New SF Signal Column by Yours Truly

A few weeks back SF Signal approached me about my interest in doing a column. After some back and forth we decided on a column about small presses. I've always been a fan of reading things a little off the beaten path around here and I hope to do even more of it in the months ahead. It's an important subject and one I'm passionate about. I very much appreciate SF Signal giving me the opportunity.

My point of view with the column centers around what role small presses play in the larger game of science fiction and fantasy. Not just what are they're doing, but hopefully a little bit about why they're doing it. I'll also be reading a few books from the press before each column to get a feel for what they're all about. When appropriate I'll be reviewing them here. I began with Small Beer Press:

I begin with Small Beer Press, founded by husband and wife Gavin Grant and Kelly Link who first teamed up in the late 90′s under the Hugo-nominated zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. I have no idea what a rosebud wristlet might be, but it sounds smart. Still publishing the zine, Link and Grant have expanded their domain to include chapbooks, original novels, and short story collections. Since Small Beer opened its doors twelve years ago, the pair have published over sixty titles. 

Read the rest...  

Guest Post | Douglas Hulick in the Trenches

Bringing up the rear, is Douglas Hulick, author of one of the most exciting novels of 2011, Among Thieves. I bought the novel electronically. After reading it, I was stunned to learn that it was limited to a mass market paperback. Similar to 2012 debut author Myke Cole's Control Point (also an Ace/Roc mass market paperback), Among Thieves became a success due almost entirely to word of mouth as opposed to the big-six marketing machine.

Hulick's novel adds a new chapter to the thief subgenre and it stands out as the best thing to happen to it since Scott Lynch's masterpiece, The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's also unique in the characterization of Drothe, Hulick's protagonist and narrator. Namely, he's not special. The result is a character that the reader can identify with in a personal way even while he accomplishes things way outside the purview of his natural ability.

Let's see what he has to say about writing his sequel, Sworn in Steel...

***

For the last post in this series about debut authors and their second novels, it seems only fitting that I come at the subject from a slightly different direction. Where all my predecessors have talked to you from the perspective of someone who's finished their sophomore effort, I'm going to talk to you from the trenches directly. See, I haven't finished my second novel. In fact, it's pretty damn late.

How damn late? Let's just say I was expecting to have my third book in the series done and turned in by now.

Of course, it's not like I planned for this to happen. As Mazarkis mentioned earlier this week, I was well aware of what was riding on the second book, not only for readers, but also for my reputation as a writer. Plus, I had the added advantage of being in a SF/F writer's group that can count over forty professionally published novels among its seven members. None of what was coming, be it deadlines or marketing distractions or the limits imposed by a previous book, were news to me. I had, through my fellows, seen it all before. There should have been no surprises.

And yet, here I sit, 18 months past deadline, still carving my way through the forest that is Book 2 (otherwise known as Sworn in Steel).

What happened?

I could give you a blow by blow of my progress and stumbles and discoveries, but really, it all comes down to one thing: I forgot how to write. Or, to be more precise, I forgot how I write.

For a long while, I kept blaming my delay on my method of plotting. I was always a pantser, meaning that, beyond a general character and story arc, and maybe a bit of plot, I didn't plan a whole lot. After all, I'd taken over a decade to get my first book on paper: surely it was my meandering about the page, following characters who at times seemed to be under the influence of too many tequila shooters, that had caused my delay. Couldn't I point at my earlier process for my current downfall?

But then I looked at my legal pad, heavy with outline and plot points; at what I had of my first draft, directed and, if not tight, still arguably endowed with strong forward momentum. No, I couldn't lay it at plot's door.

How about speed, then? Lord knew I'd always been a slow writer. Doubling my daily word count after my first book had initially involved going from 250 words a day to 500. (That may not seem like much, but please understand that I have, on average, four hours a day to write, five days a week, nine months out of the year. So, yeah, sloooow.) If it wasn't plot, then it had to be my sheer glacial pace.

Except, at the end of a year's worth of work on Sworn in Steel I had generated almost 200,000 words in total. That was a full 75,000 above and beyond my target. And while not all words are good words, still...come on. 200K? It wasn't lack of production.

So what was it? Blind alleys in the story? Too much verbiage? Too easily distra---oh, look a penny!

All were problems, yes, but none could explain the key issue I was having. None gave me a reason for my inability to *finish the damn book.*

And then, it hit me. In all the preparation, all the planning, all the daily word counts and plot points, I'd forgotten how I'd written the first (and my only, to date) book. In my attempt to get Sworn in Steel done, to get it ready to be handed over to my editor, I kept looking to the final version my first book, Among Thieves, as a guide post. That was the mistake.

Even though Among Thieves wasn't on the bookstore shelves when I started Sworn in Steel, it was still a polished piece of work. It had gone through innumerable rewrites on my end before being submitted, and then edited and copyedited as well. The only problem was, this had taken place over the course of years--years which conveniently fell out of my memory. All I saw was the final product--the tightly plotted, fast-paced novel that had secured me a three book contract with a Big Six publisher. And that's what I set out to write.

In short, what tripped me up was that I tried to write the final draft as my first draft. And while that probably sounds bad enough on its own, add on the fact that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my work (“a bit”? I can hear my wife saying, along with peals of sarcastic laughter), and, well, you can see where things went off the rails.

So, have I learned anything? Looking at the above, yeah, I think I can say that I have. (I damn well better have, or Book 3 is gonna kill me!) But even more than the nuts & bolts stuff, I realized that, as much as we may beat ourselves up as new authors, there are people who are still rooting for us (even when we're horribly late). Editors, agents, and especially readers (oh, BLESS the readers, who have been unfailingly polite, not to mention the first ones to tell me to “take as long as you need”) who honestly want to see us and our books succeed. Fellow writers who nod and worry and call in the middle of the afternoon to say, “Dude, are you alright? You've gone missing for, like, three weeks....” Family and friends who grit their teeth and put up with us as we try to navigate this new career and all the stresses it can entail.

