All posts by A. L. Phillips

Savvy Saturday – Give Your Characters a Hobby!

Writing Tips

ceramic_unicornsWhat do your characters do for fun? If you’re a writer, the answer to this question can go a long way toward helping readers connect to your stories. While many writers develop long lists of attributes of their characters that never make it into a novel, a character’s favorite activities should be high on the list of things to be mentioned – even if that favorite activity has nothing to do with the plot. Why? There are three reasons: simple character building, personality/motivational character building, and abilities character building

First, we as people are built to connect with other people. Learning interesting things about others – how they’re different and unique individuals – hooks our interest and makes us care about what happens to them. For instance, take Suzie. Suzie is a girl. She is nine years old. She is an orphan. From Zimbabwe. Who was adopted into an upper-class African-American family. Her favorite colors are pink and silver. She does well at school – especially math – but she loves playing soccer.

With each additional piece of information, we learn something about Suzie and thus become more attached to her as a person. At the beginning, Suzie is indistinguishable from any other girl. By the end, we know a bit about her, and might care enough to find out more.

Note, however, that we still only know facts about Suzie. We don’t know why she feels the way she does, or how her love of soccer might be relevant to anything else that happens in her life. This leads to the second thing that sharing a favorite activity in a story can help you with: giving the audience a “hook” into the character’s personality or motivations. Let’s say that our story about Suzie revolves around her settling into her new life in America with her new family. This, clearly, has nothing to do with soccer. However, an author could use this love of soccer to show readers what Suzie is like.

soccerSuzie might talk about how she loves soccer because she doesn’t have to speak English to play, so she can be part of a team, and be valued by her teammates. She might say that when she played soccer in Zimbabwe, she was able to forget about being hungry, about the guns and kidnappings and the fear that hung over the orphanage like a cold mist, and focus on winning the game. In this case, revealing Suzie’s love of soccer and why it’s important to her helps readers understand where this girl is coming from. It gives readers a glimpse into her past, how it shapes her present, and helps them see how Suzie might react to future events. By using soccer as the vehicle to discuss Suzie’s past, the author doesn’t have to spell out for readers that she is embarrassed by her poor English abilities, wants friends, and is afraid of bad things happening that she can’t control. These facts can come out in the context of a story, and also give insights into who Suzie is as a person.

Finally, favorite activities can give insights into characters’ abilities or actions that relate to the plot of the story. For instance, Suzie might in a fit of anger kick a rock through her new parents’ window with devastating accuracy, and readers would believe it because she has a background in soccer. More positively, Suzie might be able to use her practice at focusing her attention on winning a game and letting all outside distractions go, as she attempts to study for a test, play in her school orchestra, or clean her room.

As another example, we learn in The Quest of the Unaligned that Alaric, the main character, likes to engage in knife-throwing competitions in the local bar. He gambles on his abilities as a way to earn some pocket-money, and happens to be very good. This reveals things about his personality (he’ll take bets as long as he thinks they’re safe, and he’s confident in his physical abilities), his skills (he’s athletic, good with weapons in general, and good at throwing knives in particular), and also hints at future plot points that will take place in the novel.

Another dimension to consider is whether a character’s hobby “makes sense” given their current job or situation (e.g. a sailor liking to gamble, or an English major who lives to write poetry), or is unexpected (e.g. a Ph.D. student in Marketing who loves writing fantasy novels). Both types of hobbies work, and both give insights into your character. Hobbies that “make sense” tend to be good for establishing abilities and motivations, but aren’t as good at making people care about a character. (They add depth to the dimensions that have already been established, but not breadth. For instance, knowing that a thief practices picking locks for fun is nice, but doesn’t distinguish him/her from a multitude of others.) Hobbies that are unusual, in contrast, are harder to relate to a character’s abilities and motivations pertaining to the story at hand, but can round out a character more easily.

So what do your characters do for fun, and how will you put this information to use in your next story? Leave a comment below!

Savvy Saturday – Who Wants to Hear a Story?

New stories

I posted on Facebook this past week that I hit some major milestones: passing 200 likes, receiving an honorable mention in a national writing contest, and finishing edits on my Cadaerian fairy tale! To celebrate, I’m going to share with you a snippet of this new story. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to show you anything that I’ve written, and I’m pleased to be able to give you a taste of what I’ve been working on. (Teaser: if you want to read the rest, just wait until around Christmas!)

As background, this 10,000 word fairy tale is set in the world of Cadaeren, which is also the world of The Quest of the Unaligned. Like fairy tales in our world, this story didn’t “actually happen.” Rather, it’s a tale that Laeshana and Naruahn might have heard as children.

You might also find as you read that this story has certain similarities to fairy tales told in our world. In fact, it may appear very similar to one particular story that you’re familiar with, but with several key differences that you’ll also discover. Which one, with what differences? That you’ll have to determine for yourself…

forget-me-not

Noble Memories: A Fairy Tale of Cadaeren

by

A.L. Phillips

Once upon a time, when the Age of Balance was still newly begun, a certain lord and lady of Cadaeren announced the birth of their firstborn child. The peasants of their holding rejoiced, for Lord and Lady Eshmait were kind and good and generous to all. But the people’s joy soon turned to grief, for in the very hour that Eshmait the younger was born, his beloved mother died. With her last breath, however, Lady Eshmait whispered a blessing upon her son: that kindness and love would dwell in his heart and flow thenceforth to all he met.

As Eshmait grew, the people saw that his mother’s blessing was indeed fulfilled, and in gratitude and love they called him the White Prince. Only one question remained in their minds as Eshmait reached his twenty-first year: what worthy woman would he find to take as his bride?

The answer was not what anyone expected, least of all Eshmait himself…

 

Dead leaves crunched underfoot as Eshmait and Druahkis materialized in a tiny clearing. All around them, gnarled trees with long, bare, black branches shivered in a chill wind, but the air inside the clearing was stiflingly still. Eshmait took a deep breath, trying to keep himself calm despite the magical tingle in the air. “This doesn’t look like Lord Veshamail’s castle, Druahkis.”

The gray-robed man made no reply except to begin moving his hands in a complex pattern through the air.

“Druahkis, is this a ruahk-trap?”

Now the man spoke, his tone a shade too nonchalant. “Worry not, my lord. This trap is mine. It won’t harm you as long as I’m here.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.” Tucking his thumbs in his sapphire sash, Eshmait turned to face his guide. “Ruahk-traps are barbaric. You must know my father outlawed their use in our lands years ago.”

Druahkis didn’t answer.

Foreboding tingling more strongly than the presence of magic on his skin, Eshmait turned to face the other man. Focusing his will, he caught and held Druahkis’s eyes. “Good ruahk, speak, I beg you! Why did you bring me here?”

