The Art of the Query, and the Baseball Interview

Bear with me.  I'll admit it's a tenuous link, but I'm going somewhere with this.

Have you ever seen a post-game interview of a baseball player?  Well, then you've seen them all.  Baseball is a humbling game: roughly two at-bats in three are doomed to failure, and for most teams a season with one more wins than losses is a pretty good year of baseball.  And so a ballplayer with a microphone in his face rarely brags. For one thing even the best player in the league has a good chance of going 0-4 the next day.  For another, pitchers have been known to throw 95 mph heaters at a batter's head for the crime of rounding the bases a little too slowly after a home run.  

This practice, enforced by generations of tradition and the very real possibility of a skull fracture, results in baseball having the most boring interviews in all of professional sport.  Even compared to golf. When a ballplayer has just hit a clutch grand slam to win the game single-handed, you won't be able to tell it from the post-game interview.  If you haven't seen the game, you might think that all the guy did was show up and sort the bats in the dugout.

What does all this have to do with writing?  Well, an author sending queries to an agent is in good shape if he's getting requests on one in ten.  Three requests for manuscripts in ten queries is outstanding... four?  That's Ted Williams numbers, or maybe Walter Mosley.  Same when agents sub to editors, and editors go to the public and hope for a commercial success.

And so, an author writing queries could take some advice from the art of the baseball interview.  Watch enough of them and you'll hear all the following phrases:



"I didn't try to do too much, just put the bat on the ball, get on base."  Even the best home run hitters don'tt usually go to the plate swinging for one.  If so, he's likely to strike out.  Hitting is a Zen art: as Yogi Berra famously said, 90% of it is half mental.  A good hitter knows his job isn't (usually) to win the game with one swing.  It's to not make an out. 

Remember the purpose of the query: it's to show an agent what your book is about and demonstrate that you're a skilled enough writer that reading it wouldn't be a waste of time.  It's not to convince the agent that your book has every possible feature of character, relevance, plot, book-club potential, sparkly movie spinoff, that you, the author are a great person and a generous lover--no.  A successful query gets the agent to request your manuscript.  It gets you on base. Don't do anything stupid to get picked off, and you might score.

 "No, rookie, Janet Reid does NOT want to 
see a picture of your damn cats!"

"I just wanted to help out the team."  There's a reason the author only gets 7% of the book price as a royalty: though nothing could happen without an author, 93% of the labor of making a book belongs to other people.  Agent, editors, printers, publicity, the risk the publisher is taking on, and all that boring spreadsheet stuff that happens so the creator can create and make a living.

"I tip my cap to him...that's the way you play the game."  Even if it weren't for the aforementioned tradition of the disciplinary beanball, I think most players would follow the unwritten rules of the game. Again, it is a humbling game, and one does not tempt the fates lightly. You don't steal bases when you're winning by 10 runs.  You say hello to the first baseman when you get on, ask him about his kids. If you're tagging a base, you put your foot on the side of the bag so the runner can step on it and no one gets hurt.

Know and follow the agent's guidelines. Spell his or her name right.  For the love of George Sand, know whether it's a him or a her. Attach what the agent requested: no more, no less, no different.  No one cares at this point if you're the greatest to put three words together since 'In The Beginning' -- you are writing a business letter to a potential business partner, and who wants a difficult partner?

"It's a long season"   No single baseball game really matters, it's how you finish after playing 162 of them.  You can even lose three games of the World Series and come away champions.  It can take a few years to write a novel, a few months to query it, a year to edit it again, more querying, then a month to pick an agent, months for that agent to pitch and sell it, and a year from then to get into print. It's a long season. Don't get excited too much about today.

Jewish Law Questions I Will Not Be Asking The Rabbi

In writing my novel Saint Mark's Body I've taken advantage of the helpful rabbanim at www.askmoses.com for certain thorny questions on  Jewish law.  They're kind, they work 24/6 (think about it), and they don't mind giving free opinions to Episcopalian deists.

But I'm not going to ask them about this:

(1)  If an unmarried Jewish woman in the 9th century AD immerses herself naked in the Mediterranean, does it count as a mikveh? (ritual purification)-- Yes, it's a natural body of water and therefore pure. But why does she need a mikveh if she's unmarried?

(2) Does it still count if her Gentile boyfriend watches?  -- Probably no. Where's this going, young man?

(3) How about if he jumps in after her? -- Wait a minute, I dropped my bagel.

(4) OK, but then does it count as foreplay? -- Oy.

Kindle Is a Surprisingly Good Book Editing Tool

Where have I been? Mostly finishing off the book known alternately as The French Mummy Project, Les Maudites, and That ?!!@# Novel I Need to Finish. I'm proud to say I typed "LE FIN" to the first draft last week.

This means I can now switch to my other work in progress, the adventure Saint Mark's Body.  A few months back I sent it to Writer's Workshop for a look, and they gave it to editor Emma Darwin (who, by the way, has her own blog called This Itch of Writing and you should follow it).  I got some very helpful edits back, just a few weeks before finishing That Other Book, and am now working through those.

