With the release of Frolic on the Amaranthyn right around the corner, I was lucky enough to be interviewed by the fantastic So I'm Writing a Novel podcast! We talked about the novella, the writing process in general, and a lot of other stuff!
With the upcoming release of my novella, Frolic on the Amaranthyn, I went back and collected all the various loose-leaf sheets of writing (both typed and handwritten) that I could find which were vital in helping to reach the final product. That’s not including notebook pages, things jotted down on my phone, a sample proof-copy I had printed out of the book fully bound (through Barnes & Noble Press), or any other sheets that have probably gotten lost somewhere in the ever-growing clutter of life, but in total they came to about 117 pages!
Doing this, I was reminded of how far the story has come since its initial drafts, and of how much work was necessary to get it in this current state that I’m satisfied with releasing. Sometimes it definitely seemed like a never-ending project, an endeavor with which I would be perpetually be working on without an endpoint in sight. But without that stringent and unwavering dedication to pushing through until it was something that met the standards I was aiming for, I don’t think I would be as proud of the finished product as I am now! Hopefully I can take this mindset into the future projects I have planned, and remind myself that no matter how insurmountable the writing process might feel at any given moment, it can be totally worth it in the end.
Wading Through the Terrifying Cascade of Text in Writing Drafts
It’s often said among writer-types that the prospect of staring at a blank page during the first stages of writing is one of the hardest hurdles to overcome. The pressure of how to start a story, or about what story to even tell, can seem to cripple the expedition before it has had a chance to start, resulting in hours lost simply pondering that featureless sheet of paper or computer screen. And while the anxiety of trying to find the perfect words to fill that page on the first draft is one that is all to familiar to me as well, I also find a certain degree of freedom to be found in initial starting point, a sense of wonder that this story could go anywhere and that it might reveal itself in an entirely different form than you once expected.
What is sometimes more terrifying to me, on the other hand, is when I have finished that first draft, and have multiple sheets of paper filled with scrawled or rambling text that I then have to sift through in order to find the through-line of the story being told.
I recently finished what I would probably consider the third draft of a story I’m hoping to submit in the next month or so. It still has some potential issues and fixes I’ll be trying to iron out in the mean time, but otherwise I’m quite happy with how it’s turned out. The thing that makes me dread sitting down for those last few rounds of edits is the fact that the story is about thirty or so words shy of reaching a 10,000 word count. I know that compared to novels of any size, but especially the 400+ page tomes that are popular these days, that number is paltry in comparison (for example the lowest word count for something to be considered a novel is around 50,000 words), but for me, that number I have reached with this story is daunting. When I look at my computer screen and scroll through falling walls of text that start to blur into a indistinct blob, I can get overwhelmed by the prospect of having to comb through all of that information with each subsequent draft.
I think part of this anxiety comes from the fact that a longer a piece of writing becomes, the more likely it will be that a narrative inconsistency or some similar sort of problem will pop up. The bigger a story gets, the more details are thereby added and contained within that piece, and each of those details have to either be followed through by the end or make sense from start to finish. I find myself petrified while writing even shorter works that I’ll make a mistake like this, and that I won’t be able to catch it because of how many lines and pages of text I’d need to sift through in order to pick it out. To make that jump to a novel-length project, and have even MORE instances for the possibility of accident is something I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around yet.
A big part of this, I believe, is my tendency to, for the most part, wing a lot of the narrative beats contained within my stories. I definitely have an idea developed in my head, with different scenes I want to happen or themes I’d like to explore, but the minutiae of specific details a lot of times come about during the writing process. Because of this, concepts or ideas that start off slightly vague at the beginning of a draft can sometimes be further developed later on in the narrative, so that then I’ll have to go back and try to explore or elucidate those facts within those earlier moments. I’m not sure if that’s what novel, or even series authors do, but in my own experience it’s a difficult process even within the short story format, so I can’t even begin to comprehend its complexity in pieces substantially longer.
Fortunately, as it is with artistic endeavors of any kind, practice is the best solution to something like this, and I feel like I’ve made a lot of headway with this most recent project. I’m trying to write longer, more narratively-complex pieces in general this year, both as a means of improving my own writing craft, but also with the express intent of psyching myself up to one day write something that is novel-length or longer. It’ll probably be a long road till then, but I’m definitely conscious of the obstacles I’ll need to overcome along the way and am doing all that I can in order to improve.