The second book is, in many ways, a much more lonely, terrifying, and frustrating slog than the freshman effort. It is our first real exposure to what it means to be a professional writer. And, as we've seen these last two weeks, it's a different experience for each of us. But it's also very much that same, in that we each learn not only how to push and stretch and believe in ourselves, but also how much we aren't alone in this after all.

***

You can find Douglas Hulick on the web and Twitter. Be sure to visit the former to learn more about the Tales of the Kin series. Hulick is a 17th century Italian rapier combat (in the tradition of Ridolfo Capoferro) hobbyist. Come to WorldCon and watch him teach it!

Unfortunately, because Sworn in Steel is deep in the editorial process, there won't be an excerpt later today. I'm sobbing too. It's ok. Instead, I'll be announcing a huge grand prize giveaway to commemorate the end of Debut Authorpalooza 2012. Stay tuned.

Guest Post | Mazarkis Williams Says Writing is Writing

The Emperor's Knife is one of the several titles released over the last twelve months that fit into Paul Weimer's designation of silkroad fantasy. That is to say, it's a fantasy novel that wraps itself in the cultural texture of the Middle East and the Eurasian Steppe. Williams' novel succeeds most often when Sarmin is on screen, a mentally unstable prince capable of anything, including manipulating the pattern, an abstract magic that I still only barely grasp.

It's a complex world Williams has created, and the plot woven through it is equally layered. There are some ups and downs in relation to narrative pacing and some overly opaque foreshadowing, but all told it's a novel I can strongly recommend and promises to be a memorable series. I should also point out the wonderful cover for Williams second book, Knifesworn, which depicts a covered female figure, a welcome departure from the poses so often associated with genre.

Let's give a big round of mouse clicks to Mazarkis Williams...

***

Writing is always the same job no matter what your status, but to the people around you, there is a tremendous difference between published and not published. A few years ago, whenever people asked, I would tell them, “I write,” followed inevitably just a few seconds later with, “No, I haven’t published anything.” People pitied me, scorned me, or were just confused how to act when they heard I was unpublished. After all, it looks like a failure – everyone else can produce satisfied clients, paychecks, or some other tangible result of their labor.

Once I crossed that publishing hurdle, I learned to my surprise that I am actually an interesting person. It turns out I am more witty and talented than I had believed. Everyone wants to talk about the next book, ask how many copies I’ve sold (don’t know), or learn more about the publishing world (so do I). But I’m still the same person. I continue to write the same, slow way and face the same issues. And for years I’ve been internalizing those strange, pitying looks, those incredulous smiles. You’re a writer? Yeah, right.

Read more »

Guest Post | Stina Leicht has Trouble with the Troubles

Of all the first novels involved in this event, Stina Leicht's Of Blood and Honey was the only I hadn't finished yet prior to agreeing to host them. I was about halfway through, having seen enough to recommend it, but not really knowing how high it would rank. As I finished it last weekend it became pretty clear that any doubts I had about my ability to trumpet it were foolish. It's an amazing blend of historical fiction, urban fantasy, and magical realism that captures the wonder of fantasy and the authenticity of history.

Leicht hit on a fascinating time in history, a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. Reading her novel I was as drawn into the setting as I was to Liam's story. The end result is a perfect marrying of the two and a novel I strongly suggest everyone read. It's certainly worthy of the recognition Leicht has received as a 2012 nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Stina Leicht on trouble with The Troubles...

***

Hi!

I'm Stina Leicht -- SF and F writer, reader, history nut, martial artist, muscle car enthusiast, music freak, and dabbler in paint, photography, and er… baking. Oh, and I travel as much as I can. And Blue Skies from Pain (second in the Fey and the Fallen series) is my second published novel. I was short-listed for a 2012 Crawford Award, and I'm a nominee for the 2012 Campbell Award for Best New Author.

What was it like to write And Blue Skies from Pain versus Of Blood and Honey (my first published novel)?

Read more »

Guest Post | Courtney Schafer Holding onto Joy

There will always be a special place in my heart for Courtney Schafer's The Whitefire Crossing. It's the first book I reviewed as a blogger that felt like discovery. I was the first blogger to review it (I think), and I absolutely adored it. Complete with a setting that shines in Schafer's experienced mountain climber hands, Whitefire is a charming chase novel that promises a much deeper plot in future novels.

I should mention that Schafer took a real risk with Whitefire's narration, swapping between first and third person depending on the point of view. It's a tough thing to do for any author, especially an author in her debut, but Schafer pulls it off with aplomb, further evidence to the fact that she'll be in this business for a long time. I hope anyone who reads this post will give her a shot.

Here's Courtney Schafer...

***

I’ve heard some authors say their second published novel came easier than their first. To which I say: you lucky, lucky bastards! But since I’ve already talked elsewhere about why carving the Taj Mahal out of marble with my fingernails might’ve been easier than writing The Tainted City, I won’t rehash the details here. I’ll just say that I think many of the difficulties of writing a second novel can be summed up with this: before publication, writing is an escape from stress. After publication, writing becomes a source of stress. Learning to manage the stress while maintaining the joy is a different process for every author, and the solution isn’t always easy to find.

Anyway, now that The Tainted City is in copyedits and about to leave my hands at last, I don’t want to focus on the authorial agonies of getting here. I’d much rather celebrate the good parts of the process! So here are three lessons I learned that helped me hold onto the fun of writing even on days when finishing the book felt as impossible as summiting K2 in the dead of winter.

Read more »

Guest Post | Elspeth Cooper Tries to Write One Book at a Time (and fails)

Unlike the others books in this event, Songs of the Earth was released months earlier in the UK than it was here in the States. It made me a little grumpy. I don't like to wait. I resisted the urge to pester my favorite UK publicist, Jon Weir, and waited until it came to Tor in early 2012. When I finally cracked the novel I was quickly transported to a world steeped in superstitious tradition, unwilling to recognize the unraveling of reality around it. Cooper's plot follows a coming-of-age format, but interweaves others' stories to create a lush narrative.