In this I have an unexpected ally: my Kindle.  A while ago I ported Saint Mark's Body to the device, part so I could read it and...I admit...part so the Kindle could read it to me. (It's nice sometimes to hear another voice  read your book aloud, even if that voice is nonhuman and has no tonality or cadence.)  And so I began the editing process by re-reading Saint Mark's Body.  I needed to re-establish my voice for that book; ninth century Venetians talk quite differently from a 19th century Frenchman writing his memoir in English. Also I had to shift gears back from first to third person.

But no author is capable of reading his work without making changes.  In my case, I've written another book since I last looked at Saint Mark's Body, so I've learned a bit and I am making a lot of them.

And here's where I find that Kindle Is a Surprisingly Good book Editing Tool.  No, I can't make changes in the text--even if the software allowed it the keyboard is impossible. At this stage in the editing I don't want to do that anyway. I want to read it through and simply mark the spots to change later. So I'm making liberal use of the Highlights and Notes features. Most of the time I simply highlight a section and know I need to delete or change it later, and the change is obvious enough I'm pretty sure I'll know what to do. If not, I can type a note on the keyboard and it will stay embedded in the text.  All Highlights and Notes are indexed and will be easy to go through quickly when I'm done--then with Kindle next to PC I can make all the changes I highlighted, along with the editorial suggestions from Writer's Workshop. 

Using Kindle instead of PC at this stage has a couple of big advantage.  First of course is portability--Kindle goes anywhere.  I can edit lying down in bed, I don't have to deal with a PC or reams of paper. Second, at this stage I don't want to be changing the text--just making the note and moving on--and that's all Kindle lets me do.

And, if I get really down, I can turn on the reader and listen to that sweet, robot voice read my book.






 

Some Days, It's Just One Word

Truly, the things a historical novelist has to go through.

I have a character who needs to get from one part of Paris to the next. My map of Paris circa 1800 shows that these points are separated by a few kilometers. And so he can't go on foot--he'll have to hire a taxi.

And what does one call a 'taxi' in 1804?

Fig. 1: Regardez-vous a moi?





One recourse is to simply call it by its modern name, so that the modern reader will understand completely. This is often done in historical novels and the reader understands that the work he is reading about, say, the siege of Troy is effectively 'in translation' anyway because all the people in it should be speaking ancient Greek.

But in my case, the setting is 1804 and my French narrator is writing down the events in 1816 or so, in English (Monsieur le Docteur has his reasons). And so I seek Just The Right Word.

Fortunately I have near at hand a novel written about 1830 by Balzac, the delightful Colonel Chabert. Ah! le colonel hires a vehicle, which Balzac's translator calls a 'hackney cab'.  That sounds oldey-timey, right?

Maybe not.  A few minutes on Wikipedia calls all that into question. 'Hackney' refers specifically to an English conveyance, and 'cab' is of course short for 'cabriolet'.  Would a Frenchman in 1816, despite his fluency en Anglais, use that word? 

On we go to www.wikipedia.fr, ou je cherche sur le mot 'hackney'... and i find that to the French mind, the 'Hackney-cab' is imported to Paris in about 1830.  Not old enough for the good docteur.

And now we return to Balzac. What word did he use, which the translator transformed to 'hackney-cab'?  Je cherche encore une fois le 'web' en français, and I find a public domain copy of Le Colonel Chabert. It's only in .prc format, which my PC can't read, but I do have a Kindle! I plug it in as a USB device, transfer the file, open it up, and the word is...

Cabriolet. Of course. And thus, le Docteur will spend his last sous to hire a cabriolet that takes him across Paris to call on Madame.

The average historical novel has over a hundred thousand words. But some days, it's just one of them that matters.

Fourriers, Grognards, and Dolmans -- Alors!

My current novel-in-progress begins in 1799 and follows Napoleon's Grande Armeé from Egypt to Austria, Russia and beyond. I've put together a plot and characters, that was the easy part. So was writing the first thirty thousand words or so. Now I'm catching up on my period research, especially making sure I have military formations, uniforms, and tactics correct for the battle scenes that come later.

What did I get myself into?

 Fig. 1: Yes, he fought in that getup.

It's bewildering. First off there's the ranks. In the French army a brigadier did not command a brigade--he was a corporal in a cavalry troop. Similarly one must not confuse a maréchal des logis -- supply sergeant -- with a Marshal of the Empire.

And speaking of marshals, mon général Grouchy would appreciate it if everyone would pronounce his name correctly and stop intimating that he wears green fur and lives in a garbage can.

But I wouldn't doubt that somewhere, somewhen, there was a regiment of hussars, or chasseurs-à-pied, or mameluke lancers clad in green fur of exactly Oscar's hue. 

These guys wore anything -- especially the cavalry. No two hussar regiments had the same uniform. And the hats!  You've got shakos, busbies, cocked hats, square-topped Polish headgear I can't remember the name of right now... Napoleon's big bicorne seems rather staid when you line him up against a regiment of grenadiers with two foot of bearskin bonnet per man.

How did they fight in all that kit? I've been reading personal accounts of Napoleon's soldiers and not one has mentioned a man being killed because of the ridiculous outfit he had to fight in. But there are several accounts of men being shot through the hat and being unharmed. One tells of a man who lost his hat in a cavalry action but was able to get it back from the enemy for a small 'ransom' the next day.

