Guided somewhat by A Guide To Ebooks in Australia,  I think I'm going to go find myself an Ebook reader. I've been tempted before, but now I'm about to start buying ebooks and the reader in Calibre is, well, pants.

The e-ink based readers are nifty, it must be said. I have a colleague who has a Kindle and it's quite nice. But the biggest problem with the Kindle is that it's run by Amazon. For all their other qualities, Amazon have taken a leaf out of Apple's playbook are trying to Rule The World Of Books which is why the Kindle doesn't support ePub, and why they have the ability to remotely delete books. Even if they've promised to Not Use It Unless Absolutely Necessary. We mean it this time. Really.

Which segues nicely to the iPad from Apple. I've been known to say that the best thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. Unfortunately (I subsequently say), the worst thing about all the iDevices is that they're made by Apple. This isn't the place to generally rant about Apple. But the iPad is rather overkill for just reading books, I believe. Plus it's too expensive.

The Sony Ereader is rather cheaper. That takes us back to e-ink land. :-/ My mother has one of the smaller ones. And whilst it's good, the thing that caught my attention with both this and the Kindle is that the e-ink refresh takes an appreciable amount of time. I'm not a slow reader and I don't like the idea of the technology being a speed-bump in my reading.

Partway in the middle is the Nook, particularly the colour one. This avoids the refresh problems of e-ink and also the general-entertainment puposes of the iPad. (I also like the fact it supports Ogg Vorbis music files, as that's what all my music is in.) But availability for Australia looks like it  means buying it from the US. Kinda hard to try it out first (that's how I know about the e-ink refresh lag). And the price might be a bit higher than I really wanted to spend.

So. What do people use? What do people recommend?

Do you call yourself  a story-teller or a writer? How do you tell? And what would be the difference?

It's at once a subtle and an important difference. The art of telling stories predates civilisation. Stories have been told as part of religious and social instruction since the dawn of man. From such work we have myth and legends, rituals and memories. Story telling is a uniquely human activity and narrative structure is something we instinctly crave.

Writing, though, is much newer. Mankind has only been putting symbols into words for reading for a few thousand years. And for much of that time, most of the populace could not, in fact read. And it has only been the last few hundred years that writing has truly taken off as a wide-spread past-time. But writing doesn't always tell a story. And story-telling doesn't always need writing. Writing can and is used to describe how to use a television, but there's no story there. And story-telling with little or no writing has also been done for years: that's what happens in a theatre or cinema.

But say you're a "writer" and most people assume you're telling stories in writing. 

I put this question to my Twitter feed. It was pointed out that C. S. Lews was a story-teller. His Narnia books are unashamedly stories. The world-building is a bit of an after-thought. He is known to have said on several occasions that he began The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe with a simple image: it was the image that turned into Lucy meeting the faun, Mr Tumnus in the show-covered forest under the lamppost. My stories start with an image and things develop from there. This is story-telling.

By contrast, J. R. R. Tolkien was pointed out as a writer. He was a professor of language and literature, after all, and spent many many years building the immense world of Middle-Earth. But I'm not entirely sure. He wrote so much more than the familiar work we know him for, and he built a vast history for Middle Earth out of what he read and learnt from Old English and Scandinavian mythology. And he made his histroy full of stories. Many people read The Lord Of The Rings and see a story struggling to stay afloat in an old world, richly described. But it's only like that because Tolkien filled it with stories. The popular work is, in fact, the final scene in the final act in a very long story. I think Tolkien was a story-teller, but a quite different one to Lewis.

It is not easy to pigeonhole an author and I wouldn't really want to. I have declared elsewhere that I am a story-teller and in that context, the writing is a means to an end. So, do you tell stories, or just write words?

Sir Terry Pratchett  took part in an interview on stage recently. It was at the Sydney Opera House and just about filled their largest venue, the Concert Hall. Obviously not a public speaker, as such, he was "interviewed" by Australian author Garth Nix for a little over an hour. I paid to be in the audience.