One of those stories is Aysha, the shapeshifting university professor and love interest for Cooper's protagonist. She's also one of the best portrayals of disability I've ever read in genre and I'd recommend the book just for her scenes even if the rest was no good. Thankfully, the rest is good too.  Songs is a wonderful first novel that demonstrates Cooper's talent and promises a long writing career.

Let's welcome Elspeth Cooper...

***

I discovered something about myself recently: I have a distressing tendency to try to write two books at once. Some writers can do this, switching effortlessly between different projects and somehow keeping both of them on the straight and narrow. Such writers have my undying admiration, but such writers are not me.

You see, I’m what they call a pantser. I don’t write chapter plans, or paper the wall above my desk with character summaries on 3x5 index cards. I have a beginning, a few high points to hit along the way, and fly by the seat of my pants for the rest. It’s exciting; I love being led onwards by my characters, but sometimes they get impatient, the scamps, and I end up writing bits that belong in the box marked “Not yet, dammit!” – only I don’t always realise it straight away.

Read more »

Guest Post | Kameron Hurley Says Don't Lose Your Edge

God's War was a sneaky title. First under contract with Random House, then cut loose, Night Shade Books picked it up, and released it in early 2011. It released to little fanfare, but through word of mouth, and a few influencers, it grew into one of the most buzzed about novels anywhere. By year's end Hurley was nominated for a Nebula Award, and won the Kitschy Award for best debut novel. 

Along with its sequel Infidel, God's War is touted to be about “Bugs. Blood. Brutal women.” Unlike a lot catch phrases, those three ideas capture Hurley's style perfectly. Comparisons between authors is difficult, but if I had to compare Hurley to anyone, I would call her the love child of Joe Abercrombie and China Miéville, sans the Britishness and baldness (Miéville only... so far), with a stronger sense for the female character. I'm eagerly awaiting Rapture, the third (and final?) book in the Bel Dame Apocrypha.  

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Kameron Hurley...

***

I’m one of those writers who reads all their reviews. When you try to tackle complex issues in your fiction – race, class, gender, religion, war, colonialism – it’s good to keep an eye on how other people are reading what you’ve written. One wrong word can completely ruin a book for somebody; one lazy assumption can destroy a reader’s confidence in not only your story, but in you as a storyteller.

I’d heard that reading too many reviews could cripple you as a writer, especially as a first time novelist writing your second book. With great power – or, in this case, expectations – comes great responsibility. But I got lucky when I started writing my second book – the contract for my first book, God's War, was canceled, so instead of looking at a lot of reviews, I spent all that time finishing up the second book while my agent shopped it around to the next publisher. 

Read more »

Guest Post | Mark Lawrence on Scary Shit

Prince of Thorns was one of those books I had to buy. For a book reviewer, who gets plenty of free reading options, that's a significant factoid -- especially for a debut author. But, Mark Lawrence's debut had such an incredible amount of buzz it demanded my attention.

Reading him for the first time left a strange taste in my mouth. His protagonist is completely unlikeable, loathsome even. And yet... two words that demonstrate the kind of talent Lawrence possesses as a writer. Despite all of Jorg Ancrath's despicable qualities I want so much to know his story. If you haven't given Prince of Thorns a try, or you're on the fence about reading King of Thorns (my review will be done soon), hopefully this post will set you on the righteous path, a direction wantonly ignored by Lawrence's boy king.

Mark Lawrence leads off Debut Authorpalooza 2012.

***

Writing book two is some scary shit!

It would have been much worse if I were writing it now after seeing the reception that Prince of Thorns received. Firstly I would feel all those fans of book one at my shoulder, wanting book two to blow their minds. Secondly I would have had a vociferous minority of critical voices nagging at me, scratching away at the back of my thoughts, and quite possibly cramping my style. Most likely by me going out of my way to irk them further!

Read more »

Today I wrote a post somewhere else...

Jared Shurin of Pornokitsch, who along with his partner Anne Perry writes one of the best blogs on planet Earth, queried the Twitter about people's favorite novels from their childhoods. I responded with The Sword of Shannara and thought nothing else of it. Then Jared asked me to write about it. It took me a while. I had no idea what angle to take or how to put my thoughts into words.

This is what I can up with:

1/17/94 

Not a date the world recognizes. It's not 5/8/45 or 11/22/63 or 7/20/69 or 9/11/01. But, January 17, 1994, just outside Los Angeles, California, an earthquake struck. Fifty-seven people lost their lives and nearly nine thousand were injured. Twenty billion in property damage, it remains one of the most devastating natural disasters in history. 

It was a seminal moment in my life for wholly different reasons.

Read the rest of the post at Pornokitsch. 

Guest Post | Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

I've noticed more and more authors lamenting the treatment of women in fantasy novels. Despite widespread agreement that there should be a more concerted effort to depict strong women, I wasn't necessarily coming away with the impression that agency is something a character has to have. I asked a swathe of fantasy authors about their thoughts on the subject. Some of the questions I asked the authors to consider were:

• What is agency?
• Why is it important? 
• Why do we find more male characters with agency in fantasy novels than females? 
• Is it OK if a character doesn't have it?
• Can a character still be interesting if it lacks it? 
• Can a book be good if none of the characters have it?

The answers I received were varied. When this series is all said and I done I hope to have an informed opinion on the subject. For now, I'm going to listen.

In the final installment of the series...

Robin Hobb.

                                                                                    

Wow, are you asking the wrong person! I tried to find a discussion about it on the Internet, I flunked. So, speaking very off the top of my head and a bit flippantly, I uh, still don’t know what the discussion was about.