An excellent and comprehensive reference is Swords Around a Throne by American officer John R. Elting. He provides uniform guides and in-depth looks at each branch of service. I'm also reading diaries of a couple of Imperial Guard infantrymen and a cavalryman named Marbot who rose from the ranks to command a regiment of chasseurs at Waterloo.

My biggest surprise so far? The number of horses involved. The poor animals are much less durable than men, and it was easy to wear them out. Officers had several and used them in rotation... or ride each into the ground in turn. Many regiments had no idea how to care for their horses, and got them killed by letting them graze too freely (or not enough). Some soldiers knew what they were doing, but not the French... a Polish lancer regiment came back from Russia with two hundred horses out of a thousand while many French cavalry managed only to save a few mounts for their officers.

Next up, I need to get a better idea about contemporary life in civilian France at that time. Unfortunately the bulk of novels in English from that time are set in, well, England. And I will do a lot of things for my craft but I'm not reading a raft of crappy Regency romances. So next on my plate is to learn enough French to read Balzac (although his novels are set after the wars), Paul Adam and Emile Zola... I've already been plowing through the daily Paris newspapers of the period, helpfully scanned and available online at gallica.fr.

Next, I think I'll write something set in the modern era. In Schenectady. It worked for Vonnegut!

The Most Important Thing to Teach A Kid About Chess

I went to my son's first chess tournament last weekend. Some of the kids barely knew how to move the pieces, and the ones that did very quickly cleaned up the board. And yet, almost all the games were draws. Why?

No one knew how to checkmate.

 Fig. 1 : Know how to get here, from anywhere on the board.

I saw a trash talking kid with two queens fail to win against a nice little girl reduced to only her king. He just kept giving check, over and over again, until he blundered into a stalemate. It happened over and over again. It was excruciating, especially since it was a competition and I couldn't give any hints.

I suppose it's as true of chess as it is for anything else: turning a winning position into an actual win is an art in itself.

It's not enough to write a book that should be published: there's a long road from there to getting published. It's not enough to deserve a job: you have to actually go and get it. How many armies (and, more importantly, sports teams) have all the advantages, but lose because they don't know how to use them?

And so I spent the rest of that weekend teaching my son to win. First, with a queen and king against my king. Next with two rooks. Then a simulated game, me with a king and eight pawns versus his whole side.

OK, I might have been a little harsh. I might have even, once or twice, said "Wrong! Again!" in a credible imitation of Leopold Mozart at his worst. But he started to get it. He learned how to cut off the board, drive the king into the corner, and win.

The best part was his sister's chanting: "Checkmate Daddy! Checkmate Daddy!"

And despite my channeling a Prussian drillmaster, he kept wanting to try. All last week, he's been as likely to want to play chess as Lego Batman Wii when I come home from work. It's the taste of victory. Who wants to move pieces around a board once you know you can win?

I can't wait for the next tournament. He's going to murder those little punks... and, uh, learn very important lessons about perseverance and sportsmanship. Or something.

Happy. Query. Fun. Time.

A terrifying thing happened to me about a month ago: I got some great advice and I acted on it. The result was a major revision of my historical novel, Saint Mark's Body, followed by what we aspiring authors refer to as Query Hell. This is the process of getting an agent who can get you a publisher, and it's no fun. Until you get that great agent, and then it's all worth it. Sort of like being a Red Sox Fan starting in 1919, and hoping you live to see 2004.

I've sent off the first several batches and hope to get back to blogging, and actual writing of new fiction, very soon.

Ask Mayhem: The First Person Fight

I got several good questions after my open invitation, but this one is tough enough that it's all I can answer this week:

Dear Mr. Mayhem: How should a fight scene differ in pace and focus if told from the POV of someone in the fight vs. someone only watching? -- Jessica

Fantastic question. The easy and most general answer is that the pacing of the fight doesn't change, but the perception of the fight and therefore the way it goes on the page does. It's a bit difficult for your narrator to remember who jabbed and who feinted when he's dealing with this at the same time:

Fig. 1 : Do I have your attention?

Readers will recall a previous post on how to pace a fight: the basics are to understand that a fight has a rhythm, like music. A good writer will vary the rhythm of the fight and control fast and slow parts to evoke the feelings he wants in the reader's mind.

This is a tough question for me as a fight choreographer, because in that line of work all fights are in third person: the point of view of the audience. So when I approach it as a choreographer turned writer my natural inclination is to think of the whole fight in third and then put myself in the position of my first person narrator. This is where things get interesting.

We all know the basics of Point of View (POV): first person shows us everything that the narrator sees and feels, and only that. Whether writing in first person present or past, this means that something as rawly primal as a fight should have a feel of immediacy. If the narrator is recounting the story of his fight with dispassion, you may as well be writing in third with a change of pronoun.

So in that immediate first, the author has to consider what parts of the action the character will miss because he has other things going on. You can't do this:

Bob hit me in the back of the head with the tire iron, and right away I couldn't see anything but bright flashes. All I heard was the ringing in my ears. Then he pulled out a six inch kitchen knife and started honing it on the steel.

