Final day of ConCarolinas – wish
it didn’t have to end so soon!
A quick breakfast with friends
started the morning, then it was off to the Baen Travelling Road Show. Gray
Rinehart hosted, and though the audience was small, we had a great time. The
roadshow is a fun display of cover art on old and new books, and a discussion
of what’s coming out soon from Baen Books. They have been busy republishing some
old classics by authors such as Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein, so these
don’t disappear from people’s shelves and awareness.
Timothy Zahn was on hand to
introduce his new book in the Cobra trilogy, as well as to talk about that
double trilogy and his other project, working in David Weber’s Honor-verse. I
was amused by his description of how well thought out and mapped out the
Honor-verse has become, leading to his epithet, “Curse you, and your laws of
physics and ridiculously over-engineered warships!”
Gray particularly praised a new
book, How Dark the World Becomes, by
Frank Chadwick, which Gray pulled out of the slush pile and Tony Weiskopf,
Baen’s editor, wasted no time bringing in house. He also praised Charles
Gannon’s Fire with Fire as an example
of an author who really worked with the editor’s feedback to make the book as
good as it could be.
#
I ducked out of the roadshow (I
didn’t even take any swag!), to catch the “Gods and Goddesses” panel. Aaron
Rosenberg moderated Wolfgang Bauer and Glenda Finkelstein, as they talked about
real-world vs created pantheons. Wolfgang talked about working with Russian and
Slavic pantheons, and Aaron wondered about our current obsession with all
things Celtic. They discussed aspects around bringing the old gods into current
day settings, which seems to lend itself to urban fantasy.
There was an interesting
discussion about gods’ morality, that they’re not clearly defined “heroes” or
“villains”, but often both. They don’t follow human morality. Glenda referred
to the “inherent cruelty of the ones in charge”, and how they often hurt humans
seemingly on a whim or for their own pleasure. There is no reconciliation of
their different aspects - they simply are!
Is it the nature of gods to be
rediscovered?
Aaron brought up the idea that
gods are created and perpetuated by human beliefs.
They talked about nature
religions, such as voodoo, and Wolfgang said William Gibson once called AIs
“kind of like loas”!
A discussion of horror,
especially Cthulhu…
A discussion about super heroes
and how Marvel just slaps a cape on some god figures. No question that Marvel
has brought renewed interest to some of the old, less well-known gods in the
Greek and Scandinavian pantheons. But there aren’t any mainstream
comics/graphic novels about Jesus or Christianity. Other religions are “fair
game”, but that has protected status. I had to leave the panel early to take
care of some departure logistics.
#
After lots more hall discussions
and lunch with friends, I made one final panel, suitably enough, “Satisfying
Endings”, moderated by Ed Schubert, with Barbara Friend Ish, Aaron Rosenberg,
and James Tuck.
“A good beginning bring them in.
A good ending brings them back for more.”
“A good beginning is a promise
you make to the reader, and you have to fulfill it for them to be satisfied.”
The ending should be surprising
*and* inevitable – the story *had* to end that way.
By the end, you should answer the
questions you’ve setup in the story, and tie up loose ends with story,
subplots, and characters.
Barbara says that she thinks a
good story starts with a failure of some kind, and the story is how the
characters learn, or not, from that failure.
“In books, we go bigger than in
life.”
Some writers write their last
scene first, others think that puts limits on the creative process during the
story’s evolution.
Some have trouble actually writing
the end – why?
- Might not be ready to leave the world
- Might not be the right ending
- Might be “protecting” the work from the outside world – got to have faith and be brave enough to let it go!
Ed shared David B. Coe’s analogy
of talking/thinking about a work to opening a new bottle of soda over and over
until you’ve let all the fizz out.
Unsatisfying endings:
- JK Rowling delivers surprises that the reader could *not* have guessed based on what she has told in the story.
- Zelazny’s 5th Amber book negated the whole previous stories!
- 3rd Hunger Games book
- Quantum Leap TV series – final episode “erases” Sam from the timeline
- Eragon 3rd book
- Avatar movie
- Dan Brown’s Deception Point (deus ex machina)
Deus ex Machina literally means "god from the
machine", and in literature it basically means when a surprise ending
solves everything in a way that could not have been anticipated by the reader,
because it comes out of nowhere. In Deception
Point, for instance, the main characters are sliding down an iceberg headed
to their deaths when a submarine surfaces *by happenstance* just in time to
save them. It’s unsatisfying, because there’s no way the reader could have anticipated
or figured that out.
Readers look to book endings for
closure, because life often doesn’t provide it.
American’s are trained from an
early age to expect happy endings. The country was settled by people who left
their own countries in search of it!
Ed talks about the power of
expectation with regard to reader frustration over an unsatisfying ending. He
recalls an experiment where men were exposed to burning brands, then touched
with ice cubes, and their skin actually *burned* because their minds were
convinced that was what was going to happen.
Circling back to the beginning: Big
difference between character’s promise within the story and what they think
they need or want vs the author’s promise to the reader!
#
And still more hallway goodbyes
before finally heading home, tired and fulfilled and energized and already
looking forward to the next con!
Oh, fittingly enough, Jason Carter was the last person I saw before leaving, as he too was heading out with his entourage.
Dogs in house:
|
Houdini
|
Music:
|
Guitar Adagios
|
Time writing:
|
~ 1 hour
|
June word
count:
|
1,881
|
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