elephant feet above and to the right of her head. Regina shied; the candlesticks down the hall clattered against each other and the ceiling bounced and trembled. Dirt spattered on the floor. Mrs. Godands was imperturbable. 

- tempus regina 

Mrs. Godands found the proper key at last and jammed it into the hole, murmuring happily to herself as, with a sepulchral moan and a burst of dust, the door swung outward from its socket. She played tug-of-war with it for a moment in an attempt to get the key back out; something else smashed in the master’s room; the ceiling bobbled; the door hinges screamed. Regina wished she could join them. 

- tempus regina 

The cat neared the fire, lapping once more at her tail while she steamed in the heat. When she had beaten down the unruly crests of fur, she looked up, a bit of fluff still caught in her mouth, and mewed. 

- tempus regina 

"You mock me, woman, and I will not be mocked. Stand out of my way.” 

- tempus regina 

As he spoke the stranger lowered himself to a squat, balancing on a root beneath the arches of his feet, and turned his head to give Regina a long, upward, lopsided look. She thought him grotesquely like a goblin. 

- tempus regina

August Snippets

pinterest: the white sail's shaking

The time has rolled round once more for the fabulous Monthly Snippets meme, from Katie's Whisperings of the Pen.  For the past month I have been doing much more editing than proper writing, but as there have been some scenes that I've had to completely overhaul and rewrite, I believe I'll be able to draw together enough snippets to participate.

Also, in the process of edits for The White Sail's Shaking, I am coming to the conclusion that the story will in fact be split into two novels.  Of course this was a new and shocking idea for me, but after much agony and thought, I'm not only reconciled, but quite pleased with it.  Until I have thoughts, titles, and edits ironed out, however, the story will continue under the single title The White Sail's Shaking.  But keep an eye out for changes on that front!

august snippets

Charlie looked round when Tip swung up beside him, his disinterest warping into irritation. “What do you want?” he demanded. 

Tip’s anger was still very much present, and, what was worse, yet unvoiced; and though he knew it was unreasonable, he retorted, “What, have you taken possession of the ratlines? I think I’m free to skylark 

if I want.” 

“Skylarking is forbidden,” Charlie said, “actually.”

- the white sail's shaking 

Lewis twisted; Marta choked and turned her head as well, blinking painfully at the approaching figure. The seagulls were still reeling in a flurry of white and grey at the man’s back, and for a moment they were far clearer than he. Then she brought him into focus and saw, with a sick wrench of the knot in her throat, 

that it was Brighton.

- the white sail's shaking

The thief was on his feet; he turned sideways into an alley, pushing himself one-handed along the walls, but in a second bound Tip was on him. The coarse cloth of the man’s shirt gave in Tip’s fist with a retching sound, so he simply went deeper, digging his fingers into the back of the thief’s neck and swinging the knife around to his throat. 

“You son of a dog!” he snarled, staggering a little as the man wrenched himself about. “Stand still! Stand still, or I’ll slit your throat—your blood and not his: is that you want?”

- the white sail's shaking

"The love of the sea’s a powerful thing, but some things in life call stronger still.”

- the white sail's shaking

Some chickens, you know, are frightfully silly and will do anything to hide their eggs.  You wouldn't think it of Patsy; she seems so innocent and sweet.  But Gossamer and I held council, and decided it was best to be safe.

So today we conducted a Search.  And by Search, Father, I do not mean a bit of poking; I mean a SEARCH.  We ransacked the hen house!  Feathers flew!  Straw was overturned!  We looked in and under roosts, in cracks and crevices - nothing.  Mid-morning we abandoned the search, for Aiden said if we kept it up, none of the other hens would lay for a week.

- sunshine & gossamer

"Do you mean to say - " She could not seem to finish any of her sentences; she made a greater effort.  "You don't mean, ma'am, that you think the master of the house is - "

"A vampire?  Oh!"  Mrs. Godands sat back, letting up a string of squeals from the chair.  "Goodness, no, dear, not he.  He's as alive as I - aliver, for I'm getting up there.  No, no, not a vampire, but mightily eccentric.  I suppose all bachelors get to be just a little eccentric but he goes quite, 

quite to the edge of respectability."

- tempus regina

That First Step

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I haven't written a massive amount of query letters over the past three years.  This is probably a deficiency on my part, as it seems many writers draft about ten per novel; I prefer to write and edit one basic query per story and then edit it depending on submission guidelines.  After all, writing out one summary is hard enough.  I wrote a 100,000-word novel about this plot and these characters, and I'm supposed to sum them up within one page?  And leave room for an introduction/conclusion/biography, not to mention my contact information?  Are you crazy?

