If it's not an experiment, why bother?

I've had to take an extra break here due to sickness (and what a time to take a break!), but I read something a few days ago that's stuck in my head. It's from this article by David Moldawer about how your technique will never be good enough (meaning that's not a reason to stop creating):

"If it's not an experiment," Schütte writes, "why bother?" Any new work is an experiment. How can any experiment be executed perfectly? What you're about to write hasn't ever been written before, right? That means no one's ever read it. Therefore, you have no way of knowing for certain how it should be received, let alone how it will. How can you perfect your approach to making something no one's ever made before?

I have spent a significant amount of my writing time worrying about finding the perfect words, the perfect characters, the perfect plot—worrying so much that I often don't write at all. I know I am not alone in this.

And that's why this stuck in my head. The story I'm working on is an experiment. It's literally never been told before, and nobody knows how it should be told. How could they?

And so... how could I possibly know?

The only way to figure out how to tell the story is to put words on the page and see what it's like. Try things. Change things.

Experiment.

It's almost freeing when you think about it like that.

How to Write SFF: The Concept of Abeyance

If you're going to write sci-fi or fantasy, then you need to know about abeyance. Abeyance in fiction is the reader's willingness to trust that something they don't understand will be made clear later.

All fiction uses abeyance to some extent. For example, Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time begins like this:

2.           It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house. Its eyes were closed.

On first read, the reader doesn't know what dog, why its eyes are closed, or who Mrs. Shear is,* but they trust that the author will fill them in eventually. That's what good fiction does.

* They also don't know why the first chapter is number 2 instead of number 1, which is a pretty cool and subtle bit of abeyance on its own.

All fiction does this—it's part of the mystery that draws readers in—but sci-fi/fantasy takes abeyance even further, casually using made-up words as though the reader already knows what they mean.

Take a look at these examples. Terms or phrases in bold require some level of abeyance:

[Foundation by Isaac Asimov] His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on the hypervideo, and occasionally in tremendous three-dimensional newscasts covering an Imperial Coronation or the opening of a Galactic Council. Even though he had lived all his life on the world of Synnax, which circled a star at the edges of the Blue Drift, he was not cut off from civilization, you see. At that time, no place in the Galaxy was.

[The Peripheral by William Gibson] They didn't think Flynne's brother had PTSD, but that sometimes the haptics glitched him. They said it was like phantom limb, ghosts of the tattoos he'd worn in the war, put there to tell him when to run, when to be still, when to do the badass dance, which direction and what range. 

[The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien] In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. 

[Dune by Frank Herbert] By the half-light of a suspensor lamp, dimmed and hanging near the floor, the awakened boy could see a bulky female shape at his door, standing one step ahead of his mother. The old woman was a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels. 

["Pawn's Gambit" by Adam Heine (me)] The netter’s timing couldn’t have been worse. I’d been in Savajinn a week, looking for a knocker named Tarc. A whole bleeding week. When Tarc finally agreed to meet, at the Sick Savaj, that’s when the netter decided to show up. 

Some of these terms are explained shortly after. For example, Tolkien explicitly describes what hobbits are but only after a page or two of acting as though the reader should already know.

Some of them are obvious from context. For example, bleeding is obviously an intensive like "damned" or "bloody."

Others are never explained directly but their meanings are clarified through later context. For example, Foundation eventually addresses the Empire and Synnax, and "Pawn's Gambit" eventually hints that a netter is something like a bounty hunter.

Some of these aren't literal terms at all. "A witch shadow," for example, isn't meant to be literal, but in speculative fiction, the reader can't be sure until they know more about the world!

And some of these things are never explained. It's up to the reader to figure out what they mean, or might mean, from the limited clues they are given—or they might never learn any more than what's given.

Often, these last ones don't matter. For example, it doesn't matter what a hypervideo or a suspensor lamp actually is; it's enough to know that they are some form of video and light source, respectively.

Others matter quite a bit. For example, Flynne's brother's haptics are a key part of his character, but the reader doesn't really get a straightforward explanation of what they are—only contextual clues that the reader pieces together as the story continues.

Why do this?

Why drop terms and phrases that might confuse the reader or frustrate them? Here are a few good reasons:

1. It's immersive. Term-drops like this help the reader feel like they are stepping into another world. Conversely, if you stop to explain every little thing, it can pull the reader out of the story.
2. Sci-fi/fantasy readers expect it. This kind of mini-mystery—piecing together the shape of the novel's world—is one of the things genre fans love about speculative fiction.
3. It streamlines the narrative. It keeps the action moving and alleviates the need for the dreaded infodump.