I would have been surprised if Terry was nervous. He didn't sound nervous; he sounded like someone getting on in years who had a lot of stories he could tell. Terry is on record as saying that he doesn't think anyone would be much interested in what he experienced as a journalist. However, I suspect he might have backed away from that stance. When he did venture into that history (with encouragement from Garth), it was clear the audience wanted to hear it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  After introductions, and to rapturous applause, Terry and Garth took their comfortable chairs on the stage. Garth then introduced Rob Wilkins who read a short excerpt from the upcoming Discworld novel Snuff. Terry himself introduced the section, describing Sir Samuel Vimes as basically on holiday from Ankh-Morpork. But he pointed out that once a policemen, always a policeman (a reference was made to Hercule Poirot's constant adventures), as they say, and left it at that. Rob then read the excerpt, which described Vimes encountering a now wheelchair bound Lord Rust. Terry is certainly a master at saying just as much as he needs to and no more.

Garth is an inexperienced interviewer, unfortunately, and his credentials as a fellow published author were not required. It took Terry at least twenty minutes to visibly relax, although he sounded congenial from the get-go. Garth had a few questions the audience had submitted, but only got to two of them. A more experienced interviewer, say Andrew Denton, may have gotten Terry relaxed faster and woven more audience questions into the dialogue. 

The topics were rich, and segued fairly well, as you would expect from two accomplished authors. Not necessarily being a comedian, Terry nevertheless had the audience laughing several times. Perhaps one of the most profound was when he opined that "awesome" was for the presence of Jesus, "everything else is just cool". As most would be aware, Sir Terry is not thiestic. He describes himself as a humanist, rather than an atheist, and did so in this interview, pointing out that this was hedging bets. He also pointed out that Brutha in Small Gods basically behaved in a very Christian way in his treatment of his enemies. This was met with an interestingly muted reaction from the audience. He also revealed that he treasures a small wooden crucifix solely because his mother treasured it.

As alluded to above, Garth got Terry to talk about his early life ("raised on the chalk", i.e. Wiltshire) and his time as a journalist. What had not been apparant to me was that Terry's oft-quoted line about seeing a dead body with hours of his first real job as a journalist was because said body was, in fact, a suicide. And it was far from the last. Terry had some remarkable anecdotes about the suicides he'd witnessed the aftermath of. There was one where a woman had stepped in front of a train: and how he'd found the six cigarette butts behind the signalman's hut where she had gathered the courage to do so. Another story was told that he had heard from a lady who had been a nurse in the 1920s. This was before antiobiotics were discovered, remember (a point Terry curiously left implied), and there was very little that could be done for, say, sufferers of advanced cancer. It was not unknown to euthanase such patients and Terry made a special point of saying the chaplains and priests knew it happened. And why. Nowadays, of course, medical professionals avoid this type of action, due to legal ramifactions. But Terry is clearly on the side of medically assisted suicide. 

Mention was made of when Sir Terry was knighted and there was a few minutes levity about the ancient ritual. That led to an audience question about the sword that Terry had made. The actual question was whether he was going to make armour. It took a while, but Terry's answer was no and he showed why the question quite missed the point. Terry has two neighbours who show up on Time Team as experts in iron-age technology. It was one of those neighbours who helped and showed him how to forge a sword, starting with "walking the fields", looking for suitable iron ore. The process itself is quite complex, and Terry cheerfully admitted he could not have made the pommel, but then, when ever someone says "sword", they almost always mean the actual blade, which Terry did make. He brought up the concept of "mana" at that point, which you would expect this audience to get (they did). His sword is imbued with his mana, including some genuine iron-age steel. And that's really why he doesn't need make armour. Apart from his daughter, which he amusingly said he could only claim half the work, his sword is his single best creation.

The evening could have gone on far longer as Terry got more voluble. But the venue would not have approved. Besides, it was a Sunday night. Terry had brought in a stock of plastic teeth as used in the live-action production of Hogfather and at this point, he and Garth scattered them throughout what audience they could reach. This was, of course, received well. Then Garth revealed that Terry's birthday was not far away and so he was treated to the Concert Hall full of people singing him "Happy Birthday". 

As we filed out, I diverted to the North Lobby, being one of the lucky hundred selected to have a book signed by Sir Terry himself. Terry was clearly enjoying himself here, but it was not a venue for long conversation, or even any conversation, with a hundred books to sign. Here, too, was Sir Terry comfortable being the most important cog in a well-oiled machine, but sadly, here, too, there were one or two signs of his condition. Still, it was very good of him to come all this way to his fans "Down Under".

It was a good night, overall, and I know I've forgotten details and perhaps whole topics. The fact that fantasy fiction is essentially mainstream, now, got aired briefly, for instance, but I would consider the most interesting points of that topic were not even discussed by Terry or Garth. But I'm glad I went. My only regret was that I didn't organise to meet with some friends who also went.