Many writers struggle with this aspect of writing, hence the half-funny, half-sad stories we read of editors and agents receiving full manuscripts from authors trying to opt out of queries.  We can talk for an age about our writing if someone broaches the subject, but trying to follow specific guidelines and rein in our loquacity is difficult.  I certainly haven't gotten the process down to a science, but as I said in A Plethora of Edits, it can be helpful to hear how other writers go about it; and besides, the subject of queries has been rattling around inside my head for the past several weeks.

Like most writers, I don't exactly enjoy writing queries.  The Soldier's Cross was torture, as I had never written one before and knew next to nothing about editors, slush piles, and all those gory details of getting published.  So I researched obsessively and culled through just about the entire archives of Query Shark before drafting my own.  By the time Wordcrafter rolled around, I knew more but was a little rusty on the application.  I read more Query Shark (the mainstay, I admit, of my query-writing process).  Then I went back to the arduous business of beating out a catchy, cohesive synopsis.

This month the time for me to write queries toddled around once more, this time for The White Sail's Shaking.  I did my usual perusal of the Query Shark archives, more for fun than anything else, and then sat down (with much trepidation and many "meh!" feelings) to begin.  After the obligatory "Dear Whatever Your Name Is" (but don't say that: I'm pretty sure that's an automatic reject), I always start into the brief story summary.  This isn't crucial, and many writers prefer to start off with something like this instead:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit to Blah Blah Agency.  TITLE OF MY AWESOME NOVEL is a 90,000 word YA/adult/middle-grade/what-have-you historical fiction/romance/yada yada, set in...

This allows writers to brief agents or editors on the marketing details of the novel.  One benefit to this approach is that it doesn't waste the agent's time: they can see right away what genre the book is and the age and sex of its intended audience, crucial elements to their decision process.  The con of this approach is that it isn't terribly catchy.  It's necessarily pretty formulaic, and although it works for its purpose (summarizing the more humdrum details of the book), it probably isn't going to capture the writer's unique voice - which is another major thing agents are looking for.

Neither method is wrong, and I seriously doubt a writer will be turned away for choosing one over the other.  Personally, I prefer to leap straight to the story itself with a hook that (hopefully) piques the reader's interest.  I try to keep it short and catchy, or, if it turns out to be longer, I at least try to keep the first phrase snappy.  Since I don't have other authors' queries to pull examples from, here are the opening lines of my queries for The Soldier's Cross, Wordcrafter, and the current draft of The White Sail's Shaking.

Fiona is not so bad.

Justin King writes fantasy. He never expected to be living it. 

Being a failure comes naturally to Tip Brighton.

These hooks should segue neatly into the next part, a one or two paragraph long summary of the plot.  For The Soldier's Cross, the hook leads the reader on to Fiona's self-satisfaction and her "good enough" philosophy.  Wordcrafter foreshadows the upheaval in Justin's life when it turns out that "fantasy" is a bit more uncomfortably real than he expected.  The White Sail's Shaking captures Tip's mindset and paves the way for the conflict between honor and glory that follows.  Sometimes these hooks are in a paragraph unto themselves; what follows then is the meat of the synopsis. 

I'm not very fond of writing summaries.  I never enjoyed it in school when I had to write book reports, and what is this but a book report on your own novel?  However, a little before starting my query for White Sail's I came across a "Back Cover Contest" over on the NextGen Writer's Conference; I didn't enter, but I did find the basic outline and the examples provided in the rules to be very helpful.  The outline covers the five or six points that the synopsis on the back cover of a book almost always covers.

Character - Setting - Conflict - Action - Uniqueness - Mystery

I like my hooks to start out with the character.  After all, the character is going to drive the rest of the synopsis, and waiting to introduce him or her can often lead to confusion.  Then in the rest of the summary you weave in the character's setting, including the time period if it's historical fiction; the conflict and action, which will often be very much related; and the mystery, which constitutes a sort of question at the end.  Note that the mystery doesn't have to be a direct question, like "What is heroine going to do?" but can be an implied question.

I left "uniqueness" out, as it tends to be a rather nebulous concept.  Obviously everything you just wrote should communicate to the reader that your story is unique in some, if not all, of the elements mentioned above.  For myself, I tend to think of uniqueness as more related to the next part of the query: the marketing details (wordcount and target audience, mentioned above) and the thrust of the story itself.  Here is where you can show what sets your story apart.  Maybe it's in a unique time period; maybe it approaches a particular theme in a unique way.  For White Sail's, I wanted to point out that the story is a sea novel, but differs from the classic works of Patrick O'Brian, C.S. Forester, etc. in its themes.  Never, ever, ever say that your book is similar to someone else's, but different in that yours is awesome and the other author's is rubbish.  Besides the fact that such an approach is the height of arrogance, it will be just your luck to find out that the agent is a huge fan of said author. 

