Guest Post: Karl Johanson on Suggested Revisions

Karl Johanson is editor of Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine. His editorial in Issue #8 contains a wonderfully ironic list of things that can go wrong in one's writing. I asked to reprint it here.

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I’ve know in my time some coaches who were extremely inspirational. They could cheer you on and you were inspired. They could yell at you and you were inspired. They could stand in silent contemplation on the sidelines and you were inspired. I wish I had that talent, as the only aspect of editing I don’t enjoy is having to say 'no' to many of the submitted works. I appreciate the creative process, often as much as the finished products of creativity. I wish I had something truly inspiring to say to the writers I wind up saying ‘no’ to, as they truly inspire me.

In general, I’m not the type to make fun of those working at being creative. However, if I were, I might say something such as:

Dear sir or madam:

Thank you for allowing us to consider your science fiction story. We like this story and would like to publish it in an upcoming issue of our magazine, but we feel it requires a few very minor alterations to make it publishable.

I liked the premises (premi?) of your story. The concept of having a story which considers the complex and subtle sociological and personal implications of changes in technology is a good one. However, we feel the story would have a broader appeal if it instead focused on violent conflicts which make use of this new technology.

With regards to your, sentence structure remember that, commas are supposed to be cues for where a person should breath if, they’re reading the story out, loud.

The characters in the story should all have nicknames, alternate between their real names and their nick names throughout the story to help the readers remember who is who. The nick-names we suggest for the characters are, in order of their appearance in the story, Spanky, Spiffy, Wheezer, Bif the Crusher, Sarge, Amazon Tracy, Tycho, Zoltron Man and ‘Six-gun Pete’. (Write in a couple stun gun fights between Sarge and Zoltron Man.) In addition, we would like you to add another character to the story. A lovable furry orange alien named Chester, which leaves a trail of slime where ever it goes, which the other characters slip on throughout the story for comic relief.

Developing the characters while furthering the plot and action was a bold choice, but it can often be dull. Better to stop the action all together and give a long drawn out listing of unrelated events from the various characters’ pasts to develop them. Also, tell us about the personalities of the various characters, without confusing the readers by relating these personality traits to anything that actually happens in the story.

The story needs a good kicker for the ending as well. Simply using the plot, dialogue and action to resolve the main story points and conflicts, while juxtaposing them with the parallel personal conflicts of some of the characters, leaves the reader wondering where the really big explosions are. Perhaps it can turn out that they’re all living on a miniaturized duplicate of the Earth. And all of the characters somehow get changed into mice or aardvarks, except Spiffy. For the epilogue, Spiffy should recite the following soliloquy: “Mankind, after millennia of crawling up from the cosmic slime, one invention and innovation after another, slowly moved its way into space, which was not only its destiny, but its birthright! (Aren’t exclamation marks great?) And Man didn’t worry if the universe took issue with this incursion into its dark and airless regions. Man pushed, pulled and slid sideways into this destiny, with a belly full of raw oats and bravery, and a particle cannon full of positrons ready to do Man’s bidding in a cold, dank, star studded, impersonal universe.” We know that your story doesn’t actually take place in space, or have anything to do with space travel (and yes, the universe isn’t actually ‘dank’), but we think the readers will let this slide.

If these changes are acceptable to you, then you likely don’t have much artistic integrity, in which case we don’t want your story after all.

Karl Johanson

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Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine can be found at http:www.neo-opsis.ca

For a brief sample video of Karl giving actual advice to writers click here

For more Karl advice to writers, check out this page of videos of Karl's presentations at various conferences.

The Fantasy Novelist's Exam

The Fantasy Novelist's Exam is a list of common cliches in fantasy, so if you find any of these elements in your own story, you need to immediately edit them out... I think this was intended to be humorous, but as an editor, I'm not laughing because I indeed see all of these things across my desk way too often.

Next Steps

Having finished the first draft of one's novel and sent it off to one's first reader (the person who identifies necessary revisions before one can even think of sending a manuscript to one's editor), one must immediately take these next steps:

1. start on the first chapter of the next novel to keep the momentum going;
2. give some thought to possible revisions of the current manuscript—because, let's face it, the first reader is definitely going to identify that it drags a bit in the middle, and that the ending was way too rushed—and;
3. prepare for interviews with Shelagh Rogers and Eleanor Wachtel.

My next novel is a parallel-world fantasy, and I am happily composing the opening chapter in my head as I fall asleep each night. I originally outlined this book in 1965, so it's been kicking around in my head for a few years already, so no problem there. (The most innovative aspect of the 1965 outline was that I made the protagonist 64. I was tired of all the 'coming of age' fantasies I was reading and thought, 'hey, why can't it be about an old guy having a coming of retirement adventure'? Of course, no one will see that as inventive now that I am myself approaching retirement age; it will just seem self-indulgent. But what can I do? It's been the same character in my head for 48 years.)

The revisions to the current manuscript I may leave until I get feedback from my first reader, on the off chance he enjoys the pacing of the middle and thought the surprise ending fully developed. No point in indulging in nervous and possibly counter-productive fiddling; though one should jot down any little oversights that come to mind: in my case, checking for gender balance and ethnic diversity, given the novel is supposed to take place in the future. Giving oneself a little breathing space before revisions also allows for perspective.... but one does not want to leave the manuscript alone too long, lest, again, the project loses momentum.

