THE ICE PICK

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht. San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 1999.

Fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents for a 176-page paperback is a lot of money in my opinion. But gems have never been cheap, and this is one of them. No matter what genre you write in, this book can give you some wonderful material for creating believable scenes in your stories.

Compiled of information from dozens of experts, and filled with "simple, step-by-step instructions for dealing with 40 life- and limb-threatening situations," this nicely illustrated book is intended to help people cope with and survive all kinds of nasty situations. For example, it tells how to escape from quicksand, survive the attack of a poisonous snake, win a swordfight, jump into a river from a height, perform an emergency tracheotomy, treat a knife or bullet wound, or land a plane. And it gives you enough detailed information that you could actually do it. Or, better yet, write about your characters doing it.

You can adapt a situation to your own world by, for example, changing the attacking mountain lion--or other wild animal--into the alien creature of your choice and using the information given here to make your character’s encounter more realistic.

Or your character might need to jump from the wall of a castle into a moat or a midden heap instead of from a bridge into a river or from a building into a dumpster.

The doors in your world may be constructed differently from the doors discussed in the book, or the vehicles may be wagons or spacecraft instead of automobiles and planes, but the facts provided here can aid you in creating authentic scenes.

If your characters are adrift at sea, lost in a desert or in the mountains, caught in an avalanche, an earthquake, or a crossfire, or just need to make a fire without matches, this book can really help you help them.
And "you just never know," someday the information in here might even save your life.

{Published in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Aug. 2000.}

THE ICE PICK

20 Master Plots (and How to Build Them), by Ronald Tobias. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-595-8. $16.95.

Whenever you mention you’re writing a story, the first thing people usually ask is "What’s your story about?" Simplistically speaking, the answer you give (if you tell them) is the plot. But if an editor asked you, could you state the basic idea for your story in fifty words or less? Explain what the central aim of your story is? Tell your protagonist’s goal? Motivation? Opposition?

When you get an idea for a story, do you know where to begin? Or how to maintain the momentum of the narrative? Plot is a dynamic process. It permeates and drives your story. It "isn’t an accessory that conveniently organizes your material according to some ritualistic magic. You don’t just plug in a plot like a household appliance and expect it to do its job. Plot is organic. It takes hold of the writer and the work from the beginning."

This book is not simply a list of the twenty top plots of all time. It shows you how to create your plot and apply it to the subject matter you choose so that your story is developed evenly and effectively.

In most stories we find that without tension there is no plot, and tension is created through opposition to the protagonist. This may be an external enemy or an internal character flaw. The tension generally increases as the climax of the story approaches, each roadblock the character faces becoming increasingly difficult, raising the stakes or escalating the complications, and eventually changing the protagonist’s character for better . . . or worse.

There are action plots and mental plots, morality plays and stories where there is no clear right or wrong, and there are triangles and duos where character relationships are paramount, but Tobias has chosen the twenty commonest plots. Then for each of them, from the quintessential "Quest" to the "Ascension" (Horatio Alger-type plots)and "Descension" (lo, how the mighty are fallen-type plots), Tobias defines and explains the plot, tells its advantages and dangers, explains how it can work for you, and gives a checklist of things to keep in mind when trying to write a story using that plot. He is straightforward about the pitfalls and gives lots of practical hints and pointers.

For example, in the checklist for the plot he calls "Wretched Excess," he warns, "Develop your character so that his decline evokes sympathy. Don’t present him as a raving lunatic. . . . Don’t hide anything that will keep your reader from being empathetic. . . . It’s hard to be sympathetic with a person who’s a rapist or a serial murderer. . . . At the crisis point of your story, move your character either toward complete destruction or redemption. Don’t leave him swinging in the wind, because your reader will definitely not be satisfied."

Having given all of these hard and fast plotting rules, Tobias goes on to say, "On the one hand, don’t force your story to fit, and on the other hand, don’t get so loose that nothing fits. Plot is the form your idea will take; give it shape and substance as you write. Whatever you do, however, don’t be a slave to the plot. . . . Make it work for you."