Druahkis’s weathered hands stopped in mid-air. He opened and closed his mouth several times, guilt speaking in his face as loud as a shout. A cold sweat broke out on Eshmait’s forehead, but he didn’t move.

“Who told you to bring me here?” Eshmait continued, his voice low, but carrying a tidal force of shamai power that would compel its hearer to tell the truth.

“Lady Kataretza,” the older man whispered. “Forgive me, my lord. She commanded obedience or…”

“My stepmother?” The answer hit Eshmait in the stomach like a rock.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” the ruahk said, his voice trembling. “I had no choice.”

Clenching his fists, Eshmait turned away. Druahkis let out a long breath as the pressure of the young man’s truth-finding gaze lifted. “My wife is dead these past three years,” he pleaded. “My daughter is all I have left. If I let you leave this place, Lady Kataretza swears my little Elli won’t live out the night. I’m so sorry, my lord…You must understand.”

Eshmait understood. He understood all too well. The long nights of weeping by his father’s bier, the year of black robes instead of white, the heavy weight that sat in his chest where his heart should be – the memories were vivid in his mind. He would have done anything to save his father’s life. How could he fault this man for seeking to save his child?

And yet, he didn’t want to die. Eshmait took a deep, shaky breath. The black trees around him seemed to close in, reaching toward him with their branches, greedy for blood. He didn’t want to die, but there was no escape. That was the beauty and the horror of ruahk-traps. Tiny pockets of existence surrounded by ropes of magic, ruahk-traps were impossible to find by anyone who couldn’t transport themselves instantly across space, and once entered, deadly if one didn’t know the counter-spell. The only person who could leave this place was Druahkis, and anyone that he chose to take with him.

And so the only choice left to Eshmait was how to face his inevitable demise. Fear froze his veins as the icy truth sank in, tempting him to beg, threaten, cajole, or anything else that might save his life. Gritting his teeth, Eshmait shoved the treacherous thoughts away. He would die honorably, as a son of the house of Eshmait ought.

Deliberately, he turned back toward Druahkis. “I am sorry for your pain,” he said quietly, “and for the position in which my stepmother has placed you. The Balance will judge her for her crimes.” He swallowed hard, but his gaze was steady. “Do what you must.”

To be continued…

 

Your turn! What do you think will happen next? What story is this inspired by? Post in the comments below with your guesses!

Savvy Saturday: Messages in the Stars

Reviews and Exemplars, Writing Tips

skyThe sky. What do we say about it as writers? Well, it’s normally blue. If you’re on the plains, maybe it stretches out to the distant green and gold horizon. If you’re on the sea, maybe you can’t tell where the waves end and the sky begins. At night, the sky can provide direction, opportunities for stories, an imposing darkness, or perhaps a sense of hope, as a character looks up to the stars.

But why do we care? There’s one huge reason: the sky is the most constantly changing visible part of our natural environment, and as such, it has a major impact on the setting of your story. Writers are often told that they need to describe setting in their stories, for good reason. Knowing what a place looks like, feels like, sounds like, and smells like can help readers feel like they’re “really there,” right next to your characters, as a story unfolds. Describing the sky, even very briefly, is one way to immediately give your readers a hook that helps them visualize the rest of your scene. The sky can also help you establish a mood, build a new world, or even further your plot along.

smileThe easiest way of using sky is to follow the established tropes about different types of weather “matching” different types of mood. Consider this as the “Level 1” use of sky. For instance: sunny days with clear skies tend to establish a cheerful tone for a scene, or provide explicit contrast if things are going wrong. For instance: Thomas gave a longing glance out the window at the cloudless azure sky and cheerful sun beaming down on all it touched. Just five more minutes, then class would be over…just four minutes and thirty seconds… Cloudy or rainy days, however, are naturally suited to pensive, thoughtful, or somber scenes. Storms without can parallel storms or danger within, black clouds can match black moods, colorful sunsets make for beautiful romantic dinners, and so forth.

That’s all well and good. Sky use levels 2, 3, and 4, however, are where the sky really gets interesting and helps you build your story. In Level 2, celestial objects or events tell you something important about a story or setting rather than just imparting a mood. For instance, I recently learned that one can never see the stars in Singapore, because the light pollution across the entire tiny island city-state is too bad. This fact can provide a telling bit of detail for any story set there, or a similar location. For instance, let’s picture a character who leaves her job at mnorthern_lightsidnight, looks up at the sky to see the dim moon in a wash of pale gray, and wonders briefly if the stars really look the way they do in Hollywood movies or if it’s just another visual effect. This brief description tells us a lot about the world in which this person lives. Alternatively, if a character sees the Northern Lights rippling in the darkness in brilliant greens and blues, we immediately know that she is somewhere up north, likely away from a city, and we might imagine the air to be crisp and cold.

Level 3 takes the sky a step further, and uses it as a fantasy or science fiction world building tool. Since we all know that the Earth has a blue sky and one yellow sun, simply asserting that something is different immediately tells the reader that the characters aren’t located on Earth. Many planets have two suns simply because the author wants to show that the world is different than the one we’re familiar with. Similarly, one of the charming world-building aspects of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is the constellations he puts in the night sky of his fantasy realm. They don’t further the plot in and of themselves, but by showing that the sky somehow strange, the author reminds the readers that they aren’t on Earth, and makes them wonder what else in this world is different too.

The last level, Level 4, incorporates Levels 2 and 3 to create a new fantasy or science fiction world where the sky is actually an important component of the plot. This use of sky takes the most prior planning and thought, but can result in fascinating, powerful stories. The recent Eternal Sky fantasy series by Elizabeth Bear, for instance, paints a world where different realms have different skies, so when a person steps over the border from one to the next, the sun, moon, and stars change. Further, in the steppe where one of her main characters lives, the moons literally represent the current princes of the realm. They come into existence when a new prince is born, and are snuffed out when he dies. This gives everyone vital information about the status of allies and enemies, including intelligence about the effectiveness of assassination attempts, which is a key plot point in the books.

Another interesting example is the fantasy novel Werenight by Harry Turtledove (writing as Eric Iverson). *SPOILER ALERT* Throughout the book, the author describes the positions and phases of the world’s four moons, seemingly as mere Level 3 description. However, at the climax of the story – a large battle scene before two opposed forces – all four moons come out and are full. This leads to any character with even a faint trace of were-blood (a condition established throughout the book) turning into a vicious animal, which leads to mass chaos and the need for emergency action on the part of the book’s heroes.

nightfallA strangely similar classic science fiction example, though with a very different tone and basic plot, is the fantastic dark short story Nightfall by Isaac Asimov. It follows an astronomer who lives on a planet that is constantly illuminated by six suns. Their world’s scientists have just recently uncovered the truth about their planet’s history: that once every two thousand years, the suns eclipse, and the world is exposed to darkness, which drives the planet’s inhabitants mad. The story tells about the day of the eclipse. This is another story that got me interested in world-building as a child – seeing how Asimov took something so obvious as “night” and “stars” and created a world based on the premise that people were unaware of them, was definitely a mind-expanding experience.

