Having made it over a major hurdle on the track to getting your work published, I thought I’d send a secret communication out to let people know what it’s like working on your book with an agent.
That was the idea, anyway — problem is, I’m not sure that I have that much to tell.
Yes, I’m working with my agent on my book, but I’m starting to get the sneaking suspicion…
… wait for it …
I’m starting to think they all do things differently.
Now, the (wonderful) person I’m working with does a lot of the sorts of things that I had compartmentalized as “editor stuff.” Some of her feedback is along the ‘agenty’ lines of “the scene on page 8 feels kind of off” or “would Joe really ask her that?”, but just as many of her notes are detail-things like “you’re missing a ‘the’ on page 48” and “you switch to the wrong verb tense in the scene with the giant chicken.”
Now, I might begin to believe that I’d simply misunderstood what it is that an agent does for their author — I’m a tyro in many things literary; it wouldn’t be that big of a surprise — except for the fact that I work around (if not with) another agent, and her approach involves feedback like:
“What if the main character were japanese instead of romanian?” or…
“What if they were in high school instead of the CIA?”
Big picture stuff, if you see what I mean. Agenty-stuff.
I’m told that another agent I know doesn’t do either of those things, and approaches her job as something between a therapist and a legal representative the mentally unfit.
Are any of them wrong? Are any of them, in some strange way, not agents?
I don’t know. I don’t know if I ever will. I’m glad I found the one I did, and I think that will have to be enough.
Walking a thin line
I apologize, because this is going to be a bit long, and it really should be about a play I performed in high school, and it isn’t.
When someone asks me what I’m writing, now that I’ve had some time (and years) to actually think about it, I call it magical realism (except that it isn’t magical realism by some literary grognard’s definition of the term — it doesn’t obey the ‘rules’ of the official definition, but more the mindset). I don’t think of it as a genre as much as mode of writing — creating a story with two conflicting perspectives, one based on a rational view of reality and the other on the supernatural. Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys – with Fat Charlie and Spider representing the two views – is a really easy example, but there are many others.
Writing that kind of story — trying to — has a ‘gotcha’ that causes me a fair bit of stress during rewrites. I’m not going to be able to sum this up in a very tidy package, but here goes:
There are two ways you can approach the Fantastic in a story, regardless of the setting: there’s the ‘magical’ way and the ‘fantasy’ way.
The fantasy way is the most common, I think; especially in any book series where you learn more and more about the world in which the story is set. Basically, there is magic or something supernatural in the world, and as we spend more time in that place, more and more of the ‘system’ behind the magic is explained, until we know all the rules. There are lots and lots of examples of this, but Tolkien started it, and it’s carried into any number of series. Laurel K. Hamilton is one. Tamora Pierce. Harry Potter, certainly. Charles de Lint, sadly. George R. R. Martin, happily. In short, it’s a world with special rules, but once those rules are understood, the world works in predictable ways; what I think of as the Arthur C. Clarke version of magic. (To my mind, this often takes the ‘fantastic’ out of the fantasy, but that’s my own problem with some writers, and only really a problem when they mean not to do it and do it anyway.)
The magical way doesn’t quite explain how things work. Fairy tales are like this. Things aren’t predictable, and the magic isn’t ever quite explained. Some things are the way they are because that’s how they are. You don’t question it; it just is. There is a kind of childlike acceptance of the unreal here; ‘superstitious peasant’ reasoning. Neil Gaiman does this very well, as does Holly Black some of the time.
That kind of magical thinking is what I strive for.
Please understand: I love a good fantasy. Nothing wrong with them at all… unless that isn’t what you wanted to write. Fantasy for the sake of fantasy is great fun. Fantasy masquerading as a magical tale is going to feel flat and technical and lifeless.
And that’s the danger of the magical mode. You must be very true and accurate to the reader. Stuff has to be clear (more importantly, it has to be true, but right after that, it has to be clear), but you can’t explain everything, or you ruin it.
What happens and why it happens has to crystalline and solid, but at the same time you have to abide by the rule of magical thinking which is that sometimes, things are the way they are just because, and if you show someone all the gears and connections, the magic goes away.
Said from the point of view of the writer.: If you reveal too much of the wrong stuff, it’s not magical anymore – it’s just a fantasy.
That’s the balancing act I’m performing — there are some things in the story that aren’t clear, and I don’t want to alienate or confuse the reader (at least not unintentionally), but I am loathe to explain too much, because I do not. want. to. write. a. fantasy.
either/or
A good friend’s Google Talk status message reads:
“It’s only kinky the first time.”
I ask you, gentle readers: is that a reassurance, or a warning?