How "The Music of Erich Zann" Works as a Masterpiece of Horror Fiction
Horror has been on my mind a lot as of late. Halloween is around the corner, I’m currently in the stages of editing and finishing up a fantasy/horror short story, and weird fiction (AKA horror with supernatural/otherworldly elements) is always my go-to source of literary entertainment. I had recently purchased an amazing audio recording, set to background music, containing several of H.P. Lovecraft’s notable works produced by Cadabra Records, specifically Dagon, The Cats of Ulthar, and The Music of Erich Zann. I was especially excited about The Music of Erich Zann piece, as that always been a favorite of mine by Lovecraft, a very short, almost understated work of his that doesn’t have the same widespread knowledge as some of his other stories. And while listening to it, savoring the incredible vocal talent of Andrew Leman and the wonderfully creepy accompanying music, I came to a conclusion: The Music of Erich Zann, more-so than The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour Out of Space, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or any of the other masterpieces he penned, is, in my opinion, Lovecraft’s best and most effective work of horror fiction.
In order to understand what makes this story so successful, we have to look at all the elements Lovecraft used as building blocks to the story. As a brief summary, the narrative is of a student (presumably in Paris or other large French city) who rented an apartment in a building along the Rue d’Auseil. There he hears music such as he’s never heard before from another tenant, a viola player that is the eponymous Erich Zann. Fascinated by the music and how strange it is, the narrator wishes to hear more from Zann, though he is rebuked for his interest by the viola player and warned against listening to it further. While transcribing a letter to explain why he plays the otherworldly music that he does, a sudden disturbance comes from the window which should look out upon the city, but from which the narrator can only see utter blackness, and the entire message is swept away into the darkness outside and the room is plunged to into shadows. The narrator tries to leave, but upon stumbling across the room, bumps into Zann, who is implied to be dead though is at the same time furiously playing at his viola. Fleeing from the apartment building, the narrator comes to find that he can no longer find the entire street where the event took place, as if he’s completely erased its placement from memory or it’s been completely taken out of reality. The story itself is much better than my lackluster description here, and it’s a very quick read, so if it’s something you haven’t read, I’d highly suggest it. You can find it for free here.
Lovecraft is well-known for imbuing artistic artifacts or creations with evil intent. Pickman’s Model focuses on a painter’s abhorrent subjects detailed in his art work. There’s the famous Cthulhu idol depicted in The Call of Cthulhu. We even get scattered passages of text from dreaded books like the Necronomicon in The Dunwich Horror. But utilizing music is a different thing all-together. With each of the afore-mentioned artistic mediums, there is a level of visual description involved in their idea, whether its the actual shape of the thing or the concrete words meant to create horrific implications. One of the golden rules of horror is that if you want your monster or scary figure to remain frightening, you should show them as sparingly as possible. The more we understand something, the less we fear it, and so as visual creatures, seeing something or having physical descriptions of something goes a long way in sometimes removing the horror from it.
The same cannot be said about music. As an auditory sensation, there is no way to descriptively picture the idea of music; there are only the musical terms that can seek to describe characteristics of its form, and the emotional impact it imparts upon the listener. Therefore, the idea of what that music actually sounds like remains completely in our own imaginations, while our impressions are formed by the way in which the characters react to its sounds. We see the narrator, who describes it as ‘weird’ and ‘haunting,’ nevertheless wish to hear more of the strange melodies, which implies a level of beauty around them. At the same time, we see Erich Zann react with fear and anger when the narrator attempts to whistle their notes, signifying a hint of danger behind their occurrence. Having characters react to a tangible piece of artistry always has the potential weakness in that we can conceive of what that thing looks like, and so find it unrealistic for people to have such strong reactions to what doesn’t that seem terrifying if rendered in reality. An ephemeral sensation like music, and its lack of clarity found in the written word, is much harder to fall into this state, and thereby creates a sustaining tone of horror that can persist throughout the entire work.
As cool as something like this looks, it’s not really scary, is it?