After you finish this bit, you write up a brief bio.  Many authors, I've found, like to write these in third person; I find that a little awkward, but whichever works best for you will be acceptable.  You'll want to keep this pretty short, especially if you don't have many credentials, and avoid saying things like "This is the first novel I've ever written."  You might briefly mention what prompted you to write this particular story ("I had a dream about it" doesn't count).  Whatever you write, it should be professional and writing-related, not a list of likes and dislikes.  As a sample proposal I read recently said, unless your book is about knitting, saying you like to sit with your labradoodle and knit scarfs does not constitute a bio.

I conclude after the bio.  Always thank the agent for their time: it may be their job, but being polite is just, well, polite!  Also mention if you're submitting to other agencies at the same time, and then close with a neat "Sincerely" or "Regards" or whatever professional conclusion you prefer, add your name, and then your contact information.  And after a massive amount of edits, you're ready to send it off to agents and take that first step into the great wide world of the publishing business!

In summation, and for the sake of tired eyeballs, my query outline looks something like this.

Dear Agent 

(but use their name, if at all possible)

HOOK

SUMMARY 

(one or two paragraphs; they may ask for a multiple-page synopsis later, 

but in the query you should always be brief)

BOOK INFO 

(wordcount, audience, uniqueness)

BIO

CONCLUSION

CONTACT INFO

A First Impression

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In May I participated in a little meme that Rosamund Gregory of Shoes of Paper, Stockings of Buttermilk put together: Character Letters. My character for that round was Tip, writing a letter from the Mediterranean to his home in Pennsylvania.  The subject of this letter is still Tip, in a way, but the writer is Josiah Darkwood; he gets sadly little press around here, and I thought I should remedy that.

Note: Rosamund does not appear to have a July edition of Character Letters up, but as long as you link back to her, I'm sure she wouldn't mind participants.  Who doesn't like participants?

On to Darkwood.  Writing and reading are his two favorite pastimes, and as he does them  frequently, he is quite competent at both.  His penmanship is exceptional: bold, smooth, and flowing, as his thoughts come so quickly that he must keep his quill moving to stay a-pace.  He never draws on the edges of his letters, and his writing, unlike Tip's, is surprisingly un-blotted.

23 June, 1803
The Seagull's Nest, Boston

My dear Amy,

I wrote to you just yesterday, but while I realize that writing again so soon is little short of pitiful, I hope you will pardon me.  Is it so terrible, darling, that I want to talk with you as much as possible before we sail?  It may be a year before I see you again, and there is no knowing when I will hear from you next.  Write often, I beg, if it is not too much a burden for you.

Tomorrow Bent and I will have been here at the Seagull’s Nest three weeks.  There is but little progress on the Argus, and I don’t expect we will sail before next month is up.  I have not yet seen Lt. Decatur, although I hear he is in town, and until today, Bent and I alone of the brig’s officers had arrived in Boston.  I confess, I find it better that way; I am not, as you so well know, cut out for the communal lifestyle of the sea.

But I fear my reprieve has ended: we have had an addition to our number, a new midshipman on his first voyage—out of Pennsylvania, I think he is.  His name is Brighton, Tip Brighton, though I hope that is not his Christian name; Bent introduced him as such, however, and I smiled a little at the sound of it.  I hoped then that he did not notice; I rather hope now that he did.  At any rate, I will try to sketch an image of him for you (at the time he joined us I was more interested in my book, so my depiction may be somewhat lacking).  He is a little older than Bent, a fair few years younger than I: perhaps sixteen, or eighteen.  He struck me as being all limbs and sheer lankiness, rather like a colt that has yet to get all its legs beneath it.  His expression when Bent first introduced us was almost sullen, not quite sour, but perhaps if that were otherwise, he would not be exactly unpleasant.  You will forgive me, but my opinion of him at this particular moment is somewhat curdled.

To say where and when it started is not difficult, but how—of that, I still find myself uncertain.  It was all a flash, really.  If Brighton had not been there—but it is no good to say that, for he was, and perhaps it was just as well in the longer run of things.  But I am unclear.  I promise I shall do better.

You remember, my dear, what I have told you of Bent; and you know, too, how rash he can be.  This evening was worse than usual.  Mr. Lattimore, who runs the inn with a heavy hand, pushed Bent for his pay; he has been pushing, but until now it has been relatively subtle and I had thought him content to let Bent pay in installments, as he usually does.  It is certainly the best he can offer, and far more, I think, than Mr. L. deserves.  But it seems Lattimore thinks otherwise, and tonight he pushed too far.  (I should very much have liked, Amy dear, to put my own fist in the man’s ugly face…!)  But I fear Bent pulled a pistol on him instead.