Personally, it’s been great fun for me recently to write a world that follows Level 4 use of sky. In my novella set in the fantasy world of Alepago, the stars are living, sentient beings who ride on celestial steeds back and forth across the night sky, and occasionally visit those who live on the face of Mother Earth. Further, it is well known that shooting stars – the messengers of the star spirits – bring luck to anyone who sees them. The setting of the novella, then, is a three-night meteor shower of historic proportions, which influences both the main narrative of the story, as well as the characters’ individual decisions of how to react to the obstacles they face.

Thinking about these four levels of sky description, then…

Writers: how are you going to incorporate the sky into your next work of fiction?

Readers: what type of stories (Levels 1 through 4) do you most enjoy reading?

Savvy Saturday – The Problem with Writing Fairy Tales

Writing Tips

sleepingbeauty1For a writing contest, I have been creating – and more recently, revising – a classic fairy tale tweaked and adjusted to take place in Cadaeren. It’s been a fun process and I’m pleased with how the story is turning out. BUT…it has also been frustrating. Why? Because in general, Grimm’s fairy tales don’t follow a straightforward, easy-to-plot narrative structure.

Let me explain.

The current way that authors tend to think about plots is as follows. You begin with a protagonist, who has goals. Something happens, which threatens or changes the protagonist’s goals. The protagonist struggles, epically, to try to reach his/her goals, though he/she faces greater challenges at every turn. The protagonist then either reaches or does not reach his/her goals, and this fact is either good or bad for his/her ultimate wellbeing. (I’ve written more about these four types of story endings for anyone who is interested.)

Getting a bit more nuanced, the challenges that the protagonist faces should be in some way tied to what has happened before in the story, and to what will come after it. In other words, there should be foreshadowing, and the events of a plot should be linked rather than random. At a deeper level, one hopes that all of the events of a story would tie together to illustrate a theme or a character arc through which the author says something worth saying.

Fairy tales tend to have problems with both of these aspects of plot. This makes it difficult to stay true to the overall events of the story without doing some major revisions to characterization, significance of events, and in some cases, what actually happens. Let me give an example.

Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale that we all know. In its original Brothers Grimm form, it goes something like this: A king and a queen have a baby daughter, and rejoice by summoning all the fairies in the realm to a feast. They fail to invite one fairy, however, who curses the princess out of spite, saying that she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. A different fairy is able to reduce the curse: the princess will only fall into a deep sleep, from which she will be awakened by true love’s kiss. The king tries to avoid fate by having all spindles in the kingdom burned. However, the princess, as foretold, pricks her finger and falls asleep. A handsome prince comes many years later, finds the princess, and kisses her. She awakens and they live happily ever after. (For a more complete version, head to http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm050.html).

Who, here, is the protagonist of the story? The king and queen are the ones who take action in the beginning: they have a goal of having a child, they have a goal of protecting their child, and they face challenges that, ultimately, they cannot overcome. But the story isn’t about the king and queen. Is it about Sleeping Beauty herself? It can’t be: she has no goals or desires in the entire story. The only thing the tale says that she wants to do is try using the spindle when she sees it in action – which leads to her being cursed. All right, then. Is the protagonist the prince? He has a strong goal (to brave the mysterious castle to find the princess) and overcomes challenges to reach it, but he isn’t introduced until three quarters of the way through the story. Thus our first problem in retelling it.

sleepingbeauty2

In terms of tying elements of the plot together, Sleeping Beauty also has trouble. First, the evil fairy who curses the princess shows up in the beginning of the story, curses the girl, then vanishes, never to return. There’s no reason why there has to be an evil fairy at all. There could instead be an ancient curse that the firstborn of the line always dies, or the king could have found a cursed magic ring that grants the opposite of any wish the wearer requests, thus cursing his daughter with death rather than long life. Any of these would set up a similar problem that could be solved in exactly the same way as the original story is: a good fairy “reduces” the curse or threat to “only” a hundred-year sleep. Sure, why not.

In contrast, a tightly written story has a problem that is specific and unique to the plot and thus can only be solved in a way that is also specific and unique. The Disney version of Sleeping Beauty did this well: Maleficent becomes a character who fights against Sleeping Beauty and her prince, eventually turning herself into a dragon whom the prince must slay in single combat before he can reach the princess. This is a villain whom a nameless ancient curse couldn’t replace, and who the audience cares about defeating.

Second, in the original story, there is no explanation for why certain events happen: the way to reduce the curse is to make the princess instead fall into a hundred-year sleep. Why? Who knows. When she turns fifteen, there simply is an old woman spinning whom she finds, and pricks her finger on the spindle. Why, when spindles have been outlawed? Who knows. After the hundred years pass, there simply is a prince who shows up at the right time. Where did he come from? Why does he want to succeed? Why do we care about him in particular? Who knows.

Finally, there is no character arc – either steadfast or change – that the story puts forth, and no deeper themes (except the simple “one cannot escape fate” message that lies at the heart of many fairy tales) that a retelling could draw upon. Is the princess the same person after her hundred years of sleep than she was before? She might be – or she might not. One retelling might portray the princess as a bold, independent girl who knows and fights against her fate, while another might portray her as a sweet, innocent spirit who knows nothing of what is to happen to her. One princess might come to face her fear of death and be bolder and wiser for it, while another might be humbled after finding that she isn’t as in control of her fate as she realized. Both of these tales could use the same events, thus being equally true to the story, but the characters involved would be completely different.

This is a nice thing for authors, on the one hand. By using a fairy tale framework, you are free to create characters who have unique personalities and motivations, while still giving audiences enough cues so that they know what they’re getting into. When one reads a tale of Sleeping Beauty, for instance, one expects there to be curse, a long sleep, and a prince at the end of the tale with whom the awakened princess can live happily ever after, even while one hopes for new and exciting twists on the plot and characters.

On the other hand, however, adding these unique personalities and motivations makes it difficult to stay true to all the “random” elements of the story. If you make Sleeping Beauty the protagonist, with goals of her own, these goals will somehow have to be pursued throughout the course of the book. To keep the classic plot points from becoming just superfluous happenings along the heroine’s journey, you’ll need to tie them in somehow with her goals. It wouldn’t do, for instance, to have her goal be “becoming the world’s greatest pastry chef,” then have her prick her finger on a spindle, fall asleep, wake up, get married, and finally become the world’s greatest pastry chef. In other words, if the classic events of Sleeping Beauty don’t add anything to the grand plot, then it probably isn’t the story of Sleeping Beauty – or, at least, it shouldn’t be.