Using abeyance requires a balance, but it's an important tool that every speculative fiction writer should be aware of.

Won't this frustrate readers?

So, I'll be the first to admit that some readers really don't like this kind of in-world term-dumping. When I was writing "Pawn's Gambit," one critiquer offered to send me a book written entirely in the Scottish dialect because "You deserve it past [sic] the headache I got from reading your short story."

You can't please everybody.

But you also don't have to. The other twelve critiquers who read the same story loved it (as did Beneath Ceaseless Skies), and my novel set in the same world—with all the same slang and obfuscated dialect—got me an agent. So long as the reader can understand what's happening, they don't need to understand every bit of in-world jargon. In fact, a lot of readers will enjoy it.

Finding a Balance

It's difficult to figure out how much is too much when requiring abeyance of your readers. Finding the right balance is an art, and you have to make mistakes to figure out what works. Here are some tips to do that:

1. Understand your audience. Sci-fi/fantasy readers are generally more tolerant of abeyance, but even within the genre, every reader is different. Read books like yours and pay attention to how much they use abeyance in their own writing to get a feel for it.
2. Employ beta readers. I cannot stress enough how helpful beta readers are for writing a novel. They're kind of like a focus group for the things you are unsure of. Every writer needs some.
3. Hire an editor. I mean, obviously I would say that, but you know, only hire one if you really need them.

Even with beta readers and editors, you want to find those who know your genre or are part of your intended audience. A professional editor who doesn't read much sci-fi might push you to include more infodumps than a sci-fi editor would, for example.

Lastly, trust yourself. Yes, it's hard to read your own work with fresh eyes, but you are the only person who knows what you're trying to do. Listen to the feedback you get, but listen to yourself too.

I mean, you are writing what you want to read, right?

Do I Need an Editor?

Hiring an editor can be expensive and scary, but do you need one? That depends on a lot of things—your publishing goals, current progress on your novel, where you are as a writer, your financial resources, etc. Ultimately, it's a question only you can answer.

Today's post is an effort to help you make that decision. I'm aware there is a potential conflict of interest in that I am an editor-for-hire, but you're all very smart. I trust you can take my opinions to make your own informed decisions.

I'm Just Starting My First Novel

If you're just starting to write—you haven't even finished a draft yet—I'm going to say no, you don't need a professional editor.

An editor could provide high-level feedback on your first chapters or even your outline. Depending on your experience and personal goals, that might be really useful to you. But for most people, you will learn far more by finishing a novel (including but not limited to whether the writing life is even for you) than you will from professional feedback at this stage.

If you really want help with that first novel, then what you might want is a writing coach, not an editor.

I Finished My First Novel

That's great! Finishing a novel is hard! The question now is what do you want to do with it? You need revisions, and you very likely need extra eyes on it for objective feedback, but do you need a professional editor for those things?

Maybe. First, consider the following:

• Do you want to publish this novel for a larger audience (i.e., people you don't know)?
• Is this novel so important that you want to get it just right? (Let it be known that most writers feel this way about their first novels.)
• Have you gotten feedback from others yet?
• Can you ruthlessly rip your novel apart? Are you willing to delete whole chapters, rewrite whole sections, or worse?
• Can you afford it? And can you afford multiple rounds of editing if it comes to that?

If the answer to most of these is no, then you might not need a professional editor yet. The price of editing has to be worth what you get out of it—including how much of the editor's advice you are able to act on!

Before seeking a professional editor, try to get feedback from people you know. You can learn a lot from other writers or even friends and family, and it won't cost you any extra.

Don't know any other writers? Dig around online. Hang out on social media. Put out a call to swap beta reads. And keep track of the people who say yes! Not only can you get extra feedback this way, but it's also a great way to find new friends.

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Let's say your novel is finished, you've gotten high-level feedback (professional or not), and you've completed your revisions. Your novel is pretty good, you'd say. Now, do you need an editor?

Depends. What do you want to do with that novel?

I Want to Get an Agent

In general, agents are looking for two things: (1) is your story something they can sell and (2) is it written well enough to sell it. After you've finished the novel, there's little you can do about the first one—the agent will either like your story or not.

