Monthly Archives: July 2010
What is ‘time’?
Time. It’s an illusion, you know. Something we’ve invented to keep track of greater events in the Cosmos. Earth spins on its axis in what we call a day, which we have chosen to break up into smaller units called hours. Earth moves around Sol, rotating on its axis three hundred and sixty five times. And a bit. Our planet’s moon moves around Earth, refecting light from Sol onto the Earth. How much light depends upon the geometric relationship between the Moon and Sol, moving from full moon through gibbous, quarter, right through to no light at all in a regular cycle. We call those cycles ‘months’. More or less. Sort of.
We are so obsessed with the minutiae of our existence we forget that time is nothing more than a reference point. (Meet you at Starbuck’s at 10.) And when you’re writing science fiction, time becomes even more problematical. On Earth we have created for ourselves an imaginery line which is the base line for time. It passes through Greenwich in UK. Why? Well, just because. The English started it, so they had first dibs. So when it’s twelve midnight (ie the beginning of the day) in UK, it is 10am of the following day where I live. You think that’s hard? (I know some of you do)
Well, when we talk about more than one planet, we’ll need some sort of celestial equivalent to Greenwich so we can agree on what the ‘time’ is. Planets spin at different rates, so their ‘day’ will be different. For example, the length of a day on Mars is 24 hours 39 minutes. Pretty close to our day. But a Mars year is 687 of our days. Let’s look at mighty Jupiter, much much larger than Earth. In fact, Jupiter is so big that all the other planets in the solar system would fit inside it. Jupiter’s day is 9.8 of our hours. Yes, that is nine point eight. Its year is 11.86 of our years.
So if we eventually colonise Mars, we’ll have to have some way of equating time on the two worlds. Sure, mainly you’ll work in local time. But let’s say somebody signs a mining lease on Earth for property on Mars. When does the lease expire?
So there you are. When you agree to meet someone for coffee, you set a spatial reference – ie latitude and longitude and then you add time. So whether you knew it or not, you’ve understood spacetime all along. Easy.
The give and take of Feedback
Feedback from readers is worth its weight in gold. Or maybe platinum or Yttrium. Isn’t it? Well, maybe. And then again, maybe not.
Whenever I do crits I’m at pains to make the point that what I’m giving is my point of view, my opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s up to the writer to act on what s/he is given to work with. I guess we all know that but sometimes it’s very easy to respond to somebody’s comment just because we can. I know in my case, I over-edited the opening chapter of Die a Dry Death because of a series of comments on Authonomy. Fortunately, I had an editor who suggested I put it back the way it was.
One thing to remember about opinions is that some really are worth more than others. People who read the genre, writers who have a similar style, people who’ll take the time to read thoroughly and think through their feedback. And of course, those who’ll be honest without being derogatory.
But there are some types of feedback I will take note of every time – what I do, having taken note, is another matter. Please, please tell me if you read a section of my work and think…
Time line: ‘Eh? How’s that possible? The hero only just left Timbuktu.”
Plot holes: ‘Er… how could she possibly know that?’
Out of character: ‘He’s going to do WHAT? You’ve gotta be kidding.’
Implausible: ‘That’s a bit hard to believe.’
Transition: ‘Eh? How did we get here?’
The most valuable feedback of all? What you get back from an agent who passes on a full but takes the time to tell you what they did and did not like. That really is Yttrium.
Researching a historical novel
On account of beng busy finishing my latest book, I haven’t got it in me to blog. But friend and fellow historical fiction writer Gemi Sasson asked me to write a guest blog about my research for my hist fic novel Die a Dry Death. Check it out here.
You might also like to take a look at the book trailer.
While you’re at it, take a look at her wonderful book The Crown in the Heather, the first of a trilogy about Rober the Bruce. You’ll find reviews of that book on Amazon here.
The perils of backstory
I’m busy at the moment doing some massive rewrites of early work and I’ve also spent some time doing some beta-reading. And backstory is the thing that sticks out.
I think one of the hardest lessons for a writer to learn is ‘what does my reader need to know?’ And that is particularly true for chapter one. When you’re first starting off in this writing game you tend to want to create your world first, tell all about your MC, so everybody is facing the same way. This is particularly true, I think, in SF and Fantasy, where you can’t just say “New York, September 2001”. You tend to want to tell people that this is the year 3000 and that the Galaxy has a decaying Republic. Subversive forces are scheming to find a way to overthrow the republic and put in place an elitist, pro-Human autocracy. It’s a bit like those little prompts that walk up the screen at the start of the Star Wars movies.
I’ll let you in on a secret. Your reader doesn’t need to know that. No, really. They just want to see the farm boy and the droids and the weird old man. Oh, and the princess with the strange hairdo. And that big, spooky villain who breathes funny.
I’m not saying backstory isn’t important. It’s vital. Backstory gives your writing depth. YOU need to know where your MC went to school or (as in my case) how he relates to his mum. YOU need to know why he is the way he is because that will dictate how he behaves. But your reader just wants to read the story. So if it’s not in the plot, toss it out. Or if you must, tell people in offhand ways.
Backstory is often presented as the author telling the reader. Eg “Blackrock was created during the mining boom of the seventies but now the mining company has withdrawn it is beginning to deteriorate.” But you can show your reader the effects – which is probably all s/he cares about. Boarded up shop fronts, peeling paint, only one of the five pubs still operational.
So… the lesson is show don’t tell. And only show what you need to show to tell your story. Yes’m. Getting straight on down and doing that, ‘m.
