Write what you know, or not

It's one of the classic pieces of advice, 'write what you know'. What it really means is that you should use your own experience of human interaction to inform the behaviour of your characters. It quite definitely doesn't mean limiting yourself to the limits of your objective knowledge, large parts of the science-fiction genre would go unwritten if it did.

What has me wondering is that even the correct interpretation could actually be a bit limiting. I'm white fifty-something and male, and all my life experience is refracted through the lens of that. It's easy and comfortable to write from that perspective and I know from experience it can create some problems when writing. A few years ago I was working on one of many failed novels and about two-thirds of the way through the first draft I realized that all my main viewpoint characters were male. Given the cultural setting of the world I had created that was possibly justifiable, but it just struck me that I was creating this whole imaginary universe and my creativity had fallen short on simply figuring out how to create a decent role for a female character. I tried rewriting some of the plot threads, which marked the beginning of an endless loop of rewrites that eventually collapsed the book under the weight of them.

I don't know how much that potential comfort zone affects other people's writing, but I suspect that it's not that uncommon. Trying not to fall into the trap isn't about political correctness, or trying to reflect current day social values, its about stretching yourself as a writer pushing out beyond what you know and trying something unknown. Better to fail doing that than winding up writing characters who are just endless variations on yourself.

Common Knowledge

'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it' is a maxim that makes sense on one level and turns up in a lot of fiction, the character determined to fix past mistakes only to end up repeating them in an ironic twist. Thing is did that character fail to learn from history or did they just learn from the wrong version?

This isn't based on the idea that history is written by the winners, in fact I would say that the losers have often gotten better writes up than the winners, consider Napoleon or Robert E Lee. What I'm talking about here is the chasm that often exists between the common knowledge or pop culture version of historical events and the facts of what actually happened. The Battle of Dunkirk offers a great example of this. At the height of the battle Hitler issued what has become infamous as the 'Halt Order', which suspended attacks by the German army on Dunkirk for three days, allowed the British to consolidate their defence perimeter and carry out the evacuation. There are actually two 'common knowledge' versions of why this happened. The first is basically that Hitler was a lunatic, he panicked about a minor counterattack and called the halt over the vehement objections of his generals. The second explanation is that it was because Hitler admired the British Empire and let the troops escape in the hopes of getting the British to 'see sense' and make peace.

So which version is closer to the truth? Well neither actually. The description I gave of events surrounding the Halt Order is certainly the one that most people who've heard of it would give, but reality is something else. The fact was that only the Panzer divisions halted, the rest of the German forces maintained their pressure on the perimeter. More than that, it was the frontline generals who asked for the halt. They needed to regroup after two weeks of non stop action and they wanted to save their tanks for the operation that was going to bring them fame and glory, crushing the French army and driving into Paris.

Does it matter that the general public has the wrong view of events? I would say yes, as it often downplays the contribution of those who made huge sacrifices to influence events. From a writing perspective I would say it matters even more. If you buy into the notion that 'crazy people do crazy/stupid things because their crazy' it encourages last writing. Most of the 'stupid' decisions you can point to in real history have a rationale behind them that made sense to the characters at the time, that rationale may be misguided, or yes plain insane, with hindsight but based on what the character knew or believed it made sense.

In short characters may do stupid things for stupid reasons, but there is always a reason that makes sense to them.

The Myth of Fan Power

So first off happy New Year!

Now recently it seems there's been a glut of stories about outraged fandom condemning/defending the creative decisions of those in charge of various franchises. I'm not going to discuss the rights and wrongs of the reactions, my question is should these be getting the attention the media are lavishing on them and, more importantly from a writer's perspective, should their reaction influence the creative process?

I am taking here about the kind of people who fit the profile of the true 'fanatic', those who don't simply enjoy a particular work, but have developed a sense of ownership over it. one of the earliest and best know examples of this has to be Sherlock Holmes. When he went over Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty the fans were horrified and demanded his resurrection. In the end Holmes did return, a victory for the fans! Thing is though it wasn't the endless pleas from fans that changed Conan-Doyle's mind, it was financial desperation and the sales of 'Hound of the Baskervilles' that persuaded him to go back to a character he was frankly tired of. It's a fairly safe bet that if Conan-Doyle had been financially secure then Holmes tales would have ended in death at the hands of his nemesis(BTW there is a great science fiction story about this topic called 'You See But Do Not Observe' by Robert J. Sawyer that I wholeheartedly recommend.)