This lack of clarity that turns out to be positive for the story carries through into the actual reasons behind the horrors described, specifically in regards to what is going on. Short answer: we don’t know and will never know. Contrary to how frustrating that might initially seem, it is actually the much more effective method for trying to instill uneasiness and fear within us. Think again about how a monster is much scarier if you don’t have a clear conception of what it is. The same thing can be said about the reasons behind something horrifying happening. Sometimes, the more reasons and explanations are given behind an event, the less impactful they become. As much as I love and appreciate some of Lovecraft’s longer works like At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time, the demystification of many heretofore indescribable entities into invading aliens warring with each for supremacy over the planet really cuts through the initial sense of dread they previously invoked. Unlike those stories, we never have any idea as to what forces are at work upon the Rue d’Auseil: why Zann has to play the way he does; what is out there in the darkness beyond the window; what happened to make the street vanish, and why? There are no answers, and it becomes that much more tantalizing because Zann was in the process of writing down the explanation, was going to share with us what was going on.
We are kept in the dark not only with the meaning and implications of the story, but with the very conclusion of the narrative as well. When the room has been plunged into darkness and the narrator is attempting to flee, he describes that Zann continues to play away frantically at the viola, in a way that seems wholly mad and alien to him. Because he can’t see the viola player, though, he is left to wonder how the exactly the sounds he’s hearing are being produced, or a single player is seemingly creating a cacophony of sound. The scene is so expertly crafted and so eerily rendered that it’s tempting not to just paste the whole last few paragraphs here to illustrate how Lovecraft achieves an amazing climax without the narrator seeing a single thing. Instead, I’ve picked one sentence that exemplifies the tone in which the horror is being conveyed: “When my hand touched his ear I shuddered, though I knew not why - knew not why till I felt the still face; the ice-cold, stiffened, unbreathing face whose glassy eyes bulged uselessly into the void.”
Chilling.
All the narrator can do is fumble about, grasping out and able to touch only the outcome of the horror that has transpired, just like us the reader. This story leaves you with such an unearthly sense of dread, of things existing just beyond our realm of reality that we have no conception of, and that will snuff out and rip us out of existence should someone not be playing music like that of Erich Zann’s.
Keeping a Commonplace Book
Back in high school English classes, I still remember the insistence of teachers that we annotate the books we were assigned to read. It was always with the mindset that it would allow us to more easily find meaningful or thematic passage that we might forget after getting through the whole thing, and some even required regular check-ins on our books to make sure we were highlighting and writing in the margins throughout.
For some reason, I always hated doing this, and still do. I’m not sure what it is, but the idea of marking up a book I’m reading with brightly-colored markers or scribbling random thoughts onto the side of a page has always felt off to me. Maybe I’m too sentimental when it comes to the quality of a book to go through with something more akin to graffiti for my liking. I also was always under the impression that taking the time to annotate a text would interrupt the natural flow of reading you get into with a good or engaging book, thereby lessening the overall enjoyment of the reading experience.
So it might then seem somewhat contradictory of me to espouse the benefits of keeping a commonplace book for the various books in one’s possession. Don’t worry, I have my reasons!
First off, a definition might be in order; commonplace books are a way of compiling knowledge, usually by writing information into journals or blank-page books. Think of it as jotting down anything interesting that you see, hear, or learn through the day so that you can then remember it later. It can literally be for anything and everything, a repository for anything its owner wants. And lately, I’ve been in the habit of using this practice when it comes to the books I’m reading.
The process is as simple as it sounds. Whenever I’m reading and come across a line or passage I think is important/thematic, I write it down on any spare piece of paper around. Normally this is in a notebook or journal, but I’ve also used the Notes app on my phone when needed. Other people use flash cards and store them all in an empty shoe box. Anything that allows you to write the quote down will do.