I know Bent, and I know he meant nothing by it; he threw away his fire in a moment.  But it was a stupid, wrong, bull-headed thing for him to do!  I admit that.  And yet I cannot see, at this moment, that it was any less stupid, wrong, and bull-headed for Brighton to step up (as though he were no stranger at all) and start a fist-fight with Bent.  Of course as soon as he did the whole inn was in an uproar, and there was no chance to separate the two and smash their heads together as I would have liked.  So you see, Amy, why my opinion of Brighton is curdled.

This has been our first evening together.  What will it be like when we sail?  Perhaps, however, I am too hasty and Brighton will yet redeem himself.  I have already said that he is but a young, awkward fellow; I would hazard a guess that his upbringing has been none too good.  Now that I have vented my emotions I will try to be more lenient.

—But I pray God to give me patience, for I fail to see how I will ever manage to keep Brighton and Bent off each other’s throats after this!  It will, I think, be a very long trip indeed.

Yours ever,

Jo

July Snippets

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It's time again for the next installment of Katie's monthly snippets meme!  (For those of you participating in her "Actually Finishing Something July," this is great incentive to share clips of your recent scribbles.  Just saying.)  I haven't done much writing proper in July, other than the odd scene scribbled out in the odder notebook, but I did crank out several chapters in June, so I have things to feature.

july snippets

There was no backing out now, nor would Tip have done it if he could have; he was far too bull-headed, and far too keenly aware of it. Wordlessly he began to roll back his sleeves, ever keeping an eye on Lewis’ movements, the familiar, comforting thrill of the fight running spider-wise across his skin. The sun sparking between the oak leaves made the shadows and the light run wild while the two of them adjusted their positions, and as it lit Lewis’ face for just a moment, Tip saw that he had been wrong: this man was slow at nothing. 

James protested again, but the words fell, as always, on deaf ears.

- the white sail's shaking

“My sanity is of no consequence to you.”

- the white sail's shaking

Overhead a seaman was attempting to tune his fiddle in a fit of yowls and twangs. Another called out that the strings would be wet, and a third, louder than his fellows, retorted that it made no difference for the fiddle made little enough music as it was. Then the argument dropped out of hearing beneath the shrill singsong of the wind. The lamp-flame wavered again and a sorcerous light leapt up around Charlie as, rising sharply, he began to pace the quarters — up and down, white and blue alike turned faded orange in the glow, the shadows backing and surging.

- the white sail's shaking

One of the loose arms of Marta’s shirt fluttered against Tip; the breeze had begun to shift at last, the tide having turned outward a long time ago. No moon tonight, he thought once, casting another glance at the sky, and the world seemed all the more desolate for its loss.

- the white sail's shaking

“Why,” he said, “what a funny pair of jack-in-the-boxes you two are!”

- the white sail's shaking

The windows cast downward glances at him, disapproving of him in their cool way. “Dear, dear,” the building murmured to the house on the other side of the iron fence, “who on earth is that dirty fellow? He’s getting my hem all muddy.” 

- the white sail's shaking

His voice sank into murmurs, faint and soothing and themselves rather broken; Tabby curled up on his boots and started to purr, and the pot gurgled plaintively in the hearth. 

 - the white sail's shaking

Dear Father,

Yo ho ho!  (But no rum: Aunt K. wouldn't approve.)  I write to you from the Admiral Benbow Inn, where Gossamer and I have stopped to listen to a yarn or three from the old sea dogs who sailed the Spanish Main in days very much gone by.

That is to say, a parcel of books arrived for me today.

- sunshine & gossamer

A Plethora of Edits

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While I'm not officially participating in Katie's Actually Finishing Something July, the general idea for this month is to complete the preliminary edits for The White Sail's Shaking.  This means that over the past few days I have been wielding a red pen with reasonable vigor, slashing at the beginning of the first draft (beginnings are my bane), and it is currently in possession of half my mind. 

At least one Scribbles reader was interested in knowing how I go about all of this, and in the hopes that some of these points will benefit other writers, I thought I would go ahead and outline my process.  Of course every writer edits differently, and if there is one right way to do it, no one ever informed me; but this is a broad sketch of how I generally edit.

I like to start by making lists.  I have a little notebook in which I scrawl some of the finer parts of writing: marketing ideas, blog post ideas, research snippets, inspiring songs, and edits.  This is particularly helpful for a story like White Sail's, where I have so many edits to make that it becomes overwhelming; writing them down helps me stay organized and clear-sighted about what I'm doing.  So I make a list that looks like this:

Marta's Chapters

(with indented lines for each one of said chapters)

Atlantic Crossing

Edit Out Subplot

And so on, with boxes beside each so that when I finish I can check it off.  I'm pretty general here, since I know what I'm referring to and it helps keep matters in plain terms.  Too much detail makes me panic all over again.