Right? Our narrator can't tell you what's happening after a significant injury. Everything he sees and hears comes through the filter of more immediate sensations. For example, you might have him describe the first blow he receives, but after that he might only know that he's being rocked around like a rag doll.

He's also going to lose track of the fight if he gets enraged, scared, exhilarated, shocked, et cetera -- all sorts of things could happen that interfere with his ability to observe what's happening. 

And this is what might cause a problem for pacing. I think that any good fight uses slow and quick actions, like music, to create a feeling that tells the story. With a first person narrator the actions can blur, and he may also be unreliable due to his own perceptions and prejudices. I suppose if I could offer one piece of advice here, it's to treat that 'blur' as just another rhythm for the story.

So, here's the fight again from the original post on pacing. Like I said, my approach would be to plot out the fight as an omniscient choreographer and then work out how the narrator tells it.

Bob's fist just grazed Alex's temple. He swung again as Alex stepped back, this time landing a hook just under his ribs. He struck again, but this time Alex intercepted his fist with a large unbound manuscript.

"Is that what I think it is?" Bob asked.

"That's right," said Alex, "It's my memoir: The Day Alex Kicked Bob's Ass"

"Memoir? Fiction, you mean!" Bob kicked the manuscript out of Alex's hands. The cloud of papers masked his next kick, straight into Alex's solar plexus. Alex doubled over, wheezing.

"You... you animal," Alex said. "I never numbered the pages!" He sprang up, fingers clawing for Bob's throat--but Bob dodged aside and kicked Alex's ankle out from under him. His face hit the ground like a flipped pancake and the pages of his manuscript settled over him in a pile of 8 1/2 by 11 inch futility.

And now from Alex's POV in first person:

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur, and a rough bony something grazed my temple--Bob's fist. I couldn't get away before he punched me square in the side. It was all I could do to get the manuscript in front of my face before he clobbered me.

"Is that what I think it is?" Bob asked.

"That's right," I said, "It's my memoir: The Day Alex Kicked Bob's Ass"

"Memoir? Fiction, you mean!" Bob kicked, and I was lost in cloud of 8 1/2 by 11 inch dreams. My dreams! His foot shot out through the flying pages and caught me right in the gut. White phosphorous stars exploded behind my eyes, and I sucked in air like I'd just run a marathon.

"You... you animal," I managed to choke out. "I never numbered the pages!" I dove for his throat, and that's almost the last thing I remember. He dodged out of the way and the next thing I knew I was flat on my face. The pages of my manuscript settled down on me as I closed my eyes. It was just like falling asleep in a snowstorm of futility.

That was fun--looking forward to more good questions!

Reports of the death of my genre...

If publishing is as dead as a doornail, then publishing aimed at men is dead as a coffin-nail (which, per Dickens, is the most lifeless bit of ironmongery imaginable.)

According to nautical novelist James Nelson, "Historical fiction for men is dead." I can't argue much with him, at least in the US market. When we look at Amazon categories and agents purportedly devoted to historical fiction, what we really find are a bunch of romance novels set in certain time periods other than the present. As Nelson says, "You can write five books a year about Anne Boleyn and they all sell." According to the latest issue of Solander, he has now sailed on to the more lucrative waters of nonfiction.

A.L. Berridge, bestselling author of Honour and the Sword and all-around fabulous lady, is selling loads of books in the U.K. and has a sequel coming, but isn' published in the U.S. yet. The reason? Her book doesn't have a Big Romance, and Men Don't Read.

Meanwhile there's C.W. Gortner, charter member of the so-called Historical Boys. His novels all feature a strong female lead in first person tell-all memoir style. In other words, the Historical Boy is writing for girls. Christopher's books are doing quite well in the U.S.. I have always suspected he uses the C.W. byline so that women will assume that he is in fact a woman who's using the initials in order to pass for male.

The worst part is, I'm guilty of being part of the problem. Before I got into the book production side of things I was not much of a book consumer. I read the same old Heinlein and Bradbury and Tolkien until I wore out the covers, and filled up the rest of my fiction reading with the likes of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Otherwise, when I bought a book it was non-fiction. Now I read a lot more, but most of it is research. My latest Amazon order includes a technical manual on mummy preparation and an Osprey reference book on French cavalry uniforms.

In my inexpert analysis, the problem of manly historical fiction in the U.S. is that we have a conceit that History Must Feature Americans. By this conceit I mean that we insist on producing movies like U-571, where the plot gets written so that it is Americans, not Brits, who steal the Enigma machine. Don't get Ms. Berridge started on that one!

Thus, American novelists looking for manly action--i.e. war--have a limited historical window to exploit. While British authors have all sorts of juicy swashbuckling wars in which to place their heroes, America begins in 1776 and all the romance (small 'r', not the genre) is gone by about 1917. We don't have the dashing Napoleonic period to exploit, that gave us heroic English warriors like Horatio Hornblower and Richard Sharpe. We get the Civil War and Jeff Shaara, and not long after that the machine guns come along and ruin it for everyone.

In between, we have the special historical genre of the Western. We have some great stories of WWII. But when we think of works of fiction in those eras, the mind turns to John Wayne as much as it does to Louis L'amour.

Is it simply that the story of American manly action is better told in film than in print?