In contrast, one plot that might work would be for Sleeping Beauty to have the goal of caring for her people no matter what happens to her. The story might, then, have her rush against time to set up a system of government that will last for a hundred years. She would then prick her finger (either by mistake or as the result of her Evil Enemy) just before signing the final document, waking up a hundred years later to a national disaster and a shambles of a government. She would then need to summon all her wits and resources to try to bring her country back together and defeat the Evil Enemy once and for all. You would have to incorporate, though, what role the prince would play in this, who the Evil Enemy is, and why the princess fell for the whole spindle thing.

In other words, any plot you pick, no matter how interesting it is, has to address the “why” issues raised earlier. There is often a significant tension, in fact, between staying true to the plot of the story and making the story coherent. One answer is to change parts of the narrative to make them flow better. Again, the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty does a good job of this. Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger because Maleficent bewitches her. Also, changing the original story to address the “why this prince” issue, the Disney version compresses the time span. The prince who saves her has been part of the story from the beginning, which not only makes the audience care more about his success, but also answers the question of why he is the “chosen one” from the story’s perspective to save the princess.

sleepingbeauty3Even the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, though, is weak on characterization and protagonist goals. The movie Maleficent, for all its clichés, was far stronger in this aspect. By introducing a new character, and making her the driving force behind all the “random” occurrences in the original story for her own aims, the new story was able to have a character arc, be goal-driven, and still be recognizable as the “Sleeping Beauty” story. Unfortunately, it’s much harder to do this when one is retelling many common fairy tales from the perspective of the protagonist.

It’s still worthwhile, entertaining to write, and hopefully fun to read. Some of my favorite childhood books were fairy-tale retellings. (Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, for instance.) But even so, it’s a challenge. I look forward to sharing with you the result of my Cadaerian fairy tale and seeing what you think of how I addressed these issues above.

 

Savvy Saturday: The Novelist’s Year in Review

Uncategorized

This week marks the beginning of a new year. I know, it’s late August – it isn’t the Western New Year, or the Lunar New Year, or even the Jewish New Year. But at the University of Nebraska, the 2014-2015 School Year has begun, with its own rituals, traditions, and fresh faces appearing in one’s old classrooms. I’m now a second year PhD student, with more responsibilities and harder classes (yay?).

As I transition from one year to the next, then, I want to use this week’s post to look back at what I’ve done as a novelist since last August. I know I haven’t been able to share most of it with you, but I hope this is encouraging nonetheless – as one of my writer friends says, “Every piece of writing is practice for your next project.” As I’ve continued to write, my writing has improved (at least, so say my reviewers), which means that my next published work – whatever it may be – should be hopefully even more enjoyable than The Quest of the Unaligned.

So, without further ado, here’s What I Did Since August 20, 2013.

  1. Write 52 Savvy Saturday blog posts, updated every week! These have been on a variety of topics, such as:
  2. “How To’s,” including how to write combat, world-build, retell an old story, or write individualistic/collectivist characters
  3. Thoughts on random issues, such as an analysis of the sociological problems with Divergent or last year’s tongue-in-cheek anthropological exploration of football as a ritual as it might be described in a tribal fantasy world.
  4. Original works of fantasy, such as writing an “ancient fable” from Cadaeren about Kaltin the Fool, and my pun-filled four-part story about statistics.
  5. An original exploratory historical fiction piece for Good Friday (this work received the most hits of anything I wrote this past year)
  6. Be interviewed by INh online magazine, Anna del C. Dye, and Samantha La Fantasie
  7. Write a short story about Alaric’s childhood, “Black and White,” which was sent to fans as a Christmas present
    1. Length: 2,860 words
    2. First paragraph: Alaric trudged through the slushy streets of Tonzimmel, swinging his practice baton by its wrist strap. The sun was setting over the tops of the skyscrapers behind him, casting his shadow long and dark over the half-melted snow around him. Alaric kicked at a piece of ice; it bounced down the empty street. It was weird seeing the streets so deserted. On most days, they were full of grown-ups rushing to or from work, full of the buzz of conversation and the rumble and whine of hover-cars streaking overhead. But it was Near Year’s Day, and everyone was already off celebrating somewhere. What they weren’t doing was walking home after a grueling day of training. Unless they were apprentices in the Tonzimmel First Security Force, of course.
  8. Write a fantasy novelette as a gift for friends from college
    1. Length: 30,000 words
    2. Basic plot: A small group of superhero friends faces its most dangerous foe yet: themselves. When a smooth-talking poet with a god-complex and visions of utopia brainwashes one of their group, the others immediately seek a way to save her. They quickly discover, however, that succumbing to the mad poet’s brainwashing may be the only way to save the world – and their own lives.
  9. Write a novella set in the new fantasy world of Alepago
    1. Length: 42,000 words
    2. World-building: five distinct cultures, including three tribes of man, the mountain-dwelling Bohlridj who are made from and return to stone, and the glowing Kalatelena, descended from the stars.
    3. First paragraph: Grandfather was talking to himself again. Hida smiled sleepily at the familiar sound and pulled her buffalo skin blanket more tightly around her shoulders. Her older brothers were already asleep, their soft breaths blending with the crickets’ happy chirping outside. Grandfather thought she was asleep too. He never talked to himself when other people were awake except when he was in one of his trances, and that didn’t count.
  10. Co-author a chapter in the quasi-academic book The Economics of the Undead, titled “Where Oh Where Have the Vampires Gone? An Extension of the Tiebout Hypothesis to the Undead” (actually written last year, but published in Summer 2014)
    1. Fun fact: This is the first piece you’ll find in the field written by Phillips, Phillips, and Phillips. (I’m the first one, in case you were wondering.) Hopefully it won’t be the last!
    2. You can find the book available for sale on Amazon.com.
    3. First paragraph: The question of where vampires and zombies can be found – where they unlive, that is – is of immense importance for Slayers and average Americans alike. There are two possible answers to this question: first, that the undead are distributed proportionally around the United States, meaning that anywhere you live, you are in equal danger of being turned in the night. Alternatively, the undead might be more concentrated in certain areas than others, leaving residents of some states in relative safety even as they threaten others. According to economic theory, the second is far more likely.

All in all, it’s been a productive year! As this next year starts, I’m looking forward to seeing where my pen takes me in 2014-2015. First up: a Cadaerian retelling of a classic fairy tale. After that? Who knows! There are many options, outlines, and ideas for new stories floating around in my head (and on my computer) – we’ll see which ones resonate with my muse.