Picture of Sir Terry Pratchett and Garth Nix taken by Jacq aka Zja Zja obsidiantears83
www.flickr.com/photos/bookbites/5629588202/

I know it's been a while, but I got interrupted with a journey, of a sorts.  

Most good stories have a journey. Most? I would say all. It can be as simple as going from one place to another, like in a road-trip movie. Or it can be a quest, like in many fantasy novels.  Some go round and round, some go there and back again. Some never go home.

But just describing a physical journey is not much more than a travelogue. The real journey is how the characters discover and develop. They will learn things about those around them, and sometimes about themselves. They will achieve great things, as well as complete trivial tasks. They will try and fail and try again. Sometimes they never suceed. Sometimes they can only succeed further along their journey. Sometimes, especially in short stories, the journey is just a reframing of a scene. Sometimes such a journey is simply one of discovery for the reader.

Every story has a journey. Remember to watch out for it when writing.

I came across an interesting link this morning, courtesy of Twitter. It was an article by an artist about how to go on being creative.  It coves a lot of ground, but there are two things I particularly took away from it this morning: Write What You Know Like and Read What You Want To Write (Like).

For a long time, novice writers looking for a genre are told to look at what they know, and then write about that. This works well for "how-to" books. After all, if you were reading to learn about cabinet making, you'd want the author to have actually done cabinet making. This can work in fiction, too. A police murder-mystery will probably benefit from the author having  been a police detective. So how does that work if you're describing a trek across a wilderness on horses yet you can't ride one yourself? That's where research comes in. Dig a bit deeper in most advice given to writers and you will always find the advice "research". But isn't that at odds with the mantra "write what you know"?

That's where Write What You Like comes in. What do I want to write? I want to write fantasy adventures with realistic characters. Often horse-riding. Usually with swords and magic. Basically, stuff I don't have direct experience with. But I like to read it. So that's what I write. And yes, I research things like combat details and how far a man can normally ride a horse in a day. I don't have to get it 100% right; just right enough. And whatever else, good characters will trump an unrealistic setting any day. 

Wait: how do I know that? Because I read what I want to write. My favourite authors are ones who do enough research to make the world coherent, and then craft realistic characters in it. Some of the world-building needs hand-waving -- which often happens in a fantasy setting and even that is sometimes lampshaded. But you know what? I don't care. Often the hand-waving becomes an essential part of the world, making it a richer place. And a richer setting makes for a better place to write a story.

Here's the link for the full article:

www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/

 

Amongst the works of Science Fiction, there is a significant subset called Hard Science Fiction. This is where the science is less wishful thinking and more possible. Even in works with faster-than-light (FTL) drives, as sometimes the explanation can be more scientific and less hand-wavy. Larry Niven is often held up as a writer of fairly hard science fiction, and for good reason. He has stories where there is no FTL travel, and even when he does, such as in The Mote In God's Eye, he has pages of unpublished technical description in how it could work.

That's not to say hard scifi can't be interesting. The webcomic freefall.purrsia.com/ is rich in humour and absurdity, yet the science in it is actually pretty hard. The current storyline involves a neural pruning algorithm for their robots, for example. It's difficult to get much harder than that.

So what about fantasy? 

Fantasy is usually the sort of stories that have things you can't find science to explain. Magic is the red-hot #1, here, but it does include psychic powers (e.g. telepathy), non-human races (e.g. elves), created worlds, other planes of existence, whole pantheons of gods... the list goes on. That said, some authors come up with coherent magic systems. Lyndon Hardy's The Master of The Five Magics has a range of magics based on some quite firm logic, for instance, and the old Vancian magic system used in Dungeons and Dragons (particularly 2nd edition) was also very well thought out.

Fantasy setting also play a lot with what would be possible in time. Many many many fantasy works have locks from only last century, for instance, and long-distance travel is often not unheard of, either. A good example is The Belgariad. I sometimes wonder why they don't have steam engines. And then I remember: because the author didn't write them in.

But fantasy can be harder than that. This is where horses are only used by the very rich. Where most people walk around and work very hard just to stay alive. Where an arrow in the shoulder will kill you in a few weeks because it got infected. Katherine Kerr writes closer to this level, despite the important role magic plays in her stories. And my writing is heading that way, too. But it's kind of the opposite of what happens in Dungeons and Dragons novels: in those, magic is almost everywhere and not all that unusual. I'm finding I prefer a setting where magic is much much rarer.