For now, I'm grateful for the fact that there is more than one country where people read in English. Apparently some of the people in these countries are men, and women who do not need every book they read to feature a Woman Who Loves Beneath Her Station or a Queen Who Just Wants To Be Kissed.

I realise that my books may need to take on a different flavour to succeed in such markets, but one must do what one must do.

I'll take your questions now...

I've come across some good blogs featuring help for writers in the (blog) author's particular area of expertise. Mine?

I'm a gardener. A very aggressive gardener.

No, seriously, I'm here to help with questions on historical weapons and fighting skills from major army and fleet actions down to the very very personal. My practical experience comes from european fencing competition in college and a couple of black belts since then: but more importantly I learned how to fake it for fiction by working as a fight choreographer and operating a stage weapon rental shop. I've done gun fights, axe fights, cat fights (*mrreow!*) pillow fights, spear fights, fist fights and nearly every combination thereof.

If I use your question I'd be happy to include a link back to your website, or keep you anonymous, as you prefer. You can reach me by email: richard(at)saintmarksbody(dot)com or by commenting here.

Depending on the volume of questions (please, let there be volume!) I may post questions and answers up to once a week.

Ten Random Words that Make Me Happy

Mackerel

Rebar

Penitent

Inefatigable

Élan

Mandible

Enfilading

Mizzen

Impugn

Vestibular

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Here's the roundup from a week in the Adirondacks with the family:

• Fifteen fish caught and eaten, mostly perch (Fig. 1). My boss expressed surprise when I told him I was going to fish on vacation. I suppose I don't have a reputation for quiet solitude. I thought about it, and when I came back told him that he had me pegged exactly right--I don't have the patience to just sit and enjoy nature, I have to be waving around some kind of fish-killing apparatus so I can pretend I'm doing something useful.
• 9000 words done in the first draft of my next novel. I thought this was a pretty good score, given that I spent as much time outdoors as possible.
• Several firsts from the kids--my son's first captured (and released) fish, my daughter's first time paddling a canoe. Penguin sand sculptures and barefoot expeditions into the pine-bark carpeted woods.
• One sighting the former most powerful man in N.Y. State, now convicted of several diverse and interesting influence-peddling crimes. I could not resist blurting out, "Is that Joe Bruno?!" as he entered a restaurant on Lake Placid, and the old man immediately whipped out a pair of sunglasses the size of virtual reality goggles.
• Zero cell phone calls from work, as we were entirely Off the Grid (except for the brief foray into Lake Placid, enabling me to update my Facebook status to "...just spotted Joe Bruno!!!") Other co-workers on vacation who visited places with cell phone service (for example, Hungary) were not so lucky, and ended up calling in to several hours of urgent meetings from.
• Also zero blog posts. (see "off the grid", above) But I'm back!
  

So you think you can write? OK... who cares?

Today Nathan Bransford has a post asking, in just so many words, why it is that so many people feel they're entitled to break into the writing world as novelists. After all, Bransford muses, people playing pickup basketball don't think they should be drafted into the NBA. Why, therefore, does eveyone with a working computer think they can write a best-selling novel?

Well, for one thing, there are some best-selling novels out there that are crap. It's easy for an unpublished novelist to point to one of those and say, "I write better than that: ergo, since that crap is published, I should be published also."

There is some merit to that argument -- however, there is an important nuance that can't be ignored: the game is not "who can write the best book" : the game is, "who can sell the most books."

Publishing peope talk about 'branding' ad nauseum, but it's true: quality writing is only one of several factors that move books off of bookstore shelves and into beach tote bags. In fact, it may be one of the least important factors. Why? Simple:

A book buyer cannot tell if the writing is any good without reading the book. If she needs to read the book to find out whether it's any good... then what's the point?

The buyer can get around this problem if the author is established. She knows what she's getting when buying another Dan Brown, Sue Grafton, or Estate-Of-Clive-Cussler.

If the author is NOT established, the buying decision can come down to whether the book is on a subject the buyer wants to read about.

It's true! For a while I was reading anything set in the British navy of the Napoleonic era. Other people are nuts for Regency romances, or steampunk, or Viking stories, or cozies featuring sleuths who are also Franciscan monks, or whatever.

And this is why a genre book is easier to sell as a first novel -- it taps a ready market. The bar for writing quality is set lower. And so I postulate further:

A 'genre' book will sell in the established market for that genre, as long as it does not completely suck.

Which brings us around home again. A novelist wannabe could easily write a high-quality piece with no established market. There is little reason for a publisher to take a chance on a book like that. And it will be quite easy for that wannabe to find a book that got published into an established market which does not suck (or maybe it does), but is not as good as that wannabe's stuff.

And so the 'pickup basketball to NBA' analogy falls apart. It's not whether we can play better basketball than the status quo: it's whether anyone wants to pay to see us play. And unlike basketball, sheer performance on the court is not the thing that convinces the paying public to part with their cash.

Research Readings for July 2010

It's raining today (finally) and so the perfect day to stay in and do a little research on my latest novel project: a bit of horreur that begins, but does not end, in Egypt during the French occupation.