As always, I want to finish off the old year and ring in the new by thanking you all for your continued reading and support. It’s been great interacting with you online and in person, and I look forward to sharing more stories and posts with you in the year to come. Thank you for being awesome!

 

Savvy Saturday – The Giver

Reviews and Exemplars, Writing Tips

giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry is one of the few books from my childhood that still has an honored place on my post-college bookshelf. I don’t remember the first time that I read it; all I remember is re-reading, over and over, thrilling in both the realness and otherness of the world that Lowry created. Before the existence of The Hunger Games or the Divergent trilogy, (which were both made into better movies than The Giver, honestly), Lowry introduced me to the idea of world-building, YA dystopia, and sociological imagination. What would the world look like if it were different in such-and-such a way? What would daily life look like? How would it impact people’s goals, dreams for the future, and reactions to events? How would people be the same – or different? These are questions that The Giver excels at answering, albeit briefly, as appropriate for a book aimed at young YA readers.

Watching the movie adaptation this past week reminded me of a few things that Lowry did exceptionally well that fantasy and science fiction authors can still learn from.

  1. Establish a world with both real good and bad aspects.

giver2

The community in which Jonas (the main character of The Giver) lives is quite tame as far as dystopian worlds go. The founders’ master plan of creating a peaceful haven for their citizens actually worked. War and hunger no longer exist, people are content with their lives and jobs, and citizens affirm each other, treat each other with respect, and have a high standard of living. (Katniss from The Hunger Games would be jealous.)

The primary external horror of this world comes from the main character’s discovery that the community euthanizes any individuals who do not conform or who have reached a certain age. Even this process, however, is carried out in a humane, respectful manner that causes the subject as little pain as possible. The internal horror of the world of The Giver is its lack of emotions and diversity of any sort, which is shown to have stripped away the beauty of human existence. The decision that Jonas comes to (to run away from the community to restore its humanity to it) is not an easy one to make: with humanity comes the ugliness, hardship, and conflict that the founders of the community sought so desperately to avoid. Whereas other YA dystopian literature presents a corrupt government that obviously must be brought down, the world of The Giver is more subtle.

  1. Show how the specific world impacts everyday life in realistic but surprising ways.

giver3

In the world of The Giver, “precision of language” is an important virtue. Words have power, so using the right word in the right instance is vital. This facet of society is established through several small encounters: one character saying that she is “starving,” and being sharply reproved (starvation is a terrible thing that no longer exists), and another young boy saying that he wants a “smack” instead of a “snack” – and being given one! Having established the importance of this concept, Lowry is able to use it to show a key problem in her society: its lack of love. In a key scene, Jonas asks his parents if they love him, which puzzles them greatly. The word love is too imprecise, they tell him. They take pride in his achievements, and they enjoy who he is as a person, but “love” as a word is meaningless. This exchange sets the stage for Jonas’s decision to run away.

  1. Create strong characters whose strength is not physical

giver4

Jonas is not an action hero. He has morals, courage, intelligence, and determination, but his success stems from his decisions to do what is right rather than from his physical or mental abilities. He hates war and violence; instead, he values love, family, music, beauty, and life – so much that he would risk leaving everything he has known and everyone he cares about for the chance to give these treasures back to a world that has forgotten them. He is tender with baby Gabriel, and risks everything, including his own future, to save the child from being euthanized. He survives in the wilderness because of memories that are not his own and borrowed courage, not from any physical training or special talents in survival that he has. And yet, Jonas is uniquely able to press on because of his moral vision. He believes in what he is doing, the rightness of it, and the need to save lives – both Gabriel’s, and those of everyone in his community who have never had the chance to truly live.

 

While The Giver is not an action adventure story, and thus did not translate as well to the silver screen as did later-written-but-previously-filmed novels, it is a well-crafted novel based on a well-crafted world. I have previously discussed the sociological problems with Divergent; the world of The Giver is similar in some ways, yet (albeit in a simpler form) it holds together more coherently. It is an exploration of a completely different world that is still similar enough to our own to give us pause. While The Hunger Games and Divergent show us the power of hope and courage as a single individual leads a struggle for freedom in an oppressive society, The Giver makes us think about the dangers of valuing safety and peace above all else, the value and danger of free will, knowledge, and diversity, and the things that make life truly worth living.

Savvy Saturday – Marketing Time Travel

Academics, New stories

It isn’t often that I get to use my fantasy/sci-fi novelist background in my “real job” of being a marketing PhD student, but it occasionally happens. One of the most fun instances of this I’ve seen so far happened this past week. I had assigned group projects, for which the students had to make up a new product and develop a marketing plan. The more creative the product, I told them, the better. This was a marketing class, not an engineering class, so they could feel free to “invent” something that wouldn’t actually work without worrying about it.

And so one group wrote a marketing plan for a time travel machine.

pyramidsThis is where things got fun. “All right,” I told them when they proposed this idea. “Tell me about this time machine of yours. Does it go to the past or the future or both?”

They hadn’t thought that out yet. Did it matter?

Oh yes, I told them. If they want to just use a time machine for their own personal use, either is fine. But if they’re going to start marketing something, they’ll have different issues of national security and their own personal safety to deal with if they go into the past versus the future. If you go into the past, you “just” need to worry about changing history and screwing up the present. (Easily solved, by the way: either create a machine that is “out of phase” with history so you can’t interact with or be seen by historical people – great for archaeologists, not so much fun for wannabe-heroes – or, as this student group decided to do, create a new identical-to-ours parallel universe every time the machine is activated, so any actions you take won’t have any impact in our world.)

If you go into the future, however, you may be able to bring back knowledge that could have military or political significance for today’s world governments. Going into the past is a “vacation” or historical expedition. Going into the future could reshape the world balance of power. As marketers, we really don’t want the things we sell to get major governmental attention. Especially not the sort that ends with the product’s creators dead in an alley somewhere and the time machine in the hands of the highest bidder.

The students decided to stick with going into the past. Smart move.

The next big question was how to market this product. Would you be selling the machine itself, or the opportunity to use it for a length of time? If the latter, what would be the most profitable “market segment” (group of people who would be interested in the same type of product for the same type of reasons)? Some might include archaeologists who want to publish groundbreaking research, people who love a particular era of history and want to see it with their own eyes, and ultra-rich individuals who want to time travel because it’s new and different and exclusive. The easiest group to target, and the one that these students chose, is the last one.

But how would you contact these ultra-rich individuals? If you were marketing to people who love history but were middle class, you could advertise in travel magazines and on the History Channel on TV. If you were marketing to archaeologists, you would contact the universities with the best archaeology programs in the world and invite them to submit proposals for what research they would do, and the top proposals would be granted permission to use the time machine (for a sizable fee, of course). But wealthy individuals don’t respond to TV ads or typical magazines, and they don’t all belong to a single organization with a governing body that disseminates information.