After I make my list, I pull up the full Word document of my novel and take care of the major points that need to be taken out - for instance, that "edit out subplot" was a major point that took up two or three chapters, plus various references later on.  I left the later references because they are tied in with their surroundings, but I went ahead and stripped out the chapters singly devoted to the subplot.  This cuts down on some of the story's bulk, makes me feel productive, and saves the ink cartridge for the next part.

Because after I take care of those major issues, I print out my whole manuscript, punch holes, and put it in a binder.  This is the exhilarating part where I feel overjoyed with myself: I finished my novel!  It's gorgeous!  I love it!  I rule the world!  I indulge myself through this period, because frankly, it isn't going to last to the end of the editing process.

This is where I find a red pen (a good one is a must, especially when you know your story is going to need it), curl up in a comfy chair, and buckle down to the minutiae of editing.  I eliminate sentences, rewrite paragraphs, slash complete sections that have no bearing on the story.  Sometimes, however, I'm not sure if a section is important or not, so I put a question mark beside it and set it aside (figuratively) for me to address when I start putting the edits into the computer.  I'll also write notes to myself in the margins, for future consideration.  After this, I haul the notebook to the computer, open the document again, and start revising.  I don't necessarily follow what I wrote in the notebook, but often I do.

Now, a major part of editing White Sail's has been and is going to be adding sections that I skipped in the first draft.  Because I had such a hard time with 2010 NaNo, trying to make my story cooperate and bully my characters into submission, I passed over chapters that I knew would kill me.  These included just about all of the chapters wholly from Marta's perspective, and now that the story is "finished" and I have a better handle on her personality, I'm having to go back and add in those parts.  I also jumped straight from Newport, RI, to Gibraltar with Tip and his companions, because at the time I had no idea what to do with the Atlantic crossing.  I have ideas now, so again, more adding.  This business could come toward the beginning of the process, where I ripped out subplots; the only reason it didn't is because I wasn't ready to do it then.  I intend to do this as or after I transcribe the smaller edits.

And there you have it - how I edit.  (I try to keep things fairly simple, because it keeps me sane.)  What about you?  Do you have a process you follow?

Bittersweet

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Shakespeare said that parting is such sweet sorrow.  Personally, I think Romeo and Juliet was meant to be a comedy and anything those characters say should be taken with a shaker of salt - but in this case, the case of coming to the end of a story, the phrase holds water.

I've been working on the first draft of The White Sail's Shaking for more than a year and a half, beginning in November 2010.  I had hoped to finish in May, when it would have been exactly eighteen months; but what with studying and finals and the like, that plan failed.  This June, however, I set myself a goal of two pages a day to see the story finished by the 30th, and I reached said goal two days early.  Which is to say that the very rough first draft is now complete.

Naturally, this is exciting.  It's always exciting to finish a novel.  When I ended The Soldier's Cross, I immediately ran off to call Jenny and let her know (a bad idea, it turned out, since it was Sunday and she had been taking a nap).  I don't remember what I did when I finished Wordcrafter, but then, I had to rewrite the ending so many times that it hardly counted.  But each time I have been excited - excited to see some of my efforts pay off, excited to be able to move on to the next stage.

There's some bitter mixed in with the sweet, though.  To say I spent a year and a half writing this novel is also to say that I spent a year and a half rubbing elbows with these characters, and, for the most part, only these characters.  Now their story - or this part of their story - is over.  Oh, I still have edits to do and earlier chapters to write, the ones that got skipped on the first go-round, but it isn't the same.  As Tip just remarked in a different context: "There's no going back."

So for the next couple days I'll be in a state of elation, which will then degenerate into a few days of numbness, which will progress to panic as I wonder, what am I going to do now?  Technically I know what I'm going to do now: edits, and queries, and more edits, and eventually beginning Tempus Regina.  But whenever I finish a story, even knowing where I'm going next, I feel a little frozen.  I just spent a year and a half with this cast; how am I going to fall in love with another one?  What if the next story doesn't develop?  What if at some point I finish a novel and there isn't one to come after it? 

I am, you see, quite the paranoid writer, and I suppose that many writers have similar fears.  I haven't yet found a way to counteract them, besides telling myself that I'm being ridiculous (which I am), but I do know one thing: there's no going back, but as long as the Lord desires it, one can always go forward.  There are too many stories to tell, and new characters to love, and new places to experience, for us to stay in a single place for too long.  We must always be discovering.

Because we're writers, and that's what we do.

Love and Thunder

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The inspiration for The White Sail's Shaking, especially the title, began rather with a poem than a song.  It's a fairly well-known poem and I've posted it before, so most of you have probably read it before.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, 

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, 

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

 And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking. 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide 

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; 

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, 

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. 