In fact, I looked at the heading of your message and your first question and my answer was, “Agency is the guy in New York who does all the boring parts of being a writer in exchange for 15% of the take. In my case, The Lotts Agency. And it is a very fine Agency indeed! I am a writer and I got Agency.” In that sense.

It’s not a word I would use in the way you’ve described as I suspect it has migrated to literature from philosophy or sociology. People using that word undoubtedly know what they mean by it when they apply it to characters in a story, but I don’t.

Not speaking specifically of ‘Agency’ but of any specific quality in a fictional character (intelligence, charisma, endurance, physical trait), I would say that it’s fair for a reviewer to call the reader’s attention to the presence or absence of it. If there are no women in a tale, or no left-handed vegetarians, that’s a fair thing to mention if the reviewer’s readership is specifically interested in tales that feature women or if it’s for the Left-handed Vegetarians Journal. After all, readers read book reviews to find books they will enjoy.

As a reader myself, I like a wide variety of characters, with all sorts of talents, aspects, attitudes and backgrounds. So, for me, for a character to lack a specific trait, or for all the characters to lack a specific trait is not a big deal. It’s simply how that story is told. Example: I am completely unbothered by the ‘lack’ of female characters in Lord of the Rings (book). The makeup of the Fellowship fits the society he created in the story. And a character does not have to be female for me to identify with him. So, for me, it’s not an issue. Nor is it a ‘lack’.

If we carry this ‘characters must have agency’ thing to its logical conclusion, then we are going to end up with a checklist of characters and traits that every book must have in order to be ‘good’: Lovely young woman with agency, check! Drunken sea captain, check! Angsty white prince, check! Philosophical tea-sipping dragon, check! Lesbian war-monger, check! Psychotic editor, check! Dashing, handsome, intelligent, charismatic, agency-possessing part-time dragon-slayer and book reviewer, check!

Lord save me from having to pander to my readers’ special interests in order to rate a ‘good book’ label!

I write the characters who live in my world. Then I invite the readers in.

If I read a book and find that the characters don’t work for me, I put it down and read a different book. So I guess that I, as a reader, have agency, too!

                                                                                    

Robin Hobb is an International Bestselling author of bunch of books. She has recently finished writing a four-volume series called The Rain Wild Chronicles. The volumes are named The Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven and City of Dragons, with Blood of Dragons forthcoming in 2013. Her other recent release, The Inheritance, is a collection of short fiction published by Subterranean Press.

Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is
Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency
Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams
The Weekend Edition of Character Agency (Long)
Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?
Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

Guest Post | Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?

I've noticed more and more authors lamenting the treatment of women in fantasy novels. Despite widespread agreement that there should be a more concerted effort to depict strong women, I wasn't necessarily coming away with the impression that agency is something a character has to have. I asked a swathe of fantasy authors about their thoughts on the subject. Some of the questions I asked the authors to consider were:

• What is agency?
• Why is it important? 
• Why do we find more male characters with agency in fantasy novels than females? 
• Is it OK if a character doesn't have it?
• Can a character still be interesting if it lacks it? 
• Can a book be good if none of the characters have it?

The answers I received were varied. When this series is all said and I done I hope to have an informed opinion on the subject. For now, I'm going to listen.

In the penultimate installment of the series...


Shirley Jackson Award winner, Robert Jackson Bennett.

                                                                                    

Agency can be a tough thing to nail down. We can definitely tell when a character has it, and when they don’t; though what they have, precisely, isn’t quite so distinct. As it’s already been pointed out, “agent” essentially means “to do,” but it’s perfectly possible to have a character doing all sorts of things, yet they feel like they have no agency. So what does it mean?

To me, a character has agency when they’re a player in The Game – when they’re invested in what’s happening, when they have an agenda, and they’ve thought out how to pursue it and are actively working to achieve it. If a character has no agency, then they’re either on the sidelines, watching, or they’re not part of The Game at all, and might as well be offstage for the story.

The Game, of course, is decided by the story: while I’m sure a mortgage lender character would have  a strong agenda and would actively pursue it, in a story about second character trying to locate and defuse a bomb, the mortgage lender is probably background. The Game is about the bomb – other characters may have their own games in their head, but the story hasn’t framed them to make them a priority.

Now, like I said, just because a character is actively doing something in a story, it doesn’t mean they have agency. If a character is trying something and repeatedly failing and not adjusting their actions, and seems wholly ignorant to the idea that they might want to do that, then they are not so much an agent as a device, committing the same action over and over, and not taking in information or contemplating their situation.

An agent must not only have an agenda central to the story that they are actively pursuing: they must also connect and communicate with the world around them in a reasonably intelligent fashion, and adjust their behavior accordingly.

And yes, it’s possible to have a main character be a device more than an agent: it’s just usually not very satisfying to read about.

As to whether or not agency is important, that depends on the story. The story sets the frame and the objectives of The Game. And sometimes the objectives don’t concern the characters’ actions at all. Elizabeth has examined two great examples in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, and Waiting for Godot; I’d also suggest looking at something like Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or Suttree, where the characters feel very small, dwarfed by the landscape of the world, and their actions frequently have little effect on the story. Because that’s not what the story’s interested in observing – if anything, the story’s interested in how little the world cares about what people do. The point of those stories, especially Blood Meridian, might be in examining how people don’t have agency.

I do think the majority of contemporary popular culture frequently relegates women to the capacity of device more than agent. There’s even the character type of The Girl, as in “Does he get the girl at the end?” which does not quite acknowledge her as a person as much as a component in a story structure. The Girl is backdrop; The Girl is a goal, an objective; The Girl is not a player in The Game.

Though sometimes female characters can accompany a main character in attempting to accomplish something – a sidekick role, frequently spunky, often not romantically involved with the main character, because that’s reserved for The Girl – they aren’t directly invested in The Game: they’re invested in the person they’re helping, frequently male, even if it is in a platonic fashion.