Most likely, then, you’d need to pursue a public relations and personal selling strategy: make the news, then follow up one-on-one with interested parties (or their event planners or personal assistants). For instance, you might reach out to the agent of a celebrity who has portrayed a famous historical figure or an archaeologist (e.g. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones), offer him/her a free trip through the time machine to see something that pertains to the role they played, and then have them give an interview regarding their experience to a major newspaper. Once you’ve made a splash in the headlines, and included in the news story that this new “exclusive” product/service is available for those “discerning” individuals who have the means and the interest to go on a trip that is beyond the reach of most of mankind, you should start getting sales pretty rapidly.

Of course, this whole process made me want to sit down and actually write a story where this occurred. So often, time machines in fiction are made either by brilliant scientists who have little business sense and just want to see if they can do it (“What will the future be like? Let’s find out!”) or by driven individuals who want to visit a particular time/person in the past (“My true love died; I’m going to invent a time machine so I can be with him/her again!”). Why not write a story about a businessman who is interested in time travel (who isn’t?), but who cares even more about giving the world what they want – and enhancing his (and his employees’) wealth position in the process? This person would be a protagonist, not a “greedy industrialist” stereotype, and the story’s main plot wouldn’t revolve so much around “will the machine work and what happens if it breaks?” but “how will this machine’s existence shape the world of the protagonist?” and “how can the protagonist best use this device to change the world?”

It would change the world of the protagonist, to be sure. Once the machine’s safety was established, the world would most likely embrace the new reality and the company would be the leading authority on any issue of historical importance. (What REALLY happened? Book a tour with our company and see for yourself!) On the other hand, a CEO would also certainly have time machine detractors and individuals who wanted to abuse the system. People who are concerned about public safety (what happens if someone brings back the Black Death?) or about ethics and morality (if you create an alternate universe every time the machine is used, do you then destroy a world full of sentient beings every time the machine is turned off?) would likely protest and attempt to get laws passed to shut the machine down. Individuals without a promising future might want to go to the past and stay there. How would your company handle individuals who refuse to come back? If the company turns off the machine with a person from our world inside, is the individual simply stuck in an alternate reality forever, or do they die as the alternate universe is destroyed? These are sticky issues that a CEO would have to deal with.

The marketing plan that I graded didn’t answer any of these questions. I didn’t expect it to. As a novelist, however, I had a fantastic time raising these questions to my students, and encouraging them to think about how they would implement real marketing issues in an “out there” scenario like this one. And who knows? Maybe someday the scenario will actually be real – at least in a novel or set of short stories.

What do you think, readers? If someone actually invented a time machine like this, how would it change the world? How would you expect it to be marketed?

 

 

Savvy Saturday – On Beta-Reading

Writing Tips

magnifyingglassI was delighted last week to have an opportunity to be a beta reader for a fairly successful author of middle-grade adventure books. In my opinion, this is one of the best parts of being a novelist – being asked to enter into other people’s worlds, make comments, identify things that can be done better, ask questions about their plot and world-building and characters (and hopefully get answers), and have those suggestions be listened to and used to make the story better.

Being a beta reader is an exchange: an author lets you into their world before it’s quite polished, before it’s set in stone and unchangeable, before Readers – that great nameless crowd of critics – is allowed to see what the author’s mind has created. As a beta reader, you are one of a few lucky ones chosen to be the first to read a new story, and more than that, one of the very few given permission to meddle with the words on the page. You are given permission to make suggestions for wording changes, character changes, even large future changes in plot development – with the guarantee that an author will actually listen to what you suggest. Wow.

In exchange for this honor, of course, a beta reader has some responsibilities. The beta reader is supposed to engage with the text. To note errors or clunky wording or situations that don’t make sense. To raise questions that the author may not have thought about – because other readers will, and it’s better for an author to know now (and prepare or fix things) than to find out later in negative Amazon reviews.

At least, this has always been my understanding. Until, that is, I received a glowing and surprised email from the author of said middle-grade adventure book in response to my comments. “I certainly didn’t mean for you to invest this much time and thought into the story,” it said. “I didn’t expect it, but I’m grateful.”

I was just as shocked as she was. It’s not like I wrote a novel in response to her novel. I just followed the steps for being a Good Beta Reader. (I think I learned these in college…if not, they should be taught there!)

 

  1. Specific notes. As you read, identify places where you stumble over wording choices. If you’re working in a Microsoft Word document, leave a comment. If not, use a “notes” document. Note the page/sentence, and state why it was confusing or suggest an alternate wording.
  2. Similarly, mark/note all typos that you find. These slip by even the best authors.
  3. If something seems odd, out of character, or brings you up sharply, note that too. Basically, you want to flag anything for the author that kept you from “living” the story as it’s being told.
  4. Write comments as you progress, noting things you like and things you would improve.
  5. General notes. After you’ve finished the story, think about a few good things overall from the book, and a question or two that lingers in your mind after you’ve finished. Authors want to know how their books impact readers – tell them! If you have concerns or questions about where the book/series is going, you should also include these.
  6. If you have more general notes on writing style, plot, character development, etc. after reading the book, include these as well.

Writing these notes doesn’t take very long if you’re making them as you go through the novel. The end result isn’t horribly lengthy either. I ended up making about a page and a half of general notes, questions, and fangirling about the book. (As a side note, this last term, if you’re unfamiliar, consists of putting on paper the things I really liked about the work and that I thought the author did a good job with – whether it’s good descriptions, excellent true-to-life characters, deep relationship portrayal, exciting action, or all of the above. I like doing this when I can in good faith. As an author, I know how powerful specific compliments can be. And as a reader, I like being able to acknowledge authors for the things they really are talented at!). In addition, I also noted about 15 instances (in an entire full-length novel, so pretty good!) in which I suggested that the author change wording, either because of typos or confusing structure.

It was fun for me, and part of the job of being a responsible beta reader.

So why was this author so surprised?

Whatever answer I give isn’t going to make writers as a whole look good. Do writers not know how to critique others’ work? They must, because as writers, they have to rewrite their own work – and noting mistakes and places of confusion in someone else’s is far easier. Do writers not want to take the time to critique others’ work? If so, it’s an abuse of the system: one should not agree to be a beta reader unless one is willing to give the author something in exchange for letting you read the book before everyone else. Are the criteria for being a good beta reader something other than what I was taught? This is, I think, closest to the truth – and if so, then the truth is a sad one.

If this is the truth, then I have not had a normal experience in my writing situation; I have had an absurdly blessed one. In college, I found two separate small groups of fantastic writer-friends who would give me significant, thoughtful beta-reading feedback on my works in progress, and I would do the same for theirs. I learned how to beta-read and critique along with them, and now, years after college, we’ve continued doing it for each other.