It's kind of a more "realistic" fantasy.

Starting a story is sometimes regarded by writers (both new and old) to be one of the more difficult things to do in writing. I remember numerous "creative writing" sessions in school where there was a wonderful idea, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get there from a blank page. I never managed to independantly re-create "It was a dark and stormy night...", though. 

One of the more pieces of advice in NaNoWriMo is "just start anywhere - you can always go back and re-write the start later". I know of writers who found that a real light-bulb moment. It also helps when you starting a new scene. Despite all the best planning, sometimes it is sheer murder trying to find that one point where the narrative can begin. 

I also know of writers famed for writing the opening last. Or at least, after much of the work is already written. Keeping this mind is illuminating when reading the magnificent opening of a favourite book. And if you want to be really entertained, you can try to guess how much later the real first words are! Is it after the camera of the minds-eye has zoomed into the stage? Or is just after the first words spoken? Or maybe it's the first reaction to the first words? Or maybe the first actual scene was actually written later, too, and the real first words were where the protagonist first appears.

Some authors like to start their work with huge landscapes and big ideas. Terry Pratchett often goes for this approach. Quite a few of his Discworld novels introduce the disc on its elephants and turtle practically within the first dozen paragraphs. It's a little like introducing the play by saying "This 'ere is a theatre and I'm onna stage. An' everything that 'appens will 'appen on it." It works for some authors. By comparison, David Eddings begins the first book of The Belgariad (after the Prologue) with a short paragraph ending with the simple line "No matter how far he rose in life, Garion never forgot that all his memories began in that kitchen." This is actually a brilliant piece of writing. Not only does it tell you the main protagonist's name and defines a starting point for the first scene, but it also sets up the entirely reasonable expectation that he will most definitely not stay there. And there's a bonus for those re-reading because they will by then know exactly how far Garion rose in life, which imbues it with a wonderfully wistful piece of memory.

Would that I can start all my stories like that.

A few weeks ago I embarked on a re-reading of all of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. In order. Although I've read all of them numerous times, I'd only ever actually read them in order once before. It is, I must admit, a mammoth undertaking with more than thirty novels published. But you get to see the development of ideas, foreshadowing even if unintentional, characters settle into their roles and a number of recurring characters gain definition. 

Of course, the first and previous time I did it, I was amazed at how so many things were so much better for having read them in the original order. I can't remember any examples, unfortunately. This time, however, I'm noticing a lot of things I know I didn't notice last time. Since I'm developing my own writing craft, I am paying attention to how Terry has developed over the years. The obvious change over the years is that the novels have gotten longer. For the longest time, I thought that this was simply a natural result of his skill improving. Now, I'm not so sure. I have heard from another author that publishers encouraged longer novels from their fantasy authors quite some years ago. 

But I also noticed something else: novels like Reaper Man and Soul Music have two stories intertwined. When the discworld novels started getting noticeably bigger, I wonder if Terry found the way to do that was to write two stories that only met near the end. Some novels this is done better than others. Witches Abroad successfully mingles the two stories so closely they never feel separate. But Reaper Man is the opposite. And yet Small Gods is clearly just one story with a few divergences as the plot follows several characters at once. 

Another thing, too, is how long it actually takes Terry to settle down into his style. Wryd Sisters is probably where his style first feels relaxed. (Significantly, it is the first one I ever read.) One of the major characters, Granny Weatherwax, is already established by this point so this novel uses her as a foundation for Lancre and the other people around her. To great effect. 

The other interesting point is that there's another transition point around Small Gods or Lords and Ladies. It's difficult to describe, but the closest I can get is that now the sort of characters that will crop up in the Discworld are well established at this point, and new ones just for one novel are slightly predictable. Terry has bedded down many of his stereotypes and cliches by this point. The literal response that derails careful logic. The power of belief and what that can achieve. There's an essential Discworld-iness to most new characters by this point that is what the fans clearly savour.

I already know that in the most recent books, Terry is striking out in new directions. The Ankh-Morpork of Going Postal is quite different from that of Equal Rites. Granny Weatherwax was almost too powerful in Carpe Jugulum and has by necessity become only a part of the supporting cast around Tiffany Aching. There's only so many times The Watch and Vimes can spectacularly save Ankh-Morpork.