And I think a lot of this is self-perpetuating. People write stories like this because these are the stories they read, and these stories are ubiquitous. And I think these writers – almost entirely male – are also rather divorced from interacting with girls and women throughout their lives. I know I was: as a kid, there was something of a floating, unspoken rule among male society that girls were not to be made friends with, that they were For Later, though exactly what that meant we didn’t know. There were things girls did, things boys did, and the twain should never meet. So in many subtle and unsubtle ways, I do think our culture encourages a lack of contact between the sexes, perpetuating a system in which a young man can come of age without ever having really talked to, or come to understand, any woman in any way at all. (Viz, the internet.)

So you have boys growing up that way, and when these boys decide to write stories, female characters become just sort of a big blind spot, a vast unknown that they don’t know how to apply agency to. Women then become devices and components in the story, framework to hang characteristics on and perhaps serve as interesting backdrop, and not much more.

I do think agency isn’t quite as necessary as everyone might think, depending on the book. It’s possible for an author to approach a character as a case study, examining their reactions within a given set of circumstances, which isn’t the same thing as agency. And I think a writer – and perhaps this requires a higher level of talent – can make a character without agency interesting and compelling.

After all, sometimes we feel we don’t have agency in our own lives: sometimes we only get to sit and watch. In the right hands, this can be no less involving and compelling than, say, a character racing through a mortgage lending firm, trying to find and defuse a very dangerous bomb.

                                                                                    

Robert Jackson Bennett is the author of three novels: The Company Man, Mr. Shivers, and The Troupe. He's live in Austin, Texas. He once (digitally) put shoe polish on his infant's face to simulate facial hair. His newest novel, The Troupe, is exceptional.

Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is
Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency
Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams
The Weekend Edition of Character Agency (Long)
Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?
Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

Guest Post | Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams

I've noticed more and more authors lamenting the treatment of women in fantasy novels. Despite widespread agreement that there should be a more concerted effort to depict strong women, I wasn't necessarily coming away with the impression that agency is something a character has to have. I asked a swathe of fantasy authors about their thoughts on the subject. Some of the questions I asked the authors to consider were:

• What is agency?
• Why is it important? 
• Why do we find more male characters with agency in fantasy novels than females? 
• Is it OK if a character doesn't have it?
• Can a character still be interesting if it lacks it? 
• Can a book be good if none of the characters have it?

The answers I received were varied. When this series is all said and I done I hope to have an informed opinion on the subject. For now, I'm going to listen.

In the third installment of the series...

Author of The Emperor's Knife, Mazarkis Williams

                                                                                    

A character with agency can speak for herself and make her own decisions. Her actions are grounded in her free will, her beliefs, and her desires and hopes. But it is not enough for the writer to know that is the case; when a character pulls a lever and saves the world, it is an empty event unless the decisions and choices the character made on the way to that lever are written into the story.

In gaming there is a term for bad GMmanship: “railroading.” It means the GM pushes you along the adventure when there is no reason for your character to be there. Some powerful person or god is feeding you clues and making sure you encounter the right bad guys and the right time. Your character has little say in the matter; all you need to do is to be there and roll the dice when it’s time to fight. It’s no fun. You want to go to the tavern or buy a magic sword with the money you got from the last adventure, but here you are traipsing through the salt plains for no discernible reason.

That’s what it’s like for a character who is stuck reacting to the plot. The reader can’t tell what motivates him to walk this way and that, pull a lever, press a button – whatever – because he is constantly being faced with new developments and forced to react because the story requires it. You might be told he feels happy about an achievement, but you don’t otherwise get that from the text. Nothing seems to flow from his own initiative.

But does a character stuck in an intensely plot-driven book lack agency? No; It just seems that way sometimes, because the story focus is elsewhere. And for me this is where agency and writing choices get mixed together, especially where female characters are concerned. There are cases in which a character truly lacks agency – based on her situation – and this is legitimate, though tricky to write. (And it should be temporary – characters are flat-out uninteresting if they can’t make choices and influence the path of events.) Other times, a character appears to lack agency because she exists only for plot-y reasons, or is badly written. ‘Badly written’ can include having a man, or a god, or anything else telling her what to do all the time. Technically she does not lack agency if she chooses to do whatever she’s told, but oh gods is it dull. And makes me raise my eyebrow at you (not really – I can’t do that cool thing with my eyebrow).

In all of these cases, I feel any perceived issues can be fixed with better writing. Give the characters depth. Let them walk a path filled with choices and errors and hopes – a path that leads to that last, big moment. Make us not only understand why they are pulling that lever, stabbing that guy, or poisoning that wine but put us right there with them, cheering them on (or hiding our eyes). And don’t just tell. Make us feel. By bringing out the humanity of our characters, male and female, we enrich our stories. That can never be bad.

                                                                                    

Mazarkis Williams is an enigma and the author of the novel The Emperor's Knife. Williams straddles the Atlantic like the Colossus of Rhodes. This author's gender is unknown, which is irrelevant normally, but may have some bearing on this conversation.



Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is
Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency
Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams
The Weekend Edition of Character Agency (Long)
Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?
Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

Guest Post | Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency

I've noticed more and more authors lamenting the treatment of women in fantasy novels. Despite widespread agreement that there should be a more concerted effort to depict strong women, I wasn't necessarily coming away with the impression that agency is something a character has to have. I asked a swathe of fantasy authors about their thoughts on the subject. Some of the questions I asked the authors to consider were:

• What is agency?
• Why is it important? 
• Why do we find more male characters with agency in fantasy novels than females? 
• Is it OK if a character doesn't have it?
• Can a character still be interesting if it lacks it? 
• Can a book be good if none of the characters have it?

The answers I received were varied. When this series is all said and I done I hope to have an informed opinion on the subject. For now, I'm going to listen.

In the second installment of the series...

Author of The Riyria Revelations, Michael J. Sullivan.