Just this past week, one of these friends pointed out that I should entirely remove one of the secondary characters from a short story I had written – he didn’t do anything to move the story forward, he wasn’t a strong character, and his removal would increase the story’s tension by a large amount. I would never have considered doing that on my own, but she was right. I revised the story, and it is significantly improved.

As an author, I treasure my beta-readers, and I take the beta-reading process seriously. Let me urge you to do the same. You don’t have to have a degree in English or even think that you have “the right answers” when you make comments on a story. Authors value your thoughts – because you’re a lover of words who hasn’t seen their story before. That fact alone makes your opinions uniquely valuable. Will you share those opinions with authors, while they still have a chance to take your insights into consideration? I hope you will.

Final question for authors: what has been your experience with beta-readers? Would you be surprised to receive feedback from a beta-reader that follows the steps listed above? Would you be frustrated if you DIDN’T receive feedback from a beta-reader that addressed all these points?

Final question for readers: How much feedback do you think is reasonable or normal for beta-readers to give to authors? Why?

 

 

Savvy Saturday – Inspiration Strikes! (Part 2)

New stories, Writing Tips

Last week, I posted a rough beginning for a story idea that was inspired by this photograph:

castle

Today’s Savvy Saturday gives you a look into how I go about worldbuilding. All of the following snippets that will be posted were written in a single day of mad creativity, in the order that you see. Anything that is in brackets [like this] was added later for greater ease of reading. Where you see the tag idea: it shows where, as I was thinking, I came up with something specific that I thought could play a potentially important role in a story.

 

By the end of what is posted here, I was ready to begin thinking about the plot of a story that could happen in this world. This isn’t all the world-building I’ll do, of course – as the snippet from last week shows, there’s a large amount of detailed work that has to be done when you actually start writing scenes. But this was enough to give me an idea of the kind of stories that could be told in this world, some of the basic problems that characters might face, and some of the cultural realities that would define whatever story I happened to want to tell.

The first question I ask whenever I start creating a new culture is,what does the world look like? What is unique about this world that will lead to very specific problems and cultural features? In this case, I ignored the actual architecture of the castle in the picture above, and focused on the idea of multiple peaks where people live, above a sea of clouds…

_________________________

Setting: The Cloud Sea [Unqapa] is a magical mist cast by a sorcerer upon the land in times long past. It is thick and heavy, halfway between vapor and liquid. If breathed for more than a few minutes, it causes visions, madness, and ultimately death. For a thousand years, the only safe places for humankind have been the high steppes and mountaintops above the cloud layer (Skyland?).

How does this setting impact society?

Travel: Either through flight or through magic. Travel will therefore be very difficult and expensive, leading to small, insular societies. Travelers will be celebrities.

What kind of travel? Two kinds: ride on winged animal [or] sail on ship held up with magic. Ships are slower but larger, used for trade. Idea: levitation spells wear off over time because of the magical corrosive nature of the mist. If a mage travels on your ship he/she can keep it up. If not, you have to have it renewed at each port you arrive at. Means that if you’re becalmed without a mage, you’re dead. (Can’t row through the mist.)

 

Daily life: Each tiny city-state will have to depend mostly on what it can grow and raise for itself. If disease hits, it will have a devastating impact on the society, since people live relatively close together and can’t get away. Winter is long and summer cool and short, driving a need for heavy clothes and careful tending of plants during the growing season. Also, livestock will need to be carefully watched and kept in enclosures.

If they go into the mist, what would happen? Wildness, lose their fear of man, become dangerous. Humans will therefore need to be on the lookout for animals coming out of the mist – they’ll be an ever-present danger. Idea: animals born in the mist are stronger, faster, smarter than animals born in the Clearlands. Winged animals that are mist-born prey on anything in the sky, including ships and riders of their smaller, tamer cousins.

 

Politics: Four main city-states, each in distant view of the other three, are allied to (but often dispute with) each other. As a group, they’re called Four Peaks [Chuska-Tunqu]. They are each governed by their own royal family. They have similar goods – timber, goats, vegetables (research: carrots, lettuce, potatoes, onions, garlic, strawberries, blueberries all grow in high altitudes). None has a standing army, since everyone has to farm and tend herds to survive. Each is, at its core, self-sustaining, but given their small size and relative proximity to each other they have also developed unique offerings.

Kingdom 1 [Qayumchi]: Luxury food/plants and Riders. This kingdom’s terrain has more areas of flat land that get good sunlight, so its crops grow better than those in the other three kingdoms. It grows some crops that will not grow elsewhere in Four Peaks. One of these is the special kind of berry that attracts the winged creatures [kiruqi] used by riders. Given its easy supply of these berries, it is also the kingdom that first began taming and training the [kiruqi] that riders use to carry messages among kingdoms. It is the most respected of the four kingdoms.

Kingdom 2 [Jakupacha]: Ship-builders and mages. Hundreds of years ago, this kingdom’s scholars and mages developed a strain of cedar that would be resistant to the mist’s corrosive capabilities and retain levitation spells for longer than other types of wood. While it grows enough food for its people to survive (barely), it thrives on trade. It supplies every good ship in Four Peaks, and most of its captains. It also provides and trains the mages who keep the ships sailing on the mist. It is very secretive about its knowledge to ensure that no one else can build ships or train mages; it likes having a near monopoly on trade. It is the wealthiest of the kingdoms, but hated by the other three.

Kingdom 3 [Tukanchiqu]: Architects, engineers, stone/metal-workers. This kingdom’s peak is craggy and treacherous, forcing its people to learn how to adapt and create clever constructions incorporating the landscape into their buildings. This particular mountain also has deposits of gemstones, gold, and high quality iron, which they forge into good steel. Much of their society (workshops, etc.) is actually inside their mountain. Every available space outside is used for growing what they can, since there is so little usable ground. This kingdom was worst off until trade was established because of its inability to grow enough food for a large population. Even now, the people are used to food rationing and strict monarchial control over resources because necessary goods are so limited. Most people are still poor, but now that there is trade resulting in enough food for some people to not have to farm, the population of skilled craftsmen has grown. (Everyone, however, grows up learning the basics of engineering and metal-crafting, because they have to in order to keep their houses in repair.) Craftsmen are prized by the kingdom – their work brings in goods from outside to let the civilization grow. Some of these tradesmen go to other city-states to live and work there, but they view it as their duty to send much of their income home to support their people, whose hard work and sacrifice has made it possible for them to prosper. Often, a family will sponsor one of their children to receive special training then leave the kingdom, with the promise that it will be an investment to better the entire family.