 I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, 

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife; 

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, 

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

- sea fever, john masefield

It is not, however, the only poem or song that inspires The White Sail's Shaking; I have a whole heap of those.  Although I have a hard time actually writing while listening to music, there are still many songs that, when I hear them, make my fingers itch to continue writing.  (Especially helpful for times like these, since I would be utterly uninspired otherwise.)  Here are a few on my list.

to the sky (owl city)

There is a great deal of Owl City in this collection; for some reason, perhaps only because I started listening to it early on in the writing of White Sail's, the two are connected in the odd recesses of my brain.  To the Sky was the very first one I heard.  It is Charlie Bent's song, really, but it doubles as inspiration for the first half of the novel - it's too lighthearted and jolly for the second half, unfortunately.  (Happiness?  Goodness, we mustn't have any of that!)

on the heels of war and wonder

there's a dreamy world up there

you can't whisper above the thunder

but you can fly anywhere.

undying love & infinite legends (two steps from hell)

I consider this a terrible name for a band, but they do have beautiful instrumental music - excellent stuff for battle scenes.  That is, in my mind it's excellent stuff, but then when I try to write with the music on my output rapidly decreases...

I'm still here (treasure planet soundtrack)

This song works as a theme for Tip and Charlie both, but I think primarily of Tip.  It suits his attitude (of which he has plenty) at the beginning of the story, and summarizes some of his motives.  Besides, it makes me think of "space" ships and Robert Louis Stevenson.  Both epic.

and you see the things they never see
all you wanted, I could be
now you know me, and I'm not afraid
and I wanna tell you who I am
can you help me be a man?

storm (fernando ortega)

This is the song I chose for Marta ages back when I assigned a piece to each of my characters, but I've found it works for Marta and Tip's relationship as a whole.  It is not a typical love song; but then, theirs is not, I suppose, a typical love story.  The feeling of rest in the lyrics is especially suitable.

it takes the rain between the lines

to know what sorrow finds

the way a cloud divides sometimes

the clearing and the blue
...I love you.

vanilla twilight (owl city)

This is Darkwood's theme; he has a great deal more backstory than is given to him in the book itself, and this song sums it up.  (Except that I'm pretty sure they did not have postcards in 1803.)

and I'll forget the world that I knew
but I swear I won't forget you
oh, if my voice could reach back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear:
"oh darling, I wish you were here." 

if my heart was a house (owl city)

I would just like to point out that, grammatically speaking, it should be "were".  Were a house.  But I'll admit that "was" sounds better in the song, and I suppose songwriters are allowed to take, er, license with the English language.  At any rate, this is another for Tip and Marta - mainly its chorus:

circle me and the needle moves gracefully
back and forth, if my heart was a compass you'd be North
risk it all cause I'll catch you if you fall
wherever you go, if my heart was a house you'd be home.

What about you?  Do you write to music, and are there particular songs that inspire you?

Snippets of June

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First off, I'm pleased to announce that there is a sale going on throughout the month of June for The Soldier's Cross and The Shadow Things Kindle e-books.  They will each be available for 99 cents until June 29th, so if you haven't had a chance to get them yet, here it is!  For more information and updates, including a link to the free iPad "Kindle" app, you can check out my Facebook page.

On to the subject of this post, proper.  Last month I didn't participate in Katie's "Story Snippets" meme, partly because of the almost-summer rush, mostly because I forgot until about two days until the end of May.  To make up for my brainlessness, I'm getting in to the June collection a little early.  For those of you who have not investigated this blog-series yet, you can take a peek at Katie's blog at Whisperings of the Pen to join the fun.

june snippets

“Sir?”

Tip dashed the salt out of his eyes and glanced sidelong at Marta. She had turned up her collar and shrunk down into it, and she blinked cat-like at him from the little shelter her cap gave her. When he turned she held out to him a dark, damp bundle and said, “Your coat, sir.”

 - the white sail's shaking

Tip’s eyes wandered off, scanning the witching expanse of sea and the white bodies of the gulls, real ones now, whirling over it like foam. He moved, trying to keep the weight off his left leg.

- the white sail's shaking

[Marta] was off-duty and Tip found her with a half-dozen other seamen, sitting and talking round a table while Scipio waddled between them and vied for every man’s attention at once. One of the ordinaries and the carpenter’s mate were playing a game, but the sharp staccato of their dice halted when they caught sight of Tip; the gossip dithered into awkward silence. Only Scipio went right on being coy, coming over and attempting to shimmy up his master’s leg.

- the white sail's shaking

His vision blurred; the shadows had gone strange and elongated, peppered by brilliant flashes of red that burned behind his eyes. You’re a fool, Tip Brighton, he thought; but that was nothing new, and he ignored himself.