                                                                                    

Justin Landon from Staffer’s Musings sent me an email regarding the subject of agency, and in particular how it applies to women characters and fantasy. I’ve actually only run across that term once, during a particularly negative review (that I would prefer to just fade away), but not being one to shrink from controversy I told him I would give a few opinions on the subject.

As I understand it, “agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.” – thanks Wikipedia.

As a fantasy author who writes in an invented world that closely resembles Medieval Europe, I have followed the social conventions of that age. In that context, women do indeed have fewer opportunities than men. Does this mean that I think women shouldn’t have agency? Not at all, and in fact I have a six book series where women break the bonds of convention and become as strong and independent as any of their male counterparts. It’s true that early in the series some women are portrayed as locked in established roles, but I did so to provide a contrast to what they develop into.

Because many fantasy authors also set their stories in worlds where men are dominant, it is very reasonable for people, and especially women, to become frustrated and disappointed with how the female sex have been portrayed over the years. But in the author’s defense, I think it has more to do with a desire for authenticity, then a desire to pigeonhole women. So, I think when determining agency, or lack thereof, it is important to consider context. For instance, I would never use the “n” word privately or publically, but in a novel set in the south, or in racially divided Detroit in the sixties, should I not use this term because it will offend modern readers? For me the answer would be no. It is more important for my novel to be true to its context.

I would suspect that women (writing a review discussing female characters), are more likely to mention a lack of agency because they are more sensitive to the practice. But I also think people see what they want to see, and they will discount or ignore anything that refutes their pre-conceived notions. For example in the case of the review I previously mentioned, the reviewer pointed out that a young women who turned suicidal by the death of her father was a poor representation of women with agency. But this same reviewer didn’t mention how the girl took it upon herself to travel a great distance to hire men to save her father in the first place. Depending on your perspective, you can come to very different opinions on Thrace’s independence.

So why doesn’t agency come up in relation to men? Well mainly because men have always had agency and have been portrayed as such. I’m old enough to have lived through the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies, and my wife obtained an Electrical Engineering degree in 1984 when only three of her graduating class of several hundred had been women. For my daughter’s generation it’s hard to imagine a time when women’s choices were indeed limited, and if fact it wasn’t all that long ago. Since writing mirrors society, it will take time to balance the scales.

Justin also asked if a character can be interesting if they lack agency. My answer is yes, and in some cases it is a legitimate technique to have characters subjected to trials and tribulations that have nothing to do with decisions they make. While I’m sure most didn’t think of him this way (maybe because the character was male), Forest Gump is the perfect example of someone who floats through life allowing others to decide his fate. He joins the football team, not because he wants to play the game, but because others saw his ability. He joins the army, not because he wants to, but because a recruiter approaches him at the exact moment he was trying to decide what to do next. Even his lucrative fishing career wasn’t Forest’s idea, but a fulfillment of a promise to a dead friend. I did enjoy the character of Forest Gump and was invested with his ups and downs. For me I was riveted to see where the winds of fate would take him, so lack of agency doesn't always have to be negative.

Actually, now that I think of it, many fantasy characters (both male and female) are subjected to a predetermined destiny. No matter what decisions they make, their fate is sealed and yet we often don’t jump to a criticism about lack of agency. I’m not sure what part this has played into sensitivities on the subject, but it might just go to show that there is a great deal of foundation that has been laid, and until there is a larger body of work showing strong-willed independent thinkers (especially women) we may continue to find those that take offense to any characters that lacks agency, even if it is done purposefully for dramatic effect.

                                                                                    

Michael J. Sullivan is the author of the very successful Riyria Revelations. Initially self published, Sullivan sold thousands of copies on his own before the series was purchased by Orbit Books. To learn more about him and his series, visit his website or follow him on Twitter.



Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is
Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency
Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams
The Weekend Edition of Character Agency (Long)
Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?
Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

Guest Post | Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is

Several of last year's more controversial reviews included charges that female characters lacked agency. Not surprisingly the comment sections on those reviews reflected a great deal of confusion about what it means for a character to lack agency, and furthermore some disagreement about whether it was a legitimate criticism. While those examples brought the issue to my attention, I've noticed more and more authors lamenting the treatment of women in fantasy novels. Despite widespread agreement that there should be a more concerted effort to depict strong women, I wasn't necessarily coming away with the impression that agency is something a character has to have.

Given the wonderful Women in SF&F series currently being conducted by Kristen at Fantasy Book Cafe, I thought now might be an appropriate time to 'survey' a wide swathe of fantasy authors about their thoughts on the subject. Some of the questions I asked the authors to consider were:

• What is agency?
• Why is it important? 
• Why do we find more male characters with agency in fantasy novels than females? 
• Is it OK if a character doesn't have it?
• Can a character still be interesting if it lacks it? 
• Can a book be good if none of the characters have it?

The answers I received were wide and varied. Over the next few days I'm going to share those answers. Some are long, some are not as long. I asked women, I asked men, and I even asked an author whose gender is a mystery. I asked authors who've been published for thirty years and some who haven't even made it a full year yet. When this series is all said and I done I hope to have an informed opinion on the subject. For now, I'm going to listen.

Up first....

2005 John W. Campbell Award Winner, 2008 Hugo Award Winner for Best Short Story, and 2009 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novelette, Elizabeth Bear.

                                                                               

Agency, as we use the term in literary circles, is--quite frankly--the thing that makes characters interesting to the reader. As much as we talk about tactics of characterization that may or may not appeal to any particular reader (making the character accessible, making them funny, making them identifiable)... the one thing that I have found that does not fail to connect to the audience is giving a character agency.

You ask what it is: it's actually quite simple, for all that many writers have a hard time internalizing and writing it.

Agency is when a character has an agenda, and is making attempts to complete that agenda. This is the so called try/fail cycle of the three act structure of genre fiction; when internalized, it's the striving that drives literary fiction. It's what the character wants, and what they need, and what they are willing to do to get it.

We also refer to it as "protagging," because it's what protagonists do.