Change and paint fumes in the air
Kate made the final big move to Colorado on Friday and, true to form, teared up a little bit when the Denver-based Frontier crew announced, upon landing, “Welcome to our home town.”
Why? Because now it’s her home town, too. She’s like that. It’s endearing.
Friday night, I thought I’d try making chicken quesadillas in a skillet. Never done that before (in a skillet or otherwise), but it actually worked out all right (and the dogs assure me they enjoyed the failed attempts).
Saturday involved many hours of running around town to pick up home office and home improvement supplies, followed by installation of same.
Sunday I ran another session of Matt Wilson’s Galactic rpg, which is currently an “ashcan” release — a stage of publication in the indie gaming industry whose closest corollary in fiction is the distribution of galley copies to reviewers. The clear winner in this comparison is the indie gaming market. The gathering was another solid, fun session, despite the fact that we were driven up to the main floor of the house by the primer fumes creeping from the home office remodel that Kate is working to complete before the moving truck arrives tomorrow.
This morning, I sat in the family room with KK and Kate, munching on cereal and watching an episode of Avatar with my two best girls before heading off to work.
It has been, all told, a good start to the Next Stage.
I always have to be somewhere, after all.
I don’t make a habit of talking about non-fiction-writing related work, but it’s a special occasion.
Essentially everything I do to make a living has to do with writing, but each project is either more or less creative, depending on context. The editing and the fiction is far and away my preferred work, but the adult learning development and change and communication management has earned a soft spot in my heart by (in short) paying well. Certain lesser aspects of my affection can be bought, apparently.
To my point: due to the labyrinthine rules that large companies and small consultants observe in order to meet and exchange mutually beneficial products (read: “cash” and “talent”, respectively), the company I’m currently ensconced within has discovered that they have to end their association with me in a few months or potentially suffer arcane legal indignities for retaining a contractor for too long.
The upside: I have loads of forewarning and a great deal of good will and support from my current employer.
The downside: the timing is terrible. (That said, I’d be hard pressed to think of a point in time where these kinds of situations would be welcome.)
So, while agentry conversations and wedding plans move along at a brisk pace, there’s at least one more thing looming on my horizon. At least with that point of reference, I know exactly where I am.
Updates
(not the same as revisions, but we have some of those too)
I’ll be in NYC this weekend for various reasons, the most writerly of which include a weekend lunch with my agent to go over the last round of revisions and meeting up with Matt Cody, author of the upcoming Powerless, to coo over his newborn son. I’m told his amazing wife will be around as well, so that’s a bonus.
The primary reason for the trip is, of course, to finish packing up the last of my fiance’s things in anticipation of her move out to Denver next week. I can’t describe how happy I am that we’re finally at that dream-like future place that was always there and never here, and describing things is what I do for a living.
Updates, and apologies for the dearth of posting
I’ve been under both the weather and a number of deadlines this week and the site — as the least-squeaky of any of my wheels — has suffered neglect.
Most of the Casa household is sick in some fashion or other, regardless of age or elevation on the evolutionary chain; dispensing the various medicine dosages every 12 hours takes a quarter hour assuming everyone’s cooperating. Most seems to be on the upswing, though.
Revision deadlines are coming up for Hidden Things: my agent’s posed a couple of questions about various characters and happenings in the story and asked that I sneak the answers into the text ‘somewhere’. I generally don’t enjoy revisions, but the questions are good, the answers are interesting, and the sneaking-in part is fun. I’m enjoying this particular process, and I like the way my agent sets out the task.
“I’d like to know more about what Walker… what he is, I guess.”
“The background, how he got that way?”
“Sure, that could be part of it.”
“Oh, well I was thinking [insert off-the-cuff exposition that could go on a few minutes, but is mercifully cut short].”
“Hmm. That’s interesting. You should see how that works and work it in… you know, somewhere. Or try something else. Whatever you think.”
She asks just enough to get my mind gnawing at the problem then releases it into wild and asks, politely, if it couldn’t go track it down. (As if by that point I could do anything but go after it.) Challenging and freeing at the same time.
Finally, still working on the new look for the site. I’ve muddled through about half the templates and pages that need muddling — with any luck I’ll have that wrapped up by the end of the month as well.
Just to be clear, this is what I write.
A literary mode rather than a distinguishable genre, magical realism aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites and is characterized by two conflicting perspectives, one based on a rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatural as prosaic reality.
Magical realism differs from pure fantasy primarily because it is set in a normal, modern world with authentic descriptions of humans and society and involves the amalgamation of the real and the fantastic. It offers a world view that is not based on natural or physical laws nor objective reality, but is not separated from reality, either.
I’ve been using this term for a while now because I dislike “urban fantasy” as categorical heading — a feeling that shifts to outright loathing when it tries to associate itself with stories I’ve written.