The second is where an editor can play a role, but is hiring one necessary? Again, this is a maybe. If you have no other way to get feedback, then a professional editor can provide that for you. If you've received several rejections—I'm talking dozens, probably hundreds of rejections, maybe even on multiple novels—then a professional editor might be able to help you figure out why and how to move forward.

Do not assume that an agent will edit your novel for you. Most don't, and those that do are usually just looking at massaging certain selling points so they can more easily pitch it to publishers.

But also, don't assume you need a professional edit to get an agent. You do need feedback, but it may or may not need to be professional at this point. That's up to you.

I Have an Agent

If you have an agent and are shopping your novel to publishers, then ask your agent about this. That's what they're there for, after all.

If you have a publisher, then you probably don't need a freelance editor. The publisher is likely doing that work as part of your deal.

I'm Ready to Self-Publish

You've finished your novel, gotten your feedback, revised it like crazy, and now you're ready to push that button and rake in the dough. Should you get a professional edit first?

Yes. HECK yes! At the very least, you want a proofread to make sure there are no obvious errors, but you probably also want a line edit (sometimes called a copyedit) to identify weaknesses, inconsistencies, and make your prose really sing.

A publishing press will do this for you, big or small. It's part of the deal that benefits both the press and the author by putting your best foot forward. But if you are your publisher, then—just like getting a book cover, typesetting, marketing, etc.—you are the only one who's going to do this for you.

Don't assume you can catch everything yourself. I have edited for a number of excellent authors, and no matter how good or experienced they are, I have always found ways to improve their work—not because they aren't as good as they think, and not because I'm so awesome, but because a novel is never perfect, and it is always worth the money to improve it.

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This doesn't cover every possible scenario of course, but these are the most common points at which you might consider hiring a professional.

And for your second, third, or fourth novel? I'd say the calculations are the same, except now you have more experience as a writer (and possibly as an agent-seeker or a published author, depending on what you did with those first novels). If anything, you can trust your gut even more about whether a professional edit can help you.

If you are considering a professional edit, I'm happy to help. I can even provide a free sample edit to help you decide. But there are many, many other editors who can help you as well. I encourage you to do your research, compare, and find the best editor for you and your work.

If you're willing to do all of that, you are unlikely to regret it.

Prequels, Can They Ever Be Good?

The year was 1999. My generation hadn't had a new Star Wars movie in sixteen years. We believed the series was done. Over. The trilogy had been groundbreaking, but it was in the past never to be revisited. Then, George Lucas announced the release of The Phantom Menace.

It is difficult to convey to my Gen Z kids how big a deal this was, how over-the-top excited we all were to walk into that theater to see the first new Star Wars movie in sixteen years...

...and how thoroughly disappointed we were walking out.

I did not enjoy The Phantom Menace. A lot of us didn't, and this experience cemented my skepticism toward movie releases for decades.

It's pretty easy to find examples of prequel let-downs. The Star Wars prequel trilogy. The Scorpion King. The Grindelwald movies. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. X-Men Origins: Wolverine.* It happens so often that it raises the question: Is it possible for a prequel to be good?

* And I apologize if you love any of these examples I chose. Although you might be in the minority, I love that these bring you joy anyway. Don't let me or anyone steal that from you.

My answer—informed as it was by my teenage Star Wars disillusionment—used to be no, of course not, prequels, by definition, are a bad idea. But as more counterexamples appear, I'm beginning to change my mind. What makes prequels bad is what makes any movie bad (e.g., when it's a blatant cash grab) but they can be done well.

I think a good prequel requires three things:

• An intriguing question
• A story that stands on its own
• Characters who grow

Let's take a look.

An Intriguing Question

For a prequel to be interesting, it has to promise an answer that fans of the original actually want. Why does Maleficent hate the king and queen so much? How did Mike and Sully become friends? How did Vito Corleone become so powerful?

An intriguing question isn't enough to make a prequel good, but it's a necessary start. If the fans don't care about the mystery that connects the prequel to the original, then it's hard to care about the prequel at all.

Also...

The question can't be dumb. We don't care how Han swindled the Falcon from Lando or what Obi-Wan was doing in his cave while Luke grew up. We don't need to see how the wizard came to Oz or learn why Cruella de Vil wants to skin puppies. The originals give us enough information that we can fill these gaps in our head. The questions might be interesting, but they're not worth making a whole new story about.

The answer can't be dumb. Han Solo's name can just be his name; it doesn't have to be a thing. And God help me but the mystery of the Force was so much cooler without a scientific explanation. If you're going to use a prequel to answer some outstanding mystery, your answer has got to be cooler than any fan theory out there (spoiler: that's very hard to do).