The Conan-Doyle template can be applied to a lot of modern fan 'victories'. The ability of a fan campaign to change the minds of creators and corporations has a great deal more to do with cold hard cash than zealous passion. The problem is that the true fanatics don't see it that way, they are convinced they are possessed of influence that goes beyond the contents of their bank accounts. There's also the problem that as anyone who has posted work online knows the ratio of views to reactions is generally terrible, even if people like something they can rarely be bothered to give it a rating let alone actually comment. The truth is that for most people being a fan of an author simply means they will read your next book. They read or watch for relaxation, it's not going to become an all consuming obsession.

At the end of the day you can't let some self-declared fandom control your creative process, follow the road you want to take and accept not everyone will be happy when you try something different.

Next Cover - Mark I

So since my next book has reached the proofreading/critique/editing phase I've started working on the cover, so here is the Mark I. Based on previous experience by the time I reach the Mark XIII I should have something useable!

Reading List

Well with Christmas fast approaching I thought instead of banging on about my writing I'd just share some books/stories that I've found entertaining, including several excellent ones you can read for gratis if you feel like joining alternatehistory.com

Okay lets start with the series currently known as 'Empire of Man' but I will always think of as 'March To The stars'. This series of books is by David Weber and John Ringo and it may well be the first thing I read by either of them. Back in the days wen Kindle was something you did with firewood I had to visit the Forbidden Planet bookstore in London to get my hands on US imprints that had no UK publishing arm. I must have picked up 'The March Upcountry' on two or three visits and been rather dubious about the cover art. Finally I bit the bullet and bought and I cannot tell you how many times I have re-read that series over the years, it hooked me on David Weber's works in particular and was what really got me into the military sci-fi genre.

A very different group of soldiers are the Time Commandos from Simon Hawke's 'Timewars'. In an era when past wars are being used as a surrogate battlefield by the great powers of the 26th Century a special team is charged with preventing any permanent damage being done to the timestream. As the series goes on they find themselves dealing with terrorists attempting to hold the past to ransom to force the powers to abandon time travel. The big twist in the series, and a large part of why I found it so entertaining, is that a myriad of fictional figures such as Robin Hood, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Three Musketeers are all real in this history and the commandos find themselves embroiled in those characters stories. The series is finally available on Kindle so now is the 'time' to read it.

Jack Campbell's 'Lost Fleet' is a great space opera series, with a firm emphasis on people and tactics rather than super technology. Captain John' Black Jack' Geary went into a escape pod after making sure his crew escaped when their ship was attacked in the opening exchanges of an interstellar war. A friendly fleet finds him but that's where Geary's luck runs out. Not only has it been a hundred years since he went in the pod but the same war is still raging and both sides are on the brink of collapse. If that weren't bad enough Black Jack Geary is a legendary military leader in the folklore of his side in the war and since the fleet that rescued him has been caught in an ambush guess who they expect to rescue them?

Now about those threads over at alternatehistory.com...

'Arose From The Azure Main' is massive series of posts telling the story of the Britain of 1980 being displaced in time back to the year 1980. Politics, pop culture, trains, its all there in fascinatingly well worked out timeline. Might help if you have some familiarity with the major UK political figures of the 1980s, but still excellent if you don't and the creator has turned part of the story into a series of books as well.

'The Fireflies of Port Stanley' is alternate history but it isn't sci-fi. it is nonetheless a cracking story, wherein a bureaucratic error sees a trio of obsolete tanks sent to the Falkland Islands where they are lovingly preserved all the way up to 1982 and the Argentine invasion. It's well written and great illustration of the butterfly effect.

'The Anglo-American Nazi War' is dark to say the least. It's premise is that a Soviet failure at Stalingrad leaves Nazi Germany in control of Europe throughout the 40s and 50s until the war turns apocalyptically 'hot' at the start of the 60s. Bleak and unflinching but also engrossing and well written.

Anyway those are my suggestions for some Christmas or New Year reading, hopefully it was useful and I will be back to pontificating shortly.