- the white sail's shaking

Decatur eyed him sideways, more as though he were solving for the variable of an equation than as though Tip was of any concern to him.

- the white sail's shaking

“I told you I was a c…oward,” he said, holding the c with his tongue so that it would not catch. “You didn’t believe me.”

- the white sail's shaking

The world split.  Pain drove through Regina's heart like cold fire; her thoughts shattered to the far corners of her mind.  Screaming and roaring, snatches of discordant songs, battered her in wind and waves and darkness.  There was nothing beneath her, nothing above her, nothing around her - there was no her.  The dragon had opened its jaws, and the void of its mouth consumed identity, consumed existence.  Of Regina there was nothing left.

- tempus regina

The Essence of Bravery

Over at her blog A Wanderer in the Shadowed Land, Rosamund Gregory has started up a meme of her own: character letters.  It is an exercise designed to get the writer into the head of the character (it's dark in here!) by writing them in first person, and as such, it makes a splendid complement to the Beautiful People series.  To put it in Rosamund's words:

"There are a great many awesome "programs" of a sort for blogging writers--such as Beautiful People and Snippets of a Story--but I've noticed that most of them are in the third person. This is not wrong, of course, but it's very good to be able to get inside one's characters' minds in order to understand them. Even if you're writing in third person, you learn new things about your friends that you would never have known otherwise."

She has posted all the guidelines and those lovely things here and the very first edition, with the link-up and such, is here.  I'm afraid my entry does not follow the prompts very well, but hopefully no one will mind.  This letter is from Tip to his mother back home.  He writes on plain paper in a rather cramped, painstaking hand; put a quill in his hand and he seizes up (as if he wasn't awkward enough before), and so he tends to write out each word as though his life depends on its neatness.  He has no artistic talent and doesn't "doodle," but the edges of the page are severely blotted from his tendency to hold the quill sideways when he stops to think.  Also, he signs with his Christian name.

28 November, 1803 
Syracuse, Sicily 

Dear Mother,

This is no good. I must have begun the letter three times now, and I cannot seem to write beyond the first line. I was never much good at letter-writing, you know. Being so far from home seems not to have changed that.

Your letter reached me today, and only three months late, at that. There was a packet ship, the Lizzie Blue, waiting for us here in Syracuse when we dropped anchor; I’ll send my reply back with her, though God alone knows when she will make port again. Strange to think that with all my effort to write this, it may never reach you at all. If it does not, and if you never read this line, I hope you will know I tried.

I hardly know what to say to you, Mother. I know you must be thinking nearly five months have passed and in that time I have never once written, and for that I have no excuse but the one you already know, that things were very difficult when I left. Looking back I can see that it was difficult for you, too, and that I made life hard for you and Father both, but at the time I could not bring myself to write, and now my words have rusted—if I ever had them to begin with. Everything I think of to tell you how sorry I am, to tell you how I wish Molly were still with you, sounds callous even to myself. But I am sorry, and I do wish it. I know how much you loved her.

We have had our own death this past month, while we were at Gibraltar. I won’t upset you by telling you about it, only say that it was sudden and hit me harder than it ought. For I only knew him less than six months—less than half a year, Mother!—and yet it hurt as badly as your letter. Does that make sense to you? It makes very little to me.

Mother, I am finding out that I am not brave. I had never thought much about it before, but now it stares me in the face every day. Not that the idea of war or even the nearer thought of coming against a Tripolitan frightens me more than it does the next man; no, but it is living that is so hard. So often in the morning I wake up and feel ill with the thought of the day—and yet it gives me, too, a sort of hard satisfaction in the rising. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson the sea and the Navy will ever teach me.

Even my rusty words are spent now. So I will tell you only that I love you, and ask that you give my love to Father and tell him that I will try—that I am trying—to make him proud. I know I am not Harriet and will never make up for her, but I hope, all the same, that you will be proud of me.

Your rebellious son is not very rebellious tonight, Mother. He is simply tired.

With love,

Edward.

Going on for Years

Back in January (which seems ages ago) I wrote a post on romance - its prevalence in modern fiction, and how it can be, but does not necessarily have to be, incorporated into a story.  It was necessarily a cursory post and I didn't go down all the rabbit trails I would have liked to explore.  But among the comments, this one by Rachel captured a theme I had wanted but had not had time to look at.  Hitting the proverbial nail on its proverbial head, as usual, she wrote:

...Love is a different matter. Love has so many faces one can never get tired of it--simply peep in 1 Cor. 13 and you'll have enough to go on for years! I do like stories with a bit of that kind of romance in it...come to think of it, aren't all stories built off of relationships?