Kingdom 4 [Kanchadar]: Fighters. Originally, this mountain only grew grass, trees, and some fruits and vegetables; the first dwellers focused on caring for their goats, which were their main source of food and clothing. The presence of this many animals, however, attracted predators. The denizens of this kingdom learned to work together and kill the beasts that attacked them and their herds regularly. They also learned that these mist-dwelling beasts are useful for meat and tools. They learned to fight in the mist, so as to better be able to rescue their herds or not have to give up on their wounded prey if it retreats into the mist. They build up tolerance to it from the time they’re young, and also learn to hold their breath for long periods of time. The best warriors among them can be in the mist for an hour with no permanent effects. When trade began with other kingdoms, this kingdom’s people quickly became known as fearless (and half-mad) warriors perfect for border patrol and other security jobs. These men and women are the shortest-lived of any of the kingdoms, as they would rather die in battle than live on beyond their ability to be useful to their family.

 

Beyond Chuska-Tunqu are two larger kingdoms, both ancient. One is inhabited by mages, and the other is populated by tribes of warring peoples who have dreams of expansion and tend toward piracy of the mages’ kingdom (easier to steal than to create).

In the lowlands under the mist is all the treasure, resources, and history that have been buried for a thousand years. Including several very powerful artifacts given by ancient mages to kings of old as tokens of favor or payment for resources or bribes to do their bidding.

________________

With this setting above now established, I can now come up with a thousand different story ideas. I could set a story in any of the four kingdoms, or (as shown last week) on a ship sailing between them. I could tell a story about a farmer from Qayumchi who has worked all his life to develop a new more powerful variant of berries to aid in training the kiruqi, only to have his work get stolen by a powerful merchant family. I could then tell of his quest for revenge, recompense, and recognition by the Riders. Alternatively, I could tell about a girl from Kanchadar whose brothers were killed in the mist by a particularly nasty beast, and who has made it her mission to seek it out and kill it, whatever the consequences to her and the village she is supposed to be protecting. I could explore the underground lives of the Tukanchiqu – one who gets cut off from his village by a rockslide and must get back or starve to death, or an engineer who must use his wits to convince a visiting Jakupachan ship that his goods are valuable enough to exchange for food for his village for the winter.

Right now, however, I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to tell the story of Chaska, a girl from Qayumchi whose dreams of adventure turn to nightmarish reality when she becomes the first person to fall through the Unqapa mist to the land below – and survive.

 

What else would you expect to see in a new world like this? What other directions in worldbuilding might the inspirational picture have taken you? Brainstorm a few ideas, and post one in the comments below!

 

 

Savvy Saturday – Inspiration Strikes! (Part 1)

New stories

Last week, I found this picture posted online:

castle

It immediately got my brain started creating a new world (as if my brain doesn’t have enough to do to keep it busy). Since it’s no use telling my brain to stop being creative, I decided to channel its energy productively to give you all a look at how my writing process progresses. So for this week’s Savvy Saturday, I’ll give you a brief opening to a story I’ve started working on that’s inspired (loosely) by this picture. Next week, I’ll show you some of the behind the scenes work that went into this story. Fair warning: this is a rough draft written over the past week, so it isn’t polished. But it should give a glimpse into a new world that will hopefully end up being intriguing!

__

The new mechanic was about to get himself thrown overboard. Her dark eyes sparkling in anticipation, Chaska leaned forward on her perch, gripping the yard of the Qaqcha’s mainsail with her legs and the rigging with her left hand. The two men arguing on deck were too far away to hear, especially given the wind that howled right through Chaska’s thick poncho and knitted hat. Even so, the mechanic’s aggravated gestures were perfectly clear – as was Captain Hakula’s reddening face.

Chaska grinned sourly, hooked one soft-booted foot in the rigging and slid down to the deck in record time. She wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to see Hakula ream someone else out for a change. Especially when the victim in question was one of Tukanchiqu’s arrogant, filthy-rich metal workers. Chaska had seen three come and go in her ten months on Hakula’s ship, and loud-mouthed obnoxious know-it-alls they’d been, too, but none of them had had the audacity to argue with the captain himself.

Pulling her cap’s earflaps down against the wind’s bite, Chaska sauntered toward the bow, where Captain Hakula looked like he was about to erupt at any second. As she walked, she picked up the end of a pile of rope that someone – probably Machqu, Captain Hakula’s lazy second cousin – had left in an ugly heap and began recoiling it. It wouldn’t do for any of the Qaqcha’s officers to think she had nothing to do and assign her somewhere out of earshot.

She stopped as close as she dared to the confrontation, keeping her hands busy and her gaze directed over the railing at the swirling white mists of the Unqapa, even as she strained to hear the substance of the argument behind her. The cursed sea was clearer today than sometimes. She could see several feet down into the mist, far enough to see the protection and levitation spells that glowed along the Qaqcha’s cedar hull. Below that, though, the Unqapa glowed a deadly ominous gray.

“I swear, Captain, by the life of the Eldest, the pulser is flawed! You must let me fix it or it will give way before we reach Qayumchi. Please, for all our sakes!”

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand, cave-dweller? I already told you – there’s nothing wrong with our systems.”

Chaska’s hands froze on the coil of rope she was holding. This wasn’t the complaint about the charred food or cramped quarter she had been expecting. She listened even harder. The mechanic’s voice sounded young – and desperate.

“Don’t you hear the way it’s thrumming? Are you deaf? The way the harmonics are going, the sounders will knock each other out of alignment in twelve hours, twenty-four at most. And then we’re easy meat. Please! Just an hour, that’s all it’ll take!”

A chill went up Chaska’s spine, and the mist suddenly looked even more ominous than it had thirty seconds before. If the pulsers were really flawed, they would be lucky to reach a port in one piece. The mist was only the most obvious of the dangers that lurked in the air between the Four Peaks. Chaska swallowed, imagining the creatures that even now lurked just beyond the range of the Qaqcha’s high-frequency pulsers. Sky-serpents – terrible beasts that flapped upward out of the fog, their green and red feathered bodies dripping silver mist as they sought a ship as an easy meal. She had never seen one, but the first mate of the Qaqcha had, and his tales were vivid enough for her to picture the beasts in far more detail than she cared to. Or, worse yet, wild kiruqi, with paws larger than a man’s head, wings strong enough to blow a ship off course with their gale-force wind, and fangs that could snap a mast in two. These were even easier to picture; Chaska had grown up around their smaller, domesticated counterparts as her oldest brother Mantu trained to be a Rider. She still saw him occasionally when the Qaqcha was docked in Qayumchi, gliding through the sky on Pacchu’s broad speckled back, carrying messages from one city to another. But even Mantu would quail at the thought of coming face to face with a feral cousin of his Pacchu; no ship had ever encountered a wild kiruqi and survived…