Death of all Salesmen

I'm old enough to remember the time before the first VCRs came and just how expensive tapes were when they appeared. Any number of stores popped up renting tapes, many of them (here in the UK at least) small independent. A few years later Blockbuster reached our shores and the independents vanished as the all conquering juggernaut came to utterly dominate the market. Blockbuster seemed to have an unassailable market position, until new technology made it's market disappear. The same fate has befallen all too many other well known brands in recent years, is society fated to go 'shopless' as well as cashless in the future. I discussed how money might work in a futuristic interstellar society, so now I'm going muse on whether the experience of spending that future money is really going to be so utterly different.

So first off lets exclude bars, clubs and restaurants. The need for shard social settings isn't likely to go away unless you rewrite human psychology. Let's focus on retail, the pure exchange of goods and services for money. Services are probably the thing most immune to all pervasive power of online shopping. Even if you imagines some of those services being automated, assuming anyone would want to visit say a robot barber, they are still going to require a bricks and mortar location for their business. One ironic consequence of the advance of digital commerce is that many of those little specialist retailers driven out of business by cavernous superstores and supermarket chains determined to put a store on every corner. The ASDA/Walmart might disappear but the local baker, butcher or tailors shop may re-emerge as viable enterprises. You could imagine a universe where retail is divided up between a few massive corporations and a legion of little family businesses, co-existing in distinct niches. Some future shopping mall may not be dominated by glittering high tech store fronts, but by shops selling bespoke and handcrafted goods.

There are also any number of goods where people want to touch and try them out before they buy them, whether its a dress or a sofa people want to see how they look or feel before they commit to them, people are very tactile when it comes to purchasing, just watch people poking and prodding the fruit in any grocery store for proof. Also how often do people go and look at a product in physical store before they go hunting for the best price online? Imagine the irony if future online retail giants have to create 'showrooms' for their potential customers.

One other dystopian possibility is that a future world might really have all the retail carved up between megacorporations all desperately fighting for market share. Imagine the shopper being offered some form of discount scheme. A 'loyalty card' where the loyalty part is taken very seriously by the store issuing it, a scenario in which the brand you shop with is akin to gang colours or national allegiance.

In the end if you want to send your character down to the shops for a pint of blue milk you're probably on solid ground...

Linked

In addition to adding an email option to the blog I've also added a short list of links to what I've found to be useful resources as well as links to my book. I thought it might be helpful to explain why I chose them.

Critters.org provides that one thing every writer needs when they are trying to create a workable story, feedback. It's a 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' setup where basically you accumulate credits for critiquing other peoples work and when you have enough credits you can post your on work on their weekly list and get feedback from other writers. You can even put up a chapter or two of a novel and find people willing to critique it and do proofreading. The site has subsections dedicated to different genres and while you will get honest responses the site places an emphasis on civility and providing constructive criticism.

DAZ 3D is a freebie program by a major producer of 3D models and its the software I used to make most of the elements in the 'Secession' cover. Yes a lot of the models do cost money but there's also a whole load of free models out there from multiple sources because the program is largely compatible with the commercial program Poser. If you have the time and the patience you can do some very cool stuff with it and create a cover that reflects what you had in mind even if you can't draw a convincing stick figure.

The International Skeptics Forum, formerly the James Randi Educational Forum, may seem like an odd place to recommend to writers. It's underlying mission is to provide a space to debunk the myriad of conspiracy theories that seem to plague us today, but it also has sections on education, technology, history, politics and a host of other topics. If you want some freewheeling and occasionally not NSFW discussions to stimulate the brain its a great place.

Alternatehistory.com is dedicated to the 'what if?' genre of science fiction and fantasy. It covers not only alternate 'real' history, but also alternate ideas based on popular culture, if you ever wondered what if character X chose differently in your favourite book/TV show/movie you'll probably find it there somewhere and if you don't your more than welcome to create your. The sections on pre1900 and post1900 alternate history are a great resource even if your interested in 'straight  history'. There's a lot of very knowledgeable people there and many of the 'what if?' discussions illuminate the why and how of what actually happened and provide a wealth of factual information. There's also some fabulous timelines and stories at the site that make great reading and I'll probably talk about some of my favourites in a future blog.