A Story That Stands on its Own

If the goal of your prequel is solely to explain where the protagonist got all her character quirks, then it might not be a story worth telling. If you're going to write a whole novel (or make a whole movie) out of an origin story, that story should be just as compelling to a newcomer as it is to the fans.

How to do that is the same as telling any story: give the protagonist goals and motivations, obstacles, stakes, difficult choices... all the things that go into telling any story.

Do not just walk us through the protagonist's upbringing as they pick up each piece of their iconic outfit.

Characters Who Grow

This is part of telling a standalone story, but it's important enough that it demands its own section. In a prequel, your fans already know how or where the protagonist ends up. We know Elphaba becomes the wicked witch. We know Cassian ends up a jaded pilot for the Rebel Alliance. We know Obi-Wan ends up an old hermit in a cave on Tatooine. What we don't know is how they got there.

This can be great (an intriguing mystery even!) if your protagonist starts off in an unexpected place—Elphaba as a misunderstood sorceress with a heart of gold or Cassian as a down-on-his-luck orphan who wants nothing to do with the rebellion against the Empire.

It works less well if your protagonist starts in the exact same place, physically and developmentally, as they finish. The end of Revenge of the Sith had already placed Obi-Wan on Tatooine. He had already learned to keep his head down, just wanting to keep Luke and his family out of trouble from the Empire—the same place and with the same goals and motivation he had at the beginning of A New Hope.

This makes it very hard to care about his actions in the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries. He's already where we know he's going to end up! There's nothing he can learn (that wouldn't undercut the action of the original movies)! He doesn't really grow, so there's no compelling reason to watch.

Ensuring that your characters grow and change in the prequel can prevent this.

What a Good Prequel Can Do for You

Done well, a good prequel can be a joy to fans of the original while also fully entertaining the uninitiated. It can give your audience those dopamine hits of fan service while still delivering a new, fantastic story.

A good prequel can also make the original better—adding depth or new perspective to an old, familiar story. It can create new fans and make existing ones want to revisit that world again.

I'm still wary about prequels. More often than not, the backstories in the audience's heads are cooler than the one you can give them. But there are ways to do it well, to expand the world of your story and tell a new story that's worth telling.

You just need to care about it and put in the work.

Writing as Resistance

Politically speaking, a lot happened since I left. I knew it would—I was traveling to the US on Election Day, after all—but the results are not what I hoped. (According to current voting counts, they're not what a majority of voters wanted either.)

It's been almost a month since the election, and people are still hurting. Still scared. Still anxious. And why wouldn't they be? We don't yet know what will happen next. I know not everyone believes the US is headed toward an autocratic hellscape, but historical precedent does us few favors here.

To those of you who are worried like me: It's okay to be anxious. Feel what you gotta feel. I'm still considering what I can do in the coming months and years, but here's one thing I do know:

We can write.

Stories give us hope. When the protagonist gets back up after being left for dead, it makes us believe we can do the same. When the heroes win against all odds—when Katara defeats Azula, when Sam carries Frodo to Mount Doom, when Luke strikes the Death Star's core—it reminds us that those in power are vulnerable.

Even the coziest stories give us joy and an escape, and these are every bit as necessary as hope. Stories also share the power of love and connection. They remind us what we are fighting for.

Stories give us symbols. Alan Moore inspired the face of Anonymous, and Katniss's three-finger salute has been considered cause for arrest. Symbols are powerful. They remind us that we are not alone. They terrify oppressors by reminding them how outnumbered they are.

Stories foster empathy. Empathy is the antidote to fascism. It is vital to creating a world we can all live in together.

No matter what you feel about the present time, even if you feel powerless, know that your stories matter and are absolutely necessary.

There's a reason fascist regimes always ban books.

It is the same reason we need to write them.

Personal Status

Some quick, personal updates for those of you who have been lacking such things.

As I said in July, my long-term gamedev contracts ended, and I am all in on the freelance train again. Honestly, I'm happy about that. I love editing. It lets me help authors (which I love) and maintain an incredibly flexible schedule (which I need). Only problem is I have to constantly find jobs.