Nina Burleigh's excellent book Mirage--Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt is more or less indefinitely checked out to me thanks to my good sense at having married the librarian. Mirage follows the French occupation from the point of view of the cent-cinquante savants General Bonaparte brought with him on his attempt to wrest the East and India from England. It's a fascinating window into Napoleon's character: at 28 years of age, he was already padding his C.V. as a new-model emperor of the Enlightenment.

These French scientists made the first comprehensive descriptions of Egypt for European audiences, and touched off a fascination for all thing Phaoronic that continues to this day. (shout-out to fellow-blogger Libbie Hawker, who specializes in the 18th dynasty)

Next in the stack, arriving this week from Amazon (see, even the librarian's husband must often buy a book) is a translation of a 19th century Arab's chronicle of the invasion. The translation is by Shmuel Moreh, a noted scholar whose work I've used before in research for Saint Mark's Body. I haven't gotten very far in this, but my favorite bit so far is when Al-Jabarti dissects bad Arabic grammar in one of Napoleon's proclamations:

"His [Bonaparte's] statement bta al-Mamalik (belonging to the Mamluks) is despicable and a banal and trite word. The word mutma'in should be mutma'inan because it is hal (circumstantial expression) and converting it to the nominative (raf) incorrectly is an indication of their state, and their significance. May God hurry misfortune and punishment upon them, may He strike their tongues with dumbness, may He scatter their hosts, and disperse them, confound their intelligence, and cause their breath to cease."

Apparently, according to Al-Jabarti, Allah should not be so merciful or compassionate when it comes to the declension of nouns. It seems quite just to me for a speaker of perfect French (which I am not, as any Francophone will instantly tell you) to be taken to task like this.

And of course there is the Historical Novel Review, my first issue since joining HNS. I didn't know quite what to expect from this mag: I joined up simply because I knew so many good authors who are members, like C.W. Gortner and Susan Higginbotham. I can certainly say I'm not disappointed; Historical Novel Review gives me a much bettery understanding of the breadth of the historical novels market. It's vital intelligence for anyone looking to break in.

World Cup Goal Review: A Modest Proposal

Officiating at the FIFA World Cup has always been the subject of controversy. At right we see Diego Maradona's infamous 1986 goal against England which was, he claimed, scored "un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios". Well, it's not God's hand we see on the ball in Figure 1, nor Maradona's head either.

In this year's World Cup we had goals and non-goals called wrongly against several teams including the USA and England. And so, despite my earlier paean to the sanctity of officiating mistakes in baseball, I hereby come out in favor of video review of goals in championship soccer matches. Look, these guys fight like crazy for ninety minutes and maybe--just maybe--one of the two teams on the field manages to score a goal. The referees need to get a goal or no goal call exactly right, and they need a little technological help to do it.

Here, then, is my Modest Proposal for video review of goals in soccer:

1) Cameras managed by FIFA (not the TV networks) are fixed at each end, with a clear view of each goal line and the penalty area.

2) Any player on the field may make a challenge to the referee's decision to either award or disallow a goal. This is the only kind of play that can be challenged.

3) The player must give grounds for the challenge that can be absolutely confirmed or dismissed by viewing the replay-- e.g. that the ball did or did not cross the line, that a player was or was not offside, that a handball did or did not occur. A foul called or not called by the referee is not subject to review, and no fouls can be charged or forgiven based on video review.

4) The head referee views the video, and may elect to reverse his prior call. His final decision cannot be appealed, on or off the field.

5) If on review the referee does not reverse the call, the player who challenged is automatically booked with a yellow card. The referee has the option to show a red card and send the player off if he feels the challenge was frivolous.

6) Time spent on a goal review is added to stoppage time.

Simple, eh? FIFA is welcome to contact me any time via this website. Your comments are also welcome.

There Has To Be Another Way

A recurring theme in my writing is that whenever a character is presented with two options, he or she seems to find a third. One historical character, Caliph Al-Ma'mun, even finds a third way a coin flip can go. (though that, I admit, I cribbed from an old Batman story)

And so I hope there can be a third way for publishing in the 21st century, because I really don't like either of the options so far.

As I see it, what's brought us to this point is two factors. The first-- No One Buys Books Anymore. Some blame the economy: less money, fewer books. I blame the easy availability of free reading material. Case in point: you, Dear Reader, and this blog. The second--Everyone Is A Stinking Author. We all have computers, and access to every imaginable writing resource, like the whole world was one big round table at the Algonquin. This is the era that spawned a million teenage paranormal romances. This is the era that spawned, well, me.

And so we have--what I wouldn't give to know the number of unpublsihed, possibly unpublishable books out there. And fewer and fewer available publishing spots to put them all in. Used to be, if you were one of the few who was willing to bang out a hundred thousand words on a Smith-Corona and mail them to a publisher, you had yourself a published book. Now, well, you're one of the millions (and millions) who had a few English courses, posesses a working laptop, and have written yourself a novel. Which brings us to:

OPTION 1: ONLY BRANDS SELL

This has always been true in some way, but as the market for new books tighten publishers rely on a few proven brand-names. Names like Cussler, Grafton, Collins. The astute reader may realize that some of these brand names don't even write their own books anymore. Some of them might even be dead. I can't be bothered to find that out right now. But they are all still publishing new books. Perhaps this is why the undead are so big in fiction these days.

