Thoughts on Writing

Writing near future fiction, I think there are probably two traps people fall into: changing things too much, not changing them enough. I guess I started thinking on this given the sheer amount of near future fic I’ve been reading.

J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) doesn’t do that bad of a job of it in her In Death series. There’s just enough tech advancement to be believable but enough present day stuff to keep it believable. On the other hand in her attempts to create slang, I think sometimes she chooses the wrong words to alter. For example ‘suicide’ has been suicide for centuries. Yes there are slang for it but changing the word to self terminate like the person’s a computer bothered me. That’s minor stuff. I was more bothered by the time she gave an android nads for Dallas to kick him in and take him down.

In reading Unwind I had trouble believing in only a few decades time the world’s major religions would move from pro-life to let’s make babies only to pull them apart completely for parts donation and call it a tithe. To me, that’s changing too much too fast.

Not to say that the 20th century didn’t have quick and radical changes. We went from horse and buggy to man on the moon. Radio to TV, computers as big as a room to computers that fit in your hand. So how much can you change and make things believable? I guess that might be a more personal thing. What work for you might not work for me. I think that might be why I don’t really write near future fiction. I’d rather write something a few hundred years in the future.

Thoughts? Am I off base? Does this bother you too? I’m just curious.

And here, go read some stuff about writing that makes more sense than my dribbles. Actually both links go to things written by Justine Musk. I really like what she has to say about the process of writing.

creating a platform & 10 ways to overcome writers block That’s the first three entries (i.e. most recent). All authors nowadays are expected to have a platform. I’m still stalled on just a blog (I need to expand into Goodreads and facebook under my pen name. I’m still not that sure about twitter since I never remember to do it and have so little interest in it) I’m not entirely sure how a self hosted blog (and where you find such things) are preferable to say livejournal or dreamwidth other than if they suddenly decide this sort of content is unacceptable you’ll have no place to post.

My own thoughts about this are, I wish I had more to say about the process. I feel like I’m still learning. Okay we’re all still learning and always will be (hopefully) but I guess I just don’t think about the craft as much as I should. I can say this about the social networking end of it, be careful of what you blog. I know that sounds dangerously close to censorship but that’s not what I mean. I think an author’s blog ought to be reserved for discussing the books, the craft, the business and not political views and how you feel about your boss/lover/etc. You have a personal (or should) blog for that. I’ve a few pro authors and agents on my blog. One got so loud about political views that were disturbing to me that I not only took her off my list but refuse to read her books and give her money. That’s not what you want from your blog. Similar thing, one agent liked my work but thought it needed editing (true) but in the time since then he has been so openly disparaging about authors and how dumb we are that I have no interest in letting him represent me.


microtension. I thought this one was so important that I made sure to bookmark it separately. I can honestly say it’s definitely something I need to work on personally and I plan to go looking for Maas’s book. I have other things by him and enjoyed them.

I’ve gotten the galleys approved for Snowbound and I’ve started reworking Riding with Strangers