Here are some burners I've got going to address that:

• I'm a contractor for Scribendi, Inc., editing everything from resumes to research papers to admission essays. It's not my dream job (and the pay is only okay), but it keeps me somewhat afloat (and has done since 2017; I'm very thankful for them).
• I'm now also a contractor for Cambridge Proofreading (because Scribendi work was sparse, but my daughter said, "Hey, aren't there other companies like Scribendi?"—turns out she was right).
• I have recently contracted as an editor/coach with KN Literary Arts. This is very cool in theory. Among other things, I love the idea of coaching, and this would let me work on novels and memoirs. It's still early days, though. We'll see how this pans out in terms of stability.
• And of course, I'm always seeking clients right here on the site. These are my favorite (and not just because they pay the best). I am always excited when one of you sends me an e-mail about helping you with something you've written.

All of this is slow going, but it's going. There was a time, years ago, when I was getting clients semi-regularly and also, like, streaming and playing D&D online and stuff. I hope to find some of that again.

The hard part is building trust and patience in myself. There's a lot (A LOT) to be said for predictable work and income. But freedom's pretty great too. If I can create some stability with it, that would be amazing.

What about writing?

That's happening, but it's very much back-burner at the moment. It's difficult to allocate time for it when I could be making money instead, but I haven't quit yet. Just seeking a bit more freelance stability first.

Ah, but I do have something new sitting with Broken Eye Books. Gotta wait for that, though.

Publishing, man. It's slow.

And the kids?

Well, a bunch of them have recently graduated high school or are about to, which is going to change my schedule in unpredictable ways. Theoretically, I'll have more time when they leave and/or take care of themselves, but we'll see what happens.

Like Master Yoda says...

One last administrative note: I'll be traveling for a couple of weeks, and the blog will be quiet during that time. I should return by December at the latest. Subscribe or watch my socials to stay up to date.

What Improvement Actually Looks Like

One of my favorite games of all time and one of the hardest high-precision platformers I have ever played is Celeste. This game asks you to traverse a series of deadly rooms through a combination of jumps, dashes, and wall climbs. Most rooms can be traversed in a matter of seconds, though you will often die dozens of times before that happens.

Some rooms are much longer. A successful run through the final room, for example, can take more than two minutes. Here's a clip if you want to see it (SPOILER):

I spent hours of trial and error trying to traverse this room. My kids watched sometimes, and I found an interesting phenomenon: Every time I said, "I'm getting better! Look how far I can get," I would immediately die several times on the early, "easy" parts that I thought I had figured out.

It was frustrating (and embarrassing). I felt like I'd learned nothing, like my previous successes had been luck, and I was lying to myself that I was improving at all.

That's because, like most people, I believed this:

It makes sense, right? Put the time in, and you will get better (and you'll never go back down to a previous level, because you can't! You're better now!).

But what happened to me was this:

I would get consistently better and then suddenly get worse—a lot worse, in places that I thought I had already figured out. It led me to believe that I hadn't gotten better at all. I became disillusioned, frustrated, and discouraged.

I bet you're familiar with this feeling.

This pattern—trying to improve, getting better for a bit, then failing more than we think we should—can be seen over and over again in everything: playing piano, learning to snowboard, writing more words per day, lifting weights, breaking a bad habit, improving ourselves through therapy, and on and on.

It can be frustrating when we feel like we've slid backwards, like we're not improving at all and will maybe never improve.

But if you keep going, you find a strange, new truth:

Improvement doesn't happen in a straight line. It has peaks and dips and plateaus and more dips, but so long as you continue, it always, always goes up—even when it doesn't feel like it.

Failing repeatedly in Celeste (while telling my kids, "Look what I can do!") helped prove this to myself. I wanted to finish the room, and I got frustrated every time I died. To succeed, I had to change my goal from "finish the room" to "practice toward consistency."

I would celebrate the small victories: when I did an early bit of platforming well, when I became more consistent at a part that used to give me trouble, even when I died in a way I never had before. I wasn't reaching new lengths in the room, but I was slowly improving and, perhaps more importantly, enjoying every run even though I died hundreds(!) of times.

This applies to writing too. Maybe I don't hit 1,000 words every day, but I can celebrate that I am hitting 500 every day—or 200! Or 50! I can even celebrate that I just sat down to write multiple days in a row. I can celebrate writing a sentence or even simply opening my document without fear.

And when I fail at these things, I can remember that's part of the process too. Improvement doesn't happen in a straight line, and I'm going to fail sometimes. It's impossible not to! But forward is forward.

All of which is to say: don't give up. So long as you keep going, you are improving, even when it doesn't feel like it.

Trust the process.