Kurt Vonnegut famously offered this bit of advice to writers: "Make your character want something, even if it's only a glass of water."

Now--especially in mythic fiction--there can be what we refer to as the refusal of the call before the protagonist settles in to doing their job. The character still wants something: they want to be left alone.

Rick in Casablanca says, "I stick my neck out for nobody." His refusal is active. It can even be heroic, as when a protagonist chooses not to fight in an unjust war, for example.

And when the protagonist converts to pursuit of a different goal, he actively pursues that goal.

So agency is having an agenda. Being an agent. From the Latin, agere: "to do"

Agency is doing stuff. Not because somebody else tells you to, but because it's got to be done.

A lot of people use the term "strong female character" to mean "kickass heroine." I think this is silly. In my estimation, one of the strongest women in Range of Ghosts never picks up a weapon. She's a fourteen-year-old-girl who escapes execution for being pregnant with the wrong man's child by running across a desert at night in her bedroom slippers.

That's pretty damned tough. She wants to live, and she wants her child to live, and she does what she has to do to make it happen.

Readers love agency. It lends narrative drive and connection better than any other tactic (I'd say any other three tactics) that a writer can use.

As for why female characters have it less often than male ones? Well, there's an implicit assumption in the question that I'm not sure I agree with. Do they really? Does Lessa have less agency than F'lar? Does Juliet have less agency than Romeo? Does Jessica have less agency than Paul? Does Elizabeth have less agency than Mr. Darcy?

Women may have traditionally had to express their agency in more limited ways--but that doesn't mean it's not there. Just that they were pushing a bigger boulder uphill to express what they want, and their options on what to do to get it were more limited.

But for the moment taking the question in the spirit in which it was offered, I'd say that if women are written passively by some authors (for reasons other than to make a literary point--which we'll get to in a moment), it's due to two things:

1. bad writing and
2. failure to interrogate an internalized social construct that men are active and women are acted upon. Which has probably never been true, but it's one of the founding myths of the patriarchy, ain't it?

As for the question of whether a character can be interesting and a book can be "good" if none of the characters have it--well. Waiting for Godot is still taught and performed, and the entire point of that play is that none of the characters have the least little bit of agency. Not a scrap, not a speck. They exist in a blur of existential despair.

But that's a special case, and we're not all Samuel Beckett, and frankly, I've read Waiting for Godot three times, I've seen it performed, and I hate the fucking thing. I mean, I admire it: it's a hell of a technical accomplishment.

But it's boring and painful.

And as genre authors, we're generally not trying to be boring and painful, because we're here to entertain as well as enlighten. Literature doesn't have to *hurt.*

Now, as a counterexample, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Again, a play in which nobody has a hell of a lot of agency, for literary and thematic reasons. They don't really want anything, and when they kind of start to, universe itself thwarts their attempts at agency! As it is written, so it shall be... and I kind of love it.

Because it's funny.

Now, your mileage may vary. There are those who love Godot and hate R&G.

But I'd suggest that unless a writer is Tom Stoppard or Samuel Beckett, a writer might want to go with making their characters a little more active. Especially when writing for a genre audience--and a genre audience of which about half is going to be seriously upset with the work if they notice that all the women just sit around waiting to be rescued.

(And yes, GODOT and R&G are both rather light on female characters, but they were the contrasting works I could think of that demonstrate how to use lack-of-agency as a thematic technique.)

                                                                               

Elizabeth Bear is the author of a shitload of novels and short stories, nearly all of which are reputed to be awesome. I've only read Range of Ghosts, and I can testify to its awesomeness. I suggest everyone who enjoyed this post to read it.



Elizabeth Bear Knows What Agency Is
Michael J. Sullivan on Character Agency
Bad GMs Don't Allow Agency - Mazarkis Williams
The Weekend Edition of Character Agency (Long)
Is Robert Jackson Bennett a Secret Agent?
Robin Hobb Brings the Agency Discussion to a Close

Today I wrote a post somewhere else...

The Speculative Scotsman is on vacation in America. He's taking the unlikely tour of the American South for his first trip to the States. To keep his blog alive and well during his absence, Niall asked me to write a post for him. Ok, he also asked like twenty other people many of whom have already had their posts run, but for the purposes of this particular write up let's assume he only asked me because he thinks I'm the best. I think Niall would have preferred me to write something professional and well thought out. Maybe a review or a post about genre stuff. I did no such thing; I wrote about sex (not gender).

Oh, and if for some reason you're following MY blog, and NOT Niall's, you should definitely remedy that situation when you click through to read the rest of my "article". Enjoy!

Sex. Dirty, icky, squishy, sloppy, romantic, loving, and harmoanious (sic) sex. Most fantasy novels have it to one degree or another, but very few seem to get it right. Ask any author, what's the hardest thing to write? Most of them, I suspect, would answer sex. Although, Sam Sykes would probably say something like words. Smart asses aside, sex is hard because everyone's had it. Unlike sword fights, or politics, or horse riding, sex is a universal experience. If an author gets it wrong, readers will know it on a visceral level.

Read the rest at The Speculative Scotman 

Today I Wrote Posts Somewhere Else

Stefan Raets, owner and operator of the excellent blog Far Beyond Reality, joined me here on my blog a few weeks ago to talk about the Hugo Award (here). I decided to reciprocate and wrote a post for his blog today. Stefan has a regular feature called 'Fifty Page Friday' where he gives a book he would normally not read fifty pages to win him over. At which point he writes it up. I took a stab at my own 'Fifty Page Friday' with Chrysanthe by Yves Meynard, a new fantasy from Tor.

Check it out at Far Beyond Reality.


I also joined Stefan Fergus at Civilian Reader today to talk about why zombies have a biological imperative to eat brains. While authors Myke Cole and Sam Sykes weigh in on the subject as well, I find my account to be the most compelling and hilarious. But, who am I to judge?

Check it out at Civilian Reader.