The other trap is that by even book sixteen Terry is considerably experienced at his craft. I, who have not finished even one novel, should be careful comparing my writing to Terry. Undoubtedly The Colour Of Magic had bit-parts that would not work in more recent novels. But back there is where my skill level is closest to his. Every writer must start somewhere.

It is hardly disputed that the standard for High Fantasy is Tolkien. The world of Middle Earth as described in The Lord Of The Ring has a massive backstory (largely told in The Silmarillion), and the story we see is the endgame of a much much longer story whose outcome will quite literally change the world. It's hard to get much more High Fantasy than that.

It is natural for other authors, of course, make a stab at High Fantasy. One example of more modern times is David Eddings whose chief complaint about Tolkien was the very Victorian-ness about LOTR. But along the way, The Belgariad gave us a new world with a massive history, and (once again) the story we see is the endgame of a much longer story whose outcome -- all together now -- will quite literally change the world. And as a bonus the characters in The Belgariad will get up to hijinks just 'cause they can, and trade puns and make good times even in the middle of an epic adventure. 

I like The Belgariad, I must admit. I also like Terry Pratchett. Originally billed as Comedic Fantasy, Terry's works are harder to define, but are arguably less High than Eddings'. This does not make them any less readable, but the characters and their motives are much more complex and the world "just is" rather than having a huge backstory to play out. In fact, most Discworld novels don't actually have an outcome that will change the world. Some do, but a lot don't. 

And then there are other newcomers. I've recently read some books by Kieth Baker. This is the chap who created Eberron, a campaign world for Dungeons and Dragons that Wizards Of The Coast subsequently chose as their "officlal" campaign realm for 3rd Edition DnD. And when they do that, novels help give the otherwise dry source material flavour about places and peoples. The Eberron novels I recently read would normally be classed as High Fantasy, due to the familiar ingredients of a massive backstory and an outcome that would change the world. They were interesting reading in part because of the flavour of Eberron being described, but also because Baker is a relatively inexperienced writer. I have a quantity of novels set in The Forgotten Realms, some by good writers, others by more mediocre writers. Some of these are stunningly good with complex characterisations, witty dialogue and galloping story. Others are not much more than a tour through some of the DnD monsters.

Baker's books fall into the middle. The characterisations in the first trilogy could have been stronger, but then, the first book did have an awful lot to describe about Eberron in general and Sharn, The City Of Towers, in particular. It could afford to be light on the subtleties of character because there was a huge new world to describe. The second and third books, on the other hand, put most of the action away from Sharn, giving time to description of other new things on Eberron, and -- to my mind -- leaving the characterisation a little short. 

The second trilogy was vastly different. There was really only one core character, and thus more time could be spent on characterisation. But there was still a huge amount of scenery to romp through. I felt the second trilogy handled this better than the first, however there was definitely a sense of what a programmer would call "featuritis", especially towards the end of the third book. I recognise that a land for DnD will, by nature, have a wide variety of creatures living in fairly close proximity and that there will be a considerable quantity of magical activities. I should note that nothing felt like a deus ex machina but I wonder how close we came. At least the second trilogy didn't have the awkwardly written scenes where the action was described out of order for the sake of suspense. And the resolution of the heroes felt more satisfying and defintely more complete.

But then I went back to the Discworld (I'm partway through reading them all again in publication order) and I'm reminded of the difference. Admittedly, the Discworld is not beholden to the rules of a role-playing game, and that gives him leeway in how his world can act. But then, writers like Elaine Cunningham didn't let that hamper them when writing in the Forgotten Realms. Whilst I wouldn't normally describe Pratchett as High Fantasy, I wouldn't describe Baker's works as High Fantasy, either. Baker's stories are merely Epic in nature. 

I hope he keeps getting better.

Got to try a Motorola Xoom just now. Oo-ee. Now I understand why all the hype about the iPad. I want one, but I can't afford one. And my netbook would probably feel unloved.



PS. Oh, and I did what everyone says the first time they try it: "Oh - It's heavy." Duh.

PPS. And how is it to type on? Well, it's odd, yet functional. The default install has no notepad app, which is rather odd. But I found a note field in the Contacts app and gave it a try. You need short fingernails. :-/ I was interested in using it for portable electroinc notepad. The problem is that that is not what it is designed to do.