The reason I’ve found this habit so beneficial, while still avoiding the idea of annotation at all costs, is due to the tangibility of actually writing out the words from the page. If I were to simply highlight a passage I found profound or laden with meaning, then I would have only recognized the fact that it was so, potentially without having taken the time to fully work out why it might be so. Meanwhile, the act of writing each and every word contained in that passage involves significantly more focus. When you start transcribing, whether you realize it or not, you are inherently thinking about the words you are writing, seeing how they flow with each other and convey the intention meant to be expressed. Essentially, it forces you to expend more time thinking about what you’ve been reading than you might have otherwise, which gives you more opportunity to think about how its meaning applies to the book as a whole. By the end, you’ll have a whole list of different quotes to draw not only food for thought from, but inspiration for your own creative endeavors, all compiled together in one place rather than scattered about in need of searching through the book.
Not only does this give you more time to reflect on what the author is trying to say in these moments, it also allows the ability to savor the wordsmithing employed in the construction of such an idea. You can get a real sense for how the author went about shaping the sentences or passages in question, both the tools of rhetoric employed as well as the artistry involved. I’ve found this to be an immensely helpful tool in my own writing attempts. Seeing how a simple idea or sentence can be expressed in so unique a way really inspires me to try and emulate the same sort of mindset when constructing stories of my own.
It’s gotten to the point for me that I can noticeably realize the difference in my understanding of a book if I have or haven’t kept up with a commonplace book while reading. Several months ago, I was listening to Gene Wolfe’s first book in his Book of the New Sun series, The Shadow of the Torturer, and because I only had it in an auditory medium while I was mostly driving, I lost out on so many of the smaller, though no less important details interspersed throughout. Meanwhile, I’ve just started reading a physical copy of the sequel, and already have several different passages written down, and feel like I have a much stronger grasp of the various themes and motifs being employed to build up the speculative world than I had previously.
To Stay Succinct or Go Verbose: Thoughts on Short Stories vs Novels in Storytelling
Reflections on both the short story and novel format, as well as my own experience writing with the two.
Read moreThe Value of Writing Groups
For anyone who’s tried to take a stab at writing, specifically writing which involves storytelling, one thing becomes abundantly clear: that it can be a solitary, even isolating endeavor to undertake.
This was something I struggled with for a few years actually. That sense of separation, especially when just starting out, can be daunting, even demotivating. It can lead to a feeling that what you’re working on doesn’t matter, or get you stuck in a rut when it comes to trying to fix a story and not knowing the best way to go about it.
As lonely as the actual pen-to-paper writing process might be, that doesn’t mean that the entire process of making a story has to be. I joined a local writing group of similarly-minded writers, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Hampton Roads, close to a year ago, and in my opinion, it was one of the best decisions I could have made.
The first, most obvious benefit of a writing group is that it can bring new eyes to a piece of writing that you’ve no doubt already spent many long and arduous days looking over. As much as you can self-edit and critique your own work, there’s always something to be said about taking a story in its early phases of construction and allowing someone completely unfamiliar to look at it. Typos, inconsistencies, and even complete narrative issues will be revealed that you might not have noticed or considered, and will help you realize those story details that might need to be made more clear to a prospective reading audience.
The second, less obvious benefit is that it also allows you to critique other people’s works. While this might initially come across as unnecessarily added work or even an inconvenience (after all, wouldn’t you want to keep on writing your own stories rather than reading and commenting on someone else’s?), I’ve actually been surprised to find out how much I value and appreciate this aspect of the story-sharing process. By looking through and giving critique on someone else’s work, you can gain a greater understanding of the writing and story-telling craft than you might have been able to by just trying to write on your own. Because there’s no personal attachment to the work being critiqued, you’re able to view it in a more objective, editorial way, and will be more likely to notice those specific elements that are conducive to a story working and those elements that might detract or hamper a narrative. I’ve found that it really allows me to then consider how best to apply those lessons to my own writing and avoid potential problems I might not have recognized before.
And last but not least, a huge benefit of being involved in a writing group is the sense of motivation it can bring to your own process. Ever since joining my current group, I’ve found that I’ve been so much more productive than I ever was in the past, able to break through any potential writer’s block or slump of self-doubt with the knowledge that no matter what state the end result might be, there will be a group of people there ready and willing to come at it with open and constructive minds. This is an invaluable mindset to have, especially for an amateur and aspiring writer (such as myself), since the amount of rejections you will receive at the beginning of your writing journey will most likely far outweigh the number of successes. It’s always important to keep that creative spark burning, and merely the act of interacting with others who share your same passion has the potential to do just that.