Guest Post | Love a Blog? Nominate It by Stefan Raets

The deadline to submit your Hugo nominations is March 11th. The Hugo Awards are the fan awards, unlike, say, the Nebulas, which are voted on by members of the SFWA, an organization that has certain criteria in terms of membership. The Hugo Awards are open to anyone who was a member of last year's Worldcon or becomes a member of this or next year's Worldcons. That could be you. You can become a Supporting Member of this year's Worldcon (called ChiCon) for just $50, and for that amount you also will get this year's Hugo Voter Packet. We're not sure yet what that will entail, but last year's packet contained e-versions of every single novel, anthology, novella, novelette, short story and graphic novel on the final ballot, as well as a bunch of other goodies. If it’s something similar this year, the packet is easily worth twice the cost of the Supporting Membership - plus you get to be an active participant in the Hugo process and help decide the winners in the genre's biggest awards. If you're at all interested in SF&F, and I assume you are if you're still reading this, you should really consider becoming a Supporting Member. Now, to be absolutely clear, if you weren’t a ChiCon member before you started reading this article, you won’t be able to make nominations this year. That deadline has passed. But you’ll still be able to vote in this year’s Hugos, and you’ll be eligible to make nominations next year. So it’s still a good thing to do. Go ahead. I'll wait while you sign up.

If you’re eligible to make nominations and haven’t done so yet, this would be a great time to do it, as the deadline is this weekend. Take a look at what you've read last year. There are a bunch of rules for eligibility, but roughly speaking, if it was published in 2011, you can nominate it. If you accidentally nominate something that's not eligible, they won't send the Hugo Police to your house to confiscate your membership badge, so go ahead, nominate the 2011 SFF publications you loved and see what sticks. That's what most people do. Also, an important note here. So you haven't read everything that was published last year. Fine. Neither have I, and neither has John Scalzi. Maybe you've only read a handful of novels. Maybe you haven't read any novellas or graphic novels. Don’t worry. Just nominate what you loved. Thousands of people are doing this. It'll all even out in the end, as long as everyone includes the books and stories they loved. Believe me, your nominations are very important to both authors and fans.

Now, for the interesting bit. You may notice a few categories in the bottom half of the nomination form that aren't so much about the novels and stories as about the people who write about the novels and stories. Fanzines, Semi Prozines, Fan Writers. The terms may be confusing. If you're unclear as to which is which, take a look at last year's final ballot for an idea of what may fall in which category. Or you can read the legalese in the WSFS constitution. I suggest the former option.

But now, finally, the main point of this post. In the last few decades or so, this here thing called the intertubes has become more and more prominent. SF&F-related writing used to make its way into the world by means of typewriters and Xerox machines and stamped envelopes. I know it may sound comical to some of you, but this award has been around since the 1950’s. There's history here. This whole blog thing is relatively new, in the larger scope of things. Now, first of all, I have the greatest respect for Fanzines, I wish for them to continue to garner awards and recognition and new readers and anything else their hearts desire. Yay for 'zines, okay?

But that aside, there's a serious problem here. At last year's convention, a rule change was enacted that would exclude blogs from the Best Fanzine category in the future. This rule may be ratified this year. That means this may be the last year blogs are eligible for the Best Fanzine category. This may seems absurd to you, but remember, this is an organization with a constitution and committees and so on. There are quorum rules and agendas and minutes that have to be approved and I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone with a gavel. It's official, as befits an organization with such a storied past. They're not evil. They mean well. They just want to make sure that next year people who try to distribute their reviews using a parade of tattooed elephants don't rouse up a storm because they're not included in a category.

Still, to me, it seems like a no-brainer. How many authors on the ballot have done blog tours? How many have websites that quote reviews from bloggers? How many have done interviews on blogs? How many, for the love of Tehlu, have only achieved the prominence and popularity they currently enjoy because of the enthusiastic, dedicated and unpaid work done by bloggers? AND YOU'RE TELLING ME YOU MAY NOT WANT TO INCLUDE BLOGS IN THIS CATEGORY IN THE FUTURE? For shame.

Seriously, the only justification I could see for this is to make sure the traditional fanzines don't get overrun by blogs. So, let's create a brand new category called "Best Blog". Somehow they have seen fit to create a new category called "Best FanCast" this year, so it's possible. The person with the gavel needs to consider this. Maybe he or she wants to go down in history as the person who brought the Hugos in line with the progress of history. We need a Best Blog category, or we need blogs to be included under "Best FanZine". It's one or the other. You can't reasonably exclude the place where 90% of fan writing happens right now. Not if you want to be taken seriously as an award in this day and age. Hands up how many of you have read a fanzine this year? And now how many have read a blog? I rest my case.

So! Enough with the speechifying. I'm hoping that enough fans and bloggers and authors will include their favorite blogs in the Best Fanzine category. Personally, I'm putting only blogs on my ballot. I'm hoping that at least a few of the best ones will make it to the final ballot. And I hope that one of them will win the award.

Aside from the Fanzine/blog category, you can also nominate individual Fan Writers. Things are a bit more straightforward and less exclusive there: you can nominate anyone who writes about SF&F in any format. Including bloggers. You don't have to use a Xerox machine to be eligible for Best Fan Writer. So, if you have a favorite blog, you can nominate "Aidan Moher" or “Adam Whitehead” under Best Fan Writer as well as "SF Signal" or “Staffer’s Musings” under Best Fanzine. Even if blogs don't count anymore in future years, you can continue to nominate the people behind the blogs in the Best Fan Writer.

It looks like a few people have put my name on their ballots in this category. I am very flattered, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I want to make it clear that I'm not asking you to nominate me here. I'm asking you to support your favorite bloggers. If that's me, great. If not, also great. Just support your favorite bloggers, whoever they are. Buy a membership and nominate them.

                                                    

Stefan Raets is the editor/founder of Far Beyond Reality. He also contributes to Tor.com. You can find him on Twitter @sraets.