Aren't they?  The question is rhetorical and the answer seems obvious, and yet as I read Rachel's comment I wondered if many authors have not failed to realize it. Amid the overabundance of romance novels - some of which come out and say right up that they're romances, others of which masquerade as historical fiction, suspense, contemporary, you name it - it seems that there are fewer and fewer books looking at other kinds or avenues of love.  Relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and, oftentimes, God Himself are all trundled into the backseat so that the lovers can sit up front.  And I don't know about you, but it seems to me that this is a patently false interpretation of life.

Naturally, at this point I am forced to offer a caveat.  After all, the Bible does say that "for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife"; the one spouse does hold a place of supremacy in the life of the other.  And, too, marriage and the marriage relationship is a picture of that great Love that God bears for His people.  But so are other "forms" of love - else why would we be told that He is our heavenly Father, Christ our Brother, the Church made up of our kindred?  Christ is indeed the Bridegroom, the Church the Bride; but He is also that Friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Analogies, if they can be called analogies (for we can hardly say that God is the one imitating us), between our relationships day to day and God's powerful relationship with His own people abound.  We love, as John states, because He first loved us.  And we love many different people in many different ways.  Romance is not the only form that provides something of a mirror of God's love, but its glorification in Christian fiction seems to say that many authors think it is.  I have many reviews or descriptions of novels that at some point state that the romance "is an allegory of God's pursuit of man."  This is all well and good, but in making such a parallel too distinct, do we not run the risk of obscuring other equally-valid parallels?  And not only do we run the risk, but the damage may already be done.

I've been toying with these thoughts for some time now - at least over the course of writing White Sail's, but also, I believe, while I was working on Wordcrafter.  I hope and trust that each story I write is a little more complex, mines a few more gems, brings up a little more truth than the preceding book.  The Soldier's Cross was a fairly straight-forward tale of a girl coming to grips with God, sin, and salvation.  Wordcrafter is a story of friendship, a novel (unconsciously) built around the narrative of David and Jonathan and that snatch of a quote from Jesus that so characterized His sacrifice: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."  The White Sail's Shaking goes, I hope, a little beyond even that.  It does have romance - heavens, don't think I'm denigrating romance!  It has friendship, and loyalty, and plain, unadorned respect.  Really, in the year and a half I have spent thus far in writing White Sail's, I think this captures, if not the whole story, one major theme:

"A good man can love in many different areas...and love well."

- the white sail's shaking, tip brighton

And it is in my mind that this should be our goal, not only or even primarily in our writing, but in our lives as well.

April Snippets

The month is growing old, but here is my Snippets post at last!  March and April have been fairly productive months for me, but the trouble is that these chapters are part of or approaching the climax of The White Sail's Shaking, so it's difficult to share many snippets.  But I'll see what I can do.

april snippets

He was holding a pocket watch, tilted to catch the light on its open face, the chain dancing back and forth like a pendulum between his fingers; it seemed to have mesmerized him, for he had no attention for anything else. He watched it as a cat watches a mouse hole, unblinking, unwavering, with a faint occasional smile on his mouth.

- the white sail's shaking

“I came to see how your knee is, naturally. Heerman says it’s healing, but one can always hold out a hope for infection. There isn’t any, I suppose?”

Tip gave back a grimace of a smile. “None. Sorry to disappoint.”

- the white sail's shaking

The Constitution stood out, though, with her shrouds a tangle of mist and the sun a brilliant gold on her stern windows, her guns just now gone quiet. The bomb ketches beyond her were silent as well and so, too, were the Tripolitan batteries. An eerie, twilight hush had fallen over everything, as though the harbor held its breath; Tip could hear the gulls starting to cry once more.

Then the breath was released.

- the white sail's shaking

Some of the desperation must have leaked into his words, for Charlie’s backward glance was only half mocking. “I’ve my gun crew to command. I’ll come down when the fighting’s over.” 

Yes, Tip thought, but when the fighting’s over, it will be too late.

- the white sail's shaking

Tip stopped and looked up without turning around, gazing forward at the pale expanse of the schooner’s deck and the darker sea beyond, a haze of either sleeplessness or moonlight on his vision. So beautiful, he thought superfluously, hardly knowing whether he meant the night or the sea or the schooner, only knowing that whichever it was, its beauty made him ache.

- the white sail's shaking

Father, I miss you.  On nights like this I know I'll never see you again, and I feel like my heart will break.  

I miss you.  I want you to come home.

- sunshine and gossamer

Details of the room caught her eye in brief flashes. There were books everywhere; the opening door had raised a breath of dust from them. The air smelled sour, almost green. She saw a man in shirtsleeves and the back of his tawny head before he turned, and then she saw nothing but a pair of grey eyes.

She screamed.

- tempus regina