So, for the unpublished, much text is typed about Becoming A Brand. And it's true, those who already are a brand-name (Tyra Banks, Glen Beck, Pope Benedict XVI) can get ANYTHING published.) If you're not them, the pundits say... better start a blog or something, get yourself a platform. But anyone can do that, right? Which leads us to,

OPTION 2: WE ARE ALL PUBLISHED AUTHOR'S. w00t!

And yes, I know damn well that's not a posessive. I am making a point! It's ridiculously easy to publish a book, so long as you don't care about quality and you don't care if it's marketed nowhere other than by Twitter and Facebook. There are a lot of pretty good options for print-on-demand and electronic publishing is even cheaper. The entry barrier is low. Hell, I could publish right now. Actually, in a way, I am publishing right now, or will once I hit the 'POST' button.

What's wrong with that? Laura Miller puts it so well in this Salon article: "Is the public prepared to meet the slush pile?" If everyone publishes everything, how do you ever find the good stuff? Most importantly, if I self-publish and self-promote my Very Excellent Novel how are you going to find it in a sea of barely-disguised Twilight fanfic, fraught with error and tripe? With everyone else blogging and tweeting and worse?

You won't.

__________________________________

And so, I want another choice please. A third way. Books are too wonderful a thing for either of these fates to happen. I could even learn to like Kindle, I really could, if the quality of great Books were still there in the digital ink. But I see both of these options reducing the quality of the published works to the lowest common denominator.

I, for one, am not prepared to wade through the world's slush pile. Or read only the books that come from a Certified Brand on the marketing department's short list. There has to be another way.

Please?

Highlights of the Theological Discussion Between my Jordanian Cab Driver and Me

Points of Agreement

Jesus was, at the very least, a fine prophet and philosopher.

Fig. 1: Before

Picking me up at 5:15 would leave plenty of time to get to the airport, insh'Allah.

The practice of translating the Bible into many languages helps spread the Word, but engenders different views of Christianity.

The practice of not translating the Quran makes sure that everyone is looking at the same words. However, this limits the spread of Islam.

Whether or not one believes that the Quran is the infallible word of God, a lot of people will read the words but hear what they want to hear in them.

This is also true of the Bible.

Whiskey is a refreshing and healthful beverage. However, to fully appreciate the taste it's a good idea to dilute it with some spring water--never ice.

It was very interesting that on the same day we met, a giant statue of Jesus (pictured) was struck by lightning and destroyed.

It would have saved a lot of trouble if Jesus could have made a definitive pronouncement during His time on Earth regarding whether a statue of Him would, in fact, count as a 'graven image'.

Syria is not a neighbor you'd want to have.

Feta is a delightful cheese, and one should have it in a salad whenever possible.

Really, Caliph Al-Amin should have left well enough alone and kept the agreement his late father brokered regarding the succession, rather than getting into a ruinous civil war with his brother Al-Ma'mun in 810 AD.

Lamb is delicious.

Points of Disagreement

Whether the driver of a moving vehicle should have at least one eye on the road and/or one hand on the wheel at all times.

Whether a daughter should be allowed to live at home until she is married.

Whether a monarchial oligarchy is a viable form of government in the modern world.

Not Discussed

The proposed new Charter of the Anglican Covenant.

Writing the Fight -- Pacing

Legend has it that during times of foreign occupation in China, rebel fighters practiced their forbidden martial arts in the open and explained that they were only dancing. It's not that far-fetched. A fight has rhythm and pacing. Part of writing a good fight is making that rhythm of blows and holds come out in the words.

For pacing my fights, I have just a few cardinal rules. One of them is, Vary the steps. This ain't a waltz.

Alex hit Bob over the head with a two-by-four. Bob staggered, and then smacked Alex in the gut with his tire iron. That hurt Alex quite a bit, so he could barely lift the sack of potatoes high enough to drop it on Bob's toe.

Among the many things wrong with that sequence, every action is the same: one fighter hits the other with a one-step move. You want the notes to come in a surprising but sensical sequence, kind of like a Coltrane solo. A one-step here, a two-step there, a hold, a stop-hit, etc.

Wait... what did I mean by that?

ONE-STEP: a direct attack--a punch, kick, throw, gunshot or whatever. It could hit or miss, but you can describe it with one verb.

TWO-STEP: a compound action, either a two-step attack (Alex grabbed a fistful of Bob's hair and punched him in the nose.) or an attack with a defense (Alex swung the hammer, but Bob snapped his hand back just in time)

HOLD: A long action. It could be an actual hold (Bob tightened his grip on Alex's carotids. His face reddened at first, and then blanched white. It was in that moment that Bob realized he was on to something.) or maybe a pause ("I suppose you're wondering why I just punched you in the kidney," said Alex. "It's only because you should have given that kidney to your poor dead cousin! OUR cousin!") Anyway it takes significantly longer than a punch.

STOP-HIT: An action that interrupts another action. (Bob lobbed a wild hook at Alex's cheek, walking into a straight right. Bob wobbled and said, "Let me try that one again."