In the meantime, have been spending a lot of my time thinking about the post-launch book interviews. I imagine them going something like this:

Rogers/Wachtel: Did you have any idea that your novel was going to be as successful as it has been? That it would go viral essentially over night?

Runté: I'd like to say that no one was more surprised that I. But the truth is, my wife was considerably more surprised than I. Indeed, I think 'incredulous' comes closest to her reaction.

Rogers/Wachtel: [Laughs]* But you must have had some inkling as you wrote this how it would be received.

Runté: I was quite certain that it would flop commercially. It's strictly 1960s SF, so I thought the audience for it had all died off or at least grown too old to read much any more. I wrote the original outline 39 years ago, so it is pretty primitive SF by today's standards. But I purposely chose the simplest of the 12 novels currently in my head as my first novel, so I could try to master plot and character and pacing and so on before trying to do anything 'deeper'. So it's just a light-weight comedic novel in the style of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat or Eric Frank Russel's Wasp or maybe even Donald Barr's Space Relations.

Rogers/Wachtel: A lot of the critics are comparing your novel with Bujold's Vorkosigan series.

Runté: That's flattering of course. I am big fan of Bujold. In fact, when I was gearing up for one of my writing retreats, I reread the entire Vorkosiagan saga to get back in the mood. And I freaked at one point because there was this one scene in one of her books that was so reminiscent of one bit I had written that I started to worry that I had remembered it from her book and incorporated it into my novel without realizing.... I accused myself of unconscious plagiarism until I went back and found that scene in the original outline from the seventies, at least a decade before her book had been published, so I was off the hook. But her work has definitely been an influence on me, though I don't see that my work is anywhere as polished or as hard hitting as hers usually is.

And so on. I'd have to talk about my wife being supportive and organizing writer's retreats for me, and so on, to make up for the 'incredulous' line, though it is true she is not a big fan of SF. Except maybe for Connie Willis and Babylon 5. I like both of those too, but you can only cover so much in the interview.

I imagine it's quite an in depth interview, though, so the listener would only get the highlights on the actual program, and would have to go to the podcast for the extended, unedited version.

I'm having more trouble rehearsing my GG Award acceptance speech, because I haven't quite decided whether the book will be nominated for best novel or best YA novel. It could go either way.

 

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*Rogers in particular has a delightful laugh.
I was actually interviewed by Rogers in 1989 about my short story in the first issue of On Spec magazine. She had asked me why I had submitted my story to On Spec and I had replied, "Because no one else would take it," and she had laughed that laugh, and said, "I wish I'd asked you that on-air!" I had, of course, meant that as a speculative fiction story, On Spec had been the right market for it, not that I had bounced it from other markets first (I hadn't) but I heard how that had sounded, and when you get a laugh like that, you just go with it.

Son of a Dwarf by Jeremy Mason

Attended a production of Jeremy Mason's Son of a Dwarf this evening.

The play is part satire of the fantasy genre, part decent fantasy adventure. Although there are a number of pure pythonesque moments, and some brilliant shots at basic fantasy tropes that scored well with the audience, the central story is allowed to retain sufficient sense that the story hangs together for its own sake. Indeed, this is one of the plays' strengths, since a common error of satirists--deftly avoided here--is to get so wrapped up in jokes and one-liners that the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own silliness. This got pretty silly, but allowed the characters to retain a central dignity that saw them deliver their dialog as if they meant it.

I have been following the work of Jeremy Mason for some time and am pleased to see him branching out from children's plays to, well, sophomore plays. The same principles of frantic action and comedic commentary that served Jeremy well when writing for 5 year olds kept the 1st and 2nd year university audience I was sitting with howling with laughter. My 14 year old laughed throughout even though she has only just started Lord of the Rings, has never engaged in fantasy gaming, and probably missed a third of the references. And even at my advanced years, I pretty much enjoyed the whole thing.

It's hard to know where Jeremy's writing left off and the inventive direction of the Accidental Humour Company took over. The creative use of multimedia screens required split second timing, but allow the production to include astounding special effects: an arrow shot at the evil wizard turns into a dove; magic mirrors talk back; tiny gnomes climb in and out of hero's backpack; forcefields shimmer to prevent the heroine entering the magic cave; explosions shoot from the wizard's staff; and so on. Great stuff for a live play! The battle scenes were fantastic: actual armies of--well, I might have missed what they were exactly, but they were very creepy in a hilarious sort of way -- evil minions threaten our heroes, as great choreography has the actors Harry Wooing across the stage in slow motion. Fabulous stuff!

I will absolutely seek out any future productions by Accidental Humour Company. Pure comic genius!

I give the play four out of five stars.

View the trailer here: http://vimeo.com/46451916

Fantasy Author Exam

Is your fantasy novel ready for professional editing? Take this test to see if you can identify and eliminate fundamental problems with your fantasy novel before submitting it for expensive editing.

Thanks to On Spec Twitter feed for tip

How to name your first novel

a mildly amusing Monkey See post on How to Name Your First Novel