The index is very good and covers both the works he has drawn examples from, as well as his own text.

This is not an easy book--although the text is clear, and the tone is light. It requires attention and thought. But the advice is excellent and well worth your time to investigate it.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Jan. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, May 2000.}

THE ICE PICK

You Can Write a Mystery, by Gillian Roberts. Cincinnati : Writer’s Digest Books, 1999. ISBN 0-89879-863-9. $12.99.

Why am I reviewing a book about mystery-writing in a newsletter for writers of sf/f/h? Because many (or even most?) sf/f/h novels contain mysteries; and although we don’t think of what we are writing as being a "mystery," it might strengthen our novels if we knew more about how to hide clues, exploit red herrings, and handle other mystery-writing techniques.

Roberts takes you from getting ready to write through marketing your finished novel. She teaches the seven "C" basics of designing characters and handling conflict, causality, complications, change, crisis, and closure as well as how to develop your own style, find a tone for your story, and construct a dynamite plot.

Roberts includes in her advice on character building a checklist that could be used for character creation in any genre. And in her chapter on setting--"Where in the world will your world be?"--she asks questions and provides advice that would be especially helpful in fleshing out a totally fictional place, such as sf/f/h writers usually create.

But the most helpful section is on plotting, which is the heart of any mystery. She explains how to provide alternative suspects and ways you might get an amateur sleuth believably involved in a case. And as she says, "Even if you are writing about the police, pros who have seen and done it all, this crime can’t be another routine murder, just another day’s work. This one--your story--is an urgent and personal quest." And that’s true whether you are writing about an intergalactic cop or a castle guardsman in a medieval horror story.

She has advice on how to avoid the plot clichés, how to organize and keep track of your ideas, and how to structure your mystery. She explains what you need to tell the reader right away and how to hide clues in plain sight.

The book is especially clear and easy to follow, and would be excellent for a beginning writer in any genre, as well as anyone trying to write a straight mystery or incorporate one into another genre. I recommend it highly.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Dec. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2005.}

THE ICE PICK

Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure, by Jesse Lee Kercheval. Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997. ISBN 1-8849120-28-9. $16.99.

Whatever kind of fiction you write--or want to write--short shorts (anything up to 1500 words), short stories (up to 50 pages), novellas (50 to 150 pages), novels (150 to 1000 pages, but averaging 300 to 450), novels-in-stories (collections of short stories centering on one character, family, town, etc. or sharing a common theme or subject), or experimental fiction, this book has something to offer you.

The first part discusses the usual elements of structure: openings, viewpoint, characters, conflict, and endings, as well as ways of finding ideas and how to revise your work.

Kercheval divides story openings into three types: "into the pot, already boiling," the "calm before the story," and "opening statements to the jury," which are thematic statements, such as "Jones has been in love all his life." She explains the advantages and risks inherent in each method.

In the chapter on viewpoint, Kercheval discusses how to play around with varying points of view to figure out which is right for your current story project and which character will best serve as your narrator.

Dialogue and dialect are covered in the excellent chapter on characterization, which includes many hints on how to develop your characters by external description (without overdoing it), and through internal revelation using the characters’ own thoughts, memories, dreams, and imaginings.

"When editors send back a short story or reject a novel, nine times out of ten they will say the ending didn’t work for them." Kercheval discusses the use of symbolic objects, meaningful gestures, and rites of passage (a death, a marriage, the birth of a child, a homecoming, or a leavetaking) to sum up or resolve your story’s conflict and make its ending satisfying.

I found the chapter on revision very helpful. It contains both macro and micro revision checklists and offers solutions to common problems.

The second part of the book discusses the different kinds of fiction--the advantages and disadvantages of novels versus short stories, short stories versus novellas, etc.--and what may be right for the kind of story you are trying to tell.

The index is very good, and there are end of chapter exercises to help you get your feet wet. Some of them are fun, and all of them lead you back to your own writing.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Aug. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Dec. 2000.}