I like fights that are chaotic and unpredictable. Mayhem! When did a real fight ever go according to plan? So that's why I want the pacing to vary. A fight that beats one-two-three-four like my first example is just too predictable to thrill a reader. Go one, one, one-two, hold, one-two, hold, stop-hit and now maybe you've got something.

Bob's fist just grazed Alex's temple. He swung again as Alex stepped back, this time landing a hook just under his ribs. He struck again, but this time Alex intercepted his fist with a large unbound manuscript.

"Is that what I think it is?" Bob asked.

"That's right," said Alex, "It's my memoir: The Day Alex Kicked Bob's Ass"

"Memoir? Fiction, you mean!" Bob kicked the manuscript out of Alex's hands. The cloud of papers masked his next kick, straight into Alex's solar plexus. Alex doubled over, wheezing.

"You... you animal," Alex said. "I never numbered the pages!" He sprang up, fingers clawing for Bob's throat--but Bob dodged aside and kicked Alex's ankle out from under him. His face hit the ground like a flipped pancake and the pages of his manuscript settled over him in a pile of 8 1/2 by 11 inch futility.

,

Did I get the rhythm right in that sequence? One, one, one-two, hold, one-two, hold, stop-hit aaaannnd faceplant.

The Blown Call --OR-- Why I Love Baseball

Two outs in the ninth inning. Armando Galarraga has retired twenty-six batters on eighty-seven pitches and the eighty-eighth is a 1-1 changeup that Jason Donald hits on the ground to first. The pitcher covers the bag--catches the toss--and Donald is called safe by umpire James Joyce!

It would have been only the twenty-first perfect game in major league baseball history, although the third this season. But it wasn't. Donald is safe at first, and Galarraga finishes with a one-hit shutout.

The replays show it clearly, if by 'clearly' we mean that it's clear in a freezeframe. Donald should have been called out. Some say he WAS out, that it's a perfect game for Galarraga.

Why not call it a perfect game? It doesn't hurt anyone. You could even give Donald the hit and Galarraga the perfect game at the same time. Why not? It doesn't affect the outcome of the game, the Tigers win whether it was a hit or not. It's like a bad call in figure skating, right? Didn't that just make you cry when those meanie European judges robbed Canada's widdle sweethearts? Wasn't it right to just give everyone gold medals and make it all better?

Fig. 2: Awwww. Does everyone feel better now?

Because this is baseball, not figure skating. There is no crying in baseball. The umpire made a mistake? Part of the game. An act of God, if you will, and in the tiny world of dirt and grass bounded by chalk and the outfield fence, that man in black is the Supreme Being.

The Tigers' manager argued, but The Call was Safe, and verily the runner is safe!

But after the game, James Joyce reviewed the tapes and saw what everyone else already had: he blew it. Donald was out by a full step. That was a perfect game.

And then Joyce did something no god or umpire never does: he came down his throne on high and said, 'I blew the call. I'm sorry.'

Class.

And what did Galarraga say? What every baseball player says in every interview. It is what it is. Just out there to help the team. James Joyce is a great guy and a good umpire. It's a long season.

Class.

Next day -- because Baseball is played every day when the weather suits -- Joyce isn't the first base umpire. He's behind the plate in charge of balls and strikes now. And he walks out in front of that Detroit crowd. He robbed THEM of perfection. He robbed THEM of a hero. This is a sports town that riots when they WIN. And what happens? They stand and APPLAUD.

Class.

The Tigers send Galarraga out to perform the ritual of handing Joyce the team's lineup card. Joyce looks it over and you can see him start to choke up. He gives Galarraga a tough-guy-I-love-you shove, the man he deemed by his supreme yet fallible authority to have pitched a one-hit shutout last night. And then Joyce reaches under the brim of his hat and wipes his moistening--

Fig. 3 : Class.

Did I say there was no crying in baseball? Well, maybe it's OK, just this one time. Play ball.

Questions From the Back Seat

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Daddy, can Han Solo's blaster shoot through Iron Man's armor?"

"Let me think about that... no, because Iron Man's armor is magnetically shielded."

"Like the door in the garbage masher on the Death star?"

"Yes."

***

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Daddy, when is it a quarry and when is it a mine?"

"It's a quarry when they dig up stones to sell. It's a mine when they dig through the stones to get to something that's worth more, like gold. Or bauxite."

***

"Daddy?"

"What?"

"Daddy, is Superman a daddy?"

"No."

"But he's a grownup, and he has a mommy and a daddy"

"Everyone has a mommy and a daddy, but not everyone IS a mommy or a daddy."

"But Daddy? Why isn't Superman a daddy?"

"Because he never... well..."

Melissa chimes in: "Remember he's an alien, Henry. He might not be able to have babies with a human woman."

"Honey, do you really want to open that line of questioning?"

"Daddy?"

"He has to get married first, and he's not married."

***

"Daddy?"

"What, Henry?"

"Daddy, what are pirates?"

"Robbers who rob people in ships."

"Why are there robbers?"

"Because some people are too lazy to get jobs."

***
"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"What happens when lightning hits you?"

"You can die."

"Why?"

"That much electricity can stop your heart or give you burns."

"For real?"

"For real. But I read about a park ranger who got hit seven or eight times and lived."

"Seven times? That lightning not very strong den."

"No, Henry, it wasn't."